What are your religious views?
What does not make sense is that.. If their is A God with so called.. masterful powers, why has he not intervened in desperate times?
I like you. You are a free thinker. He has not intervened in desperate times because He is either:
A) Evil B) Impotent C) Non-existent
I'm an atheist and a secularist. There is no God. He never was and never will be.
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king's horses and all the king's men Couldn't put Humpty together again.
:mrgreen:
That's because there was never a Humpty Dumpty just like there is no God and thus there is no point in trying to fathom why He has never intervened when he could have.
The universe is doesn't care about anyone or anything. It is a hostile place and we can barely call it hospitable. Life emerged on Earth because it naturally could. We are here by mere chance. Our planet is like a speck of dust in space and a thin layer of gas shields us from the vacuum of space and deadly radiation.
Even this insignificant atmosphere of ours doesn't exactly provide a paradise for us. Its weather kills thousands every year. Then we have disease (not to mention genetic imperfections and cancers that affect babies, children, men and women all over the world)
Why should the young, innocent and vulnerable suffer and die? Because the universe is impersonal. Why did a kitten starve to death when there was no room for him to breastfeed? Well, the answer is in the question and it is quite obvious.
Why didn't God intervene? Because He was and continues to be absent.
God?
Awesome and hard to dispute without belief
Agreed. There is no proof of God. The suffering that has happened, should not have happened. Nor was it deserved in many cases.
It is a hostile place and we can barely call it hospitable. Life emerged on Earth because it naturally could. We are here by mere chance. Our planet is like a speck of dust in space and a thin layer of gas shields us from the vacuum of space and deadly radiation.
Exactly what I think. We are NOTHING compared to everything in this universe. People should understand, there is so much more out there in our universe, to the point they should laugh at the idea of God....
If he was real.. Earth would not be the same. Not at all.
Absolutely.
The only thing people should concern themselves with is the mind. I'm what people could describe as an Atheistic Buddhist. In my view I take what resonates with me from what I have been exposed to and I try my best to maintain a rational mind.
I meditate because I know it is good for me and helps me to realise that the world is full of illusions, illusions that people like to believe as being true.
On one hand we have religions in the world but none of them prepare you for what's to come. We will lose everything including our own lives. Religions of the world lie to make you feel better whilst having no faith in the fact that people can accept any truth if they want to. Religion creates "spoilt brats". They tell you that there is a heaven, that you will live forever in the presence of God and blah blah... translation: don't worry, child, you will live after you die and if you are good now you will be happy forever.
What a fairytale! What bull!
This is where meditation comes in. This is where the useful part of Buddha's philosophy comes in. Meditation helps you to cultivate a strong mind and be more accepting. It helps you to realise that the mind is one big zero. A zero open to suggestions. A ground where anything can become. We came from that zero (birth) and to that zero we shall return (death).
Meditation allows you to enjoy the things that you like whilst knowing deep down that if you didn't have those things... your mind would still be serene. This is as close as you can get to the "enlightenment" that they speak of. It's not supernatural or spiritual. It is about a mind being strong. It is about a state of acceptance because there is nothing else you can do.
Ultimately, the Buddhist philosophy (pure and uncorrupted by the millennia that have elapsed since the time of Buddha) is the only teaching that will prepare you for death as we see it from a living perspective. It doesn't lie. It is an agnostic view. It seems dreadful but the truth is that we have already been in that state of nothingness - this very nothingness is what you can approach during meditation and the less you think and the stiller the mind gets, the more that bliss becomes prominent.
The mind is like a clear empty sky. At the moment we are just experiencing the clouds. We don't need a God. In saying this, there is something I agree with from the book of Genesis:
"Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return."
I sum up my life in the simple words : I have no need to believe and no need to doubt" I live in the world of my own making and am living my dream.
LOL - that might make a good signature
I think there is just too much unnecessary evil and suffering in this world for a divine or cosmic order to be out there looking out for us.
I think there is just too much unnecessary evil and suffering in this world for a divine or cosmic order to be out there looking out for us
We created these words and gave them life with our social systems and beliefs, in the animal and plant world it is just life and how it is. No sense of injustice or expectations at all
I asked my Partners Brother the other day (whom is a strong christian) A few questions about the whole subject -
Why has he not intervened? Where is your proof?
And a lot more, but I can't remember them. (just think basic questions that I wanted answered) And my partner was asking questions too. The answers he had given.. where crap (made absolutely 0 logic) But something he said, that he actually believes.. Is that God himself exists beyond Time AND Space. ............................
I don't? .. I don't Understand.... So I asked: "If this is so, then why has he not told us of other living worlds? Or anything like that?" His answer: (not exactly what he said) "It may be because it is not for us to know, or for us to find out.. "
O...kayyyy.......
Summerlander wrote: To me there is no God. Buddhism, uncorrupted (if you cut out the mystical BS that has been attached to some of its forms over millennia) resonates with me. I practice meditation and I truly believe that there was a Buddha who had a psychedelic experience that changed his perspective on reality forever.
