Why we can't agree

[kross]

$.02 more.

Religion is a list of do's and don'ts designed to get man closer to GOD. Christianity is a relationship with GOD through HIS work to reconcile us to HIM apart from any works we can do.

Thus, Christianity is as much a religion as your relationship with you mom and dad. Both relationships are based in who you are and who they/HE is. Both require respect for the law/rules giver and both are founded in an unconditional love. Neither of them is a religion.

Hi Kross,

Would you say that Islam is not a religion? How about Judaism? The list goes. I don't know why some people don't want to see Christianity as a religion; to me this makes no sense at all. The Oxford Dictionary of English give the following definition for religion: the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.... You said that Christianity is a relationship with God. The Oxford Dictionary says religion is especially belief in a personal God. That is Christianity to a T. Unless you want to change the dictionary definition.

Hitchey

Because all the religions you quote are set up with rules that are required in order to be good enough for GOD. (although I would have to say that Judaism is not a religion in it's purest form as it is a relationship established by GOD with HIS chosen people)

I do not subject the Bible of GOD to the dictionary, so changing the dictionary definition would make sense to me.

[Shiloh62]

I found a surprising comparison between science, art, and religion in a Conceptual Physics, by Paul G. Hewitt, textbook. (If you ever have a need to understand physics, I highly recommend obtaining one of these books; it truly makes understanding the concepts simple and entertaining.) In the first chapter, "About Science," the author takes the time to compare the value of these three, how they are the same, and how they differ.

Science, art, and religion are described as the forms by which we search for order and meaning in the world around us. Science does so by looking at natural phenomena. The arts do so through drawing out the depths of our emotions and discovering what is possible in human experience. Religion does so by addressing the source, purpose, and meaning of it all.

Or think of them as the "what," the "how" and the "why" - Science focuses on "what." Art focuses on "how." Religion focuses on "why."

(What I appreciate about this presentation is that it places value on religion and the arts, but that's a side note.)

So what insight does this give me on why we can't agree? Simply put, where the intersection between these disagree, we have to either reject one or redefine out understanding of both or either.

To the one who already rejects religion (granted, this provokes the side-track question of what this person uses to satisfy the need for source, purpose, and meaning?), the answer is simple - reject religion. If science is your standard of standards by which all other things must be measured, than any expression of art or religion that contradicts what is considered established in science, is discarded as myth or what have you.

But to the one who values religion - or rather to the one who values the God of the religion - any contradiction to one's belief in and about God (or whatever the controlling power is) - is discarded.

You see, it is all about what we place as the highest priority in our lives and what we use as the center and standard for meaning. To take our "favorite" topic of evolution, for example, most Christians reject the entire principle of evolution or the bottom line of evolution for the simple fact that it contradicts the core of their understanding of what brings meaning to life and the world. (This aside from the other fact that we don't favor anything that removes the creator from the equation of the Creation . . . but that's another side trail.)

Now, I don't know what the atheist and the agnostic look to for meaning, but obviously the belief in a "supreme being" challenges what is core to them.

This, I believe, is why we disagree.

Interesting! Its good to see that art and religion get equal billing with science. I need to show this to my mother; her husband ( my stepfather?) rejects religion all the time.

[nebula]

As for science fiction not conflicting with science, though? When was the last time you saw a sci-fi movie that was not filled with scientific inaccuracies? I used to interact on an astronomy message board, and we spent a good deal of time ragging on the scientific inaccuracies in movies. As of the time of my last interaction, our most "gag" movie was Armageddon for all it portrayed wrong (that is, it was such a scientific travesty, none of us could enjoy it as a movie).

Science fiction is fantasy. Armageddon may give the public the wrong idea about how to avoid a killer asteroid, but no body is trying to pass Armageddon off as a science documentary. It doesn't conflict with science because it is not passing itself off as a science program. I love science and get royally annoyed with sensationalist documentaries that twist fact and try to pull the wool over the eyes of the public. Armageddon wasn't credible for me as a scifi flick because I couldn't buy into idea that guys with oil rig experience were more qualified than trained astronaughts. The idea seemed silly. Deep Impact I loved. I was able to overlook the ending.

Oh, but you missed all the little details involved in the movie that made it so outlandish!

Let's see - asteroids have smoothed, rounded surfaces, yet the asteroid they landed on had lots of sharp edges.

