Do you believe any of the stories that Religions teach?

Originally posted by NewAgeMan
To throw the whole thing away based on ignorant and naive assumptions, with a strong dose of anger and meanspiritedness, that imho, is the most heartwrenching thing, in so far as the ancient history is there at least in part to serve as a reminder of our true nature, our origin and our destiny as the apex and crown of God's creation.

OK - as I say: "There is truth in the bible - - but the bible is not truth". "There is truth in the Koran - - but the Koran is not truth" etc etc.

However - - what about the various mythologies and other ancient stories.

My problem is when people discuss religion (mostly) - - they mean the current 3 or 4 accepted beliefs.

reply to post by Annee

Just don't assume and keep an open mind, that's not too much to ask.

Originally posted by NewAgeMan
reply to post by Annee

 

Just don't assume and keep an open mind, that's not too much to ask.

Assume what?

I do have an open mind. I support anything/everything is possible/probable.

My personal beliefs do not supersede "anything/everything is possible/probable".

IMO - - it is the religious who have a closed mind.

reply to post by Annee


I know that I don't know everything and therefore cannot discount certain possibilities. I also am aware that there is more going on than meets the eye, and that it's not inconcievable that we live in a non-local, holographic, self aware universe, wherein anything is at least possible, if not always probable, and as I'd said previously, we cannot even rule out "divine intervention" with the aid of extraterrestrial intelligences and technologies. God only knows what cosmic drama is being worked out in relation to earth and it's human inhabitants.
Also, just because we don't tend to see extraordinary miracles in this day and age doesn't rule out, neccessarily, that such occurances might have occured in the past.

But I have to say that the assumption of atheists drives me crazy. They appear so arrogant, and yes, meanspirited.

reply to post by bogomil


I think where you are losing me is your "predation and symbiosis."

That is not a concept I am using to make my argument, so I am not sure how you are relating it TO my argument. I understand what predation is, and symbiosis is, but as I understand it, these terms are not synonymous with terms I CAN relate to my argument, "cooperators and cheaters." Cheaters are predatory, in a sense, they are exploiting the cooperation of the cooperators without reciprocation, but the cooperators are not really symbiotes. Those terms are generally used for inter-species interaction, not intra-species interaction.

I dont want to defend an argument I didnt make, in other words, and it doesnt appear you are arguing the same points I am.

As far as the Eastern religions being more palatable, or desirable, sure. I dont disagree. I find them more to my liking as well. But Im not arguing "this is what I like" I am arguing that "Like it or not, the Abrahamic religions have greater value in natural selective terms."

Say what you will about the preferability of the Asian philosophies, they are not competing well against the Abrahamic meme.

www.adherents.com...

This is because, I am arguing, that those memes are designed in a way that gives them a selective advantage. My argument is NOT that I like them better, or think they are kinder, more humane, etc. Merely that NATURE (or God) likes them better, as evidenced by their (increasing) dominance.

The religious philosophies that are more tolerant of other belief systems, and that actually convince their membership to engage in non-violence against their enemies are less competitive by far. They are losing ground, and that ground is being picked up by the more aggressive memes. You will see this in the more liberal cultures you mention as well, in time, as more the more aggressive memes penetrate these cultures via immigration.

Nature or God has set Earth up with a ruleset that is based around competition. It happens on every level. Your body is fighting off and killing viruses, bacteria, (although some are allies) we are killing and eating plants, and animals, we fight each other for resources, and drive other species extinct or increase their number if we can exploit them. This is just the game that is being played. At all levels. Within as well as without you.

Originally posted by NewAgeMan
But I have to say that the assumption of atheists drives me crazy. They appear so arrogant, and yes, meanspirited.

LOL

Of course I am Agnostic/Atheist.

I am sometimes told I am arrogant - - because I make statements - - rather then "coddle the word". People like to be stroked. I don't need it and find it annoying in discussion.

That's probably what you think is arrogance and meanspirited about Atheists. It isn't. Its just not wasting time with appeasing - - "coddling the word".

Take it at face value and don't read more into it then it is.

I dont belive this one :
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."

Oh... please allow me to swing in a comment.

I support Annee. As I've found answers for questions that mystify dogmatic followers of faith.
An atheist I'm not since I do not deny a deity or the possibility of one. It's only for me not even close to a fatherly figured, humanlooking multipleprsent omnipotent creator of right and wrong, some religions teach he is.

