Ahh yes.

” I think you’re reading too much in between the lines of what I’m trying to say, or getting hung up on the way I phrase things ”

Yes, you are right. I’m often hyper-sensitive to the choice of words used and failed to see how I actually brought that about myself. My bad. Thank you for pointing this out.

“Don’t you have your own morals that you live by or follow?”

I don’t know.

You asked: What is it that sometimes “looks like it comes from a supreme power”?

I meant “ppl who think what’s written in the books is coming from a supreme power”…There’s no sometimes there…It doesn’t sometimes look that way, to these ppl it looks like it’s coming from a supreme power.

The reason I used “cause” was because you said this:

“However, when we look to organized religion to guide our morality surely we are going to breed confusion.”

Breed confusion, cause confusion, they don’t sound that different to me, and that’s what I was referring to…

But I am confused now. This whole paragraph was too much for my brain to handle at this late hour, maybe I should sleep on it and come back…

“Following dogma is confusion, not the cause. If we prop confusion itself up at the culprit, we are in danger of thinking – “Well, if I keep searching, then eventually I’ll find the right way.” But if we approach the problem in this manner, what happens in the meantime? There is nothing wrong with confusion (who isn’t confused?), the key is simply to see it, no? If I see it, then it isn’t a problem as I won’t act through it.”

I think I sort of get it…Confused people follow dogma, following dogma isn’t what causes confusion…Confused ppl, as long as they know they’re confused, will not act on dogmatic beliefs…Was that it? Am I getting it right? Maybe not…

And also, it’s very possible to make up and “live by” your own morals…These are some of the morals that I live by that weren’t handed down to me by any dogmatic system:
-I will never kill someone
-I will help those who need my help
-I will always try to keep an open mind and non-judgmental attitude towards people, and many more…

You said “We cannot base our moral/ethical action on a formula.”

Well the above are a part of my own formula, and it is very much like walking towards a friend’s house, except that I call the pathway “life”…Don’t you have your own morals that you live by or follow? If not, how do you distinguish between right and wrong?

I do think we’re on the same wavelength as far as the way we think goes. But I think you’re reading too much in between the lines of what I’m trying to say, or getting hung up on the way I phrase things (probably unintentionally). I don’t play with words. I think the big picture I’m talking about is very clear.

Cheers!
-Pi

“You’re absolutely right, when it looks like it comes from a supreme power and ppl follow it word by word because they’re scared, it does cause confusion, and it is happening in the world.”

What is it that sometimes “looks like it comes from a supreme power”?

Following dogma is confusion, not the cause. If we prop confusion itself up at the culprit, we are in danger of thinking – “Well, if I keep searching, then eventually I’ll find the right way.” But if we approach the problem in this manner, what happens in the meantime? There is nothing wrong with confusion (who isn’t confused?), the key is simply to see it, no? If I see it, then it isn’t a problem as I won’t act through it.

Ugh, although, I have to say this, and it may be totally different but to me it looks similar… Most ppl follow laws and regulations because they are scared and not because they want to, either, (ok no law or regulation this day says don’t tolerate and go kill people who hold different beliefs about things (well there are a lot of questionable things about some countries’ foreign and internal policies though, it sure looks like they’re doing this) and we’ll reward you, and they are put in place by some sort of “supreme” though not divine power) but they help keep a lot of things under control by scaring people with penalties. And I think those books attempted to do that back thousand of years ago, and surely cannot apply to today’s world. To me, therein lies the difference. There’s a lot of good stuff in the books, too, and unfortunately, some ppl are far from “knowing themselves” and need something bigger to save themselves. Majority of believers I don’t think practice the questionable parts or take them literally. Those that do (those raised in terrorist camps, jesus camps, etc.) are, I agree, very dangerous, a threat to humanity, and we’d like to believe if religion wasn’t there, they’d be peace loving, decent people.

I’m not trying to defend religion at all, although it may look like it, (if anyone knew me personally a bit they’d know that) but I disagree with Harris when he says if we get rid of religion there won’t be terror. Sure, there’ll be less terror for a little while, until ppl come up with something else…Say Arabs vs. Americans, instead of religious differences. I think my main point is that. Yes religion is causing a lot of pain, and breeds hatred among people…But there are millions and millions of believers who actually believe this is the word of god w/o becoming or supporting terrorists. We can question their beliefs but can we tell them “you will NOT believe in this anymore”? That was what I was trying to say before I actually got to know what Harris was actually saying.

Thank you for your reply, sometimes I’m not even sure what I’m trying to say myself, it’s so hard to put it in writing and it doesn’t come out exactly as I want to say it. (not to mention English is not my native language.)

