Religion From An Evolutionary Perspective

[xSilverPhinx]

[quote name='kafka' timestamp='1305599384' post='2242623']
I have seven or eight verses left and am at an impasse. Lost my momentum. Havent written a post for a month and I need to make some revisions

But I am really burned out. I think I need to just shelf it and return to it next year. I need prayer, rest, food, sun, love and beauty to get refocused

how are you? I see you are holding your own here with heroic patience. Not easy to do. Btw I watched five of the eight parts of that debate. Will probably finish on Sunday
[/quote]

Yeah take it easy...shelve it and take some rest. And who knows? You might stumble across something that could make you take up momentum again without wasting too much time and energy such as a flash of insight or critical information where you least expect.

I'm fine I sometimes fell like I have way too much time on my hands. Heh, well patience[i] is[/i] a virtue

Tell me what you think when you finish watching the rest, I especially would like to hear more about what you thought about Haught's position.

Edit: I'll go further and say that the whole physical bible, along with [i]everything[/i] in the universe, has a pantheistic flavour to it . The passages you mentioned were clearly onto something

Edited May 17, 2011 by xSilverPhinx

[MagiDragon]

[quote name='xSilverPhinx' timestamp='1305576741' post='2242469']
As an atheist, I would also ask, why was Islam also selected and how do you know that you're right and they're wrong?
[/quote]

As Christians, we believe in 'that other guy.' This conveniently explains why Mo was convinced that the angel visiting him was evil, but later came to trust the demon's word. (Through the help of a misguided relative who happened to be a priest.) The devil is an imitator that takes things that are otherwise good and twisting them just enough to corrupt their meaning. God gives people and angels free will, lest He subject us to slavery.

Effectively, Islam was selected because it came so darn close to the truth in so many ways that it could be mistaken for truth. The most dangerous lie is that which is closest to the truth.

[Groo the Wanderer]

The evolution of religion in it's highest form:

[img]http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_NzM2oX8JzJY/SaWsjU0sbtI/AAAAAAAAAWo/k35hy_64mnw/s1600/elevation.jpg[/img]

[xSilverPhinx]

[quote name='MagiDragon' timestamp='1305646056' post='2242800']
As Christians, we believe in 'that other guy.' This conveniently explains why Mo was convinced that the angel visiting him was evil, but later came to trust the demon's word. (Through the help of a misguided relative who happened to be a priest.) The devil is an imitator that takes things that are otherwise good and twisting them just enough to corrupt their meaning. God gives people and angels free will, lest He subject us to slavery.

Effectively, Islam was selected because it came so darn close to the truth in so many ways that it could be mistaken for truth. The most dangerous lie is that which is closest to the truth.
[/quote]

If you were to analyse Islam while leaving your Christian beliefs at the door, so as not to make it about what's truth and what isn't, why would you say that so many people believe in Islam?

I ask that you try and take the standpoint of a [i]neutral observer[/i] on this one without bringing demons into it, since this topic is veering off what meaning systems are about to what's true and what isn't, when in these systems, truth is actually irrelevant. When I say irrelevant, it doesn't mean that something is necessarily false. The main point is, every sincere believer believes that their religion is true and lives their lives accordingly.

What is it about Islam for instance? Or hinduism? Or any other religion of your choosing that you see as false? Why would they be so believable to so many people?

[xSilverPhinx]

[quote name='Groo the Wanderer' timestamp='1305646715' post='2242805']
The evolution of religion in it's highest form:

[img]http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_NzM2oX8JzJY/SaWsjU0sbtI/AAAAAAAAAWo/k35hy_64mnw/s1600/elevation.jpg[/img]
[/quote]


I could guess some of what that picture might mean to you, but I would like it if you explained what you see in that picture yourself

Pictures are definitely worth a thousand words...

[MagiDragon]

[quote name='xSilverPhinx' timestamp='1305685904' post='2243076']
If you were to analyse Islam while leaving your Christian beliefs at the door, so as not to make it about what's truth and what isn't, why would you say that so many people believe in Islam?

