h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well, *as a sweeping generalisation* , I would agree with that.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

P-C

What about as a system of thought?
A scientist probably wouldn't agree with every scientific theory, but probably would accept the system of thought,ie Scientific Method.

Often many people (in my experience) disregard all religion, on the basis that the easiest to find, in my case Christianity, has specific issues.

blub-blub

As about as sweeping as you could get, yes.

Hello

I think we all get bogged down in our egos don't we? The old 'if I'm right, you must be wrong' theory.

I liked the bit in the movie 'Contact' where Ellie says 'prove God exists' and the guy says something along the lines that you can't prove that love exists, or justice, or hope but that without them life would be poorer.

It made me think. In my brain God exists - and that suits me fine - but my best friend is the strongest atheist I've met (by strong I mean that he doesn't feel the need to fight about God he just doesn't engage as it's totally unimportant to him). He's the most honest, kind, ethical man I've ever met. In my Christian belief I can't go half-way to meeting his integrity.

If anyone is going to heaven (if there is a heaven) he is.

Christians usually hate that view!

I think that religions are so disparate that your question isn't answerable. Some religions are as different from Christianity as Christianity is from science. Religions don't form *a* system of thought; each one is a separate system of thought, IMO.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

IMO? Sorry I don't know what this means.

As a system of thought, I see religion made up of three core components:
-Tradition/culture
-Ethics
-Philosophy of reality, esp nature of god.

blub-blub

IMO => 'In My Opinion' (often IMHO => 'In My Humble Opinion')

Tradition doesn't seem to be much of a system of *thought*, it's a system whereby things are done simply because they have been done for some time, whether the things are good, bad, or neutral from any particular perspective.

Surely, in some religions the nature of a god or gods is more a matter of tradition/culture/dogma than philosophy? People may be allowed to philosophise around the edges, but within fairly defined limits.

Thanks for the defenition

"Surely, in some religions the nature of a god or gods is more a matter of tradition/culture/dogma than philosophy? People may be allowed to philosophise around the edges, but within fairly defined limits."

I accept you said that this was the case in some religions, however in my experience this is the problem I am talking about, many consider all religions to be dominated by dogma, due to experience of just one or two.

blub-blub

I'd hazard a guess that the people concerned don't look at it that way. They consider areas where they believe their knowledge to be lacking, hoping to learn. In some areas, though, they feel they already know what's what, and so they don't investigate any further. These are your limits, yes?

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

>>"I accept you said that this was the case in some religions, however in my experience this is the problem I am talking about, many consider all religions to be dominated by dogma, due to experience of just one or two."

But when it comes to the nature of a god or gods, if there wasn't a preexisting definition of some kind, then wouldn't we expect to see as much variation between religions as within a particular religion?

If someone is going to make up their own mind about the nature (or existence) of possible gods without boundaries, would that not preculde them from following many religions, possibly even most religions, unless they were willing to ignore opinions a religion had about the nature of god[s]?

If someone did have free rein to think, would it possibly be more accurate to consider them as having a personal philosophy/spirituality, rather than a religion as such, if we define religions as some sort of group-based entities?

I don't deny that some people may well have a basically personal idea of the divine and yet consider themselves as part of a particular religion even if that religion has fairly fixed ideas about the divine which don't really mesh with the ideas of the individual. Some people will consider religions to be more flexible than others, and some will consider 'their' religion to be more flexible than even the religion itself would generally accept.

I do accept that even if someone is given particular limits within which to think, (and *even* if others may consider those limits as odd or even pretty much unsupportable by means other than tradition/dogma) their thoughts may lead them to many useful conclusions, though I might wonder how similar or different their conclusions might be if starting from a different set of limits - how much is down to the thoughts being 'religious', and how much is down to the thoughts being those of an individual.

Although I'm sure it was unintentional, I don't much care for the implication that those of us who have religious beliefs are somehow unable to think freely, or have limits of some sort imposed upon us. Of course our core beliefs influence our remaining beliefs, but this is the case for everyone, religious or not.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

The free-rein comment wasn't implying that religious people can't or don't think in general, or think about religion in particular, just that there are generally accepted bounds to thought which help define someone as being from one religion or another. Many of those bounds may be either fairly subtle, or just accepted as obvious because everyone seems to believe in them, but they are there nonetheless and do affect what can be thought for a great many religious people.

