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Why be religious?
- Thread starter Tigre
- Start date
~Easy way out of thinking. You have all the answers with little effort.
~Salvation.
~Hope. Without it, what is the point of living?
~Fear of being alone. Alone in the universe, as well as alone among mankind.
~Social appearance/upbringing. Enough said.
~Revenge for stricken peoples. The selfish, "immoral" people who put you/kept you in this position will pay in the afterlife.
~Unquestioning belief. Part of upbringing, above.
~Salvation.
~Hope. Without it, what is the point of living?
~Fear of being alone. Alone in the universe, as well as alone among mankind.
~Social appearance/upbringing. Enough said.
~Revenge for stricken peoples. The selfish, "immoral" people who put you/kept you in this position will pay in the afterlife.
~Unquestioning belief. Part of upbringing, above.
Why not donkey breath?
I would rather everyone opened themselves up to the possibility of a creator. Rather than tagging themselves to an organised religion that claims it knows things about our creator (if there is one).
If everyone was open to the possibility rather than claiming to already know everything, then maybe we'd eventually get somewhere to having more of an understanding.
If everyone was open to the possibility rather than claiming to already know everything, then maybe we'd eventually get somewhere to having more of an understanding.
I think everyone knows there is a creator of some sorts already. I mean you can say that the big band caused this and that to happen that eventually brought about life, but that doesn't explain what created the matter that bunched together for the big bang. Our minds can't possibly comprehend nothingness and then the existance of something without a higher power involved.
Fear of Death
Fear of not being loved for your own accomplishments
Fear of not having a purpose
Fear of having to define your own morality
Fear of such concepts as "Infinty".
The last and the first seem to be the most potent. No matter how I look at it, I find fear to be a driving motive behind religion. However, I assume that if I were religious, I would beg to differ.
Fear of not being loved for your own accomplishments
Fear of not having a purpose
Fear of having to define your own morality
Fear of such concepts as "Infinty".
The last and the first seem to be the most potent. No matter how I look at it, I find fear to be a driving motive behind religion. However, I assume that if I were religious, I would beg to differ.
quigly: why do you think we cant comprehend nothingness, we goto it when we die, I have no problem with it.
glenn millers big band are guilty of a lot of things, not creation.
dark eye beauty: why do you think we need salvation we came from nothing and we go back to nothing, it's a problem for you because you cant think for yourself, you certainly dont need a deity to live a moral life, you are more moral without one. theres no need to suck up, to arse lick, the reason for your life on earth is to propergate the species, to help other and enjoy your time here, your a long time dead.
glenn millers big band are guilty of a lot of things, not creation.
dark eye beauty: why do you think we need salvation we came from nothing and we go back to nothing, it's a problem for you because you cant think for yourself, you certainly dont need a deity to live a moral life, you are more moral without one. theres no need to suck up, to arse lick, the reason for your life on earth is to propergate the species, to help other and enjoy your time here, your a long time dead.
it sounds like that old watchmaker bullshit. if you can't accept that the universe doesn’t have a creator, why can you accept that the creator of the universe has no creator? if you think everything must have a creator then you have an infinite chain of creators. which of these infinite creators do you worship?I think everyone knows there is a creator of some sorts already. I mean you can say that the big band caused this and that to happen that eventually brought about life, but that doesn't explain what created the matter that bunched together for the big bang. Our minds can't possibly comprehend nothingness and then the existance of something without a higher power involved.
mustafhakofi said:quigly: why do you think we cant comprehend nothingness, we goto it when we die, I have no problem with it.
glenn millers big band are guilty of a lot of things, not creation.
dark eye beauty: why do you think we need salvation we came from nothing and we go back to nothing, it's a problem for you because you cant think for yourself, you certainly dont need a deity to live a moral life, you are more moral without one. theres no need to suck up, to arse lick, the reason for your life on earth is to propergate the species, to help other and enjoy your time here, your a long time dead.
I haven't decided if you're on my side or not. You could try being more articulate.
And I've changed my mind....my answer is now:
Why not?
There are 4 scenarios...
Believer-No God
Believer-God
Non-Believer-No God
Non-Believer-God
Only in the last case do you really lose.
DarkEyedBeauty said:I haven't decided if you're on my side or not. You could try being more articulate.
And I've changed my mind....my answer is now:
Why not?
There are 4 scenarios...
Believer-No God
Believer-God
Non-Believer-No God
Non-Believer-God
Only in the last case do you really lose.
Are the 4 scenarios equal in probability? If not, your logic fails. It's like someone saying the outcome of the lottery is 50/50 because I either win or lose.
I meant...only in that case can you lose.
