God: Denial & Pride
Question:
While you -- the majority of KMC members -- deny the existence of God, why do you participate in discussion(s) having zero meaning and/or relevance to reality, in your mind, if truth and morality are subjective? If God is false -- or as absurd as circles being square -- why participate? Is it not, that you -- the majority of KMC members -- indirectly affirm your belief in God?
No, it's that we don't need God to have a purpose and meaning to our lives, and can enjoy it and be moral without religious guidelines. I realize it might be hard for you to fathom from an intensely theistic perspective, but it's not only possible but actually quite easy to accomplish all of those things.
Each person determines the why and how for themselves, so going into more detail would be to limit the point. Freedom from religious strictures can be very empowering, and all the more gratifying when we choose to bring happiness to the world through our actions and purposes in life.
Originally posted by DigiMark007
No, it's that we don't need God to have a purpose and meaning to our lives, and can enjoy it and be moral without religious guidelines.
Man does not need God to be moral. Man is made in the image of God. Morality -- knowing right from wrong -- is instinctive, not taught.
Nonetheless, why the need to chip away at one's faith? Why not leave it alone?
What I'm hinting at is this:
You must have an underlined agenda!
Most people would never, never engage in a debate over circles being square. Such is nonsense, but you -- and many others -- feel the need to participate in debate/conversation over God. You feel the need to persuade people away from belief in God.
Why?
Originally posted by DigiMark007
I realize it might be hard for you to fathom from an intensely theistic perspective, but it's not only possible but actually quite easy to accomplish all of those things.
On the contrary, it's incredibly easy for me to understand. In my view, people -- such as yourself -- live in denial and/or pride. Welcome to the "fallen nature of man." But, regardless, you are aware of God.
Hence, the reason you blast others for having faith.
You disagree?
Originally posted by DigiMark007
Each person determines the why and how for themselves, so going into more detail would be to limit the point.
How so?
Originally posted by DigiMark007
Freedom from religious strictures can be very empowering,
How so?
Originally posted by DigiMark007
and all the more gratifying when we choose to bring happiness to the world through our actions and purposes in life.
Like Abraham Biggs, who committed suicide (over a web cam) yesterday, while "onlookers" cheered him on? Not one offered help.
Haven't you noticed the moral decline in our world today?
Where does it come from, and why?
Re: God: Denial & Pride
Originally posted by ushomefree
Question:While you -- the majority of KMC members -- deny the existence of God, why do you participate in discussion(s) having zero meaning and/or relevance to reality, in your mind, if truth and morality are subjective? If God is false -- or as absurd as circles being square -- why participate? Is it not, that you -- the majority of KMC members -- indirectly affirm your belief in God?
It is not a matter of believing in a god, but one of not believing you and others like you. We simply believe you are wrong. The world you tell us is not the world we see every day. So, please do not mistake our rejection of you for god.
Originally posted by ushomefree
Question:While you -- the majority of KMC members -- deny the existence of God, why do you participate in discussion(s) having zero meaning and/or relevance to reality, in your mind, if truth and morality are subjective? If God is false -- or as absurd as circles being square -- why participate? Is it not, that you -- the majority of KMC members -- indirectly affirm your belief in God?
No. The belief in God others hold influences our lives greatly. No one denies that the concept of God exists, which is the only necessary to discuss it.
Originally posted by ushomefreeWhat bases do you have that morality is not taught? Go to another country and they will have a completely different set of morals than yours, go to a different income part of the city and they will also have a different set of morals. If morals are not taught then why is the Bible full of moral examples?
Question:While you -- the majority of KMC members -- deny the existence of God, why do you participate in discussion(s) having zero meaning and/or relevance to reality, in your mind, if truth and morality are subjective? If God is false -- or as absurd as circles being square -- why participate? Is it not, that you -- the majority of KMC members -- indirectly affirm your belief in God?
Just because I do not believe in God doesn’t make my discussions about him any less valuable then yours? Since you believe in God why do you need to talk to those that do not? Do you not have your own agenda to convert those to your own faith? I and I’m sure many others are open to the idea that we may be wrong in our concept that God doesn’t exist and open to the ideas that some can bring to the table. If we did not freely express and share our ideas with those that did believe then we would be stagnant in our thinking.
Also just as the same if you saw someone doing drugs or doing something that you thought was wrong or harmful you would try and help them or show them a better way. I personally feel that religion in general holds back the scientific development of our race and hampers the development of our evolution as a species.
