Eventually is all well and good, but now would be better. The problem with drawing similarities between your behaviour and God’s is that generally when we talk about free will we’re saying God doesn’t want to force us to do what he wants. Us having free will is still kept totally secure by merely trying to persuade us we are wrong. And persuasion is not an “override” on behaviour. In this example you’d be better off looking at Jesus; was his attempt at persuading us wrong or pointless?
Always? Really? There was I thinking that at times people were in quite an unfortunate state or unpleasant sate. Silly me.
Actually, yes, you are; your beliefs oblige you, on two counts. First of all, your beliefs of unconditional love mean that you should be willing to guide others to those beliefs as well, as you believe it to be the truth. And secondly for the same reason you should be wanting others to practice unconditional love so that they help others as you yourself do.
Oh, and of course I didn’t suggest you were obliged to help in the first place. All I suggested was that you should care what other people believe - again, a nice restatement on your part.
Yes, I agree. And hey, I said this too! What I was disagreeing on was that your changing of beliefs was purely prompted only by a random change of mind, devoid of any stimulus. So try again; how many times a day do you change your mind due to absolutely no stimulus other than “hey, i think i’ll change my mind about this for no apparent reason”. 'Cos if you have a new reason, you have a new stimulus causing it. Unless your mind is truly random, which I would doubt.
We are down now to the usual misquoting, word and meaning twisting type of argument that could continue forever. So I will say goodnight. Don’t have any blue cows. When you either practice or experience unconditional love you will understand what this world is all about.
Admit it. You were afraid to ask me this because you thought you would get a long story.
I would think that when you love someone unconditionally, you would be willing to encourage them to discover what is true for them. Like le katt, I believe there is an essential “oneness” of all things. But I would think that le katt and I came to that understanding in our own ways and not because people explained it to us until it was clear.
I’ve explained my side, I don’t have much more to say except I hope it’s obvious to anyone still reading this that you’re simply wrong. Christian theology isn’t that important to me, so I don’t care to debate the specifics any more than I have to. But I do still think Jesus, while on the whole an awesome role model, had some statements that were “what the fuck” worthy and contradictory.
I don’t see where I have misquoted you or changed your words in any way. I point out again that if I will only understand if I practice such love, you should consider yourself obliged to spread it - and indeed at the very least care about what I believe. That you’re even entering into these debates at all pretty much proves you care what others think about.
I tend to think you’re intellectually dishonest and unprepared to actually practice what you preach in terms of questioning yourself. It’s sort of like skepticism, except without the good parts.
Loving someone unconditionally, certainly, means just that; whatever they believe, you will love them. But **lekatt ** seems to believe that unconditional love is not only true for him, but true for all people. And certainly, putting unconditional love second to a willingness to let people find things out on their own makes sense, but **lekatt ** has said many times that it is love that he values above all. Plus I don’t really consider talking to someone about beliefs to be stopping them from discovering what is true on their own; talking to other people is a perfectly legitimate way of trying to understand things, at least in my eyes.
Plus i’d point out that lekatt’s point there was a dodge from my charge that he should just care what other people believe, not necessarily that they should want to change it. I’m sure you care what other people believe, even if you don’t think you should try and influence them?
Sorry to return to this one after so long, but it just occurs to me to ask something from the sidelines.
It seems to me that the thrust of your argument in this particular respect is something to the effect: If we can’t absolutely pin down a calculated value, it could be anything.
I don’t think that’s necessarily a sound logical position (if that is indeed your argument) - I’m sure there must be plenty of domains where we can say, for example, “we have no way to absolutely determine the precise figure, but we know for sure it will be really big”.
For some people religion serves as the path toward spirituality. It’s up to the individual. For others the rituals and dogma of religion might be the thing that interferes with there spiritual path. The path is an individual one and there is no rule concerning the usefulness or purpose of religion that applies to all people.
IMO each of us is on the inner journey regardless of the labels we choose to apply to ourselves for communications sake. Each person embraces what they value and surrenders what they are ready to let go of in their own time by their own volition., and through their own efforts. Even “spiritual” is just a handy label. It comes down to what a person values and how that reflects in their daily actions and interactions. Speak of God and soul, or speak of love, compassion, and honesty. One isn’t better or worse than the other. Actions are where the rubber meets the road and where what we value is revealed.
The Bible was written by men, and the quotes attributed to Jesus may not all be correct. We do have enough of them to know His essential teachings, unconditional love. It is the same with Paul, some letters are full of love and others totally different enough to suspect Paul didn’t write them. The world is not black and white, writings are not for literal interpretation neither are them understood by making assumptions. We do the best we can. If the teachings of Jesus had not been beneficial to mankind they would have been forgotten long ago.
Makes sense to me. I suppose the greatest “risk” is that a religion could comprise some spiritual truth for a person; so it looks good to them but all the other trappings might actually hold them back.
That too seems fair. Except that I would say one is better or worse than the other, assuming you value truth. And one may be better or worse in subjective terms if not objective. Plus something can be better or worse through its appearance; some labels are much more impressive or desirable than others. You could say one act is “rational” or “cold-hearted”; obviously the act itself does not change, but labels themselves can be important too.
cosmosdan would seem to agree that it’s quite possible believers in those past gods were spiritual. And so they quite possibly didn’t hold unconditional love as their main point of importance. But thank you for caring what I believe.
Since others beliefs affect us on a daily basis we certainly should care about what others believe. I think the sharing of ideas and beliefs, and the reasoning behind them, is definitely a way to learn and grow. It’s a fine line to share our beliefs and even insist on their correctness , while showing others the respect that comes with letting them choose them own path. Confrontations must occur, and we learn about ourselves and others in choosing how to handle a confrontation.
