My only problem with Atheists is this, they are always so condescending towards people who don’t share their beliefs. The ones I talk to are usually like, “If you believe in God, you’re wrong and you’re stupid. There is no god, I’m right and that’s that, no debating it.” They aren’t very open minded.
Not all of them, but most.
You could also say the same about believers of God, but it’s usually more so for atheists. They are full of contempt for Christians, it’s almost borderline hatred towards Christians.
Christians specifically? That seems odd. I mean, I suppose you could say that since Christianity is the most rubbed against religion where you are the contempt for them is more obvious… Feel free to call most of us closed-minded, condescending, contempt-filled haters, but we’re generally quite open-minded about who we’re closed-minded to.
I don’t find this to be true. There are some pretty vocal and dismissive atheists on this board but hey it’s a discussion board so if ya can’t take the heat, etc.
In daily life I find that for the most part atheists won’t even bring it up until someone decides to make it an issue by bringing it into a discussion or taking an opportunity to testify. If you don’t want to hear someone’s beliefs than don’t share yours if you’re not invited to.
OTOH you did say “the ones I talk to” Does that mean you’re initiating a discussion? If someone really believes that god belief is like tooth fairy belief {and many do} then by treating it that way they are only being honest. I’m not sure what kind of open mindedness you’re expecting. There isn’t much to really debate about it from any scientific point of view. There is no objective evidence to present concerning the existence of God. The only discussion available is opinion and personal subjective experience. That’s only interesting to those who really want to hear it. It’s generally in no way convincing or even meaningful to an atheist.
I do feel that some good Christians are getting some of the fallout from the actions of the religious right, but that’s minor compared to the flak atheists have gotten from Christians or the way beliefs are forced on others in day to day life. Christians have assumed how right they are and how they have dibbs on this country for so long that now when people are standing up and saying “enough of that crap” they wonder why they’re being attacked.
Proven right here in GD. Hardly any atheists debating here at all. :rolleyes:
If you took a poll in the US, do you think the results would show more atheists having borderline hatred to Christians, or the other way around? I’m sure you see the polls showing most people would rather vote for a gay Muslim than an atheist. We know the opposite isn’t true, or atheists wouldn’t have anyone to vote for most of the time. My congressman is an atheist, and that’s considered news. Is a congressman being a theist news?
Twiddle the dials on your TV. Do you find more shows saying anyone not believing in God is going to come to a bad end
We’re just seeing atheists come out of the closet in best sellers, but for most of my life we’ve kept pretty quiet. Oh, you have a few weirdo scientist saying they are atheists, like Asimov or Sagan or Gould, but none have that dogmatic view you ascribe to us.
Atheists like evidence, getting evidence out of theists is like pulling teeth, hens’ teeth.
So, got any evidence? Or is what you claim you heard really “there’s no reason for me to believe in anything without evidence” which annoys you?
I’m afraid that this indicates more about your circle of acquaintances than it does about the wide world of belief and unbelief.
I know a very few strident atheists on internet message boards and, perhaps, four more who are out promoting sales of their books. I know dozens of Christians (among the hundreds I know and the thousands I’ve met) who are quite as smug, condescending, strident, or otherwise irritating.
To be fair, proportion does come into this. There are overall more Christians than atheists in the U.S., so even if most atheists were moronic bigots, it’s quite possible that there could be more Christian moronic bigots simply because there are more Christians overall. Likewise for polls, all atheists could say “No, I won’t vote for anyone but atheists”, and if only half or a third of Christians say “No voting for atheists” the poll would see a trend to the latter rather than the former or a balance.
I apologize for the length. Ignore what doesn’t look like an answer to your comments.
It pleases me to know that you did not grow up thinking of God as angry and threatening.
Have you give up all of the customs and traditions? Does that affect your politics also? Are you involved in any peace efforts?
It has been a confluence of movements on my life. My father was a very compassionate man and remained my teacher throughout his lifetime. Sunday School and church every Sunday. I didn’t miss for about five years. The denomination was a presbyterian one – small, but mainstream.
When I was about eight years old, I thought that I saw the Virgin Mary one night in the doorway to my room. I had a lively imagination and I’m not claiming to have seen a vision. But what I thought I saw had an enormous effect on me. I became a more serious child. I remember making a little"chapel" in my clothes closet for private prayer.
