Frustrated athiest asks why do you believe in God?

[cladking]

So what? You seem to be implying that that informed their actions for the worse, that had they been theists, they wouldn't have been brutal, genocidal authoritarians

No, hardly. My point is merely that man's inhumanity to man is not a product of a set of beliefs but rather his perverse willingness to go along with whatever status quo has been forced on him or that he willingly accepted.

The ethics of secular humanism are all derived by the application of reason (especially skepticism and empiricism) to a few basic beliefs, namely, that the highest good for an individual is to learn and to love, and that the most morally evolved society is the one which permits the greatest number the greatest social and economic opportunity to pursue happiness as they understand it.

I sure feel the love when I disagree with those who believe in science. On almost every site most of them are on the low road and are rude. They don't discuss, they lecture, insult, and evade.

As best I can tell, the most evolved moral system comes from rational ethics, not holy books, nor authoritarian regimes.

I don't necessarily disagree but I believe we each need to examine these things individually and this examination should yield similar results to what people of good will have always found from time immemorial.

 

[Audie]

No, hardly. My point is merely that man's inhumanity to man is not a product of a set of beliefs but rather his perverse willingness to go along with whatever status quo has been forced on him or that he willingly accepted.



I sure feel the love when I disagree with those who believe in science. On almost every site most of them are on the low road and are rude. They don't discuss, they lecture, insult, and evade.



I don't necessarily disagree but I believe we each need to examine these things individually and this examination should yield similar results to what people of good will have always found from time immemorial.

So- just for clarity, the man who raped me
did it because he had been forced to?
Or willingly accepted the status quo?

 

[PureX]

So you actually feel that the ISIS way of life is just as good as the secular democracy humanist way of life?
It's all just "subjective opinion"?

What you or I "figure" isn't the point. The point is that people differ in how they think they ought to move through the world. Conflict is inevitable. This is not the fault of religion, nor of people choosing to have faith in a God. It is simply part of the human condition. It shows up in our religions, our philosophies, or governments, our commerce and our culture in general. And we can either agree to compromise when we conflict, or we can fight, to try and dominate. Both are commonplace choices.

No reasonable and meaningful objective statements can be given concerning societal health indexes and statistics?

We can compromise, and cooperate, or we can fight for domination. Which one do you choose?

So a society that believes in the oppression of women and forbidding them to get an education, that believes in stoning or decapitating gay people, where their "way of life" results in skyrocketing infant mortality and level of illiteracy etc.... is "just as good" as a society that results in the polar opposite of these things?

Societies are collections of people, and people will believe all sorts of things. Some of them reasonable and some of them not. Some of them to your or my liking and some of them not. Their religions reflect that. So will their governments, and so will their commerce, and so will everything else they engage in. And when we are confronted by societies that believe things we don't like, we can try to compromise with them, or we can try to dominate them. And they, too, will respond however they choose.

If that is actually what you believe, then I have no problem at all with accusing you of being morally bankrupt.

I'm just telling you how it is. Your moral judgments are your own business.

No. I'm people too. I too am not in a position to objectively evaluate the actual net results of my own beliefs.
Unlike some other people, I actively try not to hold on to double standards.

What goes for other people, goes for me as well.

So what? Lots of people in this world believe in 'double standards'. They applaud them, and seek to establish and enforce them. Especially those that would be benefiting from it. You throw your ideal of "objectivity" around like it's an 'inerrant Bible'. But it's not. It's just another way some humans choose to look at the world. You being one of them. It doesn't make you right or anyone else wrong in anyone's mind but your own. So once again you're faced with the choice; compromise and cooperate or fight to dominate. It looks to me like you want to fight, to dominate, but for some reason you want to blame your 'enemy' for your choice.

Funny you should say that, because "self-indulgent ignorance trying to pass itself off as superior righteousness" is exactly the type of behavior I see many theists engage in.

So you decided o join them as a means of dissent?

 

[Wildswanderer]

You have no idea what goes on in a secular humanist's mind. You apparently don't know what an internal moral compass, or a conscience is, or you would understand where his moral imperatives come from, and how true he is to them. The Christian is free to violate his stated ethical beliefs, which he wouldn't even want to do if his conscience were well developed enough, and then pray for forgiveness. There'll be no consequences for him, no guilt, no remorse, like the guy who said he prayed for a bicycle and that never worked, so he just stole one and prayed for forgiveness.

Hogwash. I'm well aware that most people have a conscience.. and claiming Christians don't is absurd. We believe that conscience is given to everyone by God himself. The christian is definitely not free to violate his conscience. The non believer however, can, if he wishes, justify any action on the basis of survival. We don't have that option. The other person isn't an animal to us. He has a non dying soul. The consequences for us hurting someone are much higher because there's more at stake then an animal feeling temporary pain.

