I think I might join a church

[jameslikespie]

I won't be able to convince the religious, and the religious won't be able to convince me, so i'd rather drop the topic, because this argument is going to lead to nothing. But i'm going to leave you with two videos. The people who are debating me seem to be as ignorant as Bill O'Reilly in these videos.

http://youtu.be/2FARDDcdFaQ

http://youtu.be/f4Ald5f_nao

 

[thoumyvision]

Leviticus 21:9
A priest's daughter who loses her honour by committing fornication and thereby dishonours her father also, shall be burned to death.

How moral... But anyway, I think that before you make such a claim you would need to understand where morals come from, which is our minds. For instance, through evolution, organisms develop a terrible fear of death, as the ones who didn't die off. This being said, we understand that we feel a negative emotion when faced with death. I know that I don't want to die or be faced with a similar scenario, therefore I know that it's not morally correct to kill someone else or threaten them with death.

Humans are social animals. To survive, we must work together and form societies, etc. Think about the hunter-gatherer societies. Everyone had a certain role and had to maintain a bond to survive. Those who didn't maintain that bond would leave their society and would likely be eaten by a predator or couldn't produce enough of the required items to survive and died off. Through this, humans have developed EMPATHY, which is the ability to understand someone else's emotions and know how to cope with them.

With my empathy, I'm able to see that someone else has generally the same fears as I do, and that includes death. Because of this, I will not kill them, nor will I steal from them etc. People who don't have empathy and go around murdering people are sociopaths.

Two problems with this:

First is the Genetic Fallacy: the idea that by proving how a belief came to be you somehow invalidate it.

The second is that you judge some aspects of the Bible immoral, but you have no standard on which to base those objections if there is no higher authority. If morality only comes from social agreement then why would someone from one society have any moral basis on which to judge someone from another society? This is the exact thing you attempt to do when you claim that burning a fornicator is immoral.

You provided evidence, but i'm willing to bet that it is obviously a state of mind which could be achieved by other means without religion.

You said there is no evidence contradictory of God, well guess what, there is no evidence contradictory of Santa, the easter bunny and the tooth fairy, or the flying spaghetti monster.

You're right, there might be an agent AKA god, and i'll believe in that agent if we find proof of it.

But why believe in it when you have no proof? That's what i'd like you to answer...

You're mixing evidence and proof. There may not be proof that there is no Santa, Easter Bunny, or Flying Spaghetti Monster, but there is enough evidence to give a reasonable conclusion that they do not exist.

Same goes for God, I have no proof that he exists, but I have enough evidence to make my belief rational.

We don't rely on proof in anything but mathematics. I assume that my mother loves me, and I have plenty of evidence to support that assumption. I could easily come up with a conjecture that she's just been faking it really well this time. It's a logically consistent but unverifiable conclusion; it would require me to ignore all the evidence that she does love me in order to believe that she doesn't. Again: My belief that my mother loves me is evidence-based faith.

You have less evidence for a belief in the non-existence of a god then I do in His existence. Simply saying that you don't have proof so you won't believe it gives lie to all those things you do believe but don't have proof for, which is just about everything.

And there doesn't always have to be meaning behind something, it could have just happened. Humans just want to believe they have some sort of special purpose because they have delusions of grandeur. We as humans are VERY insignificant in the universe. I believe science will tell us one day how we came about one day.

It amazes me that you first start talking about proof and then finish up with a completely baseless assumption. You spend several paragraphs talking about proof and then your very last sentence starts "I believe." As if your stated belief is somehow a logical end to the argument. That's the exact fallacy most people get pissed off at Christians for whipping out. If there is no meaning to yours or anyone else's existence then why did you start harassing the OP in the first place?

 

[jameslikespie]

Two problems with this:

First is the Genetic Fallacy: the idea that by proving how a belief came to be you somehow invalidate it.

The second is that you judge some aspects of the Bible immoral, but you have no standard on which to base those objections if there is no higher authority. If morality only comes from social agreement then why would someone from one society have any moral basis on which to judge someone from another society? This is the exact thing you attempt to do when you claim that burning a fornicator is immoral.



You're mixing evidence and proof. There may not be proof that there is no Santa, Easter Bunny, or Flying Spaghetti Monster, but there is enough evidence to give a reasonable conclusion that they do not exist.

Same goes for God, I have no proof that he exists, but I have enough evidence to make my belief rational.

We don't rely on proof in anything but mathematics. I assume that my mother loves me, and I have plenty of evidence to support that assumption. I could easily come up with a conjecture that she's just been faking it really well this time. It's a logically consistent but unverifiable conclusion; it would require me to ignore all the evidence that she does love me in order to believe that she doesn't. Again: My belief that my mother loves me is evidence-based faith.

You have less evidence for a belief in the non-existence of a god then I do in His existence. Simply saying that you don't have proof so you won't believe it gives lie to all those things you do believe but don't have proof for, which is just about everything.



It amazes me that you first start talking about proof and then finish up with a completely baseless assumption. You spend several paragraphs talking about proof and then your very last sentence starts "I believe." As if your stated belief is somehow a logical end to the argument. That's the exact fallacy most people get pissed off at Christians for whipping out. If there is no meaning to yours or anyone else's existence then why did you start harassing the OP in the first place?

Watch the two videos I linked.

I don't want to debate anymore, as I said. The religious never want to listen.

 

[Moocow]

I go to church when I feel like having my clothing and hair judged by a bunch of suburbanite soccer moms. I didn't get the impression that there was anything else to it.

Edit: oh right, sometimes the donuts and bagels are good.

 

[Moocow]

Zago are you a scared motherfucker?

 

[thoumyvision]

Watch the two videos I linked.

I don't want to debate anymore, as I said. The religious never want to listen.

Bill O'Reilly says some pretty moronic things a lot of the time, and I dislike his loud tone, but these are beside the point. How does Bill O'Reilly saying stupid things in any way invalidate my argument?

Also, how is it fair to put up an argument between a political pundit and a brilliant scientist. How about a debate between the same brilliant scientist and another brilliant scientist?

http://vimeo.com/9545016

 

[Jordan~]

The second is that you judge some aspects of the Bible immoral, but you have no standard on which to base those objections if there is no higher authority. If morality only comes from social agreement then why would someone from one society have any moral basis on which to judge someone from another society? This is the exact thing you attempt to do when you claim that burning a fornicator is immoral.

I think you're missing an important distinction and setting up a false dichotomy. The false dichotomy is that one does need to believe in a god to believe in objective morality. There are objectivist systems of morality that don't involve a deity. Furthermore, it's possible to hold a moral standard for oneself without considering it objective.

The distinction is that relativism need not be the belief that anything goes. It can be the belief that one society's morals are as good as another, but more often, I think, it's an observation of how morality works in practice - that is, generally speaking, morality is socially received. There's meta-ethical relativism and there's ethical relativism.

The former says nothing of the quality of socially received morals, nor does it say that exceptions to the rule that morality is socially received are impossible. It would be absurd if it did: it would take only one person with morals contrasting with those of their society for this to be false.

When exmaning society's morals, you're examining aspects of a culture, not aspects of the behaviour of individuals. It will be unlikely that anyone fully adheres to their society's morality. It will be equally unlikely that their culture contains a moral system which weighs in on every aspect of their life, so there will always be room for individual morality even within a relativist conception of morality. If your society's one rule is "Don't pee in the water supply", the way you conduct yourself in every other aspect of your life will be decided by something else. Of course, your society (or another group - this need not be cultural relativism) could have very strict, traditionalist rules about almost everything, but there are always rebels, and even then, they're unlikely to have a inviolable protocol regarding everything.

So with regards to personal morality and relativism, several things are possible:
1. Your 'anything goes' scenario, where a person considers all actions to be morally neutral because morals are just social rules anyway.
2. Relative moralism, where a person considers all actions that contravene the moral standards of the society in which they occur to be immortal.
3. The observation of relativism in conjunction with a non-relativist moral system, where a person believes that morals are socially constructed, but that objective morals can be constructed by other means, and attempts to do so.
4. The observation of relativism in conjunction with a separate relativist moral system, where a person believes that morals are socially constructed, but has their own morals constructed by another system which they do not consider to be objective.

These may exist among others; they're just the ones that spring to mind. In any case, I fall under number 4. I have a moral standard for myself.

I'm not interested in telling others how they should behave - for one thing, I don't believe they had a choice - but I consider it my duty to encourage 'good' actions. Deterministic as the universe may be, in any case my own actions will play a part in determining what occurs, including exhortations for others to do good, and my awareness of that will play a part in determining my own actions.

I also consider it my duty to do everything in my power to prevent morally wrong actions - for instance, intervening to stop a rape or murder. I am not interested, however, in insisting that others do the same - encouraging them, perhaps, but I don't believe in nonconsensual impositions of my beliefs on those who may not share them. When they attempt to do the same to others, I consider it right to intervene - this is not an imposition on them, as they remain free to try. It's merely ensuring that their attempt fails. They retain the freedom to express their will through actions, but the right to the realisation of those actions is not a given. It's the equivalent of following around a missionary and offering an alternative to their preaching.

