There is no sex, no eating, no etc. in heaven.
No children born but do children stay children? Do fetuses stay that way? Do old, deformed stay that way? Or are we like Riverworld, reborn as perfect adults?
I think it was St. Paul that admitted that he had trouble with his beliefs sometimes. He said something like, “I believe. Help Thou mine unbeliefs.” So with his free will, he chose to believe enough to ask God for stronger faith. (I know. Circular logic.)
I’ve already said that I was endoctrinated to begin with. But if I had to start from scratch, I would probably try to avoid thinking my way through it. I would chose to practice a form of meditation every day. I would keep it simple and not get into anything I had to pay or train for. But I would commit to doing it for 20 minutes every day for a year to begin. With meditation you gently try to clear your mind of thoughts and just focus on your breathing.
Back to your question. There are many reasons why someone will have faith in a text and another won’t. (Some are endoctrinated, some are “brainwashed,” some have had mind and spirit-altering experiences; some are afraid; some are skeptical; some misunderstand, etc.) To my thinking, what is important is not how each perceives the dove, but the truth of the dove. If the dove really was the Holy Spirit, then it was present for all even though some didn’t realize it. If it was just an ordinary dove and John was mistaken, then no harm was done unless John tries to force his beliefs into other people’s heads. (I’ll bet John knew better than to try to do that.)
Hey, I’m Southern too! (Nashville, here…)
Maybe we are unencumbered by bodies and get to be those “free spirits” we’ve always heard about. I could go for that!
Actually, it can’t have been eroding if it ultimately evaporated, or alternatively, it may have eroded and not finally evaporated, but not both. [/bernard woolley]
Anyway, Heaven/Hell. Some would rather rule in the latter than serve in the former.
I was waiting for someone to call me on that.
The start of life and sexual reproduction can be explained by evolutionary theory.
A nitpick - Einstein believed in a God, but he didn’t know it; in fact, since he also believed in the scientific method as the means to knowledge, he wouldn’t have been able to fit his belief in a diety into such a framework, and in fact never claimed to. Also, using Einstein doesn’t do much to bolster your case; he also didn’t believe in quantum mechanics, despite his “understanding of the universe”. Besides, there are plenty of examples of great minds who were atheists.
Sorry for the hijack, guys.
The way I see it, what ever we believe about God (or a God) is taking the word of a human. All that is, or was ever written, or taught, came from humans.
Belief is a choice. We can take the word of another or reject it.
For those who believe in a Heaven or a Hell is their choice to believe.
Monavis
You must mean the other theory of evolution then, as the one I was talking about required life to exist before hand to work, so would exclude the start of life, and just could not explain how sexual reproduction could have evolved.
I’m an atheist, but I think Hell’s got all the good bands, anyway.
I recently watched a 2 hourshow on the life of Einstein,both the Historians and a relative of Einstein, said Einstein belived that there was not “a” God, but God in his view was what ever existed. He didn’t subscribe to the Jewish, Christian or other religions interpetation of the word. Yet he did not want to be called an Atheist.
Monavis
I disagree! Agreeing to a God who I feel is evil is an act of cowardice rather than the opposite! If the god of the Old Testament showed up damn right he has to explain himself.
Where do I get my morality? I don’t need ot get it from a God. And any God who manifested himself would have to measure up to the highest standards of morality, much higher than mine.
Why should I worship a God who doesn’t even measure up to my own measure of morality? To take a line from Terry Pratchett’s Small Gods, “You can’t get around me by existing.”
I find this discussion of whether beliefs are voluntary or not very interesting. I hadn’t really given it a lot of consideration.
What about the unconscious influences. I used to be a member of a church and I think I did choose to believe certain things. Over time I realized that some of the things I 'believed" I accepted without serious questioning just because I wanted to be a part of this group. I wanted to feel a part of a larger purpose and be one of God’s chidren. So is a choice a choice even though it’s an unconscious one?
I’ve seen several believers that when confronted with facts, evidence and good logic, choose to believe their group. I think in part it is because accepting other beliefs would make too many demands on their lives.
It’s certainly possible, even likely that some non believers have subconscious reasons for resisting belief. You tell a story of your faith erodeing. It’s similar to mine with the difference that my spiritual beliefs changed rather than disappeared.
In some religions they speak of raising our level of consciousness so that more and more of our choices are conscious ones based on an increased understanding of the truth, rather than ritual, tradition and religious mythology.
