EPTI'll just enjoy reading
Respect for Religions - Page 4
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Aerisky
United States12129 Posts
I'll just enjoy reading | ||
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Roe
Canada6002 Posts
On May 19 2012 08:32 Aerisky wrote: 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 ? I didn't say it had anything to do with religion (may well have, I don't know either way), I said pacifism and non-violence to the extreme is outrageous, and gave the WW2 example to illustrate a time where even a religion such as Jainism is not exempt from being fantastic and absurd. I already told you, a religious person believes things without evidence. That's what faith is. That's what the core of religion and theism is. Even though I don't see it or can't measure it somehow or through any empirical means, it still exists. Once you believe that, your mind is opened to doing and believing more and more without evidence. They then go on to claim things that they couldn't possibly know, and that even they do not understand. This is outrageous both in the intellectual sense and its behavioural implications. | ||
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Lixler
United States265 Posts
On May 19 2012 10:36 Roe wrote: I didn't say it had anything to do with religion (may well have, I don't know either way), I said pacifism and non-violence to the extreme is outrageous, and gave the WW2 example to illustrate a time where even a religion such as Jainism is not exempt from being fantastic and absurd. I already told you, a religious person believes things without evidence. That's what faith is. That's what the core of religion and theism is. Even though I don't see it or can't measure it somehow or through any empirical means, it still exists. Once you believe that, your mind is opened to doing and believing more and more without evidence. They then go on to claim things that they couldn't possibly know, and that even they do not understand. This is outrageous both in the intellectual sense and its behavioural implications. Religious people believe things without evidence, and so do all other people. Religious people accept a certain kind of claim, maybe that some infinitely wise/powerful/benevolent being exists, based on factors that do not qualify as evidence in the modern sense. Every single human accepts some statements without evidence proper, for instance the statement "The physical laws governing the future are very likely going to be the same physical laws as those governing the past." You've chosen to draw your line between religious and non-religious folk in a silly place, and your conclusions are therefore themselves rendered silly. | ||
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Aerisky
United States12129 Posts
I already told you, a religious person believes things without evidence. That's what faith is. That's what the core of religion and theism is. Even though I don't see it or can't measure it somehow or through any empirical means, it still exists. Once you believe that, your mind is opened to doing and believing more and more without evidence. They then go on to claim things that they couldn't possibly know, and that even they do not understand. This is outrageous both in the intellectual sense and its behavioural implications. This is like the reverse of the slippery slope argument used by conservatives. Their belief in something without necessarily extensively questioning said beliefs does not directly lead to a "gateway irrationality" in that sense. I know people who believe in their faith mostly because of some life-changing event which they felt originated from some sort of higher power and generally shifted their worldview around their faith but not completely beyond the bounds of reason, maybe you don't associate with the same people, but a lot of religious individuals are this way. With regard to "claiming things that they couldn't possibly know/understand", it's really a grey area. You're arguing that theological texts state certain things which some would find hard to believe without immediately tangible, empirical evidence, and because religious individuals trust in these texts, they will go on to do increasingly irrational and dangerous things. If you want to look at it from a purely secular perspective, religion can clearly be beneficial in turning people's lives around. You speak as if their faith transforms them into a time-bomb of irrationality waiting to explode since they will also easily and rapidly absorb any type of other irrational belief. Also, expressing belief in things does not equate to imposing their beliefs on others, refraining from doing so has mentioned as sufficient; as long as religious people are not force-feeding their presumable hogwash onto others or committing unspeakable violations of others' rights with their behavior regularly and en masse, nobody really has the right to take it away from them. Perhaps it's outrageous in the intellectual sense, but it's silly to argue that religion will lead to massively detrimental behavioral changes. I can say that there are many individuals much smarter, must more intellectually competent than you and I will ever be who are theists or atheists. Behaviorally, religion does not categorically imply that every religious person commits outrageous slippery-slope-esque levels of intrusion into others' lives through relative atrocities, which is what you're implying. Call them stupid or intellectually challenged or weak-minded, put yourselves above theists, but the fact remains that there are theists intelligent and logical perhaps in all but their belief system--assumedly. You're drawing an awkward conclusion as well, as there are plenty atheists who do not challenge or explore their beliefs and examine evidence as well. Does that make them "right through ignorance"? | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
