:rolleyes: “Man” made up all of it. They didn’t add “chatter” to dogma handed out by black monoliths.
You dismissed the factor of emotional and ego gratification.
It’s easy to explain why people become religious when you study the existing records of human history.
It’s all about emotional gratification, acceptance, and the drive to kill anyone that does not belong in a perceived group.
Being religious is not a matter of intelligence. It’s a matter of emotional gratification in witnessing others perish to justify one’s self worthy or privileged for life.
Why so negative? It’s been almost a couple weeks since the last time we had a thread where atheists could explain how superior they are to the rest of humanity.
Seems to me that would be a lifetime journey for every individual and differing methods as they present themselves. You can’t just take what someone else says in a book or sermon without bringing your own serious thoughts to consider the truth of it.
When you are reading a book you will come across something that makes you say “Aha! That is so true!” You stop to highlight it. Why? Because something in you already knows that it is right for you. (Maybe not for everyone, but for you.)
And you believe based on your personal experiences. Each of our brains is different. We have different sensory experiences. I don’t ask an agnostic or atheist to base her beliefs on my experiences. Why should she expect me to base my beliefs on her experiences? That is illogical.
I was brought up on Cumberland Presbyterian doctrine (not Calvinist), became an Episcopalian, then a member of Unity (which is very open to many faiths), and then returned to the Cumberland church. I was contend really in all of them. I had no problems with any of the three. I’m not attending now because of health problems. As long as I find openness in a church, I don’t get to wrapped up in doctrine. But that is speaking for myself.
It is his claim and you know as well as I do that it is outrageous to make claims about “all.” If he doesn’t want to back up his claim, he may change it or leave my challenge for a cite unanswered. I am not a Biblical literalist and I’m sure there are many claims that have been scientifically disproven. But that was not was Der Trihs said. It is his claim and his burden.
Perish? I don’t think anyone’s going to “perish” because of their religious beliefs except in wars which I do not support. There is a small group of very mean-spirited people who probably do fit your description in Christianity. They are not following the central teachings presented in the New Testament. In other relgious groups, there too it is only the extremeists.
What is your point with the rolly eyes? Did I say that the dogma came from black monoliths? Don’t make up my arguments so that you can have something to shoot down.
I’m an atheist. At times I waffle between the idea that there is no possible way that any God could exist (strong atheism) and the idea that I simply have no reason to believe God exists and that there are some good reasons to think that God probably doesn’t (agnostic atheism).
That said, I do find some theistic arguments interesting and rational if you accept their premises. The Kalam, for instance, is a valid argument. If you accept it’s premises it’s a good argument.
There are a few other arguments out there that I could see the appeal to - they aren’t outright absurd - such as the argument from the calendar (the fact that our calendar is BC/AD = God exists!), which is absurd and intellectually repugnant.
There is also the almost Socratic position of agnostic theism - where the believer doesn’t really have any rational epistemic justification for belief, but believes so anyway - maybe for pragmatic reasons or because of an experience that is personally convincing for them.
I can’t fault those Socratic theists. They may not be basing their beliefs on completely rational reasons, but I certainly do not live my entire life through the lenses of rationality either - so as long as their beliefs aren’t harming anyone (themselves included), I could give a fig.
With regard to the OP, I find it presumptuous to assume that you know the minds of theists to the extent that you feel that they would have to know that their conception of God is laughably absurd. As much as I might deplore some of William Lane Craig’s tactics, I think he has a point in his article in the Cambridge book on Atheism when he says something to the effect that skeptics are helping theists refine their conception of God.
I don’t happen to agree with him in the idea that all the skeptical challenges have been answered, mind you, but I do agree that the more informed theists change their viewpoints on God’s characteristics based on potential problems with conventional definitions. Shoot, I think this is how the ‘God of the Philosophers’ came about. Christian theologians, many of whom were very intelligent, sought to combine their religion with philosophical thought. Some are more successful than others at this.
I find it hard to believe that intelligent believers simply throw up their hands in the face of some incoherency and say ‘eh, even though it’s impossible, I’ll believe anyway’. Certainly some might, but the majority? I don’t think so - if that were the case, I don’t see why there would be such a plethora of theological options with regard to “God” - Molinism being the first thing to come to mind with regard to changing theological views in the face of omnimaximally difficulties.