When I was a senior, I sent away for a book on the world’s great religions. Mainly I wanted to learn more about Catholicism. I wanted to know more about Mary. I had never forgotten what I thought I had seen as a child and at least three times for school and church-wide presentations, I had been asked to take the role of Mary. She seemed to be more acknowledged by Catholics and I liked that.
In college I was a religious education major in a church related college, but I had a wild streak and got my butt in a sling right off the bat. That was followed by years of depression, a change of major, a change of schools, more depression and work.I became and Episcopalian and that stimulated my thinking and fulfilled a need that I had for ritual. But it still wasn’t much more than “surface” for me. I stopped going.
About ten years later, something did happen that changed everything. I had a spontaneous shift in my awareness. A alternate kind of conscienceness, if you will. (I’ve been told that this sort of thing is similar to what happens when you’ve been indulging in magical mushrooms.) Maybe it lasted ten minutes? It’s hard to say. I felt incredible euphoria and felt that I actually was physically one with everything as if I stretched out forever.
For a long time I looked at the experience as very spiritual and mystical. (Metaphysical?) I did a lot of reading about Eastern religions and that was good. I particularly liked Buddhism. And when I remembered that Christianity is an Eastern religion also, I could see how the teachings actually made better sense of what I had learned when I was growing up.
Along the way there have been some false starts in my reading and searching. Generally, I take what’s good and leave the rest behind. How do I know what’s good? We all have something inside that tells us. It’s as if we knew the truth all along and were just waiting for someone to point it out to us before we could acknowledge it. Isn’t that strange? I’ve come to think of that inner “voice” of reason as the Holy Spirit.
We I suggest to people that they “Inquire Within,” I’m not just saying to get in touch with their own feelings – although that’s a big part of it. I’m suggesting some quiet time – meditation or contemplation – a walk in the woods – to allow that inner voice to make itself heard. Call it whatever you will. “Your own best counsel” is just as fitting.
Last autumn, I returned to the denomination of my childhood after forty years. There I am free to explore other religions, contemplative prayer, mindfulness, learning and especially service to others. I am generally more contemplative and less guarded.
Along the way I have tossed out those parts of the Bible which reflect a wrathful, vengeful, angry, jealous God. I can believe that the people in the stories interpreted God’s feelings as being like that, but I just can’t buy it. In all the years that I have messed up so many times, I have never once felt the wrath of God – not even the frustration. Just overwhelming love. If there was ever indifference, it came from me.
I guess I felt free to do that because I’ve never completely put my faith in the Council at Nicea. Too much room for error. I look at the Bible as an inspired guide book, but not the literal word of God.
I used to think that God sets morals, but now I just think that God is loving kindness and that morals come from principles of loving kindness. You certainly don’t have to be a theist to be moral! I won’t say that that principle is “higher than God.” It just is. We don’t need to acknowledge God in order to be loving and kind and principled. But we do need to be created and sustained and loved even if we don’t know it. (Of course, that’s just my opinion and I am biased. I don’t think I would have made it through some of the depression if I had felt Godless.)
I don’t believe in natural evil. I do know from experience that our realities hang by a thread and depend on our body chemistry. Change a few electrolytes or mess with the synapses and seratonin and then see who you are. And if you can be changed that quickly, how easily could you be made “evil”?
Science just doesn’t understand the physics of “evil” yet.
You will smile at one of my next steps. I’ve reunited recently with friends from that old church school where I was a wild and wicked freshman. He was a ministerial student who first suggested to me 46 years ago that Biblical stories did not have to be literally true to be meaningful. (How freeing that was!) She was one of my sorority sisters. He attends synagogue now and she does too sometimes. I’ve never been and would like to go.
I think I’m working toward that moment when I am “one with everything as if I stretched out forever.”
I took Eastern religions in college, and felt sorry that so many branches of Buddhism retreated from no god and felt than had to deify the Buddha. I was never particularly attracted, though.
