I still remember the day at Sunday school when we had to confess. I was a good kid. I had absolutely no idea what to confess. I consulted my Mom who told me to "make something up". And thus my first sin, that I can remember, was lying to the priest.
Personally as an atheist-ish / lapsed Catholic, original sin is just about the only thing I've never actually doubted, Chesterton put it very well:
“Modern masters of science are much impressed with the need of beginning all inquiry with a fact. The ancient masters of religion were quite equally impressed with that necessity. They began with the fact of sin – a fact as practical as potatoes. Whether or no man could be washed in miraculous waters, there was no doubt at any rate that he wanted washing. But certain religious leaders in London, not mere materialists, have begun in our day not to deny the highly disputable water, but to deny the indisputable dirt. Certain new theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved. Some followers of the Reverend R. J. Campbell, in their almost too fastidious spirituality, admit divine sinlessness, which they cannot see even in their dreams. But they essentially deny human sin, which they can see in the street. The strongest saints and the strongest sceptics alike took positive evil as the starting-point of their argument. If it be true (as it certainly is) that a man can feel exquisite happiness in skinning a cat, then the religious philospher can only draw one of two deductions. He must either deny the existence of God, as all atheists do; or must deny the present union between God and man, as all Christians do. The new theologians seem to think it a highly rationalistic solution to deny the cat.”
Yeah, there's your problem right there. At the risk of stating what should be painfully obvious to any sane person, there is no "fact of sin", and you certainly can't use the claim of a "fact of sin" as a justification for the idea of original sin. It's a completely circular argument. Garbage in, garbage out.
When Chesterson asserts the fact of sin, he's saying that there in fact exists plainly perceptible offenses against morality [1], e.g. murder, pedophilia, rape to name the more extreme and obvious cases. In other words, evil.
So you deny the existence of offenses against morality or evil?
[1] "But they essentially deny human sin, which they can see in the street"
I deny that any human has ever come out of the womb having committed any such offenses, and I deny that infants (and even children) are morally culpable for offenses committed by fully fledged persons with moral agency. You should be ashamed of yourself for even contemplating such a horrible notion.
Also, since you list pedophilia in your trinity of offenses against morality, I will also point out that the biggest coverups of child sexual abuse in history was conducted by the Catholic church. The cases that have come to light recently are probably just the tip of the iceberg. Taking men at the peak of their sexuality, telling them that having sex is a sin, and then putting them in charge of a congregation is like putting someone in charge of a kitchen and telling them that eating is sin.
And finally, as long as you've gone and pulled my trigger, I will also point out that there is a lot of daylight between pedophilia (which is a psychiatric disorder, not a moral offense) and actual child abuse (which is a moral offense because there is a victim). Getting sexually aroused is not a sin. Neither is gratifying that arousal by self-pleasuring, or by any sexual activity between mutually consenting adults irrespective of their gender and marital status. You want a "fact of sin"? Here you go: one of the biggest sins humans commit is telling people they are sinful simply because they experience a normal human emotion. That is so sick and twisted that the word "sin" doesn't even do it justice. If you believe in original sin and you want to see evil, look in the mirror.
That doesn't answer my question. Based on your answer, you seem to be interpreting the "fact of sin" to be original sin. I don't believe that is Chesteron's meaning as I showed in my comment. The fact of sin is the assertion that sin exists. Chesteron says it's obvious because one can "see it on the street"
However, in this statement you made:
> there is no "fact of sin", and you certainly can't use the claim of a "fact of sin" as a justification for the idea of original sin
you do differentiate between the fact of sin and original sin.
I'll ask another way. Do you believe murder is an offense against morality and is evil? If so, I don't understand why you would deny the fact of sin.
On child sexual abuse in the Catholic church. My stance on that is that it is shameful and absolutely repugnant. The men involved should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. And for those who are unrepentant, I highly doubt their faith is genuine. The life of a true Christian is marked by repentance after moral failure.
On your comments on pedophilia. From reading your comment, I realize that I used the wrong wording by including pedophilia in the list of sins. I assumed the term included acting out of the behavior, but it doesn't. So I redact that term from the list and replace it with "sexual abuse of children".
Btw, it might not matter to you too much, but I don't aim to trigger you or anyone else with my comments. I see HN as a place for dispassionate and intellectual discourse on a wide variety of topics. Since the topic at hand is about spiritual things, I offer my comments about Christianity here. There are Christians way smarter than me that have much better writing on this topic than I do. e.g. https://www.bethinking.org/is-christianity-true/the-evidence...
No, it isn't. Chesterton never says what "the fact of sin" is. All he says is that it is the "fact of sin", as if there were only one. There isn't. There are many facts about sin, one of which is that people don't agree about what is sinful.
BTW, William Lane Craig is a charlatan. If you are really interested in dispassionate and intellectual discourse you need to read Bart Ehrman or Richard Carrier.
You really believe that is what Chesterton meant? You think he thought there is only one single fact about the subject of sin? I find your interpretation hard to believe.
> Chesterton never says what "the fact of sin" is
First, if that is true, then how can you so vehemently deny something (the fact of sin) that you claim hasn't even been defined?
Second, Chesterton doesn't define it explicitly, but from a cursory reading of the text, I think it's pretty easy to infer.
> Some followers of the Reverend R. J. Campbell, in their almost too fastidious spirituality, admit divine sinlessness, which they cannot see even in their dreams. But they essentially deny human sin, which they can see in the street
Here Chesterton criticizes followers of Campbell for denying the existence of human sin when it's obvious it exists in front of their eyes. This text is a few sentences after he asserts the "fact of sin". And the sentences in between are all about the existence of sin.
It's pretty obvious that when he says the fact of sin, he means the fact that sin exists.
> BTW, William Lane Craig is a charlatan.
Backing up your claims with evidence would make them more substantive especially with such a serious allegation. And even if he is (which I don't believe since I haven't seen any evidence), there are plenty of other examples on the website I linked to (and other sites). But I suppose you'd think they are all charlatans.
> read Bart Ehrman or Richard Carrier.
Sure. This is the second time I've seen Ehrman referenced on this thread. I'm game to to read up on them.
I have no idea what he meant. I do not have ESP, and given that Chesterton is long dead, it probably wouldn't be effective even if I did. All I know is what the text says.
> First, if that is true, then how can you so vehemently deny something (the fact of sin) that you claim hasn't even been defined?
I deny that there exists a single Fact of Sin that is so privileged that it can be coherently referred to as THE fact of sin in a rational argument. The phrase "the fact of sin" is non-sensical, a turn of phrase cunningly designed to make you think it has a referent when in fact it does not. The rhetoric of Christianity is rife with such linguistic ploys. They are necessary to cover up the fact that Christianity is both logically incoherent and inconsistent with the laws of physics. It is the longest of long cons.
> from a cursory reading of the text, I think it's pretty easy to infer.
Yes, I know you think so, but you are wrong. Like I said, "the fact of sin" is a turn of phrase cunningly designed to make you think it has, not only a referent, but a self-evident one. But it doesn't. There is no self-evident "fact of sin", including:
> It's pretty obvious that when he says the fact of sin, he means the fact that sin exists.
That is far from obvious, because from that premise his conclusion does not follow. What does it even mean that "sin exists"? Does it mean that at some point in history some person committed a sin? Does it mean that at any given time there is at least one person committing a sin? Does it mean that humans have within them the potential to commit sins at any time even thought there could be times when they don't act on that potential? Don't bother answering, those are rhetorical questions. The point is that the idea that "sin exists" is another one of those phrases that is cunningly designed to make you think that it means something, and that you understand what it means, when in fact it is utter nonsense (because of its ambiguity).
> Backing up your claims with evidence
LOL. Can you show me any evidence that there is an afterlife?
There is no evidence for Christianity. None. Zero. And many of its claims are absurd on their face. Do you really believe that zombies walked the streets of Jerusalem and not a single person thought it was worthy of note other than the author of Matthew? Or that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead and not a single person thought this was worthy of note other than the author of John? It's just ridiculous. These are transparent fictions.
A critical examination of the Bible reveals it to be nothing more than human mythology of the sort regularly produced by humans [1]. Christianity just happened to get a boost by being in the right place at the right time when Rome fell and created a power vacuum for the church to step in to.
Read Carrier's "Proving History: Bayes's Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus" and then come back and we can talk.
---
[1] Note: I in no way mean to denigrate or disparage the value of mythology. But it is important not to conflate it with reality.
An author writes to convey information and meaning. One of the main responsibilities a reader has is to find out what the author meant by his words. [1] I don't think one needs ESP or to interview the author personally to find out the meaning he was trying to convey in his writing.
> All I know is what the text says.
What the text says is what the author says, his meaning.
In this case, you are interpreting "fact of sin" to mean "as if there were only one.". That's quite an uncharitable and illogical interpretation. I don't think Chesterton thought that there exists only one fact about sin. It's common sense that there is more than one fact about such a broad topic as sin.
> the idea that "sin exists" is another one of those phrases that is cunningly designed to make you think that it means something, and that you understand what it means, when in fact it is utter nonsense (because of its ambiguity).
Webster says sin is "an offense against religious or moral law". Since you're not religious, let's go with offense against moral law.
What's moral law? Webster says "a general rule of right living"
So do offenses against rules of right living exist?
A man rapes and murders a person. Was that an offense against right living? I would say so. It was a sin. Rape and murder as well as other sins have been committed throughout history, are currently being committed and will be committed in the future. Sin exists.
> LOL. Can you show me any evidence that there is an afterlife?
I challenged your claim that William Lan Craig is a charlatan and you change the topic?
I don't have time to fully answer your challenges. I'll just leave some references. [2]
> Read Carrier's "Proving History: Bayes's Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus" and then come back and we can talk.
I may just do that. Thanks.
While we're on the subject of evidence, I will leave with these thoughts.
Science is wonderful and is capable of explaining many truths about the universe and has resulted in much good. But it has its limits. It can not speak to questions of morality, the human condition, etc [3]
Obviously, there is a large component of faith involved in Christianity or any religion or spiritual matters. But I always argue that it is the nature of reality that everyone is required to live by faith [4]
[1] Fundamental Factors of Comprehension in Reading (Davis, 1944):
http://www.iapsych.com/wmfhcaarchive/LinkedDocuments/DAVI11....
