all humans have cool stuff in them all humans eventually ignore that cool stuff in some way or like, maybe there is a cool human that is awesome and progressive but for every cool human there is a dreadful human
Also, I see how it could be dangerous of me to suppress your admission of repression, in line with the notion that it's more productive to admit your ignorance than hide it under the guise of acceptance.
Religion goes hand in hand with ethnicity and cultural history. Mormon history is one of being shunned an unaccepted. So they remain tight-knit and help their own. That's not too unusual... Like any group, most people in the faith are not rich. The people who benefit from the wealth anare few, but very powerful. Lots of regular Mormons recognize this... that's not too different from how life feels to me, either. Elements that enable this power are woven into the fabric of their religion. Religions change.... a contradiction of Mormon life that I see as is that while the faith in their religion must be accepted whole, the very fact of their history gives them a certain mode of critical thinking. While their missions are condescending, at the same time, it is notable for young, white Americans to become fluent in another language and spend a long time in immersion of another culture. My point is, it's as complicated as any other culture in the US. To say all religion is dangerous is like a non-starter. It's an absract idea that I don't see any practical application of in our time.
Ultimately, complaining about religion is like complaining about the weather. There will always be people complaining, but it's part of the deal with being alive; it's not going to go away. might as well enjoy the light drizzles and cool breezes and guard yrself against the hurricanes.
Religion is a cultural artifact, which is fine and all, but gets way fucking nefarious when a religion decides it is THE way of living and that everyone else is really awful and is going to burn for eternity in hell and shit.
omg too true.... I did an interview with a New Age guy last week that left me feeling stone cold (New Age involves possibly misinterpreted Buddhist ideas about creating your own reality and choosing to suffer, which is an undeniably cruel claim). And yet, I did my best during the interview to lead the conversation away from topics that made him look foolish.
When I hear anti-religion statements, I am hearing a fear of the other and the unknown, but I am also hearing a fear of being oppressed because these religions are increasingly powerful. So I would prefer to focus on that element of power. Keep it practical and objective. To say "it's creepy" is no different intellectually than what they think about godless heathens. "Fuck you!" "No, fuck YOU!"
Isn't the problem with religion that after a certain point you can't work it out any more? You come down to irreconcilable commitments to belief. And you can't get inside somebody else's head and make them believe the 'right way'. Even if they are saying the right words, maybe they are faking!
Isn't the problem is linguistic? 'God', or 'the system', or whatever the label is called, defines an object beyond ordinary knowledge and expression. Discussions about things that are beyond discussion seem prone to misunderstanding.
Limiting ourselves to discussions within objective reality sounds okay. Let me know when you find the boundaries of objective reality. Right?? I'm snarking, but.... one time I told a friend I *wasn't* "an atheist," without making claim to any particular dogma, and got shut down so hard and treated like an idiot.
Anyways, we still live in a country that technically advocates a separation of religion and state. We just need to enforce the laws already on the books, so to speak.
Before I get into more trouble maybe I should say that I don't believe creating harm is 100% of what humans do. But it does get hard to make a call when one person's 'great day' was spent doing something that will ultimately 'bum' somebody else 'out'.
"But still, you know, shit happens. Just sayin'. ;)" - new footer
I wonder what religion, if any, has the most in-built agnosticism... "We don't know what the f." It doesn't take long for any new religion or cult to build rules to make itself legitimate, either. The big question to me is, how do we accept not-knowing in order to move forward? I do think religions can serve a function and they change according to the desires, fears, and feelings of relative safety enjoyed by its constituents--and can be easily manipulated based on the same metrics.
One might propose the scientific method. But even adherants of "Science" start to think that it holds the answers. I guess it's because I am as hippy-dippy as they come, but my attitude is, "I have seen into the truth of the universe, and the point is besides the point." The world I live in is, all kinds of people who don't know what is going on in each other's heads, but who mostly avoid pissing each other off just as a practical neccessity of survival. I need to stop talking on this thread for a while
Ken Jennings (of Jeopardy fame) is a Mormon, a Democrat, and a very smart dude. Also not afraid to swear in his tweets occasionally.
I still don't really understand how people can reconcile belief in weird old inaccurate religious/culty texts (Bible, Book o Mormon, Dianetics, Koran, whatever) with contemporary science, but hey. To each their own.
Buddhism is pretty open to agnosticism. Faith and prayer are not part of the deal. You do the work (letting your body and mind chill) if you want to.
The hitch is with your teacher, you swear devotion to your guru. That can go wrong with a bad teacher. But you can always just read a book if you want to.
