Glory Hallelujah

[Crunchy Cat]

I've been observing the 'Religion' section of sciforums for a couple
of years now and I am very pleased to see a significant increase
in atheistic activity.

Religion typically tries to position itself as being a set of logical
and factual claims but a continually increasing population who
posess skill in logic and knowledge of fact are rejecting those
claims because they are illogical, contradictory, and / or unproven.
Needless to say this is a very beautiful thing and I can only hope
that this trend continues.

Congratulations you atheist stud muffins!

-CC

 

[Ladybug]

Why do you think this is a good thing? Whatever else religion is or does, it also provides a strong base of mores to guide an individual to a "good" life. So if you don't believe in god/religion, do you believe that you can do whatever you want without negative consequences?

 

[kazakhan]

Why do you think this is a good thing?

Is it bad?

Whatever else religion is or does, it also provides a strong base of mores to guide an individual to a "good" life.

So I need religion to have a "good" life?

So if you don't believe in god/religion, do you believe that you can do whatever you want without negative consequences?

As long as it isn't illegal I supposedly can do what ever I want!

:m:reality is the common perception of the general population:m:

 

[Medicine*Woman]

Why doesn't God just eliminate those who don't believe?

Originally posted by kazakhan
Is it bad?

So I need religion to have a "good" life?

As long as it isn't illegal I supposedly can do what ever I want!

:m:reality is the common perception of the general population:m:

It seems to me that people who have religion thick in their lives are the ones who suffer so much!

The more I refute Jesus as my savior, the more blessed my life becomes, and I am able to do so much more for the people who need me! Doesn't make any sense to the Xians, though.

You'd think people like me would be stricken if there was a God. Maybe its just that my perception of God is a very personal one, yet there is only one God for all creation. I don't think Xians have found this God yet. We are not the chosen people because God chose us, we are the chosen people because we chose God!

 

[Ladybug]

Not to have a good life, kazakhan. Anyone can enjoy life, regardless of what they believe.

What I think religion is supposed to provide for us is moral direction, even if it is simply the thoughtfulness to not make others' lives miserable while enjoying yourself. The other question is, does religion strive to do this?

I think so many people have forgotten what the number one rule of almost all religions is: Do unto others..., An it harm none..., etc. Even the leaders of organized religions seem to be so mired the details of their religions that the basics get overlooked.

I highly doubt that in the end it will be your choice of religion and the number of times you went to church that matters. I think that it's how you behave as a human being and how you treat others (people and non-people alike) that counts.

 

[Medicine*Woman]

The innate conscious

Originally posted by Ladybug
[B I think that it's how you behave as a human being and how you treat others (people and non-people alike) that counts. [/B]

I think you are right. Humans are basically good creations. (All creation is good.) We are generally aware of what is good and what is not. This instinct is innate. The ultimate infraction to our wholeness is selfishness. That is when we remove ourselves from the whole spirit within us. Or, I should say, we displace our cumulative soul with ego, and this depletes the spirit of God within us and also weakens us as a whole.

 

[Crunchy Cat]

Ladybug

Why do you think this is a good thing?

Because it demonstrates that people can be successful, happy,
and well-adjusted citizens without reliances on fairytales. It's
a great leadership-by-example type of deal.

Whatever else religion is or does, it also provides a strong base of mores to guide an individual to a "good" life.

Some releigions do this. Others don't even come close. Either
way, alot of societies have developed to a point where they
can increase the quality of life for an individual by promoting
altruism and punishing exploitation. Look at the U.S. It gives
it's citizens the right to life, liberty, and the persuit of happiness.

So if you don't believe in god/religion, do you believe that you can do whatever you want without negative consequences?

Of course not.

 

[Medicine*Woman]

Re: Ladybug

Every action has a like reaction, and so it is with the soul.

 

[Ladybug]

I like the whole "life, liberty, etc" idea, and it worked well for a while. But in the last 40 years or so, the U.S. has changed a lot. I don't know that the cause is lack of religion, but I suspect that if people actually practiced what they preached, things would be different.

