Watcha Watchin?

[perrykneeham]

Required viewing in the Voice household ....

www.theguardian.com/film/2024/jan/09/martin-scorsese-says-new-jesus-film-aims-to-take-away-the-negatives-of-organised-religion

Good luck with that, Martin.

[flatandy]

The director, 81, added: “Right now, ‘religion’, you say that word and everyone is up in arms because it’s failed in so many ways. But that doesn’t mean necessarily that the initial impulse was wrong. Let’s get back. Let’s just think about it. You may reject it. But it might make a difference in how you live your life – even in rejecting it. Don’t dismiss it offhand. That’s all I’m talking about.”

Meh. I think you can dismiss religion out of hand very easily. And faith. Both. You can dismiss them for different reasons, but it's a perfectly fair and reasonable response to each.

[voice]

You can't paper over the truth with a feel good film.

And yes, as Fandy said, it's very easy to dismiss religion. In fact the idea religion deserves special protection from ridicule that other ideas don't enjoy is evidence they know they are on shakey ground.

[flatandy]

Just to be clear, if people get something of value from it and it doesn't do any harm and they keep it to themselves, then it's fine for people to have their religion and/or faith. But don't elevate it beyond that, assume that the rest of us shouldn't just dismiss it.

[voice]

People should be able to believe anything they like, as long as that belief down not mean they expect others to live by the rules they themselves follow that regular civil society have moved on from, abortion, gay marriage, being gay, working on their special day, and so on. That's the line.

It's like sex, it's great to enjoy among consenting adults, but it shouldn't be a public thing, and shouldn't involve children

[mids]

"People should be able to believe anything they like, as long as that belief down not mean they expect others to live by the rules they themselves follow"

Absolutely. That goes for the newer beliefs and religions too.

[Repat Van]

Jan 10, 2024 1:44:24 GMT voice said:

You can't paper over the truth with a feel good film.

And yes, as Fandy said, it's very easy to dismiss religion. In fact the idea religion deserves special protection from ridicule that other ideas don't enjoy is evidence they know they are on shakey ground.

It is weird though that religions have this special protection instead of just seen like any other set of beliefs.

[perrykneeham]

Jan 10, 2024 7:02:44 GMT mids said:

"People should be able to believe anything they like, as long as that belief down not mean they expect others to live by the rules they themselves follow"

Absolutely. That goes for the newer beliefs and religions too.

Yeah, Islam is quite recent.

[mids]

And wokeslam.

[voice]

And you can't expect these apocalyptical religions to offer real world solutions, their identity is based around the world ending.

[perrykneeham]

Well, it's worth remembering that a) the World will end one day, and b) that, like many concepts in religious texts, the Apocalypse is not necessarily a literal event, but rather an end to old ways.

If you insist, as many religious and atheistic people do, on reading texts as instruction manuals, rather than allegory, then you are likely to be critiqued. Animal Farm was not a documentary.

[flatandy]

Yeah, but that is rather a problem. People do treat it literally, sometimes.

Even if it's fairly clear that the entirety of the book of Revelations and the whole "Christian" apocalypse text is an allegorical description of the fall of Masada, a very large number of people still take it literally.

Just because people should treat their religion moderately and reasonably, it doesn't mean they will.

[mids]

Apparently followers of Wokeslam believe that men can become women and women can become men! How nuts is that?

[perrykneeham]

Jan 10, 2024 16:32:50 GMT flatandy said:

Yeah, but that is rather a problem. People do treat it literally, sometimes.

Even if it's fairly clear that the entirety of the book of Revelations and the whole "Christian" apocalypse text is an allegorical description of the fall of Masada, a very large number of people still take it literally.

Just because people should treat their religion moderately and reasonably, it doesn't mean they will.

Oh,I agree entirely. If you're the kind of bellend that insists on, say Noah's arc being documentary proof to refute evolution, then you can expect to be dismissed as unreasonable. Indeed, a crank. There is also a case for the other side of that argument: that people of faith and/or religious conviction are necessily credulous, ill-educated or motivated by hypocritical agendas.

[voice]

Religion has evolved, there was a time when it was all taken very much literally, that changed over time to say, "ah well, its allegory really" or "its just a metaphor" mostly as a reaction to us finding out how things actually work. Even the literalists today are not 100%. Though its only really a problem when they try to make it the bases of law and how civil societies should run. And its worth mentioning many in the US these days on the political right are literalists who promote policies such as getting all the Jews back into biblical Judea so as to trigger the rapture. That is downright dangerous.

I heard a great description of the bible recently, "The Goatherders guide to the Galaxy"

[perrykneeham]

I very much doubt that anything like a majority of people believed that Noah created an ark and managed to get a mating pair of all land animals on board and fed, in peace, for 40 days and nights. Least of all, goatherds.

[voice]

Not a majority, but 40% of Americans do believe it was real.

phys.org/news/2022-10-full-scale-noah-arka-showcase-creationists.html

It's gonna be less in more advanced countries in Europe and here in Canada. The problem is too many in power in the US believe this sh*t and are working proactively to bring about the rapture, it only takes a small number and if one gets the nuclear codes then...

[perrykneeham]

I think that's far from the full story. It's probably more of a position than a thought-though article of faith.

"Such contradictions are mirrored in the polls. According to a 2019 Gallup survey, 40 percent of Americans believe God created man less than 10,000 years ago.

But other polls ask subtler questions with more options and find about 15 percent reject the theory of evolution, said Adam Laats, a historian at Binghamton University in New York and author of the book "Creationism USA."

Calling oneself a creationist in the United States is more "an identifying mark of a much broader cultural divide," he said.

"Someone would go and say, 'Oh, I guess I'm a creationist because I don't like pornography, I don't want abortion rights, and I don't want LGBTQ rights.'"

[Repat Van]

Jan 10, 2024 1:49:53 GMT flatandy said:

Just to be clear, if people get something of value from it and it doesn't do any harm and they keep it to themselves, then it's fine for people to have their religion and/or faith. But don't elevate it beyond that, assume that the rest of us shouldn't just dismiss it.

Dunno if I said but I have a friend whose faith really helped her deal with her miscarriage and how she rationalised it in her head. I was never part of the bash religion for bashing it sake bandwagon. It does bring a lot of people comfort and happiness. It’s just when they try to insist others must follow their religious rules that it does my head in.

[Repat Van]

Jan 10, 2024 17:31:15 GMT perrykneeham said:

I very much doubt that anything like a majority of people believed that Noah created an ark and managed to get a mating pair of all land animals on board and fed, in peace, for 40 days and nights. Least of all, goatherds.

Curiously I am sure I read that a lot of the earth’s religions have some form of story about a massive flood that destroyed much of the earth. I always found that interesting.