Skip to main content ↑ ↓
Topic: SSM Plebiscite (Read 112432 times) previous topic - next topic
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Re: SSM Plebiscite

Reply #525 –
Quote from: Thryleon on
Exactly why attacking religion is wrong.  You want to attack the "CLERGY" of SPECIFIC religions and not religion itself.  As an orthodox christian, who donates what I wish, and receives nothing but spirituality in return, I resent anyone lumping religion into one category.  My local priest is a good family man, as the Greek Orthodox Church allows priests to be married and have their own church.  Our priest visits our family and knows and remembers everyone even though he is well into his 70's.  Where people use dogma to their own end, all they show you is how evil people can be.

Religion is a fairly loose word that on a detailed level, can mean different things to different people. For some, the church hierarchy is the church, and one can't look at the rank and file without looking at the hierarchy.

Now priestly celibacy is an interesting topic for another 1000 page discussion..........

Re: SSM Plebiscite

Reply #526 –
Quote from: Thryleon on
Exactly why attacking religion is wrong.  You want to attack the "CLERGY" of SPECIFIC religions and not religion itself.  As an orthodox christian, who donates what I wish, and receives nothing but spirituality in return, I resent anyone lumping religion into one category.  My local priest is a good family man, as the Greek Orthodox Church allows priests to be married and have their own church.  Our priest visits our family and knows and remembers everyone even though he is well into his 70's.  Where people use dogma to their own end, all they show you is how evil people can be.

Firstly, I should qualify what I am discussing when I use the word 'religion' in a negative way - Old Testament, fundamentalism, in fact any religion that sets itself above other religions/spiritualities and without whose blessing (due to unswerving loyalty) you'll be condemned to an existence of eternal suffering after death.

Secondly, 3 Leos, I absolutely do not want to offend you or call into question the validity of your commitment to your faith. There are many, many decent folks who do their religion/spirituality proud. Sadly, the same cannot be said of many in positions of power/control/leadership. So much good has been done at community level by Christians who seem to get 'spirituality' and go about their work without negative judgement and assessment and condemnation of those 'different' to them, or having a different 'faith' or no faith.

Thirdly, millions of people have had their lives devastated, in a myriad of ways, by religious teachings.

Fourthly, I'd like to be thought of as not 'attacking' religion but rather calling into question its validity and influence over the centuries, not to mention the whole idea of reverence, fear and obedience to an invisible 'man' in the sky.

My experiences and observations of fundamentalist interpretations of the Old Testament are that considerable power was and is placed in the hands of a few men at the top of the church tree. So many of these men were and are psychologically ill-equipped to have such control over peoples lives (and their subordinates - though the present day Pope seems different, he seems to be someone who understands spirituality... and humility). The literal interpretations/teachings (or manipulated misinterpretations) of the Old Testament are simply dangerous... as evidenced by the incredible guilt they embed in their followers, their reduction of women and demonizing of gay folks... not to mention violence toward those they deem 'unfit'...etc.

Abe Lincoln refused to belong to a church and when asked why, he replied, "I have never united myself to any church because I have found difficulty in giving my assent without mental reservation to the long complicated statements of Christian doctrine which characterize their articles of belief and confessions of faith. When any church will inscribe over its altar as the sole qualification for membership the Savior's condensed statement of the substance of both law and gospel: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind, and love thy neighbor as thyself," that church I will join with all my heart."

Even in 1860 Abe dared point out the hypocrisy of Christianity. (When Abe said the above he silenced the Archbishop who was in attendance and critical of his non attendance at church).

You use the word, 'evil' perhaps in a biblical sense (the devil etc) whereas I see evil as a human construct... but that is another huge topic on its own.
Only our ruthless best, from Board to bootstudders will get us no. 17

Re: SSM Plebiscite

Reply #527 –
Why religion is being discussed has me baffled, there is only one religion that belongs on here and that's Carlton.

However not to slag and run, Religion is defended by many and is thought that is you are religious you are good, when that is so far from the truth it's not funny.

