I guess you don't need a God to have a religion

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1589000/1589133.stm

"Use the Force, Luke!"

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Buddhists have said that for years.

Ben

 

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About time

Well? It is ....

thanx,
Tiassa

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Without God, what is point of calling it a religion?






Love. Jan Ardena.

 

It's easier for people to swallow

Calling it a religion is a sad commentary on the West. We cannot conceive of classifications more subtle than our own, and thus we regard such an idea as a religion because we have no other way of looking at it. However, being that the supernatural becomes natural when known, I would not be surprised if a Jedi had better terms for it; remember the script was written by an earthling.

But religion without God is, to some, a reality; for the rest of us, it's an eventual result. One of the reasons for fundamentalism is that all religions, taken to their utmost philosophical implications, pretty much nullify gods; it's a matter of human aspiration and attribution. Fundamentalist dedication to the idol of a god rather than to the god itself effectively prevents the metaphysical evolution of the god, and brings that nullification within sight of the more moderate-minded.

Er ... something approximately like that.

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thanx,
Tiassa

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If all your religion is about is rules YOU have to follow so you can earn whatever you're after...who needs God?

In Buddism the goal is enlightenment. If it's all up to you to earn elightenment then there's no need for God.

Mormonism is pretty much the same. All God is good for is to guide you on your way to perfection. If you accomplish that, you assume the role of God on your own planet. Your planet then looks to you for the same guidence you sought from your God.

Ben

 

Buddhism

As an unbiased athiest I can clearly state that Buddhism is the only religion that can stand its head proud.

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yeah...but...

I also do not believe in God but I really don't think you can actually say you can be an unbiased Atheist. The body of evidence for and against God is so vast that there can never be a clear negation to the idea of a higher power of that nature. So, really, you and I are relying on faith in our belief in no God, since we van never state all of the evidence.

But really, you could never gather all the eveidence because of all the evidence they'd need.

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There's really nothing wrong with talking about faith. It doesn't mean that we belive in things without reason. Most of life is faith. Cold, hard facts are still faith because we have to have faith in their truth.

I think that the Universe is unknowing of us, therefore we have no way to be certain if we can know it . The brain clearly has physical limitations, so how can we be certain that all the evidence against God lies within our frame of comprehension? No one can ever say we have the physical capability to understand everything? Chimps and Apes can understand less than us...so...maybe the next form of human will understand more?


Does that mean we do not understand all?

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Re: yeah...but...

 

A couple short points

Jan Ardena, don't you think it's a little silly to ask for evidence of the non-existence of something which cannot be observed, experienced, or defined?

* What is God? In other words, what are you asking for proof of the non-existence of?

* How does one observe God?

I would submit that the fact that we have to teach children to believe in God indicates that God is not real. Of course, we also teach children that storks bring babies, that there's a Santa Claus and Easter Bunny, and all manner of stupid thing.

thanx,
Tiassa

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But isn´t...

...."the force" just another word for "God", "Allah", or any other name for a superior force or intelligence? The Jedi Knight religion is just a new version of old ones, just as silly too.....

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, made up by people who needs to categorize their lives and believes by getting confirmed by fellow nerds.

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But I´m sure they have fun ! ...or I hope they at least have fun.

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A slight consideration

Bebelina

It brings to mind a piece of Star Wars trivia I've never known the answer to:

* Who is the Jedi godhead?

I've always been under the impression that the Force is pretty much all there is, accepted by the Jedi on the evidence of their having experienced it. The Force does not appear to have a personality, such as God or Allah, and thus does not interact in the same way.

Sufi philosophy provides a vague parallel. Apparently at a certain point in Sufi development, the adherent is licensed to forego all religious observance and practice: it has become unnecessary. The idea of "polishing the mirror", as such, seems to be intended to refine the image until the Sufi sees the soul as the reflection of God. This does not mean that one is God, but rather implies that the "self" has been so erased that the earthsickness of being human is suppressed, and the spirit acts in accordance with God instead of nature.

Buddhism, too, has a parallel, but I'm not as well-versed in it, so I'll leave it aside for now. Having not actually read the literature asserted to support this modern juxtaposition, I'm not sure I can relate it properly.

Perhaps it's a minor distinction, but it's one that I've been curious about for a while. Perhaps the Force has played a role in my spiritual thinking; typically, I attribute that part of my religious psychology to contemplations of Crowley's obsession with the concept of "I", and one of the reasons I'm not that active of a witch is that the Craft led me to observe an abstract sensation that the living force represented by the Goddess is merely Life itself, and therefore without distinct or cohesive personality traits. The Living Universe is the spirit, and not merely in its present definition, but to include its whole history and all of its potential (and at this point, we break into the "time is an illusion" vein and officially spiral off-topic).

thanx,
Tiassa

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Re: A couple short points

 

I know I´m being nerdy, but the thought of anyone going around and calling him/herself a Jedi annoys me. It´s supposed to take a lifetime of learning. Being a Jedi is the same thing as being a Jediknight.
Believing in "The Force" does not make one a Jedi..... Owww.. this is real geek stuff I´m saying here...

