All-Purpose Religion Thread

[A'Villan]

On 21/06/2022 at 22:04, Brumerican said:

Can't say I disagree . IMO all religions are just allegory for spherical geometry.  

Energy is infinite and everything from the micro to the macro is cyclical.

It's an eternal carousel of fractal unity inside a bagel.

 

Ezekiel's wheel.

Written from an Eastern viewpoint, which is cyclical, as opposed to Western, which is linear.

Man walks passed a tree, he continues around the tree, in a cyclical fashion, each time seeing and discovering something new about the tree.

Man walks passed a tree, he continues walking passed the tree, in a linear fashion, as he goes he moves on and forgets about the tree.

[mjmooney]

3 hours ago, A'Villan said:

Ezekiel's wheel.

Written from an Eastern viewpoint, which is cyclical, as opposed to Western, which is linear.

Man walks passed a tree, he continues around the tree, in a cyclical fashion, each time seeing and discovering something new about the tree.

Man walks passed a tree, he continues walking passed the tree, in a linear fashion, as he goes he moves on and forgets about the tree.

Second bloke is still walking round the tree, first bloke has got to where he was going. The pub, if he has any sense. 

[blandy]

1 hour ago, mjmooney said:

Second bloke is still walking round the tree, first bloke has got to where he was going. The pub, if he has any sense. 

The Royal Oak? The Yew Tree?  Whichever, he’ll be weaving a less than linear path on the way home, maybe stopping on his way, to water the tree.

[chrisp65]

One guy is walking around the tree seeing it as proof of God.

One guy walks past it, confident in his understanding of biology and earth sciences.

Neither of them see the guy that’s worked out how to monetise the tree, has declared the land to be his own and now wants the other two to pay him taxes whilst they cut down the tree for him, arguing between themselves that a guy with a saw should be paid more than the guy with an axe.

[blandy]

...If you were interviewing a butterfly
Standing on the branch of a sequoia tree...

Now, a butterfly lives only for a few days,
But a sequoia tree can live for over a thousand years.

If you were to ask the butterfly,
"Do you perceive the object on which you're standing as being alive?"
The butterfly would say: of course not. I've been here all my life,
Which is all of five days, and the tree hasn't done a thing.

Well, it's the same problem with the human being.
If you would ask a person,
Perhaps one that's lived for a hundred years,
If they perceive the earth, which is really 5 billion years old, as being alive,
They would say, "Of course not. I've been here my whole life, and it hasn't done a thing."...

 

[mjmooney]

Far out, man. 

[fruitvilla]

3 hours ago, blandy said:

If they perceive the earth, which is really 5 billion years old, as being alive,
They would say, "Of course not. I've been here my whole life, and it hasn't done a thing.".

Here I think we are digging a semantic hole for ourselves. Xenobiologists looking for life have trouble defining it. Of course we can take Justice Potter Stewart's adage, "We know it when we see it." A definition of life could be as simple as a system that is "not at chemical equilibrium". 

 

But here we are on the verge of starting our own religion. 

[chrisp65]

Rocks are slow life.

[blandy]

1 hour ago, mjmooney said:

Far out, man. 

Oh aye. Benjamin Zephaniah is on the album too. His track is ace.

[rjw63]

[fruitvilla]

1 hour ago, Stephen_Evans said:

Personally, I think atheists display the most astonishing faith in denying incredible evidence for the existence of God.  Given how life seems to fly by, none of us has long to wait to be proved right or wrong.

This universe as evidence for God? God is not an explanation, but an abdication for an explanation.

A thinking person will take a look at all the "evidence" and come to the conclusion we can't be sure.

Looking at the Universe and saying God had to have done it is an argument from incredulity ... a rookie mistake.

[mjmooney]

Well, there are two possible responses to the unexplained (possibly inexplicable) existence of the universe. 