As for your Abraham Biggs statement how do you know that no one offered to help? Where you watching the webcast, did you read all the posts? In fact from what I have read that most thought that this was a prank being pulled and not real, this is why it was even allowed to be streamed on the site, once they did realized that it was real they traced his IP and found where it was and called the authorities. This was also not the first time that he “threatened” to kill himself online.
Originally posted by ushomefree
Like Abraham Biggs, who committed suicide (over a web cam) yesterday, while "onlookers" cheered him on? Not one offered help.Haven't you noticed the moral decline in our world today?
Where does it come from, and why?
Considering that most people believe in God it's inevitable that some of those people who did nothing believed in God yet still decided not to save him.
Re: God: Denial & Pride
The Origins and Evolution of Religious Prosociality
Science, Oct 3, 322, 58-62
Ara Norenzayan & Azim F Shariff
concluding paragraphs:
Although religions continue to be powerful facilitators of prosociality in large groups, they are not the only ones. The cultural spread of reliable secular institutions, such as courts, policing authorities, and effective contract-enforcing mechanisms, although historically recent, has changed the course of human prosociality. Consequently, active members of modern secular organizations are at least as likely to report donating to charity as active members of religious ones (42). Supporting this conclusion, experimentally induced reminders of secular moral authority had as much effect on generous behavior in an economic game as reminders of God (27), and there are many examples of modern, large, cooperative, and not very religious societies (such as those in Western and Northern Europe), that, nonetheless, retain a great degree of intragroup trust and cooperation (43).Any one study we have discussed can be subject to alternative accounts; therefore, specific evidence should be interpreted with caution. Nevertheless, convergent evidence is emerging from several disciplines using different methods and procedures that supply different pieces of the religious prosociality puzzle. Despite the recent scientific progress in explaining the effects of religion on prosociality, open and important questions remain. In particular, more research is needed to address the costliness of religious and nonreligious rituals, and few studies have attempted to quantify these costs in relation to prosocial behavior. The finding that religiosity evokes greater trust underscores the need for more experimental and theoretical research, including mathematical modeling, to establish the specific conditions under which costly religious commitment could evolve as a stable individual strategy and whether these models need to take into account intergroup competition. More broadly, the extent to which religion is implicated in human cooperation, and the precise sequence of evolutionary developments in religious prosociality, remain open to lively scientific debate. Further progress on these issues will require concerted collaboration among historians, archaeologists, social scientists, and evolutionary biologists.
In recent years, moral psychology has received a great deal of scientific attention (44), and although most of the studies reviewed here concern behavioral outcomes, the relation between religious prosociality and moral intuitions and reasoning is ripe for further investigation. More direct research on the possible role of prosocial motivations, such as empathy and compassion, in religious prosociality are needed. Finally, we have seen that religious prosociality is not extended indiscriminately; the "dark side" of within-group cooperation is between-group competition and conflict (45). The same mechanisms involved in ingroup altruism may also facilitate outgroup antagonism. This is an area of no small debate, but scientific attention is needed to examine precisely how individuals and groups determine who are the beneficiaries of religious prosociality, and who its victims.
Originally posted by ushomefree
in your mind, if truth and morality are subjective
This may surprise you, but I don't believe in God, yet I do believe in objective morality and truth. Maybe don't lump such a diverse group as "non-believers" into a single category.
General response to your question: Its very nature is hypocritical. As a believer, why are you concerned with the motives of those who do not believe as you?
less glib: the same reason many people in the world discuss the American election. Unfortunately, I have yet to come to a place in my life where I can eliminate the influence of religion on my day to day living, as it is so ubiquitous in society. I want nothing more than to not have to pay attention to religion, however, as someone who is passionate about personal liberty, it is far more often than not that threats to individual freedom come from religious circles that find freedom in some ways offensive.
More defensive: Why does anyone need to justify to you why they enjoy discussing things? Does someone have to play baseball to discuss it?
Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Considering that most people believe in God it's inevitable that some of those people who did nothing believed in God yet still decided not to save him.
Right. If 10 people were watching, for example, probability would expect 8 or 9 of them to be theistic, based on accepted figures for percentages of theists as opposed to non-theists in the world. If we limit it to just atheist/non-atheist (the 8-9 estimate assume "non-religious/agnostic/etc." to be in the non-theistic group), then it's overwhelmingly likely that none of the 10 were atheists, since atheists only account for about 2% of the world's population.
....
Also, ushome, I don't blast religion, nor religious people. Stupid people, perhaps, or those who use religious ideas to belittle others. But not religion in and of itself. I have a lot of respect for those who use religion to engender happiness in the world, just like I have respect for anyone who uses any endeavor to do the same.
