Reason and wishes.

johnson1010 · Fri Jun 17, 2011 2:29 pm

Religion offers no real answers. No understanding. No predictive power. No ability to feed, clothe, or care for ourselves in the real world.

It's a perspective where very little makes sense about the world. Where anything at all is possible, because there are no fixed rules to be aware of and no way to really know anything at allo.

The religous may sometimes claim to know something about something spiritual, but inevitably, there is no way to pin down if what they are talking about is actually true to any degree at all. Speculation about the illusions of imagination.

What religion does assert, with perfect clarity of opinion is that they know exactly what life means, or where we go after we die, or what the universe is all about. Even if it's just, "to serve the mighty god-king". Whatever that might mean...

To sum up, religion offers no short term answers or understanding, but asserts the possesion of the ultimate BIG truth.

Science is really the exact opposite. It offers concrete irrefutable knowledge on all manner of things which have real tangible results today, tomorrow and throughout all history. The findings have been reliable, predictable, and they have proven to be the foundations of all society. They are the reasons we no longer live naked exposed to the elements in dirt floored camps.

But science does not make any statements about the BIG AGENDA. The "why are we here"s of it all.

I find that juxtaposition to be interesting.

Why do so many trust to religion, which has never given an accurate answer for anything, and distrust science which is the foundation of all that keeps us alive?

Baffling.

tat tvam asi · Sat Jun 18, 2011 12:30 pm

Because people love it when someone claims to know absolutely that which is not known at all. They love thinking that someone else has had great insight into the unknown and can provide everyone else with meaning, where in reality no fixed meaning can be given. They think they know why we are here, to serve God. But do any of them go one step further and ask themselves the next simple question? Why does a God exist in the first place in order to create living beings to serve it? Suddenly we're back to the absolutely 'unknown' once again. Unless, of course, any browsing religionists would care to step up to the plate and solve this greater mystery underlying their theistic belief system....

In the end, no matter which way they turn, the question of absolute ultimates dissolves into the great 'unknown'. They actually have to say "I don't know" at some point down the line. Because their bibles fail them at these deeper levels of human contemplation.

stahrwe · Sat Jun 18, 2011 1:16 pm

What is sad isn't that you guys promote the above garbage, what is sad is that you don't bother learning the truth before you promote the garbage.

Truly baffling.


	Quote: The district is poor being inhabited solely by millhands, barge men, and colliers; there are several large manufactureies in it, but the proprietors live at a distance and care little for the ... welfare of the hands they employ. The Brig is well known in the neighborhood as a lawless and godless spot, and no kind of religious influence had been brought to bear upon it. On Sunday morning the bridge over the Calder is the rendezvous for hosts of men with their dogs who come to make up matches for dog fights and dog races, take and made bets on favourites. the afternoon is spent in these 'sports' which come off in fields by the river side amidst crowds of boys and girls. Then there are the public houses, and the number of drunken men reeling about the streets and roads on a Sunday is exeptionally great. Things being in this condition and the place being a scandal to the neighborhood, it was determined to start a mission ... within two doors of the most disorderly of the public houses. On St. Katherine's day, ... the mission was opened and we invoked the blessing of the Holy Ghost on the work then commenced. Night school was carried on four days a week, and the average attendance was sixty, the number of names on the books being eighty-five: but as in some mills the work is carried on night and day, and most of the scholars being 'hands' in the mills, when it was their turn to work at night, they could not come to school. The instruction consisted in reading and writing and a little arithmetic. The young men come on two nights, and the young women on the other two. On Friday evenings we held a savings bank and eventually had about thirty-five depositors. Onward Christian Soldiers, A Life of Sabine Baring-Gould; pp 67-68 by W. H. Purcell; Longmens, Green, and Co., 1957.

The location of a church in the town led to general education made available to men and women, and to the beginnings of a bank where local people could begin to build wealth.

Multiply this by thousands, millions of towns.

Interbane · Sat Jun 18, 2011 1:39 pm


	Quote: What is sad isn't that you guys promote the above garbage, what is sad is that you don't bother learning the truth before you promote the garbage.

Your post isn't related Stahrwe. Johnson is referring to the content of education, not to the method of delivery. Classic red herring.

tat tvam asi · Sat Jun 18, 2011 2:15 pm

Stahrwe, what is the truth?

stahrwe · Sat Jun 18, 2011 2:32 pm

Interbane wrote:


	Quote: What is sad isn't that you guys promote the above garbage, what is sad is that you don't bother learning the truth before you promote the garbage.

Your post isn't related Stahrwe. Johnson is referring to the content of education, not to the method of delivery. Classic red herring.


	johnson1010 wrote: Religion offers no real answers. No understanding. No predictive power. No ability to feed, clothe, or care for ourselves in the real world.

Sabine Baring-Gould was a pastor. He was a religious man who was concerned about the welfare of the people he ministered to. In direct contradiction to the bolded section of your monologue above, SBG, motivated by his religious faith, established a school and bank, and in fact DID exactly what you say isn't done!!!

johnson1010 · Sat Jun 18, 2011 4:34 pm


	Quote: Sabine Baring-Gould was a pastor. He was a religious man who was concerned about the welfare of the people he ministered to. In direct contradiction to the bolded section of your monologue above, SBG, motivated by his religious faith, established a school and bank, and in fact DID exactly what you say isn't done!!!

But the gospels are not math. They are not geography. They are not the root of farming technology, even low-tech technology like irrigation.

Religion is the claim of what happens after death. The study of the un-studyable.

Everything that Sabine Baring-Gould was teaching was derived from science (except the hell-fire parts). If he was teaching those people how to build shelter, he was teaching them science. If he taught them how to rotate crops, he was teaching them science. If he taught them how to make a loom, he taught them science. If he taught them how to treat injuries with medicine, he taught them science.

Sure, he was religious. But NONE of the religious things he taught them were of any practical value. Moral lessons are found in every culture, all over the planet, and none of those morals have a religious origin.

They have been ADOPTED by the religious. Put forward as the children of reliigion, but they are not.

Once again. You excel at missing the point.

stahrwe · Sat Jun 18, 2011 6:26 pm

johnson1010 wrote:


	Quote: Sabine Baring-Gould was a pastor. He was a religious man who was concerned about the welfare of the people he ministered to. In direct contradiction to the bolded section of your monologue above, SBG, motivated by his religious faith, established a school and bank, and in fact DID exactly what you say isn't done!!!

But the gospels are not math. They are not geography. They are not the root of farming technology, even low-tech technology like irrigation.

Religion is the claim of what happens after death. The study of the un-studyable.

Everything that Sabine Baring-Gould was teaching was derived from science (except the hell-fire parts). If he was teaching those people how to build shelter, he was teaching them science. If he taught them how to rotate crops, he was teaching them science. If he taught them how to make a loom, he taught them science. If he taught them how to treat injuries with medicine, he taught them science.

Sure, he was religious. But NONE of the religious things he taught them were of any practical value. Moral lessons are found in every culture, all over the planet, and none of those morals have a religious origin.

They have been ADOPTED by the religious. Put forward as the children of reliigion, but they are not.

Once again. You excel at missing the point.

What he taught them was that God cared about them enough to send His Son Jesus and that because SBG knew Jesus he wanted to help them with their lives. Where are the missionaries science is sending around the world today? There are some but mostly they are still Christians who go and bring the sciences with them. Why is that Johnson1010? Baffling.

You want predictability? I predict that if you find a man or woman of science, or medicine, or agriculture, living in the poorest place to help the locals that person is a Christian.

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