Why do so many peoples try to convince everybody that..

[Rev.Reverence]

...phee & O_M_G had the idea for this thread...& they are at work...so I started it...

[phee]

...phee & O_M_G had the idea for this thread...& they are at work...so I started it...

Its a good question.... but can you be more specific?

[hunhee]

Because I am right. Just accept it, and we can move on with our lives..

[Rev.Reverence]

Its a good question.... but can you be more specific?

...no...not right now...you were the one that wanted to talk about it...

I think that perhaps a new thread should be started with that question in mind

...but in the Holiday (or lack thereof) Spirit...I'll throw the first snowball for our team...(& I am not talking about the side that wants everybody to do Christmas things)...I mean the team that JUST WANTS PEOPLES TO STFU-&-GET-ON-WITH-LIFE! as a WHOLE RACE ('cause there is only 1)...

“At this season of the Winter Solstice, may reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.”

...that is not empirical...in the least bit..there are tons of things that "natural science" can not account for...wish I'ld have written them down as I ran across them...but I assure you they are out there...

...there is also that pesky disprovabillity of the Universal Consciousness (A.K.A. G*D)...

Because I am right. Just accept it, and we can move on with our lives..

*gives HunHee a raspberry on the neck*

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

I would tell you, but you would not believe me because it's not your idea.

[Rev.Reverence]

I would tell you, but you would not believe me because it's not your idea.

...to whom were you talking? ('cause I have NO preconceived notions on this)(just a thing that peoples do)

...or was that a general statement?...'cause if so...it was funny!

[Oh_My_Goth]

People are stubborn douchebags.....

Especially extremely Religious or extremely NON religious....

[TygerLili]

I think the majority of those just really enjoy heated debate, and don't seem to get that it irritates a lot of people, especially people that they don't know in real life. I enjoy a good debate sometimes with a close friend, when we are face to face and can hear each other's tone, but I've never been comfortable with it on-line. Too easy to get someone all upset and defensive over nothing more than a difference of opinion.

I also think that in the case of one or two, those individuals are incredibly insecure and badly need that reassurance that other people think that they're intelligent, but instead of outright showing their weakness, they try to cover it up by acting all cocky and arrogant, is if they know everything. These are the ones whose posts are a chore for me to read.

[phee]

...that is not empirical...in the least bit..there are tons of things that "natural science" can not account for...wish I'ld have written them down as I ran across them...but I assure you they are out there...

...there is also that pesky disprovabillity of the Universal Consciousness (A.K.A. G*D)...

You are taking a standpoint that anything that science has not explained yet must be tied somehow to religion/spirituallity/God then?

[hunhee]

You are taking a standpoint that anything that science has not explained yet must be tied somehow to religion/spirituallity/God then?

"god of the gaps"?

[phee]

"god of the gaps"?

Exactly Miss... the... "We don't know how this works yet so it must be supernatural" approach

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

Exactly Miss... the... "We don't know how this works yet so it must be supernatural" approach

No, it's "magic".

Just go find someone in some deep jungle that has never seen a cig lighter... and show them one. Magic!

[phee]

I think you see my point

[StormKnight (1)]

I think it is a simple concept of why:

"I'm comfortable. Leave me alone!"

Took that from a philosophy professor of mine. We need to feel comfortable that actions are justified by our beliefs. Our beliefs, in turn, we want to have justified in the sine qua non (that without which,) of the universe. Whether you personify the sine qua non (i.e. God, The Goddess, whatever religion you believe in,) or not is entirely dependent on the person or belief system.

The theorem to the sine qua non:

• There is some thing that without which no thing can exist (spaces between "some" and "thing," and "no" and "thing" are deliberate.)
• For some thing to exist, there must be sine qua non for it to exist.
• That sine qua non we give the name of god (not a personal noun.)
• There is no predication to god (sine qua non.). It just is.

Most people need to have a predicate to describe the sine qua non, i.e. "God is good," or "Allah is loving." Most people find it very uncomfortable to leave a copula hanging like "god is," and to accept the concept of sine qua non. It is the predication of the sine qua non that make people comfortable.