Your claim that we're "aware" of God is a bit perplexing. We're aware of the belief in God in many people. We're aware of the concept of God. This doesn't mean that we believe a god to exist. You're still working under the flawed premise that atheists can't have meaning, purpose, or be moral without religion. It's religious elitism, nothing more.
Same with the "moral decline." One can point to a myriad of reasons why they might think we're less moral than we used to be (though I might disagree with that point, actually). But atheists certainly can't be counted among them, in a society where just under 1 in 50 people is an atheist, they cannot easily hold public office, etc. Theists still influence societal norms far more than non-religiosity does.
Originally posted by inimalist
This may surprise you, but I don't believe in God, yet I do believe in objective morality and truth. Maybe don't lump such a diverse group as "non-believers" into a single category.
An excellent point.
You must have an underlined agenda!
Most people would never, never engage in a debate over circles being square. Such is nonsense, but you -- and many others -- feel the need to participate in debate/conversation over God. You feel the need to persuade people away from belief in God.Why?
If the erroneous belief that circles were square (or vice versa) had socially disruptive side effects I would argue against that too. I have found that Religion is often the cause of intentional ignorance, or willful disregard for fundamental truths about the universe. I don't (anymore) feel that I'm arguing against yahwe, but rather against irrationality.
Some snippets from a recent article by Michael Shermer on in-group psychology. It focuses on cults as the primary anecdote for discussion, but it's easy to see how the same principles can be applied to other areas like politics or religion:
In general, these types of belief systems are coherent and logically consistent when you are inside them. It is not until you step outside the group and gain a different reference point that the coherence and logic vanishes.
Later on:
But there is something deeper going on here that I think touches on cognitive processes in all of us as members of non-cult groups, such as political parties: confirmation bias. This is when we look for and find evidence to support what we already believe, and ignore or rationalize away evidence that does not. And because we are so tribal by nature, we employ confirmation bias with extra vigor when it comes to defending the groups we belong to. Republicans tend to listen to conservative talk radio, watch Fox News and read the Wall Street Journal, gathering data and noting arguments that support their political beliefs. Democrats are more likely to listen to progressive talk radio and NPR, surf liberal blogs and read the New York Times. Everyone does it.
...later:
The confirmation bias sways us all, especially when it reinforces our inner tribalism. Most of us will never join a cult, but all of us are subject to the pull of believing that the evidence supports our most cherished beliefs. It is for this reason that we need to look for disconfirmatory evidence, to listen to the arguments of those with whom we disagree, to ask for constructive criticism of our beliefs, and to remember Oliver Cromwell's words to the Church of Scotland in 1650: "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken."
...
I think the message that is encapsulated in those comments is very pertinent to this thread. Cromwell's line, of course, is applicable to those of any slant. But those who assume certain things about other groups, or believe their logic/beliefs to be totally coherent and understandable, would do well to consider the earlier paragraphs.
I believe ushome to be guilty of at least some of that, especially the part about making incorrect assumptions about groups based on items of information gleaned from a religious in-group who clearly doesn't fully understand opposing viewpoints as well as they might think.
Full article:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-shermer18-2008nov18,0,2806746.story
Originally posted by ushomefree
Most people would never, never engage in a debate over circles being square. Such is nonsense, but you -- and many others -- feel the need to participate in debate/conversation over God. You feel the need to persuade people away from belief in God.
The better question, why do you feel the need to persuade others that there is a God (more to the point, a certain finite view of God) and that they should be/not be doing certain things, certain ways, otherwise they'll be punished in some fashion?
Ask yourself one question, if the only reason you're a "good and moral" person is because you believe an Omnipotent being is watching and taking score of your every action, what kind of person are you really?
Edit: Actually, would you answer that question for me?
Originally posted by Robtard
The better question, why do you feel the need to persuade others that there is a God (more to the point, a certain finite view of God) and that they should be/not be doing certain things, certain ways, otherwise they'll be punished in some fashion?Ask yourself one question, if the only reason you're a "good and moral" person is because you believe an Omnipotent being is watching and taking score of your every action, [b]what kind of person are you really
?Edit: Actually, would you answer that question for me? [/B]
Circles are rarely mistaken for squares; much like god and Jesus are rarely mistken for piss stains under or a cloud after a tornado or an overpass or Mary on a piece of burnt toast or Peter on a dorito or Thomas in a jar of jam? It's nice that the suvivors of the tornado are the only ones left to interpret the devestation as personal intervention.
Circles vs squares: what a stupid argument. I guess the Earth is flat, as well.