The Big Picture: Nerd Gods
- Thread starter MovieBob
- Start date
As a fellow survivor of Catholic school myself, I have often wondered why people in the west were unable to accept new (UFO religions) or even revival of old (neo-paganism) religions. We made all the old stuff up, so why can't we just make some new stuff up?
I realize that there have been some people in this thread proclaiming the virtues of faith and how these new faiths would lack the legitimacy for people to put their faith in. These people seem to lack a knowledge of history, where it becomes clear that religions are abandoned and supplanted all the time. Faith is not the reason that any of the world's major religions - Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, or Hinduism became the dominant world religions. It is also extremely naive to assume that self-proclaimed religious people in the world today actually believe the things which come out of their mouths. Religions tend to cluster around communities and a failure to espouse the tenets of the religion of the community can often result in being ostracised. As a result, I put very little stock in the argument that a religion must be legitimate enough to warrant a person placing their faith in it.
I personally fail to see how faith in one set of myths is any less valid than faith in another, newer set. Are either Buddha or Muhammed a more realistic or righteous character than Superman or Spiderman? Are angels really more believable than Greys? As a species we need to start taking our religions less seriously and enjoying them for what they are, an expression of our culture and our on going attempt to explain the incomprehensible world around us. None of them are right or wrong. And anyone who proclaims that there view and only their view is right and that society must be governed according to their incontrovertible beliefs must be confronted. To steal a line from Bill Hicks, "That's what fundamentalism breeds - no irony"
I realize that there have been some people in this thread proclaiming the virtues of faith and how these new faiths would lack the legitimacy for people to put their faith in. These people seem to lack a knowledge of history, where it becomes clear that religions are abandoned and supplanted all the time. Faith is not the reason that any of the world's major religions - Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, or Hinduism became the dominant world religions. It is also extremely naive to assume that self-proclaimed religious people in the world today actually believe the things which come out of their mouths. Religions tend to cluster around communities and a failure to espouse the tenets of the religion of the community can often result in being ostracised. As a result, I put very little stock in the argument that a religion must be legitimate enough to warrant a person placing their faith in it.
I personally fail to see how faith in one set of myths is any less valid than faith in another, newer set. Are either Buddha or Muhammed a more realistic or righteous character than Superman or Spiderman? Are angels really more believable than Greys? As a species we need to start taking our religions less seriously and enjoying them for what they are, an expression of our culture and our on going attempt to explain the incomprehensible world around us. None of them are right or wrong. And anyone who proclaims that there view and only their view is right and that society must be governed according to their incontrovertible beliefs must be confronted. To steal a line from Bill Hicks, "That's what fundamentalism breeds - no irony"
I don't understand how people would start believing in a known fictional character. Yes, all religions were started by somebody, at least all but one were fiction, but people didn't know it!
And as Bob himself insinuated, the result of those new gods may be something like or worse than Scientology!
And as Bob himself insinuated, the result of those new gods may be something like or worse than Scientology!
Damn you Bob, I respected you, now you gotta go make the masses think agnosticism is a third choice! If you lack a belief in a deity of some kind then you are not a theist. If you are not a theist, you are an atheist. And that's that. You don't even have to have a belief. Plants are atheists, they lack a belief in a deity. If you want, you can take it further, and believe in a lack of a deity (instead of lacking a belief in a deity) and that would be explicit atheism (though really there needs to be another word for it. Agnosticism is about knowledge, yes, agnostics believe knowledge of the existence of a deity is impossible to know. Hell, most Christians preach that. Gnostics (not the Christian sect you were discussing, a different thing entirely) believe that knowledge of the existence of a deity is possible to know. Not that they believe in a deity, just that they think, at one point, it'll be possible to prove it.
Well, I've been pursuing some of the text in here so far, and I've noticed no one has called Bob out on this one, so I guess I will.
Bob, you are off on your belief on the "evolution" of God/s and what gnosticism means. Please, allow me to explain.
First, the evolution theory of God/s. You talked about how cavemen viewed Gods as the natural forces (Druidism approach essentially), then they attached human characteristics to them, and then BAM we got us a Greek pantheon! That isn't the case though for religions across the globe. Judaism has existed for thousands of years. Best guesses place it as far back as 1500 B.C. (Scholars best guess as to when Moses would have lived.) So, for well over 3500 years we have one religion that has existed. I'm not an anthropologists, but I've got a feeling that this may be the oldest surviving religion, and the views have not changed that much for it. The arguement could be made that since Abraham believed in other Gods and then changed to one he might have been the one to initiate the transition, but that doesn't make it evolutionary. Cults don't grow large when they compete directly with mainstream view. The only one to do that in the last 1500 years was Scientology, and that was through some pretty nasty tricks.
