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

Yep! I adore quite a lot of religious imagery in fact - music, architecture and yes, the texts. I seem to recall there are some genuinely good pieces of advice in the Bible.

Architecture: Cologne Cathedral
http://www.koelner-dom.de/index.php?id=2&L=1

Classical music: Gustav Mahler - Symphonie Nr. 2 Auferstehung (Resurrection)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6A0bSgxoXxM

Film music: Quo Vadis: Finale & Chorus - Mikloz Rozsa

Text: The Great Comission (Missionsbefehl):
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?se … ersion=KJV

Text: Psalms 23
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?se … ersion=KJV

Text: The Sermon on the Mount
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?se … ersion=KJV

Art: The windows Marc Chagall created for St. Stephan in Mainz
http://www.google.de/search?q=Mainz+St. … mp;bih=917

Volker

And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks.

Micah 4,3 KJV



Volker

There is one subject regarding religion that never seems to be taken up in this thread and I think it would be a nice food for thought for both atheists and theists, but the general problem is that the theists seem to be either ignorant of or ignore the problem whatsoever. I think it's much more dangerous when ignored and more relevant than any discussion between science and religion, which I actually find quite dull and completely irrelevant for regular lives of today. Whether a person is an evolutionist or a creationist doesn't change the fact whether he is a good person or not. Technically the other problem I want to mention doesn't as well, but I think it influences our lives way more than whatever is to be discussed about mostly a science and religion debacle...

The problem is responsibility.

Let's go back to what I said about Nietzsche's points and expand on it. It's a very relevant moment in the history of modern thought, in fact, in a way also post-modern. "God is dead". Let's consider what that means. It means that modern man (let's say human) has lost their reference point. Now we are without a reference point, we have to perceive the world our own way. This gives a lot of freedom to humanity, losing that reference point and also a kind of shackles that people were in when they were bound to religious dogmas and they stuck to it. But freedom also means something that makes this notion very, very scary.

Humanity being on its own is a really powerful point. Nietzsche tries to fight the pessimism of his contemporaries by believing in the strength of humanity. This was a largely maligned and/or ridiculed point Nietzsche made. Maligned, because the Nazis completely misunderstood the concept of Übermensch (partly due to the fact that his last text, as "Will to Power" were published by his rather nationalist sister after the philosopher died), ridiculed, because Nietzsche for a long time wasn't taken really seriously as a philosopher (probably because of his biography and because of his rather poetic style), two 20th Century philosophers that led to a turning point were Martin Heidegger and Gilles Deleuze, I've yet have to read both those interpretations and read some more of Nietzsche himself, but let's get back to the point.

Ultimate freedom comes at the price of humanity being left completely alone and the ultimate responsibility. Lack of a metaphysical sense of the reference point might obviously lead to people being allowed to do whatever they want (and John Paul II, himself a very respected philosopher, before he became the Pope, tried to make this point in his Memory and Identity), but in this way the world hasn't changed for the better and worse of it (genocide was taken to a new level, but not because pre-Nietzschean man would find it unthinkable, but because simply technology allowed that and acts of ultimate compassion still happen no matter the religious beliefs of the people at hand). Philosophy tries to work around this lack of reference to more or less success (mostly more), but I sense a problem, I think, that may happen more often than we want to.

My personal stance is that once you aware of Nietzsche's argumentation about the death of God and his anti-religion opinion, you can't really shy away from it. It gets regularly rejected though (or people are mostly ignorant about it, which is really the case). The problem is that we live in this world. Here and now. That's what we have at this point. Whatever happens in the afterlife (or (or doesn't, if you're an atheist) is something completely else. But we are alive, whatever that means. We have to deal with reality at hand. The problem with some religious people (not all of them, luckily) is worse than God in the gaps, it's God as a safe haven. God is NOT the answer to all questions and I don't think even the Bible states that anywhere.

This is an issue I am dealing right now with, mostly on a philosophical level. I am a theist, but I see that the approach of God-as-a-safe-haven may be pretty dangerous when it comes to live regular life. Science and religion? OK, I see them as a dialectic, with science appealing to reason and faith appealing to emotions (which science with its logical method can't handle sometimes or even very often and why should it). But the answers of how to live our lives with God being somewhere there... Well, this is something that demands a reinvention of religion and if religion keeps to the idea of becoming more and more radically conservative, then it will lose. In my case I won't stop being a Christian, I will just reject the systematic and social element of religious faith and keep it to a deeply personal and emotional level. Just between me and Him.

