The God Squad- Religion obsessives and philosophical types unite!

[PregnantForTheLastTime]

This World is not Conclusion.
A Species stands beyond —
Invisible, as Music —
But positive, as Sound —
It beckons, and it baffles —
Philosophy — don't know —
And through a Riddle, at the last —
Sagacity, must go —
To guess it, puzzles scholars —
To gain it, Men have borne
Contempt of Generations
And Crucifixion, shown —
Faith slips — and laughs, and rallies —
Blushes, if any see —
Plucks at a twig of Evidence —
And asks a Vane, the way —
Much Gesture, from the Pulpit —
Strong Hallelujahs roll —
Narcotics cannot still the Tooth
That nibbles at the soul —

 

[PregnantForTheLastTime]

I wanna put Anaesy and Worm in a room somewhere in the city with a bottle of their choice poison and see what ensues...for real!!! You two need to debate in person...

I smell fire...

I was there... it was all tea, sunset, and kittens. No flames, just a brilliant warmth.

 

[Anaesthesine]

After a scan of the book, my impression is that the author is attacking what she calls ‘parascience’; the positivist reductionist approach that excludes from the model of reality whatever such science is or was not competent to verify or falsify. She resents how this elbows out “virtually all observation and speculation on this subject that have been offered through the ages by those outside the closed circle that is called modern thought.” Isn’t that what you’re also saying and objecting to? - “classical and humanist traditions, also deeply influential in Western thought, as just as effectively excluded…” She rails against these modernists who deal with the insoluble questions by dismissing them because they’re too hard, commenting “as if that were a legitimate reason to dismiss any question.” She compares this science to the way of Newton who took it for granted that questions about human nature and circumstances may never be entirely closed, instead of being impatient for absolute answers. I like her example of the problem of having blind faith in theory: “One who has inquired into the properties of hydrogen and oxygen might reasonably conclude that water is a highly combustible gas – if there were not his own experience to discourage this conclusion.”

Ah, she has a problem with empirical fundamentalism. Well, who doesn't? It is a case of reductio ad absurdum. I have never met a scientist who wasn't also something of a mystic. One must be so, because physical reality is so beautiful that a thorough understanding of it boggles the mind. Before everyone gets all religious about it, though, the mysticism of empirical wonder is non-dogmatic and often atheistic.

If I may reiterate a point pertinent to the example of water: true science has as one of its core principles a reliance on experience. Anyone who eschews that principle should probably be on medication and under observation let they do harm to themselves or others.

Her deepest concern is the lack of respect for the dignity of life: “This declension, from the ethereality of the mind/soul as spirit to the reality of the mind/brain as a lump of meat, is dependent, conceptually and for its effects, on precisely the antique dualism these writers who claim to speak for science believe they reject and refute. If complex life is the marvel we all say it is, quite possibly unique to this planet, then meat is, so to speak, that marvel in its incarnate form”.

I think she just proved that meat is murder.

Would there be all those oil-spills under such a world-view, instead of the push to virtualisation in an information economy that negates the inherent value of material reality?

Excellent question. I think the answer is "yes."

GH, I think you and Worm are advocating for a kinder, gentler form of mysticism. I happen to agree with both of you. I think that there is just as profound a misunderstanding of the word "reason" as the word "religion." Reason is reasonable - there is room for emotion and wonder. The author is railing against an empirical fundamentalism that only exists in the mind of someone who is profoundly unbalanced. I've certainly never met such a person, and would run a mile if I ever did.

I was there... it was all tea, sunset, and kittens. No flames, just a brilliant warmth.

 

[Worm]

Worm, why do you use such violent imagery whenever we're having a friendly discussion? I will neither shoot you nor set you ablaze; I'm a lover, not a fighter.

What can I say? I grew up on Hollywood movies.

Anyway, as I admitted in our previous round, there is a place for religion in this blighted new century, but religion must know its place, and it must stay there.

At the heart of our lives, with the rest of the fantasies we cherish?

Assuming that you can compare the life of an individual to the life of an institution, you are advocating for quite the learning curve. I would agree with you, if it weren't for the inherent, fatal flaw of Abrahamic religion: that is has to be absolute, or it fails. The more the Church perfects itself, the more it embraces progressive change, the weaker it becomes.

Those institutions which demand absolute devotion are indeed flawed.

However if one goes back to the original texts-- especially Christianity-- one finds that nothing like an absolute devotion to an institution is necessary. Christ's commandments were two: love me, love your neighbor as yourself. While these would seem to be absolute commandments, they leave quite a lot of wiggle room in the space of one's actual daily life. Loving Christ and loving your neighbor could look like just about anything.

Just about anything, that is, except letting the neighbor starve, bombing the neighbor from 30,000 feet with laser-guided rockets, poisoning entire ecological systems belonging to the neighbor, declaring thousands of your neighbors illegal and expelling them...

We are moving closer and closer to an understanding of empirical truths every day, and yet the more we know, the more we know what we don't know. The beauty of science is that it actually does have a learning curve - it is about doubt, not certainly. For this reason it has value outside its realm - the methods of observation, experience and experiment work very well for just about every sphere of human endeavor.

This discussion is about the role, validity and value of religion, and we essentially agree on almost every point: Religious beliefs are not based in empirical fact; religion is myth. The gulf between what religion is and what it should be is vast. Religion has no place in politics or science. Religion is dangerous if not used as directed.

Very well stated, and while you are indeed recapping what we agree on, you're leaving out what I said about our blind spot, "what we know that we don't know".

Let's say we understand 85% of the natural world. (Don't laugh, I know it's much less for scientists, and much less for layfolk, but I'm just using the number for the sake of convenience.)

That means there's 15% of the world we don't know.

Science is moving toward explaining the 15%, yes.

But until it does, how can you be sure that the remaining 15% can't be better described by religious texts, or art, or any non-scientific discourse? Put another way, is science the only truth procedure available to us? It's as I said with Morrissey and "Meat Is Murder": often we find that the best way to a truth-- and a truth you can act on-- is not to engage in a "scientific" inquiry but instead to look for other ways to access it.

Not only is this true of nature, it is true of God as well: every major religion, properly understood, leaves open a void at the heart of itself which it names God.

Progress is measured by greater and greater tolerance, peace and justice.

Respectfully, may I ask: why tolerance? Isn't tolerance the weakest, most tepid and unconvincing argument we can make?

Why not simply insist on love? And justice as a by-product of love?

There is more at stake here than semantics or fuzzy, feel-good sentiments about our fellow creatures.

