As I said I will revisit it.
Religion, what's the point?
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Just out of interest Moby, what's your nationality/what country do you live in?
You may not agree, but hardly a novel, controversial or difficult to get position.
India.
Anyone with a decent knowledge of history could have a field day with that claim.
I'm religious and I would stand wide by side with you and ignite the touch paper that blows some of these institutions sky high, irregardless of which religion they follow.
I'm an advocate of speaking out against the atrocities committed in the name of shrines in my country of origin, something that would see me locked up over there.
The protection these institutions get are not necessarily for religious reasons.
It's an answer to your question. If it portrays a flaw in the concept of a supreme supernatural being, then you haven't said what that flaw is.
Indeed. If there were ever a more “what’s the point?” religious position, it’s the deist one.
No the Bible doesn’t say that. It’s people trying to explain to folks why they shouldn’t ask questions about the book of Job who say it. The closest you’ll probably find to a verse saying “mysterious ways” is Isaiah 55:8-9
"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts”
It's certainly not a novel position, given the nature of men and women.
After all you still get people committed to certain political beliefs and systems despite all the evidence to the contrary showing that they don't work. Indeed, history shows that human beings take faith positions on a whole host of things.
I find a moral superiority in the local imam over his flock, or the local priest. But that's not in the context I believe you were presenting.
I also see that in 1 or 2 internet personalities but again i see their numbers be to be quite low.
Even in this discussion I haven't really seen namees of religious individuals being cited but have seen Dawkins and Gervais. Both who fit your description in my opinion and have larger followings.
Dawkins has a policy in only debating certain people. Usually those who are easy targets. I also don't believe he is atheist.
It doesn't instantly defeat the principle of a supernatural creator, no. It does, however, knock out concepts such as morality originating in such a creature, kneecaps the concept of a compassionate creator and is entirely fatal to the concept of interventionist gods.
I'm asking questions.
Maybe you want to give me something specific from the book of Job?
I'll revisit it anyway. But your response was a bit general.
Well swarms of locusts are directly in the bible and I believe various natural phenomena are in there as well. Ancient Egypt was replete with a merging of religion, and afterlife and natural events.
But I'm talking even before modern religious books. There is some evidence that our ancestor engaged in ritualistic burial (a sure sign of a belief in an afterlife) as long as 40,000 or even 50,000 years ago and the Australian Indigenous Dreamtime (which involves spirits and the like) arguably goes back as far as 65,000 years. They had no explanation for the things I mentioned and given that far more recently these sorts of things are reported as supernatural events it isn't really a stretch that these events would be taken as evidence of an angry god.
You’re from Ireland, aren’t you?
The book of Job is about how god allows Satan to destroy Job’s life to accomplish what amounts to winning a bet.
We arent talking about changing building here, it's the source that brought about these institutions that is corrupt and has led them to the path they are currently on. The reason they can continue committing the acts that they do is because they can use the source texts to justify those acts. The institutions are a product of the starting cult that was based around the same text written thousands of years ago yet followed and unchanged to this day. I'll trust religious people to be half decent the day they start to examine/scrutinise and replace these outdated texts with what are clear and unambiguous and won't give rise to criminal organisations - however that physically goes against the notion that these texts are written by the amazing god himself and are the be all and end all of how everyone should conduct their lives till the end of time.
Ultimately in this entire discussion of religion vs science etc, apart from the whole proof/logic stuff that can be said, the one true reflection of which set of people are trying to conduct themselves in good faith is the fact that only one of those two are happily willing to constantly update their current understanding of how to conduct themselves.
To me it is just disingenuous invention to justify having your cake and eating it.
Ok I get you. I don't necessarily agree though. The stories in the Bible (and other texts) were not a way of explanation. So for example the plague of locusts and Moses didn't try and explain all locust attacks ever. It was a specific event at a specific time.
Also I would say that, and I'm going by the religious texts here, religion didn't start with Jesus. From a religious perspective it started with Adam and you had other prophets in between, Moses, Noah etc etc. So the notion of afterlife (from a religious point of view) existed from day one.
I accept that there were times, places and people who saw natural phenomena as something else.
Yep.
Religion has been a great unifying force there for sure.
I don't see the moral superiority of Imams though. Don't you see that (and we've had this debate before) that the devout or religious figures believing they have moral superiority is, by definition, morally superior?
And Dawkins...well, he stopped debating creationists and literalists (notably after the flying horse incident) for a variety of reasons but I'm not really sure that's soft targets. He's also in his early 80s now I'd imagine. I hope he's not flying around the World being told to burn in hell by various people by now and just reads the death threat emails instead. He most certainly is an athiest though and I have no idea how you could have come to any other conclusion.
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What are you referring to exactly? Partition and the Troubles?
Are you sure? I suspect that not knowing what caused things like that made every swarm a source for "god is punishing us".
Religion started well before the period of the bibles. It sounds like you are suggesting that Adam was real? There was no day one as we know Adam didn't exist as it is biologically impossible and just a creation story - most religions have one.
Religion explaning natural phenomenon is extremely common. Zeus and Thor, are blindingly obvious examples for instance.
There's a few references to the Abrahamic god as a thunder god too, if memory serves, in the Bible mainly due to the Baal blurring.
St Patrick destroying the Druids, Cromwell destroying Drogheda and Wexford, etc. etc.
