Which of them have been accepted by peer-reviewed scientific journals?

So the Catholic Church ought to submit its evidence to Nature for validation?

There are psychological reasons behind having religious or spiritual beliefs...

There's research that shows that there's a section in our brain designed for religious/spiritual beliefs or atheistic philosophies. This makes sense because we also have evidence that the very early species of humans buried their dead, which shows the possibility that they might have believed in the afterlife. Thus, beliefs in God and the afterlife must have been a "need" or evolutionary advantage in some way and we still have it. My guess in why beliefs were so important for our ancestors is that it helped them feel connected together and feel like a larger group than just random individuals put together.

Today churches are part of a social network, which is crucial to the communities, but may someday become obsolete and later replaced. Religion helps people have similar goals and in having the same goals, success is usually down the road. Do you think people sacrificed their lives just for the sake of exploration and science to be the first to populate islands far away from their homeland? No, they probably did it because they were exiled, following some prophecy, or for some religious/spiritual gain.

Also, there's typically more similarities between atheists and theists than they both dare to admit. Reason why I say this is because both atheists and theists are emotionally tied to their beliefs and ideas because they are both human, which seems kind of a "duh" thing to say, but it's true. Atheists feel connected to other atheists and theists feel connected to other theists. There are social reasons why being an atheist or a theist can be an advantage in today's societies as well. If you are a theist, being in a medical field, psychological field, or some field that interacts with people a lot, you'll usually fit in very well with the people around you. However, if you are an atheist, you might not fit in and might fit better in more scientific, technological, or mathematical fields of study. Some theists usually don't fit in very scientific fields well because usually people don't want to hire a scientist that believes the world is 10,000 years old for obvious objective and emotional reasons. Also, some scientists dislike other theistic scientists because they may think the theistic scientist lacks the desire to explore the mysteries of the universe because the theistic person might just say, "Oh God did it."

What I'm trying to say is that some atheistic scientists are biased into thinking that theistic scientists aren't interested in finding scientific explanations for phenomenons due to their beliefs in God. Some atheistic scientists might even judge the intelligence of the theistic scientist and conclude s/he isn't good enough for the job. Also, if you don't believe in evolution, as for applying for a highly level scientist job, you probably can't past the interview. There are social problems between atheism and theism and they do influence the work force. — WiseMoron

Thus, beliefs in God and the afterlife must have been a "need" or evolutionary advantage in some way and we still have it. — WiseMoron

Fair enough but I am not at all disposed to evolutionary explanations of higher-level understanding. It reduces everything to survival.

If it wants to make claims about scientific phenomena, which is what you appear to be suggesting, then yes - if it wants those claims to be taken seriously by non-RCs.

Well, being social with humans is very essential for survivability. Religions or spiritual beliefs helps with that. If you aren't social enough with your pack and don't communicate well enough or have friendly relationships, you will have a hard time surviving.

Even today, being sociable is very important. Might even be more important than profound intelligence. Surviving isn't a logical process. Why else would so many religious folks exist and live happy lives while being so ignorant?

If you want religion to not win, which is related to this thread, you have to change humanity itself dramatically. In other words, make humans interact and socialize with each other in new ways that will replace the religious networks.

If it wants to make claims about scientific phenomena, which is what you are suggesting, then yes - if it wants those claims to be taken seriously by non-RCs. — andrewk

I think you've lost sight of the issue. The Vatican calls in scientific expertise to help make its judgements about what is or is not a miraculous cure. But those cases they deem miraculous, after their processes have been followed, are, by definition, supernatural - i.e. NOT amenable to scientific explanation. That is the point!

being social with humans is very essential for survivability. — WiseMoron

I get that, but it's not about survival. Have a look at this review.

and my point is that it would be inappropriate for any non-RC to place any credence on what the Vatican deems to be the case, unless that deeming has been subject to impartial peer review. Submitting the cases to a reputable, impartial journal would achieve that. Bringing doctors into the Vatican to give an opinion does not. There are millions of doctors around the world. One can find a doctor to say anything one wants if one looks hard enough. Just look at the ones that say immunisation is dangerous.

I don't understand what you mean exactly. If it's not about survival then what is it about? Also, what is it, this thread or being sociable? I thought this thread was about whether or not religion will beat atheism or not in the end of humanity's time. Survival seems pretty relevant here, at least to me.

