User talk:Mendel/Religion

"[...]why does love exist?"
Simple, really. Offspring and hormones.

Love is a biochemical procedure in your body, the synthesis of oxytocine etc. That's also why breaking up hurts, and why people stalk. Your body is used to getting that high everytime you see your lover, read a note left by him/her etc. When that stops, your body objects. It wants that high again (yes, it's essentially the same as drugs. It's also the most common comparision). People start stalking because they want to get that high again, but can't imagine getting that with another human (can't move on).

The whole reason this biochemical procedure is initiated, is because humans are monogamous. A man and woman need to stay together to raise the offspring. Without love, the man would hump other women and essentially ignore it's offspring (once the young are born, the body reacts in a similar matter to the child as to the partner, but without the lust (generally speaking)). Tiger stops by, eats babies, mauls woman, humanity ends ---> here.

Just my atheistic take on the matter :> --- -- (contribs)  &emsp;(talk)  21:43, September 11, 2009 (UTC)
 * And that's why animals behave like humans?!? Also, you are using a very narrow definition of "love" here. -- ◄mendel► 02:08, September 12, 2009 (UTC)
 * Why do dogs love their masters, and vice versa? [[Image:Entropy Sig.jpg]] (T/C) 02:10, September 12, 2009 (UTC)
 * Is a dog nice to somebody it doesn't know? Are people? There's a difference. -- ◄mendel► 02:17, September 12, 2009 (UTC)


 * Most dogs don't "love" their masters. There are 2 parts to the attachment: the Master feeds the dog, and the dog is also typically trained to be obedient to that person. Most dogs will cease to fend off a stranger under one of 2 circumstances: either the Master tells them to stop, or the other person gives them food. There ARE exceptions with the smarter dogs such as German Shepherds, however, which MAY infringe on the territory of "love", but for the most part they don't, and this may simply be a result of the best training and not "love" at all. For vice-versa, however, it is a very simple explanation: domesticated dogs are tools for us in one way or another. They may do something useful, such as hunt, that is obviously a "tool" relationship, but other things they do are in this category as well. If you want ANYTHING out of the domesticated dog, then it is a "tool", and you will have that relationship as such. If you want NOTHING from it, then you wouldn't exactly have a dog, now would you?
 * The reason humans are nice to each other has a couple parts to it as well. The more obvious one, that is cited (but incorrectly) so commonly, is the Judeo-Christian value system so common throughout the world. However, this is incorrectly cited because the Judeo-Christian value system is actually based on an ancient Middle Eastern one, from (I believe) the Phoenicians, which (especially since it's the Middle East, the center of trade) spread throughout most of the linked continents. Obviously this was not present (specifically) in the Western Hemisphere, but a similar value system erupts as well. Now, this obviously begs the question: why does this sort of value system arise throughout the entire world in pretty much every culture? The answer is simple: when members of the species assist each other, it makes the species survive better. So, the ones that helped each other survived better, and therefore reproduced more, resulting in a biological trait common throughout humans all over the world to assist each other, to at least some extent. This same explanation is also why every society throughout the world (to a limit determined by the society itself, but still present) has a problem with murder. Murder makes the species (or the group, at least) less capable of survival, therefore it is a problem. Wars (mass murder) between groups is almost always seen as different, because killing a member of a different group doesn't affect survival of your group.
 * And, one of the ultimate questions: why does every society invent some sort of religion or magic or whatnot? From an anthropological standpoint, it's clearly to explain what people don't know. From an evolutionary standpoint? Well, people are held together by similarities. Religion is (unfortunately) most commonly the similarity used for this purpose, rather than the incredibly obvious one regarding people being HUMANS. But anyway, it holds groups together, but also relating to the anthropological explanation, when people can explain their surroundings, they will be more comfortable, and can focus on other things that matter.
 * This shows where religion has no part in modern society any more: DESPITE religion, we now understand nearly everything around us. We don't NEED an invented explanation for what surrounds us to give us peace any more, because with any decent level of schooling we can at least vaguely understand what matters in our surroundings, such as the weather. It's not some angry god deciding to throw lightning at us, it's caused by a cold air mass colliding with a warm one. Since obviously religion is not needed any more, it brings the question: why DOES it still exist? Because the VAST majority of what we've learned to explain things rather than using religion were learned VERY VERY recently, and evolution takes time. That, and greed, lust for power. Since religion is believed by so many people, it obviously gives great power to whoever can control it. And also because of tradition. Raised a certain way? Most likely you will raise kids the same way. Exceptions to this are not particularly common, and religion in particular ingrains itself deeply into people because they are brainwashed into it at a young age, when they know little about how the world works, and as such believe what elders (parents, teachers, priests, whatnot) tell them without doubt, because they don't know anything to counter it.
 * Sorry for the giant wall-o-text. Doesn't happen very often, just this is a special topic. --Gimmethegepgun 04:04, September 12, 2009 (UTC)
 * You've reinforced my point that teh religious valiues can be deduced from the way our world is set up; they simply make sense.
 * However, you also illustrate nicely how expressing these things non-religiously makes them very impersonal and pretty much useless when you're trying to make sense of your personal life. -- ◄mendel► 04:32, September 12, 2009 (UTC)


