[Closed] Using made up stories to support religion.

[i]John 8:32
"And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."[/i]

some woudl argue that the whole book that this comes from is a made up story supporting religion?

Ummm - isn't religion based on a made up story anyway?

Using made up stories to support religion

Slow news day or is it Christmas already?

I like these ones. Cup of tea anyone? I have ginger snaps and some chocolate hob nobs too.

Religion may well be made up stories.
Who knows, as all the significant events conveniently took place before modern recorded history.
Einstein's life has been better documented than most, so why make up a story that can so easily be proved untrue ?

Catholicism, Islam, Judaism, C of E etc. all bollox, I don't even need to put IMO because it's fact 😆

Was this before or after he split the beer atom?

Oh Hooray! More Evangelists! How soon before you lot go knocking on doors, spreading the word!

joolsburger

milk, no sugar thanks.
ooh, and a chocolate hobnob too please! are they milk or dark choc?

I was just thinking recently that we haven't done religion for a while, then I got sent this.

Just a few days ago if I recall.

I got some stem ginger cookies unusual but nice, and great dunkers.

mmmm ginger cookies, nice. But I'm going to go for a Chelsea bun I think.

[img] [/img]

I though Religion was made up Stories???

A nice write up of the issues around the stories on the OP's link. However I think there's one aspect of it that s/he's missed.

There are lots of stories of the everyday folk defeating the so-called wise men. I think that lots of people feel threatened by people more intelligent than themselves, so they often make those people out to be inferior in other ways - by being unpleasant people, or lacking common sense for instance.

When we were in school we were told a story about three wise men who encountered a lion and whilst prevaricating about the best way to solve the problem they all got eaten, displaying no common sense, whereas a normal bloke sorted it out straight away. After the story everyone said 'Yeah, you listen to that story!' to me, despite the fact that I had never displayed any of the characteristics displayed by the so-called wise men. They simply related me to the wise men in their own minds.

probably do have a historical basis, loads of them are just too common throughout many cultures

The fact that there are common stories would imply that they are based on older pan-cultural stories, not necessarily real events.

Who knows, as all the significant events conveniently took place before modern recorded history.

i much prefer them tryin got anser the issue of pain personally as God is either all loving yet does nothing to stop it or unable and therefore not all powerful. From studying it at Uni I realsied even if you accept god as true it is still a largely incoherent inconsistent tale of hope over relaism/logic. For example they can only know god/the kingdom of heaven as if looking through a glass darkly - ie even the faithful cannot explain gods will or reasons aor heaven as they are not obvious to them.
many incredibly intelligent folk believe this I have no idea why they can suspend their faculties of reason to believe in this.

I'd have a guess that the stories in the Quran, Bible, Torah, etc probably do have a historical basis, loads of them are just too common throughout many cultures

The fact that there are common stories would imply that they are based on older pan-cultural stories, not necessarily real events

They simply related me to the wise men in their own minds

Even though you didn't know the difference between 'prevaricate' and 'procrastinate'??

those three books all have the Old testament in them they are the same story /books.

Perhaps. Maybe you never got that treatment because you don't know the difference between procrastinating and pontificating 🙂

but the older stories would have had some basis or inspiration in reality for their creation imo.

Not necessarily. Floods, for instance, are common throughout the world - so it would seem entirely reasonable for the pan-cultural flood stories to be based on the fear of any normal flood or tsunami rather than one single event.

I think that lots of people feel threatened by people more intelligent than themselves, so they often make those people out to be inferior in other ways - by being unpleasant people, or lacking common sense for instance.

This swings both ways.

Loud mouthed atheists spouting extracts from the god delusion at religious people they don't understand is just as bad. A lot of people (especialy on here for some reason) will say stuff like

many incredibly intelligent folk believe this I have no idea why they can suspend their faculties of reason to believe in this.

Do you believe in the Higgs Boson? Youve never seen it, you've only got the vaguest idea what it is (its the particle that makes everything 'everything' isn't it?) yet in your mind you become clever person for believeing in this whereas you classify the person who believes God did it is protrayed as retarded in some way?

Perhaps. Maybe you never got that treatment because you don't know the difference between procrastinating and pontificating

Loud mouthed atheists spouting extracts from the god delusion at religious people they don't understand is just as bad

True, they're not intelligent people tho 🙂

many incredibly intelligent folk believe this I have no idea why

Hehe.. it's precisely BECAUSE they are incredibly intelligent that they can have a far more sophisticated and subtle idea of God than you, and one that makes sense to them.

