KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
edited September 2009
I'm pretty sure I was a snarky evangelistic atheist when I first got my atheistic motor running, until after a few years I realized most people weren't that interested in how right I was and the only people it would make a difference (in my life) for was my parents. I'd like to convince them I'm not going to turn into a homicidal maniac just because I don't believe in God, but other people probably don't need to hear about my beliefs.
One of my housemates during my senior year decided to go atheist and started proselytizing to our other housemates, most of them girls who were just religious because their parents were and didn't go to church or give it a second thought, but he was so enthusiastic about his new philosophy that he had to talk to people about it, which turned into him hectoring our housemates a lot and trying to get them to answer deep questions about their faith. He tried to get me over to his side a lot, and I agreed a couple times, but most of the time I was just like, "Man, we have to live with these people, does it really matter? Quit hassling them, not everyone is as interested in religion as you or me."
I'm pretty sure I was a snarky evangelistic atheist when I first got my atheistic motor running, until after a few years I realized most people weren't that interested in how right I was and the only people it would make a difference (in my life) for was my parents. I'd like to convince them I'm not going to turn into a homicidal maniac just because I don't believe in God, but other people probably don't need to hear about my beliefs.
One of my housemates during my senior year decided to go atheist and started proselytizing to our other housemates, most of them girls who were just religious because their parents were and didn't go to church or give it a second thought, but he was so enthusiastic about his new philosophy that he had to talk to people about it, which turned into him hectoring our housemates a lot and trying to get them to answer deep questions about their faith. He tried to get me over to his side a lot, and I agreed a couple times, but most of the time I was just like, "Man, we have to live with these people, does it really matter? Quit hassling them, not everyone is as interested in religion as you or me."
That's really what it comes down to for me and my atheist "evangelizing." I definitely do think that my position on religion is correct, and certainly believe that it's best to believe in the truth - whatever it is. And I do think that many aspects of orthodox Christianity are pretty harmful (i.e., homophobia). But, I don't evangelize, usually, just because many Christians aren't even that interested in their own religion. Which astounds me. It absolutely astounds me.
I just guess I don't understand how someone who believes in Christianity isn't interested in it. I accept the fact, I just don't understand how for some believers, they don't really care about their beliefs at all.
Maybe that makes me a horrible person.
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ApogeeLancks In Every Game EverRegistered Userregular
I think a few people have said this, but I'll add in my $0.02: because reigion made me do some messed-up things, and I don't like it. It's not a lack of belief, it's also negative feelings towards the organisations that make up relgion.
I'm not going to go firebomb a church or something, but I'm neither am I going to be sad to see them go. Many less churches in my neck of the woods now than when I was young.
Edit: I should expand on this a bit.
I generally feel that religion has one main hole, which is the 'buffet style' religion. It bugs the hell out of me to have people only take the parts of religion that they feel are 'right' - if everyone jsut follows their own moral code, why are they lumped together as Christians/Jews/Muslim/etc?
And worse: when I do bring this up, I ask about, say, the fire and doom God of the Old Testament. I point out the time whent he Jews were commanded to slaughter a small nation, from the men and women down to the livestock. The Jewish king at the time balked at that, and God basicly smacks and says, 'do it, bitch'. And they do.
Or I ask about the stuff about gays/menstrating women/crazy laws in general. Why to Jews only follow Kosher food, and not the other crazy junk in that part of the Torah?
When asked, people invariably just shrug, and say 'we don't believe in that'. Well, what DO they believe in? Passages a, e and h? But not the other several thousand commandments? Why? At least the ortodox, crazy as they are, are consistent.
To me, the only sensible thing to do when faced with such an inconsistent and wrong (unless you like gaybashing/scorched earth) document is to ignore it. It's not like we would apply such lax standards to... anything else.
To me, people who stay religious in light of knowing these things are, well, weak. It's like the fat guy who won't exercise, because it's too hard. Or the kid who drops out of high school. Life is difficult, and hiding behind superstition is just another way of being lazy.
I just guess I don't understand how someone who believes in Christianity isn't interested in it. I accept the fact, I just don't understand how for some believers, they don't really care about their beliefs at all.
Maybe that makes me a horrible person.
I think most people are just empty vessels for ideas floating around that arbitrarily get absorbed by their brain tissue. Most people never examine the beliefs they claim to hold—political or religious or otherwise—they just repeat them. This is why I think open debate about beliefs is so important.
Of course, the trick is not being a dick about open debate.
I'm pretty sure I was a snarky evangelistic atheist when I first got my atheistic motor running, until after a few years I realized most people weren't that interested in how right I was and the only people it would make a difference (in my life) for was my parents. I'd like to convince them I'm not going to turn into a homicidal maniac just because I don't believe in God, but other people probably don't need to hear about my beliefs.
One of my housemates during my senior year decided to go atheist and started proselytizing to our other housemates, most of them girls who were just religious because their parents were and didn't go to church or give it a second thought, but he was so enthusiastic about his new philosophy that he had to talk to people about it, which turned into him hectoring our housemates a lot and trying to get them to answer deep questions about their faith. He tried to get me over to his side a lot, and I agreed a couple times, but most of the time I was just like, "Man, we have to live with these people, does it really matter? Quit hassling them, not everyone is as interested in religion as you or me."
That's really what it comes down to for me and my atheist "evangelizing." I definitely do think that my position on religion is correct, and certainly believe that it's best to believe in the truth - whatever it is. And I do think that many aspects of orthodox Christianity are pretty harmful (i.e., homophobia). But, I don't evangelize, usually, just because many Christians aren't even that interested in their own religion. Which astounds me. It absolutely astounds me.
I just guess I don't understand how someone who believes in Christianity isn't interested in it. I accept the fact, I just don't understand how for some believers, they don't really care about their beliefs at all.
Maybe that makes me a horrible person.
No, man. People that follow the edicts of a Faith, but have no interest to ask themselves why, are the entire problem. If you've really sat down, thought about it, and decided you simply cannot abide gays raising children, fine. I'll disagree with you, but respect that you at least gave it some thought. Most of the people protesting on the street corner have never thought about anything, though; they hate because their Holy Man told them to.
