That one I can answer. The children of the former slaves had to go through 40 years of basic training in order to be tough enough to massacre the Canaanites.
So, killing almost everyone in the world, babies included, doesn’t make God evil? You must think Stalin was a real pussycat.
As for Pascal’s wager, what if Satan won? After all, I don’t see much evidence in the Bible that what they call Satan has ever done anything bad, and plenty that God did. Maybe worshipping God will bring you to him, where your eternal task will be tearing the legs off of puppies. Maybe rejecting God will bring you to hell, actually a nice place with a God trying to restore order, kind of like the French Resistance.
Another possibility is that God put the flood story in as a test of our morality. The first question he’ll ask you after you die is whether you believe he flooded the world. If you say yes, he’ll tell you that you don’t really worship him if you believe him capable of such evil, and off to hell you go. Any God worthy of our worship would not do that, and not like toadies who think he’d do that.
“God” to Bender in “Godfellas”
[Scene: Bender talks to “God”.]
Bender: So, do you know what I’m gonna do before I do it?
“God”: Yes.
Bender: What if I do something different?
“God”: Then I don’t know that.
Bender: Cool! Cool! I bet a lot of people pray to you, huh?
“God”: Yes. But there are so many asking so much. After a while, you just sorta tune it out.
Bender: Y’know, I was God once.
“God”: Yes, I saw. You were doing well until everyone died.
Bender: It was awful. I tried helping them, I tried not helping them but in the end I couldn’t do them any good. Do you think what I did was wrong?
“God”: Right and wrong are just words. What matters is what you do.
Bender: Yeah I know, that’s why I asked if what I did-- Forget it.
“God”: Bender, being God isn’t easy. If you do too much, people get dependent on you. And if you do nothing, they lose hope. You have to use a light touch like a safecracker or a pickpocket.
Bender: Or a guy who burns down the bar for the insurance money.
“God”: Yes, if you make it look like an electrical thing. When you do things right, people won’t be sure you’ve done anything at all.
sounds like the argument being bandied about here, dontcha think? 
Yes, that would have described me in my period between being Christian and my current agnostic state. I had a lot of anger at God before I stopped believing in him as described in the Bible. I’ve known a lot of other people who felt the same way, too.
BTW, I do still attend a Christian church, but not the kind I was brought up in. I was brainwashed to believe everything in the Bible was literally true, and when I started really reading it so much of it conflicted with my personal morality that I really did hate God. I wasn’t exposed to people who didn’t believe so I didn’t really have an alternative in my mind…I wasn’t prepared to reject the truthfulness of the Bible, but I was able to judge it’s main character harshly.
I’m not sure what I believe now, but my current church sorta ignores the Old Testament atrocities with a bit of handwaving about symbolism and the way the people viewed God in those days. I agree with a lot of their morality and most of the New Testament isn’t too bad, which is what they focus on. I can also see the appeal of the more Gnostic-oriented sects of Christianity, which believe the Old Testament God to be evil, and that Jesus was supposed to rescue us from his clutches.
For myself personally, it is perhaps an (incomplete) framework through which I can interpret life. We all do this to a certain extent–there is no one alive who has a philosophy proven to be true in 100% of cases. In lieu of this perfectionist goal, we tend to develop systems based on limited experience, then use those systems to interpret events that affect us.
Belief in the existence of God alone is incomplete for this purpose, but it is essential; many of my other beliefs appear to hinge upon it. I will say that as I age, my absolute, logical need for belief in God has faded as fewer and fewer things fall under his direct sway. The history of man, in fact, is clearly a movement away from divine understanding of the mechanisms of the world (science is now clearly the ruler of the material world, man-made political philosophy has dethroned the divine right of kings, and whole ethical systems–such as pragmatism–can develop without assuming a divine lawgiver).
Still, God remains (however downsized) in my life, and i think ultimately is because it is a comfort. We are still confronted with mysteries in this life, and there is some satisfaction in believing there is a knowable presense behind them, corny as that may sound. This, I think, is a key flaw with atheism: Its easy dismissal and poo-pooing of the comfort belief in God provides.
To sum up, you asked me what answers belief in God provides. I can’t point to specific, documentable truths that couldn’t exist without God, and acknowledge that while I may have believed in some as a younger man, I now think that may be a fool’s errand. Still, there is some comfort in belief, given the unknowns we all face.
