Religion as an Invention
POSTED BY: AnthonyT
UPDATED: Sunday, August 23, 2026 16:07
VIEWED: 9332
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Hello,
If we look at religion as an invention, what can we say about its continued usefulness in modern society?
If we analyze religion the same way we might a Transistor, an Incadescent Lightbulb, or a Steam Engine, what can we say about it?
Does it have utility? Was it important at one point in History? Is it still important today? Is it a boon for mankind? Does it have a useful place in the future? Or is it a mere artifact of the past?
What do you all think? How does religion rate amongst the other inventions of history?
--Anthony
Assured by friends that the signal-to-noise ratio has improved on this forum, I have disabled web filtering.
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Lots of pretty buildings are made under the guise of religion.
Many more are blown up...
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I think religeon is an inate human experience, at least at the level of groups of people. Ever since when can trace people have held beliefs about how the world came to be, where people go after they die, who made us, etc. If religeon is an invention then so is love, enginuity, charity and other human traits that span the ages.
"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya
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Hey Anthony,
If you ask me this question once a year from now on, you'll prolly get a different answer each time. Right now, I'm seeing religion as an extremely powerful psychological weapon that has a crippling design flaw in that it disables the wielder as well as his target. At the same time, the weapon is sophisticated enough to exploit this design flaw in bringing the fearful and disabled victims of its power together in large, defensive groups. Its medium of control is fear. When humans find another way to process our deepest fears, religion will no longer be of any use to anyone. Bear in mind: I'm talking only about religion itself, not the phenomena it purports to explain.
HKCavalier
Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
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Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
If we look at religion as an invention, what can we say about its continued usefulness in modern society?
I don't know that I can say much about its continued usefulness in modern society. If it was an invention (which it was) then it was an invention along the same lines as any other written work. Which it was. So, working from that, it was invented to explain the universe, because the universe is so awesome. And by that I mean that it is awe-inspiring. It is a place full of awe. Anyway, so the universe is awesome, so how do we explain it? Well, various stories, ideas, and philosophies sprang up around trying to explain it. Some of these stories and ideas were hammered in so solidly that they were taken as the Absolute Truth and the letter was followed, rather than just the idea. The problem, I think, is that new discoveries have made that Letter a bit... well, wrong. But there are some who cannot accept it as wrong, or can't accept it as a story like anything written by Shakespeare or Dickens. The invention has gotten a bit out of control in its "success" at explaining the universe. Fact is that there are better ways to explain the universe, better ways to find inspiration... but there are few better ways to control the thinking of so many people. The Greek philosophers, in their quest to understand the universe, insisted that everyone think for themselves. Their ideas evolved into things like physics and the scientific method and the study of this awe-inspiring universe.
Quote:
If we analyze religion the same way we might a Transistor, an Incadescent Lightbulb, or a Steam Engine, what can we say about it?
It, unlike transistors, engines, and lightbulbs, has not really evolved or been updated, even though it's been around longer. These devices have all been altered to serve better; we didn't just ignore the bits that didn't quite work for us, we changed them. This is an inherent difference between religion and devices, and indeed all of the sciences, as well as the arts, social structures, really most things you could name.
Quote:
Does it have utility?
Technically, yes. Some people utilize it in very benign ways, drawing motivation or inspiration from it. Some people utilize it in ways that are deeply offensive; control, justification for violence, aggressive evangelism, condescension, denial, repression, fleecing, hatred, abuse, etc. etc. etc. and many flavors of all these things. Not to say that people wouldn't find other ways to mess up the world and be annoying, but religion can be very convenient for them. I've heard more than one person say, "Oh, but he's a good Christian man who goes to church..." when someone is clearly a thief and a liar, or worse things. It can be used as a shield against just consequences, often very effectively, and that is wrong.
Quote:
Was it important at one point in History?
Clearly. It has shaped countless events.
Quote:
Is it still important today?
Clearly. It is still shaping countless events.
Quote:
Is it a boon for mankind?
Ah, that type of importance. No, I don't think it is. I think there are more boonful things.
Quote:
Does it have a useful place in the future? Or is it a mere artifact of the past?
Hm. I would be hard-pressed to say that religion/dogma has a useful place. Having a philosophy, something that can change and shift with new information, that's one thing. And it can lead people to the same places of goodness that religion can, without the restriction of never accepting a new idea, which is where it gets dodgy.
Quote:
What do you all think? How does religion rate amongst the other inventions of history?
Honestly, I think it ranks pretty near the bottom. I can name things that have done more harm, several of them in fact, but in comparison to an invention like clockwork, the computer chip, the light bulb, or disco
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Who cares? Our money is being shit on. We argue about 30 billion, entitlements, money spent on war.......really? We can have all the entitlements we want...low taxes, etc... when we stop the FED from printing TRILLIONS and giving it to war and foreign governments.....get me? Have your welfare, foodstamps, war machines. Whatever. Our money is being handed out all over the world..making our prices(gas, food, welfare) more expensive.....and our reps(senate, house, prez) have nothing to say about it....think browncoats...Think
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I regret that due to current circumstances I cannot give a coherent answer to that question - normally you'd get a flamestorm with the acknowledgement that individualised religion is often a positive force...
But right now I got a real life situation making me deeply question my inherent hostility towards religion in general even when I think it's complete bunk - some people *need* to believe something to get through the day, particularly in a crisis, and to take that from them seems an act of malice no matter what I, personally, think of it.
I don't know, I just... don't know, ok ?
-Frem
I do not serve the Blind God.
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Interesting thread, and I'll try and come back to answer in more detail later (very busy now, a good thing 
) but my short answer is I think Religion was like Music. A phenomenon was 'discovered' rather than 'invented' and various cultures studied it and, like with music, the various cultures collected their beliefs and rules concerning this phenomenon into 'theory's' (much like 'Music Theory'). Music around the world is written differently under different rule sets (though now most use the 7 note western style) yet their are certain things, like the minor third interval, that are common around the entire world amongst children of any language or culture, like it comes naturally. In religion the parallel is the general attitude of good will towards others that is found (though now always practiced) in most all religions.
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Anthony
I think religion is a useful invention. It sets out a social order of mutual support which can teach people the end conclusions of the logic that is being used in that society before they are capable of reaching those conclusions themselves, and thus they are able to use that wisdom to avoid some of life's more serious mistakes, and will be able to function as members of that society more effectively and much earlier.
That said, if a religion does not then allow its followers to reach their own conclusions once they are ready to do so, it has become dogmatic and fundamentalist.
That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.
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Anthony,
I think Jaynestown summarizes religion best for me. To me, religion is not an invention. It is a need.
Or I can put it this way. Religion is not the various foods we eat, which changes with personal preferences, cultures, and time. It is our hunger itself, satisfied by different kinds of foods. The hunger is universal and constant.
Just like in Jaynestown, people believe what they NEED to believe.
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But, do people "need" to believe?
To me, religion is about control. In explained and propitiated disease, rain, game, fertility, lightening, luck, and other natural forces. It still does in primitive societies, and even in some modern ones. As society grew, it was used to control another force which came into being: the thoughts of many people living together. And in a personal sense it is sometimes used to control the uncontrollable forces within: addiction, and hopelessness. At times it offers hope, but often uses fear.
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Quote:Yes.
Originally posted by SignyM:
But, do people "need" to believe?
Religion, to me, is a worldview, not necessarily a particular belief in a deity. Buddhism and Paganism, or even Star Wars Jedi-ism, are examples of religious belief systems surrounding some universal connection and not a specific deity.
I believe atheists, despite their protests, also have a similar non-specific "religion." I believe this need to feel "connected" and contemplate metaphysical questions is universal amongst humans.
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"You don't need to believe what I believe, just believe in something" - Shepherd Book.
Our beliefs teach us the wisdom we don't yet have, and this protects us against manipulation and predations by others who know more than we do. If not for this, I would have fallen victim as others have to countless mechanisms of death and slavery. I would make bad decisions about how to solve problems, and how to deal with other people. I make choices and have made in the past that I would not have made if I didn't take a leap of faith to believe in something that knew better than I.
That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.
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Quote:
Eloquent as always, Cav, and right on, as I see it.
If you ask me this question once a year from now on, you'll prolly get a different answer each time. Right now, I'm seeing religion as an extremely powerful psychological weapon that has a crippling design flaw in that it disables the wielder as well as his target. At the same time, the weapon is sophisticated enough to exploit this design flaw in bringing the fearful and disabled victims of its power together in large, defensive groups. Its medium of control is fear. When humans find another way to process our deepest fears, religion will no longer be of any use to anyone. Bear in mind: I'm talking only about religion itself, not the phenomena it purports to explain.
While I don’t believe “love, enginuity, charity and other human traits that span the ages” are on a par with religion...”faith” maybe, but religion is a created context to hold faith. I don’t think it’ll ever really go out of style; look at how many “new” religions pop up even now. I think mankind needs something to look to beyond himself in order to live with his fears of the unknown; science provides that for some, religion for others, and there will always be those unable or unwilling to face life without a higher power looking over them. I’m not saying it doesn’t do a whole lot of good in some ways, it definitely does.
I have a dream that, if we could ever get rid of our tendency to be hateful, start wars, persecute others who are “different”, and stop looking to someone else to take care of us, we’d actually evolve. Don’t expect it to happen, at least any time in the foreseeable future, just a dream.
I agree with all Rose said, too, especially “there are few better ways to control the thinking of so many people.” Unfortunately, whatever faith is, I believe religion is utilized for just that purpose more than for any other. When a human being has the power to control faith, it’s pretty hefty, and they have, throughout the ages. And tho’ it hadn’t occurred to me in exactly those terms, I find “It can be used as a shield against just consequences, often very effectively” a very articulate explanation of that aspect of RELIGION (again, not “faith”, which to me is different)
Damn, Rose, you’re on a roll!Quote:
. Okay, I’m prejudiced, since buddhism IS a philosophy, not a religion, and it DOES adapt to each culture. Religions do to, but the tenants, as I see it and you said, have not changed much with time. I don’t think the corollary to meth is that far off; look at the damage the perversion of Islam has done...talk about your armored tank!
Having a philosophy, something that can change and shift with new information, that's one thing. And it can lead people to the same places of goodness that religion can
Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off 
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Frem, I agree wholeheartedly with “some people *need* to believe something to get through the day, particularly in a crisis, and to take that from them seems an act of malice no matter what I, personally, think of it”, and others have mentioned the same. I hope whatever’s happening in your life isn’t too awful and passes soon, I hate to think of you having something serious happening...you’ve had QUITE enough to carry thus far in your life, gawd knows!
