The General Religion, Mythology, and Theology Thread

Hmmm...I hope Hikaru Nakamura doesn't go off and make a spin-off about Muhammad. That won't go over well in the Middle east, no matter how light-hearted. Although reading the main page you linked to made me curious as to whether or not the posters actually believed either the stories of Buddha or the stories of Jesus.

I don't like to mention it, but I can actually get behind the fact that Jesus was a cool dude (barring the stuff about Hell and some other things). It's just that I feel some fundies think they have the right to say "SEE? SEE HOW GREAT JESUS WAS? AND HE DIED FOR YOUR SINS! HOW CAN YOU NOT GIVE UP YOUR WHOLE LIFE FOR HIM?!" Yeah, I don't think Jesus has, is, or will ever do anything in my life nor will I receive eternal life no matter what I believe or do. But hey, I am completely fine with that.

I just tried finding something in the Bible that would make Jesus look even kinda bad so I could say, "Hey, look here! Jesus wasn't that great!" I remember reading an article claiming that Jesus would break the commandments if following them would mean hurting people, but he goes on to say in one verse that the punishment of disrespecting one's parents still applies. Oh, well.

edited 17th Mar '14 4:35:37 PM by digaagwariz

You can believe in one or the other (or both) and still write something perfectly neutral.

edited 17th Mar '14 4:18:30 PM by Greenmantle

It's not that I think they would write something overly biased, it's just the thought of people believing that if they follow the words of some guy they think is the son of the creator of the universe who died and came back to life and walked on water and yada yada yada then they will go to a place of never-ending happiness forever after they die is just so unnerving.

@Elfive: I still want to read/watch that, it seems cool.

@digaag: I think you're still trying to apply science to religion to justify your Atheism, but following the idea that both fields are two different things I don't know if it's valid to comment or not. Which by I don't mean you can't be an atheist, I'm just wondering if for that definition your argument works, but I don't know and am curious about it.

@Elfive again: I think if there was an omnipotent being it could easily destroy the possibility of others spawning. Of course, thinking how that would work is kinda impossible for us to grasp as omnipotency overcomes logic and time. Or they could form a society "similar" to us, destroying those that make trouble and instigating that each has free will to create stuff without intervention and shit.

@digaag again: Hm... Again not to say you can't be an atheist, but that if you feel like that towards religion you should watch out for not being religious intolerant because that thing goes both ways, in favor and against religious. And I sound... complacent? Egotistical? Rude? I never know the word I think I sound like when I say something like this, so sorry if I offend you.

@Victin, I mean that historical claims should be verified before we make any decisions based on them. Claiming that Jesus did all these things and all the supernatural stuff in the Bible actually happened is still a historical claim and should be subject to scrutiny, just like trying to map evolutionary pathways. And whether or not the Biblical accounts of Jesus' life (glossing over the occasional contradictions) are true is obviously important to any individual if they actually are true. Hence, the importance of scientific scrutiny of supernatural claims.

God != religion, so I hope you're not insinuating that any claim made by a religion should be treated like the claim that a God exists just because religions also claim that. The concept of non-overlapping magisteria is too easily abused. For instance someone can say that there is a magical unicorn and when asked for empirical evidence of said unicorn, simply claim that the belief is part of their religion and can be verified without the means that would otherwise be deemed important and even necessary.

Can even an omnipotent being make something impossible for another omnipotent being if it was already impossible to begin with?

Oh dear I've gone cross-eyed again.

Where are all these omnipotent beings coming from in the first place? Is there an omnipotent being spawner somewhere in the cosmos?

@ digaagwariz: You are aware that not much in way of records survive from Roman Judea, and that History is hardly an exact art?

Maybe they're not omnipotent, and I suspect that's something not even a God would know — in fact, their answer may be along the lines of Gods Need Prayer Badly?

edited 17th Mar '14 4:56:24 PM by Greenmantle

@Elfive: That's what I meant @_@

@digaag: I think believing Jesus did the miracles is part of religion, and that History can only account for, well, historical Jesus and if he even existed. But even if History says 'A' religious people will believe 'B' because that's faith. They believe he did because religion, and you can't deny them that. Same goes for the folks that believe in the Invisible Pink Unicorn or whatever. It doesn't matter if we ask for testable proof because they believe it's there because religion.

@Fighteer: Well, if logic, time and space and other stuff were created with the Big Bang, then before that there'd be no logic, time and space to say that omnipotent beings can't or can spawn. And even if the answer was no the absence of logic turns that into a yes, maybe and bacon at the same time.

Same place all the others did.

edited 17th Mar '14 4:59:10 PM by Elfive

Who in the world said that logic didn't exist before the Big Bang? That's assuming that you think of logic as a thing "out there" rather than a construct of intelligence.

"I mean that historical claims should be verified before we make any decisions based on them. Claiming that Jesus did all these things and all the supernatural stuff in the Bible actually happened is still a historical claim and should be subject to scrutiny, just like trying to map evolutionary pathways. And whether or not the Biblical accounts of Jesus' life (glossing over the occasional contradictions) are true is obviously important to any individual if they actually are true. Hence, the importance of scientific scrutiny of supernatural claims."

