Unguru
I am a Sikh nice to meet you
This is completely true, I agree. Still, this doesn't stop our benefits and desire to worship the creator, which we will continue do anyway.
This highlighted part means much to me
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Hypothetical scenario for a world without religion
- Thread starter charlie sc
- Start date
This is completely true, I agree. Still, this doesn't stop our benefits and desire to worship the creator, which we will continue do anyway.
This highlighted part means much to me
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Hopefully we will worship God and we will do so out of our desire, not just out of duty. After all, that is the part of the purpose of our existence, according to my beliefs...This is completely true, I agree. Still, this doesn't stop our benefits and desire to worship the creator, which we will continue do anyway.
This highlighted part means much to me
Short Obligatory Prayer
To be recited once in twenty four hours, at noon.
I bear witness, O my God, that Thou hast created me to know Thee and to worship Thee. I testify, at this moment, to my powerlessness and to Thy might, to my poverty and to Thy wealth.
There is none other God but Thee, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting.
Bahá’u’lláh
Bird123
Well-Known Member
Free will is no excuse for not fixing the kids instead of killing them. Isn't God capable of fixing everyone regardless of their choices? Isn't that what Unconditional Love is all about?
IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
Quite frankly, I don't know what God will do about sociopaths, which is what I believe modern culture calls the truly evil.
Sociopathy/Psychopathy is a brain disorder affecting the amygdala and frontal lobe. It results in various physical features such as a significantly lessened ability to fear and anxiety, and psycho-biological features such as lack of empathy and inability to form one's own conscience.
One might ask if, given such biological constraints, such people are even morally responsible for what they do.
Their limited morality responds only to the threat of being caught and suffering a significant penalty, whether it is a spanking or the death penalty. Indeed, their guiding compass is, do whatever I want so long as I don't get caught. Not only do they not hurt when others are hurt, they feel that others are their for their own personal benefit.
There is nothing in this life, short of a biological miracle, that can fix these individuals.
All society can do is try to protect itself from trail of destruction they leave in their wake, whether it be broken hearts, empty wallets, or dead bodies.
What God does in the afterlife? I can't even imagine. My best guess is simply to snuff out the soul.
charlie sc
Well-Known Member
What you said here is completely and utterly ignorant. This demonstrates how dangerous religions are at classifying people.
Psychopathy and sociopathy is are, more often than not, redundant terms. Nonetheless, these terms are more diagnosed clinically as antisocial personality disorder with sub-groups, anyway. I agree that the criteria is a lack of empathy but there's no evidence of what I highlighted in bold. What you said is an assertion.
Absolute nonsense. Research has shown this is more often than not caused by trauma from a young age and can be treatable.
The overwhelming majority of schizophrenics are not dangerous, so I don't know if you included them. Many violent acts are committed by people with antisocial personality disorder, but studies show that alcohol is a mediating effect and without it their violence rate is equal to that of people without psychopathy. Therefore, there's more than just, "they are psychopaths = bad" is going on.
Before you think about stigmatising a group of people and calling them evil, get your facts straight. Bring evidence if you want to respond otherwise you're equal to those religious fanatics who go on crusades or jihads. You could learn about the subject if you decide to put some research into it and you'll consequently, with hope, not be so judgemental.
Peace
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charlie sc
Well-Known Member
This is a sufficient explanation for my question.
Are you saying that people worship God because it makes people better human beings(E.G. peaceful,happy, egalitarian,etc)?
IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
I am an alcohol and drug counselor and occasionally work with sociopaths. I also have a lifelong friend that is a sociopath that I handle well in small doses (I believe he thinks of me as a kind of pet). I am familiar, as you can see, in addition to being formally educated.What you said here is completely and utterly ignorant. This demonstrates how dangerous religions are at classifying people.
Psychopathy and sociopathy is are, more often than not, redundant terms. Nonetheless, these terms are more diagnosed clinically as antisocial personality disorder with sub-groups, anyway. I agree that the criteria is a lack of empathy but there's no evidence of what I highlighted in bold. What you said is an assertion.
Absolute nonsense. Research has shown this is more often than not caused by trauma from a young age and can be treatable.