We do influence others with who we are and how we are. There’s no avoiding it. We can still respect their right to choose their own way and sometimes, believing what we do, we have to push forward even more aggressively to make our beliefs heard. How would our country function if we surrendered it to others without trying to assert our own influence?
You mentioned questioning yourself. That’s a real biggie IMO. If we have any desire to grow we must be able to look at ourselves with honesty and question ourselves. Sometimes that just ain’t no fun because there’s a big discrepancy between the self image we have held and the revelation that kind of honesty brings. Ouch!!
I sure think so. In my own case I can see how I interpreted a spiritual experience through the influence of the particular church people around me. So, what might have been a simple “seeking the truth is the correct path” became “this church is correct” There are a lot of human emotional dynamics that come into play. People become emotionally attached to the “family” of the church and embrace all it’s teachings without much question. To seriously question them might mean leaving the family which provides so much of their identity and self worth. It takes time and effort to get people to understand that they can release specific beliefs and still find those things they value.
At least as important as communication I suppose. What I have a problem with are the believers that are so determined to praise God and Jesus or whomever their particular deity is, that they don’t tune into the sincere honesty and love of those outside their particular click. The same goes for atheists who assume something negative just by seeing a praise God T shirt or bumper sticker. That’s where respect for the path of others comes in, and we, as caring humans who share the planet, should not let those labels create a distance between us. We shouldn’t spend our time arguing over which label is better, but seek the common things we value and the essence beneath the label. There’s a passage in the Bible that says “God is spirit and those who worship him must do so in spirit and in truth.” and of course there’s also “You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free” So, indeed truth is high on the list of things to be valued. For me, true spirituality is all about truth and love. Discovering how those two primary qualities apply to the details of our day to day life. Easy to say. A lifetime of trying to do.
I think for those who create a deity that must remain outside themselves and apart from them, pleasing that deity , however you have imagined it’s rules, takes precedent. So, even an act of kindness might be to please some imagined other, out there somewhere, deity rather than a real connection with a fellow human. That would fit my personal definition of religious rather than spiritual , but I also recognize my judgment is imperfect.
Mmmhmm. At the most basic level there’s that talking to people can help you realise flaws in your own views, or vice versa. Also though I think it’s just as important to recognise not just problematic ideas, but problematic methods. The whole “is athiesm a belief?” argument is a good example of this; it makes me think about whether my views are simple belief or not, or belief similar to religious belief. I’m still not sure on that one.
Our countries, that is, American pigdog.
Yep. My big flaw in this area is that sometimes i’ll make arguments to others that I later realise don’t actually work… but I leave it there to see if they’ll see it or not. A fault of me valuing my beliefs being shared by someone over whether they’re truthfully based or not. I’m trying to get better at that, though.
And on the other side of it, it’s possible that through a standard set of beliefs a person who holds only one can be “fast-tracked” onto the others. If they’re true, that’s possibly a good thing. But you still need to actually look at yourself to find out, so it’s not really all that helpful an argument to totally hang your views on.
Yep, that’s a good point. And it works sometimes in reverse, too; someone wary to classing all things to do with religion/irreligion can fall into the trap of thinking any generalisations are wrong. I do believe that the world would be better off without religion, but I’d be the first to say there are many good things about it. Likewise, there are many people who say that religion as a whole is a good thing for the world, but are equally willing to say there are several flaws with it.
I generally consider religion to be a factor of organisation mainly. Differing from spirituality in that it’s more common, and there’s a set of standard rituals or shared beliefs.
Right. I’ve learned more by being challenged by well informed articulate people who believe very differently than by talking to those who have similar beliefs.
If we’re encouraging people to think things through for themselves rather than blindly accept someone else’s judgment then we’re doing okay. Being a bit of an egotist I enjoy seeing myself as the enlightened one occasionally but I do realize that each person must find what is meaningful to them and not just look to others for the answers.
Let’s see… “generally held by” (but not always)… “often condified as” (but not always)… “Also encompasses…as well as personal faith and mystic experience”, that’s an inclusive, adding further things which aren’t necessary to the base definition, though I note a few which certainly do apply here… “The term “religion” refers to both”, another inclusive, which ensures that the neither of the attributes mentioned are excluded from the definition, but does not limit the prior definition.
So, “A religion is a set of common beliefs and practices … Religion also encompasses…personal faith and mystic experience.”
Congratulations; you have a religion!
(And I think we could even put the “generally held by a group of people” back in, since you’re so fond of saying how millions of people believe the same things you do. That’s religion for sure.)
I liked the OP’s topic too.
And raindog’s problem was that he was equating science-faith (“barring a few unusual odd possibilites that there’s no reason whatsoever to believe are the case, we’re pretty darned certain.”) with religious faith (“100% based in nothing and proud of it!”). Having accomplished that spectactularly bad equating, he was then free to ramble on about the supposed flimsiness of science’s position.
What I have a problem with are the believers that are so determined to praise God and Jesus or whomever their particular deity is, that they don’t tune into the sincere honesty and love of those outside their particular click. The same goes for atheists who assume something negative just by seeing a praise God T shirt or bumper sticker. That’s where respect for the path of others comes in, and we, as caring humans who share the planet, should not let those labels create a distance between us. We shouldn’t spend our time arguing over which label is better, but seek the common things we value and the essence beneath the label. There’s a passage in the Bible that says “God is spirit and those who worship him must do so in spirit and in truth.” and of course there’s also “You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free” So, indeed truth is high on the list of things to be valued. For me, true spirituality is all about truth and love. Discovering how those two primary qualities apply to the details of our day to day life. Easy to say. A lifetime of trying to do.
I like your stories (even if I disagree with parts of them).