"He said a few other smart things I didn't catch because I couldn't type fast enough on my iPhone notes app."
It sounds like what you need is an audio recorder app.
Iāve seen him walking way up north on Aurora as well.
It doesnāt seem to me he has his priorities straight, but I do prefer that to the crust āpunkā who told me as he lay on the sidewalk that heād suck my dick for twelve tacos earlier today.
Well it was a silly solicitation anyway. Either he was going to perform the service with a dirty mouth after eating the tacos or he was going to perform the service first and end up with cold tacos.
How very Christian of them. Seriously. That's precisely the sort of response I'd expect him to get on a regular basis, and it's just one of the myriad reasons why I'm an atheist now.
Also, Stranger webmasters, you guys really gotta fix the blockquote formatting on the site (or at least allow us to correct for it when we're submitting). It's adding at least one extra line break, and it looks ugly as hell.
Millions of people have found God, and know He exists.
Perhaps Mr Sign has not, but it is arrogant and ignorant of him to insist that no one else has,
to assert that in the infinitely vast Universe (of which he has only experienced an infinitesimally teeny tiny bit) there is no God.
His sign might more reasonably say "I have NEVER experienced God"
And imposing his opinion into the intimate beliefs of Billions of souls he has never met,
insisting that they are delusional or liars, hardly seems loving.
Perhaps the sign could say
"I have NEVER experienced God"
(please Pray for Me...)
.
@11
How do you know they were "Christians"? Seriously.
Loving unconditionally is easy to say, harder to do.
@15 - I don't believe in [G/g]od(s), but what you say is fair; when a posit has zero recourse to anything resembling empirical evidence, it's equally churlish to insist that someone believe that it's true or insist they believe it's untrue.
I think there is enough evidence to suggest that belief in a young Earth, or that there's any real scientific controversy regarding evolution or climate change, could be called either delusional or duplicitous; it's certainly ignorant and self-serving. In that regard, one could suggest that speaking out against literalism or fundamentalism might still be "loving".
I would say, further, that if any deity or deities is interested in what we believe, or holds us accountable for our belief in him/her/it/them, a specific conception of sin, or the atonement of a son or daughter or other messianic blood sacrifice, then such a being would have to be considered cruel and capricious for withholding from anyone it hoped to see saved the sort of information by which we would know it exists, the paths by which we know literally anything else. That is to say, it wouldn't allow any one person not to experience its existence, relying on choosing any given metaphysical posit that sits in defiance of the laws of physics at random through an act of "faith" that could as easily place trust in an incorrect paradigm as a correct one.
I was simply going to comment that this post mad me smile, then I read through the comments. @14 would have almost had me had s/he/they not added the āpray for meā part. In any case this made me smile
"And imposing his opinion into the intimate beliefs of Billions of souls he has never met,
insisting that they are delusional or liars, hardly seems loving."
The same could be said about any pro religious group standing on street corners or knocking on doors trying to "spread the word."
Here's the thing, this is America and people have the freedom to believe what they want, and to spread those beliefs if they choose to.
Scientific process and logic and empirical evidence are necessary for inventing things or understanding hard realities. The world in which we live with relative comfort and ease is possible because of them.
But if you've established yourself in a career you have a certain expertise a boss or client pays you for. That can't be quantified in absolute terms. It's a combination of learned skills, confidence, curiosity, and whatever else enable you to do what you do to earn a living. The client or potential employer can list educational requirements, years of experience and other requirements to do a job, but in the end they look at you or your CV and decide to some degree on a gut check if you're the guy/gal they need.
Are you married or with a significant other? What empirical facts of their (presumed) love for you do you use to weigh and measure and set the parameters of your feelings for them?
Have a kid? When he or she was born that feeling you felt has certain biological causes. We evolve to care for young incapable of caring for themselves, emotional attachment is a significant motivator for doing it and so on..