Those two give a real good example of god’s “mysterious ways”… as in, the mystery behind how humanity was able to populate the world twice via mass incest.
I don't agree that it's the source text. If the source text was to be followed the "punishment" would be far more severe than any the current legal systems offer.
I don't even agree that it's the responsibility of religious people, it's a responsibility for all of us, religious or not. The lack of "justice" thatbhas been handed out is a factor for us all.
I wrote earlier how I had a problem with religious institutions and those running them. This is true. It's based on cases like you've mentioned. But ultimately for me it's about moving away from the core texts and the "worship" is for other things. An example for me is the black churches, in recent history. These pillars of the community now rarely get involved in key issues. I'll let you decide how much impact government money and involvement has played.
Out mosques have Maps and councillors on their main committees. Pillars of the Muslim community are drug dealers and alcohol suppliers, as they are able to put money into the grand buildings.
I'm from Pakistan ways so I think you'll understand this (being from India) but how can a prime minister of a so called Islamic Republic not know how to pray? He has to look at the guys around h to see if he is doing the correct motions. Yet people die at election times to get these guys onto power. It goes against all religious core values and texts. Yet there you are. That is why I disagree with you. Albeit i agree people need to stand up to the atrocities committed.
Its because it comes from the Canaanite pantheon of gods - who all had characteristics similar to all other ancient pantheons.
Oh yeah. The Old Testament is full on polytheism and multiple traditions getting lumped in together. They didn't even edit it terribly well to hide it: the multiple creation stories in Genesis are not well blended (as I'm sure you're most aware).
And the snakes!
I'm not sure how the actions of a foreign dictator are relevant to the discussion?
I think the word mystery or mysterious ways is what I'm struggling with in your points.
There is no mystery for me from a religious aspect. It is explained in text. Does it sound weird? Maybe tonis today. However it's not just religious text that would suggest this. Should we accept a different version for humanity then it poses the same questions. If not more
Absolutely and the non-religious people want nothing more than these texts to be abolished, but it isn't gonna happen due to the straight up denial by the masses of religious people - a lot of whom are so called harmless and genuinely invested in the wellbeing of mankind.
Sorry but the "core values' shtick is pretty much the core problem. If you only feel the core values should be maintained, and if you claim majority of religious people also have the same interest, then the texts would have been converted into only clearly having these core values which won't take more than a few pages. Yet the same majority is only interested in preserving each and every word, all the babble and pages of quotes and what not that is extra to these core values and makes the whole thing a source for giving rise to ill intentions in people. And that is there by design, because everyone knows the day any religious text gets reduced to only the values that actually make sense morally and none of the other stories/anecdotes or whatever else, it will lose it's power. It will lose the ability to give rise to extremists. And that's the sole intention behind these texts. And the 'good' majority of religious people is in full support of that either through active participation in hammering down every single word written in these texts or at best being negligent and indifferent but also considering raising any question to any written word as blasphemy.
Quite right.
You should know the justification he gave for slaughtering the Catholics. At least I do… it’s why my family fled here.
It’s saying we as humans can’t know the mind of god, ergo, its reason for doing things is a mystery.
My point is, it doesn’t matter that we can’t know god’s reasoning, the effect of said reasoning is that god allows awful things to happen regularly when it could use its omnipotence to stop it.
I'm focussing on Abrahamic religions so that maybe the issue, but I thought your post was too.
But yeah the locusts and flood etc were not general but specific stories. As far as I know.
I agree religion started well before the Bible's. That was the point I was making.
In the Qur'an for example we are told there were 125k prophets, starting with Adam and finishing with Muhammad.
Why is the idea of God giving free will disingenuous or like having your cake and eating it?
Because if it’s all knowing and all powerful then free will doesn’t make sense, unless it’s also content with watching humans feck everything up despite knowing that they’re going to and having the power to stop it.
Abolishing the texts wouldn't achieve anything in my opinion. The texts have never been the issue.
When the text says don't kill it means don't kill. When it says those who wrongfully take what doesn't belong to them are sinners it's clear. The fact that some in authority will rile people up enough to kill and take wealth and land is not on the texts.
Let me give you another example or two. If a king isn't happy being prevented from marrying and changes the text then that's on the king and the people who follow despite knowing.
Similarly we have sects who are adding or subtracting from texts to get their own way and people follow and are deaf to the calls that these changes have happened.
True story. I was part of a campaign with against a well established Muslim sect/group. They haveillioms of followers and a re quite a large group in South Asia. They use a source book which is fabricated and they have accepted it's fabricated. They used to openly study and teach from it. Once it was established it was fabricated they started studying it in secret. Due to their status and wealthy patrons they continue to get the money and teach.
That's people for you. If chuf chuf can make money and have devoted followers, despite texts saying it's wrong when sonyii stop blaming texts and look at people?
Because it's a cop out to preserve the concept of a moral creator.
Why do people do bad things? Freewill.
Why does God not stop it if he can and knew it'd happen? Freewill
What about fatal intestinal parasitic worms? Invertebrate freewill.
religion is universal. there's something about human nature which places some analogue of religion everywhere. in pre-industrial societies it would be called animism. then you have atheists who believe in something which is almost religious. the idea of mathematics as "divine", or to know the mind of "god" as Einstein said speaking about the connection between natural science and all things. religious institutions, broadly speaking, are evil.