Religion. Sensitive subject. Excellent discussion. [Archive]

The Bard

07-11-06, 01:14 AM

The other day I went to the local religious book store, where I saw a HONK IF YOU LOVE JESUS bumper sticker. I bought it and put it on the back bumper of my car, and I'm really glad I did. What an uplifting experience followed!

I was stopped at the light at a busy intersection, just lost in thought about the Lord, and didn't notice that the light had changed. That bumper sticker really worked! I found lots of people who love Jesus. Why, the guy behind me started to honk like crazy. He must REALLY love the Lord because pretty soon, he leaned out his window and yelled, "Jesus Christ!" as loud as he could. It was like a football game with him shouting, "GO JESUS CHRIST, GO!!!"

Everyone else started honking, too, so I leaned out my window and waved and smiled to all of those loving people. There must have been a guy from Florida back there because I could hear him yelling something about a sunny beach, and saw him waving in a funny way with only his middle finger stuck up in the air. I asked my two cousins what that meant. They kind of squirmed, looked at each other, giggled and told me that it was the Hawaiian good luck sign. So, I leaned out the window and gave him the good luck sign back.

Several cars behind, a very nice man stepped out of his car and yelled something. I couldn't hear him very well, but it sounded like, "Mother trucker," or "Mother's from there." Maybe he was from Florida, too. He must really love the Lord. A couple of the people were so caught up in the joy of the moment that they got out of their cars and were walking toward me. I bet they wanted to pray, but just then I noticed that the light had changed to yellow, and stepped on the gas. And a good thing I did, because I was the only driver to get across the intersection. I looked back at them standing there. I leaned way out the window, gave them a big smile and held up the Hawaiian good luck sign as I drove away.

I feel like I've been in this guys shoes

I love Jesus, for He saved my soul;
From His cross the tides of mercy roll;
Long and far He sought me, when astray;
Now, He leads me in His own right way.

I love Jesus; He’s my King;
Of His mercy I will sing;
I will follow in His paths of light,
Till I see Him in His glory bright.

I love Jesus, for He’s always near,
Ever ready with a word of cheer;
Ev’ry day, and ev’ry passing hour,
I will trust Him for His keeping pow’r.

I love Jesus when the joybeams glow;
Love Him, when the stormy tempests blow;
I will praise Him while the ages roll;
Hallelujah! for He saved my soul.

Chidori Draconid

07-11-06, 01:53 AM

I don't think Puck is trying to convince anyone of anything, Bard. I'm not here to attempt to convert anyone, but to further the objective of this thread, which is to share and learn about everyone's religious/spiritual beliefs. I guess I should put my two sense into it, but before I begin I'd like to give you guys a unique history lesson about my origins.

I'm half Native American and half Black, and my first church was a southern black baptist church, but with a spiritual native american grandparent on both sides I gained a unique perspecitve on religion, diversity, and spirituality. It doesn't end there. Conscious of their own flaws as angry minorities, my parents raised me in a suburban neighborhood, mostly white, and they appointed a Japanese Bhuddist as my godfather. He coincidentally married a Swedish Jewish woman when I was six. It was then that my parents told me that I could choose to attend any of the following religious institutions as long as I spend my Sundays attending one. The Black Baptist Church, the Jewish Temple, the Catholic Chuch, the Buddhist Society, or the Cherokee Reservation.

By the way they have admitted that I'm basically a social experiment, and whenever I ask them if I went right or wrong they simply say that there is no right or wrong in an experiment. Anyways whenever I got tired of the people in one I would basically go to the other, but one thing is for sure. I inevitably got tired of people in every religious institution. Even so I gained a unique perspective on god, religion, and spirituality, and I've realized a few truths that are either constant in all of these religions or brought from my own conclusions about religion.

There is a unified yet divided intelligence in the universe, whether it is called God or anything else. In my opinion Physics, Chemestry, Biology, and other sciences make observations on how the intelligence of this universe works thus proving its existance.
Humans are dumb asses. As the Muse Serendipity in the movie Dogma stated...
No one's gotten it right yet. Your hearts are in the right place but *snap snap* your brains just gotta wake up.
It's up to us as individuals to understand what parts of religion are truly divine, and what parts are man made. For me basically anything in religion that attempts to establish anything beyond the basic survival of the human race is man made and easily falible.
Seek productivity and happiness through benign means only, but be ready to kick some ass for defensive purposes only.
Show & Don't Tell. Neither Jesus nor Siddharta(Buddha) gained their following simply through talking. They demonstrated by living their lives the way they did.
There is divine in everyone. Namaste - The God in me recognizes and welcomes the God in you. (that word and its definition has variations) Knowing that, who am I to tell you how to live your life because the God in you could be commanding you to do so.
Choose spirituality over religion.
... listen.

I have a lot more, but too many to list. It is an ever growing and ever changing list, but I don't get rid of any of my pricniples because I may act against them. No one's perfect. And you're probably wandering what religion do I own up to. Neither. There's wisdom in it all. Anyways those are my beliefs.

Puck

07-11-06, 02:11 AM

Chidori was correct in stating that I am not pushing my beleifs on anyone. I'm just telling you what they are and am curious as to what the people around me believe. Infact, that is another point I forgot to mention. I find it very annoying to say the least when someone pushes thier beleifs, morals or principles on someone else. I don't talk about religion unless I am asked or I am trying to get a conversation going. If someone chooses not to beleive in God then more power to em'. What you beleive is your buiness and no one has the right to try and convince you otherwise. However, people DO have the right to express thier beliefs in a peaceful, not-confrontational way, such as I am doing now.

Sighter Tnailog

07-11-06, 08:45 AM

I'm a bit tired of this "be spiritual, not religious."

I can accept the premise, to be sure. It's nice to think that you're open and accepting, that you can see God with your own esotericism and so forth, to be all spiritual and in touch with yourself. It lets you reject the self-righteousness of religion, the way all those church-going types head off every Sunday and sing songs without soul and read the Bible without understanding it.

As someone who gets up on Sunday and participates in such exercises, I really can empathize with this viewpoint. There are plenty of people in the pews who are there because of their friends, who don't know what they believe, or who just to be seen in church while running for Congress. Religion is a collection of hypocrites; spirituality seems so much fresher, so much more real.

I can empathize with the point, but ultimately it's just another brand of self-righteousness. "My religion is better than yours; it's spiritual, it's doesn't have any of that religion mess."

What is more worrisome, though, about spirituality vs. religion, is that spirituality is ultimately a very solitary discipline. It's about your soul, your spirit, finding God within your life. Whereas religion is, in many ways, about finding God within the life of a community of people who, at the very least, are struggling with the same things you're struggling with. Do these communities of faith fail sometimes? Yes, of course: they're made up of finite individuals with limited capabilities.

Do you think you're perfect? If so, then I'll gladly leave you to be spiritual. But I know that I'm not perfect, and it's a great comfort to be in a community with other people who aren't. Maybe some of them think they are, but that just proves the point.

Horizon's End

07-11-06, 09:06 AM

Well, whoever didn’t expect me to post here seriously doesn’t know me. For starters I’ll say I cannot agree with the concept of a religion. Personally I can, on a rational level, accept people believing in a disembodied God though on a more guttural level I find the idea hard to swallow. Why can I not agree with religion? As Cyrus said most people are angry at the misuse of religion, not at religion itself. This may sound true but this presupposes the idea of a religion that does not cause what it has caused, it presupposes that a religion can be ideally followed. In my arguments I will attempt to examine religion without assuming what it should be and examine what it is and what it has been. I will argue on many points and attempt to separate them for ease of reading and countering. Finally please be aware many, but not all arguments, are against a religion not in a personal belief in God. Perhaps I argue against organized religion but the way I see it a personal belief in God is a worldview more than a religion.

Morality

My first argument against religion is that it severely weakens the concept of morals. What? you’re crazy, it does the opposite, you might say but I don’t think so. For starters I hope no one tries to argue the basis of morality is religious because as far as I know there’s only two ways to get to it from it. The principle of divine command, or something like that, which states that what God commands is what is good, this is an argument that’s in disrepute even among religious circles since it makes morality utterly arbitrary and begs the question of whether what he commands what is good or whether he commands what is good in which case we need appeal to this higher sentiment. The other argument is that God built morality into the world in such a way it can be deduced, in this scenario God building them into it or they being there are equivalent meaning religion is not necessary to have them. As far as I know no one here has campaigned for either but I’m just taking preventative measures.

The main gist of my issue is that many people who are religious, and don’t post saying you’re a specific counterexample unless it’s to counter the general idea, follow moral guiding not because they decide that something is wrong based on the situation but that God is watching over them. It’s a childish morality in that sense since it implies the only reason one is moral is to prevent going to Hell or angering God. The idea of not stealing because God will know is, to me, a sad view of morality, of not killing because you’ll be punished eternally likewise lamentable (assuming you know the law would never ever know, and that no one but you would find out). If your reason for not doing it is guilt or remorse think of why you feel this, is it because you’ve reasoned out that if everyone stole when they could get away with it our world would be a worse place or because you feel like someone you can’t see knows what you did and is metaphorically shaking his head at you.

This is something I’ve observed a lot, the other issue is that the morals dictated by religious texts are out of date. Where in the bible does it tell me what to do about therapeutic cloning? Where in the Koran does it warn me about genetically modified foods? Where in the Torah does it prohibit using hormonal birth control? These are things the modern world must deal with yet religions have acted to stifle guidelines based on the available evidence, to this I can point out the grievous lies spread over the Morning After Pill, the supposed increase of cancer due to abortions, etc. Again, don’t say that this is misuse of religion because this is something religion has historically done. When your morals are based on an unchanging body of work extracting new ones is an exercise in ‘interpretation’ which, to me, has lost a lot of meaning in that context since it allows for the person to extract whatever they desire to extract which is not bad, of itself, since it’s what I’d prefer, morality based on rationality and, since it’s unavoidable, emotion but when cloaked in religious speak it’s transmitted to the world of believers who, without knowing why the interpretation was reached will unquestioningly believe it. Again, I doubt anyone might to do this but this is not in parallel to Science since the results are theoretically reproducible, if you don’t believe something investigate it yourself, show it’s wrong or examine the evidence. This could be done to an interpretation but due to the mindset of most believers of a certain religion is not done so.

Morality has also changed with the times and continues to do so, belief in an absolute morality is ludicrous as can be seen by the fact that at certain place and times in history slavery was the moral truth of the world, cannibalism was/is an accepted practice, and these are the big ones. In less obvious disparities think of the morality of having women walk around unveiled, this is a natural right and stopping it is morally wrong yet it is completely the opposite in a strictly Islamic locale. Why does the morality of your religion trump that of another? Why does your place in space and time grant you access to the (most) supreme form of morality? Think about it, and this is another argument I’ll expound on later, if you were born in the middle of Saudi Arabia would you believe as you do now? If you were born in 10000 B.C. would you believe as you do now? The answer I can confidently predict would be a hearty no. In this way morality is something that is (or should be) a product of the individual and the Zeitgeist not of an archaic scripture riddled with mixed messages.

For a more interactive example of how morality is something that should depend on you and you alone I remember a nice thought experiment. Imagine you’re at the top of a cliff walking with a heavyset man, looking down you see a trolley speeding past, obviously without brakes as in its path lie 5 men who will be unable to escape it. You realize that if you push the man down into the path of the trolley due to his weight it will stop and save the other 5. You know the push will work but would you do it? Here I imagine an internal strife, logic might say yes but ultimately most people would probably not be able to. Now imagine that you’re in a control office and you notice trolley 2 is out of control, its heading to a group of 5 people and will kill them unless you flick a switch which will divert it so that only kills one, would you flick it? Here I imagine a resounding yes. The scenario is the same, at its core, yet the answer is likely much easier for the second. I honestly don’t know how this relates to my points above but I remembered it and wanted to share.

I guess I was planning to go onto a different argument now but this is pretty long, I’ll lay it out for people to counter as they will.

Sighter Tnailog

07-11-06, 10:27 AM

Good points, Horizon. I would like to take issue with one or two of them. Also, I come from the Christian tradition, so bear with me if my illustrations come from that tradition.

First, you can, of course, point to the bad things that religion has done, and say that arguing for religion on the basis of what it should be is silly. Dismissing the misuse of religion as irrelevant is, of course, bad form. But dismissing the proper use of religion as impossible is both prejudiced and historically false.

There are plenty of examples where religion has played a positive role in society. The Civil Rights Movement would not have amounted to a hill of beans if not for the critical role that ministers of Mainline Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Black Protestant churches played. The churches themselves were critical organizing points. Indeed, one of the strategies of the so-called "Religious Right" in America has been to tie the hands of Mainline churches on issues such as women's ordination and gay marriage, because they know that the Mainline churches, if caught in an endless infight on these issues, won't be able to provide a relevant social witness on caring for the poor in society.

Care for the poor is another crucial aspect of religion. During the military juntas and crackdowns that wracked Latin America during the late 70s and early 80s, many unionists, communists, labor leaders, and other proponents of human rights were driven to the churches. The growth of base communities and liberation theology during this decade rendered the church one of the only safe havens for human dignity and the support of basic freedom. Indeed, Oscar Romero stood up in El Salvador for the rights of the poor. He prevented a massacre of civilians by starting a church service with the peasants right as the soldiers were preparing to fire -- in other words, he defended innocent life using a shield made of the bread and wine of Holy Communion.

Yes, we've had the crusades, the Inquisition. But we've also had beautiful religious artwork, the flourishing of human dignity, and the growth of human freedom. If you doubt the latter, pick up Max Weber's classic The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. It's a great introduction to the sociology of religion.

The second thing I'd like to take issue with is this: an "archaic scripture riddled with mixed messages." The Bible is a fascinating book, because it is, strictly speaking, the result of a religious community attempting to construct its reality. Their struggles were our struggles -- and, while they came to conclusions that often differed from generation to generation, the Bible is a narrative of how they dealt with new challenges.

The narrative of bondage in Egypt and being led to freedom and dignity was not merely an ancient story without relevance during the American Civil War. It was also a deeply meaningful tale of liberation from slavery. Harriet Tubman wasn't called "Black Moses" because the Bible didn't mean anything. The tale of David and Goliath isn't merely an old story without relevance to our "Zeitgeist." It's a tale of sticking to your guns, of standing by principle in the face of overwhelming odds. It's a story to give heart to those in dire straits...the poor person standing against a corporation trying to snap up their land on the Gulf Coast, for instance.

The Bible ceases to be relevant when a few verses are cited by a minister to "proof" a sermon. The Bible was not meant to be read in single sentences here and there...it is narrative. It is a story. War and Peace may be hard to read, but it's definitely not worthless or archaic. The Wasteland may be riddled with contradictions, but that's what makes it so versatile as an interpretive work.

Osato

07-11-06, 10:49 AM

Speaking personally to all of the religious believers out there who assume some sort of holy obligation to save me and to explain to me why I am wrong, I frankly don’t much care what you believe. I accept in advance that you believe certain things, that you believe them sincerely, and that these beliefs are very important in your life. Also I do belive in god Im just saying keep religion to your self

If you want to be an ass and think that everything revolves around your pathetic little life then inflate your ego elsewhere. I’m tired of people automatically assuming every thread asking a question is against them or meant for them. If you cannot carry on a discussion then don’t bother posting in this.

Anyway… here’s my side of the discussion.

I did believe in Christianity for a long time, since I was 5. I don’t know when I stopped believing exactly, probably started going through the motions and doing what my parents expected of me around fifteen or so. It was not until I came home from basic, and very well basic itself, that I decided I don’t really believe in a higher power as much as I do in the power of hope and faith.

Hope seems to be the driving force behind everything, from one’s existence to one’s continuation with their life. Without hope what is there to life for? If you don’t have some form of hope for the future, for where you are going and what you want to do with your life then why continue with life? It makes sense to me at least. Hope is what people use to continue surviving, and it is hope that we found and base all decisions on.

Faith is something slightly different though. It is the ability to place your hopes in something, instead of just hoping in general. This ‘something’ does not have to be an all-powerful being (such as a deity of any sort) but can be something as simple or even yourself. Personally I believe faith in others, the ability to trust, is another grave aspect of humanities ability to survive. It is a simple principle that you see in everything. When you give your order to a waiter, you have faith that they are going to carry it out for you, right? Until that faith is broken (with a messed up hamburger or missing fries) you continue to have faith in them.

That is the most basic example of faith though.

Faith can also be used as everyone seems to make it into, a belief in a ‘god’. This belief is the ability for people to put their problems on someone else’s shoulders. Prayer is a person faith in the fact that their god will not only come and help them, but also save them from their situations. In this form of faith I think it is more of a sense of comfort that people are seeking, more of a ‘spiritual’ belief that they believe is necessary.

I don’t have faith in a god. I’m not an athiest, because their very system of belief does not make sense to me. But that’s not important… I am agnostic. I don’t deny the existence of a god, exactly, but I also don’t accept one over the other for myself. I believe, because I want to believe in a higher power, that there is a god/goddess (or multiple ones if you believe that) somewhere up there. However, until one proves itself to be true instead of requiring my ‘faith’ in it I will remain away from religion. –shrug- I just don’t feel like accepting one yet, because I want to be sure that the one I accept is the one that is really there… that is real.

At the moment I have the most faith in myself, and that’s not meant to be cocky. I feel that if anything having faith in myself is the strongest form of faith. Only you know all your faults and flaws, only you know the limits of your strengths. In that alone having faith in yourself is possibly the strongest faith to have (in my eyes at least). On the other hand, I have faith in many other people and things nearly as strong as myself.

If I keep my machine gun clean and well prepared I have faith that it will protect me, or at least tear the shit out of anyone I point and fire it at. That sort of faith is something that I can see. I know the limitations of my weapon, I know when a firing rod is getting dull and won’t fire the round anymore… I know when a rod looks bent, when a spring looks worn, or when the ejection port looks stuck or rusted. That is something that I have control over and can change. ((However, I have little faith in the rounds. If they are duds I cannot control that, nor can I tell ahead of time… Feh.))

At the same time I have faith in my fellow soldiers. They are battle-tested, strong, and able to help me in times of need. If my weapon cannot do the intended task I have faith theirs can, and that their training is sufficient. Those that I put my faith in, my team leader and driver (because I’m the gunner), I have been around and come to know. I am learning their strengths and weaknesses, as they are mine, and when we deploy I will have the faith in them that certain situations will require.

And as I've mentioned in previous posts, I think religion is another form of control and I'm not a big fan of control. Especially control that involves idolizing a figurative being that factually can't be proven to exist and it's history written in a book that has had its entire (or a very great portion of it) meaning, lost in translation for the last twelve hundred years.

I don’t believe that in the least. I think that religion itself is simply a person’s ability to put their faith in something higher then themselves, something that they believe in. A person has all rights to believe what they want, or the opposite. For you, religion is a form of control, I suppose that mostly because you have seen it as trying to convince people the ‘errors of their ways’ and trying to ‘convert them’.

Religion is something far more than that though. It is a system of beliefs that people set for themselves, like guidelines for their life. I believe a lot of what Christianity has to say. Hell, I believe that killing, lying, and stealing are bad. So do they. When Christian’s say “You reap what you sow,” and site it as biblical… I agree with the passage, but I believe in it as a different name ‘Fate’ or ‘Karma’ instead of a biblical fact.

A lot of control is in what people allow themselves into. If you go into a church you are not going to be forced to sit and listen to a message they are delivering. At any time you have the right to stand and leave, or you could even sit through the service and ignore what is being said. Half the time I was in church I was falling asleep, or trying not to. The other half I was daydreaming about ninja’s or some sudden invasion that was so secret we didn’t see it coming… and how I would fight off or defend the building. Lol.

Chidori

I love your points. They are a lot of what I believe, but you put it in words a way I could not. Thank you.

((The others… your reply’s are too long for me to keep my attention span on at the moment. I’ll reply to Sighter and Fut as soon as I get a chance… lol… maybe))

Molotov

07-11-06, 11:10 AM

Personally I don't think religion is as much of a problem as what people choose to use religion for. As Madison notes many good things have been facilitated by religion. For example, Islam gave the world its first constitutions and laid the framework for a universality of human rights. Christianity has helped end the slave trade in Brittain, facilitated abolition in the United States and helped end apartheid in South Africa. At the same time, when these two religions have mixed, it has often led to events like the crusades.

The thing is religion is a powerful tool, and it can be used for any kind of change that people want to make. Many times I think it enables positions instead of creating positions. For instance, in the 14th century, a french man would say to be christian is to be subservient to the king. Today I doubt a french man would say the same thing. The other thing I feel that leads to problems with religions is when religions "match up" against each other.

Personally, I think people who are of any religion or no religion should do best to remember something that Cyrus said. Any kind of god can not be proved OR disproved. We would all do well to remember that in our dealings with other people.

As far as the whole, be religious/be spiritual debate goes, I think its rather silly. I know of no "religious" people who do not balance their religious ideals with pragmatism. If anything it's a false dichotomy. I think instead, the message should be "be religious, but be tolerant."

Horizon's End

07-11-06, 11:40 AM

(This is to Sighter since I began writing before Osato or Damon posted)

Sorry if I gave the idea that I meant to imply religion cannot have positive benefits (doubly positive, so sue me), I know for a fact it can. What I guess I’m trying to say is that I fundamentally disagree with the necessity of religion to do these deeds of humanitarianism; I believe mankind can do those things without the need for an overarching purpose, a benevolent or not benevolent God watching our every move. Maybe this is too idealistic and we need religion yet but I feel the critical point has been superseded in parts of the world. Religion does tend to act as a social motivator, as a chapel of growth, for some, yet as far as I can tell it tends to look inward. It preaches outwardly, maybe, but most major religions are somewhat xenophobic. The Old Testament has a myriad of examples where this happens, and though I can’t recall any concrete details so let me know if my memory has failed me I think the New Testament also has some examples where exclusion of ‘the other’ is encouraged. I understand the idea to preach love to all prevalent in some religions but, using Christianity which is also my religious background, I’m almost positive that if a strictly Islamic woman (which I’ll use as an example since they can be spotted by a veil) entering a majority of churches would not find an overwhelmingly warm response even before Islam was painted as evil by whoever did the painting. These last two points are suppositions based on what I’ve seen so if they’re wrong please feel free to ignore them.