Honestly, I consider the Christian standard too low for myself, so I object to the idea that it's impossible to have a moral standard without having a god. The moral standard you base on your belief in a god seems lacking to me, I would endeavour to be better than that.

@jameslikespie re: Dawkins: I think he has a rubbish definition of religion and I disagree with his views on group selection theory. Challengers are starting to emerge (gene-culture coevolution, or "cultural evolution", is the one I'm thinking of primarily, but multilevel selection as well) that seem far more capable of accounting for altruistic behaviour towards genetic strangers. I really like that George R Price, who was instrumental in developing group selection theory, ended up being deliberately as selflessly altruistic as possible to complete strangers in an effort to prove himself wrong. Before he cut open his neck with a pair of nail scissors in a final act of defiance against his genes, that is.

 

[CLOfriendOSE]

If you could find a Christian Science church it may appeal to you. It's obviously been corrupted over time, but a lot of the foundational aspects of it seem fairly Gnostic, which, in my humble opinion, is closest to the meaning of the original texts.

An atheist simply believes in their perception and nothing else. That, though, is actually dealt with in any of the "truer" interpretations of the text. God is not a man on a cloud, you should avoid places that dictate that. God is moreso the foundation of existence.

Basically, for a taste of what "real" christianity could look like:
From bible: God seperated the light from the dark.
Implication: Establishes a binary reality of our perception. Sets up a gradient between 0 and 1, with infinte subdivisions between them. God is both infinite, then, and the "whole". Can something "greater" exist without the "lesser"? Could you meaningfully think of 5 if there were no 0 to compare it to. This ratio-based theory is confirmed by science in how our senses work and are processed - they detect waves moving at different speeds/energies. The limitations of our human senses are well known to both science and Buddhism. So, if perception is limited, perception entitles a limited reality. So, then, everything is made of "God" (or Energy, or Logos, depending on your philosophical predilection).

Most people read that line and do not fully think through the philosophical dillemma it presents.

Perhaps also negative theology could amuse you, though I don't know of anywhere that actively preaches it. (Knowing God through what he is not - If all human senses are a lie, everything we don't know, the unknown, is therefore infinite. By knowing as much as possible about the structure of existence we can come closer to finding its truth (we know more of what it isn't).

For a shallow example (that can, admittedly, get quite complicated if you get into it): What is Red? What is not Red?

Are there any local philosophy or theology clubs around? Perhaps this could give you a thought inclinced community without the zealots?

 

[Jordan~]

An atheist simply believes in their perception and nothing else. That, though, is actually dealt with in any of the "truer" interpretations of the text. God is not a man on a cloud, you should avoid places that dictate that. God is moreso the foundation of existence.

The first sentence is a faulty generalisation and a category error. An animist can be an atheist. The lack of belief in a deity does not imply the lack of belief in the supernatural, nor does it imply an empiricist epistemological stance. For example, I hold a metaphysical position of atheism, or apatheism, but an epistemological position of constructivism.

God is not a man on a cloud and is the foundation of existence according to one interpretation of the Bible. By what authority do you claim the legitimacy of your interpretation over others?

Most people read that line and do not fully think through the philosophical dillemma it presents.

Or perhaps they believe it was intended to be literally true, or perhaps they don't think it contains a philosophical dilemma at all. This argument belongs to the realm of literary criticism, not theology.

 

[CLOfriendOSE]

First: Any belief held by a person is reality to them. An animist could be an atheist, but their reality, in that sense, is strictly bound to their perception of what is real. All human belief stems from perception, thus reality is only what people make it to be.
If a personal believe in "God on a Cloud" that vision of God would be made of something, thus is only a reflection of the reality of God.

I claim the authority of Gnosticism, Platonism, and Buddhism - three different sectors of thought that have come to remarkably similar conclusions about the structure of existence. I will also claim Einstein on this, for his statements in regard to Matter as Energy and Sir Isaac Newton for similar statements in his work on the Occult. I could throw in Blavotsky as well, for her understanding of the subdivions of existence.


I would say literary ciritism is the basis of theology. The fact is, "taking something literally" cannot happen in the above statement. A person cannot image light and dark existing at once, since they are simply a ratio (something is lighter or darker only by the concept itself). To see light and dark mingling together and being seperated is NOT the same as contemplating both happening at the same time.

Thus, "literal" interpretation, in my opinion, is "less true" due to the fact it takes these extremely complicated concepts and just shrugs them off or does not address them in the first place.

Furthermore, literal interpretations do not often occur from reading the original texts - and to deny the corruption of the text through translation is laughable. The literal text lost its meaning long ago, so in order to find meaning one must look to the concepts that make the text possible.

Basically, God does not have to be a dictator or a deity, he is the foundation of existence. What we understand as the foundation of existence may be different, though.

 

[ummidk]

You should re-read the OP again I guess. I never said I was going to willingly believe something that I... don't believe in? If that's possible?

Well your Op basically states how you don't believe in God but your willing to act like it for the social benefits, so you say that and then:

Mechanical, insincere faith is unsustainable, will fall apart and have to be rebuilt from scratch.

Interesting

This was a good post.

I'd call this bias, but whatever.

If I thought it was at all likely that God existed, I'd find a way to kill him, the evil, murdering bastard, and worship a better god.

LOL

 

[Jordan~]

First: Any belief held by a person is reality to them. An animist could be an atheist, but their reality, in that sense, is strictly bound to their perception of what is real. All human belief stems from perception, thus reality is only what people make it to be.

Is that last sentence not a little circular? If reality is only what people make of it, whence comes perception? What's being perceived? A constructed reality? A constructed reality is informing its own construction?

I intended to reply to this ages ago, and typed something here about my own epistemology, but kept thinking, "Hmm, wait, no." Some time and many diagrams later I'm still working it out, but I like where it's going.

If a personal believe in "God on a Cloud" that vision of God would be made of something, thus is only a reflection of the reality of God.

"The reality of God" is an aspect of an external reality which can only be perceived by means of sensation distorted by the lens of innate mental content. The God-in-a-cloud is the same category of thing as the God-as-foundation; both could only be beliefs arising from an intuition of sufficient grounds for knowledge informed by a combination of perception and innate mental content that provides the basis for a conceptual framework by which perception can be understood to have meaning.

I claim the authority of Gnosticism, Platonism, and Buddhism - three different sectors of thought that have come to remarkably similar conclusions about the structure of existence. I will also claim Einstein on this, for his statements in regard to Matter as Energy and Sir Isaac Newton for similar statements in his work on the Occult. I could throw in Blavotsky as well, for her understanding of the subdivions of existence.

There's something of an appeal to numbers and an obvious appeal to authority there. Authority is what I asked you for - though I really meant the authority of an argument - but it's irrelevant authority, too. We're talking about the validity of an interpretation of the Bible, and you've cited a proto-Christian spiritual philosophy, the ideas of someone born before much of the Bible was written, two scientists and a... mystic.

But you do defend your interpretation quite well, nonetheless. It does raise questions, though, about which mythological accounts of creation can and which cannot be dismissed as misguided literal explanations, or whether or not after a certain point of philosophical 'development', for want of a better phrase, all creation myths begin to be interpreted as expressing philosophical truths rather than historical accounts of creation. I would suggest that all surviving creation myths have their roots in early attempts at literal explanations of the universe which over centuries of scrutinised retellings became the centrepieces of ongoing philosophical dialogue as people questioned them and (some) religious authorities tried to answer their questions.

There are certain lacunae of archaeological evidence in this theory - notably in the classical world. Though I know more of their religions than of any other, Christianity included, they remain a mystery in that I'm never able to decide how sincerely and literally people believed in the gods. I'm given to suspect that the idea that they approached religion on a purely literal level is something of an imposition of attitudes from another time and place upon the poor, unsuspecting Greeks and Romans; however, I'm forced to admit that there's not a whole lot of evidence to the contrary (of which I'm aware). I think perhaps the mystery cults would yield the best example of 'mystical' religion, if only they hadn't been so, well, mysterious. The vast majority of them took their mysteries with them when they died out. But it is thought that they offered a different sort of religious belief to the seemingly very literalist public religion, featuring a greater degree of mysticism, doctrine and community.

Given how Christianity was seized upon and used for power, and that it came to resemble (in methodology if certainly not in content) the public religion of the Greco-Roman world, perhaps the public/mystery dichotomy is a universal one - though I would be loath to claim that without a great deal of supporting evidence - or, more probably, one that developed in the eastern hemisphere during the very ancient past and spread slowly until it reached a point of ubiquity during the Hellenistic and Imperial Roman eras.

Going back to the topic of the thread, does the OP want to join a mystery religion or join in with public religion?

 

[ummidk]

Two problems with this:

First is the Genetic Fallacy: the idea that by proving how a belief came to be you somehow invalidate it.