The overwhelming majority of schizophrenics are not dangerous, so I don't know if you included them. Many violent acts are committed by people with antisocial personality disorder, but studies show that alcohol is a mediating effect and without it their violence rate is equal to that of people without psychopathy. Therefore, there's more than just, "they are psychopaths = bad" is going on.
Before you think about stigmatising a group of people and calling them evil, get your facts straight. Bring evidence if you want to respond otherwise you're equal to those religious fanatics who go on crusades or jihads. You could learn about the subject if you decide to put some research into it and you'll consequently, with hope, not be so judgemental.
Peace
BTW, anti-social personality disorder is only a subgroup of anti-social personalities -- the ones who get into trouble. There are plenty who stay out of the system because they are smart enough to work it.
Not everyone with empathy problems is a sociopath. You have to have a conglomeration of traits.
If you have not already done so, you might find it fascinating to read some of the professional literature on the syndrome. Although it tends to be more "pop" literature, I also recommend "People of the Lie" by psychiatrist M. Scott Peck.
IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
oops
Why do the 'laws of the land' have requirements____________
Isn't it for safety sake, etc.
Since the law 'requires conditions' to be met, then why Not the Creator.
Sure we need food for survival, and who is responsible for the rain and sun needed for food but the Creator.
Praise or thanks for life and life's provisions are even even given to earthy parents by thankful children.
Worship must Not be based on falsehood, religious myths, according to Jesus at John 4:23-24.
If you won't or don't obey the laws of the land ( conditions/ requirements ) then what is to think you would obey the laws of heaven___________.
Besides Heaven for some, the majority of people will inherit the Earth as Jesus promised from Psalms 37:9-11.
I wonder to which Un-conditional love your are talking about ____________
There are conditions or requirement to be met according to Jesus at Matthew 12:32.
Plus, in Jesus' New commandment there is a requirement or condition to be met as per John 13:34-35.
We are to have the same self-sacrificing love for others as Jesus has.
In other words, Christians are required to meet the condition to now love neighbor ' more ' than self.
We are all free to acts responsibly toward God. That means love neighbor as Jesus loved.
Jesus is given the Resurrection Power (Revelation 1:18) thus dead children will be resurrected.
ALL of Jesus' resurrections brought people ( adults and children ) back to healthy physical life on Earth.
Jesus was giving us a preview, a coming attraction of what he will be doing on a grand international scale during his coming 1,000-year governmental rule over Earth begins.
I am saying people who live by God's Golden Rule do make people better - Leviticus 19:18 B.
If everyone on Earth lived by the Golden Rule there would be No wars, No hunger, etc.
charlie sc
Well-Known Member
Ok, well since you came back with nothing but anecdotal information I'll give some information. Being a counsellor does not mean anything unless it's a protected title, is relevant, and that does not mean you're a good counsellor in the first place! Anyway, I have no idea what qualifications you have nor does it matter for this conversation and only mentioning that is actually suspect. Honestly, if you're calling sociopaths/psychopaths evil and the shocking stuff you said above, I'm not sure you should be counselling anybody. Since the only thing you can supply is some religious book from 1998 and no actual peer reviewed studies, I'll try enlighten you but I think this is close to impossible
"The essential feature of antisocial personality disorder is a pervasive pattern of disregard
for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood or early adolescence and
continues into adulthood. This pattern has also been referred to as psychopathy, sociopathy,
or dyssocial personality disorder." and,
"Of course, principled disagreements on the classification of psychopathology and on
specific criteria for certain disorders were expected given the current state of scientific
knowledge. However, most of the salient differences between the DSM and the ICD classifications
do not reflect real scientific differences, but rather represent historical by-products
of independent committee processes." - DSM-V
Psychopathy is a variant of antisocial personality disorder, sometimes categorised by severity and sometimes overlap or used interchangeably. However, I've not heard that psychopathy is defined, "the ones who get into trouble." So, backup your claim with evidence or it's nonsense.
Since this topic is far more complicated than you make it out to be, I'll only copy/paste one part of the prospective treatments for psychopathy. Honestly, your apathetic/judgemental/pessimistic attitude and your ignorance in this astounds me and I do hope you study this subject in more detail so you'd be more helpful to the people you are apparently helping, especially because counselling involves actual caring and being non-judgemental. You can read the paper here. The paper, basically, refutes everything(you're black and white mentality) you've said thus far. If you have any sense of intellectual honestly, I hope you come back with a more optimistic approach or actual evidence. However, if you want to keep going, this will be a bumpy ride for you.