"Tolerance" to me represents total intertia. "Tolerance" is useless. As an idea it leaves me indifferent; as a workable, practicable idea I am more than indifferent to it, I hate it. "Tolerance" never got anyone to do a damn thing.

The value of certain points of religion-- and, again, of Christianity in particular-- may consist in its ability not just to articulate our sense of justice but to mobilize us to enact it. It is easy for us to see what is wrong with the world. Why can we do nothing about it? Why are we powerless? (Yes, I include myself in this.)

Tolerance, science, realism, statistics, compromise, the middle way, balance, reason, rationalism, pragmatism: these are the words that describe the abject failure of liberalism in our time. We all know what is going on and we can't stop it. Does this not indicate that we're missing some secret ingredient?

Obama is trying to walk the moderate line. He is a pragmatic, centrist politician with liberal leanings.

Obama is a puppet for the corporations. He serves the wealthy and the powerful. Case closed. Let's not even persist in the illusion that he's a good man trapped in difficult circumstances. A wise lady once said the system is rigged to fail. She was right.

The government is impotent in the face of this crisis. Big business is powerless, too. Those folks doing clean-up in the Gulf are doing the lord's true work.

Isn't the Lord's true work something else? "And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves."

You are correct to say the government is helpless. You are even correct, in a limited sense, to say big business is powerless (correct inasmuch as they can't stop the spill, incorrect inasmuch as they could have prevented it-- today there is a report that BP knew of a leaking valve two weeks before the disaster).

But you're not going far enough. The helplessness and impotence are not the limit but the pivot-point.

What the government can do-- the U.S., or the U.K., or jointly-- is seize control of British Petroleum (and perhaps every one of the oil companies), fire the entire executive/management level of the company without severance pay, prosecute any executives who broke the law, nationalize the rest of the company, immediately halt oil drilling until the full and correct emplacement of environmentally-safe laws that strongly err on the side of caution, and funnel the formerly-private company's profits into (a) research into alternatives to fossil fuels and (b) the rebuilding and/or expansion of 'clean' public transportation across the country. Simultaneously, the government must lead a serious and widespread effort in the media, and in many cases with the assistance of the media, to impose a state of emergency and drastically curb the use of fossil fuels among consumers.

The system is rigged to fail.

Yes! And if the system is rigged to fail, as a wise lady once said, then Obama is rigged to fail, because Obama represents the liberal-centrist left's attempt to rehabilitate a system that cannot be rehabilitated.

I believe that reason will get us to that place sooner than faith. Whether we make it in time is anybody's guess.

Ah! But as I said above, what else does reason have to do? What is reason going to tell us we don't already know? Isn't your despair over the Gulf precisely the result of your feelings of powerlessness in spite of your very strong, very rational, very enlightened grasp of exactly what caused the disaster and why it's taking so long to fix? Reason's already reached this "place" you want to go-- reason's already at the club, looking for somebody who really loves it. But it went and it's there and it's standing on its own, and it goes home, and it cries, and it wants to die.

Faith could help, though. Faith, not as a replacement for reason, but faith as a supplement to reason, the faith that moves mountains despite our empirical certainty that mountains can't be moved...

 

[Worm]

I was there... it was all tea, sunset, and kittens. No flames, just a brilliant warmth.

My God, it sounds like a series of Franklin Mint plates!

 

[Worm]

P.S.

I'm a lover, not a fighter.

Maybe we need a new type of person who can be both?

The boy with the thorn in his side
Behind the hatred there lies
A murderous desire
For love

 

[Worm]

GH, I think you and Worm are advocating for a kinder, gentler form of mysticism.

Nope. No mysticism at all. No "other worlds", no "heavenly rewards", no spirits in the woods, no magic spells, no relics or tokens, no fairy dust, no celestial choirs. Here, today, in the flesh. "For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them."

 

[Worm]

This World is not Conclusion.
A Species stands beyond —
Invisible, as Music —
But positive, as Sound —
It beckons, and it baffles —
Philosophy — don't know —
And through a Riddle, at the last —
Sagacity, must go —
To guess it, puzzles scholars —
To gain it, Men have borne
Contempt of Generations
And Crucifixion, shown —
Faith slips — and laughs, and rallies —
Blushes, if any see —
Plucks at a twig of Evidence —
And asks a Vane, the way —
Much Gesture, from the Pulpit —
Strong Hallelujahs roll —
Narcotics cannot still the Tooth
That nibbles at the soul —

Ah yes, the lovely poetry of Mrs. Dash. Always welcome!

"To gain it, Men have borne
Contempt of Generations"

Who hasn't felt this when sporting a Smiths t-shirt among the multitudes who despise our man?

Who can look around and not feel that the contempt of this world, this particular world in 2010, is a very fine thing to cultivate?

 

[Jackie London]

Vegetarianism and religion
There may be many reasons to opt out of flint roast in summer and go for fruits and vegetables. Perhaps part of a healthier lifestyle? Or a decision based on the ecology or animal rights ethics? Of course there are also religious reasons to abstain from eating meat, which we now must look into.

Vegetarianism is a relatively new phenomenon in Sweden. Founded in 1903 Vegetarian Society of Swedish author Johan Lindström. Before we had the Swedish mystic Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), who reasoned vegetarianism from a Christian position. He saw vegetarianism as a way to return to humanity's paradisiacal past. In Genesis, we read namely:

"I give you every seed-bearing herb on the entire earth and every tree with seed in its fruit; this is you have to eat"

Only after Noah and the Flood may man permission to eat meat. Many Christians today vegetarians have similar positions to Swedenborg.

But it can also be about ethics. Jesus' message of peace and justice has inspired people to rise against oppression (such as in the Catholic liberation theology). The Christian "Wild Donkey" animal rights association says in a similar way that some animals can be seen as oppressed and enslaved, it is therefore their duty as Christians to act against this. You can also highlight the Catholic saint Francis of Assissi as an example of someone who showed great care the animals, an ideal that is worth reviving in our day. He is seen by Catholics as the patron saint of animals.

Otherwise, India is the country with more vegetarians than the rest of the world together! According to a 2006 survey was 31 percent pure vegetarians, while another 9 percent for eggs. No india traveler has escaped to see how vegetarianism is highlighted as an important ideal. Many restaurants signs with "100% Pure Vegetarian" and restaurants serving meat is called "non-veg restaurants. McDonalds in India is investing in line with that of vegetarian burgers, such as the popular potato burger aloo tikka.

