Religion

jute gyte · Post by **jute gyte** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 8:19 am

Well stated.

Kill Me Sarah · Post by **Kill Me Sarah** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 8:25 am

Mogosagatai wrote:[ And then I went on to say that there isn't a better alternative, and that the one we're in now is pretty much the most amazing thing ever.

If your an AIDS infected infant in Africa that will die an orphan before you reach your 5th birthday, someone living in one of the various parts of the world where going out for groceries can mean walking next to someone or something that will blow up in your face, or anyone else who doesn't live in the world conditions many middle to upper-class Americans are used to, then that's going to sound like a pretty absurd statement.

I'm glad that the state of the world is working out for you, but I'm sure 90% of it's population wouldn't agree with you.

HeuristicsInc · Post by **HeuristicsInc** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 9:00 am

all right, you anti-religious types, let's, uh, try to be a little more tolerant of others' beliefs, please? what i see here is religious types being tolerant and you guys being, honestly, pretty rude.
-bill

WeaselSlayer · Post by **WeaselSlayer** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 9:07 am

In case anything I've said has been misinterpreted as rude, I just want to make clear that while I do not subscribe to any religion, I am by no means against it. I think religion's got some great things to offer people, I just personally don't get anything out of it.

starfinger · Post by **starfinger** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 9:10 am

blue wrote:it is not a self-consistent document. there is no logic to it. that's why they call it a faith.

Obviously a person's response to the Bible is a ... uh ... personal thing. Why it resonates with one person and leaves another person cold is a big mystery.

But I reject the idea that the Bible is inconsistent. I totally understand where you are coming from with doubts about the Bible's authenticity and consistency and all that stuff. I have been through that myself. I"m not the Bible's yes-man or anything. I have genuinely studied it, and I continue to do so, and I am blown away by it's consistency and coherence.

The literal words of the bible have staggering complexity, richness, relevance and power. As far as I am concerned, it absolutely reeks of truth. The idea that it could be anything but divinely inspired is not something I can consider anymore.

If you want to talk about specific inconsistencies, that's fine. I'm not sure it would buy anybody anything. The point of this post is to unequivocally present my viewpoint on the matter.

-craig

HeuristicsInc · Post by **HeuristicsInc** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 9:16 am

WeaselSlayer wrote:In case anything I've said has been misinterpreted as rude

Sorry, I should re-state that there is some subset of anti-religious types saying rude things, but by all means NOT ALL. Apologies.
-bill

WeaselSlayer · Post by **WeaselSlayer** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 9:21 am

Oh no worries at all, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't being lumped into the Christians-are-idiots category, because I know myself some sharp Christians. Likewise I know some dumb ones too, but I also know a lot of dumb atheists. You know when you get right down to it, I just know a lot of dumb people.

stueym · Post by **stueym** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 9:44 am

Personal History & sane rationality statement

1. Baptised Church of Scotland (Presbyterian)
2. Practised actively through age 16 and even considered ministry as a career option upto that point
3. Came to see that any time people organize into social structure of a "church" the usual human frailities and biases occur with the powerful getting powerful and influencing eveyone below them to their bias (viewpoint) or ostracising them.
4. Decicded to disengage from organized religion after observing the same to be true of almost all organized judo-christian and many (but not all) other religions.

Opinion and guiding principles for ME

Social structures (groups/churches) are in my opinion antithetical to the principles of most religious belief and a personal dialogue with your spiritual object of belief (God/Jesus/Allah etc.).

Social groups are however necessary for many people to incur a sense of belonging, worthiness (sociological theory). However all social groups end up with power structures with however many biases and abuses of power and exclusions. Churches of all faiths have to a greater or lesser sense the same structural strengths and failings of any other social organizations.

Whether you look at the power and politics of the catholic church for the last 1000 years or so or go back further to the multi-deity power groups of the Roman Empire or the reasonably wide fringes of radical Islam, they are all evidence of social power structures with human beings interpreting the principles of personal faith to influence and bend people to their point of view.

The demonising/hate/desire to convert-kill non-believers is no different to gated community home-owners wanting to keep the homgenity of their social group pure by trying to limit who can become members of their small community.