In the case and many others intrinsic to what it means to be a person science only goes so far. Faith gets you the rest or you just don't get it.
The point isn't that science is a bad tool or that faith is a fools game. Neither are true. But both are tools only good for certain things and worse than useless for others.
The trick, if only I could learn it, is figuring out which are which...
Nope. And for clarity, religion is no more God than an essay on Caravaggio one of his paintings.
In politics and religion and employment there will be a draw for people who like power for powers sake. It doesn't mean all politics is awful or no-one should work- and it doesn't mean religion piusond everything because a few of the people involved aren't what I'd want in my faith.
I agree with @20 & 21. Science and religion are different spheres. One deals with the nuts and bolts and facts of the physical world and the other deals with the intangible, emotional and internal relationship we have with our experience of the world and others. They are both valuable ways to interpret different aspects of our lives.
And yeah, any hierarchical construct or social group is going to have people acting in bad faith in pursuit of power and personal gain, be it politics, religion or your local book club. That's why we have to be mindful.
Religion, at least the three major monotheistic, Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) force belief in a judgmental deity who demands utter obedience and inflicts disproportional punishments. It is evil.
As usual, others have said it better than I:
"So when I say, as the subtitle of my book, that I think religion poisons everything, Iām not just doing what publishers like and coming up with a provocative subtitle, I mean to say it infects us in our most basic integrity. It says we canāt be moral without Big Brother, without a totalitarian permission. It means we canāt be good to one another, it means we can't think without this. We must be afraid, we must also be forced to love someone who we fear, the essence of sado-masochism and the essence of abjection, the essence of the master-slave relationship and that knows that death is coming and canāt wait to bring it on. I say this is evil. And though I do, some nights, stay at home, I enjoy more the nights when I go out and fight against this ultimate wickedness and ultimate stupidity. Thank you." -Christopher Hitchens
I'd prefer taking the words of someone whose phosophy gave them some joy. Drinking himself to death and the excessively combative, often openly hostile, nature of the late Mr. Hitchens suggest strongly his didn't. Undoubtedly he was highly intelligent and entertaining to a certain kind of person. Highly intelligent is unequal to always right though.
I take issue with your characterization of the Abramaic God as well. It's certainly not the understanding of any Jewish or Christian person I know. I know no-one of the Islamic faith well enough to ask but doubt they see it that way either, given the common source. But no point in an argument changing no-one's mind and making nobody feel any better.
@25: While I personally kind of fall more on the irreligious end of the spectrum, I know many, many profoundly religious people who have dedicated their lives to helping the poor and suffering no matter what those above them in the Church hierarchy tell them. I also tend to cast a jaundiced eye on Hitchens. His worldview was more based in his unshakable self regard than anything else, brilliant though he was.
My point is that yes, religion throughout history has gone enormous damage but also inspired the best in people.
I applaud the good and fight the bad, and let people believe in a higher power, whatever that may be, if it makes them happy.
@20 - I think you'll find that my post @15 not only doesn't contradict what you say, but I fact specifically allows for it in the first paragraph. But if you need to be walked through it ...
Yes, I have been married for almost 22 years. There is no formula, 'tis true, to determine why, how, or whether I love my wife, or why, how, whether I believe she loves me.
I've established dual careers, having been an actor/playwright/director in professional and semi-professional settings for close to 30 years, and a personal trainer and martial arts instructor for just shy of a decade. And yes, there's a lot of subjectivity built into that; indeed, the whole question of whether any work of theater (or any other artistic discipline) is "good" is highly personal. I would say, in fact, that neither a moral nor an aesthetic "good" is something that can be objectively quantified. I'm a classically trained musician, but I'd rather listen to Young Fathers than Rachmaninoff, and there's no amount of argument about time signatures or the physical and intellectual challenge of mastering traditional instruments that will affect what happens in my nervous system when the sound reaches my ear.