Generally regarded vegetarianism as a nobler way of life and an expression of ahimsa, or nonviolence. The idea of reincarnation or rebirth, which can be found in Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism, also play a role. Since I am in a past life may have been the animal and the animal may have been humans, there are a sort of kinship between all living things. Hindus and Sikhs would also say that animals have an immortal soul, eternal, just like people. Buddhism has no concept of soul in the same way, but brings out compassion as a central value - not only with other humans but with all living things. The plea for compassion is the realization that all beings want to be happy and free from suffering.

Then it is also about their own spiritual development. By directly or indirectly harm other living beings, so I collect on my bad karma. Will I break another so damaging in the end I also myself. Many would also point out that "you are what you eat". I eat meat, I am also more predators greedy and cruel, while a vegetarian diet makes me milder-tempered and growing sympathy with others.

One can wonder if there is no clear line between religious and non-religious reasons for vegetarianism. Compassion, empathy, or caring for other living beings seems to be a common thread.

 

[Anaesthesine]

At the heart of our lives, with the rest of the fantasies we cherish?

Nope. I was raised without religion, or should I say with religion as just one option among many. So it is with everyone in my family, and most of my friends. We may be a bunch of post-Abrahamic reprobates, but we're happy.

However if one goes back to the original texts-- especially Christianity-- one finds that nothing like an absolute devotion to an institution is necessary. Christ's commandments were two: love me, love your neighbor as yourself. While these would seem to be absolute commandments, they leave quite a lot of wiggle room in the space of one's actual daily life. Loving Christ and loving your neighbor could look like just about anything.

Once again, there is a wide gulf between what religion is, and what it ought to be. Another thing that looked great on paper (or parchment), but did not pan out well in the real world. The Jesus fan club suffered quite a bit in translation.

Let's say we understand 85% of the natural world. (Don't laugh, I know it's much less for scientists, and much less for layfolk, but I'm just using the number for the sake of convenience.)

That means there's 15% of the world we don't know.

Science is moving toward explaining the 15%, yes.

But until it does, how can you be sure that the remaining 15% can't be better described by religious texts, or art, or any non-scientific discourse? Put another way, is science the only truth procedure available to us? It's as I said with Morrissey and "Meat Is Murder": often we find that the best way to a truth-- and a truth you can act on-- is not to engage in a "scientific" inquiry but instead to look for other ways to access it.

Excellent point. It all depends on how you define "truth." As Nogods has stated so eloquently, there is no better guide to empirical truth than science. If we're talking about emotional truth, then there's art. Meat is Murder is my favorite example of this. Morrissey expressed an emotional truth, and thousands answered the call (although most, I assume, did not find his argument at all persuasive). There are spiritual truths, too, and the last time I went hiking, away up in the mountains away from everyone and everything, I experienced what I consider the ultimate truth. No religion or deity necessary.

Not only is this true of nature, it is true of God as well: every major religion, properly understood, leaves open a void at the heart of itself which it names God.

Yes, this is true - god as nature, god as spirit, god as metaphor. No question. However, religion doesn't exist in a vacuum, it exists in society, and it functions as a monolithic institution, and is thus corrupted.

Respectfully, may I ask: why tolerance? Isn't tolerance the weakest, most tepid and unconvincing argument we can make?

Why not simply insist on love? And justice as a by-product of love?

There is more at stake here than semantics or fuzzy, feel-good sentiments about our fellow creatures.

"Tolerance" to me represents total intertia. "Tolerance" is useless. As an idea it leaves me indifferent; as a workable, practicable idea I am more than indifferent to it, I hate it. "Tolerance" never got anyone to do a damn thing.

I think you have it backwards - intolerance is inertia; the intolerant do not learn. Tolerance allows for dialogue, and growth. Yes, I see where you are going, and tolerance often hits up against the wall of the absolute. We tolerate differences until someone loses an ocean; then the tolerance comes to an end.

The value of certain points of religion-- and, again, of Christianity in particular-- may consist in its ability not just to articulate our sense of justice but to mobilize us to enact it. It is easy for us to see what is wrong with the world. Why can we do nothing about it? Why are we powerless? (Yes, I include myself in this.)

Again, good point. The value of religion is that it mobilizes people to act on their beliefs, for good or ill. Spirituality and reason do the same thing. I cannot condone religion as a political or societal organizing principle, but for personal conduct, it can't be beat. Jane Goodall and Wangari Maathai are both Christians and scientists, they are both exemplary human beings whose lives have enriched the culture and the planet. They are great exemplars of how religion and science are equally strong forces for compassion and justice.

Tolerance, science, realism, statistics, compromise, the middle way, balance, reason, rationalism, pragmatism: these are the words that describe the abject failure of liberalism in our time. We all know what is going on and we can't stop it. Does this not indicate that we're missing some secret ingredient?

So, you are calling for an aggressive, intolerant, irrational, unbalanced form of liberalism? That is an interesting recipe for success.

Obama is a puppet for the corporations. He serves the wealthy and the powerful. Case closed. Let's not even persist in the illusion that he's a good man trapped in difficult circumstances. A wise lady once said the system is rigged to fail. She was right.

We really should leave politics out of it - why muddy the waters on this lovely thread? Just because the system is rigged doesn't mean that good men and women don't go into public service. They may not get very far, but they do serve.

You are correct to say the government is helpless. You are even correct, in a limited sense, to say big business is powerless (correct inasmuch as they can't stop the spill, incorrect inasmuch as they could have prevented it-- today there is a report that BP knew of a leaking valve two weeks before the disaster).

What the government can do-- the U.S., or the U.K., or jointly-- is seize control of British Petroleum (and perhaps every one of the oil companies), fire the entire executive/management level of the company without severance pay, prosecute any executives who broke the law, nationalize the rest of the company, immediately halt oil drilling until the full and correct emplacement of environmentally-safe laws that strongly err on the side of caution, and funnel the formerly-private company's profits into (a) research into alternatives to fossil fuels and (b) the rebuilding and/or expansion of 'clean' public transportation across the country. Simultaneously, the government must lead a serious and widespread effort in the media, and in many cases with the assistance of the media, to impose a state of emergency and drastically curb the use of fossil fuels among consumers.

Amen, but:

Just today a federal judge blocked Obama's ban on deep sea drilling. Obama has proposed exactly that - a six month moratorium to allow time for safety concerns to be addressed. A judge opposed it, as do the people of the gulf states, and their elected representatives. There is money involved, and that trumps ethical, moral and environmental concerns. We have met the enemy, etc, etc...

Yes! And if the system is rigged to fail, as a wise lady once said, then Obama is rigged to fail, because Obama represents the liberal-centrist left's attempt to rehabilitate a system that cannot be rehabilitated.

