86 replies to this topic

[susmariosep]

Dear Don:

Smile as you read this: Do you think that we are heading toward a negative spiral, the phrase used by BJKlein to describe his relationship with others in the Transhumanist society, for which he opted to terminate his membership?


Whether there is even the possibility of having a rational religion, that is an emotional issue.

What do you say: We can show to people so rationally that they will accept it, the possibility of a rational religion; or contrariwise that they will see it as completely irrational, as we would want them to see it the way we or you do?

I think whether a rational religion is a rational project at all, one way or the other is a matter of emotional preference; and both sides can claim to have all the rationality it can muster to feel rational in its respective advocacy.


About the negative spiral, do you see any telltale signs that we might be heading that direction, whereby our dialogue would get more and more, shall we say, emotional and less and less rational?

Susma

[arc3025]

Susma,
There cannot be a rational "belief" of any sort in an "unknown power." Belief requires something - whether warrant (incomplete reason) or evidence (full proof).

You may not "know" me but you know what I am writing, which is how you interact with me. That much you know of me, what I write, that I have written it. I am not unknown to you.

If this unknown power has 'gotten anything done' - then what is it? And if you can say, then this power is not unknown to you.

>>>Does it exist? The power is thinkable, so we can provisionally take it to be existent.

Not all things that are thinkable must exist. That is a fallacy.

>>>And then we can exercise the option to try to relate with it, by all the ways and means by which we also relate with fellow intelligent humans.

We cannot relate in any way to things we have no knowledge of. If you knew this power was "intelligent" then it would not be unknown to you. If you knew it was humanlike in its intelligence, it would not only be known to you, it would be like you, as would be expected if you merely imagined it and it had no existence in reality.

>>>And wise men like the founding fathers of the US have even guaranteed this option or liberty to exercise religion the way I define it.

Of course, you have the liberty. You and many others are exercising it, in many different ways. But because you have asked questions, I have offered answers. My answers.

If you desire to be happy, you will agree with Epicurus who lived so long ago that fear of angering the gods is an obstacle to happiness. They cannot help you live forever, and the time one spends trying to get gods to help is the time one is not spending doing it for one's self. All religions are superstitious because every religion contains fallacious, unwarranted claims, such as the ones you mentioned.

gej

[susmariosep]

Dear gej:

To be honest, I don't have to harbor any religion at all if I don't want to. I can live like DonSpanton and Lazarus Long and all atheists, agnostics, deists, or what have you, including secularists, infidels, areligious people even.

But not with irreligious people, understanding such people as who do not show any regard for the religious sensibilities of people who are otherwise well behaved, like for example the Jehovah's Witnesses and the -- I can't recall their name now, but they are a development of Islam in the direction of pacifism.

And I can put off religion and put it on again, as I please. Because if being rational means to live without religion, then in the name of rationality I can do without religion. But I happen to maintain that religion and its presence can be rational.

These issues have been and are still being ventilated by thinking people even to this very day. So, to use a popular but of course not so 'rational' argument: many wise men even today embrace a sense of religion and live more richly thereby, so why not also me, who is after a rich life? Hehehehe.

You see, gej, as long as people are first emotional entities and then rational ones, we will have religion. And when you think about it, we had better work out a rational religion than for fanatics to monopolize religion and move the unthinking masses to all kinds of horrific supertitious extravaganzas, like those Christian fundamentalists who want to side with the Israelis, because in this way Jesus will return sooner than later, and they will be rulers in the 1,000 years of His glorious reign, and then to heaven.

Hehehehe.

Susma

[susmariosep]

That's the Baha'i folks, now I remember, very harmless, courteous, peaceful and constructive people. I think maybe they could be very good Red Cross workers.


About the unknown, try this experiment: think of something or all things which you don't know, and make a list of them.

Now, tell me in that list, the fact that you can make a list of them, is it not a fact that you have something unknown in your mind.

What is really unknown in all ways is when you cannot even make any list of it as you have of it in your mind.

In which case the unknown is a paradoxical something that you can't even be mindful of or in any way aware of, not even in a negative manner in your mind.

The real unknown has not been known yet. Hehehehe.

Namely, the unknown is not something you have even in your mind so much as can maintain in any kind of mental focus.

Now about my kind of unknown power? it can certainly be focused upon as a point of reference in your mind. That's why people much smarter than you and me have been talking about such unknown powers since the dawn of intelligent consciousness.

But they can be totally mistaken in occupying themselves with such unknowns. Of course, but for being at least in their minds, such unknowns will continue to occupy the minds of men such as I said wiser than you and me.

Will they one day no longer interest themselves with such unknown powers? Maybe when they themselves achieve similar kinds and degrees of powers.

Susma

[DJS]

Dear Don:

Smile as you read this: Do you think that we are heading toward a negative spiral, the phrase used by BJKlein to describe his relationship with others in the Transhumanist society, for which he opted to terminate his membership?

Negative spiral? [huh] Susma, I'm a fiesty poster who likes to mix it up with the theist camp every once and a while, but I assure you that none of this is personal.

