Sure, I cannot know that He doesnt exist. But do any of you "decided" to believe in God even though you are pretty sure He doesnt exist? I was baptised as a baby and I'm a Catholic. I have really hard time trying to believe that anything supernatural EVER happend, even to Jesus Christ and to anyone around Him. I believe in all the things Jesus Christ said about love to other people. Long story short, I think I would be a very good Christian, if I could belive in any of those supernatural deeds that have ever happend. Is it possible to belive, for you, even though you are quite sure it isn't true?
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
Be a good person. The rest will take care of itself.
Posted by Aris Katsaris (Member # 4596) on :
I'm sure there are ways to believe falsehoods (avoiding to study counterarguments well enough, training yourself to instinctive loathe all who attempt to change your mind), but I doubt there's a way to *honestly* believe falsehoods. You might trade honesty for belief, but would you then truly be the person you seek to be?
I suggest you not take that path. Take joy in what's real instead.
Posted by Szymon (Member # 7103) on :
So believers do really think it all happend? Take the words of Gospel literally? I wondered- what was Jesus's DNA? He was human, so it must have been like everybody else's; he must have had His Father's DNA, does it mean that the part of DNA given him by Archangel Gabriel was actually God's? Had he been His Son literally, this is what we should presume. For me, it is much more probable, that Jesus called Himself Son of God, because of all the thoughts that he had, a mission he wanted to accomplish, a quest, but was a man like everyone else, and His father was most probably Joseph. Thus, Mary couldnt have been a virgin. Havent the early christians taken this all too seriously? It was needed so that simple people of ancient times would understand. Why cant we just cast away all this supernatural disguise and learn what we are really meant to learn. I would be a devoted Jesus's follower then Posted by Aris Katsaris (Member # 4596) on :
quote:"So believers do really think it all happened?"
quote:He was human, so it must have been like everybody else's; he must have had His Father's DNA
Must he? I don't find that remotely necessary even within the context of Christianity. Christianity doesn't call "God the Father" to be the Son's "gene-donor". Most Christians believe the Father to have birthed the Son even before there was a universe (or DNA).
quote:For me, it is much more probable, that Jesus called Himself Son of God, because of all the thoughts that he had, a mission he wanted to accomplish, a quest,
So you assign greater probability to the belief that: (1) Jesus called himself 'Son of God', but he merely meant he was on a mission from God, what would typically be called 'prophet' or 'messiah' instead.
I find your suggestion much less probable than all three of the other possibilities: (2) Jesus never called himself God of Son at all, the gospel-writers misreported him. (3) Jesus really believed himself to be literally the Son of God (4) Jesus didn't believe he was the Son of God, but wanted to deceive people.
Possibility (2) just requires that his message got corrupted, perhaps by the influence of Greeks and Romans who were too accustomed to having their heroes be the offspring of deities. Possibility (3) just requires for Jesus to be delusional. Possibility (4) requires him to be a fraudster.
Your preferred possibility requires him to misuse a term in a way that would get him stoned when he could have used the better word "prophet" instead. I find that less likely.
quote:Havent the early christians taken this all too seriously?
I'm sure they had no knowledge of the existence of DNA. Since your objection seems to derive solely from that, I don't think you ought criticize them on that front...
quote:Why cant we just cast away all this supernatural disguise and learn what we are really meant to learn. I would be a devoted Jesus's follower then
Meant? Meant by whom? By Jesus or by you? Because Jesus is recorded in the gospels as teaching about prayer, and about faith to God, and about awaiting God's coming -- the supernatural stuff wasn't a disguise to *him*, unless you are calling him (or the gospel writers) a fraud. The supernatural stuff wasn't peripheral, they were at the core.
You don't seem to want to follow him, you seem to want to lead him; strip away anything you don't like, emphasize the stuff you do like, perhaps make a few additions of your own, then make Christians follow your version, not Jesus' version.
In what way would you be following him then?
If you only follow him by first telling him where to go, he wouldn't be your guide, but just your taxi-driver.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Szymon: ... But do any of you "decided" to believe in God even though you are pretty sure He doesnt exist? ...
I'm not sure what the point would be. Christianity separated from all the supernatural bits does have a few good ideas here and there. But there doesn't seem to be a need to believe in the Christian god to practice those good ideas, so I'm not sure what the point would be.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Szymon, a belief in a literal reading of Scripture is not necessary to be a good Christian. Particularly, a good Catholic. I would say that it isn't even usual. You can believe in God without believing in the "supernatural" - whatever that means. Jesus was not merely the son of God in a "having half of God's DNA" kind of way but was God Himself - God Incarnate. Concepts that we only clumsily approach with language. So, yes it is very possible but you have to be prepared for it to be more complex, richer and deeper than you imagine. If you are serious, I would suggest that you start reading this guy's stuff. http://www.jackshea.org/
You should also find a good parish. Where are you?
Posted by Aris Katsaris (Member # 4596) on :
quote:You can believe in God without believing in the "supernatural" - whatever that means
Since God is included in the "supernatural", I'm pretty sure that you can't.
A literal reading is not required for every single passage of scripture, but there's no *honest* reading (as in thinking that this is what truly what God would have wanted you to understand from the text) that completely removes the supernatural element altogether.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
What do you mean by "supernatural"? Edit: In this context I am assuming that, by "supernatural", Szymon was talking about things that seem "magic" or otherwise contrary to our understanding of nature rather than bigger or beyond nature which I would agree would include God. Maybe metaphysical would be better or metanatural would be better to talk about God than supernatural?
[ March 29, 2011, 11:13 AM: Message edited by: kmbboots ]
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
Speaking as a non-Christian, I am all about the discovery of God, as the journey which leads to understanding is different for each of us.
If you took a very wise 100 year old and asked them what the meaning of life is in a single sentence and then gave that sentence to a 15 year old, it would be nearly meaningless to the teen. Or to put it in a more simple way, "Life is a journey, not a destination."
I believe that the search for God is vital and necessary and those who treat their religion as a guide book to that search do well, and those who use their religion as a crutch to replace that search do very poorly.
Do you have to believe every single biblical word literally to be a good Christian? No. Find your own meaning.
Church is more about a community of like minded morality driven people. Find a good church and your journey will be one filled with helpful guides and kind people who will try and answer your questions.
Find a bad church and you will be instantly judged for even trying to ask questions.
I was raised Christian and have been in both schools of church.
Try the Episcopalians, they are very friendly and open but still have wonderful pomp and traditions.
Posted by Aris Katsaris (Member # 4596) on :
quote:I believe that the search for God is vital and necessary
In "The Great Divorce" (which I greatly recommend) C.S. Lewis had a nasty description for the sort of person who cared about the question more than the answer. A certain sort of person would turn away from heaven just because there they would actually find their answers at last, and could no longer please themselves by endlessly, masochistically, wallowing in the unanswered questions.
A question is only important if having the correct answer is important. If questions about God are important, then it can only be because there do exist correct answers and wrong answers and those matter.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
How dogmatic of you.
Let us assume you are correct (which is a stretch for me) and there is only one "true" answer to the question of God.
For the sake of argument, let us call this one true answer "Denver".
Now, even assuming that Denver and only Denver is true and blissful goodness and Chicago, LA or New York are all wrong wrong wrong, everyone who seeks to journey to Denver will start their journey from a different place in the world.
So each and every person will take a different road to get to Denver.
And each and every person must find their own road, even to the same destination.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
I believe that belief is, much more than most people realize, a matter of will. We all choose, consciously or not, what we believe in.
That said, I think that saying you believe in something you know to be false ultimately a meaningless contradiction.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Did C.S. Lewis call them Catholics? Finding the "right" answers is, I think, almost always an illusion. The mysteries are called that for a reason; there are infinite layers of answer.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
I don't think Aris Katsaris' statement HAS to be true for everyone. I think there are people for whom religion is genuinely better than no religion. However, if the actual truth-value of the answer is irrelevant, then I don't see how it matters much what the question is.
quote:The mysteries are called that for a reason; there are infinite layers of answer.
I do take issues with this particular statement. Two thousand years ago, "fire" was a mystery. So was the formation of the earth. So was the process by which life came to be. There were people who cared very deeply about the "mysterious" of the lack of answers. The fact that there are still questions we haven't answered says nothing about how many questions there are, or whether we should keep looking for actual answers.
Posted by Aris Katsaris (Member # 4596) on :
quote:How dogmatic of you.
LOL, I think that's the exact thing that person said in "The Great Divorce", when the soul of his dead friend came to tell him that Heaven was real, God/Jesus were real, those were indeed the true answers, and he now knew it for certain, he was no longer in the need to inquire about the existence of God anymore, he *knew* it.
So yeah, I "dogmatically" believe truth is important. Which means that even as an atheist I'm better in tune with real actual Christians than you are.
quote:And each and every person must find their own road, even to the same destination.
Perhaps. Or they can open a map. Or ask other people about how to reach Denver. Jesus said "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:". He didn't say "you need to find your own way", he said He was the way.
