[QuickTidal]

Grief, on 05 May 2015 - 05:01 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 04 May 2015 - 06:26 PM, said:

See, but all those things could very well be explained by science (in many cases they have been). Your stance is that "belief" is proof for your side...it's not for someone who is not faithful or doesn't ascribe to your religion. So the only person who provides burden of proof would be you in that scenario...and since that holds up to "miracle" for you, there's no way to convince anyone who doesn't follow your religion. The difference is that science is universal. If someone's limb regrew, for example...science would investigate and likely find an answer.

I think that the important question is what if science doesn't find an answer? And your post itself contains the answer to this question -- "those things could very well be explained by science". This is an appeal to the future; the belief isn't just that the things that have been explained by science are not miracles, it's that the things that currently haven't been explained, will be. So where do we draw the line? I'm curious as to at what point you would allow that something might be miraculous (rather than not yet explained but likely to be explained in the future), and I think this is the issue that Powder was getting at. Would a scientific mindset ever really allow that possibility?

I'm the guy who until science explained it would assume that science COULD eventually. Like you mentioned in your earlier post. I'm not sure if I could look at something miraculous and see it any other way.

Grief, on 05 May 2015 - 05:01 PM, said:

I'm also curious about your claim that science is universal. What do you mean? The scientific method has a circular logical foundation. The claim that science is universal seems, to me, to be very hard to prove scientifically.

Oh, apologies. I just meant that science is a ubiquitous with defining the natural aspects and occurrences of the planet. We didn't know why, for example, cats purr for the longest time....but recent research has found a very scientific answer in that some experts to believe that this uniquely feline vocalization is actually a method of self-healing. A domestic cat's purr has a frequency of between 25 and 150 Hertz, which happens to be the frequency at which muscles and bones best grow and repair themselves.

Science has explained enough over the years that were once thought to be "miraculous" that the deck is kind of stacked against a nebulous "miracle event". I think the best place to look for that is in pagan mythologies which tried to explain the natural world by creating gods who did those things. The seas are angry and writhing, and so Poseidon is angry with you. The sky is lighting up and roaring..so Thor is pounding away with his hammer. These would have been miraculous things...but they are scientifically explainable now.

But I think you make a good point. I can't disprove miracles as miracles, unless they can be scientifically proven as something else at some point. I've just seen enough miraculous things disproven under science to be wary, I guess?

[Grief]

QuickTidal, on 04 May 2015 - 06:26 PM, said:

You're still implying that objective is not possible in a human brain. I think Maark is very much saying that it is. There is no need for a deity to colour how I see morality.

"How I see morality" is pretty much by definition a non-objective viewpoint.

Maark, on 05 May 2015 - 02:28 PM, said:

There is most certainly no requirement of faith for me to be able to make objective decisions; I especially could not look to a deity whose holy book is not shy on bloodthirsty acts committed directly by them or in their name (Genesis, Hosea... I could go on) as a moral compass.

I am curious to what you count as an objective decision. I would argue that it is very hard to make one, particularly in regards to morality, since adherence to any apparently objective code seems to be a subjective choice and viewpoint.

[QuickTidal]

Grief, on 05 May 2015 - 05:27 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 04 May 2015 - 06:26 PM, said:

You're still implying that objective is not possible in a human brain. I think Maark is very much saying that it is. There is no need for a deity to colour how I see morality.

"How I see morality" is pretty much by definition a non-objective viewpoint.

Is it? What about instinct?

[Grief]

QuickTidal, on 05 May 2015 - 05:13 PM, said:

Science has explained enough over the years that were once thought to be "miraculous" that the deck is kind of stacked against a nebulous "miracle event". I think the best place to look for that is in pagan mythologies which tried to explain the natural world by creating gods who did those things. The seas are angry and writhing, and so Poseidon is angry with you. The sky is lighting up and roaring..so Thor is pounding away with his hammer. These would have been miraculous things...but they are scientifically explainable now.

But I think you make a good point. I can't disprove miracles as miracles, unless they can be scientifically proven as something else at some point. I've just seen enough miraculous things disproven under science to be wary, I guess?

One difficulty here is that we can't necessarily assume that things that have been scientifically explained are also not miracles. We have a scientific explanation for lightning, but we can't necessarily say that all instances of lightning are thus non-miraculous.