Such as hell for instance. {whew, a link to the OP}
Mebbe. But then the question becomes, “How can God hold me morally responsible for subconscious choices I make?” I haven’t really thought it through, but to me, ‘subconscious’ implies ‘not under our conscious control.’ In fact, now that I think about it, I’m not sure you can put ‘subconscious’ and ‘choice’ together; each seems to rule out the other. So it seems to me.
- I repeat (and you ignore) there is a plethora of evidence for God, the Creator.
Your calling Him “imagined” does not make it so.
- Your own moral “system” changes from day to day, as you later admit.
Obviously you have absolutely NO basis for “moral authority” that you pretend to have.
- No it is NOT “the exact same thing that everyone else does.”
Good and decent Christians try hard to live a moral life, in accordance with Jesus’ admonition to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
- You misspelled “sophisticated.” Leftists are constantly and hatefully lampooning President Bush for as much. McDowell’s book is one of the more thoroughly referenced tomes I have ever read. It is a simple job to call people names and make idle promises as to what you will do. Your obvious failure to refute my arguments contradicts your promises.
- No. As usual.
- There is not a SHRED of evidence for it. NOT A SHRED! The deep field photograph taken by the Hubbel Space Telescope doesn’t begin to resolve the objects in the remote parts of our own universe, much less reaching profoundly beyond it. Multiverse hocus pocus is the pretend answer to the insuperable statistics of the Anthropic Principle. It is anti-scientific and anti-intellectual.
To pretend otherwise is to engage in atheistic semantics.
- “The heavens proclaim the glory of God and the firmament shows his handiwork.” It is not mere coincidence that mankind has observed God’s handiwork from the outset. The more we learn, the more difficult it is to explain it all away naturalistically. There’s a lesson there for thinking people.
- “Why is it silly” that Carl Sagan says “sex was invented?”
Well, WHO was the “inventor”? Some amoeba?
- As soon as I get back to my computer, I’ll post my critique on that ignorant screed by Carl Sagan. Every book Sagan ever wrote was full of absurd comments.
This is certainly no exception. That you defend his absurd comment that “sex was invented” and “we will spread throughout the Milky Way” shows… well, I can’t say what it shows about you. We have standards here to uphold.
- “You can either inoculate against polio or you can pray.” - Carl Sagan
Now the difference between an agnostic and an atheist is quite trivial. A. Neither one worships our Creator. B. Both belittle Christians with hateful screeds. C. Both hold themselves to be “enlightened” and “intelligent” while maliciously attacking “fundies” or “bible thumpers” or redneck creationists" or whatever hateful epithet is currently in vogue by the atheist/agnostic set.
However far be it from you to recognize that neither one believes in a Creator.
I don’t think God holds us responsible in a reward or punishment way. It seems more like we have to deal with the consequences of our own choices, whether good or bad, until we choose love and truth consistently, which have eternal and positive attributes.
There are consequences to subconscious choices just like there are to conscious ones. Wouldn’t you agree?
At first, I felt like commenting on each and every “point” you have made. Instead, please simply read the title of this post.
Actually, **Diogenes’s ** failure to respond in detail to McDowell’s arguments probably just shows that he understands that far more sophisticated versions of the arguments you discuss exist, that these arguments have been exhaustively discussed elsewhere in this board’s history, and that to recapitulate them here would represent a hijack of this thread.
I am an atheist, and what I belittle are not Christians, but ignorant generalizations like this one.
Well, we are certainly held responsible for our actions, whether these actions result from conscious or subconscious practices. I will concede that to you. But what I’m doubtful about is this: if one concedes that we cannot exercise conscious voluntary control over our beliefs, it strikes me as ad hoc to say that we nevertheless exercise *subconscious * voluntary control over them. I guess I would have to see more evidence. The example you present above (the one about belonging to a church group) is suggestive, but does it show that you subconsciously chose to believe, or that you consciously chose to continue associating with a group you felt comfortable with despite your doubts about the religious beliefs around which the group was organized?
Choosing “love” is a different proposition than choosing a specific doctrinal belief. I think the issue for a lot of us is that God would punish people who choose to be compassionate and honest people but who just don’t swallow the notion that Jesus did magic tricks and died for our sins. There is no way I could ever make myself believe that any more than I could make myself believe in Zeus, and I find it unfathomable that a benevolent God could ever impose such a thing as a criterion for “salvation” from eternal torture.