Back to your question: Those who seem to be having difficulties with their ‘personal truths’ … well I would guess they are just fooling themselves with almost/maybe the truth and from there trying to fool others too. This is much more difficult to fall victim to if you (we) do our own research and investigations … as opposed to taking someone else’s word on the matter and running with it. I believe in evolution as that is where all the (my) evidence points … I am not just trying to pretend it is so to argue with say biblical literalists. For a very long time we thought the speed of light was as fast as it gets for matter … but we have since LEARNED otherwise, so we easily adjust our thinking to accommodate this and we move on hopefully to bigger and better things. This can only be accomplished if we understand that we do not have all the answers … only a desire to seek them out wherever they are hiding.

I can relate to increased sorrow Pacov.  You get older and see and understand things then realize the people behind you are going to take a long time to get there--suffering in the process--and there isn't much you can do to directly change it.  You see it with your children, with society and humanity in general.

You get opportunities now and then in life to pass something on but you never have the ability to just "make it happen".

Boobz, I'm actually interested in the topic--not religion, Lulu or sparring.

Boobz brought science getting things wrong sometime and my own approach to truth is that if it isn't relevant to you, it isn't going to do much for you.  If it is relevant, then you should act on what you see and understand and not rely on a consensus or majority or expert to tell you what should be a matter or personal principle and conscience.

The fully detailed proofs of science are always far behind human experience.

THAT was the quote I was looking for! Bravo.

And this....

Is also spot on.  Science always seems to lag behind with what people discover themselves.  Especially recently.  That's not to say that there hasn't been an explosion of scientific discovery, just that along the lines of truth.... not much "new" has been forged.

Interesting reads throughout here... looking forward to the rest of the discussion.

One question I have for you

Can truth be found, only using science? 

The answer to this will give us a basis to work from...  Personally I am open to all forms of enlightenment, be it scientific, theological, spiritual, wherever.  An open mind is needed to funnel all the info down to its basics, and to ultimately derive truth. 

I think people searching for truth is what drives science.

Science for the sake of science is something only academics and engineers pursue.  Exploration into mysteries, searches for explanations of things observed or imagined--these are what motivate scientific investigation.

Science does not drive human endeavor or make moral choices or determine the course of events--people seeking answers bring these things about in their pursuit for truth--whether using scientific means, philosophy, exploration or storytelling.

The cult of science that some practice would have science determine human behavior and set values for human life.  People should always determine these things and science should follow.

re: boobz reply to this in #31 - Perhaps you are reading the negative here that I am not.  I actually think this is a good idea, though.  But let me reword things without any negative context. 

Why don't we each discuss the barriers we individually have to the pursuit of knowledge?

See, the wording on that opens a whole can of worms, though.  Stated like that, I think you'd need to be able to define exactly what is true and what is false - and this can cover anything from "is there a god?" to what have you.  I think we could easily proceed just by agreeing to do our best to respond honestly. 

Anyway, one of my personal barriers (I mentioned this directly before, but in a slightly different context) is the messenger.  This is likely one of the biggest barriers I have. So, the next question is why?  And I don't have time to answer that atm, so I'll jump back to it in a bit...

Maybe this would work for you then: I would be much more comfortable if we agreed to be intellectually honest from the get go. Personally, I don't have any problem proverbially shooting the messenger if they are being dishonest or are intellectually defunct.

I think we are on the same page here.... hopefully have time later to write a bit more.

Well, I had expected more takers on this topic as everyone seems to think they are so well informed and knowledgeable. I think there is some confusion between ones level of understanding and the actual knowledge necessary to substantiate their understanding in the first place. I just happen to believe that the truth is obvious to even the most casual observer and it is our own fears, inhibitions and misconceptions that complicate the issues at hand. Personally I think we have a good grasp on the truth individually and collectively … until our perceptions of the world around us are called into question. I suppose it is alright to believe anything … for any reason at all … but logic alone should dictate some rules of conduct when contemplating the truth of whatever. For the most part, I don’t see any obvious starting point on forums like JU. It is mostly one side beating the other one (and vice versa) as if there never were any opposing argument at all … or everyone just pretends they never heard of the basic arguments. So much wasted time on nothing of merit … one might ask why …

People put up barriers for the simplest of reasons and that shouldn't surprise anyone. The primeval motivator is fear but fear of what … surely not the truth??? I think the question is why put up any barriers at all? If the truth is of any value no matter how one defines it, then I fail to see why any barrier would be desired let alone condoned? And if the truth is NOT what is to be considered … then what is?

