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Obviously, religion hasn't been very successful at getting us all to love one another -- not even in a distant, professional sort of way.
All religion has done is to teach us to love those who belong to the same denomination of the same religion and hate just about everyone else. Or, at the very least, display a certain sense of bigotry and intolerance.
As for spirituality -- perhaps.
But as long as spirituality is shackled to religion, forget it.
It'll never work.
One of the main issues, apart from an individual having a Spiritually Transformative Experience (STE) [eg. The bible’s Born again / Born from above concept], is with respect to definitions. And then, more basic than definitions - since definitions are based on other ‘mere words’ - but the meaning of the words in their inner most semantics, at the gut level if you like. My wife was only saying the other day (reading from this website I think: https://ravenstarshealingroom.wordpress.com/) that our bodies have 10 times more sensory nerves on the inside than they do on the outside. Indeed, there is a scripture about God desiring truth in the inner parts, so, whatever it is, it has to work, in totality, in every ‘fibre’ of our being.
I looked up ‘spirituality’ the other day, for a definition, just to check whether I had it right, since I’ve been referring to it a lot myself lately. The top result in google came up with ‘the quality of being concerned with the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things.’ ...that is not what I feel (internally) that spirituality is, at all. There’s not even an ‘or soul’ option when it comes to defining the spirit for me, since the soul in my definition is the tri-part mind, will and emotions.
Spirituality, for me at least, has to do with the pursuit of knowing and understanding the absolute nature of our essence. And again, for me at least, there’s nothing ‘human’ at all about that.
So, getting to the point. Religion, on the other hand, has humanity all over it. The concept of a God of reward and punishment also has humanity/mankind all over it, indeed, as it hails from ‘judgement’ - which derives from the knowledge of good and evil.
For ‘God’ to have said “Don’t take from that tree”, and then to judge us according to it, is hypocritical. Also, to put man out of the garden, so they “cannot take of the tree of life”, and then to concoct a story or narrative where Jesus Christ is the saviour (tree of life), also doesn’t make much sense either.
So, that is where I am at, and I end up here on a more frequent basis. I’m asking myself what a ‘pre-fall’ state was like, of walking with ‘God’ in the garden - all I’m finding is that I can breathe it in or meditate on it, and though there are some truths existent in the ‘Christian’ teachings, they have to be reinterpreted outside of religion. It is certain for me that mortal mind has a precipitous tendency to judge others, and I don’t want to be like that.
Last edited by Age-enduring; 03-15-2018 at 03:59 AM..
As a world renowned scientist, his religious or atheist views are going to be taken note of.
There is no reason imo that science and religion are mutually exclusive, even evolution (rejected by most hardcore Evangelicals) is scientifically accepted by more mainline Christian groups.
His views in the article are very interesting, although he is moderate and not a "militant atheist" per se.
He was even raised in a nominally Christian household.
What John lennox was illustrating how half baked Hawkins worldview was once he stepped away from his science and into theology and philosophy.
He lacked God given common sense.
A man who denies the existence of the fig tree won't be picking too many figs.
Which is why Hawkins disliked philosophy, its the area where common sense turns raw scientific data into human experience.
In that sense science fails and its no longer science. Its scientism.
Brilliant men make fools of themselves as only they can.
That depends on just what parts of Christianity you believe and how tightly you believe them.
In a lot of ways, science and religion ARE mutually exclusive.
Even if you see all of the Bible stories as allegories, metaphors, and stories rather than literal truth, the problem really comes down to Jesus's crucifixion.
IF evolution is true, then the story of Adam and Eve is not.
Which means there was no Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, no forbidden fruit, no disobedience, no punishment and henceforth no actual sin. Certainly no original sin.
And that means that Christ dying for our sins on the cross is, well ... redundant at best, superfluous at worst.
Because there was nothing to forgive in the first place.
