Which god are you referring to?
Whichever the believer in question happens to believe in. They are all equally nonexistent, and therefore make equally good proxies for the believer’s own fantasies and desires.
Not sure I agree with your logic here. But the part about without religion people are prone to self-centered thoughts, seems very similar to the common argument that without religion there is no basis for morality.
I have always rejected this argument. Personally, I believe that things like The Ten Commandments, which are attributed a purely religious basis, are things that people commonly arrive at as a consequence of figuring out how to function as a society (let’s not kill each other, or screw each other’s spouses, or steal each other’s stuff). I’d like to see evidence that morality is dependent on religion.
I wouldn’t be too sure of that.
We tend to forget that there are a lot of lurkers here. They don’t weigh in on the debates, but their opinions can be swayed by whomever has the most cogent, well-written arguments. It’s just that you aren’t going to here about it, since they are lurkers. Only “true believers” have the confidence to debate.
When I first started posting on this message board, I called myself a Believer. I had never really been around non-Believers, I had never been in an environment where it was even acceptable to express doubt, and I had never been exposed to the dissenting arguments. Over time I have become more comfortable with my agnoticism. Now it could be that I would have still evolved this way without being on the Straight Dope. But I dunno. I really do think lurking on GD threads dealing with religion helped to turn me into a heathen.
This.
You just described to a T, my conversion, in 2005, via a similar online forum.
What I’m saying is that the decline in warfare happened preceding the decline in religiousness. Our wars have dropped significantly and the overall rate of religion stayed constant until the 60s when people started getting off the churchie bandwagon.
If you define communism as a religion, then pretty much all instances where the state comes before the individual is a religion. I don’t think I’m on board with that broad of a description. What would that make JFK’s speech extolling the virtues of what you can do for your country instead of what your country can do for you? I think that a worshiped supernatural deity should be the delineation between “Religion” and “Non-Religion”. But I’m open to debate on that point.
As for self-interested thinking, I was trying to put into words the concept of actually thinking of one’s self versus the state/religion as a whole…which I obviously failed horribly at. 
A holy warrior going to die for the cause is not self-interested. Questioning your priest/holy man to see if what he says about “God” makes sense is. As is questioning your King/High Priest unified state/religion guy.
So if the King is just a man, you question him because men are stupid. You get enough people questioning the status quo/have an unpopular enough position (like “Let’s go to war with those guys!”) you get ripped from your throne and killed. Your replacement then has to walk that line. So as kings got out of line, they’d have a civil war.
Where as if he’s a religion icon, you don’t move against him so easily. Your eternal soul will go someplace bad as you will speak out against the gods themselves. There’s a much larger impetus to overcome with religion standing in your way, too.
That’s why I say I think that early cultures used religions to stabilize themselves. Every city-state had it’s own patron deity that you were expected to worship, even if those deities originated from the same pantheon of gods.
I also disagree with the morality argument. In my opinion, morality was embedded into religion as a perceived model life for whatever culture spawned that religion. For instance, helping the needy and being nice to their fellow man is a hallmark of the Judeo-Christian doctrine, just as prostitution was condemned by early Christian missionaries and scholars. Either religion started early enough that they both co-formed or religion co-opted basic survival techniques for early tribes-turned-farmers.
For self-interest, I tried to make a delineation and I failed. 
I hope I explained it more clearly, above.
Not at all true. What Communism has that most IMHO makes it either a religion or close to one is a faith based worldview. Communism strongly reminds me of some varieties of Christianity. “The state comes before the individual” has nothing to do with it.
That rules out some “official” religions. Is Buddhism a religion in your eyes?
Sure they are; they die, they go to paradise. That’s very much self interest. They are delusional, not deliberately self sacrificing.
Religion tends to make people less moral, not more moral. It corrupts.
Of course, in Christian-speak “being nice to your fellow man” has typically meant slaughtering, torturing, conquering, enslaving and tyrannizing them “for their own good”.
I disagree. I could make the argument that since science has it’s sacrosanct theories that are inviolate “until we achieve a higher technology” that it, too, is a religion. After all, aren’t we just exchanging a “betterment of ourselves” as espoused in most religions for a “betterment of our technology”?
Stalin stole many devices of the religious segments to embed his political ambitions into the USSR. That doesn’t make him religious. If I use a beaker to hold water, does that make me a scientist?
Yes. Which means I shall have to evaluate the definition.
