What religion/faith/belief do you follow?

[Ckackley]

A good friend told me this one day , and it's been a source of much irritation to a lot of fundies I've met..
"All religion can be boiled down to three things. Play nice, Share your stuff, and take naps. "
We're all right and we're all wrong in our own ways. So play nice, and share your thoughts before the mods take care of the nap part.

 

[Cyanide_Anima]

-"Did I claim that morality only comes from a religious text? Am I even religious? It appears you have missed my point. What I was trying to say is that morality is only relative to the time in which we are now in. You are judging the bible by today's morality, which will be just as obsolete 4000 years from now as that of what was accepted as fine in BC times. This is because morality progresses towards some greater right."

I don't think I missed any point. If you are not a religious person, than obviously my statement of the religious claiming morality comes from their texts doesn't include you, part of my post was pre-emptive. I would argue that not all things are on a sliding scale of morality, or just moral for the times. Murder, rape, slavery, genocide, etc. Things of that nature are wrong, have always been wrong. It's just that man have justified these actions in the past usually through religious means.

Your example of a drowning man is an individual case. If the person witnessing the drowning is a proficient swimmer, one would think he can save the man with minimal risk to himself. If the person in question cannot swim, then how would it be immoral for him to not jump in? How would it be immoral for him to likely drown trying to save someone? How would it be immoral to let both you and the man die? There are more options here, such as getting help, if available. This is also kind of a straw man since there is no drowning man. But if you are saying that morality is not black and white, then yes, I totally agree with you. Morality is not, however, completely subjective or objective. I never asserted that.

Yes, many species eat their offspring. Many species also have many, many offspring at once. Many of these offspring are not going to survive. Many of these animals are also not conscious as we know it and run purely on instinct, programming. So I do not think morality could even apply to them. I think it can in some cases where the animals are more sentient, like apes. Scientists can explain it better than I can...

Why Some Animals Eat Their Offspring | LiveScience

Jail and scorn are social pressures to correct what is seen as bad behavior, they are natural emergent mechanisms. Just noting that morality isn't black and white doesn't refute my points. I still contend that there are aspects of morality that are nearly empirical, nearly universal. Certain things can be attributed to the times, I suppose, but that doesn't make them right. The prophet Muhammed married children. This was acceptable in the times, but does that make it right? Fuck no.

Romans 9 does not address the problem of where god gets his morality. It does nothing of the sort. It seems to be dealing with predestination and 'god's purpose'. Which refutes the bibles own claims of free will. Like many things in the bible, it is just a cryptic non-answer. No-one has yet to provide an answer as to the source of god's morality, because doing to would bring up more questions that it would answer. In debates, theologians like to try to get around that with semantics (a dishonest tactic), which is why defining things is so important. Regarding C.S Lewis' Mere Christianity, most of that book deals with what Christians believe. He often begins discussing a topic and then runs away from it...

"Either this man (Jesus) was, and is, the son of God, or else a madman or something worse." He never does anything more than address that there is a problem here. He begins discussing the virgin birth, saying that it is either valid or it is not, and proceeds to avoid answering something that he brought up himself. He is hardly reasonable at all. Bertrand Russel tore his arguments apart before Lewis even made them in "Why I Am Not A Christian".

My quoting of Arthur C. Clarke was not meant to refute anything, it was merely an introduction to what I was about to argue. Which I have never gotten a straight answer on.

EDIT:

I'll add that the main reason why I stopped believing was these reasons, the (im)morality of the bible and the god of the bible. I was a baptist for the pretty much the first 20 years of my life. =)

 

[7 Strings of Hate]

I believe in reality and not fairytails.

 

[Prydogga]

A Jehovah's witness (maybe?) came to my house the other day, and said to me that not one fact in the bible was inconsistent with today's scientific knowledge.

If that were true, I may have reconsidered my thoughts on my being an atheist, for about 7 seconds.

 

[JPhoenix19]

I believe in reality and not fairytails.

How very troll-ish.

