neversummer 0 Posted October 31, 2003 Share Posted October 31, 2003 I find it very hard to believe in Christianity. I don't know much about other religions as I'm not the slightest bit interested in them. The thing that gets me about Christianity is that so many people worship God and Jesus etc yet I've seen no proof of their abilities to manipulate life in the way it is claimed..I remember the parting of the sea, the bread and wine and curing leprocy from primary school (elementary school). As with all other myths in this world, we get to the age of about 12 and realise this can not possibly be true, we fantisise about it being true for a few more years and then it's moved into the fantasy section of the library. Devils, flying dragons with men on their backs, wizards and orcs etc. All fantasy, yet Christianity has managed to capture so many peoples imagination for 2000 years and I imagine will do for many more years to come. Oh well, its not my problem but unfortunately religion is not dead. Link to post Share on other sites
slow 0 Posted October 31, 2003 Share Posted October 31, 2003 I'm sorry if I'm missing the point. I studied Christianity at college a little but I don't think I undestand Christianity like Christian. I'm reading books based on Buddhism now. One book said we should start thinking from negative like Buddha. He started from extreme negative. We should know that we have life on a dirty and chaotic world. Our life is just hard and tough all of the time... There are some people devote their life to other people, they are great. But just living on this dirty world is admirable... this is only small part of the book. I'm not finishing the book yet but Buddhism might be a clue to truth for me. Link to post Share on other sites
NoFakie 45 Posted October 31, 2003 Share Posted October 31, 2003 Quote: Originally posted by mikazooki: science is a crutch too, just a different kind of crutch...same purpose is served, one just makes better cappucino machines. I'll add that in the western world, no one preaches like Fox News and CNN.... Link to post Share on other sites
badmigraine 0 Posted November 1, 2003 Share Posted November 1, 2003 So now a lot of people believe in logic. Here's 2 observations about that: 1. LOGIC IS SMALLER THAN RELIGION Logic's a tool, like a pasta making machine. Sometimes you take the machine out of the cupboard, put some stuff in it, turn the handle, and a result comes out the other end. You can't put in the wrong ingredients and get a good result. Clearly, that's not the role that religion plays in the lives of its believers. When you lose religion and get logic, logic does not fill up the space left empty by religion. What's my point here? Simply that religion and logic do not occupy co-extensive spaces in human consciousness, do not substitute for each other, and are not mutually exclusive. This has little to do with whether or not a god exists or a religion is true or false. 2. LOGIC HAS NOT YET PROVED OR DISPROVED THE EXISTENCE OF GOD How about this: The existence of God is scientifically provable, but it requires a technology that we haven't yet developed. Like a new variant of radar, or a special kind of particle accelerator that won't be developed until the year 2096. How can we say today that logic has proved this god or that religion invalid? We just don't know yet. Logic is useful for dissecting some of the myths and patent falsehoods in many religions. But these false or laughable components of some religions were, at one time, plenty good enough for the then-current level of human and scientific development. That we find them silly or easily disproved today could merely reflect the obsolete or incorrect human reporting of actual events or circumstances. If you traveled back to Europe or China in 200 A.D. to explain what lightning really is, your explanation just wouldn't work. They had a different story about it then, and that story was linked to so many other "facts" and known truths that today seem silly. You and I may laugh at the stupid childish primitive explanation of lightning current in those days. Even so, lightning really did exist then. Don't blame the reporter. In the same way, our current story of what lightning "really is" will probably be different 1200 years from now, too. For example, instead of being couched in terms of charged air and water molecules rubbing together in clouds, it might be delivered in terms of interactions among various now-unknown fields and particles... If you want a view of something as bizarre as wine turning magically to blood, just have a look at some particle physics and theoretical physics pages where you can read about quantum computers, two things being in the same place at the same time, faster-than-light tachyons, the 6 flavors of quark and dozens more that are described by taking the negative square root of this or that, tunneling back through time as antimatter or what have you. I mean, really. Some of this stuff seems absurd, but it may actually turn out to be true. With all this stuff going on, how can logic be used today to disprove religion or god? One item that must go into the logical pasta machine, before we turn the crank, is "the possibility that we don't yet have all the evidence". In fact, that possibility (that there is a ton of yet-unknown evidence) seems extremely likely. Maybe animism is actually valid, and inside rocks and trees