[QUOTE=Chain email]
Finally,
Mr. Obama, where were Muslims on Sept. 11th,
2001? If they weren’t flying planes into
the World Trade Center , the Pentagon or a field
in Pennsylvania killing nearly 3,000 people on
our own soil, they were rejoicing in the Middle
East . No one can dispute the pictures
shown from all parts of the Muslim world
celebrating on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and other
cable news networks that day. Strangely,
the very “moderate” Muslims who’s asses you bent
over backwards to kiss in Cairo , Egypt on June
4th were stone cold silent post 9-11. To
many Americans, their silence has meant approval
for the acts of that day.
[/QUOTE]
The stupid… It burrrrnnnsss…
They made some decent if overblown points, then decided to piss over the graves of the hundreds of Islam-believing Americans who died in the world trade centre.
So you are saying that religious people hate innately and use their religion as an excuse for an outlet of that hatred? And you somehow have access to their inner thoughts and motives? You read their minds?
Maybe I would suspect that too if I based my opinion from outside of any loving and open-minded and giving church. If all I read about were extreme fundamental groups who want to take over the government or think that the Statue of Liberty is an idol or that Muslims are evil, I would feel as you do. But you are hearing the extremes.
You don’t hear so much about the Christians who spend hours talking with their fearful friends and relatives trying to explain that the Muslimss aren’t trying to take over the government, debunking nonsense about Obama, or sending letters of support to Muslims in a nearby Mosque. I live in a Muslim neighborhood. On September 12, 2001, my husband and I chose to eat at a local Muslim restaurant. We did it because it was the kind and neighborly thing to do. I don’t know what part of that came from being a Christian and what came from being Southern and what came from being decent. I don’t compartmentalize my morals that way. If I can’t tell you my moral reasoning, you certainly can’t know it. And you certainly can’t know the reasoning behind billions of individuals you’ve never met.
Then stop hating so much. Work against injustices that you see, but don’t paint with such a broad brush.
About all Christians? That was what I was challenging. You are claiming that you know all Christians? Unless you do, you are not in a position to judge all Christians.
That was exactly the first thing that I thought of.
Kinda what I thought - although with the rise of presuppositionalism, the latter is tweaked to atheists believe in God, but are simply deceiving themselves (‘anger’ need not apply).
No. What I said was more often than not, religion is used for selfish reasons than any humanitarian cause.
Oh, and hate. It can and has definitely bred hate. The nature of religion is to divide the world into two boxes: black and white. Whatever goes into the black box is evil, whatever goes into the white box is good, and it’s largely determined by dogma what ends up in which box.
You can see how such simplifications can lead to bias. And it does, it has, and it will continue to do so.
I have heard, and I used to be someone trying to inject a modicum of reason into such thinking. Your story is nice, and good for you. But I’m sorry, religion is all about compartmentalizing morals. That’s its modus operandi.
Let’s not call a rose by any other name here. When you’re doing something kind and humane, that’s humanitarianism. All the Jesus-glitter you sprinkle on it doesn’t turn it the other way around. If you weren’t a believer, would you not have still patronized your local Muslim restaurant?
I hate religion because of the irreparable damage it’s done. I don’t hate the believers, themselves. That’s why I can still be loving and kind to my family and friends who are believers. I have understanding, and apply a fine brush or even a scalpel when I can.
Yes, I know every individual Christian out there. :rolleyes:
At some point, you have to draw a conclusion. I’ve put in my time with many different denominations of Christianity. I feel I’ve earned an opinion on the matter here, same as yourself.
You are probably joking but…back when I was very religious (I considered become a Catholic priest for Pete’s sake) I came to the same conclusion.
There is NO WAY many practicing Catholics would behave they way they do if they truely believed. The consequences are just too great.
However, since then I realized I overestimated the rationality of people. They are actually believers but their delusions are so great that they can violate God’s law and they feel they will be forgiven or, at the most base, they don’t think about such things. Many people out there are not good people but they think they are. Even today I am amazed at how some people behave but yet still think they are good people.
Of course I believe in God - I go to church every week and and pray and I am a good person … OH NOES I just hit another car with my car outside my home!! I will hurredly park my car in the garage and lie to the insurance company saying it isn’t my fault!
God will forgive me. I don’t even have to confess it honestly to the priest because he will tell me to tell the truth to the insurance company and I don’t want to do that. However, God will forgive me because I am a GOOD PERSON!
