Trek's View of Religion

[Strider]

Exactly--Christians believe that Jesus came with the intent of saving all peoples. And if all peoples require salvation, then all are responsible...not one ethnic group or another.

(Also, I would add that while some people claim the covenant with Israel was dissolved, other interpretations say it was not.)

The applicable portion of the Catechism of the Catholic Church:


839 "Those who have not yet received the Gospel are related to the People of God in various ways."[325]
The relationship of the Church with the Jewish People. When she delves into her own mystery, the Church, the People of God in the New Covenant, discovers her link with the Jewish People,[326] "the first to hear the Word of God."[327] The Jewish faith, unlike other non-Christian religions, is already a response to God's revelation in the Old Covenant. To the Jews "belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ",[328] "for the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable."[329] 840 And when one considers the future, God's People of the Old Covenant and the new People of God tend towards similar goals: expectation of the coming (or the return) of the Messiah. But one awaits the return of the Messiah who died and rose from the dead and is recognized as Lord and Son of God; the other awaits the coming of a Messiah, whose features remain hidden till the end of time; and the latter waiting is accompanied by the drama of not knowing or of misunderstanding Christ Jesus.

 

[Mr Troi]

No, you were talking about a person who worshiped a more conventional, socially approved religion. Do you think there's a meaningful distinction in terms of the truth value of the underlying belief, however? If so, why?

There are all sorts of delusions that help people cope with life's travails. That doesn't change the fact that they're delusions. As noted, when and how one points this out is a matter of context, but the fact remains. If you're such a persons's psychotherapist, for instance, it's more important to guide him/her to the truth than to respect the delusion.


(Look, I brought things back on-topic! )

I want to try to be absolutely clear about the matter of freedom of expression. When I stated "by all means disagree with them and debate with them..." I meant: by all means disagree with them and debate with them.

I am a practicing atheist but I still have much in common with religious people. We are, all of us, concerned with finding meaning in our lives. Religion is a discipline for living your life. I know a person who is a Catholic but he doesn't believe in the afterlife. I simply don't know any religious people who believe that Adam and Eve actually existed. God is just a word and God can mean different things to different people. I respect their choice to try to undertand their life in that way.
I have a friend who believes in The Eternal Recurrence and naturally he is an atheist. He told me this stops him from being complacent about his life. Is it scientific? Is it the truth? If not then would you recommend that I tell him that he would just be as well believe in the spaghetti monster? I do believe there is a meaningful distinction in terms of the truth value of the underlying belief.
My original point about the lady is that people value religion, they are human beings, we should respect that. I am concerned about how certain people have chosen to represent their point of view. If your opinion is the truth then why the need to express it in such an uncouth way? Describing religion as "crap" for example or prattling on about the spaghetti monster is undignified and unworthy. I realise this is just an internet forum but we should set ourselves high standards here too.

I'd recommend kindness instead.

Not really my quote but Mr Troi's (not that I disagree with the sentiment, although probably wouldn't use those words). This kind of thing happens with multi-quoting.

stj recommended kindness not me.

 

[Saquist]

Ironically it was the Romans that had him put to death. (That would be Ironic because many follow under Roman Catholicism to day as Christians.)

Nonetheless...not all Jews are responsible and apparently God didn't hold all Jews responsible even though the covenant was broken.

If you mean ironic in the sense that Roman Catholics aren't aware of that connection and should be embarassed by it, then no not all that ironic. It's interesting, though. I mean, given Rome's prominence it's not surprising that the Chair of Peter would take up residence in the city at that time.

As for the matter of responsibility for Christ's death, the culprit you're looking for is me. Me and everyone else, actually. The participation of the Jews and Romans in the crucifixion of Christ is a matter of historical (and some theological) interest, but it has less to do with their Jewishness or their Roman-ness and more to do with their sinful human-ness. I can't ignore the likeliehood that if I had been in that crowd I would have most likely been clamoring for His blood as well. Because I'm weak, because I'm just as subject to the mob as everyone else. Jews are just as good and bad as everyone else, and equally in need of salvation.

