Simone Weil's weird take on religious belief

Simone Weil's weird take on religious belief May 3, 2019 12:07:42 GMT

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Post by Arlon10 on May 3, 2019 12:07:42 GMT

May 3, 2019 0:13:29 GMT general313 said:

May 2, 2019 21:54:21 GMT Arlon10 said:

   It doesn't have to provide anything lately. Too many people accept as "science" almost anything claiming to be. I gave a recent example of mind reading. Perhaps you are not paying attention to the news. There are lots of things in politics that are a problem because people believe science has answers it does not.

   You perhaps need to get out more. Your concept of "religion" is terribly distorted. Do you think Trump followers are "religious"? They are definitely not. They just want to be rulers. They'll take any excuse they can get away with. Since they are incapable of science they'll take whatever they think they can get instead, like nationalism. They don't actually try religion because they don't have any themselves.

   You have what religion "fails" to do wrong in the example of the birdhouse/lawn sprinkler/badminton court scenario. It does not force any decision on anyone, that much is true. That however is not a failing. It doesn't try to force a decision on anyone. People who believe in science do try to force decisions on others in the name of science, but without real science to support them.   You are still trying to be the "boss" (or a low ranking soldier for the boss) through science and still can't see how futile that is. You had obvious difficulty understanding artistic (not literal) representations of a god. In your latest reply you actually assumed people incapable of science can somehow manage it. That isn't working, and you shouldn't be surprised.

If there are many people that confuse Youtube videos and other sources of pseudo-science, that doesn't change the qualities of real science or the level of faith required to engage in it. If people believe that they don't need to concern themselves with the latest measles outbreak it isn't because the science is faulty. My point stands that science requires far less faith than religion.

I haven't brought up Trump's relationship with religion, but as long as you mention it, one of Trump's most important constituents is the American religious right, with leaders like Franklin Graham constantly defending the President. Perhaps you can argue that Billy Graham's son is a complete hypocrite but are you prepared to claim that all or even many of the religious right are insincere in their beliefs in God?

So you say "people who believe in science do try to force decisions on others in the name of science". Do you mean all of them or some fraction? And you think that science followers try to force decisions more than religion followers? Now that's a good one!

   If you are such a fan of facts and reason maybe you start using some for a change. You will find that atheists and Christians have higher divorce rates, are less well educated and earn less income than people in most religions on the whole. A few exceptional Christians with better education, wages and lower divorce rates might be found in Catholicism or other especially conservative denominations, still on the whole the atheist and the "evangelical" Christian are going to be the bottom of the pack. There are good reasons why. Most importantly is that they do not read at a very high level as I have made clear to you, explaining that the art on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel is indeed art and not a literal representation of a god. Another significant reason is that they typically have no moral code.

   At one time on this board would often be seen statistics that showed atheists did better than religious people, but those surveys did not distinguish "Christians" from other religions. If you separate Christians out atheists do not do better.

   That is the very good reason Trump followers are not promoting religion very well.

   At the same time, the Democratic Party is misrepresenting science. You are obviously too ignorant of science to realize that, but try to make a case for advances against cancer in the last 20 to 25 years. I suspect you won't be able or will do it wrong.

   All my life, on my website, on my news column when I had one for six years, on my Facebook pages, I have been trying to explain to people how the conflict between "religion" and "science" is a farce. It is only poor people's notion of religion and other poor people's notion of science that are in conflict. They are "Christians" and "atheists" and they are in conflict because they have no idea what religion and science are. They are less well educated, earn less income and have higher divorce rates than people who actually understand religion and science.

   They are "grunts" or low ranking soldiers in their fights. They are trying to force their opinions on others because they completely lack any persuasive skills. That means using the government to force behavior, and they tend to dominate politics in both political parties.

   What destroyed marriage is the government taking over. At one time marriage vows were a promise to never need government oversight of their duties to each other, now marriage vows mean a promise to do what the government says about family management. The government typically mismanages anything it tries to manage, mainly because it is directed by voters who are not qualified to manage anything beyond the scope of government. The government take over totally destroyed the reason for the vows in the first place. Vows mean absolutely nothing because government is going to try to settle things anyway whatever ceremonies you have or not. It will be necessary to recognize once again that divorce is a failure beyond complete repair (by government or otherwise) and thus immoral before atheists and Christians cease their disruptive behavior.