He discovered, and rightly so, that it is all about the mind. It is where all experience occurs and hence why the Buddhist philosophy is the first one to acknowledge that no living creature can observe the world directly - it is all mental interpretations... in other words, what you see and feel from the world is a very elaborate hallucination that serves as your organism's best interpretation of what is going on outside. You think a fly experiences the world in the same way? Wrong!
In Buddhism, there is no God nor fantasy. I have three young children and I get them to do a simple 5 minute exercise daily. I tell them to stare at a red dot and do nothing else. I encourage them to not think of anything as they do so. I tell them to imagine that there is only the red dot and nothing else. I say that the red dot is all there is... it has no worries, no wants, doesn't desire any toys or games, doesn't think and it is free. I tell them that we were once like the red dot, before we were born... it is where we come from kids. The red dot is free, it is bliss. As you can see, we've come a long way from the red dot and we got more complicated.
They took it seriously and now, especially my eldest who is eight, gets excited about the "red dot meditation". You know what it has done to them? They seem happier. They can enjoy things and know that they have the ability to not become attached. If they find themselves getting bored or when they want something they can't have, I tell them to remember the red dot... and they smile... no tantrums!!
The cessation of being is bliss. All you troubles end. I have taught them about acceptance. One should cultivate a healthy mind to that point. It is fine to enjoy life and the things you like... but if things sometimes don't go your way, strong is he who can still remain serene.
My kids also do a lot of sharing. :D
You don't need to threaten the kids with a wrathful god or with a Santa who won't deliver if they misbehave - my two cents.
Heheh, I keep thinking it kinda sounds like mind control, but it's still pretty cool. I like it. 8-)
Hehehe! :D
Yeah, I know. I toned it down now. They are free to meditate whenever they want though. It's better not to force.
I chose 'deeply religious' because somewhat religious doesn't quite fit. I don't have strict rules, I just love Jesus and that's it.
Me too! Jesus rocks! :mrgreen:
I usually say I'm as close to an atheist one can be without actually being an atheist, and that's only because I don't think there is a way to disprove the existance of a god. I usually label myself as an agnostic :)
It's not our job as a scientific community to disprove anything. Otherwise any Joe would be demanding disproof of tooth fairies, unicorns and any magical/supernatural concept they can come up with.
I am an atheist because to me belief in a God is like believing in magic. To say that a creator made the universe is no explanation in cosmology because then you have to ask: who made the creator? It is not logical to say he's always been.
Today physists have shown us how the universe can and did come from nothingness (see Lawrence Krauss' seminars on how it happened).
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^ Agreed!!!
I'm glad someone sees where I'm coming from ^^
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I never said it was our job to disprove anything, I just personally feel that since we can't I don't wanna call myself an atheist, because there's no way to know. :)
Hmm... I'm Christian, so I do not really have a religion. NOW BEFORE ANYONE ARGUES WITH ME, just to clarify, a religion is a set of rules, a code, a list of things to do and not do. Christianity is not a bunch of rules, it is simply a relationship with God.
And if anyone is thinking, "If there is a God, why does bad stuff happen?", it is because we chose that path. Or at least Adam and Eve chose it. But because of what Jesus did, because of what GOD did, we don't have to be trapped by that anymore.
I love Him, and he loves me, as well as all of you. And that's all that matters. :)
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Really? Let me ask you this...
Have you read the Bible, and if so, accepting that the Bible is the word of God (as a Christian), are you familiar with what the lord has to say about people who don't follow him and worship other gods? More importantly, are you familiar with what your God wants you to do when you come across such heretics?
As for choosing the bumpy and dangerous path we currently tread...
I certainly didn't choose it. I didn't choose to be a man, I didn't choose to be born in Portugal, I didn't pick my parents, my genome, the events I'd encounter that would shape me and my life, and I certainly didn't choose to be born. Not much of the free will that He is purported to have bestowed upon mankind, is there?
Thirdly, if His son died to save us, why do we even bother? Finally, where have you been? Adam and Eve were not the first human beings and it has already been proven that the earth is older than what the Bible claims it is. So many loopholes I could go on for eternity...
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Jacob wrote: a religion is a set of rules, a code, a list of things to do and not do
That's not quite true. Most religions have the following:
- A belief in some kind of supernatural being,
- A theory about how the world was created,
- Some kind of basic rituals/ceremonies,
- Rules about what is right and wrong, what life and death is, what happens after we die, and some thoughts about mankind and whether or not we have a soul.
That's the absolute basic stuff that almost (putting in an almost there to not generalize) every religion has, so your statement isn't really right. However that may be how you see it, and that's okay, but don't state it as a fact.
Summerlander wrote: Really? Let me ask you this...
Have you read the Bible, and if so, accepting that the Bible is the word of God (as a Christian), are you familiar with what the lord has to say about people who don't follow him and worship other gods? More importantly, are you familiar with what your God wants you to do when you come across such heretics?
As for choosing the bumpy and dangerous path we currently tread...
I certainly didn't choose it. I didn't choose to be a man, I didn't choose to be born in Portugal, I didn't pick my parents, my genome, the events I'd encounter that would shape me and my life, and I certainly didn't choose to be born. Not much of the free will that He is purported to have bestowed upon mankind, is there?
