Ooh, by the way, what are the acronyms?
Given the history of religion, my view is fair and balanced.
No, as an atheist I expect to be one of the first killed - and that is the bright side.
No. Reality is what it is, not what you believe it is.
It already has, as far as anything can be proved. Damage the brain, damage the person; destroy the brain, destroy the person.
And this does *not *prove there is no after life which is what I was commenting on. Once again your bias has caused you to make statements that are just plain wrong.
This translates to reality is what Der Trihs believes it is.
Is that irony?
Religion is immune to attack; it provides simple, happy answers to questions that science can only give depressing, convoluted guesses at. Science cannot even disprove the existence of God and the afterlife, because it can only comment on things that can be observed and documented. The religious have no reason to discard their beliefs, and as a whole, they never will.
I don’t think the OP is asking why religion would survive. He’s asking how religions that are full of ritualistic mythical wackiness are going to survive, with that embarrasingly silly stuff weighing it down.
Really ? And how are we supposed to have an afterlife if we have nothing to have a afterlife with ?
Remember, I said “as far as anything can be proved”, which means zero-evidence idea like souls don’t apply.
What are you babbling about ? My statement applies to me as much as anyone, of course.
Well, not really. Reality is what it is.
Putting words in his mouth doesn’t necessarily change that.
Perception of that reality is simply where we differ.
Which was my point. Facts are facts. Facts are not beliefs, which are chosen. For example, people do not get sick from “evil spirits.” We do not get well from hanging a totem on the wall to ward away evil spirits, no matter how much we might want to believe it. Bacteria are a fact. “Reality” is a more amorphous concept - just ask any two witnesses to an accident.
My reality, not scientific facts which I cannot dispute, is what I choose to believe. And my reality may be far different from your reality.
Oh no, I attributed the comment by **Der Trihs ** to cosmodan. I apologize, cosmodan. I meant no harm - just a scrivener’s error!
IJMHO=Its Just My Honest Opinion
YMMV=Your Mileage May Vary
-XT
That’s not reality; it’s perception/belief. You’re misusing the word.
What I’ve noticed is that lots of Christians tend to hang with others that are also Christians and believe the same. The books they read tend to be written by Christian authors who just reinforce their beliefs. If they have friends that are not Christians they tend not to discuss beliefs. When the oppportunity presents itsef I try to challenge people to examine their beliefs and have the courage to honestly look at alternate beliefs and evidence rather than just dismiss it. It’s a long process. ONe thing I think will change in a few generations is the belief that the Bible is the inerrant word of God. There is just to much archeological information available and becoming common knowledge for that belief to survive.
There’s a book called the End of Faith that is very good. In it the author encourages people to lose their reservations about not challenging beliefs out of some misplaced politeness or a sense that it’s “bad” to challenge someones religious beliefs. If someone is a good person who helps their neighbors and makes a real contribution to society based on their faith in Christ I’m fine with that. What I will vehemently oppose is people who use their religious beliefs as a basis for laws or to justify their bigotry.
There may be a rise in less structured alternative religions. I have my own set of beliefs and I know others who are very tolerant of many religions and feel completely at ease at picking and choosing what spiritual path works best for them.
Sure it does…if you don’t understand even the question. Take Evolution for instance. If people don’t fundamentally understand how it operates (and many don’t), and if they don’t understand the implications of a major or even a minor discovery, then it seems plausable to them that alternative explainations could be true…or that science ‘doesn’t know everything’. This is true (i.e. science DOESN’T know everything) but it misses a lot by glossing over it.
And Evolution isn’t exactly the most complex of the sciences. Its also been around for quite some time now…yet we are seeing another resurgence in the popularity of alternatives like ID and even the tried and true YEC and OEC. Not just in the US either. But think about the implications of such things IN the US, or any other advanced and technological society.
Well, to the first half of this statement I’ll say: Exactly my point. People ARE searching for less complex answers that they can understand and grasp. Thats kind of why I was disagreeing with the OP as to the demise of religion…and my wider definition of magical thinking.
To the second half I’ll just say: huh?
You are mixing a lot of things up here. First off, because YOU don’t believe (or me either) doesn’t preclude others from doing so. Secondly, again, you are making my point. Whether or not the major religions ARE running out of gas (its debatable), the question of the OP was if ‘supernational believe systems like Christianity’ are going to survive in the future. So…if folks switch from Christianity or Islam or Judiasm to some wacky Crystal and Alien believe system, they are STILL using a supernatural belief system…just not the one they were using before. Q.E.D…supernatural belief systems may be changing or shifting but they ain’t going away. IMHO anyway.
-XT
Oh yes really really. You responded with “It already has” which implies science has proved there is no after life. It most certainly has not and that makes your statement incorrect no matter how you try to qualify it now.
Fair enough. My experience with you is that you make sweeping blanket statements about what reality is. If you are admitting that your beliefs have no special claim on reality then I’d consider that progress.
An equally good question is how atheism will survive, with inane ridicule instead of rational thought weighing it down. :dubious:
Ritual is a human constant – from the customs of etiquette to Robert’s Rules. It’s when ritual no longer matches a felt need among the present culture that it becomes a dead accretion. Likewise myth is the methodology used by humans to grasp the metaphysical realities that do not conceptualize well in rational terms in words of less than six syllables.
Of course, but perception of reality is what we have as individuals.
My past experience with the nature of** Der Trihs** posts influnced my reading. Perhaps I misunderstood.
Isn’t it true that none of us have a complete grasp on “what it is” Our differing perceptions is what makes life interesting.
Yes, it has as far as it can be proved, by demonstrating that our mind is a function of the brain. You can only claim an afterlife exists by invoking a superstition like the soul.
People who still buy into prescientific superstition are hardly in a position to make speeches about rationality.
You know quite well that atheism, not being anything in itself, has nothing to “weigh it down.” The point is: while one can work to rationalize something like the story of Noah’s ark into some sort of meaningful moral for modern times, why? Why not come up with new stories, new illustrations, that don’t have confusing and bizarre stumbling blocks like the idea of packing all “kinds” into a boat, or somehow getting past the fact that the story condones the wholesale murder of the entire world’s population, no matter how “wicked” they are claimed to have been. It is “inane” to point out that maybe there are better stories, better starting places for an ethos or religion, without so much bizarre baggage?
Sure, but after awhile, the myths and rituals of bygone eras lose both relevance and morality, and are replaced by better ones. It’s all well and nice that one can read something good out of the Bible. The question is: why do we still need myths and lawbooks that celebrate slavery, infanticide, a proudly genocidal god, hell, and all sorts of archaic pagan mystical thinking, and so on? We’ve moved past that. Why not cut those parts out, a la Jefferson?
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
(And, of course, in the midst of your possible misuse of words, I would hate to discover that you are attempting a personal insult in [Great Debates**.)