Most people who are brainwashed under the religion of Christianity often got superstition considering masturbation, abortion, sex, drugs, rock and roll, and alternative beliefs when they need concise answer from their reasoning along with science.



Then why is that God created them? Just so we have to deal with these pests?

Mmmm. Methinks you've been brainwashed into thinking that all Christians are just like Fred Phelps, et. al.. I'm a born-again Christian, and I have a buttload of Christian friends of different kinds, ages, opinions, and theological stances. So, let me tell you what we're really like, on each of the points you mentioned.

1) Masturbation: I like it quite well, thank you! (TMI, sorry.) Seriously, although most Christians will consider it a symptom of the sin of lust, most of us also acknowledge that people have drives, and that not all of us have legitimate outlets for it. So while we all may not exactly embrace it as "OK," many of us think of it as a "necessary evil." Or at least a forgivable one.

2) Abortion: I'm pro-life, yes, and would never have an abortion under any circumstances, but I do not support abortion being made illegal because that would only mean that we'd go back to "do it yourself" abortions. I'd say that about 40% of the Christians that I know pretty much agree with me, although I do know a number who are regrettably political about it and won't listen to reason. Alas.

3) Sex: Most of us like it quite well, thanks, though most of us feel that it shouldn't be done wantonly. And I'd say that the prevalence of STDs would seem to make it clear that sleeping with just anyone at the drop of a hat is not the brightest of all possible ideas, whether one thinks it sinful or not. Opinions seem to be pretty divided about the issue of sex before marriage, most generally thinking that it's a bad idea, and that's pretty much where I fall. Then again, there's a couple in my fellowship who've never officially married, but who have lived together for something like 15 years, and they have two kids. The state we live in considers them married because we're a common law state, and personally, I'd be hard-pressed to call them bad people, sinning or not.

4) Drugs: I support the legalization of marijuana...although I wish that tobacco and hard liquor would go away, honestly. Most Christians, like probably most people in general, think that the drug isn't necessarily the problem, but the addictions they cause tend to remove one's focus from where it should be, eclipsing everything else. I'd like to know how you think being addicted to, say, crystal meth could be considered a good/OK thing, though.

5) Rock n' Roll: One of my best friends is the biggest AC/DC fan I've ever met. He's also a church pastor. Go figure. My roommate, a mild-mannered creationist, is the biggest fan of Led Zeppelin I've ever met, a product of being raised by her hippie single mom. Me, I'm a huge Madonna fan. Well, OK, I don't much like her recent stuff, but I love her 80s/90s stuff. I'm not much of a fan of "harder" rock and roll not because of religious convictions but just because...I don't like it. It hurts my ears and, as a classical musician by profession, I rather have to safeguard my ears.

6) Alternative beliefs: I was a practicing Buddhist for many years. I believe that many of the teachings of Buddha overlap and mesh very well with the teachings of Jesus. I still meditate as close to daily as I can, using Buddhist techniques, and I read the Sutras often, for they contain deep wisdom and much food for thought. On a wider scale, I believe that all religions have some truth and some error. This includes Christianity. True, some Christians are not as open-minded on this subject as I am. They fear other religions because they fear temptation to be led astray. This is a sign of immature faith, though, not necessarily of "brainwashing." And it's the same reason why some Christians will shun rock and roll, too. Having weak faith is not the same as being brainwashed, though.

7) Science: I assure you that I'm quite well-versed in many areas of scientific discipline. The creationists can get a bit wacky on the science front, sure, but I'm not a creationist, myself. And many of those who ARE creationists actually are pretty cognizant of science; they just have a habit of beating it around and smushing it until it fits in their creationist box.

So there you have it! Christians are not all the same! What a concept! So stop believing everything the media tells you about Christians. We are just like everyone else in that we come in a wide range of flavors and general beliefs. Some of us ARE just like the Christians the media loves to show to the world, sure...but most of us are not. So stop whacking at that straw man, you!



