Religion vs. Religion

[Pyrotex]

Shouldn't these well-wishing posts be in the Watercooler, or somewhere else more appropriate.

Happy Religious Internecine Warfare to everyone! :hihi:

 

Is that better?

[ughaibu]

Isn't a winter holiday a result of agriculture? Happy post-nomadic/pre-industrial snuggling under the kotatsu time.

[Heresiarch]

 

Absolutism is never right,

Buffy

 

 

Buffy, thanks for that self-referential strange loop.

 

Discussions like this become easier to navigate if we separate God/theology from scripture. That God exists seems beyond dispute. Certainly the laws of physics alone do not predict a universe like ours that grows in novel complexity and order. But the bible is an amalgam of fallible human memory, wishful thinking, folklore, selective editing, bad translation, and so on. Put it all in a blender and--wa la--out comes the bible. To take the book literally is foolishness.

[Buffy]

Buffy, thanks for that self-referential strange loop.

You're welcome! I'm glad you enjoyed it! :thumbs_up

Discussions like this become easier to navigate if we separate God/theology from scripture.

We have quite a few data points lying around this forum. You will find many who agree with this statement. You will find that there seems to be some correllation between agreeing with this statement and having strong religious beliefs.

That God exists seems beyond dispute. Certainly the laws of physics alone do not predict a universe like ours that grows in novel complexity and order.

Lots of discussion about that in other threads here. This one is not appropriate for that. Please take it to an appropriate thread or start your own.

But the bible is an amalgam of fallible human memory, wishful thinking, folklore, selective editing, bad translation, and so on. Put it all in a blender and--wa la--out comes the bible. To take the book literally is foolishness.

Thank you for contributing yet another epithet that evidences how believers of one faith put down and denigrate believers of other faiths!

 

I'm *amazed* at how self-referential this thread is! Thank you all!

 

Post that begins with the quote "Buffy, thanks for that self-referential strange loop,"

Buffy

[Dyothelite]

Thank you for contributing yet another epithet that evidences how believers of one faith put down and denigrate believers of other faiths!

 

Buffy

 

Thank you for trying to keep this thread balanced and unbiased.

 

By the way I love the Absolutism statement.

[Southtown]

To take the book literally is foolishness.

Color me cuckoo.

[Southtown]

*bump*

 

"I'm obnoxious" -- Finding Nemo ( fish in a movie or somethig)

[rockytriton]

 

1) How is the existence of varying beliefs reconciled theologically?

2) What are the various benefits and problems associated with resolving these conflicts?

 

Sorry, i haven't read any of the responses yet, but here are my responses...

 

1. The other religions are false and were started and inspired by the devil, satan, <insert your own anti-deity here>, etc. in order to turn people away from the good deity.

 

2. the benefits are plain, if you don't believe me, you are going to burn for all eternity, so you are now hooked and scared to think for yourself. The problems are also plain, if the other religion is older and has more followers, people tend to think that it is more correct, so I guess it makes it harder for new religions to start. This is why the Christians and Muslims chose to say they were based on the jewish book because it was old, everyone wants to be able to say that there religion goes back to before the great flood aka the epic of gilgamesh.

[Buffy]

A point of clarification from an early post in this thread:

I'm asking you to consider what happens when two reasonable people who have done their own scholarship come to different conclusions, how do those people reconcile the fact that these differences exist and what are the consequences? Is it possible for both to be right? If one is wrong, how do you justify the negative consequences of the other belief given that the other equally pious and good person (a *specific person* not a "church"), is serious and possibly unjustified?

 

For a non-biblical source of context for this, my suggested reading is Melville's "Billy Budd".

The aggressive "kill all the unbelievers" may well be what the most extremist believers mean, but that's not even worth talking about: those people are sociopathic, homicidal maniacs.

 

The purpose of this thread has been to try to bring out something that is a bit of a taboo: Most moderate religious people become incredibly ecumenical when faced with conflicts between their and other's faiths, quite often preferring to change the subject to the religious "us" versus the atheistic "them" which is fraught with far fewer moral dilemmas!

 

And that points out where even the more extreme beliefs end up going: its easier to wish what their beliefs tell them is in store for people who are not of that faith when it is depersonalized. I've got some very close Fundamentalist friends, and even they have been given pause when I ask the question: "you know me well enough: do you think that I *personally* deserve to not be Raptured and have to suffer through Armageddon just because I'm not a member of your particular sect of Christianity?"

 

This is not a question posed to irrational, hate-filled psychopaths: its for the rest of us....and its not quite as cut-and-dried as it would seem from those who wish to believe that "all religions are evil" either!

 

Eskimo: "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?" Priest: "No, not if you did not know." Eskimo: "Then why did you tell me?", :)

Buffy

[Southtown]

Me thinks the distinction is between seeking answers and enforcing them. When does a quest for knowledge become a quest for dominance. The scriptures can be used to support both arguments and could make for an interesting off-topic discussion provided that both parties agree to consider and acknowledge the other's argument rather than just volleying verses back and forth.

 

Cases in point:

Spirit vs. Soul

Eternal Security

Eternal Damnation

 

Let's get to know each other,

Southie :hihi:

[Buffy]

Me thinks the distinction is between seeking answers and enforcing them. When does a quest for knowledge become a quest for dominance.

I think that's an important point: One of the key elements about religious organizations is that their power structures are downright Byzantine.

