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There have been many religion threads in this subforum, but I'm hoping that with a slightly different take on it, this won't devolve into that oh-so-familiar flamewar and echo chamber we've all grown to expect. This thread's title is not a challenge, but an invitation: rather than debate if God exists, or look at the reasons to think he does not, I want to start a discussion about why believers think he does. This is not a debate - this thread will solidly fall on the "discussion" side of the subforum's title, although if fellow believers think they can examine the nuances of others' reason to make them more robust, that is by all means permissible. I don't want to hear arguments against people's reasons based on the belief that God does not exist; let's just assume for the purpose of this thread that he does. What compels you personally to believe in God? Is it a logical argument, like the Cosmological or Ontological ones of Philosophy 101 fame? A problem that in your estimation couldn't be solved without God, like the origin of life or a basis for morality? Or is it simply your experience of him - he's shown up in your life so many times and in so many ways it would be like believing there is no air? I'd like to encourage any respondents to go into detail, especially but not exclusively if your answer is in that latter category - how did you come up with this reason? Has it always been your reason? Have you had other reasons in the past that you've later, upon reflection, discarded as inadequate? Also, to whatever extent you are comfortable, please tell us (me) what religion you are a part of, which denomination or sect, things along those lines, just for context. Also, if there are many reasons, discuss which are the more important and why - for instance, one might say that the Dead Sea Scrolls bolstered their faith, but without them they would still believe because of how good they feel in church, or something along those lines. Just to hedge this off upfront, I'd like to dissuade people from the response, "I just have faith." Why do you have faith, then? Something had to convince you to have that faith initially, even if it was just being taught by your parents. Or, perhaps if this is your answer, try a slightly different route: why do you have faith in the specific God that you do? If you believe in Allah based purely on faith, how do you discern that it's Allah and not Yahweh, Vishnu, or Zeus? Thanks all! I hope this will produce an interesting collection of ideas.
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Jun 4, 2016 21:28
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Alright alright alright alright. Let me step in and brandish my OP powers for a moment. I may have overreached when I said this is not a debate, since having absolutely no dialogue would make this more akin to a PYF thread. I think it's fine if we poke and prod at each other's epistemology a bit; the question of why other religions have similar experiences to the Christian one when, in the poster's reckoning, those experiences demonstrate Christianity's truthfulness, is a good one. Happy to endorse challenges of that sort. But this homosexuality debate is useless. First, it is simply inescapable that the Bible is against homosexuality in testaments both old and new. If you, as a Christian, think being gay is permitted by God, then your reasons must come from outside the Bible - which is fine, and if you have a reason to believe Christianity but not the Bible, that would be perfectly fit for this thread, but to argue that the Bible doesn't take a position on the issue is dishonest. Conversely, whether and how homosexuality is an evolved trait is straight up irrelevant, until and unless someone posts saying "I believe in God because there's no way homosexuality is an evolved trait". To be clear, no poster is under an obligation to debate once they've stated their reasons for belief. But we can certainly question whether those reasons are good ones or if there is a way to make them more robust. That would actually be fairly interesting. Thank you and godbless
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Jun 10, 2016 18:44
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Volcott posted:Sorry, OP. We're not getting out of this one alive. yes we ARE SedanChair posted:Many Christians (some fairly prominent and with seminary backgrounds) disagree, so I'm not sure you can just deliver a ruling on it like this. The Bible only ever condemns it and never doesn't condemn it. You can be a Christian who thinks homosexuality is permissible, but saying the Bible doesn't condemn it is just factually wrong. But, yes, perhaps I shouldn't have weighed in on the discussion in order to stop it. Okay. Let's move on from this. There is plenty in what Griffen is posting - and, of course, others - that can merit a perfectly fascinating on-topic discussion. e: we can certainly have a "what is the Christian stance on homosexuality?" thread elsewhere
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Jun 10, 2016 20:02
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FilthIncarnate posted:I would like to contribute but I'm unsure how. Describe the religious experience: what happened, how did you differentiate it from an everyday event or a coincidence, and what about it pointed you toward a particular god, rather than some nebulous cosmic force (assuming that is indeed what you came to believe)?
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Jun 10, 2016 20:22
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FilthIncarnate posted:I have previously written a little bit about the subject on this website; I could link you to the relevant post and thread. Alright, fine, do that.
