Religion, it's hard to come up with a single answer.

[carlfense]

Religion, it's hard to come up with a single answer.

 

 

The answer is 42. Duh

+1. Love that book.

[JJ Husker]

 

I don't ignore it. And it's not as if it's rarely ever publicized...as I just received a letter this afternoon from a friend of my wife's asking us for money for her mission trip to Guatemala. I think the good of religion IS advertised just as much as the bad is. Unfortunately, the bad is typically done in the name of religion. When stuff like hatred of gays is preached from the pulpit...I have a hard time calling it only the doings of a "fringe" sect. When a televangelist who preaches to millions on TV (and subsequently rakes in millions from those same people)...says the Haiti earthquake was the result of a pact the Hatians had with the devil, I find it disturbing that you would say those Christians are only in the minority. When an elected official speaks out against planned parenthood because he believes "children born with disabilities are a punishment from god for abortions", I find it sickening that such mythology has found its way into our political system. When the Catholic League with over 350,000 reported members (who also belong to the largest Christian denomination and is the single, largest, Catholic rights group) states that the victims of pedophile priests are "pitiful malcontents"...I choose not to downplay this as just a select few believers that the rest of the Christian world is trying to disassociate with.

 

You say this is just some crazy, radical branch of religions. A small few who aren't interpreting the TRUE message that you seem to be correctly doing. I'm betting the small few is actually larger that you think they are...and they think YOU are misinterpreting the message. They would most likely say you are only preaching the parts of the Bible that you like and not the rest that you disagree with. So how are we going to determine who is right and who isn't? My solution is to not accept any of it...and use reason and your experiences in this natural existence as reality and truth as we know it. Which oddly enough (even though I don't believe it myself), doesn't have ANYTHING to do with a potential existence of a god that you may choose to believe in when trying to find answers to questions you may have. It ONLY has to do with rejecting interpretations from ancient holy books and sects created from these interpretations. I think only then, we'd be able to separate the fringe, crazy few from the ones who actually want to live and cooperate in society.

 

(as a side note, I didn't create the above graphic...I just found it and thought to share it)

 

I don't pretend to think it is not a widespread problem. But I have not experienced anything like your examples in my congregation or in my experinces with churches I have been associated with. Hate of gays has never been preached from our pulpit. Personally I feel, whenever any of these whackos start explaining natural disasters or various forms of pain and suffering as being punishment from God, that they have gone astray from what I believe and from what my churches have taught me. And, even though some within the Catholic church have attempted to cover up or downplay the issue of some pedophile priests, I still do not think or believe that is what the religion itself teaches or is about. The best analogy I can come up with would be the father who explains the troubles of over indulgence of alcohol to his child but drinks to excess himself. The message is good but the example may be lacking. I attribute this to human weakness and not necessarily to the dogma of religion. I realize that some of the extreme messages seem to have been adopted within certain radical or fundementalist type religions. In those cases, I understand that the message being shared may be tainted and the shell of religion may give people with those tendencies something to rally around and provide some form of legitimacy to their particular biases or prejudices. I just see it as a human nature problem and not a problem of religion itself. I think people will find ways to express these things with or without religion. The KKK would be another example. With or without religion, those people would find a way to get together and advance their hatred and prejudice. So, I feel the problem is people and in most cases not the shell organization and definitely not the higher ideal that is supposed to be represented.

[The Dude]

What people in the secular movement are hoping to accomplish is to replace religious thinking with reason. If reason is the new thing, we have a shot to actually solve problems. Bucky was right that religion is usually just a component of a larger political struggle.

 

That implies that Reason is the opposite of Religion, doesn't it? I don't believe that to be true. I know many, many people who are more than capable of reasoning - but Christian as the day is long.

 

The issue is not the religious; Religion in its basic form is simply an attempt to explain the world around us. The issue is demagoguery, which the religious may be prone to (for reasons you've listed), but the irreligious are also prone to this, as evinced by the recent Russian elections, or the various dictatorships around the world, both recent and in ages past.