Not all religions are like that. Jewish beliefs do not hold a “Hell” and yet when they were a monarchy in ancient times, they had no trouble waging war for the glory of both God and state. They didn’t really have a concept of “Afterlife” until after the monarchy was crushed and the first Temple destroyed. So what propelled those first warriors?
People are “moral” versus “amoral” on their own. Any power can corrupt any person. Kenneth Lay was Chairman of Enron and a Christian. Jeffrey Skilling was CEO and wasn’t religious. Why is the person who doesn’t practice religion ok and the guy who does not?
That’s a ridiculous generalization.
I was incorrect. The First Temple’s destruction brought about a teaching environment of “It’ll get better!” It was the destruction of the Second Temple and exposure to Greek ideology that brought an introduction of “afterlife” to the Jewish doctrines.
The point about lurkers and converts is a good one. I should have said “only rarely are the most vocal believers converted” or something similar. Which makes sense since the most passionate are also the most likely to take the time to post. As for those who do change their beliefs - I wonder what the ratio is? How many self-defined “heathens” become believers? I’d set up a poll if I knew how to do it.
Also, I don’t see doing something in the name of god and using god as a justification for some expression as two different things. But then, I am a heathen and have yet to be convinced that there ever was (or ever will be) an “actual religious encounter” where a god actually spoke to someone. There is no way to prove such a thing. Its just a matter of faith. Any argument that comes down to “Well, you just have to believe it” is no argument at all.
That is so very true. We must all make our own choice every day. However most religion is a racket or a force that erodes our conscience and corrupts our moral compass,
So as with all things it’s best to weigh and judge a religion by it’s fruits. It’s good to ask certain questions:
Does it’s teachings bother your conscience? Does it ask you to do something that doesn’t feel right or fair? Does it make you a better person a benefit to the world?
Are the teachings irrefutably proven to be (scientifically) false or very inaccurate?
I believe in God, but i don’t have smoking gun evidence. Nevertheless i do have strong indications there is a Creator:
I pray to God and i see things happening or feel strong enough to deal with my fears and problems. My life has changed for the better and i’ve overcome very big challenges.
There was no silver platter solution lowered from the clouds, but i prayed and more importantly followed the advice from the bible. Not glamorous at all, but if 3000 year old advice works in 2013 i’ll take it.
(you decide if that’s just coincidence, luck or proof of a divine source)
I do believe that if one really wants to know if God exist, you should call Him out in prayer to help you find out. I believe he always hears those that sincerely want to know the why and who and don’t mind to call out. (Or is that too weird for you to just try?)
Today i had a conversation on this topic(and capitalism and politics) with an elderly couple who were solid communists and don’t believe there is a God. They invited us in for a chat and we had a nice talk.
When they did say they would *like *God to exist but did not believe it, we said they should just try to call God out and say they want to know if He’s there and they want answers. They said they were not gonna try it because they don’t believe and that it was likely nothing would happen. (but would it hurt to try?)
They were very nice people and we talked for an hour, then we agreed to disagree and shook hands.
If you **truly ** want to know… it shouldn’t be a problem if you are convinced God doesn’t exist. The point is you being **sincere **in your desire to find out and have some answers.
Don’t ask for cash, a car, instant healing or favors. Just randomly asking for a trivial favor or making demands would be disrespectful if the Almighty Creator does exist, wouldn’t it? Just start with the knowledge/existence question. Or express your anger/doubt about the injustice/suffering in the world.
What have you got to lose? If God doesn’t exist, nothing will ever happen and you can move on. Just don’t set your expectations on what you want to happen and how **you **picture the answer should be. Simply pay attention.
Nobody can convince you or reason you into believing there is a God. I can give my arguments but the actual believing comes from within and from seeing or experiencing things yourself.
If you think there is no God or are sure there is no God i’ll just have to respect that. (and respect you)
That’s a silly comparison. Science is based on evidence and reason, not faith and irrationality like religion; science and religion are opposites. Nor does science have any “sacrosanct theories”; on the contrary, there’s nothing any ambitious scientist would like more than to tear down some well known or important theory - it would make his or her name in scientific history.
Which is normal for religions; Christianity stole a great deal from other religions as well.
All the other things that propel warriors, I expect.
No; they are strongly influenced by outside forces. And religion is a powerful force for corruption, both moral and intellectual.
