Sorry I’ve been away for a little while, guys. Just been really busy. I’ll try to jump back in again soon. 🙂
Open Conversation Part 4
Sorry I’ve been away for a little while, guys. Just been really busy. I’ll try to jump back in again soon. 🙂
Finding Truth 
“I think there are also those christians who genuinely love and help others, even if that christian does not agree with the other person’s lifestyle.”
Yes, of course, that goes without saying, really. Same with there also being jerks. people are people who’ve had difference life experiences that wired their brain and affect their gene expression, and so on. My point was that they generally don’t (are taught) to not take credit for their nurture their altruistic behavior..
I considered myself a good person when I was a believer, but I am a better person without all the baggage that comes with an all-knowing, vengeful, jealous god who created a hell, having full awareness from the very beginning that most humans, throughout the history of humankind, would end up there. I cannot, in good conscience, worship such a deity.
You brought up a great point about ISIS and acts committed at the command of Yahweh. Jesus wanted us to bow down and worship this god (his father) who’s behavior was that of madmen.
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oh yeah, i’m with you. my search for better understanding led me out of religion.
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William, I should note that when I said that I believed I was a good person, I probably should have used the term “prosocial”. I think that after leaving Christianity, I found a sound balance between selfishness and selflessness.
One of the main problems I see with fundamental Christianity and the RCC theology (and other authoritarian religions) is that they pick and chose who has human rights and who doesn’t, and what sin is and isn’t based on their interpretation of archaic books.
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@ Hayden.
Research Devers, Finkelstein, Herzog.
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Victoria,
Some European countries do indeed have better social justice than the US and they also happen to be more post-Christian than the US, but proving causation (the more post-Christian, the more socially progressive without bankrupting the country) is actual quite difficult.
I see you are on board with the new sexual revolution, but why try to justify this by nature?
Feminist theologians would disagree.
Pinker’s analysis was sound, but it was limited. The sentence you quoted does not support your thesis. It could be that poor oppressed people find comfort in religion, as in the Deprivation Theory of religious conversion, rather than secularization leading to prosperity.
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Women no longer treated as “chattel”? I agree in so far as women suffrage has been great progress, and the dissolution of gender roles is good.
People live longer? New problem: cancer and dementia rates are increasing, end of life care is draining our economy and creating difficult ethical problems in our ICUs. A few long ICU stays could build a new hospital in Africa.
Fewer people suffer from extreme poverty? We can thank technology and the economic machine (Smith’s invisible hand) and not moral progress. Any society that produces more raises the standard of living of its constituents. And, why are the Western nations not helping the starving nations? Why did I meet starving children in Haiti? I’m sure they are all over the place while we drive our gas guzzlers, go to the movies, and drown ourselves in mindless entertainment to forget about the problems of the world. Even your beloved European nations don’t seem to be helping. In fact, historically Europe is to blame for Haiti’s situation for abusing them for so long. Now, the US sends more foreign aid to Haiti than Haiti’s own GDP, but the standard of living is very low.
War is becoming rarer and less deadly? Are you diminishing the oceans of blood from the last century? What about ISIS and the Ukraine-Russia conflict? Boko Haram? Chemical attacks in Syria. These are just the ones that are currently happening.
Suicide bombers, school shootings, online bullying, social isolation, the American dream that is made unreachable for the sake of the economic engine, Robin Williams hung himself, hackers stealing nude photos, NSA surveillance, TSA patting you down at the airport, 911, overworking, jealousy, keeping up with the Jones’, football and boxing and MMA causing chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) but the players get paid so much that they are willing to keep going for short term gain knowing they will have a short life those slaves to money and prestige, obsession with sports and stupid inane entertainment just to escape the suffering of this reality, denial, just cold denial, carbon dioxide being released at epic proportions and no nation will relent because their economy is dependent this, drugs, drug cartels, immigration problems, child abuse, elder abuse, lack of respect for elders, hate of government, and that little feeling of powerlessness that creates nearly universal apathy to engage in politics or almost anything until the millennial generation tweets and games their way out of their parent’s basement to inherit the wealth of the boomers and spend it on more mindless entertainment while African orphans suffer from hunger because their parents died of AIDS and Ebola. But, it’s OK so long as the there is brain-sucking, soul-sucking dopamine-inducing entertainment pleasure and masturbation and a little more of me me me me me, egocentricism, family-centrism, and nationalism, either this or the dopamine infusion that comes from feeling just that much more superior because one is progressive, feminist, pro-choice, fiscally liberal, listening to vinyl with thick-rimmed glasses drinking espresso. . . oh the superiority please give it to me because me. Me. Me. Me. “Me”. And, Me.
