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https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/jul/23/australian-tennis-player-peter-doohan-dies-at-56
on another note...
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jul/24/richard-dawkins-event-cancelled-over-his-abusive-speech-against-islam
But when those doctors save someone in a life-threatening emergency, the religious deem it a "miracle by God's hand."
Put me in a car accident where I lose both legs and a lot of blood and we'll see what's more effective: the power of prayer, or the wonders of medicine.
Yes, as I stated on the last page, he either is still around with the power to stop it and does nothing (another test, my Lord?) or he abandoned us to our own misery because he was the screw up. Either way, is this a spiritual figure you want to pray to with all your love and thankfulness?
Old God was pretty swell, but he seems to have staled and gotten cruel over time. When he made a mess of his creation experiments around Noah's time he had the decency to drown everyone and clean that slate good. Where's our big flood? Are we not horrible enough yet to be killed, or has our suffering from cancer and poverty and our own evil intents not been sufficient enough? If God kills us all with a flood, is that technically a genocide, or can it be written off as something that needed to be done, an act justified like all the messed up things he does or supports in the bible? These are the big questions religion forces us to entertain.
All I will say is that there is a school of thought (espoused by Nolan in Interstellar) that love is the only thing that we perceive which transcends time and space. We are all capable of love, and have felt it during our lifetimes. Is that logical? Is it rational? Of course not. However it's real. It motivates, inspires, energizes, transcends even. When in love everything seems clearer and more alive. Even love of film or music can awaken something deep within us which causes us to be better. More whole. More complete. However it's not something we can necessarily reason with. Actually, reasoning may taint the experience and the impact.
I've come to believe that 'faith' in its purest sense is a form of love. It's a love of someone (something?) bigger than ourselves. A set of principles, ideas and concepts which energizes the spirit. Can it become tainted? Abused? Absolutely, just like the strongest passionate love in itself can turn to inconsolable rage and hate. One must be careful with it. Temperate and not extreme in both cases because these concepts at their core reside in a transcendental realm as much as they do in a physical one. It cannot be taken literally, but rather must be looked upon in an abstract fashion. Those who try to confront it rationally are most likely going to be disappointed and frustrated, in both cases.
Can one live without organized religion? Definitely. Can one live without love? I'm less certain of that. Without faith, hope or community? Probably not.
Maybe it's more important to believe in something rather than what one believes, if that makes any sense. After all, these organized religions all have certain things in common (community, charity, love for humanity, forgiveness etc. etc.). One must be able to separate the literal 'man made ' baloney from the abstract aspects which define us as humans.
But others have, some what romantically, pointed out that, over time, consistant rain erodes solid rock. So even if you dont see any instant progress, there is still something to be gained by attempting to engage in debate.
The social trends research is clear. Religion in Western democracies is crumbling (to continue the metaphor), official research earlier this month showed that in Scotland, 74% of 18 to 34 year olds had no religion. Thats huge. So unless these non believers find religion as they grow older, this trend will continue troughout the older population. And I dont see what religion can do about this. They can hardly offer something better than heaven or worse than hell (and hard evidence would be an outside bet).
So, yes, these threads can be enormously frustrating. But they are a small part of a wider picture. And the momentum is clearly in the right direction. Thank goodness.
Re the comment re love, some good points but a little out of focus IMHO. Love obviously is a wonderful thing ...but would it not be better if we spent more time loving each other (hopefully there is less debate concerning our own existance) rather than a sky fairy? Its a tremendous waste of a valuable resource.
Its the same with faith. The religious tend to monopolise this word/concept - "those of faith" implies religion when it should not. But faith and religion are two very different things. Marriage , for example, is a massive leap of faith. We have no evidence whatsoever that it will work or what will happen in the future.
So, as with love, why not have faith in another human rather than a sky fairy? So much emotional energy invested (and wasted) in a delusion.
Meanwhile, todays "act of God"....