A unique and interesting perspective strider.
We are all slaves to our environment. I could not say if I was there raised by who knows who..what I would do.

But I know what I would do now and that is enough.

The entirety of which, was to try and cast doubt on my statements, and was thus an indirect request exactly for what Lawman said.

The entirety is irrelevant. You cannot read my mind 3D Masters. You're operating from your sense of ego not from logic.

False.

Implicitly undefined.

In fact there is evidence it's called testimony and it comes from many ancient cultures but science can't determine the veracity of testimony so science is impotent.

Oh I understand the point but it is nonetheless...
False:
Testimony is evidence.
Evidence in its broadest sense includes everything that is used to determine or demonstrate the truth of an assertion.~Wiki & Babylon's Free Dictionary.

False, science has long since determined that the veracity of testimony is subject at best. Neurology and psychology shows that the human brain has many different ways it can fool itself and produce illusionary sights and feelings. And even when no such things occur, and we are talking about witnessing something and giving testimony to that, there are many ways in which a human can misremember things.

Improper Application:
This is not a Scientific Forum.
There is no panel of peers with scientific stature.
There is no written thesis to be reviewed.
"False" is irrelevant.

It is not a contradiction at all, quite the contrary, they are perfectly reasonable, and in fact must logically follow from each other.

The exact reason why you can come to a negative judgment on the grounds of no proof, is because for a negative, there is no proof to be had.

If there is no evidence, let alone proof, for something, than it must logically follow (until new evidence comes along that does support it) that it doesn't exist.

Negative Proof Fallacy
So much for logic...

 

[lawman]

I want to try to be absolutely clear about the matter of freedom of expression. When I stated "by all means disagree with them and debate with them..." I meant: by all means disagree with them and debate with them.

Well, good. As I'm willing to acknowledge the value of diplomacy and compassion, and you're willing to acknowledge the value of discussion and debate, it would appear we're not so much at odds as past posts might have made it seem.

Religion is a discipline for living your life. I know a person who is a Catholic but he doesn't believe in the afterlife. I simply don't know any religious people who believe that Adam and Eve actually existed. God is just a word and God can mean different things to different people...

Religion can be a discipline for living your life, but isn't necessarily so. It depends on how much thought one puts into it... and of course, if one takes it too seriously, it can lead one's life very much astray.

I don't dispute that most people who claim to be "religious" in developed, Western countries these days are pretty casual about it. Certainly the lapsed Catholics I know outnumber the observant ones, too... and I can thankfully say I don't personally know any reactionary "Christian Nation" types. In my personal sphere, as an educated urbanite, I don't actually encounter much religion, and what I do seems relatively innocuous.

Nevertheless, that doesn't change the fact that the zealots are out there... and they wield influence disproportionate to their numbers, and they raise the vast majority of the noise about how modern secular society doesn't "respect" their views. And there's plenty of skewed thinking even among the "casual" types; e.g., it's distressing to me that 60% of Americans polled don't believe in biological evolution.

This is the sort of thing that any intelligent, responsible citizen can and should oppose. It's not just a matter of arguing for the sake of arguing.

I have a friend who believes in The Eternal Recurrence and naturally he is an atheist. He told me this stops him from being complacent about his life. Is it scientific? Is it the truth? If not then would you recommend that I tell him that he would just be as well believe in the spaghetti monster?...

Hell if I know. Is he speaking of it in the Schopenhauer sense, or the oscillating universe sense, or something else? If he's an atheist I assume he's a reasonably skeptical thinker... does he have actual evidence to support his belief, or is it just something he thinks "would be nice if it were true" (which seems to be how many people approach their religion)? I don't know about your friend, but in the circles I move in, someone expressing such a belief is likely to be not only willing but anxious to discuss and debate about it, so there's no fear of giving offense.

IMHO, a belief one is afraid to have challenged is a belief one isn't very sure about.

My original point about the lady is that people value religion, they are human beings, we should respect that.

