So we laugh at them

[AVGWarhawk]

I believe I'll have another drink.

[u crank]

Originally Posted by Skybird

But I have. Repeatedly in this thread. Repeatedly in threads over the past years. I must not once again explain what I mean by "religious" and "spiritual", yes?!?!

Well thanks. I'll repeat myself as well. You have an opinion. Most people do. I don't agree with yours.

That already excludes atheist religions like Buddhism which does not have a conception of a god. It also exlcudes polytheistic religions which believe in more than one god. Not to mention pantheism. "Religion" is not limited to monotheism only.

I did not intentionally exclude any religious belief. I was simply giving an example and it was one I am familiar with. I hope no one else took offense.

Religious lifestyle and practice is based on dogma.

Sorry, but that is not necessarily true. Not in every case. Not in every religious belief. It appears to only be true in your understanding of it. Perhaps you are not aware of it but not all religious knowledge comes from attending a seminary or being indoctrinated in certain beliefs. People can find things out for themselves. Never has information been more accessible to everybody. Contrary to your belief, some people can think for themselves regardless of the subject.

You either learn by studying theory. In the context of this matter, that would be studying religious dogma. You memorize what others have said and written down.

Oh my. You have missed another obvious possibility. You read what others have said, examine it and then decide what you wish to believe, reject and question. Surely you use this method to form opinions on other subjects. Why can't it work in regards to religious belief? The fact is someone could be an expert on religious beliefs and practices without being a believer. Yes..no?

It can or cannot have a relation and value for your real life, but since religion serves to control the masses and to secure the power and privilege of the elite, it more or less is an imagined knowledge that is not so much knowing something real, but believing to know something.

Again this is your personal view of organized religion. There is some truth to it but it is very slanted and therefore somewhat erroneous. Not every person who is religious falls into this box you have created.

And as said earlier already: he who believes to know, in reality believes exclusively. That is the reason why theology and religion in general , also Islam, should not have a seat in the canon of academic branches at university. At best they are object of historic studies only.

Examples? Modern examples?

Once these scientists you mean deal with an object that brings their scientific methodology into conflict with their religious belief, they necessarily either have to decide for the one, or for the other. The ones you mean, either have not touched upon such controversial objects, or they have corrupted reason and logic and necessarily have corrupted scientific standards as well by trying to establish religious superstition beside them, calling it the reconciliation of science and religion. It isn't that, not by a lightyear's distance - it is always the corruption of scientific standards, of reason, of logic.

And you know this how? Are you friends with them or have had this conversation with them? I would be interested to know how you can make such a sweeping assessment of other peoples minds.

Sorry, I take no prisoners there. Not a single one.

Too bad. I had my hands up.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by u crank

I did not intentionally exclude any religious belief. I was simply giving an example and it was one I am familiar with. I hope no one else took offense.

No, but you did not call it your opinion, but you generalised it by saying it would be your definition.

Sorry, but that is not necessarily true. Not in every case. Not in every religious belief. It appears to only be true in your understanding of it. Perhaps you are not aware of it but not all religious knowledge comes from attending a seminary or being indoctrinated in certain beliefs. People can find things out for themselves. Never has information been more accessible to everybody. Contrary to your belief, some people can think for themselves regardless of the subject.

Religious "knowledge"? That makes only sense when meaning by that a knowledge about historic events and dates and timelines relating to the history of any religion's moving through the ages. Else, religions are established cults you either sign in to, or don't. If you do, you learn their dogma, scripture, rites, cults, beliefs. If you don't, you are a heretic. If you disagree with it in ther hope of changing things, you nevertheless sign in to a cult, a dogma, you just want to change it a little. All this dogmatic stuff does not want and does not like own experience, for you, the beoliever, should not wquestion it, but take it for grnated and blindly believe in it and those who mediate the stuff to you - for their own profane interest.

When you have gained a certain level of self-awareness and life experience, you do not need all that, you must not limit yourself to just believe stuff fed to you by others - you have made experiences, and that has a total different quality of learning, for it is about wining new insights, not about memorising stuff given to you and then taking it systematically for real and for true.

Not for no reason I said (#4):

Wanting to know by self-experiencing the answers to the Why, Where-from, Where-to, How-much-time, is spirituality.

Instead of that just believing something one has been fed, may it be a missionary, a claimed holy book, or one own's parents, is religion, and dogma.

Religious dogma that one believes while keeping in private, keeping to oneself, is an obsession.

The moment religious dogma takes to the public, it stops to be a private obsession only, not to mention being "spiritual", but becomes pure power-politics, no matter whether the majority of public believes the same way, or opposes its views. It's about controlling people and make them obeying.

Oh my. You have missed another obvious possibility. You read what others have said, examine it and then decide what you wish to believe, reject and question. Surely you use this method to form opinions on other subjects. Why can't it work in regards to religious belief? The fact is someone could be an expert on religious beliefs and practices without being a believer. Yes..no?

Because believing is not knowing. I never make choices between two beliefs, at least I try hard not to. Where I do not know, I do not chose between two jokers one of which fills the gap in the knowledge, for believing is not knpolwing. I leave it to admitting that I do not know, and then try to find out. Why should I chose to believing something only? That is for people who cannot bear uncertainty. Which from perspective of my former profession is a valid argument, touching about psycho-hygienic. Most people find it hard to live without a meaning in life. Viktor Frankl, a KZ-survivor and founder of the psychotherapeutic school called "logotherapy", put it this way: "Wer ein Warum zum Leben hat, erträgt fast jedes Wie". - "He who knows a Why for his life, can bear almost any How." Statistcis show that in the death camps, people who lost a sense for all suffering of theirs still being linked to a higher context, were loosing resistance power earlier than those "who nevertheless maintained a trust that there nevertheless is a meaning", they died earlier due to hunger, or diseases. People loosing the feeling that there is meaning int heir life, are prone to drop into deep spritual crisis - and I have dealt with quite some people of this kind, you can believe me - it can become a thing of life and death, really.

