Religion
Related: About this forumHow do we know which is the true form a religion?
Is it the denomination with the most followers?
Or the sect with the most accurate interpretation of their holy books?
Or something else?
Act_of_Reparation
(9,116 posts)There is too much variation within the world's major religions to define them in meaningful propositional terms.
Maedhros
(10,007 posts)The true form of Roman Catholicism, for example, is codified in the Catechism.
Many, many variations echo from these true forms, however.
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)or is Protestantism?
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)starting around 1053, which one was the true religion?
xfundy
(5,105 posts)And was told that "billions of people can't be wrong." As if.
brooklynite
(94,974 posts)...but since God doesn't exist, it'll be hard to figure out which one that is.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)I'm not sure what responses you might expect to get, other than snark and derision.
Do you think there is a true form of religion?
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)Utterly.
CJCRANE
(18,184 posts)My interpretation.
Now I've just got to convince everyone else.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)Or are you being facetious?
CJCRANE
(18,184 posts)Most people think their interpretation is the correct one...until someone comes along and convinces them otherwise (or they change their mind for whatever reason).
cbayer
(146,218 posts)for them at least.
While some feel it is also the best for everyone, that's not always the case and seems to be changing in significant ways.
I suspect you have ideologies and beliefs that you think are correct. You may even think they are correct for everyone and until someone comes along and convinces you otherwise, I doubt you will change your mind.
You know what you know and so do others.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)There are precious few and little-followed relations that allow for multiples, but most of THOSE only take the sandbox approach. (Everyone can play, like the Unitarian Universalists, who can join hands but not resolve ideological differences. )
It's not about what he thinks. It's about the revealed truth claims of a given religion and its mutually exclusive incompatibility with other religions. (Or the natural world)
trotsky
(49,533 posts)You seem to think that there's a "true form of religion."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1218&pid=187701
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)Totally not fair to use someone's own words against them..that's bullying!!!
You evil theophobe.
Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)But, because of recent revelations, I have turned into a cliffophobe.
Lordquinton
(7,886 posts)I know the meaning of all those words, but togeer they make no sense.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)Then only one can be true. (Both can be wrong)
Buddhism allows for God like supernatural (but similarly damaged/imperfect like humans) beings, but no creator deity. Salvation/enlightenment comes from within.
Christianity requires a singular supreme creator deity through which is the only path to salvation.
These are mutually exclusive claims. They cannot both be true. One or both are wrong.
Which is wrong, and which, if any, are right?
That was the nature of 'true' the author was alluding to.
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)Blind men! Elephant! That's the answer to everything. Christians and Buddhists are just feeling different appendages of god.
mr blur
(7,753 posts)pinto
(106,886 posts)Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)Angry Dragon
(36,693 posts)Marrah_G
(28,581 posts)Those who worshipped Zues or Thor were as every bit certain that they were real and true Gods as modern religions are certain that theirs is the real one. Someday, the God of Abraham will be read about as mythology.
stone space
(6,498 posts)I really don't understand the question.
One can search for truth in many places, and religion is one of those places.
But when you put the definite article "the" in front of it, it makes it appear as if there is only one "truth".
I can't answer the question in that form, since it strikes me as being a lot like asking which mathematics is the true mathematics.
There is much truth in mathematics, and even though many of those truths may contradict one another, that in and of itself is not considered a major problem by most mathematicians in our search for mathematical truth.
For me, as an atheist, finding truth anywhere (even in religion) means looking at the details.
Contradictory truths are not a problem for me, given my background as a mathematician.
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)what is the true form of A religion, as this poster did, none of your objections makes sense. Many religious believers make such claims about their version, but that doesn't happen at all in mathematics, so the two are not remotely analogous. Different religious spheres are not defined by agreed-upon postulates either, so that's yet another flame-out for your analogy.
How was the vacation, btw?
trotsky
(49,533 posts)Wow, it's been a while!
"One can search for truth in many places, and religion is one of those places."
How would one validate if they found "truth" in a religion? Is there some kind of test or check one can perform?
stone space
(6,498 posts)I guess that I'm not understanding the problem here.
Difficulties with discernment are not restricted to religion.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)Did you enjoy your break?
The difficulties of discernment in religion are unique. Do you know why?
stone space
(6,498 posts)...in religion are somewhat related to my own problems with discernment in poetry.
We just don't get it, that's all.
Something about the way our minds work.
Oh, well...it takes all kinds...
trotsky
(49,533 posts)So no answer for me, huh? It does indeed take all kinds! Do you discern any difference at all between poetry and religion?
Let me give you a hint: has anyone established the Church of Whitman?
stone space
(6,498 posts)Poets tend to just leave you guessing and scratching your head.