Your inner voice is kind of what I was talking about. We all have them. But, I think your inner voice is a function of your genes and your upbringing. If it comes from a holy spirit, how come so many people have evil inner voices? That makes sense from genetic diversity, but not theologically. Maybe your inner voice is purer than mine, but from being a child of the '50s sometimes my brain has to ride herd on the nastier parts of my inner voice. A certain degree of bigotry was accepted when I was a kid. That voice needs to shut the hell up.
If your inner voice is in conflict with someone else’s inner voice, don’t you consider the situation logically and ethically. I think there are some situations where your inner voice and my inner voice are at odds with that of those running our country. I think we both think we’re right not out of egotism, thinking our voices are somehow superior, but out of logic and reasoning. These others are more convincing believers in god than me (I won’t talk for you) but they’re still wrong. I don’t think you can give a good reason for them being wrong out of inner voice alone.
Well, if one believes the stories, God was pretty explicit. I don’t see how you can interpret the flood story as anything but wrath against most. When you can scientifically discredit the story, you don’t have to worry about ethics.
If god in anyway must be loving and moral, then I’d think the principle is higher than god.
That’s not what I mean by natural evil, though I agree that a person “forced” to do evil by chemistry can’t be morally responsible for it. Those who think God meddles in our genes have to explain why he creates such people. Scientifically, there is no underlying problem, though we might not know the mechanisms yet.
Natural evil is evil from natural events, like floods and earthquakes. Evil that people do can be explained (except in the case above) by free will. There is no such explanation for natural evil. Even if you don’t think God intervenes on a day by day basis, if he created the world he created one where such things happen. If you think that this is the best of all possible worlds, you have to explain why every single baby drowned in the tsunami had to die. (That’s a generic you.) The workings of a blind nature seem far more morally comforting to me.
Thanks for the responses. I deleted your story, since I don’t doubt many people need god in some sort of fundamental way. The nonexistence of god says nothing about the benefits of religion. I don’t have a spiritual bone in my body, so I’ve been able to get through the good and the bad without either praying to god or cursing god.
Oh, I think that sometimes the inner voice that I hear is from my genes and upbringing. It’s the one that says, “Way to go, Idiot Child!” when I spill coffee on a cashmere sweater. It’s the voice that’s petty and bitter and cutting. It’s sometimes negative, sometimes neutral. It talks back to the TV or even aloud to me: “Look at that sunofabitch run!”
Even on serious matters, sometimes the only voice I hear is my own.
I was born in 1943 in the rural South. There was bigotry around me too. Everyone was a Protestant except for one Catholic woman. I did not know any Jews at all until I was in college! I didn’t know about the Holocaust until I was eighteen and read a book called I Cannot Forgive.
Recently I found a book written by a woman who lived not far from my home town during approximately that same period. She is a Jew. It is so painful to read how awful the prejudice was for her in a place that I thought was so perfect.
And, of course, there was the bigotry against women that every girl grew up with in the 1950s – even when we weren’t aware of it or when we held the prejudices ourselves.
I wasn’t taught prejudice against Blacks and didn’t develop it.
Sometimes, Voyager, I get the feeling that they might not be spending much time in contemplative prayer. Maybe they let their genetic voices drown out anything more spiritual or helpful. Even if I didn’t believe in God, I know that I could never bring myself to do the kinds of evil that they do. I can’t even imagine what allows people to become that savage.
Thank you for understanding that spiritual people can still be logical and reasoning.
The flood story was one of the first that I did not believe. (No way would that many people forget the unicorns.)
I understand what you mean now. And I agree with you. I certainly have no explaination that makes any sense. I know that good things can come from destruction and death, but why does it have to? Why do people have to suffer so much? And why do decisions about euthenasia have to be made by people who have never experienced real suffering?
Then it’s good that you are at peace with it and a strong person on your own. I respect that. I’m sorry that Christians can create so many problems. It wasn’t meant to be that way.
OK, back to your OP. As has been pointed out several times in the thread, everyone is ignorant of something. Nobody, AFAIK, condemns theists for being ignorant of the latest news in evolutionary biology, cosmology, or particle physics. After all, most atheists are just as ignorant of such things.
What grates on atheists (me, at least) is that when theists are challenged by objective evidence they tend to try and wiggle out of the evidential corner they’re in. They try to twist the sayings of their favorite book to claim it says something it doesn’t or they claim that “science doesn’t have all the answers,” as if someone claimed it did. Worse yet (at least with the IDers, they tend to lie and quote mine.