A true rational believer would not risk eternal hellfire by breaking several of the 10 commandments to escape relatively minor consequences to their actions…but they do.
This is also a bit I don’t understand about “true believers”. If I actually believed there were ETERNAL consequences to my earthly living, I sure as hell wouldn’t watch a football game, or go to the gym or ANYTHING that involve me not
a) Making sure I was on the right program and
b) Making sure I followed that program perfectly and
c) Never stop proselytizing, especially to my friends and family.
I mean we aren’t talking about missing a buffet or first song of a concert, this is FOREVER and EVER!
Oh, but I’ll go to (some random) church once a week and pray before I go to bed everynight and I’ll probably be good to go.
Blinking Duck, I don’t even believe in eternal damnation anymore. But if I did, I wouldn’t expect to be perfect. I wouldn’t know how to make “sure” I was on the “right program.” The best I could do was to follow what I believed was right according to the teachings of the Christ and other great teachers.
I don’t think forgiveness has much to do with going to church or bedtime prayers. That’s just my opinion.
How can you know the reasons that all other religious people do anything? You don’t know all religious people. You cannot know their reasoning. So logically, you cannot know what is in their minds “more often than not.”
An excellent example of simplification leading to bias is in your own statement:
There you are making such generalizations again. That is what happens when you over simplify. Can you not see that you are doing it yourself? This is the “broad brush” I was talking about. It is not “a very fine brush.”
As I explained earlier:
I don’t know if the thought would have entered my mind or not. It’s all integrated within me.
“Many denominations” doesn’t begin to approach “all Christians” or “all religions.” You have made statements about the motives of all Christians amd all religions. You have stated your conclusion as fact. You have a right to an opinion, but you don’t have a right to make up your own facts no matter how much you may believe it to be true. I do not intend to offend you personally, but your statement is illogical unless you know all Christians and all religious people and know their motives by being able to look within their minds.
You have a right to your own opinion, but you do not have a right to your own facts.
This hasn’t been addressed yet, so I’ll quote Jesus from Matthew 25 (NIV):
Stalin, and especially Hitler, were responsible for the most unspeakable horrors we can imagine, but you just can’t top the monstrous notion of eternal punishment. Real nice fellow, your Christ.
I personally don’t give a shit what one’s motives are, it’s the actions that matter. Whatever deity you want to ascribe your motivations to is your prerogative. But plenty – No, too much – damage has been done in the name of “Christ”, where I wouldn’t want to associate myself with Christians, even if I were still a heavy believer.
I also find how a lot of believers keep moving the goalposts to fit circumstances, or their personal idea of what God should be. You say you don’t believe in eternal damnation anymore. Well, the Bible certainly spells this one out pretty clearly, and Jesus himself was a big endorser.
If you would care to explain how religion doesn’t compartmentalize morals, feel free to expound.
I was brought up Catholic. VERY Catholic. Old-style Catholic.
I am an athiest now but I do get a kick out of how people are religious these days.
The God I grew up knowing was a very scary fellow. Yes, he ‘loved’ you but was extremely quick to judge and punish. He was also very smart and could not be fooled by people doing bad things and then asking for forgiveness. Yes, you could fool yourself and you could fool your priest…but you could not fool God and the punishment you would eventually experience would be terrible. You had to ACTIVELY make sure you were doing the right thing and you were responsible for your actions. If you sinned you had to go to great lengths to make restitution to who you wronged.
I also laugh at the idea of Angels being really, really nice creatures you would like to meet. Angels could be TERRIFYING. If you met an angel it was likely not going to be good for you.
Basically, God/angels didn’t fuck around. You had best…BEST be a good person or you were in deep dodo. Being a good person was HARD, not the default.
The God that people seem to worship that I see nowadays is some stupid namby-pamby limp wristed fool. If I did believe in God again, I would find this God that people worship nowadays to be…unrealistic.
Not really, since the facts support the former position but not the latter. It’s not like the believers are basing their claims on evidence. They believe in baseless, ridiculous things that require irrationality (or intelligence so low as to qualify as being disabled) for them to take seriously.
In other words; if some adult of normal intelligence genuinely believed in Santa Claus and his yearly gift giving wouldn’t you think he was deceiving himself?