Look at all the things that have been done around churches; wars, denigration of gender, sexual orientation and race, child molestation... and there just for starters.

Religion and Gods were thought of by primitive man when they had no science to explain why certain things happened, why the sun went dark from time to time (eclipse) why there was floods, why droughts, why insect plagues.

I love to read Ricky Gervais and George Carlin's take on religion, they pretty much nail it, in my opinion. Jesus / God preaches tolerance, love and understanding, unless you disagree with anything that they say then you're beyond help, sounds like a cult to me, which is all that religion is. The Pope is the leader of the biggest cult ever and Catholicism says that a priest should not take a wife, if they do they will be cast out. However you can be a paedophile (it $hits me off that I know how to spell that word) and the church will protect you.

That being said, I have no problem with anyone belonging to any religion they wish. My three kids have the choice to believe in what they want, my eldest two don't believe in God, my youngest is in cubs and is taught some Christian things through there and he does and when my eldest two ask why, I say because he can.

Being a good person does not go hand in glove with being religious, despite what the religious would have you feel, some of the worst people in the world Adolf Hitler devout Christian who wanted to "cleanse the world of the Jewish" in the name of God, how many extreme Muslim factions have done harm to the world, or how many American Presidents, who all claim to be religious have ordered hits and civilian targets to win a battle?

Religion is unnecessary, just be good to people, treat them how you wish to be treated, if you have the tools to help someone, then help and bring your kids up well with respect and independent thinking.

Re: SSM Plebiscite

Reply #528 –
Ray, whilst I generally agree, I think if you look closely you will see that materialist science, which is the current dominant paradigm, has become as intolerant and dogmatic as religion was back in the day. Science cannot, and was never meant to, explain all of reality. Science is very useful, and it has certainly been successful, but it needs to restrict itself to the subset of phenomena that it is equipped to explore. The big problem is that science currently thinks that if it cannot explain something, then that something is either BS, pseudoscience, or simply not worth knowing. Which is completely wrong.

Re: SSM Plebiscite

Reply #529 –
Quote from: PaulP on
Ray, whilst I generally agree, I think if you look closely you will see that materialist science, which is the current dominant paradigm, has become as intolerant and dogmatic as religion was back in the day. Science cannot, and was never meant to, explain all of reality. Science is very useful, and it has certainly been successful, but it needs to restrict itself to the subset of phenomena that it is equipped to explore. The big problem is that science currently thinks that if it cannot explain something, then that something is either BS, pseudoscience, or simply not worth knowing. Which is completely wrong.

This is just not correct.
Science aims to go past hypothesising about something, and actually testing the hypothesis in a non judgmental way in order to merely state "at this present time, under current conditions, this seems to be true/false".
The problem "science" has with pseudoscience is that pseudoscience is much like the philosophers of old. Pseudoscience draws conclusions based on observation without testing those conclusions. "Hey that kid has autism, he had immunisations, therefore the immunisations gave him autism". "Today is unseasonably cool. But I thought we were in the midst of global warming".
Science acknowledges that it is near impossible to prove a negative.

Re: SSM Plebiscite

Reply #530 –
There is not a shred of evidence for the multiverse, there is not a shred of evidence for dark energy or dark matter. Yet physicists will tell you that is the current belief or hypothesis. I understand the scientific method perfectly well.

Re: SSM Plebiscite

Reply #531 –
Yep, and that's why they are theories.

Re: SSM Plebiscite

Reply #532 –
Quote from: PaulP on
Ray, whilst I generally agree, I think if you look closely you will see that materialist science, which is the current dominant paradigm, has become as intolerant and dogmatic as religion was back in the day. Science cannot, and was never meant to, explain all of reality. Science is very useful, and it has certainly been successful, but it needs to restrict itself to the subset of phenomena that it is equipped to explore. The big problem is that science currently thinks that if it cannot explain something, then that something is either BS, pseudoscience, or simply not worth knowing. Which is completely wrong.

That’s not how science works Paul. 

