Some random thoughts on religion

[SLD]

I’m sitting in a Coffee shop reading some mathematics and physics - which is why I posted the Three body problem in the math forum. IAE, sitting nearby are a man and woman studying the Bible - not sure if they are a couple.They are discussing what constitutes the promised land under the Bible, and thus whether Israel has a “right” to Gaza and the West Bank. They are reviewing the Bible to determine what is and what isn’t in the so called promised land - biblical geography.

In the meantime, I am Trying to figure out the three body problem and some Lagrangian formulation of mechanics so I can better understand quantum physics.

I can’t help turning that these people aren’t stupid, but they are engaging and focusing on a pointless and useless intellectual exercise. I mean what a waste of intellectual talent!

I look closely at the man, and I can’t be entirely sure as his back is turned to me, but I believe he is US Congressman Roger Aderholt. Republican obviously. Gotta love Jesus to get elected around here. I know he’s been to this coffee house before even though his district is north of here.
I’ve talked to him once and he seems reasonable and well informed. But this obsession with the Bible and Jesus around here really bothers me. People seem so obsessed with understanding the Bible rather than our world around us, or making it a just and peaceful place. We need to make the world like god has ordered and if someone disagrees, then war is an appropriate response. All religions believe this, and many other stupid non theistic philosophies. (China thinks that it is entitled to the nine dashed line.).

I think this disproves libertarian principles entirely. Humans are not fundamentally economical in their approach to life. They don’t really maximize profits. But they may be trying, however misguided, to maximize their reproductive potential. Maybe killing others maximizes your genetic potential to fill t space left over by killing others. Religion is the rationale for such.

Religion really poisons everything. John Adams once said that a world without religion would be hell. I don’t think I can agree. Voltaire said that if the gods did not exits we would have to invent them. Maybe. Marx called religion the opiate of the masses. I am not a communist, but he was a smart man. Do the great masses need god to be kept in line?

I want to interject myself into some of these conversations or sometimes when I see someone studying the Bible just sit down and ask them why. But I refrain.

He just turned around. It is him.

OK, I don’t know where I am going with this other than I really wish religion would die off maybe. Or at least organized religion. I wish that people would focus their energies on making this a just earth and solving advanced scientific problems. But maybe most of us are simply incapable of doing so. I doubt I will ever solve some great scientific problem. I’m too old and long ago chose other paths.

 

[Lion IRC]

Gotta love Jesus to get elected around here.

Democracy.
What a bummer, hey?

Marx called religion the opiate of the masses. I am not a communist, but he was a smart man. Do the great masses need god to be kept in line?

If that's true, it explains a lot about folks who "really wish religion would die off".

 

[southernhybrid]

I don't care if religion dies off. I just wish it was more liberal and reasonable and the separation of church and state as mentioned in our constitution was honored. I'm familiar with Campbell's Power of Myth. He knew what he was talking about and he criticized the more extreme versions of religious mythology. Religion provides community and an opportunity to do charity work for some people. That's the good part, but the stupidity of using the Bible as a political tool is potentially very harmful.

The White Christian Nationalist movement would love to make this country a theocratic one. That was never the intention when the country was founded. The founders did some awful things, but they also put some good things in our constitution. Some idiots don't even realize that god's not mentioned in it. I saw a special on CNN last week about White Christian Nationalism, where MTG was screaming that this country was founded as a Christian country. She is a nasty person and it's her type of religion that hurts the rest of us.

As the saying goes, freedom of religion also means freedom from religion.

 

[steve_bank]

Religion is engaging and satisfying.

For some as engaging as those who occupy themselves with math and science.

I think atheists may miss the point that for the religious it is a way of life.

Back in the 90s I think Larry King had a panel discussion on CNN between Christians and scientists.

Bill Nye was one on the science side.

The science side argued facts and logic, and the religious side argued feeling and perceptions. Neither side understanding the other.

