Religion vs. Reason

[shadow9d9]

Originally posted by: Trevelyan

Originally posted by: shadow9d9

Originally posted by: AnitaPeterson

Originally posted by: straightalker
I hear a considerable amount of chatter on this forum from the athiests who want to take away the rights of everyone else to believe in whatever they choose to believe in.

Paranoid much, zealot?

Yeah, he is the same nut the OP is talking about... any criticism of religion and they lose all comprehension and feel it is an attack on them...

Not only that, but most of the posters like the OP are NOT atheists.. you could be MANY things, including agnostic, and even religious and understand the point of the OP.... Unfortunately, since it is much easier to group people all together, they just ASSUME they are an atheist, so they could make another wild assumption like "they want to take away the rights of everyone else."

It is the RELIGIOUS groups that take away the rights of others and we could cite many many many examples... as others have challenged, name ONE "atheist" poster that has wanted to take away other's rights...

What are "rights"? Where do you get your "rights"? Do you have the right to kill another man? Are "right wing conservative religious fundamentalist Bible thumper creationist prolife lunatic nutjobs" taking that right away from you by imposing their moral code on you? How do we decide what human rights are?

The truth is, unless your rights are absolute, you have no rights. Faith in human reason is a slap in the face to all of history, and what we decide human rights are change every generation. God is the only absoulte in this world, and he has given us our rights.

God is an absolute? Wouldn't/won't it be funny, when you die, that nothing happens.. you simply cease to exist... What would happen to your "absolute" then? Braindead...

 

[fitzov]

religion vs. reason? I think you need to consider the flawed nature of your concepts. Why is reason contrary to religion?

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: fitzov
religion vs. reason? I think you need to consider the flawed nature of your concepts. Why is reason contrary to religion?

This depends on whether you see religion as that which leads a person to truth dynamically according to the particular nature of a person's blindness or if you see it as a one size fits all prescription that has forever and ever settled this question in just one way for all people and all time. A dynamic living religion requires reason whereas the religions that acquire authority via texts are matters of faith. But in any case a religion supplies social conditions and foundations from which a real understand once obtained and can still obtain in some cases where there is real light.

Man is upside down to reality living in a wrong world. Nobody upside down can right himself without the guidance of somebody who is right side up in almost all cases.

For these and other reasons nothing at all is known by almost anybody at all regarding real religion so for practical purposes real religion does not exist. It does exist but it is as completely invisible just as is any truth I say here.

 

[1prophet]

I just watched the whole video and it seems to me he slams the apologists of fundamentalism whom he calls moderates more than anything else including secularists who believe the problems are due to some external factor such as economics, education or poverty. He says moderates are blinded by their own moderation and he pretty much slams political correctness.

To paraphrase one of his statements a person could be so well educated to build a nuclear bomb and still believe he is going to get his 72 virgins.

 

[Tab]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: fitzov
religion vs. reason? I think you need to consider the flawed nature of your concepts. Why is reason contrary to religion?

This depends on whether you see religion as that which leads a person to truth dynamically according to the particular nature of a person's blindness or if you see it as a one size fits all prescription that has forever and ever settled this question in just one way for all people and all time. A dynamic living religion requires reason whereas the religions that acquire authority via texts are matters of faith. But in any case a religion supplies social conditions and foundations from which a real understand once obtained and can still obtain in some cases where there is real light.

Man is upside down to reality living in a wrong world. Nobody upside down can right himself without the guidance of somebody who is right side up in almost all cases.

For these and other reasons nothing at all is known by almost anybody at all regarding real religion so for practical purposes real religion does not exist. It does exist but it is as completely invisible just as is any truth I say here.

Moonie, can reason be my religion?

 

[fitzov]

This depends on whether you see religion as that which leads a person to truth dynamically according to the particular nature of a person's blindness or if you see it as a one size fits all prescription that has forever and ever settled this question in just one way for all people and all time

I don't know that I see it as either. William of Occam, for example, thought that faith was essential to reason.

