[QUOTE=phouka]
It (in my opinion) simply isn’t possible to reconcile the miseries we, God’s creation, suffer with a God who created our world the way it is and loves us through it all. I think that’s the point Lobdell must have come to, and I think that is why he lost his faith.
[/QUOTE]
Sometimes faith doesn’t have to be completely lost. Sometimes it’s just misplaced and given to the wrong God, organization, preacher, or book. There are other religions, you know?
[QUOTE=Reply]
Sometimes faith doesn’t have to be completely lost. Sometimes it’s just misplaced and given to the wrong God, organization, preacher, or book. There are other religions, you know?
[/QUOTE]
So faith is independent of the entity believed in? Can you define faith for me?
[QUOTE=Reply]
God does not necessarily break observed natural law. God may just have been poorly defended by people who do not take natural law into account when arguing his case.
Absent reason to believe, the “sensible default case” should be “I don’t know.” If I gave you a plain old cardboard box and asked you who made it, what would you say?
Before answering, you could look at the box for identifying traits, like manufacturer’s logos. You could examine the physical makeup of the box, identifying materials used, construction methods used, etc. You could read industry books. You could ask a box expert. You could ask the International Cardboard Association. You could hypothesize. You could just plain guess. But whatever the case, the box is there. Why would you assume it has no maker?
[/QUOTE]
“I don’t know who made the box, but I certainly don’t see any reason to think it’s something that is everywhere undetectably, can make the water of inland seas defy gravity, can cause loaves and fishes to magically replicate (in contradiction to the conservation of matter), can cause a dead dude with holes poked in him not to spurt blood everywhere (in defiance of the natural course of pressurized liquids in peirced containers…), etcetera, etcetera, etcetera…”
The natural answer to ignorance is not to pick the most unlikely option. I know of no posited god that isn’t extremely unlikely from a purely pragmatic, observed-world standpoint (if for no other reason than it’s mystically undetectable). Since no god is plausible as described, atheism is the default choice, absent evidence to the contrary.
(And if your god doesn’t break the laws of physics, then he’s not much of a god. Even Zeus could hold a lightning bolt.)
[QUOTE=Omegaman]
Faith is what allows me to witness the evil deeds of men and not allow myself to become like them.
[/QUOTE]
I’m allowed not to become evil on my on power. There is no boogeyman that makes me do evil, in spite of the fact that faith makes me vomit. And odds are good you’re a naturally good person too; give yourself a little credit.
[QUOTE=RickJay]
However you might feel about it, it’s a hell of a powerfully written piece. That’s some fantastic writing for a daily newspaper.
[/QUOTE]
It is. I like the LA Times a lot.
This line just floored me- “Certainly the people who were reading my stories would recoil and, in the end, recapture God’s house.” I thought so too.
[QUOTE=elucidator]
I feel for him, his words struck a chord. I have no doubt that if I could whole-heartedly accept the faith I disdain, I would certainly be a happier man and very likely a better one. It is not to be.
[/QUOTE]
Dunno, 'luc. As I often tell my sister, would that I believed (with the kind of certainty) that she does that there’s not only a god, but that there’s an afterlife were we are all going to get back together with the ones we loved. Sure would make things easier – such as my Mom’s death last year – but as I also tell here, it’s impossible (at least for me) to lie to myself. So that takes care of the “happier” part of your post as I understand it.
OTOH, I have no idea why I would likely be a better man. If nothing else, I’ve devoted much of my life in helping others, no matter what social status they came from, though I admit I have a certain weakness for the unshed. Could I do better if I was a religious man? Hell (pardon me) we likely could all do better regardless of beliefs – but pardon me for saying that I don’t think being faithful would make me a better person.
I is who I is (pardon again, for syntax this time, but I try to write as I’d speak colloquially to a friend). God or no gods, the rest is up to me.
Comparisons being hideous, I honestly don’t see a ray of sunlight between my church going, semi-chaste sister and my largely amoral self in the way we treat others. What’s more, if forced to choose by ways of critical thinking, hard as it might be by being one of the two parties involved…I’ll take the opinion of those that know us best.
And I have more than an inkling as to what those are. Mind you, this is no put-down on her as a believer (can’t think, off-hand, of a more charitable person when money is involved), but rather an inner satisfaction from one who’s not. May not have the truck fulls of money her family does, but I do believe I more than make it up with the (almost) unlimited time given to all these same/similar people.
Anyway, YMMV. But I know I don’t need faith to do good. Been there done that – and I don’t expect/want any rewards for doing so.
