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?"
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
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.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
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.
Posts: 723 | Registered: Dec 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
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
Posts: 461 | Registered: Nov 2010
| IP: Logged |
Is this theoretical? (In which case I wonder about the absence of your theoretical son.) Or do you have a kid?
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
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.
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
| IP: Logged |
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?
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
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.
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
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.
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.
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
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.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
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 ]
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
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.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
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.
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
| IP: Logged |
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.
posted
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...
Posts: 461 | Registered: Nov 2010
| IP: Logged |
posted
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.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
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.
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
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.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
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.
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
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.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
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".
Posts: 3275 | Registered: May 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
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.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
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.)
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
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.
Posts: 3275 | Registered: May 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
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.
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
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?
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
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.
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
| IP: Logged |
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.
Posts: 3275 | Registered: May 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
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.
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
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.
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
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.
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
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.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
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.
Posts: 6683 | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged |
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.
Posts: 3275 | Registered: May 2007
| IP: Logged |
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.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
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.
Posts: 6683 | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
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.
Posts: 135 | Registered: Apr 2006
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
