[Terez]

 frookenhauer, on Oct 28 2008, 09:28 PM, said:

The problem with religion is that we create it, and we are ever imperfect.

Precisely. Man claims that religion gives him guidance on how to be a better person, but the truth is that man can compare what is in that book to reality and decide for himself what his morals are, and man often chooses what reality tells him over what the book tells him. Man not only wrote the book, but man interprets the book however he chooses. Man makes his own morals, and attempts to pass his own morals to others in one way or another. Man's broad attempt to pass his morals to future generations by ascribing them to divine law serves a fine enough purpose in a vacuum, but becomes problematic when man encounters another man whose beliefs about morals and even the nature of reality are fundamentally different.

Of course, we could all join CI's God Is Whatever You Want Him To Be Unitarian Church, and we'd all be happy. But it's difficult to see what the point of invoking the supernatural is, in that context.

[/The Argument]

[Cold Iron]

 frookenhauer, on Oct 29 2008, 12:28 PM, said:

Boldness rules! I see what you mean with regards to deeper truths, but with things like that even Aesops fables and even Star Wars can also show me deeper truths, both about myself and the world about me.

I agree, which is why they are popular. The Bible and other religious texts have one important thing that these don't, however (and you mention it yourself later in your post). The text itself has been written and reworked by countless people, some of whom dedicated their lives to contemplating ultimate truths. No story is orignial. All are in part similar to or stolen from some tale that can be traced back to before writing was invented or brought to that particular culture. These oral traditions can then stretch back as far as our anatomy allows. The stories of Star Wars, aesops fables, and the bible are not original or unique, they are a part of our collective culture, our psyche, our very nature. But religious law is different to standard literary art because of the way it is treated and received. It has helped lift whole populations out of slavery. It has helped build stable and safe societies. While any story has this same power, they can not all claim to have had the same influence.

I will come back to the rest of your post when I have some more time. And Terez, somehow I don't think you closing of the argument was quite as efficacious as you would have liked I'll be addressing your comments too.

[Terez]

 Cold Iron, on Oct 29 2008, 09:58 PM, said:

I agree, which is why they are popular. The Bible and other religious texts have one important thing that these don't, however...religious law is different to standard literary art because of the way it is treated and received.

That's precisely the problem - people take it way too seriously, and often literally. We don't depend on the Bible for moral evolution, but we do depend on it to justify certain atrocities that could not be convincingly justified otherwise.

CI said:

It has helped lift whole populations out of slavery.

It has helped keep whole populations in slavery as well.

CI said:

It has helped build stable and safe societies.

It has helped destroy stable and safe societies.

CI said:

While any story has this same power, they can not all claim to have had the same influence.

Unfortunately.

CI said:

Terez, somehow I don't think you closing of the argument was quite as efficacious as you would have liked

Oh, I never expected to convince you of anything.

This post has been edited by Terez: 30 October 2008 - 04:16 AM

[frookenhauer]

Well done Terez, you've pointed out the main arguments with regards to the relative value of religion, I'd like to supplement it with my own thoughts, if I may . With regards to slavery, Washington, Martin Luther King and more recently Mandella and Apartheid, other people and movements have done their part to keep their populations out of slavery. Societies have been created and managed without the aid of religion. In terms of influence the decline of the church and the rise and rise of Islam means that the Koran is narrowing the gap in terms of influence, but that is beside the point. In fact anything that religion has done or not done for mankind and society, it can be replicated without religion making any contribution. In many ways religion is unnecessary, we can carry on as a society without it, it serves no purpose other than its own propagation. This may sound contentious and insulting, but if you hear me out, you might get where I'm coming from:

Something that has stood the test of time like the triumvirate of the T.B.K. could have been used as a way of understanding our history as a species, but its inconsistent stories and outright made up stuff such as the formation of the universe, kind of throw that idea out of the window. Yes, its obvious that it is written by many people and lovingly stitched together, but some of those people were obviously not really in communication with God, and if so, that means they made it up, which in a manner of speaking is a fabrication, or more simply lies.

