Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 07-24-2012, 03:57 PM   #21
Flyndaran
Untagged
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
Default Re: Theology Specialization: Comparative?

Quote:
Originally Posted by jason taylor View Post
In my experience that is not always true, at least not of religious people of an intellectual bent. Especially if they find themselves on the same political side as is often the case.

But the understanding I think is emotional. When all your Welshmen are down in Rorke's Drift singing Men of Harlech you can sort of understand why the Zulus want to sing whatever it is they were singing.
I disagree. Very few atheists are like me in that they cannot understand religious belief at all. Most were believers or at least agnostics long before they switched over to full (non/dis)belief. They simply disagree now.
__________________
Beware, poor communication skills. No offense intended. If offended, it just means that I failed my writing skill check.
Flyndaran is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-24-2012, 04:07 PM   #22
Ragabash Moon
 
Ragabash Moon's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Topeka, Kansas
Default Re: Theology Specialization: Comparative?

Whoa.

Ok, now that my question has been answered, I'd like to respectfully ask that we not continue this discussion of actual religion, as this is really starting to cross over into serious flame war. It's not there yet, but I can already see tinder.
__________________

Cleopatra: Whenever she assigned me to the switch, was that Voice, or was Raina influencing her thinking? Because, I mean, if it was Raina, she got inside my head and decided that I would screw it up.
Ragabash Moon is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-24-2012, 04:08 PM   #23
Peter Knutsen
Banned
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Europe
Default Re: Theology Specialization: Comparative?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
I disagree. Very few atheists are like me in that they cannot understand religious belief at all. Most were believers or at least agnostics long before they switched over to full (non/dis)belief. They simply disagree now.
That doesn't fit me or my experience. I do understand the appeal of religion, but neither I nor any of the other atheists I knew started out religious and became atheists.

I'd guess most of the other atheists I know may have started out very slightly religious (often born into very slightly religious families), or agnostic, unlike you and I who were bascally atheists from early chilldhood, but I don't think the "start out quite religious (or stronger) but then abandon religion and become atheist" is at all common here in northern Europe.
Peter Knutsen is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-24-2012, 04:17 PM   #24
ericthered
Hero of Democracy
 
ericthered's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: far from the ocean
Default Re: Theology Specialization: Comparative?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen View Post
That doesn't fit me or my experience. I do understand the appeal of religion, but neither I nor any of the other atheists I knew started out religious and became atheists.

I'd guess most of the other atheists I know may have started out very slightly religious (often born into very slightly religious families), or agnostic, unlike you and I who were bascally atheists from early chilldhood, but I don't think the "start out quite religious (or stronger) but then abandon religion and become atheist" is at all common here in northern Europe.
I've met a few people who did dramatic flip flops, but I'm much better situated to see that kind of thing that most people (I live in what you would call an absurdly religious community). For the most part, Atheists and agnostics I've met are born into their condition, just like most religious people. (If you can consider someone "born" into a religious belief).

Its also interesting to find how much of what people call "religion" is actually culture.
ericthered is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 07-24-2012, 04:18 PM   #25
Flyndaran
Untagged
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
Default Re: Theology Specialization: Comparative?

Ok, one last comment before I let the thread die.

I know my experience is limited, but I had never met another born atheist. I guess I made the all too common mistake of assuming that one aspect of my personality was bundled with another related one rather than separate things.

Religious belief scares me as I simply cannot see the rationale for believing anything so passionately let alone things that fly in the face of day to day reality.
__________________
Beware, poor communication skills. No offense intended. If offended, it just means that I failed my writing skill check.
Flyndaran is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-24-2012, 07:15 PM   #26
jason taylor
 
jason taylor's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
Default Re: Theology Specialization: Comparative?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
Ok, one last comment before I let the thread die.

I know my experience is limited, but I had never met another born atheist. I guess I made the all too common mistake of assuming that one aspect of my personality was bundled with another related one rather than separate things.

Religious belief scares me as I simply cannot see the rationale for believing anything so passionately let alone things that fly in the face of day to day reality.
Yes I noticed it. If it's any comfort so do some religious folk.

But "fly in the face" is the wrong wording; there would be no point in talking about THE Virgin Birth if it wasn't generally agreed that spontaneous human reproduction just didn't happen. Such things are assumed to be an introduction of new factors which then follow the laws of nature. Suppose you spit in the air. You decided to spit but the globule will then mindlessly obey the law of gravity.

If it is any comfort to you, materialism scares me. I cannot see the rationale for wanting to believe something which necessarily purges everything of meaning and believing it so passionately. And which seems to me to fly in the face of day to day human behavior.
__________________
"The navy could probably win a war without coffee but would prefer not to try"-Samuel Eliot Morrison
jason taylor is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-24-2012, 07:42 PM   #27
jason taylor
 
jason taylor's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
Default Re: Theology Specialization: Comparative?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
Who started a systematic genocide or war based on Jung?
Are you truely interested in starting a reciprocal corpse counting contest? I can't think of a better way to derail a thread, it all depends on who counts as what and it has been done to death anyway pun unintentional.
__________________
"The navy could probably win a war without coffee but would prefer not to try"-Samuel Eliot Morrison
jason taylor is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-24-2012, 07:48 PM   #28
JCurwen3
 
JCurwen3's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Default Re: Theology Specialization: Comparative?

