Faith/Religion/Spirituality - Self-Denial? And Philosophy

[horatio83]

^ See, that's the beauty of it: Now that Jesus died on the cross for our sins, God won't change his mind.

That's the other total brain lock I don't get about that particular religion. Explain to me why a) I was responsible for something I never did in the first place (original sin), and b) why the brutal killing of his son suddenly makes everything good again (even 2000 years after it in a RADICALLY different world). And why God had to change his mind in the first place. Isn't he supposed to be all knowing and the wisest being that can possibly exist?

I think it is more complex and being an atheist I approach the issue like literature:

The idea behind "died on the cross for our sins" is not that we messed up, then somebody sacrificed himself for us and now we can screw up again. It is rather a funky inverse of cause and effect, the death on the cross opened up the space of possibility for forgiving and of course this has only meaning if people act upon it, not when they idly wait for some divine forgiving.

About the brutal killing, it is pretty obvious that the protagonist in the story chose to die (which is why I never understood this Christian hatred for Judas or the Pharisees which is after all the foundation of Christian antisemitism). That's the more important part, the willingness to lose your life in order to gain it and once again you find only handful of Christians like Martin Luther King and Oscar Romero who went down the same path. The majority spouts out some theological nonsense which has nothing to do with life down here.

So yeah, instead of playing this stupid Christian vs. atheist bashing game both sides might want to start caring about the content of these stories. Because there is quite some truth to be found in religious texts (definitely more than in the institutionalized religions and their secondary texts) as long as you don't read them as divine revelation or iron age fairy tales but as literature.

 

[JarodRussell]

It is rather a funky inverse of cause and effect, the death on the cross opened up the space of possibility for forgiving.

Maybe that's indeed too funky for me.

 

[thestrangequark]

So yeah, instead of playing this stupid Christian vs. atheist bashing game both sides might want to start caring about the content of these stories. Because there is quite some truth to be found in religious texts (definitely more than in the institutionalized religions and their secondary texts) as long as you don't read them as divine revelation or iron age fairy tales but as literature.

I haven't seen any Christian vs atheist bashing in this thread thus far.

 

[Kestra]

I won't say that I'm fine with the idea of dying but I'm fine with the idea that there is nothing after life.
I also don't think that my life is important, I'm nothing in the universe and my existance has no real meaning, it just happens. I actually find that comforting. When you're nothing, what's really important ?

I guess that makes me an "athiest", but that's not really a mystery

The idea of not existing at all (no consciousness) is both reassuring and terrifying to me. I don't like to think about not thinking anymore, because, well, that's weird. On the other hand, existing forever in any form would be horrible in other ways. Out of the two I'd definitely take mortality, but it's still a little dizzying for me to think about.

On the other hand I have no problem with my body ceasing to exist. Cremate me and toss me in the trash!

But I will be sure to ask God about that when I meet Him.

See, the idea that "God" is male, irks me something terrible. It's so blindingly obvious, that the human patriarchal bias of old, is what fuelled this idea, not anything else.

...

Why would a supreme being be prone to the flaws of humanity? TMP has never been more true, in the adage that "we all create God in our own image".

This actually doesn't bother me because I think that it's perfectly natural that we would see god in our own image. I don't have an issue with the way people visualize god since it can be such a nebulous concept. Maybe it's because I grew up with many different forms of god, but I think it's all just a way for us to visualize and try to understand something that's unknown to us. When I picture god, I picture Maa Durga, a fierce woman with multiple arms, holding weapons and slaying a demon from on top a tiger. To me it's an inspiring image, but it's also just an image and not what I expect god actually is.

 

[horatio83]

It is rather a funky inverse of cause and effect, the death on the cross opened up the space of possibility for forgiving.

Maybe that's indeed too funky for me.

The idea is not, the slate is clean, your sins are forgiven ... so you can screw up again until a new saviour takes away your guilt and responsibility. That's one interpretation which many Christians probably like because it is inherently unethical, do whatever you want, big daddy in the sky forgives everything.
The proper interpretation is to say that the guy died at the cross to create the possibility for mercy, to forgive future sins.

