[Gary Wassner]

People died for Hitler too. And for Ghengis Kahn and Napoleon. And they died for Alexander and King Tut. And they're dying for George Bush. Your point?

I'm not at all suggesting that he was a lunatic or a liar. I don't know anything factual about him, and unfortunately no one does. History is inaccurate at best, and when it comes to history written years later by motivated people and self-interested people, it becomes suspect as well. We rewrite things to suit us, just as we remember selectively.

What do you know of Jesus? Where is your link? Where is your connection to the past? And why would you know or believe more than I do? A fact is a fact. If we both jump off of a tall building, we'll most likely kill ourselves. Yet you believe that there is an afterlife, that there are angels and demons, that magic is rampant in our world (miracles are magic, aren't they?) and manifested itself blatantly at one time in history. You make such huge claims. HUGE. Unbelievable, earth shattering, astounding. And they defy all logic and all natural law. But there are no facts, no common experiences, no photographs, no survivors. It just seems irresponsible to me.

[RAD]

In the beginning it was hope that drove the masses. Hope for the future, for their eternal future in the face of despair at their present. When someone feels totally out of control, when the world spins around them and they just sit and get dizzy, it's so appealing to be offered a way of stepping off.

And that's why religion will always have the advantage. It offers a promise of certainty that science does not. Scientists understand that whenever you solve a problem, it just leads to more complicated (and more interesting) problems. It's a long, difficult, exciting adventure the human race is on, one that will probably never complete in any one person's lifetime (or the race itself may never complete it, considering the many side-paths, dead-ends and regressions out there) but it doesn't put solid ground under your feet. Quiet the opposite. And people want solid ground under their feet, and I don't blame them.

In the end, people believe because they want to believe.

For this reason, I think the problem isn't faith, but rather monotheistic faith. That is, faith that doesn't allow the possibility of anything but itself. That kind of faith has it's good side and its bad side. On the one hand, a single religion can unify people like nothing else (did wonders for the various cultures of the Roman Empire, as well as legitimizing the authority of those in charge) and it's an alternative to chaos (it helped Europe survive the Dark Ages after the fall of Rome).

But its got another side too. When you believe there is only one 'right' faith, then you become protective of that faith to the point of desperation. It's like there's a well in the desert and people have been told they can only use one bucket (one religion) to draw water from it. How would you feel if someone came along and started poking holes in your bucket?

Realize that and you realize that fundamentalist atrocities aren't distortions of monotheistic religion (as the religious claim), they're its inevitable result as much as is the evident strength, self-sacrifice and charity of those who follow such faiths. You can't accept the one without the other (as the monotheists attempt.)

For my part, I believe that there is something out there that pulled all the matter in the universe out of a hat, packed it together and kicked off the big bang.

Put bluntly, I believe in the same God that Einstein, Thomas Jefferson and Socrates believed in.

I also believe that religion represents a yearning toward that being or state of being. It could even be useful, so long as it's not too dogmatic. As long as it's subject to change along with new needs or discoveries. And as long as the worshippers understand that their religion is not necessarily for everyone.

I've got my own faith and my own beliefs about what will happen after I die, and it's no one's business but my own what it is. This is because my faith isn't an evangelic one: I know what I believe isn't right for everyone, and that I may be completely wrong, so I don't try to warp my perception of reality to fit my beliefs (I probably do it anyway, but it's not conscious).

Any religion, philosophy, even art form, can be 'bucket.'

[RAD]

Back on topic: I'm very impressed when people are willing to die for a cause. Mind you, it's not the cause itself that impresses me, but the strength of the person's convictions and beliefs. It goes to show what humans are capable of.

[Celebriän]

But are they dying through a choice of their own? The disciples could simply have said "Yeah ,we own up, it was a con , we just wanted your money." Instead of dying. But they didn't.

And what I know of Jesus. 1, He lived. 2, He died. 3, He rose again. 4, He was the Son of God. etc.

The thing is we're talking about two different types of knowing. One which involves facts and my head. The other involves my heart and something that can or cannot necessarily be proven by "facts".

DO you believe that Julius Caesar existed? Herod?

[Gary Wassner]

Yes and yes.

and yes.


It always seems odd to me that this type of discussion becomes such an 'us' and 'them' discussion. We either believe in ghosts or we don't. You raise to possibility of there being an inbetween position, but I'm not sure what that would look like.

Just by removing the anthropomorphizing (?) doesn't make the magic go away. What we can never know or never understand may not be all that valuable to us. I'm not saying we shouldn't speculate, but so much time has been spent on the afterlife and otherworld issues, that we've made a mess of this one. There is no plan. God does not have a plan for us. We make our own plans.

[Boll Weevil]

Well Caesar wrote a book and was well documneted, and on coins. There is little documentary evidence from the time of the existence of Jesus.

Incidentally Celebrian you cannot "know", no matter how much you want to believe, it is still just that, a belief.

[RAD]

People died for Hitler, etc...

They didn't die for those people, they died for the ideal of what they represent. Even if that ideal exists only in their own minds.

[Gary Wassner]

Faith ends all discussion. If you invoke your 'special' knowledge that no one else can participate in, then you invoke the very magic that I'm referring to. And I ask you again, why do you rely upon magic to make your arguments?

Clarifications are helpful, RAD. But they died for his ideals as much as anyone died for Jesus'.

The Branch Davidians died for Koresh and the cause, didn't they? Was he a God, Celebrian?

[Boll Weevil]

"They didn't die for those people, they died for the ideal of what they represent. Even if that ideal exists only in their own minds." RAD

You cannot know that. There were many fanatically devoted to Hitler himself. It seems probable they did in fact die for Hitler.

[RAD]

I suppose I should have been clearer. I meant that extremely popular figures get idealized.

Anybody ever read '1984?' It's like Big Brother. He didn't actually exist. He wasn't a person who took up space, ate, drank or breathed. He was just an image on the screen and an idea in the collective minds of the InSoc party. There may, at one point, have been an actual Big Brother, but that person bears little resemblence to the Big Brother in the party's mind. THAT Big Brother was ever-present and all-powerful beyond any human limitation. He was the focus and the drive of the whole party.

Thus, I meant they died for the collective idea of Hitler, Napoleon, etc. A distant image that was, at the same time, personal for each follower because each follower imbued him with traits and intentions that they would revere.