- Ability to select the appropriate meaning for a word or phrase in the light of its particular contextual setting
- Ability to determine a writer's purpose, intent, and point of view, i.e., to draw inferences about a writer
[2]
https://answersingenesis.org/is-the-bible-true/how-do-we-kno...
https://carm.org/about-jesus/is-there-historical-evidence-of...
https://www.amazon.com/evidence-that-demands-verdict-life-ch...
[3]
https://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/0_0_0/whatisscience_12
"Accepting a scientific worldview needn't require giving up religious faith."
No, it is the responsibility of the writer, if they are advancing a factual claim (as opposed to, say, providing entertainment), to convey their meaning clearly and unambiguously, which Chesterton did not. A reader has no responsibility to a writer of nonsense beyond calling it out as nonsense.
So, what do you call me the thing that drives otherwise reasonable humans to hate each other?
Go to Google News and search for the terms 'sectarian violence', 'religious violence' and 'blasphemy'.
There are the Sunni and Shia killing each other in the Middle East, the Christians and Muslims killing each other in Nigeria and Hindu religious leaders calling for the mass killing of Muslims in India. In Pakistan, angry mobs regularly beat people to death and set them on fire for the merest perceived slight against Islam.
There is far too much intolerance, violence, misery and death in the world today caused by people acting on or motivated by their unsubstantiated religious beliefs.
e.g. USSR anti-religious campaign of 1928–1941:
"The campaign began in 1929, with the drafting of new legislation that severely prohibited religious activities and called for an education process on religion in order to further disseminate atheism and materialist philosophy. "
"The main target of the anti-religious campaign in the 1920s and 1930s was the Russian Orthodox Church and Islam, which had the largest number of faithful. Nearly all of its clergy, and many of its believers, were shot or sent to labour camps. Theological schools were closed, and church publications were prohibited.[1] More than 85,000 Orthodox priests were shot in 1937 alone.[2] Only a twelfth of the Russian Orthodox Church's priests were left functioning in their parishes by 1941.[3]"
"Stalin called for an "atheist five year plan" from 1932–1937, led by the LMG, in order to completely eliminate all religious expression in the USSR.[43] It was declared that the concept of God would disappear from the Soviet Union.[43]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USSR_anti-religious_campaign_(...
I used your original wording with strikethrough to make my point, but I think this would be a more accurate statement:
There is far too much intolerance, violence, misery and death in the world today caused by violent people acting on or motivated by their beliefs without any restraint.
This applies to any kinds of beliefs be it religious, political, economic, philosophical, moral, etc.
Anti-religion campaigns are still in effect caused by religion, since they wouldn't be necessary if it weren't for religion. Next!
You seem to have missed my point.
The GP is saying religion is the cause of much violence, etc. I'm refuting that by saying violent people are the cause of much violence and that's orthogonal to religion.
The anti-religion campaign is just one example, not the whole point.
I hope you are not blaming religion for Stalin's campaign. That's akin saying it was the believers' own fault that they were massacred because they believed in religion.
> since they wouldn't be necessary
So anti-religion campaigns like this massacre are necessary because religion exists? I hope that is just you misspeaking and using a poor choice of words. Perhaps you meant wouldn't exist? If not and you meant necessary, that is despicable.
"I didn't actually do anything wrong, something outside of me made me do wrong, you can't prove it wasn't chemicals"
"There's no such thing as a shared moral code ,it doesn't exist, unless someone hurts me and then suddenly, they did something horribly wrong"
Our ancestors are fortunately a bit wiser than we are, they know there are things that cannot be excused, swept under the rug of moral relativism. They can only be "forgiven" as C.S Lewis explains in https://www.cslewisinstitute.org/webfm_send/111
- there is no conflict between lower level concepts such as quarks, electrons, atoms, molecules and higher level concepts like reactions, processes, yield and throughput
I think there is no conflict between "Genetics, cultural values, chemicals, hormones, electrical impulses" and sin.
I don't expect any answers, but at least I've tried explain my position.
US Revolutionary War
War of 1812
US Civil War
Spanish American War
WWI
WWII
Korean War
Vietnam War
GWI
GWII
WoT
You can argue that since people who fight in wars have religious beliefs that religion is involved, but you can say the same things about sticks and shoes. I don't think that is a compelling argument.
If you mean the war between the US on one side and al-Qaeda and various other Islamist groups on the other, that’s…a pretty bad exampe of a war that doesn’t involve religion.
> Korean War > Vietnam War
The US’s global war on Communism, during and as a symbol of which it added religious languge to the pledge of allegiance and replaced its diversity-endorsing de facto model with a religious official motto is, while less of a clearly bad example than the “Global War on Terror”, not a great example of a war not involving religion.
Ya I included that intentionally because it was the only one I could think of that was related to religion in anything I would consider close to meaningful.
It really depends on how loosely you want to define "involve," like I said, wars involve sticks and shoes because everyone uses them. Nearly everything involves language does that means all wars involve language? I guess so in a pedantic sense, but still, so what? Wars don't involve language in any meaningful way other than a means of communication. I would argue because of that, language is far more important than any semblance of religion in all of the wars I listed.
What's the point of your or the OP's argument? Following the definition of "involve," anything involves religion, even an atheist walking down the sidewalk, because the sidewalk was funded by at least one person who happens to be religious. Not overly meaningful.
Here's OBL's "Letter To America," where he states his reasons for his attacks.
In bin Laden's November 2002 "Letter to America",[3][4] he said that al-Qaeda's motives for the attacks included Western support for attacking Muslims in Somalia, supporting Russian atrocities against Muslims in Chechnya, supporting the Indian oppression against Muslims in Kashmir, support for Israel in Lebanon, the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia,[4][5][6] US support of Israel,[7][8] and sanctions against Iraq.[9]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motives_for_the_September_11_a...
I mean I guess if you really wanted to make a connection to religion you could, but in the statement he mentions Israel, not Judaism, so it would be a stretch in my mind. The only connection to religion is the term "Muslims," and those citations are always followed by "in" a country. Hell, even the crusades weren't fought over religion, they were fought over resources and power, the church just used religion to get free cannon fodder. Of course Bush, in his infinite wisdom called the WoT a "crusade," which again I guess "involves" religion in that it was mentioned in a speech, but again, not in an overly meaningful way.
What I think the OP was trying to say, perhaps I'm wrong, is that religion is bad and as an example, all wars involve religion. If that's the case, I disagree with the premise.
All wars involve dirt therefore dirt is bad. Prophetic!
Why do we need to baptize infants? Because they have original sin. How could they get it if they haven't done anything? Because Adam and Eve sinned and their sin is shared with all of humanity. How are we responsible fot their sin? We aren't but God still had to kill himself to forgive us. Cause reasons.
It gets more stupid the more you try to explain this absurd away, and the mess of a quote by Chesterton showcases that. It conflates the original sin with regular sins of adults.
Which BTW according to Catholic doctrine aren't universal "facts" at all - because some people are saints and have no instance sins, just the static (original) sin shared from Adam and Eve. And Saint Mary had neither for some reason (probably because Christ multiple inherited from Human and God and something would break if he inherited the static field).
I was a very religious Catholic for about 20 years and it never made sense to me. If it makes sense to you you probably never thought about it much.
Because the idea of original sin doesn't, or only superficially, has anything to do with wrongful acts. What the idea of original sin is about that humans, by their very nature and in their being are confronted with evil. Or if you want a secular version call it injustice, or the ethical and the unethical, but certainly I did not need Catholicism to see that humans are, by virtue of simply being human, not 'sinless'. If there was nothing to the idea of humans being sinful, then living a moral life would not be a struggle, we'd be 'divine' by nature and as Chesterton says just walking across the street rids most people of that idea very quickly.
>If it makes sense to you you probably never thought about it much.
Pretty much the other way around. When I was 15 it made less sense to me than it does now exactly because I hadn't thought about it much. Part of having a proper and mature understanding when arguing about religious issues is to learn to take things seriously and not as literally as many people do today.
> Because the idea of original sin doesn't, or only superficially, has anything to do with wrongful acts. What the idea of original sin is about that humans, by their very nature and in their being are confronted with evil. Or if you want a secular version call it injustice, or the ethical and the unethical, but certainly I did not need Catholicism to see that humans are, by virtue of simply being human, not 'sinless'. If there was nothing to the idea of humans being sinful, then living a moral life would not be a struggle, we'd be 'divine' by nature and as Chesterton says just walking across the street rids most people of that idea very quickly.
Okay, so...why do we need to baptize infants? I don't really see any answer here. If it were just about human nature, then what does pouring water over the head of a baby achieve? I don't see any problem with it as a general ritual to help remind us of our nature, but that's explicitly _not_ what Catholic doctrine teaches; it claims that it has an important, non-trivial effect cleanses the infant itself. Whatever that effect is, it doesn't seem to do much to the human nature that causes it to sin when it gets older.
This is the kind of poetic language behind which people hide confusion so that they can still believe in this. I did the same. I understand the reflexive "let's not think about this too much in case we stop believing".
What does it actually mean to be "confronted with evil" and why is it a problem requiring Christ to die before people with no personal sins could be admitted to heaven?
> I did not need Catholicism to see that humans are, by virtue of simply being human, not 'sinless'.
Clothes by virtue of being clothes are not "dirtless". Dirt exists in the world. Does it mean that before any clothes can be worn to a ball we need to metaphorically wash the generalized dirtiness out of everything? Or do we wash the clothes that are actually dirty and don't wash the clothes that are actually clean?
This confusion of static and instance fields is the main issue with Catholicism.
And to the first point, as Chesterton says you don't need to accept any religious answer at all. As he says, the theodicy question, how the existence of manifest evil can be reconciled with a benevolent god, has driven countless of people away from faith, not to it. And he says that's fine, but you can't pretend it doesn't exist.
Some aren't. And certainly washing one cloth because other is dirty or can get dirty doesn't make sense. So how does it make sense when it comes to sins?
> We all confront the same questions.
Meaningless poetic language again. Some of us don't. And even assuming that we all do - we also confront low temperatures and yet Christ didn't burn on cross to heat us all for eternity. And even if he did burn he would only heat the people near him at the time. How does this future-proof abstract-idea-solving suicide work, exactly? Doesn't seem to work that well if we still "confront evil".
The whole point of original sin in Catholicism isn't that we have to confront evil. It's just an excuse for why we need Jesus and baptism.
> As he says, the theodicy question
This isn't theodicy. I'm not asking why is there evil. I'm asking why do we all need Christ to die for us and why do we need baptism if personal sins aren't guaranteed and the original sin is just the capability to sin or possibility of encountering sin.