Perhaps our bone of contention here lies in different understandings of what "respect" means. When it's used by believers, it often seems tantamount to "deference." I'm not sure to what extent you mean it that way.

Personally, of course I respect that all kinds of people with different beliefs are human beings. And I respect their right to hold those beliefs, insofar as they have freedom of thought with which it's not my business to interfere. And I'll even respect the beliefs themselves... to precisely the extent that its adherents are willing and able to defend that belief rationally, and not one jot further.

I'm sorry if you think I've been uncouth in this thread. I disagree. People have accused (e.g.) Dawkins and Harris of much the same in the wake of their recent books, and I disagree there too. I wasn't the one who first brought up the Spaghetti Monster in this thread, but FWIW I find it to be an effective and amusing analogy. I'm not perfect, but I do try to maintain high standards of debate, in terms of both logic and civility... although at the same time, since we're all here voluntarily, I assume that everyone involved is willing to put forth their strongest arguments, and has a thick skin about being disagreed with.

 

[James Wright]

Was GR a religious person? It seemed to me like he wanted to do away with human religions in TOS, had the people working on all the series had the courage they could've developed episodes showing that all human religions had finally come together as equal, it's hard to explain.

James

 

[Saquist]

Was GR a religious person? It seemed to me like he wanted to do away with human religions in TOS, had the people working on all the series had the courage they could've developed episodes showing that all human religions had finally come together as equal, it's hard to explain.

James

From what I understood he was atheist.

 

[Mr Troi]

Perhaps our bone of contention here lies in different understandings of what "respect" means. When it's used by believers, it often seems tantamount to "deference." I'm not sure to what extent you mean it that way.

I don't think you have been uncouth or anything like that. I regret that I wrote that comment while I was replying to your post. It was not directed at you. I apologise. I think maybe I should read my own advice about how to properly put forward an opinion.
I also want to say I have not been offended by any comments made here and have really liked reading your posts.
I am sorry to say that I agree with pretty much everything you wrote in your last post so I can't respond to any of it.
However, in a previous post you wrote something that didn't sit very well with me.

There are all sorts of delusions that help people cope with life's travails. That doesn't change the fact that they're delusions. As noted, when and how one points this out is a matter of context, but the fact remains. If you're such a persons's psychotherapist, for instance, it's more important to guide him/her to the truth than to respect the delusion.

It is more important to know the truth than live under a delusion. What is the truth though? For example, I love my girlfriend and that is the truth as far as I am concerned. I love her like a madman. But is that not just a delusion too?
You could guide me to the truth by explaining to me that my feeling of 'love' is just caused by a particular chemical being active in a certain area of my brain while I'm with her. That it is all just a matter of genetics.
You could tell me that it is preposterous to believe that she is the 'only one for me'. That if I hadn't met her I would probably have met someone else. That she would have met someone else too and fallen in 'love' with him.
You could teach me about evolutionary theory. That the feeling of 'love' is just simply nature's way of propogating the species and ensuring that our young have parents who will raise them and look after them.
Romantic love is one of those "delusions that help people cope with life's travails". If you ignore the supposed evolutionary benefit and just concentrate on the development of the individual, do you think this is a delusion that your average educated urbanite friends should just smash?
If not, do you think we should alter the way we behave with our partners. For example, rather than say to her: I love you with all my heart (nonsense, what does the heart really have to do with it?). Instead shouldn't you just say something like: my oxytocin levels have really increased since you came in.
Is it not the case that what you might call delusions are the substance of other people's lives?

 

[lawman]

I don't think that romantic love is a particularly good analogy for religion, but FWIW I'll digress for a bit to discuss it.

I don't deny the existence of love, nor do I think that it's a delusion. It is the result of a neurochemical process in the brain, of course (just as is true for any thought, idea, or feeling), but to acknowledge that is not to diminish its reality or its significance (any more than for any other thought, idea, or feeling).

