I agree that religious people…most religious people in fact, can be positive or at least not negative in their contributions. My only contention here is that these positive people would be so regrdless of whether they believed in gods. Homo sapiens survived for millions of years prior to having God-concepts adn organized religions because we are moral animals. We look after each other so that others will look after us.
I agree they would continue to do good, but it would be a lot harder individually and that’s what would happen without organized religions. I’m not convinced that we haven’t always had “God-concepts”, but have no knowledge of this from the millions of years. Do you think the “hardwired theory” came later in our evolution or do you not agree with it?
It may have been THIS thread now that I think about it but as I recall a series of rather insulting “questions” were posed to atheists, some of which were based upon the assumption that atheists were immoral or amoral or somesuch. I could be mixed up here though so…not important. I will assume I have things wrong here.
No doubt I worded some of the questions poorly in my initial questions, but in no way felt that not believing in God automatically made you less moral. Again, I apologize to the people who felt that way.
**The Scottsman itself is an invocation to avoid answering questions or forming your own ideas/opinions.
You say : “No true follower of God does these atrocious things in his name!”
I say : what about THESE followers of God(terrorists, nazis or whoever)?"
Youy say : “Ah, but those are not true followers of God!They are just using God to justify their abhorent behavior!”**
The problem is, this is true. God does not sanction mass murder or hate. If you want to know if someone is a good person, do you ask them or note their actions. If you want to know if someone “really” believes in God, watch their actions.
This also begs the question of how God can allow himself to be so used unless he desires such?Either he wants(for whatever reason) for people to commit horrible acts in his name OR he is powerless to stop them. There is no third option I can see. Even if you try invoking that “free will” chestnut it changes nothing. God STILL wants horrible things done(so that we will have free will…as bizarre as that sounds) in his name.
I can’t give you a reason that you will accept on that, so I’ll just give you one anyway from my opinion, what I’ve felt. I think I’ve said this before, but who knows. Compare 70 or 80 years to eternity or timelessness. Not much of an impact overall. I still believe we are here to gain knowledge, experience. Not just of God, but overall. I have a feeling that what seems so horrible to us, isn’t as bad if you can see the whole picture. If you know that death isn’t the end, perspective changes.
The thing is we have no way of telling the liars and “truthtellers” apart. The only thing I have to suggest that islamic terrorists are not acting on behalf of God is YOUR(Your as in "you more or less liberal christians) assertion. The “wrathful” fundies assure me that YOU are the liar!
We have no objective evidence either way.
Even if you feel there is no God, you can use our worlds basic humane values (I know this doesn’t apply everywhere), what you know is morally right and determine whether someone’s actions contradict basic decency. They’re not acting on behalf of God.
For the record I don’t think that either camp is necessarily lieing so much as they are simply mistaken.
I have tried to figure out if when someone commits a crime “in behalf of God”, do they really believe this or not? I have to think some are lying and some are sick. If you don’t believe in God, then you know it’s one or the other anyway.
Agreed.
Hey, that’s one. I’ll take it.
Disagree. The nature of God has always been dependent upon political and social climate. An enslaved/oppresed people nearly always worship a God of retribution/wrath. A prosperous people tend to worship an omnibenevolent God(easy to love one’s enemies when those enemies are of no signifigance). All it really takes is the perception that one is oppressed. The NOI for example have recreated the native American “Ghost Dance” myth(a spirit of reprisal that Native Americans believed would infuse them with invulnerability so that they could overcome the white man) in the form of a giant “Mother Wheel” hovering over AMerica as we speak…just waiting to blow the white man away. This despite the fact that the black man has never been so unoppressed as he is today.
And I disagree back, in part. May be true for the Islam fundi’s, but thats not how their religion started out. As far as the nature of God, I was thinking about how hard and sad life was for the pioneers who came west. Many died, children especially and it seems to me that their version of God was good. I do agree that perception of God varies with cultures and I’m sure economic statis, but still more cultural.
Again, I disagree. If we did not have theistic religion people would simply form organizations and still be doing charitable work. Whether religions actually encourage charity or not is dependent on the religion and the social climate of the practicioners.
Then why don’t we have more non-theistic organizations taking care of people. The situation in Africa alone could use so many more people. I don’t agree at all.
Niether do I. What I think you are forgetting here is the distinction between ordinary and extraordinary claims. I do not know if you have a velvet Elvis portrait hanging in your living room. If you told me just now that you did, I would accept that and not think much more about it. I have seen velvet Elvis paintings hanging in other peoples rooms before so the claim does not strike me as extraordinary.
However if you told me you had an actual elephant in your wallet, I would rationally conclude that you were mistaken or lieing. I know that elephants are too large to fit in a wallet and the the claim would directly violate physical laws. It would require some extraordinary evidence in order for me to accept it.
I don’t believe in velvet Elvis’. Our universe violates our present interpretation of physical laws. We still have so much to learn. I understand what you’re saying though.
God is more like claiming an invisible polka-dotted, antlered, winged magical elephant lives in your wallet. I do not say it is 100% certainly false, I say that I am not going to assent to the claim without some acceptable evidence.
That’s fair and you will get your evidence one day.
So is love that causes destructive behavior. FOr that matter so is love that causes foolish behavior(listening to NSync for example).
I don’t know if I’ve ever heard them, I’m a stinkin’ country girl. I’m going to disagree with that one just for fun. To really love, you have to love yourself. If you do, you can never regret the love you felt. It’s not destructive. My perception only.
