Quote:
Originally Posted by peter12
I think we are coming to the point in Western life where a real examination must be made of how our modern secularism has come to actually create conflict with the religious beliefs of individuals. It is modernity that is the cause of Biblical literalism and religious fundamentalism. To loosely quote Karen Armstrong, it is a sad thing that we live in a world where something must be scientifically or historically demonstrable in order to be true.
Pre-modern religion was intended to provide human beings with an account of the divine experience and of human nature's spiritual place in the universe. It never stifled debate or quelled policy. In fact, if you know anything about early Christian, Muslim, and Jewish culture, you would find that these texts were in fact the cause of all meaningful debate within a society.
Modern culture can't understand religion. Fundamentalists are a product of this misunderstanding. In an effort to counter scientific rationalism, they have attempted to rationalize their own faiths, which is ridiculous. Equally ridiculous is the standard of the absolute secularists, like atheists and socialists, which is to apply a standard of absolute rationalism to the private beliefs of their fellow citizens.
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I personally find it a sad thing that religions use lies to control the minds of so many as opposed to the facts that are right in front of their face.
Again...unless religions can provide real facts about things like the Ark, a 6000 year old earth, flying horses, talking snakes, making man from dirt, etc etc etc, when we know for a fact that what they say is impossible and a lie, then quite frankly they choose to foist ridicule on themselves. Science and History are there for us to learn from...fantasy is for story telling alone...like Aesops fables or Dr Seuss.
Pre modern religion was used to try and describe the world and what was happening to uneducated farmers and goat herders. It was and still is used as a control mechanism. Goat herders couldnt debate what they didnt know...they believed what their religious icons told them.
Modern culture is losing its religion because we are more educated...we can see with our own eyes the lies before us.