Is Religion On A Downward Slippery Slope

[Apotheoun]

 

Have you heard about those ancient Byzantine codices that were found hidden in the vaults of st catherine's mount sinai. The British library held a discussion that they go a long way to prove that Christianity, Judaism and Islam is all of the same religion.

Hidden codices? Have they been made public? It seems to be nonsensical to say that Christianity and Islam are really the same religion when the former is founded upon the dogma of the Incarnation of the Word of God and the latter is founded upon a denial of that teaching.

[CrossCuT]

props.

 

PS. Where have you been!  :paperbag:

Does it scare you that I may or may not have started to miss you?

[MarysLittleFlower]

I'm always confused by what atheists mean when they say "a free thinking mind". We freely choose to follow God. He gives us a choice. In Him, we find freedom.

 

When people - like in your OP - talk about wars, etc, that are "caused" by religion... let me ask you this.... imagine you wasn't sure if science was credible or if it was a good thing. What would you look at to see if it's credible and/or good?

a) a grade 1 student

b) a scientist who used his knowledge to build weapons and then killed a lot of people

c) a scientists who is knowledgeable and uses his knowledge the way he's supposed to

 

Wouldn't the last option actually show you what science IS? rather than someone not knowing it, OR using it in evil ways that are more about him own agenda, than understanding the world and how it works.

 

If you met a bad scientist, or a student that's near failing his class, would you then doubt all of science, would you doubt things like photosynthesis, just because of someone?

 

Creation is good, but God is perfect. So why would people doubt and reject good and true teachings, that Jesus taught, because some people either use them for their own agenda, or because they misunderstand them, etc... if you look at people who practiced Christianity it was *intended* and *supposed* to be practiced, who would you find? St Francis or Mother Teresa... the Saints.

 

I think it doesn't make sense to reject something because of how someone *didn't* practice it. But people do this with religion. I think a better question is, what is leading a person to reject religion on these grounds, but not reject anything else on the same grounds.

 

Jesus said, by their fruits we would know them.... what are the "fruits" in the lives of those who DID follow Jesus? (look at Mother Teresa). If there are any "bad" fruits in a Christian's life, that's not because they're following Christ perfectly, but imperfectly, - and we're all imperfect and trying to grow, we need to be patient with ourselves and with each other.

 

 

[Ash Wednesday]

Howdy. I'm in the UK too, as an American expat.

Religion and interest in it will never die. It has been around as long as humans have, it is part of what makes people tick, and it will continue to be so. The same with science, for what it's worth :-)

I've never had a problem with science, Catholics generally don't approach it or the literal interpretation of the bible the same way fundamentalists do. Science and religion to me handle different questions about ourselves and the universe....

Anyway i cant be bothered to write much more. My wine tastes too good.

Edited August 2, 2013 by Ash Wednesday

[Lil Red]

PS. Where have you been!  :paperbag:

Does it scare you that I may or may not have started to miss you?

 

rofl. :P I have been lurking lately. just find myself lately with not much to say. ;) 

[MithLuin]

Going back to the OP it is very hard to figure out if religion will survive. But I do know the internet will always be around and it seems to me that wherever you look online religion is bashed and ridiculed and exposed. Logic will prevail and hopefully organised religion will fade away to nothing more than a group of old men sitting in a cave, warming their hands around a camp fire, trying to figure out what went wrong.

 

Wow, this is a pretty shocking statement to me.  The internet is no longer in its infancy, that's true, but...it is still in the 'young' stage.  It was created in our lifetimes, so that only the younger members of a forum such as this one can say that they don't remember a time when there was no internet.  I'm not *that* old, and I remember when my family got our first dial-up internet connection.  I was in high school.  I remember the old bulletin boards for communicating that my friends participated in.  I remember the old search engines before Google existed (Lycos, for instance).  I remember choosing a screenname for the first time... when I was *18*.  Facebook was invented after I graduated from university.  

 

We are currently raising the first generation that has grown up with the internet.  While I think that it is a revolutionary vehicle for collecting and sharing information, I seriously doubt it's going to be around 'forever' in the same form it is in now. Fifteen years ago, there was no such thing as wikipedia.  Just a few years in online time is...practically forever.  So, yes, I doubt the internet is going anywhere (in the sense of 'going away'), but to take something that is younger than you are and confidently assert that it will be around 1,000 years from now?  Just...wow.  My mind doesn't work that way.  

