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<div>Joe wrote:<br> </div>
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<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid"> This is especially<br>irritating since her beliefs are the product of faith, and it is hard to see how faith could
<br>ever support arrogant dogmatism. I'm annoyed too because I'm a Christian and some<br>people – Paul for instance – seem to think that idiotic arrogance typifies Christian belief.</blockquote>
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<div>Perhaps by your finely parsed definition of "faith," you are correct, but millions of the "faithful" are supported in what I would certainly call "arrogant dogmatism" by their "faith," as they interpret it. Millions of Christians and Muslims believe absolutely that their particular interpretations of the Bible or the Koran are the unquestionable truth, and based on this belief, support extremist views, whether it be that martyrdom assures a place in heaven after death, that gays are to be stoned, women are second class citizens, that the science regarding evolution is to be disregarded, or that the Earth's ecosystems are merely a disposable stage for the enactment of a cosmic drama that soon will end with the Second Coming.
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<div>I think Paul's point about religious dogmatism based on what some believe to be commands from the creator of the universe is valid. Beliefs of this sort lend themselves to arrogant dogmatism if wholeheartedly passionately followed, because they induce an unquestioning certainty that reduces the skepticism that might otherwise temper extremism. I question my fundamental beliefs often. The religious fundamentalist full of "faith" that God is commanding them to act in a certain way I doubt engages in the systematic questioning of knowledge and belief that a philosopher pursues.
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<div>I am curious as to how you define your beliefs as a Christian? I would not bother to ask, but given you have made an issue of your beliefs in this matter... Do you believe Christ is <br>"divine," the Son of God, and rose from the dead, someday to return to Earth, as many Christians believe? Why do you call yourself a Christian, and not a Muslim or a Buddhist or a Wiccan or an agnostic, etc? While I do not believe I can honestly call myself a Christian without believing at the very least in the "Divinity of Christ," my respect for many of the teachings and ethical examples Christ manifested, that are reported in the New Testament, might allow a declaration that I am a follower of Christ's teachings, along with following other wise enlightened teachers, of which I could name quite a few.
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<div>I thought I should add, to clarify what seems like a misunderstanding by some, that my spiritual focus on Nature I do not regard as a "Faith." There is no ideological system, as we usually understand a "religion" to represent, behind this point of view. I do not think, for example, that a coherent system of Ethics can be derived from observing or worshipping Nature. There is much "cruelty" in the natural world that I would not want to see emulated by human beings toward each other. And the natural world could just as well cause our complete extinction as a species, without so much as blinking, as continue to be our sustainable home in the universe.
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<div>I regard this spiritual focus on Nature as primarily science, reason and fact based, though I believe "spiritual" experiences connected to the natural world can be just as meaningful as other forms of religious experience. We evolved on Earth, the Earth's ecosystems are critical to our survival, deserving of our kind attention and conservation for our very existence. This belief I think is primarily based on following what the world of science has revealed, not dictates from any book of revealed truths, or visions from the beyond. And following the discoveries of science, I do not see any substantial evidence we are going to be saved by any beings or being from any spiritual realm, that there is a personal afterlife after the death of the body, or that advanced alien intelligences from other solar systems might come to our rescue. I suppose we could call accepting the scientific method as a "faith" of sorts, but this is not what is usually meant by those who take a book like the Bible or Koran, claiming it is the literal word of the one creator of the universe, on faith, and then act accordingly.
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<div>Ted Moffett</div>
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