Which I suppose brings up the difference between Religion and Spirituality. Spirituality always struck me as a very introspective thing, something that requires great contemplation about one's relationship with their Faith. Religion, more often than not, is an external mindset adopted so that one does not have to think.
Which I suppose brings up the difference between Religion and Spirituality. Spirituality always struck me as a very introspective thing, something that requires great contemplation about one's relationship with their Faith. Religion, more often than not, is an external mindset adopted so that one does not have to think.
I think a better way of putting this is that religions are based on authority structures.
If you look at a lot of religious arguments, they tend to have this overarching pattern:
Someone must have designed all this. It couldn't just happen randomly. Someone must hand us down our morals. We can't just figure out how to be good ourselves.
This mindset is why religions are so often organized (and always start as) authority cults. Jesus, if the gospels are remotely accurate, was a cult leader who demanded unquestioning obedience from his followers. Paul expressly demands obedience from his followers in his letters; he calls them his "little children." The Catholic church was authoritarian. And when Protestantism rebelled against its authority, it simply erected another authority—the Bible.
You see this in other traditions as well. Most obviously with Muhammad and the hierarchical religious structure of the ulema in Islam. Modern, devout Jewish communities are basically slaves to their rabbinical leaders; my step-brother was told by his rabbi that he had to vote for McCain, no questions asked.
But even in so-called "progressive" faiths like Baha'is. On another forum, there are some prominent Baha'i members and I asked them if they agreed or disagreed with Baha'alluah's (their prophet's) statements against homosexuality. It was amazing. The same person who constantly went on about how we should all be tolerant and love everyone completely, weirdly refused to answer the question, and proposed all sorts of justifications for how Baha'alluah's statements could be accurate in various context. He could not bring himself to say "Baha'alluah was wrong about that," because the Baha'i faith is an authority cult.
Even liberal Christians, if you ask them directly about a horrible pro-genocide or pro-slavery Bible verse, will not say "oh, that verse is wrong." They'll say "it's a metaphor," or "you have to look at it in context." The Bible is seen as an authority that cannot be contradicted, only reinterpreted.
This is, I think, the underlying mindset for conspiracy theorists as well. Conspiracy theorists view the world through the prism of authority hierarchy—for any given event X, someone must be in control. Both religion and conspiracy theories seem to fulfill this unconscious desire to view the world as top-down ordered and in-control (even if, in the case of conspiracies, you think the people in control are evil).
Even liberal Christians, if you ask them directly about a horrible pro-genocide or pro-slavery Bible verse, will not say "oh, that verse is wrong." They'll say "it's a metaphor," or "you have to look at it in context." The Bible is seen as an authority that cannot be contradicted, only reinterpreted.
Even better when God Changes his Mind. Reading about that was the first of many reasons that I am no longer LDS.
Even liberal Christians, if you ask them directly about a horrible pro-genocide or pro-slavery Bible verse, will not say "oh, that verse is wrong." They'll say "it's a metaphor," or "you have to look at it in context." The Bible is seen as an authority that cannot be contradicted, only reinterpreted.
Even better when God Changes his Mind. Reading about that was the first of many reasons that I am no longer LDS.
Something cute about Baha'ism: their religion is based on God changing his mind repeatedly, constantly updating his revelations in conspiciously convenient ways so that they match up with whatever modern morality says. Which is, of course, syncretism—"we're the latest version of these religions you guys believe in."
But Baha'alluah must not have wanted some clever cult leader to pull the same trick on his flock a few years down the road, so there's some rule that says the next prophet's "progressive revelation" won't happen for another 1,000 years.
So, tough luck on the Baha'i god once again changing his mind and allowing homosexuality. Proselytizing progressives is going to be a bitch for the poor Baha'is pretty soon.
Of course, I guess they could just say that God changes his mind about not changing his mind for 1,000 years.
This mindset is why religions are so often organized (and always start as) authority cults. Jesus, if the gospels are remotely accurate, was a cult leader who demanded unquestioning obedience from his followers. Paul expressly demands obedience from his followers in his letters; he calls them his "little children." The Catholic church was authoritarian. And when Protestantism rebelled against its authority, it simply erected another authority—the Bible.
...
This is, I think, the underlying mindset for conspiracy theorists as well. Conspiracy theorists view the world through the prism of authority hierarchy—for any given event X, someone must be in control. Both religion and conspiracy theories seem to fulfill this unconscious desire to view the world as top-down ordered and in-control (even if, in the case of conspiracies, you think the people in control are evil).
I think this realization was the genesis of my current progression of non-belief. I think it may have actually been the Branch Davidian incident, now that I think about it. In February of 1993 I was just about to turn 14 years old and I was just about to complete my time in the catholic education system later that year (I started at a public high school that following September). I distinctly remember coming to the realization that if "we" thought David Koresh was just some nut-job who con'd people into believing he was an actual profit, why would you take the "real" profits, or even Jesus himself, at face value? I remember thinking that if Jesus himself, the honest to goodness Son of God, came back to Earth today that he'd get clozapine pumped into him until he burst.
From that point on, it's just been a slow progression of coming to grips with renouncing everything I'd been taught to believe in.
This mindset is why religions are so often organized (and always start as) authority cults. Jesus, if the gospels are remotely accurate, was a cult leader who demanded unquestioning obedience from his followers. Paul expressly demands obedience from his followers in his letters; he calls them his "little children." The Catholic church was authoritarian. And when Protestantism rebelled against its authority, it simply erected another authority—the Bible.
...
This is, I think, the underlying mindset for conspiracy theorists as well. Conspiracy theorists view the world through the prism of authority hierarchy—for any given event X, someone must be in control. Both religion and conspiracy theories seem to fulfill this unconscious desire to view the world as top-down ordered and in-control (even if, in the case of conspiracies, you think the people in control are evil).
I think this realization was the genesis of my current progression of non-belief. I think it may have actually been the Branch Davidian incident, now that I think about it. In February of 1993 I was just about to turn 14 years old and I was just about to complete my time in the catholic education system later that year (I started at a public high school that following September). I distinctly remember coming to the realization that if "we" thought David Koresh was just some nut-job who con'd people into believing he was an actual profit, why would you take the "real" profits, or even Jesus himself, at face value? I remember thinking that if Jesus himself, the honest to goodness Son of God, came back to Earth today that he'd get clozapine pumped into him until he burst.