These are the sorts of stumbling blocks that even Christians who accept evolution have to face. While I'm certainly glad that they aren't taking the Bible so literally that they have to deny science to keep their faith going, there is still that bit of cognitive dissonance that allows them to continue to believe in the divine Christ even though evolution makes such a story irrelevant and moot.
I'd say that your post contains a series of false dilemmas.
The fact that evolution may be true does not have Adam and Eve's lack of existence as an unique alternative. There could be a wide variety of other alternatives (e.g.: Adam and Eve could be the very first creatures that became homo sapiens sapiens; or only the animals evolved until reaching a pre-hominin species and then God created the first humans; our world is not God's first attempt at creating conscious creatures, but rather one of the many that have succeeded over the course of millions of years, and the fossils our scientists have found belong to prior sentient beings whose souls are currently in God's realm - that is the Islamic view, that Allah had created humans before Adam and Eve, and then destroyed the creation and started again).
The fact that the forbidden fruit story might be an allegory does not, by any means, exclude the possibility of a disobedience having taken place. I don't see how you came to that conclusion. Even if evolution is true, the very first homo sapiens sapiens might have disobeyed God in some way, either by doing something that God told them (or inscribed in their genetic code) not to do, or in some other matter that our current perspective just can't understand.
The fact that Christ died for our sins on the cross has been interpreted in many ways by different Christian doctrines. I recommend you take a look at this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atonement_in_Christianity
Even if evolution is right and Adam and Eve did not commit an original sin, Christ's death could still be an atonement for the sins humanity has committed over the millennia, since Adam and Eve until the end of times.
You might benefit from observing what happens in the absence of god.
Try Soviet russia, murdered millions.
Communist china.
Crazy korea.
You might benefit from observing what happens people who rule countries AND wear shoes.
Try Soviet Russia, murdered millions.
Communist China.
Crazy Korea.
You might benefit from observing what happens people who rule countries AND wear shoes.
Try Soviet Russia, murdered millions.
Communist China.
Crazy Korea.
Spot the fallacy yet?
I was going to add
You might benefit from observing what happens in the presence of god.
The Inquisition
The Salem With Trials
9-11 attacks on New York and D.C.
Iran
Somalia
Boko Haram
The Crusades
Jim Jones Suicide
Waco Massacre
The list can go on but it will not because I am stopping it here. Point made.
You might benefit from observing what happens in the absence of god.
Try Soviet russia, murdered millions.
Communist china.
Crazy korea.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Harry Diogenes
You might benefit from observing what happens people who rule countries AND wear shoes.
Try Soviet Russia, murdered millions.
Communist China.
Crazy Korea.
Spot the fallacy yet?
He might also benefit from including Japan in his list of 'absence of God' countries. But since Japan has a markedly lower violent crime rate than the United States, he ignores it.
He could also look at the South, which has both the highest violent crime rate of any part of the United States as well as the highest rates of religiosity. But he's cherry-picking data and tossing out the inconvenient bits.
He'd also find the same dynamic in comparing Canada to the United States, northern Europe to southern Europe, western Europe to southern Europe, Australia to Mexico, and so forth.
And then there's history. America was more religious when it widely practiced slavery, when it denied the vote to women, when children were packed off to work in factories or mines without any protection from the law. Medieval Europe was far more religious than today, and in a near-perpetual state of warfare, to say nothing of the horrific purges of Jews and the Inquisition.
That depends on just what parts of Christianity you believe and how tightly you believe them.
In a lot of ways, science and religion ARE mutually exclusive.
Even if you see all of the Bible stories as allegories, metaphors, and stories rather than literal truth, the problem really comes down to Jesus's crucifixion.
IF evolution is true, then the story of Adam and Eve is not.
Which means there was no Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, no forbidden fruit, no disobedience, no punishment and henceforth no actual sin. Certainly no original sin.
And that means that Christ dying for our sins on the cross is, well ... redundant at best, superfluous at worst.
Because there was nothing to forgive in the first place.
