An open question to all believers
January 30, 2008I ask this question in all sincerity, because I do actually want to understand each differing view point.
This post is not the place to attack or be derogatory towards any other belief system. I welcome all legitimate questions, but any attacks (at least in this post) will be censored.
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We can all agree that not everybody’s beliefs are compatible with everybody else’s beliefs.
For example, a young earth creationist who believes that the earth is between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago can not possibly be correct if scientology (which believes that the earth was populated by zenu some 75 million years ago. And both of these are incompatible with other creation myths, such as the mayan belief that the world is “wiped clean” every 25,000 years or so and starts over anew.
So they can not ALL be correct; in some (not all, but some) cases for one belief to be correct, some number of other beliefs must by definition be incorrect.
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Even among various groups that believe in the “same god” there are some massive divisions (sunnis and shi’ites, catholics vs protestants, etc…). Even among groups that have the same set of core beliefs (mohamed was a divine prophet and was given the word of allah which became the koran, jesus was the son of god and a virgin roughly 2000 years ago and died to save humanity from sin, etc) there are intense, even violent conflicts over who’s interpretation of the core belief is the correct one.
So even if one believe in the “correct” god, it’s quite possible to believe in the “wrong” way.
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A number of these belief systems have at their core a “holy book” (torah, bible, koran, book of mormon, dianetics, egyptian book of the dead, etc). In many cases these books disagree with each other (as stated above the creation myth varies from religion to religion). These books can not ALL be the works of one single “god” (unless of course “god” is playing a practical joke on humanity).
A second point to make with the “scriptures” is that these seemingly contradict each themselves. Since I am most familiar with the “christian god” and the bible, I will use this as my example, but from my various readings there are similar inconsistencies in many of the other major “holy books”. In the old testament “god” is a very “hands-on” type of deity. At various times “he” causes plagues, floods, and turns entire cities into salt. “He” tells one leader of his “chosen people” to encircle a town for a number of days and then to proceed into this town to kill every “man and woman, infant and suckling”. In the new testament jesus, who is god, tells his followers to “thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself”. Most christians will tell you that when jesus came to cleanse man from our sins that a new set of rules applied which superseded the old rules.
The third point about the holy books that I would like to point out is that even if one assumes that the original text was written by, or inspired by “god”, many of these texts have been translated and retranslated countless times over the centuries.A simple example is that when comparing the scrolls from Nag Hammadi, which are among the oldest surviving copies of the old testament, to a current copy of the bible, scholars are finding many passages which differ, and in some cases the meaning of many passages has been completely changed.
So with the number of “holy books” throughout history that contradict each other, other copies of themselves and even other passages in their own pages, to be certain that you have the “correct” book, and the “correct” translation is no easy feat.
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When you put all of these together, this to me becomes very reminiscent of the Drake Equation, which is used to determine the likelihood of life in the universe.
R∗ is the average rate of star formation in our galaxy
fp is the fraction of those stars that have planets
ne is the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets
fℓ is the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop life at some point
fi is the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop intelligent life
fc is the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space
L is the length of time such civilizations release detectable signals into space.
The “belief” equivalent would be something along the lines of:
Chance of a person’s belief being the “correct one” = (1 ÷ (number of potential gods * number of potential holy books * number of potential translation of that holy book * number of potential interpretations of that translation)) * likelihood that god exists vs does not exist
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So my question to all true believers is this:
How certain are you that your version of the “truth” (truth of god, religion, the world, the universe, etc) is the correct one, and more importantly, how do you know what that “truth” is?
Update 3/28/2008:
For those just coming to the discussion, I suggest reading the first reply (my own answer to this question), and a reply that is in all bold around the 200 post mark (a good summary of the discussion up through that point) to get a brief intro to what we have discussed here so far. For those interested in an even more in depth idea, check out the many posts between “mootpoints” (just search for moot) and myself since January, as we’ve run the gambit of anything and everything you can imagine on the idea of god, religion, morality, science, history, spiritualism, etc…
And welcome to the discussion.
I will post my own personal reply first to start things off (part of this is taken from my reply to a post on another blog):
I’m guessing that most people who reply here will be a christian, but I could be wrong. But for the sake of argument, let’s picture a typical United States fundamentalist christian, one of the 80 million (give or take) that does not believe in evolution, and does believe that the earth is, roughly, 6500 years old.
They are absolutely convinced that buddist, hindus, muslims, scientologist, catholics, etc are all wrong. No “maybes”. Just wrong.
They are also convinced that THEY are 100% correct.
They believe that man walked with dinosaurs, that noah floated around the globe for 40 days with millions of animals sharing the boat, and some woman roughly 2000 years ago never had sex, but gave birth to a deity.
They “know” these things as strongly as you or I “know” that tomorrow morning the sun WILL rise in the east and tomorrow evening it will set in the west. There is no doubt in their minds that they are wrong, just as there is no doubt in my mind (and I assume yours) that the sun will in fact be in the sky tomorrow throughout the day (and yes, I know it could be cloudy where ever you are at, but just because a cloud stops you from seeing the sun, does not mean that it is not there).
In reality though there is a ridiculously small chance that the sun will not in fact rise tomorrow.
There is the chance that tonight while I sleep a meteor could crash into the earth stopping its rotation on its axis. If this happened, the “other” side of the earth would be in constant day time, and “this” side would be in constant night.
There is a chance that scientists have miscalculated the amount of nuclear fuel in the sun, and it could finish expending the last of its energy some time tonight. Once this happens, the nuclear reaction in its core will stop, it will cease to make any more light, and 8 minutes later the earth will get the last bit of sunlight ever.
I’m sure if I wanted to spend more time, I could come up with a few other “examples” to show that the sun might not rise tomorrow, but you get the idea (I hope).
Admittedly, the chances of these scenarios happening are infinitesimally small, but they do exist. There is no possible reason to expect them, to plan for them (at least not for another 5 billions years for the “running out of fuel” one), or to even take them seriously, even though they COULD happen.
From the perspective of an atheist (or at least in my perspective and that of many other atheists I know, I won’t presume to speak for all atheists), the possibility that god exists, is so remote as to be completely irrelevant in daily life, and can therefore be treated as if it is a 0% chance.
So in short, my answer to this question would be that my certainty is 99.999% (or more) and how I know is based on empirical data (or lack there of). I look around the world and the universe, and I am in awe of all that is there, but I see no evidence of a “god” or “designer”. I see the end results of 14 billion years of natural processes which while not all fully understood (yet) can all be explained by natural means.
Maybe the question is not “how do I determine what is truth” but how do I know the one who is truth . . .
Jason,
However you choose to rephrase the question, the end result is the same; HOW does a believer KNOW that their beliefs are in fact “true”?
In general a “true believer” of any almost faith is 100% certain that their version of “god” of “faith” or “religion” is correct, and that all other versions are false. What I am interested in, is HOW does somebody “know” this with such certainty.
And your answer to this question would be???
Let me start off by saying I vehemently do not buy into the assertion that a “blind leap” of faith is required to believe in God. I strongly disagree with the idea that we have to suspend our reason and rational in order to know God exists.
However God doesn’t provide evidence so incontrovertible that people can’t ignore it. If God wants willing followers he must walk a fine line in providing evidence. If God were to reveal himself as to remove the potential for all doubt we would be compelled beyond our control to believe. I think it says a lot for God that he doesn’t force anyone to believe.
That being said I also believe that I don’t understand God. This is an important one for me. I admit that many times I’m as skeptical and confused about God and the bible as anyone. But, at the end of the day, I still believe. I think that belief and doubt can co-exist in the life of a Christian.
Let me talk about this philosophically for a moment.
Belief is something that we all experience. We all have a process for developing the truth of something. The concept of “belief” should be no different when applied to a murder trial than it is when applied to God.
The process for determining truth in a court room is imperfect but it provides a good model for understanding belief.
A court system requires that a prosecutor or defense attorney present a case that convinces 12 people of different culture, gender and ethnicity to agree. A tall task my any standard yet it’s accomplished on a daily basis. We know that the burden of proof lies upon the one making the assertion (in court, the plaintiff) And the standard they must reach is “reasonable doubt”.
Somehow this burden of proof is met often with little or no “hard” evidence but with “circumstantial” evidence. In other words, a prosecutor doesn’t have to produce a bloody knife or eye-witness but simply has to prove motive and opportunity.
Now I believe there is “hard” evidence for God. Not that this proves anything but I have a hard time imagining that a person without preconception would walk through a beautiful forest and say, “Wow I’m so amazed that there is no God.” I, as our hypothetical juror, see creation and conclude it was designed. Or I see archaeological evidence supporting claims of scripture and conclude that it is likely a true account. I might see God where others assumed coincidence. So I think there is a wealth of “hard” evidence more than enough to assume that God exists.
However it even goes beyond that. When we argue we prove that we believe in some larger moral standard upon which we agree. While there are differences they are fairly insubstantial, even for different countries and races. No country admires a man who runs away in battle or who double crosses those who are kind to him. Where does a universal moral standard come from? (By the way, I stole a lot of the above thought from C.S. Lewis)
There’s other “circumstantial” evidence as well but the real question is do we actually examine these evidences without prejudice (from either side). Isn’t it more true that we’ve decided that then we bring our biases to bear on the facts?
While I understand there are a lot of good reasons to not believe in God, at the end of the day there are more good reason to believe than to not.
moot,
First of all, if you’re going to use a court trial as a parallel to belief in god, you should be willing to admit the possibility that sometimes guilty people go free and innocent people are convicted.
Which when this logic is passed on to belief in god, means that there is some likelihood that “your jury” made the wrong call and you could choose to believe in the “wrong god”. Or you could believe in god when none exists.
The more pressing issue you raise though is that by your description, you make it seem that ANY “god” could be the correct one, as long as there is some god. Since “he” does not make it obvious, how do you know that “your god” is correct, and not allah, or krishna, or zeus, etc…?
How is it that you came to believe in the one that you do (christian god I am guessing) above all of the other possible “gods”? As I read your post, you make the case that “a god” must exist, but you don’t seem to touch on the subject of why “your god” is the “right” one.
While I disagree with your conclusions you draw from the “evidence”, I actually do understand the desire to believe in something “bigger”, some meaning for everything, something “higher” than this life.
But I am less interested in how people come to their conclusions; I am much more interested in how people seemingly “know” that their conclusions are the “correct ones”.
How does a person have such certainty in their belief that “their god” is the “correct god”?
Rod-
You bring up an interesting question (Although much of the rest of your post was merely opinion and conjecture that was unsubstantiated at best, and fallacious at worst). But its hard to take this question seriously when you are comparing Ron Hubbard’s science fiction to some of the world’s leading religions.
But besides that, to answer your question:
How certain are you that your version of the “truth” (truth of god, religion, the world, the universe, etc) is the correct one, and more importantly, how do you know what that “truth” is?
Let me begin by stating something that may not be as obvious as it should be (seeings as we are now wallowing in the rotten fruit of postmodernism) — Your belief does not create truth, it merely acknowledges and leans upon it. Therefore, there are no “versions” of truth, only belief or disbelief of it.
That being the case, the certainty our belief does not lie in our intellectual prowess or rhetorical defense of that truth, rather it resides in the object of truth itself. If that which we believe is really “true”, then no amount of debate can change that fact. Our response may change in relation to that truth, but the truth itself does not cease being true.
Because of this, I can say with all that is ‘certain’ in the world that I have found that “truth”. But unlike any other philosophical system of thought or religion, my truth is not a “what”, but a “who”. That is why when Jesus Christ said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” he effectively put an end to all searches for the truth, for he himself was Truth incarnate.
As I mentioned above, my certainty lies not in the fact that Christ has given us more proof of this truth than any other worldview (although he has), but that he is fact “the Truth” himself. That is why it is so easy for me to say that those who do not ‘know’ Christ, do not ‘know’ the truth either – for they are one and the same.
I am wondering why no one has mentioned that knowing Jesus is so real, so wonderful, so unimaginably awesome that it just doesn’t matter what others say.
I searched for years. Through many of the same other religions you mention.
Then I was found. My life changed dramatically and powerfully over night (no joke). Where I was 4 years I was addicted to opiates, I was no longer. I once smoked 2 -3 packs a day, no longer. The pint of Beam I drank every day, disappeared too. My obscene mouth was cleansed. And on and on. Without effort, without intervention by any human. God spoke to me and I knew it was GOD. It was almost 2 weeks before anyone could define my experience for me as I didn’t speak “Christian”. That was 37 years ago.
The major difference between knowing Jesus and other religions is one is religion – and the other is relationship. Jesus talks to me. I talk to Him. He anticipates my needs before I can ask. I have seen tons of actual physical miracles.
I’m no philosopher.
But I know Jesus. And I love Him with all my heart.
PS I am a degreed professional, a wife, a mom, and an ordained minister who ministers out of the box.
Hank,
You consider scientology to be science fiction, but a large number of people believe in it as strongly as you believe in your faith. I attempted to give due respect to all faiths.
Also, you claim that my post was mostly opinion and false, yet give no example of where I was wrong. I mentioned a few of the main beleifs of some various world religions throughout history (creation myths mostly) to show that they are in some cases incompatible with each other.
Your other comments are that you believe BECAUSE it is true, but you never state HOW you know this to be. Your start with the assumption that jesus is god, and you choose to believe this on faith.
You claim that I say belief creates true, which is not at all what I said. What I said is that not all beliefs can be true, since some of them directly oppose others. What I asked is how is it that you believe you “know” what the “truth” is. You never actually answered this.
ala,
Unlike all of the others who have so far posted, you actually do attempt to answer the question that was asked. You believe because your life has changed since you began to believe.
My question for you is:
You say that jesus is the “true” god, and you know this because of how your life has changed since “god spoke to you”, yet many followers of allah or scientology or later day saints or (insert religion of your choice here) have had similar experiences. They feel that their life changed when they “found god”. Is their experience somehow less than yours, since according to your beliefs, the “god” they found is not the “true god”?
Rodibidably,
I work as a youth minister at a protestant non-denominational church in Tempe, AZ. From where I stand everyone could get into a debate about what religion is the right, true, and viably correct but this will be a waste of time. Every religion has its scholars and can prove that it is correct, but when it comes down to it begins and ends with faith.
However, I will answer some of your other inquiries, but understand that I will answer from my own personal convictions and from verses in the Bible. In doing so, I will begin with your second inquiry about “scriptures”.
I know that there are many books that have been called “Holy” and “Divinely” written, however Christianity boasts the incomprehensible claim of salvation by grace through the sacrifice of God himself. To my knowledge, no other religion boasts this. Every other religion (including Judaism) is a salvation of works.
In saying this I must point out that what people see in the Old Testament is only a God of vengeance; “A mean kid with a magnifying glass” to loosely quote from the movie Bruce Almighty. Where people don’t start is from Genesis chapter 3 and then 7 where the first sin and the flood is accounted for. Here we see a God interacting with man (the only species on earth with active thought) and they do the one thing God instructs them not to do. From this anyone can look around the world and see that humans are not acting graciously towards one another. By the time that it reached Noah’s lifetime, this sin had consumed everyone. In God’s eyes his design was broken. So here comes Noah, the Ark, and the Flood. Follow that pattern through history and God continually chooses individuals to be his chosen people and follow his original design. But additionally he was not fearful of wiping out sinful tribes to make way for his chosen tribe. Ultimately what happens, even that tribe forgets God, and then is exiled. This God presented 10 commandments to a tribe, later called the Jews, and they failed to follow the rules. They became self-centered, greedy, and murderous (not too much different than today).
So if faith was not a factor in believing that the biblical account was somewhat accurate in the Old Testament, then faith has to be a factor in the New Testament. The New Testament begins with God coming down to earth in the form of a man (John 1:1-14). He was called Jesus, he lived a life dedicated to God, taught others, then died sinless as a wrongly convicted law breaker, and then rose again on the third day to later ascend to heaven.
But let’s say someone accepts that there is a God, who holds everything together (this is something that scientist can’t explain). Let’s say that there is a true religion, why would you accept laws as the way to live your life? Jews, Muslims, Mormons, Taoism, etc. all have rules to live by.
Following Christ is not about rules, but about conviction. If you believe that God, a divine being, cared enough about this creation to come live as one of us, die as one of us, and to share eternity with those that follow him; then be set free. Jesus gave two guidelines that can be summed up in one statement about holy living, it’s not about you (Matthew 22:36-40). This can only become reality when you believe in something greater than your-self is watching over you and you want to share that with others.
Maybe this was not the answer that you were looking for but even the writers in the Bible point out that, “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” (Hebrews 11:6)
May God my Father bless you in your search.
Great question, and thoughtful discussion. Here’s my contribution: There is a One-ness to the entire Universe. Humans struggle to grasp the significance of that Unity, and in so doing each attempts to clarify her/his belief system through vocabulary, ritual, music, prayer, scripture, conversation.
None of these trditions is “right” nor is any the whole and sole truth. All of them, however, speak to that Truth. We do the best we can, and we benefit most, I believe, when we can welcome the wisdom and insight of “the other”, whoever that may be.
It would probably be useful if humans could adopt a “sit-lightly” attitude to all of our traditions; after all, if horses had gods, they would look a lot like horses.
Humility, in nearly every religious tradition, is the basis for wisdom.
No religion is the absolute truth or untruth.
There are scriptures and holy texts that are made to guide our morality. And no matter how complicated or simple they are they lead to the same thing: Lead a life of good. Be good to your fellow human being, etc.
I remember reading about a man who had sought after a Buddhist wanting to convert but the Buddhist told him “No, stay with your religion now. They are all the same. They all teach us to be better human beings.”
Religion is people united and organized under the same belief. If they disagree with the current teachings they span out or seek another teacher or create a new ideal. But for the most part, the intentions are always to be better human beings.
When it comes to knowing religion it comes down to a matter of upbringing, culture or later on preference.
This funny video comes to mind:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEEMkGF9UEQ&feature=user
All in all, religion is a matter faith. You believe without questioning. Or you question, but you find the answers within yourself.
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I also explored the teachings of Sai Baba. It was of universal religion. They taught that all religions are right and none wrong. There is one God. He has many names and people have different ways of worshipping him. — I remember in one service I attended, Indian mantra’s were chanted and then a song about Jesus was sung next.
Brad,
You state that the debate over WHICH faith is “correct” is a waste of time. While I whole heartedly wish I could agree with you, the violence that is rampant throughout history suggests otherwise.
How many countless african people were enslaved by white colonialist in the history of the United States. As George Carlin points out, one of the ultimate hypocrisies of all time is that the US is a country founded by slave owners who wanted to be free.
How many countless people were killed during the inquisition and the crusades by order of the catholic church?
How many people have died in Israel and Palestine over the last 60 some odd years?
How many people died in the attacks of 9/11 and other terrorist attacks in the last 20 years?
The subject of religion and faith is not only an important subject to talk about, it may be THE MOST important subject to discuss, since the consequences for not discussing it and finding some common ground could, and almost certainly will, lead to millions more deaths in the “name of god”.
You quote the bible as part of a rationalization that your faith is the “true” faith. But when a scientologist quotes dianetics or a muslim quotes the Koran are you “sold” on it’s words? I could quote a few lines from the script to star wars; that does not mean that anybody should live their life by those words (granted some people actually study the “religion of jedi”).
Your main claim seems to be that since christianity (or at least your version of it, since there are many) offers salvation by grave and other religion force you to live by rules (or works), Christianity is somehow “better”. So by this logic, when christians say that to be homosexual is a sin they are mistaken. As I understand your point, “even gay people” are saved by the “sacrifice of God himself”.
The same would be true of child molesters, murders, members of the current executive branch of the US government, and people of any and all religion. If you don’t have to do anything to be saved, then everybody is saved, including atheists, Hitler, Stalin, and mother Theresa.
The easiest way I can ask about your next point is in the form of a question.
As a rational human being, would you allow a known pedophile to be alone with your son or daughter?
As a rational diety, why would “god” allow humans, who are “self-centered, greedy, and murderous” a choice to not eat from the tree, when he knew (at least according to the christian faith, god is all knowing) that they would fail the test?
Yes, yes, I know your answer already; “he” gave us free will. But if I know in advance that somebody is going to commit murder, and I do nothing to stop them, I am as guilty of that crime as they are. If “god” knows that people were going to rape, enslave, and kill each other then either “his” morals do not match our own, or “he” is sadistic.
You finish off your comments by going back to the idea that christianity is “correct” because it is not based on rules, and that science can’t explain some things, so “god must exist”. This is the “god of the gaps” logic, which means that as science explains more and more, “god’s place” in the universe becomes smaller and smaller. I’m not sure most “christians” would accept this version of a shrinking god.
I do greatly appreciate your feedback (and the feedback of all who have posted), I just think that you have not really understood my question, or have chosen to ignored it and answer other related questions. While I feel that ALL questions about faith and religion are good (I’m a fan of avoiding global genocide) I have not really gotten an answer to my question yet.
srcghs,
I must say, from somebody whose avatar is a picture of a nun that is not the response I would have expected.
I do actually like your ideas, and at one point in my life I actually believed something very similar.
While I personally consider myself an atheist, your outlook on faith, god, and religion is one that I can completely respect, even without agreeing. I wish more people had your outlook on faith, I believe the world would be a better and much safer place to raise children, knowing that others would not be willing to die in the “name of god”.
myke,
I appreciate your view as well, however I have one problem with your idea that “scripture” is made to “guide our morality”.
In the bible, torah, koran, and many other “holy books”, there are teachings that are against everything we as a society believe is moral and “right”. Numerous passages in the bible “teach” people how to treat their slaves, and how to act as a good slave. If morality was the primary focus one would think there would be a simple statement along the lines of “though shall not kill” that would state something like “hey dumbasses, don’t enslave people, it’s the worst thing humanity can possible do to one another”. Perhaps throw the words “though shall not” to make it a tad holier, but the basic point should be made, “slavery = bad”.
The rest of your points are similar in nature to those of srcghs, and while I don’t share your beliefs, I do respect them greatly. I wish there were many more people like the two of you, and less who were willing to lay down their life in defense of “their faith”.
P.S. Kudos on the video link
Questions like these will no longer exist because Islam is growing at such an exponential rate that your children and their children and so on…will one day all be Moslem.
Can you believe them Moslems say this is God’s way of showing the truth?
How many of us would agree to that!?!
evangelist,
I’m not sure how muslims trying to convert people to islam is any different than evangelical christians trying to convert people to christianity. And, at least so far, muslims have not started killing untold tens of thousands (hundreds of thousands, millions?) for not converting to the “true” faith.
Hey man,
Thanks for the invite to post.
First thing, before responding to your excellent and honest question, is that the documents found at Nag Hammadi were not Jewish documents, but Gnostic writings (here is an index of what was found). I believe you are thinking of the Dead Sea Scrolls. In that case, you would be correct in writing that these are among the earliest texts of the OT that we have access to (it’s also worth noting that the text type used at the Dead Sea validates the later dating texts of the OT…Jewish scribes, unlike their later Christian counterparts, were extremely careful in copying their Scriptures).
Now to your question. You asked, “How certain are you that your version of the “truth” (truth of god, religion, the world, the universe, etc) is the correct one, and more importantly, how do you know what that “truth” is?”
I would say that I am extremely certain that the Christian Scriptures (the Hebrew Scriptures plus the New Testament) are true in what they claim as truth.
The italicized statement is what is very important. Some Christians over step the bounds of what Scripture claims as truth and use to on subjects to which Scripture is not seeking to make claims upon. For instance, the creation narrative is written in the same form as other ancient Near Eastern creation narratives. Its purpose is to present a monotheistic creation narrative that focuses on the God of Israel. It is not written to refute Darwin nor to give us the age of the earth. When Christians read the creation narrative in those ways, they actually seek to apply Scripture in areas to which it should not be applied.
That is an important distinction to make when we talk about truth and how truth is conveyed through Scripture.
I put my faith in Scripture not because I was taught it and accepted it by blind faith. Rather, I was an agnostic for 20 years of my life before I came to believe in Scripture and believe in Scripture today because of the truth that is revealed to us through its words. There is enough verifiable truth in Scripture for me to believe in the supernatural aspect of Scripture, for which there is no corresponding way to validate.
To be honest, it all came down to the Resurrection of Christ for me. I cannot understand how Christianity ever grew to become what it became unless the Resurrection of Christ was true. Because I believe in the Resurrected Christ, I believe in Scripture.
