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| | | | | I"ve often wondered about the origin religion as it exsits today. I'm generally a big fan of the scientic approach...that anything can be determined through a series of theories, hypothises, experiments, and conclusions. I'm not a big subscriber to the whole "shit happens" train of thought. One of the first things I learned in pyschology was that correlation does not prove causation. Just because two things are related, does not mean one caused the other. Before the advancement of a number of sciences...there were a lot of things man did not know. He didn't know the earth was round for instance. Even suggesting that it was, was enough to get someone like Copernicus in a boat load of trouble. I always felt that religion spawned from an absence of science. Speaking of god...take the Romans and the Greeks. They didn't have a god. They had DOZENS. In fact, it's hard to think of something they DIDN'T have a god for. There was a time when certain things occurred that mankind simply couldn't grasp the reason behind. Take floods, famines, and plagues. Meteorology hadn't even developed as a science. No one knew why the floods came...or why no rain came at all. There was a tendancy for people to take the actions of a day to day man, and blame it for causing something catastrophic...merely because the two incidents coincided with one another. Pretty presumptuous, but how else could it be explained? I've always thought that the first theologists, or priests...were amongst the first rudimentary scientists. They were people that had at least a basic understanding that some things that occurred had a reason behind them that people just didn't quite grasp...and they used that ignorance to rule people in fear of some unseen, vengeful omnipotent being. I think people were easily manipulated into behavioral patterns that were driven by fear. I think some things were just so far beyond the average unedcuated persons understanding and comprehension back then, that they just had no other way to explain why certain things happened. |
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| | | | RainbowSix (12/25/2007)
In fact, it's hard to think of something they DIDN'T have a god for.
Premature ejaculation. Though I hear that was coming quickly. |
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| | | | I think some things were just so far beyond the average unedcuated persons understanding and comprehension back then, that they just had no other way to explain why certain things happened.
sort of like how we still can't get the weather forecast right today. Even with all our advanced education and postmodern understanding and comprehension. Have fun with science as your god.
http://www.renewamerica.us
The depravity of man is at once the most unpopular of the Christian doctrines and yet the most empirically verifiable. - Malcolm Muggeridge |
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| | | | | jrod: That's called the god of the gaps fallacy. We don't know how to do X, therefore god did it. When we learn how to do whatever it is, people have moved on to the next thing we don't know how to do. The set of things we (as a species) don't know how to do keeps getting smaller. So not only is it a logical fallacy, but by using it you're disparaging your supreme being. |
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| | | | | The fallacy is that God was invented to explain the unknown. |
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| | | | that's funny; no matter how much time goes by, it's quite amazing how every single generation/era/period thinks the gap keeps getting smaller... yet we still have no answer to why...
http://www.renewamerica.us
The depravity of man is at once the most unpopular of the Christian doctrines and yet the most empirically verifiable. - Malcolm Muggeridge |
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| | | | No, i blow fart holes in the argument that "we as a species" are closing the gap... how do you manage to close the gap on infinity? You kill God (or the vague belief in one) by the supposed pre-eminence of your emerging "species", yet you can't do something simple like explain the simple act of why you're awake.
Hurry up, move on to the next thing...
http://www.renewamerica.us
The depravity of man is at once the most unpopular of the Christian doctrines and yet the most empirically verifiable. - Malcolm Muggeridge |
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Game Master
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| And interesting spin on things, Rainbow. I'll give you that. I'm going to agree with you on a few instances here. Before there was one supreme God, (because as much as Christians and other religions don't want to admit it, their religions are stemmed from other religions and/or religions that came about far after the first religions existed. It's comical to see arguments against this.) there were many Gods, as you've said. Greek, Roman, and Norse come to mind right off the bat. There was a God or Goddess for everything that couldn't be explained. Blasphemous was the man who indeed did try to prove the world was round and not flat. The logic of science was shunned until it could no longer be proven as wrong. The blasphemy was forgotten and the God/Gods were simply the reason for something else until that too was explained by science in detail. The Gods were once responsible for the stars, but technology today says science is responsible for the birth and death of stars. They're balls of gas, not lost/reborn souls.
I'm getting confusing I imagine. Anyway, I don't believe in religion, I don't believe in Gods, and I certainly don't believe in 'Him'. I'll continue to let others believe in what they will because it's their choice. Personally I'm going to err on the side of science. God/Gods doesn't exist. They're/He's no more real than the Easter Bunny, Santa Clause, or the Tooth Fairy.
However, science will never rule over religion because of the entirety of things unknown in the universe. It will simply be religion until proven otherwise and move on to the same cycle as it has been for thousands of years and even longer than that. |
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| | | | Another fallacy....you must choose science or religion and the two are not compatible. Of course they are.
Off to make an offering to Stringos, the god of string theory...just in case. |
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D/s Director
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| Neither agrees nor disagrees with specific comments, but offers these thoughts:
Science is based on a gut feeling born in a flesh and blood man who spends time (sometimes his lifetime) attempting to prove and sometimes disprove his hunch. Eventually, whether it be in his lifetime or not, logical empirical evidence will answer his questions.
God is based on a gut feeling born in a flesh and blood man who in the end really only has his faith in God that God exists. If accepts it as his subjective faith, he knows he can not prove it to anyone-- it is only for him.
Religion is an organized Xenophobic club created by a group of men with gut feelings that didn't like their neighbor's gut feelings so discovered a way to ostracize them. (Or by a King who wanted a divorce).
I like faith. I'm just choosey about who or what earns it.
NT |
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