Religion

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Discussions' started by Tom Head, Apr 26, 2002.

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My religion is:

  1. Secular Humanism

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
  2. The Baha\'i Faith, Unitarianism, or the Society of Friends

    2 vote(s)
    4.3%
  3. Judaism

    1 vote(s)
    2.1%
  4. Protestant Christianity

    23 vote(s)
    48.9%
  5. Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox Christianity

    11 vote(s)
    23.4%
  6. Islam

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
  7. Hinduism

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
  8. Buddhism

    1 vote(s)
    2.1%
  9. Paganism or Neo-Paganism

    1 vote(s)
    2.1%
  10. Something Else Entirely

    8 vote(s)
    17.0%
  1. Peter French

    Peter French member

    Re: Or look at it this way

    Look what we have started? We have Tom now defending organised religion :(

    Well I'll go to war because you challenge my rights to whatever, where ever and however, and I get more 'sympathy' that way ...

    ... and churches have "$" signs on their steeples [as well as mobile "phone towers] instead of "+" - the difference is that these signs are quite visible these days, or is it that our eyesight has improved generationally?

    Religion and belief/faith are totally different of course and often diamentrically opposed, but we are not talking about belief/faith are we?
     
  2. Kane

    Kane New Member

    Peter

    Challenged your rights?
     
  3. David Appleyard

    David Appleyard New Member

    "Religious Faith" is an oxymoron.

    Faith (clinically) is a firm, indisputable belief or certitude in God for which there is no tangible proof or evidence, a conviction of things "unseen". We believe because it's innate and our faith (or belief) may override reason. We may believe because of fear, but many believe in hope of things to come, both here and the hereafter.

    Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old received divine approval. {Heb 11:1-2 RSV}

    And without faith it is impossible to please God. For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. {Heb 11:6 RSV}


    Religion is a devotion of faith or observance institutionalized, thereby making the belief tangible. We are religious by nuture and the need to belong to something that fortifies our beliefs, in mass.

    Faith is believing there is another dimension to life other than those which can be touched, tasted, seen or felt. There is more to life than that. There is also the realm of the spirit, the invisible spiritual kingdom of God. All the ultimate answers of life lie in that kingdom. Faith believes that God, in his grace, has stepped over the boundary into human history and shared with us some great and very valuable facts. Faith believes them and adjusts its life to those facts, conducting itself (interaction with others) on that basis.

    IMHO, religion does not offer this.
     
  4. Tracy Gies

    Tracy Gies New Member

    This is exactly what I believe, too.


    Tracy<><

    Clean
    Because You promised me
    I'm clean

    Smalltown Poets
     
  5. DaveHayden

    DaveHayden New Member

    Hi North

    Thanks for your reply. You made a couple of points that raise further questions with me.

    QUOTE]Originally posted by North
    Although, there are some superficial similarities between Christianity and other religions, Christianity is also unique among the world's religions (cannot be covered here).
    [/QUOTE]

    This is rather difficulty for me to understand. To me the similairities between say Christianity and Islam seem clear and indisputable. While this may be an inappropriate forum to go further can you point to a source that would better explain this?

    QUOTE]Originally posted by North
    With a great deal of respect for others sincere beliefs, I have to say that I personally accept the reality of the fact that the God of the Bible IS God & the bible is His inerrant word (inerrant may not be quite what you think but it is too much to go in to at the moment).
    [/QUOTE]

    Ok. This one I struggle with. It is probably just my lack of detailed knowledge. If you say you are accepting this on faith and it is a belief I can understand and respect it. When this is suggested as fact it I would disagree because I have seen no evidence suggesting that the God of the Bible is different than say the God of the Koran. Again the similairities seem amazing to me. When you speak of the bible as God's inerrant word I realize this is widely accepted but I don't understand the rationalization behind it. Is there anywhere you can point me?

    Again thanks for your understanding. Please excuse any questions that are poorly worded or offensive. I appreciate your response.
     
  6. DaveHayden

    DaveHayden New Member

    Hi Clint

    Thanks for responding to my post. I appreciate your sharing your beliefs. When you talk about not earning God's forgivness or salvation I understand. But, don't most branches of Christianity require certain actions ie believing in Christ as your savior and asking for forgiveness? Are there branches of Christianity that suggest all are forgiven despite there actions or lack of actions? How does this differ from other religions?

    I hope I am not a skeptic in the negitive sense. I do see myself as a skeptic in that I don't accept ideas or arguments without questions. I appreciate your frank response and hope you see my questions in a positive light.
     
  7. blahetka

    blahetka New Member

    Lessee- Jewish mom, catholic dad- spoent time in the seminary......