Thirdly, if His son died to save us, why do we even bother? Finally, where have you been? Adam and Eve were not the first human beings and it has already been proven that the earth is older than what the Bible claims it is. So many loopholes I could go on for eternity...
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Yes, I am familiar with what he wants me to do. He wants me to not argue and to move on.
By the way, free will is not choosing your situation, it is choosing what to do with the situation you are in.
Like I said, I am not going to argue with you, but I will leave you with this thought:
Which one of us can afford to be wrong?
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LucidLeon wrote:
Jacob wrote:a religion is a set of rules, a code, a list of things to do and not do
That's not quite true. Most religions have the following:
- A belief in some kind of supernatural being,
- A theory about how the world was created,
- Some kind of basic rituals/ceremonies,
- Rules about what is right and wrong, what life and death is, what happens after we die, and some thoughts about mankind and whether or not we have a soul.
That's the absolute basic stuff that almost (putting in an almost there to not generalize) every religion has, so your statement isn't really right. However that may be how you see it, and that's okay, but don't state it as a fact.
Ok, I see where you're coming from. Sorry about that. I'm just trying to say that Christianity doesn't require chanting or any other other intense, unnecessary rituals. But yeah, you make a good point. :)
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Jacob wrote: Like I said, I am not going to argue with you, but I will leave you with this thought:
Which one of us can afford to be wrong?
Are you implying that being christian is somehow a safer bet because if the non-christian is wrong they are going to hell and if you are wrong then "oh well!"? Just curious, if you believe this I would like to offer you something to think about.
lucidinthe sky wrote:
Jacob wrote: Like I said, I am not going to argue with you, but I will leave you with this thought:
Which one of us can afford to be wrong?
Are you implying that being christian is somehow a safer bet because if the non-christian is wrong they are going to hell and if you are wrong then "oh well!"? Just curious, if you believe this I would like to offer you something to think about.
I am implying that, yes, but I am not saying you are a bad person. If I offended you in any way, then I'm sorry.
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Jacob wrote:
lucidinthe sky wrote:Jacob wrote: Like I said, I am not going to argue with you, but I will leave you with this thought:
Which one of us can afford to be wrong?
Are you implying that being christian is somehow a safer bet because if the non-christian is wrong they are going to hell and if you are wrong then "oh well!"? Just curious, if you believe this I would like to offer you something to think about.
I am implying that, yes, but I am not saying you are a bad person. If I offended you in any way, then I'm sorry.
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Don't worry, I'm not offended. Nor do I think people are "good" or "bad". In fact I too used to believe it was safer to believe in the Bible's version of salvation/judgement, etc., but not any more. A lot of these belief systems are based on fear, especially Christianity. Once I overcame my fears, there was no reason to believe it any more.
One thing I agree with Christianity: God never forces us to believe anything against our free will which is very important. But suppose that after this life, our will to choose our beliefs is the overriding prinicipal that determines where we go? Maybe you are helping to create that reality. So, for example you have Christians in a place where only believers in Christ are admitted, the Christian version of "heaven". Those there would naturally accept that all the non-believers went to hell, but maybe in fact they are just somewhere else. This belief-system-driven creation could be kind of like a prison. They know it's "safe" there, and being safe was part of why they are there in the first place. They are surrounded by beings who can reinforce what they believe. They might have doubts or suspect there is something outside of this "heaven", but who wants to leave and risk not being able to come back or being torn up by Satan, or demons or whatever is out there in the "darkness"? I can't imagine finding any support or encouragement there for that kind of thinking.
IMO, If fear is what gets you there, the same fear will be your prison. It's more important to confront and overcome your fears in this life, then to expect to find safety from them in the next.
One thing I agree with Christianity: God never forces us to believe anything against our free will which is very important.
I disagree and I'll show you why in this post. This is an erroneous belief based on false assumptions which came about through a cultural religious moderation (born out of our progress in science and reason) which is exactly why I asked Jacob if he, as a Christian, read the Bible. I will get to the details at the end of this post but first I'd like to address something to Jacob about religion, free will and his attitude...
Jacob...
I'm not arguing with you but I am curious as to how you fully endorse the belief in something which is so outdated in the minds of secularists and which remains tenuously hypothetical as far as the annals of science go.
The tenets of religion prevent people from thinking for themselves and take away any sense of free will just with the simple affirmation that God, gods, or divine beings, are watching us, reading our minds and that one day there'll be a judgement.
The subject of free will deserves a thread of its own. We have, however, discussed it here: http://forum.obe4u.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1061
A lot of people think that we are really the masters of our lives and we get to decide on everything. The truth is that, as Sam Harris (earlier in this thread) pointed out, we have will but it is not free. We make decisions but we have no say on what will be decided. If there was free will we'd be able to predict our future decisions and we wouldn't say things like "I don't know what came over me" which reflect that even the decisions that arise in us have their roots in unconscious mechanisms. Everything is determined by clockwork.
We are clockwork very much effected by the world around it and its various events. Sure, free will seems real, an illusion most of us adhere to (reflected when we use the term in our language) as it is a political convenience and necessary for our current justice system.