As for the relevancy of the Bible. I don’t contest that it can be relevant, as a matter of fact I agree with the statement that it’s a narrative and a story. Good things can come out of it, yes, but so can good things come out of the study of WW2, of the Illiad and the Oddysey, and of the Mesopotamian cultures. The problem, for me, lies in exalting that particular history to a pedestal; many of a people’s stories are relevant today think of Easter Island. The people there basically drove themselves to extinction by overconsuming their resources without a way to escape the island due to its vast distance from any other land and therefore resources. This is very relevant in a world where we’re consuming blissfully signs of an ecological crash not withstanding. The Bible is a historical text and as such, as you said, it will have relevance in as much as history is inescapable but what I meant to say is that we are reaching moral and societal cruxes which the past has ill prepared us for. For this I point you to nuclear warfare, nothing in our past has prepared us for war in such a scale; it has done the opposite, the past tells us war is the normal state of things, that an all out war can be justified but is this the case now where such an event would endanger everything? I ask that no one interpret this as saying the Bible espouses nuclear warfare, I mean to correlate the study of the past with the study of the Bible.

I think I’ll move on since I hope that’s enough to get what I meant across, if not don’t hesitate to ask for more detail or counter more thoroughly.

Accidental Faith

The title might be a little flowery and misleading since I couldn’t think of a better encapsulation but as I said before I was going to expand on the fact that where, when and how you are born contribute more to which religion you will be than the inherent values of any one religion. To see a very graphic example of this check this map ( http://www.wadsworth.com/religion_d/special_features/popups/maps/matthews_world/content/map_01.html) out. As you can see religion follows geographic boundaries pretty closely with few isolated pockets existing anywhere. Of course I realize many place have more than one religion but I would presume most can be traced back to the larger geographic patches. The point I’m building to should be apparent, any one religion is likely not the right answer, perhaps as some believe the pervasiveness of religion as a whole indicates the existence of some presence but that is another matter. Religion is not a matter of rationality, that much most people will agree to but the way it’s distributed makes it patently clear that it has very little to do with what the religion actually espouses.

Case in point if you’re not born in a Christian region you will likely never become or acknowledge Christianity as valid, likewise many Christians dismiss Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, etc. Here by dismiss I do not mean dismiss out of hand (though, of course, some do), but dismiss as ‘they’re not in the right’. Each religion tends to do that and why shouldn’t it? If believers were encouraged to admit other religions might be right or have merits your own does not posses they might start questioning their own; this is why I believe most major religions have the “Believe in me and no one but me clause” which safeguards against this but, in a global world, it only serves to create artificial boundaries between people, much like nations but that’s a whole other story.

What I’m really after here is questioning how a particular religion can be accepted as true when others are dismissed. For instance if you trust the Bible why would you not the Koran, if you do, good for you, but what of the Vedas? What of the Tripitaka (Buddhist scriptures)? Why is your text the right text when had you been born a thousand miles away you would just as easily have argued for that very other book? Religions have come and gone throughout the ages and we can even extend this argument to the Poetic and Prose Eddas and to the Popol Vuh, for instance. What separated those (obviously mistaken) religions from the currently accepted one? This argument, is again, against the idea of a single religion, the idea of a supernatural being has not yet been disputed.

Granted, one could argue that the religion is a way of life but it’s more than just that. It has its doctrines and beliefs which are taken on faith, different religions clash on these issues. This can lead to problems as it can to solutions but, for me, you can have a way of life that is independent of the added complications of a religion that makes sense to you. This point is one which I’ve never found a reasonable solution to so I’m all ears, think of why you believe what you do and think of how different that would be in the midst of an Ice Age, in another continent, in another city. The simplest and possibly wrong analogy I’ve just thought up is that it’s like a multiple choice question, if a group of answers are equivalent you can rule them out on the basis that the answer can’t be all of them. This is a thought which I’m sure has many shortcomings so if it helps you visualize my argument use it, otherwise don’t use it as a strawman and just go to the above.

This is a good break from mindlessly writing down compounds and weights, expect a post every time I finish a batch of vials.

Jasmine

07-11-06, 12:27 PM

My beliefs are quite simple. In general, I'm a Christian, but to me that is a VERY broad description. To be more precise, by name, I'm Pentecostal (a branch of Protestant I believe). I attend the Church of God (headed in Cleveland, TN. I note the city where the national offices are because there are two Churches of God. They are very different.).

On a more personal note, I believe that God is the omniscient and omnipotent Creator of this universe. I believe he exists in 3 parts, but is still one being, those parts being the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. I believe that around 2000 years ago, Jesus Christ came from heaven to be born as a human, to grow up as all humans do, and to then die on the cross for our sins, all of his own will. I firmly believe that he agreed to come to Earth and leave all the slendor of heaven of his own volition. I also believe that Christ rose from the dead after 3 days and ascended into heaven out of the midst of his followers. I believe that he is coming again for those who have accepted him as Savior and that shortly after the "Rapture" the time of the Tribulation prophesied in the Book of Revelation will then begin. I acknowledge that one can not physically see God, but there are many things in this world that one can not physically see, but may see only the the effects of. For me, God is the same way. I can see the effects of his handiwork in my personal life and in nature and thus believe that what I've been raised on must be true. I also believe that all christians are (or should be) on a Biblical mission to tell others about Christ and salvation, however, I do not believe that He wishes us to cram it down everyone else's throats. Christ himself did not cram anything down anyone's throats. He merely said what he needed/wanted to say and did his miracles. Beyond that it was up to those listening and watching him to decide what they believed. I take the same approach (mostly) to trying to "convert" nonbelievers. I say what I believe, I will defend it to the best of my ability, but I will not try to cram it down your throat neither will I bother trying to point out things that I believe are wrong in your belief. Unless they really just freak me out and I just can't comprehend why you would believe whatever point it was that I felt was wrong.

One more note, I don't refer to my belief as a religion. Mostly because the word doesn't have a very good connotation. I refer to what I have as a relationship with Christ. Yes, I do have religious things that I do such as going to church and singing songs at church, etc, but to me, religion is a set of motions to go with a set of beliefs. If all you do is the motions, then all you have is religion. What I have is far more personal.

Komosatuo

07-11-06, 07:01 PM

A lot of control is in what people allow themselves into. If you go into a church you are not going to be forced to sit and listen to a message they are delivering. At any time you have the right to stand and leave, or you could even sit through the service and ignore what is being said. Half the time I was in church I was falling asleep, or trying not to. The other half I was daydreaming about ninja’s or some sudden invasion that was so secret we didn’t see it coming… and how I would fight off or defend the building. Lol.

...>.>

<.<...

Amen to that.

I never meant to proverbially spit in your face, however I can't just let someone sit there and let five people bias them for the rest of their life.

My point was that honesty is something that few people have and oftentimes is meant to imply truth.

It's hard to tell on a forum if someone is getting angry at you, or just trying to make a point.

Guess I took it the wrong way, sorry, again. :P

And as for my bias', I think I stated at some point in that post, that I was only going off my own personal experiences and did not want to be credited for anything. 7 out 10 personal truths that humans form are out of partial experiences of a much greater whole, at least, that's my understanding. Again, partial experience.

I met five of them, and from those five formed my opinion. No one said you had to listen, or read it. :p

The Bard

07-12-06, 12:10 AM

If you want to be an ass and think that everything revolves around your pathetic little life then inflate your ego elsewhere. I’m tired of people automatically assuming every thread asking a question is against them or meant for them. If you cannot carry on a discussion then don’t bother posting in this.

Anyway… here’s my side of the discussion.

I did believe in Christianity for a long time, since I was 5. I don’t know when I stopped believing exactly, probably started going through the motions and doing what my parents expected of me around fifteen or so. It was not until I came home from basic, and very well basic itself, that I decided I don’t really believe in a higher power as much as I do in the power of hope and faith.

Hope seems to be the driving force behind everything, from one’s existence to one’s continuation with their life. Without hope what is there to life for? If you don’t have some form of hope for the future, for where you are going and what you want to do with your life then why continue with life? It makes sense to me at least. Hope is what people use to continue surviving, and it is hope that we found and base all decisions on.

Faith is something slightly different though. It is the ability to place your hopes in something, instead of just hoping in general. This ‘something’ does not have to be an all-powerful being (such as a deity of any sort) but can be something as simple or even yourself. Personally I believe faith in others, the ability to trust, is another grave aspect of humanities ability to survive. It is a simple principle that you see in everything. When you give your order to a waiter, you have faith that they are going to carry it out for you, right? Until that faith is broken (with a messed up hamburger or missing fries) you continue to have faith in them.

That is the most basic example of faith though.

Faith can also be used as everyone seems to make it into, a belief in a ‘god’. This belief is the ability for people to put their problems on someone else’s shoulders. Prayer is a person faith in the fact that their god will not only come and help them, but also save them from their situations. In this form of faith I think it is more of a sense of comfort that people are seeking, more of a ‘spiritual’ belief that they believe is necessary.

I don’t have faith in a god. I’m not an athiest, because their very system of belief does not make sense to me. But that’s not important… I am agnostic. I don’t deny the existence of a god, exactly, but I also don’t accept one over the other for myself. I believe, because I want to believe in a higher power, that there is a god/goddess (or multiple ones if you believe that) somewhere up there. However, until one proves itself to be true instead of requiring my ‘faith’ in it I will remain away from religion. –shrug- I just don’t feel like accepting one yet, because I want to be sure that the one I accept is the one that is really there… that is real.

At the moment I have the most faith in myself, and that’s not meant to be cocky. I feel that if anything having faith in myself is the strongest form of faith. Only you know all your faults and flaws, only you know the limits of your strengths. In that alone having faith in yourself is possibly the strongest faith to have (in my eyes at least). On the other hand, I have faith in many other people and things nearly as strong as myself.

If I keep my machine gun clean and well prepared I have faith that it will protect me, or at least tear the shit out of anyone I point and fire it at. That sort of faith is something that I can see. I know the limitations of my weapon, I know when a firing rod is getting dull and won’t fire the round anymore… I know when a rod looks bent, when a spring looks worn, or when the ejection port looks stuck or rusted. That is something that I have control over and can change. ((However, I have little faith in the rounds. If they are duds I cannot control that, nor can I tell ahead of time… Feh.))

At the same time I have faith in my fellow soldiers. They are battle-tested, strong, and able to help me in times of need. If my weapon cannot do the intended task I have faith theirs can, and that their training is sufficient. Those that I put my faith in, my team leader and driver (because I’m the gunner), I have been around and come to know. I am learning their strengths and weaknesses, as they are mine, and when we deploy I will have the faith in them that certain situations will require.

I don’t believe that in the least. I think that religion itself is simply a person’s ability to put their faith in something higher then themselves, something that they believe in. A person has all rights to believe what they want, or the opposite. For you, religion is a form of control, I suppose that mostly because you have seen it as trying to convince people the ‘errors of their ways’ and trying to ‘convert them’.

Religion is something far more than that though. It is a system of beliefs that people set for themselves, like guidelines for their life. I believe a lot of what Christianity has to say. Hell, I believe that killing, lying, and stealing are bad. So do they. When Christian’s say “You reap what you sow,” and site it as biblical… I agree with the passage, but I believe in it as a different name ‘Fate’ or ‘Karma’ instead of a biblical fact.

A lot of control is in what people allow themselves into. If you go into a church you are not going to be forced to sit and listen to a message they are delivering. At any time you have the right to stand and leave, or you could even sit through the service and ignore what is being said. Half the time I was in church I was falling asleep, or trying not to. The other half I was daydreaming about ninja’s or some sudden invasion that was so secret we didn’t see it coming… and how I would fight off or defend the building. Lol.

Chidori

I love your points. They are a lot of what I believe, but you put it in words a way I could not. Thank you.

((The others… your reply’s are too long for me to keep my attention span on at the moment. I’ll reply to Sighter and Fut as soon as I get a chance… lol… maybe))

Hey hey hey I wasnt tryin to be ass all Im sayin is that there are two religious threads goin on and I dont have a pathetic life and Im not tryin to inflate my ego cause I dont have a big one so chill and since you saying that I will contribute too this so I dont seem like an ass.(sorry Osato I didnt mean to offend you or anyone please forgive me)

When I was young I didnt really see how there could be a god even though I was Roman catholic. It didnt make sense to me how one man could make the world better when so much bad had happened, and praying for my dead family members nothing good coming for that it just seemed like he abaned me. So I abaned him feeling fine I really didnt worry at all, I was feelin fine I never worried but it felt like I was also letting myself go and not really caring for anything, having goin thourgh fights and more stress with my mom and me doing worse in school. I didnt really notice it but when I left god an jesus I was doin worse not that god was making me do worse but not but I felt like I could do whatever I want now that was byself. years later I saw passion of the christ and that really changed the way I thought of things, so I bought the movie on DVD and the second time I watched I cried so I went out and bought the new testaments book. Reading it I started to understand it more...and science dosent make to much sense to me, not becaues Iam dumb but it is complicated on my standards. SO now I go to church and thank the lord everyday for what he did for me.

Also for women as puinshment god blessed women with painful birth and peirods and men to deal with women, so god dosent hate gays he's just mad at em' cause they found a loop hole in his system.

Teutonic Knight

07-12-06, 08:25 AM

I hate it when you talk about religion on here and tell me your belifies I dont think you should go and spread the word that you belive in some other God then mine which is the one to catholics and why you bring up Jesus name if he does not exsist to you I know how to asure my place in heaven and might as well already have. You may belive in a God but which you cant just say I belive in God. As for those such as Komosatuo you are going to die one day sooner or later and have you ever thought were you would go when your dead?

Read my sig to see what I think as well.

Sighter Tnailog

07-12-06, 08:41 AM

Oh, for the days when we bowed before a polytheistic pantheon. Perhaps in those days it would have been easier to worship the God of Good Spelling and Grammar.

Teutonic Knight

07-12-06, 09:21 AM

Oh, for the days when we bowed before a polytheistic pantheon. Perhaps in those days it would have been easier to worship the God of Good Spelling and Grammar.

What is that supposed to mean are you tryin to make a statement?

Chidori Draconid

07-12-06, 12:30 PM

I hate it when you talk about religion on here and tell me your belifies I dont think you should go and spread the word that you belive in some other God

No one is trying to convert you, Knight. Like I said before, the objective of this thread is to share, not to spread, influence, coax, compell, or sell one's belief. It's to share beliefs in a productive setting. Look on the previous two pages. There is a large number of people who simply stated their beliefs without trying to put down anyone else's.

Komosatuo

07-12-06, 06:30 PM

Maybe we should worship multiple Gods, like the early Romans, Greeks and Barbaric Tribes of the Northern Steppes.

O.o

:)

Teutonic Knight

07-12-06, 06:37 PM

Maybe we should worship multiple Gods, like the early Romans, Greeks and Barbaric Tribes of the Northern Steppes.

O.o

:)

Sounds good mabye there will be less problems. Hail Jupitor,Fortune,Victora, and others if I can remeber....

Komosatuo

07-12-06, 08:29 PM

Mars...He was one of them. He's the cool one. Cause he's red.

Then there's Aries, and Neptune.

And a few others.

Teutonic Knight

07-12-06, 08:30 PM

yea lets start that religion again.

Horizon's End

07-12-06, 09:38 PM

Teutonic Knight

07-12-06, 10:01 PM

your right sorry.

Chiroptera

07-12-06, 10:18 PM

I believe that God will exist as long as one person on the planet believes in him. . . .A single thought can change a person's life, so I thereby claim the complete existance of God, if not in reality as a metaphysical being, then at least in the reality of being an idea.

Just a question. How can an all-powerful and reigning God truly exist if you believe he only exists because you believe in him?
. . .
What I mean is, define "God." Just because I believe that if I jump off a mountain I will not die, my faith does not guarantee that I will sprout wings and glide to safety. How, then, can you justify the statement that belief in a being makes it exist? If I believe that you do not exist, and that all your posts are randomly generated by a roomful of typewriting monkeys, does my disbelief change your existence? How can mere belief shape reality?

Teutonic Knight

07-12-06, 10:22 PM

Just a question. How can an all-powerful and reigning God truly exist if you believe he only exists because you believe in him?
. . .
What I mean is, define "God." Just because I believe that if I jump off a mountain I will not die, my faith does not guarantee that I will sprout wings and glide to safety. How, then, can you justify the statement that belief in a being makes it exist? If I believe that you do not exist, and that all your posts are randomly generated by a roomful of typewriting monkeys, does my disbelief change your existence? How can mere belief shape reality?

Thats a powerful question to get that answer I suggest you go to church or read the bible. But I'm not here to argue about his facial features.

Chiroptera

07-12-06, 10:29 PM

Thats a powerful question to get that answer I suggest you go to church or read the bible. But I'm not here to argue about his facial features.

You misunderstand me. I know who God is, I just wanted to know who he thinks God is.

But good advice, about reading the Bible. You seem a little confused about your own beliefs, so it might help you.:p

Teutonic Knight

07-12-06, 10:34 PM

You misunderstand me. I know who God is, I just wanted to know who she thinks God is.

But good advice, about reading the Bible. You seem a little confused about your own beliefs, so it might help you.:p

haha yea but I see that question was directed to them okay gotcha.

Seether

07-12-06, 11:31 PM

Congrats to ruining an interesting thread with blatant spam! Kudos, no, no, really, you deserve it. It wasn't an easy task, most people would have gone to the flaming, to the denigrating comments but not you, you went for the useless seriousness killing spam. Jesus (Oh the irony!), that's seriously low. Of course I know I can expect at least two more posts from the parties involved saying how that's not the case or something, but seriously, do us all a favor and delete that spam, please.

Which part was spam?

Honestly, isn't this thread about religion and what your views are on it?

Aren't the pagan beliefs, a religion?

That wasn't blatant spam, they were just throwing an idea out, about a religion. I think that's another problem with Christianity, it (the collective whole) thinks it is right and has the one and only right to exsist, and thinks all other religions are blasphemy and worthless.

Paganism is still a solid religious belief in places, mostly African and South American Amazon tribes, but that's not the point. It's still there, so to call it "spam" is like saying it doesn't exist, anymore. Which is almost the same message as Christianity.

If it's not part of us, with us or us in general, it doesn't exist.

Chiroptera

07-13-06, 09:07 AM

I think that's another problem with Christianity, it (the collective whole) thinks it is right and has the one and only right to exsist, and thinks all other religions are blasphemy and worthless.

Paganism is still a solid religious belief in places, mostly African and South American Amazon tribes, but that's not the point. It's still there, so to call it "spam" is like saying it doesn't exist, anymore. Which is almost the same message as Christianity.

If it's not part of us, with us or us in general, it doesn't exist.

You claim that Christianity is unaccepting of other views on deities and the like, but then you stereotype by assuming that all Christians have some sort of condescending and lofty attitude towards the rest of the religious world.

How can you possible try to convince anyone that Christianity is the only religion that believes itself to be right? Christians live according to the guidelines and laws set forth in the Bible, our book of Truth. If what other people choose to believe is contrary to what is said in the Bible, that belief is wrong. To give a rather obtuse example, the Bible tells us not to murder. Those who believe in God and who follow his instruction do not murder because we know that to do so would displease our God.

Now let's look at Islamic terrorists. (I told you it would be obtuse) They kill innocent people in the name of their god.

My God says: Do not kill.
Their god says: Kill the heathens.

These statements cannot be reconciled. Therefore, one of them is wrong. Forgive me if I'm more inclined to believe in a God of justice over one of vengeance . . .

Aleister

07-13-06, 09:18 AM

To give a rather obtuse example, the Bible tells us not to murder. Those who believe in God and who follow his instruction do not murder because we know that to do so would displease our God.

No offence, but if you're not murdering only because it displeases your god, there's something wrong with you. Seriously, morality created religion, not the other way around, and even atheists don't kill for the simple fact that it's wrong. Of course, there are always exceptions.

Now let's look at Islamic terrorists. (I told you it would be obtuse) They kill innocent people in the name of their god.

We could also look at the Crusades. To murder a heaten in the name of our God, The Lord Jesus Christ, is not murder, or atleast was not considered such. Pat Robinson recently commenting that a leader of a certain South American country should be assassinated, although he's less Christian in my eyes, and more a giant asshole.

There are Christian terrorists who do kill, "In the name of god." People who bomb abortion clinics? The Klu Klux Klan repeatedly states that it is a religious group and justifies its tactics by religion.

My God says: Do not kill.
Their god says: Kill the heathens.

Please don't be that ignorant, not to capitolize them both. You realize you worrship the same, monotheisitic god. You merely worrship him/her in different ways. Or did you not learn this in Freshman history, Abraham and his son with Hagar, finding a spring in the desert?

I don't believe in god, but I do have moral values, as empty as they seem at times. I think that this life is all we have, and after it there is nothing. I may be wrong, everyone else may be wrong. I really don't care what you accept, because we'll all know the truth when the curtain falls for the last time.

Chiroptera

07-13-06, 11:08 AM

In response to your comment about the Crusaders, Aleister, I will be the first to admit that there are and have been crimes committed in the name of God. As this thread clearly demonstrates, even people who claim to share the same religion have varying views on what following that religion entails. The Crusaders, Abortion Clinic Bombers, even some of those phony TV healers are all examples of people making mistakes, doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. Humans are gullible, volatile creatures, easily mislead by their emotions and the influence of those around them. The Crusades were launched by kings who desired expansion, but who justified their wars by claiming that they were ordered by God. If you study the historical facts of the crusades, however, the crimes and atrocities committed by those involved bely the crusader's claims of "conquering for God." There is no way that God would order the rape of thousands of women, the slaughter children for their race, and the torturing of Israelis to force them to convert.

I do not capitolize the god in reference to Islam because I do not acknowledge Allah, the Islamic god, as my own. For one thing, I've never read the Koran, so I really don't know who he is. For another, the works of his followers do not coincide with the laws and orders of my God, indicating- in my mind- that he is a different God.. Just because someone worships a single false god instead of a multitude of them, that god does not automatically become the only possible monotheistic god available.

Aleister

07-13-06, 11:14 AM

No, you're really not getting it. Allah is just what the muslims call your god. It's the same god. Jews, Christians, and Muslims are all part of the Abraham line, they can all trace their God to Abraham and the covenant. Muslims even agree that Jesus was a prophet, but not the son of god, and all say the last prophet was Muhammad. You just don't understand that Jews, Muslims, and Christians are all related, and calling their god false is calling your own false. All three monotheisitc faiths choose to worrship in their own way with their own belifes.

Please, read up. You don't even need to read the Koran. They teach this in history, you realize.

Also, the pope called for the Crusades, kings just saw the oppurtunity.

Chiroptera

07-13-06, 11:31 AM

No, you're missing my point. Though both belief systems may have stemmed from a common ancestor, it is with Jesus that they break into two entirely separate religions. As you say, the Islamic religion does not believe that Jesus was the son of God and that he died and was raised again. It is this belief that is the core of Christianity. Look at the name "Christian." Means "Little Christ." Our faith is based off the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

But here's where it gets a little complicated. Jesus is God. God exists in three parts, as you probably know, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. That is the core and most foundational aspect of God's nature in the Christian religion.
Muslims do not believe that Jesus is the son of God, and therefore they cannot possibly believe that God exists in these three parts. Their god, therefore, can not be the same God as the Christian God, because he does not have God's tri-existing attribute.

