A happy and sweet New Year 5782 to you all.

For a smart guy, you have a pretty simplistic and unsophisticated view of religion. Speaking for my own, sure, we've got plenty of folklore and fairy tales, but the point of these stories is to illustrate, comment on and derive meaning and guidance for human behavior -- serving much the same functions as the Mahabharata and Ramayana in Hindu tradition. If you consider these texts as studies in "ethics" or "moral philosophy," you might find plenty more than fairy tales. In my own tradition, the texts and commentaries also tell the story of my people -- some of it history, some of it myth, some of it somewhere in-between -- and further supply principles of law and social organization, some really evocative poetry, artful prose, beautiful songs, and general advice for getting along in the world.
What other view can there be? To give it any credence requires belief in a "god".
Dressed up as holy words, therefore not moral and not ethical.
But they are also responsible for lunacy like this;Sue U wrote: ↑Wed Sep 08, 2021 3:27 pmIn my own tradition, the texts and commentaries also tell the story of my people -- some of it history, some of it myth, some of it somewhere in-between -- and further supply principles of law and social organization, some really evocative poetry, artful prose, beautiful songs, and general advice for getting along in the world.


I wish you well in that. I've no problem with people's beliefs, except where they chose to see them as moral laws, not man made suggestions.Sue U wrote: ↑Wed Sep 08, 2021 3:27 pmYou may be able to find ethical culture and personal enrichment elsewhere, and I certainly find it in many sources. But for me, my "religion" is already a built-in part of my personal and social identity, and it's had three or four millennia of preservation and development that would seem to speak to its value. I am not in a position to automatically reject the wisdom of the ages when it is pretty much handed to me as a birthright.
No, it doesn't. I don't "believe in" any deity yet I am perfectly capable of reading both the Bible and the Bhagavad Gita and seeing the value in each.
I don't even understand what this is supposed to mean. Look, for example, at my most recent quote-post in the Image of God thread. What in that is "dressed up as holy words" and why would any of it be "therefore not moral and not ethical"?
Nothing in those pictures is dictated by the Judaic texts; that manner of dress is a choice by one sect of one branch of Jews who rather prefer the styles of 18th and 19th Century Poland. Some people like skinny ties, some people like ascots, some people like to wear gold chains with crosses around their necks. Why can't people wear what they want? Why is it "lunacy"?
Well if it's silly hats that has you wound up, I think you don't have much room to talk:



Thanks! Same to youse!
I would think there are a lot of reasons that would be much higher on the list.
It is?
We had a congressman in NY who did that; unfortunately for him, his name was "Wiener".