Since you are quoting Jesus in Matthew 25, who was Jesus referring to when he said “he”? He was not talking about himself. He refers to “the King” and “the son of Man.” He is telling a parable – a made up story used to teach a principle. I wouldn’t take it literally about separating the sheep from the goats either. The general idea that I got from the story that Jesus told was that if we are unkind to strangers in our daily lives, it is the same as rejecting the divine. We have to see that which is sacred in each person. Not to do so is to separate ourselves from God. Jesus wants us to feed and cloth and care for each other. Not very much like Hitler or Stalin in my opinion.
You have been posting about their motives – selfishness for example. But you are unacquainted with most Christians personally and with most religious people personally. You do not know of their individual actions within their own lives either. Yet you judge all of them with the same adjectives and verbs. Do I need to relist the simplifications and generalizations that you’ve made? The only logical step is to quit judging all Christians and all religious people as if they are all alike. They are not.
I don’t believe in the literal interpretation of the Bible. And if I am correct, you don’t believe the Bible anymore anyway. Correct me if I have misunderstood you. You seem to be becoming even more illogical. You can’t correct my long held beliefs with your non-belief and then tell me what the Bible is clear on.
You are talking about Christian’s motives again – explaining “why” they do things. Maybe you just interpret what they do as “moving the goalposts.” I don’t know; I don’t have insight into why you make these claims. It is possible, cmyx, that their personal beliefs are actually different from yours. Or maybe they are not as you project them to be.
Some religious teachings may be dogmatic about specific morals, but not all of them are. And certainly not all believers buy into those beliefs. And their remains the possibility that what is immoral for one person is not immoral for another. Not all religions assign things to the “black and white” categories that you talked about. That is over-simplification. There are times when things are shades of gray. Your beliefs (non-beliefs?) may differ.
You are the one who has claimed that “…religion is all about compartmentalizing morals.” You are the one who should prove the truth of the statement. I do not have to prove the negative. (But I do know that churches certainly differ on this.)
Blinking Duck, pardon if this is intrusive, but why would you have wanted to be a priest for a God like the one you found to be so frightening? Do you think that many of your Catholic friends grew up with those thoughts about God? A loving God was the emphasis in our church. The other indoctrination surprises me.
Yes, it’s a parable, and you can interpret it any way you want, but for me it simply reads: don’t fuck with me (don’t reject the divine, as you’d put it), or you’ll suffer for eternity. And this was the reading of almost all Christians for about almost the whole time of the existence of Christianity, and has been applied to great effect (see BlinkingDuck’s post for a reference).
BTW, you’ve quoted me/Jesus/Matthew/whoever in a strange way. So as a note for future historians resurrecting this thread: Matthew 25:41 was not from the Gospel of EinsteinsHund.
Well, thank you for informing me of my own thoughts, and insulting my intelligence.
I consider myself religious (in that I believe in a God) – does that make me deluded and mean that my intelligence is “so low as to qualify me as being disabled”?
Selfish actions. And I’m judging all religions, Christianity is simply convenient for me, since I’m intimately familiar with it.
For example, if Jesus is the One, True Way, why are there some many flavors of Christianity? Why did you choose the flavor you did? One where eternal damnation conveniently doesn’t apply?
Really, I could go on and on, but this is what I meant about moving the goalposts. When religion is faced with empirical evidence that shows the contrary in accordance to scripture/faith, there’s a lot of, “Oh, ahem what we really meant was…”
Uh huh. :dubious:
The only thing I’ll grant is the non-zero possibility there may exist a God. But it’s not looking good.
You can spin Jesus’s words anyway you like if you don’t take the Bible literally for the most part. But what if you’re wrong about eternal damnation? I’m asking this from you, as a believer, how you reconcile such things. You said you don’t believe in it anymore, which means you once did. Either God told you it wasn’t so, or you’re reinterpreting your beliefs based on – what exactly?
I’ll address your other points later, I have to split…
EinsteinsHund:, I apologize for the poor job of quoting you. Here’s a do over:
In the following post, EinsteinsHund is quoting from Matthew 25 in which Jesus is speaking to a gathering of people and telling them a parable: The words were spoken by Jesus and posted by EinsteinsHund:
EinsteinsHund: Yes, it’s a parable, and you can interpret it any way you want, but for me it simply reads: don’t fuck with me (don’t reject the divine, as you’d put it), or you’ll suffer for eternity. And this was the reading of almost all Christians for about almost the whole time of the existence of Christianity, and has been applied to great effect (see BlinkingDuck’s post for a reference).