I find it ironic that the evangelical atheists like to keep [i]resurrecting [/i]this argument.

whilst I am on a roll Muslims refer to them as people of faith [ or people of the book ] and christians refer to all as the Children of Abraham. they all fall out over Jesus - Jews reject him , Christians say the son of God, Muslims accpet him as a holy man of virginal birth* not he son of god as they reject the trinity. God is indivisible. they dont accept resurection either. They believe in the second coming .. I assume the first to them of Gods son and have a place next to Mohammed for them to be buried [iirc for last bit]
* other miracle births exist in islam who have 20 odd named [in quaran]prophets

😆 walked in to that one a bit didnt I molgrips
I shall go and sit in the dunce corner till someone bright can simplify it for me

the film makers didn't do even the most basic research

Oh the irony.

On the website you link to MidlandTrailquestsGraham, they make the following claim :

[b][i]"In a legend of an entirely different character, Albert Einstein was rumoured to have made a guest appearance on the television western "Gunsmoke"."[/i][/b]

If they had done the most basic bit of research, they would have realised that it most certainly isn't a legend of "an entirely different character".

It is all part of the same legend. Anyone with the most basic knowledge of the American Christian/Religious Right, knows that "Gunsmoke" is iconic in their ideology.

Gunsmoke was the favourite TV programme of Leo Strauss, the godfather of American Neoconservatives - he would never miss a weekly episode.

Leo Strauss didn't just argue the case for conservative/right-wing economics, but he also had a philosophy concerning how capitalism could maintain its effluence and control over the masses.

Central to this philosophy, was that the belief that the masses should see everything as a struggle between good and evil. There should always be a central evil enemy which threatens the good of the nation and which the people should focus on. Previously the evil enemy was the Soviets, today it is the Islamists.

Strauss believed that as long as the people focused on these perceived threats, and the struggle between good and evil, then they would remain docile and easy to manipulate.

Nothing epitomised the struggle between good and evil more for Leo Strauss, and the inevitable and eventual triumph of good, than the weekly episodes of Gunsmoke, which he believed should be compulsory viewing.

So you see all this ties in very well, the made up story concerning the young Einstein arguing that evil is the absence of God, the made up story that Einstein was such a fan of a western TV series which every week represented a struggle between good and evil, that he even starred in it, and the American neoconservative Religious Right's agenda. The guys at Snopes.Com should have known that - if they had bothered to do their research.

Yeah, Jesus is a prophet (Esau) in Islam, and he didn't die and will come again, just be really old.

🙂 Junky.

Just don't confuse religion, the bible and theism.

Central to this philosophy, was that the belief that the masses should see everything as a struggle between good and evil.

OMG so the strongest modern political movement in the world's most powerful country is based on a crappy TV show?! 😯

dont use words like that the bright person is not here yet and my head is still hurting.

OMG so the strongest modern political movement in the world's most powerful country is based on a crappy TV show?!

Depressing ain't it ?

America's biggest problem is lack of good information and waaaay too much bad information.

Ernie,you never cease to amaze me with the depths of obscure trivia you are familiar with.I am off now to get a hat out of the cupboard just so I can take it off to you. 🙂

I was just thinking recently that we haven't done religion for a while

And I was thinking I'd so missed the subject.

Ernie,you never cease to amaze me with the depths of obscure trivia you are familiar with

😳 Gee thanks

Although in this case, I don't really consider it to be obscure trivia. The Neocons are a formidable political reality in the US, and they do, and have, affected people's lives across the world, including here in Britain. Knowing how they tick and what their agenda is, is imperative imo.

Have there been any wars that didnt have a huge religious component to them?

The American Civil War (more merkins killed than in all other wars put together)

EDIT: That was a pure guess. I'm waiting for someone to point out where religion came into it.

Have there been any wars that didnt have a huge religious component to them?

The present one in Libya ?

dont use words like that the bright person is not here yet and my head is still hurting.

Here I am! 😀

Soz, bin busy. I'll do an architecture thread in a bit, because that's nice and people enjoy it.

Have there been any wars that didnt have a huge religious component to them?

WW1
WW2
Vietnam
Gulf 1+2

Probbly many more actually. Those are probbly some of the most significant of the past 100 years though.

Elf + 1.Capitalism and Imperialism are where it has been at for the last 150 years.

Ernie, you've lost me there.
Leo Strauss died in 1973.
Brent Spiner made the joke about Einstein appearing in Gunsmoke in 1993.
I don't get the connection.

Anyway, back to the original question.
I quite like the well known story of the man walking with god and looking at the two sets of footprints in the sand.
It's clearly meant as a metaphor and gives an insight in to how religious people see the world.
The Einstein story is presented as fact, not a parable. Why do that when it's so easily disproved ?

WW2 - you kidding me? Lots of Jews being exterminated... Looks like a religious component to me.

