That’s his bit. Not to be the neutral moderator, but so stir things up with extreme opinions. His show isn’t labeled a news show after all, and he does a monologue, I believe. I’m sure he is an atheist, but I’m also sure he isn’t that extreme in real life. He was shtupping Anne Coulter for Og’s sake.
It is clear from the context of the OP that he was not respecting the thought processes that got them to their positions, which does not mean he didn’t respect them as people. How many people reread and revise posts around here? Even OPs? No one has the time.
Do you believe that your selection of a favorite flavor of ice cream is superior to those of others?
You need justification for a sense of superiority. If you think that your logical reasoning is superior, that’s one. If you think that God told you, that’s another. But if your moral values are chosen because they feel good, you can apply them to yourself but please don’t try to claim they are superior to those chosen for actual reasons. (Generic you here.)
The question here is how is it informed by belief and faith? I tend to think that if your average liberal believer lost faith tomorrow, his moral system would not be changed much if at all. Learning and changing and appreciating the beliefs of others are all hallmarks of a secular belief system.
So what part does God belief play? You can put the comforts they get from believing off into another box. Deists still believe without pretending that God has informed their moral choices, a very reasonable position.
Perhaps they are insecure with their moral choices (usually they shouldn’t be, IMO) and feel better that someone is forcing them into them? When my daughter was young she was driven to do her homework and more, and sometimes would complain that I forced her to do it. I never did, it was never necessary. But it gave her an excuse.
We’re not talking about a person’s moral quality here, just how they get their beliefs. A secular set of beliefs based on ethical reasoning may be wrong, but at least has a foundation. A religious set of beliefs based on what is thought to be revelation may be wrong but has a foundation. This reasoning that is neither here nor there is problematic. God doesn’t work by ethical reasoning, so that is out, and if they accept inspired morality they seem to have a problem in defining which morality from supposedly inspired works counts and which doesn’t.
Now actually what is happening is that they are using ethical reasoning, so what comes out is pretty good, but not admitting it. So they are actually standing on a strong foundation which they refuse to acknowledge while claiming to be supported by this invisible foundation.
Individual belief systems are made up of a lot of things. I don’t believe it has to be either or. Much of it is shaped by society and enviornment. Some of it is subconscious and/or emotional reactions rather than conscious choices. In some real sense it’s “because it feels right” for everyone. Faced with some moral or ethical dilema believer and non believe alike look within for some answer. The difference is the believer is seeking the guidence of a higher power while the non believer does not. Either way, ultimately both must choose and take responsibility for their choice.
I’m not sure what you mean by “feel good” vs actual reasons.
They can also be called the hallmarks of spiritual growth. I think the difference can be that the non believer concludes any insight comes from their own consciousness, while a believer concludes they are in touch with something greater than themselves.
Insecure with their moral choices? No it’s not about God forcing them. It’s simply about using using the resources you believe are there for you.
Again, I reject that it has to be an either/or proposition. Because someone believes in God and that the HS can guide them that doesn’t mean they turn off their intellect and stop analyzing situations. Many would say our intellect and emotions are gifts we are intended to use. They may suspect they are not always correct because of human imperfections, but that doesn’t change the belief that God is always there.
Says you. While they believe God is, and those who disbelieve are the ones rejecting the very foundation of their existence. Neither are able to prove the other is incorrect.
I agree. People are multi faceted and complex. Belief systems are made up many things including our intellect and emotions, our conscious and subconconscious minds. A sense of smug superiority usually indicates a failing in the person feeling superior rather than the “inferior”
Can’t argue with any of this. And feels right is the answer one person in this thread gave - and it is a perfectly acceptable answer. We’re not arguing about the right way of making these decisions, just how people do,
Nobody I remember made the claim that they thought they were directly inspired by a deity or spirit in their decision making. That would be an answer also - one that has a lot of issues, but an answer.
Feeling right is a secular answer also - what ethical system you choose can be just as determined by prior feelings as which pages of the Bible you accept.
By insecure I mean feeling that internally derived and reasoned choices are not adequate, and that they require some external spiritual driver to be true. It is praying to be told what to do versus looking inside ones self for what to do.
Believing that one looks inside oneself for solutions, but they are divinely inspired because God somehow shaped us is definitely an answer. Not one that anyone gave here, but an interesting take on it.
I can’t prove them incorrect, especially when they change definitions of god every fortnight, but God can certainly prove me incorrect.
As I said before, IMO, it is the fundamentalists who see the Bible as literally the inerrant word of God, that have a much greater problem with consistency than moderate or liberal believers. They are forced to explain and justify contradictions and explain why some passages are literal while others are not. IMO, that exposes the foolishness of that aspect of their belief in a very obvious way.