My question for atheists–in all seriousness–is what comfort does non-belief in God provide? Even if you are right, it seems the comfort is provides is no different than the smug self-satisfaction many fundamentalist Christians feel. I truly, truly do not intend that as an insult; I would sincerely like to know how non-belief informs not just your opinions, but your well-being.
I guess it doesn’t give any comfort. But what relevance does that have? I believe in things if I judge them to be true, not if they give me comfort.
Why do you suppose Atheists seek out or require this “comfort” you speak of?
All the comfort I need I get from my family and my friends. This is precisely what confuses me about Theists. I don’t understand their beliefs because I could not ever see myself being comforted by claiming some imaginary, omnipotent, supernatural being behind anything I don’t understand.
How does that comfort you? I suppose I could say: “I don’t understand why my father had to die, or why children starve… well l’ll just imagine the great wizard Raistlin Majere has need of him or has some grand plans for all those kids in the great wizard tower in the sky”. I don’t see how that would comfort me, or anyone for that matter.
I’m an agnostic, but not believing in any particular gods at the moment, I think I can answer this question.
Non-belief in any gods gives me a sense that what I do with my life is under my own control. Obviously i’m subject to the laws of my country, and many others have power over me, but no-one has power over my thoughts or morals.
Also, there’s that my achievements, even all human achievements, can solely be attributed to us. If someone performs some heroic act, a religious person might think “God helped him. Look at the impressive feats God and man can together perform”. An athiest thinks “Look at the impressive feats we are capable of”. This doesn’t just apply to achievements, though, but also morals. A world with God derives it’s morals from God, but a world without it creates it’s own morals. Obviously the same thing applies the other way around; the tragedies and failures of humans can only be attributed to humans, and not blamed on any other party. We’re capable of great good and great evil - that our evils are created just by us is tempered by the great good we can do, too.
I never said you can’t. In fact, I haven’t met a christian yet who took the whole enchilada. I’m just saying it doesn’t make sense to me. He either subscribed to all the good and all the bad that was attributed to him, or all of it is suspect. For me, anyway.
Comfort has nothing to do with it. What comfort does not believing in smurfs provide you with?
I don’t believe in gods because I’m not persuaded there is any evidence or any necessity for them to exist. This doesn’t provide me with any discomfort but even if it did I wouldn’t see it as a reason to believe.
I will say there is some comfort in feeling free to think for myself without caring if my thoughts conflict with any particular religious doctrine and without fear of any divine punishment.
There is also comfort in not feeling any obligation to participate in any religious practices. There is comfort in being able to sleep in and watch football on sundays.
I’m not sure I agree; we make judgements all the time based on the evidence we have. I love my son unconditionally, for example, but I must concede that he will occasionally lie to me. Perhaps though the answer you are looking for is below:
The tools, as stated, were used “to distill the goodness” out of the holy texts. While this is closely related to the idea of truth, I don’t believe it is the same standard of truth as it is applied applied in strict logical disciplines like mathematics.
Much more of the Bible than previously thought is non-historical, and I’d agree most scholars do not think those portions demostrating overt acts by God are pure history. In this way, there is no direct, historical evidence for the existence of God.
But to dismiss the Bible as a bunch of “stories” is misleading. Laying aside the nuggets of history (some of which can be verified independently, though I don’t believe the Exodus will ever be shown to have definitively happened, and there is plenty of evidence to say it did not happen the way the Bible says it did), the remainer, read in full, reveals certain underlying beliefs about God. These are buried in form and myth, and no doubt much of it arose there without a conscious effort by the various writers of the Biblical texts.
But it is there, of that there is no doubt. Non-believers will no doubt rise to explain this as cultural zeitgeist or as a relic of anthropology, and I concede these are good explanations. I’m just not certain I buy them as proofs of God’s non-existence because they take non-existence of God as their premise, and so are tautological conclusions.
If there is one thing I hope I’ve demonstrated by laying out my beliefs on the subject, it is that God is not simple. That alone is enough for some folks to declare him non-existent, but I myself have seen many things that initially escaped me because of their complexity (the brilliance of Shakespeare or Einstein leap to mind) but which then deeply rewarded my efforts to understand them.
