ITT: We Discuss our Religious Backgrounds/Ideas

[Hipmonlee]

Think of it this way: the distance between objects is a property of objects. So when we say one object is far from another thats because the strength of that objects traits, like, gravity or whatever (again, I dont know shit about physics) have less strength.

This can conveniently be mapped in 3d space, so what you see is again, a pretty much a metaphor that conveys that information.

So, when you have the object that is the farthest point in a given direction, and we look out beyond that, we see nothing, and in the way we see this is represented by blackness. But the universe doesnt really extend in that direction because there is nothing there, but if you went there, then you would be there, and the universe would extend that far.

You could describe all that potential space as part of the universe, but generally people dont.

Have a nice day.

 

[ivar]

@ Brain

@ uncaused God

I never said God causes himself--rather, my point was that God is eternal and does not need to be caused. Hence, there is no circular justification, in this regard, for God's existence. He simply "is" as a product of his nature. I think I said uncaused cause, which might be a little misleading--the more precise description is, then, uncaused causer.

@ incoherence/fiction of the eternal

And I maintain that the uncaused causer is incoherent in terms of human grasping. Simply because you can describe the notion in such a way that the gist can be apprehended, it does not follow that you can wrap your mind around the conceivability of such an eternal being.

Think of it this way: what makes modus ponens true? In case your unfamiliar with modus ponens, it is amongst the most basic of logical inferences--namely, that if p implies q and we have p, then we also have q. Yet, an inferential justification of modus ponens evokes rule circularity, and if you are familiar with the classic "tonk" inferential system that allows rule circularity, anything is provable from any premise with rule circularity. It's obviously problematic. Some say, and I am inclined to agree, that what makes basic logical laws true like modus ponens is some intuitive element where, by the natural light of reason, we see how it must be true. We cannot imagine the opposite being true and, at the very least, the reality of modus ponens is necessary given our mode of thinking. Now, whether this natural light of reason is enough to give modus ponens any credence is up for debate, but at the very least, for our subjective understanding, it is a necessary reality.

Conversely, it is a necessary reality that we never grasp and see, so clearly, the possibility of infinity. If anything, our intuitions tell us that infinity is impossible. We can describe the term in mathematics and come with many useful mathematical results with infinity (such as members with more members than the infinite set if said set is the power set of the infinite set--totally cool philosophically btw)--yet, it is against all intuition. And this intuition is crucial because this intuition is the grounds for justification of basic logical principles like the law of non-contradiction. Our intuition of self-evident truths makes reasoning possible: without the intuition of the law of non-contradiction, any statement is permissible--and our intuition is the only grounds for justification of the law of non-contradiction. Now, as a note of clarification, my point is not that mathematically infinity is incoherent, but rather psychologically it is incoherent: and the psychological incoherence of infinity is what makes God, as an uncaused causer, a fiction. This God is a fiction much in the same way that a talking rock is a fiction: I can describe the notion, but I can never allow for the possibility.

@your final point about the ought-is argument, I'll probably elaborate later. Wrote enough as it is. So for now I must concede to your position.

 

[MrIndigo]

@ Brain

@ uncaused God

I never said God causes himself--rather, my point was that God is eternal and does not need to be caused. Hence, there is no circular justification, in this regard, for God's existence. He simply "is" as a product of his nature. I think I said uncaused cause, which might be a little misleading--the more precise description is, then, uncaused causer.

This is inelegant, at best. If you're willing to attach an "eternalness" to a creator, why can't you attach the same eternalness to the universe itself? There's no way to escape the regressive "What came before the creator? What came before the creator creator?" etc. The imputation that there is a particular point (for religious, the assertion is usually the creator of the universe has no creator). The simplest arbitrary cutoff point is to have the first stage being the eternal universe, thus eliminating the need for any additional imputed existences.

 

[Not Scicky]

To believers; I ask one thing, why? What do you gain from believing?

The entire point of religion is to provide purpose to life.