One thing is sure -- if people *only* care about finding a road but don't care about the destination, then they will find plenty of roads but they will never actually go anywhere. They'll be so pleased at being on the road, that they won't notice they aren't moving.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
quote:Let us assume you are correct (which is a stretch for me) and there is only one "true" answer to the question of God.
Unpack for me what exactly you think this means. You're heavily implying that there is more than one "true" answer to the God question. Assuming THAT is true, what does that actually mean?
Posted by Shawshank (Member # 8453) on :
To strip down Christianity into simply an ethical system is to ultimately miss the point of Christianity. Certainly ethics are of tremendous importance, but ultimately they are not the most important aspect of the Christian life.
And when you do that- I would say one ceases to be Christian.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
Disclaimer: I'm well aware that we're approaching this issue from vastly, vastly different worldviews. Quoting lines from Less Wrong isn't going to do me (or Aris Katsaris) any good.
I'm not asking anyone to accept the Less Wrong paradigm. But I am asking you (plural "you", basically anyone who believes the God question doesn't necessarily have a "factual" answer) to clarify:
1) What you mean by "God" 2) Why it matters whether God exists 3) How you can tell if your questions (or answers) about God are useful.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: I don't think Aris Katsaris' statement HAS to be true for everyone. I think there are people for whom religion is genuinely better than no religion. However, if the actual truth-value of the answer is irrelevant, then I don't see how it matters much what the question is.
quote:The mysteries are called that for a reason; there are infinite layers of answer.
I do take issues with this particular statement. Two thousand years ago, "fire" was a mystery. So was the formation of the earth. So was the process by which life came to be. There were people who cared very deeply about the "mysterious" of the lack of answers. The fact that there are still questions we haven't answered says nothing about how many questions there are, or whether we should keep looking for actual answers.
Do you think that we know everything there is to know about fire? And fire is way simpler than an infinite God. Of course we keep looking; we just aren't ever done looking.
Posted by Aris Katsaris (Member # 4596) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Did C.S. Lewis call them Catholics?
LOL, what?
I didn't mean he called them names or something (I may have phrased the post wrongly), I just meant he portrayed them as turning away from heaven because for them the promise of actual definite answers was seen as a threat.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
quote:Do you think that we know everything there is to know about fire? And fire is way simpler than an infinite God. Of course we keep looking; we just aren't ever done looking.
God is not a thing to study, he's just a possible answer to other things. If you believe otherwise, please explain why.
We know more than enough about fire for my purposes. What exactly do we not know, and why do you care?
Related question: By what criteria do you distinguish a catholic from a non-catholic?
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
@Szymon:
To answer your questions in any meaningful way, we need to know why it matters to you whether or not you are a Christian.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
quote:So yeah, I "dogmatically" believe truth is important. Which means that even as an atheist I'm better in tune with real actual Christians than you are.
You are falsely assuming that I do not believe truth is important. And insultingly and completely presumptuously assuming you are more "in tune" with Christians then I.
I never said that the truth didn't matter. I said each person must find their own way to truth.
quote:Unpack for me what exactly you think this means. You're heavily implying that there is more than one "true" answer to the God question. Assuming THAT is true, what does that actually mean?
Okay, for the sake of argument God is the world. You are searching for truth about God and study a pond's surface. You learn great truths about the surface of the water and apply them to your life. And as you are about to walk away from the pond, you realize that under the surface of the water, there are fish swimming in the depths of the pond. You study the whole waters this time and discover very true and moving things about the pond's water. Then you discover that the pond has a solid bottom made up of sand and rock and mud and plants and animals.
What you learned about the surface of the pond is true, but not the only truth.
If you believe in a God who is all powerful, who made us and everything in our reality, how can you possibly think that we could ever -fully- understand God with our limited brains in the 80 or so years we have?
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
For clarity, let's dispense with metaphors for the time being. We're not talking about ponds, we're talking about God. For the conversation to be productive, I need to know:
1) What you mean by "God" 2) Why it matters whether God exists 3) How you can tell if your questions (or answers) about God are useful.
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
Re point #3: What do you mean by useful?
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
Edit for clarity:
I leave it up to individuals how they determine what "useful" means. If they have a reason that they care whether God exists, they should also have a way to distinguish between methods of inquiry that produce answers they care about and ones that odn't.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
Golly I thought I answered your first question so directly.
As for no metaphors, how exactly do you discuss a theoretical being such as God without a real life comparison? *Sigh* I'll try though.
1. My current theory is that God is everything. Babies, empty Coke cans, dog crap, your, me, the planet Uranus, etcetera ad nauseum. Matter is made up of energy, in a pattern, our brains are patterns of energy, the more complex the pattern of energy, the more energy in the pattern, the more interesting or intelligent the thing. Rocks are pretty simple, carrots are more complex, and rabbits even more, etc.
Now, take everything, the whole of all, that is a pretty complex pattern, with lots and lots of energy with it.
God = self aware everything.
Is God aware of us humans? Possible. We are, arguably, the only thinking life around (as far as we know). Possibly not. I'm not aware of my individual liver cells. They are a part of me, they live and die and I never know it, unless they all die, then I might figure it out, by dying myself.
2. There is too much order, too many rules for there not to be *something*. I mean, if there was any real chaos in the world, then matter would fly apart, gravity would not keep things together, dogs would like cats, the Vikings would win the Superbowl, it would be messy. Well, actually it would be nothing.
Without consistent and iron clad rules, there is no universe. To me, that speaks of a choice. The choice that something is better then nothing. That speaks to me of a chooser.
I don't look around me and see order upon order upon order and say, well this happened randomly. I see God. Is it important if we humans believe it's true? *shrug* Prolly not to God. Maybe to us if we are to find any kind of deeper understanding.
3. It is in our makeup to be curious about things, and to seek deeper and truer answers. If you truly truly believe you have found an aspect of God you can relate to, then you can take comfort from it, and you feel better connected to life.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
quote:1. My current theory is that God is everything. Babies, empty Coke cans, dog crap, your, me, the planet Uranus, etcetera ad nauseum. Matter is made up of energy, in a pattern, our brains are patterns of energy, the more complex the pattern of energy, the more energy in the pattern, the more interesting or intelligent the thing. Rocks are pretty simple, carrots are more complex, and rabbits even more, etc.
God = self aware everything.
So essentially your question is: Is the universe self aware?
This is a question with a straightforward, factual answer. Either it is, or it isn't. I have no idea what the answer is. But it's not something that can be both true and untrue.
quote:To me, that speaks of a choice. The choice that something is better then nothing.
That doesn't follow at all.
quote:I don't look around me and see order upon order upon order and say, well this happened randomly.
This is a very anthropomorphic statement to make. A computer can generate an enormously complex piece of artwork based on simple, mathematical rules. We can even make mathematical rules that randomly generate other mathematical rules. None of them are sentient.
Is it possible that universal rules were made by another, intelligent designer? Maybe. Then you're left with the question: where did that designer come from? He doesn't make the answer any more satisfactory (except to satisfy a human bias towards having something human-like have created the universe). If there's an infinite series of causes, there's no reason that any of them have to have been sentient. If there's a single first cause, there's no reason it had to be sentient either.
There's a good article on Less Wrong that helps you wrap your brain around non-sentient causes. (I think it's extremely useful whether or not it changes your beliefs about God)
quote:If you truly truly believe you have found an aspect of God you can relate to, then you can take comfort from it, and you feel better connected to life.
This is true, but it is not contingent on the truth value of the thing you believe.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
For those too lazy to click the link:
quote:If we ask who was more correct - the theologians who argued for a Creator-God, or the intellectually unfulfilled atheists who argued that mice spontaneously generated - then the theologians must be declared the victors: evolution is not God, but it is closer to God than it is to pure random entropy. Mutation is random, but selection is non-random. This doesn't mean an intelligent Fairy is reaching in and selecting. It means there's a non-zero statistical correlation between the gene and how often the organism reproduces. Over a few million years, that non-zero statistical correlation adds up to something very powerful. It's not a god, but it's more closely akin to a god than it is to snow on a television screen.
In a lot of ways, evolution is like unto theology. "Gods are ontologically distinct from creatures," said Damien Broderick, "or they're not worth the paper they're written on." And indeed, the Shaper of Life is not itself a creature. Evolution is bodiless, like the Judeo-Christian deity. Omnipresent in Nature, immanent in the fall of every leaf. Vast as a planet's surface. Billions of years old. Itself unmade, arising naturally from the structure of physics. Doesn't that all sound like something that might have been said about God?
And yet the Maker has no mind, as well as no body. In some ways, its handiwork is incredibly poor design by human standards. It is internally divided. Most of all, it isn't nice.
In a way, Darwin discovered God - a God that failed to match the preconceptions of theology, and so passed unheralded. If Darwin had discovered that life was created by an intelligent agent - a bodiless mind that loves us, and will smite us with lightning if we dare say otherwise - people would have said "My gosh! That's God!"
But instead Darwin discovered a strange alien God - not comfortably "ineffable", but really genuinely different from us. Evolution is not a God, but if it were, it wouldn't be Jehovah. It would be H. P. Lovecraft's Azathoth, the blind idiot God burbling chaotically at the center of everything, surrounded by the thin monotonous piping of flutes.