[Lazarus Long]

Susma I commend you on the quest for pragmatic theism but beware that history doesn't show favor on the idea. There are numerous examples of this attempt from Gnostic's to Deists, from Sufi to Quakers but the populous appears to do more than reject such notions and tragically when ever it has been convenient to the powers that be these groups have been and still are the focus of extensive persecution and wholesale public rejection; ready made martyrs to causes not even their own.

Such notions of practical religion are simply not popular. This is sad but the majority want bread and circuses not quietude and contemplation. All too few are really willing to follow the dictates of the founder's of their religions and pursue peaceful rational resolution to conflict. Even fewer are willing to live with uncertainty, and less demonstrate tolerance and the ability to synthesize in the manner of the Buddha or early Christians.

Obviously this can be traced back to an aspect, which in our society is not generally appreciated because of the modern principle of a divided Church and State that is supposed to protect us from this conflict of interest but saying it doesn't make it so. Politics is religion and visa versa for the majority of people around the world.

It is this confusion of theistic thought, psychological motivation, and political practice that makes the *social* discussion here more than moot. However the problem also has been greatly exacerbated by the *commercialization of doctrine* that has always accompanied religion since long before the modern era.

It is described by many as the Age of Faith under which humanity developed an awareness of self and society beyond the limits of animism but it is the Age of Reason that is the goal. It has been a difficult and twisted road for what appears to be a straightforward destination. Those interests that rose to power under the Age of Faith are reluctant to relinquish the reigns of power in all too human a fashion. This vested interest confounds the ability for a rational discourse I am afraid because there are motives, which underlie the debate that have nothing directly to do with the subject.

The irony has been that regardless of how many Kant's and Aquinas's are produced you can't get there from here. Reasons' perpetual retreat over the horizon is faster than Zeno's paradox because the basic tenants of rational analysis and motivation do not tolerate GIGO (garbage in garbage out) and the polemic and discourse of religion is rife with garbage. For the most part history shows; those that are too tolerant of such diversity have all too often themselves become the targets of repression and persecution. Sadly this is still true from the US government targeting Quakers for surveillance and suppression to Taliban and Wahabbi persecution of Sufism and Baha'i.

Tolerance for ignorance is only possible when we are not threatened by it.

[susmariosep]

Dear Don:

Smile as you read this: Do you think that we are heading toward a negative spiral, the phrase used by BJKlein to describe his relationship with others in the Transhumanist society, for which he opted to terminate his membership?

Negative spiral? [huh] Susma, I'm a fiesty poster who likes to mix it up with the theist camp every once and a while, but I assure you that none of this is personal.

Thanks for the reassurance.

You are a member of the powers that be in this forum.

Someone was asking me why I got banned and/or suspended in some message boards I mentioned here in some of my posts, and this is what I told him:

About my getting banned or suspended in three forums, I like to think that the powers that be there could not agree with me or tolerate my presence, in regard to my ideas, and since they wield the scissor they succumbed to the temptation -- very human -- of doing me in.

I never used any expletives in my messages.

That's my side of the story. You can proceed to Straight Dope Message Board, to Comparative Religion of Brian Turner, and also recently to the Internet Infidels Discussions Board, and look up all my posts in them, and decide for yourself whether I was justifiably banned and/or suspended.

You see, as in real life, in message boards when -- my own impression of course -- you argue with the powers that be, for example like the US in realpolitik, if they get piqued with your way of discussion or your ideas and your positions, sooner than later they will act human and exercise their power to exterminate you, liquidate you, and feel that they have all justification in doing so.

Consider the super power that is the USA today: it does not imagine that it should also be under any international bodies like the International Criminal Court or the United Nations, and it will invade any country even on such grounds as pre-emptive strike for its own security, or to bring democracy to its poor suffering people, by booting out a so-called despotic government.

Susma

Dear Don, we are having fun here but beautifully we are all learning from each other by our exchange of views -- if nothing else then the habit of tolerance.

Maybe or almost certainly my impression that you are getting annoyed with my insistence on a rational religion is a subjective and paranoid fear from my part.

One indication of a person's getting aggravated is when his sense of humor plunges to a very low level. That's why I often use this expression: "Hehehehehe", to invite people to laugh with me.

Susma

[susmariosep]

Susma I commend you on the quest for pragmatic theism but beware that history doesn't show favor on the idea.  There are numerous examples of this attempt from Gnostic's to Deists, from Sufi to Quakers but the populous appears to do more than reject such notions and tragically when ever it has been convenient to the powers that be these groups have been and still are the focus of extensive persecution and wholesale public rejection; ready made martyrs to causes not even their own.

( snip )

What's that warning about smoking being dangerous to your health? I don't smoke, never, except when a kid from curiosity tried a cigarette and found it absolutely of no appeal whatsoever.

And I don't ever do drugs either.

But religion, I go in and out as I like and as the advantages beckon, Very practical me that is.

And when the chips are down, dear Lazarus and Don, I will always side with you guys.

And probably you will turn me out. So also Jesus or Mohammad or Budda or God or Allah will also reject me when I seek their company in the time of great distress.

Then I will tell you and also the camp of Jesus and company:

"Look who's being fanatical now!" Hehehehehe.


As with drugs there are many good things in them, so also religion. And the cautious intelligent person can derive the benefits and still save himself from all the baneful side effects or unwelcome ones.