But let's take a look at the facts: already, a scientific experiment demonstrated that relevant areas of the brain light up before we even become aware of deciding to move a limb. Either your God is a liar or He doesn't exist!
The simple fact that we move our hands away from a hot pan shows that there is a lot going on unconsciously which does not require thinking and contradicts free will. If we had free will we would know about all the thoughts that we are going to have in the future and how events may affect or influence us so we can prepare in advance. Already you can see that even the act of foreseeing has robbed us of any free will as we are forced to make a choice: to prepare or not prepare. The concept has just shown us that there is no escape in a deterministic universe. You are always forced to make a choice with your very much computerised brain (which stemmed from a particular genome that you did not choose) and this choice is stimulated by prior conditions within your organism which dictate how you feel about the situation at hand.
Like the proverbial good and bad consciences. Which one argues the best case and which one are we going to listen to. The truth is that we have many voices in our brain which reflect processes that we may or may not be aware of. As someone once said: a puppet feels free as long as he loves his strings. And who is pulling the strings? Not the Biblical God I can assure you. It is simple: cause and effect.
Finally, let me just highlight the fact that religions like Islam have influenced young men to blow themselves up and kill others. Their beliefs have brought down the twin towers - an attack on the infidels that the Koran speaks about. And while the goody religious moderates say those fundamentalists are wrong and nothing but terrorists, these "terrorists" think of them as false Muslims who take heed of some Koranic passages but ignore the rest. According to the Koran, the moderate Muslims whom we respect for not having committed any atrocities, will be judged on judgement day. Meanwhile, Allah's warriors, the martyrs who kill infidels, will bypass the judgement day rule and be awarded with the upgrade of immediate access of heaven at death.
The Bible is not so different. It was, for starters, written by men and women who thought that the earth was flat and such primitive and illiterate people also describe a wrathful God, who, paradoxically is described as all merciful and yet He has this to say about people who believe in other gods:
"If your brother, the son of your father or of your mother, or your son or daughter, or the spouse whom you embrace, or your most intimate friend, tries to secretly seduce you, saying; "Let us go and serve other gods", unknown to you or your ancestors before you, gods of the peoples surrounding you, whether near you or far away, anywhere throughout the world, you must not consent, you must not listen to him; you must show him no pity, you must not spare him or conceal his guilt. No, you must kill him, your hand must strike the first blow in putting him to death and the hands of the rest of the people following. You must stone him to death, since he has tried to divert you from Yahweh your God" (Deuteronomy 13:7-11)
A similar set of rules is found in the Torah of the Hebrew Bible. If you don't worship this God as a Christian, what God do you worship then? He commands you to kill others of different beliefs. He doesn't want you to even give polytheists such as Hindus a chance. Worship the monkey god Hanuman and you are a blasphemer who deserves to die and the ten commandments where killing is concerned won't help you as they do not apply to you. And you must not question Him when He orders you because He is God. You must do it without thinking (notice: where's the free will gone?):
"Whatever I am now commanding you, you must keep and observe, adding nothing to it, taking nothing away" - Deuteronomy 13:1
So don't tell me He wants you to ignore these passages and to love everyone and move on... :roll:
In answer to lucidinthesky's quote, according to the Bible, He commands, He orders, and He threatens his followers with hell if they rebel against Him. If that is not forcing I don't know what is. He is a blackmailer as well as a briber when, in so many words, He says to mankind that if you are good you get to go to heaven and escape perdition. Hang on a minute... shouldn't people deserve to go to heaven because they are good and not because they are scared of going to hell? Fear is the common denominator here, folks! Fear is a form of control! Shouldn't people truly deserve heaven because they are pure of heart and full of empathy and not because they look forward to God's reward of happiness for their egos to indulge?
It's synonymous with an adult saying to a child: "be good and you will get sweets, be bad and you'll be punished". Who wants to be punished? Who wants the sweets? What are the reasons behind perpetrating whatever deed and how has the individual's prior history - which he did not pick - impact on his decisions? Already, you have robbed the child of a sense of free will as your words reverberate in his young mind and will certainly influence his behaviour: he will either be bad to spite you and because the bad deed seems more attractive in his mind at the time (and he may be willing to pay the price) plus the fact that he's not much for sweets anyway, or, he will be good because he is scared of punishment after pondering on possible consequences had he chosen to be bad plus he adores sweets.
As we have seen, if you don't pick the stage, you can't possibly have free will. You don't even get to make decisions with what is thrown at you as these decisions arise all by themselves through clockwork for your conscious ego to hijack and 'sell' as its own like a supermarket stamping its own logo on fairtraded products harvested abroad...in 'unconscious land'... You do not choose, you are made to choose. Hence, the idea of Godly punishment already starts to stink and look absurd.
By reading the word of God in belief and faith we are forced to think about it, to focus on it and that will impact on our behaviour throughout our lives as opposed to the atheist or secularist who does not concern himself with such tripe and goes about his business still following the moral code. We don't need religion to be kind to each other if we treat others as we would like to be treated. In fact, as we have seen, the bad of religion outweighs the good and we could certainly do without many of us believing in a God like a child believes in the tooth fairy. Religion can bring about a kind of cruelty already inherent in people but which lies dormant... :twisted:
It also worries me that the "somewhat religious" choice is currently beating the "atheist" one in the poll above when religious moderation in the world has silenced us and prevented the ones who would dare from speaking against religious fundamentalism and fanaticism. The fact that in some Islamic country Muslim police prevented firemen from rescuing a group of girls trapped in a burning building simply because they were not covered with garments according to Koranic law accounts for nothing when such religion is still being widely defended by the moderates.
