on discussing god and religion

In the Great White North, we have the Discovery Channel and Discovery Science. I guess they rebranded it in the USA.

And people try to do that until you turn it into a discussion of immortality and salvation. :imp:

Another try .
Christian religion say that God created an ordered universe which humans can understand and are allowed to use. That prompts scientists to try to understand and describe the physical laws that God has created. That understanding is then used to created technology which alters our society for the better … presumably in sync with the morality proposed by Jesus.

It doesn’t seem incompatible at all. :-k

That’s some kind of analysis of ethics founded in psychology and sociology. Right?

That’s physics, chemistry, biology, geology, etc … the study of the physical world as God has created it.

Why would I have to consult with James?

Some of those questions are being studied.
Some of those questions are unanswerable at this time, some may never be answerable and some are irrelevant for all practical purposes.

I think the question of ‘free will’ is completely irrelevant. :evilfun:

Okay, you will never have THE WHOLE TRUTH. People are limited. Live with it.

It seems that it’s possible to pursue science in spite of Hume. :smiley:

Star Wars is a piece of fiction. A La La Land Hollywood concoction where Good and Evil [like the Good Guys and the Bad Guys] are almost always effortless to spot. The Dark Side?

For many Christians, the Bible is anything but. Millions upon millions literally embody what they construe to be the word of God in order that they will attain immortality and salvation.

Actually, I am just as curious as to what you might say to them as it relates to the purpose behind this thread.

Another “general description” of human interaction. Forgive your brother? Okay, but what is the context? What in particular has your brother done that might warrant forgiveness? And what of those who argue that what he did was unforgiveable?

How do we determine if he ought to be forgiven if our answer will be weighed by those responsible for our fate on Judgment Day? And here [of course] you are back to not knowing; of it all being beyond your control, of it all not being for you to say.

So, which is it: turn the other cheek? or an eye for an eye?

Somehow “in your head” you have thought this all through such that here and now it is what you “believe”. I merely intertwine what any particular man or woman might believe about these things into my own subjective narrative. I ask them to explain [to explore] how they are not entangled in my own dilemma above.

No, I ask those who claim certain beliefs about God and religion to demonstrate to me why a rational person is obligated to believe the same.

After all, what else [realistically] is there in forums like this?

Well, I suspect that folks who reach my age do tend [existentially] to think more and more about death and oblivion — their fate on the other side of the grave.

I readily admit that [like you] I don’t know; it’s beyond my control; it’s not for me to say. So, what else is there but to probe the arguments of those who are entirely less uncertain?

Is that how it works at the Pearly Gates? “Productive and entertaining discussions” with Saint Peter first, and then God decides your fate: up or down?

Come on, with respect to the actual behaviors that we human beings are always coming into conflict over, are there or are there not endlessly conflicting and contradictory assessments – from Christians! – regarding what it means to be “happy in this life”?

And I suspect that for most, God is more comforting regarding “all of eternity” rather than the 70 odd years that we embody on this side of the grave. Especially as that abyss looms larger and larger.

What then is emphasized? And how is not eventually linked to the part that revolves around immortality, salvation and divine justice?

Again, you force me to get technical: huh?

The entire point of creating this thread was precisely to discuss immorality and salvation as that relates to morality on this side of the grave as that relates to ones belief in God and religion.

And that might make sense if so much relating to God and religion did not revolve around is/ought while so much relating to science revolves instead around either/or.

Basically what you seem to be saying is that if they really understood what Jesus was trying to tell us in the New Testament, scientists would be working with the engineers to create a technology that sustains what you construe to be a better society. Meanwhile other Christians embrace what you say here but insist that science should help to create a technology that sustains what they construe to be a better society.

So, what does Jesus have to tell us about, among other things, abortion or capital punishment or homosexuality or gun control or just wars or health care or the use of marijuana or animal rights or conscription or parenting?

What is the role of science as this pertains to, say, nuclear bombs?

I just explained that some parts of religion can be viewed as myths and other parts can be tested.

In this bunch of posts we are discussing the compatibility of science and religion. But you insist on inserting “immortality and salvation” into it … two concepts which are either not scientifically testable or outright disproved by science at this time.

I just gave an example of how either/or and is/ought can form a whole by combining science and religion. #-o

Scientists was been able to reconcile science and religion for hundreds of years.

