Religion. The evolution, creation and everything in between megathread

[5loth]

I am currently reading a book titled 'True Red - the Life of an ex-Mongrel Mob Gang Leader'.

Not only is it a great insight into the world of New Zealand gangs, it re-affirmed my belief that religion has its place, not only as an important point of our cultural diversity but how it can help others in life where nothing else has succeeded.

One paragraph from the book (this may have more impact if you have read the rest of the book, discussing in detail the treatment of not only the women in gangs but any female they could get their hands on):

"During the course of the weekend the leaders of the hui recognised the plight of abused women in the gangs by asking the men present to humble themselves and wash the feet of the women at the hui. Many women responded to the call and a number of ex-gang members bent down on their knees to wash the women's feet as an act of repentance for the way they as men in the gangs had treated women in general. I remember how my mentors had humbled themselves to wash my own feet and now I too had to humble myself alongside other ex-gang brothers to wash the women's feet. It was a very emotional moment filled with tears and wailing - that to me is true reconciliation. I learned that day what being a real man was."

[Dr Woomanchu]

[Tiwaking!]

I still have no idea what Tiwa is on about regarding language.

How is language is victim?

Language is a bus. It gets you from point a to point b. It translates to people what occurs and what is. The actions and reactions, the before and after effects.

So the first words to be killed by Religion is: Good and Evil.

By taggging/assigning/ascribing 'Good' to a god or higher-concept immediately defines the role of evil as its opposite: Life is good, death is evil. Causing death is a great evil, causing lots and lots of death is a greater evil.

Even religions which have evil gods and good gods still kill the understanding and words for 'good' and 'evil' by defining them to a supernatural or otherworldly concept/being. Humans CANNOT relate to non-humans.

What is worse is when a definition is formed for one thing, but not for another. Trinitarians versus Unitarians is a good example. One side hammered out the tenets for what is acceptable In Gods Eyes - everything else was wrong.


Which leads me to two more words killed by religion: Right and Wrong.

I am not talking about morality or ethics here, merely the discussion on the meaning of the words: Right and Wrong. Religions grasp on 'Good' and 'Evil' are absolute, but their grasp on 'Right' and 'Wrong' have never, ever been ABSOLUTELY correct at any point in time. An inability to describe good is an inability to describe 'right'. The inability to describe 'God' is an inability to describe 'Good'.

An inability to describe 'good' is an inability to describe 'evil'.

Without a grasp of 'evil' the meaning of 'punishment' and its possibilities have no limits.

Human Laws has suffered from this absolute/black-white morality for thousands of years.


The time of religion is coming to an end.

[dirtyape]

Right and wrong are subjective. There is no such thing as objective morality. As there is no universal morality, there can be no single correct definition of what is good and what is evil.

For instance, consider a serial killer that murders and eats his victims. The rules of society say he is wrong for he is killing humans. Now consider a hunter that kills and eats wild pigs. Both take lives. Both eat their sentient victims. One is socially acceptable, one is not. Humans naturally consider a human life to be worth more than that of a pig. This is human nature, it exists because humans could not evolve without it. We'd just eat each other.

The point is, that I'd be more inclined to say that the only reason the words Good and Evil exist at all is because they have been defined by religions and mythology in the first place. The religion defines the qualities that are attributed to Good/Evil in detail, it is literally a large definition of what is right and wrong.

The Egyptians done this first I believe with the Horus/Set duality that mimic'd day/night, good/evil. They had the book of the dead and laws, both religious and civil from my understanding. It was the book of the dead that defined what was or was not socially acceptable. I'm not sure if this was by deistic decree or more mundane in origin but the effect was that it defined right and wrong.

But if you take the Greeks, I do not think they had a strong sense of the good/evil. From my limited exposure it seems to me that all the deities are more neutrally aligned from a modern perspective. The condone killing, murder, rape, they behave immorally. The story of Medusa is a classic, priestess of Athena gets raped by Posiedin in Athena's temple. Instead of having a go at Posiedin, Medusa is cursed by Athena for letting herself be raped by a god. And Athena is one of the relatively good guys.

[Virus.]

For instance, consider a serial killer that murders and eats his victims. The rules of society say he is wrong for he is killing humans. Now consider a hunter that kills and eats wild pigs. Both take lives. Both eat their sentient victims. One is socially acceptable, one is not. Humans naturally consider a human life to be worth more than that of a pig. This is human nature, it exists because humans could not evolve without it. We'd just eat each other.

 
I'm inclined to disagree, New Zealand itself is a good example of this. I'd say it's the most recent of the 1st world countries to give up cannibalism as a socially acceptable practice. The fact is the Maoris survied a long time, and cannibalism was very common. I think the idea of this being wrong evolves from the thought process of an 'enlightened' mind, one trained to read others feelings about how they would feel with it being done to them. Hense the birth of morality.

