The Faith & Religion mega Thread

Originally Posted by sundialsvcs Also, if anyone out there feels differently about them, "Feel Free!"

Well, I feel differently but don't need a soap box for my opinions.

We have to bear in mind that the earliest genealogies had to be written in some form very early indeed. So, presuming a)there was a God & b)that he communicated important information to us in book form, what would you expect that book to contain?

Originally Posted by sundialsvcs Since I have never been a Deity, I really don't know what their technical options are when it comes to speaking to men ...

I'm sure that if you were a deity and wanted to communicate yourself to mankind, you would come out with something like the Koran: a clear, simple theological and moral textbook. That's what human-generated religious writing looks like. The Bible is nothing like that! Much of the Old Testament is history, starting in legendary times and going on to quite detailed histories of kingdoms based on court chronicles. Sometimes a historical account comes with an overt moral (this king was an idolator and that was why these things happened to the kingdom) but more often there are no explanations of what the material means and why it has been included. Interspersed with all this are masses of lyrical religious poetry and prophecy and what experts call "wisdom literature".

The New Testament contains four separate biographies of Jesus, none of which contain any of the information you would expect in a biography (year of birth, childhood influences and education, appearance...), a brief history of the early Church and a lot of letters with very diverse theological content. You can study all this for a lifetime and still have only scratched the surface.

J B S Haldane once said, "Reality is not only queerer than we supposed; it's queerer than we could have supposed", and C S Lewis pointed out that this applies to the Bible too. It just isn't the kind of work anyone who was trying to create religious scriptures would have spontaneously come up with.

Also, throughout the Bible, the various progress points in fulfilling one theme are brought to fulfillment, which tie the whole thing together starting from Genesis and continuing to Revelation. Many sub-themes are worked out as well over shorter time periods, more or less like the milestones on a project.

But we're wasting effort: Some of the more prolific posters here should stick to the Monty Python movie in the same vein. They'll find more meaning in "The Life of Brian." .

Originally Posted by enorbet If any of the mods find my treatment of the topic here handled in an offensive or even ungentlemanly manner I will volunteer to delete my post or edit any portion deemed offensive out. For one thing, I'm aware that the time when that ban was issued was before we had much in the way of results. It was largely hypothetical and very emotionally charged with many. Maybe I'm mistaken but we now have serious numbers and it doesn't feel as hysterical as it once did.

Dang, I didn't even know there was a ban... or I wouldn't have brought it up in my post about the religion of science worshipers.

Ironically, I've been abscent on the forum for a couple of weeks, healing from the double striped home test--kind of like a pregnancy test--but it was the infamous covid: rest assured I didn't occupy any hospital beds, or even go to a doctor: researchers from Oregon State University had just discovered that some acids in pot, specifically CBGA and CBDA, when present in the human biome, bind with sars-2 spike proteins, rendering sars-2 harmless! Acquiring pot in oregon is trivial. I ate a raw leaves and flowers from a cbd/sativa hybrid, and felt better within 30 minutes, and all symptoms were gone within 3 days--but it still took another week after that for the stripes to go away on the home tests.

I personally did not find anybody's post here offensive, and like discussions on politically senstive topics with my linux loving peers and other programmers--we are already like minded enough to have chosen linux. As long as the discussions remain informed and respectful, I find bans on topics offensive.

But I see how with some topics, some folks have lost informed respectfulness, and resorted to ad hominum logic, basically ruining it for the rest of us. I don't blame mods for shutting down such threads when they degenerate. But all-out bans makes me sad about a state of humanity in which they're considered necessary.

I know we're not supposed to use foreign language and apologize for the above latin, but that's generally what that specific fallacy is called in the field of logic. Is there a list of lq bans somewhere that I missed, so I can at least strive for political correctness?

See https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/lq-suggestions-and-feedback-7/proliferation-of-covid-threads-4175699142/#post6275674

Originally Posted by jeremy, 16th August 2021 Given the general misinformation and bickering in these threads, it seems like the best short term path is a moratorium on the topic. I'll go through and close all threads shortly.

Zounds! slac-in-the-box, do you really consider political correctness a worthy objective to strive for? I find it the height (or rather the nadir) of oppressive, stultifying, mind murdering conformity. Can you imagine how utterly boring and useless Humanity would be if everyone of us was (or even appeared to be) exactly the same and completely limited to polite discussion about the weather?

Originally Posted by enorbet Zounds! slac-in-the-box, do you really consider political correctness a worthy objective to strive for? I find it the height (or rather the nadir) of oppressive, stultifying, mind murdering conformity. Can you imagine how utterly boring and useless Humanity would be if everyone of us was (or even appeared to be) exactly the same and completely limited to polite discussion about the weather?

Of course not -- only, just enough to not get banned from LQ

I would like to share anecedote that not only is true experience that happened to me in 1992, but also illustrates that which capitalistically driven science neither comprehends or explains--in fact, I cannot comprehend or explain it either:

When I had just turned 23, I backpacked accross Russia, the year after the coup--kind of a coming of age walkabout for me. Even though I had a B.A. in Russian, when I arrived I felt like a baby. My mind got so full of foreign signs, sights, and sounds, that I needed to take frequent naps, like a baby, to sort it out.

