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Been thinking about something important? Discuss it here! All kinds of religious and philosophical discussions allowed. Be warned that such arguments often get heated, but please keep to all the rules anyway.

admin: If there is no divine creator does that make your existence pointless? If there is no divine being when you die will you go into the ground? If there is no divine creator what is life for? If there is a divine creator does that mean if you don't believe in him you go to hell? If there is a divine creator wouldn't you be on the side that believes God is real? What does it hurt?

Pinkie: "If there is no divine creator does that make your existence pointless?"
It is possible to define points without referencing a creator. I've always found this argument to be stifling. Why should it matter where we come from? Can't we define our own existence?

"If there is no divine being when you die will you go into the ground?"
I went to a mine once. I'm pretty sure I didn't die.

"If there is no divine creator what is life for?"
Purpose is a decidedly human and very strange concept. I've never understood it fully. What are stones for? Hitting people? Keeping a pet rock collection? Purpose means what meaning we give it. You can't objectively prove a purpose, only an intention, which is a different concept.

"If there is a divine creator does that mean if you don't believe in him you go to hell?"
Depends on the divine creator in question, and what exactly you mean by hell.

"If there is a divine creator wouldn't you be on the side that believes God is real?"
Depends on the divine creator in question, and what exactly you mean by real.

"What does it hurt?"
Like most beliefs, very little.

admin: You don't believe in anyone, what is your existence for?

Very sarcastic. Is there anything beyond life?

Also sarcastic. There are many purposes you say?

If the Christian God is real will you go to hell? Hell, the place you go for eternity.

Let's rephrase that. If God (a god being the God of the Bible) is real, wouldn't you want to be on His side?"

"Like most beliefs, very little."
If I'm wrong, it hurts nothing. If you are wrong your soul is at stake.

There is said to be a 50/50 per cent chance God is real, what do you think?

Pinkie: "You don't believe in anyone, what is your existence for?"
Among other things, I believe in me, I believe in the world, and I believe my purpose in this world is to be a good person. I'm not even being sarcastic. I think I need to give you a bit of context.

Back when I was in high school I used to be a Christian, mostly because it was a Christian high school, but increasingly because I grew to love the teachings of Jesus. The bishop of Auckland gave me a special gold cross for my sermons because I happened to be very good at delivering them. But then I came to realize - I wasn't doing this for God. I was doing this because I genuinely wanted all people to live in peace and happiness.

Time skip. About a year ago I went to an upmarket Pentecostal church - the kind that plays dance music and flashes lights everywhere. It was truly enlightening. I went into the foyer and guess what I saw? The whole room was full of money-changers. OK, so the money changers were actually eftpos machines, but the principle struck a chord with me. After discussions with the chaplain, I became convinced that nothing about the church had anything to do with any of the overall themes of the Bible. Is that supposed to be what life is for? How many Christians have actually turned the other cheek?

Why did people go to this church? For the same reason that people go to rave parties. Buddhists have argued for centuries that when you're in one of these large groups, you kinda lose your sense of self, and that's a very unique, special feeling of belonging.

The more I've researched different religions, the more clearer it has become to me that what's actually attractive about religion is that it justifies good behavior. We all want to be good people. People don't respect Ghandi because he was a Hindu, or Martin Luther King because he was a Christian. They respect them because despite their religious differences, they were both righteous.

My conclusion from my own spiritual journey? I can justify being good to myself. I don't need God to order me to be good, I can decide to be good or bad, every day when I wake up. Even if God were evil, I would be a good person. And ultimately, I don't think your answer would be that different from mine. I'll make a decent bet that if the Bible said "Kill thy neighbor", you would not be Christian. The power of religion comes from it's message, not its Gods.

To be clear - I'm not a humanist. I really dislike the implications of that. I'm not a spiritualist. I believe good moral behavior doesn't require a metaphysical basis. And I'm not a Sam Harris or Richard Dawkins freak. Matter of fact I disagree with about half of what those kinds of guys usually say. But I don't think God is conductive to that message, and as my own thinking has progressed, I've become increasingly convinced that God is actually an impossible concept anyway.

"Is there anything beyond life?"
You can define life pretty broadly, but I'd say yes. As Zhuangzi wrote, knowledge is infinite, even if the sum of our learning is only finite. There is much to life we will never know or experience, and thus it could be said to be "beyond our lives". Having said that, if by the question you mean "Are we likely to come back to life after death", my answer to that is "Approximately as likely as you are to have had life before birth". Not to say impossible, but I'm not counting on it.

"There are many purposes you say?"
I say purpose is in the eye of the beholder. I bet if you were to tell me what my purpose was, I could find ten people who all disagree with you on different terms. Like a rock, a person may have many purposes, or may devote themselves to one. Only they can decide.

"If God (a god being the God of the Bible) is real, wouldn't you want to be on His side?"
Pretty big if. I think the most important thing isn't if God is real or not. But if I so happened to know God is definitely real, I would personally believe in him and tolerate those who do not.

