A very interesting article on the reasons people believe in a god

[hyphenate]

and in different sects around the world.

This article takes a lot of time to make it clear why some people believe in what they do. I find it rather impressive in exploring the different belief systems in the world.
_______________________________________________________________________________-

If you listened to today's crop of neo-atheists, you'd think our culture's ideas about God are remarkably adolescent: a 6000-year-old Earth? A God who punishes the wicked? This sort of thing might have been convincing long ago -- but not to anyone who uses the Internet.

Sophisticated religionists have long had more subtle conceptions of their religions, of course, without the fideistic claptrap rightly derided (but wrongly labeled "religion") by today's detractors. For example, many progressive religionists understand God not as some old man in the sky, but as a name we give the reality of all of being, a God that does not "exist" but is, indeed, Existence itself. Others understand Scripture as myth -- its literal truth is no more relevant than whether Hamlet really lived in Denmark. The point is its meaning and its purpose. And so on.

Of course, this is not the stuff you learn in Sunday School -- but that's a good thing. Imagine if your education in literature ended with Tom Sawyer and the last math you learned was pre-algebra. (That many not be such a stretch of the imagination for many of us, perhaps...) You wouldn't take seriously the possibility that literature can be transformative or that good math can put men on the moon. But that's exactly the situation when it comes to most religious thought today. People learn the simple stuff as children, and then, unsurprisingly, regard religion as childish.

Much of the problem stems from a certain misunderstanding about the purpose of religious belief. Believers and disbelievers alike seem convinced that religious beliefs are about explanations of how things are: the age of the Earth, what happens after we die, etc. Yet this is obviously not the case. A believer doesn't become convinced of the existence of the afterlife because of philosophical argument -- she becomes convinced because of grief. Eventually, more and more ideas accreted, and more and more solace, meaning, community, and perhaps even experiences of the sacred became attached to them. But it was never about the ideas; it was about the pain of living and the healing one finds in religion.

This is why it is so difficult to talk about religion in America today, why we fight wars about it, why we condemn and even kill one another about it: because it gets us in our guts, and stays there. Religions do offer theological doctrine, but what they really offer is solace, love, sanctity, and value -- all of them inchoate, all of them dear.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jay-michaelson/a-better-way-to-believe-i_b_613756.html

[snot]

1. I've lived without it for 40 years.

It's hard; but I can't imagine going back.

(And may I add, I think I live more ethically than most.)

[havocmom]

2. living ethically, yeah, that is interesting. Most agnostics/athestist/deists I know are more ethical

The church go-ers in my sphere.... Most I wouldn't trust to take out the trash. Seems to easy to be bad if you really think just asking for forgiveness lets you off the hook. I find the company of people who are good and decent because they like being good and decent more pleasant than dealing with those who use fear of some sort of godly retribution to control others.

[elocs]

3. The world's religions are many and varied and have around for thousands of years,

and much to the chagrin of the atheists, religion will out-live and survive all of us.

[laconicsax]

4. Yet atheism has been around just as long, if not longer.

It stands to reason that no one believed in any gods until they were invented, making atheism older than theism. As long as someone believes in a god, there will always be someone else who doesn't.

[trotsky]

16. Indeed, and every Christian is an atheist w.r.t. Allah, for instance. n/t

[Sal316]

28. Well, considering they're one and the same....

...that's not possible.

The Christian, Muslim, and Jewish God are one and the same.

I've heard your opinion before.....from fundamentalist whackos.

[GliderGuider]

31. Yes, most Christians are atheists wrt to Ganesh. Allah, not so much. nt

[trotsky]

33. Sure they're the same, Sal.

Sure they are.

[BurtWorm]

41. I always froget which one is the holy ghost.

Allah, Adonai or Jesus's dad.

[trotsky]

42. THEY'RE ONE AND THE SAME ALLAHDAMMIT!

[hyphenate]

55. Again, according to the fundies

Adonai is the "common" name used for Jesus. See, they're even afraid to call him by his real name!

The former friend showed her insanity by having the word "adonai" and a butterfly tatooed on the right side of her face. And she was involved in the school system as determining which emotionally and physically handicapped kids were going to be mainstreamed. Have to admit, you need to be one to think like one!

[Sal316]

48. Yup they are.

...just because you don't believe it, doesn't mean it's not true.

In fact, arguing the opposite indicates a substantial lack of depth to your theological understanding.

[trotsky]

52. Yeah, about the same as tooth fairy science.

Go figure.

Different.

Deal with it.

[Sal316]

57. Same.

Show us all how much more "intelligent" you atheists truly are.

..or better yet....

Learn something.

[trotsky]

63. Different.

Different names, different books that are deemed authoritative, different beliefs of their followers, different mythologies, different rules, different, different, different.

Same ORIGIN, sure, I'll give you that. But they are not the same gods.

So make your case that they're the same. Shouldn't be hard for an "intelligent" theist to do.

[uberllama42]

77. I wonder if El, chief god of the ancient Canaanites, is one and the same

as this identical Christian/Muslim god. If you wanted to, you could trace back the deity of either group back to the days when he was top dog in a Semitic pantheon, with all kinds of exploits and characteristics that are wholly unlike what modern Christians or Muslims believe. Or is there some point in the past where this common origin criterion no longer holds? I wonder.

[ironbark]

87. By the criteria of authenticity established in Christianity/Islam the answer is “no”.

A ‘true’ prophet/faith is both “fruitful” and enduring…(Mathew 7.15-20)

“El, chief god of the ancient Canaanites”?
“Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
Mathew 7

It is a fruitless dead faith, no followers, cut down and thrown into the fire of history.
“Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.”