Which you might have predicted, if you had really looked at Nature.
So much for the claim some religionists make, that they believe in a vague deity with a correspondingly high probability. Anyone who really believed in a vague deity, would have recognized their strange inhuman creator when Darwin said "Aha!"
So much for the claim some religionists make, that they are waiting innocently curious for Science to discover God. Science has already discovered the sort-of-godlike maker of humans - but it wasn't what the religionists wanted to hear. They were waiting for the discovery of their God, the highly specific God they want to be there. They shall wait forever, for the great discovery has already taken place, and the winner is Azathoth.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
Welp RA, if you don't like those answers, how about this...
1. I have a personal theory that changes as I experience and learn more, which I shared with you. What is yours?
2. It matters because I choose to assign meaning to it.
3. I can tell because I feel comforted. You never asked about truth.
The original poster was seeking answers about wanting to believe and failing.
My suggestion to them is, keep looking til you find something you do believe in.
As to what you are trying to discuss, I'm rather unclear. What exactly is your point here?
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
My point is to figure out what you're trying to discuss before I bother involving myself too heavily in that discussion. I've had this discussion a hundred times with people who are committed to a vague, self-contradictory theories because they are emotionally compelling. I try not to do that anymore.
As for my answer: I don't care whether God exists or not. I did for a while, because a lot of other people did and I figured I should at least look into it. By now, the question has dissolved itself into meaninglessness. Maybe the universe is sentient, maybe not. But the universe very clearly DOESN'T actively care about humans, or if it does it doesn't have the power to do anything. So while the question is sometimes interesting in an abstract way, it's not comforting.
I only care when other people are asking questions, to make sure that they get the answers that are helpful to them. (My discussion with you is pretty orthogonal to my advice to Szymon - I don't know enough about xir to recommend a path of inquiry. If xe clarifies what it is xe wants and why, then I may have some recommendations for xir)
What is comforting to me is this:
quote:There is no justice in the laws of Nature, No term for fairness in the equations of motion. The universe is neither evil, nor good, it simply does not care. The stars don't care, or the Sun, or the sky. But they don't have to! We care! There is light in the world, and it is us!
Eliezer puts it more eloquently than I, but I've believed that for long before I read his work.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
I like that quote.
What is "xer"?
I would have to strongly disagree with you on one point...that you don't care if God exists or not. Why else did you join this discussion if you had no intention of giving advice to the original poster?
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
Xer/xe = him/her, he/she...I really do not know why people just don't use "they/them", its so much easier!
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
I don't care whether God exists. I do care whether other people think he exists. More importantly, I care why they think that.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
quote:Xer/xe = him/her, he/she...I really do not know why people just don't use "they/them", its so much easier!
They/them sounds right to me when I'm referring to an amorphous, anonymous person who might or might not be plural, but wrong to me when referring to a specific person who is obviously not plural. It's not any easier or harder, just preference.
When the English language gives me a specific gender neutral pronoun to use for people whose gender I don't know, I'll use that. For now I just go with what sounds right to me.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
quote:I don't care whether God exists. I do care whether other people think he exists. More importantly, I care why they think that.
Fair enough.
Why do you care if/why they care?
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
Oh, and it is harder, because it confused the crap out of me to the extent that I was googling "xer".
So, there is a reason, clarity.
Just for the record.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
I actually see that as a plus, because it forces people to take a second look at male-centric areas of the english language. If I had said:
"My discussion with you is pretty orthogonal to my advice to Szymon - I don't know enough about them to recommend a path of inquiry. If they clarify what it is they want and why, then I may have some recommendations for them"
You (or rather, the average person) probably would have assumed I was using improper grammar but not understood why.
(Having clarified that, we don't need to dwell on that point anymore)
Posted by Szymon (Member # 7103) on :
quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: @Szymon:
To answer your questions in any meaningful way, we need to know why it matters to you whether or not you are a Christian.
For lack of better reason, Pascal's Wager
To be honest, I can imagine a situation, that I walk down the street. Then, out of nowhere Jesus appears, look all Jesus-like. He is flying, has holes in his palms (or wrists) and feet, and a wound on his side. He answers all my questions, and shows me pictures or videos of all his miracles (even makes a small one for me, just to believe it) - I wouldnt believe in it, I suppose.
It is impossible for me to imagine anything supernatural: there would be a super-law that apply to the Universe, even God would have to obey it, when he makes His miracles. In other words- if miracles, "magic", did happen- there must have been some "magical-law" explanation of it, something that we dont understand yet.
But Im sure it all didnt happen, it's a myth, if not a lie. My question is: do you think Benedict XVI or John Paul II really think it was all TRUE? They were/are intelligent men. Does mr Card believe in it? Really really really believe in it?
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: You (or rather, the average person) probably would have assumed I was using improper grammar but not understood why.
It's not actually incorrect. It has been an accepted usage in standard American (and British) English for about 150 years.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
In a word, yes.
I don't personally, but I think they do, or at least close enough to be yes.
Faith is a very powerful thing.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
Thank you rivka!
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Correction: It has been an accepted usage in standard English since the 1300s.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Szymon: ... For lack of better reason, Pascal's Wager
It kinda feels like we can now gawk at an endangered species of strawman Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
>For lack of better reason, Pascal's Wager
Well, if it helps, Pascal's Wager is a completely flawed argument so you don't have to worry about it. For every hypothetical God who might care if you believe in them, there's another hypothetical God will hates people believing in them and will punish you unless you don't.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Pascal, to me, seems to have missed the point as much as Raymond does. In other words, not a very good reason to believe anything.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
I don't think you've actually explained what the point is the way you think you have.
Posted by Anna2112 (Member # 12493) on :
Really, to me, what it boils down to after too many hours on Less Wrong and other similar sites, is that it's impossible to know, with all absolute and entire certainty, whether or not there's a God. Either you're the kind of person who says, there's some evidence for and some evidence against, and I won't accept anything as true unless the evidence conclusively verifies the fact, or you're the kind of person who says, mostly the evidence leans towards a God, so I'll have faith in the other 30% (or so).
I do believe in a God (and I'm one of the aforementioned Episcopalians, we're nice people:)) because to me, on a personal level, the evidence seems to point towards God. And no, I can't definitively prove it. I can't say that I'm right and you're wrong and here's why, I can only say that I believe I've felt Him in my life enough that in my personal experience, I'm like 70% sure He's there. And the rest is faith, I think. Everybody doubts.
So @Szymon, there have been times in my life where I feel like I can't see God around me, but I think that's where faith comes in. I think that sometimes, you have to remind yourself to believe, even though you can't see or feel God all the time, because that's part of the difficulties of being a Christian.
And as to the idea of what C.S. Lewis was saying in The Great Divorce, I read that as you shouldn't be asking questions when you don't really care about the answers. He's not condemning those who question at all, he's saying that when you have the truth presented to you, you ought to believe in it. Otherwise you don't care about the truth at all, you just care about questioning the truth, in which case it doesn't really make sense to ask the questions in the first place. But he's not condemning those who read a section of the Bible and don't immediately believe in it. After all, he was an atheist for a large part of his life.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Sorry. I missed that. God is certainly a thing to study - but that doesn't mean we will figure it out. Knowing about fire was an analogy. Most people know "enough" about God to be going on with, without knowing everything. Regarding Catholics, are you asking a technical question (Catholics are determined by whether or not they were baptised Catholic or converted to Catholicism) or trying to get my joke (Catholics accept a certain amount of what we call Mystery.)
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
I'm trying to understand:
Why you consider yourself a Catholic, when your beliefs seem to run contrary to a lot of a Catholic dogma. It sounds like if you're baptized, you're Catholic regardless of your beliefs. But you've indicated that you genuinely believe Catholicism is more accurate than other religion. Why Catholicism rather than other branches of Christianity, or deism?
I didn't know you were making a joke... so... I guess feel free to explain it if you feel like. Dunno how important that part was.
2) For something to be a thing to study, you must have a way to study it. If you're simply defining God to be the universe (you've essentially said that in the past), fine, but it's pretty clear that there's SOMETHING about your definition of God that makes studying God different from simply studying the entire universe. What makes you use the word God instead of "The universe?" What kind of universe and personal experiences would have prompted you to say "The Universe" rather than "God?"
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
What do you mean by "accurate"? Do you mean accurate about the events of the Bible? Accurate about the nature of God? I don't think that accurate really works in this context. I think that your wanting these kind of things to be accurate is part of why we keep talking past each other.
I think that the Catholic approach to thinking about these things makes sense.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
What is it about being Catholic that appeals to you more than being non-Catholic.
What characteristics do you have that make you a Catholic rather than a Non-Catholic, other than baptism.
[ March 29, 2011, 09:38 PM: Message edited by: Raymond Arnold ]
Posted by Szymon (Member # 7103) on :
quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: I'm trying to understand:
Why you consider yourself a Catholic, when your beliefs seem to run contrary to a lot of a Catholic dogma. It sounds like if you're baptized, you're Catholic regardless of your beliefs. But you've indicated that you genuinely believe Catholicism is more accurate than other religion. Why Catholicism rather than other branches of Christianity, or deism?
