Or, they might have given us all sorts of proof but some of us decide not to see it. As many would maintain. Look at the trees, the mountains.. such beauty can only be proof...?
Oh I should've added:
5) I like thinking about things from other people's points of view.
Maybe theres nothing wrong with Religion; mans perception of Religion and how we interpret is perhaps messed up
+1
mans perception of Religion and how we interpret is perhaps messed up.
so it could exist without us ?
Just cos you don't
understand why someone else believes
something, doesn't mean they are stupid.
Absolutley disgraceful, repugnant and morally and intellectually feeble to a shameful degree.
And yet on the ghost thread...
The souls of the dead walking the world? Or a
dodgy switch? You decide!
...{dodgy switch} seems VASTLY more plausible (and physically possible) than the echoes of dead people turning on your cooker hood (ffs!)
Or, they might have given us all sorts of proof but some of us decide not to see it. As many would maintain. Look at the trees, the mountains
I believe trees prove the existence of trees
Maybe "religion" just "is". How do you explain the unexplainable?
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Mind you, I am [i]extremely[/i] partial to little country churches and certain hymns.
Maybe "religion" just "is". How do you explain the unexplainable?
so as well as god(s) we have to believe in religion too ? Or can religion be instead ? Or is religion a god ?
Or, they might have given us all sorts of proof but some of us decide not to see it. As many would maintain. Look at the trees, the mountains.. such beauty can only be proof...?
Yeah, I like that.
also, although trees and mountains might be evidence for some creationist agency, they lack substance as a guide to action or morality
so as well as god(s) we have to believe in religion too ? Or can religion be instead ? Or is religion a god ?
whoops! I meant maybe god just "is".
Is there more than one god?
Mans interpretation of Religion (which we read about in the historical books ie the bible, koran etc.) would have us believe there are many different gods. Maybe one god with many different facets?
trees and mountains
[i]And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And [b]rolls through all things[/b]. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods,
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth[/i]
I'm down with Wordsworth and his, uuhh, vague pantheism - so, what tyres for rolling "through all things"? I've been searching for years!
anyone on this thread looked into Joseph Cambell?
i used to be athiest, i still am, but i no longer get angry at the religous.
Just cos you don't understand why someone else believes something, doesn't mean they are stupid.
I take your point, but I'd perhaps disagree with the assumption that we "don't understand" why someone believes. Be it family / peer pressure, upbringing, feebleness, culture, desperation, fear... it's often readily apparent why someone believes.
Maybe "religion" just "is". How do you explain the unexplainable?
The thing with the unexplainable is, just because something is unexplainable doesn't mean we get to make things up.
A god could do it but it/they (if any) seem to choose not to and I can think of good reasons
I can't...
Given than not believing in god condemns me to hell (or equivalent) in many religions, why would a supposedly benevolent god wish hell on me? I mean it's almost like some religions are filled with hypocrisy and contradictions...or something.
Maybe one god with many different facets?
one might get lonely 🙁 It seems to me if there were any it's arbitrary to restrict the number to one, and even if you only believe in one, that might have no impact on the real figure.
(sorry btw, I've been lurking on this thread for a bit but reading with interest; Molgrips, you're a magnificent Devil's Advocate...!)
When you understand the existence of trees and mountains in a way that boils down to the action of forces that you see with your own eyes everyday, the picture is made far more beautiful.
The idea of some God making the gullies isn't much good to me. The beauty lies in all the intricate processes that came together over 13.75 ±0.17 billion years.
[i]the picture is made far more beautiful[/i].
Exactly. "To see a world in a grain of sand..." is a pretty good motto for Geology.
Sammy - To paraphrase Douglas Adams, "isn't it enough to say that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are faries at the bottom of it?"
I can think of good reasonsI can't...
god(s) might conclude that if their existence were established fact, there would be no room for faith and people would not exercise free will in their behaviour
Given than not believing in god condemns me to hell (or equivalent) in many religions, why would a supposedly benevolent god wish hell on me? I mean it's almost like some religions are filled with hypocrisy and contradictions...or something.
except that god(s) might not be constrained by religious dogma and instead act to a higher morality. Though of course a corollory of that is that god(s) might actually be evil 🙁
John lydon made a good tune many years ago, Religion, to be found on Public Image first LP.