The girls died, but, in their eyes, better this than having them disgracefully coming out in a manner deemed indecent. This is also the reason why the US government declared war on "terrorism" instead of war on Islam. How could they when in their own country they harbour similar religions starting with Christianity. It would be hypocritical and offensive of them. Still, it doesn't take away from the fact that a war on "terrorism" is nonsensical. The "terrorists" were doing what they believed was right and were moved by their faith.
Imagine that Jared Loughner had succeeded in murdering Gabrielle Giffords, a member of the US Congress. Would it make sense if the government declared war on "murder"? People can be cruel without religion, granted, but, it is as clear as daylight that the root cause of the 9/11 atrocities was a dangerous religion in which many of its adherents believe in the literal word of their holy book. :cry:
Our tolerance is costing us, people. Our tolerance of this type of ignorance and superstition is costing us innocent lives... :(
Summerlander wrote:
One thing I agree with Christianity: God never forces us to believe anything against our free will which is very important.
In answer to lucidinthesky's quote, according to the Bible, He commands, He orders, and He threatens his followers with hell if they rebel against Him. If that is not forcing I don't know what is. He is a blackmailer as well as a briber when, in so many words, He says to mankind that if you are good you get to go to heaven and escape perdition. Hang on a minute... shouldn't people deserve to go to heaven because they are good and not because they are scared of going to hell? Fear is the common denominator here, folks! Fear is a form of control! Shouldn't people truly deserve heaven because they are pure of heart and full of empathy and not because they look forward to God's reward of happiness for their egos to indulge?
It's synonymous with an adult saying to a child: "be good and you will get sweets, be bad and you'll be punished". Who wants to be punished? Who wants the sweets? What are the reasons behind perpetrating whatever deed and how has the individual's prior history - which he did not pick - impact on his decisions? Already, you have robbed the child of a sense of free will as your words reverberate in his young mind and will certainly influence his behaviour: he will either be bad to spite you and because the bad deed seems more attractive in his mind at the time (and he may be willing to pay the price) plus the fact that he's not much for sweets anyway, or, he will be good because he is scared of punishment after pondering on possible consequences had he chosen to be bad plus he adores sweets.
So why aren't you a believer then if you have no free will? I don't get it. Sounds to me like you want to have it both ways. You don't have free will, yet you've chosen an option that clearly has the potential for permanent very negative consequences? You don't believe in it that's why. But then, isn't that a free-will choice?
It's true that religions use fear to manipulate people and get them to follow their religion, but we choose whether to let fear guide our decisions. At one point in my life I did allow myself to be manipulated in that way, but then chose against my fears to not accept that as the truth. Believe me, it was not easy. I reject the idea that I don't have free will and don't exercise it regularly. It's not true for me.
It's true, we make unconscious choices that are effected by all sorts of environmental factors just as other animals do, a lot of these are based on survival. We don't put or hand on the stove, because we experience pain. Pain doesn't take away our ability to choose, otherwise it would impoosible for us to do it. What it does is direct us toward making choices that are increse our chances of surviving. You certainly can;t exercise your free will as a human if you are dead. I believe that humans are also conscious beings and make choices on that level such as I choose not to believe in religions that offer eternal candy in the sky. Humans that have not developed consciousness are less likely to exercise their free will.
lucidinthe sky wrote: So why aren't you a believer then if you have no free will? I don't get it. Sounds to me like you want to have it both ways. You don't have free will, yet you've chosen an option that clearly has the potential for permanent very negative consequences? You don't believe in it that's why. But then, isn't that a free-will choice?
Some people have religious backgrounds. Some don't. Some will uphold their religious beliefs for the rest of their lives. Others will promote secularism. Some are born of faith and break away from it. Others seek refuge in faith when their lives don't go as planned.
Ironically enough, I was raised a Catholic. My mother still goes to church every Sunday and still believes in God. My father doesn't. He is a degenerate gambler and I think he is a waste of space. So why then, do my beliefs agree with my father's and not my mother's when she was the one who was good enough to raise me up? Perhaps I've always been that way inclined. Maybe I inherited my father's genes in that respect. Or perhaps the fact that I saw a kid sobbing when told by a nun that he would go to hell for not being baptised prompted me to think for myself as a child.
Even as a kid, I thought that god was being unfair, and mind you, at these schools they teach you that you must not question the ways of God let alone doubt Him. I thought that it wasn't that kid's fault that he wasn't baptised. How could God let him go through such suffering? As I grew older and wiser, I also developed a partial interest in science. It gradually dawned on me what was going on. There was no evidence of God whatsoever. Free will had nothing to do with it. It happened upon me.