 

I wouldn't say religion is the opposite of reason for a bunch of semantic reasons. I'd say faith is the opposite of reason (faith being a firmly held conviction assumed without evidence and/or in face of all evidence to the contrary). The reason I make that distinction is because no matter how many religious people I talk to of whatever educational background (and I've had discussions with some really, really smart people over the years), no matter what apologist is mounting the curb, there is still not one piece of evidence or reasonable argument that justifies any of the major world faiths. What's interesting to me about the psychology of religion is that perfectly normal, reasonable people can drive cars, hold jobs, make sound plans for the future of themselves and their family--none of which require any supernatural assumptions--but then on Sunday go to a big fancy building and literally believe a cracker is being turned into the flesh of a two thousand year-old Jewish guy. In other words, it's entirely possible to be reasonable on every single topic but one.

 

My question on the second part is what is the difference between the explanations religion gives us about the world and demagoguery? The explanations it gives us about gods, devils, creation, miracles, etc are all without merit and can't be verified. I do agree that non-religious people are not necessarily safe from bad or magical thinking. That's why I advocate skepticism . . .but that's a whole other topic.

This is kind of what I was eluding to with my first post. I think the biggest problem (or at least the problem I have) with religion is it promotes faith as a desirable value. Don't question things, just take it on faith, if not you're going to regret it in the afterlife. That line of thinking being pervasive throughout human history (mostly because of religion) is one of the worst things to happen to society and human progress, in my opinion.

 

 

The following video isn't about extremist violence, nor does it really talk about Christianity (so people don't think I'm just picking on Christians), but it's a good example of how taking things on faith can be very detrimental to society.

[JJ Husker]

I guess I have never viewed faith in that light. I question things and I rarely rely on faith alone when there is other evidence available but I do believe there are things that escape human understanding and that we are incapable of explaining. I think faith can be useful to help make sense of life when science and human observation is unable to. This doesn't mean I take anything on "blind" faith, it just means I have another tool to help explain some things when I have reached the limits of human understanding or ability. In my mind, that doesn't detract from questioning or science but I'm sure it probably does for many. Heck, even much of science takes a certain level of faith; faith that the findings were actually arrived at honestly and without bias, faith that the proper procedures were followed, etc. I don't see a problem with having faith. However, I do see a problem with it if it causes you to ignore compelling evidence.

[Comish]

I guess I have never viewed faith in that light. I question things and I rarely rely on faith alone when there is other evidence available but I do believe there are things that escape human understanding and that we are incapable of explaining. I think faith can be useful to help make sense of life when science and human observation is unable to. This doesn't mean I take anything on "blind" faith, it just means I have another tool to help explain some things when I have reached the limits of human understanding or ability. In my mind, that doesn't detract from questioning or science but I'm sure it probably does for many. Heck, even much of science takes a certain level of faith; faith that the findings were actually arrived at honestly and without bias, faith that the proper procedures were followed, etc. I don't see a problem with having faith. However, I do see a problem with it if it causes you to ignore compelling evidence.

 

Well stated.

 

I (not being a scientist) must take a lot of what we are told on "faith". For example, I have never seen an atom split but believe it.

[carlfense]

Well stated.

 

I (not being a scientist) must take a lot of what we are told on "faith". For example, I have never seen an atom split but believe it.

Do you think that example is the same as religious faith?

[bennychico11]

I guess I have never viewed faith in that light. I question things and I rarely rely on faith alone when there is other evidence available but I do believe there are things that escape human understanding and that we are incapable of explaining. I think faith can be useful to help make sense of life when science and human observation is unable to. This doesn't mean I take anything on "blind" faith, it just means I have another tool to help explain some things when I have reached the limits of human understanding or ability.

 

But do you realize this doesn't make it a pathway to truth? Using faith to explain what science cannot. Science says "we don't know and may never know"...but that doesn't mean you can just subsitute god (and further more, a specific god like that of the Bible) and have that be the answer. A rational mind doesn't just give up reason by trying to explain natural occurances with supernatural claims.

 

In my mind, that doesn't detract from questioning or science but I'm sure it probably does for many. Heck, even much of science takes a certain level of faith; faith that the findings were actually arrived at honestly and without bias, faith that the proper procedures were followed, etc. I don't see a problem with having faith. However, I do see a problem with it if it causes you to ignore compelling evidence.

 

No, this I have to disagree with (as I have many times before). Science is NOT just taken on faith. At least not by my definition of faith...meaning accepting something without evidence. We have a rational justification to believe what scientists say are true. The entire definition of the scientific method is the reason why we do accept science as the best method to explaining the world around us. Biasness, proper procedures, etc. can all be restested and verified through peer review to ensure that the correct conclusions were made about a hypothesis. If something is found to be askew and questions are brought up, they are addressed before the scientific community even considers to accept it as fact.

