Arauca, can you explain how it is you know whether or not someone believes in God?
jan.
Religion as socially-accepted mental illness
- Thread starter Magical Realist
- Start date
Arauca, can you explain how it is you know whether or not someone believes in God?
jan.
This is obviously circular logic. I said mental illness is a group that deviates from the norm, I did not say all groups that deviate from the norm are mentally ill. Sorry if you misunderstand.
While I already stated it is a bad example, it still has the same premise, but it proves its worth seeing as your explanation doesn't address the initial premise. Reality does not take into account what is advantageous or disadvantageous, that would be an idealistic world. An excess of an ability (being able to differentiate between red and green, or variations of blue), and a deficiency in that ability (seeing no difference between red and green) does not point to what is more real.
Do you know the story of the three blind men and an elephant. Well if there were more men that stood near the trunk, then all the other men that failed to see (excuse the pun) that the elephant was more like a trunk would be labelled as deficient.
Many of us say we believe in God . If I know God I believe in his characteristic and I tray to follow his teaching . If I don't believe in God I just do my things because I don't if He is there or not
The two statements are identical. If you claim that mental illness is defined as a group that deviates from the norm, then any group that deviates from the norm has a mental illness per your definition.
Agreed. But only the deficiency would be called an illness.
Yes. And in our society all three would be called blind, which is a disability.
You didn't answer the other poster's question.
Again:
Can you explain how it is you know whether or not someone believes in God?
When a certain religious organization or religious society is trying to maintain a certain socio-economic status, and in the course of that, implements force, physical or otherwise: Is that religiously motivated violence?
Consider:
This world is a world of struggle.
Even if one makes an effort to be peaceful and non-hostile, some others may simply take issue with the fact that one is alive, or that one possess land and other resources those others want. And thus those others will use force to get what they want.
Religious organizations and religious societies cannot afford to live the life of mendicant monastics, as such a lifestyle would likely destroy them within one generation.
So, in order to maintain a relatively stable socio-economic status, religious organizations and religious societies take on strategies for prosperity that are more typical for the non-religious, including use of force.
When, for the sake of material wellbeing, religious organizations and religious societies (and not just individuals) step down from the uttama status to the madhyama status, or lower, what is that? Wouldn't that qualify for religiously motivated violence?
One might argue that someone on the uttama status would not step down from it for the sake of material wellbeing. But considering that religious organizations and religious societies typically want that they be presumed to hold the uttama status to begin with, if we grant them that and take them at face value, then how are their violent actions to be understood, if not as religiously motivated?
When someone who expects to be considered a pure representative of God, declares his intention to kick and urinate on those he considers his opponents or offenders of God - is that not religiously motivated violence?
Pardon me for replying to a question asked of arauca, but this seems straightforward.
If somebody says "I believe in God", then you can probably safely say they believe in God. And if they say "I don't believe in God" then ... well, you can work it out, I hope.
And if someone says "I have a degree in nuclear physics" they are also to be simply believed they have a degree in nuclear physics, and nothing the person says or does or what we hear about them may incline us to suspect otherwise.
Compare:
"I have a degree in nuclear physics."
"I believe I have a degree in nuclear physics."
See any difference?
So you can't tell the difference between a statement about an externally checkable fact and a statement about an internal state of mind.
That explains a lot.
Religious morality is fixed in time. Reality is constantly changing. Therefore religion can't be moral, since it cannot account in it's sacred text for new moral situations that arise.
Religious morality is much more lenient in time and survives the most changes of society unlike any other ideology being pushed by new innovations. Bible has changed throughout the millenia, all other "eternal" social ideas have failed...
I'm not sure what they mean by cheating, and in any case, the experiment worked on atheists too. Minor lying isn't immoral anyway, it's a necessary skill.
What does the Bible say about the morality of using unmanned aerial drones? How about in vitro fertilisation?
I would argue that what survives is not "religious" morality but merely morality.
What changes is the interpretation of the religious texts to fit the current overriding morality of the age.
The religions that survive longest are perhaps those that have texts that can be interpreted in most ways.
It can lead to frequent splits within the religion.
Texts that speak to the core of what is innate in our behaviour will do well, without actually adding anything of significance other than requirement for some beliefs on faith.
Is it illness to accept belief on faith?
No more so than being superstitious.
No more so than gambling in casinos.
My opinion.
Religious morality is written literally in stone. It doesn't change. What changes are social interpretations of said morality, which is why Christian life today doesn't look much like it did even 50 years ago, and certainly nothing like it did a century ago. And it's secular pressures that force those changes. Christians don't stop hating homosexuals because the bible changed course; they stop hating homosexuals because they've been raised in a culture where equality is valued.
The secularism you curse is the very force that makes religion palatable.
Religious texts have a literal, metaphorical, and spiritual meanings. The literal translation is open to a little interpretation due to translation errors, depending on the culture changes over the writing, the author, and general translation errors. The metaphorical translation is the inspirational messages of things like love or justice. The spiritual translation is the "god glasses" where the believer uses inspiration, literal, and experience to translate the message. Believers fall somewhere within these three as to what translation they tend to lean toward.
The literal meanings do not change. The metaphorical meaning changes with reality and so does the spiritual. This explains why two believers in a specific religion disagree on sometimes fundamental concepts or morality. Believers draw insight from the scripture to help with new moral situations that arise, but is most likely not coming from the literal translation that doesn't change much. Atheists construe this as "they make it up as they go."
So, I disagree that ancient religious texts cannot support morals properly. They can. What would scriptures say about slavery? They changed with the times, but I'm positive that there still remain some believers somewhere who believe slavery is moral although few. The scriptures can support just about any moral conduct. Even killing or saving a life.