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Netherlands6142 Posts
On May 19 2012 00:03 masterbreti wrote:Show nested quote +On May 18 2012 18:04 Pholon wrote:
@masterbreti "find me passages in which people are killed for no good reason". How about Numbers 31:7-18, in which Moses' army conquers Midian and when the army brings the prisoners of war back to Mozes, he tells them to kill all the women and young boys too. They could keep the virgins for themselves. How about all the horrible shit God himself does for no reason? :/ Still not what I was looking for. I'm not talking stories. I should have phrased it this way. " Find places in the Koran, or the bible which it tell YOU, that you can kill someone for no good reason. there isn't cases of them. There may be cases of "you can kill them if" Like the example I provided in the Koran, but its very specific, and still, its discouraged.
http://www.evilbible.com/Murder.htm
All of these?
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ahh ok uhh 1 small point i want to add
1. i guess my main point was that really thoughtful religious people, like professors of theology or what not are pretty legit. and while we may have different beliefs, we sort of went down the path of critical thinking and have sort of the same outcomes. now there ARE religious people who have superstitions and... vote against gays and other things, but there are also secular people who despite being secular... don't really engaging in critical thinking and just live their lives without trying to answer "the big questions"
so i guess... in a way... im sort of thinking of the various religions and philosophical reasoning as different roads that end up in the same place and as long as they reach the end, it's all good.
2. and uhh one bonus thing regarding meaning in life.
I sort of adopt the view that in the long-run, in the long term, maybe a couple hundreds years in the future to like infinity, my life is meaningless, but in the short-run, or at least while im alive, life is pretty meaningful. and i sort of decided/was socialized by external influences that doing good things for other people and just living a happy, fun, virtuous life was meaningful.
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Netherlands6142 Posts
So you've given your own life meaning, that's pretty good  I'm not saying life can't have meaning. But instead of presuposing that there is a meaning and question What it is, you rather asked Can life have meaning and if yes what should it be. These are different questions.
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Your understanding of Nietzsche seems to be lacking. He never blamed religion for raising "intolerant" or illogical people lol.
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OP, to be honest I think what you should take away from your experience is not what you were told in the discussion, but that you yourself do not think rigourously enough to have a well-formed opinion. For example, was any of the stuff they told you stuff you couldn't have thought about on your own if you'd been critical enough? What is to stop your opinion from making another 180 when someone else tells you something you didn't bother to think about?
Be very skeptical of yourself when you have realisations like this, because almost always it is a warning sign about you and not a new leaf being turned.
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On May 18 2012 18:04 Pholon wrote:
Let's see if we can keep this thread open...
My point of view: All religion, especially the "faith-based" ones, accept claims to believe in on bad evidence. Consequently I respect them about as much as people who believe Elvis is still alive.
Unless holy books are seen as metaphors and allegories.
Which is the case for most educated believers.
I don't see the difference with people who believe in the Big Bang but have no clue about what it truly is and what it implies. Hell, I was just reading an article yesterday where astrophysicians were calling for another model because of the flaws there seemed to be not only in the model itself but in the evidence presented to support it.
Atheists seem to have this condescending idea that faith mostly relies on "supertitious" beliefs while they are themselves driven by reason. Well, when I see your average believer, and your average atheist, I simply see two idiots, no more, no less.
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On May 19 2012 01:35 Kukaracha wrote:
I don't see the difference with people who believe in the Big Bang but have no clue about what it truly is and what it implies. Hell, I was just reading an article yesterday where astrophysicians were calling for another model because of the flaws there seemed to be not only in the model itself but in the evidence presented to support it.
Sounds like scientific research!
Atheists seem to have this condescending idea that faith mostly relies on "supertitious" beliefs while they are themselves driven by reason. Well, when I see your average believer, and your average atheist, I simply see two idiots, no more, no less.
A number of atheists I personally know believe in scientific theories such as the Big Bang and evolution in the same way many Christians believe in God. They don't understand the mechanism or even the fundamentals of the science that supports them yet give them this blind faith because either everyone else around them believes the same thing or someone smarter than them said so. It's a really stupid reason to believe anything.
I'm glad the OP had this experience. Instead of acting like many atheists/agnostics and blindly waving an anti-religion banner because of a bad track record and sensationalist media he actually sat down with a bunch of average joe's and, surprise surprise, found that there was a huge difference between perception and reality. Those same atheist friends (as well as a bunch of my Christian friends) would get a lot out of interfaith dialogue.
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On May 18 2012 15:01 jodogohoo wrote:
I realized that if islam, judaism, christian people can come together and be bros, i can too.
This is the best line in your entire blog entryish.
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@Servius_Fulvius: yeah, precisely. Belief without any questioning or exploration is pointless... interfaith dialogue as you said could definitely see some more instances.
Edit: never mind, you did already qualify what you meant and I probably skipped over that.
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On May 19 2012 02:13 ninazerg wrote:Show nested quote +On May 18 2012 15:01 jodogohoo wrote:
I realized that if islam, judaism, christian people can come together and be bros, i can too. This is the best line in your entire blog entryish.