-

Romans 9 does not address the problem of where god gets his morality. It does nothing of the sort. It seems to be dealing with predestination and 'god's purpose'. Which refutes the bibles own claims of free will. Like many things in the bible, it is just a cryptic non-answer. No-one has yet to provide an answer as to the source of god's morality, because doing to would bring up more questions that it would answer. In debates, theologians like to try to get around that with semantics (a dishonest tactic), which is why defining things is so important. Regarding C.S Lewis' Mere Christianity, most of that book deals with what Christians believe. He often begins discussing a topic and then runs away from it...

Yes, god condones the things he does, well, because he does them! He is supposed to be all good, all loving, all knowing, all merciful and all just (contradiction right there...), so whatever he does must be good, whether it is intrinsically good, or good because he says it is good. Wouldn't matter either way. If the things he does are moral simply because he does them, them the rules are arbitrary and he is a monster. If the things he does are intrinsically moral then he is getting his morals from an outside source, which negates the claims of his being omni*.

I'm going to have a hard time trying to debate this mindset you have without sounding like I'm attacking you, so if I come across that way, I'm asking you to forgive me in advance.

It seems you approach the question (not problem) of God's 'morality' with a mindset that is flawed. I say it is flawed because you're trying to confine God to human understanding of morality by saying he must have a source of morality, or that his having a source of morality contradicts his being omniscient. The answer to your question regarding where God gets his morality is simple, He doesn't 'get' it from anywhere. To try and judge things God does as moral or immoral is to attribute human understanding onto something that is by nature divine, and does not work. An example (albeit an imperfect one) would be trying to say that animals that eat their young applies to our sense of morality, when clearly it does not. The article you posted lends itself to saying that it is not a practice that can be applied to our sense of morality.

Does God have a source for His Morality? Well, that question is so hard to answer because our sense of morality does not apply to Him. Perhaps we're asking the wrong questions? If all you are searching for is hard and fast answers, I can see why you no longer believe (and I don't meant that as an insult at all). Try and teach a humming bird algebra, and you'll come up frustrated because the hummingbird simply does not have the capacity to comprehend mathematics of that scale. A hummingbird trying to understand our reasoning would not be able to... understand what I'm trying to illustrate?

On some other points:

God having a plan doesn't necessarily contradict our having free will. As we've seen in the OT, God can change His mind (and apparently, His plan). The only way I see to look at it is that instead of God seeing everything that will happen (predestination?), He sees everything that can happen, along with what is most likely to happen.

And please do not bash theologians and imply they are dishonest. Some may be, but to make a blanket statement like that can only appear troll-ish.

 

[DrakkarTyrannis]

I loathe biblical debates. I never understood the point in trying to prove someone wrong about what they believe. If that works for them then why not let them have it? Many times people ask questions just to bait someone in. If they really wanted to know they'd do the research themselves instead of trying to get second hand info from another source. Questions are like Pringles chips..they can't have just one. Just keep that in mind the next time someone asks you about your religion. Do you really want to get into it with them? Sometimes it's worth it, but many times it's not.

I was reading a book from Peter Gilmore (High Priest of the Church Of Satan) and he said it best. Some people are "intellectual black holes". You throw info into them repeatedly, get nothing back, and it changes nothing for the better.

 

[Cyanide_Anima]

It doesn't really seem like you are attacking me personally... What's up with the "flaw" though? How is my perspective on this flawed, because I'd like a definition which didn't also include yourself. I have a question. How can we NOT confine our understanding of god to the human perspective? It's all we got. We are but men, the bible was written by men, all we ever have about the gods were written by men. To say that we have more implies first or second-hand knowledge, correct? All we have of that are people's delusional personal visions of god which contradict each other. Some of them correlate, but not that many, but they are hardly a reliable source of information. I'm finding it hard to understand how we could attain the knowledge of an infinite being seeing how he's already so far beyond our understanding, right? All we have are the bible, and my use is just as valid as anyone else's. I'm quite sure i've read it more times and study it more often than most christians do. I read it every summer when I was a teenager (and a believer).

God has to get his morality from somewhere, its basic logic. He either gets it from himself or a source that is outside of himself. It's a pretty simple concept. Did he will his own morals into existence? How does god's plan not necessarily impede free will? If god has a plan, desires for that plan to be carried out, and will not change it. That means everything is predestined, he knows what is going to happen...