Oh wait...

Almost forgot transdimensional, archichecture, with tyrannical tendencies but only withe the best of good intentions.

For me it's closer to a force all around us in every tree , and bush , and grass under our feet the very essence that makes it grow and flourish , as one.


But hey... Who am I... I don't even belief the contradictive, manipulative but most of all very human like deity deity presented in some holy books. Well... actually one of several or multiple personalities.

The message was love and the abolishment of evil. Learn to love everything in life and evil has no place to be.

reply to post by Illusionsaregrander


We seem to agree on some major aspects, and our semantic differences are not a moot points for me.

So OK, 'co-operation' is valid.

The non-cooperation systems always implode eventually, as they are not 'energy-efficient'. Be it a social system, where the available energy increasingly goes into administration and control, leaving practically nothing to real functionality...

...or...

...A one-way biological system, as an extreme example such as virus, which kills the host and thus itself.

These are what I called short-term arrangements (that is, ... in a context of cosmic processes).

The co-operation system, in a social context, has contemporarily manifested in the tentative experiment of liberal, egalitatian, secular democracy, which (if able to defend itself against the onslaughts of 'cheaters' *) has shown promises.

A biological co-operation system, such as my former example of bees (involved in a local constellation with several other biological life-forms) has sofar survived 80 million years (if my memory serves me).

Talking in terms of cosmos, 'god', natural laws and similar, it's not beyond the point to bring in a further regressive step transcending the very visible non-cooperation principle. And while it takes some optimistic participation to realise, it's not only a naive, over-idealistic fantasy.

By bringing in asian philosophy I didn't intend to introduce some surface black/white religious/philosophical contrast. I wanted to demonstrate, that some systems contain the transcended options of co-operation.

* It's not so generally legitimate these days to murder religious (or other ideological) opposition, so competition between different extremist factions is increasingly on the propaganda level. Hence the emphasis on 'story-telling', where my own participation often lies in the area of questioning said stories (having a 'rational' opposition towards a 'faith' is ofcourse mostly meaningless).

reply to post by Illusionsaregrander


I make this answer seperately from my general comments above.

You wrote:

["Say what you will about the preferability of the Asian philosophies, they are not competing well against the Abrahamic meme."]

Even in a short-term consideration, the Abrahamic meme isn't doing so well, as it's fighting as much against itself as against 'outer' enemies.

And as to the extension of Abrahamic presence, it's notable, that the statistics on this are so flexible and vague concerning what's what and who's who, that the general concept 'Abrahamic' only shares a few common points for all factions.

E.g. are the often self-appointed 'true christians', the protestants, actually somewhat on par with buddhism numerically (depending on source 5-9 % of world population), and same 'true christian' protestants only include catholics in the statistics, when outer appearance is of necessity.

Cosmetic statistics can only be carried so far; say e.g. that that all nominal Abrahamic adherers should answer to the question of priority of religion or down-to-earth considerations, such as surviving, consuming, mating, literal adherence to whatever scripture/scripture-interpretation they have, participation on common ground in liberal society etc.

'Moderate' Abrahamics would probably be an overwhelming majority, leaving the few noisy extremist percent we most often see on ATS.

Quote: ["Nature or God has set Earth up with a ruleset that is based around competition. It happens on every level. Your body is fighting off and killing viruses, bacteria, (although some are allies) we are killing and eating plants, and animals, we fight each other for resources, and drive other species extinct or increase their number if we can exploit them. This is just the game that is being played. At all levels. Within as well as without you."]

As said before, I'm not denying this; far from it. I'm just pointing out, that in extended existential considerations there are more, less visible options, which require the participation of the vague concept 'free will'.

Competition is 'automatic', co-operation is a choice.

And in spite of my otherwise general grumpiness, I'm optimistic about 'free will' and option of making choices.

reply to post by NewAgeMan


You wrote:

["Also, just because we don't tend to see extraordinary miracles in this day and age doesn't rule out, neccessarily, that such occurances might have occured in the past."]

Nothing can be 'ruled out' for any even slightly rational person. The strong pro-theist position is, that this justifies all kinds of weird 'ruling in' instead (the knowledge vacuum argument).

