Religion vs. Religion

[Buffy]

Wait, you're on to something, B:

 

The Bible, Koran and Torah was written thousands of years ago, by humans.

 

So, that being the case, how is it possible that people with not even the most basic understanding of the mechanics of rainfall can have an insight into the infinite, into everlasting life, into morality, into divinity, into human nature?

 

The short answer is that they didn't.

 

Religion is crap. Including ALL the flavours thereof.

 

......

 

Don't be suckered. Internet chain letters and religion is exactly one and the same thing.

 

"Send this message to ten people you know and *something wonderful will happen*! If you don't though, you'll be dooming mankind to a millennium of darkness and despair."

 

Who knows? Maybe it will work..."Lack of belief: its something you have to believe in!"

 

Two great tastes that taste great together, :hyper:

Buffy

[Pyrotex]

...Who knows? Maybe it will work...

I think most of you are onto something, different somethings, that may add up to the whole.

 

Religion would not persist if it didn't convey some "immunity" or benefit to the so-called "victims". Enough has been said of the benefits to the religious hierarchies and leaders. ($$$) What about George & Ethel Beleever?

 

Religion "explains" things to them in an easy to understand manner. Why be good? Why stay married? Why pray for strength to keep going on? Why band together with other believers? Why accept a moral code not of your own choosing? Religion has the answers to all those questions, and makes life a lot easier.

 

If you're not a brainiac. George and Ethel aren't. They're somewhere on the positive side of the curve below. George has the lower IQ, he is on the ascending side of the curve. When he learns more, it seems that religion works better for him. Ethel is smarter, on the descending side. When she gets smarter it just increases her doubt and makes her feel oppressed. But they both "benefit" so they'll stick with it. And bring their kids up in it. That has benefits, too. Other believers will think more highly of George and Ethel if their kids are believers.

 

And so it goes. But their one and only kid, Prudence, has an IQ of 150 and loves astronomy. She finds religion to be a real drag--an obstacle to her learning and understanding Life, the Universe, and Anything Else she sets her mind on.

[Thunderbird]

The following is an excerpt from

the "Address to White Missionaries and Iroquois Six Nations" delivered in 1805 in Buffalo Grove, New York, by the Seneca Chief RED JACKET

 

 

Brother: continue to listen. You say that you are sent to instruct us how to worship the Great Spirit agreeably to His mind. And if we do not take hold of the religion which you white people teach, we shall be unhappy hereafter. You say that you are right, and we are lost. How do you know this to be true? We understand that your religion is written in a book. If it was intended for us as well as for you, why has not the Great Spirit given it to us, and not only to us, but why did He not give to our forefathers knowledge of that book, with the means of understanding it rightly? We only know what you tell us about it. How shall we know when to believe, being so often deceived by the white man?

 

Brother: you say there is but one way to worship and serve the Great Spirit. If there is but one religion, why do you white people differ so much about it? Why not all agreed, as you can all read the book?

 

Brother: we do not understand these things. We are told that your religion was given to your forefathers and has been handed down from father to son. We also have a religion, which was given to our forefathers, and has been handed down to us, their children. We worship that way. It teaches us to be thankful for all the favors we receive; to love each other, and to be united. We never quarrel about religion.

 

[Thunderbird]

Goodnight God,

I hope that you are having :dust::dust:

a good time being the world.

I like the world very much.

I'm glad you made the plants

and trees survive with the

rain and summers.

When summer is nearly over :dust::dust::dust:

the leaves begin to fall.

I hope you have a good

time being the world.

I like how God feels around

everyone in the world.

God, I am very happy that

I live on you.

Your arms clasp around the world. :dust::dust:

I like you and your friends.

Every time I open my eyes

I see the gleaming sun.

I like the animals- the deer,

and us creatures of the world,

the mammals.

I love my dear friends. :phones::0318:

 

Danu Baxter, Four and a half years old.

 

From the mouths of babes, the best prayer I ever heard.

[Thunderbird]

The Bible, Koran and Torah was written thousands of years ago, by humans.

 

So, that being the case, how is it possible that people with not even the most basic understanding of the mechanics of rainfall can have an insight into the infinite, into everlasting life, into morality, into divinity, into human nature?

 

The short answer is that they didn't.

 

Religion is crap. Including ALL the flavours thereof.