 

[mc00]

I hear a considerable amount of chatter on this forum from the athiests who want to take away the rights of everyone else to believe in whatever they choose to believe in.

heh - I tell you what I really don't give flyin' fck what this nutjobs believe.. What pisses me off is when they try to shove there bs down my throat or stand on street(NYC) with loud speakers yelling "god is coming, those don't accept jesus are going to hell", and like the idiot of my wife uncle "only a fool don't believe in god"..... I ain't athiest either. I'm being attack by religion nutjobs because I don't believe any god,jesus, or any type fcking fairy tales. so I ain't going to sit back let them insult me. So fck them(I'm not saying all religion folks are like this) until they learn to live with those don't get brain wash easily. If there is a god, so? you want a ?

P.S straightalker I'm not trying to attack you, just I'm tired religion people trying play the victim and we the non believers are walkin' demons in there eyes.

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: mc00

I hear a considerable amount of chatter on this forum from the athiests who want to take away the rights of everyone else to believe in whatever they choose to believe in.

heh - I tell you what I really don't give flyin' fck what this nut job believe.. What pisses me off is when try shove there bs down my throat or stand on street(NYC) with loud speakers yelling "god is coming, those don't accept jesus going to hell" or like the idiot of my wife uncle "only a fool don't believe in god"..... I ain't athiest either. I being attack by religion nutjob because I don't believe any god,jesus, or any type fcking fairy tales. so I ain't going to sit back let them insult me. fck them(I'm not saying all religion folks are like this) until they learn to live with those don't get brain wash. if there is a god, so? you want a ?

P.S straightalker not trying attack you just I'm tired religion trying play the victim and we non believers are walkin' demons.

I hope you don't feel threatened or anything like by eternal damnation and stuff like that because I can't figure out why you have all this passion. What pisses me off is commercial advertising.

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: 1prophet
I just watched the whole video and it seems to me he slams the apologists of fundamentalism whom he calls moderates more than anything else including secularists who believe the problems are due to some external factor such as economics, education or poverty. He says moderates are blinded by their own moderation and he pretty much slams political correctness.

To paraphrase one of his statements a person could be so well educated to build a nuclear bomb and still believe he is going to get his 72 virgins.

Well, he's blaming moderates for being moderate toward fundamentalism because fundamentalists will be fundamental toward them. He sees the f people not as harmlessly insane but dangerously insane. He calls it insane to have dogmatic certainty where there's no evidence that can be presented. Are we going to have a world based on unproven beings about whom billions of people have different certainties of are we going to stay with what we can test and see.

 

[mc00]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: mc00

I hear a considerable amount of chatter on this forum from the athiests who want to take away the rights of everyone else to believe in whatever they choose to believe in.

heh - I tell you what I really don't give flyin' fck what this nut job believe.. What pisses me off is when try shove there bs down my throat or stand on street(NYC) with loud speakers yelling "god is coming, those don't accept jesus going to hell" or like the idiot of my wife uncle "only a fool don't believe in god"..... I ain't athiest either. I being attack by religion nutjob because I don't believe any god,jesus, or any type fcking fairy tales. so I ain't going to sit back let them insult me. fck them(I'm not saying all religion folks are like this) until they learn to live with those don't get brain wash. if there is a god, so? you want a ?

P.S straightalker not trying attack you just I'm tired religion trying play the victim and we non believers are walkin' demons.

I hope you don't feel threatened or anything like by eternal damnation and stuff like that because I can't figure out why you have all this passion. What pisses me off is commercial advertising.

no passion, just anger.. like I mention my wife uncle he help some my anger to crow(like the quote he direct to me), and where I live theres alot annoying religion nutjob they don't understand what "back off " means.
"What pisses me off is commercial advertising." oh man don't get me start on that, especially movie theater commericial(not coming soon i like those hehe) haha.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Well, he's blaming moderates for being moderate toward fundamentalism because fundamentalists will be fundamental toward them. He sees the f people not as harmlessly insane but dangerously insane. He calls it insane to have dogmatic certainty where there's no evidence that can be presented. Are we going to have a world based on unproven beings about whom billions of people have different certainties of are we going to stay with what we can test and see.

The problem that always stands in this argument is that for those who have felt God, there is overwhelming evidence of his existence. The failure of fundamentalists is in their reliance on a book to understand their experience of God, rather than allowing their feelings to simply accept him. Since they have tied their experience to the book, they cannot see any other experience. They want to share their experience with others, so they share their book. While the book may describe some of the experience, it in and of itself is not the experience, without which the book is useless.