In the same fashion, no free will played a role in my choice to reject the notion of free will. This came about through my own analysis of people's arguments for and against it. In the end, I reached my conclusion. The argument against it seemed more convincing and plausible to me. Perhaps if Sam Harris had made a shit argument, I might have been on your side today.
The notion of no free will need not be a negative one either. It surely seems to eradicate the guilt from wrongdoers. But perhaps there are other ways of dealing with wrongdoing through stricter rehabilitation programs. And if this policy proves to be fruitless, then we may still advocate severe punishment using strict laws. Is this immoral if we reject the notion of free will? No. Not if it's going to prevent many individuals from perpetrating crimes. Not if the endorsement and enforcement of firm castigation will make them think twice about their actions.
Note how information has the power to manipulate individuals. Note how their decisions are dictated by what is brought to their knowledge. Brought to their attention. Watch me split this word: at tension; a tension... it will have an effect on you and there is no escape. Note how they are forced to make a choice. Many will be obedient. And there will be those who think they can outsmart the rest, still be outlaws and get away with it. In such cases, their modes of thinking and their arrogance is what makes them break the rules. Not free will. In fact, many break them to spite law enforcers or to prove the naivete of their victims. There is always a reason that runs deep behind a person's actions.
Jared Loughner was a paranoid schizophrenic. He killed because in his mind he believed in something and he had a warped view of the world. Perhaps the Jared of today would not have done it. The Jared of today. But the Jared of yesterday would have done it over and over again if you presented him with the circumstances in which he found himself in every time. If you traded places with him, atom for atom, until you fully adopted his biological make-up, you too would be killing. In fact, you would be him. Likewise, if you traded places with me in the same fashion, you'd become a non-believer of free will too. The same applies to a killer who is perfectly sane. Nobody has free will.
lucidinthe sky wrote: It's true that religions use fear to manipulate people and get them to follow their religion, but we choose whether to let fear guide our decisions. At one point in my life I did allow myself to be manipulated in that way, but then chose against my fears to not accept that as the truth. Believe me, it was not easy. I reject the idea that I don't have free will and don't exercise it regularly. It's not true for me.
My post above is not intended to show that religious people are the worst kind. I meant to show that we can no longer afford to uphold that which is equivalent to what the Greeks have set aside under the "mythology" label such as Zeus, Apollo, Neptune etc. We now know enough to make the sound decision of getting rid of all this hooey.
In saying this, I still maintain that free will had nothing to do with your rejection of religious dogma any more than what it did in my case. A little introspection coupled with a trip to memory lane and you will realise that your decision was circumstantial of the events at the time and unconscious processes. Ask yourself why you allowed yourself to be manipulated for an inordinate period of time before changing your mind and questioning the tenets of your faith. Even more intriguing is this: why did you have that sudden insight that led you to reject your religion at that particular time? If you had free will, why didn't you do it before? Weren't you free to do so? What was missing before that time that did NOT allow you to make that decision? And what seemed so appealing in rejecting religion when you did?
lucidinthe sky wrote: What it does is direct us toward making choices that are increse our chances of surviving.
You see... even you admit the absence of free will. "What it does is direct us toward making choices..." - the phrase tells me that we are not free to choose. Like I said before, there is will, but it is not free. It's directed. In this sense, we understand that the director is not the conscious self, but rather, the unconscious as demonstrated by Libet's basic experiment where an EEG monitors the brain's motor cortex and detects the relevant activity 300 milliseconds before the person feels he has decided to move.
lucidinthe sky wrote: You certainly can;t exercise your free will as a human if you are dead. I believe that humans are also conscious beings and make choices on that level such as I choose not to believe in religions that offer eternal candy in the sky. Humans that have not developed consciousness are less likely to exercise their free will.
All living people possess consciousness and sometimes unconsciousness. The dead are permanently unconscious. We also need to take into consideration that all of us experience different degrees of consciousness depending on our brain states and neuroscientists today attempt to measure it using units like phi. Consider ordinary dreaming where your consciousness is greatly reduced, impairing your ability to distinguish the logical from the illogical along with a possible decrease in your sense of free will. Such states during sleep determine your actions while you dream as your unconscious mind takes charge.
Had you been lucid in a particular dream scene, you might have done things differently - not because you suddenly acquire free will during the lucid state, but because there is a lot more information coming from the activation of mental faculties that strengthen your free will illusion and give you more scope for directed choice. The more information reaches consciousness, the greater the illusion of free will and the greater your memory of waking life becomes which can then be used by the conscious mind as a reference point to make sound decisions. The unconscious still lies at the roots of everything, the lizard brain still plays a role, and none of the decisions brought to light are yours - just made to look like they are in the light of consciousness because that is the only 'place' they can possibly be perceived to emerge. The truth is, however, that they are already existent in one form or another before you become aware of them.
With this, let me leave you with something that Sam Harris said: "If the laws of nature do not strike most of us as incompatible with free will, that is because we have not imagined how human behaviour would appear if all cause-and-effect relationships were understood."