Compare it with bringing up children- It would be utterly lunatic to tell them that you have forgiven everything bad they have done because they would see it as invitation to do it again whereas telling them that there will be punishment but also forgiveness and not eternal condemnation when they mess up is more appropriate.

In general my point is that it is important to remind those who use their religion to do nasty things like e.g. the Christian right in the US that the stuff they propose might not have too much to do with the original texts.
That's why I think that the Christian left has potentially more power to undo the power of the right than secular liberal atheists. Fighting from the inside is always a better strategy than fighting from the outside.

 

[horatio83]

The idea of not existing at all (no consciousness) is both reassuring and terrifying to me. I don't like to think about not thinking anymore, because, well, that's weird. On the other hand, existing forever in any form would be horrible in other ways. Out of the two I'd definitely take mortality, but it's still a little dizzying for me to think about.

That's the horror of being human, unlike animals who perceive death only concretely, when they are sick or perceive a dead comrade, we have the ability to think about it abstractly.

I think one nice way of easing this basic pain of "I will not be here anymore one day" is to actually imagine eternity and immortality because it collapses to mortality: everything is heard, said and done, nothing new is happening, you have become the living dead.

 

[gturner]

Well, perhaps you could think of the concept of original sin as similar to the way we note what species do. When you swat a mosquito it's not because that particular mosquito bit you, it's because its ancestors bit you and you don't really care which one. They're bad, they're all bad, and they should all suffer the same fate. A mosquito would have to commit a very clever, unique, and highly significant act to convince you otherwise.

I once read a book on religion and warfare ("Blood Rites" I think) that made a very interesting point about how different Christianity is from what came before. In older religions, Gods are like big cats (and in many cases are taken directly from cats). They watch us, stalk us, and kill us for reasons known only to them, and we try to fight them, appease them, or avoid them, and cope with the grief that always comes in the wake of their attacks.

Christianity turned that on its head by having the big cat sacrifice its cub to save human children, or in effect lay down its life to save our tribe, which is profoundly moving from an animal-story perspective. I'm sure lots of local dieties prior to that relied on similar devices (this god is on our side against that god), but perhaps the idea of a god sacrificing itself to save us was a profound enough change to be the "hook" that drew people in and outcompeted the older religions.

I'm not sure that hook would work in a polytheistic framework because the sacrifice would just be a story about the fate or act of a particular god, just another Greek hero who did something for mankind, like Prometheus bringing us fire. It still would leave all the other gods to worry about, and what the heck has Prometheus done for us lately, anyway?

 

[Kestra]

The idea of not existing at all (no consciousness) is both reassuring and terrifying to me. I don't like to think about not thinking anymore, because, well, that's weird. On the other hand, existing forever in any form would be horrible in other ways. Out of the two I'd definitely take mortality, but it's still a little dizzying for me to think about.

That's the horror of being human, unlike animals who perceive death only concretely, when they are sick or perceive a dead comrade, we have the ability to think about it abstractly.

I think one nice way of easing this basic pain of "I will not be here anymore one day" is to actually imagine eternity and immortality because it collapses to mortality: everything is heard, said and done, nothing new is happening, you have become the living dead.

It's honestly not that bad and I'm pretty okay with it, I think. And many people aren't bothered by it at all. I don't understand the second part of your post at all though.

 

[horatio83]

Well, perhaps you could think of the concept of original sin as similar to the way we note what species do. When you swat a mosquito it's not because that particular mosquito bit you, it's because its ancestors bit you and you don't really care which one. They're bad, they're all bad, and they should all suffer the same fate. A mosquito would have to commit a very clever, unique, and highly significant act to convince you otherwise.

I once read a book on religion and warfare ("Blood Rites" I think) that made a very interesting point about how different Christianity is from what came before. In older religions, Gods are like big cats (and in many cases are taken directly from cats). They watch us, stalk us, and kill us for reasons known only to them, and we try to fight them, appease them, or avoid them, and cope with the grief that always comes in the wake of their attacks.

Christianity turned that on its head by having the big cat sacrifice its cub to save human children, or in effect lay down its life to save our tribe, which is profoundly moving from an animal-story perspective. I'm sure lots of local dieties prior to that relied on similar devices (this god is on our side against that god), but perhaps the idea of a god sacrificing itself to save us was a profound enough change to be the "hook" that drew people in and outcompeted the older religions.