Also I'm particularly talking about the issue of thoughts about the nature of god in the context of religious philosophical thought, as described by blub-blub, and the strong linkage between thought of the nature of god and traditions and cultural preconceptions.

Were a few people (of a natural spiritual bent) to be brought up without any religious education and given a very vague idea of a god such as some single invisible being that created the world), I imagine they might independently be able to come up with roughly similar ideas of a god that was generally good and loving, but which *could* get angry when people transgressed (by analogy with a parent-figure, depending on the kind of childhood they had had)
However, I'm not sure how much further their thoughts could go before diverging.
If not told there was life-after-death, I wonder how many would think up the idea for themselves?
If not told there was some opposite unpleasant entity struggling with god, how many would think of a devil?

"a very vague idea of a god such as some single invisible being that created the world"
Actually this statement restricts what the nature of god is, specifically "single", "invisible", "being", "that created the world".

However, I don't really see what your point is. You seem to say religions are different but based on similair fundamental ideas. I agree with this, but don't see its relevance.

Yes, some religions are directed by dogma, but it would be too great a generalisation to say that all are.

blub-blub

>>"Actually this statement restricts what the nature of god is, specifically "single", "invisible", "being", "that created the world"."

No sh!t, Sherlock.

My point was that given some vague idea of a God (which is obviously limiting to some extent), people could likely only go so far in subsequent independent thought before starting to diverge in their thoughts.

In the extreme case of someone brought up without any kind of religion or suggestions that any divine beings exist, the chances of them independently dreaming up a divine being and actually beleiving in it up seem vanishingly small, so wouldn't have been much use for an example.

My ultimate point is that within a particular religion, the extent to which people actually agree on the nature of God is probably highly correlated with the extent that they are instructed about the nature of God. Within a particular religion, the extent to which people differ about the nature of god is probably highly correlated with the extent to which people exercise fairly independent thought on that particular issue.

If there isn't *any* dogma or tradition about the nature of god in a particular religion, there seems likely to be little agreement about the nature of god in that religion, to the extent that it would be interesting to wonder what it actually is that makes the religion a religion, rather than some collective of loosely connected religions, or a group of people just doing their own thing.
In a quite nondogmatic religion, there wouldn't seem likely to be a philosophy including any consistent opinions about the nature of god, which seems to be one of *your* defining characteristics of religion.

"My point was that given some vague idea of a God (which is obviously limiting to some extent)"

That 'certain extent' seems to mean to a rather large extent in this situation. Why restrict it so much? Is there any need? this definition rules out Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism (half of the 'big 6' for a start) as well as ruling out many different interpretations of other religions.

"In the extreme case of someone brought up without any kind of religion or suggestions that any divine beings exist, the chances of them independently dreaming up a divine being and actually beleiving in it up seem vanishingly small"

Well, no, not really, I find it quite likely that the person would come up with some type of explanation for the nature of the universe, and this understanding might well take the form of what we would recognise as religion. After all, our anscestors already did.

To return to the idea that science and religion deserve equal respect, I would say it is even more unlikley that a person without knowledge of scientific principles would independently decide that everything wasn't solid as it appeared but composed mainly of empty space dotted with tiny areas of mass and charge.

You argue if there wasn't any dogma in religion, ideas on the nature of god might not be consistent, but this suggests you also believe if there was no dogma in science, scientific ideas would not be consistent. I would argue what you see as 'dogma', is really an education of possible ideas, something definitly found in religion, and also found in more basic science.

blub-blub

Oh for *&^%'s sake!

I was giving a specific *example* of a situation where someone might start philosophising from a particular starting point. It wouldn't have made any difference at all if the starting point had been a polytheism, or anything else.

In the thought-experimental case of someone kept in complete ignorance of religion until adulthood, I'd be interested to see how *you* could explain the concept of a god or gods and actually state that such things really exist without giving some idea of the number of gods you claim to exist, or some idea of what god[s] were capable of doing.

If you really can't understand that someone talking about a particular example for the sake of argument isn't attacking by exclusion any religion in the world that doesn't fit with that particular example, there seems little point talking with you much further.
It gets really dull when you're there seemingly waiting for any possible chance to attack me for parochialism, even to the extent of missing the point of what I was saying.


>>"Well, no, not really, I find it quite likely that the person would come up with some type of explanation for the nature of the universe, and this understanding might well take the form of what we would recognise as religion. After all, our anscestors already did."