 * "This shows where religion has no part in modern society any more: DESPITE religion, we now understand nearly everything around us.... It's not some angry god deciding to throw lightning at us, it's caused by a cold air mass colliding with a warm one."
 * This is not the type of question most major religions are concerned with today, sir.
 * Are you also going to make the claim that religion has never furthered the expansion of human knowledge? All of those monastic libraries, the Dead Sea scrolls, religion's hand in guiding the fate of legendary artists like Leonardo Da Vinci...they are insignificant, or even detrimental?
 * Can science and technology offer any insights about what happens after we die? What do we know about spirituality and the soul? What is the mind, and why can we not replicate it, even if we can (almost) manufacture a brain? Even if we know infinitely more than before, we also have infinitely more questions.
 * In addition, I strongly resent your insinuation that all religions gain converts through "brainwashing" children and the vulnerable. That term carries such a negative connotation. You seem to imply that religion is inherently bad. I will not deny that the recruitment practices of some religions are underhanded and ethically questionable, but I may as well say that American children are brainwashed into the service of "democracy".
 * I'll leave you with this question; would you rather be right, or would you rather be happy? You can't always have both. [[Image:Entropy Sig.jpg]] (T/C) 04:38, September 12, 2009 (UTC)

Good of you to spot the strawman: explaining lightning hasn't been the object of any of the big religions for a few millenia ;-P
 * Religion does *not* offer any insights into what happens after we die. However,it gives answers how that uncertainty should affect your life. -- ◄mendel► 04:51, September 12, 2009 (UTC)
 * Lightning is an EXAMPLE. Now then, might I remind you that gains in knowledge were stunted almost entirely for nearly 1000 years in Europe because of the stranglehold of the Catholic Church on anything that went against their teachings? Throughout the rest of history, knowledge is under constant expansion, with occasional losses (such as when Rome fell), but for so long there was not very much change in what people knew aside from a few various war technologies. And DESPITE religion is still correct, because religion is still constantly trying to fight what we actually know and replace it with their beliefs shown to be wrong, most notably recently Intelligent Design.
 * Now, please, would you define what a "soul" is? Have we ever found any such thing to exist? Any evidence at all? The soul is simply an invention to explain consciousness. And we know that all of our brain functions are based upon complex electrochemical reactions. The mind is simply what is perceived from all the brain's action. And we can't replicate a mind (yet) because the brain is so vastly complex and has so many interacting reactions relating knowledge that it would take ages to add them all in. Remember: an adult mind takes 15-20 years of nearly constant input of vast amounts of data from 5 senses AND constant, repeated overlapping of data both within itself (comparing known data to other known data) and repeating of old data input that may offer a new perspective. And, since the brain has more computing power than any single computer we've made thus far, and that computers haven't really been very powerful until only a few years ago, it would make sense that it would take at least a DECADE of work from now to create a computer representation of an adult mind rather than having a brain-based one.
 * I would agree with you that American children are "brainwashed" into Democracy, but it is different in that political philosophies don't have such a defined correct answer as other things in the world do.
 * Ah, but science DOES give insight into what happens after we die: After accepting that the "soul" is just an invented term for our consciousness, it can easily be shown that what happens after our death is that we rot in the ground. All those chemicals and their processes that compose the human body and mind all decay into the earth, and without those chemicals present and being powered by chemical energy from various nutrients, they cease to function. Meaning the mind goes away as soon as we die.
 * Final: I'm fairly certain that I'd rather be right than happy, because being right BRINGS happiness through insight. Bring shown to be wrong also brings insight, so what I'd REALLY prefer would to know. To know would make me happy. Being right means I know, therefore the 2 are one and the same. --Gimmethegepgun 05:19, September 12, 2009 (UTC)
 * Could you explain how the teachings of the catholic church of the middle ages touch upon my article, or vice versa? Else I call strawman again. -- ◄mendel► 06:16, September 12, 2009 (UTC)


 * "DESPITE religion, we now understand nearly everything around us...." ~Gimme
 * "Are you also going to make the claim that religion has never furthered the expansion of human knowledge?" ~Entropy
 * I think it was over 50% of scientists are religious men/women. Then again, my memory is like sugar. It holds for a moment, but any liquid ruins it. Regardless, religion is a major drive for research. They are just people that want to know more than the bible (and, of course, other religious texts and teachings) tells them. I bet in history there were even more religious scientists than there are now, but that's just a thought.
 * "Could you explain how the teachings of the catholic church of the middle ages touch upon my article, or vice versa?" ~Mendel
 * Simply by being there. If there were no Catholic teachings back then, do you think Christianity would exist these days? --- [[Image:VipermagiSig.JPG]] -- (contribs) &emsp;(talk)  11:24, September 12, 2009 (UTC)