I don’t mean to come off as glib, so I’ll make a confession right here and now: I don’t know if what I’ve learned about god from others, or what is buried deep in my own sense of self, is 100% true. For me, all truth is provisional, but my current beliefs do seem to hang together very well–at least I haven’t found any blatant contradictions yet, though I’m sure eventually I will. That, for me, is the essence of belief in God: Not dogmatic servitude to an idea, but the conscience of knowing that you could be wrong, with full awareness of the caveats, dilemmas, “what if’s”, and the inevitable challege to your reasoning.
I would not recommend using the Bible as a moral rulebook; others have pointed out the obvious contradictions in that idea more ably than I can. I would also not appeal to the Bible for authority on a moral issue (though I might use a citation to illustrate a particular moral point). My morality is something that belongs to me: It is heavily informed by my notions of God, as derived in part from reading the Biblical texts, but I do not use “God said” as a means to shirk responsibility for my actions. I believe, for example, that homosexuals should be allowed to marry, and believe it or not, I found my morality for this on Jesus’ message in the New Testament. But I’m not going to cite chapters and verses to support my view: It is mine, and I will be responsible for the consequences of that belief.
You guys did a lot of discussing while I was gone! I’ll try to respond to the posts directed at me.
I don’t know. I ask myself questions about things like this all the time, and I must admit that I don’t have the first clue as to whether or not they’re right or wrong. I believe that I am right, and I don’t know if that precludes the possibility that, say, Islam is also “right.” I just don’t know.
And if you’re itching to get into my head, I’d be more than willing to answer any questions you have. I’ll answer any question asked in good faith, and also quite a few asked in bad faith. But I don’t want to turn this into a thread about my religious beliefs, so if you have questions that aren’t about why we should or should not worship God, feel free to start a new thread or shoot me an email.
I have more than His word. I have faith within my heart and soul. I don’t know how it got there, and I certainly did not seek it. But it is there, and it is overpowering. There is no doubt in my mind that God is wholly good. If you do not believe that, I cannot convince you that it is true or even explain why I think it is. Logically, could I be worshipping an evil God? Perhaps. But I know that I am not. (I use “know” here to mean that it is something about which I have absolutely no doubt.)
And I thank you, mr. jp, for your kind words. I appreciate that you, someone who quite likely does not share my faith, seem to be genuinely interested in learning more about it.
Either you misunderstood my post, or you’re deliberately twisting it. I’ll assume the former, in good faith.
I don’t believe God is “sorta good, but also really, really evil.” I believe God is 100% good and that some of His actions seem evil to me, an imperfect human being who is not privy to God’s innermost thoughts. And I don’t “convince myself that if I say I believe, maybe he [sic] won’t send me to hell.” I could never profess to believe for such selfish reasons. I profess to believe because I believe. Of course, I am selfish and want to spend eternity in Heaven and not Hell, since it is “far better.” But getting into Heaven or out of Hell is not one of the reasons I believe. Rather, it is a happy side benefit.
I don’t admit that God allows unspeakable sins against humanity. God does allow things that seem horrible (to us humans) to happen: wars, disease, natural disasters, and a whole lot more. These are not sins. Sins are manifestations of imperfections in humanity. They are instances of man falling short of the glory of God. God cannot fall short of the glory of God, so He cannot sin. That’s simply a term, however. If you meant that God allows bad things to happen, then I’d agree, but only in the eyes of humanity. Every thing that God does or allows to happen is ultimatlely for the good of the Universe. That’s my belief. It doesn’t mean that I didn’t cry on 9/11 or that Hurricane Katrina didn’t hurt a lot of people or that my grandmother’s Alzheimer’s is pleasant. It means that, somehow, those tragedies all work to advance the cause of God here on Earth.
You’re right that it is not logic that guides me in my faith. You say heart and emotion, I would say faith, hope, and love with a healthy dose of prayer and meditation; but you basically got it right. I’d like to point out that I worship a very specific God, the one of the Protestant Bible. That God encompasses “all that is good” to me, so you’re basically right, although it’s more specific.
It is a cop-out, of course. It is an admission that I have no reponse for your logical arguments other than to say that I believe that God is working for good at all times, even if I don’t understand how the mechanism works.
I don’t say “It’s good because God does it.” I say “God does it because it is good.” Those to statements are very different. And I don’t think that that destroys the concept of morality. Perhaps I am misunderstanding your criticism, but I just don’t see how having a God that always works for good, often in ways I don’t understand, that I choose to follow and worship makes personal morality impossible.
You read this exactly the way I intended it.