Most of the time I am on leave of absence from religion, but the memes of religion, am I right about memes? tell me, they don't ever have any leave of absence since when they got started with man's intelligent consciousness.

Luckily for mankind, or to be theistic, Thanks be to God, men of intelligence and idealistic aspirations for fellowmen have come to the idea of a humanistic government, that on the one hand allows liberty of religion, and on the other puts government, the humanistic one as envisioned by the UN of course, as the final arbiter in effect of all things religious, and when religion can be accorded the protection on grounds of liberty -- in particular when religious peoples get physically disruptive among themselves or toward persons claiming not to be adherents of any.


Susma

[DJS]

Well Susma, I am a member over at Infidels and...no, I couldn't see you being tolerated for very long over there. [lol]

The leadership of ImmInst is committed to freedom of speech and, more and more, I am also coming around to this position (with some stipulations).

As far as you getting the impression that I was getting annoyed -- Yeah, a little. [g:)] I try to catch myself though. You see, for me personally, there is great value in interacting with theists (especially on line) because it allows me to better understand their inner dynamics. Unfortunately it also results in a feeling of frustration at not being able to effectively "communicate" my beliefs. IOW, I find myself running into aspects of your memotype which act as "locked doors" for which I do not possess the key. Sometimes this makes me want to kick down the door... Eh, its all cool dude. Let us continue to learn from one another.

[susmariosep]

Here is an attempt to show how religion can be rational; I am sure it's a hoary one, but good still for the exercise of our cerebral cells; and it will lead both religious and a-religious people to the same conclusion which I will state at the end of my demonstration.


From my stock knowledge:

1. The universe exists; you and I, we exist. Right? That's a rational statement; okay, then,

2. Some agent* puts it there or it's been there all the time. Still a rational thought? okay, to continue,

3. No matter, whether some agent puts it there, or it's been there all the time.

4. Fact is we are here and we are intelligent and we are persons or can conduct ourselves as persons.

5. Is it rational to suspect that there is or are others like us, agents of intelligence and personality with whom we can deal, intelligently and on the levels of persons to persons. That suspicion is rational? Yes, of course, because

6. Scientists and serious thinkers generally also agree to suspect that there are intelligent beings somewhere in outer space extending from our earth all the way to the ends of the known and unknown universe.

7. And they are actually sending messages to these agents in outer space and also keeping their receivers always on, in a state of access alert for messages in return from these agents.

8. Are these scientists and serious thinkers rational? of course.

9. Now, I ask you: either these scientists and serious thinkers are religious or I am a scientist; for if they are nuts then I and religious thinkers are also nuts, which I beg to disagree for the sake of our common sanity.

10. Conclusion is that science and religion can and should go together, but not superstition: superstition should have no place, not in religion and not in science.


What is superstition? From my stock knowledge, I would define superstition as an irrational behavior founded upon unreasonable fear or hope, meaning blind fear or hope, leading to everything that can be compromising to life or its enhancement or its ennoblement.

And what is religion? Again from my stock knowledge, it is a form of human behavior founded upon a belief in an unknown power resulting in affections and actions intended by the believer to influence the power to react favorably to the believer.

Now, consider those scientists and serious thinkers, putting up all those ways and means sciene and technology can command, to get in touch with extraterrestrial agents of intelligence and personality, are they not practising religion? Or am I a scientist? In all events we are all serious thinkers proceeding very rationally: scientists adn the rationally religious persons.

Susma

*Agent, meaning an entity. Let's not use the name, God; because the poor chap, His name has been highly prejudiced by superstitious peoples down the ages, so that persons claiming to be without religion can't think straight anymore when the God word gets mentioned.

[susmariosep]

Well Susma]

( snip )

Glad to know that you are a member of the IIDB. Now, I can get an independent and impartial presumably, opinion whether I was treated unfairly.

Can you do me the favor of looking up my posts of the days preceding my suspension, and if you prefer I hope to have access of my IIDB PM box to provide you with the messages between me and Ms. Roland Mod, about my suspension.

I would suggest that you look up my posts in the Complaints section and also those in the Conference section.

You are very busy, but please do me this favor. The only reservation I have in this request of you is that you are an atheist or an agnostic, but I believe you can transcend our in a way ideological differences.

On second thought, forget about it. I can live with having been banned and/or suspended from some internet boards, which shout from their rooftops that they are for free thought and free speech. They have a very low rooftop, because they are in terms of free thought and free speech in effect flat earth theorists. Hehehehehe.

And it's not only the atheistic leaning ones, but also and mark this the out and out theistic or pro-religion ones.

At least I can take some wicked pleasure in not being a member of any choir.


Susma aka Pachomius2000

[DJS]

I'll post the thread here so other can take a look at it, however if you wish me to remove it just let me know. I will provide comment after making a cursory review of the dialog.



Thread title: I have not derailed the thread, and other things.

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I like to lodge this complaint before the board of administrators against the actions taken in discrimination against me, as follows:

1. Relocating my posts in that thread on

Good things atheists can see in religion to

P2k's derail of good things atheists can see in religion

2. My objection to the post #2 of the original thread, for its being an 'expletives' post.

3. Shouting of the poster in post #19 of the original thread, by the use of a font size even twice bigger than the edited version, which edited version is still equivalent to shouting.