I have deliberately decided not to raise the two kids within an organized religious structure. Instead I have concentrated on reinforcing their perception of good moral values and a culture of acceptance and undertsanding of multiple cultures and belief systems so that they can develop critical reasoning to allow them to make up their own mind.

In fact for the last census in the UK my son told me he wanted to be registered as a Jedi. So that's exactly what I put down because I considered the rationale and belief system he described to be in keeping with the principles of the Jedi faith (however fictional that may be). In fact when the returns came back guess what....390,000 people registered as Jedi's. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2757067.stm

So be happy, belong if you want/feel the need to, have belief in your own purpose in the world, be accepting in th moderate-ness of others, be tolerant of others extremes and read "If..." and the Desiderata often....to get perspective.

That is all

starfinger · Post by **starfinger** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 9:56 am

I am opposed to the structure of churches as well. I think it tempts the leaders too much.
The abuse of power is disgusting.

I go to an Evangelical Free Church. There is a (fixed) core set of beliefs that each church must stand by, but other than that they are totally autonomous.

-craig

roymond · Post by **roymond** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 11:14 am

stueym wrote:be tolerant of others extremes

Stuey - you are obviously succeding with your kids and yourself at various levels. I just think we need to be somewhat critical of how tolerant we need to be. There are extremes for which no tolerance should be afforded.

Kill Me Sarah · Post by **Kill Me Sarah** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 11:26 am

blue wrote:the NT gospels were all written way, way after jesus died, by anonymous authors.

I was waiting for someone else to challenge this, but no one did. Anonymous authors??? The names of the authors are IN the title of the books. That's why they're called the gospels "According to" Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

blue wrote:none of them claim to actually have been present for anything, they just tell the story as tho they saw it personally.

John was an apostle, one of the original 12 hand-selected by Jesus, so I'm pretty sure he was present.

stueym · Post by **stueym** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 11:27 am

roymond wrote:
stueym wrote:be tolerant of others extremes
Stuey - you are obviously succeding with your kids and yourself at various levels. I just think we need to be somewhat critical of how tolerant we need to be. There are extremes for which no tolerance should be afforded.

Oh don't get me wrong, my level of tolerance to extreme's of behaviour at the macro/micro-local/global level is suitably white middle-aged grumpy old man conservative.

Should have seen me cursing out some suitably inept drivers this morning!!

starfinger · Post by **starfinger** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 11:37 am

kill_me_sarah wrote:The names of the authors are IN the title of the books.

The classic attribution of the gospel authors is based on scholarly best guesses, since the original manuscripts were unsigned.

I personally think the anonymity is tantalizing, as it leaves open the door for the originals being physically created in some divine way. Maybe if I had some doubt about the integrity of their content, I would feel differently about this.

What people do seem to like to gloss over is the fact that the Old Testament is probably the most well maintained ancient document of all time.

The selection of the NT canon was not some arbitrary process either. There is a science to determining the authenticity of these kinds of documents, based on how widespread they are and things of that nature. Some of the more controversial gospels were not selected because they were relatively rare enigmas.. not because the content was damaging to the power center (contrary to conspiracy theories).

It's really a non-issue once faith enters the picture, since we can rest assured that the all powerful God protects his word.

-craig

Bjam · Post by **Bjam** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 12:31 pm

stueym wrote: I have deliberately decided not to raise the two kids within an organized religious structure. Instead I have concentrated on reinforcing their perception of good moral values and a culture of acceptance and undertsanding of multiple cultures and belief systems so that they can develop critical reasoning to allow them to make up their own mind.

Damn right. We're a pretty zenned out family. I go to friend's sibling's confirmations, Passover seders, Catholic church open mics, Bat and Bah Mitzvahs. (In this area it's pretty much just Christian and Jews, very few other religions). But we as a family don't go to any organized place. If you're into that, rock on, have fun, if it makes you feel like a better person, go for it.

We're happy being moralistic and zen. "Be nice to others", "Say Please and Thank You", "Don't kill anyone". I know lots of people who are very very rude who are affiliated with various religions. Sure, you've found God, Jesus lives within you and you've got a big pretty cross on, rock on; but the fact that you completely ignored me as a cashier, snatched your change back, spoke on your cellphone while your sticky handed kid touched all the stuff in the store, does not make you a good person. No matter how big your damn Tiffany's cross neckalce is.

