Are you religious?

Rings true, if he had created a robotic mindless you.
If you can learn, and change, and choose, then it is not over until the fat lady sings at your funeral.

 

From Freedom

The bell summons in decorous tones
Over the city still half asleep,
And memories rise from cold grey stones,
Where they rested not so deep.

To float forth in garden grounds,
Among morning mists they swirl,
Over the turreted surrounds,
And through monuments they curl,

Disturbing the artifacts I see,
With the beyond of long ago,
The phantom forms now present seem
To creep in on what I know.

They come to throw in stark relief
The certainties of here and now;
Space takes flight and Time is brief
I find lowered the higher brow.

Over the old barricade
Floods the spirit of the past,
Now subject to a scepter raised,
I find thoughts in shadows cast.

 

The religious and secular worldviews are incommensurate. They operate on completely different wave-lengths.

Religio means 'to bind' in Latin. This is the very opposite of the secular concern for freedom. Religion is concerned more with the impulse to belong. That belonging is first found in family, and works its way upward in community, and history and ultimately cosmology. Also, language itself is used differently. Words are seen primarily as vessels which hold and communicate meaning, and so you see images built up from words. Poetic meaning is alive and well in the religious mind. Indeed, one wonders whether poetry could survive for long without it.

The secular concern for freedom and reason is different. The individual must free himself for all constraints, and then reconstruct for himself what he only clearly and distinctly sees as true [rationalism]. Words are used purely logically here, like numbers; one thing must clearly lead onto another. Meaning inevitably leaks out of words altogether, they get bureaucratized in academic disciplines, and the mass mind is then disciplined in a technological society. So much for freedom.

If there is a lesson to be learnt, by the way in which reason first developed and then decayed, it is that reason itself needs a context, some system of faith in order to believe in itself. It needs a cosmology, such as belief in an intelligible reality, to which intelligent agency can aim. Science is really just a shadow of this cosmology. The secular world prides itself on progress, but from the philosophical perspective we have reverted to Plato's cave.

 

Not trying to judge or criticize just trying to get some insight as the words I bolded are very unusual. I don't know if that was a typo, but if not what religion where you a part of, and how did you get involved in it if you don't mind me asking?

 

Buzz -

You've got a way with words, buddy. I had to look up incommensurate and Plato's cave.

After reading your post a few times, I see the truth in what you're saying. I've never heard or thought about it quite the way that you've expressed, but it rings true.

An advantage to your somewhat cryptic style is, probably noone here gets their feelings hurt.

Thanks.

 

@Buzz Lightyear
You do have a way with words.
I am currently reading Kingdom Triangle (ISBN-978-0-310-27432-2). You are close to giving a summary of his discussion of "The Naturalist Story" on life in a thin world without purpose or meaning.
For centuries religious faith drove science. Even while churches were fighting against some of the discoveries, it was the scientists' basic beliefs in an ordered, created, world that led them to investigate it and discover how it all functioned.
It is difficult to explain our return to the cave, where we again attempt to pull meaning and purpose from the observed shadows.

 

ask him honestly to show you the way to him and he will did, when you know him you will feel happy even you have problems in your life, he created me and you and he knows what makes your heart happy, some feelings I can't transmit it but shortly be near to him and you will see all goodness.
it's an answer for your question, no religion debate for who are against religion or islam

 

Yes, I am. but more than a religion I have a relationship with God..it goes beyond than just going to church. A church, a pastor..they wont save you.

 

"My religion is very simple, my religion is kindness." Dalai Lama

In this sense I feel religious. There is a power which I like to call the creator, it's not a man and not a woman, nothing I want to create out of my imagination. Just something I can feel in my heart.

 

Well I have heard it said that if more Christians actually read the Bible many of them would become atheists. I think it's fair to say that the Bible has some pretty disturbing stuff in it

 

Of course you may discuss about disturbing stuff in holy scriptures like Bible, Koran, Bhagavad Gita. Will it help anybody? I like to respect each human being, doesn't matter he (or she) is atheist, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist or follower of any other religion. When there is respect for human life - it feels fine.

 

As I've said before I'm a Christian but I don't think the Bible should be viewed as being inerrant. Personally I think there too many mistakes in the Bible for it to be the word of God. I use to think it was but now I think that if God had written the Bible it would of been a much better book. As I mentioned once before in another thread, I've been listening to Peter Rollins. He says we shouldn't be asking if it's true, we should be asking what does it mean - what are the stories trying to say. I think looking at the Bible like that is unique and maybe that's how we should look at it.

Although I think of myself as a Christian I sometimes feel all mixed up. Sometimes I agree with atheists and find Christians annoying. And sometimes I am in agreement with Christian and find atheists annoying.

 

God is a God who loves and thus if he loves, he would allow us to choose. If he didn't allow us to choose, then he wouldn't love us. If he just preprogrammed us to be holy, then that is not genuine holiness.

 

You can question God if you want. Job did this but did it respectfully.

 

No problem I'm more than happy to answer tough (often uncomfortable questions), I was raised in a Hindu family and after a academic failures family insisted I pray to Saraswati, goddess of knowledge and wisdom.
Where as I knew personally if I was to emulate a deity I would choose Shiv the destroyer. Essentially destroy my previous mental and conceptual cognitive structure to rebuild myself a new, and dissect empirically what went wrong when I failed.

 

^ Thanks, I suspected Hindu religion. It was the only one I could think of.

Am I mistaken or do Hindu actually believe in a single God?

 

Whats been fascinating to me is the difficulty to conceptualize simplistically what Hinduism is, an no where is it more pronounced than in Hinduism. In fact one of the founding principles (if you can call it that) is Tark-Kutark (Logic-Counter logic) this almost non-negotiable way of existing where you question. Question everything.
Beyond the traditional 3-5 super ordinate deity in hinduism (depending who you ask) there is the conversation in Hinduism as 1 over arching comic awareness that is beyond the pantheon. Even the 3-5 deities refer to themselves as manifestation of that awareness.

 

I'm Roman Catholic.

I like to practice apologetics. Feel free to ask questions.

This is true. No honest religious person will deny it. However, the fact that some people have unsavory characteristics is not necessarily due to their religion. Any large group of people will invariably contain at least a small number of such personalities. It's human nature.

This isn't really your reason for choosing to be irreligious, is it?

 

You can't blame human nature when they become bitter & spiteful because of the inhibited lifestyle they've chosen for themselves (or perhaps they were forced into it).

 

I think that the Bible is not just a book of inerrant facts and universal commands. I see it more as a collection of motivational documents written to different people in different situations. By carefully picking and emphasizing the passages they choose, believers support most any doctrine they like. There are biblical passages that support opposing doctrines, and whatever doctrine you hold, there are passages that can call it into question.
We can also do a deeper reading of a text, allowing history to live and God to continue motivating. A parent can say to a son, "Hurry up." Then a little later the son hears, "Calm down." Same parent, same son, but that doesn't mean that the parent is necessarily inconsistent. Different situations require different instructions. The kid who responds with, "Would you make up your mind," doesn't begin to understand what is happening. We are too often given little kid reactions to things we given little energy to understanding.