Are you religious?

[BrianC]

I apologize for not being clear. Could you go back and directly answer my very first question? Not state something about the topic, but directly answer the question?

Do you think slaves should obey their earthly masters?

I am clearly just trying to open the door that something in the NT could be wrong.

I find it to be a loaded question. You know what it says and I do believe obedience is more peaceful than the alternative, but if I answer directly, it opens a big can of worms.

So ignore it and hope the little problem goes away?
By the way, my mention of torture was in reference to Hell. Where God tortures the beings he supposedly loves.

Sorry we are all ganging up on you. You may feel persecuted but don't. Athiests are far more persecuted in America these days. (which I am not, by the way) Where's the Deist catagory?

I believe what it says, but I think you just brought up the question to fuel the fire. Yes, it does say slaves should obey their slavers, but as I said before it also encourages slavers to set slaves free. So you basically took one part of the bible and tried to say it encourages slavery, even though it doesn't.

It says in the bible that the wages of sin is death. We are punished becuase people are evil due to sin and we can't follow God without trusting in him.

[antron]

I believe what it says

That slaves should obey their earthly masters?

I'm not addressing the good things in the NT, just the bad. Not to feed the flames but to get you to admit that the NT is not infallible. (or do you think that already, sorry if you did)

[ebarrett]

oh for the love of a theoretical god both of you suck

[Vyxx]

It's called faith because it's not called knowledge.

Close topic.

[professor ganson]

I'd be genuinely curious to hear from BrianC and other theists what degree of credence they have in the existence of God. Give me a number between 0 (maximally improbable) and 1 (maximally probable).

No one here can plausibly regard it as maximally probable, on a par with the claim that 1+1=2.

Or maximally improbable, on a par with the claim that 1+1=3.

Anyone at all rational will place it somewhere between 0 and 1. I, for my part, would place it somewhere around .2 or .3, and so way, way below my degree of credence in the theory of evolution (around .8 ), a theory that integrates perfectly with other well established theories and has remarkable explanatory and predictive force.

I suppose the existence of God seems to me more likely than the claim that alien abductions are regularly taking place here on earth or that Sasquatch exists.

You might think I should place it at .5 since there is no evidence for or against the hypothesis that God exists. That's mistaken, however. For all I know there is a chest buried deep in the Pacific Ocean with exactly ten Care Bear stuffed animals-- I have no evidence one way or another on the matter. I still regard the probability that there is such a chest as very low. Furthermore, to my mind the existence of suffering is evidence against the existence of an omniscient, omnipotent, benevolent creator.

[Gus]

Ugh. I thought this place was above relgion debates.

[antron]

easy. God = Nature, so it's a 1.

[kernow]

easy. God = Nature, so it's a 1.

How simple, can I ask you to solve the mysteries of the universe and existence next please.

[mesh control]

Ugh. I thought this place was above relgion debates.

Lol

[drauch]

This is the worst math ever.

[CMoon]

It aint Shmups if a thread about religion isn't getting locked

[professor ganson]

This is the worst math ever.

lol. If that's directed at me, I deserve it.

[Moniker]

If people would stick to describing their own beliefs and how they arrived at them, followed by exploratory queries, it might be an interesting thread indeed.

It aint Shmups if a thread about religion isn't getting locked

Ah well...

[rapoon]

Deist.

“Argue not concerning God,…re-examine all that you have been told at church or school or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your soul…”
― Walt Whitman

[NTSC-J]

I dont want BrianC to feel like he`s getting ganged up on, but if he or any other follower of Christ would indulge me, there`s something I`ve always wondered about the requirements for getting into heaven.

As far as I understand it, believing in Jesus and accepting Him into your heart or whatever is key. So does that mean that a person that does good things their whole life but doesnt believe in Christ burns in eternal hellfire whereas a murderer who repents his sins the latter half of his life goes to heaven? What if some guy rapes and butchers a child who was brought up in an Athiest home but in prison he finds Christ? Does the child still go to hell?

[Estebang]

Ugh. I thought this place was above religion debates.

[Moniker]

I dont want BrianC to feel like he`s getting ganged up on, but if he or any other follower of Christ would indulge me, there`s something I`ve always wondered about the requirements for getting into heaven.

As far as I understand it, believing in Jesus and accepting Him into your heart or whatever is key. So does that mean that a person that does good things their whole life but doesnt believe in Christ burns in eternal hellfire whereas a murderer who repents his sins the latter half of his life goes to heaven? What if some guy rapes and butchers a child who was brought up in an Athiest home but in prison he finds Christ? Does the child still go to hell?

I believe the party line from the Catholic church goes something like this: every person is guaranteed exposure to Christ, even if they're born on a completely isolated island that never receives missionaries or the bible. In those cases, people experience direct revelation. Further, virtuous people who die suddenly with sin on their souls can (always?) receive "perfect contrition."

John Paul II had a more moderate view, that God is not constrained by our interpretations of his requirements for entry into heaven. An unbaptized child can enter heaven through the intercession of grace.

This is the worst math ever.

lol. If that's directed at me, I deserve it.

I don't think applying probability to faith is completely misguided - you just attempted it from the wrong direction. Any ethos can and must be tested against experience. When the two clash, then one of three things must happen: your tenets must be reinterpreted to allow for the experienced data, your tenets must be changed to allow for it, or your interpretation of the event must be reinterpreted.

If you don't do this, and allow the contradiction to stand, you're an unhappy person indeed. Christianity is not inherently inflexible. Milton, for example, had a remarkably complete and comprehensive system of belief that beats hands-down the thinking of casual atheists. I arrived at agnosticism due to a failure on my part to reconcile the world with Catholicism (and some logical issues besides). I abandoned agnosticism for skepticism, because I could not come up with a suitably large enough difference between doubt in matters of faith and doubt in matters of perception. I abandoned that for atheism because existing in a state of perpetual doubt was extremely uncomfortable. Atheism "works" for me, and allows me to interpret what I see in what I consider to be a consistent manner.

In my view, that ought to be the bar the individual sets for himself: do my beliefs work for me? That is the only way for someone to achieve any level of spiritual/philosophical contentment.

[BIL]

This place has never been above relgieioune debates. /mj_popcorn.gif

[blackoak]

I have some thoughts regarding professorganson's 0 to 1 question above. I hope it doesn't come across as too didactic, as people can be quite sensitive with these things...

I have found that, like the "free will" debate, most people have not thought too critically or deeply about what the word "God" actually means or might mean; or, to say it a better way, despite thinking about it quite a bit, they are still in the habit of posing irresponsible questions.

Now, despite the Wittgensteinian flavor of the above, I am not a philosophy of language student, but I recognize that when most people say "God" they are really saying: Something that gives life "meaning" and answers why I exist, why there is something rather than nothing, etc etc. These questions themselves have many problems too (as indicated by the persistent quotes around certain terms, hehe) but its worth acknowledging that THIS is the nature of the "God" question as a starting point.

If all that is meant by God is a tautological identity with nature (full of wonder and mystery--not meant derisorly) or, even more simplistically, some phenomelogical being (wormhole aliens! haha) technologically advanced enough to perform the many miracles of religion or even just start the universe ticking--well, that can be put in the form of a thinkable, meaningful question. But it isn't what most people, except perhaps those who have lived the most uneducated and most unanalyzed lives, really mean when they say God.

Now, if by God we mean the definition I proposed above ("meaning" in life, why matter exists, what matter is, etc) then there is nothing that can _sufficiently_ answer that question with the final certitude that the word "God" is meant to imply. It isn't a matter of .1, .0001, or .000000000001 certainty, because the word doesn't allow that kind of question.

[rapoon]

easy. God = Nature, so it's a 1.

How simple, can I ask you to solve the mysteries of the universe and existence next please.

Pantheism does not try to solve the mysteries of the universe and existence. The orderly harmony within the universe is God.

[blackoak]

Oh, and as is probably obvious, I'm an atheist. When I was younger and had spent less time thinking about these things, I called myself agnostic: after all, it seemed reasonable... show me the proof, and I'll believe in God. But I realized through study and thinking that lurking in claims of agnosticism was a pretty lazy equivalence between "God" and, say, the Loch Ness Monster. I am agnostic about the Loch Ness Monster because I suppose its possible, though highly unlikely, that proof will be presented to me of its existence. For agnostics who believe proof of God might one day be forthcoming, I ask them to do a thought experiment about what that proof might consist of.

Despite its own troubles the term atheist better captures this realization of radical doubt for me than agnostic.

[rapoon]

[xbl0x180]

Quote:
Also, it's very surprising the pause some people give whenever the rhetorical question is asked as to whether they'd sacrifice their own first-born as proof of devotion to God. I mean, if God knows everything and knew that ol' Abe had faith that he wouldn't have to murder his own son as proof, then what was the point of the exercise in the first place? Was it just for show? What kind of a brutish display of devotion is this? After all, God is like Santa - he knows when you're good and bad. There was no need to take little Isaac to be slaughtered like an animal, even in gest. Actually, God should know a little more than that - he knows when you're going to be good and bad. So, by extension, what's the point of receiving "judgment" from God at all? There was someone who wrote the analogy about creating a statue of a pig only to lash out at it because it looks like a pig and not something else


God was testing Abraham to help teach Abraham a lesson, not for himself. God isn't like Santa. He doesn't give handouts for every single person who does good. He tests us (but not tempts) and wants us to grow. He wants us to trust in him and do good works. Good works isn't what gets us into heaven, but it's how we show love for others.

