Agnostic?

[karpomrx]

Is an agnostic someone not sure if God believes in him?

[POA]

karpomrx said:

Is an agnostic someone not sure if God believes in him?

My understanding was that there were two different types of agnosticism. One variant of agnosticism (I think the term was introduced by Huxley) was that the relevant questions can't be answered by human knowledge.

[karpomrx]

I posted this bit of hocum from the same urge that makes me sneak a cookie off of the plate when they first come out of the oven. I simply could not stand the topic of religion being empty.
This is probably because we have freedom of religion in this nation. I resisted posting on the distaff side because we do not have gender freedom.
All this is probably caused by some bad anarchic gene that bio-engineers are even now seeking to eliminate from our DNA pattern.

[Moses]

I have begun to believe that religious indoctrination does alter the brain, if not the DNA.

[calabi-yau]

Jane Goodall did notice the same feeling in chimps (TSC not inclusive...):

"I sometimes think that the chimps are expressing a feeling of awe, which must be very similar to that experience by early people when they worshipped water and the sun, things they didn't understand."

To believe that humans have become much more civilized and understanding because of technological advancement is a mistake. We still are like fishes in water and know very little still about the universe we are evolving and made to 'swim' in.

Awe is not the problem. On the contrary, I believe a feeling of awe can be a positive experience. It's when you start to rationalize it that religion enters the equation and ... well we all know where that has taken us so far don't we.

[Moses]

What I meant was something different, or more down the line from the chimps. That is, if the chimps started to instruct their group to sacrifice a fellow-chimp each full moon. This would not only alter the dynamics of the group, but do things in the chimps brains -- short circuit other pathways of compassion, e.g.

[POA]

calabi-yau said:

Jane Goodall did notice the same feeling in chimps (TSC not inclusive...):

"I sometimes think that the chimps are expressing a feeling of awe, which must be very similar to that experience by early people when they worshipped water and the sun, things they didn't understand."

To believe that humans have become much more civilized and understanding because of technological advancement is a mistake. We still are like fishes in water and know very little still about the universe we are evolving and made to 'swim' in.

Awe is not the problem. On the contrary, I believe a feeling of awe can be a positive experience. It's when you start to rationalize it that religion enters the equation and ... well we all know where that has taken us so far don't we.

I agree with you about awe, but this also isn't something that people derive exclusively from religion either. (I'm not saying that this is something you claimed, of course).

I think that what happens with religion is that it isn't about awe as much as it's about fear a lot of the time; ie, fear that someone isn't 'saved', fear that someone isn't doing enough, fear that god is going to throw them in an oven for all eternity, et cetera.

It's this fear that's been deliberately inculated by the dominant strains of American theology that makes so much of religion in the United States actually dangerous; and fear does alter brain chemistry.

[Moses]

It's this fear that's been deliberately inculated by the dominant strains of American theology that makes so much of religion in the United States actually dangerous; and fear does alter brain chemistry.

Yes -- who was it -- Jonathan Edwards? Someone Edwards who started the deviant fire and brimstone stuff?

I think religion is an organizing principle that involves the whole being instead of just the head, and we may need that?

But I don't think that the "Christians" who are just political followers are afraid of hell or the fate of their soul at all. If they did, they would attend more closely to the words of Jesus. But they don't even bother. They are quite happy to get their religion second or third hand, and so their devotion is not to God or Jesus at all. But to some other thing. or person or self-concept, etc.