Truthdig - A Bright Manifesto

Truthdig - A Non-Vegetative Manifesto: "Schopenhauer (1788-1860) on religion:
Fundamentalism{ Tag grr! }

Religions are necessary for the people, and are an inestimable benefit to them. But if they attempt to oppose the progress of mankind in the knowledge of truth, then with the utmost possible indulgence and forbearance they must be pushed on one side. And to require that even a great mind—a Shakespeare or a Goethe—should make the dogmas of any religion his implicit conviction, bona fide et sensu proprio, is like requiring a giant to put on the shoes of a dwarf.
As religions are calculated with reference to the mental capacity of the great mass of people, they can have only an indirect, not a direct truth. To demand direct truth of them is like wanting to read the type set up in a compositor’s stick instead of its impression. Accordingly, the value of a religion will depend on the greater or lesser content of truth which it has in itself under the veil of allegory; next on the greater or lesser distinctness with which this content of truth is visible through the veil, and hence on that veil’s transparency. It almost seems that, as the oldest languages are the most perfect, so too are the oldest religions. If I wished to take the results of my philosophy as the standard of truth, I should have to concede to Buddhism pre-eminence over the others. In any case, it must be a pleasure to me to see my doctrine in such close agreement with a religion that the majority of men on earth hold as their own, for this numbers far more followers than any other. And this agreement must be yet the more pleasing to me, inasmuch as in my philosophizing I have certainly not been under its influence. For up till 1818, when my work appeared, there were to be found in Europe only a very few accounts of Buddhism, and those extremely incomplete and inadequate...."
.../...
The origin of the gods is founded on man’s feeling of need, distress, impotence, and dependence in face of natural forces infinitely superior, unfathomable, and for the most part ominous and portentous. To this is added man’s natural inclination to personify everything; finally there is the hope of effecting something by entreaty and flattery, and even by gifts. With every human undertaking there is something that is not within our power, and does not come into our calculations; the desire to gain this for ourselves is the origin of the gods.

Man creates for himself in his own image demons, gods, and saints; then to these must be incessantly offered sacrifices, prayers, temple decorations, vows and their fulfilment, pilgrimages, salutations, adornment of images and so on. Their service is everywhere closely interwoven with reality, and indeed obscures it. Every event in life is then accepted as the counter-effect of these beings. Intercourse with them fills up half the time of life, constantly sustains hope, and, by the charm of delusion, often becomes more interesting than intercourse with real beings. It is the expression and the symptom of man’s double need, partly for help and support, partly for occupation and diversion. While it often works in direct opposition to the first need, in that, with the occurrence of accidents and dangers, valuable time and strength, instead of averting them, are uselessly wasted on prayers and sacrifices, then, by way of compensation, it serves the second need all the better by that imaginary conversation with a visionary spirit-world; and this is the advantage of all superstitions, which is by no means to be despised.

That great fundamental truth contained in Christianity as well as in Brahmanism and Buddhism, the need for salvation from an existence given up to suffering and death, and its attainability through the denial of the will, hence by a decided opposition to nature, is beyond all comparison the most important truth there can be. But it is at the same time entirely opposed to the natural tendency of mankind, and is difficult to grasp as regards its true grounds and motives; for, in fact, all that can be thought only generally and in the abstract is quite inaccessible to the great majority of people.

[doesn't make sense to me, yet; but quite soon; /says cowtowne]
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snack-food:

• Comment #6614To me, it’s like a debate between someone who claims that those who do as they’re told during highschool will immediately become all-powerful billionaires the moment they graduate, and someone who believes that there is nothing but oblivion after the prom.

• === What makes a fundamentalist a fundamentalist is not his belief in the articles of the Christian Faith. It is, rather, the irrational, antiscientific and anti-modernist way he believes it. A small sample of Christian criticism of popular religious figures:
  http://www.modernreformation.org/mh93bcw.htm
  http://kimriddlebarger.squarespace.com/display/ShowJou rnal?moduleId=366117&categoryId=29058

• John 7:8-10[KJV] Go ye up unto this feast: I go not up yet unto this feast: for my time is not yet full come. When he had said these words unto them, he abode still in Galilee. But when his brethren were gone up, then went he also up unto the feast, not openly, but as it were in secret. (Jesus broke his promise [word] by going up secretly after saying he wouldn’t.)

  Matt. 5:22 “...but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.” (Yet, Jesus repeated called people fools: Matt. 23:17,19 “Ye fools and blind...” Luke 11:40 “Ye fools,...")

• Thus, any question of infallibility must be referred to a text that no longer exists. The substance of sacred scripture, nonetheless, is guaranteed by its divine author. Any approach to the text that refuses to be objective about its contents is unacceptable. Finally, the authority of the Bible and especially its divine character is ultimately a matter of faith. It cannot - like all other Christian mysteries - be demonstrated.) .../... how about pedophile priests (so much for celibacy)? How about “divine justice”, which assumes we won’t question the “justice” of the destruction of the earth via the Noachian Flood (every single human being on the planet was full of sin, even the babes?), the destruction of Sodom (again, every single one of them?), the crucifixion of a being purportedly the “divine being’s” own son, for flaws He Himself created? Isaiah 45:7 tells us that God created evil, so I’m curious as to why He isn’t roasting in Hell, himself!

• “In God We Trust” is on some currency. How would you like it if “Allah Is Great!” were on yours?

