The Elephant In Santorum's Theological Room: Religion = Make Believe

[stopbush]

When is someone going to have the balls to say it? Religion is make believe, as is the theology based on the make believe.

We're now at the point where Santorum can allege without challenge that science that is based on evidence - tons of evidence - is somehow phony, while there is a "science" in the Bible that is in direct opposition to real science, and that this "Biblical science (sic)" is absolutely true based on faith, and by treating fantasy as if it were fact.

And he's not challenged on this ludicrous assumption because in this country we mistake religious freedom with a freedom to hold absolutely stupid ideas and not have them challenged because they're religious ideas. Indeed, we mistake religious freedom for being a person's right to pass laws that make the rest of us live under the rules of their fantasy world.

Why? Because we can't upset the delicate sensibilities of the religious, who cling to their childish fantasies of talking snakes, zombies roaming the Earth and people coming back from the dead. We're allowed to call anything and everything in this country stupid, from political beliefs to what sports teams we champion, but when it comes to religion, we have to walk on eggs and bite our tongues because religious freedom is allowed under the Constitution.

There is no way that any religious claim can be proven to be true by any objective measure. There's probably more evidence available to prove the existence of werewolves and fairies. Yet, we act like there IS evidence, when there isn't even any objective evidence to prove that any of the great religious figures like Moses and Jesus even existed.

So when the religious dialogue erupts as it always does when the Republics are floundering, we fight the fight with one hand tied behind our back, because for every single FACT that we can advance to make our case, the religious person can come back with a total fiction and aver that it is a fact because their religion treats fantasy as fact. And we're supposed to shuffle our feet and nod in "you're welcome to your belief" agreement.

Perhaps we've reached the point where we can no longer afford to treat at all seriously the conceit that is religious belief. Perhaps we need to be quite clear that having the freedom to believe what you will does not confer a shred of truth or fact to those beliefs. Perhaps the religious are just going to have to grow up and deal with others calling their beliefs what they are, ie: no more based in reality than is a belief in Zeus or Santa Claus.

[handmade34]

1. made me think of this...

(going to Seminary cured me of any misgivings I had!)

[IcyPeas]

2. how could he ever sit down with foreign leaders

of different religions, especially Muslims? Aren't they all satans to him?

[Spider Jerusalem]

3. 82% of Americans believe in the existence of god

41% attend church regularly, and 33% believe that the Bible is literally true. With numbers like those? Good luck getting anywhere with this.

[stopbush]

6. 90% of Americans believed Saddam had WMD, based on what bush said.

Ya gotta start somewhere.

16% of Americans now self identify as not having religious beliefs. That's the fastest-growing demo in the "are/aren't you religious" category. That's double what it was 20 years ago. In another 20 years, half the country may identify as non-believers. Young people are increasingly identifying as being non-believers.

[snooper2]

7. you have to start with the ignorance somewhere

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WErJmnUUFn8/Tmk5gefr0OI/AAAAAAAAAl8/5Os4jUO6qzM/s1600/orlando+ferguson+flat+earth+map.jpg

[roguevalley]

20. everyone is entitled to feel the way they want about God and their

soul or if they don't feel it. I'm tired because some fucknut makes everyone mad that all of us get slagged. Fuck it. Blame the asshats and leave the rest of us fucking alone.

[erinlough]

26. I'm not saying you, nor do I care what you believe, but

people who attend these religious institutions support them with their money, their attendance, and their silence. Try taking your place of worship to even the smallest task. You will be told you don't understand, shamed that you don't have enough faith, told to be quiet. I don't have a problem with believers in whatever they choose to believe in, I have a problem with the religious institutions they participate in. I can say I have never found one (and I have tried many) I can tolerate for very long, but that could just be my problem. Belief in anything or nothing, as you have already said, is an individual's right and private choice, my problem is with the people who want to have everyone believe like them.

[roguevalley]

28. and mine too.

[Warren DeMontague]

23. "82% of Americans believe in the existence of god" - okay, define "god"

if, for the purposes of the question, the word "god" is left completely open-to-interpretation, then those results are as meaningless as saying "75% of all dogs believe the universe smells purple"

[Spider Jerusalem]

24. A divine or supernatural, omnipotent, omniscient being, creator, etc.

Which is as nonsensical as religion more generally, but the fact that four-fifths of the US population BELIEVES it means that getting any traction with a "religion = make-believe" argument is highly unlikely.

[Warren DeMontague]

25. my objection to the wording on those polls; and maybe I'm a grammar Nazi

is, at the very least, it should be "82% of Americans believe in a god".

