JCC Will religious belief ever disappear?

Montie, this thread is not about you. Please, if you must argue with Vivec, will you take it to PM? I'm not really interested in reading it, and I don't think many others are.

 

no moar baiting kthxbai

 

I agree with Nietzsche in some areas, too . . . and you bring up some interesting points, which I will address after posting this for VLM and Vivec:

 

So, drop it?

 

I dropped it after the warning.

 

Awesome... have you read Nietzsche's The Antichrist?

 

No, I haven't.

 

What part about this was vague or ambiguous? Just so Point Given can ensure, in future, to issue more targeted communications and ensure a more effective reach for his message:

harpua, I think a lot of what Nietzsche was getting at has been refined, in a more contemporary context, by Sam Harris. Harris defined religion as a failed science, stating that:

"As a cognitive and behavioral imperative, we form descriptions of the world and we try to figure out what's going on. We tell ourselves stories about our origins, about where we are going and about causes in the world. Given our pervasive ignorance and our disposition to see agency in the world, these stories entail relationships with invisible friends and enemies."

I think though they all have this overarching theme, which I would not disagree with - namely, that we concocted these systems out of a need. That need is myriad and complex, and I grimace when atheists try to distill it down to one gross oversimplification like "stupidity". It's not stupidity; clinging to these patently false "truths" (like immaculate conception, resurrection, and a prophet being the son of god and not a radical left wing agitator executed by the Romans for his agitation) is arguably stupid but the notion of a framework that facilitates communion? We need that, as a species. Truth be told, if we were majority buddhists, I probably wouldn't be so hostile to religion, because Buddhism has all the good things about religion - an impartial system of rewarding good behavior (karma is universal, not awarded on a whim by a jealous and furious deity), a framework for shared experience - without the negativity of having a central deity created in man's image whom men can seek to interpret.

I think where we stand now, we understand enough about the psychology of our minds; the physics of our universe and the biology of our planet to state that God, as defined by monotheistic religious texts (Torah, Bible, Koran), is almost certainly made up. Much of the feats and acts attributed to God we know did not happen as claimed by the religious, which means they either have to backpedal and accept the texts are not the word of god but of men who made stuff up (that way distancing God from any claims of fault or error in the works, such as claims of creating the universe or man) or abandon them. God did not create man, nor the earth in seven days (which is conveniently now metaphorical and not literal). He didn't create life, he didn't create the universe.

So assuming this logic pans out and religion declines - the major battle will be with Islam, which hasn't been softened by an Enlightenment - we will need to fill the void left behind by it. Why? Because we had a gap in our communal lives and we filled it with religion. We concocted a fairytale to give comfort and guidance, and since we are more sophisticated than our ancestors (who it must be said understood almost nothing of the natural world) we can probably identify this and adopt a replacement that isn't so littered with angry bearded wizards, improbable magic, and outright lies.

 

I think Nietzsche's ultimately right about Christianity being for the "weak," inasmuch as weakness stands in contrast to social, political, and economic power. Perhaps in contrast even to psychological "power," if by "power" you mean something like pride and the desire to put oneself first. Jesus spent his ministry tending to the poor, the sick, the outcasts, and those who were humble and childlike in the face of God.

Perhaps in the future, the world will become healthier, more prosperous, and less in need of such tending. Maybe then most people will agree with Nietzsche that an orientation toward the weaker members of society is sick. It does seem that developed countries tend to become less religious as they acquire more wealth, and that the culturally-Christian nations of Canada and Western Europe are abandoning their faith quicker. (These, plus Hong Kong, Taiwan & Japan, make up the lower-right quartile of this map.) Those countries who remain religious after they've acquired wealth tend to be Islamic.

It is possible that as human society develops, Christianity as we know it will go extinct, although I don't think all religions will.

 

Welllllllll, maybe?

Some acknowledgement has to be given about the widening inequality in the West. World's getting more equal; the US is the 34th most unequal place on earth...

 

You do need inequality in some measure, i.e. we cannot have an equal society. THere must always be the rich, the middle, and the poor; or the whole thing falls over. The US in particular has forgotten this, and abandoned the compromise deal between socialism and capitalism that would actually benefit the country enormously. This is, however, a topic for another discussion - I've noticed Christians also get upset when you point out Jesus was absolutely a socialist.

 

They probably will, given that Buddhism and the Abrahamic faiths have already lasted multiple thousands of years. At the very least people will know of our current religions the same way we know of the Roman pantheon.

 

For some reason, people fear the word 'socialism' ... I'm not entirely sure if those who are adamently opposed to it actually know what it is. It's like 'the boogie man' ... nobody knows what the **** it is, they only know that they are afraid of it.