When talking about inconsistent, I mean things like: day 5 all the creatures and sea monsters are created. On the sixth day man is created and given dominion over the worlds creatures. Then in chapter 2 god makes a mist form and creates the first man (Adam) and blows life into his nostrils. He then creates animals and makes him name them and then creates the first woman out of a rib. Notice the difference? It would have been nice if events were coordinated properly, but maybe they're explaining that time travel is possible? Maybe a few thousand years ago the shaman would have been able to wow the primitives around the fire with that gem.

And then you may ask, how is it possible, if it were not sanctioned by god, to have gained so much influence. Well there are two ways to look at it. the first is if you consider history to be a huge steep sided loose bouldered cliff, if you threw a pebble off the top and it hits just the right point eventually an avalanche comes down, that pebble is religion and whichever one you would prefer. Human history is rocky enough for the comparison . The other way is RotW football. In its simplest form its 22 blokes kicking a ball up and down a large grass strip. Yet it has a massive following and is considered by many to be a religion in itself and it has gained its own momentum. If enough people are interested, more people become interested, and then more...Influence is not a measure of how important something is, unless you see things in terms of £ + $, but again that is besides the point.

The only thing that religion is really good for these days is to give us a good moral code, but society can do that for us, and so can the Jedi. The old religions have had their time, and they have been found...wanting.

[stone monkey]

Gem - My relationship with God is non-existant as I work on the assumptiomn that he doesn't exist. Your point that you don't or can't make God fit into to an understanding of the universe would seem to imply that if you do want to understand the universe you might as well not bother with the concept of God having anything to do with it at all - he's inherently not comprehensible by the human mind so any explanation that devolves to "God did it" is no explanation at all because the God part can't be parsed...

To my mind there's an utter ridiculousness and irrelevance to the exercise of arguing the existence of God with arguments that attempt to give the appearance of a coherent logical structure. It's like trying to count to infinity; what's the point?

[Gem Windcaster]

 stone monkey, on Nov 3 2008, 06:57 PM, said:

Gem - My relationship with God is non-existant as I work on the assumptiomn that he doesn't exist. Your point that you don't or can't make God fit into to an understanding of the universe would seem to imply that if you do want to understand the universe you might as well not bother with the concept of God having anything to do with it at all - he's inherently not comprehensible by the human mind so any explanation that devolves to "God did it" is no explanation at all because the God part can't be parsed...

That's not exactly what I meant.
Our viewpoints seems to be mirror reflections of each other - you don't want to make God fit into your world view and I don't want to make the world fit into my comprehension of God - if that makes any sense. You're not trying to see it from my persepctive (or can't, which in itself is understandable) but at least try to grasp the concept that I am trying to describe.

 stone monkey, on Nov 3 2008, 06:57 PM, said:

To my mind there's an utter ridiculousness and irrelevance to the exercise of arguing the existence of God with arguments that attempt to give the appearance of a coherent logical structure. It's like trying to count to infinity; what's the point?

I'm not trying to argue for anything. I know I can never prove God exists, nor do I have to. You guys, on the other hand, have everything to prove, because your world view rests on the assumption that everything real is provable by the dimensions we understand. To me that is a too narrow world view and too limiting. Whereas I don't expect everything to be proven, or even understood by the standards of the dimensions we live in and understand, you base your entire understanding of the reality on the disregard for anything that doesn't fit into these dimensions and the assumptions of anything that proves that that's all there is.

To me, the notion of 'if you can't explain it it doesn't exist' is quite childish, and to be honest, quite the promotion of ignorance and decay.

[Nandaki]

This might be slightly off the current line of discussion her but here's my two cents on this topic.

I personally feel that God is a product of humanity's need to believe in a higher power. Starting right from the time humanity was in it's infant stage everything that couldn't be explained was attributed to something higher than us. All the questions that had no sure explaination was linked to God. Every religious book written till now has been has been edited by men throughout the ages to suit their own purposes.

As for science, sure its has had it's moments where it has disproved certain truths of religion but right now I am not satisfied with their answers for everything else.

For me the main problem beleiving in God stems from the fact that I think that all the faith we are placing in him hasn't been answered. I'm not talking about having lightening strike a tree so that I can beleive in him etc. For me it's this: Murderers, rapists and other scum of this earth generally lead happy lives, free and running about in the world. While totally random innocent people die by the scores everyday. Therefore if I have to beleive in a God then I'd have to hate him/her. Since God's judgement is skewed. Hence I choose not to believe in God.

But I do acknowledge the fact that this belief people have in a higher power is also the source of hope when everything else looks lost. So I don't discount it's value, since hope is a powerful emotion that can save a life. But I am totally against religion (personal opinion), since I see that totally as a man made construct.

[Tsundoku]

Replying to the original post (sorry, not scrolling through):

My take is (being agnostic), that the last sentient creature/being/computer/whatever left in a dying universe takes all the "stuff" and kicks off the birth of the new one. Time being circular, there is no start point or end point. Eventually, some bloke 2 or 200,000,000 universes down the line will be the one to kick start ours.

And that's not taking into account the "multiple universe/schrodingers' cat" theory.

Just a theory, anyhoo.

Cheers,

La Sombra, will cliff-note "A Brief History of Time" for his next trick

PS - yes I know he just did a revised dumbed down version

This post has been edited by Sombra: 03 December 2008 - 11:49 AM

[Epiph]

 Vicodin&FantasyBooks, on Oct 19 2008, 08:37 AM, said:

For me God is what gives me a valid reason to believe that humanity is more valuable than the rest of life on Earth for example - because the interaction that we create between us is unique to this planet - that the capacity of every single human being is far greater than that of any animal.

This sentiment is exactly what is wrong with religion. People always cite the violence and atrocities that have been perpetrated against other men and groups, but ultimately, this attitude that we humans are better and more valuable than anything else in the world is the most harmful. Yes, violence against other men is bad, but rarely to people think of the harm to our planet and environment that this "the earth was made for our use" attitude has spawned. Because we're not anymore special than any other amazing organism on this planet except that we happened to evolve into tool users.

I have no real beef with people who choose to believe in God, and if one allows oneself to keep their religious beliefs fluid, I see little about religion that is in opposition to science. But ultimately, I think religion is incredibly harmful because of the "we're special" attitude it engenders.

@ Gem
I really don't understand why evolution is such a hard thing for you to accept. In our discussions, you have expressed a tendency to interpret the Bible fluidly and not take it at a literal face value. So why is it impossible to believe that maybe God chose to use the vehicle of evolution to shape his grand plan for humanity? Since you don't seem to accept evolution, what other vehicle for the existence of the earth's biodiversity and fossil records do you propose, aside from direct divine will? And once you observe and accept as true that organisms undergo genetic mutation (as you seem to accept), what do you think is the result, if not natural selection and evolution of species? I could understand if you accepted the theory of evolution provisionally, since at present it seems to offer the best explanation, but reserved some skepticism towards it. However, I cannot understand how you fail to see natural selection and evolution as logical conclusions to be drawn from the available evidence. I'm not trying to attack you, I'm honestly curious as to your thought process.

@ frook
I think you're missing a really important point in your criticism of religion when you throw out context with the bathwater. Yes, the Bible is full of logical inconsistencies, but you cannot criticize a religion without looking at the whole thing. A religious text is only as important as the canonical interpretation of it. By limiting yourself to this narrow lens of criticism, you are in effect criticizing a dead religion, ie, the religious view you are criticizing only exists in small pockets today, small enough that it's negligible (unless you live in the US in the Bible Belt and have an extended family like mine). The same can be said of theologians. Before we criticize, we should seek to understand, and there is no better place to start than with the men and women who have thought deeply about religion. Not to mention that most of the important Western ones have become an integral part of the literary conversation that spans Western history.

As to the OP, as several people have said, the whole point of faith is not to need proof. Salvation is only for the faithful, and once you have proof, faith becomes a moot point, and salvation pointless. So while it seems to us logicians like we've scored a great point when we throw out these paradoxes, to the faithful, they don't matter.