Considering El as potentially “one and the same” as Yahweh/Allah is literally pitting or pinning a fruitless dead horse religion against the myriad fruits of living Christianity/Islam.

El is the evolutionary equivalent of the Neanderthal….a discontinued line…a dead end.

“Or is there some point in the past where this common origin criterion no longer holds? I wonder”

Yes…The point at which the living/enduring/fruitful major faiths distinguish themselves from the fruitless dead non contenders.
The point at which billions of sane/common sense human beings retain/perpetuate Christianity/Islam and abandon fruitless ancient Canaanite El.

Leaving Christians with the theological dilemma of explaining why god has allowed the obviously fruitful Islam (Math, Medicine, Art, Architecture…) to endure ;-)………if it is >not< from god ;-)

[uberllama42]

90. That seems to be a different criterion than what the other poster was using

I don't think the currency of any version of god is what he was stabbing at. That's my conjecture, since he really didn't elucidate that.

A ‘true’ prophet/faith is both “fruitful” and enduring…(Mathew 7.15-20)

Fair enough.

It is a fruitless dead faith, no followers, cut down and thrown into the fire of history.

I'm not so sure about that. It does seem, at least from some texts, that the god of Abraham is the same god others referred to as El or Eli. If that's so, then El is the metaphorical tree from which Yahweh/Allah descended, rather than the rotten fruit of some other tree.

Considering El as potentially “one and the same” as Yahweh/Allah is literally pitting or pinning a fruitless dead horse religion against the myriad fruits of living Christianity/Islam.

Again, it seems to me that the god of Christians and Muslims, assuming he/it is one entity, may be a descendant of the earlier deity El rather than a competitor. It wouldn't be appropriate to call the party that supported Thomas Jefferson a dead fruit in comparison to today's Democratic Party; the modern party is essentially a descendant of the earlier one.

Leaving Christians with the theological dilemma of explaining why god has allowed the obviously fruitful Islam (Math, Medicine, Art, Architecture…) to endure ;-)………if it is >not< from god ;-)

I won't argue with that. In the context of the excerpt from Matthew, that's a fair point.

[ironbark]

92. A rose by any other name?

It would seem that there is longstanding conjecture as to the origin and meaning of 'El'

As a referance to the "chief god (among many)of the ancient Canaanites" I stand by prior post and suggest it's a dead horse.

As an alternative/variation of the miriad names of god.....I'll take it on advisement.

"The theological position of the Tanakh is that the names Ēl and ’Ĕlōhîm, when used in the singular to mean the supreme and active 'God', refer to the same being as does the name, Yahweh. All three refer to the one supreme god who is the god of Israel, beside whom other gods are supposed to be either non-existent or insignificant. Whether this was a longstanding belief or a relatively new one has long been the subject of inconclusive scholarly debate about the prehistory of the sources of the Tanakh and about the prehistory of Israelite religion. In the P strand, YHVH says in Exodus 6.2–3:

I revealed myself to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as Ēl Shaddāi, but was not known to them by my name, Yahweh.

This affirms the identity of Yahweh with either Ēl, in his aspect of Shaddāi, or with a god called Shaddāi. Also affirmed is that the name Yahweh is a more recent revelation. One scholarly position is that the identification of Yahweh with Ēl is late, that Yahweh was earlier thought of as only one of many gods, and not normally identified with Ēl."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_(deity)

[ironbark]

93. self delete

[ironbark]

86. ‘Different’ things?.

Perhaps ‘Education’…Can’t be all one thing ?…
“Different names”- Kindergarden, Primary, Secondary, Tertiary?
“different books that are deemed authoritative”… Different education for different age/requirements?


Extending as religious/education analogy-
“different books that are deemed authoritative”… The books received in primary school are no less “authoritative”/important than those received in university.

“different mythologies”…Among the Major Living Religious Traditions?...No…Same story told in different ways.

“different rules”… No the ‘Golden Rule’ is universal to all major faiths…only the minor/social rules change in accord with time and place (ie Prohibition on eating pork).

“different, different, different.”

Not at all. An examination of the worlds major faiths that is other than cursory and shallow reveals not only deep/central ‘Golden Rule’ commonality but a sequentiality of teachers that is beyond statistical probability-

Abraham, Moses, Zoroaster, Buddha, Krishna, Jesus, Muhammad…….

“Different names”?
Yea…Different teachers at different times using different languages to describe the >same< thing.

Problem is…Athiests demonstrate the same dogged disinterest in the commonalities in religious evolution as Christian fundamentalists demonstrate towards human evolution.

Go figure.

[laconicsax]

78. Too bad for you, that concept cuts both ways.

...just because you believe it, doesn't
mean it's true.

In fact, arguing the opposite indicates a
substantial lack of depth to your understanding of reality.

Your advanced "theology" is no different from a post-doctoral thesis examining the character of King Haggard in The Last Unicorn--it's a lot of effort spent ruminating on a fictional character...That is, unless you can prove that your god us real.

[skepticscott]

46. You probably forgot

that the Christian god is a three-parter (God the Father, Jesus the son and the Holy Spirit), and that that three-headed character is fundamental. The Muslim and Jewish versions of "god" have no such thing, so they can't possibly be the same, can they?

[Sal316]

49. No, I didn't...

...but thanks for playing. I know games of 'gotcha' love to be played in R/T, but really, that's just kids stuff.

El, YHWH, Allah....are reference the same 'being'.

Trinitarian theology is a Christian concept, true, but irrelevant to the discussion here. In fact, the debate over Homoousian/Homoiousian has gone on since the third century.

