Why Religion Must Remain A Part Of The World...

redrock

Definitions of rhetoric... take your pick

rhet·o·ric (rtr-k) Pronunciation Key


1. The art or study of using language effectively and persuasively.
2. A treatise or book discussing this art.
3. Skill in using language effectively and persuasively.
4. A style of speaking or writing, especially the language of a particular subject:
5: high flown style; excessive use of verbal ornamentation [syn: grandiosity, magniloquence, grandiloquence]
6. Language that is elaborate, pretentious, insincere, or intellectually vacuous:
7. Verbal communication; discourse.

Definitions 4, 5 & 7 would encompass what I meant by rhetoric. Nothing dismissive.

angelica

redrock wrote:

Definitions of rhetoric... take your pick

rhet·o·ric (rtr-k) Pronunciation Key


1. The art or study of using language effectively and persuasively.
2. A treatise or book discussing this art.
3. Skill in using language effectively and persuasively.
4. A style of speaking or writing, especially the language of a particular subject:
5: high flown style; excessive use of verbal ornamentation [syn: grandiosity, magniloquence, grandiloquence]
6. Language that is elaborate, pretentious, insincere, or intellectually vacuous:
7. Verbal communication; discourse.

Definitions 4, 5 & 7 would encompass what I meant by rhetoric. Nothing dismissive.

I know what I understand rhetoric as. I'm asking when you use it, what specifically are you referring to. You thought we were doing a lot of it, and getting lost in it so I would like to hear what you mean.

redrock

angelica wrote:

I know what I understand rhetoric as. I'm asking when you use it, what specifically are you referring to. You thought we were doing a lot of it, and getting lost in it so I would like to hear what you mean.

As I said, 4, 5 & 7....

And as per my post where I used the word....

angelica

redrock wrote:

As I said, 4, 5 & 7....

And as per my post where I used the word....

I ask specifically what you mean with your personal interpretation of rhetoric in terms of this subject--you made the assertion that we've travelled in circles, and have gotten lost in a lot of rhetoric. What specifically are you referring to in this thread.

dkst0426

redrock wrote:

Collin wrote:

Didn't Matthew and Luke use the gospel of Mark as a common source and a lost source, the Q document or something?

I'm not sure this "broader scope" is actually a good thing.

Yep.. the "hypothetical lost text", the Q gospel. Matthew and Luke using Mark as a source... three of the same... loads of re-hashing. I agree - not much of a 'broader scope'. Same things told in a different way.

It's a theory, not fact, although Markan priority does make a lot of sense when you look at the context of the writing and the similiarities between Matthew and Luke.

This broader scope you guys are referring to: all it is is the same events and teachings presented from a different perspective (that being the writer). Extremely useful from the standpoint of studying the Word.

angelica

hippiemom wrote:

Angelica, your statement that "Of my 6 siblings, 5 are athiests. I have personally seen my siblings, among other non-belief people, on numerous, numerous occasions, avoid accountability for harmful actions," combined with this being a thread about religion, led me to believe that you were discussing religious belief. Clearly I was mistaken...

I still sense I have not made my point so to tie my point to religion, I am going to try this:

I'm going to use an example I have seen play out with numerous people of non-faith, in terms of not believing in a power greater than themself. Let's say a non-faith person is a drug abuser. Let's say that a religious person is trying to convince the drug abuser that what they are doing is not good for them. Most people don't have the vast understanding of how it can be destructive, even in an insidious way. So let's say that the religious person can't articulate such concerns in an informed rational way, but that he/she is trying to head off the destructiveness playing out, due to concern or a personal "faith" in the natural consequences of life. Imagine that the religious person brings belief of God into the equation, as their personal way of depicting the natural laws that surround us and govern human behaviour. The religious person explains the consequences of God. And then, imagine, if you will, that the person of non-belief says "I am a non-believer". Your God has no control over me and my actions. Why do you let an imaginary being dictate your life? This isn't about me having a problem--it is clearly YOUR problem". I've seen this happen over and over on this board, alone(not necessarily in terms of drugs). This is a case of non-belief being comforting to a person when they are not accepting personal accountabilty. And by this person of non-faith, justifying their actions and putting it back on the religious person, they are unable to face the actual consequences they are blinded to.

By that same token, I understand non-believers and athiests on this board and in my life, demonstrate faith in many ways. They accept their own accountability for the standards they do believe in. And at the same time, there are Christians who claim to hold faith, but act on non-faith all the time.

When we are avoiding accountability, we do so because we don't believe we are held to it. We have not yet learned that lesson--maybe we are not open to learn it. Religious or non-religious. We then must learn the hard way through life consequences. This is how our unconscious drives us to grow and adapt, if we choose not to naturally accept growth.

Collin

dkst0426 wrote:

This broader scope you guys are referring to: all it is is the same events and teachings presented from a different perspective (that being the writer). Extremely useful from the standpoint of studying the Word.