I can see nothing to dispute here. The important thing to remember about NOMA is that religious claims should not have any direct implications for observable phenomena within the material universe. If they do, they cant claim NOMA as support. Religion is therefore limited to questions of emotional or spiritual meaningfulness only.

Well, we don't know what was there before the Big Bang, so I dunno if we can assume logic was already there? And if it was, was it always there or there was a non-time before the non-time before the Big Bang? And, can we know, for sure, at all?

Also, can't that same line of thinking apply to math?

The problem with that is that it means you have basically admitted that there's no way to answer the question "does this guy actually exist?" Pretty much every moral or metaphysical insight a religion can present is dependent on the answer to that question being a solid "yes" so if you really take NOMA to it's conclusion you've kicked out the foundations of the entire belief system.

And it's no good saying this existence is reliant on "faith" because I have "faith" that that's a load of bullshit.

edited 17th Mar '14 5:15:18 PM by Elfive

Then that'd be your faith

But yes, that's why I'm agnostic.

"The problem with that is that it means you have basically admitted that there's no way to answer the question "does this guy actually exist?"

Yep. There is no way to definitively answer the question of whether or not God exists. Atheists will remain atheists, and theists will remain theists. Why is that a problem?

"Pretty much every moral or metaphysical insight a religion can present is dependent on the answer to that question being a solid "yes" so if you really take NOMA to it's conclusion you've kicked out the foundations of the entire belief system."

Heh, no. No moral or metaphysical insight has any logical connection to questions regarding the objective existence of anything within the material, observable universe. That's why we label them as "moral" and "metaphysical"- to differentiate them from "scientific" and "objective." That is, in fact, the whole point and claim of NOMA: two separate magesteria.

Forget religion for a minute. What objective answer is there to any of the central questions of ethical or metaphysical philosophy? If you can come up with one, you could probably win a Nobel prize or something.

Now, not every theist in the world would endorse NOMA (the American Fundies certainly dont- they're very passionately against it). But those who do would be rather unlikely to propose that anyone should abandon a materialist explanation for some observable event because it's inconsistent with a belief in God. That wouldnt make any sense.

@Victin: There are serious schools of astro-physics that are beginning to look into the matter of what may have existed before, and therfore caused, the Big Bang to occur. Logically, I think even the "time" before our current timeframe existed still belongs to science.

@demarquis: I know that they exist, and I didn't mean to imply it wasn't supposed to be studied by science. Well, I actually did but only when/if science "fails" to, but of course even then science would still go on trying to. What I meant by fail is if they "prove" they can't know, maybe like at some point in time we won't be able to observe the entire universe anymore due to expansion and all that. Like, an absolute point we can't study further back because "scientifical reason". Besides, I think some people consider the Big Bang to be that point and the study of stuff before it Metaphysics?

@Victin: Yeah, logically they cant ever find an origin point, because you can always ask "what came before that?" Tyson made a very similar point (regarding the limits of physical space) on Cosmos just last week. But this is getting somewhat off-topic.

@Victin: Regardless of the availability of objective truth, you can't just claim anything that science hasn't found an answer to yet as belonging to the realm of the spiritual. While it may be the case that objective truth is ultimately unknowable and that we can at best approximate it, that is not license to devolve into solipsism.

@De Marquis: I do not and have never had any objection to religion as a form of personal philosophy. But a disturbing number of people feel a strong need to compel others to agree with their point of view. You can't empirically separate religion from the people who practice it.

edited 17th Mar '14 5:42:47 PM by Fighteer

Do you apply that standard to everyone who practices politics as well, without making a distinction regarding the specific people you are talking about?

@Fighteer: I again didn't mean to imply that. I mean to say that there are stuff that science regards as metaphysics, and that those belond in the realm of religion. Now what I'm aware that falls into that category is what came before the Big Bang, at least for some people, thus I used that as an example.

Also with you what you said, then the problem isn't religion itself, it's the people who practice them. Unless the religion in question promotes, for an exagerated example, murder, but that in turn falls into a sociological debate regarding culture and if omnipresent human rights are an actual thing. (My opinion would probably be yes, btw)

So I don't think you should preach a religion that tries to convert people by force. You can try arguments, but the problem is that they can get annoying (and I say arguments and not stuff like: "You're an asshat and wrong and going to Hell if you don't praise God, so praise him now!"

@De Marquis: If you mean that an individual member of a political group must by necessity be tarred with the actions of that group as a whole, then yes, I do believe it. I think, at the very least, that such transfer of responsibility is critical if we are ever to have anything like an ethical political process.

Same with religion. If it won't kick out its cranks, then one must judge it by its willingness to associate with said cranks.

@Victin: I'm actually with Fighteer on that specific issue. An objective question is an objective question even if science doesnt have any means available of answering it.

@Fighteer: "political group" and "religion" are not parallel constructs. "Religion" refers to a broad style of practice and belief- sects and denominations are the relevent groups within that broad category. And if you arent making a distinction between different groups of theists, then you arent being consistent.

edited 17th Mar '14 6:05:59 PM by demarquis

I don't know of any examples of Jesus doing it in particular, but this practice—Pikuach Nefesh—has been around for some time. I wouldn't be surprised if he did it.

edited 17th Mar '14 11:10:58 PM by Rem