I ask that you try and take the standpoint of a [i]neutral observer[/i] on this one without bringing demons into it, since this topic is veering off what meaning systems are about to what's true and what isn't, when in these systems, truth is actually irrelevant. When I say irrelevant, it doesn't mean that something is necessarily false. The main point is, every sincere believer believes that their religion is true and lives their lives accordingly.

What is it about Islam for instance? Or hinduism? Or any other religion of your choosing that you see as false? Why would they be so believable to so many people?
[/quote]
My mistake, I thought you were asking about the Christian perspective on it because you were an atheist and didn't know what the perspective was.

From an agnostic perspective, the reason that Islam grew was that there was little organized opposition externally, and internally they killed/enslaved all opposition; they make it 'legal' by threatening conquered opposition into signing documents that they acknowledge they have no rights against their Islamic superiors. They maintain this high level of cultural acceptance by killing/ostracizing/threatening/making subordinate apostates and those who suggest that killing/ostracizing/threatening/making subordinate is a bit harsh. Also, it doesn't hurt that they give government free reign to do whatever it wants so long as it claims to be follow Allah and enforces some form of Islamic law . . . if you were a dictator, why *wouldn't* you want your subjects to be Islamic?

Hinduism is a bit different. It evolved at a time when every house had its own god. (The rest is my theorizing, and may or may not have actually happened, but seems plausible to me.) A group formed their own 'government' and decided the best way to ensure that they weren't attacked by other tribes was to pre-emptively take over others' territory. To solidify their own power after gaining territory, they created a caste system with those who were more useful to them near the top, and the least useful near the bottom. To maintain this system, they kept the priests, educated and warriors in high castes.

Essentially if you can make yourself useful to the powerful, and the powerful useful to you, you have a great shot of securing your place as a religion.

This is, of course, Christianity's weakness: in its purest forms, it tolerates very little power projection by powerful governments. It limits what a government can do with/to its own subjects, and limits what is acceptable action towards foreign governments. That's not to say that it hasn't been used to support governments from time to time, but those instances were where the Christianity preceded the government, not the other way around.

Buddhism is similarly handicapped from a governmental perspective, but I don't really understand it well enough to fairly theorize on it . . . it really sounds too much like a drug-induced experience to me. :-/

What is your theory on Christianity? I'm assuming that you at least accept that Jesus was a real person and the 12 were real guys.

Peace,
Joe

[MagiDragon]

I guess I can summarize my previous post by saying "The religion prospered by providing a benefit to the state."

[xSilverPhinx]

It doesn't take much of a leap to guess that the Christian perspective on other religions is that they are false, and some say that were even influenced by evil forces, but I can't really use that as an unbeliever because that's also very close to the views held by other religions in regard to Christianity, with neither side having more conclusive evidence to back them up objectively. I welcome your perspectives, but it's one from some who already accepted theirs as truth and sees a rival ideology to be false when it's not the actual truth value that makes people act in accordance, but what they accept for practical and cultural reasons. Basically what group meaning systems rely on first and foremost is what makes an ideology or some ideas that group themselves into an ideology so appealing to people who accept them as if truth that then causes them to behave in a certain way which in turn can help propagate the group's ideas. It's programming (neutral connotations here, it's not necessarily a bad thing).

My perspective on all religions is that they evolved from, at the simplest form, some ideas that are universally appealing based on culture and human biology/psychology and that includes both the good such as a search for meaning and the not so good such as cognitive 'bugs'.

[quote]This is, of course, Christianity's weakness: in its purest forms, it tolerates very little power projection by powerful governments. It limits what a government can do with/to its own subjects, and limits what is acceptable action towards foreign governments. That's not to say that it hasn't been used to support governments from time to time, but those instances were where the Christianity preceded the government, not the other way around.[/quote]

You don't consider the papacy to be a form of government which exceeds national borders?

This would be a new perspective to me, could you elaborate further? Doesn't the bible say that people should submit to and obey their masters?

I think that on one hand the fact that there was oppressive rule at the time when Christianity surfaced might have given people a sense of freedom from it all. It was predominantly a religion/cult of the slaves wasn't it, before being accepted by other segments of society?

