Hi.

This is the new religion thread. Post here.

I am curious as to people's religious beliefs.

I ask this because I am in a muddle about my own beliefs right now, and like to cannibalize off of others.

So what do you believe, and why? Do you think other people are wrong? Why your religion?

I think belief is beautiful.
I don't have a personal belief, however; I dwell in wonder instead.

Roman Catholic.

Let me be specific: American Roman Catholic, which, for many of us, means left of Marxists as far as the Pope's concerned. Where this broo-ha-ha will end us all, I don't know. A priest in Chicago once said to me, "The Vatican is steep in the tradition of Monarchy. American's aren't. There will be issues."

I believe I love going to mass. I believe I love singing with other people. I believe that in the readings each week I get some little nugget of metaphore that lets me live a better week. I believe just seeing familiar faces, offering my talents as a lector and having a place to go make me a better and happier person.

I have no idea anymore what I believe about the Church's fundemental supernatural concerns.

I believe that in terms of imagination the Church is fucked, because we've got a bachelor god and virgin mother, and despite Vatican II's attempts to reasure us all, "No, no, we really do like the human body -- that delight is reflected only in the Church's almost subversive history of lucious and sensual art. It's simply not in the dogma, it's simply not an active part of the narrative. It's simply not there in the actual *faith.*

I don't have much truck for people who think other people are *wrong.*

In fact, here's my new bugaboo: after all the self-serving nonses around Mel's movie ("No, *you're* making *me* suffer!" heard from Jews, Chrisitans and even -- wait for it -- Italians upset at the portrayal of Centurians -- I'm concerned that too much of what religion should be about is usurped by yahoos who want to know everyone else in the world is out to get them. It feeds into the darkest, worst aspects of self-pity, paranoia and self-justified rightousness that let's folks know that they're right, others are wrong, and thank god we can all huddle together against the terrors offered by the bulk of all the rest of the world.

Feeling persecuted, I've noticed lately, is the great motivator for what some folks think of as religious sentiment. Not mine. I'm a happy, God made us to love each other through this world post-Vatican II kid. I honestly see people using religion as a reactionary cover and think, "What the fuck?"

Also, this:

There seems to be this notion (not widespread perhaps, but wrongheaded I think), that Muslims are after the US because it's a "Christian" nation (you know, with a few Jews thrown in.)

I think this misses the game entirely.

I really don't think myopic muslisms are upset that we're a Christian nation. We're a pluralistic nation. If you compare our society to the classical pagan years in Rome and Greece, you'll see we share a lot in come with those societies when it comes to religion: People shift churches, denominations and even faith as required by their needs. You can be a Presbiterian who owns a crystal, does yoga and reads the horoscope.... and that's cool for you. (Others might object -- but you don't hang with them.)

We're not playing the one true god game that well here -- which, I think, explains why we're such a "religious" nation. By allowing faith to be fluid, non-stiffling, and meeting the needs of those who need faith... it works. It doesn't shut down commerce, social interaction, creative freedom and so on.

Now, this bothers some folks in the US. But their born and bred americans, so it's kind of confusing... Monothesitic obsession runs counter to the democratic principles of this country so everyone worried about this is left hanging even if they can't articulate why.

Not so myopitc muslims in middle eastern nations. A One Way is still an option. And *that* is the problem with the US for them. It's not that we're a Christian nation. (We're clearly not.) It's that we're a nation of Many Ways. And I think *that* is the infection they're afraid we're going to bring to the world.

So, basically, I'm becoming, in temperament, a Pagan, with the Church as my main faith. I mean, I don't know what the hell else to call it.

Christopher

Great stuff from Christopher... There's been an upsurge in Finland lately trying to explain U.S. foreign policy from the viewpoint of rapid fundamentalism (the whole "escapees from English persecution" angle). The Americans are largely simpleminded christians, it's said, and this explains why they are ready to tramble over anything good when their crazy president says so. Nice to see that someone upholds pluralism out there.

Anyway, about my religion: I'm hard line agnostic, assuming everyone who believes otherwise is a little dull of mind. On the other hand, if someone is ready to pledge allegiance and stay true to something, even fictional something, that more than counteracts the initial stupidity. Be as stupid as you wish, as long as it's accompanied by nobility.

Atheist.

Things change.

Celto-Norse Shinto-Shaman. It's complicated.

I don't really have religion at all -- that's why I study it instead.

On my father's side, my family is Episcopalian. My father was an altar boy in his youth, but was a staunch atheist when I was growing up. Once I was in college he started dabbling in Buddhism. While he was studying and meditating he wondered: if there's no such thing as a self, then what reincarnates?

My mother's father's grandfather's grandfather was a direct assistant to Brigham Young, but he was excommunicated. The family story was that Brigham & co. had wanted my ancestor to take a second wife, but that he had refused. One never can be quite sure of the truth of such things, but when my grandfather was a little boy, his father took him to the old family cabin outside of Salt Lake, riddled with bullet holes, which my gg claimed were from shots fired by Brigham's men, trying to get rid of my ancestor. My grandfather himself was ecumenical in the extreme - he spent several years trying out different religions with all their rules for a year at a time, to see what they were like. My mother's mother was a Swedish Lutheran.

My mother was and is a member of a Yogic group out of Los Angeles, Paramahansa Yogananda's Self-Realization Fellowship, that believes in Jesus and Krishna both and spends lots of time meditating. That's what I was brought up in.

My best friend my senior year of high school was a Muslim, and he was one of two best men when I got married to my wife, who is Jewish.

Me? In terms of formally observed religion, I suppose I mostly practice Judaism these days - I do weekly sabbath, the High Holidays, and Passover every year, and occasionally go to schul. I almost converted, but it didn't seem right to me to finish the process - I get a lot out of my wife's faith, but ultimately I don't think it's mine, at least not now. I still do some of my mother's yoga meditation that I was trained in as a child sometimes. And sometimes I pray to a nameless god.

I'm deeply committed to humanism and liberalism in politics, which sometimes makes me think I'm really an atheist deep down. But there are certain parts of my life - most centrally my love of the beautiful and the sublime - that make it impossible for me to give up on religion completely. Something keeps drawing me back to reading a hundred different scriptures and contemplating the Ultimate in a variety of forms.

So I guess I'd characterize myself as a 'person of faith', but I don't think I'd pass muster with anyone remotely orthodox about anything. I tend to regard holy men as just people and scriptures as just stimulating writings, even though I think they're both in at least some cases speaking about something centrally important to human life and experience. On the other hand, I don't really ever stop looking at my own life and experience from a religious point of view, either, so - I suppose I have a lot of work ahead of me to figure this all out.

I am yet to be convinced about any religion. This from a guy who has lived with a (ex)Jehova's Witness and a (ex)Mormon. Perhaps because of this.

I also don't believe UFO's have landed on earth, that there is such a thing as ghosts and such like, or that anyone has any psychic powers.

I guess I must be a born sceptic.

I'm with Shreyas, except as I get older I find that I'm developing this hard crust of cynicism. I'm going to go have it scraped off next week.

-Chris

Skeptical, cynical wonder with an underlying core of hope.

I believe that the best of all possible afterlives is nothing at all... the idea of the christian heaven freaks me out much more than the idea of the christian hell, and reincarnation speaks of pointlessness to me. Oblivion, the idea that my life will simply stop when my "ugly bag of mostly water" stops moving, is comforting and safe, so I act with that hope, because all the alternatives are horrifying.

My father died when I was young. His family was Jewish, but mom tells me he was Christian. My mother is "Christian" - she'll happily wander into any church regardless of demonination, and once told me she'd rather see me as a member of the KKK, than as a Hare Krishna (given the choice of those two possibilities), because at least the KKK has its roots in Christianity. Although I freely use "God" as a profanity, and might reflexively refer to him, I don't believe I believe in an entity like him. I know for a fact it's not nearly that simple, and that "God" works best as an allegory.

A-religeous.

That is, while I think personal belief systems are good, I think history has proven organized religions to be bad.

As far as personal philosophy, I have found a lot of insight in Taoist teachings (not the religion, the philosophy).

Ben Lehman wrote: So what do you believe, and why? Do you think other people are wrong? Why your religion?

Welp, I'm still a Buddhist. I still swear a lot. However, I have recently renewed my subscription to the Five Precepts and am avoiding meat, pot, and booze. I need to tinker with the diet some because I'm pretty sure the no-meat business is making me overdo the carb thing.

I'm calling it "Liberation Amidism," as it's a Pure Land form of Buddhism that has a very strong "engaged" (as Buddhists call it) element, seeing Buddhism as something that properly is concerned with a better life in this world, and not merely preparing the ground for more favorable future rebirths.

I'm still helping out with the local Unitarian Universalist youth group, which is a joy and a source of continuing nervousness as they keep letting me train the kids to be radical social activists without so much as a peep. Do the parents just not notice, or is that what they want? Stay tuned.

I guess I'm also still a touch of a mystic, though I mostly don't believe in psychic hoo-ha.

I do believe that there are beliefs that are less useful and even tragic, though I'd steer clear of "wrong" if I'm thinking about it carefully. E.g., I have problems with monism--the idea that all spirit is joined by some sort of substratum such that my "soul-stuff" is somehow contiguous with and of one substance with yours. I've come to believe that real compassion and love arise not from my seeing my essential sameness with you, but rather by fully and truly seeing you as someone apart from me, with your own concerns, needs, values, and basic worth. In this way it is my self that disappears in contemplation of the other, rather than coming to non-self by some hyper-inflation of my own boundaries.

I'm considering entering seminary school to become a Unitarian minister but haven't really decided about that yet--I have a general disdain for certifications, and wonder why I would need one to do what comes naturally to me anyway: being decent to other people and acknowledging and strengthening their own compassion for themselves and others.

OTOH, there are some seriously hot babes at that school, and men are a minority. And I've sure had my fill of computer work.

--JB

Lately I've been feeling really drawn to my Jewish roots. Except I come from a family that is, traditionally (at least going back to my great-grandparents) staunchly secular Jews. (My great-grandparents were big-time Communists, so religion was "the opiate of the masses." My great-grandmother used to spit on the ground everytime she saw a rabbi.) And I just can't find it within myself to have any kind of relationship or attitude towards YHWH, God, Allah, or whatever you want to call Him/Her/It.

The attitude of Taoist & Zen stuff speaks to me. But what really speaks to me, what really reflects my worldview & moves me spiritually, are the words of Timothy Leary, Ray Bradbury, Dr. Seuss. And dada & surrealism. Which, I suppose, makes me...a Discordian. Hail Eris!

Edit: I was raised Unitarian-Universalist. In fact, my father was a UU minister throughout my childhood. But both of my parents have abandoned the UU church--my mother has started going to synagogue (despite being a firm atheist), while my father ignores religion entirely. Personally, I find the UU church a bit too bland for me. A quiet personal spirituality is great, but if I'm going to actually get up & go to church every week or so, I want baroque--I want candles & incense & chanting & singing & dancing. I want mandalas & elaborate cosmologies. & body paint & bargains with spirits.

Leave it to Shreyas... Yeah, wonder and awe are good things to cultivate. I try, but I'm not always successful. When you're a child, it's easy. When you're an adult, it takes practice to get through that cynicism.

I was raised super-liberal Southern Baptist, if you can believe that. My parent's church got kicked out of the Southern Baptist Convention for performing "holy unions" for same-sex couples. Never been Baptised though, because I respect the ritual too much to try to make it conform to my own feelings about Jesus (if you're really interested, you can PM me; I'm always ready to talk about religion and spirituality). I tried to do the "white guy doing Eastern religions" thing before I realized that it's really an exercise in futility, self-deception, arrogance, and appropriation (no offense to anyone else on that road, of course). Now, I've come to terms with the fact that I have a strong Christian background, even though I don't believe in Christ (though that guy Jesus was pretty cool...).

What do I call myself? Hmm... Eccumenical Abrahamist is about as close as I can get. Definitely find myself resonating with Judeo-Christian-Islamic-Taiping mythology, because it's so neat (at least, most of the time). Lately, I've been really digging the Islamic emphasis on beauty being proof of God or divine origins, like how the Qur'an is supposedly the most beautiful book ever written (in fact, it dares readers to write a more beautiful book), which "proves" that it is the word of God. Pretty damn cool, I'd say. Also closely related to mystic traditions in early Christianity and Judaism.

And Euro, I don't think American Christianity is less complex, in general. But I think people who are absolutists about their politics are likely to be absolutists about other aspects of their life, including religion. Our international face is only one aspect of American society, after all.

As long as we're throwing it out there, I consider my self to be a fairly devoted (albeit sinful) Christian with little to no use for organized religious dogma. I never cease to be astounded by various professions of faith by churches and church goers and am left wondering if they've ever actually read the book they supposedly believe in or just chose to selectively cross out all the parts they don't like.

I don't believe the bible is the unerring word of God, I think the very idea of that is ludicrous given the whole business with the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in Genesis. I think the bible is a wonderful tool to gain insight into God through those people who knew him best/earliest.

I believe the bible as we know it was created by a series of councils which were as much driven by politics and personal ambition as piety, and therefor what is and isn't canonical should be taken with a grain of salt.

I believe the Book of Revelations, while a fascinating read, is a complete and utter work of fiction invented by the early Catholic church as a way to bring the masses into line with the fear of hell fire and brimstone. It is a weapon, not a religious text.


I think Paul is the absolute worst thing to happen to Christianity ever. He single handedly turned a religion about peace and love and kindness into one of intolerance and cruelty.

I think Jesus was the original hippie traveling about the countryside with a band of close friends preaching peace and love and tolerance.

I think religion and science are not only compatable, they are ultimately intertwined tightly together. Science is not a challenge to god's will it IS god's will. God promised Moses he'd reveal the secrets of his creation to us. And that's exactly what he's been doing for several thousand years now...about as fast as we're able to handle it. So all of this religious right standing in the way of stem cell reseach stuff us uttern nonsense.

I believe that God created multiple ways to worship him at the same time and for the same reasons as he created multiple ethnicities and multiple languages. There are alot of lessons to be learned in the Tower of Babel story. I think this is supported right within the scriptures. Some folks like to quote the part about "I am the way the truth and the light, and the only way to heaven is through me" as license to damn everyone else. Yet they skim over the many many many different ways Jesus is referred to and refers to himself right within the bible itself. He's both the shepard AND the lamb. He's the Word. He's the Light. He's the Son of God. He's the Son of Man. These depictions aren't just ancient biblical authors having fun with synonyms trying to think of how many different ways to say the same thing. Its pretty clearly an indication that there are MANY ways to know and describe Jesus. How many other ways did they not get around to recording.


I think Christopher Walkin makes one hell of a scary Archangel Gabriel.


I literally feel pity for agnostics and athiests. Not out of some sense that they're doomed to be damned in the after life, but because they truly have no comprehension of what they're missing out on in this one.

Hows that.

Ralph,

I'd say you nailed my current confusions right on. The birth contortions of the scriptures are just too violent for me -- I do believer there's God buried in there somewhere... But how many people have been actually looking? (Which leads me back to my obsession these days -- exactly what are all those angry-I-feel-victimized-people looking for? How can they reconcile their anger and victimization with the core nuggets of the existence of a creator-god, for crying out loud?)

Eero,

Thanks for the info. As always, news from abroad about what people think about *me* only reminds me how little I'll ever know about what the hell's going on from specific individuals in other nations.

For the record, I think the U.S. citizens backed the war because a) we have an instinctive alergic reaction to One Way thinking and know it must be stopped; b) and a lot of people bought the "imminent threat" issue peddled by Bush. (I'll remind all 9-11 was still kind of fresh. A lot of folks couldn't imagine the Bush adminstration would actually lie/exagerate about these issues to their own obsessive ends -- but that's just sort of... the way a lot of people are.) To pin it on Christianity would be just dopey... But so it goes...

Christopher

You know, Ralph, I wrote this big long post where I agreed with you but came to the defense of my homeboy, Paul, but then the internet demons ate it. Maybe it's for the best. However, I would recommend skimming John Gager's book "Reinventing Paul" for a different take on things. I don't agree with everything the man says, but he saved Paul for me (I heard him give lectures on the text and answer audience questions a few years ago), and I was about ready to abandon him like you apparently have.

I'm a eclectic Kierkkegardian henotheist of the Zen Pelagian school of mystical Grail Tao... with a touch of Chaos Magick for good measure.

Jonathan Walton wrote: You know, Ralph, I wrote this big long post where I agreed with you but came to the defense of my homeboy, Paul, but then the internet demons ate it. Maybe it's for the best. However, I would recommend skimming John Gager's book "Reinventing Paul" for a different take on things. I don't agree with everything the man says, but he saved Paul for me (I heard him give lectures on the text and answer audience questions a few years ago), and I was about ready to abandon him like you apparently have.

I'm the opposite of Eero, I tend to find atheists, more particularly the self-professed "skeptics," to be rather intellectually dull in their fantacism...they're honestly as bad as religious fundamentalists in both fervor and ignorance. Regarding the latter trait, generally in their broad generalizations about religion and religious people, the motivations and behaviors of these, and history.

Now, I'm not pointing fingers at Eero, since I don't know that he conforms to this, just putting it on the table because judging from ignorance is a huge pet peeve of mine and rubs me raw when I see it, especially from people who should (or proclaim they do) know better.

That said, I don't honestly care if a person is religious, atheist, or agnostic...they just better have a good damn reason for their choice, and not some unstudied, unexamined fluff backing it up. Unfortunately, few people believe their choices are unstudied or unexamined, usually the people who need to do so the worst. So, it isn't just "atheists" who draw my ire, but the "religious" as well.

I personally don't believe anything I haven't experienced and/or studied first-hand (or try not to)*, and even then, I still maintain my reservations. I'm generally skeptical and cynical when it comes to "the truth" (whatever that may be), which should tell everyone something about my own choice, given that I have a ministerial license. And, no, none of the alternative explanations I've examined make any sense in context, so there I am.

* This, BTW, is an attitude picked up from Bhuddist philosophy, which (tangentially) is a religion I'm surprised more scientifically-minded individuals do not follow. I'm not Bhuddist, however. Still the same as last year, and not likely to change: unaffiliated modern pagan, with a healthy influence from Zen Bhuddism, and Norse heathenry (Asatru).

What, exactly, I believe is probably the most open to debate. All I can say is that there's something to it all, even though I can't say for certain what exactly it is; so I have to go with my ideas of what it might be and refine as I go. Ultimately, for me, religion is about betterment of the self emotionally & intellectually and helping others, growing in empathy, knowledge, and depth.

Jonathan Walton wrote: You know, Ralph, I wrote this big long post where I agreed with you but came to the defense of my homeboy, Paul, but then the internet demons ate it.

Valamir wrote: I literally feel pity for agnostics and athiests. Not out of some sense that they're doomed to be damned in the after life, but because they truly have no comprehension of what they're missing out on in this one.

Hows that.

I am an atheist. I was a very sciency kid, and in kindergarden I wanted to be either an astronaut or a chicken farmer (the kind that just collects eggs and plays with baby chicks in incubators, not the kind that cuts chicken heads off). I also had this thing where I would scold other kids for laughing at Wily E. Cyote's misfortune, which I don't know if it was empathy so much as just learning from what my parents had taught me and taking it to heart all of the way. I loved to read books that answered kid questions about "Why is the sky blue" and so forth, and it was all super amazing and awe inspiring to me at the time (and still is).

My parents are Christian, but not church going, though my Grandmother on my Mom's side was, so I would go to church occassionally because of that. As a kid, I didn't really accept it or overtly deny it, but there was a big vibe of seriousness about it and it didn't make a lot of sense to me, so I preferred not to be there, and just endured it. In the mid-80's I remember when AIDS was making big news, and my Mom said or agreed with the sentiment some people expressed at the time that AIDS was a curse from God for the horrible lifestyle these people were living and so on. I was somewhere between 8-10, but at the time I remember thinking that it wasn't right, and that it made no sense. For one thing, it sounded cruel and without reason. Later on, there was the Satanism scare of the 80's where I remember she didn't want to buy Jif Peanut Butter because she heard the CEO was a Satanist, and later on with RPGs she got a little the same way. So, you can see how with that background, I wasn't too hot on Christianity. It was giving me this oppressed feeling of tradition you couldn't reason with, and don't tell your Grandmother you don't believe because it would devestate her, and a bunch of other emotional dysfunction and superstitious assertations.

So, with that, I took it back to basics: We have the stuff we can get closer to knowing through science, and it is amazing. On the people side it was just a simple "How would you feel if they did that to you?" kind of thing. Throughout Middle School I sort of maintained a belief in or hope for psychic powers or maybe ghosts, or at least I gave them a try, because everybody wants to be able to change things by just thinking it, or praying it, or whatever, though I finally gave it up as wishful thinking. So I stayed in that zone until I got out of High School. Standard atheistic Secular Humanism. At the time I had this opinion that parents teach kids good things, but that it is expected that we will grow up and ignore all the good advice, and lose our wonder and so on. I had this idea of "I'm not going to smoke or drink, because obviously it is stupid, and everyone knows it, but they do it anyway" or "parents say kids shouldn't drink coffee, but then they are addicted to coffee" and this kind of thing. On one level it was "goody two shoes I'm a smart kid following the rules", but on the other hand it all made sense to me and still does, and I don't like rules or any ideas that come from tradition without explanation. Basically I tried to heed what I percieved as the warnings from adults that made sense to me. If they said I would lose my curiosity or imagination when I grew up, well maybe I wouldn't then.

So, now we get to college age. I blew off college. I stayed awake at night and slept during the day. At some point I got interested in basic post-modernism stuff, then later on philosophy, psychology, and some Taoistic and Buddhist things. Through that I got to be a little familiar with mysticism, and got to where I did not automatically write off all religious people as "irrational needy scared of the dark" or "I just go along with my cultural upbringing unthinkingly" folks. Now I'm at a point where I am still a Secular Humanist, but I recognize the importance of myth and also really like Buddhism when stripped of its supernatural trappings. I also think it is important not to reduce and devalue our subjective experiences to merely objective physical occurances, which is something maybe some atheists do, or religious people think they do. I am a Secular Humanist because I believe that by definition nature is everything, and that while mythic stories can resonate deeply with us and help give us direction in our lives, their "inner truth" is as far as we know only an inner psychological truth, and can not be assumed to mean more or be taken to say anything much about the nature of external objective reality (though maybe there are connections, and there are definitely insights to be had).

As far as the frustrations of being a Secular Humanist, I would say that it is sometimes frustrating that you are percieved as a heartless cold mechanistic party-pooper. That as a non-theist you don't have profound deep resonating moments where you feel connection with other things. That perhaps you are shallow and "too literal". I think many of us have these spiritual feelings, even atheists, but perhaps some atheists don't pay them much mind or try to flatten them into some empirical framework, and others allow themselves to follow the feeling, but just describe it from a different background in a way that doesn't strike a chord with those coming from a theistic background.

Too much typing!

edit: Hmm.. if you're strongly religious, and/or easily offended, you might just want to skip this one.

You know, once I would have said I was Atheist, or maybe Agnostic, but these days, I think I have decided that I'm actually strongly anti-religion.

I'm sick of evangelists sucking money out of the poor and the desperate. I'm sick of fundamentalists blowing themselves up to kill others to make a point. I'm sick of the catholics and protestants in Ireland slaughtering each other needlessly. I'm sick of women and homosexuals being treated as inferior because a 2000 year old book says they are (the same book that says the earth is flat, square and held up at the corners by Angels). I'm sick of being told I'm a bad person because I don't go to church and praise god. I'm sick of the rediculous hypocrisy that is organised religion. I'm sick of the pope, who still will not let his followers use condoms in this overpopulated world that is strife with sexually transmitted diseases. I'm sick of foreign (and domestic) policies being decided based on the religious views of leaders and not common sense. I'm sick of religion governing what we can or cannot teach our children in school.

I have no problems with personal belief. Believe what you like. I'll fight for your right to that. But once you start imposing those views on others, you have stepped into their personal space and taken choice from them. You have stolen from them. That's wrong. Just leave them be - you can believe in what you like, please allow me the same courtesy. (I'm not specifically targeting anyone here, btw, that was a general comment).

Apologies for any toes I have stepped on. If you're pissed, I'll buy you a beer at GenCon and we can discuss it.

Brian.

Ben Terry wrote: I am an atheist. I was a very sciency kid,...*snip*

Jack Spencer Jr wrote:

Ben Terry wrote: I am an atheist. I was a very sciency kid,...*snip*

That's an interesting juxtaposition of phrases. I have been thinking of science as yet another religion for a while now.

Jack Spencer Jr wrote: That's an interesting juxtaposition of phrases. I have been thinking of science as yet another religion for a while now.

contracycle wrote:

Jack Spencer Jr wrote: That's an interesting juxtaposition of phrases. I have been thinking of science as yet another religion for a while now.

But science does work on fundamentally different principles, cares nothing for your belief nor mine, and doesn't make such comprehensive positive claims as religions commonly make. In fact, I think it is the lack of an easy, emotional narrative that makes science feel alien to many. Sure, science can and does have its vehement advocates, but this does not make science anything remotely like a religion.

When I was little, they promised me that when I die, someone will answer all my questions. No sense asking today whether dinosaurs were warm-blooded or if lambeosaurs really used those crests as trumpets, what life is like elsewhere than on Earth (if anything), how brains work - just wait until you're dead. All your questions will be answered.

I can't speak for any other atheists, obviously, but my obsession with science is because where else am I gonna find out about stuff?

It also makes me a little sad. I'm going to live my entire existance, beginning to end, without knowing whether lambeosaurs really used their crests as trumpets, for example. What a letdown that is after all their promises. I wish they'd been honest with me.

-Vincent

I believe in loving God and loving people and Jesus said if you do that, you get to go to Heaven. I hope to meet all of you there and play some really cool games.

Well, as cruciel already said, there's really a world of difference between an atheist and agnostic. The first has chosen a belief, while the second has not. As far as Reason goes, the agnostic definitely has good chances of trumping both the theist and atheist. "My axiom is that something is untrue if not proven true." says the atheist, and agnostic answers "Well, why is that?"

My own religious development has largely been premeditated by philosophy. I was born and raised as a lutheran, but the departure was quite painless and natural when I realized one by one how indefensible the christian notions were. And I'm not talking about cosmology or epistemology, either; the standard refusal of religion, while based on the said disciplines, isn't enough for anyone who actually considers the matter seriously. It's only stupid to refute christianity based on empirical proof, when the main point isn't in any way cosmological: if you disprove god but fail to disprove christian morality, you have gained nothing and lost all.

The linchpin of my agnosticism was then moral theory, ethics. After careful consideration I came to see that christian morality is inherently immoral in the kanthian sense; no doubt a simple fact in itself, but it takes time to truly penetrate, time and experience of true morality not predicated by social or metaphysical rewards.

Viewed apart from their moral pretensions it's simple to relegate all kinds of religion to their place as ultimately matters of faith; if you need it, good for you. Without moral dimension religion is singularily irrelevant to life on earth: why should I care what some all-powerful being might or might not do to me, apart from the moral ramifications of my own actions? Whether my road be towards heaven or hell, I walk there in peace with myself, certain of being right myself (or of being wrong, as it might be). Or if there is no afterlife, why, then there's all the more reason to judge fairly and without theological interference in the matters of life on earth.

Thus I come to the abovementioned conclusion: I've yet to come face to face with intellectually true religion, and thus all religious faith is suspect intellectually. Being that my own ethics approve of being true to your beliefs, I hold many religious people to high esteem simply because of their morals, despite their foolishness.

Eero, I don't think it's appropriate to require intellectual truth, as you call it, of any mystical, mythological belief system. Religions are the sediment of culture; they accrete through the ages, collecting stories, beliefs, and laws of behavior, some of which become obscured by later or more salient items. A religion doesn't require consistency or rationality of itself because that would be denying its humanity.

Replying to 2 posts at once here.

I think Ben Lehman may be confusing me for what he thinks of as "capital 'A' Atheists", or using my childhood amazement of the world and science as a jumping point where he can discuss this particular type of atheists he dislikes or disagrees with. As for morality, as described, I am a Humanist, and while science has a lot to potentially say about human behavior I think it is a mistake to say that science can lead to iron clad value judgements by saying things like "Humans are genetically predisposed to this, so we should accept it and not work against nature" etc. The place where I can see a lot of this is "evolutionary psychology" that tries to explain things like the way our romantic relationships work and the different attitudes of men and women are a result of some evolutionary strategy to maximize successful breeding and survivial and all of this. Even if it was solid science (which I do not think it is at this point), it would not therefor mean we should act in any particular way. Science attempts to describe, it does not proscribe.

So, I just had to clarify that I don't think I am trying to make science more than it is.

Now for Jack. I think that science is quite a different thing from religion in many aspects. One notable aspect is that science does not have the same ceremonial structure relating to major life events. Parents don't take babies to the science temple and promise to raise him as a warrior for science, I never had a puberty mitzvah where we reverently discussed the biological process of puberty as a rite of passage, there are no science weddings (May these 2 individuals, who have shown strong pair bonding, live a long life due to successful evolutionary strategies, praise science", or science funerals (My dear friend was blessed with elegant genetics, and was raised in such an envioronment that his behavior was aesthetically pleasing to me. I will engage in the tell tale mouning phase of the human as his body proceeds along the path of decomposition, praise science). Also, another aspect of many religions is an emotionally supportive community, and there really is not a "science as religion" equivilent to that. I think that this is because science is dealing with a whole different set of concerns. Science does not try to console, or explain the existential "Why am I here?" stuff, though some people look no further than science for it. Traditionally religion has been the place a lot of people look for that sort of thing, and philosophy addresses it sometimes in a less warm way. There are probably a lot of different other ways people go about dealing with it also. Personally, I find the religions I grew up with too full of crufty stories about violent and barbaric nomadic tribes and supernatural fictions to use any one of them as a base that I could extract the meaningful "good parts" from. Much of it seems unnecessarily obfuscatory, and leads to a lot of people crediting a supernatural God with happenstance events, or trying to draw moral conclusions from events where you really can not (like people I work with who saw 9/11 in part being a result of America falling away from God, and this sort of thinking). As I mentioned before, Buddhism stripped of its supernatural trappings has struck me as pretty nice so far, but is is mixed in with some other things. Science is not my religion, but I do use it as a guide in that I will not believe something that contradicts it. Also, science has been part of what has made me think that it is important to realize when you do not know something, and that you don't have to fill up the empty spaces with guesses or hopes or attribute it to anything in particular, but just be at peace with it.