Tigre said:What's the rush of being a sheep and follow the sheppard of this or that religion? That's not cool.
Attractiveness, fear, belonging, resources, and influence would be the
big ones.
Quigly said:I think everyone knows there is a creator of some sorts already. I mean you can say that the big band caused this and that to happen that eventually brought about life, but that doesn't explain what created the matter that bunched together for the big bang. Our minds can't possibly comprehend nothingness and then the existance of something without a higher power involved.
There is no evidence to support the notion that 'nothingness' exists.
Spiritual fulfillment...
you meanDarkEyedBeauty said:I haven't decided if you're on my side or not. You could try being more articulate.
And I've changed my mind....my answer is now:
Why not?
There are 4 scenarios...
Believer-No God
Believer-God
Non-Believer-No God
Non-Believer-God
Only in the last case do you really lose.
Pascal's wager
................................God exists..............God does not exist
I believe..................Go To Heaven..........Nothing
I do not believe.......Burn In Hell!............Nothing
plain and simple pascals wager is flawed
It is better to live your life as if there are no Gods, and try to make the world a better place for your being in it. If there is no God, you have lost nothing and will be remembered fondly by those you left behind. If there is a benevolent God, He will judge you on your merits and not just on whether or not you believed in Him.
Humanity's wager
...............................God exists........................God does not exist
I believe..................Go To Heaven because....Wasted life praying etc.
...............................you believed
I do not believe......Go To Heaven because.....Made the world a better place
...............................you're a good person
the flaws in pascal's wager
How do you know which God to believe in? There are plenty to choose from, and if you pick the wrong one, you could be in big trouble (e.g. what if you choose Jesus, but get to heaven only to come face-to-trunk with Ganesh?). This is known as the "Avoiding the wrong Hell problem". If a dozen people of different religions came to you with Pascal's Wager, how could you possibly choose between them? After all, many religions are quite specific that they are the One True Religion, and not any others. Jesus Christ said "I am the way, the truth and the light. None shall come to the Father except through me." [emphasis added] and no doubt most other religions make similar claims. If a Christian considers the Wager as strong support for his faith, surely he must accept that it is equally valid for all other religions when presented to himself?
God is not stupid. Won't He know that you're just trying to get a free ride into Heaven? How can you sincerely believe in a God simply out of convenience?
If there is no God, you have still lost something. You have wasted a good portion of your life performing the various devotional rituals, attending Churches, praying, reading scripture and discussing your deity with His other followers. Not to mention giving your hard-earned money to the church, wasting your intelligence on theological endeavours and boring the hell out of people who really don't want to hear your Good News.
Can you get away with just sort of generally believing in a Supreme Being, without specifically believing in one particular Deity? Probably not - God will still know what you're up to. Also, many Gods are quite particular about how they should be worshipped. Many born-again Christians will tell you that the only way to Heaven is through accepting Jesus Christ as your personal saviour - nothing more and nothing less. General-Deity-Belief and being nice simply won't do. Many people believe that all the different religions are merely alternative routes to the same destination. Nice and tolerant (if a little warm'n'fuzzy) though this may be, there is no valid reason to accept this stance over the fire-and-brimstone fundamentalist position : if the fundies are right, then the un-Saved liberal theists are in just as much trouble as the nonbelievers.
Few, if any, atheists disbelieve in deities out of choice. It's not as if we know the god is really there, but somehow refuse to believe in it (for example, see if you can choose to truly believe that Australia does not exist). Most atheists disbelieve simply because they know of no compelling evidence to suggest that any sort of god exists. If you want an atheist to believe, show her some good evidence, don't just say it's in her best interests to believe even if there is no god. A person cannot choose to sincerely believe in something, just because it is pragmatic to do so. Sure, you could say all the right prayers and attend church regularly, but that is not the same thing as actually believing, and any God worth his salt would obviously see straight through that.
It is quite insulting. It amounts to a thinly veiled threat, little better than saying "Believe in my God or He'll send you to Hell" (in fact, this is often the form it is presented in). Also, the theist making this threat assumes that the atheist believes there is a Hell or a God to send her there in the first place. If you don't believe in Hell anyway, it's not a scary thing to be threatened with - a bit like saying "If you don't start believing in unicorns, one will trample you to death while you're sleeping." Who would be worried by that?
It is often self-refuting, depending on the person's description of God. If you believe that God will forgive anyone for anything, or judge people purely on how they lived their life and not what they believed, or that everyone gets to Heaven regardless (unless maybe they were genocidal cannibal serial killers), then the Wager is meaningless. You might as well say "Believe in God, or you'll... erm... go to Heaven anyway." In such a case, it doesn't make a scrap of difference whether the person believes or not.
a barnett.
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