Excellent point on the other side, DT:Quote:
I’m afraid I see more of those supposedly “interpreting” the word of some god as a negative rather than a positive, but what you said definitely has merit for some...perhaps many. We usually only hear the BAD about religion, and forget all the good it does. I’m not sure whether I’d rather have people follow some teaching than learn for themselves, but it certainly does help many in that respect, I admit.
teach people the end conclusions of the logic that is being used in that society before they are capable of reaching those conclusions themselves
CTS, put “Just like in Jaynestown, people believe what they NEED to believe”, which I believe is totally valid, together with what some others have said, and the concept is one which I agree with. And yes, sig, I DO think there will always be those who “need” to believe. Man’s greatest fear has always been death; religion provides something to believe in beyond death. Man’s next greatest fear is that which he doesn’t understand; religion provides answers he can accept for those things. It’s a shame that religion (or man) can’t move and change as some of those things are explained, but some need to go with the simpler explanation, and I think always will.
Mmm, CTS, you just gave me the third “need”...the need to feel connected. Mankind doesn’t survive alone, and one of the biggest things we all feel is aloneness. Again, religion fills the gap, creates a commonality with which people can lessen that feeling.
So for me, religion fills some of mankind’s needs which have existed within us since we began. Fear of death, fear of what we don’t understand, assuagement of the feeling of being alone...and I would add DT’s concept of guiding people through the vagarities of society and life.
Lastly, yes, buddhism incorporates a faith, a belief if you will, in the connectedness too. On a huge scale, in that ALL things are connected, not just people. For many it also provides a sop to the fear of death. But it doesn’t provide “teaching” of moral imperatives or societal requirements, nor does it provide explanations for the unknown. Nor guidance per se; there are stories, usually with insight or morals contained within them, but the stories are just told/written; it’s up to each individual to accept or reject them. And it leaves off some specific higher power which judges or takes personal interest in each person’s life. We are left to do that for ourselves, and it requires self-awareness to recognize what’s right and wrong. The whole base of buddhism is self-awareness and compassion; if one can become completely self-aware (nirvana...never attained, but the effort teaches us what we need to grow), one cannot condemn others and one knows innately what is right and wrong. Whether we act on that knowledge or not is up to us, but the more self-aware we become, the more compassionate our choices.
Ahh, DT, but the flaw in your argument is that religion Quote:
How much of that applies to organized religion, as opposed to the manipulation and predation that COMES from religion? I agree with “believe in something”, but looking to humans to determine what that something IS and how it should be followed, believed, acted upon has, to me, caused more harm than good.
teach us the wisdom we don't yet have, and this protects us against manipulation and predations by others who know more than we do.
What a truly marvelous discussion! You’ve restored my faith in the concept of debate being
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I've always felt that religion is important for children. It gives them morality lessons, and a structure for behavior to meet the challenges in this world. Adults don't need religion, except those that really need spiritual help to cope with tragedy.
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Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Does it have utility? Was it important at one point in History? Is it still important today? Is it a boon for mankind? Does it have a useful place in the future? Or is it a mere artifact of the past?
The answer to your all your questions comes down to one fundamental issue...does God exist?
H
"Hero. I have come to respect you." "I am forced to agree with Hero here."- Chrisisall, 2009.
"I would rather not ignore your contributions." Niki2, 2010.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Niki2:
Excellent point on the other side, DT:Quote:I’m afraid I see more of those supposedly “interpreting” the word of some god as a negative rather than a positive, but what you said definitely has merit for some...perhaps many. We usually only hear the BAD about religion, and forget all the good it does. I’m not sure whether I’d rather have people follow some teaching than learn for themselves, but it certainly does help many in that respect, I admit.
teach people the end conclusions of the logic that is being used in that society before they are capable of reaching those conclusions themselves
Well said. Usually I would say that it was some particular church that went wrong, rather than a religion itself, but churches also do a lot of positive things. As long as you can leave, I don't see a problem with it.
That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Niki2:
Ahh, DT, but the flaw in your argument is that religionQuote:How much of that applies to organized religion, as opposed to the manipulation and predation that COMES from religion? I agree with “believe in something”, but looking to humans to determine what that something IS and how it should be followed, believed, acted upon has, to me, caused more harm than good.
teach us the wisdom we don't yet have, and this protects us against manipulation and predations by others who know more than we do.
I think that having rules based on wisdom of the past is a good defense against threats of the present and future.
It is not the religious nature of our leadership which leads us astray, but perhaps, our atheistic nature of leadership.
"We will be judged not by how we treat our friends, but rather by how we treat our enemies" is just a good rule for leadership. If our so-called Christian presidents spent any time listening to the words of Christ, they might not have done some of the things they did and are still doing.
"Neither borrower nor lender be" is a pretty good one, for a nation, or on a personal level. I'm glad that my grandfather sat me down and taught me theses rules as a child, rather than letting me find them out with a student loan and a mortgage and finding myself a quarter million in debt and then saying "Oh, I see, this is a bad idea, because now I have to work forever just to pay the interest on this infinite debt." Instead, I said "I'm sorry, I can't do that see, because I can't sign any contracts or take out any loans, and so now I'm not in that situation. And I'm glad.
There's a lot of wisdom in the words of prophets, which is why people follow them. If you sat kids down with Jesus, Mohammed, Gautama, Lao Tzu, et al collectively, they'd probably do even better. Certainly it's not going to hurt if your child knows a person versed in the ways of each faith.
I think our typical messages in our society are:
Stay in your seat. Go to the principle's office.
No you cannot have permission
Hey, dude, bong hits
Admitted! Keg Stand!
Okay, you're hired
Mortgage Accepted!
You learned early that adults were evil and abusive, and not to be listened to, and okay, now you're a slave in debt with some bad habits.
That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Hero:Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Does it have utility? Was it important at one point in History? Is it still important today? Is it a boon for mankind? Does it have a useful place in the future? Or is it a mere artifact of the past?
The answer to your all your questions comes down to one fundamental issue...does God exist?
H
"Hero. I have come to respect you." "I am forced to agree with Hero here."- Chrisisall, 2009.
"I would rather not ignore your contributions." Niki2, 2010.
I pretty much agree with this. As an atheist I believe religion to be a falsehood (though not something sinisterly devised or anything like that), and thus it's hard to view it as a boon to mankind. Perhaps it served a purpose in the past - for most of human history we didn't have a scientific explanation for the universe. Perhaps it acted as a useful 'truth-substitute' for society to build around, and that might explain why it seems to be so ingrained in us. Now I think there has to be a better way though.
It's not personal. It's just war.
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Quote:How do you define "God" for the purposes of the question? Does the Force count as God? What about the "Spirit of the Earth and Nature" or "Collective Consciousness"?
Originally posted by Hero:
The answer to your all your questions comes down to one fundamental issue...does God exist?
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Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
How do you define "God" for the purposes of the question? Does the Force count as God? What about the "Spirit of the Earth and Nature" or "Collective Consciousness"?
The original question is essentially 'is religeon necessary'?
He did not ask about a particular one, but the answer is the same.
Simply put, without God religeon is meaningless.
H
"Hero. I have come to respect you." "I am forced to agree with Hero here."- Chrisisall, 2009.
"I would rather not ignore your contributions." Niki2, 2010.
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Hello,
Thank you all for commenting.
I'm not sure religion requires God, and I've never been able to figure out why God requires religion.
--Anthony
Assured by friends that the signal-to-noise ratio has improved on this forum, I have disabled web filtering.
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Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Hello,
Thank you all for commenting.
I'm not sure religion requires God, and I've never been able to figure out why God requires religion.
--Anthony
Assured by friends that the signal-to-noise ratio has improved on this forum, I have disabled web filtering.
Anthony,
Well said. Taoism does not require a God.
KPO,
I think that it is possible for members of a religion to *believe* a falsehood, but not for religion itself to be a falsehood. It appears to exist.
That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.
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Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
There's a lot of wisdom in the words of prophets, which is why people follow them. If you sat kids down with Jesus, Mohammed, Gautama, Lao Tzu, et al collectively, they'd probably do even better.
I would define such things as philosophies.
Quote:
Taoism does not require a God.
Taoism, like other branches on the Buddhist tree, is a philosophy.
What reason had proved best ceased to look absurd to the eye, which shows how idle it is to think anything ridiculous except what is wrong.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Hero:
Simply put, without God religeon is meaningless.
Perhaps, but then, define God - the word "Kami", for example, encompasses far more than our western word for Diesms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kami
-F
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Frem,
Agreed, completely.
PR,
Philosophies are things followed by those who understand them. No leap of faith is ever required. You could bend the rules to extend philosophy into religion by calling all religion existential philosophy, but to cull the field of religion down to a narrow judeo-christian tradition is to do a disservice to both disciplines.
Also, Taoism is not a branch of Buddhism. It's not just that Lao Tzu was older than Siddhartha Gautama, though they were contemporaries, but Buddhism didn't take off as a religion until centuries later, and Taoism had already been a religion for centuries when Lao wrote the Tao te Ching. Huangdi references the Tao in the 27th c. BC, including Fi Xi's 29th c. BC texts, and the texts which later join the I Ching appear as sacred Taoist texts in the 22nd c. BC, but it doesn't become the major religion of China until the 12th c. BC.
What Lao did, when asked specifically for his thoughts on the Tao, was to set forth a path for people seeking enlightment. It was a curious manner to take, because more religious texts give you answers, and the Tao te Ching is much more ponderous. It's intended to start you thinking in the right direction, which does have something in common with some hindu ideas.
Pre-Lao Taoism is much more mystical. The forces exist and a path exists but there's really now a well defined way to reach this enlightment, and a lot of superstition and mysticism is involved in trying to understand these things, which is not uncommon in other religions. If as a religion it seems more scientific and less superstitious, that might be because it's 5 millennia old, and has evolved over time. Early Christianity and Judaism were also intensely mystical and superstitious. Today's christians, (some of them) are able to much more clearly define the ideas and will of Jesus and rely often on first and second hand accounts of his life, and the origins of his ideas, as well as his own words, the connections with El-hebrew faiths and zoroastrianism, and the origins of biblical texts in the assyrian, egyptian and babylonian. Compare that 21st century take with christianity of the 16th, 11th, 6th and 1st century, which were heavily superstitious. In the middle ages they were still burning heretics and going on crusades (okay, maybe some of them still are) and in the early centuries they were relying on people who claimed that they were channeling Jesus in seance-like trances as the literal will of God.
As for divinity, the concept is similar to the Japanese, as a balance of natural forces rather than controlled will of deities that would imply a God.
In a western mindset, the Taoist "God" if it were to be so transferred would be one somewhat indifferent towards the stuggles of humans, but such an application would show a pretty weak understanding of the underlying concepts.
I'm not all that familiar with Buddhism. I wouldn't be astounded if some similar concepts show up, as both Taoism and Hinduism had been around is the 3rd millennium BC and so were bound to have influence all the regional cultures.
That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.
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Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Philosophies are things followed by those who understand them.
