The Secret is merely a positive thinking tool. I don't think you can really compare it in scope to any major religion. I'm a huge believer in positive thinking and attempting to regulate the messages you unknowingly send to your unconcious mind. Other than attaching a sexy new name to it and making people think it's a magical cure-all, I really don't see anything bad about The Secret.
It was a small school. I think there were only 46 in my graduating class. He was basically there on a football scholarship. And playing against TAPPS competition, he earned a football scholarship to some DII school. Of course, this is in contrast to Hastings which is where I would have gone if I'd attended public school.
I think you need to be careful about how you are applying logic. Logic in a purely materialistic context it wouldn't be logical at all to believe something that had no proof at the same time though religion often deals with issues that cannot be proven materialistically. Whether God exist or not, whether there is a meaning to life, and whether there is another existence beyond death are all questions that can't be proven definitively but as rational beings they are questions that we ask about our existence. So whether the belief itself is logical I think it is logical as thinking beings curious about our existence we would ask those questions and even generate answers along the lines of religious belief.
i don't get it??? Is this supposed to be crazy compared the religious stories of Christianity and Islam?
I don't think science ever will define "God" and I don't think that is even a scientific question. I don't think though that you, and I mean that in general, should be looking to science to take the place of religion. Science is about skepticism and religion is about faith and as thinking beings we need both.
I'm sorry but your just making things overly complicated. Faith is believing something that is not seen or is readily proven by scientific fact, and I have seen in destroy people's lives... Like my mother wasting half her day praying to some invisible being up in the sky or relying on that invisible being to get the job done.
surely you cant be serious.. <object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/0A5t5_O8hdA?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/0A5t5_O8hdA?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>
but if you are serious we can start with this story <object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/kVtS05uAtSI?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/kVtS05uAtSI?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>
Ok, playing devil's advocate here I was following you up to the bolded part. Just because we are curious about our existence and ask related questions as logical beings does not make it logical to generate answers to these questions without proof.
Well, if you believe Christianity to be crazy, then Mormanism is even more crazy because they basically believe all the things mainstream Christianity believes plus a whole bunch of other ****. Seriously, Jesus' brother was Adam but was also the guy who knocked up Mary so that Jesus could have an earthly body? Jesus' earthly father is his own brother? That's ****ed up.
Of course. If it wasn't we wouldn't just have religion but mythology, drama or fiction. What matters is how you act on those crazy stories but the idea of finding spiritual comfort from religious beliefs that cannot be proven or are essentially irrational is something that has been with human society from the beginning and might even be necessary for human society.
I think it depends on the context of what you are talking about and what qualifies as proof. To a primitive society their knowledge base doesn't include understanding things like static electricity so when they were trying to understand thunder it would seem logical to them to say that it was the sound of great beings clashing. While this belief is based on an extremely limited knowledge base it is logical within that knowledge base. The difference between religion in science is that while both might start from a limited knowledge base science continually questions the answers it provides so for instance greater knowledge leads to disproving that thunder is caused by giant beings clashing. When it comes to issues like if God exist or if there is life after death there is no way to disprove or prove either way so in that sense the belief is logical based on our current understanding.
A couple of points rocketsjudoka: 1. The religions we are discussing here (Mormonism, Christianity, etc.) go beyond questions like does God exist or if there is life after death. They are claiming very specific narratives which they claim to be fact. 2. While it is arguable that back when these narratives were being formed, it was logical to believe in them, what we know now is increasingly at odds with these narratives. In your terms, our knowledge base has expanded making it no longer logical to hold these beliefs. For example, Matthew 27: Now that we have Matthew's record of the event, and have access to other historical texts from that era (as well as other gospels from the bible) which omit this miraculous mass event, is it still logical today to believe that such an event occurred? My guess is it would be illogical from a historian's standpoint to believe such an event occurred. To believe in it, not only do you need to believe in the absence of proof (faith), you need to ignore the other information you have which strongly suggests that no such event occurred.
If you think about it, the Christian bible has lots of... miraculous events. Part of the reason it might not feel as miraculous is that churches and people will emphasize on certain areas of the bible, and play down other parts according to their own agenda, so we might hear less about the more miraculous parts. But they are there.
