Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Lagayascienza]

Stoppleman, words such as "lazy" and "uninformed" are insults better aimed at ... But no. I won't go down that road. You need to learn how to argue a case without resort to such insults. It demeans you rather than your target.

[LovelyLau]

People do kill in God's name, maybe they have their reasons.
However if you truly love God then you will not kill which is a pretty vicious thing for a woman to do anyway only someone pushed to the absolute brink would feel that way.
But also your love of God could never make you touch a person or dream of touching anyone in a violent way or approve of violence either.
However..some people naturally would never dream of killing and I think that is to do with personality type some people could not dare to do it, they just could not stand that violence or live with it either but others may find it easier.

[Stoppelmann]

Humanity has always been bewildered. Bewildered is part of what it means to be human. That why humanity invented gods. Doing so was a sort of assuage for their bewilderment. If you can't figure it out, outsource the head work to a god. Easy. It works for some.

That's a typically lazy, uninformed opinion, especially considering they had little to go on and produced the society you live in. Learn about the shoulders we stand on before you criticise them.

Stoppleman, words such as "lazy" and "uninformed" are insults better aimed at ... But no. I won't go down that road. You need to learn how to argue a case without resort to such insults. It demeans you rather than your target.

Interesting that you felt you had to come back. I admit that I am weary of assumptions we know why the ancients did what they did, or wrote what they wrote, without listening to people who have taken the trouble to study that. All the evidence tells us that humanity didn’t invent gods out of bewilderment but out of creative enterprise, giving themselves a meaningful narrative and calling upon their archetypes from dreams. They were using their imagination, a gift that is underestimated, to probe their way through the darkness.

There is also evidence that their perception was different (not worse but different) to ours, and they imagined themselves in a cosmic drama, and inspired by the stars they told fantastic stories using a symbolism that evades many people today and is slowly being re-discovered. Their stories show their experience of nature and their use of metaphor. The sages who wrote scriptures were literary geniuses, writing in a sophisticated language and transporting true-to-life portrayals rather than facts. This is why until we lost our ability to read these stories, they meant something to people for thousands of years.

I also come across young people who think they know life and can say whether a story is good or bad. If you haven’t been in danger, were never scared out of your wits, or been so desperately hungry and tired that whatever is edible is eaten, you don’t know enough about life to judge. That is what coming-of-age rituals used to be about: experiencing your extreme emotions so that you learn how to cope with them. That is why I am weary of comments that seem like academic throwaways. If it was not so in your case, I apologise.