That God created whom? Crusaders? Popes? People in general? IMO, God created our souls and gave us free will and, indeed, the freedom to use it. The latter is either His biggest mistake or His greatest triumph, for sometimes we use our free will to very good effect...and sometimes we screw it up royally. Alas. But that's what happens when one has free will. Otherwise, we'd be automatons.

Yes, it does come down to very subject interpretation, and the more common one is the more charitable one, but I think that comes as much from modern Xtians wishing to distance themselves from the unethical barbarics of their founders' day than from a desire to reconcile the contradictions in Christ.


Atheists and agnostics are generally skeptics. I doubt they all believe in oblivion. As science writer Jerry Coyne puts it, "Scientists do indeed rely on materialistic explanations of nature, but it is important to understand that this is not an a priori philosophical commitment. It is, rather, the best research strategy that has evolved from our long-standing experience with nature. There was a time when God was a part of science. Newton thought that his research on physics helped clarify God's celestial plan. So did Linnaeus, the Swedish botanist who devised our current scheme for organizing species. But over centuries of research we have learned that the idea “God did it” has never advanced our understanding of nature an iota, and that is why we abandoned it." I believe in human mortality personally because I understand (to a reasonable degree) the mechanics of my body and my mind. There seems so little reason to think we are ensouled in any way except this wonderful, humble little way that we now enjoy, this little way we have that stems entirely from observed physical processes. That being said, no good skeptic is going to conclude absolutely that they know inaccessible things like whether or not there's an afterlife. They're running on the evidence alone, which supports the idea that we only have one life, rooted in one body. I don't think it's fair to say atheists all believe in oblivion, rather it would be fairer to say there's no scientific case for assuming an afterlife. There are likely less rationally-inclined atheists out there who don't believe in deities, but do believe in afterlives.

Edit: 'A prevalent fallacy is the assumption that a proof of an after-life would also be a proof of the existence of a deity. This is far from being the case. If - as I hold -there is no good reason to believe that a god either created or presides over this world, there is equally no good reason to believe that a god created or presides over the next world, on the unlikely supposition that such a thing exists.'

- Nice and related quote from A J Ayer

As to AiG, I know all about the history of that outfit, and there is a reasonable creationist movement in Aussie, but it's still incredibly marginalised. Not many Australians believe in special creation. Whereas the statistics for the USA are quite another matter, with 16% of US biology teachers being Young Earth Creationists. That's seriously messed up. And nationally the number of Creationists in the USA hovers around 45%, getting as high as 51% in states like Texas. You simply don't see that sort of scientific illiteracy in other developed nations, although you do see similar figures in other deeply religious nations like India, and many countries in the Middle East. This strong correlation between poverty and religion ("the heart of the heartless world. [...] the demand for the abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness") also matches up with that terrible epistemological conflict between science and religion, with 36% of those polled by Pew Research saying science conflicts with their religious beliefs (and those would only be the ones rejecting science altogether, not the ones that have developed a warped idea of the current state of science that suits their own ends!(eg., the Pope, or Deepak Chopra)), and previous Pew polling has shown that religious people are much less likely to accept strongly-evidenced scientific research that conflicts with their beliefs than any non-religious/agnostic demographics. That's the very definition of an epistemological conflict, and science and religion are, despite all the politicians' attempts to deny it, in a fundamental conflict with each other. One's interest in is pursuing knowledge through observation and making tentative fact statements, the other's interest is in pre-empting any observation and making fact statements based upon alleged magical revelation. Again, the very definition of an epistemological conflict. Reason and religion are, quite simply, antagonistic to each other. On that point we disagree strongly.

