Laf, I will respond.
My problem with this movie isn't so much the belief in god,
Why is it a tend now for Atheists to spell god in lower case? I mean, it’s sued as a name here. The word god itself may not always be a name, and thus a proper noun, but if you don’t have a qualifier such as a or the in front of god, then it’s being used to identify a specific person, and is a name in the sentence. It should be God and not god. I’ve already heard the excuses people make for it and no, god is not a title, it’s a species, and in this case its still a name, and it’s immaterial if you mean a generic god that could be Thor, its still sued as a bloody proper noun.
It’s also immaterial if you believe in God or not, if you use the word as a name then it is a name, and no, you “thinking” its not a name is not sufficient to change how the sentence will be diagrammed. If you diagram the sentence god is a noun, and addressed a specific entity. This makes it a proper noun.
No one believes in god, people believe in God, or a god, but not god. It’s just poor grammar to leave god in lower case.
if you want to believe that's good and I defend your right to believe in some higher power even if I do not. HOWEVER, the line of thinking that many people who believe in the end times is a dangerous one, I mean, think about it this way, the BAD GUY according to the beliefs of many fundamentalist Christians will be someone who brings peace and unity to the world before he reveals he's the antichrist or whatever....So if ever there is a man or woman who is able to do that he will be thought to be the anti-christ and fundamentalists everywhere will FREAK OUT.
I hate to break it to you but, many Atheists have similar apocalyptic visions of there future. Plenty think “Religion’ is inherently evil and if there is a Religious revival all Science will be lost and we will go back to a New Dark Ages, with the first Dark Ages being blamed entirely on Religion in general and Christianity specifically. ( Of course the Dark Ages are themselves a historical myth and didn’t actually happen, but I digress…)
If a Religious figure becomes prominent or if there is a massive Revival, they will, as you put it, FREAK OUT in the same manner.
In fact, you don’t even need a Religion to do this, just look at how many prophets of doom predicted that a Second Bush administration would lead to chaos, oppression, and tyranny in the USA. It didn’t happen of course but still.
The same applies to the current US Election, with claims that if Obama is re-elected America will become a new Soviet Union and all Liberty will be lost.
Man seems to revel in such apocalyptic visions.
I mean, I'm sorry, but globalization is an inevitability as we become more and more capable of knowing more about ourselves and different cultures. Everything points to us uniting in the end: economies, systems of government, etc. That's not a sign of the end times, its the most logical step towards peace and stability.
Three problems now avail themselves to me.
1: You said this is a problem with “Religion in General’, but “Religion” is not uniformly opposed to Globalisation. Religion is a blanket description of a variety of belief systems, which is quiet diverse. Of course I like to note that everyone really has a Religion, and Religion is not belief in a god or higher power, its simply any Philosophy that discusses the fundamental nature of our existence, and is the same as “Worldview’, but many seem offended that I’d think of their beliefs as a Religion… it doesn’t alter the fact though.
Even your own beliefs are Religious.
2: Nothing is inevitable. Things we use to believe were inevitable never happened, whilst things we said would never happened happened anyway. World War 1 was never supposed to happen because a series of peace treaties in Europe would prevent was, but nonetheless War erupted and it was the biggest man had ever seen, only eclipsed later by WW2. The Soviet Union was supposed to reflect the natural evolution of Human society, and even Western Scholars envisioned it lasting a thousand years. It fell after 75. Speaking of this, the Soviet wanted to Stamp out Religion, yet now the orthodox Church is very powerful in Russian society.
History has a way of making the supposed inevitable not happen.
3: Globalisation doesn’t seem to be working at the moment. Not only is the global economy in a terrible rut, but even staple unions like the European Union are actually on the verge of collapse as a result of both the Debt Crisis, and rising Nationalism.
Globalisation has lead to Nations being more strict on Immigration policies, and less helpful toward other Nations.
Unity is not going to be easier if we continue to follow modern Globalism.
