Religious Questions from the Faithful and the Believers

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
41

[quote]H factor wrote:

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]H factor wrote:

How am I supposed to convince myself to listen to that book over all the other religious texts out there? How do I know I have found the correct answer there and not in the words of someone else? [/quote]

How am I supposed to convince myself to marry one woman over all the other women out there? How do I know I have found the correct woman for me and not the woman for someone else?[/quote]

These decisions have absolutely nothing in common. [/quote]

It is kinda funny how you edited your post down. Normally you go the other direction.

Either way, I don’t think either are really a choice. Love is love, faith is faith.

The choice is whether you spend your life with them.

You know how everyone accuses vocal anti-homosexual people of being in the closet? Well, the way I see, if that can be/or is true, it is true of the most vocal and ardent non-believers in a higher being too.

I know that religion tells you that you have to accept your faith to be “saved”. I’m not convinced God agrees. He might be totally cool with people in the closet whom have struggled with it their entire life, irrelevant if they accepted it or not. It was still part of them.

I don’t think being homosexual is a choice. I don’t really think having faith in a higher power is either.

42

[quote]H factor wrote:

I’m to believe that a higher power must exist outside of Earth because I can’t rationally make up my mind that people actually exist.

That doesn’t make any bit of sense whatsoever.

[/quote]

What doesn’t make sense is your irrational exception to the analogy. Which is telling.

The analogy isn’t false because woman =/= god, which is what you are going on about.

The analogy is that faith is similar to love. Because every reason you can list for loving your soon to be wife, a person can match why they have faith.

And for every ounce you love your wife, I don’t. Therefore I don’t understand your love for her. I understand your love, because I feel it too, but not for her.

43

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

Choosing to live your life with one woman is pretty damn straight forward. Having faith isn’t all that different.
[/quote]

It is monumentally different. One consists of a set of claims with objective truth value. That’s the difference, and it means night and day.

I don’t know if we’re really on the same page though. The question that I posed in my last post, about holy books X, Y, and Z–are you saying that it is not a legitimate critique of religion? I have put it to the best posters here and to the most intelligent people of faith I’ve known–at least one of whom was close to deserving the title of “genius”–and it has never been bested.[/quote]

Again, you and H were expected to take this stance, and I understand it. Because if you were to see how the relationships are similar, it would shatter what you believe. (Much like I assume certain theists face in the presence of particular science and evidence.)

I’m not a genius, and I’ve never studied any particular religion but big picture, they all tend to have some common themes. Is it really outlandish to think each one of these books is part right and part wrong, imperfect like man? Because it isn’t like we would understand the communications of an omnipotent being…

So, as to why book X is right and the rest wrong:

I once asked my grandfather how he knew grandma was the one. His response was “I don’t. I didn’t then, and I don’t now. I’ve asked every I could how I could tell, and no one knew. All I know is I can’t hold her tight enough, because when I’m with her, I want to be so close, squeeze her so tight, that I want her to become part of me forever.”

If you are going to sit there and tell me you don’t see the blatant similarities between that and faith, you are either full of shit, or afraid you might actually have some. [/quote]

If you think that comparison is apt, then you are in agreement with me and diametrically opposed to the apologist.

There is a difference between “my religion makes me happy and/or works wonderfully for me” and “my religion is correct and/or better evidenced than the alternatives.”

It is the latter that concerns me and, I contend, is relevant to the kind of debate that happens on PWI.

In other words, you are speaking about a sort of vague parallel that gets at the emotions involved with belief in God. In that way, you can say that religion is like marriage. I have no problem with that, because it isn’t of interest to me.

On the other hand, religion as a claim to objective truth is not remotely comparable to anything that you’re talking about and is specific, demanding, and technical enough, as a subject of discussion, that it is best kept at arm’s length from analogy anyway.