[quote]
Buddhism is similarly handicapped from a governmental perspective, but I don't really understand it well enough to fairly theorize on it . . . it really sounds too much like a drug-induced experience to me. :-/[/quote]

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqdyNYL0pwo[/media]

Sorry...just had to.

[quote]What is your theory on Christianity? I'm assuming that you at least accept that Jesus was a real person and the 12 were real guys.[/quote]

I don't think that Jesus as depicted in the Bible was one person, but rather a collection of philosophies from many people that were changed added to before being written down, centuries after he was said to have died. I think it might have been based on one real person though but don't know where to draw the line between the person Jesus and the mythical and legendary Jesus in the parts that are not supernatural. As for the miracles, it's too much of a stretch to believe in. I think that they're probably the result of primitive explanations and attributing of natural phenomena to supernatural agents as were very common at the time.

[Socrates]

[quote name='xSilverPhinx' timestamp='1305576741' post='2242469']
Not religious belief, [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_evolution"]cultural evolution[/url] being analogous to biological evolution. It's a sociological field that spans way over more than religious belief.

See here: [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_inheritance_theory"]dual inheritance theory[/url].[/quote]
Again, analogies are not science, and do not prove anything about religious belief.

[quote]It may have it's problems and limitations, but it does make sense on some level. It would give some insight into why Christians cherry pick from the bible for instance...[/quote]
An off-topic accusation which is probably best discussed in another thread.
But I'll just say that first off, as Catholics, we know that the Bible came from the Christian Church, rather than vise-versa as Protestants claim (against all historical evidence).


[quote]Yes, but viruses[i] need [/i]a metabolising cell in order to reproduce, which makes them obligatory parasites, otherwise they're just an organic machines with genetic material. Even whether viruses are alive because of this is an open question (though they're considered by most to be a different sort of 'alive'). Without cells, no more viruses and nothing more for them to infect and use to reproduce. Just as without human minds, no more abstract ideas and concepts. That's as far as the analogy goes. [/quote]
I'll grant that an analogy can be made between human ideas and viruses, in that they both can be communicated and spread from one person to another, and through groups of people.
However, it's just an analogy. It doesn't explain the origin of religious belief (or any other ideas) at all.
Ideas or beliefs (religious or otherwise), unlike viruses, can be freely accepted or rejected, and can be true or false, good or bad. I believe they should be discussed on those grounds, rather than simply dismissed as mental "viruses."
After all, if we're consistent in this theory, religion is no more or less a "virus" than atheism, or meme theory itself.


[quote]What do you consider social sciences to be?[/quote]
Largely bs, if you want my honest opinion.


[quote]Not really. But you're the one adding 'materialist' here, while I'm just using darwinism as a mechanism that could be applied to the selection of ideas.
In the foggy amorphous cloud of ideas that is an ideology, themes such as love and forgiveness can be selectively contagious, whether true or not.




Again, you're adding materialism here. As for the underlined part, well there you have it! A meaning system which does translate to benefits in the worldly realm too, whether it brings happiness, comfort etc based on good ideas and themes.[/quote]
Darwinistic evolution, by its nature is concerned only with the material - namely on whatever leads to spreading genes.

And obviously, religious belief has value for the believer; I'm not denying that (Obviously, if I thought the Catholic Faith was worthless, I wouldn't be Catholic!) I'm just saying the benefits can't be reduced to darwininian terms.

[Socrates]

[quote]It is indeed unproductive, because everybody's being persecuted by somebody these days.

Atheists are killed for being 'godless' in some parts of the religious world. [/quote]Maybe in certain Islamic countries. Your initial charges were that Christians were the ones responsible for the most persecution, though.

[quote]Atheists aren't allowed to hold public office in the U.S., and if you want to go into the banal part of it, atheists are persecuted because some religious people consider almost everything to be an offense to their beliefs (sorry man, but those are offended whiners, not persecuted). [/quote]
You're just plain misinformed about atheists not being allowed to hold public office in the U.S. (Your profile says you're from Brazil, so I'll pardon your ignorance. I myself am woefully ignorant of Brazilian law.) Rep. [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Stark"]Pete Stark (D-CA)[/url] is an openly atheist US congressman, though he is the first. (There have also been some outspokenly atheist state governors.) There is no law barring atheists from holding national office, though it is generally harder for open atheists to get elected. But (offended whiners to the contrary), citizens freely choosing not to vote for you does not constitute persecution. And "offended whiners" is exactly how I'd characterize most "persecuted" atheists in the US.