The second is that you judge some aspects of the Bible immoral, but you have no standard on which to base those objections if there is no higher authority. If morality only comes from social agreement then why would someone from one society have any moral basis on which to judge someone from another society? This is the exact thing you attempt to do when you claim that burning a fornicator is immoral.

Two Problems with this:
First, that is not a Genetic Fallacy, where morals come from seems to be of great importance to argument, and if Jameslikepie is right about where morals come from (which I believe he is) that would disprove Christianity since Christianity specifically states they come from God.

Second: Just apply Christianity's morals and see that your God is a failure at getting what he wants in his book.


On a side note: I liked the video but I thought the same thing as Richard Dawkins in the sense that it was hard to be much of a debate the way it was setup.

 

[CLOfriendOSE]

Is that last sentence not a little circular? If reality is only what people make of it, whence comes perception? What's being perceived? A constructed reality? A constructed reality is informing its own construction?

I intended to reply to this ages ago, and typed something here about my own enpistemology, but kept thinking, "Hmm, wait, no." Some time and many diagrams later I'm still working it out, but I like where it's going.

In short, there is not much about this that I disagree with.
If everything human is born of ratio, though, "god" is what the ratio is derived of. Now, I make assumtions at this juncture - what is "individual perception". Logically I can only think of an interaction of chemicals and electircal impulses coursing through matter (of course, all of this is constituded of energy in different forms). So, the individual perception and the "greater reality" can all coexist at the same time, composed of different construction material (derived from a base element - energy). Now, this material is simply reordered, never created or disposed. These limitless other realities of individuals are constructed realities, based off of a construction, of a construction, of a construction...etc.
If "history" is "change", imagine a circle increasing by an infintiely small increment. Human perception forms the perimeter of the circle. The infinite subdivisons of the line from the center to the perimeter equal all possibile similar realities. This mass of collected realities, I concede, must be a part of a similar circular diagram where the circle formed previously is now just a point on the curcumference.

If you haven't yet, I feel looking into the Golden Ratio could be fun for you.


"The reality of God" is an aspect of an external reality which can only be perceived by means of sensation distorted by the lens of innate mental content. The God-in-a-cloud is the same category of thing as the God-as-foundation; both could only be beliefs arising from an intuition of sufficient grounds for knowledge informed by a combination of perception and innate mental content that provides the basis for a conceptual framework by which perception can be understood to have meaning.

My arguement is that "the reality of God" is outside of human perception. I just enjoy using negative theology to figure out how wrong I am.


There's something of an appeal to numbers and an obvious appeal to authority there. Authority is what I asked you for - though I really meant the authority of an argument - but it's irrelevant authority, too. We're talking about the validity of an interpretation of the Bible, and you've cited a proto-Christian spiritual philosophy, the ideas of someone born before much of the Bible was written, two scientists and a... mystic.

I don't understand why this is odd. They all studied the same matter, from different perspectives, and came up with nearly identical outcomes towards the question of "what is life?" I can even go back to Sun worship of Egypt, which also consists of similar tenants. As a seeker of "universal" truths this seems imortant.

But you do defend your interpretation quite well, nonetheless. It does raise questions, though, about which mythological accounts of creation can and which cannot be dismissed as misguided literal explanations, or whether or not after a certain point of philosophical 'development', for want of a better phrase, all creation myths begin to be interpreted as expressing philosophical truths rather than historical accounts of creation. I would suggest that all surviving creation myths have their roots in early attempts at literal explanations of the universe which over centuries of scrutinised retellings became the centrepieces of ongoing philosophical dialogue as people questioned them and (some) religious authorities tried to answer their questions.

I do not disagree. Though, I would say that all accounts hold a certain amount of truth in them. It is not uncommon to use metaphor to explain philosophy (ie: CS Lewis) in a way that other people can relate to. I think all should be given credit and that all should be compared to one another to locate overarching truths. The surface is shallow, and truth is deep. Cyclical structures (so a possibility for a reality that informs itself) seems fairly common. A shared essence of creation seems common.
Even if all of these accounts are false, can they not inform us somehow on what is true? What is not Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, or Indigo?

There are certain lacunae of archaeological evidence in this theory - notably in the classical world. Though I know more of their religions than of any other, Christianity included, they remain a mystery in that I'm never able to decide how sincerely and literally people believed in the gods. I'm given to suspect that the idea that they approached religion on a purely literal level is something of an imposition of attitudes from another time and place upon the poor, unsuspecting Greeks and Romans; however, I'm forced to admit that there's not a whole lot of evidence to the contrary (of which I'm aware). I think perhaps the mystery cults would yield the best example of 'mystical' religion, if only they hadn't been so, well, mysterious. The vast majority of them took their mysteries with them when they died out. But it is thought that they offered a different sort of religious belief to the seemingly very literalist public religion, featuring a greater degree of mysticism, doctrine and community.

After reading Plato, I do not think that the Greeks of "mystical" thought believed literally in their Gods. Gods, moreso, seem to embody different concepts and all of their possible permutations. We do similar things to this day - how often is "Love" personified : Love made me do it! (And all of the Gods bowed to the God who could weld pure energy (lightning)). Of course, not all people are so enclined to such thoughts, - as transcendental as some of the discourse on Logos can be, the "average" (dare I say ESXJ) lived a completely seperate life from the Gods. They were bound my nostos and kleos to the material realm. This probably kept the poweful in power (and a good view into why Socrates was killed).


It is very likely. Gnosticism is one of the "mystical" branches of Christianity. They were killed off, unfortunately, for their denial of the physical world. If we go to the original Texts, I think the Gospel of Thomas, we can see the story when the Jews kill Jesus, yet Pilate mounts "King of the Jews" to the cross. The implication is that Jesus supposedly understood the scripture "God IS" "more fully" than the Jews at the time and, basically, accused them of misunderstanding. Of course, Jesus then had a religion based upon misunderstanding follow him, so it appears somewhat Ironic.
When Jesus talks of the "Kingdom of Heaven" it is in reference to a state that people can enter on a philosophical level. He was the Son of God because he realized that we are all made OF God. He realized the power of the malleable reality and through thought attempted to change the world. He tried to bring forth enlightement of the masses, yet was killed because of it (so those in Power can remain in power - there is no power of the few when the masses are actually empowered - this is similar to the Logos talked of by Socrates, who, also, was killed because of sharing this knowledge). Obviously misunderstanding happens - the original tenants of Jesus were few and how many are his "original" we have no real idea. We know that from different accounts things were added and removed.They basically boil down "to live without the material world and to enter the Kingdom of God instead". How splendid it must be to truly deny the physical and embrace the infinite of the unknown where all men are equal.

Given how Christianity was seized upon and used for power, and that it came to resemble (in methodology if certainly not in content) the public religion of the Greco-Roman world, perhaps the public/mystery dichotomy is a universal one - though I would be loath to claim that without a great deal of supporting evidence - or, more probably, one that developed in the eastern hemisphere during the very ancient past and spread slowly until it reached a point of ubiquity during the Hellenistic and Imperial Roman eras.

I believe that records of the "mystical" variety are even older than that. I think from Sumeria. Don't quote me, the BF is the one with the Masters in this stuff.


Going back to the topic of the thread, does the OP want to join a mystery religion or join in with public religion?

I think after reading all of this he should start a mystery cult. He wants friends, right?

I'm sorry for the poor presentation. A bit scatter brained.

We will never understand, though, that I'm sure of.

 

[Jordan~]

A prototype of the epistemological system I was trying to find a way to explain earlier runs like so: Reality is that to which sensation is the biochemical response. That biochemical response is interpreted by the innate mental structure to produce perception, the mental experience of sensation. The content of perception in conjunction with the innate mental structure forms a conceptual framework, an aspect of which is an idea concerning the criteria for evidence. From this arises belief, i.e. knowledge for which there is evidence which meets those criteria. Belief dictates action, action shapes reality, and so there's a cycle not of reality shaping itself, but of past reality shaping future reality with humans as a causal conduit responding to its conditions thorugh various adaptive mechanisms. It needs some fleshing out, at the moment it's a lot of diagrams that contradict eachother. :P It would be nice to get evolution, epistemology and metaphysics all in the same diagram.

Well, I know about the golden ratio. When I first found out about it I thought it was quite exciting, but now I sort of just think, "So?"
A bit like when people get excited about the Mandelbrot Set. I think it's, well, ugly, and the conceptual element doesn't appeal to me much. Plus it shouldn't really be a surprise that fractals appear in nature to anyone who's taken a moment to consider the mechanics of growth.

I think reality in general is outside human perception because our ability to perceive it is limited and potentially flawed; my point is that both conceptions of God must be equally distant from any originating reality of God.

It wouldn't be odd as a defense of the idea (well, it'd still be an appeal to authority, but maybe a contextually justified one), as a defense of an interpretation of the Bible it was. Only one (two?) of these groups/people interpreted the Bible.

I would caution you against trying to identify such universal truths among diverse cultures. You may be imposing something of yourself upon them which none of them featured.