What about the cold, frightening meaninglessness of our existence and our imprisonment in our minds as we stare at these brightly lit screens slowly imprinting on our retinas arguing relentlessly because we both don’t know. Isn’t it a little disappointing, can’t you feel it in drop in your stomach and heart, that we sit here and argue about things that are lost to us. Like two ants arguing about what on top of a tree while we chew on some borate crystals. At least it was eco-friendly as if that will matter in 500 million years.
And, we’ll never get off this rock because space travel is far too dangerous. That’s what Hollywood is not telling us. We are destined to come to end as a species because the sun’s evolution will finally put earth on death row and walk it down the green mile with our heads held down because we love life and our demise is at hand. Yours, mine, his, hers, its, whatever, we are all on a one way trip to disintegrate into nothing. So, why do anything at all? Please tell me. Why do absolutely anything at all? To get a little burst of dopamine from winning an argument or feeling superior? I’ll tell you what that dopamine burst is worth. Zilch, it’s worth writing a note on paper, wadding it up, and tossing it into a black hole.
But wait. The world is still dark. But, there is hope.
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I was going to comment, but I’ve slit my wrists…
Okay, bad attempt at a joke — sorry.
I see what you’re saying, Brandon, but I truly don’t think things are that bad. And I’m the atheist! 🙂
Yes, there are problems in the world. Some very big, terrible problems. But the world has always been full of those. There have always been people who are willing to cheat, steal, murder, rape, etc. And there have always been meaningless ways to spend one’s time. I really think it’s hard to argue that there’s no moral progress.
Yes, the 20th century saw some horrible things: two world wars, the Great Depression, the Holocaust, nuclear fall-out. But it also saw some really great things: women’s rights, civil rights, the New Deal, Johnson’s Great Society, incredible medical breakthroughs, the end of the Cold War, etc. I think the mass deaths we witnessed speaks more to our technological advancements than it does our morality. Since before the Enlightenment, it seems we’ve been on am ever-increasing slope of moral progress. More and more, we come to see that even those who are very different from us are owed the same freedoms and opportunities. The world is not perfect, and it takes a lot of work to improve things. But I think it’s pretty clear that we’re slowly doing that improvement.
Again, it’s true that you can find many terrible things that are still going on today. But when has that not been the case? And groups like ISIS and Boko Haram stand out because the rest of us have moved on from such petty, brutal, tribal, ethno-centric thinking. But if you could send them back in time 1500 years, they really wouldn’t stand out. Ebola stands out… but it’s nothing compared to the Black Plague.
Things aren’t perfect, but they’re slowly getting better.
As far as meaning is concerned, why should I worry about any kind of “ultimate” meaning? The only point of view I can experience is my own. As long as my life is meaningful to me and those I care about, why should I get all worked up over questions of eternity?
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Back to our earlier conversation:
I want to come back to the evil message idea — first, I’d like to talk about the stone figure. Why would it be evil to worship a stone figure? Does that hurt anyone?
I actually think the writers of the Bible show a misunderstanding of idolatry anyway. Maybe I’m wrong in this, but I find it hard to believe that any idolaters actually believed the stone idol was a real god. I think they viewed it as a symbol, just as many churches today have stained glass windows depicting Jesus or certain scenes from the Bible. Or just like the “Christ the Redeemer” statue in Rio de Janeiro. Those things are representations of a deity or a belief — no one thinks they’re the actual god.
