Then it must be about us and our ineluctable religious naturalism which is as inarguable as motherhood and as convenient as a shroud for a theologians cloak.
Religious Naturalism
Criticisms?
@skado No criticism of naturalism and I assume that Rue's prose is delicately balanced.
between?
@skado sinecures and sensibilities?
"There is nothing in the substance of everybody's story to rule out belief in the reality of a personal deity. At the same time, such a belief is not an essential part of everybody's story. There will be theistic versions of the story, and there will be nontheistic versions as well. Those who take the theistic option will have at their disposal a range of images that may be used to arouse motivational systems. But I have confidence that everybody's story, unadorned by theological imagery, has the potential to arouse us to serve its imperatives."
He waxes teleological like a true believer nonetheless so the longer lighter side of the balance has all the gods and the shorter length the science.
@waitingforgodo
I’m only at page 49 so far. Have you read the book?
Religion is all about money, power, and control
Why do you believe that?
@skado look around ... What do you see?
@Redneckliberal
I see lots of scientists saying religion is about evolution, and not a single one saying it is about money, power and control.
Maybe it shouldn't be, but if you ask the religionists, what percent say that it is about god?
Should we also turn to them to tell us whether the earth is flat? Why should we assume they (of all people) should know why they are doing what they do?
@skado I'm not especially keen on asking them given they've never produced anything meaningful before. They may have shreds of wisdom worth contemplating, but those are needles in the haystack, and they're no help finding them. They have grandiose marketing, and once in a while, that could catch one's eye. After a few decades of experience, one can see there's nothing to see.
I'm of the school of thought that says religion, based on the Latin religare "to bind" doesn't have to have anything to do with worship of a supernatural being, but could just mean a feeling of connection or linking back to our creative source, whatever that might be.
I realize my connotation of the word is different than the common use of the word religion, but that's how I have to think of it in my mind, in order to feel I'm on equal footing with others who have a different idea than me about our creative source, which I'm just happy to call "Nature" since I don't know any more than that.
It i interesting to note that no word for god exists in Mandarin, despite the attempts of the early Jesuits, who, in translating classical works , inserted the word god. The nearest equivalent is considered to be Ziran, which means that way of nature....
I'm inclined to agree with the idea that humans have a faith instinct. That is...
God is Reality Personified, Not a Person
Rudolf Bultmann
God is not a person; God is a mythic personification of reality. If we miss this we miss everything.
Birth, life, death, the cycles and rhythms of Nature, the elemental forces of the Universe—these are undeniably real. Like it or not, we humans have always been in an inescapable relationship with a Reality that we could neither fully predict nor control. And given the nature of our brains, there's one thing that people in every culture and throughout history have instinctually done: we've used metaphors and analogies to understand and relate to that which is unavoidably, undeniably real and/or mysterious. We can't not do this. Consciously or unconsciously, we will always interpret via metaphors.
ALL images and concepts of God are more or less meaningful interpretations and personifications. And it didn't take a genius to figure out that if you trust, or have faith, in what is ultimately inescapable, your life works better than if you judge or resist what is real. This is not theological rocket science.
Faith is what people use when they have no answer. I'm doing just fine without faith, religion, and gods.
Studies show that chimps and humans share a 96% similarity in DNA. This would signify that humans have evolved from Chimps, or rather both the species have evolved from the same ancestor. Like all species they are limited by their genetic endowment.
Chimps express a remarkable degree of empathy as do many of the other primates. They cooperate with one and another for mutual benefit. They do not require a religon to tell them how they should live as chimps and they have no notion of god.
Voltaire: "“Animals have these advantages over man: they never hear the clock strike, they die without any idea of death, they have no theologians to instruct them, their last moments are not disturbed by unwelcome and unpleasant ceremonies, their funerals cost them nothing, and no one starts lawsuits over their wills.”
We don't know if chimps have a religion or gods.
Did you know that Mushrooms are more closely related to us than to plants? And they are just fine without God!
@violetfree Yes, I recently read an article about it.