US ambassador killed over a film

[Jester]

Books like Tao te Ching, Vedas, Bible, Torah, Talmud, Midrash, Quran, etc. are meant to be contemplated -- they aren't history, or ethics, or science -- they inform philosophy and thought.

As opposed to history, ethics and science, which are not meant to be contemplated, and do not inform philosophy and thought? I don't understand the distinction.

I've stated this here before -- the truthiness can be quibbled about and theologians do it all day, but it's value is in how it shapes (and has shaped) our society for the better.

And for the worse.

Western civilization is what it is due to it's founding philosophies, which key among them are Christianity and Judaism.

Even granting that "Western civilization" is a thing (and not just a good idea, as Gandhi apocryphally said), it was founded long before the birth of Christ. Judaism was a small-time provincial middle eastern religion with no role whatsoever in shaping the dominant civilizations of the day. What about Greece? Rome? Socrates? Cicero? These have a much stronger claim to be founding influences. Christianity is a later development, and far less useful than the enormous body of logic, ethics, law, science and literature bequeathed to the world by the Greeks and Romans.

So then you'd subscribe to the theory that for thousands of years parents have been brain washing their children?

What does it mean to teach your children something which is false? Is that brainwashing? If so, then yes. If not, then it depends on what you mean by brainwashing.

Perhaps we can blame Constantine, and the nobles of the Holy Roman Empire for beating it into us.

The walrus was Paul.

My observations is that the quest for spirituality is universal in humans -- and, I do disagree that they are entirely disparate. There are huge similarities between the Christian Trinity and the Hindu god aspects (Brahma, Vishnu, & Shiva) -- likewise in the fundamental love based philosophy of Moism and Jesus. Then, take native American spirituality of "The Great Spirit" and contrast with Buddhist compassion and respect for every living creature.

What are the similarities between the Christian Trinity and the gods of Hinduism? There is a strict formal similarity - many gods in one - but beyond that, they are vastly different, in meaning, ethic, aesthetic, tradition, purported influence, worship, and so on. If what you are looking for are things that let you tie them together, you will find them. But you can always make new categories, or break them. What I think we are observing is a human need for narrative, part of how we make sense of the world around us. We use metaphor, storytelling, myth, theory, evidence, logic, and all our other tools to gain understanding. But not all tools are created equal.

In this view, religion is no different from science or philosophy, and can be judged by the same criteria - and found wanting. These stories may have helped explain the world and organize society in ages past, but we now have vastly better tools at our disposal. We no more need to look deeply for value in old tales than farmers need to plow with oxen. It's not that it doesn't work at all, it's that we can do much, much better.

-Jester