Again, I think I made this obvious, but since you seem to have missed it: what most interests me is the question of what assertions within religion we CAN test via empirical means, and for what portion of the remaining posits and assertions we can be held accountable. If we can determine that the Earth being created in six days + a day of rest is either false or symbolic, we are already, to some degree, admitting that the Bible is less a work of history or revelation, and more a book of poetry and inspiration. As long, then, as we don't turn it into a source of legislation, I say find what inspiration you can in it.
I would go further, and say that I am a religious man. A nihilistic one, in a certain sense of the word, and a profligate one in Christian terms. The questions that primarily interest me are religious and metaphysical ones; whatever my deep disagreements with Augustine, Aquinas, Lewis, or Platinga, I value my familiarity with them as I do my familiarity with those authors I find more compelling - Bruno, Spinoza, Lao Tzu, T'ien Tai. I don't believe in [G/g]od(s), but I'm interested in the deity question.
Accountability isn't he Achilles heel of the Abrahamic religions, and of Christianity in particular, though I think its true weakness is inherited from Plato, with his Ideal Forms and his individuated soul, separate from the body that carries it. At the root of a system of rewards and punishments, a heaven and a hell, a fixed definition of "sin" and a pronouncement by a messianic figure that, "No man comes to the Father but through me," lies a belief in an eternal self, the eternal condition of which is determined by fixed set of moral prescriptions and proscriptions and/or (depending on whether you're looking at works-based sects like the Arminians or a faith-based sects like Lutherans, or even election-based sects like Calvinists) your willingness to believe that a sacrifice was made for you by the son of a deity, or by a son "aspect" of a triune [G/g]od.
Holding humankind accountable for individual beliefs ignores that, by and large, humans don't choose what they believe. I mean, try believing that you're in the Matrix. I'll wait. You may be able to accept it as plausible that you're in the Matrix, but until or unless it looks likelier than any of your other best guesses about the universe, you won't "believe" it the way the word is used in philosophy - that is, to hold a posit to be true. New data could change your mind, or experience could shift your core temperament or intuitional default, but volition has little to do with this. One may choose to profess or abide by a belief which one finds counter-factual or counter-intuitive, but that isn't faith - that's performative adherence.
In that sense, I would say the problem with literal or fundamentalist Christianity is that it holds the human accountable for faith - something for which the orgnanism has no volitional rein. If such a deity does exist that holds such expectations, we can fairly question its own moral character.
@29 is a spontaneous first draft typed in about 30 minutes on a phone with my thumbs. There are many typos. I think the points still stand fine on their own.
@27 - I think that's right and fair. I also think it's right and fair to prefer not to associate with people who look down upon any intrinsic aspects of my character or considered dietary habits & sexual behaviors as immoral. I find no reason to believe in deity, but I know some wonderful people who do. The biggest difference to me is what one takes to be literally true vs. symbolically true from these texts, and how many moral suppositions drawn therefrom we should be obligated to acknowledge through law.
I always give him a nod and smile which he returns.
I think he should team up with The Skipping Jestress and Boe Oddisey the Scarf Dancer to form...? What? I don't rightly know, but I wanna see it.
It sounds like what you need is an audio recorder app.
It doesnāt seem to me he has his priorities straight, but I do prefer that to the crust āpunkā who told me as he lay on the sidewalk that heād suck my dick for twelve tacos earlier today.
How very Christian of them. Seriously. That's precisely the sort of response I'd expect him to get on a regular basis, and it's just one of the myriad reasons why I'm an atheist now.
Perhaps Mr Sign has not, but it is arrogant and ignorant of him to insist that no one else has,
to assert that in the infinitely vast Universe (of which he has only experienced an infinitesimally teeny tiny bit) there is no God.
His sign might more reasonably say "I have NEVER experienced God"
And imposing his opinion into the intimate beliefs of Billions of souls he has never met,
insisting that they are delusional or liars, hardly seems loving.
