I don’t know if this has been asked before, but sometimes I feel like a lot of dopers are against organized religion. Would you agree/disagree?
Is it so much just religion in general, or promoting/pushing it on other people? Because I myself don’t like the concept of being coerced, or guilt-tripped into joining a religion. I don’t like high-pressure tactics put on me. However, that doesn’t mean I dislike that particular religion.
It seems like some intellectuals are atheist because they are people who feel they need proof of everything in life. Kind of a 'if it can’t be logically explained, I can’t accept it" attitude. Faith often seems to be associated with ignorance or gullibility, but I see it the other way around. I say it takes a lot of guts to accept something you cant logically explain, that there may be things out there beyond the human realm of understanding and logic.
The straight dope column, that this message board to dedicated to, is supposed to dispell ignorance with reason, evidence and logic. Religion has very little in common with those ideals (reason, evidence and logic) so conflict between those who follow each ideology is not surprising.
I think it takes guts to look at something you don’t understand, examine it, experiment, reject what is guessed and use logic to come to a hypothesis which you can test to further your understanding. Giving up and accepting superstition is cowardly.
I think Jesus is great, and Mohammed was a cool guy, too. But I am not fond of some of their fan clubs.
For convenience’s sake, let’s talk about Jesus. His religion is called “Christianity,” and is, collectively, made up of a bunch of sects.
Those sects include the Catholic Church, the Lutheran Church, the Anglican Church, the Methodists, the Baptists, the Coptic Church, the Mormons…
I like some of these sects better than others. Hell, the BAPTISTS are broken down into a variety, some of which I like better than others.
I can’t say I’m actively against any of these sects. I disagree with some of them, sure, but I’m not sure I’d say I oppose them. With the possible exception of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, whom I hate NOT for their RELIGION, but for their proselytizing practices.
As the Bible says, “By their fruits ye shall know them.” Organized religions have led to a lot of prejudice, wars, promulgation of ignorance, hatred, etc. They have also led many people to find comfort and perform acts of generosity and kindness toward others.
In a perfectly enlightened world, everybody would recognize that God is a myth borne of ignorance, fear and wish fulfillment, and that there are valid and important reasons to get along with one another other than simply “God told us to.” We do not live in a perfectly enlightened world, however, and people are going to continue believing in superstitions and myths regardless of how educated they may be. That being the case, I would much rather have people follow a religion that teaches love and tolerance to all until such time as they are ready to accept the truth.
Unfortunately, far too many religions include a belief that their views are the “correct” ones that must be shared with/imposed upon everybody else.
In short, if people need religion in order to have a reason to follow the so-called “Golden Rule,” then as long as they actually FOLLOW the Golden Rule and don’t assume that everybody else needs to belong to their religion, I say go for it.
I’m not anti-religion. I’m agnostic, a label I will defends against either side trying to re-define me into their fold. I call myself this as a recognition of the status of my belief. It’s not that I sat down one day and decided to become agnostic – at some point I realized that it was a good label for what I was.
As I think proofs of religion are flawed, and that it ultimately isn’t possible to prove the existence or non-existence of God, or the “correctness” of any particular faith, I’m not anyi- any of it. Even talk of the offenses due to any group don’t weigh in this – religions being composed of fallible human beings, you’re going to get some fallible behavior. Some of it extremely fallible. That goes for atheistic groups, as well. And I see no reason to exempt faith-neutral groups.
On the other hand, I’m opposed to coercion in religion, or the use of strong-arm tactics.
As long as we’re dispelling ignorance, can we please dispell the myth that reason and religion are incompatible? It’s come up in several threads lately, and I’m getting tired of it. There have been plenty of religious thinkers and writers who have used reason, evidence, and logic to explain their faith to believers, defend it to unbelievers, and reform it where they felt it had gone astray. Heck, doesn’t the current Pope have a doctorate in philosophy?
I think Nobel laureate Arno Penzias, among a host of other scientists, might disagree with you. You may remember Penzias is one half of the team of Penzias and Robert Wilson who discovered the microwave “echo” of the Big Bang. Penzias is both “religious” and “scientist” and believes that the two are not mutually exclusive, but one is capable of informing the other. See an article on his perspective in Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, Sept. 1994.
For more scientists who practice a faith, an organization at Stanford University keeps a running list here.
I cite what I know: those of a Christian background. Yet I would be willing to bet, given a little research, we could turn up a whole host of scientists who value deeply their Jewish, Hindu, Moslem or other faith, and see no contradiction. In fact, Islam is responsible for much of the scientific advances of humanity up until the 1500s (though no one really knows why it stopped there). See The Internet History of Science Sourcebook at Forham University and The Commission on the History of Science and Technology in Islamic Civilization for more information.
I think those Nobel laureates and their colleagues throughout history who are obviously more brilliant than any of us here on these boards would not appreciate being called “cowardly” by us. Word to the wise…
Could be that the people who seem opposed to it (religion) are the ones defining “reason”, “evidence” and “logic”, instead of allowing those promoting religion to do so.
Thudlow Boink, I think your comments right on point.
Having mellowed slightly over the years, I believe that a person should pursue whatever gives him solace and peace of mind.