The question is, would you fall in line with Arius or Athanasius?

[trotsky]

53. Ah, but it was YOUR "gotcha" that started this little detour.

Of all the things I love about you Sal, it's gotta be your hypocrisy that's my favorite.

[skepticscott]

61. And I realize that theological name dropping

is a favorite game of the religionistas in R/T, but that it only symbolizes the spluttering bluster and obscurationism of someone who knows they are pinned on the simple facts.

And "irrelevant"? It was your explicit contention that the Jewish, Christian and Muslim gods are all the same being. Theologians have absolutely no way to show whether that is true in reality, since they can't even demonstrate that such a being exists. Showing that mere beliefs may have a similar origin is not at all the same thing, in case you failed to grasp that.

Try again, with feeling this time.

[Cleobulus]

68. So wait, you worship the head of the Canaanite religion? n/t

[hyphenate]

54. According to my ex-friend, now-fundie

the "God" of the Muslim faith is considered to be the anti-christ. I would agree that they are essentially the same god by the considerable amount of evidence to indicate that, but according to the fundies, it's just one more thing they hate. And hate, despite their protests, is the thing fundies do the best.

[uberllama42]

56. Who are you to tell fundamentalists what god they believe in?

If a man says he believes in a different god than Muslims do, you can only take his word for it. People get to define what their own beliefs are.

Fundamentalist whackos these people might be, but you don't get to dictate, in your omniscience, whether they believe a certain interpretation of certain holy books. That's up to them.

[Sal316]

58. Ummm....because there's these little things.....

....called facts.

They are one in the same. Anyone who says otherwise are, quite honestly, wrong.

This is Theology 101, really basic stuff.

[uberllama42]

59. Enlighten me, please

What is this mystical source of knowledge called Theology 101 that allows you to tell that Christian fundamentalists are wrong about what they themselves believe? It's a fact, a hard, cold fact, that Christian fundies and Muslims believe in the same god, even if they were both to say otherwise? How is it that you are the arbiter of that question?

[ironbark]

88. If a man on roller-skates believes he’s driving a BMW we “take his word for it”?

“If a man says he believes in a different god than Muslims do, you can only take his word for it.”

We can “only take his word” that he holds that “belief”.
There is no requirement whatsoever to accept that his ‘belief’ is true in any sense.


“People get to define what their own beliefs are.”

Sure they do. That doesn’t mean that their beliefs are in any way accurate or reflective of the truth....or not simply 'whacko'.

A Christian/fundamentalist may reject the notion of Allah or even oppose it as Antichrist…that does not change, remove or negate the potential reality of the god of Judaism being the same as the god of Christianity and the same as the god of Islam.

“Fundamentalist whackos these people might be, but you don't get to dictate, in your omniscience…”

Sal didn’t “dictate” anything….she just rejected the pov presented and deemed it whacko and pointed out how this fringe/whacko pov is often reflected here -
“The Christian, Muslim, and Jewish God are one and the same.
I've heard your opinion before.....from fundamentalist whackos.”

The problem for the aligned pov of Atheists and fundamentalist Christians on this issue of difference/distinction/separation of god/s is that the rest of the world (religious, academic, common man) has moved on.
Islam has always recognised ‘The People of The Book’ (Jews,Christians.Islam) as worshiping the same god.
The major Christian denominations (Catholic and Anglican) have come to the same conclusion.
Courses in Comparative Religion, History, Theology and Religious History have also come to recognise the deep commonalities rather than the superficial differences.
Most importantly…the average Joe of >any< denomination or persuasion is far more likely to recognise same god/common religious ground or tolerate difference than in the past.

The minority holdout fundamentalists of all persuasions who insist on division/opposition are increasingly loosing ground and are rendered irrelevant.

[rrneck]

73. they're one and the same....

How so?

[ironbark]

89. “How so?”……Just for fun…try to imagine….

the deep sense of dismay, shock, rejection, incomprehension and opposition at the time of Darwins ‘Origin of the Species’.

Humans and apes!!!???...Share a common ancestor!!!???...” one and the same”!?.... “How so?”……

The answer, human evolution, is lengthy, complex and requires study/familiarity with the evidence.

The proposition that religion/revelation has evolved from a common/shared origin in like manner is no different.
Nor is the initial incomprehension “How so?”….how could things so seemingly different, divided, distinct have a common point of origin? any different.

There is the Theory of Evolution.
There is the theory of Progressive Revelation.
Both require some degree of time, effort, examination to resolve “How so?”

[rrneck]

94. It would appear

that you seem to think you have invested the "time, effort and examination" to answer the question.

Can you explain it, or would you rather simply put forth another dazzling display condescension and arrogance?

Are you so ashamed of your faith that you would rather hide behind allusions at expertise than offer a simple explanation that any expert in any field should be able to manage?

If you can't, just keep surfing on your preconceived notions about what I might think and stop wasting my time.

[NeoGreen]

5. "Faith" is the real enemy, not god...

... holding beliefs based on bad evidence is what allows good people to do bad things.

Reason, inquiry and evidence allows you to fly rockets to the moon,

Faith allows you to fly planes into buildings

[Nostradammit]

9. Faith also allows you to climb tall mountains

and build houses from scratch.

If you had no faith in your ability to fly a rocket to the moon you'd never bother trying.

[laconicsax]

10. You're playing semantic games.

Faith in the sense if belief in the absence of evidence is different from faith as confidence in proven systems.

Faith in our "ability to fly to the moon" stemmed from the confidence that we understood enough of the science behind it all, not from some blind expectation.

I suspect that you know this, but chose to ignore it.