True, the Islamic god may be related to the Christian God in that their god was based on the God in the Pentateuch, but related is not synonymous with the same.

Horizon's End

07-13-06, 12:40 PM

I was a bit disappointed no one commented on my last post since it was a question I was actually very curious to know answers for but I’ll live. I guess by now I’ll just post my thoughts in an effort to organize them for future reference. My next argument will be against scripture (in general) so I’ll likely be wrong on some points considering my limited experience with this argument, Sighter or elsewho feel free to correct and knock down any errors I might come across.

On the Scriptural Dilemma

Where to begin? First I’ll do so by introducing my point of view and clarifying what I’m actually concerned about. I will not be solely arguing against the Bible, which is one item of scripture whereas I mean to argue against the idea of them in general. Likely most of my examples will be from it but there’s not much I can do about that right now. There are three avenues to pursue here (possibly more but I’ll just touch on these), intra-scriptural inconsistencies, inter-scriptural inconsistencies and intra-scriptural interpretativeness. As I hope you can figure out I completely made those terms up but they should work. I’ll start with the second one since it ties in with my previous post so I’ll keep it short.

Inter-Scriptural Inconsistencies: For most people this isn’t an issue but I’d just like to bring it up. Most scriptures have mutually incompatible histories, morals, teachings and ideologies, I don’t think I’ll get any arguments against that. This leads one to believe that most religions are not literally compatible. If this is the case it goes back to the question in the previous post, why are you justified in holding your religious stance when your religion is mostly determined by your circumstances of birth (time and place)? This is not a strong argument against the idea of scripture, I guess, if you believe that one among them is the ‘true’ scripture but this begs the question of why that would be the case.

Here, I guess is where I can treat the above argument (here and the third item). First I find it very sad that people who seem otherwise cultured and intelligent would actually believe that to be Muslim is to believe the death of innocents is justifiable, you can do the exact same with the Bible if you selectively apply certain passages, Deuteronomy 13 comes to mind. I don’t know as much about Islam as I do Christianity but I do have friends who are Muslims who only differ in any conceivable way from most Christians in that they don’t eat pork. One of them told me that Islam preaches tolerance for the people of the book (don’t remember the term exactly but it was something along those lines) which equates to Judaism and Christianity. This, for me, was pretty shocking since most religions don’t do that, Christianity and Judaism included. Here I’ll actually touch on something particular about Christianity since it was brought up:

There is no way that God would order the rape of thousands of women, the slaughter children for their race, and the torturing of Israelis to force them to convert.

Rather than divert you to an appropriate passage I’ll quote it: “9:4 And the LORD said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof. 9:5 And to the others he said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity. 9:6 Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men which were before the house. 9:7 And he said unto them, Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain: go ye forth. And they went forth, and slew in the city.” (From Ezekiel)

This was not something men did in the name of God, this was something God commanded so I don’t see much leeway here. That’s the Old Testament God is a typical defense but according to almost everyone God doesn’t magically change between books, they’re said to be the same God. There’s also passages where he encourages rape and countless other such acts but, as before, I’m not here to argue against Christianity, this was simply a rebuttal.

As was mentioned there are irreconcilable differences between different religions, this is what for me makes it impossible to push your own to the status of untouchable. Personally I find you can choose to believe in your religion but you can never justifiably disparage another, there’s just nowhere to lean back on if you do. You can believe the morals of your religion are better but this implies an objective morality code which is above your religion and therefore not linked to it and as accessible by the believers as non-believers.

Intra-Scriptural Inconsistencies: This is a bit more problematic for some people and in the end it will tie in with my third made up term but for now I’ll keep to the main idea. Many scriptures have descriptions and events which are not mutually compatible e.g. two different creation stories in Genesis, the global flood for which there is no evidence, the idea of a benevolent God who commits acts we I think we can safely label as atrocious. I know some way to reconcile these exists but most are based on interpretations, as far as I know which is the next point, what I mean here is that taken literally there are discrepancies which chip away at the literal inerrancy of scripture. This is problematic when there are contradicting dictates, e.g. don’t kill, stone adulterers. Personally I recall the Bible had a lot of these and I’ve been told the Koran, at least, does as well. Granted this is insufficient evidence to thus condemn all scripture but I think it’s not an unreasonable guess to believe no scripture is perfectly consistent.

This is, I think, resolved by prioritizing different aspects of the scripture, glossing over less tasteful aspects and reinterpreting the information within. This brings us to:

Intra-Scriptural Interpretativeness: A fun made up name for a serious issue. The gist of my argument here relies on a form of the slippery-slope. If you can choose which parts of scripture to interpret literally and which not to one can easily see the problem that arises. Is God’s command to kill all non-believers meant to reflect the precarious nature of the times or is it an actual command? Is the story of *name* where *event* happens a chronicle or a metaphor or both? Here is another tough sell for me, if you don’t believe in the literal truth of your scripture how is interpreting it using your beliefs not a reflection of what you want to believe more than what the scripture actually says? I’m not implying that nothing can be extracted, I’m actually doing the opposite by saying that if you don’t take a literal stance then can’t anything be extracted? Doesn’t that then mean that your beliefs are actually using scripture as a front-end instead of as their core?

I hope I’m framing my point adequately but if it’s not, again, tell me so I can correct it for future reference. This, in turn, leads me against “spiritual” or “personal” beliefs in the God of a particular religion. If the only way you know God is through a religion how can you claim that you don’t believe in the religion but you do in its God? Without the religion the God’s simply not there, if you believe in anything it’s in a God of your own fabrication or in the idea of a general God. If you believe in parts of what is claimed by the religion but disregard others how, then, can you say it’s the same God. It’s as if I chose to believe the Bible when it says God is omniscient but not when it says he’s all-powerful or personal. I mean, it’s possible but what I dislike is when those people then claim that their path is more enlightened, it comes back to what I was saying, you either believe it all or you don’t. Most people lie between the spectra but this is my second so far unanswered question: how do you avoid the slippery slope of interpreting scripture at will without having a previous idea of what it should be?

Puck

07-13-06, 12:56 PM

Muslims do not believe that Jesus is the son of God, and therefore they cannot possibly believe that God exists in these three parts. Their god, therefore, can not be the same God as the Christian God, because he does not have God's tri-existing attribute.

Aha! But! If you were to sit a Christian down and have him pray to God and have both a Jew and Muslim pray beside him would God ignore the prayers of one and acknowledge the other? Or is it possible that near all religions pray to the same being, simply worshiping him in different ways and calling him different names? I like to think so. I like to think that being a good person is good enough for God, no matter how you worship him or what you call him.

And on a side note I like the name Allah.

>.>

Chiroptera

07-13-06, 01:11 PM

Case in point if you’re not born in a Christian region you will likely never become or acknowledge Christianity as valid, likewise many Christians dismiss Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, etc. Here by dismiss I do not mean dismiss out of hand (though, of course, some do), but dismiss as ‘they’re not in the right’. Each religion tends to do that and why shouldn’t it? If believers were encouraged to admit other religions might be right or have merits your own does not posses they might start questioning their own; this is why I believe most major religions have the “Believe in me and no one but me clause” which safeguards against this but, in a global world, it only serves to create artificial boundaries between people, much like nations but that’s a whole other story.

What I’m really after here is questioning how a particular religion can be accepted as true when others are dismissed. For instance if you trust the Bible why would you not the Koran, if you do, good for you, but what of the Vedas? What of the Tripitaka (Buddhist scriptures)? Why is your text the right text when had you been born a thousand miles away you would just as easily have argued for that very other book? Religions have come and gone throughout the ages and we can even extend this argument to the Poetic and Prose Eddas and to the Popol Vuh, for instance. What separated those (obviously mistaken) religions from the currently accepted one? This argument, is again, against the idea of a single religion, the idea of a supernatural being has not yet been disputed.

It's funny that you would say that, because I recently had a similar discussion after reading Memoirs of a Geisha. One of my friends was aghast at the "complete lack of self-respect and morality" that the geishas exhibited. She claimed that though the character seemed to show no care at all for her virginity or purity, the women involved had to have some sort of innate knowledge that what they were doing was "sin."

Another of my friends said that she was wrong because the people in that country were raised with a different set of morals, so what is considered a sin in our culture is not necessarily even a crime or a breach of morals in another.

My opinion on the matter is that there is only one version of truth. Let's say there's a tribe somewhere that drinks snake venom because they believe that it will grant the survivors immortality. They may have been raised to believe this, but the truth is that the venom does not do anything but kill, regardless of their belief. In the same way, the children of the tribe probably grow up thinking that if they can drink that blood, they'll live forever, and scoff at the other tribes who don't follow their practices. If they drink the venom, though, they'll still die. That's why it's so important for those who know the truth to share it with those who don't, so that the tribe will stop drinking the blood, and so that those who were raised in this mistaken lifestyle can change.

And to Puck:
Who gets to decide what "being a good person" is? Is there an invisible line that one has to cross to get from being a good person to a bad person? Or are all our deeds weighed on a scale to determine of our goodness outweighs our badness? And is it just our deeds, the manifestation of our intentions, or the thoughts and motives that drive us? If we kill people, but do something nice for their family once they're dead, is the killing neutralized?

Sorry, didn't mean to barrage.:o

Molotov

07-13-06, 01:15 PM

the thing is their god is the exact same person. According to the Koran, their god first came down, created Adam and Eve and all that good stuff, and the old testament happened. However, the Jews made some mistakes. Then god came and spoke through Jesus as his prophet. The Christians made some mistakes. He came down one final time and spoke through Muhammad. The point that Vorin is trying to make is that it is the same god that all y'all are praying to. It is not a different person.

Also, you should keep in mind that when you separate the bad acts of Christians from the dictum of their god, you should make a separation between the bad acts of Muslims and the dictum of their god as well. If Abortion Clinic Bombers and Crusaders are not true Christians, neither are Islamic terrorists who are violating Sharia law true Muslims (killing civillians is banned in the Koran).

Now some of you are going to bring up Jihad, but an actual military Jihad is a very hard thing to obtain. It is similar to the Christian Just War. Islam is no more or less violent as an ideology. At the moment, there is an increasing amount of violence supposedly under the name of Islam in the Middle East, but this does not delegitimate the religion any more than the Crusades or the Spanish Inquisition delegitimate Christianity.

Chiroptera

07-13-06, 01:25 PM

You're absolutely correct about Islam not being a violent religion just because of the actions of the few. I hope I wasn't mistakenly heard to have said that. Looking back in history, I would actually be inclined to believe that so-called Christians have had the more violent and bloody past.

Once again, however, all religions who follow a single God do not automatically follow the same God. I already mentioned the tri-existing nature of the Christian God, which is flat-out denied in the Koran when Jesus is reduced to prophet. The Islamic Bible makes that distinction between their God and the Christian one. Any religion that does no acknowledge Jesus as the reincarnated son and aspect of God follows a different god.

Horizon's End

07-13-06, 02:34 PM

I hope you don't find this offensive but to illustrate what I mean about the impossibility of elevating one religion above others:

My opinion on the matter is that there is only one version of truth. Let's say there's a tribe somewhere that drinks snake venom because they believe that it will grant the survivors immortality. They may have been raised to believe this, but the truth is that the venom does not do anything but kill, regardless of their belief. In the same way, the children of the tribe probably grow up thinking that if they can drink that blood, they'll live forever, and scoff at the other tribes who don't follow their practices. If they drink the venom, though, they'll still die. That's why it's so important for those who know the truth to share it with those who don't, so that the tribe will stop drinking the blood, and so that those who were raised in this mistaken lifestyle can change.

In the above let's do the following edits: tribe = religion, drinks snake venom = pray to a Triumvirate God, survivors = believers, venom = what they pray to, kill = delude, that blood = to a Triumvirate God, die = be deluded, immortality = eternal life in the kingdom of God
Leaving us:

"My opinion on the matter is that there is only one version of truth. Let's say there's a religion somewhere that pray to a Triumvirate God because they believe that it will grant the believers eternal life in the kingdom of God. They may have been raised to believe this, but the truth is that what they pray to does not do anything but delude, regardless of their belief. In the same way, the children of the religion probably grow up thinking that if they can pray to the Triumvirate God they'll live forever (in the kingdom of God), and scoff at the other religions who don't follow their practices. If they pray to the Triumvirate God, though, they'll still be deluded. That's why it's so important for those who know the truth to share it with those who don't, so that the religion will stop praying to the Triumvirate God, and so that those who were raised in this mistaken lifestyle can change."

I don't mean imply a direct correspondence since their action is physical while religion's is mental nor single out Christianity as Triumvirate God can be replaced by God(s) but this way I hope you can see why I ask how it is you feel Christianity has a hallowed place among other ideologies. You're commiting the same fallacy the tribe is by scoffing at those who don't follow your practices, I guess is what I'm getting at. This may not be the case but from what you've written it seems to be.

Seether

07-13-06, 06:28 PM

Now let's look at Islamic terrorists. (I told you it would be obtuse) They kill innocent people in the name of their god.

My God says: Do not kill.
Their god says: Kill the heathens.

These statements cannot be reconciled. Therefore, one of them is wrong. Forgive me if I'm more inclined to believe in a God of justice over one of vengeance . . .
Let me make a small defensive point about this...

You remember the Crusades, right?

I think that entails enough defensive action on that subject. If you know your history, which I'm sure a good majority of you do, I think you'll understand my point here.

You're absolutely correct about Islam not being a violent religion just because of the actions of the few. I hope I wasn't mistakenly heard to have said that. Looking back in history, I would actually be inclined to believe that so-called Christians have had the more violent and bloody past.

lol I stand corrected and appologize. :p

Cyrus the virus

07-13-06, 06:36 PM

Man am I tired of people using the Crusades as an argument against modern Christianity and general belief in/following of Christ. It couldn't be more irrelevant at this point.

I'd think up a good analogy to explain how I feel here, but I can't. The above is just what I'm feeling right now, I guess.

Aleister

07-13-06, 06:44 PM

Once again, however, all religions who follow a single God do not automatically follow the same God. I already mentioned the tri-existing nature of the Christian God, which is flat-out denied in the Koran when Jesus is reduced to prophet. The Islamic Bible makes that distinction between their God and the Christian one. Any religion that does no acknowledge Jesus as the reincarnated son and aspect of God follows a different god.

Judaism doesn't believe this. So do you believe the jewish god, whom your very religion is based off, whose books you use, is different from the Christian god? I need to understand your "logic", as it's almost making me dig my nails deep inside my skull as to how you blindly throw things off.

Sighter Tnailog

07-13-06, 07:09 PM

The Trinity is a slightly harder concept to nail down, Chiroptera, than you suggest.

What Muslims deny is not the "Father" (excuse the patriarchy) of the Christian tradition. What they deny is the co-eternality of the Son. I think you make a good point -- Christians and Muslims do not technically worship the "same" God, in the sense that Christians view the Son and the Holy Spirit as technically "God."

However, even the New Testament is ambivalent on that identity. Take one of the key proof-texts for the Trinity, "And there are three who testify in Heaven: Father, Word, and Holy Spirit, and these three are one; and there are three who testify on earth." 1 John 5: 7-8. This is called the "Johannine Comma," because several other texts read: "There are three who testify: the Spirit, the Water, and the Blood, and these three are in agreement." The Comma is found in only eight of the over five thousand manuscripts of 1 John we have available.

However, the Comma was eventually transcribed into the Latine Vulgate, so that's where we get a lot of this thinking. But it is corroborated virtually nowhere else in the New Testament: none of the passages mentioning the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit go that second step and proclaim them coequal, coeternal entities.

Let me state unequivocally: I am a Trinitarian Christian. I am so because the Trinity as a theological concept is incredibly useful in understanding the nature of God and God's relationships. However, when one deals with the field of theology, one cannot easily proclaim scriptural backing for one's arguments as much as one must rely on a wellspring of tradition and experience. Because of this, I'm reluctant to proclaim that Muslims and Christians worship a different God. The Bible is simply too unclear on God's full identity to make such arrogant truth-claims.

If there's any truth in the Bible, I think I find it most here: "Now we see through a glass, darkly; then we will see face to face. Now I know in part;
then I will know fully, even as I am fully known." 1 Corinthians 13:12.

We just don't know enough to KNOW. It's that simple. It's the Bible at its simplest, most existential best.

As to your points, Horizon's End, I see you saying two things when you say the Bible has God ordering those people to kill people. In one breath, you're saying that there's no reason to believe the Bible. But in the next, you're saying that, if you do, then you have to admit that God ordered people to do something.

I buy neither statement. Both are at logical extremities; one implies the Bible is worthless, the other that the Bible is a literal representation of literal events. As Ashiakin once said to me, "Gee, Sighter, why do you have to keep reminding us that the Bible was written?"

Scripture is a record of a people's attempt to construct reality in response to paradigmatic events in their history. After centuries of telling the story of a battle lost in the haze of oral tradition, it is easy to see how it becomes embellished from a tribal conflict, to a fight for religious convictions, to the result of a command by God. It is partly a way to assuage guilt; what we did was bad; as we tell the story, we're telling it to make us look good, and so it slowly metamorphoses to keep its basic factuality, but at the same time let us off the hook as much as possible.

Scripture records these events in the same way as, say, early American historians of the dropping of the Atom Bomb. Yet we aren't saying that we should throw the field of history out on its head, are we? Why do we set up a double standard for religion? We need to examine and wrestle with the collective history of scripture; it searches us, indicts us, examines us, and convicts us. To toss it out is to play dangerously with the very identity of the past.

Chiroptera

07-13-06, 08:36 PM

I hope you don't find this offensive but to illustrate what I mean about the impossibility of elevating one religion above others:

In the above let's do the following edits: tribe = religion, drinks snake venom = pray to a Triumvirate God, survivors = believers, venom = what they pray to, kill = delude, that blood = to a Triumvirate God, die = be deluded, immortality = eternal life in the kingdom of God
Leaving us:

"My opinion on the matter is that there is only one version of truth. Let's say there's a religion somewhere that pray to a Triumvirate God because they believe that it will grant the believers eternal life in the kingdom of God. They may have been raised to believe this, but the truth is that what they pray to does not do anything but delude, regardless of their belief. In the same way, the children of the religion probably grow up thinking that if they can pray to the Triumvirate God they'll live forever (in the kingdom of God), and scoff at the other religions who don't follow their practices. If they pray to the Triumvirate God, though, they'll still be deluded. That's why it's so important for those who know the truth to share it with those who don't, so that the religion will stop praying to the Triumvirate God, and so that those who were raised in this mistaken lifestyle can change."

Way to turn my own analogy against me, Horizon.:D

Really, I'm not being sarcastic. You're right. People who aren't Christians say the same thing about Christians that people who aren't Muslim say about Muslims. But the fact is, only one of us can be right. So maybe the venom-drinking tribe is the only band of immortals. . .

I don't mean imply a direct correspondence since their action is physical while religion's is mental nor single out Christianity as Triumvirate God can be replaced by God(s) but this way I hope you can see why I ask how it is you feel Christianity has a hallowed place among other ideologies.

This is another of those false beliefs concerning the attitude of Christians towards the rest of the world. No, I do not scoff at other faiths. I, for believing in Christ, am no better a person than any other who walks the earth. I merely claim to know the truth about God, based on my faith. I believe that an all-powerful God sent his son- an aspect of himself- to save the world and then was brought back to life. That kind of declaration doesn't leave me much room to scoff at others for their beliefs. There are plenty of religions out there that make more sense, that appeal to the more sensical (is that a word?) and logical parts of our mind, but the fact that humans can understand them doesn't make them any truer.

To Aleister:
I think that you're still missing my point. Yes, Jews and Christians use the same books, but the difference is that Christians use an . . . expanded edition. Judaism does not support Jesus as the son of God and arrived Savior. They are still awaiting theirs. Yes, they worship God, the same God that we do (because Jesus, as an aspect of God, existed in the beginning and thus was a part of the Pentateuch), but they do not believe that Jesus is the one who bridged the gap that sin placed between humans and God. This refusal to accept his gift leaves them unredeemed. (Quote from Jesus: "I am the way, the truth, and the light. No man can come to the Father except through me.")
So I yield to your point that Jews and Christians worship the same God, but that does not mean that Jews are going to heaven.

Aleister

07-13-06, 08:42 PM

So I yield to your point that Jews and Christians worship the same God, but that does not mean that Jews are going to heaven.

But the fact is, only one of us can be right. So maybe the venom-drinking tribe is the only band of immortals. . .

Doesn't mean you're going either. As you've said, in your own words,

I merely claim to know the truth about God, based on my faith.

I've said it before, I'll say it again. There's only one way to find out the truth, but once you do, there's no coming back. I'm so laughing at everyone if there's nothing in the end. :)

Horizon's End

07-13-06, 08:58 PM

Hm... that's a good point Sighter about the Historical analogy. As I'd said that was a new...experiment for me, I was sounding out ideas and hadn't realized Religion could be equated to a field like History. As for the other argument I don't think that's very valid I was simply countering Chiroptera's claim that her God doesn't command such things. In retrospect that belonged outside the point I was making so I apologize for the confusion. The more I think of your point the more I believe most people should take that approach to religion if they have it, you have to grant, though, that most people have not thought as deeply about it and come to such a conclusion. As long as you believe because you believe and that your scripture is the epic of your people things aren't as problematic as they are in most standard approaches.

As for Chiroptera, as I was saying my argument was only against Christianity since it was directly applicable to you. My argument is more general than saying you believe this, I mean to say that there's no way for anyone to do this yet you can't deny that a large percent of people do do this, at the very least internally. However you are misinterpreting part of what I'm saying, I'm not saying that as a believer of non-descript religion 'X' you necessarily believe yourself to be better than others but that you believe your truth is the only truth. In the example to the, say, Hindi your truth might be as laughable as the tribesmen's was to you yet most religious worldviews block out the possibility of alternative truths. This is up to personal prerogative, of course, but I can't say I agree with the basis for such an argument.

Chiroptera

07-13-06, 09:17 PM

What you say about knowledge is true, Sighter. I really cannot claim to understand God. I read the Pentateuch and the Prophets and I am blown away by some of the commands God gives. I don't know God fully. I don't believe that my limited psyche could ever fully understand Him. He exists outside of the human spectre of comprehension. I won't try to justify God because he doesn't need me to defend him. It is not people's belief in God that makes him exist.

Horizon: Yeah, believe me, I've met those type. The disdainful hyprocrites who preach to their friends merely for the rise they get from feeling morally and spiritually superior. But don't forget about the Islamic terrorists being the exception, not the rule. The same applies.

I've said it before, I'll say it again. There's only one way to find out the truth, but once you do, there's no coming back. I'm so laughing at everyone if there's nothing in the end. :)

You're right. I may be a gullible loser who fell for the biggest hoax in history. If such is the case and death really is the end of all things, then good! I won't have to live with the fear that my friend died without having accepted Christ as her Savior, because if she's truly non-existing, then she was spared from the horrible fate of hell.