4. Discriminatory editing of my post, #24 in the original thread.

Pachomius2000

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November 16, 2004, 07:47 AM #1975751 / #2
Roland98
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You know the drill. MCR thread started.

Roland98

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November 16, 2004, 07:55 AM #1975762 / #3
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Edit: sorry, dbl post. Roland98 and I got here at the same time.

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Last edited by Barefoot Bree : November 16, 2004 at 07:57 AM.

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November 16, 2004, 10:55 AM #1976156 / #4
Roland98
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Posted on behalf of the GRD moderators:



pachomius-

1. The thread "Good things atheists can see in religion" was split to remove derailling posts. Many of your posts in that thread bore no relation to the topic.

GRD Forum Rules: 3) Off-topic posting or hijacking of threads is inappropriate. Threads that are outside the topic for the General Religious Discussions forum will be moved to a more appropriate forum. Posts in individual threads that have little or no relevance to the topic of that thread will likely be deleted or split into a new thread. A person prompted to bring up a side-topic in the course of a discussion should start a new thread, and link to it in the original thread.

2. Your complaint about Goobla's post was reviewed and found to be groundless. You were already been informed of this via PM yesterday.

3. Your complaint about "shouting" has been reviewed and found to be groundless. There is no rule against occasionally using different font sizes for emphasis. BTW, that post was not edited, so no one is sure what you are talking about here.

4. See number one.

As for your claim of "discrimination", that too is groundless. No editing or splitting was done to your posts that would not have been done, and has not been done, to others who have derailed threads and made insulting remarks. In fact you were given a great deal of time to get on track with the thread topic, an opportunity you neglected to take advantage of.

You seem to be overly concerned with monitoring the posts of others, and not concerned enough with ensuring that the contents of your own posts are clear, constructive, and relevant to the threads where you post them. A bit more effort in this direction on your part would reduce the likelihood of editing or splitting.

The GRD moderators

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Last edited by Roland98 : November 16, 2004 at 10:57 AM.

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November 16, 2004, 06:17 PM #1977365 / #5
pachomius2000
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Join Date: June 2003
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Posts: 653 If derailed, I didn't start it.

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Thanks, everyone for your courteous attention to my complaint.

Allow me to say a few things before I proceed to deal with the matter of derailment.

With your indulgence and in recognition of the respect owed to your offices, allow me (and of course you can delete these observations as per your discretion), the perception of derailment in a thread is a privilege of moderators. More often than not a thread has gone into almost unrecognizable directions and interests, and yet no derailment has been detected by moderators and no relocations of posts executed.

When a message contains insulting materials, is also a privilege of moderators to detect. From my own observatons, insults seem easy to overlook if no one complains.

On the other hand, as the button to report a bad post is present in every message box, I presume it is in order to make it very convenient to report a bad post if a reader should perceive in his honest estimate the existence of an insult. And this instrumentality is adopted by IIDB owners in order to raise the standard or to maintain the standard of this message board.

Summing up, while we are welcome to join in this discussion board, we are as guests aware that the owners retain the final say in how things are perceived and resolved in terms of complaints aired by us users.

Now, in the matter of derailment that I am supposed to have started, relocated as post #1 in "P2k's derail of good things atheists can see in religion", first I think that the post where I am supposed to have started the derailment is not a derailment, but a further elaboration of the good things of religion, as a good source of stable income, by KCtan, in post #19 of the original thread.

My message on the distinction between religion and superstition, also considered to be derailment, this post was in reaction to the post #20 in the original thread where Capsaicin67 brought in the matter of superstition and did a brief treatise on this matter, presumably in connection with good things religion has produced, even good to atheists.


Quote:

Capsaicin67 on superstition
Off the cuff, religion strikes me "simply" as a collection of secular activities driven by, and piggybacking on, superstition. An exception being Zen Buddhism which stands out as a distinctly secular "religion" of sorts [there may be some other that escapes me].
(More paragraphs from Capsaicin67 follow.)



I invite moderators and administrators to read the rest of that post.

The way I see it, there need not be any pronouncement of derailment, but a reminder to keep to the main thrust of the thread.

In all events, I respectfully submit that if derailment there be, I did not start the derailment.

Most respectfully,

Pachomius2000

[susmariosep]

Thanks, Don, for you trouble, and I was thinking that you would not go further into my personal gripe against IIDB.

Well, what do we have here, but an airing of a complaint by yours truly in another forum, that in IIDB.

Let it stay here as reproduced. And if there are curious people here: to cater to my vanity, look up my posts on a lot of subjects in the IIDB, and see if you have there in Susma aka there as Pachomius2000 some nuts.

I have always thought of some kind of internet forumwatch where people like me can have recourse, for a creditably unprejudiced examination and resolution as to whether a complainant, who got banned from a forum had been in all justice deservedly banned, or was it due to the pique of powers that be in the forum.

Dear DonSpanton, are you by chance also some moderator or even administrator in IIDB? Or just a simple member but active and also keen on any slight showing of partisanship among the powers that be there?


I had also some good exchange with the founder of the IIDB, whom I approached about how his lieutenants were in my case exercising arbitrary discrmination, yes arbitrary discrimination, against me.