I didn't know you were making a joke... so... I guess feel free to explain it if you feel like. Dunno how important that part was.
I'm Catholic in the eyes of Church, because I have not aphostated (is that a word in English too?). As you have noticed, I dont believe in any od the dogma, so Im not Catholic. I keep speaking about this branch, because I was born and raised in Poland, and here it is really difficult to find other branches, except for Jehova Witnesses and Mormons on the streets.
Posted by Rawrain (Member # 12414) on :
I always thought religion was a choice of beliefs, unless you're a jew in which case it's a bit more difficult, but still a choice.
Being an atheist I am obligated not to post anything religious, I agrivate everyone enough, religion seems to be a topic where everyone is wrong /: because no one knows what's right. (This is why I will raise my daughter with no religious pressure, let her make her own choices)
Szymon,if you can't find a branch that's right for you, raise money and start your own branch.
Or feel free to join me, and start worshiping the Earth, by taking care of it >;o you have but one solid ground to live on so I expect everyone to respect it mwahahahahah
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rawrain: my daughter
Is this theoretical? (In which case I wonder about the absence of your theoretical son.) Or do you have a kid?
Posted by Rawrain (Member # 12414) on :
Unfortunetly the son is the only one that's theoretical /:
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
You have a non-rhetorical child, Rawrain? Seriously?
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
@Szymon:
I'm still not entirely sure what your goals are and whether my advice applies to you, but I know these things:
• It is possible to find joy, wonder and purpose in the universe, without there being anything supernatural about it, and without there being any greater, sentient force that cares. • If your community is religious, it is often possible to interact with them and take joy in their rituals without believing in the factual content of those rituals. My family celebrates Christmas Eve. We gather together and sing for hours about the story of Jesus. It's one of the high points of my year, because of the feeling of togetherness it brings. Even though I think Jesus was just some random guy who got grossly misquoted. • It is possible to find communities that aren't religious filled with positive people who can help you be a good person and have a good life. Those communities can be explicitly scientific or spiritual. They can also be about things that have nothing to do with the greater universe at all. You can be part of a community that sings or dances, or practices martial arts, or creates art, or anything else you think is awesome.
There was a period of my life where I defined myself as an agnostic, where I cared a lot about not committing too much to beliefs about God. Later I realized that with basically zero evidence, I might as well call myself an atheist, so I defined myself by that. Eventually I realized that defining myself as someone who doesn't believe in God made about as much sense as defining myself as someone who doesn't believe in leprechauns.
Now I identify as an artist, and as a humanist. Art is the most important thing that I do. Humans are the most important thing I believe in. My recommendation to you is to find the things that you DO believe in and care about, and worry about that. And to find a supportive community that will help you become the kind of person you want to be.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: What is it about being Catholic that appeals to you more than being non-Catholic.
What characteristics do you have that make you a Catholic rather than a Non-Catholic, other than baptism.
I wasn't baptised Catholic; I converted. I can go (again) into all the reasons but does it really matter to you?
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
The Catholic part doesn't explicitly matter, but I am genuinely curious. Whether satisfying my curiosity is important enough to bother is up to you. I wouldn't blame you if it is't.
I don't remember you ever actually saying *why* you were Catholic in particular - you just kept saying things like "I like the way that Catholics approach things." If you recall a time when you thought you had explained in detail and can either link to it or remember the thread title enough that I might be able to find it, I'd check it out again. But I really think you are not as clear about things as you think you are.
The part that genuinely bothers me is the way you tell people to (effectively) discard their entire belief system and adopt yours, in a way that suggests you don't really understand that that is what you're doing, or that it isn't a big deal.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
When have I suggested that someone adopt my belief system? Szymon asked a question.. I gave the opinion that he could if he wanted to. For the record, I don't generally think that people should or need to convert to either Christianity or Catholicism, though I am happy to advise or encourage anyone who already is leaning that way.
Rather than search for old threads or retype, here is an article that explains most of what it is about Catholicism that appeals to me despite various obstacles which I believe are transitory and will, with work and time, pass.
The article should at least provide a starting point.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
Thanks for the link.
quote:When have I suggested that someone adopt my belief system?
What you've said (not in this thread) is that people should "just take the good stuff." If they have a belief that is "bad", just discard it. This isn't something people can just do if they have beliefs that actually affect their worldview. If they believe God will work through miracles, or that God wants us to follow certain laws, they can't just ignore those parts of their scripts without re-examining their entire belief structure. And to that, you DO have to look at your beliefs about God through a lens of "what is actually accurate and supported by evidence."
God either wants us to follow certain laws written down in a particular book, or he doesn't. If you're saying people should discard a belief because it's inaccurate, it's unfair to not to open your own beliefs up to an examination based on accuracy. The importance of accurate beliefs is not something you can just disregard when talking about God. If you tell someone that they should care about, say, material suffering (i.e. don't stone people to death), but they believe that refusing to do so will have greater consequences for people's relationship with God, the conservation has to be about the accuracy of religious beliefs before you can expect to make any headway.
You haven't made that precise kind of claim in this thread, but you've made statements about my "not getting it" that seem rooted in the same issue.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
When I say that you don't get it, I am speaking accurately. You don't. You don't understand what I am talking about or why your whole last post is pretty much wrong.
What I am not saying is that you should get it. If you are happy and not harming anyone, there is no real reason for you to need to get it.
Ultimately, people choose whether to believe in a God that wants them to stone people or a God that wants them to feed other people or no God at all. "Accurate" has nothing to do with it.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
Agrees with kmbboots.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
quote:Ultimately, people decide whether to believe in a God that wants them to stone people or a God that wants them to feed other people or no God at all. "Accurate" has nothing to do with it.
For some people this is definitely true. For other people it is definitely not. I have a friend who's stated point blank to me that he doesn't want to believe the things he believes about God, but that he has no more choice about that then to stop believing in Gravity, because the evidence is that compelling for him. I have no idea what's going on in his subconscious. But I don't think it's fair at all to respond to that with "no, it's not about the evidence, just believe something else."
quote:When I say that you don't get it, I am speaking accurately. You don't. You don't understand what I am talking about or why your whole last post is pretty much wrong.
What I am not saying is that you should get it
I want to get it. I really, really do. Partly so I can read your posts about God without wincing. And, possibly, because there really is something going on that I don't understand that I would benefit from.
[ March 30, 2011, 01:53 PM: Message edited by: Raymond Arnold ]
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Your friend is wrong. If he is happy and not harming anyone then fine. But, of course he is choosing. The very fact that other people make different choices makes it clear that he is choosing. Of course it is possible to choose otherwise; we have evidence of that. If he wants to believe otherwise, he certainly can. I do. You do. It may take some work He may have to learn (an unlearn some stuff) but if he would be happy (and less harmful) it is good work. He may have to give up some things that he wants to keep - family, community. He may have to face some harmful things he has done while he was making a wrong choice, which is hard. But if he doesn't want to believe in a God that seems wrong to him, he doesn't have to.
Posted by Armoth (Member # 4752) on :
agrees with Raymond.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
quote:It may take some work. He may have to learn (an unlearn some stuff) but if he would be happy (and less harmful) it is good work. He may have to give up some things that he wants to keep - family, community. He may have to face some harmful things he has done while he was making a wrong choice, which is hard.
This is all very true. But key line (at least for my point) is:
quote:He may have (un)learn some stuff)
Part of the problem is his prior attachment to community, to his romantic partner, to his pride. But whatever the subconscious motivations at work, he believes that his interpretation of Christianity is founded on enough evidence that he can't simply disregard it. At least one of the things necessary for him to move on is for that belief to change.
A few years ago it would have been impossible for that to happen (because his understanding of logic was too narrow, and he had no positive role models of spirituality that differed from his position). A lot of that has changed now, and I think I could convince him to abandon his "evidence based beliefs." Soon afterwards the rest of his belief structure would fall apart.
I believe that doing so would (eventually) make his life much better. But there would be at least a year of pain before that happened. It'd probably cost us our friendship.
[I'm uncomfortable discussing my friend's life, even anonymously. But his trials have given me enormous perspective, that I think other people should have access to. I'm going to delete this section when the thread-conversation has moved on]
The most important reasons for him to cling to his old belief structure are emotional. But that doesn't make the evidence, or lack thereof, irrelevant. I focus on the evidence-based reasoning because it's the part that can actually be addressed, and because I don't want people using words like "logic" and "science" as a cover for beliefs that primarily motivated by emotion.
Moreover, regardless of how people ACTUALLY form most of their beliefs, I think beliefs SHOULD be based on evidence. It's not a goal I expect everyone to work towards, and for some people it may not be the best option. It sometimes may be beneficial to believe something because it is comforting. But whenever you do, you're attaching yourself to a way of thinking that risks turning you into next generation's science denier. Right now the sentience or lack-thereof of the universe is conveniently Mysterious. Someday it may not be.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:But if he doesn't want to believe in a God that seems wrong to him, he doesn't have to.
When I was a kid I would have liked to have parents that showered me with candy and video games, but choosing to believe that my parents did this wouldn't make it so.
If God has an independent existence, then there is nothing inconsistent in believing that his/her/its will may diverge from our own.
