I did a Quoooote! I did a Quooote! Nyah! Nyah!
Is the fact that there are universally accepted concepts of hot and cold, or left and right, or green and red, also evidence that there is a creator? If not, then why does humanity’s tendency to agree on what is right and wrong (a loose tendency, with plenty of disagreement) evidence of a creator?
The only void I ever felt in my life was created by religion. As soon as I admitted that I didn’t believe in God, I felt no void at all. Suddenly, life was enough. It was enough to do right by my fellow human, without trying to do right by a capricious and incomprehensible God.
An advertisor’s job is to make potential consumers think that they need what is being sold. That’s what religion did for me: it provided answers to questions that it had taught me to ask–questions which, in retrospect, I never would have thought about asking if religion hadn’t told me to. Is there a God? (Why would I think there is?) Are people born guilty, in need of redemption? (Have you ever watched a 6-month old baby playing?) Am I going to heaven? To hell? (Huh? Why would I think there’s a heaven or hell?)
No God, no void. No problem.
And in what way spending this life with your creator would be meaningful? What is the purpose? And if it is actually meaningful, then spending your life on earth with someone you love is equally meaningful.
Note that I didn’t say these feelings about right and wrong were inherent. They can be partly hardwired, result mostly from my education, from the values of the society I live in, etc…But it doesn’t change a thing. For instance, I can certainly consider that the concept of human rights is perfectly arbitrary, I certainly weren’t born with them, but I’d have a hard time thinking that torture is OK or freedom is irrelevant.
If some such values are actually inherent, they could as well the result of evolution (for instance empathy could be hard wired and could explain the reluctance people can have in harming or not helping someone else). But anyway I don’t think they are, for the most part. There are actually very few values which could be considered as roughly universal. The most common example given is incest…but not having sex outside the bonds of marriage, though common, isn’t universal. Murder is relative. Murdering your neighbor is usually wrong, but murdering someone from this other tribe without reason can be good. And of course, not worshipping idols is certainly not instilled.
The values which are pretty much universal, or even only very common are values which have an obvious advantage for the community survival, hence do not require the actual existence of a god to explain their appearance. Once they’re accepted by the community, teaching, social conditionning, etc…is enough to explain how they can be ingrained and why someone can feel very uncomfortable when breaking these rules.
Finally, if this morality was actually instilled by god, one would expect that athey would correspond perfectly to god’s commandments (one would feel bad when worshipping an idol, when using the name of the lord in vain, or when coveting the wife of his neighbor). The fact there’s a discrepancy between the elements of morals which are roughly universal and the christian god commandments show this values can’t have been instilled by this god.
Also, god instilling moral values is an issue when considering the problem of free will.
Morals are vague at best. If they were instilled by a higher power, they would be very cut-and-dried.
For example, take petty theft. I don’t take pens or post-it notes home from work. Ever. However, I know MANY god-fearing, religious people who either don’t consider it stealing, or do consider it stealing, but say that their evil boss deserves it. How do you draw up a universal moral code when everyone’s interpretation is different? Same with coveting neighbors. One might say, “well, it isn’t cheating because they fight all the time and she says she doesn’t love him”, or another person might say that even after 10 years of legal separation, you can’t do the bop with the neighbor until the divorce is final.
—The only void I ever felt in my life was created by religion.—
This is of interest. It’s hard to deny that some religions have something of a problematic vested interest in convincing people that there is a singular void in the first place, and then highlighting it: i.e., there is a vested interest in human misery. Unless people can first be convinced that they are damned, offers of salvation wont make sense. Unless people can first be convinced that their lives are ordinarily empty and pointless, there’s no much inherent appeal to the purposes of a supposed god.
Do you really think acting like an ass strengthens your position? Obviously I’m wasting keystrokes here.
Who shit in your cheerios, Joe Cool? I was speaking of the formatting, not the content of your post (which is still unanswered, by the way). Why don’t you lighten up a little?
I still don’t understand what the “I did a Quooote” thing is in reference to. But it doesn’t sound interesting enough to bother clarifying it, or pissing off people with it.
Well, I did a formatted quote instead of putting actual quotation marks in…I haven’t been able to get the formatting to work until now. No big deal, but it certainly didn’t warrant Joe Cool’s snotty remark. Especially when he doesn’t even bother to respond to my question, which I will post here (again) with traditional quotes, so as not to offend him with my unbridled happiness (sheesh!)(why in the hell would that piss anyone off???):
Originally posted by Joe_Cool
“The point isn’t to get more life. If that was it, then you’re right:
it wouldn’t matter. The point is that the “more life” is spent with
the creator, who loves me and whom I love. The point is fellowship with the God I serve.”
Then I said,
"But in having a god in your life, aren’t you already spending quality time and cultivating a fellowship with him? And don’t you do that by living according to the bible?
