Societies don't have to be secular to be modern

[Berkut]

Well put!

I find my discussions with BB about why he has faith and why I do not much more enjoyable and intellectually satisfying then arguments over whether one or both of us are deluded because we believe as we do.

The delusion thing is just silly. Way to many people share BBs faith (and by that I mean in the general sense of believing ins some form of deity) to simply dismiss it as "delusion".

[Barrister]

Well put!

I find my discussions with BB about why he has faith and why I do not much more enjoyable and intellectually satisfying then arguments over whether one or both of us are deluded because we believe as we do.

The delusion thing is just silly. Way to many people share BBs faith (and by that I mean in the general sense of believing ins some form of deity) to simply dismiss it as "delusion".

And way too many people share your lack of faith to likewise call it a delusion.

You can actually discuss these topics without resorting to name-calling or personal attacks.  We don't often do it on Languish, but it can be done. 

[Malthus]

Well done Malthus.  You get to go to the head of the class.

But ... why are you pushing me towards the window? 

[Barrister]

I am not a kid and I still like the word defenestrate.  One of the thrills of my trip to Prague was to see the actual window people where the defenestration happened.

[Valmy]

You can actually discuss these topics without resorting to name-calling or personal attacks.  We don't often do it on Languish, but it can be done. 

Sure it can you pompous windbag of a barrister.

[Barrister]

You can actually discuss these topics without resorting to name-calling or personal attacks.  We don't often do it on Languish, but it can be done. 

Sure it can you pompous windbag of a barrister.

I want to call you names back but you're just so god damn good looking I can't bring myself to do it.

[Neil]

Defenestration is a lot less impressive of a word if you've been educated in French.

[Eddie Teach]

Learning French takes the joy out of everything.

[Iormlund]

The delusion thing is just silly. Way to many people share BBs faith (and by that I mean in the general sense of believing ins some form of deity) to simply dismiss it as "delusion".

A lot of people thought the Sun revolved around the Earth - that didn't make it so. I don't quite get the popularity argument.

[Barrister]

The delusion thing is just silly. Way to many people share BBs faith (and by that I mean in the general sense of believing ins some form of deity) to simply dismiss it as "delusion".

A lot of people thought the Sun revolved around the Earth - that didn't make it so. I don't quite get the popularity argument.

It goes something like this:

-A lot of people believe in something.  A lot of those people are even very smart and thoughtful.  While those people might be mistaken on a topic, it doesn't make them idiots or suffering from a delusion.

[Pat]

The delusion thing is just silly. Way to many people share BBs faith (and by that I mean in the general sense of believing ins some form of deity) to simply dismiss it as "delusion".

A lot of people thought the Sun revolved around the Earth - that didn't make it so. I don't quite get the popularity argument.

It goes something like this:

-A lot of people believe in something.  A lot of those people are even very smart and thoughtful.  While those people might be mistaken on a topic, it doesn't make them idiots or suffering from a delusion.

This I agree with. To be wrong isn't the same thing as to be delusional.

[The Brain]

It's a good point that many very bright people believe in the magic sky fairy. They are so fucking bright.

[Pat]

I have also argued against religion entirely from a perspective of utility, even though I assume religious people actually do believe what they believe to be true, and do not hold their beliefs merely for reasons of utility.

You have essentially come out saying you do not need religion for communal feeling or moral philosophy which is true.  Religion is there to explore the spiritual part of your brain there in the frontal lobe.  To me, again I only speak for myself, if you are exploring that part of yourself and being in the sort of place that stimulating that part of yourself takes you then what you are doing is 'spiritual' or 'religious' and the insights you get from that experience are then what we can get some moral philosophy and communal feeling.  But that is just a result and not even necessarily a result.

Of course because it is almost impossible to speak about the experiences in everyday language people use a highly symbolic language to discuss it and thus we get things like the Bible.  One might question how exactly we might get insights from slaughtering Amorites or raining frogs on Egyptians and from my perspective the Bible very clearly describes an elevation of human conciousness from a tribal perspective, which views the nation as a holy thing, to a universalist one which is most clearly evident in the Book of Isaiah but runs throughout.  But that is only one small element.  The characters in the Bible are surprisingly un-idealized even the ones that are supposed to be highly righteous and elevated precisely because they address certain elements of human behavior to attempt to discuss spiritual lessons.

Now if that is not useful to you feel free to get your spiritual messages from another book or another system.

The problem with religion I think is that we have symbols and rituals and stories to tie us to that elevated state and we get so damn attached to the symbols we forget their purpose.  It gets quite hilarious because this is the effect that Islam, for example, explicitly condemns in its attacks on idolatry and why it takes great pains to underline that Mohammed himself is just a highly spiritual dude and not a God to be worshipped...yet some Muslims do precisely this all the time considering the person of Mohammed to be like an idol to be worshipped which gets you to do all sorts of silly things and why Christians fought wars over whether or not transubstantiation is true.

I agree with you almost entirely, although you seem to view these spiritual experiences as an end in themselves. I do not. If they were, one could just as well get them by taking LSD every sunday, for example. If you go back to my example with the Manchurian nomads, their spirituality served a purpose, as has spirituality done for most of human history, I believe, and there is no reason we can not put our spiritualities to use today to improve our lives in tangible ways by experiencing ideas and learning useful things about the world.

Lord Acton, I believe, once said that "history is not a burden on the mind, it is an illumination of the soul" and I'd think a lot of people here feel the same way about history. (And before anyone say anything, yes, I do know Acton was religious) History is just one example, though, this spirituality can be put to many different uses. To employ religion simply as a way to satiate our need for spirituality is to shackle the mind and deprive it of a powerful force of self-improvement.

[Eddie Teach]

It's a good point that many very bright people believe in the magic sky fairy. They are so fucking bright.

No matter what origin story you buy into, the fact that we're here is pretty ludicrous.

[Pat]

It's a good point that many very bright people believe in the magic sky fairy. They are so fucking bright.

No matter what origin story you buy into, the fact that we're here is pretty ludicrous.

So? That a God complex enough to create all this complexity would exist would be even more ludicrous.