Understanding the religious mindset

Is there a God? If so, what is She like?

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Lacewing
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Understanding the religious mindset

Post by Lacewing »

What kind of mindset believes in and perpetuates ancient imaginings and stories, as if they could possibly be more relevant than what is evident and present today?

Why would the world of the past, and its words and understandings assembled and re-translated/assembled in various books, be the most significant guide adopted by some people living today?

How could humans at that time be thought to have more awareness and understanding than humans thousands of years later?

What kind of a god would need to be represented by such old material?

Is it because the mystery of the old material can be mysteriously used/applied to explain the mystery of existence that humans want to feel they can know and/or have protection from?
DPMartin
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Re: Understanding the religious mindset

Post by DPMartin »

Lacewing wrote: Fri Apr 30, 2021 4:07 pm What kind of mindset believes in and perpetuates ancient imaginings and stories, as if they could possibly be more relevant than what is evident and present today?

Why would the world of the past, and its words and understandings assembled and re-translated/assembled in various books, be the most significant guide adopted by some people living today?

How could humans at that time be thought to have more awareness and understanding than humans thousands of years later?

What kind of a god would need to be represented by such old material?

Is it because the mystery of the old material can be mysteriously used/applied to explain the mystery of existence that humans want to feel they can know and/or have protection from?
does the truth change? or is what men do and want to do change?

the truth always was always is always will be, and doesn't change to the whims of men and women.
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Lacewing
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Re: Understanding the religious mindset

Post by Lacewing »

DPMartin wrote: Fri Apr 30, 2021 5:02 pm does the truth change? or is what men do and want to do change?

the truth always was always is always will be, and doesn't change to the whims of men and women.
Don't you think man's understanding of "truth" changes over time?

How does man progress or see anything else if he always stares in the same direction?
Gary Childress
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Re: Understanding the religious mindset

Post by Gary Childress »

DPMartin wrote: Fri Apr 30, 2021 5:02 pm
Lacewing wrote: Fri Apr 30, 2021 4:07 pm What kind of mindset believes in and perpetuates ancient imaginings and stories, as if they could possibly be more relevant than what is evident and present today?

Why would the world of the past, and its words and understandings assembled and re-translated/assembled in various books, be the most significant guide adopted by some people living today?

How could humans at that time be thought to have more awareness and understanding than humans thousands of years later?

What kind of a god would need to be represented by such old material?

Is it because the mystery of the old material can be mysteriously used/applied to explain the mystery of existence that humans want to feel they can know and/or have protection from?
does the truth change? or is what men do and want to do change?

the truth always was always is always will be, and doesn't change to the whims of men and women.
We'll we're not treating the common cold with voodoo and witchdoctors anymore. So I assume that's a change.
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henry quirk
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Re: Understanding the religious mindset

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Don't you think man's understanding of "truth" changes over time?

Absolutely.

Fire used to be a little demon or spirit, or a burnin', dancin' flower...we know better today.

But our ignorance about fire never altered fire.

Truth (what is true, what is real) is no different. Our ignorance may have us misunderstand truth, mislabel truth, conflate truth with non-truth, but truth itself exists independently of our misapprehensions.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Understanding the religious mindset

Post by Immanuel Can »

Interesting that this OP starts with a word in which the poster evidently has absolutely no interest at all... :?
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henry quirk
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Re: Understanding the religious mindset

Post by henry quirk »

Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Apr 30, 2021 11:52 pm Interesting that this OP starts with a word in which the poster evidently has absolutely no interest at all... :?
Yep.
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Re: Understanding the religious mindset

Post by Dontaskme »

Every known conceptual thing can be negated - except the Source of all conceptually known things.

For any-thing to be at all, be it real, unreal, apparent, conceptual, abstract, permanent, shifting..even concepts like religion, god, mind, to have an ontology or meaning..necessitates Source..it's innescapable.

Once we acknowledge an essential inextinguishable Source, our understandings and meanings lose their absoluteness..it's all wide open.

Whatever is going on, however it appears..necessitates Source.

.
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Re: Understanding the religious mindset

Post by Belinda »

Lacewing wrote: Fri Apr 30, 2021 4:07 pm What kind of mindset believes in and perpetuates ancient imaginings and stories, as if they could possibly be more relevant than what is evident and present today?

Why would the world of the past, and its words and understandings assembled and re-translated/assembled in various books, be the most significant guide adopted by some people living today?

How could humans at that time be thought to have more awareness and understanding than humans thousands of years later?

What kind of a god would need to be represented by such old material?

Is it because the mystery of the old material can be mysteriously used/applied to explain the mystery of existence that humans want to feel they can know and/or have protection from?
The mindset/ attitude, that "believes in and perpetuates ancient imaginings and stories, as if they could possibly be more relevant than what is evident and present today" is an optimistic mindset or attitude. This is because only optimists can believe in a good deity that has ordered all existence and all that exists.

Th Bible is significant largely for historical/ political reasons.If it were not for those reasons books of The Bible would be read only by the sort of educated people who can understand anthropological and historical sources, wisdom literature, and esoteric superstitions such as numerology.

