Prior to the modern age, almost all were. But just to be clear, Einstein wasn’t religious. The whole “God does not play dice with the universe” thing is taken out of context. He was not arguing the existence of God. It was not meant to be literal.
Prove it.
I think you are confusing humans with vulcans.
It doesn’t take Spock to realize something is obviously irrational.
I hate to shatter the illusions of all you adults, but Santa Claus is really real. It’s people people playing dress up and giving gifts. But it really happens and is undeniable. Yeah, a bunch of north pole and chimney yarns are spun, but I’ve actually seen and been Santa Claus. It is no less impossible for me to be Santa Claus than it is for Barack Obama to be a socialist President.
Der Trihs, you’re hijacking the thread. This isn’t about the truthfulness or falsity or Christianity, it’s about persecution, bravery, and religious faith. If you want to post some more about how all religions are obvious lies, start a new thread or find one where that has something to do with the topic. I’ll thank other posters to let this tangent drop.
But it’s a logical fallacy to assume that humans act rationally all of the time or even most of the time. I see no evidence that your average Joe even today, much less 400 years ago, looked at religion with a rational eye. Nor that they had the skills to do so.
That’s like saying that God is real because people are altruistic. The biggest thing to the Santa Claus story is that there is actually a guy who makes that trip. Reindeer, North Pole, and everything. That’s Santa. Anything else is just people feeling charitable and wanting those warm fuzzies for Christmas.
The fact that people may be generous, charitable people because of their religion is nice and all, but the main hook of God existing is the fact there is actually some big guy in the sky who gives out miracles and sends people to heaven. It’s a great story, but that’s all it is.
So these Japanese Christians were logical, rational, and courageous?
One sort of wishes the thread was about standing up to persecution in general. Leave religion out of it - maybe even leave the threat of death or physical harm out of it.
Sometimes it’s courageous to resist people who are harassing you or abusing you. When might it not be? When might it be braver to keep in there taking the hits?
I completely agree. I don’t believe they lacked the skills to objectively evaluate the legitimacy of religion, though. I would imagine that most of it was a combination of hope and following others.
Which is what makes persecution understandable. The group mentality makes it easier, fear of going to hell (or being ostracized by their believer peers) makes it almost preferable, and then the practical martyr worship of many religions almost makes persecution attractive. Here’s how strong my faith is! I admit, it is admirable to believe in something to that extent; Der Trihs and I (among other people) just think that such conviction is slightly misplaced.
Based on what they believed, yes. If I KNEW that I would be going to paradise, why wouldn’t I welcome persecution (or at least not fear it)?
BTW, if removing religion or threat of death would disqualify the issue as a Great Debate, feel free to ignore my post.
No, it’s like saying God is real because God is love and love is real. Not everything people say about God or Santa Claus is correct. Santa Claus obviously does not live at the North Pole, there is only ice pack there. But you can go see him at the mall, and sign your gifts as being from Santa Claus and have a great time. “1” exists. You can show me one item, but it is not the Platonic form of “1”.
Only fools are fearless. Courage is the mastery of fear, not its absence.
Assuming that God is love, and love is real, that still doesn’t make God real because God is defined as more than a personification of love.
Well then, isn’t that what these Japanese did…they mastered fear. Here’s the irony of what occurred.
The Japanese that recanted made martyrs out of those that sacrificed their lives. The movement went underground and 50-75 years later came back stronger than ever.
If everybody had recanted, it’s possible that Christianity in Japan might have completely died. Does subsequent history make any difference in evaluating the actions of those that died?
Perhaps, because I am religious, I look at the World differently. The words logical and rational have different meanings to me.
Something is logical only because most people believe it to be true. Something is rational if fewer people believe it to be true. If there are few people that believe something is true then it is irrational.
Before Christopher Columbus, people believed the World was flat so that was logical. After Columbus demonstrated the World was round, it became logical that the world was round. In this day and age if you believed the World was flat it would be irrational.
I would. There’s physical courage, courage in the face of physical pain and the threat of death. Then, there’s moral courage, the courage to take moral actions in the face of adverse consequences.
The Japanese Christian incident includes both elements. Faced with the choice between death and ANY alternative, most would choose the alternative. These people did not, thus displaying great physical courage.
The motivation was faith in what they believed in, a refusal to do the wrong thing (for them, recanting their beliefs). Thus, moral courage.
Whether their beliefs were truthful or not is rather beside the point.
This is that pre-science thinking that John Mace mentioned. I don’t think your opinions, as stated above, are compatible with a scientific worldview. You are willfully choosing religion over science, which is your prerogative, but doesn’t negate the actual meaning of “logic” and “rationality”.
Courage. Faced with the fear of possible visits to hell, and the fear of certain drowning, it’s likely that the latter would be a much stronger motivating factor.
John Paul Jones said…I regret that I have but one life to give to my country. Is it possible that these Christians believed in their religion as much as their country.
It seems to me that they did, given that they were acting in defiance of their country’s government and social norms.