[Nostradammit]

11. All right, how about this -

My religious faith does not allow me to fly airplanes into buildings.

Therefore, the concept that faith is some kind of enemy is repugnant to me.

Will you allow me that?

[struggle4progress]

13. I think laconicsax only recognizes and accepts his own personal definition of "faith,"

which is somewhat along the lines of "faith = a moron's half-witted belief in silly superstitious nonsense"

Of course, such inflexibility seems to produce uninteresting conversations -- and predictable accusations that anyone, who doesn't use his definition "faith = a moron's half-witted belief in silly superstitious nonsense," is dishonestly redefining words

[trotsky]

14. Read and learn.

http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/skepticism/blfaq_fall_equivocation.htm

Please.

[struggle4progress]

19. oh dear

:rofl:

I really do hope you are just being obnoxious in the hopes someone will find it cute. But I am rather terrified by the possibility that you are actually confused about the fallacy of equivocation, perhaps because you are unable to deal with the fact that the word "argument" means several different things

The fallacy of equivocation means something like "reasoning incorrectly by switching the meaning of a term in the middle of an argument." But in that definition, "argument" does not mean "a dispute between people" -- it means, rather, something like "an attempt at proof/demonstration"

An example of the fallacy is something like this: I do not have enough nylon rope to tie up the boat. For, to tie up the boat, I would need twelve feet. But looking down, I see that I have only two shoes, and since I have exactly one shoe on each foot, I have only two feet. But I would need twelve feet to tie the boat. Therefore, I do not have enough nylon rope to tie up the boat

Two people arguing about how to use a term, is NOT an example of the fallacy of equivocation:

A: I'm using "argument" to mean "a dispute between people"
B: I'm using "argument" to mean "attempt at proof/demonstration"

However, you seem to commit the fallacy of equivocation, because you are apparently reasoning as follows: The fallacy of equivocation involves "reasoning incorrectly by switching the meaning of a term in the middle of an argument." So when NeoGreen and laconicsax argue with Nostradammit's use of the word "faith," this is the fallacy of equivocation.

See? You've changed the meaning of the word "argument" halfway through your reasoning

<edit: added missing </i> tags at the ends of lines A: and B: above>

[trotsky]

21. Well, once of us is certainly confused about the fallacy of equivocation, I'll give you that. n/t

[Goblinmonger]

17. So you think when they put the first astronauts into outer space

they just crossed their fingers and had "faith" that it would work? Or do you think they "ran the numbers" and were confident in the science and engineering behind it to know that it would work? Many would say the second was "faith that it would work" as the person did above. So you, then, equate the confidence in the science with religious "faith"? Or are you ready to admit that faith may have two meanings? Or are you just happy to toss insults at laconicsax?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

20. No, but they had faith that they would be able to surmount the logistical

problems.

[skepticscott]

38. Why are you substituting

one meaning of faith for another one when you know that the way you're using it in this post is NOT the same sense as it is used in the phrase "religious faith"?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

44. How do you know how it's used by all religious people?

You're the one who's insisting on one and only one definition of "faith," and that's not how all religious people use it.

But you don't want to hear that because it doesn't fit your stereotype.

[skepticscott]

47. More intellectual bullshit

My post directly implied that there ARE different definitions of the word faith, now, didn't I? Saying that I'm insisting on one and only one definition of "faith,"is a blatant falsehood, and we both know it. And when a religious person speaks of their deep and abiding "faith", they DO mean it in the same sense that it was used in #5 above. Your comment in #20 was an attempt to change the terms of the debate by using a different meaning of the term than was intended. You know the difference perfectly well.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

51. When people say they have a deep and abiding faith, they're speaking

experientially, not intellectually. Unless they're at a low level of spiritual development, then they're NOT talking about just accepting a laundry list of beliefs literally.

[skepticscott]

66. Then why does EVERY

Christian denomination have a laundry list of things that they DO believe literally and absolutely, and that are no open to change, discussion or interpretation? Go to their documents and their websites and they are easy to find...but I suspect you know that already.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

70. Not open to change, discussion, or interpretation?

Not my denomination. In the past thirty years, my denomination has changed a LOT on sexual issues and undergone major revisions in its worship service (the Lutherans have revised their worship service twice in that period), as well as allowing non-members to take Communion. It is also the home denomination of Bishop Spong, who pretty much questions everything, and Marcus Borg, who is one of the leaders of the Jesus Seminar.

We are encouraged to study and question and work with other religions on common goals, such as helping the poor and being anti-war.

[skepticscott]

71. Some denominations

make changes in policy or worship practice on some things, but that is not remotely the same as changing the beliefs that are central to their religion. For all of those denominations, you will find certain beliefs that have not changed and will not change, and that people belong to those faiths because of.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

75. You really think that people join churches because they like this laundry list

rather than that laundry list?

I see that you don't get it at all.

I know people who converted to Christianity or changed religions in adulthood (after the age of 25 or so). I've never heard anyone say that they were converted because of the whole "four spiritual laws" approach that street preachers try. It was a longing that drew them on a search that led them to whatever religion they ended up in. The end result is a feeling of "I'm home."

I went from Lutheran to Episcopalian--not a major leap. I also know people who have gone from

Episcopalian to Buddhist
Methodist to Jewish
Baptist to Catholic (and this person is an out lesbian who met her current partner at church)
Presbyterian to Episcopalian
Jewish to Unitarian
Episcopalian to Eastern Orthodox
Baptist to Muslim
Catholic to Lutheran
Catholic to Episcopalian (including three gay former Catholic priests in my parish alone)
Buddhist to American Baptist (the liberal Baptists)
Lutheran to (believe it or not) Hutterite
Pentecostal to Eastern Orthodox

I think that's how it works for most people who aren't just blithely following whatever religion they were born into. It's a longing that leads to experimentation that leads to settling in somewhere.