Becoming plural is the essence of the religious experience.
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I have been a Christian most of my life. Something that I don't get, which religious and secular people are both guilty of, is why a person can't agree to disagree. I have gay friends, atheist friends, Islamic friends, Mormon friends. etc; we don't see eye to eye, but we still get along.
I understand the argument that religion drives people to do crazy things, but I have always seen it as crazy things in crazy people. Hitler could have found a different motivation to do what he did, for example, and comparing a few radicals actions to the religion at a whole seems silly. Not every catholic priest molests boys, and many priests do a lot to help out their community. When I was down in El Salvador on a humanitarian trip, the pastor from the local church helped us dig latrines without asking a cent for payment or expecting anything from us. There were also many non-christians who helped out without expecting anything.
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On May 19 2012 02:09 Servius_Fulvius wrote:Show nested quote +On May 19 2012 01:35 Kukaracha wrote:
I don't see the difference with people who believe in the Big Bang but have no clue about what it truly is and what it implies. Hell, I was just reading an article yesterday where astrophysicians were calling for another model because of the flaws there seemed to be not only in the model itself but in the evidence presented to support it. Sounds like scientific research! Show nested quote +Atheists seem to have this condescending idea that faith mostly relies on "supertitious" beliefs while they are themselves driven by reason. Well, when I see your average believer, and your average atheist, I simply see two idiots, no more, no less. A number of atheists I personally know believe in scientific theories such as the Big Bang and evolution in the same way many Christians believe in God. They don't understand the mechanism or even the fundamentals of the science that supports them yet give them this blind faith because either everyone else around them believes the same thing or someone smarter than them said so. It's a really stupid reason to believe anything. I'm glad the OP had this experience. Instead of acting like many atheists/agnostics and blindly waving an anti-religion banner because of a bad track record and sensationalist media he actually sat down with a bunch of average joe's and, surprise surprise, found that there was a huge difference between perception and reality. Those same atheist friends (as well as a bunch of my Christian friends) would get a lot out of interfaith dialogue.
You can't know and understand everything. Altough understanding evolution on a basic level should be mandatory for everyone, because it explains so many of life, anyway. You can trust the scientific method, it has been proven to work.
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On May 19 2012 04:38 Recognizable wrote:Show nested quote +On May 19 2012 02:09 Servius_Fulvius wrote:On May 19 2012 01:35 Kukaracha wrote:
I don't see the difference with people who believe in the Big Bang but have no clue about what it truly is and what it implies. Hell, I was just reading an article yesterday where astrophysicians were calling for another model because of the flaws there seemed to be not only in the model itself but in the evidence presented to support it. Sounds like scientific research! Atheists seem to have this condescending idea that faith mostly relies on "supertitious" beliefs while they are themselves driven by reason. Well, when I see your average believer, and your average atheist, I simply see two idiots, no more, no less. A number of atheists I personally know believe in scientific theories such as the Big Bang and evolution in the same way many Christians believe in God. They don't understand the mechanism or even the fundamentals of the science that supports them yet give them this blind faith because either everyone else around them believes the same thing or someone smarter than them said so. It's a really stupid reason to believe anything. I'm glad the OP had this experience. Instead of acting like many atheists/agnostics and blindly waving an anti-religion banner because of a bad track record and sensationalist media he actually sat down with a bunch of average joe's and, surprise surprise, found that there was a huge difference between perception and reality. Those same atheist friends (as well as a bunch of my Christian friends) would get a lot out of interfaith dialogue. You can't know and understand everything. Altough understanding evolution on a basic level should be mandatory for everyone, because it explains so many of life, anyway. You can trust the scientific method, it has been proven to work.
Strictly speaking, one does not "prove" that the scientific method works. How would that be possible?
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On May 18 2012 18:04 Pholon wrote:
@ Roe. no, religion doesn't inherently mean people will commit evil deeds. Think of Jianism. Christianity/Judaism/Islam have a pretty bad track record though.
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I didn't say/mean they will commit "evil deeds", I said people will do outrageous actions if they believe in religion. Jainism is no exception: I think it could easily be argued that the level of pacifism and non-violence they preach and live by can be dangerous and outrageous in certain situations (isolationism and pacifism was actually a great part of why Hitler was left unchecked for so long, just as an example).
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Appeasement in world war ii had nothing to do with religion. You are grasping at straws with that comparison. Outrageous is also a relative term, and if you merely consider as objective as possible of a definition for outrageous, (this isn't that formal of a discussion so I'll just leave the definition at that for now) religious and irreligious individuals do not logically differ in the degree of outrage of their actions. How does it logically follow that a religious individual will also commit an act considered [ultimately/holistically] reprehensible? Because you personally think that their beliefs are ridiculous must it follow that all subscribers to any sort of theistic belief system will have similarly ridiculous actions ?
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Man, Nietzsche and Heidegger did not try to overcome religion with "rationality". Sartre attempted to, yeah, but his philosophy as a whole ended up being a rather naive affair and his critique of religion also ended up being quite shallow, not unlike the majority of the contemporary "New Atheists". Sartre's critique of Kierkegaard is really laughable, for example.
