Suspending Reality

Frank Apisa said:
Many "atheists" have the same problem (get defensive) when people question the things they "believe."

In a discussion about "religion"...a "belief" is nothing more than a blind guess about an unknown.

"Faith" is nothing more than insistance that the blind guess is correct.

If we were able to get away from using the words believe, belief, and faith in these discussions...we might get somewhere.
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Most of us get defensive when we are told that whatever we believe (or don't believe) is false and therefore we are immoral, blind, doomed to go to Hell, etc.
 
evince said:
Organized religion does this to create influence over populations


Instead of teaching the philosophy of goodness to others as their main goal


They want you to just follow the church and support it for its own sake


Not really what Jesus wanted
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I agree that religion, just like all other human I institutions, are prey to corruption and self interest.

Still, humans are social animals. Religion, from the first shamanistic cave rituals of Paleolithic people to today tends to be communal. I don't see religion becoming a phenomena people just individually practice at home. There is always going to be an organizational and communal aspect to it
 
ThatOwlWoman said:
It's interesting to ponder and discuss. OTOH I really don't care what other ppl choose to believe (or not to believe), as long as they don't insist that everyone else does the same. Our problems come from those who refuse to accept established facts and proven science. Climate change and vaccines are too good examples of this. A small but far-too-vocal segment of our society has decided that both of these topics are hoaxes, frauds, bullshit. That's fine. But they want the rest of us to resist reality along with them, to our mutual detriment. No thanks.
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Agreed. However, you’ll notice that there is a commonality among those who are able to suspend reality, to be unable (or unwilling) to sort out fact from fiction, and those who are prone to conspiracy theories.

Climate change and vaccines are a couple. Election fraud is another. Even evolution.

We can always expect a few of those in our population, but the numbers we see, even on this forum alone, are quite disturbing.
 
Cypress said:
Some people can find complete purpose and meaning in the materialistic aspects of this Earth.

I think the majority of people in history, and even today, wanted to find a higher transcendent meaning beyond the ephemeral activities of physical life.

I think that's why religion or spirituality will always endure.

Lists of do's and dont's don't really give any explanation of why that is the right way to live. They don't explain why a certain set of a activities are categorical imperatives, rather that just voluntary lists of good social etiquette.

The Daodejing, the Analects, the Dhammapada, the Gospel of Luke do tend to give deeply profound explanations of the reasons for a certain kind of life.

My parents gave me a list of rules to live by. But a set of rules is not a method of understanding.

I learned a lot from my parents rules and example, I learned a lot from my physics and biology textbooks. But I never felt it neccesarily was a complete understanding of my existence and experience in life. That's why I started reading philosophical and religious literature about 20 years ago.
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You and I have talked briefly about the Tao. Its message is also meaningful to me. I’ve also indicated the philosophy of the Stoics resonates with me.

That set of rules our parents (hopefully) gave us is important. And, at a young age, the need for a meaningful understanding is probably unnecessary until one is old enough to develop (or at least want to) a deeper meaning on their own.

Sadly, there are not enough people out there like you, who wish to look for purpose other than the mere dos and don’ts.
 
domer76 said:
Agreed. However, you’ll notice that there is a commonality among those who are able to suspend reality, to be unable (or unwilling) to sort out fact from fiction, and those who are prone to conspiracy theories.

Climate change and vaccines are a couple. Election fraud is another. Even evolution.

We can always expect a few of those in our population, but the numbers we see, even on this forum alone, are quite disturbing.
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It's possible that there's always been the same percentage of whackos who believe whacko stuff at any given time in any given population. It only seems like there are more now because we come in contact with them more often via the Internet. Prior to that they mostly kept their bizarre beliefs to themselves for fear of being mocked or worse. But now they can hide behind the anonymity of a screen and reveal their crazy in all its glory.
 
domer76 said:
You and I have talked briefly about the Tao. Its message is also meaningful to me. I’ve also indicated the philosophy of the Stoics resonates with me.

That set of rules our parents (hopefully) gave us is important. And, at a young age, the need for a meaningful understanding is probably unnecessary until one is old enough to develop (or at least want to) a deeper meaning on their own.

Sadly, there are not enough people out there like you, who wish to look for purpose other than the mere dos and don’ts.
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Marcus Aurelius, the world's most famous Stoic, is a very good read.

The rules good parents give, and the example the good parents set, really come from religious ethics, even when the religious language and context is stripped away.

There is nothing self evident or logically necessary that all human life is to be valued and respected (the no killing prohibition), that one should be charitable even to strangers, that one should be humble and meek.

Ritual child sacrifice made perfect sense to the religious traditions of the Aztecs, Carthaginians, Ammonites.