[/quote]
You believe that Jesus was speaking of himself in the third person? That makes no sense to me. You have the right to interpret it as you wish, but you cannot speak for almost all Christians for the last 2000 years. And it doesn’t fit it with his other teachings. Considering that Jesus spoke in Aramaic and the Gospel of St. Matthew was written in Hebrew a long time after the death of Jesus – and that Hebrew version has disappeared entirely – and all that is left is a Greek translation of the Hebrew translation of the orally spoken Aramaic…well, I’m just not going to buy into it as coming from the Christ. It seems to be that the very thing that Jesus wanted to avert was the suffering of people. That seems to me to be the premise of the parable.
How do you know that their actions are selfish unless you know what their motives are? Yet you said you didn’t care about their motives. Your statement is illogical. Perhaps if you gave an example of a selfish action without your knowing the motives of the person I would understand your point.
And you are intimately familiar with only a small part of Christianity.
Yes, I am aware that you are not just talking about Christians – but generalizing about all religions* and all religious people.
For example, if Jesus is the One, True Way, why are there some many flavors of Christianity? Why did you choose the flavor you did? One where eternal damnation conveniently doesn’t apply?
You assume much. I have never said that Jesus in “the One, True Way.” I don’t believe that he is. Each person has to find the path that is appropriate for her or him and that includes atheists. I haven’t chosen just one way, but learned from many teachers. I am a Christian and I have belonged to three Protestant denominations. I also attended the Catholic Church for a year or so in later years of college and the Baha’i services in the 1970’s.
I was brought up in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church by my former Methodist father and Southern Baptist Mother. The Cumberlands are a small and open-minded (generally) denomination that is not Calvinist. I studied Christian education for the first two years of college and then changed my major and transferred to Peabody (Vanderbilt) so that I could become a teacher.
I became an editorial assistant for the United Methodist Publishing House and a member of the Episcopal Church (now Christ Church Cathedral in Nashville.) In the 1980s I became a member of Unity Church. Just a few years ago I returned to a Cumberland Presbyterian Church. I wasn’t dissatisfied with any of the churches of which I was a member. One thing seemed to lead to another at the right time.
Let me know if I do that. I think I have been very consistent with the exception of needing to change EinsteinsHund’s quotation. I have not been faced with empirical evidence from your posts. But as you know as a former Christian, matters of faith aren’t for proving or disproving. As I said earlier, I respect science, but it has nothing to do YET with my religious faith. It is my personal belief that some day it will.
Decision theorists note the ubiquitousness of optimism bias:
I understand that depressives are the exception to this rule: according to one set they were the only group who accurately IDd a futile activity presented to them. (Cite: a lecture I once attended, sorry).
Cite? I’d say the concept of a mysterious and unknown Deity is conventional wisdom in many circles. Generally ecumenical believers say that their interpretation is right for them. Fundamentalist posturing is a 20th century development.
On the OP: I find it likely that many of the components of religion are selected for. Tribes with better morale and greater cohesion will survive longer – they would excel in warfare for example. Individuals with delusions about things that don’t greatly affect reproductive fitness won’t be penalized evolutionarily. Whether the world is perceived as 6000 years old or 6000 million years old isn’t something with great direct effects (proselytizing is another matter). A counter hypothesis might be that religion is like music, which is like audio cheesecake: they simply press the right buttons. But note the slim number of regretful or at least reluctant 2nd generation atheists: if theism was so intrinsically attractive they would be more prominent.
Action is evidence of motive. Motive is irrelevant without action.
If I have a reason (motive) for flying a plane into a building – killing hundreds, if not thousands – but don’t put it into action, it doesn’t quite matter much.
Yet, if I flew a plane into a building on the belief that my God has my back and is encouraging me to do so, with the added benefit of reward in some afterlife, then not only does the action reveal the motive, but also the selfishness behind it.
Follow?
To use a less extremest, and subtle example:
If my faith (reason/motive) tells me to vote against gay marriage, and I do, I am being the most selfish, bigoted douchbag on earth. The fact that the vote is anonymous doesn’t nullify the selfish, bigoted douchbaggery. Shit, some even crow about it.
And you are intimately familiar with a tiny cross section of the world’s religion, so what? This isn’t a contest of who’s had more religious experience than the other.
How far must I sample religion first hand to draw the conclusion that idealisms based on fraudulent dogma does more harm than good?
Good for you. I have no idea how this strengthens your argument, but at least you’ve kept yourself busy. I wonder which dogma you’ll flop over to next.
