So, I’m participating in the thread about the problem of evil.
And once again I can’t help thinking: How can anyone really believe this stuff?
I mean, I get that people wish that there’s a point to it all. Or that there’s some ultimate judgement of our actions. I feel the same way. I think.
And I get that many people were raised in religious environments such that their whole life is centered around religion and questioning the whole shebang becomes unthinkable.
But come on.
A creator of the Universe that basically acts like a spoiled child?
That requires humans to disseminate his message, and those that don’t hear the message, are doomed?
That had a “child” that was really himself, that he had to sacrifice to himself, to change a rule he himself made up?
That the point of our lives is just to give god his props and treat each other nice like, and all other human endevours are simply a distraction?
I genuinely find the gods of religions like christianity, to be less plausible than, say, Father Christmas. I’m astonished that people can believe in them.
Because they are trained to childhood both to believe it, and to consider it all important. To regard it as more important than their or other’s lives, much less the truth. The same people who buy the most absurd things about their own point and laugh when it comes to the absurdities of other religion. And generally are utterly blind to the inconsistency. Religion makes the brain turn off when it comes to itself; it has to or it would be instantly rejected.
And because as a religious country, Americans are taught to value stupidity, irrationality and ignorance instead of intelligence, rationality, and knowledge.
People in this country are free to believe whatever their conscience wants them to believe. Some people believe that speaking Klingon to other Klingons at gatherings on 21st century earth is worth their time. Some people make money off of the Trekkers. Some people think that an organized system of ethics and morals based on a mysterious and inexplicable sacrifice is worth their efforts. Others exploit that. I happen to be of the opinion that treating others with respect and dignity and love and feeding the poor is a moral imperative. Obviously there are others who do not think so, or that it is counterproductive to attach those moral imperatives to any concept of divinity. Real, metaphor, con or nothing at all, it takes all kinds to make up humanity. You can change human behavior, but not human nature.
#58 ARGUMENT FROM ARGUMENTATION
(1) God exists.
(2) [Atheist’s counterargument]
(3) Yes he does.
(4) [Atheist’s counterargument]
(5) Yes he does!
(6) [Atheist’s counterargument]
(7) YES HE DOES!!!
(8) [Atheist gives up and goes home.]
(9) Therefore, God exists.
I don’t think most “Christians” really believe it at all.
I think the problem is with a lot of people, is religion played such a significant part of their entire life that they just can’t let it go. Even when they become adults and are able to reason or use logic to a much greater degree.
It’s kind of like those times in your childhood when you finally had to make the decision to let go of your favorite stuffed animal or when you were even younger you had to say good bye to your security blanket.
The thing is tho’, as children, we’re used to saying good bye to old thigs we love so much. Adults, not so much. Since adults don’t have to answer to anybody (about this) they chose to stay with there comfy blanket rather than be bold and see what this new secular world has in store for them.
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I was one of the lucky ones. I grew up in a catholic home; I switched to different forms of Christianity here and there, finally landing in pentecostal. Then I left, because it made no sense to me - that religion or any religion. I preferred science; I am grateful for the revelation.
I think I might mod it slightly for British readers and distribute it around my local area. We get a lot of religious leaflets around here, someone should redress the balance.
Religion is a belief system. People choose to believe what will help them. That is why there are so many religions.
I think that if a religion helps a person to be kinder,better and more secure in their life, it is good for them. If they use it to put down others or try to force their beliefs on another, or feel they are more superior, then it is wrong.
Some of the religious people I know are very good and intelligent people. Some use it to make excuses for their actions and try to force the whole country to inforce their beliefs It is like a medication, or a tool. What helps one person can be harmful to another.
Just to note that Christianity does vary quite a bit in the details of belief.
Other than that we’ve had threads discussing this. The power of tradition and peer pressure. Indoctrination. The desire to belong to some group and be part of something greater than our individual selves. The promise of a heavenly after life. Lot’s of reasons that are more emotional than logical.
People who believe in the existence of God do so without proof. They do it with nothing more than faith. People who do NOT believe in the existence of God have no more proof than do the believers. BOTH groups are acting on faith, and neither has a greater claim on being correct.
There is always Pascals Wager, which is a fairly compelling logical reason for believing in the existence of God, even without proof.
This hardly describes all Christians, just the most vocal ones. Plenty of folks think the Old Testament is bunk, and that the exact nature and origin of Jesus isn’t important or something worth bothering to think about. I’m not really sure what the “point” of my life is. It’s just not something I’m concerned about.
I do not claim to know that there are no gods.
I simply see no reason to suppose that they exist (and lots of reasons to suppose that they are human fantasies).
It’s rational to assume the non-existence of any entity until it has been demonstrated to exist. After all, there are an infinity of possible entities. How could I do my shopping without “faith” that The Supermarket Monster does not exist?
Compelling, if you haven’t paid attention to how the argument has been shot to shit over the centuries!
If I met a hot woman who believed that Pascal’s Wager is actually rational, maybe I could use it to convince her to blow me…
All I need to do is invent a god, say Lord Suckulon, who rewards women that blow Mijin with eternal paradise, and punishes those that don’t with eternal damnation.
Now, even though it’s a ridiculous concept, that I’ve just invented, the probability of this being existing is non-zero: my creation might just happen to chime with reality. And since the stakes are infinite, surely she can’t take the risk of not going down on me!
Pascal, you’re a genius!
The Supermarket Monster and Lord Suckulon copyright 2009
When I was a teenager, raised up in a Pentacostal church, fear was as much a part of the indoctrination as praise and worship. There was talk about “spiritual warfare” and sin sending people to both earthly and afterlife hell. Even when I claimed to believe, I really didn’t, but the pressure to conform was too great. It all seemed so made up…all those people speaking in tongues and receiving the “annointing” and “getting” the holy ghost. It was always like an elaborate stage production where the audience members actively participate. I felt like I was surrounded by self-deluded fools and lunatics.
I just tried not to think of the irrationalities, but eventually they wouldn’t leave me alone. My big one was and still is the whole purpose of Jesus. Jesus saves. Saves us from what? From eternal damnation created by his father. Except…not really. Because if we don’t love this entity with all of our hearts, we’re still going to hell. Despite the problems we face in this life, we can spend an eternity in hell for not loving Jesus–a person/diety who told some inspirational stories and turned water into wine, but is as elusive as the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy (both things that I used to believe in as surely as I believed in God).
The average person lives 75 years or so. For this length of time, you’re given an eternal sentence either in bliss or hell. 75 years is like–what?–a picosecond in an eternity? Seems like a waste of spiritual energy to put someone’s soul in hell or heaven for an experience so short-lived. So that doesn’t make sense to me either.
My mother is an ordained minister. My father teaches Sunday School. There are more Bibles on their shelves than any other literature. I keep my non-beliefs to myself, and yet they can’t stop talking about God and his goodness. It’s almost like if they do stop, then maybe they too will start questioning and realizing the nonsensicalness. I want to believe in God, just so I can share in their experience, but I just don’t understand the human concept of him. All I understand is that it’s too confusing for me, and it makes me feel like a fool for trying.
Atheism is not believing in a god. It’s the default state of humanity. There is no evidence for a god existing, so why should one believe in one?
There is also no evidence for vampires. Are you a vampire atheist? Are you a no-unicorn fanatic? Are you dogmatically opposed to zombies?
Not believing in something for which there is no evidence isn’t a belief system. It’s normal. Your argument is simply the result of intellectual laziness because you want to impose symmetry and are too lazy to look at both sides.