Quote:
Originally Posted by jason taylor View Post
If it is any comfort to you, materialism scares me. I cannot see the rationale for wanting to believe something which necessarily purges everything of meaning and believing it so passionately. And which seems to me to fly in the face of day to day human behavior.
How does materialism purge things of meaning? All it means is that "Reality", "the Universe", or one or more gods hasn't predefined the meaning, that it isn't objective.

That frees each of us up to define our own meaning (of our lives, the lives of others, the way we wish to conduct our behaviour, of society, reality as a whole, etc), if we choose and make the effort to do so, without feeling pressured to accept an external meaning; I find that to be quite liberating.

Even if there was some way to definitively reveal that an external entity (god(s), "reality", etc) had a meaning in mind, I fail to see why that would be relevant to me (or anyone, other than that entity). I'd want to know it, out of curiosity, sure, but if it didn't coincide with my interests and values, it wouldn't really make much difference to me or how I lived my life.

Also, there are purely materialist schools of thought that don't reject objective meaning. You're thinking of variations of existentialism or nihilism.

Mind you, I'm a skeptic / zetetic. Ask me anything, and I'll say "I know not" or "I suspend my judgement". Most I'll ever mean when I say "I believe [something]" is that it tentatively seems like a good theory at the moment based on matching my memories of its predictive power and general usefulness at retrodiction of what my senses seem to be telling me. But as for the question of meaning, that's for me and me alone to decide for myself - not a "higher being", or society, or anything else.
__________________
-JC
JCurwen3 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-24-2012, 07:56 PM   #29
jason taylor
 
jason taylor's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
Default Re: Theology Specialization: Comparative?

Quote:
Originally Posted by JCurwen3 View Post
How does materialism purge things of meaning? All it means is that "Reality", "the Universe", or one or more gods hasn't predefined the meaning, that it isn't objective.

That frees each of us up to define our own meaning (of our lives, the lives of others, the way we wish to conduct our behaviour, of society, reality as a whole, etc), if we choose and make the effort to do so, without feeling pressured to accept an external meaning; I find that to be quite liberating.

Even if there was some way to definitively reveal that an external entity (god(s), "reality", etc) had a meaning in mind, I fail to see why that would be relevant to me (or anyone, other than that entity). I'd want to know it, out of curiosity, sure, but if it didn't coincide with my interests and values, it wouldn't really make much difference to me or how I lived my life.

Also, there are purely materialist schools of thought that don't reject objective meaning. You're thinking of variations of existentialism or nihilism.

Mind you, I'm a skeptic / zetetic. Ask me anything, and I'll say "I know not" or "I suspend my judgement". Most I'll ever mean when I say "I believe [something]" is that it tentatively seems like a good theory at the moment based on matching my memories of its predictive power and general usefulness at retrodiction of what my senses seem to be telling me. But as for the question of meaning, that's for me and me alone to decide for myself - not a "higher being", or society, or anything else.
Because taking it seriously means that every human motive has to be reduced to the biological. There really is no such thing as love or beauty. It's not so much the thought of God that gives meaning as the thought of reductionism that takes it away. As for it being for you and you alone to decide for yourself, you are a chemical reaction. You decide nothing and there is no "yourself".

Be that as it may, that also makes it literally unbelievable to me. All attempts to make motives that have no obvious survivalistic benefit are convoluted and usually end up as myths. Sometimes not all that bad of myths but mythmaking too is not a biological trait. I think I could believe in fair folk before believing in Materialism
__________________
"The navy could probably win a war without coffee but would prefer not to try"-Samuel Eliot Morrison
jason taylor is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-24-2012, 08:19 PM   #30
Ulzgoroth
 
Join Date: Jul 2008
Default Re: Theology Specialization: Comparative?

Quote:
Originally Posted by jason taylor View Post
Because taking it seriously means that every human motive has to be reduced to the biological. There really is no such thing as love or beauty. It's not so much the thought of God that gives meaning as the thought of reductionism that takes it away. As for it being for you and you alone to decide for yourself, you are a chemical reaction. You decide nothing and there is no "yourself".
You're rolling a bunch of things together here...materialism, determinism, and rejection of free will (or of self?) are distinct ideas that don't have to go together.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jason taylor View Post
Be that as it may, that also makes it literally unbelievable to me. All attempts to make motives that have no obvious survivalistic benefit are convoluted and usually end up as myths. Sometimes not all that bad of myths but mythmaking too is not a biological trait. I think I could believe in fair folk before believing in Materialism
It's really silly to think you know so well what properties could have evolved into the human brain. The professionals still have problems puzzling out properties that apparently evolved into microbes.
__________________
I don't know any 3e, so there is no chance that I am talking about 3e rules by accident.
Ulzgoroth is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
skills

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 09:17 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.