Comments on: The morality of faith

By: Natasha

Natasha — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 00:06:36 +0000

#16 Oh, that is so unreasonable! What does “wide-open spaces” mean? That is so abstract. He claims to be different by believing in God? “Humanity is a biological idea” and the desire to feel secure under God’s wing is not? God “should be worshipped” based solely on the probability of His existence? “Freedom and equality” are rites belonging to a cult? That’s some serious reasoning! Wow! It’s the second time this week, I want to slap a person, because of how much they irritate me with their claims of reason. The first one was David Chik, who used physics however he pleased and called his foundation-less little essay “A New Physical Theory of Precognition,” which was infested with nonsense, a theory.

By: Lane Twitchell

Lane Twitchell — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 22:48:07 +0000

and so what underpins the need to worship anything? why? and what form does worship take? . . . and why again?

By: The Modesto Kid

The Modesto Kid — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 21:00:34 +0000

Wow: I just found an awesome bit of writing about faith, from Fernando Pessoa’s Book of Disquiet:

I was born in a time when the majority of young people had lost faith in God, for the same reason their elders had had it — without knowing why. And since the human spirit naturally tends to make judgements based on feelings instead of reason, most of these young people chose Humanity to replace God. I, however, am the sort of person who is always on the fringe of what he belongs to, seeing not only the multitude he’s part of but also the wide-open spaces around it. That’s why I didn’t give up God as completely as they did, and I never accepted Humanity. I reasoned that God, while improbable, might exist, in which case he should be worshipped; whereas Humanity, being a mere biological idea and signifying nothing more than the animal species we belong to, was no more deserving of worship than any other animal species [in which case, I'm totally going with Koala -- ed.]. The cult of Humanity, with its rites of Freedom and Equality, always struck me as a revival of those ancient cults in which gods were like animals or had animal heads.

By: The Modesto Kid

The Modesto Kid — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 19:54:00 +0000

Fred Clarke's post today includes the awesome, awesome line, "House-of-cards fundamentalism allows for no distinctions between babies and bathwater."

By: Natasha

Natasha — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 02:47:29 +0000

Dave, this is my indubitably unkempt version of some huddled ideas about this.
Religious talks are never-ending and impossible to reasonably conclude, above all, when various faiths are involved: hence, the religious wars. My personal journey from a Pegan or Pagan (by birth), to a Christian missionary (by conviction), to an Objectivist (by curiosity), to many many many others was not just a study of rituals and cannons, but a study of the human psyche. As a result, I reasoned that the intense role religion or non-religion plays in peoples’ lives is not only due to all of the aspects you have so nicely described here, but also to a strange human insecurity to lack trust in their superior capabilities, to avoid responsibility, to rely on and blame something greater than your average human (true for most religions, but not all.) Superiority permeates every religion as well as atheism. Fanatics stem from enclave consciousness (Jones Town, for example) as well as young age mixed with the societal duties (Islamic extremism). It really does not matter what religion or non-believe we are talking about, the psychological basis for it are rather similar. The fascinating part is that most religions have mysteries, which are not disclosed to the public. I find the human desire to do good out of fear for the afterlife very problematic. I think that the hegemony, which enables the church leaders to interpret, define, and dictate “good” and “bad” is, in fact, dangerous. Will the world be a better place without organized religion? Possibly. The important questions to ask then: What would happen to all of those “moral” people, who are currently doing “good” to get to their versions of heaven? Would there be Mother Teresa? Would there be lives saved? And then again, there have been more lives lost to the religious wars than all of the wars combined. There are so many questions, so many issues, and so many perspectives. The most important question of all: do you think the humankind is ultimately prepared to fire their gods?

PB, I thought that you were Pagan, at first; you have such a magical name :)

Lane, witches are alive and well and live among us :)