Here, let me direct you to to the "guru" on this stuff. Then when you are done reading, tell me that this movie did not conflict with science.

Bad Astronomy: Armageddon

[nebula]

Would you likewise please provide a proposition for science doing some re-defining?

I mentioned two. . . .

My apologies - I missed those as being examples.

[nebula]

There is a different way to look at it. Art, of the type you've described, conflicts with history, not science. History is about facts, but it is not science. Science, I don't think conflicts with art. There is science fiction, but it doesn't conflict with science as it is understood as fantasy.

I understand what you are saying. But my perspective is that history is seen through the lens of scientific thought. I hope you understand what I mean by this?

Perhaps in the sense that historians should try to report accurately, but history is called a social science.

Notice the word "science" in "social science"?

[Guest shiloh357]

You would like a definition of religion that excludes Christianity. Could you offer me a succinct definition that does that because I still don't understand what you are talking about. You say that religion has rules, well, Christianity has many rules about belief. I can't get my head around this claim. What am I not understanding?

Well there is the Christian "religion," and there is "Christianity." There are a lot of people who subscribe to the Christian religion in that they mentally assent to Christian morality/ethics and follow certain rites and traditions, can talk the lingo and mentally assent generally speaking to the basic doctrines of the faith.

However, those things don't make some a "Christian." The Christian "religion" on its own is simply a human system, like all relgions are. Jesus, not the Christian religion, is the source of our salvation. You can "do" Christianity all of your life and still go to hell simply because you have never accepted Christ. A lot of people have "religion," but they do not know Jesus.

True Christianity is predicated on an inward transformation of the heart by Jesus. The NT calls it being "a new creation." Our spirit is reborn and becomes one with the Father by virtue of our union with Him in Christ who lives within us in the person of the Holy Spirit. God's program is about restoring man to Himself. It is about repairing the rift or the breach that was made way back in the Garden of Eden. The entire Bible is the story of God making a way for man to return to Him and to restore that lost fellowship.

God is not interested in relgion. In fact, religion has been one of the biggest obstacles to man finding God. Religion strokes man's pride. It causes man to be elevate himself in the light of his own works, while grandiose as they may be in his own eyes are meaningless to God. Religious people tend to measure themselves against others who don't meet up with they have determined is the proper level of God honoring observances.

Because of this, many who are religious will miss out on Jesus altogether. Their religious vanity makes them feel they are acceptable to God even though God has repeatedly told us that good works are not how man is justified, nor how he finds approval in God's sight.

True biblical Christianity teaches us that God loves us, and wants to reconcile us back to Himself and to restore the lost relationship. He wants us to receive His love and to return that love to Him in kind. It is his desire to remove the curse of spiritual death from each of our lives and He has made a way for that to happen through sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. The gift of eternal life is bought and paid for in full. We can't be good enough or religious enough or do enough good things to earn it.

Religions, all of them, pretend to offer a path to God. The problem is that there is no path to God. A path is a something you travel under your own strength to reach a destination. The problem is that there is no way you can possibly work your way to God. Such a path doesn't exist. God is not interested in people performing well enough for Him. They can't possibly do that anyway. As I stated before. His program is all about restoring man to Himself and that is the essence of true Christianity versus the empty shell of the Christian "religion."

[nebula]

There is a different way to look at it. Art, of the type you've described, conflicts with history, not science. History is about facts, but it is not science. Science, I don't think conflicts with art. There is science fiction, but it doesn't conflict with science as it is understood as fantasy.

I understand what you are saying. But my perspective is that history is seen through the lens of scientific thought. I hope you understand what I mean by this?

Perhaps in the sense that historians should try to report accurately, but history is called a social science.

Notice the word "science" in "social science"?

Historians employ statistics and even archeology but they also deal with things that cannot be tabulated. One of the big topics in history is human motivation. Why did someone do this instead of that? What did so and so think? Such questions cannot be answered by science. Reliability of the written material is another problem and how an historian judges this has a major impact on his conclusions. I don't think we see history through the lens of science at all. We see history through the rose coloured optics of human bias. There is not an historian among us who does not have his own biases. The job of the historian is to persuade others that his interpretation of the events is a more accurate reflection of the facts than is someone elses.

But my original example dealt with actual historical events, not motivations and interpretations.