"He hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will." - Ephesians 1:4-5

"For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate.... Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified." -- Romans 8:29-30

"God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation." - 2 Thessalonians 2:13

"God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned." - 2 Thessalonians 2:11

"For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth. .... For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy. For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction." - Romans 9:11-22

Doesn't seem that we can do anything to change it either. But, i'm sure there are passages somewhere which state we possibly do have free will, so which do you go by and why? Is it because it is more comfortable? Free will makes us feel all nice and fuzzy, right? It was definitely more comforting to me when I was a believer, but it contradicted what the bible says. I lived with that cognitive dissonance for years, lol.

I think debates are fun! lol. A chance for parties of both 'sides' to learn more about the other. As long as circular arguments aren't made. "The Bible is true > Why? > Because the bible says so > The Bible is true..." Which is what this whole 'debate' has been utilizing. I'm takin' it easy. I've 'given them' the bible. I usually go for the throat, which is probably inappropriate here. lol But there are other places for that. Debates aren't really for the people involved. It's for the observers who are 'on-the-fence'.

 

[JPhoenix19]

It doesn't really seem like you are attacking me personally... What's up with the "flaw" though? How is my perspective on this flawed, because I'd like a definition which didn't also include yourself.

Perhaps I wasn't clear? I apologize if I wasn't. I was trying to illustrate that our tools of reason and understanding have limits. The 'flaw' I'm trying to show you is trying to use lacking human logic and apply it to an infinite being. Whether or not you believe God exists, could we agree that if he did and he was omniscient as he is presented in the Bible, then God would indeed be beyond our comprehension? If he exists, and he is beyond our comprehension, doesn't that make sense why many questions we ask about Him would not be able to be answered accurately? It'd be like trying to get to absolute zero or quantify the origin of the universe: our tools simply cannot measure them.

I have a question. How can we NOT confine our understanding of god to the human perspective? It's all we got.

Great point. All we have is human logic, so trying to grasp him with this logic ultimately ends in frustration, right? My answer to that is faith. Faith comes in where logic cannot grasp. Faith allows belief without complete understanding. With faith, I can take God at His word about the things he explains, and I don't have to worry about the things I don't understand. I have the freedom to hold an opinion, or even guess at what the answers might be, but ultimately I accept I'll never comprehend the God I believe in. That said, is faith a dangerous thing? Absolutely. Do I need to balance my faith with common sense and logic? Absolutely. Does that mean I need to wrestle with doubt sometimes? Yes. But I'd rather have to deal with my doubts than close my mind.

God has to get his morality from somewhere, its basic logic. He either gets it from himself or a source that is outside of himself. It's a pretty simple concept.

Yes, the concept is simple. But this is exactly what I'm talking about. You're trying to apply the simple concept- that works with many things mind you, to a being that, if exists, is beyond such concepts. Do you believe that God should be able to be proved by logic? If so, then by definition you'll never be able to believe in the god of Christianity, since He requires faith and chooses to remain never completely understandable. I guess you already know this, but I felt it needed to be said.

 

[Cyanide_Anima]

But you use human logic when reading/learning/'understanding'/preaching/teaching the bible, correct? So how is my analysis invalid when you are doing the exact same thing? Seems hypocritical to me. So tell me, how do people acquire this knowledge of god being so far above us? Again, the NT bible was written by man (same as OT), not even during Jesus' lifetime. It's third hand information, at best. Same with the gospel of judas.

Sorry, faith explains absolutely nothing. If you are seeking real objective truth and you invoke 'faith' you automatically lose in your search for truth. Faith is pretending to know what you do not know (do I really have to repeat myself?). There is nothing objective about faith, sorry. To say that god doesn't have to adhere to the rules of logic is counterintuitive. Everything in existence from the stars to gravity to light to math have deep logical underpinnings. God cannot make 1+1=42. Saying that anything exists without logic is a non sequitur and a misnomer.

 

[JPhoenix19]

With all due respect, it seems you're missing my points. This particular debate seems to be going nowhere fast, so I'll not add anything to what I've said beyond that I'm not a hypocrite, and that you seem to have skirted around my main point and put words in my mouth. Saying much else would be repeating myself.