I also agree that there seems to be a pattern of science explaining things that were considered miraculous in the past. However, say we start with ancient man. He knows comparatively little and we wouldn't expect him to differentiate with any accuracy between the unexplainable that is miraculous and the unexplainable that isn't. We would expect his unexplained category to be huge, and to contain tons and tons of non-miracles, so the pattern seems just as likely to arise miracles or no miracles.

[Grief]

QuickTidal, on 05 May 2015 - 05:32 PM, said:

Grief, on 05 May 2015 - 05:27 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 04 May 2015 - 06:26 PM, said:

You're still implying that objective is not possible in a human brain. I think Maark is very much saying that it is. There is no need for a deity to colour how I see morality.

"How I see morality" is pretty much by definition a non-objective viewpoint.

Is it? What about instinct?

I would say that "How I see morality" is a subjective viewpoint. The objective version of the sentence would be "there is no need for a deity to colour morality".

Instinct is an interesting response. However, I would say that it's deeply tied to the individual. If you instinctively wince at the sight of brussel sprouts, that's not something objectively bad about sprouts, it's a subjective response. If you instinctively feel that theft is wrong, I likewise would say that it is subjective -- it doesn't mean that theft is wrong by some universal/external scale, and different people might have different responses (and, for example, if a squirrel stole someone's food, one might hesitate to say it was morally wrong of it).

Are there instinctive responses that might be counted? Well, like was discussed upthread, Nietzsche suggests happiness as an objective measure -- he argues nothing else is objectively morally good, but that by definition happiness is a "good feeling". But this doesn't really escape subjectivity in a sense, because the specifics of what makes people happy vary subjectively.

[Powder]

It also somewhat made me curious about what you think about the people in the bible who did get to witness miracles. I've often heard people say that God doesn't reveal himself for that sort of reason (allowing people free choice with their beliefs, or requiring faith which doesn't work so much if he proves himself to exist), but I'm curious how this would be reconciled with a belief that at certain points certain people did seem to have more evidence than we do now (the disciples probably being the most obvious example I suppose).

For the most part I feel like Grief is hearing me. While he probably doesn't come to the same conclusions, I really appreciate being heard and acknowledged. That being said he already raised most of the points I was going to and from a totally new perspective (at least to me) that I am going to have to consider now that it has been raised.

From my reading and understanding of my holy texts, God reveals himself all the time. I do not think that God's revealing of himself inhibits the purity of belief. To me skepticism and doubt are two sides of the same coin. Both look at the unknown/unknowable, and they make a decision. One decides not to trust, and the other to trust. We all make this decision every day about all sorts of things and never think twice about it. In this sense, at least according to Kierkegaard, Truth and Deception stretch equally far, and it is up to the individual to choose which path to take. To believe or not to believe.

Underneath it all I see no dichotomy between Science and Religion so long as they stay answering the appropriate questions. Science should answer the question "How", and religion should answer the question "Why". So, for instance if I had a chainsaw (arguably less complex than a human being, but I think it will suffice for my poor analogy), science could describe how it works, how it is made, how it is structured, etc. Why it exists is not something that can be tested in a lab. One could argue for instance that a chainsaw is much better at cutting apart animals or humans than trees, and that its purpose is to cut apart animals or humans. It parts flesh much faster than it parts wood, so if speed were the goal I think I could make a compelling case for the chainsaws purpose being cutting flesh quickly. I could also argue for its use as a decoration. Or its use as a weight, deterrent, weapon of war, etc. There is an intent for the beauty that is a Stihl chainsaw, and it is to be a lumberjack.

To me, religion sets the goal of mankind (what do we want to achieve and why) and science provides the ability to get there.

[QuickTidal]

Powder, on 05 May 2015 - 06:49 PM, said:

It also somewhat made me curious about what you think about the people in the bible who did get to witness miracles. I've often heard people say that God doesn't reveal himself for that sort of reason (allowing people free choice with their beliefs, or requiring faith which doesn't work so much if he proves himself to exist), but I'm curious how this would be reconciled with a belief that at certain points certain people did seem to have more evidence than we do now (the disciples probably being the most obvious example I suppose).

Heresay. Singular human written accounts not recorded by historians or anyone else. Especially since the Romans were such great chroniclers of events within their purview.

Powder, on 05 May 2015 - 06:49 PM, said:

Science should answer the question "How", and religion should answer the question "Why". So, for instance if I had a chainsaw (arguably less complex than a human being, but I think it will suffice for my poor analogy), science could describe how it works, how it is made, how it is structured, etc. Why it exists is not something that can be tested in a lab.

