Beyond Belief! – Religious Ramblings
One of the best essays I have ever read. A Pagan named Father Crow breaks down religious belief and human nature. It boils down to Aristotle and his theory of dualism… either something is, or it isn’t.
Anyone living in the real world knows it’s not a black and white world. Despite the fantastical stories of King Arthur and Camelot… there really was a King Arthur. Whether you believe he walked on water, rose from the dead or not… there really was a Jesus in 1st Century Palestine. I’ve found a lot of legends passed down in life were actually based on real people, however exaggerated the stories around it became.
In other words, I find things are “kinda sorta based in truth”, but we either don’t understand it’s nature yet… or it didn’t go down exactly as they said it did.
Using a real life example of our world being “shades of grey”: There were plenty of reasons to invade Iraq, and there were plenty of reasons to just leave them alone… all depends on which shade of gray you feel more comfortable with. As for me, a part of me is glad we’re not taking any more crap from the Middle East… I’m also concerned with the blowback if we “overdo it” as well. Some people use their massive power to be like benevolent gods, others simply become bullies (and all bullies eventually get their heads handed to them).
When I see atheists pat themselves on the back by proving there’s no God simply by refuting the Bible… they make me laugh. They simply proved that God, as portayed in the Bible, doesn’t exist. One religion down, ten thousand more to go….
So when you find yourself using Aristotle’s “either it’s True (completely) or False (completely)” frame of mind… you’ve already lost. It’s hardly scientific, and you’d make a lousy detective or doctor.
OK, -=e=-, you’ve been on this tear for a while now, and since I know you’re not talking specifically about me I’ve tried not to take offense and have kept my cyber-mouth shut. However, you’re neglecting that there are two sides to the equation. In your bashing of atheists and freethinkers (the latter of which you usually put in scare quotes), you are essentially letting the apologists off the hook, my Deist friend.
While I agree that there are some atheists who fall into the trap you describe (I’ve even done it myself on occasion), the problem doesn’t necessarily lie there. The problem begins with dogmatists and apologists who profer their “faith” as an absolute. The atheists and other “doubting Thomas” types are generally responding in kind.
As for shooting down the Holey Babble, due to its countless inconsistencies it’s just so much fun and easy to do it’s almost irresistible! 😛 However, the main reason is simply Christianity’s ubiquity here in the US. If we were a nation where the primary religious denomination was Jewish or Muslim, the debate (or pissing match, as the case may be) would be over the Talmud or the Qu’ran.
Apologists are fond of thinking that if any miniscule crumb of fact can be found in the Holey Babble, it validates the whole thing. The converse can be true of skeptics when an inconsistency is found. However, isn’t it more reasonable to levy the weightier burden of proof on the side which posits a supernatural origin for events (and societal rules) rather than a natural or human origin?
If there is a reasonable explanation for something, choosing to instead believe a supernatural explanation is, by definition, unreasonable.
"I’ve tried not to take offense and have kept my cyber-mouth shut."
Yeesh, dude… And why on earth would you do that? I wouldn’t have my comments enabled if I didn’t want to hear feedback.
Actually, the reason why I have “Freethinkers®” in quotes is that I don’t think a great deal of them “think” or do so “freely”. Most of them are happy with quoting someone else. Exceptions are you, Rev. Mykeru, Stupid Evil Bastard, Magister Nullius and a small handful of others whom I’ve found very inspiring to question what I thought I knew, and sought out the answers for myself.
By and large, my beliefs are a lot closer to yours than your average Bible thumper. If there was a personal “God” watching over us, he’s missed a few cataclysmic events in the past few years that would have let us know he’s still here. My view is simply if (and I mean IF) there is a God, then we have him all wrong. Humans are incredibly complex, so I would imagine if a Supreme Being capable of creating a universe exists… he (or she) would be beyond our comprehension of understanding.
The Bible is full of fairy tales the Israelites liberally borrowed from the Sumerians’ mythology (including the “7 days of creation” tour)… however, a universe with laws and natural order seems to suggest to me creation is more rational than a mathematically impossible act of chaos. As far as the rest of science, evolution makes a hell of a lot more sense… and if we’re digging up 65 million year old dinosaur fossils, it’s pretty safe to assume the Fundies and their “New Earth/Creationism” pseudoscience is bullshit.
As Magister Nullius once said “Nothing is supernatural if it exists. It simply means it’s natural, but we don’t understand it yet.”
Sorry you took such offense, as I would have clarified it sooner. I don’t have all the answers. No one does. If I’m not a “FreeThinker®”, then neither are any of those assclowns that rely on other people’s work for their “original thought”. ESPECIALLY when they rely on quotes from Deists like Einstein, Jefferson & Voltaire (who believed in God, just not the God of the Bible) to support Atheism… that REALLY makes me laugh!
I’m also tired of being called “stupid” for not following the crowd. This is why Witchy and myself rarely make an appearance at the Salon. I guess I can understand better than some why having your philosophies ridiculed and misrepresented can hurt.