The best book I can recommend on the subject is The Resurrection of the Son of God by N.T. Wright, who is the current Bishop of Durham. This is the book that brought the famous novelist Anne Rice back to her faith.
aboulet,
You are correct; I did switch the Nag Hammadi and Dead Sea Scrolls in my post. Just goes to show I should read over my posts one last time before hitting “post”.
My point about the mistranslations over time still stands, but I most certainly thank you for your correction.
As for your take on creation, I have heard this view many times, and I think it is the only intellectually honest way to look at this subject. Even the last pope said that Genesis does not exclude evolution by “Darwinian means”, and one would assume he has spent a good amount of time studying the bible.
My only issue with this view of the bible (or this type of view of any “holy book”) is that it leaves it up to the reader to “know” which parts are to be taken as fact, and which parts are to be taken as allegory. If the bible is the “word of god” then I, and I assume others, would expect a bit more consistency. In some cases “god” states what he means, “though shall not kill” is fairly self explanatory, while other times “he” says things which are not be scientifically possible, the globe being covered in water in 40 days.
How is somebody to know which to take as a story, and which to take as fact?
I do have one last question for you if you don’t mind. You state that you “cannot understand how Christianity ever grew to become what it became unless the Resurrection of Christ was true”. Perhaps I am misreading your statement, but I take this to mean that because christianity is a large religion with a lot of followers, you think it must be based on something valid. Islam and Hinduism both have well over 1 billion followers each, so your logic would tend to lead towards them ALSO being “true” despite many major incompatibilities (such as the Koran stating that jesus did NOT die on the cross).
Rodibidably,
Good question. Because it is all the way at the top, I’m going to quote it here and try to give my answer.
I am quite certain that my faith is true. The main points of Christianity are absolutely sure, and on some of the secondary questions about Scripture, I do admit I am less certain (baptizing babies vs. believing adults, for instance).
Now the real question is how I know I’m right and everyone else is wrong. And that is a fair question.
Let me start at the beginning here. And I think the content of the world-view truth claim that one holds to will affect this question. So since I hold to a Christian world-view, let me address it from within my perspective.
If God created the world (and by the way, I admit with aboulet above that the creation account allows a more literary interpretation. I just still think Scripture ultimately claims that God made the world), then he is infinitely above it. Such a God would not have to interact with his creatures, he could merely function as the Divine watchmaker, if you will. And if we grant such a global God exists (again the question of evolution or direct creation doesn’t matter here), it seems to me that we are dependent on him to reveal truth about himself to us.
The Bible claims to be such a revelation from God. It claims to be the final word on truth, at least when it comes to God.
We are left as individuals to follow our minds and consciences as we may. As you indicate there are competing truth claims. So we can compare them. If you do compare them, you find many things which sets Christianity apart. The Book of Mormon, for instance, makes great assertions about people who lived in the Western Hemisphere for which there is no archaeological attestation. The Bible, again and again, has stood the test of archaeological and historical scrutiny. The Bible may have some apparent contradictions, but overall it is remarkably harmonious in its message. There are answers, and part of the answer is in understanding the storyline of the Bible. Some of the texts you mention, like the Buddhist and hindu texts, do not really claim to be the word of God. Rather they seem to be a collection of religious poetry. They don’t present as unified of a philosophical framework as the Bible.
The Bible’s message harmonizes with the universal tendency to believe in God, a remarkable worldwide tradition of an ancient flood story, it harmonizes with the incredible complexity of nature which seems to demand an intelligent Designer. An absolute truths, a moral standard, is a universal given, and that jives with Scripture. The improbable rise of Christianity, too supports the Bible’s claims to exclusivity.
But ultimately it is Jesus Christ and his message of grace which is so radically different than other messages. And his resurrection vindicates His message. The miracles recorded in Scripture were given to convince the people then and there of the truth of his story. And they are recorded for our benefit. And if you read the saints, or read about how the gospel is being spread in the far corners of the world even today, miracles continually affirm the message of the Gospel.
Christianity will stand up to intellectual scrutiny. And while some may not explain our beliefs well, it does not depend on a bunch of ignoramuses for its continued existence. The story of Christianity best explains and answers the many questions of life. And the invitation is open to all to come and believe, and be given a wonderful abundant life of joy.
Thanks for the invite to post. I hope this helps.
Bob Hayton
I just saw your reply to aboulet. Let me respond to your last question to him, since I make a similar claim above.
Islam’s first 100 years are a story of conquest. Mohammed and his followers conquered, and eventually they conquered most of the known world. Christianity’s first 200 years were a story of constant persecution. Rome did all it could to stamp out Christianity in a succession of 10 different global “crusades” if you will, against Christians. They were hounded, tortured, killed, and Scriptures were destroyed. That is not the best background from which to see growth.
Hinduism is largely an ethnic religion, yet Christianity has ever been a multi-ethnic phenomenon. India is largely Hindu, and its population alone is 1 billion. Christianity is worldwide in multiple cultures and languages. And I’m not even counting Catholicism.
Sure, you can’t count noses and thereby determine truth. But at the very start of Christianity the chief witnesses of the resurrection had ample opportunities to drop the myth and thereby escape death or suffering. They didn’t. Such a beginning does testify to the veracity of the story that propelled thousands to lay down their lives.
By the way Jesus said his church would not be advanced by the sword. The Catholic crusades were wrong. Generally, Christians have been the ones being killed, not those killing others. There’s a difference. We believe strongly enough that we are ready to die for our faith, but we won’t be taking others with us.
fundy,
Your comments are actually a bit hard to follow. While I admire your honesty, there are a few things that I don’t seem to be following.
You are certain of your faith, and that your beliefs are the “correct” ones. But you claim that some aspects of your “holy scripture” are open for interpretation. I mentioned a few comments on this in my previous reply to “aboulet” in the comment directly above yours that seemingly apply to your comments as well. Essentially it boils down to the fact that it leaves it up to the reader to “know” which parts are to be taken as fact, and which parts are to be taken as allegory. If “god” is going to write a book, or “inspire” the writers of a book to put down the “truth”, I would expect profound statements that could not be misinterpreted (such as many people in United States history using the bible to justify slavery, while others use different passages to condemn slavery).
You state that “we are dependent on him to reveal truth about himself to us”, and yet he chooses to have contradictions in “his revelation”. Even a believer such as you can see that a book that is supposed to be the work of an infallible diety, has “some apparent contradictions”. You state that “overall it is remarkably harmonious in its message”, but if it truly is the “word of god”, should it be 100% consistent? Did god make mistakes, or were those mistakes made during the various translations and retranslations? Either way (god messed up or the transcribers messed up), how is somebody to know what the “truth” is if you can not be sure of the original text or which contradictory statement to believe?
You make a valid point that some of the boos I mentioned do not claim to be the actual word of god, but some of them do (book of mormon, torah, koran, etc) so your argument against the others (buddhist and hindu texts) don’t really hold across the board.
While you and I can agree that the book of mormon states obvious historical errors as being fact, I can agree with a muslim that the bible’s account of jesus’s resurrection is an obvious historical error (the muslim will believe that jesus never died on the cross because the koran tells him so, and I will believe that jesus did not come back to life after 3 days because it violates everything we know about human physiology.
While I don’t see eye to eye with you on many aspects up to now, I can at least understand your point of view (at least mostly); however, your next paragraph (“The Bible’s message…”) really sticks out at me as a host of logical and historical fallacies.
“universal tendency to believe in God” / “remarkable worldwide tradition of an ancient flood story” – There are also a worldwide tradition of dragons, vampires, bigfoot, and aliens. I am actually fairly amazed at how consistent various cultures around the world are in their views on dragons, the undead, yeti, and alien visitations. There are obviously some discrepancies which can be ascribed to cultural differences, but all of the basic concepts are quite universal across the world. To say that “god” is true because a lot of people believe would lead one to say that Dracula is real because cultures all over the planet have some type of vampire myth (weird coincidence is that right now I am watching a show from the History Channel about vampire folklore around the world, which helps set up a good rebuttal to this point).
“nature which seems to demand an intelligent Designer” – While I could spend a long time on this subject, I’d prefer to concede to somebody much smarter and more knowledgeable on the subject than myself, check out “The Blind Watchmaker” by Richard Dawkins for a very good series of rebuttals for the ID concept.
“a moral standard, is a universal given” – As I have pointed out a few times, “scripture” allows for slavery. How many people do you know in your life that would follow a moral standard that accepts slavery as part of society?
“improbable rise of Christianity” – How improbably was it’s rise actually? Judaism, Islam, Mormonism, Scientology, Hindu, Buddhism, and many other religions have all “risen” throughout history. One of your earlier points is that “god” is universal, so how is the rise of any specific religion “special” if we are predisposed to believe?
You are seemingly a moderate thoughtful believer, and I appreciate your reply greatly. The more posts I am getting the “better” people are answering my question, and I enjoy reading the perspective of others. I think that open and honest discussions between those who disagree are much more valuable than those that see eye to eye on these issues. By opening up a dialog, hopefully people can better find common ground with each other.
fundy,
I agree that Christianity did not have an “easy start”, but many religions have faced persecution and survived. Having fanatical believers may mean that your “religion” has something that “connects” with those followers, but it says nothing for the “truthfulness” of those beliefs. Not to offend, but the followers of charles manson were willing to kill for Charlie, and the branch davidians were willing to die in support of their belief that david koresh was the second coming of jesus. Fanaticism, may say something about the beliefs, but it most certainly does not speak towards the “validity” of those beliefs.
I really wish I could believe your last line, “we are ready to die for our faith, but we won’t be taking others with us”, was true of all believers. I am sure that you are moderate enough that you would not kill “in the name of god”, but even today, christians bomb abortion clinics killing those inside in many cases.
Again, you ask some great questions.
You wrote: My only issue with this view of the bible (or this type of view of any “holy book”) is that it leaves it up to the reader to “know” which parts are to be taken as fact, and which parts are to be taken as allegory. If the bible is the “word of god” then I, and I assume others, would expect a bit more consistency. In some cases “god” states what he means, “though shall not kill” is fairly self explanatory, while other times “he” says things which are not be scientifically possible, the globe being covered in water in 40 days.
How is somebody to know which to take as a story, and which to take as fact?
I would argue (and I mean argue in the logical sense, not in the normal “Christians-yelling-at-people” sense) that the reader does not so much “know” how parts of Scripture are to be read, but “learns” how to read each part as they become more familiar with the text through careful study. For instance, reading the creation accounts in Hebrew and then reading other ancient Near Eastern accounts in Akkadian, Ugaritic, and other Northwest Semitic languages, one can understand that the genre of the Biblical creation account mirrors other culture’s more poetic creation account. By comparing the Hebrew in the creation account with other documents within its context, one comes to a better understanding of how to read the creation account.
It’s definitely not second nature and it does take some hard work and study. But that should be expected for studying any ancient text.
As for the Flood narrative, there are theories within scholarly circles of a ‘regional flood’ which some follow. Another view is that it is, in fact, a mere story told for theological reasons. Scholars have come to this conclusion, again, based on reading other texts in the ancient Near East and seeing that the flood narrative is not unique to the Hebrew Scriptures. The point would be that the Noahic flood account is written for the purpose of conveying historical truth (which some believe), but theological truth (that God will preserve humankind and animals because of his grace). This is why I made the key distinction in my first comment that “the Christian Scriptures (the Hebrew Scriptures plus the New Testament) are true in what they claim as truth. Much too often the problem does not lie with Scripture, but with our (mis)understanding of Scripture based on reading it as a 21st century, post-enlightenment, individualistic Westerner and not based on its original context.
You said: “I do have one last question for you if you don’t mind. You state that you “cannot understand how Christianity ever grew to become what it became unless the Resurrection of Christ was true”. Perhaps I am misreading your statement, but I take this to mean that because christianity is a large religion with a lot of followers, you think it must be based on something valid. Islam and Hinduism both have well over 1 billion followers each, so your logic would tend to lead towards them ALSO being “true” despite many major incompatibilities (such as the Koran stating that jesus did NOT die on the cross).
I’m glad you pointed this out because I see how my wording would lead you to interpret my comment this way. I was not arguing that because Christianity is large then it must be true (I think it was Stephen Colbert who asked Richard Dawkins, “Over 80% of Americans believe there is a God; so do you believe there is a God or do you not believe in Democracy?!?”).
My argument was that there is, in my mind, no other explanation for why a large group of Jews started worshipping a man. This would violate the first two commandments in Judaism as well as be a violation of the Shema, which is a Jewish prayer said every morning and evening. I understand that people can believe crazy things and there are some nut jobs out there. But, you would be hard pressed to make the argument that thousands of strict Jews (Paul was among the strictest sect) would knowingly violate their greatest commandments all because they “think” some revolutionary was raised from the dead. The only thing that makes sense of this, in my mind, is that they knew he rose from the dead as Israel’s Messiah because many of them witnessed his resurrected body and his ascension.
I pointed you to the Wright book because he says it so much better than I could ever hope to explain it.
Rodibidably,
I agree my comments were somewhat disjointed. Sorry about that. But your question is quite broad. On one hand you want to have me tell you why I’m certain that my view is correct. On the other hand, you have all these points where you are disputing with the Christian view, and so I have to defend myself on those points.
Perhaps the best way to proceed it to just try to give an answer to your various points here in the last two posts. To make the conversation easier to follow, let me number my points.
1) Interpretation is inescapable. But just as with other documents, when the Bible uses poetry we should interpret and understand it poetically. Now the creation account in Genesis has certain poetical structures to it (days 1 and 4, 2 and 5, and 3 and 6 are connected). It says creation was in 6 days, but the idea of “day” can be interpreted as long periods of time. Gen. 1:2 indicates that the assertion that God created in vs. 1 is separated by a possible gap in time from the ordering and structuring of creation in the rest of chapter one. All of this is to say that Scripture doesn’t necessitate a young-earth view. Also, historically, Christians didn’t interpret Gen. 1 in such a scientific way until the last hundred years or so. But however one understand Gen. 1, it is clear that Scripture claims God is the creator of the world and of man. And there are other places which confirm the idea that Adam was the first man. How one views Gen. 1 is not necessarily connected to the main tenets of the Christian faith.
But just because in certain places various interpretations are possible, does not mean Scripture is unknowable. The central tenets of Christianity are quite clear and easy to interpret. There are plenty of “profound statements” in Scripture which set the basic story in quite an unmistakably clear way.
2) About contradictions, here is what I meant. Overall, there really aren’t any big contradictions. And at some smaller levels, there are answers to the contradiction. It really doesn’t contradict itself. People miss the remarkable unity of Scripture (which was written over a period of 1600 years on 2 or 3 continents, by 40 different men — all orchestrated by God who inspired these men) by focusing on a few details they think contradict when in fact they don’t.
3) On copies and texts, the Bible is remarkably accurate. There is only 1% of the text over which there is still some disagreement as to which words were original. And these are most often minor instances, none of which affect the overall doctrinal message of the book. The attestation we have for the NT in particular is unparalleled in ancient literature. We have portions of the NT that are dated to the 200s, and even an entire NT copy from the 300s. We have thousands of manuscripts in many languages, and the idea that somehow the Bible was corrupted and changed is just false. We have the proof that it wasn’t. The manuscript evidence for the Bible is amazing when compared to other old books, some of which we have only a dozen or fewer copies, but no one suggests those books were tampered with and altered. Just because we may be uncertain of a few words here and there, in no way means we are completely uncertain of the original text. In those places we are unsure of we have 2 or 3 options from which to choose. And again the overall message, and main points of Christianity are in no way affected by this.
4) Re: resurrection, I agree it must be received by faith. But we have eyewitnesses. People claim miracles can’t happen, but again there were eyewitnesses. We can’t explain everything in our world even now by means of rationalism and science. If God exists, and if the supernatural exists, how hard is it to believe that miracles could happen.
5) Let me try to explain myself on this paragraph where I kind of go through a litany of various arguments supporting scripture.
universal tendency to believe in God — sure if there is a universal belief in bigfoot that doesn’t make it true. But then again, such a universal belief would add credence and support such a belief. If in 10 years from now an undisputable yeti/bigfoot is discovered, then the universal testimoney would corroborate that. (Not saying it will happen, by the way).
worldwide flood story — let me explain. There are hundreds and thousands of cultures with a flood story. Why? One explanation could be they all stem from a real flood that happened before our ancient history begins. It doesn’t have to prove my point, but it adds credence to the Bible’s story of a flood. Sure, they aren’t all the same, and the details don’t match, but the mere fact of cultures from both hemispheres and six continents having flood myths seems like an interesting evidence which may support the Bible’s claims.
Oh and on the above two points, these are not my only evidence. I see these and other things, coupled with other things and my case gets stronger. I hope you know what I’m trying to say here.
intelligent design — you’ve got Dawkins, and I’ve got the ID guys. Really it is interesting that there is such a global propensity of symmetry and other similar design constructs used across species. And DNA is so complex even at the level of a single-celled organism, it’s just amazing that so much detail and specificity is required. In fact there have been mathemeticians who have tried to figure out the probability for life emerging from the primordial soup. Also, today 99.9% of all mutations are damaging to the organism. Anyway, let’s not get into a discussion of the likelihood of evolution, etc.
moral standards — atheists have to ask where universal morality comes from. Is there any universally true point from which we can say definitively that some action is wrong? If so, why can this be? Isn’t morality just a social construct and anything can go as long as we humans allow it? So why should we condemn the Nazis again?
slavery — this seems to be a big point with you. Slavery in Bible days and times was different than the chattel slavery practiced in the 16-1800s. Some of the slavery was voluntary. And some of it was a fact of life, that the Bible gave advice as to how to live with it.
6) Christianity’s rise, on this I’ll answer your 2nd reply to me and the end of your first post. I agree that the fact Christianity arose, and that it has many followers doesn’t prove it is correct. But it is perhaps more improbable than other religions, in that a peasant who died sparked a global movement. And the movement was persecuted by one of the world’s great empires, and yet it went on to become a major world religion.
One of the points about this I was trying to highlight is this: if the story of Christianity (that Jesus rose again) is a fabrication, then the steady persecution should have ended it. Who would die for a known fabrication? Yet history tells us the disciples and early followers of Jesus, did indeed die for their faith, and that faith did claim that Christ rose again. This point doesn’t seal the deal, but it is consequential.
Finally, you seem to be saying that believing Christians and believers in Islam or other religions are all basically equally capable of killing and hurting others. We have to be honest here. One would be hard pressed to come up with much proof of Christians killing others in the name of Christ in the last 200 years, other than an occasional wacko like an abortion bomber (by the way this is totally repudiated by Christian leaders and always has been). Yet for other religions, Islam particularly, there are thousands of examples of extremists killing others. Part of that is the content of the religion. Mohammed spread his religion by the sword, and the Quran talks about it a lot. Christianity explicitly is not to be spread by the sword, Jesus said. This is not to say that the fanaticists are true in their Muslim interpretations. And it is not to say that Roman Catholicism did not politicize the faith with ill consequences (think crusades).
That ends my answers. I want you to know there are others who defend the faith better than I. There are answers to atheistic arguments available. And Christians aren’t averse to people legitimately questioning their faith. I do hope you come to an understanding and acceptance of the Christian faith. I have enjoyed the exchange and hope that I have represented my faith fairly and accurately.
Blessings to you,
Bob Hayton
By the way, I don’t really disagree with anything aboulet is saying, and I’d guess he and I come from different spheres within Christianity.
I am neither ‘for’ nor ‘against’ any religion. I consider myself a Buddhist and I am open to the views of other religions, especially on the topic of God.
For Christian and Islam, believe in God / Allah is the foundation for their beliefs. That is to say, if there is no God / Allah, there will be no Christian and Islam. So, if I express my view that ‘God doesn’t exist’ and ‘whether there exist a God / Allah is not important’ then they will refer me to the Bible and Koran to prove to me that God is actual fact, exist.
It is fine for me that Christian & Islam believes in God / Allah and their belief in those written in Bible & Koran. I am not even disputing whether is there any truth in what written in the holy books.
So, my point is that, it is our universal rights to have faith in whatever beliefs or religions. It is also our rights to preach to each other on what we believe to others in good faith, and not with the intention of ‘converting’ he / she into whatever that we believe at. Whether he / she chooses to convert is his / hers rights.
I have high regards to those works of Christian missionaries that helping out the unfortunates. In fact, such noble works should be encouraged and emulate by others, as these are for the good of mankind. For me, such actions are in fact, good for the respective Karma that what Buddhist believe.
Important point here is that, have faith on what you believe at. It does not matter, ultimately, he / she decides to convert(after you preach), so long as you have faith on what you believe.
But, I still believe that Law of Karma is applicable to you and me, no matter what are yours religions.
aboulet,
I believe that your basic idea for understanding the bible is that it must be taken in context, context not only of when it was written and by whom, but in the point which it is trying to make at each juncture. And I wholeheartedly agree with this. While I may seemingly “bash” the bible, even I can see some tremendous passages and some very good underlying themes.
My problem with the bible, and any “holy book”, stems from accepting it as the “word of god”. Perhaps I am wrong, but I would assume that a book that was written by, or inspired by an all powerful diety would never be ambiguous. It would lay down certain ground rules for civilization (such as slavery = bad). I would expect, and perhaps this is a flaw in my own personal view, that if “god” was going to lay out specific rules and also use allegory to make a point, that “he” would make it obvious which ones to take as “true word” and which to take as a good moral. Obviously we have as a society have had trouble reconciling the two, and this has caused much suffering throughout history.
DISCLAIMER: Now this next point I am going to make is going to potentially cause some anger (not in you necessarily, but in some people), so please take it as a very specific comparison on one very narrow aspect, I am not saying that these two people have anything else in common.
First of all, I commend you on the Colbert quote. I am an avid member of the Colbert Nation, and I am happy to see that you “get” his humor. There are a large number of people who don’t seem to “get” him, and are actually offended by his shtick or take it seriously. But now to the controversial part; you claim that one of the reasons you believe in jesus is that he was able to get a large group of jewish people to follow him despite their convictions in their previous faith. Not to say that they are comparable historical figures in any sense other than their ability to inspire others to follow them, but adolf hitler was able to get millions of people to follow his ideals and do many horrific acts in the name of their Führer. I would say that being charismatic is not really a good indicator of being “right”.
Why do I have a feeling that right now about 10,000 screaming christians are cursing my name for that last paragraph?
I will check out your book recommendation this weekend, thanks.
fundy,
I am sorry if I come across as “attacking” in my responses. I am in all honesty just trying to better understand your point of view, and questioning you (and obviously your answers) helps me to better understand you.
I totally agree with your assertion that the bible makes plenty of “profound statement” which if followed would help to make the world a much more caring and peaceful world. But where we differ is that I think that the bible can say many good things without being the “word of god”. I think that the writers of the bible had some very good ideas (also a few not so good ones, but I’ve already been beating that horse to death the last 24 hours), but I don’t think that it means those ideas came from “god”.
The one thing that I find that most (not all, but at least in the United States) “true believers” spout is that if you do not follow their rules, their book, their “god” that you are “wrong” and will be damned for all eternity. I think that if people were willing to admit that their belief may not be the “best” belief for everybody and were willing to “live and let live” instead of trying to convert everybody else to their way of thinking then we could have a more harmonious world.
Your point #3 where you state that only 1% of the text differs between the oldest copies and the newest is one where we may have to agree to disagree. There is a very good book I have at home “Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why” by Bart D Ehrman, that goes into a very detailed analysis of the some of the various current copies of the bible along with some of the oldest known copies that still exist. He goes into great detail showing in many cases actually when, and in some cases who made the mistranslation or misinterpretation and how the bible has changed throughout the years to what we know now.
Point #4 that you make is one that to me takes the biggest leap of faith, as you acknowledge. Your premise is that IF “god” exists, then miracles are possible. My premise would be that he does not exist, but EVEN IF god exists, then why would “he” create the rules of physics as they are, just to break them when it suits “him”? Eyewitnesses are a very shaky ground to stand on for a claim such as something outside the laws of nature. If eyewitnesses can be wrong on things as simple as the identity of a criminal in a court case, then when something seemingly supernatural happens, the odds of their being infallible in their testimony would be even shakier.
The rest of your points are mostly ones that you and others have already mentioned on earlier posts, so I won’t rehash my view on them yet again, but I do believe that in the end it comes down to differing interpretations of the same raw facts. You look at a human and see design; I look at a human and see the work of millions of years of gradual evolution. This debate is not going away any time soon, but I do believe that the overwhelming majority of the scientific evidence is on my side.