[ March 30, 2011, 03:19 PM: Message edited by: MattP ]
Posted by Rawrain (Member # 12414) on :
I can't get past the magical afterlife, it's just being used so things like the government can run all over you and make your life crap, while "you" believe it all means something after you're dead, unfortunetly it's also the same method to keep crime levels down "Hell", so I mean you try to do anything about this and everyone goes wacko...
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Raymond (and Matt), have you seem incontrovertible evidence for the God your friend chooses to worship? Nor have I. Nor do I believe that it exists. So I choose.
I didn't say it would be easy or even preferable for your friend to choose something else. People have done it though. Lots of them. Given up faith and community and family in order to choose differently. I daresay more than one person on this forum has done it. Clearly it can be done.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
I didn't say it couldn't be done. I just think you are dismissive of the experiences of people who DO try their best to believe things based on evidence, no matter what role other biases play.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Again, what evidence? Again, if your friend is happy and non-harmful as he is, it is none of my business what he believes. If heisn't happy and wants to change that is another story and he could benefit from having it pointed out to him that he isn't basing his belief on evidence but on choice. But that is not my call.
Nor am I dismissive of those who have made the often terribly painful journey to that realization. I have been with too many of them on that trip to minimize the cost.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
quote:If heisn't happy and wants to change that is another story and he could benefit from having it pointed out to him that he isn't basing his belief on evidence but on choice.
This. This is dismissive. I feel angry (or at least very annoyed) reading that. The fact that you are not dismissing other important things does not mean you are not dismissive about this particular thing.
I honestly try to believe things based on the evidence.
My friend also honestly tries (to the best of my knowledge) to believe things based on evidence. There are many other reasons that he believes the things he believes. Those things do not make his perception of the evidence irrelevant. Getting rid of his other biases would cause him to re-evaluate some of that evidence. For other pieces of evidence (a lot of personal experiences he's described), nothing is going to make it go away except an actual discussion of the evidence and why it doesn't mean what he thinks it does.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Raymond, maybe we are confused about what each of thinks of as evidence. Do you think that your friend is basing his belief on evidence so incontrovertible as to deny disbelief? If so, why don't you belief as he does? Surely he would have shared this evidence with you.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
Different people apply different weight to different types of evidence. In some circles "spiritual evidence" is seen as having more weight than other types so what I might just call a delusion or hallucination may be interpreted as incontrovertible evidence for the validity of the doctrine that it is associated with.
The fact that this evidence is flimsy by some external standard is irrelevant and is even used as further proof that external standards of evidence can lead people astray from capital-T "Truth".
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Matt, do you think that they are powerless about how they apply and interpret different kinds of evidence? Or rather that some of them are, because others are obviously not.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
What Matt said. More specifically, I've actually experienced some of the things he's described (communication with a presence in your mind, and religious revelation). In my case, the "presence in my mind" was an imaginary friend I knew I made up. But if I was told, early in life, that that imaginary friend was real, and it was accompanied with revelatory experiences and numerous other biases, I can easily imagine myself being so convinced that disregarding that "evidence" would be extremely difficult.
"Difficult" doesn't just mean it requires more effort. It can mean that it is genuinely impossible, or beyond what is reasonable to expect of someone.
(I briefly took seriously the "revelation" I had, because I felt it would be dishonest not to try. I gave God a strict deadline though, because if I didn't eventually I'd mistake some random coincidence for a sign. A few months later I had another experience identical to the revelatory one, except it was about a card game.)
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
For the umpteenth time, I said it was difficult and painful and costly choice. What about that are you not hearing?
I don't know your friend or whether he is capable of making that choice or if he even wants to.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
I think "choice" is the wrong word here. If I consider my own current beliefs and try to imagine, for instance, coming to believe in Mormon doctrine, I can't see any reasonable path by which I could "choose" to reach that outcome. I would have to have experiences which are substantially different than any I've had to date and significantly change the fundamental way in which I view the world.
This is unlikely enough to be essentially impossible, though even if it were to happen I'd have a difficult time calling the result of that process a choice in the same way that I can't choose to get cancer even if I do choose to start smoking.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
This is the comparison my friend made. I think it is valid (in part because of those experiences that showed me what is likely to be going on in my friend's head). You might have the same response to this scenario, in which case I guess I can't complain. Dunno:
Say you had a friend named Bob that you and the rest of your community all knew and had interacted with regularly, then you moved to a new city, where you met me and mentioned Bob, and my response was "dude, Bob wasn't real! He was just a figment of your imagination!" And then I produce numerous studies showing that sometimes groups of people all have collective imaginary friends...
That is the scenario we're talking about. I do not think it's meaningful to say you have a choice whether to believe in Bob. Especially not before you run into someone who can explain in detail why Bob is more likely to be a figment of your imagination than a real person. And I think it's dismissive to say that you believe in Bob because of a choice you made, rather than because you felt you had perfectly adequate evidence that Bob exists. Adding disclaimers that the choice was a costly, painful one doesn't make the statement less dismissive to me.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Do you have incontrovertible evidence that Bob isn't real? (Some studies showing that sometimes Bobs are imaginary is not incontrovertible.) Is believing in Bob making me unhappy? Do I want to stop believing in Bob?
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Would "decision" offend you less than "choice"?
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
quote:Do you have incontrovertible evidence that Bob isn't real? (Some studies showing that sometimes Bobs are imaginary is not incontrovertible.) Is believing in Bob making me unhappy? Do I want to stop believing in Bob?
Believing in Bob doesn't make you unhappy, until you decide not to take your kids to the hospital because Bob is a Doctor, and he always comes to give medicine that's better than whatever you'd get from the Hospital. (Sometimes he doesn't, but when that happens he has a good reason). Most people in your old community, possibly yourself, have experienced Bob showing up and giving medicine on occasion, so this isn't you just believing in something for no reason.
Or Bob feels very strongly that you shouldn't do particular things, and you respect his opinion, so you don't do those things. Even when research indicates those things are in fact perfectly healthy and perhaps even important.
Or Bob doesn't do much of anything, but he asks for money a lot.
Or Bob has strong opinions that you shouldn't hang out with THOSE people. Maybe you don't mind THOSE people so much and even think Bob's wrong about that. But still, you wouldn't deny that Bob himself definitely doesn't like THOSE people. And it would be awkward if he showed up at your house while you had some of THOSE people over.
Or, hell, maybe Bob doesn't do anything special. He's just your friend. He just very definitely exists. People used to think he did all kinds of things, but one by one they've realized those things actually happened for other reasons, and each generation has people in it who have to rationalize why the discoveries of their generation don't apply to Bob.
Eventually you learn that lots of other people claim to have met Bob, but that people disagree on some pretty important things. Like whether he's a Doctor. Or how old he is. Or how tall he is. Or practically everything about him.
So yeah, the studies show that sometimes Bobs are fake or misunderstood. They don't prove anything incontrovertibly though. So clearly, those studies apply to the OTHER people who thin Bob isn't a doctor and is short and 4 years old instead of 90. The studies don't apply to you. Because you've met him. Personally.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Would "decision" offend you less than "choice"?
Offend? I just don't think it accurately represents the phenomenon. I think "conclusion" is probably closer to the mark. But you can't tell someone to "conclude differently" without recognizing the awkwardness in that sentiment.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
In general, I think "decisions" are things that happen due to causes. Sometimes those causes come from within a person's innate nature, but often not.
Still, I'm pretending to believe in Free Will for the purposes of this discussion. And even with that in mind, I think it's nonsensical to say that you believe something "because of your choice" rather than "because of the evidence." You made a choice. Because of the evidence.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Again, what evidence? If some being "magically" appeared to me in a cloud of purple smoke and told me that it was God and I needed to fill a sock with rocks and beat gay people to death* I would choose (barring mental defect) to believe that it was lying. If enough people told me that Bob didn't exist and Bob was telling me to do bad things, I would hope to have enough sanity left to get some help.
By the way, God is not analogous to some guy named Bob and can't be considered in the same way.
*Yes, some ass did this. Apparently he was not aware of the shoving them off a cliff first part. Are you telling me that he didn't have a choice?
quote:By the way, God is not analogous to some guy named Bob and can't be considered in the same way.
I didn't make up the Bob example. It was given to me by a friend to explain his beliefs. I do not think you are more of an authority on what is and what isn't a good analogy for his beliefs than he is.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Excuse me. Bob is not a good analogy for my understanding of God.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
And I'm not talking about your understand of God. I am talking other people's understanding, and how the things you say seem (to me) to be dismissive of that understanding.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
(I apologize if that wasn't clear, as I can see how it may not have been)
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
No problem. I wasn't clear either. If your friend's idea of God is analogous to your Bob example, then I (in his place) would get help as I said above. Bob is not a good analogy for me, so that doesn't apply.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
For me, everything we believe or do or say, etc is a choice.
I can see how "conclusion" would be a more comfortable choice of words, but in the end, even our conclusions are the results of our choices.
I choose to believe or disbelieve what I see, or more importantly, what importance/interpretation to assign those things.
