You have to distinguish between ‘believing in God’ and ‘following
a religion’,
The purpose of religion is to provide structure and a moral compass for
the follower, with al the consequences of entrapment, competition between the
religions and is largely the reason that we cannot coexist peacefully.
To me God is an awesome programmer that created a system that can
evolve. Purpose: to learn about relationships, the only thing a single omnipotent
being cannot experience directly. The remainder of the narrative has to do with
religion, which I am not so fond of.
If you read Genesis with that perspective you will quickly realize that
the preference for peace is a creation of religion. True peace as in the “garden
of Eden” is a limited system (failed to evaluate all possible
relationships). “Evil” has to exist to counterbalance the system,
otherwise the number of relationships are finite, which they might be anyway.
Believe in God, believe in many gods or be an atheist. You cannot prove
or disprove any of these beliefs. They are working theories. The only thing you
can ask yourself is if whatever theory you are working on answers all you
questions and satisfies your purpose in life.
I personally would be very disappointed if all the work/thinking/experience
I made during my life in the end is lost and recycled only as decomposable
material.
Tom
From:
ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of William Frank
Sent: Thursday, May 02, 2013 6:13
AM
To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum]
Dennett on the Darwinism of Memes
On Thu, May 2, 2013 at 7:35 AM, Kathryn Blackmond Laskey <klaskey@xxxxxxx> wrote:
[Pat Hayes] With minor variations, these ideas are apparently sincerely
believed by a clear majority of adult Americans and a large fraction
of the population of Europe.
Apparently [Pat] thinks nearly all people who identify as believers
conceive of God as a large and powerful creature who cares specifically
about our tiny rock and has plenty of time on his hands to attend to us.
I'll grant you that something akin to this view is sincerely believed by
a vocal minority of believers. As to whether a majority of believers
subscribe to that view, I'm skeptical. Religion is very diverse.
I would like to add that
people who express themselves in ways that are clearly at odds with science,
are perhaps not *able* to express themselves in more sophisticated ways. Had
they they benefits of studying at Cal Tech and Union Theological Seminary, they
might come up to snuff, in the estimation of the august people who inhabit
these pages. I am afraid I don't seen the profit from shooting these
fish in a barrel. It is certainly not effective at changing minds, the way 12
years of higher education might be. Nor is it generous. To me, it
is lowering oneself back into the same barrel after having received privileges
enjoyed by few.
Rather, understanding how to fit what they say, as a sub-community, into a
larger speech-and-thought community that also includes, as
subcommunities, the Cal Tech and Union
contingents, is a mighty challenge for semantics.
Thus, I agree with John Sowa, that this is a matter of the philosophy and
methodology of science, which the newly forming science and engineering
discipline of ontology needs to attend to. Otherwise, we will wind
up in in a backwater of science, as did radical behaviorism on the one hand,
and psychoanalysis on the other.
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