Perhaps the sign could say
"I have NEVER experienced God"
(please Pray for Me...)
.
@11
How do you know they were "Christians"? Seriously.
Loving unconditionally is easy to say, harder to do.
I think there is enough evidence to suggest that belief in a young Earth, or that there's any real scientific controversy regarding evolution or climate change, could be called either delusional or duplicitous; it's certainly ignorant and self-serving. In that regard, one could suggest that speaking out against literalism or fundamentalism might still be "loving".
I would say, further, that if any deity or deities is interested in what we believe, or holds us accountable for our belief in him/her/it/them, a specific conception of sin, or the atonement of a son or daughter or other messianic blood sacrifice, then such a being would have to be considered cruel and capricious for withholding from anyone it hoped to see saved the sort of information by which we would know it exists, the paths by which we know literally anything else. That is to say, it wouldn't allow any one person not to experience its existence, relying on choosing any given metaphysical posit that sits in defiance of the laws of physics at random through an act of "faith" that could as easily place trust in an incorrect paradigm as a correct one.
"And imposing his opinion into the intimate beliefs of Billions of souls he has never met,
insisting that they are delusional or liars, hardly seems loving."
The same could be said about any pro religious group standing on street corners or knocking on doors trying to "spread the word."
Here's the thing, this is America and people have the freedom to believe what they want, and to spread those beliefs if they choose to.
Scientific process and logic and empirical evidence are necessary for inventing things or understanding hard realities. The world in which we live with relative comfort and ease is possible because of them.
But if you've established yourself in a career you have a certain expertise a boss or client pays you for. That can't be quantified in absolute terms. It's a combination of learned skills, confidence, curiosity, and whatever else enable you to do what you do to earn a living. The client or potential employer can list educational requirements, years of experience and other requirements to do a job, but in the end they look at you or your CV and decide to some degree on a gut check if you're the guy/gal they need.
Are you married or with a significant other? What empirical facts of their (presumed) love for you do you use to weigh and measure and set the parameters of your feelings for them?
Have a kid? When he or she was born that feeling you felt has certain biological causes. We evolve to care for young incapable of caring for themselves, emotional attachment is a significant motivator for doing it and so on..
In the case and many others intrinsic to what it means to be a person science only goes so far. Faith gets you the rest or you just don't get it.
The point isn't that science is a bad tool or that faith is a fools game. Neither are true. But both are tools only good for certain things and worse than useless for others.
The trick, if only I could learn it, is figuring out which are which...
Nope. And for clarity, religion is no more God than an essay on Caravaggio one of his paintings.
In politics and religion and employment there will be a draw for people who like power for powers sake. It doesn't mean all politics is awful or no-one should work- and it doesn't mean religion piusond everything because a few of the people involved aren't what I'd want in my faith.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIcqbpHE…
And yeah, any hierarchical construct or social group is going to have people acting in bad faith in pursuit of power and personal gain, be it politics, religion or your local book club. That's why we have to be mindful.
Religion, at least the three major monotheistic, Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) force belief in a judgmental deity who demands utter obedience and inflicts disproportional punishments. It is evil.
As usual, others have said it better than I:
"So when I say, as the subtitle of my book, that I think religion poisons everything, Iām not just doing what publishers like and coming up with a provocative subtitle, I mean to say it infects us in our most basic integrity. It says we canāt be moral without Big Brother, without a totalitarian permission. It means we canāt be good to one another, it means we can't think without this. We must be afraid, we must also be forced to love someone who we fear, the essence of sado-masochism and the essence of abjection, the essence of the master-slave relationship and that knows that death is coming and canāt wait to bring it on. I say this is evil. And though I do, some nights, stay at home, I enjoy more the nights when I go out and fight against this ultimate wickedness and ultimate stupidity. Thank you." -Christopher Hitchens
I'd prefer taking the words of someone whose phosophy gave them some joy. Drinking himself to death and the excessively combative, often openly hostile, nature of the late Mr. Hitchens suggest strongly his didn't. Undoubtedly he was highly intelligent and entertaining to a certain kind of person. Highly intelligent is unequal to always right though.