I disagree entirely. Philosophy is simply the pursuit of truth. Much as the Tao is the Way to becoming awakened, so too are all philosophies the Way of pondering existence to gain understanding. Conclusions may be drawn, but to say that a philosophy can only be followed by one who already understands it is to lock down the entire field of thinking. The inherent difference is that philosophies encourage growth and personal thinking, while the majority of organized religion does no such thing. Religions preach and lay down laws where philosophies ask questions and invite contemplation. Philosophies may be mistaken for organized religion, but they are not. For example, anyone who says that the Buddha was a god or should be an object of worship has no idea what they're talking about. The Awakened One was a teacher, leading by example. That's the whole bloody point; anyone can achieve what he did. Praying to Buddha to deliver you to Enlightened Paradise, for example, goes against everything he ever stood for, which was that we should find our own way. "Believe nothing. No matter where you read it, or who said it, even if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense." It's a philosophy. More, it's a practice. It might have some wiggle room in the definition of 'belief system,' but it was never meant to be a religion. Anyone who treats it as such is entirely ignorant of it.
What reason had proved best ceased to look absurd to the eye, which shows how idle it is to think anything ridiculous except what is wrong.
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"Richard Dawkins suggests in The Selfish Gene that cultural memes function like genes in that they are subject to natural selection. In The God Delusion Dawkins further argues that because religious truths cannot be questioned, their very nature encourages religions to spread like "mind viruses".
This model holds that religion is the byproduct of the cognitive modules in the human brain that arose in our evolutionary past to deal with problems of survival and reproduction. Initial concepts of supernatural agents may arise in the tendency of humans to "overdetect" the presence of other humans or predators (momentarily mistaking a vine for a snake). For instance, a man might report that he felt something sneaking up on him, but it vanished when he looked around.[11]
Stories of these experiences are especially likely to be retold, passed on and embellished due to their descriptions of standard ontological categories (human, artifact, animal, plant, natural object) with counterintuitive properties (humans that are invisible, houses that remember what happened in them, etc.). These stories become even more salient when they are accompanied by activation of non-violated expectations for the ontological category (houses that "remember" activates our intuitive psychology of mind; i.e. we automatically attribute thought processes to them).[12]
One of the attributes of our intuitive psychology of mind is that humans are interested in the affairs of other humans. This may result in the tendency for concepts of supernatural agents to inevitably cross connect with human intuitive moral feelings (evolutionary behavioral guidelines). In addition, the presence of dead bodies creates an uncomfortable cognitive state in which dreams and other mental modules (person identification and behavior prediction) continue to run decoupled from reality producing incompatible intuitions that the dead are somehow still around. When this is coupled with the human predisposition to see misfortune as a social event (as someone's responsibility rather than the outcome of mechanical processes) it may activate the intuitive "willingness to make exchanges" module of the human theory of minds resulting in the tendency of humans to try to interact and bargain with their supernatural agents (ritual).[13]
In a large enough group, some individuals will seem better skilled at these rituals than others and will become specialists. As the societies grow and encounter others, competition will ensue and a "survival of the fittest" effect may cause the practitioners to modify their concepts to provide a more abstract, more widely acceptable version. Eventually the specialist practitioners form a cohesive group or guild with its attendant political goals (religion)."
A rather interesting explaination, I thought.
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PR,
You are essentially attacking one religion here, and its splinter religions. Collectively those religions count 1/3 of the planet or so as adherents, but a much smaller portion of that as strict adherents that would fall into the nature people have described here as controlling, etc. That said, most of the world belongs to a religion.
Yes, sure, you can philosophically understand the Tao, but that doesn't mean half a billion followers do, and it doesn't mean you can't do the exact same thing with the words of Jesus Christ.
I agree that there are difference, and that they trend in the direction you're talking about, but I think that those who are member of a religion trust in the underlying truth in a way that those who read a philosophy do not, and are perhaps more skeptical of.
One exception that comes to mind is Ayn Rand. Most of those who read it seem to either reject it or accept it, and if they accept it, trust the conclusion in a religious manner.
On the other side, you could say the exact same thing about Scientology, myself and those like me excepted, which is to say, I read and took the parts I wanted, but many people become adherents to a religion.
Now, you could have scientologists who were outside of the CoS, heretics as it were, or whatever you call those christians and wicca who don't belong to an organization, self-practitioners, phooey, the word escapes me.
Another way of putting it is "Religion is a whole life philosophy, to be accepted in its entirety by its followers"
In the way that someone like Nietzsche isn't.
That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
But, do people "need" to believe?
To me, religion is about control. In explained and propitiated disease, rain, game, fertility, lightening, luck, and other natural forces. It still does in primitive societies, and even in some modern ones. As society grew, it was used to control another force which came into being: the thoughts of many people living together.
Pretty much the way I see it.
I also figure that religion has been used to give individuals and groups power or benefits they wouldn't ordinarily have. I suspect that early on, some clever hunter/gatherer told his tribe, "I can make the game appear and the fruit easy to find by performing this secret rite to the gods. Of course that means I can't be out hunting and gathering, so if you'll just keep me fed...". And when the game didn't appear, it'd be easy to blame someone else's actions for angering the gods.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
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Quote:Well said.
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
One exception that comes to mind is Ayn Rand. Most of those who read it seem to either reject it or accept it, and if they accept it, trust the conclusion in a religious manner...
...Another way of putting it is "Religion is a whole life philosophy, to be accepted in its entirety by its followers"
In the way that someone like Nietzsche isn't.
Though I think, ultimately, it is impossible to say when a philosophy begins and when a religion ends. Both involve worldviews, metaphysical questions and pursuits, and lifestyle changes.
I see them sharing a continuum, with narrowly defined rituals for pleasing deity personalities on one end, and broadly defined suggestions for "way of life" to bring balance and goodness to the universe on the other end.
I think any line drawn on the continuum to separate religion from philosophy is arbitrary and subjective.
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Ah, well, the Chinese have a slightly different take on Buddhism, where some bodhisvattas and/or manifestations of Buddha are prayed to as interventionary gods and goddesses such as Guan Yin... It really depends on the school. Plus, Buddhism can be paired up with other schools to create fusion religions, such as Hindu-Buddhists (which then leads to Vajrayana Buddhists practicing tantric rituals), and Zen-Shintoism, even sometimes Christiano-Buddhism. Though in most of those cases I'll agree that Buddhism is more of a moral guideline code, and it's the Gods and such coming from the other religion.
I think the difference between a religion and philosophy is not the presence of a god in the idea, but rather ritual. Meditation in this life to achieve enlightenment after death strikes me as religious, whereas Nietzche and Thoreau do not. Though I admit there are definitely some followers of those philosophies who can act rather religiously at times.
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Quote:
I think any line drawn on the continuum to separate religion from philosophy is arbitrary and subjective.
Well you can have secular philosohpies (secular of course meaning divorced from religion), like Secular Humanism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism
Perhaps you could talk about a continuum of religion and spirituality - and reword the OP question: 'Is spirituality important?'
Simple spirituality (minus organised religion) seems quite benign to me. I would still like to see humanity move beyond it though.
It's not personal. It's just war.
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I also agree spirituality is relatively benign, though it does have pros and cons to it. A person may be uplifted by spirituality, but some people who may be prone to delusions can sometimes try to act out their spirituality in a manner which harms themselves or others.
I have no particular problem with followers of a religion so long as they do not commit or are not willfully complicit in atrocity.
But as to philosophy and religion in general, I have some major anti-authority issues with all of them, including towards other atheists. Patriotism with all it's spiritualism and ritual has obvious problems. Even science has it's dangers. I try to remain as ignorant as possible, just so ideas can't creep up on me and influence my ideas and actions without me recognizing where the ideas were engendered. So, I'm not the best person to talk about this, which is why I haven't commented yet here, and probably won't comment much beyond this.
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Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
You are essentially attacking one religion here, and its splinter religions.
Actually, I am not. If you must use the word, I'm 'attacking' an offensive and destructive way of thinking. You're attributing that to "one" religion, which I find odd. I've been saying in every single post I've made on this thread that a philosophy is a fine and dandy thing, because it is mutable. Gospel/dogma is not mutable, and not a fine or dandy thing. The words of the "prophets" are, by and large, philosophy. Suggestion. Invitations to explore and contemplate. I said that in the same post where I said Taoism was a philosophy, so perhaps you should read a little less selectively.
Do I think contemplative "religions" that actively encourage introspection and don't have a deity are less prone to dogma? Yes, yes I do. Because they are. That's a fact. Are all non-Abrahamic religions necessarily contemplative and non-theistic? No, I never said that, mostly because it isn't the case. Are Abrahamic religions especially prone to dogma? Yes, because they are wildly theistic. So were ancient Egyptians, long before the time of Abraham. Organized and stringent religion is, by its nature, not a philosophy. It might use philosophy in part, but the majority is dogma. Do not mistake one for the other.
What reason had proved best ceased to look absurd to the eye, which shows how idle it is to think anything ridiculous except what is wrong.
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Geezer,
I don't think so. Tribe with religion was just more organized than tribe without religion, so it defeated it.
CTS,
well said, basically. I think there is philosophy which isn't taken on faith, but it is a continuum.
Byte,
I think it is religion when you are willing to accept B before you have gotten from A to B in a logical step by step manner.
For the record, I support the concept of organized religion. I think that it helps the collective protection of the people. One just has to be wary of giving it any centralized power, just like with govt.
If you really had no governing structure at all, your biggest threat would not be chaos, but predation by other govts. and powers. So, a shell state can protect against this, as can a religion.
A philosophy really cannot, because no eight year old is going to have reached all of the end wisdom that can be derived from it, and so he will fall prey to manipulations.
PR,
Even within the confines of western religion, Christian muslim and jewish doctrine has changed radically over the years. That's why you have monestaries, etc. so people can study and come up with do ideas.
I agree there is a problem when anything becomes rigidly dogmatic, but this is not confined to religion. A govt. or philosophy or culture which cannot evolve or accept change is going have the same issues. And when the values don't change, it seems that the elite in power also stop changing.
That said, sometimes change isn't good.
Also, I think we're splitting hairs at this point
That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
Ah, well, the Chinese have a slightly different take on Buddhism, where some bodhisvattas and/or manifestations of Buddha are prayed to...
Some there do treat it in that way, but that's why I said that praying to Buddha went against everything he stood for. I know there are those that do it, but that doesn't mean they're correct in doing so. Repression in communist China runs so deep that it's likely they don't know much about the way it's supposed to work, with contemplation and your own awakening delivering you to Paradise, not an Awakened One delivering you to Paradise. Enlightenment happens in the lifetime, though, not after death. If you are Awakened in life, you will move to a higher plane of existence, which can be interpreted as living in joy on this Earth, or actually going somewhere else for your next life. Or both.
What reason had proved best ceased to look absurd to the eye, which shows how idle it is to think anything ridiculous except what is wrong.