 

[sun rise]

self-actuated moral agent

I call that the voice of God from our deepest souls. Atheists don't. But both of us agree that it's time to go beyond books and rules and develop our internal moral compasses.

Once the conscience is mature, that should never happen. An active and mature conscience judges all actions,

Should never happen - well some people, many people and I'd even say most people don't have truly mature inner selves. Those who practice a 'witness meditation' like I do will ask ourselves what our motives were when something happens. All too often I find a reaction from my lower ego is involved demonstrating a lack of real continuous maturity.

 

[sun rise]

Hogwash. I'm well aware that most people have a conscience.. and claiming Christians don't is absurd. We believe that conscience is given to everyone by God himself. The christian is definitely not free to violate his conscience. The non believer however, can, if he wishes, justify any action on the basis of survival. We don't have that option. The other person isn't an animal to us. He has a non dying soul. The consequences for us hurting someone are much higher because there's more at stake then an animal feeling temporary pain.

How many Christians truly live up to that ideal? I've seen those who claim to be Christians who ignore the message of the Christ and commit all kinds of acts which Christians call grievous sins up to and including cannibalism.

And from my time as an atheist, I know that I never thought of people as animals or more accurately I thought of all animals and especially people as worthy creatures who my conscious told me to respect and to uphold their right to happiness.

 

[PureX]

I'm referring to wise decisions given some theists want to debate their religious beliefs, and that means they will likely encounter non-theists who have very good critical thinking skills. Objectively critical thinkers are correct in their assessments about religious concepts. This doesn't mean that theists are wrong for being believers. there are many natural and social reasons for this.

My point is that when theists decide to debate they will be exposed to critical thinking that does not support their reasons and purposes for belief.

Then this "critically thoughtful" response you're referring to won't be very critically thoughtful at all. As it will have failed entirely to address the proposition it's presuming to counter. Applying objective reasoning to an individual's subjective ideology is, well, a complete 'miss'. It's like analyzing an apple using only what you know about carburetors. And the proof that what I'm saying is true is that every such conversation I've ever witnessed begins with the supposed "critical thinker" demanding objective evidence to support someone else's subjective ideology. Apples and carburetors. And then when these completely irrelevant demands are not met (as they could not possibly be), the supposed "critical thinker" declares himself the 'oh-so-critically-thoughtful' victor, and the other guy a default idiot. It's so stupid it's embarrassing. And yet these "critical thinkers" of yours aren't even self-aware enough to be ashamed.

How is that confused? Theists adopt a set of beliefs that supposedly answer questions about origins of life or meaning or morality that are not fact-based. The questions these answers supposedly solve have no actual objective answers and as I noted to avoid adopting bad answers it is wiser to not ask these questions in the first place. These bad answers only trap a person into a framework they become emotionally reliant on, and then feel conflict when these beliefs are challenged. Again, the "ignorance is bliss" phenomenon.

And you really don't seem to understand why none of this matters!

We're ALL IGNORANT. None if us knows why we exist. None of us knows what to do with it. So we make up stories, and we invent reasons, until we find or develop an ideology that we can accept, and that we are willing to live by. "Facts" have nothing to do with anything. "Evidence" has nothing to do with anything. "Reason" has nothing to do with anything. Because these cannot provide us with what we're seeking. They cannot tell us why we exist, or what to do with it. It's as simple as that.

And religious leaders have exploited people ...

People exploit each other all the time. It has nothing particularly to do with religion.

Religious behavior is largely a biological and evolutionary phenomenon.

ALL human behavior is largely a biological and evolutionary phenomenon. And yet it's so much more then that, too. So what's your point?

Humans evolved to believe. I accept this. If theists minded their own business in their religious behavior there would be vastly fewer problems with religious influence.

No one "minds their own business". That isn't even possible given the fact that we are a social, collective, cooperative species. Everyone's business is everyone else's business. And everyone's going to disagree about how things should be done, and why, because NONE OF US KNOWS.

In the USA religious people have tried to impose their beliefs into law and social norms, and this is a violation of the constitution.

Of course they have. Because that's how people are. When we're confronted with other people's different opinions about how things should be done, we can either compromise and cooperate with them, or we can fight to try and dominate them. It's the constant dilemma of humanity. And it has nothing particularly to do with religion. It happens in every human endeavor. It's a human thing, not a religious thing.

 

[cladking]

So- just for clarity, the man who raped me
did it because he had been forced to?
Or willingly accepted the status quo?

No. He did it because he is a low life with no empathy and no concern for morals or the law.

But he still acted on a set of beliefs like "it's not a crime if you don't get caught" and "my needs are sufficient for hurting others" and "the ends justify the means". There are bad people but more to the point even good people can do very bad things. This happens for a wide variety of reasons, perhaps chief of which, we are very highly complex and can misbehave under stress or inadvertently.