And if that’s all idols were — a symbol for god(s) — why should God be upset with that? What’s evil about it? Once again, I think it’s a sign of their yearning for answers.
As for evil, you mentioned elsewhere that our conscience may be the standard that God gave us for evil. You may be right — I’ve wondered this myself, especially when I was leaning more toward deism.
So if our conscience is the moral foundation God has given us, why did we ever need anything else? Why give the Jews a separate law that was so hard to follow? And with this understanding, what are we to make of the OT stories we’ve been talking about (genocide, etc). If they feel wrong and violate our conscience, what does that mean? Do we listen to our conscience and violate the law, or follow the law and violate our conscience? If it was okay for the Jews to follow the law at the expense of their conscience, why would the same not be true of pagans? Why should any “evil” in their religious practices have given them pause?
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Dave,
I think the problem of hell was one of the launching points in my days of atheism/agnosticism. But, a serious study shows that annihilationism is at least equally interpretable. I would go further though. Perhaps the only real “eternal torment” passage comes out of the end of Revelation, a book filled to the brim with figurative language. From this we can gather that if anything, the deity wants people to take scripture more serious and popular beliefs less seriously. Just like the deity would not want us to judge a black man with dreadlocks before seriously getting to know him.
Yes, it’s a good time to attempt to fill out the meaning of “align with God’s purpose” which as it stands is about as vague as me telling you, “Go there”. Let me start by getting us to think about the concept of specificity. Think of something with little specificity. Like going to a grocery store after work to buy something. Now something more specific. Like going to the Walmart on avenue M and 46th street at 6:30PM after working to pick up a frozen pizza and root beer for dinner tonight. I think the first characteristic of God’s purpose is that it is highly specific to our individual situations. There are things which God wants you to do and things he wants you to overcome. Your life is not mine, your weakness may not be mine. Second, I think it’s dynamic, that is specific to time and place.
God can’t expect a severely autistic person to run for the presidency. We all have unique challenges that God wants us to overcome for the sake of the world. I mean “align with God’s purpose” really boils down to loving, seeking forgiveness, living in harmony, selflessness, wisdom, effort, humility, and so on but as they apply to our specific situations.
I see what you mean. I guess there is no instruction manual reading: “Dave, wake up in the morning, shower, make a cup of Joe, kiss your spouse, donate $40 to the local food bank, and call your parents today”. But, I think listening really hard, seeking, striving, being conscientious and self-examination are key to making some kind of sense of it. Who do you need to love? Who do you need to forgive? Who do you need to ask for forgiveness? Who do you need to mend things with? What irks you and ruins your day that you need to overcome? What is the most important thing in your life that might take over and eat you? Do you need to reprioritize? Is there something that you love so much that if you lose it, you would die?
Those are just some ideas.
. . . let’s take a human and just strip them of some cognitive function and ask ourselves, do they lose value and purpose? A scientist develops dementia. Do you absolutely need the faculty of memory to build a purpose for yourself? Or, a stroke victim cannot use language, global aphasia. Are they amoral beings from here on out? Let me skip additional examples to suggest that there is a tiny part of us, independent of many cognitive faculties, that houses desire. What is it that we would do if we could and what will we do with what we can based on what we know at the time? By asking such a confusing rhetorical question, I am suggesting that at the moment in which you could consciously experience pain, you also had that little fire in you that is your desire and choice that, if given enough power, would radically change the world even make a whole new one. The ability to consciously experience pain is an extremely important distinction which I think separates out human pain from animal pain. Do you remember having the cord wrapped around your neck? I doubt it. You were not conscious enough and the fire had not been given anything to look to choose any sort of alignment. So long as the conscious experience of pain coincides with this fire, there is absolutely no such thing as a wasted life. And, maybe we can’t detect this fire just like it’s difficult to understand a demented patient or a babbling infant who is blooming into consciousness, that beautiful gift.
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All of the problems we are experiencing pale in comparison to our history.
