Religion

[lumpenprol]

I don't have a problem when people liken faith to fairy tales ghosts and fantasy. Because it is indeed an irrational thing. I just find the irrational side of life sexy.

I completely agree, but shouldn't you be out in the forest like BoC celebrating the solstice and horned god rather than in a stuffy church?

[Hoodie]

a note: "spirituality" and atheism aren't mutually exclusive.

 

i have gotten down on my knees and "worshipped" a tree before just because i was awed by its beauty. i think appreciation of music requires some type of spirituality as well. it's like letting go of that analytical part of yourself and embracing the impulsive, emotional side that's so uniquely human. i feel like drugs tend to bring that side of me out a lot and i don't mind.

[skotosa]

God for bid we take any responsibility for our actions. Heaven and hell exist but they exist here on this earth, right now. Thanks to your actions and mine we mainly endure struggles that we bring upon ourselves. Granted external factors do exist but if we continue to work together we can overcome them. If we continue to live this illusion of a larger person taking care of and watching over us then nothing will ever get done. We can't expect change for the better while we rely and place faith in some invisible omnipotent being. Instead we should place our faith and love not in a creator that may or may not exist but in each other, something tangible. If we learn to work together and help each other then what made us isn't even relevant but what is is the fact that we are here! And that fact alone should be enough to keep us from doing harm to others and motivate us to do what's right and not some book.

[Guest hype]

On spirituality and atheism:

[Ivan Ooze]

On spirituality and atheism:

http://www.ted.com/t...theism_2_0.html

Religion is such a hype

[Friendly Foil]

Religion is bullshit. Don't like it. screws with your head, and turns you crazy.

 

I can't believe that in a time where we can look out in the universe at thousands of planets and systems, that some people still believe that some dude is watching over us. And with all the bad shit in the world, he must be one mean dude. If god is real, he's a fucking dick.

[gmanyo]

In some ways I envy people that can just follow a religion wholeheartedly without much questioning. Ontological uncertainty sucks.

[plisb]

I question

A. that science actually makes the world better [see: hiroshima. can anyone tell me what Einstein's discovery has actually done in the world to make it better? because all I can see are a bunch of atom bombs, and some decent CGI productions on Discovery channel about black holes].

 

 

By reading that, I definitely question the view on science you present.

 

Being sceptical about science making the world a better place. Hmmmm, lets question if parents actually makes the world a better place. What can we say about that? Perhaps that some parents bring up their children "better" than others, depening on what you view as a good base of knowledge to participate in life - and perhaps some parents are less good, and some even bad and hit their children (a wrong thing to do in most of today's society). After this short reflection on that THINGS ARE NEVER IRL-DICHOTOMIES (only on paper or as a part of a concept made up for being able to discuss it), we can also apply that - "MAYBE" - on science. There's good and bad science, clearly. Why? There are less and more greedy human beings living on the earth, and will probably always be, so you'll always have a grey scale of every situation. Science looks at cause and effect, and relate that to what we actually can find, in the most yet secure way we know of - what more could you ask for? You can easily apply this fundamental way of looking at things, on religions too, which has been done, and have shown different preliminary conclusions (as nothing is 100% settled within science).

 

So lets say the scientific method hadn't been practiced for the past 100 years - think about the things you would not be taking part of in your life today.

 

As I feel the discussion has taken the wrong turn (lol, really, watmmeeehhhh uuggh), what I find more interesting atm is to discuss or maybe problematize the mind-set of 2 extreme poles (which is obvious in this thread), and what a more total understanding of what we atm know within science, could give us. An overview on the the eco-systemological needs and eg. interconnections between my choices of food and the status for workers children on the other side of the globe. Some of you may see where I'm getting at, and maybe have seen the "extended empathy"-video from RSA or read articles on the same subject - ? I might be giving away that I'm a biology teacher here.