I'm not sure that hook would work in a polytheistic framework because the sacrifice would just be a story about the fate or act of a particular god, just another Greek hero who did something for mankind, like Prometheus bringing us fire. It still would leave all the other gods to worry about, and what the heck has Prometheus done for us lately, anyway?

I think that Christianity did something far more obscene, it killed God. If you focus just on the Gospels and ignore the resurrection stories respectively read them not in a literal fashion it becomes clear that Christianity is the step from monotheism to atheism.
If you imagine that there is a linear cultural evolution of religion you could argue that we evolved from simply pagan religions which gave us the illusion of controlling our fate (drought => sacrifice a goat to appease the fertility goddess) via Judaism to monotheistic religions where God stood for abstract stuff like law, the absolute, love or whatever and in the final step we killed this God off.

This is admittedly a slightly crazy reading but I like it because it shows that you have to "go through the moves", you have tp literally kill God off. If you just proclaim that he has never existed (which is of course true) you don't experience this sense of loss, we are on our own, and so on and you might involuntarily create some kind of substitute God.

The idea of not existing at all (no consciousness) is both reassuring and terrifying to me. I don't like to think about not thinking anymore, because, well, that's weird. On the other hand, existing forever in any form would be horrible in other ways. Out of the two I'd definitely take mortality, but it's still a little dizzying for me to think about.

That's the horror of being human, unlike animals who perceive death only concretely, when they are sick or perceive a dead comrade, we have the ability to think about it abstractly.

I think one nice way of easing this basic pain of "I will not be here anymore one day" is to actually imagine eternity and immortality because it collapses to mortality: everything is heard, said and done, nothing new is happening, you have become the living dead.

It's honestly not that bad and I'm pretty okay with it, I think. And many people aren't bothered by it at all. I don't understand the second part of your post at all though.

My mistake. If you would hypothetically liver forever you would sooner or later have done and seen everything, the world would become stale and flat and you would become the equivalent of brain-dead.
In short, immortality would collapse into mortality, if you could live forever you would end one day as a vegetable, as a zombie.

 

[Gaith]

Fifty-eight voting members participating in the poll so far, and not a single Jew? This surprises me somewhat. Surely some of those atheist/agnostic voters would describe themselves as culturally/socially Jewish?

 

[JarodRussell]

The best explanation, in a mythological sense, I heard was something like this: God never truly understood his own creations. Way below his level, he simply didn't get it. So he decided to become human. Lived a life preaching, enjoyed the pleasures of physical form, saw forgiveness, guilt, jealousy, mistrust, anger, all of it from a first person perspective, and then he died. Pretty painfully. So he got the full journey.

Well, perhaps you could think of the concept of original sin as similar to the way we note what species do. When you swat a mosquito it's not because that particular mosquito bit you, it's because its ancestors bit you and you don't really care which one. They're bad, they're all bad, and they should all suffer the same fate. A mosquito would have to commit a very clever, unique, and highly significant act to convince you otherwise.

The thing with that is: there are people on this world that wouldn't hurt a mosquito even if it bites them. That would make them wiser than God himself.

 

[horatio83]

Fifty-eight voting members participating in the poll so far, and not a single Jew? This surprises me somewhat. Surely some of those atheist/agnostic voters would describe themselves as culturally/socially Jewish?

Why should atheists with a Jewish background click Jewish yet atheists with a Christian background click atheist?

 

[Kestra]

Yeah I didn't vote (not that I'm Jewish). It's difficult to answer which one most closely matches my personal beliefs. I identify as Hindu, but Hinduism encompasses a huge range of beliefs. And I consider myself agnostic as well, so I dunno. Better not to vote!

 

[Count Zero]

When I picture god, I picture Maa Durga, a fierce woman with multiple arms, holding weapons and slaying a demon from on top a tiger. To me it's an inspiring image, but it's also just an image and not what I expect god actually is.

That's kind of awesome, actually.

 

[Rhaven]

Wow, this thread is all over the place. I'll stick with the OP's questions though, for now anyway.

