What are some things you think that go against societal expectations?

[Himu]

I didn't know if you were non-religious or not and it was besides the point. The overall meat of the post is to rebut those points, and since the people I am arguing against agreed with it, all the more reason to write it. The tone of your post is ambiguous and the discussion you're having with Etiolate and the way it's phrased makes it look like you are not religious. Maybe you should have stated with a disclaimer that you are religious? Because there's nothing in the post that indicates otherwise.

I've struggled with faith for a long time. It isn't a fad. Good night.

[CatsCatsCats]

See, I can totally get behind and understand using Christianity as view point to understand humanity like what I just read in QoI's post. I truly believe every single person has goodness in them, and those who aren't showing it have turned in some way from a truth in themselves. Call that the Holy Spirit? Fine, I'm with you, it has many names 

Read Mere Christianity. Some of his ideas and stuff are old because it's such an old book, but very, very relevant. Basically, the idea is that this goodness comes from God. Which is why Christianity argues that God is love or all good. It makes the gospels even greater for it. Humanity recognizes how wrong it is. Peter betrays Jesus three times in one night and he was the most loyal of Apostles. Man is incomplete, because man is broken. And only God can help us achieve wholeness.

That is the Christian perspective.

Yup and you definitely lose me hard with the judgement and guilt inherent to Christianity, I've been down that road

[Himu]

That's fine. I don't really find it that bad these days. Don't worry about judgement.

[Himu]

https://www.wordonfire.org/resources/blog/why-atheists-change-their-mind-8-common-factors/4729/

Good article I read months back.

[benjipwns]

i haven't read the article yet but i enjoyed how it starts certainly:

Here are eight common factors that lead atheists to change their minds about God:

Reasonable atheists eventually become theists because they are reasonable; and furthermore, because they are honest. They are willing to follow the evidence wherever it leads; and in many cases the evidence comes to the atheist most coherently and well-presented through the writings of believers in God.

[Cerveza mas fina]

I really do not need religion to be whole, or some kind of salvation (from what?)

Also how is it arrogant to say and think religious people have a weakness, you say yourself man has a hole that only God can fill. That is a weakness.

[benjipwns]

I think I may be misunderstanding your reason for linking as I didn't read that argument up above (which I probably should instead of just going off of this link since it's probably repeating things already said by multiple people), but I don't understand this article's thesis at all really, so some people changed their minds? This kind of stuff isn't exactly the strongest case making for converting is it? It's reads like he's arguing that these are signs of an appeal to authority but that's okay because the authority is correct.

Author Karen Edmisten admits on her blog:

“I once thought I’d be a lifelong atheist. Then I became desperately unhappy, read up on philosophy and various religions (while assiduously avoiding Christianity), and waited for something to make sense. I was initially  appalled when Christianity began to look  like the sensible thing, surprised when I wanted to be baptized, and stunned that I ended up a Catholic.”

Dr. Holly Ordway, author of Not God’s Type: An Atheist Academic Lays Down Her Arms, describes the consequences of reading great, intelligent Christian writers:

“I found that my favorite authors were men and women of deep Christian faith. C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien above all; and then the poets: Gerard Manley Hopkins, George Herbert, John Donne, and others. Their work was unsettling to my atheist convictions…”

Similarly, renowned sci-fi author John C. Wright distinctly recalls a prayer he said as an adamant atheist:

“I prayed. ‘Dear God, I know… that you do not exist. Nonetheless, as a scholar, I am forced to entertain the hypothetical possibility that I am mistaken. So just in case I am mistaken, please reveal yourself to me in some fashion that will prove your case. If you do not answer, I can safely assume that either you do not care whether I believe in you, or that you have no power to produce evidence to persuade me…If you do not exist, this prayer is merely words in the air, and I lose nothing but a bit of my dignity. Thanking you in advance for your kind cooperation in this matter, John Wright.'”

Wright soon received the answer (and effect) he did not expect:

“Something from beyond the reach of time and space, more fundamental than reality, reached across the universe and broke into my soul and changed me…I was altered down to the root of my being…It was like falling in love.”

Wright was welcomed into the Catholic Church at Easter in 2008.

Philosopher Dr. Ed Feser, in his article, The Road From Atheism, recounts the shocking effectof opening himself to the arguments for the existence of God:

“As I taught and thought about the arguments for God’s existence, and in particular the cosmological argument, I went from thinking “These arguments are no good” to thinking “These arguments are a little better than they are given credit for” and then to “These arguments are actually kind of interesting.”  Eventually it hit me: “Oh my goodness, these arguments are right after all!”

Feser concludes:

“Speaking for myself, anyway, I can say this much.  When I was an undergrad I came across the saying that learning a little philosophy leads you away from God, but learning a lot of philosophy leads you back.  As a young man who had learned a little philosophy, I scoffed.  But in later years and at least in my own case, I would come to see that it’s true.”

As Dr. Peter Kreeft has pointed out, no person would see a hut on a beach and conclude that it must have randomly assembled itself by some random natural process, void of an intelligent designer. Its order necessitates a designer. Thus if this “beach hut analogy” is true, how much more should we believe in an Intelligent Designer behind the vastly more complex and ordered universe and the precise physical laws that govern it (click here for William Lane Craig’s argument for the fine-tuning of the universe).

