Explain Judaism

[Ninae]

It's not really that far off. Saying that religion as a whole is responsible for wars is like saying the medical system is responsible for all the malpractices the medical board decides on. That may be a part of it, but there's also a lot more going on.

 

[swilow]

Why do people who follow religion get offended by people who don't?

 

[Doldrugs]

Saying that religion as a whole is responsible for wars

No one said that, champ.

Why do people who follow religion get offended by people who don't?

Because they're terrified of the possibility that they're responsible for their own lives and the state of the world and have no supernatural safety net. Anything perceived as a challenge to that threatens their psychological comfort. Since their belief system is fragile in the face of logic or evidence they have to respond to any such threat with great vitriol.

 

[ForEverAfter]

Why do people who follow religion get offended by people who don't?

This is seriously disappointing coming from you. You can't make sweeping statements about religious people.
This question is reversible. There's a significant amount of hatred / animosity towards religion and religious people (on this board, and elsewhere).
Both sides of the debate are heated.

Because they're terrified of the possibility that they're responsible for their own lives and the state of the world and have no supernatural safety net. Anything perceived as a challenge to that threatens their psychological comfort. Since their belief system is fragile in the face of logic or evidence they have to respond to any such threat with great vitriol.

This is a good example.
It's frustrating dealing with such single-minded bigotry, all the time.
Perhaps that's why religious people get upset, sometimes?
(And why those that belong to the religion of science do to.)

I'm going to reverse the quote, to illustrate my point.

Because they're terrified of the possibility that they're responsible for their own lives and the state of the world and have no (scientific) safety net. Anything perceived as a challenge to that threatens their psychological comfort. Since their belief system is fragile in the face of (the overwhelming number of people on this planet that believe in God and the striking similarity between religions that developed in remote parts of the world that had no outside influence) they have to respond to any such threat with great vitriol.

There's no point in pigeon-holing either group, or being rude / patronizing.
If you continue to do it, anyway, you will continue to provoke a reaction...
Which you can then blame entirely on the group you were provoking, and make blanket statements like the unfortunate one willow made.

...

No one said that, champ.

I don't think Ninae was suggesting that anybody indicated that religion was responsible for all wars.
It has been stated / implied in this thread and others that religion is (solely) responsible for certain wars, which is a simplification used by fundamental atheists.

 

[Birc0014]

Because they're terrified of the possibility that they're responsible for their own lives and the state of the world and have no supernatural safety net. Anything perceived as a challenge to that threatens their psychological comfort. Since their belief system is fragile in the face of logic or evidence they have to respond to any such threat with great vitriol.

So sad and so true, there is no intelligent debate with 'true believers' there is also no recognition of the fact that they could be wrong as the entire system is predicated on 'faith' as opposed to fact. At the very least a scientific approach can be tested, proven, debated, improved upon, disproven, etc; whereas a dogma just 'is'.

 

[Ninae]

Why do people who follow religion get offended by people who don't?

I don't follow a religion, I just follow the inherent underlying religious impulse, or the spiritual or God connection that religions attempt to teach. I don't need a religion for it, but it can still be helpful to some, and it is possible to take inspiration from it if you look at it the right way.

And I don't get really get offended by people who don't see anything in it but I do get frustrated and feel sorry for them. It's only natural when they're missing a whole dimension to life.

I'm certainly not scared there might not be anything else to our existence because I know for sure there is. In fact, it's harder for me to take this life seriousy. I mean, it's less real, and only temporary anyway. I'm certainy at much greater risk of messing up in a practical sense.

But it's funny how people don't know what to do when they find someone with rock-solid belief in God because they're used to faith being so vulnerable it's something they can easily shake.

Most also don't anticipate you can be so rational about it but in a way it's the easiest thing to be rational about. It's the only stable and permanent thing in life and it can always bring you back to your senses.

 

[Ninae]

Because they're terrified of the possibility that they're responsible for their own lives and the state of the world and have no supernatural safety net.

But we are responsible for our own lives and the state of this world and in a way we have no supernatural safety net, in the sense that we're pretty much trapped in this world in a state separate from God, but that is what this life is about.

Anything perceived as a challenge to that threatens their psychological comfort. Since their belief system is fragile in the face of logic or evidence they have to respond to any such threat with great vitriol.

LOL. It's not really an emotional issue. It's just an intellectual/philosophical challenge.

And when it comes down to it, it doesn't really matter what people believe or not, as this is their problem and nothing really to do with me. I don't really engage myself enough for something like that to really worry me but it doesn't mean my belief-system is fragile (it's also more than a belief-system).

 

[Ninae]

So sad and so true, there is no intelligent debate with 'true believers'

There has actually been some great debates lately. There have just been better arguments for the religious side, which is more unusual. I guess what you mean by "a great debate" is one when you get the upper hand and make someone else look bad.

But this only shows how strained the issue is, and how closed most are to the other perspective, when hardly anyone can argue in a civilised way about it.

the entire system is predicated on 'faith' as opposed to fact. At the very least a scientific approach can be tested, proven, debated, improved upon, disproven, etc; whereas a dogma just 'is'.

This could only be said by someone with no personal mystical experience (of either God or the spiritual world) behind them. At the end, this is what makes all the difference.

If this is something you HAVE experienced, it's no longer a matter of faith, no more than seeing the sun breaking through the clouds. I know it's hard when it's a matter of faith because faith IS fragile and that's why everyone who's outlook is based on faith are so touchy. But in that case you have to realise you don't know anything for sure and have to respect others who are based in faith aswell.

There are MANY things I don't know for sure and which are more based on intuition, speculation, or faith. But when it comes to a few of the fundamental things, like the existence of God or eternal life, I thankfully don't have to rely on faith as this is a very frustrating way to live.

 

[ForEverAfter]

So sad and so true, there is no intelligent debate with 'true believers'

Sorry, true believers in Hawking or God?
(Since Hawking is infallible in your eyes, he basically is God... I guess?)

 

[Doldrugs]

Hawking isn't infallible in anyone's eyes including his own. Religious people seem incapable of understanding this fundamental difference between science and religion. People who believe in science follow the evidence. When it disproves previously held theories, those theories are abandoned with no fanfare nor remorse. There is no emotional or intellectual need to hang on to disproved theories. Such a thing only happens with people who misunderstand science in a huge way.

Arguing about "people with blind faith in science" is an invented talking point for religious people to use in debates. IT IS A FALLACY. It is the logical equivalent of arguing about the merits of religion based solely on suicide bombers, except even more absurd because violent religious extremists and murderers who justify their actions with religion outnumber the hypothetical "blind faith in science" crowd by absolutely enormous numbers. People who accept scientific principles without understanding the ultimate nature of science are likely to believe in all sorts of other things like angels and astrology because the core concept of science eludes them. You can keep pounding away at the argument as though it has merit, it doesn't change the fact that the phenomenon you're describing is not in any way indicative of science in a meaningful way.

 

[ForEverAfter]

Read the second and third page of this thread:

http://www.bluelight.org/vb/threads...ess-Moves-to-Another-Universe-Afterdeat/page2

The member I quoted says that because Hawking makes a theory, it is true / the best theory... and objects to me questioning anything about the man. Obviously he doesn't think he is infallible. In a documentary, recently, he questioned whether or not he was famous because of his theories or his disability... But that doesn't stop ignorant people from blindly believing in everything he says. I encounter it all the time.

This "talking point" thing you keep repeating is evidently untrue.
Lots of people, unfortunately, have (a misguided) blind faith in science and/or scientists.

 

[Ninae]

But you seem to see all with a religious outlook as having blind faith. How do you know it's blind?

It's not the 1950s anymore, and there's no necessary paradigm divide beetween Science and Creationism (unless you make it out to be). Although anti-religious people seem to prefer it like that as it gives them more to attack. But in real life it doesn't have to be that way.

When I was a child I saw a famous scientict being interviewed and he was asked about how he reconciled his belief in God with the theory of evolution and he said "I don't see any contradiction in that".

 

[ForEverAfter]

In all fairness, I don't think he's actually suggesting that everybody has blind faith in religion... just that nobody has blind faith in science.

(Correct me if I'm wrong.)

 

[swilow]

Because they're terrified of the possibility that they're responsible for their own lives and the state of the world and have no supernatural safety net. Anything perceived as a challenge to that threatens their psychological comfort. Since their belief system is fragile in the face of logic or evidence they have to respond to any such threat with great vitriol.

Maybe, but that sure sounds smug. I can't get behind the idea of atheistic supremacy when it is founded on the same fallacies that it claims to be opposed to, such as claiming empirical knowledge with no evidence or possible evidence. Arrogance exists on both sides, perhaps there are no sides?

This is seriously disappointing coming from you. You can't make sweeping statements about religious people.
This question is reversible. There's a significant amount of hatred / animosity towards religion and religious people (on this board, and elsewhere).
Both sides of the debate are heated.

I think you may be reading something I didn't in fact write. In no way did I say that religious people feel hatred/animosity to those who do not believe. I asked a simple question that was not meant to be read as rhetorical and was absolutely not meant to be offensive.

