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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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Jun 10, 2010 - 10:20pm PT
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Donini- Thank you for serving as a reality-based science-respecting counterpoint to the woo woo mysticism of the others. You're constantly a breath of fresh air, restoring my faith that some fraction of climbers are not complete idiots when it comes to understanding religions (their character and history) vis a vis sciences. Much appreciated.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Jun 10, 2010 - 10:20pm PT
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I think the problem with this thread is that the main antagonists are both extrapolating from their own experience and missing the larger view. No one calling themselves a scientist can make statements using the words" all, without a doubt, absolutely", and so on. Science is much more tentative and nuanced than that. Science is aware that the more we discover, the more remains to be known and invariably our understanding becomes more complex and more subtle. It refers to theories and current working models, not absolutes.
Likewise, true religion and spirituality emphasize the mystery of everything in the universe, including God, and the idea that humankind should be humble in the face of it. It also universally emphasizes that the major problem of humanity is lack of love or compassion, not lack of clever logic to justify its own selfish viewpoints. Anybody who proclaims they know what God is thinking or how "He" does things, is just speculating based on ego. Anyone taking Scriptures about love, sacrifice, and service and using them to proclaim that they are "saved" and all others are going to burn in hell, is for sure, not being humble or loving. Anyone studying the history of Christianity will know that such interpretation of Christian Scripture is a very recent phenomenon and belongs to a very narrow though vocal contingent mostly centered in America.
Both science and religion have been used for evil purposes, both have done great good for humankind. To deny otherwise, is to see the world through a very narrow and distorted prism. It was people inspired by religion who ended slavery in our country, not scientists. It was scientists who invented the Social Darwinism and eugenics that were used in the Holocaust. The issue is human potential, and what one does with it. So far, U.S. charities gives more generously than those of any other nation, and religious organizations give the most, not scientists. So think a little if you call yourself a scientist, before you condemn all religion based on the narrow doctrine of a vocal minority.
And to the vocal minority, I will say again, not every convicted Christian agrees with your interpretation, let alone the vast majority of religious people on this planet who are not Christian. Enlarge your viewpoint by enlarging your heart.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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Jun 10, 2010 - 10:27pm PT
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"It was people inspired by religion who ended slavery in our country, not scientists. It was scientists who invented the Social Darwinism and eugenics that were used in the Holocaust."
Bullsh#t.
This is exactly one of the lead problems with religious "moderates."
Try leaving the religious scholarship, the seminary teachings, whatever, behind and try reframing it once in awhile:
It was good people- caring and determined people- working together to overcome a horrible institution that ended slavery.
Science and the knowledge gleaned from it are tools. It was abuse of a tool that was used in the Holocaust.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Jun 10, 2010 - 10:28pm PT
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You have a fair criticism if you argue that both all Christians and the Chrisitan Church (universal or otherwise) have flaws. I think ,though, you reduce Jesus to less than what He said He was. I seriously doubt that His enemies wanted to crucify Him because he said to love one another. His denunciations of the Jewish religious leaders were scathing. The Gospels don't contain all that much "nicey-poo."
Jesus's message is good news only to those who realize they are sinners. It remains an affront to those who think themselves righteous. I wonder how many contemporaries who purport to be Christians realize how hypocritical we've become. It's almost as if we think that if we become the second coming of the Pharisees, we'll hasten the second coming of Christ.
For my first 23 years, I disbelieved, considered Jesus a legend at best, and Christianity largely primitive myth. It wasn't that I'd never heard the message. Rather, my faith in myself was so strong it blinded my eyes and shut my ears. Besides, Christians were all such hypocrites. Then I met Jesus through the Holy Spirit, and found for myself who I was missing. I also met a lot of good people -- and a lot of changed people. I guess our experiences differ.