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Well, he's blaming moderates for being moderate toward fundamentalism because fundamentalists will be fundamental toward them. He sees the f people not as harmlessly insane but dangerously insane. He calls it insane to have dogmatic certainty where there's no evidence that can be presented. Are we going to have a world based on unproven beings about whom billions of people have different certainties of are we going to stay with what we can test and see.

The problem that always stands in this argument is that for those who have felt God, there is overwhelming evidence of his existence. The failure of fundamentalists is in their reliance on a book to understand their experience of God, rather than allowing their feelings to simply accept him. Since they have tied their experience to the book, they cannot see any other experience. They want to share their experience with others, so they share their book. While the book may describe some of the experience, it in and of itself is not the experience, without which the book is useless.

Well the book is not useless because it is a paradime in which those who know what you speak of can at least in part be seen and that can't be all bad, but with the rest I agree.

The problem, of course, lies in the interpretation of experience both in terms of how you see it yourself and how it is seen by others. How do we know you knowledge of God isn't a mental aberration, an illusion of some kind, or a lie, etc. You can't put an old head on young shoulders as they say. He who tastes, knows.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Well the book is not useless because it is a paradime in which those who know what you speak of can at least in part be seen and that can't be all bad, but with the rest I agree.

Books are useful in that they allow us to understand the experiences of others, this is true. However, a book trying to explain your experience with something that your subject disbelieves is an exercise in futility. The book becomes useful when its message is love and the message is given with love, but only when the subject is open to the expression of such love. Most will simply look the other way and pretend nothing happened. It is in our willingness to expose ourselves to this love that we experience it.

The problem, of course, lies in the interpretation of experience both in terms of how you see it yourself and how it is seen by others. How do we know you knowledge of God isn't a mental aberration, an illusion of some kind, or a lie, etc. You can't put an old head on young shoulders as they say. He who tastes, knows.

This is why I disagree with the fundamentalist approach to spreading 'The Word of God'. If I tell an atheist that the Bible is the Word of God, then the atheist will simply laugh, because he knows that God does not exist and, therefore, the Bible must be entirely fabricated to promote the selfish goals of men. If instead, I suggest that the Bible contains a message of love from previous generations to future generations, the atheist, even in his disbelief of God, might be more accepting of the true message: that God is willing to allow you to experience him for yourself.

 

[mc00]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Well the book is not useless because it is a paradime in which those who know what you speak of can at least in part be seen and that can't be all bad, but with the rest I agree.

Books are useful in that they allow us to understand the experiences of others, this is true. However, a book trying to explain your experience with something that your subject disbelieves is an exercise in futility. The book becomes useful when its message is love and the message is given with love, but only when the subject is open to the expression of such love. Most will simply look the other way and pretend nothing happened. It is in our willingness to expose ourselves to this love that we experience it.

The problem, of course, lies in the interpretation of experience both in terms of how you see it yourself and how it is seen by others. How do we know you knowledge of God isn't a mental aberration, an illusion of some kind, or a lie, etc. You can't put an old head on young shoulders as they say. He who tastes, knows.

This is why I disagree with the fundamentalist approach to spreading 'The Word of God'. If I tell an atheist that the Bible is the Word of God, then the atheist will simply laugh, because he knows that God does not exist and, therefore, the Bible must be entirely fabricated to promote the selfish goals of men. If instead, I suggest that the Bible contains a message of love from previous generations to future generations, the atheist, even in his disbelief of God, might be more accepting of the true message: that God is willing to allow you to experience him for yourself.

and that where I get into conflict with others when they tell me the bible is "Word of God". how do you know the bible is word of god? it could have been great writer at the time that wrote the book and he/she was so damn bored and said to it self let me write book about great being "god", but I cannot prove either this book was written by some bored guy and religion people cannot prove me bible was written by word of god or whoever god used to write he/she/ghost/whatever message.

 

[StepUp]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Well the book is not useless because it is a paradime in which those who know what you speak of can at least in part be seen and that can't be all bad, but with the rest I agree.

Books are useful in that they allow us to understand the experiences of others, this is true. However, a book trying to explain your experience with something that your subject disbelieves is an exercise in futility. The book becomes useful when its message is love and the message is given with love, but only when the subject is open to the expression of such love. Most will simply look the other way and pretend nothing happened. It is in our willingness to expose ourselves to this love that we experience it.

