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When Religion is not poison

#64: Mar. - May 2009 (Non-Fiction)
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Interbane

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axisage: "one of the ways in which religion takes a beating is with the in-group / out-group aspect of it. but i see the same thing happen with the in-group / out-group of science versus religion."

Could you explain what you mean here? Are you referring to the exclusionary structure of religion? There are different standards to which religion excludes beliefs compared to science. Religion excludes beliefs which are different from what is written in a book. Science excludes hypotheses that have been experimentally tested and shown to be false. Science does not condemn people who believe in these falsities to suffer in eternal hell. It simply says, to the best of our current understanding, some things are false. The apparent exclusion comes into play when someone believes in something that science indicates is false. Science cannot be blamed for this any more than visible light cannot be blamed for falling within a specific range of wavelengths.

Given the rigor involved in discerning the truth using this method, it’s foolish to reject it’s findings because you believe in something different, especially when that something different isn’t held to any standards of discerning veracity. At the very least, incorporating the findings of science into your current beliefs is a reasonable solution. Religion has learned this the hard way, after many instances of opposition. Consider the essay from the Pope in '96, "Truth cannot contradict truth".

axisage: "both, to me, are systems of approaching an understanding of the world, and i enjoy them both immensely. while religion focuses on allegory and myth, science takes what is observable, studies it, and makes calculable assumptions."

Both science and religion can use allegory and myth to explain their findings. The difference is the method of acquiring this understanding. To gain a perspective on how religion has come to discover the world is to consider the authors of the bible. What methods did they use to verify their accounting of genesis? Was it divine influence during the writing process, where the holy spirit entered their brains and caused them to write what they did? Was it merely their imagination, coupled with their best guesses?

If you read Stephen Hawking’s “A Brief History of Time”, you’ll notice he uses metaphors and analogies and as many explanatory devices as he can to help you understand his accounting of how certain aspects of the universe work. The methods used by him to gain this understanding are entirely seperate from the methods used to explain them to others. To gain understanding, the scientific method is used, which has rigorous standards to which one must abide. That the authors of the bible use allegory and myth to explain their understanding, that doesn't answer the question; what methods did the authors of the bible use to gain their understanding?

Understanding how the world works is different from understanding people and relationships. Religion may have insight here, but it is merely the wisdom of other men(unless you create your own religion based on your own wisdom). Most people assimilate this wisdom and assume that it is more than mortal wisdom, that it’s instead divine wisdom. If this is the case, we are full circle back to this wisdom being an explanation of reality, with a claim to objectivity.
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okay.
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sorry about that, interbane. didn't mean to leave you hanging. i don't know that i can address all of your content though.

maybe this can shed a little light; my mother is a believer, my stepfather is an atheist. my mother speaks using symbols i have come to understand and be okay with - i see it as her paradigm, or template for understanding the world. my stepfather and i enjoy great discourses on practical, matter-of-fact things, and talk science and green energy. and so on.

recently i read a book called "the field," by lynne mctaggart, and i loved it. (sorry if it's inappropriate to bring up other books - is it?) "the field" was fascinating to me. as these physicists discussed their work with quantum mechanics; things like "electrons once in contact will remain in contact no matter the time and space that separates them," and discussion of "the field" itself (this thing both a backdrop and a sort of ether surrounding and binding all,) i start to think of God. [for clarification: to me, "God" is basically the sum total of all things. energy, matter, consciousness. in this case, the whole is something even "greater" than the parts - as in a house built of boards and shingles becomes a "home."]

religion and science to me are both ways of attempting to understand the world. i see them as both meeting at the end. i understand, though, that we are talking about the practice, and the issues therein. i don't see scientists going door to door to preach their findings, or a war waging and lives lost because of an ancient disagreement between biologists and cosmologists. (lol, that's a good idea for a book, tho...)

so, i think i get it. people killing people over their beliefs-based-on-books, influencing governments, and all of the rest, that kind of blows, if you'll permit me. i guess the problem is, you can show gravity by dropping the apple. you can't "show" that allah or jesus is great, so you might have to hit someone over the head with it. which is waaayyy unnecessary. i think for the most part, you can judge the tree by the fruit it bears.
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Hey axisage! I was hoping you were still around somewhere. The relationship you have with mother and stepfather is exactly like the one I have with mother and father. My mother is religious, and my dad is a sciency and practical kind of guy.