But if I'm right, then when the "end" comes, it won't give me any pleasure at all to see those who didn't believe perish. I am not anti-other- religions. I am pro-truth. You're right again, there is only one way to ever find out for sure; but by then, for some people, it'll be too late.

Vorin

07-13-06, 09:35 PM

Yes, but what if non-existance is true. As much as I hate to say this, you'll only get one life, and not living it to its fullest, its richest could be the only Sin. Because without a god, humans are the highest thinking being *that is known of now* in the universe. So we must decide our own rules, rules that accept everyone no matter who or what they are. We'd have to play god. That is, if there is no god.

Don't get me wrong, faith is a beautiful thing. It defies logic, and I applaude it for being able to get people through tough times. Amazing that even in the face of reason, faith an exist. And sometimes faith, hope, it wins in the end.

Personally, however, I've said it time and time again. If god is real, I will never accept him as my lord or savoir, even under the threat of unending torture. That's just how I roll.

Chiroptera

07-13-06, 09:59 PM

Sorry, Vorin, but your post sounds a little arrogant to me. Kinda gun-ho, Arnold Schwarzenegger, "go ahead and rip out my eyeballs with a pair of titanium chopsticks and replace then with burning coals, it won't bother me!."
Having faith does not limit one's ability to "live life to the fullest." I have a great life! Being a Christian does not entail wearing a habit and praying sixteen hours and day and condescendingly clucking one's tongue at the paganistic immorality of the rest of the world.
If by "living life to the fullest" you mean boozing it up every night, smoking like a chimney, and sleeping with ever female who will spread her legs for you . . . forgive me for not joining your halls of merry gaiety.

Sorry.:o
Didn't mean to rant. I just don't understand why some people who refuse to believe in God decide to insert themselves into that supposedly non-existing spot.

Vorin

07-13-06, 10:43 PM

...sleeping with ever female who will spread her legs for you...

forgive me for not joining your halls of merry gaiety.
Ask around the forum and you'll find the humor in that.

Sorry.
Didn't mean to rant. I just don't understand why some people who refuse to believe in God decide to insert themselves into that supposedly non-existing spot.

I can give you alot of reasons why. How I felt betrayed by god when my grandmother was taken from me in a grotesique death which I witnessed. How my mother was in a state of drunken/high stupor for nearly two years after that.

I could also give you my hubris, that I'm too proud and it may damn well be the downfall of this protagonist.

But one of the main things is, I hate black and white. I hate "Door #1 and Door #2". There isn't just good and evil, and their shouldn't be accept christ or hell. I will not play by those rules.

Now, by 'living life to its fullest', Drinking is fun for a while but comes back to bite you in the ass, as does smoking, drugs, and *alot of, usually unprotected* sex. That being said, I don't believe pleasures of the flesh should be sworn off simply because god says so. If he does not exist, it would be a sin not to enjoy what may be your last horrah.

Chiroptera

07-13-06, 10:55 PM

Another thing. Many people claim not to believe in God because they say that there is no way an all-powerful being would allow suffering to exist. But without suffering, how can anyone truly understand joy?

People who live through cancer and deadly diseases come away from the experience with a new appreciation for life, so why assume that God is the one who caused those troubles, instead of the one whose good nature is highlighted by the darkness of life?

I can understand your intolerance for absolutism. Blurry lines are always more intrigueing than defined ones. But in this case, I think it's good to have a clear-cut line. If you really enjoy studying seeming-contradictions and blurry lines, read the Bible. Seriously, I'm not just trying to convert you. The Bible is jam-packed with fuzzy lines and bewildering riddles. The only truly clear line is the one that connects God to Jesus to humanity through his death and resurrection.

Meow

07-13-06, 11:06 PM

I myself have given up on Yahweh. As far as Jesus, I believe there was a real Jesus and he was a great philosopher for his time (I’d say he’s up there with Plato) but he isn’t the savoir of humanity or the sun of god. I myself believe in the more eastern fashion that instead of a true god there is more of a way that things work, a Tao of the universe that governs the way things are. There are things that are right and wrong because they are helpful or destructive to the world and everything. There isn’t a god that says this is right or wrong but there is a feeling in our hearts that something is wrong and it’s in the hearts of animals and plants, we can go against the heart and the Tao doesn’t care but the negativity from it spreads as that’s how the Tao works but no one can understand it because it isn’t human and doesn’t have qualities that we assign to god which are human. God is a personification of the way but the way can only be itself and really isn’t a god but a cosmic way the universe works and follows.

Vorin

07-13-06, 11:06 PM

Another thing. Many people claim not to believe in God because they say that there is no way an all-powerful being would allow suffering to exist. But without suffering, how can anyone truly understand joy?
I love this arguement. I reallyed enjoyed it in the movie Saw, gotta' love the philosophy that you don't truly enjoy something until you've almost lost it, that you don't appreciate love until you've almost lost it. But using it to explain god doesn't work, since these things were never suppose to exist. Man was going to live in the garden of eden, and Man was thrown out. god never intended to cause people pain, and for a being of omnipotence to make a plan up on the fly sounds a bit flimsy in my eyes. Of course, Satan was beautiful in the eyes of god until the hour he fell. So anything's possible.

I can understand your intolerance for absolutism. Blurry lines are always more intrigueing than defined ones. But in this case, I think it's good to have a clear-cut line. If you really enjoy studying seeming-contradictions and blurry lines, read the Bible. Seriously, I'm not just trying to convert you. The Bible is jam-packed with fuzzy lines and bewildering riddles. The only truly clear line is the one that connects God to Jesus to humanity through his death and resurrection.

No, I swore off the bible the day I lost my faith and don't have any plan to go back. Philosophies can be found in many other places, and arugments on this very forum are filled with blurred lines. I don't need to look to the divine to find aspects of grey, I just need to look at the imperfection of humanity. *Shoot me for this, oh gothic ditractors and philosophical experts* I enjoy reading things from enlightenment thinkers, or, for a modern twist, I find Anne Rice's takes on good and evil interesting. I'm quite filled on the blurred line.

Now, my suffering never increased my joy. My heartache still has never let up, and god has yet to answer my prayers from long ago. I'm petty, I know, but god had his chance in my heart. I look at humanity and see something there, something that can actually be seen. Divinity is not needed for the amazing works that humans have created, and I prefer to think of myself believing in that.

Letho

07-13-06, 11:13 PM

People who live through cancer and deadly diseases come away from the experience with a new appreciation for life, so why assume that God is the one who caused those troubles, instead of the one whose good nature is highlighted by the darkness of life?I really didn't want to join this argument because I hate religious arguments and I'm probably not smart enough to be in one, but this is something that struck me on a personal level. Most of my family on my father's side (including my father) died from cancer. My grandfather, my aunt, my uncle, my dad all kicked the bucket even though both my father and my grandfather were preachers and probably best fucking people I ever knew. They prayed, we prayed, everybody prayed and they still died and not in a very nice way, mind you. I don't know if you know how cancer kills, but it destroys the person, not just the body, but their spirits. And soon enough you're not looking at the same people anymore.

My point is, life sucks. There aren't always highlights even if you pray your ass out in whatever religion you believe in.

Meow

07-13-06, 11:31 PM

I really didn't want to join this argument because I hate religious arguments and I'm probably not smart enough to be in one, but this is something that struck me on a personal level. Most of my family on my father's side (including my father) died from cancer. My grandfather, my aunt, my uncle, my dad all kicked the bucket even though both my father and my grandfather were preachers and probably best fucking people I ever knew. They prayed, we prayed, everybody prayed and they still died and not in a very nice way, mind you. I don't know if you know how cancer kills, but it destroys the person, not just the body, but their spirits. And soon enough you're not looking at the same people anymore.

My point is, life sucks. There aren't always highlights even if you pray your ass out in whatever religion you believe in.

I know how that feels, my grandfather just died like that and my mother's fighting it. But Nihilism’s the worst thing for you; it’s a cancer in itself. Things are good and things are bad and then it ends, but the life’s a bitch and then you die attitude is a cancer. I would have killed myself if I kept it and almost have and I even had a spat of Nihilism where I saw no point in anything last week and almost killed myself if my arms didn’t go weak with fear. Sometimes you have to search for something, whether God, Buddha, Brahman, human light, the Goddess, the Tao; it’s all better than Nihilism because that is just something that destroys a mans spirit and it almost claimed mine so recently.

Sighter Tnailog

07-14-06, 12:01 AM

At the risk of making the philosophical error of "do whatever feels good," I would like to say another thing.

There's an extent to which what Vorin said earlier about how he'd rather live his life well and have a good time while it lasts makes a bit of sense, I'll grant it. But the corresponding assumption that those who choose to follow a religion are simply seeking pie in the sky by and by, and not really enjoying their lives while living them, is somewhat flawed.

People can draw immense joy from their religious tradition. There is a thrill that can sneak down your spine as a crescendo swells during a hymn, or a tickling feeling in the back of your head as you see life differently as the result of a scripture verse. Those who have chosen to dedicate their lives to this or that religion are not necessarily dooming themselves to a dour life of glumness and sadness.

This is not so much an argument for religion -- to say that religion is worthwhile only if it gives you a thrill is to basically subscribe to hedonism disguised in religious trappings -- as it is an argument against glibly saying that those with religious traditions aren't living their lives properly. To say something like that is to set up about as much of an absolutist dogma as there is.

For, in the end, anti-absolutism is its own form of absolutism. The denial of grand narratives becomes its own grand narrative. The postmodern spirit of decentralization sets up decentralization as a centralized motif. As much as Derrida warned against this, it still happens to the best of us.

That said, one of the reasons I like the idea of religion is that it ties me into a framework that is broader than myself. I am more than a sexual being, a creative being, an artistic being. Religion makes me a human...it makes me humanist. I know, I know, there are myriad arguments about how humanism can be tied somewhere outside religion. But, at the same time, Western humanism drew some of its leading lights from Jesuit teachers and German monastics. So I wouldn't discount religion. God isn't dead, even if God is merely a figment of your imagination.

Chiroptera

07-14-06, 12:08 AM

God isn't dead, even if God is merely a figment of your imagination.

Can't quite intellectially grasp this sentence. The rest of what you said is downright quotable! Made me want to jump up and dance down the street in my knickers.

- a sight that would scare the religion right into you!

Cyrus the virus

07-14-06, 05:19 AM

Damn, Chiro, you are one patient lady. I would have snapped at Vorin's posts by now. Kudos to you, madam, I'm proud.

I think it's important to note that God doesn't control the lives of every human on this planet. That means He doesn't make the decision for your father to be abusive, your mother to be a drunk, your sister to be a lesbian, your brother to be a murderer, your uncle to be a prostitute ring organizer... You know, that stuff. I think blaming God for situations like that is pointless. Unless you want to quite literally be His puppet, there are going to be shitty people in the world.

Vorin

07-14-06, 08:35 AM

Sighter: Pleonasm. (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pleonasm) Give me a week and I'll come back with so much text, evidence, and new points to counter your's with.

Made me want to jump up and dance down the street in my knickers. Anyone else want to join me in that gaity?

Damn, Chiro, you are one patient lady. I would have snapped at Vorin's posts by now. Kudos to you, madam, I'm proud.

I'm allowed an opinion Cyrus, as wrong as you and others might think it is. And I'll argue it to death if I have to.

Cyrus the virus

07-14-06, 08:45 AM

Yes, you're allowed an opinion. But I'm sure even you can see the condescending way that you present the opinion, at least from my perspective. Don't assume I don't like your opinion when there are plenty of other factors involved!

Anyway, I didn't post here to discuss this shit, and the comment wasn't directed at you in the first place, so bye.

Sighter Tnailog

07-14-06, 09:34 AM

Vorin, I can express my response in the least pleonastic terms possible: laziness. "Big words hurt my head" is about the laziest form of rebuttal ever.

I'll give you a week. And I'll respond in thirty minutes.

Vorin

07-14-06, 09:36 AM

Yes, you're allowed an opinion. But I'm sure even you can see the condescending way that you present the opinion, at least from my perspective. Don't assume I don't like your opinion when there are plenty of other factors involved! I didn't use absolutes, and I only used the written word to show my opinion. Tone conveys emotion better than letters, although as you can see bolding something that can be thought of as condescending makes it so. I never meant to offend anyone, and there were times I almost smashed my monitor in from the precevied "condescending" statements I saw.

I'm doing this early, Finny. Might as well throw a few punches before I let loose the big blow.

That said, one of the reasons I like the idea of religion is that it ties me into a framework that is broader than myself. I am more than a sexual being, a creative being, an artistic being. Religion makes me a human...it makes me humanist. I know, I know, there are myriad arguments about how humanism can be tied somewhere outside religion. 1.) But, at the same time, Western humanism drew some of its leading lights from Jesuit teachers and German monastics. So I wouldn't discount religion. 2.) God isn't dead, even if God is merely a figment of your imagination.

1.) I was always under the assumption that western humanism took their leading ideas from the ancient greeks, where there was no monotheism at the time. Thales of miletus and Xenophanes of colophon both come to mind when I think about it actually. But of course, this all depends on what you consider western.

As you've said yourself, before and again, the bible is not to be followed as if set in stone. They are stories, like David and Goliath, that teach a lesson. Stories most of the western culture is familar with, having read the bible or not. That being said, those leading ideas are only taken from such stories, peices taken from a larger puzzle that when put together is shunned by humanists, atleast normally. This leads to my next point.

((Not next point)) 2.) If god's in my imagination, he's not only dead, but a vampire. Believe me, it's fucked up in there.

People can draw immense joy from their religious tradition. There is a thrill that can sneak down your spine as a crescendo swells during a hymn, or a tickling feeling in the back of your head as you see life differently as the result of a scripture verse. Those who have chosen to dedicate their lives to this or that religion are not necessarily dooming themselves to a dour life of glumness and sadness.

This is true, religious people can live perfectly happy lives and even find comfort in the good book. However, not leading life to its fullest does not only mean happiness alone. One of the fundamental things of religion, or atleast the three monotheistic faiths, is submission. You submit to your god. Humility, humbleness, these values are always in mind, *atleast at the catholic church I attended for 14 year, if I'm wrong about the other denominations, please correct me.* I've always hated this, whether out of my own flawed pride, or because I simply believe lowering yourself for any reason is sinning agains the human race. People are capable of so much and to hide your light, to submit, is distasteful to say the least.

For, in the end, anti-absolutism is its own form of absolutism. The denial of grand narratives becomes its own grand narrative. The postmodern spirit of decentralization sets up decentralization as a centralized motif. As much as Derrida warned against this, it still happens to the best of us.

But here's where it gets tricky, Slappy. Because their are many shades of grey I enjoy, but there are only three sides to this. One can deny the narrative, accept the narrative, or just not know. Religion's one of those things where there are not many options and to say that my points are just as dogmatic are to say your's are as well, or atleast that's how I see it. Feel free to correct me.

In closing, I'm not the best debater and I'm sure Findelfin could tear this to pieces. But I'm not going to back down. Humans are, in my truth, in my belife, the only absolute. And believing that there is something more power, that does hit hard at all the works humans can, and still can, do.

EDIT: That first thing wasn't my rebuttal. I have a word of the day feature on my dail-up. I wanted to use it atleast once before I forgot it.

Serilliant

07-14-06, 10:09 AM

[...] your sister to be a lesbian [...] there are going to be shitty people in the world.
Intentionally or not, you just compared a homosexual sister with a murderous brother and abusive father and called this hypothetical sister a "shitty [person]" for her lifestyle.

Aside from that, I'd like to throw my own religious interpretation in the midst. This is the first Althanas thread I've seen with so many true advocates of Christianity (and intelligently debating ones at that) so I'm very curious to see your responses.

I characterize myself as Christian-ish. I do so because I believe in the backbone of the religion (i.e. that God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life) but not necessarily all of it. As a primary point, I do not believe in the divinity of the bible. I believe that the bible is a book, and I believe that it was inspired by historical events, but I do not believe that God Himself had any hand in its creation.

The reason I believe this way is because I find it difficult to trust in a book that not only preaches a great deal of what I believe to be detrimental to the faith and thus disagree with, but also because it had passed through the hands of so many scribes and kings who willingly and joyfully edited it to fit their needs. Further, over one hundred thousand individual modifications have been made since the printing of the King James version of the bible alone. If the word of the bible is perfect and unchanging, which of these versions is truly the 'inspired' one?

I feel that taking my belief in this direction has allowed me to act as a good Christian should, and yet avoid a lot of the negative baggage that the religion seems to carry. Also, I prefer to live on what I feel in my heart God tells me rather than on a book with which I simply cannot connect. My question is this: is it possible for someone to truly be Christian but not believe in the bible's divinity? Do you think such a thing is sacrilegious for me to say? What are your feelings?

(Questions not directed to anyone in particular, so I welcome response from anyone with an opinion)

Sighter Tnailog

07-14-06, 10:35 AM

Humans are, in my truth, in my belife, the only absolute.

Man is the measure. You are indeed a Greek. ;) Although, let me say that this has a dangerous logical conclusion, expressed succinctly in Genesis: "Tame the world and subdue it."

You are only partially correct on the humanism front. Much of Italian and Northern Rennaissance humanism was indeed centered on ancient Greek and Latin texts. It was roughly the same debate as that between the proponents of Tertullian and the supporters of Justin Martyr in the early patristic period. But to say that the exploration of ancient texts rendered Erasmus some sort of neo-pagan is intellectual foolishness. They may have explored ancient texts, but they did so from a decidedly Christian perspective; only a few of the more flamboyant humanists were forthrightly rejecting the scope of Christianity. Of the "radical humanists," it was far more likely to find those who discussed the benefits of eastern esotericism than those who stressed Greek or Latin learning.

At the same time, though, much of that "ancient Greek philosophy" consisted of institutional criticisms of Stoicism, which is the basic gist of what you put forward. And Plato and Socrates both had worldviews much more similar to monotheism than anything else.

As to the religion thing, I'm not necessarily saying that you can't be happy if you aren't in submission to God. But I think it's arrogant to assume that someone who has chosen to submit is somehow less alive. It's not really a point I need to argue. If you accept shades of grey, then this point follows with devastating logic: happiness can be found in different ways.

What you might want to consider is this, though: we in America are taught this wonderful story. The story is that we have no story except the story we write ourselves. We believe that we are utterly free to author our own destinies, precisely because that's what we've been taught. The entire scope of our learning is designed to convince our minds that our minds can't be convinced by anyone but ourselves. Bear with me here: we are taught to believe that we shouldn't be taught to believe.

And we listen. We learn to reject everything from outside our own heads, except for the one critical story saying we should reject everything. The only thing we DON'T criticize is the insistence that we criticize.

It's all very obtuse, I know, and has been expressed better by better thinkers than I. But you have to ask yourself: is nihilism and unbelief as much a form of submitting as religion itself? Is submitting to your own desires as much a submission as anything else? It is a question worth asking.

Cyrus the virus

07-14-06, 10:59 AM

I'd considered someone would take it that way, B-ray, but I only included that lesbian comment in order to provide a less extreme situation that might pertain to people. Someone could be concerned that 'God made them the gay', or whatever, so I included that.

My writing isn't skillfull enough to not make it seem like I think lesbians are shitty people. Bah.

Sighter Tnailog

07-14-06, 11:27 AM

I found this definition in the course of my literature review for my summer research fellowship. It might help.

Religion (at the individual level) is the cognitions (values, beliefs, thoughts), affect (feelings, attitudes), and behaviors involved in apprehending and responding to a reality (a supernatural being or beings, force, energy, principle, absolute consciousness) that is affirmed to exist. This reality must have the following characteristics: It is a reality than which nothing greater can be conceived. It is not dependent on human life for its existence. It is, to some degree, beyond human voluntary control. It is ultimate reality in the sense that it stands behind, sustains, controls, energizes, or holds together the diverse phenomena of the natural/physical/material world.Religious beliefs are the truth claims one makes in apprehending and responding to his or her concept of the Religious Reality. This includes the claims made about the nature of this reality and those made about cosmos, nature, self, people, society, and history which have been shaped by the affirmation and apprehension of this reality.

Pleonasm, anyone?

EDIT: My basic problem with this is that you could claim String Theory is a religion.

Chiroptera

07-14-06, 11:50 AM

Intentionally or not, you just compared a homosexual sister with a murderous brother and abusive father and called this hypothetical sister a "shitty [person]" for her lifestyle.

Not to be offensive or anything, but when I read this I burst out laughing. Dunno why. It would have been even better if Cyrus had said " . . . your sister to be black . . . "
Isn't it great, the way people love to get riled up over the most inane assumptions?

I characterize myself as Christian-ish. I do so because I believe in the backbone of the religion (i.e. that God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life) but not necessarily all of it. As a primary point, I do not believe in the divinity of the bible. I believe that the bible is a book, and I believe that it was inspired by historical events, but I do not believe that God Himself had any hand in its creation.

A very good point, and one that I myself struggled with when trying to identify myself as a believer. There are so many rules and standards tied up in the whole denomination business that eventually I gave up on the whole thing. I don't like to claim my "religious affiliation" as Christianity. I am a follower of Christ. It's not so much a religion as it is a relationship.

Sighter Tnailog

07-14-06, 12:11 PM

Cyrus the virus

07-14-06, 12:22 PM

Hey now, I just explained why I threw the lesbian comment in there. A simple extra sentence in the post in question would have fixed things, and now that I elaborated on it there's no real point in staying on the topic.

Sighter Tnailog

07-14-06, 12:39 PM

But he apologized for it, so that's cool.

Yeah.

Chiroptera

07-14-06, 12:45 PM

I don't know, Chiroptera. That seems like splitting an awfully small hair. "I'm not a Christian, I'm a follower of Christ."

If you don't like the connotations associated with the word "Christian," then proudly claim the label and work to correct those perceptions. When I tell people I'm a Baptist, they automatically assume I'm a crazy white guy with a gun who wants to kill the Arabs. But I won't stop claiming that label -- I'll just continue trying to reclaim it.

And I don't think Serilliant made an unfair characterization. Cyrus DID list a group of five people, four of whom had committed crimes of exploitation or violence, and one who was lesbian. It was almost a guilt-by-association type thing. But he apologized for it, so that's cool, but I don't think it's entirely fair to say that Serilliant was overreacting.

It is a pretty small hair. And you probably right when you say that we should be reclaiming the name instead of abandoning it. I just get a warm, fuzzy feeling when I change "religion," that has today become a very clinical term, into something more personal and real-to-life. I've always been rather nit-picky . . .:D

Yeah, sorry, I really wasn't picking on Serilliant. If Cyrus had meant it to be a derogatory remark, Serilliant would have been completely justified. I just assumed that he had meant it innocently, so Serilliant's response seemed unwarranted.
Sorry if I offended, Serilliant. I'm just really talented at sticking my foot in my mouth.:o

Vorin

07-14-06, 01:37 PM

Madison, there is no way I can argue anymore on this front without 2 more years worth of reading, so I can catch up with you.