Quote: ["But I have to say that the assumption of atheists drives me crazy. They appear so arrogant, and yes, meanspirited."]

That's your position, perspective and/or direction. A more inclusive attitude concerning 'assumptions' would also bring in any other extremist fanatism manifested in such as SS, KGB, McCarthy'ism, Mao's red guard, the zulu elite storm-troops, Kali thuggees etc.

All invasive extremism drives ME crazy (in your language. I would have expressed it differently myself).

I rest all my faith in the truth of the crucifixion of Christ. I have had personal experiences that agree with that part of the gospel. If there really in is a God who can raise the dead He would have no problems breaking any natural law. I was not born into Christianity, but I found it after being an Atheist for a majority of my life. I fully believe in a spiritual realm and spiritual deception, which I attribute to the fallen angels. I think a major stumbling point to many in the west is spiritual things are not believed to exist. And those that do, do not seem to believe that deception is possible.

reply to post by IAMIAM


i certainly think you mean well, having read your posts in the past. that being said, if mickey mouse wrote it, yeah, there's an issue. if noah's ark is meant to be believed, it has to have happened. if a story meant to be true turns out to be false, saying the intent was good does nothing. its true or its false. if noah's ark story is false, goodness behind the story or the deeper meaning behind the story means nothing. it means about as much as any other aphorism or truism. its significance to those that believe it is spirituality based on truth.

Originally posted by Lawgiver
reply to post by IAMIAM

 

i certainly think you mean well, having read your posts in the past. that being said, if mickey mouse wrote it, yeah, there's an issue. if noah's ark is meant to be believed, it has to have happened. if a story meant to be true turns out to be false, saying the intent was good does nothing. its true or its false. if noah's ark story is false, goodness behind the story or the deeper meaning behind the story means nothing. it means about as much as any other aphorism or truism. its significance to those that believe it is spirituality based on truth.

If that is your view my friend, you are certainly welcome to it.

Blessed are those who believe without seeing...

With Love,

Your Brother

reply to post by IAMIAM


You wrote:

["Blessed are those who believe without seeing... "]

.....and then the blind shall lead the blind.

Originally posted by bogomil
reply to post by IAMIAM

 

You wrote:

["Blessed are those who believe without seeing... "]

.....and then the blind shall lead the blind.

If I tell a blind man not to step off the curb because there is oncoming traffic, if he believes me, is he not blessed?

Originally posted by IAMIAM

Originally posted by bogomil
reply to post by IAMIAM

 

You wrote:

["Blessed are those who believe without seeing... "]

.....and then the blind shall lead the blind.

If I tell a blind man not to step off the curb because there is oncoming traffic, if he believes me, is he not blessed?

Still staying within the initial parameters of 'believing without seeing' including all holy participants:

"Yea and verily, he is blessed". Probably because you have a good sense of hearing (momentarily disregarding those who speak so intimately with 'god', that he tells them about the traffic-situation).

When it comes to precipices (a common position for theists), blindness originating from excessive holiness can be fatal though, and a non-preaching, non-storytelling leader-dog would be a safer bet.

Originally posted by bogomil
reply to post by Illusionsaregrander

 

The non-cooperation systems always implode eventually, as they are not 'energy-efficient'. Be it a social system, where the available energy increasingly goes into administration and control, leaving practically nothing to real functionality...

But all social systems are by definition "cooperative." Thats what a social system is. A group of individuals who have banded together and who cooperate for their own good, and the collective good. So there is selfishness on two levels. Individual and collective. What varies is the DEGREE to which cooperation occurs. From pure altruism, in which you always cooperate regardless whether or not it is reciprocated, to a more common "tit for tat" strategy, where you cooperate with those who cooperate with you, to "Cheaters" those who seek the benefits of cooperators, but who will not reciprocate, or reciprocate in much lower proportion.

Originally posted by bogomil
The co-operation system, in a social context, has contemporarily manifested in the tentative experiment of liberal, egalitatian, secular democracy, which (if able to defend itself against the onslaughts of 'cheaters' *) has shown promises.

