Concepts and perceptions of betterment

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Being_1925
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Re: Concepts and perceptions of betterment

Post by Being_1925 »

Greta wrote: September 30th, 2018, 9:10 pm Many people are loathe to abandon the familiar, as you note. Over history religions have played a major role in societies that progressed from the caves to skyscrapers. Many figure that it works, also on a personal level for many, so why not keep up with a good thing?

Others look at the fantastical claims of religions and simply cannot believe that anyone in the 21st century could believe such things. Then came the homeopaths, tinfoils and the flat Earthers to render Sagan's famous prediction about future America surprisingly accurate.

After all these years I still cannot understand how an adult could truly believe in virgin births, miracles (eg. loaves and fish) and resurrections. We don't believe in Zeus, Odin or Apollo either. I can understand people claiming to believe those things so as to gain acceptance from the crowd, but not to truly believe them as historical fact.

It seems to be that religious people are usually just as fearful of death as the non religious, which tells me that many are actually agnostic but publicly choose the religious side for the clear(ish) boundaries and stability, along with social and networking opportunities. One would expect those people to have a more insecure response than their more devout peers when challenged on matters of faith.
Greta is right, it is not understandable to believe in virgin births and resurrections. It was the disciples that brought up the resurrection of Jesus to make things more interesting. But we still can be Christians on Jesus' teaching of love thy neighbor as yourself. What is called nature, is also energy. The energy that is always the same in every instance where it brings forth matter and organic life.
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Hereandnow
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Favorite Philosopher: the moon and the stars

Re: Concepts and perceptions of betterment

Post by Hereandnow »

Being_1925
Greta is right, it is not understandable to believe in virgin births and resurrections.
You mean in 20/20 hindsight. But then again, what denies us one belief, substitutes another, and the ground for this being "better" is very dubious: highways were supposed to modernize and streamline transportation, for example, but now we have traffic jams and high speed accidents and wasted hours of life staring into taillights. Through our rationalizing of affairs in general one could easily argue that things are much worse than before. Further, conceptually, is biblical disillusionment so defensible? What do we actually know now that has displaced scriptural belief that can stand up to scrutiny? Philosophers have never been able to confirm scientific knowledge beyond the practical assertion. science may "work" but working, that is, having utility, does not afford "reality and truth" absolutely. Affirming the virgin birth against a backdrop of scientific knowledge only fails the the relative sense, relative to scientific knowledge, that is. But can this knowledge serve to contravene metaphysical assertions, given that it is not in any way concerned with metaphysical affairs?
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Sy Borg
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Re: Concepts and perceptions of betterment

Post by Sy Borg »

Being_1925 wrote: October 14th, 2018, 4:59 pm...But we still can be Christians on Jesus' teaching of love thy neighbor as yourself. What is called nature, is also energy. The energy that is always the same in every instance where it brings forth matter and organic life.
The hard thing is working out which passages to accept or reject and the rationalisations for doing so. There are many contradictions and obvious myths in the Bible, and I expect in the Koran and other major religious texts too so some cherrypicking is essential to avoid believing in obvious fallacies.

Choosing love would seem a generic and logical choice, and not one that needs religions, although all religions see its importance. Clearly evoking the "What would Jesus do?" hypothetical would be a useful tool for drawing out one's goodness and wisdom. Then again, evoking the example of any inspirational third party could achieve this kind of effect, not just Jesus.
Eduk
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Re: Concepts and perceptions of betterment

Post by Eduk »

HAN. I think of you had practical knowledge of highways. Such as users, throughput, travel times, planning, construction, alternatives and so on. Then that would be much more useful to you, and me, even despite a lack of absolution, than your current knowledge of highways.
Unknown means unknown.
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