catbarf on 18/12/2007 at 21:56
Quote Posted by Raven
@fett - spare me - you seem to have forgotten most of what the whole Christian world view/perspective is about. Sure we/they ultimately may be deluding ourselves, but it is better than no purpose; it stands to logical reasoning (as well as any other world view/philosophy of life) and through life experience over MANY generations has found resonance in the way that people have chosen to lead their-lives. (Please don't assume that everyone is less intelligent than yourself or less capable of making a reasoned judgement, and I am including in ages gone by too*)
So... what you're saying is that deluding yourself is okay, because so many other people do it and it makes them feel better?
Quote Posted by Raven
*Your spouse is diagnosed with cancer, and you thank god for what he's trying to 'teach you' through this, ignoring the fact that the cancer victim is suffering, children/spouse will lose a parent/spouse, which causes a host of other problems, etc. - balls - the Christian perspective would be for you to consider how lucky you were to have someone in your life that you loved, (and that you would meet again in the after life) and it would teach you that it is your duty to relieve their suffering as much as possible, AND it acknowledges your suffering too!. (No euthanasia btw as that is not for you to decide, difficult yes but still with logical reasons behind the thinking) Honestly, what can you do about cancer anyway?- is there a better answer than to move on into acceptance of the situation and then you can concentrate on support for people suffering? (and pray to ease their suffering/strength to cope with the curve ball that life has thrown at you, which would have happened if you believed in god or not btw)
Actually, Fett was right on for the Christian perspective. According to the Bible, if bad things happen to you it's because you need to be punished or taught a lesson. So, it stands perfectly reasonable to then overanalyze to try and figure out what you did wrong.
Quote Posted by Raven
*Because it is a “sin” - when you consider that a sin is removing yourself from the loving presence of God, which (while on this existence) is best represented through unselfish love for your fellow human, then of course “because it is a sin” is the same tangible reason as with the negative effects you mentioned! Apparently YOU are simplify the notion of sin..
So, we have a group of children who are taught not to steal only because it is a sin. Now let's say one decides to become an atheist. So, now the only reason he was ever taught not to steal is null and void... does that seem like a good teaching system to you?
What the hell is wrong with people, never being told not to do things because they're bad for other people, society, and themselves? Why should your ONLY reason to not commit murder, theft, or any other crime be 'God tells me not to'?
If you tell me that if you were to stand with a gun pointed at someone's head and the only thing preventing you from pulling the trigger was what the Bible tells you, I'd call you a loon. That's not just unbalanced, that's dangerous and psychotic.
Quote Posted by Raven
*Because that is what LIFE is! It would be completely different if it wasn't, we can't imagine it as any different! The grass is still green, even when you die the grass will still be green. Again it is accepting the facts of life = things can suck. This is no reason to not acknowledge the existence of what humans commonly perceive as beauty and majesty (and such). These concepts, in amongst our crazy mixed up world have such a hold over ourselves and are yet so far out of our comprehension we have reached the conclusion that there is more than the mere physical reality that we experience... and common thought has lead us to conceive a notion of some controlling element behind such beauty and majesty - we call it/him God.
Suppose a hardline fundie is given some flowers/help with the yard/whatever from their neighbor. Their line of thinking is thus 'God sent him/her to help me'.
Now if the neighbor comes in and shoots their wife, they are not blaming God. They are blaming the neighbor. This is Fett's point. If it's good, it must be due to God. If it's bad, it must be due to human free will or somesuch.
Quote Posted by Raven
*It is not mystical purposes - it is actual purpose! Ultimately everything is prompting you to be a better person, even your internal, (perhaps evolution based, survival of the fittest, common good for the species) personal monolog . Now how to we know how to be a good person, God if only we had an example... oh wait, I heard this story once about a guy called Jesus. Lets see... he he pretty much fits the bill of my vague notions, and yours too - I wonder if there is something in that!
Right. You miss the point. Not every little thing has some grand cosmic purpose. If I wake up one morning and the paper is there early, that is not some fantastic cosmic sign from the heavens. All it means is that instead of sitting there wondering why I got it early I'm sitting and reading the damn thing.
Quote Posted by Raven
*it bugs me how everyone thinks that we are all so god damn enlightened nowadays - bull crap, thousands are dieing of aid and starvation, and the best that people do about is type on the frigging internet, about how more sophisticated and intelligent we are all nowadays and how we have no need for a saviour/religion -if the bible is to subtle for you watch superman returns for Christ sake!
So what you're saying is that because of starvation in the world, we need religion? What the hell does that mean?
Stitch on 18/12/2007 at 22:20
Another religious thread, another chance for SD to embarrass himself by quoting Dawkin's clueless talking points. I do have to jump in for one minute to say, however, due to the following:
Quote Posted by paloalto90
There is a time when God must respect your free will and a time when he will nudge you along if necessary.
This is going to seem kind of condescending, but it completely fucking blows my mind that anyone
actually believes the above. Yeah, there's this great unfathomable force of creation and of all things he's looking out for
you.
I typically have a live-and-let-live attitude when it comes to religion, but hell, have any of you ever sat on top of a mountain during a thunderstorm or looked through a telescope at a distant galaxy?
IT'S ALL YOU
Thirith on 18/12/2007 at 22:44
Quote Posted by catbarf
So... what you're saying is that deluding yourself is okay, because so many other people do it and it makes them feel better?