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Hmm. I'd probably say it's more of a different cultural interpretation of the same teachings than it's a "they're wrong" thing. I mean, they had to translate between languages, and the Chinese have had natural forces and ancestral spirits they've paid homage to for like forever, so when Buddhism came into the region they merged the natural spirits with figures from Buddhism. It's a variation on the religion, or dogma if you prefer, and so long as they're not hurting anyone who's to say that what they're doing is "wrong?"
Communist China is pretty oppressive, but Buddhism is actually the largest organized faith in China. The real friction there is that the Chinese have their own Dalai Lama that they want acknowledged instead of the Tibetan one (you can guess why).
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Quote:
Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
who's to say that what they're doing is "wrong?"
Gautama Siddhartha. See above; he did not preach gospel or dogma. Quite the opposite.
What reason had proved best ceased to look absurd to the eye, which shows how idle it is to think anything ridiculous except what is wrong.
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Jesus preached a number of things that were "right," but that many Christians feel Christianity has moved away from, and Leviticus preached things that are now considered "wrong" that religion has moved away from. Literary references or depictions of the prophet Mohammad have also changed drastically over the ages.
Religions, like all man made artifacts, change and evolve. The original concept of a religion is likely not what any modern variants are actually practicing. So long as no damage is done, there is no harm.
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Interesting point about philosophy and religeon being on a continuam, makes sense to me. I do see some people who treat a philosophy as a religeon or visa versa, in certain situations it can be hard to see the line.
Not going to argue with Meghan's on this, even though I totally didn't understand what she was saying.
Ultimately people will decide for themselves what they will believe, a person can't force another to believe a certain way, sure they can force rules, but they can't force belief.
"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya
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Not to nitpick, but seems dogmatic, no? I mean Christianity is often mixed with traditional beliefs.
Anyway, I'm on hiatus from the board as sister cancer duty calls. See you guys in a week or so.
That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.
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Agreed.
Also, it's hard to find a large group of anything that is not considered by someone(s) somewhere to be oppressive/offensive, whether it's Catholics, Vegetarians, Union members, or Doctors. There's bound to be a bad apple(s) somewhere and if it was ever in a position of leadership...
It's my opinion that the ''problems' with religion would be more accurately described as 'user error.'
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Garbage in, Garbage out.
-F
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Happy I think you're right.
"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya
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Quote:Just out of curiosity, why do you keep calling Magonsdaughter "Meghan's"?
Originally posted by RionaEire:
Not going to argue with Meghan's on this, ...
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Quote:The same can be said about Jesus, Muhammad, Confucius, Lao Tse, Moses, etc.
Originally posted by PhoenixRose:
...but that's why I said that praying to Buddha went against everything he stood for. I know there are those that do it, but that doesn't mean they're correct in doing so.
In every religion, there is something the masses are practicing that goes against everything the originator stood for.
Do you think Jesus would approve of the ornate churches built in his name? He was an unemployed hobo who preached giving away all riches to the poor, wherever he stood.
As Byte said, it is the nature of religion/philosophy to evolve. I like to call it mutation. None of those religions/philosophies are static and immutable. In a way, that is good. Unfortunately, the mutations tend to end up harmful, reflecting the baser intentions in human populations.
But I don't think that is the fault of religions/philosophies themselves. I think it is a function of human selfishness, to warp whatever we come in contact with to rationalize what we want.
Religion/philosophy is often offered as a solution to this mutagenic, warping, diseased selfishness. I see R/P as a mirror, not a solution. It helps us control the appearance of our nature, dress it up, prettify it. But mirrors in the end, leaves this selfishness untouched.
The way we treat each other...that is the only thing that can change who we are, our intentions, our selfishness.
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Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:Quote:The same can be said about Jesus, Muhammad, Confucius, Lao Tse, Moses, etc.
Originally posted by PhoenixRose:
...but that's why I said that praying to Buddha went against everything he stood for. I know there are those that do it, but that doesn't mean they're correct in doing so.
And we're not clones in unithought. If and when we do come up with conclusions of our own, a religion has to be flexible enough to let people believe according to their own conclusions.
Don't want to pick on PR though 'cause she's cute and has MP3s that I want ;)
Seriously though, if you hit in the general direction of the message, you're doing okay. If you go on a crusade, you're fucked up, and chances are someone fed you a line.
While I'm at it, Religious texts should be pithy and accessible, so that kids can understand it, so they don't grow up and then be told by manipulative morons what it means.
That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.
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Quote:
Haven’t read this thread for a while, so I’m catching up from waaaay back. DT, I agree with you...I guess that’s why I call it “organized religion”. I don’t think it’s necessarily any individual church---more individual church LEADERS---and for me, those leaders do far more harm than good, on balance.
Usually I would say that it was some particular church that went wrong, rather than a religion itself, but churches also do a lot of positive things.
Anthonly, Quote:
But do we need a RELIGION for that? And if we trust fully in those in power in the religion, how do we really KNOW we’re getting factual or honest instruction? How about what some churches teach about sex, homosexuality, abortion, etc. If we put our children in the hands of any religion, how can we be sure they’re getting the RIGHT “rules”? You got your wisdom from your grandfather, you didn’t need a religion to teach it to you. I grant that in this day and age of fractured families, the church provides the same kind of wisdom. It’s just what comes ALONG with it that I’m distrustful of.
I think that having rules based on wisdom of the past is a good defense against threats of the present and future.Quote:
I agree, KPO; I guess that for me, even tho’ we don’t (and may never) know all the answers, I am more willing to wait and see if there are scientific answers we don’t yet have than put my trust in religions which I already believe have some of the explanations wrong (I originally wrote “KNOW”, but changed it to belief because there are those who take the Bible as fact, and they think THEY know too).
Perhaps it served a purpose in the past - for most of human history we didn't have a scientific explanation for the universe.
Oh, Anthony, that’s wonderful:Quote:
How damned eloquent! “Religion” needs a god because to be a religion, I believe you have to have someone to revere, to follow, to ask for help of. That’s why buddhism isn’t a religion, it’s a philosophy. Is Taoism a religion, or just called one? It always bothers me that they put buddhism in with “other religions” and everyone views and treats it as one when it’s not; is it the same with Taoism? I think a religion DOES require a god; otherwise it’s faith, or a philosophy or something.
I'm not sure religion requires God, and I've never been able to figure out why God requires religion.
Oops, and here comes Rose, to answer the question for me. I see. Thank you, Rose. But is it VIEWED and referred to as a “religion”?
DT, I disagree:Quote:
I don’t fully “understand” buddhism, and I follow it half because it makes sense and half because of faith. Depends on how you look at it, but how can something be a religion unless it has a core unquestioned deity?
Philosophies are things followed by those who understand them. No leap of faith is ever required.Quote:
Okay, if we accept that, buddhism is closer to a religion. There’s no definition of adherence or membership, and regular meetings aren’t for the purposes of veneration, but I guess you could exchange “meditation” for “prayer”. It gets pretty confusing, for me, I admit.
The word religion is sometimes used interchangeably with faith or belief system, but religion differs from private belief in that it has a public aspect. Most religions have organized behaviors, including clerical hierarchies, a definition of what constitutes adherence or membership, congregations of laity, regular meetings or services for the purposes of veneration of a deity or for prayer, holy places (either natural or architectural), and/or scriptures. The practice of a religion may also include sermons, commemoration of the activities of a god or gods, sacrifices, festivals, feasts, trance, initiations, funerary services, matrimonial services, meditation, music, art, dance, public service, or other aspects of human culture.
I’m further confused by the Taoism thing. You speak of “sacred texts”, which I don’t think is true o
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Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:Quote:
Originally posted by PhoenixRose:
...but that's why I said that praying to Buddha went against everything he stood for. I know there are those that do it, but that doesn't mean they're correct in doing so.
The same can be said about Jesus, Muhammad, Confucius, Lao Tse, Moses, etc.
I agree. I never said otherwise, in fact. Many of them were philosophizers whose questions were turned into statements and dogmatized. I'll say it again, the problem is with faith in the dogma. If dogma can never be changed, never be countered with new information, there is stagnation, and that's not a good way to live.
And that, believe it or not, is exactly where the line is between philosophy and a religion. Philosophies will change with new information. Religion, in general, won't. It can take decades to even get some wiggle room, and most of the "change" is in the form of omission. Omitting, for example, that someone should be stoned to death for wearing a mixed fabric. Most Christians will omit that belief in modern times, but it is still stated in their book. Omitting, perhaps, the statements of Siddhartha to the effect that everyone must find their own way. This is not omission for the better, but it makes it much easier to control the population when you say, "No, no this is the way, this over here. You don't need to find it, just follow." This is change via omission, and also change for someone's convenience, rather than change based on new information or fact.
I'll add to this, as I think I said before, if anyone who professes faith in a dogma is considered a good person, simply for that faith, they can be allowed to get away with murder, and I think that's wholly unacceptable. This 'morality' that I've seen so many people in the world say is a religious structure... It doesn't touch those who are not moral, but they can exploit the assumption that someone is moral because they attend church. That really bothers me. It bothers me almost as much to be on the other end of that, with the assumption that I am not moral because I do not attend church. I don't need church to be moral. I don't think anyone does, if they are a decent human being. Church doesn't offer morals to the immoral, it only offers them camouflage.
Quote:
Originally posted by Niki2:
But is it VIEWED and referred to as a “religion”?
Taoism? I think it is by some, mainly those who don't practice it. My dad is a Taoist and a Buddhist with decades of study and meditation of all sorts. He doesn't view it as a religion, no. He doesn't view it as a faith, either. To use his words, it is a practice. Conscientious practice of the philosophies behind the meditations. I could ask him any questions you have about Taoism, if I don't know the answers myself.
Quote:
to revere Buddha as anything beyond teacher is counter to everything about buddhism.
Quote:Quote:I hope you don’t mean buddhism by that, because in buddhism, meditation is to achieve enlightenment in THIS life, not after death.
Meditation in this life to achieve enlightenment after death strikes me as religious
Thank you for that
What reason had proved best ceased to look absurd to the eye, which shows how idle it is to think anything ridiculous except what is wrong.
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My objection, as a Taoist, is to being classified as a philosophy and not a religion. Philosophies have we many, and we take each of them in part.
You can choose to practice part of a religion, sure. I am nominally jewish, and there are elements of judaism that remain. I'm also a residual christian, from my grandparents who were pretty christian and instilled me with values of that faith. I don't believe Jesus has bought me an afterlife, or that if I praise his name enough he will. I'm not sure what to call that, but it would definitely be a religion, probably a radical one.
There's a difference: I choose to practice parts of scientology because I believe them to be true. I would not call myself a scientologist. (they wouldn't call me one either, but that's because they're a church, which is another matter.) But I wouldn't because I cherrypick scientology. I think this is what you do with philosophy.
