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[Speaking Mute]

Quote Originally Posted by Druidic

Quote One thing I never understood about the various materialist philosophies floating around is how they can still attach so much value to truth. I can understand going after certain religions with a penchant for sadism or warmongering, but attacking a religion just for being "delusional" places values on knowledge and truth that is at odds any thoroughgoing anti-anthropocentric stance.Speaking Mute As a strict materialist I'm very much interested in truth.I want to know when I flip a wall switch in my kitchen a light is going on; I want to know if the antibiotic prescribed by a doctor is going to work against a certain bacteria (rather than trying to pray the illness away); I want to know if someone working for me can be trusted or if they have criminal tendencies...The list can go on and on. As far as I'm concerned, materialists are interested in nothing but what's true and verifiable in a scientific lab.

But what does any of that have to do with the origin of humankind, the existence of the afterlife, free will etc.? My point was more that none of this has any bearing on day to day life - there's simply no need to proselytize on behalf of, say, evolution to those who don't belief...the antibiotics won't stop working because of Creationists.

Furthermore, whereas there's short term and individual practical benefits from the sort of knowledge you're concerned with, I think we're a long ways away from deeming that knowing any of this stuff is beneficial to humankind in the long run. We've been technologically savvy for only about two hundreds years, and we've already bumbled into several different ways we could readily wipe ourselves from existence.

But I needn't even reach for extinction: you mention antibiotics - a good example, as to we've so overused antibiotics that many have become useless. And in the meantime, we've managed to breed more virulent strains of bacteria than ever existed before. So whereas it may be best for you to use antibiotics, maybe it's better for majority in the long run that people kept praying and left such things to gods and fates.

The retort is that we should not "blame the technology" for it's misuse - but I say this retort fails to understand that technology is nothing but an extension of human behavior, and carries all the known human failings with it.

[Speaking Mute]

Quote Originally Posted by Forgotten Prisoner

There is only the fear of death and all the pathetic religions that spring up to avoid it.

Countless martyrs and suicide bombers say otherwise.

Quote Originally Posted by Speaking Mute

Quote Originally Posted by Forgotten Prisoner There is only the fear of death and all the pathetic religions that spring up to avoid it. Countless martyrs and suicide bombers say otherwise.

The motivation of both is to guarantee a place in Heaven and everlasting life. If you truly believe in such nonsense, then it is a perfectly rational way to behave.

[Speaking Mute]

Quote Originally Posted by Forgotten Prisoner

Quote Originally Posted by Speaking Mute Quote Originally Posted by Forgotten Prisoner There is only the fear of death and all the pathetic religions that spring up to avoid it. Countless martyrs and suicide bombers say otherwise. The motivation of both is to guarantee a place in Heaven and everlasting life. If you truly believe in such nonsense, then it is a perfectly rational way to behave.

Actually, most Islamic suicide bombers who do so knowingly do it to benefit their families or for political reasons. Early Christianity - when Christians were actually persecuted by Romans - most likely had the Jewish ambivalence towards the afterlife; the supernatural aspect of martyrdom was geared towards preventing divine retribution to your peers and descendants rather than personal salvation - the practical aspect - and I'd say the more powerful motivation - was preserving one's identity against assimilation. This likewise goes for the later Roman Pagans when the tables were turned - Paganism throughout the Mediterranean world looked upon the afterlife as a rather depressing place - read some Homer or Virgil - yet many Pagans preferred to die before forsaking their religions.

...I'm also doubtful that Christianity does much to alleviate fears of death - Hell seems to occupy a rather prominent place in Christian thought.

[teguififthzeal]

I don't really think many of the people on this thread have an idea of what nuanced Christianity is. Or any kind of mature religion is at all. It sounds like a comic book, sort of adolescent understanding of the finest examples of religion.

You talk about suicide and hell, and I personally draw a blank. A mature Christian knows that a suicide bomber is a brainwashed person doing precisely the opposite of what he should be doing, which is spreading the message of peace laid down by Mohammed. As a mature Muslim does. By your logic, St. Thomas Aquinas should have been strapped with a 44, executing all heretics...it is so far from what actual Christianity that I'm not sure how to communicate it properly.

Pick up something by Richard Rohr, that'd be a good start. I sense a kind of willful misunderstanding. Or perhaps I'm wrong. Anyway, I've said what I had to on this subject.

A neuroscientist who is studying the biology of belief.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?featur...&v=f6iHe0ra_UM

When he addressed an audience at the University of Notre Dame, he informed them that Christianity is a cult of human sacrifice. Similar to its pagan origins, the only difference being that Christianity celebrates one human sacrifice as if it is effective.