Another Big Big Thread of Religious Discussion

[F-Cupid Rager]

Epiphany~ Not as short-lived as we would like to believe. People have made history-changing decisions based on those little zaps to the brain.

On another note, "considered" by who? I hope it wasn't the people who spent thousands of dollars trying to invent a "Left-Handed Whopper". I believe that a person can reach an understanding of the infinite without the need to alter their consciousness, although there is the chance that the epiphany in question would trigger the afore-mentioned altered consciousness state.
Maybe I misread that statement, but it seems to imply that the altered state causes the epiphany, and not the other way around. Would you please clarify this for me?

[Sithdarth]

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.

That's about half right. There are a whole range of values for these constants that would make a workable universe. A good majority of these would end up being relatively close to ours. We're talking about differences like the universe recollapsing, which it doesn't appear it will, or a slight change in the mass of a graviton. There are universes that would just totally not work though and some quantum theorist would have you believe that all possible universes exists out there parallel to ours we just happen to be in this one because we are.

[BitVyper]

Becuase it wouldn't work any other

Oh, there's lots of ways it could potentially work. Probably quite a few that we can't even imagine. It just happened to turn out this way. You only have to look at the deep deep sea to know that life is perfectly capable of occurring in vastly different environments to what we have up here. Intelligent life, no less: Just look at the vampire squid.

Life's an anomaly to begin with. Who knows where and how else it can occur. We do know that the variation in environments that exist in the universe is pretty much limited only by your imagination, and we've got evidence on our own planet in things like the extremophiles and vampire squids, that life can survive pretty much however and wherever it damn well pleases.

Why do creatures evolve?

They don't. This makes it sound like an active process; like evolution is something that hits you. Evolution is just a consequence of existence. The term only really works to describe the phenomena as a whole. Anything else makes it sound like some kind of process, or - heaven forbid - like it's progressive.

I can understand and accept looking at it as a process, because what else can you really do? But that tends to lead to incorrect conclusions about it, like you put a species (another funny term, actually, but language deconstruction isn't the purpose here) into the machine, and it comes out different. It's not a thing. Giving it a name to begin with makes it sound like it has some sort of existence.

Why did the Big Bang happen?

All we have are some ideas, but the point is that we don't put it up as the absolute, unassailable truth. In fact, there's a pretty good chance we'll never know what happened then, but that doesn't mean we accept just any idea.

Of course, the why may not even exist. In fact, asking why in the first place implies some kind of will behind it, so obviously, answering the question becomes impossible there.

[Toast]

Originally Posted by F-Cupid Rager

Epiphany~ Not as short-lived as we would like to believe. People have made history-changing decisions based on those little zaps to the brain.

On another note, "considered" by who? I hope it wasn't the people who spent thousands of dollars trying to invent a "Left-Handed Whopper". I believe that a person can reach an understanding of the infinite without the need to alter their consciousness, although there is the chance that the epiphany in question would trigger the afore-mentioned altered consciousness state.
Maybe I misread that statement, but it seems to imply that the altered state causes the epiphany, and not the other way around. Would you please clarify this for me?

I should have clarified a little more here. I meant short-lived as in short duration. That doesn't mean you can't reach epiphany more than once, however. Also, just because the epiphany itself is short, doesn't mean the new awareness granted by it disappears when the person returns to normal consciousness.

On the second part, I think what was meant was that an epiphany generally can't occur without an altered state of consciousness, but that doesn't mean it causes the epiphany (necessary but not sufficient). For instance, I could, if I wanted, alter my consciousness a dozen times a day, either through meditation or a change in breathing patterns. billions of people do it every day when they take any kind of drug that effects the brain or mind (and most of them do). This doesn't mean that an epiphany occurs every time I alter my consciousness.

[F-Cupid Rager]

That's all I wanted to know.

But who said the BB happened in the first place? I'm not going creationist theory-style here, just that a lot of our assumptions tend to be based on other assumptions, just throwin' it out there.

[Fifthfiend]

I was gonna post this in Links Thread for Funny but then I realized it really belongs here.

[F-Cupid Rager]

Is it just me, or is there a peanut movement happening throughout this forum? This is the third thread involving the stuff today...

But seriously, folks.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Originally Posted by fifthfiend

I was gonna post this in Links Thread for Funny but then I realized it really belongs here

That's the most warped and twisted bit of "scientific logic" perpetrated by religion I have ever seen.