And it is that predication that gets people into conflict of religions. Because people hang on to that predicate they assign to the sine qua non, because they need to feel comfortable with the predicate and therefore their actions based on the predicate they assign, they feel justified in convincing people their way is the right way because it is comfortable to them, and may or may not be comfortable to the person being convinced. Those that find the predicate mutually comfortable form organizations to promote the predicate, which is now become a belief.

There are examples in history: the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Holocaust, the Killing Fields. All individuals involved in the persecution did it because their way they thought was the right way. Instead of doing good universally (defined as actions beneficial to the most people, most of the time,) they used their predication of the sine qua non or someone else predication as an excuse, or justification, to torture, kill, force others to believe their way was the right way.

[jynxxxedangel]

Sadly, one out of every three Americans suffers from CRD (Cranio-Rectal Disorder)..

[TomCat]

Sadly, one out of every three Americans suffers from CRD (Cranio-Rectal Disorder)..

Actually Jynxxedangel, I thought it was officially re-named Cranial Sphinctoral Inversion/Insertion Disorder.

Which reminds me of an appropriate joke:

What's the difference between a brown-noser and a shithead??

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Depth Perception.

[taysteewonderbunny]

Without reading the other comments and responding to the initial post--I'm not being facetious, but IF YOU DIDN'T BELIEVE YOUR BELIEFS WERE CORRECT, THEN WHY WOULD YOU BELIEVE THEM?

I think a more appropriate question would be, "why don't more people more often have amongst the set of their beliefs the knowledge that they are fallible?"

[phee]

Without reading the other comments and responding to the initial post--I'm not being facetious, but IF YOU DIDN'T BELIEVE YOUR BELIEFS WERE CORRECT, THEN WHY WOULD YOU BELIEVE THEM?

I think a more appropriate question would be, "why don't more people more often have amongst the set of their beliefs the knowledge that they are fallible?"

I like where the thought is going...

I would go further in saying "Why are people so afraid to admit that they don't know?" I mean honestly why must every gap, un-answered question, and mystery be filled with ---Insert supernatural/God here--- ? Really... what is the harm in admitting that there is a question that does not have an answer yet, if I adopted this mentallity in high school, I would have done much better at math I guess if there was a math problem I couldn't get and I had simply writen "GOD" instead of the answer I had tried to come up with I guess I would have been covered... this seems to be acceptable to so many other people, why not me?

To me... Faith = Ignorance,

I am sorry if this offends,

and ignorance = a lot of other undesirable things.

I know there is a lot more to spirituallity then simply this, but I guess I am comfortable in saying "I don't know" I think that admitting that you don't know, is the first step in getting rid of ignorance, because you are in a sense, no longer ignorant of your ignorance.

[TomCat]

I like where the thought is going...

I would go further in saying "Why are people so afraid to admit that they don't know?" I mean honestly why must every gap, un-answered question, and mystery be filled with ---Insert supernatural/God here--- ? Really... what is the harm in admitting that there is a question that does not have an answer yet, if I adopted this mentallity in high school, I would have done much better at math I guess if there was a math problem I couldn't get and I had simply writen "GOD" instead of the answer I had tried to come up with I guess I would have been covered... this seems to be acceptable to so many other people, why not me?

To me... Faith = Ignorance,

I am sorry if this offends,

and ignorance = a lot of other undesirable things.

I know there is a lot more to spirituallity then simply this, but I guess I am comfortable in saying "I don't know" I think that admitting that you don't know, is the first step in getting rid of ignorance, because you are in a sense, no longer ignorant of your ignorance.

And on the other side of the coin...

*drumroll*

My faith is just that.

I've never been confronted by a godless faithless type in a truly desperate situation before. But I'll thank God that I have a gun to protect me and mine when I do. Sociopaths may not believe in a higher power until right before they draw their last breath from fuckin' with me and getting shot. Something that may not have happened to them if they had a value system intilled/backed by some form of "faith."

[freydis]

You are taking a standpoint that anything that science has not explained yet must be tied somehow to religion/spirituallity/God then?

No, more like saying that just because science hasn't proved that god/s exist/s, doesnt mean that either:

a. Science won't prove it anytime in the future. If there's anything we do know about science, it's that it moves forward and changes almost unendingly.

b. That science disproves it. Simply because no evidence that is currently measurable by today's standards is currently available, is not evidence for its lack of existence.

