There isn't any God but the ones we make up, nor does he do anything we don't do for him, but if our definition includes honesty or coherence or lack of self-contradiction or even a 21st century child's knowledge of cosmology, he didn't write the books of Moses, the Gospels, the various different versions of Isiah found at Qumran or any of the rest of it, culled and selected and edited and redacted by generations of people from a wider library of books. For lack of space I simply can't cover all the territory, but for it to have been written by an all-knowing, it must describe an alternate universe, not this one.
But I digress. My point was that Jews like Representative John Shimkus (R-IL) have been turned into truth eating zombies far more dangerous than B movie producers ever imagined. It's not a Christian thing. He thinks that we shouldn't worry about climate change because God won't allow any dire consequences. It's not that I think we're likely to all be drowned and not about how accurate I think current projections might or might not be, it's that people of this ilk get people killed. Electing Shimkus is like hiring a blind chauffeur who drives by faith. He's like a general who tells his troops the other guys are firing blanks. Don't mind those bullets, our religion will protect you, said Jack Wilson and not one bullet was stopped and how many Indians died? If you're not dumb enough to think that's right, you're too smart to support Shimkus in seeking chairmanship of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
No, Shimkus believes in his version of his selected book and not in any other. If I could ask him why, he'd either have to do his own Ghost Dance or give me evidence for it's power to predict what will or won't happen with the weather, crustal movements, the evolution of microbes the outcome of battles and the flight paths of asteroids - and he can't. There's no test of reality it can pass. There's no way to show it more accurate than the Popol Vuh or the Quir'an or Bullfinch's Mythology, Aesop's Fables or a random number generator. Therefore the choice is his and it's a choice not based on evidence. What he calls God's voice is Shimkus' voice and thus spake Shimkus and Shimkus alone.
I'm always amused by people who call my logic arrogant. As people who tell you what God will or will not do and does or does not like, the title really belongs with beli
evers, not with skeptics since we're not claiming anything special. The burden of proof to show that since there are an infinite number of words from an infinite possibility of gods, it's just your personal celestial ventriloquism at work? I don't have to, I'm not making assertions. The burden is on the believer. They proclaim endlessly about God's will as clearly set forth but when the predictions don't work, or contradict themselves, when life and death are random and there's no order or justice - well then they say we can't understand. Which is it?It's your choice what to believe and your conclusions are no more divine than mine, although your knowledge may be superior and your reasoning better: it's still only you and me. God hates fags? Well no he doesn't, but I'm speaking of the true god Zog and I should know since I invented him and can invent as many more as I like all equally above question. Zog knows all about physics and mathematics and history and in fact everything I know, he knows -- and that's surely more than yours does. Zog says magic doesn't work, prayers fall on deaf ears, no danger will be averted lest you take measures and I know it's true because I believe and my belief can't be shown to be more or less well founded by any means I know of.
Captain I am convinced please count me as the newest member of the Zog congregation did you say Zog has a working knowledge of history Wow imagine that. heres my take on religion and how it screws the country
ReplyDeletebrainless and stupid
are the wingnuts
of the right
their insipid delusions
stated day and night
they infest our airwaves
have hijacked
public debate
you can't argue
with petunias
they're in a vegetative state
logic, sanity, and reason
are concepts that don't apply
when dealing with wingnuttery
pay close attention to the lie!
the criminal conservative agenda
has very much
about done us in
the current state
of this Country
can attest the rich did win!
the Corporate evil monsters
those sinister bastard elite
are grinning in their boardrooms
how they gloat at our defeat
but thank god for religion
and the pernicious
part it played
religious right wingnuttery
believe in Jesus
be not afraid
the religious ignorant zealots
in their haste
to stop the gays
steve and steve must never marry
so the congregation prays
and when it comes to voting
from the pulpit on election day
Ya'll vote Republican
the homophobes win okay
oh you simple dumb bastards
so a scared of a little gay man
while the real nefarious culprits
run away with what ever they can
Shimkus picks and chooses his biblical bullshittery, that's why it's total crap that he spews. There are plenty of Xtians that believe in Climate Change AND loving/respecting your neighbor, regardless of their lifestyle and belief system.
ReplyDelete"Shimkus picks and chooses his biblical bullshittery, that's why it's total crap that he spews."