 

[Chris Kult]

I am a Left-Hand path Occultist. That is specific as I can get. I used to be a Christian, but found the beliefs too limiting.

 

[Cyanide_Anima]

Skirted around what? I addressed your arguments. I am not missing your argument, I understand what faith is, and the context in which you are using it. I understand that you cannot seem to process that everything which exists within the universe or can interact with it must be within its logic constructs, and will/should leave evidence of its interaction behind. I can grasp the concept of god using logic just fine, it is necessary to do so. You keep saying i'm missing something, but you them continue to argue in circles without explaining exactly what it is, other than faith of course, which is taking an extremely biased position from the start. It appears that you have actually 'skirted' my arguments and called upon faith. Faith doesn't fill in those gaps with anything, it just says "I don't know, therefore faith, therefore god." or "science can't explain this (yet), therefore faith, therefore god". I do believe that this debate has gone somewhere, it has shown the circular and fallacious nature of arguments for the existence/goodness/omniwhateverance of god.

 

[jonnyboymills]

I dont believe in beliefs

 

[JPhoenix19]

I'll have to wait until I can get to a computer to respond, as I am currently out and about checking the board on my phone.

 

[JPhoenix19]

Skirted around what? I addressed your arguments.

Partially, perhaps.

I am not missing your argument, I understand what faith is, and the context in which you are using it.

if this is so, I missed it. the definition of faith you gave seems entirely different from mine. Were you being sarcastic?

I understand that you cannot seem to process that everything which exists within the universe or can interact with it must be within its logic constructs, and will/should leave evidence of its interaction behind.

Here is where we fundamentally disagree, and I believe this is the problem with our debate. It's not that I can't process it, I just flat out don't agree. You assert that everything must fit into logical constructs, and near bludgeon me with it as fact. I have no problem with you stating it as your belief.

I can grasp the concept of god using logic just fine, it is necessary to do so.

I'm confused. Why ask the question about God's morality if you understand the concept of God? To what do you refer to when you say 'concept of god'? Does that statement mean you understand what I was trying to say? From what I read I do not see that, an I apologize if that's an error on my part.

You keep saying i'm missing something, but you them continue to argue in circles without explaining exactly what it is, other than faith of course, which is taking an extremely biased position from the start.

Statements like this are what lead me to believe you are not addressing my points, as I clearly explained what I was trying to say. As stated above, however, it's obvious that we disagree fundementally. Since we're pointing out bias, I might as well point out your seeming inability to see past your own belief concerning everything fitting into logic constructs.

It appears that you have actually 'skirted' my arguments and called upon faith. Faith doesn't fill in those gaps with anything, it just says "I don't know, therefore faith, therefore god." or "science can't explain this (yet), therefore faith, therefore god".

I did not skirt your arguement. I clearly stated that your question is hard to answer because you are trying to apply human logic to a being that by definition of being infinite cannot be measured by logic. If you don't agree with that, just say you don't agree with it instead of acusing me of not answering your question. An answer you don't like is still an answer.

I do believe that this debate has gone somewhere, it has shown the circular and fallacious nature of arguments for the existence/goodness/omniwhateverance of god.

Was that last part really necessary?




I believe I should also point out that I am not trying to get you to believe in God, or to convert. I'm really not. I'm only trying to answer your 'problem of God's morality'.

 

[Cyanide_Anima]

*double post*

 

[Cyanide_Anima]

I believe you misunderstood me if you think I believe everything has to be completely logical in reference to god, but certain elements that we understand do, and this is one of them. A question which is evaded with semantics rather than faced head on. You do in fact realize that everything you "know" about god can only come through your own human understanding, this goes for any person. We have a set of tools in which we use to learn and interact with reality. Logic is one of them (reason, emotion, empiricism, rationalism, etc). god must 'get' or 'draw' his morals from some sort of abstract concept if it isn't some sort of 'god-logic'. Whether he created it himself or adopted it from somewhere else. Is that so hard to understand? You can't just say "he gets his sense from nowhere! tada!". That's nonsense. This is what logic dictates and how I was using it.