I think there's meaning to be found in anything at all. I quoted The Waste Land in another thread yesterday (also when I was very tired, there may be a pattern), but:

"I sat upon the shore
Fishing, with the arid plain behind me
Shall I at least set my lands in order?
London bridge is falling down falling down falling down
Poi s'ascose nel foco che gli affina
Quando fiam uti chelidon--O swallow swallow
Le prince d'Aquitaine à la tour abolie
These fragments I have shored against my ruins
Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo's mad againe.
Da. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
Shantih shantih shantih"

The poem is (according to my interpretation) all about rebuilding meaning from the shattered fragments of everything that was broken by the First World War, as well as searching for new, exotic ideas to incorporate into the new meaning.

I use I Ching for divinatory purposes - not to predict the future, I don't believe that's possible; to ask for advice. I don't believe that there's an agency behind the fortunes cast, and I don't believe that they're intended to mean anything because there's no agent to intend meaning; nonetheless it's possible to find useful meaning in them - the nonsense of the answer, when it must be interpreted as sense, can either force a new perspective or force one to admit something one had been hiding from oneself. So I do appreciate the value of interpreting, well, anything that lends itself to interpretation; but I don't think there's really anything for me to 'get' in the Bible. If it's a poem to be interpreted, it's not a poem I enjoy. But I barely like anything written before 1900 and after 300 AD - during the, uh, Christian era, I suppose.

My favourite story about Plato is actually one about Diogenes of Sinope. Diogenes heard that Plato had announced at the Academy that Socrates's definition of 'man' was 'a featherless biped'. Diogenes bought a chicken at the agora and plucked it, ran to the steps of the Academy and shouted, "Behold! I've brought you a man." Diogenes was the best philosopher, and you don't even need to know his philosophy to know that.

I sometimes wonder what all the other messiahs in Jerusalem at the time had to say. Josephus lists a lot of messiahs. One of them was bound to strike a chord with the zeitgeist, I suppose.

The earliest mystery religion I know of is the cult of Osiris, which possibly has its origins in Predynastic Egypt. For once that'd mean something didn't originate in Mesopotamia. :P

Or just revive a dead one. How about the Dionysian Mysteries? No one seems to have a god of having a good time anymore.

 

[zago]

Well your Op basically states how you don't believe in God but your willing to act like it for the social benefits, so you say that and then:

"Mechanical, insincere faith is unsustainable, will fall apart and have to be rebuilt from scratch."

Interesting

I should clarify, then. I am not 100% sure god exists, but even that isn't true because I am not at all sure how I define god. By some definitions I could think of, I'd say I am 100% sure god exists. Either way, I relate strongly to the framework of religion.

I was somewhat of a believer as a kid, and then I almost completely lost all belief, and now it is back much stronger than before. That's the "insincere faith falling apart and having to be rebuilt from scratch." This is all very interesting, especially because I never fully disbelieved. One thing I was always afraid of was the afterlife. I tried, but I could never fully convince myself that it doesn't exist and isn't something to worry about. Currently, perhaps I have just become lazy, and am complacent about it; I operate under the assumption that there is probably life after death and that we will be judged.

I think the real bias, the 'devil,' if you will, is to find reasons to believe what is convenient. It is all too understandable why someone would be an atheist--they find it terrifying to think that they too will be judged and possibly punished for their actions, so they blind themselves to what is obvious and create a fantasy world where they can safely get away with whatever sin they are prone to (sloth and greed, in my case). Of course, this is all just denial and if god doesn't judge us, we judge ourselves pretty much by his same standards anyway. The notion of creating your own standards by which you judge your own self is firmly based in denial.

What's obvious is that pretty much everybody on the planet has thoughts about god whether they claim to believe in him or not. Everyone fears death: why? A true believing atheist would not fear death at all. They would know that after they were dead, they wouldn't be there to care. The truth is, death is the ultimate plunge into the unknown and everybody knows it whether they admit this or not. There is, however, a general consensus among humanity that there is an afterlife and it isn't necessarily good. We're asked: what did you do with your life? Does it make a little more sense now why my last thread was called "Time is Precious" and I talked about the urgent need to accomplish one's dreams?

The idea that hell exists is terrifying. Do atheists ever wonder why? No, because they live in a conceptual vacuum rather than reality. People who have faith in themselves see their emotions as purposeful and reliable. If fear arises, there's a reason behind it. People who understand this well have what we call "common sense" or "street smarts" (see: "Basic Social Guidelines"). Idealists look at their emotions and somehow see fault, then make up a conceptual world in which the emotion is nonexistent, irrelevant, or even a sign of weakness. They are, of course, tortured by its surfacing, which indicates a failure to live up to their own vision.

Woooooo... so, what was I talking about? I think I'm about to get flamed. But I really think this has been a good thread! Less flaming than my usual, and more well-thought out, civil replies, from both sides! Yay!

 

[SilentRobert23]

". . . [Atheists] live in a conceptual vacuum . . ."

Cool story, bro. You should tell it. At parties. Everyone will take you seriously.

Btw, are you a psychic?

 

[zago]

". . . [Atheists] live in a conceptual vacuum . . ."

Cool story, bro. You should tell it. At parties. Everyone will take you seriously.

Btw, are you a psychic?

Na, I know people would hate me if I said that at parties. Religious people who would agree don't really tend to party (and when they do they don't talk religion).

 

[ummidk]

I should clarify, then. I am not 100% sure god exists, but even that isn't true because I am not at all sure how I define god. By some definitions I could think of, I'd say I am 100% sure god exists. Either way, I relate strongly to the framework of religion.

Okay, yes I apologize actually I meant the Christian God and the Christian religion, which is what people who go to church believe in.

I think the real bias, the 'devil,' if you will, is to find reasons to believe what is convenient.

Hm, exactly my point when I said bias and about you in general.

It is all too understandable why someone would be an atheist--they find it terrifying to think that they too will be judged and possibly punished for their actions, so they blind themselves to what is obvious and create a fantasy world where they can safely get away with whatever sin they are prone to (sloth and greed, in my case). Of course, this is all just denial and if god doesn't judge us, we judge ourselves pretty much by his same standards anyway. The notion of creating your own standards by which you judge your own self is firmly based in denial.

Are you joking? lol you think Atheists are so scared of the idea that they ignore it? I read some of these threads say you were trolling, generally I thought meh thats really overused and seems kind of dumb to say, but this like puts you on that line, honestly.

What's obvious is that pretty much everybody on the planet has thoughts about god whether they claim to believe in him or not. Everyone fears death: why? A true believing atheist would not fear death at all. They would know that after they were dead, they wouldn't be there to care. The truth is, death is the ultimate plunge into the unknown and everybody knows it whether they admit this or not. There is, however, a general consensus among humanity that there is an afterlife and it isn't necessarily good. We're asked: what did you do with your life? Does it make a little more sense now why my last thread was called "Time is Precious" and I talked about the urgent need to accomplish one's dreams?

First off everyone has thoughts of Gods because it is shoved down there throats from an early age, and it seems natural for us to wonder what happens after we die. As for the fearing of death, I'm not that scared to be dead because I see it as very unlucky something else is there, but I still don't want to die, I'm enjoying the life I have and if it is all I get I myswell, plus obviously the number one thing in our nature would be to avoid death (except maybe like save your offspring).

The idea that hell exists is terrifying. Do atheists ever wonder why? No, because they live in a conceptual vacuum rather than reality. People who have faith in themselves see their emotions as purposeful and reliable. If fear arises, there's a reason behind it. People who understand this well have what we call "common sense" or "street smarts" (see: "Basic Social Guidelines"). Idealists look at their emotions and somehow see fault, then make up a conceptual world in which the emotion is nonexistent, irrelevant, or even a sign of weakness. They are, of course, tortured by its surfacing, which indicates a failure to live up to their own vision.

Again with the jokes I see. Probably when we get scared its for a good reason because of some sort of repeating trend or evidence, in some way it would be logical if it makes sense, we can't just sense things and be right, has to be reasons behind it. The idea that we somehow have any real evidence or pattern that would act on our emotions strongly is pitiful, we're scared because of the unknown and infinitely horrible potentials it could have, especially after once again being told for so many years that you could have the worst possible outcome, Once again just because were told this is in no way smart to believe it. Seriously, I didn't understand your point, or really your post at all.

Woooooo... so, what was I talking about? I think I'm about to get flamed. But I really think this has been a good thread! Less flaming than my usual, and more well-thought out, civil replies, from both sides! Yay!

At least you've been able to "sense" the idiocy of posts by this point because this is truly remarkable.

 

[zago]

First off everyone has thoughts of Gods because it is shoved down there throats from an early age

But why? Why god and not something else? Why anything at all? You're saying: everyone has thoughts about god because everyone else has thoughts about god.

At least you've been able to "sense" the idiocy of posts by this point because this is truly remarkable.

Heresy. I sense the heresy. I'm definitely not the only one speculating here. Why is it totally cool for atheists to say religious people are crazy but not vice versa?