We had a good exchange and I did some comments for his Church of the Agnostics. I think his name is William A. Schultz. I might have forgotten his exact name. His forum name is Bill. We had exchanges much earlier in the Complaints and in the Conference sections about the so-called takeover by Buddhists of the IIDB, just a pet paranoia from my part. We really had some good exchange of views on the role of the IIDB, etc.

If you do some background checking on the Secular Website or the Internet Infidels and their forum, the IIDB, you might find out as I did that among the top figures of this group there seemed to have been some fall-out. Richard Carrier seemed to have been shunted out, because he is very uncompromising about religion.

Bill seems to be more amenable to religion. I think he used to be a good Catholic, like yours truly then became an agnostic. In my case I call myself a postgraduate Catholic.

You know what, he did not return my last email where I told him that his obsession with Spengler is a miss-spent devotion, because the man is already behind, he should choose some new futurists. I guess that got his goat, he never returned my email from that point onward, or also gave any more suggestions on how to soothe the ruffled tempers of his moderators and administrators.

I told him that I would give him feedbacks about his idea of a Church of the Agnostics. You go to that website and you will see that he is always asking for feedbacks to his ideas.

Another thing that got his goat also is almost certainly my insisting to him that he should be clear about what is religion and what is superstition, notwithstanding that he has a glossary at the end of his Summa Agnostica (no, not his title but my own label for his work), he never defined religion and superstition.

Like the schoolmen he practically based his shall we call it opus magnum on Spengler, so that it is practically a commentary on Spengler.


Well, moral of these incidents is maybe the old saw about familiarity breeding contempt or more properly breeding more familiarity, until some very sensitive areas of a person's very intimate psyche got invaded... and then he snapped shut.

About that complaint of mine in IIDB, I was still awaiting their response to my reaction to their so-called findings against me; and I was still only then just on my first item of the complaint sheet. But without any hint at all, the following morning when I tried to access IIDB, what did I find out? I had been banned, from exactly reacting intelligently but adversarially to their findings against me -- and I thought we were just into a first step of the drill.

Well, so much for my experience in IIDB.


What do you think? Shouldn’t these materials go to the Catcher section. As they stand, they are obviously digression from my topic about philosophy, religion, and superstition.

That Catcher section is really good for putting posts there which are really outrageous in manners. There is really no need to ban anyone, just as outside the net world there is no need to punish people with death. Just put outrageous posts in there and let their authors holler there until they come to their senses or get tired and leave on their own accord. And the rest of the community can always repair there for some lessons in how not to behave outrageously.

Susma

[DJS]

Well Sus, its your topic so if you want it Catchered then that's where it will go since it is off topic.

Let's see...no, I am not on the staff at IIDB. However, I have had personal correspondence with a number of the Adminstrators including Ms. Roland (Gggrrrr... [lol] ) on various science related topics. I've also been around there long enough that I know how the forums operate. Mods have a fair degree of freedom in censoring, editing, etc. -- and there's so much traffic that a proper review of incidents often never happens. Admins will usually take the side of the Mod, except if there are multiple complaints (by respected Infidels). Being a theist, I would say you got about as fair of a hearing as you are going to get over there. Its very much an "exclusive club" and I understand all too well the temptation to commit to memetic engineering, especially in IIDB's case as they are a major target for Creationist/Christian Fundamentalist groups.

But hey, why are you sweating a suspension from IIDB -- it means you have more time with us! You won't quit us like a bad habit when your suspension is lifted, will you? That would most certainly hurt our feelings... [lol]

[arc3025]

Susma,

Yes, you are free to live with or without religion and religious behavior-replicators.
The reason I am concerned about religion is not because I do not have regard for people's religious sensibilities, it is because I do. It is because I believe religions are great potential dangers to their hosts. Not all people are significantly harmed by their religions -- not all people who play with fire are burned. But one can establish a certain understanding of what is safe practice, especially when it concerns patterns of thinking, patterns that can *limit* thinking, and limit *caring*.

Religions are not proper expressions or developments of the emotion, because all religions involve distortions of emotion along lines of delusional concepts (understandings of the way things are, are essential *components* of emotion). Emotion IS essential in life. Emotions are the foundations of all reasoning. Reason is necessary, without yet being sufficient.

There are those who embrace religions who think they may be living 'richly'. But they do not know how much more rich their lives could be if they embraced reality, with open minds, discovering the truth about themselves and the world around them, and engaging this truth with their hearts and feelings unblinkered by delusion.

It is in the real world only that we can seek the desires of heart, including everlasting life, and the best reasons for wanting to live. The addictive "highs" of the supernaturalist religions, their claims and promises, are difficult to give up, and after giving them up, one may experience a great sense of bereftness, a type of withdrawal. But afterwards, one's eyes open to the world as it really is, and the beauty that is really there, and the people really there to love and be loved. Our dedication is then to seeking the greatest happiness by real means, in the real world, so that our real lives may be the realization of all our deepest hopes and dreams. May we never build another stumbling block.

gej
resourcesoftheworld.org

[susmariosep]

( snip )

But hey, why are you sweating a suspension from IIDB -- it means you have more time with us!  You won't quit us like a bad habit when your suspension is lifted, will you?  That would most certainly hurt our feelings... [lol]

Thanks for that bit of advice. I need that.