Last but not least, when they are absolutely pushed into a corner by the available evidence, they claim they have “faith” as if that had any bearing on reality. Theists expect “faith” to paper over any discrepancies between their own magical worldview and observed reality.
Atheists, (this one at least) only start considering theists ignorant when it starts coming across as willful ignorance, as in, “this is what I believe and I’m not going to change my view regardless of the evidence.”
I hope you don’t mind if I participate in your discussion with Zoe. Since you are two of my favorite dopers to chat with I enjoyed reading the exchange. I just met **Zoe ** this month at the Nashville Dopefest and it was good to read her background story.
Some years back I read “The Religions of Man” by Huston Smith and one of the things I noted in his take on it was that none of the great religious icons necessarily wanted to be deified in the way they were. They wanted to teach what they felt was true and important. It was men, being what they are, that turned them into deities. I suppose in the same way we need to personify God, many people need some iconic figure to worship. I also think in time we will move away from that. You can admire a great teacher and revere them and their teachings but you can’t give up personal responsibility for your own choices and somehow blame them. “They told me too, It is their will”
Like Zoe I believe in that inner voice and refer to it as the Holy Spirit. I see mankind as being connected in a way that is a fundamental truth about who we are. Even though we don’t always recognize and /or feel that connection, it remains a fundamental truth. The HS is the core of our being that recognizes that truth and it’s nature and tries to lead us to recognize it and understand it more. The layers of programming by society, culture and our individual upbringing often stand in the way and shout down the voice of the spirit. It comes down to what we truly value and the blunt honesty of intent behind our choices and actions. Jesus pointed out that the pharisees valued their social status more than they did actually serving as spiritual leaders to their people. The kind of discipline and personal honesty required is hard.
You’re right. “Yeah, but my inner voice thinks your inner voice is wrong” is not a productive argument.
One thing that has stood out to me and changed my thinking is the connecting of two events in my life. As a young man I had a spiritual experience and joined a church. I was completely sincere in wanting to do good and serve God and my fellow man. I remember going to sleep at night, on my back, arms folded across my chest and waking up the next morning in exactly the same position, feeling completely rested, at peace, and energized. Fast forward 25 years and I’m in Nashville, no longer a member of that church, very different beliefs, but once again experiencing a great feeling of peace of mind and a sense of direction. Thinking about how similar those two experiences felt and yet how different I was as a person and the beliefs I held, the connection I finally made was that at both of those times I was being very true to myself. True to what I really believed and felt at the time and walking the walk without letting what others wanted and what others thought steer my personal ship. It reminded me of the passages
“Use what you have and more will be given” and “The truth will set you free” and
“The comforter who will lead you into all truth”
Yes we will conflict with others who are sincere in thinking their own vision of what is right and true is correct and ours isn’t. That’s part of the process. When we recognize that our understanding is incomplete, and we take personal responsibility for our choices, good and bad, and have the courage to go forward knowing our beliefs and convictions are still provisional, then we see that the purpose of that interaction and conflict is the refining process of our beliefs and those we are in disagreement with. When we understand that there is a very slim chance that any of us are completely right and the goal is learning and growing together rather than “I win” we do a lot better.
You probably know I don’t see god as some being that is out there somewhere. That being the case I don’t see god as creating morality. Morality IMHO and limited understanding, has to do with living the truth of our undeniable connection as a race of beings and the truth of what Jesus said “What ever you do to others, you do to me” or, “you do to yourself” What we truly value and our intent conscious or unconscious affects our choices and our actions. The spiritual journey means becoming more conscious of our own hearts and minds and discovering the nature of our connection to others and living it. It’s not just an intellectual understanding but on a feeling level as well. It’s a bizarre and wonderful thing to feel that amazing connection.
There’s plenty left to fathom. The wheel of life turns. If we think of ourselves as truly connected and part of a transcendent eternal other and our physical journey here as a temporary thing then what horrifies us in the moment is just a passing bad dream. That’s not to minimize anything. I stood at the bedside of my dieing father and later that same year, my dieing mother. How we handle physical death and all the phases in between it and robust health have a lot to do with understanding, living and feeling our connection with each other. It challenges our fears and compassion for others.