... I´ll go to bed now

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Counterpoints

I hope to clear up a couple of things ... I'll get back to this in a moment.

So, then, what is the Supreme Being, the Supreme Cause, &c.? The reason I move to that particular counterpoint is that "Supreme Being" or "Supreme Cause" is pretty vague. It's about as specific as "God".

People have many interpretations of what is God or the Supreme Being, but none can define it the way we can a color (by its wavelength), or something as simple as a balloon or rock. (If someone asked you what your balloon was, would you call it a Mundane Floater? If they asked about the rock in your hand, would you say it's a Mundane Event?)

Supreme Being or Supreme Cause are nice enough euphemisms, but definitions they are not. I assert that God cannot be defined.

On the most simplistic level, that's like observing a nuclear explosion to learn how the bomb works. Observing the effects of God is not the same as observing at God. Even in Biblical literature, who has seen the true face of God? Was that person able to convey what it is? Why are all descriptions of God either transcendant of human vocabulary or nested in effects which only imply God's existence when viewed from a standpoint couched in faith. God cannot be directly observed, as I understand it.

To finish the point, though I'm unsure if we're at odds on this point: I do not believe one can experience God directly and know that they are experiencing God. It's like a story I tell about when I was in high school. The short summary is that I had a few dreams which may, if one is so inclined, be construed as religious visions pertaining to Jesus and the Devil. Typically, the point is that if religious visions are legit, then so is mine, and that spells trouble for the faithful because of the things Jesus told me. (We can get to that someday, if we really need.) The point of that tale, of course, is whether one experiences God, or assumes an experience to be of God. I do not think that God can be experienced.

It's hard to "disprove" something that cannot be defined, experienced, or observed. In fact, it generally means there's nothing there to disprove, and that's the only reason I insert myself into your exchange with Piffi. How can one prove untrue that which cannot be asserted to be true?

As compared to when? If this is the time of gross ignorance, what is the time of knowledge? (I could suggest refutations of probable points, but that seems distracting at this point; I'm more interested in your answer as compared to my projections thereof.)

I tend to think this state of affairs is what makes religion so dangerous. To the other, why, then, do we often teach them of God instead of teaching them to write or count? It seems the faith equivalent of give a man a fish/teach a man to fish. Though I live in a diverse age, I find it odd how a society that has always favored the Judeo-Christian prejudice has resulted in such a divided, illiterate, unenlightened culture. It's a large question, of course, but it's a matter of priorities.

I disagree. First off, "spoiled", "brats", "disrespectful", and "unruly" are all artificial standards. Spoiled is a matter of conditioning. (Oh, the newborn is crying because it's hungry ... what a spoiled brat! Is this really how people think? It's a matter of priorities here, too. Spoiled is a Pavlovian state trained into the child by the parent.) Brats, too, are part of that Pavlovian conditioning. It's a combination of natural behaviors and artificial standards; again, a matter of priorities. Disrespect is a joke; not necessarily in the context you've presented it, but I find that disrespect in general is a joke. All my life, it is observational that "disrespect", among its other attributes, is a word employed by American social conservatives when encountering an attitude or way that is unfamiliar to them. It's nice and subjective, this thing called disrespect. Unruly ... human beings are animals. We have certain instincts. Anyone who has taken a high school psych class has encountered Freudian assertions regarding why young boys like to fight, wrestle, and generally not pay attention to their surroundings while they do. (In the less-sexualized version of it, they simply are learning "appropriate contact", learning bodily control, experimenting with social reaction, &c.)

No, of course you don't have to teach a child how to have sex. How to have good sex is something to be taught, I suppose, but it's ideally a mutual learning process. But smoking? You're right: nobody taught me to smoke. I understood the process of raising tobacco, harvesting, curing, cutting, rolling, lighting, and inhaling from the time I was born .... Drugs? Same thing. Straight out of the womb I knew how to scam a syringe and needle and shoot my vein full of heroin.

Am I sarcastic? Yeah, I hope you understand it's because I fundamentally disagree with the idea that one does not need to teach a child how to smoke or do drugs.

And here we see an underlying fundamental difference in our definitions. The "system" is still "you", as such. And "me". The "system" is what people choose it to be. The "system" teaching children is an insufficient excuse: I will note for the smaller examples that yes, once I did start smoking cigarettes, someone did "teach" me how to do it "right". And yes, when I started smoking pot, someone did "teach" me how to do it "right".