But we have not defended ourselves against cheaters. Unfortunately. The cheaters have seized power, and are extracting every drop of benefit they can from the cooperators because we did not select against them. We did not make cheating costly, by selecting against it, and because we did not recognize it and select against it, they are currently overrunning cooperators in many nations. I have a theory as to why we do so poorly at monitoring and deselecting cheaters, I suspect it is because they provide benefit to the group as well as harming the group. Group with sociopathic leaders do better than groups with cooperative leaders as long as those sociopathic leaders are directed outward on other groups. In times of peace, you are better served to eliminate the sociopath and install a cooperator. But you have to have a sociopath on reserve in case of war. The problem is with our "democracy" is that the sociopaths have subverted the selection process, and so we have sociopaths in charge all the time, and this is bad.

Originally posted by bogomil
By bringing in asian philosophy I didn't intend to introduce some surface black/white religious/philosophical contrast. I wanted to demonstrate, that some systems contain the transcended options of co-operation.

I dont mind you bringing in Asian philosophy. I understand the language, and the concepts. What I am having trouble following is your thought process itself. You are not filling in your thoughts fully before moving on to the next one, and so it comes across as very jumpy, like a record skipping. You make a sentence about bees, then one about asian philosophy, I just cant follow your reasoning. If you took any ONE of those ideas and fully developed the thought, I might be able to get on the same page as you. If you really explained HOW you think some systems contain the transcended options of cooperation, it would be wonderful. But I am not even familiar with the terminology "transcended options of cooperation," so you would have to even lay out the meaning of that to me. It may be a brilliant observation on your part, but you are skipping all over the place and so I cant grasp your meaning.

Again, I am not saying that the thought you are having itself is flawed. You might have a brilliant theory going, and if I could understand it, I might agree with you 1000%. Im just saying I cant follow your reasoning if you make too many short one sentence points whose connection to one another you do not detail for me. The terminology you use, your wording, these also I am having trouble with. I dont know what discipline you are coming from, where your training is, but its not one that lends itself readily to mine. You may be making a brilliant point, but I cannot read your mind, you have to walk me through it.

Originally posted by bogomil
* It's not so generally legitimate these days to murder religious (or other ideological) opposition, so competition between different extremist factions is increasingly on the propaganda level. Hence the emphasis on 'story-telling', where my own participation often lies in the area of questioning said stories (having a 'rational' opposition towards a 'faith' is ofcourse mostly meaningless).

But we DO murder religious competition. We do have wars all the time that are religious wars. Its unpopular to say thats what you are doing. Within the last century we have had many. Ireland, India and Pakistan, China is trying to destroy Tibetan Buddhism, various skirmishes, Israel and Palestine is a religious as well as a genetic war. We dont always call them holy wars, but they still go on all the time. We also try to outbreed the competition, or displace them, or "kill" them by depriving them of their resources. What we claim we are doing and what we are actually doing are not always the same.

And as for the last sentence, I do not think faith and reason need to be at odds. Its irrational to think that you can move ALL people to a rational understanding of faith, but individuals can certainly use reason to understand religious stories, or religion itself.

If you understand religion as something that has a real function, in the sense that when it functions well it serves an real end, and provides a benefit to its followers, you CAN rationally oppose elements of said religion if at some point they become counter productive to the purpose or end the religion was meant to serve.

Religions are additions to culture. If culture is the collection of data, skills, knowledge, lore, etc., that a society uses to survive and thrive and compete against other societies, then religion is sort of an add on to that. Religion is the program that keeps the society together, in a sense. Its primary "purpose" is to strengthen and maintain the bond in the group. In many ways. By gathering people together to sing, dance, feast, pray, (acting in harmony or concert does build feelings of "oneness")

www.scientificamerican.com...

Anthropologists and cultural historians have offered up a variety of theories about synchrony over the years, mostly having to do with group coherence. One theory, for example, holds that various communities benefit from the actual physical synchrony—or “muscular bonding”—which builds group cohesiveness. Another idea is that synchronous activities lead to “collective effer­ves­cence”—positive emotions that break down the boundaries between self and group.

Religion also tells you how to find and deal with "cheaters." (Killing adulterers, disobedient sons, criminals) Again, the purpose is to eliminate any threat to internal harmony. And religion also tells you how to deal with your enemies. (Kill all the men boys and adult women and take the virgin girls ) etc. It varies from religion to religion, but so do the results. Some simply outperform others.

Its an "add on" program to a groups culture (including their technology) that either helps them eliminate and outperform the competition or not.