[bennychico11]

Well stated.

 

I (not being a scientist) must take a lot of what we are told on "faith". For example, I have never seen an atom split but believe it.

 

Again, you don't take it on faith that it's possible to split an atom. You have a rational reason to accept what scientists tell you. Beacuse the majority of the scientific community has mountains of publically available evidence that you CAN go and see for yourself. And beacuse you trust those same scientists to cure diseases, come up with technology, etc. Time and time again, they're knowledge and the use of the scientific method has proven as the best possible method for them to use.

If you said you had a pet dog...I don't take it on faith that you have one. I know that you are most likely a trustworthy person because you haven't lied to make me think otherwise. I know that humans usually have pets and some of them are of the dog variety. I can also come visit your house and see evidence of dog poop in your yard and come to the conclusion that you do have a dog. So I have a rational reason to believe you.

[Comish]

Well stated.

 

I (not being a scientist) must take a lot of what we are told on "faith". For example, I have never seen an atom split but believe it.

Do you think that example is the same as religious faith?

Not directly, but I was responding to the generalities of the term faith..........as in believing without personal proof.

[carlfense]

Well stated.

 

I (not being a scientist) must take a lot of what we are told on "faith". For example, I have never seen an atom split but believe it.

Do you think that example is the same as religious faith?

Not directly, but I was responding to the generalities of the term faith..........as in believing without personal proof.

I've never seen faith defined in terms of "personal proof." Is that your own distinction?

[Comish]

Well stated.

 

I (not being a scientist) must take a lot of what we are told on "faith". For example, I have never seen an atom split but believe it.

Do you think that example is the same as religious faith?

Not directly, but I was responding to the generalities of the term faith..........as in believing without personal proof.

I've never seen faith defined in terms of "personal proof." Is that your own distinction?

You ever hear of a fella called "doubting Thomas" ?

 

If you really want to have a discussion, perhaps you could alter your favorite style of parsing every word to initiate an argument, rather than ignoring the gist of a statement.

 

But to play your game.............if faith is a belief and you have never witnessed "personally" whatever evidence is needed for convincing..............then I suppose you could define that as personal proof, but it is inconceivable that you have never seen those two words adjacent to each other.

[carlfense]

You ever hear of a fella called "doubting Thomas" ?

I have. I used to be quite the devout Christian. I even helped teach a youth group.

 

If you really want to have a discussion, perhaps you could alter your favorite style of parsing every word to initiate an argument, rather than ignoring the gist of a statement.

I wasn't trying to initiate an argument. That was a serious question.

 

But to play your game.............if faith is a belief and you have never witnessed "personally" whatever evidence is needed for convincing..............then I suppose you could define that as personal proof, but it is inconceivable that you have never seen those two words adjacent to each other.

I stand by my question. I have never seen faith defined as believing anything that you didn't witness yourself. To me (and to Webster's) faith is believing something without proof. It doesn't mention personally witnessing as part of the definition. If you have a definition that says otherwise you're welcome to add it to the discussion.

 

If that's parsing words, so be it. Honestly, it's you who is trying to blur the lines between science and faith. As in it's not ridiculous to believe in something for which there isn't and cannot be any proof because people believe in splitting atoms when they haven't seen it.

 

I suppose it is frustrating when that sort of argument breaks down. That frustration is apparent and I apologize to you for causing it.

[Comish]

Well stated.

 

I (not being a scientist) must take a lot of what we are told on "faith". For example, I have never seen an atom split but believe it.

 

Again, you don't take it on faith that it's possible to split an atom. You have a rational reason to accept what scientists tell you. Beacuse the majority of the scientific community has mountains of publically available evidence that you CAN go and see for yourself. And beacuse you trust those same scientists to cure diseases, come up with technology, etc. Time and time again, they're knowledge and the use of the scientific method has proven as the best possible method for them to use.

If you said you had a pet dog...I don't take it on faith that you have one. I know that you are most likely a trustworthy person because you haven't lied to make me think otherwise. I know that humans usually have pets and some of them are of the dog variety. I can also come visit your house and see evidence of dog poop in your yard and come to the conclusion that you do have a dog. So I have a rational reason to believe you.