[quote]And that's not leaving out Christianity's historic track record of persecution such as the Inquisition and Dark Ages. [/quote]
It's apparent you're poorly educated on both the Inquisitions (there were several, and actually saved far more people from death than were ever killed. Criminals would actually beg to be tried by the Inquisition rather than secular courts of the time), and the so-called "Dark Ages." (Are you referring to the period of history where the Catholic Church preserved learning and civilization in the period of upheaval and chaos following the collapse of the Roman Empire?)

But if you want to talk "historic track records," I could easily refer you to the 100 million+ killed by atheistic Communism in less than 100 years, and to the 20th Century, the bloodiest in human history, as well the first to see atheistic government and the rise of secularism.

But that would be just as off-topic.


[quote]As an atheist, I would also ask, why was Islam also selected and how do you know that you're right and they're wrong?[/quote]
Selected by whom?
I could give a lot of reasons why Islam is false and Christianity correct, though they would undoubtedly be dismissed by one who rejects the reality of God and divine revelation in the first place.
Mohammed claimed to be a prophet foretold by Jesus and the Christian Scriptures, though he explicitly denied what is taught in the Christian Gospels.
I've written plenty about this on the many threads on Islam on this site, so you may want to run a search if you're truly interested.

Mohammed was also a brilliant and effective warlord and military leader, with a record of winning almost every single battle, so the practical benefits of joining his side are not hard to fathom. Muslims gave you peace if you accepted Islam.


It's a topic I'm going to have to look more into.

[quote]But people also choose torture and even death for other ideals, such as family, friends, country. And it still doesn't give Christianity the edge because there are other religions or philosophies for which other endure incredible pain and death, out of their free will. [/quote]
I don't think there's another religion which grew out of persecution to the extent Christianity did.

But again, none of that can be explained away in darwinist terms. A martyr doesn't go on to spawn more offspring.



[quote]If you were to apply it to another religion (one that you don't think is true) then would it be so flawed?[/quote]
Yes, in fact it would.

While I believe only the Catholic Faith has the fullness of divinely revealed truth, I believe that the human desire for God is real and universal, and religion has been a universal characteristic of every human society until extremely recent times. All people have acknowledged that there is a higher reality and purpose to human existence, and the need to serve a Being or beings greater than himself. I don't think the human religious urge can be simply explained away in darwinistic terms.

[MagiDragon]

[quote name='xSilverPhinx' timestamp='1305735537' post='2243245']
You don't consider the papacy to be a form of government which exceeds national borders?
[/quote]

Let's make some quick distinctions (feel free to correct any errors you find, but note that I wasn't making these distinctions in any previous posts because I didn't think they would be relevant) :
government: hierarchical entity that governs actions of subjects
state: hierarchical entity that claims a unique monopoly and sovereignty on the actions of all individuals in a particular territory

The Church would be a form of government in that it governs actions. But admission to The Church is not forced upon anyone; it must be voluntarily accepted. (Exception to this could be made in the case of infant baptism, but the will of the parent is taken into account in that case, and I don't think this is worth exploring right now.)

The pope cannot levy taxes (Barring the period of time when the papal states were their own country, but that was essentially a case of the pope wearing two hats. He levied taxes as king of the papal states, not as pope.) The pope cannot actually force anyone to do anything. He can restrict certain actions of those who obey him, but ultimately it is the choice of the individual whether they obey or disobey.

[quote name='xSilverPhinx']
This would be a new perspective to me, could you elaborate further? Doesn't the bible say that people should submit to and obey their masters?
[/quote]

Honestly, I'm not sure what you want elaborated. Christianity places very specific limits on the powers of any government . . . if the laws don't conform to natural law, Christians are not to obey them. Thus, no matter what the government says, murder, abortion, embryonic stem cell research, practicing homosexuality, and taking others' stuff is always wrong.


