For his 300th post, wraith reaches into the cupboard and chooses a very large can, covered with a coating of dust. It's been shoved in the back there, it's the can no one wanted to show guests at a dinner party because invariably it causes arguments.

It's labeled 'Religion'.
...

It can almost be called the dirtiest word of the 21st century. It's embarrassing to mention, it's a faux-pas almost. Spirituality is uncool. It's a guilty secret for intellectuals, it's the skeleton in the closet, it's that album you bought in your younger years that now looks so unbelievably daggy. It's like saying you still believe in Santa Claus.

But it permeates everything. Our wars, our language, our goddamn dating system.

No one likes to talk about it, because invariably it causes arguments. Passionate, furniture throwing, plate breaking, civil behaviour out the window arguments.

Yet everyone believes in something, even if it is nihilism; the believe that it all comes to nothing.

To attempt some relevancy to the WGB I got this meagre straw: Pattern recognition. Does a Pattern require some kind of Intelligence creating that pattern? Does a pattern indicate a pattern maker?

You find a watch in the desert, do you assume that it manifested without a watchmaker? The desert is the solar system, the galaxy, the universe. The watch is life, all the intricate manifestations of it, the clockwork perfection of the solar system itself.

The last time any spiritual/ theological discussion was aired in this forum, it blew up, that was in the creationist/evolutionist post.

It invariably causes arguments.

Discussion is an argument that is kept in check by civil behaviour, by an open and tolerant view of another's belief, even if you don't share that belief.

wraith opens the can of worms.

...
For my own part; I was baptised a Catholic, I was raised a Catholic, I was Confirmed, I received Communion.

I no longer consider myself a Catholic. I am 'other'. In the last Australian Census I wrote down; Jedi.

I went to a Catholic school. It was there I learned about the atrocities enacted by churches, by religion in the name of their god. By men in holy robes, filling their pockets with the spiritual belief of the people. Gathering power as God's proxy.

"I tell you to do this thing! Because God says so! (He told me)"

Religion got it's shameful reputation because of these holymen, by charlatans selling god. Because of those who abuse that power and trust, by people who zealously believe and judge and condemn others, when it was clearly not their place to judge nor condemn nor dictate.

Religion got it's shameful reputation because of the perversion placed upon it, when filtered through ego and greed.

Ironically it was in Religious Education that I stopped believing in Religion.

But Divinity? I've made my peace with it. The hardest thing is to name it.

My belief is that it's even arrogant for humanity to anthropomorphize Divinity, to even give it a name, to give it a gender.

But we're human, faced with the wide anonymous skies, we created constellations, we assign patterns. Pattern recognition? Pattern manifestation?

My believe is that spirituality is important, otherwise it leaves a hole...somewhere. Like Laney's hole. Up close and personal.

My belief is if Reality is software then somewhere there is a programmer.

And that's the least of my beliefs.

my believe is that the members of the WGB aren't afraid to tackle intelligent theological discussion without resorting to flaming, trolling or generally zealous, fanatical god-bashing. That there's not a better forum of minds than gathered here.

Does religion even belong in a sci-fi board?
ahem. somebody mentioned Snow Crash?

wraith serves up the can of worms to the forum.

(Then runs very quickly away. In case it blows up in his face)

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Could you repeat the question?

Not sure where you wanna go with all this, but:

Paley's Argument from Design is no longer as strong an argument as it once was, tho it may still be persuasive for a great many. Richard Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker is probably one of the better known books to argue that natural selection is sufficient to produce 'designed' artifacts without requiring a designer.

Not suprisingly, using evolutionary theory in discussions about God will be about as welcome to some as quoting scripture to prove God's existence would be to others. But what is the alternative? The Conservation of Energy argument against the existence of anything supernatural tends to be even less welcome.

Sometimes people argue to determine what is right, and sometimes they argue to determine who is right. If that distinction can't be made, and all parties agree what sort of argument it is, then it's not likely to end up as anything but a flame war.

For my own part, I'm a nonbeliever. However, I take exception to the idea that religion is responsible for all the bad stuff in the world. It seems more plausible that religion has a deserved reputation for bringing a lot of good into the world, so that when bad people try and do their dirty deeds, they justify bad behavior by wrapping it a cloak of religion.