ReplyDeleteVery true and I hope I'm clear when I say this is not a Christian thing, but a crazy thing and all religions share their crazies. Besides I believe Shimkus is a Jew, not a Christian.
My main point is that picking and choosing is the nature of having a religion since one is able to decide what to believe and not to believe and indeed must do so since the number of possible beliefs, when uncoupled from the requirements of reason, logic and empiricism approaches infinity.
I choose not to believe in any religion that I didn't create with any degree of certainty because of the absence of evidence and the impossibility of demonstrating any claims of divinity.
Respect, compassion and the brotherhood of mankind and even to an extent in all living things are things I do believe in, but not because I'm commanded to. Those things do not demand that I accept anything other than the common origin of all things and I believe it was Rabbi Hillel who said that these things are all the more virtuous for being practiced without concern for personal benefit. Without knowing it, he said that the virtuous atheist is all the more virtuous for his acts of kindness than those who do it to please an imagined (or real) deity.
In Zog's name, Amen.
Finefroghair,
Zog knows exactly what I know and nothing more. That's why we never argue and why his pronouncements sound just like me -- but one thing that doth please the mighty Zog are cash contributions made to his prophet.
All hail Zog!
ReplyDeleteI'll suggest the following. Religion, at its best -- and it's seldom at its best -- is an explanatory principle, a way of dealing in psychological, emotional terms with our relationships with one another and the world around us. The early polytheistic religions explained things by elegantly insinuating that no explantion was necessary. They posited a realm like Olympus, to name a fine example, populated by deities not essentially different from human beings, only more powerful in every way. The divine realm mirrored the sometime anarchy, and the fierce desires and ambitions, of the earthly. Judaism, Christianity and Islam, to name prominent alternative examples, posit a principle of deity that is beyond anything we can fully understand. Think Jehovah the Unutterable, God the Father, or Allah the Merciful: a principle of absolute excellence to draw us beyond our limited, sometimes sordid selves and connect us with something infinitely grander and more wonderful. We might call the two the correspondent and the expansive visions of deity, or choose any term you like. Excellent lives have been lived within the ceremonial structures and primary assumptions of both views, even though much oppression has been carried out, and much sorrow inflicted, by the very same.
The latter-day proponents Capt. Fogg argues against are the victims of an inevitable hollowing-out of value systems until they become empty and formalistic; these are instantiations of religion that have become nothing but a vehicle for the ignorance, petty inanity, and power-lust of those who claim to believe most fervently. I'm constrained to agree that in such conditions, "religion" can do little but harm.
Still, I think there's a better side to religious experience, so I am always careful not to stomp on it with my large hind legs or thrash it with my tail. Will just conclude, then, by facing due north and intoning (lest I be remiss in my own observances),
"Thundering praise be unto Father and Mother T-Rex, who dwell forever in tranquility by the Celestial Watering Hole alongside Mount Gondwana."
There is little I can add to the excellent comments to Capt. Fogg's excellent post. I'm dizzy with delight at reading so much that I agree with. Without this venue, I swear I would have given into despair a long time ago.
ReplyDeleteI left Catholicism so long ago that it is difficult for me to remember why--oh wait. I remember. I was having a crisis of faith as a young married with one child woman. A priest came to the house as I requested to counsel me.
"Have more children," he said, "you think too much."
And here's my poem, written many years later, on how I withdrew from the whole sick mess (I wrote this when I lived in Florida):
THE FLYING HOUSE OF LORETO
I’ve always wanted to meet one of those gray, bug-eyed aliens,
the ones that get blamed for our missing time, for the little metal
beads found stuck up our noses, the sexual probings, egg implantations.
It never happens. I make myself available to them: walk the beach
at night far from buildings, lights, anything that might scare
them away. I think they avoid me. I’m too willing to cooperate,
say yes to the cc’s of blood, the clumps of follicles, yes to the speculum,
(as long as it’s body-temperature, space-age plastic). I’m wild to have them
take specimens to Coma Bernices with my name printed in Alien on each vial.
In Loreto, Italy, they say the Virgin’s house was transported on the backs
of angels from Nazareth to the Anconan coast. Why not?
I want my aliens; they have their flying house.
Well that certainly explains your hostility last Christmas. I thought you were Jewish. But in retrospect, that wouldn't make any sense at all.