So, what of the other viewpoint? Gnosticism? Well, here's the problem with gnosticism, it mixes and matches but never keeps things in context. For instance, what if I told you the parable of the Good Samaritan that Jesus told? (To paraphrase that story: A man is mugged on the road and left for dead. A holy man and a priest both ignore him because he is unclean. A Samaritan comes and takes him to an inn and gets him all healed up.) Some would look at that story and just go, "Oh, do nice things. Got it!" But that misses the bigger point that Jesus was making with that parable. He was trying to show Jews that everyone is good, because he showed how someone that Jews disliked would help total strangers yet the holy men would not.
This is the problem with Gnostics and agnostics, they take small parts that sound nice but don't have the same meaning when taken out of context. If you really want to understand this though, you need to go back to how the early Christian church had to fight off the tide of Gnostic Christianity, which was attempting to blend multiple myths into Christianity (this is partly the reason why we have so many pagan festivals with a new Christian flair. The other part was just keeping up the tradition). Entirely new books were written 200 years after Christ attempting to say that they were made by the apostles, yet they claimed things that directly conflicted with the books we had from them directly or from their letters.
I would love to go more into this, but I would first need someone to critique me here. Any takers willing to start a healthy debate?
Bob, you are off on your belief on the "evolution" of God/s and what gnosticism means. Please, allow me to explain.
First, the evolution theory of God/s. You talked about how cavemen viewed Gods as the natural forces (Druidism approach essentially), then they attached human characteristics to them, and then BAM we got us a Greek pantheon! That isn't the case though for religions across the globe. Judaism has existed for thousands of years. Best guesses place it as far back as 1500 B.C. (Scholars best guess as to when Moses would have lived.) So, for well over 3500 years we have one religion that has existed. I'm not an anthropologists, but I've got a feeling that this may be the oldest surviving religion, and the views have not changed that much for it. The arguement could be made that since Abraham believed in other Gods and then changed to one he might have been the one to initiate the transition, but that doesn't make it evolutionary. Cults don't grow large when they compete directly with mainstream view. The only one to do that in the last 1500 years was Scientology, and that was through some pretty nasty tricks.
So, what of the other viewpoint? Gnosticism? Well, here's the problem with gnosticism, it mixes and matches but never keeps things in context. For instance, what if I told you the parable of the Good Samaritan that Jesus told? (To paraphrase that story: A man is mugged on the road and left for dead. A holy man and a priest both ignore him because he is unclean. A Samaritan comes and takes him to an inn and gets him all healed up.) Some would look at that story and just go, "Oh, do nice things. Got it!" But that misses the bigger point that Jesus was making with that parable. He was trying to show Jews that everyone is good, because he showed how someone that Jews disliked would help total strangers yet the holy men would not.
This is the problem with Gnostics and agnostics, they take small parts that sound nice but don't have the same meaning when taken out of context. If you really want to understand this though, you need to go back to how the early Christian church had to fight off the tide of Gnostic Christianity, which was attempting to blend multiple myths into Christianity (this is partly the reason why we have so many pagan festivals with a new Christian flair. The other part was just keeping up the tradition). Entirely new books were written 200 years after Christ attempting to say that they were made by the apostles, yet they claimed things that directly conflicted with the books we had from them directly or from their letters.
I would love to go more into this, but I would first need someone to critique me here. Any takers willing to start a healthy debate?
I liked it.
But i am for a merge of the Godzillaism and the Church of Spiderman and the X-saints. Monotheism is just soooo unimaginative and boring.
But i am for a merge of the Godzillaism and the Church of Spiderman and the X-saints. Monotheism is just soooo unimaginative and boring.
Agnosticism is not a belief you can have and therefore the people claiming that you are just a 'careful atheist' are partly right. Actually there is no third choice, you either believe, or you lack the believe.
I can understand claiming this third choice when someone asks you, to prevent any awkward discussions, but when bringing up the subject yourself, it is silly. Most people in the modern world are agnostic in the sense that they understand that a certain belief cannot be proven or disproven. This says nothing about your belief.
Furthermore, atheism is not "not believing", it is lack of belief in Gods. The difference may appear subtle or semantic, but that is far from the truth. Claiming a God does not force anyone to choose between them existing or not. Not forming an opinion is not agnostic, it is atheistic.
This youtube video explains it rather eloquently I believe: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNDZb0KtJDk
Your statement in the beginning hints that you were already vaguely aware of this, but simply have not yet understood.
Why is this important? Because atheism needs to be an acceptable position worldwide, especially in countries like America. 'Inventing' the smart atheist called an agnostic, just disqualifies people who are clear about their atheism. Especially if you are directly linking them to militant atheists, such as is being done in this video, disqualifying them by association.
I can understand claiming this third choice when someone asks you, to prevent any awkward discussions, but when bringing up the subject yourself, it is silly. Most people in the modern world are agnostic in the sense that they understand that a certain belief cannot be proven or disproven. This says nothing about your belief.