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Jun 10, 2016 21:18
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Griffen posted:Honestly, I do not really think about whether they exist or not. God, as He has made himself known to us through the prophets and His son Christ Jesus, is all sufficient for me, and I need no other. If I had to answer the question, shooting from the hip so to speak, I'd guess they don't exist as products of man, or are man's attempt to identify God and yet have chosen not to use the revelations He has provided (either through choice or simply never having heard the gospel). Even if there were other gods that existed, God has made Himself known to me in my life and I will have no other god before Him in my life. Therefore their existence or non-existence are irrelevant to me. Purely to provoke more discussion, let me ask: what of those who say God revealed himself through the Quran and the prophet Mohammed? Your position seems to be that those who disbelieve Christianity do so by deliberately rejecting God and the legitimate methods of revelation he's utilized, but I'm certain members of other faiths are under the impression that they are being perfectly obedient to God - just the wrong one, in your view. You say it's choice, but I feel it's more of an honest mistake; what do you make of someone sincerely attempting to know God but just by accident of birth landing on the wrong one? Assume the same answer for all your other parameters: that they also feel God has made himself known to them, that they have also experienced God, etc. Maybe another way to put it: how do you differentiate legitimate religious experience from illegitimate?
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Jun 13, 2016 17:43
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Griffen posted:Honestly? This is outside my area of experience, so I don't really know. The Catholic Church holds the position that God can reach out through any structure to reach us, so maybe other religions are Man's attempt to reach God while waiting for the message to be brought to them. If someone has never heard the gospel, I doubt God would condemn them for that, but instead judge them by whether they reached out to Him as best they could. So yes, I would think they can still achieve a religious experience without being Christian. I heard of an Indian man who was a indentured slave in a brick factory speak of his conversion moment, when he prayed to God not out of any personal knowledge, but simply to the god his mother followed, and God answered him, which led to his learning more and later conversion. Those that do hear the gospel are judged by whether they respond to it, because they have been given the truth and they either choose it, or reject it. I've heard some converts from other religions speak, and their experiences vary. One muslim woman I heard spoke about how she felt liberated upon reading the Bible. I don't want to say too much about how other people experience it, since it feels like putting words in their mouth to me, and I know little of their lives. Well, I suppose I'm not really asking about those who have never heard the Gospel at all, more of those who were raised, say, in a Muslim society, and who are aware that Christians and/or the Bible exists, but for whom that scripture and that testimony do nothing. People that give the Bible that cursory glance and dismiss it with as much alacrity as you might dismiss the Quran. Perhaps I just need clarification on what you think theologically: is belief in Jesus necessary for salvation? Can one be a devout Muslim - who is aware of Christianity but thinks of it as a false religion - get into heaven? And yes, there are stories of Muslims reading the Bible and being comforted, but let's not rely on anecdotes - I know there are stories the other way around, where a Christian felt something in Islam and was moved to convert to it. quote:As for the last question, "how do you differentiate legitimate religious experience from illegitimate," I personally cannot aways distinguish it. I am a mortal man, I cannot look at someone or something and say "yep, God did that," or "nope, God didn't do that" in their lives with perfect accuracy. I can see something that might bear His fingerprints, so to speak, or I can see something that He would never do, but I can be wrong. Right, but the point is you seem to be claiming that ability nonetheless; you've cited your experiences of God as a reason to believe, so how do you know they are indeed experiences of God? Let's make it much simpler: if a Christian and a Muslim both felt some powerful feeling of love while praying, and both were moved to cite that as evidence of their respective Gods, how do you know that the Christian was experiencing the real God, and the Muslim was mistaken? Why is it not the other way around?
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Jun 13, 2016 19:33
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Griffen posted:Let me correct my previous post: I cannot tell for other people. I can see where God has moved in my life, but I can't always see that in other people's lives. Sometimes God is as obvious as the rolling thunder, and sometimes he comes as a still small whisper when you are alone in your darkest times. Right, but you seem to be saying "I don't really know" while at the same time, in practice, proceeding as if you know for certain. You are saying you don't really know for sure what things are and are not experiences of God while at the same time portraying a de facto view that all non-Christian "experiences of God" must be something else, must be mistaken by definition. I'm just wondering how you know this, or if you really aren't sure about the experiences of others, why you are certain that Christianity is true.
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Jun 13, 2016 20:33
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GreyjoyBastard posted:I mean, heck, I was raised Episcopalian and still have a fondness for the sect, but I felt something in a very specific branch of shakta Hinduism and was moved to convert to it. I'd love to hear more about this - what convinced you to switch, and why do you remain in it today? (Assuming you still do). Goffer posted:Atheist here, so I'm not really super qualified to buy in, but in my flirtations with religion and based on some stories in this thread, I'd like to put forward a phenomenon that happens when things are poo poo and you have no control, which I have as a pet theory for why some people believe: This is absolutely fascinating.