 

New ground broken here…………I’ve never seen a religious discussion devolve into the plateau of dog poop.

 

But I believe your scientific parallel suffers as well. Not ALL science is believed by ALL scientists. (as an example, take the controversy over climate change……and I don’t mean for this to tangent into a corollary discussion……..just using one example).

 

We KNOW water boils at a specific temperature. It is observable, repeatable and not in doubt. But on something like climate change, we have a number of credentialed, respected and decorated scientists who believe the exact opposite of the general consensus. How does our “faith” in the scientific community dovetail with a split among experts? (again, not just on cc, but on other areas).

 

Is there a magic percentage where we all just agree on “faith”? What if my scientist reflects what I want to believe more than your scientist?

 

Is it really such a stretch for folks to look at the world around them, find no earthly explanation that satisfies them, and conclude (along with millions around the world) that it must be the work of a Supreme Being?

 

I have mentioned this before but way back when working on a B.S., a respected science prof was asked to explain to us (his students) the seeming contradiction between his scientific vocation and his strong Christian faith. He simply responded (paraphrasing)….As a scientist I can not explain it, but as a Christian it allows me to accept it on faith.

 

That pretty well sums it up for me too.

[Husker_x]

Well stated.

 

I (not being a scientist) must take a lot of what we are told on "faith". For example, I have never seen an atom split but believe it.

Do you think that example is the same as religious faith?

Not directly, but I was responding to the generalities of the term faith..........as in believing without personal proof.

I've never seen faith defined in terms of "personal proof." Is that your own distinction?

You ever hear of a fella called "doubting Thomas" ?

 

If you really want to have a discussion, perhaps you could alter your favorite style of parsing every word to initiate an argument, rather than ignoring the gist of a statement.

 

But to play your game.............if faith is a belief and you have never witnessed "personally" whatever evidence is needed for convincing..............then I suppose you could define that as personal proof, but it is inconceivable that you have never seen those two words adjacent to each other.

 

Doubting Thomas, contrary to the biblical portrayal, is actually the smartest person in the post-resurrection part of the story. When people say that Jesus was a moral teacher, they tend to forget about the passage "Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed" which is an incredibly stupid statement for a whole host of reasons. If he'd exchanged "gullible" for "blessed" it might have been something worth hearing.

 

Doubt and skepticism are more moral than faith. They're better than faith. They accomplish more than faith. They have achieved more for mankind than faith. They will continue to improve and enhance our lives in the future, unlike faith. Faith is nothing more than asserting whatever you'd prefer to believe as the truth and then shielding yourself from all facts to the contrary no matter what. If there is one battle secularists can win in the near future against religion, I hope it's the dethroning of faith as a virtue, because it's not. It has ruined lives, institutions, and even civilizations.

 

Oh, and by the way, since the story worked out so well for Thomas who basically just got what he asked for, if Jesus is free this evening I'd be happy to have him miraculously appear in my living room and confirm his existence to me. I'm going to bet no one will be holding their breath.

[Comish]

You ever hear of a fella called "doubting Thomas" ?

I have. I used to be quite the devout Christian. I even helped teach a youth group.

 

If you really want to have a discussion, perhaps you could alter your favorite style of parsing every word to initiate an argument, rather than ignoring the gist of a statement.

I wasn't trying to initiate an argument. That was a serious question.

 

But to play your game.............if faith is a belief and you have never witnessed "personally" whatever evidence is needed for convincing..............then I suppose you could define that as personal proof, but it is inconceivable that you have never seen those two words adjacent to each other.

I stand by my question. I have never seen faith defined as believing anything that you didn't witness yourself. To me (and to Webster's) faith is believing something without proof. It doesn't mention personally witnessing as part of the definition. If you have a definition that says otherwise you're welcome to add it to the discussion.

 

If that's parsing words, so be it. Honestly, it's you who is trying to blur the lines between science and faith. As in "it's not ridiculous to believe in something for which there isn't and cannot be any proof because people believe in splitting atoms when they haven't seen it."

 

I suppose it is frustrating when that sort of argument breaks down. That frustration is apparent and I apologize to you for causing it.

 

Hmm....................wasn't it you who chastised me a few weeks back for improper usage of quotation marks? If you can source me making the quote you ascribe to me above, kindly point it out.

 

 

 

But aside from that, no frustration here Carl...............If you believe that wins the argument...........Declare victory and move on !