Edit: I should stress, though that religion and science are compatible in the trivial sense that people can sort of hold the two contradictory positions at once, usually by way of making a special exception for religion or by constructing a deeply distorted view of science. The issue goes deeper than just Creation versus Evolution, and is more fundamentally irreconciliable. When the theist claims to know the origins of the universe, they are making a fact claim about an unanswered scientific question. It is like someone saying, in the midst of a laboratory working hard to cure a particular cancer, that they KNOW an all-bacon diet cures all cancer. Full-stop. It's just ridiculous, arrogant, credulous, and seemingly driven by ego. Again, the origins of the universe are an unanswered question - a wonderful scientific mystery that we probably shouldn't board up with stale and empty superstition. There's a great deal to be said for saying 'I do not know', instead of making heartfelt false claims that appeal to our desire to be special in this universe. To make such a claim would destroy my wonder at the universe, personally. Like my fellow atheist Albert Einstein, I feel:

'The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our minds cannot grasp, whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly: this is religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I am a devoutly religious man.'


And yet a god could just as well make a sort of free will that was free of terrible consquences (without being unstimulating and boring). It's all about setting up the right boundaries, physically and psychologically. We are bound, after all, in a state of mind and body, allegedly created by "Him". See, this deity always sounds to me like an uncreative, superstitious human invention, built around the form of a human mind.

I was wondering if you might perhaps be able to answer a question I've never felt I've gotten a proper answer for. Or, at least take a stab at it. Free will is what was supposed to make Man above Angels, because Angels had none. Yet somehow a full 1/3 of the Angles were able to make the "decision" to join Lucifer in his fight against God when God told the Angles to bow down before Man, after he had promised them they would never need to bow to anyone but God (kind of like the "Thou shalt have no others before me"). If they didn't have free will, how was this possible?

Well, when we say that God is all knowing, we mean that he knows everything about us, our sins and our good things.
Maybe God didn't knew how to make our bodies, size...
Although we are created on God's image, that doesn't mean that God looks like we.

Isn't being told that you must have a strong faith a form of brainwashing? Why does one need any sort of faith? There are plenty of non-believers who live good and moral lives, who contribute much to society. They don't see the need to have faith in anything.

So why is it such a big requirement? (And I'd prefer an answer other than "because my religion/the Bible says so".)

I agree with you there. Even spirits have free will to convert to the Devil. But kattenijin, you didn't spell angels correctly.

Like we have bad people and good people, there are good spirits and bad spirits. So angels not having free will is totally bogus.

There is a parable of the hamster. There are nice hamsters and mean hamsters. Mean hamsters come not being handled by nice people. Nice Hamsters are handled since the time they open their eyes and are walking. But each hamster is individual. So what may be a mean hamster can be the nice one. What can be nice can be mean. Yet we say hamsters have no free will. How is it possible? Deity can defy explaination.

The free will belongs to everyone under the sun.

@iCad

You forgot Dungeons & Dragons, and Harry Potter :p

I just have to post this, as much as my burns my mind!

http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0046/0046_01.asp

And here I thought World of Warcraft obsession was bad! /bad joke

Ahh... Chick Tracts. So entertaining (yet disturbing).

It's the same with every tract. Kids get suck into Satanism and Jesus frees them. But I don't think that is nice to say that Wiccans are no worse than Satanists.

Kinda like King of the Hill propaganda by rednecks.

Rest assured, you can know that the Satan is the invention by early christians as a result of people who are jews, pagans, and heretics. I mean he is used to scare off people into converting other people outside their faith.

Actually, I'm going to a D&D session later this month. Maybe I should bring a goat to sacrifice? :P

A quick dab more from Coyne, because he quotes Feynman, and because it's all relevant to what I'm saying, and because he's far more eloquent than me:



Seeing and Believing; The never-ending attempt to reconcile science and religion, and why it is doomed to fail.

Edit: "And what could possibly convince people to abandon their belief that the deity is, as Giberson asserts, good, loving, and just? If the Holocaust cannot do it, then nothing will."

Let's agree to ignore that sentence above. Call it clumsy of Coyne's part. We both see the 'free will' response it will give rise to, and it's totally not important to the broader point that Coyne is making.

- Kiwi_tea

Ah yes, the "Lucifer and his fallen angels" story.