I yield.

However, Wolftrappe will be taking my place, and is now typing up a post. He wants everyone to know it will be ready by 6:00 PM EST, even though he lives near the west or something. So no one change he topic, or he'll hit me. Also, he wants everyone to know I'm just so damn cute.

-Vorin

Cyrus the virus

07-14-06, 02:13 PM

Does Wolftrappe even roleplay here anymore?

Wolftrappe

07-14-06, 02:42 PM

A tad sooner that, Cory. No, Cyrus, I don't.

Humans are, in my truth, in my belief, the only absolute.

You’re going to fall into some traps if you phrase this statement in this manner because you’re making the assertion that humanity itself is some kind of absolute.

Although, let me say that this has a dangerous logical conclusion, expressed succinctly in Genesis: "Tame the world and subdue it."

The statement as it was intended within a context does not have a ‘dangerous logical conclusion’, especially not the one that you state. If mankind is truly alone, the logical conclusion of this situation is not necessarily to ‘tame’ and ‘subdue’ the world. Taming and subduing the world (consider the ways mankind currently is performing these actions) are ultimately destructive actions. If you examine some of the results of the ‘tame-and-subdue’ mindset, you see an increase of pollution, the destruction of the environment, the onset of global warming. These consequences are not ultimately beneficial to mankind, and if this is all there is, if mankind is truly alone, then the destruction and/or domination of his environment is not the logical conclusion. The logical conclusion would be to create a sustainable environment.

One of the major origins for this ‘tame-and-subdue’ mindset actually arose from religious ideologies themselves. You provide an excellent citation. The unsustainable viewpoint under discussion (‘tame-and-subdue’) has distinctly religious origins, and while one need not be religious to hold such a viewpoint by any means, religious extremists nearly always ascribe to this mindset. Additionally, a nonreligious individual who ascribes to the ‘tame-and-subdue’ mindset is indeed acting illogically within his ideology.

As to the religion thing, I'm not necessarily saying that you can't be happy if you aren't in submission to God.

Good. That would be a ridiculous statement.

But I think it's arrogant to assume that someone who has chosen to submit is somehow less alive.

I would not make or agree with the statement that anyone who has chosen to submit to a fallacy is less alive. The measurement of life has nothing to do with it.

If you accept shades of grey, then this point follows with devastating logic: happiness can be found in different ways.

Happiness can indeed be found in different ways. When did this turn into a discussion about the various ways in which human beings can make themselves happy? Some people make themselves happy by cutting up other people. Some people make themselves happy by collecting trains. How you make yourself happy is irrelevant.

What you might want to consider is this, though: we in America are taught this wonderful story. The story is that we have no story except the story we write ourselves.

We believe that we are utterly free to author our own destinies, precisely because that's what we've been taught. The entire scope of our learning is designed to convince our minds that our minds can't be convinced by anyone but ourselves.

No, we in America are taught that we are free, which is a lie. We are taught that we are free in ways that we are not, but any individual in this country is free to think for himself. No society can prevent the genesis of thought. Unfortunately, religion often attempts to replace reason with faith. The fact that it frequently does is, however, the responsibility of the individual, regardless of how much additional blame lay at the foot of the church.

…we are taught to believe that we shouldn't be taught to believe.

One could easily make the argument that we are instead taught to ascribe to a firm sense of morals. Ethics has a basis in critical thought, and ethics is indeed taught in our universities, but morality has its basis in religion, specifically in the belief that a given action or object has some inherent quality of its own, regardless of effect. If U.S. citizens are ‘taught to believe that we should be taught to believe’, why does the nation struggle over issues like abstinence education, gay marriage, and the teaching of evolution in schools? If we truly are taught to believe in nothing, if we are actually taught to think critically, these issues and the arguments against them would be quickly discovered to be the straw men they are. Statements like ‘pre-marital sex is morally wrong’ and ‘gay marriage erodes the value of heterosexual marriage’ are straw men arguments that cannot stand up against critical thought, reason, and ethics. In fact, these sorts of statements are solely based in faith.

And we listen. We learn to reject everything from outside our own heads, except for the one critical story saying we should reject everything. The only thing we DON'T criticize is the insistence that we criticize.

Critical thinking is a rare quality to find, especially in a U.S. citizen. Fear, ignorance, and suspicion are not the basis of critical thought. Critical thinking is discouraged, if anything, especially in our educational system. You have only to refer to the artistic, political, and social environments in which we are immersed to see that our culture is one of conformity rather than critical, free thought.

…is nihilism and unbelief as much a form of submitting as religion itself?

Ascribing to patterns of critical thought is a submission to reason, rather than faith. Provide one motivation for a critical person to submit to something that cannot be known over systemic pattern of belief based in logic and observable fact and phenomena.

Is submitting to your own desires as much a submission as anything else? It is a question worth asking.

This question is ridiculous. At what point did any save you begin correlating reason with desire? I might desire to murder an individual, but an ethical foundation (based in reason and universalizability) prevents me from acting out any desire I wish. The basis of ethics is not religious morality, but rather the reasonable contemplation of a given situation. In terms of logic, you cannot define the “unbelief” and so-called “nihilism” of your previous question with the “desires” of the second.

SUMMATION

In summation, religion almost invariably attempts to replace reason with faith. Martin Luther, one of the Founding Fathers of Protestantism, stated, 'Reason must be deluded, blinded, and destroyed. Faith must trample underfoot all reason, sense, and understanding, and whatever it sees must be put out of sight [so that you may] know nothing but the word of God.' The absence of critical thought leads down a dark pathway.

'I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.'
- President George H. W. Bush

"Secular schools can never be tolerated because such a school has no religious instruction and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith . . . We need believing people."
— Adolf Hitler, April 26, 1933, from a speech made during negotiations leading to the Nazi-Vatican Concordat of 1933

(Sorry for the brevity of some of this, I'm at work.)

Ter-Thok

07-14-06, 03:00 PM

Pfah, you guys and with the debating.

Well, because I...not...did read...what said is...by you pontificationally enhanced gentlemen, I'm just gonna do what everybody else was doing earlier. Damn.

To be honest, I've grown up with a very negative view of Christianity. You would too if you had the world's most evil vampiric entity as a step-grandma. The old hag would read me the most gruesome stories from the Bible (something about cutting babies in half, I don't know) when I was four years old. She made me worry that someone would cut MY baby brother in half. Crazy old shrunken-headed bitch.

I have been lucky enough to have been raised in an agnostic environment, and if you ask me, that'd be the best environment for any child to be raised in. Not only do I get to relax on Sundays, but it also left me fairly open-minded. What was really annoying was when I would have to tell other kids that I didn't believe in god, and hear the whole childish "You're gonna go to hell" BS. I stopped hearing that after third grade, and I am AMAZED that there are still adults using that argument out there in the world.

Let me put forth a hypothetical situation: The sky turns black, and a huge, muscular bearded man descends from above on a cloud. It's God! Hooray! And as he is enumerating what he actually thinks, turns out that the craziest of the crazy religious, Fred Phelpsian individuals were right about him. He DOES want you to kill heathens in his name. He DOES think white people are superior to black people. He DOES think that gay people and wiccans and whatnot should be burned to death. If God came down and said all of this stuff, proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that his craziest followers were right and that your moral system was, in the eyes of a higher power, wrong...would you still worship him, obey him, listen to him?

Here's another thing; in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, an exceptionally good book series for allegory, gods feed off of the belief of their followers. Whichever god has more followers is more powerful, and there are hundreds of gods all at an uneasy truth to each other. Gods start out as small gods, little flittering voices that hide in all the lonely places on the planet, doing everything they can to just get that one shrine built, that one person to thank them for something they are incapable of doing. Even worse are the small gods who were once powerful, and have fallen. You'd think that a god who's finally managed to net some believers would do everything he can to keep them, right? Nope. Mostly they just sit on their ass at the center of the flat world, heaving thunderbolts at anyone who denies their existence.

Obviously, this model can't be true, but it's an interesting metaphor, I think. Or something like that.

Personally, after hearing the arguments from everyone, I put my stock in science. Hell, with any luck, Creationists are becoming an endangered species. Because to deny incontrovertible proof that can be reinforced on several levels is madness. The world is several billion years old, and so, quite likely, is the universe. Life did not appear when a beard in the sky snapped his fingers; the oceans boiled for millenia before the chance connections of atoms created self-replicating molecules. Even the freaking Vatican has announced that Creationism is a superstition, that it, and I quote, "reduces God to some kind of nature spirit".

And there are archaeologists operating out of Texas who think that if they find Noah's Ark, well, then that MUST prove the rest of the Bible right, RIGHT?! No. There is geological and archaeological evidence of a massive flood event, which would have affected all of the, at that time, known world. The Mediterranean Basin, mostly, but also equatorial zones around the globe. That is why every major religion, including Aztec/Toltec/Incan belief systems, has a flood myth. And if one old man built a boat and filled it with animals (quite possibly only his livestock), how does that vindicate the stories of women turning to salt, or even Jesus, who came a whole Testament afterwards? Not to mention that I could see through the holes in the Noah story when I was seven. Gradeschoolers pointing out holes in religious doctrine tends to make a statement.

None of this is to say that something doesn't happen after we die, though. After all, that's the key to religion, isn't it? It was there to explain what we don't understand. Science has explained nearly everything, nowadays. We know that the sun isn't pushed across the sky by a giant dung beetle, but that we orbit it. We know that rain is not the tears of cherubs, and that the weather cannot be changed through dancing. But the one thing that science will, quite possibly, never be able to explain is death and what comes after. That is the only domain left to religion, in essence. Be good, go to heaven. Be bad, go to hell.

I don't think it's either of those. If there is one major controlling force in the universe, and if there is an afterlife (I'll wager dollars to donuts on the latter), then whatever it is is so monumentally beyond the realm of human understanding that our own concepts of morality, though important in the here and now, melt in the face of some sort of cosmic truth. We cannot comprehend it, no matter what. And if WE can't, then I'm fairly sure that a bunch of bearded, sexist, racist, xenophobic old men two-thousand years ago couldn't either.

So, that's my two bits. Or twenty dollars, whichever. Feel free to argue with me, I like a good mental wrasslin' match.

Sighter Tnailog

07-14-06, 04:20 PM

Cyrus, he doesn't roleplay here anymore. He just shows up from time to time so that I can beat him. ;)

To be frank, it's almost as if you haven't read much of the thread, Mike. Half of what you're saying either follows tenuously or not at all from what has gone before. My guess is that you haven't read everything yet...and I don't blame you. This is a lot of damn stuff to read.

You’re going to fall into some traps if you phrase this statement in this manner because you’re making the assertion that humanity itself is some kind of absolute.

What Vorin said was "Humans are, in my truth, in my belief, the only absolute." What you're saying, Mike, is sort of like this:

Me: I like to murder babies.
You: You're going to fall into some traps if you phrase this statement in this manner because you're making the assertion that you like to murder babies.

Your statement is logically silly; it basically apologizes for Vorin, saying that this isn't what he really meant to say, and he should phrase it better next time. I would hazard the guess, however, that this is what he DID mean to say, because that's, well, what he said. And I don't fault him for it; "Man is the Measure" is a very respected philosophical tradition.

As to your tame and subdue discussion, you play extraordinarily loose and fast with the facts in order to bend what Vorin said about humanity into a more existential vein. Vorin did not say that mankind is "alone." Vorin said that humanity is the "absolute."

It does not necessarily follow that "creating a sustainable environment" is an end accompanied by moral means. You seem to make the mistake that when I use the phrase "tame and subdue" I am referring to the destruction and devasation of the ecosystem. I am not; instead, I am referring to that view that other organisms are somehow a means to an end.

Take animal testing. Animal testing may ultimately be to the benefit of humankind. We might learn, for instance, how to isolate an organism in the digestive tract of rabbits that can be used to clean up fossil fuel spills. However, to harvest the organism the rabbit must be killed. In the name of environmental sustainability, we are using rabbits as a means to an end.

This is just an example; on the whole, I have personal problems with the full sheath of the "animal rights" movement. But I do think it is pretty anthropocentric to assume that only those animals with so-called "higher" brain functions deserve to be treated properly, and those without can be sacrificed towards another end.

Let's also not use blanket statements. "Religious extremists almost always ascribe to this mindset?" Please. There are plenty of hardcore evangelical Christians who are now saying that global warming is a great moral challenge to our time. There are plenty of religious ecoactivists who bomb ski resorts in Colorado. There are plenty of a-religious GE executives who ignore the environmental costs to their business. Hostility to the environment is by no means derived solely from religion, and there is as much in the way of creation care and stewardship of resources in religion as there is a destructive mentality. It's disheartening to see such an unsophisticated statement coming from someone as nuanced as yourself.

I would not make or agree with the statement that anyone who has chosen to submit to a fallacy is less alive. The measurement of life has nothing to do with it.

Now you're just being sleazy. ;) I know you know a metaphor when you see it. As to the happiness thing, the suggestion had been made that those who chose religion were not living life to the fullest and had chosen to be unhappy now in order to "get to heaven later."

No, we in America are taught that we are free, which is a lie. We are taught that we are free in ways that we are not, but any individual in this country is free to think for himself. No society can prevent the genesis of thought. Unfortunately, religion often attempts to replace reason with faith. The fact that it frequently does is, however, the responsibility of the individual, regardless of how much additional blame lay at the foot of the church.

"Free to think for himself [or herself]" and "no society can prevent the genesis of thought" are probably the biggest jokes in the history of America. These statements are belied by nearly every field of study, from cognitive and biological psychology to postmodernist philosophy (and you can't, with any intellectual honesty, include existentialism as part of postmodernism). The very existence of a "thought" is predicated on connecting mental pathways in the brain. To be brought up one way or to be taught one thing is to train those pathways at the expense of other pathways. "You can't teach an old dog new tricks" may not be entirely true, but it is resonant nonetheless. By a certain age -- in most cases 20 to 22 -- your brain pathways have been trained along the same circuits for long enough that changing your mind becomes a very difficult thing to do.

We are lucky in America to have access to a wide variety of literature and books, making it more likely that what we are taught is not the only thing we are exposed to. The result is less of an ingrained thought pathway than would normally be the case. But the one thing that is beaten into us from birth is that we CAN think for themselves. Funny how the only premise on which we can't think for ourselves is that premise which tells us we can think for ourselves.

As to reason, reason is a misnomer invented by the Greeks for the sake of perpetuating mental illness. It never ceases to amaze me how utterly silly the Greeks could be. It was perfectly reasonable to them that geometric solids become perfect by virtue of having pretty lines. Special ratios resulted in swell rectangles. A squared plus B squared plus C squared adopted, well, religious values.

Seriously: how in the world can we consider reason so great, when the people who gave it to us thought that perfection could be expressed in even mathematical numbers? What horrible disease has infected us that makes us think a golden rectangle on top of some columns is so much better than something else?

The scary thing about reason is that even the mentally ill can be devastatingly reasonable...if you accept their premises. So I sometimes wonder if our collective society isn't mentally ill too, only nobody notices because we all accept as valid some premise, way in the back of our minds, that is really untrue but nobody has thought to question.

That's why your "reason" argument is one I ultimately don't buy. In truth, I'm less a Christian than I am a postmodernist. I'm so postmodern that I reject reason itself. Blind faith in reason is as boneheadedly stupid as blind faith in faith.

Critical thinking is discouraged, if anything, especially in our educational system.

I thought you were homeschooled? In any case, you weren't in the same educational system I was in.

This question is ridiculous. At what point did any save you begin correlating reason with desire? I might desire to murder an individual, but an ethical foundation (based in reason and universalizability) prevents me from acting out any desire I wish. The basis of ethics is not religious morality, but rather the reasonable contemplation of a given situation. In terms of logic, you cannot define the “unbelief” and so-called “nihilism” of your previous question with the “desires” of the second.

Umm...when did I begin correlating reason with desire? From what I've seen so far, you're the first person to bring up reason at all, and in a most unreasonable way.

What I said was not equating the two questions together. It was asking two questions that were unrelated to one another. The one dealt with those who subscribe to nihilism and unbelief. The second dealt with those who ascribe to hedonism. The only connection I drew between them was in your mind, but I definitely didn't make it myself.

Furthermore, the discussion of submission and so forth really had nothing to do with ethics. You have taken what I said and ascribed it to fields it wasn't intended to address. And we all know how that works out. Maybe if I had been making the argument that ethics is impossible when divorced from religion, what you're saying might make a shred of sense. But that's not the argument I was making, because that's a stupid argument.

Also, I'll try not to add a "summation" which makes a blanket statement about any particular field. After all, when I rejected reason above, I didn't incontrovertibly say that there WAS some premise that was misguided somewhere. I merely stated my distrust of reason alone -- a mistrust I've stated often enough about religion to make my feelings on that perfectly plain. In this debate thus far, I'm the only one to have maintained a stand apart from some form of absolutist thinking, either religious or otherwise.

I am not making an argument for religion, truth be told. The argument I'm making is, more than anything else, against replacing religion with something insidious and acting like it somehow makes you better than your average religious git.

"There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness." --Your buddy Nietzche

Also, I'm no Bush fan, and would normally let this slide, but I feel the error made here is emblematic of the tenor of your entire post: sloppily researched. That quotation is George H.W. Bush from the 1987 presidential campaign.

Wolftrappe

07-14-06, 04:42 PM

your brain pathways have been trained along the same circuits for long enough that changing your mind becomes a very difficult thing to do.

You are equating difficulty with impossibility.

I'm about to get off work, but I will try to write a response to this behemoth later this evening.

Wolftrappe

07-14-06, 07:41 PM

There's so much confused and extraneous crap in your previous post that I'm only going to address a couple of issues.

Blind faith in reason is as boneheadedly stupid as blind faith in faith.

Equating reason and faith is equating light with its absence. These methods by which people approach understanding are as different as night and day. Reason is a procedural system of approaching reality. Reason is not the outcome; it is the process of arriving at an outcome. You cannot have blind faith in reason; that is an oxymoron. Reason is not itself an object, as is faith, but rather is a process. It is the process through which one takes in experiential information and derives a general from the particulars, while faith adheres to an exogenous set of values, placing an articficial overlay on reality. The conclusion from any given set of evidence is vastly different based on whether it is reasonably arrived at or predetermined by faith-induced filters. (Witness the effect of religious faith versus reasonable consideration on issues such as the aforementioned gay marriage, pre-marital sex, etc., among others.)

I'm so postmodern that I reject reason itself.

I can tell that you have abandoned reason by the intelligibility of the arguments you create. If you have indeed rejected reason, on what do you base your arguments? Faith?

As to reason, reason is a misnomer invented by the Greeks for the sake of perpetuating mental illness. It never ceases to amaze me how utterly silly the Greeks could be. It was perfectly reasonable to them that geometric solids become perfect by virtue of having pretty lines. Special ratios resulted in swell rectangles. A squared plus B squared plus C squared adopted, well, religious values.

Seriously: how in the world can we consider reason so great, when the people who gave it to us thought that perfection could be expressed in even mathematical numbers? What horrible disease has infected us that makes us think a golden rectangle on top of some columns is so much better than something else?

From what you're saying, I don't think you have a very clear understanding of where 'the Greeks' were coming from. In fact, it's not even clear what you mean by 'the Greeks'. The philosophies of two Greeks who immediately come to mind --- Plato and Aristotle, for example --- were diametrically opposed and cannot 'with any measure of intellectual honesty' be equated. However, that aside.

'Pretty lines' and 'swell rectangles' have nothing to do with the issue at hand. Mathematics itself was only perceived by the Greek mathematicians as the most convenient representation of a process that worked. That process was and is reason. A squared plus B squared equals C squared did not by any means assume anything even remotely resembling 'religious' values (or even intrinsic ones --- examples such as the Pythagorean theory were considered beautiful because they worked: every time). Rather, it represented a process by which the Greek civilization could relate with the culturally distant Egyptian or Persian civilization. This relation was not mathematical, it was axiomatic and procedural, it was culturally neutral. Mathematics was the language through which the Greeks illustrated reason. It was reason that allowed this relation (a relation that transcended the psychological, religious and sociological barriers between these cultures). The relation that reason produced is something that faith could not. Is Zeus more godlike than Ra? Is Hermes more proper than Ahura Mazda? Who arbitrates trade disputes? Osiris or Baphomet?

Faith is the belief in something without (or despite conflicting) evidence. Reason is the process which uses evidence in order to produce a result, a result that evolves as evidence accumulates, and can also be supplanted when logic and facts dictate. Faith and reason are diametrically opposed.

"Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God."
— Martin Luther

You reject reason itself, but in doing so you abandon any hope of defining your terms or defending your position.

Chiroptera

07-14-06, 11:19 PM

One could easily make the argument that we are instead taught to ascribe to a firm sense of morals. Ethics has a basis in critical thought, and ethics is indeed taught in our universities, but morality has its basis in religion, specifically in the belief that a given action or object has some inherent quality of its own, regardless of effect. If U.S. citizens are ‘taught to believe that we should be taught to believe’, why does the nation struggle over issues like abstinence education, gay marriage, and the teaching of evolution in schools? If we truly are taught to believe in nothing, if we are actually taught to think critically, these issues and the arguments against them would be quickly discovered to be the straw men they are. Statements like ‘pre-marital sex is morally wrong’ and ‘gay marriage erodes the value of heterosexual marriage’ are straw men arguments that cannot stand up against critical thought, reason, and ethics. In fact, these sorts of statements are solely based in faith.

You seem to equate critical thinking to reasonable thinking, and in doing so contradict yourself. How can pre-marital sex be supported by critical thought? Pre-marital sex takes an act that is meant for procreation and turns it into recreation. Normally, thinking critically, this wouldn't be a problem. But then we have to get into the issue of AIDs, and STDs, and the ever-controversial topic of abortion. Reasonable thinking leads to the conclusion that it is in humanity's best interest to stay away from pre-marital sex, because the risks and consequences rarely outweigh the pleasure -- an unreasonable thing because it is an unverifiable, non-scientific feeling -- and therefore not worthy to be considered by the reasonable thinker.

Critical thinking is a rare quality to find, especially in a U.S. citizen. Fear, ignorance, and suspicion are not the basis of critical thought. Critical thinking is discouraged, if anything, especially in our educational system. You have only to refer to the artistic, political, and social environments in which we are immersed to see that our culture is one of conformity rather than critical, free thought.