And what "system" tells you that God does not exist? To recount my own religious life relevant to that: I was born, my grandparents fostered my Christianity with records of Christian songs and a small library of Christian books; they taught Bible stories, and took us to their church. My parents seemed to think this was fine: they sent me to confirmation when I was 12 and 13. I attended a religious high school with my parents' blessing. The only place I've found a system that does not advocate God is within the public institution. It is in the public schools I attended that we did not push the Christian message. (A misconception is that schools can't talk about God; it's more accurate to say that schools cannot unequally foster a religion, and since people don't seem to be able to talk about God without getting self-superior and pushing specific religions, it's generally left out.) The public schools are forbidden from teaching that God does or does not exist. The "system"? What else is there? It has, before, been asserted at Sciforums that television media was antichristian: I can guarantee you that anti-obscenity rules governing television broadcasts are not derived from Hindu or Wiccan standards--they are Judeo-Christian. Government? Why is it par for nudity to be illegal? (cf.--Why is it illegal to be as God made you--were you born wearing Stussy and Levi's?) Government (again)? We, the People of the United States of America are currently advocating a religious war: both leaders claim God is on their side. Government (yet again)? Why is it that I swear over a Bible in a courtroom? What part of the "system" advocates that there is no God? What is the "system" to your definition? (That last one, I suppose, is mighty important in resolving these issues.)

They don't? Letters to Santa Claus? Easter egg hunts? What part should they act on? The fear involved in trying to deceive Santa Claus into thinking that you've "been good"?

thanx much,
Tiassa

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Re: Counterpoints

 

Doesn't quite work

A father is a human being. This is defined in part by genetic code. Your answer was vague. I can show you an example of a father. You cannot show me an exampe of a Supreme Being. The definition should make it clear what God is. "Supreme Being" is just as elusive a substitution as "God." To define God as Supreme Being is like me defining a balloon as something that floats in the air, or a rock as something that sinks. Would you, personally, mistake a chunk of rock for, say a gold ingot? Both sink.

"Supreme Being" does nothing for the common definition. If I put a gold ingot in front of two people, they will both know what it is. Likewise, if I put a hunk of granite in front of them, they will most likely recognize it and not think of it as a gold ingot.

Putting the phrase "Supreme Being" in front of people does nothing to establish what God is. Some will see a rock while others will see an ingot and yet others will see a balloon.

 

Re: Doesn't quite work

 

Well, if that's not a surprise ....

http://www.biology.arizona.edu/human_bio/activities/blackett/introduction.html

So, Jan Ardena, what would you like as proof? If the above link doesn't tell you enough about family and DNA, then let me know what you need, and I'll get back to you in several years after you've finished financing my degree in genetics.

As to a father? Tell you what, hop on a plane and fly to Seattle. Let me know if you need my e-mail (I'll pm you) and you can let me know when you're arriving. Rent a car and swing by, and we'll pop on down to Portland and you can meet mine. Don't believe he's my father? Guess what? He is because the law says he is, and if you choose not to believe the legal paperwork mandating that human relationship, then at least we'll know that much more about how you view things.

Selfish theism: so since it equates for you, it must work for all literate people? That's a crock and you know it. Define God, then. It's like saying a metal thing is shiny and magnetic. You've described what's important about the idea to you, but you haven't defined it.

Lacking a definition of God which does not depend on faith in abstractions, I conclude that my assertion is correct, that God cannot be defined.

I see.

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I would have thought you had a better definition than Supreme Being. I would have thought you to have a better definition of what something is than saying that grass is a plant. And I would have thought you to have better responses than "prove it". Let me know when you've gotten all those rapists out of jail who were convicted using DNA evidence.

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Ah, if only that were true. It can be reasoned that I'm atheistic--my theism is leading me toward Diderot's realization, but the sad fact is that having religions pressed onto me from birth until I was 14, and then immersing myself amid Catholics through high school, and having grown up in a culture where a man's religion is apparently his qualification for public office ... yeah, I've learned a few religious superstitions along the way. I think gods are real in a certain way. Ask any good jazz musician: something intangible comes from a good combo. People create gods, and it's important to me to figure out the nature of God so I can know why people invent these shadowy overlords who cause so much hurt in the world.

But to simply classify me as an atheist because I disagree with you is a laughable betrayal of your own appearance of knowledge.

Well? Go look at any person around you. Are they "there"? Can you experientially say that they're there? Based on what? As I recall, you wrote:

Right, and if you're ignorant because you refuse to see the scientific evidence, then it's not my problem until that ignorance interferes in society. And if you think you can prove that God is real, then go get a swab from God and run the DNA and prove it in the same way. Otherwise, the comparison of anything in this Universe to God is kind of bunko. If you choose not to believe a DNA test showing two people are related, fine: it's the end of paternity suits so whatever. But what does a test that we cannot perform on God have to do with anything? Is there a man in front of you? Walk up to anyone: is there someone right there that you can say exists within your terms for acceptance? Now: can you do that same thing for God? Can you walk up to God, swab him, and run the tests?

Let me know when you get your plane ticket and your car reservation ....