I am not a believer in the writers of the OT or the NT. I do believe there is good in religions, and the purpose of religions was to help people make it a better world for all, but some use it for evil some for good, just like a person can use a knife to cut some meat to help a humgry man another can use it to kill him, it is how it is used. I personally don’t believe God has any religion, it is a human creation intended mainly for good, but used by too many as the Pharisee’s did(If the writers were telling what happened or were just telling a story to make a point) I feel it is no different than Hans Christian Andersons or Aesops writings.
I do not believe a loving father would pick out some of his children and help them kill a lot of others that were his children as well, nor punish a child he created when he knew ahead of time the child would be evil. I would not be near a man for many years if I knew that the child I had was going to conceive would destroy any other people and I figure a supreme being should be better than me.
So if I’m reading you correctly, all religions are equally valid. They are simply an interpretation of an individuals connection to the divine. If that is the case why do you say Secular Humanism “takes much of the wonder and beauty out of the world and replaces it with the drear and tawdry.” Surely if it’s a religion as you claim, then it is as valid an approach to a god as your own. After all there are a number of Christian doctrines that emphasise Earthly suffering in exchange for eternal bliss.
I’m actually going to go out on a limb here and predict that you don’t accept these as valid approaches to god*. And I’ll go even further, I’ll wager my eternal soul** that you claim that these aren’t actually truly religious practices just man-made cultural atrocities. Oh wait you already have…
A less charitable rabbit may think that you are simply being intolerant of other people faiths. Fortunately I know that isn’t true…
That leaves just a few alternatives.
1: You haven’t thought your arguments through.
2: You don’t realise the inherent hipocracy of statements like those given above.
3: Your enire argument stems from your Abrahamic belief system and insistence (despite your claims otherwise) that that is the only “real” god.
4: You are correct in some areas. God does go by many names, and as long as you honestly believe that you are acting in accordance with his wishes, you can do whatever the fuck you like.
4: Stopping before I reach pit material.
You’re more likely to find me arguing on your side than the other, that’s for sure, but a lot of that has to do with the quality of the extant arguments.
That makes me curious. While the arguments raised here are remarkable for how poor they are, I’ve yet to come across any good arguments for religion and/or god. Under what circumstances would you find yourself on the side of the believers? Care to put forward an argument of your own?
The most unanswerable arguments are those from personal testimony: people who claim, apparently in full seriousness, that they have received personal revelation. When a bloke says God spoke to him – and appears otherwise sane – I can’t think of any really meaningful rebuttal.
(My opinion runs more in the direction of hallucination, mistaken perception, stress, fatigue, etc. But that isn’t really a logical rebuttal.)
So, for those whom God has spoken to…um…well, have a nice religion, I guess. I hope it works out for you. Still not my cuppa, but I don’t feel the need to argue.
For those who point to the Bible or Koran or Book of Mormon or whatever… Them, I’ll argue with. At least we have some objective…um…object…that we can all look at at the same time. If someone says, “God spoke to me,” we don’t have any common objective evidence, but, at least, if someone says Isaiah 9:10, we do. Communication is possible, even if agreement escapes us.
Trinopus (God told me to distrust anyone God speaks to…)
“My personal revelation says you’re wrong and should worship me as the One True God. Show me why my revelation is less valid than yours.”
Not even the people who claim such things generally really believe that’s a valid way of knowing things; the only “revelations” they take seriously are the ones they agree with. It’s just a way of making up self serving nonsense and demanding that people take it seriously.
No snarkiness was intended btw, just in case it came across like it was. I was genuinely curious. For all intents and purposes then, your stance is no different from most atheists, who I suspect would have no problem with religious(or any) beliefs openly acknowledged to be ‘subjective and personal’.
No offence taken - I’ve argued/debated it in the past (although my views have probably changed since then) and it never seems to achieve anything but to frustrate and exasperate all involved - and I just don’t feel like going there today.
Yes - I’ve no particular problem with anyone’s belief - and to be honest, I don’t really care whether they acknowledge it as subjective or not - it only really matters when some actions flow out from that and spill over to impose upon someone else against their will. Obviously, different folks have different and debatable ideas on when and whether that is happening or not.
(I should add that in general, I find myself adrift from either side in almost any debate, especially on the SDMB)
I think this is worthy of repetition and emphasis.
Here is a statement from a religious standpoint that can be echoed by the vast majority of us with no faith. Atheist, Agnostic, secular humanist or whatever.
If people claim objective truth in their beliefs then we can have a bit of a verbal scrum about it. Ultimately though, regardless of the truth of it, as long as no-one else is affected then I’ll roll my eyes, give a small shake of my head and let you get on with it.
The difficulty is always going to be the debate over what constitutes an effect - for example, in terms of imposing upon offspring, or bargaining for tax concessions.
“But people have these personal revelation experiences with every religion - religions that are mutually exclusive. I had these experiences when I was religious. But nowadays we understand more about how the brain works, and they’re just what you should expect from our human mind. Not only do your personal experiences not convince me, they shouldn’t convince you either.”
It’s easy to disprove personal revelation: pass out LSD and magic mushrooms, and then everyone will have their own ego death/illusion of the self shattering moment right then and there. Actually that may not help so much…but it couldn’t hurt.
That’s a good thought, but that’s my response when talking to a religious person about their faith, and the conversation heads in the direction of why we believe something. I will usually tell someone that I’m an atheist because I’ve looked at the God-claims of various religions, and found them all to be utterly unconvincing (thanks to Sam Harris for that wording).
When I ask them why they believe, I never get any of the standard apologetics answers. The answers that I get always fall into one of these two categories:
The world/universe is just too wonderful/fascinating/complex for it to have happened without a God.
or
I can feel the presence of God in my life, I get answers to prayers, I have a personal relationship with Jesus, etc.
My answer about the unreliability of personal feelings is what I’ve developed for #2.
Even if they were the word of God, what difference would it make toward convincing anyone?
[QUOTE=Thomas Paine]
Suppose I were to say, that when I sat down to write this book, a hand presented itself in the air, took up the pen, and wrote every word that is herein written; would anybody believe me? Certainly they would not. Would they believe me a whit the more if the thing had been a fact? Certainly they would not. Since, then, a real miracle, were it to happen, would be subject to the same fate as the falsehood, the inconsistency becomes the greater of supposing the Almighty would make use of means that would not answer the purpose for which they were intended, even if they were real.
[/QUOTE]
Of course it falls flat since they have no way of demonstrating that they’ve had any more of a direct divine experience than I have or that the crazy guy ranting about demons on the streetcorner has. As I said, such people are almost universally hypocrites and liars; they demand that their “divine” experiences be taken seriously but dismiss any that contradict their own beliefs. And that’s assuming that they aren’t just making it all up.