Agreed. My point is that emotions themselves, be it love or hate or hope or sorrow are not rational.
I agree, but they usually fuel an action or reaction.
Bald assertions. What you say here indicates that you believe that if christians found out there was no God tommorrow they would just decide to be more apathetic and less charitable. I find that disconcerting.
I know that God does not likely murder people(because he likely does not exist). People will do horrible(and benign) things to each other regardless though so I will not dwell on how much blame to assign religion itself. I think religion unnecessary but otherwise I will concede this point to you.
No I didn’t say they would stop helping, but systems would have to be put in place to raise the huge amounts of money they need. Hard working little old nuns would cease to exist. They wouldn’t be able to give their lives to charity. They’d have to get other jobs. A certain amount of the money provided in churches comes from guilt.(but still spends) People who feel like they should be doing more and have the desperate situtations around the world put right in front of them, usually dig a little deeper. Not noble, but part of the income that fuels charities. It would be harder and it’s hard enough.
Fine, however what you were saying before was that (in a nutshell) rationality was not the only means of coming to sound conclusions(you sort of hinted that spirituality or faith were equally important). I say that rationality IS our best tool for examining the universe/reality and personal biases do NOT present a signifigant obstacle to the critical thinker. We CAN overcome our presuppositions and biases.
It is our best tool for examining things, I agree, but not infallible.
This is wrong. OR most certainly rules out God as an explanation in the same way that it rules out genies. It does not DISPROVE God’s existence(or genies), it just tells us the inference is unwarranted.
I still agree for you it does. I am using different pieces of information.
I will get back to the “knowing God” thing below.
I’m sure you will.
1)Any benefit you THOUGHT you recieved was no more than placebo and placebo can only do so much to help you. There is no property in ground tarantula legs to treat ADHD and even if there were, dilluting it with a billion parts water would render it inert. Same goes for shark cartiledge, St. Jon’s wort etc.
2)You could not have been skeptical about it or you would have immediately recognised the fraud. It is not about looking smart. To date NO ONE has EVER been cured of any ailment by homeopathic treatments(that we know of).
Do not feel embarassed. It is a multi-billion dollar a year industry that has gotten the better of millions of people. The worse thing you can do though is to KEEP letting them screw you over.
I was skeptical. I didn’t even make the appointment. I had no hope that it would work. I am not embarassed. I am physically better. I don’t know if it makes any difference or not, but the medication I received from the homeopath was a Chinese herb(I think), imported and possibly not a true homeopathic drug. I don’t know the difference or if there is a difference? My good friend practiced medicine in China for 50 years and he said it was used often over there and worked well. Worked for me, as I said.
See this is a common dodge that non-skeptics employ. Faced with the prospect of having to admit there is no rational justification for their claims they invoke “personal revelation” and not very convincingly. If it’s one thing I pay attention to it’s human nature.
I understand why they do that though. See below.
If I am at a party with a dozen others and I suddenly see a man appear in a doorway, in front of everyone, holding a machete in one hand and a severd head in the other, yet no one else is reacting to this visage, I will assume either A)I am delusional or B)11 other people are delusional and then run like hell!
You would assume you’re delusional and you would also assume that any anecdotal information a “believer” gave you was delusion. I understand.
What I would not do is calmly stroll over to a PC and get on the net, surf to a message board and calmly try and convince other people that a head-severing maniac is staring at me from a doorway but no one else can see him.
It was never my intent to try and convince you. I had no clue, when I asked those questions, that this would happen.
If a human being had met God and truly “knew” he was not mistaken or delusional, I dare say his behavior would be other than what you display. I would also think that other people claiming to have met God would have similar behaviors adn sooner or later the accounts of meeting God would be subject to enough observation and testing to rationally confirm them.
What would my behavior be? Am I suposed to run or something. I can tell you one thing. Running or any sort of movement was not possible. I cried for days and then entered the biggest quietest sense of “calm” I have ever felt. It was not a run out and tell your friends event. I didn’t tell any one for years. I have heard of “other people” experiencing the same type of things. How would accounts of meeting God be rationally confirmed?
As it stands God only appears to non-skeptics, when no one else is around and his appearance is apparently less than impressive.
We’re the only ones that have been open to him.
Occam’s razor works here again. OR would suggest that the likely culprits of delusion, fraud and misunderstanding can not be ruled out so therefore there is no reason to assume ANYONE “knows God”.
And that is exactly why no one shares things that are special to them, sacred. There is no way to prove them and so you chose delusion, drugs, liar, etc. The only way to prove it is to experience it. You will then have no doubt. It is not a one time and then you have to wonder if you imagined it thing. Many people still have strong belief in God without having some earth shattering event happen. I believed without a doubt before and just felt incredibly lucky later.
The “trimming” was not done hastily. It was done methodically.
College students using boards and ropes are able to reproduce any crop circle ever made and many hyave taken to video-taping their exploits so when a UFOlogist claims the circle that appeared over night could not have been made by man, they can hold up their tapes adn say “Oh yeah?”.
Are they then going to pay for the damage to the farmer’s field? I do love a good trick though.
You are dodging again.The point is that theistic claims are no more rational than fairy-claims, UFO cultist claims or Santa Claus.
From your frame of reference, I agree. I respect your right to your belief.
Keep in mind I have NEVER thought your thought process was faulty, for you. As long as it doesn’t close your mind and stop looking for more information. I believe some people reach their conclusions about no God and are never receptive again. Hopefully that’s not true(from my perspective only). IWLN