John
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Jun 10, 2010 - 11:00pm PT
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High Fructose-
It was religious dissenters who started the antislavery movement in America, with Quakers at the forefront. if you study their history you will see that three generations of Quakers made it their mission in life to end that institution and many bankrupted themselves in the process to run the underground railway, to defend freed slaves in court cases and to establish schools for freed slaves. The millions of union volunteers before the Civil War draft saw it as a holy crusade to wipe the stain of slavery from a supposedly Christian nation. Many were antislavery but the people who put their lives and fortunes on the line, were mostly religious. The others, including Lincoln, jumped on the band wagon rather late.
As for the Holocaust, all those who contributed to the notion of racial superiority and inferiority based on "scientific" measurements and this includes many physical anthropologists, were mis using their tools and also their limited understanding of science. Some scientists are still doing it. Consider the case of Arthur Jenson.
You say "Science and the knowledge gleaned from it are tools.It was abuse of a tool that was used in the Holocaust". I could say the same about religion. It was abuse of a tool (the piety and also the greed of ignorant peasants) that led to crusades and witch burnings.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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Jun 10, 2010 - 11:22pm PT
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As seriously as I've cross-studied the sciences, I've cross-studied religious systems my entire life. Including their character and history. Enough study. It's time they're left behind. Like astrology, they will be, in the wake of new developments, just give it two or three generations in a robust internet-driven info age that isn't beset by collapsing economies, population pressures, depleting resources, etc., you'll see.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Jun 10, 2010 - 11:49pm PT
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The "scientists" who promoted racial differences and notions of superiority and inferiority, were mistaken and led others down a wrong path. They were mistaken because they saw what they wanted to. They then put their measuring devices in the service of their ethnocentric egos and called it "science".
Darwin himself was not exempt. During the voyage of the Beagle, there was a group of natives from Tierra del Fuego who were being returned from London after being on exhibet there and Darwin made the statement (in writing) that they had no human language, only spoke in grunts and howls. Of course the grammar of their language, like most Native American languages is more complex by far than English.
All human beings are subject to ethno and ego centrism. Both religion and science (not to mention politics) are used as tools in service to our baser nature.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Jun 11, 2010 - 12:21am PT
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You are mistaken to think that religion never changes.
The Bible justifies slavery yet religious people of the 19th century knew that it was wrong. That's progress.
To condemn the majority of people on this planet because they have different views on the subject of God and religion than you do, is definitely not scientific nor compassionate.
For sure, labeling all Christians and all religious people based on experience with the most narrow interpreters of religion is also not scientific nor compassionate.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Jun 11, 2010 - 12:24am PT
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Jan, truths don't change. Politicians are adept at spining things to produce a certain outcome. The Mormons "suddenly" decided that polygamy was wrong when they wanted statehood. Could the posistion on slavery be similar? Christians seem to want to use the Bible in anyway that suits there
interests, be it strict interpretation or using the Bible allegorically.
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Jun 11, 2010 - 12:25am PT
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The Gospels don't contain all that much "nicey-poo." Yes, the Torah (old testament) particularly is full of the Hebrews squabbling with and lecturing each other, when they weren't smiting their neighbours and stealing their lands, cattle, and maidens.
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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Jun 11, 2010 - 01:33am PT
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"flaws" is the great excuse christians always use, a real false humility through which they hope to escape responsibility. face it, christianity is the dominant religion in the world behind the dominant power in the world. that power has grown quite ugly, and yet it refuses to acknowledge what it does. rather it keeps its innocent myth before its eyes.
jesus is a fine program for those who like it. i wish them all well. i just wish they would become meek. instead, they think they've inherited the earth already before bothering to become meek.
