The General Religion, Mythology, and Theology Thread

God does this typical abusive thing where he says it's all your fault and he didn't force you, and that it's all part of the plan and he's in control of everything and allowing everything. It's called having your cake and eating it, and taking the credit for the good and giving the blame for the bad.

This is also known as The Problem of Evil, and happens when you want to take too many virtues Up To Eleven and instead of having a god that is wise, powerful, and kind, you make him omniscient, omnipotent, and omni-benevolent. The only world where that would work would be a Sugar Bowl.

edited 23rd Jan '15 12:34:04 PM by TheHandle

Here is the problem with pre-packed judging: You are ensconcing an entire group of people with some arbitrarily decided values, effectively depersonalizing them and quite frankly, making it impossible for you to look at them as individual, instead they are just "That group of idiots that can't think".

So when you point at other people "Look at those idiots who can't think", and those people go about to find that those "idiots who cannot think" are actually rational people, they will look at you as a bigoted fuckhole, and point it out to you. Because they took the time to care for the individual and deeming them so instead of just buying the prepackaged elements of judging like an ass.

As has been said several pages ago, the consequences for not showing the respect are not legal ones, but social ones. Ostracism and labels of bigotry follow to that. If you are ok with that, then I guess that is a perfectly agreeable arrangement we can get.

Correct but again. Not even tangentially related. It is like me saying "Hey, I really like Mila Kunis" and you reply "OH YEAH!? WELL MOTHER FUCKING AVOCADOS ARE A FRUIT, YOU IDIOT". Not even close.

Which is bible literalism. If you take it, as religions do, as symbolic, then Adam and Eve are humanity. They chose. They could have chosen differently. They didn't. So don't be like them kids. The end.

AKA: You have a choice.

it is like saying the tortoise and the hare is a stupid story that should be banned because it is way too licentious with biology.

edited 23rd Jan '15 12:46:30 PM by Aszur

Which version of Job?

(The book of Job was my Master's thesis so I really geek out there.)

In the original, god is a dick without a plan. He is very much like Zeus, all human and flawed but has awesome powers. Very much like El, the original Canaanite big man on campus.

That version of Job says that Job is the more powerful and honorable one because he shows mercy to a diety when he doesn't have to. He's the bigger man.

Again, it all depends which version you want to take what you're willing to use for good or evil. That was actually the whole point of my thesis. Job has been used as a cultural marker and various cultural and judicial systems have been based on that model, including victim blaming and many leaders, such as good fucktard King James, have intentionally messed with that story in order to support their agenda.

That whole, religion is run by humans and humans can be shitty kicking in again.

And as such, not all religions say their god/gods/higher power has a plan, is infallible, or even all knowing or capable.

Christianity has many sects like that including Process Theology which is also gaining Islamic Adherents. I've met Process Theology Muslims. It's no surprise that fundamentalism is closely tied with lack of opportunity and education. We fix these things, we improve lives and drive out fundamentalist, absolutist thinking. I'm all for that.

Bullshit

In fundamental nature... the only difference is that latter is a hell of a lot more pernicious. Just because an idea is culturally popular does not make it any less potentially destructive, damaging and unhealthy. To say otherwise is basically argue that Culture Justifies Anything.

I'm sorry but that's just intellectually dishonest. No one here has advocated forcibly removing ideas from anyone so what you're effectively arguing is that either a) no one is allowed to argue a person out of a position or b) that religion should not be argues against, which means that when it comes to the position that everything is open to investigation and questioning, you're doing to us anti-religious folks what you're accusing us of doing to you.

There's a difference between respecting beliefs and patronizingly patting people on the head. I respect people's beliefs enough that I feel a duty to help them weed out the inexcusably dumb ones for the good of the whole.

There's a understated difference between respecting one's beliefs and simply acknowledging those beliefs. Just throwing that out there.

How did I ever depersonalize anyone? And my Anti-semitism example is tangentially related. I used it to illustrate that a harmful idea doesn't become better just because a it is not exclusive to one ideology. Admittedly it was a poor choice of example but the underlying logic is related to the topic.

And I'm not pointing at "those idiots who can't think". I'm pointing at humans. But humans are all too fallible and bad ideas influence all of us. Ideas like faith, sexism or racism don't just afflict "idiots", they permeate our whole culture and drive our thinking. That's what makes them so dangerous in the first place. If only idiots were afflicted the problem would be far smaller.