Let me give you some examples. Take ENRON. Those executives are not unique, they just got caught. How many truly religious people could have justified to themselves taking huge sums of money and leaving their hard-working employees with nothing?

An everyday example is driving behavior. Aggressive driving is getting really bad these days. That, too, does not fit in with religious behavior. (Do unto others)

There are a lot of examples I could continue with, but let me say this. There is not a whole lot of altruism going on in the U.S. or anywhere else that I'm aware of. The Baby Boomer generation is a great example. They are the original ME generation. It's still unravelling, and I really dread the results.

 

[Medicine*Woman]

Altruism

Originally posted by Ladybug
I like the whole "life, liberty, etc" idea, and it worked well for a while. But in the last 40 years or so, the U.S. has changed a lot.

Thanks to 40 years of "partisan liberal politics."

I don't know that the cause is lack of religion, but I suspect that if people actually practiced what they preached, things would be different.

There are more "religions" than one could shake a stick at. I think most of them are "ritual" Xians, for one. They warm a pew every Sunday. This also applies to Jews, Catholics as well as the various and sundry cults.

Let me give you some examples. Take ENRON. Those executives are not unique, they just got caught. How many truly religious people could have justified to themselves taking huge sums of money and leaving their hard-working employees with nothing?

That's the problem. These people truly "religious" and not "spiritual." There's a big difference between the two.

An everyday example is driving behavior. Aggressive driving is getting really bad these days. That, too, does not fit in with religious behavior. (Do unto others)

"Doing unto others as you would have them do unto you" is the spiritual message. "Doing unto others before they can do unto you" is religious behavior.

There are a lot of examples I could continue with, but let me say this. There is not a whole lot of altruism going on in the U.S. or anywhere else that I'm aware of.

That's because altruism comes from within the human soul which is the spirit of God within us. When one recognizes that they were created to be One with God, and that they contain the very Spirit of God on Earth, altruism is a gift of that One Spirit.

The Baby Boomer generation is a great example. They are the original ME generation. It's still unravelling, and I really dread the results.
I'm a Baby Boomer, and I'm tending to think that you were born after this generation. The Baby Boomer generation I come from, we came from families who stayed together; we were not only encouraged but expected to get an education; we had strong family values that we carried with us to adulthood; then there was the Viet Nam conflict and the resulting protests, and of course the Hippies, and the drugs. All in all, we were raised by the heroes of WWII, and we believed in "Mom," "baseball," and "apple pie."

Then came the 70s with the "Me" generation. "I'm Okay, You're Okay" and "Parent Effectiveness Training" was the self-help generation.

 

[Killjoy]

Re: Why doesn't God just eliminate those who don't believe?

Originally posted by Medicine*Woman
It seems to me that people who have religion thick in their lives are the ones who suffer so much!

The more I refute Jesus as my savior, the more blessed my life becomes, and I am able to do so much more for the people who need me! Doesn't make any sense to the Xians, though.

You'd think people like me would be stricken if there was a God. Maybe its just that my perception of God is a very personal one, yet there is only one God for all creation. I don't think Xians have found this God yet. We are not the chosen people because God chose us, we are the chosen people because we chose God!

Ahhh, but that is the sublime and terrible irony of the thing!
As the system is supposed to be set up, you get to "live it up" in your denial of the Lord for your piddling all-too-short mortal existence...
Then, after "Judgement Day" Your Eternity of Infinite and Unremitting Agony begins!

You do raise a point that Xians cannot seem to countenance, though...
That being that - according to them at any rate - a virtuous life is meaningless unless it is accompanied by the acceptance of the savior, trinity, blah blah blah...
I never understood that part, save as a means to control people.

 

[Crunchy Cat]

Ladybug

Let me give you some examples. Take ENRON. Those executives are not unique, they just got caught.

They exploited and society punished. Exactly.