The why is "to cut things". It's really not as philosophical as all that. A chainsaw exists to cut things faster and cleaner than a regular saw.

Powder, on 05 May 2015 - 06:49 PM, said:

To me, religion sets the goal of mankind (what do we want to achieve and why) and science provides the ability to get there.

Eh, I see where you're coming from and I respect that ideal...but religion has been the cause of far too much bloodshed and destruction over the centuries for me to be so optimistic about it.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 05 May 2015 - 06:59 PM

[Powder]

You cannot test that statement in a laboratory. You can state that it is capable of cutting things, but not what it should cut. It is also equally capable of doing other things on top of "Cutting".

[Gnaw]

Powder, on 05 May 2015 - 06:49 PM, said:

To me, religion sets the goal of mankind (what do we want to achieve and why) and science provides the ability to get there.

And that thought is precisely why I find religion to be such a dreadful ideaology that should be extinct. Setting aside that all religions have historically been coopted as a source of manpower for political goals, we are rapidly approaching the technological capability for a small group of people who believe that an afterlife is the ultimate goal for mankind to attempt to achieve that goal through biological means.


Science is simply a small set of (very powerful) tools. Those tools are agnostic and can, as any tool, be used for 'good' or 'bad'.

[QuickTidal]

Powder, on 05 May 2015 - 07:13 PM, said:

You cannot test that statement in a laboratory. You can state that it is capable of cutting things, but not what it should cut. It is also equally capable of doing other things on top of "Cutting".

Sure you can. You could even categorize everything it can cut, to what degree, at what speed ect. There is no philosophical bent to a chainsaw. It's purpose on this earth is to cut things. It was created with that in mind. Anything else it might do is a side effect. You might argue that it "uses gas" or "it plugs in" or "makes noise" as things it's equally capable of doing...but all of that is besides the point. The chainsaw has one purpose, that may spider out to other things that benefit from "cutting". But make no mistake, it's a cutting implement.

[Andorion]

One point that I think needs to be raised is the narrow definition of science adhered to so far. When you say science answers the "how" you are no doubt talking of the physical sciences. But there a group of other disciplines called the social sciences which try to answer the "why". The social sciences have it pretty tough. There are no clean lab tests, no clearly defined laws etc. But for some time now the social sciences have been trying to analyze the causes of human thought and action as well.

So to take up the chainsaw analogy, a social scienctist could answer the why. He/she would study the cultural, economic, and historical context and try to see why a person would rather use a chainsaw over say a hacksaw.

As for the idea that religion tells us where to go with our lives, here I think a lot of caution needs to be exercised. Looked at historically religon served as a tool of social control. It was used by the authority figures to lay down certain norms of behaviour that made the masses more docile. In medieval times, the institutionalisation of religion made it a potent economic and political force as well. I will not go into the Crusades as they were more of an economic and politicla event with religion being one of the elments involved. Rather I would talk of the 16th Century, the Reformation, the Counter Reformation, the Wars of Religion and the Spanish Inquisition.

These circumstances showed how thoroughly politicised religion was as kingdoms and empires went to war. The aftermath was unpre3cedented religious strictures and conflict, whether it was the Inquisition in the catholic conutries, or anti-catholic actions in protestant countries like the Tudors in England. During the Wars of Religion, one group, the Anabaptists were all wiped out as their message was too radical for many to stomach.

My point with ll this is to show that religion as you know it today has travelled a long bumpy path and has been shaped and has shaped a variety of events and forces. In Pre-revolutionary France the Church owned a very sizable chunk of the national wealth. The condition of the peasants on Church land was just as bad, if not worse than peasants on th eland of the aristocrats. When the French Revolution happened, to challenge such massive inequality and injustice most of the senior figures of the Church sided with the establishment. So when it is said that religion provided man with morality, exactly what sort of morality was the Church espousing at this time?

In fact this brings us to the whole moral problem posed by religion. One can denounce institutionalised Churches and claim that morality can be taken from the Bible alone. But what happens when somebody finds Biblical morality clashes with what they understand to be moral themselves? For example does the Bible support women's equality? Explicitly? I doubt it. As has been remarked upthread, the Bible is not a homogenous text. It has been composed by different people, edited heavily, translated multiple times. Entire Church COuncils sat to decide on its contents. So it can be said that the Bible is a very human text. So a text which was primarily composed in the context of the early centuries AD, cannot be expected to reflect the complex morla structure of present day society. Morals evolve and change. If you lived in 18th Century France it would be considered moral to pay a "tithe" of your income to the Church even if that meant you starved. For most of history it was considered moral for women to stay quietly in the house. None of these two hold good any longer .

So far I have kept my arguments in the context of the Christian faith as I think that is what most people on this board are familiar with. But now I will digress a little into the Hindu faith, in which I was brought up, and which I later left.

Hinduism is complex. There is no single messiah figure like Christ. There is no single Holy Book. There are the four Vedas, the Vedantas, the Vedangas, The Upanishads, the Gita etc. While the Vedas were composed the earliest, but remained oral fo ra long time, the other texts have been gradually evolved later. Most philosophers agree that the Upanishads and the Gita are very sophisticated and complex philosophical texts which, if studied properly greatly expand your mental horizons. But sometime in the 8th to 10th Century AD a text called Manusmriti came to be taken as the ultimate legal and moral code of Hinuism. It took the existing problems of Hindu society like the subjection of women and caste discrimination and institutionalised them to the status of laws. This came to be the ultimate moral authority of society. The damage it had was massive, and is still felt deeply. Horrible and barbaric rituals like Sati (the burning of widows on the cremation pyre of their husbands) were made normal. Child marriage, polygamy, and absolutely inhuman apartheid level caste-discrimination were brought into society. And all of this was done on pretext of religion.

Even today these evils persist. I am not sure if they will ever be excised. Sati was banned. But a widow remarrying is still seen as a source of shame.

So when I hear of religion being the moral code and guide to our lives, I become very very sceptical.

[Powder]

I am surprised at how quickly double standards come out on here. You do not get to eat your cake and have it too. So far in this thread there have been ad homonym attacks against my PoV, appeals to the future, appeals to the nature of things, changed definitions of terms, etc. How can you join a discussion thread and call one of the parties in the discussion dreadful?

The reason we have had such a narrow definition of science, specifically hard science, is because that is the burden of proof we have placed on religion.

Second, when you ascribe purpose to the chainsaw you do so with an appeal to its designer. I am making this same claim, though I am saying Universe instead of chainsaw and God instead of inventor/designer.


Third, wars do not discredit religion, they discredit humanity. Stalin's religion? Mao's? Pol Pot? Hitler? What has this post-religious enlightenment bought us other than death and destruction on an unprecedented scale? (Someone with sick quotefu find me this one) I think SE via Bugg said it best, What if I told you that you(humanity) are not the solution to the problem.


Speaking specifically of the Bible, yes it is unequivocally pro-women and equal rights. Paul, often considered a misogynist (inappropriately), abolishes all distinctions between human beings in Galatians 3. Within the church discrimination based on ethnicity (Jew/Gentile), economics (slave/free), Gender (male/female), is prohibited. On top of that you have a female apostle(Junia), early church leaders who are women (Priscilla, Dorkas), and even the resurrection is first testified to by women (whose testimony was not valid in court in society at that time).

Backing up a bit further, if current science cannot explain a miracle, but it might someday, how is that not having faith in science?

One thing that unites us all on these boards is a love of the Book of the Fallen. Isn't this absolutist certainty being proposed here (all science good, all religion bad), exactly the kind of thing which is proven absurd therein?

[QuickTidal]

Powder, on 06 May 2015 - 12:48 PM, said:

I am surprised at how quickly double standards come out on here. You do not get to eat your cake and have it too. So far in this thread there have been ad homonym attacks against my PoV, appeals to the future, appeals to the nature of things, changed definitions of terms, etc. How can you join a discussion thread and call one of the parties in the discussion dreadful?

Heh? I must have missed the double standards. I think everyone has been rather respectful for the last few posts. Sure it's heated (religion conversations can tend to be that a lot), but I've just seen people rebutting you, nothing further.

Powder, on 06 May 2015 - 12:48 PM, said:

The reason we have had such a narrow definition of science, specifically hard science, is because that is the burden of proof we have placed on religion.

As Andorion pointed out, the social sciences shouldn't be left out. And the burden of proof has a default setting placed on religion because it's not provable.

Powder, on 06 May 2015 - 12:48 PM, said:

Second, when you ascribe purpose to the chainsaw you do so with an appeal to its designer. I am making this same claim, though I am saying Universe instead of chainsaw and God instead of inventor/designer.

You don't get to make the leap from chainsaw and designer to god and universe and expect that to stick as a debate point. Those things aren't remotely in the same ballpark.

Powder, on 06 May 2015 - 12:48 PM, said:

Third, wars do not discredit religion, they discredit humanity. Stalin's religion? Mao's? Pol Pot? Hitler? What has this post-religious enlightenment bought us other than death and destruction on an unprecedented scale? (Someone with sick quotefu find me this one) I think SE via Bugg said it best, What if I told you that you(humanity) are not the solution to the problem.

Is the implication here that religion caused no such conflict before that? I'll argue that it was WAY worse.

-The Crusades (10 of them over 1000 years)
-The Eighty Years war
-German Peasants War
-French Wars of religion
-Thirty Years War
-Wars of the three kingdoms
-Jewish-Roman Wars
-The Reconquista
-Kashmir Conflict
-Arab-Byzantine Wars
-Umpteen Civil wars of religious base

I could go on...but that above is just a sampling of the bloodshed over the thousands of years that various religions have wrought.

Powder, on 06 May 2015 - 12:48 PM, said:

Speaking specifically of the Bible, yes it is unequivocally pro-women and equal rights. Paul, often considered a misogynist (inappropriately), abolishes all distinctions between human beings in Galatians 3. Within the church discrimination based on ethnicity (Jew/Gentile), economics (slave/free), Gender (male/female), is prohibited. On top of that you have a female apostle(Junia), early church leaders who are women (Priscilla, Dorkas), and even the resurrection is first testified to by women (whose testimony was not valid in court in society at that time).

I'm sorry, the clergy and their thought processes and actions going back to AT least the Council at Nicea...are NOT pro-women. You can't give small lists of women who fit the bill and say "the bible was pro-women"...the exceptions don't prove the rule.

Powder, on 06 May 2015 - 12:48 PM, said:

Backing up a bit further, if current science cannot explain a miracle, but it might someday, how is that not having faith in science?

It doesn't. But a faith in science is not a faith in a deity. It's me believing that science and nature will answer the call eventually.

[Andorion]

I am not sure what Powder's problem is. I am pretty sure I have not used any offensive or incendiary language.


I would just like to point out that I did not confine myself to discussing religious conflicts but socially oppressive practices sanctioned and carried out in the name of religion. This point has not been addressed.

If the Bible is pro-women, then why does not the Roman Catholic Church, the biggest Christian organization in the world allow women priests?

I really do not understand the chainsaw-universe analogy. I am not sure if such an analogy works at all.Regarding faith in science vs faith in religion, I would like to point out that in the last two hundred years Science has made not just possible but brought to the sphere of everyday use objects and processes which would have been termed miraculous in ancient times. Science has explained many things which had seemed inexplicable for a long time. With a track record like that why shouldn't I be confident that more things can and will be discovered, studied and explained? If, say you are ordering a book from an online store and that store had a pretty good track record of succesful, safe deliveries, wouldn't you be reasonably confident that your book would appear on your doorstep?

As for the Hitler/Stalin/Mao/Pol Pot point, I would point out each and every one of those people were motivated by an ideology which was irrational, destructive, brooked no debate, opposition or discussion. I have never said that religion has been the only source of conflict or oppression. Thats ridiculous. But this discussion is on religion. So obviously only the areas of history relevant to relgion have been highlighted.Furthermore, nobody on this discussion board has claimed Hitler/Mao/Stalin etc. or their ideologies as a source/guide/ of morality. Religion has however tried to claim such a role. So in that case, religion lays itself open to critique.

I would like to point out again, I have not consciously indulged in any double standards. I have made counterpoints according to my own opinions, and tried to supply occasional examples. I have tried to keep my language away from anything extreme. If anything in my posts does however seem out of order, i would appreciate if that specific area was pointed out.

This post has been edited by Andorion: 06 May 2015 - 02:59 PM

[Gnaw]

*sigh* I knew getting involved in this discussion would be time consuming and thus delayed entry. I've got to deliver a new computer to a friend shortly so I'll be short here with expanded points later.

@Powder: I did not call you dreadful. I said that the specific point that you brought up highlighted why I felt religion was dreadful. I have no control over whether you choose to take that as an attack on you personally.


My usage of terminology:

All religions are ideologies.
Not all ideologies are religions.

Not all philosophies are ideologies.
Some philosophies can be turned into ideologies.