I take issue with your characterization of the Abramaic God as well. It's certainly not the understanding of any Jewish or Christian person I know. I know no-one of the Islamic faith well enough to ask but doubt they see it that way either, given the common source. But no point in an argument changing no-one's mind and making nobody feel any better.
My point is that yes, religion throughout history has gone enormous damage but also inspired the best in people.
I applaud the good and fight the bad, and let people believe in a higher power, whatever that may be, if it makes them happy.
Yes, I have been married for almost 22 years. There is no formula, 'tis true, to determine why, how, or whether I love my wife, or why, how, whether I believe she loves me.
I've established dual careers, having been an actor/playwright/director in professional and semi-professional settings for close to 30 years, and a personal trainer and martial arts instructor for just shy of a decade. And yes, there's a lot of subjectivity built into that; indeed, the whole question of whether any work of theater (or any other artistic discipline) is "good" is highly personal. I would say, in fact, that neither a moral nor an aesthetic "good" is something that can be objectively quantified. I'm a classically trained musician, but I'd rather listen to Young Fathers than Rachmaninoff, and there's no amount of argument about time signatures or the physical and intellectual challenge of mastering traditional instruments that will affect what happens in my nervous system when the sound reaches my ear.
Again, I think I made this obvious, but since you seem to have missed it: what most interests me is the question of what assertions within religion we CAN test via empirical means, and for what portion of the remaining posits and assertions we can be held accountable. If we can determine that the Earth being created in six days + a day of rest is either false or symbolic, we are already, to some degree, admitting that the Bible is less a work of history or revelation, and more a book of poetry and inspiration. As long, then, as we don't turn it into a source of legislation, I say find what inspiration you can in it.
I would go further, and say that I am a religious man. A nihilistic one, in a certain sense of the word, and a profligate one in Christian terms. The questions that primarily interest me are religious and metaphysical ones; whatever my deep disagreements with Augustine, Aquinas, Lewis, or Platinga, I value my familiarity with them as I do my familiarity with those authors I find more compelling - Bruno, Spinoza, Lao Tzu, T'ien Tai. I don't believe in [G/g]od(s), but I'm interested in the deity question.
Accountability isn't he Achilles heel of the Abrahamic religions, and of Christianity in particular, though I think its true weakness is inherited from Plato, with his Ideal Forms and his individuated soul, separate from the body that carries it. At the root of a system of rewards and punishments, a heaven and a hell, a fixed definition of "sin" and a pronouncement by a messianic figure that, "No man comes to the Father but through me," lies a belief in an eternal self, the eternal condition of which is determined by fixed set of moral prescriptions and proscriptions and/or (depending on whether you're looking at works-based sects like the Arminians or a faith-based sects like Lutherans, or even election-based sects like Calvinists) your willingness to believe that a sacrifice was made for you by the son of a deity, or by a son "aspect" of a triune [G/g]od.
Holding humankind accountable for individual beliefs ignores that, by and large, humans don't choose what they believe. I mean, try believing that you're in the Matrix. I'll wait. You may be able to accept it as plausible that you're in the Matrix, but until or unless it looks likelier than any of your other best guesses about the universe, you won't "believe" it the way the word is used in philosophy - that is, to hold a posit to be true. New data could change your mind, or experience could shift your core temperament or intuitional default, but volition has little to do with this. One may choose to profess or abide by a belief which one finds counter-factual or counter-intuitive, but that isn't faith - that's performative adherence.
In that sense, I would say the problem with literal or fundamentalist Christianity is that it holds the human accountable for faith - something for which the orgnanism has no volitional rein. If such a deity does exist that holds such expectations, we can fairly question its own moral character.