since the subject of the so-called holocaust has been raised, i have to say what i have learned. i've looked at the so-called "denial" material, and i think there is some merit to it. i'm not an expert on the subject, but i see both passionate scholars like robert faurisson of france and individual investigators, like the young jewish atheist from england who found some strange covering up going on at auschwitz. napoleon said that history is always written by the victors, and i suspect there may be a good share of that going on here. i speak as a product of world war 2. my mother and uncle were both involved in the italian resistance, my father was an american army lawyer involved in criminal investigation throughout the mediterrenean war theater. i personally know of german atrocities from my family, but they were war atrocities, not unlike those committed by our own country many times in my lifetime. two things darken these suspicions considerably. dissenters in europe are jailed merely for voicing their opinions. and records, according to faurisson, which would prove or disprove so much of the controversies, are kept under lock and key. my suggestion: don't look to hitler alone for the incarnation of evil. our ally, country joe, was worse, and there is new evidence that general "i like ike" eisenhower may have been quite the war criminal himself.
i call tell you one thing for sure about the "holocaust", however. the term didn't come into use for world war 2 atrocities until 1978-79, following a television docudrama series by that name. since then, it has taken on deep purple fervor. ironically, the term itself is kind of a testimony to the spirit of thrift. when you went to the temple to sacrifice something to god--a goat, a lamb, a dove for those who couldn't afford so much--the animal would be killed and offered to god, but the meat would be taken home, after the priest got his share, of course. but if you really wanted to make a big impression on god for something important, you burned it and let the smoke waft heavenward. here, god, take the whole pigeon, just get that rich man to marry my daughter, k? holocaust = burn the whole thing.
getting too long here, but the business of sacrifice is central to christianity, and it seems to be pan-human in our ancient heritage. sacrifice reflects human fascination with death and the threshold beyond death, and hope for contact with the divine. jesus is only one of many attempts to touch god in this way.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Jun 11, 2010 - 02:24am PT
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Donini-
I don't disagree that religious people sometimes have changes of heart for reasons of political expediency. I can guarantee you however, that my Quaker ancestors suffered plenty from their non Quaker neighbors in North Carolina who quoted the Bible's advocacy of slavery to them while attacking their lives and property. The Quakers for sure, did not profit economically or politically from being antislavery.
The main thing I object to however, are gross generalizations from any quarter. Imagine how you would feel if someone started throwing around the phrase "All climbers believe such and such and all climbers act thus and so"
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Jun 11, 2010 - 02:29am PT
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Tony-
I think you are on very treacherous ground when talking about Holocaust deniers just as I never believe the Japanese right wing who claims the rape of Nanjing and other war atrocities never happened.
What should be known however, is that many categories of "undesirable" people died in those camps, not just Jews. Gays, Gypsies, and the few Christians who spoke out against Hitler and anti-Semitism also died there.
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Jun 11, 2010 - 02:36am PT
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I agree with Jan. Saying that Joseph Stalin killed more people than Adolf Hitler, and was guilty of as great or greater evil, is one thing. Saying that the Allies' and their leaders' hands were not lily white when it came to war crimes likewise. And the Shoah/Holocaust of European Jewry during World War II must be seen in context.
But lending any credence to Holocaust-deniers has no place, here or anywhere.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Jun 11, 2010 - 04:19am PT
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High Fructose: "... the woo woo mysticism of the others."
Kindly describe "wo wo mysticism." Sounds a little like a punk band or a slab climb at Suicide. That's some funny shite.
JL
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illusiondweller
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
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Jun 11, 2010 - 04:35am PT
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Why, when the Word of God is used to answer a question or to defend the same do others become offended and feel personally attacked or claim that someone is hypocritical or making claims based on their own thinking? You see, this is why God's Word is used so our "stinkin' thinkin'" doesn't get in the way and second, so others can't accuse us of making our own statements, thus implying anything. If God's word makes you feel this way then attack God. I know it comes with the territory but hey, we're just messengers spreading the Word, not our own word, whenever possible.
The original question was, "Why do so many people believe in God?" Shall we get back on subject?