-"It seems you approach the question (not problem) of God's 'morality' with a mindset that is flawed. I say it is flawed because you're trying to confine God to human understanding of morality by saying he must have a source of morality, or that his having a source of morality contradicts his being omniscient. The answer to your question regarding where God gets his morality is simple, He doesn't 'get' it from anywhere. To try and judge things God does as moral or immoral is to attribute human understanding onto something that is by nature divine, and does not work. An example (albeit an imperfect one) would be trying to say that animals that eat their young applies to our sense of morality, when clearly it does not. The article you posted lends itself to saying that it is not a practice that can be applied to our sense of morality."

It does indeed contradict his omniscience if he gets his 'source' of judgement from an outside concept or entity. The Mormon doctrine would agree with this, as it's just pure regression at it's craziest. Have you heard of the "Adam God" theory? It's in the Doctrine and Covenants. It's similar with the Moonies. Anyways, If he gets his morals from himself whether it was created when he willed himself into existence or afterwards, he would have still had to determine the parameters and ethics of his morals. Most of them being arbitrary, not really the sign of an all-knowing being as I pointed out earlier in the thread. Reiterating myself is getting old.

-"Does God have a source for His Morality? Well, that question is so hard to answer because our sense of morality does not apply to Him. Perhaps we're asking the wrong questions? If all you are searching for is hard and fast answers, I can see why you no longer believe (and I don't meant that as an insult at all). Try and teach a humming bird algebra, and you'll come up frustrated because the hummingbird simply does not have the capacity to comprehend mathematics of that scale. A hummingbird trying to understand our reasoning would not be able to... understand what I'm trying to illustrate?"

Our sense of morality does not apply to him? So it is ok for him to command an army of people to wipe out another tribe simple because he said so. This is moral? How? What did the children of the tribe ever do to him (except the 'women children' taken as wives, of course)? I thought kids have a clean slate... When you further examine this stuff, it just doesn't make any friggin' sense! It's just people using delusions of grandeur to take thing which they wrongfully believe to be theirs. How can you so easily dismiss the OT when it is the very foundation of Christianity? The first christians were a group of jews who decided not to call themselves jews anymore!

The hummingbird analogy isn't even analogous. The bird doesn't have a sense of morals. The bird doesn't have the capacity (or the tools) to understand logic, reason, math or what you are communicating to him. We do have the capacity to understand what god is supposedly trying to communicate to us through 'divine inspiration', the Bible. It is written in term we understand, but it's full of contradictions, which go ignored, and atrocities, which go ignored or are justified with statements such as "God is beyond us...". That is a total cop-out response. If the god of the bible is everything he claims to be, he probably cancels himself out.

So you see, I don't see how i'm missing your point at all, I understand exactly what you are saying. But i'm not sure you do. I don't mean to "bludgeon" you, but sorry if i'm not soft, I don't sugar coat anything. lol. I'm also sorry if you think my use of logic is a belief but that is not correct. Logic is a tool. This statement seems like a way of trying to 'level the playing field' by trying to state something I believe, because you believe in something. It's also a red herring... What about my arguments earlier, where I described god must get his morals from somewhere, and his morals affect how he enacts with his reality, thus effect how he proceeds with his plan. Which lead to predestination. Which you wrote off. So again, we can understand certain aspects of god because that is what he gave to us in the Bible (supposedly). This is what everything you have stated, all the things you "know" about god have come from! Do you get it yet? Or are the circles going to continue? lol If you are saying that moral (or any) understanding of god is just not possible, you might as well chuck that book right out the window.

Was that last part necessary? I think so! The arguments are circular, and when I present an argument based upon the bible you reject it saying it's "flawed" and just say it's beyond us. I mean, you are combining logical fallacies here like the power rangers combining zords.

Sorry, a joke, couldn't help it, but no offense really. These discussions are good, they help.

 

[DrakkarTyrannis]

I am a Left-Hand path Occultist. That is specific as I can get. I used to be a Christian, but found the beliefs too limiting.

Props to a fellow Left-Hand path guy!

 

[Adam Of Angels]

Tell us about the Magic you perform, Drakk.

 

[DrakkarTyrannis]

Tell us about the Magic you perform, Drakk.

Nah..nah I'm good.