martynarthur said:
Ostensibly there might be significant benefits in certainty. However the inevitable question would be what’s the point of toiling within life when I can simple end it all in the clear knowledge of what comes next? At which point human life becomes an unnecessary burden.
if what you mean by this is that people without doubt are far more dangerous than people who are uncertain, i think i might agree with you. the very ambiguity of the Written Torah, certainly, does not lend itself to unequivocal interpretation except in limited cases, which it is the task of the Oral Torah and the halakhic process to explicate - yet the goal of these is not the elimination of doubt but the clear identification of suitable action.
Contradictorily therefore, the uncertainty afforded by the very nature of dogmas is a clear indicator of their validity and their tantalising cleverness.
i'm not sure i really follow the logic of that. i mean, i am uncertain whether the iranian nuclear programme is safe, but it doesn't necessarily follow that such an assertion is valid - the same could be said, contrariwise, for the danger of climate change. it seems to me that you're making an unwarranted presumption in the bible's favour.
wil said:
It is the fringe that feels a need to martyr themselves to hurry along the process. Early Christians headed to the lions for the same reasons radical suicide bombers do today...because somebody embedded in their mind that this act would be seen as faithful in G!d's eyes.
precisely - the same certainty on the fringe drives the messianic settler movement in israel, the millennarian climate change deniers on the religious right in the us and, unfortunately, the islamist movements and the government of iran. in their view, the sooner we all begin the final apocalyptic battle, the sooner they can emerge victorious. in this case, the uncertainty is anything but an indicator that any of them are correct in their doubt-free little bubbles of bonkeroonie.
Mohsen said:
Throughout my life, I considered myself to be a Muslim, and I maintained a large arsenal of uninformed apologies, explanations, and blind denials to promote and defend Islam. I had relied exclusively on what I heard from my Father, my relatives, my Muslim friends, and the Islamic media.
welcome, mohsen, i think i would be right in saying both that you are right to feel angry as well as that you have identified some very serious failings in the institutionalised islam of the gulf states. however:
I had an emotional attachment to my belief. My beliefs are now based on logic and reasoning and not emotional feelings.
i'm afraid you may have exchanged this for an emotional attachment to your non-belief and the very vehemence and passion of your sincerely held feelings is not, i am afraid, great evidence of their reason and logic.
I have recently found out that I was so gullible who believed some myths, and have known that religion been created by some religious and political to control people and keep them in line. they knew that the best idea to control primitive people was to surround them by religion. To convince them that God had given them some commandments.
this is the same criticism of religion that came out of the european "enlightenment" and drove the marxist vision of religion as "the opium of the masses". i think it is not without foundation, but it denies the possibility of any other manifestation of religion and, as i don't subscribe to either the type of religious belief you criticise, nor do i consider your criticism as being especially applicable to my own belief system, i think you will soon discover that there are more options out there than you realise.
it's obvious that religion is viciously oppressive ideology that stifles progress and individual freedoms....
certainly it can be, but just because some instances of X exhibit characteristic Y, it does not therefore follow that *all* instances of X must consequently also exhibit it - you may be doing your sampling wrong. however, this objection is merely a rational and logical one, which i hope you will take in the spirit in which it is meant - you are at the beginning of an amazing journey. when i first began to embark upon this journey, some 17 years ago, i found this book of immense help and i recommend it to you:
A History of God: Amazon.co.uk: Karen Armstrong: Books
on the one hand, God is supposed to be all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving, all-wise, and on the other hand he is savage, brutal. God of extermination, genocide, assassination, Murder, hate, terror, torture, brutality, slavery and rape.
in other words, G!D can be co-opted into almost any human activity one can name - including the worst. if one believes in G!D, however, it is hard to imagine why such activities would be endorsed by the Divine Will; the difficulty comes when sacred texts are interpreted by humans in such a way as to endorse the worst in human nature. however, it is for humans to decide how we will act, isn't it? i don't see the clouds parting and a Big Beardy Voice telling me to go and oppress infidels, if i were to do this, i'd have a hard time blaming it on anything but my own choice, philosophically speaking.
But after going through most of religions. I found out that in Islam, Christianity (Old testimony) and the book of mormon. God is the most violent, repulsive, savage and brutal, creator ever imagined by mankind. He is homicidal maniac, who easily tells as to kill people who don’t believe in him
you can't have gone through "most" religion. *i* haven't and (although i know you don't know me at all) i've probably been at this longer than you have. if you'd like to pick some specific examples i dare say we can examine them to see if they support your hypothesis or not - as i'm jewish, the only ones i can express an opinion on with any credibility are the ones from what you refer to as the "old testament", which is, of course, not a description of the hebrew bible that i accept. i'm not saying, of course, that you won't find unpleasant, xenophobic, intolerant versions of judaism, but i will say that they are at odds with the mainstream, normative majority opinions - which counts for a lot within judaism.
after that he has a place called” HELL”!! Full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever ‘til the end of time!
we don't have this concept in judaism.
Jenn said:
But most arguments for the Bible's cleverness or validity or its literal inspiration are circular. I think it is almost impossible to rationally argue matters of faith, because faith is not something from the head but the heart. Unfortunately, I think for many faith dwells in the realm of the pre-rational ... it is infantile, immature and literalistic.
Then I would say that there is a trans-rational faith, which has undergone the rigours and challenges of the rational mind and has actually moved beyond, or transcended but also can still include rational thought. It is not opposed to, but works with our human logic, and in this way, we can begin to gain new thoughts and insights because that trans-rational faith takes our minds to new places.
jenn, i suspect you would be most interested in the theory of human development known as "spiral dynamics", which can be examined via
Spiral Dynamics > Home - or via a couple of threads here at interfaith.org, just search on "spiral dynamics".
shergar said:
Actually if you look carefully at the dynamics that drive creation and its ever increasing complexity and diversity there is no sign of any signature of wilful creationism.
indeed, however this does not preclude Creation ex-nihilo as held by judaism - we don't have an issue with darwinian evolution. the jury's out on "intelligent design", but i have to say that personally, if this is a scientific question, then it has to be addressed scientifically, not with politically-charged, tendentious bunkum as exhibited by the proponents of ID.
you can see for yourself that this amazing universe we find ourselves in requires no creator
not once it has been Created, certainly, but for questions of meaning or purpose a Creator certainly is required. science is never going to be able to answer every single philosophical question, but that doesn't mean it should be disrespected either by denying its undoubted competence, or by its undoubted incompetence in certain other areas. there's no need for a war here and attempts to manufacture one based upon the actions and beliefs of the most intolerant fringes is simply unthinkable.
b'shalom
bananabrain