It may be a failure of religion to prevent it's adherents from falling for that sort of thing, but I think blaming religion for people's sins is an easy out that fails to appreciate both the nature of the religious impulse and the more nefarious impulses of the human heart.

Does religion belong on a SF board? If someone wishes to claim, in the name of science, there is no God, they would do well to take up the task of understanding and explaining why so many people think there is.

Erm... having managed to get along with folks very well here for quite awhile now, I think I'll pass on this one. Religion didn't just cause a thread to blow up the last time it came up; it causes threads to blow up every time it comes up.

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"Twice you burned your life's work; once to start a new life, once just to start a fire." --John Roderick, NEW GIRL

Sorry Wraith, but time is not kind to me right now, so I won't get a real response to this thread out right now... or maybe never.

But...

I will say that I dislike the writing of Richard Dawkins.

Scientific arguments aside, it feels like he's preaching to the converted.

He's a postmodern scientific priest.

That's how he comes across to me anyway.

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Made from an extremely authentic tough shiny blue nylon, every detail is matched to the original spec. The real mouton sheepskin collar is just sumptuous, and their reproduction of the Crown zipper is stunning.

I was raised in a Presbyterian church where deep questions of faith were never examined very closely, so it came as a surprise to everyone when I announced my lack of desire to join the congregation upon graduating from confirmation class. For a long time I vacillated between devout Christianity in the C.S. Lewis model, Buddhism in the compromised touchy-feely Western sense, agnosticism, and total, not to say nihilistic, atheism. At this point I'd describe myself as an atheist (unless my mother-in-law is around, at which point I avoid the question altogether), but not a "hard" or "devout" atheist.

That is: I do not deny the possibility of the existence of some controlling universal force. I simply lack belief in an anthropomorphic god in the Judeo-Christian sense. In this, I have to take issue with a statement of Wraith's. I do not believe in a godless universe. I do not believe in anything, not in the sense of the word "believe" that denotes faith. I either know something to be true (I am sitting in a chair), know it not to be true (there is not a 400 pound gorilla sitting in the chair to my right), or can make an assumption based on evidence in my possession (since I don't hear any kind of heavy breathing or grunting or smell bananas or ape shit, I assume there is no 400-pound gorilla over the cube wall).

While I respect the capacity for faith and those who possess it, and recognize that it has been instrumental in the establishment of civilization, culture, society etc, I see it as a kind of disease of culture itself. Or rather: it is a vestigial structure, like the appendix, that once served a very important purpose, but has been rendered obsolete and occasionally becomes infected, threatening the well-being of the whole organism.

I have a theory that religion developed in the earliest of human (or prehuman) societies, growing out of a less-complicated practice: superstition. It was invented as a means for explaining unexplainable natural phenomena, which at that time included things as mundane as rain falling from the sky or the sun rising every day. Later, humans learned to recognize causality as an abstract concept, and their gods began to die, replaced by rudimentary scientific knowledge, based on verifiable evidence.

I'm simplifying. Stay with me.

However, even as scientific knowledge grew in scope, the societal structure of religion remained, having been politicized, having become in fact a significant center of political power. The superstitious structures which were so useful to early man (okay, okay, early humans, you know what I mean) were in the process of being replaced, but those who had a stake in their continued use, albeit in a more advanced form, resisted their replacement, and indeed (often famously) suppressed the means for that replacement (see: Galileo). And they still do, like when modern politicians attempt to base policy on scripture.

Okay, there's my US$0.02. Please understand that I submit this with respect for those who might disagree. I have no interest in starting a flame war. I think we can all manage to prevent any thread explosions, if we remain civil and refrain from nasty attacks from either side.

Of course, I am tempted to characterize religion as the belief in magical superheroes who live in the clouds.

KIDDING! Kind of.

(edited almost immediately for spelling)

Exactly want anarchocyclist said. Even down to the 'born a presby' thing. See, look, a post from shadoth on religion, and it's short, and hardly any vitriol at all! woo hoo!

God's Frozen Children unite! Predestination! Austerity only the Scots could have invented! Bagpipes and drums in church! Grape juice for Communion!

thanks JB, that's the kind of post I was hoping for as a response. There's no general question, it's an invitation for observations and discussion on a serious and very current affair.