ReplyDeleteCapt., as one who has used the term arrogant, please let me clarify. I agree that defining God and presuming to speak for Her is the highest sort of arrogance. However, when I use the term arrogant in reference to my atheist friends, I'm referring to the assumption that believing in a divine force automatically means that the person holding such belief is lacking in intellectual ability and a subscriber to mythology and other nonsense. I don't personally know any believers who think that Shimkus is anything other than an arrogant fool. I fully recognize that there are believers who share in his foolishness. However, I actually know far more people who don't want to burn the Quran, and who actually view the Bible as allegorical and not a literal guidebook written by the hand of God. Criticize the arrogant corruption that some call religion but do not assume that arrogance is a necessary or standard part of believers. There are millions of Christians in the U.S. who are champions of justice, who are actively involved in the promotion of justice for all. Denominations such as the Episcopal Church promote a message of inclusion, supporting gay marriage, ordaining women, and having openly gay ministers and bishops. The media typically finds it far more interesting to write about the lunatics with 50 followers who want to burn the Quran. They make good news fodder.
ReplyDeleteI really don't disagree with your assessment as it applies to some but I do find it unfair and insulting to paint all with the same brush. It is sort of like me judging all white people based on the KKK or the Tea Party.
I thought it was apparent that I'm after the biblical inerrancy folks and none else and it always amazes me how touchy people can be in assuming that any comment about human failings is a personal attack. Does anyone think they're God is vulnerable? or that they are invulnerable to error?
ReplyDeleteAs an aside, perhaps we should notice that being religious and feeling you're under attack don't have to go hand in hand - but somehow, they often seem to and almost always it's because it's a good way to rally the faithful to do things God wouldn't really like too much.
Shimkus is pretending to be God's agent and I'd like to see his credentials. That is what I'm talking about.
Sheria,
I'm certainly not painting anyone with anything they're not guilty of and least of all you. I think Shinkus is an arrogant buffoon. As with anything else, it's about individuals and what they do in the name of groups. I'm assuming that you don't believe the Bible in its many versions and languages was written by God himself and that every letter is infallible and thus we know God's intentions even when we have no idea what some of the words mean.
And of course people of all sorts support tolerance and compassion, religious or otherwise. No deities required and I find it amusing that people think you need to be terrified of divine wrath from a particular divinity as defined by authorities to be moral.
I think that for many people, their religion is little more than tribalism, piety and knowledge, being different and often antagonistic things. Most of the Biblical inerrency people I know have read only selected passages as interpreted by people with no background in history or much of anything else. That's arrogance.
Since we none of have perfect minds, I think we're all demented to some degree! Don't think I exempt myself. After all, I'm a Zogite even if I try to be as logical and honest as I can.
Shaw,
That is a terrific poem. Send us more.
Dino,
I agree with much of that, but being out on the thin part of the ice, I'm not going to test it.
The hollowing out of value systems is quite evident, but I don't think that's recent. I'm quite sure Jesus wouldn't have supported the crusades of the persecution of Jews by Romans who pretend to have espoused his beliefs - or the inquisition, for that matter. Religions get co-opted by the powerful and it happens very fast.
Flying Junior,
I hove no idea what you're talking about. I am a Jew and the perceived hostility of anyone daring to invade the self proclaimed sanctity of some people mystifies me. Are you one of those who insists that not wanting someone elses religious practices made binding on all is a personal attack on Christianity and all Christians? It's a defense of religious freedom and ask yourself who the enemy of religious choice is, these days -- it's not agnostics or atheists for how heresy and blasphemy are meaningless words.
Cap,
ReplyDeleteIt was Christmas Eve and the topic du jour was HCR. I mentioned that my hospital stay was billed at over $85k, but even my Cadillac Blue Cross insurance only had to pay $39k. I felt that this was something that BHO should be focussing on, to whit, incredibly high fictitious costs that hospitals will try to get away with charging. You countered that "random charges or figures are meaningless." Then somebody else dropped a relatively forgettable comment and you rolled out the red carpet and welcomed them. I felt dissed. It seemed like you were irked or offended by my tag, "Flying somewhere over Bethlehem right now."
You're free to worship or not worship in any way you please, but I don't have to enjoy your rant. You didn't like the Olympics either. I didn't bother to say anything on that one.
You have a remarkable memory - that's not meant to be disrespectful either. I guess I was too terse, but it was only meant to be a comment on anecdotal references writ large. I really didn't mean to be mean about it.
