I don't quite understand your Christianity. You almost seem to be culturally christian, but less so on the supernatural (but not entirely absent?). Are your beliefs anything like Thomas Jefferson who took all the miracles out of his bible? That does not seem quite right.
If this does not seem overly personal, — ZhouBoTong
Of course, they do this. In school I was not allowed to defend myself physically. The teachers, at least many of them would if they were attacked on the street. A fight between kids, both kids got suspended, period. Parents can give orders which children must follow. They on the other hand need not follow the orders of children. Police can decide to put me in the back of a car in handcuffs and cart me off overnight. I cannot decide to do that to them. They can even make and error but not be punished if they followed their rules. I cannot do it to them even in many situations where it would not be an error. There is no situation where I can kill a lot of people including innocent ones. Governments and military leaders can do this. I am mentioning examples where I think most people see this and most people consider this to often be correct, though sometimes it can be wrong. — Coben
I sometimes come off as an oddball Christian because I don't believe in the religion I am discussing, even though I have some positive feelings toward it. — Bitter Crank
I'm willing to say some religions are just plain bad. Westboro Baptist Church Christians are bad. The Aztec religion was bad. Heretic burning Christians were bad. The Islamic State lunatics are bad. Bad, not merely wrong. — Bitter Crank
Maybe the best versions of atheist Buddhism manage to be both good and right — Bitter Crank
Most people in the world do, and probably always have, lived sort of parallel lives, believing in this or that religion on the one hand. On the other hand they have followed the otherwise secular rules of society. One either barters at the market for dried fish, or one just pays the asking price. One doesn't throw one's garbage on the neighbors lawn whether one is Hindu, Zoroastrian, or Animist. — Bitter Crank
As a whole is the paragraph sort of saying, "common decency should be, and typically has been, common"...? — ZhouBoTong
Is it the case that ONLY RELIGIONS can do what religions do? Probably. Religious work, like civil engineering, is specialized -- requiring a preference for such work, training, practice, support, supervision, and so forth. — Bitter Crank
Religions are the organization most ready to answer people's "existential questions" Philosophy might also be able to answer those questions, but philosophy isn't organized to go forth and comfort the world's existential fears. — Bitter Crank
I also think it meets a need that not everyone has. — ZhouBoTong
they prefer an answer that soothes their emotions vs an answer that soothes their intellect — ZhouBoTong
Well, cradle atheists and ardent believers alike both like and need their emotions and intellects soothed regularly--by some balm or other. — Bitter Crank
A connection? Probably. Of course, there are other reasons too -- the American church (broadly speaking) has experienced regular renewal over the last two centuries -- up until the 1960s. — Bitter Crank
China's religious population seems to have grown while the country was becoming better off. But then, China isn't like Europe or North America. — Bitter Crank
Baroque music is one of my favorite comforts, Vivaldi, et al. That and folk. Folk and Baroque. That and good books. My current top read is THE GENIUS OF BIRDS by Jennifer Ackerman. Go Birds! — Bitter Crank
There's a C S Lewis book called God in the Dock. It's a collection of essays, but the meaning of the title is that it implies a "God on Trial", based on an analogy made by Lewis suggesting that modern human beings, rather than seeing themselves as standing before God in judgement, prefer to place God on trial while acting as his judge. Which is exactly what I think the OP does. It my view, it's related to the (false) modern, anthropological conception of deity, which sees God as a kind of super-manager or ultimately responsible agent, in the same way as a CEO or executive is responsible. — Wayfarer
all religions which posit supernatural beings are wrong, no matter how good they are. — Bitter Crank
Baroque is the one with the tinny noise? Harpsichord I believe? — ZhouBoTong
Do you think in America that maybe patriotism merged with religion around the 1950s (ie the pledge of allegiance), resulting in part of the difference between Europe and America? — ZhouBoTong
Time for the 3rd Great Awakening? — ZhouBoTong
How similar are the beliefs of Christians in China to those of Christians in the US? — ZhouBoTong
But nowhere in the Bible is it said that the world ought to be free of suffering. It is always understood that, as the Buddhists put it, to live is to suffer. The whole point about redemption or salvation is that you once and for all rise above that suffering, or it is no longer all-consuming, or you enter a place or plane of being where all suffering is ended for once and for all (Heaven, in the popular imagination). — Wayfarer
Whereas nowadays there are a lot of people who seem to have no conception of that sense of commitment, and then wonder why everything seems so broken. — Wayfarer
Johann Sebastian Bach would probably object strenuously to "tinny noise". — Bitter Crank
The strings on their violins were made out of gut -- literally, dried out guts. Nothing wrong with that -- we still make products out of cow gut. Dissolving sutures in that cut you got stitched up? Gut. Plastic and metal strings produce more sound. Quite a few instruments that we consider essential hadn't been invented yet in the baroque period. — Bitter Crank
here's a piece that will sound 'tinny': Vivaldi's Mandolin Concerto in C Major. Here's another 'tinny' piece, — Bitter Crank
I have always been fairly unemotional. I think I am becoming more open to "stirring" works as I get older, but i have to fight my instincts that read something like war poetry and just think, "yep, war sucks".It's quite stirring. — Bitter Crank
At the end of the 1950s, religion in America crashed. Millions of people -- Catholic and Protestant -- left their churches and did not return. Since the 1960s hemorrhage, membership has continued to bleed away, just not quite as fast.
