Or 94 out of the 100 most influential people in history
Nonsense. Religion isn’t about wondering about anything; it’s about making things up and demanding that everyone pretend your fantasies are true. And it certainly isn’t about making anything better.
The Isaac Newton who wasted far too much time and intellect on alchemy? A great mind crippled by the disease of religion and mysticism. And our Presidents have a long history of stupidity and evil, much of which is motivated by religion like the long crusade against gays.
Note how incredibly nasty and irrational much of history is. “They believed that in the past” isn’t a recommendation; they believed in slavery too.
Because my people are in the majority, so it is no longer considered bigotry but conventional wisdom. You’re welcome.
Either way, I stand by my statement that in order to be a person who is a critical thinker you have to be willing to evaluate and reevaluate your own beliefs. And if you go your whole life believing the beliefs that were handed down to you then you aren’t doing that.
Wouldn’t be the first time.
Is it bigoted to think that truthers, or birthers, or people who believe in UFOs are idiots? Having some vague feeling that we are all connected is inane, but believing in something approximating what is in the Bible is just stupid. I’m sorry, I know it’s not nice, but it’s true.
Which ones? Judaism and Christianity both are based on a book that says the earth was created in 6 days, that man was created out of mud and women were created from his rib, and a talking snake encouraged them to eat from the tree of knowledge at which time they were banned from paradise. Then later God flooded the world and all the species of animals fit onto a boat and they floated around for a year with enough food to feed them all.
You think that’s reasonable and coherent? What would unreasonable and incoherent look like?
If I made up stuff about where the world came from, don’t you think I’d have to address what people were curious about? If we didn’t wonder where we came from and what we’re here for…then religion would never sell. You do understand that monotheism isn’t the definition of religion, right? And you get that you can be religious without being a theist? Oftentimes a religion can used synonymously with a culture.
Religion is a developing rationale. The only religions practiced today, are well, living. It’s very much like language. Religion is suspect to human emotion, intelligence, and need. Some of us belong to a religion in which it is wrong to question, even if defying authority is prevalent in that religion’s history. Others belong to religions in which it is ridiculous to not question. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it also discovered a polio vaccine, creationism, and our modern legal system.
All right, then. Let’s see you tackle physics and running the free world. I’ll be waiting.
Not one part of that entire post made any sense whatsoever.
1.) At one point in time, that was perfectly reasonable. Most major religions have adapted to scientific revelations.
2.) You need to stop lumping Christian and Jewish tradition together…and then take a literacy class. Metaphors, anyone? Symbolism? Linguistic relativity? For example:
3.) Tree of knowledge - we’re advancing, no? Women can take pain meds for childbirth and men can ride a John Deere on the farm. We’ve been around the world and to the moon. Oh yeah, man also discovered the wheel. Ho-hum.* The very story of Adam and Eve tells us that in order to advance and to ease human suffering, we must question God.*
4.) There are people who think the belief in a god is silly and yet they believe in things like “true love” and “ghosts”. Hmm.
Okay, well,you go brush up on your reading skills and get back to me.
There would be no religion without curiosity.
Well I don’t think anyone is saying that 2,000 years ago you were stupid to believe this stuff, maybe not even 500 years ago, but now? pretty much.
The word you are looking for is literature. Your use of *literacy *is ironic.
I can use Winnie the Pooh as a metaphor for life too, but it would be silly.
Really?, you think I’m an Atheist but I believe in Ghosts?
Wow. What an ugly sentiment. (The first part, I mean.) I don’t think there’s any point in continuing that thought.
As to the second statement, what you’re saying has nothing to do with what someone believes, but why they believe it. I find that odd, since you could apply the statement just as easily to atheists. I suspect you’d find that most people evaluate their beliefs all the time, regardless of what those beliefs are, and indeed, most people’s beliefs shift around at least a bit over time.
Did you not read what I wrote? I belong to a religion that doesn’t think the world was created in six days. Oh, yeah, did I mention I was Jewish?
No, the word I am looking for is literacy. I question your reading comprehension skills. After you’ve mastered something beyond a rudimentary level of “See Spot Run”, we can talk literature. Curious…how are your Biblical Hebrew skills?
Again, your poor reading comprehension shines. I said some people. I don’t claim to know anything about your beliefs in what may be supernatural, phenomenal, or scientific.
But not Orthodox presumably. Because that’d be kinda silly, right? I mean the Bible says that the earth was created in 6 days but it’d be silly to think that because we can look at the evidence and see it isn’t true. So what those Orthodox Jews think isn’t right, but you’ve got the inside story on what parts of the Bible are metaphor and what aren’t.