ReplyDeleteYou said accepting government health insurance would be humiliating, but If it is, someone's humiliation at having public insurance when their kid runs up a 100K bill has to be considered along with the fact that my community hospital won't have to make up the expense by billing me more. Part of the crazy charges are the result of having to give out free health care and not greed.
A good insurance plan will certainly keep tabs and set limits on hospital charges, but I don't think that is something only Blue Cross can do, so can any plan and the government has more power to do that than private insurers - of course, Bush elected not to do that with drugs, as you know, the drug dealers being GOP supporters.
The current plan is a compromise with the Republicans who opposed better ideas, even though they've backed such things elsewhere. I don't think it's better to let things go on in hopes of perfection.
And of course one doesn't have to be poor not to be able to afford health insurance. It was costing me almost 25K a year for two people, before I got medicare. Yep, that was Blue Cross, or "the blues" as we used to call it when I was in the business. So I'm sorry if you took it amiss, but I don't think the current level of reform is a disaster and I think it will lead to less expensive health care in the long run.
But can we get back to blind fundamentalism?
Sheria and Capt. Fogg,
ReplyDeleteI sometimes look at the religion vs. science tussle by considering the relative strengths and weaknesses of both. They constitute different ways of relating to the universe. The following is only a rough-draft in form and thoughtfulness since I mean to get out and ride my bike today (and therefore give the local humans something to snicker at: a big clumsy lizard trying to look elegant on a fancy racing bicycle), and it should be understood that it is directed at absolutely nobody on this blog -- more disagreements could be avoided, I think, if we were more precise about our addressees and didn't assume it was always obvious that our comments were meant to be broad. Sometimes it is obvious, sometimes it isn't. Here goes:
We can probably agree that the weakness or bad tendency in some religious people is precisely what Capt. Fogg says -- they whittle the God-concept down to their own petty level, and then proceed to bray forth their narrow-minded, fearful, destructively binding inanities at full throttle. But leaving aside such asses (all "many many" of them -- for dinosaurs can't count), the better part of religion lies in the believer's expansive, poetical way of relating to others and to the world around him or her. As Hamlet's line goes, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Mythopoetic consciousness is the fancy literary studies term for this kind of orientation. We are creatures of generous excess, and go beyond mere necessity in all things; mythopoetic consciousness is one aspect of this part of humanity.
The weakness or bad tendency in some science-oriented people has to do with a failure of imagination: not only do they not appreciate the wisdom and humaneness that can attend mythopoetic consciousness, they seem quite incapable of doing so. They are not moved a whit by the magnificent language of the King James Bible, or the Baghavad Gita, or any other such book. It's a bit like trying to dance with someone who has the soul of a stone and sees no "reason" to do so. They emphasize only the cold, hard, mathematical precision and sheer reductiveness of things and events as they perceive them. Their world view has hard contours, if you will. Leaving aside such flinty consciousnesses, you arrive at the strength of the best sciency people: an openness to the possibilities that scientific discovery yields us with ever greater rapidity -- this openness, at its best, is at least as expansive as that of the mythopoetic among us who see the stars as a vehicle for imaginative flight or wonder. "The facts as we are currently able to assess them" don't shut such minds down, they expand them. At this level, there's a beauty, a symmetry, to mathematics, physics, and astronomy that simple (if poetical) dinos like myself will probably never understand.
Thank you for the thoughtful response, Captain Fogg. Your thoughts on this issue are valuable.
ReplyDeleteAs you say, the bill was a compromise. There will not very likely be any repeal forthcoming, as only the most benign of measures have been taken. Non-cancellation, coverage for those with pre-existing conditions, an exchange of some sort for lower income and indigent populations.
Anything would be an improvement on simply ignoring such a large portion of our populus until they absolutely need medical intervention. It will be interesting when the several provisions start to kick in next year. Those that pledge to repeal HCR today will find themselves with very little traction.
They constitute different ways of relating to the universe.
ReplyDeleteDino, I think the above statement sums it up very well. I would add that I've never found science and religious to be mutually exclusive. I don't look to religion to provide a scientific analysis of the universe but neither do I look to science to define my spirituality. I don't believe that a belief in a divine being is necessary to be a person of conscience but I also don't believe that having such a belief automatically defines one as a superstitious and arrogant twit.
