At that time, you may remember that a Christian bus driver refused to drive the bus. In one of my blog entries, I asked:
Why should a Christian complain when other people believe there is no god and NEVER complain when they believe in a god who is different from theirs? Since there are plenty of religions on Earth, it follows that there are plenty of gods to choose from. Why should the claim that a god does not exist be more offensive than a claim supporting a different god or gods?Well, religious folk "retaliated" and created this message:
Do you see the irrationality in the second bus? This is what religion is about: irrational. It claims it has an answer but knows not why. And those who ask for explanation are simply being told: "shut up, it is so, because we say so".
Do you also see the irrationality in the second line of this message?
This is why religion (or any totalitarian system for that matter) is incompatible--cannot be compatible--with science which is supposed to be rational (albeit often practiced by irrational individuals.)
Christian faith, as it was taught by Jesus and the Evangelists (and not the clergy, who have been responsible for the most horrible crimes since the Medieval ages), promotes 1. love, and therefore respect for all kinds of religion, and 2. humility, thus the belief that there exists some kind of power higher than humans. Since I do not consider myself to be 100% Christian in the sense that the term has today, let me use some more "classical" arguments: Several principles and ideas that the Christian faith is based on emanate from the ancient Greek philosophy, in particular from Socrates and Plato, as well as from the general attitude of ancient Greeks not only towards their religion (after all different cities usually worshipped different gods) but also towards the foreign religions. That is, they had great respect for every religion, even for their enemies' gods, and there are several incidents mentioned e.g. in Odyssey and Iliad where failing to pay respect to the foreign gods resulted in a very harsh punishment of the offender, who was unanimously considered to commit the so-called hubris. Even Alexander the Great, in later years, paid tribute to the various gods of the people he was conquering all the way until India. Moreover, Socrates, and then Plato, introduced the concept/worship of the "unknown" god, exactly because their attitude towards life was modesty and the so-called "γνωθι σ' αυτον". Unfortunately, nowadays these qualities are almost extinct in favour of Arrogance (due to money, or knowledge, or scientific progress etc), which is exactly the reason why, albeit you give the impression of a well educated person, you cannot realise your limits and you waste your time in trying to convince yourself that there is no god (of any kind/religion).
ReplyDeleteGrouper: As you say, these arguments are quite classical, well-known, and, actually, prove nothing.
ReplyDeleteIn a polytheistic system it is very reasonable to tolerate other religions and their gods: you just add them to the existing ones. In a monotheistic system this is not possible.
You make a mistake in comparing the tolerance and veneration towards different gods of Greek cities to the supposed tolerance one should have towards different monotheistic religions.
The fact that Alexander the Great paid tribute to various gods means little.
In classical Greece, one of the major religions was Orphism, the one which later influenced directly both Pythagoreanism and Christianity. (This is why the latter killed the former.) But Orphism is a religion which places god under nature and not above it. It is Christianity who does this, therefore departing from Oprhism,even though it kept some of its premises (e.g. virgin birth).
Scientific progress is not arrogance but the greatest form of humility. The fact that some scientists are arrogant is similar to your observation that religious establishment has moved away from the original teachings of Christianity, creating arrogant tele-evangelists, say. To look at the world from a scientific viewpoint, not only is it humble, but also fascinating. (Unlike reading religious texts.)
...albeit you give the impression of a well educated person, you cannot realise your limits
Where did you make this deduction from? My answer is Machado's poem, omnipresent at the bottom of my page:
Nuestras horas son minutos cuando esperamos saber y siglos cuando sabemos lo que se puede aprender.
(Our hours are minutes when we wait to learn and centuries when we know what is to be learnt.)
... and you waste your time in trying to convince yourself that there is no god (of any kind/religion).
Again, how do you infer this about me? Read carefully: I point out contradictions within a religion and between religions and conclude nothing certain. I choose the most certain. most logical, most humble system of all, namely, science. If there is some religion which will ever show me "was die Welt im Innersten zusammenhält" (google it) then I'll accept it (after critically examining it).