there are beings or entities composed of charged subatomic particles or as-yet-unknown energy fields. Can this be disproved today? I read that the makeup of 98% of the mass of the universe is unknown...the so-called "dark matter" that they haven't been able to find yet. I don't think that 98% has anything to do with god, I just wonder what the heck it is and why we don't know yet. We must be in a rather primitive stage of development, don't you think? I lean toward atheism and sympathize with that point of view. But 98% of our playpen is a giant question mark, and people now claim to have disproved religion? That's shoddy reasoning, illogical conclusion-jumping at best. When I hear stuff like this--and flash on how little humanity knows, let alone the tiny subset of that dimly cognized by poor Mr. badmigraine himself, well...I conclude that we should not be as smugly certain about cosmology, ontology and religion as the average person seems to be. I also wonder why people think religion or god would necessarily be provable or disprovable. How would anyone know that? In that light, the question becomes one of personal opinion, suasion, belief or disbelief, and logic be damned. I don't subscribe to any religion right now, but I can't say I have decided for myself whether there is or is not a god or gods. Make a pie chart of the following 3 things, giving what you feel is the correct size to each piece of the pie: 1. What you know that you know E.g., the capital of Canada, how many quarts in a gallon, how to ride powder, etc.) 2. What you know that you DON'T KNOW E.g., all about quantum mechanics; how many grains of sand are on that beach; how to do a McTwist on 210cm. straight skis, etc.) 3. What you DON'T KNOW that you DON'T KNOW E.g., all the stuff it never occured to you that there is to know, because nobody yet even figured out that it was there to know. And all the stuff that we humans can never know, just like squirrels can never know about coding XTML. I think #3 would be the giant portion of the pie, with #1 and #2 being very, very tiny slivers. Link to post Share on other sites
Ocean11 0 Posted November 1, 2003 Share Posted November 1, 2003 Yes but... ...just because quantum physics seems bizarre, people are identifying it, naming it, and describing it. At some stage, they'll find plausible explanations for it, even if it may represent 98% of all matter and we don't know much about it now. What logic tells us about God is that God raises more questions than it provides answers to. Origins are certainly a mystery to us, but God won't make them any less so. And history also tells us that phenomena that were not understood in the past, that are quite explicable now, were often attributed directly to the divine. Assuming, or even suspecting, that quantum physics may conceal the divine seems like more of the same sort of superstition. Link to post Share on other sites
scouser 4 Posted November 1, 2003 Share Posted November 1, 2003 Whoah. some of you come up with the most fascinating essays on here I don't really have much time for religion at all. Back in the UK almost no-one I know goes to church anymore and confesses to be religious. My grandmother used to look at the way things had changed and be so sad about it. Bless 'er. Link to post Share on other sites
badmigraine 0 Posted November 1, 2003 Share Posted November 1, 2003 Ocean, I'm merely saying that we just don't yet know what all is out there, and until we do, we are just making guesses about cosmology and religion. Nothing wrong with that, just that you can't say god/religion has been proved or disproved. Based on the trend to which you refer, and the level to which our currently-popular religions have been scientifically de-bunked, it seems reasonable to assume that they, and the concept of god(s) they contain, are fully wide of the mark. In other words, our current concept of divine may be obsolete. It hasn't changed significantly over many centuries--even though science and the archaeological record allow us today to giggle at some of the preposterous and disproven accoutrements that were associated with it. Why hasn't the concept of the divine itself been subject to the same treatment? One problem may be that we judge god and religion today using this antiquated concept of divine, when maybe that concept itself should be adjusted, updated, re-worked or even discarded. As you point out, natural forces that used to be called "divine" now turn out to be things like electricity and subterranean methane gas. And there are few natural phenomenon today that drive people to look for supernatural causes. If future science or knowledge reveals more and more natural forces that ancient peoples dubbed "divine", that's great and would be the continuation of a trend that is, in the life of the universe and this planet, only a small part of the human history that itself is a mere wink or flash in the temporal vastness. So what? Do we in our current enlightened state really expect an old-style god with talking plants and miracles and so forth? We're not really that primitive anymore. What if there is a god or number of gods, and they don't act like the ones in our recorded or known myths and religions? What's the justification for the proposition that a god or gods is knowable by humans, provable in any way by humans? This is just a big, unjustifiable guess we make so we can keep talking about