44

[quote]H factor wrote:

So your defense for proving God exists is how can you know I exist? I can drive to where you live and you can reach out and touch me with your own hand. [/quote]

Well, I might perceive that another individual has done so. But that’s the problem, it relies on the very thing in question, my mind. I have to take a leap of faith that you do exist, and that you do have a hand, and that you did make ‘physical’ contact, and that there is even ‘physical’ to begin with.

I have felt the presence of God. On my near-death bed. In the Eucharist. In prayer. I can’t answer for you why you haven’t. But, that doesn’t make my experience false.

I am not trying to prove a higher power. You know enough of the essentials of Christianity to have made an informed renunciation.

45

Also, whether I am expected to take this stance or not, it has been reasoned and argued meticulously twice in the past month or so, and it has never been answered. So I suppose that I am happy–proud, even–that I am expected to champion it.

46

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

I don’t think being homosexual is a choice. I don’t really think having faith in a higher power is either. [/quote]

Tell them theophobics!

47

Neuroscientists plant false memories in the brain
MIT study also pinpoints where the brain stores memory traces, both false and authentic.

And for the True Detective viewers.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/but-not-simpler/2014/03/03/depressing-things-true-detective-says-self-true/#.UyI3b4VvDq4

"The ‘you’ that rationalizes and chooses and deliberates is simply a way for the brain to navigate the world. Having a sense of a self that apparently controls the body from behind the eyes is an efficient way to deal with other sentient creatures, and evolved along with our intelligence, or so psychologists like Hood suggest. This conclusion doesn’t necessarily have to come from a scientific perspective either. In Buddhist philosophy, the term ?anattā? refers to Rust’s contention of the ‘not-self’ or the self illusion. If you simply pay attention to the nature of perception–what you feel and how–eventually you will notice that the sensation of a singular sense of self melts away. Of course, that kind of meditation does not work for everyone, and does not prove there is no ‘you.’ Maybe shrinking your mirror down to the size of a quarter will help.

Think about the brain’s self modeling like The Matrix. In that film, humans are kept alive and thinking by electrical inputs wired straight into their brains. The humans in turn create a sense of self and experience from these inputs alone. But their sensory experience is completely illusory, and they’d never know it. Is that really any different from how we experience the world? Isn’t the self just a jumbled of sensory input that is stitched together like some rag doll that looks terrible up close? Now that’s thinking like Rust Cohle."

48

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]H factor wrote:

I’m to believe that a higher power must exist outside of Earth because I can’t rationally make up my mind that people actually exist.

That doesn’t make any bit of sense whatsoever.

[/quote]

What doesn’t make sense is your irrational exception to the analogy. Which is telling.

The analogy isn’t false because woman =/= god, which is what you are going on about.

The analogy is that faith is similar to love. Because every reason you can list for loving your soon to be wife, a person can match why they have faith.

And for every ounce you love your wife, I don’t. Therefore I don’t understand your love for her. I understand your love, because I feel it too, but not for her. [/quote]

It was a poor analogy imo.

I do not blame those who have faith. I am not mad at those who have faith. I am angered at times by their blatant hypocrisies and inability to call each other out on this forum. They do not mind jumping in together to attack the faithless. They won’t call each other out or rarely do. Similar to how a small group calls out certain people for personal attacks when they disagree politically, but won’t call out people with similar minds to them.

Hypocrisy annoys me and I see it everywhere. I always have. It’s one reason why I post the way I do politically. Why on a center right board I feel obligated to call out Republican bullshit in our 9 millionth “ya know liberals always…”

And in a forum where believers try to convince me to follow the words of a super old book that apparently has all the answers I question why so many of them disregard those teachings while on here. Most of this gets apologized away (I’m a man who sins, those weren’t conservative people, etc.) because people don’t like being told they should look in the mirror a bit.

So I guess I wonder why the questions from believers center on the faithless and our morals/values when it seems as if most of faithful on here are the ones who lack in respectable internet behavior with their fellow man?