The problem, of course, lies in the interpretation of experience both in terms of how you see it yourself and how it is seen by others. How do we know you knowledge of God isn't a mental aberration, an illusion of some kind, or a lie, etc. You can't put an old head on young shoulders as they say. He who tastes, knows.

This is why I disagree with the fundamentalist approach to spreading 'The Word of God'. If I tell an atheist that the Bible is the Word of God, then the atheist will simply laugh, because he knows that God does not exist and, therefore, the Bible must be entirely fabricated to promote the selfish goals of men. If instead, I suggest that the Bible contains a message of love from previous generations to future generations, the atheist, even in his disbelief of God, might be more accepting of the true message: that God is willing to allow you to experience him for yourself.

Exodus, Deutoronomy, and Leviticus are certainly books of love :disgust: I'd look to something like Jainism or Confucianism before I looked to Judaism, Islam, or Christianity when it comes to finding books of love and respect.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: StepUp
Exodus, Deutoronomy, and Leviticus are certainly books of love :disgust:

Just like I can tell you're a hillbilly... Your profile tells me that you're from Tennessee. See - taking things out of context to apply a stereotype in the absence of understanding the substance can be fun!

 

[StepUp]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard

Originally posted by: StepUp
Exodus, Deutoronomy, and Leviticus are certainly books of love :disgust:

Just like I can tell you're a hillbilly... Your profile tells me that you're from Tennessee. See - taking things out of context to apply a stereotype in the absence of understanding the substance can be fun!

I won't dispute that many great things come from the Bible. I just don't think the bible is the best text to cite as an all encompassing book of love.

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

mc00 please learn English. I was trying to take this thread seriously, and now I just cannot stop laughing at your horrid abomination of the English language. You make good points, but they are lost in your sea of run-on sentences.

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Well the book is not useless because it is a paradime in which those who know what you speak of can at least in part be seen and that can't be all bad, but with the rest I agree.

Books are useful in that they allow us to understand the experiences of others, this is true. However, a book trying to explain your experience with something that your subject disbelieves is an exercise in futility. The book becomes useful when its message is love and the message is given with love, but only when the subject is open to the expression of such love. Most will simply look the other way and pretend nothing happened. It is in our willingness to expose ourselves to this love that we experience it.

The problem, of course, lies in the interpretation of experience both in terms of how you see it yourself and how it is seen by others. How do we know you knowledge of God isn't a mental aberration, an illusion of some kind, or a lie, etc. You can't put an old head on young shoulders as they say. He who tastes, knows.

This is why I disagree with the fundamentalist approach to spreading 'The Word of God'. If I tell an atheist that the Bible is the Word of God, then the atheist will simply laugh, because he knows that God does not exist and, therefore, the Bible must be entirely fabricated to promote the selfish goals of men. If instead, I suggest that the Bible contains a message of love from previous generations to future generations, the atheist, even in his disbelief of God, might be more accepting of the true message: that God is willing to allow you to experience him for yourself.

Well, regarding your last sentence here, in the video of the speaker he ended with an appeal to reason and an admission that people experience something spiritual with some sort of validity but that he has a hope for a universality in all of that. Didn't say that very well so I hope you know what I mean. I know for me personally, I believe in Mulla Nasrudin's one truth that covers all. What is the universal experience that men have been having for thousands of years everywhere and in all times that becomes this religion or philosophy etc. or that and which magnetizes billions of people. Is it that there is a million only truths or are all these only truths one bigger truth that look different only from the outside. I sometimes think of concentric rings around a point with the point being truth and the rings various attempts to explain that point, some of which are rather tight and some very circumspect.

How do we find the universal if we are going to fight over the crummy details. This is why I call religion a bridge to reality, an idea not original with me. The bridge is for crossing something and arriving at another place. Once over the bridge doesn't matter at all, just as the love of a Buddhist is exactly the same as a Christian's. How they came to love is irrelevant. Do we test each for the depth or quality of their love? Who will have greater love than either sufficient to judge? Is there a love that causes the self to disappear?

Oh my Beloved, wherever I look it appears to be Thou.

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: Sudheer Anne
mc00 please learn English. I was trying to take this thread seriously, and now I just cannot stop laughing at your horrid abomination of the English language. You make good points, but they are lost in your sea of run-on sentences.

Clearly he or she has learned quite a lot of English and certainly enough to make his meaning very clear.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

Originally posted by: Trevelyan
The truth is, unless your rights are absolute, you have no rights. Faith in human reason is a slap in the face to all of history, and what we decide human rights are change every generation. God is the only absoulte in this world, and he has given us our rights.