 

Therefore, it's pointless discussing how they measure up against each other, or how two opposing religions can co-exist. They can't. They explicitly tell their followers that those of the opposing religions are somewhat less than human, totally wrong and bound for eternal damnation.

 

 

 

NO MORE, DAMMIT.

 

Don't be suckered. Internet chain letters and religion is exactly one and the same thing.

 

 

I would have agreed with you 20 years ago, and still do not belive in one true religion, but I think these typs of stories are powerful, and give us something that science cannot.

 

THE POWER OF MYTH

For Campbell, the "power of myth" is the power of metaphor and poetry to capture the imaginations of individuals and societies. Myth supplies a sense of meaning and direction that transcends mundane existence while giving it significance. It has four functions (p. 31): The mystical function discloses the world of mystery and awe, making the universe "a holy picture." The cosmological function concerns science and the constitution of the universe. The sociological function "supports and validates a certain social order." Everyone must try to relate to the pedagogic function which tells us "how to live a human lifetime under any circumstances." America, Campbell believes, has lost its collective ethos and must return to a mythic understanding of life "to bring us into a level of consciousness that is spiritual" (p. 14).

Campbell defends the benefits of myths as literally false but metaphorically true for the broad range of human experience. But certain myths are (at least in part) to be rejected as "out of date," particularly the personal lawgiver God of Jews and Christians. Biblical cosmology, he thinks, does not "accord with our concept of either the universe or of the dignity of man. It belongs entirely somewhere else" (p. 31).

Campbell's own mythic commitment is to the "transtheological" notion of an "undefinable, inconceivable mystery, thought of as a power, that is the source and end and supporting ground of all life and being" (Ibid.). He rejects the term "pantheism" because it may retain a residue of the personal God of theism. Campbell repeatedly hammers home this notion of an inefq fable ground of reality: "God is beyond names and forms. Meister Eckhart said that the ultimate and highest leave-taking is leaving God for God, leaving your notion of God for an experience of that which transcends all notions" (p. 49).

Despite such an epistemological veto on our ability to conceive of anything transcendent, Campbell draws on Carl Jung's theory of a collective unconscious to help explain the common ideas ("archetypes") that recur in the mythologies of divergent cultures worldwide. "All over the world and at different times of human history, these archetypes, or elementary ideas, have appeared in different costumes. The differences in the costumes are the results of environment and historical conditions"

[Buffy]

Of course y'all are getting off topic again, unless Thunderbird wants to talk about hostility between Campbell's mythology and other religions...

 

In our last conflict four of his five wits went halting off, and now is the whole man governed with one, :phones:

Buffy

[palmtreepathos]

I've got some very close Fundamentalist friends, and even they have been given pause when I ask the question: "you know me well enough: do you think that I *personally* deserve to not be Raptured and have to suffer through Armageddon just because I'm not a member of your particular sect of Christianity?"

 

You really put them on the spot, eh? Hopefully they said 'that is not ours to decide'... even if there was such a thing as the Rapture versus suffering through Armaggedon.

 

There is so much to be said about your original question (how do believers of different faiths reconcile or justify the fact that each is different) but an illustration may say more of what I am picturing, you decide....

 

Three people walk into a stately banking institution. Each has a bag of money.

The first gives it over to the bank manager. Saying "My parents left this to me as my inheritance, I haven't even looked in it, I know it is a lot since they accumulated it over a lifetime. Please count it and open an account for me."

 

A teller is called and off he goes only to return a few minutes later. He wispers something in the bank managers ear. A stiffled giggle is heard and the first man is called over privately and told that his bag was full of play dollars as is found in a Monopoly game. Screaming in disbelief he rushes out of the bank.

 

The second man also gives his bag to the bank manager with the story of his success in business. "I studied the economy for years, how to invest money wisely was my life! I remember your advice to bring my money into the bank for safety but you will see that I knew enough to take care of my own affairs. But I would like the safety of your institution now that I am retiring."

 

Off the bag goes with a teller and once again he returns in a minute and whispers to the Bank manager that all the man's money is counterfeit. The second man is shocked beyond belief that the bankers words have come back to haunt him. He had trusted in his business acumen but had never verified that the money his businesses brought in was authentic. Though working very hard all his life, he had trusted his own eyes and taken the word of his vendors that he was, in fact, a wealthy man.

