Capo, while I fully understand you think God and organized religion is absurd, can you at least acknowledge that religion can be a good thing for people?
Firstly, I think religious beliefs - which are
beliefs in superstition -
thrive in a society where universal education has not been achieved; this is also the same society where criminals are punished more than rehabilitated, where poverty is a natural result of exclusive wealth, where crime and poverty are related, where gang cultures have a strong social grip and the laws against such cultures are ill-thought-out.
It's a vicious, vicious cycle of continual destruction; with this, scientific, intellectual, artistic - in a word,
human - development can only happen in little bursts of progression, against the greater tide of regression. We need to change the fundamental forces that create these social contradictions.
Religious beliefs do not arise from a vacuum, but from concrete social and historical processes, which we can trace and analyse and learn from. Beliefs in God have evolved through time and space - Klydon's right, but I contend two of his points (the first is obvious and the second is less so): that 'time and space' are 'creations of the almighty'; and that science
is no more strictly a 'human creation' than religion. I see both as antagonistic, exclusive ways of interpreting the world; one is founded on rationality, the other on idealism - or 'faith'. Crucially, though, science develops; science is by definition a process of
continually attempting to prove itself wrong. Theism is stagnant, reactionary, non-progressive. It is used (and crucially, is
able to be used) as a means of homophobia, xenophobia, sexism and many other evils. It deals with a world of absolutes.
And yes, science is limited to the socio-historical forces in which it exists; is limited by the instruments and technology available to it at any one time. These are truisms that do not help the believer's argument, since I've already said science
is no more a human construct than religion. But what scientists know about the world now is a lot more than what they knew 100 years ago. Priests, on the other hand,
still believe Moses parted the sea.
I could just as easily believe in Middle Earth, in Frodo, in one ring to rule all; through the establishment of time and space - creations of the almighty Gandalf, of course - I might hope that the idea could catch on, and in a coupla thousand years time we're all thanking Frodo for a white fucking Christmas - I mean Frodomas.
With enough social sway, ideas become very powerful, especially in a society in which such sway can garner very quickly as a result of said society's fundamental flaws - i.e., not everyone has the same access to the same level of education, which is of course an economic problem at heart, a
class problem. (Sigh.)
To say that science cannot answer the mysteries of creation is an insult, an inherently reactionary statement indeed. It is also an intellectual cop-out. To say 'it is not a cop-out because intellectualism is inadequate and insufficient to give genuine insight into the objective world' is probably the most cynical, depressing statement I've ever read on here.
I know you can make the argument that non believers can also change people's lives for the good. You can also argue that religious people can blindly follow their faith and use it to make themselves feel better than others. There are good and bad people in any walk of life and religion is no different.
Yes, I don't think God, or a belief in God,
necessarily precludes morality. I think I answer this further below...
I'm saying alot to basically make the point that the idea of a higher power is comforting for a lot of people and it helps them cope with daily life. It can even help them do good in the world for others. And if it's a positive thing then why knock it?
As I wrote yesterday: 'That's not to say I don't have some sort of understanding of what might drive people to a belief in God, a belief in some Grand Other (whose image Man tellingly loaned his own) on whom we might project our neuroses and fears for comfort. Historically, it's actually been a clever survival mechanism; I just think it's extremely outdated. (Just as the Industrial Revolution was a vital part of the scientific and intellectual progression of mankind, but how the capitalists ought to be long dead.)'