So, I perfectly understand the desire of people to know or assume they know "the meaning of life", at least to attribute a meaning to it themselves. It is a vital human drive, I would say, as vital as the need to breath, to eat, or wanting to have sex, although this drive for putting oneself into a cosmological context that declarers that one has a link to the surrounding cosmos and a place in it, can distort or can hide behind many masks, or - very popular - extreme hedonism and materialism. In other words: people try to deal with their mortality by trying to run away.

Does not work.

A placebo works, and has done its job, if it causes the wanted healing effect. Doctors say that up to 70% of modern drugs are basing on placebo functionality. Nevertheless it is a placebo, and the effect is only possible when the subject does not know that it is a placebo, or does not believe that it is a placebo. The placebo has no causal effect on your physical health, it has no effective ingredients, else it would not be called a placebo, but a cure. What is causing the healing effect thus is not the placebo, but the human mind, and what it chooses to believe. And I say not: what it chooses to know, but indeed: what it chooses to believe.

But once you have understand that it is a placebo, there is no way you can go back, it will not work anymore.

As a kid, you believed in Santa Claus, and that the torch is bringing the babies. At one point, your knowledge had grown so much hat you could not fall for that fairy tale anymore. And once you understoot its illusory nature, you never return to it, and could not even if you want: you never believe again in Santa Claus or the storch bringing the babies. You know better.

So it is with a religious person, and a spiritual person. the religious person believes that the trick gets worked when he/she does the correct things, bribe the deity with the right sacrifices or spells, follows the imagined commands, and do things right in general.

But the spiritual person either has never been submitted under that spell, or it simply, for whatever the reason was, has grown beyond it. That person has realised the way religions work, and what the function and real profane nature of all that mumbojumbo is about. It'S a show serving as a placebo for wizardry, since there is no real wizardry. Once you understand that there is no wizardy, and all the ritualised stuff and the canon of scripture and the rules are serving powerpolitical interests of those who rule, you have understoodf that religion is a placebo for wizardry. Because most people would want wizardry to work like they would have wanted as kids that Santa Claus is real and that the magic coffee grinder of the Räuber Hotzenplotz was a real item existing somewhere (a modern German fairy tale story). Once the show is spoiled, it'S spoiled, there is no way going back. You raise and never fall back on your knees again. Well, at least not before priests, monuments, altars or because people expect you to do. You have torn down the veil of Maya. You must not believe something anymore, you know - even if it is only that there is so much you do not know.

He who believes to know - in reality believes exclusively.

Again this is your personal view of organized religion. There is some truth to it but it is very slanted and therefore somewhat erroneous. Not every person who is religious falls into this box you have created.

How often must I reiterate that I use the terms religion and spirituality for just one reason: because it is easier to refer to the concepts I want to differ by giving them a simple name, instead of always having to write a whole paragraph every time I refer to the background context of those two concepts? I'm fully aware that I use both terms differently than people usually do. But i have given the definitions I use, and I explained why I do it. And I think it is a reasonable explanation. At least that is what I was told on not too few occasions. If you do not see that reasonability in why I do it, imagine all text I have written - and then imagine that every time I mentioned religion or spirituality, I had not used those terms, but entered a full complete sub-paragraph explaining what I mean (with "relgion" and "spirituality"). Even myself would find it extremely diffiocult to read my own text then. It would be a mess.

What you have an issue with, is the fact itself: that I dare to question the validity of religous claims and that I dare to doubt that beleif is a form of knowledge based on having found out oneself or having experienced in a context that goes far beyond the explanations given by any religious dogma. In principle, you have an issue with me because from your view of religiosity I am - and do not want to be anything different than - a heretic, and thus: a threat.

Examples? Modern examples?

Examples for what?

And you know this how? Are you friends with them or have had this conversation with them? I would be interested to know how you can make such a sweeping assessment of other peoples minds.

Becasue I have read some of them, heir books and texts about them, also letters they left behind and where they wrote to somebody close to them, a friend, and thus were more personal in what they expressed.

You were the one, btw, starting the generalisation about all those scientists and that they are like you claimed they are. I only put a foot on the break after you kickstarted the car and dissappeared in cloud of dust.

I could also refer to the famous last letter by Einstein that to the great annoyance of theist believers leaves little doubt on that he did not believe in God, while nevertheless holding an attitude that by my explained terminology would be not that of being religious, but of being spiritual. There were one or two threads in this forum some years ago where this was discussed.

Too bad. I had my hands up.

No, you had not, but actively defended - whether you realised that or not - that the beliefs of religion should be put on same eye level beside ratio and logic and the scientific methodology, as if religious hear-say and believing in unproven and unprovable claims would be en par with it. That is like teaching and studying astronomy or homoepathy at university (well, the latter can be done at one German university since this month - a shame).

And that is where I indeed do not accept any comproimse, for a comprimjse between food and poison, as I said, necessarily leads to poisoned food and the death of the person eating it. I do not accept religious mumbo-jumbo eroding and devaluing scinetifc basic principles for the purpose of misunderstood tolerance, coexistence or reconciliation. Where religion and science/ratio/logic collide, religion has to step back. This, and not the other way around.