The rules of survival of the fittest changed versus how our ancestors, cave men, have lived. However, socially working with people has remained a mandatory need for people.

Also, I don't see how that article is relevant to what I'm trying to explain.

my point is that it would be inappropriate for any non-RC to place any credence on what the Vatican deems to be the case, unless that deeming has been subject to impartial peer review. — andrewk

In this case, I am inclined to give credence in what Jacalyn Duffin observed. Furthermore, I think you're illustrating what I describe as 'scientism' - that only scientific accounts have credence, that religious authorities can't have. (And that's without even mentioning the 'replication crisis'). Anyway, I trust that my acceptance of Duffin's testimony is OK with you? Or should I wait to read what I think about in Science or Nature?

I don't understand what you mean exactly. If it's not about survival then what is it about? — WiseMoron

Fair enough. Notice that you simply take for granted that survival is the criterion for what is good. I'm not saying you're mistaken to do that, but do at least notice it. Evolutionary theory is a biological theory, it is about how species survive and evolve - so it's natural that survival is central to that. But biological survival is not actually the central point of religions. So a Christian would say that 'saving your soul' is even more important than surviving, in some respects - that, for example, if what you did in service of survival, endanged the destiny of the soul, then you ought not to do it. But that is not a matter for biology.

I signing out for the night and possibly tomorrow, thanks and bye.

Furthermore, I think you're illustrating what I describe as 'scientism' - that only scientific accounts have credence, that religious authorities can't have. — Wayfarer

That's not the way the word 'scientism' is used. 'Scientism' occurs when someone demands that non-scientific claims, such as claims about spiritual experiences, meet scientific standards. If, as you appear to be suggesting, the Vatican is claiming that phenomena occurred that contradict current science - which is a far stronger claim than just that it is not explained by current science - then they are making a claim about science, and it is not scientism to require that claims about science meet scientific standards.

Scientism' occurs when someone demands that non-scientific claims, such as claims about spiritual experiences, meet scientific standards. — andrewk

OK then. So 'spiritual experiences' are not allowed to include miraculous cures. Your definition of spirituality is always carefully circumscribed so as not to encroach on what your 'scientific self' says must be the case.

You said, "So a Christian would say that 'saving your soul' is even more important than surviving, in some respects - that, for example, if what you did in service of survival, endanged the destiny of the soul, then you ought not to do it. But that is not a matter for biology." I agree, but you are overlooking something and are looking too much into individual matters. You aren't understanding what I'm trying to explain in my original post, probably because I edited it after you replied to it.

When birds look for a mate, they don't consciously think "who has the best genes or who will make strong, healthy, and attractive offspring." They just look for a pretty bird and fuck it. Humans do the same thing, sometimes (not with birds). Even though fucking is not centered to surviving in this perspective, it plays a vital role in the survivablity of a species because it's the natural way of mixing genes, getting mutations on offspring, and increasing the population. Animals and humans do and think things for whatever the reasons are, but biology and psychology analyzes them in a different level of thinking.

Okay, now let's apply this to religions. The central point of religions obviously isn't about surviving with a bunch of sweat and blood on one's body. Religions helps people socialize, which I kept saying. People group up in churches, help each other, interact with each other, offer advice to each other, talk about the bible or whatever, offer services to each other, offer ideas about the religious texts to each other, gain knowledge about the people there such as their names, and etc. So there's obviously some objective gains in joining a church besides going to heaven or giving a damn about God. These objective reasons can influence surviving in our societies greatly. For example, having a friendly teacher that goes to my church helps out my son with his math homework (I don't have a son yet).

If someone criticizes the bible heavily, s/he will most likely be socially exiled from the church and thus won't receive any support from the people in that church. This is bad, not because s/he will go to hell or w/e, but because the person no longer has access for help from the people in that church.

Anyways, I was trying to illustrate how objectively important or impactful religions and churches can be for the social networks of societies in the social level. Now back to what you've said.

You said something like if someone did something in service of surviving, such as killing and eating a cute bunny, but is against the rules of the religion to do so and will be punished severely by going to hell (or soul is devoured, w/e), then the person will not eat the bunnies and this isn't a matter of biology. Actually it kind of is because the bunny population will most likely not be endangered due to humans. Also, if the bunnies were poisonous, people wouldn't die from eating them because they don't want to lose their souls. People may use bunnies as a religious figure for ceremonies and thus may interbreed a lot of them and use as pets. Humans are so powerful in this world that simple religious ideas can influence other species, the habitats, and even humans themselves.