The quotation from Hamlet is one of my favorites.
Capt., I didn't take your words as a direct and personal insult and I apologize for not making it clear that I was speaking of a broader, philosophical analysis of the tension between atheist and believer. I use the term believer because I am thinking in broader terms than only Christians. There are many faiths and many believers. I also get the sense from friends who are atheists or agnostics that there are multiple ways to arrive at and manifest non-belief. Ultimately I think that the issue should not be about belief or non-belief but the manifestations or actions taken as a result of belief or non-belief. Thus believers who attempt to force their beliefs on others or pervert their beliefs so as to control or cause harm to others are dangerous hypocrites. They don't practice their faith; they use it to manipulate others.
I am not offended by anyone hauling into the light of day the abuse and dishonesty that is perpetrated in the name of God, Allah, etc. I do fear that however unintentional, often nonbelievers appear to dismiss all believers as being a part of some lunatic group of fanatics. I think that this is harmful because there are many people who are believers that share progressive beliefs and are more than willing to work on progressive issues. However, it is difficult to work with others who hold your ability to believe up to ridicule. No one should have to defend why they believe nor why they don't believe.
"No one should have to defend why they believe nor why they don't believe. "
ReplyDeleteIf they're using a chosen belief to make laws that impinge on our freedom, I think they do. That's my point, once again. Shimkus thinks God will bail us out, I don't. My belief is based on evidence, his is merely an excuse. His faith is dangerous in practice -- both within and without Judeo Christian Islamic traditions. There is no verifiable evidence of God bailing mankind out of our collective idiocy and greed whether or not one believes in gods.
My cynicism is not about belief in general, its about imposing it on others.
I'm not concerned with spirituality, particularly that of others and I frankly don't know what it means, nor do I see anything cold and hard about science, although the universe is certainly hostile; allowing us only an infinitesimal part of space and time in which we can exist and a part that is precarious at best. Most of the scientists I know are not strangers to music or art or literature or any of our "higher" passions. They simply don't say: " I love Bach, so listening to him will make it rain or protect us from earthquakes."
Most are passionate to know the truth whether the knowledge is comforting or not. Most are not so sure of the significance or special place of mankind in existence in general. Religion assumes a special place. I believe it was Darwin who said something like "no theory can be true unless it knocks man off another pedestal. If he didn't, I claim it for myself.
But once again, I'm reminded of the difficulty of talking about religion. No one would be so upset if I were to question the recent proof of Fermat's theorem. They'd just ask me to demonstrate. (which I can't do)
As for the KGB, it's one of the grandest most gorgeous examples of English prose. I've made a pilgrimage to the place much of it was composed and the biographies of those who wrote it The original is hardly so grand and yet, one notices things washed out or passed over in that translation. That's a subject for another day.
A passion for cosmology or quantum mechanics does not diminish it, or Blake, who might deny that but only illustrates -- to me -- the staggering immensity of the real world as compared with what I see as small, solipsistic and tightly sealed.
Capt., nothing that I've said was intended to dismiss science as cold and I certainly concede that science does not prevent one from having an appreciation for the creative arts. As for Shimkus, there is no defense for mixing religion and government; separation of church and state is the accepted standard. It wouldn't matter if Shimkus could prove that Jesus personally gave him insider information about the end of the world; religious beliefs should not shape government.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that any rational person would argue that imposing one's beliefs on others or on the governing of society is appropriate. I agree that we don’t need religion in order to be moral. Much that is immoral has been done in the name of religion.
You assert that you have reached your position through logic and I have no problems with your lack of belief, but I am unclear as to what you believe the significance of your belief to be. Rather than assert that I know what your intent is, I can tell you what it appears to mean to me, admitting up front that perhaps I totally misunderstand.
It appears to me that you are not merely declaring (1) your right to not believe and that (2) you see no proof of the existence of a god but are also inherently declaring that those of us who do believe should accept your proof as an indicator that our beliefs are grounded in small mindedness and superstitious nonsense. If we were more intellectually capable, we would recognize that your analysis disproves everything that we may believe.
This confuses me because I fully believe in anyone's right to choose to believe or not believe and I agree that no one should attempt to impose their beliefs on anyone. I respect your position and your lack of belief does not disturb me in the least. However, I don't sense the same respect from you for my right to believe as I choose and to regard your proof as irrelevant to my belief system. Spiritual and/or religious belief is largely based on faith, not proof. I've long ago established in every comment that I've made on the subject of religion that I believe that it is inappropriate to blend church and state, and that freedom of religion includes the right to not believe, as well as the right to believe.