"If I'm wrong, it hurts nothing. If you are wrong your soul is at stake."
Now you have to prove I have a soul

The problem with this to me is that it assumes 50/50 odds, and it assumes that I want to believe something even if I'm not sure it's true, which I'm too intellectually honest for. Which leads me to your next statement:

"There is said to be a 50/50 per cent chance God is real, what do you think?"
I think there's a 0% chance God is real, 100% chance God is not. Why? Because I believe any given specific concept of God is falsifiable. People often hide God behind strange words like "perfection", which mean different things to different people. But it's not hard to uncover cracks in the God theory. For a typical example:

Me: "does your God want us to believe he exists?"
Theist: "yip"
Me: "does God want to give us a choice to believe?"
Theist: "yip"
Me: "but he could not give us a choice, if he wanted to?"
Theist: "yip"
Me: "do you see the logical problem with the statements you have just made?"
Theist: "nope"

admin: You say you are not a humanist, a spiritualist and a host of other things, what do you define yourself as? Whose teachings and books do you closely align yourself with?

Why don’t you believe in a soul? What specific reasons and rationality makes you think this way?

What is your definition of a “good person” and where does your definition of good come from?

When asking “how many Christians have actually turned the other check?” What do you mean by that?

You said “the power of religion comes from it’s message and not it’s god’s.” But that is far from the truth, have you noticed how unique the message of the gospel is? We sinned, somebody cared, gave everything up, came down to earth that is full of people who hated him, died for all our sins, and rose again, there is nothing you or I can do that would make us good, there is nothing I can do. But God made away, through his bloodshed that he would turn away from all our sins if we repent and put our trust in him. Have you ever seen a religion like that? Someone who is accessible, and loved us? A religion where there is absolutely nothing we could do to make someone love us? No. I don’t think anyone has. Christianity is unique in how God became a man and he didn’t just send a prophet to tell us what to do.

Pinkie: Good questions.

I define myself as an athiest. If I had to choose somebody whose teachings I most closely align myself with, I'd say it's very hard to choose, but I'll pick Ghandi. Jesus is definitely a close contender, as is Laozi, and Nietzsche. Among modern teachers, Karen Armstrong and the present Dali Lama stand out.

"Why don’t you believe in a soul?"

A host of reasons, but this is the easiest to explain: how do you know a CD case doesn't have a soul?

"What is your definition of a “good person” and where does your definition of good come from?"

From the principle of compassion. For example, I believe this is genuinely what set Jesus apart as a teacher - he cared for others, no matter who they were, and even above his own life.

Now there's an old theist trick that asks "and where did the principle of compassion come from, huh?", and the answer is simple - from us. We want to live in a society that honest, blah blah blah, even if we don't always act in that way. And all these things come from compassion.

"When asking “how many Christians have actually turned the other check?” What do you mean by that?"

What I mean is that "religious" can be interpreted in several ways. For example, by my reading of the gospel, it is impossible to be a Christian and a solider. This was also the interpretation used by Christians until Constantine. The principle behind this is solid: if another is trying to shoot you, this commandment right here tells them to come out with their hands up and let them shoot you. And if they have been shot on one side, turn over so that they may be shot on the other side too. Now you tell me - how many Christians do you know who behave like this? Mark Kurlansky's landmark book on non-violence is a fascinating exploration of this exact problem, as an aside, but I could do the same with most of the commandment's of the gospel.

One interpretation of religious is just a belief in God. Another is to do a few unimportant token actions, like turn up at church on Sunday. But to actually live out one's life in accordance with the Bible is rare, and rarer still is to do that without twisting the words into the opposite of what they're plainly saying. Very, very few Christians do that.

"Have you ever seen a religion like that?"

There is no religion exactly like Christianity, although as others have noted there are very strong parallels even in the savior motif. But what logically follows from this is disturbing - if Jesus died for all our sins, there's nothing wrong with sinning since our sins are forgiven. I've always had this basic problem with the resurrection narrative. Just based on the textual evidence, if there's one thing that is a later invention in the story of Jesus, it's the post-death sightings of Jesus.

I guess the point of my statement was to say I think that people believe in religion because they want to be good. Religions teach a good path and all that priests need to do is slap a God on top of that. If they have a powerful story or two (no denying that the story of Jesus is very powerful) then that only reinforces the message further.

admin: That makes sense. Good talk, I'll have more questions later.

Meme

nolongeractiveuser: You're just making posts everywhere to get the last post, right?

admin: No

nolongeractiveuser: Then tell me how meme is relevant to this thread.

admin: I was seriously saying that. ^

This was an interesting thread and provides an opportunity for a question I've always wanted to ask...
Lars, do you see any Bible believing christians as being otherwise intelligent, logical and reasonable humans?

And if so, does it ever give you pause that they might be seeing something you don't see?

I ask because some of my non-christian friends fit that mould. Outside of the issues that divide us, they seem like perfectly intelligent people who, given the task of making a decision based on evidence impossible to observe, make their choice based on sound logic and reasonable thinking. When I see that, it sometimes gives me pause to consider why they can't see what I see when it comes to these "religious" questions.