I don't cherrypick the Tao, Jesus or Judaism. I call myself a Taoist because I think that's where the path to enlightment lies. I might have some interpretations that other disagree with, but it is not the same relationship.
Secondly, I also take issue with any redefinition of the word religion to mean "western judeo-christian religion" and I also take faith, in this context, to be a synonym for religion, as generally accepted by the populous at large so creating distinctions here among us is splitting hairs.
The definition
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=religion
As to practice, ritual and practice are basically the same concept. Whether your practice has an actual purpose, like meditation, or it is all in your head, like animal sacrifice or whatever is in part a matter of whether or not you believe.
Do I believe in the power of meditation? Sure. Do I believe in the power of prayer? No. Might I be wrong? Sure. If someone wanted to argue a collective unconscious connecting everyone through some existential philosophy they could have a basis for proving that prayer works, but my offhanded analysis would be that it helps the person praying to get troubles off their mind, which is something that people also use meditation for.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=faith
Faith based initiative always makes me think "Want, Take, Have."
ETA: Let me put it another way. A friend of mine practices the drums, mike practices shooting guns at the range, etc. You don't have a right to practice, you're allowed to, within limits. My friend can't practice the drums at 3AM or if the neighbors don't like it. Mike can't practice shooting in the shopping mall or in school. This is not about the meaning of their lives, it's something they do.
No one can step in and tell Christians that they can't be christians anymore. The same is true of muslims and jews. This is because this is a fundamental part of who they are, and they have a right, protected under the constitution. This is religion.
Which group do you want to place your belief in?
I can tell you in China when they banned the practice of Taoism, it only lasted a few months, because Mao was facing a civil war if he didn't reverse his position. That's not just an idea or a hobby. Mao banned a lot of things and got away with it. People were unhappy, sure, but they accepted it.
That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.
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Quote:
Omitting, for example, that someone should be stoned to death for wearing a mixed fabric. Most Christians will omit that belief in modern times, but it is still stated in their book.
Is it still an omission if it doesn't apply?
Quote:
..."The weaving of two kinds of material (wool and linen in Deuteronomy 22:11) may be a rule that would prevent loss by unequal shrinkage." There is no apparent application today for two reasons: (1) Most Christians do not make their own fabric or clothing today, and (2) clothing manufacturers do not mix these materials...
"Neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woollen come upon thee—Although this precept, like the other two with which it is associated, was in all probability designed to root out some superstition, it seems to have had a farther meaning. The law, it is to be observed, did not prohibit the Israelites wearing many different kinds of cloths together, but only the two specified; and the observations and researches of modern science have proved that 'wool, when combined with linen, increases its power of passing off the electricity from the body. In hot climates, it brings on malignant fevers and exhausts the strength; and when passing off from the body, it meets with the heated air, inflames and excoriates like a blister' [Whitlaw]. (See Ezek 44:17, 18.)"
Lets keep the 'Abominations' as described in Leviticus in perspective. It was a 'Holiness Code' in a ritual manual for the Jewish priesthood. The acts are not considered inherently evil but taboo or unclean. Most Christians are not Jewish priest. Also some passages are just not relevant to today's world such as the clothing example you've provided and often misunderstood You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination. which applied to the act of male 'sacred prostitution' and not homosexuality as we understand it today.
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Deu 22:11 "Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts, as of woolen and linen together." The "as of" bit would imply it's an example of mixed cloth garments, not a specific proscription against wool and linen being mixed.
From the same book as, "The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the lord thy God." Also not planting divers seeds or plowing with divers animals. Unless only Jewish priests were planting and plowing, I think it was probably meant for the population in general. I'll ask the man who originally brought such things to my attention, who has read the Bible cover to cover in several different iterations, comparing and analyzing them, if you really want me to. Of course, if I bring him into it, you'll hear some real attacks on religion, which I am actually trying to keep at a minimum, whether DT thinks so or not.
What reason had proved best ceased to look absurd to the eye, which shows how idle it is to think anything ridiculous except what is wrong.
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Quote:
often misunderstood You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination. which applied to the act of male 'sacred prostitution' and not homosexuality as we understand it today.
? You'll have to elaborate on this. I'm not aware of any ancient practice involving male hierodule. Though there were fertility gods, most of those as far as I'm aware had to do with fertility of the fields, it was fertility goddesses that primarily dealt with human fertility. As such, my understanding is it was mostly women who prostituted themselves for human fertility rituals, as either priestesses, or as a pre-marriage custom (though evidence for the later is scarce compared to the speculation).
Also, from the given text, the connection to sacred prostitution is not obvious.
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My comments were pertaining to Levitivus, but I did quote deuteronomy in my post, I apologize if this caused confusion. I should have been more clear.
Concerning your quoted Deuteronomy, the translation works out to be a mite closer to '“The woman shall not put on [the weapons/armor of a warrior], neither shall a [warrior] put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God.”' and I'm doing a little research as too what that really means in the context.
We can go back and forth on the bible and how it ought to be interpreted, but my point is that not all Christians 'omit' things cause it's convenient or they don't feel like it. When I come across something that doesn't sound right to me, I investigate it, try and figure out what it really means rather than ignore it.
EDIT: I owe you another clarification and apology.
The verse concerning male lying with a woman is from Leviticus but it is Deuteronomy that forbids sacred male prostitution with
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Deuteronomy 23:18 You must not bring the earnings of a female prostitute or of a male prostitute into the house of the LORD your God to pay any vow, because the LORD your God detests them both.
Afraid that's all I have time for for now, watching DWTS and then prolly sleeping before an early work day.
Edit again from itouch (great for comercials) if I can track down the article that explained doing away with sacred male prostitution I will link it or quote it. Anyhow they were basically 'updating' how things worked in the temple. Part of that was doing away with the 'sacred male prostitutes.' I read a fascinating study on the ancient hebrew traditions and sacred prostitution (the example was female oracles) in an anthropology class a couple years ago. This along with many other 'abominations' were being associated with idolatry which they were very much against.
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PR
Have you seen the Red Lobster protests? I think you'd like it, can't find the youtube. The basic thrust was berating people for eating shellfish and wearing blended fabrics ;)
I read the bible cover to cover twice myself. It's a good cure for western faith. Everyone should do it ;)
That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.
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Incidentally DWTS happens to be on right now, and I happened to see a fairly impressive dance just now.
Hmm, the line in Leviticus still says lie with a MALE like as with a woman. But okay, the Dueteronomy one is talking about paying tithing with regular prostitution. There IS one about not going to see hierodules/ sacred prostitution, but men generally weren't hierodules.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
Incidentally DWTS happens to be on right now, and I happened to see a fairly impressive dance just now.
Hmm, the line in Leviticus still says lie with a MALE like as with a woman. But okay, the Dueteronomy one is talking about paying tithing with regular prostitution. There IS one about not going to see hierodules/ sacred prostitution, but men generally weren't hierodules.
Leviticus is explicit: male homosexuality is an abomination, and those demand execution. OTOH, that's sandwiched in between the same for eating shrimp and wearing blended fabrics. My socks are 50% wool 50% cotton, which is what they're talking about, and it's really quite nice.
I think some tribe which didn't cut the tip of their dicks off probably wore it, so they had to be killed.
The thing about ancient wisdom is sometimes it was written by the Buddha, and sometimes it was written by some shmuck who was probably ancient world for Dick Cheney.
The strange thing about the bible is how many times over history which texts have been considered canon has changed. Things that were once considered mad rantings of a genocidal lunatic are now sacred, and have been since the 1880s, when mad genocidal lunatics inserted them, this is the sort of thing that people might want to see to. Also, other things that actually had something to do with the lives and values of hebrews and the life of christ were deleted from the book.
Also, some "translations" are just pure fabrication. The reason the revelation of St. John the Divine looks so prophetic in the way it describes metal carriages and metal birds that rain down fire is that it was written in 1880 when the concept was really pretty well understood, and it was less of a prophecy, and more of an order blank, but it wasn't calling for the invasion of Iraq in 2003, it was calling for it in WWI.
People make up texts to tell the sheeple what to do next.
The bible should be reduced to a group of stories and ancient wisdom that actually reflects the values that helped that society, not tales of how to mass slaughter the undesirable canaanites.
That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.
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Why did the Jews have all those rules back then? I believe it is because God wanted them to be unique and seperate people, since he picked them and all. I don't believe we really need to do all those things now though, for instance Peter learnt about how it was okay to eat any animals we wanted in his vision in Acts etc. Paul talks about the rutting-with-same-sex stuff in Romans 1 though so most Christians see it as still not something we do.
DT, what proof do you have that Revelation was written in the 1880s? I must confess I've never heard that particular conspiracy theory before. Anyways. I've never enjoyed DWTS, but I'm glad you guys like it. The only part of AI I watch (rarely at that) is the tryouts, I like laughing at the bad singers. I wish there was Trad Irish Idol, I could handle watching/trying out for that.
"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya
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It's also nice that the church has rescinded on at least some of Peter's misogyny, and now says that not only can women participate in the church, but also that they can achieve salvation. Considering how important women converts were in the times of the church during Roman persecution, you'd think the Council of Nicea would know better. But I guess it was more important to perpetuate certain power structures.
I wonder about Peter, he took serious issue with Mary Magdalene and the other women in Jesus' life. I suspect jealousy.
As for the bible, new versions and translations are released all the time, with the language just slightly tweaked to validate whatever views the then-translators wanted it to have. The King James bible was a very superstitious book, it's leveled out since then, but other agendas have slipped in ideas. I don't know as well as DT does about the rewrites, but I do know that on some matters, like war and occupation, that certain world leaders have followed it "religiously."
This sounds like the source DT is drawing from for his claim.
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The English Biblical scholar, Robert Henry Charles (1855–1931), reasoned on internal textual grounds that the book was edited by someone who spoke no Hebrew and who wished to promote a different theology to John's. As a result, everything after 20:3, he claims, has been left in a haphazard state with no attempt to structure it logically. Furthermore, he says, the story of the defeat of the ten kingdoms has been deleted and replaced by 19:9-10.[17] John's theology of chastity has been replaced by the editor's theology of outright celibacy, which makes little sense when John's true church is symbolised as a bride of the Lamb. Most importantly, the editor has completely rewritten John's theology of the Millennium which is "emptied of all significance".[18]
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Originally posted by RionaEire:
Why did the Jews have all those rules back then? I believe it is because God wanted them to be unique and seperate people, since he picked them and all.