How many truly religious people could have justified to themselves taking huge sums of money and leaving their hard-working employees with nothing?

How many truly religious leaders would sodomize little boys?
I'm sure the ratio is about the same. It's a human condition.

An everyday example is driving behavior. Aggressive driving is getting really bad these days. That, too, does not fit in with religious behavior. (Do unto others)

And society of course is reacting to this form of exploitation by
fighting it. An individual has a billion+ years of genetic
programming that defines his behavior, so society recognizes
this and encourages what it deems positive behaviors and
punishes what it deems negative behaviors.

 

[Raithere]

Originally posted by Ladybug
Why do you think this is a good thing? Whatever else religion is or does, it also provides a strong base of mores to guide an individual to a "good" life. So if you don't believe in god/religion, do you believe that you can do whatever you want without negative consequences?

Why do so many theist seem to think that atheism equals blind hedonism?
Argument from authority is a rather tenuous proposition upon which to found a set of ethics.
There are more stable rational foundations upon which to build a set of moral principles.

~Raithere

 

[Ladybug]

I do not think that all atheists are necessarily blind hedonists. Atheism does, however, allow for this. If you do not believe in a deity who rewards or punishes, or in an afterlife to strive toward, where is the incentive for altruism?

Medicine Woman:

I agree that a good portion of the Boomers were brought up with strong family values. You were lucky to have grown up in such a great time. (And yes, I am of a younger generation, I think I'm part of Generation X--we supposedly have no identity)

Cat:

Yes, the Enron executives have been punished. But how many other executives have done this and have gotten away with it?

Not sure what you mean by "exploitation", but yes, humans have genetic programming. We are, under the skin, animals. And I guess that is my point. What I see in the world today is humans behaving more and more like our animal ancestors. And it's depressing as hell.

What do we have that separates us from the apes? Opposable thumbs and religion. Not much else. Lose the religion, we're no better than animals with the ability to build bigger things with which to kill each other.

 

[EvilPoet]

Originally posted by Ladybug
If you do not believe in a deity who rewards or punishes, or in an afterlife to strive toward, where is the incentive for altruism?

Not sure what you mean - are you saying that the only people who are altruistic are those who have a god in their lives? What about Buddhists? Where do you think their incentive is?

 

[Ladybug]

Last time I checked, Buddhism was a religion, and they have an afterlife to which they are striving.

 

[Redoubtable]

Originally posted by Crunchy Cat
I've been observing the 'Religion' section of sciforums for a couple
of years now and I am very pleased to see a significant increase
in atheistic activity.

I am going to laugh so hard when we all end up in Hell . . .

 

[EvilPoet]

Originally posted by Ladybug
Last time I checked, Buddhism was a religion, and they have an afterlife to which they are striving.

Buddhists strive for nirvana or nibbana not an afterlife. The two concepts are very different in my opinion. I'm curious, how do you think Buddhists get along without the concept of God?

 

[Redoubtable]

The same way about 849 million other folks do it.

 

[Tiassa]

Raithere: Some speculation

Why do so many theist seem to think that atheism equals blind hedonism?

Especially if we limit this to the Abramic monotheisms, and frankly I'm most familiar with the charge from one section of that trio, but ....

I think it's a combination of two points which would sound very much like logic to a faithful redemptionist:

(1) The lack of an objective moral center allows for such equivocation that any reprehensible behavior can be "morally" justified.
(2) The presumption of "Original Sin" is also the presumption of the worst in people.

--> Therefore, the logical conclusion is that the rejection of the moral center of the Universe will, by proxy of man's tendency toward sin, lead eventually to blind hedonism and eventually the triumph of Satan.

Well, okay, I threw in the Triumph of Satan just for my own amusement.

It seems logical, to the redemptionist, who believes that humankind requires God's assistance to escape an inherent tendency toward sin, that the rejection of God's assistance will lead to the capture of the soul in sin.

I am not quite blindly speculating here. Not quite. But it's two cents' worth.

:m:,
Tiassa