That thought actually got me detention in my religion class. We had to do reports on Jesus and most kids did the same thing, covering his miracles and his resurrection, etc. But I went in a different direction and thought "What if he were to exist today?". Granted I probably could have been nicer about it, but my teacher looked furious when I said "A couple thousand years ago if a man with long hair and no shoes walked up to you and told you that he spoke to god, you would call him a messiah; if that happened to you today you would call him a homeless schizo and run away."
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Podlyyou unzipped me! it's all coming back! i don't like it!Registered Userregular
edited September 2009
Qingu, every atheist I've met has been slavishly devoted to the metaphysical concept that there is some physical telos and fundamental structure to the universe, which leads them to ignore the essential existential nature of human existence.
dont know if this has been covered yet, but via sully:
The rise of the Nones is usually decried by religious leaders as a sign of secularization or atheism's ascent but get this: 51% say they believe in God.
Now some of those folks might just be religious people in between churches. So the Trinity folks asked them to describe what kind of God they believed in.
24% say they believe in "a higher power but no personal God." That would mean about 3.6% of Americans could be considered Deists, making them more common than Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, or Mormons.
Barry Kosmin, one of the authors of the study, points out that an earlier study that looked at Nones as well as those who did "affiliate" with a religion found that 12% were Deistic. That would make Deists bigger than all of the aforementioned groups combined, and one of the largest spiritual groupings in America.
Qingu, every atheist I've met has been slavishly devoted to the metaphysical concept that there is some physical telos and fundamental structure to the universe, which leads them to ignore the essential existential nature of human existence.
Have you provided them with your vast fields of verifiable evidence?
Also "structure" is a vague term. The universe is structured in the sense that it is made of stuff and things happen in a relatively predictable manner, but there is no structure in the sense of a coordinated order.
Qingu, every atheist I've met has been slavishly devoted to the metaphysical concept that there is some physical telos and fundamental structure to the universe, which leads them to ignore the essential existential nature of human existence.
As I've said in previous discussions, I'd appreciate it if you could ditch the vague, outdated philosophical terms invented by people who do not interact with modern scientific ideas like evolution and quantum mechanics.
Also, as I've said in previous discussions, whenever you talk about the existential nature of human existence, you conspicuously leave out the existential nature of chimpanzee existence, and dog existence, and lizard existence, and ... starfish existence, if you're willing to go that far back. In other words, you implicitly ignore the obvious case that whatever it is you're talking about isn't some magic quality because its emergence can be traced back through natural evolution.
please stop trying to redife the bulk of judaism in to being the niche sect that your cousins fall in to.
The "bulk" of what is commonly called Judaism is simply an ethnic designation. Yourself being a prime example. You do not believe in the existence of Yahweh, the Jewish god.
Did you mean that Judaism is great because, in Judaism it doesn't matter what God wants anymore because you can just stop believing in God altogether? Okay, whatever.
The concept that the power of the torah is in the hands of man has nothing secular about it.
In the kind of Judaism you are talking about, there is absolutely nothing religious about it either. Jews like you treat the Torah the same way they treat the Code of Hammurabi, an ancient myth that is somewhat prescient to modern life but mostly not.
I still think Judaism has the best answer to all of that
it says that what God wants doesn't matter anymore, that the power of decision is now in the hands of man.
Please stop talking about "Judaism" when you mean "the most secular slice of Judaism."
And I can't tell you how odd it is to get Jewish-evangelized by someone who does not believe in the Jewish god.
Qingu it is really really hampering this discourse when you doggedly stick to defining and debating religions based on their initial conception rather than considering them as the forms the evolved into.
Yes, initially the Bible/Torah/Etc was taken as the literal word of God. Over time and through various influences people became more open to the fact that this was written by man and not by a divine being.
If anything you can take contention to the fact that a large subset of people is confusedly somewhere in the middle and trying to accept both ideas (Holy Works literally written by God through divine illumination or whatever vs Holy Works a person's interpretation of God and the events He/She/It had a hand in).
However, as you began in the infancy of this thread and are continuing to this point, it is just as intellectually dishonest for you to disregard the current state of many of these religions because you feel THEY are being dishonest to the core tenants of their faith, created centuries ago.
As someone I know put it (and this is in reference to and a remark on, people saying "The Founding Fathers said X and doing Y is against what they wanted") "There are a lot of things that are currently constitutional that were not. The abolition of slavery was never seriously considered as an issue (no matter what that song in "1776" says), allowing women to vote, banning popped collars (call your senator!). These became constitutional when it became evident that they were moral issues that deemed legislation."
In much the same way, modern religions have responded to the changing needs of society and it is very unfair of you to summarily disregard them out of hand. I know this is kind of a re-hashing of previous things, but you STILL partake in the same behavior, and I am STILL upset about it.
please stop trying to redife the bulk of judaism in to being the niche sect that your cousins fall in to.
The "bulk" of what is commonly called Judaism is simply an ethnic designation. Yourself being a prime example. You do not believe in the existence of Yahweh, the Jewish god.
Did you mean that Judaism is great because, in Judaism it doesn't matter what God wants anymore because you can just stop believing in God altogether? Okay, whatever.
The concept that the power of the torah is in the hands of man has nothing secular about it.
In the kind of Judaism you are talking about, there is absolutely nothing religious about it either. Jews like you treat the Torah the same way they treat the Code of Hammurabi, an ancient myth that is somewhat prescient to modern life but mostly not.
Qingu, you have shown time and time again that you have no idea what kind of Jew I am.
The fact that I don't believe in God doesn't prevent me from being religious, or even observant.
For all of your attempts to study religions in order to tear them down, you're still stuck in a very singular view of religions being about Gods. They don't have to be.
please stop trying to redife the bulk of judaism in to being the niche sect that your cousins fall in to.
The "bulk" of what is commonly called Judaism is simply an ethnic designation. Yourself being a prime example. You do not believe in the existence of Yahweh, the Jewish god.
Did you mean that Judaism is great because, in Judaism it doesn't matter what God wants anymore because you can just stop believing in God altogether? Okay, whatever.
The concept that the power of the torah is in the hands of man has nothing secular about it.
