And that's my problem with religion, no one doctrine has all the answers for everyone, but those with faith tend to assume, in my experience, that their religion is the only one needed. And that in order to be able to call yourself a person of faith you have to squeeze yourself into a pigeonhole and identify yourself as Christian, Muslim, Buddhist or Pagan etc. I want a religion as limitless as my own mind, and something that doesn't tell me what to think, but rather explains my thoughts and experiences better than I can myself. I still grapple with the need to explain it though, which is where I have the upmost respect for science in that it doesn't try to. It's much less limiting and far more liberating to not have to answer to anyone but myself (and the law).
Is Faith Blind?
- Thread starter Hallam Willis
- Start date
And that's my problem with religion, no one doctrine has all the answers for everyone, but those with faith tend to assume, in my experience, that their religion is the only one needed. And that in order to be able to call yourself a person of faith you have to squeeze yourself into a pigeonhole and identify yourself as Christian, Muslim, Buddhist or Pagan etc. I want a religion as limitless as my own mind, and something that doesn't tell me what to think, but rather explains my thoughts and experiences better than I can myself. I still grapple with the need to explain it though, which is where I have the upmost respect for science in that it doesn't try to. It's much less limiting and far more liberating to not have to answer to anyone but myself (and the law).
You got it right. I mean, I get how it might be frustrating for some to have to say they don't know what it all means or where it all came from, but I can't see how it's better to be constricted in the narrowness of a particular religion. Maybe if I believed it would be different...but maybe not. You certainly don't seem to want to be classified as any one particular thing, and I can't imagine I would either, if I were a believer.
Science is trying to answer the big questions, though. It's important to remember that while the sciences have to be inherently humble, they're also endlessly ambitious. Consider projects like the ones at Brookhaven, CERN, and the Large Hadron Collider. I mean, they're trying to create mini black holes, dude!
Anyway, I don't see how it conflicts with anyone's faith to appreciate the sciences. How does it hurt your faith to admit evolution happens?
Perhaps religion (and by that I mean the one's I have experienced like Sant Mat, Buddhism, Catholicism, Discordianism and plain outright mother Earth loving Paganism) tends to look out at spritual experiences and come to the conclusion that something other than ourselves created the universe. They are looking for something that is more than a swirling ball of exploding gasses. Which is what humans are really, atrophying cells.
But science doesn't understand the human mind very well, and so I think those with very imaginative minds can seek to understand what this part of themselves is. Science doesn't explain it very well and so some turn to religion to define it. Albeit at the cost of denying plain fact.
Fact: God does not exist for me the way it exists for anyone else. It cannot be defined, nor experienced by anyone else. Those with a collective experience cannot define their experiences for everyone else. It's insulting to the intelligent human mind to tell each individual what they should call their experiences. What one person calls God I would call it an unexplainable experience, and what I call an experience some might define as delusion. I wouldn't want to push my delusion on others, it might make them as skew whiff as me.
I wonder; studies have shown the active part of the brain in religious experience is the same as imagination and dreaming, so does that mean all these experiences are merely imputation of a different brainwave than people normally tend to experience? Is religion a mass delusional fantasy? I know Lord Of The Rings is completely fictitious but it doesn't stop me from extracting some personal truths from it.
As I've said long ago, although there isn't necessarily evidence for deities, I do think there are logical grounds for their supposition.
Yes, I agree completely. Humans can think abstractly, and therefore can ask the big questions. So obviously they are going to look for truths, and more importantly, they're going to find them. That's why we have all sorts of different religions, and varying levels of them, too.
It probably is, yeah. It's a coping mechanism; when he have no answers, religion provides them; when we experience personal tragedy, religion helps us through; when we are at our lowest point, religion can bring us out of it. I think some faith can be a good thing. It's there for a reason, obviously. Even atheists have irrational beliefs, after all. I, for example, believe in karma. I don't have a choice in the matter--I just believe.