But hey, that's just me.
I can get the metaphors eventually, but somebody needs to hold my hand and walk me thru them.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)Like this guy:
Repeat attacker stabs 6 at Jerusalem gay pride parade
I mean, seriously...
I don't recall, say, a Yeats fan stabbing people at an Angelou reading event.
Have I mentioned how great it is to have you back from yet another vacation?
stone space
(6,498 posts)Stabbing six people at a gay pride parade is an action that speaks Power to Truth.
I find it much preferable to speak Truth to Power.
Distinguishing between speaking Power to Truth and speaking Truth to Power requires some discernment, but in the case you cited, the level of discernment required is rather low.
But if you compare your example with another example, you might begin to see and understand the difference between speaking Power to Truth and speaking Truth to Power.
You posted an example of speaking Power to Truth.
Here is an example of speaking Truth to Power.
Can you tell the difference when you examine both examples side by side?
---Sister Megan Rice---
The Prophets of Oakridge
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/wp-style/2013/09/13/the-prophets-of-oak-ridge/?tid=ptv_rellink
AlbertCat
(17,505 posts)Which truth?
About what?
To what power?
stone space
(6,498 posts)About what?
To what power?
AlbertCat
(17,505 posts)This tread is not about your article.... even tho' you hijacked it.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)I began this subthread by asking you how we could verify "truth" in religion. The attacker in that news story thinks he has religious truth. How do you know he's wrong? Tell me, because that will answer my question. Better yet, tell HIM, so he doesn't attack again. Can you do that?
stone space
(6,498 posts)Seriously, discernment isn't as difficult as you think it is.
There are difficult cases, but you seem to be getting hung up on the easy stuff.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)of a religious claim?
Is that what you're saying?
stone space
(6,498 posts)And, like everybody else, we use those moral values in discernment.
Is it really that hard to understand?
trotsky
(49,533 posts)to judge the truth of a religious claim.
Thank you.
Act_of_Reparation
(9,116 posts)stone space
(6,498 posts)If that's not enough to get your powers of discernment up and running, I really have to wonder what it would take.
Act_of_Reparation
(9,116 posts)What is it, specifically, you think I should be discerning from Trotsky's example?
stone space
(6,498 posts)It is an example of speaking Power to Truth, not an example of speaking Truth to Power, as my example illustrates.
By the use of discernment, we can quite easily distinguish between the two.
These are not hard cases.
I don't understand why folks are treating them like they are hard or ambiguous cases.
Act_of_Reparation
(9,116 posts)The problem you are encountering is not that people have no discernment, but that you have no fucking idea how discernment works.
stone space
(6,498 posts)Were they speaking Power to Truth, or were they speaking Truth to Power?
Act_of_Reparation
(9,116 posts)You have no fucking idea how discernment works.
In order to discern what is or what is not moral, one must first define their morality. Because morality is subjective, definitions will vary from place to place, time period to time period, and person to person. You cannot, therefore, assume the man from trotsky's article failed to discern right from wrong. All that can be said of him is that he adheres to a moral standard entirely different from the asinine, cliché-ridden, dimestore revolutionary standard you, for some incomprehensible reason, assume is universal.
AlbertCat
(17,505 posts)Even tho' they should.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)"One can search for truth in many places, and religion is one of those places."
I keep looking for a million dollars in my couch cushions, but damned if it hasn't turned up.
stone space
(6,498 posts)But that's because it's a Death Cult that practices Human Sacrifice.
Human Sacrifice is a huge red flag for me when it comes to discernment.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027015154
You can remember learning in school or at a museum or maybe on the Discover Channel about human sacrifice in ancient or distant cultures, whether it was the temples of the Aztecs and Incans down south or the bogs of the British Isles, where the Celts performed their rituals. You can remember how you felt: the gruesome fascination followed by disbelief at the stupidity of the reasons. Killing the slaves of a dead master? Ludicrous. And the tribes and nations that sacrificed children, virgins, whoever to appease angry gods just seem insane in retrospect. The circular logic was mind-boggling: We must cut out the hearts of these kids so the gods will make the crops grow and keep away the storms or volcanoes. But if there is a storm or volcano and the crops all die, we'll just sacrifice more kids because obviously we didn't please our mad deities last time.
You know that there were many people in Incan villages in Peru who thought the whole thing was bullshit, that slitting the throat of the woman who lived down the road was entirely unnecessary, that maybe they could spend more time learning about weather and crop rotation. But they didn't dare say anything because they didn't want to piss off the priests and their most devoted followers who might decide that they needed to be sacrificed next. People die all the time because cowards don't speak up.
