Another Big Big Thread of Religious Discussion

[Fifthfiend]

The last one was looking pretty unwieldy so I thought I'd start it over.

Same rules as before:

-this thread is completely unmoderated. We are putting our faith in you all to be able to discuss these things on your own in a mature and civilized manner.

-Religious and religion-related discussions in this forum go here and only here, religious discussions made anywhere other than here will be met with swift and terrible retribution.

For reference the former thread can be found here.

[ZAKtheGeek]

First post!

<_<

And to prevent this post from being completely devoid of content, here's some quotes I've collected.

"We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further."
Richard Dawkins, Snake Oil and Holy Water

"Faith - that's another word for ignorance, isn't it? I never understood how people could be so proud of believing in something they have no proof of at all. Like that's an achievement."
House, House, House vs. God

"You know I get it if people are just looking for a way to fill the holes. But they want the holes, they want to live in the holes. And they go nuts when somebody else pours dirt in their holes. Climb out of your holes, people!"
House, House, House vs. God

"Isn't it interesting that religious behavior is so close to being crazy we can't tell them apart?"
House, House, House vs. God

"If there is some higher order running the universe, it's probably so different from anything our species can conceive there's no point in our even thinking about it. But I doubt He gives a damn about my butt."
Cameron, House, House vs. God

"I think penguins might as well speculate about nuclear physics."
Cameron, House, House vs. God

"Blind faith is an ironic gift to return to the Creator of human intelligence."
~?

"We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart"
~H. L. Mencken

"Religion: Junk food for thought... with an unpleasant aftertaste. The packaging is often pretty, but the content has no nutritional value."
~?

"It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into."
~Jonathan Swift

[craigless]

this is my first small step outside of the RaiRO forums, so be gentle.

it's funny. i was brought up catholic, i was a youth minister/peer leader for my church in high school, i've been confirmed, and i go to church somewhat regularly. however, i don't really feel a real "connection" to God or Jesus. i don't remember when God went the way of santa claus and the easter bunny, but at a certain age i just stopped believing He existed. as i got older it seemed to me that people who openly discussed their relationship with God were just faking it.

to really have faith and believe in God i think a fairly significant personal epiphany needs to occur; the church and other people ultimately failed to convey to me that the God they believe in is real. most of the time they only succeeded in making me dislike organized religion, either because people allow it to dominate every aspect of their lives or they hypocritically twist it to suit their needs. it's the reason i stopped doing the youth minister/peer leader thing: the people who are generally involved in that stuff are more than i can stomach. i actually met a girl through the church whose first comment to one of my friend was "i like your beard, it's very Christ-like!" another girl i was friends with used to proudly declare that she was a jesus freak. even after she slept with her boy friend at the time (she was 18 and he was 17) and justified it by saying that God had answered her prayers and told her that it was alright because they were "in love."

people like the ones i mentioned before give religious individuals a bad name. they make it so easy for people to dismiss anyone who is religious as an airhead who only sees what they want to see, and condemns that which they do not understand (on a side note, i notice that a lot of college professors tend to joke about religion, like being religious and being capable of intelligent and logical reasoning are mutually exclusive). in my opinion, religion should really be nothing more than a set of values or morals to be kept in mind and aspire to.

[ZAKtheGeek]

And not necessarily aspired to perfectly, either, since sometimes religions teach us unfortunate lessons.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Just to say Happy Easter for everyone no matter what you believe!

[greed]

Ah Easter, the one time I can say the phrase "thank Christ" without being hypocritical with my athiesm. Well as long as I'm being thankful for the holiday I suppose.

Anyway I thought I'd add the best series I've seen on religion is John Safran vs God. Despite it's title it probably shouldn't be offensive unless you're a zealot of something, as it gives pretty much everything a go. Well except scientology, it's pretty condescending about that. Probably my favourite bit was him doorknocking for atheism around Salt Lake city, dressed up in full mormon gear but with a copy of Origin of Species under his arm. Or him going around the city getting people to answer whether quotes attacking masturbation, sex for pleasure and oral sex were made by the pope or the dalai lama, and then revealing that it was the dalai lama when everyone guessed the pope.
In fairness he even gives atheists a shot. Well a lot of the more annoying of us anyway.

In short, as long as you're confident in what you believe you should be able to get some good laughs from it, if you're not(like those people craigless mentioned) and are just complete zealots or dilitants, yeah I'd skip it.

[Squishy Cheeks]

I believe there is a creator, I just don't believe any religion has gotten it right, mainly if there is a creator. It created the universe, set the rules, and then walked away. Sorta like a really advanced sims game. That is the only relationship that seems to make sense to me, because the current state of the universe does not make sense to me if entropy is the natural order. Perhaps the creator talks to some people, perhaps not. If it does talk it's voice would probably be so subtle, you'd really need to be listening to hear it at all.

Reason and logic do not disprove a dieties existance, or even multiple dieties. There is no way known to man to prove or disprove the existance of a creator. Mainly because science can't answer the question of why. Why is it this way, and not some other way? Why do creatures evolve? Why did the Big Bang happen? I've never heard any answer from the purely logical that even remotely begins to satisfy that answer, most of them ammount to "it just does."