What could be more satisfying? Or what could be sadder that losing a loving one for ever?
Way I see it, that’s life.
Peace.
[QUOTE=Contrapuntal]
So faith is independent of the entity believed in? Can you define faith for me?
[/QUOTE]
Faith, for me, is just that… faith. A belief in something that’s usually not based on proof, or based on less-than-perfect proof, or even shaky proof.
The question isn’t whether you have faith or not, but what you choose to have faith in.
All I’m saying is… if your spiritual needs aren’t met, and Catholicism and Christianity at large aren’t doing it for you, explore other religions and lifestyles. Some may require a huge leap of faith, some may require smaller ones, others may not require any faith beyond faith in science and logic. If you’re lucky, you’ll find one that’ll make you happy and content. If you’re really lucky, you’ll find one that’ll make you happy and content without making you feel like you’re lying to yourself.
[QUOTE=RedFury]
God or no gods, the rest is up to me.
[/QUOTE]
That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve heard all month!
[QUOTE=begbert2]
“I don’t know who made the box, but I certainly don’t see any reason to think it’s something that is everywhere undetectably, can make the water of inland seas defy gravity, can cause loaves and fishes to magically replicate (in contradiction to the conservation of matter), can cause a dead dude with holes poked in him not to spurt blood everywhere (in defiance of the natural course of pressurized liquids in peirced containers…), etcetera, etcetera, etcetera…”
The natural answer to ignorance is not to pick the most unlikely option. I know of no posited god that isn’t extremely unlikely from a purely pragmatic, observed-world standpoint (if for no other reason than it’s mystically undetectable). Since no god is plausible as described, atheism is the default choice, absent evidence to the contrary.
(And if your god doesn’t break the laws of physics, then he’s not much of a god. Even Zeus could hold a lightning bolt.)
[/quote]
Physics is based on our observation of the universe and our guesses about how it might work. Physics is limited by our observation of the universe and our guesses about how it might work. If we cannot observe far enough, or if we cannot guess well enough, the scope of our physics is automatically fenced in by these limitations. We cannot say, with any degree of certainty, what lies outside our field of knowledge; and to assume that “all we know is all there is” is nothing but arrogance.
And only some religions say that that God has to be supernatural. What’s wrong with a God that doesn’t break the law of physics? An eternal being is not necessarily any more unnatural than an eternal universe. If the big bang could come out of nothing, why couldn’t God have come out of nothing? Or if the universe existed all along, it may have been sentient – whatever that word means – all along, and some humans might have labeled a part of that sentience “God”.
As for “all powerful”? Maybe the Christians demand that of their deity, but for others, even a more mundane “higher power” could provide answers that science currently cannot. Zeus’s lightning bolts, if he chose to share his secret, could mean free and unlimited energy for mankind, and thus the end of oil, starvation, poverty, whatever. Or there might be an relative (not absolute) God, one who only created our universe. Maybe he’s just a supersmart alien with highly advanced technology, but even then we would be mere bacteria in comparison and have a lot to learn.
If no existing religion out there works for you, make your own. It’s been done before, either by competing people or competing Gods. They may or may not ever find the One Ultimate Truth, and they may or may not provide the One Ultimate Happiness, but hell, they can try. Or stick to science, if that does it for you.
[QUOTE=phouka]
I really do feel for Lobdell. Hell, there are days when I’d really like the comfort of faith, but it simply doesn’t exist for me, and I muddle through as best I can, working with the empirical universe as it is.
I suspect that his loss of faith wasn’t just disillusionment with the Catholic church’s cover up or anger with the televangelists’ greed.
Christianity says explicitly that they have The One Answer. That life, the universe, and everything is wrapped up in accepting Christ as your savior, and that if you fail to do this, you are doomed. It is permissible, even demanded, that you disbelieve all other faiths just as much as you believe in The One True Faith. When a system raises itself up as the only truth, then it must have the answers. All of them. For every situation. And the people who practice that belief must be able to put those answers to use. When those answers fail, when they no longer meet the needs of the believers, then that system is no longer the truth.
So Lobdell watched a growing crisis wherein innocents were brutally destroyed once by their rapists, a second time by their church, and a third time by their fellow believers. The pat answers given out again and again lose their virtue in the face of that overwhelming, pitiless tragedy. The system did not protect the innocents, did not prevent others from being hurt, and did not give those innocents justice. How can that system possibly be the One Truth under those circumstances? All the others are already disbelieved. Now there is nothing left to support faith in it. So, faith dies.