Sound logic there. However, I wasn't talking merely about a political system, I was talking about a biological system. Our biological system is rigged to fail. We cannot survive as a species if we continue to expend resources at this rate; our unchecked growth on this planet will make it uninhabitable. We all know this, and we deal with it in different ways: the scientists look for practical answers, the religious pray for guidance. The environmentalists fight for all their worth in the political sphere, and the rest probably don't give enough of a damn to turn the light off when they leave a room.

Ah! But as I said above, what else does reason have to do? What is reason going to tell us we don't already know? Isn't your despair over the Gulf precisely the result of your feelings of powerlessness in spite of your very strong, very rational, very enlightened grasp of exactly what caused the disaster and why it's taking so long to fix? Reason's already reached this "place" you want to go-- reason's already at the club, looking for somebody who really loves it. But it went and it's there and it's standing on its own, and it goes home, and it cries, and it wants to die.

Reason has already done what it had to do: reason told the oil companies and the politicians not to drill without safety protocols and inspections. Greed and politics trumped reason, but reason did not fail.

My anguish over the gulf is a lifelong spiritual thing - it informs my career, my politics and my vegetarianism (of course). My feelings of powerlessness are the only thing that numb my despair, and make it possible for me to function. Viva desolation.

Faith could help, though. Faith, not as a replacement for reason, but faith as a supplement to reason, the faith that moves mountains despite our empirical certainty that mountains can't be moved...

I'm glad you rolled your eyes, because faith is not dependent on events - it is absolute. I have absolutely no faith in anything, and that has served me very well.

 

[mauve21]

The new Pope, we just dressed him up last night.
He's inspired by all the evil in the world....












"Comin' to your town soon, Pope Pius, the Frightener!!:...tee hee....

 

[Worm]

The Jesus fan club suffered quite a bit in translation.

If the translation's to blame, translate again. No?

there is no better guide to empirical truth than science. If we're talking about emotional truth, then there's art.

You say that science is the best guide to empirical truth but of religion you say that it "doesn't exist in a vacuum, it exists in society". Science doesn't exist in a vacuum, either, does it? Doesn't science also change when it moves out into society?

For instance, I enjoy reading Stephen Hawking. I don't pretend to understand all of it-- in fact, I may understand very little of it-- but when I finish the book I feel like I know more about the universe than I did. I know more about gravity, black holes, the formation of the universe, the many mysteries science can't figure out, the push for the GUT, string theory, and so on.

Yet you and I both know that a first-year astronomy or physics student could easily prove to me that I knew nothing about what I thought I knew. On some level I am understanding empirical truth, but on another level I am totally supported by fantasy. To use your terms, what Hawking puts on paper is something else by the time it gets to my brain.

A movie I find endlessly quotable is Oliver Stone's "JFK". If you remember, there's a great scene where Garrison is going through the conspiracy theory with his team. The skeptic in the bunch listens to everyone go through their parts of the theory and finally explodes in anger. He doesn't buy any of it. He asks Garrison a rhetorical question: "How do you know who your daddy is? 'Cause your momma told you!"

Today one could instantly shout back, "No, I can take a DNA test and prove it!" But the skeptic's point still holds in principle. Whatever you think you know about "empirical truth", there's a break in the chain somewhere. With shallow idiots like Sarah Palin the break in the chain is obvious. But even with educated sophisticates like Barack Obama there is a break if one looks far enough. We take science on faith-- or, maybe, better to say a version of faith that amounts to the same thing. You believe in something without proof.

This may seem like a pedantic point to make, but I'm simply coming at the "blind spot" point a different way. Our knowledge of science-- our knowledge, not the scientists'-- rests on an illusion and does not exist in a vacuum and does undergo a transformation when it moves from the lab out into the world. That this illusory foundation may be smaller, or less troublesome, or less flimsy than the illusory foundation of religious faith is a useless point to make.

The fact remains that if the foundation of our knowledge is an illusion then we are forced to admit that we do not understand it completely and, hence, a religious account of life may still be valid. I am not saying we accept church dogmas or suddenly join Promise Keepers. I am simply saying, contra to some of the ideas in this thread, that we might do well to go back and see what religions have to offer us-- here and now, never mind pie-in-the-sky fantasies.

I experienced what I consider the ultimate truth. No religion or deity necessary.

Some would say you did in fact experience the deity. Some also take two lumps of sugar instead of one.

We tolerate differences until someone loses an ocean; then the tolerance comes to an end.

Forgive me, but "tolerance" and "the end of tolerance" look exactly the same. This is what I was getting at. What's the difference? Since George W. Bush took office in 2001, we have seen the end of tolerance and it has meant absolutely nothing. Liberalism is a failure.

I cannot condone religion as a political or societal organizing principle, but for personal conduct, it can't be beat.

Yes. And per my comment about the translation, above, couldn't we explore the idea that perhaps there is something in Christianity which could allow for a successful organizing principle? In other words, could we not somehow think our way into applying what Jane Goodall took from religion toward an organizing principle that did not entail the creation of an institution?

So, you are calling for an aggressive, intolerant, irrational, unbalanced form of liberalism? That is an interesting recipe for success.

But I'm not calling for a form of liberalism at all.

They may not get very far, but they do serve.

I agree, and I take your point, but why is it that the horizon of our expectations is so cramped and airless? Why do we sullenly accept a society and a political system where we know from the get-go that it has to be flawed so badly that the best we can hope for is incremental progress?

Of course I know the objection. "Worm, Worm, don't fall into the Utopian trap. Human beings are always flawed and we can never expect perfection".

Agreed. We all want to be realists.

But it should be dawning on all of us by now that the term "realism" is a contestable one right down to the most fundamental levels of our society. "Reality" is a subjective construction and we can fight over what it means. In a thread where people are celebrating the advances of science, surely I can point out that at one time it was "realistic" to deny women the right to vote, "realistic" to allow the enslavement of Africans, "realistic" to say the sun orbited the Earth, "realistic" to say Milli Vanilli were Best New Artist of the year, etc.

Fear of trying to enact Utopia is just as bad as the blind attempts to create Utopia. We have to avoid either and say, "I don't expect perfection and I don't think I can create it, but I refuse to accept the limitations of the current system".

Just today a federal judge blocked Obama's ban on deep sea drilling. Obama has proposed exactly that - a six month moratorium to allow time for safety concerns to be addressed.

Yes, and let's give him credit for that (although the cynic in me believes he attempted to do so knowing it would be blocked by a judge, i.e. it was just a p.r. move).

One day, when New York City is flooded under twelve feet of toxic ocean water, we can be sure to raise a toast to our intolerance of judges who block good legislation.

