[zensphere]

“you aren't going to arrive at the truth by splitting the difference between the inmates of an asylum.”

Great quote!

[destroysound]

what an incredibly rhetoric-filled article

I disagree, of course, since the religions I get hammered with day after day here in the US are all militant, evangelical, aggressively hegemonical faiths, and compassion isn't what you see if you are confronted by them. Even their putative compassionate outreach in such things as missionary work are often attempts at cultural conquest. That compassion business is just a tool to win over minds for the Lord/Prophet/Messiah/Cult.

besides the obvious strawman being constructed here (religion is this way because i say it is), isn't there some kind of name for when you use anecdata in this way? “in my experience, xxx is yyy.” doesn't constitute a very powerful attack on anything but your own experiences.

[Nameless One]

Blogs are all about strong opinions. Deal with it.

These last couple of weeks I spent a lot of time riding the subway into and out of Manhattan… and I can say from experience that the underground is absolutely infested with doomsday cult members preaching the end of the world. Is that compassion? Trying to scare the shit out of people, put the fear of “god” into them?

There are countless examples of religious intolerance, injustice, and cruelty. This isn't to say that no good deeds are done in the name of religion… but to take a religion such as Christianity and completely overlook all the insanely awful stuff in their holy text is just incredibly dishonest. And hey, a lot of the other religions aren't any better. Sure, there is compassion mixed in with the rest (some of the time) but what good is that when you have deity-sanctioned theft, rape, murder, and genocide?

[destroysound]

a. there are lots of insane and cruel religious people in the world
b. religion is insane and cruel

a leads to b hurf durf look at this example from my very real life

check out my COMPLETELY UNBIASED LINKS. let my dogma replace theirs!

believe it or not, xeno, as much as it might be easy or efficient for you to regard the religious domain as a zone of kooks and bigots, some religious people don't believe that 9/11 was an inside job, don't believe anything particularly significant is going to happen in 2012 (other than some rad parties), don't think that H.A.A.R.P. is a conspiracy, don't stand on corners holding up signs or megaphones and yelling about damnation, wouldn't dream of doubting evolution or of taking their sacred texts literally, believe in complete equality and erasure of past inequities for minorities and gay people, believe that everyone has the right to their own thoughts, experiences and ideas and don't give one bleeding cent whether you believe in their idea of god, or a god at all.

[zensphere]

to the extent that our beliefs are at odds with reality, the mind is steeped in delusion.

I don't care if people want to delude themselves, (but only to an degree, of course, as we are all a part of human society and are all impacted by the belief-influenced actions of others), but for god's sake (heh) let's quit the taboo against the criticism of faith.

If people want to hold indefensible beliefs, fine by me, but there's no reason they should expect to get a free pass from criticism.

[destroysound]

If people want to hold indefensible beliefs, fine by me, but there's no reason they should expect to get a free pass from criticism.

it's not that i disagree with you in theory, it's just that i don't think that one person shouting down another and calling them names (“flabby purveyor of tepid tea”? seriously?) constitutes “criticism”. real criticism in the artistic sense makes a statement. that sentiment is extremely lacking today. we can, and have, done better than this. you can view the canonical christian gospels as a criticism of the fundamentalist militant jewish messianic thought that was rampant at the time of their authorship. ironically, christian fundamentalism has now taken on many of the same characteristics.

also, you are on a slippery slope down to positivism as you now have to determine what beliefs are logically defensible… and there are none. the process of belief is a short-circuit of the scientific process. if you are going to behave completely scientifically a strict agnosticism (or better yet, theological noncognitivism) seems to me to be most defensible. what is really interesting to me is what happens to people when they say “ok, i know that this is not rational.. but what if.. ..my god, what if!“. the non-rational is a very powerful place. i feel like the real brilliance of humanity comes out when we stop thinking about what is, and start thinking about what is possible. i'm thinking specifically of phillip k dick here but these kinds of minds are all over the place, historically.

[HARDKORNATE]

I don't care if people want to delude themselves, (but only to an degree, of course, as we are all a part of human society and are all impacted by the belief-influenced actions of others), but for god's sake (heh) let's quit the taboo against the criticism of faith.

If we applied the same arguments/logic they use to justify drug prohibition to religion, we would bulldoze all the religious buildings, burn their books, and fine, imprison, or reeducate all the recalcitrant users who will not give up their religion for the good of the group as a whole.

[destroysound]

If we applied the same arguments/logic they use to justify drug prohibition to religion, we would bulldoze all the religious buildings, burn their books, and fine, imprison, or reeducate all the recalcitrant users who will not give up their religion for the good of the group as a whole.

zing

[Pauldo]

(“flabby purveyor of tepid tea”? seriously?) constitutes “criticism”.