So then which religion is right, I'd say all are, and none are. No one religion has a monopoly on all the answers. Even Science is becoming a religion of sorts now, and it still can't answer all my questions. No one religion can answer all the questions, therefore they are not entirely correct. Perhaps it was a failure to communicate on the founding members (i.e. lost books of the bible, religions based on oral traditions.) of said church, perhaps it was a malicious attempt to subvert said religion, (i.e. the selling of salvation for monetary gain, Fundementalist terrorist groups) or just plain old bigotry, that has caused the flaws in all religions. The key is to ask questions, and to trust your intuition. If an answer seems shallow, it probably is. There is no shame in admiting you just don't know.

Is there a god or gods? I don't know, but I feel there is something greater than human intellect at work.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Originally Posted by Squishy Cheeks

Why is it this way, and not some other way?

Becuase it wouldn't work any other. There are a set of values that determine the strengths and levels of all things; gravity, electro-magnetism, strong/weak nuclear forces, the equation of E=MC2, and if any of them were different, things wouldn't work.

Basic example; if gravity was a more powerful force than EM, anything falling from even a small high would continue to fall through the ground, because it is unopposed by EM. Not only that, but planets and suns would have a harder time forming, because gravity would crush the matter too much, creating singularites and then life wouldn't develop.

Why do creatures evolve?

Ask Darwin.

Why did the Big Bang happen? I've never heard any answer from the purely logical that even remotely begins to satisfy that answer, most of them ammount to "it just does."

No, we are not sure how the Big Bang occured, but we do have many theories proposing possible answers, which is more than can be said for most religions, who basically just give the answer, "God did it".

[ZAKtheGeek]

Reason and logic do not disprove a dieties existance, or even multiple dieties. There is no way known to man to prove or disprove the existance of a creator.

Well, it could be proven, or at least strongly suggested by evidence. Proving it false, now that's impossible.

Why do creatures evolve?

The theory of evolution would be completely unacceptable if the process of natural selection had not been extensively described as its overall cause.

I've never heard any answer from the purely logical that even remotely begins to satisfy that answer, most of them ammount to "it just does."

That, in itself, doesn't say much. You can just keep asking, "Why?" about anything, and eventually you'll reach a "just because." Why did the universe start? God wanted it to. Why? It wanted worshipers. Why? They make it happy. Why? God loves being loved. Why? Love is good. Why? Because God said so. Why? Because it is so. Why? Just because.

So then which religion is right, I'd say all are, and none are.

Why would any religion be right? We're clearly talking about something transcendental here, so why would you think any human has ever had a grasp of it? And why would that particular faith be one that survives today out of the thousands of distinct ones that humans have held?

This is a leap that bothers me. On several occasions now, I've read people describe their reasoning for some sort of vague deism, and usually that reasoning is pretty sound. Then, from that, they leap to something specific with little explanation ("Yeah, Jesus sounds pretty good, and he probably existed..."). There is a massive difference between the idea that there might be an entity that created everything, and all the claims of almost any modern religion.

[Toast]

One thing I've noticed about overtly religious people is that they have a tendency to attribute their successes to god and their failures to themselves. This obviously doesn't hold true to all religious people, just a large number of the ones I know personally. It's not a good mix, overall. It tends to lead to an external locus of control, which contributes to a host of other problems.

Religion itself serves only one major purpose, as a form of social control. That doesn't mean that's all it has to be, however. From a psychological standpoint, being a part of a religious organization can be a good thing, but that's just filling one small step on Maslow's hierarchy of needs (belonging), and not the most important (self-actualization). However, to me at least, the exclusion of differing opinions in most religious settings (or at least, all the one's I've been exposed to) outweighs this small benefit. The need to belong can be fulfilled in any number of places.

There's actually been many different psychological stages of religious belief (in a developmental sense). I really like this one, mostly because it's relatively simple to understand and it's on more of a personal level than some. It should be noted that I'm paraphrasing from notes taken in a social psychology class a couple years ago, and unfortunately didn't write down the name of who developed it.

It starts with:
Fear- This is the stage that most people remain stuck in for most of their lives. They believe because they fear the consequences of not believing, or behaving in a manner that is contrary to their beliefs (excluding rationalizing).

Devotion- This is the second largest category. These are the people that really believe, there really is no other way to put it.

Questioning- This is when a person begins to disagree with some or all aspects of his belief. Sometimes the questioning is triggered by a specific event, but not always. The person still believes, but finds fault with that belief.

Creation/Synthesis- This is when the person is starting to form their own beliefs. They may draw primarily from their original belief or they may draw from other sources, or both. The simple way of saying it is finding out what works for them.

Confirming Spirituality- The person has formed their beliefs into something they can express. They're self-actualizing. this is essentially the final stage, however, that isn't always the case.

Epiphany- This is a short-lived state of being. Generally considered to be accompanied by an altered state of consciousness.