Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
sempervirens
climber
|
|
|
Dec 12, 2017 - 08:13am PT
|
What human endeavor hasn't fallen into misuse? Science? Hardly. Religion's aim isn't control it's reconciliation an idea that seems incomprehensible to too many.
Sure, science has often fallen into misuse. But religion demands faith without proof. It demands blind faith. Then it commands us to act according to its own doctrine based on its self-proclaimed authority. Would you say that is not a problem?
Science doesn't do that. Science demands proof and invites scrutiny. Those are important differences, eh?
I can understand religion's aims to reconcile. I have no problem with that. But it does also aim to control. It literally commands.
By the way, Paul, have you ever looked at those Bible passages I quoted for you some months ago?
|
|
paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
|
|
|
Dec 12, 2017 - 08:17am PT
|
But almost all religions are hierarchical, so it has always been used as a means to control members of the group through the threat of damnation, shunning or death.
Human beings don't need religion to impose their will on others; they do it just fine and have been doing it just fine since the beginning as if it were a natural requirement of any social relationship. Slavery and oppression are the natural states of humanity historically. And why not? Power in the here and now is the goal of everyone just ask Freud. The mistake is to think this is the fault of religious belief when, in fact, religion mediates the will to power for the benefit of individual well being. Religion's job is to prevent the individual from succumbing to despair by presenting an antidote to the emptiness of existence. Nietzsche was right to warn of the consequences of killing god which ultimately meant the abandonment of meaning.
Religion isn't the means of death, neither is oppression or bad behavior of any kind by humanity, the secret cause of death is simply our universal and absolutely certain mortality.
Something science has no antidote for.
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
|
Dec 12, 2017 - 08:19am PT
|
Thus God comes for the atheist in the form of death as the absolute ......
|
|
MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
|
|
|
Dec 12, 2017 - 08:20am PT
|
sempervirens,
Please, you make far too much for science. It too is an ideology, in that it presents a vision of what exists and what doesn’t. You’re trading one set of criteria for proof for another.
I don’t think you have had a religious experience. (It’s not that you need to.) What one sees is what one sees. One can surely question their own experience, but even that is an experience. All anyone has is their experiences. It seems to me that you are arguing that yours are more valid and appropriate than others’.
Give other people some leeway. You could be a bit more tentative about what you believe is concrete.
|
|
sempervirens
climber
|
|
|
Dec 12, 2017 - 08:28am PT
|
MikeL,
I'm not arguing about my personal experiences or those of others. I do not intend to make more of science, I am pointing out the difference between science and religion. My point is that religion is blind faith and that is a problem for humanity. You are bringing up my beliefs but I have not been arguing about my personal beliefs. I'm using definitions of words.
It "seems" to you that I'm saying things that I haven't said. And then you're telling me to be more tentative, less concrete, and give leeway for those things. You have all the leeway the internet allows. If you are challenging what I've said then wouldn't it be better to address what I've said?
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
|
Dec 12, 2017 - 05:38pm PT
|
My point is that religion is blind faith ...
If it is blind faith than it is NOT religion ever.
The clueless atheists always make clueless st00pid statements .....
|
|
sempervirens
climber
|
|
|
Dec 12, 2017 - 05:42pm PT
|
Werner, you're making stupid assumptions. Do you have a dictionary?
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
|
Dec 12, 2017 - 05:45pm PT
|
Your dictionary is as clueless ....
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
|
Dec 12, 2017 - 06:00pm PT
|
These modern sdt00pid people have destroyed 94% of all seed varieties.
St00pid modern scientists making everything sterile.
So st00pid .... and that's why these idiots think like st00pid robots ....
|
|
jogill
climber
Colorado
|
|
|
Dec 12, 2017 - 10:05pm PT
|
Malemute wins a prize for determination.
|
|
jogill
climber
Colorado
|
|
|
Dec 13, 2017 - 09:18pm PT
|
It's become a close contest, folks, between two irrepressible posters!
Who will win the prize?
|
|
Norton
climber
The Wastelands
|
|
|
Dec 14, 2017 - 02:14pm PT
|
^^^^ Malemute, thanks for the link, just read the article
|
|
Fossil climber
Trad climber
Atlin, B. C.
|
|
|
Dec 14, 2017 - 03:45pm PT
|
It's the season for Three Wise Men. Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennett?
|
|
Lennox
climber
in the land of the blind
|
|
|
Dec 14, 2017 - 04:17pm PT
|
I hate religiosity and all the harm religion has done and will do.
But before we get too carried away with our program of fideicide, deicide and vaticide, we should look at what Sycorax posted as a reminder to not throw the baby out with the bath water.
|
|
paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
|
|
|
Dec 14, 2017 - 04:39pm PT
|
But before we get too carried away with our program of fideicide, deicide and vaticide, we should look at what Sycorax posted as a reminder to not throw the baby out with the bath water.
Ha! For a whole bunch of folks around here that baby never even got out of the birth canal. Fact: people enslave, kill and otherwise hurt people, not religion and people will find any excuse, religious, political or social to enforce their will on others; it's just human nature.
Religion has done much to mediate this natural human tendency though so many of the ardent geniuses here on the ST just don't get that.
|
|
Lennox
climber
in the land of the blind
|
|
|
Dec 14, 2017 - 05:06pm PT
|
Religion has done much to mediate this natural human tendency
Perhaps, but religion has done much to magnify this natural human tendency.
|
|
sempervirens
climber
|
|
|
Dec 14, 2017 - 06:06pm PT
|
Religion has done much to mediate this natural human tendency though so many of the ardent geniuses here on the ST just don't get that.
But some of us do get that. And I have said so. But then isn't it also reasonable to address all the ills that religion has put on the world. Without that faith that religion demands, without that self-proclaimed authority, would they those ills be as severe? Would the religious leaders be as effective in their often deliberate misuse of religion to control or even kill?
As you have said, science and other human endeavors have also been used for evil. But if those endeavors were to demand your faith in them, wouldn't you call bullshit on that? Wouldn't you demand evidence? Or would you profess blind faith in their texts.
|
|
paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
|
|
|
Dec 14, 2017 - 07:01pm PT
|
“He rose and turned toward the lights of town. The tidepools bright as smelterpots among the dark rocks where the phosphorescent seacrabs clambered back. Passing through the salt grass he looked back. The horse had not moved. A ship's light winked in the swells. The colt stood against the horse with its head down and the horse was watching, out there past men's knowing, where the stars are drowning and whales ferry their vast souls through the black and seamless sea.” - CM
|
|
paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
|
|
|
Dec 14, 2017 - 07:10pm PT
|
There's no wonder why everyone who has had to endure English literature courses during school, trades their prof's screeds for a Louis L'amour novel.
Yep, forget that glass of Chateau Lafite gimme a coke. And don't try an' tell me different, cause I know what I like.
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!