reasons given for religious belief

[Breathe]

Most of the main line churches are supported by seldom attending but generously supporting liberal Christians who believe Christ died for us and that the Ten Commandments are sacred, etc.

I don't see how this is really relevant..?

But real Christians are the Baptist, Penticostal and Evangelical fundamentalists who think they take the scriptures literally and as the "word of god."
Their little church parking lots are filled on Sundays.

All Christian groups think they are real Christians. No Christian would think they are not a Christian. Some groups are more vocal about their beliefs and quicker to condemn others though.

This would not, however, make these groups any more or less correct than another group though except in their opinions. I don't really see how this was relevant, though.

The Liberal Christian lives a contradiction between doctrine and science.[/QUOTE]
Not always.

Besides, when I said "the faithful", I was also hinting you were leaving out other religions. Contrary to popular opinion, religion is not just Christianity, Islam, and Judaism.

So, how do non-Christian religions fit into this?

 

[charles brough]

There are no non-believers!

If I were to say that all of us are seeking peace, love and happiness; harmony, balance and unity. Then we are all seeking God and therefore believers. As the above attributes are all qualities of God.

We may say we don't believe in God...but I have the suspicion that what we don't believe in, is the limiting ideas we have of Him, or whatever we wish to call the Ultimate Reality.

I understand that there are ideas and thoughts you want to believe in, but wanting to and having a logical, rational ability to explain, are not the same. Issuing platitudes is self-deception. Surely you recognize what you wrote above is only what you would like the world to be but most certainly is not. You have reduced the whole complexity of life, belief, religion, science, human will and emotion into two simplistic paragraphs of platitudes.

Let me suggest something. I checked out an excellent forum for those with so much faith. It is called CARM and is excellently run. I post in there sometimes myself, but I am restricted to the "Secular" section. If I get out once, I get a reprimand!

 

[Draka]

You could add simple intellectual laziness. It's so easy to let some priest/rabbi/imam do your thinking for you.

Yet another reason that does not apply. There are many of us who think for ourselves just fine.

 

[Badran]

Yet another reason that does not apply. There are many of us who think for ourselves just fine.

I guess there has to be a deficiency somewhere for choosing to be religious or to have faith. Otherwise, how are some people supposed to feel special for choosing not to have faith or be religious?

We can't both be equally justified in our choices.

 

[Draka]

I guess there has to be a deficiency somewhere for choosing to be religious or to have faith. Otherwise, how are some people supposed to feel special for choosing not to have faith or be religious?

We can't be both equally justified in our choices.

Reminds me of the bullies on the schoolgrounds. Who feel they need to make fun of others and call names in order for them to feel better about themselves. It's kind of sad really.

 

[Breathe]

Yet another reason that does not apply. There are many of us who think for ourselves just fine.

What's quite sad is that it seems to be common thinking that one cannot believe in God and/or religion and still think for themselves. For many, it seems as though it ultimately boils down to delusion or brainwashing.

Of course, this forgets many religious people convert to religions or never have doubts of their own throughout their lives.

 

[Looncall]

Yet another reason that does not apply. There are many of us who think for ourselves just fine.

And there are also many who do not.

 

[Skeptisch]

Scientifically minded people tend to explain ‘the magic of reality and how we know what is really true’ with evidence based reasoning. They invite others to falsify or disagree with what they post.
But when someone is trying to make a point by telling us s/he had a certain spiritual experience that changed their reality, wouldn’t it be fair and courteous if these posters would explain, in detail, how their revelation and enlightenment came about?

 

[charles brough]

For me one of the most important aspects of theistic religion is that it provides a purpose to life and something to work toward. When you take away an afterlife, it makes life seem so meaningless and all the things you do so unimportant. I think one very major factor contributing to happiness is when we have a goal to strive for. So what if death is the end all? What if this very short life amounts to non-existence?


There is another aspect of my particular belief that makes me someone who does not rely completely on science. There are elements of Vedic philosophy that are so real to me, so obvious based on my life experience, that are not and perhaps cannot (not sure) be explained by researchers. It proves to me that personal spiritual inquisition and investigation is important because it opens up and fulfills a part of my life that science does not and that atheism utterly lacks.

What a wonderful, well expressed, personal response! I understand because, like you, I need and now have a goal. Every religion has a goal. All the mainline "religions" and "secular religion" (such as "Communism") have goals. No ideology can succeed that does not. Their moral systems are merely the refined codifying of the means the people are to employ to achieve those goals. The Christian goals are achieving "heaven" for the individual and "the Second Coming" and then "God's Kingdom." Marxism touts a communal world. Hinduists seek Nirvana. The problem with our secular ideology is that "the pursuit of happiness" and "the American dream" are poor goals.

My goal in life is to convince people that these goals have become almost useless because we have, since they were dreamed up, learned much more about ourselves and the universe. The goal doctrines have become outdated and explain why Christianity, for example, has become so divided. In unity there is strength, in disunity there is. .

As I explain in "The Last Civilization," the adopting of an ideology with the goals of advancing the space program to where we could colonize space, to controlling over-population and the over-exploiting of our environment, encouraging multiracial marriage, and bringing about a moral code reform.