We all know this, and we deal with it in different ways: the scientists look for practical answers, the religious pray for guidance. The environmentalists fight for all their worth in the political sphere, and the rest probably don't give enough of a damn to turn the light off when they leave a room.

Okay, but we're not getting anywhere. What's the consensus? Something like 99% of scientists say climate change is man-made and rapidly approaching a Rubicon-point after which we will be doomed to extinction? Why such a consensus and we can't do anything?

I think as highly of the environmentalists as you do. They're heroes. But it's obvious they are making a penny's worth of difference in a dollar's worth of looming disaster. You describe the situation accurately. Scientists do one thing, the religious another, consumers another, capitalists another...the scene, as a collective whole, could be represented as fiddling while Rome burns. Again: might there be some secret ingredient we're missing which might stir all those forces into a single fantastic cocktail of positive social/political/spiritual action?

Reason has already done what it had to do: reason told the oil companies and the politicians not to drill without safety protocols and inspections. Greed and politics trumped reason, but reason did not fail.

I disagree. Reason failed precisely because it enabled greed and politics to reign supreme. We can't talk about the dark forces of the free market as if they're all irrational bloodsucking monsters killing the planet. Their actions are all direct results of reason, and those who stand by and let them accomplish their goals are also adherents of reason.

Let me try and be more concrete: reason did tell the oil companies and the politicians not to drill without safety protocols and inspections, yes, but reason ought to have realized it was, so to speak, handing the car keys to a drunk driver.

Reason ought to say, "Where a few people can profit financially, they will always put their interests ahead of the public's, even if the entire world dies".

Reason should then act accordingly.

In fact, reason actually does say this, right now. It is an open secret. We all know it.

Yet reason does not act accordingly.

What's missing?

I'm glad you rolled your eyes, because faith is not dependent on events - it is absolute. I have absolutely no faith in anything, and that has served me very well.

Even without the rolled eyes, I don't think I implied faith was dependent on events. It isn't. What I was trying to say is that faith can supplement reason in a way that gives it force and direction. Of course we don't say, "I'll try faith, but if faith doesn't produce results I'll try something else". As Kierkegaard famously said, we're not conducting the Pepsi Challenge here.

The saying is, "We walk by faith, not by sight". For those of us who feel we're paralyzed, it might be good to note the word "walk"...

why muddy the waters on this lovely thread

Because we both know that muddied waters are the best waters to play in and because we know we can play nice? You already promised not to shoot me, remember.

 

[Worm]

Perhaps I could better explain my meaning by reformulating the question in other terms we're all familiar with.

Someone posted a Smiths interview on the main page where Morrissey talks briefly about punk rock. He gave his standard answer: yes, most of the punk groups and record labels and fashion designers were total shit, but the point was they were out there doing something.

Doesn't this more or less conform to the standard interpretation of punk rock, not only for all of us as individuals but the accepted historical record? So much of what came out of punk rock was garbage, and yet some of it wasn't; and even the bad stuff glowed under the reflected light of an idea, the Punk Idea, which was correct.

The Idea was irrational, it was ugly, it was inconsistent, it was misunderstood, it was miscarried, and above all it didn't make any sense in the larger context of what was going on in England and the United States.

Despite all this our lives were immeasurably enriched by punk rock, either from the punks themselves or those who were influenced by the punks. Paradoxically, the Idea was both correct and incorrect at the same time.

(Some would say, no, there was no Punk Idea, in fact it was good old-fashioned DIY self-determination. The punks just reminded everyone that individuals still had power to make their own music, fashion, and art. Nevertheless, the reminder was timely and crucial.)

Do we not see in the history of punk rock (and its aftermath, which produced so much of what we all love in music and art) a perfect demonstration of how an animating principle can retain its power despite its incompatibility with science, rationality, provable theses, etc? One idea set in motion thousands of creative energies that before it remained dormant. In the event of their expression, most, if not all of these creative energies, owed little to the Punk Idea-- little, that is, except for the fact that they would not exist without it.

In light of this, Morrissey's position states things very well. He is of two minds about punk: most of what came of the idea was rubbish, but the idea was nevertheless essential. Isn't he basically talking about two different things? On the one hand, he's making a judgment about art. On the other, he's acknowledging the role played by an idea which stands apart from any judgments about the art to which it gave birth.

Could this be used-- loosely, sure-- as a model for how we might think about the relationship between faith and reason? Isn't faith, among other things, fidelity to an Idea that stands apart from reason?

Could we say, then, using our favorite example, that the The Smiths existed because of fidelity to an Idea that had nothing to do with a desire to form a good rock and roll band?

Reason comes along after the fact to say that Morrissey was a gifted writer and singer and would have gotten into pop music anyway, that Marr was also talented and would have made it somewhow, that in reality The Smiths were not inspired by punk but other cultural lights, that they could have signed to a major label and not Rough Trade, that the real greatness of The Smiths owed nothing to punk's anarchic spirit, and so forth. All of which is true, and yet reason would not be talking about any of this without the faith that formed the background of Morrissey and Marr's lives leading up to their meeting: faith in pop, faith in punk, faith in art, call it what you will. Reason can tell the story of The Smiths only up to a point; at the heart of the story there shines an irrational fidelity to an Idea, without which The Smiths cannot be explained.

 

[Anaesthesine]

If the translation's to blame, translate again. No?

On a literal level, how many times has that particular text been translated? Every year or so we hear about another word that doesn't mean exactly what everyone thinks it means. At this rate religion is starting to look a bit like particle physics: well, the serpent turned out to be a lizard (but it WAS a reptile of some sort), and by the way, thou shalt not covet thy neighbors sow...

Blessed are the cheesemakers, indeed.

On a figurative level, I think we all know what happens when fans get together to interpret their idols words and actions.

You say that science is the best guide to empirical truth but of religion you say that it "doesn't exist in a vacuum, it exists in society". Science doesn't exist in a vacuum, either, does it? Doesn't science also change when it moves out into society?

For instance, I enjoy reading Stephen Hawking. I don't pretend to understand all of it-- in fact, I may understand very little of it-- but when I finish the book I feel like I know more about the universe than I did. I know more about gravity, black holes, the formation of the universe, the many mysteries science can't figure out, the push for the GUT, string theory, and so on.

Yet you and I both know that a first-year astronomy or physics student could easily prove to me that I knew nothing about what I thought I knew. On some level I am understanding empirical truth, but on another level I am totally supported by fantasy. To use your terms, what Hawking puts on paper is something else by the time it gets to my brain.