Looks like a religious component to me.

So you've downgraded it from "a huge religious component" to just "a religious component" now ?

But yeah, if the Jews hadn't been so religious, then WW2 would not have happened.

Good point well made.

Lots of Jews being exterminated... Looks like a religious component to me

Racial component, mate. Different.

In that case race and religion correlate.

Melvyn Bragg told me* that the American Civil War was partly religious in that both sides used convenient parts of the Bible to justify their position on slavery.

*on the telly

I was kind of hoping that by asking a specific question, this would be the one thread about religion that didn't go back to the same old themes of world war two and the big bang.

Oh well. Still no answer.

Why wouldn't anyone mention WW2 ? ........ it's a known fact that religion is the cause of all wars, except the ones which weren't caused by religion.

Religion's not so much the cause, as the justication. Wars are usually about power, access to resources etc.

But surely the ACW was more political than religious. There would have been many "believers" on either side who could be swayed by a preacher telling them that god was on their side. But it wasn't about one religion or race's hatred of another...the efelant in room of one side wanting to continue to treat other human beings as sub-human. Anyway, I think there are other wars already mentioned that probably weren't that religious anyway.

It was probably mainly economic. But my point was that religion's often (not always) the excuse for a war.

[i]The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles[/i] : FACT

How it manifests itself does not detract from that inalienable truth. Race, religion, nation, makes no difference, it is still the interminable struggles between oppressor and oppressed. New conditions simply create new forms of oppression, and new oppressors and oppressed.

Blame religion and you have missed the point. And therefore the solution.

There was a large undercurrent of religious fervour in the Federal States before and during the American Civil War. The leaders of the movement to free the slaves used the pulpits of churches to get their message across, often using quite rousing and inflammatory commentaries on the evils of slavery. The strange thing is they were quite racist in their own attitudes, beleiving that negroes were mentally deficient, 'childlike' in their ability to percieve the world and that the white, Northern Men of God were needed to show them how to live good lives.
Religion (as used by the above movement) was a large mover of public opinion in the North towards support for a war with the seccessionist States.

I am in agreement with ernesto's point. I often wonder why humans evolved systems of class which then start to turn on themselves and self-consume.

Then I just get on and chop another piece of timber.

Squidlord and muddydwarf may soon run out of hairs to split.

It was probably mainly economic.

All wars are about economic power. There is no power other than economic power.

That rule can be applied to the Roman conquest of Britain 2000 years, or the bombing of Libya today.

Interesting programme on Beeb2 tonight about whether God had a wife. The presenter could seriously have me developing an interest in theology.

I saw that, lovely Greek girl.
Very interesting programme about the development of the early religions of the pre-Israel Nations. That Rabbinical scholar got on my wick though with his not-so-implied insistence that Judaism is obviously so much more superior than any other religious or world view.
Love how he flatly contradicted the parts of Hebrew texts that didn't support his statements.

As a rule I tend to avoid debating with people that continue to support a notion but cannot provide a single verifiable fact to back it up, but this quote I saw is too good not to share:

“What is often described as a debate between creationism and evolutionary theory is in fact a debate between creationism and the whole of science as we know it. If the universe is less than 10,000 years old, then: all of geology and biology are wrong; the speed of light has been wrongly calculated, so Einsteinian physics is wrong; the distance and speed of other galaxies has been wrongly calculated, meaning that all of astronomy and therefore Newtonian physics are also wrong. For informed people to challenge accepted scientific orthodoxy on the basis of proper evidence is always healthy, but to debunk the whole of science on the back of a story passed down by some Iron Age goat-herders is just self-delusion.” Neil Butcher

deadlydarcy - Member

Squidlord and muddydwarf may soon run out of hairs to split.

No, thought you were interested in the ACW, that's all.

Anyway, surely if we were splitting hairs, we'd then have twice as many as we started with... We wouldn't run out 😛

But how many angels could dance on the end of them?

verifiable fact

[img] [/img]

Civil war was about the Southern Alliance trying to leave the union.They were at that time confident that the price of cotton (pre Egypt) would allow them to survive,without the Industrial North.The North wished to prevent them,and went to/provoked,war. Despite the religious justification for slavery used,it was not about that,it was about the potential economic impact of 80% of the workforce leaving/demanding better pay and conditions.After the war the North allowed the South to impose "Jim Crow laws" to control the black population

BTW; Did you know that the great emancipator Abe Lincoln favoured forced repatriation to Africa for a people who had never seen the continent and were not seasoned.He only freed the slaves to try and create a 4-4.5 million strong army behind Confed lines.

