Excellent
GB-GIL
The point being that
thought must also be learned, and thought involves both the objective and the subjective. Some people have more use for the subjective than others. Dickens:
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Absolute crap: he can't
prove that.
Religious and theistic thought aren't much different. They're different manifestations of the subjective. They're different tools to be used in different ways.
While I find the infantile use of the theistic tool common to most religions to be repugnant, I tend to look around at other subjective ideas and it seems that religion is not as much a sore thumb as it seems. Patriotism, economy, it's all just myth.
Knowledge: Drinking alcohol in excess can cause health problems. Wisdom: What wisdom? I
like drinking alcohol to some degree of excess. The
subjective standard, in that case, is more important to me.
In the end, it's how people treat each other that counts. I would like to see some better performance from the religions on that count, but I can hardly pretend that, as ideological overviews, religions are alone as badly-exploited paradigms.
The myth of economy is as bad as religion, but we don't wake up and do away with money, do we?
No, we just keep looking for a better way.
Think of it this way: religion, like art, deals with concepts that cannot be easily put to words. Some people have use for such ideas. Others do not. It does well enough to compare Picasso or Van Gogh to Catholicism and say,
Which one should be preserved, when it comes right down to it? But then again, there are some to whom a world without art seems a reasonable thing. We tend to regard
those people as a little unbalanced.
Does one need to understand the laws of thermodynamics in order to achieve decency, or is the observable result that fire burns and hurts the flesh enough to go on? Or is it enough to not wish to be burned and hurt?
Such is the case with religion. In that case, it is impossible to understand the laws at play, but people do, in their insecurities about the Universe, employ various parlor tricks to comfort themselves. It's fair enough if they keep it to themselves. My problem with religion is functional: it needs to stay out of other people's faces. However, that I have no particular need for any given religion does not mean that I should take to religion as those to art who imagine no purpose or use for art.
Besides, with so much of the world being religious, it has occurred to me that I must understand religions as much as possible in order to address the problems they bring to the human endeavor. Frankly, I'm surprised at the number of atheists who haven't figured out that relatively minor point.
thanx,
Tiassa
