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Ebone4rock
SFN Regular
USA
894 Posts |
 Posted - 05/25/2010 : 12:19:08
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One thing that is frustrating to me is when discussing theism/atheism is that everything always comes back to creation. The way I see it is that creation and religion are two seperate subjects. How the universe was created is totally different than worshipping and obeying an invisible magic man.
I'd like to see if anyone here has any ideas of how these subjects can be separated when discussing religion.
Is there any way to do it or am I just completely nuts and these two subjects are one in the same and I just don't realize it?
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Haole with heart, thats all I'll ever be. I'm not a part of the North Shore society. Stuck on the shoulder, that's where you'll find me. Digging for scraps with the kooks in line. -Offspring |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 05/25/2010 : 13:29:01 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Ebone4rock
How the universe was created is totally different than worshipping and obeying an invisible magic man. |
Not when the invisible magic man allegedly did the creating, and allegedly expects obsequiousness in return for it. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Ebone4rock
SFN Regular
USA
894 Posts |
Posted - 05/25/2010 : 13:34:46 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by Ebone4rock
How the universe was created is totally different than worshipping and obeying an invisible magic man. |
Not when the invisible magic man allegedly did the creating, and allegedly expects obsequiousness in return for it.
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Thats why I need to learn how to articulate this concept better. These two ideas absolutely need to be separated in order for my master plan of eradicating religion in two generations to work! |
Haole with heart, thats all I'll ever be. I'm not a part of the North Shore society. Stuck on the shoulder, that's where you'll find me. Digging for scraps with the kooks in line. -Offspring |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 05/27/2010 : 10:41:06 [Permalink]
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Well, you'd have to re-write the "holy books" of all religions that contain a creation myth.
Good luck with that.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Machi4velli
SFN Regular
USA
854 Posts |
Posted - 05/27/2010 : 15:16:06 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Ebone4rock
One thing that is frustrating to me is when discussing theism/atheism is that everything always comes back to creation. The way I see it is that creation and religion are two seperate subjects. How the universe was created is totally different than worshipping and obeying an invisible magic man.
I'd like to see if anyone here has any ideas of how these subjects can be separated when discussing religion.
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I think I've experienced the same problem. Sometimes when I have asked a thoughtful Christian why they believe what they do, they begin saying that they don't think life, the Earth, themselves, etc, could have emerged randomly, so they believe in God. Then, I tend to ask, "Why the Christian God though?" I've never had anyone give me any sort of answer to that question, it's usually avoided and they talk about "faith." I don't know that the leap between the existence of god and that god being the Christian God has much logical or reasonable argument (maybe it does and I just haven't heard it).
(I don't even think their randomness argument is valid for ID without Christianity, but that's not my point here.) |
"Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people."
-Giordano Bruno
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge."
-Stephen Hawking
"Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable"
-Albert Camus |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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Ebone4rock
SFN Regular
USA
894 Posts |
Posted - 05/27/2010 : 15:43:09 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Ricky
| These two ideas absolutely need to be separated in order for my master plan of eradicating religion in two generations to work! |
They can't be. To be more explicit than Dave was, the reason why people worship God, the reason why they say it's ok for him to kill infants and commit genocide, is because they believe he created everything.
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Well that makes sense then. If he created everything then he has the right to destroy it too......right?
originally posted by Machi4velli
Then, I tend to ask, "Why the Christian God though?" I've never had anyone give me any sort of answer to that question, it's usually avoided and they talk about "faith." |
Isn't it amazing that people can be so invested in something that they have no explanation for? |
Haole with heart, thats all I'll ever be. I'm not a part of the North Shore society. Stuck on the shoulder, that's where you'll find me. Digging for scraps with the kooks in line. -Offspring |
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sailingsoul
SFN Addict
2830 Posts |
Posted - 05/27/2010 : 16:54:41 [Permalink]
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Well that makes sense then. If he created everything then he has the right to destroy it too......right?
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Him or his servants.
| Isn't it amazing that people can be so invested in something that they have no explanation for? |
It's what humans do. They take ownership of a concept, delusion or not. By believing, their pacified. Like an opiate, it works until the day they die or they loose their habit and don't need that crutch. It's really OK not knowing everything, that might be boring. We are all the same, just in varying degrees. Well maybe not all, some are just perfect enough, like God's servants. SS |
There are only two types of religious people, the deceivers and the deceived. SS |
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Ebone4rock
SFN Regular
USA
894 Posts |
Posted - 05/27/2010 : 17:20:50 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by sailingsoul
Well that makes sense then. If he created everything then he has the right to destroy it too......right?
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Him or his servants.
| Isn't it amazing that people can be so invested in something that they have no explanation for? |
It's what humans do. They take ownership of a concept, delusion or not. By believing, their pacified. Like an opiate, it works until the day they die or they loose their habit and don't need that crutch. It's really OK not knowing everything, that might be boring. We are all the same, just in varying degrees. Well maybe not all, some are just perfect enough, like God's servants. SS
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As the great Bob Dylan once said " We always did feel the same we just saw it from a different point of view"
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Haole with heart, thats all I'll ever be. I'm not a part of the North Shore society. Stuck on the shoulder, that's where you'll find me. Digging for scraps with the kooks in line. -Offspring |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 05/27/2010 : 19:23:35 [Permalink]
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I think separating creation from religion would be about like separating woo from astrology. If someone managed to take the woo out of astrology, what you'd have is astronomy. In fact, some of the early Renaissance astronomers had day jobs as astrologers. And astronomers eventually managed this delicate surgery to pluck out a living science. But the woo of astrology lives on.
Likewise, I suppose separating creation from religion has also in a sense been done, giving birth to the scientific studies of evolution, the Big Bang and abiogenesis. Yet religion and its creation myths will live on in some form or another. Creation myths are, after all, fairly basic to religious beliefs. It was partly to answer questions like, "Where do we come from?" that religions were invented in the first place. Religions are going to hold onto that as long as they can, even as more and more people see "creation" as a matter for science. |
“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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Machi4velli
SFN Regular
USA
854 Posts |
Posted - 05/27/2010 : 22:39:07 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Ebone4rock
Isn't it amazing that people can be so invested in something that they have no explanation for? |
They (thoughtful ones) have thought about it and feel they do have justification in the concept of faith, which to me seems like a built-in feature of Christianity that helps it perpetuate itself. For the life of me, I cannot understand the pull of "faith," I've tried to understand with an open mind for years, though my mind seems to be closing since I've yet to find anything approaching a reason why that's justified. |
"Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people."
-Giordano Bruno
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge."
-Stephen Hawking
"Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable"
-Albert Camus |
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Separating Creation From Religion
