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__________________ Hypography Science Forums Moderator
--- "There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth. We are all crew." - Marshall McLuhan
"We must not forget that when radium was discovered no one knew that it would prove useful in hospitals. The work was one of pure science. And this is a proof that scientific work must not be considered from the point of view of the direct usefulness of it." - Marie Curie
The persistence of religion has to count for something. Nature creates persistence in systems that are optimized. Things that change fast are called mutations, which randomly produce both useful and useless. The persistence in nature slowly skims the useful off the top and allows the useless to expire. The religions have dealt with the useful and useless for centuries. The change is slow since it takes time to determine the difference. In the modern age, quick decisions allows much of the useless to tag along. The idea of removing persistence for quick random mutation seems rather useless to me.
They simply want your money for a service to be delivered after your death. This is such a blatant scam, I can't believe government allows this. It's like the chain-letter from hell. Pay me or you'll burn forever!
Hilarious.
Do you have any objections to my inquiring thereof, bro?
The Bible, Koran and Torah was written thousands of years ago, by humans.
So, that being the case, how is it possible that people with not even the most basic understanding of the mechanics of rainfall can have an insight into the infinite, into everlasting life, into morality, into divinity, into human nature?
The short answer is that they didn't.
Religion is crap. Including ALL the flavours thereof.
......
Don't be suckered. Internet chain letters and religion is exactly one and the same thing.
"Send this message to ten people you know and *something wonderful will happen*! If you don't though, you'll be dooming mankind to a millennium of darkness and despair."
Who knows? Maybe it will work..."Lack of belief: its something you have to believe in!"
Two great tastes that taste great together,
Buffy
__________________ "If you do not agree with anything I say, I'll not only retract it, but deny under oath that I ever said it!" __________________________________________________ ______________-- Tom Lehrer
"The shrinks diagnosed me a sociopath with paranoid delusions. But they’re just out to get me cause I threatened to kill them."
I think most of you are onto something, different somethings, that may add up to the whole.
Religion would not persist if it didn't convey some "immunity" or benefit to the so-called "victims". Enough has been said of the benefits to the religious hierarchies and leaders. ($$$) What about George & Ethel Beleever?
Religion "explains" things to them in an easy to understand manner. Why be good? Why stay married? Why pray for strength to keep going on? Why band together with other believers? Why accept a moral code not of your own choosing? Religion has the answers to all those questions, and makes life a lot easier.
If you're not a brainiac. George and Ethel aren't. They're somewhere on the positive side of the curve below. George has the lower IQ, he is on the ascending side of the curve. When he learns more, it seems that religion works better for him. Ethel is smarter, on the descending side. When she gets smarter it just increases her doubt and makes her feel oppressed. But they both "benefit" so they'll stick with it. And bring their kids up in it. That has benefits, too. Other believers will think more highly of George and Ethel if their kids are believers.
And so it goes. But their one and only kid, Prudence, has an IQ of 150 and loves astronomy. She finds religion to be a real drag--an obstacle to her learning and understanding Life, the Universe, and Anything Else she sets her mind on.
__________________ Hypography Forums Moderator -- - - - - - What concerns me is not the way things are, but rather the way people think things are.
Epictetus, Greek Philosopher The map is NOT the territory.
Korzybski, Polish-American Philosopher
The following is an excerpt from
the "Address to White Missionaries and Iroquois Six Nations" delivered in 1805 in Buffalo Grove, New York, by the Seneca Chief RED JACKET
Quote:
Brother: continue to listen. You say that you are sent to instruct us how to worship the Great Spirit agreeably to His mind. And if we do not take hold of the religion which you white people teach, we shall be unhappy hereafter. You say that you are right, and we are lost. How do you know this to be true? We understand that your religion is written in a book. If it was intended for us as well as for you, why has not the Great Spirit given it to us, and not only to us, but why did He not give to our forefathers knowledge of that book, with the means of understanding it rightly? We only know what you tell us about it. How shall we know when to believe, being so often deceived by the white man?
Brother: you say there is but one way to worship and serve the Great Spirit. If there is but one religion, why do you white people differ so much about it? Why not all agreed, as you can all read the book?
Brother: we do not understand these things. We are told that your religion was given to your forefathers and has been handed down from father to son. We also have a religion, which was given to our forefathers, and has been handed down to us, their children. We worship that way. It teaches us to be thankful for all the favors we receive; to love each other, and to be united. We never quarrel about religion.
