Comic Books, Evolution, and God

semantics!

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:18:08 +0100

Wow! that would've been a great talk to hear from a nun. It's too bad that people can't appreciate it. But the catholic church is quite clear--to me anyway-- about the fact that God is a mystery, and we can't really fully understand. Of course in a patriarchal world, it would make sense for God to approach his people as a male, or else they never would have listened. That doesn't mean God is limited by gender though, at all. Myself, I find it fascinating that the ten commandments basically acknowledge the existence of other gods. "Thou Shalt Have No Other God Before Me" sounds a lot like God admitting there's more than just him wandering about. Ah the joys of language! - Amalia The Savage

...

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:30:14 +0100

Oh, I agree. He doesn't seem to have considered older religions at all. Religion WAS a lot nicer back when Mom was God, er, God was Mom. Either way. ;) I have a great story about how students at my private Presbyterian Liberal Arts college reacted to a talk by a Catholic nun who suggested that perhaps God did not have a gender as we know it (citing examples of motherly imagery applied to God in the scriptures). It was quite impressive, actually, how knee-jerk *enraged* some people became. I found it a little surprising how much importance some people seemed to place on God's plumbing, especially the fellas. - UberWench

Interesting!

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:10:40 +0100

I agree that Aristotle&Co did a lot of harm, actually. Especially in the disservice of women--but coming out from Athens, I guess I should never have expected otherwise. That city, birthplace of philosophy or not, was no friend to the "Fairer" sex. Somehow I'm thinking the scientists involved in this debate aren't taking into account the "pagan" gods of the ancient world. I'm afraid that those other religions and cultures of myth get swept under the rug hugely in the modern world. That's part of why I can't seem to leave it alone--we can't know our present or our future without understanding the past, and that includes those faiths and traditions which have fallen out of popular belief. I'm not even sure they've taken into account polytheism at all, looking at the language that they use--something that didn't occur to me until you mentioned it! - Amalia The Savage

And another thing...!

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:50:20 +0100

"On the whole, despite history's ups and downs, God has become more peaceful, more beneficent, and more compatible with a scientific understanding of the world." That is a bunch of bullshit. Maybe God of the patriarchal religions has become more peaceable. But if you start back before the de-femininization of God, you'll find a pretty peaceful, understanding, and loving God who acted simply and compassionately. We went over the precipice into hell with the Patriarchal religions. When Mom was God, God wasn't an inexecrable, detestable, vindictive monster. From the perspective of "science", holistic world-views were generally not cartesian/reductionist, but that doesn't make them any less scientific. When we got more reductionist (starting with Thales, Aristotle, and the whole Greek cabal), things got A LOT worse. And I would argue that it didn't get better until well into the 20th century. Even the "enlightenment philosophers" couldn't swing the pendulum back. It was only with (Gosh...could it be?) the re-emergence of reverence for Mother Earth (hippies, Earth Day, respect for the philosophies of primal, native peoples) that the broad cultural understanding of God (not the eggheads' understanding of God) became more peaceful, more beneficent, and more compatible with a scientific understanding of the world." That time period also coincided with the emergence of chaos theory, complexity theory, the understanding of the "spooky action at a distance" of quantum particles, and a generally more everything-is-inextricably-linked-to-everything-else scientific world-view. Frankly, it's the "...scientific understanding of the world" that has evolved to be more compatible with God, not the other way around. OK. Can you tell that guy hit a nerve? - Gescaro

Belief

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:03:00 +0100

More later, but your last paragraph: Yes. There is an old saying which turns the cliche on its head: You'll see it when you believe it. Any over-reliance on a (or a set of) primary sense(s) can undermine the development of those that are either less well-developed or inherently marginal (because what they sense is "rare" or at the margins of perceptibility). I argue that it's easy to believe that fire burns, because it's easy to experience. It's hard to believe that power can be harvested from the divine forces of the universe because it's hard to experience. But if you experience the full color of daylight in a world full of people who only come out at night... - Gescaro

Whew!

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:22:19 +0100

Actually, I followed that quite well! It makes a lot of sense to me. I think Science is another way we try to codify and describe that same essence--the numinous--through a lens of quantification and mathematical analysis. But I'm not sure that you can limit any of this to just the numinous. (Possibly referring to the numinous as if it is not everything is some kind of blasphemy to someone, somewhere, but stay with me--) I think limiting what religion and science explain to only the divine would be doing them both an injustice. As hard as we search to reach for something greater than ourselves, we also search just as hard for explanations OF ourselves. The tangible as well as the intangible. Myths, for example, always come back to this explanation of the physical world. Like Paul Bunyan dragging his axe on the earth to create the grand canyon in American folklore (not technically myth, but in essence very much the same). Man seems to be caught between following to the conclusion of the divine, and divorcing itself from that same conclusion with the insistence that we need nothing greater--which perhaps is what is at the heart of the science vs. religion schism. Science chooses to see the world as something which created itself, while religion chooses to see it as something which was creatED. Everything else hinges on those premises. But really, isn't the most important thing that it exists at all? What I find interesting in your comment is (if I'm understanding correctly) the suggestion that Belief is not just power, but belief is instinctive knowledge on what may be a subconscious level of awareness. Which kind of makes it not belief at all, but more along the lines of ESP, and an ESP that we are driven to re-experience. Very fascinating! - Amalia The Savage