Likewise, if wrong biology about hares and tortoises would be used to uphold harmful ideas then we would have an obligation to criticise it (I never spoke of banning or censuring anything.) A single example of a damsel in distress wouldn't be harmful but an ubiquitousness of it creates and upholds certain expectations about gender.

And we don't have a choice of getting sick or not. Which is when "Gods will" is used as an explanation. The problem comes with the ascribed omnipotence and omnibenevolence of God. If everything happens because of him, an what he does is good, than the bad stuff must have a reason. It must be because "you" have done something wrong. A non-omnipotent or benevolent deity wouldn't create this problem but the abrahamic one does.

I had a question pertaining to Medusa, Poseidon and Athena. I've read two different accounts on how Medusa came to being, one where she was raped by Poseidon in Athena's Temple, and Athena punished Medusa by turning her into what she is. Another account says that Medusa and Poseidon had sex in the temple, and Medusa was punished for desecrating it. Which one is it?

I've heard a third interpretation that she was raped, but the "curse" was actually Athena ensuring it would never happen again.

Ah, that makes sense, kind of. And another thing, since her and her sisters were daughters of Ceto and Phorcys, did they come out monstrous, with scaly skin, bronze fangs/tusks and whatever, or were they more humanlike, and then became that?

Has anyone here found that a certain modern re-characterization of a mythological character completely supplanted all previous versions in your mind? Fate Stay Night and Fate Zero are doing this a lot for me. The Sandman also, to a lesser extent.

edited 24th Jan '15 2:34:03 AM by TheHandle

Not me personally, but it's easy to see a lot of long term cultural osmosis caused by translation issues resulting in Everyone Hates Hades.

Though on the issue of the Nasuverse, I think the version of Alexander the Great from Fate Zero will forever more be the yardstick against which I measure all other versions.

On the other hand, King Arthur is now a moe little girl.

To be honest Saber could never truly supplant Graham Chapman in my mind.

Eloquent, at least.

Wow that would actually be true...if you were right. I already quoted the studies that pointed out how religiosity is linked to less violence, so how about you point out to some evidence that religiosity points out to "pernicious, destructuve, damaging and unhealthy" behavior.

So you went back in time a handful of pages, nitpicked a statement, stabbed the context of it in the back and stuffed its corpse in an overall and topped it with a big straw hat and planted it to scare the crows.

I will return to this in a second.

You depersonalize people by lumping them in together. You even do that in your next paragraph. You are not pointing at humans. You are pointing at humans that do not question the ideas that surround them and we have proven time and again that humans have the power to question them and do so repeatedly. That they don't, is up to them, but to cry foul at "humanity" because "We are oh so vulnerable" is paramount to depersonalizing for you are lumping everyone together in a "helpless victims" situation that is really, really, really not the case.

Like that famous statistic, that most catholics despite the position of the church approve, or use condoms? So what are they, the sole exception? The underdog heroes against a cruel twist of faith that has tempest-tossed them into the evil claws of religion? Masochists?

Again. You are debating theodicy and doing it with willful ignorance. Modern religions ascribe to modern medicine and biology with a handful of exceptions in some procedures (like the witnesses of jehova, i think, that do not do blood transfusions). Religions do not go "OH YOU GOT SICK CUZ' IT IS YOUR FAULT" and in many cases were in fact the ones who spearheaded medical treatment and care. To say that the omnipotence and omniscience of a deity allows disease is just a ridiculous argument.

I want to close and return to what I promised I would to return earlier. In a thread, in a forum subsection where you are bound to the promise of self moderate behavior, and a thread that advocates for no mindless bashing, yet you absolutely, consistently ignore all theological interpretations already given out, it begets the answer of if you are truly trying to have a discussion or if your despise for this is just so simply heavily rooted that this baseless lashing out is not of an almost memetic quality of spite.

Honestly, it feels like religion beat you up and stole you people's lunch money at some point.

No. Religion, religiosity, does not account for all the world's evils. Its misuse is barely part of what plagues society. Criticism is not malicious interpretations of theological answers. Discussion is not adjudication of fault to lines of thought simply because of their chronological prevalence. It is not a boogeyman that hounds you even as we speak, staring from the ever watchful eye of your 1 dollar bill labeled "In God We Trust".

As I said, I do not like religion. I am not even speaking in its favor. I am just familiar enough with it theologically speaking to know what position they hold in several of the subjects held here. I have seen my family and myself hurt by some of their doctrines. But even so I find it impossible not to blame the individuals who abuse it instead of the random strains of thoughts randomly nitpicked to fit in a preconception of disgust.