I was hoping that someone who is getting offended by the writings of atheists here would explain why.

I loathe this binary sort of argument. I'm agnostic, and I do not agree at all with the perspective of militant atheists, who are usually just as boring as their religious counterparts. The whole thing is indefensible, both promoting implausible supernatural solutions to real problems, and attempting to take away peoples faith and joy they feel in their god. Its all fucked really. But it sucks to make a statement that those inclined summarise to promote an entire viewpoint I don't subscribe to, which you know, and to then be judged for that. Thats unfair IMO.

This is a good example.
It's frustrating dealing with such single-minded bigotry, all the time.
Perhaps that's why religious people get upset, sometimes?
(And why those that belong to the religion of science do to.)

Okay, thats understandable, but I feel you are massively exagerrating the weight of your calvary here You are not being attacked all the time, not in Australia, and surely Bluelight does not represent that vast a subset of the the population as to make your statement meaningful.

There's no point in pigeon-holing either group, or being rude / patronizing.
If you continue to do it, anyway, you will continue to provoke a reaction...
Which you can then blame entirely on the group you were provoking, and make blanket statements like the unfortunate one willow made.

Yeah, I can get behind that. Though I feel that the statement has been interpreted according to someones own preconception, and is only unfortunate to them. It was an innocent enough comment that I wished answered. Do not read into it the whole weight of imaginary bigotry you are not being subjected to by ME.

Please, I do not wish to get into a shitfight here where you pick apart my words and deduce meaning not intended, I am in pain and spitting out blood and and feeling like Joseph of Arimathea, carrying someones cross that I have no wish to be carrying.

The crux (it is EVERYWHERE) of this issue is the improbability of god existing combined with the desperate need for such an entity. By god, I wish this were true, I wish I could be saved...

 

[ForEverAfter]

I forgive you.

 

[swilow]

^

 

[Ninae]

"If you can't see God in all you can't see God at all."

 

[Doldrugs]

I'm not saying no one has blind faith in science, I'm saying it's not a meaningful thing to "gotcha!" rational people with, despite how strong a point religious people think it is. It indicates exactly the kind of thinking that separates science from religion. When you're judging science on "the blind faithful" you're judging the same kind of people who are religious. I object to this (hypothetical and unpopular) position as much as I object to any other antiscientific kind of thought. You guys are the ones with a hard on for faith. Shouldn't you be supportive of people with blind faith in science?

Regarding the whole "there's value to both sides" argument, there is no reason to make gracious concessions to the possibility of god or gods simply because a lot of people believe it. Is it possible? Yes. Equally as possible as Thanos ruling the universe in secret. Equally as possible as thetans and Xenu. Equally as possible that I am God and the world is just my dream. But there is no value to saying "I can't disprove X so it is an equally valid view to espouse." Once there is evidence of god, I will accept it instantaneously. Until then, why waste any time or thought on something with exactly zero evidence to support it? Are you all giving equal belief to invisible badgers who read our thoughts? Are you giving equal belief to Loki and Enki and Quetzacoatl?

I'm not trying to take this away from you because I'm cruel. I just believe the world would be better off if rational thinking was the norm. Rationality has been the single, solitary driving force that has improved human civilization. I just want it to improve more, quickly.

 

[swilow]

^But the world and reality doesn't appear to be entirely rational, so perhaps there really is merit in intuitive and grandiloquent thinking....

"If you can't see God in everyone you can't see God at all."

An impossibility for nearly everyone. Its a wonderful technique, promoting the unnatainable....

I get stuck on the word 'GOD' because I think of it as a name, not a noun or title, and I associate it with the Christian deity, which is the one I don't believe in. I can actually see heaps of this god within many people

I praise the god of photons, flowers, quantum foam, starlight, thought, music, kangaroo's, blonde hair, hydrogen, orbiting solid gold asteroids, crystalline lattice structures, grains of dirt, clusters of galaxy... That one, the animating spark, or ebola?'s Great Potentiality, I see everywhere too

 

[Ninae]

Pantheism is beautiful.

I praise the god of photons, flowers, quantum foam, starlight, thought, music, kangaroo's, blonde hair, hydrogen, orbiting solid gold asteroids, crystalline lattice structures, grains of dirt, clusters of galaxy... That one, the animating spark, or ebola?'s Great Potentiality, I see everywhere too

Sounds like you see God more through the 4th Ray, the Beauty Ray or Artistic Ray (a sub-ray of the Love Ray). That's an interesting part of Theosophy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_rays