(no subject)
Do crazy people tend to vote more conservatively or liberally? If you happen to be voting the same way as insane people, say end times folks, are you then also crazy?
These are the questions that I had when five RVs with graphics all over them about the end of the world coming next year passed by. Well more specifically when I saw the guy wearing the backpack sign of the same message standing on the corner. That guy has a job somewhere and he comes out to street corners on his spare time to inform people that a mystic all powerful being will be destroying the earth next year and everyone who has performed the rituals laid out in a book properly will go live forever in a place of never-ending happiness (presumably located in space) and those who didn't will be murdered and tortured forever deep underground.
When these concepts are spoken about abstractly and in the extreme case it's pretty easy to say that they are ridiculous. Which leads me to ask, why aren't all religious views considered ridiculous? Why do so many people believe in things that have no basis yet refuse to acknowledge well proven principles based on a methodology that has enabled their quality of life? Why are the democrats the fiscally liberal party when the republican party spent the biggest amount of money that this country has ever spent? Why does belief exist in spite of reason and not because of reason?
The more I think about the question of religion the more I believe that my religious views are simply those of an atheist; a hopeful atheist who believes that we may discover evidence of higher order systems. I also have a growing dislike of the religious who associate political party with faith. Cutting education is not god's will.
These are the questions that I had when five RVs with graphics all over them about the end of the world coming next year passed by. Well more specifically when I saw the guy wearing the backpack sign of the same message standing on the corner. That guy has a job somewhere and he comes out to street corners on his spare time to inform people that a mystic all powerful being will be destroying the earth next year and everyone who has performed the rituals laid out in a book properly will go live forever in a place of never-ending happiness (presumably located in space) and those who didn't will be murdered and tortured forever deep underground.
When these concepts are spoken about abstractly and in the extreme case it's pretty easy to say that they are ridiculous. Which leads me to ask, why aren't all religious views considered ridiculous? Why do so many people believe in things that have no basis yet refuse to acknowledge well proven principles based on a methodology that has enabled their quality of life? Why are the democrats the fiscally liberal party when the republican party spent the biggest amount of money that this country has ever spent? Why does belief exist in spite of reason and not because of reason?
The more I think about the question of religion the more I believe that my religious views are simply those of an atheist; a hopeful atheist who believes that we may discover evidence of higher order systems. I also have a growing dislike of the religious who associate political party with faith. Cutting education is not god's will.