I must say that this gets up my nose, because it presumes that non-religious people do not live their lives according to fictions. They do. Most of human life culture is made up of constructs that are given meaning through their constant re-enactment. Take love - isn't it just hormones and biological imperatives, physical urges dressed up in psychological mumbojumbo and given a coat of poetic whitewash? Yet people believe in love... even a number of atheists, one hears. Take countries - they don't really exist except in our (re-)enactment of them. Take stories - have you ever felt anything for characters in a story? Newsflash: these characters don't exist, so you're off yer bleedin' head to feel anything for them.
If God doesn't exist, this alone does not make religion in general more invalid than so many other human endeavours. If we stripped humanity of all "delusions", there'd be precious little in the way of culture left.
(This is no argument for believing in God, mind you. It's just why I think the rationale "God doesn't exist, believing in him is delusional, delusional things are bad, therefore don't believe in him" is reductive and naive.)
catbarf on 19/12/2007 at 01:56
Thirith, you are incorrectly presuming that I mean something with that post beyond 'Is this shit really what you mean?'.
SubJeff on 19/12/2007 at 02:03
You're just plain wrong all over that post though Thirith.
Love is not "just" hormones and physical urges. It is a functionally important part of human existence and like it or not we are all prone to falling in love. Being able to determine some of it's biological components and even developing a rationale for it's development doesn't diminish it's important in any way. Just like knowing why fire hurts won't stop you screaming like a baby when someone sets your face on fire, or make you any less likely to plead like a biatch when I hold a flame to your eye.
What is it with people and dismissing things once they have been explained? Is a chameleon any less awesome because you know how it changes colour? Pffft.
If you want to start down that path then everything is delusion - it's all just a neurobiological construct that comes into "existence" at the mind-world interface that "we" "call" "senses".
Quote:
If God doesn't exist, this alone does not make religion in general more invalid than so many other human endeavours. If we stripped humanity of all "delusions", there'd be precious little in the way of culture left.
So wrong. These "cultural delusions" are what we use to order the world on a large scale. This has no bearing on the existence of a divine force or not. If it could be proven that God does not exist then the "God delusion" (as it would truly be then) would be a waste of time and energy.
SlyFoxx on 19/12/2007 at 02:16
Quote:
I must say that this gets up my nose, because it presumes that non-religious people do not live their lives according to fictions.
Ding Ding Ding!!!
Be it radical Islam, Right wing zealots, SD's obvious man love for Dawkins, Trekkies, Brad & Angie....bla...bla....
OK. Here's the thing. If GOD is an infinite being then we mortals being by definition finite have NO HOPE in understanding THE BIG PICTURE...at least not for a L-O-N-G time until our science and its practitioners unmask the truth. At that point we either meet God before we have died or discover that it was all a bunch or crap. Don't ask me, I don't presume to know for sure but I do "have faith."
What I think we can all agree upon is that the father in question is
A TOTAL FUCKING CUNT!
Scots Taffer on 19/12/2007 at 02:35
That which does not wish to be defined never shall.
Epos Nix on 19/12/2007 at 03:25
Quote:
Being able to determine some of it's biological components and even developing a rationale for it's development doesn't diminish it's important in any way. Just like knowing why fire hurts won't stop you screaming like a baby when someone sets your face on fire
(
http://news.webshots.com/photo/2728355910030734170iTPHtV) Buddhists believe pain to be a delusion of the mind as well, albeit a
very persistent one. But one that can be escaped nonetheless.
Quote:
If you want to start down that path then everything is delusion - it's all just a neurobiological construct that comes into "existence" at the mind-world interface that "we" "call" "senses".
Apparently 'Truth' resides in a place that we can only see once we shed these delusions....
all delusions.
Vasquez on 19/12/2007 at 05:43
Well, there seems to be a biological part in religion, too. I can't remember the specifics (and too busy to find them atm) but there's a part in the brain - temporal lobe, if I remember correctly - that is at work when "divine" visions (or hallucinations, whichever you want to call them) happen.
Whether the part is there because there's some evolutionary need for us to have spirituality, or if it's just a side-effect of an oversized brain, or if it's "God's antenna" or whatever - that's another argument.
PS: I've been followin this thread a bit on-and-off, so forgive me if this was mentioned somewhere before.
paloalto90 on 19/12/2007 at 06:42
Quote Posted by Stitch
Another religious thread, another chance for SD to embarrass himself by quoting Dawkin's clueless talking points. I do have to jump in for one minute to say, however, due to the following:
This is going to seem kind of condescending, but it completely fucking blows my mind that anyone
actually believes the above. Yeah, there's this great unfathomable force of creation and of all things he's looking out for
you.
I typically have a live-and-let-live attitude when it comes to religion, but hell, have any of you ever sat on top of a mountain during a thunderstorm or looked through a telescope at a distant galaxy?
IT'S ALL YOU
If I do have a soul,part spirit, wrapped in biological material the soul component isn't going to be satisfied with a state of existence which is alien to it's nature,and has memories of living in perfection of the spiritual realms.After I have had many lives and I have swam in all the rivers and sat on all the mountains and my soul asks is there something more I should give up my search and just let things vegetate?I search out of a need to know.
Perhaps this world is enough for you.Fine for you.It isn't for me. Why should this upset you?