[edit] whoa! that was quick. Thanks anarchocyclist, shaddoth, herr_kuchen, all very exemplary so far! Thanks for your indulgence, exactly what I want to read.[/edit]

As we speak, Bali bomber Amrozi have been sentenced to death by firing squad, and he seemed very happy about it. He feels justified because of his faith. He helped killed people and thinks that his creator is going to thank him for it. Who put that idea into his head?

quote:

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However, I take exception to the idea that religion is responsible for all the bad stuff in the world. It seems more plausible that religion has a deserved reputation for bringing a lot of good into the world

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Thank you for pointing that out. You're right of course. A few bad eggs, all that, it does make us forget about the homeless and the damaged and the poor who probably wouldn't survive at all without the generosity of people who uses their religion as a moral guide and source of strength and inspiration.

Spirituality has depth we can barely fathom. Something we cannot prove but also cannot deny (not the existance of god but rather, the questioning, or the pull of the questioning). We all feel safer discussing animes, or videogames, science fiction, etc. But discussing religion scares us, you're absolutely right to be wary Split Coil, I was very hesitant and scared of coming out of the god closet. I generally admire and respect the minds on this board, I was very wary of bringing this subject up, fearing the blow out.

So why did I?

Insight. Insights that I might not have. I recently found out that one of my best friend, a student of science, goes to the same church as my mum and sister. I was very surprised.

She was a little bit embarrassed, and I thought then, yes, it's funny how we don't like to talk about it. 'specially people in my circle of friends. It's a topic filled with some very personal landmines.

OK. Say you know this person, you respect them and their intelligence for a long time, then you find out they have religion. Like it's an STD.

It's exactly like in Snow Crash, where Hiro feels that Juanita's religious inclination is some kind of blemish on her intelligence.

We know that it isn't. I think there's a quote in SC of juanita saying something along the lines of intelligence and spirituality but I can't be bothered to look it up.

Let's agree from the start that it's inevitable that we'll all disagree to some extent. We're to respect everybody's beliefs and we're not to dis their personal ideology. aaight?

We're not here to convert anyone to our beliefs or lack thereof, we're offering discussions, observations and personal insights.

my tip, if you choose to post on this thread is to choose your words very, very carefully the first time. Edit yourself like you've never edit yourself before.

On the other hand, I don't mind if people just ignore it and let it fade away. At least I know that for my 300th I made up a serious topic for discussion instead of yet another post on japanese cartoons.

It's like turning 30 and deciding you need to jump out of an airplane to commemorate it. You know?

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[This message was edited by wraith on August 08, 2003 at 08:27 AM.]

I beg the forum's forgiveness for my overuse of exclamation points. It seems I drank too! much! coffee! this morning.

Yep. What Anarchocyclist said, just with a bit of Jaynesian bicameral mind theory thrown in to taste.

quote:

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Originally posted by JohnBellham:
Paley's Argument from Design is no longer as strong an argument as it once was, tho it may still be persuasive for a great many. Richard Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker is probably one of the better known books to argue that natural selection is sufficient to produce 'designed' artifacts without requiring a designer.

---

There's also some interesting new stuff on emergence theory. I'll see if I can dig up some authors. Regardless, the point is NOT that design doesn't require a designer, but rather that it ISN'T design at all and instead is some artefact of random interactions.

quote:

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Not suprisingly, using evolutionary theory in discussions about God will be about as welcome to some as quoting scripture to prove God's existence would be to others. But what is the alternative? The Conservation of Energy argument against the existence of anything supernatural tends to be even less welcome.

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Evolutionary theory cannot prove or disprove the existence of a supreme omnipotent diety, because evolution simply shows that complex life can (and most likely did) arise from inorganic complex molecules via natural (i.e. nonsupernatural) means. This says worlds about biology but it says absolutely jack about spirituality.

quote:

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For my own part, I'm a nonbeliever. However, I take exception to the idea that religion is responsible for all the bad stuff in the world. It seems more plausible that religion has a deserved reputation for bringing a lot of good into the world, so that when bad people try and do their dirty deeds, they justify bad behavior by wrapping it a cloak of religion.