You can either leave it there until some explanation is found. Or you can make something up if it makes you feel better. Personally I go with the former, but I guess I can understand the latter - we've evolved to think in terms of causality, after all. So, let's go with "something must have created all this". Fair enough, but how do you then make the leap from that to... Adam and Eve, virgin birth, miracles, crucified messiahs, saints, holy water, heaven and hell... or, depending on where you happened to be born, hejiras, caliphates, djinns, banyan trees, elephant headed gods, dietary codes. Dress codes, sacred books, rituals, rules, excommunications, blasphemy, etc., etc. ??? All in competition for the 'truth', and merrily slaughtering people over it. 

Utter insanity. 

[Marka Ragnos]

2 hours ago, mjmooney said:

... Fair enough, but how do you then make the leap from that to... ..

Well, I'm too old to leap these days myself. But I think you missed one. You missed Bad Bob ... maybe goes right before banyan tree?

Edited July 15, 2022 by Marka Ragnos

[mjmooney]

6 minutes ago, Marka Ragnos said:

Well, I'm too old to leap these days myself. But I think you missed one. You missed Bad Bob ... maybe goes right before banyan tree?

Sorry, you've lost me there. 

[Marka Ragnos]

10 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

Sorry, you've lost me there. 

Sorry, I take it you've never had the experience of encountering a Chick tract? You had delineated a litany of dramatic religious things. Chick tracts are sort of infamous as being so-nutty-they're-kitschy. There I go, trying to be clever, and just being confusing.  
 

Quote

The lurid nature of the illustrations underlined the nature of the philosophy. Chick tracts were not meant to gently instruct or present sober moral arguments. They were designed to shock you into repentance ... The rise of the Chick tract neatly aligns with a lot of other trends in American life in the late 20th century. The world of the Chick tract is one where a shadowy global cabal of hippies, Satanists, Communists, Papists, scientists, new agers and elites conspire to persecute the faithful and institute a new world order, a notion that has existed on the fringes of American political thought since the 1950s (and occasionally bubbled into the mainstream). 

 

Edited July 15, 2022 by Marka Ragnos

[Seal]

On 20/06/2022 at 19:51, Mandy Lifeboats said:

I work with a Jehovah's Witness.  His wife had an operation which would normally require blood. She refused. It went well and everything turned out OK.  

We had the predictable conversations about whether a benevolent God would want one of his followers to die for the sake of a pint of blood.  

I asked why she didn't give a pint or two of her own blood in the weeks before the operation and then have it back. That seemed logical to me.  That's not allowed either. 

I found the reasoning behind the rule truly bizarre.  It relates to biblical passes relating to the slaughter of animals.  Namely that the blood of the animal must drain into the earth. 

I can see the reasoning for that 2500 years ago.  It fertilises the earth and reduces the chance of blood related disease. But to apply it to a human medical proceedure in 2022 seems ridiculous to me.  

But I am an atheist. 

This is also not allowed by the NHS. I always ask for my blood back and they refuse it every time. However, I do not permit it to be destroyed, which is what they usually do, so I like to think there is a little vault of my blood somewhere. No religious reasons, just a matter of principle, that I should get my blood back, and have no wish to have my blood destroyed. 

Regarding your conversations about a benevolent God (it is a conversation that I find interesting, and obviously do not have a definitive answer to). I find there to be a very different 'vibe' between the new testament, which (compare the ten commandments to the beatitudes for instance), which baffled me for a long while. For me the answer is provided in Gnostic Christianity. In summation, the God of the Old Testament is not the ultimate God, or creator, but is a demiurge, perhaps best described as Satan (which is actually backed up in the New Testament), and is the story of how Satan came to control the world (the Christian god existing outside of this). The Christianity of the New Testament being how to transcend this world. There is actually no reason a Christian need believe, or agree with ANYTHING in the Old Testament. For a start, Christianity did not exist before Christ. Thus the Old Testament by logic cannot be Christian. A Christian is someone who tries to live as Christ would, not someone who thinks it is correct for the God of the Old Testament to smite, or to commit genocide and be vengeful and stuff. The Old Testament and New Testament sorta got glued together in the middle ages, despite not really being of the same spirit. The Old Testament is Babylonian, and Jewish, and concerns Jehovah/Yahweh. The Christian God is actually more likely the Monad (a Pythagorean concept), and would not want one of its followers to die for the sake of a pint of blood. The God of the Old Testament is a Babylonian demiurge - which is not the ultimate creator, just the ruler of this realm.