I think also that it’s easy to ignore certain paradoxes about the nature of an all-loving, all-knowing, all-powerful God until you come face to face with true evil. Some suffering can be considered necessary to come to a true understanding of morality, but when that suffering is so destructive there is no way to overcome it, that all-loving/all-powerful/all-knowing God is on the hook for the universe He created and is running by His rules.
It (in my opinion) simply isn’t possible to reconcile the miseries we, God’s creation, suffer with a God who created our world the way it is and loves us through it all. I think that’s the point Lobdell must have come to, and I think that is why he lost his faith.
[/QUOTE]
This reminds me of one of the later scenes in the documentary Deliver us From Evil, during which a man named Bob Jyono cries out in anguish that there’s no God and that it’s just something that someone invented. His grown daugher weeps as she sits next to him. She had been one of the many kids abused by a priest. As I recall, she was still clinging to her faith but her dad had lost his after everything that they had been though and were still going through, years later.
[QUOTE=Reply]
What’s wrong with a God that doesn’t break the law of physics?
[/QUOTE]
It wouldn’t be God by most Christian’s standards; not even close. A God who can’t move or affect things faster than light ? A God that isn’t even close to omniscient ? A God that actually has to be made of something ? A God that we might even be able to make a copy of someday, or make ourselves into ?
[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
It wouldn’t be God by most Christian’s standards; not even close. A God who can’t move or affect things faster than light ? A God that isn’t even close to omniscient ? A God that actually has to be made of something ? A God that we might even be able to make a copy of someday, or make ourselves into ?
[/QUOTE]
shrug. Then don’t be a Christian. Like I said, “Maybe the Christians demand that of their deity”, but Christians could be wrong.
Or if you hold the belief that Christianity is infallible, there’s always Christian apologetics. If you want to believe in something badly enough, there are always loopholes to be found. Many smart Christians have found ways of defending their faith against what they view as the onslaught of science. Some of the defenses are well-argued, some aren’t. I’ve put up a few defenses already, and if they’re not convincing, a trip to the local library is all it takes to find more 
[QUOTE=Reply]
Physics is based on our observation of the universe and our guesses about how it might work. Physics is limited by our observation of the universe and our guesses about how it might work. If we cannot observe far enough, or if we cannot guess well enough, the scope of our physics is automatically fenced in by these limitations. We cannot say, with any degree of certainty, what lies outside our field of knowledge; and to assume that “all we know is all there is” is nothing but arrogance.
And only some religions say that that God has to be supernatural. What’s wrong with a God that doesn’t break the law of physics? An eternal being is not necessarily any more unnatural than an eternal universe. If the big bang could come out of nothing, why couldn’t God have come out of nothing? Or if the universe existed all along, it may have been sentient – whatever that word means – all along, and some humans might have labeled a part of that sentience “God”.
As for “all powerful”? Maybe the Christians demand that of their deity, but for others, even a more mundane “higher power” could provide answers that science currently cannot. Zeus’s lightning bolts, if he chose to share his secret, could mean free and unlimited energy for mankind, and thus the end of oil, starvation, poverty, whatever. Or there might be an relative (not absolute) God, one who only created our universe. Maybe he’s just a supersmart alien with highly advanced technology, but even then we would be mere bacteria in comparison and have a lot to learn.
If no existing religion out there works for you, make your own. It’s been done before, either by competing people or competing Gods. They may or may not ever find the One Ultimate Truth, and they may or may not provide the One Ultimate Happiness, but hell, they can try.
[/QUOTE]
And no god that is too far away or too subtle for us to detect is a likely candidate for having created that box, either.
Not to knock the ambiguity of the unknown; there’s a lot we don’t know. But the unknown is shrinking as we keep discovering and learning more. We’ve now reached the point where any diety that might have created the earth or the life upon it would have had to do it while simultaneously trying very hard to decieve us into thinking that no intentional or deliberate influence was involved. We have found reasonable-seeming natural causes for everything.
This would be like your god materializing the box, then going back and altering the manufacturing and delivery manifests for the box all the way back to the original manufacturing facility, and disappearing an amount of raw materials equivalent to the box’s requirements, and then modifying the memories of everyone involved, and then carefully rearranging all the dust that should have been displaced by the box’s movement…basically, for some crazy reason the god has left perfectly faked evidence that could unavoidably lead to no other conclusion than that no god was involved.