Because the implication otherwise is that "god" is just sitting there, as an objective, singular concept, and despite the fact that it's clear the "god" of the UU bears little resremblance, say, to the "god" of Fred Phelps, results like this are passed off to imply that all these people believre in the same thing, or even anything remotely recognizable as similar.

But I agree, "religion is make believe" isn't a winning political argument. "Santorum is nuts and wants to outlaw birth control", however, is IMHO.

[snooper2]

4. I'm waiting for one of these moderators to have the balls or ovaries to ask the age of planet Earth

in a debate..

[Politicalboi]

5. I totally agree

It's time to take religion out of our government. Religion has NO facts. It's ALL man made stories. I can't believe we have put up with this shit. They have only gotten stronger as the years go by. Their numbers are smaller, but the media is there for them, and our government is there for them. I am hoping this push they have going will turn many voters off. And many should question an organization that allows pedophiles to roam free, to fix their own problems before causing more. And take the tax breaks away from ALL religious organizations.

[FrodosPet]

22. Fighting religion in urban communities

We need to encourage African Americans and other urban communities to rise up against the church.

Many AA are faithful Democrats, however, there is a strong force of theism which leads to homophobia and machismo. This needs to be attacked by people inside of the community.

This should be one of the major goals of the Occupy movement - rescue people from religion. Reach out with billboards and pamphlets and advertising on urban radio.

[LanternWaste]

8. holly man-made constructs appearing nowhere but our own imaginations.

"Religion is make believe..."
So is philosophy-- wholly man-made constructs appearing nowhere but our own imaginations.

Regardless, religion has no place in a debate regarding science. It's as absurd as Lysenkoism.

[zipplewrath]

9. Myth, legend, and make believe

I'm not sure how deep wants to go into the semantics here, but religion (organized or otherwise) is not "make believe". It is an attempt to explain the interaction of man and his world (including each other) through the knowledge contained in various myths, legends, parables, and traditions. The conflict with science comes in where these myths and legends are "replaceable" with science. However, there is a large body of knowledge still unexplainable by science, over which the myths and legends are still considered useful for modeling the universes interactions.

Science uses "models" to understand and describe phenomenon and to organize information. They are known to be "approximations" and many of them are known to be "false" but useful. Euclidian geometry, newtonian physics, electron orbits, are all taugh and used for education, even though we understand the weaknesses and short comings.

In religion, they use imperfect understandings, often which they understand to be inaccurate or poorly based in history, to organize their knowledge and understanding. They use these to teach moral and ethical concepts. They know these to be imperfect but still find them useful.

The politilization of either religion or science tends to bring out the idiots, or the cunning, who ignore, or are ignorant of these approximations and short comings.

Probably the most fundamental myth, common to tremendous numbers of religions, is that of free will. Science can neither prove, nor disprove its existence. But it is a common assumption that it exists. A closely related concept, which is considered to be knowledge, but is little more than a legend, is the concept of self determination. It is not scientifically known if self determination exists at all, or to what degree. However, huge numbers of ethical/moral/philisophical systems are based upon the assumption that it exists, including our entire legal system.

[stopbush]

11. You wrote:

"However, there is a large body of knowledge still unexplainable by science, over which the myths and legends are still considered useful for modeling the universes interactions."

Why?

Sounds like lazy, elitist thinking to me.

[zipplewrath]

31. It gives us a sense of understanding

Models are useful in both science an philosophy for organizing information into patterns we can recognize and understand. They may be imperfect, but useful.

I'm not sure what is so "elitist" about newtonian physics. Even though we understand its short comings, we still find it useful for teaching, and for understanding of simplistic systems.

The golden rule is probably another simplistic model that is still found to be useful. So is nonviolent political action. Imperfect models for sure, but science sure doesn't give us better models, yet.

[left on green only]

10. Thank you for taking the time to express logic and clear thinking in your writing

The validity of your premise will light the way, no matter how many among us are capable of comprehending it. I feel sorry for any person who embraces the tenets of any faith or tradition as a philosophy of life or of living. And correspondingly when any person attempts to thrust their faiths or traditions upon the life that is mine, it will cause me to resist in any way that I possibly can, be it blatant or covert. However horrible unsanitorum's fate in life may end up being, I am sure that he will be deserving of it. Kind of reminds me of huckaboo, only with the addition of incense and holy water....er, make that just incense.

[izquierdista]

12. At some point, the science side is going to have to play rough

Religion gets a free ride, because 'freedom of religion' allows people to practice their faith-based beliefs, no matter how loony they are. The only time the law has ever stepped in to curtail religious practices has been when substances the law wanted to prohibit are part of a religious practice (e.g. wine, ganja, peyote).