49

[quote]smh_23 wrote:
If you think that comparison is apt, then you are in agreement with me and diametrically opposed to the apologist.

There is a difference between “my religion makes me happy and/or works wonderfully for me” and “my religion is correct and/or better evidenced than the alternatives.”

It is the latter that concerns me and, I contend, is relevant to the kind of debate that happens on PWI.
[/quote]

Completely agree with this. It seems as if many believers aren’t actually interested in asking me questions, but in backhanded attacks on my lack of faith. “How do you have morals?” “You’re living a life without meaning.” “How can you not see what I see?”

I’ve already explained why I believe what I believe and why attempting to change that fact about me has always been met with resistance from me. The more I learn about things the less I feel the need to believe. Maybe it is a genetic thing as that happened for my siblings as well. As we became older and got more educated we started to “buy” our religion a little less and less. We started to question it and eventually moved away from it.

This happened to 5 people with the same last name in our family. We didn’t talk about this. We didn’t go to the same colleges. We aren’t the same age. We aren’t all the same sex.

50

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:
Clever analogy, but it doesn’t hold up. “Correct woman” is a subjective matter of taste, whereas religions are matters of what is, and what is not. The religions that claim exclusive ownership of the “truth” are, indeed, being treated fairly when they are asked to put up and vanquish their competitors.

It is, in fact, probably the simplest and most effective weapon that the non-believer has: Ask the apologist for holy book X why holy book X is to be taken as the truth, rather than holy books Y, Z, A, B, and C. And, even more portentously (for the apologist), rather than what science has managed to come up with.[/quote]

You’re forgetting the matter of learned experience. If I was bitten by a poisonous spider and got very sick I would develop an aversion to all spiders precisely because I don’t know if that particular spider is poisonous. What I have learned is to avoid all spiders.

Now if I catch a sheep and roast it on the fire I will learn that sheep are good and to be sought out. Both learned behaviour.

The same concept can be applied to religion when one examines the teachings of the scriptures and the behaviour and character of the adherents.[/quote]

In what specific way(s) do you mean that it can be applied?

As in, “I believed and good things happened to me?”[/quote]

As in, 3000+ years ago the Lord cursed the Ishmaelites saying that forever their hands will be drawn against everyone and everyones’ hands drawn against them. And that stuff kind of happened. As did much of the prophetic revelation in the book of Daniel. Additionally, examples like why would Israelites invent a story for themselves as slaves as opposed to nobles? And why would the king of the Persian-Mede empire give away hundreds of thousands of slaves, give them huge amounts of goods and money and order his men to rebuild their temple? etc

51

[quote]H factor wrote:

So I guess I wonder why the questions from believers center on the faithless and our morals/values when it seems as if most of faithful on here are the ones who lack in respectable internet behavior with their fellow man? [/quote]

Sometimes we see people who seem to have a problem with faith then turn around and start talking about rights, moral obligations, good, evil, etc.

So, yeah, we want to explore the heck out of that.

“Yeah, but it’s not fair that they have this right and those folks don’t…”

Rights? Fair? Who decided when and what has to be fair, and when it’s appropriate or not? I see atheists act as if we have inherent right to property. I see atheists who act as if we all have an inherent right to share in common/mutual/social/communal property. I see atheists who act as if I’m outright wrong, even immoral on issues, yet turn around later and say there isn’t really “wrong” and “right” (good/evil). But the tone and passion sure doesn’t make the latter ring true.

I just wish I could get a clear “Look, we’re just meat machines with a fake “self” tacked on. Yes, there actually is no good or evil. There are no “rights” being infringed up (since might ends up being right always), because there are no rights. I guess our mechanisms make us oppose each other’s worldview (not as an actual conscious decision), when in the end there is no objective value in either side prevailing.”

52

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:
Clever analogy, but it doesn’t hold up. “Correct woman” is a subjective matter of taste, whereas religions are matters of what is, and what is not. The religions that claim exclusive ownership of the “truth” are, indeed, being treated fairly when they are asked to put up and vanquish their competitors.