Maybe my question is: What exactly do you anticipate doing in heaven? Will you be able to interact with people on earth (directly or indirectly), or interact with others in heaven? In those interactions, do you have a choice to be good or bad, or is everything automatically good?"
Fair questions, eh?
My sincere apologies. I misunderstood, and thought you were making a snide remark at my quoting Jesus.
I am truly sorry for my response. I’ll try to answer your questions in a bit, the dinner bell is ringing.
I guess I’m a bit defensive in this type of thread.
Apology accepted, and looking forward to your post!
From my experience, the above functions seem to take a back seat to these:
-5) To provide a sense of comfort in the face of adversity (e.g. my Father is watching out for me).
-6) To provide a way to cheat death (e.g. although my physical body may die, my soul will live on for all eternity).
-7) To provide a sense of justice in an unjust world (e.g. those bad people might be able to get away with it down here on Earth, but in the end, I’m gonna go to heaven and they’re gonna go to hell. Neener neener).
Yes. Imperfectly, though. It’s kind of like having a long distance relationship: Writing letters and talking on the telephone once in a while isn’t anywhere near the same as holding your girlfriend/boyfriend and actually being together.
Well, according to the bible, there are a number of things that happen in heaven:
[ul][li]Face-to-face fellowship with God.[/li][li]No more capacity to sin[/li][li]As Paul said, “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” In other words, there will be no more mystery.[/li][li]More things that I can’t think of now. I’ll do a more in-depth study later if necessary.[/li][li]I hope God will let us fully appreciate His creation: I’m hoping I’ll get to explore the universe. I want to see all the places that are unreachable to us now: Other galaxies, the bottom of the ocean, the inside of a black hole, etc. I’d happily spend a million years just looking at stuff. :D[/li][/ul]
As for interacting with people on earth, I don’t know. I don’t claim to understand everything yet. 
I’m not a Jehovah’s Witness, so I don’t believe there will be 144,000 of the super-specialest people in heaven and everybody else on earth, but I don’t believe God made earth just for no reason, so I assume it will figure in the plan somehow.
For the record, I disagree with the stated “functions” of religion. Religion is mankind’s search for the God he abandoned by turning to sin. Religion is our way of trying to reach for the divine, not a way of providing comfort to ourselves.
I think 5-7 are common stereotypes, but belied by both my experience and the research of Michael Shermer.
Numbers 5-7 are indeed the sorts of things people say when asked “why do you think other people believe in god” But when asked why THEY believe, the arguement from/to Design is by far the most commonly sited reason for god beliefs, followed by other things more in line with the sorts of things in 1-4.
Sorry to answer this a bit late, but I wanted to think about my answer. EchoKitty, when I said, “Faith gives me hope and comfort,” I was oversimplifying because I was a bit embarassed by the long post I’d made earlier. It doesn’t look like this will be a short one either, but please bear with me.
I need to give you a bit of background first. I come from a rather rough background where there were a lot of people telling me I was worthless, including my family, unfortunately, and hardly anyone telling me I was worthwhile. The church I went to was the one place in town I could go and not be insulted. It was also the one place where I was treated like I was worth anything. At a time in my life when I was being told “Everybody hates you” on an almost daily basis, I took comfort in trying to believe that God loved me. Some days I even managed it. :rolleyes: As a result, the church and, by extension, gave me the acceptance I wasn’t getting anywhere else.
I was raised to think clearly and logically, I have a pessimistic streak a mile wide, and I have a few self-esteem problems. Put those together, throw in some rough times, and I’m inclined to look at the future rather bleakly. Faith acts as a governor on that, giving me hope at times when logic isn’t doing much in that department. If I didn’t have faith, I’d probably resort to psychological and self-hypnosis type arguments in this sort of format:
Statement: “I’m worthless.”
Counter: “Who says that?”
S: “I’m stupid.”
C: “You speak Japanese and program computers, not to mention that group you belong to.”
S: “I’ll never find a new job.”
C: “You always have before.”
S: “I’m scared.”
C: “It’s OK.”
Would it be as effective? Who knows? Under the circumstances we set up for this thread, I hope it would be.
Just a couple of things I’d like to point out. If it weren’t for the kindness and compassion I experienced at the church I mentioned, I freely admit I probably would be an atheist. This is why I get particularly annoyed when people who profess my faith turn around and insult others while doing it. Behaviour like that nearly drove me away.
Also, EchoKitty, I answered your question about what it would take for me to give up my faith one more time
over here. It’s not the same thread, but that seemed like the more appopriate one for it. I’ve enjoyed being in these discussions with you. Congratulations on mastering the quote!
CJ
Thanks, JoeCool and CJ for your responses. JoeCool, I must admit, I never thought of heaven the way you think of heaven. I’ll have to think about that before commenting on it.