In order to answer that question, first find for me all the references to Lucifer, specifically, in the Bible. Every last one of them. And then find the story about how Lucifer, specifically, fell and brought angels with him and Jesus defeated him and blah blah blah.

Oh, OK, don't bother. I'll tell you where all the references to Lucifer are. Because there's only one. In Isaiah...somewhere. Says something like, "How you are fallen, Lucifer, son of the morning!" In this case, in context, it's literally a reference to the planet Venus, which because of astronomical thingies that, quite frankly, I don't understand, never rises high in the sky and is more often visible in the morning. In symbolic meaning, this is mostly thought to be a taunt directed at the King of Babylon. So, the King of Babylon is "Lucifer," not Satan.

The whole "war in heaven" thing where Satan is cast out and such...is in Revelation 12 and is pretty trippy. Find it here: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage...12&version=NKJV

Firstly, bear in mind that this is a highly symbolic vision that didn't literally happen. But let's put that aside for now and just see what the chapter actually says, as opposed to what, say, Milton dreamed up.

It says that a third of the stars (not angels) were removed from heaven (in this case meaning the sky, not the "place of paradise") and thrown to Earth by a swipe of the dragon's tail, not by God or anyone else. Now, in some mythologies, stars are associated with angels/heavenly beings, indeed, but that's not what the scripture says here.

The dragon is identified as being Satan (who, remember,is not Lucifer), and he apparently has HIS OWN angels, who are apparently different beings than Michael's. It says that the two sides fought and Satan's side lost. It's apparent that Satan was already outside of heaven because he arose as a dragon who then was on Earth to devour the woman, but then he/it attacked heaven. So, by "cast out" it's pretty clear that it means he was simply defeated, not so much banished once and for all.

And, finally, as to his angels: There is no indication that Satan's angels "decided" to be Satan's angels as opposed to, say, being created to be Satan's in the first place. Is there?

In general, IMO, angels are messengers and comforters. I tend to think that they are created to perform a specific purpose at a specific time -- to communicate with humans, to comfort Jesus, etc. -- and then they cease to exist. IMO, they have no souls and there is no heavenly hierarchy of them; I believe that specific concept to be a construct of the medieval Catholic church, a heavenly reflection of the human hierarchy they created for themselves here on Earth, and that the concept "bled" into Scripture. So, to me, angels have no free will because they are temporary constructs formed to complete a specific task, often having to do with humans with whom God cannot directly interface perhaps in part because humans would have difficulty comprehending Him that way. IMO, they're almost, in a sense, like <i>Star Trek</i>-ian holograms. And this is why humans are "superior" to them.

In general, I think that there is much conflation between what's actually in the Bible, what people have interpreted from it that may or may not be correct, and what human beings have imagined, written, and artistically created over the centuries. Dante and Milton, for example, had and continue to have a great influence on how people saw and still see "spiritual things," even though what they wrote is fiction, allegory at best. Spiritual issues have been clouded by this conflation, such that most people don't know what's Biblical and what isn't.

ETA:



It's not a requirement to have strong faith, and while people will tell others to "have faith," it's not like you suck if you don't. Faith is simply something that, ideally, develops with time in someone who decides to be a believer. Most people who decide to accept Jesus do so very tentatively, are totally ready to snatch back their faith if Jesus doesn't deliver as they think He should and when they think He should. Some then fall into apostasy if their expectations aren't met, but others continue to have faith and as they go through life learning and in some cases studying, their faith gets stronger as they learn about and experience more of God. Those who eventually develop strong faith (or those few who are lucky enough to have it quickly) are not so fearful of things outside their faith because they are no longer so uncertain of their own. That's all.

PS: To any modly peoples who might be watching, I hope the direction of this thread is OK. It's become more like a discussion than a debate. I certainly don't mind answering questions put to me about my beliefs and/or the beliefs of Christians in general, but...Well, like I said it makes it more like a discussion than an actual debate. When that happens, I'm often accused of "preaching," when that isn't my intention. I'm just answering questions that are put to me. Honest.

