Religion BAH! Phoney

[Oneironaut]

a counter-rant?

very well then...

I think its the height of arrogance to claim knowledge of the boundaries of reality, to say what does and does not count and so claim a full understanding of causality free from "super-natural" causes.

Nobody is claiming absolute knowledge of anything. All we are doing is asking for evidence that a deity exists, and as long as there is exactly as much evidence for God as there is for unicorns, we realize that both ideas should be treated with about the same level of seriousness. Besides, if real observable evidence of a deity or souls or whatever did surface, they would cease to be "supernatural" phenomena. They would be entirely natural, by definition, since one could detect them and potentially experiment with them, and at least provide empirical evidence that they exist. Such evidence, of course, is entirely lacking, and it is really the height of arrogance to assume that your belief should be taken seriously without any supporting logic or evidence whatsoever, while asking others to back up their claims about reality.

I am almost certain that there is more going on behind the scenes so to speak,

Behind the scenes of what? Where's your evidence?

and so simple humility keeps me from dismissing religion out of hand.

I am not dismissing it out of hand. I am looking at the claims, searching for evidence of them, and realizing that if the evidence is lacking after millennia of searching for it, there probably isn't much to the claims.

Religion has its faults but I have never seen anyone attempt to justify their own through religion.

Really. You've never read much of the Crusades, have you? Or the way Islamic terrorists justify their actions? Or the doctor-murdering anti-abortionists? The ends justify the means, they say, and they have scripture to back up what they've done.

I have never told someone that they were a horrible person only to have them respond, "well, I'm a catholic".

Umm...neither have I...

Religion is just one path some people choose to traverse through life. Blaming religion is just a cop out to avoid blaming the choices people make. And once you choose to blame religion instead of simply people's choices, you probably think you're no longer part of the problem.

Huh? Are you denying that religion can have influences on people's behaviors? People don't just look through the available religions and choose which one fits them best. Most of the time they are indoctrinated from birth by their parents before they reach the age where they can seriously rationally analyze the claims, and by the time they can they are too emotionally and socially attached to the belief system that they are deathly afraid of giving it up, which is why most people coincidentally have the same religion as their parents (surprise surprise!). People don't make decisions in a vacuum. They are products of their social environments.

But you are, because now religious people are just another big "them" category.

end rant.

Umm, no. I don't hate religious people, or group them all together into one unified category. I just see superstitions, especially ones which promote the idea of an infallible dictator of the universe, as destructive to common sense, rationality, and humanist ethics. We need to deal with problems ourselves here on earth instead of inventing imaginary cosmic justice systems which we think will solve everything for us in the end.

[Polymirize]

I guess my point being is that the worst superstition of all is the belief in rationality, because it sins against itself.

you're making the link between various problems a religious one, and I'm making it more of a human one.

ie, the problem is not that people are so dedicated to their religion, and more that people are not willing to be understanding to others who are different.

hint hint?

[Hamlet]

Well, in our secular view of the world, Religion is pretty outdated and superstitious. It just doesn't seem rational at all in the light of current knowledge.

But...it's here, it's been here for thousands of years, and there are reasons for that. No matter how badly we want to throw it away and sigh at all the troubles it's causing, it's a part of who we are as human beings.

Isn't there the study of Memes? That is, applying Darwinian theory to ideas as we would species to see how they persist in society? I really don't know much about it but the concept is a body of thought goes through the same 'survival of the fittest' test just as species do. I might be totally off but it seems the concepts of God and Gods would apply. In other words, love or hate religion, we probably wouldn't be around or at least at the top of the food chain without it.

Jung talked about 'embracing our shadow' and in a rational, scientific world, maybe it applies to our religious past and present. The Scientific community is antagonistic now towards religion (and rightly so), but on down the road maybe there is greater understanding to be had by acknowledging that the God concept is an integral part of being human.

It's just some ideas I'm starting to play with. Nothing I'm an authority on by any means. But after a large part of my life blowing it all off as hogwash, I'm starting to think I'll never gain much insight until I look backwards and maybe see what it's really all about.

Joseph Campbell wrote 'The Power of Myth' and I'm just now starting to spend some time with it. It seems to me that this is a new perspective on our past and present that might give clues to our possible future?

lol...maybe not and I'm completely full of shit...we'll see

[Dais]

hahaha the frist guy has it right because thats all we can do to truely know what god is is impossiable god is obviously something well beyond the mind of man but then again like some one already said so many find direction and comfrot in thier ideas