Whatever you think you know about "empirical truth", there's a break in the chain somewhere. With shallow idiots like Sarah Palin the break in the chain is obvious. But even with educated sophisticates like Barack Obama there is a break if one looks far enough. We take science on faith-- or, maybe, better to say a version of faith that amounts to the same thing. You believe in something without proof.

This is the argument made by Creationists all the time *eyes you suspiciously*. How do I know science works? Because I'm still alive. Because when I got sick I didn't go to a priest or a faith healer, I went to a genetics lab, and they sent me to a nuclear science lab, and then I got a surgeon or two, and, viola, perfection! In life-or-death situations, science is the way to go. I guess I could have tried to pray those pesky cells away, or asked a priest for guidance, but the eggheads with their empirical protocols really came through.

I wanted to be an astrophysicist when I was a kid. I read all those cool books and didn't understand the half of it. But I understood the process, and it made a perfect, beautiful kind of sense. As already stated, science is about doubt, not certainty. Theories are posited, refined, subject to peer review and perfected. Results must be repeatable. Yes, you could say that we take much science on faith, because only a relative handful of us understand it completely, but the process is easy to understand, if one takes the time to study it.

This may seem like a pedantic point to make, but I'm simply coming at the "blind spot" point a different way. Our knowledge of science-- our knowledge, not the scientists'-- rests on an illusion and does not exist in a vacuum and does undergo a transformation when it moves from the lab out into the world. That this illusory foundation may be smaller, or less troublesome, or less flimsy than the illusory foundation of religious faith is a useless point to make.

The fact remains that if the foundation of our knowledge is an illusion then we are forced to admit that we do not understand it completely and, hence, a religious account of life may still be valid. I am not saying we accept church dogmas or suddenly join Promise Keepers. I am simply saying, contra to some of the ideas in this thread, that we might do well to go back and see what religions have to offer us-- here and now, never mind pie-in-the-sky fantasies.

Our knowledge of speculative science does rest in part on trust. I've been skeptical of String Theory for years, without even knowing how it really works. All those fluctuating extra dimensions are too problematic. Still, there is an elegance there that seems like it can eventually become a plausible explanation of observable phenomena.

When it comes to hard science, though, I'm in. Observation, repetition, refinement, peer-review - by the time they can forecast results, they pretty much know what they're talking about. Most of it is not an illusion, although at the subatomic level there's always another mystery waiting around the corner.

A scientific truth is only valid if there are repeatable, observable, verifiable results. A religious truth is subject to no such scrutiny. I'll take the first, and leave the second to those for whom that kind of "truth" makes sense.

Some would say you did in fact experience the deity. Some also take two lumps of sugar instead of one.

Of course, the deists argument against the sublimity of nature is always that we are somehow confusing god's divine creation with god "himself." What a crock of s**t.

Now, since I spend my days rushing to-and-fro, answering questions for interesting strangers and restoring dead people's stuff, I'm going to have to make this a two-parter...

 

[goinghome]

...One can wonder if there is no clear line between religious and non-religious reasons for vegetarianism. Compassion, empathy, or caring for other living beings seems to be a common thread.

More vegetarianism; less wasteful production and consumption; these are just some of our favourite things.

Also, as Plato said, above all else, "sit down and contemplate the good". Or paraphrasing some other sage (?), the day that we can sit alone in a room comfortable with our own company, is when lots of the world's ills will disappear.

These choices are countercultural but catching on piecemeal. The dominant discourse is about achievement and accumulation, only actually possible for the few but without the rest of us buying into the dream, the work wouldn't get done and the profits for them would fall.

Last weekend, I spent some time chatting with a friend who is a geophysicist. He's off on a field trip for a few weeks measuring rocks for their carbon sequestration potential - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_sequestration . When he explained that some rocks can absorb carbon from the atmosphere and store it, therefore reducing the impact on the environment, I commented that it sounds worthwhile. He scrunched up his nose and said, maybe, except that it might really only justify and enable industry's continous high toxic output. He also told me that more scientists around the world are working on defence research, on the development of weapons of mass destruction, than in any other professional area. He's unusual in that he takes time off his 'proper job' to educate and protest about the devastation that is being caused by mining in far-off places. He considers Jonathon Porritt authoritive on these and related matters e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLFd4ai4H_A&feature=related and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLnW-9h7uXo&feature=related .

An interesting scientific breakthrough I came across is, that the Big Bang never happened. After all that! -
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblo...al-leading-cosmologists-a-galaxy-classic.html

Also, science thieves like a magpie, plagierising and taking on loan. For example, 19th-century artisan mechanics provided the technology and know-how for the steam-engine, observing the relations between volume, pressure and temperature. Theoretical scientists had put all their money and mouth on a model of heat from calories up till then. The steam engine persuaded them to switch to classical thermodynamic theory.

No problem. Science is free to study any phenomenon in its fact-collecting mission. Each of us do something like it everyday to function in our surroundings. We also philosophise all the time, and may find ourselves pining for something we often can't quite name, overflowing with feeling. However, scientists need to make a living, and their wizardlike skills are for hire, skills that can have mass influence from minimum effort, unlike the artisan mechanic who mainly deals with things one thing at a time, hands-on, not alienated from the labour. I've always had a weakness for Marx, but we've gone so very far along the road at this stage. Traditions and commerce are cumbersome yokes for most people.

Science propels you
Science still engulfs you
But science will never love you like I do

William James defined religion as consisting of "the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine".

Philosopher Daniel Dennett disagrees and restricts the definition of religions merely to 'distinct social systems'. If you're outside looking in, he's right, but if you're inside practicing and meditating, James is right. There are probably many other definitions too.

This World is not Conclusion.
A Species stands beyond —
Invisible, as Music —
But positive, as Sound —
It beckons, and it baffles —
Philosophy — don't know —
And through a Riddle, at the last —
Sagacity, must go —
To guess it, puzzles scholars —
To gain it, Men have borne
Contempt of Generations
And Crucifixion, shown —
Faith slips — and laughs, and rallies —
Blushes, if any see —
Plucks at a twig of Evidence —
And asks a Vane, the way —
Much Gesture, from the Pulpit —
Strong Hallelujahs roll —
Narcotics cannot still the Tooth
That nibbles at the soul —

The poem by Emily Dickinson as posted is very apt - excellent. Somehow the philosophers in general are being more overlooked in our discussion, maybe because they're harmless wafflers?!. ED also said:

'Experiment escorts us last -
His pungent company
Will not allow an Axiom
An Opportunity.'

Even that prospect wouldn't stop Oscar Wilde, who quipped:
"Religions die when they are proved to be true. Science is the record of dead religions."