    Been there, done that. I figure I have enough guilt in my life- My guilt has risen to the top of the Maslow hierarchy- it's self actualizing.
     
  8. cdhale

    cdhale Member

    Certainly, I appreciate your questions. I see them in a totally positive light :) . Right from the start, I must say that there is no way that I can adequately answer your questions in a forum such as this. I mean volumes upon volumes have been written on this and other related subjects. Now, having said that, here goes...

    I suppose it is a matter of perspective on required actions. Certainly there are groups that have a strict legal code that must be followed in order for salvation. I disagree with that mindset. And yes, there are other groups out there that teach (as I understand it - maybe Tom can help out here) that everyone will end up OK. I personally also disagree with that. But, I don't want to be known for what I am against, but rather what I am for...

    So my take on it is this. When a person is confronted with the gospel of Jesus Christ (and it does confront us, because of our sin), then that person must make a choice. Are they going to accept what they have heard as true and adjust to these facts? Will they turn their back to the gospel and go on as before? For those who reject the message, there is no salvation. For those who accept the truth of this message, they have one simple requirement - Become like Jesus. (That is obscenely simplified, but I think it is the foundation of Christianity).
    Therefore, I think to make things such as what version of the bible you use, instruments of music in worship, women's roles, etc a requirement for "being saved" is a distortion of what is truly essential.
    To say that "belief in Christ" is essential is true. But that only makes sense doesn't it? If you don't believe in the divinity of Christ and the atonement that is available through him, then you certainly wouldn't want to dedicate your life to Christianity. In any event, you never deserve the salvation that is given to you. On your own, you deserve death. God provides for an alternative. As you accept that alternative, you receive salvation - right then. You have done nothing at all, except to give mental assent to the truth of God's saving plan. In other words, you have agreed to accept the gift. I just don't see how that could be construed to be doing something to be saved. (unless I make more sense in my head than I am putting down here....)

    anyway, those are my beliefs. As I said, I know so much more can and has been said in much more eloquence than I have presented here, but there it is anyway

    clint
     
  9. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    I believe the questions about the origins and purpose of the universe that are being sought out in the supernatural are simply not known yet. So much that was once attributed to "gods" is now commonly attributed to more knowable causes. I also feel the embracement of a creation myth of your choice is a God-given right. ;)
     
  10. Tom Head

    Tom Head New Member

    I'm with you on this point; at risk of adding 15% to my Flake Quotient, I do like what Swami Vivekananda said in New York back in 1896: "This universe of ours, the universe of the senses, the rational, the intellectual, is bounded on both sides by the illimitable, the unknowable, the ever unknown."

    I don't think I'm being too dualistic when I say that information is of a totally different nature than physical reality because it's representative, and existence isn't representative. To me, the real difference between theism and atheism has to do with the primacy of essence--is physical reality the most basic form of existence, or is there another layer of information or representative reality behind it? (Or, as Jean-Paul Sartre put it, does essence precede existence?)

    If I approached life from a purely empirical perspective, and believed only what I could prove to others, I would be an agnostic; my commitment to theism is based on a relationship I think I and most others (including no small number of non-theists) have with something beyond physical reality, something conscious. Any theology I hold beyond that is admittedly somewhat speculative, but then life basically is one long speculation.


    Cheers,
     
  11. Tom Head

    Tom Head New Member

    I would add that I mean relationship with, not belief in--Einstein was a deist at most (I would actually classify him as an agnostic), but anyone reading his more poetic essays on physics would see mysticism like this bleeding through, even if he might not call it that. (I take Francis Bacon a step further--I think both atheism and theism are more in the tongue than the heart of man.)


    Cheers,
     
  12. DaveHayden

    DaveHayden New Member

    Again I am definately over my head in this discussion so please excuse my simplistic understanding. So if your saying it isn't possible to KNOW about the origins I think we all agree on that. However, if we then move on to what we BELIEVE, are you saying you believe there is a clearly scientific explanation for all issues related to creation and all of the other issues?
     
  13. Tom Head

    Tom Head New Member

    I don't want to speak for Rich, but I would say that there's a difference between believing that everything is explained by science and believing that everything can, in principle, be explained by science.


    Cheers,
     
  14. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    Yup. In principle. But that doesn't exclude the possibility that God did it.
     
  15. Guest

    Guest Guest

    I love it, Rich. Hiding beneath all the agnosticism there remains an ember of "possibility that God did it." Rich Douglas, ex-military man, Ph.D. candidate, DL advocate, believer in the "possibility."

    In the words of an old TV commercial, I Love You Man!

    :cool:
     
  16. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    "To YOU I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition."

    "Atheists cannot disprove the existence of God. We must take it on faith."