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Jun 14, 2016 15:25
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Vorenus posted:That's probably one of the bigger points that non-believers struggle with - no believer can prove God exists, and it does sound absolutely mad to say "Well I can't prove it, I just feel it." I think it's not so much that the feeling is hard to describe but that it shows itself in a multiplicity of world religions. The salient question is, "how do you know that this feeling leads to the real God when that same feeling in others is apparently leading them to the wrong God?" Of course, I don't know for sure that "other religions go to hell" is part of your theology, so do you care to expand on this any?
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Jun 14, 2016 20:15
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Vorenus posted:This is a big one, and I think this question alone could have (and has had) years of debate without reaching a consensus. A big part of it is upbringing, and I vaguely recall a past study which found that the vast majority of Christian believers came up being taught those beliefs from a young age as I was. I don't think it necessarily locks you into that belief, but it definitely has an impact. This is something I ultimately can't answer, it's more of a question for me to think about and challenge myself on because I absolutely can't explain it. As much as I would love to think that, for example, Islam is God's gospel for another culture, I haven't found the evidence to back that up (or with any other religion). Again, that's a conversation that goes down a very deep rabbit hole of philosophy, which isn't a bad thing but is entirely outside of the scope of what I'm capable of discussing with any hope of coherence/authority. So I suppose the next probing question is: why doesn't it bother you to not have answers on this? And not simply the question of "how do you know you're right?" but also importantly "how do you know they are wrong?" You acknowledge that those having what we could call inauthentic religious experiences are being convinced by them of a false God, and you acknowledge that those people convinced of a false God are - as far as you can tell, based on the Bible - hellbound. In a religion like Islam, this is conversely true for them in regards to you - that is, they feel as though you are having the inauthentic religious experiences, following a false God, and are destined for hell. What if they're right? What convinces you that they aren't, enough to declare yourself a Christian? Or, putting it differently, what difference do you perceive between your experiences and theirs that allows you to discern that Christianity is the right creed to follow?
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Jun 15, 2016 16:55
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Tatum Girlparts posted:You seem to be convinced that 'affecting others' is an inevitability if you're religious. I think "it's nearly impossible to make beliefs exclusively private" and/or "a sincere belief will inevitably show up in your actions in some way" aren't terribly unsupported positions to take. That's why I find "just keep your beliefs to yourself!" as a solution to our religious diversity in this world a little naive and divorced from reality. The salient question really is, "do these manifestations of personal beliefs do more harm than good?" Which I think is certainly a discussion worth having - a little orthogonal to this thread topic, but not exactly irrelevant either.
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Jun 16, 2016 18:49
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Alright this has to stop.Crowsbeak posted:Really all people with psychosis has no control at all over their lives? Stop doing this. I can't tell if you're being deliberately obtuse or if you think you are actually marshaling a cogent and comprehensive reply but you seem to miss the point literally every time you post. I think you must know drat well that the point of the poster you were responding to was "it is known that certain people are compelled into certain actions some of the time", as a way of proving their concept, not that ALL people with "psychosis" have NO control over their lives EVER. Either answer questions fully, intelligently, and honestly or don't post. And if you are failing to actually respond to people because time and time again you have no answer, maybe that should tell you something. To toss my $0.02 into the free will discussion: first, it is a careless exaggeration to ask if atheists want God to turn everyone into "drones" or if they are asking for God to literally move people's arms and legs for them. There is a yawning chasm between "pure, unrestrained free will" and "being robots". We are already physically restrained in some senses; for instance, we don't have the free will to fly under our own power. The question of why there couldn't be a few more physical restrictions to at least sop up some of the violence in this world is a valid one. So to is the question of why man's evil would cause natural disasters, disease, or pestilence. I think I'll leave it to others to expound further on this. Second, why does having free will necessitate having evil? In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis snidely suggests that some people pretend to be able to imagine a world with free will but no evil, though he cannot. But what will Heaven be like? If we have free will in Heaven, does that mean there will be evil, that there will be sin? Then what exactly is different between Heaven and here? And if we don't have free will, won't we be precisely those praise-drones some of you keep harping on about? Doesn't it bother you that for eternity - most of what you will ever be - you will just be a mindless machine worshiping at God's feet? Plus, I thought the idea was that God gave us free will because that's what gave our love and worship of him potency - we chose to do it. If we will have no free will in the hereafter, clearly he doesn't much care if our adulation is coerced.