Oxford says...

socialism

• 1a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

I found a list of references to socialism in the bible listed at patheos.com... I wont paste the entire thing here, but here's one.


Acts 2: 44, 45

32 And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common.​

​

Here's the rest
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/unreasonablefaith/2011/08/the-wall-o-socialist-bible-quotes/

 

the answer is "not really". the need to organize one's life around a belief is not going to go away as long as we are recognizably human. what i can guarantee, however, is that belief systems will continue to evolve and grow and change and the religions of today will be different from the religions of 100 years from now, in practice as well as doctrine

 

I beg to differ with Nietzsche's statement that Christianity promises everything, but fulfills nothing.

In fact, Christianity reconciles us to God when we accept that Christ's redemptive work on the cross was accomplished for us personally, no matter how unworthy we are. And that's part of the crux. We are ALL fallen. Our righteousness is as filthy rags before God. No matter how many good deeds we perform, if we do not know Christ, then all our work is as nothing. Good works alone will not cut it, so to speak, with God. Only acceptance of the gift of salvation that He freely offers will reconcile us to Him. By such acceptance and also by living our lives the way Christ taught we should, it is possible, if we fully commit ourselves to following God, to make a difference in the lives of others and perhaps bring them to knowledge of Him. Once Jesus returns for His own and the last seven years play out, the millennial kingdom will be established with Him as King and Lord and there will be peace on this earth.

 

Um I would contend the Oxford definition is inaccurate, or at least grossly oversimplified. Socialism generally refers to both the means of production being controlled by the state and not private enterprise; and that surplus be redistributed rather than kept in the hands of producers of goods.

I would therefore submit we still need to ensure surplus is funnelled back to the risk-takers and employers, but that a system for redistributing some of it - through progressive taxation and welfare packages - exists to create a vibrant safety net and to enable upwards mobility in the truly motivated.

EDIT: Skywalker numbers, you said "in fact" and proceeded to list a bunch of tenets which cannot ever be proven afterwards. This is the antithesis of fact. What is factual is that we have mapped the brain waves of religious people and understand what religious thought resembles. We have studied organisms conclusively and can prove their evolution over millions of years. We have studied the universe and energy and understand that the big bang was the cause of all this matter. They are facts. What is not factual is that God created the Earth in seven days (which has been backpedalled into being seven cycles and "day" is a metaphorical term). What is not factual is God creating man, then woman from spare Man parts and dust. What is not factual is God creating the universe in order.

And see, over time, we have already put to bed a bunch of the confident, "factual" assertions of Christianity as soon as we were smart enough to understand the world properly.

Case in point? Genesis states:

"Then God said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.” Thus God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. So the evening and the morning were the second day"

Yet by the time Galileo came along with his telescope, he had debunked much of what the bible said about the Earth and the Firmament, which God created according to the Bible. I trust you concur the Earth is a sphere, and don't consider Copernicus a heretic for reviving heliocentricity?

Every major claim made by the Bible has been proven to be inaccurate; little more than idle, ignorant supposition. Speculation. The only thing that remains is the notion of Jesus and God, and of heaven. Being as how death is a permanent darkness that we don't come back from... very hard to check in on that. Though we know nobody has detected a soul descending from a body in any real medium (priests and gypsies, I am dismissing your power here sorry).

If this is the case, what stops the rest of it being part of the wider narrative concocted by 3rd century writers?

 

nm

 

Exactly... but WHY are we filthy rags? Why can't we move on from being filthy rags and better ourselves? Why can't we become strong on our own? Why do we need to be weak in the eyes of God in order to know him? Have you ever asked these questions?

Oh I know... I didn't want to post a gigantic tl;dr on socialism, so I opted for the oversimplified definition.

 

(would have been good to mention how the Church took active steps to keep the bible out of people's hands until Martin Luther ruined it for them)

 

People think they came become strong on their own, but they CAN'T. Know why?

Because of the Fall.

When Satan tempted Eve and then Adam deliberately ate the fruit, all of creation was tainted. God created Man is His own image. We were meant to be perfect, but the Fall destroyed that.

Remember why Adam and Eve were driven out of Eden?

Humanity was no longer perfect from that day; separated from God because of sin. Nothing we can do, no matter how good, can bridge that gap. Only a perfect, and willing, sacrifcie could have done that, which is why Jesus came to Earth to live a mortal life.

 

Do you have proof this occurred?

 

Don't troll.

 

He's not trolling. He asked you a legitimate question.... rhetorical, but legit.