In the kind of Judaism you are talking about, there is absolutely nothing religious about it either. Jews like you treat the Torah the same way they treat the Code of Hammurabi, an ancient myth that is somewhat prescient to modern life but mostly not.
Qingu, you have shown time and time again that you have no idea what kind of Jew I am.
The fact that I don't believe in God doesn't prevent me from being religious, or even observant.
For all of your attempts to study religions in order to tear them down, you're still stuck in a very singular view of religions being about Gods. They don't have to be.
Wait...what? If you do not believe in the absolute most important tenant of a religion, how do you still consider yourself part of that religion. And perhaps equally important, why would you want to?
I mean, I can understand someone not agreeing 100% with absolutely everything a particular religion stands for, but belief in a god is pretty much by definition required. It'd be like me arbitrarily deciding to consider myself vegan because I like what they stand for...well, except for that whole thing about not eating animal products. I'm still going to eat meat by the plate-full.
Arch and Evander, if you want to allow a definition of Judaism where someone who denies the existence of Yahweh, the central tenet of Judaism's moral and mythological structure, can still be a Jew, then—like I said, whatever. I reject that definition because I think it is nonsensically broad and leads to communication breakdowns.
But we are just arguing about semantics here.
And Evander, would you agree that Jews who do believe in God and do take their religious traditions seriously, like the orthodox and Hasidic Jews, do have authoritarian worldviews?
I mean, obviously "Jews" who do not believe in any gods, who do not venerate their holy book as a sacred text, who are wholly secular in their moral and scientific beliefs, and who are functionally indistinguishable from atheists beyond things like enjoying matzoball soup and being able to recite Adon Alam from memory, do not have an authoritarian worldview; for my part, I simply wouldn't bother calling such people "Jews" to begin with.
I mean, I can understand someone not agreeing 100% with absolutely everything a particular religion stands for, but belief in a god is pretty much by definition required.
There is the perennial exception of Zen Buddhism.
But then I prefer to define religion as organized around belief in/worship of gods, so Zen becomes a "philosophy" in my semantics. Much simpler that way.
And again, the semantic argument is a sideshow here; it's not as important as arguments about the actual contents of things we call "religion." But I do think it's important to avoid defining "religion" so broadly so as to include any and every single ideology in human existence. If a word can mean anything, it loses its effective meaning.
The problem is you insist on defining other people's religion for them when religion can only work on an intellectual level when its defined by yourself. Its a belief structure that really only has to convince yourself.
Personally, I'm just tired of militant atheists trying to convince me there is no god. In the end, its forced me not even mention that I'm catholic around most people.
The problem is you insist on defining other people's religion for them when religion can only work on an intellectual level when its defined by yourself. Its a belief structure that really only has to convince yourself.
I disagree. The problem is that people define "religion" and "God" so broadly that they can literally mean anything, which is confusing and distracting when talking about the content of these actual belief systems and the people who actually take them seriously.
Personally, I'm just tired of militant atheists trying to convince me there is no god. In the end, its forced me not even mention that I'm catholic around most people.
God! It's worse than the Romans!
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Podlyyou unzipped me! it's all coming back! i don't like it!Registered Userregular
Qingu, every atheist I've met has been slavishly devoted to the metaphysical concept that there is some physical telos and fundamental structure to the universe, which leads them to ignore the essential existential nature of human existence.
As I've said in previous discussions, I'd appreciate it if you could ditch the vague, outdated philosophical terms invented by people who do not interact with modern scientific ideas like evolution and quantum mechanics.
And I would argue that evolution and quantum mechanics are themselves heavily dependent on aristotelean metaphysics.
Also, as I've said in previous discussions, whenever you talk about the existential nature of human existence, you conspicuously leave out the existential nature of chimpanzee existence, and dog existence, and lizard existence, and ... starfish existence, if you're willing to go that far back. In other words, you implicitly ignore the obvious case that whatever it is you're talking about isn't some magic quality because its emergence can be traced back through natural evolution.
I would say that I have no need for that, because beings can be authentically and inauthenticity existential, which means that you cannot attribute it as some essence or physical property, nor to an acquired behavior, and thus not susceptible to the genealogical activity of tracing natural evolution.
I would also question your structural terms of trace and the genesis/genetic structure of evolution.
The problem is you insist on defining other people's religion for them when religion can only work on an intellectual level when its defined by yourself. Its a belief structure that really only has to convince yourself.
Personally, I'm just tired of militant atheists trying to convince me there is no god. In the end, its forced me not even mention that I'm catholic around most people.
Then... don't have the conversation? The funny thing is that religions tend to make their beliefs public, so when people say "I'm jewish," or "I'm catholic,' while disregarding or rejecting central parts of the religion, it's a bit strange.
Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Arch and Evander, if you want to allow a definition of Judaism where someone who denies the existence of Yahweh, the central tenet of Judaism's moral and mythological structure, can still be a Jew, then—like I said, whatever. I reject that definition because I think it is nonsensically broad and leads to communication breakdowns.
But we are just arguing about semantics here.
And Evander, would you agree that Jews who do believe in God and do take their religious traditions seriously, like the orthodox and Hasidic Jews, do have authoritarian worldviews?
I mean, obviously "Jews" who do not believe in any gods, who do not venerate their holy book as a sacred text, who are wholly secular in their moral and scientific beliefs, and who are functionally indistinguishable from atheists beyond things like enjoying matzoball soup and being able to recite Adon Alam from memory, do not have an authoritarian worldview; for my part, I simply wouldn't bother calling such people "Jews" to begin with.
The thing is that the semantic issue is my point. What do you call it if you derive a large portion of your ideas, personality, and morality from a particular religioin (for this example, Christianity). If a person attends church, prays, gets married in a Christian ceremony, celebrates Christmas and Easter as the birth and resurrection (respectively) but allows for some "wiggle room" in their interpretation of scripture, particularly the much older passages?
If you would call that person a Christian than you cannot just keep arguing with your horribly outdated view of this religion. My point is this- We are all using the modern Christian (or Jewish, or Islamic) faith as the central part of our arguments. You tell us that we are using the word incorrectly because these things are no longer the same as they "used to be". You have set yourself up in a trench that really bogs down this discussion much more than us using the word "Christian" in a much more broad and liberal sense because that is how the majority of these people are today barring extremists.