 

To me this means that the best manipulators are the ones who gain power, and once there, there is little restraint upon such power--it being God-given of course--and as we all know, absolute power corrupts.

 

The only way it really works is if the people that rise to the top really *are* saints!

 

Now how often does that happen? And what wonderful fodder this provides for the competing religious organizations to point out illegitimacy, thus increasing conflict.

 

Its amazing how proselytizing (really marketing: making it something you want) so rapidly turns into "protecting the faith" from infidels and other "enemies." That "protection" requires "enforcers" and "judges" who know how to identify "wrongs."

 

And I think that's getting close to where this conflict comes from and why its so intractable: The people who rise to these positions of religious authority are not just fallible humans: they're strongly mis-motivated by the nature of the natural structures of religious organizations.

 

And thus I clothe my naked villainy, with old odd ends, stol'n forth of holy writ; And seem a saint, when most I play the devil, :hihi:

Buffy

[Rade]

Suppose two religions, A and B. There are three ways for conflict (1) to hold that both A and B are correct (a conflict of logic); (2) to hold that one or the other is correct, either A or B, but never both, (3) to hold that neither are correct, e.g., that some other religion C, is correct. Because of the way OP was worded, I do not consider lack of religion as a valid topic for this thread.

 

There is only one way to resolve conflict between A and B...to hold that neither A nor B is derived from Divine revelation but that both are derived from different interpretations of how the human mind attempts to explain the unknown. Consider the effect on humans if tomorrow, leaders of all religions on earth, ban together and issue a joint statement that their respective religions do not derive moral authority from a source outside the minds of humans. I think such an action would result over time in conflict resolution in such a way that all religions would be reduced to one religious belief.

 

I see no way for conflict resolution when concept of religion is linked to definition that includes the secondary concept of Divine.

[Boerseun]

The Bible, Koran and Torah was written thousands of years ago, by humans.

 

So, that being the case, how is it possible that people with not even the most basic understanding of the mechanics of rainfall can have an insight into the infinite, into everlasting life, into morality, into divinity, into human nature?

 

The short answer is that they didn't.

 

Religion is crap. Including ALL the flavours thereof.

 

Therefore, it's pointless discussing how they measure up against each other, or how two opposing religions can co-exist. They can't. They explicitly tell their followers that those of the opposing religions are somewhat less than human, totally wrong and bound for eternal damnation.

 

There is no one good or true religion. Even those good (and more published)features of religions like Christianity, for instance, charity and love, are simply the more digestible facets of a monolithic structure that has, as its very crumbly foundations, such nasty elements like genocide, incest, rape, infanticide, etc. Those are the elements that the priest won't tell you about in Sunday morning sermons, not because it's not part and parcel of the religion and belief in this contradictory "God of Love" who also happens to be green with jealousy and a mass-murderer of note, but simply because it doesn't sell very well in today's political climate.

 

And that's the bottom line, and what they want to do. In the old days, religion have filled the space in society that today is filled by big and solid Central Governments. That role has been filled and completed. Today, they have found a new (or maybe not so entirely new as I might have you believe) role, a role very well known in the West:

 

They simply want your money for a service to be delivered after your death. This is such a blatant scam, I can't believe government allows this. It's like the chain-letter from hell. Pay me or you'll burn forever!

 

Hilarious.

 

Do yourself a favour and take Sunday mornings off. Spend some quality time with your family, or something worth your while. I can think of thousands of better things to do on a nice Sunday morning than to listen to some guy who believes in ghosts tell me about what's gonna happen to me after I die, and how I can prevent it being a bad afterlife (by giving him money, and swearing allegiance to his invisible friend). Families spend way too little time together. Don't let madmen like these befoul the little time we have with each other.

 

Religion is a scam of legendary proportions, spanning the ages.

 

Its only authority is its persistence. And with every generation passing, it gets more authoritive. "Of course I'm a Christian! My daddy was one, so was my granddaddy, so was my great-granddaddy,..." and so on.

 

Well, as far as my line in my family is concerned, me and my offspring, that is, I simply say the following:

 

NO MORE, DAMMIT.

 

Don't be suckered. Internet chain letters and religion is exactly one and the same thing.

[freeztar]

Tell us how you really feel Boerseun. :shrug:

[HydrogenBond]

The persistence of religion has to count for something. Nature creates persistence in systems that are optimized. Things that change fast are called mutations, which randomly produce both useful and useless. The persistence in nature slowly skims the useful off the top and allows the useless to expire. The religions have dealt with the useful and useless for centuries. The change is slow since it takes time to determine the difference. In the modern age, quick decisions allows much of the useless to tag along. The idea of removing persistence for quick random mutation seems rather useless to me.

[Southtown]

They simply want your money for a service to be delivered after your death. This is such a blatant scam, I can't believe government allows this. It's like the chain-letter from hell. Pay me or you'll burn forever!

 

Hilarious.

Do you have any objections to my inquiring thereof, bro?

[Boerseun]

The persistence of religion has to count for something.

Not really.

 

It's simply the most persistent meme out there.

 

The fact that it's profitable (either in cash or in power) to those spreading it, is also beneficial to its longevity.

 

It doesn't attach any truth to it whatsoever, though.

Do you have any objections to my inquiring thereof, bro?

Not at all, bro. Enquire away.