Well, I find it pretty likely that when religions did come into being, it wasn't a one-shot, one-person move from a situation of no 'religion' to someone dreaming up a fully-formed religion and actually believing in it themselves.
Religions seem rather more likely to be the kind of thing that develop over generations, where ideas are passed from older generations and used as starting points for younger people, and things mooted as possibilities and speculations by one person may become the traditions and dogma of succeeding generations.
In practice, of course, the situation of *no* religious/supernatural/superstitious preconditions probably wouldn't be at all easy to find in prehistoric societies - people's natural talent for pattern-spotting would seem pretty likely to have led people from our distant evolutionary past to think that there were some kind of odd, shadowy beings around - noises in the dark can be extraordinarily suggestive, as any caver can probably attest to.


>>"To return to the idea that science and religion deserve equal respect, I would say it is even more unlikley that a person without knowledge of scientific principles would independently decide that everything wasn't solid as it appeared but composed mainly of empty space dotted with tiny areas of mass and charge."

You've lost me there. What on *Earth* does the probability of someone thinking up a particular worldview singlehandedly have to do with respect?


>>"You argue if there wasn't any dogma in religion, ideas on the nature of god might not be consistent, but this suggests you also believe if there was no dogma in science, scientific ideas would not be consistent. I would argue what you see as 'dogma', is really an education of possible ideas, something definitly found in religion, and also found in more basic science."

I was using 'dogma/tradition' as a phrase covering knowledge handed down concerning religious matters for which there was no real evidence.
In science, the vast bulk of the body of knowledge has understandable paths of reasoning behind it, and even the very basic ideas (the existence of reality, a largely consistent/repeatable universe, etc) are ones which pretty much everyone accepts implicitly in practically any interation with the outside world, even the people who might argue against them philosophically.

Certainly, if knowledge and interpretations of knowledge were not passed down, then clearly neither science nor anything else would survive or develop.
However, one of the significant aspects of science is that the consistency and reasoning systems are so strong that different people should tend to come to similar conclusions via non-subjective reasoning, and be capable of explaining their reasoning, and where they come to different conclusions there should much of the time be at least some potential way to work out which person (if any) is actually right.

The point in science is that the general body of knowledge isn't dogma, in that if conclusions drawn from particular recieved knowledge can be shown not to be consistent with reality, confidence in that bit of knowledge should diminish, and some different or modified piece of knowledge should be found to replace it.
There *is* freedom of thought, but in a way which should lead to either agreement (making people more confident their thoughts are at least well-structured), or an interesting disagreement - both outcomes are good, in their way.

"I was giving a specific *example* of a situation"
Why? There was no need for one, as the disscussion seems to be about religion in general, why suddenly limit it in an example, why not just start with 'someone with no religous knowledge'? It just gave me the impression you were trying to build straw men again, by again limiting religion for no apparant other reason, and this does get 'really dull' after a while.

"things mooted as possibilities and speculations by one person may become the traditions and dogma of succeeding generations."
If these remain as speculations there is no reason to believe them to suddenly transform into dogma, the degree of uncertainty expressed prevents any ideas becoming authorative.

"In science, the vast bulk of the body of knowledge has understandable paths of reasoning behind it"
As does religion, ID for example, or our sense of right and wrong, are reasons people believe in religion.

"even the very basic ideas are ones which pretty much everyone accepts"
*Even* the very basic ones? Surley the very basic ones are the more readily accepted by the general population.

"one of the significant aspects of science is that the consistency and reasoning systems are so strong that different people should tend to come to similar conclusions via non-subjective reasoning"
We've debated this before, I still don't accept this to be the case. I don't see why we must view objects to be made up of lots of atoms. It works, but it isn't the only possible explanation of why objects are solid.

"The point in science is that the general body of knowledge isn't dogma"
So how do most people know about the nucleur model of the atom? They don't have the equipment/money/time to conduct the experiment themselves, therefore they accept the information given to them by some authorative figure.

Religion is useful, and always has been. It is a system of thought (yes, often attached to culture and tradition) that has helped many gain an understanding of the nature of reality. It has been a catalyst for development in most areas of human society, and on a personal level has offered comfort, guidance, support, inspiration to many. When adaptable (ie, is not stereotyped, or percieved to have absolute ideas) it is a powerful tool to aid human development and understanding.

blub-blub

>> >>"In science, the vast bulk of the body of knowledge has understandable paths of reasoning behind it"
>>"As does religion, ID for example, or our sense of right and wrong, are reasons people believe in religion."