Sensing Spirit, Belief, and Religion

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:13:59 +0100

I think that belief stems from the ephemeral sense of the numinous. Or, to say it another way, I think "believing" happens (and happened) when we actually sense something that is real, amazing, deep and undeniable, and yet difficult to sense. We KNOW what we sensed -- it's that powerful. And because its that powerful, we believe that its there to be sensed again. It's just not that easy to sense again. So we try to repeat the circumstances in which we experienced this numinous, ephemeral thing, hoping that will do the trick. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it works for you, but not for me, and you become a spiritual leader and I become a follower, hoping to experience what you so beautifully describe. God is our flawed attempt to describe the numinous. Religion is our flawed attempt to codify the way to experience the numinous. Neither our flawed definition nor our flawed codification define the limits of the numinous, nor give credence to those who claim it doesn't exist. It just means we are not very good at communicating. And, perhaps, by now you'll conclude that I am not very good at communicating. Sigh. Maybe it was better saying it in one sentence. - Gescaro

Yes!

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:42:40 +0100

UberWench: I feel exactly the same way-- that Science and Religion are searching for the same thing--meaning and truth, a way to understand the world around us. After all, that's one of the purposes that Myths serve, to explain the things that weren't understandable through observation, through what passed for science. For example: the myth of the Trojan war is premised by Zeus's desire to end the age of Heroes and wipe out the half-breed mortal/immortal children, which I suspect to have been the ancient Greek explanation for the widespread destruction associated with the Myceneaen empire's collapse. Something that there is no record explaining, and presumably, not much in the way of eyewitness account. Dmitri: Can we argue, perhaps, that belief in something is coming from that same impulse identified above as religious, then? Maybe we do the discussion a disservice by limiting the language to "religious impulse" and should substitute instead "Belief." - Amalia The Savage

...

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:19:24 +0100

The power of belief is a recurring element of stories in human culture. It is sometimes presented in different ways, but almost always present. Whether it is belief in a god, belief in a country, belief in a political system, or belief in yourself, our stories usually show that the true believers are quite powerful because of their belief. If the believers themselves are not as powerful, in the case of the gods Thor becomes powerful because people believe in him. It was, as you mentioned, the premise for his return from the dead. Belief in unity, nationalism, or a government makes nations strong. Look at the major nations of WWII. Belief in yourself (confidence) is a staple of Western (especially American) society. Heroes (Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Indiana Jones, etc) and real people (Dale Carnegie, Mark Twain) that had a solid competence mixed with confidence are the core of the American Dream of being able to do anything that you put your mind to, regardless of your circumstances. - Dmitri

I love G'kar, and by extension, J. Michael Straczynski

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:32:11 +0100

Personally, I think science and religion should have one very basic tenet in common -- the search for truth. Too bad religion tends to treat science like some creepy guy that tries to lure children into his van with promises of candy and puppies. Language is imperfect. I tend to think that one day we'll find the divine, and describe it in glorious, perfect mathematical formulae. But, I'm with you -- the science/religion thing is a false dichotomy -- it doesn't have to be either/or. - UberWench

...

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:25:35 +0100

I haven't decided yet. I do know that I've felt religious divides quite keenly so I'm a little biased but I like to ask the hard questions too. I think religion can unify and divide, it just depends on how fanatical one is. - Jennifer

...

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:04:49 +0100

Is it possible that religious impulse could have been one of the earliest (or earlier) divides? I agree that if Religion disappeared tomorrow we'd find something else to fight over, certainly. But even pigs are superstitious, (seriously. I'm not even kidding.) so I have no trouble believing that religious impulse showed up early on. - Amalia The Savage

Disclaimer: atheist

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 07:54:39 +0100

Religion as cause of cohesiveness: I dunno. Humans are tribal animals; if religion vanished tomorrow, we'd dream up new ways to divide ourselves into tribes. Religion as effect of cohesiveness: This I buy. Anthropology demonstrates pretty conclusively that all societies have rituals, speech, etc., to distinguish insiders from outsiders. To me, it's obvious that a society's God reflects that society. People who herd sheep imagine God as a shepherd. People who sail imagine God as a lighthouse. Or, in the words of the great philosopher G'Kar (;D): [quote]If I take a lamp and shine it toward the wall, a bright spot will appear on the wall. The lamp is our search for truth, for understanding. Too often we assume that the light on the wall is God. But the light is not the goal of the search; it is the result of the search. The more intense the search, the brighter the light on the wall. The brighter the light on the wall, the greater the sense of revelation upon seeing it! Similarly, someone who does not search, who does not bring a lantern with him, sees nothing. What we perceive as God, is the byproduct of our search for God. It may simply be an appreciation of the light, pure and unblemished, not understanding that it comes from us. Sometimes we stand in front of the light and assume that we are the center of the universe. God looks astonishingly like we do! Or we turn to look at our shadow, and assume that all is darkness. If we allow ourselves to get in the way, we defeat the purpose; which is to use the light of our search to illuminate the wall in all its beauty…and in all its flaws. And in so doing better understand the world around us.[/quote] - Nightsky