(I keep editting this - I'll be done soon, I promise)

What I think Ed is getting at (correct me if I am wrong) is the idea that religion, religious stories, ect, carry a culture's explainations of where they are and where they're going - they make sense of the world. It seems to me that not everything that people thought made sense a thousand or two thousand, or however long ago, are still useful today (like the Bible's explainations of how the world came to be), but I think that if those same stories are read as myths, they can still explain some things about people - for example, the human tendancy to sabatoge our own happiness, or the human tendancy to idealize the past (interpretations of the Fall). I believe rather strongly that this is still a very useful aspect of religion, and one that is beneficial to humankind. I think it would be a tragedy to throw that out in the same way that Creationists throw out evolution, or evidence of how old the world is.

I think science and religion should be thought of as different things, because to me, they deal with truths of different sorts - empirically proven truths (theories, I suppose) about the physical world, and the much more varied truths of the human pysche/soul/self. I also think that the problems people have with the science/religion difference comes from adherents of one trying to impose their truths on the other, or ignoring the contribution the other makes to human understanding. But that comes from someone who is neither a scientist, nor religious.

But that doesn't encompass all of what religion is. I agree with Mary when she pointed out that people use already existing institutions of various kinds to further their own agenda. I agree with Paras too, when he points out that religion has a jump on other institutions, but would add that people of similar religious backgrounds often have other cultural commonalities (like ethnicity, language, food) in common, which then allows members of religious institutions to have more in common with each other, and therefore identify more strongly with each other, than those of other institutions. In fact, I think it could be argued that religion is one of the most central aspects of one's identity (side: I think sexual orientation is another). Religious resurgents are common in colonized areas when the native citizens feel that their culture is being threatened (though this is not universally true).

About this movie in particular. Yes, it is based on a true story. But I would remind you of the relativity of the word 'true' when it comes to literature (and history, and philosophy, and psychology...). There are always many ways to tell a story and many ways to slant the perception of a story. We are reliant on the storyteller to impart as truthful a version of the story as is possible, and I think it is valuable for the viewer or reader of any autobiographical work to remember that there are always conflicting, truthful versions of the same story, and always a limitation on the ability of a person to be objective about their own life story. I would like to emphasize that I do believe that there is some truth in this woman's story, but that there is also some truth in whatever version her husband tells.

I would also point out that while it is Iranians (one specific Iranian family, and perhaps their friends) who try to keep this woman's daughter there, it is also Iranians who help her to get out (according to one user comment on IMBd). Also, it is the experience of one person (who was trying to win the custody of her child) and I am sure, if you tried to find them, there are other stories of Iranians, and Muslims, which would present different prespectives and realities.

These are also just my thoughts right now, and I could be very wrong. I also didn't intend to offend anyone, and apologize if I have.

I wouldn't say I'm playing devil's advocate per se. I do stand by my belief that ideas should be evaluated on their own merits rather than on their source (and that the latter can be an annoying, if not dangerous, thing.)

I would like to say that, despite Percy's musings, science and religion (as in, to clarify my use of the word here, religious institutions) are guided by different philosophical grounds; the former based on updating ideas based on new evidence and better fitting theories, the latter based on the authority of the institution and tradition.

I suppose you could call science a religion of its own, but you would have to, I think, change what you consider to be religion. Few religions that I know of challenge people to disprove them, and depend on constant questioning in order to move forward (though, admittedly, they operate on grounds that are not easy to disprove.) That said, I don't think conflating science and religion, or declaring the former as simply a newer form of the latter, does justice to the situation or helps the discussion.

So.. who's next for a big post...

Perhaps the word Religion is being overloaded with different meanings in this discussion. It seems that it is being used to include a range of ideas, and it may be that not everyone is referencing those same ideas when they use the word. (Religious Organizations and Institutions, religious doctrine, personal spiritually and personal beliefs, the existence of the spiritual and supernatural, etc.)

I liked what Al said. His statement seemed to encompass the idea that individuals or organizations abuse belief systems and doctrine for ultimately insincere or selfish purposes. Mary also addressed this but added that people take advantage of more than just institutions of religion when serving their own interests (religion, science, politics, etc.) I'm afraid I didn't get that impression from any of Becks statements (sober or otherwise).

I'm bothered by the idea the some people think that science can be used to adequately prove or disprove certain ideas that really seem outside its realm (Creationists or... real... scientists). How exactly do you prove (or disprove) a spiritual/supernatural idea using science? Be it virgin birth, reincarnation, or turning into a giant swan to impregnate Leda. It's not like building a giant particle accelerator and looking for "god particles" will do it. I don't think I'm completely alone in this train of thought...