[Zarkov]

I imagine Spork would be pretty tasty.

If he tastes like he sounds, that is.

[Virus.]

He sounds tasty?

[Dr Woomanchu]

I don;t follow Zarkov there at all. Last time I gave our cat something full of shit to eat he thought it was horrible

[Apostrophe Spacemonkey]

Normally animals of the same species don't kill or eat each other, it's counter-productive to survival of the species.

Unless you're a female spider, then the male spider makes a tasty snack.

[cobra]

a question for the religious people:

Why are there no other planets with life near (or even far) from earth?, if everything was created by god why was so much stuff created for so little life? surely either more life or less universe would be more consistent with a creator.  Creating people in such a lonely universe seems cruel.

[Zarkov]

He sounds tasty?

Like some kind of pork.

[vedds]

a question for the religious people:

Why are there no other planets with life near (or even far) from earth?, if everything was created by god why was so much stuff created for so little life? surely either more life or less universe would be more consistent with a creator.  Creating people in such a lonely universe seems cruel.

 
Well it does kind of run with a cruel theme when you have a deity who loves you so much that hes going to BURN YOU IN FIRE FOR ETERNITY if you dont "do what he says" so i guess at least thats consistant...

To be honest I like the idea of a god/ Afterlife etc, however, Rationally I  think its a crutch society has developed to deal with the horror that you get one stab at life and then nothing. It provides comfort when a loved one dies and provides an explanation for things that seem unexplainable.

[Apostrophe Spacemonkey]

a question for the religious people:

Why are there no other planets with life near (or even far) from earth?, if everything was created by god why was so much stuff created for so little life? surely either more life or less universe would be more consistent with a creator.  Creating people in such a lonely universe seems cruel.

A question for the scientists:

Why are there no other planets with life near (or even far) from earth?


I don't really understand your point here. The universe has billions of galaxies and billions of stars with many planets.

Most of those planets probably have no life on them, we probably do live in a very lonely universe, how is this cruel? I think it's awesome.


Or most of those planets probably have lots of life on them, we probably do live in a universe full of life, which I would also think is awesome.

[cobra]

there are no issues for science to explain, the lack of life is constant with the theories.

But if the universe was designed (with people in mind) then god wouldnt need so much universe or could have created a universe teeming with life. I cant understand why, if the universe is designed, it is so empty of life

[Apostrophe Spacemonkey]

Of course you can't understand, you human.

The size of the universe is beyond comprehension for me as well.

If a god did exist, and was super awesome, you can't apply your understanding to why or why not a god would create an enormous universe for just a small amount of people.

Or maybe he was looking ahead, making sure there's enough room for humans to expand.


Why are you saying the universe is so empty of life? How do you know, are you God? How can you have an answer to a question which scientists all over the world have yet to answer.

[toofast]

But if the universe was designed (with people in mind) then god wouldnt need so much universe or could have created a universe teeming with life. I cant understand why, if the universe is designed, it is so empty of life

Are you just making up things, then going i think this is what i would believe if i was religious, so it must be what everyone else believes.

[Tiwaking!]

Dont get me wrong, I think the Amish are great.

BUT


This is why all organised religion should die.

[Nyan]

Trees are gravity. No trees in space, No gravity in space.

Explain that one atheists.

[vedds]

Actually. No. There are no trees on the moon yet the moon has gravity.

FAIL.

[SteddieEddie]

There is no gravity on earth, life just sucks

[Apostrophe Spacemonkey]

The moon is not in space, space just sits around the moon, like it does around earth.


AcidBurn is right, there is no gravity in space.

[vedds]

The moon is not in space, space just sits around the moon, like it does around earth.


AcidBurn is right, there is no gravity in space.

 haha I knew someone was going to pick this up, However he was saying that trees are gravity, my argument is that there is indeed gravity in the absence of trees - in this case my example is the moon.

so using his own logic Trees =/= Gravity.

[Zarkov]

The moon is not in space, space just sits around the moon, like it does around earth.


AcidBurn is right, there is no gravity in space.

Surely there are gravitational fields from all stars and planets etc?

Don't wish to contradict spacemonkey however.

[Who_ate_my_rice]

All these smart people on these forums and they forgot about the trees INSIDE the moon!

THATS WHY THERE IS GRAVITY ON THE MOON!  The trees are DEEEEP INSIDE  which causes teh gravity to be weaker on the moon than on earth!

HAVE YOU PEOPLE FORGOTTEN 5TH FORM SCIENCE!  YEEEEEEESH

[vedds]

^^^^ FUCK. Rice has outed the flaw in my argument.

I withdraw.