@iCad: Don't you sometimes get the sense that all this interpretation and reinterpretation of incredibly vague text - so tenuous and deeply personalised, so patched-up with the inventions of individual 'theologians', so absolutely subjective - is mainly special pleading and goal-post shifting, though?

I hope you plan to respond to my most recent posts, I'm curious as to what you have to say. But don't want to rush a response at the same time.

I'm getting there, kiwi. I'm kind of writing stuff in between schooling my daughter so...takes time. But I'll get there, I promise. And I'll answer your initial question, too.

No worries, I know how it is to balance life with philosophical internet discussions. :P

Hmmm... Then there must be an awful lot of people who haven't developed strong faith yet! I see what you're saying, though. I think that applies to other things besides religion, too. It's often the people who are the least sure of themselves who act like they're the most sure.

Or not. I quoted Martin Luther, not some touchy-feely "Jesus Loves You!" dude. In the end, when it comes to reading and trying to understand the meaning of less straight-forward Biblical passages like Jesus's parables, it really comes down to what makes the most sense. Do we pick out one phrase of a verse to determine an overall meaning, or do we look at the whole thing in context? In the case of the tare parable, the context makes it pretty clear: You leave the good and the bad to grow to "harvest," at which point God will decide who's who, not the people who think they're the "wheat." In the end, for me personally, what happens to the "tares" doesn't actually matter. I have my own opinions, sure, but ultimately, whatever happens to them (or to me) I know will be the outcome of a choice that they made. To me, it's just that simple.




Perhaps that's true, sure. I'm running on observations I made when I was an atheist/skeptic, and perhaps I shouldn't have generalized so much. But I'd go to gatherings of like-minded people and there would often be claims made about what happens at death. Most said something along the lines of believing that they would simply cease to exist at death, that they had no souls, and that there was no afterlife. It's actually very close to the annihilationist vision of what happens to the unsaved, and now, looking back, I find it rather ironic. Because if the annihilationists are right, so are those atheists. An historic agreement between Christians and atheists! :D

And of course belief in some kind of afterlife doesn't necessitate a deity. Ask any Buddhist.

Regarding creationists: I guess, in the end, I don't find them to be a threat. Sure, they're a bit wacky sometimes, and they occasionally try to do wacky legal things. But to me, they're no "worse" than the atheists who file ridiculous lawsuits because US currency says, "In God We Trust" on it or because there's a Christmas tree in a government-owned park. Usually, whatever they "accomplish" is quickly overturned. And even if the entire population of the state of Texas supports young-Earth creationism...Really, in the end, who cares? It's their personal belief. Are they trying to force it on other people? Mostly, no. Is their belief hurting anyone? No. If a biology teacher is a young-Earth creationist in their personal beliefs but they're teaching in public school, they still have to teach about evolution, regardless of those personal beliefs. So, again, are those teachers hurting anyone? No.

I mean, sure, I'll engage creationists in discussion. I'll talk about how I think they're wrong. I'll poke at AiG just to watch 'em squeal back at me because it is, admittedly, perversely fun. But do creationists outrage me? No. Do I think an accurate understanding of science is really important for most people? Quite honestly, not really. I mean, I like science. I am, in fact, obsessed with certain branches of it out of personal interest, but I acknowledge that a good percentage of people go through their lives knowing little to nothing of science, and they lead perfectly good and fulfilling lives. So, meh. I DO think critical thinking and logic are really important, but those things are not owned by "science."

Now, I realize that part of the outrage over creationism is that people feel it's an encroachment of the church on the state. And if I'm going to get truly upset with anything about creationism it'll be that, for I like my church and my state nicely separated, thank you. But if people want to be creationists? Hey, go for it. Gives me more lulz. Without creationists, my amusement with life would be cut by at least ten percent. And like I said, my point was that you can't JUST blame it on the US and that creationism IS present in other countries. It's not as loud, maybe, but it is present. In the case of the US...I tend to think that much of our mindset goes back to our roots. This country began, mostly, as a sanctuary for religious weird-os, so that they could be as weird as they wanted to be without persecution. That heritage has been preserved along the way.