I do remember when the Pledge of Allegiance was changed -- I think I was in 3rd grade, so... 1954 or '55. I remember learning the "under god" bit. There was that conflicting drive -- to add god to the pledge of allegiance, and Madeleine Murray O'Hare's drive to get "In God We Trust" off the money, and to ban school prayer. Official prayer got banned. I think the drive to put "under god" in the pledge of allegiance may have been more an anti-communist angle than a "religious" angle. But I'm projecting backwards. I certainly wasn't thinking about that at the time. — Bitter Crank
I think the drive to put "under god" in the pledge of allegiance may have been more an anti-communist angle than a "religious" angle. — Bitter Crank
Well, this has been very interesting. — Bitter Crank
Why does a god that creates a world with suffering to test our commitment deserve our commitment? — ZhouBoTong
I sometimes think my goal is just to keep you interested and sharing for as long as possible — ZhouBoTong
The revival of 'In God We Trust' The 1950s, however, witnessed a dramatic resurgence of religious language in government and politics.
The Pledge of Allegiance was written in August 1892 by the socialist minister Francis Bellamy (1855-1931). It was originally published in The Youth's Companion on September 8, 1892. Bellamy had hoped that the pledge would be used by citizens in any country.
In its original form it read:
"I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
In 1923, the words, "the Flag of the United States of America" were added.
I had never considered this connection, nor ever read anything like that. It seems obviously correct once you mention it though. — ZhouBoTong
no sound on this computer — ZhouBoTong
The phrase "in god we trust" on money was first proposed by northerners during the Civil War. There was also an attempt at that time to add "god language" to the preamble of the U. S, Constitution. It didn't fly at that time, and in the years that followed. — Bitter Crank
On the P of A issue:
The Pledge of Allegiance was written in August 1892 by the socialist minister Francis Bellamy (1855-1931). It was originally published in The Youth's Companion on September 8, 1892. Bellamy had hoped that the pledge would be used by citizens in any country.
In its original form it read:
"I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
In 1923, the words, "the Flag of the United States of America" were added. — Bitter Crank
But one of the clearly memorable themes of the 1950s -- at least in the small town midwest where I lived -- was a very strong anticommunism. — Bitter Crank
And the Communist Party USA was on the right side of the civil rights movement--they contributed manpower and funds to help the movement from early on. — Bitter Crank
Yeah, there is a difference between religious language about God and political language about god. We expect believers to trust in God. That's sort of their thing. But politicians don't characteristically rely on miraculous beings to win. They rely on a jaded electorates, smoky back rooms, money changing hands, lies, untruths, distortions, etc. — Bitter Crank
WHAT people believed about communism and communists was pretty heavily flavored by government agencies, business groups, and the police in the person of rabid anti-communist, anti-homosexual (and probably homosexual himself) J. Edgar Hoover, the long-time head of the FBI. — Bitter Crank
You probably haven't heard of it, but the FBI ran a program called COINTELPRO -- COunter INTELligence PROgram. It ran from 1956 to 1971, but people didn't know about it until the 1970s. It was a major effort to surveil, infiltrate, disrupt, and discredit domestic political groups of which the FBI disapproved. That included civil rights groups, leftists (not communists), Communists, women's liberation groups, anti-Vietnam War groups, campus activist groups, etc. They didn't plant bombs or assassinate people, but they interfered in ways that made political activist work less successful, because the various organizations were dealing with organizational problems that COINTELPRO caused. — Bitter Crank
COINTELPRO was closed down after the story came out, but rest assured, the government didn't give up on surveillance and infiltration of domestic political activists. — Bitter Crank
no sound on this computer
— ZhouBoTong
So much for the digital revolution. — Bitter Crank
It’s idle to imagine a world in which there could be no suffering. To be born is to be subject to suffering. It’s the most inconvenient of truths, especially for modern man who wishes to banish all inconvenience. — Wayfarer
In classical philosophical theology, God is not ‘a being’, although I don’t expect that will be understood. — Wayfarer
Have a look at this OP https://www.huffpost.com/entry/god-does-not-exist_b_1288671 — Wayfarer
//ps// also https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/he-who — Wayfarer
I would suggest this idea of an undefined god that 'is' but can't be pointed at (in any way), is a modern theistic response to atheism's clear and simple dismissal of any god that has been defined. — ZhouBoTong
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.