I am a sucker for these kinds of threads...

Shreyas Sampat wrote: Eero, I don't think it's appropriate to require intellectual truth, as you call it, of any mystical, mythological belief system. Religions are the sediment of culture; they accrete through the ages, collecting stories, beliefs, and laws of behavior, some of which become obscured by later or more salient items. A religion doesn't require consistency or rationality of itself because that would be denying its humanity.

My point isn't that rationality and consistency aren't compatible with religion; it's that expecting accumulated religion to meet these requirements is like expecting the thickness of a tree's rings to match the Fibonacci Sequence. It's really, really unlikely, and doesn't make the tree any less valuable. It just doesn't make it a very good Fibonacci Sequence (or moral code) reference.

Requiring rationality and consistency of these things basically assumes you are willing to revise them and turn them into synthetic, codified items. This sucks. Synthetic mythologies are weak. Personally, I don't expect the texts of religion to be either a literal description of the world or a moral code to be taken at face value; either of those approaches are patently ridiculous. Religion still has worth as mythology, even if you discard the things that can be extracted from it through a willingness to resolve inconsistency through introspection.

I also happen to think that rationality is overrated, particularly by crotchety philosophical types who have nothing better to do than to write books to each other. It's only as much a tool as, say, a fork is; without injecting some creativity and emotional investment into the equation, you are not going to sculpt a David out of your mashed potatoes.

Eero Tuovinen wrote: As far as Reason goes, the agnostic definitely has good chances of trumping both the theist and atheist. "My axiom is that something is untrue if not proven true." says the atheist, and agnostic answers "Well, why is that?"

It's strange that I find myself in the position as the defender of religion as an alternative to science, given that I'm a skeptic and an agnostic and a science fan.

I'm more concerned by intolerance. And I constantly see the same kind of intolerance of religion by my fellow science fans that they are accusing religion of perpetuating. It's a bit pot/kettle, frankly. It's the same kind of superior attitude that led to all kinds of imperialist programs to help improve "the natives." Science is hardly blameless, as much as it makes sense to me and has a good system of "truth seeking"--emphasis on the seeking. Truth is a pretty slippery issue, but that's never stopped people from claiming a monopoly on it. Religion and science can both be used and misused for that. Flat out dismissal of competing viewpoints, to the point of claiming that the world would be better with them rooted out and destroyed? Religion fans? Check. Science fans. Yup.

Meh.

Rich

I find myself saying this a lot. Great post, Rich.

Thanks Shreyas. I know what you're saying. I think I need the sentiment written on a shirt or something.

Heh, we're beating the Iraq thread by at least a page. So take that, Iraq thread. (Sure we had a head start, but let's keep that little detail hush-hush.)

Rich

Yeah, Rich, you officially rock in all sorts of ways.

(I mean, he's this hip dude living in Hong Kong who loves coffee and playing the Street Fighter RPG. Holy fah-sniggle! If I'm in Nanjing next year, I'll definitely take a train down so we can sip some joe, talk about Chinese politics, and HADUKEN! each other into submission. I'm so there.)

Jonathon, Street Fighter and coffee are on. And we love to talk Chinese politics in Hong Kong. When you get to Nanjing, let me know. My wife and I need, need a good excuse to go up there.

(Meanwhile, I am quietly planning a trip to Beijing where another certain... I'll go with "Forgista"... lives. Oh, he doesn't know it yet. But that isn't slowing my plans any.)

Hm, topic drift is endangering the flames of war! We're going to lose our lead on Iraq if this keeps up. Group hugs always fade away more quickly than wars. A shame, that.

Rich

I am a Thelemite. Essentially this means I follow the Law or Thelema (or at least try to ) It can be found in the signature of my posts. This is not a lisence to engage in every passing whim or fancy but rather an instruction to discover the true purpose of your existence and follow it. I am a member of the largest and oldest Thelemite group in existence, the OTO. More information can be found at: http://oto-usa.org/ or feel free to email me: Bpetroff93@hotmail.com

Sweet, Brendan! I didn't even know such a thing existed. My brother and I picked up a copy of "The Book of the Law" at a used book store several years ago, and really enjoyed flipping through it. Not the path for me, but really interesting stuff.

Why can't there be a mainstream gnostic denomination these days? That's what I want to know. Anybody want to come found the Gnostic Church of America with me? Come on, anybody? If I were God, the first thing I'd do would be to bring back the Gnostic Christians and the Taiping and then make Sufism the main branch of Islam. Abrahamism would be so much cooler with a bit more more mysticism, especially in the mainstream. None of this touchy-feeling New Age Unitarian stuff either. Old school "Sophia, the Wisdom of God" mysticism.

Eero Tuovinen wrote: intellectually true religion

I agree fully with Shreyas' sentiment, and don't think anyone else has said anything awfully incorrect. Really, it's a losing proposition to argue religion with these people; there's just too many opinions correct in their own way.

Shreyas: I'm fully in agreement that religions have a crucial and important part in the aesthetic and "soul" of humanity. I'd think world were a much less interesting or desirable place without the follies and nobility engendered by religion. At the same time we'd probably have remarcably less hassles with everything, but that's the price we pay for freedom and interesting times. I'm not trying to deny the aesthetic, just the ethical relevance religions claim. Actually my own aesthetic theory has for a couple of years explained religious experience as primarily aesthetic. Thus I can only say that I don't "believe", as I ascribe only aesthetic, not cosmologic, epistemologic or ethical relevance to religion.

Christopher: What you describe as scientific atheism is as close to agnostism as one probably ever gets. See why I deem it the only defensible position? You cannot prove the existence or non-existence of gods (or rats from Alpha Centauri), and thus are forced to come to one of two conclusions: either there is no supernatural, or you take the nominal, scientific stance of "there is no supernatural - so far". And that's agnosticism, as differentiated from atheism, the belief that there is no supernatural. Essentially you are calling atheism what I'd call agnosticism, so there doesn't seem to be a disagreement.

Brian Leybourne wrote: if you're strongly religious...I'm actually strongly anti-religion.

Eero Tuovinen wrote: And that's agnosticism, as differentiated from atheism, the belief that there is no supernatural. Essentially you are calling atheism what I'd call agnosticism, so there doesn't seem to be a disagreement.

greyorm wrote: But not all religion.

Hey Jonathan, did you by chance read The Law is for All. It's the Book of the Law with the only authorized commentary (ie: Crowley's) it clears up alot. By the way, The Religious arm of the OTO is the EGC or Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica (universal gnostic church) its not Christian but was inspired by the Russian Orthodox rite. Here is a small sample, the statement of faith:

"I believe in one secret and ineffable LORD; and in one Star in the Company of Stars of whose fire we are created, and to which we shall return; and in one Father of Life, Mystery of Mystery, in His name CHAOS, the sole viceregent of the Sun upon the Earth; and in one Air the nourisher of all that breathes.

And I believe in one Earth, the Mother of us all, and in one Womb wherein all men are begotten, and wherein they shall rest, Mystery of Mystery, in Her name BABALON.

And I believe in the Serpent and the Lion, Mystery of Mystery, in His name BAPHOMET.

And I believe in one Gnostic and Catholic Church of Light, Life, Love and Liberty, the Word of whose Law is THELEMA.

And I believe in the communion of Saints.

And, forasmuch as meat and drink are transmuted in us daily into spiritual substance, I believe in the Miracle of the Mass.

And I confess one Baptism of Wisdom whereby we accomplish the Miracle of Incarnation.

