It is the use of religion, particularly Islam, in spreading this uncivilised, barbaric views from the stone-age, that is so damaging to civilisation. It is never OK to take slaves! It is never OK to rape women and turn them into sex slaves! Anyone who says it is should be locked up for hate crime! Any religion that says it is should be should up for the medieval nonsense it is!
UK: Muslim cleric teach Islamic law: ‘Yes, you can take captives and own sex slaves’
That’s pretty damn scary stuff…o_O
It certainly is. It is hard to believe that a religion in this day and age actually condones slavery and rape.
But it does. There is also amongst some people who have strong “beliefs” Mutilation of young girls.
Yes that’s utterly disgusting too. It’s the same with all fundamentalism. There are some similar horrendous things in the Old Testament that are glossed over. Most religious people do not take every word as gospel do they? I think the enlightenment put an end to that. The Muslims need an enlightenment. Some of the things some of them believe are disgusting.
“Most religious people do not take every word as gospel do they…” Oh, I think you know the answer to that. 😀 Of course not. I’ve made a list of the things the Seeker has been learning as she goes along, and it bears no resemblance to fundamental religion. I’m guessing the biggest difference between the bulk of us and what a biologist would believe is simply the point of origin. I’ll have to post that list at some point for it contains all my theology… Now I HAD to get it from somewhere. 🙂
I seems to me that there is a huge difference between spirituality and religion. As an antitheist I am, as often stated, opposed to organised religion. I think it is harmful. In terms of spirituality I have an open mind. While I do not in any way have a concept of god and certainly do not conceive of any idea of a god as a being who has a relationship with humans and created us (or anything as simplistic and human as heaven, hell – paradise or purgatory). If I have any concept of what some would see as a god I would see more as something analogous to nuclear energy.
Well this may surprise you, but that’s the way I see God, too. I believe at our essence we are energy. When we dies, I think our energy rejoins with that of other beings. And who knows. Maybe the it spins off into a new being. That’s one of the reasons past lives have always interested me. My question is does our own peculiar energy retain it’s knowledge and memories. Now there’s some scifi for ya!
Interesting. We vibrate.
Really? So you’ve never thought about that?
I used to have this idea that all that existed was a mind in an infinite nothing. The whole universe was its imagination as it dreamed to fill the time. It divided itself up into compartments – each one a person, aspect of the universe, and all apart from the central mind. After we died the compartment shut down and we became part of the universal mind again. Sometimes the compartments didn’t completely shut down and we had ghosts. I was a kid playing around with ideas.
Sometimes I felt that we were all a cosmic vibration – each of us slightly different on a cosmic scale.
The human mind needs to play with answers. We are problem solvers. We find something unbelievably big like life and the universe and have to have a reason. I’m not sure that there is one. But human beings aren’t happy with that. There has to be a purpose. Our mind tells us that everything has a purpose. That’s the way human minds have evolved.
I guess the only difference between us then would be that I think we were programmed to be problem solvers. But by who. The word evolved — though I can see it in nature — is a bit too random for me.
Personally I don’t see anything random in evolution. Natural selection relentlessly selects the ones most suited to survive. Mutations are selected if beneficial. Given enough time anything is possible.
Our biggest attributes are our brain size, imagination and ability to solve problems. We are great at seeing patterns.
It worked very well on the African plains. We saw the patterns of nature, animals (predators and prey) and used our imagination to create weapons. That is what made us so successful. The mind was great at solving problems like why do animals do this and that? Seasons change? and how to live off the land.
When applied to bigger problems it has proved very good too. We have sorted out atoms, black holes and quasars in no time at all.
It is when confronted with life, death and infinity that I think we fall down. Our minds insist there is a purpose. We make up our explanations. We seek all manner of evidence – some extremely tenuous. Well maybe… maybe not.
“It is when confronted with life, death and infinity that I think we fall down.” Well… perhaps there is a reason for that? 😀 (Off to clean house and do laundry! The kids are coming from Baltimore in the morning. We’ll have to continue this discussion later! 😉 )
I’ll look forward to that Cheryl.
Life, death and infinity are quite big subjects aren’t they?