I don't wash the idea of clothes because some real clothes can possibly get dirty later.
What the original sin actually is in Catholicism is not some capability - it's an abstract idea that makes it impossible for specific people to get to heaven without Christ dying for them. And it makes no damn sense.
Being gay this one made me really laugh. People can hardly agree on what dirt is, and when they do, they often change their mind 100 years later anyway (or wait 500 years to apologize, as was the case with the Church's treatment of Galileo). Society is built on social contracts, compromises we make to optimize our interactions with society as a whole. As an individual you have freedom to ascribe meaning, value, and take stock in whatever moral beliefs you see fit, but it is dangerous to assume that you are "correct" or that there is some ideal set of values that will be correct for all of eternity. Culture evolves, technology evolves, morality has to evolve with it. When morality fails to evolve as fast as culture or technology, we get things like wars, things like apartheid, things like conversion camps, genocide, etc., etc., and there is no greater damper on moral progress than religion.
I'm not sure you've understood the position of most moral realists. Why we should (say) support LGBTQ rights in 2021 is not that morality itself has evolved, which implies that it may have been morally permissible not to support such rights in 1921. It's that when society failed to respect such rights it was making a moral error.
To put it another way, is there a culture or level of technology at which it would have been permissible to ostracize and punish gay men and women? To enslave as the spoils of war? To protect molesting priests over the children they victimized?
That's not to say that religion isn't a damper on moral progress, though I don't think it's fair to say that there is "no greater damper". Abolitionism often had a religious component, for example, while barriers to racial progress in the 20th century were maintained irrespective of religion. Or in terms that I've been thinking about recently, famous TERFs are often nonreligious.
I have no qualms believing that. Watching a young child empirically discover the theory of mind, and then progress to deceit without being taught is almost miraculous. Humans are inherently selfish and short-sighted, a huge part of parenting is spent on tempering these instincts.
For example, the Southern Baptist Convention, which the largest Protestant denomination in America, do not believe in original sin, and do not practice infant baptism (or sprinkling).
This could be likened to "all people are assholes" or "think of how dumb the average person is and realise that half of them are dumber than that"
They are both "sins" (dumb,assholes) from being born (average-joe, all of them, etc)
When I told the teachers I had already accepted him, they would make me do it again. Even at that young age (probably 6-8 years old) I was thinking logically, if accepting jesus as my savior gets me into heaven, why would I have to do it multiple times?
I'm a mystic now.
Ask God to reveal any sin to you so you can confess it, pause for a little bit and listen for God. You can also take this time to thank God for things in your life.
I genuinely appreciate how HN is a place where strangers can make helpful statements like this. I feel safe enough to take this feedback and not be offended.
That being said, you being up an important point that I should have covered for the benefit of other strangers that saw my comment:
I have NEVER heard the audible voice of God. Never. Not once. I have talked to other religious people that I trust - THEY have never heard the audible voice of God.
When I use the phrase "hear God" or "listen to God", I'm referring to a feeling. It is hard to describe without knowing people personally, but I'll try.
In one situation, I was praying for God to teach me before I read the Bible. My thoughts were consumed with a specific friend and a series of interactions I had with him (I was rude a couple of times). I decided to find him and apologize for being rude. He accepted and we went our separate ways.
I don't know for certain if God wanted me to apologize to him, but I'm mostly certain I was supposed to reach out to him.
These are good questions, and I've been thinking about how best to respond.
For one, I believe in the God of the Christian Bible. There are various stories of God interacting with people. The most common interaction for me and the people around me is for God's Holy Spirit to influence others.
His Spirit can speak through other believers via wise words or gentle reassurance. I've had (in limited situations) felt emotions that I ascribe to God.
When I differentiate guidance from God vs myself or other humans, I typically look for highly unusual coincidences or specific applications. Here's an example that took place near the beginning of the pandemic.
My wife was praying and asking God who needed to feel His love. She was felt the importance of asking our elderly neighbors if they needed groceries (remember, this was early pandemic, when elderly were highly vulnerable, masks were unavailable, and there were runs on the grocery store). She brought them a handful of groceries and left them.
Several weeks later, the neighbor's adult children came from an Asian country. I was wrestling with an opportunity to serve at our church in a place where I would likely get exposed to the virus - and I was praying for guidance. The neighbor's daughter came by with "thank you gifts", which included KF94 masks (similar to N95). The masks were a reassurance that I could go in public and be safe.
I don't know for certain that God was orchestrating the interactions, but the timing was incredible and the application was specific and helpful.
I would say anyone who is looking to help out other people will definitely find the opportunity and mechanisms to help other people. Good for you that you want to help other people, I applaud you. But i'm sorry to say, but from the outside, your account seems incredibly normal.
Think of it as a precursor to modern-day psychotherapy, if that helps. Admittedly, some modern day implementations of confession feel a bit like the spiritual equivalent of a drive through, nor are all priests equally capable of helping.
1. You actually have to confess your sins; intentional omission of a mortal sin invalidates the absolution.
2. You must express repentance for your sins (that is a firm intention to not continue sinning); confessing a sin that you fully intend to go out and continue doing invalidates the absolution.
3. You must perform penance for the sins; in modern day penance is usually private, I don't think this is a strict requirement. Note that a public penance does not reveal the specific sin; something like "walk back and forth down Main Street 10 times while carrying a cross" would be a public penance. It may include restitution towards those harmed as well (most commonly returning stolen items) but said restitution may always be anonymous as a priest may not require divulging of the sin outside the confessional as a condition of absolution (though they may suggest it; e.g. they will almost always suggest that addicts seek treatment).
The Protestant churches (the upthread poster said he was raised in some unspecified branch of protestantism) that hold out a role for confession tend to treat it rather differently than Catholics do the Sacrament of Reconciliation. (And, even within the Catholic Church, what reconciliation feels like can vary a lot between different priests administering the sacrament, irrespective of the [at least theoretical] theological consistency within the Catholic Church.)
- A Christian Fundamentalist believes that only those who believe a very specific set of things is saved
- A Christian Universalist believes that all are saved
- A Catholic Christian believes that everyone except him/herself is saved
Mostly, Mt. 16:15-19.
Not all churches give themselves this power. I'm Baptist, and we confess to God.
It seems to me that Jesus allowing himself to be crucified is poetic but ultimately an empty gesture.
So God the father has always been looking over creation. After Jesus ascended to heaven the Holy Spirit was sent to help the church in place of Jesus her on earth.
Jesus was God in flesh so he purposely limited himself to experience all that we experience, to suffer all that we suffer. There is nothing that He can't empathize with.
There was also the spiritual law that had to be satisfied. The price of sin is death. Under the Mosaic covenant there were sacrificial animals used to pay that price. Jesus payed that price for all who are willing to take up their cross and follow him.
This implies that God is incapable of fully knowing the experience of humans without becoming human, hence God is not omniscient; since now his omniscience is contingent on becoming contingent.
Adam and Eve hid behind some trees and God didn't know where they were. It makes no sense for an omniscient being to ask anyone "where are you".
The parent to your comment gave one example because it's the first. But there are many. Here's another one, again from an early point in time, that shows regret.
Genesis 6:5-9
> And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
> And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
Immediately after this, God first decides to end humanity, but later changes his mind again after focusing his attention selectively on Noah.
> And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created [...] for it repenteth me that I have made them.
> But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.
> These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.
---
Truthfully, the bible is full of tensions and contradictions. You can't explain them without developing an opinion/interpreting the book holistically.
The God of the Old Testament is physical, emotional, and generally more demanding and hands-on with humanity; the language clearly implies that he possesses a locus of attention that he directs where he chooses. He interacts physically with humans, and not-infrequently changes his mind.
The God of the New Testament, is more ethereal, transcendent, and more consistent in the emphasis of grace and mercy.
That the debate on subjects like these, even among fellow Christians, has literally been ongoing since Christ's death, is probably evidence that all these ideas cannot be reconciled. They are merely there for us to contemplate and interpret.
We have his teachings in writing. Do you only believe in knowledge that is personally manifested to you? If so, then you wouldn't believe in any history.
I'm referring to the miracles attributed to him, which are used as the conclusive evidence that he was God in the flesh.
> We have his teachings in writing.
How do you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you have his teachings? You do not even know the historical identities of the authors of the gospels. Nor do you have his teachings in the original language that he spoke.
"The New Testament has been preserved in more manuscripts than any other ancient work of literature..."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_manuscript
"Most historical critics agree that a historical figure named Jesus taught throughout the Galilean countryside c. 30 CE, was believed by his followers to have performed supernatural acts, and was sentenced to death by the Romans, possibly for insurrection.[108]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_the_Bible#Histo...
To your point about the miracles attributed to him, again, because he didn't manifest those miracles to everyone ever, they didn't happen?
More readings on this topic:
https://www.bethinking.org/is-the-bible-reliable/the-histori...
https://www.bethinking.org/jesus/ancient-evidence-for-jesus-...
Recall that I responded to a GP that said all this is "beyond doubt." You're arguing a strawman with me. (On a personal note, I do believe in many of the miracles attested to Jesus, but that isn't evidence to me that he was God in the flesh.)
As for your links, I counter suggest you read the works of Dr. Bart Ehrman.
I don't think your reason for your assertion is valid. Jesus only manifesting to a relatively (relative to all of humanity) small group of people doesn't invalidate or cast doubt on anything.
You might have other reasons for doubting His divinity, but I don't think the one you've professed is a good one.
[1] "Beyond all doubt" is doubtful since, taking your assertions for granted, he only manifested himself to an infinitesimally small cross-section of humanity.
> Jesus only manifesting to a relatively (relative to all of humanity) small group of people doesn't invalidate or cast doubt on anything.
Of course it does. You now rely on the testimony of these small of group of people (who you do not even know the identities of), rather than Jesus himself, or witnessing him directly.
> You now rely on the testimony of these small of group of people
So according to you, Jesus would have to manifest to many more people to pass your belief test. How many more would do? More than 500? 1000? Your requirement seems arbitrary to me.
> rather than Jesus himself, or witnessing him directly.
Again, if that's your requirement, then you should discount all of history.
[1] https://www.blueletterbible.org/faq/don_stewart/don_stewart_...
> major, massive doubt when you read Ehrman's work
If I rely on Ehrman's work, aren't I relying on he said/she said?