“I see you are on board with the new sexual revolution, but why try to justify this by nature?”
Hardly. But I chose to educate myself on the whys rather than stoop down to Iron/Bronze age thinking and calling it sin and evil. Having that mindset will only exacerbate the problem and create unnecessary shame. Just imagine a god who would actually teach its creation about the hormonal fluxes and neurochemical soup that affect couples, as well as our unconscious urges to diversify our gene pool. When you educate regarding those urges and drives, you can curtail the guilt that religion and even society wants to place on people. These urges are perfectly normal.
“Why did I meet starving children in Haiti?”
Right after the earthquake the US allocated $379 million in aid and sent in 5000 troops. The US ultimately sent 22,000 military members to Haiti. It allocated nearly $2.7 billion dollars for Haiti earthquake relief and reconstruction. Roughly $1.6 billion went for relief and $1.140 billion for reconstruction.
However, of $379 million in initial US money for Haiti, most was not really money going directly, or in some cases even indirectly, to Haiti. The Associated Press documented as early as January 2010 that thirty three cents of each of these US dollars for Haiti was actually given directly back to the US to reimburse ourselves for sending in our military. The US almost totally bypassed the elected government of Haiti and sent less than a penny of each dollar of aid to the government. Forty two cents of each dollar went to private and public non-governmental organizations like Save the Children, the UN World Food Program and the Pan American Health Organization. http://www.haitiaction.net/News/BQ/1_4_12/1_4_12.html
That was apparently some arrangement made between the U.S. Government and Haiti.
But to say that Western nations are not helping the starving nations because they are too busy entertaining themselves does not line up to the data. According to The World Giving Index, Australia was ranked #1, Ireland 2, Canada 3, New Zealand 4, United States 5 Netherlands 6, United Kingdom 8, Paraguay 9 Denmark 10. In other words, Brandon, 9 out of 10 of the most charitable countries in the world came from Western countries.
Click to access worldgivingindex2012web.pdf
“Are you diminishing the oceans of blood from the last century?”
You saw the chart. War and death from war has dropped significantly since the last century.
” end of life care is draining our economy and creating difficult ethical problems in our ICUs. A few long ICU stays could build a new hospital in Africa.”
Studies published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), compared those who reported a lower level of religious support and those with the highest level of religious support. What they found was that people who reported the highest religious support from religious communities were about a third as likely to receive end-of-life (EoL) hospice care, over two and half times more likely to receive some form of aggressive — and expensive — EoL service (like being put on a ventilator or pursuing additional chemotherapy), and five times more likely to die in a hospital ICU in their last week of life.
Furthermore, patients who self-reported the highest levels of “religious coping” during their final days were 11 times as likely to receive aggressive EoL treatments and 22 times more likely to die in the ICU compared to those with lower levels of religious coping. These terminally ill EoL patient costs account for over $600 billion in health spending every year. So the drain on families, hospital facilities and insurance companies is coming from your most religious — it’s not across the board.
I would think that you’d be grateful that you have a reliable car, rather than complain about having to drive 60 miles to get to work. I would think that you’d be grateful that you have a higher education, rather than complain about your student loans which you took out knowing that you would go in debt. I would think you’d be grateful that you have a home and a loving wife, rather than complaining that you are stuck having to make a choice about your wife or the future or human civilization? Solutions to your situation can be found if you sincerely wanted to make that happen. I would think that you’d be grateful that you have a job. You complain you have a thankless 80 hour work week, but you were aware of the demanding hours you’d have to work as a physician, yet you chose that profession. Many people don’t have a job, or a car, or their health, or a loving partner, or a home much less a TV to watch Netflix on. I’m sure they would gladly trade places with you.
When I’m involved as an advocate online, unlike you, it’s not about the “cold, frightening meaninglessness of our existence and our imprisonment in our minds”. My life is far from ideal — far from it, but I still find joy in being a part of humanity and this planet, I call my home. I have hope for humanity, and I also hope you get to feeling better, Looks like your right amygdala (negative emotions) has been working overtime.