Well I had hopped this post would have lasted a while, but I being a pragmatic kind of woman, not overly interested in the psychological fields where the abstract mind is bandied about. I don’t care for absolutes be they religious or secular because we don’t know everything about anything and never will. In psychology there are no questions that go unanswered but in religion there are no answers that can be questioned (something like that). Not where I intended this post to go anyway. I am not overly concerned why or what people believe because every story is a little different and frankly is none of my business. I am trying to say that I deal with life on a day by day basis and have to deal with the good and bad, the true and false in like manner. I don’t need some PHD to explain why steeling is wrong or another one to logically justify it somehow. There is no way to kill a child here in the US and expect to get away with it, but if one was born in Iraq where they have the religious authority to do just that, well the truth could be argued. NOT in my book, period. Christianity was forced to ignore much of the word of their god because if they hadn’t it would look like modern Islam does today and be just as openly barbaric. Sorry, don’t really want to go all religious, it just blended in at the end.

Regarding Islamic outlooks--that's an oversimplification. 

In the areas where that sort of activity happens they are predominantly and traditionally for thousands of years from cultures where that sort of thing was practiced.  It was there before Islam.

Muhammad came from the same sort of culture and was allegedly appalled by a lot of its barbarism and superstition which was a big motivation for a lot of his actions.  Unfortunately, his approach was to blend and meld: aspects of Judaism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism and tribal beliefs and ethics. He complicated it and really empowered it's flaws by creating a religion that had the "divine authority of the state" built into it as a mandate.

Basically the same error Catholicism wandered into in it's heyday when they were more of a world government than any actual government.

But the root culture of the time already had harsh practices and punishments in place.  Then you throw in the "convert or die" and "if you live here you have to be" theology of Islam through it's history and you end up with the a great percentage of people as social Muslims and not spiritual ones which results in the same sort of corruption and error and abuse that was rampant in much if not most of the Catholic church's history.  Eveil men, with evil ambitions and no sincere beliefs using religion as power.

You seem to think this is a "religious" problem exclusively but it isn't a just a religious problem at all--it's a human one and it happens in every society in every sphere of power...government, finance, politics, social movements, religion--you name it.

Depots and despotic regimes don't require religion to appear and flourish, they happen all the time.  Robespierre, Napoleon, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Franco, Ortega and hundreds of other known and historical leaders  founded movements that had nothing to do with "religion" (other than a religion of state and personality) and were as brutal and insane in their actions as anything any religion (including Islam and organized Catholicism) have ever done.

All required obedience and submission from birth and punished rebellion with death and torture and all required a public acknowledgement through personal deed and behavior and speech that the state and it's leaders were over all things.

One of the big issues I have with many atheist critics is the constant rolling out of, "if religion didn't exist these things wouldn't either".  It's a complete load of bull.  

Whether you are in city government, national government, the police force, the green movement or a prison there are always people who out of greed, lust and self interest take power and abuse it for personal reasons.

People with evil motives take the power structure that is most utilitarian and accessible to them and abuse it.

Spirituality--the actual desire to have an experience with something greater than one's self--isn't the problem and religious practices who's purpose and goal is primarily this aren't either.

Jesus was very careful and specific to make clear the separation of church and state and the separation of religion from truth. He never advocated control of other people, domination of the world government and Christian punishments to those who refused to submit and neither do those who actually follow Him.

Hello David, hope all is well. I view Islam just as I do Judaism and Christianity, surely you know that. If religious folk could only look at their own religion with a modicum of introspection … using the same tests and assumptions they use to dissect everyone else’s religion (even no religion), but that just isn’t done much for obvious reasons, but it should. I can take virtually every argument you have which ‘allows’ you to see Islam for the fraud it really is … and apply them virtually verbatim to Christianity and Judaism and come up with the same conclusion.