And I confess my life one, individual, and eternal that was, and is, and is to come.

AUMGN. AUMGN. AUMGN."

Anyway, I hope you dig.

Ben Lehman wrote: Hi.
So what do you believe, and why? Do you think other people are wrong? Why your religion?

Sorry. I forgot to log in when I posted before. Guest = Green.

BPetroff93 wrote: Anyway, I hope you dig.

I can understand your sentaments Jonathan, even if I disagree :)

I'm without religion. I don't know for certain that there's nothing out there, that there isn't some "higher power," but it isn't a concern for me.

I just have to comment on the science equals religion thing.

Broader definitions of 'science' must be at work here, 'cause that just seems wrong to me.

In science, for something to be a fact it must be observable and replica-table. Even if biologists generally consider rejection of evolutionary theory tantamount to rejection of reason (that's a quote from by zoology book), it is still a theory (scientific definition), not a fact.

Faith (I'm going to say faith instead of religion, to separate belief from the trappings of religion) is all about believing something is true that you cannot see.

Logically, they are opposites. Science is believing through observation. Faith is believing without observation.

Brian Leybourne wrote: I think I have decided that I'm actually strongly anti-religion.

I try to follow the 3-fisted path of "Bob."

Heya Christopher,

faith in unsupport(ed/able) notions as a prime attribute

Christopher Weeks wrote: I'm open to being shown that I'm wrong, but at the same time, I have spent serious time trying to figure out what evidence I'd accept as supportive and I can't think of any. I think open-minded atheism is the only rational response to my life experiences.

Christopher Weeks wrote: To my experience, no evidence for a divine experience of any kind has accumulated.

I'm a Christian Gnostic. I attend services at the local chapter of the Ecclesia Gnostica, which is Christian and has nothing to do with the Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica mentioned above. I've been attending mass since the 4th Sunday of Advent and will be baptized this week on Holy Saturday.

What I believe is mostly irrelevant to my religion (which has a mythos but no required dogma or creed). At minimum, I believe that humans are hardwired for religion. I believe that our minds are complex, and that deep down have components that speak and understand the language of religious imagery and mythic content. I believe that, in order to become a whole person, we need to nourish those subconscious parts of our minds through spiritual practice as much as we need to nourish the rational parts with study and problem-solving. From skimming Penrose, I believe that consciousness is like mathematics in that it's linked to this world but ultimately resides in another realm -- this allows me to keep a more open mind about the possibility of a collective unconsciousness or divine beings within a purely spiritual realm.

Beyond that I probably believe lots of other contradictory things, changing according to context. I mean, I used to pray to my muses while bowling.

I would say that a religion is wrong to the extent that it becomes harmful to its believers and especially to its non-believers. If a religion is responsible for the loss of human rights, that's no good.

I have chosen my religion because:
- It has all the things I like about Christianity (and more) and little of the bad. I'm not told to worship the god that did all the petty stuff in the old testament, because that's not even the true god. There's no eternal damnation. There's no concept of salvation through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, which never made any sense to me. There's no original sin. There's no one way to interpret scripture and there's not even an official set of scripture.
- The emphasis is on personal religious experience, not secondhand experience through a book. The eventual goal is to wake up, which resonates a lot for me.
- Mass is beautiful. I experience awe and wonder, and afterwards I feel great.
- I am much more in touch with the passage of time through the year because of the liturgical calendar. I'm excited this year to experience the holy days for the first time. (This week is going to be a megadose, with services for Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter.)
- I'm the spiritually slow person in my congregation, so I feel like I have so much more to learn.

The thing is, I don't know anyone outside of church to whom I would recommend it, but it works for me. I think the challenge in the 21st century is to find a way to trick your rational mind into accepting a spiritual path, without succumbing to a viral belief system (name your fundamentalism) that takes over your rational mind.

-- Yasha "James" Cunningham

Yasha wrote:
What I believe is mostly irrelevant to my religion (which has a mythos but no required dogma or creed). At minimum, I believe that humans are hardwired for religion. I believe that our minds are complex, and that deep down have components that speak and understand the language of religious imagery and mythic content. I believe that, in order to become a whole person, we need to nourish those subconscious parts of our minds through spiritual practice as much as we need to nourish the rational parts with study and problem-solving. From skimming Penrose, I believe that consciousness is like mathematics in that it's linked to this world but ultimately resides in another realm -- this allows me to keep a more open mind about the possibility of a collective unconsciousness or divine beings within a purely spiritual realm.

I am profoundly Atheist. I believe there is a real world, and that that world corresponds in a meaningful fashion to our senses.

I came from a Christian family, and was 'born-again' for a while in my teens - my mum is now an ordained priest in the Church of England.

I consider fundamentalism or, indeed, any ideologically driven world view to be harmful, but more moderate religions (like those I was raised) with to be broadly neutral in general, and highly beneficial to some individuals.

I find the association of capital 'A' Atheism and Scientism in this thread somewhat bizarre.

greyorm wrote:

Eero Tuovinen wrote: intellectually true religion

Would you describe the beliefs of, or the workings of, an intellectually true religion?

I ask because I'm not getting what you're claiming (all) religions lack or fail to deal with intellectually/logically just from what you've said so far on the subject.

greyorm wrote: Given the experiences I've had, and one in particular, there are no other reasonable explanations that do not require additional unlikely assumptions in order to work -- that means other explanations exist, yes, but none of them are as reasonable given Occham's Razor and all that. I also don't expect anyone to understand that, given that I've not provided the experiences for examination.

greyorm wrote: I also find myself nodding in agreement with Rich's statements about the attitudes and behaviors (and suggestions) of certain scientists and other "men of modern times" as-it-were being as bad as those of the institutions they decry or turn their noses up at.

greyorm wrote: However,

Christopher Weeks wrote: To my experience, no evidence for a divine experience of any kind has accumulated.

I would say the opposite, that there is overwhelming evidence of the divine historically and culturally. If every individual and culture throughout history has reported that the sky is blue, then there's a good chance that the sky really, actually is blue. Certainly there is enough evidence that the concept of the divine, stripped of specific religious overtones, cannot be dismissed out of hand, even if "what it is, really" is entirely unknown.

I'm what I like to call a practicing agnostic. That is, I know there's something more to existence that I haven't quite figured out yet and I'm actively (at least, on and off) trying to figure out what it is.

My problem with straight "scientific" type atheism? There must be an exception to the Law of Conservation, otherwise the existence of the universe is impossible. Based on this, I wonder what it is that my understanding lacks, and search. . .

Weird observation:

Whenever a thread gets started asking what people believe, why does the conversation almost always focus on the atheists, agnostics, and Christians? Not saying I have a particular problem with people being atheist, agnostic, or Christian, but it always seems that these are the only voices being heard.

Ooo... This topic could get controversial rather quickly...

*steps back into the shadows*

Green wrote: Weird observation:

Whenever a thread gets started asking what people believe, why does the conversation almost always focus on the atheists, agnostics, and Christians? Not saying I have a particular problem with people being atheist, agnostic, or Christian, but it always seems that these are the only voices being heard.

Whenever a thread gets started asking what people believe, why does the conversation almost always focus on the atheists, agnostics, and Christians?

Green wrote: Whenever a thread gets started asking what people believe, why does the conversation almost always focus on the atheists, agnostics, and Christians? Not saying I have a particular problem with people being atheist, agnostic, or Christian, but it always seems that these are the only voices being heard.

clehrich wrote: And I'm not even going to get into definitions of religion as a problem in the History of Religions as an academic discipline, except to say that we discarded faith, gods, and everything like it long ago in the face of actual evidence from studies of religious behaviors around the world.

I'm not sure what you mean by "behavioral traditions," I'm afraid.

