Exercise in Restraint: What Religion Do You Believe In?

[greg]

i don't believe in religious miracles, not any that have "happened" after the Bible and i don't think God actually interferes at all with the world or anything nowadays. At least, it'd only make sense if he didn't.

[karlhenning]

Agreeable

Thank you.

[carlos]

I have my religion. If you don't like it, I can change it.

[Danny]

I'm betting that people (well, most) figure out that one can't have faith without it being personal.

Interesting to ask oneself what one does that isn't ,at least in some way, personal.

I was never wild about St. Paul's more misogynistic writings...in fact, just the opposite. However, his song of love, and much of his writings in regard to Christology and prayer, continue to Affirm and Inspire me.

I have read both Luther and Calvin, and while I respect their intellect, I didn't learn much from them I hadn't already guessed. Luther's movement, as you know, stemmed from both his vocational failure and (perhaps mostly) the awful state of the Catholic Church at the time.

I must heartily thank both Luther and Calvin for having helped tremendously in making the RC church clean its act up!

As I wrote the latter, I realize that some here may feel offended, believing perhaps that the RC church never did "get right". i apologize if I have offended any, and offer up my sincere respect for them and whatever Faith they live by.

Hmmmmm...............I see.  But I meant personal by something that is closely connected to who you are.  I know that you can have a kind of faith that does not play an important or meaningful role in your life (even if you go to church and do all the ritual stuff).  Hence why I wrote that a personal faith should be at the center of your religious worship.

Agreed with your comments about Luther and Calvin.  I do apprecitate Luther more than Jean, but I'll leave it at that.

And I woud say that the Church is always in a perpetual state of reform.  

[Danny]

i don't believe in religious miracles, not any that have "happened" after the Bible and i don't think God actually interferes at all with the world or anything nowadays. At least, it'd only make sense if he didn't.

Do you pray, Greg?

[greg]

Do you pray, Greg?

yeah, i think him for everything and stuff

[scsinger01]

i don't believe in religious miracles, not any that have "happened" after the Bible and i don't think God actually interferes at all with the world or anything nowadays. At least, it'd only make sense if he didn't.

this thought process was common in the 1st enlightenment. A common analogy is that God is the perfect clock maker, but after completion of his work he sits back and watches it tick, eventually the clock is going to go bad. So the clock maker fixes it (jesus christ) and the cycle begins again.

I personally disagree with the above beliefs. Now on the subject of miracles, it's all what you perceive. A child in a 3rd world country who is about to die and somehow gets the needed medicine at the point of death calls that a miracle. We call that lucky timing and good people doing good things. However, dont mistake miracles as God talking (like the burning bush instance).

To be honest, you can find God in anything and he can speak to you in everything. Personally, the reason for my passion of THIS music is because I can feel God in it.

BTW, to answer the thread question- i believe in a mix of Lutheran, Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian. But, if i had to choose id say i subscribe to the Methodist church.

[Haffner]

Hmmmmm...............I see.  But I meant personal by something that is closely connected to who you are.  I know that you can have a kind of faith that does not play an important or meaningful role in your life (even if you go to church and do all the ritual stuff).  Hence why I wrote that a personal faith should be at the center of your religious worship.

Agreed with your comments about Luther and Calvin.  I do apprecitate Luther more than Jean, but I'll leave it at that.

And I woud say that the Church is always in a perpetual state of reform.  

Thanks for your well thought out response, Danny. But isn't even "a kind of faith that does not play an important or meaningful role in your life (even if you go to church and do all the ritual stuff)" personal?


I tell respectful people whom ask me that the Bible is a Living Bible, and that it is always currently being "written". I believe that many of the writings of the Saints will be canonized in a future date (yes, I'm including apparitions at Guadalupe, Fatima, and Lourdes), according to the RC canon.

Not only do I completely agree with your assertion "the Church is always in a perpetual state of reform.", I applaud at how you put it so succinctly. The Church is a living Church, just as much are the tenets of such. Just my opinion, and it's nice to share with you.  

[greg]

oh wait, there was this guy named Gustav Mahler. Besides that, i don't believe in any miracles in that last 2000 years. 

[Haffner]

oh wait, there was this guy named Gustav Mahler. Besides that, i don't believe in any miracles in that last 2000 years. 

His music can definitely be a miracle  . Speaking of, just slapped on the Bernstein "Resurrection".

[Haffner]

Can you ask 'ol Lenny how it feels to be back? 

This recording is often that good!

[Scriptavolant]

I've noticed that the book I read awhile back, "Darwin's Black Box", is more and more popular...