At this point i want to put something cryptic about riding my soul, but i can't think of anything relatively apt. I will just try and flow with my soul? (On the next singletrack i ride).
simonfbarnes
Then why did god write the bible/koran/etc (it's all the actual word of god, you know). In those books 'he' claims to be good. Many people would say that god wrote the religious dogma and so is constrained by it.
If you follow your free will argument, then having faith at all (even in the absence of 'proof') removes free will, as your actions are controlled or influenced by the presence of a god, and the rules laid down by that god. So if free will is the ultimate aim then god would rather we didn't have faith. But then we all go to hell. Hmm.
If you follow your free will argument, then having faith at all (even in the absence of 'proof') removes free will
first of all you choose to believe, then you chose to act on those beliefs
In those books 'he' claims to be good
He's hardly going to write an autobiography going "I'm a right barsteward, I am" now is he?
first of all you choose to believe, then you chose to act on those beliefs
'proof' of the existence of god would still leave it up to you whether you did anything differently. By offering a reward (heaven) for good behaviour and a punishment (hell) for bad behaviour, I'd say that god is influencing a lot of people to act a certain way (and for the wrong reasons - i.e. rather than being good because it's nice, being good for a reward).
Not sure my argument really makes sense, but since when did that matter 😉
He's hardly going to write an autobiography going "I'm a right barsteward, I am" now is he?
So either god is a liar, or religious texts are not the word of god.
Both possible. Most christians (for example) wouldn't entertain either possibility.
Problem is god didn't write any books. We chose to interpret his actions and record them.
Free will is bound by karmic law.......?
By offering a reward (heaven) for good behaviour and a punishment (hell) for bad behaviour, I'd say that god is influencing a lot of people to act a certain way
except we have no proof of god(s)'s approval of religion.
He's hardly going to write an autobiography going "I'm a right barsteward, I am" now is he?
most autobiographies are about the author, not Abraham and Noah etc...
He's hardly going to write an autobiography going "I'm a right barsteward, I am" now is he?
Maybe he had a (Holy) Ghost Writer?
Problem is god didn't write any books. We chose to interpret his actions and record them
Mohammed apparently took direct dictation when he wrote the Qur’an. Also:
"...regard both the New and Old Testament as the undiluted Word of God, spoken by God and written down in its perfect form by humans. Still others hold the Biblical infallibility perspective, that the Bible is free from error..."
From [url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible ]here[/url]. Obviously I'm generalising, lots more people have a more sensible view on religious texts. My point is some [religious] people have an uncanny ability to ignore obvious inconsistencies and avoid logical arguments.
I don't think christians or indeed jews believe that god actually wrote any part of the bible himself. And the text is acknowledged to be the result of a process of editing. Certainly in the case of the old testament, there are issues about when particular bits were written and by whom. I'm also not at all convinced that anyone thinks the bible consists of a complete account of the nature of god.
[EDIT: as roblerner's link demonstrates, some people are inevitably more head-banging than I give them credit for...]
Muslims do (I think) believe that god more-or-less dictated the koran to Mohammed, but that bit is separate anyway from the hadith, which consists of a record of things Mohammed is said to have said about things.
BigDummy - MemberSo if my idea of paradise...
I think this is a great example of "us" not having enough understanding of theology to argue about the subject
It's true that, as an Atheist, I have no "Theology".
I am however, perfectly comfortable in saying that Leprechauns do not exist despite (shock, horror!!) having no "Leprechaunology".
Or "Unicornology", Santa-Clausology" or "Fairies-at-the-bottom-of-the-garden" ology...
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And yet on the ghost thread...The souls of the dead walking the world? Or a
dodgy switch? You decide!
...{dodgy switch} seems VASTLY more plausible (and physically possible) than the echoes of dead people turning on your cooker hood (ffs!)
Whether or not a switch is dodgy is FIRMLY within the realms of science, I'm afraid. As is whether or not people can still be around when they die. It's about my assessment of relative probability.
The point is, I didn't ridicule anyone in that thread, I just posted an assessment of the specific situation regarding the cooker hood. I didn't pass judgement on their intelligence either or other mental faculties.
Religion is not the same thing as belief in the 'paranormal' at all.
it's often readily apparent why someone believes
You might think that, but it's not fair to assume unless you actually take the time to talk to them about it and try and understand their point of view. See point 5).
If you follow your free will argument, then having faith at all (even in the absence of 'proof') removes free will, as your actions are controlled or influenced by the presence of a god, and the rules laid down by that god. So if free will is the ultimate aim then god would rather we didn't have faith. But then we all go to hell. Hmm.