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-asia-40705792/pagoda-collapses-into-river-in-myanmar
There are quite a few people I know who are religious but who didn't want to discuss their faith or their beliefs with me. It always used to confuse me, because I was appealing to logic (mine and theirs). Then I began to slowly realize (in moments of difficulty and challenge) that their 'faith' gave them great strength, just like 'love' can provide energy to the spirit and soul. In many ways they are stronger than I am, as a result of their 'belief' (as opposed to their 'beliefs'). It gives them purpose, conviction and drive. Now I'm not saying that one cannot have those attributes without religion. One just needs a different way forward. I'm also not saying that religion necessarily confers those benefits either. However, I believe it 'can'. That's my point. Like with anything, it's what you take from and give to it, and that's deeply personal.
Yes, I very much agree that 'faith' and 'religion' aren't the same thing. In my opinion, religion is a subset of faith. One can have faith and not be religious in the dogmatic sense. One can proclaim to be religious and not have faith in the most crucial of moments as well.
Ultimately and in its purest form, I think religion is a subservience to and acknowledgement of something greater than we currently know. It's a form of humility, literally captured via a series of philosophical stories and fables written in a way so that ancestral people could 'relate to' and 'understand' it. This shouldn't be taken literally in my view. That is where the problems potentially arise. I personally believe it's most useful when one takes the 'core principles' and 'way of life' from it rather than the strict literal observation of the text/s.
Re strength. I would beg to differ. I can see how religion can bring comfort and some strength but dealing with the World and life as it really is takes more strength IMHO. Facing death by convincing yourself that you dont actually die shows little strength.
Dealing with personal disasters by sending mind messages to the invisble guy in the sky rather the dealing with the, often harsh and hopeless reality..is that strength?
But I can see that it does provide comfort. But that does not justify "going along with it"
Docters dont provide comfort by telling you lies. Reality trumps feelings. If people deride strength and comfort from a sky fairy, then we have to look at our modern society and ask why that is. How can we improve things "down here" so that all they need is here rather then "in the heavens". As I said previously, all the evidence points to the fact that more and more people within Western culture have what they need (or almost) so religion is prooving reduntant.
Death is still the big issue and fear of death perfectly natural. But, even in this area, death is becoming less of a taboo. I think we are starting to celebrate life rather than fear death.
Regarding strength: I don't mean that people literally derive strength from knowing they are being looked after by a 'being' we cannot prove. Rather, it's more of a conceptual sense of connectivity with the greater humankind. A 'feeling'. One can take it literally too of course, and many do. That's there prerogative. The point is comfort and fortitude are provided. Does it really matter how one gets there? I'm not saying that there isn't a better way. Ultimately with more knowledge and understanding, humans will evolve towards that more enlightened state of awareness. It may take many decades, but it will happen. Your analysis of the decline of religion in Western society may foretell that. Conversely, we may potentially decline collectively as a society into a debased state, and require religion (or spirituality in another form) to 'save' us. Who really knows?
You are correct that this all derives from death and a 'fear' and 'natural curiosity' about the unknown. If we all lived forever, would there be a place for religion? I contend that there would be, but more as a possible organizing philosophy for society. Arguably, it could be more useful in that context.
--
@Ludovico, yes I agree that love has rational utility. However, it is not really a rational precept. It strikes in the most unexpected of ways, and leads to impulsive emotional behaviour. Despite this, it can provide great strength. Love may indeed not be spiritual and I wasn't suggesting otherwise. In fact, I believe there is empirical evidence to show that it's physiological. However, who's to say that faith is not the same as well? It could be just as essential to human well being & health. Perhaps we just don't know yet? I'm sure you'll agree that it's curious how so many unconnected people from so many far flung places of the earth believe in religion (or something beyond and above themselves). Perhaps it's a refined form of tribal behaviour. As essential as friendship.
Regarding religion being essentially an exercise in humility: again I'm not saying that it necessarily is or that the majority look at it this way. What I'm saying is that in its purest sense (once all the dogma is stripped out) it can be looked at in this manner, and perhaps that is how those many scientists who are also religious choose to observe & rationalize it.
Thanks for these optimistic words of hope.
I was quite downhearted with this thread last night after the logical nadir of 'maybe God didn't create cancer'.
It does feel like we are banging our heads against a brick wall but your metaphor of rain on granite gives me some solace that our chipping away and refusal to accept the status quo is valuable. Ok we're not Emily Davison or Martin Luther King but it's nice to think that one day (not in our lifetimes alas) maybe this debate will become redundant as religion will finally be defunct.