Basically what we've done is to go and look at a whole hell of a lot of things that sort of look like what we tend to think religion is. And we've found that there are very, very few broad consistencies, if any.

Gods? Nope.
Faith? Nope.
etc.

By some pretty broad definitions, at least, you do find myth and ritual pretty much always. By some rather broader definitions, you also find a kind of theology, as in ways of interpreting a given mythic and ritual canon in terms of present situations. You pretty much always find political jockeying and power-structures using the rhetoric of what we're rather loosely calling religion here.

In short, what we find is that religion isn't a thing. It's not "out there" to go find. You have to construct a category based on some examples, and then go see what else falls into it. And what you find is that human ingenuity has come up with a lot more and more complicated things than you'd normally think of as religion, and if you go and include those as part of what religion "is," you find that your initial sense of a neat category has gone out the window.

One problem was always that people wanted to figure out where religion came from; this is called the "origins" problem. Tylor thought it was basically animistic projection of spirits. Frazer thought it was the realization that magic doesn't work. Durkheim thought it was misrecognition of social bonding effects. And so on. But in the end, we came to realize that there's no way of answering this question intelligently, because you have to define religion first, then figure out where it came from, and that ends up with circular logic.

In the end, it's rather odd, but scholars of religion generally are about the only people who refuse to define religion! These days, in fact, we're generally unwilling even to define ritual and myth, though I think that's going too far. But even those definitions won't look much like you think they will.

Interesting. It makes me wonder though, if it wouldn't be (at least sometimes) more productive to force "religion" into a smaller category by establishing criteria that a thing must meet to be considered religion and then making your observations based on the subset. You'd obviously have to have a defensible limitation and a reason for choosing that place to draw a line, but it seems like it'd be easier to study.

Chris

Oh sure, that's commonly done. But you can't make universal statements on that basis, that's all. So if you define "religion" as monotheism, for example, you can certainly make some interesting bounded studies. But you have to throw out all non-monotheistic "religions" from the outset, and that's sort of a problem if you want to make larger statements about what religion "really is".

Yeah, but you aren't going to make any larger statements about what religion really is anyway because you can't define it!

Does religion always try to illustrate appropriate behavior?

Does religion always try to explain phenomena?

It's interestng that you note religion commonly includes a power structure. I would have thought surely there are egalitarian lay religious traditions that subvert that as a distinction.

Chris

Jack Aidley wrote: "I believe there is a real world, and that that world corresponds in a meaningful fashion to our senses."

This turns out to be hard to prove. I believe it too though.

Chris, why do religious studies people feel compelled to include these borderline cases that subvert your definition as part of 'religion'? I can think of two plausible answers:

1) They 'seem like religion' even though they don't fit one or another traditional definition. What's the basis of the seeming, then? It seems that here you've got to assume there's some underlying concept of religion that hasn't been analyzed well enough to receive a clear formulation, or else that religion is too 'out there', if the seeming in question is to have any basis other than whim.

2) The ol' Wittgensteinian 'family resemblance' line: well, there are these things that are sort of like these other things and those are sort of like these other things, and so on, and gosh, where would you draw a non-arbitrary line? I guess there isn't one...


The status of (2) is unclear at best. Many intelligent people consider this kind of line an abication of intellectual or theoretical responsibility more generally; of those who do not, the best tend to be very astute at comparing different particular cases in illuminating ways. On the other hand, you might also think the argument, like so many others, just shows the hopelessness of being an empiricist about everything, and the importance of keeping certain concepts fixed on 'rational' or 'a priori' grounds (at least until the needs of research show that it's time to replace them with better ones) so that you can make progress with your investigations.

Sean wrote: Chris, why do religious studies people feel compelled to include these borderline cases that subvert your definition as part of 'religion'?

2) The ol' Wittgensteinian 'family resemblance' line: well, there are these things that are sort of like these other things and those are sort of like these other things, and so on, and gosh, where would you draw a non-arbitrary line? I guess there isn't one...

Many intelligent people consider this kind of line an abication of intellectual or theoretical responsibility more generally; of those who do not, the best tend to be very astute at comparing different particular cases in illuminating ways. On the other hand, you might also think the argument, like so many others, just shows the hopelessness of being an empiricist about everything, and the importance of keeping certain concepts fixed on 'rational' or 'a priori' grounds (at least until the needs of research show that it's time to replace them with better ones) so that you can make progress with your investigations.

clehrich wrote:

Sean wrote: Chris, why do religious studies people feel compelled to include these borderline cases that subvert your definition as part of 'religion'?

Well I don't think we do, actually. The sticking point is usually tribal religions, and there are an awful lot of those. To treat the customs of non-literate peoples as borderline is problematic in its own way, right?

Green wrote: Weird observation:

Whenever a thread gets started asking what people believe, why does the conversation almost always focus on the atheists, agnostics, and Christians? Not saying I have a particular problem with people being atheist, agnostic, or Christian, but it always seems that these are the only voices being heard.

As far as intellectually true religion goes, it's highly unlikely because the adherents would have to believe only in "true" things. "Intellectually true" means mainly accomodating of logic and consistency in it's axioms, qualities totally irrelevant to religions. Religions are myths priests try to explain, not something "intellectually true".

Christopher Weeks wrote: what I mean is it supports some other hypothesis better.

That's way bad. But what do you mean specifically?

Note that the religious belief of each age is laughable to the next.

Prior to the invention of science as a method of inquiry, other methods had to be used...I consider that these mostly amount to making shit up and letting the most plausible tales gain momentum.

greyorm wrote:
The priests and magicians of ancient times were well-educated in the sciences. To think they would perpetrate obvious myths for no reason other than tradition is to do a disservice to the human mind...no, as with modern versions of the same religions, there are deeper meanings to the stories than the surface details. Religious myths are purposefully full of symbolism and mysticism.

greyorm wrote: Brian, Brian, Brian...didn't you read my rant last year?
You're strongly anti-fundamentalist is what you are. You aren't anti-religion, at least not based on the reasons you give in your post, because you aren't describing religion...you're describing Western Judeo-Christian religions, with strong fundamentalist overtones. But not all religion.

Sean wrote: Jack Aidley wrote: "I believe there is a real world, and that that world corresponds in a meaningful fashion to our senses."

This turns out to be hard to prove. I believe it too though.

"we're so much smarter and much less gullible than our (barbaric) ancestors!"

I used to think of myself as non-religious, and then as anti-established-religion but more lately I'm just a plain old Secular Humanist. I don't and can't believe in a god, it's just utterly preposterous. But that doesn't mean I have no faith. Like many folks here I have absolute faith in there being no god. I often find myself trying to explain the difference between no belief and a belief in nothing to religious types and they usually fail to see a distinction, but that's ok by me.

I used to be fairly fundamentalist about Atheism, but lately I find I really don't care what other folks think. It's everyone's right to be believe what they want, even if it's wrong. And yes, I think that people who have any faith in any god are wrong, but that doesn't mean I think they're wasting their time in church. Churches and the act of worship can be great for people. As I don't believe in any kind of afterlife or higher purpose, I see the meaning of life as living and enjoying it. If folks get something out of the experience, then that's good, right? I enjoy RPGs, they enjoy worship, some people really dig watching 20+ hours of TV a week, who's to judge? If it's fulfilling, go for it. I only pity them if their beliefs are making them or others unhappy.

A very close friend once asked me why, if I didn't believe in a god or any kind of divine retribution for sins, I didn't just act like an arsehole the whole time. I couldn't get my head around that: Did he really need the fear of god to scare him into being a morally sound person? His parents were religious types too, so I guess he'd never had to formulate his own morality.