The only sentence that is in the Bible, that can be said to link Christianity to the Old Testament, is where it says Christ is the son of God. But there is nothing to say this is the God of the Old Testament. On the Other hand, in the New Testament, after Jesus (phonetically He's us, and in French Je Suis (I am)) goes into the desert and fights temptation, he and Satan go to the top of a hill and they both agree that the world is Satans, suggesting that the God of the Old Testament is indeed Satan. 

Not that any of this is any less true, but the Bible can be read through a number of different lenses. I find that the lens that affords it the most sense, is the Gnostic one. It irons out many of the Bibles famed contradictions. That doesn't make it right, but it makes it a better guess than most. I also note that many Christians do buy into the Old Testament as being the God, so the contradiction still exists practically. 

Having writ all this, I do note that you had this discussion with a Jehovah witness, who does get down with the Old Testament so I clearly have not solved that. I am just merely trying to explain how a Christian (such as myself) might not necessarily be on board or cool with a vengeful god that would like flood stuff and genocide this and that for reasons and stuff and perhaps that the dichotomy you are suggesting exists in the minds of individuals, not necessarily in the religious texts themselves. Peace. 

[Mandy Lifeboats]

I respect you faith @Seal I appreciate your comments regarding the old testament. Its clearly a historically inaccurate text with outdated moralistic guidelines. 

The new testament is slightly better but it is still contradictory and historically questionable.  That does not bother me in the slightest as long as people who believe in it also live by a reasonable moral code.  

My problem is where people use their 1600 year old book as justification for behaviour that is questionable in a modern society.  If God is infallible and the Bible is the word of God, why is the Bible wrong in so many places? 

When I visited the Vatican I was amazed. I was amazed that any God would want that to be built and maintained instead of spending that wealth on supporting the poor and needy. 

But if your faith gives you comfort then who am I to question it?  I am sure that time will prove that some of the things I believe in are wrong. 

 

 

[fruitvilla]

3 minutes ago, Mandy Lifeboats said:

I respect you faith

I sort of get this respecting. My question is how foolish does  belief or faith have to be before we don't have to respect it?

I can have a respectful discussion about the reality of, say, the belief an angel came to a young woman called Mary and foretold of some sort of divine birth. I don't have to be respectful of ideas in of themselves. And of course if anyone is offended, as Hitchens pointed out, being offended is not an argument.

[Marka Ragnos]

4 minutes ago, fruitvilla said:

I sort of get this respecting. My question is how foolish does  belief or faith have to be before we don't have to respect it? 

I guess I'd have to hear what NOT respecting a faith that you regard as silly or even dangerous looks like. How does that translate into law or government policy? 

I mean, belief in a liberal secular democracy is also a kind of belief. Most of don't think it's foolish, thankfully. Part of "respecting" rules-based liberal democracy normally means not outlawing religious people from doing their deal, provided they don't prevent others from their own deals -- including allowing fellow citizens to uphold a secular liberal democracy. We're both in countries of laws, right? "Respecting" someone's faith, as some kind of private, interior evaluation, is largely a private affair, I would think. There are all kinds of people whose ideas I don't respect, whom I even consider unethical, dangerous people, and I would never consider telling them that unless they started to **** with my ****.

[Mandy Lifeboats]

24 minutes ago, fruitvilla said:

I sort of get this respecting. My question is how foolish does  belief or faith have to be before we don't have to respect it?

People believe many things that aren't true.  I have no problem with that unless it is used to justify action that is immoral and/or criminal.  For example, Homophobia cannot be justified because of a 2000 year old book.