Would Polytheism Be Better For Us ?

[Homo Aestheticus]

Franco,

Maybe not ignorant, but definitely not a betting man.  The better bet is to behave as if there is a God, since if you are wrong, you have lost little and lived as a decent person.  However, if you live as if there is no God and you are wrong, the cost is potentially much higher.

Your choice.

This is a bit silly I think.... I am not convinced that the monotheistic religions makes people more moral or allows them to truly become themselves.

[Homo Aestheticus]

Frumaster,

Without something irrational, there is no leap of faith, and there is subsequently no religion.  If you could explain it, you wouldn't be able to believe in it.  As for rituals, maybe it just makes people feel good?  Religion is an inward, personal thing....rituals don't pose any benefits here, but maybe there's a coolness factor you're missing.

Yes.  To put faith in reason would eliminate all religious options.  Believing in something you can't reason away is the whole point of religion.  How could you be passionate about 2+2=4?

Its a pretty damn good story for one, and the Old Testament consists of some remarkable writings if studied from any perspective.  

That is all probably true but still don't you believe that the  philosophical worldview  is richer and the best way for humanity to go ?

[Homo Aestheticus]

Drogulus,

Here is a letter by Einstein written a year before his death:

"The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups, although they are better protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1951333/Einstein-thought-religions-were-childish.html

What do you make of it and was he being platitudinous here in your view ?

[Homo Aestheticus]

Andrei,

It is in Christian Europe that the main deal of science developed; this is a fact that no amount of intellectual acrobacy will ever be able to circumvent.

Yes but a question if I may:

Do you believe that the Christian religion, as represented in  The Sermon on The Mount  and  The Lord's Prayer  is the truth... the ultimate truth ?

[Homo Aestheticus]

Xenophanes,

There has been some criticism of Lefkowitz's article, and I found this one on the net.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oew-capetz10nov10,0,2789423.story?coll=la-opinion-center

Thanks for the link and the the replies... But I'd like to know what you make of Richard Dawkins when he says that theology shouldn't even be considered a real subject ?

[Josquin des Prez]

But I'd like to know what you make of Richard Dawkins when he says that theology shouldn't even be considered a real subject ?

Boring. The intellectual sophistication of western society has been reduced to journalistic mediocrities like Richard Dawkins and all the other second rate hacks favored by the media. To think there was a time when a genius like Otto Weininger was a wildfire best seller. Today, we have to deal with intellectual lightweights like Richard Dawkins as if they really had anything interesting to say that anybody with an IQ higher then room temperature hasn't thought about it on his own a million times before.

[Josquin des Prez]

He expects me to share the worldview of the ancient Greeks? Or whatever?

No, i expect you to share the worldview employed by western intellectuals, from Plato to Schopenhauer, before the worship of mechanics replaced real thought and reduced the human mind into a boring atomata, a mere collection of processes, unable to comprehend anything that any machine wouldn't comprehend.

[Bulldog]

Karl and Don,

Excuse me but what is wrong with questioning my Judao-Christian heritage ? 

FWIW, the problem isn't that you question your heritage but that you question everything, leave it all hanging in the air and end up without any foundation. 

[Bulldog]

Don,

This past Sunday there was an article in The Guardian that gave an excellent perspective now and which shows why I often find it depressing and sometimes deluded.

Many Jews no longer believe that the Zionist concept of entitlement, based first upon Biblical history, and latterly upon the Holocaust, suffices to justify perpetuating historic injustice upon the Arabs of Palestine. Benny Morris's excellent recent history of the events of 1948 shows that even a respected Israeli historian is today ready to acknowledge the scale of Israeli ethnic cleansing at the time, and of the deceits employed since to conceal what took place. The Israeli myth, that the Palestinians displaced in 1948 voluntarily abandoned their homes and property, is unsustainable in the face of such evidence.

The paradox of Israel's pursuit of might

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/09/israel-middle-east-max-hastings

That's one article expressing the views of one person.  If you stopped reading this stuff, you might find yourself less depressed and deluded.

[Florestan]

I have 3 books on Plato on my bookshelf: A Introduction to The Republic by Julia Annas (Oxford University Press), The Laws, and  Philebus. How much was I able to comprehend ? Not a lot.... 

That's a very frank and commendable admittance of your little knowledge about Plato's philosophy.

But then you come up with this:

Yes, of course and they were awesome writers [Pascal, Kierkegaard, Dostoyevsky] but they were also second-rate intellects compared to Plato, Spinoza and Hume.

Eric, be honest until the end: you have no clue about anyone of the above (or anyone else or any other topic, for that matter) other than truncated, half-digested quotes from newspaper articles or little understood books about them. You hide your pathological inability of thinking and  acting  on your own behind the authority of some of the greatest minds in Western philosophy, with which you have in common nothing except belonging to the same species.

You have written a lot of ridiculous things in the last few years, but your assessing Pascal, Kierkegaard and Dostoyevsky as "second-rate intellects" beats them all.

Enough is enough, don't you think?

[Homo Aestheticus]

Andrei,

You are right and I should not have characterized them as 'second-rate'... What I meant to say is that they haven't contributed as much to our understanding as Plato, Spinoza and Hume.

[Florestan]

Andrei,

You are right and I should not have characterized them as 'second-rate'... What I meant to say is that they haven't contributed as much to our understanding as Plato, Spinoza and Hume.

Eric, you're very fond of using "we", "us", "our"... What did Spinoza contribute to your understanding?

[Homo Aestheticus]

Eric, you're very fond of using "we", "us", "our"... What did Spinoza contribute to your understanding?

That we can save ourselves by always striving to be objective and rational and that getting our passions under control is all-important.

[Florestan]

getting our passions under control is all-important.

Do you practice that?

[Homo Aestheticus]

Do you practice that?

No...

Practicing the Spinoza philosophy is very hard... It's very high-minded. 

[Florestan]

No...

Practicing the Spinoza philosophy is very hard... It's very high-minded. 

Then please, stop parading this or that philosopher as if you were a devoted disciple.

[Guido]

I find it hilarious that the 'Christian' posters here are the snidest, most condemning, unnaccepting and most ready to ridicule of anyone here. 

[karlhenning]

I find it hilarious that the 'Christian' posters here are the snidest, most condemning, unnaccepting and most ready to ridicule of anyone here. 

Well, everyone oversimplifies, doesn't he?

[Xenophanes]

I find it hilarious that the 'Christian' posters here are the snidest, most condemning, unnaccepting and most ready to ridicule of anyone here. 

I beg your pardon!

[karlhenning]

I beg your pardon!

Sure; but Guido was simply taking the thread as an occasion for scorn upon people of faith; which is entirely in harmony with the OP.  Doesn't especially become him, to disregard Eric's long (and godawfully tedious) track record.  But then, we endure it with a patient spirit.