A more realistic example is an oracle telling young men that their fates will be hell if they stay in their homelands and that their destinies lie beyond the waters. Thus, the men will be very inclined to travel to beyond the waters, despite how dangerous it is and how low their probability of finding land is, and search for another island or piece of land out in the large ocean somewhere.

If it wasn't for that crazy oracle, no one would have populated those empty (no human zone) islands beyond the waters. This is a huge survival advantage for the people that got to the island because then they have access to more resources, food, and land. The oracle obviously wasn't thinking, "What can I say to these morons so then they travel to those islands and give us a huge survival advantage." The oracle was probably high from smoking drugs, has a psychological disorder of some kind, was trying to scare them away because the community is low in resources, or a mixture of reasons.

Philosophical systems such as religions influence groups of people's minds so greatly that it can have such a huge impact in the world that it can end up influencing the biological parts of the world as well because humans already have a lot of power over other species on this planet.

Another example that is close to modern times is when Christians were saying only gays have HIV and that it was a creation from God to punish gays. Thus, straight people were having unsafe sex frequently and were spreading HIV like wildfire. Now we have a bunch of people with HIV now.

Don't put words in my mouth. There is no logical objection to the possibility that a spiritual experience may be accompanied by a miraculous cure. The spiritual experience is personal and cannot be objectively verified, and to insist that it be so is scientism. In contrast, a cure that contradicts current science can be objectively verified and to demand scientific evidence is simply good scientific practice, regardless of one's theological position.

Don't try to muddy the waters by conflating (1) a demand for evidence to support a claim that a cure contradicts current science, with (2) a demand for evidence of a spiritual experience.

If we should strive toward them, why be against, then? — Heister Eggcart

Against what, exactly? I believe in God.

Also, is this moral excellence of yours conceived as being potentially greater than, say, what some of the medieval Christian saints appear to have attained? If Christianity helps you in becoming a Saint Francis or Bonaventure, uh, what's stopping you from working toward that within an explicitly religious framework. (devil's advocate here, btw :-* ) — Heister Eggcart

There is no 'way' there is only 'your way' and no one is able to provide you with explicit answers on how to attain genuine moral consciousness. Each and every individual' existential experiences and cognition capacities differ. You can mimic your way, replicate the traditions and adhere to the expectations - just as much as an AI can absorb and reiterate information - but you will never attain the authenticity, the consciousness that will enable you to be decisive, to become aware of your flaws, to feel remorse for your failures and objectively assess and reason your emotional states that can otherwise be highly influential to your actions and decisions. You need to feel and think for yourself.

This is why priests can wear the image of morality and commit atrocities behind closed doors.

Well, you're getting at a pretty big difference between philosophy and theology, here; namely, how each are applied to and in the world. Philosophy doesn't really have a component of evangelization - theology does. To me, this is one key in distinguishing between how one ought to read a Heidegger, Kant, Bitter Crank, whomever else, in contrast to an Aquinas or John Paul II, for example. — Heister Eggcart

I'm not sure what you mean here.

A problem I find with this is that you're attempting to attain moral excellence through seemingly egotistical means. It can't all be about you when morality itself requires the application of right compassion and love. Ethics require a kind of community, agreement on how to interact. If you get rid of a system, say, like the Catholic Church, some would argue that you're getting rid of a necessary step on the road toward making better sure that you are treating others as well as you are able to - which, as a result, is the only way in which one's own morality can be fostered. — Heister Eggcart

The problem here is that you are implying that moral excellence somehow means the eradication of your ego - of the self - as though one is required to sacrifice themselves to something greater than themselves. This is what I mean about having to eradicate all the learned customs and traditions and transcend toward rational autonomy. So, is it not possible to apply the right compassion and love to the community while at the same time caring for yourself and being happy?

You cannot define love and expect through rules or codes of conduct that people will achieve that sense of goodness and peace. And when one transcends to a level of rational autonomy, striving toward moral excellence, only then are they capable of authentically loving since only then are they morally conscious. If, at that point, they reach that sense of love, than the person they choose to spend their lives with must also have the same level of autonomy and together - though they remain independent - willingly choose to develop and grow. This then extends to the community and you cannot go wrong when you are morally conscious.