Now we are getting somewhere 🙂
some [religious] people have an uncanny ability to ignore obvious inconsistencies and avoid logical arguments
That am true.
having no "Leprechaunology".
Yes. I don't believe in god either. The point I was making is that I can't have a sensible conversation about what learned christians believe about the nature of heaven with GrahamS, because I don't really know what learned christians believe and neither does he.
I have the same problem with hifi. While I believe in hifi's of course, I have no idea why people who are really interested in them care so much. You were talking the other day about "reference level", a concept with which I was not familiar, but which is clearly needed to understand the subject and to have a reasonably informed opinion about whether really expensive hifi's are a waste of money.
We're conducting a debate on here without understanding (for example) the difference between biblical infallibility and inerrancy. That hampers us in even discussing what it is that people believe about the nature of the bible. So we never get beyond a fairly low-level discussion of it.
🙂
Religion is not the same thing as belief in the 'paranormal' at all
I'd say they're similar: Ideas believed to be true based on little or no scientific evidence. and/or. Ways of explaining things in the absence of any proven alternative, with a disregard for other more plausible/reasonable explanations and any scientific evidence to the contrary.
The subject matter is different, but to me it's the same ethos.
[/I'm a scientist]
Religion's are fundamentally selfish obsessions with the pretence of being good to others for the ultimate goal of getting one's self into heaven.
(from martyring yourself too door to door recruiting, it’s all about brownie points)
Therefore the failing (biggest hypocrisy) in any religion is the concept of an afterlife as this makes the entire belief selfserving.
If there is a god(s) then is this man-made idea of religion that is followed really what he/she would have wanted? And as any god would have to be far superior in mind to any of its creations are we actually capable of understanding/interpreting what would be wanted of us
The subject matter is different, but to me it's the same ethos.
It depends who you read (I've been rather influenced in this by Terry Eagleton), but the proposition of (modern?) christianity is not "there is a god, who created the world in 7 days and hates shrimp", it is more like "god is love". The existence of god is understood to be essentially unprove-able, but the ramifications of his theorised existence and character to the world are what is interesting.
The reverse is true of ghosties and ghoulies. One hears something going bump in the night, and theorises about what it could be, in a rather imaginative manner. 🙂
I disagree. Ghosts either exist or they don't. They don't offer any kind of moral framework as to what you should be doing with your life. No different to say, the Higgs boson.
People don't base their whole lives and value systems on ghosts 🙂
it's not fair to assume unless you actually take the time to talk to them about it
Well, yes, sometimes. Sometimes it's obvious, (hence "apparant"), sometimes it requires a conversation. I've had quite a lot of those over the years. (-:
it is more like "god is love". The existence of god is understood to be essentially unprove-able, but the ramifications of his theorised existence and character to the world are what is interesting.
I wonder what ants in a colony think of God?
The point is, I didn't ridicule anyone in that thread, I just posted an assessment of the specific situation regarding the cooker hood. I didn't pass judgement on their intelligence either or other mental faculties.
I'd say the "You decide!" and "(ffs!)" were pretty clear indications that you favoured an Occam's Razor approach and thought the previous poster was a little daft for entertaining more elaborate fantasies.
I can't have a sensible conversation [s]about what learned christians believe about the nature of heaven[/s] with GrahamS
Fixed that for you. 😉
I'm pretty confident that ants are basically unimaginative, fascistic little bastards with no appreciation of god's love for them. 🙂
People don't base their whole lives and value systems on ghosts
I would disagree with that.
"...first became interested in the paranormal from an early age after personally experiencing paranormal activity. They set up this organisation with the intention of helping more people understand and find answers to the paranormal..."
From [url= http://www.ghostfinder.co.uk/ ]here[/url]. Sounds like a religion to me. Just because fewer people believe in ghosts doesn't mean it's any more/less [s]valid[/s] logical than religious beliefs. Or than choosing to spend your life finding ghosts and converting everyone to paranormal-tianity is any more/less of a [s]waste of time[/s] legitimate calling. 😉
without understanding (for example) the difference between biblical infallibility and inerrancy.
Within christianity there are divisions between those that believe in Biblical inerrancy and those that believe it is only infallible in matters of faith and practice.
Oh, and I for one do understand the difference. 😉