I'm still unsure what you mean when you say religion can help people understand the universe. If we were to separate the teachings of the bible into parts applicable to what we're talking about, I guess we'd have a cosmology column and a human wisdom column. The cosmology column would contain things like genesis, where explanations of the universe are contained, where we came from, how things work, etc. The human wisdom portion would contain subjective wisdom, the interactions of people with other people and their environment. The cosmology column is what I would think helps us to understand the universe. The problem is, it's completely bogus. The only thing that can't be outright dismissed is the idea of a god, but that is because it is an undisprovable concept. Yet, even in the case of a god, the only one that survives critical examination is a god that created the universe then disappeared from the scenes, never to even have influenced the universe since it's creation. That is not a biblical god, and is not a useful hypothesis(it doesn't help us understand the universe). I guess what I'm saying is that the only parts of the bible that help us understand the universe is the human wisdom part. The constant appeal to divine authority in the bible is what confuses things, making it seem that the wisdom is more than merely human. And even then, it's not as though this wisdom helps us understand the universe. It helps us understand people and their interactions.

When a house built of boards and shingles becomes a home, it doesn't become a home objectively. It becomes a home in the eye of the homeowner. It is all in your head, so to speak. This is true of god also. Yet, the realness of feeling is sometimes mistaken as making the object of that feeling objectively real. No one would argue against the feeling of a place being 'home'. Yet, no expert on the subject would argue that such a feeling isn't only in your head.
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cool, cool i get what you're saying. however i don't treat "genesis" in the bible as an explanation of how life began. i don't know how life began. nor do i presume to know how the infinite (or even finite, if that's your bag) universe works. no way. science doesn't know what dark matter is. gravity is even a mystery to those big enough to admit it. as is the electromagnetic field. or how memory works in the brain. or learning. we simply don't know these things. or, at least i don't. to me, they're in the mind of the believer, just like the concept of a "home" is. science doesn't give me unequivocal answers, science keeps me interested and exploring and excited about this wild world. religion doesn't give me unequivocal answers either. religion often uses poetic language and creative license to approach things unknowable, like how it all began. i think it was in the upanishads that it is written, 'there is not truth. there is only story.' i don't go around telling anyone "i know that god made the world in seven days." i like the balladry of that story, the paean to how huge it all is. i also don't go around saying, "i know that a big bang created everything that exists." i mostly go around saying, "hey, look at me, i'm cool, give me some money." lol
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Re: When Religion is not poison

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With simple observation we see

Some ignorant people use religion for their own benefit and to the detriment of others
Some greedy lawyers misuse the LAW for their own benefit and to the detriment of others
Some judges misuse the LAW for their own benefit and to the detriment of others
Some Police Officers misuse the LAW for their own benefit and to the detriment of others
Some businesses misuse politicians, the law, the environment, and their workers for their own benefit and to the detriment of others
Some ..and the list goes on
do you think that the economic slavery that is what many people are exposed to by working so hard just to be able to afford a roof over their head for this month came about because of religion alone? of course it did not. there is greed and corruption on every level of society, it is found in every corner.

it is greed, it is ignorance, it is the illusion of superiority and business for us, and a country for us that segregates all of the other people in the world. The ignorance of putting the other business out, and a contract that is in our country's favor instaed of a fair deal. How about working together? How about making contracts that are mutually benefcial and fair?
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Re: When Religion is not poison

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omid-

very well said!
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