Incidentally, I have read 100 of the RigVeda verses and was disappointed. All that part of the veda was was an endless repeating of pleas to the gods to enable them to overpower their enemies so they can get more loot. To that end, the promised to make sacrifices for their gods and provide them with their favorite nector.:yes:

 

[Skeptisch]

When you take away an afterlife, it makes life seem so meaningless and all the things you do so unimportant.

Maybe in the big picture that’s what human life really is, unimportant and meaningless. Do you think we can not enjoy something that is meaningless and unimportant but beautiful and true?

 

[Riverwolf]

Incidentally, I have read 100 of the RigVeda verses and was disappointed. All that part of the veda was was an endless repeating of pleas to the gods to enable them to overpower their enemies so they can get more loot. To that end, the promised to make sacrifices for their gods and provide them with their favorite nector.:yes:

Which verses did you read, and which translation? (I suspect Griffith, considering the mentioning of pleas to overpower enemies; something that seems oddly absent from Wilson's translation.)

There's actually several hymns of the Rig Veda that really betray the grand insights that these Sages had that most theists today would shy away from, such as the Nasadiya.

 

[Draka]

Scientifically minded people tend to explain ‘the magic of reality and how we know what is really true’ with evidence based reasoning. They invite others to falsify or disagree with what they post.
But when someone is trying to make a point by telling us s/he had a certain spiritual experience that changed their reality, wouldn’t it be fair and courteous if these posters would explain, in detail, how their revelation and enlightenment came about?

Why? The grand majority of those of us who do happen to find our spirituality through personal spiritual experiences have no wish to make anyone else believe anything. Not to mention that some experiences can be just too damn hard to relate through words alone. Add that on top of the fact that even when we do try to explain some of the things we have gone through and witnessed we always seem to come across those who would mock us and call us delusional or hallucinatory. Why bother putting ourselves out there to try to explain ourselves, when we don't need to, only to be ridiculed by those who do not understand and apparently have no wish to? Our experiences are ours alone. Everyone has different experiences. I can no more discount, say...Badran's, than he could discount my own. At least we realize that.

 

[Skeptisch]

Why bother putting ourselves out there to try to explain ourselves, when we don't need to, only to be ridiculed by those who do not understand and apparently have no wish to?

But many of us wish to understand how and why revelation works in some brains and not in others!

 

[Draka]

But many of us wish to understand how and why revelation works in some brains and not in others!

"Works in some brains"??? Now how in the world am I supposed to know why I have had certain experiences and you haven't? You think hearing about experiences is going to explain something about how the brain works? That whether or not someone has experiences is tied to the brain? That one way or another is faulty? Or "gifted"? I think it may have more to do with being psychologically open or closed to certain phenomena perhaps more than how the physical brain functions on a chemical level.

 

[Skeptisch]

"Works in some brains"??? Now how in the world am I supposed to know why I have had certain experiences and you haven't?

If you would to tell us more about your experience maybe we could relate it to what neuroscience says about this interesting phenomenon.

 

[Draka]

If you would to tell us more about your experience maybe we could relate it to what neuroscience says about this interesting phenomenon.

Let me translate that into what I hear: If you tell us your many experiences you have had throughout your life, spanning a few decades, we will try in vain to come up with what is wrong in your brain to make you hallucinate your whole life or explain why you are too stupid to make up supposedly rational explanations that have nothing to do with the paranormal...like we do.

I have no desire to even begin to try to relate all my spiritual/paranormal experiences I have had spanning over 30 years. I'm not that stupid as to attempt that. I think many theists feel the same way as me. When we do try to share, we get ridiculed. I very much feel like...why should I even bother anymore?

 

[Revoltingest]

One reason is that the idea of us "descending from monkeys," as the clergy likes to put it, seems demeaning and denigrating.

Well....can we really blame the monkeys for feeling that way?

 

[Skeptisch]

I very much feel like...why should I even bother anymore?

Too bad, I was trying to have a conversation with you. Should your wings ever fall off just use your broom stick.

 

[Draka]

Too bad, I was trying to have a conversation with you.

Really? Explain to me then why I should sit here and spend hours trying to put into words numerous different experiences I've had in my life. For what exact purpose would I spend all this time and energy? Just what do you think "neuroscience says" about such experiences? Why should I put my life experiences out there to be ridiculed and my intelligence and sanity questioned and insulted by those who think they know better than I merely for the fact that they don't believe? Like somehow that makes them better to judge or smarter than I.

Should your wings ever fall off just use your broom stick.

Whatever. :witch:

 

[Skeptisch]

Whatever. :witch:

Do you agree with the following?
Generally speaking, Wiccans believe that witches become one with their deities through rituals, which bring them in harmony with the energy of the cosmos. They believe that this oneness with the deities gives them the ability to control and direct that energy to some degree. Wiccans think that a witch's energy vibrates with both a physical and spiritual rate of vibration, and that these vibrations are compatible with the vibrations observed in matter by modern science.