Whether or not gods exist has not been shown to me, so my solace is internal.
I am a skeptic by nature and have never been able to make the ‘leap of faith’. Viewed in the context of history, religious zeal is abhorrent to me. Viewed in the context of the (apparent) present shift to the religious right in this country, I’m more than a little nervous about the future. A lot of horrors have been perpetrated by those who are convinced that a god or gods have given them the right to do whatever is necessary to further the faith.
As with most things, temperance is called for. Unfortunately, it seems that most advocates of the varying forms of Christianity are somewhat rabid in the dissemination of their dogma. So in answer to the OP, I would have to say that if I must choose to be for or against, I choose ‘against’.
I’ll defend your right to believe in whatever supernatural being you want to create for yourself. But it’s still silly. And please, PLEASE don’t preach to me. You have your home and your church for that.
It doesn’t take guts to have faith. What does take guts is to say “We can’t answer these questions yet with the state of the art in science, and will reserve judgment until we can.” rather than inventing fanciful, fairy tale explanations to fill the uncomfortable vaccuum of current ignorance.
I have to disagree here. Skepticism is all about keeping an open mind and accepting the possibility that there are things beyond human understanding. Let’s say there are two possibilities for something, e.g. there is or isn’t a god. Skepticism means saying “we have no evidence to back up either position, so let’s leave it at that or keep looking for evidence.” Faith is to choose one or the other for some arbitrary reason, e.g. one that other people tell you is true (without proof), or one that seems to make more sense to you (again, with no more proof than “it feels right”). And IMHO it takes more guts to say “we don’t know” than to pick a side blindly.
I’d amend this a tad – “I’ll defend your right to believe in whatever supernatural being you want to believe, and I’ll give you all the respect you need for this belief. But don’t use your beliefs as a motivation to change my laws, my school, and my society just because they don’t conform with what you want them to be.”
I’m pro-religion, not in the sense that I’m encouraging anyone to take one up, but in the sense that religion is important to a lot of people, is perfectly legitimate in general, and hence worth defending as social practice. There are certainly elements of certian religions that I don’t like, but that’s not really any of my beeswax since I don’t have to practice them.
Are you honestly claiming that all questions can be answered scientifically? If so, what scientific methodology did you use to arrive at that conclusion?
Besides, you’re assuming that these people are merely inventing fanciful fairy tales. As other posters have already pointed out, there are scientists who believe science and religion to be harmonious, and that science points the way to ultimate belief in God.
I wouldn’t necessarily say that I am “against” religion…but I don’t really “get” religion. I have a lot of trouble understanding why people, especially in this modern day and age, put so much time and energy into what looks to be meaningless ritual to me. It’s almost as if I were born without the “God” gene. I mean, what makes God different from Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy or wishing really hard that your favorite sports team pulls through? And, why, even if there is some sort of creator who fashioned our universe, do people believe that this creator can read our thoughts and has some sort of power over the events in our individual lives? And why do people assume that this creator cares so very very much about what we individual humans do and think, and assume that this creator desires our worship to appease it?
I just don’t get it, and this sets me apart from many people. People assume that I just don’t like waking up on Sunday morning, or something silly like that. They don’t get that I really just don’t see a point to it. I mean, I can learn about Jesus, and think that the Golden Rule is a good philosophy to follow, but what’s the point of pretending that the wine and crackers are blood and flesh? Why do people feel the need to do that? They must have their reasons, but, I have a lot of trouble understanding. Sometimes I think that I’m either unusually deficient, or unusually enlightened.
It’s tough to bring up these questions in general society. It seems that religious people have as much trouble understanding me as I do them. If you do bring it up, you risk being, well, thought as a lesser person…one of the other strange attitudes of many religions. I often wonder how many people feel as I do, and remain, for the most part, invisible. It’s easier to bring it up here on an Internet message board in relative anonymity. Maybe the SDMB, with it’s empahsis on logic, reason, and “fighting ignorance”, attracts the skeptical…and, maybe, just maybe, there are more of us out there than you think.
I strongly agree with you here. I am also agnostic. While I am not a follower of any specific religion, I do respect different religions. I believe that faith can be a powerful tool to help people maintain hope in bad times, and cope with personal tragedies.
About faith versus skepticism, I think faith takes a lot more guts because it involves standing by a belief which could be false. There is a lot of risk in faith, but zero risk in skepticism. A faithful person has to overcome any fears or misgivings that might be wrong. Some of them can have very big consequences. Just look at the concept of afterlilfe- many different opnions on that. Some people believe in heaven, some people believe in hell, some people don’t believe you ‘go’ anywhere. I think it takes quite a bit of guts to live your life with the confidence that you believe you are going somewhere better/worse
Surely you see, rjung, that what you’ve just said is equivalent to “you can believe in whatever you want, so long as you don’t act in accordance with your beliefs.” If you’re not willing to let religious people act in accordance with their religious principles, you’re guilty of exactly what you’ve just said you don’t want them to do: using your beliefs about religion as a motivation to change society to conform with what you want it to be.
So with all due respect, I think we should return to the original statement.