Actually, the concept of a unified ancient jewry is a myth. The ancient tribes were constantly at war with one another, and worshipped different gods. At some point a king of Jerusalem replaced the names of all gods with the tetragammon YHWH, or Jehovah/Yahweh as we say it in English and Hebrew. This is not an actual god, but a placeholder name. The origin of "I am" is for "I am he whose name cannot be spoken." I did much pondering on the board as to the reason for that, and eventually I decided that it was much like the King David and King Arthur myths, which create illusion of historical unity by merging the lives of different people, similarly, YHWH creates the illusion of one God, for the purposes of uniting Israel. It didn't work, and it was fairly poorly done, and becomes obvious to anyone carefully reading the bible, as said God would come across as wildly schizophrenic. Also, worth noting that Israel contains El in the name, who was the God of Galilee and parts of Assyria, who had tracked west across north central asia, changing his name from Enlil to Ellil and in hebrew just to El. Later, El (meaning high, or the high one, as he was god of the sky, also interpreted as heavens) married Him, the sea goddess, and his name was changed to Elohim, which is believed by some Rabbis to be a name for the devil, which is odd, since they call their country Israel "to serve El"
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DT, what proof do you have that Revelation was written in the 1880s? I must confess I've never heard that particular conspiracy theory before.
Just the actual texts in physical form, but I'm sure there's a ton of information about this online.
rewritten, not written, It's been rewritten again many times. I have many texts here in old fashioned printed matter, it changes to meet the war demands of kings. It's not really the word of God. I am dubious that it existed in any form that would resemble the current, but I'm sure the information is out there.
The bible's radical rewrites aren't exactly a mystery. The 1880 rewrite was one of the more extensive: Over 30,000 changes were made. The part that people miss often when considering this is that it was not just minor changes like the names of Gods, or profound political ones, like the insertion of the word "witch" but really truly radical changes like which books would be or wouldn't be in the bible.
It's entirely possible that some books have no basis in the original text at all, the one that has come most under fire for this is the gospel of John. I find it more likely that books were written and added "loosely based" on some ancient text, sort of like the way spielberg and company make movies from Phillip K Dick stories, or maybe more like Albert Broccoli's James Bond movies, thinly and loosely constructed from short stories by Ian Flemming
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I wish there was Trad Irish Idol, I could handle watching/trying out for that.
How are you on Flogging Molly?
That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.
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Byte,
When me and Antimason went through this one a couple years back the number of sources was staggering, and there was little agreement other than that there had been radical edits. In fact, radical edits have been going on for a long time. The Hebrew bible was adapted from the Sumerian, but parts of it came from the Assyrian and Egyptian, and additional books from various parts of Israel which were added and subtracted from time to time, and also at times, radically edited.
The book of John and the revelation of St. John the Divine would have been written in Greek, not Hebrew. It's quite likely that Greek, and not Aramaic, was Jesus's native language. He was a member of a Nazarene cult that worshiped El and were offshoots of Zoroastrianism, as the result of a Persian conquest of Galilee centuries earlier.
The whole thing had buggerall to do with Judaism until really the council of Nicea, at a time when Jerusalem had a pronounced influence in Rome, decided that it did. They were promoting a Judah-based agenda for a religion which has been extinct for millennia, like the language it wrote. No one speaks the language, because it was written in shorthand, and can't really be deciphered, but a modified alphabet was reconstructed into a Hebrew language in a three year project form 1887-1890. Most Hebrew sacred texts were then translated *into* Hebrew from their various source languages.
An ancient Hebrew bible exists as source material for its 15th c. German translation, which has been revisited many times.
Riona
As for all these rules, and why they exist, it's because they all had some survival advantage for their tribe, either against some other tribe, or against nature. Some were good ideas, others sucked. Anyone who wants to know the literal true word of God is going go mad trying. They're going to be stuck with inconsistent conflicting texts of a society in a state of perpetual war writing in shorthand of long dead languages about Gods that don't exist, have been renamed in text written in myriad different languages which have been edited both properly and maliciously on hundreds of occasions with probably a million or so edits in all, some as radical as completely discarding the gospel of Thomas, or adding John.
That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.
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I'm assuming Sin is somewhere in there among the many gods represented.
Definitely can see Sin in the Islamic representation of god, they like their crescent moons and bull horns symbology.
Or maybe... It looks like Sin is supposed to be the son of Enlil? As well as chief of the gods and lord of wisdom, so the two entities eventually merged into one which was both son and father. Later on when biblical scholars were rewriting all the old gods as demons, the name Sin instead became synonymous with our current definition of sin, "any act of transgression, especially a willful or deliberate violation of some religious or moral principle."
Shekina may have been an amalgamation of goddesses and god-wives, then also merged in with the overarching God idea.
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Byte,
Sure. It's speculated that he was the initial God of the cult in Jerusalem. Sin worship was pretty widespread in the area, but the cult of Sinai were what we might call radical extremists of their day. They were particularly driven by a fear of the encroaching advancement of africans up the arabian coast of the red sea. Mt. Sinai and the Sinai peninsula is named for their god. It's been claimed many many other things, like China, or Sina, locally, but this is probably nonsense and a linguistic coincidence, Chin was a common family name which rose to dynastic power.
I would pick this one over "Molech" since Molech actually means king and in the reference that are translated as Molech, mlk=king, lmlk=molech=to the king, to is translated as sacrifice, and mlkm=molech, their=their king. Early kings like Ba'al later became deified and were referred to as gods. The book of Ba'al was written by his wife Anat, which is a common story (Aisha actually started Islam based on the writings of her husband Mohammed) But by the time of King Zebub of North Israel, Ba'al was considered god of Fire, a name he got for introducing the smelting of iron to Israel, though much of his actual sacred book is devoted to the construction of windows, he was most concerned with men not sneaking in during the night to bang his daughters which he had seven of. I imagine it kept him up all night ;) I also figure this is where the thing in Buffy with the "hearty beets" comes from.
Anyway, there are some specific gods that mlkm was used to refer to that slip my mind at the moment, but the name Malcolm et. variations come later from this.
This image of feeding molech children to be burnt is probably propaganda, those archaeologists have found statues with ashes of the offerings, it's unclear which god they are to or whether the offerings were alive or even human. It's also possible that stillborn or dead children were burnt by some cults as a ritual or superstition related to disease, etc. and probably the numbers were high, hence, this rather than giant graveyards.
Anyway, the cult of Sinai migrated out of Egypt to Zion, which may share a name origin, and most probably brought the egyptian gold based economic system with them, and became very powerful, and ultimately took over or formed the kingdom of Judah, which was in tremendous disarray at the time. When the cult arrived, the city of Jerusalem was standing, but completely abandoned, a mystery like Tikal, not yet settled as far as I know, but possibly similar reasons, the collapse of local agriculture, or possible a plague. Plagues tend to hit the places of high population density because of a much higher rate of contact, thus transmission.
Anyway, prolly more than you wanted to know. I guess one more detail, the wars of ancient Israel were largely based on the mad desire of Judah to conquer all of Israel, and some rather gruesome incidents where they massively exterminate the other tribes, some of which are still in the bible.
This is basically the same sort of logic as Nazi Germany, which intended to depopulate eastern europe and replace the local population with Germans. They're still doing it of course, but now they're calling themselves the EU and doing it through propaganda and economic manipulation, through the Euro, which is of course based in Frankfurt, by issuing power, not that it would really be any better if it was actually based in Brussels as it claims. Frankfurt banking industry of course is what spawned the Reichsbank, and Deutchbank, which now dominates the Euro. The major media arm of propaganda is Bertelsmann, the media conglomerate that made its fortune on being the primary creator of Nazi propaganda.
When you look into this stuff in depth, the way things work becomes clear in an abstract view, but thing become less certain rather than more.
That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.
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Interesting. Quick off topic: is this where all the German national debt is coming from, their banks trying to buy power for a nationalist agenda?
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Riona and Happy: just wanted to put in some obligatory reassurance that discussing the evolution, translation, and so on of the bible does not discredit the current beliefs of any Judeo-Christian religion.
By nature, the more metaphysical beliefs of Judeo-Christian religion, such as in heaven or God, can not be proven or disproven, and a discussion about old human interpretations of any God has no bearing on the actual existence of those ideas. Similarly, I'm not bothered by most of the rules those religions follow, I mostly take issue with a select few interpretations which are by no means the view of the majority.
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Same place as ours. All of Europe is rapidly becoming in debt to the Euro Consortium, who holds issuing power of the currency. The balance of this issuing power is based in Frankfurt, Germany in the same way that the balance of ours is based on Liberty Street in NYC.
It doesn't matter that the FED is inside the US, or the the Euro which is based on the FED is inside Europe, the bankers still hold the power. If a nation, such as Ireland owns no issuing power, there is no way for it to get out of debt. In order to operate a govt., they must borrow money, which they pay back by taxing their populous, which means that the economy will sink forever, making it a slave state.
The way such states are created is with economic incentives. Economic "balancing" offers are made to bring lesser economies "up to scale" with more successful ones. This is essentially a bribe. It means that during the short reign of the current politicians, the economy will flourish, and they can do whatever they want. Afterward, their people will be enslaved for eternity, but they're politicians, and don't care.
It's pointless to have any discussion about defeating or displacing TPTB without an underlying understanding of where it is they get their power from, and how they use it. The most essential piece of their power is the issuing of currency. If you could take from them that alone, you could do a lot of damage to their empire.
Other keystones to knock out besides the issuance of fiat (currency and land grants) would include their control commodities, their propaganda network, their intelligence gathering apparatus, their illusion of legitimacy (democracy et al.), their military superiority and the authority granted to their central govts.
I'm probably missing a few because I just got up, and you never hit 100% off the top of your head but those were intentionally placed in descending order of importance.
That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.
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Originally posted by Bytemite:
Riona and Happy: just wanted to put in some obligatory reassurance that discussing the evolution, translation, and so on of the bible does not discredit the current beliefs of any Judeo-Christian religion.
By nature, the more metaphysical beliefs of Judeo-Christian religion, such as in heaven or God, can not be proven or disproven, and a discussion about old human interpretations of any God has no bearing on the actual existence of those ideas. Similarly, I'm not bothered by most of the rules those religions follow, I mostly take issue with a select few interpretations which are by no means the view of the majority.
Trust me, I know
I rather enjoy these discussions when it feels more inquisitive/informative and less hostile. My personal belief is that while the old testament can be quite fascinating, (or complicated and frustrating depending on your thoughts and circumstances) it has little bearing on the day to day lives of most Christians. That Jesus was a pretty shiny guy, efficiently summarizing our faith in two commandments:
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1. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength;
2. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
Of course, him taking on all our sins past present and future, granting us forgiveness and the eternal life we don't deserve was pretty shiny too. Just my opinion, but I think setting an example like that kinda encourages forgiveness. Christianity is about forgiveness and redemption, not wool and linens, not trimming beards, and not hatred of any sort.
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Originally posted by TheHappyTrader:
My personal belief is that while the old testament can be quite fascinating, (or complicated and frustrating depending on your thoughts and circumstances) it has little bearing on the day to day lives of most Christians.
Some of those early books, genesis esp. play majorly for most Christians though, as do the psalms.
That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.
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Shiny.