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Jun 20, 2016 18:00
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Crowsbeak posted:I suspect most people "compelled" could deal. Also when an atheist asks why evil exists if there is free will, and why doesn't God correct it or not let it happen, that by itself is not free will, as that suggests someone being actively prevented from doing something. Its like putting a shock collar on a cat for when they knock over a plant. That is enslavement. Crow, what about my Heaven example?
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Jun 20, 2016 19:45
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Crowsbeak posted:If you truly know the presence of God as all who enter Heaven will by God s litteral presense, you will of course not commit evil. I honestly don't know how it's possible for someone to miss the point with such consistency. Okay: think through the implications of what you're saying here. Those in heaven will not commit evil. Fine. Is this because they have no free will to do so? Then they're the "drones" you continually bemoan. Or do they have free will? Then it's possible to simultaneously have free will and no evil, which means we could have that situation here on Earth. Either way, we don't have an answer for why there is evil in the world. So again: why is there evil? "Free will" doesn't work as an answer. What other reason could there be?
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Jun 21, 2016 15:45
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Crowsbeak posted:Uh the fact man uses free will to commit evil does. Sorry you can't deal with it. At who what as I said I thought I should act like you. An rear end in a top hat. Don't know that I was ever obfuscating my "true intentions", but you're welcome? I'm going to be relentless here because I think there is an answer to be had, even if I have to drag it out of you. Okay, you're still breezing by the actual substance of my question, so let's approach it a different way: which of the two scenarios do you think will exist in heaven? Is there no free will, making us praise-drones, or is there free will but somehow still no sin or evil? Okay, NOW. With whichever one you've picked: why can that not be instantiated here on Earth? Please answer both parts of my question. Thank you.
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Jun 21, 2016 16:42
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Crowsbeak posted:Ah nice to know you are to cowardly to answer. But then you are illustrating why this thread inevitably turned into r/atheism . Holy poo poo dude, it's been what, 20 minutes since you posted? Crowsbeak posted:There is free will and people through knowing God do not commit evil. This is a whole part of Christian Dogma from its begining. Now answer my question. What is your problem with religion. Because it is very obvious you and the majority of atheists here post these threads to try to "teach" us theists. Okay, but I am under the impression that most Christians also adhere to the doctrine that all men are sinners, even the most pious of saints. So just knowing God does not seem like enough of a condition to prevent evil (surely you would not try to argue that all evil in the world is committed by non-Christians?). Does something change in us at the moment of death? Are we transformed in some way so that we are no longer capable of performing evil? And if so, why not make us this way during our time on Earth? As for the second question, this thread is overtly about epistemology; calling reasons for belief into question is sort of the point. I'll engage with any poster who props up an argument with facile reasoning, theist or not - see earlier in this thread where I defended the Christian arguing that the Bible condemns homosexuality.
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Jun 21, 2016 17:14
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Crowsbeak posted:Yeah I laid out that knowing God isn't going to church its putting others before yourself, its not being violent its accepting all your wrongs. Also death doesn't stop that as others have pointed out my position is held in the Orthodox church and by some Catholics even those in hell can be saved as the new earth, which is not heaven will always have its gate open. Also the fall has ensured we cannot be that way. So nothing changes after death and the judgement just that we will all finally realize our faults and come to be with God. Yeah, this is where I don't really understand your worldview. Do you agree with the doctrine that all men, including all Christians, are sinners? With the exception of Christ himself, obviously. If so, is your position that no one gets into heaven? That's not a doctrine I'm familiar with. I mean, you seem to be arguing that those who "know God" (which I take to mean being a Christian, or perhaps being the right kind of Christian) will do no evil, despite their free will. But no one does no evil here on Earth. That's why I asked if something changes on death, since there is evil on Earth, but supposedly none in heaven. quote:Now I want the Atheists here to answer the question why do you not like religion. As most of you obviously have some major problems with it or you wouldn'tpsot in these threads and declare theists to be mentally ill. I assume you're no longer addressing me, since I haven't called anyone mentally ill. But just in case: I am engaging with you because your reasoning seems faulty, not because of the side of the issue you happen to be defending.