It is, in fact, probably the simplest and most effective weapon that the non-believer has: Ask the apologist for holy book X why holy book X is to be taken as the truth, rather than holy books Y, Z, A, B, and C. And, even more portentously (for the apologist), rather than what science has managed to come up with.[/quote]

You’re forgetting the matter of learned experience. If I was bitten by a poisonous spider and got very sick I would develop an aversion to all spiders precisely because I don’t know if that particular spider is poisonous. What I have learned is to avoid all spiders.

Now if I catch a sheep and roast it on the fire I will learn that sheep are good and to be sought out. Both learned behaviour.

The same concept can be applied to religion when one examines the teachings of the scriptures and the behaviour and character of the adherents.[/quote]

In what specific way(s) do you mean that it can be applied?

As in, “I believed and good things happened to me?”[/quote]

As in, 3000+ years ago the Lord cursed the Ishmaelites saying that forever their hands will be drawn against everyone and everyones’ hands drawn against them. And that stuff kind of happened. As did much of the prophetic revelation in the book of Daniel. Additionally, examples like why would Israelites invent a story for themselves as slaves as opposed to nobles? And why would the king of the Persian-Mede empire give away hundreds of thousands of slaves, give them huge amounts of goods and money and order his men to rebuild their temple? etc[/quote]

None of this is remotely convincing. In fact it’s weaker than what’s usually offered.

For every prediction that panned out, a hundred didn’t.

But set that aside. Consider this: None of this is evidence that man was made from dust by God. None of it is evidence that a serpent spoke to Eve. None of it is evidence that the sun stood still in the sky. These are separate claims, and they require separate defenses. Or is it the case that, because my science textbook tells me that testosterone is produced in the testes–which is true–then it must also be true that, as the textbook goes on to claim, man evolved from apes?

I didn’t think so. Which means that it does not follow from “the prediction about the terrorists panned out!” that the planet is only a few thousand years old and woman was made from man’s rib.

53

[quote]H factor wrote:

It was a poor analogy imo.

[/quote]

I obviously disagree, but either way, nothing you said after this address this or the analogy.

I’m assuming it wasn’t your intent to address it?

54

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

None of this is remotely convincing. In fact it’s weaker than what’s usually offered.

For every prediction that panned out, a hundred didn’t.
[/quote]

No, that was Nostradamus.

The creation story and deluge are supposed to be obscure. It’s ‘wisdom teaching’. That’s why you get multiple versions of the same story.

Applying scientific criteria to religion is what pissed me off about Hitchens the smarty pants before I was even a believer. Your argument is weak as the two subjects coalesce about as easily as physics and quantum physics. Is Newton wrong or is Einstein wrong? They’re actually both right. The workings of the universe, whilst understood far greater over the last century still can’t explain some of the most simple things. Furthermore they are riddled with contradictions and hypothesis that have to be invented like dark matter.

[quote]

I didn’t think so. Which means that it does not follow from “the prediction about the terrorists panned out!” that the planet is only a few thousand years old and woman was made from man’s rib.[/quote]

That’s the second creation story. The historical account in the bible may well begin with Abram, not Adam, Eve, Noah, Shem, Ham or Japhath. As I’ve said I’m ignorant on the subject. Why question me on the most controversial aspects of the scriptures?

BTW Reading the entire bible including long lists of genealogies and land allocations, complex border descriptions and highly obscure prophetic writings for someone who doesn’t actually believe in God is quite a feat…one quite commonly professed by non believers too. Well done.

55

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]H factor wrote:

It was a poor analogy imo.

[/quote]

I obviously disagree, but either way, nothing you said after this address this or the analogy.

I’m assuming it wasn’t your intent to address it?[/quote]

Actually I did address it you just didn’t accept my answer.