I try not to judge others unless their selves or their actions are beyond the pale. It is rarely a good idea to exclude people from society except for justice because once excluded they can become capable of almost anything. This is merely my "policy" and I don't expect everyone to be the same.

 

[Ostronomos]

The less fervent theists tend to have the best chance to survive debate. The more liberal tend to be able to make human connection in debate that will often take away the bite of critical analysis. So this means the more rigid believers will be an easier target. Creationists are easy pickins. Just cite science, they lose.

Please note that the highest intellects in human history have been metaphysicians who sought to prove universal or cosmic consciousness as only such can be expected from such.

 

[cladking]

"Facts" have nothing to do with anything. "Evidence" has nothing to do with anything. "Reason" has nothing to do with anything.

Great post as is typical.

I agree with it wholeheartedly except I believe "reason" is the only thing any consciousness has to live and procreate. Indeed, deductive reasoning is the mechanism inherent in every brain because reality itself is logic manifest and the brain comes into being in each creature as an unfolding of logic. The brain and the way most creatures think are the same as reality itself.

Life is consciousness and consciousness is logical. This should not be interpreted to mean humans are logical because humans have beliefs underlying their models and a language that is no longer logical.

"Reason" is an abstraction for us but deductive logic is more "concrete" than some random thought or any belief. Religion and science are both founded in reason. They are two sides of the same coin.

 

[Trailblazer]

Your "evidence" are just claims made by other people which you just believe.

You can call it "evidence" as much as you want, it won't make it true.

No, my evidence is not the claims made by other people which I just believe.
I have explained that on this forum over and over and over again. Claims are not evidence. Evidence is what supports the claims. I have evidence that supports the claims of Baha'u'llah.

 

[PureX]

Great post as is typical.

I agree with it wholeheartedly except I believe "reason" is the only thing any consciousness has to live and procreate. Indeed, deductive reasoning is the mechanism inherent in every brain because reality itself is logic manifest and the brain comes into being in each creature as an unfolding of logic. The brain and the way most creatures think are the same as reality itself.

Life is consciousness and consciousness is logical. This should not be interpreted to mean humans are logical because humans have beliefs underlying their models and a language that is no longer logical.

"Reason" is an abstraction for us but deductive logic is more "concrete" than some random thought or any belief. Religion and science are both founded in reason. They are two sides of the same coin.

I rejected reason in the sense that we cannot reason why we exist. We can only imagine the possibilities, and then choose to accept or reject them.

 

[Truthseeker]

The author seems to have a serious misunderstanding of at least science and maybe also religion. I don't know much about religion but I'd be willing to go into the science part although that would be off topic in this OP. If you are interested we could start a new OP.

I'm not interested in talking about the scientific method, though I do have a Bachelors degree in Mathematics, and have taken several Physics courses. I'm here to talk about religion.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

My point is merely that man's inhumanity to man is not a product of a set of beliefs but rather his perverse willingness to go along with whatever status quo has been forced on him or that he willingly accepted.

So what do you see as the remedy to that? I recommend teaching people reason and empathy rather than some external, received set of beliefs, and let them come to their own set of rights and wrongs. It pretty much ends up at the same place for most people doing that. Most will decide that kindness, courage, loyalty, integrity, and the like are virtues.

I sure feel the love when I disagree with those who believe in science. On almost every site most of them are on the low road and are rude. They don't discuss, they lecture, insult, and evade.

I expect that your definition of love and rudeness is not theirs.

I'm well aware that most people have a conscience

That seems to be in conflict with your comment, "If beliefs inform actions then all atheists should have zero morals because atheism has no grounds for morality, only survival." How do you reconcile that comment with atheists having consciences? A conscience is a source of moral imperatives. You seemed to not know that atheists have that experience.

claiming Christians don't is absurd

It wasn't the claim.

The other person isn't an animal to us. He has a non dying soul. The consequences for us hurting someone are much higher because there's more at stake then an animal feeling temporary pain.

All of that is based on the idea that humans have souls but not other animals, and that humans aren't animals because of that. Also, it implies that this preferential treatment is offered to avoid consequences. And it seems to give permission to treat animals worse. Perhaps you see this as treating humans exceptionally well. I see it as treating animals less than well. Those aren't my values, and I find no virtue there. I treat my pets as well as I can. Why wouldn't I? There is no rational reason to treat animals as less worthy of your compassion. If you rely on the application of reason to empathy over religious values, you come to different conclusions about right and wrong.