I think the issue is that every human being is responsible for their earthly existence. This is where I deeply agree with religious thought. When I pray I rarely ask for anything, I just pray for good things to happen to my friends and I thank for whatever good happened to me. But I am trying to find a way what responsibility really means in this world and I accept it that this is an answer I have to find on my own and God is not to blame for anything I do wrong. The world is just not that simple.

Well, Kant says that the existence of God is a “necessary assumption” for practical ethics. Thus we can assume the “Reich der Zwecke” (Realm of Purposes?) to be humanity’s goal set by God himself. This way we can explain why acting according to reason (e.g. the moral law / Categorical Imperative) means to act in a good way. Abiding by that self-given law is the difference between good and evil.
Kant points out at the same time that this “moral assumption” is in no way a logical proof of the actual existence of God.

This have been a points of much debate among Kantianians ever since. I agree with those who say that Kant’s system working in itself and thus does not require an external anchor.

Kant also says that leading a philosophical life governed by reason and in abidance to the moral law is reserved for the learned few. The masses lack the mental abilities to lead such a life. For those people the church remains a practical necessity, a source of reassurance, of solace and moral guidance. Very clearly from that point of view the church isn’t much more than a theatre. (Indeed Friedrich Schiller believes that the theatre may be a moral guide as capable – if not even more so – than the church.)

One final remark on Nietzsche:
“God is dead” is not a metaphysical observation. Nietzsche rather states that God has lost all meaning for thinking people. His “Übermensch” has (almost) nothing in common with the “Herrenmensch” of Nazi-ideology. Nietzsche does depict the Übermensch as being mentally and physically superior but he does not link that back to some idea of human races.

The whole thing about practical ethics is that Kant really ignores the need of the self.
In a nutshell he states that a happy and fulfilling life can only be found through rigidly adhering to a moral code: you need to be "worthy" of happiness. Which of course is very much missing the essence of the need for selffulfillment and personal interest, which I think goes directly to the heart of Pawel's dilemma of responsibility.

If you accept,a s Pawel seems to do, that responsibility for your actions is NOT something that can be laid at the foot of an almighty supreme being or overarching structure such as a church or society, then I would suggest that Mill or Bentham are the more proper philosophers to find meaning, in the sense that they take a more Aristotelean view in that personal interest is a perfectly proper thing to include in any ethical decision making process: "what does it do for ME"?

Yes, I do accept the fact that responsibility for one's action is laid at the foot of the individual and nobody else, there are the Ten Commandments and there are the two Love Commandments also called the Golden Rule, which have to be taken into account (they are also perfectly accepted by secularists, so I am not being a religious nutcase by thinking of adhering to them as consequently as I can). The moment of human loneliness is the moment when we are faced with the consequences of our actions which are only our own, as much as the decision-making process also belongs to the individual. No amount of social skills (barely any in my case; I can admit on this forum that some friends see at least traces of Asperger's syndrome in me) or relationships help out here. This is where we are completely alone. So, as a theist, I am not running to church with every decision I can make, though I can ask God (there is no reason not to in case of theism) not for making the decision *for* me (that's not and never was His job in the first place!), but for clarity in moments when I am in need for clarity. But the decision and the consequences of the decision are mine and only mine.

Responsibility is something we learn on an everyday basis and I am torn between being insanely childish (or child-like) and giving the responsibility to my parents and being a proper 28-year-old adult that I am supposed to be at this time. Responsibility is scary, making decisions is scary, so it makes the, as we say it in Polish, umbilical cord (spelling?) very hard to cut off completely. I have an instinct of running away from responsibility, but that leads to more frustration than anything.

Yeah, probably so. I also try to understand what's going on around me and I haven't found anything else that does it so well, as the philosophers I like.

Actually human dignity was a Renaissance concept

This* is a rather nice video explaining what atheism really is. Although, clearly, some of the more extreme claims (which are true) in this video don't apply to anyone here, atheists or theists alike, some of the more 'subtle' misconceptions certainly do apply to this thread. (I vote this thread be renamed to The Wrong End Of The Stick Thread.)

*Could do with a Carl Sagan-type voice over though.

Thanks for posting that, do you also happen to have one that explains being a vegetarian? I would place these on my cell phone and play them when I get asked about either topic.

Placed the link in my 'religious beliefs' section in facebook

The POPE is resigning, I wonder who'll replace him?

TOP CANDIDATE FOR NEW POPE REVEALED

What now? Can you point me in the right direction.

EDIT: Oh, I see where you're going.

I'm a bit slow today

No, that was the last bloke.
The proper new candidate has been working towards this job for a while now...