There are always gonna be extreme ends of religion, so just chill out and life will balance out.

(In my Jedi opinion anyway)

Mogosagatai · Post by **Mogosagatai** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 1:24 pm

kill_me_sarah wrote:If your an AIDS infected infant in Africa that will die an orphan before you reach your 5th birthday..., then that's going to sound like a pretty absurd statement.

Yeah I know. I don't mean to suggest that it's easy to see the big picture, nor that I've come within arm's reach of seeing it. But I still stand by what I said. That one line by Neutral Milk Hotel--"How strange it is to be anything at all..."--the way it's sung in such a triumphant way--that may be about as close to a-ridiculously-simplified-blanket-statement-describing-my-belief-system as possible.

To Stuey M: Well said, sir.

starfinger · Post by **starfinger** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 1:27 pm

In response to "Sven's paradox", I believe that God has big plans for humanity, and these plans were not changed when sin entered the picture (which was an inevitable result of free will). In fact, the Bible is God's plan for us to return to our created destiny -- honor and glory and dominion, as sons of God. Somehow this end result is worth the pain in this world. He loves us too much to not create us.

-craig

Mogosagatai · Post by **Mogosagatai** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 1:31 pm

I very much agree with Starf, except I wouldn't say it like that.

(I would say it like <a href="http://www.lightningmp3.com/live/file.p ... 8">this</a>.)

blue · Post by **blue** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 2:02 pm

kill_me_sarah wrote:
blue wrote:the NT gospels were all written way, way after jesus died, by anonymous authors.
I was waiting for someone else to challenge this, but no one did. Anonymous authors??? The names of the authors are IN the title of the books. That's why they're called the gospels "According to" Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

blue wrote:none of them claim to actually have been present for anything, they just tell the story as tho they saw it personally.
John was an apostle, one of the original 12 hand-selected by Jesus, so I'm pretty sure he was present.

1) the oldest known copies were written in Greek. the language of the land of Jesus was Aramaic.
2) nowhere in the gospels do the authors identify themselves
3) the earliest known versions are dated at not less than 30 years after Jesus's death.

the original titles were not called "the gospel according to," either. that was added later. to believe that these people recalled, verbatim, the words of someone who died not less than 30 years earlier in an age of almost purely oral history is just, uh.. whatever.

Christianity is a reformation of Judaism. The mechanism of that reformation is the new testament. It is a manifesto, not a history.

blue · Post by **blue** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 2:03 pm

starfinger wrote:He loves us too much to not create us.

-craig

... and give us cancer.

blue · Post by **blue** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 2:10 pm

HeuristicsInc wrote:all right, you anti-religious types, let's, uh, try to be a little more tolerant of others' beliefs, please? what i see here is religious types being tolerant and you guys being, honestly, pretty rude.
-bill

you should call people out directly, methinks.

everyone is welcome to all the faith they want - as long as they realize that it is faith, and faith alone. the second anyone gets way from faith and into history, logic, or math, they are only doing themselves and their religion a disservice.

in order to be religious, you must also be willfully ignorant. you _must_ accept that you have absolutely no freakin' idea what is going on with the universe and god, and accept that all of your questions are going to end with the same answer: because god said so.

while there might be tangible benefits to a religious lifestyle, there are no tangible benefits to religion itself. it is the people who can't understand this and just have to keep crossing that line back and forth that drive me nuts.

as far as the bible goes, it may all be the truth, but very little of it is factual.

fodroy · Post by **fodroy** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 2:16 pm

blue wrote:
starfinger wrote:He loves us too much to not create us.

-craig
... and give us cancer.

and put things up peoples' butts. zing!

starfinger · Post by **starfinger** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 2:28 pm

blue wrote:everyone is welcome to all the faith they want - as long as they realize that it is faith, and faith alone. the second anyone gets way from faith and into history, logic, or math, they are only doing themselves and their religion a disservice.

I'm not sure what religion you're referring to, but I don't know of any historical, logical, mathematical, or -heck - scientific conflicts with what I believe.

Complications, maybe. I agree that my faith fills in some blanks, but I'm not actively denying that some observable fact of the world doesn't exist.

-craig