Rocks or Dirt!?!
This was a question posed one night around a campfire. We were young and Drunk, and with our girlfriends in West Virginia, at summit point raceway. But don't let this introduction fool you, this is a serious post.
Religion
Now I could begin here asking why did man adopt religion, but rather I'll ask what would become of man without it. Or better yet, where would Man be without religion, and I submit, he would still be a land ape foraging for his existence.
I'll add that the greater a religion is, the greater the civilisation that surrounds it, or embraces it.
But what is it so special about religion, why is religion so important? The first answer is that it teaches us how to live together, that it provides rules and regulations for behavior, or... morality.
But I submit that is just a product, that the real impact of religion was in the imagination and creative inspiration that separates Man from Beast. Because we are inspired, we look at our lives and activity differently, we perceive all that surrounds us in a new way. Before religion, we had no needs other than food and shelter, only now with religion we saw a future and a past, and many other things in-between.
Where am I going with this?
The best description would be in the book 2001 a space Odyssey.
It's the old story of the apple, where man chose a path that separated him from the beast. He accepted a God or Gods, or... the concept because that's the spark that set it all in motion.
Religion inspires us, and as necessity is the mother of invention, with religion we now had needs. With these new needs we acquired tools and methods, but the product of religion (morality), provided us the wisdom to use them, because among other things religion taught us "consequence". It's usually when knowledge outpaces wisdom that religion comes into play. As we learn about our world and how things work, religion always seems to hold us back, until it can find a way to provide the (rationalisation) wisdom for newly acquired knowledge .
In most cases, Religion acts like a governor between knowledge and wisdom. Religion is fighting an infinite war as it tries to keep pace with Science, and how God will fit in.
In reality it is us just trying to manage what we learn, and the wisdom necessary to use it.
Regardless of your belief or disbelief religion came before science and, and science owes its very existence to religion.
As for Rocks and Dirt?... My answer was that dirt is just little rocks. (Rocks came first)
Next question?
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Yota? As in the end of Toyota? Or as a derivative of Yoda?
Yaa. I remember Gleep Gleep. He/she laid an egg next to our chimney once or twice...
Atoyota, just a palindrome that I picked up and identified with a couple years ago (or so).
Not Yoda... but I guess either of them could be considered pretentious... as if I were full of myself. I guess I'm more full of 'it' than anything else.
Yota has become a preferred nick to the more formal Atoyota, in places where I spam.
Enough of that... glad you enjoyed the posts. Stay tuned, you never know what else this freak will say :)
I came across your blog as I read some inane comments you made on YouTube. Your blog is filled with more ignorant statements such as:
"But what is it so special about religion, why is religion so important? The first answer is that it teaches us how to live together, that it provides rules and regulations for behavior, or... morality."
How many Christians today believe in slavery? How many believe you should be put to death for working on Sunday? How many think that children who are disrespectful to their parents should be put todeath? Hopefully not many, yet their bible explictly tells them to do these things. So how do they know that these are wrong? It obviously isn't their religion that has taught them. Their bible is based on the morality of its authors who were primitive man living 2000 years ago. The reason their morality is different today is it has evolved over time.
"Regardless of your belief or disbelief religion came before science and, and science owes its very existence to religion."
This theory is based on what? You claim you read alot but obviously nothing about anthropology. You might want to investigate some plausible theories of how science and religion began. Science and religion are more likely products of the development of agricultural practices. But of course someone as well read as you would know this. Religion has attemtped to thwart the development of science at every turn. Astronomy, cosmology, anatomy, medicine are just a few examples of sciences whose growth has been stunted by religion.
First, nowhere in the post do I mention a "flavor" of religion. The post itself is a general conclusion of how our specie, even separated by continents and having no means to communicate the concept (religion), have adopted it. I mean 'some sort' of belief system.
When you consider the social physics of accumulated knowledge as it opposes superstition (false beliefs), eventually one will win out. In that way religion governs acquired knowledge; and in science, by the time it becomes available for general use, mankind is no longer a monkey with a gun (hopefully). That is my way of saying religion imposes "restraint".
Morality evolves with religion, as we all do. I feel religion continues to compel evolution.
The post is my theory that when a concept of an unimaginable abstract became generally accepted, all forms of expressions came into being, Originating as worship or some form of ritual.
The inspiration and coresponding imagination then spread to science and philosophy. Science may be seen as motivation to disprove religion, but it is still a motivation.
It seems a logical order of progression, it's based on circumstantial evidence maybe, but I feel time will bear me out.
I'm not well read on the classics, these thoughts have developed in my mind 'on my own'. I'm just an observer, and I read a lot of news and have mild interests in history and larger interests in the future.
Just a HS education here, but I feel what I've put down makes a lot of sense. Hopefully you can see it as well, if not that's your loss.
yota.. first off you gotta love an "anonymous" post it's like those people who email me at the station with their critiques and suggestions on my work but use a bogus email or won't dare leave their signature. Hmmm... that's a blog for another day..
I enjoyed your rattling off your thoughts on a belief system being the foundation of our being. Am I completely sold.. I can't say yes right now because I am still learning. However, like we've discussed before I can only hope that there is a greater power out there that has a plan in place for all of us.
When it comes to rocks.. can't they be just bigger dirt?
Angie, you can look at the original rock as a singular truth.
Just as the big bang scattered matter all over the universe creating time and distance (space) in a vast infinite nothing, so was that truth shattered to little rocks or... "dirt"
It was a true story, the riddle, but also a fun way to describe my epiphany. It's a nice parallel to our lives and our Universe.
"... these thoughts have developed in my mind 'on my own' ..."
Thoughts can only become useful ideas if they develop in consort with other minds. Without that, you cannot test your thoughts to see if they hold true, or to see what others think of them.
"... I feel what I've put down makes a lot of sense. Hopefully you can see it as well, if not that's your loss. ..."
I have discussed the topic of science/religion with many people. I have mulled over their ideas and come to the conclusions that I currently hold (which may change).
You should remember that you must also be willing to change your ideas.
It is not necessarily my loss. I might gain by dismissing ideas that don't have any evidence to back them up and finding ideas that do.
My thoughts or rationalization came to me through many conversations with others, and a great many thoughts on my own.
And change is constant as what I put down here has evolved, still true to the basic premise though.
Your loss... is merely a regret that I failed to communicate somehow my vision, in such a way that another may understand and agree with at least in part.
It's meant to be a general statement covering the philosophical and religious evolution of man, it's affect on how we have developed and where we may go from here.
Good brief and this fill someone in on helped me alot in my college assignement. Gratefulness you seeking your information.
That's good to know, glad it was of some use to you.
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