Thought chatter and religion

Philosophy is different in that it doesnt rely on a divine authority figure, just personal beliefs that can be proven wrong and modified

Philosophy does generally have backing from a well known figure, though people don’t often worship that figure per se.

“Proven wrong” may be rather hard. Many philosophies can be rather vague or established without any hard empirical evidence to back it up, but ill-defined enough that they’re almost impossible to attack empirically either.

And driving any philosophical debate towards having to prove what is objective and subjective can show a philosophical viewpoint is rather unassailable, though similarly unprovable.

It’s possible that an individual would be more likely to change a philosophically determined belief quicker than a religious determined belief if such a belief was challenged as unlikely do to personal experience/reflection or just not convenient given the circumstances. Though, people often have a lot of emotional investment in their personal credos and identify them as part of their “character” or “who they are”, so changing them may not occur very freely.

The scripture’s are usually pretty black and white, and even from a skeptic’s point of view can be seen as nothing more than either a collection of stories or philosophies.

Just thought I’d comment on this despite being mostly in love with the content of the rest of the post.

I found some of The Bible to be rather vague, though mostly in the parts where the author is trying to communicate metaphysical concepts in material terms. I found the codes of conduct, or at least, the basic codes of conduct pretty well spelled out.

Things like “treatment of homosexuality” and “abortion” not spelled out so clearly. Though, people probably shouldn’t make a as a big deal of them as they do considering “love thy neighbor” and “don’t pass judgment on others” are equivalently there.

The “vague” aspects of the Bible aren’t necessarily bad things though. Being able to reinterpret the message from age to age but still be holding “true” to the scriptures can be a major strength of any Religion and may even be a reason that many of more populous religions have endured so well.

Plus, there's that whole "follow these rules or its Hell for you" that a lot of religions have.

Buah?! You’re going to have to define “a lot”, as not all religions really have rigorously defined “punishment zones”, and the ones that do enjoy centuries of debate of what that “punishment zone” actually is.

Christianity probably enjoys the most debate as the Bible doesn’t really go into a great deal about Hell and people can’t decide if people go to “Hell” to suffer, if it’s just a place to “purify the soul”, obliterate it outright, or if it’s something that won’t even exist until the Apocalypse. The best biblical descriptions of Hell aren’t shown until Revelations (lake of fire) and Revelations sort of describes it as a place set aside for “The Dragon” and his followers AFTER the war with Heaven.

That aside, given the differing nature of “cosmic justice systems” between the multitude of Religions of the world, I think it’d be pretty hard to establish "follow these rules or its Hell for you" as a common trait between them.

I’ve read some pretty interesting articles focused on Christianity as to why that’s the case. Out of all the world religions, Christianity is one of the few (possibly the only one) to say that their religion is thereligion, whither you like it or not. Scary place.

Islam is arguably worse in practice, however it has interesting caveats regarding treatment of other people from other religions.

Christianity scripturally is a bit more vague on the topic then most think (I believe, anyhow). There are several verses that state that there is no other God, but really any condemning all other religious outright.

There are a few strongly worded verse’s aimed at idolaters but that’s hardly surprising. I haven’t come across anything that I perceive as an attack against the Roman gods, except the subtle message of “OUR God created the universe! Oh YOUR god throws lightning bolts? That’s nice…”

A lot of the scripture written for Christianity (and I only focus on it because it’s the only religion I’m rather familiar with; I’d rather not make an ass of myself by spouting off about other religions I know little to nothing of) was written years ago, in lawless countries and regions. So holy law being introduced to a society was even better than the people could’ve hoped. Back then, homophobia wasn’t running rampant, abortions weren’t even thought of, and mostly everyone was obeying the law out of fear of a deity that was pretty prevalent in the society governed.

Now we’re kinda’ Godless. Not that he doesn’t exist, but that he’s just not around now as much as he was; at least not by a presence that we can prove through justifiable experience or empirical data. So…we need to make do. We do that by turning to the movers and the shakers, the leaders of the faith. And they’ll tell us what they believe in. Does it line up perfectly with the scripture? Maybe. Well…actually yes! Kinda.

I tend to think that a lot of Christians and possibly a lot of other participants of other world religions Completely Miss The Point: it’s trying that’s important, not being. Awesome if you can manage being the paragon of the human species, but it’s the attempt to become that that’s important as well; the journey instead of the destination, as it were. Everyone’s got a different way of getting there, which is good, but people keep attaching lofty ideas to it, and saying that their way is the best way, which is bad. People are also constantly changing their minds quickly over fairly big portions of their lives, which is also a bad thing, but lots of people let it slide because, “it’s their religion.”

edited 18th Feb '11 11:45:50 AM by Newfable

it’s trying that’s important

Going to second this as a sort of focal point of Christianity, Jesus pretty much outright says that the level of “true” commitment is humanly impossible, but God will forgive and accept people anyway.

Being able to reinterpret the message from age to age but still be holding “true” to the scriptures can be a major strength of any Religion and may even be a reason that many of more populous religions have endured so well.

Not to mention a few other nonreligious things as well. The general direction of the thing and what we're shooting for probably shouldn't be changing, but we sure do, and adapting to new information about our nature, tendencies, and innate values isn't missing the point of faith at all — quite the opposite, it's critical.

Very true. But at the drop of a hat? When it concerns how people choose to look at the world and others around them? When it concerns how we interact and treat other people around us? Give me a break.

We should change, you’re right, but when it’s something this important (or at least, when people affix importance or great magnitude to it), it should only be done after a lot of thought. And to be frank, I don’t see it happening with the general public that makes the majority of the religious body, which scares me.

Religion is something that changes slightly, even Catholicism has methods for religiously examining new information about the world and reacting accordingly.

I think how people treat religion is changing quite a bit as well, not basing this on any "hard" data mind you, but it seems to me it's becoming increasingly common for people to drift to a type of "religious fulfillment" that they call more "spiritual" and perhaps a bit less grounded in organizations.

Which has a lot to do with the fact that said organizations are no longer the only way they have to access the information in the first place, and thus no longer the only source of analysis and consideration they have. Back when clergy were some of the only people that could read, you had to take the word of some rather questionable people on pretty much everything.

edited 18th Feb '11 1:28:11 PM by Pykrete