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Victoria, you’re response tells me that you don’t understand what I was getting at. Why such hostility? Did you notice that I took myself out of the situation? I opened up just a tiny bit and you invalidate me and pour salt on my wounds without even knowing my situation. I am complaining and unappreciative of my wife and stupid for not calculating the cost of medical school? This is not advocacy, it feels like hatred. I can’t respond to anything else.
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For someone who claims to have a direct line to the creator of the universe, you do not come across as a light to the world. As Nate and I have stated, the world is not bad as you make it out to be. I’m sorry if you felt offended, it wasn’t my intention. Again, I hope you get to feeling better.
“Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” 1Thessalonians 5:18
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Let’s clarify some things. I have never said I have a direct line with God. I am working on my reply to Nate which includes the part where I celebrate the accomplishments of humanity just like I did in my reply to you albeit briefly. But, most importantly, you need to know that I am just fine from the standpoint of my life situation, it is you that hurt me. Your consolation feels empty when followed by a hateful statement: “you do not come across as the light of the world”.
Victoria. You don’t have to hate me. You can let it go. You have the power to just let it go. I value your friendship, and I value your ideas and efforts. It would make me very happy to be your friend.
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It’s the word “hate” that stopped me. Do you actually think Victoria hates you Brandon?
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I didn’t see brandon’s post as depressing, but as a contrast to claims that humans are better off now as opposed to our more superstitious past.
Good, bad; it is often in our outlook that determines which it is that we see. at least, that’s what I took from brandon’s comment.
it makes me want to say then that we should focus on the reliability and believably of old superstitious books like the bible. we can argue over what point in time was best or worse and we argue over what the best moral state is to be in, but none of those things would have anything to do with whether the bible is true or not in its supernatural claims.
brandon, to me, the bible is a book of human claims. If man wrote the books and letters of the bible, and if other men copied those books and letters, and if other men canonized selected and sorted volumes of accepted or rejected books and letters, and if other men translated those works while other men told you about that cannon before and while you read it for yourself, how has your faith not originated and been completely dependent on the claims and works of men?
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Well – I think both sides have made some good points, but I don’t think we are going to reach any kind of resolution on the issue of whether the world is going uphill or downhill.
Brandon, I think the issue of moral progress or lack thereof is important to you. We all understand that now and some of us don’t see things quite as bleakly as you do, but you do raise some good points. However, if you are attempting to “depress us” into a state of pessimism so that we end up hoping for something better – I think that is a bad approach. I realized early on that I how I “feel” about something has no bearing on whether or not it is true.
Take evolution for example – wouldn’t we all feel more special if we were just created as is? But this feeling has no bearing on whether evolution happened or not.
I’ll be back later to comment on some of the other things we’ve been discussing.
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Brandon,
Thanks for explaining that more thoroughly. By this definition anyone here could be “in alignment” regardless of their beliefs about religious claims and such, am I right? So I could be agnostic about a deity’s existence, but still be “saved” because I’ve practiced the things you’ve mentioned? Using this view, all sorts of people from different religions could end up in heaven, please correct me if I’m misinterpreting.
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“But, most importantly, you need to know that I am just fine from the standpoint of my life situation”
Well that’s good to know Brandon. Your comments didn’t reflect that, though. Over the last year, when dealing with subject just like this one on Nate’s blog, you do tend to focus quite extensively on evil and sin, and I was basing some of my counter on two of your comments about how the times we are living in has played a major role in making you so miserable, yet you consciously made those life choices. In other words, chit happens, but it’s not always the fault of others. Own it.
You tend to focus on archaic solutions to bring about prosocial behavior. It’s one thing to bring awareness about social ills and offer education with effective solutions, but telling people that they should obey laws, and live up to unrealistic expectations to appease a so called perfect god, does not address the root causes of antisocial behavior.
Many religiously indoctrinated people (primarily evangelicals/fundamentalist) see humanity as broken in need of redemption requiring a bloody sacrifice of a so-called perfect being. Your posts emulated this.
