Black Cat Analogy

Christianity...the belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree..

Quote: MrV

symbolically

Some would say "literally."

Theologians do more than say "I found it" ... "They say "Open wide... I'm going to shove it down your gullet". And make you pay money for it as well.

As for the text you might add at the end that it is "according to some scribblings from a barely literate society just clawing its way out of the stone age"

Quote: MrV

Christianity...the belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree..

Well, when you put it that way...

You forgot his mom was a virgin and he was a
magician. No David Copperfield for sure, but
walking on water, turning water into wine, and
raising the dead were enough to wow the crowds
2000 years ago.

It all sounds rather silly when you remove the
mumbo jumbo and the religious context, doesn't
it. Joseph Campbell says its all symbology for
something else, something deeper. The problem
is, most churches never get to that symbology,
they just concentrate on the carnival act.

Philosophy is like being in a dark room and looking for a black cat.

Metaphysics is like someone who says to us while looking for the black cat in a dark room that there are other cats in other rooms.

Theology is like God helping us to find the reason why there is a black cat in a dark room.

Science is like being in a dark room with a flashlight and only thinking there is a black cat there when you happen upon it in the light. When the batteries go dead you no longer think there is a black cat at all.

Theology presupposes God exists, then, which seems to be a bigger leap than Descartes "I think therefore I am" to "I think, therefore God exists".

Quote: FrGamble

Theology is like God helping us to find the reason why there is a black cat in a dark room.

Possibly. But all the answers boil down to "it's god's will" or some variant thereof.

Quote: MrV

Christianity...

How ignorant, inocrrect, and offensive would it be for me to say that atheism is the belief that you shouldn't even think about why and how there is something rather than nothing and you should just be a selfish mean jerk who is a cosmic accident and of no importance just like everything else around us has no meaning or purpose to life, just try to enjoy it and then die because nothing really matters in the long run.

Quote: FrGamble

and you should just be a selfish mean jerk.

Why do you have this hangup that atheists are uncaring,
uncharitable selfish mean jerks. The atheists I know are
just as caring and giving and nice as any Christians I meet.
You act like Christianity has the market cornered on
decency. It doesn't, not by a long shot.

Quote: FrGamble

How ignorant, inocrrect, and offensive would it be for me to say that atheism is the belief that you shouldn't even think about why and how there is something rather than nothing and you should just be a selfish mean jerk who is a cosmic accident and of no importance just like everything else around us has no meaning or purpose to life, just try to enjoy it and then die because nothing really matters in the long run.

About the same...

Quote: FrGamble

How ignorant, inocrrect, and offensive would it be for me to say that atheism is the belief that you shouldn't even think about why and how there is something rather than nothing and you should just be a selfish mean jerk who is a cosmic accident and of no importance just like everything else around us has no meaning or purpose to life, just try to enjoy it and then die because nothing really matters in the long run.

Pretty accurate so far....please continue...

(Although people tell me I'm generous and sweet,
and only mean to the people who deserve it..)

Jean Paul Sartre would agree.

Quote: FrGamble

How ignorant, inocrrect, and offensive would it be for me to say that atheism is the belief that you shouldn't even think about why and how there is something rather than nothing and you should just be a selfish mean jerk who is a cosmic accident and of no importance just like everything else around us has no meaning or purpose to life, just try to enjoy it and then die because nothing really matters in the long run.

Take out "selfish mean jerk who is" and you're pretty much spot-on. You shouldn't think about why there is something rather than nothing since there can be no meaningful answer, since causality itself is something rather than nothing. Certainly "eternal, acausal nous capable of meaningful interaction with and possessing many of the foibles of a particular species of especially bright apes and especially a particular race thereof" does not appear to be the right answer.

Quote: FrGamble

a cosmic accident and of no importance just like everything else around us has no meaning or purpose to life, just try to enjoy it and then die because nothing really matters in the long run.

Well stated.

BTW, Philosophy in an important part of life. People either adopt a philosophy implicitly or explicitly, and then apply it either consistently or inconsistently. But you can't escape having one.

Metaphysics is an integral part of any philosophy, with the same caveats as noted above. In fact, they constitute half the basis for ethics, esthetics and politics (the other half is epistemology).

Religion is mostly a philosophical system. Science is not. Science is a tool for gaining knowledge, which may or may not be part of a philosophical system. Therefore when people speak of science as being against religion, is a bit like asking how a BJ hand does against a bet on a craps table. That's also why using science to argue against religion is worse than useless, especially against Roman Catholicism, which has accepted, doublethink and all, much modern science.

The problem is that most atheist philosophies accept religious ethics (altruism/self-abnegation), even while rejecting religious metaphysics (the nature of things) and epistemology (the means of cognition). So in the end whether you're a religious altruist or an atheistic altruist, really makes very little difference. So, for example, the choice to vote for Romney or Obama comes down to which parts of your life they want to control, not whether they'll want to control your life to begin with (and maybe also the extent of such control). But fundamentally there is no substantive difference bewteen the two.

Quote: Nareed

The problem is that most atheist philosophies accept religious ethics (altruism/self-abnegation), even while rejecting religious metaphysics (the nature of things) and epistemology (the means of cognition). So in the end whether you're a religious altruist or an atheistic altruist, really makes very little difference.

Oh, Rand. How I remember you from my youth.

Altruism and self-abnegation are not really religious; rather, it appears that way because those religions that promote altruism (of which, when unexamined, self-abnegation is an unfortunate consequence) create societies more likely to survive, with individuals more likely to prosper. I think my point's made by a webcomic (SMBC) explaining the iterated prisoner's dilemma, showing Jeremy Bentham standing on mutual cooperation and futilely exhorting empty space to "maximize your felicity," followed by Jesus screaming "[Mutual defection] IS MADE OF FIRE!" One of these two has more followers than the other, and while they often do utterly destructive things, and while they're driven by nonsense, and while they credit Jesus with much older ideas (as do you), the ethic of reciprocity and the virtue of altruism create something much stronger than the land of catch as catch can. It's largely for this reason religion and other myths exist.

Now, I expect you may try to take this to an extreme, so I will state: I am not endorsing collectivism. I only want you to take your money out of your pocket and look at it. It is printed on human flesh, and dyed in human gall. The coins are minted of human bone, every bit as much as your library is built of it, and your roads paved. And you're going to gamble these desecrated corpses away without a shred of remorse, and so am I. Precious metals are no better, since gold (some technical applications aside) is of no more practical value, but only what value is given it by agreement. If society collapsed tomorrow, it would be quite easy to starve to death in Fort Knox. Fiat currency only cuts out a magpie's delusion. No, gold and banknotes alike are nothing but casing for trade in blood, and that's a wonderful thing.

In short: by all means, wallow in blood. I will! Just remember that the blood flowing through the casino is no different from that flowing through your veins. That knowledge is true altruism.

"But I am fortunate! I am brilliant! I am rich!" That won't last. Stock up all the guns you want, they'll still find a way. It's what we're seeing now, as the people rally behind their missiles and soldiers to slaughter the rich who step out of line. There are those on the far left who say that working through government channels is a bad idea, since it will delay "the inevitable," when the Catilines and the Robespierres of the world rise up again. I can say that it's not a bad idea for that reason, although it is a bad idea. However, this thought is misdirected - everyone is the hero of their own story, and you, and I, and Rand, and Obama and Romney alike, are the villain of most of theirs. There's likely someone better than you, or at least luckier. Appease them, preferably not through government, but appease them, because I'll tell you, religious or not, they'll be appeasing each other. That's all I'm saying.