“If you take only that part of that complete sentence, then yeah it does sound different than what I was trying to say.”

Here is your full sentence and an attempt to clarify my point -

“In my opinion, it doesn’t matter whether you believe in a supreme power that set up moral codes and live by those, or you have good moral ethics w/o any religious stigma attached to them and live by those morals.”

You seem to present two choices here and believe that either approach is valid. I disagree with this. The first approach implies the handing over of one’s moral and ethical authority to another (a “supreme power” in this case) to be OK. I disagree.

Can you please clarify what you mean by the alternative?

I sense we may be on the same wavelength, but some of the wording of the second approach I find awkward (e.g. “live by those morals” to me should say “live morally”) To say “live by” may indicate a dependence upon some formula or system though perhaps you don’t mean to imply this. We cannot base our moral/ethical action on a formula. If we do, we are surely to breed conflict. Sure, one can base the action of, say, walking to a friend’s house (i.e. the formula is the path there) on a pattern, but there is nothing ethical about that. However, when we look to organized religion to guide our morality surely we are going to breed confusion. This is what is happening in the world right now, is it not?

To sum up, I don’t think the choice between “follow God” and “know yourself” to be equally valid paths. The latter can actually be investigated – though there is no concrete/formulaic “how”. The former is done out of fear and is therefore at best useless, and at worst harmful. The belief that some”"supreme power” has “set up moral codes” is absolutely absurd.

I, too, offer my apologies for what currently seems like a conversation between Pi and e. Here is a “seeping comment”, and we can continue conversation there if there is any interest.

Best,
e

“In my opinion, it doesn’t matter whether you believe in a supreme power that set up moral codes and live by those”

It matters tremendously. To do as you endorse is confusion.

You said: “If the religion is seeping into the everyday life of all of us, and religious people have no problem with that, then I do not see why they would have a problem with our questioning their beliefs.”

I totally agree with that, and also with the fact that if they left the “unbelievers” alone to begin with and stopped playing “savior”, there wouldn’t be a need to confront them. But when confrontation does occur, I could go with scientific facts, and they would reply with “because my book says so”…And how can I reply back to that? To me, that’s not a “debate”…Hence my question I asked before: Can we fight science with blind faith? I believe not, and both sides get offended and worked up as a result. Thus my point, we should just leave them alone and they should leave us alone (but they don’t…you’re right). I have read all the “holy” books, and they may have some good principles, but I really can’t say one clearly stood out as the “truth” to me. And I strongly believe that if people opened up their minds and subjected themselves to different points of views, most people would be the same way. I did not grow up in a religious family, and I think I turned out OK as a person. I can very comfortably say I live by higher morals than most people who believe. But I am not trying to say believers are bad people or have bad morals at all…It’s just a preference I guess, as long as they don’t think they’re “better”. I would never go up to a person and say “so you believe in god??? but have you realized this and that doesn’t make sense???” And I am hoping some day they will be able to do the same.

Eric, I am so sorry I seem to be hogging up your comments space. But you know me and what I think/believe…I also feel a little weird, because I have never gone “public” with this stuff before!!!

Alright, here are a few final comments…I have difficulty understanding how many of the people (OK not all) who preach loudly about “Peace on Earth, Good Will Towards Men” during Christmas time are the same people who support war. I don’t understand why we get puzzled by Muslims who get worked up over some cartoons depicting their prophet (something that’s apparently a big taboo for them), yet NBC will not show Madonna on the cross when it airs her concert on TV, scared it will be offensive to a lot of people, and most people who are puzzled by the anger of Muslims are OK with that. There seems to be some kind of double-standard here. Isn’t that hypocrisy???

I believe we have too many “worldly” problems here on earth, like poverty, world hunger, finding a cure for cancer and AIDS etc. to be concerned with “other worldly” problems this much as a society. There is someone dying out there on the street corner of hunger, and what have we done for him today? I think people should use their time and energy for better things, and let religious practices be private matters.

I know what you meant by “vice versa”, I was just trying to be clever in a nerdy kind of way. Never mind that.

So sorry, you misunderstood me. I was not clear enough. Some of the points you brought up irked me as well while I was reading the book. It was nothing you said, but few things that Harris said.

And, no, what you wrote does not answer the question you asked, but things Harris wrote do

And, no, you did not offend me. I don’t get easily offended. Just for the record, I am agnostic myself. I think being tolerant is fine, but being correct is starting to cost too much. If the religion is seeping into the everyday life of all of us, and religious people have no problem with that, then I do not see why they would have a problem with our questioning their beliefs. Anyway, Harris is much more eloquent than I am, and although some of his arguments are little agressive, I’d still recommend the book.