And you seem to be moving goal posts here. First you said that there is doubt because of the small number of witnesses "only manifested himself to an infinitesimally small cross-section of humanity" Now you're casting doubt based on the type of witness (eye witness vs self witness)
You've brought up the term strawman twice now without explanation. Care to explain exactly how I'm arguing a strawman?
It is NOT beyond doubt. You haven't proven how there is absolutely NO DOUBT to these claims.
> And you seem to be moving goal posts here.
How am I moving goalposts? The two types of witnessing have been there in my reasoning since the beginning. There is doubt since you didn't eyewitness him yourself, and then there is doubt that the hearsay that reached you regarding him is true. One follows the other since you have to rely on the one you have access to.
Again it's a strawman because I never said I discount witness testimony. You're making the case that just because witness testimony can be true, therefore witness testimony in the case of Jesus, must be true. That doesn't follow.
> You haven't proven how there is absolutely NO DOUBT to these claims.
That hasn't been my aim all along though. I would never argue or try to prove there is no doubt to these claims. I fully accept there is a large element of faith to religious claims. And I readily admit as believer, my faith is not perfect and I have doubts. But my ratio of faith to doubt is high enough to get me over the fence to belief. As an aside, I always argue that everyone everywhere live their lives by faith. [1]
My assertion has been your reason for your doubt, namely that Jesus only manifested to a relatively small group of people, is not valid. But I think we can agree to disagree at this point.
That's an odd thing for you to say. In the absence of certainty, there is always doubt. No matter how infinitesimal.
How they came to believe this is another matter.
> For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things (1 John 3:20).
> Known to God from eternity are all his works (Acts 15:18).
> The eyes of the LORD are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good (Proverbs 15:3).
The idea of omniscience leads to paradoxes like the one above. Can you know what it is to be non omniscient and be omniscient.
I think God can choose to understand and know what He wants to know. If he chooses to forget sin, He can. Meaning the strict definition of omniscience would not apply.
I'm no theologian or philosopher so there is a good chance I'm simply missing something or don't understand these words.
If the axis of your response is going to be this, then I suggest we only continue speaking about the Bible on the level of Koine Greek for the New Testament and Hebrew for the Old.
Since you want to be maximally true to the words. As do I.
> I've never understood what part of the crucifixion was a sacrifice. Jesus is literally a god. He knew he would end up on the cross before he even took on human form.
All the more agony. (See also below.)
> He could have left at any time.
Yep, but as far as I understand then it wouldn't have been valid. As far as I understand it seems he knew he had one chance.
My best explanation is he went to create a way for us and it wouldn't have been much worth if he did it in "cheat mode"?
> He can return any time he wants.
See above.
> And how can his death on the cross be actually considered a death?
True God and true human. According to the sources we have he suffered badly.
> If he was dead, are we to understand that for those few days there was no god overlooking all of creation?
According to the common translations Jesus prayed to God and speaks of himself as something else than God.
I'm not very knowledgeable in theoretical theology but this isn't controversial at all to most people who consider themselves Christian I think.
Also death is just the death of the body.
There are some that suggest Jesus did A LOT during the 3 days he "was dead".
He went to hell. The phrase "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me" suggests he was spiritually separate from God the father - a fate worse than physical death.
He delivered previously dead Jews to heaven
He poured His blood out on a replica temple in heaven as THE lamb sacrifice for everyone who accepted His sacrifice. This is a LITERAL sacrifice - separate from "being human for 30 years sacrifice". Keep in mind that Jesus is the High Priest, he is THE person to make sacrifice for sins, and he is also THE object that was killed for those sins.
Firstly, if God is the one who exercises judgement in the first place in the form of who goes to heaven and who does not, then (as is written elsewhere in the Bible) what God says is good, is good, and what God says is bad, is bad, for no intrinsic reason other than God says it is so. When I do the good, I want to do it because I have some stock in the moral value or principle being maximized, not because some deity arbitrarily commanded it.
Secondly, if God is the source of all moral judgement, then he could just arbitrarily decree that repentance is now a thing instead of making Jesus suffer for our sins. In the same breath Christians assert that moral values come from God (if God says it is good, it is good, if God says it is bad, it is bad), but that Jesus had to suffer, to what, to make God decide to be more lenient with how he interprets our sins? How is that supposed to be inspiring? Makes God seem sadistic more than anything. But then when God contradicts his own moral values (i.e. murder in some of the old parables) Christians of course once again say no, this isn't immoral because God says it is not. Which is it? Either morality is whatever God says it is, and Jesus dying on the cross served absolutely no purpose, or God is a sinner and cannot/should not contradict his own moral tenants (but does because there is no one there to "judge" him), in which case Jesus dying on the cross makes some sense because morality is some force above and more powerful than god.
Justice requires accountability for wrongs committed. When we break God's moral law, justice requires that we be held accountable.
Jesus suffered for us to take the punishment that our sins require. Jesus took the penalty for us. That allows God to be a merciful judge, yet still fulfill all justice.
All hogwash of course, but just shows you how poorly thought out it all is.
A man is convicted of a crime and the penalty is $1 million. Another man steps up and says he will pay the penalty.
In a way, you are right about it not being just. The convict deserves the punishment, but gets mercy instead. This is the nature of mercy and justice. They are opposed. Jesus paying for our penalty intertwines the two.
You obviously don't believe any of this is true or right. I don't make it my aim to convince you or anyone else. I'd be kidding myself if I thought I could do that. Just presenting Christian doctrine as accurately as I can.
It's true that I don't believe it all of this, but let's assume for a moment that the following is true (quoting your previous post):
> Justice requires accountability for wrongs committed. When we break God's moral law, justice requires that we be held accountable.
To me another man suddenly showing up paying the penalty is completely contradicting and undermining this accountability.
When making the rules, a god could just say "I forbid these things, and there will be consequences for breaking the rules, but in the end I will forgive, because eternity is a long time and I'm so kind and loving". Instead, the Christian rules demand that somebody (who may or may not be the one who violated the rules) is hurt. So the Christian god orchestrated the killing of either himself or his son (or maybe a bit of both? So it's suicide and/or filicide. The holy trinity is confusing), because he kind of wants to forgive people, but the rules (that he himself made, and presumably could change, being all-powerful) demand that someone is hurt. Oh, and most interpretations hold this god to be omniscient, so in that case it's not like he didn't see this mess coming when he made the rules in the first place.
If you are completely in control of a situation and voluntarily set it up in such a way that in the future you have to hurt yourself (or have you children hurt themselves) to get things to work out, is it really self-sacrifice? Having Jesus die for our sins makes the Christian god seems like a heroic firefighter who is also the arsonist.
All people everywhere live by faith.
This is because no one can know the future. You get in your car and drive to work. You are going by faith that you won't get killed in a car crash. Why do I know this? Because if you knew you would be killed, you wouldn't get in the car. You don't know. But you get in your car anyways, hoping by faith (probably subconsciously) you won't get killed.
By faith, I look at the evidence and believe God exists. By faith, someone else looks at the evidence (or lack thereof) and concludes He doesn't.
I can't know for sure if I'm correct. The other person is in the same position.
When we die, we'll know (technically, if the atheist is correct, we won't know anything at all). Good luck!
Is any of this actually a part of Christian canon? It's not clear to me that by describing Jesus as "God", we're meant to understand that he's omniscient (is Yahweh/"The Father" God even omniscient in Christian canon?) or omnipotent with respect to his human form.
The first Messianic prophy is in Genesis. "Eve's seed (Jesus) would crush the snake (satan)'s head. The snake would crush His heel (Jesus on the cross)"
He could have left at anytime is evidenced when Jesus is in the garden in Gethsemane right before He was arrested - he had a legion of angels at His command.
I'm not sure about "He can return anytime He wants." I'm going to chalk this one up to "He is God of the universe and do what He wants"
I think it is canon in all abrahamic religions, based on the fact that there's a ton of literature around how omniscience relates to free will (Boetius, Aquinas, Calvin etc).
In this frame, the Crucifixion is happening _now_. Jesus, as a man, is suffering and dying at this very moment. As humans experience time, He always will be.
It seems to me that, for any entity, this eternal experience is a very significant sacrifice.
Alvin Plantinga argues that you can have warranted belief without scientific proof in "warranted christian".
Me personally I believe that God revealed himself through revelation. That is, He convinced me internally to believe in Him. I know most would discount this as a source of truth but it's enough for me.
Maybe you didn’t believe in The Red Guy, but I did, and in retrospect I must be a complete retard.
I can say this feels different to that sort of belief. Not that I expect that would do anything to convince you of it's validity.
How is his being put to death a good thing, earning humans salvation all around, when two people eating an apple is bad enough to damn countless generations?
Actually, I never managed to understand this: if one believes souls are eternal and virtue is rewarded in the after-life, then any kind of sacrifice seems cheaper and virtuous behaviors get closer to self-interest. How to reconcile morality with such beliefs?
A rock is 100% atheist, yet in all likelihood doesn't have spiritual practice.
You can have a spiritual practice under the umbrella of atheism, as long as it doesn't involve any kind of belief in gods. Whatever that practice is, that practice isn't identified with the atheism itself.
Also, many mathematicians find a spiritual purity in certain equations and proofs. There need not be anything religious about such an experience. Something can be "deep", completely devoid of the paranormal.
So, I am not tone deaf: I do hear that. Just let's use "atheism" right, too.
But note that someone identifying as an atheist, but with spiritual beliefs, might not be found to actually be an atheist, if their beliefs were examined by hard-line atheists. It is possible that a belief can have the trappings of being free from gods, but when you examine it critically, the entities in that belief can be identified as god-like after all.
Strawman examples:
"I believe everything has a purpose; but there is no such thing as god". Sorry, a purpose requires a being to articulate the purpose and set it into motion. If you mean inherent purpose (rather than a human interpretation which ascribes a non-inherent purpose) you have a god hidden in there.
Or "There is no such thing as god, but the world was clearly created". Oops again. Creation without a creator?
Is it possible to has have a creator but that creator not to be a god? For example, if we are living inside a simulation created by a software engineer, is that engineer our god?
Does your definition mean the rejection of all spiritual or supernatural beings requires one to become hold views inline with existential nihilism?
If it is revealed to such a world that there are in fact supernatural beings, how does that create meaning and value?
And how do those supernatural beings derive meaning and value; don't they need another level of meta-supernatural beings?
I want everyone to have meaning; I don't want there to be supernatural beings which are kind of slaves to provide me with meaning by their existence, but are themselves starved of meaning since they have nothing more supernatural than themselves to believe in.