Popular it may be, of course. But that is utterly irrelevant.
I wonder if you know that each single theory expressed in that book has been taken, twisted and scientifically demolished (I know you got very little consideration for science, but that's it).

Furthermore, it has been legally confirmed - in a regular trial in Dover - that the ID theory is not science, but religion instead. That's the reason why they don't teach it in schools along with the Evolution theory, so far. Thanks God 

[Haffner]

Popular it may be, of course. But that is utterly irrelevant.
I wonder if you know that each single theory expressed in that book has been taken, twisted and scientifically demolished (I know you got very little consideration for science, but that's it).

I never asserted that I believe the assertions in Darwin's Black Box to be true, and your continual hostility is noted. I feel bad that I provoke such antagonism in you...a member I've never once come close to disrespecting in any way.

Finally, I've never made any claims of being scientifically informed.

Because I refuse to purposely antagonize you, I will here state that I am saying a prayer for you, that I won't provoke these incendiary feelings in you. That's the greatest show of strength I can produce in these circumstances.

[Al Moritz]

Just a couple of years ago, there was a study of what people thought of evolution. The percentage of the population that believed in Darwinian evolution at that point was 9% -- not all that much above statistical error. About half the population believed in divinely-guided evolution, Catholic church doctrine. About 40% thought the world was created a few thousand years ago.

Again, you've got to go back to pre-technological societies, or devastated peasant societies, before you get numbers like that. Those are the kinds of belief systems that show up in things like the God-and-country rally.

Source: http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/pfrm/pfrm-12.html

Quite spooky, eh?

Well, before somebody get's spooked it first needs to be cleared up what "divinely guided evolution" is. It might as well be plain Darwinian evolution. However, as we know, the laws of nature have to be very special to allow evolution in the first place. And this opens the rational possibility that "God did it". Other possibilities for the very special laws of nature are brute coincidence and the (unprovable) multiverse, but I would not consider these more rational than the first option, even though certainly a viable explanation for some. Some hold that the laws of nature have to be the way they are, but there is no logical or mathematical rationale for this.

[Scriptavolant]

Well, before somebody get's spooked it first needs to be cleared up what "divinely guided evolution" is. It might as well be plain Darwinian evolution. However, as we know, the laws of nature have to be very special to allow evolution in the first place. And this opens the rational possibility that "God did it". Other possibilities for the very special laws of nature are brute coincidence and the (unprovable) multiverse, but I would not consider these more rational than the first option, even though certainly a viable explanation for some. Some hold that the laws of nature have to be the way they are, but there is no logical or mathematical rationale for this.

Firstly, "divinely guided evolution" is, as stated before, the doctrine of the Catholic Church, not of the scientific community. Postulates of a God, or supreme intelligence or whatever, are deemed to be logically unnecessairy in scientific investigations, as long as phenomena are explainable in natural/reductionist terms.

[Scriptavolant]

Some hold that the laws of nature have to be the way they are, but there is no logical or mathematical rationale for this

At least this is an assumption that can be falsified. The assumption by which a divine hand created natural laws isn't.
And the problem with rationality, to me, concerns not only the postulate of an alleged divine hand behind natural laws, but many other things religious people usually believe in. Resurrection, miracles and so on.
Do you consider those beliefs to be rational tout court? I'm merely asking, not being argumentative.

[Al Moritz]

Firstly, "divinely guided evolution" is, as stated before, the doctrine of the Catholic Church, not of the scientific community. Postulates of a God, or supreme intelligence or whatever, are deemed to be logically unnecessairy in scientific investigations, as long as phenomena are explainable in natural/reductionist terms.

That is correct. But "coincidence" is also not a scientific term for explaining the laws of nature, and neither is an unprovable multiverse, which there is no evidence for, science. Science lives from evidence. That something can be described in scientific terms does not automatically mean that it is science.

[M forever]

I must heartily thank both Luther and Calvin for having helped tremendously in making the RC church clean its act up!

They did? How? When?

Hm. Not really spooky at all, for me. I'm convinced that religious miracles exist (outside the "ordinary-extraordinary" miracle of Love itself). For a Catholic, the Eucharist itslelf is a Miracle in every way.

So the miracle of love in itself isn't enough? Or of life? Or of everything that exists around us? Why the need for these "supernatural" miracles? The whole point of these in any religion seems to me to be inherently aggressive and dividing because they are supposed to "prove" that this, and only this religion which believes in these, and only these miracles which are the only ones which really happened outside "normal reality", that that somehow "proves" that this, and only this form of belief is really true.

