Religion: why you believe what you believe, and how can you prove it.

Originally Posted by Dr.J20

The long and short of this is a desire to stop you from making the mistake of thinking that reason, science, logic, and fact are or ought to be the preeminent qualities of existence. That is, these things are good, but they are not the absolute most important. There is something to be said for a the existence of the metaphysical, man's mythopoetic bent, the emotional, the spiritual. Hell, athletes provide a great intersection of the seemingly impossible and possible, as do musicians. Athletes must struggle with the physics of kinematics and musicians with the physics of acoustics and oscillations. But what they produce is oftentimes (at least the great ones) beyond their own capacities for explanation.

If it interacts with reality, science can study it. If it does not interact with reality, what good is it? How is it distinguishable from fantasy? If something is completely beyond science (nature) then it is completely beyond reality and has no practical value, it is truly negligible. Can you name any great achievement that does not involve logic? What is a situation that has produced something useful that does not involve reason? Even metaphysical proponents, once they get done discounting the value of evidence, turn around and offer evidence. What these beliefs want, including religion, is not to discount the idea of evidential support, but to discount the standards we have for such support. They seek to widen the definition of what we call evidence.

You can read religious texts and pray with god for your whole life, you can sit in a cave and meditate for 40 years, you can spend every spare moment inside a sensory deprivation chamber on psychedelics communing with the universe, in none of these situation will you come out with any knowledge of physics, mathematics, thermodynamics, or anything of any substance at all. Metaphysical study does not deliver knowledge, just pretense. If you want to actually know ANYTHING you need study and logic.

There is nothing non-scientific or magical about what athletes and musicians accomplish, in fact many talents are made better once science offers an understanding of their mechanics.

All religion is not bad, and all those who claim allegiance to a religious faith are not proselytizing fatheaded fascists. Nor is all religion good and there are some assholes who pervert a religion based on that religion's text(s).
I'm sorry if my point came across the wrong way, I really only want to avoid conflating your average anti-gay, anti-drug, anti-fun, anti-freedom evangelist with the extremely enlightened buddhist, or hindu, or taoist, or jesuit, or rabbi, or Imam

Its always a spectrum and there's always a middle ground

be easy

We are speaking of those religions (nearly all) that require surrender of the mind to ignorance and supposition. Even the most harmless seeming religion has the potential to cause harm when we favor fantasy over reality, as pointed out earlier with Amish shunning and suicide. The only reason there is a middleground is because science has filled in the gaps of our ignorance and religion is kept in check by policy. Just look at history during the times when religion had power, you wont see much tolerance for middleground. If most religions had their way, they would indeed seek to promote and enforce anti-human rights sentiments.

Originally Posted by NetGuruINC

you guys want proof of the truth? go to youtube and type in "nde" and checkout near death experiences. EVERY video and i mean EVERY PERSON who had a near death experience has reported either going to hell or heaven, some went to heaven and saw Jesus and other relatives, some went to hell and saw torment. This is TRUE stuff you guys NEED to check it out theres tons of these videos of people reporting their NDE. Jesus is the truth and the only way, do the research on NDE's (Near Death Experiences)

have you ever heard of the pinneal gland? well all of it is released when you die(or nearly die), so you basically go into a really intense DMT trip. i admit i have spoken/met spirits on DMT, but i never went to heaven or hell, just what we like to call hyper space. its the depths of your mind, your trips reflect your life, personality, culture, etc. theres much that goes into account, but jesus isnt the answer im sorry. do some DMT if you find yourself wanting more answers, you may find more about yourself than you want to know. people may be so committed to the fallacy that they will either go to heaven or hell, this has been hypothetically branded into their minds, so yes, their trip may exhibit some more religious views, once again, trips will reflect your life basically. when i trip, i dont see gods, rather orbs of light and amazing sights, last time i did it was a few months ago but i remember floating in space seeing things i never knew existed. i believe we use the other 90% of our mind when we allow our pinneal glad to release DMT, but this of course is just theory.

if you really want "truth", you must have proof. although DMT does teach you much, you wont learn about your surrounds but rather yourself, the individual. if you want to see something truly amazing, look up orions belt seen through the hubble telescope. thats the closest thing to what we would define as a god, just my opinion although.