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

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Or even yourself and all the humans that surround you.

az

Okay, having said that, I didn't mean that we should worship anybody or anything. Only to open ourselves up to the glory of whatever god resides within us and about us.

I'm really not big on the whole worship thing, to be honest.

az

toxx,

I mean, does it mean that perhaps humans are wired for religion? That we need to invoke some supernatural entity, specially to curse?

I think us humans like rituals and routines. We like a certain amount of emotional stability.

Religion fills all these needs. It allows us to dance and sing (unless your Amish), you can have parties OK the food on offer varies from cult to cult, and you have the reassurance that whatever this world throws at you the BigG is on your side. Bonus benfits like life in paradise after death and knowing that people who arent as worhty as you will get theres is also on offer.

Simply make a small donation and be willing to lay your life down for the bigG's agent on earth.

The popularity of your religion may go up or down and your soul maybe at risk if your dont keep up the donations.

And you may have to make your religion move with the times, too.

That would be a first!



az

Would it?

I believe there's a passage in the Bible where Jesus tells his disciples that some people really aren't going to get into heaven, it has been predecided, point final.

This was widely preached until the First World War. People then simply couldn't accept that the majority of these young men that had died largely in vain, were going to hell. So a new, fluffier Christianity was born. Where everyone who repents goes to heaven.

I quite fancy The Amish culture. Then there is another group whose name I have forgotton who are more integrated than the aforesaid. Got it the Mennonites.

Yes. I have met a monk or two. And I must say the quiet life would suit me.

There was a documentary about the Amish on about a year ago. It was really good .

I think monk life.... might suit me when I'm older. If I ever stop being an atheist.

Roadie. I don't buy the 'God shaped hole' argument at all. For me, the human mind is capable of explaining things for itself in innumerable ways. The 'God Theory' is just one of them, which isn't to say that it's therefore wrong. You might as well say that we are 'wired for science', which is what we mostly seem to come to for explanations.

toxx

Yes, as I said, I think religion is so attractive because humans have an innate drive to resolve the world around them as part of a holistic belief system, and religion allows them to do precisely that.

- Jordan

az, I think that expressions such as 'by Jove' originate from an earlier era when we were more sensitive to blasphemy. Hence we get 'cripes', 'by gum' etc. These seem to me to be last minute get-outs from 'christ' and 'by God'. I'm sure you can think of many more similar examples.

toxx

Jordan. Don't you think that science is a more satisfying way of explaining many things? This, of course, requires a certain level of education and intelligence. Religion will work for a child or an idiot. No preliminary qualifications required!

toxx

I'd say a far... nicer explanation is that religion works in the short term, and to make it work in the long term, you have to maintain it by letting your 'faith go first' - i.e. it can be assumed that anything you look at will be interpreted in terms of your faith.

Religion can be just as satisfying, if everything you find can be incorporated into your belief set.

- Jordan

Jordan.



Of course, we educated people understand that what purports to explain everything actually explains nothing. Piaget famously described adding more findings to ones belief set as 'assimilation'. Adjusting the belief set, he called 'accommodation'. Balancing these two he termed 'equilibration'.

So it has been considered in detail many years ago. It is my take on these things that religion can be used as a belief set by the least educated and dimmest. Of course, that doesn't make it false, just popular. Those of us who can think in terms of science and philosophy are in a privileged position; but one which gives us work to do, such as that which we see on this thread and elsewhere.

toxx

toxx,

I'm not sure I buy it either.

People may turn to science for answers, but that's because science has created its own orthodoxy.

I'm sorry to hear about your crutch using, Toxxin.
Was it an accident?

I don't think you're right about that, Roadkill, AFAIK. You're probably referring to the Calvinist idea of predestination - which I don't think Jesus taught or ever would. (I think he was referring to people who *professed* belief without their will and heart being in it.)
There were people who rebelled against the Calvinist/Lutheran predestinationist view *long before* WWII...

I mean WWI of course... I'm Butterfingers.

Sorry, it doesn't make sense to me.

If it were all about intelligence and education, there would be very few religious scholars or intelligent theists. I think you're on pretty shaky ground if you consider that only bright people become scientists, either. A large number of religious individuals fully understand the scientific method and yet still do not go for it, while many atheists/'scientists' don't fully understand science at all.

- Jordan