[PassingFair]

18. How about...

faith = belief in something for which there is no evidence.

[laconicsax]

35. My "personal definition" is actually quite common.

You may have heard it before: Faith=belief in the absence of evidence.

That's what I mean when I say faith. The issue I took with Nostradammit's comment was the simultaneous application of this definition and another common one (faith=generic hope) to say that the 'faith' in the supernatural is the same as the 'faith' in our technology that got us to the moon.

You're smart enough to know that "faith" means different things in those two examples. I would have expected that someone so keen on context and detail would see the semantic game being played as dishonest. To substitute one definition of a word for another is great for making puns, but doesn't lend itself to constructive discussion.

[NeoGreen]

32. I wasn't meant to be a direct answer to what...

you might do.

But it cannot be denied that the prime motivations of the perpetrators of 9/11 were derived from their Faith.

Without Faith there is no (ultimate pig-in-a-poke) afterlife reward for them.

[ironbark]

91. No…’Faith’ as “prime motivations” for 9/11 can be “denied”.

In fact the very investigations dedicated to determining ‘motivation’ (ordered by a conservative President and conducted by the Pentagon) came to conclusions that deny and reject such superficial derivation.
All major research (commissioned/Govt and academic/independent) into the origins of terrorism/terrorist bombings has come to the same general conclusions…the common motivating factor is the existence of foreign troops/bases on ‘their’ soil/territory….
English troops in Ireland leads to IRA bombing campaign in exactly the same way US troops in Saudi Arabia leads to 9/11.
In both instances (and innumerable others) religion played a minor, secondary or primarily recruiting objective role…the attempt being to incite Catholics/Muslims to take up arms in the cause.
All such attempts at mass recruiting to cause/religion through terrorist attacks have failed miserably.
(Do you know what happened in Tehran on the evening of 9/11 and for the next two nights? I ask because I know of a certainty it was not reported on the open/free media of CNN and CBS.
Ten thousand Iranians (members of the ‘Axis of Evil’) came spontaneously onto the streets of Tehran to hold a three night candle light vigil.)

Religion/pig-in-a-poke afterlife reward was not the “prime motivations” for 9/11…not according to the terrorists themselves nor according to those who have taken the time to examine the origins of terrorism.

[laconicsax]

34. That's fine.

I just take issue with the conflation of faith and reasoned hope.

[NeoGreen]

30. I do not need Faith to have a profound...

... sense of wonder and awe which compel my objectives in life.

I seek answers through Reason because of my wonder.

Faith is absolutely not necessary, and quite often detrimental to an honest life.

[laconicsax]

6. Religious beliefs are obviously not about what happens after we die?

Since when?

What a fucking moronic piece.

If you listened to today's crop of neo-atheists, you'd think our culture's ideas about God are remarkably adolescent: a 6000-year-old Earth? A God who punishes the wicked? This sort of thing might have been convincing long ago -- but not to anyone who uses the Internet.

I present to you the most boneheaded thing I've read in a long time. There are http://www.answersingenesis.org/">entire http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CBoQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.creationism.org%2F&ei=pfkaTJvaI9_tnQezwfy0Cw&usg=AFQjCNE4C5hXtk2MemXdZBIxBy6rX3ocXg">websites http://www.icr.org/">dedicated http://conservapedia.com/Main_Page">to http://www.anabaptists.org/clp/youth/7-307.html">exactly http://www.rationalchristianity.net/punish_sons.html">that. A simple Google search can reveal thousands of such websites. Does Jay Michaelson even know how to use the Internet?

Believers and disbelievers alike seem convinced that religious beliefs are about explanations of how things are: the age of the Earth, what happens after we die, etc. Yet this is obviously not the case.

Name a mainstream religion that doesn't have beliefs concerning these or any similar thing. Oh wait, there are none. Maybe that's why everyone seems to share this common view of religious beliefs.

A believer doesn't become convinced of the existence of the afterlife because of philosophical argument -- she becomes convinced because of grief.

She also becomes convinced of it because she's told all about it from an early age.

Really, why should anyone care so much about the age of the Earth, the parting of unscientific sham the Red Sea, or the resurrection of Christ?

Good example! Why on Earth would a Christian care about the resurrection of Christ? It isn't like it's a central aspect of the religion's theology.

If unreflective atheists mistake the window dressing for the view outside, unreflective religionists get too attached to the architecture of the window.

It's the other way around--religions make bullshit claims and atheists address them. Does this idiot really think that theists only believe things and are attached to their beliefs because of atheists?

Does the author of this piece have any concept of the world beyond outside his keyboard?

In 2008-09, Jay spent five months on silent meditation retreat, mostly in Nepal.

Good for him. Is that where he came up with this enlightened ignorance?

[struggle4progress]

12. In a classic work, Durkheim defined religion as distinguishing the sacred from the profane

Unfortunately, texts like that don't readily support your view "Everybody who doesn't agree with me is a superstitious moron"

So I suppose that my reference to such a text qualifies, from your point of view, as "Courier's Reply" -- and you'll never read Durkheim

[laconicsax]

36. Where did I say that "Everybody who doesn't agree with me is a superstitious moron"?

Oh, that's right, I didn't. Your response doesn't qualify as a "Courier's [sic] Reply"

I would agree that religion distinguishes the sacred from the profane. I just don't see that the only function of religion. I doubt you do either. If anyone on this thread has a limited view of what religion does, it's the author of the piece in the OP. He flatly denies several common applications of religion in order to support his thesis.

