Interventionist God or Non Interventionist God?

[chansen]

To the atheists, just out of curiousity, do you find less fundamentalist believers in God less threatening? Is a belief in God more acceptable and understandable when it's closer to secularism and doesn't include the supernatural? Just trying to understand.

Less immediately threatening, yes. I still think the most likely thing that could screw up the entire planet and end all life on it is the combination of atomic weapons and religious fervor.

To that end, the complete religious nutcases who would actually look forward to this gain standing because they consider that all Christians are somehow standing with them. For less extreme but still irrational examples, blackbelt loves to tell me how atheists are in the minority, and Jae gleefully reminds me that Christianity is growing in Asia and Aftrica. As if more believers de-legitimizes non-belief.

And I think that the sane Christians who ignore the parts of the bible that the nutcases read over and over, do a lousy job of dealing with the worst among them.

 

[Birch]

Truly, it would be in humanities best interest to eradicate religion and religious ideals

This is a very harsh statement. I'm not sure why it is such an overlooked fact that religion - a set of practices and beliefs that one engages with in order to best honour what they feel God is - itself is not the problem. Most educated people realize that religious scripture was written by humans at a specific period in time, in a specific location for a specific audience. They really do. Even though it's most often those people who believe the various holy books ARE the word of God that get the limelight. I come from a family of Jews who are scholarly brilliant people (minus me, the drop out ) who know that these are tribal writings, copied down narratives from many generations before that have been altered with and tampered with but serve as a unification for a people who were dispersed across the globe.

I spent the last many years working at and attending an Anglican church and I did not come across one person in that time who took the bible literally. Some people think Jesus was real, and was teaching a reformed version of Judaism that got to the heart of what God was - a divinity that existed within each of us and that we could obtain a relationship with (instead of the previous God of the Book and Laws of the Jewish culture he was brought up in) And some people feel he was made up but serves as an archetype or representation of our inner best. (like many fables or stories that are part of culture - like the Homeric poems )

Take away religion and you really think that will fix the broken people that look toward a tribe mentality for a sense of belonging? We are tribal by nature and have been for most of our existence - finding a common shared belief and identifying with it is for good or bad, what people do. Those people without religion will still have mental issues, anger issues, and other such things that cause them to find excuses and reasons to exercise violence and discrimination. Might some of it be reduced? Sure, but you can bet that there would be many other 'righteous groups' that would form that would incite violence of others. There will always be those who find a need to belittle, shame, insult, ridicule etc - regardless of whether they are religious or not.

In my city alone, I can't think of any homeless shelters run by non Christian groups. Or soup kitchens. We have a huge homeless situation here and only the churches are giving the people a place to sleep and food to eat. (and being witness to how these things are done - no, they were not recruit attempts. They honestly exist because they feel that Jesus taught that you must help the marginalized because the less of any of us, is the same as us. None of us is any better.)

Also, if you want to eradicate religion, what about the stories of ancient Greece, Demeter and Persephone, all the countless others, or how deities were thought of as archetypes by Jung, or how for someone like me, who's daughter died three months ago, after a period of the worst emptiness and darkness one could imagine - finding something larger than myself, bigger than myself and in fact my TRUE self, existing within - has been what keeps me from slipping into insanity. Religion is very tied into our culture and our psyche and yanking it out is not going to change the hearts of those people who are just simply broken and cruel. They will find only other reasons to be cruel in their brokenness.

 

[Pavlos Maros]

I take it that shared meaning and purpose is essential if we are to stand in a right relationship with the air and water,

You've lost me again.

My experience with history indicates that the problem facing human being, you and I you, is the failure to achieve shared meaning and purpose.

As "I" As you put it, am an atheist and atheists had no real say in the past, (today we have a little more.) So I fixed it for you.

You seem to recognize this problem and offer a solution, "Truly, it would be in humanities best interest to eradicate religion and religious ideals."

This seems to present the non religious thinker/actor as superior and the religious thinker/actor as inferior.

Only in that one instant, there belief in an imaginary thing, which has control of there lives thus making them dangerous to themselves and others.

Further, it seems to imply that your non religious disposition opens to the possibility of eradication for those who disagree with you.

I never once said I wanted or was going to eradicate it. I merely pointed out the it has and has had a bad effect on humanity. the only people who can eradicate religion are the religious themselves by seeing sense.

This seems quite like many accounts taken from the Bible. In the earliest documents there is a persistent inclination to consider difference as offensive. This inclination has been carried forward into our own time.

This is a poor show or your part to try and make me the humanist out to be the bastard here. Because you know that it has and has always been religion that has had a bad effect on humanity.

You are aware that some religious folk look with great excitement to the day in which God will eradicate those who hold any opinion or express any action not conformed to their religious understanding. Noticing this, fully aware that I may be missing something, it seems your desire for the eradication of those who you do not agree with is not all that different.

Wow! Where did I say or where is it said that I would want to eradicate anybody. Religion is not a person/s it is an ideology. Wow. Don't you get bitchy. Poor show Poor show

You'll need to unpack this. Right now, I think it's saying that every person who subscribes to any religion has the capacity for the greatest of evil.

It does and they do.

I cannot see the correlation between the two categories. It's analogous to saying that all people who like to watch pink bunnies on television also eat peanut butter.

Pink bunnies and religion are not the same. Unless there is a pink bunny god that they must obey.

This is a very harsh statement.

How is it an harsh statement to say that humanity needs to eradicate an ideology which has caused the deaths of billions. And the oppressing of billions of others.
Humanity could certainly do without it. But I doubt it would ever happen.

 

[Seeler]

I think of airclean's beliefs as unsafe.

I agree.

 

[Seeler]

This is a very harsh statement. I'm not sure why it is such an overlooked fact that religion - a set of practices and beliefs that one engages with in order to best honour what they feel God is - itself is not the problem. Most educated people realize that religious scripture was written by humans at a specific period in time, in a specific location for a specific audience. They really do. Even though it's most often those people who believe the various holy books ARE the word of God that get the limelight. I come from a family of Jews who are scholarly brilliant people (minus me, the drop out ) who know that these are tribal writings, copied down narratives from many generations before that have been altered with and tampered with but serve as a unification for a people who were dispersed across the globe.

I spent the last many years working at and attending an Anglican church and I did not come across one person in that time who took the bible literally. Some people think Jesus was real, and was teaching a reformed version of Judaism that got to the heart of what God was - a divinity that existed within each of us and that we could obtain a relationship with (instead of the previous God of the Book and Laws of the Jewish culture he was brought up in) And some people feel he was made up but serves as an archetype or representation of our inner best. (like many fables or stories that are part of culture - like the Homeric poems )

Take away religion and you really think that will fix the broken people that look toward a tribe mentality for a sense of belonging? We are tribal by nature and have been for most of our existence - finding a common shared belief and identifying with it is for good or bad, what people do. Those people without religion will still have mental issues, anger issues, and other such things that cause them to find excuses and reasons to exercise violence and discrimination. Might some of it be reduced? Sure, but you can bet that there would be many other 'righteous groups' that would form that would incite violence of others. There will always be those who find a need to belittle, shame, insult, ridicule etc - regardless of whether they are religious or not.

In my city alone, I can't think of any homeless shelters run by non Christian groups. Or soup kitchens. We have a huge homeless situation here and only the churches are giving the people a place to sleep and food to eat. (and being witness to how these things are done - no, they were not recruit attempts. They honestly exist because they feel that Jesus taught that you must help the marginalized because the less of any of us, is the same as us. None of us is any better.)

Also, if you want to eradicate religion, what about the stories of ancient Greece, Demeter and Persephone, all the countless others, or how deities were thought of as archetypes by Jung, or how for someone like me, who's daughter died three months ago, after a period of the worst emptiness and darkness one could imagine - finding something larger than myself, bigger than myself and in fact my TRUE self, existing within - has been what keeps me from slipping into insanity. Religion is very tied into our culture and our psyche and yanking it out is not going to change the hearts of those people who are just simply broken and cruel. They will find only other reasons to be cruel in their brokenness.

Birch - I don't think I've properly welcomed you to this WC2. I think that this post deserves more than a 'like'. I agree with much of what you have so elequently expressed. Thank you for your contribution. And I'm so sorry to hear that you recently lost your daughter. That must be hard. Come over to the Room for All thread whenever you need a hug or someone to talk to. The people there have helped me a lot.

 

[GeoFee]

Hi Pavlos...

Well... you have me smiling and that is worth an expression of appreciation!

George

 

[chansen]

@Birch

I lost my 4-year-old son almost exactly 3 years ago. I'm usually around to talk. Feel free to add me to your list of people who will listen.

 

[BetteTheRed]

Let's try this again, Pavlos. You are claiming that everyone who follows a religion has the capacity for the greatest of evil. Do you also claim that those who don't follow a religion are immune from that capacity?

Every human being may have the capacity for great evil, although I'd dispute that statement, knowing many good kind people who appear to be oblivious to the influence of evil. This capacity, or the lack thereof, cannot be correlated with religious beliefs, which you will persist in defining as "belief in a supernatural being", despite our efforts to educate you otherwise.

 

[Neo]

Maitreya said "If you want peaceful coexistence on planet Earth, do not bring in ideologies". This would include both religious and political ideologies, both create isms and separation.

 

[BetteTheRed]

That's a bit useless, though, Neo. Humans are always going to have differing opinions on how existence might best be managed.

 

[Neo]

That's a bit useless, though, Neo. Humans are always going to have differing opinions on how existence might best be managed.

And I think that's the whole point, there will never be peace if our personal ideologies are of more import than the love and welfare of mankind.

 

[Pavlos Maros]

Let's try this again, Pavlos. You are claiming that everyone who follows a religion has the capacity for the greatest of evil. Do you also claim that those who don't follow a religion are immune from that capacity?

No. we are all capable, However only the religious have a belief in a god that they must obey.

Every human being may have the capacity for great evil, although I'd dispute that statement, knowing many good kind people who appear to be oblivious to the influence of evil. This capacity, or the lack thereof, cannot be correlated with religious beliefs, which you will persist in defining as "belief in a supernatural being", despite our efforts to educate you otherwise.

"With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil—that takes religion. Steven Weinberg
Do you understand the point Steven is making here. Given the right reason, a good god fearing person will do evil, under the belief it is a good act.

 

[Luce NDs]

Let's try this again, Pavlos. You are claiming that everyone who follows a religion has the capacity for the greatest of evil. Do you also claim that those who don't follow a religion are immune from that capacity?

Every human being may have the capacity for great evil, although I'd dispute that statement, knowing many good kind people who appear to be oblivious to the influence of evil. This capacity, or the lack thereof, cannot be correlated with religious beliefs, which you will persist in defining as "belief in a supernatural being", despite our efforts to educate you otherwise.

When one extreme dark end meets the other ... you're out of here ... a particular demos ... when the authorities believed they had it all ... and then the Gods collapsed ... as if a social item without common grounds on which to discuss survival against an oppressed nature ... the bottom line rises as sol .. when the economy goes for a crap ... due primarily to avarice ... KISS your R's goodbye! Serendipity; when you know you have no control over nothing ...

Nothing just creeps those that believe they have all the mortal parts contained ... without a Shadow of doubt about stacks of words yet unread! De Lexis piled against yah ... and how much do you know of that diverse crap spoken by strangers ...

Sort of like Sunday Morning Coming Down in the chaos of Eve of Shabbat considerations ... prone to getting the point? No one knows it anymore as a break in the Job of life ... some authorities believe that is to screw shaft everyone ... as a roué L ... a measure of loosing it for a bit.

Jack is a dull boy that works all the time ... a cranked sol? Should one enjoie the words of life ... well phoque me if they don't know a pile of eM meant for satyr ...

 

[Luce NDs]

That's a bit useless, though, Neo. Humans are always going to have differing opinions on how existence might best be managed.

Why life is an eLLe 've a thing when tempted all the time that your way is a rite and mine is ignored and thus subtle environment ... making life a work of art ---Job, when wore right to the bones and flayed out!

 

[Luce NDs]

And I think that's the whole point, there will never be peace if our personal ideologies are of more import than the love and welfare of mankind.

Allows for comparative ideologies though ... in which the human tendency is to ignore or deny anything beyond themselves ... anti narcissi? Thus the flower sol collapses ... nothing left but the seed ...Seminoles; aboriginal shot in the dark? IDe too passes in the movement towards the fall ...