So, suppose all that happened. Well guess what: the default choice is still atheism. That’s what all the evidence supports! (Remember, we can’t tell that it’s fabricated.) There’s no more rational reason to assume the existence of a God in this case than there is to assume that your garage is filled to bursting with invisible, intangible tribbles. In the absence of evidence that compells you to believe in such things, the default assumption is that you are not being decieved, that your senses are pretty much accurate, and that you are not up to your armpits in extremely subtle fuzzy little critters (or other undetectable beings).
And what gave you the idea that I so crave religion that I would want to make one up myself? Anything I invented would be certain not to be a source of answers or knowledge or divine power. I would have to be insane to put my faith in something I literally made up. (Interesting how you seem to think such inescapably fraudulent religions are equivalent in value to the more standard religions; I actually agree with you you on that.)
Sorry, no. I don’t need to delude myself to be happy.
(Oh, and just so you know, Zeus and his lightning bolts are mythical. That is to say, fictional. So they aren’t going to share any knowledge with anybody. Fortunately we have science to look for real answers to problems like that, given time, work, money, and not a little luck.)
[QUOTE=begbert2]
"I’m allowed not to become evil on my on power. There is no boogeyman that makes me do evil, in spite of the fact that faith makes me vomit. And odds are good you’re a naturally good person too; give yourself a little credit.
[/QUOTE]
Thanks for thinking well of me, but make no mistake, before I found good, I knew evil as my god. As my Brother in Christ Kanicbird reminds me," you have already been forgiven". Even these words, from the Man Himself (Jesus), don’t deter me from redoubling my efforts to seek justice for every one of His in this world. It has cost me much already, and I have no doubt it isn’t even a drop in the bucket as long as I draw breath. My reward, is but a smile, few and far between, but as God as my witness, it will do while I tread this world in search of His works.
[QUOTE=begbert2]
Not to knock the ambiguity of the unknown; there’s a lot we don’t know. But the unknown is shrinking as we keep discovering and learning more. We’ve now reached the point where any diety that might have created the earth or the life upon it would have had to do it while simultaneously trying very hard to decieve us into thinking that no intentional or deliberate influence was involved. We have found reasonable-seeming natural causes for everything.
[/quote]
But that’s the thing… the unknown may be shrinking, but how would we ever know? There may be a vast unknown beyond the observable portions of the universe, and there may be things beyond our physical brains’ capacity to understand. We can only compare what we don’t know to what we know, and find holes in the web of what we do know, but we can’t say what lies beyond that. Or can you really tell me you know everything that you don’t know?
If, for example, the observable universe is 100% complete and static, maybe if we’re really lucky we might understand all of it. But if it’s growing, our understanding may never catch up to its rate of growth, and if it grows faster than we understand things, we may even understand less and less overall even as our knowledge increases relative to what we knew before. Or if there is more than one universe, and we have no way to observe or access the other ones, we have no way of knowing whether the universe we inhabit is 90% of the overall picture or only 0.00001%. And in that case, it would be possible that God inhabits the other 99.9999% of the universe and made this simple, tiny world with simple, straightforward rules for the benefit of a simple, stupid species of little two-legged creatures who wouldn’t know any better. The Christians might believe this is an act of love, others might believe we’re just being bred for the galactic inter-divinity foosball game, and as for me, I don’t really give a damn either way. I just believe there’s probably no way for us to ever tell the difference.
The evidence may support that the currently observed universe contradicts traditional, unrevised Christian mythology (meaning excluding modernized excuses like intelligent design), I agree with you there. But the evidence cannot prove that the observed universe constitutes all of reality. The evidence also doesn’t say much about the potential existence of other higher powers, especially one who deliberately misleads us. It could be as simple as “Satan made the world and wrote the Bible to deceive us from the Christian God”.
Heh, sorry. A second after I posted, I added “or just stick to science” at the end. You probably saw the original reply before the edit.
Yeah, you’d probably have to be crazy. Or greedy. In an insane world, it wouldn’t really be that big a crime either way. Or maybe you could just be a nice guy, especially if you can incorporate proper science and useful morality into your religion. If you can come up with a better religion than the rest of them, it’ll be a very useful world service and you’ll probably be rich and famous to boot. Why not?
Pfft. Most of the religions I’ve seen so far, mainstream ones included, are internally inconsistent, detached from modern daily life, intolerant, uncivil, hypocritical and sometimes just downright stupid.
However, I don’t think it is their aim to be that way, but rather the inevitable result of having them run and organized by humans (divine guidance or not). And nonetheless, I think they still have a place because many of them do contribute to the overall order and structure of society and the lives of people, providing guidance in a way that few other social institutions can. So I tolerate them until somebody comes up with a better solution.