The problem at hand, in your mind as I see it, is this "all or none" idea you have constructed for how people HAVE to accept their religion, and you formulate theological ideals for these belief systems that most of the participants don't even adhere to.
As someone said, you seem to take the Bible, and these religions, wayyyy more strictly and seriously than actual practitioners of these faiths. Which is an interesting position to take, but unfortunately leaves you with no middle ground and forces you to "pick a side". Either A or B instead of what a person's belief system should be- a mixture of things that pertain to their own personal spirituality.
There are some things you should "accept" (but still question! Again I restate my worry that if science supplants religion it will hamper scientific progress just as much as ideas will quickly become dogma and paradigm shifts in information will be just as hard to incite) and cannot pick from (a lot of scientific discoveries) but religion is supposed to be about how YOU as a person perceive and worship a given deity. Or rather, that is the theological ideal for a religion in my mind. If your "religion" is that there is no deity to worship, so be it. You are an Atheist. If another person's "religion" is a deist interpretation of the Christian God, with a liberal helping of Christian traditions, what do you call that person?
The problem is you insist on defining other people's religion for them when religion can only work on an intellectual level when its defined by yourself. Its a belief structure that really only has to convince yourself.
I disagree. The problem is that people define "religion" and "God" so broadly that they can literally mean anything, which is confusing and distracting when talking about the content of these actual belief systems and the people who actually take them seriously.
Personally, I'm just tired of militant atheists trying to convince me there is no god. In the end, its forced me not even mention that I'm catholic around most people.
God! It's worse than the Romans!
At this point I think I'd prefer to get eaten by lions than hear another rant on how much money the Catholic church stole from 14th century europe.
.... religion can only work on an intellectual level when its defined by yourself. Its a belief structure that really only has to convince yourself.
....what? Is this one of those, "If I brush my teeth and eat my broccoli, I can go to Heaven! Jesus who?" kinds of statements?
Its more of "One word is not enough to generalize on my complete moral and spiritual views so trying to lump everyone into one philosophy makes understanding religion harder, not easier."
The problem is you insist on defining other people's religion for them when religion can only work on an intellectual level when its defined by yourself. Its a belief structure that really only has to convince yourself.
Personally, I'm just tired of militant atheists trying to convince me there is no god. In the end, its forced me not even mention that I'm catholic around most people.
Then... don't have the conversation? The funny thing is that religions tend to make their beliefs public, so when people say "I'm jewish," or "I'm catholic,' while disregarding or rejecting central parts of the religion, it's a bit strange.
Those labels have more uses then just religious, at least in how theyre used by everyone.
And I would argue that evolution and quantum mechanics are themselves heavily dependent on aristotelean metaphysics.
Please go ahead and make that argument.
I would say that I have no need for that, because beings can be authentically and inauthenticity existential, which means that you cannot attribute it as some essence or physical property, nor to an acquired behavior, and thus not susceptible to the genealogical activity of tracing natural evolution.
This is a poorly-written sentence, and makes very little sense in its present form.
I would also question your structural terms of trace and the genesis/genetic structure of evolution.
Why?
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Podlyyou unzipped me! it's all coming back! i don't like it!Registered Userregular
Easy. Why do you believe that there is some ultimate composition of the universe, when the history of science has pointed to the opposite -- that the universe is not reducible, but infinitely divisible.
I would also question your structural terms of trace and the genesis/genetic structure of evolution.
Why?
Because I believe that the concepts of a trace and of a genesis/origin are routed in metaphysics and are improperly applied to the physical world.
.... religion can only work on an intellectual level when its defined by yourself. Its a belief structure that really only has to convince yourself.
....what? Is this one of those, "If I brush my teeth and eat my broccoli, I can go to Heaven! Jesus who?" kinds of statements?
Its more of "One word is not enough to generalize on my complete moral and spiritual views so trying to lump everyone into one philosophy makes understanding religion harder, not easier."
True, but look how this started. Evander said "I still think Judaism has the best answer to all of that. It [Judaism] says that what God wants doesn't matter anymore, that the power of decision is now in the hands of man."
What he probably should have said was "I still think certain forms of Judaism have the best answers to all of that."
The problem is you insist on defining other people's religion for them when religion can only work on an intellectual level when its defined by yourself. Its a belief structure that really only has to convince yourself.
Personally, I'm just tired of militant atheists trying to convince me there is no god. In the end, its forced me not even mention that I'm catholic around most people.
Actually, a person's faith is something that can only work on an intellectual level. A religion is fairly easily defined by the masses because that's the exact purpose of it's existence. Religion (well, Abrahamic religion anyway. I won't pretend to know a great deal about anything else.) is a collection of pretty concretely defined values and beliefs. Faith != Religion
please stop trying to redife the bulk of judaism in to being the niche sect that your cousins fall in to.
The "bulk" of what is commonly called Judaism is simply an ethnic designation. Yourself being a prime example. You do not believe in the existence of Yahweh, the Jewish god.
Did you mean that Judaism is great because, in Judaism it doesn't matter what God wants anymore because you can just stop believing in God altogether? Okay, whatever.
The concept that the power of the torah is in the hands of man has nothing secular about it.
In the kind of Judaism you are talking about, there is absolutely nothing religious about it either. Jews like you treat the Torah the same way they treat the Code of Hammurabi, an ancient myth that is somewhat prescient to modern life but mostly not.
Qingu, you have shown time and time again that you have no idea what kind of Jew I am.
The fact that I don't believe in God doesn't prevent me from being religious, or even observant.
For all of your attempts to study religions in order to tear them down, you're still stuck in a very singular view of religions being about Gods. They don't have to be.
Wait...what? If you do not believe in the absolute most important tenant of a religion, how do you still consider yourself part of that religion. And perhaps equally important, why would you want to?
I mean, I can understand someone not agreeing 100% with absolutely everything a particular religion stands for, but belief in a god is pretty much by definition required. It'd be like me arbitrarily deciding to consider myself vegan because I like what they stand for...well, except for that whole thing about not eating animal products. I'm still going to eat meat by the plate-full.
WHO is defining God as the most important tenant of all religion?
Chrisitianity is absolutely about it's god. Judaism is not.