Flew continues in his exposition on why he changed his mind about God:

“The second was my own insight that the integrated complexity of life itself—which is far more complex than the physical Universe—can only be explained in terms of an Intelligent Source. I believe that the origin of life and reproduction simply cannot be explained from a biological standpoint . . . The difference between life and non-life, it became apparent to me, was ontological and not chemical. The best confirmation of this radical gulf is Richard Dawkins’ comical effort to argue in The God Delusion that the origin of life can be attributed to a “lucky chance.” If that’s the best argument you have, then the game is over. No, I did not hear a Voice. It was the evidence itself that led me to this conclusion.”

Parents often describe their experience of procreation as “a miracle,” regardless of their religious background or philosophical worldview. Intuitively, they seem to accept that there is something deeply mysterious and transcendent at work in the bringing forth (and sustenance) of new human life. Flew also was able to realize (after a lifetime of study and reflection) that there could be no merely natural explanation for life in the universe.

The great theologian, Hans Urs von Balthasar, wrote:

“Beauty is the word that shall be our first. Beauty is the last thing which the thinking intellect dares to approach, since only it dances as an uncontained splendour around the double constellation of the true and the good and their inseparable relation to one another.”

Father von Balthasar held strong to the notion that to lead non-believers to belief in God we must begin with the beautiful.

Dr. Peter Kreeft calls this the Argument from Aesthetic Experience. The Boston College philosopher testifies that he knows of several former atheists who came to a belief in God based on this argument (for more from Dr. Kreeft, see his Twenty Arguments For The Existence Of God).

In classic Kreeftian fashion, he puts forward the argument in the following way:

“There is the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.
Therefore there must be a God.

You either see this one or you don’t.”

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Matt holds a B.Ed from the University of Regina and a Doctor of Chiropractic degree from the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College in Toronto, Canada.

Is...is...this man my arch-nemesis?

[close]

[Cerveza mas fina]

Look Himu I understand that youve been through a lot and are in need of some handle to hold on to, and that thing is religion, thats why youve been through 3 already. Religion is a psychological coping mechanism.

[jakefromstatefarm]

or some kind of salvation (from what?)

from man's fallen state of nature, the problem of evil, suffering, and death; broadly speaking

[Raist]

I understand that's how they view religion and a religious person, but its an very naive view.

Why do you feel that way?

Because of what I've read, learned, experienced and processed about the world. I'd say the first mistake in that view is how it doesn't really entertain the idea that religion may work on a complex and important level for human beings. It's just too simple a view of human beings in regard to our place as social creature and dominant creature. I'd argue that religion is an evolutionary adaptation of human beings that is not just a temporal phase but a toolset of survival and success.

I tried to explain some of this via my comment in reply to Wraith about the importance of faith to human society, and that the faith must be backed by healthy religion to have a good society. Nobody seemed interested in that though.

There is also debate about whether to have morals we must have had religion or whether religion is required still to have morality. You assume you can just have a sense of good and bad without religion as if those concepts weren't developed over thousands of years and rooted in the ways of religious thinking so that religious thinking may be required to create them. You also have to see the difference between morals and ethics, and the process that leads to both. Morals and ethics are not the same, at least not in my view. Morals can be handed out by a state. Laws are a type of moral, but it has been legal and illegal in the US to own slaves. I say that to point out that ones morals can be wrong. So morals change and are subject to the acceptance and adaptation of the populace. Ethics are less temporal if temporal at all. They don't change as much as they grow and refine. Ethics are principles that lead to finding good from bad. Ethics are doing whats right even when you could get away with doing wrong, even when people around tell you tell you its not wrong or even when the current morals disagree with your inner sense of right from wrong. Morals are a passive experience and ethics are the active experience.

Religion operates in an organized way as a passive moral experience, but religion on a personal sense should operate as an active habit.

I linked some Peterson videos. He is currently knee deep in exploring this stuff and has a series of 2 hour lectures online for free. I recommended Tolstoy's Confessions earlier in the thread to Queen. You have to understand that liberal values, the civil rights movement and all that is rooted in religious thinking. If you think you can completely divorce that and end up with the rules 'as we have known them now', and continue to be a good person then I would point to that as naive. Tolstoy's work influenced Ghandi and MLK, two big figures behind many of the more respected views we have today. In Tolstoy's work, one of the most vital things he does is pointing out how we look at the outside shell of a thing and think that is the thing itself, so that if we just change or litigate against that outer representation then we change the whole thing itself. This is especially true of how we treat ideas and morals. We then make the mistake of thinking if we just change the a rule then we change the person in violation of the rule. That's not how humans work. We get thoughts and act on thoughts. True change only comes from a change in thinking, and that change only comes from an active self-examination.

Maybe I'm getting off track, but let's just say this is my area of interest. I am watching video of German reporters take pictures of other reporters, calling them identitarians and fascists, and then sending that to ANTIFA. ANTIFA then goes to beat those people up and tell them not to return, but the journalists return, get beaten up and told if they return again they will be killed. ANTIFA is acting morally according to their morals and the police doesn't interfere. They are morals without a religion but with religion. Someone took healthy religion out of their lives and this nastiness replaced it because they are still religious in some nature. It's very hard to pry the nature of religion out of human. They just don't have anything healthy to tie it to.