I'm not going to write some 5 paragraph response because, really, I'm not passionate enough about my faith (or lack thereof) to do so. But I will say this;

Your purpose in life could be helping people, or discovering new aspects of reality, or it could be devoting your entire life to a big guy in the sky.

Take your pick.

God giving someones life purpose seems like an excuse to be lazy to me.

 

[Miscellaneous]

Think of it this way: the distance between objects is a property of objects. So when we say one object is far from another thats because the strength of that objects traits, like, gravity or whatever (again, I dont know shit about physics) have less strength.

This can conveniently be mapped in 3d space, so what you see is again, a pretty much a metaphor that conveys that information.

So, when you have the object that is the farthest point in a given direction, and we look out beyond that, we see nothing, and in the way we see this is represented by blackness. But the universe doesnt really extend in that direction because there is nothing there, but if you went there, then you would be there, and the universe would extend that far.

You could describe all that potential space as part of the universe, but generally people dont.

Have a nice day.

It's a good analogy.
I always considered it from a third person perspective. I.e. the measurable "space" is arbitrary, and therefore immeasurable on a comprehensive scale. This ties into relative size, i.e. our universe could potentially occupy an infinitely tiny amount of "space", thus negating the real termanology for a "singularity", if nothing measurable can be relatively measured on a scale, then our expanding universe could be the result, or the cause of another expansion. Everything outside of "our" space between masses is limited by the speed of light. I won't go too far into space's dimensions being interdependent on time though. I've probably phased at least two lines of that badly, oh well.

I think the general nature of humans (call it human nature or call it how our minds work, call it genes, whatever), is to only comprehend what is directly relevant to our survival. It is also in the nature of many humans to want to depend or want to have a purpose on something in life. This means basically that the majority of people are ignorant, and the majority of people can have no real comprehension of energy being proportionate to mass, or the idea of expansion, or how gravity really works. But it is a trait of people to want to know how something works - I think a lot of people call that god out of ignorance. Some people may really believe, some many take the more scientific or agnostic approach. I cannot completely emphasise with someone who does fully believe in God, although that's the way I account for their belief, I think it's just a side effect of evolution.

As for sort of science vs. religion, when I considered contrasting views and concepts of theories, religion, maths, I came to the realisation that everything in the universe could be explained mathematically, except it would make no sense. It's like expressing music as just variations in sound waves, it doesn't mean anything to humans. It's beyond most people to understand the universe as science describes alone. But then it's beyond other people to understand the universe as religion may describe it alone. What does this tell me, it tells me that either/or philosophies or beliefs are currently either wrong or incomplete from a human comprehension perspective. Science needs more currently, to explain everything, religion can never explain everything, because that's how religion works. Neither is perfect.

I'm also a little disappointed at the ignorance conveyed by some intelligent people in this thread. Religion doesn't have to involve God, or Gods. Religion doesn't have to be blind faith. I'd call myself religious, or at least religiously orientated, but I also think that having a singular diety creating everything or being everywhere and judging everyone is complete bollocks. I get frustrated with atheists who have no real comprehension of the core of religion, not every religious man believes in God. It's very easy for me to pick apart and ridicule the Bible or the Quarran, but I believe it takes something more to formulate further upon simply not accepting or being dismissive to all forms of religion. I know not all atheists are that ignorant, but the majority I have met are simply ("god isn't real") instead of (this is what I think, and why). I'd rather have a wrong opinion than no opinion, and I have no empathy for someone who isn't interested in the questions not yet fully answered by science. I don't see agnostics this way because accepting or believing you're not sure (or abstaining) is at least accepting something.

 

[ivar]

This is inelegant, at best. If you're willing to attach an "eternalness" to a creator, why can't you attach the same eternalness to the universe itself? There's no way to escape the regressive "What came before the creator? What came before the creator creator?" etc. The imputation that there is a particular point (for religious, the assertion is usually the creator of the universe has no creator). The simplest arbitrary cutoff point is to have the first stage being the eternal universe, thus eliminating the need for any additional imputed existences.

in my original post i didn't agree with the argument myself. i was just trying to present the position in the best possible light.