On May 19 2012 10:00 koreasilver wrote: 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). Ah, ok, I have not read the later Nietzsche. I always found him a bit too bombastic to be enjoyable. | ||
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Nibbler89
884 Posts
Looking forward to his response | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
Yeah Deuteronomy is not a very nice book  | ||
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masterbreti
Korea (South)2711 Posts
You do understand that the old testament is extremely metaphorical, and none of it is to be taken literally? Also each sentence you have provided, since the old testament has been translated from herbrew thousands of times of the course of human history, we get a very skewed version of a book that was very strict for its time. Most of those rules were likely threats by the clergy of the time to keep order. Listing so many rules was a way to keep people quiet and not to stir trouble. Just putting it this way. I personally don't believe the old testament is much more than old stories thought up be wise thinkers to put fear into the followers. I want to talk specifically the new testament, and the Koran. | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
edit: and, of course, Christian theology explicitly rejects the ketuvim as something which should be interpreted literally. Christ dissolves the old law, forget in which gospel | ||
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koreasilver
9109 Posts
On May 19 2012 11:16 sam!zdat wrote: Ah, ok, I have not read the later Nietzsche. I always found him a bit too bombastic to be enjoyable. The Antichrist is definitely worth reading. I usually find that almost all of Nietzsche's writings on Christianity to be important, especially his critique of Paul. In a sense Nietzsche's prime enemy really is Paul of Tarsus above anyone else as he makes it abundantly clear that for him Christ is tolerable to some degree because "Christ is an idiot," whereas Paul is not an idiot, and as such, is a dangerous man. As for how one reads the Old Testament I'm going to have to highly disagree with you two because I am highly skeptical of this sort of reading of scripture in line with Liberal Protestantism both as an outsider to the faith and a student of theology. | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
I can't claim to know anything about Christianity, except that I've read a good chunk of the Bible (not a lot of Paul, I didn't like him) | ||
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GrayArea
United States872 Posts
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
On May 19 2012 15:25 GrayArea wrote: As a person who graduated with a degree in Religious Studies, this is the one thing I learned: Religion is what you interpret it to be. Did you ask for your money back? | ||
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n3ac3y
United States108 Posts
That's not nice. Belittling someone in this way doesn't serve to educate or to open people's minds. And in all honesty, when trying to open someone's mind it's best to not piss on their understanding, even if it is wrong. There is an argument surely to be made as well about interpretation and what would replace religion if it were non-existant: A man suffers from a heart attack and in his ordeal grabs hold of a bedpost and suddenly is fine. This man goes on a to create a religion around this amazing bed post and 1000's of years later the religion of "Bedaphost" is a thriving well into the 3000s. I just am never fully convinced that getting rid of religion in the grand sense is ever possible. | ||
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Servius_Fulvius
United States947 Posts
You think so? I'm almost finished with it (it's been my nightly reading for the last two weeks - yes, I read the Bible every night :p) and don't think it's very mean at all. It's kind of boring, but it's the last leg of the Pentateuch and has this "senior year" feeling to it. Whenever I see non-Christians in particular quoting this book to make them look bad they selectively leave out the parts where Moses is told that the Israelites are are going to fail miserably. The book is a huge step up from Leviticus which reads like a dry law book (oh wait..). For the record, whenever I see "anti-theists" bring up old testament law to back a sweeping claim I can never take them seriously. This is a rough example, but it's like seeing someone gloss over an original copy of the US Constitution and saying "The U.S. is a terrible place because women aren't allowed to vote, LOL!" Don't worry, I feel the same way when "Christians" decide they want to spew hate on their fellow man using the same set of laws. Sure, we can debate endlessly whether a particular passage is literal or figurative and whether the author is authentic or if the time period of X book is consistent with the events it describes. Let's not do