In fact, his whole thesis is predicated on religion not offering any concrete beliefs. If religion contains beliefs (and it does), the whole house of cards comes crashing down (QED). For his argument to work, religious beliefs must be created by atheists as straw men arguments that 'unreflective' theists then adopt as theology--Augustine and Aquinas didn't craft their theology on careful study of sacred texts, but by simply repeating the straw men most often used by atheists of the time.

If that strikes you as flat out wrong, remember, it's the author in the OP who's offering it as support for is thesis.

[struggle4progress]

62. Have you suddenly changed your views? I have no trouble finding posts of yours

that express precisely that attitude: pointless superstition, invisible magic man in the sky, infantile mindset, &c&c

[laconicsax]

79. So you admit to misrepresentingy words.

Even if I were to use those exact words to describe faith in a Celestial Dictator, I've never said, nor do I believe, that "everybody who doesn't agree with me is a superstitious moron."

Interesting how you try to prove me wrong by presenting your own interpretation of my words as irrefutable fact and attempt to get me to contradict something I never said.

I guess when you base part of your life on falsely attributed words, it becomes difficult to keep from putting words in the mouths of others.

Why don't you try to put Google to work on this one? Surely you can come up with several irrelevant links presented as an argument.

[skepticscott]

39. Do you ever make any other argument

than to drop an author's name and quote his work as if that is somehow authoritative? The fact that Durkwad "defined" religion that way means and proves nothing.

Figured you were at least beyond transparent arguments from authority, but you continue to reach new lows.

[laconicsax]

85. Sometimes I wonder if he's actually read the works he mentions...

...but only when there's a strong aversion to expounding on what the work in question actually says.

Usually if someone has read a book, they can explain its contents, even if only in a general sense.

[Old and In the Way]

7. For a lot of people, a belief in an after-life is an important coping mechanism

for living through this life. I really think religion's purpose is to maintain societal order by promoting an unknowable cosmic entity that will reward each human, but only if we live a "good" life. Such a life happens to reinforce social order and the rules are etched in stone....

[Grey]

8. Sorry, I stumbled when

"Jay Michaelson Columnist, activist and recent professor at Boston Univ. law school" referred to 'She' when he (or She/He/It) should have referred to She/he/it as the thinker in question. Why is this person blaming 'what ever' on the 'female'. In my humble opinion, most wars and murders are the work of Men. not all, to be sure, but most.

And the last quote,

This is why it is so difficult to talk about religion in America today, why we fight wars about it, why we condemn and even kill one another about it: because it gets us in our guts, and stays there. Religions do offer theological doctrine, but what they really offer is solace, love, sanctity, and value -- all of them inchoate, all of them dear.

Should end with word FEAR, not dear........

And thanks to hyphenate for bringing this to my attention.

[trotsky]

15. A majority of Americans do not accept evolution.

A MAJORITY.

This writer sounds like they are wearing the same blinders that a lot of DU believers refuse to remove as well. "Oh, religion is SO much more sophisticated than what those mean old atheists are talking about." It's basically PZ Myers' "Courtier's Reply" revisited again. This is the best response theists can formulate these days? Really?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

23. That's the result of bad science education and the

practice in the media of giving all positions equal weight. The framing is sometimes funky, too. For example, Advocate A takes the P.Z. Myers position, "You have to believe in evolution and be an atheist." Advocate B takes the position, "You have to take the whole Bible literally." Your average American with poor science education will side with B. However, there's no representation in the media for Advocate C, who says, "Most mainline Christians and Jews accept modern science and treat the two--count 'em, two--creation stories as representing ancient people's understanding of the world."

(The typical media approach to issues has been satirized as "And now we'll hear from Joseph Goebbels, who will explain why genocide is a good thing.")

When I was growing up in Lutheran/Catholic Minnesota in the 1960s, we had a unit on evolution in high school biology, and only the lone Jehovah's Witness in my class argued against it. (Even the kids from the local Baptist church had no problem with it.) I was therefore surprised and annoyed in the early 1980s when I began to see Southern-type religiosity appearing in Minnesota, the kind that rejects evolution and advocates school prayer (which Minnesota never had).

[trotsky]

24. But the myth originates in, and is perpetuated by, the Christian religion.

Don't make excuses. People believe this stuff for a reason.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

25. A certain KIND of Christianity promulgates Creationism

and it's a variety that right-wing politicians pretty much "resurrected from the dead" in the early 1980s.

Jews, who share the same stories and read through the Torah every year in their worship services, do not accept Creationism, so there's more than the stories at work.

[trotsky]

26. Yes, a very, very common kind. FAR more common than the variety you subscribe to, Lydia.

Liberal believers are loathe to acknowledge that the vast majority of Christians in this country aren't nearly as sophisticated and complicated in their beliefs.

[arKansasJHawk]

80. They Sure Are

It's baffling to me that so many "liberal" Christians seem to be almost utterly blind to the masses of fundamentalist believers out there.

I don't know if it's a function of where they live - no one who's spent any time living in Oklahoma, for example, would ever question how pervasive that mindset can be - or if it's a kind of insecurity rooted in seeing how stupid some of the stuff they believe really is, and, consciously or otherwise, just pretending that stuff doesn't REALLY exist.

[skepticscott]

37. Polls consistently show that

40-50% of ALL Americans believe in creationism, rather than evolution. When you look at only Christians, the percentage is significantly higher.

Why do people like you continue to propagate the notion that fundamentalist Christianity is just a teensy minority in this country, when it has been proven time and time again that it is not?

