The General Religion, Mythology, and Theology Thread

If I had an answer for you, I'd probably be religious.

You realize I'm not saying that your experience is invalid, right? You're perfectly justified in believing what you do. I'm just asking you to acknowledge that so are other people whose experience is different than yours.

I fail to see how that's relevant to the idea of a religious scholar interpreting a religious book. The bible was written in a variety of time periods in a variety of languages. If you want to understand exactly what it's trying to say, it's not unreasonable to believe that you should probably be able to read it in its original language, and be aware of the prevalent cultural and societal attitudes at that time and place in history.

Hell, you can be a biblical scholar without even being Christian, and approach it entirely as a cultural study rather than a religious one. That doesn't mean that herp derp random Joe off the street's interpretation of the bible is better than a dedicated biblical scholar's.

edited 27th Jun '16 12:31:06 PM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

I'd just like one person of faith to acknowledge the fundamental tautology of their belief system instead of trying to dodge the issue by claiming "subjective personal experiences".

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

The thing with God and dictators is that I'd argue Tyrants are basically "false gods" (and totalitarian ideologies are a form of idolatry). The key difference is that Tyrants act like they have unlimited wisdom, but they do not, and usually have very unhealthy egos. God, by contrast, does, and is far more humble and merciful (when someone becomes the life of a poor carpenter to face execution primarily to spare humanity from the fate it deserves, they are probably not a tyrant).

I'm not above admitting my ideology is at least somewhat tautological. Or at least, "Axiomatic".

edited 27th Jun '16 12:36:52 PM by Protagonist506

"Any campaign world where an orc samurai can leap off a landcruiser to fight a herd of Bulbasaurs will always have my vote of confidence"

It's not tautological. I've said this repeatedly. DeMarquis, who is actually religious, has said the same thing. You believe in god first, then you believe in the teachings of their religion. You don't believe in god because you believe their teachings, which you believe in because you believe in god. It's not a god -> therefore teachings -> therefore god circular reasoning. It's subjective experience -> therefore god -> therefore teachings, with no tautological circularity involved.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

You can't have God there without someone introducing you to the concept. It's something you pick up via indoctrination and/or cultural osmosis; babies don't come out of the womb and invent "God" ex nihilo. Sorry, you can't sell me that and think I'll buy it.

You need both the subjective experience and the external concept of religion.

To be sure, and there are tons of cultural and anthropological data to be garnered from such studies, but a non-religious biblical scholar would never dare tell people how they ought to interpret the Bible in terms of their own faith.

edited 27th Jun '16 12:38:44 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

If we're already accepting that the whole thing is about faith rather than evidence, who are you to say that it isn't? Maybe the Bible was wrong all along, and random Joe just received a divine vision of what the true message was actually supposed to be?

Still a great "screw depression" song even after seven years.

I apologize if this is a bit incoherent, I've got food poisoning right now-

I agree with the troper who posted a few pages ago about the tone of this thread.

I am a gay man who grew up in the Deep South; I was very religious, so I understand how deeply damaging religious convictions can be to oneself and others. For a long time I deeply hated religion in general; particularly Christianity.

I say this because I want to make clear that despite that, I rarely feel comfortable posting in this thread because I feel like it's heavily dominated by antitheism and a generally caustic and unfriendly atmosphere.

I can understand and respect antitheism, but the tenor of this thread is one of hostility; I don't like that at all.

I'd like it if I could go a page without someone saying all religions are packs of lies that only morons buy into.

I'm more or less on the same boat.

It's nice when this thread is actually discussing different theologies and faiths, but pages upon pages of "God is a tyrant and religion is a lie" does wear one down.

"All you Fascists bound to lose."

You can love something, without respecting them as equals. Pets for example. So the passages are not contradictory in patriarchal logic.

And how do you know the love and cherrish part is from god and the subordination is from humans. It could be the other way round. Both from god or both from men. There's equal evidence for all of them.

... I honestly would never have existed an atheist ("was very religious" implies the possibility that you've switched to atheism; if not, I apologize for the mistake) to say this, so let this be known: You're a good, reasonable person who has just made a very good point, and actually articulated one major reason why I too don't like frequenting this thread unless I have an on-topic question (e.g. asking about a relatively obscure mythical figure).

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Well, generally speaking, these debates tend to come up whenever someone offers a "Problem with Evil" type question, which inevitably starts the theism/anti-theism debates. I'm not sure that there's any reasonable way to stop them. However, there are covens for various religious groups over in the right side of the forums, and I've heard that those stay fairly contained.

For my part, I try to shy away from the "religion is evil/bad" blanket statements, but it's very hard to escape the lure of replying to arguments that I perceive as intellectually unsound.

edited 27th Jun '16 12:49:39 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

You lot been raging on Religion again and saying how it's the grater evil ever?

Just figured I'd chime in and say that it's entirely possible to belive in a Religon because of its idea, I follow the idea of Christ because I think they're good idea, if Christ was real or not is irelivent to me following his ideas, hell I'd go so far as to argue that believing in his ideas is what makes him real.

God is a human creation, I have no problem acknowledging that and maintains my faith.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran

@ Matues, Gaon: I was the one who posted that. About 3/4 of the posts on this thread are about this bloody topic.