But that was precisely part of Puppy's argument. The Moral argument for religion is shaky at best, counter-productive at worst. Because people who will argue that you can't have morality unless you're a deeply religious person are essentially telling you that if not for religion, they'd be pieces of shit. From a non-religious perspective, that's extremely ironical. "I have the moral high ground, which I wouldn't if not for this book over there dictating what I should or shouldn't do".

Religion as a pre-requisite for morality is just an added, useless layer. Not only that, but it leads to all sorts of double standards. "This and that is bad. Yeah OK well god or his followers did some of that, but he's above it so he was right to ask stuff like that from his followers." So what doe it say about the morality of a being who supposedly is outside the limits of his own standards for it? If absolute, "true" morality can only come from god shouldn't he be bound by that absolute gold standard? Can "do as I say, not as I do" be compatible with a truly moral behaviour?

It's not like the bible came up with groundbreaking ideas. Remove religion from the equation. Wouldn't you expect a society to outlaw stuff like murder and theft to be able to have an ounce of stability? There are perfectly valid evolutionary explanations for what we have labeled as "morality".

[Rufus]

or some kind of salvation (from what?)

from man's fallen state of nature, the problem of evil, suffering, and death; broadly speaking

The first two of which seems like axioms that came with religion. In a selling you the disease before the medicine kind of way. Definitely the first one. Though I admit I'm ignorant on the details.

[Himu]

The problem of evil is a philosophical point. It isn't an inherently religious point. It's the argument of,"if God exists why is there evil? Why is there cancer?" It isn't religious because religion generally explains why evil exists. Problem of evil isn't a problem for religion. It's arguable that the problem of evil came before religion. We don't know.

If you read my large post above I tackle this briefly. Problem of evil has been argued by philosophers and great minds for thousands of years. It's a very good question and perhaps the best (IMO only) argument against a God. However, it isn't the rational question atheists think it is. It is purely emotional. It is the highlight of Epicurus' delemma.

[Himu]

I think I may be misunderstanding your reason for linking as I didn't read that argument up above (which I probably should instead of just going off of this link since it's probably repeating things already said by multiple people), but I don't understand this article's thesis at all really, so some people changed their minds? This kind of stuff isn't exactly the strongest case making for converting is it? It's reads like he's arguing that these are signs of an appeal to authority but that's okay because the authority is correct.

I just posted it cuz I like it. The argument is to help the former atheist now Christian self reflect and gather more reading material. It's also interesting to read people's ideas change. I agree that the Karen lady is a bit off the her rocker.

Look Himu I understand that youve been through a lot and are in need of some handle to hold on to, and that thing is religion, thats why youve been through 3 already. Religion is a psychological coping mechanism.

I'm going to assume you haven't read the reddit post I linked earlier. Thinking religion purely an emotional crutch is insulting. Emotion is what certainly brought me to Christ. I didn't have an answer as to why I felt loved every timed I prayed in an adoration room. But emotions don't last and chasing emotions is the death of faith. What happens when you that feeling of love disappears (and it will)? A theist without knowledge would lose all faith. What is increasing my faith (besides prayer of course), is intellect. Notably, philosophy. I have examined both atheistic and theistic viewpoints and came in the corner for theism in the end. It was not a decision I took lightly and it isn't a crutch. either. Like I said in my post, is it really a crutch to join a church where I'm not allowed to get married?

Please read this and inform yourself. What made me believe in religion was philosophy and intellect, as my posts on this page should hopefully show you. Not emotion.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Christianity/comments/68ohks/from_staunch_atheism_to_searching/

[CatsCatsCats]

For me, I can understand calling organized religion a crutch because to me a relationship with the greater forces of reality, the universe, Brahman, the Trinity, whatever name you want to apply to it -- is intensely personal and introspective and these massive organized groups being massively organized have the tendency to "one size fits all" spirituality and other aspects of them that seek to recruit to sustain themselves and these needs in my view distort them

But the other side of the coin, I definitely can see how QoI looks at Lager's statement and sees someone dead to higher possibilities i.e. naive 

[mormapope]

Id say gay relationships are usuallly way more healthy and sustainable than straight ones. Even issues of incompatibility are different id say.

It feels like there's a lot more trust or honesty outright as well. Its very natural and just for a woman to judge or guage a man's intentions.

[Rufus]

The problem of evil is a philosophical point. It isn't an inherently religious point. It's the argument of,"if God exists why is there evil? Why is there cancer?" It isn't religious because religion generally explains why evil exists. Problem of evil isn't a problem for religion. It's arguable that the problem of evil came before religion. We don't know.

If you read my large post above I tackle this briefly. Problem of evil has been argued by philosophers and great minds for thousands of years. It's a very good question and perhaps the best (IMO only) argument against a God. However, it isn't the rational question atheists think it is. It is purely emotional. It is the highlight of Epicurus' delemma.

I know about Epicurus, but not as an argument for god. At least not for an omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent god. Hence my confusion.

