ready to talk religion

Okay, the reason I said the other day I wasn't ready to respond to that "atheists aren't religious" nonsense, is because all that nonsense about God creating the universe is just a debate about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. It completely misses the point of religion, but for some reason, I was inclined to drill into the very thing that was silly.


If you are an atheist, does that mean you trade stocks on Sundays, and you don't get married, or you have multiple wives, or you "imagine no possessions?" John Lennon may wonder if you can, but you can't. Whether or not "God exists and made the universe," most of what you think and do arises from religious teachings handed down through the ages.


Heck, people who talk about "human rights" are ridiculously religious. What the heck rights do human beings have? What is a "right?" But if you don't question this, and if you actually expect people to know what the heck you are talking about, it is because you are all religious. Most of the assumptions from which the very "logic" of our day is built up is religious.


The very reasons you do what you do, the reasons you get out of bed in the morning, are religious reasons. The vast majority of everyday decisions are guided by neither instinct nor logic. It's just that so many are so habitual, and so taken for granted, people don't even recognize them. After all, if you start wuth but one syllogism - I think therefore I am - you can't get anywhere.


So what are all these values, and pursuits, and lofty ideals, and habits, and courses in life, and shoulds and should nots, if not religion? People are animated by religion. If we took away rituals and obviosities which we have no plain purpose for, we would cease to function. You don't need to be some pointyhead, studying employment statistics, or ancient war protocols, to know you should shake hands, or attend college after high school and so on.


I guess what it comes down to is, if you tell a scientific person "we do this because God made the world in seven days, and He told us to do this," then that person will become completely offended. But if he never knows or questions why he is made to do something, like not have two wives, or if he is given a false/nonsense answer, like we don't eat margarine because it's less healthy than butter, he is happy.


It really comes down to that. Why do we search random passengers at airport security? There is no good reason. But no good reason, or a nonsense reason, is much more acceptable to people than God told us to do it. Because, according to current fashions, if God told you to do it you're an idiot, otherwise all idiocy, and all purposeless or misguided behavior, gets a free pass.


It's almost as if saying "I'm an atheist" gives you license to be an idiot. If God had told you to buy e-Toys at 100, you're a complete ass, but if some broker tells you to buy e-Toys at 100, well, hey, sometimes science is wrong. In reality, science is always wrong, it is only through trial and error, and transmission, that successful experiments become religion.


I challenge anyone to find something written in the Bible that is bad advice, and use science to prove what is wrong with it. I challenge anyone to take a breath, or scratch an itch, or write a letter, for a whole day where he can find a logical or instinctive cause underlying every nerve impulse. You run out of logic and instincts to point to way before you run out of actions.


Of course, people have to narrowly define religion as the idea that God created the universe in seven days, if they are to reject it. If they were truly to question and reject everything for which they have no good explanation, they would be completely paralyzed, or at least completely incompatible and out of rhythm with the society and customs around them, and would be unrpedictble and useless to their fellow man.


eLROY

Not sure if you include the Old Testament in your challenge to find bad advice in The Bible or not. But if you do:


Exodus 21:7 talks about selling ones daughter into slavery. Verses 15 and 17 of that chapter say either striking or cursing ones parents is punishable by death. I would deem any of the above very good proscriptions.


Exodus 35:2 says one should be put to death if they work on the Sabbath. Is this good advice?


Levitucus 24: 19-20 states "When a man causes a disfigurement in his neighbor, as he has done it shall be done to him, fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; as he has disfigured a man, he shall be disfigured." Is this advisable?


KJS

"Is this advisable?"


I assume you are prepared to give me a scientific reason, as opposed to a religious answer, why it is not.


So, out with it.


And I'm curious, as to what explantion you would give for why a society that advocated killing people who worked on the Sabbath, would survive to pass written documents down to us, whereas most of their competitors, without such unscientific beliefs, are lost to the dust.


eLROY


P.S. Thomas Jefferson, in his writings on crime and punishment, certainly recommended such harsh penalties, as a 3/4-inch hole drilled through a woman's nose as punishment for sodomy, if I remember correctly.


P.P.S. If there is a scientific explanation for the proper modes and habits of raising and punsihing a child, would you then require that mother's become Phd's, and obtain certification licenses, before giving birth?

"...what explantion you would give for why a society that advocated killing people who worked on the Sabbath would survive...whereas most of their competitors, without such unscientific beliefs, are lost to the dust."