It seems that nobody reads the sticky on the top of every page, which is there for exactly this reason!

edited 27th Jun '16 12:49:47 PM by Greenmantle

Keep Rolling On

Obviously the concept came from somewhere, even if it was wholly invented by the human mind ascribing various natural phenomena to giant men living in the sky, so that seems like a silly claim to me.

Sure, but if they start talking about, for example The Four Loves as evidence that in this passage they're talking about love like a brother, while in that passage they're talking about love like a spouse, you'd be a fool not to listen to them.

That's a different question entirely. I'm talking about interpreting the text of a religion's holy book, not judging whether or not someone claiming to be the Second Coming is legit or not. For the former, study and scholarship is important. For the latter, you have to make your own judgment.

To be blunt, I'm not really interested in debating the finer points of Christian theology with you. I'm not even Christian. My only point was that "hey, maybe murdering each other whenever we feel like and stealing each other's stuff whenever we can get away with it is a bad idea and we should stop doing it" is certainly better than the alternative. Religion is entirely capable of being a positive force. It can also be a negative force, yes, but it isn't inherently evilbadwrong.

edited 27th Jun '16 12:54:47 PM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

I'm talking about the point of view of the individual who has a spiritual experience and looks for a way to explain it, not in an anthropological sense. You claim this is how many come to God. I'd call that a minority; most of the lifelong faithful grow up in religious environments and never learn to question.

No, it isn't. However, we've seen the harm that can come from faith not properly balanced with skepticism, even entirely within religious groups, never mind in their interactions with the rest of the world. I would be hard-pressed, for example, to say that evangelical Christianity has contributed anything positive to American society.

I have issues with organized religion precisely because it creates a ready-made channel for bypassing skepticism and introducing toxic memes. Protestations that "well, my faith isn't like that" strike me as dodging the point. Here's the thing: if you believe one concretely wrong thing on faith (whether religious or not), then my own faith in your ability to critically reason is reduced, especially if you cannot be persuaded otherwise.

edited 27th Jun '16 1:01:10 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Religion can't be a force for good? This ignores that churches tend to do things like run charities and build hospitals. It's clear that they indeed can be a force for good. In addition, it ignores that antitheists can and do get involved in the same things they claim to hate. For example, some governments (the Soviets, North Korea) enforce state atheism using brutality that would probably make Inquisitors cringe.

"Any campaign world where an orc samurai can leap off a landcruiser to fight a herd of Bulbasaurs will always have my vote of confidence"

I just said that it can be a force for good, even though the charitable efforts that religious groups often oversee could still exist without the religious trappings. Frankly, I'd be happier accepting charity from a non-denominational group than one that hands out Biblical verses with each meal — and you know damn well that happens.

The thing about state sponsored atheism, like we saw in the Soviet Union and see in North Korea, is that they replace existing religions with the worship of the State, with predictably catastrophic results. They aren't really trying to make everyone think critically about their world; they are just as happy with slavishly ignorant subjects as any Baptist preacher.

edited 27th Jun '16 1:07:31 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Any belief just on it's own is morally neutral, imo. It's how people interpret all those vague gut feelings and cryptic religious texts, and especially how they react to the things they believe in that's interesting.

Still a great "screw depression" song even after seven years.

... Pagan religions get portrayed in media? I mean, beyond the "savage natives doing weird rituals that often involve barbaric acts like cannibalism" stereotype, that is.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Darn, I was in the middle of a post that would have ended this debate FOREVER.

Anywhose: too many of them try to get them highjacked by Jesus or turn them into a Religion of Evil, which is kind of lame (particularly the latter).

Of course. Greek paganism, for example. Unless we mean the practices themselves rather than the mythology...

edited 27th Jun '16 1:17:43 PM by Protagonist506

"Any campaign world where an orc samurai can leap off a landcruiser to fight a herd of Bulbasaurs will always have my vote of confidence"

I was assuming that it was indeed the practices that were being referred to here. Mythology isn't always religious, after all, and it's not always a required element of a religion anyway.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Yeah most naturalist, tribal based, shamanistic or similar religions tend to get no background, they're just kinda there. Celts occasionally get some and the faiths of historical civilisations will get some backstory, but you've got to be able to build some big shit out of stone with a roof before your religon is counted and actually given details.

edited 27th Jun '16 1:22:24 PM by Silasw

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

I suppose since we're at it, Game of Thrones has a lot of Crystal Dragon Jesus religions, and while it takes on a extremely dim view of religious faith in general, the one faith the show treats with respect is the pseudo-Pagan one. The faith of the Old Gods, in which people worship sacred trees and the gods are nameless and formless, just "Gods". Most of the main heroes are either agnostic/atheists or believe in the Old Gods.

The other main ones are the Faith of the Seven (medieval Catholicism with seven facets of the god rather than three) and The Lord of Light's faith (which is Zoroastranism on steroids) and both are almost unilaterally portrayed as corrupt or fanatical.

So I guess that's a positive portrayal of a Pagan faith, even if a Crystal Dragon Jesus one.

"All you Fascists bound to lose."