One useful definition of meaning is the evolution of possibilities. A situation of no meaning is one which is a dead end in terms of possibilities.
If the universe dies in a heat death, then at that point there are no future possibilities distinct from the current state, and so there is no more meaning.
There might be no permanent meaning; no value that will endure forever, but people can be content with the temporary meaning, in which they enjoy new experiences and explore new possibilities in any endeavor.
Human lives end come to an end on a time scale vastly shorter than the death of the universe, yet people are able to find meaning.
"a philosophical or religious position characterized by disbelief in the existence of a god or any gods"
By that definition, a rock is not atheist since it has no philosophical or religious positions (ha, I hope so, at least).
Honestly, I'm a little confused by your very strict understanding of the term, as I think people often (as above) use this second definition; and most people would find your statement "a rock is atheist" a little unusual.
Rather, a definition of atheist which allows rocks to be atheists by the fact that they lack philosophical positions is logically less strict, or weaker than a formulation that additionally requires the ability to hold such a position.
A predicate which adds restrictions is stronger, which can have disadvantages.
The weak definition lets me assign a value of true or false to is_atheist(P) for any P whatsoever. (Other than perhaps some kinds of P that create a some sort of syntactic self-referential paradox.)
> By that definition, a rock is not atheist
atheist is the negation of theist; it means "not theist". If a rock is not a not-theist, it must be a theist. Well, we don't want that, so we need to complicate things with three-valued logic, whereby is_atheist(P) can be "undefined" when P is a rock. Or else be happy with partial functions: P = rock is outside of the domain is_atheist.
The atheist rock is a rhetorical tool that uses the simplest possible definition of atheism and strictly two-valued logic.
Dictionary definitions are not meant to be combined like logical predicates. Rather, they provide a spectrum of possible meanings for a term. By recognizing multiple standard meanings for a word, I’m not tightening the space of entities that can match, but rather broadening it. But usage can still shift under a broader definition.
> atheist is the negation of theist
In one sense of the word, but that’s also the sense of the word in which you say that rocks are atheist, and probably not the (perfectly legitimate)sense of the word in which GP describes himself as “100% atheist.”
———
Taking a step back: is there any value in this line of inquiry other than semantics? I think so. It comes down to whether there is an active and lively philosophy of atheism in a positive sense, one that is chiefly distinguished by rejecting theism and building alternative moral, social, epistemological frameworks, but still fundamentally religious - a set of beliefs and practices and values for guiding one’s life, providing answers for the great questions.
I think this comes up because of the desire from some to make atheism seem essentially the default belief— no more notable than a lack of belief in fairies and elves. But in the world and culture most of us are embedded in, that’s just not accurate. It’s still a minority position, there are many important consequences to building one’s life on atheism vs theism, and there is an ongoing battle in the marketplace of ideas and the popular consciousness for each one. I think it’s galling to some to see atheism described as a philosophy or religion on the same “shelf” as theism, but practically speaking that’s what it amounts to for most people.
The Stoics elaborated a detailed taxonomy of virtue, dividing virtue into four main types: wisdom, justice, courage, and moderation.
Many may not view this as “spiritual” as it does not address “spirits” but rather personal empowerment.
I was raised Christian and very into it (mission trips, Bible study, accountability groups, etc) but abandoned it in my early twenties. I am much more content with life—no more sense of guilt constantly hanging over my head along with an increased sense of control and responsibility. My wife was raised Mormon and also abandoned her faith. Both of our immediate and extended families are still very religions.
Not going to go into the depth of what these morals were, but in essence:
In some way I think it could be similar to having strict parents who had spent their whole life trying to make their children successful but it takes a lot of courage for that child to start living the life they way they want and not the life their parents have guilt-tripped them to live.
It's been excruciating existing as the sole "loves to debate" member of my original nuclear family (who are all fairly hardcore Catholics; I was raised in that but my naturally-questioning naturally-curious nature eventually led me off that path). Sincere religious belief is almost anathema to sincere debate (since some things suddenly become "unquestionable" or "heretical to question"); and it seems that many people feel "lost" unless they have some framework to make sense of things... but even then, people use reasoning that just seems terrible to me (such as thanking God for the survivors of a disaster but not questioning God at all about the non-survivors; at least Mr. Rogers made some sense when he said "look to the rescuers").
By your assumptions, every atheist should just, like, die or at best, live a meaningless life.
I am Catholic, but the morality of an atheist is no surprise to me.
If your religious beliefs were somehow proven to be invalid, I guarantee you wouldn't just kill yourself, as you claim. You'd ascribe meaning however you can, and live your best life, as you always have.
If you are gay or otherwise something that was (previously) on the fringe of accepted culture, it becomes super obvious from a young age that people who try to tell you how to live your life are full of crap. I figured this out at the young age of 9. What shocked me then and continues to shock me now, though, is the cowardice and ignorance of people like you who, faced again with infinite moral and ontological agency, are afraid, and would rather die than have to come up with meaning and purpose themselves. What a boring, privileged, and childish take. People like this are either chronically unimaginative or have simply never experienced any adversity of any kind.
Still, some will press on and say, OK, well why is it that organized religions around the world tend to be somewhat similar despite tremendous geographic boundaries throughout history -- isn't it significant that all these different people and cultures came up with very roughly the same set of ideas and moral values? Of course it's significant! The power of the placebo effect is well documented and religion, if you think about it, is the ultimate placebo, and we've had hundreds of thousands of years to evolve the optimal set of religious values that produce the most dopamine while being the best at placating and controlling the general populace with promises of an afterlife and judgement for wrongdoing (where wrongdoing is anything that threatens the status quo). The best part is even if you agree with one particular religion, you have to acknowledge that yes, other religions seem to provide the same existential, spiritual, and psychological relief across the board (hence the millions of practitioners), and seem to organize society in a way that is pliable and easy to be led by a centralized authority (which historically is a good predictor for the success of things like empires, etc). So is it really surprising that after running hundreds of thousands of years of randomized trials to find the most effective religion with the best placebo effect, we've arrived at a select few that placate most people at least until they examine their convictions more closely and are properly educated? Knowing this, you could just as easily ascribe meaning yourself to get similar effects, so why go to the trouble of believing in something you know deep down to be false? You could get all these same effects, minus the cognitive dissonance of doubt, by simply taking charge of your existence and ascribing meaning to things you care about.
On the flip side, how are people so OK with the idea of an afterlife? When surveyed, most people say they would not be OK with living forever, yet we are all supposed to look forward to an afterlife where we do in fact live forever? What if heaven turns out to be not to your liking, and then you are stuck there forever? Wouldn't it then be a sort of hell? Even if you like it at first, eventually we get sick of everything anyway (without the urgency created by having limited time, meaning fades regardless of what you believe), so if heaven existed, it would eventually be hell no matter who you are. To eternal life, or any kind of an afterlife, I say no thank you unless I still have the option to off myself when I feel like being done. What right does some God have to imprison me in some eternal "ideal" afterlife and never allow me to just end, if I want to? What if the people he saves are actually super annoying sycophants and I'm stuck listening to them blather for all of eternity?
But, the religious person will say, "how can you believe things just end!! That's horrifying!!". Again this is such an infantile take. Maybe to an 8 year old this is horrifying, but if you think about it, it's not horrifying at all. Pain is scary, sure, and we don't like to imagine those we care about having to live on without us, but if you're simply afraid of the state of "not existing", full stop, you're being silly -- you wouldn't be there to experience whatever it is you're worried about anyway, because you wouldn't exist, you wouldn't be able to experience, so it couldn't be a negative or a positive experience! Sounds incredibly relaxing to me, knowing that eventually I don't have to exist anymore. If anything, it is much, much scarier to believe that perception or consciousness continues after death in some way, especially if they used ugly drapes and you're stuck with that for eternity.
I just always find it strange the way that "100% athiests" seem to ignore the logical conundrum of "I don't need a God or theology to live a good life" when our constructed definition of "good" comes from religion.
On "good comes from religion"... you can start with the western classics (or eastern classics, but I do not know them) https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-ethics/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-ethics/
Then maybe take a course or two on Ethics https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/linguistics-and-philosophy/24-23...
Then explore from there.
You can spend a few weekends or a lifetime on this if you'd like, and either way it will be worth the time.
To elaborate,
> Most anthiests seem to be nihilists
Not true
> they're already (claiming to be) doing that
No, they're not
> the logical conundrum of "I don't need a God or theology to live a good life"
There's no conundrum or contradiction here, plenty of us live good lives
> our constructed definition of "good" comes from religion
Sounds like a made-up fact. I don't need an omnipotent third party to validate that taking another person's life, or stealing from them, etc. is not right. Empathy and the idea of "do unto others" are quite easily understandable and relatable outside of the context of religion.
“The people that came up with <useful idea> also believed <useless idea>” does not imply that “To benefit from or further refine <useful idea>, one must also accept <useless idea>”.
(I don’t see religion as useless, but there is no reason people who do would have any problem adapting and refining moral ideas first developed in a religious context, any more than religious people do for ideas developed in different religious contexts than their own.)
I believe the main characteristic that takes apart atheist from other belief systems is that ultimately without a god that objectively defines what is good, one must define by himself what is good. This one one side is liberating because there is no more pressure between what one thinks is right and what the religion tell them, but at the same time extremely difficult because one exposes themself to all their psychological weaknesses (and to whom can manipulate them).
I am wondering what makes you think that?
If I've hurt someone or done something wrong, I will dwell on it and think about the mistake I've made. Forgiving one's self is the process of figuring out A. how can I fix the wrong I've done and B. How can I let go of that and move on, realizing I can't change the past.
Why should I care about how I treat those around me? Because I, like most humans, am social and care about society in general. I want future generations of humanity to live in a kind world. I don't need religion to threaten me with eternal torture to know that hurting others is bad.
Morality, to me, is both not harming others and helping others that are hurting. This form of morality is superior to bronze age texts which endorsed slavery and genocide.
Why bother obeying the speed limit if speed limits are just human constructs and you won't go to hell for breaking it?
I do, which is not at all"
https://twitter.com/rickygervais/status/358518027446263808?l...
I could not have said it better than you did. I think that the real power is in your own mind and that most religions or "spiritual practices" are just ways of tricking your mind into solving your problems. You don't need religion once you realize that and then just use your mind.
"I don't eat pizza."
"Huh, thanks for answering, I guess?"
