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This whole conversation is an example of why I find the church and it s teachings a hard thing to swallow anymore. I mean we have all these anecdotal stories of maybe a miracle maybe not. It is like we are grasping all the time to validate belief. If God wanted Brigham to be the prophet there are much more efficient means to go about it. Brigham himself did not even claim the mantel of prophet at the time. It is just such a stretch when members use these kinds of stories to validate belief. Cadence wrote:This whole conversation is an example of why I find the church and it s teachings a hard thing to swallow anymore. I mean we have all these anecdotal stories of maybe a miracle maybe not. It is like we are grasping all the time to validate belief. If God wanted Brigham to be the prophet there are much more efficient means to go about it. Brigham himself did not even claim the mantel of prophet at the time. It is just such a stretch when members use these kinds of stories to validate belief.
Cadence, what do suppose the purpose of religion is?
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cwald wrote:Cadence wrote:This whole conversation is an example of why I find the church and it s teachings a hard thing to swallow anymore. I mean we have all these anecdotal stories of maybe a miracle maybe not. It is like we are grasping all the time to validate belief. If God wanted Brigham to be the prophet there are much more efficient means to go about it. Brigham himself did not even claim the mantel of prophet at the time. It is just such a stretch when members use these kinds of stories to validate belief.
Cadence, what do suppose the purpose of religion is?
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I guess religion exists to tell anecdotal stories and foster belief in unprovable things. It exists because we are cultural animals and we prosper better in a group. It fills in the gaps that science can not, even those those gaps are shrinking. Religion serves those purposes for many.Could religion be from God? I just am not sure. But when I look around and see how science progresses each year, compared to religion that is operating on the same information with nothing new, it makes me question does it really have a justifiable purpose.
I think religions works best when it is based on a theology like Mormonism’s – that gives people a reason to be nothing more than smart animals. We are the only animals of which we are aware that are capable of imagining being more than we appear to be, and religion is what animates that imagination. In other words, I think it functions as the expression of our desire to be more than we naturally feel we are – as a way to resolve the tension between what we are and what we want to be.
I think it gives people faith that all the crap that is part of this mortal life has meaning beyond this mortal life.
I love science and the scientific method, and I love that the scientific method is part of our uniquely Mormon scriptures, but science alone doesn’t come close to satisfying my personal need to find meaning beyond just this life itself. I’m agnostic about details, but I love religion in its purest, theoretical sense. The bad stuff exists because of us and how we bastardize pure ideals. I don’t blame “religion” for that, any more than I blame “science” for the way the Nazis used it under Hitler.
Ye are gods, and the kingdom of God is within/among you. Religion is what we make of it, since it comes from us and is an expression of us as unique entities.
That is a good answer Spock. I guess, what frustrates me the most…is religion evolves to become the very thing we seek religion to escape from.
What I mean, is religion must continually be focused on preserving the religion itself.
Sure, there are great things that religion does for mankind. Was it Ben Franklin that said, “I want attend your church to make me a better man, not to make me a better Presbyterian.”….our something like that?
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That is also a great answer Ray…but that is pure Mormonism…which, is hard to find these days. Yes…good stuff…Which is why I said in another thread, that a good religion teaches its people that eventually they will need to transcend the religion itself.
Would you agree?
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Yes, cwald – but the distinction between transcending “the religion” and “religion” is an important one – as is the distinction between leaving religion behind and staying involved despite transcendence. Religion is more than just an individual thing, and part of it, in its purest sense, is helping others “transcend”, as well. Stage 5 and even Stage 6 aren’t about transcending religion as much as transcending “a religion”. They still involve interaction with, help of and service to others who are walking the path, as well.
Again, that’s one thing I love about Mormon theology – and, notice, I said “theology” in both comments – that the ultimate goal isn’t individual but collective. Yes, it’s about getting to a condition personally, but it’s just as much about getting there with others – a universal sealing of the family of God, at the ideal. That’s the main reason I will never stop being involved in organized religion: it’s not just about me.
I love the phrase “saviors on mount Zion”, even if I don’t take the ordinances as binding literally. It’s the concept behind the phrase I love. The difference between the ideal and the real bothers me to a degree, but I expect it – so it doesn’t drive me nuts like it does many people.
Old-Timer wrote:I think religions works best when it is based on a theology like Mormonism’s – that gives people a reason to be nothing more than smart animals. We are the only animals of which we are aware that are capable of imagining being more than we appear to be, and religion is what animates that imagination.
In other words, I think it functions as the expression of our desire to be more than we naturally feel we are – as a way to resolve the tension between what we are and what we want to be.
I think it gives people faith that all the crap that is part of this mortal life has meaning beyond this mortal life.
I love science and the scientific method, and I love that the scientific method is part of our uniquely Mormon scriptures, but science alone doesn’t come close to satisfying my personal need to find meaning beyond just this life itself. I’m agnostic about details, but I love religion in its purest, theoretical sense. The bad stuff exists because of us and how we bastardize pure ideals. I don’t blame “religion” for that, any more than I blame “science” for the way the Nazis used it under Hitler.