Not to be to casual about it, but just a question, “without conflict and suffereing, why would we need to grow at all?”
It doesn’t matter to me what path people take to truth and love. I think I understand atheism being intellectual and emotional honesty for many people just as my beliefs are for me. That’s what’s important being on the path.
I also think the mythology of religion is an unavoidable part of humanity and our hopes of progress. Without part of the human mind that created Icarus we could not have the Wright Brothers. That’s not to say we shouldn’t challenge those myths. Of course we should. We must allow others the right to their own progress in their own time as much as possible. It’s not for us to look into their hearts and minds and decide what they need to let go of and when. It’s for us to try provide an atmosphere that encourages growth, cooperation, and reconciliation.
An atmosphere that encourages the truth of our undeniable connection, rather than all the things used to separate us from each other.
Thanks for the responses. This kind of stuff makes my fees worthwhile.
I think you underestimate the number of voices you hear. The chorus includes not just you, but all your ancestors, back to the dawn of man and before. When I think complicated things through, I hear my great-grandfather, who was a Talmudic scholar. My grandfather had no problem with his oldest daughter marrying a Catholic - that the guy was a Dodgers fan counted for more. I hear their voices all the time, and I can tell that my voice is in my kids’ heads also.
They might, but they might be hearing themselves.
The crucial question is what happens when logic and spirituality conflict. I’m using spirituality in a very broad way as representing thing that are non-logical, faith driven, so a fundamentalist’s beliefs are spiritual in that sense.
If one listened to MLK, where the spirituality and the ethics matched so well, there is no problem. But what happens when the spirituality says kill the heathen? The preacher who purveys this evil asks how one can put logic ahead of god? We respond by either saying there is no god or by saying god would not ask us to violate our ethics. In other words, spirituality is filtered by our ethical reasoning.
My point has never been that all religious people are evil (that’s been falsified plenty) but that a religion/spirituality first principle can’t guard against religion leading people to evil. A logic and ethics first principle can. (Though some might have faulty ethical reasoning, to be sure.) This also says that spiritual and religious things are not bad, once they are cleared through our ethical filter. Blind obedience, however, is bad, since it means discarding the filter. It’s no accident that blind obedience is the component of so many religions, since those who wish us to do evil want no backtalk from our filters. “Your arms are too short to box with God,” they say, but I say, hell no, I can do rope-a-dope on that guy any time
Cue the Clancy Brothers.
Without conflict and suffering we’d never get anywhere, which is why heaven has never appealed to me. But how much growth, and how much benefit, comes to the drowned baby?
From my reading, I don’t think the Buddha ever wanted to be deified. I don’t blame the Buddha, but rather some later Buddhists. Now, did Jesus claim to be divine, or was that also something added on later? Notice how Islam has managed to avoid deifying Mohammed, clearly learning from the mistakes of Christianity.
Well, I have a counter-example. I used to live in a well-to-do town in NJ, where childless couples would adopt from the the current popular adoption area. It moved from Korea to Columbia to Indian reservations. For some reason the Korean kids turned out great, but nearly everyone else had problems. This is from the same environment, and sometimes the same family as natural children. We knew these families every well, and I wish we were as good parents as some of them. In one case it was FAS, in others it might be genetics, but there were problems I can only ascribe to nature, not nurture. Some characteristics of our kids were there from a few weeks of age. I’d have a hard time taking credit for their inner voice, or blaming our friends for the inner voices of their kids.
Why did the Holy Spirit deal such different hands to these kids? Did my kids deserve a better one? I’d buy some variation, but why sociopaths?
Some days I feel peace, and some days I don’t. But I don’t think comfort leads anyone into truth. The way I work is that the next question is what gets me closer to truth. It’s the opposite of comfort - it is asking why does this happen, how can things be better. My greatest satisfaction is from finding the reason behind something that most people just accepted, or thought there was no answer to - and then hearing them talk about it as if it were always known.
I see morality as a process. There is no big book of morals out there. I think this is exactly what you are saying - it’s a journey, not a destination.