Judaism is about a book of rules. Those rules were said, originally, to come from god, but their origin isn't all that important, ion the end.
You could say "if god didn't write them, then why follow them?" But judaism ALREADY doesn't have a hell, so the question becomes "even if god DID write them, but he isn't going to damn you for eternity, why follow them?"
You see, viewing judaism for what it is, rather than through the filter of christianity, produces a religion with VERY different motivation.
Easy. Why do you believe that there is some ultimate composition of the universe, when the history of science has pointed to the opposite -- that the universe is not reducible, but infinitely divisible.
I'm not aware that anyone here claims that the universe is ultimately composed of anything. As far as I'm aware, physicists and cosmologists are loathe to draw a bright line and say "Here are the most basic building blocks of the universe, case closed." There are discussions that perhaps the Planck Length is the smallest distance possible, but again, I'm not aware that this has been agreed to as law in the scientific community.
As for evolution, I'm not sure why you think the ultimate composition of the universe is relevant to the field. I know of no biologists specializing in studying evolution who are concerned about whether quarks or strings are the ultimate universal building block. As far as I'm aware, evolutionary study doesn't go much smaller than DNA fragments, which are astronomically larger than sub-atomic particles or waves.
Because I believe that the concepts of a trace and of a genesis/origin are routed in metaphysics and are improperly applied to the physical world.
Arch and Evander, if you want to allow a definition of Judaism where someone who denies the existence of Yahweh, the central tenet of Judaism's moral and mythological structure, can still be a Jew, then—like I said, whatever. I reject that definition because I think it is nonsensically broad and leads to communication breakdowns.
But we are just arguing about semantics here.
And Evander, would you agree that Jews who do believe in God and do take their religious traditions seriously, like the orthodox and Hasidic Jews, do have authoritarian worldviews?
I mean, obviously "Jews" who do not believe in any gods, who do not venerate their holy book as a sacred text, who are wholly secular in their moral and scientific beliefs, and who are functionally indistinguishable from atheists beyond things like enjoying matzoball soup and being able to recite Adon Alam from memory, do not have an authoritarian worldview; for my part, I simply wouldn't bother calling such people "Jews" to begin with.
Orthodox jews still recognize Bava Metzia 59b. It's the Karites who reject the Talmud, and they ARE an extremely small niche.
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One of my housemates during my senior year decided to go atheist and started proselytizing to our other housemates, most of them girls who were just religious because their parents were and didn't go to church or give it a second thought, but he was so enthusiastic about his new philosophy that he had to talk to people about it, which turned into him hectoring our housemates a lot and trying to get them to answer deep questions about their faith. He tried to get me over to his side a lot, and I agreed a couple times, but most of the time I was just like, "Man, we have to live with these people, does it really matter? Quit hassling them, not everyone is as interested in religion as you or me."
That's really what it comes down to for me and my atheist "evangelizing." I definitely do think that my position on religion is correct, and certainly believe that it's best to believe in the truth - whatever it is. And I do think that many aspects of orthodox Christianity are pretty harmful (i.e., homophobia). But, I don't evangelize, usually, just because many Christians aren't even that interested in their own religion. Which astounds me. It absolutely astounds me.
I just guess I don't understand how someone who believes in Christianity isn't interested in it. I accept the fact, I just don't understand how for some believers, they don't really care about their beliefs at all.
Maybe that makes me a horrible person.
I think a few people have said this, but I'll add in my $0.02: because reigion made me do some messed-up things, and I don't like it. It's not a lack of belief, it's also negative feelings towards the organisations that make up relgion.
I'm not going to go firebomb a church or something, but I'm neither am I going to be sad to see them go. Many less churches in my neck of the woods now than when I was young.
Edit: I should expand on this a bit.
I generally feel that religion has one main hole, which is the 'buffet style' religion. It bugs the hell out of me to have people only take the parts of religion that they feel are 'right' - if everyone jsut follows their own moral code, why are they lumped together as Christians/Jews/Muslim/etc?
And worse: when I do bring this up, I ask about, say, the fire and doom God of the Old Testament. I point out the time whent he Jews were commanded to slaughter a small nation, from the men and women down to the livestock. The Jewish king at the time balked at that, and God basicly smacks and says, 'do it, bitch'. And they do.
Or I ask about the stuff about gays/menstrating women/crazy laws in general. Why to Jews only follow Kosher food, and not the other crazy junk in that part of the Torah?
When asked, people invariably just shrug, and say 'we don't believe in that'. Well, what DO they believe in? Passages a, e and h? But not the other several thousand commandments? Why? At least the ortodox, crazy as they are, are consistent.
To me, the only sensible thing to do when faced with such an inconsistent and wrong (unless you like gaybashing/scorched earth) document is to ignore it. It's not like we would apply such lax standards to... anything else.
To me, people who stay religious in light of knowing these things are, well, weak. It's like the fat guy who won't exercise, because it's too hard. Or the kid who drops out of high school. Life is difficult, and hiding behind superstition is just another way of being lazy.
Uh-oh I accidentally deleted my signature. Uh-oh!!
Of course, the trick is not being a dick about open debate.
No, man. People that follow the edicts of a Faith, but have no interest to ask themselves why, are the entire problem. If you've really sat down, thought about it, and decided you simply cannot abide gays raising children, fine. I'll disagree with you, but respect that you at least gave it some thought. Most of the people protesting on the street corner have never thought about anything, though; they hate because their Holy Man told them to.
Which I suppose brings up the difference between Religion and Spirituality. Spirituality always struck me as a very introspective thing, something that requires great contemplation about one's relationship with their Faith. Religion, more often than not, is an external mindset adopted so that one does not have to think.
If you look at a lot of religious arguments, they tend to have this overarching pattern:
Someone must have designed all this. It couldn't just happen randomly.
Someone must hand us down our morals. We can't just figure out how to be good ourselves.
This mindset is why religions are so often organized (and always start as) authority cults. Jesus, if the gospels are remotely accurate, was a cult leader who demanded unquestioning obedience from his followers. Paul expressly demands obedience from his followers in his letters; he calls them his "little children." The Catholic church was authoritarian. And when Protestantism rebelled against its authority, it simply erected another authority—the Bible.