I have wondered about the meaning of this statement. Was it intended as just a beautifully-baffling arch declaration, or is it saying something important? If the latter, that something could be that when people start to lay down rules extracted from proofs, for religion, and invoke its parochial and historical mores to exert controls on a changing world, then the spirit that is an unprejudiced call to unite with life again, departs. As Einstein noted, everything that can be counted does not necesarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.

Anyway I like this lyric about keeping encroaching dampeners, whether emotional, intellectual, physical or socio-environmental, in their place. It somehow restores personal significance amidst the latest consternation of aeons.

Get Up - Sack

Please, no more freak thunderstorms
Or I'll stay in bed for days on end
Please, no more Greek tragedies,
Too many friends have died too young.
They were here but now they are gone.

Please, no more themed restaurants
To eat is fine but it's only meat in a bun.
Please, no more grim reports,
That say the world is shrouded in doom.
Don't you know that the common cold
Will kill us all soon?

Get up, Stand up and be brave;
Get up, Stand up and be brave;
Get up, Stand up and be brave;
Get up, Stand up.

Please, no more building blocks,
Expecting people to inhabit a box.
Please, no more cigarettes,
But you can choose when to stop or to start,
No point in sueing when there's a cry from your heart.

Get up, Stand up and be brave;
Get up, Stand up and be brave;
Get up, Stand up and be brave;
Get up, Stand up.

Please, no more fighter planes;
To guard the world isn't your domain.
Please, no more huge traffic jams;
The day is coming when the car will be king.
Raise your glasses, let the peasants walk,
Cos they won't feel a thing.

Get up, Stand up and be brave;
Get up, Stand up and be brave;
Get up, Stand up and be brave;
Get up, Stand up.

Please, no more...

 

[Worm]

How devilish of you to respond in broad daylight like this!

On a figurative level, I think we all know what happens when fans get together to interpret their idols words and actions.

Precisely! Which is why Christ made it so easy. "Love me, love your neighbor". From these two commandments alone, what could we not accomplish?

This is the argument made by Creationists all the time *eyes you suspiciously*.

What, I have to break out my atheist credentials again? And what would it mean even if I did? Didn't the author of "Anti-Christ" more or less affirm the necessity of God even in the wake of His supposed death?

How do I know science works? Because I'm still alive. Because when I got sick I didn't go to a priest or a faith healer, I went to a genetics lab, and they sent me to a nuclear science lab, and then I got a surgeon or two, and, viola, perfection! In life-or-death situations, science is the way to go. I guess I could have tried to pray those pesky cells away, or asked a priest for guidance, but the eggheads with their empirical protocols really came through.

Granted, but you didn't really address my point. You went to men and women who practice science. Okay. And they explained how things worked and I know you possess smarts to understand the intricacies of their explanations. Okay. But at some level beneath this, you are trusting something you don't fully understand. That's all I'm saying.

And in any case your logic opens itself up to a Palinesque retort: we can all say we know faith works because we put ourselves in the hands of the Lord and He makes us happy, He protects us, He guides us, He is right here in our lives...just look at Trig...

But I understood the process, and it made a perfect, beautiful kind of sense.

Right. You understood it without understanding it. This isn't a paradox because what we're really saying is: on one level, hard science, you didn't understand it (less than half, you say); on the level of an intelligent person who can turn partial knowledge into real, usable knowledge-- something which human beings are required to do every second of the day-- you did understand it.

Truth mixes with untruth, fact with fiction, empirical reality with subjective reality. Isn't this the way we are condemned to experience the world, even when we open Stephen Hawking and get it right from the horse's mouth?

As already stated, science is about doubt, not certainty. Theories are posited, refined, subject to peer review and perfected. Results must be repeatable. Yes, you could say that we take much science on faith, because only a relative handful of us understand it completely, but the process is easy to understand, if one takes the time to study it.

But one must also take time to study the science of the mind, which in some of the rougher parts of town goes by the name of psychoanalysis. This complicates matters.

Still, there is an elegance there that seems like it can eventually become a plausible explanation of observable phenomena.

It's poetic, isn't it? In the best sense of the word? And you can sort of sense the truth, even though you know you understand it poetically and not scientifically?

Couldn't we throw out the church as an institution, return to the original texts, and see if there is any of the same kind of poetry/truth in the various religions we now despise?

Am I saying we should base cosmology on the Gospels? No. I am saying, though, that perhaps we could gain some insight into the relationships between human beings. For instance, what does it mean that God deliberately chose to inhabit the body of a humble man who then chose to associate with the dregs of society? What does it mean when Jesus sides with the poor over the rich? What does it mean when Jesus tells us to love each other unconditionally? What does it mean when Jesus tells us he has come with a sword, to set the members of families against each other?

I am not asking these questions in the hopes that you will answer them, merely illustrating one way that we can interrogate the Bible with a view to understanding ourselves, not God, that doesn't involve also accepting that Adam and Eve rode on dinosaurs, the Earth is 5,000 years old, etc.

Nor am I suggesting we view religion as merely a compendium of "poetic truths". I am interested in understanding what, if anything, makes religious faith something real which cannot be found in poems, songs, paintings, and so on. The New Testament is no more complicated and poetic than Kafka, but there is something in the New Testament that mobilizes people which is absent in Kafka. What might that be?

A religious truth is subject to no such scrutiny. I'll take the first, and leave the second to those for whom that kind of "truth" makes sense.

I'll take the first, and leave the second as worth considering in those realms where science has not closed the door on what is "empirically true".

And if I may be cheeky, Anaesthesine, I think you do exactly the same thing. It's just that, in the realms where science has not closed the door on what is "empirically true", you take as your guiding light art rather than religion. Am I being obtuse or am I right in saying this?

 

[Anaesthesine]

Precisely! Which is why Christ made it so easy. "Love me, love your neighbor". From these two commandments alone, what could we not accomplish?

And that heathen Golden Rule makes it easy as well: "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." What could we not accomplish?

What, I have to break out my atheist credentials again? And what would it mean even if I did? Didn't the author of "Anti-Christ" more or less affirm the necessity of God even in the wake of His supposed death?

Don't go dragging Nietzsche into this, or I'll never get any work done!

Granted, but you didn't really address my point. You went to men and women who practice science. Okay. And they explained how things worked and I know you possess smarts to understand the intricacies of their explanations. Okay. But at some level beneath this, you are trusting something you don't fully understand. That's all I'm saying.

That may be what you are saying, but in this case that is simply not true. During the events of this past winter, I understood exactly what was going on. I understood how an inherited genetic mutation caused a cellular malfunction, which in turn caused disease. I understood it on a medical, biological and personal level. When the time came for the Big Questions and the Big Answers, I found them in science.

