I'm suddenly reminded of Shepherd Book's dying words to Malcom Reynolds: "I don't care what you believe, Mal! Just believe it!"
This is how I interpreted it too. I have faith in many things yet I'm not religious or spiritual and hadn't posted on the topic as I wasn't sure how to word it. Thank you for making the point for me.
Not sure who or what quotes you are referring to. There clearly is a difference between faith and religion. You can have both together or faith on its own. That's why I used "or" in a previous quote...
Probably true. On the other hand, I've always thought it would be interesting to see how aliens categorize human religion, given how 70% of the people on Earth adhere to either a strain of Judaism or a strain of Hinduism. What's also interesting is that, without getting muddled by specifics, they embrace also the two major theories of history, or time, (teleological-utopian and cyclic, respectively, and to simplify a great deal) and the only two desirable outcomes of a belief in an immortal soul (heavenly splendor and reincarnation, respectively, and again to simplify a great deal), so they'd probably have analogues anywhere else there's a species whose members are aware of the past and future and consequently fear their own deaths. Given that, I'd suppose you'd have a far more homogeneous religious population, as people begin to realize there's not a hill of beans worth of difference between Christianity and Islam, except in pointless and purely legalistic details. Then you have things like the Vulcan religion, where the immortal soul is demonstrably real but they don't tend to actually do anything about it unless you're famous. Still, I could see Surakism gaining traction on Earth, as could I Betazoid paganism. I mean, these people were clearly favored when the clay was given life. Then you have a literally true religion like Bajoran Prophet worship, which would pretty much have to attract some adherents based on the fact that they directly intervened to save Federation asses.
By proving that the Vulcan soul exists after the death of the physical body, haven't the Vulcans done away with Faith in the Immortal, as proof denies Faith?
I was going more with the Australian Oxford English Dicitonary:"Faith:... 2. Firm esp religious belief not based on proof..."
I've never seen the great importance of faith. Did Adam and Abraham and Moses have faith? The LORD showed up and kicked them in the shins. They knew full well that Yahweh existed, and thus fashioned a religion around that being. Vulcans and Bajorans get that same sort of advantage. On the other hand, by exposing the respective concepts to scientific investigation, I can see how a Vulcan or Bajoran might be less impressed, since the reality of a thing is more often lesser than the ideal of it.
No. I think there is legitimate debate as to what the katra is, as far as the religious community is concerned. Is it the equivalent of backing your brain up to a flash drive right before death, or is it the essence of the person? I could see all sorts of religious debates that could come out of that.
Yeah, I just watched 'Emanations', where neural energy from dead Vhnori joins an energy pool in an asteroid belt. This might be considered 'proof' of life after death, but at the same time it might just be an energy phenomenon. We will never have all the answers, which is why we'll always have spiritual beliefs- which is why we'll always have religion- and people who use religion to exploit others.
All that I know for sure in just finishing up DS9: Mission Gamma 3: Cathderal, there were a lot of references to tolerance, acceptance, understanding people of different faiths/views. We should keep that type of thing in mind on a thread like this one for sure.
There's a great scene in the last episode of DS9 season 1 where Jake says something like: "But religion is stupid." and Sisko dresses him down for his intolerance. It's a pretty good summary of how I feel about religion actually- it's not for me, but I would never tell another that it wasn't for them.
I thought that scene was a great start towards breaking from the arrogance of TNG. I still think the episode in question could've shown a middle path more effectively than it did (though it did kind of start to with the remarks we heard a bit of from Bareil, about a Bajor that was once a center of learning and science), but it was a first step.
Jake should have turned around and said "Fake tolerance is more patronizing than an honest view - Religion is stupid, that's my view, why aren't you tolerant of it?" Then for good measure, he should have poked Sisko in the chest...
A very un-ST response and certainly out-of-character for Jake. Here's the definition for tolerance. Not sure what you mean by "fake" tolerance.