 

[Peeps999]

All of us opposing you aren't totally atheist though. I think a god is unlikely, but definitely not impossible. Listen to reason in your arguments and don't walk into this with your eyes closed. This is really just a silly thing to argue since we can't apply logic to existence because existence seems to defy logic. So I shall happily say good bye to this thread, well at least until some comment is said and I am inevitably drawn back.

 

[zago]

All of us opposing you aren't totally atheist though.

Noted.

 

[Roni]

To the trollish bit..

.. I could never be an atheist, it would take too much effort. How could anyone convince themselves there is no god? How arrogant can you be? "I am so smart, I know there isn't a higher being whose reasoning is far beyond my capacity to understand!"
Atheists simply have poor imaginations. Do they ever stop and realize just how much about the universe we don't understand? Newsflash: humans know NOTHING, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

The greater arrogance is that of believers who presume to understand atheism well enough to ridicule it.
You've used two of their favourite fallacies:

Atheism requires the effort to convince oneself there is no god.
No effort is required to lack belief. We're all born atheist. Maintaining religious indoctrination in the face of new discoveries probably requires far more effort. Most believers don't bother - they "just know" there's a god. Well, some people "just know" there isn't.
Reason is not required. That's why it's called belief.

Atheists fail to comprehend how little we understand the universe.
Rubbish. The unknown is a source of great awe and wonder. Atheists are free to delight in it simply because it is unknown. Believers can't delight in it without making it "known" as the work of a creator. Atheists grasp the unkown just fine - it's the believers who fail to comprehend it.



To the 'aha, you're just an INTP doing the self-trolling thing' bit..

..Maybe I'll join a church, maybe I won't. Right now I'm too proud. I've spent years ragging on going to church. I have a hard time admitting I was wrong, especially to people I said were stupid before. Then again, a lot of people never do seem to question their faith and come to a personal understanding of it - they have religion because that's what they were raised with. There's nothing wrong with that; it's a good thing to have been raised with, especially knowing that most people aren't smart enough to ever question their beliefs very hard. Better Jesus than Hitler, right? I've spent years in agonizing analysis, the kind that had me utterly lost and depressed, and this is where I've gotten so far.

If you're still in a position to not know your true beliefs I suggest you just get thee to church and be done with it.
Once you know you can never not know again. Once you've lost your sky-daddy you're on your own.

If even when life's kicked you in the guts one too many times, you're flat on your back on the motel room floor wishing you knew of some point to your suffering, when you're desperate enough to flick through the Gideon's even though you've previously read four different versions of the bible looking for the comfort of the Emperors New Clothes and you already know that bastard's naked, when you're as 'open' as you can possibly imagine yourself to be, arms out, palms up, naked and sobbing, screaming "if you exist then where the fuck are you sky-daddy" and ready to take the slightest hint of anything as some sort of hope, if even then you still know you're on your own...
you won't call believers 'stupid' anymore.
You'll call them 'lucky'.

And none of those arrogant pricks will ever comprehend how cruel they're being when they attack your lack of belief.



PS: Hitler was a Catholic. A well respected one.

 

[Puffy]

I should clarify, then. I am not 100% sure god exists, but even that isn't true because I am not at all sure how I define god. By some definitions I could think of, I'd say I am 100% sure god exists. Either way, I relate strongly to the framework of religion.

I was somewhat of a believer as a kid, and then I almost completely lost all belief, and now it is back much stronger than before. That's the "insincere faith falling apart and having to be rebuilt from scratch." This is all very interesting, especially because I never fully disbelieved. One thing I was always afraid of was the afterlife. I tried, but I could never fully convince myself that it doesn't exist and isn't something to worry about. Currently, perhaps I have just become lazy, and am complacent about it; I operate under the assumption that there is probably life after death and that we will be judged.

I think the real bias, the 'devil,' if you will, is to find reasons to believe what is convenient. It is all too understandable why someone would be an atheist--they find it terrifying to think that they too will be judged and possibly punished for their actions, so they blind themselves to what is obvious and create a fantasy world where they can safely get away with whatever sin they are prone to (sloth and greed, in my case). Of course, this is all just denial and if god doesn't judge us, we judge ourselves pretty much by his same standards anyway. The notion of creating your own standards by which you judge your own self is firmly based in denial.

What's obvious is that pretty much everybody on the planet has thoughts about god whether they claim to believe in him or not. Everyone fears death: why? A true believing atheist would not fear death at all. They would know that after they were dead, they wouldn't be there to care. The truth is, death is the ultimate plunge into the unknown and everybody knows it whether they admit this or not. There is, however, a general consensus among humanity that there is an afterlife and it isn't necessarily good. We're asked: what did you do with your life? Does it make a little more sense now why my last thread was called "Time is Precious" and I talked about the urgent need to accomplish one's dreams?

The idea that hell exists is terrifying. Do atheists ever wonder why? No, because they live in a conceptual vacuum rather than reality. People who have faith in themselves see their emotions as purposeful and reliable. If fear arises, there's a reason behind it. People who understand this well have what we call "common sense" or "street smarts" (see: "Basic Social Guidelines"). Idealists look at their emotions and somehow see fault, then make up a conceptual world in which the emotion is nonexistent, irrelevant, or even a sign of weakness. They are, of course, tortured by its surfacing, which indicates a failure to live up to their own vision.

Woooooo... so, what was I talking about? I think I'm about to get flamed. But I really think this has been a good thread! Less flaming than my usual, and more well-thought out, civil replies, from both sides! Yay!

I havn't recalled anyone here mention a fear of judgement. I remember having the thought when I left "what if I get judged?" but this became increasingly distant and was the least of my worries.

The thing with God is, if It exists and cares to judge us, for whatever reason, there is no way you can win. It sets the standards and could just move the goal-posts forever so that you are always in the wrong. I'm not scared of it because to me it is a pointless concept, the universe is weird enough for it to fit maybe, I just don't see it as likely and if it is true there's no way out of it.

I actually thought it was the moral of Kafka's "The Trial" when I read it. The main character is charged with an offence in the intro but never finds out what he did wrong.

I felt the Lawyer who defended him was parallel to a 'Jesus' figure. Jesus is basically the Lawyer of humanity. We've all been charged with some offence against God for which we have no defence, Jesus intercedes on our behalf. But this is not a trial that will ever close. As long as God see's the defendant through the Lawyer we are safe because all he see's is his lawyer. But what kind of existence would this be for all eternity? A case that never closes, and you have no personal identity, all God sees is your lawyer. Hidden, never to speak, always to beg for the scraps and be ever so grateful for the "progress" christ has made in your trial with God.

I just think the concept is a nightmare, even the "paradise" of Christianity sounds like hell.

 

[Jordan~]

The idea that hell exists is terrifying. Do atheists ever wonder why? No, because they live in a conceptual vacuum rather than reality. People who have faith in themselves see their emotions as purposeful and reliable. If fear arises, there's a reason behind it. People who understand this well have what we call "common sense" or "street smarts" (see: "Basic Social Guidelines"). Idealists look at their emotions and somehow see fault, then make up a conceptual world in which the emotion is nonexistent, irrelevant, or even a sign of weakness. They are, of course, tortured by its surfacing, which indicates a failure to live up to their own vision.

I'm an apatheist. If I had clear, definite proof that the Biblical God existed and that everything in the Bible about him was true and that I'd be tortured for all eternity unless I worshipped him, I wouldn't worship him and I wouldn't comply with his rules because it'd be the wrong thing to do. A tyrannical monster like that deserves resistance, not worship.

I'm not afraid of Hell any more than I'm afraid of prison or the firing line. To submit to fear is to be complicit in the regime that uses it to oppress people, in this case the universal tyranny of God. If he exists, let him do his worst; I'll spit in his face as I'm judged.

Besides, in my estimation, eternal life in Hell is better than the alternative I believe in - nonexistence. I'd rather exist in horrible agony than not at all.

Heresy. I sense the heresy. I'm definitely not the only one speculating here. Why is it totally cool for atheists to say religious people are crazy but not vice versa?

"The heterosexual white Christian male is the most oppressed group in our day and age! ;-;"

Who said that it was? It's only as 'cool' as you make it. Plus, I don't see the police barging through your door saying, "Right! What do we have here then? Christian calling atheists crazy? You're coming with me, sonny!" anymore than they're barging through our doors to arrest us for calling Christians crazy.

Re: "I could never be an atheist":

My mother is a lapsed Catholic and my father used to be Church of Scotland by baptism only. Neither ever went to church. My mum wanted to have me christened - "Because what if something bad happened to me?" - but my dad refused to let it happen, for which I'm grateful to him, because I suppose he believed in letting me decide. I had a series of children's books on mythology that he used to read me before bed; "Bible stories" and "Greek legends" were in the same series, and when they were read to me I didn't differentiate. "These are fabulous tales designed to impart a moral message," I thought (only less articulately, obviously, I was five), not, "This story is true; this one, which is less ridiculous, though, is clearly false."