So in the spirit of continuing our thankless task of gradual erosion, and given the only answers so far have been obfuscation and avoidance, I'll doggedly throw the question out there again to all the defenders of the petty and vindictive monster they call God:
Why does he let babies die of cancer?
You all believe that he is to be worshipped as our creator and presumably you love him and think he's the best thing since sliced bread so how do you reconcile all that with the same cold hearted being who causes more suffering and pain to children than Jimmy Saville, Ian Brady and the Catholic clergy combined?
I though the idea of God (and really, Jesus even more) was to serve as an ideal of what we could be, to make us better people. If God is as bad as us, if not worse, considering the stuff the bible says he did with his ultimate power, what exactly are we supposed to learn?
Yeah, I killed a guy's family and robbed his house, but God let Job wither at the hands of Satan so everybody makes mistakes, right? I don't think that's what all the master manipulators behind the bible intended when they told the world they were transmitting God's message.
One of the features we see time and time again is the inability to deal with a particular issue/point and move on to another. How can having a nice son in anyway help with the issues we are trying to discuss?
Christianity without God is not a religion. Its kind of essential that Jesus is the son of God rather than just another bloke. So its perfectly fair to focus on Gods character (ie baby killer)
@FoxRox, as an atheist I openly agree that I find Jesus very compelling. Though I view the bible as a piece of literature as I would any other piece of writing without a historical relevance or sense of reality (no disrespect meant there, just my thoughts), I think Jesus can be learned from no matter if you think he's just a fictional character or if he was a real man in some way, shape or form.
In many ways (again, no disrespect) he was one of the first superheroes, and has a real mythic quality to him, an ideal to be lived up to. That's when I can approve of religion most, when the teachings are used as they should be, to bring people together and not to divide; why hamper on about how gays can't marry when you can practice Jesus' methods of being inclusive and understanding? I only get upset when people of the faith try to get science out of schools, target groups the bible wrongfully vilifies as sinners or repress knowledge from coming out that disproves their religious doctrines.
We should always be looking for understanding and truth in everything we do, because otherwise we are just seeking comforting lies. I prefer to know the stakes, and don't want to be duped by anyone, especially myself. The truth can hurt, but I find it critical to shaping reality as it really is, and that is what science has been doing for our society for all of developed time, only getting more able to understand what we are and how the world works. So when I see some religious representatives trying to burn down the institution of science just for having the audacity (common sense) to point out that their theories on the age and development of the earth are wrong and that evolution carries more weight than a creator mindset with zero reality to its concept. To this day scientists still have to struggle in the shadow of religion, and fight for truth through critical thinking and empirical evidence against a book that (despite whether one thinks it's fictional or not) was from a vastly different society where people still thought the earth was flat and who were so bound to their local areas that they had little idea of the vast complexity of the world around them, all the homophobic and misogynistic stuff aside.
It's like finding a tablet from two thousands years previous in an old house in one of the places of an old dying religion, and deciding once you'd excavated it, "This thing is old, but everything it says will be how I run my society in the modern day." People will point out to you that maybe that isn't a good idea, as the time in which it was written was one where gays burned alive for being who they naturally were and women were punished for just breathing a man's air (like Eve, the birds never learn I guess), and society has moved on from those times of old values. It really makes little sense for a developed and enlightened modern world to keep to the teachings and philosophies that were already outdated when barbarism and pillaging led to the creation of actual cities and towns. We're better than that now, and should strive to meet that example.
Look at the Constitution, for instance. A piece of writing that is well over two-hundred years old, but as a society we haven't said, "I know it mentions nothing about voting rights for black people or women, but it's too sacred to change now." Instead we've looked at how society has changed over time and added new rights to the old ones as we have developed as a people, improving the living and experiences of groups the original document never thought to include while getting rid of the content that was proved wrong or harmful as we grew collectively.