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Religion is comprised of three things, spirituality, morality, and superstition. You could also argue it encompasses tradition and certain ways of thinking. Now, none of these are, in and of themselves, wrong. Spirituality gives meaning to the lives of people who would otherwise feel their lives have no meaning. Morality is what gives us common standards of behavior that allow us to function as a society. Superstition gives us the feeling of control in situations where we have none at all. Now, none of these on their own are bad, and no one would criticize you for adhering to any of these individually. You believe in becoming at one with the universe, or any of that stuff? That's spirituality. You believe murder is inherently wrong? That's morality. You think wearing the same socks for an entire basketball season will help you win? That's superstition. You may laugh at any one of these, but it's all harmless.

Now, religion combines these and makes them all dependant on each other. Your personal "level" of spirituality is determined by how well you follow a specific morality. Both of these are linked to superstitions which are inherently antiscientific. So if you are a member of a particular religion, in order to be a spiritual person, you have to act a certain way and believe certain falsehoods. Because many people have a strong desire to be spiritual, they end up serving as their own thought police. And if it's good enough for them, it should be good enough for other people, right? So they try to force it on other people, or at least attack people who think and act differently. And THAT is a bad thing.

quote:

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It may be a failure of religion to prevent it's adherents from falling for that sort of thing, but I think blaming religion for people's sins is an easy out that fails to appreciate both the nature of the religious impulse and the more nefarious impulses of the human heart.

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Blaming christianity for teaching nontolerance of homosexuality would be placing blame where blame is due. Yes, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robetson and the Pope are all individually to blame as well, but in the end, they learned that intolerance from the teachings of their religion.

If it walks like a spade and talks like a spade, it's a spade, so call the damn thing a spade already.

quote:

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Does religion belong on a SF board? If someone wishes to claim, in the name of science, there is no God, they would do well to take up the task of understanding and explaining why so many people think there is.

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Does religion not belong on a sci-fi board? Only if we denounce Dune, Stranger in a Strange Land, Canticle for Leibowitz, etc, etc, etc. as being "not-SF."

Well, here we go then.

For one, I myself draw a major distinction between RELIGION and SPIRITUALITY. Religion, as we tend to think of it, is churches, organizations, rules, rituals. Spirituality is what is supposed to be at the core, the guiding influence, so to speak. In MY opinion (not claiming universal knowledge), spirtuality is more important.

I was raised Catholic, became a pagan, began to study eastern thought, and now am leaning more towards Taoism more than anything. Embrace the void, blunt the ends, travel the old cart paths and all. I belive in a higher power, but I also believe that any being, force or such, powerful and intellignet enough to create life is so far beyond what we are capable of understanding as to make it absurd. Imagine an Ant trying to read your copy of Pattern Recognition. It may at some point come to understand what makes this thing called a "book", and know that there are pages with areas of light and dark on them, but the concept of "words" is nothign it has any experience of. It would be futile.

But, we try, don't we? We either try to imagine and contact the watchmaker, try to please him and be the best watches possible, or we try to understand the watch, how it was made and built. I think these are the two main disinctions between types of people. And these two types have been killing eachother for thousands of years over this very split. And to me, that is what seems kind of silly. (people trying to determine wether the watch is Seiko, Rolex, Swatch or whatever really kind of annoy me though.

I say instead, that the answer lies in recognizing the watch for what it is. A intricate play between parts, a dance of motion and change, ticking on and on, forever (we hope). Rememebr, we do not find the watch in the desert, rather, we ARE the watch, becoming aware of ourselves.

And that, I say, is where spirituality lies. Being aware that I am not alone here. That my words as they are written, are being read and influenced by hundreds. That some may find comfort in our words, and their pain will be eased, or that another will take offence and be angered. Their change in mood will affect those around them, and so on and so on. We affect the world around us, and we should be aware of that. And, I say, that awareness is not dependant on the idea of God. If that is what brings you that awreness, fine. If you find it another way, that's fine to. All I say, si that you have that awareness. This makes it harder to hurt people, which is really what's important, in the end.

And now, I shall cease my ramblings, and see hwat happens now.

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"It is a good viewpoint to see the world as a dream. When you have something like a nightmare, upon waking, you will tell yourself that it is only a dream. It is said the world we live in is not a bit different than this." - Yamamoto Tsunemoto

Right on, Hox. The three-pronged view of religion is fascinating. Parallels to the Christian Trinity, anyone? I'll leave that to the poets.