But civilization is coming to a point where science really DOES have the answer, and religions can and should be compelled to drop their bullshit. Children of nutcase parents have been saved not by Jesus, but the state stepping in and ruling that the child be treated with a blood transfusion.

Scientists know that their truth is only as good as the next experiment that might require them to revise a theory, so they tend not to be as forceful in their argument as the faith-based bozo who is absolutely sure of what he believes. Once the scientific consensus passes the 95% confidence limit, there needs to be a way to shut religion out of the picture, and too bad for them.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

13. Humans are a minor species that like to tell themselves they're special.

Whereas, the lowly sponge has been around for 600 million years and will still be around when when we succeed in killing ourselves and our much vaunted ability to think logically or otherwise.

[Arugula Latte]

21. Human arrogance is behind a lot of religion.

We're special because "God" is focused on this one planet (nevermind the billions of other planets that exist), we're the crowning glory of creation (nevermind that dinosaurs ruled the Earth exponentially longer than we ever will), the last 2,000 years were the ones that mattered (nevermind those billions upon billions of years that went before and will come after us), and we alone have souls and will live forever (nevermind there's no evidence for any of that).

[gratuitous]

14. Somebody had to say it

I mean, really, "Serve one another in love"? As if! Talk about a man-made philosophy that's a sure-fire recipe for all the worst in the human species. "Love keeps no account of wrongs." Yeah, fucking airy-fairy tale right there, and anyone stupid enough to fall for that has no place in our modern society. And probably the worst of all, "Love rejoices in the truth" and "There is no greater love than this, that a person lay down his or her life for others." Dammitall if that just doesn't make the blood boil.

So glad to have a thread dedicated to FACT like this, totally free of bigotry, prejudice and zealotry, because otherwise one of our faultless juries or infallible moderators would lock it.

[cbayer]

18. An alternative view not receiving any attention (surprise!!)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002336154

[RussBLib]

15. Well put

I frankly don't trust anyone who claims to be religious. THEY'LL BELIEVE ANYTHING!

Someday ... someday...

You should go to the Reason Rally on March 24. It's always refreshing to be around like-minded people, but not brainwashed like-minded people.

[Douglas Carpenter]

16. It is mathmatically impossible to build a progressive majority that does not include a lot of

religious believers. It cannot be done. Right or wrong, good or bad, whether God exist or not, it is impossible. There will never, never, never, never be a progressive majority that excludes religious believers.

[guitar man]

17. Damn you!!

What do you mean Santa Claus isn't real?

Thanks for fucking that up for me!

[Noodleboy13]

19. Agreed. Just b/c the world was created by the music of the Ainur

and the sun and moon were created by Iluvatar to replace the trees of light, Telperion and Laurelin, destroyed by Melkor and Ungoliant on the Isle of Arda doesn't mean that I should legislate according to these "facts."


peace,
Noodleboy

[OriginalGeek]

27. I just hope everyone can take a minute to appreciate the funny

in this ad juxtaposition:

[undeterred]

29. It is not "make believe" to him or to other religious people just because it is to you.

[stopbush]

30. Just like belief in fairies and vampires isn't make believe to those who believe

those things are real.

Just like children believe Santa Claus is real.

What's your point?

[undeterred]

36. Pointing this out doesn't really give us a way to refute Santorum.

Theocrats are going to attack anyone else as "not Christian enough" as if this were a race for head pastor. They have redefined this as a race for spiritual / moral leader instead of for president. That's how Santorum gets off preaching about women and all kinds of issues like prenatal testing that have nothing to do with the economy or things like foreign policy that the presidential race should really be about.

He is speaking a language that conservative religious believers are comfortable with. Telling them that the things they believe in aren't real doesn't make them not want to vote for Santorum.

In fact some of them feel like he's the only guy who understands them... which is really scary because it looks like there are a whole lot of people out there who actually like the guy. His numbers keep going up.

[mike_c]

33. "make believe" isn't subjective....

The notion that it is is part of the problem. If something is made up, it's made up regardless of who believes it. If it's a fantasy, it's a fantasy regardless of whomever is deluded by it. To say that "it is not 'make believe' to him or to other religious people" is to fall into precisely the trap the OP describes-- my, my, isn't the Emperor handsome in his splendid new clothes?

[Arugula Latte]

34. The very definition of faith is "belief not based on proof."

Or, as Mark Twain said, "faith is believing what you know ain't so."

[Hugabear]

35. There's more "evidence" for the existence of Bigfoot, ghosts, ancient aliens than there is of God

Just sayin'

[mike_c]

32. hear HEAR!

Well said!