Are you an American? Because what you're saying sounds like a slap in the face to all of American history.

Faith in human reason is what the Constitution of the United States is founded upon. If you've read it, you've noticed it never once even mentions God. Its only reference to religion is in the date, which is not used in any religious or spiritual sense at all.

"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

See that "We the people..." part? That makes it pretty clear that we derive our rights not from on high, but from ourselves.

In the United States, we decide what human rights are every generation, or more often than that. WE abolished slavery. WE gave women (and non-land owning white men) the right to vote. WE gave black folks equal rights under the law.

Did religion have a hand in these things? Of course - without religion, I doubt any of those reforms would have even occurred. But WE THE PEOPLE, not God, changed our society in order to form a more perfect union, exactly as prescribed in the Constitution. As moonbeam said, religion can be a gloriously dynamic path to discovery & enlightenment. Or it can be a route to damnable benightedness. And these are the sentiments exhibited by the First Amendment, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

If you don't get it, or can't accept it, then get the hell out. I hear the Middle East is full of similarly minded people.

 

[mc00]

Originally posted by: Gigantopithecus

Originally posted by: Trevelyan
The truth is, unless your rights are absolute, you have no rights. Faith in human reason is a slap in the face to all of history, and what we decide human rights are change every generation. God is the only absoulte in this world, and he has given us our rights.

Are you an American? Because what you're saying sounds like a slap in the face to all of American history.

Faith in human reason is what the Constitution of the United States is founded upon. If you've read it, you've noticed it never once even mentions God. Its only reference to religion is in the date, which is not used in any religious or spiritual sense at all.

"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

See that "We the people..." part? That makes it pretty clear that we derive our rights not from on high, but from ourselves.

In the United States, we decide what human rights are every generation, or more often than that. WE abolished slavery. WE gave women (and non-land owning white men) the right to vote. WE gave black folks equal rights under the law.

Did religion have a hand in these things? Of course - without religion, I doubt any of those reforms would have even occurred. But WE THE PEOPLE, not God, changed our society in order to form a more perfect union, exactly as prescribed in the Constitution. As moonbeam said, religion can be a gloriously dynamic path to discovery & enlightenment. Or it can be a route to damnable benightedness. And these are the sentiments exhibited by the First Amendment, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

If you don't get it, or can't accept it, then get the hell out. I hear the Middle East is full of similarly minded people.

I agree with Gigantopithecus 100%... that's exactly why I would never go religion/god because I feel under god rules or whatever you wanna it call. I feel controlled and limit to speak freely and do whatever I want with my life. If I was living in the past during those chruch days I would have been hang for speaking out against god like I do now. so god(the followers)never gave me no rights, the people that fought wars, and stood up to those the want it to limit there rights are the one gave me rights to be free(if I pay my taxes lol).

 

[imported_hscorpio]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Well, he's blaming moderates for being moderate toward fundamentalism because fundamentalists will be fundamental toward them. He sees the f people not as harmlessly insane but dangerously insane. He calls it insane to have dogmatic certainty where there's no evidence that can be presented. Are we going to have a world based on unproven beings about whom billions of people have different certainties of are we going to stay with what we can test and see.

The problem that always stands in this argument is that for those who have felt God, there is overwhelming evidence of his existence. The failure of fundamentalists is in their reliance on a book to understand their experience of God, rather than allowing their feelings to simply accept him. Since they have tied their experience to the book, they cannot see any other experience. They want to share their experience with others, so they share their book. While the book may describe some of the experience, it in and of itself is not the experience, without which the book is useless.

The problem I see is that those who have 'felt God' can only identify the experience and believe it is what they think it is because such a book has planted that seed in their minds. If the book was somehow erased from mankinds collective knowledge these experiences would cease to be God experiences and would be attributed to whatever popular explanation arises to explain such experiences.

 

[Puffnstuff]

The common theme that I see in all religions is the attempt to control a person through brainwashing them to see via that religions filter while minimizing the individuals desire to think for themselves. If people would actually think and then look at the world around them then perhaps we could all behave in a more civilized manner. As long as religion has a hand there will always be division among people.

 

[Used Rugs]

Thanks for the link to that video.
I hope others watch it the whole way threw.