Show ten people the same event and have them retell it and you will have ten different stories. People have different expectations, different life experiences to draw from, will look for different things so they will see different things, will believe different things.
At the end of the day you can not really take control of your own head space and therefore your life or choices until you accept that everything you do is a choice.
If your friend really had no control over his beliefs, if the conclusion he came to was truly independent of the decision making process, he would have no qualms, no nagging suspicions or reservations.
We all choose, even if the choice is a subconscious one.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:At the end of the day you can not really take control of your own head space and therefore your life or choices until you accept that everything you do is a choice.
But I don't see what I believe as something that I do. My experience of belief is that I could no more choose to believe in God than I can choose to not feel pain when poked with a needle.
I could choose to read scripture, pray, attend church, and do other things which might influence my belief, but I can't choose the belief itself. As I said before, I can choose to smoke but I can't choose to get cancer. If I want to get cancer, becoming a smoker would increase the odds, but I'm still not choosing to get cancer, I'm just choosing to increase the chances that cancer will occur.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
What Stone_Wolf_ wrote.
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
quote:I believe in all the things Jesus Christ said about love to other people.
You can be a very good person by loving other people. There's no need to be Muslim or Sikh or Hindu or Christian about it.
quote:Havent the early christians taken this all too seriously?
Yup. Much like the stories involving the Greek or Hindu deities: they don't make much rational sense. They didn't think very critically about these stories.
I understand the want to believe. It's like the X-Files: it's the same drive. A world alone is, at first, quite terrifying, I should imagine.
But, for me, it's not any more terrifying that the 30% doubt that Anna has. If God doesn't exist, I can stop worrying about whether God exists or not, or whether I have faith or whether I need faith. I can just go ahead and be a decent person trying to live a decent life.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
MattP, then you have chosen to accept the meaning you have assigned to the experiences which lead you to the conclusion that there is no God.
Can you just choose to go against that conclusion? Not any more then you could knock over a bridge while leaving it's supports intact. The choices are the supports, or the importance you gave to the experiences which holds up your conclusion.
If you really really really chose to get cancer, you could always get it implanted surgically.
If you really really really chose to believe in God, you could always deconstruct your experience which makes up your conclusions of why you disbelieve.
It's not always a simple choice, just because it is a choice.
Posted by ScottF (Member # 9356) on :
Teshi, have you ever heard anyone state that being a good person and being Christian are mutually exclusive? I haven't but I also admit that I haven't heard from everyone.
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
Yes, I have.
Posted by ScottF (Member # 9356) on :
Bummer. I have heard plenty about going to hell, etc. If you're not Christian but I've never heard someone say you can't be a good person unless you are a Christian. I guess that's a good thing.
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
I'm a little confused as you appear to be saying the opposite thing here than you said before-- but there are plenty of people who say both things...
"You cannot be a good person unless you are Christian."
AND
"You cannot be good if you are a Christian."
(which is usually stated as something like...)
"Christians who actually follow what they are supposed to, and don't subscribed to a watered-down, selective-reading version of the religion, cannot be good people. For example, they should oppose homosexual acts."
That's my paraphrase, not what I believe, necessarily.
Christians should, if they are followers of the Bible, probably believe that all those without faith are not good people. Jesus likes outcasts, but only those who show faith or have someone to show faith for them (Zacchaeus, the paralysed man and his friends). Which is fair; the most important commandment is to believe in God and God alone. If you're not doing that, you're committing the only unforgiveable sin.
Think of the thieves. Jesus forgives the thief that shows faith. Faith/belief in God is, according to the Bible, the one thing that fixes everything.
The virtuous unfaithful are almost completely absent from the Bible. An exception would be the Samaritan story in which the Samaritan is not faithful (or rather, not explicitly faithful).
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Teshi, are you saying that you believe this?
quote:Christians should, if they are followers of the Bible, probably believe that all those without faith are not good people. Jesus likes outcasts, but only those who show faith or have someone to show faith for them (Zacchaeus, the paralysed man and his friends). Which is fair; the most important commandment is to believe in God and God alone. If you're not doing that, you're committing the only unforgiveable sin.
Because even most legitimate Christian leaders would disagree.
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
How can someone be as good as a Christian if they break the only unforgiveable sin?
Surely committing a sin, especially one as fundamentally and irretrievably serious as not following the first commandment, should unavoidably create a situation where the person is more sinful than people who do not break this first commandment.
Ignoring that commandment, they may be equally sinful or good, of course. They may fall into a broad "good" category, but they cannot get full marks, as it were.
Posted by ScottF (Member # 9356) on :
Being good and "as good as" are different. I'm sure there are some Christians who fit the classic holier-than-thou and subscribe to the "as good as" nonsense.
My point was that every Christian I've ever spoken with about this would agree that you can be good, loving AND not a Christian.
My earlier question was asking (perhaps in a muddled way) if you've heard anything contrary from a Christian.
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
Also, this.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Teshi, why do you think that is an unforgivable sin?
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
Oh. I thought you meant the opposite as you asked whether goodness and Christianity were mutually exclusive (which means they are separate).
There are plenty of Christians who are horrified that their children/parents/sister/friend are atheists. They believe, as the Bible says, that being faithful to a Christian God is above all the most important thing that contributes to their acquaintence's quality.
Jesus says "love your neighbour", as the Samaritan story shows. However, he also says, "He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me." (Matthew 10)
When Christians say this, however wrong I may think they are, they are totally within their scriptual rights.
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
It's too late for me to track down the quote. I'm writing this so you don't think I've just abandoned the conversation. It's past midnight!
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
Matthew 10 is one of the reasons I am not nor ever will be again a Christian.
No loving god could demand that I put them before my own children. If loving my children with all that I am makes me unworthy of Christ then so be it.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is often misunderstood. Basically, what it means is that if you know- not just believe or have faith or suspect but know - know God - and not some wrong idea of God but really God - and you utterly, permanently, finally reject a relationship with God, God will let you.
Posted by Armoth (Member # 4752) on :
quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: Matthew 10 is one of the reasons I am not nor ever will be again a Christian.
No loving god could demand that I put them before my own children. If loving my children with all that I am makes me unworthy of Christ then so be it.
Is it possible that you have a different perception of God? God is the source of all, even your children. If you truly believed that, then shouldn't He be able to expect you to love Him more than you love your children?
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
I've been thinking about this argument about "choices." And something's occurred to me. I was assuming that we (all of us) were either communicating badly, or one group was wrong. (i.e. either Matt and I just haven't tried hard enough to choose different beliefs, or rationalized it afterwards as something we always believed. Or kmmboots and Stone are making generalizations about free will that are based on misguided principles.)
quote:My old professor, David Berman, liked to talk about what he called the "typical mind fallacy", which he illustrated through the following example:
There was a debate, in the late 1800s, about whether "imagination" was simply a turn of phrase or a real phenomenon. That is, can people actually create images in their minds which they see vividly, or do they simply say "I saw it in my mind" as a metaphor for considering what it looked like?
Upon hearing this, my response was "How the stars was this actually a real debate? Of course we have mental imagery. Anyone who doesn't think we have mental imagery is either such a fanatical Behaviorist that she doubts the evidence of her own senses, or simply insane." Unfortunately, the professor was able to parade a long list of famous people who denied mental imagery, including some leading scientists of the era. And this was all before Behaviorism even existed.
The debate was resolved by Francis Galton, a fascinating man who among other achievements invented eugenics, the "wisdom of crowds", and standard deviation. Galton gave people some very detailed surveys, and found that some people did have mental imagery and others didn't. The ones who did had simply assumed everyone did, and the ones who didn't had simply assumed everyone didn't, to the point of coming up with absurd justifications for why they were lying or misunderstanding the question. There was a wide spectrum of imaging ability, from about five percent of people with perfect eidetic imagery1 to three percent of people completely unable to form mental images2.
Dr. Berman dubbed this the Typical Mind Fallacy: the human tendency to believe that one's own mental structure can be generalized to apply to everyone else's.
This was a lesson I've learned over the course of my life, in particular in discussions with my mom, who's mental architecture is very different from mine (whether that's nature or nurture, I have no idea).
I don't actually think this is the issue here - I think there's a combination of boots and Stone believing in free will (I don't, at least not in a meaningful sense), and also a bit of a semantic breakdown in terms of what "choice" means.
I believe the sky is blue. If I tried REALLY REALLY HARD, I could try a variety of techniques that would increase my chance of changing my belief (I liked Matt's cancer analogy). I might be able to find a technique so potent that it practically guaranteed that I permanently started seeing the sky as red. I don't know how likely that is, but I know people have been able to convince themselves of some pretty crazy things. If I really, really chose super hard to believe the sky was red because my life depended on it, I could probably find a way.
It is still patently absurd to tell me that I believe that the sky is blue "because I choose to" rather than because, seriously, the sky is blue.
By now, I confess that I have plenty of biases built up that reinforce the fact that God probably isn't real. But there was a time when I didn't have those biases. I had a catholic parent and an atheist one - I feel like I was in a reasonable position to choose either option. There was a period of time when I believed in God just because. Then I started asking questions, and looking at evidence. There was a preliminary period when I was around 7, and then at 15 or so I tried hard to shed my earlier preconceptions and go at it again.