    "If it turns out that there is a God, I don't think that he's evil. But the worst that you can say about him is that basically he's an underachiever."

    "I'm astounded by people who want to 'know' the universe when it's hard enough to find your way around Chinatown."

    Woody Allen

    "If Woody Allen were a Muslim, he'd be dead by now."

    Salman Rushdie

    ;)
     
  17. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    There is a lot packed in that.

    Taking 'origins' first, I am unsure if humanity will ever know the universe's origin. Scientific investigation can keep pushing the origin back in time, but can it ever jump the gap from the universe to... something else... that isn't the universe at all? How do we proceed when all scientific law and all scientific generalization fail?

    Addressing 'purpose', I suspect that's a category mistake. Human beings have purposes when they do things. But things certainly can happen without any purpose at all: a solar flare for example. I think that it's an error to generalize the idea of purpose to all events without exception, and then go looking for the conscious agent(s) responsible for all events. It's an intellectual form of anthropomorphism.

    Addressing 'not known yet', I think that there are aspects of the universe and of ourselves (we are parts of the universe) that mankind will *never* comprehend. It's simply a matter of cognitive capacity.

    A cockroach simply can't understand electromagnetic theory. It doesn't have the brainpower to take in high level mathematical abstractions like Maxwell's equations. Your dog doesn't either. Neither does a chimpanzee. So why do we always assume that human beings, alone among all the animals, have what it takes to take in *all* possible aspects of the universe? I think that it's hubris to automatically assume that mankind is the "crown of creation". Most likely we aren't.

    One can argue from analogy and hypothesize the existence of a truly superior space alien whose cognitive powers are as far beyond ours as ours are beyond a cockroach's. This alien doesn't have to exist in reality, its mere possibility serves the purposes of my argument.

    That brings up interesting issues: First, do aspects of the universe exist, whose understanding is necessary for a complete and consistent understanding of reality, that humanity can never take in, even in principle? And second, how would we ever distinguish between that space alien and a god?

    At the least it illustrates that there are different grades of transcendance, and that not all of them are divine. It also suggests that we could never tell the difference, since by definition we are talking about matters that transcend human understanding.

    What is 'divine'? And perhaps more to the point, why is *worship* the appropriate response to a god? To echo Nietzsche a little, if humans are mere animals when compared to a transcendant being, are we going to be wild or domesticated? Do we want to be pets or do we want to be wolves?

    It's a scary thought. When the flying saucers appear overhead or the second coming happens (is there really a difference?) we all might have that choice to make. Personally, I would choose freedom and honor, and would probably be put down.
     
  18. Tom Head

    Tom Head New Member

    First, a quick note to Rich: Thanks.

    Now, on to Bill: Two very heady questions here, which I'll answer without quoting verbatim (because my response isn't point by point):

    How can we tell the difference between God and a (super-advanced) space alien?

    A great question, and my answer would be that I'm not sure there's a difference--according to most theologies, God basically is a sort of super-advanced space alien. He came about (or always existed) extraterrestrially, and his involvement in human affairs has always been as an outsider (with the exception of incarnations). So not only is there no way to tell the difference in practice, I'm not even sure there is even a meaningful difference in theory.

    Why worship something just because it's more powerful than we are? Isn't it better to be wolves than chihuahas? (Heavily paraphrased but, I hope, accurately.)

    I guess that depends on what's meant by worship; I have never been able to relate to the theology that says that we're created to glorify God's name, because it's hard for me to think of God as an egotist. But I think that respectful domestication shows a sign of communion with, and love for, existence--if we can relate to the fact that we're thrown around by blind forces and still manage some sort of cosmic love for the universal Ground of Being, then that is, I think, something worth having. I wouldn't say the idea is to be a cosmic sycophant, though; I think we're meant not to be chihuahas or wolves, but rather housecats. That's certainly how even the most pious of us tend to behave, anyway.


    Cheers,
     
  19. DaveHayden

    DaveHayden New Member

    Ok you are losing me here. If you think creation and all things supernatural can be scientifically explained but remain open to "the possibility that God did it" wouldn't that make you the classic definition of an agnostic? To be an atheist I thought was to believe that God does NOT exist.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 1, 2002
  20. Tom Head

    Tom Head New Member

    I think Rich has described himself in the past as an agnostic--but it's worth mentioning that there are at least two types of atheists: weak atheists (who believe that the evidence in favor of God's existence is weak enough to justify atheism) and strong atheists (who believe that the evidence against God's existence is strong enough to justify atheism). Even among strong atheists, there are many who are comfortable speaking in terms like "Maybe there is a God," just as there are many devout theists who are comfortable speaking in terms like "Maybe there is no God."


    Cheers,
     

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