You guys have every right to discuss whatever you want, whether I agree with or believe in what is being discussed has no bearing on whether you have the right to discuss it.
Paul seems a bit down on women too, I think it was his personal opinion because in the new testiment we see him say things like "I do not permit a woman to teach" etc.
I believe that, even though God refers to himself as He, as do we, he is able to love as a woman would too and has the traits often associated with women in regard to loving us etc. while still having the "manly" traits too.
"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya
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The old testament is our history (religiously speaking), I wasn't exactly implying we throw it out the gorram window, lol. I was mostly referring to things like the outdated non-applicable rules concerning animal sacrifices, the trimming of beards and the like.
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Originally posted by TheHappyTrader:
I was mostly referring to things like the outdated non-applicable rules concerning animal sacrifices, the trimming of beards and the like.
Did I not point out the update by omission thing? I could have sworn I did.
What reason had proved best ceased to look absurd to the eye, which shows how idle it is to think anything ridiculous except what is wrong.
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Originally posted by PhoenixRose:Quote:
Originally posted by TheHappyTrader:
I was mostly referring to things like the outdated non-applicable rules concerning animal sacrifices, the trimming of beards and the like.
Did I not point out the update by omission thing? I could have sworn I did.
What reason had proved best ceased to look absurd to the eye, which shows how idle it is to think anything ridiculous except what is wrong.
And I asked if you consider it omission if it does not apply? I try not to swear too much, but I'm pretty sure I said it.
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Originally posted by RionaEire:
Shiny.
You guys have every right to discuss whatever you want, whether I agree with or believe in what is being discussed has no bearing on whether you have the right to discuss it.
Paul seems a bit down on women too, I think it was his personal opinion because in the new testiment we see him say things like "I do not permit a woman to teach" etc.
I believe that, even though God refers to himself as He, as do we, he is able to love as a woman would too and has the traits often associated with women in regard to loving us etc. while still having the "manly" traits too.
"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya
Right on Riona. It's my opinion that Jesus was a feminist.
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Very likely so, I'll give you that much. There's plenty of interpretation about the resurrection and his order that he not be touched, but that's probably more due to supposed divinity than the witness being female.
Jesus kept a close circle of female friends and relatives that were actively involved in his life, where other men of the time kept them cloistered and in the background. He let them actively participate in ceremonies and other religious gatherings.
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Originally posted by TheHappyTrader:Quote:
Originally posted by PhoenixRose:Quote:
Originally posted by TheHappyTrader:
I was mostly referring to things like the outdated non-applicable rules concerning animal sacrifices, the trimming of beards and the like.
Did I not point out the update by omission thing? I could have sworn I did.
And I asked if you consider it omission if it does not apply? I try not to swear too much, but I'm pretty sure I said it.
You can say it doesn't if you want, but it doesn't change the existing passage. I even quoted it for you.
It's your book, man. I don't think any of it applies.
What reason had proved best ceased to look absurd to the eye, which shows how idle it is to think anything ridiculous except what is wrong.
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Paul was a dick.
That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.
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Hello,
Sometimes I wish that some of the apocryphal texts had made it into the book, because there were some that held interesting insights and better attitudes towards women.
Of course, the likelihood is that whatever really transpired in Biblical times... an army of men through several generations conspired to trim, edit, rewrite, and re-interpret the Bible to suit their needs and tastes.
The mere fact that one can step into a book store and find dozens of renditions of the Bible with minor tweaks proves that God does not preserve the contents of the book from alteration. The Bible is a text in the custodianship of human beings, and I think it must be viewed with a critical eye. No matter whether you believe in God or not, it is a surety that humans have tampered with that text through the ages.
We have only our own intellect and good conscience to guide us in what seems true, right, and just.
May God sort us out kindly in the end.
--Anthony
Assured by friends that the signal-to-noise ratio has improved on this forum, I have disabled web filtering.
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You can say it doesn't if you want, but it doesn't change the existing passage.
I never claimed the passage changed, only that it no longer applies. Maybe this is just a matter of semantics, but I don't feel it is willfully 'omited' when it does not apply to us. This is my interpretation. You are welcome to yours.
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Quote:Amen.
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Paul was a dick.
But he was also a hardass. He was watching Christians grow soft and spoiled, and he wanted them to suck it up and live the life, like the early, early Christians did. So I think some of his harshness comes from that.
But yeah, no question. He was a dick too.
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Quote:My problem with fundamentalism and the literal interpretation of the Holy Scriptures is that they pick and choose what they believe "no longer applies."
Originally posted by TheHappyTrader:
I never claimed the passage changed, only that it no longer applies. Maybe this is just a matter of semantics, but I don't feel it is willfully 'omited' when it does not apply to us. This is my interpretation. You are welcome to yours.
Meaning, they are not as literal as they say they are. They make tons of arbitrary exceptions from their literal interpretation, and then thump the Bible for the rest.
Why the few texts against homosexuality aren't lumped in with the few texts on stoning adulteresses, I will never understand.
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Eh, both Paul and Peter have some preserved letters outside of the bible that suggest their views. Peter didn't like women, and Paul was militant. And some of that carries through in their respective gospels, though I can't speak to how much editing and translation shenanigans happened with the gospels.
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My earlier post got deleted.
The gist was that it's well establish that Emperor Pius sent Paul down to turn the Christians into good Romans as a mole. It's assumed that Pius intended to drag Christianity into the Pantheon, or perhaps destroy it. Paul instead converted to Christianity and then changed what Christianity was to make it more Roman. I don't see any reason to assume that this was off track from what the Emperor wanted, it was probably Mission Accomplished. (If you're a pro-Paul christian, I get where you might disagree with this analysis, but you can see where it's coming from.)
That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.
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Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:Quote:My problem with fundamentalism and the literal interpretation of the Holy Scriptures is that they pick and choose what they believe "no longer applies."
Originally posted by TheHappyTrader:
I never claimed the passage changed, only that it no longer applies. Maybe this is just a matter of semantics, but I don't feel it is willfully 'omited' when it does not apply to us. This is my interpretation. You are welcome to yours.
Meaning, they are not as literal as they say they are. They make tons of arbitrary exceptions from their literal interpretation, and then thump the Bible for the rest.
Why the few texts against homosexuality aren't lumped in with the few texts on stoning adulteresses, I will never understand.
Ditto ditto. Thanks for that, CTS.
What reason had proved best ceased to look absurd to the eye, which shows how idle it is to think anything ridiculous except what is wrong.
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Evolution: Adultresses raised their children to think it wasn't such a bad thing; gay men generally didn't raise kids even if they had them. Ergo, they got no votes in the evolution of the religion.
Think about it: There is no real constant religious faith that lasts more than a couple hundred years. Every religion will splinter, doctrine will change, etc.
Whatever splinter group has the most kids is going to win. I guess that means in the future all Christians will be Amish and all Jews will be Satmars, and Muslims will be whoever, Wahabi? Not sure.
But not the 20-year future, the 200-year future. Point being, on the side, that whatever else these groups believe will also likely influence the final beliefs. Not saying that all the beliefs will remain, but that the new religion will evolve out of them, and not evolve out of, say, the Shakers.
That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.
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My problem with fundamentalism and the literal interpretation of the Holy Scriptures is that they pick and choose what they believe "no longer applies."
Meaning, they are not as literal as they say they are. They make tons of arbitrary exceptions from their literal interpretation, and then thump the Bible for the rest.
Why the few texts against homosexuality aren't lumped in with the few texts on stoning adulteresses, I will never understand.
Probably because in the text attributed to homosexuality, homosexuality did not exist as we understand it today. Was God angry at the sodomites because they wanted teh homo buttshex, or because they wanted to rape his angels? Romans 1:26-27 refers to the Greco-Roman practice of pederasty (a hetero practice ironically enough).
Also, are you calling me a fundamentalist?
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Probably because in the text attributed to homosexuality, homosexuality did not exist as we understand it today.
Um, of course it existed, and not in much different form than today. The Greco-Roman pederasty was NOT heterosexual. The Greeks even believed a relationship between men was better than one between men and women, because women were inferior, and so homosexuality was more a relationship between peers.
They had arguments about whether platonic love between men was better than romantic/erotic love between men. Seriously. That's where the term comes from, Plato's arguments about this.
Though, granted, the Sodomites were probably more along the lines of "anything that moved" than pure homosexuality. I seem to recall Lot offering up his two daughters (I think they were refused, but still, it's suggested if the angels weren't so pretty it might have worked).
But, you're not fundamentalist Happy, you're pretty easy going and we like that about you. And hey, if you want to be tolerant, then that's in your favour. I think we ought to credit people for what they say they believe, and not what the generalizations are.
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It describes an erotic relationship between an older man and an adolescent boy outside the immediate family. While not 'hetero' (or homo IMO) in nature, it was practiced by many hetero men, unless you consider that the 'act' determines sexuality.
Today we understand that some people are just made homo or hetero and there is nothing wrong with that. A homosexual need not have gay sex to qualify.
Sorry if that's not a great answer for now, I might add more later but I gotta go, 1 more lesson to teach.
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Music is good.
Em, I dunno. I just think it's a stretch to say that it was not homosexual, or at the very least bisexual, considering the long running views on women at the time. It's better argued that heterosexuality for the Greeks and Romans then was not like the present day.
Even in the present day you have guys who get married and have families, then come out of the closet and leave their families. That's almost certainly homosexual. So by my consideration it was homosexual back then as well.
Imagine if you will a world where, yes, guys are married, but mostly only so that they have children, otherwise they have nothing to do with their wives and either spend all their time with courtesans and hierodules (heterosexual) or other men/ boys (homosexual). People they admire either physically or intellectually, which generally women and wives were not admired for either. There were rare occasions where women were admired (Helen of Troy comes to mind) or where a guy genuinely liked his wife and spending time with her. But there was an off balance between the lifestyles; the arts, literature, and religious practice suggest homosexuality was seen as preferable to heterosexuality.
As I'm researching it, I'm seeing that the passage in Romans is taken out of context, with Paul mostly angrily decrying Roman salaciousness in art, architecture, and prostitution, and attributing heightened sexuality of both sexes to the surrounding stuff.
Leviticus isn't really taken out of context, but then I think Leviticus is so outdated that it could be completely dumped without any impact to modern practice of the religion. (Does anyone even read Leviticus anymore, aside for the homosexuality passage and other stupid rules about clothes and kosher meat?)
So I'm also good if you say you are Christian, and don't care about homosexuality or what people do behind closed doors. Clearly that is a valid pair of beliefs to have that can be held simultaneously, as you obviously do so.
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And my day that started at 5 am is finally done! Hurray for self employment! (I'm technically an independent contractor teacher/therapist for that Autism program I've mentioned).
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It's better argued that heterosexuality for the Greeks and Romans then was not like the present day.
That is an excellent and more accurate point. I think we can agree that sexuality in general was different or at least viewed differently.