No, not “what I construe to be a better society”. I wasn’t even alive during most of those hundreds of years.

He spoke about principles of living but apparently you don’t understand how principles work. Jesus was supposed to tell you what to do about each specific abortion, etc. #-o

I don’t understand why principles of action or interaction are so challenging for you. :open_mouth:

Those principles produce results in this world before you die. I wrote about it above but you seem not to have bothered reading it.

Oh come on, that’s Christianity 101. If you don’t know the answer, then I don’t know why anyone would talk to you. You’re just wasting my time.

And all the while you are snickering that all those beliefs are complete fictions. Right?

And nobody can demonstrate that a rational person is obligated to believe a fiction. Ha Ha. Funny. Right?

Women are proof God doesn’t exist …

They destroyed the Great Barrier Reef !!!

Guys just pollute to get laid more.

Women are proof that God does exist. :wink:

Not when you have to destroy the whole planet to see a fucking nipple !!

Just look down, or in the mirror… at yours. Please do not go off topic.

Yes, and I created this thread in order to explore the extent to which the test results can be communicated [demonstrated] to others.

That’s what you say. Though science [unlike most religions] is ever intent on going beyond the concepts of immortality and salvation. It demands that those who speak of them offer us the sort of evidence that can in fact be either verified or falsified. Evidence that can in fact be tested. Religion on the other hand revolves far more around faith. Believers embrace The Word. They try to embody The Word. And they do so because this is what is said to bring them immortality and salvation.

Again, this thread was created in order to explore any actual existential renditions of this.

Sure, in the broadest sense: nas.edu/evolution/Compatibility.html

But not in a manner in which flesh and blood human beings are able to connect the dots between virtuous behavior on this side of the grave and immortality, salvation and divine justice on the other side of it.

Can you cite particular examples from the world of science in which actual attempts were made?

Right. And you can find these “principled” Christians on both sides – on all sides – of those issues above. For example the liberal Christians and the conservative Christians.

With many on both sides convinced that those on the other side are headed straight for Hell.

But then that’s not “the right way” to think about God and religion is it?

I don’t understand why the gap between lofty principles [words] and actual human behaviors [worlds] is so challenging for you. After all, those on all sides of any number of moral and political divides will often claim to be “principled” when they go after each other.

And, in particular, the objectivists. And God help those who get in the way of any number of them, right?

You know, if there is one.

Note to others:

Is this true? Would you be so kind as to point out the particular results that these particular principles achieved.

You tell me: How are Christians to calculate, given any particular context [conflict], when to turn the other cheek or to take an eye for an eye?

More to the point, please cite some examples from your own life.

The answer to this question would seem to be embedded/embodied in “I”. “I” out in a particular world understood from a particular point of view. In the manner in which I have come to understand the meaning of dasein.

The “spiritual life” has never really been pinned down though. We come into this world with a set of biological imperatives. And these inherent, congenital capacities are then shaped and molded in a particular community shaped and molded in a particular historical and cultural context.

We invent a word like “spiritual” in order to encompass a frame of mind that revolves around all that comes after our basic needs are met.

We are, after all, that species of animal able to ask questions that delve into the very nature of “existence” and “reality” itself. Why does anything exist at all? Why this existence and not another? And, in asking these questions, our minds/brains are then able to produce emotional and psychological states that some call “spiritual”.

God and religion then are just right around the corner.

But: what does it really mean to say that because we are able to think and to feel these things then “for all practical purposes” we need to?

In other words, we can only construe these things as being worthy or as falling short in a particular set of circumstances. Circumstances that are then ever evolving over time in a world of contingency, chance and change.

Some embrace the spiritual as fundamentally important in their lives. Others scoff at such things. Some once embraced it but now scoff, others once scoffed but now embrace it.

Still, what has never been determined or demonstrated [at least to my knowledge] is which frame of mind all reasonable/rational men and women are obligated to share.

And then [re this thread] the extent to which our obligations as rational and virtuous human beings can be translated into behaviors on this side of the grave able to be translated in turn into a particular fate on the other side of it.

Iambiguous … I admire and relish your stamina, tenacity and insistence!

I have only scanned a few of your posts … got lost in the details … I’m a small town mind with a propensity for the big picture.