No, I have not reached nothing of enlightenment or Nirvana or the State of Perfection.

I just a plain man in the street, and something like that one who says "If you cut me, do I not bleed and hurt?" something like that. And trying hard everyday and every minute of everyday to stay equanimitous; and so far I have been successful. May I add, by God's grace and His mercy. Hehehehehe.


Okay, I can live with that snub from IIDB.


About going back to IIDB, human as the powers that be are in the IIDB, it would be certainly the most human of their character to really stalk me and give me no rest until they cast me out, by getting two administrators to ban me really hard.

No, realistic wisdom should tell me not to go back, except if I succumb to my vanity and romantic portrait of these ruthless character.

Thanks for your kind words.

Susma

[susmariosep]

Dear Gej:

Thanks for your concern about the dangers of religion. I promise you that I will never allow my sense of religion to make me do anything so much as hurt anyone physically and equally, not emotionally or morally.

That is also what I mean by a rational religion, all within the confines of the best in humanism: primum non nocere, "first do no harm".



It is in the real world only that we can seek the desires of heart, including everlasting life, and the best reasons for wanting to live.

Even though I indulge as I prefer in a luxury manner or not at all as I judge enjoyable to myself and enriching to my person, namely, my own sense of religion, I am also very keen on ways and means science and technology can think up and invent to prolong our biological life indefinitely, or even with some kind of machines. As a matter of fact, I think 'immortality' for mankind is not in biology but in technology. I have some posts here on that idea.

By the way, what do you think of my demonstration in a way how scientists and serious thinkers are almost like people with a religion, for keeping open their access to messages from intelligent entities in outer space open, and also sending them messages continuously, hoping to reach them.

Are they not perfectly no different from people with a religion, or at least with a sense of religion, like me?

Susma

[arc3025]

Susma,

I am glad to see you promise not to harm yourself and others, this is a wonderful dedication.

Re: your question - I think many people who are religious may be serious thinkers, and of course scientists and religious people are overlapping categories. But the enterprise of science is different from the enterprise of religion in one respect because it looks into the unknown, with questions, armed to answer them, and believing that these answers may be important for changing the world for the better.

The orthodox Catholic, for example, by contrast, may consider his God 'inscrutable' in the ultimate sense, but he is also convinced that 'revelation' has explained everything needful, and that the Church provides everything needful.

Some have sent messages to possible aliens (I prefer a passive method of detection myself), not knowing whether they may or may not be received, and by what sort of being. The Catholic would contrarily assume that his prayer is heard, by exactly the sort of God his creed describes.

gej

[susmariosep]

My family religion is Vatican Roman Catholicism, from birth to college. Now I call myself a postgraduate Catholic.

Are you by chance also Catholic?

I might be wrong, but I have this impression that Catholics make a big if not the biggest number of, what shall I call them, post-Christian Westerners? I seem to meet a lot of them in message boards.

Here is something that will get the goat of non-Catholic Christians, namely, everything else being equal, I tend to feel that the college educated Catholic is a more critically intelligent mind or brain than the non-Catholic. Just an aside, from my vanity, of course. God forgive me and you also. Hehehehe.

How to explain that? Well, since Catholics make up the biggest number of Christians, proportionately there would be more post-Christians among them than in any other groups. Then also the college educated or even just high-school have so much religion drilled into their heads from historical, philosophical, theological, and apologetics perspectives, that the backlash is for the alert minds among Catholics, who long for liberation to use all his acquired argumentative knowledge and skills on his own religion and church.

So, allow me to do my exercise, to explain to you what Catholics mean by God being unscrutable or unknown, a term I greatly favor but usually mis-appreciated by readers.

You say:

The orthodox Catholic, for example, by contrast, may consider his God 'inscrutable' in the ultimate sense, but he is also convinced that 'revelation' has explained everything needful, and that the Church provides everything needful.

Some have sent messages to possible aliens (I prefer a passive method of detection myself), not knowing whether they may or may not be received, and by what sort of being. The Catholic would contrarily assume that his prayer is heard, by exactly the sort of God his creed describes.
------------------

I don't have to do this, but in the interest of presenting the facts, (aside: hehehehehe) and also from old habit, and similarly you likewise if you had been when a Christian, drilled in apologetics and polemics and you knew your theology:

God is unscrutable but not blind; revelation provides everything for man to reach God in all times and places where man finds himself -- meaning our knowledge of God will continue to grow better, and we will get to make better use of more ways and means to reach Him as we progress in time and in space, as man develops himself in knowledge and in mastery of God's creation.

How's that for an answer? Do you think I have done credit to what I like to think is the rationalistic face of Catholicism.

About prayer to God, it's being heard:

First, everyone agrees that as God cannot be proven to exist, He can't be proven to not exist either.

I will sum it up thus: for the present, God's existence cannot be proven one way or another, but no one is qualified in his honest intelligence to say that God does not exist and cannot exist, the very idea even of.

Now, it is the option of an intelligent mind then to choose to believe in God's existence and in His being an intelligent and a being possessed of personality.

So, would it not be rational to also pray to him and to believe that He hears prayers?