It’s an acknowledgement of history. Christianity got to its present position through bloodshed, terror and destruction. All of its benevolent claims have throughout history overwhelmingly been empty rhetoric.
Me too. I’d guess most atheists were religious at some point out were raised with religion.
I did try. God did not answer me. I posted my story recently; youcan search for it. I’d link to it but I’m on my phone.
His quote contains his response - you simply weren’t ‘sincere’ enough.
God seems to exist for some, yet for others He does not seem to exist. It is a dilemma of great magnitude. Some say they hear His voice guiding them, yet others hear nothing. How can we ever know what comes from God and what doesn’t. Some say God is mean and some say He is loving.
What are we to believe. Do we make-up our own God or is there really a God out there somewhere. We go to God with our prayers asking for a miracle, yet our hearts are full of contention for our fellow man.
And there is a long history of the scientific establishment claiming their superiority on an issue and refusing to change their beliefs. It continues to go on to this day. The scientific establishment changes after a lot of argumentative rigmarole.
It’s almost like something other than religion is compelling people to stay with what they know. Sorta like a human is hardwired to cling to ideas and philosophies they consider familiar.
It’s also normal for people that aren’t religious. Ideas, especially those ideas that will achieve your goals, are adopted by people all day, every day. But I wouldn’t call an atheist “religious” just because he’s in marketing and uses those same devices that religions do so that they can sell more product.
And what would those be, if not for going to heaven or avoiding hell? Money? Power? Women? Things that are human-centered and not deity centered?
Really? It must be great that there are no cases of scientists committing fraud. Or not. People will drive their success in whatever way they can, with or without religion. Just like my previous example with the Enron guys.
Christianity got where it is today by riding the coat-tails of the Roman Empire. Most of Europe and North Africa were Roman, remember. They were persecuted as much as any other “new” religion. (Roman’s considered “ancient” religions, no matter what they were, as sacred. Christianity was “new” and therefore considered a superstition.) It was around the middle of the 3rd century that they gain enough influence in Rome to start denouncing as pagan all non-Christians.
After the Peace of the Church began in 313 is when Christianity started going towards the route of religious purism and persecuting and pushing out the non Christians.
Now, look at anything, even scientists historically, where there has been a conflict of opinion. Each side of the debate gathers it’s own adherents and they spend time trying to get rid of the other side. Some of the scientists got pretty nasty with each other, too. But, it’s understandable. Their honor (or pride, or standing in the community, etc), after all, was at stake.
Now blow that up to a human-controlled polity or religious institution and you suddenly have large amounts of man power and large amounts of weapons at your disposal. Are you going to take this laying down? NO! Let’s go murder those fucks!
You can see this time and time and time and time again in every human-controlled area. Crips vs Bloods. Democrat vs Republican. Climate Skeptic vs Climate Alarmist. United States vs Afghanistan.
If it only happened under religion, I would concede this point. But humans go after their own interests in ways that are considered corruption no matter where they are. A religion may take advantage of this (because of the people at the top looking out for themselves) but it’s not something that you don’t find in sweet and innocent humanity until that big bad religion shows up and gives them an evil enema.
This is something I’ve given a fair amount of thought to, and I’ve come up with a few different reasons why I think so many people find it interesting. I think on the surface, a lot of people hope they’ll change someone else’s mind, but I think it’s a bit more complex under the surface.
For the most part, as I understand, we’re basically hardwired to be religious. The non-religious will argue it is because of various evolutionary pressures, the religious will argue it’s proof that God exists; the actual mechanism for why it is that way isn’t really very meaningful, only that it exists. As a result, religion and religious concepts are everywhere in our culture, and it’s part of how societies define themselves as a whole and separate themselves from others. On an individual level, religion has a huge impact on a number of aspects of how we actually define ourselves. It affects our morality, either by giving us a moral authority, or by forcing us to define and make our own morals. It helps us find our own places in society, such that we either fit in with the general religious views of those around us or live in contrast. It affects various outlooks and, depending on the teachings, can affect us in a huge number of other ways that I couldn’t begin to list here. It’s one of those nearly immutable aspects of what defines us, to the point where people’s religious views seldom change significantly, and if/when they do, it’s often comes with a huge number of other changes in that person’s life and personality.