Seriously, look at his arms.  Dude needs to get to the gym.

[img]http://cnnreligion.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/t1largdalailama.jpg?w=640[/img]

[destroysound]

dude, he's 74! i can only hope i look that good when i am 74! at least his eyes aren't all sunken like pope palpatine's.

[zensphere]

If people want to hold indefensible beliefs, fine by me, but there's no reason they should expect to get a free pass from criticism.

it's not that i disagree with you in theory, it's just that i don't think that one person shouting down another and calling them names (“flabby purveyor of tepid tea”? seriously?) constitutes “criticism”. real criticism in the artistic sense makes a statement. that sentiment is extremely lacking today. we can, and have, done better than this. you can view the canonical christian gospels as a criticism of the fundamentalist militant jewish messianic thought that was rampant at the time of their authorship. ironically, christian fundamentalism has now taken on many of the same characteristics.

also, you are on a slippery slope down to positivism as you now have to determine what beliefs are logically defensible… and there are none. the process of belief is a short-circuit of the scientific process. if you are going to behave completely scientifically a strict agnosticism (or better yet, theological noncognitivism) seems to me to be most defensible. what is really interesting to me is what happens to people when they say “ok, i know that this is not rational.. but what if.. ..my god, what if!“. the non-rational is a very powerful place. i feel like the real brilliance of humanity comes out when we stop thinking about what is, and start thinking about what is possible. i'm thinking specifically of phillip k dick here but these kinds of minds are all over the place, historically.

Theological noncognitivism is the underpinning of my atheism. Nonetheless, I agree with you about the value of the irrational. I seek it out intentionally, and frequently. ;D

The problem, as I see it, comes about when the irrational supercedes the rational in the claim of knowledge of reality. We humans appear to require the irrational on quite a deep level – but I see no reason to abandon scientific process/knowledge in it's favor.

I suppose I would tend to disagree that there are no logically defensible beliefs – perhaps there aren't any in a strictly absolute sense – but I'm not about to embrace the kind of relativism which posits that all views of reality are equally valid. I think physicalism is on the right track.

[destroysound]

The problem, as I see it, comes about when the irrational supercedes the rational in the claim of knowledge of reality. We humans appear to require the irrational on quite a deep level – but I see no reason to abandon scientific process/knowledge in it's favor.

i guess my question to you there would be: “so what if it does?”. i don't really see the quest for scientific progress or knowledge to be a universally good thing historically. it's much like religion in that respect. we've gotten penicillin but also nuclear and biological weapons. i also don't think this has anything to do with how most people live their lives in that i don't think most of us are living primarily to advance science or our combined information pool. that's a noble reason to live, but i don't think it is the only appropriate one.

the -only- time that this is a cause for concern is when people are violating some kind of moral code; ie: “god told me not to take my diabetic daughter to the hospital and instead pray for her”. in that case the motivation for the crime is completely irrelevant; you should have known better, society told you better, your religion is not an excuse for your cruel and stupid behavior. people who blame this kind of shit on religion remind me of the people who think that violent videogames cause mass murder. mass murder is caused by people going out and killing a bunch of other people.

other than that, i really don't care what kind of fucked up stuff motivates your daily behavior. if you got out of bed and went to the store this morning because you are trying to raise the dark god xyxxxthezz from his nine tombs of ash on the dark side of uranus, at which time he will spread his great and terrible wings and cover us all in his eternal inky void, great. write a book about it. i look forward to seeing what kinds of weird shit you conjure out of the depths of your mind.

I suppose I would tend to disagree that there are no logically defensible beliefs – perhaps there aren't any in a strictly absolute sense – but I'm not about to embrace the kind of relativism which posits that all views of reality are equally valid. I think physicalism is on the right track.

the key word there is logically defensible beliefs. a belief is not a fact, and it is not a theory. it has no supporting basis and comes into existence spontaneously. logic is a series of clearly defined operators; you have some symbols and you do some manipulation and you prove an assertion. beliefs don't act in that way. it is closest to dogma and that's what we call it when other people have beliefs we don't agree with.

i also don't agree that all views of reality are valid (saying this is pretty much like saying that there is no reality whatsoever as we can't really all agree on anything), but i have no idea how you would possibly go about proving that they aren't. there really isn't much you can actally say there that's nontrivial. the reason solipsism has been such a thorny and recurring problem for philosophers imho is that we are so limited and locked into our perception that we are completely unable to make any comment on even the most ridiculous assertions. but now we're getting into existentialism…

enjoying this discussion fyi.

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