this stuff. Frankly speaking, if a god were really to exist, I would suppose the god to be rather different from anything I've ever imagined. Some people look at the amazing complexity of matter and the universe, and conclude that it is too wonderful to have happened by chance only. Where did it come from, and is there a why?, etc. This is just more guesswork, an ontological fudge. The absurdly interesting wonders of theoretical physics are fine, but they don't seem to me to say anything about whether or not one or many gods exist. What if there was a god, but s/he/it made billions of universes and our particular one fell down behind the sofa cushions? Until that god finds us behind the sofa, nothing like talking pillars of fire or provable godlike entities will happen around here? Or maybe the god just up and left? Again, I am agnostic, but I'm really not getting much satisfaction out of the current pat answers about how logic disproves god and so forth. I'd rather just say that I have a hard time seeing where a god in the old style, as we have come to know it, could fit into our current cosmology. If there is one, it's likely that god is qualitatively different from the anthropomorphic or magic-trick performing ones we've heard about until now. Link to post Share on other sites
Ocean11 0 Posted November 1, 2003 Share Posted November 1, 2003 OK... So, if you have a god that is this unknowable, how do you respond with a suitable religion (because as any fool knows, gods are not pleased unless they have a religion built around them)? I'm also forced to wonder what would be divine about an alternative divinity that didn't go about creating, judging, and destroying as gods have hitherto been required to do. There's a certain circularity observable here, and logic is the only way out. (To acknowledge something as being divine, that is, supernatural, you have to have religion. Otherwise what you have is science. So, migs, what religion do you propose to acknowledge this divinity who is as yet only a possibility?) But as you point out, giving up God does leave a void. I think we have plenty of mystery left to awe us, and enough pointers to our amazing smallness without needing the dogma of religion as a side dish. There are plenty of scientists writing today who have recognized the illogic of faith, yet who still convey a religious fervor and awe about what they observe. While that bores me personally, I'd rather have that than faeries. Link to post Share on other sites
mogski 0 Posted November 1, 2003 Share Posted November 1, 2003 I am god. Link to post Share on other sites
miteyak 0 Posted November 1, 2003 Author Share Posted November 1, 2003 The point is not 'does god exist, is it possible', but, 'is there ant evidence (other than mass hysteria)' to believe that he/she/it does' The space left in us when religion leaves, it's called 'chemical imbalance'. We'll get over it, as soon as we accept that the fears/desires instilled in us at birth are groundless. Yes, there are plenty of unexplained phenomena, but reaching for some deity to explain it raises more questions than it answers. the deity is usually less plausible than the phenomena in the first place! The likelihood of a god is less logical than us being an atom in a soccer ball being kicked around in space! And don't knock logic. It's the only honest tool us humans have, and not as limited as taken to be by many. Like most things in life, the misuse of logic gives it a bad name. The topic posted wasn't intended to state religion couldn't possibly exist, just that, as a topic for debate it's redundant. Just as politicians, scientists and judges refuse to factor fairies into the equation when making decisions, they should also be blind to religious conviction. Religion's rights end at the rights of an individual, and shouldn't extent any further into the public domain. It's current status in many places as near-fact is preposterous. As an aside, it's always interesting to listen to christians ridiculing other religions for their rather far-fetched assertions... Link to post Share on other sites
Ocean11 0 Posted November 1, 2003 Share Posted November 1, 2003 As a side note to that, it's always amazing to hear Christian politicians pontificating on what sort of religion Islam is. "Islam is a religion of peace" sayeth George the Younger. Link to post Share on other sites
badmigraine 0 Posted November 1, 2003 Share Posted November 1, 2003 As usual, I'm not saying that I'm right, I'm merely saying that everyone else is wrong! Link to post Share on other sites
snobee 0 Posted November 1, 2003 Share Posted November 1, 2003 The wine I drank last night was simply DIVINE and definitely SACRILEGIOUS when the kid knocked over the half full glass - or was it half empty? But god never entered the equation. Link to post Share on other sites
miteyak 0 Posted November 1, 2003 Author Share Posted November 1, 2003 halleluyah Link to post Share on other sites
Ocean11 0 Posted November 1, 2003 Share Posted November 1, 2003 When kids knock over my wine, I follow Abraham's example and whet my knife. Link to post Share on other sites
mikazooki 0 Posted November 14, 2003 Share Posted November 14, 2003 got 15 mins spare? think religion is bunk? well you don't want to be left behind!! backup link bottom story - plays in real player Link to post Share on other sites
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