For me, I can understand calling organized religion a crutch because to me a relationship with the greater forces of reality, the universe, Brahman, the Trinity, whatever name you want to apply to it -- is intensely personal and introspective and these massive organized groups being massively organized have the tendency to "one size fits all" spirituality and other aspects of them that seek to recruit to sustain themselves and these needs in my view distort them

But the other side of the coin, I definitely can see how QoI looks at Lager's statement and sees someone dead to higher possibilities i.e. naive 

I think it's a hell of a lot more cynical than it is naive.

[CatsCatsCats]

Fair, cynical is a better word choice

[Himu]

I never argued the problem for God in my post.

However there's certainly a case to be made for it.

A couple of philosophical arguments go like this:

1) Most (all?) evil done on Earth is done by humankind. Animals are just trying to survive for the most part, and eat each other to achieve this. But man is different. Man does most evil against man. In animals, usually their problems are predators, not each other. Man has the capacity for free will. But man chooses to do evil to their fellow human. God gave us free will. God doesn't interfere because He gave us that gift and gave us the ability to choose. Since God is not of material but exists outside of the material, God does not interact with us in a physical manner. Since God is not of the material, God will not descend to Earth to correct wrongs every time some human does something awful. And since all man sins and has the capacity for evil, it would be unlawful to do this. So God gives us a choice and humans do not live up to our, nor God's, standard. Let's be real. If human beings wanted to solve world hunger, we would. There's enough food and money in the world right now for us to achieve this. Why do we allow the poor to starve? Because man is broken. We could have had alternative fuel decades ago but man chose to stick with fossil fuels, why? Greed, power, fear of change. Because man is incomplete. Now we are facing climate change. Another man made evil, which will result in unstable weather patterns. Will we blame God for that too?

2. The harder answer. Evil exists because good exists. Without evil we would never have the capacity for good because we wouldn't know what evil even is. Man grows through struggle. It's hard to accept, but true. We've all been through hardship. Wars happen, but they allow actions of true goodness to shine in a world of darkness. Without evil how could we possibly achieve free will? If there isn't evil, good doesn't exist either. How could we choose? If we can't choose, we are just dolls and no different from animals. And where there's badness, there's often goodness. For example, we have natural disasters that harm people. It sucks that a tornado landed, but without thermodynamics the tornado wouldn't exist. Without thermodynamics we wouldn't have jet engines for example. But we also wouldn't have things that kill people like tornadoes. But I think all of us agree that tornadoes are worth keeping around if we get things like jet propulsion out of it. God likely sees it similarly. Because there is evil, there must also be an infinite good. And this infinite good is God. Essentially, evil allows human not only a choice, but also an opportunity to grow.

[benjipwns]

I think there's a problem with applying motives to natural unthinking forces and then using as it an example to prove something regarding the actions of something capable of determining and deciding regarding both motive and morality.

[etiolate]

Etoilet: We are getting to semantics. To me, all religion by definition is organized. When someone says unorganized religion I think that's more akin to spirituality. Which I think most people would be OK with.

That's not exactly it either. I am talking about the way religion behaves in our social structure. I brought up social justice earlier and how it behaves like a religion within the people. It has true believers, and purges what it incorrectly sees as wrongs. That's not spirituality. When the Soviets tried to wipe out religion, they essentially had to apply the absolute faith towards belief in a idealistic Communism. The public works of Soviets are devotions to the glorification of a god they called Communism. And boy did they love purging people.

This is why I said you can't vacate religion.

Spirituality is something different. It is an element within established religions that people try to hang on to and pry out of religion as though it exists in a worthwhile manner on its own. I am not so sure spirituality works so well without religion.

[CatsCatsCats]

I don't really know how to approach you in these conversations, Etiolate, your reasoning shows to me a rigidity in thought and I don't know how to adequately show it back to you or engage with it

[Himu]

I think I understand what he's saying.

Is this article a good summation, Etiolate?

http://ideas.time.com/2013/03/21/viewpoint-the-problem-with-being-spiritual-but-not-religious/

Spirituality is an emotion. Religion is an obligation. Spirituality soothes. Religion mobilizes. Spirituality is satisfied with itself. Religion is dissatisfied with the world. Religions create aid organizations; as Nicholas Kristof pointed out in a column in the New York Times two years ago: the largest U.S.-based international relief and development organization is not Save the Children or Care, it’s World Vision, a Seattle-based Christian group.

Also a summation of my argument that spirituality without structure (religion) is probably not going to foster any lasting change.

[Cerveza mas fina]

Were on page 7 and I still have no clue what religion could offer

Feel happy when praying? I can take a nap
Moral code freeing me of thinking? Ill make my own judgements not based on constantely shifting interpretations of ancient texts
Belonging? Ill watch a football game

I don't see it at all

[Madrun Badrun]

Clearly you are neither a reasonable nor honest atheist.  I'll pray for you though.

[Himu]

Clearly you are neither a reasonable nor honest atheist.  I'll pray for you though.

You are absolutely right. He isn't an honest or reasonable atheist because reasonable atheists understand there is value in religion, they just reject it. I know atheists who still go to church because they find value in it. Lager is more than an atheist; he is an anti-theist. And thus, unreasonable.

