Re: thoughts on Jesus

On 5/16/2008 4:22 AM, alwaysaskingquestions went clickity clack on the keyboard and produced this interesting bit of text:
"Ilas" <nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:Xns9AA06881FED38lurker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"alwaysaskingquestions" <alwaysaskingquestions@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:695013F2vsm4oU1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:

"John Wilkins" <j.wilkins1@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1ih1991.pgql7n1558fhyN%j.wilkins1@xxxxxxxxxxxx
If 3, then one wonders at the necessity for the gap itself. Why, for
example, think there is a "soul" if "soul" is never investigable?
I don't follow your logic there, the belief is addressing the gap, not
creating the gap. People talk about the "soul" as an expression for
things we cannot otherwise explain, if we stop talking about the soul
that does not eliminate those things our wonderment at what causes
them.
You know as well as I do that the soul means something very different to
most Christians. It's supposed to be that indefinable part of you that
ascends to heaven after death (or descends to hell),

It is more than that:

"The soul, according to many religious and philosophical traditions, is the
self-aware essence unique to a particular living being. In these traditions
the soul is thought to incorporate the inner essence of each living being,
and to be the true basis for sapience, rather than the brain or any other
material or natural part of the biological organism"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul

and as such it is
religion creating the gap.

So you reckon that if there were no religion then Man would not wonder where
his sapience comes from?

Religion was created primarily for this reason. (Other reasons were to explain phenomena that were, at that time, unexplainable and for power.) It was not based on reality but imagination. We're slowly coming up on times when religion is being replaced with knowledge. Either people are seeing that religion has no attachment to reality or they're just getting even more kookier; i.e. fundamentalists such as Ray. There will always be people who want there to be gods and psychics and spirits and demons, etc., but that number is being reduced.

Religion has always sought to explain things that people didn't understand. Why do things grow? Why do they die? What happens when we die? Why does lightning come from the sky and destroy so much? As we understand more and more of our world, religion loses its hold as we find scientific reasons for these previously unexplainable things. We know why things die. We know that lightning is simply a difference in electrical potential between the earth and clouds and when the difference is high enough it arcs between them. We can predict when and where we'll have lightning storms. We even manufacture lightning all the time!

We don't know everything and we never will. But our knowledge is always increasing. (This implies that the number of things to know is infinite. Probably not, but is there enough time to learn everything?) But as our knowledge increases, religion's hold on people gets looser and looser. It's been happening since Galileo and Copernicus, Benjamin Franklin helped speed it along and Darwin has certainly made a mess of things. It's happening now and will continue to happen unless one thing happens: God shows up.

--
Rule of Acquisition number 60: Keep your lies consistent.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Any answers to these questions? Religious Literalism???
    ... Therefore, even the soul is limited, is it not?" ... should dismiss evidence, and perhaps just as seriously that the only ... LITERAL interpretation contradicts science, ... the issue of the harmony of science and religion, ...
    (soc.religion.bahai)
  • Evolution of the soul?
    ... >same category as Hitler because I believe in evolution. ... >creation of the human soul. ... The idea that evolution "deals with body matters" and religion "deals ... of neurotransmitters effects on higher-cognitive processing as you go ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: death penalty
    ... soul, and I ... According to Christianity the soul will get to God ... According to WHOSE religion? ... contention, or you just look like the 'oddball'. ...
    (alt.fan.harry-potter)
  • Re: If you have any doubt where things are headed
    ... Because it is the color of Islam, his religion. ... who says all white people should die, all Jews should die, in fact ... or that only Black Muslims should be allowed to live? ... their religion is that the White race was created through selective breeding I ...
    (rec.motorcycles)
  • Re: where theistic evolution leads
    ... we can generate many hypothises. ... all attempts to explain an observed event (lightning) by referring to ... What you talked about earlier, that any other explanation falsifies the existence of Zeus, is incorrect for the same reason. ... My job will never be to tell people that their religion is false, because that detracts from my job of teaching the theory of evolution. ...
    (talk.origins)