If you want to hold religion to the concept of "You need to look after your own thoughts and ideas" I suggest cleaning house first, because statistics and science simply do not support your claims and neither does the theological point of view of the religions. You're not discussing religion. You're just bashing it without offering true criticism.

Criticism also means you have done an analysis, and you have wagered in the positives and the negatives, yet the constant shouting of the negatives does not speak at all of neither self moderation nor a desire for discussion, at least not a well informed one since again many of the subjects religion is accused of are answered in its theology time and time again. It is also not really pragmatical, if you wanted to achieve anything. It is hard to discern any purpose other than you saying "I hate this and you should too!" when all you spit is bile of it. It is not critical analysis. It is just rampant whining and honestly I do not think it has any place in this thread, where it is merely meant to be discussed.

No. "Trying to disprove" or "trying to prove" is not discussing religion, it is not criticizing religion, it is simply attacking or preemptively defending it against a perceived attack. Religious people rely on faith, the doctrine of faith is primordial on any religion. "Prove to me that god exists" or "Prove to me god does not exist" is a statement born out of desire to assimilate, invasive in principle, specially since you are the one inviting the discussion. No one has any business trying to assimilate one thought over the other specially when it is of something that is simply there to make people feel good.

I feel good not giving a fuck about wether krishna or god or allah exist. I think my grandma feels good thinking god exists. But other people seem to think it is terrible that my grandma thinks that.

So honestly. What is it. What do you want out of this? I cannot for the life of me find out what you want out of this thread.

But it's the truth. You'll find a lot of believers don't know all the rules of their faith, and even if they do, might not choose to follow them, depending on the circumstances. People make compromises to get by in Real Life.

That's even if their faith has written rules. Some, like Hinduism and Shinto don't, and for some following isn't mandatory, and even then religion does change to fit local circumstances and beliefs, as has happened to Christianity in Africa and the Caribbean, where it has been synthesised with local tribal beliefs.

edited 26th Jan '15 10:33:01 AM by Greenmantle

That I blame individuals for their faults, instead of whatever arbitrary group they profess belonging to?

Yes.

Sarcasm helps a lot. Also it is hardly the Golden Mean Fallacy when you have yet to mention any positive in your 238761234871234 posts. Just 1.

I am discussing things. As I have pointed out I have signalled you to theodicy, the problem of evil, the history of things as discussed since Summa Theologica, the studies on religious populations, fideism...how about you?

Yes. I do not give a fuck about what conspiracy theorists think. I will mock them if they try to proselytize me but I won't go ahead and try to change their mind ''in a thread that is meant to have basic respect for other people's beliefs".

Seriously. Do you have any real arguments that actually disprove anything about the theology I said or something? Or do you just feel I am personally grieving you? Something. Quote something. Give us numbers, proof, follow-through with your claims.

Don't just play "edgy" with overdone "no u" jokes.

As much as I was, at one point, an eager participant in this conversation, I feel that it is making the thread too hostile to serve its purpose. Accordingly, I am locking it temporarily pending review.

edited 26th Jan '15 11:11:19 AM by Fighteer

Okay, timeout is over.

Okay, let's assume someone here in the closet about their religion or lack thereof, and genuinely fears the consequences of coming out, such as the destruction of precious relationships. How should they go about dealing with the mental strain of duplicity and living out a lie?

I think that depends on which side of the fence they're coming from.

If you're an atheist pretending to be religious, well lip service is lip service.

On the flip side, I guess it depends on how understanding you're particular deity is about that sort of thing.

If apostasy is punished by death or imprisonment, and is carried out with fervor by the local authorities, then one would do well to keep very, very quiet about the change of heart.

edited 2nd Feb '15 2:33:16 PM by Fighteer

Yeah what Fighteer said is important. The context is very relevant.

it is very different to "come out" in a community that is highly irreligious, to a community that is highly conservative and religious, les they do like that Latter Day people who barr everyone who converted from the religion off contact with those still inside.

Even if it is no extreme of "You might get shot" or "you might get shunned", paying attention to the context is important.

For example, I don't care about religion. My mother knows. My brother knows. My sister knows. My father knows. But that is something I would lie about in my grandparents' face if they asked because they are my grandparents and I know they would not take it the same way my brother or sister did

Lying to people one actually cares about can hardly be pleasant.