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ORIGINAL: seeksfemslave

With regard to Synergys Chicken Killer friend I hope he discovered something useful but I rather suspect he did not. Still he can always go on to killing primates or dogs with very little likelihood of finding out much there either.

quote:

ORIGINAL: meatcleaver

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ORIGINAL: fergus

I find many atheists to be as rightously zealous in an unreasonable fashion as many religious types.  Either point of view seems to me to come from a place of absolute adhereance to an unprovable 'truth'.

Mythology is not a set of facts to be proven true OR disproven as false.  It is a different catagory altogether.

fergus

Mythological facts were espoused as true until they were proved wrong and wrong and wrong and wrong again. While no one can prove whether god exists or not, you only after take off your rose coloured glasses to see that no god intevenes in life or if this mythical benigh omnipotent god does, that god is a mean, cruel, malicious, vindictive sadist whose sole purpose of creating life is to watch it consume itself in the cruelest possible way.

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ORIGINAL: darksdesire

i've never understood the conflict between science and religion.  i find them so complimentary (although i'm not one who takes a literal view of the bible).  Science nearly always raises far more questions than are answered - and while it often explains the what and the how, it isn't able to explain the why.  That's were spirituality fills in the blanks.  i've never been able to understand this conflict, and in fact, have had many more spiritual experiences in biology class than i ever did in church.    

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ORIGINAL: fergus


"mythological facts" is an oxymoron. 

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ORIGINAL: meatcleaver

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ORIGINAL: fergus


"mythological facts" is an oxymoron. 

True but I think most people know what I mean. Early Christians believed the myths of the bible to be fact, maybe they were written as fact but who knows. The fact is that religious belief has been proved wrong all the way through until now where we are at the last bastion of religious belief where the defence of religion is an anemic 'You can't prove god doesn't exist.' No, that is true but I would say to them, just open your eyes and look around. Where is this benigh omnipotent god?

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ORIGINAL: mnottertail

Nobody comes to Jesus on prom night.

ubiquitously anonymous

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ORIGINAL: fergus


Well, as it was in response to something I had said, I wanted to be clear ;)

Again, I think you are looking at a specific example of people who confuse mythology with fact.  Also, consider how you are framing it in terms of facts as well .... you are framing it terms of facts proven wrong.  Mythology is not in the same catagory as right or wrong.  The early Christians you speak of - I belive many were positioning it as fact.  Those who position it as fact to be proven wrong are probably going down the same road.  It does not exist one way or the other in the realm of facts.

In regards to the 'look around' argument of the nature of deity - namely, how can a benevolent omnipotent God exist and allow such a world to continue - that is a seperate issue.  First you would have to accpet that this particular mythology WAS fact to make or disprove this arguement.  Since it does not operate in that realm, I don't know how a person could successfuly argue one way or the other.  Next, you would have to show that THIS vision of deity was the one true and only vision to prove it true or disprove it false (also a sticky bit with me).  Then, I suppose, you would have to examine what is meant by benevolent and omnipotent and that it would have to agree with your interpretation. - This sort of thing has been philosophised over for centruies - usually not to either sides' satisfaction as one side says "how can the God you talk about exist in this kind of world" while the other says "It is God's plan that decides what is or is not benevolent" etc.  All circular, and not very gaining in the area of 'truth'.

fergus

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ORIGINAL: meatcleaver

The fact is that religious belief has been proved wrong all the way through until now where we are at the last bastion of religious belief where the defence of religion is an anemic 'You can't prove god doesn't exist.'

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ORIGINAL: mnottertail

I hold out serious reservations on Einstein actually having any belief in God in a realistic sense............

His references to Die Alt Eine seemed to be tongue in cheek for the most part:

A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty - it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man. (Albert Einstein)

I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it. (Albert Einstein)

I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings. (Albert Einstein)

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ORIGINAL: LordODiscipline

I disagree...
I once read an indepth biography of him -which name escapes me - however, it delved deeply into his motivations and found that (through his writings) he held that trying to understand God in all his forms was what he was seeking to do.

He was not traditionally "Jewish" in-so-much as he held that he was sure of God - just not who was right about his manifestations and presence on/in earth/heaven.

As an example:
"Although I am a typical loner in daily life, my consciousness of belonging to the invisible community of those who strive for truth, beauty, and justice has preserved me from feeling isolated. The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion as well as all serious endeavour in art and science. He who never had this experience seems to me, if not dead, then at least blind. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious. To me it suffices to wonder at these secrets and to attempt humbly to grasp with my mind a mere image of the lofty structure of all that is there. 5 "
ref: http://www.ctinquiry.org/publications/reflections_volume_1/torrance.htm

So - I find that he was exceptionally religious (in his terms).

Although, it is also reflected in the writing which you noted as well.

~J

quote:

ORIGINAL: mnottertail

I hold out serious reservations on Einstein actually having any belief in God in a realistic sense............

His references to Die Alt Eine seemed to be tongue in cheek for the most part:

A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty - it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man. (Albert Einstein)

I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it. (Albert Einstein)

I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings. (Albert Einstein)

quote:

ORIGINAL: meatcleaver

quote:

ORIGINAL: fergus


Well, as it was in response to something I had said, I wanted to be clear ;)

Again, I think you are looking at a specific example of people who confuse mythology with fact.  Also, consider how you are framing it in terms of facts as well .... you are framing it terms of facts proven wrong.  Mythology is not in the same catagory as right or wrong.  The early Christians you speak of - I belive many were positioning it as fact.  Those who position it as fact to be proven wrong are probably going down the same road.  It does not exist one way or the other in the realm of facts.

In regards to the 'look around' argument of the nature of deity - namely, how can a benevolent omnipotent God exist and allow such a world to continue - that is a seperate issue.  First you would have to accpet that this particular mythology WAS fact to make or disprove this arguement.  Since it does not operate in that realm, I don't know how a person could successfuly argue one way or the other.  Next, you would have to show that THIS vision of deity was the one true and only vision to prove it true or disprove it false (also a sticky bit with me).  Then, I suppose, you would have to examine what is meant by benevolent and omnipotent and that it would have to agree with your interpretation. - This sort of thing has been philosophised over for centruies - usually not to either sides' satisfaction as one side says "how can the God you talk about exist in this kind of world" while the other says "It is God's plan that decides what is or is not benevolent" etc.  All circular, and not very gaining in the area of 'truth'.

fergus

Any diety would do but of course that won't happen. I don't expect any diety to jump out of the hedge row and shake his snake. People who believe in god can't produce any objective evidence that their god/s exists. As far as I can tell it all exists in their head. Now I know people who have been certified for hearing strange voices in their head telling them to behave in a certain way, yet when a person declares they have a god delusion, no, when they claim to have conversations with god, somehow it is accepted as normal. Shouldn't we be considering treating people who claim to believe in a supernatural being without any objective proof of existing in the same way we think of people who have devil delusions or people who claim they have witnessed a pink elephant copulating with a mouse or that their wife is a hat or many other weird and wonderful experiences of people that have been recorded?

People who claim to believe in god appear to like to have it all ways. For the most part they appear to function satisfactorily in a rational world while harbouring irrational beliefs in beings they can not prove exist. The remarkable thing about these people is that they never seem to question that their beliefs are learnt and not revelations. People tend to believe in the diety they were indoctrinated into believing in when they were children. If people believed through genuine revelation you wouldn't expect dieties to belong to cultures or geographical blocks. I find it strange that Jesus confines himself to christian countries where it is taught that he is the son of god. The same goes for any other diety. The mere fact that dieties are cultural should set alarm bells ringing in any intelligent person's head.