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Norton
climber
The Wastelands
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There is at least one religion, essential Buddhism as thought to have been taught by Buddha, which does not have a god or any supernatural component.
Conversely, almost all other religions have grown from belief in god(s) and people's wish to believe that the universe was created for their benefit.
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WBraun
climber
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There is at least one religion, essential Buddhism as thought to have been taught by Buddha, which does not have a god or any supernatural component.
Unfortunately, Buddha WAS a bonafide incarnation of GOD himself to stop the violence of animal slaughter.
The gross material mental speculators are always in poor fund of knowledge ......
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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The fact is the Bible, meaning both the old testament and the new, along with the Iliad and the Odyssey, is one of the great literary achievements and foundations of the Western Tradition in literature.
The stories presented in the Bible have great meaning and serve us well even today. The story of Job or David's prose or Jonah's trials or Cain and Abel, these stories are timeless and relevant even now. They are expositions of what it is to be human.
If you read these books of the bible as the attempt at representations of historical fact or scientific fact you do the exact same thing that the fundamentalists you despise do.
You are in your own way lending credence to those claiming the scientific reality of the Bible. They say it's true, you say it's wrong but the fact is you're both wrong.
These stories are not science or primitive attempts at science, they are manifestations of the human condition writ large and should be understood as such. And they do a pretty good job.
Stench? You have no idea what you're talking about.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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That was an amazing, incredibly poignant state funeral for Bush this morning. Did you all see any of it? Really showed the central role and importance of religion and tradition in our culture and our nation.
I always liked George H.W. Bush. And I was always very impressed with how he handled the Gulf War start to finish. With Baker at his side. I have lots of memories of this time period and these events.
"This will not stand." -President Bush
I was saddened though when I heard about the comment he made at some point concerning atheists and citizenship.
Something like that comment and this morning's state funeral goes to show just how hard this all is. Another kind of "reconciliation with being" perhaps.
This morning John Meacham said #41 at one point told him something like, Politics is not a "pure undertaking." Not a "pure undertaking". A study of life. A study of biology. A study of our history, early to ancient to evolutionary. A look at this thread or its subject matter, Science v Religion. You wonder what or how much in the human experience is? A pure undertaking? Pretty humbling.
Reconciliation with change, too.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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If you read these books of the bible as the attempt at representations of historical fact or scientific fact you do the exact same thing that the fundamentalists you despise do.
What strange rhetoric, wording or argument this is.
The science type critics here are in fact critiquing the fundamentalism here, not the myth or the literature.
Cases in point: Let's take two icons: Sagan and Dawkins. Both critiqued fundamentalist belief in religion. In no way does this mean they were doing "the exact same thing" as the fundamentalists.
Really this is so simple a derivation arguably it merits no response, but what the heck.
Critiquing fundamentalism (or fundamentalist religion) put forth as truth for how the world works is one thing. Critiquing bible stories (or its opposite... admiring bible stories like admiring The Odyssey) as literature is quite another.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Cases in point: Let's take two icons: Sagan and Dawkins. Both critiqued fundamentalist belief in religion. In no way does this mean they were doing "the exact same thing" as the fundamentalists.
But they are insofar as they are validating the notion that the Bible is trying to relate an historically and scientifically accurate account of our existence.
The best argument against that is not that the Bible is simply scientifically inaccurate but that its intention has little to do with presenting scientific or historical fact.
The great genius of Pauline Christianity is to take metaphor and turn it into hard fact. The traditional stories of creation and the flood then loose their mythopoetic value and become debatable as realities or not.
When you tell some fundamentalist that their truths are nothing but stench filled lies you don't convince them of much. When you explain to them the value of their traditions and
their sacred texts as the virtuous mythopoetic insights to living that they are and that they rise above any certain historical reality you might make a point.
I don't see anything wrong with the rhetoric of that previous statement.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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There are indeed wonderful stories in the bible that are manifestations of the human condition.I especially like the ones condoning slavery, sex slavery and infanticide.
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Norton
climber
The Wastelands
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Miracles....
noun
*a surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency.
the miracle of rising from the grave"
belief in miracles requires that the natural laws of biology, chemistry, physics are temporarily suspended.....
who here on this thread personally believes that miracles actually did and can continue to happen?
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Infanticide would be throwing the baby out with the bath water I suspect.
***a surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency.
"the miracle of rising from the grave"**
Not a very good definition since there is so much left unexplained in this universe: life, mind, gravity. I've heard many refer to birth as a miracle, life as a miracle. Nothing seems to stand outside the laws of physics but that rational and very reasonable belief is to some degree a matter of faith.
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Norton
climber
The Wastelands
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Paul, certainly Christianity and the bible are chock full of acts of miracles, and I am using the exact definition I posted above
The Resurrection - straight forward belief that every Christian I have ever met has never had a problem understanding the question to be well within the definition of the word miracle and has immediately answered yes to
from your postings I assume you are a Christian, do you then believe that miracles are a fact,
that for example a man called Jesus died and then arose from the dead, alive again?
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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from your postings I assume you are a Christian, do you then believe that miracles are a fact,
that for example a man called Jesus died and then arose from the dead, alive again?
I am not a Christian, I am an atheist with the sense to realize the value of religion including the Abrahamic faiths and the fact that they have done much more good than bad and that the bad they have done is largely the bad characteristic of all human endeavor. I'm also aware that the mystery we exist in is easily read to imply deity and that's why people believe and they should be left to their beliefs. I don't read it that way.
I had a friend, a psychiatrist, who was a councilor to families with terminally ill children and she told me she could do little for those families and quit her job. She said the only thing that seemed to help them was religious faith. I get that.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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So Paul, what are your thoughts on people who believe the Earth is flat and the moon landing was staged?
