God and religion

[Orang Utan]

So much conceited sneering at faith on this thread. people who seem to think they are superior of thinking merely because they don't believe in any deities. And they've probably done less actual thinking than many of the people they believe to be merely irrational twits

 

[weltweit]

So much conceited sneering at faith on this thread. people who seem to think they are superior of thinking merely because they don't believe in any deities. And they've probably done less actual thinking than many of the people they believe to be merely irrational twits

And, are you not sneering at them?

 

[gentlegreen]

I rather think you couldn't be more wrong there OU.
At least going by the theists I encounter online - and the opinions of recovering ex-theists
I did the "spiritual" thing when I was younger. My GF in my 20s even got me into a church.

I tend not to care until they start firing guns and setting off bombs.

 

[Orang Utan]

And, are you not sneering at them?

I guess so

 

[Orang Utan]

I rather think you couldn't be more wrong there OU.
At least going by the theists I encounter online - and the opinions of recovering ex-theists
I did the "spiritual" thing when I was younger. My GF in my 20s even got me into a church.

I tend not to care until they start firing guns and setting off bombs.

The term 'recovering ex-theist'. Really? That's pretty offensive.

 

[bimble]

Can't speak for him but had a 2 hr skye conversation recently with someone I've known for years (youngish man, son of a good friend) who was brought up Catholic and has recently converted to Islam. His family was very alarmed, afraid that next thing he'd be buying a balaclava and one way ticket to the caliphate. I'll admit when I heard the news I was worried too.
What he said basically was that he loves being able to stop 5 times a day, just briefly, and remember that there's more to life than welding (his work), and also that he's never felt so welcome and so part of a community before. There was only one moment in the long chat when what he was saying didn't make complete sense to me, which was when he repeated the idea that dressing modestly is liberating for women. But I don't know, he probably felt that way back at Catholic school too.

 

[Orang Utan]

There's the idea that if a woman is beind the veil, her looks are no longer judged and she is only judged by her character, and that's how it is seen to be liberating

 

[bimble]

There's the idea that if a woman is beind the veil, her looks are no longer judged and she is only judged by her character, and that's how it is seen to be liberating

Yes, I know what the idea is. I just don't like / agree with it. It's basically 'we men can't help ourselves so please wear a tent', not unique to Islam though.

 

[gentlegreen]

The term 'recovering ex-theist'. Really? That's pretty offensive.

That is how they see themselves - especially the one raised as a JW.

 

[Orang Utan]

Yes, I know what the idea is. I just don't like / agree with it. It's basically 'we men can't help ourselves so please wear a tent', not unique to Islam though.

Yeah, the problem is of course patriarchy and wearing the veil doesn't address this

 

[Blood Tonic]

That's a bold statement

Not really. Religion is just a placebo for mans inability to confront mortality.

 

[campanula]

Do we not all have our own versions of priests, shamans and sacred texts? It seems a universal desire to believe in the numinous, the hidden, a transcendence beyond the humdrum. Not exactly religion, as such, well, maybe very loosely, but many humans do seem to have an innate desire to accept the idea of an over-seeing deity and surrender to it's will, even one that can not be materially characterised but only exists in an idea.
'Nature' (which does also get reified) for example.
Obviously, not much of a clue what I am talking about here but I like to join in.

 

[gentlegreen]

Someone in a room yesterday was saying that a lot of the details of the god myths tended to come from people staring at the stars and seeing patterns ...
God is usually "up there" ....

Exposing myself to the craziness of the religiously obsessed has made me only recently take refuge in science - I had never paid much attention to the timescale of the evolution of life on earth and the staggering complexity that has come about from the simplest beginnings - though the evolution of the greater universe still doesn't interest me much because it's just the substrate.

In the past I allowed relationships to be far too close to religion so they went wrong very quickly - but I think there's still a sizeable element there in my longings ...

 

[Santino]

Do we not all have our own versions of priests, shamans and sacred texts?

No.

 

[campanula]

So you don't think that scientists, economists, lawyers occupy the same niche, then, Santino? They are experts, to whom we frequently surrender our will, believing implicitly in their word and the systems of thought they represent?

 

[Orang Utan]

Not really. Religion is just a placebo for mans inability to confront mortality.

It's a lot more than that. You called it a fraud. That implies deliberately misleading people. Not necessarily true

 

[Orang Utan]

So you don't think that scientists, economists, lawyers occupy the same niche, then, Santino? They are experts, to whom we frequently surrender our will, believing implicitly in their word and the systems of thought they represent?

Religious people tend to trust those people too. They're not replacements for priests.

 

[Santino]

So you don't think that scientists, economists, lawyers occupy the same niche, then, Santino? They are experts, to whom we frequently surrender our will, believing implicitly in their word and the systems of thought they represent?

No. Not in the same way. I don't believe implicitly in what experts say, and I don't think they have access to a realm of absolute truth or moral authority.

Especially not economists and lawyers.

 

[campanula]

Especially not economists and lawyers.

No, me neither, but I do tend to genuflect to those who understand the workings of the internal combustion engine or computer, the workings of which are entirely mysterious to me.
And, as a gardener, I have come across the desire to see 'nature' as equally miraculous and not fully explained.

 

[coley]

I think i am losing or have lost my faith tbh.