Your assertion that, at least in recent history, christians have not been responsible for as much violence as other groups, such as muslims is a valid point. However I would argue that the ones currently in “power” are less likely to strike out in violence than those that feel themselves to be persecuted. For quite a while, christianity has been the prevailing “faith”, and thus has less of a “reason” to act out violently, while muslims, rightly or wrongly, feel themselves to be taken advantage of, and have unfortunately in many cases resorted to acts of terrorism. And as you mentioned Christianity, and despite what many fundamentalist protestants will claim catholicism is a form of Christianity, has had it’s eras of violence, so in this regards, nobody’s “hands are clean”.
Atheist morality is the last point I want to touch on, since I think you are the first to bring it up in this post. While it is a bit of a copout to quote somebody else on this as my only point, I feel that Richard Dawkins very eloquently summarized my feelings on this:
“Religious people do not derive their morality from religion. I disagree (with the interviewer) on this point. Almost all of us do agree on moral grounds where religion had no effect. For example we all hate slavery, we want emancipation of women – they are all our moral grounds. These moral grounds started building only a few centuries ago and long after all major religions were established. We derive our morality from the environment we live in, Talk shows, Novels, Newspaper editorials and of course by the guidance of parents. Religion might only have a minor role to play in it. An atheist derives his morality from the same source as a religious people do.”
Again, I would like to thank you for your input. I hope I have not offended you (or anybody else), but I do like the fact that even though we disagree, we can find some common ground, and have an open discussion on something so “controversial”.
a true malaysian,
I very much respect your views on faith. A few of the other posters have said similar ideas (most notably coming to mind was srcghs).
I have been very much in a read and question mode with my responses to this post, and yet with your post I really am not finding anything to question. My only disagreement really is that you seem to be much more accepting of people preaching to people with the intent to convert them. While we both agree that christian missionaries do much good work, I would find their act to be somehow more “selfless” if they did all of the good works without the preaching about “god”. I find this to be a bit of “string attached” thing (i.e. I’ll help you build a school and dill a well, but then you have to listen to me tell you about my god). This is not to take away from the good works that missionaries have done across the world and obviously my personal biases are involved in my view but I somehow find it slightly lessened by the attempt to convert those they are helping.
Other than this one point though, I do like your outlook on faith as I understand it, even without being a believer in karma myself.
Good discussion! Very gracious in interaction. If I may, I’d like to share my point of view.
In essence, what you’re really asking is, “what is truth and how can I know it?”
This question is the crux of the matter and Christianity answers in a unique way. Have you noticed that every other religion is based on sayings and teachings- in so far as even when the founder is removed from the equation, the religion still stands? But not so with Christianity.
When Jesus is taken out of the equation, Christianity falls. Completely. Without Christ, you have a moral dictate rather than a relational foundation. This is the Gospel in a nutshell. The Gospel of Christianity is good news not so far as it is giving us a new law, but in so far as it announces that under this new law the poor in spirit are blessed, the meek will inherit the earth, those who hunger for righteousness will be satisfied, etc…
This is what sets Christianity apart from other religions. The Gospel is news not advice or command. Every other religion will tell you what you need to do to gain salvation. The Gospel of Jesus says, “This is what I have done.”
Every other religion has some form of the Golden Rule (Do unto others as you would have someone do unto you.) But only Christ has demonstrated this Golden Rule BEFORE he commands us to do it as well. He gave his life to save people.
You want proof of which religion is really, really true? Look unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith. It is not faith that saves. It is Jesus who saves us through faith. If you’re resting in how much faith you have or how certain your faith is, you are inevitably trusting in your ability to save yourself.
This is why I am a Christian. The Gospel of Jesus is Good News- that Jesus fulfilled the law in every respect for us! Christianity is not relegated to merely doing (like every other religion- do this or that and gain salvation) but it is by faith, believing in Jesus because he has gained and provided salvation for us.
Every other religion is “Go and do to gain it.” or “Do good because good will come back to you.” or some variation of that theme.
Christianity is, “Go and do because I have done it!”
Christianity is true because Jesus is who he says he is.
cruv,
You claim that christianity is not based on the sayings and teachings of jesus? I’m not sure exactly how you come to that conclusion.
The one point you “sort of” make that I agree with is that if you take jesus away, christianity falls on it’s face. Where we differ, is you see this as “proof” that this is the “true” faith, I see this as a consequence of jesus being one of the few “founders” of a religion to claim to actually be “god”. Among some of the larder main religions I have mentioned in various replies here, abraham, joseph smith, l ron hubbard, buddha, and mohammed who all “founded” their religions never claimed to BE “god”, they all claimed to have been given knowledge by god. In this respect jesus was different because he actually claimed to be “god”, so of course if you take him out of the picture there is no possible way for christianity to survive.
You also claim that the gospel is not advice or commands on how to live your life. While it’s been a while since I went to church, I certainly seem to recall that we HAD to go to church, we HAD to follow the ten commandments, we HAD to confess our sins (I was “raised catholic” for a large part of my childhood before I began studying other religious philosophies). I see no difference in the idea of following the word of jesus than I see in the idea of following the words of buddha or mohammed. Your next point that every “other” religion has a version of the golden rule really perplexes me, since in both the catholic school and presbyterian school I went to espoused this on a regular basis. That you claim the christian church does not gives rules, this one among them, is hard to understand, at least based on my experiences.
I do appreciate your reply, despite not really grasping all of the points you are trying to make. I can “sort of” see what you are saying in some cases, but I’m frankly at a loss for much of it as well.
From what I understand, and I’m probably not correct, your points are that
jesus is the foundation of his religion while the other religions are just based on “god’s word” being given through a person.
You state that christianity does not give rules to live by, and that we should live our lives as jesus lived his because he showed by example.
And finally that because jesus is god, you believe that jesus is god.
Please let me know if I have completely misunderstood your post, because I feel that I must have missed something here.
Thanks for the reply. I am sure that I was not as clear as I could have been. So, let me try to clarify.
Christianity does have commands. NO question about it. “Do not steal.” “Do not lie.” “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
The issue is, what motivates us to do them? To gain salvation? Or to do them in thanksgiving because salvation has already been attained for us?
In John 6:28ff, “Then they said to him, ‘What must we do, to be doing the works of God?’ 29 Jesus answered them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in him (that is Jesus) whom he has sent.’”
The core of Christianity is believing in Jesus as Savior. Nothing more. Nothing less. And then our doing of good works flows out of what Jesus has already done. We do good works, not to gain salvation but because we already POSSESS salvation by faith in Jesus, the Son of God.
Later in John 14:6, “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
There is no life in doing commands (the law) (Romans 5:20). But there is life in Jesus through faith. As Ephesians explains, “for by grace are you saved, through faith, not of works lest any one should boast.” Salvation is of the Lord and salvation is only through Jesus who saves us by our faith.
This is the issue. It comes down to what you believe about Jesus. Is Jesus the Savior of the world or is He not? Is he who he says he is or is he not? Jesus is more than a great prophet (although he is a great prophet), but he is also the Great High Priest, the Bread of Life, The Living Water, The Door of Salvation, the Chief Cornerstone.
Without Jesus, you heap unto yourselves condemnation (Romans 5:20). It is only looking unto Jesus through faith that we are saved to eternal life.
And please, I say all this with all due respect. You can get hung up on what every religion teaches, but it all comes down to what you believe about Jesus himself.
Ask yourself, does it matter what I believe about Buddha himself even if I follow his directives? Does it matter what I believe about Joseph Smith even though I follow what he wrote? Does it matter what I think about Hubbard even though I follow what he wrote?
It is a matter of life and death when it comes to what you believe about Jesus. If you deny Jesus, you have rejected Christianity. But if you believe in Jesus (not just believe him but believe IN him) you have eternal life.
If there was one book I would have you read, I would have you read the book of John in the Bible. Compare the book of John with any other book in other religious writings. I can not persuade you. I can only point you to what Jesus (and what others have) said about himself.
Keep searching! Keep looking for the answer! I will only suggest that the answer is Jesus Himself.
Thanks for the interaction. I must bow out of this discussion…
Excellent Question!! Think about losing weight and maintaining the weight loss. Put 100 overweight people in a room and you can get up to 100 different opinions on how to do it. Now put a person in the room (with before pictures) that weighed 300lbs and now weighs 160lbs and maintaining, now his opinion everyone wants to hear – what did you do to accomplish this? All real testimonies I have encounted the people say it involves a life change.
I am NOT religeous person, I attend church but do not follow a religon, I listen to men (preachers), but do idolize them, I read and follow the Bible and other historical manuscripts. I have read excerpts of of the Koran and the Torah is basically a part of todays Bible.
Simply put, I follow Christ!! He is the one who changed my life! When I was younger I spent a lot of time drinking (hard liquor), doing drugs (lsd,ludes, pcp, minwhites…), cursing, berating people, had bitterness, hatred… thought I was on top of the world and having a great time and could not see the effect (toll) it was taking on my life as well as those around me. At some point in time the walls began to crumble and tumble down. A freind told me about a person who could change my life – just like he was changed. Why not give it a try.
It has been almost 30 years since I asked Christ to forgive me. I no longer need drugs to feel good or to alchol to drown my sorrows, don’t need to curse and rant to get my point across, I love people and enjoy life. People aroud me actually respect my thoughts and opinions. I grow in Grace and Love every day. Those who remember me from 30yrs ago would tell you my life has permanently changed… a life changing event that only Christ could perform.
On the antagonistic side, If all of this is false (and it’s not), then what have I lost? I would not change my life now for anything!!
Thank-you for your original post – it is an excellent question.
cruv,
Thank you for your clarification, I think I have a better understanding this time around. I’m sorry you must bow out of the discussion now, but I will still make a few comments for others who are following this post.
Motivation I think is a hard thing to clarify. As an atheist I am not motivated by “god” or “faith”, I am motivated by my own feelings of what is “right” and “wrong”. The general philosophy I live my life by is to not do harm to others, and when possible, do my best to help others. I don’t do this because “god” or some “holy book” said so, or because I am trying to emulate jesus or buddha or some other historical figure. I do them because I have based my morality on societal norms. My environment tells me that certain things are “wrong”, and from this I have taken what seems reasonable and good and built upon that.
The Richard Dawkins quote I mentioned above in a reply to fundy does a good job of explaining how somebody inside of a society derives their morality. The main point that is relevant here is the following line:
“We derive our morality from the environment we live in, Talk shows, Novels, Newspaper editorials and of course by the guidance of parents.”
The idea of “due unto others as you would have them do unto you” is a good summary of my philosophy. I would not want somebody else to steal from me, so why would it be ok for me to steal from somebody else?
While religion may teach these same ideals as well, I don’t see a need for religion to live a moral life.
If the only reason one does good is to avoid an eternity in hell, I would have a hard time thinking of them as a moral person. If somebody does good works because they feel “god” wants them to, I see that in much the same light.
However if somebody does good because they believe that helping others is the best way to a fair, just, and kind society, and they have no selfish motives (and I know that it is impossible to tell another person’s motives, each person would have to judge them self).
Your point about doing good works “flowing” out of a belief in jesus is a tricky one from my view. I think that each person that fits this criteria (of being “saved”) would have to look in the mirror to decide why they are truly doing good. Are they doing it because they think they should as part of being Christian, or because they think jesus wants them to, or because they are selflessly thinking of the betterment of society?
The biggest point where I think we diverge is when you state “Without Jesus, you heap unto yourselves condemnation”. This way of thinking means you believe a child born into a land that has no understanding of a specific religion is automatically condemned to an eternity of damnation. I find it hard to believe that if the Christian version of “god” is loving and kind, he” would be vindictive enough to “punish” a child for something over which he had no control. The biggest flaw I find in many major religions is this “us vs. them” mentality. If you’re not part of the in group, then you are automatically an outsider and you will ‘burn in hell”. This divides us and is one of the causes of many wars, bigotry, and violence in the world.
moondance,
Thank you for your view. I had never thought of the weight loss analogy before, but it seemingly fits pretty well. The one difference is that there are “faiths” and “beliefs” which are genuinely harmful. Not to say that all aspects of religion are harmful, or all aspects of any specific religion are harmful, but there are certainly many instances of religion used to justify horrific acts (a few of my replies have already gone into detail on this, so I won’t rehash it again right now).
Use the weight loss analogy, I would say that take your 100 people that want to lose weight. Now add in 20 people that all have opposing views on how they lost weight.
One person’s solution is that you eat extremely healthy, but take a minute amount of poison daily, which will cause you to lose weight rapidly.
Another says to exercise daily, eat right, don’t smoke, but you must spend 1 hour a day picking fist fights with gay and lesbian people.
Yet another says to spend your time with others losing weight under this method, and cut off communication with your old friends and family. You must pay exorbitant amounts of money to belong to this group, but they will ensure you lose all the weight in a flash.
Each of the 20 people has their own way to help lose weight, and maybe some or even all of them actually work, but there is some small sinister detail in them that causes harm to the person using that system or to others around them.
Or you could listen to the person who is happy in their current body, even if they are overweight that says “be happy as you are, and live your life”.
While your story seems to have had a good conclusion, I’m not sure that it helps to understand HOW you know. Your life changed, which is great, but is it because you changed it, or because some divine being actually took steps to make your life different for you. I would argue that if you look back, you will find many changes that you made in your own life (quit hanging around people who you previously used drugs with, stop going to bars/liquor stores, etc) and no evidence of divine intervention.
Your final thought is one I have thought about before as well:
“On the antagonistic side, If all of this is false (and it’s not), then what have I lost?”
My response would be that if I live a good life, but do not honestly believe in “god” then what would pretending to believe accomplish?
While we’re sitting here chasing our tails…I was wondering, Rodibidably, what do you want the truth to be?
I would suggest that “truth” depends on how one views human knowledge. As a Christian, I hold that human knowledge is revelational, given to us by God Himself (Colossians 2:3). Truth begins there.
For the unbeliever (particularly the atheist), this is a delimna. He ultimately sees the human brain as a great cosmological accident, a bunch of stardust that got together and started firing off electrical impulses, which they call “knowledge, logic, and reason”. Let him then explain how the “logic” of one accidental brain should have any connection at all to the “logic” of another. Both are different brains with different neurons, and thus should have different laws of logic, which means that the laws of logic are not laws, but merely opinions, and random accidental opinions at that.
Therefore, I would hold that God is the precondition for all intelligible experience, therefore He must exist. Without Him, we are merely stardust accidentally tossed together in random, undesigned world, with no basis for believing that our accidental human brains can know or understand anything.
servant,
What do I want the truth to be? I don’t think my preference is really important. I guess I would say that I want mankind to be able to better understand others and the world around us. I want an end to religious differences that cause pain, suffering, war, and bigotry. I want for people to be accepting of each other, and not attempt to enforce their own beliefs on others.
In short, I want the impossible.
Rodibidably,
What you have described above (cause pain, suffering, war, and bigotry) sounds like sin to me. What would you offer as a solution?
Do you really believe that “better understand others and the world around us” will cause us to “be accepting of each other”? Apparently not, since you acknowledge that it is impossible.
In short, your desires are plausible, but universalism is not the answer.
Ah, but I think your preference is important!
puritan,
I don’t think you truly understand the typical atheist’s beliefs, since you are using a straw man argument in your post. We do not see the “human brain as a great cosmological accident”. We see it as the end result of millions of years of evolution, which followed billions of years of formation of the universe, galaxies, solar systems, stars, and planets.
The laws of logic are not only inside the head of each individual, they are learned from one another in a society, this is people can expect others to have a connection to one another.
From your second post, my question would be, is it a sin to own a slave? Can you show me where the bible states this? During a large portion of American history many “christians” used the bible to condone slavery. While you may not agree with their interpretation, you must at least acknowledge that no clear condemnation of the practice exists in the bible.
For those who do not rely on a specific book written thousands of years ago, morality is societal norm of accepted behavior. For those who follow a specific book, how do you make choices on issues that your book does not cover?
You ask if I really believe that better understanding will help us to accept each other. I really do believe this with every fiber of my being. I believe that in my lifetime and foreseeable future this will not happen. I believe that religion and dogmatism have too strong a hold on people currently, and until that hold is released to some degree, people will continue in an “us vs. them” mentality, which will hinder our progress towards a better society.
servant,
My personal choice for myself is atheism but my preference would be for all people to believe in whatever they choose, as long as it does not have a negative effect on themselves and on society around them. This ideal would also require for everybody to be accepting of everybody else’s beliefs, which we are dfar from that point today.
“We do not see the “human brain as a great cosmological accident”. We see it as the end result of millions of years of evolution, which followed billions of years of formation of the universe, galaxies, solar systems, stars, and planets.”
I fail to see the difference. In any case, why will you merely assume that your human brain has any connection with reality.
With regards to slavery, that would take quite a lot of explaining, but is not really a relevant subject as this point. However, since you mentioned it, on what basis does an atheist oppose slavery?
puritan,
Why would the human mind, which is created in reality, not have a connection with that reality?
As for why we oppose slavery, I quoted Richard Dawkins earlier:
“Religious people do not derive their morality from religion. Almost all of us do agree on moral grounds where religion had no effect. For example we all hate slavery, we want emancipation of women – they are all our moral grounds. These moral grounds started building only a few centuries ago and long after all major religions were established. We derive our morality from the environment we live in, Talk shows, Novels, Newspaper editorials and of course by the guidance of parents. Religion might only have a minor role to play in it. An atheist derives his morality from the same source as a religious people do.”
“Why would the human mind, which is created in reality, not have a connection with that reality?”
I’m not denying that it does. I’m only pointing out that, given the atheist view of the human brain, it’s a pretty big assumption. If knowledge isn’t revelational from God, then it is abstract.
As for Dawkin’s view of morality, I have to say that I’m not at all impressed. It is basically an admission that no moral standard really exists. Instead, it is derived from “environment we live in”, which is odd considering your view of religion and the alleged harm that it causes. Was slavery “immoral” 300 years ago? Why or why not? Is not “war” the product of our current environment? Yet you oppose it.
Good discussion, but I need to run. Will check up on this soon.
PL
puritan,
The problem you have with reconciling the atheist view of the brain and reality has to do with your misunderstanding of the atheist position. For an informed atheist there is no contradiction.
I fail to see how Dawkins view of morality differs from your own. 2000 years ago jesus himself viewed slavery as acceptable because it was part of the prevailing culture of the time. Even 150 years ago christians believed that the bible gave them the “right” to own slaves.
It was not until relatively recently, historically speaking, that people “learned” that slavery was immoral. We look at it now and wander how our forefathers could condone such a thing, but if the bible is the “word of god”, and the ultimate authority on morality, why did it not state in no uncertain terms “slavery is bad”.
Based on our current understanding slavery has always been one of the most horrible things than one man can do to another.
Yes, war is a product of our environment, and I oppose all violence, suffering, and hatred. And yet there is no contradiction in this, since I believe that our environment is flawed. You can be the product of a flawed system, and want still to fix that system.
I agree, those are wonderful things to hope for.
One quick rejoinder. I understand we won’t see eye-to-eye.
Bart Ehrman’s book MisQuoting Jesus, is quite loose with the evidence. He bends it to make his case. There are myriads of scholars who don’t even uphold inerrancy of the Bible yet from a purely academic standpoint would dispute Ehrman’s claims. There is no evidence of a widespread altering of Scripture.
The facts are that in 93% of the text all major text types agree. In the other 7% based on the science of textual criticism and the multitude of textual witnesses we have, of various ages and in various languages/locales, we can shore up 6% and be fairly confident that the evidence settles the matter. There is a final 1% about which some disagreement remains, but again we have the options to chose from in almost every case, and no major doctrine is affected.
Ehrman uses 1 John 5:7 as an example and nothing could be crazier than that point. If he thinks that the fact that this verse made its way into the text by means of a copyist error in the Latin, and that this changed the theology of the NT (since that verse is very Trinitarian in wording), he’s crazy. There is no proof the verse existed prior to the 8th century. The Trinitarian controversy was in the 5th century. We have the records of that controversy and we can read the pro and con arguments and no one mentions this verse at all. The Church clarified its position on the Trinity without the help of this accidental corruption of the text. In the advent of the modern era, post-Renaissance, people studied Greek again and found that this verse is not in the Greek (only in 4 copies out of thousands). And so Martin Luther kept it out of his Bible, and Erasmus at first excluded it from his Greek Text (only including it because of a rash claim he had made, and if you check his notes and footnotes, he did not believe it was original).
So if Ehrman points to this example, it proves he is using the evidence to stack his case. It just doesn’t prove his point.
Check the evidence yourself, check neutral, non-Christian scholars on this point — unbiased scholars not those writing popular books discrediting Christianity.
Anyways, I won’t respond on the other points as it looks like you have your hands full with other commenters, and like you I don’t want this debate to drone on forever!
Bob Hayton
fundy,
I will look into the critical reviews of Ehrem’s work. I know that when I read his book, I found I was skeptical of a few of his claims, but in the few claims that I spent the time to research myself I found evidence that his points were correct, even if his conclusions were debatable.
Even with Dawkins and Harris, who I think make great cases against theism, have points that I do not agree with, so I see no reason why a critical look at Ehrem’s work would be any different. But with Dawkins and Harris, where I has issue with some aspects, the main point they make I still believe is valid. I’ll have to look into the scholarship of Ehrem’s work to see how much of it is invalididated, and if it affects the overall point of his book.
Hello Rodibidably,
Thank you for reading this post and leaving me a comment. There was no real question within this comment, so I can only assume that you wish to find out how as a gay man I can consider myself a Christian and thereby how do I define my faith?
The majority of Christians don’t understand the enormity of the situation you (yes…you as a Bible Thumping, Black – N – White deciding, and Judgment wielding Christians) place gay men and lesbian women in. The world and God was never meant to be Black & White and God never meant us to see things in that manner. I believe he wants us to loving, caring and compassionate people who endure because of one another, not despite one another.
I know all of the verses that are used to denounce homosexuality. I’ve read them probably more times than all of you put together. The hypocrisy of most Christians is the ability to pick and choose what verses you feel God deals with us using a heavy hand and which ones you feel he softly brushes aside. The many verses used by Bible slinging Christians to demonize homosexuals can be debated, but for the sake of argument, lets not right now. Let us agree, merely for the sake of argument that they are right (and I don’t believe that personally); who placed all Christians as the GAY POLICE? Who gave you the job to chase after, beat physically and verbally all gay people? Who told all Christians to take it amongst yourselves to identify and burn at the stake the gay people of America, because if I’m right, God and Jesus both told us not to JUDGE our brothers and sisters! Am I to believe that it is OK for a Christian to cast judgments on all FAGS, because a book gives you that right! Again we go back to that Black & White part of my statement where you can’t use the Bible as a ridged instrument or a club when it suits your purpose and then use it as a scalpel other times when it also suits your purposes.
In the Black & White Christian world we use “God’s Word” as the instrument of Hate. We teach our children that one it is OK to hate, as long as you justify your hatred based on verses within the Bible. So, how does a mother explain to her daughter that it is OK to hate FAGS because the Bible says so, but when a man uses some of the same chapters and just different verses to denounce women who according to the Bible should be benevolent to their husbands, fathers and all men? What makes Men the sacred vessel of all God’s knowledge? How does this woman explain the differences of hate to her daughter who just learned that if it is written in the Bible it must be true and therefore the Word of God could never be misconstrued, misunderstood or misinterpreted. But the Black & White interpretations of the Bible cannot be adhered too now and not then. So if we hate FAGS, we must also hate Women!
I’m on a role, so lets finish this one out with a bang…the Black & White interpretations from the Christian Right must also redirect all of our efforts on Slavery and thereby Black Men, Women and Children should be considered a commodity and not human beings based on verses in the Bible that identify slavery as a given and accepted practice. Even Jesus accepted Slavery in the pages of our Bible and according to this holy book it is a generally accepted occurrence to own another human being. That would indicated that Hitler was justified in his condemnation of Jewish people and the South should ride again because Confederate Families were justified in their loathing, hatred and often times abusive relationships with the Black People they owned. Slaves were not people, they were not human beings, they were merely property and the owner could do as he so pleased (rape, kill, maim, abuse or anything else), they were his property and no laws governed their existence unless it addressed them simply as a commodity. If my words don’t make your blood boil, then please keep moving to the right…the far right, because you feel those hallow words give meaning to your hatred.
