The Faith & Religion mega Thread

Originally Posted by enorbet [...] and far more likely to be literal interpreters like the many Southern Baptist sects (cults?) and other fundamentalists.

I don't think that it is in good form to typecast anyone, nor any organization. Nor to ridicule them. It doesn't advance your position. You're just creating a "straw man" to then joust against. No value in that. Gets you nowhere.

Heya sundialsvcs. Hope you and your loved ones are healthy and reasonably happy I agree that whenever making a value judgment it is important to be careful and maybe I didn't expand on my judgment enough to make myself clear. Let me provide an example in another similar area.

In a Music thread I once remarked that Jimi Hendrix, whom I admire and love, chose to wear hats a lot because of his ethnicity. Another member, apparently of more recent African descent and darker complexion, asked if I was not being racist. I responded "I don't think it has anything to do with etnicity as a skin color or ancestry but as a Cultural phenomenon". Asking me if noticing that as a culture, more so-called African Americans by percentage, enjoy wearing hats than other cultures is racist, is like asking if the title of the movie "White Men Can't Jump" is racist. It should be obvious that both are statistical observations.

Similarly, AFAIK, some religions have more fractional factions or sects than others and often, the sects are fundamentalist in doctrine. Maybe I am mistaken but I think it can be observed that among such sects, Baptist and possible especially, Southern Baptist, covers a LOT of diversity and much of it fundamentalist. Televangelists, Tent Revivals, Faith Healers, venomous snake dancers and poison drinkers, are mostly an offshoot of the Southern Baptist culture, are they not? I'm confidant that if I use the word, "Jihadist", you know I'm not talking about Christians, though some sects have their analog.

If I am ill-informed and mistaken, I will happily and sincerely apologize. I think there is no shame in making mistakes, just in refusing to admit and change to grow better once the evidence is in or updated.

I'm an atheist to the bone. I had 65 30-day bans on Fascistbook for "extreme atheism" (Suckerberg's definition) before I deleted my accounts and left it for good.

Maybe I am mistaken but I think it can be observed that among such sects, Baptist and possible especially, Southern Baptist, covers a LOT of diversity and much of it fundamentalist. Televangelists, Tent Revivals, Faith Healers, venomous snake dancers and poison drinkers, are mostly an offshoot of the Southern Baptist culture, are they not?

@enorbet: You just pulled out an enormous rug and swept a whole bunch of people underneath it. Just read the quoted sentence and I hope that you'll see what I mean. Most of the things that you identify in your second-sentence list are tropes, straw men. And then you try to slam them all into "Southern Baptists?" I'm sorry, but that just doesn't "fly" with me. Reality is much more complicated than that.

Yeah, I grew up in the South and my parents took me to a Baptist church until I became old enough to drive. But no one ever grabbed a rattlesnake. (And, to any Fool who does, I say what Jesus said to Satan: "Thou Shalt Not Tempt The Lord Thy God!")

The "big label," such as "Southern Baptist,™" actually does not fit. The typecasting does not belong.

"Religion" is a very large tent, and beneath it you might well find things that are: "not just weird, but very weird." But you still need to remember that "it is a very large tent," and that not everyone who sits underneath it feels nor acts in the same way. (For example, I'm quite sure that there are millions of rational practicing Muslims who are not the slightest bit interested in "Jihad," no matter what their ancient books might say.)

Geez sundialsvcs I didn't say ALL Southern Baptists are weird or even fundamentalists, let alone weird fundamentalists. It is still true that fundamentalism exists within it, for whatever reason, in a greater per capita percentage than some other divisions. Right? I think we know this because the fundamentalists don't hide it. They take pride in it! By contrast, it is difficult to say that the percentage of Catholic clergy who are pedophiles is greater than Protestant clergy because anyone involved tries hard to hide it and cover it up once revealed. So I can't draw such a conclusion in that area. I still think I'm safe with the relative statistics regarding Baptist doctrine lending itself to be interpreted in fundamentalist, and yes, even weird fundamentalist, fashion. They are not "straw dogs" if they actually exist.

@enorbet: I just caution you to watch for "straw men" and "typecasting." As you said, "[fundamentalism] exists within it." Likewise, for every [Catholic] bishop who likes to fondle little unsuspecting boys, there are hundreds of thousands who are simply trying to run a church in their community.