Also, you're taking benji's quote out of context. Benji neglected, perhaps on purpose, to include the italicized are. The author isn't saying they're former atheists, thus making them reasonable people. He's saying these atheists are just reasonable people and it isn't unreasonable to be religious.

[Atramental]

Fun fact: I felt more "spiritual/closer to the divine aspect of the universe" after smoking weed than I ever did sitting in church and going to Christian schools during most of my childhood and my adolescence. 

[Madrun Badrun]

Also when Christians go to heaven, what will replace their sense of purpose after having lost their moral superiority to drive them?  Or do you think they will still just talk about how they tried to warn the Indian dude that delivered their lamb roti every Thursday night?

[etiolate]

I don't really know how to approach you in these conversations, Etiolate, your reasoning shows to me a rigidity in thought and I don't know how to adequately show it back to you or engage with it

You keep using words like rigidity and nostalgia for reasons I cannot figure out.

Do you understand what I mean by the way social justice groups or cults behave in a religious manner? The puritanism of it? How much it relies on belief? I am just trying to explain what I am getting at with regards to the concept of religion. Why I said there's healthy religion and unhealthy religion.

I think I understand what he's saying.

Is this article a good summation, Etiolate?

http://ideas.time.com/2013/03/21/viewpoint-the-problem-with-being-spiritual-but-not-religious/

Spirituality is an emotion. Religion is an obligation. Spirituality soothes. Religion mobilizes. Spirituality is satisfied with itself. Religion is dissatisfied with the world. Religions create aid organizations; as Nicholas Kristof pointed out in a column in the New York Times two years ago: the largest U.S.-based international relief and development organization is not Save the Children or Care, it’s World Vision, a Seattle-based Christian group.

Also a summation of my argument that spirituality without structure (religion) is probably not going to foster any lasting change.

I think that gets to the nature of spirituality. First, there's very spiritual and gnostic forms of old religions. They are into the spirituality of the experience. The deprivation of certain monk traditions or the litany of poems and dancing in a Rumi inspired sect. Another way to state the difference is how inward focused the nature of the thing may be. I can be very spiritual, but that's very much an inward focused experience that can sometimes be an attempt to escape the outside factors.

Outside of religion: Hallucinogens are a spiritual experience for some. Meditation can be a part of spirituality, but that doesn't really connect the singular person to the rest of humanity or the world. Sometimes spirituality is a coping mechanism, and here you have people who think of religion as a coping mechanism and thus think spirituality is a good replacement.

So Spirituality is opposed to my atheist and agnostic examples of religion, Communist idealism, ethnic nationalism, or Social Studies Warriors, you see actions that deal with the rest of the world adn seek change. So that reflects the idea of religion being unhappy with the world.

I'd say healthy religion is inward and outward. Spirituality is so inward that it sometimes skips on its the issue of duality or just outright rejects it (which you can make the claim that someone like Marshall Rosenberg does), and that can be very destructive.

[Himu]

Fun fact: I felt more "spiritual/closer to the divine aspect of the universe" after smoking weed than I ever did sitting in church and going to Christian schools during most of my childhood and my adolescence. 

What kind of church?

[Himu]

Also when Christians go to heaven, what will replace their sense of purpose after having lost their moral superiority to drive them?  Or do you think they will still just talk about how they tried to warn the Indian dude that delivered their lamb roti every Thursday night?

This is embarassing and I'm embarrassed for you.

This page. This is what the anti-theists of the bore have? "If I want community I'll watch a football game?"

Some atheists are fine. They came to their own conclusions. But anti-theists are on a whole different level and almost universally argue simplistic and utterly shallow critiques. It's really hard to respect, even when I was atheist. Then again, I was an agnostic atheist and therefore far more willing to accept or talk about different viewpoints. But gnostic atheists, girllllll I tell ya.

[Atramental]

Nondenominational protestant. And I've been to a catholic churches as well.

I didn't resonate with either.

It all felt stale and hollow to me. Which was frustrating since I would always hear how "charged" other people felt when they went to church/worshipped god. If anything it was all draining to me. Probably a big reason why I ended up losing my shit at the end of high school and into college at BJU.

Weed tho... I was seeing/feeling a divine and golden glow that only gets hinted at when people say they experienced a divine revelation. 

[I'm a Puppy!]

Weed Church

[I'm a Puppy!]

Clearly you are neither a reasonable nor honest atheist.  I'll pray for you though.

You are absolutely right. He isn't an honest or reasonable atheist because reasonable atheists understand there is value in religion, they just reject it. I know atheists who still go to church because they find value in it. Lager is more than an atheist; he is an anti-theist. And thus, unreasonable.

Also, you're taking benji's quote out of context. Benji neglected, perhaps on purpose, to include the italicized are. The author isn't saying they're former atheists, thus making them reasonable people. He's saying these atheists are just reasonable people and it isn't unreasonable to be religious.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's not confuse Lager's nihilism for anti-theism.
Anti-theism takes effort.
 

[Himu]

What did you do when you went to a Catholic Church? Did you pray? Honestly, I don't suggest going to mass at first. Try going to the adoration room and praying/meditating. Ask for God to open your heart.