English became music to my ears.

In St.Petersburg, I met a graduate student who studied English, and who invited me to his flat one weekend to meet a healer, famous accross Russia.

When I arrived, the healer, who I estimated to be in his 60s, was smoking a ciggarette, kind of like the nurses and doctors in the alleys behind hospitals

He spoke no English at all, but I spoke as open mindedly as I could with him, quoting some occult names that I had read in Umberto Eco's "Foucault's Pendulum," but no longer recollect today. He agreed to give me an examination, that proceded thus:

He had me stand against the wall, facing outwards, with my legs shoulder width apart, and my arms held out like a Y--basically stuck in the Y position of the YMCA dance.

While in this position, the healer, from accross the room, ten to 15 feet away, moved his hands through the air, apparently feeling my aura: but he kind of looked like someone dancing to the Grateful Dead.

Just as entertaining, he had an apprentice, a middle-aged woman with jet black hair to the middle of her back, and she would look at him and his aura feeling gestures, and then standing to the side and a little closer to me, she would duplicate his movements.

After ten or fifteen minutes of this spectacle, my exam was over, and the healer pronounced, in Russian: You have good health, but there is problem with spleen.

Now my clothes had been on, but I quickly removed my shirt, revealing the 10 inch scar accross my lower left abodomen and replied that I knew I had a problem with it--it's gone. I probably wouldn't have been able to recognize the Russian words for every anotomical organ; but I knew the basics, and not having a spleen, I totally knew it, so I could explain my scar if necessary.

He said, I give you more exam, so I stood in the Y position again, for another ten or fifteen minutes, after which he pronounced: You grow new spleen


I have never let any Western doctors use any fancy equipment to verify whether or not I've grown a new spleen -- I'm afraid they'd try to take it out again.

But I was dang amazed at his aura-feeling diagnostic skills, and have no idea how that such a thing could be possible.

And it's not a certainty. I've narrowed it down to three plausibilities.

1) He knew what he was doing, and accurately diagnosed my health--after all, he was purported to be famous accross the land.

2) He actually was a charlatan, and on somedays he said spleen, some obscure organ, and others perhaps appendix or some other obscure organ, and with me it was just a big coincidence.

3) He was kgb, and already knew everything about me, including my health history.


Take it for what you will, but that was an experience I will never forget, and today it reinforces my hunch that there's more to this Universe than the scientific method or religions will ever uncover.

From my POV, I can't comprehend or explain why anybody still thinks "The Old Ways are the best". I'm not saying we don't lose some things with progress. A good example of that is locally grown, fresh food (while starting to make a minor comeback) was largely supplanted by large AgriBusiness that cares more for how thinks look and sell than they do about actual nutrition. Nevertheless, that hasn't been all bad since less than 100 years ago it was quite common that lower classes existed on bread and lard. In general people are healthier and at lower cost in 2022 that they were in 1922. That's the effect of Science and Capitalism and anyone can verify this by health statistics or just looking around. Haven't you noticed that people 50-70 in 2022 look a LOT younger and healthier than they did 50 years ago?

Snake Oil and Sceances were all the rage 100+ years ago. I'm glad that's rarer now... then again we do have Young/Flat Earthers in abundance. Makes no sense to me.

Here's what I really think, enorbet: "Who am I to judge?" If a "way" has stuck around long enough to become "old," I want to pay attention to it. My "span of attention" is broad. I will presume that "ancient peoples" were every bit as intelligent as we are ... and perceptive.

Go ahead and decry them as "flat earthers" if you want to – and I do not "judge you" here – but I'm just not going to choose to follow in your footsteps. Perhaps, "[intelligent] people who didn't know anything" did(?!) "know something??" I'd like to find out!

Originally Posted by enorbet From my POV, I can't comprehend or explain why anybody still thinks "The Old Ways are the best".

Depends on which "old ways" you're talking about, right? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charvaka

Charvaka (Sanskrit: चार्वाक; IAST: Cārvāka), also known as Lokāyata, is an ancient school of Indian materialism or hedonism. It is a heterodox school of Indian philosophy. Charvaka holds direct perception, empiricism, and conditional inference as proper sources of knowledge, embraces philosophical skepticism and rejects ritualism and supernaturalism. It was a popular belief system in ancient India.

Absolutely ntubski. Things aren't good, let alone better, just because they are New or Old. Age has little to do with it. Things are good or better based on performance, ability to do work, accomplish a job, explain a condition, etc. They are worse when they fail at some fundamental level compared to a better device, practice, explanation. This is exactly why the scientific method works so well but depends on small step progress. Small steps gather inertia for both good and ill.

sundialsvcs, while it sounds congenial, not judging seems to me unnatural, nondiscriminating, unchanging (no progress), and a long list of other negative attributes, including intellectually lazy and possibly, fearful. Does 1 = 1 == 2? Make a choice, a decision, discriminate, establish a progressive base of reality so it can follow that 1 + 2 == 3.