"Reports have indicated that this intensive treatment protocol may cut violent recidivism rates in half, compared to juveniles receiving treatment as usual, e.g. standard group therapy sessions (Caldwell & Van Rybroek, 2001; 2005; Caldwel, Skeem, & Van Rybroek, 2006)."
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charlie sc
Well-Known Member
This is the last time I'll ask because if you're not understanding it then I don't think there's a point to push it.
Why do you think your god requires/needs worship/praise?
Here are some suggestions. He needs it for survival. He needs to to feed himself otherwise he'll wither away. He doesn't need it but wants it because he's something something(E.G. narcissistic). Trailblazer, I assume, suggests he wants because it helps humanity, which I questioned further about because it's somewhat nonsensical, which I'll get into later.
See?
So, this is why he needs/wants it?
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Yes.
Kilk1
Member
I don't see how we can conclude it must be a supernatural phenomenon when we don't know all natural phenomena, nor have we stopped learning or stopped changing our models. This is demonstrated by continual progress in technology and knowledge. To say it must be a supernatural phenomenon would be like saying, "how the brain works is still somewhat a mystery to us, therefore, it must be a supernatural phenomenon."
We can revive people from death(a few minutes as I recall) with our current technology and medical knowledge. All you need to do is compare medieval medical knowledge lol. My point here is that science changes and scientists in the medical field don't say, "laws of nature," as if science works like this. Science currently uses statistics, not absolutes.
Most importantly however, this still doesn't exclude the possibility that a particular person is unique, something happened under unique circumstances or it was advance technology, etc, which still within the realm of natural phenomena. Therefore, it seems what you need to do is explain when something is mysterious it must necessarily be supernatural. I'm curious how you'd go about this.
Yes, god-of-the-gaps arguments don't work. Just because we don't know how something could happen doesn't prove it's supernatural. However, we better not go the other extreme: Claiming that therefore all events will one day be shown to be natural is a naturalism-of-the-gaps way of thinking.
God-of-the-gaps arguments are different than explaining Jesus' resurrection as a supernatural miracle. The connection isn't based on what we don't know but what we do know. What we know from nature is that people who die (at least those who really are dead for a few days) stay dead. This fact is as observable as gravity. (I never heard of current technology being able to raise someone from the dead for a few minutes. You can give a source if you want, hopefully one that shows how long the person or persons were dead.) Are you suggesting that we'll somehow discover some natural explanation in the future that contradicts what we observe about nature today?
(If you're just claiming that Jesus almost died but was shortly "revived" we're leaving the proposition as to the implications of Jesus' resurrection and turning to whether He died in the first place. On this, though, even the rationalist David Strauss observed: "It is impossible that a being who had stolen half dead out of the sepulchre, who crept about weak and ill and wanting medical treatment... could have given the disciples the impression that he was a conqueror over death and the grave, the Prince of life: an impression that lay at the bottom of their future ministry.")
Everything we know about nature suggests Jesus couldn't have risen from the dead. Therefore, under the assumption that He did (as the first proposition assumes), then the cause must be supernatural. Apparently, Jesus must have known something about it that we don't. Wouldn't He be in the best position to explain the cause of His resurrection? (Looks like the posts are getting longer again, lol.
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charlie sc
Well-Known Member
Not at all. I'm not saying, at all, that the supernatural is excluded nor am I say everything will be shown to be natural. Have you considered natural interventions that are not supernatural? I mean, we do have millions of sci-fi ideas some of which have come true
It seems like you want to choose God/supernatural because there's invested interest or conflict of interest lolGravity is nowhere near an example for this phenomenon. No one has seen something contradict what we know of gravity. If we do however, like those alien abductee stories and their explanation of flying saucers, they don't give a supernatural explanations. Their explanation is advance technology. If a caveman saw our technology, they may think it's magic. So I see god as even a less of an explanation than advanced aliens, because we actually have evidence of technology improving and sentient life, but not of the supernatural or god(btw, if you go outside science, so can I). Perhaps you'd like to explain why the supernatural is a better explanation than advanced aliens or how you’d exclude aliens? What I said about raising the dead, lol, was that we can resuscitate people if they die under certain conditions. So this is an example of what is done - https://www.nth.nhs.uk/content/uplo...ps-a-guide-to-CPR-decisions-14.10.16-LP-1.pdf Therefore, people do die but they are resuscitated. Now, have you heard of someone contradicting gravity for a few minutes? Bad example. Also, I find it strange that if we did see a ball floating upwards the only explanation someone may come up with is god or the supernatural. This is all I need to say on this but I'll go even further.