And if you are claiming that there are no creationist Jews, you are promoting another demonstrable falsehood. Again, why?

[Zhade]

82. It's not like biblical literalism is relegated solely to creationism.

How about the very premise of the bible itself -- that there's a god at all? What about the myth of Jesus, which is almost universally held as literally true by Christians despite the lack of extrabiblical evidence for any such person?

[skepticscott]

40. You blame things on "bad science education"

as if that had no connection with whack-job Christian fundamentalists. You know perfectly well that fundamentalist teachers and school boards controlled by Christian creationists are responsible for how a lot of science is and is not taught in this country, particularly evolutionary science.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

43. And the fundies didn't take over the school systems by themselves

They were specifically encouraged (and most likely funded) by the right wing.

Until the Reagan era, fundamentalists hardly participated in politics at all, because they basically thought that the secular world was evil. (Sort of like the Jehovah's Witnesses still do.) They never interfered in what was taught in school. We had units on evolution and sex education in biology class, a bit of historical geology in seventh grade earth science, and nobody complaining about "naughty bits" in the readings that the English teachers assigned. The only time I recall parents complaining about the content of school curricula was when they complained that one of the high school English teachers assigned readings and papers that were "too hard."

Then the right-wingers saw an opportunity in the "future shock" that much of Middle America felt in the 1960s and 1970s. Having been a teenager in the 1960s, I can attest to how rapidly EVERYTHING changed. Right-wing politicians started winning fundie followers by advocating school prayer, bans on abortion, and bans on teaching evolution, just as they made not-so-hidden appeals to racists by proposing a Constitutional amendment to ban "busing." (One military school proudly proclaimed its opposition to "busing," which was odd, since all of its students lived on campus. Of course they meant racial integration. This particular campaign died down when commentators pointedly asked whether a Constitutional amendment against "busing" would forbid rural school districts from providing transportation for students who lived out of town.)

Anyway, it always struck me as odd that fundie churches could spring up like mushrooms with fully equipped campuses, because mainstream churches start out by renting space and put up a permanent building only when they have enough members to finance it.

In the early years of DU, one poster, whose father was an Assemblies of God minister, complained that his denomination was being taken over by right-wing political operatives.

Remember when Jimmy Carter quit the Southern Baptist Convention? Southern Baptists tended to be conservative, but the Southern Baptist Convention was merely an administrative convenience and didn't have a lot of authority over individual congregations. Suddenly they were trying to force the most right-wing sort of politics on their members. Political operatives explain a lot about why the fundies have been in everyone's face for the past thirty years after decades of keeping to themselves in most parts of the country.

[skepticscott]

45. So what does all of that

have to do with anything? Christian fundamentalists took over school boards by voting in Christian fundamentalists to enact the policies that they favored because of their religion, and they have been doing it ever since. These people did not simply become creationists out of nowhere because of the influence of non-religious right wing politicians. And it was in the 60's that the trend away from forced prayer and bible study in schools began, not ended.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

50. They did it because of their religion but they didn't start

getting political till the 1980s.

Their response to the teaching of evolution in school was either to avoid taking biology (that's what our Jehovah's Witness kids did), to take it with their fingers crossed, or to start their own schools.

By the way, I don't know what part of the country you're from, but compulsory religion in public schools was largely confined to the South (where the religious spectrum ran all the way from conservative Methodist to snake-handlers) and the Northeast (where school officials were intimidated by the Catholic and Jewish immigrants in the late nineteenth century and were trying to turn them into Protestants). Most of the Midwest never had it in public schools. Neither did the West. In fact, I was in elementary school in Wisconsin when the Supreme Court decisions outlawing school prayer came down, and all of us reacted the same way--"Some schools have you pray in class?"

When the right-wingers started pushing school prayer again in the 1980s, I asked my relatives in Minnesota and the older people I knew in Oregon and other parts of the country if they had ever had school prayer. Only the Southerners and Northeasterners said they had. Even my grandmother, who started school in Minneapolis in 1905, said that they'd never had school prayer. My father's relatives, who come from a small town, said the same thing.

Of course, by 1982, when I first started hearing about efforts to institute school prayer in Minnesota (where it had never been the custom before), it was twenty years after the Supreme Court decision, and there were a lot of naive young parents who didn't know any better.

[skepticscott]

67. Again, none of which has anything to do with

the fact that religious fundamentalism is the ONLY reason that the idea of teaching creationism in American public schools is anything other than the object of ridicule it deserves to be. The ONLY reason. Please stop trying to place some sort of blanket blame on "bad science education" for this, and point the finger squarely, honestly and unashamedly where it belongs.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

69. I never said fundamentalism wasn't to blame

but others have been encouraging them for their own political purposes.

[skepticscott]

72. Here's exactly what you said

"That's the result of bad science education and the practice in the media of giving all positions equal weight."

Funny...I don't see fundamentalism mentioned there at all, and certainly not as the sole cause. You blame the educational system and the media instead. Why?

And please, what "political purpose" is served by teaching 8th graders that the earth is 6000 years old? Only religious fear and superstition motivates such idiocy.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

74. The political purpose is to raise up a cadre of youth

who obey authority without question and serve as shock troops for the powers that be. It doesn't matter what the defining ideology is. In Germany it was all that master race nonsense. In China it was Maoism. Both relied on having a large population of ignorant youth who had been fed a lot of nonsense.

And as for not mentioning fundamentalism, what did I talk about in my next few posts? Yeesh!

Bad science education etc. are one REASON that fundamentalism wins followers in this day and age. In Japan, where science is required and rigorous all through high school, even Japanese Christians are astonished when I tell them that fundies don't accept evolution.