Science is the way -- a powerful way, indeed -- to study the natural world. Science is not particularly effective -- in fact, it’s rather ineffective -- in making commentary about the supernatural world. Both worlds, for me, are quite real and quite important. They are investigated in different ways. They coexist. They illuminate each other.

Pfff... but what does that guy know. (Transcript) Sounds like he might count as a real scientist though...

Anyways, I suppose some things in life take that special leap of faith.

...under 5'6? Hmmm, the world is full of surprises. Unfortunately, when I sit and ask myself what meaning religion has for an odd (introverted?) character such as myself, the void offers no answers. If I wanted to respond to the call of discussion, I feel that I would likely have little to offer. Even so...

Usually beyond dinner, just past the horizon of the evening, rests dessert. One night, to my disappointment - just a little - there were only oranges and fortune cookies. Fortune cookies are relatively rare, so, for a bit of fun, we all cracked them open knowing that the ‘fortunes’ tended to be dead-end phrases. When everyone at last selected their cookies, there were two left, one broken, the other whole. There’s a reason for everything, no? Fuck that. I picked up the broken fortune cookie and immediately read the message within:

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

My first reaction was to disagree with the fortune. I can doubt and question everything, nothing is sacred since chaos can be found throughout the world. My very thoughts could be subverted to someone else's will. But, if I doubt myself and the world, what is left? In order to continue in this journey of mine, I must have faith in myself. Accordingly, I agree with Par, since I like to suspend rationality - very much. But if faith in myself seems too wild, I submit that it's no different than placing your trust in strangers.

By what means does anyone have to prove the truths of what we are taught? For instance, off the top of my mind, Socrates, David and Goliath, Charles Darwin, did they exist at some point in time? Did they do the things that have been said of them? When we're studying textbooks, what suggests that the texts we read contain any truths at all? Even if it can be argued that the author of a text is an 'authority', by what means can one measure the extent of this power?

At the university level, a great deal of topics are delved into more thoroughly, but is it not easier to believe the author rather than to exert energy to doubt him/her? Really, who has the time to question these authors? In the same way, does it not take faith when someone applies the scientific method to phenomena in the pursuit of an 'answer' which would likely be processed into the form of an explanation/theory? Theories upon theories have been tried and tested, stacked high upon each other by countless generations of scientists who have spent their lives trying to decipher the world. But what reason did they have to begin in their endeavours with the scientific method? A promise of power? Of fame? The good of humanity? Imagination? Are these things not leaps of faith?

When a new discovery is made that ushers in new theories and forces others into obscurity, can science be considered any different from religion? Say we once lived around 100, 200, 300 AD, and religion reasons that the world is flat, so it is. Now we live around 1000 AD and now there is reason to believe that the world is round, so it is. But has anyone seen this world? Back in elementary school, I looked at pictures of the Earth and accepted the suggestions that this is what the planet looks like, but is this not faith?

What is more dangerous? Faith that is noticed immediately? Or faith that is seldom appreciated?

Finally, do you think science can be a religion capable of demanding faith from its adherents? If so, is science as capable as 'religion' to be inherently detrimental to the wellbeing of the human race?

Ridiculous, is this not? Who would have imagined a foolish child who chooses a broken fortune cookie over a whole one after his dinner that can spout so much rubbish from a single dead-end message typed on a slip of paper? Not I.

to say that faith or religion is mainly the product of tradition and institutional inculcation is certainly a prepective that exists. i could ask if that is what you believe or are you playing the devil's advocate?

and matt - stop trying to make me angry.

acutally paras, i never made any claim to complete understanding of the conventions of writing in the English language. i only said that it is once one understands the conventions of writing that one can dispose of them. and i was joking. it was a literature joke. please don't tell me i claimed to do things when i didn't.

Just to let you all know, since there's no Twister for the next little bit, I'll still be DJing at the Wunderbar tomorrow, so swing on by.

And as for this whole religion thing, I think we all know who/what truly is number one...

faith is defined as "believing in that which has no proof"

Could this also encompass "believing in that which has been explicitly disproven"?

ie. young earth, virgin birth, world wide flood, kent hovind, etc.

Actually, Mary, I was more referring to your study of English in the manner you referred to when you said you understood it to the point that you could dispose of its rules.

Also, I believe I said "suspension of rationality", not "suspension of reality." I don't think that (most) people are willing to put aside reality for a convenient fiction, just that (admittedly from an outsider's perspective) faith derives from little more than a belief that has been around for a long time. Moreover, it is more the initial source of the belief and how long it's been around that gives it credence, than anything independently or logically argued.

I may have mentioned this hypothetical attributed to Bertrand Russell far too often (and perhaps borrowed the reference from far too prominent a source) but it seems to fit here:

If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.