A few weeks ago the image of a 45 record … the ancient vinyl media … stuck on a particular place … unable to move forward … came to mind. At the time that’s how I saw you.

I still see you the same way … yet … perhaps I’m finally coming to understand why.

You have no choice but to stay in the same ‘place’ until somebody(s) finally gets it … you have demonstrated once again that humanity is an extremely stubborn lot! Only repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition seems to penetrate a constipated consciousness.

Reminds me of something I posted recently … addressing the question … "Why did feudalism survive for 2,000+ years in China while the rest of the world moved on … leaving China to ingest their dust? The only logical answer is the Chinese had to wait for the West to catch up spiritually.

Your post today is so elegant … a careful reading reveals the subtle profundities you express with simple words.

Let me try to explain my claims:
The West employed a “Freeze-Frame” strategy for their concept of God.

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A long time ago … a very long time ago … the concept of a monotheistic God penetrated Western consciousness … at that time the West created a “Freeze-Frame” … ergo: the Bible … the Torah … and so on. No new revelations allowed … the concept of God was fixed in time and space once and for all.

Contrast this with the Chinese approach. Some say the oldest book on earth is the I-Ching … maybe and maybe not … nonetheless the book is very likely older than the Bible.

What is the I-Ching?

A literal translation is the “Book of Change”.

The Chinese realized the universe is in a constant state of flux … they embraced this truth and attempted to find the “pulse” of the universe and dance to this “pulse”.

Quelle Difference eh!

So, pertaining to God and religion, how is this not basically applicable to all of us here?

We all believe particular things are true “here and now”. Some for a short period of time, others for a much longer period. Some having always basically believed the same thing, others going through any number of transformations in their beliefs.

And, in my view, we come to acquire these frames of mind based in part on the particular historical and cultural context in which, as children, we were raised. Taught to believe a particular set of assumptions about God and religion.

Then, as we grow older, we come to embody particular sets of experiences, engage in particular sets of relationships and acquire a particular confluence of information and knowledge.

All of us, right?

And then some folks – let’s call them philosophers – stop and think about that. They wonder…

“Okay, these are all of the things that I have come to believe about God and religion over the course of the life that I have lived. Now, what am I then able to determine is actually true about God and religion such that I am able to demonstrate to others that they ought to believe the same thing?”

Really, when it comes to questions like this [and with so much at stake beyond the grave] what else is there?

And what else is there for both those in the East and those in the West? The manner in which I probed a possible explanation for the “spiritual” above is basically the same for all human beings.

The West migrated to the single God because science was able to offer explanations for the phenomena that had once been attributed to the many gods. But, with the advent of capitalism, the concept of God changed dramatically in the West. Instead of placing the focus for behavior on this side of the grave solely on the afterlife, things began to shift more to this side of it. The Protestants more or less synchronized God and capitalism.

Just as today in China, with a burgeoning state market economy, the No God of Mao’s Cultural Revolution has no doubt shifted over the years. Somehow [I suspect] Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism and other “spiritual” agendas there have had to be reconciled more and more with increasing materialism.

Okay, what then does one who is more partial to the I-Ching, have to tell us about connecting the dots between behaviors on this side of the grave and one’s fate on the other side of it? The focus of this thread.

What might the “pulse of the universe” possibly be as this pertains to human interactions that do come into conflict over value-judgments?

Iambiguous … how does one express deep gratitude? Cliches seem so inadequate. OTH … silence speaks volumes.

My intuitive/gut reaction to your deeply thoughtful post.

  1. Humanity has been ‘herded’ into a coral … and the gate has been closed. Serious thinkers are trying to figure out what this unique status … perhaps unique in all of human history … means. No one has figured it out yet.

  2. We live in what you label the “hereafter” (“the beyond the grave”). At the moment we are simply “Being Within Form” … we are “Being” within a physical body. Our “Being” requires some kind of apparatus for transport in our physical world. Who cares what “Form” our “Being” takes on the other side of this physical reality we currently live in.

  3. I’m not more partial to the I-Ching … I remain RC … simply see the philosophy (for lack of a better word) embodied in the I-Ching at work in the RC religion …

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The RC dogma/doctrine has changed considerably in 2,000 years … just that the changes were awfully slow in coming … the RC ruling class has always been unable to find the “pulse” of the universe and “dance” to it in real time. Ditto for all human change/evolution.