Science is a set of principles for understanding and explaining natural phenomena. Observation, hypothesis, testability, reproduction of results, creating theories that include all the data, admitting that 'we don't know' when the data is incomplete or inconclusive, and admitting that a theory is wrong when new data no longer supports it.

Thus, physics and biology are scientific disciplines.
PoliSci and the other 'social sciences' are not scientific disciplines due to inherent flaws regarding testability and reproduction of results. Testing is either unethical or impossible and reproduction of those that can be tested has (to date) universally failed.

Ethics are a limited subset of acceptable and non-acceptable actions based upon a particular field. Think professional ethics. Doctors, Lawyers, etc. A criminal defense attorney is ethically bound to defend a client they know to be guilty of a crime. A doctor is ethically bound to inform a pregnant woman of the option to terminate the pregnancy regardless of the morality of abortion.

Morality is a much broader and elusive term with multiple connotations and interpretations. I would prefer not to use the word at all but have yet to find a suitable term to replace it.

[D'rek]

This has been an interesting thread to read through so far.

But I don't get it. Why would anyone demand or expect scientific proof of the existence of a deity or miracle? Isn't the whole point that these things are not explainable? This isn't MBotF where the "god[desse]s" are just ascended humans or aliens who live in another part of reality and are more powerful than humans but still adhere to the same rules.**

Even if an alien in a flying saucer showed up in the sky tomorrow and started parting seas, turned itself into a duck to have sex with people, spoke through burning bushes, etc, nobody would think to worship it like a god, they would just assume it is using advanced technology we do not yet understand.

As soon as you try to "prove" how a god exists, it ceases to be a god and simply becomes a more powerful alien creature, still bound by our universe's rules. As soon as you try to "explain" how a miracle works, it ceases to be a miracle and is just another cool act. If Harry Potter-esque magic really existed in our universe, we wouldn't call it "magic" either - it would be just another bunch of natural physics effects to be studied, reproduced and used.


People who believe in gods, miracles, magic or whatever have no interest in proving that what they believe in exists... in most cases it is the very idea of these things being unproveable that makes them appealing. Nor do I see any benefit in the skeptics insistently demanding that these things be scientifically proven.

Seems like a wasted argument - one which can't be resolved due to its very own nature.





**Okay, well there are also the other kind of religion where people worship an actual living human being as if they were a wizard - but none of the major religions are of that type and we're not talking about those in this thread so far.

[D'rek]

Andorion, on 06 May 2015 - 02:56 PM, said:

If the Bible is pro-women, then why does not the Roman Catholic Church, the biggest Christian organization in the world allow women priests?

If my fuzzy recollection of when I used to be catholic and random wikipedia-browsing can be trusted (it most certainly cannot) the hierarchs of the RC Church has, throughout the last twenty centuries, frequently made its own "interpretations" of the bible and designated them as official church canon. Sometimes these interpretations are really weird. Sometimes they are more the result of one Pope really pushing his own batshit crazy ideas, other times it is simply due to the cardinals taking too much inspiration from Dante, Milton and other artists.

Some examples include:

>> the entire idea of 7 circles of hell (invented by Dante, now commonly accepted)
>> the creation of purgatory (because some Pope wanted his pet dog not to go to hell?)
>> making all three "Mary"s in the bible (Jesus' girlfriend disciple, some lady who lets him sleep at her house, and a 'woman of sin' (everyone assumes this means prostitute) who pours perfume on his feet) the same person, because "hey people with the same name is too complicated yo!" (this was church canon for centuries, and finally repealed in the 1970s or so, but "Jesus' girlfriend was a prostitute!" is too entrenched in the culture for anyone to notice it was repealed now)
>> Lucifer, Satan, the Dragon, the Beast, Mephistopheles, etc all being the same name for one Big Bad
>> Satan being in control of Hell somehow (bible says God controls both Heaven and Hell)


Definitely, the RC Church has not been very nice to women in its practices overall, and especially not in its "interpretations", per above.


Is the bible, taken on its own, better? I'd say it has some favourable parts and some unfavourable parts, as befitting some very different writers. Overall? Well I can't speak for the people of 100CE, but to my own modern sensibilities I'd say it leans quite viciously towards the unfavourable and unequal depiction of women. Yup, there's some bits about treating everyone equally in there. There's also the story of Lot who, when a crowd gathers outside his house wishing to rape the men visiting him, offers his two virgin daughters to the crowd instead. Fuuuuuuun.