I was raised an Atheist in a largely secular country (the UK). Even though there were prayers at school, I guess I was about 14 when I realised that there were people who ACTUALLY BELIEVED all this stuff. I'd assumed that everyone knew it was poppycock and just kinda went along with it up until then, and it was really weird for me to see that, no, there really were people who MEANT IT when they said the words of the lord's prayer. I thought it was like Santa or the Easter bunny: Nobody really believes, right, but we go along with it anyway? So i guess you could say I've never had a crisis of faith, I've always been true to my beliefs and I've never doubted them.

I still take issue with anyone who preaches their beliefs, and I find myself being even more annoyed if their beliefs do not agree with mine (ie, they are wrong), but fundamentalist Atheists who cannot see that religion and (more accurately) belief can actually do a lot of people a lot of good wind me up a good' un. You don't really have a great tradition of Jehovah's Didn't-see-anything-guv's, who might come around to your house and tell you that there's no god and you're not going to hell. We do have a tradition of people who come round to your house and tell you about double glazing and that you're going to be cold if you don't have any and they piss me off too. But anyone who tells me I'm going to hell because I don't go to church is going to get laughed at, loudly.

Oh well...

Raven,

I'm not familiar with the body of atheists that you're referring to. I haven't read prominent atheist writers. I don't get together with other atheists to make fun of the poor unwashed masses. I don't know that they sound like religious fanatics, but at least the way you're painting them, they do sound silly.

I definately overgeneralized the appearance of past religions. I think my point is valid in many western cases, but not a global phenomena. But I'm not sure the comparison of evolving religion to medicine makes sense because medecine essentially didn't exist before say 200 years ago while religion of various flavors has a much longer history.

What gets me most about this and similar arguments is the assumption of the truth of modern man's great error: "we're so much smarter and much less gullible than our (barbaric) ancestors!"

Look at what passed for scientific truth just forty years ago...laughable, right? "We're so much smarter today!"

So, no, I don't believe in the "advances in modern thinking allowed us to outgrow all those silly superstitions we made up to explain things cause we were drooling morons back then" argument. Logically, it doesn't fly.

contracycle wrote: Hmm, well I feel it was not that they merely duplicated myth for no reason, but for the very particular reason that it constructed a pretext for them to be fed and housed by others without having to work. And I suggest they are full of alleged symbolism as a form of deliberate obscurantism, a trade secret.

I definitely think I am coming in late here (blames me for being new around here), but here goes:

Having had far too many years to think about things, I have made some conclusions on religion. In background, I am an Anglican (Episcopalian for our American brethren). I was schooled in a private Catholic schools. I did two years of Comparative Theology in one of my many forays into academia. By trade I am a scientist, a geologist in fact. But the only label I can apply to myself is (and i discovered philosophical arguments don't do it for me):

Agnostic Christian.

Why Agnostic: Because God would really ruin my life and all other aspects of our day to day life if He could actually intervene in the world. Consider that if God defied the Law of Gravity just once, Gravity would become null and void, owing to the empirical principles of observation. Basically, provided God does not affect my physical existence, His existence can be be accepted. The life of the soul, the afterlife, all of which is perfectly acceptable, while miracles and divine intervaention would simply make a mockery of all human endeavour for the last 150 years.

Why Christian: because all my moral and ethical stances are informed by my very Christian upbringing. I find nothing more offensive than the fundamentalist Christians who get bogged down in the technical fluff of the testaments and miss the basic truth of the matter: Love one another as you would be loved. Respect. And forgive those who trespass against you. I find the inability of most "Christians" to forgive their most heinous crime. The death penalty, pre-emptive strike, racial and religious intolerance, all these are anathema to the core precepts of Christianity. Nothing is worse than a self-righteous bigot, who fails to remember that humility and tolerance are God's most valued commodities.

Of course, I could be wrong...

James

Brian Leybourne wrote: I'm opposed to any form of belief when it's used as an excuse for intolerance...Better? :-)

Green wrote: LOL. Greyorm, we should do lunch.

greyorm wrote:
lol...I should have predicted that one from you, Gareth.
I'd agree, if it made sense upon examination. That is, for this to be true, one would have to believe there was a generational conspiracy in the priesthoods of all world religions created specifically to support the priesthoods as the society's "fat cats." That would mean that everyone who ever became a priest did so for selfish, rather than spiritual, reasons -- which is so difficult to believe that it is preposterous.

Now, I do not doubt abuse of one's position undoubtedly occurred in individual cases, but perpetration of such a scheme for social dominance across the ages (to say nothing of cultures), requires one to believe the absolute worst of millions of individuals throughout time, that every priest everywhere ever was less interested in spiritual, ethical, and societal concerns than in their own personal welfare.

This would be as ridicuous as claiming that your quests for social justice, and your desires to see communist economic structures put in place is an attempt by yourself to increase your own social standing and power, rather than via any real or primary concern for those issues.

Or as ridiculous as claiming as those who were doctors or healers in ancient (or modern) times became such and perform such solely for the prestige and money, rather than out of any real or primary concern for the welfare or health of others.

(To say nothing of its hinging on the idea that, again, ancient man was so stupid that they couldn't see it occuring in front of their faces, every, anywhere.)

And of course, the idea of priest as social beneficiary isn't even true in all cultures. As an example: Norse gothi were priests in addition to whatever it was they did for a living. They only existed for social functions, not as spiritual authorities, because for the Norse, what is between a man and the gods is between a man and the gods.

Your explanation also would not account for the variety of mystic religions that exist whose practitioners and priests are not on top of their social totem pole.

Also, why do I get the feeling you would call Zen Bhuddism "deliberate obscurantism"? (when, I'd hope you know, that isn't its function or point at all)

greyorm wrote: If we both make it to Indy this year, you're on.

Heya Chris,

Christopher Weeks wrote: I'm not familiar with the body of atheists that you're referring to.

But I'm not sure the comparison of evolving religion to medicine makes sense because medecine essentially didn't exist before say 200 years ago while religion of various flavors has a much longer history.

I just think it is provably better at getting to the truth, faster and more reliably.

I assume you know that the scientific method is more than "studying phenomena and noting correlations."

I'm not sure what "scientific truth" is, but if you mean the hypotheses that were best supported by the available data analysis, then no. It's not laughable. Some of it was wrong, but more of it just needed little tweaks. Forty years ago we had a strong foundation on which to build, just like today.

Specifically, the invention of the scientific method increased our ability to search for truth.

A contemporary example of the silly superstition thing is the "debate" between competing hypotheses of the origin of species.

I mean, I guess it's hard to imagine that people would have agreed with it so fully when there's not way to verify it, but whatever...there was no contradictory evidence. The people who made up that creation story, originally, were not drooling idiots because they were not rejecting reason.

Gareth,

Well-argued, I agree with a number of your points, but I think some of what you're saying now drifts away from your original statement, which (paraphrased) I read as "Religion was developed and maintained for social reasons dealing with the power of the priest caste." That's what I disagree with.

contracycle wrote: Furthermore, I happily concede that the priests are consciously convinced of their faith as much as any lay worshipper, but mere conviction does not make their views true.

Actually, its to protect my own life and Get More Stuff.

I think having a public identity as a caring person is a form of prestige.

But as has already been pointed out, thats a straw man: becuase they had no tools with which to determine whether or not the sun morved around the erath or the earth around the sun. I simply cannot agree that stupidity and ignorance are the same thing.

Religions are great for this; the product is trivially easy to produce, it never runs out, and the demand to be reassured that frex, there is life after to death, can never be fulfilled.

So whether we are talking about an itinerant preacher, barefoot and living on charity, or a bishop surrounded by gold, the mode of production these people employ is the selling of necessarily fictional accounts of reality. Its a snake-oil scam.

And that ideology fell before the doctrine of the bloody dead god,