The main deity portrayed throughout The Bible is the One and Only God.This deity has a history beginning with a tribal portable god . The portable god then becomes a god of place as well as a god of nomadic tribe. The deity then becomes wise to social control in such a way that individuals' intentions are implicated in morality.

The urge to make gods originates in men's need to make sense of life mainly for their safety and wellbeing. Their safety and wellbeing includes need for accumulation of useful information, and social control for purposes of cooperation. It is easier for people to understand and comply when these needs are enshrined in stories with personifications of ideas.
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Re: Understanding the religious mindset

Post by Atla »

Lacewing wrote: Fri Apr 30, 2021 4:07 pm What kind of mindset believes in and perpetuates ancient imaginings and stories, as if they could possibly be more relevant than what is evident and present today?

Why would the world of the past, and its words and understandings assembled and re-translated/assembled in various books, be the most significant guide adopted by some people living today?

How could humans at that time be thought to have more awareness and understanding than humans thousands of years later?

What kind of a god would need to be represented by such old material?

Is it because the mystery of the old material can be mysteriously used/applied to explain the mystery of existence that humans want to feel they can know and/or have protection from?
I guess religion is "science" for idiots. People with average and below-average intelligence typically can't concieve of the world in more complicated terms than what religion has to offer. Religion they can understand, real science not so much, it's above their heads. Plus religion gives them God, heaven (eternal life), meaning, purpose, motivation etc., and also a fairly good, tried and tested way to live, and also fairly good morals (except for Islam and Judaism etc.). Who wouldn't want to be happy.
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Re: Understanding the religious mindset

Post by RCSaunders »

henry quirk wrote: Fri Apr 30, 2021 11:03 pm Truth (what is true, what is real) is no different. Our ignorance may have us misunderstand truth, mislabel truth, conflate truth with non-truth, but truth itself exists independently of our misapprehensions.
So long as the idea of, "truth," is not misconstrued as having some kind of mystic existence independent of human minds.

Truth is not a, "thing." Truth, like, "importance," or, "significance," only has meaning relative to conscious propositions. Only some statement about some aspect of reality can be true or false. It is reality that determines whether a statement is true or not, but truth itself, sans statements, does not exist.
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RCSaunders
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Re: Understanding the religious mindset

Post by RCSaunders »

Atla wrote: Sat May 01, 2021 10:20 am I guess religion is "science" for idiots.
Yes. Religion is one variety of that whole class of beliefs that are substitutes for rational knowledge called superstition.
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Lacewing
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Re: Understanding the religious mindset

Post by Lacewing »

henry quirk wrote: Sat May 01, 2021 12:01 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Apr 30, 2021 11:52 pm Interesting that this OP starts with a word in which the poster evidently has absolutely no interest at all... :?
Yep.
Why don't you two get a room?

Of course I am interested in understanding... yet you, I.C., as usual, provide no thoughtful response as others have done. And Henry is currently obsessed with his examples about fire as if they fit every purpose. Perhaps the only thing I'm not interested in is dealing with your ongoing crap. Say something that shows any initiative and interaction beyond your own self-serving tripe... if you're even capable of doing so... as others have been capable of doing. Nobody else is playing games and acting like the questions aren't asked in the right way or for the right purpose. If you have any eye-opening answers in response to the questions, then offer them and surprise us all for a change.
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mis-post

Post by henry quirk »

nuthin' to see here
Last edited by henry quirk on Sat May 01, 2021 4:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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henry quirk
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Re: Understanding the religious mindset

Post by henry quirk »

Lace,

You asked: Don't you think man's understanding of "truth" changes over time?

I responded (edited out the fire reference since it offends)...

Absolutely.

Our ignorance may have us misunderstand truth, mislabel truth, conflate truth with non-truth, but truth itself exists independently of our misapprehensions.


Our improving understanding of truth (what is true, real) is just that, improved understanding. Truth itself is unchanged by our improved understanding.

So, with that in mind, let's address this...

What kind of a god would need to be represented by such old material?

None. A Creator, if it exists, as I reckon it, doesn't need or care about representation. Man describes the Creator, defines it, creates representations of it, for himself. Man attempts to give a shape, a form, to that which is outside of convention, outside Euclidian thinkin'. He calls it God, or Maker, or Creator becuz he has no better word for it.

Man struggles to lay a symbol on it, to get a handle on sumthin' ineffable (or that may not exist).

Prime Mover, The Unmoved Mover, The First Principle, etc., man applies these placeholders to what seems apparent but is mysterious. Along with the placeholders, some men craft narratives, sometimes to more cleanly or clearly define what or who the Creator is, sometimes to create hierarchies wherein they are the top dog, but these stories are for man's benefit or profit, not God's.

Paraphrasin' myself...

Our ignorance may have us misunderstand the Creator, mislabel the Creator, conflate the Creator with fiction, but the Creator itself exists independently of our misapprehensions (if, in fact, it exists at all).

Our improving understanding of the Creator is just that, improved understanding. The Creator itself is unchanged by our improved understanding.

-----

There, is that less self-servin' and tripe-filled?
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