There's a phenomenon called The Lazarus phenomenon. People have been dead for hours and even a day as I saw. There are scientific theories why that happened with what we know of medicine(assuming they actually died and was not mistaken). The nice thing about debating topics is you get to study other material. There is a difference between clinical death vs biological death, which might even be important for this discussion. Anyway, these are actual cases of people reviving by themselves(depending on the theory) and wanting a cup of tea hours later
Check the link and/or study the phenomenon further.I think I answered this sufficiently above.(If you're just claiming that Jesus almost died but was shortly "revived" we're leaving the proposition as to the implications of Jesus' resurrection and turning to whether He died in the first place. On this, though, even the rationalist David Strauss observed: "It is impossible that a being who had stolen half dead out of the sepulchre, who crept about weak and ill and wanting medical treatment... could have given the disciples the impression that he was a conqueror over death and the grave, the Prince of life: an impression that lay at the bottom of their future ministry.")
Everything we know about nature suggests Jesus couldn't have risen from the dead. Therefore, under the assumption that He did (as the first proposition assumes), then the cause must be supernatural. Apparently, Jesus must have known something about it that we don't. Wouldn't He be in the best position to explain the cause of His resurrection? (Looks like the posts are getting longer again, lol.
Indeed.
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charlie sc
Well-Known Member
Then, if someone lives a good life, even better than a pious person by helping the poor, altruistic, etc, but they do not praise/worship god nor are they religious, do they still get to go to Heaven?Yes.
IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
You can cut the violence and recidivism. But you cannot cure the psychopathy. Again, you are not understanding that antisocial personality disorder is only a subset of psychopathy. This is why you can say that those with antisocial personality disorder are psychopaths (or sociopaths, since the terms are interchangeable). But you can't say that all psychopaths have antisocial personality disorder.
You basically can work with the disability to help the individual come into better compliance with social norms. But it is at heart a brain disorder, and you aren't going to be able to fix that. The lack of empathy, the stunted emotions, the high pain tolerance and low fear threshold, the view of other people as objects to be used, these things are no more changable than a schizophrenic's unmedicated delusions.
And that's basically what I do. I'm a certified Alcohol and Drug Counselor through the California Consortium of Addiction Programs and Professionals (CCAPP).
Our rehab program gets about half its clients from the courts in plea bargain arrangements. I work with these guys guys first and foremost on their addictions, but also to get them to see that if they truly want to do things in their own best interest, they need to lead a lifestyle that will keep them out of jail. I have found Wanberg and Milkman's "Criminal Conduct and Substance Abuse Treatment" to be the most helpful of the texts that I've read in that it is realistic and practical.
No, because Heaven is only for people like those people of Luke 22:28-30.
Plus, ALL who lived and died before Jesus do Not have a heavenly calling - John 3:13.
Instead of Heaven, they have the hope of coming back to live everlasting life on Earth.
This means they can have a happy-and-healthy physical resurrection back to live life forever on Earth.
However, once they are resurrected if they choose to disobey God they can loose out on everlasting life on Earth.
Kind of like, just as a loving child obeys a loving parent and that obedience thus brings praise to his father's good name.
So, a person's obedience to his God brings praise and honor to his God and Heavenly Father's name.
Rather, then snuff out the soul, the person, there will be ' healing ' for them according to Revelation 22:2.
Instead of afterlife ( meaning more alive after death then before death ) the Bible teaches: Resurrection.
In death, there is No double jeopardy nor post-mortem penalty for anyone as per Romans 6:23; Romans 6:7.
After being resurrected and having a healthy body of sound mind an heart then one will have a conscience that can lean toward / righteousness, and he can become part of the humble meek who will inherit the Earth.
Inherit a healthy Earth as described in Isaiah 35th chapter when No one will say, " I am sick...." - Isaiah 33:24.
So, according to the Bible we can imagine or picture a beautiful coming paradisical Earth of health and happiness.