[quote name='xSilverPhinx']
I think that on one hand the fact that there was oppressive rule at the time when Christianity surfaced might have given people a sense of freedom from it all. It was predominantly a religion/cult of the slaves wasn't it, before being accepted by other segments of society?
[/quote]

I don't know if I would agree that Christianity was primarily of the slaves initially. There have always been many rich/educated people in Christianity, in spite of the risks involved. Pilate's wife is an interesting example of a non-slave Christian. Paul would be another.

[quote name='xSilverPhinx']
I don't think that Jesus as depicted in the Bible was one person, but rather a collection of philosophies from many people that were changed added to before being written down, centuries after he was said to have died. I think it might have been based on one real person though but don't know where to draw the line between the person Jesus and the mythical and legendary Jesus in the parts that are not supernatural. As for the miracles, it's too much of a stretch to believe in. I think that they're probably the result of primitive explanations and attributing of natural phenomena to supernatural agents as were very common at the time.
[/quote]

I'm not sure how you could support those ideas historically or logically. The Romans and the Greeks were both quite rational people with well developed cultures. Yes, they had their gods, but I don't think you'll claim that anyone really believed in those gods all *that* much. (Correct me if I'm wrong.) And both of those cultures seemed to accept Jesus at face value. (Give or take a few miracles here and there.) Thus, I think you should really at least accept that Jesus was an individual person who lived roughly 2000 years ago.

The people who preached about Jesus are quite believable because of the portraits they paint of themselves: one was a traitor, the leader of the apostles denied Jesus, they all cower in fear after Jesus' death, but most importantly, many of them died praying for the conversion of the people who were torturing them. Someone must either be insane or telling the truth to do that; nobody dies for what they know to be a lie. Even if you come up with a situation where someone might die for a lie, could you really believe that 10 of the 11 would actually submit to torture for that same lie? (And the 11th never denies said lie.)

Today's equivalent of Jesus would be someone that goes to the electric chair and fries for non-violent protests against the government. The government then comes in and tortures all of his followers to death. Can you imagine a religion growing up around that situation? Those are the odds of Christianity being true.

I'm not saying that you should be convinced by this line of argument, but it should at least help you understand why we believe it to be credible.

Peace,
Joe

[xSilverPhinx]

Socrates, one thing you're doing repeatedly is equating what I'm saying with 'darwinistic materialism' when I've repeatably said that this topic has nothing to do with natural sciences and biological evolution. Another is that you keep bringing it to specifically religious beliefs, when this is about any idea belief in general, not limited to religions which cause people to do certain things that can in turn be beneficial for the group. I'm putting an emphasis on beliefs because this is a religious forum and I thought it would be interesting. This is a topic of non materialistic social science: cultural evolution. You said that you see social sciences as BS, and so we have nothing more to talk about there. I'm assuming you haven't even watched any of the videos or read the links I've posted for you to keep attacking a straw man position.

Once more, I'm going to try to clarify why you're confusing cultural evolution with people being more able to propagate their genes.
This is not about propagating genes or having a good life, but about keeping group (whatever group with an ideology or beliefs that influence behavior) alive in human culture. It's [i]analogous [/i]to darwinian biological evolution, but genes are not the topic being discussed here. Much less about individual people striving.

Where this topic gets especially nebulous IMO is in trying to determine which memes are 'in for the ride' as part of a structured ideology or belief system. There are some that seem to be pointless, just as we have genes that are part of the biological historical record of our species, inactivated but still there.

To use the example Sloan presented in the first video:

[img]http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_sTCM7sEz3Bw/SVnC8gCuoeI/AAAAAAAAAFk/uPceps7QzeA/S150/Holy+Man+at+Jain+Temple,+Kolkata.jpg[/img]

This man (vehicle of group memes) belongs to the religion of [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jainism"]Jainism[/url] and the action he takes in wilfully almost starving himself to death is due to a belief (meme) linked to his religion (group). What he does is he only takes a small bit of food from Jainist houses where and only accepts it if he observes that all the rituals have been observed. If he comes to the conclusion that the house and the people who prepared and gave him food are 'pure' he eats a small bit. If not, then he doesn't.