__________________
I do not know what I seem to the world, but to myself I appear to have been like a boy playing upon the seashore and diverting myself by now and then finding a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay before me all undiscovered. - Sir Isaac Newton
Goodnight God,
I hope that you are having
a good time being the world.
I like the world very much.
I'm glad you made the plants
and trees survive with the
rain and summers.
When summer is nearly over
the leaves begin to fall.
I hope you have a good
time being the world.
I like how God feels around
everyone in the world.
God, I am very happy that
I live on you.
Your arms clasp around the world.
I like you and your friends.
Every time I open my eyes
I see the gleaming sun.
I like the animals- the deer,
and us creatures of the world,
the mammals.
I love my dear friends.
Danu Baxter, Four and a half years old.
From the mouths of babes, the best prayer I ever heard.
__________________
I do not know what I seem to the world, but to myself I appear to have been like a boy playing upon the seashore and diverting myself by now and then finding a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay before me all undiscovered. - Sir Isaac Newton
Last edited by Thunderbird; 02-19-2008 at 10:20 AM.
The Bible, Koran and Torah was written thousands of years ago, by humans.
So, that being the case, how is it possible that people with not even the most basic understanding of the mechanics of rainfall can have an insight into the infinite, into everlasting life, into morality, into divinity, into human nature?
The short answer is that they didn't.
Religion is crap. Including ALL the flavours thereof.
Therefore, it's pointless discussing how they measure up against each other, or how two opposing religions can co-exist. They can't. They explicitly tell their followers that those of the opposing religions are somewhat less than human, totally wrong and bound for eternal damnation.
NO MORE, DAMMIT.
Don't be suckered. Internet chain letters and religion is exactly one and the same thing.
I would have agreed with you 20 years ago, and still do not belive in one true religion, but I think these typs of stories are powerful, and give us something that science cannot.
Quote:
THE POWER OF MYTH
For Campbell, the "power of myth" is the power of metaphor and poetry to capture the imaginations of individuals and societies. Myth supplies a sense of meaning and direction that transcends mundane existence while giving it significance. It has four functions (p. 31): The mystical function discloses the world of mystery and awe, making the universe "a holy picture." The cosmological function concerns science and the constitution of the universe. The sociological function "supports and validates a certain social order." Everyone must try to relate to the pedagogic function which tells us "how to live a human lifetime under any circumstances." America, Campbell believes, has lost its collective ethos and must return to a mythic understanding of life "to bring us into a level of consciousness that is spiritual" (p. 14). Campbell defends the benefits of myths as literally false but metaphorically true for the broad range of human experience. But certain myths are (at least in part) to be rejected as "out of date," particularly the personal lawgiver God of Jews and Christians. Biblical cosmology, he thinks, does not "accord with our concept of either the universe or of the dignity of man. It belongs entirely somewhere else" (p. 31).
Campbell's own mythic commitment is to the "transtheological" notion of an "undefinable, inconceivable mystery, thought of as a power, that is the source and end and supporting ground of all life and being" (Ibid.). He rejects the term "pantheism" because it may retain a residue of the personal God of theism. Campbell repeatedly hammers home this notion of an inefq fable ground of reality: "God is beyond names and forms. Meister Eckhart said that the ultimate and highest leave-taking is leaving God for God, leaving your notion of God for an experience of that which transcends all notions" (p. 49).
Despite such an epistemological veto on our ability to conceive of anything transcendent, Campbell draws on Carl Jung's theory of a collective unconscious to help explain the common ideas ("archetypes") that recur in the mythologies of divergent cultures worldwide. "All over the world and at different times of human history, these archetypes, or elementary ideas, have appeared in different costumes. The differences in the costumes are the results of environment and historical conditions"
__________________
I do not know what I seem to the world, but to myself I appear to have been like a boy playing upon the seashore and diverting myself by now and then finding a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay before me all undiscovered. - Sir Isaac Newton
Of course y'all are getting off topic again, unless Thunderbird wants to talk about hostility between Campbell's mythology and other religions...
In our last conflict four of his five wits went halting off, and now is the whole man governed with one,
Buffy
__________________ "If you do not agree with anything I say, I'll not only retract it, but deny under oath that I ever said it!" __________________________________________________ ______________-- Tom Lehrer
"The shrinks diagnosed me a sociopath with paranoid delusions. But they’re just out to get me cause I threatened to kill them."
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