And not that I want to start a side debate, but Einstein wasn't an atheist, at least not in the modern sense. He didn't believe in a personal God, but he did say:



...so I'd say that he was closer to a pantheist than an atheist.



Except that we tend to learn and grow more as a result of negative consequences than positive ones. How am I to learn not to touch hot things if I'm not ever burned? Especially if I'm stubborn and won't accept someone else's assurances that I'll get burned if I stick my finger in a flame? Of course, you could say that He could have made us learn differently and this argument could go into a state of infinite negative regression.

In the end, sure, God COULD do anything, and I'm not about to say that I understand His reasoning for going about things the way that He does. I guess I simply trust that He knows what He's doing.



I guess it's a matter of experience and perspective, then, because He doesn't seem that way to me at all. Like I think I said somewhere, our conception of Him is a human construct, sure. An attempt to put into finite language a being that is infinite. But that doesn't mean that God really is like our conception of Him, and to me that's an areas where the Bible fails and why I'm thankful for the Holy Spirit. I think I know some things about Him, yes, but understanding Him will have to wait until I meet Him, and even then it might be a process. Until then, I trust. And I feel comfortable doing so, for many reasons.



In some cases, I think it is or can be. The Bible can be "interpreted" and made to say whatever a person wants it to say, depending on how they chop it up and quote it and process it. And sometimes that becomes special pleading and goal-post shifting and all sorts of other fallacies. This is why I advocate reading in textual, historical, and cultural context, in order to mitigate the possibility of misinterpretation or "directed interpretation" to the extent possible. It's why if someone quotes me one verse of the Bible or if I have an issue myself with something, I'll go back, read the entire chapter in which the verse occurs and THEN answer their/my own concern, because often the context in its entirety makes it pretty obvious that the verse doesn't mean what the person thinks (or I think) it means. Combine this cherry-picking with the conflation of the Bible and extra-Biblical literature and such and...Yow, it can be a mess. And it doesn't help that a lot of people, Christian or otherwise, have agendas when it comes to the Bible. They'll cherry-pick to make the Bible seem to say something that it doesn't, and no one calls them on it. That's bad. I try to make it clear what the Bible actually says and what is just my interpretation/opinion. I'm sure I don't always succeed, though.



Surety of faith is almost always inversely proportional to volume, yes. Those who yell the loudest are usually the most fearful, and it's often the case that those who are fearful are those who struggle with faith. Or, like you said, anything else. The axiom isn't applicable just to faith/religion.

And with that...I'm hosting fellowship tonight, so I must go. See y'all tomorrow.

Don't have time for a full response, but it's fair to point out that Einstein was no pantheist. He makes it very clear in his writing that he is using religion as a poetic metaphor, the same way that even Richard Dawkins has done occasionally. He was a very staunch atheist, and very willing to offend believers in mysticism. His atheism was core to his secular-humanist values and his brave socialism:

"The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this."

"For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them."

(My emphasis).

He is an atheist is exactly the same sense I am. One who does not wish to deny the importance of mythology historically, nor its ugly and towering beauty, but who does not want to live as if myth were reality either.

Just quickly, I note that you glossed entirely over the matter of epistemological conflict, and instead focused on one of its symptoms: Creationism. I am more interested in the cause.

I'm dashing in before the Invasion of the Christians, now that I've got dinner cooking.



I guess I just don't worry about the 36% of people polled who think that science conflicts with their religion. Flip the statement around and you get 64% of those who were polled thinking that it doesn't conflict. Last I checked, 64 is a bigger number than 36. And then there are these questions -- among many others I could ask -- that need to be asked and answered:

Of those who do think science conflicts with their religion, how much do those people know of science and how much do they truly know about their "religion?"