You make it sound as though they survived BECAUSE they advocated killing people who worked on the Sabbath. I'm sure that's not what you were trying to say, so what is your point?

They survived because they had been given instructions by God as to how to dodge extinction, and people the Earth.


You would be confused, Moron, as I am actually laughing out loud right now. Did you really think religion is random nonsense?


THAT is arrogance, to go around you're whole life surrounded by billions of religious people, and assume they are all just a big joke!


Using Bayesian stats, can you imagine just how big a survival advantage their habit would have to confer, to not be a disadvantage?


Imagine if the strongest, wisest member of the tribe, is only allowed to breed with one woman, and must laze around 1/7th the time.


Imagine how quickly a breakaway tribe, would come back at them without such silly restraints, "steal" their property, and wipe them out.


eLROY

take what you can and say god bless you

You can question things without necessarily rejecting them (or accepting them). Why do humans feel the need for answers so strongly that they must make them up?


As Emily Dickinson wrote:


I dwell in Possibility-


A fairer House than Prose-


More numerous of Windows-


Superior for Doors-


...

The sentence I wrote, or Dickinson's poetry?


I guess you might like Pink Floyd's 'poetry' best, but I am very partial to Dickinson's.


Hey since you are a big Pink Floyd fan, you might want to take a look at Jewel's poetry or even at some fine rap lyrics. I bet you'll like it.

"I'm curious, as to what explanation you would give for why a society that advocated killing people who worked on the Sabbath, would survive to pass written documents down to us, whereas most of their competitors, without such unscientific beliefs, are lost to the dust."


Applying this to the fate of the "dust" of the so-called New World, we see that Genesis 1:28, the first commandment of God to man, stated that mankind should increase, conquer the earth, and have dominion over all living things. Thus the Bible contained all the European scientists needed to know in order to hate the wilderness and the inhabitants thereof.


The natives were not merely unscientific, but active disciples of the devil. The Europeans' God was happy when they became dust. The society which advocating killing people survived because they killed people. And, as for their documents, the early New Englanders destroyed most of the documents that showed why and how they did their killing.


For a scientific reason why this is not advisable, I recommend Beyond Geography: The Western Spirit Against the Wilderness by Frederick Turner.


As for Thomas Jefferson he was a virulent racist, judged by the standards of his own time, a man who thought Africans mated with orangutans, a man who claimed to be libertarian in his writings but was anything but in practice, a self-indulgent, eccentric, strange man who lived his whole life, in it's most important aspect, as a lie.

maybe i just don't get the meaning of the poem. i do appreciate good poetry though. Pink Floyd was just an example way back when, though. im impressed that you remembered. however, im more well versed in Led Zeppelin (which is all just old blues rip-offs anyways) or a great band you probably never heard of called Sunny Day Real Estate. they have some amazing lyrics that just melt me sometimes.


as far as Jewel goes, i can't stand her music, or the movement in music to which she belongs. i doubt i'd appreciate her poetry. but to be fair, i haven't tried, so i'll suspend judgement.


rap lyrics. sometimes they are pretty poignant, and telling. not the beautiful poetry that moves my soul though. at least not that i've heard so far.

OK I was being somewhat facetious (I think rap sux for the most part, and most of it has little artistic or musical merit), but since you are being so sincere I will print the rest of Dickinson's poem. The first stanza just came to mind since the prior discussion had to do with people grasping at answers or inventing them when they just really don't know--like in religion, often. On the other hand, I rather like the idea of not knowing some things and having some things left yet to learn or discover. Anyway here's the rest of the poem by Emily Dickinson. It is actually arranged in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each but I couldn't get the pseudo-HTML to do that;-)


I dwell in Possibility-


A fairer House than Prose-


More numerous of Windows-


Superior-for Doors-


Of Chambers as the Cedars-


Impregnable of Eye-


And for an Everlasting Roof


The Gambrels of the Sky-


Of Visitors-the fairest-


For occupation-This-


The spreading wide my narrow Hands


To gather Paradise-

M,


BTW, did you know you can sing most of Emily's poems to the tune of "Yellow Rose of Texas"?


John

I did not know that, but I did notice a somewhat repeated meter/rhyme scheme in a number of her poems.


I like the book of her complete poems which I currently possess, which claims to show the original form of her poems including the exact dashes/hyphens as musical devices precisely where she used them.