Yes, but all these writers are highly biased. It's like getting a description of a girl by 4 guys who are in love with her.

angelica

Ahnimus wrote:

I see, well, I don't think religion is needed. I think it's a paradigm we've created to answer questions. We've evolved though, we understand more about ourselves and the universe. I feel the problem is persisting in these paradigms and convincing ourselves of them.

Even the concept of spirituality is lacking. The way our minds work, all of our perceptions, feelings and so on are just paradigms. It's what we believe.

Ahnimus, I'm guessing you can totally grasp that there is stunningly vast degrees of untapped knowledge and information sources to be uncovered in the Universe. There is a mind-blggling amount to learn and expand upon. God, or such "imaginary" paradigms represent all the knowledge of everything that we have not yet discovered. We humans learn through stories. We learn through TV stories, we learn through movies, we learn from stories in songs, we learned morals through the fairytales of our youth. Our undeveloped minds can only understand things presented in a way we can understand like a story. So to represent all the vast knowledge of everything possible, God is a workable idea.

The thing with God is that people take the story and they underlyingly grasp the concept with the story--we're part of all nature and we can sense what we are. Then they use that story to represent all that exists beyond them. By recognizing a higher power, they acknowledge we are very small in the scope of things. And they recognize natural law. This God is very real to people in terms of what it represents that they see in each day, just like a fairytale is real in terms of the very human morality lesson it teaches--like don't judge a book by it's cover--the concept they represent are very, very real in practical terms. It is in this sense someone like cornnifer, or myself totally believe in such concepts as 100% real.

Earlier I quoted Einstein, where he talked of our intuition, which is our ability to wrap our minds around the concept of vastness beyond us, as being our true gift. And he mentioned that we've come to worship the slave of our logical capacity which is only meant to bow down to the intuition. Science is an amazing tool as well. But to confuse the search for understanding with the vastness of what exists can be a delusional error. I read once that we all have certain gifts/abilities that we do best out of 10,000 people--all of us. The other side of it is that we also have many areas where we are shockingly ignorant. In this day and age, what we are ignorant of, we are so blessed that we can truly uncover. Still, religious or not, no matter what symbol we use, we know the knowledge beyond our grasp is very real. Especially us on this board. Most of us realize we've been fed some major non-truths through the years and that there is so much beyond that.


In the end, closing our minds in non-belief is closing our eyes and ears to life.

angelica

Collin wrote:

Yes, but all these writers are highly biased. It's like getting a description of a girl by 4 guys who are in love with her.

I'm guessing the 4 guys who are in love with her have gone into very far depths of appreciating her many deeper qualities and therefore could explain them much better than someone who has paid her no attention. (Hi, Collin. )

Collin

angelica wrote:

I'm guessing the 4 guys who are in love with her have gone into very far depths of appreciating her many deeper qualities and therefore could explain them much better than someone who has paid her no attention. (Hi, Collin. )

True, but I doubt they'd say anything negative, we're talking head over heels here , and I don't know, but I find that I always exaggerate the beauty of a girl I'm in love with, I exaggerate everything, though to me it might be true... I don't know if this makes any sense to you or not...

and hi, we need to catch up;)

angelica

Collin wrote:

True, but I doubt they'd say anything negative, we're talking head over heels here , and I don't know, but I find that I always exaggerate the beauty of a girl I'm in love with, I exaggerate everything, though to me it might be true... I don't know if this makes any sense to you or not...

and hi, we need to catch up;)

It makes perfect sense, and that's what the transcendant nature of LOVE is, Collin! It reminds us of our true nature, which is far beyond or "exaggerated" from our human flaws.

hippiemom

angelica wrote:

I still sense I have not made my point so to tie my point to religion, I am going to try this:

I'm going to use an example I have seen play out with numerous people of non-faith, in terms of not believing in a power greater than themself. Let's say a non-faith person is a drug abuser. Let's say that a religious person is trying to convince the drug abuser that what they are doing is not good for them. Most people don't have the vast understanding of how it can be destructive, even in an insidious way. So let's say that the religious person can't articulate such concerns in an informed rational way, but that he/she is trying to head off the destructiveness playing out, due to concern or a personal "faith" in the natural consequences of life. Imagine that the religious person brings belief of God into the equation, as their personal way of depicting the natural laws that surround us and govern human behaviour. The religious person explains the consequences of God. And then, imagine, if you will, that the person of non-belief says "I am a non-believer". Your God has no control over me and my actions. Why do you let an imaginary being dictate your life? This isn't about me having a problem--it is clearly YOUR problem". I've seen this happen over and over on this board, alone(not necessarily in terms of drugs). This is a case of non-belief being comforting to a person when they are not accepting personal accountabilty. And by this person of non-faith, justifying their actions and putting it back on the religious person, they are unable to face the actual consequences they are blinded to.

By that same token, I understand non-believers and athiests on this board and in my life, demonstrate faith in many ways. They accept their own accountability for the standards they do believe in. And at the same time, there are Christians who claim to hold faith, but act on non-faith all the time.

When we are avoiding accountability, we do so because we don't believe we are held to it. We have not yet learned that lesson--maybe we are not open to learn it. Religious or non-religious. We then must learn the hard way through life consequences. This is how our unconscious drives us to grow and adapt, if we choose not to naturally accept growth.