 

The third man had a much lighter bag. The bank manager greets him by name and asks "the usual sir?" "Yes, please check this out as you do every week. I have studied each bill and those that are suspicious I have put in a separate envelope. I would like to know how accurate my accounts are please." The Bank manager comes back with a smile, "everything is in order and your amounts have been updated, your other investments have paid their dividends and your retirement account is secure. Sir, we are proud to have a customer like you. Your friends, who you have sent here, also tell us they really appreciate you for having opened their eyes to the need for safe and assured banking."

 

The third man leaves and goes to a nearby restaraunt only to run into the sobbing first man and the angry second man. What really will they say to one another? How will they reconcile their experiences? An embarassing display of neighborliness ensues.

 

The first man says of his parents "How could they be so foolish? I trusted them! I never had to work or do anything for myself, they said 'I was good to go!' Maybe we were robbed but I never checked out what was in the bag myself, neither did my parents."

 

The second man was so full of denial that he spent the entire lunch on the phone with his lawyer with threats of a lawsuit against the vendors.

 

The third man says "I wish we had all had the same experience, I remember a time when it seemed like we had nothing but bright futures and now this, Here, let me get the bill fellas".

 

Oh, yeah, there was a fouth person who spent all the money he had on the way to the bank .... "I never trusted in those banks anyway.... But should I live that long I am sure out of the goodness of their heart they will look after me, even though I didn't trust them, I bad mouthed them and squandered all my assests, they really have to be forgiving right? They have to accept me as I am!"

 

Though this seems to be about banking foibles I see in it the many positions or claims of belief in God. Beyond sharing "the opportunity" to know the greatest Being in the universe, really what do they have in common to talk about after a neighborly greeeting? Some faiths are obviously fantasies (play money). While many seem to have undertaken a complete study of the requirements of faith, personality traits, community pressure and pride can really color what and how they see things. (counterfeit)

 

What is used as your touchstone of accuracy... your parents? human institutions? the complete Bible? Is what God says in it your guide? How much of 'your time' do you think is worth spending on worship? Is it worth dying for?

 

How would you reconcile this group?

[Thunderbird]

Of course y'all are getting off topic again, unless Thunderbird wants to talk about hostility between Campbell's mythology and other religions...

 

 

Buffy

 

I believe my post were directly related to your original questions Buffy.

 

1) How is the existence of varying beliefs reconciled theologically?

2) What are the various benefits and problems associated with resolving these conflicts? Buffey

 

 

 

 

#1 post expresses the original tribal religious belief systems as opposed to the organized dominating system of the modern church.

#3 Joseph Campbell's explanation of the power of beliefs, the commonality of these beliefs and the negative side of the belief of the law giver religions, which by the way will tell you why religion is in conflict. Just as in post #1 the wise spiritual Neolithic man says "we do not quarrel about religion.

 

#2 post is a pure expression of what spirituality is, without the barrier religions beliefs

[Thunderbird]

Of course y'all are getting off topic again, unless Thunderbird wants to talk about hostility between Campbell's mythology and other religions...

 

 

1) How is the existence of varying beliefs reconciled theologically?

2) What are the various benefits and problems associated with resolving these conflicts? Buffey

 

If you really want to answer these questions, I think starting with Campbell's The Power Of Myth Is the best book on the subject.

 

 

 

Campbell relied often upon the writings of Carl Jung as an explanation of psychological phenomena, as experienced through archetypes. But Campbell did not necessarily agree with Jung upon every issue, and had very definite ideas of his own.

 

A fundamental belief of Campbell's was that all spirituality is a search for the same basic, unknown force from which everything came, within which everything currently exists, and into which everything will eventually return. This elemental force is ultimately “unknowable” because it exists before words and knowledge. Although this basic driving force cannot be expressed in words, spiritual rituals and stories refer to the force through the use of "metaphors" - these metaphors being the various stories, deities, and objects of spirituality we see in the world. For example, the Genesis myth in the Bible ought not be taken as a literal description of actual events, but rather its poetic, metaphorical meaning should be examined for clues concerning the fundamental truths of the world and our existence.

 

Accordingly, Campbell believed the religions of the world to be the various, culturally influenced “masks” of the same fundamental, transcendent truths. All religions, including Christianity and Buddhism, can bring one to an elevated awareness above and beyond a dualistic conception of reality, or idea of “pairs of opposites,” such as being and non-being, or right and wrong. Indeed, he quotes in the preface of The Hero with a Thousand Faces: "Truth is one, the sages speak of it by many names." which is a translation of the Rig Vedic saying "Ekam Sat Vipra Bahuda Vadanthi."