Personally, I think love is more meaningful when one is honest and straightforward about it, rather than dressing it up in all sorts of hyperbole. I love my girlfriend, she loves me, and we both express it warmly and regularly. However, we've always avoided framing it in terms of being "the only one" for the other or promising to love the other "forever" or so forth... because even a casual glance at other relationships in the world around us demonstrates that such phrases are unrealistic and impossible to validate.

When people think of their romantic love(s) in terms like those, all they do is create impossible expectations, and thus set themselves up for later disappointment and unhappiness. (For example, consider a couple engaged to be married who blissfully insist they don't need a prenup agreement because there's "no way" they could ever divorce.) It's always better to be realistic about things.

 

[Mr Troi]

Fair enough.

 

[stj]

The stuff about the reality of love is very much of a piece with the believers' assumption that atheists are evil. The kind of people who would deny God (a supernatural entity) are so evil they would deny the very existence of a natural human emotion. And they would most especially deny the validity of morality. Such supposed logic is merely religious bigotry. Again, I must say that is far meaner than any of the alleged insults offered by atheists.

The only reason for the majority of US citizens to disbelieve the facts of biology is because it contradicts their religion. (It insults their vanity, but no one can honestly deny how heavily religion relies on the appeal to vanity.) The furor over the teaching of evolution has reliably exposed the hatred the Christians feel for the unbelievers. Major Christian leaders organize political campaigns that demonize evolutionists as undermining all morality, as evil.

The people who supposedly stand for tolerance and respect are pretty much nowhere to be found. Scientific opinion surveys have found that the large majority of US citizens (overwhelmingly believers by populist standards to whom a mere two to five percent of the poulation is nothing,) are unashamed to confess they would vote against an atheist candidate for no other reason.

Respecting religious belief means respecting the "right" to disbelieve biology for no reason other than it pleases you. Obviously one has the right to believe any nonsense you wish. But insisting that such people must be respected betrays nothing but contempt for reason and civility.

Reserving your respect for believers who manage to meet your personal standards (unlike for instance those who took the New Testament reports about the Jewish crowd perhaps too literally,) is to smuggle in nonreligious standards. Atheists just say, go ahead and make your moral decisions without messing about with old superstitions and bigotry.

The notion that science only pronounces provisional truth is misleading in this context. The knowledge won by science is the only knowledge there is. There is not even any religious or moral realm or spiritual realm where religion has its own province, because religion has provided no knowledge anywhere, anytime. That's why there's a blue million of them. The implication that science's truth is provisional concedes that there might even be an absolute truth, which is just divine revelation under an alias.

 

[Penta]

But so...So...I'm lacking for words. Life without that kind of romance, without hope, without mystery...

Would bore me past the point of tears.

I mean, really. If this is all there is, I doubt I'd be the only one who'd find it an incredibly dreary, hopeless existence.

 

[iguana_tonante]

But so...So...I'm lacking for words. Life without that kind of romance, without hope, without mystery...

Wait... what? Thinking there is no supernatural element to love is not denying its existence. Pain is also just a chemical reaction in the brain, but nobody thinks that it doesn't exist.

Would bore me past the point of tears.

I mean, really. If this is all there is, I doubt I'd be the only one who'd find it an incredibly dreary, hopeless existence.

Really, that makes no sense. People find meaning in whatever they choose. It's not any of your business.

 

[stonester1]

Makes perfect sense to me.

Yes, people find meaning in whatever they choose, but it's not like what he was posting was him insisting on barging in anyone else's business.

It was just his view of things.

Chill.

 

[3D Master]

But so...So...I'm lacking for words. Life without that kind of romance, without hope, without mystery...

Would bore me past the point of tears.

I mean, really. If this is all there is, I doubt I'd be the only one who'd find it an incredibly dreary, hopeless existence.

Quite the contrary. The fact that a few "simple" chemical reactions can produce the magnificent feelings of love and others, without any supernatural intervention, makes it all the more amazing. And the fact that we can understand it, and study it, makes it even more so.