I don’t think that people have to be religious in order to have values and work for the common good, any more than I think that declaring oneself to be religious means that you are actually going to be a purveyor of social justice.
From my childhood, I do recall that my mother's siblings were mostly Evangelical Southern Baptist and that there was a lot of focus on atheists, Jews, and Catholics. My immediate family converted to Catholicism when I was five. My relatives believed that all three groups were going to hell in a rowboat. So I know the type of proselytizing behavior to which you allude and I don't dispute that such beliefs are a significant part of some religious beliefs. However, the extreme evangelical approach is certainly not the focus of the majority of Christian churches.
The most current data indicates that Evangelicals comprise 26% of all Christians. The approximately one in four statistic jives with my experience living in the Bible belt. Fundamentalism is sort of a subset of Evangelism, the key difference being that Evangelicals want to work within the world to spread their message and Fundamentalists appear to be more self-contained, viewing the rest of the world as filled with sin, and focus on defining who is saved and who isn't. When one of my mother's sisters opined that our family was not saved (Catholics aren't real Christians; we worship statues.) and therefore would not be welcome in heaven, Mama replied, "Well Ruth, given the people who will be there, I'd just as soon burn in hell."
"but are also inherently declaring that those of us who do believe should accept your proof as an indicator that our beliefs are grounded in small mindedness and superstitious nonsense. If we were more intellectually capable, we would recognize that your analysis disproves everything that we may believe."
ReplyDeleteNo, that's not what I mean. I was referring to Mr. Shimkus and a few selected co-conspirators for whom religion is an excuse for that very small mindednes and avarice and will to power. Like it or not, we have to admit that's been a traditional value all along.
But of course I agree with your mother. Besides, in hell, I'd have a better chance of watching Glenn Beck burn. Joking aside, I wish there were some kind of justice in human affairs, but I'm not willing to create entities to supply the missing condition somewhere in some imaginary place. Entia non sunt multiplicandeq praeter necessitatum if you'll allow me my morning shot of snottiness.
But please don't extrapolate from my distaste for politicians who use their alleged faith to justify unregulated exploitation of people and resources.
I have no way of knowing what someone believes in, so I can't comment on something that is by nature only knowable by that someone. I've just been burdened and my ancestors have been burdened by other people's beliefs and the animosity those beliefs have engendered. I've certainly read the opinions of the men who wrote our staunchly secular constitution and agree with Jefferson in caring not whether someone has one god or two hundred if he neither breaks my leg nor picks my pocket. Shimkus is proposing to do both. Please don't extrapolate toward any condemnation of personal sentiments.
My own disbelief is mine and unless you to cannot believe in one god or twenty, you may not know how that sets one up as as straw man for every incendiary trying to make something of it. It practically excludes me from public office, it forces me to lie and prostitute myself in court and classroom.
Where logic comes in for me, is not in "proving" there is no entity behind existence, it's in the lack of evidence and that all evidence is to the contrary. But moreover, I'm puzzled as to why this God, this set of characteristics and this version of history rather than one of the infinite others with infinitely varied histories and characteristics. Why not Zeus, Ammon-Ra, Vishnu. . . Why are Krishna and Ganesh not also sons of God and not "Satan" as has been the tradition in the West and why is Zoroaster a lesser prophet?
The only answer to that question is, by my way of thinking, that God is us, God is our culture. God is a way to relate to the unknowable. It's just that I have a way that works better for me and that way has me identified with "the evil one" to those of "traditional values."
Other than that I care little about what people think: I care about what they do.
For me, and for many others, God's universe is a bit like a tawdry Walt Disney version of history or reality. Simplified, Bowdlerized, tendentious, normative, arbitrary, didactic and with Tom Cruise playing a leading role. The book is always better than the movie and I think there is a reality beyond god which is far better than either, in my opinion. Yours may vary, and that's OK.