:bawl: emmz you are torturing my brain..i'm having a v.hard time understanding your POV..
i don't mean any insult
ummm..IMO god isn't an explanation to what we don't understand..he is an entity that exists..not something one labels everything he doesn't understand..god is one, who doesn't change with the different problems of people and their thinking styles..
(am i making any sense?)
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
Aye, ok. You're not too serious about it then.
You have to admit that those two examples you gave in the beginning of your post are a tad bit silly..
i'll say how an illiterate man was able to produce a book which the best of the best in the language the book is written in, weren't able to match -united- one small portion of it or even come close..
that's a linguistic one..there are many others as i said..but you asked for one*..which i think alone(if thought of critically) could safely pass the 51% 49% ratio problem between mohammad pbuh and "atheism"..
*and i'll stick to one to reduce the chances of screwing up and as not to repeat the glass ants fiasco..
Scifes, I think what I'm trying to say is that what you call God, I don't necessarily call it that, and I certainly don't believe in all of it.
En, The two examples I gave are really serious matters man. I need those keys, and my mobile phone too. And I'm ALWAYS loosing my glasses, now if a deity can create a world and all that exists in it in seven days (or periods of time for the picky), I'm pretty sure he can find my fucking glasses. I mean, the peace on Earth and end to suffering prayers don't work so I might as well be practical about the whole thing.
En, The two examples I gave are really serious matters man. I need those keys, and my mobile phone too. And I'm ALWAYS loosing my glasses, now if a deity can create a world and all that exists in it in seven days (or periods of time for the picky), I'm pretty sure he can find my fucking glasses. I mean, the peace on Earth and end to suffering prayers don't work so I might as well be practical about the whole thing.
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
Er.. have we entered the twilight zone ? lol
I'm not sure whether you are being funny or dead serious. I'm betting on the former though :fright:
The thing about religion is that it is very irrational, however the basis, the core concepts are not and in fact are the product of logical thought.
The universe had a beginning; now, logically either it occured without intelligent cause or with it.
And the latter isn't necessarily absurd in and of itself, so it remains a very real possibility.
The problem is when you start throwing out ideas and details and it morphs into modern day religion.
The universe had a beginning; now, logically either it occured without intelligent cause or with it.
And the latter isn't necessarily absurd in and of itself, so it remains a very real possibility.
The problem is when you start throwing out ideas and details and it morphs into modern day religion.
Eh, that's just your opinion, so it really doesn't matter at all. Don't bother posting it again.
Indeed. But society is built on opinions, so it does matter for the time being.
Ohhhhh, I see. So when it's YOUR opinion, it matters. When it's someone else's, not so much?
No you misunderstood what I was trying to make clear.
I kept bringing up "it's your opinion" in order to make it clear that it's an opinion because you guys were treating it as a fact, as if you somehow were better than everyone else for the way you believed.
I wasn't trying to undermine the importance of opinions; our opinions do matter. Just don't delude yourself into thinking you're somehow "more right" than everyone else.
That was my point. As I found it very arrogant and annoying to see people calling others "backwards" and "idiots" for simply having a different culture.
Yes, I am better than Hitler was, because I do not believe in murdering people for any reason, let alone their faith. And yes, I am "more right" than he was for it. What you are failing to understand is that you're viewing the world as amoral because you are amoral. You, apparently, have no real moral compass or sense of right and wrong aside from what the laws say, so you simply assume that everyone is this way.
Everyone isn't.
There is a reason we have empathy and protect members of our society. It isn't an accident that every society in existence, to some extent, protects those within it. There are evolutionary benefits to it. It is NOT a difference of cultures or opinions, it is a matter of YOU and some others are lacking development in a certain area of the brain.
The universe did not necessarily have a beginning, and even if it did, it could have been uncaused.
Why does that make you better?
Very true.
Not at all; it's very rational to protect ourselves. It betters our chances for survival.
I agree, but then the next bit...
I have to disagree with this, because societies like Saudi Arabia are not amoral, they are moral (i.e, believing in morality). Very strict in fact. Therefore all you are doing is stating the obvious: the Saudis protect their culture and their people in their own way.
It could have.