The great and all powerful religion thread!

[V.V.V.V.V.]

Yeah, that is definitely a shaky contention.

 

[Dak]

Well... I know you believe it's true; but whether or not it really is is a matter for debate. But then again, if that's what you believe, then that's that. I liked your responses though, thanks for going about it.

Thanks for the questions, it makes me have to go back through and dig up and double check stuff I haven't looked at in a while.

 

[BlackMetalWhiteGuy]

It took me almost a week, but I finally finished reading this entire thread. Thanks to everyone who posted quotes and links to articles, research and satire. Also, throughout the course of reading this thread, I've acquired and conceived many new arguments that I've added to a work list of religious criticisms that I hope to organize into a comprehensive presentation after I return to college for grad studies.

I do have a few things that I do intend to contribute, but they'll have to wait until tomorrow night, because right now I'm exhausted.

 

[Zephyrus]

Human Reason had a vigorous youth, until Rome fell and he escaped to a monastery and married Faith. It was a strange marriage. For a long time he fell flat on his face before her because she promised so much. But in his middle ages he began to reassert himself until he demanded a divorce. Despite her inquisitions and repeated promises of eternal life, he will have nothing to do with her as she fades into irrelevance.

 

[The Emptier]

 

[Krigloch the Furious]

nice bump

 

[Zephyrus]

Been doing some readings on Thomas Aquinas, William of Ockham and all those chaps. Rekindled my interest in some theological debate.

 

[Vimana]

I think theology is a bullshit field. Gods are just one of the results of humans attempting to explain/influence/control their environment. It is a study of things that were imagined based on logic influenced mostly by personification of nature.

 

[Badbird]

How many of you believe the gods were all born on December 25? This has been said in quite few movies concering about religion. I went online today and say that this so called fact was false.


Watch The God Who Wasn't There and Religulous. Both kickass. Bill Maher

 

[Dak]

All Religulous proved was the obvious: Bill Maher is an ass, the average lay member doesn't actually know the dogma of their chosen faith, and Mormonism is creepy.

 

[Badbird]

Bill Maher is a asshole but I like the guy still. His show "Real Time" is the balls. Mormonism is creepy and the average lay member doesn't know the dogma of their chosen faith. Wow, like anyone didn't know this already .

 

[Dak]

Bill Maher is a asshole but I like the guy still. His show "Real Time" is the balls. Mormonism is creepy and the average lay member doesn't know the dogma of their chosen faith. Wow, like anyone didn't know this already .

Hence, the pointlessness of Religulous. And of course you would like him, he panders to you pseudo-intellectual types.

 

[Badbird]

Like you aren't some pseudo-intellectual. Don't give me that bullshit. Speaking of other cool people.

 

[Dak]

Like you aren't some pseudo-intellectual. Don't give me that bullshit. Speaking of other cool people.

Penn & Teller can be funny. You like that backhanded ad hom? The working definition of a pseudo intellectual is "Anyone who disagrees with me".

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

I always believed that faith is extremely detrimental to human life and is the pure negation of reason. On a lighter note I look at religion as an early form of old philosophy and the first attempts to explain the universe and give a coherent frame of reference to mans life and code of moral values. All this made by religion before men graduated or developed enough to have philosophy and as philosophies some religions have very valuable moral points. They may have a good influence or proper principles to infuse but in a very contradictory context and on a very dangerous or malevolent base/on the ground of faith.

I know I'm not saying anything original here but I like to make sense of my own thoughts.

 

[Dak]

I would respond that faith in and of itself is not dangerous, but individual substance and reasons must be included in the analysis of any individual faith.

I personally have faith in the diety I was brought up to believe in, but my understanding of what He is and how to relate to him has completely changed. I do not accept accept anything that man has to say or write about him purely at face value. The more I learn the more I realize I don't know, and the more questions I ask.

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

Yeah and with this analysis and reason I think any sound mind comes to the conclusion that faith designates blind acceptance of a certain hypothetical content. acceptance induced by feeling in the absence of evidence or proof.

 

[Einherjar86]

I always believed that faith is extremely detrimental to human life and is the pure negation of reason. On a lighter note I look at religion as an early form of old philosophy and the first attempts to explain the universe and give a coherent frame of reference to mans life and code of moral values. All this made by religion before men graduated or developed enough to have philosophy and as philosophies some religions have very valuable moral points. They may have a good influence or proper principles to infuse but in a very contradictory context and on a very dangerous or malevolent base/on the ground of faith.

I know I'm not saying anything original here but I like to make sense of my own thoughts.

In Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel sets out to demonstrate that reason/enlightenment actually only appears to be the pure negation of faith because it posits faith as its antithesis. Using the dialectical method that Hegel is now famous for, he shows, rather convincingly in my opinion, that faith and enlightenment are actually more closely related than reason would like to betray.

Terry Eagleton impressively explicates this paradoxical quandary in his book Ideology: An Introduction (which I would recommend to anyone interested in these kinds of topics):

"The critique of ideology claims at once that certain forms of consciousness are false and that this falsity is somehow structural and necessary to a specific social order. The falsity of ideas, we might say, is part of the 'truth' of a whole material condition. But the theory which identifies this falsehood therefore undercuts itself at a stroke, exposing a situation which simply as a theory it is powerless to resolve. The critique of ideology, that is to say, is at the same moment the critique of the critique of ideology [i.e. the critique of itself]."

If enlightenment is spawned from the same material conditions that gave birth to religion, then any critique of the conditions upon which religion is based must also take into account a critique of those conditions as they gave birth to reason. In this light, enlightenment begins to emerge as merely another form of faith/ideology.

That said, I think even coming to this realization was a huge advancement in the history of Western thought. We seem now to be aware of the limits of our own critique; but how can we hope to conceive of some objective criticism of our material conditions when they are the very foundation of our thought?

 

[The Butt]

When it comes to my faith, yes I have faith in a deity of some sort. I know it is irrational, and I know I cannot prove my beliefs, and I know that there is quite a large possibility I am wrong in my beliefs. But I dunno. I still believe, and I do not know why. Keep in mind though that I think the Bible is a crock of shit, and I dislike organized religion as a whole... so it's more of a spiritual thing than a religious one. Oh well.

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

Material conditions as our percepts? Explain material conditions? I'm just a bit confused.

Are you saying reality isn't cognitively knowable?