Furthermore, atheism is not "not believing", it is lack of belief in Gods. The difference may appear subtle or semantic, but that is far from the truth. Claiming a God does not force anyone to choose between them existing or not. Not forming an opinion is not agnostic, it is atheistic.
This youtube video explains it rather eloquently I believe: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNDZb0KtJDk
Your statement in the beginning hints that you were already vaguely aware of this, but simply have not yet understood.
Why is this important? Because atheism needs to be an acceptable position worldwide, especially in countries like America. 'Inventing' the smart atheist called an agnostic, just disqualifies people who are clear about their atheism. Especially if you are directly linking them to militant atheists, such as is being done in this video, disqualifying them by association.
I think we can all agree on one thing here: Scientology got it's due in the end.
..That said, I apparently subscribe to the religion of Wrex. If you piss him off, he will eat you.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
..That said, I apparently subscribe to the religion of Wrex. If you piss him off, he will eat you.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
This has gotta be my favourite Big Picture video so far 
Well done Bob... you pretty much voiced all the same ideas and views on the subject I've had recently in a very eloquent, sensible and, in places, amusing way. Good job
Well done Bob... you pretty much voiced all the same ideas and views on the subject I've had recently in a very eloquent, sensible and, in places, amusing way. Good job religion is just another thing some people use to avoid thinking for them selves, and as a scapegoat. "God said so"
not everyone, but a few...
I'm a born and raised Christian (in a fairly relaxed way) and am like those people you mentioned. don't *really* believe in God and miracles and stuff, but DO believe in many of the good morals, and teachings of how to live life. I can think and see for my self that many of the headline things in there are good stuff. and I'm not one of those anoraks thats going to go "oh, this obscure line in the bible when taken literally doesn't make sense! I'm going to assume the whole religion is rubbish! that 'love thy neighbor stuff' must be a trap!!!"
I also think that denying gays the right to marriage, and to call it marriage like everyone else, in this day and age, is sickening, and tantamount to the times when people were hearing about a certain dream... what this? the bible disagrees? hmm, how fortunate that I was born with A BRAIN!
saying the bible is basically fan fiction is SPOT ON!
I will raise my children Christian, just as my parents raised me.
oh, and I feel the same way about Christmas.
I feel that both Christmas, and Christianity in general, do more good than harm, especially when mixed with a pinch of common sense. I would say this is probably true of most religions.
which brings me to my one criticism of the video "some religions aren't behaving themselves at the moment" not 100% sure what you meant, or how tongue in cheek it was meant to be... but its worth remembering: terrorists are extremists, its not their specific religion's fault. remember the extremest of all religions, Catholic, Christians... have done some pretty terrible things...
not everyone, but a few...
I'm a born and raised Christian (in a fairly relaxed way) and am like those people you mentioned. don't *really* believe in God and miracles and stuff, but DO believe in many of the good morals, and teachings of how to live life. I can think and see for my self that many of the headline things in there are good stuff. and I'm not one of those anoraks thats going to go "oh, this obscure line in the bible when taken literally doesn't make sense! I'm going to assume the whole religion is rubbish! that 'love thy neighbor stuff' must be a trap!!!"
I also think that denying gays the right to marriage, and to call it marriage like everyone else, in this day and age, is sickening, and tantamount to the times when people were hearing about a certain dream... what this? the bible disagrees? hmm, how fortunate that I was born with A BRAIN!
saying the bible is basically fan fiction is SPOT ON!
I will raise my children Christian, just as my parents raised me.
oh, and I feel the same way about Christmas.
I feel that both Christmas, and Christianity in general, do more good than harm, especially when mixed with a pinch of common sense. I would say this is probably true of most religions.
which brings me to my one criticism of the video "some religions aren't behaving themselves at the moment" not 100% sure what you meant, or how tongue in cheek it was meant to be... but its worth remembering: terrorists are extremists, its not their specific religion's fault. remember the extremest of all religions, Catholic, Christians... have done some pretty terrible things...
Iv always felt that Greek mythology was the way to go.
Greek mythology has a lot of different moral lessons witch today's people could learn a couple things from.
but personally i think religion in general is a bad thing.
any way i understander the values that could be picked up by many comic books, or other mediums is a good thing, and less harmful then a colt style religion. (they all are)
I still think the best way is to use examples and values that can be found in real life history/today.
Greek mythology has a lot of different moral lessons witch today's people could learn a couple things from.
but personally i think religion in general is a bad thing.
any way i understander the values that could be picked up by many comic books, or other mediums is a good thing, and less harmful then a colt style religion. (they all are)
I still think the best way is to use examples and values that can be found in real life history/today.
I thought this was all a pull for Gnosticism. Scientologists literally believe in their doctrine, so they don't fit into your idea of the Gnostic nerd ideal, and thus cannot be a worst case scenario.
Good stuff Bob, this was a genuinely interesting proposal, and hilarious to boot.
Good stuff Bob, this was a genuinely interesting proposal, and hilarious to boot.