One of the main things with this Daesh stuff for me is that its led me to become increasingly disgusted with religion. We all know there are people within Israel who would like to and have behaved like Daesh on occasion. The same with the monks in burma and the hindu nationalists and the way christian churches have behaved throught history. Religion can get people to act in moral ways, it can give people a lot of comfort but then you can achieve that sort of peace of mind without it, you can achieve great things without it. And believing that they are acting on 'gods will' seems to give some people permission to be incredibly cruel and sadistic. We dont even know if moses, mohammed or jesus even existed. It's just pointless.

Religion has given me a lot of comfort over the years, its helped me a lot but the behaviour of Israel and ISIS in particular, just makes me so disgusted with it, how its used to excuse such sadism, how you can justify anything just by reading a fucking book. If a religion can make you a moral person but also a worse person then what claim does it have to be the truth of anything.

The same thing with Israeli Settlers, how sickenly happy they are to 'make aliyah', without any thought of the consequences. And people always say 'thats not real judaism' or 'thats not real islam' but the people doing this stuff pray to god daily and passionately believe in all the laws, i would be surprised if they did not feel God has helped them or worked miracles in their lives, that they did not have sone sort of 'relationship' with him.

So yeah this is just a rant, not interested in convincing anyone of my views but wondering if anyone had similar feelings. Its quite difficult for me to come to terms with because you know there have been times when i really did believe in god but i dont think I can again.

I stopped believing in the conventional 'idea' of God in my early teens and the last remnants of belief in God and organised religion ended with my time in NI.
And while I'd like to claim to be a fully paid up atheist, I, in all honesty can't, there is a little corner of belief/ faith in something that just won't go away.

 

[Gromit]

I stopped believing in the conventional 'idea' of God in my early teens and the last remnants of belief in God and organised religion ended with my time in NI.
And while I'd like to claim to be a fully paid up atheist, I, in all honesty can't, there is a little corner of belief/ faith in something that just won't go away.

Sounds like when I clean the oven. Theres always a tiny little bit of crap I can't quite shift.

 

[coley]

Sounds like when I clean the oven. Theres always a tiny little bit of crap I can't quite shift.

Mebbes there's a tad difference atween a spotless oven and a closed mind?

 

[Gromit]

Mebbes there's a tad difference atween a spotless oven and a closed mind?

The comparison wasn't between the oven and the mind but the gunk left behind in an oven and remnants of absurd faith.

But yer right. A clean oven is far more useful than a mind closed by religion.

 

[Santino]

I have firm beliefs

You have a closed mind

He is a bigot

 

[coley]

The comparison wasn't between the oven and the mind but the gunk left behind in an oven and remnants of absurd faith.

But yer right. A clean oven is far more useful than a mind closed by religion.

Absurd beliefs in an 'almighty God' or the subservience of the masses to organised religion I can go along with, and aye a mind closed by religion is a deadly thing, as we see daily.
But there's this little irksome doubt that the beauty of the cosmos and the earth can't be totally, truly accidental?
And an obsession with a clean oven

 

[Gromit]

Absurd beliefs in an 'almighty God' or the subservience of the masses to organised religion I can go along with, and aye a mind closed by religion is a deadly thing, as we see daily.
But there's this little irksome doubt that the beauty of the cosmos and the earth can't be totally, truly accidental?
And an obsession with a clean oven

Ah if thats the little corner you refer to I'm down with that. I thought you were refering to little corners of organised preaching.

For life to exist scientists claim that we are just lucky a some co-incidences happened and they were bound to have happened somewhere in the universe because its so huge and we just happen to be lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. If you look at it though its millions if not billions of co-incidences. Look at the fact that DNA has a built in expiry. Life wouldn't work if it wasn't for death. The planet is finite and so life on it has to be. Just plain luck that those that don't die through the food chain get old and die? Thats just one of many examples.

However i don't for one minute believe whatever set everything in motion feels the need to pop down and explain it to us every now and then and set up arbitrary rules for us to follow or ignore when so many things are hard coded into existence.

 

[Orang Utan]

Fucking hell.

 

[coley]

Ah if thats the little corner you refer to I'm down with that. I thought you were refering to little corners of organised preaching.

For life to exist scientists claim that we are just lucky a some co-incidences happened and they were bound to have happened somewhere in the universe because its so huge and we just happen to be lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. If you look at it though its millions if not billions of co-incidences. Look at the fact that DNA has a built in expiry. Life wouldn't work if it wasn't for death. The planet is finite and so life on it has to be. Just plain luck that those that don't die through the food chain get old and die? Thats just one of many examples.

Aye, lottery winners are ten a penny compared to the chances of us coming into existence

However i don't for one minute believe whatever set everything in motion feels the need to pop down and explain it to us every now and then and set up arbitrary rules for us to follow or ignore when so many things are hard coded into existence.

Neither do I, it's a daft idea, at its best,organised religion came about in order to create, a set of laws and behaviours in order to let humanity progress, it then morphed into a system that suppressed the vast bulk of humanity.
But somehow, a bit of me refuses to accept that everything around us is the result of a happy combination of physics and chemistry.

 

[coley]

Fucking hell.

Is there such a place, can one get a temporary pass
?

 

[eskdave]

Do we not all have our own versions of priests, shamans and sacred texts? It seems a universal desire to believe in the numinous, the hidden, a transcendence beyond the humdrum. Not exactly religion, as such, well, maybe very loosely, but many humans do seem to have an innate desire to accept the idea of an over-seeing deity and surrender to it's will, even one that can not be materially characterised but only exists in an idea.
'Nature' (which does also get reified) for example.
Obviously, not much of a clue what I am talking about here but I like to join in.

Numinous?