Me thinks they need to have some stuff explained to them properly.

Though I'm assuming this is some sort of piss-take, right? They CAN'T be being serious there can they?

And yeah, what is it with peanuts around here lately??

[Sesshoumaru]

Religion itself serves only one major purpose, as a form of social control.

Aw...when you say it like that it sounds like some sort of conspiracy. Lets put it into perspective. Both government and laws serve only one major purpose, can you guess what it is (if you can't, look at the what I quoted, then think about it for a moment)? Does that mean its a bad thing? Of course, this line of discussion assumes that what I quoted is right, which I don't think it is. But I'm gonna take the cheap way out and say that I can't really convey my thoughts in words at the moment (which is true, I guess).

New topic. I absolutely despise how the 'intellectuals' have systematically implemented an agenda to suppress religion (specially Christianity, more specially Catholism). Think I'm a conspiracy nut? Well, I got some examples for you. Take the EU, while religious toleration is certainly commendable, thats not what they have (despite their assurances to the contray). A few years ago, Italy elected a delagate for the EU, they (the EU) refused to acknowladge his election; their reason basically amounted to "your Catholic, so we can't trust you." The same reasoning has been applied in many cases, but most of what I'm thinking of is the deeply rooted anti-Catholicism in Amercia, which isn't really the point I'm trying to make (if you really don't beleive me on this point though, then just mention it and I'll post some support for that assertion, but it really is quite obvious).

The other example I have for now is the (reletively) recent movement to push all forms of religious discourse into the 'private sphere,' whatever thats supposed to mean.

Well, thats all I have for now. Stay tuned for next episode, "The Hipocracy of the Media," where NPF's resident Catholic examines the wide-spread bias against Catholicism, and Christianity in general that has permeated all (well, almost all) of the major media outlets (and I'm just talking about the news media).

[Fifthfiend]

New topic. I absolutely despise how the 'intellectuals' have systematically implemented an agenda to suppress religion (specially Christianity, more specially Catholism). Think I'm a conspiracy nut? Well, I got some examples for you. Take the EU, while religious toleration is certainly commendable, thats not what they have (despite their assurances to the contray). A few years ago, Italy elected a delagate for the EU, they (the EU) refused to acknowladge his election; their reason basically amounted to "your Catholic, so we can't trust you." The same reasoning has been applied in many cases, but most of what I'm thinking of is the deeply rooted anti-Catholicism in Amercia, which isn't really the point I'm trying to make (if you really don't beleive me on this point though, then just mention it and I'll post some support for that assertion, but it really is quite obvious).

The other example I have for now is the (reletively) recent movement to push all forms of religious discourse into the 'private sphere,' whatever thats supposed to mean.

Well, thats all I have for now. Stay tuned for next episode, "The Hipocracy of the Media," where NPF's resident Catholic examines the wide-spread bias against Catholicism, and Christianity in general that has permeated all (well, almost all) of the major media outlets (and I'm just talking about the news media).

It's interesting that you say "whatever that's supposed to mean," because I really don't know what any of the above is supposed to mean.

America's deeply rooted anti Catholicism has historically come from um... Protestants. You know, other Christians? As far as Christianity in general, it's my experience that most such claims of 'bias' tend to be of Christians being held to the same standards of behavior as anybody of any other belief. Which is tough nuggets, I guess.

You say you have "examples," but you apparently only have one, for which no useful information is provided by which anybody might verify the truth of your claims. A news-story link or even the name of this purportedly discriminated-against delegate would be helpful.

And while we're on the subject of private versus public faith, it's worth noting that in the bible, Christ spoke in no uncertain terms of keeping one's faith to oneself.

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Anyway, here's an article I meant to post some time ago in the former big religion thread, but wasn't able to find. It goes a long way, I suppose, towards explaining my own viewpoint regarding the nexus of faith, society, and culture.

From 1988 to 1993, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences sponsored an interdisciplinary study known as The Fundamentalism Project, the largest such study ever done. More than 100 scholars from all over the world took part, reporting on every imaginable kind of fundamentalism. And what they discovered was that the agenda of all fundamentalist movements in the world is virtually identical, regardless of religion or culture.