Non denominational Protestant. *stares into the wind like an anime character* I'm so sorry.

[Atramental]

What did you do when you went to a Catholic Church? Did you pray? Honestly, I don't suggest going to mass at first. Try going to the adoration room and praying/meditating. Ask for God to open your heart.

Non denominational Protestant. *stares into the wind like an anime character* I'm so sorry.

Himu. I did all of that shit. It seems like you're not liking the answers I and others are giving you because they are too "base" and "simplistic". Because they don't fit the explanations of the theologians and apologists you've read and listened to.

[Madrun Badrun]

Also when Christians go to heaven, what will replace their sense of purpose after having lost their moral superiority to drive them?  Or do you think they will still just talk about how they tried to warn the Indian dude that delivered their lamb roti every Thursday night?

This is embarassing and I'm embarrassed for you.

This page. This is what the anti-theists of the bore have? "If I want community I'll watch a football game?"

Some atheists are fine. They came to their own conclusions. But anti-theists are on a whole different level and almost universally argue simplistic and utterly shallow critiques. It's really hard to respect, even when I was atheist. Then again, I was an agnostic atheist and therefore far more willing to accept or talk about different viewpoints. But gnostic atheists, girllllll I tell ya.

who said I was anti-theist?  My problem isn't Christianity, and never has been Christianity. It's just the people who worship Christ. 

[jakefromstatefarm]

or some kind of salvation (from what?)

from man's fallen state of nature, the problem of evil, suffering, and death; broadly speaking

The first two of which seems like axioms that came with religion. In a selling you the disease before the medicine kind of way. Definitely the first one. Though I admit I'm ignorant on the details.

no that's fair, I'm specifically giving the account that you'd find in most branches in Christianity, I should've been more clear. the first ones often tied up with an Augustinian view of man as corruptible, weak, and inherently sinful; that's definitely not everyone's cup of tea nowadays. Historically, its most common to see evil defined as the privation of good, i.e., it doesn't hold any positive content in its own right. it's the result of the rupture between God and his creation and this rupture is the thing obscuring mankinds relationship with god -it renders infinite divinity incomprehensible. For a good take on it: David Bentley Hart.

For why someone might find generic theism compelling: some arguments from contingency, and some objections to them.

[Himu]

What did you do when you went to a Catholic Church? Did you pray? Honestly, I don't suggest going to mass at first. Try going to the adoration room and praying/meditating. Ask for God to open your heart.

Non denominational Protestant. *stares into the wind like an anime character* I'm so sorry.

Himu. I did all of that shit. It seems like you're not liking the answers I and others are giving you because they are too "base" and "simplistic". Because they don't fit the explanations of the theologians and apologists you've read and listened to.

Nope. It's because I know from personal experience that I and other former atheists often, while not necessarily ignorant of religion - as I know you're not - didn't give it as much a chance as we thought we did? And when I said I tried in the past I realized that my attempts weren't really fully genuine? I realize it's projecting. But I'm suggesting it only because I want you to feel that charge. For a long time I was jealous of theists. I wanted to believe too. I'm proposing maybe there's an angle you missed that can help you believe. Maybe I'm wrong about it but I'm only doing it out of good will. I'm not saying you DIDN'T give it your all. But maybe, just maybe, there's something you missed? Personally, I didn't come to faith until my heart was open to it. At that point I was pure agnostic. So maybe that's what it takes. I don't know.

This is also why I asked what church. My church just had tradition but no spirit. It truly fit the tradition as nostalgia that Ronito described. It was and is (still) a spiritually dead church. A lot of protestanism doesn't work for me as well. I can't stand low churches, I can't stand mega churches, but high churches. That's my ticket. I couldn't stand the selfish "if we just believe in God no matter what our actions are we'll be saved" shallow ticket to heaven  a lot of Protestants profess. It's one of my main draws to Catholicism in that faith is represented by action. So I don't know your history. But there's a lot to consider. I don't know if you believed once saved always saved (ugh) or not. So I'm trying to consider it and offer alternatives to Christian thought.

[I'm a Puppy!]

People have a way of finding what it is they're actively looking for.

[Atramental]

Ugh...

When people start accusing me of not "feeling/doing the right spiritual stuff" that's when I know it's my time to leave.

Only I and I alone can say what feels legitimate to me.

You're trying to cram every human "spiritual" experience into one singular experience (yours) and that is absolutely ridiculous to me.

[Raist]

People have a way of finding what it is they're actively looking for.

Paging Bono.

Ugh...

When people start accusing me of not "feeling/doing the right spiritual stuff" that's when I know it's my time to leave.

Only I and I alone can say what feels legitimate to me.

You're trying to cram every human "spiritual" experience into one singular experience (yours) and that is absolutely ridiculous to me.

You just need to git gud at god.

[Himu]

That's certainly a way to interpret my post.

[Atramental]

Yep.

Well I'm gonna smoke some weed and eat Vietnamese food. Ta-ta. 

[Madrun Badrun]

You just need to git gud at god.

Its not uncommon to try out a few different classes before you do your soul level 1 run. 