Take for instance the movie 300. Historically, the Spartans wore actual armor with copper breastplates and not nothing but leather Speedos.

That's an example of "art" interfering with "fact" . . . the scientific aspect of history.

[nebula]

I've been doing some pondering. . . .

Maybe this will bring some perspective?

I was thinking about the time my parents separated and divorced and what it was like for me. I consider that time to be the most painful experience I have ever been through. Before then I thought appendicitis was the most painful experience I could have ever gone through. The pain of my parents divorcing far surpassed the agony of that.

But as painful as that was, I can't truly consider this the worst experience I had ever been through. The worst experience I had ever been through was when my faith crashed and burned. I took my "leap of faith" and ended up at the bottom of the cliff and broken in pieces.

Mind you, I've been too far gone to ever stop believing in the existence of God. But where I found myself . . . I felt like God had betrayed me. After all, knowing how mixed up I can get, why didn't He do something to break through my confusion when all I wanted to do was find His will and follow His direction? I had a choice then, to stick with Jesus or to walk away. But where else could I go? Where else could I go to find peace? What else could ever bring comfort to my emotional pain? What "high" could ever compare with what it feels like to be in the presence of the Lord? So, I chose to stick with Jesus, even if I never could make sense out of hearing the Lord's voice and direction, nor figure out how to walk by faith in the details of life. But walking through life for several months were the darkest of my life (and that's saying a lot for someone who's chronically depressed with months-years long bouts of walking through major depressive episodes).

So what does this have to do with this topic?

Science vs. religion.

Science is all about the mind. But it is far removed from life, from the human experience. Science can boast all it wants about intellectual superiority and rationality. But what can science do for a broken heart? How can it bring comfort, calm and peace in the midst of "the storms of life"? Through science, will you ever feel like you are unconditionally loved?

You all here who are not Christians, you can't understand why so many of us refuse to look at anything that might challenge our understanding of Scripture or of our faith in God? You wonder why we don't put reason on the same pedestal as you?

Well, maybe it's because we consider the human experience to hold more meaning than those things which can be observed through number crunches and a microscope (so to speak).

So, I'm not asking you to agree - but can you at least to some degree understand what I am saying?

[nebula]

I understand Nebula.

We value things differently though.

I know. That's what I was getting at from the beginning. We can't "reach" each other because we have different perspectives on what is most important in life.

I'm glad you understand this.

Comfort, feelings of unconditional love, etc. aren't high on my list of personal needs. I recognise that to others they are of great value, but for me they aren't a high priority. For me personally, things like reason, curiosity and rationality hold higher priorities. Can you understand that? I didn't choose to be this way, it is just who I am. I don't think it is any more right or wrong than the way you are, it simply is the way it is.

I think I can understand. I'm actually a very strong-minded individual. But because I have been through so much pain - beginning even before I have memory - it's opened up the whole other side of me.

I keep asking questions in the hope that if I am wrong, there will be an answer somewhere that makes everything click into place. Answers that come from emotion or from personal experience or threats of punishment or promises of rewards or anything of that nature will never be enough to make me believe. It isn't a concious choice, I can't just choose to believe, for me to do that would be to lie to myself. If there is something out there that would allow me to believe, and your God cares as much as I'm told, I'm sure I'll find it eventually.

[nebula]

I thought of something else.

Imagine being out in the ocean in the middle of a storm and falling over board then being swept out to sea.

Can you stay afloat in the water on your own? How do you keep from drowning?

Now imagine going through some bad experiences that might be comparable to being lost at sea in a storm. Have you ever been through a trauma like that?

Going back to the ocean . . . imagine now you have a life preserver on. Consider how much easier it is to stay afloat with the preserver than without. Oh, you'll still get battered by the waves and submerged at times, and the water will still be cold, and you still feel frightened. But at least you know that the life preserver will keep bringing your head back up above water.

Faith is like that for us. Or rather, our faith in Jesus is like that.

So maybe you can't understand why we refuse to take off our life preservers even though the sky is sunny and the waters are calm and whatever else would compare in this analogy - but having survived on account of that life preserver, I wouldn't voyage along the ocean of life without it.

(Forgive any crudities of the analogy, but that's the best I could explain it.)

~~~~

So, how about you?

What is it about logic and reason that makes you value it above all else?