Iambiguous … our e-discussion may be finished … in any event … it’s been a rare treat.

Is this true? Maybe. But in relationship to what particular human interactions in what particular context?

No, “here and now” we live in what almost everyone labels the “before the grave” existence. But we know that death is more or less around the corner. And many wonder what that entails. And they wonder about the relationship between before and after the grave. And some [many, most] invent Gods and religions in order that “I” can either be or not be in sync with what they hope and pray that relationship is.

I-Ching, Roman Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, Hindu, Shintu and on and on and on. This is the thread where all of them can speculate on the part where they behave in particular ways on this side of the grave in order to attain the fate that they believe is in store for them on the other side of it.

Then this: What happens [for all practical purposes “out in the world”] when those narratives come into conflict out in a particular world?

Again and again and again…

These “general descriptions” of human interaction will either be brought down to earth or they won’t. What particular dogma/doctrine relating to what particular “pulse” as it impacts on what particular “change” in what particular context pertaining to what particular behaviors.

As that relates to any particular individual’s belief in God and religion.

It’s a metaphor … simple people understand … educated people … not so much … they demand objective(scientific) proof. Anyone who has observed the metaphor in life … not on TV … knows the cattle will placidly stand around in their own shit up to their knees. Seems humans are willing to do the same.

OK … I’m content with agreeing to disagree.

Read … watch the news … the answer is self evident.

The planet goes round and round. :smiley:

As I noted above, from my frame of mind this is what I call a “general description” of human interaction. And, relating to religion or not, my first reaction when confronting one is to ask “can you cite particular examples of this?”

Regarding this thread, who are the simple people and who are the [over] educated folks pertaining to the relationship between particular behaviors on this side of the grave and a perceived fate on the other side? And out in what particular corrals?

Can you provide examples from your own life?

And, again, given that there is so much at stake – immortality, salvation, divine justice – that which is being offered by the believers either revolves around faith [more or less blind] or arguments that, while embraced “in their head” as true, are not able to be demonstrated as that which all reasonable men and women are obligated to believe in turn.

With science, however, the arguments and the evidence are almost always conveyed more substantively.

Here of course that is more the rule than the exception. Almost nothing relating to a belief in God and religion is ever really pinned down. My point is merely to suggest that with so very, very much at stake, many will settle for that frame of mind which allows them to experience the least discomforting conclusions: no, we don’t just die; yes, there is salvation; yes, God has a final explanation for everything.

Depending of course on the particular “self” that is reading and watching it. It seems self-evident to “me” that there are hundreds and hundreds of true believers out there all convinced that how they interpret the news [with or without a belief in God] reflects what is true for “one of us” and what is not true for “all of them”.

The rest as they say really is history. And in all the corrals.

At least so far.

A “general description” is inherently wrong?

The particulars of the French Presidential and South Korean Presidential elections.

Visit a church during service on Sunday … the distinctions are obvious … especially when observing behavior upon completion of the service.

About 25 years ago I was pushed … shoved … forced … off the “grid” … out of the corral. My exit was neither planned, voluntary, desirable, expected etc etc. Despite several later attempts to get back in the corral then existing circumstances prevailed and I remained on the outside … alone!

For the first 14 years or so I limped along on the crutches of faith … the RC flavor. About 11 years ago the crutches were knocked out from under me … I found myself in China with no church … no public RC rituals … including Christmas and Easter … and no RC community to hide among.

Begs the question … “Has my faith diminished?”

On the contrary … my RC faith has become even stronger … seems the dogma, doctrine, rituals and corral were all a hindrance to faith.

In the absence of the “decorations of faith” I’ve been able to transcend the “walls” of the RC religion and come to understand there is no contradiction between the (un)institutional religion (faith) of the Chinese people and other world religions.

For details:

thoughtsofamisfit.weebly.com/

pilgrimtom.weebly.com/

We don’t know … science can’t tell us … that there is anything at stake … we have no way of knowing that all persons will end up in the same place. :slight_smile:

Science has been a tremendous boost to humanity … single handedly debunking so many destructive superstitions.

When science is capable of answering all questions the notion of faith will quietly recede into the shadows … never to be seen again. :smiley: