"Consider the idea of God...."

[Daniel Ferguson]

You know... if i could have my own little private island, lots of canned food and access to the internet ... I'd be gone in a moment. :-D

Take from the church the miraculous, the supernatural, the incomprehensible, the unreasonable, the impossible, the unknowable, the absurd, and nothing but a vacuum remains. ~Robert G. Ingersoll, Ingersoll's Works, Vol. 1

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[Daniel Ferguson]

Stan Shannon wrote: Why not less government and more religion? A secular government is far, far better than religious rule because at least there can be some checks and balances in a secular government. We can scrutinize the behaviour of our rulers and vote them out every few years. With a religious ruler, all they have to do is say that 'god' told them to rule and we don't have any right to question them.

Take from the church the miraculous, the supernatural, the incomprehensible, the unreasonable, the impossible, the unknowable, the absurd, and nothing but a vacuum remains. ~Robert G. Ingersoll, Ingersoll's Works, Vol. 1

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[Stan Shannon]

Still, there is a fundamental problem. The only way to have a secular state is to have separation of church and state. But the only way you can have separation of church and state is if, in fact, both church and state exist. If you lack either, the one remaining must assume the role of the one missing and you are right back to square one - a government that is both, simultaneously. A secular state, if it is given or acquires full responsibility to manage the moral agenda of a society, even if a specific 'God' is never invoked, none the less has the power to condemn the 'unrightious', the unbelievers, in an extra-legal, quasi-religiouse sense. I see no advantage to such a political system, yet I fear we are coming dangerously close to just such a situation. If anarchy could be managed I might be willing to give it a try. But 'managed anarchy' is sort of an oxymoron, isn't it?

[Russell Morris]

Stan Shannon wrote: Yet that is as profound a leap of faith as any that a religious person is likely to make. True, it's a leap of faith - but it's not nearly as big a jump to say 'I don't see evidence and I believe that's because it doesn't exist' as it is to say 'I don't see any evidence and I believe that it does exist'. However, the skeptic must always hold that 'absense of evidence does not necessarily indicate evidence of absense'. A skeptic, in my opinion, must always be completely comfortable with being able to say 'I don't know', which is I think the proper opinion to hold concerning God. Most people, however, are simply uncomfortable with this - they must have what they think are answers to life's tough questions. Many professed atheists are in this camp, eschewing the 'absense of evidence' mantra. Personally, I don't think that there's a lick of evidence that any 'God', as professed by any religion I'm familiar with, has a chance of actually being real. However, you can't really test for something like this. It's like asking 'Would the moon be made of purple cheese if my parents had named me Mortimer?' The strong-atheist says 'absolutely not' The agnostic or weak-atheist says 'almost certainly not' The 'spiritual' person dodges the definiteness of the question The religious zealot looks to his holy book/teachings/leaders for the answer they are supposed to believe or, failing specific mention in their holy works, ensures that the answer they come up with doesn't violate an religous beliefs. -- Russell Morris "So, broccoli, mother says you're good for me... but I'm afraid I'm no good for you!" - Stewy

[Daniel Ferguson]

Stan Shannon wrote: But the only way you can have separation of church and state is if, in fact, both church and state exist. If you lack either, the one remaining must assume the role of the one missing and you are right back to square one - a government that is both, simultaneously. I've never thought about that before and it's a fascinating idea. I'm against (organized) religion, but I couldn't exist without my 'personal system of belief' (even though there is no god in it). I'll have to think about it more. Stan Shannon wrote: A secular state, if it is given or acquires full responsibility to manage the moral agenda of a society There is a justification for morality without religion, and arguably it is stronger because it isn't based on opposing or changing beliefs. I think a political system such as that would be better, as long as it stayed out of the people's personal lives and stuck to managing the state. Stan Shannon wrote: But 'managed anarchy' is sort of an oxymoron, isn't it? :laugh: Perhaps managed anarchy is what a pure/true democracy would be.

Take from the church the miraculous, the supernatural, the incomprehensible, the unreasonable, the impossible, the unknowable, the absurd, and nothing but a vacuum remains. ~Robert G. Ingersoll, Ingersoll's Works, Vol. 1

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[Tim Craig]

I like to think of it as the "unholy" alliance. You give me their souls and I'll give you their bodies. At any given instant there are considerably more assholes than mouths in the universe.

[Tim Craig]

Actually, the implcation of my statement that the mechanism wss set up long, long before the christian bible. The fact that you now interpret the christian bible as disavowing such an alliance doesn't negate the fact that christian countries have used the model for 2000 years now just like their "pagan" predecessors. At any given instant there are considerably more assholes than mouths in the universe.

[Tim Craig]

Sebastián Benítez wrote: people have a god because they need a god What people need is answers to fundamental quesitons. Many of the fundamental quesitons that gods were invented to answer have now been addressed by science for anyone wiht half a brain. Yet, instead of just saying that we don't have answers for these questions, the superstitious lot still continue to invent "god" answers instead of just admitting their ignorance. At any given instant there are considerably more assholes than mouths in the universe.