I agree. And I’d go further in saying that sometimes our death can contribute to the greater good. But a child killed for no reason doesn’t grow, and it’s a high price to pay for the growth of the parents, assuming they do grow because of it.
We all have different needs, and religions fill the needs of some. Look how many words have been written about “why?” My friend’s father, a Holocaust survivor, used to say “Why is a crooked letter.” What else could he say? I agree with this. There is no why, there just is. But those who can’t stand not knowing why are free to make up stuff, so long as they recognize that their answer is provisional, like you do. As for me, I’ll do the best with what I’ve got. I’m no more proud of my mathematical ability than I am ashamed of my tone deafness. My view is that the answer is that there is no answer, but that is no doubt as genetically determined as everything else.
We can’t really say exactly what Jesus said but I always took his message as we are all equally divine, all children , metaphorically speaking, of the same source. Deity, prophet, or enlightened being when we decide that some individuals writings should be revered above all other writings we have transferred something essential from within us, to outside of us. That’s a mistake IMHO.
There are definitely a lot of factors. How early can babies be affected by their environment. How are they affected within the womb? Someone that seems to have all the advantages makes horrible twisted choices and someone with all the disadvantages manages to rise above it all. Even among natural siblings there can be drastic differences.
In a real way each choice can build on previous choices or can change our direction. If someone begins to head down the wrong path each subsequent choice determines how far they will go in that direction or whether they will have the consciousness and will to change direction.
Why are people born with various genetic makeups that seem to point them in a certain direction? I don’t know. I entertain the possibility of reincarnation but have ultimately come to the conclusion that what may have happened before this life and what may happen after it is only interesting conjecture. It’s the choice I make in the moment that matters.
Did the Holy Spirit deal these hands? I am sometimes aghast, enraged, and saddened to the point of tears at some examples of man’s cruelty to each other. Other times I am struck by the truth of Jesus words when he said “If you hate your brother you are guilty of murder” When I have a hateful judgmental thought about someone else or when I feel the need to win, control someone else, and feel superior I am sometimes aware of how little separates what is going on within me, and those acts of cruelty that I can’t seem to fathom.
I grew up in a particular type of dysfunctional atmosphere that I struggled with all my formative years and long into my adult life. Now after having spent the last couple of decades recognizing it and dealing with it more consciously and directly I see how, even with the problems it caused, it also shaped and directed a lot of the positive things I try to share. Dealing with my own unique issues also gave me a unique perspective. Had I wallowed in the trials of my youth, {more than I did , I mean} I might be the sociopath you speak of.
Once again, I don’t see the Holy Spirit as a separate directing force that speaks to us. That’s a handy metaphor. I see it as a part of us and the reality of our connection to each other.
Me too.
I work this way also. An idea or question begins and rattles around in my brain until some source or sources helps me find an answer. I used the comforter only because of the Biblical reference but I would suggest that the comfort comes in believing that the answer is available and the journey is worth the effort. Otherwise we have despair.
Yes. It’s the way we travel through life, refining our understanding as we go. IMHO when we act in harmony with the truth of our connection to each other we behave morally.
If our physical forms are only a temporary residence of our consciousness, how high a price is it? It’s odd how we look at age and physical death as measures of how tragic it is. Was the death of my parents tragic, or was the tragedy the years they spent clinging to anger and resentment. Daniel Pearl’s family decided to use his tragic death to do something about hatred and senseless violence. Natural disasters move us to great compassion toward others.
Why do we wait until then to have this compassion and be galvanized to action? I don’t know but I think you and I are both trying to figure some of these things out.
I think there is a why but there’s no point making ourselves crazy over the answers we don’t have. We still get our moments to act and experience the consequences of that action. It’s wisdom to accept what we don’t know and to have the sense to discern how vast that area is. We tackle the questions we think we can answer and be patient about the rest. I am part of the whole but my primary responsibility and the area I can affect the most is ME. By trying to improve myself I improve the whole.
I find it interesting that in this last paragraph you say you feel there is no answer but yet you ask, “why does this happen and how can it be better?”
I’d say all fundamentalists of all persuasions are ingnorant. Choosing one text as devine ignores the long history of how these text are created by committees, with editorial decisions being made on every page.