Is it impossible for 0 (zero) to exist because there can be no place God cannot stand? How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Yes, ancient humans were just as intelligent as we modern humans BUT they had less to work from, for both good and ill.

For example we are somewhat mystified how it was possible for ancient men to build the Pyramids but they were built of stone and wood and stone and wood was all they'd had for thousands of years. So with limited scope and just as much need as any individual or group of individuals they progressed and gained how to stack stones in increasingly difficult and lasting ways. Once mortar and later concrete were developed, how to stack stones with no binding or casting became useless knowledge and disappeared over time. Once civilizations stopped being divine right dynasties and morphed into the more stable and efficient means of civilized governance the ability of a King or a ruling class to muster generations of effort and wealth for personal gain diminished so that combination made massive stacked stone tomb building superfluous and counter productive.

IMHO it is exactly judgement that defines us. How can one relinquish such an important metric?

@enorbet, You're entitled to your assessment of my comment if you wish – but I do not at all agree with you nor have any of these intentions. I hold these opinions in parallel to a genuine scientific interest in many things science, and I do know how to tell the difference.

We're not talking about "1+1=2" here – we're talking about subjects, in many but not all cases, where empirical observation and "scientific method" might be useless. Religion uses faith, and sometimes intuition, and it can "boldly go" into places where science has no foundations. That might be very useful. I don't consider these people to be "ignorant savages." I'm not going to belittle them or assert that they have nothing useful to say to me. I've lived on this planet long enough to see for myself that "there's some things in this world you just can't explain." If people for thousands of years held these beliefs and taught them to their children, I'm not going to shut them down. I want to know more. To listen.

Very often, "scientists," philosophers, and religious folk are considering the exact same "big kahuna questions." But they are each approaching from entirely different directions and viewpoints. I am not going to be the one to say that any of these are "right" or "wrong." I want to listen to, study, and consider all of them at once. (Plus: many such folks "wear multiple hats." One person can fill several roles at the same time without conflict.)

Clearly, "science, to you, is all you need." But where we disagree is where you seem to want to close all other doors. I prefer to keep them all open. One of my favorite personal catch-phrases is: "How very, very interesting."

Firstly, sundialsvcs, allow me please to reiterate I do not by default consider spirituality or even many religious folk "ignorant savages". On that we apparently agree. I do think you may possibly make light of your own sense of judgment. IMHO Judgment is one of the primary attributes that defines us. There are some people who are not only as "ignorant savages", some few are less than that as they apparently can't discern even the wildest fantasies from reality and can barely even feed themselves. Astrology, Flat Earth, Young Earth, Scientology, and JFK Jr coming back to "save the US" are some examples of extreme fantasy. IMHO. There is danger in suspending judgment. It often takes the form of "turning a blind eye" and how can that be good by anyone's standards?

Here is a recent demonstration of just such willful lack of judgment - https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreak...esnt_say_that/ . You are quite welcome to skip the Reddit commentary but the video is powerful and worthwhile. I hope you watch it, though I rather doubt you will.

Since some here have made it clear they don't or won't follow up and investigate links. let me summarize one part that illustrates lack of judgment and willful ignorance. An interviewer asks a few ladies if they think a book should be allowed in school that tells a story of two daughters getting their father drunk so they can have sex with him. Naturally they are horrified and say "NO!" When told that book is the Christian Bible they simply deny it is so, and the look on faces is priceless. They look at the interviewer as if he is the devil incarnate, even though it is right there in print and they profess to be devout. They offer no explanation, only outright denial.

It seems to me that your judgment that "9/11 was an inside job" and "the Moon landing is a hoax" are similar cases of denial exhibiting willfully poor judgment, based on a feeling and with zero consideration of actual objective evidence. Yes, there are actual mysteries in the world and many of them are fair game for speculation but there are also hard facts and "1 = 1 = 2" is applicable because that's where it begins. That is the recognition that not ALL things are mysterious, that the Universe can be known and that knowledge can progress. That includes not wasting time on the preposterous. "My dog at my homework" or "The invisible man did it" are cases of "that dog don't hunt".

Originally Posted by enorbet An interviewer asks a few ladies if they think a book should be allowed in school that tells a story of two daughters getting their father drunk so they can have sex with him. Naturally they are horrified and say "NO!" When told that book is the Christian Bible they simply deny it is so, and the look on faces is priceless. They look at the interviewer as if he is the devil incarnate, even though it is right there in print and they profess to be devout. They offer no explanation, only outright denial.

I had a Muslim acquaintance who believed that the Christian bible was full of forgeries and quoted the story of Lot and his daughters to me as proof. Lot, he said, was a prophet so he could never have behaved in this way. The nasty Christians (or the even nastier Jews) had made up this story to discredit true religion.

I once read a similar story about a man who read out James 5 vv.1-6 to a meeting of right-wing American evangelicals, pretending that it had been written by the American socialist writer Upton Sinclair. They were all outraged and said the man who wrote stuff like that ought to be hanged.