Are you saying here that fear, ignorance, and suspicion are more prevalent among Americans than the inclination for critical thought? And why does free thought have to be critical? Though I concede to you point that our culture of today encourages conformity and idol-worship (in an "everybody loves Britney Spears" way, not "everbody loves Baal"), I disagree with your insinuation that Americans are becoming brain-washed into a zombie-like acceptance of the world around them.

Ascribing to patterns of critical thought is a submission to reason, rather than faith. Provide one motivation for a critical person to submit to something that cannot be known over systemic pattern of belief based in logic and observable fact and phenomena.

Reason cannot be accepted as an absolute solution because there are things in human life that exist outside of its reach. What about mercy and love and hatred? These are emotions and feelings experienced on an unreadable level inside each person's head. How can one reasonably explain Hitler's hatred of the Jews and his desparate desire to destroy them? They posed no threat to him, so self-preservation played no role. Or look at rescue missions and freedom fighters. These people risk their own lives to preseve the lives of others. That sort of altruism belies the "logical" approach to self-preservation that scientific means have described as reasonable behaviors.

Sighter Tnailog

07-15-06, 12:28 AM

There's so much confused and extraneous crap in your previous post that I'm only going to address a couple of issues.

There would really only be two reasons why you'd say this. First, because you don't understand what I said. I doubt that. Second, you don't know how to answer my points, and have therefore chosen to dismiss them without supplying a proper rebuttal. If they were truly "confused" and "extraneous," they would have been easy to refute. From your statement, I take it they were not.

I think we should both take a step back from insults and harsh words and realize that our differences, in this case, stem less from out-and-out disagreement in principle than from differences in definition. I've decided to look over what's been said, and I've realized that what is partially happening is that we are both playing loose and fast with what someone else says; the end result is that we are putting words in each other's mouth.

Equating reason and faith is equating light with its absence. These methods by which people approach understanding are as different as night and day. Reason is a procedural system of approaching reality. Reason is not the outcome; it is the process of arriving at an outcome. You cannot have blind faith in reason; that is an oxymoron. Reason is not itself an object, as is faith, but rather is a process.

My problem here is that you seem to treat "religion" and "faith" as interchangeable objects. I will accept your point: reason is a process by which we understand an object, in this case namely an objective comprehension of observable phenomena. But religion is a process as well; its object is a subjective understanding of faith. "Religion" and "faith" are not equal concepts, and should not be treated as such.

My argument in this case is not so much for faith as it is for religion. What I reject is not so much reason as it is reason's primacy. Reason cannot adequately explain subjectivity in human relations; religion may not be any better, but it has been doing a fairly decent job for years. As many conflicts have been defused using religion as have been caused; ask the Carter Center. And as many conflicts have been started by reason as have been ameliorated by it; ask the French Revolution. So please don't play the old "religious war" card. The sword cuts both ways, and I'm historically savvy enough to wield it in either direction.

It is the process through which one takes in experiential information and derives a general from the particulars, while faith adheres to an exogenous set of values, placing an articficial overlay on reality.

This is another error resulting from equating religion and faith as being the same thing. "Faith" sets up (false) values a priori, in your view, and therefore will reject the obvious when it stares it in the face. This is partially correct. But "religion" is the effort to apprehend values from experience -- the result of the religious task becomes faith. The task of theology and religion is not merely to accept those values transmitted from past experience, either through oral tradition or scripture. The task of a theologian or a religious layperson is, instead, a constructive effort. True religion is not a top-down phenomena, but a bottom-up phenomena. Old faith must be laid aside for new faith as times and circumstances change.

Our misunderstanding on this point is not nearly so much because we're opposed to each other's thinking. The difference is in our respective definitions. You have put religion and faith on an equal plane, but I am not willing to do so. Faith is not nearly as defensible a position as religion, as it relies on itself as its ends and defense. Personally, I don't buy blind faith in any process, religious, reasonable, or otherwise, and so I won't stoop to defending it. I didn't begin with defending faith, and I'm not going to let your definition trick me into defending the indefensible point.

The conclusion from any given set of evidence is vastly different based on whether it is reasonably arrived at or predetermined by faith-induced filters. (Witness the effect of religious faith versus reasonable consideration on issues such as the aforementioned gay marriage, pre-marital sex, etc., among others.)

It is. But what moral ruler set you up to make a value judgment as to which was more important? Your subscription to reason alone has made reason an artificial overlay on reality. I may be for gay marriage and have no opinion on premarital sex, but I don't presume to say that those who take an opposing position are somehow ignorant or subhuman. Truth be told, I'm more Stoic than anything else. Those with a conservative religious process for the apprehension of value have as much right to their thinking as your oh-so-reasonable process.

Truth be told, I base my arguments on reason. But I'm as skeptical of mine as I am of yours. We could all be crazy, and our reason could be deluded. There's no reason to believe otherwise, really; Descartes is distinctly unconvincing on this particular point. What I'm saying is not the outright rejection of the use of reason; it's a rejection of the premise that reason is somehow the salve that will ultimately bind us all together and grant us enlightenment.

In this sense, I'm existentialist. We make our decisions without knowing the consequences; we base our opinions on things without knowing all the facts. In a perfect world, there would be perfect reason. But there are just enough imperfect people -- namely, everyone -- to render reason an imperfect vessel.

[quote]From what you're saying, I don't think you have a very clear understanding of where 'the Greeks' were coming from. In fact, it's not even clear what you mean by 'the Greeks'. The philosophies of two Greeks who immediately come to mind --- Plato and Aristotle, for example --- were diametrically opposed and cannot 'with any measure of intellectual honesty' be equated.

"Diametrically" may be a bit of a strong word. The difference between Absolutism and Contextualism isn't as different as, say, Absolutism and Relativism. For the record, I'm Aristotelian leaning to Stoicism. Without any of the crazy physics.

As to my knowledge of "the Greeks," I didn't spend the last year in an intensive study of Western Humanities to learn nothing of the Greeks. Despite the vast differences between Xeno and Plato and all those good ole boys, they were roughly unified in enshrining some form of logical discourse as the center of their philosophical systems. If I'm remiss for speaking of "the Greeks" in monolithic terms, then so are ninety-five percent of every scholarly study ever produced on the subject.

'Pretty lines' and 'swell rectangles' have nothing to do with the issue at hand. Mathematics itself was only perceived by the Greek mathematicians as the most convenient representation of a process that worked. That process was and is reason.

And that process does not necessarily bring truth. Euclidean geometry works great when building a house, but it is technically an illusion of reality. Space is not flat; it is warped.

What I'm trying to say is that "reason" has as many significant problems as religion does in equating its discoveries with "truth." The truth of Euclid may have lasted for years; in its own way, it was indeed true. But it was not universally true. Newtonian physics was arrived at reasonably...indeed, Newtonian physics still applies in very true ways to large bodies in contact. But it is not true in any universal sense. And the most recent work in Chaos Theory across several disciplines basically says that the much vaunted "Theory of Everything" is beyond human comprehension, even with the use of computers twenty thousand times more sophisticated then the best technology available today.

Please do not interpret my arguments as a full frontal assault on reason. Reason has an important place, and if anything I've said so far has suggested it has no place then it was entirely not my intention. Rather, my argument is assailing the idea that reason alone has some privileged position as the prime mover of the world. I'm not much of a true believer in anything, but I sure as hell don't believe reason is the salve to soothe our collective grief. Just as the strides it achieves in the sciences can be illusory and fleeting, I am deeply suspicious of the "advances" it makes in the fields of philosophy. The difference with those fields is we don't necessarily have observable phenomena to test the point. Yet still the philosophers prattle about reason and observation.

It's as easy to say "if everyone practiced reason, we'd have a better world," as it is to say, "if everyone practiced Christianity, we'd have a better world," or "if everyone was a Buddhist, we'd have a better world." Newsflash: not everybody does. Claiming your process is better than the process of another is the way competing faiths have been starting wars for centuries, and I'd rather not see the noble tradition of reason claim the same absolutist mantle.

A squared plus B squared equals C squared did not by any means assume anything even remotely resembling 'religious' values (or even intrinsic ones --- examples such as the Pythagorean theory were considered beautiful because they worked: every time).

I believe that studies of Pythagoras himself would prove you incorrect on this point.

Rather, it represented a process by which the Greek civilization could relate with the culturally distant Egyptian or Persian civilization. This relation was not mathematical, it was axiomatic and procedural, it was culturally neutral. Mathematics was the language through which the Greeks illustrated reason. It was reason that allowed this relation (a relation that transcended the psychological, religious and sociological barriers between these cultures). The relation that reason produced is something that faith could not. Is Zeus more godlike than Ra? Is Hermes more proper than Ahura Mazda? Who arbitrates trade disputes? Osiris or Baphomet?

That would be all well and good if we spoke in mathematics, but we don't. Also, cultural neutrality sounds like a great virtue, but at the same time I would find life rather boring without a bit of culture clash. We use words, which are much more irrational, even for the seasoned numeric linguist. My suggested reading on the subject is Wittgenstein.

Faith is the belief in something without (or despite conflicting) evidence. Reason is the process which uses evidence in order to produce a result, a result that evolves as evidence accumulates, and can also be supplanted when logic and facts dictate. Faith and reason are diametrically opposed.

Maybe so, maybe so. But faith isn't religion. And this thread isn't about faith. I think religion is an essential aspect of culture, and I'd rather have an interesting, dangerous world than a world sucked dry by the moral purists of the cult of reason.

You reject reason itself, but in doing so you abandon any hope of defining your terms or defending your position.

1) I do not reject reason itself; I reject the unqualified acceptance of reason as a moral good in and of itself.
2) I have defined my terms well, and have done a better job than most of delineating the procedural nature of the religious task.
3) I rest on my defense. And it's a damn good one.

Wolftrappe

07-15-06, 08:19 AM

I'm formulating my final statement on this issue, but in the meantime, perhaps you would enjoy reading this paper: Notes on Personality Analysis and Religiosity as Neurosis (http://godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/Neurosis.htm) by Monroe Stein, Ph.D.

You don't need to spend time trying to refute it, because I'm not submitting it as anything other than interesting addition to our discussion. Perhaps you may wish to ponder it while considering the validity of religion (not faith) as a process.

Wolftrappe

07-15-06, 03:36 PM

I am first going to address the statement of Chiroptera and the statements of Sighter Tnailog second.

CHIROPTERA

You seem to equate critical thinking to reasonable thinking, and in doing so contradict yourself.

Thought based on reason must be critical by definition because one cannot clearly discern the process of reason without the criticism of all processes. When you criticize all processes equally, you will find that reason is the one process which is by nature axiomatic and therefore universally applicable (even if that application does not immediately present itself or requires a good deal of consideration and criticism to discern).

Reasonable thinking leads to the conclusion that it is in humanity's best interest to stay away from pre-marital sex, because the risks and consequences rarely outweigh the pleasure…

Making this statement is by no means any support for your argument. Firstly, are you abnegating the possibility and validity of single parenthood for either gender? Secondly, you're disregarding the positive psychological benefits of simply having sex with someone without the given goal of procreation. Finally (because I'm not going to dedicate paragraphs to this topic), stating that 'the risks and consequences rarely outweigh the pleasure' is a completely arbitrary statement.

Besides, haven't you ever heard of protection and/or non-marital monogamy?

-- an unreasonable thing because it is an unverifiable, non-scientific feeling -- and therefore not worthy to be considered by the reasonable thinker.

I think you might be making the mistake of assuming that I'm equating reason with science. Good science utilizes scientific methods, which I'm sure you're familiar with, and scientific methods are derived processes based on the process of reason. Scientific methods are only another example of the illustration of reason (like mathematics, etc.).

Incidentally, someone thinking reasonably OR scientifically is going to take emotion into regards (refer to fields such as psychology, sociology, etc.). (See below.)

Are you saying here that fear, ignorance, and suspicion are more prevalent among Americans than the inclination for critical thought?

Yes.

And why does free thought have to be critical?

If so-called 'free' thought has no basis in criticism, then it cannot discern that reason is the axiomatic process (instead of a process ultimately based in faith, such as religion). If your free thought has no basis in reason, then it has relegated itself to being nothing beyond a completely arbitrary judgment. There's nothing wrong with that in terms of opinion, but when you extend arbitrary ignorance into realms such as politics and foreign policy, you get the contemporary U.S. government. Anyone who wants to possess or enact free thought should be critical and reasonable; it merely increases the chances of that freedom remaining his/her own.

Though I concede to you point that our culture of today encourages conformity and idol-worship (in an "everybody loves Britney Spears" way, not "everbody loves Baal"), I disagree with your insinuation that Americans are becoming brain-washed into a zombie-like acceptance of the world around them.

Not brain-washed. A majority of the U.S. population is lapsing into willful ignorance.

Reason cannot be accepted as an absolute solution because there are things in human life that exist outside of its reach. What about mercy and love and hatred? These are emotions and feelings experienced on an unreadable level inside each person's head.

Reason is not a solution. Reason is the process through which someone arrives at a solution. It is a process which opens avenues for change based on the addition of new factual material. The presence (and effect) of these things --- 'mercy and love and hatred' --- are clear and factual, so someone utilizing the process of reason would not ignore them.

Emotions do not exist independent of reality, they are part of what Kolb referred to as the Perceptual Continuum. We experience emotions in response to stimuli from reality that effect us in some way. But emotionality is not beyond or out of the reach of rationality. Think about it: if someone punches you, you get angry, or frightened. These are reasonable emotional reactions. If someone gives you a compliment and you punch them in the face, that would be considered an irrational response. But emotions are ultimately a type of response to external stimuli at one end of a continuum running from Concrete Experience (pure feeling) to Abstract Conceptualization (pure thought).

How can one reasonably explain Hitler's hatred of the Jews and his desperate desire to destroy them? They posed no threat to him, so self-preservation played no role. Or look at rescue missions and freedom fighters. These people risk their own lives to preseve the lives of others. That sort of altruism belies the "logical" approach to self-preservation that scientific means have described as reasonable behaviors.

You may refer to any number of biographical or psychological studies (the majority of which used the process of reason to come to their varying conclusions) about Hitler for possible answers to your question. That sort of altruism doesn't necessarily contradict a logical approach to self-preservation. Please refer to the concept of universalizeability and its relation to ethical action. As reason is a process rather than an object, utilizing that process doesn't discount or invalidate experiential emotion.

And now:

SIGHTER TNAILOG

Madison, usually, I'd address your rebuttal paragraph-by-paragraph, but I don't really see the point of doing so. You are indeed hard to argue against, but for entirely different reasons than you believe.

Many of your statements are contradictory and absurd:

Firstly, at various points in this discussion, you have identified yourself as a postmodernist, an existentialist, a Christian, and a liberal Stoic. Is there anything that you aren't? I'm not surprised that you insist that Plato and Aristotle are something other than diametrically opposed. You seem to have no trouble harboring opposite beliefs and ideas simultaneously.

Secondly, your positions seems to have somehow been randomly transformed from:
1. 'I reject reason absolutely'; to
2. 'I reject the primacy of reason', to
3. 'I reject the idea that reason alone has some privileged position as the
prime mover of the world.'

Thirdly, you constantly wiggle between faith being interchangeable with religion, to religion and faith being mutually exclusive, to religion and faith being loose allies in their war against reason. Contrary to your insistence that I equate faith and religion, I do not. However, religion is a extremely subjective process (as you clarified for me: see below) and it is one exclusively concerned with the intepretation and extrapolation of faith.

Interlude: Let me again re-state my assertions, which you most certainly did NOT address in a coherent or convincing manner. Reason is the axiomatic process by which one arrives at a result. It utilizes a set of particulars to arrive at a general solution, and it changes as new facts (particulars) are input. Faith adheres to an exogenous set of values and/or predetermined results. Religion is indeed a process, but it is the process applied to: a) some form of faith, or b) an external object (such as a set of scriptures, etc.).

You said it yourself: 'religion is a process as well; its object is a subjective understanding of faith.' If the process of religion is the subjective understanding of faith, then the particulars which religion processes in order to arrive at a general result are the particulars arbitrarily provided by scriptures or traditions. Religion as a process does not, even by your definition, have the potential to apply its process to any given object or situation. If religion adheres to the 'subjective understanding of faith', it is ascribing to an external (if interpretable) dogma.

Fourthly, there some major chinks in your defense, hinging on the following quotes:
1. 'I sure as hell don't believe reason is the salve to soothe our collective grief'; and
2. 'It's as easy to say "if everyone practiced reason, we'd have a better world,'… [etc.] …Newsflash: not everybody does.', and then you later state:
3. "I think religion is an essential aspect of culture, and I'd rather have an interesting, dangerous world than a world sucked dry by the moral purists of the cult of reason."
Point being: The key words here are "I'd rather."

Lastly, each of you keeps referring to reason as if it were an object. Reason is not a object. You can't have faith in reason. You can't be a 'moral purist' in a 'cult' of reason. Reason doesn't discount or 'trash' emotions or feelings or values. Reason is only the axiomatic process through which a solution is derived.

Reason is the basis of ethics, law, mathematics, medicine, psychology, the sciences, and sociology (amongst other fields). If you remove this basis from our culture (what's left of it) and try to replace it with religion, see how much more of a madhouse our society will become. In the absence of reason as a neutral arbiter among men (its neutrality dictated by how well it adheres to observed reality), there is no other recourse, but that of force, which has historically been the adjunct of faith.

That's my final word on the matter.

Faith is belief without evidence, in what is told by one, who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.
- Ambrose Bierce

Chiroptera

07-15-06, 07:55 PM

Lastly, each of you keeps referring to reason as if it were an object. Reason is not a object. You can't have faith in reason. You can't be a 'moral purist' in a 'cult' of reason. Reason doesn't discount or 'trash' emotions or feelings or values. Reason is only the axiomatic process through which a solution is derived.

Reason is the basis of ethics, law, mathematics, medicine, psychology, the sciences, and sociology (amongst other fields). If you remove this basis from our culture (what's left of it) and try to replace it with religion, see how much more of a madhouse our society will become. In the absence of reason as a neutral arbiter among men (its neutrality dictated by how well it adheres to observed reality), there is no other recourse, but that of force, which has historically been the adjunct of faith.

Faith is belief without evidence, in what is told by one, who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.
- Ambrose Bierce

From what I gather, reason here is being equated with scientific procedure. We reason based on patterns, drawing parallels between the current issue or crisis and past situations that are similar. Just as we know that plants need sunlight to live because plants kept in the dark die quickly, so we can also determine what the correct approach to life and its quirks should be based on what we can compare it to in the past.

Is this an accurate summary?

If it is, then you are ignoring the most basic difference between science and humanity:

Humans. Are. Sentient.

Have you seen that movie, the one with Tom Cruise, where there are those triplets can see the future and predict murders? (I can't remember the name of it.) Anyway, the point of the movie was that human behavior cannot be pinned down to a science. It can be predicted and reasoned,but at the end of the day even scientists must admit that humans are not logical creatures. We are, by nature, volatile and unpredictable. To use your example, if someone punches me in the face, reasonable thinking would lead one to the conclusion that such an action would make me angry, and that, if compared to what other girls in my age category, family setting, and racial background did in similar situations, I would haul back and return the sentiments.
This is where all those unreasonables step in.
Religion, faith, mercy, uncontrollable rage.
I might, acting on the decree of my God that demands forgiveness, smile and hug my attacker.
I also might, based on years of pent-up anger at the world for the death of a beloved pet, unleash a fury of nerve strikes that rend my attacker paralyzed or dead.

You assert that reason can be used to logically delineate any situation, but can you not admit that there are some things that are outside of this "axiomatic process"?

[Firstly, are you abnegating the possibility and validity of single parenthood for either gender? Secondly, you're disregarding the positive psychological benefits of simply having sex with someone without the given goal of procreation. Finally (because I'm not going to dedicate paragraphs to this topic), stating that 'the risks and consequences rarely outweigh the pleasure' is a completely arbitrary statement.

Besides, haven't you ever heard of protection and/or non-marital monogamy?

Again. Logical thinking as shown throughout nature would decree that one should wait until one has a secure lair and mate before reproducing, if single-parenthood is, in fact, the motivation for pre-marital sex.:rolleyes:
Did you know that a pregnant rabbit can and will reabsorb fetuses if the living conditions around it aren't acceptable? Wonder why humans don't have that same ability . . .

The positive psychological benefits of pre-marital sex are not being ignored, they are being weighed -- reasonably, of course -- against the risks and negative consequences that are so often brought on. A dog will risk getting burned by a grill in order to steal food to maintain its survival. That's logical. Human beings will indulge in dangerous activities purely for the sake of temporary happiness. That's not. And while I'm not arguing the moral implications of pre-marital sex, I am saying that it is one of those "things" that defies reason.

And please, don't get me started on "protection" and "non-marital monogamy." Firstly, I have a hard time believe that the latter truly exists. And secondly, have you not heard that AIDs is a virus capable of slipping through the pores in a condom? Let's not be illogical.

Vorin

07-15-06, 08:07 PM

And please, don't get me started on "protection" and "non-marital monogamy." Firstly, I have a hard time believe that the latter truly exists. And secondly, have you not heard that AIDs is a virus capable of slipping through the pores in a condom? Let's not be illogical.

Non-marital monogamy does exist...in fact before civil unions were allowed for gay couples, and by very definition still exists for gay couples who only have a civil union.

Also, marriage is also a risk. How would it feel if the person you married tells you their infect with the AIDs virus after you get married, or some other STD. You've never had a reason to ask, since you've never had sex, and if you do, you get an STD. I won't even go into abusive relationships and just not liking the person.

Condoms are 99.9% effective. I'd ask before sex, even if it kill the mood, and even get their test sheet from the doctors. I'll take my chances, if they're that good. Humans do things for pleasure and not just survival, coming to this site is testament to that.

I don't want to argue here, because the two big boys are at it. But if you wish to debate me on these or religious points, you have my IM in my profile, or I can give you my email.

Serilliant

07-15-06, 08:32 PM

First of all, it's "AIDS", not "AIDs". It's not plural. The 'S' stands for something too.

Secondly, condoms made of a natural membrane do contain these pores that may be large enough to let HIV through. Note that I said may. However, studies have shown that latex provides a superior, continuous barrier and protects against all microorganisms including HIV. The myth that latex condoms contain these tiny pores was started by a campaign led by the Vatican in which an attempt was made to mislead AIDS-ravaged countries into thinking that condoms were ineffective. This 'holy' campaign was in detriment to the countries that suffered most from misinformation. In reality, the failure rate for latex condoms is limited to breakage and slippage; not "tiny pores".

Chiroptera

07-15-06, 10:55 PM

Okaaay . . . I stand corrected. Forgive me for not being a guru on the ever-so-important issue of condom manufacturing.:p

"Campaign led by the Vatican"?? You must be on the reasearch team for Dan Brown's next thriller.:D

But seriously, if that's all you got from my post then you're kinda missing the point.