Thank you for an interesting debate, folks! 8-)
On a different note and more to the topic: those of you who are not sure about what views you should have... read the entire thread, see me shine (because I certainly didn't use free will to post my essays - rather, I felt compelled to feed my ego and to reply to those who opposed me in order to preserve a sense of dignity - see? I felt compelled; no free will) and last but not least: vote for Atheism because I am right and life looks much better from my perspective. Feel free to drink alcohol and have sex with whoever you want without worrying about some "divine" omniscient freak who apparently already knows who will be saved and who is lost but still revels in watching us suffer for his own amusement. Life's short so feel free even if there is no real freedom. There is no God, for godsake! :mrgreen:
ATHEISM RULES!
Jacob wrote: Which one of us can afford to be wrong?
When you and I are both on our deathbeds (assuming that's how our ends will come)
I will look back on a free and enjoyable life. I will have loved my family and friends knowing that I do it because it makes me and them happy. I will look back on all the people I have helped simply because I would hope they do the same for me.
You, on the other hand, will probably be looking back on a life that was strictly regimented life, where you lived each day in fear of dissapointing your creator. You will have probably avoided many potential fun or risky situations because of your faith.
What I believe it comes down to is that we will both be facing nothingness after death. Our brains will both be dead and inoperable, meaning that all sensation whatsoever and the ability to think will be gone. Though neither if us will remember it, our friends will. I might be the guy who was always willing to hang out with his friends, while you might be the one who was always in church, throwing your life to an empty cause.
Don't take this as an insult however. I am not specifically describing how I view you, I am just loosely using you as an example for what many religious people may be like.
All in all, when we're dying. All ill have to lose is my great years of existence. All you'll have to lose are your regimented years of mind slavery. (Once again, just using you inan example that probably has nothing to do with what you are actually like. Nothing personal.)
PS - Christianity says that all who accept Jesus before they die will be let into the realm of heaven. I don't believe in an afterlife, but even if there is one, the thought of living eternally in a place where murderers, thieves, and rapists are also eternally living in peace right alongside me, starts to make hell look pretty inviting...
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And what's more, imagine the hell of living for an eternity... you'd be able to do everything you can conceive an infinite number of times, you'd get to the stage where you'd even find yourself thinking the same thoughts over and over again... "what haven't I done?"... "what haven't I thought about?" ... "I keep thinking the same things over and over..." It would be mental torture. It would be so unbearable that you would lose your mind and beg for a swift end. If you really think about it, Jacob, death is bliss if it means the cessation of everything. I'd listen to Worldenterer1 if I were you. some wise words there! 8-)
Summerlander, you got it! 8-)
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You too! As a beacon of hope you have restored my faith in humanity. :mrgreen:
Summerlander and Worldenterrer1 giving us their view of life,how it ends, and why not. I am not religious ,and what I am quoting is not ment to be religious, but makes me think, and wonder. -- "My divine self is immortal, never goes through birth, death,afterlife or rebirth. The more clearly I see this and understand it, the more I will find my mind and even my body in to a peculiar sort of inmortality that reflects the nature of my divine self" -- Of course once my body Erich S is dead so is my bodies brain. :)
I also like Summerlander have a mother who is very deeply religious, and a father who is a complete atheist. I went to a catholic school and went to church with my mum every Sunday - I hated it because of well.. how boring it is. And then of course being in a catholic school that is right next door to the founding church its self we went to church for classes a fair bit. At the time it was normal, it was something that my whole life was based around. I did completely believe in God. For me to look back on this I feel very.. annoyed? I only recently changed religious views but I can honestly say I do feel sorry for those who will not be able to see the truth.
I am happy with how I see things now. I think I always kind of knew. I AM literally amazed at how people can be so in depth about god and heaven. Yes it's a damn great and wonderful thing to think of going somewhere when we die. But no. We live and we die and we go nowhere else......
As I have written in here before and probably will write again, The Universe and Science step all over religion.
You're right Sarah. These few decades we get are probably the only ones well ever have, buy doesn't that make them all the more special!? That's why I feel so frustrated when I see people dedicating their entire lives to what they think will come afterwards.
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SarahDank wrote: I also like Summerlander have a mother who is very deeply religious, and a father who is a complete atheist. I went to a catholic school and went to church with my mum every Sunday - I hated it because of well.. how boring it is. And then of course being in a catholic school that is right next door to the founding church its self we went to church for classes a fair bit. At the time it was normal, it was something that my whole life was based around. I did completely believe in God. For me to look back on this I feel very.. annoyed? I only recently changed religious views but I can honestly say I do feel sorry for those who will not be able to see the truth.
I am happy with how I see things now. I think I always kind of knew. I AM literally amazed at how people can be so in depth about god and heaven. Yes it's a damn great and wonderful thing to think of going somewhere when we die. But no. We live and we die and we go nowhere else......
As I have written in here before and probably will write again, The Universe and Science step all over religion.
You can say this again, especially the bit about science and the universe. :D
Just the latter is enough. When we look at how the universe is, if we really pay attention and take everything into consideration, we should be able to see how much of a big joke religion is. History also tells us that it isn't just a joke, it is a bad joke, and a dangerous one.
Now we have medieval mentality being revived in the Arab world. As if Christianity's inquisitors weren't enough, now we have a lot more Muslim ones, the ones we like to call Islamists, who believe in silly superstitions/dogma and are willing to do a lot worse in the name of God.
