Burgers?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I'd guess it to be partly an ego thing. It's difficult to admit you are totally wrong about something, it's much more palatable to think that you were mostly right, just slightly off on a few things.

Again, I may be being somewhat harsh here but I've associated organised religion with stunted science so that idea clearly needs revising in some regards.

Me too. I still can't bring myself to completely accept it's not, given that the two things seem diametrically opposed. On one side you've got rigorous testing and review and on the other side you have guys living inside whales and building boats big enough to house the entire animal kingdom and when it's proven, scientifically, to be horseshit, they "change the interpretation" How does that even work? The 6000 year old universe still revolves around the earth, it's just that terms like "6000 years old" and "revolves around" have to be reinterpreted?

I am unable to see this as anything other than really really dumb and really really unscientific.

As any person with scientific training knows, religion can no more be scientific or unscientific than science can be religious or unreligious. Science does not deal with religion. Period. Dogma can be pro-or-anti-science, but in itself religion and science are two circles that do not intersect. Science does not deal with ideas that cannot be tested.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

On your first point, I totally agree but, since the whole power and control structure hinges on some kind of prehistoric version of Pokemon, surely it should have totally evaporated by now.

The church no longer has the military clout to just say "fuck you, we aint proving nuthin, believe or die" All they got is circular logic which was disproven years ago. I can see the leaders not wanting to give it up but what I don't get is the followers insisting we respect their right to get fleeced.

On the second point, it makes a lot of sense in the context of the church originally saying "Fuck yeah, lets use science - it'll prove god"

Of course what ended up happening was science proceeded to debunk most of it.

Your understanding of history is a little off.  Just saying.

It's a complete, and incorrect, revision.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

My thought on it is, if you want to form a strong opinion on the historical relationship between religion and science, and if you want to form a strong opinion on humanity and religion, first research it. Then you will have the accurate knowledge base with which to form an opinion.

[Junkenstein]

I'd guess it to be partly an ego thing. It's difficult to admit you are totally wrong about something, it's much more palatable to think that you were mostly right, just slightly off on a few things.

Again, I may be being somewhat harsh here but I've associated organised religion with stunted science so that idea clearly needs revising in some regards.

I've recommended it before, but I recommend Sapolsky's take on why humans believe in spiritual things. If you're genuinely interested, that is.

I must have missed the recommendation. I'm still working through Sapolsky whenever I get spare time and that sounds like it well worth a look at. Book or lecture?

[LMNO]

Why is it so important to believe in people with superpowers, marching around the planet, zapping people with lazor vision or turning them into newts and shit? This is the bit I just can't fathom. Why is it so important to so many people that, rather than just saying "okay it's a bunch of crap" and drop it, they have to "reinterpret"

Like how come saying "Okay we know Jesus didn't walk on water like it explicitly states in the book but now we believe he maybe stood in a puddle or something and that's what it means", is somehow valid or useful?

I'm really not trying to be inflammatory here, I just can't wrap my head around the value that a lot of people seem to place in this stuff.

Why does what other people believe matter so much to you? Isn't there some point where you go "oh, well, it isn't any of my business unless it affects me"?

In general terms, I suppose it doesn't.  In very specific, political, shapers-of-public-policy terms, it very much does.

For example, Todd Akin: Denies Evolutionary theory, man-made climate change, and Biology (he's the "legitimate rape" guy), and he served on the Congressional Comittee of Science, Space, and Technology.  And he's not the only loon on that committee.  There's also Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga., who said:  "All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the Big Bang Theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell, and it's lies to try to keep me and all the folks who were taught that from understanding that they need a savior."

It's when their anti-rational and non-reality-based ideas and beliefs affect me, is when it starts mattering to me.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Why is it so important to believe in people with superpowers, marching around the planet, zapping people with lazor vision or turning them into newts and shit? This is the bit I just can't fathom. Why is it so important to so many people that, rather than just saying "okay it's a bunch of crap" and drop it, they have to "reinterpret"

Like how come saying "Okay we know Jesus didn't walk on water like it explicitly states in the book but now we believe he maybe stood in a puddle or something and that's what it means", is somehow valid or useful?

I'm really not trying to be inflammatory here, I just can't wrap my head around the value that a lot of people seem to place in this stuff.

Why does what other people believe matter so much to you? Isn't there some point where you go "oh, well, it isn't any of my business unless it affects me"?

In general terms, I suppose it doesn't.  In very specific, political, shapers-of-public-policy terms, it very much does.

For example, Todd Akin: Denies Evolutionary theory, man-made climate change, and Biology (he's the "legitimate rape" guy), and he served on the Congressional Comittee of Science, Space, and Technology.  And he's not the only loon on that committee.  There's also Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga., who said:  "All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the Big Bang Theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell, and it's lies to try to keep me and all the folks who were taught that from understanding that they need a savior."

