Intelligence and religion...

[jmullaney]

*Originally posted by Ptahlis *
Why aren’t you out there wandering about in poverty?

Because I neither fear God nor care about men. I’m just “haunted” for lack of a better word.

Luke 18:

1 Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.
2 He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men.
3 And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, Grant me justice against my adversary.' 4 "For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, Even though I don’t fear God or care about men,
5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually wear me out with her coming!’”
6 And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says.
7 And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off?
8 I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”

Do you think those who are holy will not get justice simply because I’m a bad person?

[VileOrb]

Why can’t I care for people and money both? I use about a third of my money (after taxes) to do nice things for people.

I have sort of figured out how to benefit from jmullaney’s posts. He writes a lot of really bizarre or nonsensical stuff that I can just ignore, but occasionally he asks a good question. He never understands my answer, but at least he asks the occasional good question. I value good questions.

I wouldn’t’ve responded to the love of money comment (that qualifying for nonsensical in my book) except that I wanted to continue the conversation about what motivates an atheist to act morally. That is a dialogue I would like to see more of.

[SpinneZiege]

*Originally posted by MetropoChris *
No one is told as a child there is no God only to later “see the light” as they age. **

My parents are atheists. They agreed that if one of them finds religion, it is grounds for divorce. Figures I’m unitarian now.

[MEBuckner]

jmullaney, I’m curious–you seem to have basically concluded that you (along with just about everyone else) are ethical pond scum because you won’t give up all your worldly goods and attachments. You seem rather self-tortured at times by your refusal and/or inability to do this. Do you really just lead a life of total selfishness, or do you try to perform lesser acts of helpfulness towards your fellow man–helping little old ladies cross the street, donating to charity, or what you will?

[VileOrb]

Oh, I forgot to say that the first 2/3rds of my money insures that I don’t become a burden on anyone, also a nice thing to do for those around me. And I pay taxes without complaint, some of which go toward services that I use and some of which go to helping others.

Money is just a way to store value. It seems to me that if everyone lived by jmullaney’s plan we’d soon all die of starvation and exposure. Supposedly we’d all go to heaven and everything would be wonderful. I suppose if the population got below a certain point the rest could survive by farming and hunting trusting God to protect them from disease, natural disasters, and immoral people.

[Ptahlis]

*Originally posted by jmullaney *
**

*Originally posted by Ptahlis *
Why aren’t you out there wandering about in poverty?

Because I neither fear God nor care about men. I’m just “haunted” for lack of a better word.

…snip…

Do you think those who are holy will not get justice simply because I’m a bad person? **

Truthfully? I long ago stopped believing you were at all sincere with this whole poverty argument. It has been posted in multiple threads, more than adequately refuted for various reasons by other posters (chiefly Gaudere), and yet you still insist upon it. I don’t even believe that you believe it. Half your posts sound like you are trying to convince yourself. I long ago stopped considering replying to that particular argument, but when you told VileOrb,

**You can’t be moral and ethical and participate in a system which is morally and ethically flawed, much as you wish to justify yourself in front of others who can’t see the light.

**

I felt compelled to respond by the blatant hypocrisy of it, considering that you are attempting to undercut his moral code with one so patently ridiculous that its chief proponent, namely you, doesn’t bother to follow beyond the point of lip service.

[jmullaney]

*Originally posted by thinksnow *
One should, whether its the sky or their faith/belief, be willing to investigate the options. If they do and then find them to be lacking, they may ligitimately say they have made an effort. The question, I suppose, is at what point should they cease investigation. I put forward that you would argue that they should continue until they reach the conclusions regarding faith/belief that you hold, and not until then. Myself, I think that as long as you have reached a conclusion that feels right and rings true, you are probably okay.

I genuinely feel people in general have a hard time judging what is right from what is wrong. That’s problem #1. Problem 2 is even if you think you know, it is difficult to be sure. 3rd: It is, in some ways easier to live wrong that right according to some people’s dispositions. Harder perhaps in other ways.

It is a heck of a mess.

At this point, I’d like to mention that I’ve not heard of the “Free Spirits” before, and have to assume it is an offshoot of catholicism?

Basically. They are to some extent the “anarchist faction” if you will. I have actually found a decent site which explains further here. The movement began with Francis of Assisi, with whom you might be familiar.

Many others before him had called for a return to the life of the historical Jesus and his companions, but no one before St. Francis had preached that life, both the life of Christ and the Christ-like life, as one of intense abiding joy. … To St. Francis poverty was the condition of interior perfection. It was the pure, transparent glass, unclouded by the distractions of possession, through which the soul can see God, not darkly, but face to face.
Had St. Francis been a philosopher or preacher, and simply taught the virtues of a life made new, he would have been only another out of so many, and his words would have been subject to dispute, modification, or denial. …
It would seem to have been the sheerest accident that the Church accepted him and the pope permitted the foundation of his order. …
The Church permitted the establishment of the Franciscan order because it met an immediate need. Heretical movements were springing up everywhere at the end of the twelfth century; …
Central to the evangelism of St. Francis was his notion of poverty as a virtue. … To the hermit in the desert the point of poverty was that it was painful. To St. Francis it was a joyful way to live.
… The powers of State and Church were self-evidently sunk in opulence and uxury and always greedy for more — which could of course come only from the labor of the poor. Although the Christianity of St. Francis might be called immediate Christianity, Christianity without eschatology, without apocalypse, it did in fact internalize the eschatology of the Gospels. …
When he founded his order St. Francis had envisaged a little band of utterly devoted comrades, a group small enough for perfect communion, agreement of principle, and identity of aim.
There were only twelve brothers when Pope Innocent III approved the order and its first rule in 1209. Ten years later it had spread all over Europe and to the Holy Land. … But the original gospel of St. Francis was incompatible with delegated authority and long before the death of the founder, powerful factions had begun to advocate change in the original principles. The Order of Friars Minor was repeating the history of Christianity itself. …
St. Francis was aware of what had happened and as he was dying he wrote a testament insisting on the preservation of the literal principles of the original rule and forbidding any appeal to the pope to change them. … He was no sooner dead than the order did appeal to the pope and his testament was set aside and poverty was defined in purely symbolic, legalistic terms. The order was permitted to use property through trustees appointed by the pope. Then began a struggle which would last for two generations within the order, and then be continued outside of it, and finally outside of the Church, to restore the original life of mystical poverty. …
The faction that wished to restore obedience to St. Francis’s original rule and testament were known as Zealots or Spirituals. …
Before St. Francis, and in the established Church after him, the historical Jesus played little role in medieval religion. Christ was a ritualized figure only briefly human in the crib at Christmas and on the cross on Good Friday. Spiritual Franciscanism, like all the movements which would descend from it, was intensely evangelical and it was made possible by the growth of literacy, specifically through the reading of the Bible and devotional literature in the vernacular. Poverty was the central issue in the struggle with the order and the papacy. … When the papacy condemned first the doctrine that Christ and the apostles lived in absolute poverty, then that which said poverty was essential to the Franciscan rule, and then the Spirituals as such, the pope became Antichrist.
… If the use but not the ownership of property was permitted, what about money? What about the bag of Judas? The disputants struck close to the meaning of money, property as such in its pure form. Again, if property is evil, whoever holds property and permits its use is to that extent un-Christian. The users are parasitic and guilty of complicity. Therefore a truly Christian society would abolish property altogether. By standing against the creation of a religious order devoted to total poverty and self-sacrifice, evangelism, the growing popularity of mysticism, and the laity’s demand for community life devoted to such objectives, the Church had locked itself into an impasse.

The movement fades from the pages of history about 200 years later, but the spirit behind it comes back from time to time. There are various sub-branches regarding, basically, whether chastity is important or not.

just because one doesn’t believe in God doesn’t mean they don’t lead a wholesome and morally acceptable life.

Oh sure. I knew several “spirits” who’d given up the whole lot and declared themselves satan worshippers. But, a rose by anyother name, right?

I love to be able to eat and have a roof above my head. To do so requires I pay for these things.

Christ did teach that life was more than these things.

Yeah, good thing the Church never uses any of that stuff.

Yeah, well, I ain’t exactly the choir myself, but I hear you.

*Originally posted by MEBuckner *
Do you really just lead a life of total selfishness, or do you try to perform lesser acts of helpfulness towards your fellow man–helping little old ladies cross the street, donating to charity, or what you will?

I try to give to those who ask and are in need. I do a lousy job.

*Originally posted by VileOrb *
Money is just a way to store value. It seems to me that if everyone lived by jmullaney’s plan we’d soon all die of starvation and exposure. Supposedly we’d all go to heaven and everything would be wonderful.

Ever heard the one about the prodigal son? If you serve God, then God will reward you. None of this is my idea!

From the site above:

One of the commonest clichés of American politicians and businessmen is “I just model my life on the Sermon on the Mount,” something they obviously have never read. The Sermon on the Mount and the original gospel of St. Francis represent an etherealized and internalized apocalypticism, an eschatological ethic. It has been called an impossibilist ethic, and so it is in the sense that no social order since the invention of organized religion and politics could stand if it were put into practice.

Plenty of people agree with you too, so I promise not to call this idea the Christianity is doomed “Vile Orb’s idea” Okay? And who knows anyway?

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When we pretend that we’re dead, they can rewrote what we said, when we pretend that we’re dead – L7