What about His answering our messages? You know the answer to that question or challenge, namely: God hears all prayers but He can choose to answer or not to answer, to answer one way or another, and to answer in the way and time he chooses.

But I think, you know all these explanations and arguments. Hahahaha!?


I have a question for you: even though for us, or at least for me, we are liberated Christians or Christians of the ultimate liberal views and disciplines, what do you think, are we at any time justified in hurling insults at Christianity or Christians?

And what should be our attitude and reaction when we observe how others, ex-Christians and non-Christians, hurl insults against Christianity and Christians?

For me I would feel bad and sad, and I would take the first chance I have to educate these peoples about civilized behavior. On the other hand, there is not much else I would do, unless and until such people in addition to engaging in verbal assaults also go physical. In which case I think I owe it to my sense of justice and law and order to call the police.


Susma

[susmariosep]

About scientists sending messages to extraterrestrials and having their receivers turned on all the time to welcome replies from them, I ask whether they are religious or I am a scientist.

Perhaps the best answer from scientists who are not into religion is to tell me that extraterrestrials are also within the system that is supposed to be self-enclosed, the material cosmos, nothing outside like God and other supposedly supernatural beings, exempt from the law of the physical universe.

That's a very good answer.

Now, suppose that I tell them that I have no trouble with a God Who is not outside the physical universe but within, and also subject to the laws of the physical universe. The only trouble is that we don't know everything about the physical universe and what exactly is physical or the kinds and degrees of physicality there are in the almost infinite universe.

Scientists who are genuinely in tune with their science or scientific mindframe will be the first ones to tell us, that we do not know everything about the universe and life, and what exactly are the natures and limits of physicality -- not yet, and certainly not for more millennia to come.

Shades of semantics?

So whereas the scientists turn on their radio transmitters and receivers to contact extraterrestrials, who are supposedly intelligent and personalistic, religious people turn on their minds and hearts to contact their kind or kinds of extraterrestrials which go by the name of deities, which can be major ones and minor ones, or even just one super-1 and others, inferior ones which we might call daemonia.

And the Tibetan Buddhists keep their prayer wheels turning as they go about their daily routines.

Susma

[arc3025]

Susma,

I would have thought you would have guessed from my posts that I am not Roman Catholic

I am agnostic, I am not any sort of Christian. But I mentioned Roman Catholicism because it is difficult to generalize about religions without someone objecting that this or that feature is not characteristic of religion X, Y, or Z. The U.S.A. is predominately Christian, and Roman Catholicism is numerically the largest Christian denomination in the world.
So I thought it would make an appropriate example.

I don't consider any professing Roman Catholic "post-Christian" because membership in a religion is, if nothing else, a minimal participation in that religion. I am aware for many religions membership is the only participation people have (but usually there IS more: baptisms, funerals, etc.). Aside from membership, members might, for example, not believe in God. They might think the religious rituals are familiar and consoling even though they do not reflect the truth about the world.

I think you are mistaken about orthodox RC'ism teaching that revelation is progressive. I think the main gist is that revelation was complete and salvation is through all the things which the Church already teaches and provides. Nothing more is needed. Reason is merely an adjunct to faith. Reason is insufficient on its own. That is my paraphrase of their official teachings.

It's true no one can (yet) prove that a god does not exist. If we had all evidence, though, we could, in theory. But it is not necessary to disprove gods. If there is no evidence for them and no warrant for believing in them, they cannot count as knowledge. There is no option to "believe" what has no warrant or evidence. What counts as knowledge is our best explanation of the world at any given present moment, given the resources we have to understand things. We may *speculate* about anything possible, but what we speculate is not known and should not be "believed in" in a religious sense.

As a different example: I suspect there are aliens (there is some slight, indirect warrant from informed speculation on biology and planetary sciences), but they cannot count as knowledge, either; that is, we cannot say or act as though we know they exist. YET. Because they have not entered the edges of our awareness, if they exist.

We can, however, conclude that the god of Roman Catholicism *in particular* does not exist, and that is has been so proven, because we do have historical evidence of the rise of Christianity and its historical roots in Judaism and the New Testament and early Christian texts. All these pieces of evidence show beyond a reasonable doubt that the god was fabricated.

As for your question: "what do you think, are we at any time justified in hurling insults at Christianity or Christians?"
I believe no, those of us who are agnostic are in no way justified in hurling insults at Christians as people. Christians need help, not abuse.
But we should, and must, denounce Christianity, the religion (population of replicating behaviors), because it contains lies and cruelties (although it is by no means nothing but; all religions contain positive behaviors also). Because of the nature of religions, it is not possible to selectively criticize religious behaviors that are explicitly part of a particular religion: all the behaviors are part of a single pool, so that participation in some of them implies the possibilitity or convenience of participation in all the others. That is why we must categorically reject each particular religion, and renounce our membership in any religion, because they are indivisible wholes.

gej

[arc3025]

About the aliens thread - there may be some that are so wise and powerful that to us they would seem like gods, and perhaps might even be appropriate to call them gods. But again, because we have no information about them, they cannot count as knowledge. We cannot "believe in" them in the religious sense. We can only speculate, and look for evidence to confirm or disconfirm.