You also promise to be respectful of the temple and the teachings. That can be awkward if you run around with buddha bashers.
Of course, there are loads of different buddha traditions out there, so... I'm kind of talking out my ass. [sorry]
LT speaks in a Christlike fashion which I admire but find very hard to actually emulate in my own life.
I think religion is about trying to stop up the holes of terror that gape in our awareness of the universe, death, and our own insignificance. That's fine, I guess, but I think it's just hard for me not to feel a sort of annoyed pity for people who find it so easy to accept these stop-gaps.
I also think "faith" is actually bad, and I find it deeply disturbing that we're all supposed to act like it's so noble and beautiful. We're supposed to have such respect for people's "faith." Why do we valorize "believing in something based on literally nothing more than a gut feeling?" That's a horrible way to live your life, run a country, make a decision, encounter Difference, etc.
The funny thing about me though is that I also hate science
Why do we valorize "believing in something based on literally nothing more than a gut feeling?" That's a horrible way to live your life, run a country, make a decision, encounter Difference, etc.
That's also not what "faith" means! Like, in Hebrew. I had a blog post about this back when I had a blog. I wish I could link to it!
LT but I think faith and religion are actually all about trying to eliminate ambiguity! That's why I don't like it! I am ALL ABOUT ambiguity! There's no good or evil; something can be bad for someone and good for someone else or neutral or both. I live in a sea of ambiguity and I find it fruitless to try to drain that sea with a little wee tin cup of magical angels and heaven
He he, it's true. Much love to all of you good people. Plus keep the hate alive. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. How's that??? Keep the hope keep the hate keep the faith 2012
I think you're wrong about that being what people mean when they say people of faith!
Faith isn't adherence to a set of unprovable doctrines in the absence of evidence. Faith is about a state of ultimate concern, a lived commitment to some sort of praxis, an act of total personality. It's like "in a context mediated by time, space, history, tradition, and community you know what's important to you and you invest yourself in living that way".
The thing that does get screwy is people thinking "GOD" or whatever is the only object of faith. But people have faith in lots of stuff! Free markets being the most corrosive these days.
Thanks for the Gould link, K. I like this quote: "Moreover, while I cannot personally accept the Catholic view of souls, I surely honor the metaphorical value of such a concept both for grounding moral discussion and for expressing what we most value about human potentiality: our decency, care, and all the ethical and intellectual struggles that the evolution of consciousness imposed upon us."
Dawkins would obvi disagree, but Dawkins is a dick.
Isn't science also trying to eliminate ambiguity tho?
Faith for the faithless. Video. Above. Pretty dope meditation on the trinity of Politics - Religion - Violence in the contemporary global moment from an anarchist atheist philosophe, then interrogated by a fiery revolutionary christian scholar at the top of his game....
Kevin, your definition of "faith" is nice, if incredibly vague and general, but it's crazy to me that you could possibly believe that when Obama says something about honoring "people of faith" or whatever, or when somebody is talking about their "faith" on the news or even in conversation, they mean just any kind of lived commitment to some set of ideas/practices. That would describe almost every conscious human on the earth, in one way or another. That is not what Obama means. That is not what "faith-based organizations" means. Today in America "faith" literally means "practicing Christians exclusively and all that that implies, i.e. abortion" like 99.9% of the time. I think your definition is awesome but it is so demonstrably not the working definition of "faith" used by our culture right now. I wish it were!
Also what does "an act of total personality" even mean
One of the things immediately clear from Critchley's offering is that a real discussion of religion in contemporary society has in to include 'sacralization of the secular', ie the political and social effect of belief in many forms that aren't contained within specific religious organizations. He speaks of the 'theology of the free market' for example (@Mikey!).
I think @YT might even be caught in this functional definition of religion.
This is why he embarks on a conceptualization of a 'faith for the faithless', a "religion" of non-belief, a context for living in a violent social world ordered by belief.
"Depending on the religion, faith is belief in a god or gods or in the doctrines or teachings of the religion. Informal usage of faith can be quite broad, including trust or belief without proof,[1] and "faith" is often used as a substitute for "hope", "trust" or "belief". Some critics of faith have argued that faith is opposed to reason. In contrast, some advocates of faith argue that the proper domain of faith concerns questions which cannot be settled by evidence."
they are random in the sense that I hold them solely because of who I happen to be. Where and when I was born, to which parents, inside which body and mind. Random in the sense that nothing can be definably correct or false, no religious doctrine can be anything but a random accumulation of concepts, because what you believe is so utterly, wholly contingent on the accident of your birth and personality.