Back to how your hate and loathing cause harm to the children of our great nation. Because of all that I typed above, Christianity thinks their loathing and hatred for homosexuality is justified and somehow God gave you the Christians the right and ability to act upon those intense feelings. The verbal abuse and physical abuse demanded justification that our children bare witness too long before they ever know if they are heterosexual or homosexual laments as they mature and age. When they finally enter into puberty and their hormones are in over-load normally, most become so over-rot with fear when they initially receive their first inclinations that they may be different from all other people. Then when they understand why they are different (I did not say choose), the shock and enormity hits them like a ton of Bibles crushing them because that is exactly what happens. The lessons taught by our parents that loathing and hatred of all FAGS is OK because the Bible says it’s so. Good Job Mom and Dad! You are the exact reason your child pulled completely away from you, couldn’t talk with you anymore and was scared to death to utter another syllable, because they are fearful of what else within them deems you hatred too. This one reason can be attributed to more than 50% of all teen suicides because beautiful little boy learned he was gay, but how can that be when Mom and Dad will hate me; so instead of learning how to deal with the injustices of Christian society, they kill themselves and Wow, we’ve done a good job because there is one less Fag in the world! Yea!!
Is that what God really intended for us to do? Where in the Bible does it direct every Christian to denounce homosexuality and throw away all gays and lesbians? When did Jesus give a badge to all Christian’s and swear them in as the FAG Cops with the purpose to harass, torment, deprive and eliminate all homosexuals? Believe it or not…that is exactly what is being done on a daily basis. Every Matthew Sheppard and Harvey Milk is slain by people claiming the Bible justified their actions. Every teenager in a High School that shouts Fag, Queer, Gay, Homo, Lesi or any other derogatory comment learns to do so from their parents and Mom and Dad justified their hate with a book…the Bible!
Honestly, is there what God meant when he gave us a book to guide our lives on earth?
I’ve written this many times now and it needs to be understood; I believe in God. I believe that he sent us his only son to teach us what we could not achieve on our own with the Old Testament. I believe I am made just as he says, in his likeness, just like you and everybody else. What we need to do first is to determine what role the Bible plays in our faith. I’m not questioning Faith. I’m not questioning God, but since God is not talking, whose to know that my beliefs are not right! The Bible was guided by God, we can all agree with this premise. But even the men who were tasks with interpreting the Bible explained of the extremely arduous job they were given and how at times they could not properly interpret the Word of God. So what were they to do? They did as anyone would do and they used their own values, their own beliefs and the laws governing them at the time to dictate how they would interpret the Word of God. There is no cover-up here. There is not explosion of faith by this recognition and it was not a mistake for them to do so. They were men…fallible sinners just like you and me who did the best they could and were divinely inspired to complete their works.
The Old Testament stands the test of time during its first inception, but there was great deliberation on what was meant, what was taught and how it should be delivered even back then. So if during the time of its origins, the religious leaders of the time could not agree on the book they were given, how do we accept that it is carved in stone by God and should be followed to the letter even to this day. If that were true, then millions of people will burn in Hell because they ate shrimp last night. Millions more will already be on their way to Hell before that group because they ate pork (the other white meat) and yet; if we can look beyond these statement in the very book that is cast in stone, why can’t we look past in the same chapter of that book when it is said that “man should not lie with man as with woman; it is an abomination”. Same chapter and we are led to believe that God was joking when he said we could not eat shrimp or pork, but we must absolutely believe when it refers to homosexuality? That is the absolute definition of HYPOCRITE and defiles the Black & White designs of Christianity.
That book I was referencing was once again given to the hands of men to determine its destination. Three centuries after Jesus was crucified by the very religious leaders he tried to teach us were not good leaders, Constantine, the Emperor of Rome gathered three hundred religious leaders with a purpose to define and organize one religion, one faith and that was the foundations of Christianity. The Bible was one of the first tasks they argued vehemently over. There were many books in circulation by different religious groups that were all decided on which books were to be considered scripture and which ones did they want burned out of existence. It was thanks to these 300 religious leaders who decided on what doctrine was and dissension, intolerance was persecuted as bigotry.
A great ruler brought three hundred men together and told them they would combine all of their religious beliefs into one and the only thing that was not negotiable was their acceptance. Jesus was not born on the 25th of December that was replacing the Pagan Celebration of the Winter Solstice. Again I look to you to help me decide…do I believe in a book that was decided upon by men forced to do so and the foundation of which has too many different origins for us to even know about. So Constantine and three hundred religious leaders (men exactly like the ones who pushed a King into crucifying a man that never once threatened them – he only showed another way) redirected the Old Testament; deciding what was valid and what was not. There were chapters that were edited and there were chapters removed. How are we to know what the “Word of God” really was and what were the words of three hundred?
The Council of Nicea was just getting warmed up and the Old Testament was easy, but what took far more planning and agreement was picking and choosing from the hundreds of books, chapters and verses that were being used by hundreds of religious organizations as their definitive reference book for their religion. So the New Testament was organized by three hundred men with differing beliefs, but more important, we cannot track back from anything more than these three hundred religious leaders what was actually written by the Apostles and what was given as the words from the Apostles. Do we really know and can we ever really know? How can we tell, the text that was given as authoritative documentation was never submitted by the men themselves, this was over three decades later; so all we can do is believe a religious leader in a council that was stripping away anything they did not like or did not want to reference the religion they were creating as an amalgam of all of the other faiths of the time. Not to mention that the New Testament was again written by fallible men with their own beliefs and their own interpretations of what they saw in the presence of Jesus.
At this point I believe I have given enough thought on the matter as to the authentication of the book we use as the “Word of God” to have great questions in our minds as to is it actually what it is referenced as? There is so much more that can be defined and shown and we haven’t even gotten to the interpretation from the language it was given to us in or our current views of those people who interpreted this great book.
I personally believe that this is a book that contains some of what God wanted to teach us. It is supposed to be used as a guide and was never meant to be our sword, but merely our shield. Just as any really good book, we should read it and understand it. I mean really understand it. Not listen to our religious leaders tell us what it means. Listen to these men and women who most have devoted their lives to a greater cause, but take from them, add to their lessons what we read and interpret for ourselves and know that when you have questions, you always have God…right there…right then. Ask for your guidance and listen with your heart. Not once did Jesus use the Word of God as a sword to beat his followers in to submission. Not once did Jesus use the Old Testament to chastise or judge any one who he encountered. Jesus only ever showed each and every person the Love and Respect they deserved no matter their station in life. Everybody was treated the same and everybody was Honored for the person they were. Not once did Jesus denounce homosexuality – so what makes anyone else think they can do so in his absence.
My faith tells me to ask “What Would Jesus Do”, and follow my heart just as he would have done. Remember that Jesus did say that the followers would be the last to leave on judgment day. Are you a follower?
May we all live with Love, Honor and Respect for ourselves, but most importantly for all of those around us…even the ones you think are undeserving like the Fags!
Your Humble Servant – Todd M. Dobson
[...] Lad brought this to the team’s attention from this blog… So my question to all true believers is [...]
todd,
I’m guessing you did not read my actual question or my own response to my question, since based on your answer you seem to believe that I am a homophobic christian conservative.
I have stated many times in various replies here that I am an atheist. I would no more question the link between your sexuality and faith than I would question the link between somebody’s height and their preference between dogs and cats (btw, dogs much better, but that is for another post).
While I understand that somebody’s sexuality is a major factor in their worldview, I do not think that is necessarily drives a person’s faith. One of my best friends is a lesbian, and while we don’t actually discuss faith much, from what we have discussed, she considers herself a lapsed christian. She has belief in a “god”, but in a much more generic sense than any “religion” that I know of. I don’t believe that her sexuality has been the deciding factor in her belief, but perhaps it was a factor in her pulling away from her upbringing.
Your assumption of my viewpoint seems to have guided your response in a completely random direction. While the points you make are quite valid, they are not really relevant to this specific discussion.
I am MUCH more interested in your faith than your sexuality. I don’t believe that sexuality is a choice, and therefore I don’t feel that anybody has to “defend” them self as a gay man or a lesbian. I have a bit of a thing for slightly nerdy/sexy women and British/Australian accents. If Lisa Loeb spoke cockney I would have to consider changing my shorts any time her songs came on the radio
. You have a thing for people of the same sex, that’s no different or weird than my thing for Nicole Kidman or Liz Phair.
Having read your reply, while it is not exactly on topic, I think you do a VERY good job of ripping apart the “typical” right wing, conservative, christian arguments against homosexuality. Obviously this is a topic you feel strongly about, and it is one that I plan to get into at some later date, so I will certainly be coming back to your points at that time.
You actually make a few of the same points I make on the validity of the bible, all be it for different reasons. But having not really responded to the original intent of my post, I would like to hear your thoughts on my question of how do you know your beliefs are “correct” and how certain are you of that belief.
I look forward to your response.
rodibidably, i will answer your question but first i want to ask you a question… i am an evangelical pentecostal christian… now this is my question to you… what are the top ten reasons for my “religion” not to be true? once you answer my question i will answers those questions you asked, how i know my “religion” is true, and nothing more
forgot to put the and and answer before the how i know my religion question
pablo,
Wow a top ten list, I feel so “David Lettermanesque”.
First let me state off the top, I fully admit that I may be wrong in my beliefs. I have looked at much of the evidence (anybody who says they have looked at ALL of the evidence is fooling them self or lying, there is too much for one person to have thoroughly studied it all), and come to the conclusion that there is no “designer”, there is no “invisible hand guiding”, there is in short, no “god”.
Even Richard Dawkins who is one of the most famous atheists in the world says that he is “only” 95% sure there is no god. He leaves open a 5% chance that “god” exists in some form and is controlling the destiny of the world and all those in it.
With that said, if there is a chance that I am wrong, then there is a chance that any given belief system is correct. It could be catholicism, judaism, buddhism, islam, hinduism, scientology, mormonism, or any of a variety of other religions. Or it could be that no religion has yet “gotten it right”.
In the text of the original post, I state:
“We can all agree that not everybody’s beliefs are compatible with everybody else’s beliefs.”
There are many differing religions that conflict with each other. Even within one “religion” there are vast differences (sunnis vs shi’ites is one I mentioned). There are many differing “holy books” across those religions, and many differing translations of those books. If you go into typical catholic church, a typical mormon temple(?) and a typical pentacostal church(?) and grab a bible from each, you would be able to find many serious differences between the text of each of the three. While the main story line is going to be the same there are entire sections that were stripped out by martin luther from the old catholic bible when the protestant reformation took place.
Even within a single translation, there are many possible interpretations of the same passages. As I have mentioned a few times already during the civil war both the North and South used biblical passages to justify their own beliefs towards slavery. Many atrocities have been committed in the name of “god” based on differing readings of the bible and Koran (as well as other “holy books”, don’t think I am only picking on those two, I just happen to know them a bit better than I know hinduism, buddhism, etc).
So this means for any specific theistic “faith” to be the correct faith, that a few things must be true:
1) “God” must exist
2) They must have picked the “correct” god
3) They must have picked the “correct” version of that god
4) They must have picked the “correct” “holy book” to go along with that god
5) They must have picked the “correct” translation of that holy book
6) They must have picked the “correct” interpretation of that translation
I know this is not a full top 10, but really I think that these 6 suffice, and make the point which I wish to convey. Sam Harris, and Richard Dawkins, as well as others, do a much more eloquent and thorough evaluation of the case against “god”.
However, we are off topic at this point. My entire point of this post is not “who’s right” and “who’s wrong”. The point of this topic is “how do you know that you are right”. While I am most likely not going to agree with your views, I do like to try to understand differing viewpoints when I can.
I hope that this satisfies your “requirement”, and I look forward to your response.
Can I throw the Wesleyan Quadrilateral into the discussion:
Scripture – the Bible (Old and New Testaments)
Tradition – the two millennia history of the Christian Church
Reason – rational thinking and sensible interpretation
Experience – a Christian’s personal and communal journey in Christ
On another blog where I had attempted to ask a few members to come and debate here I was unable to find anybody willing to. However, I did get s few responses back and forth there, which I think may add at least a small something to this discussion.
—–
From blogReader:
Rodibidably…..first you identify your self….what is your religion…..and what is your real purpose…to debate on one true God or whatever.or to find out which is which.
Please also confirm you have studied comparative religions….and give me some proof of it.
I guarantee the blog owner Dr. Hsu will not stoop so low to response to your invitation. Why should he?
He put out a message sincerely …as according to his beliefs and feelings..for us to debate for or against….not for us to expose him…this or that.
He has been very open minded and democratic …to his visitors.
But me….as a commentator…. will take up your challenge….but first I am trying to find out….are you a worthy opponent.
No one will believe you are inviting all of us to your blog for differences in opinions ..so that you will learn. It’s more like advertising your blog……get more visitors to talk in your blog…more than anything else.
And if you want to debate….do it here.
I wait your reply.
—
My reply:
Identify myself, ok that is easy enough.
I consider myself to be an atheist, however I enjoy studying different religions. I am very interested in the similarities and differences between different faiths.
I’m not sure how you would want me to give you proof that I have studied multiple religions. Online I could claim that I had a vision of jesus tell me to go out and commit some act or say something. That does not mean it is true. I was raised in a somewhat religious atmosphere but came to believe long ago that I could not reconcile the faiths that I knew of at the time with morality and scientific discoveries. The further I delved into studying I saw more and more, that the religions I was exposed to were essentially “god of the gaps” philosophies.
I’m not sure why you believe that it would be “stooping so low” for somebody to reply to a simple question, but if that it your opinion, so be it. The primary reason I choose to have the discussion on one blog instead of multiple blogs, is so that those who are participating in the discussion can see all the responses, and hopefully come to better understand multiple view points on the same issue.
I find it quite funny that you are trying to determine if I am a “worthy opponent”. You take a very adversarial position from the beginning, when I am inviting people to share their differences openly. I am of the opinion that people can differ in their views openly and honestly without it causing conflict. From your response it seems that you do not share this belief.
—
From blogOwner:
blogReader, I will not answer that question because no one has the answer. That is the simple truth.
I thank you for your brave stand and comment.
But I went tothe link , I think his (Rodibidably’s) intention is sincere in wanting a debate on this question.
—
From blogReader:
Rodibidably….Firstly my nick is *****.not ***.
My advise to you is choose a religion and have full faith in it.
Put all your heart and soul with passion to that one religion you choose…….as the world is full of spirits….good and evil ones…..and one need to have a strong mind to avoid taken over by the ‘naughty’ spirit.
Whether you are are weak or strong human being….believing strongly to one religion does strengthen your mind and soul…..but not to the extend to be a fanatic…and believe other humans are stupid fools to believe in other faiths. Those who talk and behave like that..are infact the lost souls…or feeling so guilty in life…afraid to go to hell when they die….as they are programmed to be that way.
Read what “A True Malaysian” wrote and understand.
You have a confused and weak mind.
On the matter of debate on religion..you are not ready yet…..period!
And try to respect others …as you want others to respect you…starting by calling me *****.and not show your childish character from the first word…….insulting me.
—
My reply:
blogOwner,
Nobody has the answer to WHY they believe in their given religion? Really, that sounds liek you are saying faith is like a blind man throwing darts, whichever one you hit is as good as any other one…
You are correct that I want a sincere debate, and I felt that you, or some of your readers might be able to give a unique perspective. I do appreciate your taking the time to read my post. I hope you will reconsider and share your thoughts, but I respect your decision decline.
blogReader,
Sorry about shortening your nic. I tend to do that at times, and did not mean to offend.
You advise me to “choose a religion and have full faith in it”. This would assume that all religions are equal. Since there are many instances where various religions come in conflict with each other over very basic teachings I fail to see how randomly picking one can be of any value. If all religions are equally valid, then no religion would also be equally valid, so why should somebody “choose a religion”. I tend to not believe in things which can not be verified (santa claus, easter bunny, bigfoot, vampires, alien visitation, etc), and yet you seem to be saying that I should blindly accept a religion, any religion as “truth” despite the possibility that whatever I choose has a very real chance of doing more harm than good (branch davidians, manson family, jim jones’ group, etc).
I fail to see how I did not show you respect or insulted you in my post. I suppose that some can see a light when none was ever there.
—
From blogReader:
No one who understands religions…will identify himself/herself…. an atheist….a word coined by the US government…to identify how god fearing their are…..which we know is not true also. just because others believe in many gods and not one god are wrong.
And you have infact hinted you like ‘the way of life” doctrines…thus either Hindhusim or Buddhism should suits you fine. They are free and easy ..teaches you to do good and not do bad and control your monkey mind….that easy.
So choose one….THEN…make sure you study and read the good books on that religion….and depend only on people to give you explainations on what you know understand .
On Hindhusim…..’Bhagavad-Gita As It Is”….is the book to give you best foundation.
And on Buddhism…get to know how Sihatta Guatama…Sakya prince… became the Buddha and then read “The Words of Buddha” or sayings of the Buddha…not easy to understand…get a reputable knowledgable monk to teach and explain to you..but books written by the late Chief Reverend of Malaysia….Dr.Dhammananda is the best for you to understand ….as he writes well and easy to understand.
But should you change your mind..and even want to seek the truths trough the Bahai Faith…Islam..or Christianity……then seek it with full interest.
And when you have found the religion to give medicine to your “monkey” mind…don’t shout to the whole world…how great your religion is….when you have not study comparative religions….for if you do….then you will never brag about how great your religion or faith is. Any god never ask anyone to advertise for him/her. It is the cunning humans doing that for selfish reasons to control people..for profitable business..and those shouting are the weak deciples……ALWAYS!!
You are what we call….the lost sheep in the Bible.
But first….you need to have manners…..as the way you write…shows an intelligent young man…with a troubled mind.
See how much I care for you?
Rodibidably…The way you write….you are insulting all humans believing in a faith or a religions. They are all bloody fools and you are the smartest.
I recall you putting out the same old shit long long ago.
Yes…..some highly intelligent and very wise well educated and knowledgable humans …do not believe in any religion at all…..especially the scientists and few special strong minded people. They depended on truths …..from their sixth sense and commonsense.
But you don’t fit in this group at all….although you tend to project you are one of them.
This will be my last message to you.
Get real!!!
—
My reply:
How can you claim that nobody who understands religion will identify themselves as an atheist? And why is that, because you personally can not understand how somebody could deny the existence of god? Can you deny the existence of bigfoot, or ghosts or vampires or alien abductions? How is denying any of those different than denying another form of the supernatural, “god”?
You also claim that the word atheist was coined by the US govement? Really, that is interesting…
“In early Ancient Greek, the adjective atheos (ἄθεος, from the privative ἀ- + θεός “god”) meant “godless”. The word began to indicate more-intentional, active godlessness in the 5th century BCE, acquiring definitions of “severing relations with the gods” or “denying the gods, ungodly” instead of the earlier meaning of ἀσεβής (asebēs) or “impious”. Modern translations of classical texts sometimes render atheos as “atheistic”. As an abstract noun, there was also ἀθεότης (atheotēs), “atheism”. Cicero transliterated the Greek word into the Latin atheos. The term found frequent use in the debate between early Christians and Hellenists, with each side attributing it, in the pejorative sense, to the other.[8]
In English, the term atheism was derived from the French athéisme in about 1587.[10] The term atheist (from Fr. athée), in the sense of “one who denies or disbelieves the existence of God”,[11] predates atheism in English, being first attested in about 1571.[12]”
You MAY want to actually do some research before you make claims like that in the future. Not to offend, but when you make claims that are so obviously historically wrong it makes many of the other things you say seem less authoritative.
I have studied christianity (catholicism, and presbyterianism), judaism, islam, buddhism, and VERY briefly some of the tenants of hinduism. While I found I agree with some aspects of all of these faiths, I found that I could not personally accept the claims of the supernatural that come along with religion.
Your assumption that somebody must “choose a religion” seems odd to me. If you truly believe that your version of “god” is correct, then telling somebody to worship a “different” god would seem sacrilegious. If you believe that any “god” is as valid as any other “god”, then you should be willing to acknowledge that no god is also just as valid. Yet you seem to insist that one MUST believe in some “god”, even if it is the “wrong” one.
Again you accuse me of being rude and not having manners, but I fail to see what I have said that is so offense to you. Is having your beliefs questioned out of curiosity offensive to you? If so, you may want to look at your own convictions, and to at those asking the questions.
Please tell me how exactly I have offended you. I have asked you some very basic questions, and tried to correct you when you have made false statements about me and my beliefs, and almost everything you have said has been false about me or my beliefs.
I am trying to understand WHY you believe that people “need” to have a “god” in their life, and you keep saying over and over that there is no such thing as an atheist who has studied religion. This is an obviously false statement as there have been many scholarly books on the subject of faith and religion by noted atheists (Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and of course Richard Dawkins).
For a “christian” you seem to resort to name calling and insults rather quickly in what I had hoped would be an open friendly discussion on faith and beliefs. I am sorry that you were not able to add anything substantive to the debate.
—–
Since this post may get deleted from that blog, I wanted to save it here for posterity and to show yet another view on the topic at hand.
Thanks for your reply, Rodibidably. If you read again my earlier comment, I have exactly the same view about Christian missionaries works with no string attached.
My view is that there must be some truths in all religions or else there will be no follower of the respective religions. But, which of these religions have more ‘truth’ than the other is dependent on ‘how open’ or ‘how receptive’ of ourselves to the view of others. That make thing more complex here, agree? There will be no end to your question here. Important thing here is that we must have faith on what we believe.
To me, the word ‘GOD’ has resulted in many disagreements among followers of religions, in particular Christianity and Islam, even though they believe at the same GOD. Their holy books have common references of prophets, and yet, both religions were in loggerhead for as long as history can remember.
So, hypothetically, wouldn’t it be wonderful if there is no God at all?
Buddhism, on the other hand, believe in no creator God. This is what I found, in simple term, about Buddha’s teachings :-
“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.” – Buddha
So, whether is there any truth about the teaching of Buddha, one need to find it ourselves, Buddha did not impose anything on us. This is why I consider myself as a Buddhist.
a true malaysian,
Perhaps I did not understand you fully. It seems we are in closer agreement than I had thought
.
I also really enjoy the quote from Buddha, thanks.
I wish more people felt the way you do, and were willing to be more accepting of others.
Robididably,
You invited me to make a comment here. I have not had time to review all 60+ comments you have collected, so my reply will be untarnished by responses to them.
I am a Numenist, a deliberately created religion in response to the horrors of World War II; the founders were soldiers and their families and friends. We’ve spent 62 years refining and evolving our beliefs, so we are a new religion. It is far from a fully developed religion and it allows a great deal of autonomy to its Celebrants.
That said, I will answer your question according to our religious dogma:
“How certain are you that your version of the “truth” (truth of god, religion, the world, the universe, etc) is the correct one, and more importantly, how do you know what that “truth” is?”
We are individuated corporeal beings with limited sensory input and a very vivid imagination. Truth for us is subjective and relative. Whatever “Truth” there may be may only be vouchsafed to us in small doses. Consider it like the metaphor of the blind people examining an elephant – they all have the truth, but not all of the truth.
This is how we view truth: in pieces, layered according to our level of understanding.
As we gain knowledge, maturity, wisdom, more of the Truth comes to us. What we think we know is therefore subject to revision according to new knowledge and new levels of understanding. We discuss new additions to our body of knowledge, our “Truth”, pondering how it fits, and if it doesn’t if we should or must change to allow the new information to fit, or if the information needs to be tabled until we learn more. We rarely discard information because it may simply be that we don’t yet know enough or understand enough. We don’t incorporate or use the information if we can’t find where it belongs.
Our religion is structured to help us in our explorations, to provide us with forums of learning and sharing, to bring us together to celebrate what we have learned, and what we think we know. Whereever two or more of us gather, we are a church.
I believe all religions are designed to help their adherents to seek and find as much of the Truth as they can bear – whatever that Truth may be. I also believe that what we perceive as “truth” can and must change to accommodate what we learn as we continue to grow and seek.
Robididably,
I can understand you more after reading your feedback to cruv’s opinion. I must point out here that, to the best of my knowledge and believe, Buddha’s teachings were not transient from GOD. This is why in actual fact, Buddhism is not a ‘religion’. You may refer to this youtube video clip http://youtube.com/watch?v=P2NLQGrbf5U for a better understanding on this.
Also, you can go Jewel Heart http://www.jewelheart.org/ for more detailed understanding of Buddhism.
In essence, Buddhism is not a religion, you can find your answer about ‘truth’ from Buddha’s teachings.
Cheers
How certain are you that your version of the “truth” (truth of god, religion, the world, the universe, etc) is the correct one, and more importantly, how do you know what that “truth” is?
Hello Rodibidably,
I actually read your full post this time and have attempted to answer the question, so lets see if I like this answer enough that I will post it to both your site and my own.