I went to private school because there was government initiative at the time that was able to partly fund my first few years, I got a bursary and my dad had gone. Plus, I think we may have been getting better off at the time, my mum had just got a job for the first time since she'd had me. Anyway, we recited the Lord's Prayer in the morning after singing the school song and saluted the headmistress of the junior school when she came to inspect the class. It was here, in some sort of religous studies class, that I was first exposed to the notion that the Bible was true, and, in the process, learned to question authority. I got very anxious about it. I was meant to be worshipping this god, he was real, he'd be angry if I didn't, and he was all powerful? He could make good things happen in my life if I had faith and punish me if I didn't? I had best start going to church! And when my parents started to think about moving out of the flat we lived in and into a house, when they took me along to viewings I'd insist on a nearby church, I'd hassle them endlessly to let us go to church on Sundays and at Christmas and every other time I knew you were meant to go to church.

That lasted maybe a year. When I was 6, I thought to myself, "Wait a sec, adults said Santa was real, too." (I'd discovered that Santa wasn't real before I started school, through personal investigation.) "Why did they do that? So I'd go to bed early on Christmas. So I'd do what they said." Then I thought about the Bible, with all its rules, most of which seemed to pertain to being a good little boy and doing what the adults told you. Then I realised it was bullshit, a control mechanism, they'd been lying to me to trick me into going along with them and I'd fallen for it hook, line and sinker. And that's when I became an atheist. There was no effort involved, just the realisation that the notion that these myths were true was absurd, and that they were a blatant mechanism of control and nothing more. It's occurred to me since that some people might find spiritual comfort in them, and that's their prerogative, but there's none to be found there for me. As the "What adults say is true" framework began to collapse, I also stopped eating meat because I couldn't reconcile my boundless love for animals with eating them.

When I was 8, one of my grandmothers died following a stroke, and my dad turned to his faith for the first time in years, reading the Bible through the night, praying for her. She still died, God did nothing for him, and he gave up on it. He used to take me to school in the morning, and since he knew I was an atheist of my own volition we'd talk about it; by now the last shreds of his faith are gone. Not through any effort, just because there was no solace in the religion, no comfort, it said nothing he wanted to hear and seemed to consist exclusively of a few earnest priests reading from a book of irrelevant mumbo-jumbo.

And that's the story of how I became a vocal atheist and animal rights activist at the age of 6.

 

[Puffy]

I'm an apatheist. If I had clear, definite proof that the Biblical God existed and that everything in the Bible about him was true and that I'd be tortured for all eternity unless I worshipped him, I wouldn't worship him and I wouldn't comply with his rules because it'd be the wrong thing to do. A tyrannical monster like that deserves resistance, not worship.

I'm not afraid of Hell any more than I'm afraid of prison or the firing line. To submit to fear is to be complicit in the regime that uses it to oppress people, in this case the universal tyranny of God. If he exists, let him do his worst; I'll spit in his face as I'm judged.

Besides, in my estimation, eternal life in Hell is better than the alternative I believe in - nonexistence. I'd rather exist in horrible agony than not at all.

Where are you from again Jordan? Scotland? I know there is the rough patch here and there (I remember a lucky get-away on a night out in Glasgow once) but it's hardly the Gaza Strip.

How can you be so sure that you would not give in to fear? Have you been under interrogation/ torture before to give as evidence?

/Derail, sorry. Self-righteous posts like this just irk me a little, it's nothing personal and I hope you don't take offence.

 

[Jordan~]

Where are you from again Jordan? Scotland? I know there is the rough patch here and there (I remember a lucky get-away on a night out in Glasgow once) but it's hardly the Gaza Strip.

How can you be so sure that you would not give in to fear? Have you been under interrogation/ torture before to give as evidence?

/Derail, sorry. Self-righteous posts like this just irk me a little, it's nothing personal and I hope you don't take offence.

Since it's off-topic, and perhaps rather devoid of interest (seeing as it's about me) to most other posters, I'll reply in a PM to prevent derailment.

 

[Moocow]

Anyone who says "humans know nothing" as an argument just need to have their definition of knowledge fixed. Practical knowledge doesn't require omniscience. Also, being wrong doesn't have to entail being shamed.

I'm sure atheists have perfectly fine imaginations. I'm an "atheist" because I have the capacity to imagine a life wherein a bible wasn't shoved under my nose at birth and there would be no realistic capacity for believing it. I also can see that much of the human population is / was already like that, and it's absolutely ridiculous to think they're going to hell because some obscure folk tales that they'll probably never encounter anyways didn't change their lives.

 

[SkyWalker]

Join a gym, or any other sports or whatever hobby. Make your own friends and dont take "friends from a can" (like church).

I would not want half-brained christian zombies as friends. THey suck, they enforce lies such as about their great morals.

Christianity does not bring good morals. Good morals were already present before Christianity. Christianity usurped it and falsely claims it as its own afterwards.

Another similar lie is "Christian love". Love was already present before Christianity. Christianity usurped it and falsely claims it as its own afterwards.

Christians are "good people" because they are over-helpful co-dependants. They are the good helpers/buddies of an evil narcissist (god), trying to give him a good face. They need a narcissist, because they lack this side of the spectrum themselves. They are half brained imbeciles, having an imaginary narcissist in the other half.

What kind of moral is that, to feel superior to another (to the point of bombing, murdering, plundering, raping their country etc) because of an imaginary god.... great morals those christians!

 

[ElvenVeil]

Or every Atheist/Christian/Alien you have come across is Immoral/ilogical/stupid/whatever. That's INTJ logic... I should know.

and this is INTP reasoning/logic? ^^ It would appear that we are not a lot better than others

 

[crippli]

Here is an idea I had. How does Maslow play into this? The psychological aspect? Maslow mostly describe concrete stuff. Could there be two triangles. And for the mind, the abstract, may turn out like this.

And if we consider the essence of religion to be fantasy and desires(as is fair). Then what you end up with at the end doesn't seem like much to end up with? Especially if the bible or the other similar books are not understood, as it seems most often is the case, and exclusively with fundamentalists. The triangle on the top is small. Is it mentally healthy if it's based on misunderstood information?

I guess my question is, is this what happens? And sorry for the bad drawing(ibm mouse stick). I wasn't sure in who of these threads to put this in.

 

[zago]

This is all way too much for me to reply to but I will point out one thing that struck me:

If even when life's kicked you in the guts one too many times, you're flat on your back on the motel room floor wishing you knew of some point to your suffering, when you're desperate enough to flick through the Gideon's even though you've previously read four different versions of the bible looking for the comfort of the Emperors New Clothes and you already know that bastard's naked, when you're as 'open' as you can possibly imagine yourself to be, arms out, palms up, naked and sobbing, screaming "if you exist then where the fuck are you sky-daddy" and ready to take the slightest hint of anything as some sort of hope, if even then you still know you're on your own...
you won't call believers 'stupid' anymore.
You'll call them 'lucky'.

My question is, what exactly is it going to take to convince you? I’m just saying, you seem to be facing a significant amount of evidence, albiet not absolute evidence, that points to god. I don’t know if you are talking about yourself or not, but I’ll assume you are. You say you’ve read the bible 4 times. Why? Why would an atheist search for comfort in the bible again and again? You say you know the emperor wears no clothes, but you clearly have your doubts. You find yourself in desperation, and you flip through the bible a 5th time. How many times is it going to take until you give in and say it is inescapable? Apparently you lack faith, as an atheist.

Do you think god, should he exist, will just appear to you magically because you are desperate? I don’t think suffering gives you an automatic ticket to witness god. It certainly seems to be a catalyst sometimes, though. It has been to me, to some degree. It is putting 2 and 2 together.. I’m starting to connect the dots that every time I am desperate, I start searching for something just like you. Reminds me of a friend I have who I was recently talking to. I told him that I had just talked to a woman who became religious when she got pregnant at 16. He scoffed and said he finds it lame when people adopt religion through suffering--that they weren’t able to or didn’t bother to figure it out when everything was going great. He has a point, but I’ll admit too that it took some suffering on my part for me to even become mostly convinced. That’s the way it is: as they say, “better late than never.”

I think the truth is, at some point during the transition from disbelief to belief, you think you’ve lost your mind. Who wouldn’t, upon accepting they have a personal relationship with a higher being that can’t be proved? I can't tell you if it was or was not, but some would say it is an obvious sign from god that you'd find yourself in a motel room with a bible at the moment of your utmost suffering, feeling compelled to thumb through it. You looked through its pages for some sort of sign--what more sign do you need? Any sign more obvious than that would have to be supernatural. It's as if god has directly communicated with you, saying, "look you wretch, here's a bible, you're welcome."

I know it is hard to believe (maybe it's all just a coincidence), but you might want to be on the look out for signs like that. That's pretty much where I stand. I have been "connecting dots" of events that have happened to me lately and in the distant past, and I'm beginning to feel like I am on a path as I see these signs. Strangely enough, as I was thinking about it while driving the other day, realizing that I was on a sort of path, the verse psalm 119:105 came to mind: Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, And light unto my path. I thought, how interesting, perhaps I need to keep reading the bible. I have thought a lot lately about how difficult it is to know what's important in life, to know which way to go, etc. Might as well investigate, I say.

