Ah found it, it was EB Tylor. He said that society went through the stages of magic and religion as intellectual errors. Then I think he went to science, but then think, what if there is a fourth stage that we have yet to think of.
OK this is where I'm at. I believe in God, but I am currently inactive. Meaning I haven't attended a meeting in quite some time. Rusty... I tried to supply a debate, but I ended up getting frustrated from a few things that people said. And I have ended up getting passionate as you said, I just looked back on what I wrote and yes I was kind of looney and not thinking straight. So to answer your question, I'm a inactive Jehovah's witness.
One of are primary school teachers screwed up the belief of God by telling a longer verson of Adam and Eve. In the end of the story the only two people left on the Earth were a farmer and his son (something like that). And us, being dirty twisted little children realised we didn't want those two as ancestors. (Or incestors)
If you are not even motivated to be active in your religion, wouldn't that make God unhappy? Believe me, I have been on the religious side as well. I have been deeply involved in religion, but I chose to leave because I realized, "I have no way to know if this is all true; neither do people of other religions. Who is right?" By choosing a religion, I was saying that all other religions were wrong, had to be wrong. But, by choosing agnosticism, I am ambivalent about the nature of God and his plan. Any hypothesis about God is possible, except now I admit that I really don't know for sure if I'm right. Religions fear that they will fall one day; agnostics and atheists don't have to worry because they are advocates of science. Science will always be there. One thing that always irks me. Why do some people choose to pick out parts of the bible? Because they disagree with some parts. If you want to be picky like that, you are not "buying into" the whole religion so to speak. Why make a new religion from one you disagree with?
No. Heaven exists because that's where god resides, you'd have to be stupid to make the arguement heaven didn't exist. What I meant was lay-people didn't go to heaven and hell wasn't there for people to be sent to. Now Elijah went to heaven but I think we can agree he's not some carpenter who works 12 hours a day and 6 days a week so he is taken to heaven because he's earned it. Hell isn't even properly mentioned in the new testament. The concept of hell has been built upon over the centuries borrowing from other religions including Greek and Norse. Norse mythology, in fact, is where we get the word hell from the original "Hel." In the Old Testament many claim that Hell is mentioned as a place where people go but this is a falsehood. The commonly used word to show this is sheol, however, translated properly the word sheol means grave. Many more tend to cite the physical word hell in the OT to prove that hell existed before the NT but this is simply not the case. Hell is a haphazard jumble of the concepts of the Jewish Gehenna and Hades. Gehenna is actually a place outside of a certain city where they would burn the trash and the bodies' of sinners. Hades is referred to by Jonah as a place of temporary punishment (i.e. the fish was his place of Hades). In addition to, Judaism has no concept of eternal damnation so the idea that it is even there is flawed from the git-go. Jesus mentions hell and so does Paul but I find it astounding, if not incredulous, that when we think of the age in which these people lived and the origins of the word hell that they would be capable of even using the word. I can think of no other solution than the artificial implanation of hell into Christian theology by a much later Catholic Church. Remember these are the people responsible for purgatory (which by the way no longer exists...). If Jesus did make a reference to what happens after we die he could not have said hell or meant the same thing. Jesus' primary concerns were the Jewish people (Paul brought Christianity to the gentiles). He was there to resolve the conflicts in Judaism, not give rise to them. I can think of no greater problem than heaven and hell. Thanks.
I find it funny that people that go to religious schools end up not believing in a god. At my current school, there are only a few people that will admit that they are atheists. Two of them are my friend and I. Both of us have gone to Catholic schools. My theory is the more you learn about religion, the less it convinces you. Unless, you just blindly agree. Most people don't go to religious schools, and if you ask them, they blindly agree with everything that the religion says. They will agree with it all, but I know more than they do about it. I disagree. Unless you have gone to a religious school for more than 7 years, don't try to argue this. _ EDIT: If you look at what Catholics believe today, you will see that they believe in things never mention in the Bible. Catholics believe in the 8 levels of Hell. There is no such idea of 'levels' in the Bible. Another major belief that is not mentioned in the Bible is the belief of the median. The place between Heaven and Hell, Purgatory. Again, there is not a mention of "Purgatory" in the Bible. Well, wait... where did these beliefs come from? Both of those beliefs come from a book called The Divine Comedy. The Divine Comedy was written by a man named Dante. In the book, Dante tells about his adventure through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven. How did this adventure happen? It was a dream. "So, Scope, you're telling me major beliefs are based on a dream that a man had about 1400 years after the religion was founded? How the **** does that make since?" That's exactly what I am saying.