If I were writing the Bible, the lesson would've been the opposite: If you take your kid out to be sacrificed just because an authority figure told you to, then you're clearly not thinking for yourself. If you believe God created us, then that means he created us to have a brain and to use our own judgement, not just to blindly follow.

This is also interesting: I found a retcon of the story on a Bible studies site:

If we think it seems cruel, remember that God only asks Abraham to go through what he himself has gone through in sacrificing his own son for us. Abraham did not have to go all the way through with it, but God did.

I guess Star Wars fans aren't the only ones that do that!

I agree with the notion of exercising due diligence when it comes to protecting our loved ones from tyrants (including God). However, even Jesus Christ said in the Book of Matthew that those who love their family members more than God shall be denied entry into heaven.

If I truly possess free will, then I choose to do something that God doesn't already know

[greg]

So can we deduce some correlation between playing shooters and lack of religiousness?

Or are the results due to half the forum being from outside the US?

Or is it simply that less religious people are more inclined to take polls?

I think it's possible plenty of people see yet another topic like this, roll their eyes, and ignore it. There may be a correlation between antagonistic atheist douchebags and people who have nothing better to do with their lives than go to a video game forum to bitch about religion, however.

Ugh. I thought this place was above relgion debates.

Gus: Joined: 19 Aug 2011. You haven't been around here for very long.

[drauch]

Anything goes in off topic wonderland.

[louisg]

I agree with the notion of exercising due diligence when it comes to protecting our loved ones from tyrants (including God). However, even Jesus Christ said in the Book of Matthew that those who love their family members more than God shall be denied entry into heaven.

If I truly possess free will, then I choose to do something that God doesn't already know

Yeah, but everyone picks and chooses passages to follow when they decide to follow the teachings of the Bible. To be frank, not all of it has wholesome values, even though there are a lot of good morals in there. Plus, as a Jewish guy, the book of Matthew doesn't have any bearing on my lifestyle

I think it's possible plenty of people see yet another topic like this, roll their eyes, and ignore it. There may be a correlation between antagonistic atheist douchebags and people who have nothing better to do with their lives than go to a video game forum to bitch about religion, however.

How's it douchy to debate religion? I believe that debate is healthy.

[Friendly]

I think it's possible plenty of people see yet another topic like this, roll their eyes, and ignore it. There may be a correlation between antagonistic atheist douchebags and people who have nothing better to do with their lives than go to a video game forum to bitch about religion, however.

How's it douchy to debate religion? I believe that debate is healthy.

Not for people who are religious and wish to remain so. Because once they allow themselves to actually think (if they have the necessary capacity), they can't but realize that religion is made-up and has no basis in reality. That's why it's better not to discuss it at all. Living in a fantasy-world is much more fun.

antagonistic atheist douchebags

Trollollol.

[louisg]

Not for people who are religious and wish to remain so. Because once they allow themselves to actually think (if they have the necessary capacity), they can't but realize that religion is made-up and has no basis in reality. That's why it's better not to discuss it at all. Living in a fantasy-world is much more fun.

I think, in general, there's a failure of the masses to put themselves into someone else's shoes. I tend to think of a religion as a Brain OS-- this is how your mind is formatted And every religion I think has something positive to contribute to society, and slightly different ways of looking at things.

Where it falls down is when religious books are treated as fact-- this is not just problematic because it butts up against observable evidence, is at odds with modern society (since a lot of books were written at a time when women and other cultures were considered to be subhuman), and is incompatible with other religions as well. I think a loose interpretation of a religious text vs. a literal interpretation is the thing that differentiates thoughtful religious people from the sort of folk who fly planes into buildings and blow up abortion clinics.

[RGC]

No choice for Solipsism?

Was anyone even addressing you?!!




Took me 2 pages to come up with that one.

[professor ganson]

I'm fine with the idea of religion as a useful fiction-- religion helps individuals deal with life, which is hard even for the most privileged, and can help maintain social stability, etc.

My main concern are cases where religion is used as a tool to control others-- especially women. That's a very real and serious problem. I don't want to name names, but I think we all know what region of the world I have in mind when I mention liberties of women in particular.