Ther

07-15-06, 11:05 PM

I'm not going to come into the debate yet, but I will ask if you guys have seen the new Richard Dawkins documentary. He'd discussing a lot of the same issues as you guys are:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AB2vmj8eyMk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGeL1yFeK6I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76UDVB-ofpI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kcKInudkq4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T27Ef_xvYMs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPBdz-TXlaI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTKLM09FeNM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwD9HOrjLRw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGLPViVW5ms

The links are in order.

Serilliant

07-16-06, 02:02 AM

"Campaign led by the Vatican"?? You must be on the reasearch team for Dan Brown's next thriller.
I wouldn't exactly call it a conspiracy theory if the entire catalogue of sources that support the porous condom brigade points directly at the Vatican. But don't take my word for it, take BBC (http://www.aegis.com/news/bbc/2003/BB031149.html)'s, or take The Nation (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20031103/pollitt)'s, or take The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/aids/story/0,7369,1059068,00.html)'s or take the word of some independent (http://www.libchrist.com/std/vaticanlies.html) publications (http://www.rense.com/general42/dia.htm), or even Planned Parenthood (http://www.plannedparenthood.org/pp2/portal/files/portal/webzine/globaldispatch/gd-060517-church.condom.xml) and Human Rights Watch (http://hrw.org/campaigns/aids/2004/). Or, in fact, go ahead and read what the Vatican itself says (http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/family/documents/rc_pc_family_doc_20031201_family-values-safe-sex-trujillo_en.html#ChurchCriticism).

Conspiracy theories are for amateurs. You'll find I say nothing unless I'm sure it's true.

And I'm not missing your point; I'm refuting it. You're argument essentially boils down to one that is based in fallacy.

Wolftrappe

07-16-06, 01:12 PM

Like I said, I made my final statements on faith and reason, etc.

The positive psychological benefits of pre-marital sex are not being ignored, they are being weighed -- reasonably, of course -- against the risks and negative consequences that are so often brought on. A dog will risk getting burned by a grill in order to steal food to maintain its survival. That's logical. Human beings will indulge in dangerous activities purely for the sake of temporary happiness. That's not. And while I'm not arguing the moral implications of pre-marital sex, I am saying that it is one of those "things" that defies reason.

You're still making a totally arbitrary judgment.

And please, don't get me started on "protection" and "non-marital monogamy." Firstly, I have a hard time believe that the latter truly exists. And secondly, have you not heard that AIDs is a virus capable of slipping through the pores in a condom? Let's not be illogical.

As for the validity or possibility of non-marital monogamy, you're again making a totally arbitrary statement that has no bearing on this discussion. You 'having a hard time believing' that non-marital monogamy exists doesn't impact the reality of the situation.

The second issue has already been kindly addressed by Serilliant.

Euthydemos

07-16-06, 01:58 PM

I'm not going to come into the debate yet, but I will ask if you guys have seen the new Richard Dawkins documentary.

Thanks for posting this Santhalas. I had not seen this documentary before, although I have been reading Dawkins for quite a while now.

I thought it was interesting that he equates faith with a virus, one that diminishes your caqpacity for critical thought and questioning. I think it was Lenin who said that "religion is the opiate of the masses."

Also, that he casts alot of blame onto religious moderates...those who pick and choose which parts of the religion seem palatable for worship but downplay or disregard the more objectionable bits. In some of his writing he says that it is the rdical fundamentalists, on all sides, that represent the 'logical' extension of faith. Those who have subverted all reason to their belief. They are completely consistent and represent what a "true believer" would necessarily be. By making faith 'reasonable', moderates provide camoflage for fundamentalists to continue and extend their rampant irrationality.

I think that was amply make clear in this documentary. I also appreciate that he interviewed radical muslims, othodox Jews and fundamentalist Christians alike and found similar irrationality and indoctrinated dogma, in all three religions.

Sighter Tnailog

07-16-06, 08:56 PM

SIGHTER TNAILOG

Madison, usually, I'd address your rebuttal paragraph-by-paragraph, but I don't really see the point of doing so. You are indeed hard to argue against, but for entirely different reasons than you believe.

Many of your statements are contradictory and absurd:

Firstly, at various points in this discussion, you have identified yourself as a postmodernist, an existentialist, a Christian, and a liberal Stoic. Is there anything that you aren't? I'm not surprised that you insist that Plato and Aristotle are something other than diametrically opposed. You seem to have no trouble harboring opposite beliefs and ideas simultaneously.

Plato and Aristotle were very different within the field of Formalist thinking. One was an absolutist and the other a contextualist, respectively. While, within that one field, they were "diametrically opposed," if one broadens the circle by which one is defining "diametrically" to include Stoicism and other philosophies, then Plato and Aristotle cease to be on opposing ends of the philosophical spectrum. But, ultimately, Plato and Aristotle are fundamentally unrelated to the question at hand.

Okay, I'll be perfectly plain. I find people who have so narrowly defined themselves along one track -- be it radical atheism to moderate existentialism to liberal Christianity -- to be repugnant in their behavior, unsavory in their attitudes, and frankly boring in their worldviews. If I was to define myself, it would require far more categories than those few you cite -- please, heavens, don't relegate me to being a Christian postmodernist existential liberal stoic. But I'd rather be that than a fundamentalist of any stripe.

I believe there is too much truth in existentialism to reject it on the grounds of Christianity. I believe there is too much truth in Christianity to reject it on the grounds of reason. I believe there is too much truth in reason to reject it on the grounds of biopsychology. And so forth. So if I have claimed several mantles, it's not because I've failed to thoroughly assess my philosophy or even several philosophies. It is because I HAVE assessed them, and find them both wanting and inspiring.

Secondly, your positions seems to have somehow been randomly transformed from:
1. 'I reject reason absolutely'; to
2. 'I reject the primacy of reason', to
3. 'I reject the idea that reason alone has some privileged position as the
prime mover of the world.'

First, I never said I rejected reason absolutely. What I said was "I reject reason itself," a point which I later attempted to clarify. In the flourish of rhetoric I spoke in a way which was clear to me, but may have given the impression of an "absolute" rejection. But, to be clear, I would respectfully ask that from this point on you only use quotation marks in the way they are used in respectable circles: around direct quotations.

Second, your "second" and "third" points are the same thing. The third is an elaboration of the point made by the second. There is absolutely no qualitative difference between these statements. They prove no "transformation," as you say they do.

Since I never said part 1, and part 2 and 3 are of the same cloth, your attempt to paint me as a hopeless flip-flopper falls embarrassingly flat.

For the record, let me uncontrovertibly state what I believe about reason. It's a respected belief grounded in postmodernism, so you must challenge Foucault and Derrida if you hope to challenge me.

Reason as a tool to apprehend universal truth is dangerous. This is not to say religion is better or that reason is somehow bad. It is not reason or religion that is dangerous, but universal truth. Western Civilization must abandon the Enlightenment Project or perish.

Therefore, when one sets up reason as a process with universal moral merit, you elevate a process to the level of universal truth. What truth is found doesn't matter; what matters is that you found truth through reason.

Thirdly, you constantly wiggle between faith being interchangeable with religion, to religion and faith being mutually exclusive, to religion and faith being loose allies in their war against reason. Contrary to your insistence that I equate faith and religion, I do not. However, religion is a extremely subjective process (as you clarified for me: see below) and it is one exclusively concerned with the intepretation and extrapolation of faith.

"Exclusively concerned with the interpretation and extrapolation of faith." See, that's the difference. Religion is a process that does not have to be predicated on faith. To interpret and extrapolate faith is to assume that religion has come after faith, and this is not the exclusive case.

The reason it appeared that you had equated faith and religion is because you began using the word faith almost solely in the discussion. Faith, as belief despite what is known, is not the only important element of religion. "Faith, Hope, and Love abide, and the greatest of these is Love."

The problem with religion comes when it places a higher premium on what you believe than it does on how you act. It says it right there in scripture.

Interlude: Let me again re-state my assertions, which you most certainly did NOT address in a coherent or convincing manner. Reason is the axiomatic process by which one arrives at a result. It utilizes a set of particulars to arrive at a general solution, and it changes as new facts (particulars) are input. Faith adheres to an exogenous set of values and/or predetermined results. Religion is indeed a process, but it is the process applied to: a) some form of faith, or b) an external object (such as a set of scriptures, etc.).

Try not to say that I didn't address them coherently or convincingly. What few planks you have used to try to prove my incoherence have already been demolished, and so the statement ends up as an unsupported bloviation.

Second, as a process, reason offers immense benefits. The entire field of religion, for instance, has grown immeasurably richer thanks to the injection of reasoned analysis by the theologians of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries -- Schleiermacher and Tillich come to mind. Tillich, incidentally, provided the groundwork theology which inspired Martin Luther King to the Civil Rights Movement.

Therefore it is just as easy to say that reason, as a process, can be applied to a) some form of faith or b) an external object. So simply stating that religion applies to these areas too doesn't really cut it.

Personally, I'm a fan of a religious process and a reasoned process put together. But I'm not so arrogant as to try to say my way or the highway, which is tantamount to your entire argument.

Fourthly, there some major chinks in your defense, hinging on the following quotes:
1. 'I sure as hell don't believe reason is the salve to soothe our collective grief'; and
2. 'It's as easy to say "if everyone practiced reason, we'd have a better world,'… [etc.] …Newsflash: not everybody does.', and then you later state:
3. "I think religion is an essential aspect of culture, and I'd rather have an interesting, dangerous world than a world sucked dry by the moral purists of the cult of reason."
Point being: The key words here are "I'd rather."

It's hard to defend the attacks on the "major chinks" in my argument when you only quoted them. Please, outline why you think these points are so assailable. Otherwise, I'll have to thank you for making my argument for me.

In any case, the key words for you would be "I'd rather," too. You are arguing for your preference above all others. I'm merely arguing to have my preference respected. There is a qualitative difference in what we are arguing, and you know it.

Lastly, each of you keeps referring to reason as if it were an object. Reason is not a object. You can't have faith in reason. You can't be a 'moral purist' in a 'cult' of reason. Reason doesn't discount or 'trash' emotions or feelings or values. Reason is only the axiomatic process through which a solution is derived.

Problem is, however, that when you regard the process of reason as the sole criterion by which to apprehend truth, you elevate reason to the status of an object. The process becomes the object. You have faith that the "axiomatic process through which a solution is derived" will invariably come out properly. From there, it's only a stonesthrow to say that someone who came to a different conclusion is sick. Might as well kill them.

Reason is the basis of ethics, law, mathematics, medicine, psychology, the sciences, and sociology (amongst other fields). If you remove this basis from our culture (what's left of it) and try to replace it with religion, see how much more of a madhouse our society will become. In the absence of reason as a neutral arbiter among men (its neutrality dictated by how well it adheres to observed reality), there is no other recourse, but that of force, which has historically been the adjunct of faith.

The "religion causes war" argument is quite possibly the most intellectually absurd canards in the history of scholarship.

Everyone thought that the reasonable course prior to WWII was not war, but appeasement. It was reasonable; Hitler would get what he wanted and a self-interested nation-state would calm down and stop working. Once the intentions of the Nazis became clear, the only reasonable recourse was to go to war with the monstrosity. What was more, Hitler's push for universal hegemony was reasonable; he had every reason, based in the observed reality of the time, to believe that he would succeed. Plus, he had the philosophical underpinnings of Nietzche to back him up. Superman, you know.

WWI began because all the countries involved had a reason, based in observed reality, to act. Germany and Russia both felt beholden to treaty obligations; what sort of world would it be if people broke treaties when the going got rough? We can all thank the Categorical Imperative for that. France knew that it couldn't survive against a unified militant Germany, and Britain felt both bound by obligation and worried over Germany's actions. Almost every history tells you that the growth of dissatisfaction with progress and the "reasonable process" of the Enlightment began when the world saw where it led.

Vietnam, Korea, and so forth -- Cold War conflicts designed to combat the observed reality that communism tended to leap across national borders -- we could also say the same about the coalitions against Napoleonic France and the revolutionary impulses of its people.

Since the end of the thirty years war with the Peace of Westphalia, society has been horrified at the wide-ranging impact of wars caused by religion. But we seem to have turned a collective blind eye to the fact that the largest wars in human history -- and the most inhumane and largest-scale massacres since time began -- have been perpetrated by self-interested individuals and nations arriving at their actions through an axiomatic process of reason and cost-benefit analysis.

Oh, and let's not forget the massacre of the Melians by the Athenians. Those rational Greeks sure could torch a town.

Reason has as terrible a track record as religion in causing and prolonging warfare. To say that force is the "historical adjunct of faith" is nothing more than a historical lie.

That's my final word on the matter.

Mine too.

Euthydemos

07-17-06, 05:39 PM

The "religion causes war" argument is quite possibly the most intellectually absurd canards in the history of scholarship.

Society has been horrified at the wide-ranging impact of wars caused by religion. But we seem to have turned a collective blind eye to the fact that the largest wars in human history -- and the most inhumane and largest-scale massacres since time began -- have been perpetrated by self-interested individuals and nations arriving at their actions through an axiomatic process of reason and cost-benefit analysis.

Oh, and let's not forget the massacre of the Melians by the Athenians. Those rational Greeks sure could torch a town.

Reason has as terrible a track record as religion in causing and prolonging warfare. To say that force is the "historical adjunct of faith" is nothing more than a historical lie.

I have never heard anyone argue that WWI was an example of the use of reason. Most historians like Tuchman would cite WWI as the epitome of a complete failure of reason at every level. Not only the events, actions and decisions leading up to the guns of August, but the utter failure of strategy to adapt to changing circumstance and technology, the collapse of communications, the refusal to recognize the impossibility of victory and the abject failure to bring the war to conclusion prior to exhaustion by all parties.

Having a reason for doing something, is not the same as having used reason to arrive at a course of action. At every stage individuals with choice refused to use their minds and stop the madness. Rather, they had undying faith in "dulce et decorum est, pro patri mori", "God, King and Country", "Rule, Britannia", etc.

On another note, the incident with the Melians is hardly a signal event of the triumph of reason, and no one would argue that it is. Athens might have been the birthplace of reason and democracy, but it certainly di not always practise them.

According to Thucydides, the Athenians refused to discuss either the (in)justice of their demands or any substantive argument by the Melians. Instead, the Athenian position was one of power: The strong do what they can; the weak suffer what they must.

That in the end, the Athenians dealt with the Melians by executing every male of military age and enslaving the women and children, indicates to me the complete absence of reason, certainly an absence of morality.

But Thucydides is pointing out that this incident is a FAILURE of rationality and represents a moral atrocity. He presented it not as historical reporting, but rather as a moral commentary on the irreconcilables: might and right. That morality is based on what you should do, not simply what you can do.

Athens at this time was an empire, ruled by oligarchs. It is a classic case of imperial cynicism, or cynical imperialism, or perhaps hubris, which has been a recurrent theme in the history of empires right down to this day.

Dorian

07-18-06, 02:13 AM

Ah, to have a final word, then disguise your next response through another screenname. Classy, man, classy. Well, two can play at that game.

I would do a bit more reading on World War I, then. WWI and WWII have been classified by several historians as by reason's existence promoting the beginnings of the war and, by it's subsequent failure, prolonging their existence. Unfortunately, I cannot link to many of the articles from which I draw my thinking, as they have been obtained through database searches of scholarly literature, and copyright and other information prevents sharing of content electronically. I can give bibliographical information though. For starters, try Palmer's Brief History of the Modern World. Palmer, as a leading scholar of the French Revolution, knows a good deal about "reason." "'Western civ' and the staging of history in American higher education" by Daniel A. Segal (located in the American Historical Review) provides a decent overview in general. His analysis deals more with how we delude ourselves by collapsing those eras we no longer comfortably identify with -- such as the era of religious warfare -- into a form of "prehistory," setting up mythologies to justify present conflict.

I will concede that the point is a little bit shaky, although I do not concede the point itself. As there is no scholarly consensus on the subject, it would be unfair to state an unequivocal path to what I argue, even as it would be improper to purport your claim as universal truth. Even should your point bear out completely, however, your own argument undoes you: the failure of rationality proves rationality can fail. What is best for one culture in conflict with another does not always permit itself neutral arbitration through axiomatic processes. When defending an ally, countries do not lean back in the armchair and ponder ethics. They, as you so aptly quote, consider that the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.

So, even if I concede your point (and I don't), it falls to the axe of reality. Reason is as much an artificial overlay on reality as anything else, as the simple reality is that human beings are not perfectly rational. They operate on the basis of pleasure, self-interest, survival, identity; to glibly say that reason works is to overlook the sheer pragmatism of history. Even if religion DOES cause more wars than reason, we haven't been much better at preventing them without religion, have we?

I would also like to note, at this point, that these are scholars who have produced their work within the scholarly community. "Monroe Stein, Ph.D?" Ph.D in what? From where? Why does a google search reveal that he has no position at any institution, accredited or not? Why is he reduced to posting his essays on "godlessgeeks.com?" Why does a search in JSTOR, one of the leading research tools for the fields of psychology, sociology, religion, political science, and a host of other academic disciplines, reveal a grand total of 0 hits to the query "Monroe Stein" as author?

Furthermore, the end of Stein's article has an interesting quotation. "...the fundamentalist seems apt to augment such frustrating harassment by loud talking and, even more maddening, snickering at the points his opponent makes instead of replying thoughtfully to them." So far in this debate, I've seen more than one dismissive comment; something to the tune of (and this is a paraphrase) "these points are so stupid I can't refute them" or "you're hard to debate, but not for the reasons you think you are." You can be a fundamentalist, even if you have no faith at all.

Another quote from the Stein piece merits mention. "Unquestionably, the perpetration of such a defect on the human mind is unconscionable and a tragic assault on the hard-one liberal tradition of our Western civilization." I'm glad to see proper proofreading is still a hallmark of the hard-won profession of academia.

EDIT: As Monroe (me) points out, after broadening my search from the more general JSTOR to a more particular PYSCInfo search, I did find two articles by Dr. Stein, but they are dated. To cite an article written by someone from the 50s who represents an area of psychology no longer pertinent to modern research methods (except to those who practice a less rigorous "armchair psychology) isn't really an argument. What he has to say offers very little "food for thought" except in exploring what psychologists once worked with. Even the term "neurosis" is no longer respected in scholarly circles.

I think you'd better find an actual scholarly article to post when offering food for thought. People might begin to think the tenor of your debate was as academically suspect as the "innocous tidbits" thrown in to subtly bolster your case.

Thucydides definitely had his own purposes in writing the Peloponnesian War, but I think it would be a gross oversimplification to even attempt to illustrate why he's writing it. You'll find as much variation on that point in the scholarly literature as you do on the point of reason in World War I. It's a tad unfair to paint his reasons for writing it in the light most conducive to your cause, considering how shaky the proof of his reasons actually is.

Also, I don't really see why the Melian Massacre wasn't reasonable. Ultimately, it did do harm to the Athenian cause when many of what would be otherwise friendly city-states turned against them; but even this wouldn't have mattered if not for the disaster of the Sicilian Expedition. The Athenian rationale failed, not necessarily because it was immoral, but because no human reason can predict what comes the next day, and the day after that. Once again, it's a case where either way, even if it proves nothing against position itself, proves your position an ultimately untenable exercise in the real world.

One final note to this post goes is an explanation for my choice to continue the argument. Stein argues that religious moderates give fundamentalists cover. Even if this is true (which it is not: religious moderates are more often than not engaged in fierce battles to combat and diminish fundamentalism) the more dangerous contributor to religious fundamentalism is radical atheism. Radical atheism scares many who would be solid religious moderates-to-conservatives into a defensive posture, and fundamentalists provide a form of cover from the onslaught. The result is an increase in fundamentalists, which in turn drives many who would normally be solid religious moderates-to-liberals into the more atheistic camp as a result of the poor theology of the fundamentalists. The result is a dissolution of the "compromise bubble" in the middle and an escalation of conflict. It's the Latin Americanization of religious discourse, and fundamentalists both of belief and unbelief share culpability in driving its inevitability.

What is most disheartening is to start a thread on one note -- namely asking that people not completely discount religious thinking as an option for serious people with serious intellectual concerns for humanity -- and have it turn into a diatribe on why people with religious sensibilities are, to whit: hostile to reality, intellectually softheaded, and probably mentally ill. Words are as much a will to power and a resort to force as weapons, and in this particular discussion the proponents of "reason" have proved adept at wielding them.

Monroe Stein, Ph.D.

07-18-06, 02:34 AM

I actually do exist. I found myself in PSYCInfo, in two articles unrelated to the psychological study of religion, from 1952 and 1956. That really situates me on the cutting edge of psychological research.

Euthydemos

07-18-06, 08:23 AM

Ah, to have a final word, then disguise your next response through another screenname. Classy, man, classy. Well, two can play at that game.

I think you are assuming that I am someone else.
I am not wolftrappe, if that is what you are thinking.
Assuming this is still sighter tnailog.

Wolftrappe

07-18-06, 08:25 AM

Ah, to have a final word, then disguise your next response through another screenname. Classy, man, classy. Well, two can play at that game.

I made my final statement on this topic. If I had anything else to say, I wouldn't have a problem saying it from this account.

Check the IP addresses before you make a fool of yourself.

Sighter Tnailog

07-18-06, 08:30 AM

I actually had the IP addresses checked before taking any action. Matt confirmed it.

Wolftrappe

07-18-06, 08:38 AM

I actually had the IP addresses checked before taking any action. Matt confirmed it.

Had you made a consistent check of the IP addresses, you would have found that they matched only once. If you want to really push this issue, Madison, it can be proven (by IP address or otherwise) that Euthydemos is my boyfriend Matthew. Also, we're on simultaneously. Don't push this point because you're fighting against observable reality.

Sighter Tnailog

07-18-06, 08:50 AM

If that's the case, then I'll change it. Considering I can't check IP addresses myself, what I had to rely on as "observable reality" in this case was the confirmation given me by Santhalas. So it's not like the mistake was the result of systemic laziness. Ironically, it was the result of blind faith.

So here's the official retraction: Euthydemos and Wolftrappe are not the same person. My previous slam dunk case turns out to be bad intelligence.

EDIT: Lest anyone think Wolftrappe and I are about to kill one another, we go way back and are talking on AIM as I write these words. Thus proof, once again, that a heated and forceful discussion does not have to destroy the fabric of community on Althanas.com.

Wolftrappe

07-18-06, 08:59 AM

Thank you for the retraction.

I already made my final comments on this thread so I'm unsubscribing from it now.

LordLeopold

07-18-06, 09:08 AM

Suggesting that the Melians represent rationality being quashed by Athenian cynicism is a highly dubious argument, especially since the Melian argument against the Athenian conquest was completely based on illogical faith in Sparta and Melos' own desire for self-preservation. The Athenian argument was based on logical arguments that better represented the cold, and indeed cynical, reality of the Greek world at war. You can only fault their reason if you disregard a realist view of international relations, and if you do that, you might as well not talk at all.