The bible should be treated more like that by its representatives, where the people are open and honest about how far we've grown as a collective people, understanding that listening to parts of a book discussing stoning is a bit too prehistoric and barbaric for a modern time. Instead of living by the bible and just accepting all of it as golden and heaven sent, I would find much more utility and relevance in taking the things that actually help us a modern society (Jesus's understanding, the value of standing up for what you believe, accepting those in rags and tatters and looking out for your fellow man) instead of also clinging to the outdated things (a complete disregard for the rights of any couple that aren't a married man and a woman, an anti-science/anti-knowledge stance, treating the book as if it's historical fact when it's apparent that it's not just from looking at the superposition of the earth and fossil record, etc.).
I see no harm in treating the bible as the fiction that I and so many others believe it to be, as the message isn't lost because of that. I read a book and can learn just as much, if not more, from a character who never existed in reality than I could from a nonfiction book or memoir, and that's the power of writing. It's storytelling, where ideas can be shaped for consumption and mulled over by the audience, taken into their own lives to better their sense of self and their treatment of others. I think it'd be safe to assume that a man like Jesus, who was quite literally a superhero with the ability of a healing touch and who sacrificed himself heroically only to be brought back from the dead later to the rejoice of the world (Superman had this same arc in the 90s comics), wasn't really how he was written, or didn't exist at all and was made up as a symbol of learning for the time. But again, that's not what's important and I think some religious folks miss the point in their race to treat an ancient text from a close-minded time as a piece of historical and scientific writing that proves how our universe works centuries later despite them not even being able to conceive of such a thing as a universe at the time.
Instead of fighting battles they aren't informed enough to win and tramping on the very simple rights of those who are still trying to find happiness in the bible's shadow and calls of sinning, some from the religious community should use Jesus as we do Bond here (just as an example): find things that you can learn from him, and bring that to your life to improve it for yourself and others without forcing yourself to accept all the cruelties and lies in the rest of it. I think we have enough sense as a people now to know the difference between what is to be believed and what isn't, and the value of taking only what matters from something and leaving the rest to die for no longer being relevant to our time. So take the understanding and sacrifice and compassion of Jesus, and use that to spur you on, but forget all the rubbish that says the world is just thousands of years old, that only "a man and a woman" are exclusively this or that or that you must be sent to hell for "insert trivial and harmless act here." It's 2017 and the only stoning people care about is passing around that marijuana pipe.
Mahatma Gandhi.
Ripe for a robust argument I asked him what that meant and he said 'I believe that there is no God and that Jesus was a normal man who existed but didn't perform any miracles or rise from the dead. But he did have a very good philosophy and teachings that we can all follow to live a better life.'
Have to say I merely nodded and said 'Fair enough that makes a lot of sense' and left a bit crestfallen that he wasn't a frothing nutter I could get my teeth into.
Wouldn't it be nice if we all, humanity I mean, could embrace Jesus as a great philanthropist like Ghandi or Martin Luther King without having to pretend he was a 'superhero' who could rise from the dead?
Divorce Jesus from God and he becomes immeasurably more powerful because we see him as a human being with human failings (hence his strop in the temple or relationship with Mary Magdalene, which Christians, with their bizarre hangups over sex, are still terrified to confront head on).
The crucifixion takes on infinite more power when it becomes about an ordinary bloke who died in hideous agony for his principles rather than someone who knew he had the power to wake up right as rain theee days later.
And his words then take on more power because he is overcoming the carnal lusts and instincts we all have to be a better person and that would give us hope that we could do the same.
Alas whilst he is wedded to his Kim Jong Un like old man with his thirst for killing and toddler's petulance at anyone who disobeys him Jesus' real message gets lost in all the risible white noise of God's tantrums that people don't believe in him.
Jesus portrayed as a simple man would definitely be a force for good. As soon as you invest him with super powers though it actually reduces him to nothing but a circus act working on behalf of his psychotic father. His divinity is actually his kryptonite.
And got away with it? You are full of surprises.
Couldn't have put it better myself.
Couldn't have put it any better myself, @TheWizardOfIce. I now want a t-shirt with Jesus on the front with the line, "His divinity is actually his kryptonite" on it. Very sharp thoughts, my friend.
As I said earlier, I think those smarter people who are religious from all faiths (including scientists) think this way now anyway. They don't take this stuff literally (or at least, I hope not).