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Jun 21, 2016 17:42
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bitcoin bastard posted:I don't have any citations other than my life, but I can personally attest to the idea that until poo poo gets bad, you don't actually understand how good life can get. I think there's a danger of taking this to the logical conclusion where in order to be maximally happy, or to cause others to be, you must inflict as much suffering on yourself and them as possible. I don't think I need to light myself on fire to get the maximum appreciation of not being burnt. I get that in your life, the negatives have helped to emphasize the positives, but I think you recognize there's a limit to this, and I think you also know the weaknesses of this hypothesis. Lampsacus posted:When I ask my Christian friends why they believe it often is about personal experience or feelings. If I, tactfully, persist with the topic the conversation invariably ends with *shrug* ah, who cares its just what I believe. This used to frustrate me but now I just let it slide. It isn't wrong. Life is such that we might as well make it as comfortable as possible. While this is a topic for another thread, I would ask you to consider the same argument for, say, using heroin, and ask yourself if you would take the same stance.
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Jun 27, 2016 17:09
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I Like Jell-O posted:This thread really did start out interesting, but hoo boy did it go south. Let this be a case study in why so many of these discussions don't work on a medium like a forum. Yeah, and posts declaring how poorly the discussion is going don't do anything to fix it now do they? The Problem of Evil is hardly solved. You'll notice the Wikipedia page you so assiduously cited refers to the topic both as part of a "series on God" and a "series on Atheism". As others have pointed out, the Mormon conception of God is unique, especially as it stands in relation to this specific topic, so you'll forgive the 6.985 billion non-Mormons in the world for continuing to debate it. And if your concern really is the health and wellbeing of this thread, please, don't take five posts to get around to posting some content. It's worse than useless. Lampsacus posted:
Obviously there is a discussion to be had - for another thread, I think - as to whether certain religious beliefs do more harm than good. My point was simply to articulate that "hey, if it makes them feel good, leave them to it" is a poor line of reasoning. GAINING WEIGHT... fucked around with this message at 16:55 on Jun 28, 2016 |
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Jun 28, 2016 15:18
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twodot posted:All else being equal, this seems like a really good line of reasoning. There's a possibility of some undiscovered negative, but that's true of literally all activities. Really? I know that this is going off topic, but this is a very surprising viewpoint to hear. I don't think the downside to "let people do whatever they want" is at all undiscovered, nor even that esoteric. It seems obvious. That's why we have things called "laws". Surely I'm misunderstanding you?
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Jun 28, 2016 20:09
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twodot posted:The standard is "Let people do whatever they want, unless you have a good reason not to". Yeah, that is waaaaaaaay different than just the first half by itself. quote:and your only piece of information is "They like to do that activity" The entire point of contention is that this isn't the only piece of information. The hypothetical discussion would begin with presenting all of the other impacts organized religion makes, understanding to what degree each of them applies to specific religious people in question, weighing the good against the bad, etc. My point with the heroin example was that them enjoying it is not the whole story. But I'm gonna leave this discussion here. Surely we can at least agree that the conversation about religion's impact on the world is varied and nuanced, and can't be summed up with a simple statement, whether that is "people shouldn't get to be religious" or "people like being religious so let's let them be".
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Jun 28, 2016 21:42
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Griffen posted:Now you're moving goal posts - is the question about the existence of evil, or why do bad things happen, aka why does suffering exist? These are two fundamentally different things. Disease it not good or evil, it just is; we may view it as evil because it causes us pain or takes someone we love away from us, but there is no moral element to a hurricane. Some of what you're proposing has been brought up before in this thread, so apologies if there is any rehash, but I don't think this is dishonest goalpost moving at all. I think the "Problem of Evil" is all but synonymous with the "Problem of Suffering" - after all, the complaint against man's evil is precisely that it causes suffering (what issue would we have with "evil" otherwise?). Much if not all of those who are not religious, I imagine, don't much care about the "evil" of, say, gay marriage, because an atheist's morality - generally speaking - is not about what God does or does not want, it's only about what causes or alleviates suffering. quote:But let's look at your last sentence again: "If a standard omni-* God wanted us to have free will, he could still let us wreck the hell out of ourselves all we wanted without, you know, also deciding Tay-Sachs needed to be a thing." What you are essentially asking for here in this sentence (assuming I understand what you mean by "wreck the hell out of ourselves") is that Man be capable of choosing a course of action but then be free from the consequences of said actions. Actually, I that's the opposite of what that poster meant. I think he/she is agreeing with you that the free will defense makes sense if suffering were possible only and exclusively as a direct result of our actions toward each other, but that it doesn't make sense when you consider something like Tay-Sachs (a degenerative condition primarily affecting infants), which is not due to anything we humans have done, and is something that God could have easily left out of creation. Your hypothesis that suffering does some good is an interesting one, but I think - again, as we touched on briefly already - it's a matter of degree. Why couldn't the limit of our suffering be mere boredom, or a stubbed toe? Additionally, if more suffering leads to more spiritual growth, there's this problem: GAINING WEIGHT... posted:I think there's a danger of taking this to the logical conclusion where in order to be maximally happy, or to cause others to be, you must inflict as much suffering on yourself and them as possible. I don't think I need to light myself on fire to get the maximum appreciation of not being burnt. Lastly, I'd like your take on these two points, concerning just how free our free will both is and needs to be, and why that would imply the existence of evil in the first place: GAINING WEIGHT... posted:To toss my $0.02 into the free will discussion: first, it is a careless exaggeration to ask if atheists want God to turn everyone into "drones" or if they are asking for God to literally move people's arms and legs for them. There is a yawning chasm between "pure, unrestrained free will" and "being robots". We are already physically restrained in some senses; for instance, we don't have the free will to fly under our own power. The question of why there couldn't be a few more physical restrictions to at least sop up some of the violence in this world is a valid one. So to is the question of why man's evil would cause natural disasters, disease, or pestilence. I think I'll leave it to others to expound further on this.