 * Gimme has a point with the "DESPITE religion, we now understand nearly everything around us...." Remember Copernicus? The Church was happy to develope new sciences, exept if it went against what they considered was right. Too bad for science's sake, but most stuff went against it back then...--[[Image:El Nazgir sig.png|Talkpage]]El_Nazgir 11:27, September 12, 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, Christianity would still exist, as it came before Catholicism. Catholicism just happened to be the main structure most Christian doctrine fell into in the early, early days of the Church.  There were various other groups that had schismed from each other that could have easily grown as large as Catholicism.  Jink  15:23, September 12, 2009 (UTC)


 * "Christianity would still exist, as it came before Catholicism" Not entirely correct. Catholicism was the first Christianity, made by one of the apostles (Paulus iirc). All other branches of Christianity split off of it. Orthodox Christianity was born in the eastern Roman empire, splitting off the main church in Rome, iirc. Lutheranism and Calvinism were born when Luther and not much later, Calvijn openly protested against the Catholic Church, and Anglicanism came from one of the English kings (Henry the 8th I think), when he wanted to divorce from his wife. That sums up all the different Christianities I think, do tell me if I missed one.--[[Image:El Nazgir sig.png|Talkpage]]El_Nazgir 15:48, September 12, 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, what my wife said is entirely correct. In fact, at the very beginning, there wasn't even Christianity - there was just a subset of Judaism that believed Jesus was the Messiah.  In the years after Jesus died, though, they took on an identity to distinguish themselves from the rest of the Jews, and came to be called "Christians".
 * "Catholic" is just a Latin word that means "universal", and it was used to describe the Christian faith because, unlike Judaism, it welcomed everyone, Jew and Gentile/pagan alike. However, it wasn't until the late 3rd century that the title "Catholic Church" came into common usage, as a way of distinguishing the "true" faith from the various schismatic sects that had arisen over the centuries.  In a general sense, those sects were basically the same as the Orthodox or Protestant churches: they disagreed with the "Church of Rome" on some matter of dogma.  The difference is that, for whatever reason, those sects failed to flourish the wan that the Orthodox/Protestant churches did.  If Rome had been sacked earlier and the "Catholic" church had died out instead, one of those sects (Arianism, Gnosticism, etc.) may have emerged as the dominant force in Christianity, and the Christian church today would look very different.  Alternatively, Christianity may have died out altogether, and who knows where we'd be now.
 * And there are a LOT more denominations of Christianity than that, Nazgir. You're missing Baptists, Latter-Day Saints, Pentecostals, Old Catholics...  Your list covers  the most prominent ones, to be sure, but it's far from complete.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael [[Image:Diablo_the_chicken.gif]] 22:10, September 12, 2009 (UTC)

Indoctrinated with Science
Now, I can see how it is tempting to post all of your preconceived notions about church here, and in fact that's what I feared when I held off posting this. There were attempts to discuss what I actually wrote, but they soon got lost.

The sad thing is that the position of the critic is occupied by people who can't even distinguish indoctrination from brainwashing, bring up strawmen, and limit "science" to astronomy. Does the name "Mendel", father of modern genetics, ring a bell? Do you know what his job was? Have you ever considered the notion that your upbringing and the media you're exposed to have indoctrinated you in different ways (it's hardly avoidable)? Are you aware of them? Because your claims smell of indoctrination; they're ill informed, yet partisan. You also judge my background without really knowing much about it (if you aren't, a lot of the preceding posts should have been worded differently).

What's more, the claim that we can explain everything falls far short of the truth; it only holds if you ignore scientific advances (where is science advancing to?) and overlook the questions that arise in your personal life - or are you so shallow as to have none? Life's problems and issues are mostly about other people, and science is suddenly very much elsewhere when you need it; while you don't need religious terms to talk about what's going on, if you have an open mind you find yourself reading a translation of the same book on life (at least I do). That's what my post is about. You can't be right (and hence, not be happy?) if you haven't got that. -- ◄mendel► 22:37, September 12, 2009 (UTC)
 * My high school physics teacher was an Augustinian priest. He had three Master's degrees. [[Image:Felix_Omni_Signature.png]] 23:10, September 12, 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it complements religion well. :) -- ◄mendel► 00:53, September 13, 2009 (UTC)
 * Strawman sensor is going crazy. Who EVER claimed that current science can explain everything? We know this to be false entirely BECAUSE we're constantly discovering new things. But that same point illustrates that it's extremely likely that we'll find answers to most if not all unanswered questions in the future, provided that civilization doesn't collapse or humanity goes extinct or something due to our own mistakes, and as such should not be explained with something made up (yes, I feel the SAME way about Dark Matter. We really shouldn't use that term. Same goes for the concept of "random". "Random" is a STAGGERINGLY large pile of bullshit). As for Gregor Mendel, did he even realize the significance of what he found? No one realized it for 35 years, which was after his death. --Gimmethegepgun 01:47, September 13, 2009 (UTC)