Last night, in fact, we had guests over for dinner. We had grilled salmon, and there was some left over, including uneaten skin, which we informed our guests that the dogs would love, and how good it was for their coats. When the guest found out that we weren't planning to eat the salmon, she wondered why we didn't offer it to her. Maybe you don't see a moral issue there, but I do. Or maybe you see my choice to give the leftovers to the dogs immoral when a human being wanted them as well. Like I said, not my values.

 

[Audie]

No. He did it because he is a low life with no empathy and no concern for morals or the law.

But he still acted on a set of beliefs like "it's not a crime if you don't get caught" and "my needs are sufficient for hurting others" and "the ends justify the means". There are bad people but more to the point even good people can do very bad things. This happens for a wide variety of reasons, perhaps chief of which, we are very highly complex and can misbehave under stress or inadvertently.

I try not to judge others unless their selves or their actions are beyond the pale. It is rarely a good idea to exclude people from society except for justice because once excluded they can become capable of almost anything. This is merely my "policy" and I don't expect everyone to be the same.

Then you take back your contention that its "status quo" ( society's fault )

 

[Heyo]

I'm not interested in talking about the scientific method, though I do have a Bachelors degree in Mathematics, and have taken several Physics courses. I'm here to talk about religion.

What about talking about taking the scientific method to religion? (Which the author seems to advocate for but then doesn't - or seriously messes it up.)

 

[Audie]

Hogwash. I'm well aware that most people have a conscience.. and claiming Christians don't is absurd. We believe that conscience is given to everyone by God himself. The christian is definitely not free to violate his conscience. The non believer however, can, if he wishes, justify any action on the basis of survival. We don't have that option. The other person isn't an animal to us. He has a non dying soul. The consequences for us hurting someone are much higher because there's more at stake then an animal feeling temporary pain.

Its not absurd at all.
If someone puts "god" in charge of conscience he is just a soldier following orders.

That the orders dont really come from god just makes it worse.

 

[Audie]

So what do you see as the remedy to that? I recommend teaching people reason and empathy rather than some external, received set of beliefs, and let them come to their own set of rights and wrongs. It pretty much ends up at the same place for most people doing that. Most will decide that kindness, courage, loyalty, integrity, and the like are virtues.



I expect that your definition of love and rudeness is not theirs.



That seems to be in conflict with your comment, "If beliefs inform actions then all atheists should have zero morals because atheism has no grounds for morality, only survival." How do you reconcile that comment with atheists having consciences? A conscience is a source of moral imperatives. You seemed to not know that atheists have that experience.



It wasn't the claim.



All of that is based on the idea that humans have souls but not other animals, and that humans aren't animals because of that. Also, it implies that this preferential treatment is offered to avoid consequences. And it seems to give permission to treat animals worse. Perhaps you see this as treating humans exceptionally well. I see it as treating animals less than well. Those aren't my values, and I find no virtue there. I treat my pets as well as I can. Why wouldn't I? There is no rational reason to treat animals as less worthy of your compassion. If you rely on the application of reason to empathy over religious values, you come to different conclusions about right and wrong.

Last night, in fact, we had guests over for dinner. We had grilled salmon, and there was some left over, including uneaten skin, which we informed our guests that the dogs would love, and how good it was for their coats. When the guest found out that we weren't planning to eat the salmon, she wondered why we didn't offer it to her. Maybe you don't see a moral issue there, but I do. Or maybe you see my choice to give the leftovers to the dogs immoral when a human being wanted them as well. Like I said, not my values.

Nothing wrong with being an animal.
Far from it.
Look at what we've done!
It wasnt just handed to us.

 

[PureX]

Its not absurd at all.
If someone puts "god" in charge of conscience he is just a soldier following orders.

That the orders dont really come from god just makes it worse.

I agree there is danger in this. In fact, nothing is more dangerous in my opinion then a man that thinks he is acting as the "hand of God" (except, perhaps, more than one of them).

But this is not the inevitable result of a person choosing to have faith in a God and using that ideal as a means of ordering their priorities and behaviors in life. Faith in God is not that dissimilar to any other powerful form of medicine. Properly used, it can be very healing and life-affirming. While when misused or abused, it can become toxic and deadly.

 

[Audie]

I agree there is danger in this. In fact, nothing is more dangerous in my opinion then a man that thinks he is acting as the "hand of God" (except, perhaps, more than one of them).

But this is not the inevitable result of a person choosing to have faith in a God and using that ideal as a means of ordering their priorities and behaviors in life. Faith in God is not that dissimilar to any other powerful form of medicine. Properly used, it can be very healing and life-affirming. While when misused or abused, it can become toxic and deadly.

I liked what a Jesuit priest told me when i asked him about the ten commandments.

He said, " God gave us brains on the understanding that we are to use them".

Our literalists, and moral absolutists seek to
avoid that responsibility.
As im sure you have noticed.