Too Taboo To Chew! (Religion) (Page 3 of 16)

oh, and atheism as a philosophical position is a belief that God does not exist. There are many atheists who aspire to live morally respectable lives (although the absolute foundation for those morals is often attributed to something unstable/relative such as socialization and 'enlightened self-interest').

Atheism as a spiritual position is 'anti-God'. As a philosophical position it is more like not believing in unicorns. Not believing in unicorns does not make one 'anti-unicorns' (heck, I love unicorns! lol)...it only means that they do not believe unicorns exist.

I can respect it as a philosophical position, only because of the difficulty that is involved with verifying the subjective accounts of others(and of oneself). I believe in God due to subjective, non-measurable experiences...not because of objective proof(though there are objective conditions that serve to at least substantiate my belief). Thus, to the philosophical position of atheism, given that the subjective experience either is not there, or that it was there, only doubted for its validity, we need to understand that there's nothing compelling their belief. I think praying for them is good

-Rob

What would it matter to God? Why would god want that? Would it boost his ego? And if it's what God wanted, why not just make us believe? And if he wants us to fully indulge in free will, then why would he compel us to believe in him? Why would an all-knowing God set mankind up as if it were some kind of experiment? Would God be unhappy if we didn't believe in him? Kind of tempermental, don't you think? (I say this jokingly in reference to the completely different God of the OT [save in Genesis, Proverbs and Psalms] that was jealous, spiteful, angry, etc.).

Also, when you say that man became morally corrupt in God's sight, does that mean all men? Why would some, like say, Buddha, and Krishna, and Socrates, and the Apostles, and so on and so forth be able to live lives of integrity, and not others? With the whole crucifixion forgiveness of everything, was God saying, "oops, I guess most of these things are defective and I should cut them some slack?" I find it hard to believe that God would make mistakes, let alone have to correct them.

Christ was the Truth and the Way, right? So, as long as people believe in Absolute Truth(as opposed to relativism), they're forgiven? Or is it Christ the person that we're supposed to believe in? I find this somewhat ambiguous. Either way, you've claimed that none are able to fully know Christ's perfection...and perhaps none shall be able to know the Absolute Truth either(they're one and the same anyway)...is there a difference between believing in Christ as he actually was, and believing in depictions of Him? Does one guarantee forgiveness and the other doesn't?

So it wasn't God changing, it was the fact that we changed so that we could be forgiven en masse? This doesn't make sense.

start with the Truth, and go from there
I like Genesis...though I don't interpret it literally.

-Rob

You still haven't explained why God wants us to believe at all. What does it really matter to God whether any of us believes or not? Surely God isn't sustained by our beliefs! It only makes sense that belief matters to us, not that it matters to God.

And what makes you so sure that Buddha didn't believe in God? Or that Socrates didn't? The fact that they didn't use the term 'God' to describe their beliefs? I'm sure that God and 'the Supreme' are synonyms...that Truth and God are synonyms....and these men believed in that.
Also, if people died and went to hell before Christ's death & ressurection, how could they be saved by Christ later if they didn't even know that Christ was God and that they had to believe in Him? Did God say, "Ohhh, I get why these guys are immoral and not believing in me! I haven't appeared to them!"?

So what would you call reaching Nirvana then, if not communing with Divinity in the purest form?

Is there a time limit on when this is supposed to occur? Buddha taught that everyone who has heard of Truth/Enlightenment will surely pursue it, and that all who pursue it will eventually have it. Is that not the equivalent of saying that everyone will submit to the Absolute, i.e.every knee will bow, and every tongue confess that Christ/God is God? Surely Buddha can't be held accountable for not having known the name 'Jesus' so long before Jesus ever came around! He was referring to the same thing though...
I still don't see why it is Christ the person that we must believe in (okay, it's obvious that he was a person, but his physical body seems rather insignificant next to his essence as Truth).

So it's more important to believe in a physical body than in the Truth that that body was a vessel for? It's interesting as well, that what we have done unto one another, we have done unto Christ. It seems odd that he would say that if he was hoping we'd view him as a person. To me, it seems as though the essence of doing good is that it is a means of honouring Truth and Divinity in essence. The kindnesses of Buddha and Krishna and Socrates and all the people to have come before Christ were done unto Christ as well, right? For he is not a man, but God! and God is everywhere.

How can we commune differently with God now that Jesus has died? If God had originally intended for us to commune with him in a certain way, then surely it would have been possible to do, right? If that's so, then the crucifixion would have simply occurred to point us in the right direction again, right? It wouldn't have actually changed the possibility of communing with God, since that was possible before (it's what God originally intended, after all!).

You keep saying our ability to worship God has changed, and then you describe it all as though God has changed his preferred way of being worshipped. We're only able to worship God in a different way because God seemingly 'changed' by becoming a man, or instituting some new agreement. All along, God has done the changing, not man. We remain just as ignorant as ever, lol.

This is a teaching from 'A Course in Miracles', though it contextualizes the impact of forgiveness in very Buddhist-esque terms:
"Forgiveness ends the dream of conflict." There is no true arithmetic...the arithmetic must be transcended in awareness; belief in the perfection of Creation/existence.

Every hair on my head is counted. Regardless of my lack of faith (See Gospel of Luke). God knows me, whether I have faith or not. Am I not more important than a few sparrows?

Sin is ignorance...that's what Jesus and Buddha both taught. Ignorance is when one does not see reality as reality is. God has no need to restore anything, because reality has remained intact. Adam's sin is representative of our innocent wandering into illusion and our inherent inability to discern between what we think is true and what is actually true.

-Rob

But I think you confuse something here: atheism does not equal lack of solid moral foundations. After all, atheism is just a lack of belief in god. This is what all atheists have in common. Where they take values from  - that varies from person to person. The same with theists: what is common - the belief in god, but how they see him, how understand his expectations - it is a variable. So if this is what you meant - I agree. But if you think that god is the only possible source of moral standards and those, who don't believe in him have no moral standards - then I don't agree.

About Dawkins - I will re-evaluate his "ideology" (so far I didn't find it as evil as you see it). I'll analyze it while taking your arguments into account and if I have anything to say about it, I'll get back to you (oh boy, probably I'll need to read The God Delusion again   )

This I don't understand. You believe that the source of morality is not you but god, but I think how you understand what god wants and expects isn't objective. You read the bible, some other books, analyzed it deeply and reached some conclusions. You believe these conclusions are right, true, the only possible. Objective. I think not. There are many religions in our world that are very different. Christianity is a big religion and divided. Some Christians cannot agree between themselves anything except some basic: "God exists, Jesus died for our sins". After all, most people think about their faith, reach some conclusions and decide that those are probably right. But those conclusions are not always the same for everyone. What does it mean? That moral foundations of Christians as a group are subjective. They depend on interpretation. It forced organized religions to build a doctrine, one set of conclusions that every member had to accept so that all could pretend that these rules and conclusions are objective. That's an illusion of objectivity and frankly, it is telling people how to think.

I think it is the other way round: religion adopts some rules derived from nature. After all, everyone is part of the nature first, part of a religion - maybe later. The things that most religions have in common, the rules that are universal (values that are present in most religions) - these come from nature.

I think you interpret his words incorrectly: it is not picking and choosing but finding a common set of values that are universal. He suggests that these values may be explained by evolution, because they increase our chances of survival (simply speaking). This is his hypothesis (not an ideology). I don't see contradictions here. {But I will try to find in his books what made you think that, just in case you saw something I didn't}

That I agree - as a scientist he is very angry when some ignorants come and spit on science while preaching religious superstitions. He never said that he can never change his mind about anything (e.g. evolution) but that it would require evidence - not just yelling out the alternative. This way he is not dogmatic - his opponents are.

What he criticizes is the giving up of the reasoning. Religions tend to ask for that. This may lead to atrocities. Atheism doesn't ask for that. If an atheist commits a crime, he is just a bad person. When a good person commits a crime - a religion might have been involved. If communists killed millions of people it wasn't because "God doesn't exist so I can kill" (you wish it was so simple). Communists had the ideology more complex than a simple atheism. Atheism was a small part of their beliefs. In a way they were indoctrinated the same way the terrorists are. Indoctrination requires suspension of reasoning. The victims of indoctrination don't analyze what is good and what is wrong - they have everything decided for them. In reality they think that what they do is a good thing (they were told so). I guess indoctrinated communists thought they are doing a good thing.

I think Dawkins criticizes all religions in this aspect - preventing people from analyzing themselves what is good and what is wrong, preparing an arbitrary set of rules that have to be obeyed and never questioned. If an atheist gives up reason, he may as well sign up to any religion. Real atheism requires thinking by yourself. But you can be indoctrinated to think god doesn't exist. You can be indoctrinated to be a vegetarian. That doesn't mean that vegetarian ideology kills people.

I know I didn't explain it very clearly but I hope you are getting my point.

2 much reading !

WetWildWendy.com

yeah i stopped posting too. made my head hurt and my eyes water. still a lot of contradictions here but my fingers refuse to make them public

Atheism is a foundation in communism, because communism is where the government decides people's place and value in the world, and not God. Communism where God is recognized as an authority would not be communism. It is totally foundational.
And, it has been responsible for innumerable deaths in the same degree that religion has.
Christianity doesn't teach that murder and the events of the Crusades are just and moral, yet under the banner of Christianity they were committed. In this sense it was actually a 'lack' of religion that gives rise to the crusades.
Communism, not recognizing any absolute authority in highest moral values, suffers the same problem, a lack of spiritual authority. Subjective or not, it is essential to recognize an absolute basis for morality, otherwise corruption is inevitable.
Stalin, Mao, Jong Il, etc. Atheistic governments ALL fail, because without recognition of an absolute basis for truth and morality, corruption is inevitable. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. This is why it is essential to recognize a higher power....

-Rob

Saying that atheism caused those deaths is pure stupidity. Were these caused by atheism directly?

Also the higher power needn't be a god. In communism the highest power was the proletariat. Communism didn't fail because atheism was one of it's qualities. The reasons were completely different. The state heads eventually had to answer to the people, no god was needed. You cannot commit all evil to the lack of faith. Are you saying that only non-religious people are capable of violence? Look at the suicide bombings. I'm an atheist and I do not support all that violence whatever the reason for it is and most of my friends are the same. Believing in god isn't necessary to be good.

A sidenote. If absolute power corrupts absolutely, isn't god absolutely corrupted?

Just haven't been able to sit at the comp for long enough lately. We've had guests over here the past fe days.
Don't worry though, your explanations have fallen short of satisfying still lol.
Don't get me wrong though, I'm enjoying it all a lot.
I'll get to replying to it son as I have a while to just sit and analyze.

-Rob

I don't think atheism makes your morals low(there are a lot of friendly atheists), just unstable since they don't have a foundation in anything that you perceive to be greater than yourself. When you change, so will your morals...they're not responsible to any particular standard.

-Rob

Isn't believing in god that makes people not more moral, but just more afraid to get punished. You can run away from law but not god?