@deck and scicky

I agree with deck in that we need some sort of benevolent divinity for ultimate purpose in life. not saying that i believe in a God quite yet, though. we need God for our lives to have any necessity: "making" our own purpose is a sort of delusion, as it is outside the scope of our powers to create purpose that governs with necessity. purpose needs to be mathematically necessary for it to even be purpose. it's like creating a game and saying that the game has higher purpose: it doesn't, as the game is simply the game. Making our own purpose makes that same purpose completely arbitrary, just like the goal of any particular game is totally arbitrary. something greater than us must exist. so in my opinion it's God or no purpose. not sure which side i lean on

 

[Chou Toshio]

I don't think your belief is "stupid". What I believe is that it is "false". Let's put things in perspective here. Personally, I have a single criterion to decide whether I will believe in something or not: I can only believe in something if I am confident that I will be right. My one and only concern is that I don't want to be wrong. [...] believing false things fills me with indescribable terror.

Brain, I think you are misunderstanding the basis of "belief" here.

I am blatantly ripping off some quote in the Ender's game series, but when you tell your son that you "believe in him", you are not telling him that you "believe he exists."

Belief in God (at least in Christianity) is not belief in existance, but instead more along the lines of faith you have in your loved ones and people important in your life.

You don't "know" that Jack Sanders, your ace CB and dear teammate will make the pass cut and take your high school football team to the state championship. But in those moments in the last minute of the last quarter, as the pass flies through the air, you "believe". Your belief could very well be wrong, but "trying to not be wrong"--that's not the point in your belief.

Really, even if Jack fails and the opposing team makes the pass, that still does not remove the purpose of your "belief."

 

[deadliestwarrior]

You don't "know" that Jack Sanders, your ace CB and dear teammate will make the pass cut and take your high school football team to the state championship. But in those moments in the last minute of the last quarter, as the pass flies through the air, you "believe". Your belief could very well be wrong, but "trying to not be wrong"--that's not the point in your belief.

Really, even if Jack fails and the opposing team makes the pass, that still does not remove the purpose of your "belief."

it is considered wrong in the Christian religion if you do not believe in god with all your soul and with all your might, 'this is the first and great commandment'.

 

[Brain]

I never said God causes himself--rather, my point was that God is eternal and does not need to be caused.

You said: "God's omnipotence is such that God does not need to be caused himself". How else am I supposed to interpret this statement?

Anyway, eternity is of no help here: you can very well abstract out the whole timeline as a single entity, and ask what caused it to exist. Think of it this way: you can take a 3D universe of infinite extent, and wonder what caused it to exist. And similarly, you can take a 4D universe of infinite extent, which would include the time dimension, and wonder what caused it to exist, within the frame of reference of a second time dimension. The bottom line is that an eternal being can be caused in a meaningful sense. No matter how you slice it, you can always build the set of "everything", and ask what caused this set to exist.

My take on this whole mess is that there is no metaphysical necessity for anything to be caused. It doesn't matter whether X is eternal or not. The nature of a thing implies nothing whatsoever about the existence of a causation chain leading to it. An apple is an apple, regardless of how it came to be.

At the core, it's a matter of logical necessity that something must be uncaused, and I frankly don't see any restrictions on whatever that thing would be.

Hence, there is no circular justification, in this regard, for God's existence. He simply "is" as a product of his nature.

Now you're just serving me Anselm's ontological argument. God exists because it is in his nature to exist. But that's absurd. The nature of a thing entails nothing about its existence.

And I maintain that the uncaused causer is incoherent in terms of human grasping. Simply because you can describe the notion in such a way that the gist can be apprehended, it does not follow that you can wrap your mind around the conceivability of such an eternal being.

But that's the thing. I can wrap my mind around it. If you have trouble grasping the concept of an "uncaused causer", it is because you have a very strong intuition about the universality of causality, strong enough that the concept of an "uncaused causer" seems wrong, incoherent to you. I know the feeling, because I've had it before. But I've thought about it a lot, and I've eventually concluded that my intuitions were out of whack. And as I realized this, they slowly shifted. Now, my intuition about causality is extremely weak: I don't see a necessity for anything to have a cause. Therefore, the concept of an "uncaused causer" does not cause any cognitive dissonance in my mind.