  The Pledge of Allegiance includes a mention of 'God'. How would you like it if your children had to recite the Pledge were it to mention Satan?, or Santa, or Google, or MooHead, or your name here

• #6166 by Thomas on 3/30 at 10:08 amMike,
  For a guide (pardon the pun) to some of the philosophical problems apparent in the texts of the Old Testament, as you indicated them:

  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0486203514/ref=pd_lpo _k2a_1_txt/103-5880576-7744607?%5Fencoding=UTF8

  similar guide to problems in the NT see the following:

  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/026801678X/qid=114374 1095/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-5880576-7744607?s=books&v=gl ance&n=283155

• I hardy think my answer is “standardized” for most fundamentalists. First, my answer was not intended to be a demonstration of the truth of the object of hope. I simply wanted to make the point that Christian hope is formally different than wishful thinking, which is traditionally regarded as a rational fallacy. .../... Fundamentalism is notoriously anti-intellectual. Start there. ++The following article is a good response to the criticism of religion in public life, with reference to Sam Harris./Thomas http://www.eppc.org/publications/pubID.2574/pub_detail.asp
• plus: [probably awful/sez cowtowne]Check out explanation of what the Bible actually says regarding the shape of the Earth:
  

  http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-c015.html (not an endorsement of the website) RE: Mike #6001For an excellent and authoritative description of the Christian view of the equality and value of women see the following:

  http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_l etters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_15081988_mulieris-dignitatem_ en.html

• In other words, Christians hope for life beyond death. True. But hope is not irrational if it is founded upon the promise of God. That promise is known by faith. Faith rests upon the credibility of divine revelation. We can debate the authority and the qualities of the Bible, however, the hope a Christian has is not without conscious objective foundation. Thus your insinuation that Christian hope is equivalent to wishful thinking is unjustified.”

• The whole reference to Sam Harris is a cheap shot calling The End of Faith a “silly” book and citing a passage which states “While religious people generally are not mad, their core beliefs absolutely are,” writes Sam Harris. “In fact, it is difficult to imagine a set of beliefs more suggestive of mental illness than those that lie at the heart of many of our religious traditions.” That/this article does nothing to demonstrate that the selected quote is incorrect or that the premise of the article isn’t.

• Wisconsin-sized: http://www.truthdig.com/dig/page4/200512_an_atheist_manifesto#6014

• Non-Biblical Sources

  Basically, there are no non-biblical references to a historical Jesus by any
  known historian of the time during and after Jesus’s purported advent. Walker
  says, “No literate person of his own time mentioned him in any known writing.”
  Eminent Hellenistic Jewish historian and philosopher Philo (20 B.C.E.-50 C.E.), alive at the purported time of Jesus, makes no mention of him. Nor do any of the some 40 other historians who wrote during the first one to two centuries of the Common Era. “Enough of the writings of [these] authors...remain to form a library. Yet in this mass of Jewish and Pagan literature, aside from two forged passages in the works of a Jewish author, and two disputed passages in the works of Roman writers, there is to be found no mention of Jesus Christ.” Their silence is deafening testimony against the historicisers.
  In the entire works of the Jewish historian Josephus, which constitute many
  volumes, there are only two paragraphs that purport to refer to Jesus. Although
  much has been made of these “references,” they have been dismissed by all
  scholars and even by Christian apologists as forgeries, as have been those
  referring to John the Baptist and James, “brother” of Jesus. Bishop Warburton
  labeled the Josephus interpolation regarding Jesus as “a rank forgery, and a
  very stupid one, too.” Wheless notes that, “The first mention ever made of
  this passage, and its text, are in the Church History of that ‘very dishonest
  writer,’ Bishop Eusebius, in the fourth century...CE [Catholic Encyclopedia]
  admits… the above cited passage was not known to Origen and the earlier
  patristic writers.” Wheless, a lawyer, and Taylor, a minister, agree that it was
  Eusebius himself who forged the passage.
  Regarding the letter to Trajan supposedly written by Pliny the Younger, which is one of the pitifully few “references” to Jesus or Christianity held up by
  Christians as evidence of the existence of Jesus, there is but one word that is
  applicable - “Christian” - and that has been demonstrated to be spurious, as is
  also suspected of the entire letter. Concerning the passage in the works of the
  historian Tacitus, who did not live during the purported time of Jesus but was
  born two decades after his purported death, this is also considered by competent scholars as an interpolation and forgery. Christian defenders also like to
  hold up the passage in Suetonius that refers to someone named “Chrestus” or
  “Chresto” as reference to their Savior; however, while some have speculated that there was a Roman man of that name at that time, the name “Chrestus” or
  “Chrestos,” meaning “useful,” was frequently held by freed slaves. Others opine
  that this passage is also an interpolation.
  As to these references and their constant regurgitation by Christian apologists,
  Dr. Alvin Boyd Kuhn says: “The average Christian minister who has not read outside the pale of accredited Church authorities will impart to any parishioner making the inquiry the information that no event in history is better attested by
  witness than the occurrences in the Gospel narrative of Christ’s life. He will
  go over the usual citation of the historians who mention Jesus and the letters
  claiming to have been written about him. When the credulous questioner,
  putting trust in the intelligence and good faith of his pastor, gets this
  answer, he goes away assured on the point of the veracity of the Gospel story.
  The pastor does not qualify his data with the information that the practice of
  forgery, fictionalizing and fable was rampant in the early Church. In the simple
  interest of truth, then, it is important to examine the body of alleged
  testimony from secular history and see what credibility and authority it
  possess.

• {this has to end now...Cows gotta return to Havana} don't EVER miss the profound parallels with HORA in this passionate post: http://www.truthdig.com/dig/page4/200512_an_atheist_manifesto#6012