posted
It would seem to follow that most Christians in positions of power through the ages were not, in fact, worshipping God properly, what with all the Really Weird priorities they had.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
Fair enough, bev, I didn't catch the funnay vibe - I was reading the thread at work, and responding from memory. If this amuses you, you might also get a chuckle from this interesting factoid : It is possible to show, in classical quantum mechanics, that a watched pot never boils. Quite literally : If you observe a radioactive nucleus sufficiently often, you can make the probability of its decay go to zero. The trick relies on some taking of limits, so if time is in fact quantised - in other words, if you can't really observe a nucleus as often as you please - it fails. Still, it does show something of how badly understood, or at any rate non-intuitive, wave-functions really are.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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I'll throw out another tangential statement here, just because it popped into my head. I don't currently pray, in any traditional sense of the word. In fact, I actively resist the temptation to do so, when it pops up. However I suspect that my meditations or what-have-you on the existence and nature of God are a sort of prayer. This seems to fit somehow with what you said, in that prayer seems to be to you an attempt to know God as much as or more than anything else. You think?
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Quantum mechanics makes superstitions not seem so, outrageous. (I was reading the other day that Philippinos believe that whistling at night will make the wind blow harder, or will invite evil spirits.)
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posted
Icarus, I have actually not thought of it that way before. It is an interesting thought. I have heard it said often amongst those of my faith that singing a hymn is like saying a prayer. But then, the words of hymns tend to be more like that of a prayer anyway.
Posts: 7050 | Registered: Feb 2004
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quote:What does God want from us? Why worship Him? Do worshippers (as opposed to believers, though usually nobody seems to be one without being the other) simply worship God out of respect for what He has done, as, I think, Beverly suggested . . . i.e., I think, out of gratitude or something like it? Or does God crave our worship somehow? If so (and I realize you probably would not phrase it with the intentionally charged word "crave" if you believe this way), why does God want our worship/praise/belief/etc?
"Worship" isn't an abstract or mysterious black box. It's an active thing that involves learning God's will through scripture, prayer, and meditation; serving your fellow men; and doing all that God has commanded us to do.
Essentially, worshipping God is what helps us progress toward him. God doesn't ask us to worship him because of the ego trip it gives him. He asks us to worship him because of how it will benefit us and those around us. Worshipping him is how we better ourselves, deepen our knowledge, and make the world a better place. God knows we need these things, and he sets himself up as a sure path to follow and a strength for us to rely on.
According to the laws of God, when we worship God through obeying his commandments and following his example, he can bless us with everything we need to return to him. If we don't, he can't bless us.
Praising God means acknowledging all that he has given us and expressing gratitude for it. Again, this is for our benefit. If we are inclined to be thankful for what we have and acknowledge that it comes from God, we will avoid being swallowed up by pride and we will remain open to sharing and serving others.
Belief in God is a desire to know him and become more like him. Belief in God puts us on the right path and helps us be more willing to follow him. Not believing in God prevents us from knowing him and knowing how to secure his blessings.
Edit: Son of a gun, I'm going to stop posting here. I take the time to type out a thoughtful response and the thread's moved on. Good night. Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
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posted
You know, if you substituted 'Master' for 'God' in that passage, you'd have a pretty good ideology for keeping slaves content.
EDIT : Let me clarify that a little; I'm not trying to be nasty, it was just the first thing that struck me on reading the text.
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posted
afr, do you believe in one of the Christian denominations that believes you must be Christian in this life in order to be "saved" in the next? If so, how does this jive with what you've stated there?
Or more simply put, if you (or anybody) believe that is true, WHY do you think God requires that belief? What if you follow most of His commandments incidentally because they happen to coincide with your own religious beliefs or sense of ethics?
If you believe you are "saved" by faith--a typical Protestant Christian doctrine, no?--and (further) that you must come by that faith in this life, i.e., in the absence of proof, what do you believe is God's purpose in this seemingly (to me) capricious requirement?
Personally, I reject this notion that belief/faith in this life is necessary in order to commune with the Creator in the next.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
Icarus, I can't answer your questions as a believer, or even as a non-believer for that matter because the questions are about what and why believers believe. However, I wanted to say that the rest of your post struck a chord with me. I could accept a creator that stands outside the "cycle of time", but I still consider myself an athiest. Some might classify me an agnostic, and I have myself at times in the past, but the more I think about it, the more I consider myself an athiest.
Basically, I do not believe that there is a being who is intimately concerned with individual human lives. Given proper evidence, I might believe in a creator of sorts. I might believe that some allegorical Adam and Eve, or even some proto-human was "created" or its evolution was influenced by some intelligence, or even that all life on earth was so seeded. I could believe in a being who fabricated this universe on a black-board in some "out of the cycle of time" laboratory before calling it into being. But I don't think that those kinds of beings are really what most people mean when they ask "Do you believe in God?" Thus I either answer "no", or ask them to clarify the question.
I believe that there is no objective evidence of the existence of a God. I believe that the human body and mind are so subject to the chemicals that run them and those chemicals are so subject to the types and amounts of rest and food and physical make-up of the individual that it is difficult, if not impossible, for one person to take the testimony of another's spiritual experience at face value. Indeed, I think it would be very difficult for me, myself, to take anything so vague as a feeling, or burning bosom or such as real evidence of anything divine even if I felt it myself. I think it is far to easy to psych yourself into any manner of belief for any such internal or personal "revelation" to be in the least trustworthy evidence.
While I'm willing to accept that God may not have fashioned the universe according to my sense of justice or propriety, I do think that if he exists it is His responsibility to talk the language of his listener. Because of this I believe that if "God" has ever spoken to me, he told me that I am just fine being who I am and loving who I love. Just fine believing what I do and rejecting what I have rejected. This has been confirmed to me as far as I can tell in exactly the same way most people claim contrary beliefs have been confirmed for them. From this experience, if I have a witness of anything it is that no organized religion has a true divine stamp. I recognize that others believe differently, and I am willing to grant that they are not irrational or stupid. I hope they can grant the same charity to me and my point of view. As to whether either of us are delusional, surely it's rational and not unfair to believe that one of us must be. I'm willing to accept the possibility that it might be me. But if it's me, God had the biggest hand in that so I'm comfortable laying the blame at His feet if He thinks I've strayed from a path He might have preferred.
[If anyone takes offense at this, please note the time and give me some slack. I'm happy to discuss any grievances at a future date.]
posted
KoM, I suppose that could work. But one would have to presuppose a "Master" who is perfect and is only interested in the benefit of the "Slave".
Interestingly enough, the scriptures are full of passages where God is described like a "Master" and we His "servants".
The "Father" "Child" relationship is used also.
But the idea is brought across in the combination of both that God knows what is best, far more than we do (as in a parent with a small child) and also that He is the source of all that we have (as in both the parent allegory and the "Master/servant" one.)
Though both ideas include the possibility of the "child" or "servant" becoming like the "parent" or "master.
Children grow up to be like their parents, and in the parable of the talents, the "master" rewarded his faithful servants with dominions of their own.
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posted
Icarus, I did not see your post until after I completed mine, so no I was not responding to you, I was merely voicing my own observations, although I did thoroughly enjoy your post.
However, in response to your post, I do believe that God desires our worship. After all, isn't that kind of why he created us? The Bible mentions that "He is teaching us to benefit ourselves." He wants what is best for us which can be found through worship of him. Advice For Robots explained it best. And remember, this life that we see is not the way in which mankind was originally created. So we really are not able to understand fully right now all of the benefits of drawing closer to God.
King of Men, Irreducible Complexity does not have to refer to a specific creature. There are many examples within the human anatomy of organs and systems that would need to have several things evolve all at once and in harmony before it would work correctly.
Actually odds have been calculated as to the possibility of the correct things happening at the correct times and in the correct stages of earth's development that could produce life. The odds are astronomical in the sense that they are essentially zero. The reason is that because if one step didn't happen, nothing else would have happened after that. However, as you state, these odds are all wild guesses, so my point is that the idea of a god is not any more improbable than the idea that we were created by chance. So it is completely rational to conclude that a god might exist. I'm not saying ALL rational people will come to that conclusion. My point is that all religious people are not irrational.
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posted
Too tired to type a meaningful reply right now, but I did write a post awhile back that might be relevant to some parts of the discussion at hand.
quote: There is no possible superposition between existing and not.
KoM, what if rather than poison gas we used a small thermonuclear bomb and a really big box? The cat would still be in a superposition, but in one reality it would no longer be recognizable as a cat.
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camus, you've been misled by creationist propaganda. There are excellent evolutionary paths for each and every organ in the human body. The mistake usually made in the kind of 'calculation' of odds that you refer to is to assume that everything has to do its current job, right from the beginning. Still, at least you didn't bring up information; I'll thank you not to do so.
quote:But one would have to presuppose a "Master" who is perfect and is only interested in the benefit of the "Slave".
Yes, that's what would make it such an excellent way of keeping the slaves under control, if they could be convinced of his benevolence.
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posted
Reading this thread has taken a lot of time, but I enjoyed every minute of it. While I don't think that I have anything to add (my thoughts are still distilling), I wanted to say thanks to everyone who shared and a particular thanks to beverly and Icarus. Your thoughts resounded deeply with me, and I appreciate so much your taking the time to write them down.
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posted
Thank you, Lucky4. I too appreciate the time Beverly has taken to give me (and others) well-reasoned and honest answers to my questions, the open-mindedness she (and Porter) always show for those who believe differently from them, and the class with which she answers comments that my knee-jerk response would be to take offense at. Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
I'm late in posting here and I didn't read all seven pages (pages pages of theological debate tend to get boring especially when you have such debates all the time) so I could just be re stating someone else's post
but to me theology all boils down to one thing at the end of every argument there's only one answer you either believe or you don't your justifications for believing or not are your own
we've all heard of people who lost faith in God because of some tragic event that scarred them for life (i.e. a parent or other family member dying) but then again some people come to faith in God for the exact same reasons
it's all free will you choose how you live you choose what you believe in if there's an eternity you will spend it according to how you lived your life if there isn't then I guess it didn't matter but... even if there is no God no eternity what's wrong with spending your own life helping people and being a good person it can't hurt
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quote:I've read some stuff about the theory that God was originally a woman, and it's pretty much complete bunk. There is no archaeological evidence that I've seen.
Forgive me for perhaps coming across as disrespectful, but it strikes me as odd for a Latter-Day Saint to dismiss anything out of hand as bunk due a lack of archeological evidence. As with Angiomorph, it's one thing to say that you personally find the evidence presented for a claim uncompelling, but another to say it is bunk.
I guess I wasn't clear enough. What I was referring to was an entire theory built around nothing more than a few scraps of pottery, basically stating that the Proto-Europeans (the pre-Indo-Europeans) were a peaceful, agrarian, matriarchal society. Then the bloodthirsty patriarchal Indo-Europeans came in and killed everyone and destroyed the idea of a peaceful, female god. The theory is nothing more than some old pottery fragments, a lot of radical feminism, and a lot of interpolation.
Dismissing someone's religious beliefs based on scant archaeological evidence is stupid and misses the point. Dismissing a would-be anthropological theory based on scant archaelogical evidence is entirely justified.
And let me elaborate on why the proto-Judaism/lava worshipper connection is so bogus. First off, he takes a fairly random assortment of words without looking at the histories of any them. There are a few Germanic words, a few Latinate words, and one or two Hittite and Hindi words. Some are ancient, and some are modern.
The words have next to nothing in common. They all have an initial l, but the following vowels and consonants are pretty much arbitrary. The parts of speech are arbitrary, and the semantic domains are completely different. He's got
washing
pouring
lifting
flowing
glowing
burning
lightning
avalanche
There is nothing to suggest that the different sets of words are related, especially considering that lava, meaning molten rock, only dates back about 300 years. It came from a dialectal use of an Italian word meaning "a stream or gutter suddenly caused by rain" (which of course traces back to the Latin lavare, meaning "to wash"). There is no connection between washing and fire, at least etymologically speaking.
And the biggest problem, of course, is that there is no connection between Indo-European and ancient Hebrew. Presumably, the word would have been borrowed from Hebrew, which means that there should be cognates or modern reflexes in Semitic languages today. If there is any evidence that the ancient Hebrews were fire-worshippers, it isn't supported by any linguistic evidence in Indo-European languages.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
Hi everybody! It is my first posting on hatrack. I was shown this thread by a good friend of mine and one your authors here. I take this as a chance to express my "model" about the World. It might bring new insights to some of you. I am looking forward to learning from your comments new insights that I might have missed.
If "God" is the answer to "why", then the usefulness of the notion of God is continuously decreasing. It appeared some 2-3 million years ago, when humans started to question why things happen as they do. They created this notion of God not only to answer questions, but also to sooth their fear of unknown, and most importantly, of death. (I do not comment here if God exists or not, but how people either "invented" or "discovered" God). This is the anthropological point of view and is compelling. As time passed, humans made observations of nature. They tried to explain. One of the first seem silly nowadays, but were excellent work of brilliant minds that used the information possessed at that time (the Greek philosophers, for example). Science was created. Modern science started some 400 years ago and answered A LOT of questions, so that God was had fewer and fewer things to explain. Questions still remain, but one may argue that we have to give science its chance in explaining even more. Thus, we hope that we would know more and more.
One of Kant's four questions was: What I am allowed to hope to know? And this is intimately related, if it is not the same, with the question of "why": Why are the natural laws the ones that are? Why is the human world the one that is? Science is incapable of explaining everything, as Gödel proved in mathematics that some laws may not be proved both right and wrong. One might argue that this set of "problems with currently no solutions/explanations" (that includes the "fundamentally unsolvable problems") is left as the realm of God and religion. I strongly hope that this realm diminishes and humans are able to explain more and more about the universe and themselves through science.
The question is: Why do we need God as an explanation for something? The Universe works the same if "She" (to be politically correct) exists or not. Thus, I conclude that Her existence is transparent to us, humans, living this life on Earth. If one believes in afterlife (or for that matter prelife), we want to know if She exists, as one would surely not want to go to Hell by not believing in Her. But if one does not believe or does not care what happens if an after life exists, there is no reason to appeal to God.
The Universe has laws. Once the Big Bang happened, these laws (maybe the laws themselves changed in time, though we take them as fixed for now) allowed the first particles to create, the quarks and bosons formed nucleons, electrons and photons, these formed atoms and the universe became transparent to light (and there was light! of the bible), atoms formed molecules, molecules added and added together as to form stars that formed planets ( a lot of planets!). On one (or maybe more) conditions were met as to create organic molecules to be created. An experiment from the 1920s proved clearly how urea could be created in an environment as the one the Earth might have had 4-5 billion years ago. Life appeared (still a troubling question for science), than life evolved and the theory of evolution explains perfectly how we arrived at the current situation of species. Animals have to eat each other and/or eat plants, plants "eat" minerals. They are not good or bad, they have to survive.
Everything that exists now is because our ancestors survived something and most likely killed something. We humans exterminated another species of humans (the Neanderthals) and this is a scientific fact. North Americans exterminated almost all the indigenous population. And the examples might continue. Is anyone questioning the morality of the Americans very existence just because they live in a territory they stole from the populations they exterminated? Almost no one does and we feel we are entitled to have white people in North America being at home, because ...because of what? Well, we were more civilized, we were stronger. We implicitly apply evolution in our history.
The story continues and will continue with the death of the Sun and so on. Where in all this does God have to appear? One would argue that one has to look in detail on human life.
During this life on Earth, people act out of free will and outside the person, things happen. Free will is by definition free, has no cause but may have a purpose/motivation. Natural phenomena are all explained by science to be causal (the tsunami came because of the accumulation of tension under the oceanic crust and not in order to punish the unbelief of these Muslims that do not accept Her Christ). However, religion speaks of purpose, not cause.
On my understanding of LDS doctrine, humans are born because they made this choice out of free will when they were just intelligences in their preborn life. They made that choice for a purpose, in order to evolve by experiencing the life on Earth, with good and bad. And in order to understand better the teachings that they will receive in the afterlife. But even without considering prelife, as most Christian religions do, life has a purpose, not a cause in the religious belief. They act so that they may be worthy to live close to their Heavenly Father, to enjoy the after life (in Heaven and not in Hell).
However, the science discredits this idea of purpose and backs the idea of cause. I try to be a scientist and I admit this is a hypothesis. If humans spent time developing models of nature and universe that would explain why the Universe is the way it is not because there are the natural laws and from the Big Bang (as a cause), but in order to reach a final given state (as a purpose), if science found evidence (if not proof) for the idea of purpose, then maybe the religion idea (and God with it) might stand a chance (at least in my personal beliefs).
I do not agree that I should have faith in God and afterlife just because we humans are afraid of dying.
Moreover, the world is not good, is not evil, as people here tried to see which one prevails in our world. There is no cruelty. Just some mere laws of interactions because particles that are accountable for everything in this world ( intelligence, consciousness and life are complex, but don't we have theory of complexity that explains how a complex system has more properties that just the sum of the properties of its part). If there ever was/is God, She stopped intervening after the Big Bang. Thus, Her existence does not affect us anymore.
You need a religion to be moral? I do not think so. And if I need, I'd surely choose an Asian one, that states a harmony and not a God.
Harmony is a proof of God? Einstein believed in this harmony of the world. Isn't it amazing that when he created his restraint relativity theory he thought: What would be the most beautiful universe, imagined and and later humans tested it and proved him right? Humans would call the Universe an intelligent design, but does not prove God. Hei, this world is not bad at all, it might actually be the best/most beautiful possible. (World=Universe explained by cosmology).
As for life on Earth and the seemingly small chance that it appeared, hey, do you have an idea how many planets are in the Universe? Science can guarantee at least 100 and it predicts billions. We are here because this planet had the good conditions. On a planet having other conditions, life may not have appeared and we would not ask questions in the first place.
In conclusion, science explains a lot and is promising to explain even more, as science has had an exponential growth in the last 3 centuries. If one rejects the idea of prelife and afterlife, there is no need of God whatsoever in our life, as God may be omnipotent but chose not to do anything. At most She created the universe and established its laws and put it in motion by Big Bang.
She then just let "the ants enjoy the picnic".
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I, for one, am not offended. But I do want to point out that so far as I know there is nothing in LDS theology that precludes the possibility that spirit (matter more refined) can interact with brain chemistry -- or for that matter that may be exactly how the interaction occurs.
The physics of that may be problematic, but I'm not sure that we know enough (and ever will know enough) about how dimensions and other universes work to know for sure.
The problem as I see it isn't so much of the impossibility of true revelation from God (or in other words 'not-just-self-or-environmentally-induced-chemical actions'), but rather the fact that our conditions here in this time and space and form make intepretation of such feelings/insights/revelations/inspirations difficult and often sketchy. Why this is so -- or rather why God let's this be so -- is another discussion (and one that I believe many of us have had).
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posted
I am only up to page 2 of this thread, but one bone of contention I can throw out is one that irks Spider Robison, and me: given the obvious reasons for Earth creatures to have pain of various sorts, then why would God ordain clinical shock? Pain can deter a creature from further damage, but shock kills. Indiscriminately. Almost always after the cause of pain and threat of further damage is no longer an issue.
Why??
Why is there shock in an orderly Universe?
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quote: I recognize that others believe differently, and I am willing to grant that they are not irrational or stupid. I hope they can grant the same charity to me and my point of view. As to whether either of us are delusional, surely it's rational and not unfair to believe that one of us must be. I'm willing to accept the possibility that it might be me.
This is why I love you KarlEd. Anyone who is willing to grant that others might be right and that people who don't share your opinion aren't irrational or stupid is wicked cool in my book.
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I apologize if what follows has already been said. I was reminded in KarlEd's original post about the things Paul said about how the ancients would have had enough evidence in the world around them to convince them of God's existence. Maybe they didn't have ant swarms back then?
Or, maybe the point is something else entirely.
Maybe death isn't the end we think it is. Maybe pain, even in animals without what we would recognize as "conscious thought" is not without meaning.
Maybe the lesson is that life is worth struggling to retain even through the pain.
I don't know.
I hope to know someday.
And that is why I believe there's a God, because without that, the Earth is merely a mechanism -- beautiful but ultimately here for the temporary ascendance of bits of genetic material.
With the concept of God...well, who knows? Maybe this is the entrance fee to something far better. Or maybe this is the training ground. Or maybe it's a gift to us and our job is to MAKE it better.
Do we "ride tandem with the random" (to quote Peter Gabriel) or is there a purpose? If there's a purpose, there's a God...
Or we have to invent our own purpose. And, as a species, we sort of suck at communal strategic planning.
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quote:And that is why I believe there's a God, because without that, the Earth is merely a mechanism -- beautiful but ultimately here for the temporary ascendance of bits of genetic material.
But this is an argument from 'ought' to 'is'. You don't like the consequences of not-X, so you assert X. This is also known as wishful thinking.
[ July 17, 2005, 04:01 PM: Message edited by: King of Men ]
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posted
KoM: I can't prove either case -- the existence or non-existence of God. For most things in my life, the distinction doesn't matter and thus the consequences of my being right or wrong don't matter.
In short, I don't care whether it's wishful thinking or bloody-minded contrariness.
Why?
Because in OTHER parts of my life, the distinction matters a great deal. The part of my life that helps me ponder the things that are beyond both Science and Religion. The parts that don't just work in the realm of experience (empirical knowledge) or in the realm of reason (no matter how abstract).
That doesn't mean I abandon my faculties for reason and thought. Truly, I realize that the possibilities are limitless and thus I'm free to imagine (or even wish) for whatever I want.
Who knows, maybe my will wish will come true!
Since part of my wish is that I be pleasantly surprised, I figure I've got a good shot at it.
I think it is important in life to realize the limitations of any brand of epistomology. The ability to KNOW is limited by the method. It always is. There are questions or topics that are always outside the bounds.
A dogged adherence to a mode of thought that cannot possibly answer any particular question is, to me, just a sign of a lack of creativity or, worse yet, arises from laziness or fear.
In other words:
- logic and reason where they apply - empiricism where I can actually observe - everything else, I'm free to roam.
There's a definite freedom in believing just about anything to be true until it is proven false. It may not work for practical stuff like crossing the street safely, but it sure is illuminating in the grand universe of the possible.
quote: I believe that there is no objective evidence of the existence of a God. I believe that the human body and mind are so subject to the chemicals that run them and those chemicals are so subject to the types and amounts of rest and food and physical make-up of the individual that it is difficult, if not impossible, for one person to take the testimony of another's spiritual experience at face value. Indeed, I think it would be very difficult for me, myself, to take anything so vague as a feeling, or burning bosom or such as real evidence of anything divine even if I felt it myself. I think it is far to easy to psych yourself into any manner of belief for any such internal or personal "revelation" to be in the least trustworthy evidence.
I certainly understand the desire not to fool yourself, but while I agree with what you said about our brain chemicals etc. yet we still all act as if our brain were completely reliable. We don't question what we see, hear, taste touch etc. and yet those neuronal paths are just as subject to the sorts of interference or malfunction as any other neurons. Therefore, I think it reasonable to conclude that if sight and sound and so on are trustworthy then thought is equally trustworthy, at least in relationship to brain chemistry and so on.
As far as morality goes, here is an even weaker version of pascal's wager which some atheists might be able to swallow. If one doesn't believe in God, one could still probably agree that working to make one's family and community as strong and happy as possible is probably a good goal. Since most of the laws of God seem to be aimed toward that purpose, believers and non-believers would be living most of the same laws anyway. When they die if the atheist comes to find out that there really is a god, perhaps he won't be under too much condemnation since he was working hard to be a good person anyway, so maybe he'll only get a little toasty in hell rather than burning there indefinitely.
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quote: Therefore, I think it reasonable to conclude that if sight and sound and so on are trustworthy then thought is equally trustworthy, at least in relationship to brain chemistry and so on.
Why? I can IMAGINE that you're floating in the sky in an orange tutu, but that doesn't make it so. And we know for a fact that thought is untrustworthy, which is why we have things like asylums.
quote: When they die if the atheist comes to find out that there really is a god, perhaps he won't be under too much condemnation since he was working hard to be a good person anyway, so maybe he'll only get a little toasty in hell rather than burning there indefinitely.
I would argue that atheists don't have to swallow this, because almost every atheist I know is already working towards being a good person. It's only the religious people I know who think they wouldn't be good people if they weren't afraid of Hell.
But it's also worth pointing out that most Christians wouldn't accept your interpretation, and would point out that if the atheist didn't accept Christ, he'd still wind up in Hell no matter how good a life he'd led.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote: Why? I can IMAGINE that you're floating in the sky in an orange tutu, but that doesn't make it so. And we know for a fact that thought is untrustworthy, which is why we have things like asylums.
I can't really understand what your point is with this. Your imagination is not chemically induced by an unreliable brain- it is under your will just as much as choosing to point your eyes at a particular object.
Asylums do not exist because brains are inherently unstable- if they were then everyone should spend time in an asylum. Your point is the equivalent of saying that the sense of sight is untrustworthy because some people go blind.
quote: I would argue that atheists don't have to swallow this, because almost every atheist I know is already working towards being a good person. It's only the religious people I know who think they wouldn't be good people if they weren't afraid of Hell.
First, I didn't just say "try to be a good person", that is even more general and nebulus than what I did say. Second, proceeding from my remarks to arguing that religious people are afraid they would be evil if not for the threat of hell while atheists are good on general principles is not only irrelevant but ridiculous and speaks to motivations that I neither ascribed nor implied.
quote: But it's also worth pointing out that most Christians wouldn't accept your interpretation, and would point out that if the atheist didn't accept Christ, he'd still wind up in Hell no matter how good a life he'd led.
It is actually not worth pointing out, unless you also think it is worth pointing out that from an atheist point of view Christians hypothetical souls will evaporate along with the rest of their mental constructs upon their death. It is true enough, but who cares?
Posts: 4548 | Registered: May 2001
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quote:But it's also worth pointing out that most Christians wouldn't accept your interpretation, and would point out that if the atheist didn't accept Christ, he'd still wind up in Hell no matter how good a life he'd led.
I almost got in a fist fight with a guy in Basic Training because he repeatedly told me that I didn't accept the "real" Christ. He also told me that Joseph Smith was the devil-incarnate and through that logic I was a devil worshipper. It really is amazing how harsh and demeaning some of the Christian denominations can be.
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quote:I can't really understand what your point is with this. Your imagination is not chemically induced by an unreliable brain- it is under your will just as much as choosing to point your eyes at a particular object.
Ah. Except that imagination is NOT always under someone's will. Which leads me directly to my asylum comment.
We know delusions happen. We know that people perceive things which are not there, and we know that such delusions can generally be disproved through other means and independent verification of the truth.
What you are saying is that someone's thoughts are sacrosanct, and do not require independent verification to be considered accurate. What I am saying is that we know that thoughts in particular are vulnerable to delusion, and also unfortunately very difficult to verify at all.
How do you know that I am not, in fact, the risen Christ? What if I insist that I am, or that -- more appropriately -- I have heard an internal voice telling me I am?
There's no reason to elevate imagination to the level of direct perception.
quote:First, I didn't just say "try to be a good person", that is even more general and nebulus than what I did say.
What you said -- "working to make one's family and community as strong as possible" -- is my definition of "goodness." Sorry I wasn't clear enough about that. And, again, almost every single atheist I know already expressly works toward this goal; there's no need for them to buy into some superstitious wager to seek to improve society.
quote:Second, proceeding from my remarks to arguing that religious people are afraid they would be evil if not for the threat of hell while atheists are good on general principles is not only irrelevant but ridiculous and speaks to motivations that I neither ascribed nor implied.
But you implied the HECK out of it! The implication is that atheists might not already be working for these common goals, and/or that religion is the best way to achieve these goals. And the second implication is that religious people wouldn't be working for these goals unless they had a religious reason to do so. I reject both premises. But unless you don't, there's no point in mentioning Pascal's Wager at all.
quote:It is actually not worth pointing out, unless you also think it is worth pointing out that from an atheist point of view Christians hypothetical souls will evaporate along with the rest of their mental constructs upon their death. It is true enough, but who cares?
Because you quite specifically mentioned that an atheist who'd worked to be a good person might not find himself too condemned. And I just wanted to point out that the majority of Christian religions in this country do not, in fact, believe this. In fact, if being a good person is all you need to do to get into Heaven, I think more people should be emulating the atheists of my acquaintance -- rather than the other way around.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote: Ah. Except that imagination is NOT always under someone's will. Which leads me directly to my asylum comment.
We know delusions happen. We know that people perceive things which are not there, and we know that such delusions can generally be disproved through other means and independent verification of the truth.
What you are implying is that delusion is common place. I see no reason to accept that postulate. I see no evidence that such is the case.
quote: What you are saying is that someone's thoughts are sacrosanct, and do not require independent verification to be considered accurate. What I am saying is that we know that thoughts in particular are vulnerable to delusion, and also unfortunately very difficult to verify at all.
The internal logic to your argument is suspect. If delusion is so widespread, then independent verification is meaningless.
Further, you take it as granted that thoughts are particularly vulnerable to delusion, but I do not agree. What proof have you that people are likely to have delusional thoughts?
quote: What you said -- "working to make one's family and community as strong as possible" -- is my definition of "goodness." Sorry I wasn't clear enough about that. And, again, almost every single atheist I know already expressly works toward this goal; there's no need for them to buy into some superstitious wager to seek to improve society.
Well, most religious people work toward this goal too. And since we all agree now that most everyone is working toward the same goal, the problem is solved and all is well.
quote: But you implied the HECK out of it! The implication is that atheists might not already be working for these common goals, and/or that religion is the best way to achieve these goals. And the second implication is that religious people wouldn't be working for these goals unless they had a religious reason to do so. I reject both premises. But unless you don't, there's no point in mentioning Pascal's Wager at all.
You are reading things which aren't there. If atheists and religious already have the same goals of building family and community, then perhaps everyone can put their guns down and work together. THAT is the purpose of my post, not some implication that atheists should become believers just in case.
quote:Because you quite specifically mentioned that an atheist who'd worked to be a good person might not find himself too condemned.
If you don't recognize my statement as humor, perhaps you should turn up the gain on your sensor a bit.
Posts: 4548 | Registered: May 2001
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quote: If that's the case, you probably shouldn't have mentioned Pascal.
Well, since I then went on to explain exactly what I meant, I will not accept responsibility for those who somehow equate what I said with Pascal's wager.
Posts: 4548 | Registered: May 2001
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posted
You said that your paragraph was a "weaker form of Pascal's wager." I didn't misinterpret it, but I definitely think the allusion leads the reader in the wrong direction.
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