What does root culture or folk lore (traditions) have to do with the word of god? He was obligated somehow to include the harsh human practices and their barbaric traditions … why? We are discussing religion so I was just talking religion??? Why would any large organization under any guise not have a lot of problems??? I don’t bring up “depots and despotic regimes” because they are always attributed to atheists by Christians and strangely enough, visa versa … this tells me that these things are just used to poke someone in the eye? Without the desire to look this up again, I will wager you that more people have been decimated for dogmatic religious beliefs than secular beliefs throughout recorded human history, by far.

This is difficult because I cannot start on your side, I don’t know how. Whenever I hear ‘WWJD” … I just falter, I have no answer. This is not a game to me (or you); I cannot pop him in and out just to weigh some argument. I am aware of the Christian arguments I just don’t believe them to be true in any godly sense. Many seem to think that I just got up one day and decided god was not real and to them I say; did god just pop into your head or did you do some research first?

If I remember my church history right, prior to the Muslim invasion of Spain the Catholic church was a church.  Then, when it was reclaimed for the Catholic countries, the ruler of the time borrowed the 'you must be this faith or die' creed from Islam and suddenly, the church was populated with non-believers.  Afterwards, it was ineffective as a church and became the ruling body as you said, which prompted some in touch with reality to rebel against it.

Hi GFT---going good and I hope the same for you.

A Christian, in the truest meaning of the word, is nothing more or less than, "a follower of Christ".  To the "if I can't touch or see it it doesn't exist" crowd that's just lunacy and has to be nothing more than mere religion or personal delusion--which is exactly what Jesus said it would be seen as by those who could not accept it.  Nothing new or surprising there and I completely understand when someone feels that way.

When you step into religion as a Christian, you are already a step removed from your internal experience with Christ--even though some aspects and elements of church do compliment Christian belief.  It's akin to my telling someone what I feel as opposed to them really knowing as i do.  No matter how sincere, there is no way for them to directly see any intimacy I have with God.  All they can see are the apparent symptoms  and effects or those things as I present as that.

So within church you have a figurative million different people all coming together with an internal belief/concept/experience of God that they want to share with others.  Within that multitude are those people that routinely get blasted by skeptics (rightly so) who have merely superstitious or mimicked beliefs.

There is a ton of biblical commentary in both the Old and New Testaments that talk specifically about those professing or having the appearance of belief but who internally are completely devoid of the substance of it.  In the NT in particular there are some very specific categories of such people identified and even defined with cautions not to follow after them.  There are also warnings that there will always be people who for a time can seem committed and authentic but later will be revealed for what and who they truly are.

These are all things for a Christian to be concerned with and not specifically anything of value to those outside but the bible defines true "church" as the collective of those who have an authentic relationship with God and states that God alone knows who they are.  "Churches" are nothing more or less than collections of people claiming to be the real thing but their claims don't make it so or mean that every one of them really is.  

But going back to the above, my point isn't that there aren't corrupt religious sects and movements--in fact, most are corrupted--again, in the truest meaning of the word.  But in those cases you are not talking ab out a divine experince that's been corrupted you are talking about people who have corrupted the idea of what a genuine divine experience is and are unaware of it themselves.

That's a human failing that centers around religious ideas.  Lenin created a "church of state" that was meant to be the idyllic solution to all men's problems and it was corrupted horribly by him  and those who followed them.  The United States was formed around lofty ideals yet today we can't prune dishonest and criminal politicians out faster than they appear. The French Revolution and Russian Revolutions came about to a great extent to throw off tyrants who claimed a divine and religiously enforced right to be despots--yet look at the hell that followed them.

Communism in it's simplest ideal has many virtues...the Founding Fathers of the United States were not all lying and dishonest criminals...The French and Russian populaces had real grievances with the abuse of religious and political power.

Movements get corrupted by people.  That's why Jesus made it clear that "the kingdom is within".  Islam says it is within and should also run everything without.  There;'s no comparison betwen those core ideals--they are diametrically opposed to one another.

You can take the examples I gave above and the causes of corruption are the same--just the methods and issues vary.  It's still people caught up in the lust to have or be in control of others.  It's a human condition.

P.S.

Yes Jytheir...I think that's a good example of what happened.