In both cases, I don't know that any piece of evidence cemented it completely, but at every piece of evidence I looked at (talking to my mom and priests at age 7, reading the bible and looking up biblical archaeology, every single piece of evidence I saw made me instinctively, definitively, without any time to think, lower my estimate that God existed. Until the choice was so small as to be meaningless. If you consider that a choice, then I consider choice to be a meaningless word.
Now, if I had a parent arguing kmmboots position instead of my mothers, things may have been a little different. My mental architecture is radically different from my mother's. I suspect it is not so different from kmmboots, and I suspect that if God had been defined in a pantheistic sense when I was 7 years old and learning about black holes, it wouldn't have sounded instinctively wrong to me.
By now, I've grown up, I've cemented my worldview, and it's too late. Not to change my beliefs about god, but to change the way I adopt beliefs. If I have no evidence for something, I ignore it. No one has ever presented evidence for God that made me raise my estimate of him (pantheistic or otherwise). If I'd grown up believing in a pantheistic deity it might be a reasonable enough sounding (and conveniently undisprovable) default belief that I'd stick with it. I wouldn't consider that a choice either though.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
quote:Is it possible that you have a different perception of God? God is the source of all, even your children. If you truly believed that, then shouldn't He be able to expect you to love Him more than you love your children?
As I noted before in another thread, this statement doesn't automatically follow for all people. For any definition of love that I actually care about, it's not true for me. If love is defined in such a way that this is possible, then I don't care about love. I can (at least come pretty close to) wrapping my brain around why it makes sense to you. But you need to (at least come close to) wrapping your brain around why it doesn't make any sense to some other people. (I can imagine myself eventually coming to believe it if forced to, but only to the same extent that I can imagine myself forcing myself to believe the sky was red).
I am curious if there are any statistically differences between people for whom it makes obvious sense and people for whom it doesn't.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:If you truly believed that, then shouldn't He be able to expect you to love Him more than you love your children?
I don't see why anyone should expect my love.
Posted by Armoth (Member # 4752) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:If you truly believed that, then shouldn't He be able to expect you to love Him more than you love your children?
I don't see why anyone should expect my love.
Do you know why you love?
Posted by Armoth (Member # 4752) on :
Raymond - what is your definition of love that you actually care about?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Do you know why you love?
Mainly because I want to.
The idea that we owe God more than our children because we owe Him our existence suggests to me that, should our parents suggest a course of action that would be beneficial to them but detrimental to our children, we should take it. Is that a fair analogy?
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:If you truly believed that, then shouldn't He be able to expect you to love Him more than you love your children?
One commonality amongst those that I love is that none of them explicitly demand it of me.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
I haven't actually attempted to define it before - I have an easier time saying what it's not than what it is. Don't hold me to this, but my initial stab at a definition is:
A profound admiration and affection for someone.
Admiration and affection is not something you intrinsically get, for anything. No matter what good you've done. You can't make people love you. You can try to do all kinds of right things, but in the end they either love you or they don't.
What sort of things make people profoundly admire and feel affection for other people depends wildly on the person. There are ways and reasons to love that are both healthy and unhealthy. A woman might love an abusive husband and a child might love an abusive parent. I won't tell them that their feeling isn't love, but I don't think it's particularly valuable love either.
Love that I care about is based on mutual respect, and efforts from both individuals to form an intimate relationship that improves each other's lives. Most importantly, it's a relationship that has to be willingly entered into and embraced. You can't willingly enter into a relationship before you even exist.
I do not love my parents because they gave birth to me, I love them because of the things they've taught me, the shelter they gave me, and the respect they've shown me.
If I were, say, a poor starving child in a destitute family that received life-sustaining help from a distant philanthropist, I would respect and thank them, but I wouldn't necessarily love them. It requires not only effort to help, but effort to be intimate.
And even if a person does their best to treat someone with respect, to help them in their struggles, and to better their existence... sometimes love just doesn't happen. It's not particularly fair, but that's how it is. And when it works out that way, how the person reacts to that rejection tells you what kind of person they are. They certainly have a right to be sad. They may even have a right to be bitter. They do not have a right to take any of that bitterness out on the person who rejected them. If your respect and effort was contingent on them reciprocating, then you weren't attempting to create a relationship, you were attempting to execute a business transaction.
If God created me, that was nice of him. I'm grateful. But he has made no effort to be intimate with me (and I have made what I consider a more than reasonable effort to extend him an invitation). Some day, if God reveals himself to me, and attempts in good faith to begin a relationship, then a relationship can begin, and perhaps love will follow. But it doesn't come before then.
[ March 30, 2011, 11:22 PM: Message edited by: Raymond Arnold ]
Posted by Rawrain (Member # 12414) on :
You know it's a bad thing if I love were this topic is going....
You know what I would think is awesome, a land where everyone is nice and kind, not because some shadowy overlord would refuse them access to a told 'wonderful afterlife', but because they think it's the right thing.
Those who do good without seeking a reward are greater than those who do.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by MattP:
quote:If you truly believed that, then shouldn't He be able to expect you to love Him more than you love your children?
One commonality amongst those that I love is that none of them explicitly demand it of me.
Really? Try telling your wife, "Honey, I don't love you any more," and see where that gets you.
Posted by Rawrain (Member # 12414) on :
O_o I can get away with saying something like that, only because it's believed I am heartless, and I never really love anyone anyways.
But to say "I don't love you any more." gives the feeling that you're meaning something negative and not something neutral.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
quote:Is it possible that you have a different perception of God? God is the source of all, even your children. If you truly believed that, then shouldn't He be able to expect you to love Him more than you love your children?
I do have a different perception of God. I think "God" is everything, including my children, myself, under cooked broccoli, atom bombs and light years of mostly empty space, etc.
So, the source of my children, no. I do not think that God is separate, the thingy-ma-bob who made us and then stepped away. We are God, and God is us, and not us, and everything else.
I think if you were everything and self aware, and wanted to learn, to grow, to not be bored to death and lonely you would split off pieces of yourself to experience "stuff".
I also think think that God wants us to be happy and harmonious, if we can be, as God wants to be happy and harmonious Itself.
But no matter what I think of God, I can guarantee that no God I choose to believe in and worship would ever ask me to love him more then my children, would be jealous of me cherishing my babies the most of anything in my whole life. And if I am wrong, and God wants that, then I am His enemy, for He is a petty and small thing not worthy of praise.
The "God" I believe in has room for different views, for finding the beauty which sings to you, to cherishing the harmony that speaks to the quiet places in your soul and comforts you that you are not alone and there is magic in the world, because in the end, it is all God.
No one answer is good enough for the largeness of my God. I don't think God should be separated out from our lives, from our hearts, given a day of the week and a building to live in, so that if it isn't Sunday and we aren't at church then we are separate from God.
I think that God learns from us humans, and loves us humans, but doesn't step in to change things because then it isn't separate, it isn't let the chips fall where they may and learn what you can.
I think God loves all of us humans, and feels that we all deserve to be loved, deserve endless chances on the wheel of life until we can love everything enough to be a part of loving everything, returning to being one with God. Returning to the state of knowing and not questing.
I mean seriously, if you had all the answers to all the questions, had all your needs filled, felt connected with every atom of existence, you would cease to be you and become something...complete, say, a part of God.
As to the definition of love...the ancient Greeks had at least four words, separating out respect, passion, friendship and family.
In all of these the common thread for me is wanting goodness for the thing loved. To wish someone growth, prosperity, health.
Mutual respect is great, but I loved my childhood dog, I didn't respect him. I love my 3 month old daughter, but I don't expect her to respect me, well, until maybe she -can-.
I love freedom, and the ocean, and a peaceful cool night. Love isn't always about being loved in return. It is about recognizing value. Love is moral judgment. I love you because I see that you are good and want you to continue as good or improve and to no way diminish.
Where as hate is wanting something to be less, to waste away into nothingness.
As an interesting offshoot I would like to discuss...something most people don't consider. That love and hate are not good and bad respectively. As RA pointed out, love can be good or bad, as can hate.
I hate injustice, corruption, bullies, cruelty and grape soda. Some people love to hurt people, taking advantage of others, making themselves feel good by making others feel bad.
Love can be evil and hate can be good.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:Originally posted by rivka:
quote:Originally posted by MattP:
quote:If you truly believed that, then shouldn't He be able to expect you to love Him more than you love your children?
One commonality amongst those that I love is that none of them explicitly demand it of me.
Really? Try telling your wife, "Honey, I don't love you any more," and see where that gets you.
??? The point was that love, for me, is something that is earned, fostered, nurtured. You can no more demand love than you can demand that a flower bloom. Whether wilting of that flower might make you sad is really beside the point.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
I also wanted to note (possibly relevant to Matt) that there may be deeper levels of love that are a bit more of a negotiated commitment. Not negotiated in the sense of "all right, I'll love you X harder if you love me X harder" but based on a mutual understanding that you both already love each other, and you will both be working to deepen that love. If you then found out your spouse is cheating, or never really cared, that would certainly be even more wounding.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Raymond, just a slight correction. My religion is not pantheism. It is closer to panentheism but not entirely. Sort of a Catholic panentheism.