 

Oh yeah, the one argument on why culture can fuck up minds badly and merely is a construction from us (in every aspect, both religion and social patterns), which has grown on me through understanding biology, is: Imagine earth experiencing total world wide nuclear holocaust, and most of life and ALL humans die, and with that, language and idéas. We can all agree that's a part of culture, no? Now imagine us realizing the crisis and preparing inseminated eggs for some thousand humans, to be born into a safe birth (and first 4-5 years) through protection of some advanced machinery thingy. Knowing that life for these humans would be extremely hard, how is religion a part of their lives? We create our own understandings right (yeah, as of today's society, really, we do...haha), so this approach is in my eyes the most pure basic level of building a new concept of reality. Are those of you who believe (or believe that you believe), convinced that your views on a diety goes beyond cultural construction?

 

Also hoodie, small high 5 as I give slight sigh of relief reading some of yours.

[skotosa]

I choose to place my faith in the human race. No separations of believes no divisions to slow our progress, just a constant endeavor to push us closer and closer to the very thing we all feel exists so deeply, infinity, God; It is a goal to reach not a thing to be glanced at from a distance.

 

 

Eh, what am I talking about... At the end of the day people who are bad are going to be bad regardless of their believe, people who are lazy are going to be lazy regardless of their believe and people who are good are going to do good regardless of their believe. Believe is just a red herring.

[goDel]

Dennett gave a good talk in 2007 about "good reasons for believing in God". It's a bit longwinded and the 10+ minutes intro by Richard Dawkins doesn't really help either. But as most of you will probably already know, Dennett has his way of putting things in a different and clear perspective using simple analogies and metaphors which magically hit the underlying issues in the heart.

 

If you can miss an hour, be sure to watch this.

[Guest kokeboka]

what I find more interesting atm is to discuss or maybe problematize the mind-set of 2 extreme poles (which is obvious in this thread),

 

I have studied with very religious people (a priest and an evangelist missionary) so I know what you mean when you say things may get really awkward with religious people in a classroom. I'd say the best way to deal about it is a) make clear that science and religion are two different things and that you are giving a class about one thing and not the other regardless of what you believe, b) when possible, try to find out how moderate christians/muslims fit certain aspects of science with their beliefs (ie, how accepting the theory of evolution does not necessarily mean you void the existence of god), c) don't let anyone in the classroom take a cheap shot at either science or religious belief.

 

The thing about science is that all good science has the capacity to be disproven methodically. You can't disprove god - religion demands that you have to accept something you can't prove or disprove. It doesn't mean believers are necessarily gullible or stupid. Religion can be an immensely powerful factor for one's mental health. I personally am not religious, despite having grown up in a catholic school; I can say being ridiculed for not believing is just as unfair as being ridiculed for believing. I reserve my right to believe only in what I can see, deduce and experience.

 

I have no issues with reasonable religious people. I know I'm generalizing here, but good catholics/muslims are usually pretty decent people - provided that they aren't aggressive about imposing their ideas on other people (I won't tolerate anyone calling me a bad person if I am living with someone I'm not married with, for instance).

[Guest Al Hounos]

The only idea I follow is the scientific method. True, I can't disprove the existence of god, nor do I want to. Why would I want to waste time thinking about the possibility of something existing when I haven't seen any evidence of it?

 

For example, create an imaginary creature in your mind right now. It's possible that the creature exists somewhere in some other universe, but who cares? Why waste your time thinking in circles about it?

 

And hoodie, I'd disagree that emotions require spirituality. They can be explained through science.

 

For me, as a person who believes in reason, it's totally contradictory to believe in the existence of some other form of thought aside from science. When I see concrete evidence of 'spirituality', I'll be open to it. But until then I'm not going to waste time thinking about red herrings, as ziggomatic aptly put it.

[gmanyo]

You can't really "prove" anything at all. Even math relies on postulates and a logical system that cannot in it of itself be proven. Every belief relies on faith to some extent; I think it's best to choose the one with the most evidence, although even this is difficult because it's hard to tell what counts as adequate evidence, because the logic one uses to discern this is unprovable.

 

Belief ultimately comes down to feeling, no matter how logical you want to be.

[Guest nene multiple assgasms]

Having said that, Id love to see an atheist make a cogent argument on why there is no god, without reference to any religion whatsoever.

 

that which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

[zkom]

A. that science actually makes the world better [see: hiroshima. can anyone tell me what Einstein's discovery has actually done in the world to make it better? because all I can see are a bunch of atom bombs, and some decent CGI productions on Discovery channel about black holes].

