ReligiousOutsider

I know the thread was in the wrong place, and I know that it was started by a spammer, but I am disappointed it got deleted. Could it not have been moved? Or could the non-spam parts be copies to this thread?

I'm just grumpy because I was pleased with my post

This needs to be set aside, as the irreligious have killed massive numbers of people, far more than 'anyone' else, in our more modern history.



the true origins of the universe is not a question that science can answer, here is an interesting quote:



Here is where you fail. I know it's fashonable to "just be" and "be nuetral" in personal beliefs, but you fail to understand that you have PRESUPPOSED that this it is true or even possible to be true -- you have even presupposed that your mind acurrately conveys to you the truth, or what is acually occuring around you and throughout the univers that you experience. "just being" might SOUND possible, but it really evaporates once you open you mouth, or vote, or leave the house and interact with others.

What is eluding you is that there are demands that society makes by it's existence, just as there are natural questions that arise to how knowledge is aquired, why we can know things, and what 'things' 'really' are. Academics in the last several hundred years, Locke, Hume Hagel, Kant, Smith and many, many, others realized, that "just being" didn't handle public policy issues, didn't write laws, and didn't satisfy the ethically curious.

Long ago, the greeks started to investigate the issues of 'being' and what it meant, and this has lead us all in very circuitous _path to the post-modernism that we see today: a system of "truth" that wars agianst the very concept of systems, I would imagine this is where you are coming from, unless you have adopted some form of primitivism or even some hedonistic worldview. Unfortunalty, postmodernism, like science's explantion of the true origin of all matter and being, is at a loss to explain the 'whys' of life in a consistent way -- it acutally makes a point of keeping us all in suspense of an outcome that can never 'truly' happen.

Speaking for myself, Christianity offers the only cohesive answer to the origins of the universe, morality, and very importantly WHY society can function in it's own best interests AND at the same time, the best interests of it's citizens. It offers an internally consistent system of truth that is denied to other worldviews and it anseers the question that has been asked, if only implicitly in our decsions, from the beginning of time.

johnq - I agree with your second post more than your first. I think there is something innate about our tendency to believe in God and the supernatural.

In the absence of knowledge and society, yes, that's true.

It must be innate, because there are plenty of otherwise obviously intelligent people around who believe in God.

As I remarked in another thread, Jung hypothesizes that the god-impulse (that is, the urge to look beyond ourselves for "something") is part f the collective unconscious.

Johnq do you think that those who believe in a form of a God believe in the Renaissance Christian model, an actual being?

People use the word "God" to describe different things. People look for a God as apparently it is within our very brain chemistry to look for a deity figure.

Since when did a religion based on 10,000 years of pillaging the stories told by the ancients based on the characters they attributed to by looking at the stars and inventing stories to guide their lives by, constitute an answer to why we are here and what purpose our lives have. Science ultimately knows little, and Christianity knows even less.

At least Science tries to find an answer to the Questions. Religion wraps itself up in bullshit and dogma and its devotees largely stick their heads up their ass and brainwash themselves in believing the best thing that suits their selfish need to feel a purpose and meaning.

Why would God reveal himself and the truth to western society? What society is more corrupt in greed , selfishness and deceit than we are? There are 5 billion people on this earth who live in poverty an near inexistance. If the meek inherit the earth, you can be sure that western society isn't going to inherit a speck of dust. God hates us, because we are full of shit and evil, and he sure sent the story of astrotheological Christianity to the Roman Catholics perverts and murderers to punish us for our gluttony and arrogance.

Anyone who tells you they know the truth is the biggest liar on the Earth.

Its so obvious the Bible is a bunch of lies and crap, that Gods punishment on us is to make us believe and deceive ourselves into believing that we have had the truth revealed to us.

There's quite a bit there, alot of which would flunk you out of any philosophy class. (Your 'fresh look' is just another presupposition.)

Your statement.....

...is quite the metaphysical mouthful. On the one hand you presuppose that the "everything" applies to all, yet you dissallow the first part of your sentence with the last part that declares that all is flux.

In the end we are left to 'take your word' for these observations and still somehow apply them to our own expirience, but with no proof of their veracity, if in fact, such a thing exists.

I think if you wish to maintian your position, you should adopt some form of existentialism. What you are saying, even in the 'scientific' expressions of philosophy is not consistent. You are holding two ideas in tension, and one dissallows the other.

I think this goes back to another discussion. Only once you assume to be on a par with God, whatever he/she/it may be, can you begin the process of vetting his purposes and intentions.

As to you quesiton of poverty and injustice, if the Richard Bransons and Bill Gates of the world wanted, they could end world poverty tommorrow -- and injustice rests in man's will.

I am very glad to be able to have a discussion on this topic without it becoming a flame war.

