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Ones that have a place called Hell for eternal torment do. Many, if not most, religions require some sort of self-sacrifice or abandonment of natural human activity (usually regarding sex or pleasure). What religion are you aware of that doesn't require some sort of appeasement to the founding god / gods? I don't recall advocating a Utopian society. I know that that is just folly. However, I don't believe that the absence of religion necessarily equates to a situation like the USSR, China or Cambodia. There are plenty of small, human settlements in the Amazon rain forest who have no religious beliefs whatsoever and manage to not oppress everyone. The examples theists tend to pull out of the hat had plenty of bad religious karma they were reacting to. I discount those examples. I think that as we move forward in time, a gradual secular society built on social constructions of cooperation, compromise and negotiation will replace most religious institutions. Yeah, it won't be perfect. NORM

What about my comment seems stupid to you? NORM

Sure, but unlike a god, it isn't necessary to sacrifice humans, animals, dignity and common sense to appease. NORM

This is wild. I had just finished reading some translations of the Book of the Dead in preparation for something I am writing. Taking a break from my writing, I perused this thread and came upon the above statement. Consider this from the Egyptian ceremony of expiation in the court of the Goddesses of what is Right, commonly called the "weighing of the heart" because the hieroglyphics from this section depict a man (represented by the single "N") having his heart weighed before Osiris. The petitioner goes on to declare that he hasn't committed a lengthy series of "sins." I think there is such similarity because ALL religion is man-made. In our imaginings of perceived interactions between men and our gods, we are not much different from the "ancients." NORM

I think Feminism is important, but the divine unnecessary. In fact, given the fact that religious ideology is one of the last remaining major stumbling blocks for feminism to hurdle in the 21st Century CE, I'd say the divine should be avoided at all costs. NORM

...or whatever your particular interpretation divines: The bargaining one must do to appease the gods we make seem like so much tilting at windmills, IMHO. NORM

Thanks for posting that, Steph. Here is a copy of a sermon that changed my mind on the issue of homosexuality. It's rather long, but you won't be disappointed. Interestingly, from another Episcopalian. http://stpaulsfay.or...ossinglines.pdf ----------------------------------- Replaced extremely long sermon/post with link.... JosephM as Moderator (Also note sermons and other pieces of work should not be copied and pasted without express permission except for smaller excerpts were credit is given. See copyright guidelines) -----------------------------------

If it works, why care if the process is "scary?" I don't understand this. I'm not sure I buy into the "healing energy" thing, but I am aware of some studies that conclude that the placebo effect can "heal" with often better results than pharmacological methods. In other words, because we think that something a trained professional gave to us will make us better, our minds / bodies are tricked into eliminating the manifestation of the original illness or malady. My mother did this with me as an adolescent. I had terrible allergies and asthma and was prescribed a panoply of drugs (mostly steroids) and breathing apparatus. The drugs were making me sick to my stomach. So, she took me off of the medication, made all of our food from scratch, bought meat from a local farm and butcher, and never served anything with preservatives, additives or refined flours or sugars. She read somewhere that the chemical additives to food could be responsible for many modern illnesses. She also purchased bulk capsules and loaded them with raw sugar and gave them to me when I was having particularly bad allergic symptoms. Of course, I didn't know that the capsules only contained sugar. Amazingly, shortly after I took the "medicine," my symptoms would subside. My mother continued to do this for quite some time until I came home early from football practice and caught her filling the capsules with sugar. She explained her subterfuge, and I had an epiphany: if there were no drugs, then my mind was responsible for relieving the symptoms. Actually, when you think about it, all antihistamines do is relax the inflamed nasal passages. So, I began to will myself into relaxing the nasal passages WITHOUT taking anything. 90% of the time, it works. I still do this to this day. However, when I know that I will be unable to totally relax (like during a meeting or when work needs to get done), I will take a mild antihistamine. No magic - just human will. NORM

This may accurately define our current condition, but I think it will come to a head in either violent revolution or an economic collapse that will make the Great Depression seem like paradise. Or, perhaps we will emerge beyond the Talk Show Cable News era before its too late. NORM

Well, like Jenell, I voted reluctantly for Obama, as I was a Hillary supporter in the primaries. However, over time, Obama has won me over. I thought he would be an unmitigated disaster because of his inexperience. Instead, he has been open to change his views, and adapt to the realities that unfold before him. Many of my clients are Fortune 500 manufacturing corporations, and things are beginning to move in a forward direction - particularly the auto makers. I have a large General Motors plant in my territory, and they recently added 1,000 employees and added a third shift. I have personally witnessed several institutions and small companies directly benefit from the President's stimulus package. In fact, our company won bids associated with two stimulus projects. I have more money to spend than I did a couple years ago. I've always been skeptical about Keynesian economic policy, but it appears to work - at least at the local level. It probably isn't a good thing for the mega-corporations because most of the recipients of the stimulus package are smaller contractors and educational / healthcare institutions. At first, I thought his embracing Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals philosophy was a gimmick, but apparently, he has successfully implemented Lincoln's strategy of taking in his rivals to help sharpen his worldview. Selecting Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State was perhaps his best move, as we have regained the respect we lost overseas during the Bush years. His team of economic advisers could not be more diverse, and certainly not representative of the so-called "community activist" model. As far as religion goes, he seems to go out of his way to be inclusive of religious (and non-religious) persuasions historically ignored, such as Paganism, Atheism, Islam, etc. I am still suspicious of our two-party system, and am somewhat disappointed that our younger generation has not become more involved. I would still rather see the rise of a vibrant third party challenge to the status quo, but in the meantime, Barak Obama is a welcome change from the previous experience. NORM

Heh, when I think of things like Holistic and Herbal Medicine, Reiki, Chakras and Chiropractic, I can't help but recall this episode of Seinfeld: I love Jerry's response: "I'm strictly here for the material." NORM