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Jun 29, 2016 15:10
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Keeshhound posted:Do you not understand how logical arguments work? When you pose the problem of evil as an argument that God doesn't exist, the onus is on you to make sure that your argument is ironclad. No. What's happening is more of a rebuttal to an argument that God does exist. Let's keep in mind where the burden of proof falls and all that. I can propose a thousand entities that, with enough caveats and hedges, can't be disproven, but that's not enough reason to say that they exist. The onus is on the one proposing a God, and saying "I see the problem, cannot solve it, but assume there is an answer nonetheless" is not valid.
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Jun 30, 2016 17:47
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BrandorKP posted:It is a way to think about how different people approach the issue of human suffering and evil. It's also a way to critique those approaches. It's also a way to use multiple approaches, without being inconsistent, to think about the question. This also includes the viewpoint "absent". I guess I don't take your point. Are you saying suffering doesn't matter because God suffered too? Or are you just tossing in a few more pieces of the puzzle for consideration without a stance to accompany them?
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Jul 6, 2016 16:55
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BrandorKP posted:No what I'm saying is that we can look at suffering as an event that happens. We could look at Jesus on the cross. Or we could look at Pipel being hanged by the Nazis. Or we could look at someone's child dying of cancer. So what about this solves the problem of evil, if indeed you are suggesting it does (even partially)? I think everyone is on board with suffering being a real event. How does God being on the gallows alongside Pipel annul his suffering? Isn't a child dying of cancer still suffering, needlessly, for nothing the child herself has done, even if God is suffering alongside her? The problem is not so much, "how bad does God feel about suffering?" so much as it is, "why was the concept of suffering invented and put into the universe to begin with?" I suppose I am still failing to take your point, unless it is just "here is another dimension we can consider" with no conclusions or further implications included along with it.
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Jul 7, 2016 15:04
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vintagepurple posted:I'm not really interested in debating the same rehashed internet debate, but being religious I wanted to throw out the the idea of God as "omnipotent, omnibenevolent, all-powerful" is basically not a thing in judaism or any religion I know of. It's a thing atheists say God is because it's easy to "disprove" with basic logic. Posters above me have said this, but just to reiterate: Omni-God is far from an atheist caricature and if it's not a part of any religion you know of, you don't know of many religions. There is a direct New Testament verse which states "nothing is impossible with God". quote:God is a creator, God loves Creation, but above all he's unknowable and incomprehensible. Any philosophical discussion that makes God into some all-powerful interventionist superhero is falling on deaf ears. Even if you're a biblical literalist (which I'm not- to me the Torah is very clearly a human creation, and there are other ways to know the divine that are equally valid), God needs to act through humans like Moses- he doesn't just smite Pharaoh and teleport the Israelites to the Promised Land. God directly intervenes all the time. Noah's flood, burning Sodom and Gomorrah, stopping the sun so Joshua can complete his battle. And Pharaoh died because God parted the waters for Moses then released them onto the Egyptians to drown them. I don't know if you're glossing over these obvious counterexamples or if these don't count as "intervention" to you, but I think with the above two statements your conception of God is most certainly in the minority.