 

I don't see how you're equating Einstein's work with atom bomb development besides pushing the US government to develop one? Einstein's result that mass can be converted to energy certainly helped the calculations on how much energy will be released in the nuclear reaction, but the atomic bomb is certainly a long way from the theory of relativity that aided that calculation.

 

If you don't want to consider cosmology and astronomy as beneficial (which I think they are) then besides the fact that the theory of relativity is needed in lots of basic research concerning high velocity particles etc that have indirect applications in other fields, the theory has also direct use in GPS. The satellites are moving so fast that to get the current accuracy we have now we need to use corrections based on the theory of relativity. See for example this: http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Ast162/Unit5/gps.html

 

And there's probably plenty of uses in future that we just can't see now.

 

In any case I think that truly useful things can be used for both good and bad. Water can give life or take lives. Science can be used to develop weapons or cure diseases or make traveling safer by increasing the accuracy of navigation.

 

About the religion, I consider myself agnostic mostly because there is no proof whether god(s) exist or not, but I don't see much point in believing in some hypothetical entity for just in case. My lack of faith does not cause me any major spiritual crisis. Also religion seems just a too convenient a tool to push any kind of agenda to the people and claim it as a divine will. So you can count me as more anti-religion than anti-God.

[Guest kokeboka]

For example, create an imaginary creature in your mind right now. It's possible that the creature exists somewhere in some other universe, but who cares? Why waste your time thinking in circles about it?

 

See this - the Church Of The Flying Spaghetti Monster. It explains how global warming is caused by the extinction of pirates.

[Hoodie]

The only idea I follow is the scientific method. True, I can't disprove the existence of god, nor do I want to. Why would I want to waste time thinking about the possibility of something existing when I haven't seen any evidence of it?

 

For example, create an imaginary creature in your mind right now. It's possible that the creature exists somewhere in some other universe, but who cares? Why waste your time thinking in circles about it?

 

And hoodie, I'd disagree that emotions require spirituality. They can be explained through science.

 

For me, as a person who believes in reason, it's totally contradictory to believe in the existence of some other form of thought aside from science. When I see concrete evidence of 'spirituality', I'll be open to it. But until then I'm not going to waste time thinking about red herrings, as ziggomatic aptly put it.

 

i didn't say that emotions require spirituality. i meant that spirituality is, in essence, emotion divorced from logic. i know that trees don't care for my awe and i know that, rationally, i have no reason to express such feelings toward them. they're just big shoots of carbon and water. but at the same time, they are so much more, because i am human and can understand a tree in the context of abstract concepts like growth and nature and beauty.

 

i'm a monist, btw.

[Hoodie]

You can't really "prove" anything at all. Even math relies on postulates and a logical system that cannot in it of itself be proven. Every belief relies on faith to some extent; I think it's best to choose the one with the most evidence, although even this is difficult because it's hard to tell what counts as adequate evidence, because the logic one uses to discern this is unprovable.

 

Belief ultimately comes down to feeling, no matter how logical you want to be.

 

i feel like you might be wrong about math, but i don't know enough about it to say for sure. i guess i can understand how physics and chemistry require belief as they rely on observations of cause & effect, which some folks think isn't an object of knowledge. but math is constant no matter what type of universe you're in... right?

 

i know someone can explain this better than me, lol.

[zkom]

You can't really "prove" anything at all. Even math relies on postulates and a logical system that cannot in it of itself be proven. Every belief relies on faith to some extent; I think it's best to choose the one with the most evidence, although even this is difficult because it's hard to tell what counts as adequate evidence, because the logic one uses to discern this is unprovable.

 

Belief ultimately comes down to feeling, no matter how logical you want to be.

 

i feel like you might be wrong about math, but i don't know enough about it to say for sure. i guess i can understand how physics and chemistry require belief as they rely on observations of cause & effect, which some folks think isn't an object of knowledge. but math is constant no matter what type of universe you're in... right?

 

i know someone can explain this better than me, lol.

 

Mathematics is dependent on some set of axioms or postulates that are assumed to be true. Everything else that is proved is dependent on them being true. You can of course argue that in reality 2+2=4 always, but if you want to formally prove something in mathematics you have to have some assumptions on what is considered as true.