I'm not Paul, but I'll answer: If you criticize these truth claims, not to mention the one re geocentrism, then "you do the exact same thing" these apparatchiks (iow, fundies) are doing.
What here is not hard to understand? :)
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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What about when they seek to impose that belief on others through legislation...
I gotta say, what really motivated me to get involved, more involved, at this intersection of science and religion, in particular re truth claims, was when I learned in my late 20s and early 30s (indeed the George HW Bush years) that Christian schools most notably Liberty University under Jerry Falwell was proactively and aggressively graduating Christian lawyers (through their accredited law schools) for the specific point and purpose of taking over judgeships everywhere. Together with a few other things this really put a fire under my seat.
Today we have lawyers and judges across the country who got their credentials and offices under the auspices of Christian law schools. Talk about judicial activism, activist lawyers and activist judges. Make no mistake: Christian operatives invented the concept as strategy, strategic policy; then Fox News and Friends like they always do eventually flipped the script on their opposition, their secular opponents.
Separation of church and state? Yes and no. Meanwhile much of America unfortunately remains "not woke" or "unwoke" to these machinations (manifestations of Christian ideology, Christian politics and Christian "higher learning").
Just don't forget: Tomorrow's fundie judges are today's fundie lawyers. A few might not have much effect but a few million do. And where they aren't in our judgeships, they are in our legislatures.
hope the rest of humanity takes notice...
Hope.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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And by clueless assknuckle I mean you Andrew Sullivan.
Sweet.
Fact is religious or mythological belief goes back considerably further than the Bronze age with evidence from the Paleolithic Period and even in Neanderthal burials. If there was no need for such ideas then why are they so early, so long lasting and so ubiquitous? Why are there some four thousand known religions? Your argument makes no logical sense.
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Don Paul
Social climber
Washington DC
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It may be that many people receive some psychological benefit or comfort from religion, or Santa Claus, for that matter. It's the well known placebo effect, and there may be a survival benefit to it as well. Although I think you're on shaky psychological ground if some of your core beliefs about how the world works are on the level of Santa Claus. I personally believe it's better to not put your faith in things that are not true, and that if your goal is enlightenment, you have to deal with reality as it is, not as you would like it to be.
HFSC - I had to pick a religion for my Facebook page, and listed mine as The Scientic Method. Now that I think of it, I probably got this idea from the Civilization video game, lol. That means, be skeptical, require proof, and be ready to accept an answer you don't like.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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I personally believe it's better to not put your faith in things that are not true, and that if your goal is enlightenment, you have to deal with reality as it is, not as you would like it to be.
Again, the idea of reading any sacred text as a scientific manual, trying but failing to explicate the realities of evolutionary processes, is simply wrong. Genesis, for instance, yields real truths of what it is to be human and why we act the way we do.
You don't think of Shakespeare as a purveyor of things that aren't true and yet everything he wrote was a fiction. Art is the lie that tells the truth and perhaps you can say the same about religion.
Simply dismissing religion without knowing anything about it beyond your own prejudices seems a waste. What does the story of Job really mean and how can we learn from it, the virgin birth, the crucifixion, or many other stories that have much to teach? Again and again the bible teaches virtue and yeah I know there are bad things in it as well but the good outweighs the bad by a long shot. Why the importance of the Ten Commandments or the Stele of Hammurabi? Before you dismiss religion you might want to find out what it's really all about.
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WBraun
climber
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Before you dismiss religion you might want to find out what it's really all about.
Oh they already know, rolls eyes, because they saw some cheater doing nonsense in the name of religion, and there's a lot of them.
But fools like antiloon and Don will always become attracted to those fools and base their conclusions on those cheaters only.
They are blind as bats and are sent to cheaters .....
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Bad Climber
Trad climber
The Lawless Border Regions
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The problem, as Antichrist points out, is that too few people read the various tedious Imaginary-Friends-for-Grownups religious texts in a purely metaphorical way. They read them literally literally. (Heh, see what I did there?) That happens A LOT, and when it does, we get (un)intelligent design and suicide bombers as a result. We are frightened little beings and crave a mommy or daddy and simple absolute answers to the tough questions and crap that is life, so we reach for religious "truth" as a way to stay our trembling hands. As an added bonus, we got to slaughter folks who have a different imaginary friend. What could be better?
BAd
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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The problem with that analysis is it fails to recognize all the great things religion has given us: the fact that the catholic church is the largest non-governmental charitable organization in the world. That it has created thousands of hospitals and orphanages throughout the world and saved millions of lives. That the very idea of a hospital in the western tradition is a Catholic idea.
The fact that religion mediates the tragedy that enters into (that is inevitable) in every life.
The fact that religion speaks to humanity as metaphor whether an individual is a fundamentalist or not.
The fact that those metaphors are representations of psychological states and conditions that speak to what it is to be human and are helpful in that regard.
Humanity is by its very nature given to cruelty and violence and the violent actions of religious zealots are largely political actions having to do with possession and not much with regard to faith, that is faith simply represents an excuse or cover for political action. And those are a tiny fraction of what religion is and the good it has done for so many.
Tell the mother of a dying child to get over it, she is nothing, her child is nothing, death just is, get used to it, as we're just insignificant specks on an insignificant speck in a meaningless vast universe and your child's death means didley squat.
With any human endeavor come all the faults of what it is to be human but only a fool throws out what is good in a misguided effort to make humanity better.
All you people see is the negative: a myopic condition for sure. Can you imagine somebody going by the moniker Antichrist? I fear he doth protest too much, don't you think?
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