I think I understand what you're getting at, angelica. It's just that I think, as a purely practical matter, it's best to avoid the use of "god" when trying to convince an atheist of something, because it will never get you anywhere. If what you mean are the laws of nature, then stick to that terminology. Atheists certainly agree that nature exists, they understand cause and effect. The word "god" comes with too much cultural baggage. One person may use it to mean all of the unseen forces around us that we do not yet understand, but the person on the receiving end in North America is likely to hear it in terms of the god of the bible. Rather than go through exhaustive explanations of what you mean by "god," isn't it simpler to avoid using god in the first place? I think that there are many outstanding reasons to not abuse drugs that have nothing to do with unseen forces, and as a former drug abuser I can certainly appreciate how difficult it can be to communicate those reasons to someone in the throes of an addiction, but I doubt that any reasoning that involves an entity that does not exist in the mind of the abuser is going to be helpful unless you can prove to them that it does indeed exist, which of course you can't.

angelica

hippiemom wrote:

I think I understand what you're getting at, angelica. It's just that I think, as a purely practical matter, it's best to avoid the use of "god" when trying to convince an atheist of something, because it will never get you anywhere. If what you mean are the laws of nature, then stick to that terminology. Atheists certainly agree that nature exists, they understand cause and effect. The word "god" comes with too much cultural baggage. One person may use it to mean all of the unseen forces around us that we do not yet understand, but the person on the receiving end in North America is likely to hear it in terms of the god of the bible. Rather than go through exhaustive explanations of what you mean by "god," isn't it simpler to avoid using god in the first place? I think that there are many outstanding reasons to not abuse drugs that have nothing to do with unseen forces, and as a former drug abuser I can certainly appreciate how difficult it can be to communicate those reasons to someone in the throes of an addiction, but I doubt that any reasoning that involves an entity that does not exist in the mind of the abuser is going to be helpful unless you can prove to them that it does indeed exist, which of course you can't.

I was trying very to be sensitive and not using "God", but the problem there was that people were not understanding the relevence of my Godless, non-belief point to the thread, and to religion. So when I'm making a case about God or a lack of God, God is relevent! If I hope to assert my point, anyway--which is my purpose! I don't seek to not make my point!

Ultimately when anyone chooses denial as a way of learning, they will justify that denial. That's been my underlying theme in this thread. No matter what the method they are approached with. I think you and I both agree that ultimately fine boundaries must be respected, (I assume you agree, because I see you tread such fine lines quite gracefully) and often that means we live and let others live--consequences or not.

eden

dkst0426 wrote:

This broader scope you guys are referring to: all it is is the same events and teachings presented from a different perspective (that being the writer). Extremely useful from the standpoint of studying the Word.

^^Thats precisely what I meant he just said it much more eloquently!

DixieN

Ahnimus wrote:

The Bible refers to Atheists as fools.

The fool has said in his heart,
"There is no God." They are corrupt,
their deeds are vile; there is
no one who does good.
~Psalms 14:1

Well, of course it says this. The Bible wants believers, not atheists. The above quote is patently false regarding atheists, but it's there anyway. The Bible is not going to say anything good about atheists because they are not good models of Bible believers, no matter how good they may be as human beings. It's all politics. You paint people different than you in a bad light. You dehumanize, and that sets you free. It also creates an us and them and a reason to fight the "good" fight. Politics, I tell ya.

Collin

Ahnimus wrote:

The Bible refers to Atheists as fools.

The fool has said in his heart,
"There is no God." They are corrupt,
their deeds are vile; there is
no one who does good.
~Psalms 14:1

Inspired by god.

eden

DixieN wrote:

Well, of course it says this. The Bible wants believers

What do you mean "the bible wants" THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU SAID HERE.

Were all the men who wrote the bible, which spanned thousands of years by the way from Moses to John (Genesis to Revelation), in on some kind of MAJOR CONSPIRACY to dupe all of mankind?!?

Its the only Holy book written by men who didnt know each other, thousands of years apart, yet the books corellate perfectly with one another.

What exactly was Moses and Johns MOTIVE for this huge conspiracy? *eyeroll*

Collin

eden wrote:

What do you mean "the bible wants" THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU SAID HERE.

Were all the men who wrote the bible, which spanned thousands of years by the way from Moses to John (Genesis to Revelation), in on some kind of MAJOR CONSPIRACY to dupe all of mankind?!?

Its the only Holy book written by men who didnt know each other, thousands of years apart, yet the books corellate perfectly with one another.

What exactly was Moses and Johns MOTIVE for this huge conspiracy? *eyeroll*

A firm belief in something doesn't make it real.

eden

Collin wrote:

A firm belief in something doesn't make it real.

Listen, that was sh*t^^^and a copout and you know it.

Im trying to provide proof to backup what I say and you just spouted an OPINION there.

Are you now going to dispute Historical fact with banal comments like this one? Just curious.

Collin

eden wrote:

Listen, that was sh*t^^^and a copout and you know it.

It's not relevant what I think of his post.