Mayo
Taking a look around the world, you don’t see how having a God around could help shape things up a bit? All the genetic deformities that our scientists can’t explain that cause so much suffering: healed. All the separated peoples of the world who are at war: commanded to drop their differences because a whole new order is finally here. You find comfort in not having to participate in any religious practices because they bore you, and you see no need for them. If this were a perfect world everybody would understand why we would need to give thanks and praise to the Lord, because he keeps everything A-OK. If you fear your thoughts will offend God, then maybe there is something wrong with what you’re thinking? Maybe those thoughts will spread to others like a cancer and slowly corrupt their thoughts as well, in which case keep it to yourself.
So God is NOT completely omnipotent, but is subject to the same forces of nature as all of us. He’s just a lot smarter, has hindsight that is 40/20, and able to manipulate the forces of nature much more succesfully than you. He also bears much of the responsibility that so many people don’t care to, like helping us when we won’t even help ourselves. The greatest thing anyone ever did to get us so assbackwards was to convince us how silly the idea of a God is, and how silly our ancient ancestors were to believe in them. After all, they believed the world was FLAT, right? Weeeell, probably not… that’s a relatively recent thing, but oh well nevermind that. They were still really stupid!
And how ignorant you will feel when your world quickly falls apart around you. How much bitterness you’ll have built up inside you. Hey, you won’t have anyone to thank for this but yourself, oh and those responsible for our apocalypse. God didn’t make this happen, those who ruled over our planet so irresponsibly are. They forced God’s hand, and in the end this was his only choice. We are an insignificant part in the Grand Life Equation, and in the Greater Order must be preserved.
The glibness of this response shows I have misstated what I intended to say. Belief in smurfs would not (I imagine) provide an other-than-ridiculous framework for understanding the world.
There is a particular comfort in having that; I do not mean to say this is a reason for believing in God–far from it–just that it exists.
“Comfort” is not the same as “not being discomforted”. There are, no doubt, many Christians who live in fear of God’s retribution, which I agree is a form of discomfort. I personally do not, but there is no positive comfort in that (BTW, I’m growing tired of typing “comfort” over and over; can somebody come up with a better word for the vague idea I’m trying to express?:))
Religious “obligations” arise from allowing someone else to decide for you what is important in your relationship with God. Many Christians will tell you it is a joy to attend services; they have decided for themselves that this is something they wish to do, so it is no longer an obligation.
But let me turn the question around and see if I can come up with atheist “obligations”, like, say, participating in certain activities surrounding the celebration of Christmas. Please be clear: I am not saying atheists or agnostics cannot participate in any ritual, ceremony, or activity they like. But I wonder if some atheists consciously deny themselves of religion-tinged activities–activities they concede that they might enjoy–as a form of “obligation” to their core beliefs?
I think, Diogenes, that the phrase “to decide for yourself” is key here. My contention is that Theists, Agnostics, and Atheists can all decide for themselves what is important without contradicting their core principles.
Being an atheist per se doesn’t provide any comfort since it’s not a belief system. I am in awe of the discoveries of science, and I have great comfort in the application of rationalism to suss out the world around me. I take what others would describe as great spiritual pleasure in the presence of art, or the arms of my girlfriend. That’s more than enough for me. I feel far more “connected” to the vastness of the universe and it’s inhabitants as an athiest than I ever did as a christian.
I agree with CJJ. I didn’t find any comfort in discovering all the things I have about the Electric Universe and our crazy past and what’s going on. The way I figure it I’m completely screwed and when I die my soul is toast. I was watching this history channel special called “The Countdown to Armageddon” and there was this one part when this clear blue sky with puffy white clouds was showing. The narrator was saying how when those worthy of Heaven died, they would be found by God and whisked away to Heaven. There, God would whipe away all their tears because the way of the old world was over, and a new glorious age awaited them.
I looked around the room to all my friends and I could feel the discomfort. We all know that that’s not what’s in store for us. I felt so much sadness because I WANT to feel that, but that’s just not what’s going down.
I have never known an atheist who doesn’t celebrate Christmas (unless they were jewish). It’s not really a religious holiday. I even color eggs on easter.
Umm, so has God been stuck in line at the DMV or something? Because I haven’t seen any of those problems miraculously solved.
How do you know if someone (or yourself) is sinning or not? It may be god’s will that someone shot someone else. You really have no way of knowing right from wrong if divine misbehavior is the accepted standard.