Arguments about right and wrong are subjective - much of the time people have feelings about what they think is right and wrong, and look to find reasoning to support those feelings, hence different people within one religion (or one secular philosophical system) are quite capable of taking opposing positions on all kinds of moral issues.
ID is based on the desire to believe 'the world *was* created', and then seeks to find facts and arguments to support that premise, and ignore or misrepresent awkward facts or arguments.


>>"*Even* the very basic ones? Surley the very basic ones are the more readily accepted by the general population."

The reason I made a point of the basic *ideas* (the existence of an external reality, the relative consistency of the universe) is that those are the ones underlying much of the reasoning of science, and those ideas are explicitly or implicitly accepted as true by pretty much everybody - they don't need dogma to enforce them because their truth appears to be a matter of common sense, and there aren't any obvious alternatives which seem likely to be useful as a basis for action in the world.

>>"We've debated this before, I still don't accept this to be the case. I don't see why we must view objects to be made up of lots of atoms. It works, but it isn't the only possible explanation of why objects are solid."

Who is saying you *must*?
People *do* view things that way when examining reality at certain scales becuase that is the best way we know of to explain the behaviour of matter. You are perfectly free to come up with an alternative explanation that makes sense and does a better job of explaining reality, if you can.


>> >> "The point in science is that the general body of knowledge isn't dogma"
>>So how do most people know about the nucleur model of the atom? They don't have the equipment/money/time to conduct the experiment themselves, therefore they accept the information given to them by some authorative figure.

The thing with science (especially physics and chemistry) is that people know that some other people *could* repeat their experiments, and the more startling their results, the more likely someone is to try to repeat them, so they have some incentive to be both cautious and honest, which is why they can be trusted most of the time, especially when their ideas have passed the test of examination by skeptical peers.

If some aspect of the divine is pronounced on by a religious body, unless the divine pops its head up to confirm the accuracy of the pronouncement, it's still effectively the *ideas* or *opinion* of one or more people, not a testable statement about the fabric of reality.


>>"Why? There was no need for one, as the disscussion seems to be about religion in general, why suddenly limit it in an example, why not just start with 'someone with no religous knowledge'? It just gave me the impression you were trying to build straw men again, by again limiting religion for no apparant other reason, and this does get 'really dull' after a while."

I was making a point about the initimate connection between preconceptions/traditions/dogma/whatever relating to the nature of god within a particular religion and the kinds of things people might think about.
One individual with zero preconceptions of a religious/supernatural nature seems highly unlikely to dream up any religion, let alone believe in it. As a thought experiment, it's a bit of a non-starter, but for the sake of argument, if there were multiple people staring from scratch and each thinking up a religion, it seems unlikely that the religions would have a huge amount in common, (apart from things sucked in from other pre-existing opinions/information that the people shared).

Unfortunately, I credited you with the intelligence to tell the difference between a simplified example used to illustrate a particular point, (especially when explicitly explained in further posts), and a straw man designed to stand in for any particular religion or religions.

I never thought that a suggested situation in which someone was brought up in complete ignorance of religion and then given a very simple starting point for future speculation on the nature of divinity would be so catastrophically misinterpreted, but I guess I'd reckoned without your obsession with 'religion in general' being the only thing people are supposed to talk about, with any hint of deviation being a sign that people want to 'limit religion'

I can see I've been wasting my time.

Blub-blub: what *is* the point you're trying to make? You've written many hundreds of words, and all I have derived from them is that you think religion is useful, particularly that it is a useful complement to science. Is that it, or is there more?

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

P-C

My point was summed up very well by Ste;

"What I think blub-blub is saying is that religion deserves as much respect as science and is of similar value." Both historically and potentially in modern society.

I'd better add I'm refering to religion in general as a system of thought, as I said earlier. I'm talking about religion, and not *a* religion, which is why Potholer's 'examples' annoyed me so much, so many of the threads seem to decend into attacks on Theism, and this would have been especially irelevant to what I was saying, and through restricting the thread to a disscusion of this would have caused a loss of sight of the bigger picture. I wasn't talking about how religion had been applied in the past in one small part of the world, and really thought it was pointless to restrict the conversation to this.

blub-blub