 

Campbell was fascinated with what he viewed as basic, universal truths, expressed in different manifestations across different cultures. For example, in the preface of The Hero with a Thousand Faces, he indicated that a goal of his was to demonstrate similarities between Eastern and Western religions. In his four-volume series of books "The Masks of God", Campbell tried to summarize the main spiritual threads common throughout the world. Tied in with this, was his idea that many of the belief systems of the world which expressed these universal truths had a common geographic ancestry, starting off on the fertile grasslands of Europe in the Bronze Age and moving to the Levant and the "Fertile Crescent" of Mesopotamia and back to Europe (and the Far East), where it was mixed with the newly emerging Indo-European (Aryan) culture.

 

[Southtown]

What is used as your touchstone of accuracy... your parents? human institutions? the complete Bible? Is what God says in it your guide? How much of 'your time' do you think is worth spending on worship? Is it worth dying for?

 

How would you reconcile this group?

Interesting questions. Thanks for your highly readable analogy. I posit that the value of money is relative to the society in which you live. Also it seems that you assume that all bankers are honest by definition...

[palmtreepathos]

I posit that the value of money is relative to the society in which you live. Also it seems that you assume that all bankers are honest by definition...

I might have been a bit too general in the illustration, huh? I got the idea from the scripture that says "Who, then, is to have the things you stored up?’ So it goes with the man that lays up treasure for himself but is not rich toward God.” Luke 12:20-21

 

Not all bankers are trustworthy but for the sake of examining the ongoing religious or spiritual fellowship of those who claim to have a reliable form of worship/security(their savings) with each other it seemed to work. The amount of research into your faith, the work you think it is worth says a lot about you and people tend to know you by your easy-goingness or fanaticism or even those who carry out the scriptural command to "preach the good news of the kingdom". There was an ultimate reckoning in the illustration which was the bank.

 

I want to say thx to you Southtown for the interesting links about the post flood evidence and changes to the planet's surface. It is very possible in light of the way the water blanket over the earth was reduced so quickly, changing the face of earth forever. Many who have a Bible aren't even aware it was there in the first place...

 

I read somewhere that scientists have figured it could rain day and night for 10 days before cloud cover would be completely gone, so that says how thick it may have been "in the beginning". Like an earthly terrarium. Now we are left with enough atmospheric cover to support life as we know it. Amazing!

Then God proceeded to make the expanse and to make a division between the waters that should be beneath the expanse and the waters that should be above the expanse. And it came to be so. ( Genesis 1:7)

 

In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on this day all the springs of the vast watery deep were broken open and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. (Genesis 7:11)

 

and God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters began to subside. 2*And the springs of the watery deep and the floodgates of the heavens became stopped up, and so the downpour from the heavens was restrained. (Genesis 8:1-2)

[Buffy]

I'll have to say I really don't follow your allegory: how do the three people map onto different religious viewpoints?

 

It would seem from the punch line that there's only one of the three with a "true" and "satisfying" viewpoint, which--like most religious teaching--makes it obvious which is the "right" path.

 

So the allegory really doesn't deal with the conflict we're trying to discuss here which is the kind where each viewpoint is equally "supportable" and each has a similarly muddled moral or karmic or happiness index.

 

Can you clarify what you're trying to say a bit more?

 

BTW: on the Rapture/Armageddon issue: you're coyly ignoring the fact that there is infact a clear litmus test in most Fundamentalist interpretations or Revelations: if you do not "accept Christ as your savior" you will not be Raptured. Simple as that! You can say "that is not ours to decide" but it does not address the moral dilemma posed: its still a very explicitly "accept our specific God or really horrible things will happen to you" argument, quite common to most religious beliefs.

 

There is a touch of divinity even in brutes, and a special halo about a horse, that should forever exempt him from indignities, :)

Buffy

[Southtown]

I might have been a bit too general in the illustration, huh? I got the idea from the scripture that says "Who, then, is to have the things you stored up?’ So it goes with the man that lays up treasure for himself but is not rich toward God.” Luke 12:20-21

 

Not all bankers are trustworthy but for the sake of examining the ongoing religious or spiritual fellowship of those who claim to have a reliable form of worship/security(their savings) with each other it seemed to work. The amount of research into your faith, the work you think it is worth says a lot about you and people tend to know you by your easy-goingness or fanaticism or even those who carry out the scriptural command to "preach the good news of the kingdom". There was an ultimate reckoning in the illustration which was the bank.

