...how people discuss the issue and what they believe "proves" one side or the other is a pretty good sign of cultural progress/decline. Right now, we don't look too good. Neither the left with "religion is idiocy" nor the right with their Pat Robertsons.
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Yes, I agree.
I was raised in a very religious family; the divinity of Jesus, rewards for the faithful and punishment for the wicked are all taken for granted as fundamental components of reality - in much the same way air and water are. It's a practical sort of belief, no one expects to see or hear God or receive mysterious signs.
Even so, the felt presence of God was deeply intertwined with my childhood and teen life.
Chuck Grimes wrote, "...if you have wondered through art history, anthropology, philosophy, math, some of the hard sciences to some mediocre depth---in other words have sought out to grasp as much of human creativity and knowledge about the world as you can follow---from such a perspective, the stories about Jesus just don't cut it."
And, as it happened, this is almost precisely how I came to calmly walk away, without much ado, from the faith of my mothers and fathers. How could it be, I wondered at around 17, that the God described to me - a creature whose consciousness formed the very fabric of space-time (the implication of the concept of omniscience) would be concerned about such trivial questions as whether or not I went down on the delicious Theresa K. Saturday night?
Yet my Bible teachers poured what seemed to be oceans of time into convincing me that this was exactly the case.
Just an example.
So I'm a non-believer and think that if the sun were to suddenly, ahead of the expected schedule, go nova - taking the Earth and all our pains and pleasures with it - not a cosmic tear would be shed for the loss because there's no one there to care.
That doesn't mean however, that I have sympathy with or patience for denunciations of religious expression in general (as opposed to specific cases that demand ridicule) as 'idiotic' or 'stupid.'
Decades ago Simone Weil wrote that "...a man who's proud of his intelligence is like a prisoner who boasts of the roominess and pleasant accommodations of his cell." Since religious thought and expression are a durable part of human life, the "religion is idiocy" leitmotif is, as explanations go, inadequate, to say the least.
.d.
In all probability the airplane is banked and is turning, although your sensations make you feel it is in straight and level flight. Don't act according to your sensations. Check and cross check your instruments.
Pilot's Information File, 1944
...................... http://monroelab.net/blog/