[TVC15]

Yep.

Well I'm gonna smoke some weed and eat Vietnamese food. Ta-ta. 

I hope you're one of those good vaporizer people and not one of those papers/blunts people that are doing it wrong.

[Himu]

I think there's a problem with applying motives to natural unthinking forces and then using as it an example to prove something regarding the actions of something capable of determining and deciding regarding both motive and morality.

That's fair. But it's also endemic to the religion. My favorite example is Jesus' crucifixion and perhaps the final 24 hours of his life. The fact that he prayed alone in the forest while the people closest to him couldn't stay awake and keep him company. Judas' betrayal. Peter's denial. The actions of the Romans. The behavior of the Pharisees. The murder of Jesus. Corruption. Jealousy. Murder. Power. Hate. All of human depravity is on display in the Gospel. From humanities worst (above examples) to its best (Roman soldier giving Jesus something to drink as he's on the cross, the traveling man who helps lift the cross for Jesus, John protecting Mary during the depravity). All I'm saying is that where there's evil, there's a capacity for good. I'm not sure what part of my post you specifically disagree with. I wish you could quote it.

[Himu]

or some kind of salvation (from what?)

from man's fallen state of nature, the problem of evil, suffering, and death; broadly speaking

The first two of which seems like axioms that came with religion. In a selling you the disease before the medicine kind of way. Definitely the first one. Though I admit I'm ignorant on the details.

no that's fair, I'm specifically giving the account that you'd find in most branches in Christianity, I should've been more clear. the first ones often tied up with an Augustinian view of man as corruptible, weak, and inherently sinful; that's definitely not everyone's cup of tea nowadays. Historically, its most common to see evil defined as the privation of good, i.e., it doesn't hold any positive content in its own right. it's the result of the rupture between God and his creation and this rupture is the thing obscuring mankinds relationship with god -it renders infinite divinity incomprehensible. For a good take on it: David Bentley Hart.

For why someone might find generic theism compelling: some arguments from contingency, and some objections to them.

Still getting down into the meat of Aquinas and Plato although I know the basic arguments. Thanks for this.

I really do not need religion to be whole, or some kind of salvation (from what?)

Also how is it arrogant to say and think religious people have a weakness, you say yourself man has a hole that only God can fill. That is a weakness.

How is it weakness? The hole man has is filled all sorts of awfulness. Are you saying filling the hole with power, lust, hate, or greed is strength? Because that is the opposite of weakness. Man fills the hole with something in the end. It might even be something positive, like family. But family dies. As the basic Buddhist mantra presents,"life is suffering." And our main purpose is to fill that hole.

[Atramental]

edit: I'll keep my tasteless jokes elsewhere 

[I'm a Puppy!]

What? What joke could you make about a man need for a hole that needs filling?

[Atramental]

Now that I'm on the outside looking in, there sure is a lot of implied homo-eroticism/sexual innuendo in Christian texts and teachings.   

[Himu]

Now that I'm on the outside looking in, there sure is a lot of implied homo-eroticism/sexual innuendo in Christian texts and teachings.   

It truly is glorious.

[I'm a Puppy!]

Now that I'm on the outside looking in, there sure is a lot of implied homo-eroticism/sexual innuendo in Christian texts and teachings.   

I found the same, but not just in Christian texts, but all kinds of texts from different religions.
Then I realized that, nope, that was just me

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

[Himu]

Jake: thoughts on arguments against the argument of contingency?

I find it interesting how Christianity, Taoism, and Buddhism have similar ideas on contingency.

[CatsCatsCats]

I genuinely would sit down and smoke a joint and discuss this in person with any of you. I don't think I'm "right" and am very interested in hearing what other people truly believe

[CatsCatsCats]

I don't really know how to approach you in these conversations, Etiolate, your reasoning shows to me a rigidity in thought and I don't know how to adequately show it back to you or engage with it

You keep using words like rigidity and nostalgia for reasons I cannot figure out.

Do you understand what I mean by the way social justice groups or cults behave in a religious manner? The puritanism of it? How much it relies on belief? I am just trying to explain what I am getting at with regards to the concept of religion. Why I said there's healthy religion and unhealthy religion.

I think I understand what he's saying.

Is this article a good summation, Etiolate?

http://ideas.time.com/2013/03/21/viewpoint-the-problem-with-being-spiritual-but-not-religious/

Spirituality is an emotion. Religion is an obligation. Spirituality soothes. Religion mobilizes. Spirituality is satisfied with itself. Religion is dissatisfied with the world. Religions create aid organizations; as Nicholas Kristof pointed out in a column in the New York Times two years ago: the largest U.S.-based international relief and development organization is not Save the Children or Care, it’s World Vision, a Seattle-based Christian group.

Also a summation of my argument that spirituality without structure (religion) is probably not going to foster any lasting change.

I think that gets to the nature of spirituality. First, there's very spiritual and gnostic forms of old religions. They are into the spirituality of the experience. The deprivation of certain monk traditions or the litany of poems and dancing in a Rumi inspired sect. Another way to state the difference is how inward focused the nature of the thing may be. I can be very spiritual, but that's very much an inward focused experience that can sometimes be an attempt to escape the outside factors.

