awesome post

[lauralh]

objective morality and the existence of god

edit: also, what use is religion in genetic terms?

Comments

Of what use...

[pamc.livejournal.com]

Faith and spirituality I seperate from religion.

I think that faith and spirituality does serve a purpose. It's a way of surviving a crisis moment, or even a chronic crisis situation.

Want to know if there is a power greater than yourself? Go out and keep the tide from coming in.

Maybe there is no other consciousness out there. Maybe human is as "great" as it gets. But knowing and respecting that we are not all-powerful is pretty life sustaining. Having faith in something greater than ourselves, whether you call it God or Allah, Jehova or Kali doesn't matter if that faith improves the quality of your life. Hell, for some people it can be life-saving.

But I certianly don't believe that if I don't "accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior" that I'm going to hell. Until someone comes back and tells me so, I'm not buying it (and even then, I'd sure be skeptical).

I believe in faith healing. I've experienced it. But I don't think the words mattered. I've also experienced people outside Xian institutions perform faith healing.

I do think there's something out there, I just don't believe anyone has a monopoly on "God". There is more than one way up the mountain.

[bitchness.livejournal.com]

Nice link. I had a great time being agnostic and living in the Bible Belt last year. Several times I was almost physically attacked in class excercises where we were to express our opinions on issues. I don't have a problem with gay people getting married or having children. I do have a problem with people forcing animals to fight each other (pit bulls or roosters in the instance we were discussing). My definitions of "right and wrong" were completely foreign to those people, and because they didn't understand it they felt the need to attack it. I had a Christian mother of three call me names that would have made people I served with in the Army blush. Boy was that fun.

how about them apples?

[fschwiet.livejournal.com]

So evolution produces neurons with funny light sensors and signal patterns that indicate to us when an apple is in front of us.

And then these neurons develop further to indicate to us some sort of religious force.

Would you say one is real and not the other

I would, because I find so much religion annoying. But Darwin's ideas are hardly proof that all religions are wrong. The contradicting nature of most religions makes it hardly news that they aren't all true either. I don't think Darwin's point about religion added anything to the "Is there a true religion" debate, but it did helped spread the evolution meme through the disenfranchised.

Squwak

[satanseviltwin.livejournal.com]

Yr. No Good (http://www.randomhouse.com/boldtype/1200/houellebecq/)

[herbaliser.livejournal.com]

::confused::

[satanseviltwin.livejournal.com]

Didn't have much time except for a link. The only one I could find, outside of the hateful amazon link, was from the publisher. This book uses genetics as a lens to discuss the ethical ramificatons effects of science, religion & sex. It is not so much the final word on the contents of your post so much as it is the best word to date on the subject.

[herbaliser.livejournal.com]

Ah ok. I didn't really interpret it that way at the time I read it, but I wasn't into Dawkins then either.

You're No Good

[satanseviltwin.livejournal.com]

The 'Yr. No Good' thing was kinda random. It's the title of a piece of music by Terry Riley (http://www.terryriley.com/cd.htm) The statement encapsulates some existential sentiments that exist in both the music and the book. Besides that the music was going through my head at the time I made the post.