In the future, sci-fi says, I can eat what seems to be a hamburger but isn't.
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Christian Apologetics
- Thread starter dgirl1986
- Start date
Why not?
Cephus
Relentlessly Rational
Should people believe that unicorns exist then? They are not significantly different than gods in that regard. How about leprechauns? How about Bigfoot? How about the Loch Ness Monster? When does actually existing in reality matter?
Here is where you do not understand. There is no benefit in believing unicorns exist and no benefit for anyone if they did exist.
Believing someone good loves me is more beneficial than anything this world has to offer. Tell me what is wrong with believing in the love of God.
Some gods are not love. I can't say anything about them as I do not know them.
Cephus
Relentlessly Rational
But there is no benefit in believing in a God that doesn't exist and, in fact, demonstrable harm in doing so. You're wasting the only life that you demonstrably have on your knees, talking to yourself, asking for things that will never come and not doing things for yourself. When taken on a societal level, with many people wasting their time talking to a non-existent entity, not actually doing things to help each other, expecting an imaginary friend in the sky to do things, you have social failure and an overall worse society than if people just got off their backsides and actually did things that were worthwhile.
I agree with you. I even said so in a post. Believing God will do something is irrational for all the reasons in your post.
This is wrong. There is benefit. Have you heard of people with imaginary friends? Why do you think evolution has formed a mind which can imagine friends? It is because it is good for you.
Cephus
Relentlessly Rational
It isn't good for you to imagine you have friends and not actually have them. We can form relationships with real people around us. Pretending that we have friends that do not, in fact, exist, is not healthy.
Bunyip
pro scapegoat
Were a child to maintain such a belief in an imaginary friend past the age of 6 or 7, they would be likely to require the assistance of a psychologist.
Cephus
Relentlessly Rational
Which is exactly what we see with beliefs in imaginary friends like Santa Claus. A child would be considered abnormal if they maintained such a belief into adulthood. God is just the adult version of Santa Claus, it is a socially acceptable delusion.
It is healthy for people with no friends. It is healthy for people who can't get to their friends. It is healthy.
It is not healthy to have only imaginary friends as an excuse not to make a real friend and to be a real friend. The Bible says the love of the greater number will cool off. God's love never cools off. God IS love.
Do you think the power of positive thinking is a bad thing too?
But only according to society's rules.
Bunyip
pro scapegoat
No, I'm sorry to say that an adult who still believes in imaginary friends would be diagnosed as having a mental illness.
Cephus
Relentlessly Rational
No, it isn't healthy for those people because having no positive relationships with real people is not healthy regardless. Pretending that you have friends to make up for not having friends is simply not healthy, it is largely seen as a serious psychological problem.
God is nothing, God is imaginary according to every shred of evidence that we have on the subject. You can define your imaginary friends any way you like, it doesn't make them any more real.
Depends on what the thinking is. There is a lot of thinking that is delusional and damaging.
Bunyip
pro scapegoat
No, not at all. According to the medical professionals, not 'societies rules'.
Cephus
Relentlessly Rational
Well, they should be but in our society, most psychologists are afraid to challenge the socially accepted delusion, so long as people are not a danger to themselves or others. Saying that the religious are mentally ill would pretty much end their practice. I don't think that all religious people are mentally ill but certainly a lot of extremists who cannot rationally discuss their beliefs would seem to me to be in that ballpark. Of course, I'm not a psychiatrist so take it all with a grain of salt.
psychoslice
Veteran Member
I myself see them as a group of people who try to make excuses, its just a game that they are trying to win.
Yes. You have blind faith in the system and it's doctors. I choose blind faith in The God Who Is Love. Tell me why your blind faith is better than mine.
Bunyip
pro scapegoat
Sure. Belief in some kind of magical sky wizard is excluded from the normal considerations because of it's long traditional history. I do believe that it becomes increasingly untenable over time however and that future generations will simply not be able to swallow such notions.
As an example, to primitive societies the act of sacrificing your child to appease the gods (or to mitigate the future sins of mankind as is the case in Chritianity) is perfectly congruent with their worldview. However to modern sensibilities, without the lens of tradition to distort it the practice of human ritual sacrifice simply does not translate as a positive value.
Pronouns! Who? Apologetics are a group? I don't think so.