From my experience, I can tell you the following: our intuitions about the world tend to be much stronger than they should be. Therefore, as soon as one enters the realm of metaphysics, one should expect a lot of cognitive dissonance: what is "outside" the universe? What was "before" time? And so on. But the more you chip away at your intuitions to make them weaker and more malleable, the less problems you encounter. Food for thought.

Think of it this way: what makes modus ponens true?

Nothing makes it true. It's valid by definition. Modus ponens is part of the inference system upon which the concept of truth is built. Any other system would not be describing truth, it would be describing something else.

Some say, and I am inclined to agree, that what makes basic logical laws true like modus ponens is some intuitive element where, by the natural light of reason, we see how it must be true.

I have an immensely simpler take on it. Any inferential system on propositions, coupled with an initial assignment, implicitly defines a predicate. Logical laws form such an inference system. "Truth" is the name of the predicate that our observations, coupled with these laws, define. The reason why "truth" is such a prevalent concept in our minds is that it's useful. No more, no less.

I agree with deck in that we need some sort of benevolent divinity for ultimate purpose in life. not saying that i believe in a God quite yet, though. we need God for our lives to have any necessity: "making" our own purpose is a sort of delusion, as it is outside the scope of our powers to create purpose that governs with necessity. purpose needs to be mathematically necessary for it to even be purpose. it's like creating a game and saying that the game has higher purpose: it doesn't, as the game is simply the game. Making our own purpose makes that same purpose completely arbitrary, just like the goal of any particular game is totally arbitrary. something greater than us must exist. so in my opinion it's God or no purpose. not sure which side i lean on

I do not see how a deity could possibly define an ultimate purpose. I mean, of course, God could promulgate some sort of moral code and tell us to follow it, but why exactly should I care? What makes this "ultimate purpose" any more attractive than the purpose I set for myself?

Think about it this way: the purpose of a hammer is to hit nails. One might even say that this is the ultimate purpose of a hammer, as set by ourselves, their makers. But now imagine that hammers become sentient. Do you think a sentient hammer would give two shits about its "ultimate purpose" to hit nails? It would - if it enjoyed hitting nails. Otherwise, it would tell us to fuck off, and rightly so.

You speak of ultimate purpose as if it was desirable. Why is it desirable? I don't want an ultimate purpose. I want to make my own, because it is only through making my own purpose that I can achieve my own goals and satisfy my own aspirations, without the interference of some deity. Why would I want to follow God's purpose, should he exist? Either he offers me a sweet deal, or he forces my hand (with hell threats). Otherwise, I'm going to tell him to fuck off.

And it's not because God sets a purpose that it's not arbitrary. A game we make has an arbitrary goal, but so does a game made by God. Even if you specify a "benevolent" God, benevolence is an external restriction we place on him, so whatever purpose such a God would define could be "objectively" derived from the benevolence assumption. No need for deity.

Brain, I think you are misunderstanding the basis of "belief" here.

I am blatantly ripping off some quote in the Ender's game series, but when you tell your son that you "believe in him", you are not telling him that you "believe he exists."

Belief in God (at least in Christianity) is not belief in existance, but instead more along the lines of faith you have in your loved ones and people important in your life.

You don't "know" that Jack Sanders, your ace CB and dear teammate will make the pass cut and take your high school football team to the state championship. But in those moments in the last minute of the last quarter, as the pass flies through the air, you "believe". Your belief could very well be wrong, but "trying to not be wrong"--that's not the point in your belief.

Really, even if Jack fails and the opposing team makes the pass, that still does not remove the purpose of your "belief."

I do not misunderstand the basis of belief. The passage you quoted was me describing how my own belief system works. I simply do not "believe" in the sense you describe. I really do almost always try to not be wrong. I do not "believe" as the pass flies through the air. I "hope". I do not "believe in" anyone without good reason, even when I tell them I do. I "hope" they will succeed. Being careful about the expected accuracy of my beliefs is like second nature to me.