I resemble that statement! My wife, however, managed to convince me to rise above those first impressions and discover all the gold I've overlooked because I couldn't get past the tattered containers. NORM

Dutch, I would highly recommend this book. When I was a practicing Christian, I would often turn to his scholarly works even though I knew he was an agnostic. He is a gifted writer with a talent for explaining complex and often counter-intuitive narratives concisely and expertly so that anyone can understand it. He manages to deftly dance around the cow-patties without soiling his pant cuffs. NORM

Joseph, your comments do make sense. I think what you are saying is what Dutch, perhaps, was trying to say. Dutch? I still disagree. But, I think our disagreement is just on the agent of healing. What has been called "internal" healing, in my mind translates as mind over matter, or what has been called the placebo effect, as Paul pointed out. Your take on this phenomenon is that it is not the human mind that is doing the healing, but some supernatural being or entity. And, some prefer to call this entity G-d. I'm OK with that. What I do have a problem with are those who loudly proclaim that THEY are the conduit of such healing, and that in order for it to continue, you must send them money. When we did our research on faith healing, a sad truth we discovered is that there were so many dishonest people wearing the robes of righteousness, bilking vulnerable, hurting people of their last bit of savings on the hope of a miracle healing. Maybe, at times, the placebo effect caused this "healing," and maybe there were those who were conducting the healing ceremonies who genuinely felt that it was because of them that this happened. However, there were many that we discovered who were only doing it to enrich themselves. However, it is still a valid criticism that if so-called faith healing was originating from G-d, who the Bible says is omnipotent, then why do we not see limbs regenerated? NORM

Right. Like being cured from gum chewing. I would never mock that! Sorry Dutch, but invisible, "internal" healing is not very convincing. NORM

When I win the $600 Million lotto, I will offer $50 Million to someone who has G-d make their arm grow back. No, wait; I'll give them $550 million. Hell, I'd settle for a regrown hand - not even the whole arm! James Randi is still waiting to pay out $1 Million: http://www.randi.org...-challenge.html NORM

Or, perhaps the miraculous was never there in the first place. What are your own thoughts on the subject, BR? Or, are you really Mr. Wigglesworth? Welcome to the Forum. As Dutch suggested, you won't find much in the way of dogma around here. NORM

I about clocked some ###### at my father's funeral for saying it. I miss my Dad horribly. There was no deeper purpose to his death. It's just that ###### happens. NORM

Yes, this is why faith healing makes no sense. It all seems so random, and makes G-d capricious. The most offensive thing said to me at both my mother's and father's funeral was that their passing would "serve a greater purpose." My mother suffered horribly the last week of her life. What was the "purpose" in that? My father died from complications from a routine surgery - he probably would have lived another 20 years. What "benefit" could G-d derive from that? No, I'm not buying it. NORM

Color me skeptical! I was part of a church ministry charged with investigating claims of faith healing in the 80s. We looked at over 200 claims, ALL of which turned out to be either so vague as to be unprovable (like I was healed from excessive gum-chewing), or downright fraud. Ironically, our goal was to FIND proof of faith healing. We figured the law of large numbers was on our side. The group continued long after I left it - and still came up empty. One of the early nails in the coffin of my faith. If G-d heals, it heals through the hands of skilled surgeons and physicians. Believing in faith healing to me is like believing someone with a mental illness is demon possessed. NORM

OK, let's just use the word reality. I simply have no need to turn to the so-called supernatural to explain reality. It's that simple. NORM

Only if you pre-suppose it. If I substituted world, you would counter with other-world. I never offered a counter to natural or world. I don't "suppose" there is an alternate. You did. True, but they've mostly outgrown these notions. I use names because we use language to communicate. Just because something is unnamed doesn't mean that it is "super-natural" It just means that, perhaps, it hasn't been discovered yet. All of this is very interesting. When I have more time, I can give you my response. NORM

Who posited a dichotomy? I think that there is no supernatural. Only natural. Therefore; no dichotomy. If I see something, and it has a name; it exits in my mind. Whether or not it does or doesn't in some alternate universe or whatever imagined reality or non-reality is beside the point to me. Well, sure. That's called the scientific method. The beauty of it is that it is not bound by a single "reality" at any one time. Any "truth" can be found to be faulty through repeated experimentation and observation. Of course, some things have been tested so thoroughly (such as gravity and carbon dating, for example) that they become "laws" of the universe. But, even those can be overturned if evidence supports it. I'm not sure what that means. NORM

Yes, I agree. The prefix anti does not really describe where I'm at. It was an appellation given in the OP to this thread. I should have pointed that out sooner. There was a time when I would allow for supernatural explanations for things I don't currently understand, but I no longer do. I assume that we just don't know the answer yet, and that eventually, science or experience / observation will reveal the truth of the matter. Quite a few years back, I actually sought out supernatural occurrences. I would read about claims of the supernatural and investigate them. I investigated well over 100 claims. Every single one of them turned out to be explainable by natural causes, or were outright frauds. I'm sure I would have discovered plenty more were I investigating after the advent of personal computing. NORM

Anti-theist is not a label of my invention. I think you used it in the OP to describe someone like me who does not think there are supernatural happenings like miracles or revivification. Personally, I don't bother with labels. I think that most people carry a range of thoughts and feelings that cross over many "isms." For example, as you point out; there are Christians who don't believe in the bodily resurrection. Also, The G-d of the Tanakh, unlike the Christian God, is spirit and has no physical presence. So, there are many in the Jewish community who are non-theists. I'm not anti anything. I just don't see the point of believing in things I can't see, and for which there is scant evidence, particularly since belief in supernatural events, magic and such does not add anything to the message. NORM