In less words, I do not think that religious believers (most of them anyway) are deceiving themselves. I think they believe what they believe, truly and honestly, and are wrong.
In the same way, I used to believe that the schooled people who lived during Columbus’s time thought the world was flat. I wasn’t deceiving myself - I was simply wrong.
But most religious people worship the divine as their superior. Surely the belief that your inferior is not counterbalanced by the ego-gratification of having friends in high places.
Good post
I think you’re projecting. Atheists can be just as stupid as theists. But theists have to do at least one stupid thing, believe in religious claims with no evidence.
An atheist can still eat a ton of transfats or smoke two packs a day. Both of those things are stupid. But in order to be a theist there is a stupidity entry fee.
So,
Atheism: Provides no information about how stupid the person is.
Theism: Provides clear evidence that the person has done at least one stupid thing.
No one is saying that atheists can’t do stupid things. But simply that they haven’t done one particular stupid thing.
And before you go off about how you have evidence, there was a just a thread about that, and you failed utterly to bring it. So let’s not pretend that you have any evidence, okay?
When you said that man “added chatter to it”, you were obviously strongly implying that it wasn’t humans that started it.
That’s a rather noble sounding way of saying that the more intellectual believers have been forced to retreat again and again, turning “God” into something ever-vaguer and more detached from anything real. Creating a version of “God” that is basically just a rhetorical device to use in arguments; into something that is more and more nothing but something designed to fit into the constantly shrinking area where science can’t show they are wrong.
I would agree that this is one way that such efforts can appear to look. I would also say that it could very well turn out that such intellectual believers end up defining their ‘God’ out of existence.
I do not think this is the believer’s intent - I think some of them make a valiant effort at trying to rationally appraise the characteristics of their deity. I think they are genuinely trying to figure out what their God is.
I think that when you compare the God of someone like Plantinga and the God of the ancient commoner (say Zeus, for example), Plantinga’s God is vastly more rational and intellectual. A lot of careful thought has gone into it. Ultimately I think you and I would agree in saying that Plantinga’s God is still not compelling enough to believe, but I can certainly see how they can be rationally appealing if you accept a certain set of premises. I can’t just write Plantinga off as engaging in self deceit because he happens to like the hopefulness and purpose such a deity might provide.
Many pretty much have, or at least into irrelevance; such as the ones who say that God never intervenes in the world and is so beyond our understanding that we can’t say anything meaningful about him. Well, if we can’t understand him in any way and he never does anything, that renders talking about him rather pointless.
Yes, that reminds me of the non cognitive argument for atheism.
I do have sympathies for a view similar to that (the unknown god), with the difference being an attempt to try to figure out an “experience” of God. I’m not sure how meaningful that actually is, but I’m not ready at this point to write it off as complete nonsense, since I haven’t delved too deeply into that pool.
I guess this is where my agnosticism grips me - if things are as I perceive them to be, and my reasoning is solid, then God doesn’t exist. The problem with this statement is that I have doubts with regard to my reason and my perceptions being correct. I suspect that intellectual Theists would make a similar statement with regard to their certainty.
The systematic genocide and extermination of the indigenous people in the American continent by Christians, as just one of the multitude of similar examples in the past 2,000 years, was an intentional goal of Christianity, and an explicit reason for justifying the superiority of the Christian religion against everyone and everything else.
Slavery was blessed by the Catholic Church for 1,500 years. The horror that even one person had to go through because of this, cannot be brushed aside by the constant denial of the religious to acknowledge the results of their own behavior dictated by their beliefs.
Religion has a track record and it’s not changing because some random person chooses to ignore reality and self-gratify themselves with the idea of being accepted by a social group during a sunny Sunday morning church service.
It was not an intentional goal of Christianity. What teachings did the Christ have about how to treat our fellow man? Just the opposite of the way many American Indians were treated by some Christians in our country. And they were also mistreated by Deists and atheists more than likely. There were also many who chose to intermarry with them or trade with them or live in peace with them. At one time the head of my particular denomination was an American Indian. He and his wife have been my friends since I was seventeen.
I don’t know much about the history of the Catholic Church. Someone else will have to address this. But just as slavery was “blessed” in this country – North and South – it wasn’t because people were Christian. It was in spite of their being Christian. Parts of the Old Testament may have appeared to condone slavery, but the Christ did not.