 

[Jordan~]

Why doesn't he just go, "Hey, I'm right here"? Because then it wouldn't be a test of faith? Why does he require a test of faith? Why won't he explain himself? Why does he never answer his mobile? Why did he leave the light on upstairs?

But it was really unlikely that he'd end up in one of the only 3,452,167 motels in America that has a Gideon's Bible in every room of the 3,452,171 motels in America in total. That's crazy. The odds of that are like picking any street and ending up on with chewing gum on the pavement, or picking any house and ending up in one with a television.

When looking for signs, remember the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. Once you've heard of the Baader-Meinhof Group once, they'll be everywhere for days. It's a product of the way the brain remembers things and filters information. So those don't count as signs. Also, remember confirmation bias; confirmation biases don't count as signs, either. In fact, you know those geometric shapes on the ends of poles? It might be best if you considered only those to be signs.

 

[zago]

Why doesn't he just go, "Hey, I'm right here"? Because then it wouldn't be a test of faith? Why does he require a test of faith? Why won't he explain himself? Why does he never answer his mobile? Why did he leave the light on upstairs?

I guess that's just not who god is. We don't get to make the rules.

But it was really unlikely that he'd end up in one of the only 3,452,167 motels in America that has a Gideon's Bible in every room of the 3,452,171 motels in America in total. That's crazy. The odds of that are like picking any street and ending up on with chewing gum on the pavement, or picking any house and ending up in one with a television.

So what? I don't know about you, but I've been to a motel maybe like 10 times in my life of 25 years. How many motels there are doesn't say much about how likely you are to be at one. And then of course, the number of times I've been in a motel and felt compelled to read the bible are even fewer if any. It is what it is, no matter how big or small a coincidence. In an abyss of despair, he turned to the bible. Hell, it wouldn't be much different if he could have just walked down the street and into a bible shop.

When looking for signs, remember the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. Once you've heard of the Baader-Meinhof Group once, they'll be everywhere for days. It's a product of the way the brain remembers things and filters information. So those don't count as signs. Also, remember confirmation bias; confirmation biases don't count as signs, either. In fact, you know those geometric shapes on the ends of poles? It might be best if you considered only those to be signs.

Sure. Remember these things. The confirmation bias nor the Baader Meinhof phenomenon do not actually prove that something is not true, though.

 

[Puffy]

hrrmmm, what you say zago is rediculously parallel to my thoughts before I joined. I later came to dismiss the line of reasoning though.

I'll be honest, when I first read this thread I mistook you for "Zeldon", an earliar member on this forum you probably don't know. I knew he would not fit in with Christianity so that's why I said what I said in my first post.

Whether it's a good decision to join a local church is entirely down to personal circumstance. And Zago, I think you will like it fine based on what I have read of your posts so far (:

 

[Jordan~]

I guess that's just not who god is. We don't get to make the rules.

Well, I have only his word to go by that he's not a cretin, so if he wants anything he says to carry a shred of weight, he'd better start defending himself.

So what? I don't know about you, but I've been to a motel maybe like 10 times in my life of 25 years. How many motels there are doesn't say much about how likely you are to be at one. And then of course, the number of times I've been in a motel and felt compelled to read the bible are even fewer if any. It is what it is, no matter how big or small a coincidence. In an abyss of despair, he turned to the bible. Hell, it wouldn't be much different if he could have just walked down the street and into a bible shop.

I've stayed at a lot of hotels and I've never been to one that doesn't have a Bible in a drawer in the bedside table. I don't think the presence of a Gideon's Bible in a motel is a message from Heaven, I think it's something of which there's almost a 100% chance.
Yeah, a street with a shop that sells Bibles? There's this place called Borders in my home town that sells Bibles, but I think that might be the only place in the world. That'd be eerie, if you happened to be walking down a street and you found a shop that sells Bibles.

I've been desparate in a lot of places. There's a Bible right here! We got given one by the Gideon's people at school one day, since they've actually made most of the matter in the universe into Bibles, now, and they've had to start giving Bibles to Bibles. I've been desparate here before. And I've been desparate at school, there was a Qur'an at school, and a Torah, and many Bibles, and also several copies of The Very Hungry Caterpillar in the junior library. So many signs, do I worship Allah, the Christian god, the Jewish god or the Very Hungry Caterpillar!? I don't know what to believe anymore!!

I would guess that there are Bibles in more than half of the world's buildings. I would guess that it would be more surprising if you found to find yourself desparate somewhere without a Bible. Maybe that explains the religion's popularity: just litter the world with so many Bibles that they affect global weather patterns and eventually everyone will have a nervous breakdown with the nearest object being a Bible.

Sure. Remember these things. The confirmation bias nor the Baader Meinhof phenomenon do not actually prove that something is not true, though.

But the fact that they don't prove that it isn't true doesn't prove that it is, either. What they do prove is that experiencing the same phenomenon disproportionately frequently during a certain period is not innately meaningful, and that the fact that things keep happening that, viewed in the right light, seem to indicate something is more likely to be a result of your own desire for evidence for that thing than it is to be an actual indication of anything. For something to be a sign, in other words, it needs its own, independent proof that can hold its own against the various arguments that would dismiss it as coincidence. You need to be able to give a reason why this isn't just Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, or why it's not just confirmation bias.

 

[jameslikespie]

Atheists and theists alike, watch this video, maybe if you watch this you'll finally understand each other's point of view.

http://youtu.be/oHg5SJYRHA0

 

[Jordan~]

Hahaha. What is this, 2010!?

 

[thoumyvision]

Atheists and theists alike, watch this video, maybe if you watch this you'll finally understand each other's point of view.

http://youtu.be/oHg5SJYRHA0

Yep, fell for it. Well played, sir.

 

[jameslikespie]

I'm glad you two enjoyed it!

 

[Peeps999]

Atheists and theists alike, watch this video, maybe if you watch this you'll finally understand each other's point of view.

http://youtu.be/oHg5SJYRHA0

Everything makes sense now....

 

[Roni]

My question is, what exactly is it going to take to convince you? I’m just saying, you seem to be facing a significant amount of evidence, albiet not absolute evidence, that points to god...
How many times is it going to take until you give in and say it is inescapable? Apparently you lack faith, as an atheist.

It seems disengenuous to open a discussion about your own questions of faith, trolling for atheists, then tell an atheist they lack faith because they question.
Giving you the benefit of the doubt I'll assume you simply misunderstand the nature of belief.

I believe there is no god. Nothing will convince me otherwise. I know there's no evidence of god yet and even if I saw god with my own eyes I'd assume I was hallucinating. Every time I question my 'faith' (and I genuinely question it, as you've seen) I reaffirm my lack of belief.
You believe there is a god. You admit there's no absolute evidence and yet you still think a significant amount of evidence exists. You even used my questioning to support your view that belief in god is inescapable. A believer can see evidence of god in anything and use it to reaffirm their belief.

That is, no amount of evidence* can affect our positions. Belief is not reasonable.
I won't attempt to engage anyone in a rational debate on the existence of god. It's pointless.
What we're discussing here is Faith. Specifically: yours.

*Obviously I'm also agnostic and therefore boring. Gnostics may want to quibble over evidence (which can be fascinating to watch) but I'd have to sit that one out.

..some would say it is an obvious sign from god that you'd find yourself in a motel room with a bible at the moment of your utmost suffering, feeling compelled to thumb through it. You looked through its pages for some sort of sign--what more sign do you need? Any sign more obvious than that would have to be supernatural. It's as if god has directly communicated with you, saying, "look you wretch, here's a bible, you're welcome."

Of course there was a bible in my room. There was also a Mecca map and a list of local brothels. People put these things in motel rooms for the comfort of paying guests.
That there is always a bible in the room is powerful evidence that people tend to find comfort in it. I need no supernatural motivation to go looking for the comfort fellow human beings keep saying they find so readily.
If you can take this as a sign to strengthen your own faith, good luck to you.

Perhaps it was your god who intervened here, preventing you from seeing my fairly obvious point: even in the depths of despair, driven by my own self-interest to find some vestige of faith, open enough to the possibility to try a bible again despite previous experience, as ready to believe as a human being could possibly get, I still found no comfort in the bible.
In fact, after a half dozen or so passages of tribal warfare, agricultural woes and geneology, I laughed at the useless lie and threw it across the room.
I was angry at people when I did that - people who absolve themselves of genuine compassion by saying, "look you wretch, here's a bible, you're welcome"; people who insist their god's failure to reach me is in fact my own failure to allow it (this would be an omnipotent god I'm defeating with mere stubborness, right?); people who I'd always suspected (and now you have confirmed) will advocate the comfort of a bible they haven't even read themselves.

I have been "connecting dots" of events that have happened to me lately and in the distant past, and I'm beginning to feel like I am on a path as I see these signs.