That's called faith. I guess the difference between them is that one is pessimistic and one is not. Sort of like Pro-Choice=Abortion. And what you say is true. Just because you are fed a concept constantly doesn't mean you will accept it. As a matter of fact, the natural implulse is to resist it through a subconscience disposition of self-preservation. And just for the books, I do believe in God because of faith (or blindly agreeing). My reason is that the "idea" in the back of my head that keeps telling me to do the right thing couldn't possibly be from this world because the world is so naturally corrupt and evil. The two don't match which means that this "idea" is from something else, which I believe to be the holy spirit. I got this holy spirit after I accepted God, NOT by being constantly exposed to the Christian concept. It's a decision, it won't come to those that reject it. (obviously) By the way, What Catholics believe does make me laugh. I mean its nice they want to please God... but it doesn't say anywhere in the Bible directly (or indirectly for that matter, gotta watch those metaphors) that you can't eat meat on Friday. Science always changes.
Let's explore. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YDL201Uvp8 Observe the piranha. They don't believe in a god but the don't do whatever they want. They don't blindly kill each other even when in the heat of a feeding frenzy. Why? Where do they get their morals? Because in order to have a stable population, the population must not kill itself, if the population does kill itself it will go extinct (therefore not passing on their genes). It needs morals to survive. Morals can be selected for or against. Many things are hard wired into the human brain (facial expressions, etc.). Morals are one of these hard wired things and are needed for a stable population. Selective pressures force animals to cooperate, those who can not die, and those who do much better pass on their genes.
The Piranha have their own bible, dur. Just like every other animal has their own personal bible too, makes perfect sense. Oh what, you thought we were the only species with religion? pfft! God made all the animals too, he had to send them his will as well! If the Big Bang is true then what was the catalyst that caused it? There's no action without reaction and an action requires stimuli. If The big bang was that action, the universe is the reaction but then what was the stimulus!? Oh what? God created the universe you say? But then where did that start? At what point did God "Appear" and decide "Seems like a good moment to make the Universe!" There had to be a beginning surely...But then how did "God" begin? Regardless of your beliefs, or faith, there is always the question "Where did it start?", always... No matter how far back you go. Say you explain the catalyst for the big bang, then what caused the catalyst? Say you figure out what brought "God" into existence, what caused that? It's an infinite cascade of questions and is truly incomprehensible, which is why we will never know all the answers. Science tries to go as far back as it can. Science says "Okay, we're gonna go with the Big Bang, it's the closest thing we've got to an explanation and we're going to try and prove/disprove it." - I'm sure that, if there ever was a definitive proof of the Big Bang, that we wouldn't stop there and we would search for an explanation as to what caused that. The fundamental problem, for science anyway, is the idea of cause and effect and no matter how many ways you slice it, the creation of the Universe" is an "effect" and whatever "caused" it had the "effect" of starting the creation of the Universe, which then itself becomes the new "effect" for the creation of the Universe and requires a new "Cause" - Repeat ad infinitum, or until head explodes. Religion just goes "woah woah woah, stop! Look God created it all, 'nuff said. There's no need to dig any deeper than that. I don't care what you say, whatever changes, whatever new "facts" are discovered it doesn't change the absolute fact that God > All" Either way I still say you've got the problem of "Beginning" because the true "Beginning" must surely be so unfathomable it is beyond anything religion or science currently has to offer. Truly, it hurts my head to think about it. Science will admit when it's wrong, it will adapt. We know this because theories and beliefs change in the world of science - Sun going around Earth --> Earth around Sun, Newton's Gravity --> Einstein's Gravity, e.t.c. Even if Science is wrong now, it will keep striving until one day it gets it right. Religion is in a tougher position. It's already declared it's truth. There's no room to go "Oh whoops, maybe there isn't a God, we'll just replace him with a Turkish Delight and worship those instead, but keep everything else the same!" All religion can do is defend what has already been stated as fact in its faith. Is that why we have so many derivatives of the same concept, Christianity, Catholicism, e.t.c. e.t.c. e.t.c. e.t.c. e.t.c. e.t.c. e.t.c.? Could it be Religion's own little way of correcting itself over time? If a religion wants to change something it has to become a new religion. If science wants to change something it can do so and still be science. Which one is easier to defend? The one where you can easily adapt what you believe to be truth - An ideology with no real strings attached other than the persuit of truth? Or the one whose ideology has a lot of stipulations with it that cannot be refuted? I dunno, those are some thoughts I've had whenever these topics crop up. Stuff to think about maybe? Who knows!