I’m still not sure what this has to do with Religion, though, as Religion in general doesn’t really deal in Globalisation, and Fundamentalist Christians are far from the only Critics of it. ( And really, as much as a whipping boy Fundamentalist Christians have become, Fundamentalism itself says nothing about Globalisation and not all Fundamentalists even believe in the Rapture…)
Many people oppose Globalisation for a variety of Reasons, not all of whom even believe in God. Meanwhile, plenty of Christians support Globalisation.
Like I said this isn't a knock on religion as a whole but this line of thinking that this movie presents that the person that tries to unite the world has some evil plan behind it all and I, who does not have faith in any god, do have faith in the goodness of people
But the same Christians you are discussing, those who believe in the Rapture, actually believe that threw will rise a Global Government that will be good. They believe that Jesus will return to Jerusalem, and set up his Kingdom and rule from there all the Nations of the Earth. In that sense, the Fundamentalist Christians you are discussing actually believe in Globalisation. They just think that an Evil Leader will rise first. It’s not really a One World Government they fear, it’s who leads it.
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jmarkoff2
12 years ago
The biggest problem is that people believe the lie that supernatural beings and an "afterlife" exist. If everyone realised that these are superstitions and nonsense, religion would disappear, and people would focus on real issues and needs, not magical pipe dreams.
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life4all
12 years ago
Somehow I think there is much more to it than just supernatural and afterlife concepts. Do you find feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, not sleeping with your neighbor's wife, not stealing, not killing, treating others the way you treat yourself and trying to make peace instead war to be unreal issues?
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jmarkoff2
12 years ago
Basic laws and codes of decency exist without a magical being. I and many other atheists live good lives because we want our only world to be a better place, not to please an imaginary friend from the sky.
The Bible has many morals you probably do not agree with: http://www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/atrocities.html
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life4all
12 years ago
You sight biblical atrocities and I agree that they are atrocities. Books like the bible will at times present or can be distorted to suggest (i.e. the premise of a “Rapture”) perspectives that we might take issue with. Closer examination is often needed before we exact the next new, infallible opinion (for global consumption). One thing I got from watching, "The Book of Eli" or even considering the burning of the Library of Alexandria (intentional or otherwise) by Roman soldiers is that we should abstain from the inclination towards willful "book burnings". Even books like "Mein Kampf" should not be destroyed for in the doing, we degrade and slow the path that leads us to enlightenment and even tolerance for viewpoints we take issue with. Homer’s utterances of Troy were largely disregarded until Schliemann literally unearthed it using Homer as source material.
Much of what books like the bible have to say has at times been synthesized (by man) to reflect perceptions not found in the book itself. Muslims even claim their Qur’an forbids the consumption of alcohol but no such prohibition can be found in the book itself. Unfortunately, the spread of disinformation by political, religious or scientific mechanisms will always be with us. The bible also contains non-supernatural historical event references (Egypt, Persia, Greece, Rome) that have under scrutiny yielded useful, verifiable information (as we seek to enhance our understanding of contemporary human history). The “washing of hands” before eating was a biblical mandate thousands of years before Lister saw bacteria under a microscope. It may be destructively myopic to rely on any singular discipline (even science) as our sole source of information and culture. All I am really saying is that we should resist the temptation to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
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jmarkoff2
12 years ago
There's no doubt that the Bible is historically significant. But so is Alice in Wonderland, and we don't have people on street corners proclaiming the White Rabbit as the Messiah, do we? Alice and the Bible are about the same level, ie. examples of amusing and sometimes morbid fantasies. It's clear that Alice has much less blood on it. The Bible gets more stuff wrong than it gets right.
It's telling that some of the best Bible analyses come from atheists who *used to* be Christians or Jews. If more Christians and Jews read the Bible and saw it for the fraud that it is, there might be far fewer Christians and Jews in the world.
A few hundred years from now, the Bible will probably be regarded in the same category as the Odyssey, the fables of Aesop, and Stan Lee's version of Thor.
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