 

And yes, youtube comments are full of vitriol directed towards religion, as well as racist nonsense and all sorts of juvenile trash talk.  I wouldn't take that too seriously.  Yes, more sober discussions online also tend to reflect a more secular and less religious worldview.  Part of this is because people who have these views go online to find other people to discuss these things with, since the people in their day to day life often express different (ie, more generically religious) views.  At least that's true here in the US.  It may be different in the UK, though I do have online friends there who are both Christian and atheist, to be honest.  Anyway, while a wide variety of people participate in internet discussions (a variety of age groups and viewpoints and socio-economic statuses), it's still a minority.  Most people in the world never join such discussions.  So it's important to keep that in mind when judging world trends based on your slice of internet experience.  

 

 

I will be surprised if the United States of America will be around in the year 3013.  We've had a good run thus far, and despite some cracks and fault lines, I don't expect the country to dissolve in my lifetime.  However...it's only lasted 200 some odd years so far.  To confidently state that it's got what it takes to make it through another thousand years...well, I just can't do it.  There are some countries that have been on the world stage practically forever, and if someone wanted to predict their continued existence a millennium from now, I might buy it.  

 

So while it's true that I recognize the value of the internet, I don't necessarily see the [i]durability[/i] of the internet yet.  Will it last?  I hope so.  I like it, more or less.  But you mentioned how the media is controlled, while the information available on the internet is more of a free-for-all.  Do you think that will last?  Do you think that this freedom of the early years of the internet will last and escape from what has made the rest of our media corporate-controlled?  You can say that people will fight vigorously to keep things this way, but I'm not sure they'll succeed.  Watching the direction of sites like facebook has made it clear that things will not remain as they used to be, especially if there's a lot of money to be had.  Privacy and freedom from censorship are already huge issues and will continue to be so.  

 

Some religions also lack durability.  The death of the founding member tends to be a huge hurdle, and not all sects can overcome that.  But the major world religions have proved that they can survive some pretty serious shakeups.  They have an effective method of transmitting the faith to the next generation.  They can adapt to other cultures and spread to other countries around the world.  They have ways of preserving their identity as a minority group within a different majority culture.  Etc.  Seeing this, it's easier to say, yeah, they've got what it takes.  They'll keep on keeping on. Even if the world leaves them behind, they have a core group that will continue.  

 

I'm not talking about Catholics or Christians in particular here, though of course that is where I know the most.  I'm saying that the Nazi attempt to exterminate the Jews, killing them by the millions and destroying all hope...was not the end of the Jewish faith.  Yes, it dealt a terrible blow and left scars that are visible to this day.  The Shoah was a hugely significant event in the history of Judaism, and it no doubt changed some things forever. But Judaism was not destroyed.  Damaged, yes, but not destroyed. Seeing that, I have to question what *would* destroy Judaism?  I mean, seriously...what?  If Hitler failed to wipe them off the face of the earth and make them no more than a memory...what could possibly succeed in doing such a thing?  The Jewish people are stronger than that, and apparently won't let it happen.  I'm convinced.  They've been around for thousands of years, survived a 1900 year exile from their homeland surrounded by a majority culture that was often suspicious and/or eager to convert them, and then, on top of all that, came through the Holocaust.  So, if you asked me, will there be Jews in the year 3013? I'd have to say, yeah, I think there will be.  

[MithLuin]

Oh, and the new pope's encyclical, [i]Lumen Fidei[/i], touches on this topic of the relevance of faith in modern life.  For anyone who is interested, it's worth reading.  A pope's first encyclical lets you know what he plans to focus on in his pontificate and explains the viewpoint of the Catholic Church at the current time in history.

 

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20130629_enciclica-lumen-fidei_en.html

[Vincent Vega]

How can theory be sold as truth when it's theory. Look up the definition of theory. I do get what your saying though but he or she would be a very poor scientist if they call a theory a fact. If a scientist puts forward a theory then says this is the Truth, period, then he or she is normally ridiculed.

 

Yikes. Many times I've seen religious people have a glaring misunderstanding of what "theory" means, but this is the first time I've seen an irreligious person do the same. Uh, congrats, I guess.

