jay pettitt on 5/8/2009 at 12:01
Quote Posted by uncadonego
Literally "owner of a wing" or "winged creature". A seventeeth century translation says "fowl".
Do you know what. I think if we all had access to original scripts and the Hebrew language, we'd still be able to spot flaws in it.
DDL on 5/8/2009 at 12:04
Quote:
Centurion: What's this, then? "Romanes eunt domus"? People called Romanes, they go, the house?
Brian: It says, "Romans go home. "
Centurion: No it doesn't ! What's the latin for "Roman"? Come on, come on !
..etc
(only in hebrew, obv)
Beleg Cúthalion on 5/8/2009 at 12:50
I just dropped almost all of my reply. Now I'm ...shirty.
Quote Posted by Matthew
On a reasonably related note: Magdalene Laundries.
Yeah, religion = church = some criminals who think they are religious. Switch to the color channel.
@jay pettitt: Just a summary...well... I'm tired of those bashing churches without recognising their important role in encouraging people to do good in the broadest sense (and yes I know there can be a negative turn etc. etc.) adn who believe that something like Human rights or "common sense" grew like trees on a green hill. What I can say about those German atheists/humanists/all-religion-must-die movement is that I consider their goals either quite Christian (love all the people around you etc.) or really worth rejecting (get rid of those who don't like your ideas). The, as you put it, "unresolvable problems with religion" are IMHO based on unreasonable (or rather: wrong) interpretations of religion (creationism, homophobia etc.) and their counterparts in atheism who think religion is what those freaks show. Voilà, there's your inevitable conflict and humanity at the brink of destruction.
Maybe I'll respond to the rest although it's again peppered with clichés (religion far away from real life and so on) but I wanted to do something useful this afternoon. :p Oh, and I don't think the Watchmaker must be blind making a perfect world just isn't as exciting.
DDL on 5/8/2009 at 13:04
Whereas making a hilariously flawed one is awesome?
Anyway, as people have been pointing out, noone is suggesting that religions should be dropped FROM THE START, not least because that's impossible, being in the past and all.
What I feel, at least, is that we should be able to outgrow them now. A lot of people already are. Belief in divine guidance, judgement and punishment is an effective strategy for getting a lot of poorly-informed primitive people to behave and reproduce and not smash each other over the heads all the time. Of course if it also involves smashing OTHER people over the heads and nicking their stuff, then that's also quite useful.
But at the stage we're at now, where we know exactly how big the world is, how many people are on it, and can communicate near-instantly with most of them, and have discovered that, wow, they're basically all just like us...we shouldn't need invisible sky-monster to "keep us in check". We can see that the best strategies that benefit the most, most of the time, are things like simply "not being a dick to people for no reason", and all the other stuff we used religion to enforce in history.
The fact that some people still think we all need religion to "keep us in check" is only slightly less depressing than the fact that some people genuinely DO need religion for that reason.
Vasquez on 5/8/2009 at 13:21
Quote Posted by Beleg Cúthalion
And that's how I meant "religion" in this case: The belief that there is a higher cause not to live the eat-or-be-eaten life.
Of course there is: To have funnnn! :D
I didn't even realise I'm so religious :joke:
Seriously, you can't explain religions in a way that makes sense to all. Socially to some extent, and historically, yes, but not spiritually. That's the realm of superstition, and either you have it or you don't, and babbling about "higher powers" like they could be included as real arguments in a conversation just tends to irk those who don't believe in them.
Personally, I appreciate a person who's nice because s/he wants to and feels it's right and good much higher than someone who's nice only for fear of afterlife in a fiery lake.
jay pettitt on 5/8/2009 at 13:36
Quote Posted by Beleg Cúthalion
@jay pettitt: Just a summary...well... I'm tired of those bashing churches without recognising their important role in encouraging people to do good in the broadest sense (and yes I know there can be a negative turn etc. etc.) adn who believe that something like Human rights or "common sense" grew like trees on a green hill. What I can say about those German atheists/humanists/all-religion-must-die movement is that I consider their goals either quite Christian (love all the people around you etc.) or really worth rejecting (get rid of those who don't like your ideas). The, as you put it, "unresolvable problems with religion" are IMHO based on unreasonable (or rather: wrong) interpretations of religion (creationism, homophobia etc.) and their counterparts in atheism who think religion is what those freaks show.
I don't think the church's position on homosexuality is unresolvable. To my mind the unresolvable problems with religion are that they mislead people about the nature of the universe by perpetuating a belief in supernatural idols for which there is no evidence and that they don't falsify.
Quote:
Maybe I'll respond to the rest although it's again peppered with clichés (religion far away from real life and so on) but I wanted to do something useful this afternoon.
Understood :)
Matthew on 5/8/2009 at 13:37
Quote Posted by Beleg Cúthalion
Yeah, religion = church = some criminals who think they are religious. Switch to the color channel.
I have no idea what this is meant to mean.
Edit: now I have. Nice body-swerve / selective argument you've got there.
fett on 5/8/2009 at 13:47
Quote Posted by jay pettitt
Do you know what. I think if we all had access to original scripts and the Hebrew language, we'd still be able to spot flaws in it.
Actually, most of the contradictions and "flaws" clear up pretty quickly when it's read in the original language (obviously the original scripts aren't available, but the copies that exist are closer chronologically to the originals than any other ancient text). All this nonsense about two creation accounts, the mis-listing of hoofed animals, and other bullshit the critics like to trot out is pretty silly with even a rudimentary understanding of the language and record keeping methods of the early Jews. The only thing that glares is the Exodus account related to Egyptology which, ironically, is the one biblical/historical account that many non-believers accept without question. The Dead Sea Scrolls are also clearing up a lot of confusion between extant copies but that process is so mired in political/academic bru-haha that it's taking forever to get down to the nuts and bolts.
Adam Nuhfer on 5/8/2009 at 14:11
Quote Posted by addone
I always loved these kind of discussions. No arguments or huge debates or anything, I have NO INTENTION at all for one of those. No flaming, no disagreeing or anything. This is PURELY out of curiosity of everybody else's opinions...This is a mature and laid-back forum, (even if you don't think so, compared to almost every other forum, it really is), so I don't think anything would go
WRONG.
So... how is your little quest relating to religious feedback going? :erg:
addone on 5/8/2009 at 14:14
Quote Posted by Adam Nuhfer
So... how is your little quest relating to religious feedback going? :erg:
Haha...well, maybe I kinda underestimated what would happen with this discussion >.< It's still been an interesting read :P
I can understand why people get annoyed with these discussions when you find them sitting in a completely unrelated thread. But it is really interesting reading it in a thread purely devoted to this kind of discussion.
