FART: Faith, Atheism, Religion, Transformation

From: Rational Dialogue and Human Development

“I need only recall my own personal development to understand this. How did I change my mind about religious faith? Or if you prefer, How did I develop to a more inclusive worldview? The answer to both questions is the same in my case: I was exposed, over time, to series of thoughtful, rational, evidence-based perspectives that eventually made utterly transparent the silliness, ignorance, and self-limiting nature of religious dogma.”

Thanks for the links C4………

I myself have been able to be freed from religious dogma because of the availability of dialogue………..mostly here at Zaadz. There are hardly none willing to talk about this subject in meatspace………it is such a heated debate. Seems most are either at one end of the pole or extremely on the other end. I would surely offend someone……or be the cause of someone falling out of gods grace if you will.

It has only been online that I have found those tolerant enough to even discuss it.

hey c4, you're absolutely right about the circus out there, and the absence of the all-important T word. keep on bloggin' with heart my friend!

I ditto Heidi all the way…….   You know what, over the last decade i have even gotten weary of hearing myself repeat my own story of awakening as if that were the most important aspect of my life. Well gosh, one must move on……….

Thanks for the links & hey, I am cross posting all of this into the Interfaith pod! 
Good stuff to chew on.
PJ

“I'm willing to bet that they won't reach any conclusion since those people won't budge and give up their reasoning just because Sam could wield ultra-logical and uber-rational arguments against faith, religion, and belief in God. No surprise there. It's the worldviews and stages of development, stupid!”

I'm not convinced that relgion and faith and belief in God have much to do with development levels.  I see them as more cultural than anything else.  When you grow up in a religious culture, you think in religious terms, even when you move onto higher, post conventional (and even post-post-conventional) stages.  If you don't grow up with religion, you just don't think in a religious way.  (Heck, I 'm so not used to thinking religiously I can't even spell “religious”!)

Though I agree that learning and effective communication will look different depending on the level of your audience.  So just appealing to the rational, logical mind of some folks just ins't going to fly well.  But don't you think that the audience that Harris was talking to was at least at concrete operational (and thus had a chance of understanding his rational ideas)?

Hmmm.  I'm not sure…  I don't actually think that the culture (or religion or anything else) has all the much to do with shaping one's development level.  It seems to me to be more about the language and framing that an individual uses to express their thoughts at a specific level. 

But I can see that trying to bring a traditional scientific framework to someone who has previously only lived in a traditional Christian framework (or other theistic belief system) woulnd't work very well.  But the vast majority of US Americans have grown up in at least a mixed set of frameworks that have included both science and religion.  So it seems more likely that someone like Harris could have a mind-opening effect on many folks.  There are plenty of people who simply haven't thought about their beliefs much, and Harris might be giving those folks a chance to do a little philosophical exploring for themselves.

Ultimately, I think it would be far better for Harris et. al. to focus on what they want, rather than what they don't want.  I don't think that bashing or attacking someone's beliefs is a very effective or necessary form of educating or communicating.  I think inspiration and creativity are much more useful tools for helping people learn and grow, and they are much more fun too!

I'm an atheist and spiritual, simultaneously. Nothing new about atheism, been around for as long as our species. If anything, organized religion is a fairly new phenomenon, probably created by a priestly class in order to control the access of the general population to water, food, territory, wives.

As for “stages of development”, that's a particularly linear, Victorian Anthropology way of looking at human behavior. A human culture can lack most technology, yet have intensely complex social patterns (i.e. Aboriginal tribes of Australia). Urban, western culture has tons of technology (including the machine I'm typing on), yet people can exhibit simplistic, linear thinking

One can be rational and also have oceanic feelings of connection with nature, people, existence.

We're not evolving much; evolution of the brain takes millions of years. If anything, our presence on the planet represents less than 1% of its existence, and other than our complicated technology in specifically urban areas, the vast majority of the human population still exists slightly above the subsistence level.  

As an atheist, I tend to keep my opinions to myself because I choose not to hurt people's feelings about their core beliefs.

There is no debate between theism and atheism. They're both the same thing, if you honestly think long and hard about it. That be make a great Zen koan. Snap! Instant Enlightenment!

I dig the Buddha because his writings never mention God or even, gods. I also believe firmly that you must “kill” the guru, in the same sense that throughout your education, you have many teachers, and then you grow up and teach yourself.

P.S. All opinions are my own and not yours. Just teasing. Peace out.