You wrote in a previous comment: “Regardless of its source, humans still do things that are unconscionable through desensitizing themselves and giving into selfish passions.”
Yes they do and science has discovered the underlying causes, and I’ve shared this data with you numerous times. Brandon, Iron/Bronze age labeling (sin, evil) and its archaic solutions (get right or get left) don’t work.
You wrote: “Paul starts in Romans 1:18 by saying that there is something about nature that cultures ought to recognize there is something powerful and divine out there that cares about our behavior, yet the Gentiles disregarded this idea, and as punishment God gave them up to idolatry and their degrade passions. Then, in chapter 2 Paul starts addressing the Jews saying that they will not escape God’s judgment even though they have been entrusted with the truth. One of my favorite parts that seems to be overlooked is this:
“[The Gentiles] show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness; and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them on the day when, according to my gospel, God, through Jesus Christ, will judge the secret thoughts of all.” (Romans 2:15-16)
Yet all of this is counter to what we understand with regard to behavior that can bring harm to oneself or to others (antisocial). Paul did not bring education. Instead he used fear tactics — “God’s judgement and punishment”. The threat of fear and punishment does not reverse antisocial or “immoral” behavior. We have plenty of studies with experiments showing this to be the case. Also, there are many organic causes for antisocial behavior that your god never once addressed in that archaic book you promote.
Fear of an angry god who threatens judgement and punishment does not repair damage to the prefrontal cortex (which is often ireversible) that can cause antisocial behavior.
Fear of an angry god who threatens judgement and punishment does not reverse attachment spectrum disorders in children that can cause pons dysfunction (brain stem), and mental disorders and antisocial behavior..
Fear of an angry god who threatens judgement and punishment does not reverse hormonal-neurotransmitter imbalances that can lead to changes in the brain, thus a direct cause to antisocial behavior.
The promotion of fear and punishment is an archaic application that has negative long-term ramifications such as increasing gray matter volume in the right amygdala (negative emotions), causes toxic stress which atrophies the hippocampus, and does not address the core problems that may require medical intervention and rehabilitation. If you want to make positive, permanent changes to society, you do not do it by promoting fear and the threat of punishment.
So rules and threats were written in an unholy book, clearly at the hands of humans, promoting a totalitarian, all-seeing god who gets angry —- making people think that a god was watching them 24/7. People never really mature if they are indoctrinated to believe that the only reason for their prosocial behavior is because a god is watching their every move.
what if you punished and educated?
scare tactics are interesting to me too. is it bad to instill fear when fear is appropriate? I know that the term fear can be relative, but if told someone that they’d burn their hand if they touched a hot stove, wouldn’t the fear of burning your hand be good reason not to touch a hot stove, because it’s a true and certain effect?
I suppose that believers view god similarly. to them, it’s not terrible scare tactics to instill a fear of hell, because to them, hell is real, and hell is place to fear. to them, and in that regard, spreading fear and educating are the same.
i’m just thinking out loud and not discounting anything anyone has said.
brandon, I am very curious though, could you comment on your faith? I am specifically interested in knowing whether you think your faith is in god or in man, and if in god, then how, since you must first trust the men who claimed to speak for god, before you can trust in the god that they claimed to speak for?
The bible is not a direct message from god to man, even if it is true.
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@Brandon ” Your consolation feels empty when followed by a hateful statement: “you do not come across as the light of the world”.
oh, boo hoo, another poor persecuted Christian. lol.
hey Brandon, guess what, you don’t come across as the light of the world. far from it.
too bad you got your feelings hurt when victoria put a pin in the balloon of your ego.
she never said she hated you, you put those words in her mouth.
Brandon, “You can let it go. You have the power to just let it go.”
so condescending.
why are Christians always such asses?
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Brandon, in reference to what Dave states, I think it’s worth noting that morality is neither man-made, nor exclusive to us, but a consequence of evolution. Morality is older than religion. Science now proves (through brain scans) that humans derive pleasure from merely anticipating helping others. Humans are fundamentally social animals with innate morality.