Coincidentally, the t-shirt I was wearing yesterday has the message, “Science doesn’t care what you believe.”  Similarly, science doesn’t think! 
“Why don’t you knock it off with them negative waves? Why don’t you dig how beautiful it is out here? Why don’t you say something righteous and hopeful for a change?”  Oddball

Re: SSM Plebiscite

Reply #533 –
Quote from: deags on
Yep, and that's why they are theories.

I know that. The point I'm making is that materialist science is quite happy to accept a hypothesis without evidence, so long as that hypotheses comes from within science. It the source is from elsewhere and has no evidence, it is dismissed and poo pooed by the scientific community as pseudoscience etc.

Re: SSM Plebiscite

Reply #535 –
Quote from: PaulP on
I know that. The point I'm making is that materialist science is quite happy to accept a hypothesis without evidence, so long as that hypotheses comes from within science. It the source is from elsewhere and has no evidence, it is dismissed and poo pooed by the scientific community as pseudoscience etc.
I kind of get the point you are trying to make, and I "think" I disagree. Could you give me an example of the pseudoscience you are referring to?
I mean the scientific community as a whole rarely agrees on any hypothesis until there is enough evidence to show that it is true at this point in time, based on other things we as a society/they as a scientific community believe to be true. Pseudoscience is rarely tested let alone have any data to show that it is in fact correct. I would like to know though, which pseudoscience you are referring to to try and better understand your argument?

Re: SSM Plebiscite

Reply #536 –
Quote from: deags on
I kind of get the point you are trying to make, and I "think" I disagree. Could you give me an example of the pseudoscience you are referring to?
I mean the scientific community as a whole rarely agrees on any hypothesis until there is enough evidence to show that it is true at this point in time, based on other things we as a society/they as a scientific community believe to be true. Pseudoscience is rarely tested let alone have any data to show that it is in fact correct. I would like to know though, which pseudoscience you are referring to to try and better understand your argument?

For starters, just about any of Rupert Sheldrake's work.

Re: SSM Plebiscite

Reply #537 –
I'm not familiar with his work.
I will have to look him up.

Re: SSM Plebiscite

Reply #538 –
It's interesting how followers of a dogma accuse science of being dogmatic, it seems impossible for many to separate their need for belief from scientific observation.

There is a general societal failure to understand the meaning of hypothesis and theory in a scientific context. Claiming that a scientific hypothesis or theory is about faith or belief is an error made from a dogmatic perspective, hypothesis built on faith would be examples of pseudoscience unproven or proven to be untestable or unmeasurable.

In science a hypothesis only becomes theory when the probability of it being true is very high, always after measurement and testing.

In dogma and in general society theory is widely misused, an idea which would more correctly be described as a claim without supporting evidence is frequently labeled a theory. It requires some faith or belief.

Science is not a belief system, belief has no part of science, and confidence in a scientific hypothesis is not about faith. An assertion can be made in science(Asking a question), choosing the assertion is not faith or belief base, because by default you must then test all cases supporting and counter to your assertion. In science an hypothesis is nothing more than a starting point, a starting point that may be based on some previous evidence but not necessarily, and a valid result in science can be either negative and positive.

If it is not measurable, testable and repeatable then it is not science, it is then a matter of faith. Phenomena that cannot be measured and tested has a high probability of not being real.

New Age has a horrendous history of misappropriation of terms like science, hypothesis and proof because many ideas proselytized are deliberately fashioned to be impossible to prove or disprove. By definition you might claim you cannot prove a negative result, in this regard those New Age ideas are nothing more than philosophical toys. Language gymnastics, not real science. We conduct this debate here in English, in other languages the terms might not even exists in which we can frame some of these pseudoscience issues, yet science's hypothesis, measurement and testing spans any language, the scientific method is not dependent on belief, faith, perspective or language.
The Force Awakens!

Re: SSM Plebiscite

Reply #539 –
I was going to respond but LP has nailed it - and far more eloquently and succinctly than I could have managed.
“Why don’t you knock it off with them negative waves? Why don’t you dig how beautiful it is out here? Why don’t you say something righteous and hopeful for a change?”  Oddball