Thoughts and Prayers: The Religion Thread

I'd guess many more agnostics and doubters than atheists.

Not sure why it's helpful to know that.

 

The first question was whether man made God - any God - up. Later, there was a line about this being the fiction thread. I’d just as soon know who thinks, “yeah, I’m with Richard Dawkins,” so we can know what kind of discussion we’re trying to have.

 

With a thread title this general, I'm quite certain we are going to have many different conversations all in one place.

 

Evolutionary game theory - Wikipedia

 

Right, but the shift from religion to science happened real fast. Which is fine. But it’s like one of those book polls where Ayn Rand adherents flood in. A religion thread that immediately becomes about how science disproves religion isn’t really a religion thread. It’s a science thread. It’s a debate atheists like to have. I don’t begrudge them that; Lord knows I’d had them.

If, in order to talk about religion, we have to unpack evolutionary game theory, the purpose of DNA and how human communities function, that’s a different discussion. Worthy and interesting in its own way.

 

If you have a different way you want to take it, take it there. If people are interested in the tangent, they will join in. That's how this stuff works.

One aspect of religion is how those who don't believe view it, and often that is through a scientific prism. That is almost definitely going to be part of any discussion of religion here.

 

This is one of the funniest things I have read since joining SJ in '03.

I hope to hell that @Alma laughed a good laugh when he read that line.

For all I know it's true. But the line drips with frothy condescension when oop writes it.

 

Clearly. I’d just like to size that part up.

 

I wouldn't say condescension, but I certainly wasn't playing nice and I had a good reason for that. I took what Alma posted as saying that morals have to come from religion and that simply isn't true. You don't need to be religious to be a good person and there are some people who are deeply religious on the surface, but they are clearly horrible human beings.

 

My church (United Methodist) has been doing an interfaith study this month. On Wednesdays, we've had speakers from a Jewish synagogue, a mosque, Buddhist temple and Hindu temple. It reminded me to reread some of Huston Smith's works on world religions. And that reminded me if we all lived by the Golden Rule, this would be a lot better place - whether you're talking globally, regionally, locally or digitally.

 

The Golden Rule is seen in any religion of scale. It's a shared tenet that brings people together. When the focus is less on the rule and more on the allegedly responsible diety, it's much less effective.