Outside of religion: Hallucinogens are a spiritual experience for some. Meditation can be a part of spirituality, but that doesn't really connect the singular person to the rest of humanity or the world. Sometimes spirituality is a coping mechanism, and here you have people who think of religion as a coping mechanism and thus think spirituality is a good replacement.

So Spirituality is opposed to my atheist and agnostic examples of religion, Communist idealism, ethnic nationalism, or Social Studies Warriors, you see actions that deal with the rest of the world adn seek change. So that reflects the idea of religion being unhappy with the world.

I'd say healthy religion is inward and outward. Spirituality is so inward that it sometimes skips on its the issue of duality or just outright rejects it (which you can make the claim that someone like Marshall Rosenberg does), and that can be very destructive.

I wasn't the one saying nostalgia. What I meant by rigidity is I see you coming from one perspective and would love to see you openly examining from others. And if you don't think mushrooms connect you to others / the world, I would argue you haven't done them lol but yes I see what you're getting at and how you're connecting social justice puritanism and belief/religion and how one could set criteria to judge a religion as healthy or unhealthy. I would tweak that a bit and instead of condemning certain religions or manner of thought, say how they are carried out or strategies for implementation can either suit the greater needs of community/people/society or not

[CatsCatsCats]

Also re: rigidity, the way you communicate I guess I'm just interpreting as coming across as you think you know the answers definitively and it doesn't suit my desire to engage in open honest accepting discussion

[Himu]

I have never talked about this stuff high.

[CatsCatsCats]

Oh man, that's basically all my wife and I do when super high

[etiolate]

I don't really know how to approach you in these conversations, Etiolate, your reasoning shows to me a rigidity in thought and I don't know how to adequately show it back to you or engage with it

You keep using words like rigidity and nostalgia for reasons I cannot figure out.

Do you understand what I mean by the way social justice groups or cults behave in a religious manner? The puritanism of it? How much it relies on belief? I am just trying to explain what I am getting at with regards to the concept of religion. Why I said there's healthy religion and unhealthy religion.

I think I understand what he's saying.

Is this article a good summation, Etiolate?

http://ideas.time.com/2013/03/21/viewpoint-the-problem-with-being-spiritual-but-not-religious/

Spirituality is an emotion. Religion is an obligation. Spirituality soothes. Religion mobilizes. Spirituality is satisfied with itself. Religion is dissatisfied with the world. Religions create aid organizations; as Nicholas Kristof pointed out in a column in the New York Times two years ago: the largest U.S.-based international relief and development organization is not Save the Children or Care, it’s World Vision, a Seattle-based Christian group.

Also a summation of my argument that spirituality without structure (religion) is probably not going to foster any lasting change.

I think that gets to the nature of spirituality. First, there's very spiritual and gnostic forms of old religions. They are into the spirituality of the experience. The deprivation of certain monk traditions or the litany of poems and dancing in a Rumi inspired sect. Another way to state the difference is how inward focused the nature of the thing may be. I can be very spiritual, but that's very much an inward focused experience that can sometimes be an attempt to escape the outside factors.

Outside of religion: Hallucinogens are a spiritual experience for some. Meditation can be a part of spirituality, but that doesn't really connect the singular person to the rest of humanity or the world. Sometimes spirituality is a coping mechanism, and here you have people who think of religion as a coping mechanism and thus think spirituality is a good replacement.

So Spirituality is opposed to my atheist and agnostic examples of religion, Communist idealism, ethnic nationalism, or Social Studies Warriors, you see actions that deal with the rest of the world adn seek change. So that reflects the idea of religion being unhappy with the world.

I'd say healthy religion is inward and outward. Spirituality is so inward that it sometimes skips on its the issue of duality or just outright rejects it (which you can make the claim that someone like Marshall Rosenberg does), and that can be very destructive.

I wasn't the one saying nostalgia. What I meant by rigidity is I see you coming from one perspective and would love to see you openly examining from others. And if you don't think mushrooms connect you to others / the world, I would argue you haven't done them lol but yes I see what you're getting at and how you're connecting social justice puritanism and belief/religion and how one could set criteria to judge a religion as healthy or unhealthy. I would tweak that a bit and instead of condemning certain religions or manner of thought, say how they are carried out or strategies for implementation can either suit the greater needs of community/people/society or not

Oh man. Sorry I confused my cat avatars.

I've examined this many ways before. So my response is often "I've been down that road already".

My main goal with much of my posts is pushing the discussion to a level that is where I am getting at. I opened up with saying religion may be an evolutionary adaptation that is a part of us as a species. I thought that would be controversial, but nobody even blinked. From there, I have to see if people are engaging what I'm saying or not. I will be rigid in how I approach this, but that's because I don't find the casual conversations about it all that interesting or new.

I don't aim to be condescending or an asshole. I am not hiding my disinterest in certain discussions though.

[CatsCatsCats]

Well, I personally don't find it too far fetched to examine religion as evolutionarily advantageous-- one could easily examine a lot of faiths and see how their tenets seem to put humanity's survival and reproduction in the forefront (elevating heterosexual unions, suicide as cardinal sin, pro-life)