Communism is teleological, it has a symbolic metanarrative, all kind of symbols and rituals and texts that are more than texts, and idealized personalities. It doesn´t just organize economic life, but also culture and the very way people think and feel and behave about themselves and family and friends. What more is needed to call it a religion? — DiegoT
Most glaringly, an absolute authority figure (more than an idealized personality), and an aspect of transcendence. — praxis
Most glaringly, an absolute authority figure (more than an idealized personality), and an aspect of transcendence. — praxis
Why is it a contradiction to say there is a mighty and powerful force that is beyond our comprehension? We can know creation is the result of a mighty and powerful force. We experience the manifestation of that mighty and powerful force and we can study the manifestation of this force, so we can know of the manifestation, but the mighty and powerful is beyond our comprehension. Maybe someday as we explore the energy of all creation more fully or/and if we come to understand multiple dimensions, we might think we comprehend the mighty and powerful force, but not today. There is no contradiction. We do not know everything.
I like the saying, the beginning of wisdom is "I don't know." When we think we know something, we stop learning of it. It is better to think we don't know, than to believe we do know. That is to say when we think we know God, we know not God, but only what we think we know. — Athena
Most glaringly, an absolute authority figure (more than an idealized personality), and an aspect of transcendence.
— praxis
That appears to be the Christian hang up I hope we get past. — Athena
The Christian God authority is counterproductive. — Athena
I promise you there is no God that wanted animal sacrifices. — Athena
Do you see the difference between believing there is a supernatural authority and believing science is important to staying out of trouble? — Athena
Going from town to town flogging yourself or burning witches will not stop plagues, but science can. — Athena
First of all, you need to stop saying that it's unknowable if you're going to tell me about it. That's a blatant contradiction. — S
It's like if you were to tell me that the Loch Ness Monster exists, and then when I react with disbelief, you explain that you only meant as an abstraction, it would deflate the issue to a triviality. — S
Sure. That's the false or unsubstantiated side of the fork. — S
Rather, it's what I believe are two essential qualities of what may be regarded as 'religion', which I point out in response to DiegoT's query. — praxis
Counterproductive to what purpose? If God's not the ultimate authority then who does God answer to? — praxis
This is a non sequitur that you cannot promise me, unless you're a God or something. Maybe there is a God and he gets a kick out of critter sacrifices." — praxis
"Trouble" is a little ambiguous so I can't quite agree that science is important to staying out of it, or even that staying out of it is a desirable objective. — praxis
The science exists to end world hunger, as well as many other human challenges, yet millions starve to death each year. Fuck religion and science, people need to wake up. — praxis
DiegoT
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↪S so these movements say. But we can not study social phenomena from the point of view of the phenomena themselves; the scientific study of the Bible started to progress when an author questioned that the Torah was written by Moses. You can not ask, say, FARC narco terrorists what they are; they will tell you they are the people´s army of liberation. You need to observe and compare with similar phenomena before making a classification. I argue that communism and christianism are part of the same phenomenon because they share many common features, not to mention a common origin. — DiegoT
What would make a president of the US a better leader if liberty and democracy are bad ideas? — Athena
If you want to start a thread to debate if we can feed the world or not, and if that is a good idea or not, pm me... — Athena
So, what do you think?
Religion poisons everything?! — TheMadFool
That is why the church didn't want uneducated people to have Bibles that they could read for themselves. Things like the witch hunts, or beating the devil out of our children, can come out of uneducated people reading the Bible. — Athena
Okay, and how do you propose we go about researching God? — Athena
I hardly think a notion of God is equal to a notion of the Loch Ness Monster. — Athena
How could an argument about the existence of a Loch Ness Monster be abstract? — Athena
In 1830 Tocqueville wrote that Christian democracies becoming a despot, a totalitarian government that would so control our lives our lives they would be meaningless and unfulfilling. I have always seen the conflict between communist and Christians totally baffling. Communism is applied Christianity, isn't it? — Athena
Communism is as you say, a practical answer to "Matthew 5:5: "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth." — DiegoT
"You can have a glass of perfectly clean and drinkable water, but if you add just a single drop of feces it ruins the lot" — VagabondSpectre
This may not be entirely true because he reveals that God commanded genocide and rape in the holy books. — TheMadFool
Perhaps it is odd in North America? In Europe there are lots of connections. The Catholic Church has right-wing and left-wing factions, and this division has been going on for some centuries. However, both main branches share many tenets of the Left. When you put the Poor and the Marginalized first and say that the Rich go to hell, as Gospels proclaim; you are creating a communist mindset.As I understand, early Christians were communist in that they owned no private property and shared everything, but the politicisation of Communism is different, and the claim that the USSR, say, embodied a kind of practical Christianity is odd. — AJJ
Oh no, you've misunderstood. You see, with the goodly assistance from your local priest, you can discover that that sort of thing was just a colourful metaphor for loving your neighbour or something — S
If liberty and democracy are bad ideas then we currently have the best possible leader. — praxis
You would debate whether relieving human suffering is a good idea or not? Granted that merely feeding the hungry (1 out of 6 people currently alive, approximately), isn’t a fix to universal human flourishing, but the effort would be in the right direction, I believe. — praxis
Wow. That's a blatant red herring. Just to clarify, is your "Okay" a concession to the following quote which you were responding to? — S
Analogies are just supposed to show that there's something in common, typically for the purpose of explanation or clarification. — S
where everyone informed on everyone else, abortions outnumbered live births, and a simple politeness like holding a door open for someone was viewed with suspicion. — AJJ
A debate is about gaining information and that is important to have a good plan. — Athena
feeding people results in breeding people and that makes the problem worse — Athena
Ah! I see. You were talking about abstract thinking, whereas I was talking about abstract thinking. :meh: — S
Concrete thinking refers to the thinking on the surface whereas abstract thinking is related to thinking in depth. Concrete thinking does not have any depth. It just refers to thinking in the periphery. ... While some mental process is involved in abstract thinking, no such effort is evolved in concrete thinking.Mar 31, 2010
http://www.differencebetween.net/language/difference-between-concrete-and-abstract-thinking/ — Difference Between
How do you define abstract thinking? I love your argument because it led to me finding the best definition of abstract thinking I have ever seen. — Athena
I don't see how the opinion you express here requires so much denigration. — Valentinus
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