EDIT: Mobile mistake =(
Also I don't believe GP said they were non-spiritual. Finding forgiveness for yourself and reflecting on moral values is a spiritual act.
Because spirituality is born from spiritual experiences, not religious theory. Atheism, on the other hand, is a belief system.
It’s like sex - talking about it is quite different from experiencing it.
If Christianity doesn’t help you, that’s alright. There’s a ton of Buddhists, Hindus, Taoists, Zen practitioners who have a radically different approach than ‘The Book’. And there’s also psychedelics for a taste of what’s out there.
I have a computer science degree but I still find it strange that anyone doesn’t find life an unfathomable mystery.
For example - do you know who you are? Ie who is the ‘you’ that experiences the world? Have you ever looked inside?
One thing you didn’t mention is awe or wonder, something I often hear religiously-minded people speak of. In contrast to fundamentalist religion, which exchanges awe for constricted thoughts about what is and isn’t real, it seems to me that true awe really is especially available to athiests (or those who align with religion and have moved beyond the belief system aspect and into the contemplative).
As an armchair Taoist (and psychologist/neuroscientist), I consider this as jumping from the frying pan into the fire, or another frying pan at least. Although, the current popularity of this metaphysical framework is undeniable, as was the historic (and current) popularity of many more traditional metaphysical frameworks (religions).
Regardless, any such claim that it is another religion can be quickly debunked by a quick Google of a dictionary definition:
>> religion: the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods
The dictionary entry proves that atheism is nothing at all like religion.
It’s the “if you have a problem with fundamentalists, maybe there is something wrong with your fundamentals?”
When otherwise smart people go on about god it makes me uncomfortable - a little like talking to a delusional person. When something there is broken anything can be rationalized. The specific religion doesn’t matter, they all share this flaw (along with woo like astrology).
Though what’s broken is often more complex.
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/CqyJzDZWvGhhFJ7dY/belief-in-...
“Some philosophers have been much confused by such scenarios, asking, “Does the claimant really believe there’s a dragon present, or not?” As if the human brain only had enough disk space to represent one belief at a time!
Real minds are more tangled than that. There are different types of belief; not all beliefs are direct anticipations. The claimant clearly does not anticipate seeing anything unusual upon opening the garage door. Otherwise they wouldn’t make advance excuses.
It may also be that the claimant’s pool of propositional beliefs contains the free-floating statement There is a dragon in my garage.
It may seem, to a rationalist, that these two beliefs should collide and conflict even though they are of different types. Yet it is a physical fact that you can write “The sky is green!” next to a picture of a blue sky without the paper bursting into flames.”
And in that view, it also represents a way for people to "justify" incredible acts of grace, mercy, and kindness to fellow man. At least in the US, the broad majority of charities and social work organizations that care for others' many needs (both internal and external to this country) have some sort of religious background.
Even further, religious freedom was a core basis for creating the US that - for all its faults - is still one of the greatest civilizations to have ever existed. So your one-sided perspective is arguably just that.
From my reading of the gospel stories, this doesn't shock me. The religious doctrines have a lot to say about individual behavior, whether you agree with them or not, but nothing to say about how societies and governments treat people. In fact, my impression is that the gospels consider societies and governments to be irredeemable, and offer the "good news" of basically saving the good individuals and incinerating everything else, soon.
With this said, I'm hesitant to make a strong argument of this, because I have a rule that I don't try to interpret anybody else's religious doctrines or holy books. I hope that someone's religion motivates them to build a better society, but I can't prove that such a thing accurately reflects their doctrines.
While it doesn't tell the whole store, in financial terms the US leads the world in per capital charitable contributions (by a significant margin).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_charitabl...
The Japanese mafia also give out charity to get people onside. Putin used to drive around rural regions handing out cash too.
In the UK, Jehovas witnesses come round to your house after the death of a loved one and they give you all kinds of nice messages and charity.
Growing a religion (or a movement) through bribery is an ancient practice.
Of course, and there's always an element of corruption in modern churches that needs to be guarded against. That said, wrt Christianity the early disciples were often broke/homeless, all of them ended up without a dime in their pockets and most were gruesomely executed:
https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/m7tiq6/what_happen...
If money was the core element of growth, you'd figure the jig would be up just before the flaying & beheading, right?
The Japanese mafia also give out charity to get people inside. Putin used to drive around rural regions handing out cash too.
Viewed with the worst glasses, this motivation can be viewed as "growing the religion," as if its a pyramid scheme with no other motivation than its own growth (ie, cancer). I'd just like to add that it is possible to regard the growth of the religion as a truly high aim.
I'm not saying any one thing is true, only that it is possible that the pastors aim is high and heartfelt.
I have a 7 yo daughter. I wonder if she believes this stuff, too.
Having gone through this process myself years ago I can attest to this, while also I must give my strongest recommendation that you eventually begin looking for a spiritual practice. Organized religion's wild success among humanity is a great testament to it's Darwinian fitness, and it undisputably provides many benefits to believers that you most definitely lose if you simply subtract it from your life.
Many atheists struggle with finding a replacement for those benefits without adopting magical thinking in some other way, and I sympathize with this. But once you have had a few years to distance the pain of religion, I highly recommend looking for a routine source of spiritualism in your life. Sam Harris advocates for meditation which seems to be the most prominent atheistic alternative, but it doesn't come by default with many of the benefits that organized religion does (community and ceremony to just name a couple off the top of my head).
Whatever time and effort your parents and family invested into religion, I recommend taking some portion of that and investing it in your own spiritual well-being. And as a disclaimer to all this: I too am atheist, I don't subscribe to any magical thinking, and I am co-opting the word "spiritualism" significantly here but I can't think of a good alternative. I don't actually believe "spirits" exist.
Meditating without any reference to religion or God is possible and you can change your experience in very meaningful ways.
It all made no sense. Everybody was just doing and saying what their parents told them to, and actually thinking or talking about it and taking it actually seriously just seemed absurd. Nobody was actually following through on what the scriptures said they aught to be doing, if it really was all true, and if they had that would be even worse.
So it wasn’t so much deciding god doesn’t exist, it was that if god does exist, which version is it and how would I know? From there concluding that religion is an entirely artificial social construct was a pretty small step.
Having said that, I also concluded that spirituality is clearly a ubiquitous human experience. Religion seems to be a response to a universal, or near universal impulse that it’s worth taking seriously.
But something's existence in theory can be proven by mere act of finding or defining it.
I'd say religion is more an evolved phenomenon than a constructed one.
Religious groups tend to have more children than secular groups, which suggests religion confers an advantage to a group's evolutionary fitness.
Due to modern education system and scientific thinking clears out most of the dogma imposed on to people by religion. And I can see the current religion leaders embracing them, as it was their own. And we will see how the religion will evolve or devolve in this modern era of logic and reasoning.
I was mormon up until around 30ish. However, researching the history of the mormon religion ultimately led me to completely disbelieve the faith claims of the church.
From there, atheism was just sort of natural. Why, for example, would I suddenly believe that any other religious sect got it's supernatural claims correct when the one I was raised with, got a bunch of the "good feelings" from and was 1000% convinced was true ended up having really major issues?
I certainly could be convinced there is a god, but it cannot be through emotions. My emotions held me in mormonism for far to long. I know emotions can trick, deceive, and are easily played to. The right type of music or a charismatic orator can easily trigger them.
So what does that leave me with? Facts, logic, and evidence. Any religion that can give me solid evidence that the supernatural is real and exists would win me. None have succeeded (and I have had fun looking into a few).
If there is an all knowing, loving god that cares about me, then that god would know exactly how to present me the evidence I need to believe in it. If that god doesn't care about me, then why should I care about it?
And, if there's a supernatural belief without a god that I should believe in for afterlife rewards... well, there's just no way for me to correctly stumble into it. I need evidence that I'll be reincarnated as a spider if I don't believe in reincarnation, and that seems pretty tough to prove.
What tools would you use to prove supernatural claims?
For example, let's say the claim is "God will heal you if you pray to him". Ok, let's pray that someone is healed in the hospital. How about another? And another? Do those prayers fail? Why?
The issue that one runs into is that the prayers will often fail and the answer is generally "mysterious ways". Yet, no religion seems to statistically fair better than other religions when it comes to diseases. So either, the prayer isn't working, or god is working extra hard to make sure to hide itself (Why would a divine being do that?)
Some claims I'll just reject outright. If the proof is "feelings" that's manipulation, not proof. Because, as I said, feelings are easily triggered. Pretty much every religion has figured that one out.
Can you explain further why this would be a good standard, or how it would help? I mean, suppose you were god (with the usual alleged attributes that generate this kind of issue). How would you make yourself repeatable or testable?
Prayer seems like one of the tests that you would propose. This seems to me to be a maybe not great test? Even we respond differently based on the situation. My kids pray to me for ice cream fairly regularly, for example, and sometimes they get it and sometimes they don't. (Sometimes they eat their dinner and haven't had more sweets than are good for them by my judgment; sometimes they're disobedient and annoying; sometimes I'm a first-rate bastard to my kids; and so on.) If god exists, I don't know that I would expect him/her/it to respond repeatably or to be testable, at least in that sense.
Without this as a standard what are you left with to verify the divine is the divine and not a con? I think we can both agree that there are a lot of crazy cults and charismatic leaders that claim things they aren't and can use tricks and the slight of hand to prove things that aren't true. Assuming a loving god exists, shouldn't that being give us a way to tell the difference between false beliefs and true beliefs? Or if that doesn't matter to this divine being, then why would it be important to be a believer in the first place? The best way I know how to verify truth is repeatable tests with measurable results. Do you have a better way?
> I mean, suppose you were god (with the usual alleged attributes that generate this kind of issue). How would you make yourself repeatable or testable?
How couldn't you?
Assuming I'm the god of the universe, then the test would be as easy as "Anyone that thinks 'all hail cogman10!' will see a gold star in the periphery of their vision." Heck, I could simply have all my creations be born with the innate knowledge that I exist and these are my rules.
If you are a all knowing, all powerful, ever present being then constructing any sort of "this will always return true" test would be trivial. There are already tests like this in the bible "if you have the faith of a mustard seed you can move a mountain". Wouldn't the act of asking for literally anything demonstrate the minimal amount of faith?
But, assuming there is some law of the universe that I'm bound by (making me not all powerful), then I'd surely know how to communicate specifically with cogman10 to let them know that I exist beyond doubt (and to do that for everyone). If I didn't know that, then I must not be all knowing.