What is often described as a debate between creationism and evolutionary theory is in fact a debate between creationism and the whole of science as we know it. If the universe is less than 10,000 years old, then: all of geology and biology are wrong; the speed of light has been wrongly calculated, so Einsteinian physics is wrong; the distance and speed of other galaxies has been wrongly calculated, meaning that all of astronomy and therefore Newtonian physics are also wrong. For informed people to challenge accepted scientific orthodoxy on the basis of proper evidence is always healthy, but to debunk the whole of science on the back of a story passed down by some Iron Age goat-herders is just self-delusion.

Newtonian Physics [i]is[/i] wrong, yer numpty. What world do you live in?

Oh, and so is 'Einsteinian' Physics. Now I'm not saying that I believe in creationism, but is just shows how crap that quote is.

On top of which, the way it is phrased, it implies that Einsteinian [i]and [/i]Newtonian physics are both 'correct'. Which, given that they are in conflict cannot be true. So the quote isn't even internally consistent! Then he has the cheek to talk about challenging scientific orthodoxy! Hey buddy! They have! You've just had your head so far up yer .... that you haven't found out yet!

Newtonian Physics is not wrong. It's a special case.

It doesn't explain the world

It doesn't explain the world

Oh that old conundrum.

Didn't you get the memo? I created it with a band of lesbians last week, complete with everything, including memories. We're still having some work done, Jupiter didn't turn out how we liked. I'm thinking about changing it to a large disco glitterball? Whatcha reckon?

Oh that old conundrum.

Didn't you get the memo? I created it with a band of lesbians last week, complete with everything, including memories. We're still having some work done, Jupiter didn't turn out how we liked. I'm thinking about changing it to a large disco glitterball? Whatcha reckon?

No, really. If you don't understand any Physics, you can't really take part in this discussion.

It doesn't explain the world

Meaning what?

No, really. If you don't understand any Physics, you can't really take part in this discussion.

I was aiming at fun because you have strayed into more of a philosophical nature, stating that Newtonian mechanics isn't precise really isn't helpful when you when you end up asking "It doesn't explain the world". You should try reading Hawking's books, I believe he posits a theory about branes and how they interact to create universes.

I have a PhD in molecular electronics and studied quantum mechanics in quite some detail, so I do actually know quite a bit about physics ta.

If you don't understand any philosophy (especially solipsism) I suggest you don't add anything else...

I asked my Daughter how she knew God was a man, not a woman.

She said, "D'uh! if it was a woman then it'd be Godess, not God"

Seems fair to me - and about as valid as anyone else's theory 😉

Newtonian Physics is wrong, yer numpty. What world do you live in?

Well the one I live in is described very well by Newtonian Physics. It's not perfect, but only a fool would dismiss it as wrong. Not completely correct in all cases would be a better way of describing it.

Lol @ AdamW
When CM posted

What world do you live in?

Sorry I'm late. Are there any Hobnobs left?

Loud mouthed atheists spouting extracts from the god delusion at religious people they don't understand is just as bad.

Does this happen? Has this ever happened? Or have you made it up in order to give weight to your argument? [citation needed]

Do you believe in the Higgs Boson?

Two things,

1) the Higgs Boson neither requires nor demands "belief." Scientists don't "believe" in the Higgs Boson, it's a theory and they've built a little machine to test this theory.

2) The difference between the Higgs Boson and god is that there is evidence to support the existence of the HB. Specifically, the things that we can see and measure behave in such a way as to indicate the presence of something else that we've not discovered yet. The LHC is looking for this something. Comparing the two is disingenuous as it assumes an identical starting point when this isn't in fact the case.

The Einstein story is presented as fact, not a parable. Why do that when it's so easily disproved ?

Because the majority of people don't question things, they believe what they're told. Even if a relatively (ho ho!) small number of people go "well, that's deliberately misleading!" it doesn't matter, we're statistically insignificant.

If you don't understand any Physics, you can't really take part in this discussion.

If you don't understand Physics, you can't take part in a discussion about religion? It's practically a prerequisite!

Well the one I live in is described very well by Newtonian Physics

really?? How do you pick up stuff?

I have a PhD in molecular electronics and studied quantum mechanics in quite some detail, so I do actually know quite a bit about physics ta.

So, i was supposed to get that from your original post how?

If you don't understand Physics, you can't take part in a discussion about religion?

Now, that's not what I said is it?

really?? How do you pick up stuff?

How about you tell us nicely why Newtonian Physics prohibits the picking up of stuff rather than asking sarky questions?

How do you pick up stuff?

Eh? I lift things with my hand/arm putting in work to overcome the force of gravity which as I'm not close to any massive gravity well or travelling at a significant fraction of the speed of light is very well decribed by Newtonian mechanics.

What problems do you experience when picking stuff up?