Originally posted by Nrg2Nfinit
If it wasnt for religion we would still be neanderthal man.
Religion/ mythology/ belief is what made us emerge from the caves. To think ponder and philosophize life and a greater purpose allowed us to aspire and helped us build society as we see it today.
To live in a world of so many unknowns one must have some security in their purpose and being. Religion did that and now we have civilizations and governments that take heed to this role. To organize the masses of people.
Moongoose
I will not even try to guess how Neanderthals reasoning worked and how and/or if they grasped the concept of god. However i will argue that there comes a time where the concept of god becomes a hindrance to a civilization, and that time is when you start evoking the name of god to further your own political or social agenda. When youre able to reason with yourself that its not actually you who wants something but god working trough you, the point has come to drop the concept entirely or suffer the consequences. Sadly, thousands of years have past since the first man reason that to himself and we are still burdened by the concept of god, instead of being able to grow as a civilization in our own right.
pkcRAISTLIN
quote:
Originally posted by Nrg2Nfinit
Religion/ mythology/ belief is what made us emerge from the caves.
the biggest thing that got man to leave his cave was that he was hungry.
Nrg2Nfinit
quote:
Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN
the biggest thing that got man to leave his cave was that he was hungry.
lol yeah but they always came back
you need some sort of belief system (ill call it religion) to progress to civilization.
The Assyrians had it. The ancient egyptians had it, The romans and so forth.
I would agree with mongoose that when it is moreso used as a political tool to herd people it gets messy. The crusades, The Nazi's the taliban etc.
but if it wasnt for religion, the egyptians would have never made the pyramids. Michaelangelo would have never made his sculptures and shakespear was definatley a man of religion, his creativeness wouldn't have spurred in his time. We live in a scociety now where knowledge and progression and and capitalism is our religion. Law defines our moral standards but essentially we are raised and nurtured to be empathetic (or at least attempt to be).
So the concept of religion is still the same one. Some sort of motivation to be rational, humane and motivated. That is the world we live in now. Is there a god? who knows. We only know what we can perceive and visualize. I prefer to go with pascals wager in this case.
As organisms evolve through natural selection, so should our way of thinking guided by science (it is the structural foundation in which our society has been built on). We shouldn't be jaded by promises of 72 virgins, being the chosen race by god or praying constantly to reach the kingdom of heaven trying to convert people. Instead we should help our society progress and us as a species to become more civil.
Moongoose
quote:
Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN
the biggest thing that got man to leave his cave was that he was hungry.
Which reminds me, I hadn't had anything to eat for over 16 hours, time to venture outside this room and find something to snack on.
pkcRAISTLIN
quote:
Originally posted by Nrg2Nfinit
lol yeah but they always came back
you need some sort of belief system (ill call it religion) to progress to civilization.
The Assyrians had it. The ancient egyptians had it, The romans and so forth.
I would agree with mongoose that when it is moreso used as a political tool to herd people it gets messy. The crusades, The Nazi's the taliban etc.
but if it wasnt for religion, the egyptians would have never made the pyramids. Michaelangelo would have never made his sculptures and shakespear was definatley a man of religion, his creativeness wouldn't have spurred in his time. We live in a scociety now where knowledge and progression and and capitalism is our religion. Law defines our moral standards but essentially we are raised and nurtured to be empathetic (or at least attempt to be).
So the concept of religion is still the same one. Some sort of motivation to be rational, humane and motivated. That is the world we live in now. Is there a god? who knows. We only know what we can perceive and visualize. I prefer to go with pascals wager in this case.
As organisms evolve through natural selection, so should our way of thinking guided by science (it is the structural foundation in which our society has been built on). We shouldn't be jaded by promises of 72 virgins, being the chosen race by god or praying constantly to reach the kingdom of heaven trying to convert people. Instead we should help our society progress and us as a species to become more civil.
Well, I didn’t really intend to get into this debate (especially since your knowledge far far outstrips my own) but it’s a quiet afternoon at work….
I think the central issue I have with your post here is that there is an assumption that religion caused or created these things, when in reality is was merely the fact that religion was the governing ism of the pre-enlightened eras. I think there is an argument to be made that had religion never existed such great works of art or engineering could and would have been created, just with a different focus or motivation. Sure, the great tombs of the Egyptians were built because of their beliefs concerning the afterlife, but imagine what could have been created had they been motivated by other forces? When I see massively huge awesome church structures all I can think of is how much better that time, effort and money could have been spent. Sure, the pyramids are fantastic structures that everyone knows and loves, but take a minute to think of the thousands of peasants that had to build them; what positive role was religion playing for them? Hell, Yahweh thought it was fine for his chosen to slave away in Egypt for 400 years! ;)
You rightly identify the fact that religious belief was the governing zeitgeist of the time, but do we praise Nazism for building the autobahns? Nazism didn’t build the autobahns, they just happened to be built during the (thankfully brief) era of Nazism.
Krypton
quote:
Originally posted by Moongoose
Its not that we know that evolution is 100% right but rather that creationism/ID is 100% wrong.
Or rather, the presupposition that the cosmos is created by some ultra-intelligence is unprovable scientifically. What creationists fail to realize is that they are sporting a purely religious view but try to call it science.
astroboy
quote:
Originally posted by Moongoose
I will not even try to guess how Neanderthals reasoning worked and how and/or if they grasped the concept of god. However i will argue that there comes a time where the concept of god becomes a hindrance to a civilization, and that time is when you start evoking the name of god to further your own political or social agenda. When youre able to reason with yourself that its not actually you who wants something but god working trough you, the point has come to drop the concept entirely or suffer the consequences. Sadly, thousands of years have past since the first man reason that to himself and we are still burdened by the concept of god, instead of being able to grow as a civilization in our own right.
The kind of puritan neanderthals that seem to rule the religious right in the US wouldn't be any different if there was no religion. Any dogma can serve as a means to further your own primitive goals. Comunism was the state religion in the USSR (and continues to be in NK) and it performed the same function. With the death of the author (in the Barthes sense of the phrase) any text can become a manifesto which has a life of its own beyond any authorial intent.
A few of my friends are intelligent and religious.. they just find the idea of taking the bible as the literal truth laughable. They are very pro science, pro choice, anti guns etc.. I think it's easy to pick at religion as the cause of the problem. but I think the cause is much older than religion.. it's simple stupidity.
Religion or no.. enlightened people will always take the enlightened interpretation of whatever philosophy they choose to folow and idiots will always take the idiotic approach.
Fledz
Fire was the first God, or maybe even thunder. There was always a belief in some sort of higher power.
pkcRAISTLIN
quote:
Originally posted by Fledz
Fire was the first God, or maybe even thunder. There was always a belief in some sort of higher power.
you've seen the discussions here concerning the 'god' part of the brain yeah? pretty interesting stuff.
Fledz
Yea I have but it's friday night and I can't be ed writing a reply longer than 2 lines :haha:
pkcRAISTLIN
quote:
Originally posted by Fledz
Yea I have but it's friday night and I can't be ed writing a reply longer than 2 lines :haha:
i feel you!! i probably wouldn't understand it if you did anyway ;)
off to see tydi tnite. hoping he's gonna bring the cheesy goodness :cool:
