Is Faith in God a neurological function?

Great Debates
101

Can I clarify a few things?

When I said, per this experiment, to leave your friends and family, I do not mean you necessarily have to do this. It is absolutely valid to have them also sell all that the have and give away all their money to the poor, and you can all run the experiment together.

Now, when you say you love your “life,” I don’t know whether you mean you love being alive, or whether you love your lifestyle. But I don’t think, until you have tried this lifestyle, whether you really want to make a conclusion that it is any worse than the one you already have.

The empiricle evidence, such as it is, will be there is an underlying order to the universe which can not easily be explained away. Now I don’t know what you would want to call this order, although you might conclude that it seems to be loving, for lack of a better word. That does not proof that there is a God, per se. And I don’t know about God finding you – if there is one he knows where you are already. You may find “God” or whatever you want to call it, but when you end the experiment you will most certaintly lose him again.

102

I would like to state for the record that Lib and i have a difference of opinion in this area.

“I charge you to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ”

1st Timothy, chapter 6, verse 14, regarding keeping the commandment from Jesus regarding eternal life.

103

Arnold, I am aware that witnessing is within the terms of service for Great Debates, and in discussing my experience of God on religion threads, there is sometimes no substitute for offering what happened in my life as evidence of a point I need to make in the discussion. However:

I share with the wife of my former foster son and now good friend a tendency to develop gassiness from a wide list of foods other than the obvious. Two of their three young children also have this problem.

Owing to this, farting is socially acceptable in their home, involuntarily or in preference to abdominal pain.

I still avoid unnecessarily farting while eating dinner or in a serious conversation with them.

I think you have missed the point that Libertarian and I were making in regard to the Christian’s relationship to God (and I think this is quite valid as regards devout Jews and Muslims as well, and would welcome confirmation from practitioners of those faiths). It would be this: having accepted God – not merely the fact of His existence but His call to enter into a loving Creator-creature relationship with you – you then make Him the focus of your life, removing from that focal point all those other things which had until then been of prime importance to you, and trusting in Him for your needs and wants and for the care of your loved ones, etc. This is, however, not to say two things: (1) You are not relieved of your own responsibility to provide for yourself and your loved ones, expecting Him to r’ar back and pass a miracle for your benefit while you goof off – that is not a part of what being a follower of Him is all about; (2) It is not necessary, and IMHO not advisable, that you do the whole-hog number of some conservative Christians, listening only to Christian music, watching only Christian TV, sending your children to Christian schools, reading only Christian books and magazines, making your church the center of your social life, etc. It is making reference to your role as His follower in living out your day-to-day life, acting always in the way He wants you to act. I think Lib. and I have demonstrated that this does not require throwing away your reasoning ability, your wit, and so on.

And, as He promised and has been my experience at least, the things you were focused on and never could get enough of become “gravy” and satisfy you in ways that you could not have imagined before your commitment to Him.

Was that a loud enough fart? :smiley:

104

I hate it when work begins to interfear with what’s really important in life :wink: … I feel like I’ve missed so much… Forgive me as I try to get back up to speed.

So what you are saying, Lib, is that if I am overcome with a burning desire to find God, I must abandon my job, my material posessions, my family and go live in a cave in the side of a mountain in order to seek Him out.

Well, what about the responsibility I have to my wife and kids? Don’t they deserve my moral/financial support? After all, they did not choose to make this kind of journey with me and I certainly cannot make them. Of course, if they truelly love me they will want me to do something I feel I must but have I the right to put them at perill simply to fullfill my own whims? Don’t I have an obligation to them? Would God want me to forsake them simply for his own ends?

105

I think I wasn’t clear enough, Libertarian. Are you suggesting that to find God I need to murder my loved ones and then commit suicide? I’m willing to bet that’s not your suggested course of action.

106

Quicksilver–I see that God motivated me to answer your question before it was posted, as an answer to Arnold! :slight_smile:

Of course, I suspect you won’t believe this…

107

That is true – you certaintly should care for your family, as long as they are keepers of Christ’s commandments.

"While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him.
Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.”
He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?”
Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers.
For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

108

Forgive my last post, I didn’t see the posts on page 3.

To respond to some of the questions:

When I saw “what I value most is my life”, I mean “what I value most is being alive and the fact that my loved ones are alive.”

Polycarp says [qutoe]having accepted God – not merely the fact of His existence but His call to enter into a loving Creator-creature relationship with you – you then make Him the focus of your life, removing from that focal point all those other things which had until then been of prime importance to you, and trusting in Him for your needs and wants and for the care of your loved ones, etc.
[/quote]

All well and good, but before I accept god, I am trying to find out the proper method for getting empirical evidence of its existence.

So in my case, what does “giving up what I value most” mean? I’m still not quite sure.

109

Arnold – OK, thank you for clarifying. I did not mean to besmirch you but it does help to work a step ahead under this form of communication.

Again, nothing inherent to this experiment would kill you, or get your family killed.

And, you don’t have to give up what you value most. Libertarian, because of his need to justify his own beliefs, thinks that the only reason Jesus told the man to give up his riches in the Bible is because he loved his riches, and thus, having riches is ok and long as you don’t “love” them.

My apologies if he is confusing things for you beyond their need! You simply need to give up your riches. A rich man can not enter heaven.

110

oops. I mean it is not as simple as signing over all you have to someone else, and then couch surfing for 6-8 weeks with people who owe you favors, for example! You have to go and find the Kingdom also – I didn’t mean to leave that part out. That is a very important part of having faith.

111

Arnold

You can’t ask me that, Arnold. You and He alone know that.

JMullaney

Izzat right?

[/quote]
When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, “Who then can be saved?”

Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

— Matthew 19:22-26

[/quote]

112

“All these [commandments] I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”

Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.

— Matthew 19:20-22
[/quote]

But y’know, you never know what’s around the corner. :wink: **
[/QUOTE]

True. But that Man never kept all the comandments in the first place :wink:

Two things here. The first is that Jesus has left out the first commandments, one would wonder what jesus could say if the man actualy followed the rest. Of course wheter or not such a thing is possible with out following jesus is debatable…

Second, from the rest of the verses he can’t take his family along… not if they don’t want to. If he is forced to choose he must choose for this God he does not know at all. Indeed while it might make a valid experiment, it is along the same lines of drinking mercury to see if the religious taoists were correct in it giving you imortal life.

113

:confused:
I fail to see how you come to that conclusion. How can you equate this with suicide? Do you think Jesus just wants us all dead??

If worse comes to worst, in 8 weeks you buy back into the system and at least you’ll have lived a little before you die.

BTW, I don’t think you can really leave your wife or husband to follow Jesus. He mentions you can leave son, daughter, mother, father, brother, and sister, but he is mum on the spouse issue. So if you have married outside of the faith, and can’t convince your husband or wife to come along, you are basically SOL. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

114

Bill Murray: “Remember the time you tried to drill that hole in your head?”

Harold Ramis: “That would have worked if you hadn’t stopped me.”
This whole “experiment” is like the one alluded to in those classic lines. Ramis represents the “Give it all up and seek Jesus” group. The potential results are worth the risk involved. The “What are you talking about? That’s totally unreasonable!” crowd is like Bill Murray, believing that the likelihood of success is small and not worth the enormous risk involved.

I won’t say which I find more reasonable other than to note that Bill Murray did get to hook up with Sigourney Weaver in the end. :slight_smile:

115

I promised Gaudere I’d bite my tongue so I’m not going to say anything regarding this sexist remark.

Oops. I mean, that remark isn’t sexist at all, except it seems to imply all women are whores.

Oh heck. Sorry, Gaudere, I’m trying, really I am!

Anyway, there are about as many woman who are Christians as there are men – if not more. Not to mention the risks of getting seduced by lonely housewives whose husbands are at work all day. I mean, no one is perfect!

All women aren’t as shallow as you might believe, anyway. But, find out for yourself.