It may very well be that humans in parallel universes have ascended, and so become something similar, something that it would be appropriate to call gods. If such beings had the power to access our universe, then there would be such gods. But until we have evidence for them, we cannot know anything in particular about them. By definition, we would probably be unable to understand them, any more than a goldfish can understand what a human being is, except for an occasional shadow or stirring of the water. By the time we ourselves approach ascension, we may discover traces of others who have already ascended. But we will cross that bridge when we come to it, not pretend that we have already come to it.

The same goes for the speculation that this universe might be a virtual reality program run by prior sentient beings. If that is the case, we will find out by discovering, someday, some trace or evidence that it is so. Then we will seek to unmask the entire scenaro so we can understand it, and the prior sentient beings. But at this time it is still speculation, which might be right or wrong. It must not count as knowledge or faith.

gej

[susmariosep]

Allow me to be curious about your religious or a-religious affiliation before you came to agnosticism.

Certainly you were not born an agnostic, as I was not born a Catholic. But we got born in a family, in a community, in a society, in a country, even in a region, like in the West or in the East.

Were you born into a Christian family and home of some denominational identification?

In my case, as I tell people time and again, I was born into a Catholic family and home and community, and grew up Catholic and studied in Catholic schools all the way to college.

To be honest I became a postgraduate Catholic after I realized that there are quite of number of observances and of course doctrines of the Catholic Church which for being a modern man in a Westernized society I had already exempted myself. In other words, I had become a lapsed Catholic, that I think is the official designation.

What about you?

The way I see it, people become religious or irreligious or atheist or agnostic, not so much originally from the intrinsic merits of the religion or irreligious system or atheism or agnosticism, but from reasons that are quite extrinsic or even contrary to their original family and home nurtured religious affiliation.

To be down to earth honest, extrinsic considerations often of an earthly or purely human motivaton of gain or freedom lead people to compromise their faith or to leave it altogether.

That's my case, the quest for liberty in my mind and heart, as a modern man in a secular world. But I still consider myself to be a man with a sense of religion.

Susma

[arc3025]

Susma,

What I was then is a different person than what I am now; that person no longer exists. I was taught to believe in superstitions, which I sometimes accepted, sometimes rejected, even when very young.

You are wrong that some people are not born agnostic. The truth is that ALL people are born agnostic. They are infected with religious mind viruses by the older people around them, who teach them that they ARE a Catholic, or ARE a such-and-such whatever religio-ethnic identity label their religion might slap on them.

Those who are lucky enough to be raised Catholic in the U.S. have the freedom to publicly renounce their religion without being attacked, killed, ostracized, and so on, which is not true of many religions in many other parts of the world.

You have the freedom, the liberty, to discover the truth, and confess the truth about the world that you find. If you see things of value in religion, then you cannot let them go, but over time you find a way to have these things of value without religion, in a philosophy of life, instead.

My main advice to those leaving a religion is to be careful, to realize the fantastic strength that religious mind viruses have to grasp and re-grasp even modern, secular, intelligent, rational, scientific folks. Religions didn't evolve yesterday - they have been adapting to human frailties and weaknesses, exploiting them for their own purposes, for many millennia. Don't underestimate them, and be aware of the danger posed in some of their behaviors, and how the religion stands together as a whole, and that membership in a religion is openness to participation in the whole. My best wishes to you on your quest!

gej

[susmariosep]

To be down to earth honest, extrinsic considerations often of an earthly or purely human motivaton of gain or freedom lead people to compromise their faith or to leave it altogether.

That's my case, the quest for liberty in my mind and heart, as a modern man in a secular world. But I still consider myself to be a man with a sense of religion.

I was expecting to read something more personal from you, about the particular situations which brought you to leave your religious affiliation or attachments, and go into agnosticism

Forgive me for being intrusive in a way.

But you choose agnosticism and not atheism for a thought system in regard to religious beliefs and observances, or in the concrete as regards the traditional Western God, why agnosticism? why not into atheism or complete irreligion as a advocate of the abolition of the behavioral phenomenon in man of religion.

Of course you are in a way right to say that everyone is born an agnostic, but I mean no one is born an agnostic or Catholic or Buddhist in the sense that he is articulate even outspoken about it, even though not a fervent adherent, or not making career of it, or a living from it.

Susma

[susmariosep]

Time to close this thread.

I wanted to examine religion and superstition and also to some extent philosophy.

My conclusion about philosophy is that it is a continuous unendong search for the programming that exists or might exist or should exist in everything by speculative thinking. Speculative in the sense of a mirror, as in the original Roman word of 'speculum', a mirror. As we see ourselves and the world we are looking as into a mirror, at the same time as we see them as they are or appear to be, we also entertain the ways and means and whys they can be and should be different and better.

Religion for me has always been understood in my own definition as a form of human behavior founded upon a belief in an unknown power resulting in affections and actions intended by the believer to influence the power to react favorably to the believer.

After reading the posts here and also elsewhere in this forum I tend to agree with the observation of reflective people that one man's religion is another man's superstition.

So, for practical purposes of governance, as there is freedom of religion but no mention of freedom of superstition, I submit that superstition should be understood as a manifestation of religion which is not propitious to the preservation of life, its enhancement, and its ennoblement.

Susma