But, unfortunately, in terms of their usefulness in explaining and predicting observed natural events, I have to say that science is a far, far more useful tool. Their mythologies are far less useful than their moral teachings.
But either way, what’s most unfortunate is that neither religion nor science has been able to answer – for me, at least – some very basic philosophical questions. So I’m still looking.
You don’t have to delude yourself. If you already have a system of beliefs that works for you, that’s great! I envy you. The only reason I suggested you start a religion is because it might work for other people too. There are a lot of lost, confused people out there, you know?
Mythical?! What? WHY’D YOU TELL ME?! Next thing I know you’re going to tell me Santa Claus… wait… no… NO… NOOOOOOO!
[QUOTE=Cervaise]
If faith in God doesn’t make the faithful better people, then what the hell’s the point?
[/QUOTE]
How do you know those people have faith in God?
Maybe the fallacy being committed is assuming that just because a person or institution calls itself “religious,” it necessarily has some connection with God.
[QUOTE=Liberal]
From my perspective now, the reporter is looking to the clergy and to the laity for faith.
[/QUOTE]
I don’t think that’s a particularly fair full characterization of what he was talking about.
The issue is that as a human being, one need a reason to keep believing: to make leaps of faith in the direction specifically of belief in this particular thing. Often that reason can be an emotional investment in the idea or in a community. If something damages that personal investment in belief, then it sometimes stops making sense to people to keep trying to find alternatives and other avenues for believing. It’s like making a trip to out to a mistress in another state. If you realize that you love your wife after all and don’t want to hurt her anymore, it stops making sense to go out there, not because it’s illogical to do so or because you are looking in the wrong place for reasons to cheat, but because you’ve lost the drive to even try to keep coming up with reasons and excuses to keep cheating.
[QUOTE=Reply]
Very few things are effective in improving someone’s behavior. Psychiatry, self-help books, fables, laws, religions… they all may or may not help. But the ineffectiveness of religion does not prove God isn’t there. Arguments of free will, punishment/reward after death, a little suffering is good in the long run, etc… all apply, but even more basic than that, this might also just mean the Church has strayed too far from God and that people should sidestep it and connect with God more individually.
<SNIP>
[/QUOTE]
Reply
Sorry to take so long getting back to you, but time zones being what they are, I hit the rack about midnight here last night.
My own opinion is that fear of punishment and a sense that it is inevitable does improve people’s behavior but that’s maybe a debate for another time.
I agree with you that a lack of improvement in someone is not evidence, in the legal sense, of the absence of God. Lets not get into that one. People have been trying to prove God’s existence or otherwise, since the days when it became safe to do so. After all, this question couldn’t even be addressed with safety until recently. OTOH, no one has ever proved his existence either.
My point was that, if God exists, he is so terribly ineffective at reforming someone or keeping them moral/ethical that he may as well not be there at all.
Regards
Testy
[QUOTE=Testy]
My point was that, if God exists, he is so terribly ineffective at reforming someone or keeping them moral/ethical that he may as well not be there at all.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah. Sadly 
If I ever met God, the first thing I’d do is kick his ass. And then once he smote me with his Divine Tool of Anti-Asskicking, I’d quiet down and ask why the hell we had to go through all this.
[QUOTE=Reply]
Yeah. Sadly
If I ever met God, the first thing I’d do is kick his ass. And then once he smote me with his Divine Tool of Anti-Asskicking, I’d quiet down and ask why the hell we had to go through all this.
[/QUOTE]
Reply
That really wasn’t the reply (if you’ll pardon the term) that I was expecting and rather takes the wind out of my sails. You are supposed to leap in here with an immediate and impassioned defense! 
Regards
Testy
Well, he wanted to cover religion in order to strengthen his faith. To me that sounds just kind of absurd, dunnow… I don’t expect that covering car races will give me the ability to guess correctly what’s wrong with a motor by listening to it (which mechanics do).
I think the phraseHe(or She) lost faith is debatable;because one changes it’s faith doesn’t mean it is lost. Maybe he found something different and changed his faith. Man once believed the earth was flat;does that mean they lost faith in the flat earth?
People believe what they need to help them live a better life, when one thing doesn’t work they change to another.
If an Atheist converts does he lose his Atheism?
I changed faiths because what I was taught (and formerly believed) made no sense after I had studied my faith I was raised in and in trying to convert others found it was no better or worse than others beliefs,we have just the word of some other human, so our belief is in what a human claims is truth and it may appeal to us.
monavis