Does finding life on another planet disprove religion?

[Tefal]

Hmmm.

The problem is that the Flood Myth is like VonHelmet said, an allegorical story of the salvation of one man's soul in the midst of damnation. It is an allegorical story of Hope, rather than one of destruction.

Of course you can take it as literal and question the actions of God in the way that you have, although that would be down to personal interpretation rather than any theological consensus of the veracity of the literal flood.

The Flood Myth is almost certainly something held over from the original belief structures of early mankind than followed him out of the cradle of Africa, and the myth is present in one form or another in almost all cultures at some point in their development.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html

even if allegorical the message is still a clear do as i say or i will hurt you and those you love.


How about the plagues in Egypt, what does murdering the children of people who do not live in a democracy (and as such have little to no power to change the will of their king) have to do with hope or goodness?


To me the message "i will murder your children if you don't do as i say" is not really a message of hope or good.


A true message of hope would simply have been to whisk the Israelites away and plonk them down in their new homeland, he's directly interfering anyway so a method of intervention which does not result in the wholesale slaughter of innocent children is surely the better option?

It depends on how much authority you are prepared to grant God, which is a curious and almost laughable notion, but there we go. If we accept that God created everything and it is his to do with as he will, then there's really not much to complain about when he does as he sees fit. It's not as trivial and act as all that, though.

The act of creation does not give one absolute authority over you creations.


We are told repeatedly we are gods children, if a father punished his daughters for her misdeeds by slitting her child's throat as it's slept you could never forgive that act or perceive it as his right as the creator of the line.

God had created people. He had told them to be good. They were not good. Verse 5 says that all their thoughts were evil. That's quite a far cry from what God had intended.

Then god is a fallible fool who produced a broken invention and chose to try and correct it with either ever more abhorrent acts or simply threats of the actions he can and will bestow upon man if they still miss behave.


out of curiosity though, how come all the bad stuff is "allegorical" yet the good stuff is literal?

Verse 6 says that God was deeply troubled by this, and that he regretted having put people on earth in the first place. This is not some tyrant punishing his subjects. It's a creator being so woefully disappointed in his creation that he feels like giving it up as a bad job.

If he's a god he can fix them, leave them to their own devices or he can painlessly euthanise them.

It seems he chose to torment his creations for a while then abandon them.

As such if he is our creator he should be thanked for the initial effort of creation and we should be thankful that his idea failed, as if it had succeed as planned we (you and I) would not exist as we are the product of the broken sinful system that resulted, and move on. To take up where he left off and improve ourselves and our lot in life.

Make of it what you will, but it's not quite the way you're painting it, and certainly not if you are prepared to grant God any authority whatsoever over what he's created.

I am a human I can only judge men and Gods by the same human standards.

If a god cannot measure up to the standards we judge ourselves by then he shall never measure up to the standard of a God.

 

[semi-pro waster]

I think we're agreeing from different ends of the stick here. I agree that we can't (and shouldn't) control entry to such a forum. I simply meant it should be regulated for responses the same way SC is, so it doesn't just turn into an extension of GD's "lolreligion". Or, as I mentioned earlier, just make it a sub-section of SC and have done with it. That kills two birds with one stone.

As you say, SC is for intelligent debate of newsworthy issues. The age-old debates of philosophy, spirituality and religion are hardly topical and newsworthy (or at least, rarely are). It'd tidy things away nicely, as well as provide those interested (and there are rather a lot of us) interested in such things.

I've flagged up the suggestion so a view will be taken on it.

Some people believe that that because they have had more time to study that there view on the subject is correct, when it comes to religion its a personal thing, so intelligence (or lack of) hasn't got much to do with it..if you have belief good on you, i will be enjoying my 4 days off next week.

True that religion is or perhaps should be a personal thing but I can also understand a certain amount of frustration if you've researched a topic in depth and people come back with replies which ignore that.

even if allegorical the message is still a clear do as i say or i will hurt you and those you love.


How about the plagues in Egypt, what does murdering the children of people who do not live in a democracy (and as such have little to no power to change the will of their king) have to do with hope or goodness?


To me the message "i will murder your children if you don't do as i say" is not really a message of hope or good.


A true message of hope would simply have been to whisk the Israelites away and plonk them down in their new homeland, he's directly interfering anyway so a method of intervention which does not result in the wholesale slaughter of innocent children is surely the better option?

I'm not too certain on my biblical references but isn't most of the wrathful vengeful God stuff Old Testament e.g. the parts you mention and the new fluffier friendlier God is New Testament and that's the one that we're supposed to be paying attention to now as old is superseded by new in this instance. If that's the case then isn't that probably the ultimate show of a capacity to change - there's nothing to force a god to change except their own wish to do so?

 

[Castiel]

even if allegorical the message is still a clear do as i say or i will hurt you and those you love.


How about the plagues in Egypt, what does murdering the children of people who do not live in a democracy (and as such have little to no power to change the will of their king) have to do with hope or goodness?


To me the message "i will murder your children if you don't do as i say" is not really a message of hope or good.


A true message of hope would simply have been to whisk the Israelites away and plonk them down in their new homeland, he's directly interfering anyway so a method of intervention which does not result in the wholesale slaughter of innocent children is surely the better option?

Hence the New Covenant in the New Testament as opposed to the Old in the Old Testament.

From an objective non believer viewpoint, it is quite fascinating to see how the Israelite vengeful God changed to the Christian merciful God as the prevailing cultural influences changed.