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Jul 7, 2016 19:07
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Literally The Worst posted:Op have you considered that you're a fuckin wiener who should have been pushed into a locker more as a child psh yeah man that was the FIRST thing I thought of. But have you considered this: shut up, DUMMY HEAD
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Jul 7, 2016 19:52
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BrandorKP posted:As to "why was the concept of suffering invented and put into the universe to begin with?" I don't believe in answering that question. Any answer to that question is a justification for suffering, and that can be used to hand wave it away. Right, but having no answer is still a problem. That's why the concern is raised in the first place. The question of "why is there suffering?" isn't being asked by tendentious non-believers, it's being asked by reality. Like, so long as there is suffering and an all-powerful God, there is either justified suffering or unjustified suffering, and refusing to answer the question merely gives us the latter, it does not avoid or solve the problem. It makes it worse.
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Jul 8, 2016 16:03
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Holy poo poo I have a new avatar
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Jul 8, 2016 16:04
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Eskaton posted:Op, I know I'm pulling from way back here, but have you considered that Christianity is also a thing outside of the Bible? Or any religion with a holy book? Yes? Obviously? That's why I said: quote:You can be a Christian who thinks homosexuality is permissible, but saying the Bible doesn't condemn it is just factually wrong. in, you know, the post you quoted. My point was not to say one can't be a Christian without being homophobic, simply that you can't honestly argue that the Bible offers anything but condemnation on the subject of homosexuality. Obviously you can be a Christian without strict adherence to the Bible - many people do. I will say that I can't understand how, though. If you don't trust the Bible to be uniquely reliable in its claims, I don't get how you can conclude that this particular God story is true out of all the God stories, which I imagine you would relegate to the category of "mythology". The Kingfish posted:This is the difference between Christianity and Islam. Please. McDowell posted:Maybe those who directly witnessed the resurrection were given a gift of 'psychic' powers over physiology and chemistry What in the gently caress are you saying? That the disciples invented penicillin? BrandorKP posted:Over a million on the high end 600,000 on the low end depending on the ancient source. Alternative ways of figuring it out range from a third to half of the estimated population, estimates that way range 350000 to 500000+. Then you know all the people turned into slaves, etc. It was pretty loving bad. Shitloads of crucifixions. Are you arguing that because Christ died amidst (what you judge to be) a uniquely egregious circumstance of community-wide suffering, the Gospel accounts are trustworthy? Or that somehow we can glean from this the divinity of Jesus? Also I really don't think the Roman subjugation of Judea is going to be the Holocaust in the degree of human suffering. Far more Jews died, over a shorter (and thus more concentrated) period of time, and being worked to death is most likely far worse than crucifixion. Unless you are willing to accept the Diary of Anne Frank as equally divine, I don't think this is a concrete argument.
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Jul 12, 2016 16:44
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McDowell posted:I am. The Bible can be considered as a 'history book'. Well, yes, a flawed and heavily biased one. It can be useful in some respects in the study of history. I'll grant you that. Also that had nothing to do with what I was asking. quote:No, I'm saying something special happened 2000 years ago that convinced lots of people and changed the course of history. The chain of events leading to this very moment should be all the proof you need. Lobbing insults at the creator and saying a human 'discovered' or 'invented' something in nature illuminates a certain arrogance. This is such a bizarre line of reasoning. I mean, technically you are right that the events of 2000 years ago caused the events of today, but only in the same sense that the events of a random day in August three years ago caused today. Does the fact that the presidential election in 2008 caused a specific person to be president today mean that the '08 election was some divine event? And this can just as easily be done the other way around: events of 1000 years before the crucifixion lead up to it, so those events must be special? I don't honestly know exactly where to begin responding to this. It comes across as a sideways version of that old "some of the smartest people/most influential artists in history were Christians" argument.
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Jul 12, 2016 19:32
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BrandorKP posted:The "Disciple Jesus Loved" or the "Beloved Disciple" : Who is it? What is the nature of the relationship? How valid are the traditional explanations in light of what we know about how some groups heavily edited early scripture for their own political ends? Please. A fanfiction-level speculation that Jesus was gay with one of his disciples proves the Bible is pro-homosexuality? Again: GAINING WEIGHT... posted:you can't honestly argue that the Bible offers anything but condemnation on the subject of homosexuality.