After all, once it’s pretty much set in place, it really takes a huge event to change it. Most people, who were once theists and become atheists, or vice-versa, or convert from one religion to another can often tie it to a particular event. Some highly religious people will hold onto particular beliefs they deem important to their faiths despite how ridiculous they seem in the face of certain evidence. Similarly, on this very board, I’ve seen atheists argue that if God exists, there is literally nothing he could do to convince them that he does, even performing amazing feets would just leave them convinced he’s some amazing illusionist or advanced alien.
So what this all really means is that talking about religion triggers some ingrained or primitive part that forms the basis of self-identity for most people. We can relate this quite well to getting some guys obsessed with music in one room, one with metal, one with hip hop, one with electronic and they could argue endlessly about which is “better”, and it wouldn’t be unexpected if it got heated and there would be virtually zero chance of changing anyone’s mind. But someone else who doesn’t have those obsessions will look at their argument like it’s obnoxious. For those guys, their obsession with their genres is part of what defines who they are, it’s difficult to take an objection to those beliefs, which basically serve as an axiom for their entire world view, lightly.
And this is exactly why these sorts of discussions often end up with both sides talking past eachother. For someone obsessed with hip-hop, it’s just a given that it’s the best form of music, and it baffles him that someone else loves metal and can’t stand hip-hop. Given that perspective, that person looks like a fool, rejecting an obvious truth, and it just feeds into a vicious cycle. And discussing religion is very much the same way. This is why, say, a proselytizing Christian will quote the Bible and just expect it will convert people; in his mind, he accepts as an axiom that the Bible is true and so anyone who rejects that is foolish. Similarly, when atheists seem baffled that religious people can just accept the Bible, because for them they pretty much accept as an axiom that God doesn’t exist.
It’s unfortunate, but it’s extremely difficult to really break down all of our beliefs and views to the most basic and axiomatic parts. As such, I think most people don’t realize just how strongly those beliefs affect them. I actually found it quite interesting trying to break that part down, and that’s precisely why I enjoy discussing religion, because it forces me to really consider those baseline beliefs.
So, I guess in short, it’s our way of either projecting our world views outward, or turning our gaze inward.
You think argument is bad?
The conservatism of the establishment is based on a preponderance of evidence. But when the evidence shifts the establishment goes with it. Even when this takes the old guys retiring and dying off it is a hell of a lot faster than religion changing. And of course of religion were true it would not have to change, having got its marching orders from God. When evidence is clear science turns on a dime - look at relativity. F=ma was considered about as proven as 2+2=4.
As for Communism - when it was really a going concern, there were a lot more similarities than just state versus person. They had their holy books by Marx. They had their icons - Marx and Lenin - who hung on walls just like Jesus does. And they had their historical inevitability. Christians have their second coming, Communists have their workers paradise. And of course they had their way of dealing with heretics just like Christian states did before they got less religious - which was far longer ago than 100 years.
The religion I used to believe in was fine. It did not violate my conscience. There was no cruelty. No sermon I ever heard made me object to anything. I only have the fondest memories of my rabbi and my Hebrew School teachers.
I became an atheist because once I understood history it was clear that it was all a pile of myths - nice myths, but myths all the same. And I’ve done quite well without God. My kids have done even better without God. But that is no more evidence against God than your experiences are evidence for God. God is only important insofar as it affects your mind. I have no problem with people believing - I only have problems when they try to translate that belief into rules for others.
As opposed to religion, which hangs onto ideas that have been false for thousands of years.
Well yes. What’s your point?
And since when did anyone claim scientists were more than human? The fact that scientific frauds are uncovered and discredited is a mark of the superiority of science over religion, not a mark against it. And they are only a tiny minority at that. Religion on the other hand is nothing but fraud, error and delusion, and its adherents cling to those falsehoods for thousands of years.
No. It got where it is by genocide, slavery, tyranny, torture, book burning, the destruction of entire cultures, the depopulation of entire continents. All of which was going on long past and beyond the Roman Empire. It was built on an ocean of blood and suffering. Its claims of concern for humanity and benevolence are blatant falsehoods; it’s about bloodshed and tyranny, not kindness. Another similarity it has with Communism, which also always claimed to act for the good of the masses and then tyrannized them and slaughtered them wholesale.
Except of course outside of Christianity and its close relative Islam, that isn’t at all the norm. Which is why compared to other religions they’ve spread so far and thoroughly annihilated and replaced their rivals in regions that they’ve conquered or depopulated.
How very convenient. Unless an evil behavior is totally unique to religion, then it just doesn’t count. You are just trying to redefine religion into being perfect and blameless.