The rest of my post, however, was meant to address how the belief systems of religious people, as evidenced by several posts in this thread, works. I'm not sure whether you actually read or understood what I wrote, or whether what I wrote was clear enough, but I don't see where I made a mistake. Your response is perfectly coherent with how I assessed religious belief. In fact, it vindicates it. So color me confused.

 

[Chou Toshio]

Ok, perhaps "misunderstand" was a bad word-- I didn't want to suggest that you actually don't understand what it is I described (because I know you do), but rather meant to simply clarify the difference between "believing in existance" and "believing by faith". The "belief in God/Comrades" is not the same belief as in "I belive the world is round."


Also I understand how you divide hope/belief and that you have a great fear of being wrong. That's really a personal thing. What I am going to post next is not about debate or refuting your points, but only about my own personal life style. Not only with religion, but with belief in general.

I myself cannot be so dry, to live life only believing in the numbers.

"Hope" is a much weaker drive than "belief," because it means you have doubt-- you are holding reserve. When you doubt, you cannot bring 100% of your power to bear. Without belief, I personally would not be able to live life to the fullest, nor would I be able to live without regrets. It would be unbearable to live my life like that, saying I believe but only hoping. To me, that's way too dry, to wishy-washy, and not being "a real man" which is important to me.

When I say I have faith in my comrades, I have to mean it-- to me, that's part of real comradarie. If I tell a girl I believe in her, and believe in our bond, I'm not "hoping" she stays faithful to me, I believe she will be. Should I be wrong, I'm wrong. By believing in her, I set myself up to possibly be hurt. I'm perfectly fine with that, because there is no true love without hurt; there is no real love without trusting, and giving the other party the power to hurt you. I am sure you can see the parallels here with believing in God.

In other words, belief might not be rational, it might not be logical or right-- but belief is itself, powerful, and that power opens doors, creates new things, and gives life to hope.


Even more than in comrades or loved ones, the most easy to understand belief is the belief in oneself. You understand this directly through your body.

I am a wrestler, and have faced many a duel above the mat, mano-e-mano. I can tell you, mind is 80% of the game, and no amount of number crunching and strategy analysis can tell you the outcome. When you dive in to attack the enemy's leg, you can't "hope that you'll get it"-- that is way too weak, there's no way you will get it. You have to believe. Only by believing can you dive in with 110% of your power and speed, and make the successful attack. That's just being human.

Of course it would be great to see the future, to know exactly that if I make this attack, I will succeed or will fail and then act accordingly, but it is impossible to know. There's always that % chance, and without a doubt, "faith" a strong will and belief in the ability to succeed, drastically increases the odds that you will in fact succeed. The brain always underestimates what the self and others are actually capable of, that is why it is 110% speed and power-- you can actually use more than what you logically think you have.

Of course it is important to use belief from real knowledge and calculations of risk. You have to know and be satisfied with odds. You have to have an understanding of how good that corner back actually is. You have to get to know the girl, to learn of her character before you can give your heart to her.

But, once you choose to "do it," from there, the value and power in "belief" is undeniable.



I think here is the most fundamental difference: I am not scared of believing. I am not scared of being hurt, and I am certainly not afraid of being wrong. It is this strong conviction that is the source of the "power of belief."

it is considered wrong in the Christian religion if you do not believe in god with all your soul and with all your might, 'this is the first and great commandment'.

Nothing I said is contrary to believing with "all your soul and with all your might," believe ir or not (lol) you don't need to know in order to believe.

 

[WaterBomb]

God giving someones life purpose seems like an excuse to be lazy to me.

I don't have a problem with you, but this is a surprisingly ignorant and generalized statement. I expected much better.