Even more frightening than the medieval ignorance they spread is what they are armed with: modern high-tech weapons. Religion needs to go. :!:
I have a question..
Religious people - Do they Believe in other civilizations throughout the universe?
Great question! 8-)
Not unless they've updated their credence in light of the likelihood of that being true. That is normally how it works. Someone normally makes a scientific discovery, they may doubt its veracity at first, and then, when they finally have no choice but to accept it, some of them reinterpret their outdated books to sort of keep up with the program. :lol:
Edit: By the way, are you guys following what is unfolding in North Africa? :twisted:
The situation is this...
UK's Prime Minister David Cameron announced that we have a long road of struggle with international terrorism after making a decision to cut defences. Now he aims and finds it imperative to defeat Al Qaeda-linked extremists in North Africa. Many people are appalled as we, the taxpayer, have to fund the war against global jihad.
The PM decided to support the French military intervention in Mali as he wants to defeat Islamic Jihadism. Although I agree that the latter poses a real threat to civilisation and our moral values and something must be done about this, I am very sceptical about any productive outcome emerging from thwarting and ultimately defeating President Assad's regime. The very anti-Assad rebel groups are the Islamists that Cameron has vituperated.
On top of this political debacle, Liberal Democrats leader Nick Clegg is busy changing monarchical legislation in an attempt to deal with trivial concerns in light of the current situation. Mind you, these concerns shouldn't even exist in this day and age and it is a great shame that they have to ask themselves whether or not gays should have more rights when it comes to marriage, monarchical eligibility, and whether or not a Catholic should head the Church of England. There is much ignorance among us especially in the world of politics.
And what are the reasons for the French President sending troops to Mali? He is not as incensed at Al Qaeda as our prime minister. Apart from wanting to give his people the impression that he is tough and doing his best to divert attention from his own homely mess, he looks forward to gaining gold, oil, uranium and gas for his nation with the incursion abroad.
As for the Mali situation, it is literally hell. The vast majority of the Malian populace is poor and illiterate. So much so that the current military mission is very likely to drive them to the hands of jihadists. There have already been terrorist attacks in North Africa as a result which has claimed the lives of innocent people. The ungoverned space that we will create there will become fertile ground for the Islamists to gain and secure power.
As we've seen in hostage situations, these people will massacre and execute even those whose nations haven't got involved in the war. Women and girls have been raped, the slaughter of ex-slaves is ripe, and a couple was recently stoned to death for having kids out of wedlock. All these crimes against humanity committed by the faithful who hold the Koran as a literal truth. The people, upon being free from a tyrannical regime, are very likely to engage in impractical pious acts rather than rebuilding their own country. Why? Because of their ignorance and faith.
Religion is the root cause of the problem here. Expect to see something like the torpid rebuilding of Iraq, where millions of Iraqi Shiites, upon their liberation, flagellated themselves and endured a harrowing pilgrimage to the holy city of Karbala despite the lack of essentials for a dignified living. Meanwhile, as clever looters raided facilities, the children suffered and poured blood in the name of faith as religious chanting and penitence were a top priority.
I hope those of you who linger in faith see the light (the real "light") and become secularists. Get your parents, sisters, brothers and offspring to vote for atheism in this thread too! ;)
For you summerlander http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2j3VU1T8ALU
I follow no religeon but I believe in god. I believe in spirit. I believe in Jesus, and Bhudda, and Muhammad, as well as other enlightened spirutal masters. I believe all religions came from the same truth, and that's why they are all wrong. I reccomend you all check out my spirit science topic in the off topic section as well ;)
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Richard Dawkins described religion as a misfiring byproduct of something evolutionary useful. He analogously offered the following example...
A moth has evolved a biological compass sensitive to the light from the stars and the moon in order to find its way to its home or natural habitat. However, this evolutionary trait did not develop with the prediction that human beings would one day invent artificial light...
Thus, the very same biological mechanism that helps the moth can betray it whenever it comes across one of our artificial lights. The moth ends up flying towards the "false" light in a spiralling motion. A misfiring byproduct of a normally functional compass. Not everything in evolution works to your advantage all the time...
In a similar vein, children learn to listen to their parents as these usually have their best interests at heart. If a mother tells her child not to go near the edge of a cliff it will benefit the child to take heed of this advice. If the father tells the child not to touch the hot pan because it's "burnies" the child will listen.
But the fact that children are conditioned to listen to their parents doesn't always work to their advantage. Parents can err, be wrong or believe in infeasibilities. Parents will tend to pass their world-views to their children. Religious dogma, as was mentioned earlier, is passed on through exposure.
A Muslim family who strongly believe in martyrdom as the fastest way to heaven - as it is explicitly mentioned by the Koran if one takes it literally - will think one of them is doing the right thing by being a suicide bomber. In evolution you dont get points for being dead.
Hence religion is a misfiring byproduct of an otherwise useful trait - listening to your parents, following tradition, adopting their philosophies and their memes... All in the belief that they are the perfect recipe.
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Ryan wrote:
Worldenterer1 wrote:Je-Je wrote:I belive in Jesus
Why?
Why not?
I asked you first. :P