DMZ that is very true, the church made God (in the Christian faith I'm referring to) into its own image, the Bible has been vetted, gospels were left out, bits were put in, it was social control.

However when religion is rejected, I feel sad as it promotes values which are still of value today, which Johnq(?) put into a nice list but that got deleted. I see religion as a necessary step in the development of the human race, the nature of it and its abuse has led us to question ourselves and others. I guess in some way at least we have one thing to thank religion for.

The way I see it: someone believes in some form of God if they believe that the existence of the universe did not happen by a chance of *highly* statistically improbable occurrence of events that led to what we are today. IF you know what I mean.

Religon is neither here nor there for me. It's not about spirituality...it's about institutionalising a way of life that I don't have much time for.

I wear my atheist badge with pride ;D

And you sir get a cookie for being well read on the latest findings...

This is very true, but the biggest reason why Christianity can be criticised in this way is due to its followers suddenly getting this silly idea of taking the Bible literally. The Bible is supposed to be interpreted. One example, no sex before marriage does not mean, "No sex before marriage". Instead it means no promiscuous sex, i.e. one night stands. The Bible has been manipulated into something which it is not. Now when the Bible is accurately translated from Hebrew (the language it was in before Latin etc.) and interpreted it means a whole lot of different things.

However I do not presume the Bible to be accurate. What I support is a reinterpretation of the Bible, religion has to be questioned which it is not by those who follow the faith themselves, only by outsiders.

Actually I don't think there are any questions as to the physical dimensions of things, or the nature of physical reality. Maybe some questions to the extent of how paranormal activity effects us, near death experiences, etc.

anyway....


actually, I haven't taken any philosophy courses either, they'd probably not even bother flunking me and just throw me out.


yes but even that separates you from other people fundamentally, while at the same time presupposing a fixed order that we all approch but never reach --- this is, I think, the principle of the "chain of being" --- that we all participate in 'being' or in 'the act of existing', but to different degrees. God would be just really, really, good at it. Even that prespective is very comprehensive. If you're willing to be consistent, it shakes out in how soceity functions.



The Bible thing has two parts: First, the Bible has been twisted to fit various 'scientific' views, but in the end it is somewhat vauge and probably intentionally so: Joshua told the sun to "stand still" -- and it did stay 'still' -- he did not say to the sun "stop orbiting around the Earth". Forcing things that the Bible does not say, is grounds for being critical of the those doing the twisting, not the book itself.

As to the age of the Earth, you may have a legitimate gripe if the Genesis account is literal, although the Bible is rather vauge: it starts with the Earth already in existence, "formless and void" I think it's intentionally vauge, Starlight & KAr dating are both problems ONLY if you: a. force certain hows and whys on the creation account -- and b. look at things from a materialist/uniformatarian prespective. The sensory data is not very good at telling you much more than what you have pressuposed it to be, since you have already factored in these two presuppositions before you even consider the data.

Finally, I think you can and should be ciritical, but that puts you in a position of having to have both a metaphysical floor under your feet and a material framework in place to statisfy what the Christian metaphysic and creation account, in your view, do not.

From the metaphysic side I just don't see where you escape reducing preception and reality to a man made of water in an infinite ocean of water, trying to build a ladder of water in order to climb out of the water. I don't acutally think that pfflam and other postmodern guys would essentially deny that --- it has just been accepted as a condition of exsitenze. From my presepective you don't have a framework in place to make any "definitve" statements.

On the material side, I think you can critise the creation account, but what you have in hand to stand on is an extension of your metaphysical prespective --- with the final conclusion still being the same when you consider the universe as an enitity. The premise that matter and mathematical laws are all that exist IS a metaphysical statement, once you start operating from that prespective, your are operating on faith with even less answers than the creation account gives, but still seem to be satisfied by that uncertanty. You have no way of telling if we have souls, or explaining morality, origins of all things, and so on, and on, and on., --- there is kind of a 'deciding not to dicide' thing going on there.

There is a big tendency in American culture, to put 'religion' in a special area, but to ingore the very real metaphysical claims the materialistic modern science makes. I don't cringe so much at this territorial behavior -- this is common to the human experience --- but I do fault people for trying to take what amounts to a loose collection of contradictory ideas and feelings and holding them against a rigorous, internally consistent framework. In C.S. Lewis' book The Great Divorce there is an afterlife paradigm described as a city where ALL people go after death, but those who are not comfortable with the proximity of God and his governance move (physically) away from Him and that locale. Hell ends up as basically the act of moving further and further away.

I am on par with the God as described by the bible, because this God was created by humans to provide an answer to questions that their knowledge couldn't explain. Most people think Im human too.

And the question of poverty and injustice has no more to do with Gates, Branson or you and I. We are all a Gates compared to families living on a dollar a week.

The worlds top 100 richest people, including Gates and Branson, have a total net worth of maybe $200 billion.