So the creation story is a metaphor, and the Ark thing is really not literally true, and there probably wasn’t really a historical Moses that led the Jews from Egypt and wandered around in the desert, so the burning bush and commandment thing is kinda questionable too, but they got the gist of it right.
But of course then those Christians come along and make up a bunch of stuff, but you know that isn’t right, because that would be kind of silly, wouldn’t it, to literally believe some book written a few thousands of years ago. But luckily you have the insight to look at that book and figure out what parts are true and what aren’t and then reconcile it all together in some neat package that just somehow, coincidentally, just happens to fit with the cultural heritage of your parents. But I’m sure you would have drawn the same conclusions if your parents were Navajo.
:smack:
You’re missing the whole point.
The Bible* as it is written literally *is not central to many (if not most - I’d have to check on that one) practicing deists. You don’t have to believe in God to belong to a religion. You don’t have to keep your religion unchanging to keep it that religion. Religion is another branch of philosophy.
As far as Judaism and evolution are concerned:
1.) There are some early Talmudic rabbis who thought the earth was older and that Adam was not the first man. There was also mention of the idea that a week’s time wasn’t a literal week. These ideas are noted in the Talmud.
2.) In the Middle Ages, Maimonides -one of the greatest philosophers of all time- suggested that Genesis wasn’t to be taken literally. Oh hey, we’re ahead of some Christians by a few hundred years. This was echoed by others.
3.) Orthodox Jews aren’t just one group. Some do not take the creation story literally. Some do. Anyway.
4.) let’s advance a little bit…dum de dum…in our time machine…oh here we are! 1900s. Most Jews believe in evolution. Evolution does not negate Judaism. This is affirmed by Conservative and Reform movements.
5.) Modern times. Again, most Jews don’t think that a belief in evolution requires a disbelief in God. Does this include Orthodox? Many prominent Orthodox rabbis would suggest so. But then again, the Orthodox is hardly concerned about what the outside world thinks of them.
See also: Jews in Science
and
Jews in Scientific Advancement in an Orthodox-Controlled Israel
and
P.S. My son goes to Jewish Day School. Yes, he learns about dinosaurs that lived millions of years ago. :o
I did a quick Google for you and this may be helpful in understanding Judaism, the Torah, and evolution: Jurassic Judaism « Ask The Rabbi « Ohr Somayach
Having studied Lincoln again during the past few years, I would definitely say that he refers to God and religion so consistently during the last years of his life that the earlier case of his not being a church goer and skeptical statements should be put aside.
You should really read the seriousness of some of your own Lord of the Rings posts.
Applying critical thinking skills can be done with religion, and you might want to read Thomas Aquinas to see how it is done to come up with a complete system of theology, morals and ethics that can be used in a lot of applications in life. Aquinas was nothing if not a critical thinker who applied his critical thinking to his religious beliefs.
When you go to a funeral or a less religious memorial service, do you shout: this is bullshit, the deceased is dead, let’s throw some dirt on him and get it over with, cause none of this shit means anything? You don’t. (I’m guessing you don’t, maybe you do, or never attend a memorial.) But human culture isn’t an entirely logical process. It makes no sense to take up good real estate with cemeteries. It is about how we show respect to each other, and the surviving. It can and will be abused, as you have most correctly pointed out. But the ritual and belief systems do not require the abuses and in fact condemn them.
It’s about treating each other well and with respect.
As for the Presidents, none have ever claimed to be atheists. Of members of Congress, only Pete Stark publicly questions the existence of God, and he is still a Unitarian. We will see if his district is safe after the next reapportionment that will occur soon. The Cal legislature is not overseeing this one.
Do you think I’m knocking Jews? I know most Jews believe in evolution and science. Most Jews I know are pretty secular and barely religious at all, mostly seeing themselves as culturally Jewish in the same way I celebrate Christmas without buying the whole Jesus’ birthday thing.
The history you have described is pretty much the progression of realizing that the Bible is not true. Somehow people hold on stubbornly to the idea there must be something, but that is more of a failure of imagination than a reasoned position.
The problem with deism and other religious beliefs is that it doesn’t lead to any greater understanding of the universe. How can the existence of the supreme being be distinguished from it not existing?Are there any predictions that can be made by assuming it exists? Will any physical phenomena occur that are different than what we would expect from chance?