I follow God and I am certainly not lazy. The belief that "God has given me a purpose" is simply the cause someone has attributed to the strong feelings they have about something in particular they are doing. For example, some people believe simply that God's purpose for them is to spread His word. Others believe God's purpose for them is to help the needy, feed the hungry, etc. Still others feel God's purpose for them is much more violent, like "killing the infidels" or some such. Many believers spend large amounts of time praying and pondering in the effort to figure out what God's "purpose" for them is. It's hard to be sure, but a great many people (myself included) feel they have a particular "calling" if you will. For example, I feel that my calling in life is to teach. I feel that I have been blessed with a great gift in vocabulary, diction, and the ability to convey the knowledge and passion I have amassed to others in a universal, easy-to-understand manner. I feel that these skills are best utilized as a teacher, so that is what I am pursuing as a career. Other people feel they have different "callings", and act accordingly. Lots of people believe they have a specific purpose, whether they believe that purpose is determined by God or something else. I'm sure a great many nonbelievers feel they have a purpose in life, they just attribute it to something other than God, whether it be their own mind, desires, upbringing, or some other determination.

I guess what I am trying to say is, what does believing your purpose in life is determined by God have to do with being lazy? Just because some people abuse it for that purpose doesn't mean everyone does.

 

[HitoriRaven]

But what I think Scicky was trying to say is that just saying that you don't really have to say God is the one who gives you purpose. Even if we do attribute something else like the mind, etc., the point is that just saying "I believe I should do this because God inclined that I should" is less of a reason than just knowing what you want to do. Which was the part of the quote that was left out. Or maybe I just read that wrong.
I feel that if you believe God gives you purpose, that's a fine reason to go do something productive, but if until then, you've just been pondering and praying your whole life, you should definitely go do something by your own volition(or whatever you interpret as your own will)

 

[Chou Toshio]

Is it weird for me to say I believe in God without actually attributing any decisions to my faith? Thinking about it frankly, I don't think I've ever done anything because I thought "God told me to" or that "God wants me to." Even praying or going to church or helping others-- those are things I want to do, the fact that God approves is nice but kind of in the background for me.

 

[Zacchaeus]

I feel like my knowledge could come into use in this thread at some point. And yes, I'm a Christian.

There is no guaranteed way to get into Heaven, if God doesn't want you in Heaven, then you're damned. God hates people just like He loves people, and any single person's opinion on whether or not they should be forgiven for their sins and allowed into Heaven is moot. If you are a Christian, then you better hope that you're part of the elect. No person controls their fate anyway, the future is already predetermined.

And it kind of goes without saying but this bit of information is for discussion founded in the belief of Christianity.

Is it weird for me to say I believe in God without actually attributing any decisions to my faith? Thinking about it frankly, I don't think I've ever done anything because I thought "God told me to" or that "God wants me to." Even praying or going to church or helping others-- those are things I want to do, the fact that God approves is nice but kind of in the background for me.

No, not really. I know plenty of people who have never felt the "call" or "touch" of God but are still Christian

 

[Not Scicky]

Sorry Waterbomb, my point was more along the lines of what Hitori was saying. I interpreted 'god giving me purpose' as being more like 'god IS my purpose', which is something I kind of have an issue with, but that's apparently not the case.

 

[Morm]

God knows everything. That's a pretty basic premise. Therefore, God created me specifically knowing I would become atheist (as events yet to happen fall under the subset of "everything"). I still have the CHOICES to make, but God already knows which choices I will make- so what does that say about predetermination vs free will? You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Anyways, a hypothetical: God knows my brain chemistry, what I am thinking and how I feel every single moment of every single day. Since I am a unique person, or so my parents told me, that means that my criteria for judgement should also be unique, assuming God loves me as much as is claimed and recognition of my uniqueness falls under that category. So, would it not be probable that God is infact judging me based on my discrete nature? What is reasonable for me may not be reasonable for someone else.

I submit to you that I am actually invariably going to heaven no, matter what I do, because I strive to be the best at being me that I can. If God does love me the way that it's claimed, I'm sure he can rise above his petty threat to burn someone he loves more than anything (me) in an eternal lake of hellfire? After all, nothing says "I love you more than you can ever understand" like recognizing my uniqueness and not scorching my soul for all eternity.