Tell me again how they could end poverty tomorrow (by giving each poor person $50? woo-hoo!)

I don't think that first statement makes ANY sense.

On the question of wealth, yes, yes, and yes it is the will of man that causes poverty, and war. I would submit that if all the manhours that have been put into make war and weapons of war, had been instead put into searching for cures for disease, and eliminating poverty, we would have done so by now.

Actually the top 10 wealthiest have rougly $235 billion. The top 100 come in at roughly $1 trillion dollars, that nearly enough give the 1.2 billion people living on a dollar a day or less a little less than a $1,000.

I think you're being willfully ignorant.

You appear to think that elimination of poverty is the responsibility of people only with billions of spare dollars at theit disposal. What if every person in the western world gave $1000 to the third world.

I'd guess that there are 1 billion people on this planet that could easily give $1000 to the development of the third world.

I reckon that if we were not all obsessed with greed and selfishness we could raise several trillion dollars every year and sort the world out in 20 years.

I looked it up, you are right. except that they would have to pay capital gains tax, and their company stock would tank if they tried to sell it all at once.

And if they gave the money to the poor, rampant inflation would make the money worthless in no time.

I still don't think that the top 100 richest people have the ability to solve poverty on the drop of a hat - just giving people money is not the solution. You have to open factories and create jobs, and that is already happening.

The problem is that the Liberals cry when you give 3rd world people jobs - "buy american", "globalization is bad", "you are paying them non-union wages" etc.

We already do that, via Federal taxes and foreign aid. Its our "buy a dictator a Mercedes" program.

been there, done that

I hear you --- the logistics are near impossible --- it was more of a general statement than anything else.

I know this continues to be a tad off topic, but...on the subject of "wealth"...it is not a "zero-sum" game meaning that it is incorrect to assume that because some are "wealthy" others must be "poor".

Two factors must be considered regarding "wealth" and "poverty"...these are contextual circumstances and differing subjective valuations.

Regarding contextual circumstances...let's say that the average person in Kenya makes $1/day (<$400/year). Well, we could improve that by an order of magnitude and that person would be "wealthly" (extremely so, in fact) by Kenyan standards and in the context of that environment. But a person living (just about) anywhere in the United States would be considered in extreme poverty at the $4000/year. We need to remember this when we decry the $1/day wages we pay the poor souls in China or wherever. In fact that $1/day might be a significant improvement from the $1/week (or nothing) they were getting previously.

Second, the issue of differing subjective valuations is also important. This is vital because in economic exchanges I am almost always trying to exchange something I value less for something I value more. This is usually highly subjective. In fact the ideal economic exchange would involve the following:

Person A has item X which s/he values less than item Y (which s/he doesn't have).

Person B has item Y which s/he values less than item X (which s/he doesn't have).

These two get together and exchange X for Y. Both consider themselves to be better off ("wealthier") for no other reason than each has now obtained something they value more (subjectively) and given up something they value less (subjectively). In this example "wealth" has actually grown (in a subjective sense). Obviously the idea of "contentment" factors strongly into this equation.

The key point is that a) wealth is not a zero-sum game in which if one person wins one (or more) must lose, and b) objective, discrete definitions of "wealth" are difficult to create.

The point of all this is that our (western, developed world, subjective) perceptions of "wealth" tend to distort our views of other people's situations. In Kenya, for example, a person obtaining a bicycle (a mere $50-$100 commodity) will have significantly improved their lot in life. Many of us in the world we live in wouldn't even begin to consider a bicycle (unless it was a $3000 custom-fitted...blah blah blah bicycle that we use 4 times a year) to be an advancement of our wealth.

We should not assume that these are bad disparities. They are simply reality.

What this means is that our approach to "wealth" creation in undeveloped areas should focus less on taking money from the "wealthy" and giving it to the "poor" (Robin Hood-ism) and more on establishing the conditions for wealth growth in those areas. These including things like minimal physical and mental health, well-being and ability, property/ownership rights, open and honest economic exchanges (fraud and deception are significant inhibitors to wealth creation) and freedom to engage in economic exchanges.

These things are the soil, seeds, water, sunshine and fertilizer of wealth creation/growth.

....

Very Funny

But without strict trinitarian doctrine with the person of Christ as intermingled god/man, you are left to make up what ever you want in the realm of the 'wholly other' -- The Flash and Shazam as homosexual godmates etc., etc. There is a complete disconnect to the realm of the infinite. No other religion solves this problem.

Edited because I woke up like the proverbial bear.

Read the Mahabharata or the Rg Veda. Go and buy a collection of haikus, even, and read the notes at the back. Look up 'avatar' on the internet. Read about Khrishna, Siva and Visnu. Go to Amazaon and order Herman Hesse's 'Siddhartha' if you want something like a novel.

Oh, how I loved Siddhartha as a teen...