As for me, "relative statistics" mean nothing. Mark Twain was right.

If you want to challenge God to deliver you as you do stupid things with poisonous rattlesnakes, I won't come to your funeral, and I won't blame God for not "saving" you from your stupidity.

Generally: If you are any sort of other "weird fundamentalist," as far as I'm concerned you're on your own. (Don't expect that your God actually agrees with your position, and will support it ...) They are in fact a tiny minority, and "they have already received their reward."

But there are a vast number of churches out there who are simply trying every day to do something for their community: providing free clothing, and yes, hot showers, food, de-lousing, and a warm bed to sleep in. Exactly as members of your own preferred religion now do. So, "straw men and typecasting" just doesn't wash – the daily situation is much more complicated. And sometimes, desperate.

So – "religion" does really have a very important place in this world's society, despite its many faults and regardless of its particular "religious polarity or definition." We must all be careful to respect and to acknowledge this ... "strange and utterly-human though it may seem."

Originally Posted by enorbet ...humans are just one species among millions and only been around for around 1,000,000 years while Evolution has been throwing the dice for just shy of 4,000,000,000 years...To be clear you have a perfect right to believe such dogma, but trying to pass that off as Science is a con job

Earth more than 10,000 years old is a con job. There is ample evidence of young earth, nothing of old earth that isn't better explained by a young earth perspective in interpreting actual scientific evidence. Old earth is nothing but speculation to justify scoffing at the Bible.

Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts...

II Peter 3:3

Oh for crying out loud, mrmazda. Do you really imagine 99% of Geologists, Biologists, Archaeologists, etc etc etc were all bible hating atheists even back before 1800? !0,000 year old Earth is almost as ignorant as Flat Earth. This is not just someone's opinion and that debate has been entirely closed for centuries. If there was ANY credible evidence for such a short term planetary evolution.. ! ANY ! .. you can bank on it that it would be taken seriously by more than just religious fundamentalists with an agenda for literal interpretation of .... I was going to say 2000 year old writings, but in fact religious tracts that became the Christian Bible began over 6000 years ago and continued being edited and revised almost ever since.

So please do attempt to provide credible evidence for a 10,000 year old planet. Bibles are NOT objective evidence. I'm talking about corroborating evidence. So let's see some.

In this case I agree with @enorbet. I find no reason to assert that "I know what's right," nor that "the Bible tells me so."

"That may be you," in which case I fully respect you and do not confront your beliefs. But I do not share them.

In fact, I find it rather cool that, just as soon as "[you] think you've got [God|nature|etc.] all figured out," [you] get gobsmacked with another mystery. "(I use [you] to denote an impersonal reference ... no "person" implied.)

I am entirely sure that we will never run out of mysteries.

Therefore, "young Earth" is simply a battle that I would see no reason to fight, even if I did agree with it. "Were you there when the foundations of the world were laid? Tell me, if you understand!" (Job 38:4) The answer, of course, is a resounding "No!," and I like it that way.

But given that you feel differently – I decline.

"Likewise Genesis 1-2." I have no fight there, either.

I have no existential need to be right, because I frankly realize that it is impossible to be "right," whether you cling to religion or to science. Instead, I am very content to wonder.

When someone comes up to me and tells me that s/he has it all figured out, I say something like: "How interesting. How very interesting ..." And then I pretend that I need to go to the bathroom right away.

"PING!"

Pinging who? I have to be in the right mood to respond properly. I have a draft, but it's not close to ready for public consumption.

This venerable thread should not go silent. Maybe I shouldn't have started the "myth" thread ...

I don't think you have to worry much about this thread going permanently silent since the premise is and will always be, speculative and personal. It can never be finally answered unless dead people learn to type

Actually it is probably worth considering exactly how would one go about proving or debunking a claim that a post was actually written by someone deceased?

Originally Posted by enorbet Actually it is probably worth considering exactly how would one go about proving or debunking a claim that a post was actually written by someone deceased?

Conceptually that doesn't seem to me any different from standard spiritualist stuff like ouija boards and automatic writing.

Originally Posted by hazel Conceptually that doesn't seem to me any different from standard spiritualist stuff like ouija boards and automatic writing.

Exactly... which is why successful con jobs and delusions are possible wherever no objective, repeatable underpinnings are possible.