Religions track record has some good and some bad. I have no way of knowing what good can come from any random person. He may go to church for social reasons and find that he can be useful to others by making burial cloths for an American Indian project in his Sunday School class. That’s what happened to me when I returned to the denomination of my origin at the request of old college friends. That is just an example of one project. If you image people just sitting in a friendly church service and doing nothing else, you are limited in your thinking. Pine Ridge, SD is one of our greatest concerns. And my church is not an exception to the rule. We are a 200 year old small denomination.
Your accusation about attending church for social reasons reminds me of the writings of Malcolm Boyd. I’ve thought about the beginning lines to his prayer often:
We know we aren’t perfect, but when enjoying the company of others is considered a “negative,” that’s carrying it a little far.
The Old and New Testament both condone slavery, and Christianity can and has been easily used to support and promote slavery. And I think it’s fair to blame the fact that these people followed a book created by barbarians for them acting like barbarians. Successfully behaving morally first requires that you reject or ignore the Bible, for the same reason it requires rejecting Mein Kampf.
Mostly, overwhelmingly bad. “Well, some good was done” isn’t a justification since that can be said of pretty much any large scale movement or action. The Nazis and Stalin no doubt killed a fair number of evil people along with the good, they did things that benefited people; that doesn’t justify them.
It is easy to throw silly claims out there without examples. You didn’t answer an earlier request for a a cite; perhaps you will provide a cite for the following:
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What teachings of the Christ condone slavery? Please be specific.
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Why is the Sermon on the Mount not considered moral teachings in your mind? What is loving your fellowman not considered moral? Why is visiting the sick and the imprisoned not considered moral?
I doubt that you know enough personally about what most Christians do to pass judgment on whether they are generally good or more like the Nazis or Hitler. So many of the Jews have credited Christians with being the most powerful force behind their liberation from the Holocaust.
Why do you continue to exaggerate to try to make a point? Do you really think that the teachings of the Christ compare with the practices of Stalin and the writings of Hitler? If so, please draw some specific parallels. Just curious: Can you do this without looking up information of anti-Christian resources on the internet or in books? Do you know it for yourself?
The words that you spew are venomous and I wonder if you do it without questioning yourself anymore. When is the last time that a professed Christian did something mean and horrible to you personally? What would be your moral response to that person?
Case in point:
Islam and the religious Right in the US.
The arrogance, ignorance and hate I get from chain emails from those family members still in my life that propagate this bullshit, all coming their puny, religiously fueled perspectives is quite alarming and, frankly, makes me want to puke.
Here’s an example of just one out of hundreds of emails I receive a year from friends and family members on the religious right. I received this just a month ago:
Religion is used as an excuse for hate more often than a ground of reason and common sense. It’s a sad, pathetic legacy that has festered in world history for so long, everything from world politics to individual close-mindedness and dumbassery is virtually carbonated with it.
To separate the wheat from the chaff has grown tiresome and pointless.
I feel I certainly know enough. And whether how true this is, as far as Jews crediting Christians for liberation from the Holocaust, I think basic humanitarian instincts were just as effective, if not more so, than having to feel some sort of obligation because Americans were employing the WWJD method.
Terrorism, Islam extremists, Palestine, and the US (et al) are in the middle of a millennia(s) long holy war, on top of greed for land and oil. It’s pathetic, tragic, and oh-so-status-quo. Actions based on made up idealism and self-deceit is the recipe for human suffering and death tallied in the millions (billions?). Isolated pockets of goodwill does not nullify it one iota.
Isn’t the “religious people are only deceiving themselves” just the flip side of “atheists are only people who are pissed off at God”?
Seriously, we probably have this topic about once a month.
From what I’ve experienced, there are:
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Those who truly believe. They’re not deceiving themselves, because they really think God is a reality.
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Those who are in doubt about the whole thing but chalk it up to being deceived by “the enemy”.
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those who are truly self-deceiving themselves, because the alternative scares them, or they haven’t the courage to admit to themselves it doesn’t add up for them.
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those who are faking it, knowing full-well they’re living a sham (for whatever reason).
All categories are susceptible to using their flavor of religion to justify their biases.