It's when their anti-rational and non-reality-based ideas and beliefs affect me, is when it starts mattering to me.

Sort of half this and half because it really, genuinely disturbs me. I was bombarded with this crap as a child, a lot of people went out their way to convince a young, highly impressionable child that the bible (ie - the holy miracle penned directly by the hand of gandalf the omniscient) was a real thing.

It messed up my head. It was like giant puddle of mental AIDS that took absolutely fucking ages to get rid of. It wasn't just me this was done to. It was all the kids at my school and all the adults that had been there before me. It was most of a race. A fucking race of homo sapiens! I live in a country that still describes itself as "Christian" Not "Buffy Fans" or "Trekkies" but some kind of throwback ancient forerunner where fandom requires you to actually believe in the vampires.

It's fucking pathetic. It annoys the shit out of me.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Well, I'll just carry my pathetic ass out of this thread.

Sorry, Twid.

[P3nT4gR4m]

People whom I respect saying they believe it goes some way to addressing this but I'm leaning more towards those people have fallen, hook line and sinker for a shaggy dog story than the idea that they are possessed of some insightful wisdom that I'm not.

I don't think you're pathetic. You're no difference from (probably) the majority of humanity. I think it's a pathetic state of affairs

[The Good Reverend Roger]

People whom I respect saying they believe it goes some way to addressing this but I'm leaning more towards those people have fallen, hook line and sinker for a shaggy dog story than the idea that they are possessed of some insightful wisdom that I'm not.

I don't think you're pathetic. You're no difference from (probably) the majority of humanity. I think it's a pathetic state of affairs

I think you'll find that the vast majority of theists are more like Twid and I; you only hear the loud and obnoxious ones.

[P3nT4gR4m]

You and Twid have never tried to convince me. The majority of theists I encountered growing up did. They did so with the sanction of the government and the education system. I also feel the need to make a distinction between people who believe in some form of creator or deity or intelligence behind the universe and the ones that piss me off, the one's who adhere to the bible explanation. No one ever told me to explore the possibility of there being some kind of intelligent creator, no. They told me his name, a bunch of stuff he did and said and a bunch of crap about some white guy who walked on water.

And they told me it like it was some kind of fact.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

You and Twid have never tried to convince me.

That's because we're looking forward to puking cheap beer out of heaven, down on to your filthy sinner heathen head as you fry in hell.

We're kinda dicks, that way.

[Junkenstein]

I'd guess it to be partly an ego thing. It's difficult to admit you are totally wrong about something, it's much more palatable to think that you were mostly right, just slightly off on a few things.

Again, I may be being somewhat harsh here but I've associated organised religion with stunted science so that idea clearly needs revising in some regards.

I've recommended it before, but I recommend Sapolsky's take on why humans believe in spiritual things. If you're genuinely interested, that is.

I must have missed the recommendation. I'm still working through Sapolsky whenever I get spare time and that sounds like it well worth a look at. Book or lecture?

this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WwAQqWUkpI

(As well as others I assume?)

[hooplala]

Why is it so important to believe in people with superpowers, marching around the planet, zapping people with lazor vision or turning them into newts and shit? This is the bit I just can't fathom. Why is it so important to so many people that, rather than just saying "okay it's a bunch of crap" and drop it, they have to "reinterpret"

Like how come saying "Okay we know Jesus didn't walk on water like it explicitly states in the book but now we believe he maybe stood in a puddle or something and that's what it means", is somehow valid or useful?

I'm really not trying to be inflammatory here, I just can't wrap my head around the value that a lot of people seem to place in this stuff.

I thought the whole point of Jesus walking on water was that, yeah, it's patently impossible... but he did it anyway.  Isn't that sort of the point of a miracle?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Why is it so important to believe in people with superpowers, marching around the planet, zapping people with lazor vision or turning them into newts and shit? This is the bit I just can't fathom. Why is it so important to so many people that, rather than just saying "okay it's a bunch of crap" and drop it, they have to "reinterpret"

Like how come saying "Okay we know Jesus didn't walk on water like it explicitly states in the book but now we believe he maybe stood in a puddle or something and that's what it means", is somehow valid or useful?

I'm really not trying to be inflammatory here, I just can't wrap my head around the value that a lot of people seem to place in this stuff.

I thought the whole point of Jesus walking on water was that, yeah, it's patently impossible... but he did it anyway.  Isn't that sort of the point of a miracle?

As I have said, a deity that has to operate within the rule set of the universe isn't a deity, just a powerful but natural creature of some kind.

I mean, if you CREATE the damn universe, you'd know the cheat codes, right?

[P3nT4gR4m]

Just out of interest (not going anywhere with this, just genuinely curious) How much of your belief is based on your own particular ideas and thoughts on what a deity might be and how much comes out the bible? Like on a scale of "there seems to be intent behind all this" and "Jesus reanimated the corpse of Lazarus" where are you?