On Apr 19, 2005, at 12:03 AM, KZK wrote:
Nick Arnett wrote:Warren Ockrassa wrote:That's a good point. I'd ask you to think about something else, though -- why do you consider yourself religious? I mean, if you have some kind of faith, *why* do you have that faith?Well, there's the question. An honest answer has to include, "I don't know." I choose to regard it as an undeserved gift. A self-centered answer is, "I'm happier." A non-rational answer is, "It feels true."
A quasi-evidentiary answer is that it has survived the millenia.
So has malaria and the clap. Are they forces of "good" too?
From the perspective of the microorganisms?
Certainly from the human point of view such things are pestilence. But from a survival, life-over-all perspective, they're working.
I think it was Carl Sagan who commented that yeast has been very successful over the millennia -- it's taught the apex predators on Earth how to replicate itself for myriad purposes, some of which include intimate infections, some of which we regard as beneficent, some of which are of debatable value.
Alfred Nobel was forever torn over his invention. Dynamite was -- and is -- good for lots of positive applications, as well as more than a few negative ones. Does that mean that dynamite was and is incontrovertibly evil, or even arguably so? Or is it safer to suggest that it's the human capacity for finding a cloud in virtually every silver lining that's really to blame?
I can be very harsh on religion; I know that. But I also recognize that *faith* -- not necessarily religion -- has been a source of solace for untold millions, possibly billions, has given meaning to lives that otherwise might have seemed unnecessarily nasty, short and brutish.
Nick and I have traded a few Buddhist ideas. I'm not officially Buddhist -- never taken a refuge vow -- but I do like some of the philosophies of the system; I like how it's non-theist and doesn't have a specific doctrine of a soul. One of its major adherents has said more than once that to the extent science uncovers new realities about the world, it is Buddhism that will have to change to suit itself to our increased understandings.
The reason I bring it up is that a core tenet of Buddhism is that suffering should be reduced. If someone's faith in a deity reduces that person's suffering *and* does not contribute to the suffering of others, I find it hard to see that faith as invalid, worthy of mockery or something that needs to be "outgrown" or discarded.
Scientific findings have also been used to great evil over the centuries. Should we argue for discarding the scientific method and its fruits? In order to be consistent with the message that religion is a source of evil and should be cast aside, that question becomes very important, doesn't it?
-- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress "The Seven-Year Mirror" http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf
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