Euthydemos

07-18-06, 11:31 AM

Suggesting that the Melians represent rationality being quashed by Athenian cynicism is a highly dubious argument...

The Athenian argument was based on logical arguments that better represented the cold, and indeed cynical, reality of the Greek world at war.

You can only fault their reason if you disregard a realist view of international relations, and if you do that, you might as well not talk at all.

I certainly was not suggesting that the Melians represented anything to do with rationality.

What I said was that the Athenian action could not be considered a morally right action. I could actually fault their reason on a moral ground. The moral ground of universalizability. Just because you can destroy someone does not make it right to do so.

I think there is a basic problem here that is: Is this a discussion of epistemology, i.e. how we know the world; faith v. reason, or is it
a discussion of historical expediency and religion as a sociological/cultural force?

We can certainly talk about Real Politik if you like, but I had thought the discussion, at least earlier, was about rejecting reason, rejecting universal truth, rejecting the primacy of reason and my question is in its place substituting what? Faith?

LordLeopold

07-18-06, 12:03 PM

There is no such thing as universal truth or reason in practical terms. "Reason" is merely a social construct used by cultures, organizations or individuals to explain thinking and actions that they see as most closely following the (often malleable) cognitive constructs they have created to explain the world.

The fact that you think reason can be faulted on moral grounds is a pretty good example of what I'm talking about. I don't think reason implies morality or really has anything to do with it. Morality is based upon irrational or immaterial judgments and values, usually themselves founded on non-emperical assumptions or arbitrarily placed preferences, e.g. humans are intrinsically valuable because they act in ways that I define as "reasonable," (they produce art, they act in ways that suggest they care about each other, they produce ordered social systems) therefore it is wrong for the Athenians to slaughter the Melians if they do not submit. Under this premise, the underlying reason for why the Athenians are defined as immoral (or lacking reason as you apparently see it) is based purely upon arbitrarily assigned values, formed by personal or cultural preference.

What I'm getting at is that your understanding of reason, one that can be morally assessed, is at its root lacking in reason. It's based on a series of moral and philosophic frameworks you've constructed over the course of your life so that you can easily interpret, compartmentalize and internalize information. It's messy, often illogical, based as much on fate's caprice and neurobiology as intelligence and learning, and affects every decision you make above the autonomic level. Ultimately, you're like almost every other functional human in the world in that respect. The difference between you and a fundamentalist Christian is basically that you call your cognitive constructs "reason" and they call theirs "The Annoted Scofield Bible." Other than that, your opinions, ideology and morality are as intrinsically valid as theirs.

There's nothing with which to replace these constructs, except death. The only answer I can give your question, rhetorical though it may be, is that the best substitute for universal truth is taking your head out of your ass and stop thinking that the world stopped with the publication of The Rights of Man and Citizen.

Sighter Tnailog

07-18-06, 12:48 PM

And the choir says Amen.

Euthydemos

07-19-06, 08:03 AM

The idea that some areas of human thought are beyond the reach of reason, and therefore immune to the dictates of rationality, yet are still to be afforded equal footing with other rationally-based thought necessarily leads to fundamentalism. This is exactly what Dawkins condemns as 'a virus.'

To prevent confusion, I define fundamentalism thusly:

A usually (but not necessarily) religious movement or point of view characterized by a return to fundamental[1] principles, by rigid adherence to those principles, and by intolerance of any other views and a staunch opposition to the use of reason.

[1]fundamental adj.
a. Of or relating to the foundation or base; elementary. See fundament[2].
b. Forming or serving as an essential component of a system or structure;
c. Of great significance or entailing major change.

[2]fundament n.
a. The buttocks. b. The anus.
[from Middle English foundement, from Old French fondement, from Latin fundmentum, from fundre, to lay the foundation, from fundus, bottom.]

Hence, fundamentalism may be defined as "talking out your a$$."

Therefore TailySnaily and LordLoveless are both clearly fundamentalists.
QED

LordLeopold

07-19-06, 08:48 AM

Euthydemos's inability to understand or rebut my point pretty well settles the argument for me. Dawkins refers to that as "haw haw you got reamed."

Euthydemos

07-19-06, 09:27 AM

I believe there is too much truth in existentialism to reject it on the grounds of Christianity.
I believe there is too much truth in Christianity to reject it on the grounds of reason.
I believe there is too much truth in reason to reject it on the grounds of biopsychology. And so forth.

Shorter TNAILOG:
WHatever I May choose to believe is true, is therefore true.
I will refer to this for brevity, as WHIM.

Later:

Reason as a tool to apprehend universal truth is dangerous. This is not to say religion is better or that reason is somehow bad. It is not reason or religion that is dangerous, but universal truth.

So any WHIM can be a universal truth, as long as it has no basis in reason.

Therefore, when one sets up reason as a process with universal moral merit, you elevate a process to the level of universal truth. What truth is found doesn't matter; what matters is that you found truth through reason.

So it is really the process of reason that you object to, not even what it concludes. If it happens to coincide with a belief you already have, it would be bad, because it is also the outcome of reason. Reason is a process that is universalizable, logical, evidence-based, non-arbitrary and testable. This is what you are objecting to. I would have thought that a person as intelligent, well-read and as educated as yourself would embrace a process like this.

So if I have claimed several mantles, it's not because I've failed to thoroughly assess my philosophy or even several philosophies. It is because I HAVE assessed them, and find them both wanting and inspiring.

Assessed them by what criteria? Because you have clearly stated that you cannot "elevate a process (of reason) to the level of a universal truth."
The only thing left in the absence of rational thought, is emotion. Do they feel right to you?

First you assert:
"Reason as a tool to apprehend universal truth is dangerous."

Then:
"This is not to say religion is better (as a tool to apprehend universal truth)."

Continuing on to say:
"(This is not to say) that reason is somehow bad." (Either "as a tool to apprehend universal truth" or intrinsically "bad", is unclear.)

So please explain to me how, in the absence of universal truth you arrive at the conclusion that something is "better" or "bad" or "dangerous." Or are these again merely WHIMs.

Also, I notice that you haven't actually defined "universal truth."
So perhaps we are talking at cross-purposes here.

The statement where you identify them as "dangerous" implies that you do recognize (by some process other than reason, apparently) that they exist.

Is there even such a thing as a universal truth?

In order to understand if there is any such thing as universal truth, let us first begin by defining what truth is. Truth is defined by the dictionary as “conformity to fact or actuality; a statement proven to be or accepted as true; reality or actuality.”

Some would say that there is no true reality, only perceptions and opinions. Others would argue that there must be some absolute reality.

Therefore when considering the question as to if there is such a thing as absolute truth, we see two diametrically opposed views.

One view says that there are not absolutes that define reality.

Those that hold this view believe that everything is relative and thus there is no actual reality. Because of that there is ultimately no authority for deciding if an action is positive or negative, right or wrong.

So it would seem that there is no way that you can state that one thing is "bad" and another thing is "better."

This is simply “situational ethics” in its highest form. There is no right or wrong and therefore whatever I feel is right at that time is right. Of course this type of “situational ethics” leads to a “whatever feels good” mentality and lifestyle which has had the devastating effect on society and individuals that you noted in your thorough assessment of the wars since the Peace of Westphalia.

The other view believes that there are indeed absolute realities or standards that define what is true and what is not. That these are arguable, based on a non-arbitrary method and dependant on a transparent and verifiable process. Therefore actions can be determined to be either right or wrong by how they measure up to those absolute standards. I am not talking about absolute standards that are based on WHIM, dogma, doctrine, scripture or feeling.

The only absolute standard that is available to us, is the standard that starts with:
1) I am alive.
2) I am aware that I am alive.
3) I have senses with which to perceive existance.

From that, all else can be derived.
Chief among these would be: Since I cannot give life, and life is finite, I do not have a right to take it, unless my existance is jeopardized by the actions of another, in which case I am justified in the use of force to protect myself.
This is often rendered as "First, do no harm."

So there are universal (albeit "dangerous") truths.

Take the law of gravity for instance.
Or the universal truth that 2 + 2 = 4.

If there were no universal truths the world would be in chaos. There would be no laws of science, no laws of physics, everything would be without meaning and there would be no standards of measurement and no right or wrong.

So either they exist and you admit that they do but you choose not to recognize them because admitting them would be "dangerous."

Or you beleive that they do not exist.

The very thought of making an absolute statement that there is no universal truth is self-negating. You would be making a statetment equivalent to the statement "All generalization are false." or to put it even more simply "This statement is false." because you would be making an absolute statement that in itself denies the possibility of a statetment being absolutely true. In doing so you are in essence saying that the very fact there is no absolute truth is the one absolute truth you can count on.

In which case anything you say thereafter is Completely Relative and Personal, ergo CRAP.

Lastly:

What is most disheartening is to start a thread on one note -- namely asking that people not completely discount religious thinking as an option for serious people with serious intellectual concerns for humanity -- and have it turn into a diatribe on why people with religious sensibilities are, to whit: hostile to reality, intellectually softheaded, and probably mentally ill.

I regret that I did not come into this sooner. I think the original statement of the thread, as you pose it here, is worth discussing (rationally) and generally I enjoy a philosophical discussion. But after watching you hypocritically pose that
Faith, as belief despite what is known, is not the only important element of religion. "Faith, Hope, and Love abide, and the greatest of these is Love." and then watch you viciously trash Wolftrappe in the name of your greater and more noble Faith and Love, was sickening.

If you want to start a new thread for :
"religious thinking as an option for serious people with serious intellectual concerns for humanity"
then maybe we can start over and all play nice? :)

Euthydemos

07-19-06, 09:42 AM

Euthydemos's inability to understand or rebut my point pretty well settles the argument for me. Dawkins refers to that as "haw haw you got reamed."

If your point was "reason is a social construct and therefore meaningless"
then you have made no point and there is nothing for me to rebut.

Rebuttal assumes that there is an logic argument in which evidence and counter-evidence is presented, tested and verified.

I found your entire statement to be perfect example of the meaninglessness that you assert. Bravo, well done, you win.

Now that the argument is settled for you, perhaps you will let Tnailog and I continue our conversation.

LordLeopold

07-19-06, 11:07 AM

The "evidence" can be found in a cursory review of modern psychology, sociology, historiography, political science and biology. I'm sorry I haven't wrapped my argument in appeals to outdated authorities, but quite frankly if you were as erudite as you pretend to be, I shouldn't need to, because you'll recognize and understand the argument immediately. And, ironically enough, you dig into me for providing "no evidence" while yourself providing no real evidence for any of your claims, especially the one that man is rational, which is really one of the most contentious claims you've made. If you suggest that your arguments are logically self-evident, then all I have to say is: I've already shown how they're not, despite the fact you apparently don't understand them.

The ultimate problem with your entire philosophy built upon "reason" remains the one I stated in my earlier post. Your moral judgments are not based on logic or reason. You continually confuse the rationality of science with a rationality of personal philosophy. Science tells us how the universe works, or at least gives us relatively reliable models of how it does, but it doesn't provide any guidance for what to do with the knowledge it contains. Saying that because life is finite, man is not justified in taking it, remains a value judgment that relies upon irrational moral judgments. The mere existence of life does not provide justification to treat it one way or the other. You have defined what is reasonable in a self-serving way in order to rationalize the cultural and personal norms you have been inundated with your entire life. It's just how the mind works.

Neither I nor Madison have suggested that a concrete reality doesn't exist. What is at issue is what values we assign different aspects of that reality, and the fact that pure observation does not provide those values. If you define universal truth as "the mechanics of the universe," then I doubt many people will argue with you. (Although some will, because very many people either don't know enough about science to make adequate judgments about it, or reject scientific findings they don't care for. Another example of cognitive frameworks in action.) If you define universal truth as "a moral code produced by observation of natural laws," then that's where argument is produced, because no such thing exists. Humans can receive stimuli, but how they interpret and value that stimuli is not somehow magically transmitted to their minds by the matter around them.

You suggest three things that humans know absolutely, but really the only thing we know for sure is that we are aware of stimuli: We assume that those stimuli accurately represent the universe, which is a fair assumption in my book; we assume that our brain usually correctly acquires that stimuli, which is on somewhat shakier ground; we assume that our minds use that stimuli to create appropriate mental representations of reality that we rely on to interpret the world, which is even flimsy; and finally we assume that the rest of humanity creates mental models of reality that are basically the same as ours, which is the most foolish assumption of all. (Evidence: SCIENCE) These assumptions are better than having none at all to go on, but they're based as much upon what we wish as what we experience. I don't have any problem with them, really, but claiming that they're the logical adjuncts of pure reason is absurd. Based upon these assumptions, we then make moral judgments which are products of the cognitive frameworks we use to organize the world in ways that are easiest for us to comprehend, given our biology and personal histories. We can call them whatever we want, but it doesn't make them any more than arbitrary cognitive constructions, none of which is inherently more valuable than any other.

Ultimately, the problem at hand is that you confuse social constructs that have no material existence with natural laws that govern the energy and matter of the universe. Most of the arguments you've made against me and Madison revolve around your own inability to understand what we're talking about because of, ironically enough, a flawed cognitive framework that assigns a certain meaning to a phrase which is used to mean other things by other people using different cognitive frameworks. Thus, they don't represent the reality of the situation. Could anything be more illustrative of our point? A resounding "no!" follows.

Also, I didn't want to point this out before, but the world is realpolitik, not Real Politik. That looks more like something taken from John Adams's diary than a German diplomatic phrase. I think it's a great illustration of how you're several centuries behind just about every field from which you're drawing information.

Ther

07-19-06, 11:16 AM

Did you really call him

Shorter TNAILOG

Tell me you did NOT just say that.

Oh yes, and wondering if anyone saw the Dawkins doc yet.

Euthydemos

07-19-06, 11:50 AM

Did you really call him

Tell me you did NOT just say that.
Oh yes, and wondering if anyone saw the Dawkins doc yet.

Yes, I don't find his name particularly easy to remember.
However, I meant it in the sense of :
Shorter Abbreviated Summary of What so-and-so Just Said.
Not as any sort of personal insult about his height.

& Yes, I did watch all of the Dawkins documentary. :)

Euthydemos

07-19-06, 11:56 AM

We can call them whatever we want, but it doesn't make them any more than arbitrary cognitive constructions, none of which is inherently more valuable than any other.

Yes, I agree. Since you yourself admit that everything you have said is arbitrary and without basis in reality, I feel free in dismissing it entirely.

In fact your entire "discourse" demonstrates brilliantly that language is also a meaningless social construct. Especially the way you have constructed it. Therefore, communication (with you) is clearly impossible. But thanks for trying.

LordLeopold

07-19-06, 12:25 PM

I think that was supposed to be condescending and insulting, but it would have been a lot more effective if you hadn't admitted your entire philosophy was without merit.

Ozmodious

07-19-06, 12:35 PM

And people wonder why so many of us are hesitant to post anything remotely religious in an OOC thread. . . O_o

LordLeopold

07-19-06, 12:35 PM

w/e dude

Ther

07-19-06, 12:44 PM

Yes, I don't find his name particularly easy to remember.
However, I meant it in the sense of :
Shorter Abbreviated Summary of What so-and-so Just Said.
Not as any sort of personal insult about his height.

Not to be too off-topic here, but I actually wasn't equating your nickname with an insult towards "height"...more like something else.

I personally think it'd be hilarious if he referred to that something else as "Shorter Tnailog."

Euthydemos

07-19-06, 03:17 PM

Not to be too off-topic here, but I actually wasn't equating your nickname with an insult towards "height"...more like something else.

I personally think it'd be hilarious if he referred to that something else as "Shorter Tnailog."

You would have to ask his boyfriend about that.
I could care less.

LordLeopold

07-19-06, 03:35 PM

Maybe we could ask his ex-boyfriend about it.

EUTHYDEMOS IS IN AN EXCELLENT POSITION TO DO SO.

::fiddle screeches dramatically in background::

Euthydemos

07-20-06, 03:22 PM

Reason is as much an artificial overlay on reality as anything else, as the simple reality is that human beings are not perfectly rational. They operate on the basis of pleasure, self-interest, survival, identity; to glibly say that reason works is to overlook the sheer pragmatism of history.

There is no such thing as universal truth or reason in practical terms. "Reason" is merely a social construct used by cultures, organizations or individuals to explain thinking and actions that they see as most closely following the (often malleable) cognitive constructs they have created to explain the world.

perfect adj.

1) Lacking nothing essential to the whole; complete of its nature or kind.

2) Being without defect or blemish: a perfect specimen.

5)a. Completely corresponding to a description, standard, or type: a perfect circle;

Synonyms: absolute, consummate, faultless, flawless, impeccable

To imply that reason as a mode of thought is invalid because it is imperfect, in the sense that humans apply it imperfectly, and therefore the application of reason itself is flawed, is to hold it to a standard of universal truth; that of perfection. Perfection is itself a universal class. For although we can describe axiomatically the nature of a perfect circle, we cannot actually obtain one. For no matter how carefully drawn, at some finer scale of observation, the circle would be minutely flawed. The concept of perfection as relates to circles is derived from generalization from particular instances of circles. To put forth the idea that something (reason, circles) could exist as measured against a universal standard (perfection) so as to obtain perfect rationality or perfect circularity is to recognize that there are universal truths. Your dismissal of reason as a mode of thought is based on its ailure, according to you, to attain the level prescribed by the universal or absolute truth standard to which you are holding it.

Truth is considered to be universal if it is valid in all times and places. In this case, it is seen as eternal or as absolute. The relativist conception denies the existence of universal truths - although they are, of course, grades of relativism: most relativists deny the existence of universal moral values, which make them moral relativists, but few deny the existence of universal truths when mathematics are concerned.

A classic argument against extreme forms of relativism relies on the relativist fallacy: claiming that "all truths are relative" is, in itself, a universal proposition, since it asserts something about a totality. Thus, this form of relativism is seen as self refuting.

:p

Calael

07-20-06, 04:17 PM

You know, I've been trying to think of what the argument had degenerated to and I found a funny post which seemed to encapsulate a lot, but not necessarily all of what is going on:

Equivocation (http://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2006/06/equivocation.html)

LordLeopold

07-20-06, 04:25 PM

There is no such thing as universal truth or reason in practical terms.

If you define universal truth as "the mechanics of the universe," then I doubt many people will argue with you. ... If you define universal truth as "a moral code produced by observation of natural laws," then that's where argument is produced, because no such thing exists.

First of all, I want to explain myself a little, because obviously you haven't been reading the dictionary closely enough. I define "truth" as definition 5(2) in the Fourth Edition of the American Heritage Dictionary: That which is considered to be the supreme reality and to have the ultimate meaning and value of existence. I assumed that was the meaning you were using, and I think that's a fair assumption considering your philosophy. A major problem with your argument is that you switch between that defintion and one that simply means "fact or actuality" whenever it suits you. There's one hell of a difference between "actuality" and "the ultimate meaning and value of existence," and you haven't recognized that in order to facilitate your meretricious argument. Now, let's carry on.

I believe that truths (in the sense of things that are always true, e.g. the Laws of Thermodynamics) exist; I'm not a relativist to that extreme. A universal truth of morality just isn't one of those truths. There are certainly things that are always true. I said that in an earlier post. That makes your "refutation" inapplicable to me.

I don't object to the concept of a universal moral truth. There is obviously such a thing. I object to the existence of a universal moral truth. Your example of the circle actually proves this point rather well. Although a perfect circle can never be drawn, the concept of a circle which is perfectly round can exist, because it is a cognitive construct, created in the nonmaterial mind. Your example of "fallacy" is tantamount to saying that, if someone says there are no green elephants, there must be green elephants because the human mind can invent the concept of one in order to negate it. The human mind can create concepts, but it can't change the material fabric of the universe, otherwise I'd have turned myself into Indiana Jones a long time ago. Sadly, the material fabric of the universe shows that humans are not rational and assign values based on arbitrary, socially constructed methods.

The coup de grace to this mess is that you suggest that I'm at fault for rejecting a perfect system of thought because it isn't perfect enough for me, as if one can have a higher standard for "perfect" than "absolutely flawless." You're denying the superlative nature of the thing you say is a superlative. Thus, this argument for moral absolutism is seen as self refuting.

Ultimately, the point that physical laws do not imply moral laws still stands. I don't even need to talk about cognitive constructs or the nonexistence of "reason" as an immutable form to disprove that point.

EDIT: The fact that Calael and I independently came to the same realization about Euthydemos's argument heartens me.

Calael

07-20-06, 05:21 PM

Not so fast, my faux-British roleplaying fellow, I said the discussion. While it is true I meant to imply him if you detach yourself a little you will see that his argumentative contrary has done the same. I have to say in this portion of the debate both parties have made rather valid points:

-There are absolute truths.
-Perfect Reason leads to absolute ethics and morality.
-There is a concept of perfect form of Reason.
-There is no perfect form of reason save for a being who knows everything.
-One cannot know everything.
-No perfect morality exists.

I think that's pretty uncontroversial. Anything else leads to a contradiction:

-No absolute truths is an absolute truth.
-By definition a perfect form of reason could lead to a perfect form of knowledge (there is a possible issue here but unless brought up I'll not discuss it)
-This is self-evident, we can conceive a perfect Reason.
-Reason requires input for a perfectly reasoned Reason we would need every input.
-Knowing everything is physically impossible (information holding dilemma).
-This follows.

Up to that point I hope everyone agrees, morality cannot be absolute as times and people change. Suggesting an ideal morality would be argumenting from an unprovable belief (either way the results would be the exact same). Also I agree reason is necessarily incomplete, as humans we can never know if something is absolutely reasonable (CFCs seemed like a good idea once) and waiting to test out every possible ramification of everything is ludicrous. Even then we wouldn't know if our actions had problems, in retrospect. But I find it good that at least some credit is given to Reason for what it can do. It is incomplete in as much as we are, given different premises and axioms Reason might lead to differing results. Even when it doesn't Gödel has shown that even in a perfect axiomatic system there are unprovable truths (which I believe are self-referential in nature). So, yes, our reason is flawed.

My question is a simple one, however, how does any other system remedy this? How does religion offer a cognent alternative or companion, what does it offer? I want to know this as everyone seems to have a differing opinion, granted this was the original intent of the thread but I want to ask it again in the context of the discussions to which it has migrated towards. How does religion offer an alternative view of morality? Of any other such issue. Primarily I'd like to know Sighter's and Leopold's (though the latter hasn't really made it clear if he's religious or if he enjoys playing the Devil's Advocate) since nobody else seems to be care that much. Euthydemos has made some important points which I feel can be easily dodged unless the opposing position is formalized; otherwise the whole reason is flawed argument reeks of the evolution bashing as a means to "prove" ID using this false dichotomy.