Given that people have their personal reasons for holding some beliefs and that they don't want to help a man starve to death, they will adhere to the strict rituals so that he would accept their food. Add the belief that he is somehow sacred and that it's an blessing to have him accept food from their households and you have some strong memes which directly help keep the religious group of memes alive.

The function this starving man has as a vehicle part of a group[u] for the group[/u] (not for himself) is that he polices the group and helps keep it on track and not go astray into disintegration and possible subsequent extinction. At some point that belief and the practice it spawned [i]appeared[/i] and was [i]beneficial[/i] and so [i]selected for the religion[/i], even though not beneficial for this particular individual who is the vehicle.

To contrast it with a hypothetical simplistic counterpart, maybe a belief system similar to Jainism in every way except without this kind of individual would not have prospered since it lacked this self-check element in its system.


Notice that not once darwinism or genes came up here.


[quote]An off-topic accusation which is probably best discussed in another thread.
But I'll just say that first off, as Catholics, we know that the Bible came from the Christian Church, rather than vise-versa as Protestants claim (against all historical evidence).[/quote]

I don't think it's off topic at all. Things the bible says that were accepted in the past are not accepted today such as owning slaves, stoning people to death etc. I doubt that the Christians of 1500 years ago or even 1000 years ago would recognise you as Christians and the other way round. Culture has evolved and in order for a religion to survive it has to evolve with it.

[quote]I'll grant that an analogy can be made between human ideas and viruses, in that they both can be communicated and spread from one person to another, and through groups of people.
However, it's just an analogy. It doesn't explain the origin of religious belief (or any other ideas) at all.
Ideas or beliefs (religious or otherwise), unlike viruses, can be freely accepted or rejected, and can be true or false, good or bad. I believe they should be discussed on those grounds, rather than simply dismissed as mental "viruses."
After all, if we're consistent in this theory, religion is no more or less a "virus" than atheism, or meme theory itself.[/quote]

Well the parasitical idea of religious evolution is just one in the debate, and not one that I strongly subscribe to because parasites by definition cause harm. It it doesn't cause harm in some way, then it isn't a parasite.

I think that the multi-level selection theory is a better explanation.

[quote]Maybe in certain Islamic countries. Your initial charges were that Christians were the ones responsible for the most persecution, though.[/quote]

I use the word 'persecution' sparingly, even in regards to atheists and other minority groups, since I don't consider being offended as persecuted. Christianity can't [i]really[/i] persecute anymore because we live in secular societies. They're not allowed to.

The main difference between Christianity (western world) and Islam is that the cultures the two are embedded in are very different. Islam is in what looks like a modern medieval dark ages. When compared to the western world the middle east is very disynchronistic and their sharia law looks a lot like some parts of the old testament.

The Jews don't still stone people to death...Christians in Africa still do.

[quote]You're just plain misinformed about atheists not being allowed to hold public office in the U.S. (Your profile says you're from Brazil, so I'll pardon your ignorance. I myself am woefully ignorant of Brazilian law.) Rep. [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Stark"]Pete Stark (D-CA)[/url] is an openly atheist US congressman, though he is the first. (There have also been some outspokenly atheist state governors.) There is no law barring atheists from holding national office, though it is generally harder for open atheists to get elected. But (offended whiners to the contrary), citizens freely choosing not to vote for you does not constitute persecution. And "offended whiners" is exactly how I'd characterize most "persecuted" atheists in the US.[/quote]

I apologise for the error. It seems things are not as bad as I initially thought...good thing

I doubt you'd be able to see why atheists 'whine' without actually being in our position but I do agree that some have been rather indiscriminate in their things to complain about. I watched a documentary the other day in which a patient complained to the hospital because the nurse was wearing a necklace with a cross, and I agree that that is unreasonable. If a nurse tried to pray with the patient though, some interpret that in a variety of ways which might be over reacting and seeing it as a blatant lack of respect even though the nurses intentions were others.

[quote]It's apparent you're poorly educated on both the Inquisitions (there were several, and actually saved far more people from death than were ever killed. Criminals would actually beg to be tried by the Inquisition rather than secular courts of the time), and the so-called "Dark Ages." (Are you referring to the period of history where the Catholic Church preserved learning and civilization in the period of upheaval and chaos following the collapse of the Roman Empire?)