 

[BetteTheRed]

No. we are all capable, However only the religious have a belief in a god that they must obey."With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil—that takes religion. Steven Weinberg
Do you understand the point Steven is making here. Given the right reason, a good god fearing person will do evil, under the belief it is a good act.

No, I'm not getting the point. Humans have a conscience, that can be well or not-so-well developed. Doesn't take religion to develop a conscience - but it does take some sort of education to move humans from the amygdala to the frontal cortex.

Where do you get this concept that religious people "have A belief in A god that they must obey". Buddism and Confucianism have no god, hinduism has plenty of them and "obeying" isn't any kind of hard and fast rule.

 

[Mendalla]

Where do you get this concept that religious people "have A belief in A god that they must obey". Buddism and Confucianism have no god, hinduism has plenty of them and "obeying" isn't any kind of hard and fast rule.

It's a typical overgeneralization. We've seen it from chansen, too.

To be clear, though, many do not consider Confucianism a religion. In fact, many (perhaps most) Chinese don't regard it as one. It's a philosophy of life and government. Confucius did talk about religion but it was a fairly utilitarian outlook, IIRC. More about it being an institution for social order than about faith per se. He is "worshipped", but it's more about venerating a revered "ancestor" than about actual religious worship, an extension of their practice of ancestor worship which is now more about remembering ones roots than actually regarding them as still present. I've bowed to my wife's ancestors and most of her family are either Christian or non-religious.

Lao Tzu is closer to being a religion but he presents a very mystical outlook with a very broad, not especially personal conception of The Divine. See my sig for a quote.

 

[BetteTheRed]

Thanks for the detail, Mendalla. I don't care either way (I was throwing out examples of non-monotheistic faiths), but from a practical POV, Confucianism fills the role of religion for many Chinese people; would that be a more accurate statement?

 

[Luce NDs]

It's a typical overgeneralization. We've seen it from chansen, too.

To be clear, though, many do not consider Confucianism a religion. In fact, many (perhaps most) Chinese don't regard it as one. It's a philosophy of life and government. Confucius did talk about religion but it was a fairly utilitarian outlook, IIRC. More about it being an institution for social order than about faith per se. He is "worshipped", but it's more about venerating a revered "ancestor" than about actual religious worship, an extension of their practice of ancestor worship which is now more about remembering ones roots than actually regarding them as still present. I've bowed to my wife's ancestors and most of her family are either Christian or non-religious.

Lao Tzu is closer to being a religion but he presents a very mystical outlook with a very broad, not especially personal conception of The Divine. See my sig for a quote.

A lot of the staid and institutional sorts don't like mystical ... I've been told about in determinate statements and questionable po' et'ics ... and alien words. Often in schools they say to use only simple words ... don't confuse the authorities with complexity! Life is just not like that ...

Does take one into the adventuresome unknown tho' ... complex is Confus-ism to many resulting in chaos ... dis-orienteering or hock-cults when you've had your angles nibbled upon ...

 

[GeoFee]

Hi all...

We have a diversity of perspective on the being or not being of God. We also have a common stake in the future of the environment which supports our biologic being on the planet. Where we are divided by our ideas the prospect of unified action specific to care of the environment is diminished. This matters for all who recognize the symbiosis of human and non human being (nature).

What we have in common is our human being. Apart from all manifest distinction, such as names, sizes, colours, languages, customs; we each breath the same air and we are each made, for the most part, of the same water. This seems to indicate the imperative of cooperation specific to environmental well being. For my part, this imperative is best served by the free, responsible, creative and courageous thought and action of persons determined to put the good of the whole ahead of the good of any particular. The imperative of cooperation is utterly defeated where the priority of some is imposed on the being of all. Coercion, whether grounded in theist or atheist ideology, offers no solution.

As a community open to diversity we have opportunity to engage our difference and discover our commonality. This is made evident in the experience of Birch and chansen. Each has a perspective on the being or not being of God. Each also has the memory of a lost child. This latter common experience trumps the ideological difference each brings to the conversation. They share the experience of grief; as do we all.

Some years ago I found a wonderful expression of Bob Marley's song "One Love". A variety of persons in a variety of places cooperating to offer our sad world an opportunity for the embrace of the essential and the displacement of the inessential in the hope of our common survival and flourishing.

George