Again, I suggest you read Peace Among Primates, with emphasis on the subtitle “Left behind”. From this example, you will see the behavior of humans and what happens when the dynamics of a baboon troop culture changes. You will see, in it’s most basic form, just how man-made the bible is regarding the necessary environments that help promote prosocial behavior.
Note that the alpha male baboons, the ones who died from eating tainted meat, emulate some of the behaviors that cause social dysfunction as seen in our time as well as throughout history. It resembles OT culture, Yahweh and his chosen patriarchs as well as cultures today that tend to be dysfunctional.
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“what if you punished and educated?”
William, fear of certain things can be a good thing, and life saving, which is why we evolved a right amygdala. To avoid predators or situations that could cause injury or death.
I am talking about the kind of fear tactics and punishment that is promoted in the bible and often in society, and which have been shown, consistently to not promote positive and permanent behavioral changes.
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This is all good advice and can be applied to our lives whether or not a creator deity actually exists. I really see no problems with what you believe, Brandon, in this regard. You’ve already rejected the more distasteful aspects of Christianity that promote simply believing in something improbable and that those who don’t believe get tortured eternally. Also, the more personal nature of the judgments made by your deity is more appealing than the ones that cheap believers espouse who think that everyone not in church on Sunday is going to roast.
If I believed in a creator deity I would have a similar view – that the desire of the deity would be for us to listen to our own conscience and help each other out. Where I would differ is in regard to the Bible. I would blame humans for anything that looked too human. I would probably adopt a much broader view and include all human writings across all religions and say that anything that resembled altruistic thinking and self improvement was “inspired” and anything that resembled our more baser instincts was “uninspired”.
If… IF…. If there is a god out there. That’s the question I am most puzzled by.
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yes i see, but research also shows that the religious often find things in the bible to be true, and therefore beneficial to be fearful of.
and at times I think there are grey areas as to what is justified fear and fear mongering.
I agree with you, I just also recall being a believer. true, once I saw these things I departed religion, but for whatever reason others do not. and again, i wast discrediting or arguing with anyone, just thinking out loud.
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@Brandon —
“4) The Naturalness of Religion Thesis I think tilts in favor of theism over atheism…it’s amazing that it was there so early and ubiquitous in the history of humanity.” – REALLY?! You find it amazing that with lightening and thunder coming from the sky, it would be “amazing” that a proto-human would anthropomorphize it? I would find it “amazing” if they DIDn’t!
“5) The origin of and particular shape that Christianity took is well explained by Jesus having actually resurrected.” – Which was witnessed by no one? had you said, “well explained by stories of Jesus having actually resurrected,” we might have had some point of agreement.
“6) Paul seemed to genuinely believe his testimony of Jesus’ resurrection and does not use religion for personal gain unlike Muhammad and Joseph Smith.” – There’s far more to “personal gain” than monetary compensation – in Smith’s case, it was access to all of those gullible teenaged girls – in Paul’s, I can just imagine the dopamine rush he got everytime he led his flock in the direction his Greek oratory skills wanted them to go – you know, kinda like you’re trying to do —
“8) Jesus predicted and warned of the downfall of Jerusalem and the razing of the temple in 70 AD.” – He actually named the date? Really? Where?
9) Love, joy, peace, longing for justice, longing for perfection, hate of evil, these are all signs pointing towards theism. – What a foolish statement – those are merely qualities that humans evolved that allowed them to survive and pass on their genes to future generations, no gods need apply.
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“8) Jesus predicted and warned of the downfall of Jerusalem and the razing of the temple in 70 AD.”
and let’s not forget that in actuality, jesus was said to have said, as he we have nothing he wrote himself. also, the “quotes” that we have are believed to have been written far after his death.
we dont know what god thinks, we know what some guys said that god thinks.
we dont know what god said, we know what some guys said that he said.
we dont know what god did, we know what some guys said that he did.
we dont know that god is, we just know that some guys said that god is.
to have faith in the god of the bible, you must first have faith in the men that wrote and assembled the bible. faith originates with man.
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