[Tim Craig]

Stan Shannon wrote: Yet the concept of God as a creator has in no way been eliminated as a real possibility. And in that framework science will NEVER disprove the existence of any gods. The religious will just claim that god is "beyond" being proved or disproved by science. All we can hope for is a slow erosion of superstitious beliefs but I, for one, have my doubts as to how much inroads we can make. I do belive that a larger percentage of the population is skeptical about gods than in any pervious period in history, however. At any given instant there are considerably more assholes than mouths in the universe.

[Tim Craig]

Stan Shannon wrote: Sort of a fundamental requirement for civilization, isn't it? Yes, basically someone or some group has to be in charge. But they also have to be "somewhat" accountable. Stan Shannon wrote: Why not less government and more religion? Yeah, let's go with the illogical, superstitious, burn then at the stake if they disagree rather than something that is supposed to be based on enlightened debate and compromise. At any given instant there are considerably more assholes than mouths in the universe.

[Jorgen Sigvardsson]

Stan Shannon wrote: Why not less government and more religion? That's been tried in the past, and still is in some parts of the world. I can't think of any attempt which hasn't ended in blood shed and thousands, if not millions, dead. I think Catholism and "advanced Islam" (Talibans and Iranian clerics) are the most prominent examples where things went very wrong. -- Watcha' gonna do, when Hulkamania runs wild on you!?

[Stan Shannon]

Tim Craig wrote: Yeah, let's go with the illogical, superstitious, burn then at the stake if they disagree rather than something that is supposed to be based on enlightened debate and compromise. "Supposed to be..." is the key phrase there. Over the grand sweep of history, governement in the absence of religion has acted no more logically than government controlled by religion. Frankly, I have no confidence, no faith, that a world controlled by athiests would be one bit more logical or enlightened than one controlled by any other religion you could name. Non-believers would still find themselves being burned at the stake.

[Stan Shannon]

Daniel Ferguson wrote: There is a justification for morality without religion, and arguably it is stronger because it isn't based on opposing or changing beliefs. I think a political system such as that would be better, as long as it stayed out of the people's personal lives and stuck to managing the state. Maybe, but there is still an inherent danger in that. If the state has no competition for setting the moral agenda, will it, over the long run, be capable of avoiding the temptation of staying out of people's personal lives? I have extreme doubts about that. I perceive modern 'liberal democracies' as already pushing the boundary between prudent legislation and overt interferrence in what people think and believe. I would offer 'hate crime' legislation as a perfect example of that. i.e. punishing what someone was thinking or feeling at the time they committed a crime rather than the crime itself.

[Stan Shannon]

Yes, but you're still referring to systems where church and state were joined at the hip. By "more religion" I didn't mean religion as government. I simply meant a generally societal encouragement of religious sentiment among the people. While, at the same time, makeing government smaller, and less intrusive. I think you could trust the people not to step over the line from religion to government better than you could trust the government not to cross the line in the other direction. That is sort of the 'Jeffersonian Ideal'...

[Stan Shannon]

Tim Craig wrote: And in that framework science will NEVER disprove the existence of any gods. But the deficiencies of science should not be used to discredit the role of religion as a means of comprehending this bizarre reality we find ourselves emersed in. To assume that logic is the only viable tool we possess to comprehend the universe is, IMO, to cripple ourselves intellectually. The ultimate 'logic' of the universe, might not be compatible in any way with what the universe itself has wired us to consider to be logical. We might, in fact, be incapable of appreciating the true logic of the universe. There is no way to know how great the disconnect is between what we are and what the universe is. If we cannot step outside the box of our own innate intellectual capabilities we cannot view the universe as it trully might be. Logical or not, religion is a tool for acheiving that. The entire issue of consciousness has always knawed at me intellectually. Science virtually ignores it out of convenience. There are obviously some answers that science is afraid of.

[Tim Craig]

So basically you're saying that if something is currently beyond our scientific and intellectual capabilities, we just just make up and answer, stamp it as the truth, and go our merry way. Why can't we just admit that we don't know, we may never know, and let it go at that? Why accept some cockamamie invented explanation and stop looking? At any given instant there are considerably more assholes than mouths in the universe.

[Tim Craig]

Stan Shannon wrote: I simply meant a generally societal encouragement of religious sentiment among the people. And who decided what religious sentiment gets "encouraged" among the people? And how much does the general society get to "encourage" its members to join up? Sounds like the making of another inquisition and round of holy wars to me. At any given instant there are considerably more assholes than mouths in the universe.

[Rob Graham]

Stan Shannon wrote: Still, it seems odd to me that most seem to consider religion to be the primary culprit. That we need less religion and more government. Why not less government and more religion? I would offer that the "primary culprit" is neither religion nor government per se, but rather any social organization whose primary purpose becomes self perpetuation, and social dominance. Why not less religion and less government? Less religion as in more spirituality in place of organization, less govenrment as in one that serves its citizens rather than tries to "rule them in order to save them from themselves"... Religion gets blamed more frequently simply because it is usually the more zealous proselytizer. Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped. - Elbert Hubbard

[Terry ONolley]

A brilliant paragraph to quote. With self-awareness, we are also presented with self-annihilation. Since this is unpleasant, elaborate schemes have been developed to assuage the annihilation anxiety. It is quaint, cute and silly, but since it keeps some percentage of the population from imploding and becoming useless I guess, at this stage in our social evolution, it is still necessary.

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