Also, on this topic, I think that the souls of the dangerous sociopaths or scizophrenics really god a bum deal. I mean they are basically hardwired for promiscuity, murder and mayhem. God must have known this and known they wouldn't stand a chance. That doesn't seem like an all loving allowance to me.

 

[Cartoons!]

"God...me"

The requirements for heaven are not 'trying your best'. Not that anyone could honestly claim they've actually done their best at all times, anyway.

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil."

And that was how God demonstrated his love, too. He won't compromise on righteousness; evil will be punished. But he's offered a free pass out of that judgment. Jesus is the ultimate Substitute, infinite HP, and all. He didn't have to do this, you don't deserve his mercy, nor do i, but he wanted to make his love known so he worked it all out in advanced for you. It doesn't matter if you're the worst murderer/rapist/pedophile in the world, your chief sin would be in rejecting God's free gift, by which any and all sins would be erased.

As far as Christianity goes, I see a lot of strawmanship in this thread. A lot has been said about believers, seemingly with the assumption that we don't believe in God either. I no longer believe in God in the sense of it being a choice any more than it is a 'choice' that I believe any of you exist. It's moved beyond mere acknowledgment to a living, dynamic relationship.

 

[Morm]

That's called scizophrenia cartoons.

 

[Cartoons!]

Then that is a condition that is vastly under-diagnosed.

 

[Morm]

Do you not find it alarming that mental illness and devout faith are hard to separate?

 

[Cartoons!]

You wish I was crazy.

 

[Not Scicky]

My aunt had schizophrenia and for years she thought Michael Jackson was calling her on the phone, even after he died. She also believed that the lead singer of Pink Flloyd was trying to rape her, and when my cousin was a small child, she hid him in the closet to protect him from 'aliens'. I don't think that's really comparable to wanting to have faith Morm.

but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil

Cartoons, I think this is... more of a metaphor. Like, say God is actually your actions, and it's kind of like, if you believe in God, or believe in your actions, than who's to say you're wrong? You are doing the right thing in your mind. You're a good person. But if you do something, knowing it's wrong, then you're evil.

I'm all for spirituality and all that, but the moment you take religious texts literally, you've crossed a line I think. :/

 

[Morm]

I asked you a question, cartoons, I'd actually like a real answer from you on it because I think it has interesting ramifications for a direction of this thread.

Also, maybe now would be a good time for you to share with everyone what you shared with me about sleep paralysis and your ideas? It certainly influences your faith and I think people would be interested to hear, if you'd be up for it.

 

[FlareBlitz]

Neat thread.

As could probably be ascertained from my politics, I am a strong agnostic. I believe that God's existence is empirically indeterminable and philosophically suspect. I find some value in religious conventions (I still do meditation, for instance), but feel that most religious values, with a few notable exceptions, have little or no place in the public sphere and are outdated at best (kosher) and actively harmful at worst (homosexuality is a sin).

The current discussion seems to be about the origins of the Universe. There is not a lot I can contribute to this, seeing as it's a very dead-end subject in my opinion (kind of like asking "can God microwave a burrito so hot that He himself could not eat it"), so I'd instead like to talk about/ask something: how do Christians reconcile the modern evolutionary synthesis with the Biblical account of creation? The literal interpretation flatly contradicts basic science, and metaphorical interpretations lend themselves to quite a few thorny questions ("if humans are god's ultimate creation why have we only existed for less than 1/10000th the current life span of the earth, why can't other parts of the bible be metaphorical as well, why does the idea of original sin make no sense now, etc"). I'd like to hear some good opinions on this.

 

[Morm]

how can you be a strong agnostic? Agnosticism is like a cowardly and non-commital version of atheist. So effectively you're strongly non-commital, great. I find agnostics are troublesome because they leave the door open to things like God, which means you can tell them LITERALLY ANYTHING NON FALSIFIABLE and they are a hypocrite if they refute it.

The only reason the discussion is about the origins of the universe is because that is where deck knight back peddles too instantly when challenged about his views. "You don't know so therefore I'm right", as if that's not a logical fallacy.