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illusiondweller
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
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Jun 11, 2010 - 05:11am PT
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Listen, have I not been transparent with you all? Shared with you some of my personal demons, my struggles of my past, my prior line of work and my current status? Am I the only one struggling out there or what? Please, don't start sharing your testimonies for this isn't my point. What I'm trying to say is that I feel that God's intent through me is being misconstrued when I hear the angry responses from the non-believer. "Prove to me this, prove to me that, give me this, give me that" It's not about you! Do you realize it's THIS very "behavior" that gets you/me in the very problems we tend to get ourselves into?
"For ALL that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world" - 1John2:16
If only more would listen.
I'm no different than you all in what I'm enjoying or struggling with in this world. I'm just trying to live my life under God's umbrella of protection as opposed to the world's and trying to obey God's commands. I've found the Truth. There can only be one, and I've found it.
Glory to God!
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Jun 11, 2010 - 07:00am PT
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DMT-
Mennonites, Zippers, Cleopatra. Huh?
The Amish and some Mennonites don't wear zippers because they were first used on military uniforms and they are strict pacifists.
This may seem a bit much for some people but it's consistent with their philosophy of non violence.
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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Jun 11, 2010 - 08:30am PT
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here you go, jan, from largo, and it will come up again:
"in psychology, there is a thing called 'information bias.' we filter out whatever does not conform to what we think is the truth ... we literally will not consider or be open to contrary information, or else we will alter its value or definition so as not to threaten our preconceived notions or given criteria."--John Long
have you looked at any of the evidence? read anything by faurisson? please do so before you talk about my shaky ground.
i do have some independent confirmation of my skepticism, and that is personal acquaintance with an auschwitz survivor. you can google his name, it's fred klein, and i knew him for several years when i worked at berlitz translations in the late 80s and early 90s. fred was a likable fellow, not the brightest of that well-lighted crew exactly, but he seemed to be coming into his own with the growing holocaust industry. the thing was, he went through auschwitz and had no real knowledge of the gassing which allegedly took place. if you read his internet material, it will confirm that. he was eager to become part of the story he heard much later. he revelled in the new-found respect he was getting. the best he can do is talk about the crematories, but lots of people were dying of typhus, in and out of the concentration camps.
btw, check the evidence on eisenhower. he is alleged to have ordered the slow death by starvation and exposure of a million german soldier prisoners of war after the war. this makes great sense in the making of war, where all is fair. you don't try governing a nation full of freshly defeated soldiers, especially nazi soldiers. is it true? all i know is what i read on the internet. about eisenhower, that is. for my other maniac ideas i have been reading, inquiring, researching as much as i can. truth is the most important thing in the world, and it doesn't come easily.
shall we bring up 9/11 while we're at it? largo here will be on your side, dismissing it as "jibberish", but his process theology professor, david ray griffin, can't stop writing books about it. let me repeat:
"in psychology, there is a thing called 'information bias.' we filter out whatever does not conform to what we think is the truth ... we literally will not consider or be open to contrary information, or else we will alter its value or definition so as not to threaten our preconceived notions or given criteria."
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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Jun 11, 2010 - 09:22am PT
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i do have to add a personal note to all this. i think personal notes mean a lot more on this thread than all the blank assertions.
six years ago i had just got done campaigning for dennis kucinich, one of the seven dwarf democrats in the presidential campaign that year. my way of thinking about all these dark subjects was pretty standard, like jan's and the mighty hiker's here.
the one thing i probably have a little more than most on this thread is experience in building construction. i've spent maybe 30 percent of my working career doing that, and it includes a couple of high-rise projects. so on september 11, 2001, when i watched buildings coming down on the evening news, my first reaction was, i can't believe my eyes, these buildings should not be falling this way. my second reaction was, what do i know? the world is totally absurd anyway, so get over it.
and i got over it, for about three years, and then i heard two words on a subversive KPFK radiocast (the host, their then news director, was fired shortly afterward): controlled demolition.
presidential politics got a lot less important after that. john muir talked about everything in the universe being hitched to everything else. unfortunately, it isn't always the good things.
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