But if you want to talk "historic track records," I could easily refer you to the 100 million+ killed by atheistic Communism in less than 100 years, and to the 20th Century, the bloodiest in human history, as well the first to see atheistic government and the rise of secularism.

But that would be just as off-topic.[/quote]

If you're talking about both Spanish and Italian inquisitions, in countries that were previously fragmented as in the case of Spain and still fragmented in the case of Italy?

Who was trying to save people, the high clergy?

Yes, the those dark ages, in which the church preserved knowledge not for knowledge's sake but to gain more power and validate their religious theology. The same churches that vehemently opposed and tried to combat the influx of new knowledge that opposed their worldview after the crusades (which planted the seeds for the renaissance) where the Arabs were already practicing science and over turning thinkers that the church couldn't let go of such as Aristotle. Those Dark Ages precisely.

Stalin turned Communism into a personality cult of Stalin, nobody kills another person for atheism.

[xSilverPhinx]

[quote name='Socrates' timestamp='1305742043' post='2243275']
Selected by whom?
I could give a lot of reasons why Islam is false and Christianity correct, though they would undoubtedly be dismissed by one who rejects the reality of God and divine revelation in the first place.
Mohammed claimed to be a prophet foretold by Jesus and the Christian Scriptures, though he explicitly denied what is taught in the Christian Gospels.
I've written plenty about this on the many threads on Islam on this site, so you may want to run a search if you're truly interested.

Mohammed was also a brilliant and effective warlord and military leader, with a record of winning almost every single battle, so the practical benefits of joining his side are not hard to fathom. Muslims gave you peace if you accepted Islam.[/quote]

These things aren't always consciously selected as in some people gather and decide to create a religion (well, except in the case of Scientology, which is a good example to look at when taking into consideration why some people might find some things to be believable to the point of donating very large sums of money to sustain it.)

Circumstance and predicaments play a role, coupled with the human propensity to look for certain things based on psychology and biology and also the more coercive side such as forced conversions.

I don't know that much about the spread of early Islam but isn't it more accurate to say that once Islam started settling down, people were forced to accept Islamic rule but could practice their own religions?


[quote]I don't think there's another religion which grew out of persecution to the extent Christianity did. [/quote]

You guys make a strong point of early Christians being persecuted, is it too much of a stretch to say that the fact that they were persecuted makes your beliefs stronger?


[quote]Yes, in fact it would.

While I believe only the Catholic Faith has the fullness of divinely revealed truth, I believe that the human desire for God is real and universal, and religion has been a universal characteristic of every human society until extremely recent times. All people have acknowledged that there is a higher reality and purpose to human existence, and the need to serve a Being or beings greater than himself. I don't think the human religious urge can be simply explained away in darwinistic terms.
[/quote]

Well the reason I asked is because I noticed that you're making it about truth versus false which is unproductive for this discussion because I already know that if you believe in Christianity and therefore see Islam as false. I redirected the question to Islam so that it would be easier to take a more neutral stance in order to more clearly understand the points I'm trying to make.

[xSilverPhinx]

[quote name='MagiDragon' timestamp='1305753397' post='2243321']
Let's make some quick distinctions (feel free to correct any errors you find, but note that I wasn't making these distinctions in any previous posts because I didn't think they would be relevant) :
government: hierarchical entity that governs actions of subjects
state: hierarchical entity that claims a unique monopoly and sovereignty on the actions of all individuals in a particular territory

The Church would be a form of government in that it governs actions. But admission to The Church is not forced upon anyone; it must be voluntarily accepted. (Exception to this could be made in the case of infant baptism, but the will of the parent is taken into account in that case, and I don't think this is worth exploring right now.)

The pope cannot levy taxes (Barring the period of time when the papal states were their own country, but that was essentially a case of the pope wearing two hats. He levied taxes as king of the papal states, not as pope.) The pope cannot actually force anyone to do anything. He can restrict certain actions of those who obey him, but ultimately it is the choice of the individual whether they obey or disobey.[/quote]

Okay, so government was the wrong word to use, though I don't know what I would use in its stead...Catholicism is not a theocracy because those are bound to national borders and State. Government of influence?