I understand that faith has no concern with science, but there are plenty of people trying to get creationism taught in public classrooms under the guise of science. You seem to be taking a personal stance in the defense of religion, but that’s just it… religion isn’t all about you. It’s the body of the church as a whole, and what is being spoon fed into your thoughts about who God is, and how you should respond to that as you live your life.
Ultimately who’s really in control when confronted with a morally gray choice? You? Your God? Or will you just do what you (really) want, tricking yourself that all your years of “faith-training” to tune into the “voice of God” is really His will?
I didn’t intend to *speak *for all Christians (how could I?), I was merely stating the obvious fact that Bible passages like that have been traditionally interpreted to imply a judging God, letting the sinners suffer for eternity. Of course you’re free to interpret it as you like, but what is your moral standard in doing so? God (through personal revelation, because as you stated yourself, you can’t trust the writings which are traditionally attributed to him), or your own moral compass, formed by your upbringing, education and social circumstances?
Action is not necessarily evidence of motive. There has to be more. Many people might vote for a conservative candidate without being against gay rights. Unless they explain or demonstrate motives, we have no way of knowing. I did not support Hillary Clinton as a Presidential candidate. That did not mean that I am against feminism. Logically, we can’t make assumptions about other people’s motives and know that we are accurate.
Someone flew a plane into the Empire State Building. Should we assume that it was a terrorist attack motivated by religious zeal? Not on July 28, 1945. The 40s.
You are continuing to bring motives into the discussion as if you can “know” other people’s motives without knowing the person or without their revealing their motives themselves. The motives of the 9-11 terrorists were made clear by other extremists and by records, claims, and intelligence. It wasn’t the action itself. We didn’t even know that the country was under attack until the second plane hit the 2nd tower.
Excuse me, cmyk. Did I offend you by answering your question about my religious background? This one:
And by the way, I don’t speak for any of those denominations about “eternal damnation.” Don’t draw conclusioins about other members beliefs from my beliefs on anything. We are all different even within each denomination. As for your “So what?” about my knowing only a tiny cross section, that means I can’t be an authority on all Christians or all religions or all Cumberland Presbyterians or all family members or all of the people who live in my house. I am not holding you to a standard to which I do not hold myself.
Until you know every religious person on a personal basis and each has shared his experiences with you and you know that person as well as you know yourself. Only then could you possibly have any beginning insight into whether or not any person’s individual “dogma” is mistaken. But you have to have some understanding of logic first. I don’t even mean a course in college, but just basic logical thinking.
Again, I was simply answering your question. It doesn’t speak to my “argument” at all. My “dogma” hasn’t flopped. It has developed. I hope that I will continue to grow in my thinking and openness to other faiths and non-believers.
Religion is very much about me. I take it personally and believe that I am responsible for doing my part in following the teachings. That doesn’t mean that I claim that I am any better than a non-believer. The most moral person that I have known is a non-believer. But I know so many very kind and good Christians. One of them has tried hard to heal the damage that was done to me by my own mother – also a Christian.
What is being spoon fed is done by individuals who organize as groups to get more done. But they are not the majority of Christians. They are just very vocal and particularly powerful in some states that have a lot of influence on textbooks. Right now it is against the law to teach Creationism in science classrooms in public schools in the United States. If this court ruling has been changed recently, I would like to know it and would like a cite so that I can read more about it. Of course I realize that certain schools break the rules. And what is that other theory that was just Creationism in disguise? Isn’t it against the law also? (I’ve been out of the classroom for a long time.)
No one has spoon fed me on religion since I was seventeen and bought a book called something like The World’s Great Religions. I found out decades later that the same book had quite an influence on my father too.
I don’t think I should listen to my minister in particular. The friend that I mentioned earlier gives good counsel. She’s very down to earth and reasonable and wise. I had counseling therapy for a long, long time. That gave me some of the basics for thinking through things and examining my priorities. I do believe that the Bible is a very good guide for faith and practice. I’ve learned from personal spiritual experience some things I believe that I can count on. I learn from nature and time and memories and contemplation and meditation and playfulness and support. I know who I am and usually I think I know what I’m supposed to do. I just don’t always have the patience, courage or will power to do it.
I don’t think that it’s “the voice of God” that I hear. And I don’t know that I’ve ever had “faith training” as such – unless all of my upbringing was a kind of faith training. My experiences – religious and otherwise – have made me feel that I can trust myself to work things out with guidance if I need it.
There seems to be this circle of life and things keep falling into place.