You must note that I did not title this "Is God Ridiculous". That is where your mind may have gone to first. That would be the ego getting in the way of this discussion. I thought that I would use the following trailer, for Bill Maher's new movie "Religulous", to augment my discussion a few days back entitled "I'm conCERNed about Religious Dogma". I simply wish to elaborate the idea a bit through humor as the topic can be very touchy for so many people throughout the world.
Again, as we discussed in yesterdays entry "Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets, on my..., of the great book and recent winner of the GetAbstract Book Award, by Bill Bonner and Lila Rajiva, I used the famed F. Scott Fitzgerald's quote, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.”
This is what we need in order to have a reasonable discussion on religion. As religion still holds such a powerful force in how politicians throughout the world act and react with one another, either together in conversation or through each owns policy decisions, it is time that we all must take a closer look at ourselves and our part in how we react to religion. Even though many may not know much about, not only other religions of the world, but even the finer details of our own structured dogmatic beliefs we follow, we must separate our ego from those discussions to lead us to a more enlightened and educated place.
Since it is such a personal issue for billions of people throughout the world, who can have very radical differences in the dynamics of their individual beliefs on the same topic, it must go without saying that we need to be able to transcend a singular mindset in order to create the necessary discourse over such a delicate topic to reach educated decisions based on doctrines of faith, to which there is no defined validated truth to substantiate any dogmatic belief structure, of any religious sect throughout the world.
For those that may not be familiar with Bill Maher, he is an American stand-up comedian, television host, political commentator, actor, and author. He hosted the late-night television talk show "Politically Incorrect" on Comedy Central and ABC, and is currently the host of "Real Time with Bill Maher" on HBO. He is one of the current leading political and social observational satirists. As for as his religious beliefs, he is not an atheist. Bill was raised in his Irish American father's Catholic religion, and did not find out that his mother was Jewish until his teenage years; his family stopped attending church when he was thirteen, because of his father's disagreement with the Pope's position on birth control.
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(c)Copyright 2008 Doug Boggs
Showing posts with label Catholic Church. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Catholic Church. Show all posts
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Friday, October 17, 2008
I'm conCERNed about religious dogma...
Let me get back to the running banter, again. Another thought was...
...with this CERN concept, that I've been discussing this past week, was to create a background to show that our scientists have enlightened us throughout history of some of the ridiculous concepts and ideas that no or un-education will do to a society. Religious dogma dominated, and in some ways continues to dominate, the free thought processes of our specie. It is like a negative political advertising campaign or a fear based political administration. By breeding religious doctrines and beliefs as truth, it begins to gestate within that dogmatic audience until it becomes dangerous. There is a saying, "it matters not", to which shows that whether the doctrine is true or not, if there is enough mis or dis information that can help to create the belief structure of the doctrine, the people can be led into or to do anything. This is exemplified through Hitler and numerous others over the history of our society.
Now, don't get all up in a bundle. I'm not comparing Hitler to any religious leader. But the point is that the following of any leader must be based on fact. When one is following any administration, doctrine or theory that is based on fact all of those beliefs pertaining to those beliefs can be substantiated and proven hereby allowing the freedom to think and act clearly to those belief structures.
This is not to say that doctrine or religion should not be followed unless there is definable proof. Religion is doctrine that has no proof. All religion is based on belief of doctrine. It is when the doctrine becomes dogma and gets in the way of people being able to think and act clearly as to their belief structure. Then what happens is that people begin to rely on that belief structure as truth, when it is not. People then begin to push their belief structure or their doctrine on to others and use the dogma as their defiant means of truth. This is where the danger lies.
This seems to me to be becoming more dynamic in our system of government, when our founding fathers distinctly stated that there would be a freedom of religion. They did not state that there would be a freedom of God. But the dangerous dogmatic leaders use that to help to substantiate a cause that is not or cannot be delivered as truth. Therein leading people by misinformation.
CERN, and its new massive Hadron Collider, is not only about the splitting atoms or finding the essence of the Big Bang, but it is the continuation of educating the specie to becoming more aware of the truths to our lives, our history and of our future.
Through the scientists desire for proof and truth to their theories and proclamations, they ended up creating new sciences that are the defining cutting edge to what we as a specie know and are able to prove. This has given way to seeing beyond the capacities of what we have previously known or thought possible. This has happened many times in our history. From many others we have experienced profound new ways of looking at our lives based on proof of thoughts that have become substantiated.
In 1633 Galileo was taken to Rome to stand trial before the Inquisition (Catholic Church) for heresy. The church did not want their power diminished by the truths that Galileo was professing. It shook the dogmatic mis and dis information that the church was delivering to uneducated people of the world. The church, or the power holder and administrations of the time believed that, if the people knew more of and began to believe the truth of science to their lives and the world around them, it would begin the demise of the church as an institution.