And beyond our way of relating to the unknown, my aversion to religion (as opposed to private belief)has much to do with the preconditions they impose and require. Can I suspect the divine without precondition; without ingesting a story about YHWH impregnating a girl and needing the resulting baby to be murdered before he can forgive innocent people for having had a mythological ancestor that dared to acquire a moral conscience? What if I find Aquinas' devious proofs of God to be transparent fallacies? Does that mean I'm missing something the comfort of non-critical thinking might provide? It's my decision to pass up that comfort. Why would that discomfort anyone else?
ReplyDeleteDo I believe YHWH created the "heavens and the earth" because I'm a Jew or is it the other way around? The difference is the difference between belief and religion and there is a difference in the way I feel about both.
Sorry to be so prolix but I have to make the distinction.
LOL, Capt., most believers, even a significant number of major theologians from various faiths, don't believe that the Bible is a history book. As a child when I attended mass, I never heard a single priest try to persuade the congregation of the literalness of the Bible. The Bible was regarded as teaching moral lessons but not as literal truth. Evangelical Christians tend to regard the Bible as the word of God. I suspect that it must get confusing because the Bible was written at various times, by multiple authors and is filled with contradictions. Genesis tells multiple creation stories and that's all they are--stories, allegories.
ReplyDeleteThe Virgin birth is the cornerstone of Catholicism. There are a lot of Protestant sects who condemn Catholics, accusing them of idolatry because of the veneration of Mary in the Catholic Church.
I don't feel the need to embrace the Virgin birth as a literal event. I am not alone in moving beyond the confines of the traditional Christian theology to focus on the relationship with nature and the universe, and or interaction with and responsibility towards others.
I've never viewed religion as imposing any set of preconditions. Perhaps I was just raised as a freethinker but I've always thought that it was my role to think and not simply be a receptacle for the thoughts of others, even those contained in the Bible. The more that I studied other religious beliefs, the more that I became struck by the central themes of responsibility to and for others that characterized multiple religions. For me, coming to define my personal belief in a divine presence in the universe was very much an intellectual exercise, as it is for many who count themselves as believers. It's also an ongoing journey. The best assessment that I've come across that speaks to me is not from a religious tome but a book of poetry by Ntozake Shange, she writes, "I found God in myself and I loved her fiercely."
We choose how we regard the universe, whether it be as the result of some divine power or a coming together of the right elements at the perfect time for fruition or some combination of the two. I'm not sure that it really matters, what does matter is what each of s does to make our best contribution to the functioning of this universe. What clearly doesn't matter is a rigid belief in the literalness of a bunch of writings be they Bible, Quran, or Torah.
To answer your question, there are no preconditions to suspecting a divine presence. Some religions certainly teach that but if there is a divine being none of s can presume to speak for Her. Believing or non-believing is a journey of individual choosing.
Btw, we have been conducting a most civilized discussion of religion. ;)
"They constitute different ways of relating to the universe."
ReplyDeleteThere are unlimited ways, but not all of them are equally valid in my opinion. I do try to apply a standard requiring that relation to be consistent and testable.
What I mean by precondition is that we have this idea of a god and it becomes a metonym for a range of feelings and subjective impressions we might call something entirely different if we weren't part of a culture that promotes things as entities, promotes the idea of mind without matter, souls and all that other baggage we've been carrying since we thought stones could think, and those noises in the sky were tantrums of invisible beings. Sometimes that feeling of awe, that feeling of transcending time and space, that Satori, that voice in the flower as my Zen Master used to call it, is just a feeling and I prefer not to dress it up and assign likes and dislikes and unlimited powers to it.
But if you're saying religion is a private experience, I agree. Perhaps it's possible to have one of those without all the barnacles and seaweed clinging to its hull, but if so, that's rather rare, or at least you don't hear much from such people. I hear a lot from the "nation under God" set.
But let me say, that you're not the kind of person I meet most often: the literalists, the ones that know God's mind but insist he's still inscrutable, that the entire universe is 6000 years old and that Mary was Virgo Intacta (which by the way is a mistranslation)and that and God made every unchanging species in a day and God can't forgive you unless you believe a myth and will burn your ass forever for something you wouldn't even yell at your kids for.
Which gets me back to the point that religion is no better than any particular person, that bad people will use it for bad things, that stupid people accept stupid things, that humanists stress the humanism therein and some German philosophers recommend that we don't talk about what we can't talk about and even medieval English monks tell us you can't build on faith to press it into service for another cause.
Civilized? What the #%^* do you mean by that - HERETIC!! ;-)