And if your religion tells you the opposite, why should you waiver? Whether you love or hate should not be left up to an unquestionable source-it should be your decision alone.
Fancy that.
But it is my decision.
Then you’re not a true believer.
So you don’t believe we should love our neighbors because this is what Jesus told us to do?
Have you never silenced doubts about something with, “This is what Jesus says is right.”
If you have never been challenged in this way, I’m wondering how you know you’re even guided by faith.
And you really don’t see anything circular in this reasoning?
If I follow the law against murder and refrain from killing anyone other than in self-defense, am I not a true believer in the idea that it is wrong to kill people?
Now we see though a glass darkly, but the darkness will be removed and the light will show us the truth. We make assumptions about this world based on what we know. But alas we know so little. Jesus taught us to love one another. He walked His talk by not allowing His followers to harm those who hated and murdered Him. He said “forgive them for they know not what they do.” He was a living example of love in action. Many make fun of Him and what He stood for instead of learning from Him.
Forgive them for they know not what they do.
Fair, but within the analogy, I don’t think it’s possible to actually see such a video. And, really, within the context of the painting, does it even really matter if that is the case? I agree that it probably is time to stop. I do think that these are interesting questions, but when we spend all our time arguing about whether God exists or not, what he may or may not of wanted us to do, in the end all we have is the patterns implicit in the painting. So, really, a religious person can say that God gave us a nature desire to do good, and a non-religious person might say that it evolved because it helps create social order that furthers the species, we spend this time arguing about where this desire comes from when we really could just be agreeing that, theist and atheist alike, we want to do good and make life better for everyone.
Yes and no. We can study ethics to a certain extent within science, but it doesn’t really help us decide what is best, it only helps us draw from a premise to a conclusion. That is, scientifically speaking, there is nothing inherently good or bad about life, it simply is. Yet, overwhelmingly people have the value that preservation of life is a good thing. Thus, if we can show that doing one thing will preserve more life than another thing then, we could argue that the former is better than the latter given that value.
To me, the question is, how do we ultimately decide on these base values? Are there perhaps even more basic values than those? Can we agree on what they are and then extrapolate them into our lives? Really, all mythology is are parables, they’re fables, they’re part of the collective human consciousness as a way of helping us to learn and remember a lot of these lessons. Sure, it’d be great if we could just say “Do X, don’t do Y…” but we also want to understand why, and that’s the context that these stories give us.
And yes, it is comforting to know that disasters aren’t the result of some divine punishment. But to me, it’s even more comforting to know that, like with mythology, parables, and history, we can also take these events as opportunities to learn and grow.
Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Were the founding fathers good people? Most would say so, afterall, the entire American government and many of the most prevalent American values originated with them, yet most if not all of them were racist and sexist among countless other personal flaws. Many of them, though they had and expressed those ideals, ultimately fell short of them. Virtually every great person in history is remembered well for their contributions, but often we tend to downplay or even outright try to purge their faults.
The Bible is much the same way, in my view. We are looking at a flawed perspective from a flawed people from a time and culture that we have difficulty even relating to. In exactly the same way that I’m not going to ignore the words of Thomas Jefferson because he had slaves and I find that abhorent, there’s plenty to be learned from the Bible, even if a lot of that isn’t so much on a personal level, but rather already largely absorbed into society as a whole.
And, really, you keep harping on “there’s no proof for it”. You’re not going to find many fundamentalist Christians on this board arguing for the literal interpretation of Genesis and a number of other clear myths from the Bible. A story doesn’t have to be literally true to have moral truths to it.
On a personal level, I very much see most of the Old Testament as a way of giving us context for Jesus. We get contexts for their beliefs, we get context for their history, which is a combination of myth and actual history. In fact, I think the flaws of the Jewish people are precisely a big part of the point in how we can apply the teachings to our lives today.
In fact, compare it in many ways to American history. We were founded on equality and all, yet we sucked at it. Hell, we had to have a war just to end slavery, and it still took another century before blacks were really started to be seen and treated as equals. Women were treated like crap for a long time. Even today, we struggle with equality. Does that mean that the virtue of equality is less meaningful because we’ve historically sucked at applying it? Not at all. It is that tale of seeing how much people truly believe it and fight for it, and the contrast between where we’ve been and where we are that helps us realize just how important a virtue it is.
So, let us look at the teachings of Jesus, teaching us about love, brotherhood, charity, selflessness, humility, sincerity, not to be hypocrites, and other things that, though we see them more or less as givens today, a lot of that is precisely because we live in a society that has been influenced by his teachings for centuries.
I agree. I see religion as just part of someone’s personal journey. What church they are attracted to, stay in, and how thier beliefs affect thier interaction with others depends on them. There are many wonderful folks who are believers and some wonderful folks who are not. Just as there are jerk atheists and agnostics and great ones. Belief or non belief says zero about your character as a person or yopur contribution to society.
The belief that we’d be better off without religion is IMO just a baseless opinion founded more in personal bias than anything else.
I’ve been to many churches over the years, and I don’t recall any that put forth the notion that we would not be better off without atheism.
IMO, we can accept that everyone operates on some kind of belief system that is partially based on personal experience and observations, and some degree of faith. We operate on intellect and whatever our personal knowledge is, but also emotion and personal preference.
I don’t think we need to qualify religous faith as some entirely separate form of faith that is either good or bad. It’s the same human condition that makes anyone accept things on trust.
Your point?
Is it that one baseless opinion deserves another?
No-it’s that the “baseless opinion” of the minority seems to upset you and others more than the “baseless opinion” of the majority. We still live in a world where public officials can openly denigrate atheists without serious consequence, but the very few atheist public officials that have outed themselves are expected to keep a civil tongue lest people get upset. It’s as if someone dared to bring a shiv to a shotgun fight, and everyone’s upset with the guy holding the shiv.
I’m sure you’ve probably already seen this one, but I just loved this woman who corrected Wolf Blitzer on CNN when he asserted that she has to thank the lord for being spared:
I’m not sure I would have had the guts, although I’d like to think so. (If I did say anything, I’m sure I wouldn’t have been as graceful and thoughtful as she was. I probably would have looked around at the devastation all around me and said something nasty and pointed having to do with the problem of evil and not being at all grateful if some entity intentionally visited death and destruction on the people around me.)
My point is that if your a true believer, you don’t get to make your own decisions. You must follow the bibles teachings. Your bible commands you to do some pretty heinous acts, and Jesus even says he has not come to do away with them, and yet you refrain to follow through.
I’m curious. As a devout atheist, do you practice any little rituals for luck. You know, like knock on wood, or avoid walking under ladders, wish on candles before blowing them out?
If so, does that put your non belief status into question?
That’s a whole lot of rationalization for a book that promotes murder, slavery, rape, infanticide, and many other such acts. This is what we get from a book divinely inspired by god? I’m sorry but there is no context where any of this is okay.
Are you saying that common superstitions are indicators of a belief in a deity? Do you mean to reduce religious beliefs to the status of old wives tales?
Also, what is a “devout” atheist?
I think it’s like being a devout non-skydiver.
Yeah, sometimes I make a wish at 11:11. I don’t think it does because I don’t take it very seriously. But, like I’ve said, I admit that I could be wrong. I don’t see many believers admitting that, or they wouldn’t be believers.