I'm cribbing from Paul Tillich, as always. You are right that my/Tillich's definition of faith does actually describe basically any conscious human, which is the point, sort of. When Obama says stuff about people of faith, it's true that he's gesturing specifically to "People who identify with some particular religious tradition/community" and that serves a particular practical and symbolic function. (I don't believe that Obama means Christianity, but he certainly means to draw a circle big enough that most xian believers can see themselves included)
But when you start to investigate what religiosity means to people who practice it, it's my experience that rather than listing doctrinal precepts, that they start to circle around notions of "a good life"; figuring out the right way to live. (Sometimes that involves enacting abhorrent political agendas but obvs, not a phenomenon unique to religion, and anyway, we're working on that).
The ability of dumb people to dominate conversations around faith in the US is a direct product of liberals retreating from such conversations since the peak of mainline protestantism in the 60s (and the shocking religious illiteracy of the MSM). We don't fix this by disengaging.
(Also dumb people dominate conversations around everything in politics, so....)
yeah, I think you're right about that. Doesn't change what I said or think on this issue, but I agree with you. I still think "I have great respect for people of faith" means "I am pretending I don't think religious dogma is bullshit" most of the time. And I still think that "faith" in the sense of "believing in stuff because your religion says it to you" and even in the sense of "belief without proof" à la wikipedia, is generally bad for people's brains and for the world. Although I also think science is just another belief system that can be as stubbornly/dumbly adhered to. I'm certainly not a science fetishist--those people be crazy
Dr. J, yes, "Where and when I was born," I meant to imply history/historical patterns as well
Kdawg you touch on a good point..... today, practically speaking, in the US, when people prattle on about the freedom to practice their religion, it is a veil for social and political issues. I think that when you look at the details, the issues are just common social issues having to do with class and race. But Bush popularized the idea for white christians that their "values" were aligned with their "faith."
p.s can't believe we are literally having the "religion is bullshit" "no it's not" debate from high school, you guys. I am totally sorry for clearly being the main instigator of it. It is a dumb debate and we are all diminished for having it!!!!!!!!!!! Especially bigots like me
I have faith that this pizza is going to be awesome
the oozing together of religious beliefs and unrelated political issues is one of the darkest aspects of american politics. those who perpetrated said oozing are supra-machiavellian geniuses! and are definitely in hell
RCH, I think the values/faith thing goes WAY back before Bush. Second great awakening? The party alignment part goes back to the 70s and the moral majority.
Comments
Is Religion a Sandwich?
Did I UHX this before? I like it. It's kind of about this stuff. I've been watching it every few weeks for a few months.
Too many dudes, but you know.... dudes, there have been too many of them.
all humans eventually ignore that cool stuff in some way
or like, maybe there is a cool human that is awesome and progressive
but for every cool human there is a dreadful human
amirite?
Also, I see how it could be dangerous of me to suppress your admission of repression, in line with the notion that it's more productive to admit your ignorance than hide it under the guise of acceptance.
Religion goes hand in hand with ethnicity and cultural history. Mormon history is one of being shunned an unaccepted. So they remain tight-knit and help their own. That's not too unusual... Like any group, most people in the faith are not rich. The people who benefit from the wealth anare few, but very powerful. Lots of regular Mormons recognize this... that's not too different from how life feels to me, either. Elements that enable this power are woven into the fabric of their religion. Religions change.... a contradiction of Mormon life that I see as is that while the faith in their religion must be accepted whole, the very fact of their history gives them a certain mode of critical thinking. While their missions are condescending, at the same time, it is notable for young, white Americans to become fluent in another language and spend a long time in immersion of another culture. My point is, it's as complicated as any other culture in the US. To say all religion is dangerous is like a non-starter. It's an absract idea that I don't see any practical application of in our time.
When I hear anti-religion statements, I am hearing a fear of the other and the unknown, but I am also hearing a fear of being oppressed because these religions are increasingly powerful. So I would prefer to focus on that element of power. Keep it practical and objective. To say "it's creepy" is no different intellectually than what they think about godless heathens. "Fuck you!" "No, fuck YOU!"
If I were a columnist on Oregon Live, my comment section would be full of phrases like "liberal guilt" and "libtard" but amirite
Isn't the problem is linguistic? 'God', or 'the system', or whatever the label is called, defines an object beyond ordinary knowledge and expression. Discussions about things that are beyond discussion seem prone to misunderstanding.
Anyways, we still live in a country that technically advocates a separation of religion and state. We just need to enforce the laws already on the books, so to speak.