 

[southernhybrid]

I certainly understand the benefits of religion for some people, but it's mostly based on community and hope, or to put it in Biblical terms. It's about "faith, hope and charity, but the greatest of these is charity" If only that was practiced by the religious. If it was left at that, I'd see it as a positive thing, although the faith part is based on believing something without evidence. I guess we all have something similar to faith, despite it not being tied to religion. By that I mean things like I have faith that my husband of 42 years will love me until one of us dies. Still my faith is based on the fact that we are still together after all these years and we still have a lot in common to keep our relationship going. Married couples split up unexpectedly, so anything could happen even in the best of marriages. People lose their religious faith sometimes due to a tragedy. A former neighbor of mine became an atheist over night, after his 3 year old son died of a virus, despite his prayers and deep religious faith. It made him realize that there is no god.

It gives people hope, if they believe they will see their family and friends in a happy afterlife. While I personally think the concept of an afterlife is goofy, I also get that it helps a lot of people to believe such things. As long as they don't preach their beliefs to others, I'm fine with that. Those of us who live in the Bible Belt often have to deal with Christians pushing their beliefs on us, especially if they find out we are atheists. I've met quite a few atheists who remain in the closet out of fear of being attacked or losing friends. I'm usually open about my atheism because according to surveys, we are the most hated people in the country. I want people to see that most of us are good, morally upright people, not much different than they are. We just don't cling to religious myths, even if we share many of the same values as they do. That's what's important to me, and my closest Christian friends agree.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Up 'til age 18 or so, I really wanted to join the Christians -- I worked at a church camp but was an undercover skeptic. There was a strong community sense in the staff, which I could never 100% enjoy because I didn't believe. Nevertheless, those folks became my best friends, and that circle remains vivid to me, as my high school class has not. Some of us are still in touch, and I worked there from 1971 to 1976, a half century back. Eventually I realized that there was just too much in the Bible that seemed, and would always seem, ridiculous and/or inhumane for me to accept. It would never pass my own test of what was reasonable. (None of the material I found ridiculous/inhumane was referenced by the believers -- their favorite texts were the inclusive and positive passages.)
Twenty years later, when I got the Mormon bug (not as a novitiate but as a history junkie), I found the same bewildering feature: scriptures that were ridiculous but were fervently believed by something like 15 million fellow Americans.
I conclude that religion fits into the believers' psychology and social setting and becomes a compelling mindset. I just can't participate, no matter how 'feel-good' the vibe is, as we'd say in the 70s. I'm glad there are others who conclude the same. I'm thrilled when I read about or encounter young people who, very early on, know that orthodoxy isn't for them, especially if they face the disapproval of family or peers. Those young people are heroes to me, fully accessing their individuality and brain power. It's easier to pull off in 2024 than it was when I was a kid, and it's a good sign.

 

[Spacetime Inhabitant]

Religion is engaging and satisfying.

For some as engaging as those who occupy themselves with math and science.

I think atheists may miss the point that for the religious it is a way of life.

Back in the 90s I think Larry King had a panel discussion on CNN between Christians and scientists.

Bill Nye was one on the science side.

The science side argued facts and logic, and the religious side argued feeling and perceptions. Neither side understanding the other.

Many people have something that for them is a way of life; for some its politics, for others it could be gardening or cookery.
As science people are also humans, and therefore also have emotions and feelings, I am sure they can understand the other side quite well as people, but don't see the arguments of the other side as being compatible with reality.
Most atheists grew up as Christians (in Western nations) and/or surrounded by Christian beliefs, so do have an understanding of Christianity. The particular believers that they are debating with are the more extreme edge of the theist movement, and are most likely to be using their feelings as a weapon in their debate tactics, and in normal life outside of religion think the same way as other people.

 

[steve_bank]

Someone brought up the issue of definitions of atheist and theist and subcategories on another thread

When a Christian is talking Jesus to me in the real world I will say I am atheist to end the encounter rater than launching into a discussion

I reject both atheism and theism as flip sides of the same meaningless question.

My motto, 'Neither an atheist nor a theist be'.

If you think about it 'atheism' fuels Christianity in a sense. It gives the a perfect bogeyman.

 

[SLD]

So back at a different coffee shop. There’s another couple. She’s got some Bible prayer book out. He’s reading a book about the second amendment. He’s got a Mississippi shirt on. White redneck looking overweight guy.

Bible and violence. A good pair.

 

[ideologyhunter]

GOD GUNS AND TRUMP
(Bumper sticker on cars owned by people with whom I don't wish to strike up a conversation, at any time, on any subject.)