But surely piranhas don't experience greed, anger etc.. There mind is set onto survival, unfortunately for most humans these days survival is not a problem.
Out of interest.. what would you have to say about martyrs, sacrifices and all that crap then? We evolved morals so we protect each other. We evolved religions to keep our tribes loyal, united and dedicated. But why would we evolve a tendency to kill our livestock, each other or ourselves for religious reasons? A side effect? The one thing which bugs me about evolution is why we are the only animals with a conscious mind. Why are we a mile ahead of the competition when it comes to brain power? Not that its even a good thing to evolve anyway.... we are destroying the planet and fail abysmally at having a "natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment" as agent smith says. I suppose mankind destroying itself with its own inventions will be final proof that evolution really does iron out the faulty properties in animals lul.
A possible explanation is that developing a concious mind would be very unlikely, and as soon as something did it would develop a lot faster, making the huge gap between us and animals..
i dont know about you guys but im a full fledge pastafarian! oh do i love and worship the flying spaghetti monster that created us all.
Consciousness The simple answer as to why we are miles ahead of the competition when it comes to brain power is because we killed our competition off and those we didn't kill, we mated with, assimilating them into our population. Human, and before that primate evolution has been going on for millions of years. We weren't placed here soaring high above the competition in the mental department. We earned it. And it took a very, very long time. As far as being the only animal with a conscious mind, I would say that conscious is a relative term. Obviously we can say that almost all animal life on the planet is "conscious". What does conscious mean to you? I think you may mean self consciousness or self awareness. Currently great apes, dolphins, elephants, and humans are the only animals to pass the mirror test of self awareness and these also happen to be the animals with the most advanced social groups. We are not the only animals that are "conscious". I would argue that all animals are conscious, and a few are even self aware. Link to Self Awareness Article: Elephants Recognize Selves in Mirror, Study Says
Consciousness appears to be a fantastic example of emergence, which is the tendency for complex order to spontaneously arise from disorder. Examples of emergence can be seen in crystals and snow flakes due to the properties of the water molecules and the minerals and elements that make up the crystal. The human brain is amazing but on the cellular level its based on the known physiology that all higher animals share. Probably one of the reasons we have such an advanced brain is due to the frontal lobes. Once we'd obtained consciousness it was fairly easy to increase our capacities through the generations. Those that could plan ahead better, plan the hunt, plan child birth, etc. would be better adapted to survive and by consequence the children of that parent would have the same (or perhaps greater) cognitive abilities and would continue the process. My best guess at determining why people kill is a fairly simple one. Strong social bonds within lions point towards some sort of morality when it comes to killing their own, however, pit them against a foriegn pride and they readily fight for food and land. Humanity is tribal by nature, we work best in groups ranging from 4-25. When we introduce ourselves to large amounts of people and insist upon living with these large numbers of people we tend to not care about the happenings of others as much as ourselves and close friends. It is found that with sufficient conditioning people will kill others with relatively little concern (war). We also need to remember that, though, some things are hard wired into us (morals and facial expressions) others are not (the ability to choose and weigh the options and plan). You are hard wired to survive but people under stress and other conditions have the ability to override this and kill themselves. In the same way, if we foresee some benefit behind the death of this person (self gratification, money, etc.) we may, in fact, kill a person. Morals go deeper than genetics but genetics do provide basic instinctual morals that can help a population survive. For instance, peeing in the toilet is not genetically hard wired, so why don't we pee on the floor and why do we feel bad when do? We can foresee the consequences of peeing on the floor, whether it be punishment or the spreading of germs. A crude analogy but I thought of it during the act so why not?
Perhaps I need to be a little more specific. Yes, the piranha don't eat each other because it would be disasterous to thier community. They are wired this way. Humans take on a different mindset, however, and it goes like this: Get what you want with the least amount of consequences. Before you get defensive, examine the concept. All humans naturally function by this mindset. And it's not entirely bad. That's why you don't kill your neighbor-cuz you'll go to jail for it. That's why we don't steal from eachother-there will be a fine. That's why most people don't assault one another- because it will result in jail time and humiliation. The place where people do in trouble is when they adopt the "Your not in trouble 'till you get caught" idea until its too late. So back to my original post, why is there a voice in the back of my head telling me not to look up porn when I could easily delete the history of my browser? This is definatly not human. (and I'm not gay, just to make sure no one makes that argument =)