Good for you. That was the point of me sharing the ugly side of atheism.
If you can believe, go ahead and believe. It means if you're ever despairing in a motel room a nice fellow believer will have left a source of comfort there for you that wretched old atheists can't access.
If you choose one of those nice compassionate religions (so, not the one of your friend who scoffs at the faith of pregnant 16 year olds) you might even feel compelled to say a prayer for the wretched instead of trolling for arguments to strengthen your own faith.
You were the one calling believers stupid. You now need to reconcile your own hypocrisy. You can't expect any atheist to do it for you.

 

[Jordan~]

Obviously I'm also agnostic and therefore boring. Gnostics may want to quibble over evidence (which can be fascinating to watch) but I'd have to sit that one out.

What do you think about apatheism, then - the belief that if there was a god, it wouldn't change anything? If God knocked on my front door tomorrow and gave me indisputable proof that he was God, he'd still have to give me a good reason to worship him for me to care. Otherwise I'd just say, "No thank you, not interested," and go back to living exactly as I did before.

 

[Roni]

What do you think about apatheism, then - the belief that if there was a god, it wouldn't change anything? If God knocked on my front door tomorrow and gave me indisputable proof that he was God, he'd still have to give me a good reason to worship him for me to care. Otherwise I'd just say, "No thank you, not interested," and go back to living exactly as I did before.

Apatheism was a lot more fun when I thought you were making it up. I evil grinned and filed the term away for future use in smartarse comebacks. I considered the scenario of god appearing with a "ta-da! See I'm real! It was all me!" and having him dragged off to be dealt with like any other terrorist claiming responsibility for attrocities, realised the faithful would just go "nuh-uh that's not the real god" and I went: m'eh. Yep, I'm apatheist!
But now I've googled. Serious response time *sigh*

At first glance apatheism seems to be a natural progression from agnosticism: we can't know whether or not a deity exists -> people will believe what they believe with or without proof -> there's no point arguing about it.
That's close to my own stance and if I read no further I'd probably start calling myself apatheist.

I also agree with the apatheists stating religion is not required for morality. People are basically good as a matter of self interest (helping the needy as an empathic distress avoidance strategy; 'grooming' our friends as a social/political strategy; etc) and the loss of god from humanity's concerns wouldn't change this. And, like you, I wouldn't worship any of the gods I've heard of even if they were real.

But apatheism seems to go one step further: there's no point arguing about religion -> religion is of no importance.
I can't subscribe to this. I believe spirituality is an important part of being human - we are intellectual, sensual, emotional, sexual and spiritual beings. Denying any of these in ourselves is asking for misery. Denying it in others is cruel.

I could support apatheists in opposing religious interference in politics etc but in that situation I would be calling myself a secularist.

 

[Jordan~]

Oh, it's the stupidest word. I hate portmanteaus and chimeric hybrids like that, especially in a language with such versatility for word creation as Greek. Why not 'theocataphrontism', contempt for god, or 'theoskubalism', the contemptuous rejection of god? The latter one is nice, because 'skubalismos' is the Greek word for contemptuous rejection - it's already an -ism word. I don't know nearly enough Greek to say what works, but there has to be something better than 'apatheism', which is the rejection of 'patheoi', whatever those are. Let's all learn Greek and Latin lest we end up with a word like 'homophobia'. Say 'homophobia' to any Ancient Greek and they'll understand it to mean 'fear/hatred of the same', because that is what it means. But we made it from 'homosexual', where 'homo-' is Greek (the same) and '-sexual' is Latin. That word itself seems to have been deliberately coined to replace the earlier 'homophile', which is all Greek and just fine, but probably wasn't clinical enough to be used to refer to what was considered a deviant mental illness at the time, so they got rid of the reference to love and replaced it with a reference to sex. But I suppose that contains -phile, which has taken on some rather unfortunate connotations due to its featuring in words like 'paedophile' and 'necrophile', which literally mean 'the love of children' and 'the love of the dead'. And not even romantic love, 'philein' just means 'to love, like, regard highly, treat kindly, welcome', none of which exactly pertain to paedophilia or necrophilia. Thus we've ruined 'philia', a perfect nice word by its own merits, by using it to coin terms in which it really doesn't belong.

Anyway, enough of my grievances with neologism. I suppose the word is used to refer to a lot of disparate beliefs: for me, it's not so much the idea that there's no point in arguing about it as that it doesn't matter one bit which side of the argument turns out to be true. There's still sense in arguing it, as there's sense in arguing anything - it trains the mind, leads to insights, etc. - but God could be real or not real and it wouldn't matter to me in the slightest.

Nor would I say that religion is of no importance. For one thing, I don't subscribe to any of the Baby's First Definitions of Religions that are under the impression that they need to say anything of the supernatural: "religion" describes a function; the thing that performs that function may have any conceivable content, from trillions of gods to none at all.

Rather, the question of whether or not deities objectively exist is of no practical importance - though I am speaking mostly of the One True God sort of god, regardless of its origin: with polytheistic gods, many of them don't care to be worshipped unless you want something from them and it sounds like it'd be fun to worship them anyway, so if they turned out to exist it might change my behaviour. But the existence of any god or gods wouldn't necessarily change my behaviour, perhaps I should say - it might change my behaviour, but only in the same way that if I found out about a really good archaeological field school I might go to it, whereas before I knew about the field school, going was not an option: the knowledge would have no more influence on my behaviour than any other knowledge, my approach to it would be the same. If Yahweh revealed himself and declared that he was all powerful and would smite me for scorning him, I'd scoff. If Bacchus invited me to a night's revelling, on the other hand, I'd accept the invitation.

And I certainly have no interest in denying people their spirituality. Far from it, I envy a lot of people their spirituality - animists, mostly, because animism seems like it makes the world a better place for the believer to live in. I find myself unable to believe in it, or I would.

 

[jameslikespie]

Oh, it's the stupidest word. I hate portmanteaus and chimeric hybrids like that, especially in a language with such versatility for word creation as Greek. Why not 'theocataphrontism', contempt for god, or 'theoskubalism', the contemptuous rejection of god? The latter one is nice, because 'skubalismos' is the Greek word for contemptuous rejection - it's already an -ism word. I don't know nearly enough Greek to say what works, but there has to be something better than 'apatheism', which is the rejection of 'patheoi', whatever those are. Let's all learn Greek and Latin lest we end up with a word like 'homophobia'. Say 'homophobia' to any Ancient Greek and they'll understand it to mean 'fear/hatred of the same', because that is what it means. But we made it from 'homosexual', where 'homo-' is Greek (the same) and '-sexual' is Latin. That word itself seems to have been deliberately coined to replace the earlier 'homophile', which is all Greek and just fine, but probably wasn't clinical enough to be used to refer to what was considered a deviant mental illness at the time, so they got rid of the reference to love and replaced it with a reference to sex. But I suppose that contains -phile, which has taken on some rather unfortunate connotations due to its featuring in words like 'paedophile' and 'necrophile', which literally mean 'the love of children' and 'the love of the dead'. And not even romantic love, 'philein' just means 'to love, like, regard highly, treat kindly, welcome', none of which exactly pertain to paedophilia or necrophilia. Thus we've ruined 'philia', a perfect nice word by its own merits, by using it to coin terms in which it really doesn't belong.

Anyway, enough of my grievances with neologism. I suppose the word is used to refer to a lot of disparate beliefs: for me, it's not so much the idea that there's no point in arguing about it as that it doesn't matter one bit which side of the argument turns out to be true. There's still sense in arguing it, as there's sense in arguing anything - it trains the mind, leads to insights, etc. - but God could be real or not real and it wouldn't matter to me in the slightest.

Nor would I say that religion is of no importance. For one thing, I don't subscribe to any of the Baby's First Definitions of Religions that are under the impression that they need to say anything of the supernatural: "religion" describes a function; the thing that performs that function may have any conceivable content, from trillions of gods to none at all.

Rather, the question of whether or not deities objectively exist is of no practical importance - though I am speaking mostly of the One True God sort of god, regardless of its origin: with polytheistic gods, many of them don't care to be worshipped unless you want something from them and it sounds like it'd be fun to worship them anyway, so if they turned out to exist it might change my behaviour. But the existence of any god or gods wouldn't necessarily change my behaviour, perhaps I should say - it might change my behaviour, but only in the same way that if I found out about a really good archaeological field school I might go to it, whereas before I knew about the field school, going was not an option: the knowledge would have no more influence on my behaviour than any other knowledge, my approach to it would be the same. If Yahweh revealed himself and declared that he was all powerful and would smite me for scorning him, I'd scoff. If Bacchus invited me to a night's revelling, on the other hand, I'd accept the invitation.

And I certainly have no interest in denying people their spirituality. Far from it, I envy a lot of people their spirituality - animists, mostly, because animism seems like it makes the world a better place for the believer to live in. I find myself unable to believe in it, or I would.

I quite like the idea of apatheism.