Seasons

As a Taoist, I always find 'religion as restraint' arguments amusing. Our own true nature is one with Tao, so surrendering to our true natures makes the Tao active and alive in the world. Of course, then we have all the people who have cut themselves off from their true nature...

Can I prove Tao exists? Well, everything has its own tao. A coffee cup pushed off a table will fall to the floor; that is its tao. Deciduous trees lose their leaves in the fall and regrow them in the spring; that is their tao. The Tao is simply the sum of every smaller tao. I don't 'believe in' Tao: I experience it in each and every moment.

Is Tao the same as God? I can't claim to know for certain, but I suspect there is a deep connection.

*passes the soapbox on to the next writer*

well of course there would be natural consequences for certain actions but why not still do what we want when we want for tommorrow we may die. Using the logic that we somehow sprung up from a series of events that led to simple celled life does not explain why we as humans have a sense of good vs evil. Why would a impartial universe create beings that know the difference? Why would we even have religions if it were all because of a series of lucky events. Has anybody even calculated the odds of humans becoming self aware? Or has anyone calculated the odds of life springing up at all? Why did order come out of a chaotic mass of energy and molecules to form galaxies, and planets and suns and life?

I could go on and one but I am betting that the odds would be next to nothing. We know so little about this vast universe that it is illogical not to embrace any possiblity.

And because of this I choose to believe that there is something better waiting for us on the other side. That somehow a greater intellegence was behind it all. A intellegence that would be impossible for us as its creation to understand. I choose to believe the christain sect of the jewish faith to explain the universe in terms that I can understand. Why? Because the principle outlined in the Bible really does lead to a happier more fullfilling life if we practise them in all of our affairs. kinda like certain self help groups out there. I have tried other faiths and even once believe in science to prove things but none of those things led me to a happier life. None of those religions led to filling the emptyness inside my life. Only until I accepted the message of the bible did I actually begin to grow and change my defects of character. Only then was I able to evolve as it where to a person that could actually care about someone other than myself. and that is the end of my arguement. The defense rests your honor.

"the most logical solution is agnosticism. agnostics believe that since they cannot prove or disprove god, they will forget about religion alltogether, and live their lives otherwise."

Why is atheism the default?

Agnosticism isn't atheism.
Atheists say 'There is no God'
Agnostics say 'We can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God'

if those who belive in god do it for a hope of something more meaningful than a material life after death, then what is the point of all of the restrictions and isolationism that religious sects indulge in?

whatever we manage to fulfill in life is a direct descendant of the observations that our self aware consciousness has made, and the associations that result from them. when it comes to god, no one can make associations connected to any observations, unless you personally witness a heavenly mirracle, and since the human mind is limited to learning about its surronundings based on obsevations, how can we expect ourselves to dedicate entire lifetimes toward the servitude of someting that is beyond our nature to understand? i don't see people trying to create worlds on a daily basis.

also, in scientific reaserch, people are always correcting the mistakes of their predecessors. in Judaism, a major monotheistic religion, the earlier you lived the more authority you had over the subjectmatter, because they were supposedly "closer to the source". later scholars were unable to attack the theories of the earlier scholars, so if at any time someone goes off course, the entire field of study is screwed forever... in science, if we go off course, we are more than welcome to correct ourselves and get back on track. for me, science is my relgion.

You sound like me as a teenager...
Science provides answers for this life, but has nothing to say about any other. Some would argue that this is the only life, and so only science matters. I've experienced things that cannot be explained by conventional science, and thus I am convinced there is more.

Here's a fun exercise: close your eyes and try to feel where your body ends and the rest of the world begins. You may be surprised.

A friend of mine put her father in hospice last weekend. In his final days, he makes little sense, and she is there with him to be there, for what ever good she can do. She is very worried because he is a Buddhist and she is a Lutheran. She has been taught that he will suffer eternal torment because he has not accepted Jesus as his lord and savior. She is very upset--she asks what about his wisdom and compassion and all the good he did? She mourns not only his death, but his damnation.

I cannot say much except that if the Christian church is correct on this point, I'll be in hell with him. Maybe hell be be full of Buddhists trying to teach the damned how to let go of suffering. Maybe the pagans will take hell over and turn it into a day spa. I don't know.

This may not go to the original question of logic verses faith, but to me, it is the heart of the issue. If faith is dogmatic, it requires the acceptance of a cruel and crazy god (not to belittle anyones personal transformation or belief). If Science is dogmatic, it is worse than that--it is not even science.

Yes, it is an amazing and complex world. It is tricky to try to simplify it in terms of what is most logical, and it is a trap to rule out possiblities just because they seem unlikely. I remember some sort of quote about once you've ruled out the impossible, whatever is left, no matter how improbable, is the truth.

I have great respect for science, but I think it has its limits--because we have limits as humans, and we created science. Like Ulrike, I have experienced things that can not be explained by science. I would like to think of this as coming from a personal god, but that may be only the limits of my human mind trying to impose a form on that which is beyond my understanding. I guess that is why I like stories and metaphors--to me, they get at what cannot be put into words.

In the end, science and logic are powerful tools, but they are only tools. Too a child with a hammer, all the world is a nail.

1000 years ago, if a person from that era got a glimpse at what our technologically advanced world is like today, they would have seen the phenomena of our every day life to be something unexplainable by their level of science, and therefore it must be divine. if a space craft takes off over a primitive south american tribe, the chances are they will bow down to their fire god and beg forgiveness (viewing the ship as a god in a fire chariot, which is the only thing that their primitive civilization can relate to after witnessing the phenomenon). today, we have explanations for things that seemed mirraculous for all of history. if you experience something that science currently cannot explain, its possible that in 200 years every 5th grade science text book will have a precise explanation to what today seems unexplainable, just as our predecessors saw the sun, moon, planets, and stars to be gods and today we know exactly what they are. the further our knowledge of the world increases, the less we turn to spirituality.

As for the point that science was created by human beings and is therefore limited just as we are, so did we create religion. even if god existed way before mankind, our perception of spirituality and our consequent reactions (religion) are also human made, and therefor must be limited too. so if I had to choose between human made science which operates on principles of logic, or human made religion which operates on our anticipation of the unknown, I would pick the science.

Well said colonel720. I think Religion is an explanation for things that can not be axplained. Also if there is an Allmighty, why would he sit back and let the world decay to such a point that we could wipe eachother out in a few hours?

Maybe, because this is not heaven. Perhaps it is done to make us appreciate the fact, that deep down, humans are not as smart as we think we are.