It is a real benefit that world cultures can maintain the lessons of the NT, the Jewish prophets, Confucius and Bhudda even if they want to strip away the religious language and context.
 
ThatOwlWoman said:
It's possible that there's always been the same percentage of whackos who believe whacko stuff at any given time in any given population. It only seems like there are more now because we come in contact with them more often via the Internet. Prior to that they mostly kept their bizarre beliefs to themselves for fear of being mocked or worse. But now they can hide behind the anonymity of a screen and reveal their crazy in all its glory.
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Yeah, the internet.

When it was first developing, we all thought it would be the greatest tool man had ever invented for dissemination of information, of instant communication, the availability of the entire knowledge of mankind at our fingertips.

Then, I recall the pessimists, predicting the danger it posed to society, as well. Well, they were certainly right on that account, weren’t they?

I love being able to delve into whatever subject matter that interests me or that I need. From Spinoza to changing the line on my weed wacker. Pretty amazing, huh?

But, the impact of social media on our children disturbs me greatly. I don’t see much of an upside to it.
 
Frank Apisa said:
Many "atheists" have the same problem (get defensive) when people question the things they "believe."

In a discussion about "religion"...a "belief" is nothing more than a blind guess about an unknown.

"Faith" is nothing more than insistance that the blind guess is correct.

If we were able to get away from using the words believe, belief, and faith in these discussions...we might get somewhere.
Click to expand...

So what should we call the mental acceptance of invisible things that are experienced differently by every single observer?
 
ThatOwlWoman said:
Most of us get defensive when we are told that whatever we believe (or don't believe) is false and therefore we are immoral, blind, doomed to go to Hell, etc.
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Okay. That is one of the reasons some atheists get defensive.

As I suggested, many atheists do get defensive as religious people if their "beliefs" are challenged.
 
Frank Apisa said:
Okay. That is one of the reasons some atheists get defensive.

As I suggested, many atheists do get defensive as religious people if their "beliefs" are challenged.
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But atheism is the lack of belief. I agree it is often a contentious conversation between atheists and believers but they have very little to actually "defend".
 
Obtenebrator said:
Guesses sound somewhat pejorative. Fair but possibly taken as an insult to someone who is a believer.
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Yeah, calling a guess to the attention of someone making a guess...can be taken as an insult by someone who does not want to acknowledge that their guesses are just guesses.

Okay.

But it is in the nature of religious debate that some discomfort will occur in participants.
 
Frank Apisa said:
Yeah, calling a guess to the attention of someone making a guess...can be taken as an insult by someone who does not want to acknowledge that their guesses are just guesses.

Okay.

But it is in the nature of religious debate that some discomfort will occur in participants.
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I guess you never learned how to debate.
 
Obtenebrator said:
But atheism is the lack of belief. I agree it is often a contentious conversation between atheists and believers but they have very little to actually "defend".
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Atheism is a whole bunch of things.

But if you are saying that NO people who call themselves atheists have "beliefs"...I am going to suggest that you are wrong.

There ARE people who call themselves atheists who "believe" there are no gods...or who "believe" it is more likely that there are no gods than that there is at least one.

I suggest that the preponderance of people who use the descriptor "atheists" has oine of those beliefs.
 
Cypress said:
I agree that religion, just like all other human I institutions, are prey to corruption and self interest.

Still, humans are social animals. Religion, from the first shamanistic cave rituals of Paleolithic people to today tends to be communal. I don't see religion becoming a phenomena people just individually practice at home. There is always going to be an organizational and communal aspect to it
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And you should know every one of them personally


So many huge churches get so big they don’t care about the individuals and prefer the structures survival more important than the people served


SMALL

or it becomes corrupted


Religion creates the PERFECT scaffolding for evil people to walk right in and take the power and subvert the whole intention

1000 times the rate of a decently constructed government structure


Faith

Just believe us were with the church


Con man heaven


They have to stop making huge churches


Or it will be constantly the destroying all the ideals their prophets and finding profits


Organized religions start wars and all hate each other and want each other dead


It’s the proof of just how corruptible large religious organizations are


Their ideals are fine with me for the most part


Their structures must seek money and power over guiding the faithful to good acts and peaceful lives
 
Frank Apisa said:
Atheism is a whole bunch of things.

But if you are saying that NO people who call themselves atheists have "beliefs"...I am going to suggest that you are wrong.

There ARE people who call themselves atheists who "believe" there are no gods...or who "believe" it is more likely that there are no gods than that there is at least one.

I suggest that the preponderance of people who use the descriptor "atheists" has oine of those beliefs.
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I guess you have no idea what you are talking about.
 
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