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Jul 12, 2016 21:08
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Eskaton posted:Because religion isn't really a science, maybe..? There is no rigor required. You might want to take a look at a lot postmodern stuff. You don't get to just decide that religion is somehow a special class of discourse that is freed from the burden of evidence and proof. I say it does require rigor. I say this purported divide between religion and science is a false one. All we have are claims and evidence. We really resolved this half a century ago with Russell's teapot - yes, I can make any claim I want, but until there are good reasons to support my claim, I don't get to be taken seriously just because I call this claim a religion. quote:You know Christian Atheism is a thing? Zizek has a good thing on it. Just because it exists doesn't mean it isn't moronic. Christian Atheism isn't even a religion so much as the overt respect for a philosopher from the ancient world. These are the last gasps of an atheist who doesn't want to admit they have no religion, or who doesn't want to call into question the necessity of religion in society. Can't you just say you like some of the things Jesus said, alongside liking some things Socrates, Hume, or Nietzsche said, without claiming "therefore I am a Christian"?
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Jul 13, 2016 16:52
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McDowell posted:That was when the Next Level was closest to this world and left the strongest evidence, the clearest 'signal', possible at this time. The rest is a 'leap of faith' - which has always been the formula for developing beyond human. I'm sorry...I was focused more on Brandor and Eskaton's posts but...are you legitimately a Heaven's Gate follower/believer?
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Jul 13, 2016 17:22
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Who What Now posted:Who is "Do"? Codename for Marshall Applewhite, leader of Heaven's Gate. Paired with Ti, his partner, ol' what's-her-name. It's solfege syllable Do, as in "Do-a-deer". Y'know, like music.
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Jul 13, 2016 17:53
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Eskaton posted:Like if you went into this whole religion thing looking for testable claims, you kinda completely missed the point, dude. Why should religious claims be immune from testability?
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Jul 13, 2016 20:02
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Nude Bog Lurker posted:Religious person's claim: I believe that God is real because of my experiences Come on, you can think things through a little harder than that. I would never claim they don't believe it; on the contrary, as we saw in the other thread, I seem to be alone in arguing they do believe what they say they do, and are motivated by it. I would probably claim that their experiences don't actually lead to that conclusion. To the person who says they believe aliens are real because they were abducted the night before, I would not try to dispute that they actually believe it, but would instead explain the phenomenon called sleep paralysis and how the aliens were, to put it bluntly, all in their head. A religious person's claims would be no different.
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Jul 14, 2016 14:45
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BrandorKP posted:This here's yer problem. *kicks tires No, I really don't think so. To be clear, I'm not one to deny that believers have the experiences they say they do. But these transcendent experiences happen in so many contexts, both within and outside of religion, that there's no way they can be used to prove one specific doctrine or another. Yes, you feel good while singing in church, or you convince yourself your prayers are answered, or you partake in some indescribable feeling of love, but none of these things prove a Palestinian rose from the dead 2000 years ago. That's a complete non-sequitor. I think the "religious experience" angle is one of the most prolific reasons that convince believers of their respective doctrine - in fact testing that hypothesis was one of my main reasons for starting this thread. And I think too often believers assume that these experiences only happen to people in their religion, or that it doesn't take the same form in other contexts, or isn't felt to the same degree. It's cultural ignorance, essentially; a lack of empathy. A refusal to examine the lives of others because of a presumption that you've got it all figured out already. Unless you've had a "religious experience" of the sort that entailed literal supernatural events, like a vision of Jesus appeared to you and five other people in a room and told you in a booming voice that he was the son of God, but I take it that this hasn't happened to you. If you can give me something that is literally only explicable by the tenants of Christianity and the existence of a God, then I'll recant the above.
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Jul 14, 2016 18:35
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BrandorKP posted:Other people who have had different life experiences than I have had reach conclusions I disagree and are wrong. Having trouble parsing this sentence quote:You don't see the problem or the fundamental hypocrisy with thinking that way? Isn't how a fundamentalist thinks about the gay community? Not at all. How is "you as a person are intrinsically sinful because my God says so" the same as "many people are having transformative experiences but taking away some poorly thought out conclusions from them"? Actually, I'll go a step farther and say that they are nearly opposite. I am advocating more empathy and introspection, and less dogmatic adherence to ideas. I can understand and sympathize with having an experience in a religious context and thinking that it demonstrates that religion's truth, in the same way I can sympathize with someone thinking that however they were raised is "normal", or that their favorite food is objectively the best. We have an innate difficulty with seeing things from someone else's point of view. That doesn't make it right. And pointing it out doesn't make me hypocritical. quote:And again not all religious people have had spiritual experiences either. Yes, I am aware. Hence why I use hedges like "most" or "many".
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Jul 14, 2016 20:48
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