Or, if I didn't care to communicate that and instead I'm fine with my creations being tortured for eternity over an instant of choices... then I'm not particularly good or loving.
I picked prayer because it's a concept I'm most familiar with from my mormon upbringing.
Oh, sure, I think that makes sense. I mean, supposing god exists and wants us to know he/she/it exists, it makes sense to me that some sort of revelation has to be there. But this god, being per se infinite, has to accommodate finite creatures. That seems like a challenge.
> Assuming I'm the god of the universe, then the test would be as easy as "Anyone that thinks 'all hail cogman10!' will see a gold star in the periphery of their vision." Heck, I could simply have all my creations be born with the innate knowledge that I exist and these are my rules.
I guess I would say that the universe itself seems to be repeatable and testable, at least at the scales we can measure so far. Of course there's a lot we don't understand, but that's kind of expected if your deity of choice is infinite.
I'm not sure what Mormonism teaches, but the Bible at least says that everyone knows that God exists, and that they suppress that knowledge. Maybe that's begging the question, though I doubt such claims are merely axiomatic (i.e., without some kind of reasonable argument). At least the request for something repeatable and testable that expresses the divine in some way would be answered by the universe you inhabit. This doesn't really lead to a Personality, which I think you'd have to arrive at in a different way. But I don't think persons—divine, if they exist, or otherwise—are repeatable that way.
> Wouldn't the act of asking for literally anything demonstrate the minimal amount of faith?
I don't know. Maybe the point of the saying is that no one has faith the size of a mustard seed?
> But, assuming there is some law of the universe that I'm bound by (making me not all powerful), then I'd surely know how to communicate specifically with cogman10 to let them know that I exist beyond doubt (and to do that for everyone). If I didn't know that, then I must not be all knowing.
It seems to me that one of the essential problems that most religious systems have to deal with the challenge of creaturely freedom and divine omnipotence. One possible supposal is that freedom is somehow incompatible with the desire for incontrovertible, watertight evidence, and that the two exist on a continuum. Perhaps the maximal amount of evidence is provided for the maximal amount of creaturely freedom?
Again, I think I understand the objection, but I'm not sure whether it adequately addresses the challenges that come along with it. I appreciate you thinking about the problem and talking about it, though. I have a lot of questions like this, too, and it's helpful to push some electrons into the ether instead of just talking to myself about it.
Bohr, the Nobel-winning physicist, had a horse shoe on top of the front door of his country cabin. When he was asked whether he believed it brings him good luck, his reply was "I was told it works regardless I believe in it or not."
There is no need to believe in such things, and belief -- in the sense you are using the word -- does not "help" you. It may even be a hindrance.
More interesting question could be: can I find useful things about myself that I can personally verify that would be difficult or impossible to learn otherwise?
A book called Inner Game of Tennis (not related to Gurdjieff) talks about the inner game that elite athletes need to learn. For example, if you are practicing how to make the perfect tennis forehand hit, you are struggling with a part of yourself that tries to control your movement. However, you need to learn to let go, and let the body to do the movement. The part that wants to control the movement is very poor in doing that. So there are these various parts in myself, and it is essential to learn how they operate.
If you are intrigued, reading "In Search of the Miraculous" by Ouspensky or one book from "Psychological Commentaries" by Nicoll could be a better starting point than Wikipedia.
It is clear I am being unfairly targeted for my views by you and this community.
You happen to disagree with what I am saying and are not creative or brave enough to come up with a meaningful response. Be honest with yourself.
Ive said nothing abhorrent. I defended my religious and spiritual beliefs against a community which is clearly very pro atheist.
Dont tell other people what to do and stop disrespecting others’ religious beliefs. Let’s start with that.
Incidentally, it's generally a bad idea to identify the community as hostile. That comes from a cognitive bias which we all seem to have: we place greater emphasis on the things we dislike, and are more likely to notice them in the first place. The things that we consider favorable end up getting far less emphasis. This leads to false feelings of generality, and a negative sense of being surrounded by enemies. The people who disagree with you feel the same way, because they have the same bias (like I said, we all do).
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
Not necessarily, obviously, but there are spiritual atheists, and if OP asks "what are your spiritual practices" then "I have none" is a valid answer.
>It is clear that atheism and consumerism in modern society do not make people happy.
The least happy people I know are religious, and almost all the Atheists I know are pretty happy with their lives. I don't think Atheism makes people happy, but I don't think Theism makes everyone happy too. It works for some, and doesn't work for others.
“Spirit”ual. You cannot be Spiritual without belief in Spirit. It is in the word itself.
You can be a good Atheist however that is mostly in line with good spiritual practices.
Atheists seem to want it both ways. To believe in nothing but also define themselves as “Spiritual”
How would you define "Spirit"?
Languages evolve over time and I'd argue the word "spirituality" is morphing into something with a very broad definition of "spirit", one where, for example, an atheistic Buddhist can practice and still be considered "spiritual".
Buddha was not an atheist.
The belief is the other half of this thing. Your benefits of practice will be very limited if there is no belief in it.
It will be mechanical Buddhism which isnt really Buddhism. It’s just someone making the motions.
There is deep meaning there and I have a feeling that you in particular are closer to it than you think.
Call God an alien if you want. I think many simply take issue with the names and symbols. The word God itself evokes controversy in many.
Myself, I find the concept of an omni-powerful "being", "God", force exceptionally far-fetched, without any concrete scientific evidence that I'm aware of. I'm ok with the understanding that humans are simply animals that evolved exceptionally large brains. It was inevitable that we'd use start using those brains to ask, "Why the fuck are we here?" followed by the birth of thousands of various religions and beliefs over the millennia.
Yes, I could be wrong but this general philosophy makes sense to me at this point in my life. I don't believe there is any objective meaning to life aside from creating my own meaning, and so far it's working out well.
They will remain closed to the possibility of true spirituality because ultimately they believe only in material things and they take themselves to be the real thing, and the Spirit to be more or less a dream.
Sure they may have some interesting experiences but often they turn away from these experiences and dismiss them as no more real than dreams.
If the belief in the heart is absent so to will It be absent. It is a game of hide and seek but you must have the belief in that which is being sought. Otherwise the whole thing falls apart.
Intellect alone is not enough.
For example:
https://web.archive.org/web/20160818051131/https://www.samha...
You can argue that this isn’t true spirituality, but I think the way neurons fire during it is the same way a spiritual person’s neurons fire when having their own moments.
The experience happens outside of the meat puppet.
It is your belief in the reality of your body and your mind that prevents you from realizing the full potential of those “spiritual” experiences.
Those experiences will have little impact if the belief in them is lacking.
It is not that those experiences are more real, it is that they are no less real than what you call reality.
If you see the experience as nothing more than a dream then that’s what it will become.
If you see it as something at least as real as this waking reality then the experience has impact.
Without belief in it, your experiences are meaningless. You will learn very little from them.
They are invitations that you have outwardly rejected in labeling yourself an atheist.
Atheists would take a research paper as truth over their own direct experience. They hold Science as most dear and most important and they label faith and beliefs and spiritual experiences as make believe or pretend fantasy.
I see how you are trying to define atheism: "Atheists would take a research paper as truth over their own direct experience. They hold Science as most dear and most important and they label faith and beliefs and spiritual experiences as make believe or pretend fantasy."
Again I remind you that atheism is a very broad term. As an atheist I follow the most common definition and have no belief in god as I have not seen any evidence they exist yet. If I have some sort of personal supernatural experience and god reveals themself to me, I see no reason why I wouldn't believe in them. Especially over some flimsy piece of paper.
I can also believe in something without evidence and still be an atheist. For example I believe in the supernatural to some extent because it brings me comfort and because there is so much that we still do not understand.
Reality is subjective, you will get what you believe.
In one sense you are right because ultimately reality can only be expressed in the negative. It is not in the class of perceivable objects.
No, they don't. I understand how you'd like to imagine there are a bunch of atheists out there coveting something you have, but that isn't the case. Reread the root comment and try not to take "spirituality" so literally.
You are the one who thinks that you own the ‘I’ all to yourself. You see yourself as a separate individual. That is clear.
Spiritualism is spiritual of Spirit. You call yourself an atheist. Do I then say that Atheists believe in God or some form of it? Ridiculous. Come off of it.
We can change the words to make it easier on people and stop wasting time with petty semantics.
Lets call it people who believe in nothing and then there are people who believe in something, a higher intelligence or a soul or spirit.
Enough of the semantics.
Suffice it to say, I find it cruel and absurd to believe that someone suffering from depression must not really have a relationship with their god, and I urge you to reconsider your beliefs in this matter.
We all suffer. To be born is to suffer.
Just how many people who call themselves Christian are actually practicing and living the message of Christ?
If they truly had faith in a higher power they would realize how selfish depression is. Of course we all become depressed from time to time.
To have real faith is that powerful. It is a cure.
If you want to discuss there is no need to hide behind a device like sarcasm. I am open to all engagement. I realize I am on a site which is mostly composed of atheists.
I think Buddhism and Taoism are atheistic as well. This is my assumption though and I will be happy to be corrected.
Hinduism believes in God. Many gods in fact and the concept of a cosmic intelligence.
Have you not heard of Bhakti or devotional yoga?
But what you have just stated here is that you are not an atheist at all. In fact quite the opposite. You are that.
Yes but it is a path equally of the mind and the heart.
You seem to believe that it is only a path of the mind. This is a misconception about Advaita.
The mind cannot reach the goal by itself. The goal is beyond mind.
You will never reach it without the heart. Advaita is very clear on this.
One’s lack of belief in it will pretty much guarantee they never get that invite.
Although in reality we are only spiritual. Call it a very good haptic VR system if you will.
Our society is mainly atheists consumers. You wont find God on CNN or Amazon Prime
> 100% atheism. Was raised some kind of protestant
You may find an Atheist that says something like "If god does exist, it's a dick". but that's not really hating god but rather pointing out the silliness of believing in a supernatural all powerful being that is good which allows evil to happen. IE, the problem of evil.
Edit: Just a note that the specific term "God Hating Atheist" I take from John Gray's book Seven Types of Atheism.
This "hate", however, is not directed toward an entity this atheist thinks exists. The type of atheist you describe hates the concept of "god" that their prior belief system constructed.
When one comes out of a system that one feels they were duped by for 20+ years (in my case), sure, I retain a powerful, strong, negative reaction to that system and its concept of god.