I grew up with strong Irish Catholic indoctrination as my background. As a kid, that was all I knew. Did I believe? No, not quite everything. I had some real doubts. But I sure as heck wasn't going to admit that to my parents or the church I was always attending with family.

Years later, when I spread my wings in college and discovered more about other faiths, I came upon the phrase "leap of faith". That's what I didn't have or take...that leap. I just didn't believe it all. It actually helped me to see all the philosophical arguments about the proof of God's existance. Others before me struggled with the question! They made their leap, I didn't. Okay then, lets move on.
I do think there's a God or at least a master of the heavens. But that's what I believe, for me. It doesn't affect me what others choose to believe as long as they don't try and press their beliefs upon me.
Religion has been the cause of more wars and conflicts, I do believe that is true.

 

[gturner]

This is admittedly a slightly crazy reading but I like it because it shows that you have to "go through the moves", you have tp literally kill God off. If you just proclaim that he has never existed (which is of course true) you don't experience this sense of loss, we are on our own, and so on and you might involuntarily create some kind of substitute God.

Many have observed that in rejecting the concept of god, many people just birth a new secular god to fill the void, whether communism (heaven's reward becomes an Earthly utopia), environmentalism (Gaia lives! We must serve her.) and various flavors of teen witchcraft and whatnot, sometimes involving lightsabers.

I don't think Christianity really killed God off, but the way Judaism and Christianity affected our thinking is the idea that God, being all knowing and powerful (as opposed to a character in a drama filled with a pantheon of other gods) would be logical, creating a logical world amenable to human reason. Unlike many religions, we eventually started addressing confusing religious questions with "well what would make sense?"

We started looking for interpretations of troublesome ancient passages that would make logical sense to us, even if those interpretations were a huge stretch. Failing all else, we would say, "Well, you've got to put that part of the story in context, and the reason something that dumb is in the holy book is .... insert logical reason ..."

Islam is also monotheistic, and doesn't even introduce a "son of God" concept, yet didn't do nearly as well in that regard. When faced with an illogical passage or dictate they still tend to argue that "Allah said this is wise, and you can't possibly be smarter than he is, so just shut up and throw the rock."

You could argue that Christianity may have actually slowed the philophical reasonsing the Greeks were getting good at by spreading a really good all-encompassing story that ended up almost everywhere, as if it was itself a universal truth, whereas many of the religions it replaced were ad-hoc affairs that were constantly questioned because people would always be running into people who'd tell them that their particular diety stories were false and stupid.

I guess I would sum that up as asking whether replacing a set of really shakey religions with a better one accelerated or retarded the enlightenment, or whether we could've gotten their at all if doubts about our particular set of beliefs still led instead to the thought that there must be another, more valid set of gods out there whose priests do have the answers.

 

[gturner]

Well, perhaps you could think of the concept of original sin as similar to the way we note what species do. When you swat a mosquito it's not because that particular mosquito bit you, it's because its ancestors bit you and you don't really care which one. They're bad, they're all bad, and they should all suffer the same fate. A mosquito would have to commit a very clever, unique, and highly significant act to convince you otherwise.

The thing with that is: there are people on this world that wouldn't hurt a mosquito even if it bites them. That would make them wiser than God himself.

Yeah, but they might try to keep them out of their garden.

 

[gturner]

Fifty-eight voting members participating in the poll so far, and not a single Jew? This surprises me somewhat. Surely some of those atheist/agnostic voters would describe themselves as culturally/socially Jewish?

I didn't vote because I have doubts about online polling, and there wasn't a response for that.

 

[Mr Silver]

I didn't vote because I have doubts about online polling, and there wasn't a response for that.

Paradox/Contradiction

 

[J.T.B.]

Come now. There may be a bicycle in the dorm room above mine. I don't know; I've never seen the room's interior. A neighbor told me that he thinks there is a bicycle in that room, but he hasn't seen it either, so I'm not sure he speaks with any credibility.

Do you really not see the difference between my not believing my neighbor's claim that there is a bicycle in the room upstairs, and my actively believing that there is none? Both share a lack of positive belief in the bicycle, but they are self-evidently non-identical thoughts.

To be an apt analogy you should stipulate that there was no evidence that any bicycles had ever existed anywhere.

(For the record I'm atheist and culturally Mormon.)

Justin