that since it's way beyond the scope of the OP. A man suffers from a heart attack and in his ordeal grabs hold of a bedpost and suddenly is fine. This man goes on a to create a religion around this amazing bed post and 1000's of years later the religion of "Bedaphost" is a thriving well into the 3000s. I just am never fully convinced that getting rid of religion in the grand sense is ever possible. Adding emoticons to imply that this is a bad thing doesn't make you much better than the poster with the belittling comment. You speak of "opening someone's mind". Does this mean if someone's mind is "open" they see that faith is "wrong"? If so, then you missed the entire point of this thread. In case you're wondering, this is the point: But along with this line of thinking, I realized that if islam, judaism, christian people can come together and be bros, i can too. i realized that, while there are crazy fundamentalists and etc... secular people also have legit and not so legit people. so then i thought about how while i still don't believe in god, souls, an afterlife, i am pretty similar to these people in the fact that we ask the questions of why are we alive and why is right and wrong and why is the meaning of living. The OP is 100% right, so if you're incapable of having a conversation with someone who holds a faith without trying to change them, think less of them, or prove them wrong by your personal lens of truth then you're just as bad as the religious bigots. Edit: I have a different set of rants for religious people who resist science and discovery, so rest assured that I have a lot of problems with many individuals who also share my faith... | ||
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GrayArea
United States872 Posts
Dont make conclusions if you havent experienced something for yourself. If you spend 4 years studying religions and draw a differenr conclusion, i will be happy to hear it. | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
On May 20 2012 02:22 GrayArea wrote: Dont make conclusions if you havent experienced something for yourself. If you spend 4 years studying religions and draw a differenr conclusion, i will be happy to hear it. Well, I have spend <4 years, but I feel that there's certainly more to it than YMMV. At the very least, philosophical traditions within religions are not deserving of being dismissed. Augustine, to name just one, is not simply "what you interpret it to be." There may be a weaker form of your thesis which I might endorse. edit: And I'll say that I don't believe there's any difference between religion and philosophy, pace Heidegger above edit again: And sorry if I sounded "belittling," but I do feel that if that was the ONLY thing you learned I don't see why you did it. Out of curiosity, what topic have you studied in particular? and I do apologize for being flippant | ||
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koreasilver
9109 Posts
On May 20 2012 02:38 sam!zdat wrote: Well, I have spend <4 years, but I feel that there's certainly more to it than YMMV. At the very least, philosophical traditions within religions are not deserving of being dismissed. Augustine, to name just one, is not simply "what you interpret it to be." There may be a weaker form of your thesis which I might endorse. edit: And I'll say that I don't believe there's any difference between religion and philosophy, pace Heidegger above edit again: And sorry if I sounded "belittling," but I do feel that if that was the ONLY thing you learned I don't see why you did it. Out of curiosity, what topic have you studied in particular? and I do apologize for being flippant If you don't think there isn't any difference between philosophy and theology in the western tradition then you've been reading really wrong. Even those that tried to harmonize the two like the greater Catholic tradition and the Liberal Protestants still put a distinction between the two. | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
Pretty self-conscious of that. edit: the separation between the two is my own version of "intellectual scandal" | ||
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koreasilver
9109 Posts
Just think about this for a second. For example, in Christian theology, what is the grounding for its discourse? What is the centre in which the dialogue must, in some way or another, revolve around or at least come back to, if not begin with it? What is its subject, and what is it subject to? Think about what constitutes a natural science like biology. What is the study of biology - what do biologists do? Then think about philosophy, not just a specialized field like ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, etc., but the practice as a whole. If you can't understand the differences between theology and philosophy then you don't understand either. Of course there is a lot of overlap between the two as theologians of all ages are obviously influenced by the prevailing philosophical thought of its times, and philosophy is also influenced by the theological thoughts of its times (in the history of Western thought with the rise of Christianity, but also in the Islamic traditions) but there is a clear distinction. edit: Imagine how silly it would be if a natural science had to refer and ground itself in biblical scripture. Those that do, in the present day, are all laughable. | ||
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