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Leviticus isn't really taken out of context, but then I think Leviticus is so outdated that it could be completely dumped without any impact to modern practice of the religion. (Does anyone even read Leviticus anymore, aside for the homosexuality passage and other stupid rules about clothes and kosher meat?)
I disagree with you in theory, but more or less agree in practice. I suppose a Christian could ignore Leviticus out of convenience and behave more or less in the same manner I do, but the sentiment behind the action (or perhaps inaction) is kind of important to me. Like the deference between a conscientious non-voter and an apathetic non-voter.
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So I'm also good if you say you are Christian, and don't care about homosexuality or what people do behind closed doors. Clearly that is a valid pair of beliefs to have that can be held simultaneously, as you obviously do so.
Thank you and I'll try and make this my last 'IMO the bible tells us' post if I can manage.
I believe the bible tells us all to be true to ourselves and not be ashamed of how God created us. Homosexuals shouldn't have to live in shame, fear or secrecy, least of all from Christians, who should be loving all of God's creations. I wish more Christians would speak out against the hatred and persecution of God's gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender children.
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Yay. :)
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... erm ... pederasty, yuck, and no one thought to mention how yucky that is so I'll do it. Yuck.
"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya
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I did say salacious. That's not positive.
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Just a side note about girl-on-girl, which wasn't really thrown in with guy-on-guy as "homosexuality" until the 1990s. I remember when it was considered a completely different animal, and the further back in time you go, the more this is so. Many of our moral values are very very recent.
Edit: Phooey. I apologize. I edited this post before, and sentences got connected that weren't on the same subject when I wrote them.
Re: 1980s, underage love interests were common in movies, everyone knows this, you all saw these movies, if you're old enough. Inter-racial and gay couples were pretty much unheard of in films.
This then came next, but shouldn't have:
Affairs between girls were considered to be whimsical or erotic. Affairs between men were pretty taboo outside of their own city subcultures.
I meant life in the 80s here, not movies. There were certain gay communities. I lived in Kentucky at the time, and there was a certain double standard, but it was very different than it is today.
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This seems even more divided in the ancient world. The Greeks are just dismissive of lesbians, but accepting of gays; while the Israelites were also dismissive of lesbians and utterly rejecting of gays. I recall one website that fished through the bible (pardon the pun) for references that supported the idea of sapphic relationships, and made the case that it was okay with God. A lot of Christians might agree, but the prohibitions are explicitly against male-male. They would not have worded it this way if they didn't mean it this way.
Happy
I thought you were teaching highschool
That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.
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I have always interpreted the biblical references to mean "no rutting with your same sex", I never thought it meant only men. I figure it the same way. Maybe the reason that Greek men never mention it in texts is because they just didn't pay attention to what their wives were doing.
DT, what movies have you been watching? I don't think I've ever seen an old movie about this. Of course my mind isn't stuck in junior high, as is the case with so many who are always trying to atribute meanings to things that aren't really implied much, but they see it because they're looking etc.
"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya
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Yeah, well they tend not to replay them anymore, given the change in laws and morals. Pretty common stuff in the 1970s though. That's why Jodie Foster and Brooke Shields had careers. Not to mention Molly Ringwald and the Brat Pack, who were only a couple years older. It was true of basically everything that came over from Europe.
I'm not sure if that was a snark or you're alluding to something. Myself, I never made it to junior high. I went through fifth grade, if you count skipping third.
Laws and morals change all the time. There were no black heroes in movies until the mid 1990s. In the '80s, no whites listened to black music, and there were almost no interracial couples, it was pretty seriously frowned upon by both whites and blacks.
In the 60s and 70s is was different, race wasn't a big deal, and neither was gay, nor were plural relationships, like Bob Carol Ted and Alice, and there was no war on drugs. Taking drugs for recreation was considered normal, but if a school had given drugs to children, there would have been riots.
We're under this illusion that everything is ancient and timeless and goes back to the dawn of history, which is nonsense. None of the western religious traditions of today are more than a couple centuries old. Neither is anything in this society. Even the language isn't very old, but it's older than probably everything else.
If you really went back to biblical times, you'd find rampant nudity, women wearing very short skirts, a differentiation from men, who wore long ones. People kept domestic slaves, sex slaves, and had multiple marriages, all of which is pretty much documented in the bible, and more so by the Romans. People got married very young, Mohammed married a six year old, and that was five centuries later. Often a marriage was arranged because someone rich or powerful saw a girl and thought she was hot. There's a passage in the bible I recall where David is watching a girl taking a shower, and decides to go take her to his will, and this makes her his wife, which is his third or something like that.
So, if you're taking your moral mandates from the bible, they're really going to be extremely different from what people today think, but if you want to go there:
The bible very explicitly says man with man. It's not grey on the matter. There's occasional mentions of girls gone wild, which is why we have words like sapphic and lesbian, which are both greek. But in greece, nothing was taboo really. They hadn't met taboo yet, since it's a polynesian fish. Eating it is forbidden, but you could have guessed that.
All that said, expect it to change in the future as well. It all seems totally arbitrary to me. If there were any hard and fast rules, they would not change from decade to decade.
It's true of every aspect of this artificial society we live in:
Obama just attacked Libya openly stating that he wanted to protect American interests and change Libyan economic policy. That idea would never have been accepted in 2003, which is why the whole WMD story was cooked up. If the American people would have just accept that "We're just going to go in and get oil and change policy, sign some trade agreements" then that's what they would have said.
People say the 10 commandments are timeless, but even that's not really so, first, there were 10, then it went up to 17. They got added and subtracted through the years, and what came down to us is only about 1/2 useful. Graven images? They're all over the place. Statues, stain glass windows, images of Jesus everywhere.
No other gods. What is satan then? Is he a used car salesman? He seems to have godlike powers.
Who works six days a week?
Are any places ever open on sunday?
Honor your mother and father, is this always a good idea?Quote:
You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
Yes, because my neighbor has a female slave.
Really, what you take fr
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The bible very explicitly says man with man. It's not grey on the matter.
But bear in mind:
* Jesus says nothing about same-sex behavior.
* The Jewish prophets are silent about homosexuality.
* Only six or seven of the Bible's one million verses refer to same-sex behavior in any way -- and none of these verses refer to homosexual orientation as it's understood today.
Keeping in mind that axiom 'What would Jesus do?' Jesus would not persecute homosexuals.
As for my teaching, I teach a middle school music afternoon enrichment class, private lessons and I am a traveling tutor/therapist for nonverbal children with Autism (working with 3 year olds at the moment). Gradually helping them become more verbal amongst other things.
Incidentally, while I know they often have trouble making eye contact, none of the Autistic children I have worked with had any difficulty making eye contact with me. My g/f thinks it's my temperament, as the 'dog that hates everyone new' warmed right up to me and has never barked at me. Or maybe it's the age or I'm lucky enough that my clients don't have that issue. Anyways, off to work.
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Excellent, in my opinion, and one of the two things that bothers me MOST about organized religion. The other is the ability for those who wish to become a “leader” within a religion, then prostitute it for their own gain, be it wealth, power, etc.
This 'morality' that I've seen so many people in the world say is a religious structure... It doesn't touch those who are not moral, but they can exploit the assumption that someone is moral because they attend church. That really bothers me. It bothers me almost as much to be on the other end of that, with the assumption that I am not moral because I do not attend church. I don't need church to be moral. I don't think anyone does, if they are a decent human being. Church doesn't offer morals to the immoral, it only offers them camouflage.
As to the “decent” thing...hey, within their own group, jihadists are considered “moral”, as they are defending Allah, right? That’s probably the worst CURRENT example, but it’s happened throughout history and is happening in this country today.
As to your “if they are a moral person”, I would have written “if they are self-aware”, because I believe, as in buddhism, that anyone who strives to become self-aware will become increasingly moral. Inside we all know right from wrong, it’s just that with far too many either life circumstances, the teaching they receive, what they internalized when young, and/or the dogma you mentioned, gets in the way. “Practice”. I like that. It’s through such practices (which every religion HAS, but which gets pushed aside either by their religious leaders or some other force for most) that one can become more self-aware, and that’s all anyone needs to be, in my opinion. Once aware of ourselves, we both learn to be accepting of ourselves and want to be better, as well as becoming more compassionate toward others. When we realize we’re flawed and are able to see clearly those flaws, it’s harder to condemn others or feel “better than”Quote:
I SERIOUSLY disagree with that! The practice of buddhism is done WITHOUT ritual—it can be done with ritual as well, certainly, but the bottom line is that we engage in the “practice” every day, every hour if we’re as conscious as we strive to be. There’s no “ritual” in taking a minute to talk to a homeless person, it’s merely compassion. There’s no “ritual” in sitting still and meditating—-again, it can be, but it doesn’t need to be, it’s just striving to be still and conscious. I think your concept of practice is kind of narrow and maybe you misunderstand how we’re using the word?
As to practice, ritual and practice are basically the same conceptQuote:
“I fixed your book”...
Anyone who wants to know the literal true word of God is going go mad trying. They're going to be stuck with inconsistent conflicting texts of a society in a state of perpetual war writing in shorthand of long dead languages about Gods that don't exist
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My problem with fundamentalism and the literal interpretation of the Holy Scriptures is that they pick and choose what they believe "no longer applies."
Meaning, they are not as literal as they say they are. They make tons of arbitrary exceptions from their literal interpretation, and then thump the Bible for the rest. Quote:
But it’s really convenient to point to in order to push one’s agenda when propagandizing the masses...
it has little bearing on the day to day lives of most Christians
DT, I never saw the movies you mentioned:Quote:
Could you cite some? I DO remember a move about two women who ran a school (can’t recall the name) and when it was just SUSPECTED that they were gay, everything went kablooey. Quite the opposite of what you seem to have seen. I know you’re talking about “girls”, but I never saw that, either. Please, I would love examples of
Affairs between girls were considered to be whimsical or erotic.Quote:
Pretty common
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Originally posted by Niki2:
Inside we all know right from wrong
Generally speaking, yes, but I have to disagree with the all-encompassing nature of the statement. There are people who are literally missing functions in their brain to do with compassion and empathy, and do not know right from wrong. They know what feels good to them, and pursue it, and often even that is skewed from what the average human being would consider pleasurable. By and large, most human beings are 'decent,' and awareness such as you describe will heighten that, but some people are just not decent human beings. It's sad, but it's true, and there are many such people who hide behind the doors of a church because it furthers their own ends.
rit·u·al
A religious or solemn ceremony consisting of a series of actions performed according to a prescribed order.
prac·tice
The actual application or use of an idea, belief, or method as opposed to theories about such application or use.
Perform (an activity) or exercise (a skill) repeatedly or regularly in order to improve or maintain one's proficiency.
What reason had proved best ceased to look absurd to the eye, which shows how idle it is to think anything ridiculous except what is wrong.
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