Religion is about control, that seems to be the nutshell here. — Darkneos
Interpretation necessarily involves imposing some sense of wisdom and logic upon the text in order to obtain palatable results. Do you not impose your wisdom and logic when describing your ethical conclusions? Can't you manipulate whatever secular means you use in determining your ethical conclusions to justify whatever result you want? It's not like religion has a monopoly on justifying bad acts. — Hanover
None of this is the fault of atheists. — Darkneos
. "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
— Ciceronianus
Notice here that "truth" is represented as a way of life, a way of being, instead of as fact . — Metaphysician Undercover
None of this is the fault of atheists.
— Darkneos
Of course not, why suggest it? — unenlightened
How atheist dogma created religious fundamentalism. — unenlightened
Of course not, why suggest it? It is a very common reaction, in my experience, when someone attacks one's way of life, to become defensive and reactive. You can see it happening in this thread, and a glance at history will yield many examples. It's not a matter of blaming atheists, but of a misdirected argument that leads to an unnecessary conflict. It is perfectly possible to be a Christian atheist. — unenlightened
Interpretation necessarily involves imposing some sense of wisdom and logic upon the text in order to obtain palatable results.
The majority of negative events in human history can be traced back to religion. The current trend of homophobia for one, nazi Germany, etc. — Darkneos
You really do seem to be ignorant about human history. — Darkneos
I'll have to read up on that. I wasn't aware of that. — Hanover
The Nazis didn't murder the Jews because of religious differences. A Jew who disclaimed his Judaism was no safer than a devout one.
Nazi Germany is a good example of a war that was not about religion. It was about ethnicity.
Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, Kim Jong Un, Putin, all devotly religious folks I suppose, trying to impose their brand of religion on the masses. I'll have to read up on that. I wasn't aware of that. — Hanover
Is it something like "the importance of truth is not at issue" (which I agree with)? — Ludwig V
But surely it's obvious that what is true - whether a particular proposition is true or not and even which propositions are capable of truth or falsity - is often at issue?
It seems to me that the distinction between religion and science is usually over-simplified. Religion often includes claims that are supposed to be facts about the world which provides what is most important to it - an account of the world that provides purpose and meaning - I prefer structure - to life. Science includes ideas about what is valuable, primarily truth, of course, but a great deal about how to live life, what is worth pursuing and how it is to be pursued (which, of course, is the stock in trade of religion). Incidentally, how far modern capitalism is an outcome of science is unclear to me, but I would like to think that alternative outcomes of the primacy of science are available. — Ludwig V
But anything that provides a basis for a way of life and justifies certain practices and is available to large numbers of people, is going to find lots of different kinds of people amongst its followers. So whatever was originally proposed or recommended is going to find different tendencies developing. So all religions have fundamentalist tendencies, liberal tendencies, intellectual tendencies, practical tendencies, missionary tendencies, quietist tendencies, and on and on. That includes the way(s) of life that exist around science. So I'm inclined to see dogmatic atheism as a tendency within the practice of science which is bound to develop.
I find grand narratives like the conflict between religion and science very difficult. They tend to evaporate when looked at too closely.
For our own part, what we shall focus on in Paul's work is a singular connection, which it is formally possible to disjoin from the fable and of which Paul is, strictly speaking, the inventor: the connection that establishes a passage between a proposition concerning the subject and an interrogation concerning the law. Let us say that, for Paul, it is a matter of investigating which law is capable of structuring a subject devoid of all identity and suspended to an event whose only “proof” lies precisely in its having been declared by a subject.
What is essential for us is that this paradoxical connection between a subject without identity and a law without support provides the foundation for the possibility of a universal teaching within history itself. Paul's unprecedented gesture consists in subtracting truth from the communitarian grasp, be it that of a people, a city, an empire, a territory, or a social class. What is true (or just; they are the same in this case) cannot be reduced to any objective aggregate, either by its cause or by its destination. — Alain Badiou, SAINT PAUL, The Foundation of Universalism
Why invoke and analyze
this fable? Let us be perfectly clear: so far as we are concerned, what we
are dealing with here is precisely a fable. And singularly so in the case of
Paul, who for crucial reasons reduces Christianity to a single statement:
Jesus is resurrected. Yet this is precisely a fabulous element [point fabu-
leux ], since all the rest, birth, teachings, death, might after all be upheld. — Badiou
tradition. (Add extra negative epithets to taste.) I think it is clear that it is reactionary, and specifically reacting against science, particularly evolution. — unenlightened
It is a peculiar fact about the Christian fundamentalists that they deny their clergy special elevated status (as you might see in the Catholic Church or even among orthodox rabbis), but everyone is offered the same status in the eyes of the community in their ability to interpret scripture, with everyone with the same right to go back to the text and argue their point. — Hanover
The priest was obviously Catholic and would not have been as influenced by the Protestant traditions — Hanover
But what I want to talk about is the phenomenon of literalism in particularly Christianity and Islam, but also Hinduism and even Buddhism, that seems to have begun in the 18th Century — unenlightened
We spend a lot of time talking about radical priests - Thomas Merton, Richard Rohr — Tom Storm
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