[Maggyie]

Maggie

Newspapers are the worst source of information to be honest. They're all owned by the same corporation, even Al Jazeera.

 

I'm not saying read newspapers, I'm saying read books.

 

There's no reason to believe we "will always have the Internet." In fact it's easy to imagine a day in the future when the Internet will be obsolete - surpassed by technology.

 

God is not bashed everywhere on the Internet. You're looking in the wrong places. The New York Times has a section on Religion and Belief. Look up the website of Harvard Divinity School. Spend more time on phatmass.

 

When talking about the fading away of religion please keep in mind that religious and supernatural systems predate recorded time. There is some evidence that religion is important from an evolutionary standpoint. You're not talking about a social or cultural institution but a natural phenomenon common to human beings across time and and space. Have you ever read Darwin's Cathedral? Highly recc.

[Quinn]

:-D too funny. You sure make me laugh out loud. All of you. Thanks for entertaining me for a few minutes.

 

V

[HisChildForever]

:-D too funny. You sure make me laugh out loud. All of you. Thanks for entertaining me for a few minutes.

 

V

 

You're still talking about religion?

[Quinn]

Hischildforever... I'm talking about me laughing. Nothing more.

 

I do like Mithluins' answer though. Very interesting. It's very likely that the internet will be around for another thousand years in my opinion. It's another technology but one that will endure, similar to pen and parchment, or  pottery, it will stick around in the same way that mathematics did. You talk about the internet like it's the latest gimmick.

 

It could well become far more corporate and censored though and this is something that worries me and many other people.

 

V

[CrossCuT]

I was hoping for a response to my post :(

I didnt think I was being ridiculous, however it appears you found it funny.

[MithLuin]

I do not find the internet to be a gimmick.  I just see it as being in a 'young' stage where changes are still quite rapid and the 'final' product is likely to be quite different from what we experience today.  And even for what I experience...the internet that is accessible is still only like, what?, 1% of the internet?  There's the rest of the [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_net]Deep net[/url] out there that I don't even know about.  I never meant to suggest that the internet would fizzle out and go away (I mean, unless we're positing an apocalyptic scenario like a nuclear holocaust in the next millennium), but rather that it might change drastically enough that what we have now would be viewed as its quaint beginnings and not the 'true' internet by our kids, let alone the future society 40 or 50 generations removed from us.  

 

When someone says confidently that something (brand new) is 'here to stay', it naturally rouses my doubts.  I become skeptical of its durability and staying power while it is unproven.  That doesn't mean it *will* fizzle, simply that I will have to look closer to see if there is some evidence it can survive significant changes.  I realize that not taking this view can help things to become much more inevitable much more quickly.  I pointed out that America was 'young' as a nation (not as young as South Sudan, true, but not old, either).  The public school system here (or even the idea of universal education for children) is even younger.  Doesn't make that a transient idea or whim of our society; there has been steady growth reinforcing that idea, and it's spread to practically the whole world (more or less).  But even more importantly, everyone in our society would be *shocked* if someone were to suggest that not all kids needed to be educated and some could just be put to work from a young age instead.  Or if anyone downplayed the usefulness of literacy across the board.  We'll have public discussions about the usefulness of a university education and the alternatives to that, but no one questions the idea that kids should be educated and taught how to read.  This basic 'assumption' helps to cement the system of public education in our society, and helps anyone who might question it to be quickly brought on board with the idea of educating children.  So there is a durability to this idea in our culture that has proven tenacious over several generations and is well entrenched.

 

The internet is generally recognized as an amazing conduit of information, but opinions on it and what its future direction should be are so varied that it's hard for me to see anything inevitable about how things will move forward.  Again, I don't think the internet is going to go away (barring a catastrophic event that takes out technology in general), but what that will look like in 100 years is anybody's guess.

[Quinn]

The internet was actually designed to aid communication in the event of a global nuclear war. Back then it was known as the Arpanet. Then as soon as academia got involved things got interesting pretty quickly. Wasn't long until www. hit the scene and everyone got involved.

 

So, a nuclear war, is unlikely to kill off all of the internet. Too many DNS servers for that.

Edited August 5, 2013 by Quinn