[quote]Honestly, I'm not sure what you want elaborated. Christianity places very specific limits on the powers of any government . . . if the laws don't conform to natural law, Christians are not to obey them. Thus, no matter what the government says, murder, abortion, embryonic stem cell research, practicing homosexuality, and taking others' stuff is always wrong.[/quote]

That actually clarifies it.

[quote]I don't know if I would agree that Christianity was primarily of the slaves initially. There have always been many rich/educated people in Christianity, in spite of the risks involved. Pilate's wife is an interesting example of a non-slave Christian. Paul would be another.[/quote]

Yeah, I made a bit of a mistake there, I actually meant primarily of those that were oppressed (poor by the wealthy, Jews by Romans and rich Jews etc). Slaves sprung to mind...


[quote]I'm not sure how you could support those ideas historically or logically. The Romans and the Greeks were both quite rational people with well developed cultures. Yes, they had their gods, but I don't think you'll claim that anyone really believed in those gods all *that* much. (Correct me if I'm wrong.) And both of those cultures seemed to accept Jesus at face value. (Give or take a few miracles here and there.) Thus, I think you should really at least accept that Jesus was an individual person who lived roughly 2000 years ago.

The people who preached about Jesus are quite believable because of the portraits they paint of themselves: one was a traitor, the leader of the apostles denied Jesus, they all cower in fear after Jesus' death, but most importantly, many of them died praying for the conversion of the people who were torturing them. Someone must either be insane or telling the truth to do that; nobody dies for what they know to be a lie. Even if you come up with a situation where someone might die for a lie, could you really believe that 10 of the 11 would actually submit to torture for that same lie? (And the 11th never denies said lie.)

Today's equivalent of Jesus would be someone that goes to the electric chair and fries for non-violent protests against the government. The government then comes in and tortures all of his followers to death. Can you imagine a religion growing up around that situation? Those are the odds of Christianity being true.

I'm not saying that you should be convinced by this line of argument, but it should at least help you understand why we believe it to be credible.[/quote]

I actually think that there's a high chance of there being a historical Jesus who lived roughly 2000 years ago, but I'm questioning whether what the bible attributes to him as being all his or a mix between compilation of various philosophers (even converts possibly) invented stories and misrepresentations.

I hold this view because there are no historical sources of Jesus written down during the time he lived, at least none that I'm aware of, and the bible was compiled out of many documents and translations. In that situation there is lost information and skewing of information, even if unintentional. Sort of like a game of Chinese whispers.

If there was a historical Jesus who did start a bit of a revolution and his message spread like wildfire was it what he wrote down? Did he visit everyplace to preach himself? If it was orally, which most likely it was, then there's bound to be misrepresentations. Maybe someone preaching his message added their twist to it or interpreted it their way but credited it to him etc. Same goes for when, many years later, theologians were compiling the bible.

It's similar to the debate surrounding whether Homer was one person, if you accept that there was someone called 'Homer'. It's known that the Iliad and Odyssey were memorised and told to the public before being written down.

[Don John of Austria]

[quote name='xSilverPhinx' timestamp='1305735537' post='2243245']
I don't think that Jesus as depicted in the Bible was one person, but rather a collection of philosophies from many people that were changed added to before being written down, centuries after he was said to have died. I think it might have been based on one real person though but don't know where to draw the line between the person Jesus and the mythical and legendary Jesus in the parts that are not supernatural. As for the miracles, it's too much of a stretch to believe in. I think that they're probably the result of primitive explanations and attributing of natural phenomena to supernatural agents as were very common at the time.
[/quote]


So you reject the scientific and archeological finding of Date regardingthe writing of the Gospels and Apostolic letters? Matthew mark and Luke are all believed to have been written before AD 70, and Acts likely before A.D. 62.
Do you rejectthis time line?

What about the artifacts dating from the 1st century which include the Cross, ( yeah, all that "the early christians where ashamed of the cross " stuff didn't hold up.) and dedications to Yesuah (Jesus) ? Do you reject them as falsified, or just bad science?