I have a hard time seeing how people can believe in miracles defined by a religious organization as being exclusively "authentic" and at the same time declare they have tolerance for other forms of religious thinking or experience. I mean, it sounds really nice. But it is really honest?

I was never wild about St. Paul's more misogynistic writings...in fact, just the opposite. However, his song of love, and much of his writings in regard to Christology and prayer, continue to Affirm and Inspire me.

Is religion a cold buffet? Can we just walk up to it and pick and choose what we want and leave the bits we don't like on the table?
That is what appears to me what organized religions basically do. They prepare the menu for you. As long as you order from it, you are fine. If you want to go and take a look yourself, you are in deep trouble...

I find that misogynism a huge problem. Not just as a concept and a way of looking at women that I don't agree with. I know people have spent a lot of effort on trying to explain that away, but it is still obviously a strong element of that religion.

Which I find strange. When you actually read some of the biblical texts, the "official" ones as well as some of the "apocrypha", I see elements buried in them, but only half buried, half sticking out, which give me a suspicion (note I am saying "suspicion", not "conviction" or "belief"), a very, very strong suspicion actually, that one of the most important elements, maybe even the most important element in whatever the original form of Jesus' teachings may have been was the complete acceptance of and love for everybody - as it is indeed "officially" preached, but with a lot of qualifications... - without any form of qualification or reservation - including and especially women.
It appears that women have played an extraordinarily important role in the early church. That may explain some of the incredible dynamic it developed, which is still very hard to grasp. We are talking about a time and environment here in which women were definitely considered to be human beings of lower stature than men. Somebody preaching that they were just as valuable from any point of view (and indeed maybe even central to the understanding of love as the givers and receivers of love) must have made an enormous impact on people, insightful men and, obviously, women, for most of which such thinking was totally unheard of. You can still see in many biblical texts what important roles women played in many key events of the stories, except that some of them appear half painted over and redefined, as divine mothers or whores or whatever other archaic role definitions of women came in handy. It appears that women were the ones who held the early Christian community together after Jesus' death. And guess who was there with him during the crucifixion, who found his empty grave, to whom he appeared first (at least according to scripture). Not to any of the male "apostles". We can also learn even from some of Paul's texts that women were among the leaders of early church communities.
So, what happened? How did they end up in a role in which they weren't even allowed to speak in church or play any "leading" roles anymore? Could it be that what we have here is a concept of religious humanism way, way, way ahead of its time which was envisioned by a wandering preacher and which impacted those who heard it enormously not because of some great "miracles" he performed, but because of the extraordinary and revolutionary nature of these teachings, and the emotional and freeing impact this message of unconditional (and unconditioned) love? And which was then, unfortunately, taken over, revised, and used by people who were not actually ready for this message yet, and so felt the need to revert some of its key elements (such as the acceptance of women) to the archaic modes of thinking they were used to?

[Al Moritz]

And the problem with rationality, to me, concerns not only the postulate of an alleged divine hand behind natural laws, but many other things religious people usually believe in. Resurrection, miracles and so on.
Do you consider those beliefs to be rational tout court? I'm merely asking, not being argumentative.

First let me state that rationality requires one to not only accept the validity of the scientific method and the results it produces, but also to recognize the boundaries of science, beyond which philosophy begins. That something lies outside science does not automatically mean that it is irrational.

The concept of God lies outside science, but from a philosophical perspective, it is a rational assumption, albeit not an assumption without other rational alternatives. Furthermore, if one assumes that God created the laws of nature, it is also rational to assume that he is free to suspend them whenever he wishes. Rational evidence shows that this does not happen on a regular basis, but cannot exclude that it never happens.

[M forever]

First let me state that rationality requires one to not only accept the validity of the scientific method and the results it produces, but also to recognize the boundaries of science, beyond which philosophy begins. That something lies outside science does not automatically mean that it is irrational.

Very true. But does that mean it has to be "supernatural" and/or "divine" then? For people not too long ago, more or less everything, even the things today a moderately intelligent 9 year old can understand, were completely outside science.

The concept of God lies outside science, but from a philosophical perspective, it is a rational assumption, albeit not an assumption without other rational alternatives. Furthermore, if one assumes that God created the laws of nature, it is also rational to assume that he is free to suspend them whenever he wishes. Rational evidence shows that this does not happen on a regular basis, but cannot exclude that it never happens.

Very true, too, but there are countless such miracles which have been reported by people over the millenia. Not just the few which are supposed to "prove" the exlusivity of one form of organized religion. On what basis did you decide only these few are "authentic" and worth believing in?