How strongly do you agree or disagree?

[afleitch]

A hideously black and white question.

The best way for me to explain my position is this;

Secular ethics and how it informs itself as an alternative to religious moral tradition is a recent phenomenon in the west. The point at which it became acceptable socially, politically, ethically to say ‘I am not a religious’ or ‘religion does not inform my outlook’ and not be considered subversive is fairly recent.

The problem with organised religion is that it has entered a 'reactionary' phase. It reacts, rather than leads (which hasn't necessarily been the case in other periods of history) particularly in the west because secular/humanist ethics as a system are in the ascendancy (in terms of personal attachment and legal/political output) and as such, religion can be more prone to being, to put it simply; 'mean.'

Women's rights, sexual minority rights, children's rights etc have been generally secured in recent decades in spite of and not because of organised religion. There are exceptions of course (all hail Quakers) in all streams of religious thought just as there are exceptions within secular thought (those who are regressive) but in general the greatest protestations towards such change, and anti-patriarchal change comes from organised religion, which is the all to willing handmaiden of the patriarchy.

[afleitch]

Is there such a thing as an intellectual poison? I find the very notion repellent.

Many of the deepest thought projects ever undertaken have been analysis and interpretation of the various holy writs. I spent a year and a half attending weekly Talmud discussion classes and the level of thought into the most minute interplays between statements of Rabbis over the course of over half a millennium in shaping a legal code that honored all interpretations is a project that I have a huge amount of respect for...the idea of having the Shofar make a sound reminiscent of Sisera's mother upon hearing that her son had been killed forcing one to reflect on the grim realities of triumphalism at the moment of greatest national joy is a lesson that has really stuck with me.

There is room for pluralism and intellectual debate, back and forth, and exchange in religious communities to a degree one would be shocked to find in many other academic settings. The theological debates one finds in seminary courses even in the Evangelical Protestant Christian setting between Calvinist and Arminian theology regarding free will is deep-rooted, passionate, and the exact opposite of stifled. The desire to understand the universe and where it came from has a deep philosophical argument stretching back to Plato and the Old Testament in the Western Tradition (and this is without even bringing up the intellectual richness of the subcontinental and Chinese traditions). Calling that argument off now is the intellectual equivalent of stabbing one's own father on the grounds that he is not needed anymore.

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No one is doubting that; theology, like all ideology is very very adept at swaddling itself with intellectual garb and has certainly been the arena, and at one time was the exclusive arena, of intellectualism itself. However there are points when 'talking amongst oneself' that it does nothing but manufacture it's own credentials. I have read papers, screeds and screeds of papers that use every flourish to essentially dehumanise people. A pastor calling someone a f****t is nothing in comparison to screeds and screeds of 'research' and faux-intellectualism that would never dare use that word but clearly back it's sentiment.

[afleitch]

I'd say that the ultimate "goal" of human existence is to cultivate an inner peace that can't be disturbed by external events. That's a challenge that the materialist is particularly poorly equipped to deal with. 

Why do you distill people's systems of 'non-belief' into base materialism? If materialism is simply reliant on other people/selves, then why can a person not acquire an inner peace through being content with themselves and their friends?

[afleitch]

I'd say that the ultimate "goal" of human existence is to cultivate an inner peace that can't be disturbed by external events. That's a challenge that the materialist is particularly poorly equipped to deal with. 

Why do you distill people's systems of 'non-belief' into base materialism? If materialism is simply reliant on other people/selves, then why can a person not acquire an inner peace through being content with themselves and their friends?

They can (though I would say that if your happiness is reliant upon your social circle, you haven't achieved true, lasting happiness, as your social circle is liable to change). However, my experience has been that many non-religious people (and many religious people) derive their happiness from things - which is a much less stable source of happiness than a relationship with one's deity, or something similarly intransitory.

A relationship with a deity is material; it is for the personal benefit and contentment of the believer. At worst it is a 'relationship' on egg shells, which psychologically may not be of any benefit to the believer at all. Whether such relationships benefit the deity is unknowable. Even the most transient and fleeting of human inter-personal relationships are more reciprocal.

[afleitch]

A relationship with a deity is material

Only if you are a Kantian. An object is not an object in itself. An object is always an object for a subject. The subject is man and man is material. His senses and thoughts are material. His relationship with anything that he postulates (because the postulation is an object of the conscious mind which is bound to the material) is material. A relationship with god is material because it is processed (whether it is reciprocal at all) within the mind.

[afleitch]

That's why I apply different standards of proof to claims made in the different realms: If you claim to have a personal relationship with Barack Obama, I'm going to ask for proof; If you claim to have a personal relationship with God, who am I to say that you don't?

So essentially, you don't apply standard of proof to anything a person can imagine?

[afleitch]

That's why I apply different standards of proof to claims made in the different realms: If you claim to have a personal relationship with Barack Obama, I'm going to ask for proof; If you claim to have a personal relationship with God, who am I to say that you don't?

So essentially, you don't apply standard of proof to anything a person can imagine?

I suppose that I do expect the things that a person imagines to make some degree of logical sense, considering that logic itself is a product of the human mind.

Why should you expect that what a person imagines is by default, logical given that it is possible to conceive of illogical things? When asleep the mind mostly conceives of illogical things. Added to the illogical things that the mind infers while awake, you could argue that we spend more time engaging with illogical concepts that logical concepts given that most logical concepts, even if we do not fully understand the reasoning behind them are self evident (and often rooted in material experiences/sequelae/needs) and don't require much thought.

Logic is also inferred. If the inference is, to give two extreme examples based on fleeting or embedded schizotypal or autistic traits, then on what basis is one concept more logical or illogical than the other? They exist within their own fields of reference. If someone says 'the mountain does not move' then that is a logical statement. It is also an illogical statement as the mountain, in respect to say the Milky Way, just moves an almost inconceivable amount slower than a jet plane.

Why should logic have anything to do with what a person imagines? 'Logic' may infer a god (or no god); deism is not entirely outside of the realms of logical inference, but one would expect that logic would also infer one outcome from that, as opposed to so many competing notions of god that not only does every person hold a different notion from the next person, but may hold different, overlapping or competing notions of god within themselves.