[QuickTidal]

D, on 06 May 2015 - 07:09 PM, said:

This has been an interesting thread to read through so far.

But I don't get it. Why would anyone demand or expect scientific proof of the existence of a deity or miracle? Isn't the whole point that these things are not explainable? This isn't MBotF where the "god[desse]s" are just ascended humans or aliens who live in another part of reality and are more powerful than humans but still adhere to the same rules.**

Even if an alien in a flying saucer showed up in the sky tomorrow and started parting seas, turned itself into a duck to have sex with people, spoke through burning bushes, etc, nobody would think to worship it like a god, they would just assume it is using advanced technology we do not yet understand.

As soon as you try to "prove" how a god exists, it ceases to be a god and simply becomes a more powerful alien creature, still bound by our universe's rules. As soon as you try to "explain" how a miracle works, it ceases to be a miracle and is just another cool act. If Harry Potter-esque magic really existed in our universe, we wouldn't call it "magic" either - it would be just another bunch of natural physics effects to be studied, reproduced and used.


People who believe in gods, miracles, magic or whatever have no interest in proving that what they believe in exists... in most cases it is the very idea of these things being unproveable that makes them appealing. Nor do I see any benefit in the skeptics insistently demanding that these things be scientifically proven.

Seems like a wasted argument - one which can't be resolved due to its very own nature.

That's very well thought out and stated D'rek. You make a solid, solid point.

D, on 06 May 2015 - 07:09 PM, said:

**Okay, well there are also the other kind of religion where people worship an actual living human being as if they were a wizard - but none of the major religions are of that type and we're not talking about those in this thread so far.

Technically Buddha was just an awakened enlightened human being.

[QuickTidal]

D, on 06 May 2015 - 07:28 PM, said:

Andorion, on 06 May 2015 - 02:56 PM, said:

If the Bible is pro-women, then why does not the Roman Catholic Church, the biggest Christian organization in the world allow women priests?

If my fuzzy recollection of when I used to be catholic and random wikipedia-browsing can be trusted (it most certainly cannot) the hierarchs of the RC Church has, throughout the last twenty centuries, frequently made its own "interpretations" of the bible and designated them as official church canon. Sometimes these interpretations are really weird. Sometimes they are more the result of one Pope really pushing his own batshit crazy ideas, other times it is simply due to the cardinals taking too much inspiration from Dante, Milton and other artists.

Some examples include:

>> the entire idea of 7 circles of hell (invented by Dante, now commonly accepted)
>> the creation of purgatory (because some Pope wanted his pet dog not to go to hell?)
>> making all three "Mary"s in the bible (Jesus' girlfriend disciple, some lady who lets him sleep at her house, and a 'woman of sin' (everyone assumes this means prostitute) who pours perfume on his feet) the same person, because "hey people with the same name is too complicated yo!" (this was church canon for centuries, and finally repealed in the 1970s or so, but "Jesus' girlfriend was a prostitute!" is too entrenched in the culture for anyone to notice it was repealed now)
>> Lucifer, Satan, the Dragon, the Beast, Mephistopheles, etc all being the same name for one Big Bad
>> Satan being in control of Hell somehow (bible says God controls both Heaven and Hell)

Adding:

>> The fact that all Christian demons are actually benevolent gods from other religions...turned into Christian evil baddies "because reasons".

[Andorion]

@D'rek, your point about God being essentially unprovable, while good, raises certain issues.

Religion is not really a personal issue yet. Across the globe various entities, from community groups to states frame policy on basis of religion. Now I have no problem whatsoever with people believing and worshipping whatever they like. But when religion is sought to be imposed, that's when the problem starts. In India it is used to justify the caste system, Where whole groups of people are treated as inferior and this is done with so-called divine sanction. They are denied access to basic resources and are continuous victims of violence. In theocratic states, people are deprived of basic rights in the name of religion. Naturally such situations call for extensive criticisms of the oppressive groups and the religious ideology they profess. Now such criticism usually takes two forms, the first being the argument that this is a distortion of the original religion, while others question the legitimacy of the religion itself. Now in the face of this criticism, if a religion can simply claim that it's rented and central authority figure are matters of father, hence beyond proof, justification or criticism, then it dilutes accountability seriously

Edit: simply consider your own comments on Catholic views on women. How would you like to live in a situation.Where such values were possess all criticism was answered with the " take it on faith" comment

This post has been edited by Andorion: 06 May 2015 - 07:54 PM