You see this in other traditions as well. Most obviously with Muhammad and the hierarchical religious structure of the ulema in Islam. Modern, devout Jewish communities are basically slaves to their rabbinical leaders; my step-brother was told by his rabbi that he had to vote for McCain, no questions asked.
But even in so-called "progressive" faiths like Baha'is. On another forum, there are some prominent Baha'i members and I asked them if they agreed or disagreed with Baha'alluah's (their prophet's) statements against homosexuality. It was amazing. The same person who constantly went on about how we should all be tolerant and love everyone completely, weirdly refused to answer the question, and proposed all sorts of justifications for how Baha'alluah's statements could be accurate in various context. He could not bring himself to say "Baha'alluah was wrong about that," because the Baha'i faith is an authority cult.
Even liberal Christians, if you ask them directly about a horrible pro-genocide or pro-slavery Bible verse, will not say "oh, that verse is wrong." They'll say "it's a metaphor," or "you have to look at it in context." The Bible is seen as an authority that cannot be contradicted, only reinterpreted.
This is, I think, the underlying mindset for conspiracy theorists as well. Conspiracy theorists view the world through the prism of authority hierarchy—for any given event X, someone must be in control. Both religion and conspiracy theories seem to fulfill this unconscious desire to view the world as top-down ordered and in-control (even if, in the case of conspiracies, you think the people in control are evil).
Even better when God Changes his Mind. Reading about that was the first of many reasons that I am no longer LDS.
But Baha'alluah must not have wanted some clever cult leader to pull the same trick on his flock a few years down the road, so there's some rule that says the next prophet's "progressive revelation" won't happen for another 1,000 years.
So, tough luck on the Baha'i god once again changing his mind and allowing homosexuality. Proselytizing progressives is going to be a bitch for the poor Baha'is pretty soon.
Of course, I guess they could just say that God changes his mind about not changing his mind for 1,000 years.
it says that what God wants doesn't matter anymore, that the power of decision is now in the hands of man.
And I can't tell you how odd it is to get Jewish-evangelized by someone who does not believe in the Jewish god.
I think this realization was the genesis of my current progression of non-belief. I think it may have actually been the Branch Davidian incident, now that I think about it. In February of 1993 I was just about to turn 14 years old and I was just about to complete my time in the catholic education system later that year (I started at a public high school that following September). I distinctly remember coming to the realization that if "we" thought David Koresh was just some nut-job who con'd people into believing he was an actual profit, why would you take the "real" profits, or even Jesus himself, at face value? I remember thinking that if Jesus himself, the honest to goodness Son of God, came back to Earth today that he'd get clozapine pumped into him until he burst.
From that point on, it's just been a slow progression of coming to grips with renouncing everything I'd been taught to believe in.
That thought actually got me detention in my religion class. We had to do reports on Jesus and most kids did the same thing, covering his miracles and his resurrection, etc. But I went in a different direction and thought "What if he were to exist today?". Granted I probably could have been nicer about it, but my teacher looked furious when I said "A couple thousand years ago if a man with long hair and no shoes walked up to you and told you that he spoke to god, you would call him a messiah; if that happened to you today you would call him a homeless schizo and run away."
Uh-oh I accidentally deleted my signature. Uh-oh!!
FUCK YEAH.
Have you provided them with your vast fields of verifiable evidence?
Also "structure" is a vague term. The universe is structured in the sense that it is made of stuff and things happen in a relatively predictable manner, but there is no structure in the sense of a coordinated order.
please stop trying to redife the bulk of judaism in to being the niche sect that your cousins fall in to.
The concept that the power of the torah is in the hands of man has nothing secular about it.
Also, as I've said in previous discussions, whenever you talk about the existential nature of human existence, you conspicuously leave out the existential nature of chimpanzee existence, and dog existence, and lizard existence, and ... starfish existence, if you're willing to go that far back. In other words, you implicitly ignore the obvious case that whatever it is you're talking about isn't some magic quality because its emergence can be traced back through natural evolution.
Did you mean that Judaism is great because, in Judaism it doesn't matter what God wants anymore because you can just stop believing in God altogether? Okay, whatever.
In the kind of Judaism you are talking about, there is absolutely nothing religious about it either. Jews like you treat the Torah the same way they treat the Code of Hammurabi, an ancient myth that is somewhat prescient to modern life but mostly not.
Qingu it is really really hampering this discourse when you doggedly stick to defining and debating religions based on their initial conception rather than considering them as the forms the evolved into.
Yes, initially the Bible/Torah/Etc was taken as the literal word of God. Over time and through various influences people became more open to the fact that this was written by man and not by a divine being.
If anything you can take contention to the fact that a large subset of people is confusedly somewhere in the middle and trying to accept both ideas (Holy Works literally written by God through divine illumination or whatever vs Holy Works a person's interpretation of God and the events He/She/It had a hand in).
However, as you began in the infancy of this thread and are continuing to this point, it is just as intellectually dishonest for you to disregard the current state of many of these religions because you feel THEY are being dishonest to the core tenants of their faith, created centuries ago.
As someone I know put it (and this is in reference to and a remark on, people saying "The Founding Fathers said X and doing Y is against what they wanted") "There are a lot of things that are currently constitutional that were not. The abolition of slavery was never seriously considered as an issue (no matter what that song in "1776" says), allowing women to vote, banning popped collars (call your senator!). These became constitutional when it became evident that they were moral issues that deemed legislation."
In much the same way, modern religions have responded to the changing needs of society and it is very unfair of you to summarily disregard them out of hand. I know this is kind of a re-hashing of previous things, but you STILL partake in the same behavior, and I am STILL upset about it.
Qingu, you have shown time and time again that you have no idea what kind of Jew I am.
The fact that I don't believe in God doesn't prevent me from being religious, or even observant.
For all of your attempts to study religions in order to tear them down, you're still stuck in a very singular view of religions being about Gods. They don't have to be.
Wait...what? If you do not believe in the absolute most important tenant of a religion, how do you still consider yourself part of that religion. And perhaps equally important, why would you want to?
I mean, I can understand someone not agreeing 100% with absolutely everything a particular religion stands for, but belief in a god is pretty much by definition required. It'd be like me arbitrarily deciding to consider myself vegan because I like what they stand for...well, except for that whole thing about not eating animal products. I'm still going to eat meat by the plate-full.
