Matters of religious interest are central to the mission of this page, which is to question and evaluate our basic assumptions about life, the universe, and everything. This is a squirmy process, as I have recently been reminded.
I enjoyed this article in the Guardian on a new ITV documentary airing soon about the Muslim beliefs surrounding Christ. I think it's a great idea. Even as children we're taught that there are two sides to every story. We learn this the first time we get into a squabble with a sibling and our parents (if they're at all sensible) ask each child what happend before handing down a ruling.
Some stories seem to be exempt from this treatment. 'There is one side, once correct view, and it is mine,' seems to be the attitude. Shame, really. I think a lot of people would benefit from the discomfort of hearing the other side of their sacred story.
(And Random Thinker, I know exactly what you're going to say here. No, I am not contradicting my earlier statement about truth being objective regardless of perspective. There is a difference between a story and a fact: a story has multiple sides, a fact does not. In the case of the story of Jesus there are multiple sides (even within the Christian New Testament, where the gospels contradict each other all over the place), and then there is the truth of what actually happened, which nobody knows.)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
11 comments:
Showing some common ground between these groups is simply rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. We need to address the manufactured origins of all of these gods and work towards letting people draw their own obvious conclusions from the empirical evidence.
If they did a show on Mohammed the extremist side of the Muslim world would go ballistic because their history cannot bear any serious scrutiny. All of the blustery indignation and retributional death threats over the Danish cartoons proved that 'they' are completely insecure about digging up the past...and they should be because most of those mullahs are psychotic little Ozian Wizards hiding behind their henchmen and having a great time abusing their power.
These religions are all remnants of antiquity and we all know what happens to Castles made of Sand when the tide comes in.
Castles made of sand? I believe the Scientific quarter has yet to agree on oh so many aspects of their belief system. Not to mention that Christianity has been around for, oh 2000+ years. When was it the scientists (as a whole) decided the world was round?
Rimshot, rimshot, rimshot. Science readily admits ingnorace of many things. That is one of the fundamental qualities that distinguish it from religion. When science doesn't know something it says "how can we find this out?" When religion doesn't know something (on the rare occasion it admits ignorance) it says "we're not meant to know."
And holding an idea for 2,000 years doesn't make it right. You're arguing that the older an idea is, the more likely it is to be true. This is exactly opposite of reality, and precludes the possiblity of learning.
Finally, the Christian church vehemently aruged against the idea that the world was round after scientic methodology had confirmed it. So what point are you trying to make with this?
ps. Homo: "deck chairs." HAHAHA!
CB, I'm not arguing that 'the older the righter' thing, I'm simply pointing out the silliness of homo's argument.
I'm more than willing to be convinced that there is no God. I've just yet been presented with an argument for that belief that wasn't ludicrous when poked with the stick of reason.
That said, I find the discussion here quite pleasant and hope you haven't minded my most un-expert of pipings up.
P.S. (sorry, epiphany): You said, "When religion doesn't know something (on the rare occasion it admits ignorance) it says "we're not meant to know.""
I can't speak for RELIGION (and I'm not exactly certain to whom you're referring when you say that), but I, for one, can comfortably say that there are many things I don't know, don't have ready answers for, or can easily explain. This all from a Christian (does that make me 'religion'?)
rimshot: why do you need proof there is no god? surely the burden of proof is the other way around, that the default position is that there is no god, and its positive existence must be proven.
(this is to say nothing of the fact that it's not even possible to prove a negative, so if it's proff you require, you'll never get it. convenient.)
I'm sorry, I don't know where I was unclear, but I don't require any proof that there's not a God. I apologize if I made it appear that I did need proof of that sort.
I'm quite happy in my personal faith in God and, after careful consideration of the options have chosen Christianity and the Holy Trinity as my God of choice. Well, that makes it sound a bit cavalier, which is not what I mean. I have come to the conclusion that the Christian beliefs (in general) are the correct ones. And thus, I sit in quiet confidence that I'm right.
A quick question for you (all): Is there such a beast as absolute morality?
Hmm. Absolute morality. I'm not qualified to answer, but I can have a stab at what I think, which is that there probably is no such thing.
I think we've probably derived some 'morals' from the fact that we need to live together. ie, if you're going to live in a group, then there's ways of getting along and ways of screwing everything up, so we've learned a set of rules to oil the wheels. The bigger the group, the more complex the rules. As I understand it, we're currently optimised for groups of 150.
The fact that different cultures have different moral codes, seems to support this view. I think.
>There is a difference between a story and a fact: a story has multiple sides, a fact does not
don't let schroedinger hear you say that
Good evening
Thanks for sharing, I have digged this post
Post a Comment