 

[stonester1]

But so...So...I'm lacking for words. Life without that kind of romance, without hope, without mystery...

Would bore me past the point of tears.

I mean, really. If this is all there is, I doubt I'd be the only one who'd find it an incredibly dreary, hopeless existence.

Quite the contrary. The fact that a few "simple" chemical reactions can produce the magnificent feelings of love and others, without any supernatural intervention, makes it all the more amazing. And the fact that we can understand it, and study it, makes it even more so.

Wait one minute. There is no "scientific" consensus that emotions are just chemical illusions in the brain. They observe things that are physical manifestations of such, but there is no consensus that those ARE the emotions.

"LOVE" is still just as big a mystery as it has always been and we DON'T understand it.

Seeing chemicals in the brain we can associate with it is a long way from "understanding" it.

And if we were able to actually do that one day, no, I'd say that would make it mundane, not amazing.

 

[iguana_tonante]

Makes perfect sense to me.

Yes, people find meaning in whatever they choose, but it's not like what he was posting was him insisting on barging in anyone else's business.

It was just his view of things.

Chill.

And I was explaining why it made no sense. That a life without any supernatural belief is void of love, hope and wonder is utter nonsense, and it shows he doesn't have any familiarity with people actually adhering to that world view. He's taking what he likes about his life, and projecting it to other people: if you don't enjoy the same things I do, your live must be dreary and hopeless.

Tell me how it's not barging in someone else's business.

 

[stonester1]

Makes perfect sense to me.

Yes, people find meaning in whatever they choose, but it's not like what he was posting was him insisting on barging in anyone else's business.

It was just his view of things.

Chill.

And I was explaining why it made no sense. That a life without any supernatural belief is void of love, hope and wonder is utter nonsense, and it shows he doesn't have any familiarity with people actually adhering to that world view. He's taking what he likes about his life, and projecting it to other people: if you don't enjoy the same things I do, your live must be dreary and hopeless.

Tell me how it's not barging in someone else's business.

How is his view affecting your life?

 

[3D Master]

But so...So...I'm lacking for words. Life without that kind of romance, without hope, without mystery...

Would bore me past the point of tears.

I mean, really. If this is all there is, I doubt I'd be the only one who'd find it an incredibly dreary, hopeless existence.

Quite the contrary. The fact that a few "simple" chemical reactions can produce the magnificent feelings of love and others, without any supernatural intervention, makes it all the more amazing. And the fact that we can understand it, and study it, makes it even more so.

Wait one minute. There is no "scientific" consensus that emotions are just chemical illusions in the brain. They observe things that are physical manifestations of such, but there is no consensus that those ARE the emotions.

"LOVE" is still just as big a mystery as it has always been and we DON'T understand it.

Seeing chemicals in the brain we can associate with it is a long way from "understanding" it.

The only reason why there is no consensus is because some scientists, especially psychologists, have got too much pride to acknowledge it.

 

[stonester1]

Quite the contrary. The fact that a few "simple" chemical reactions can produce the magnificent feelings of love and others, without any supernatural intervention, makes it all the more amazing. And the fact that we can understand it, and study it, makes it even more so.

Wait one minute. There is no "scientific" consensus that emotions are just chemical illusions in the brain. They observe things that are physical manifestations of such, but there is no consensus that those ARE the emotions.

"LOVE" is still just as big a mystery as it has always been and we DON'T understand it.

Seeing chemicals in the brain we can associate with it is a long way from "understanding" it.

The only reason why there is no consensus is because some scientists, especially psychologists, have got too much pride to acknowledge it.

Right.

Prove it.

 

[Penta]

Iguana: So....I actually wasn't saying that at all.

I said what I said for me.

For me, drilling everything down into a chemical reaction makes life dreary.

For me, the prospect of this being the only world we've got frankly makes me want to hang myself. Or at least I would, if I had the motor skills to tie a knot. Because if there's nothing past this, then I have zero reason not to want to die.

I wasn't saying a damn thing about you. Quit being so vain.