Ye are gods, and the kingdom of God is within/among you. Religion is what we make of it, since it comes from us and is an expression of us as unique entities.
Carl Sagan said “it doesn’t matter if it feels good, it matters if it is true. That is where I differ with most. All the feelings about the church do not matter to me unless it is true. Since there is no way to prove that I must be a skeptic until there is more information. I use to take it all literally. When I could no longer take it as literal I could no longer believe.Quote:“It doesn’t matter if it feels good; it matters if it is true.”
Sagan was wrong – perhaps not for himself or other individuals, but for millions / billions of people.
In areas where objective truth can be determined and accepted without undue damage, I agree that truth is more important than feeling good – but in areas dealing with hopes, dreams, imaginations, self-worth, etc. feeling good absolutely matters, often FAR more than being right. It’s part of being fully human.
I don’t think you have to make the blanket statement that “Sagan was wrong.” There are many people who agree with the idea that truth is most important– I do. So for some feeling good is enough, for others it feels deceptive unless it is based on truth. There are many kinds of people. You’re right, journeygirl, and I thought I had said so in my comment, but when I re-read it after reading your comment I realized I hadn’t said what I thought I did. I apologize for that. It really was a mistake I didn’t realize I’d made. I went back and edited my comment to say what I meant originally – that he was correct for himself
and other individualsbut not for millions / billions of others, especially in areas of faith and religion that aren’t as cut and dried as other areas. Ironically, it was the extremist wording of that sentence all by itself to which I objected the most, not his position relative to his own view. I absolutely didn’t mean to make the opposite extreme statement.
Truth – is an interesting word to me. In the childhood vernacular it referenced owning up to or exact retelling of events, i.e., I stole the cookie. When I studied science truth was anything provable; hot, cold, water, DNA, etc. Among those truth’s was a planet named Pluto. Pluto had been a planet forever, or at least as long as forever appeared to a young teen. Pluto was a planet when my mom was alive, Grandparents referred to it. So on. Even Astronauts – the knowledgeable Space Dudes – referred to it as a planet. Suddenly in the middle of my children’s school science years, Pluto lost it’s truth. It got demoted from planet. I heard two or three different reasons for this, it’s size, it’s matter, our measurable technology, etc. Long and short the truth of Pluto changed. Now which Pluto was true. The one I’d known or the one now known?
A similar process happens in medicine and science all the time and my question is What is Truth?
I am a hobby historian, I read and research historic events a lot, and funny thing The Truth of the events, players and the purposes change. I just read an essay by an award winning historian, who believes the American Revolution was less about tyranny then we present. His idea’s and thesis have merit. It’s a new paradigm for me. He uses the same events every one else does, but goes one step further to look at tyranny in other people relationships, such as slavery, and suddenly his idea throws a twist into a 200+ narrative.
I understand, in some aspect, how Sagan is using truth – but I wonder what is truth. It seems very little lasts forever as we see it. Time, ideology, emotions, new discoveries change things. What once was – is gone – was it an untruth? Truth seems to be what we call truth. If so, how do we pursue truth or determine our life is based on truth?
That’s a really good point, mom3. That is why I am often frustrated! The best I can do is go with what seems to be true, until or unless it is shown to be otherwise. For some that is probably not acceptable. I would rather be open to changing what I believe to reflect the truth as best I can though. This is why I am agnostic! Richard Rorty (an atheist philosopher who was married to an active Mormon) on the subject of truth: Quote:There is no such thing as the search for truth if that search is distinct from the search for greater human happiness.
We call a belief true when no competing truth serves the same purpose equally well.
… To search for truth is to search for beliefs that work. For beliefs that get us what we want.
Full talk:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjhVk-0Vhmk My notes:
http://manyotherhands.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/compatibility-of-religion-and-science.html Mom3, I think the secular response to your questions is that everything has to be held as somewhat conditional. Nothing physical changed about Pluto. The only thing that changed is how we understand it and how we talk about it. Science is flexible that way—as soon as new evidence comes up to challenge what we previously believed, we have to change our beliefs. But we also can’t commit too strongly to any given belief, because it might turn out to be inaccurate. We have to reserve the right to change our minds based on new evidence. In that way, our beliefs slowly come closer to the truth. The process of gaining knowledge is probably never ending. Mackay11, thanks so much for linking to that video. I remember studying some pragmatism in college and thinking that it was such a radically different way of looking at things that I couldn’t ever get fully behind it. That was back when I was TBM. Shortly after that I became agnostic and started to favor existentialism, in particular Kierkegaard’s idea of the leap of faith. It was the only way I felt I could justify believing in God. But Rorty’s talk was really appealing to me. There’s a lot in common between pragmatism and existentialism that I hadn’t realized before.
I like the idea that evidence really only matters within the context of a specific group of people with whom you’re working on a common enterprise. Outside of that group, what matters more is individual happiness, and that’s where religious faith has a legitimate purpose.
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