As a man that is continuing to ask the very same question you are asking many people, I can honestly answer that I have believed in God from my earliest days. I was never pushed into religion by my parents because both sides of my family come from deeply devout ancestors that were integral to their religious organizations. From a very early age I took myself to the church of the road and was in search of the reason my devotion to a entity that made no sense to me or others. I have read the Christian holy book, the “Bible” while listening to countless religious leaders insight their congregation to one frenzied point or another, but in each and every case, I never found a Christian Religious Organization that spoke to me or explained the Bible in a way that I knew in my heart and in my soul was correct.
It is such an issue that for years I thought I lost my religion and my faith in God, but deep within my soul I never gave up on God, just on modern day religious organizations that taught their followers that the Bible means X or it absolutely tells us that Y is not to be believed. When Christian leaders stand on a pulpit and strongly demand Z, I started questioning their motives, but then I saw their motives as if a light from heaven shown true guidance on the motivation behind teaching anything but love, honor and respect to their congregations….money. While in almost every country religious organizations are kept from public scrutiny by not demanding they open their financial books for all who wish to see what they do and how they do it. Regardless of the political freedoms religious organizations have, organized religion is the greatest money maker in the world. Religious leaders have also taken marketing 101 classes and through centuries of scientifically proven results, fear does the best job at increasing the number of followers and in sighting those followers to give more money than anything.
Because of these and many other reasons, I’ve yet to find a Christian organization that I go too to confirm or define my beliefs. I too have been asking this very question and because, I am researching all other religious beliefs in hopes that I can find just one religious organization or structure that teach Love, Honor & Respect to everyone from everyone, always.
You might think with everything I’ve written, how can I say I believe in God? Well, he created me in his image and I know that with every ounce of my being. While I question many things in my life, my faith in God is not one of them. Faith is believing in that which does not make sense.
It answers your question and yet it does not. I have faith in God and that is not under question. Everything else may be, but not that!
Your Humble Servant – Todd M. Dobson
Your question stabs at the nerve ending of all who choose to believe.
I don’t have a true belief as such other then the belief that all who believe are mislead.
I have, however, studied belief systems for over 30 years and the above statement has been my conclusion thus far.
I find all beliefs need a giant leap of faith and it’s the faith that is the belief.
When asked to proove their faith (belief), many rest soley on a shacky footing. Better to say it is so,so it is without question.
I do however believe that the universe and all that is in it is like a planted seed and as such will not grow to maturity without care.
Hopefully someone with a little simple insight may answer your question.
Enjoyed all the comments……LRF
All of you can talk religions…till kingdom come!’It’s the never ending battle between the Christian and the Muslims…who is God..bla bla bla.
I have battled many fanatics from both sides…because each side is trying to prove they are really worshiping …the one true GOD.
Robididably….have pasted my messages … put out at Dr.Hsu Forum blog into his blog. Due to respect to the good hearted Doctor..I refrained to response to him…..and there he goes with his sickening personality….trying to prove he is the smart ones…believing in no god….like the great scientists…..and discoveries of earth’s formations….and humans existences.
He is not qualified to join that group…as he can blare out this or that…with no experiences as a father or live long enough to have the wisdoms.
He is trying to brag with no substances or quality in life..except to prove all of us wrong. He will never admit this and saying he is out to learn. Don’t be fooled by that.
He is just a book maniac .trying to show off how much he knows about religions. Since he knows so much of Buddhism…..which I am one..and he said I am a Christian…….clearly shows how much he knows about other people…and calling me a ‘monster’ purposely….then apologize…is showing he is childish no manners or respect to others. Howe can a person talk religions…with no respect to the elders..who eat more salt than he eat rice.?
This guy loves to battle in religion….and he knows next to nothing…..but by text book standard only.
If he really understands Buddhism….he should not be the first to irritate or calling for a battle on religions….but defend the rights against fanatics from Christian and Muslim writers…yes…to keep practizing… the way of life to the many doors of TRUTHS.
I am going to end here by advising all of you….be faithful to all your beliefs…and the truths of it all..is the the label…you are attached to……but the heart brain and eyes you have….from your own faiths….the outcome of you being a noble human being or a hypocrite….that’s the bottom line……plus poor souls…..afraid to go to hell…that is another group not worth talking about.
Holy Cow! I was gone for the weekend and this discussion really took off. I can’t address the last three hundred posts but I can answer the one that you raised in response to my last post.
My point was not to throw reams of evidence at you but to open up the possibility that God (any God)exists. Once we’ve established that then we move on to which God. But for me to jump to a specific God would be to skip a specific step.
As to my illustration of a jury – the fact that jurist’s can come to different conclusion with the same evidence fits very well into general concept of a Christian God. People often see what they want to see. You would argue that I see God where there is only chance or science. I would argue that you see nothing where there is God. Inevitably we both bring our own biases to the conclusions. The real question is how to we take an objective look at the facts – is it possible to examine this issue without bias?
To mootpoints:
The only way an objective view can be made is if you are totally disconected from any affiliation to religions. Religion is so ingrained in cultures that this would be nearly impossible. When one is born into a religion then the programming starts at birth.
Very few question this, if at all, until adulthood.
To break the shackles of programming and look at the evidence objectivly takes time and deep thought.
Born again christians have life changing experiences and this they believe to be devine.
I, personally have a very full, happy life with no God as such. Seems that most people need to believe in something.
It’s just a shame that different religions with their different gods have cost thousands of lives.
Sorry I have not replied recently, I’ve been swamped with work, and away at a conference… I will try my best to reply to all of the comments ASAP (some time between tonight and Monday night).
starsight,
I can’t say that I know much about your religion, but from the quick searches I have done (don’t you just love google), it seems fairly benign. However it seems a tad odd to me to create a religion seemingly out of nothing.
Based on the sites I have come across, and granted these may not be the best examples of your beliefs, I would be lead to believe that this “religion” is a hoax perpetrated by a very small number (1-8) young guys (ages 12-20). This may be just a reflection of the sites I stumbled across, but for now, we’ll take the position that this is a real religion, and that thee sites at least somewhat accurately describe the “beliefs”.
From what I gather, there was no divine inspiration, it was just a group of people decided to create a new religion. There are many aspects which seem to be “borrowed” from other world religions, and many aspects which seem impossible to actually “know” although the websites I have come across do claim to have this knowledge. The one that sticks out the most in my mind is the after death beliefs. From the sites I have found, your beliefs claim to have an understanding of what happens after death, in a spiritual sense. This seems like it would be a difficult thing to “know” without some sort of evidence.
With that said, I do like a number of the concepts you mentioned about trying to learn and understand, I just hope that you try to use rational scientific methods to learn, and not a “spiritual journey” type of “learning”, since inevitably that seemingly leads towards concepts which are incompatible with the laws of the universe, since the typical human’s understanding of the physical laws of the universe are severely lacking.
a true malaysian,
I have a very good friend that is Buddhist, and from my understanding, there are essentially two “types” of Buddhism, there is the philosophical teachings and the spiritual teachings. Philosophically, I agree with much of Buddhism (and to a much greater degree Taoism, since I have studied Tao much more, and follow many of its practices in my own life). However, spiritually I have a hard time with their beliefs in reincarnation (it is a fact that there are more living beings on the planet today than there were early in the earth’s history, so where do the additional “souls” or “spirits” come from. Why is it that the Dalai Lama has been reincarnated into a living child each time one has died; why not into an animal, or plant, or on another planet outside our own solar system?
While I am far from an expert on Buddhism, I have found that some of the spiritual aspects of it are on par with some of the “magic” of other religion, such as the flood, 72 virgins, and dropping souls into volcanoes. This does not take away from the great works that many Buddhist have done, and does not diminish the philosophy of Buddhism, but it does show that like many other religions, Buddhism has it’s (at least in my view) nonsensical superstitions.
todd dobson,
To steal (and slightly butcher) a quote a horrible line, from an even more horrible movie, spoken by an even more horrible human being:
You had me until “he created me in his image”.
Many years ago I felt the same as you (at least the first 4 paragraphs of your post), that I believed that there was a “god” but that all of the “religions” I had studied were corrupt and just plain wrong in many respects. I felt then, and still feel now, that there is a massive disconnect between the “churches” to be these grand buildings, and for the priests, pastors, clergy, etc to spend the kind of money they did, and live the lives they did, while others around the world, and in our own country were homeless and starving to death daily. If you want to do the most good for humanity, then serve those most in need. This is one of the foundations of the teachings of most “faiths”, and yet it is almost completely ignored by those in power of these religions.
I believe essentially the same about religious leaders that I do of politicians, that there are some genuinely good people trying to do their best to make the world a better place, but that there are far more that are out for their own self interests, and that the institution itself has become corrupt. Even the best intentions eventually will fall to this onslaught of bureaucracy eventually.
I respect your final answer, although I don’t agree with you. I do question however how it is that you “know”. Your response is obviously heart felt and thought out, and you do a good job of explaining your point, but as I read it, it boils down to ‘religion is flawed, but I believe despite that’; and you don’t really say HOW you know that your faith in god and your understanding of god is the truth.
lrf,
I agree that this question stabs at the nerve endings of all true believers. While the point of this post was to get an understanding of why people have their own specific beliefs, by its very nature, the post calls into question the beliefs themselves. Religion and faith are touchy subjects, but based on the impact that they have on the world, and the potential for massive amount of violence in the name of various “gods”, and “beliefs” it is a subject that should be brought up at every possible opportunity.
As an atheist, I believe that which can be shown scientifically, and anything else is either wrong, or does not yet enough evidence to support it. I fully admit that there are many things that science can not yet answer. However, the difference between science and religion, is that religion generally just places “god” in the gaps of human knowledge (and in some extreme cases such as creationism/ID places god in direct contrast to human knowledge) while science instead states that it does not know something, but we are constantly striving to learn.
I do believe that a number of the replies so far have been very insightful, even if I have not agreed with all of them. My ideal goal is not for everybody to agree with each other, but for everybody to agree that some truths (germ theory, evolution, gravity, quantum mechanics, etc) are universal, and anything beyond that may help you live your life in a better way, but nobody should expect another person to conform to their own beliefs.
If somebody wants to live their life believing that zenu dropped them off in a volcano 75 million years ago and that we evolved from clams, or that some guy 2000 years ago was born of a virgin, and that belief somehow helps them to live a life that helps the world around them, then so be it. But they should NEVER attempt to push those beliefs on another person.
monsterball,
I’m a tad surprised to see you post here, but I do welcome all view points into the discussion. I am a bit disheartened to see that you continue to spew bile at those who ask questions and do not conform to your own world view, but I can’t say that I am surprised.
Yes, I did post our “conversation” from the other blog, as I thought that it was relevant, but since you did not want to be part of the discussion I refrained from using any names to protect your privacy. Since you have now joined in the discussion and mentioned this, I assume you no longer want to be anonymous on my own blog.
Again, you are claiming things with no basis in fact. According to you (this particular time, I won’t bother going over your past accusations again), I am trying to prove I am smart. So does this mean that anybody who asks a question and begins a discussion is trying to prove their superiority to you? How did you first get into your faith, were you born into parents of your own faith and you followed blindly, or did you begin to search, trying to find what you believed in? This would be a form of questioning, much in the same way that my post here is a question, where I am looking for input from others with differing opinions from my own.
The quote which is currently at the top of my blog is from Albert Einstein, and I think it is a very appropriate one for the attitude which you are displaying with your obvious distain for questions.
“He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, science for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, deplorable love-of-country stance, how violently I hate all this, how despicable an ignoreable war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.”
You claim I am not qualified to join the ranks of scientists, who question the world around them and try to better understand it. I think that what I am doing in my own small way is exactly that. I am trying to get a better understanding of a subject (in this case faith) by asking those who have faith about their own personal faith. It would make as little sense to ask an atheist about faith, and it would be to ask a fish about flying. I am asking those who have faith, since as an atheist myself, I do not have any faith or belief in the supernatural aspects of religion.
Your next “comment”, and I use that word liberally in your case, since much of your posts consists of semi-coherent ranting, basically states that somebody must be a father, and have reached a certain age before they can have wisdom. Albert Einstein (and I am not really comparing myself to him, just using him as an example of brilliance in youth to counter your point about age being required) was 26 years old when he published 4 of his papers, including one on special relativity, and the one that coined perhaps the most well known, and influential equation of all time (E=MC^2).
While I am not exactly certain what your next “point” is trying to say, I am curious exactly where and how have I “tried to brag” or tried to “prove all of you wrong”. If somebody answers a question, and you don’t understand them completely, I would thing that you should ask a follow up question to get further insight.
I never claimed to know much of Buddhism, I have learned some of the absolute basics from reading various books, and from a good friend of mine who is a Buddhist, but I would never claim to know much about it beyond the basics. I have personally spent much more time over my life studying various versions of christianity, judaism, and islam, since I was raised by “christians”, and all three are built on the same foundation.
Some of your final points are actually valid (to all the other readers: I know I was shocked too), I do enjoy debates on religions, since I believe that religion, or more specifically faith, is one of the most important subjects of our time, since it has so much potential for massive destruction. I believe that by understanding others better, we can hopefully come to accept each other and cease fighting over petty differences, but to understand each other, we must be willing to question our own “beliefs”, and the “beliefs” of others.
Your final thoughts though are half idiotic and half almost intelligible. You are telling people to be blindly faithful to their own beliefs, which I think is one of the worst things that we as a civilization can do. We MUST learn to question everything, even that which we hold most dear, or else we will continue to have violence in the “name of god” because of our differences in “holy books”. The REASON that christians and muslims are attacking each other, and other religions, is because they blindly believe that their “god” tells them to. By you telling people to blindly follow their faiths, you are inviting this kind of blindly ignorant violence which you claimed in the previous paragraph to be against.
moot,
Obviously we interpret the evidence differently on the “proof of god”, and I won’t argue that point at this time (that is for another more specific post I think). While I don’t agree with your conclusions, I do respect those that look at the awe and wonder of the universe and question. Your questions seem to lead you to the path of a “creator”, while mine lead me to the path of evolution (the universe evolving from the big bang, and then eventually life evolving from the building blocks). While much could be said on the points for and against both of these views, it is far too time-consuming and too big of a sidetrack I think for this current discussion. For now I think we can just agree that looking at mankind, the world and the universe we are both struck by the awesomeness (really, that’s a great word that just doesn’t get used enough, because it sounds kind of childish I think, but it really is a great descriptor) of what we see.
But on topic, you state that from all of the available evidence that it is possible for multiple (seemingly rational) people to come to vastly differing conclusions. Your conclusions have lead you to believe in “god”, while mine have lead me to a more scientific view of the world. But I am curious how it is that you “concluded” that the belief that you ended with was the “correct” belief. How is it that you do not believe in zeus or allah or zenu or buddah, but you do believe in jesus; and how certain are you that you came to the “correct” conclusion?
lrf,
This essentially echoes many of my own sentiments. I think it is much harder for somebody to break away from a belief system than it is to accept one anew. When one is born into a family that does things a certain way, you tend not to question it, you tend to just follow along.
I was raised by “catholic” parents. Some years after their divorce my father became a “born again christian”, and his belief in his faith was unshakable. He was the very essence of the stereotypical right-wing, conservative christian, who denied evolution, believed the earth and the universe were roughly 6500 years old, homosexuality was a sin, abortion was murder, spoke in tongues at services, etc… When his youngest son (my half-brother) was born, he and his wife believed for a number of years that this son (it took a long time before they could get pregnant, and it was his 7th child, as if that had some significance) was the second coming of jesus himself. Some years later when this son was maybe 3 or 4 years old they caught him in a flat out lie that even in their delusion they could not ignore or explain away, so they “decided” that he was not in fact “god”, but that he was a prophet (a new john the baptist type I suppose).
Long before this half-brother was born, I had already begun to question my parents and their “faith”, and had by the time I was in 2nd or 3rd grade already come to believe that they were wrong. At that time I became agnostic in a sense; I believed that there must be something bigger, but I was certain that humanity was not capable of understanding, and that “god” or whatever this something was, had created the universe (by means of the big bang) and then essentially stepped back and let nature take its course.
By the time I was mostly on my own (15 years old) I had become a “closet atheist”. I no longer believed that a supernatural being had any impact in the universe, but I was so unsure of myself that I rarely would discuss religion, “faith”, or “god”. The little that I would say then was along the lines of my former agnostic beliefs, as not to offend others, or get into a discussion defending my own beliefs, which I did not even understand at the time.
Eventually through much study, I became more acutely aware of the fallacies of many of the worlds major religions, and I became much more outspoken on my own atheism. Throughout this time I had spent much time reading “holy books” and studying religion and “faith”, but I had not yet studied atheism as I wrongly felt at that time there was nothing to study about non-belief.
Much later on I found others who shared my convictions, and through some of these friends was turned on to Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and others. Finally having read books and papers that not only describe the religions of the world, but describe the alternative, I became even hungrier for more knowledge.
I have done much studying, and while I am not now, nor will I ever be, on the level of a Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, etc I have finally come to a firm understanding of my own set of “beliefs”, and my own ideals for mankind; which leads to where I am now at this point in my life, trying now, not to understand the religions themselves any more, but to understand the motivations and faith of those that follow them.
[...] As good a way as any other to choose a religion? February 14, 2008 In my recent post on [...]
Rodibidably,
I am not a Buddhism expert either, that was why I put the link to a Buddhist center just in case you would like to know more about Buddhism.
Your points on reincarnation of Dalai Lama and additional “souls” or “spirits” are more appropriate to be referred to Buddhism scholars as I have the same ‘doubts’ unanswered.
Your open question to all believers here which attracts so many responses is actually in line with what Gautama Buddha’s teachings, ie basically, don’t accept his teachings without thinking. Unlike Christianity and Islam, ‘God’ element is always there which somehow restrict thinking and open discussion. Do you agree with me on this?
a true malaysian,
I think you and I agree on the point of this question pretty much.
I may reject the supernatural aspects of all religions out of hand without evidence for them (including reincarnation), but I do think that most religions have good aspects and good philosophies at their core.
I even follow the basic philosophies of Taoism, without believing in the Qi, Jing, and Shen “supernatural” aspects.
From your posts, it seems you follow Buddhism in much the same way, so I do think we agree on quite a bit.
(I’m leaving these comments here as well as in the comment section on my own blog. I didn’t know where it would be best to post them. Also I haven’t read through all of the above posts, so sorry if my response is a little outdated.)
Well, let me re-hash the discussion up to this point. if I understand the definition of atheism correctly it means one knows that there is no God. It can’t quite mean that we’re pretty sure there is no God, we already have a word for that – Agnostic.
So – my point is – the standard of definition one must meet to become an atheist is too high. One must know there is no God. That’s a standard that can’t be reached. No one can know something doesn’t exist. (i.e. – you can’t prove a negative.)
So what I’m saying is that, using the definition of the word athiest, no one really can be one. At best one can be a “strong” agnostic.
Now this is where we diverged before. The point is made that we can be reasonably sure fairies don’t come to life in our refrigerator when we close the door. We can be be reasonably sure that doesn’t happen but we can’t know.
That’s true. But fairies in my fridge isn’t a position I’m required to think about and come to an intellectual conclusion. The subject of the existence of God evidently is in that we’ve invented a word to describe non-belief.
So my point is ultimately that we can, at best, be agnostics.
So far I’m simply re-hashing my earlier posts.
Now we have the issue of, from the atheist’s perspective, that the chance God exists is so small that it is irrelevant.
I said earlier that the evidence can sometimes lead us to different conclusions. What is the evidence that has lead you to the conclusion you’ve reached?
My question is (and I’m more or less thinking as I go) why do you think the possibility that God exists is so small? What definition of God are you using and what criteria is the concept of God not living up to?
I have to say I really appreciate this discussion. It seems that arguments about God or atheism tends to be more more angry and vitriolic than it needs to be. I think humans can discuss polarizing issues and even disagree in a respectful manner. I really appreciate the tone of this dialogue. Thanks.
The search for the Universal Truth can never be found
in the material World.
To succeed in this journey, one must search inwards
for one’s true-self, also known as the true heart.
The first step is to discover the false-self. You
will see the False more clearly once you understand
your reactions, feelings and thoughts to surrounding
situations.
Man and his relationships with others are important as, if he observes his behaviour, he will begin to understand himself.
Relationships when viewed properly, is a true mirror.
The mind, the false-self, the ego can never realise
the Universal Truth.
The limited can never expound the Unlimited.
The mind and its highest thought and idea can never describe nor imagine the Nature’s Truth
A thought or idea is based on what is known.
The known cannot describe nor know the Unknown.
TRUTH can only be realised by taking the inward journey of calmness meditation and moral cultivation.
TRUTH is realised through understanding; and through
understanding only will there be Freedom.
The heart must be filled with true Love
Without true Love there will not be true realisation.
TRUTH is not the word truth, they are words which
are only forms of expression. Discover the essence or meaning of the words.
When Morality is sincerely practised, good habits
are cultivated; Wisdom grows and the original soul
strengthens.
The mind and heart of the cultivator becomes purer.
In this state the power of understanding grows and helps one to understand one-self and one’s
surroundings.
Once one understands, there is Freedom.
There is Freedom as the mind no longer struggles
to understand.
The mind is at peace.
There is calmness followed by stillness,
And TRUTH is experienced.
The way of Nature, Natural Law, or Dao can never be fully described.
Cultivate yourself sincerely in moral values to become
a perfect pureness. Knowing and memorising the holy scriptures or texts is never enough. Practise and practise the virtues or moral values until they are
your nature . When Morality is your nature, Love that is Universal and pure you become. Self-less you become. You become the Great Dao, and the Great Dao is you. Some term it as finding the True-self, Home,
Enlightenment, Heaven, and so on and so on. Thus one’s
body, mind and soul balance as a Pure Light and
merge with the Pure Great Universe.
Before this can happen,one must go together with the
practise of calmness meditation. Calmness meditation
is an integral part of moral cultivation and moral
cultivation is an integral part of calmness meditation. They are inseparable, same as Dao and De.
Life is short. Use it well. Whether one is truly cultivated or not, only the challenges of life and time will tell. The true and final judgement is not during your life time but when it ends.
Sow the good seeds and the good merits you receive.
Believe it or not lies in your action is your reaction.
Believe what is right to believe but not to be deluded.
moot,
Would you consider yourself agnostic about the existence of zeus, zenu, thor, ra, vishnu or any of the countless other “gods” that have belonged to “other religions” throughout human history? How about the flying spaghetti monster, unicorns, vampires, santa, or the easter bunny?
Or would you concider yourself an atheist with regards to these?
By your logic, atheism being intellectually dishonest, you must either be lying to yourself if you claim to not believe in any claim no matter how fantastical, or you do actually believe in any and every claim ever brought forth, including ones like aliens, the flying spaghetti monster, santa, etc which contradict many of the basic tenants of your religion (based on a quick scan of other posts on your site I am guessing you’re christian, so I have a good understanding of the basics of your faith).
If you believe in jesus then you should NOT believe in santa. However you claim that to not believe in something you must know everything. If you know everything, then by your definition you are god, in which case, seriously what the fuck is up with allowing priests to rape little boys, not having hitler die as a child, the spanish inquisition, witch burning, the crusades, racism, slavery, 9/11, etc all in YOUR name? (ok, that may be a bit over the top, but it does sort of drive the point home)
However, with that said, you never really touched on the overall gist of my original criticism of your blog post, which can be boiled down to “even the most hard core, staunch, scientifically minded atheist would be willing, if irrefutable evidence were given to acknowledge that something supernatural exists (such as god); HOWEVER the burden of proof is on the believers; Occam’s razor states ‘All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best’, meaning that when given a choice between a natural explanation and a supernatural one, pick the natural explanation”.
People of faith generally have blind faith and see that blind faith in the light of contrary evidence as a trait to be cherished. For most of the “faithful” there is no evidence that could persuade them that they are wrong. For most scientists if shown the correct evidence they would be obligated to change their position, however there is no evidence which is unquestionably evidence of “god” (despite what the discovery institute might try to claim).
Your next point that you try to make in your original thread, that God’s existence (or lack thereof) affects our choices” is easily the quickest to dismiss. In my view, even the most cursory thought into this proves that an even seemingly religious “choice” is in no way based on the “truth” of that religion.
As I previously posted, which you seem to have overlooked:
Why exactly must the existence of a “god” affect our choices?
Even something as seemingly religious as why people go to church (or synagogue, temple, buddist shrine, pray towards mecca a number of times a day, etc) really has absolutely nothing to do with whether god exists or not. They go because they believe “he” exists. They do not go because “he” actually does exist. If “his” existence dictated whether people will go to church or not, then EITHER everybody in the world would go (i.e. god exists) or NOBODY would go (i.e. atheists are correct).
If something that is SEEMINGLY 100% religious in nature has nothing to do with the actual existence of (or lack thereof) god, then why would ANY other choice we make be based on this.
Your choices may be based on YOUR PERSONAL belief in “god” or “allah” or “l ron hubbard” or whatever it may be, but the TRUTH of that belief is completely irrelevant.
As well, by your logic, Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Dahmer, etc all committed horrendous acts of violence against their fellow man BECAUSE of “God’s existence (or lack thereof)”. So either god exists, and caused the holocaust, or he does not and you can throw your belief system out the window.
As for you question of what evidence am I basing my conclusions on. I base my conclusions, on the constant scientific discovery through history. Originally “god” was used to explain the rising and setting of the sun and moon. Then later he created them on the 3rd day (quite impressive, in that it claims the earth existed 48 hours before the sun, pretty cool huh). Later the catholic church claimed that “god” did not really do these things in 6 days, roughly 6500 years ago, this story is just an allegory (although try to tell the 80 million evangelicals in the US that the universe is 14 billions years old, they’ll refuse to listen to any reasoned evidence).
There are many other examples of how “god” has diminished as our knowledge has increased. This is the very definition of the “god of the gaps”, which attempts to place “god” into the holes in our current understanding of the world instead of trying to learn the science behind those holes. Again, I refer you to Occam’s Razor that the simplest solution is the best unless there is evidence to support some other position.
humbleforest,
As with the writings of many eastern philosophies, your comments can be taken in a spiritual or non-spiritual way.
If you take these as ways to improve your own outlook on things, then I’d say that I agree, at least conceptually as far as I understand your comments.
If you take these in a spiritual sense where there is a “god” of some sort (be it the typical abrahamic god or a more “benign” concept of karma then I would have to respectfully disagree.
As somebody who follows many aspects of Taoism myself, I agree with much of what you said in theory, but I want to stress that I disagree with the implied spiritual aspects of this just as strongly as I disagree with the supernatural aspects of Christianity, scientology, islam, or any other religion.
All Religions have a common aim and concept of good
virtues and high morality for all human beings to learn and share with indiscriminate love among one another as a One Big Family in a One Harmonious and
Peaceful Community.
The Religious teachings is a pure teaching to remind
all humans to self-realise and cultivate one’s bad habits inorder to live happily and peacefully on this Earth, without spoiling her environment, the Space and destroying mankind.
There is no true progress spiritually if one has no
Love, Compassion and Morality for fellow men.
There is no true harmony if harmony is only achieved
with like-minded people.
True harmony is achieved when man accepts all.
The Love of GOD cannot be experienced if one’s heart
is closed and has no love for others. Serve GOD by
serving others. Expect no results. Expectations
reflect greed and ego.
GOD does not expect one to too attach or too rely on HIM.
HE loves to see everyone to have a mutual help and
respect without any differences whatsoever.
When one is right it does not mean the other is wrong.
When one is wrong it does not mean the other is right.
Each situation must be looked carefully and fairly on
its own facts.
However it is best not to judge others if you don’t
have to.
Do not be too preoccupied in judging others until one
is able to see one’s own faults and willing to correct
them. This a real Gentleman.
Speak the language of Love, not filty or vulgar language.i.e. Morality
Speak no evil.
Hear no evil.
See no evil.
Think no evil.
Act no evil,
In to-day’s society many are unable to differentiate
evil and good, shame and shameless.
humbleforest,
“All Religions have a common aim and concept of good
virtues and high morality”
Would this include Jim Jones group? I think you’re being too kind/naive.
“The Love of GOD cannot be experienced if one’s heart
is closed and has no love for others”
I have love for others (friends, family, etc), but I do not believe in any “god”. I can find no reason why one would waste time and energy believing in a supernatural entity that has no relevance to ones daily life?
“Speak no evil. Hear no evil. See no evil. Think no evil. Act no evil”
Two small points; who’s concept of evil, and those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.
For the sake of clarity I’d like to include a couple of definitions to make sure we’re on the same page.
Columbia Encyclopedia – Atheism, denial of the existence of God or gods and of any supernatural existence, to be distinguished from agnosticism, which holds that the existence cannot be proved.
So, in light of that definition I would be an agnostic about those other claims just like I would be about things like aliens or the Loch Ness monster. However, for the sake of honesty, because I am a Christian and have the added source of the scriptures with which to form my opinion, I do not believe in other gods. I don’t expect others to take the bible into account if they don’t already believe in God. So, I am an atheist in regards to other gods but only because I can use the bible to form my beliefs. Like you stated, “If you believe in Jesus, then you should NOT believe in Santa.” That’s an over-simplified but otherwise fair summation of my position.
Where we diverged in thought was when you said, “…you claim that to not believe in something you must know everything.” I said essentially to be an atheist you are positively claiming to know God doesn’t exist, which is a burden of proof one cannot meet. Again you can’t prove a negative.
However it does remain incumbent on me (if I want you to believe) to prove that He does exist, Occam’s Razor or no. By the way have you ever heard of Pascal’s Wager? It’s certainly not proof but it is an interesting intellectual exercise.
You also said that, “People of faith generally have blind faith and see that blind faith in light of contrary evidence as a trait to be cherished.” I don’t hold that position at all. I don’t think faith has anything to do with making a blind leap of assumption in the face of evidence to the contrary. I stated as much in an earlier comment.
I did make an ill-advised point about “God affecting our choices” and therefore requiring our thought. I humbly retract that statement.
It’s certainly not your job to defend a lack of belief as I stated earlier, the burden of proof is on my side of the fence. However I didn’t quite follow your explanation for not believing. You said that “god was used to explain the setting of the sun and moon” and the Catholic church claiming it was an allegory and how 80 million evangelicals dismiss that claim. I’m not sure I saw a reason there. I don’t dismiss your position because of atheists who might have done bad things because of their atheistic beliefs.
You’re probably right about the “God of the Gaps”. Even as a Christian I get frustrated by other Christians inserting God into situations that they don’t have any other explanation for.
I think that to answer your original questions – I as a Christian that believes in the bible can use the bible as additional evidence to support my conclusions regarding other supernatural phenomena, gods or “the flying spaghetti monster.”
What I’m curious about is the reason you’re an atheist. What specifically is it that proves to you that there is no God? (I realize that you don’t have to answer that. Again the burden of proof is on me I was just wondering if you could humor me.) You claim to positively deny God rather than be indifferent and I’m curious as to why?
I tried to answer you post let me know if I missed something again. I’d really like to think about the claims you bring up.
Thanks.
moot,
I do know of Pascual’s wager, however it is a bit of a joke IMO… If “god” is real, and the ONLY reason that you claim to believe is “just in case” then I would think that “god” would know your true thoughts and think you a liar for claiming to believe just to get out of hell on the off chance “he” exists. On the other hand, if I am wrong, and “god” does exist, and “he” is humanish (as the bible claims) then I would suspect that he would prefer an honest atheist to a lying one.
As for the difference between an atheist and an agnostic, agnostics don’t put a probability on the existance of god, they just say “I don’t know”; while atheists claim that “yes there is a chance god exists since a negative can not be proven, but that chance is so small as to be insignificant in any aspect of my life”. Even Richard Dawkins, who is about as “hard core” as atheists get claims that he is “only” 95% certain of the non-existence of all “gods”.
You can be an atheists with regards to every religion in history except the one you believe because the bible tells you those are false.
I am an atheist in regards to ONE more religion than you are (specifically, your religion).
As for non-religious, supernatural issues, such as bigfoot, unicorns, aliens, etc, you claim to be agnostic towards them. I claim to be atheistic towards them until good scientific evidence comes to light that shows the likelihood of them being real is high enough to make an impact in my life.
While it is true that I can not “prove” that aliens are not visiting this planet, mutilating cattle, abducting rednecks and probing them, I can state with certainty that this is not happening. I can state this just as certainly as I can state that the sun will rise in the east tomorrow.
As I mentioned previously: In reality though there is a ridiculously small chance that the sun will not in fact rise tomorrow.
There is the chance that tonight while I sleep a meteor could crash into the earth stopping it’s rotation on it’s axis. If this happened, the “other” side of the earth would be in constant day time, and “this” side would be in constant night.
There is a chance that scientists have miscalculated the amount of nuclear fuel in the sun, and it could finish expending the last of it’s energy some time tonight. Once this happens, the nuclear reaction in it’s core will stop, it will cease to make any more light, and 8 minutes later the earth will get the last bit of sunlight ever.
Admittedly, the chances of these scenarios happening are infinitesimally small, but they do exist. There is no possible reason to expect them, to plan for them (at least not for another 5 billions years for the “running out of fuel” one), or to even take them seriously, even though they COULD happen.
To me, the odds of this happening are roughly the same as the odds of aliens landing on the white house lawn and taking credit for Roswell, and all the other cases of sightings and abductions over the last 60-70 years. This is also the same likelihood that bigfoot will wander into my backyard tonight or that when I die I will be standing in front of a “pearly gate waiting for saint peter to tell me where I’m headed”.
My mentioning of the “shrinking” of god was used to show that “god” as most people see “him” is really a perfect “god of the gaps” in that “he” is used to fill in the gaps in human knowledge. Before we understood the earth rotating around then sun, it was “god” who lifted the sun up each day. Then we learned a bit about cosmology and then “god” created then sun. Then we learned how stars were created and that our sun is just an ordinary star, and “god” created the universe. Now we understand the beginning of the universe (at least to a degree) and people are relegating “god” to having set up the laws of the universe and setting the big bang in motion.
The more we learn about the world and the universe around us, the smaller “god’s” role becomes. In my opinion it is only a matter of time before the role of “god” shrinks to the point where “he” is no longer needed (it won’t be in my lifetime or my children’s lifetime, but for the sake of humanity, I hope it happens before religious zealots kill us all.
I deny the existence of any god for many reasons, but the first one in my own life was seeing the corruption of religion.
You can read a bit about my coming to my beliefs above in a reply to lrf if you’re interested (not that it goes intro great detail, but it does highlight a few of the points in my “de-conversion”).
I look around at christian churches, and I see the catholic church spending millions upon millions to keep kids quite who were sexually abused. Or look at Ted Haggard sleeping with male prostitutes and doing meth. Yes these could be isolated examples, but they are not, they are only the tip of the iceberg.
If “christ” was really “god” and people are doing this kind of shit in “his” name, “he” must wonder how badly he fucked up getting “his message” across. If people want to believe in something bigger than themselves and do good works in the name of that, more power to them (personally I think it’s an unnecessary step, but in some cases the ends may actually justify the means). However if those same people then attempt to justify their bigotry, hatred, violence, genocide, slavery, murder, and wars because that “something higher” told them to, I think we have a massive problem.
Whether “god” exists or not, a ton of really bad shit has happened, and continues to happen in “his name”, and we MUST find a way to stop it before it destroys civilization. We are at a point in history where one person can theoretically start a war that ends all human life on this planet.
“God” is an unnecessary delusion that we are all too happy to accept because it takes away our own responsibility for our thoughts and our actions.
I’m pretty sure we’ll never convince each other, but I do hope that you are at least coming to understand a bit the view of somebody who completely disagrees with such a fundamental aspect of your own beliefs. I spent many years trying to understand religion and faith, and now and trying to understand the people who have faith (although I admit, it’s very hard to come to any understanding with some of the people).
I may not agree with you, but I can at least, to a degree, see your point of view, which is hopefully one small step towards more people understanding each other.
I really appreciate your comments. I think the real point of contention was when I used “intellectual dishonesty” as a description. I don’t know if you remember an earlier post – but I retracted that wording. It’s not fair to say that something is intellectually dishonest when it an issues of definitions.
That Richard Dawkins is 95% sure no gods exist is fascinating. Like you said he seems to “hard core”.
But that goes to my point about definitions. Essentially isn’t Dawkins a “strong agnostic” and not an atheist in the strictest sense of the word? If that’s not true then what am I missing?
I’m totally with you about the terrible and ridiculous things that have been done in the name of the Christian God. I think you and I completely agree that horrible things have happened and continue to happen in the name of religion. However that brings up a really good question for me. I believe those things are awful because of what I believe about God (despite the fact that other people use the bible to justify the bad things they do.) So, upon what basis do you say things like the the holocaust were bad? What moral standard would you appeal to? Just curious
There’s a couple of other questions I had but I don’t want to lose the central question of this post.
Thanks again for the conversation. I’m really enjoying it and it’s really helpful to actually talk to someone. Sometimes Christians get together and try to talk about atheism as if we know anything about it.
By the way I’ll be watching the video on atheism.
moot,
The primary difference between your idea of “strong agnosticism” and “atheism” is that even though an atheist admits the chance that “god” exists is there, that chance is small enough to be irrelevant, so it is treated as zero.
As for where I get my moral standards, I’ll refer again to a quote by Dawkins I have previously mentioned:
“Religious people do not derive their morality from religion. I disagree (with the interviewer) on this point. Almost all of us do agree on moral grounds where religion had no effect. For example we all hate slavery, we want emancipation of women – they are all our moral grounds. These moral grounds started building only a few centuries ago and long after all major religions were established. We derive our morality from the environment we live in, Talk shows, Novels, Newspaper editorials and of course by the guidance of parents. Religion might only have a minor role to play in it. An atheist derives his morality from the same source as a religious people do.”
I think we understand each other better now than when this discussion began, so hopefully this post is helping a bit. I think our last real stumbling block seems to be the semantics of language.
An infant takes sometime to realise his senses and emotions for he is not attuned to this material world yet.
A man is not yet truly cultivated until he masters his
senses and emotions.
In within a person is a pure light whose shine is covered by sins, selfishness, greed and conceit.This
pure light can only shine brightly when karma or retribution is repaid ; the self diminishes and good deeds become you, motivated by unselfish Love.
Meditation in itself does not strengthen the pure light. Meditation performed correctly brings calmness and helps the body.
In moral cultivation, one’s senses may be sharpened and expanded. One’s consciousness grows. One may be said to have ” extra sensory perception. ” One should not cultivate with the objective of attaining these qualities but rather they are merely incidental effects of cultivation. Do not be too attached to them or one will stray from the true path of De or called Morality.
In this life as a human being all one needs is to live
the right way, do the right things.
All knowledge is yours upon reaching HOME. Live in the human realm fully when human. The mysteries of the Universe that don’t help in cultivation should be left aside for the moment for your time is limited.
The Supreme Almighty has sent many messengers. Their
messages are sufficient to guide one to return HOME.
Those who are skeptical and ignorant are left to seek
for their ownselves. They are given a choice to choose.
The mind of man is unstable and limited.
The limited cannot understand the Unlimited. So let it be.
Rodibidably,
It was definitely an issue of language. I will take the blame for being a stickler on the definitions bit. But I think we have a working idea on that front.
I disagree with Dawkins premise. Even if you don’t believe the bible is true we’d have to admit that even if moral standards exist outside scripture, the bible is the primary source from which we’ve access those moral standards. So rather than a minor role, religion (specifically Judeo-Christianity) played a major role in at least coalescing most western moral thought.
Interestingly even much of our vernacular comes from the Bible. Case in Point – You mentioned, “our last real stumblingblock…” the concept of stumblingblock is a biblical one or at least one popularized by the bible.
I don’t believe that our morality comes from religion. I believe what was reflected in the Declaration of Independence that “we are endowed by our Creator certain unalienable rights” While the rights they spoke of were not a full reflection of morality I do believe that morality to some degree is instilled in us by God. Unfortunately people have used many means (including religion) to suppress or even alter those moral standards. It is an interesting phenomenon that many unique cultures have similar moral standards. No country or culture respects a man who runs from battle or who treats his family with disrespect. While those things are not in themselves proof of a supernatural moral standard I think that it is an indication of one as opposed to an indication that there is no supernatural moral standard.
I’ve been giving a lot of thought to this discussion and learning what terms like “ontological” mean. I think I’m working up some stuff that helps me better articulate what I believe in a respectful way. If nothing else ever came out of the discussion, that would be benefit enough.
I still have to address your question of how I would judge my religious system true over other religious systems. I’m working on that. Thanks for being patient with me.
moot,
One other point to bring up to differentiate atheists from agnostics. True agnostics say in essence “we can’t know, so we should not form an opinion” while true atheists says “while it is true nobody can ever prove a negative, we can make certain judgments based on the evidence”.
From the earliest times messengers from the Almighty have walked among, teaching, guiding, sacrificing
for men with the hpoe that will walk the path of the
Almighty.
Man has often strayed or forgotten the moral teachings
and sometimes choose to disbelieve.
But always then and now with HIS compassion and
Universal Love, the Truth is revealed again and again to those who seek sincerely and faithfully.
The Almighty Loves all but HIS Love is turned away
by those impure hearts and sceptics.
Correction.
Sorry to miss out the word men
…………walked among men, teaching….
………..with the hope that men will walk….
moot,
Yes we get much language from the bible. We also get MUCH language from Shakespeare, does this mean he is divine? Just because something historical is often quoted does not mean it is true or “the word of god”.
As well, if you are going to state that the source of our morality is the bible, how would you explain a “moral” person from some part of Africa or India who has never been exposed to the bible? If the bible is the source of morality, then should anybody who has never been exposed to it be running around raping women, killing men, and enslaving children?
We get our morality from society. And while some of that can be traced back to the bible, I’m certain that it can be traced back even further to the sources the bible come from (and by this I mean the oral traditions passed down for generations that were eventually written into the torah not “god” writing the bible or inspiring men to write it).
You do make a very good point when you state “No country or culture respects a man who runs from battle”, and I wish you would read Richard Dawkin’s book The Selfish Gene (don’t worry, it’s not a religion bashing book at all, it is a look at the gene as the means of selection and replication). In this book he does a very good job of explaining how supposed acts of altruism (which fighting in a battle or giving your life up for another would be, since there is no direct benefit to yourself) are actually designed to help spread your own genes by virtue of your relatives being more likely reproduce based on your actions.
Dawkins does a much more thorough job of explaining this than I can in a brief post, but the bottom line is that all acts of morality and altruism are easily explained by means of natural selection.
The last point i would like to make in reply to your most recent comments is about your statement “It is an interesting phenomenon that many unique cultures have similar moral standards”. Would you ever consider killing your wife, mother, sister, or daughter because “she allowed herself to be raped”? Would you sacrifice an animal to appease the gods? Would you have multiple wives that you routinely abuse, including sex with minors who you make your “wives”? Would you shun modern medicine because “god does not condone it” and allow your children to die? Would you enslave people based on the color of their skin? Would you fly a passenger plane into a building killing thousands of innocent people?
Many billions of people throughout history have done all of these things in the name of being moral to their “god”.
Modern man seems to apply his selfishness, egoism, greed, power and fame to anything he handles.
One man cannot trust another although they live together. They live with suspicious, doubts and
fantasies.
Even in this world today, it is difficult to see what is in a man’s mind. He pretends to be cultured,
civilised, educated, noble and religious.
A man of true moral-cultivated, without pretence
fears not. He sees all in brotherhood.
________________________________________________
Life is beautiful and peaceful if one knows how,
Life is dirty, gloomy and ugly if one knows not.
_____________________________________________
The weak earthlings of this planet Earth are…
* There are people who are power greedy.
* There are people who are position crazy.
* There are people who are wealth hungry.
* There are pretenders who are holding the majority.
* There are perverters who are fact-twisting.
* There are instigators who are causing segregation.
* There are puppets on a string.
These people are possessive and pathetic and who
practise partiality and prejudices.
————————————————-
Discard away superstitious belief that hinders one’s
moral cultivation as oneself is the greatest enemy.
Mr. Rodibidably.
Please cool down and do not be too hasty to give judgement.
Kindly go through the article a few times and
comtemplate for a while.
Please do not attach to the word ” GOD ” and get frustrated. GOD is not like what you see HIM as an ugly person, enemy or a devil.
If GOD is a good person with respect, honest and without speaking dirty or firty language, don’t you
love HIM ?
What is wrong if HE teaches humans to love one another not to discriminate, not to involve in immoral acitivities, not to be greedy, proud, cheat, pretend, corrupt and many sinful acts ?
Is HE not right to guide us in this moral path ?
Always loathe the sin and not the sinner.
One cannot guarantee oneself that one is so perfect
that one does not commit any sin. If one can correct one’s faults without any excuses ,and not to repeat them then one has walked the moral path.
What is important is the present moment of cultivation. What is in the past or to be in the future is to be put aside for a while. Now is the time to uplift and upgrade one’s attitude through
right action. Lead a moral example through action,not
through too much words.
Sorry, Humbleforest is just sharing with you.
Any hurting remarks made, kindly forgive Humbleforest.
humbleforest,
Excuse me? When was I not calm exactly? When did I say something judgmental?
I have asked questions of people in response to their comments in hopes to understand their views better. I have commented on historical atrocities done in the name of “god” to make various points about morality and blind faith.
I don’t view “god” as a devil, I view “him” more like I view santa claus, or any other superstitious fairy tail; I view them as a now unnecessary construct of our evolution.
As for “him” teaching us morality, you mean the morality of killing a woman for allowing herself to be raped as in islam? Or do you mean teaching us how to act if we are slaves or how to treat our slaves as in judaism and christianity? Or perhaps you mean allowing children to die because “he” forgot to mention that medicines are good like the jehovah’s witnesses? How about hatred of others who “dare” to beleive in the “wrong god” as taught in many of the world’s religions throughout history, should we follow this morality and kill all non-believers in “our god”? Exactly which of these VILE DISGUSTING moralities that “he” taught us, should we listen to?
Religion has unleashed some of the most inhumane, unmoral aspects of humanity ever. For every good teaching of religion there are equal numbers of, if not more, examples of absolutely horrendous acts that have been justified as being done “in god’s name”.
THIS is what I object to; people trying to justify their own bigotries, their own racist tendencies, their own hatred, their own violent actions, their own “evil” actions, because some “book” or some “holy person” told them it was “god’s will”.
Slavery was not “god’s will”, it was man’s will. 19 people flying 4 planes into 3 buildings and a field in PA was not “god’s will”, it was the insane ranting will of a few pissed off people in the middle east. Jehovah’s witnesses allowing their children to die instead of giving them proper medical treatment is not “god’s will” it is their own fucking ignorance.
—–
Edit: Ok, I’ll admit, now I lost my calm
You have a lot of irons in the fire when it comes to this discussion. I don’t want you to feel attacked on multiple fronts .
I wasn’t trying to prove the bible is divine because of it’s impact on culture. I was just making the point that it has contributed largely to shaping, if not generating, most western moral boundaries.
I also didn’t make the claim that the Bible should be the basis of our morality. To be clear, I believe that it should because I believe it’s a fair representation of God’s standards, but I certainly don’t intend to expect to hold a non-believer to that standard.
We agree that religion (whether intentionally or unintentionally) can be twisted and used compel people to commit atrocities. However the same holds true for atheism. Hitler formed his beliefs on Nietzsche’s teaching, Stalin certainly represented atheism as a philosophy. Those two alone are responsible for the deaths of over 20 million people.
You said that religion has released some of the most inhumane, immoral acts ever. Both camps have their hands dirty on this issue. I think there’s more to this particular topic but suffice it to say, atheism is certainly not superior on that front.
I’m still working on your original question of how I know my religion is true. Don’t mistake my tardiness for not having an answer I just want to make sure I give a careful and articulate answer.
moot,
The Hitler being an atheist thing has been refuted many times over the years. He was raised a catholic and one of the first things he did was to get one of the many supposed “spear of destiny” from a museum in Austria. If he did not believe in “god”, and did not believe that jesus specifically was “god” then why waste any time and effort on getting this “artifact”. I know they are just mindless movies, but the idea in the Indiana Jones movies that the Nazi’s were obsessed with the occult is based on reality. There are many papers written on Hitler’s religiosity which can show in great detail how he not only believed in “god”, he felt that he was “chosen by god” to lead Germany at that time (and some have even shown examples of how he may have felt that he was in fact the “second coming”.
(I already know this next paragraph is gonna piss some people off, but here goes anyways)
As for the death’s of millions, I’ll see your “stalin” and raise you “mother theresa”. She singlehandedly has caused the suffering and death of more people than any single person in history. By going to the poorest nation on the planet that was already suffering from famine and “teaching” them that any form of birth control was “evil”, she did more to help cause the spread of diseases (like hepatitis and hiv/aids) and the overpopulation (and then as one would expect in a nation already with a massive shortage of food and an even greater population, death by starvation) of people than ANY SINGLE PERSON IN HISTORY.
Yes, Stalin was a evil despicable bastard, but so was “mother theresa” (feel free to change “evil despicable bastard” to “cold heartless bitch” if you prefer due to the difference in gender.
(those wishing to rant about me “daring” to defile the memory of mother theresa, please try to spend more than 15 seconds finding actual data to disprove my point, don’t just state “she helped poor people”, there would not have been as much suffering if not for her misguided attempts to “help” them)
We both agree that religion has been twisted to cause horrendous acts of violence. We can also agree that people have committed horrible acts under the guise of atheistic doctrines as well. The primary difference is that religion teaches people not to question the “mind of god”, where atheism teaches rational scientific skepticism.
I do believe that atheism is “superior on that front” in that any atheistic regime that causes atrocities will be brought down from within (stalin’s regime for instance) much faster than a religious regime (the catholic church as an example) since one that one overpowering leader dies or shows some sort of weakness, the people will openly question the direction they are headed, where in a religious organization there is no ability to ever question “god”.
I apologize if some of my recent posts are coming off as a bit “ranting”, but something about humbleforest making me answer the same question yet again seems to have put me in a “mood” today, I promise, I’ll be a tad more understanding tomorrow.
No problem. Bizarrely enough I more or less agree with you about Mother Theresa. Let me explain.
I believe abortion is wrong. I believe that based on the concept that human life is valuable. However if I also believe that babies, because of their innocence, if they die they go to heaven. While an abortionist is morally wrong (the ends do not justify the means) in a twisted sense he is doing Christians a favor by sending millions of people straight to heaven.
Please don’t make to much of this. I just say that in order to give you an idea that while I think abortion is morally wrong, it serves a purpose. I understand there’s a moral conflict to be worked out there.
moot,
Personally I support a woman’s right to choose. But I think that if possible, adoption is a better alternative than abortion, since there are many people who are unable to have children, but due to the legal process, or the finances, can not currently adopt a child.
I personally feel that abortion should be the LAST resort, but I think it does need to be available as an option for people.
My bigger point with “mother theresa” is her stance against condoms or other ways to avoid pregnancy to start off with. If more people had safe sex then the spread of diseases and the number of unwanted pregnancies would plummet, as would the need for abortions.
I think I understood your point. She had a very strict interpretation of some biblical ideas (An incorrect interpretation I believe) because of her Catholicism. When you combine that with her zeal to help and thus impose her ideas on others, you end up with this huge negative side effect.
A note on Hitler. I never said he or the Nazi Party weren’t religious. If I remember correctly they wore belts with a leather tab that said, “Gott mit uns” which you can probably guess means “God with us”.
I did say Hitler’s ideas were directly taken from Nietzsche who was an atheist.
There probably could be a discussion on the inevitable results of the ideas were talking about.
Most huaman beings possess the rational mind, that is being able to more than merely to sense things and surroundings with their senses. They are able to perceive the things and surroundings which are sensed
by their basic sense organs.
Some are even able to conceptualise what they have
perceived. But not so common are those who may possess intuition, that is, the ability to
” foresee ” what has yet to happen and to ” apprehend ” without the reasoning of the mind.
All these depends on one’s consciousness.
The highest form of consciousness may be termed as Cosmic Consciousnes; where all knowledge and awareness is obtained.
Even among humans,the level of consciousness differs
from one individual to another. However most possess only the ability to perceive and conceptualise.
What is Reality ?
To answer this, it depends on one’s consciousness, that is, the ability of each to perceive and understand.
In this material realm of humans this is your “reality”. It is often taught that your World is an illusion, but until you progress and become matured, it is your “reality”, for this is only most of you can understand and perceive.
More importantly, how you conduct yourself in this World affects your future and true-self. So isn’t
this illusion to be taken seriously at your present
state ?
Even at this human realm in this same “reality”
not all “see” and “understand” the same.
So when the Deities speak of other “REALITIES” with their higher consciousness, humans struggle to understand, for their (humans’) limited mind try
to grasp what is beyond their mental capabilities,
using the limited human language. That is the reason why one should try to grasp the ” essence or gist ”
and not the material form or the superficial surface of the text or article.
What cannot be fathomed, intangible and not useful are to be set aside.
Learn practise and perfect what you can at this very moment. “Now” is urgent as one has a limited time to
self-cultivate.
Do not be distracted by the mysteries or supernatural of the other worlds.
Practise De or Moral values in one’s daily life. Have a indiscriminate Love and Compassion for all, and always be calm. In time the pure light will shine brightly and your Consciousness shall expand.
Believe it or not depends on the degree of one’s
sincere cultivation.
The Dynamic equilibrium of the Universe is sustained by what may be termed as Cosmic Consciousness. Some
term it as the Great Dao or simply as GOD.
The human body like a little Universe itself is in constant flux. Countless cells are degenerating and
regenerating all the time. But the general form and
composition remains the same. The energy that sustains this little Universe is the consciousness.
The human consciousness may be classified into two
broad categories.
* The first is the ” human soul “, which is the
disembodied self. This soul is a discarnate state
of the personal self or consciousness.
* The second part is the ” human mind “, which is the embodied self of the personal self or consciousness.
The human mind is the incarnate state of the
personal self or consciousness, or simply the
material manifestation of the consciousness.
As the consciousness consists of not only the
” physical aspect “, it survives the death of the
physical body.
Consciousness may exist in both ” energy ” or
” matter “, or in the subtle, or gross form.
Thereby, Morality is used to cultivate the mind,
body and soul. They are practised to harmonise or
in balance and become the pure true light where
it will reach the Great Dao or merge with the
Cosmic Consciousness.
Mr. Rodibidably,
If you don’t mind, Humbleforest needs to share some
of the pointers with you…..
Please be advised that you may help those who really
need help, then only comment what is necessary and
make a direct to the point. Be simple and precise.
Sometimes you may learn from them as well. Do not have an inferiority complex.
Be polite and prudent but not be arrogant and hasty in answering.
As you have already know, the Morality of our World
has declined tremendously. Many people are confused and deluded to differentiate what is right and wrong,
or shame and shameless.
It is because many religious teachings have created
misconceptions and fear in the minds of the people.
It may due to the people’s ignorance or the egoistic
or selfish and unqualified religious cliques or leaders who preach on segregation and discrimination.
These religious ” cliques or leaders ” may manipulate
or attach to words to frighten their innocent followers for their personal interests in the name
of the Almighty. They may abuse or misuse their power.
Whether you can answer you answer. If it is beyond
your means to answer, it is better not to, as you
won’t make a mockery of yourself. This is a humble
way of not to be ashamed of.
By the way, Humbleforest feels sorry to interfere
in your intelligence of affairs with some of the pointers. Kindly accept my apology.
humbleforest,
“the Morality of our World has declined tremendously”
Really, I thought that not having slavery and apartheid now when it had been rampant throughout human history up until very recently was a good step towards better morality.
The majority of people who think that morality is declining are those who attempt to grab their morality from their own selective interpretation of their “scripture”. Those who are generally prudish when it comes to human sexuality and use the bible or other “holy books” to justify their own prejudices.
Those who objectively look at how we treat our fellow man now vs throughout history see that we are more “civilized” and “understanding” of others today than we have ever been in the past.
Rodibidably,
I thought I’d give you a brief update on what I’m thinking in regards to your original “open question”. Your question was essentially – “how do we know what we believe is true?”
The questions that need to be examined are two-fold.
First – What makes a certain belief system unique or distinct?
For example, there’s not a lot of point in simply examine the existence of God to prove my belief system in that all religious world views share a belief in God.
Second – Are the unique claims of that belief system valid?
This is sort of working backward. Up till this point we’ve been dealing with the basic point at which we diverge – the existence of God. While definitively answering that question would make or break any religion, it doesn’t really address you original question.
So what I’d like to do is start my argument by asking the question, are the unique claims of Christianity valid?
Does that sound fair?
moot,
That does sound like a valid starting point. You as a christian believe that jesus, was the son of god (and if you believe in the trinity as well, he also is god). You don’t believe, as islam claims, that he “faked” his death on the cross, and that he was “just a prophet” while mohamed was given allah’s true intentions which became the koran. Part of your belief system must involve some number of “reasons” why not only your views on jesus are correct, but why muslims are incorrect (we could use scientology, judaism, hinduism, or any other religion as the example as well).
This would, at least in part, answer the “how do you know what that “truth” is” part of my original question.
You hit the nail right on the head concerning Christ being unique to Christianity. I suppose it should have been obvious in that we call it Christ-ianity but…
Can I ask what you believe about Jesus as an historical figure? I’m not trying to get you to make my argument it’s just that our discussion to this point has been about a more abstract concept of God. You essentially know my views concerning Christ, if not how I’ve come to conclude they’re true. I would really like to hear what you as an atheist believes about Jesus.
moot,
As a historical figure I am fairly well convinced that he was at least in part based on one actual person, however (and this is a fairly BIG however) if you look at many of the “details” of his life (virgin birth, rising from dead, walking on water, etc) there are “historical accounts” of many deities from other religions that were popular in the world at that time that exhibited the same “miracles”.
From much of my research on this time in history, and especially in that part of the world in that specific community there were many different people who were claiming to be the “messiah” or “divine”. There are accounts of at least 3 other historical figures from the same time that had believers who followed them and had faith that they were “god” or “divine”, etc…
My personal guess (and this is only a guess) is that jesus was one of a number of people trying to “lead his people” and perhaps he was claiming to be the messiah (although there is a good chance that he himself never actually claimed divinity during his lifetime). He was probably a very charismatic leader, but most likely after his death the story of his “life” was exaggerated to include many current myths of the time.
I do wish there were more unbiased accounts of that time period to allow the historical record to be more accurate, but the catholic church did do a very good job of eliminating most records that disagreed with their point of view.
Mr. Rodibidably,
Humbleforest would like to point out that you have
misinterpreted the word Morality.
It seems that you are a person full of knowledge and
words and a simple word like Morality has been
misconstrued.
What is Morality ???
Morality is the key to open our heart and mind to
differentiate what is right and wrong, good and evil
or bad, illusion and reality.
Only with moral key one is able to open one’s heart,
that is the ability to self-realise and correct
one’s sinful acts.
* With Morality or moral value, one knows how to show a respect and gratitude to others. Not only to others
but to one’s parents, relatives, brothers and sisters
friends and elderly people.
* With Morality or moral value, it teaches one to be honest and sincere in our speech and action.
* With Morality or moral value, whatever one does
one should be fair to all. There must not be
partiality in one’s heart.
* With Morality or moral value, one should have
full responsibility in oneself, one’s family,
one’s profession and one’s loved ones without
pretence or any excuses.
* With Morality or moral value, one must not
commit adultery or any sexual misconduct.
One should understand what is lust and
married life. They are two different issues.
True and sincere love will make a couple lasts
until death.
* With Morality or moral value, one should be of
low profile, polite and have a courtesy for others.
A person of humbleness fears no fall.
Pride goes before the fall.
* With Morality or moral value, one should not
commit any crime, immoral activities and other
dishonest means.
* With Morality or moral value, one should help
those in dire needs. Help with right
understanding and happiness of one’s heart
without expecting anything in return.
* With Morality or moral value, one should
restraint from greediness. What is enough is
enough. Do not succumb to glamorous temptations.
* With Morality or moral value, one should avoid
committing evil deeds like, smoking or selling illegal drugs, forcing or luring women or their partners into prostitution, encouraging prostitution, pornographies screening, selling and
distributing them,
committing sex on underaged children and even
animals, abuse of children and exploiting and
trading them, even adults are being
exploited and used as human trade, murder
for someone’s payment, carry out kidnapping
and ransom, smuggling illegal firearms and
many other things, legal officers abusing
and misusing their power on the innocent
public, invading other territories claiming
as to protect other’s territories, bombing
the innocents, hospitals and worshipping
places, claiming that it is a mistake,
pushing the blame on others, manipulating
the stock market, imposing heavy taxes
every now and then on unnecessary
spending, exploiting the land, sea and
even the space. The cause of this has been
seen by the effect of global warming,
melting of the icebergs, and many natural
disasters. This is the natural Law of
Retribution. What one sows,
sow shall one receive.
Mr. Rodibidably,
Are you guiding many bloggers in your blog with the
idea of your word ” Morality ” in the right direction ?
Does Humbleforest’s word of ” Morality ” of the above-said hurt you or give you and your bloggers a
misconstrued meaning ?
Do you need people to move in the moral path or
to get out of the moral path ?
Always study the whole passage calmly and cautiouly
otherwise you may be the one who will misguide your bloggers. Look out for the essence, and do not
attach too strongly to the word or the
phrase.
For example, the paradox of this phrase,
” Crime does not pay, sooner or later you have to
pay your crime. ”
Humbleforest hope you may understand what
Humbleforest means. No hard emotion to be
resting in your mind and heart.
Thank you.
humbleforest,
Dictionary.com defines Morality to be:
1. conformity to the rules of right conduct; moral or virtuous conduct
2. moral quality or character
3. virtue in sexual matters; chastity
4. a doctrine or system of morals
5. moral instruction; a moral lesson, precept, discourse, or utterance
6. The quality of being in accord with standards of right or good conduct
7. A system of ideas of right and wrong conduct: religious morality
8. Virtuous conduct
9. A rule or lesson in moral conduct
Up until very recently in human history, slavery was in “conformity to the rules of right conduct; moral or virtuous conduct”.
Slave owners were considered to have good “moral quality or character”.
The bible, which according to a large portion of the people on this planet is the ‘true word of god’ gave “rule(s) or lesson(s) in moral conduct” related to how to treat slaves.
Where is your condemnation of slavery? A couple of hundred years from now there may be yet another topic that we NOW view as acceptable, but in the future will be viewed as barbaric. If you live your life by a static written set of guidelines then your moral standards can not change with the times, but if you get your morality from society (which in my view we all truly do, even if we claim it’s from a “holy book”, then as society changes, so does our morality with it.
My point on morality is that if people get their morality unquestioningly from a book (ANY book) written hundreds or thousands of years ago, then there are many aspects which will be ignored and there are many aspects which will no longer agree with the morality of current times.
The Universal Truth on Morality never changes. It
is human’s attitude that changes. The Morality is like a pure water, when it comes in contact and mixes with dirty water it becomes dirty.
So when moral teachings contact with those impure thoughts the true meaning of it will be misconstrued or misinterpreted. Some use Morality to misinterprete or twisted its meaning for their personal gain or pride.
So you are been caught in its web.
Mr. Rodibidably,
You have complicated yourself with the
true meaning of morality
You do not know whether the word “slavery” with morality interpreted by you or someone else is correct. You just jump to the conclusion to
brush aside that morality is not something to do
good in the present or future.
So in this case are you encouraging
more people to do bad or evil things ?
What you are mentioning may be that of another
issue of good and evil, which they co-exist. That is part of the translation of Dao.
If you go deeper into its essence, which few people
are unable to understand and accept, is actually there is no good or evil in the Great Dao. But in this planet Earth there is good and evil. The
law of dualism exists on this Earth same as the binary code which keeps on multipling in this computer age.
Therefore moral teaching guides one to walk the
middle path, be fair, moderate, unbias and not to
be out of track or be too extreme.
If one does not build one’s true character
or attitude properly through moral values then the
next generation will follow suit taking moral
as immoral to become a culture.
For example, kissing in public for a couple
may be a moral to one culture and immoral to another. This situation should be taken into consideration to see whether it is done too extreme.
Another case, for example if one were to
follow the time of uncivilised age,
where people did not know how to make and wear
clothes, were totally naked. If this culture were to continue until today, what do you think ?
Moral or immoral ???
Please do not misguide others with too many
reasons and excuses. It may make a mockery of
yourself.
Self-realise with moral values and do not
feel ashame to admit one’s mistake.
Please do not let the word, ” Morality”
disturbs your mind and dim your inner light,
Sorry, for technical error.
Correction in the middle of 3rd paragraph.
” If one does not build one’s true character or attitude properly through moral values then the
next generation will follow suit taking into
consideration of ” immoral ” to be moral as a
culture.
Sorry for the mistake made.
humble,
You state: “Universal Truth on Morality never changes”.
Are you actually serious? Up until very recently in the United States women were not allowed basic rights, such as voting, owning land, etc… Even today in some muslim countries a woman is killed for allowing herself to be raped.
Read that again before you comment.
Even today in some muslim countries a woman is killed for allowing herself to be raped.
By my standards of morality, this is absolutely insane. By the standards of most Western countries, this is insane. But by the laws, customs, and “morality” of such countries as Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Iran, Syria, etc this is accepted as being justifiable and “moral”.
If any “holy book” is going to claim to be the authority on morality, it ought to state fairly unambiguously that “slavery is bad” and that “all men, women, and children should be treated equally (regardless of race, etc”. Does the bible make any claims like this? Does the Koran? Does your “holy book”?
None of the ancient “holy books” state this, because at the time they were written certain things were accepted in their society.
You stated: “So in this case are you encouraging more people to do bad or evil things”.
When did I encourage anybody to do anything other than to question their own beliefs? Is questioning “bad or evil” in your view? How do you think that we have managed to accomplish so much as a society; we questioned things, and that lead us to discoveries. Just as children learn by questioning their parents about the world, we as society learn by questioning the status quo.
To not question is to be complacent. It is to allow the superstitions of the past to run our lives today.
While I welcome all views, you have yet to make one comment that even resembles a well thought out commentary on anything relevant. You are obviously happy in quoting something blindly (a book, person, website, etc) without seemingly comprehending the meaning of the words you are copying. It seems almost as if a young child without a real grasp of the discussion keeps trying to make a point which is completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
You have yet to respond intelligently to even one point that has been made, you have just continues to parrot these ideas which either you don’t understand, or have misinterpreted to try to force into the conversation despite their irrelevance.
I welcome all input, but I would hope that you at least TRY to respond intelligently to some of the messages directed at you across the various comments. If you are unable or unwilling to do this, so be it, but I can not keep wasting my time talking AT a person who has very little hope of ever “getting it”.
Mr. Rodibidably,
You do not know about your past or to be in the
future, so do Humbleforest.
We are talking and discussing on the present
moment on Morality which can help us in our
character building to be a better humble human
being.
We are inculcating moral values in our ownself
so that we can lead or comment on others.
Whatever is good to us in ridding our bad
habits through moral values should be used
and encourage others at this present moment.
Those that are in the past and future that
do not help in our moral cultivation should
be set aside.
Whether you want to accept the right way of
morality is up to you. You can reason
whatever you want.
You can say morality is incorrect, that depends
on the degree of your cultivation. Please check whether your “enemy” called Egoism,
Arrogance, Self-centered still stays
in your heart. Get rid of it before it is too late.
Sorry, Mr Rodibidably,
You feel very upset about the word Morality,
because you are so engrossed in it.
From your article mentioned, it is human who
manipulates and twists its true meaning, that I
have already mentioned in my article
which you have overlooked.
Please don’t be too upset about it.
You can’t change their custom or culture
overnight. Even the super-powers of World leaders
cannot change them.
If you want to know the answer of who miscontrue
its true meaning, then you have to dig deeply into
its root. Whatever out of your reach to help, just
leave for a moment. Help those who really need help,
then only you are not wasting your time.
Remember have patience to read the text clearly.
Humbleforest once again wish to apologise for
the sharp and hurting remarks made on you.
Kindly accept my apology.
humble,
Seriously, do you even read my comments to you? I mean the ENTIRE comment, not just one or two sentences. Either you are just too dense to comprehend the concepts being discussed here, or you choose not to read the entire content of each comment, but either way I have yet to see anything valid you have added to the discussion.
Half of your “comments” are completely off topic, and the other half are nonsensical.
You have yet to make even one comment related to the original purpose of this post:
“How certain are you that your version of the “truth” (truth of god, religion, the world, the universe, etc) is the correct one, and more importantly, how do you know what that “truth” is?”
You have yet to respond intelligently to any of the comments directed at you, or defend any of your “comments” that I have brought into question.
As for your “input” on the side discussions of morality, you have yet to make an intelligent, rational post on the source of morality that was more than just a parrot of some other source that you seemingly do not even comprehend yourself.
What EXACTLY is the point you’re trying to make? What is it that you think you’re adding to the discussion?
I am diametrically opposed to the position that hank, moot, ala, other “christians”, and people of other religions take; but even with that opposition I can respect the points they make, since they do make actual points that make sense. While in my view they are wrong in their conclusions, they actually do have (mostly) intelligent points to make.
Your inane ramblings come across as those of somebody who really fails to understand not only the discussion going on at the time, but even basics of the language (metaphorically speaking) that the discussion is going on in.
I personally would not have guessed that in a forum with myself, people who believe in a 6500 year old universe, and somebody who (seemingly) follows eastern philosophy that the one quoting Tao would come off as the least intelligent participant.
First of all, I would like to thank you for putting in so much time and effort into developing this masterpiece.
To avoid being stereotyped, please read
http://pressthat.wordpress.com/statement-of-belief/
In my search for God journey, I was told that most religious writings describe very obvious interactions between man and the supernatural via angels, so I had to search for the writings themselves to be able to solve the mystery.
I had to study the Abraham’s Triangle, Judaism,Christianity and Islam.Differences and similarities was the theme of my study, I used different sources to represent different thoughts,beliefs and points of view regarding mismatched concepts or ideologies and I found out that each side is totally rejecting the other fundamentally based on a man made religious text, the reason is due to political issues related to the religious state at any era.
The Quran claims that the essentials of the message it brings to humanity are the same as those perceived and transmitted by earlier messengers over the course of human history, including the “revelations” on which the major religions were based. Unfortunately, these essentials have to a large degree been lost or distorted under layers of later constructions and elaborations.
This is the essence of what God has to say to us, according to the Quran. This is what he has said to human beings through all the prophets and seers who have perceived his message, enshrined now in the many religions that have held the allegiance of countless millions over the centuries, in spite of this message being largely concealed under the later additions and interpretations of men.
It’s clearly natural to find in these religious writings contradicting opinions due to human interference with God through traditions and false attributed sayings.
Fortunately, God is uninterested in the titles and divisions that people choose for them such as Muslims, Jews, Christians and Sabiens.
For this reason, God confirms in two verses that those who believe in God alone as the only God, believe in the Day of Judgment as the divine day of absolute justice and maintain peace and perform righteous deeds as a proof of their belief in the last day, they are the allies of God whether they are the followers of the Quran or the Old and New Testament (2:62, 5:69).
These two verses confirm the other two verses: “The religion before God is Islam” and “Whoever desires a religion other than Islam, never will be accepted of him” (3:19 &85).
These verses imply that he who believes in God, the last day and performs righteous deeds in this world will be considered a Muslim in the sight of God on the Last Day regardless of the title he/she had in this world. It is up to God alone- not to us – on the Day of Judgment – not now- to judge the faith. Any one that claims this right to him/her is claiming divinity upon himself.
Two elements that makes the Quran a unique religious text, the message and the structure, the balance of word repetitions in relation to their meanings and the mathematical structure based on the number 19 (Over it are Nineteen 74:30 ), is a proof that the choice of words is uniquely chosen and distributed throughout the verses, which are defined from the book as signs (Ayat).
You can find God through signs that are considered as evidences and proofs only by yourself for the true existence of God.Finally, I would like to invite anyone interested in understanding more about my sect to visit the following link:
http://pressthat.wordpress.com/2008/02/22/truthbooth-top-200-articles-10-months/
Peace
Stefan Rosty
stefan,
Thank you for your praise. I think this thread has taken on a life of it’s own due to the number of honest intelligent, yet differing opinions.
I do have a few questions, to clarify your beliefs based on your statement “These verses imply that he who believes in God, the last day and performs righteous deeds in this world will be considered a Muslim in the sight of God on the Last Day regardless of the title he/she had in this world”:
1) What of children who die before they are old enough to have a “belief” of god, how are they treated on the “Last Day”?
2) What of those who “claim” to be christian, or jewish or muslim but live their lives doing only for themselves. They may live their life “by the rules”, but their motives are fully and knowingly selfish, how are they treated on the “Last Day?
3) What of those who are brought up in a hindu, buddhist, etc culture their entire lives and have no knowledge of “god” or “allah”, how are they treated on the “Last Day?
4) What of those who are brought up in a hindu, buddhist, etc culture their entire lives and activly rejct the concept of one single “god” in favor of their own belief system, how are they treated on the “Last Day?
5) And finally, what of those who are by choice Atheist or Agnostic and actively reject the concept of any “god”, how are they treated on the “Last Day?
I know these points MAY seem trivial, but I think your answer will shed a bit of light (for me) on your belief system.
God is definitely on the good side of all aspects of life and the individual is responsible for his actions and his perception of God but in the end he will be judged by the limits given in the Quran ( Which are few in comparison with the Torah and the Sunni Shariah laws).
Children will be judged as children, each case will have a fair judgment considering every single detail affecting their personality and decisions in their lives, to sum up, you will be punished in the afterlife a punishment equivalent to the harm you caused based on your age and historical/religious background.
Concerning those who “claim” to be Christian, or Jewish or Muslim but live their lives doing only for themselves. They may live their life “by the rules”, but their motives are fully and knowingly selfish are selfish people who will be punished because they have accepted using force on others based on their false dogmatic beliefs, therefore they are not living by the rules and they are setting partners with God.
Atheists have different fundamental beliefs and they have different backgrounds, In most cases they will reject living within the limits or “by the rules” of God and unfortunately they will be punished for exceeding their limits like any other.
Buddhist, Hindus, Jews, Christian and Muslims are to search for the truth, but in most cases they will submit to the laws they have inherited from their fathers and their fathers are blindly following their forefathers without questioning or reasoning with them, so they will be punished for every action that causes harm they cause under God’s name.
To be more clear, the truth will be revealed on the “Last Day” and the messengers of God will stand as witnesses for their nation and the text is the criterion, my job is to let you know the text and your job is to search for it even if your people are claiming that they know it and they deeply believe in it and they are misguided.
So a good Buddhist with rightly weighted balanced will not be punished and even harmless atheists will be rewarded for their positive outcome but i guess their spiritual outcome will be less in life and the afterlife.
Harmful atheists, apostates and extremist killers will be punished badly, false prophets and people who wrote the book with their own hands and claimed that its from God will suffer in the “Last Day” for what they have caused.
Peace
Stefan,
Perhaps I am reading too much into your comments, but it seems that you say that any believer (no matter their faith) can live a good life, but that all atheists are by definition sinners.
I find it quite interesting that you group together “atheists, apostates and extremist killers”.
I am an atheist myself. I live my life by the general principal of “do unto others, as you would have them do unto you”. My view is that not only should people do nothing to harm others, but that they should, when possible try to make a positive difference in the lives of others. As an atheist, with no belief of an afterlife, I feel that we must do all we can while we are alive to make a lasting impression upon others and upon the world, because (in the view of any atheist) this is the ONLY life we get, and we get no “second chances”.
Does my “rejecting” god automatically make me a “sinner”? (not that I claim to NOT be a sinner
, but I am curious if my atheism is an automatic sin which much be punished by god)
And back to the original question of this post, HOW is it that you “know” that the Quran is correct and that your belief in god is the “truth”?
I find it quite interesting that you group together “atheists, apostates and extremist killers”.
“harmful atheists, apostates or extremist” I meant harmful as disobeying the orders and exceeding the limits in murder, rape, prostitution etc..because they reject the existence of God and his laws because it could be an obstacle in their lifestyle or financial income.
Rejecting God doesn’t make an atheist/apostate a sinner, its a choice and I think that you have a load of reasonable answers to answer when you will be asked why did you lose your religion ? with Michael Stipe.
If you listen to different point of views you will not find a single belief system free from man made errors, the misconception about God makes the rejection an ideal solution for the clash of religious ideologies and after all its a positive action as long as you are a peaceful person.
stefan,
“I meant harmful as disobeying the orders and exceeding the limits in murder, rape, prostitution etc”
What I don’t get is why you grouped atheists with extremist killers? This seems odd to me that you would group these two types of people. To me this seems like grouping rapists and people who are left handed (i.e. there is absolutely no correlation between the two groups).
“they reject the existence of God and his laws because it could be an obstacle in their lifestyle or financial income”
So as an atheist, I’m more likely to break the law and be poor? If you look at the population as a whole and compare it to the prison system population the statistics show that atheists are SIGNIFICANTLY less likely to be in prison than they are representative of the overall population.
As well, a letter published in Nature in 1998 reported a survey suggesting that belief in a personal god or afterlife was at an all-time low among the members of the U.S. National Academy of Science, only 7.0% of whom believed in a personal god as compared with more than 85% of the general U.S. population.[93] In the same year Frank Sulloway of MIT and Michael Shermer of California State University conducted a study which found in their polling sample of “credentialed” U.S. adults (12% had Ph.Ds and 62% were college graduates) 64% believed in God, and there was a correlation indicating that religious conviction diminished with education level. Such an inverse correlation between religiosity and intelligence has been found by 39 studies carried out between 1927 and 2002, according to an article in Mensa Magazine.
Since at least in US society education is equated with financial security I would find your comment about financial income to be a bit confusing. I personally know of no studies that have looked at income and atheism, but there have been dozens that show a direct correlation between education and atheism, and many that have shown links between education and financial security.
I am not trying to “attack” you, I promise, but comments like these seem to be far to common with no real evidence behind them (not just from you, but in general).
HOW is it that you “know” that the Quran is correct and that your belief in god is the “truth”?
I tried asking myself many questions
Who wrote it ?
1-Mohamed alone
2-Mohamed and the Ten wise Jews
3-Some people before or after Mohamed
if Mohamed wrote it I’ll thank him and I’ll live in his delusion,I don’t believe that it is possible to synchronize the commands and stories in a rhymed sound fitting into a mathematical structure, plus the explanation of human behavior and different mentalities made me feel for the first time that the author has an ideal vision of human beings and earth.
Basically, its the code or theory of 19 that I used as a proof that the text is not man made.
“This is nothing but the words of a human.” 74:25
http://www.openburhan.net/ob.php?sid=74&vid=25
Over it are Nineteen. 74:30
http://www.openburhan.net/ob.php?sid=74&vid=30
And We have made the guardians of the Fire to be Angels; and We did not make their number except as a test for those who have rejected, so that those who were given the Scripture would understand, and those who have faith would be increased in faith, and so that those who have been given the Scripture and the believers do not have doubt, and so that those who have a sickness in their hearts and the rejecters would Say: “What did God mean with an example such as this?” It is such that God misguides whom He wishes, and He guides whom He wishes. And none know your Lord’s soldiers except Him. And it is but a reminder for mankind. 74:31
http://www.openburhan.net/ob.php?sid=74&vid=31
No, by the moon, And by the night when it withdraws, And by the morning when it brightens, It is one of the great ones. 74:32-35
http://www.openburhan.net/ob.php?sid=74&vid=35
What is that “it”in “it is but a reminder for mankind”
and “It is one of the great ones”
What will happen so that those who were given the Scripture would understand and those who have faith would be increased in faith, and so that those who have been given the Scripture and the believers do not have doubt, and so that those who have a sickness in their hearts and the rejectors would Say: “What did God mean with an example such as this?”
“What did God mean with an example such as this?”
The answer is the code 19 that was discovered in 1974 (1406 Islamic calendar) based on chapter 74 ” The Hidden”. The other thing is that 19 * 74 = 1406
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9kGI8ZaHdI
So I think that its a kind of perfection
What I don’t get is why you grouped atheists with extremist killers?
“they reject the existence of God and his laws because it could be an obstacle in their lifestyle or financial income”
Again its only the few minority of dangerous “harmful atheists” today and in the previous centuries and in the future too when atheist will attack the believers because of their beliefs, thats why I grouped “harmful atheists” and “extremist” only when they kill others because of their beliefs anytime because they share the misconception of God’s laws either by forcing addition or erasing, the grouping is for the shared harm they can cause for misunderstanding and as for you and all the peaceful atheists, its wrong to group you with killers and I didn’t mean that.
Peace and see you tomorrow
Thanks for listening
I think we have to start with questioning the authenticity of the sources from which we get information about Christ. While we do have a handful of extra-biblical references to verify the historicity of Christ, they don’t help do much else.
Fortunately, authenticating a manuscript is not so much a religious issue as it is an academic one. We can apply the same techniques to the gospels that we would to Aesop or Homer.
The first thing we have to ask is – do we have the same documents after centuries of translation or have they been corrupted through the centuries.
That question seems insurmountable. How could errors not creep in when copies were hand-written? However I think the difficult dissolves when we clear up a couple of misconceptions.
I think a good example of the misconception is the telephone game. People assume that, like the game, the Gospels were transmitted orally and linearly. In other words, the gospels were told from one person then to another then another, until one person finally decided to write it down, start a televised program and rake in the big bucks. In the “Telephone game” model of the Gospels the message would be completely corrupted but the third or fourth person.
However the gospels were written and we’re transferred geometrically (one letter became fifty copies. Not one letter became one copy.)
I’m certainly not an expert concerning textual criticism but I do now a couple of the basics and I know that it’s applied to all ancient texts not just religious documents. (A lot of my confirmation comes form Wikipedia, which isn’t saying much but I hope it will suffice for the current discussion.)
While there are a variety of methods they all essentially need to answer the question of how many different copies and how early those copies date.
If the copies are few and the earliest copy was hundreds, if not thousands, of years after the original then the authentication becomes more difficult. The more copies and the more they date close to the original the job becomes easier.
Thucydides’ History survives in eight copies. There are 10 copies of Caesar’s Gallic Wars, eight copies of Herodotus’ History, and seven copies of Plato, all dated over a millennium from the original. Homer’s Iliad has the most impressive manuscript evidence for any secular work with 647 existing copies.
So, at best, most ancient documents that have only a few manuscripts and have a time gap of 800-2000 years. However scholars feel confident that they can reconstruct the originals with pretty significant accuracy. To a large degree our knowledge of ancient history depends on these documents.
Here’s what’s really amazing. The New Testament has almost 25,000 copies! And in some cases partial documents date back to about 117-138 A.D.
That’ doesn’t include reconstructions of quotes from other ancient documents like catechism and quotes from religious leaders. Bruce Metzger says that the “patristic quotes alone are enough to practically reconstruct the New Testament.”
Now in all fairness, Daniel Wallace says there are about 300,000 individual variations within the text of the New Testament. While that sounds like a lot, it’s a little misleading. Most of the differences are relatively minor, things like spelling. Wallace still concludes that the texts are in agreement 98% percent of the time.
I couldn’t find too much serious contention to most of the stuff I’m writing. Objections to Scripture are generally more about content than historical accuracy.
Overall, it seems that if we reject the Gospels we have to reject pretty much every other ancient document as well because the Gospels have that much more information in their favor.
I realize that this doesn’t deal with the issue of the content being accurate but we can be fairly certain that what was written down then is what we have now.
I’ll try to deal with the second half of dealing the scriptures soon. Sorry if this is overkill. It’s late so excuse the copious amounts of spelling and grammar errors. Let me know how this sounds or if there’s any traction with what I’m saying.
Mr.Rodibidably,
Since you have admitted that you are an atheist, Humbleforest hope that you should be the 4th
type of Atheist. Please do not feel insulted.
There is a message submitted by one of your
past bloggers.
In it there is a 4th type of Atheist who had gained his enlightenment in receiving his Universal wisdom
of ” spiritual knowledge ” which supersedes human
knowledge of comprehension.
He also needed a basic condition to fulfill his
attainment of this Cosmic Consciousness.
That is what he called in his term the ” Sila ”
and the ” Dharma, what is equivalent to the word
“Morality” and its Natural Way.
After attaining his “spiritual” knowledge he
revealed to those who had the affinity with him
and also those who were willing to listen and sincerely cultivate.
He did not reveal to the stubborn ones as they
were curious in asking only without seriously in
cultivating.
Humbleforest apologies not to answer your questions
in your comments because most of the answers are
already in my sixteen messages. It may help you to
be a 4th type of Atheist.
Please use your patience and wisdom to get your answers. If you feel that my messages are nonsense
it’s alright. You have the freedom to comment and
criticise or take them as garbages.
It is a blessing to meet an atheist like you
and hope that you may attain the enlightenment
like the 4th type of Atheist.
Inorder to attain this spiritual knowlege you
need to fulfill the conditions of self purification,
that is to have moral values.
Do not be like a frog in a well.
Stefan,
Your description of the code or theory of 19 sounds a LOT like the “bible code” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_code).
I know that “bible code” has been debunked by running the same “algorithms” that “bible scholars” have run against the bible, and scientists running them against other long books such as Moby Dick and coming up with similar types of “predictions” from obvious works of fiction. (http://cs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/dilugim/torah.html)
With regards to the “code of 19″ I would need to spend some time finding more detailed information before I can really speak intelligently on that subject. From my brief scanning so far (I love Google) the only thing I would say is that on one site they state the code of 19 is an “intricate mathematical code, far beyond the ability of human intelligence”. If it is that far beyond our understanding I find it hard to believe we could have “found” or “cracked” the code; I also think that this website has underestimated human ingenuity.
It does seem to be that there are a number of coincidences related to the number 19, although if you take any large enough group of information you can make all kinds of fantastical mathematical calculations around a wide variety of number. that said, I would like to see a good independent scientific study on this before I comment further on this particular phenomena.
You clarified your remarks on atheist, but I still have one last issue with your comments: “few minority of dangerous “harmful atheists” today and in the previous centuries and in the future too when atheist will attack the believers because of their beliefs”.
If you look at human history, religious fervor and faith have caused much more violence and killing than atheism. As a muslim, you should be able to look at the crusades as a simple example, or look at the attacks of 9/11, or look at the violence in Palestine (from both sides). I still think that your “linking” atheists with killers was misguided, whether intentionally or not. I think if you had said “harmful people” I’d have had no issue, but that you specifically mentioned atheist, shows that at least in some small part you look at the best of atheists are starting off below the worst of religious people by default.
moot,
Since the finding and studying of the Dead Sea Scrolls there has been shown many examples of differences between those scrolls and various current translations.
Bart D Ehrman’s book “Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why” goes into a very detailed analysis of the some of the various current copies of the bible along with some of the oldest known copies that still exist. He goes into great detail showing in many cases actually when, and in some cases who made the mistranslation or misinterpretation and how the bible has changed throughout the years to what we know now.
Even if one assumes that only 2% of the text has changes over time (and from my understanding the percentage is much higher than that) then you would still need to do a VERY detailed study of EXACTLY what that 2% is, since if the original is supposedly the “word of god” then ANY change, no matter how minor can alter the original intent.
However if one assumes the view that Ehrman takes that “there are between 200,000 and 400,000 errors, some deliberate, some accidental, in the New Testament. That is more errors than there are words”, then you have a massive dilemma on the validity of anything in the bible.
While the truth is likely somewhere in between the two extremes, it is enough to make one pause and question some of their assumptions.
Regarding the “extra-biblical references” you refer to, I hope you do not mean Josephus’s account. These have been shown to likely have been a later addition by the catholic church and almost certainly not part of the original text of his writings. “Its authenticity has been disputed since the 17th century, and by the mid 18th century the consensus view was that it was a forgery.”
[...] I believe that Christopher Hitchens makes a few of the same points I tried to make in some of my replies to comments in An open question to all believers. [...]
Jeff —
I’m answering your question at your request on my site.
First, I have to admit only reading your post here (I’ve not taken the time to review much more of your site … although I am intrigued, so likely will) and I have read none of the extensive replies (man, that’s a lot of comments!).
Second, I am going to directly answer the question that you ask (“How certain are you that your version of the “truth” (truth of god, religion, the world, the universe, etc) is the correct one, and more importantly, how do you know what that “truth” is?”) and try to avoid the temptation to answer what *I think* you may be *really* asking … if that makes sense?
Enough caveats … here goes:
I am certain enough of my “version” of truth to entrust my eternal future to it. I’m not hedging my bets, I’m not spinning the wheel and saying “what the heck …,” I’m not simply living my life the best I can. I’m putting my trust completely, wholly and unreservedly in the perfect, propitiatory sacrifice of Jesus Christ (God in the flesh) which was offered for my sins to satisfy a holy, righteous God who demands perfection from His creation (which He has every right to demand). Since I’m doing nothing (and I do mean nothing) more than resting in Jesus for “redemption” and “eternal reward” I’m likely in the most danger, should I be wrong. I say that to underscore the active, thoughtful and fully committed choice I’m making on this matter. I’m giving up on everything in favor of His work on my behalf.
I know this is the truth because God Himself revealed it all humanity — first through the Jewish people and the Old Testament prophets, second and most fully and completely through Jesus Christ, the fulfillment of every promise offered in the Old Testament.
I also find Jesus Christ to be a superior savior to all other pretenders since He is the only one that died for me. All others require me to die for them. Jesus Christ did all of the work while all others require me to do things that NO ONE (and I mean NO ONE) can perfectly fulfill.
I suppose you can (and many folks do) deconstruct that to the point of questioning whether or not I’m even “really” here or not. But the truth remains that God has revealed His mind in His Scriptures (much in the same way that I, in good faith believe you requested me to post my thoughts here).
The only question is whether or not I (and you) will accept them as truth and act accordingly.
mjtilly,
Thank you for the reply, always good to an another voice to the discussion.
Yes, this post has been hands down the most commented on my blog, at least partially because I have tried to invite people to post who I think will have a perspective different then my own.
The longest comments tend to be from me trying to better understand different replies because, one I can tend to blather on a tad at time, and two I have tried to ensure that I phrase my question in such a way that they are not easily misunderstood. If you do want to spend the time (and it would take a LOT of time) to check out all the replies, I do suggest you start with the beginning for a few reasons. First of all, I give my own answer to this question as the first reply here, and second because as I had to answer a few questions repeatedly, near the end I may have perhaps lost my temper with one of the commenters and not been quite as nice as I could have been.
I really appreciate your answering my question, and not trying to “interpret” a hidden meaning behind it (at least not yet). I make no secret of the fact that I am an atheist, but my purpose for this question is not to argue (although I do love a good debate) but to try to come to some type of understanding with people who have a drastically different view point than my own.
The one question that I have from reading your reply is that you seem to take the bible at its word, but why is it that you believe so strongly that the bible (and not the koran, dianetics, book of mormon, or some other book) is the “word of god”? I can look at a science book from the 1500’s and compare it to a science book written by Carl Sagan or Steven Hawkins and say with certainty that in those cases one in clearly superior based on its ability to describe more accurately the universe. But in my study of the bible, torah, and koran, I really never found any compelling reason to take one as more or less “true” than any other.
Your final point on the whole concept of existence being subjective is one that I have ongoing, partially as a joke, with a colleague (in our discussions we take the premise that all of reality is all in her head, so when we have the discussion is she just arguing with herself, since I’m nothing more than a figment of her imagination), but it’s actually one I tend not to think about too much as I’m not sure I am capable of answering it satisfactorily, and I’ve just accepted the fact that whether I actually exist or not, I perceive things in a certain way, and that is just how it is.
I used to ponder over many different theoretical possibilities for “existence” and finally came to the conclusion that I didn’t really care if this is just a dream or construct or real, it would not change how I perceived or reacted to things, so until some evidence comes along to push in a certain direction, I’ll just go with the assumption that it’s real.
Answering your question about why I believe the Bible is the Word of God vs. other so-called “holy texts”:
To my knowledge, the Bible is the only text that claims to be written by the one true God.
The only other books that rival that claim are either from a god that I do not recognize (the koran is from allah who says that Jesus Christ is a good prophet, therefore, cannot be my God and the book of mormon is from a god who creates other gods on distant planets .. also not my God) or only half of the story(the Jewish Scriptures, which I recognize as the “Old Testament”).
I don’t claim exhaustive knowledge of holy texts, but of those I’m aware of, they usually don’t claim to be the “word of God,” only the somber words of a holy man/prophet/etc.
mjtilley,
If the bible claims to be written by “god” then be definition then the torah would as well (since it is the first “half” of the bible.
The koran claims to be allah’s direct words written down through the hand of mohamed.
The book of mormon is supposedly a direct translation of two golden tablet written by god, given to joseph smith and directly translated.
Your comment as to why you don’t believe the koran takes as an assumption that you DO believe that jesus is more than just a prophet, that he is in fact god.
That is the type of leap of faith I have never been able to make no matter how much I studied various religions, actually I’d say even MORE so because I studied various religions.
In your comments you state that you view jesus as superior to other gods, but you don’t really say how you KNOW that he is in fact the “true” god.
Allah is not the God of the Old and New Testament. So I suppose one has to honestly say that in that scenario (koran vs. the Bible), it is a choice of one god over the other. Not a real answer of “why.”
The book of mormon claims to be the same god as the Bible and claims to be the “rest of the story” in much the same way that the New Testament “finishes” the Old Testament. However, it’s “new” revelations actually undermine Bible, making at least one of them obsolete if not patently false. Therefore, to take either of them seriously is to essentially deny the other. In that way, I believe it to be spiritually and intellectualy inconsistent to believe the book of mormon and the Bible. Therefore, I reject the book of mormon since belief in it supposes belief in the Bible as well … essentially, I end up chasing my tail; no thank you.
I suppose a similar argument could be had over the Jewish Scriptures, however, I believe that Jesus Christ is the “key” that makes the Jewish Scriptures and the New Testament a unified book. I don’t think either nullifies the other (although, I recognize my Jewish friends would disagree strongly); in fact, they both strengthen each other, building on each other without undermining any of the essential doctrines of the other. So I don’t chose Judaism and the Jewish Scriptures, not because it’s wrong (in fact, I find it very right), but merely incomplete (albeit in a very significant way).
So thinking through things in that way, I think the one thing I’d have to explain is why I’d choose the Bible over the Koran.
My reasons include:
* The Bible has a longer, richer heritage over the relatively newer Koran.
* The Koran has left no positive cultural, spiritual, philosophical marks on history in stark contrast to the Bible. Admittedly there have been negative contributions (all perverse interpretations of the Bible). But we owe the Bible an enormous debt for things like: human rights, women’s rights, democratic government, property rights, liberty, governmental assistance for poor and elderly, consent to be governed,and others
* Both books claim the respective deity to be holy, perfect, righteous, etc in a very absolute sense and that mankind is sinful in an absolute sense. Only the Bible offers a rational way for the diety to maintain his character AND offer attainable redemption for humanity. The Koran (like most religious texts) puts unattainable demands on man to live by an impossible standard, yet strongly suggests that some men will somehow find redemption by abiding by that standard. The only acceptable alternative to the Bible for my mind would be a religion that says that the holy god damns all humanity to an eternity of damnation without any hope of redemption … but I’ve yet to find a religion (atheism included) with a serious following that holds to that.
I should also mention — although it likely isn’t terribly convincing, since I’m speaking of subjective experience — I am convinced that Jesus is God because He has saved me and provided me the spiritual benefits that offers.
Finally, since I believe the Bible at face value (a leap of some faith, to be sure …), I believe that Jesus is God because He claims it, His followers claim it and the Bible claims it. He is the true God because the Bible says so. And I believe that the Bible is to be believed because God was given it to us.
mjtilley,
A few random notes, not necessarily questions:
“Allah is not the God of the Old and New Testament”
Um, actually yes he is, ask any islamic scholar. Islam claims to be directly descended from both of the other earlier abrahamic religions.
“book of mormon claims to be the same god as the Bible and claims to be the “rest of the story” … it’s “new” revelations actually undermine Bible, making at least one of them obsolete if not patently false”
As a christian, you eat pork and other foods not blessed by a rabbi. You do this because the new testament makes certain claims of the old testament “obsolete if not patently false”.
“The Bible has a longer, richer heritage over the relatively newer Koran.”
Couldn’t one say that: The torah has a longer, richer heritage over the relatively newer bible.
“The Koran has left no positive cultural, spiritual, philosophical marks on history in stark contrast to the Bible”
Such as the positive cultural, spiritual, philosophical mark that the bible has left regarding killing those who refuse to convert, or invading lands that other are living in peacefully to “retake the holy land”, or did you mean slavery, racism, sexism, and genocide?
“we owe the Bible an enormous debt for things like: … women’s rights”
On this one I don’t even know where to begin, other than to say ‘Are You Serious’?
“The Koran (like most religious texts) puts unattainable demands on man to live by an impossible standard, yet strongly suggests that some men will somehow find redemption by abiding by that standard”
You mean like the demands of the old testament. The demands that existed before god changed his mind and allowed his son/himself to die in place of our own sins. Well as long as those sins don’t involve having a consensual loving relationship with the “wrong” person, or trying to advance science and help humanity in the “wrong” way (stem cells), or any of a list of other things that christians today from upon.
“but I’ve yet to find a religion (atheism included) with a serious following that holds to that (that being ‘holy god damns all humanity to an eternity of damnation’)”
I found that kind of funny. How exactly would atheism make any claims about damnation or god other than not existing?
You have some well thought out com