Now, if I had sought out religious counseling, and been told of god's mysterious ways, or god's desire to test me, or punishment for sin, or any number of other religious theories, I wouldn't understand it at all. I didn't need an existential "why," or a narrative, all I needed were the facts. Science provided the answers that religion could not give.

And in any case your logic opens itself up to a Palinesque retort: we can all say we know faith works because we put ourselves in the hands of the Lord and He makes us happy, He protects us, He guides us, He is right here in our lives...just look at Trig...

If I want a debate like that, I'll talk to the five-year-old next door. That sounds snarky. That is snarky.

Right. You understood it without understanding it. This isn't a paradox because what we're really saying is: on one level, hard science, you didn't understand it (less than half, you say); on the level of an intelligent person who can turn partial knowledge into real, usable knowledge-- something which human beings are required to do every second of the day-- you did understand it.

Truth mixes with untruth, fact with fiction, empirical reality with subjective reality. Isn't this the way we are condemned to experience the world, even when we open Stephen Hawking and get it right from the horse's mouth?

I can't deny that.

But one must also take time to study the science of the mind, which in some of the rougher parts of town goes by the name of psychoanalysis. This complicates matters.

Right, now you're dragging in Freud - I'd need a day off or a holiday to address that point as well.

It's poetic, isn't it? In the best sense of the word? And you can sort of sense the truth, even though you know you understand it poetically and not scientifically?

Couldn't we throw out the church as an institution, return to the original texts, and see if there is any of the same kind of poetry/truth in the various religions we now despise?

Those texts are literature, they are fiction, they are art. There is beauty and poetry there, in addition to everything else. One could just as easily go back to the Vedas, or the Torah. For that matter, Oscar Wilde helped open my yes to my true nature, so he was very much a holy man and a prophet, every bit as important and influential to my life as Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are to other people. So, I wear a black carnation most days and keep a portrait in my attic. Blessed be Oscar, Bringer of Light.

Here's a thought: perhaps we could view religious fanatics as art lovers run amok.

Am I saying we should base cosmology on the Gospels? No. I am saying, though, that perhaps we could gain some insight into the relationships between human beings. For instance, what does it mean that God deliberately chose to inhabit the body of a humble man who then chose to associate with the dregs of society? What does it mean when Jesus sides with the poor over the rich? What does it mean when Jesus tells us to love each other unconditionally? What does it mean when Jesus tells us he has come with a sword, to set the members of families against each other?

Worm, if that works for you, then I'm all for it. As I said, religion is a profound personal window on the world.

I am not asking these questions in the hopes that you will answer them, merely illustrating one way that we can interrogate the Bible with a view to understanding ourselves, not God, that doesn't involve also accepting that Adam and Eve rode on dinosaurs, the Earth is 5,000 years old, etc.

I don't disagree with you one bit - we can know ourselves through religion, nature, science, comic books, music and various carnal pursuits (among other things). It's all a journey of self-discovery.

Nor am I suggesting we view religion as merely a compendium of "poetic truths". I am interested in understanding what, if anything, makes religious faith something real which cannot be found in poems, songs, paintings, and so on. The New Testament is no more complicated and poetic than Kafka, but there is something in the New Testament that mobilizes people which is absent in Kafka. What might that be?

Now THAT is an interesting question. You can ask it of the Torah, the Qur'an and Dianetics, too. I think Joseph Campbell and Dean Hamer might have come up with some decent answers.

And if I may be cheeky, Anaesthesine, I think you do exactly the same thing. It's just that, in the realms where science has not closed the door on what is "empirically true", you take as your guiding light art rather than religion. Am I being obtuse or am I right in saying this?

No, you are not being cheeky; art lights my way in this world or, rather, beauty does. I live for it, I find spiritual sustenance in it, it keeps me sane and alive. However, I realize that art is not a very good basis for a system of government, and beauty really won't cut it as an organizing social principle.

So, I've run out of time again, but I ask you: would you really favor text-based religious inspiration over empirical reasoning as a basis for a new, enlightened social order? Would you advocate for that, or are you simply unwilling to allow an extreme antipathy towards religion to go unchallenged?

 

[PregnantForTheLastTime]

That may be what you are saying, but in this case that is simply not true. During the events of this past winter, I understood exactly what was going on. I understood how an inherited genetic mutation caused a cellular malfunction, which in turn caused disease. I understood it on a medical, biological and personal level. When the time came for the Big Questions and the Big Answers, I found them in science.

I am absolutely with you here. There's a song out now that goes, in part, "No one laughs at God in a hospital." Nope, wrong. God's nature. God's what made you sick. Science is what cures you. God says, "suck it up, offer it up to Christ," science says, "hold still, this is gonna hurt." When I was sick, I didn't pray. I took a deep breath and opened my shirt and let science do what it had to do. If I'd prayed, instead... I'd be dead about now.

So, I've run out of time again, but I ask you: would you really favor text-based religious inspiration over empirical reasoning as a basis for a new, enlightened social order? Would you advocate for that, or are you simply unwilling to allow an extreme antipathy towards religion to go unchallenged?

I think what he's missing is how hard it is for some of us to trust even the oldest religious texts. For me, anyway. They were written by men. They were revised by men. Huge chunks of ancient texts were thrown out because they didn't conform. Alternate Gospels exist and were discredited because they caused "problems." If God exists, there is no reason to believe that divine inspiration does not still exist if we are only able to open ourselves to it. Since "religion" has become a dirty word, a tool of the power brokers, art may be the sole refuge of divinity in this world. If God exists, he manifests himself in inspiration, in moments of positive creativity. In short, I think I'm as likely to stumble across God when writing or drawing or just walking around with my mind wide open (and the fly of my skirt, the other day. Thank god no one noticed!) as I would be in reading the words written down and edited by men, who have been using them to control others since they first got the idea. If God exists, he hasn't stopped existing, and the idea that he would only selectively dole out grace just doesn't follow. It's already still here.

 

[JoanOfArc]

The new Pope, we just dressed him up last night.
He's inspired by all the evil in the world....












"Comin' to your town soon, Pope Pius, the Frightener!!:...tee hee....

Hahaha.Roma locuta causa finita

 

[Worm]

would you really favor text-based religious inspiration over empirical reasoning as a basis for a new, enlightened social order? Would you advocate for that, or are you simply unwilling to allow an extreme antipathy towards religion to go unchallenged?

I haven't made myself clear on two points. One, I don't view my reading of the Bible, which is open-minded and exploratory, as an attempt to find "inspiration". Two, I see faith and reason as reconcilable and a choice between them, as you have stated it, is unnecessary.