But we are just arguing about semantics here.
And Evander, would you agree that Jews who do believe in God and do take their religious traditions seriously, like the orthodox and Hasidic Jews, do have authoritarian worldviews?
I mean, obviously "Jews" who do not believe in any gods, who do not venerate their holy book as a sacred text, who are wholly secular in their moral and scientific beliefs, and who are functionally indistinguishable from atheists beyond things like enjoying matzoball soup and being able to recite Adon Alam from memory, do not have an authoritarian worldview; for my part, I simply wouldn't bother calling such people "Jews" to begin with.
But then I prefer to define religion as organized around belief in/worship of gods, so Zen becomes a "philosophy" in my semantics. Much simpler that way.
And again, the semantic argument is a sideshow here; it's not as important as arguments about the actual contents of things we call "religion." But I do think it's important to avoid defining "religion" so broadly so as to include any and every single ideology in human existence. If a word can mean anything, it loses its effective meaning.
Personally, I'm just tired of militant atheists trying to convince me there is no god. In the end, its forced me not even mention that I'm catholic around most people.
God! It's worse than the Romans!
And I would argue that evolution and quantum mechanics are themselves heavily dependent on aristotelean metaphysics.
I would say that I have no need for that, because beings can be authentically and inauthenticity existential, which means that you cannot attribute it as some essence or physical property, nor to an acquired behavior, and thus not susceptible to the genealogical activity of tracing natural evolution.
I would also question your structural terms of trace and the genesis/genetic structure of evolution.
Then... don't have the conversation? The funny thing is that religions tend to make their beliefs public, so when people say "I'm jewish," or "I'm catholic,' while disregarding or rejecting central parts of the religion, it's a bit strange.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
The thing is that the semantic issue is my point. What do you call it if you derive a large portion of your ideas, personality, and morality from a particular religioin (for this example, Christianity). If a person attends church, prays, gets married in a Christian ceremony, celebrates Christmas and Easter as the birth and resurrection (respectively) but allows for some "wiggle room" in their interpretation of scripture, particularly the much older passages?
If you would call that person a Christian than you cannot just keep arguing with your horribly outdated view of this religion. My point is this- We are all using the modern Christian (or Jewish, or Islamic) faith as the central part of our arguments. You tell us that we are using the word incorrectly because these things are no longer the same as they "used to be". You have set yourself up in a trench that really bogs down this discussion much more than us using the word "Christian" in a much more broad and liberal sense because that is how the majority of these people are today barring extremists.
The problem at hand, in your mind as I see it, is this "all or none" idea you have constructed for how people HAVE to accept their religion, and you formulate theological ideals for these belief systems that most of the participants don't even adhere to.
As someone said, you seem to take the Bible, and these religions, wayyyy more strictly and seriously than actual practitioners of these faiths. Which is an interesting position to take, but unfortunately leaves you with no middle ground and forces you to "pick a side". Either A or B instead of what a person's belief system should be- a mixture of things that pertain to their own personal spirituality.
There are some things you should "accept" (but still question! Again I restate my worry that if science supplants religion it will hamper scientific progress just as much as ideas will quickly become dogma and paradigm shifts in information will be just as hard to incite) and cannot pick from (a lot of scientific discoveries) but religion is supposed to be about how YOU as a person perceive and worship a given deity. Or rather, that is the theological ideal for a religion in my mind. If your "religion" is that there is no deity to worship, so be it. You are an Atheist. If another person's "religion" is a deist interpretation of the Christian God, with a liberal helping of Christian traditions, what do you call that person?
I call them a Christian.
At this point I think I'd prefer to get eaten by lions than hear another rant on how much money the Catholic church stole from 14th century europe.
....what? Is this one of those, "If I brush my teeth and eat my broccoli, I can go to Heaven! Jesus who?" kinds of statements?
Its more of "One word is not enough to generalize on my complete moral and spiritual views so trying to lump everyone into one philosophy makes understanding religion harder, not easier."
Those labels have more uses then just religious, at least in how theyre used by everyone.
Please go ahead and make that argument.
This is a poorly-written sentence, and makes very little sense in its present form.
Why?
Easy. Why do you believe that there is some ultimate composition of the universe, when the history of science has pointed to the opposite -- that the universe is not reducible, but infinitely divisible.
Because I believe that the concepts of a trace and of a genesis/origin are routed in metaphysics and are improperly applied to the physical world.
True, but look how this started. Evander said "I still think Judaism has the best answer to all of that. It [Judaism] says that what God wants doesn't matter anymore, that the power of decision is now in the hands of man."
What he probably should have said was "I still think certain forms of Judaism have the best answers to all of that."
Actually, a person's faith is something that can only work on an intellectual level. A religion is fairly easily defined by the masses because that's the exact purpose of it's existence. Religion (well, Abrahamic religion anyway. I won't pretend to know a great deal about anything else.) is a collection of pretty concretely defined values and beliefs. Faith != Religion
WHO is defining God as the most important tenant of all religion?
Chrisitianity is absolutely about it's god. Judaism is not.
Judaism is about a book of rules. Those rules were said, originally, to come from god, but their origin isn't all that important, ion the end.
You could say "if god didn't write them, then why follow them?" But judaism ALREADY doesn't have a hell, so the question becomes "even if god DID write them, but he isn't going to damn you for eternity, why follow them?"
You see, viewing judaism for what it is, rather than through the filter of christianity, produces a religion with VERY different motivation.
I'm not aware that anyone here claims that the universe is ultimately composed of anything. As far as I'm aware, physicists and cosmologists are loathe to draw a bright line and say "Here are the most basic building blocks of the universe, case closed." There are discussions that perhaps the Planck Length is the smallest distance possible, but again, I'm not aware that this has been agreed to as law in the scientific community.
As for evolution, I'm not sure why you think the ultimate composition of the universe is relevant to the field. I know of no biologists specializing in studying evolution who are concerned about whether quarks or strings are the ultimate universal building block. As far as I'm aware, evolutionary study doesn't go much smaller than DNA fragments, which are astronomically larger than sub-atomic particles or waves.
Why?
Orthodox jews still recognize Bava Metzia 59b. It's the Karites who reject the Talmud, and they ARE an extremely small niche.