It does not mean that my disbelief in this god is equivalent to some kind of "religiousness" and to suggest that I think is incredibly naive
Had the founder any moral character and I frankly might still be a mormon today. (though, tbh, it was likely because of his immorality that mormonism has survived. I'd probably not be around as I'm from a large family that likely wouldn't have happened without mormonism).
The lesson I took from that is to challenge my world views, don't take assumed knowledge for granted, and to be extra super wary of anyone trying to tug on emotions to motivate me into action.
> Smith said that he found the plates on September 22, 1823, on a hill near his home in Manchester, New York, after the angel Moroni directed him to a buried stone box. He said that the angel prevented him from taking the plates but instructed him to return to the same location in a year. He returned to that site every year, but it was not until September 1827 that he recovered the plates on his fourth annual attempt to retrieve them. He returned home with a heavy object wrapped in a frock, which he then put in a box. He allowed others to heft the box but said that the angel had forbidden him to show the plates to anyone until they had been translated from their original "reformed Egyptian" language.
Oh and the plates have never been found or seen by anyone else.
Quiet literally the same as if I wrote about how George Washington felled a cherry tree with a magic axe that granted him the ability to see through time.
When your parents believe it, and their parents believed it, etc all the way back to the founding of the church when your (rubes) of ancestors fell for a con... yeah, hard to see the lie for what it is. Even if, from the outside, it's beyond obvious.
"I don't have any" is the one that doesn't care, vs "I am atheist" says you care a whole lot about god. You don't identify as afairist at all. If you do, you're almost certainly a fairy hating afairist
I would not call myself an atheist if it weren't for the fact that theism is thoroughly and deeply ingrained in american culture.
In china, most people are atheists, but they don't really identify as such. It's simply the default. Were I in that circumstance, I certainly would feel exactly the same way.
That is just wrong.
I don't hate god anymore than I hate leprechauns.
I can see how there is overlap between spirituality and atheism, as there's no need for a god or belief in most of the subjects that seem to fall under spirituality. Especially when we exist in a universe, the chances of which even existing are infinitesimally minute, that is so breathtaking that most of us have resorted to filling in the knowledge gaps of how and why with best guesses. It is so wondrous that, god or not, you can feel plenty spiritual just experiencing it.
Whether personal spirituality should be your life's focus when there's so much at play on Earth, however, is another question.
Then the question is whether it's useful to assign a third category, or just to combine it with one of the original two categories. My own feeling is that strong versus weak atheism is not a useful distinction.
> 100% atheism. Was raised some kind of protestant I forget which one
He forgets which one? Either he really wasn't raised in it at all or more likely he wants to emphasize his contempt for it by "forgetting" what it even was.
Religion is "absolute nonsense" and "laughable" - twice. He derives "tremendous spiritual and psychological relief" in an alternate way of looking at things.
> As an atheist I was suddenly responsible for making my own moral judgements and conclusions (I had to decide upon my own objective basis for making moral judgements)
He has developed an entirely new personal system of moral values - based on what? It's just an implicit religious system based on our current secular politics.
> forgiveness was something I had to work towards myself (as in I had to forgive myself for things, which is not easy, but is incredibly rewarding) versus simply getting it for free from some nonexistent deity. All in all, was an incredibly positive change in my life, and I do believe
He's worked some pretty uniquely Christian ethics about personal forgiveness into it too. This stuff isn't universal.
> there can be a weird sort of spirituality to 100% atheism that people don't really acknowledge.
Exactly right.
As defined, religion is "the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.". Nothing about a strongly held belief, even one lacking evidence, makes it religious.
I think if god-hating atheists do exist it’s an inherent contradiction. Perhaps you are confusing people who practice “satanism” mostly as a way to troll religious people as god-hating.
There are definitely anti-religion atheists but I don’t see how that is spiritual.
To hate god, firstly you have to admit his existence in one way or another. Hence, spirituality, even with "minus" sign.
A religious person may perceive an atheist as “god hating” when they are merely “religion hating” or perhaps making fun of your god/the existence of a god.
If you hate something that doesn't exist, your are either making no sense or must imply the existence (in some form).
Think about it deeply.
This is rethorical question, 'cause there is no easy answer, and yet my original statement is valid.
In this case god-hating atheists confirm the existence of god in the form of 'concept' you may say.
I don't think anyone denies the existence of the concept of god. I'm an atheist, but of course the concept of god exists. People believe in it, it can and has been talked about.
Seems like you're equating the concept of god (i.e. people's beliefs), with the actual entity of God (i.e. the man in the sky that created everything).
C'mon, no atheist is remotely claiming that God doesn't exist even as a concept. You can't possibly think this is what any atheist ever meant?
On the face of it it's almost impossible to claim that something doesn't exist as a concept, since making such a claim creates the concept. Some atheists might claim there are logical inconsistencies in the concept of God, but that's still different from claiming the concept doesn't exist.
Personally I don’t care neither abou atheists nor about religious people in general.
I was just answering the question.
But you misinterpreted what "exists" means in this context.
Additional question — what religions do you know that explicitly state the existence of god in materialistic sense and not as a non tangible ideal (hence the word idea by the way)?
Please try to answer deeply and not just critisize me for hating atheists, I am not, I just point out very simple but overlooked details that are crucial for such discussions.
The existence of a concept is not the same thing as the existence of the thing the concept refers to.
Yes it is, for most of the average Joe believers the concept of god is the god, since they never faced any other kind of god in their life.
The same with zombies - if you afraid of them => they definitely exist _at least_ in your head! Otherwise what the hell exactly are you afraid of?
> Yes it is
No, it's not.
> for most of the average Joe believers the concept of god is the god, since they never faced any other kind of god in their life.
This...requires the assumption that God does not exist (in re, if we must, since you seem to insist on the archaic, Anselm-like insistence that existence in intellectu is a real thing and that material existence is a predicate), but, even ignoring that giant problem with one premise, that's not true. I may have a concept of a robber who robbed my house when no such robbery actually occurred in the material universe, but the existence of they concept doesn't mean that a robber who robbed my house exists even if I have had no experience of a material robber only the concept, it means the concept refers to a thing that does not exist.
Ditto with concepts of God to the extent that God does not exist.
Further, I would argue that without living with God, you are actually freed from responsibility in moral judgements, because of the belief that there is no final judge. You believe no one is ultimately holding you accountable to seek forgiveness or to live rightly, and you must try to adhere to wavering conceptions of courtesy and politeness in a culture with ever shifting morals.
Humans have always had the capacity to be good to each other inside them. The idea that religion or god is necessary for that is demonstrably false.
That right there is the root cause of all the problems with religions. If you don’t believe in what everyone else in the community believes in then you don’t belong to the community and hence you are the enemy. My god is the ultimate judge not 999 other gods out there.
> but a belief in God makes it easier to abide by values that matter to everyone else
Take one example most "westeners" would probably agree is a bad version of this: the Taliban. Afghanistan is now ruled by the religious beliefs of an organization made up of people that have very strong beliefs and that - from what news we can get on it - do not hesitate to enforce with violence. I'm sure internally there's the 'regular' power struggles and social dynamics you will find in almost all of the rest of humankind to gain the upper hand. So what about _everyone else_ in Afghanistan that just wanted to live the lives they got accustomed to in the past ~20 years?
The Catholic church nowadays I suppose is more of a political organization but in its past it comes a lot closer to the above. Nevermind the hiding of sexual abuse by priests and shielding them from prosecution. To me it matters that these offenders get behind bars. Now. I think most of _everyone else_ feels the same.
I picked out two examples here but there's a ton of other examples and you can use any major or minor religion for this.
Don't get me wrong, I share a lot of beliefs about what one should or shouldn't do w/ Christianity and some other religions and law makers. I don't need to believe in a deity for that though. I don't mind if someone else does. Feel free, no problem. Just do not try to make me believe in the deity or use the deity as an argument. Or worse, use violence to make me comply with "believing" in it and practicing it.
For me, responsibility is irrevocably linked to the idea of care - caring for those other than myself makes me responsible for my actions, inasmuch as they impact those around me. That ranges from those I love (my partner, family, friends) to strangers on the street that I nonetheless "care" for, by recognizing our shared humanity. Care itself comes from the idea of finitude - specifically, the idea of fragility of life in the face of our mortal existence. If I'm being poetic, "living rightly" means a life that is spent caring for others, strengthening the bonds that link us in face of death. The consequences of our actions are felt precisely because of the finitude of our lives - all we've got is each other, and our responsibility is towards one another.
Religious morality of the other hand is best expressed in the story of Abraham being asked to sacrifice his son (it's no wonder the three major religions are called "Abrahamic"). For a deeper dive into the idea, I recommend reading Kierkegaard's retelling of this story in Fear and Trembling - to recap however, God asks Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, they travel to mountain where Abraham binds Isaac and lifts up the knife to kill him. At the last moment, God interrupts Abraham, and a ram is offered as sacrifice instead. This story, perhaps one of the most well-known stories from the Old Testament of the Christian Bible, goes directly against the idea of responsibility in moral judgments - Abraham does not falter, for he fully trusts his Lord, giving up his son in devotion to God's command. The idea of care or responsibility for ones actions is superseded by the belief that the will of God is, in fact, more important than caring for those around you. A true belief in an everlasting life presupposes a detachment from the world (as any cursory reading of writers such as Saint Augustine shows), in a way protecting and insulating the believer from truly coming to terms with the consequence of their actions (in this case, murdering their only son).
To sum it up, I just can't get behind the idea that a final judge is somehow required for having responsibility in moral judgments. In fact, the opposite is true - only through the secular faith that there is no better everlasting world can we form meaningful relationships and take full responsibility for our actions.
"He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." Would you look your son in the eye as you lower the knife?
If you believe that God is more loving than you are, it is not at odds at all. In fact, if you want what's best for those around you, you are responsible to obey the Lord first and foremost, as he loves those around you more than you do. He also loves you more than you love yourself.
If, however, you don't trust in God's love, then you're totally right. You'd be obeying someone who you're not sure has your neighbors' best interest at heart, and thus abdicating your duty of care.
God ultimately saved Isaac so I'm not sure why Abraham's sacrifice would be a counter-example to God's love here. We can talk about all the people who actually died, seemingly by God's orders, in the Old Testament, but we don't know what happened to these people ultimately, given redemption and salvation by Christ. Death itself being conquered and eternal happiness being granted makes death a poor example of injustice.