How many of them were told that science conflicts with their religion and they simply accepted what they are told, without further investigation, simply because science isn't at all important to them?

So, is it an epistemological conflict or is it simply laziness/disinterest on the part of people who think there's a conflict?

You see, I am skeptical of statistics and believe that, like the Bible, they can be made to say what someone with an agenda wants them to say. That some religious people think that science conflicts with religion categorically doesn't mean that it actually does conflict, and it certainly doesn't mean that reason in general and faith in general are incompatible. You seem to be conflating reason with science, but reason actually sprang from the realm of philosophy. (Just like, you know, religion does. ) Reasoning is used in science and science is somewhat dependent on it, but reasoning is not at all dependent upon science.

IMO, some Christians are creationists because they put too much emphasis on the Bible as the basis of their faith. In their view, if the Bible isn't 100% true in a literal sense, then their house-of-cards faith falls apart, and so they struggle mightily to "prove" that the Bible is literally true, particular the initial chapters of Genesis. In fact, this is exactly what AiG, for instance, says in some of its articles, that if Genesis 1 isn't "real" then the rest of the Bible can't possibly be "real." And since the Bible is central to their faith in an almost idol-like kind of way...Well, there you go. So to me, as something of an insider, the phenomenon has nothing to do with some deep conflict between science and religion and everything to do with people of weak faith idolizing something that isn't supposed to be idolized and who feel that that "faith" of theirs is under attack and under threat.

And, like I said, I don't want to create a side debate about Einstein. We can spit quotes back and forth but the existence or lack thereof of his faith or lack thereof seems to be a matter that is contested. He doesn't generally come across as an atheist to me, though. More like a Deist, maybe. But in the end, it doesn't really matter, so let's not get off-track.

And now, I really am gone for the day.

How do you define pantheism? In my experience, it's just another form of atheism. (And if it's not, I'd like to know why I was basically chased off a pantheist forum for having some "mystical" beliefs.)

Well, according to Merriam-Webster Dictonary, pantheism is:


As for the second part, maybe they were just stupid?

@ iCad

(Aside: Jefferson was a deist, and recognisably so. He's a good one to contrast with Einstein to get a better picture. Einstein was a dedicated materialist who rejected metaphysics altogether.)



Perhaps the statistics are just distracting you.

At the very basic level: Religion claims to answer a crucial scientific question. It claims to answer the question of how the universe began. It claims, also, that there is an over-arching divine determination in the universe that certainly isn't evident in the body of science that we have.

That is another symptom of an absolute epistemological conflict. A major one.

@fakepeeps7

Pantheists believe the universe is sort of like a god of some great manner or other. It's an incredibly vague and largely meaningless stance, so pantheists can sort of be whatever they want. They're not trying to be coherent, or they'd submit their views to Occam's Razor and drop the 'theist' bit. As to why a group would chase you off for mysticism, it really depends on (a) the kind of mysticism, if it was mysticism (b) the kinds of pantheists.

(a) Basically, I differed with them when it came to the afterlife, being a believer in reincarnation. I don't believe in literal myths or an anthropomorphic deity. I don't know if that would be considered "mysticism" or not. I prefer to think of it as a science that has yet to be fully explored.

(b) As far as I can recall, they were affiliated with the World Pantheist Movement. One of their main concepts is: Strong naturalism, without belief in supernatural realms, afterlives, beings or forces. A definition like that leads me to think that pantheism (at least the kind espoused by the WPM) is a form of atheism as opposed to an actual religion, which usually requires some sort of belief in the supernatural.

Science is built on evidence, mysticism is built on mythology. There's not one tiny droplet of serious evidence to support a theory of reincarnation, and no scientific method by which it could happen save perhaps science far off in the future, so it's definitely mysticism.

Pantheists definitely aren't atheists, they're more ... ...they assign incomprehensibly vague gooblygook terms (like, say, "pantheism") to what the universe is, instead of calling what's probably a spade 'probably a spade'. Atheists do the latter.