faetal on 20/2/2015 at 21:58

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One thing which I'm turning over in my head right now (albeit while a little drunk), is why can't people get that community spirit going without religion? I see it and I envy it. It's perverse that there needs to be a belief in the supernatural in order to get a large group of people together to just hang out, without the basis of anything other than getting together to be a community. Why can't people form social groups on the basis of a view to seeing the world in a better light without that overtone of submission to a higher power?

Genuine curiosity.

Yakoob on 21/2/2015 at 11:18

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Time to play the devil's advocate...



It's already been said, but for people it fulfills the spiritual/meaning need and it just "feels right."

I think I get Dema's point - you're fundamentally approaching religion wrong. You're looking at it as a scientist (which you have all the right to do) but the whole point of religion is that it's not science. If anything it's the anti-thesis of science. It's based on beliefs. If it was provable or testable by experiments and hypothesis, it would kind of undermine the definition; you're supposed to believe in it exactly because you can never prove it.

I feel that is part of the "testing your faith" the religious folk talk about. In light of so much evidence, and so many doubts, and no real proof, can you still remain a believer? Is god still the #1 thing in your heart? Perhaps Bible doesn't make sense exactly to test people's faith.

to take it a step further, what if god isn't really benevolent? After all, he created this awesome garden for us and then planted a tree that could be our undoing, forever tempting us. It's kind of a dick move, when you think about it. And it's only one of many instances. If that is the case, all the lack-of-proof starts to make sense. Hell, that could be reason alone to create science that actively disproves the religion, in order to tempt us. Noah is a great movie that kinda explores this idea.

(Also, why you'd want to worship such a god is beyond me. But if it's either worshiping him or burning in hell for all eternity, well, that really isn't much of a choice there is it? It's like the game Black & White, where the god can do whatever he wants and the people must obey because, well, its his playground.

(or hers. because girls can be dicks too :p)



Thats my big pet-peeve too - if you're faith is so strong, why is it so fragile? Why must you cover your ears and zone others out when they question your faith? Clearly it says more about YOU than them.

On the other hand, perhaps these people realize they are fallible and prefer to simply find it easier to avoid the temptation of disbelieving. It's kind of how like recovering alcoholics will avoid drinking parties, yet you wouldn't say they don't really want to recover because they shut off the temptation to get back on the bad track.

But another thing that does annoy the crap out of me is when it's taken to the extreme of not allowing others to do something because it offends your god (like the whole Mohamed pictures thing). You're human, fragile, fallible, ok fair enough. But isn't your god supposed to be almighty and powerful? Is he really gonna get butthurt because you said a bad thing or two? Couldn't he just wipe you from all existence if you insulted him? If he hasn't doesn't that kinda prove he wants those people around (for some reason)? And isn't it kinda diminishing to him that a weakling like you has to stand up and defend the almighty?

nickie on 21/2/2015 at 12:37

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What do you mean by community spirit? Because I've had no experience of what I'd call community spirit based (entirely) around religion/church since early teens. A very small part of it came from religious activity but most didn't.

And I have another question. How do these conversations where people question people's faith come about? Do these people question your (anyone's) lack of faith and this is a response? Or do you just come across a believer and start laying into them? How does it happen. I've never had a conversation about religion where one person starts lambasting another because they have a faith or vice versa. Perhaps it's because I don't know anyone who thinks that someone's religion or lack of it is anyone else's business.

I recommend Berocca and/or tomato soup and boiled egg for hangovers.

faetal on 21/2/2015 at 12:43

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Our brains are natural problem-solving engines. Why would I debate a topic I find interesting with someone who already agreed with me?

demagogue on 21/2/2015 at 13:04

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Having lived in Israel & Japan & being inspired by Jewish yeshiva and Zen Buddhism, I tend to think of religion as more of a practice than a set of beliefs, and what I know of Protestantism has a similar trend if you look at it the right way. (In pomo American protestantism anyway, they like to word it like "having a relationship with God is more important than dogma").

So, to take a point like the Bible is woefully backwards, that's not what you're looking at from a practice perspective. More accurate books, either a venerable legacy tome like Newton's Principia Mathematica or a more recent classic great for students like Wald's General Relativity, from the perspective of a disciplined practice of mediation or reflection, they're not the kind of books you can talk theology about because they don't have any particular attitude towards our relationship to nature, only how a part of it works.

Actually, let me back up. The way I see it, there are different forms of practice, I mean of the disciplined sort. Not just hobnobbing, but like the kind of discipline over decades it takes to get a blackbelt in akito, or to understand Quantum Mechanics cold, etc. There's academic discipline, physical discipline (dancing or martial arts), musical discipline, critical discipline ... So I think there's also a theological discipline. Only certain works work well for that. (Or to take Zen, certain practices since they don't have works). You can't do it well with Wald's GR or Dicken's Great Expectations. Since I like mysticism practices, I think the action is happening inside experience, so from the start of the study to the end, nothing about the outside world really changes. It's the same physical world that follows the same physical laws. But after study you have a disciplined way to take some kind of spiritual orientation to it.

It's easy to see with Japanese arts. Like Tea Ceremony is really a kind of religious practice. Although you get better at actually making the tea over time, that's not really the purpose, and it tastes about the same from when you start to after years of training. But your personal spiritual orientation to the practice develops a lot over those years. At first, it's easy to get bored with the long drawn out movements. But over time, you start being conscious of every little movement, every little part of the process, and you meticulously dwell on it to hone it. I guess the same happens for athletes and musicians, but with tea ceremony, it's even more focused on the spiritual aspect, not just to hone it for its own sake, instrumental, but because it draws the practice into your soul, so to speak, which is a different thing. I noticed a similar thing happens with the way Jews debate scripture in yeshivas; it's a spiritual discipline. So I don't doubt a similar thing can happen with Christianity, and did (and does) during some of its mysticism periods. So that's what I'd say is some of the value for keeping religious practice around.

As for myself, speaking of different kinds of disciplines, aside from when I'm thinking about legal problems (obviously), I actually concentrate more on academic philosophical practice by reading classic works of philosophy and thinking critically about them, like a debate with the author. Or even better, a debate with a friend over coffee or beer if we've read the same work. It's different from theology or literary or legal criticism, although all of them actually have a lot in common & you can use the lessons of one for the other. (It also makes me believe there's always a counter argument or another side to every stance, which is why I want to play God's advocate here some, or what's a debate for...)

Anyway, because I don't really focus on the contents of beliefs of a religion -- in the sense people find it conflicts with the scientific worldview -- criticisms of that side of religious practice don't phase me as much. I think it's possible anyway to have a spiritual practice and scientific worldview. This would also get into things I think about human consciousness and how it works, which I think a lot about. But that that's another topic.

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Edit. The Unitarian Church is a place you can go to get community spirit and all the congregational hubbub for non-believers.