FallenAvatar

Religion can often be called a crutch for those who cannot handle the harshnesses of life and the reality that death is the end. Some don't feel this way, others do.

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Fetch me the spirit, the son and the father,
Tell them their pillar of faith has ascended.

Johnny Rotten

As long as people want to believe, need to believe that this largely trying existence isn't all there is to life, they will reach out beyond the bounds of science. Whether this brave or foolish is a matter of perspective. But there are questions that science cannot currently answer. Are we alone in the Universe? Am I a good person? Are ghosts real? Is there a pattern in the stock market? Nature or nurture? Death penalty or life in prison? Abortion or child-rearing no matter what?

You see where I'm going with this? Science can't answer to social debates. Some turn to political leaders, others to spiritual leaders.

Along the lines of what CSflim said early on--religion protects us from ourselves. It is not perfect, and sometimes it does more harm than good, but what else is new?

For example, people say that money is the root of all evil. I think the true root is greed, and this is an important distinction. Money is just a human object, while greed is a human characteristic. A general weakness for acquisition. But religion teaches you humility.

Does science? Only on a matter of scale. I am small against the backdrop of the Universe. My body is an amazingly complex machine. I am humbled. But science only humbles in scale and perspective. The exploding volcano, the grotesque creatures of the deep sea, the brutality of an ocean storm.

But what of being humble against the backdrop of hum-drum civilization? What little importance is attached to the progression of society, perhaps because it would take more than one human lifetime.

While we are human, as a civilization, we will need guidance for our dreams and fears as well as auto maintenance and home construction. In matters too vague and common, the psychoanalyst cannot prescribe a specific medicine, only the general soma of whatever protease uptake inhibitor is currently being pushed the hardest by the pharm industry.

Are we alone in the Universe? Am I a good person?

After the bloodshed, the witch hunts, the crusades, the inquisitions, it still stands. Because the telescope can only see so far. The measurements are only so precise. Human nature is only so humane. Each question answered only leads to more questions. And on and on. Science, made by man, is thereby attached to his flaws. Religion, created by man, is thereby attached to his flaws. Religion spills blood, but so does a nuclear bomb. There is no such thing as a complete answer. And on and on. There is no such thing as a complete question.

We will congregate, we will look for guidance, for answers we are too ashamed or proud to ask of science. It is integral. It is eternal to us. We keep on asking why, why, why. We will look for signs.

I ask you, would we look for God if we weren't so seemingly alone? Would we scan the stars with our telescopes if we had some neighbors? Searching for another, for something higher, something better. Everyone does it. I know to many atheistic SETI devotees to think otherwise. It's all intertwined.

lurkette

My new hero.

__________________
"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

- Anatole France

chavos

wow....JR may have just won the TFP Philosophy sweepstakes with that answer. very well thought out, and i really appriciate what you said.

Johnny Rotten

And thank you for not taking it the wrong way. It is my personal belief that religion is a construct of man. At the same time, atheism is, in my personal opinion, rooted in a fundamental logical fallacy: Deciding that something does not exist because it has not been proven to exist. But whether or not atheism is itself a leap of faith is better left to another thread.

Even though I think of religion as a construct, that does not take away its power, for me at least. In a way, I think it makes religion even more powerful, that we could create such a complex and often intimidating abstraction in order to bridge the gap between fact and mystery.

Whether or not God exists, the kind of devotion that makes people build something like St. Paul's Basilica or the Parthenon is a devotion with more beautiful power than any other force I can think of. The poetic sanctity of baptisms, weddings and funerals--I wouldn't want to live in a world that didn't have ingrained respect for such events. Religion helps to make us better as a group than we usually are as individuals.