Moderate or liberal believers who see the Bible as inspired by God by also influenced by men and subject to personal interpretation, have a more plausible explanation for their beliefs. I would say that anyone who uses the Bible as the final authority on some issue is in trouble. If they claim “the Bible says X” as any more than a phiosophical or metaphorical reference then they are picking in choosing.
I know some people pray to be told what to do. They are typically people who need the approval of others to feel justified. For others it is not a matter of seeking an external spiritual driver because they don’t see the spirit as external or even a seperate entity. If one believes that we are eternal soul and our physical bodies are only temporary dwellings for the soul, then looking within to the soul and the HS as our spiritual connection to God as creator isn’t looking for external instruction, it’s simply looking for guidence or clarity in decision making. In the same way a non believer might wxamine their own motives and try to understand their feelings and others while trying to choose a path, believers look to the HS not as a sperate entity telling them what to do, but as a guide that connects them to God and helps them understand themselves and others. For them it’s just part of who they and we are.
That’s why the HS, or even conscience, is often referred to as the still small voice.
I can’t prove them incorrect, especially when they change definitions of god every fortnight, but God can certainly prove me incorrect.
[/QUOTE]
I know several people who claim this for themselves. It always leads to a conversational impasse. There really isn’t anywhere further the conversation can go when they play this card.
(I’m convinced that some of them have had hallucinations… But how do you say this without being remarkably impolite?)
The what? I turn on the news and get reports about militant Jews, Muslims, Christians and various other faiths, but I can’t seem to recall viewing, hearing or reading reports about gun-toting organized atheists attacking neighborhoods or seizing areas of land. Perhaps you meant “strident”, “active” or some other more realistic descriptive word?
I’m pretty uncomfortable with people who seem eager to claim, God led me to X, or this was confirmed to me by the Holy Spirit. It’s one thing to say “I believe I was guided” and leave some room for personal error , but to be so sure and matter of fact bothers me.
It reminds me of the Pentacostals who are so eager to be “caught up in the spirit” that they babble nonsense syllables and call it speaking in tongues.
I’ve been tempted a few times to say “I asked God about that and he said you were mistaken”
I ran out of time to comment on this. It seems clear that if God exists the purpose of creation is not simply to believe in him since that would be simple to accomplish.
IMO people need to acknowledge the difference between what they know and what their personal belief is. Granted that believers are by far the worst at doing this buit still, when it comes to discussions in general all participants need to understand where the lines are. For believers that means acknowledging that you believe in something you can’t prove is true, and for non believers it means that while there are many factual evidence based things concerning religion that can addressed there are some that cannot and are also expressing a personal belief about those things.
Absolutely. Religious freedom is precious…as are all freedoms.
Moderate non-believers only want their own freedom not to have a religion. As Hugh Hefner said in his Playboy Philosophy, “If a man has a right to find God in his own way, he has a right to go to the devil in his own way also.”
First let me note that we’ve come far afield of the OP, which was about those who were at least nominally adherent to an established religion accepting some parts and not other parts of that religion. Which may or may not be inconsistent, depending on your criteria. If you more or less make up your own faith (which is likely no wrong or even less wrong than conventional ones) this problem does not exist.
If you build your own faith, there is no issue with noting that an established faith agrees with it - no more than an atheist who has built a moral code has a problem with the Ten Commandments saying something about murder they agree with.
I have no problem with they inability to prove it is true part. The average believer can’t make God show up. The problem is the hoops they jump through explaining why the God who cares about us doesn’t care enough to make himself obvious. I know the it will destroy faith, his ways are unknown to us, yadda, yadda yadda.
I like consistent universes. I think ours is consistent, and I spend a lot of time making sure universes I create in fiction are consistent. The universe with a God in it, a God who interacts with us, isn’t.
Perhaps some people look at it like Bill Maher’s because the way many religions use politics to further their own personal beliefs. Jesus despised the pharisees because they lived the letter of the law and not the spirit. Many Christians do this today, they make a big fuss about what one calls an evergreen tree, but don’t follow a lot of Jesus teachings. They are too busy looking for the speck in their neighbor’s eye to see the plank in their own. If one just looks to the middle east one can see what, and how people use religion as an excuse to use God as their partner. It isn’t the fault of religion but the fault of how the people use it.
I think this sums up our differences. Inconsistencies have caused me to reject a lot of beliefs held by organized religion but ultimately I don’t find a God who interacts with us to be necessarily inconsistent.
Applying this definition to Christians, what percentage of Christians that have television and radio programs would you say are “militant”? What about church leaders? What about the American Family Association? Are they also militant?