The mass shooting in Lafayette, Louisiana, hit home, literally, for the Rude Pundit. That's where he grew up. It's where he went to college. It's where his family lives and where he visits twice a year. He can't count the number of times he has been to the Grand movie theater on Johnston Street, right across from the Judice Inn and its delicious Cajun hamburgers. From the Grand, you go northeast on Johnston and make a left on Jefferson Street to get to Parish Ink, the t-shirt and design shop where he regularly bought souvenirs from home to give as gifts, where family bought gifts for him. He spoke a few times to co-owner and designer Jillian Johnson, praising her work and laughing at the puns on the shirts. Johnson was one of two women who were shot and killed by John Russell Houser while they watched the film Trainwreck in the bone-chilling air-conditioning that makes the Grand an oasis in the smothering Lafayette summer.
Many on the left have focused on Houser's despicable beliefs, which are not really that far out of the conservative mainstream anymore. It's an awfully short journey from Scott Walker to Stormfront. On the right, they're more concerned about Houser's mental illness, which is what they always talk about when a white Christian is the one doing the shooting, as if a Muslim man can't have depression exacerbated by drug use that is exploited by a radical ideology to inspire him to violence that ultimately ends his life, as he had wanted.
The Rude Pundit thought about the Inca, the Mayans, the savage tribe of Skull Island when he began trying to piece together something to say about the Lafayette shooting. It's long been apparent that the United States is now a death cult built around the worship of guns. The dead in each shooting, whether it's gang-related in Los Angeles, accidental in Virginia, or mass shooting after mass shooting, are treated as a necessity in order for us to stay safe. How is Sandy Hook any different than the Aztecs stabbing a child to keep the city from destruction? How did that work out for them?
Multiple massacres ago, the Rude Pundit could say he knows someone who knew one of the kids murdered at Sandy Hook. Now he can say he actually met one of the murder victims in Lafayette. What's next in this macabre progression? At some point, despite your faithful devotion, the priests come to sacrifice your family members. Or you.
Our firearm-centered death cult is based on a deliberate misinterpretation of the Second Amendment. No matter what courts or lobbyists or corporate-manipulated citizen-tools say, the Second Amendment has a conditional phrase, "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State." You can pretend that that doesn't matter or you can lie about what it means, but "well-regulated" is in there, and we live in a country that is far, far from regulating guns, let alone militias, well. The Second Amendment wasn't meant to be a murder-suicide pact. It was meant to deal with a widely-spread, small population that wanted to kill the British and some Indians. A rational nation would revisit it to clarify or change it. In the United States, that would probably just mean craven politicians frightening Americans into taking out the opening phrase so no one can bring up the argument against more guns anymore.
In Louisiana, the death cult is practically having a blood orgy on a constant basis. Writes Adam Duvernay in the Lafayette Daily Advertiser, "In 2013, 446 people in Louisiana were killed with with guns, according to statistics collected by the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention. By body count, that placed Louisiana 7th in the nation. In terms of murders per 100,000 residents 9.6 the Bayou State was 1st." This is in an article titled, mournfully, obviously, "Analysis: Theater shooting won't change a thing."
If we continue to do nothing, we are all mentally ill and we are all extremists. We are just another bunch of Mayans, watching the high priest politicians cut out the hearts of the children in Newtown, the churchgoers in Charleston, the women in Lafayette, all to appease the malicious gods of the NRA, holding the gore aloft so all may see it, hoping that our sacrifices are deemed worthy, not realizing that the gods are illusions and that we're just killing our way into oblivion.
http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2015/07/american-has-become-second-amendment.html
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)Shouldn't work outside the home? Be silent in church? Gosh, it's almost as if that's a wide swath of American Christians! Almost as if!
https://christianpundit.wordpress.com/2015/07/27/mass-murderer-houser-equally-yoked-teaching-sexism-condoned-and-advocated-by-some-christians/
A man with a gun in his hand, and NO murderous intent, no dismissal of human life, no hatred for 'the other' is pretty harmless, no?
Houser killed them for reasons that came directly out of that fucking bible, or, specifically, how some people interpret it, and supposedly supernatural security camera in the sky can't be arsed to come down and clarify anything.
Imagine that.
stone space
(6,498 posts)It's Idolatry.
Some of us are unbelievers, and we don't want to have anything to do with your Gods of Metal.
We don't need your filthy Death Cult forced down our throats, in our theaters, in our churches, in our classrooms, and in our streets.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)idol
[ ˈīdl ]
NOUN
an image or representation of a god used as an object of worship.
synonyms: icon · representation of a god · image · effigy · statue · figure ·
More
Herp derp all you want, I don't worship anything.
stone space
(6,498 posts)AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)you frantically bury the blame to protect religion then?
Without your gun boogeman, what's left? What do you have for your next act?