 

[Stretch]

It should do. But no doubt organised religion will move the goal posts to fit whatever is found as they've done throughout their existence.

 

[rypt]

Hence the New Covenant in the New Testament as opposed to the Old in the Old Testament.

From an objective non believer viewpoint, it is quite fascinating to see how the Israelite vengeful God changed to the Christian merciful God as the prevailing cultural influences changed.

except both testaments are canonical to Christians, so it is the same God that is both good and evil

 

[Castiel]

except both testaments are canonical to Christians, so it is the same God that is both good and evil

What has that got to do with what I said?

 

[OriginalJonty]

Looking in from a non religious stand point, I don't think it would.

The idea behind most religions is that an intelligent creator made the universe, Earth and life upon it. It would be sensible to assume that once the creator has finished creating this they will want to keep creating, experiment with new ideas etc. An intelligent creator would not want to stagnate and so would probably create other variations of life.

 

[Vonhelmet]

except both testaments are canonical to Christians, so it is the same God that is both good and evil

I think it would be more accurate to say that he changed his policy on how he dealt with the evil he saw in the world, but even that isn't a desperately accurate way of describing it. I'll explain more later.

 

[BunnyKillBot]

Looking in from a non religious stand point, I don't think it would.

The idea behind most religions is that an intelligent creator made the universe, Earth and life upon it. It would be sensible to assume that once the creator has finished creating this they will want to keep creating, experiment with new ideas etc. An intelligent creator would not want to stagnate and so would probably create other variations of life.

Actually, and while this is worthy of its own thread about the common themes of religions, to most religions intelligent design is a negligible aspect.

At their core most religions represent a sociological set of psychosomatic tools that alter a mind state, affect thinking and ultimately change behaviours. Be it Buddism, Christianity, Islam, Mormonism, Scientology etc, all attempt to answer the question of 'inner peace'. They all lay set a preposition that from birth till death, the mind is somehow 'at war with itself'.

Our bodies are a chemical cocktail made up of the atoms in the earth around us. All base emotions have a dialectically opposed counterpart that resolve as actions. If you 'hope' for something but 'fear' for something else, and the fear is too strong, you may never attain what you 'hope' for by being too afraid to actively seek for it.

A particular religion provides a set of tools that seek to minimise and maximise base emotions and thereby affect behaviours. If you actively minimise your fear, and kindle your hopes, you are more likely to achieve your goals and not be constrained by those fears. Mainstream Christianity has a tendency to maximise both hope and fear; pray for what you hope for but also be afraid of God because he/she is so 'massive'. You could argue that this is the reason mainstream Christianity always lags so far behind secular society in terms of popular culture because its tools don't promote rapid cultural development.

Regardless of whether you subscribe to a Pop religion, every one of you has a personal religion that is the summation of your beliefs and experiences throughout your life. Each and every one of us is brainwashed, after all, humans are monkey see monkey do. So if you think getting rid of religion will make the world a better place, you better be prepared to get rid of yourself to.

Think of the Spartans as depicted in Zack Snyder's 300. Their religion was a blueprint that crafted them into fearless warriors. From birth, a spartan warrior is taught to fight, and to die. Their raison d'etre becomes defined by the culture that surrounds them.

 

[Rainmaker]

Hence the New Covenant in the New Testament as opposed to the Old in the Old Testament.

From an objective non believer viewpoint, it is quite fascinating to see how the Israelite vengeful God changed to the Christian merciful God as the prevailing cultural influences changed.

I agree. That's part of my stance that just because the interpretation of the concept of 'God' changes culturally and through the ages, it doesn't reflect upon (or negate) the existence of such. Rather, I think Man is far too good at projecting his own desirable qualities, his foibles and his fears upon the concept. For example those who feel unable to defend themselves and who feel vulnerable would have a strong, vengeful and action-based God.

In fact I stumbled across an article yesterday about the Israelites of old having held Yaweh's consort as a goddess with her own place in the temples, in spite of the 'no idolatry' rule. But again, that's a new thread, and another reason I really hope the new sub-forum is approved. If we actually acted on our interests we'd literally take over the front page of SC. But we don't, because we know we're in the wrong place to do so. It'd be nice to have that place...

Regardless of semantics, I can't really think of any world religion that would be affected by the discovery of ET life. Either it had no stance to begin with, so it wouldn't matter, or else they'd have no particular interest in it as it didn't affect their own spiritual progress.

 

[Tefal]

Hence the New Covenant in the New Testament as opposed to the Old in the Old Testament.

Does saying you'll change in future forgive your past atrocities?

 

[Castiel]

Does saying you'll change in future forgive your past atrocities?

If you are God you require no forgiveness from your creations.

 

[Rainmaker]

I actually made the following video clip for this thread, but it (the thread) died quietly so I didn't bother. Since it's been brought back a bit:


Bro. Consolmagno taught at Harvard and MIT, and worked for NASA, before joining the Vatican Observatory as a Jesuit priest. I especially liked his soundbyte at the end of the clip.

 

[kalvindeane]

They say the same thing.

I laughed out loud at that point, I don't have the patience to carry on reading passed the 90th post in this thread.

 

[Castiel]

I actually made the following video clip for this thread, but it (the thread) died quietly so I didn't bother. Since it's been brought back a bit:


Bro. Consolmagno taught at Harvard and MIT, and worked for NASA, before joining the Vatican Observatory as a Jesuit priest. I especially liked his soundbyte at the end of the clip.

Have you got a link to the entire film?