It's good for me because it forces me to re-examine why I believe what I believe. But I always wonder if it goes the same way. I'd be guessing that it'd be easier to pass christians off since you'd be in the majority when it comes to world views?

nzlockie: That actually is a good question.

nzlockie: "Lars, do you see any Bible believing christians as being otherwise intelligent, logical and reasonable humans?"

Yes.

"And if so, does it ever give you pause that they might be seeing something you don't see?"

Yes, and it pisses me off. I think about religion rather a lot because I'm fascinated by it and how it works. What really annoys me is when people talk about their spirituality, like a feeling of the presence of God or something. I have honestly never felt that. People keep saying it's so amazing but it's like there's a whole part of me missing, something they have that I don't. It's depressing really. I'm not sure whether this is actually religious or if it's just my brain not functioning normally. I was the best student in school at Bible class, I gave award-winning sermons, I was even at one point in my life honestly trying extremely hard to believe in the Christian God, so nobody can say I'm just ignorant. To my mind, if the Christian God is real, he's a real jerk for showing himself so easily to people who don't even believe in him that much (on occasion), and totally removing himself from me.

But there's a big difference between wanting something to be true and it being true. I want many religious beliefs to be true, but that doesn't mean they are true. What I've come to accept now is that it doesn't actually matter. I can still be a good person and not worry about whether God is real or not. I think that's a lot less selfish and fulfilling for me anyway.

admin: That's really cool - thanks for that. I actually really appreciate what you've said there.
Nobody likes being thought of as completely stupid, especially when the one area we disagree on is an area that can't be definitively proven either way in this realm.

I get that it looks really obvious from one side of the fence - I mean I have to believe that the impossible IS possible! And I don't mean some impossible-lite like climbing everest with one leg, I'm talking eating super-hot burrito impossible.

But sometimes I feel like shouting at people and saying, "Look, I understand how stupid this makes me look. I'm NOT stupid and I don't want to LOOK stupid, so doesn't the fact that I'm willing to believe these things anyway credit them with SOME consideration?"

That being said, I've met enough religious freaky-deakies to understand why we all get lumped together.
I appreciate what you've said because it means that my intelligence is not solely defined by my religious beliefs lining up with yours.

On another note - I hate to hear stories like yours. I wish that intelligent people like yourself didn't land in churches like that. The Bible is crystal clear about so many issues that turn people off our faith - issues like tithing, women's rights and loving sinners etc. And yet so many churches get it wrong.
The Bible makes it quite clear that "special revelation" - things like God speaking audibly, Angels revealing themselves visiably that kind of thing - is past. It won't happen again until Jesus returns.
As a christian, I can "feel" God's presence in exactly the same way that I can "feel" the presence of my dead grandmother. (I don't mean that in a sarcastic way) It's a purely psycological-emotional thing and is just in our heads. The difference is that we believe that God is alive and he is everywhere, so a better analogy would be feeling the presence of my mate standing next to me when I'm blindfolded. Science would strongly indicate that the human senses are not acute enough to actually physically sense his presence so my conclusion is that it's largely in my head.

I personally don't "sense" God's presence in the way that some of my charasmatic friends do. I don't need to. He is as real to me as anything I can see and touch so I don't need to find any more "evidences" for his existence. I think a lot of people are like that.
God is just real - he's not an "experience". Christians who talk about that kind of thing, just set new christians up for disillusionment.

nzlockie: I really like that, it makes a lot of sense. I like that quote, But sometimes I feel like shouting at people and saying, "Look, I understand how stupid this makes me look. I'm NOT stupid and I don't want to LOOK stupid, so doesn't the fact that I'm willing to believe these things anyway credit them with SOME consideration?" I feel like that a lot, people look at what I've said and shrug it off with, "1) you're 14, you don't know what you're talking about, 2) You're home schooled, that just proves you are brainwashed, and 3) No one cares.

I mean, I like how you make stuff seem so logical.

Pinkie: Haha thanks.

I was always borught up to think critically, and when I look at the Bible and its message it DOES seem logical to me. (Lars is probably screaming)

I do get that it requires faith to fill in the gaps, but I'm ok with that.

I think the hardest thing for new christians today is to overcome the false concept that God is some cosmic ice-cream man just there to make sure everyone is happy. If we can understand that we are the clay and he is the potter, we can live with the fact that some of his decisions don't make sense to us.

Our concept of "Fair" and "Right" is based on a false understanding that we are fundementally good. If I didn't believe that I was fundementally bad, then I would have a harder time accepting God telling me what is right and wrong.

I think it's important to respect the fact that most people examine that idea and decide that we are fundementally good at the core. While I don't agree with that, I understand it and know that they will have a harder time accepting the Bible as truth.

If I am AM just the clay, then it is totally logical that in those moments where my understanding conflicts with what God is telling me, I will submit to his information.

That's the christian faith equivalent of when science says, "we don't understand HOW this is happening, but we know it's happening."

nzlockie: No problem.

Yeah, I bet he is.

That reminds me of Romans 8:28, Even if we think it seems bad it really helps. If it doesn't seem like it helps it really can change things around us.