56

[quote]Sloth wrote:
Rights? Fair? Who decided when and what has to be fair, and when it’s appropriate or not? I see atheists act as if we have inherent right to property. I see atheists who act as if we all have an inherent right to share in common/mutual/social/communal property. I see atheists who act as if I’m outright wrong, even immoral on issues, yet turn around later and say there isn’t really “wrong” and “right” (good/evil). But the tone and passion sure doesn’t make the latter ring true.

I just wish I could get a clear “Look, we’re just meat machines with a fake “self” tacked on. Yes, there actually is no good or evil. There are no “rights” being infringed up (since might ends up being right always), because there are no rights. I guess our mechanisms make us oppose each other’s worldview (not as an actual conscious decision), when in the end there is no objective value in either side prevailing.”
[/quote]

We don’t have an inherent right to shit. We never have and never will. I have argued this numerous times. I do believe we have certain rights, but those can be taken away in a moment’s notice. “God” didn’t do shit about the rights of black men. God didn’t do shit about the rights of Japanese being bombed off the face of the planet by two atom bombs. Might has ALWAYS been right and always will. In fact your very Catholic faith has SLAUGHTERED people who they found issue with. We are really going to talk about where MY world comes from when we can analyze the history of where your world comes from?

Our rights to ANYTHING can be taken away at any time by anyone with the power to do so. Welcome to a world with humans. God given rights merely mean the rights we are supposedly born with for being here. I can talk about the right to bear arms, freedom of speech, all these other terrific “god given” things and they cease to exist the moment someone decides it is time to take them by force. How are your rights working out when the tax bill comes due?

Everyone on this board from the biggest liberal to an anti-government guy like Nick has rights imo. And those rights disappear the moment a big enough bully walks in and says so.

I don’t view good vs. evil as some type of never ending war. I don’t view anything good that I do as helping me out after I die. It isn’t. When I die I’m flat done. I cease to exist except in the minds of people who may have known me. I will do my best to do good things on Earth as long as I can. I don’t need an everlasting light at the end of the tunnel to be motivated. Some people do.

And some people who believe in that higher power will do some of the worst things in the history of mankind. Are they “better” than me because you accept where their moral view may have started?

57

[quote]H factor wrote:
“God” didn’t do shit about the rights of black men. God didn’t do shit about the rights of Japanese being bombed off the face of the planet by two atom bombs. Might has ALWAYS been right and always will. [/quote]

Then why are you upset? No rights were infringed upon.

And if might made right? What WERE you trying to correct with state marriage? There was nothing to correct, it was right.

58

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]H factor wrote:
“God” didn’t do shit about the rights of black men. God didn’t do shit about the rights of Japanese being bombed off the face of the planet by two atom bombs. Might has ALWAYS been right and always will. [/quote]

Then why are you upset? No rights were infringed upon.
[/quote]

Lol. You ignored that entire post to come up with that. Rights can certainly be infringed upon, but this idea that we have them at all times and carry them around like little cards only works when someone isn’t pointing a gun at the face.

I believe I have a right privacy. The NSA doesn’t really agree. They win.

59

[quote]H factor wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]H factor wrote:
“God” didn’t do shit about the rights of black men. God didn’t do shit about the rights of Japanese being bombed off the face of the planet by two atom bombs. Might has ALWAYS been right and always will. [/quote]

Then why are you upset? No rights were infringed upon.
[/quote]

Lol. You ignored that entire post to come up with that. [/quote]

Nope. I read a post that doesn’t seem to jive with the passion of the poster.

60

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]H factor wrote:
“God” didn’t do shit about the rights of black men. God didn’t do shit about the rights of Japanese being bombed off the face of the planet by two atom bombs. Might has ALWAYS been right and always will. [/quote]

Then why are you upset? No rights were infringed upon.

And if might made right? What WERE you trying to correct with state marriage? There was nothing to correct, it was right.
[/quote]

Since you were faster than my edit.