As to the whole typical mind issue. You are correct; I do assume that most people are as intelligent, aware, and as capable of free will as I (or the multitude of others) who choose their religion. There may be some that are incapable of choosing, but I think far more just don't realize that it is a choice. I remind you again of the guy who beat someone to death with rocks. Did he have no choice? Should he not be held responsible for his crime (assuming of course that his story is true and not a scam about the will)?
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
quote:My religion is not pantheism. It is closer to panentheism but not entirely. Sort of a Catholic panentheism.
I know. But the part of it that could have potentially altered my life would have been pantheism. (I already had exposure to the catholic part at an early age, and every new thing I learned turned me off to it)
quote:Did he have no choice? Should he not be held responsible for his crime (assuming of course that his story is true and not a scam about the will)?
These two statements have nothing to do with each other. Punishments don't get to be worse nor people held "more accountable" because they made choices. We should inflict the amount of punishment necessary to deter perpetrators from doing it again, and to prevent others from doing it in the first place. No more. The fact that they "chose" is irrelevant.
In fact, the only reason punishment is a good thing at all is precisely BECAUSE people's choices can be manipulated by outside events.
[ March 31, 2011, 10:40 AM: Message edited by: Raymond Arnold ]
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Ah. So I'm getting that you are panentheistic (among other things), and Stone Wolf is pantheistic?
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
But this guy, presumably, would do the same thing regardless of punishment because he had no choice. We aren't affecting his future choice because there is no choice.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
quote:But this guy, presumably, would do the same thing regardless of punishment because he had no choice. We aren't affecting his future choice because there is no choice.
Let me be clear about my nomenclature (I'm going to be using this from no on rather than trying my best to guess at yours). I had assumed I'd talked about this in detail in a thread you were following.
Actually, before I take the time to write that all out, if I say that my beliefs here are nearly identical to TomD, does that clear every(any)thing up?
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Not really. I vaguely recall the idea of their being no free will but it fails to make any practical sense so far. Though I suppose if I can be a panentheistic Catholic, you can be a Calvinish atheist. Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
Right now I'm busy and can't in good conscience take time to explain the whole thing satisfactorily.
There's a good Less Wrong article that sums it up (it actually provided me with a reason to believe Free Will "exists", although not a way to believe that it ultimately matters). I can't just sum it up here because part of why it works well is diagrams:
(The most important part is the first few paragraphs and diagrams, the rest is interesting to me but might not be to you)
"Decision" and "Belief" are both words that mean "the result of complex processes in your brain, which is the result of physics." There's a difference between them IMO, but it's a complex, subtle. The simplest comparison is that a belief is like an emotion: is arises spontaneously from outside stimuli.
When I'm pretending to believe in free will for the sake of discussions, I still don't think it's meaningful to say you "chose" a belief. The man chose to act on his belief. He did not choose what the belief was.
(In "free will" terms, you can choose the control emotions, but it's a choice to modify the naturally occurring phenomenon. You can choose not to get angry when you find out your child was killed. But it's a choice AWAY from the default. You can't choose "not to be happy" because there was no happiness already there to choose away from. I can choose to believe the sky is red, but that is a choice to change the naturally occurring belief that the sky is blue)
I might try and explain more later when I have time.
[ March 31, 2011, 11:44 AM: Message edited by: Raymond Arnold ]
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
quote:Stone Wolf is pantheistic?
First time I have ever heard that word, so prolly not. Glancing over wiki page I see some similarities, but I wouldn't classify myself as "pantheistic", if you held a gun to my head I would have to say I'm "fascinated".
My personal theories are bits and pieces of this and that, with a healthy respect for believers. I think it is an act of courage to believe in something you can't prove, and in most cases, the act of believing strengthens the believer, regardless of the belief.
Slightly disappointed no one had anything to say to my last post.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
Your last post seemed to be directly responding to Armoth, and I thought you had already explained most of it in an earlier post so there wasn't much to comment on.
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
What I wonder, and perhaps you've already answered this, is that if God is everything, including yourself, what part of God is just part of everyday life, and what part of God is separate enough to worship? I know that question probably doesn't capture how you really see it very well, but hopefully it's understandable.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
That's the point afr, the way I see it, if you love your children, you love God, if you love Private Selection Caramel Sea Salt Truffle Ice Cream, you love God, if your heart is filled with joy when you see the sun set over the pacific ocean, then you are worshiping God.
My point is, don't separate anything. Love everything, be a part of everything, as everything is God.
RA, don't worry about it, I just put a lot of myself into that one and hoped it might touch a nerve somewhere.
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
Okay. Easy enough.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Amroth,
quote:Is it possible that you have a different perception of God? God is the source of all, even your children. If you truly believed that, then shouldn't He be able to expect you to love Him more than you love your children?
Well first of all for many people there is the idea that you're supposed to love your children more than anything, period, in the ideal situation. So if God gives you something you're supposed to love more than anything else...well, obviously-even if it's God, you love that more than anything else. (Italics for emphasis, not for irritation or anything.)
And then there's the problem of people's obligations changing as time goes on, as their lives change. As responsibilities grow. It is perhaps reasonable for God to expect your primary love when nothing looks to you with primary love (or would, unless you trained them quite deliberately to look to God). But this is a discussion that's been had before, about expectations and obligations, etc.
To me, if God is going to give me a child, then God will simply have to be prepared for the whole love pie having fewer slices remaining in it, y'know?
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
I am pretty sure that the love pie doesn't get smaller.
Stone Wolf, I counter your Matthew 10 with 1 John 4. Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
quote: Okay. [Smile] Easy enough.
Why should loving God be difficult?
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
Dang it boots, now I have to look it up!
quote:1 John 4 Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.
I do not get it. Care to elaborate?
But I do agree that the love pie is limitless.
The love cake on the other hand only has 12 slices, and hurry to the conference room, 10 of them are already gone!
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
You have to go a bit further. Start at verse 7.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
quote: 1 John 7 7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
Nice, too bad it is very conflicting with so much other stuff in that there book.
Please just post the verse next time, I like discussions, but I really dislike homework.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:I am pretty sure that the love pie doesn't get smaller. [Smile]
Heh, whether it does or not, that's not what I was saying.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: That's the point afr, the way I see it, if you love your children, you love God, if you love Private Selection Caramel Sea Salt Truffle Ice Cream, you love God, if your heart is filled with joy when you see the sun set over the pacific ocean, then you are worshiping God.
Fine, fine, but then what is the purpose of referring to this as 'God', with all the associated historical context? I feel you are really misusing the word; you should invent a different one, to clarify that you mean something that's not the usual English sense of 'God'.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
Part of that belief is a strong disbelief in the standard "God", so while it might cause some confusion, it also alleviates some confusion as well.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
What do you mean by "standard"? Looks to me like the writer of 1 John would agree with you.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
quote:God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions (and other belief systems) who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism.[1]
God is most often conceived of as the supernatural creator and overseer of the universe. Theologians have ascribed a variety of attributes to the many different conceptions of God. The most common among these include omniscience (infinite knowledge), omnipotence (unlimited power), omnipresence (present everywhere), omnibenevolence (perfect goodness), divine simplicity, and eternal and necessary existence.
God has also been conceived as being incorporeal (immaterial), a personal being, the source of all moral obligation, and the "greatest conceivable existent".[1] These attributes were all supported to varying degrees by the early Jewish, Christian and Muslim theologian philosophers, including Maimonides,[2] Augustine of Hippo,[2] and Al-Ghazali,[3] respectively.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Yeah. Not at all a good definition.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
What's wrong with it?
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Not big enough. Honestly, I doubt any definition of God is going to be all that good. Hard to define the infinite.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
Then why ask for one?
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Sorry I wasn't clear. I was disputing that there was a "standard" God. And that if there were, your God is at least as "standard" as the one in wiki.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
I'm okay with that, I was just responding to King 'o Men's suggestion that I invent a new word for my concept of God.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
He keeps trying that.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men:
quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: That's the point afr, the way I see it, if you love your children, you love God, if you love Private Selection Caramel Sea Salt Truffle Ice Cream, you love God, if your heart is filled with joy when you see the sun set over the pacific ocean, then you are worshiping God.
Fine, fine, but then what is the purpose of referring to this as 'God', with all the associated historical context? I feel you are really misusing the word; you should invent a different one, to clarify that you mean something that's not the usual English sense of 'God'.
Deja vu
quote:Originally posted by Parkour: Wow. This whole thread was amazing to read.
And now I will finish posting on my hatrack religion and then go play some of my call of duty religion, get paid for my employment religion, then go drink at a fundamentally religious party with my friend-religions.
I knew someone who defined God as "a large version of me giving me instructions about what is the right thing to do."
"So, really, you just come to a well-considered decision?"
"Um... yeah."
Posted by Rawrain (Member # 12414) on :
No one has said 'it' yet....
Can't we all get along. ):
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
You are not emphasizing the most important part of it Teshi...your friend has a giant twin! That would be so nifty. You got a problem with me, take it up with Mondo.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)