 

To prove formally that 2+2=4 you need some axiomatic definition of natural numbers and how to apply addition. Basically you can construct the whole mathematics by taking set theoretic axiom set and applying predicate logic to prove new things but you need some definitions along the way as to what is for example a natural number. Alfred Whitehead and Bertrand Russell did in fact did prove that 1+1=2 in Principia Mathematica from the very basics and it took several hundred pages.

 

Mathematics is not historically constructed this way but was originally a sort of experimental science, like people adding apples to apples and finding out that 2 apples + 2 apples = 4 apples. The need to reduce the mathematics to its most basic form as a set of few axioms is mostly a result of early 20th century program to develop the foundations of mathematics. This was then nicely undermined by Kurt Gödel when he proved that there are unprovable statements in mathematics constructed this way.

 

This all falls under the category of philosophy of mathematics which is an interesting but very theoretical field of study. And a major cause of head ache.

[Guest Babar]

A monk once asked Ummon, "What is the Buddha?" Ummon answered thus: "A dried shit-stick!"

 

I think I found an interpretative basis for this koan. I'll try to sum it up (tried to write a longer post this morning)

• God is the supreme being.

• In french you have to words for "being". être, substantive form of the verb être (to be). Linked to être vivant ("living being"). Now in some philosophical circles, the english being could be translated as "étant", which is the substantive form of the gerundive of the verb "être". This is like "being" vs "is-being".

• I'm saying not this is absolute, but there is clearly a parallel to draw between (être, étant) and(Descartes's God, Spinoza's God). On one hand God is a separate object, almost a living being itself, on the other hand it is everywhere, behind the facts that make Nature what it is. Either creator, or creativeness. Because of the opportunities french language offers to its speakers, and the way it evolved along with culture in general, the possibility of the parallel i've just drawn was structurally predetermined. (the parallel is not predetermined, the possibility of it is).

 

As a consequence, what is God ? God is a dried-shit stick ! It's a word meant to manipulate a substance formed by ourselves. (The true shit, that is, the shit before being considered as shit, ie, anything you eat and poop, stays in God's realm).

 

[beerwolf]

I'll quote Stephen Hawkins from a few months back,

 

"Religion is for those who are scared of the dark"

 

When I read that it was like a nail into my brain, it just sums up the whole charade. At the same time I believe there might be something more to it than meets the eye, but nothing to do with burning in hell, and horned beasts and all that complete and utter fairy-tale bullshit made up by a few humans to control the masses.

[Guest some letters]

I'm an atheist and I usually try to avoid discussing religion unless provoked. In most cases people's beliefs are so inextricably tied up with self-identity that debating is pointless. You may think you're logically comparing various cosmologies but your words will be received as 'your parents were fools and their culture is worthless', and few people like hearing that.

[skotosa]

God gave us philosophy for those wish to think and religion for those who wish not to.

[Guest RandySicko]

I would hightly recommend reading some ontological philosphy.. specifically, Heidegger's "Being and Time". I believe books like this help to open your mind or atleast help you to better articulate questions pertaining to the deeper meaning of things... as opposed to the Christians who see God as an old man in the sky and ignorant athiests rebelling against something to rebel against. Still though, as a Catholic, I respect an athiest more than I do someone speaking and living out of pure apathy.

[encey]

Trust me, reading Being and Time with just bore you and give you a headache at the same time. It's like Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit -- one of those books that are better read about than read.

 

A Christian friend of mine in the philosophy department with me posted this blog post to his FB one day, and it hasn't left my mind since. It's a bit snarky, but I think he has a point.

 

Being privately spiritual but not religious just doesn't interest me. There is nothing challenging about having deep thoughts all by oneself. What is interesting is doing this work in community, where other people might call you on stuff, or heaven forbid, disagree with you. Where life with God gets rich and provocative is when you dig deeply into a tradition that you did not invent all for yourself.

 

Thank you for sharing, spiritual but not religious sunset person. You are now comfortably in the norm for self-centered American culture, right smack in the bland majority of people who find ancient religions dull but find themselves uniquely fascinating.