Now some see God not in physical terms, but in how he/it affects peoples thoughts and feelings. But in what way are the effects of believing in a God that does not exist differ from believing in a God that does exist, if it is simply the belief itself that influences a person?
There are some Deists who say that God exists outside our universe and does not interact with it in any way. But again, how is that different than a God that does not exist at all, or from there being one green and one red God, or there being 2,147 Gods?
Then there is God by definition: God is “everything” or God is the “original force”. At this point people are almost there. They accept that there isn’t any sort of traditional God, but they still aren’t ready to let go of the word itself.
You should examine that one last step; what happens to life’s questions if we posit there is no God?
Why are we here? There is no reason to think there is a reason.
Why does God let innocent people suffer? He doesn’t, there is no God.
What happens when we die? Nothing, we just decompose like any other carbon based life.
Which is the right religion? None of them.
Once you have put aside the a priori assumption that there is some sort of God, life makes more sense. You know longer have to sacrifice animals, or leave presents to the Cargo gods, or enslave people to build pyramids, or drink metaphorical blood.
You don’t need to sacrifice your sense of wonder. There are still plenty of astonishing things to learn about the universe and they are quantifiable. You can make predictions based on them. you can create conjectures and test them, you can solve real problems and make people’s lives better.
[QUOTE]
Celebrating Christmas because you like presents is NOT the same thing as being culturally Jewish.
I don’t believe the Bible to be completely true or completely false. I do put a lot of stock in the Talmud, however.
The Bible is hardly a failure of the imagination. Like I keep saying, religion is a type of philosophy. Philosophy is the study of problems. Do you understand why I keep saying that there would be no religion without a desire for knowledge? I’m not saying that religious people can’t be stunted or that all religions are created equal. I’m saying that religion has been around since man discovered his own consciousness.
My deism? I’m an atheist.
Again. See: Maimonides.
See: A significant portion of the population, Jewish and otherwise.
It’s what you do with it.
Are you trying to argue something or do you just want to get into some kind of theological discussion? I fail to see how this disproves my position that religion was (and is) useful in the development of science, ethics, law, education, civilized society and so forth and so on.
-wince-
Religion may not make sense to you, but to others, it does. Those who sacrificed lambs in the name of God found that it made perfect sense. Since I don’t do things that sound incredibly asinine or otherwise not important, then I clearly don’t have that problem.
You can be a deist and a scientist, and atheist and a scientist, an agnostic and an idiot, or whathaveyou. All I’ve been saying (again and again and again) is that many of your assertions about religions are wrong.
Cripes. You’re acting as though Ptolemy was useless because he was wrong about the heliocentric model.
Yesterday, my son asked me some question about God. I don’t remember what it was, exactly, but it came out that I didn’t believe in God so I didn’t really have an opinion.
Son: YOU DON’T BELIEVE IN GOD?!
Me: I don’t know if He exists or not.
Son: How can you be Jewish?
Me: You don’t have to believe in God to be Jewish.
Son: But everything is about God.
Me: I don’t think so.
Son: But how come you celebrate Passover?
Me: Because I believe in the Jewish people.
Son: But the Jewish people believe in God!
Me: Most of them do, yes.
Son: So how can you believe in Jews?
Me: Yuda, I know the difference between right and wrong because I’m Jewish.
Son: But God tells us what is right and wrong.
Me: He tells us how to treat each other.
Son: (thinking) Are you sure you’re Jewish?
Me: Yuda, who tells you about Jewish law?
Son: My teachers.
Me: So God doesn’t tell you about Jewish law?
Son: NO! But my teachers also tell me about God!
Me: I know.
Son: But you don’t believe in God!
Me: No; I believe in Judaism. And most of the time, I believe in Jewish law.
Son: I won’t tell anyone you don’t believe in God.
Me: It’s not a secret.
Son: Do you care if I believe in God?
Me: Nope.
Son: Do you care if I believe in Jewish people?
Me: Yup.
Son: What’s for supper?
Me: I don’t know yet…hey, Jude, do you believe in faries? [thinking of his love for Furn Gully]
Son: Yeah.
Me: Why?
Son: Because there could be fairies in the forest and I just haven’t seen them yet.
Me: Makes sense.
Son: Do you believe in fairies?
Me: No, but I don’t want to cut down their trees, either.
Son: Yeah, I don’t think God would like that.
Me: I don’t, either.
Son: You don’t believe in God.
Me: Yeah, but I can still have an opinion on what God thinks.
So in other words, you’re imagining it. Cite that any conservative political or religious person outside of a complete established nutter had any problems with Joe Lieberman’s Jewishness.