You only need religion when you are incapable of thinking independently and I would have agreed wholeheartedly that if the Church fostered independent thinking - which it certainly doesn't - that it would be beneficial to the community.

Each individual creates the world upon coming into being, but the world, once made, serves each individual as a whole. Think Tower of Babel. — Heister Eggcart

This is somewhat confusing; the Tower of Babel is a bad example since spiritually speaking, having one language - religion - provokes people to think themselves superior to the right way.

Well, consider. In criminal law, in the U.S. at least, juries regularly decide a defendant is guilty or not guilty of a crime. That's a determination, a finding, in the law; subject to revision as the result of an appeal, but otherwise inviolate. However, that determination is not necessarily true (as commonly defined) or untrue. That's to say, a person may well be not guilty of a crime and yet have committed it--may in fact be guilty of it, or so I think most would say. — Ciceronianus the White

What do you think "guilty" refers to then? If the jury makes a determination of "not guilty", but you allow that this is not necessarily a true determination, and the person might actually be guilty, what does "guilty" refer to? The actual, factual, guilt or non-guilt of the defendant, according to this assumption, is something independent of the jury's judgement. So when the person is judged as "not guilty", and the person is "in fact" guilty, what does "guilty" here refer to? Is it a feeling which the person has, deep inside, this person somehow feels guilt, and this is what "guilty" refers to, that subjective feeling? Or, is it a judgement made by God, that the person is in fact guilty?

The question being, is actual or factual "guilt" a subjective feeling, or an objective judgement? If it's a subjective feeling, then if the person does not believe that they have done something wrong, there is no guilt here. But if it is an objective judgement, doesn't this require the assumption of God, to pass that judgement, and support your notion that the person whom the jury judged as not guilty is "in fact" guilty.

Like I said, I'm not really sure what the "ground of being" means. — Bitter Crank

"Being" is the present tense of "to be". So what it is that is being referred to with "the ground of being", is that which validates, or justifies, (grounds), the notion of existing at the present time. When, in contemplation, one delves into the idea of the present in time, as a division between past time and future time, that person is faced with all sorts of unresolvable issues.

To begin with, we can see the past as radically different from the future, due to the fact that things in the past have actually occurred, and things in the future have the possibility of occurring. Because of this radical difference we are forced to accept the reality of the present. We can place the present, which is what "being" refers to, existence at the present, as the end of the past, and the beginning of the future. But if one comes to understand "being" as a real active process, in which possibilities existing in the future are becoming actualities existing in the past, (which is what existence at the present implies), then it is necessary to understand the present as the beginning of the past (when the past comes into existence through "becoming"), and the end of the future ( that same "becoming" puts an end to the future existence). The "ground of being" does not really make sense to the common intuition, just like the notion of the present as the beginning of the past, and the end of the future, does not really make sense to the common intuition.

Fair enough but I am not at all disposed to evolutionary explanations of higher-level understanding. It reduces everything to survival. — Wayfarer

Where was it ever said or written that the truth would be subject to your disposition?

Theists usually don't fit in very scientific fields well because usually people don't want to hire a scientist that believes the world is 10,000 years old for obvious objective and emotional reasons. — WiseMoron

What part of being a theist means that you must think the world is 10,000 years old? I have plenty of complaints about theists, but a lot of theists think the universe is around 13.1 billion years old (give or take 15 minutes). There are, sadly, millions of literalist inerrant-bible theists who do think that the world is 10,000 years old (if that old) -- and they would be self-excluded long before they got to their first particle lab job interview.

Thanks; I appreciate your information and insight. To say I now get it would be a stretch, however.

Ah, I gave an absolute example, so of course it's false, let me change it. Also, I had a science teacher that believed the world was 10,000 years old. Was before High School, so don't worry and she at least respected the scientific method.

...Some theists usually don't fit in very scientific fields well because usually people don't want to hire a scientist that believes the world is 10,000 years old for obvious objective and emotional reasons. Also, some scientists dislike other theistic scientists because they may think the theistic scientist lacks the desire to explore the mysteries of the universe because the theistic person might just say, "Oh God did it." — WiseMoron

What I'm trying to say is that some atheistic scientists are biased into thinking that theistic scientists aren't interested in finding scientific explanations for phenomenons due to their beliefs in God. Some atheistic scientists might even judge the intelligence of the theistic scientist and conclude s/he isn't good enough for the job. Also, if you don't believe in evolution, as for applying for a highly level scientist job, you probably can't past the interview. There are social problems between atheism and theism and they do influence the work force.

