As Above, So Below - the religion thread (formerly: People of California, beware)

Very true!

The issue we have to deal with is that millions of Muslims today look at Jihad very differently. You can't simply ignore the problems in the current world by pointing to the 7th century. Additionally, when you listen to some of the most extreme Muslims out there today, they actually do think that the jihad they wage is about defending Islam. The best defense is a good offence after all.

Peter

Criticism of beliefs held on a lack of evidence, ignorance, wishful thinking, indoctrination, skewed logic, ancient wisdom, or all of the above (i.e. religious faith), does not automatically equate to an 'attack', nor does the offence it causes to those in question give them any immunity to further scrutiny, particularly if those beliefs continue to cause problems.

I think that is not entirely true. There are the Sunni. For the them the Islamic University of Cairo is a distinct voice of authority. Then there are the Shiites who orientate themselves towards the Iranian clerics. A third group that comes to my mind are the Alevi who indeed do not listen to any voice of authority beyond their local community.

On second thought the Shiites living in Germany mostly do not answer to those mullah types, which is why they live here and not there.

Also I'd like to put into question if societies like those of Turkey, Egypt or Iran are adequately described as being "tribal".

Volker

I hope so.

His stance on religion is quite interesting and hard to define. He's not anti-faith, he's anti-system. Also he admits that the most spiritual experience is looking at stars at night and realizing that he's formed of the same particles. So... that's DEFINITELy not a theist approach.

I don't think that the definition of "faith" is so slippery, if one accepts that it's more emotional and epistemological. I don't think even the most ardent theist would argue that gravity is something dependant on faith or something. The emotional aspect is something quite underrated when people try to perceive religion in a rational way. This is also partly why a discussion can't happen if we don't respect the simple fact of what is faith like, really...

When you talk to a very ardent theist and start questioning the existence of God, it's not that you win the discussion because he got angry with you and you had arguments. Rather consider what would you feel if someone questioned the existence of your girlfriend, because she's not with you during the discussion. This could get even more ridiculous:

"But hey, I can call her and she'll be here in 20 minutes, she exists!"
"Last time I had a migraine, I prayed for 5 minutes and it was gone! God exists!"

Aaaaaaand how can one really argue with that, if it gets so much about emotions? And yes, I agree, this is downright stupid. The discussion between theism and atheism should be on totally different grounds, for a couple of reasons:

1. Trying to explain the lack of existence of God by scientific reasoning is not gonna work. Cognitive dissonance takes too long for that to happen and it's not something simple to deal with.
2. Both sides have to admit that there IS relevance to religious and non-religious thinking. As there is religious ecumenism (trying to find agreement between several religious systems), there should be a dialogue based on mutual respect between atheists and antitheists. And antitheists liking certain theists doesn't cut it.

God's existence should be something that is agreed to disagree on, really. There HAVE to be certain systemic changes, indeed. The relationship between religion and science should be heavily discussed and it should be made a point on why is creationism rejected, etc. Separation of religion and state? Check.

But if someone thinks that reason trumps emotion... Not always.

Cats fucking rule!

A Catholic clergyman would say exactly the same. Took them a while, but now evolution is part of the doctrine.

It's a hard thing to tackle. I mean evolutionism today is not exactly how Darwin saw it, is it?

And could somebody remind me how does Darwin's work chronologically relate to the early work in genetics by Mendel? It's something I never quite researched properly.

Depends who you get to discuss that. If you got a professor called Michał Heller, who's a physicist (cosmologist) and a theologian at the same time (with scientific discoveries only making his faith stronger rather than declining it), he'd probably do something as public and loud, if slightly more subtle.

I'm reading a sociological classic (early 20th Century) called The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. It was written (to those who may not know) by one of the founders of sociology as a science - Emile Durkheim.

Now before you completely destroy the idea that a book that's in part founding for a certain science (and sociology and psychology may be, by radical natural scientists, regarded as the closest to their concept of what science is because of its large reliance on statistics, not to be seen in this book however), what is fascinating and what I actually like in this one is that texts that were written in late 19th/early 20th century do NOT lose their relevance both on an empirical and on a theoretical level. So you have modern writers discussing anomy (a-nomos, not connected to the law), the "division of work", collective consciousness is a relevant concept (me having to potentially deal with what is called cultural memory finds that particularly inspiring, I do wonder if Jung's concept of collective UNconscious doesn't relate here) by Durkheim (that I am reading now), or the concept of Gesellschaft (society) and Gemeinschaft (a group, probably Volker could help me translate this one better) by Ferdinand Toennies are still being analyzed and often confirmed.

This book makes a few interesting observations, whenever it leaves actually referring old (totemic) Australian beliefs and rituals, though it has to be noted that while it was on the decline for numerous other philosophical reasons (Wilhelm Dilthey being one of them), it still belongs to the idea that Darwinian theory of evolution is useful and relevant also in humanities, though not as strongly as it was 20-30 years earlier, when you would even analyze the history of literary genres in a Darwinian (!) fashion.

I think some points that Durkheim (the book WAS criticized, though I make a point in reading it first to get my own opinion and THEN read the introduction to see the points of others) makes are very interesting and could lead to a massive discussion. First, he regards (back in 1912) religion as a still important source of moral thought, more than anything. The basic role of religion is integration of social groups. Since he deals mostly with totemic religion, a single totem (for example a crocodile) unites every man (women and children were/are stilll disallowed to participate in rituals or even LOOK at sacred things, under capital punishment) unites everyone who belongs to the clan. As a sociologist, of course, Durkheim is not concerned with faith, but religion as an institution.

What may prove even more controversial is the biggest thing that I noticed. Durkheim claims that there is NO big difference between religious thought and scientific thought. In fact, the only major difference and that makes science on a higher cognitive level than religion is the methodology and empirical observation. But the logical principle of abstract combinations (sound is a wave vs. I was a bird) is the same. I think it can't be so easily rejected. He uses that to claim that philosophy and science wouldn't exist without religious thought before. The way of explanation, the methodology and observational principles changed. But, as Durkheim claims, the scientific logic is already in the religious thought, it's just not as prevalent and relevant, because at the end of the day it's not explaining reality (even if it ultimately does that, convincingly or not), but to unite a group having the same beliefs. In that way, and knowing Durkheim's thought, I am not going too far here, religious thought is one of the foundation stones of society in general.

Nope, nope (though some treatment like that saved my dog's back once), nope and nope.

Vitamins and zinc, a mineral, are essential to our health (our bodies cannot produce them), so they don't count as 'alternative' since they are on firm evidence-based ground. Cranberry I'm not sure, I honestly haven't looked into it - but I'm not sure that counts either since it's not sold or advertised primarily as a medicine.

But acupuncture certainly is! Remember, "alternative medicine" is an umbrella term that describes unproven and, in many cases, disproven (for all intents and purposes) forms of complimentary or alternative medicines or treatments.

The problem is knowing which source or study to trust, but I'm sure cranberry will have least some health benefits given that it's a fruit.