These are the sorts of stumbling blocks that even Christians who accept evolution have to face. While I'm certainly glad that they aren't taking the Bible so literally that they have to deny science to keep their faith going, there is still that bit of cognitive dissonance that allows them to continue to believe in the divine Christ even though evolution makes such a story irrelevant and moot.
I have been saying that my love for years now. The problem that fundies (like my mom) have expressed is that a simple belief in evolution is "So Sinful" (her words) She repeated daily, like members of her church, ignorance for scientific fact an blind acceptance of religious myth. (Also they lacked the intelligence to begin to understand anything people like Hawking taught)
I know you know this Shirina, but I will say it for the benefit of a few others. Science, unlike religion , has proof for what it posits.
In regards to Adam and Eve, for example, if we follow a Biblical (myth) timeline, we can suggest that the earth is only several thousand years old. While the fossil record and scientific analysis shows otherwise. And unlike the myth of the Bible, where Adam and Eve were somehow immortal and perfect, the fossil record shows that not only were early humans highly susceptible to disease, one must remember that the majority did not live to what we would call adulthood!
So early humans were not only imperfect, but very mortal !
I would also mention that the concept of the Biblical god did not even exist in the times of the early humans. That concept had not evolved, so the stories involving it would be about as accurate as rewriting history to have St Francis walking on the moon. Early humans had spirits and later gods, but the unique Jewish god concept did not exist until 40,000 years after cro -magnon evolved. The myths were reqritten to suggest god was ever present, but this is not the case.
I certainly saw Hawking as a 'militant' in the sense that he spoke out quite openly about his disbelief. And being raised in a Christian household only sharpens that up. He CAME to his disbelief; he wasn't taught it.
Taking the best view of jonesey's remarks, we can note bad stuff done by societal groups that professed atheism. As has been said before, the problem with Soviet - instigated communism was not (yes, we spotted the fallacy: false correlation) an absence of god -belief (never mind a purported absence of god - which had the effect of liberating women there like nowhere else) was Dogma: a plan for life, society and thought that one could not question, and there was oppression for those who did. US Christianity with 'No I don't think that atheist should be considered citizens' take note.
And I don't believe that science and religion are compatible. That effective scientists can compartmentalise irreconcilable differences in different parts of their brains does not make them compatible. And I hardly need comment on Mystic's argument that everything be taken as it is but through the roseate spectacles of godfaith. Those who do not already have such Faith (or a desire for it) will see not rational reason for it or any effective result other than to prejudice the work of researchers with trying to prove something the believe on faith. Something that is the very anithesis of objectivity, rationality or the scientific method.
There’s really no way harmonize the central theme of traditional Christianity with modern science. Which is why the more conservative Christian factions (Protestant and Catholic) reject evolution, cosmology, geology, etc.
Catholics are far from the most conservative and do not reject evolution. I think even the last 4 popes have accepted it.
Catholics are far from the most conservative and do not reject evolution. I think even the last 4 popes have accepted it.
But wasn't there not too long ago an apology by the church for opposing evolution? Just as the Vatican tried to Get right with Science by putting up a monument to Galileo.
By apologizing for what you got wrong, that does not rewrite history so that you got it right.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LargeKingCat
I was going to add
You might benefit from observing what happens in the presence of god.
The Inquisition
The Salem With Trials
9-11 attacks on New York and D.C.
Iran
Somalia
Boko Haram
The Crusades
Jim Jones Suicide
Waco Massacre
The list can go on but it will not because I am stopping it here. Point made.
But..but...but....that that isn't to be blamed on God. Blame it on men.
Oh, you forgot Isis, (Aka ISIL or Daesh, which I think will occupy a place in history up there with the Khmer Rouge). Now it seems thankfully finished off and Iraq (when not ducking Bomb -blasts) is picking up the pieces and burying the dead.
Yep the only thing worse than the Final Result of the religion of Love is the End result of the religion of Peace,.
P.s though. Anyone notice that the Message has Finally got across? Hitler does not now get blamed on atheism.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 03-15-2018 at 07:03 AM..
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