True, the Abrahamic theist has the problem of the God who created the Universe. The scientific-minded theist's solution is that God created the universe through time and matter. In Genesis God declared that both are blessed and good. Time and matter are the tools of God and how they behave is the subject matter of science. QM, relativity, evolution, expanding universe, Big Bang, etc. are all God's handiwork.

Clearly, a fundamentalist theist (inerrant-bible, literal interpretation) can not accept all that. NO!! they thunder, God did it in 6 days by his Word, and that was 6k - 10k years ago. Period.

So, we need to differentiate "liberal" theists (mainline Protestants, Catholics, Orthodox, Jews) from very conservative literalist evangelicals and fundamentalists who hold this peculiar view of the universe: that it was made all at once--fossils and all--in 6 days. I don't know what they do with QM or relativity. Evolution obviously is anathema to them.

It is distressing to me that so many theists are also literalists:

Making up the largest percentage of Christians in Pew's U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, 59 percent of evangelical protestants agree that the Bible should be taken literally. This compares to 22 percent of mainline protestants, 62 percent of black protestants and 23 percent of Catholics.Dec 16, 2013

How did this happen?

My understanding is that this phenomena began in the late 19th/early 20th century as a reaction to the scientific thinking made possible by evolutionary theory, but also by trends in the humanities that subjected sacred (and other) texts to analysis which showed, among other things, that the Bible was compounded of narrative strands which represented varying POV and historical periods. The creation story in Genesis has several strands.

These developments shocked and horrified some relatively unsophisticated believers and a move to defend a traditional interpretation of the Bible set in. A new orthodoxy (literal interpretation of the Bible, the Bible as the inerrant word of God) coupled with routine evangelical theology begat fundamentalism. Fundamentalism and conservative politics just naturally go together, like shit and flies, and here we are with millions and millions of Christians who view evolution as a plot of godless heathens.

Against what, exactly? As I said, I believe in God. — TimeLine

You believe in that which you've not defined? Bruv, that makes no sense, :s

There is no 'way' there is only 'your way' and no one is able to provide you with explicit answers on how to attain genuine moral consciousness. — TimeLine

Great. So if my way includes finding you, chopping you up into itty bitty little pieces, and then feasting on your flesh, I guess you'll have to just lump it and be okay with that.

Each and every individual' existential experiences and cognition capacities differ. You can mimic your way, replicate the traditions and adhere to the expectations - just as much as an AI can absorb and reiterate information - but you will never attain the authenticity, the consciousness that will enable you to be decisive, to become aware of your flaws, to feel remorse for your failures and objectively assess and reason your emotional states that can otherwise be highly influential to your actions and decisions.

This is just a relativist echo chamber. How are you supposed to discern objectively what your flaws are, or even what a flaw is, if you limit understanding of morality solely to the subjective self?

You need to feel and think for yourself. — TimeLine

As opposed to feeling for other people.

This is why priests can wear the image of morality and commit atrocities behind closed doors. — TimeLine

Huh? Priests don't assert themselves as moral superiors, so this is just a non sequitur. Perhaps you'd realize this if you knew more about, in this case, the Catholic Church. Clearly just reading the Bible hasn't aided in your understanding.

I'm not sure what you mean here. — TimeLine

Well, I guess reread it.

The problem here is that you are implying that moral excellence somehow means the eradication of your ego - of the self - as though one is required to sacrifice themselves to something greater than themselves. — TimeLine

Yes, and why is this a problem?

This is what I mean about having to eradicate all the learned customs and traditions and transcend toward rational autonomy. — TimeLine

Customs and traditions like the use of language? Better eradicate if you'd like to attain this floaty "rational autonomy."

So, is it not possible to apply the right compassion and love to the community while at the same time caring for yourself and being happy? — TimeLine

One cannot love oneself, so not really, no.

You cannot define love and expect through rules or codes of conduct that people will achieve that sense of goodness and peace. — TimeLine

I agree. Yet, you seem to have forgotten that this also includes your own rules and codes of conduct, the ones that you've made yourself, which means that your pursuit for perfection is a fool's errand, as it stands.

And when one transcends to a level of rational autonomy, striving toward moral excellence, only then are they capable of authentically loving since only then are they morally conscious. — TimeLine

What is rational autonomy in your estimation? Also, what is moral excellence? And, how do you define love?