.....at least that's how I read it. There's a lot science couldnt prove many years ago, that it does now. Who's to say that *this* gap won't someday be bridged? Long ago, it was madness to think that tiny organisms made you sick, then Pasteur declares in 1860 that germs indeed can make one ill. There's dozens of examples.

So.... who knows?

Personally, until we advance that far, I don't think anyone can be definitively "right" on that one.

[TomCat]

No, more like saying that just because science hasn't proved that god/s exist/s, doesnt mean that either:

a. Science won't prove it anytime in the future. If there's anything we do know about science, it's that it moves forward and changes almost unendingly.

b. That science disproves it. Simply because no evidence that is currently measurable by today's standards is currently available, is not evidence for its lack of existence.

.....at least that's how I read it. There's a lot science couldnt prove many years ago, that it does now. Who's to say that *this* gap won't someday be bridged? Long ago, it was madness to think that tiny organisms made you sick, then Pasteur declares in 1860 that germs indeed can make one ill. There's dozens of examples.

So.... who knows?

Personally, until we advance that far, I don't think anyone can be definitively "right" on that one.

Bingo. And now I'm ready for a beer, because unlike every theory that exists about anything, beer, always makes me happy.

[Oh_My_Goth]

I would go further in saying "Why are people so afraid to admit that they don't know?" I mean honestly why must every gap, un-answered question, and mystery be filled with ---Insert supernatural/God here--- ?

To me... Faith = Ignorance,

I am sorry if this offends,

and ignorance = a lot of other undesirable things.

Or insert scientific hypothesis 'here'.....

I am with ya on the "Why are people so afraid to admit that they don't know?"

I know what I have experienced & I also know I don't know shit.

& I would more say BLIND faith = ignorance

[taysteewonderbunny]

I like where the thought is going...

I would go further in saying "Why are people so afraid to admit that they don't know?" I mean honestly why must every gap, un-answered question, and mystery be filled with ---Insert supernatural/God here--- ? Really... what is the harm in admitting that there is a question that does not have an answer yet, if I adopted this mentallity in high school, I would have done much better at math I guess if there was a math problem I couldn't get and I had simply writen "GOD" instead of the answer I had tried to come up with I guess I would have been covered... this seems to be acceptable to so many other people, why not me?

To me... Faith = Ignorance,

I am sorry if this offends,

and ignorance = a lot of other undesirable things.

I know there is a lot more to spirituallity then simply this, but I guess I am comfortable in saying "I don't know" I think that admitting that you don't know, is the first step in getting rid of ignorance, because you are in a sense, no longer ignorant of your ignorance.

Yet, I don't like either the idea that science always has the answers that "faith" does not. First, because science IS influenced by our current paradigms (about as much as science, albeit more slowly, influences our paradigms) and has a great many reversals/upheavals and reorganizations which, over time, makes you wonder which "truth" is "truer" (within science, that is). So, even science leaves the scientifically-minded reasons to be skeptical. That is, the most current hypotheses are ones we take on "faith".

But I don't mean to suggest that science should be abandoned for religion. I just mean to point out that amongst any set of beliefs, there is evidence that contradicts the mental schematics we design in order to interpret the world around us--there is no method of interpreting existence or our experiences in it that is so consistent that there is NOT room for doubt.

[phee]

Yet, I don't like either the idea that science always has the answers that "faith" does not. First, because science IS influenced by our current paradigms (about as much as science, albeit more slowly, influences our paradigms) and has a great many reversals/upheavals and reorganizations which, over time, makes you wonder which "truth" is "truer" (within science, that is). So, even science leaves the scientifically-minded reasons to be skeptical. That is, the most current hypotheses are ones we take on "faith".

But I don't mean to suggest that science should be abandoned for religion. I just mean to point out that amongst any set of beliefs, there is evidence that contradicts the mental schematics we design in order to interpret the world around us--there is no method of interpreting existence or our experiences in it that is so consistent that there is NOT room for doubt.

Yes I agree... the difference I think is that science is OK saying that it doesn't know everything, religion usually says it either does, or it provides all the answers you need.

Most of science is saying "I don't know" and then trying to find out. While most of religion (IMO) is saying "I don't know" making up something to explain it, and then never budging on your opinion.

[phee]

& I would more say BLIND faith = ignorance

I can go with that