They identified five characteristics shared by virtually all fundamentalisms. The fundamentalists' agenda starts with insistence that their rules must be made to apply to all people, and to all areas of life. There can be no separation of church and state, or of public and private areas of life. The rigid rules of God—and they never doubt that they and only they have got these right—must become the law of the land. Pat Robertson, again, has said that just as Supreme Court justices place a hand on the Bible and swear to uphold the Constitution, so they should also place a hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible. In Khomeini's Iran, and in the recent Taliban rule of Afghanistan, we saw how brutal and bloody this looks in real time.

The second agenda item is really at the top of the list, and it's vulgarly simple: Men are on top. Men are bigger and stronger, and they rule not only through physical strength but also and more importantly through their influence on the laws and rules of the land. Men set the boundaries. Men define the norms, and men enforce them. They also define women, and they define them through narrowly conceived biological functions. Women are to be supportive wives, mothers, and homemakers.

A third item follows from the others. (Indeed each part of the fundamentalist agenda is necessarily interlocked, and needs every other part to survive.) Since there is only one right picture of the world, one right set of beliefs, and one right set of roles for men, women, and children, it is imperative that this picture and these rules be communicated precisely to the next generation. Therefore, fundamentalists must control education by controlling textbooks and teaching styles, deciding what may and may not be taught.

Fourth, fundamentalists spurn the modern, and want to return to a nostalgic vision of a golden age that never really existed. Several of the scholars observed a strong and deep resemblance between fundamentalism and fascism. Both have almost identical agendas. Men are on top, women are subservient, there is one rigid set of rules, with police and military might to enforce them, and education is tightly controlled by the state. One scholar suggested that it's helpful to understand fundamentalism as religious fascism, and fascism as political fundamentalism. The phrase “overcoming the modern” is a fascist slogan dating back to at least 1941.

The fifth point is the most abstract, though it's foundational. Fundamentalists deny history in a radical and idiosyncratic way. Fundamentalists know as well or better than anybody that culture shapes everything it touches: The times we live in color how we think, what we value, and the kind of people we become. Fundamentalists agree on the perverseness of modern American society: the air of permissiveness and narcissism, individual rights unbalanced by responsibilities, sex divorced from commitment, and so on. What they don't want to see is the way culture colored the era when their scriptures were created.

Good biblical scholarship begins by studying the cultural situation when scriptures were written in search of their original intent, so that we can better discern what messages they may still have that are relevant for our lives. But if fundamentalists were to admit that their own scriptures are as culturally conditioned as everything else, they would lose the foundation of their certainties. Some scholars see evidence that St. Paul, for instance, had severe personal hang-ups about sex that may account for his harsh teachings about homosexuality and women. Many biblical scholars treat some of Paul's teachings as rants rather than revelations. But for fundamentalists, their scriptures fell straight from heaven in a leather-bound book, every jot and tittle intact.

Except for the illustrations I've added in laying out the agenda that the Fundamentalism Project discovered, you can't tell what religion, culture, or century I'm describing. The scholars discovered this a dozen years ago while they were presenting abstracts of their papers. Several noted that all their papers were sounding alike, reporting on “species” when studying the “genus” was called for, that there were strong family resemblances between all fundamentalisms, even when the religions had had no contact, no way to influence each other.

The only way all fundamentalisms can have the same agenda is if the agenda preceded all the religions. And it did. Fundamentalist behaviors are familiar because we've all seen them so many times. These men are acting the role of “alpha males” who define the boundaries of their group's territory and the norms and behaviors that define members of their in-group. These are the behaviors of territorial species in which males are stronger than females. In biological terms, these are the characteristic behaviors of sexually dimorphous territorial animals. Males set and enforce the rules, females obey the males and raise the children; there is a clear separation between the in-group and the out-group. The in-group is protected; outsiders are expelled or fought.

It is easier to account for this set of behavioral biases as part of the common evolutionary heritage of our species than to argue that it is simply a monumental coincidence that the social and behavioral agendas of all fundamentalisms and fascisms are essentially identical.

What conservatives are conserving is the biological default setting of our species, which has strong family resemblances to the default setting of thousands of other species. This means that when fundamentalists say they are obeying the word of God, they have severely understated the authority for their position. The real authority behind this behavioral scheme is millions of years older than all the religions and all the gods there have ever been. It is the picture of life that gave birth to most of the gods as its projected champions.

Fundamentalism is absolutely natural, ancient, powerful—and inadequate. It's a means of structuring relationships that evolved when we lived in troops of 150 or less. But in the modern world, it's completely incapable of the nuance or flexibility needed to structure humane societies.