What CERN today is delivering to people all over the world is finding new questions to answers that already exist. There will be new truths substantiated which will raise more questions as well. But, CERN has delivered a new messenger to the people for their doctrines that they will be teaching. The Internet is an unbiased messenger that has no dogmatic preconceptions as to the content it is sending to educate the global populace. The science, thoughts, discoveries of any person is now being sent instantly for the world to see, process, and rethink for themselves. It allows the commoner or the butcher, baker, or cabinetmaker the opportunity to find the proof to their thoughts rather than taking the word of an administration or dogmatic structure as rote.
When Adam Smith describes the sovereign and the trader we can see that he is discussing the rich and powerful and the poor and uneducated. The sovereign need to make sure the uneducated do not have the answers so that the dominion can remain. The Catholic Church needed to make sure that the commoners wouldn't think further so they imprisoned Galileo and made him denounce his findings that the earth is not the center of our universe or that the earth travels around the sun, and that the sun is the center of our universe.
Due to Galileo and his quest for truth we know that the sun is the center of our galaxy and not even the center of our universe. It took hundreds of more years for the people as a masses to be able to enjoy that information. Today, we are able to research information instantly and disseminate information instantly and substantiate information instantly more that we ever have before.
I will end for the day...but there is so much more to say!
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(c)Copyright 2008 Doug Boggs
...with this CERN concept, that I've been discussing this past week, was to create a background to show that our scientists have enlightened us throughout history of some of the ridiculous concepts and ideas that no or un-education will do to a society. Religious dogma dominated, and in some ways continues to dominate, the free thought processes of our specie. It is like a negative political advertising campaign or a fear based political administration. By breeding religious doctrines and beliefs as truth, it begins to gestate within that dogmatic audience until it becomes dangerous. There is a saying, "it matters not", to which shows that whether the doctrine is true or not, if there is enough mis or dis information that can help to create the belief structure of the doctrine, the people can be led into or to do anything. This is exemplified through Hitler and numerous others over the history of our society.
Now, don't get all up in a bundle. I'm not comparing Hitler to any religious leader. But the point is that the following of any leader must be based on fact. When one is following any administration, doctrine or theory that is based on fact all of those beliefs pertaining to those beliefs can be substantiated and proven hereby allowing the freedom to think and act clearly to those belief structures.
This is not to say that doctrine or religion should not be followed unless there is definable proof. Religion is doctrine that has no proof. All religion is based on belief of doctrine. It is when the doctrine becomes dogma and gets in the way of people being able to think and act clearly as to their belief structure. Then what happens is that people begin to rely on that belief structure as truth, when it is not. People then begin to push their belief structure or their doctrine on to others and use the dogma as their defiant means of truth. This is where the danger lies.
This seems to me to be becoming more dynamic in our system of government, when our founding fathers distinctly stated that there would be a freedom of religion. They did not state that there would be a freedom of God. But the dangerous dogmatic leaders use that to help to substantiate a cause that is not or cannot be delivered as truth. Therein leading people by misinformation.
CERN, and its new massive Hadron Collider, is not only about the splitting atoms or finding the essence of the Big Bang, but it is the continuation of educating the specie to becoming more aware of the truths to our lives, our history and of our future.
Through the scientists desire for proof and truth to their theories and proclamations, they ended up creating new sciences that are the defining cutting edge to what we as a specie know and are able to prove. This has given way to seeing beyond the capacities of what we have previously known or thought possible. This has happened many times in our history. From many others we have experienced profound new ways of looking at our lives based on proof of thoughts that have become substantiated.
In 1633 Galileo was taken to Rome to stand trial before the Inquisition (Catholic Church) for heresy. The church did not want their power diminished by the truths that Galileo was professing. It shook the dogmatic mis and dis information that the church was delivering to uneducated people of the world. The church, or the power holder and administrations of the time believed that, if the people knew more of and began to believe the truth of science to their lives and the world around them, it would begin the demise of the church as an institution.
What CERN today is delivering to people all over the world is finding new questions to answers that already exist. There will be new truths substantiated which will raise more questions as well. But, CERN has delivered a new messenger to the people for their doctrines that they will be teaching. The Internet is an unbiased messenger that has no dogmatic preconceptions as to the content it is sending to educate the global populace. The science, thoughts, discoveries of any person is now being sent instantly for the world to see, process, and rethink for themselves. It allows the commoner or the butcher, baker, or cabinetmaker the opportunity to find the proof to their thoughts rather than taking the word of an administration or dogmatic structure as rote.
When Adam Smith describes the sovereign and the trader we can see that he is discussing the rich and powerful and the poor and uneducated. The sovereign need to make sure the uneducated do not have the answers so that the dominion can remain. The Catholic Church needed to make sure that the commoners wouldn't think further so they imprisoned Galileo and made him denounce his findings that the earth is not the center of our universe or that the earth travels around the sun, and that the sun is the center of our universe.
Due to Galileo and his quest for truth we know that the sun is the center of our galaxy and not even the center of our universe. It took hundreds of more years for the people as a masses to be able to enjoy that information. Today, we are able to research information instantly and disseminate information instantly and substantiate information instantly more that we ever have before.
I will end for the day...but there is so much more to say!
*
(c)Copyright 2008 Doug Boggs
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