CJ, your post in the other thread was good. I can see where the church came into your life as a good thing (a lifesaver, actually). It sounds as though you put a lot of weight on the human condition and maybe less so on the religious part of your life. You were impressed with the kindness of the church, but also saw the not-so-pretty side of some of the people in your faith.
I have always looked at life as simply a whirling mix of all that is good and all that is bad in the universe. I don’t believe in pre-destination, and I believe that being a good person is its own reward. It’s not easy…in fact, it is a daily struggle to keep “THE BIG PICTURE” in focus. Where you might consider the big picture to be heaven, I consider it an earthly matter with results realized by each person in their natural lifetime.
I also believe that we’ll never know if there is a god or not, but pondering the question will go on forever! (A lot of that pondering will take place here on the SDMB(even though some think we beat it to death in GD)). I’ll never understand people who refuse to discuss religion and politics…what else is there?!
And, CJ…I think I’m giving up on formatted quotes…I think the network is just too slow. I can’t even get smilies to work now : (
Apos has a question about what is meant by spirituality -
I mention this here because I think that we have a few illustrations of “spiritual needs” given recently in this thread. 5-7, for example. cj’s experiences as well. The need to feel part of a grander purpose, to feel that there is a reason and that there is a greater good being served by current injustices. The need for a psychic rock and shield. I am not saying that everyone has the same needs in these regards, and I am not saying that religion is the only way to meet these needs, just that these needs have existed and that religion has met these needs.
I also see that #2 - a values basis for rules - needs some fleshing out. Let me place this in historical context:
Early Man is forming complex social groups - call them tribes. These tribes can exist and thrive only if their members comply with a common set of rules. Evolutionary programmed altruism and cheater detectors will only take the group so far, how to motivate individual members to follow rules that may not provide any direct genetic benefits? Well, the group has already created gods to attempt to explain natural phenomenum … why not evoke them? You cheat and you got more than Oog to worry about, you could cause the hunt to come up empty, the rains to not fall, disease to strike. Religion provided the structures that supported behaviors that benefitted the group.
Jump to the early Hebrews. A group of stories (history/myths … you call it) supported a set of what was right and wrong, supporterd a set of Laws. Laws that kept the tribe together by differing dietary and other cultural requirements. Laws that allowed for a larger social structure to exist. Laws that allowed this culture to thrive partly by virtue of creating a certain set of ethics and by ridding religion of human sacrifice (as an aside, it is my humble opinion that such was the point of the binding of Issac story - before then human sacrifice of your own children was a requisite part of most faiths - that story was the message that this is not what this faith wants - that now such a sacrifice is wrong.)
Now jump to the Christianity of the Holy Roman Empire - its stories provided a different set of values and a different set of rules resulted. These values and rules supported the needs to govern a diverse set of societies over a wide area with top down control and with less force than was previously required. Very successful. Held sway until we get to the rise of secularism.
Secularism provided the same ability to provide different societies with a similar set of values and thus similar enough rules that they could function as a society of societies. But instead of a direct appeal to the power of any one god-concept it was based a different set of axioms - that all men are created equal, that individuals have religious freedoms, and that there exists something called human rights. Then whole world is not on board yet, but gradually these values and their consequent rules of behavior are spreading as the common ground. Even within the Islamic world (the last great bastion of theocracy) they are slowly getting traction.
Religion has lost its place as the sole provider of the justification for these rules. It has lost its place as the sole source of explanatory power. It is just one of many parts of individual identity. And we still have spiritual needs, which some meet in relationships, some in therapy, and some still through organized religion.
(Once again, none of the above means that God or gods do not exist … it is possible that such occurred by design to create our current set of ethics!)
And an Oh By The Way!
The converstaion going on about behaviors being motivated by an afterlife … y’know, the Christian Heaven/Hell aint the only game in town and not all religions motivate behaviors with the threat of eternal damnation. The worst some religions threaten you with is that you might not get written into the book of life for the next year, or might get some bad pages written anyway (Orthodox Jews follow the Rules just because that was the deal made with God and a deal is a deal, not out of fear of Hell.) Or that you are stuck on the wheel for another go around. Or come back with a little bit more karma weighing you down. And so on. Don’t judge all religious motivations based on one faith’s conceptions.
—I am not saying that everyone has the same needs in these regards, and I am not saying that religion is the only way to meet these needs, just that these needs have existed and that religion has met these needs… And we still have spiritual needs, which some meet in relationships, some in therapy, and some still through organized religion.—
I think the question then is why they would be called “spiritual needs” if belief in spirits is now only one way of fulfilling them. Sounds more like you’re talking just about a sense of meaning in general, which we’ve already discussed to some extent.
—the Christian Heaven/Hell aint the only game in town and not all religions motivate behaviors with the threat of eternal damnation.—
Actually, my favorite religion is the Norse one where everyone goes to hell! Equal opportunity damnation. Except of course, if you manage to get yourself killed in battle (no wonder the Vikings eventually got wiped out…).