If, at that point, they reach that sense of love, than the person they choose to spend their lives with must also have the same level of autonomy and together - though they remain independent - willingly choose to develop and grow. — TimeLine

This sounds like a bunch of poppycock to me. Love is not a sense, nor is it some carrot dangling that, once snatched, gives one a key that unlocks in them an understanding of how best to live their life.

This then extends to the community and you cannot go wrong when you are morally conscious. — TimeLine

Yes you can. Being conscious of the good doesn't somehow magically prohibit us then from doing ill deeds.

You only need religion when you are incapable of thinking independently — TimeLine

Just as the scientist is not independent when having to submit his or her research to other scientists for critique within a larger scientific community, one that has rules and regulations, expectations and requirements? Perhaps you're in favor of removing all the silly tape surrounding the means with which doctors and physicians attain their degrees, since institutions are only run for the shit-for-brains and sheeple, yes?

and I would have agreed wholeheartedly that if the Church fostered independent thinking - which it certainly doesn't - that it would be beneficial to the community — TimeLine

Independence is not egotism. Stop conflating the two.

but all it does is restrain people from the Holy Spirit if you know what I mean.

Are you being purposely esoteric, dude?

I think you've somehow missed the point. Perhaps this might become more clear if you think about what you mean by "believing in the imaginary".

You seem to be saying that reverence is appropriate (or perhaps even possible?) only in intimate relationships. This raises the question of reciprocation. Intimacy just is recripocality. Are you able to love that which does not love you in return? Can you reverence that which does not reverence you in return?

For me love and reverence are not of different kinds. Love is what makes anything holy. Although the emphasis of the two notions may be somewhat different, I would say there is no love without reverence, nor any reverence without love. Holiness is a disposition.

So, regarding the Fromm quote: perhaps God was dead because he had become dead to men, and then men were dead because they had become dead to God.

In contrast, a cure that contradicts current science can be objectively verified and to demand scientific evidence is simply good scientific practice, regardless of one's theological position. — andrewk

Right - which is why the Church contacted Jacalyn Duffin, a haemotologist. They weren't interested in her religous views, but her scientific opinion. In this case, they decided the scientific account prevalied, and they discounted the alternative explanation. That says something, don't you think?

You're welcome BC ;-)

I don't understand what you are talking about. If the church concluded that the scientific account prevailed then they are not claiming a miracle, so there's nothing to discuss. It's only if the evidence appears to contradict established science that the possibility of a miracle would even be entertained.

What about the problem of tying the bona fide unexplainable cure to the activities of a specific saint. How can the jury on a given canonization trial decide that some person now way too dead to testify on their own behalf had anything to do with it?

(I actually don't have all that much against sainthood, especially the old established saints about whom the details have grown rather fuzzy. It's the new saints with their fresh crisp details that are a problem. Dorothy Day said she didn't want to be called a saint because she didn't want to be dismissed that easily. I suspect that Saint Dorothy would perform inconvenient miracles of social organization rather than healing. One might find atheist peace activists lighting candles and praying to St. Dorothy.)

You believe in that which you've not defined? Bruv, that makes no sense — Heister Eggcart

God is moral excellence and you are striving to God - that is, striving to Moral Excellence or the platonic Form of Good. When you look deep within yourself, do you see anything? Can you define time? We can semantically attach terms like love, kindness, good, patience, but who we are is an activity that only you would genuinely understand. People need to attach temporal and prescribe anthropomorphic qualities to God in order to make sense of something only faith can (and I understand the difficulty between faith and reason vis-a-vis their relationship with what could be established as justifiably accurate, but consider faith to be faith in yourself that what you feel is right).

A person who has faith in himself can learn to love himself and empower himself by aiming to reach an authentic state of rational autonomy; only then are they able to know how to truly love others. This is how moral consciousness is formed. And when one becomes morally conscious, they want to better things that are wrong in their community, politics, etc because they start to have faith in others' potential and as they seek to become better people, they strive towards moral excellence, that their love becomes universal and not restricted and so this faith in themselves is them striving toward God. They begin to positively produce - fruits of their labour - for their community and not for the applaud of religious leaders or by putting on a show of moral worthiness when nothing is going on inside or outside either. Is that not the purpose of religion?