Nietzsche's critique of religion (most of it directed to Christianity, then Buddhism slightly, and Judaism in passing) didn't really have to do with "truth" or "rationality" but was primarily focused around the question of morality and his seeking of life-affirmation. The "death of God" wasn't a literal death of God or even really the death of the conception of God but rather the dismantling of preconceptions and axioms that lay beneath the structures of Western thought. Nietzsche wasn't just critiquing religion (Christianity) but he was also being suspicious of the sciences, and philosophy as a whole (metaphysics, epistemology, etc.). To be more penetrating, Nietzsche was suspicious of "rationality" itself. So to claim that Nietzsche came to atheism "rationally" is a little comical.
As for Heidegger, Heidegger CLEARLY gives space for theology pretty much right from the beginning of his philosophical tenure (just take a look at one of his early works, Phenomenology and Theology for god's sake). He may or may not have been a clear "atheist" depending on how you define what is an atheist. His philosophical projects were pretty atheistic despite how goddamned mystical his writings were from start to finish in the sense that he put a clear separation between philosophy and theology (which was influenced by Luther). But Heidegger has said that he was interested in writing a theology, or at the very least he said that if he was to write theology Being would have no place in it (in a mirror to how God had no place in the question of Being in Being and Time). Heidegger's main gripes with Christianity was how he thought that the question of Being was so obscured and muddled due to what he thought was the shitfest of "onto-theo-logy" that occurred when philosophy and theology mixed with each other. What Heidegger wanted to do was separate philosophy and theology from each other (a very Protestant way of thinking) so that he can really do what he thought was truly fundamental philosophy. And during this careful separating he then also gave theology room to breathe and do their own fundamental work (which Heidegger thought should take their cue from Luther). But again, Heidegger never tried to get away from religion due to "rationality".
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On May 18 2012 15:56 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +On May 18 2012 15:50 Lixler wrote:
I don't think you had a serious grasp of Nietzsche or Camus if appeals to the facts that religious people are just "normal legit people living their lives" and that atheists can do amoral things swayed you from your assent to their views. Nietzsche's entire thing against religion wasn't that it was immoral and caused people to do bad things and was illogical, but that it represented a lowering of the species of man. The moral impulse cultivated by (some) religions represented a weakening of man that shaped him into a herd animal. None of this is refuted by the fact that religious people are normal and legit, and in fact that fact just reinforces Nietzsche's views. To be fair, Nietzsche is specifically talking about monotheism.
TIL that Buddhism is a monotheistic religion.
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I'm almost 100% sure you wrote this while stoned out of your mind.
Either way, I have respect for people, regardless of whether they are from a particular religion or not.
Do whatever makes you happy, just don't force it on another person, you have no right.
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On May 19 2012 09:48 koreasilver wrote:Show nested quote +On May 18 2012 15:56 sam!zdat wrote:On May 18 2012 15:50 Lixler wrote:
I don't think you had a serious grasp of Nietzsche or Camus if appeals to the facts that religious people are just "normal legit people living their lives" and that atheists can do amoral things swayed you from your assent to their views. Nietzsche's entire thing against religion wasn't that it was immoral and caused people to do bad things and was illogical, but that it represented a lowering of the species of man. The moral impulse cultivated by (some) religions represented a weakening of man that shaped him into a herd animal. None of this is refuted by the fact that religious people are normal and legit, and in fact that fact just reinforces Nietzsche's views. To be fair, Nietzsche is specifically talking about monotheism. TIL that Buddhism is a monotheistic religion.
Doesn't he specifically talk about the Jewish priesthood? Maybe I'm thinking of a different part of Nietzsche. Don't remember him ever talking about Buddhism.
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On May 19 2012 09:56 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +On May 19 2012 09:48 koreasilver wrote:On May 18 2012 15:56 sam!zdat wrote:On May 18 2012 15:50 Lixler wrote:
I don't think you had a serious grasp of Nietzsche or Camus if appeals to the facts that religious people are just "normal legit people living their lives" and that atheists can do amoral things swayed you from your assent to their views. Nietzsche's entire thing against religion wasn't that it was immoral and caused people to do bad things and was illogical, but that it represented a lowering of the species of man. The moral impulse cultivated by (some) religions represented a weakening of man that shaped him into a herd animal. None of this is refuted by the fact that religious people are normal and legit, and in fact that fact just reinforces Nietzsche's views. To be fair, Nietzsche is specifically talking about monotheism. TIL that Buddhism is a monotheistic religion. Doesn't he specifically talk about the Jewish priesthood? Maybe I'm thinking of a different part of Nietzsche. Don't remember him ever talking about Buddhism.
He talks about Christianity, Judaism, and Buddhism. Buddhism he only really talks about later in life particularly in Antichrist as far as I know. His reading of Buddhism is interesting but kinda messy because he was working off of a flawed/limited understanding of Buddhism that the Europeans had at the time (you can chiefly blame Schopenhauer in this particular incident).
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EPT