"But still, you know, shit happens. Just sayin'. ;)" - new footer
One might propose the scientific method. But even adherants of "Science" start to think that it holds the answers. I guess it's because I am as hippy-dippy as they come, but my attitude is, "I have seen into the truth of the universe, and the point is besides the point." The world I live in is, all kinds of people who don't know what is going on in each other's heads, but who mostly avoid pissing each other off just as a practical neccessity of survival. I need to stop talking on this thread for a while
I still don't really understand how people can reconcile belief in weird old inaccurate religious/culty texts (Bible, Book o Mormon, Dianetics, Koran, whatever) with contemporary science, but hey. To each their own.
The hitch is with your teacher, you swear devotion to your guru. That can go wrong with a bad teacher. But you can always just read a book if you want to.
You also promise to be respectful of the temple and the teachings. That can be awkward if you run around with buddha bashers.
Of course, there are loads of different buddha traditions out there, so... I'm kind of talking out my ass. [sorry]
I don't have a religion that tells me what to not eat or where to spend my Sundays, instead I have shareholders!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocks_of_Ages_(book) It's a fun, quick read!
I think religion is about trying to stop up the holes of terror that gape in our awareness of the universe, death, and our own insignificance. That's fine, I guess, but I think it's just hard for me not to feel a sort of annoyed pity for people who find it so easy to accept these stop-gaps.
I also think "faith" is actually bad, and I find it deeply disturbing that we're all supposed to act like it's so noble and beautiful. We're supposed to have such respect for people's "faith." Why do we valorize "believing in something based on literally nothing more than a gut feeling?" That's a horrible way to live your life, run a country, make a decision, encounter Difference, etc.
The funny thing about me though is that I also hate science
I am ALL ABOUT ambiguity!
There's no good or evil; something can be bad for someone and good for someone else or neutral or both. I live in a sea of ambiguity and I find it fruitless to try to drain that sea with a little wee tin cup of magical angels and heaven
just to reiterate my main point: Mormons aren't any creepier, as a group, than any other religious sect.
It's funny how LT and I are saying the exact same thing, but she's saying it in an inclusive loving way and I'm saying it in a judgmental hateful way
Faith isn't adherence to a set of unprovable doctrines in the absence of evidence. Faith is about a state of ultimate concern, a lived commitment to some sort of praxis, an act of total personality. It's like "in a context mediated by time, space, history, tradition, and community you know what's important to you and you invest yourself in living that way".
The thing that does get screwy is people thinking "GOD" or whatever is the only object of faith. But people have faith in lots of stuff! Free markets being the most corrosive these days.
"Moreover, while I cannot personally accept the Catholic view of souls, I surely honor the metaphorical value of such a concept both for grounding moral discussion and for expressing what we most value about human potentiality: our decency, care, and all the ethical and intellectual struggles that the evolution of consciousness imposed upon us."
Dawkins would obvi disagree, but Dawkins is a dick.
Isn't science also trying to eliminate ambiguity tho?
Just sayin'....
Also what does "an act of total personality" even mean
I think @YT might even be caught in this functional definition of religion.
This is why he embarks on a conceptualization of a 'faith for the faithless', a "religion" of non-belief, a context for living in a violent social world ordered by belief.
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/25/8-ways-faith-will-matter-at-the-rnc/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith
"Depending on the religion, faith is belief in a god or gods or in the doctrines or teachings of the religion. Informal usage of faith can be quite broad, including trust or belief without proof,[1] and "faith" is often used as a substitute for "hope", "trust" or "belief". Some critics of faith have argued that faith is opposed to reason. In contrast, some advocates of faith argue that the proper domain of faith concerns questions which cannot be settled by evidence."
But when you start to investigate what religiosity means to people who practice it, it's my experience that rather than listing doctrinal precepts, that they start to circle around notions of "a good life"; figuring out the right way to live. (Sometimes that involves enacting abhorrent political agendas but obvs, not a phenomenon unique to religion, and anyway, we're working on that).
The ability of dumb people to dominate conversations around faith in the US is a direct product of liberals retreating from such conversations since the peak of mainline protestantism in the 60s (and the shocking religious illiteracy of the MSM). We don't fix this by disengaging.
(Also dumb people dominate conversations around everything in politics, so....)
Dr. J, yes, "Where and when I was born," I meant to imply history/historical patterns as well
I have faith that this pizza is going to be awesome
I want a pizza.
CAN YOU IMAGINE HOW AWESOME THAT WOULD BE
sleep outside without a blanket
wear the coolest sunglasses
hacked snoopy t-shirt
bobby mcferrin
"no bull"
MY FAITHS