I appreciate your candor. I do not think 'too general' applies to your analogy. I merely allude to problems with our current society, not to problems with your analogy. I apologize for the confusion.

 

I want to say thx to you Southtown for the interesting links about the post flood evidence and changes to the planet's surface. It is very possible in light of the way the water blanket over the earth was reduced so quickly, changing the face of earth forever. Many who have a Bible aren't even aware it was there in the first place...

 

I read somewhere that scientists have figured it could rain day and night for 10 days before cloud cover would be completely gone, so that says how thick it may have been "in the beginning". Like an earthly terrarium. Now we are left with enough atmospheric cover to support life as we know it. Amazing!

Sorry, I can't recall. lol Was it a while back? sry BTW I'm a 9972 proponent.

 

I'll have to say I really don't follow your allegory: how do the three people map onto different religious viewpoints?

 

It would seem from the punch line that there's only one of the three with a "true" and "satisfying" viewpoint, which--like most religious teaching--makes it obvious which is the "right" path.

 

So the allegory really doesn't deal with the conflict we're trying to discuss here which is the kind where each viewpoint is equally "supportable" and each has a similarly muddled moral or karmic or happiness index.

Buffy, s/he's contrasting "I haven't even looked at it..." to "I remember your advise to bring it to the bank..." to "I have studied each bill."

 

BTW: on the Rapture/Armageddon issue: you're coyly ignoring the fact that there is infact a clear litmus test in most Fundamentalist interpretations or Revelations: if you do not "accept Christ as your savior" you will not be Raptured. Simple as that! You can say "that is not ours to decide" but it does not address the moral dilemma posed: its still a very explicitly "accept our specific God or really horrible things will happen to you" argument, quite common to most religious beliefs.

My boss thinks he can tell me how to paint cabinets. It doesn't mean that he knows **** from shoeshine. =P

[Pyrotex]

... I read somewhere that scientists have figured it could rain day and night for 10 days before cloud cover would be completely gone, so that says how thick it may have been "in the beginning". Like an earthly terrarium. ...

For 30 years and more, I have been hearing fundementalists claim that "some scientists" have "proven" that the Bible was right about this verse or that verse.

 

Some scientist proved that continents couldn't move.

Some scientist proved that the Earth has "hidden reserves" of water, enough to flood the planet 25,000 feet deep.

Some scientist proved that that the ancient Hebrews were the most advanced people on Earth.

SSPT the speed of light was billions of time faster in the early Universe.

SSPT it is impossible for evolution to be valid.

SSPT they have found the original Ark of Noah...

 

and on and on and on...

 

That is the most unreliable source of scientific fact in the Universe!

Does the fundementalist run to read the source article himself? No.

Does he research where the conclusion came from? No.

Does he even make a point of remembering where he bumped into that factoid? No.

Does he have a freakin clue of the integrity of the factoid? No.

 

You see, he doesn't need to do any of these things. It agrees with what he already believes, so it MUST be true.

 

I am so ashamed that for the first 15 years of my adult life, I was one of those fundementalists, trying to twist every law of physics and every rule of science so that it supported my twisted religious convictions. What a waste.

[palmtreepathos]

Let your rants rain down like flood waters... :phones:

Hopefully that makes up for a few years of your self-proclaimed foolishness...

I wish changing teams could give you more peace or at least some good links that blow hydroplate theory out of the water... :)

I had misplaced mine or I would have included it....Even so , many scientific theories change, which I see as an honest thing most of the time, it may have been outdated or abandoned but alas no link this time....

[Southtown]

I am so ashamed that for the first 15 years of my adult life, I was one of those fundementalists, trying to twist every law of physics and every rule of science so that it supported my twisted religious convictions. What a waste.

I hope you don't regret it bud, honestly.

[Buffy]

Buffy, s/he's contrasting "I haven't even looked at it..." to "I remember your advise to bring it to the bank..." to "I have studied each bill."

I know that, but since its an allegory, the question is what are those viewpoints mapped onto?

My boss thinks he can tell me how to paint cabinets. It doesn't mean that he knows **** from shoeshine. =P

I agree! Everyone *does* interpret this and buy into that viewpoint no matter how much they say "that's not for us to decide"...

 

Trying not to admit that I know what Shinola is, :cheer:

Buffy