M,


Yes, she uses common meter, the type used for hymns.


John

It is the crystalline quality of many of her poems which makes me feel that she is very much one of the greatest poets ever.


The compactness, and penetrating perception/expression, seems perhaps unmatched, and it fits very well with the simplicity of her rhyme and meter, while still allowing for some very special touches of tempo (or off-tempo).

i think there's a lot of good value in rap, artistically, and musically. few and far between in what i've heard on the whole, but a lot of good nuggets of stuff out there. Beastie Boys, NWA, Redman, Method Man, DJ Magic Mike, Ice Cube, Public Enemy, GraveDiggaz... some real classics out there. now, what we hear on the radio today, and most of the crap that gets on MTV these days sucks. i don't even have to watch it to know that. but there have been some real good rap artists to come along. i rarely listen to them, however (with the exception of the Beastie Boys).

" most of what you think and do arises from religious teachings handed down through the ages. "


Are you saying the religion has to be the SOURCE of what we could loosely (incorrectly?) call "common sense" or "civic responsibility"?


.... or could it have been merely been the conduit? ... especially since priests/monks were supposedly the largest group of educated/literate people during the ages when much of (European, anyway) knowledge was lost/destroyed

no doubt there is some quality hidden in rap somewhere out there, but my exposure to it is mainly from cars blasting it at intersections, and lemme tell you, that stuff SUCKS. The Slim Shady song was pretty good though, but overall I wish rap hadn't been invented. I don't like music where the people seem to be spitting the words at you aggressively.

M,


Believe it or not, but if you listen closely to some rap, you can detect both rhymned and unrhymned iambic pentameter at the base, the very same stuff of Shakespeare and Milton.


John

Can i assume your assessment also applies to:

Hard metal rock

Punk rock?

That's easy to believe, but the method of delivery is objectionable IMO...for some strange reason, I prefer that people sing or speak, rather than spitting the words out at me. Rap typically has an aggressive unfriendly aspect which is much in keeping with the commonly violent lyrics. Musically, too, it seems generally pretty flat and uninteresting.


If it's any further indication of my tastes, I think Goth Rock is about as bad, although that dates a bit earlier. The Goth Rock I've heard sounded like a cross between Satanic chanting and hard rock with an uncomfortable beat...perhaps something like a syncopated beat on crack. It made Ozzy Osbourne seem like a choir boy by comparison.

no, as genres go, I usually find heavy metal to be less irritating overall than rap. Some of it still blows but some is good, and it seems more interesting musically as a general rule. I never listened much to punk but the few popular punk songs I heard still were a notch or two above most of rap.

i personally eat it up. not all rap does it for me, nor all really agressive metal. but im totally into a lot of stuff where the vocals are screamed, all raspy and emotional, and draining. some really good stuff there. to each his own.

you could say that one of the very first heavy metal classics, Born To Be Wild, (and many other heavy metal songs), has an aggressive tone to it. But I feel it's a different kind of aggression. I feel like the singer is singing WITH us or FOR us rather than AT us. Maybe some people can't tell the difference between different kinds of aggression but I can and I don't like the kind I feel is directed AT me. Lots of raspy voices and hard rock and strained voices can still souind good but they aren't yelling AT me. Rap is agressive AT me, and AT the listeners, and I can feel the difference. And I don't like it and I think it's trash.

Never a good idea to shun an entire genre of music, or an entire genre of anything for that matter. There is good rap and bad rap. Some is laden with gratuitous sex and violence (i.e. Ho this, Glock that), but there is plenty of thoughtful stuff out there, as well. Try Talib Kweli, Wyclef Jean, or more old school stuff like Tribe Called Quest or De La Soul. You might like it, and at least you'll be exposed to something new and different.

sure, I even said there was a bit of good stuff hidden in there somewhere...just that most of what I hear of it is, IMO, junk. I'm really just talking average quality here, and I base that primarily on the pop rap stuff I hear a little of when I'm out running about town.

i follow you with the at/with/for idea. i still enjoy some rap, partly because its AT me. because i can then rap WITH it, and AT somebody else. it makes me feel macho, i guess. which im not really serious about, so its all just in good fun.

I kind of like the Geto Boys. Not that they're vulgar or beneath any reasonable level of human decency or anything. "Gangsta of Love" is a classic.