Also: evolutionary theory cannot prove or disprove the existence of a god or gods, it's true, but I think it's worth mentioning that it ought not attempt to do so. Religion (well, theism really) makes the claim that there is some sentient force controlling the universe, or at least which created the universe. The burden of proof, then, belongs to theism, if proof is attempted. This is a common point in many "existence-of-god" discussions (see infidels.org), but it's always important to bring up.

If I had a nickel for every time theists challenged me to prove the nonexistence of god to justify my atheism....

Nice. Thank you all. I have faith in this damn board! quoting trogdor would be appropriate here. Hallelujah! I mean...

I'm with you PI, my faith has more in common with buddhism now more than anything. But trying to see Divinity with one religion/ school of thought is like trying to have depth perception with one eye.

yes, we are ants, but we are questioning ants. And that's an important distinction.

I forget that cans of worms tend to explode rapidly. Holy cow. I mean...

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I beleive in a GOD that made the universe and everything in it. Any GOD that intelligent and ominopent is beyond my capacity to totally understand.However, I do enjoy contemplating the nature of this GOD and saying my simple prayers and enjoying God's creations. ( this message board being one of them)

slow down kids, remember to edit and contemplate. remember this is a ticking bomb. DO NOT post hastily. (damn. wish I could've made that into a pun)

Tick tick tick.

[edit]
deb, deb, deb, I wish you didn't say that this board is an example of god's creation. It's a little bit like troll bait to the others who feel very strongly about this board but don't share your view.

It's like in Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country when Kirk goes; Humans make mistakes.
Spock: But as I often point out captain, I am not human.
Kirk: oh, everybody's human.
Spock: I find that to be... insulting.

know what I mean?
[/edit]
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[This message was edited by wraith on August 08, 2003 at 09:26 AM.]

...I want to say this:

Thank you, Wraith, for starting this thread with such good intentions. Thanks in advance to everyone for posting thoughtfully and with respect for the honorable impulse to discuss this issue calmly, honestly, and in a polite manner.

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for theirs shall be the kingdom of God."

Lots of fantastic points in this thread already (for which thanx, wraith, for raising the topic and for setting it up so nicely), with all of which I agree (even the ones that seem to contradict one another!)

I think a distinction between religion and spirituality is crucial. Religion is a system of symbols and rituals and connected beliefs, IMO (and don't start me on how reducing the rituals to a watered-down version of pop culture is killing religion). Such a system is not *inherently* about power and status and abuse of the poor (indeed, all the prophets on whom religions claim to be based were explicitly against this), but at the same time religious systems seem to be especially susceptible to this kind of abuse. We should be careful to recognise that the abuse is not the system, but at the same time it's so endemic that the confusion is very understandable...

(I attend a Christian church, and my biggest personal faith problem is other Christians and their intolerance...)

Spirituality is something different, and my personal belief is that everyone has some sort of spiritual sense or need. It will have a different object for everyone, and because it's been associated with religion, some will deny it altogether. I'm not trying to tell people what they think or believe, but I think we are impoverished if we reject spirituality (which I could loosely define as an appreciation for things we can't fully comprehend) altogether.

Edit: not, in my respected colleague Shadoth's argument, the stuff science just hasn't got to yet. Rather, things like the web of relationships and connections that PsychoInductive described so beautifully - and add to that our connections with the earth, the environment, and the rest of the universe...

Final point: I think the quest to keep the heat out of this discussion, and maximise its light-generating power, might be aided by decoupling it from the origins/creation question. While one attribute of 'God' tends to be the creation of the universe (by whatever mechanism), it's only one attribute, and probably not the most important one, but yet it's the most controversial and causes the most problems. If we concentrate more on 'this is what my spirituality means to me' (with subtexts of 'this is my past and present religious experience'), rather than on proving, disproving or persuading, the discussion has more chance of being both civil and useful.

Bravus

quote:

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Thank you, Wraith, for starting this thread with such good intentions. Thanks in advance to everyone for posting thoughtfully and with respect for the honorable impulse to discuss this issue calmly, honestly, and in a polite manner.

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in case someone posted before me, hence disrupting the sequence:

Thank you anarchocyclist and all of you for participating and for all your insights. It has been very, very illuminating. Which was the point after all. Praise the board!

going to bed now, no fighting while I'm gone. remember... ticking bomb. edit and restraint, respect everyone's view. no smug dogma-beating.

or as AliG says;
ResPeckT! Aiight?

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Big up yaself. Boo-ya kasha.