[skepticscott]

83. You admitted to the influence

of fundamentalism only after you were confronted with incontrovertible fact to that effect. When you made your initial comment and were expressing your real opinions, you made no mention of it.

Your analogies with China and Germany fall apart on their face. The "nonsense" they were fed was specifically designed to promote unquestioning loyalty to an authoritarian state, and deep hatred and suspicion of those who were outside. Teaching kids that the earth is 6000 years old does no such thing for any political party, only for religious zealots who wish to impose the tenets of their faith on everyone.

And no...even if science education were mediocre in Japan, there would still be no teaching of creationism. You might have a poor understanding of evolution, but religious fundamentalism (which is, again, the SOLE driving force behind attempts to impose creationism on schools) does not wield enough influence in Japan to implement that agenda. There are many countries out there where science education is poor, but they don't automatically lapse into teaching creationism or "intelligent" design because of that.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

84. I think you're arguing for the sake of arguing here

Our right-wingers knew that fundamentalism would automatically resonate with a lot of Southerners and that naive people throughout the country would automatically respond to anything that was called "Christian," even if it was outside the mainstream.

The right-wingers and fundies also worked together on recruitment in the American exurbs. Now in the Twin Cities, and for all I know, other parts of the U.S., too, the exurbs are specifically "white flight" areas, ripe for right-wing ideology and for a perverted form of religion that strongly implies that white suburbanites are the greatest people on earth.

Germany and China didn't have any such ready-made mindless ideology to work with, so they had to purpose-build them, so to speak.

[raccoon]

22. Some points from this article I really can relate to:

...many progressive religionists understand God not as some old man in the sky, but as a name we give the reality of all of being, a God that does not "exist" but is, indeed, Existence itself...

To me, that's another way of saying “God is reality."

Imagine if your education in literature ended with Tom Sawyer and the last math you learned was pre-algebra...You wouldn't take seriously the possibility that literature can be transformative or that good math can put men on the moon. But that's exactly the situation when it comes to most religious thought today. People learn the simple stuff as children, and then, unsurprisingly, regard religion as childish.

Of course, many people never learn anything beyond the simple stuff.

Here in America, hundreds of millions of people believe in Intelligent Design, in life beginning at conception, and in a notion of a retributive God...They "believe in" these things (notice the locution) because they think religion is at the core of their lives. Our political debates are not about evolutionary biology, civil liberties, or pre-existing conditions; they are about a terrified minority, afraid that society is slipping away from all it holds dear.

A terrified minority that is also loud and obnoxious, and seems to be getting more and more so.

Our lunatic fringe has grown in size as the bulwarks of its society have begun to crumble (a black man is president, homosexuals are getting married), and, whether explicitly religious or not, the rage they display is the same fundamentalism as that which motivates their Islamist enemies.

You can say that again...

[dmallind]

27. The idea that most, or even many, believers have nuanced theological notions is false

There seems to be a swathe of "well religious people don't REALLY believe in a lot of the literal absurdities" articles these days from believing intelligentsia.

It's never been a secret to atheists that theologians and deep thinkers on the theistic side have a different view of God and religion than their mass ilk, bu it's truly specious to claim that the theologians represent the greater mass of believers no matter how often we are breathlessly and smugly "informed" that they don't hold to virgin births and 6 day creations. The trouble is in the US at least most believers DO. It is the ill-formed primitive version of the faith that is prevalent and powerful and holds political sway. In the Presidential primary debates on God (a damning exhibit A in and of itself) nobody asked Obama to contrast Popper and Spong, and nobody asked Hillary to speak to the question of adoptionism. They wanted to know favorite bible verses and opinions on abominations.

Here's a recent poll on what people believe - and remember this is for all respondents - clearly Christians are more likely to believe in the religious things here than atheists, so the numbers for Christians would be higher than these.

http://www.harrisinteractive.com/vault/Harris_Poll_2009_12_15.pdf

[uberllama42]

60. What bothers me about it is that the same people who chide Dawkins et al.

for being arrogant and abrasive will frequently turn around and ridicule what the unwashed masses actually believe. Some of these high-brow types take as much joy in making fun of people who believe in the Flood as Dawkins or Hitchens would.

[BurtWorm]

29. Why call it god, then?

Why not call it existence. Why the capital E, even? Why kowtow to it like buffoons? Why not admire it like adults?

:wtf:

[saltpoint]

64. The age of the earth looks pretty old to me. Scientists of many stripes

say so, no matter what the nutbag fundies think.

I don't see good reason to believe that the cave paintings at Lascaux, France from c. 15,000 years b.c.e. are any less inspirational than the Gospel of Mark, for example, or (your favorite religious text here).

Four kids and a dog discovered those cave paintings one afternoon while they were out knocking around in the woods. I'd like to thank those younguns and their pooch for that discovery. Those paintings generally and that horse especially are magnificent. I would never have found that cave myself. And have never been there to see it. To know that it is there (and that it was discovered through inadvertence but has generated significant universal awe) is religion enough for me.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

76. Visitors are no longer allowed in the actual caves

because the moisture from their bodies was damaging the paintings.

I'm told they have a full-scale replica for visitors to wander through.

[saltpoint]

81. Lydia Leftcoast, hello to you.

Yes. I had read the same thing -- that a replica of the paintings is now nearby and that the original site is closed to public access.

I may one day get over there to see the replica.

That horse. I have got to see that horse.

:hi:

[mothergooseminute]

65. Evolution and religion

Mickey Dolenz of the Monkees says, "God is a verb."