As said by Erich Fromm, "Rational faith is rooted in productive intellectual and emotional activity." You are aware that you have this core being, this self, this "I" and you ultimately have a choice of either silencing it and living out your days being miserably conformed to your surrounds since it produces the same comfort and peace that you felt as a child with no responsibility having your parents take that responsibility for you, or you work hard toward better understanding this identity, this reality despite feeling anxious because it would mean confronting the responsibility of existence on your own, feeling threatened that you will lose everything as a reaction to the independence and aloneness.

When you look at the bigger picture of all religions, what ultimately matters is being a genuine good and loving person, so our study should be quite simply bettering ourselves. If we start an equation with the incorrect numbers, we end up with the wrong result. Start off thinking God is a man on a cloud and conform to an institution, and you will never reach a state of authenticity. This is why I do not agree with any religion, but there are part of the monotheistic religious scriptures that I agree with particularly in the NT since the wisdom within it is teaching us this 'bigger picture' or this way of bettering ourselves. The rest is all just gobbledegook.

This is why the following is wrong:

Great. So if my way includes finding you, chopping you up into itty bitty little pieces, and then feasting on your flesh, I guess you'll have to just lump it and be okay with that. — Heister Eggcart

Moral consciousness. We can freak ourselves out by thinking that without anyone telling us what to do, in that chaotic state of anarchy we would lose our minds and go on a rampage. No. We won't. That is just your amygdala in your limbic system tricking you with an impending threat and holding you into a state of anxiety so that you can justify your refusal to take a path of independence.

There is an adequate amount of information out there that would suffice in our understanding the differences between right and wrong. No one is saying eliminate the scriptures or the ten commandments. The wisdom does not automatically become eradicated without the religious institution.

One cannot love oneself, so not really, no. — Heister Eggcart

Uhm, yes they can. This is the first and most important step. My favourite quote is by Aurelius:

"I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinions of himself than on the opinions of others."

There is a difference between loving yourself and being narcissistic. This man that Aurelius quotes is narcissistic. But a person who loves and cares for himself understands how to love and care for others, and as the 'self' is universal, they love the others with the same universality. A narcissistic person loves objects only that love him and goes on a rage when the opposite is shown.

Just as the scientist is not independent when having to submit his or her research to other scientists for critique within a larger scientific community, one that has rules and regulations, expectations and requirements? Perhaps you're in favor of removing all the silly tape surrounding the means with which doctors and physicians attain their degrees, since institutions are only run for the shit-for-brains and sheeple, yes? — Heister Eggcart

A scientist can eventually "transcend" to start formulating ideas themselves. Einstein, dude.

This sounds like a bunch of poppycock to me. Love is not a sense, nor is it some carrot dangling that, once snatched, gives one a key that unlocks in them an understanding of how best to live their life. — Heister Eggcart

It is the will to continuously improve yourself that gives you the understanding. You make a mistake, you improve, and not just rely on others and what they think you should do. It is not poppycock, you're just slow on the uptake.

Roman votives. Romans would offer models of afflicted body parts to a god to beg or give thanks for cures. Miracles, or services rendered?

You seem to be saying that reverence is appropriate (or perhaps even possible?) only in intimate relationships. This raises the question of reciprocation. Intimacy just is recripocality. Are you able to love that which does not love you in return? Can you reverence that which does not reverence you in return? — John

Yes, but the lack of reciprocal admiration may itself be the impetus that motivates one to better themselves so as to attain reciprocal regard. If a person genuinely admires someone, they would find the will to improve themselves so that the person that they revere would respond back. Intimacy is merely a mutual expression of this reverence.

Love is more universal. If I have been treated rather awfully by a person, for instance, I would still have faith in his potential to improve, even if the likelihood is minimal. That is why love is something we give to everyone without reciprocity and reverence or admiration is something we give to someone.

For me love and reverence are not of different kinds. Love is what makes anything holy. Although the emphasis of the two notions may be somewhat different, I would say there is no love without reverence, nor any reverence without love. Holiness is a disposition. — John

They are very similar, but I do not like the comparable reference of love to holiness as all people are capable of finding the authenticity to love. We need to normalise the act of being genuinely good and enable people to believe that they can attain it. In addition, notions of purity vis-a-vis holy often establish the Other, the impure and that is wrong and makes the positive change in people all the more harder.

So, regarding the Fromm quote: perhaps God was dead because he had become dead to men, and then men were dead because they had become dead to God. — John

(Y)