Freedom From Atheism Foundation

[fadetree]

Cmon, he just cited some of the standard arguments. You might think them juvenile but they are arguments that still need to be dealt with...LOTS of people get hung up on them and they aren't all idiots, those are legitimate questions. I did not find him to be a jerk about it at all..unless I missed something earlier in the thread, which I didn't read trololololol

[Archalen]

Originally Posted by Malice_Mizer [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

That's interesting, because your questions are honestly pretty juvenile. If you believe that people adhere to religious systems and a belief in God simply to comfort themselves and avoid any liability for their own lives, then I don't think you've dug deep enough into the nature of human spirituality. Even the way you frame the questions betrays a shallow attempt at understanding.

For example the problem of pain is explicitly addressed and concretely satisfied in any orthodox Christian theology: God allows evil to exist to bring about a greater good, i.e. we are unable to view the entire "puzzle," and experience only a small piece, our own piece, of creation. Therefore, any judgment you make about the fairness or unfairness of existence is itself unfair, because you have no viewed existence as a completed whole. It's a teleological understanding of existence that is honestly supported now by science (now that science has abandoned the static-universe theory it slavish held onto until 50 years ago), which says that our universe has a beginning and will one day end. Until then-- until you're able to view creation as the mind that conceived it-- any analysis you make is flawed and incomplete.

Existence absolutely is a puzzle, which is why when people ask me about the existence of God, I say "I don't know."

[Dragonsblood1987]

Originally Posted by Malice_Mizer [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

That's interesting, because your questions are honestly pretty juvenile. If you believe that people adhere to religious systems and a belief in God simply to comfort themselves and avoid any liability for their own lives, then I don't think you've dug deep enough into the nature of human spirituality. Even the way you frame the questions betrays a shallow attempt at understanding.

For example the problem of pain is explicitly addressed and concretely satisfied in any orthodox Christian theology: God allows evil to exist to bring about a greater good, i.e. we are unable to view the entire "puzzle," and experience only a small piece, our own piece, of creation. Therefore, any judgment you make about the fairness or unfairness of existence is itself unfair, because you have no viewed existence as a completed whole. It's a teleological understanding of existence that is honestly supported now by science (now that science has abandoned the static-universe theory it slavish held onto until 50 years ago), which says that our universe has a beginning and will one day end. Until then-- until you're able to view creation as the mind that conceived it-- any analysis you make is flawed and incomplete.

you say that asking if religion is followed for the sake of comfort, what is the ultimate goal of being spiritual? that isnt really a question with an objective answer. i wouldnt really say that judeo-christian religions are very spiritual, especially not in comparison with eastern religions.

eastern religions tend to explore spirituality as a means of achieving enlightenment. you are a soul, you have always been, just not always in your current physical form. everything that reality encompasses is bound in some way, thus making everything in it small parts of a whole. if you do good, you'll amass positive energy and go up a rung in the ladder when your physical form dies, being reborn a little bit closer to true enlightenment. or at least you'll have more means of becoming enlightened at your disposal. life and death are like the breath of the universe, theres a balance that is maintained, we're all part of a greater consciousness.



judeo christian religions however, are a bit more linear and black and white (though theyre the most frequently openly interpreted). god said "let there be light". bam. we're here. now that youre here, youve been gifted with free will. what you do with it is your choice, but if you dont do what god wants, he, the unconditionally loving creator, will punish you for ever with physical torture (although some offshoots of the big three have varying amounts of penance; its not always forever). if youre good and dont use the free will god gave you, you'll go to heaven, or some plane of positive energy to put it another way. in heaven, theres no pain, no hunger, everyones always happy you get to see dead loved ones again ect. if youre bad, youre barred from heaven, damned to hell or some negative plane where your only company is some chief embodiment of evil, and all the asshole that have ever existed and died before you.



it seems to me like spirituality doesnt play enough of a roll in christianity to even mention it, hence why i asked what i did.

[Dragonsblood1987]

oops. first sentence. "you say that asking if religion is followed for the sake of comfort is juvenile"*

FTFM

[DeruIsLove]

You forgot the guilt trip. Abrahamic religions love their martyrs.

[mtb tripper]

Originally Posted by fadetree [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

ooh someone's been reading Mr. Lewis.

[mtb tripper]

either that or wikipedia

[Champion_Standing]

Originally Posted by mtb tripper [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

either that or wikipedia

Not wikipedia, he reads the links to the sources.

[Malice_Mizer]

Again, I'm sorry, but the way you've described Christianity is almost 100% inaccurate and a modern whitewash of its essence.

You also neglect the creation stories of other "spiritual" religions. Many Hindus say that the "universe" began as water/was formed through the creative vibration/etc. Brahma this or that, whoosh, everything is created including other celestial beings.

Christianity is much more similar to transcendental Hinduism and other highly philosophical spiritual systems than you give it credit for. Most Orthodox Christian denominations (i.e. Catholic and Eastern Orthodox) believe that most of Genesis is a highly metaphorical spiritual analogy. In fact, the Catechism of the Catholic Church strictly adheres to the idea that there are a series of different ways to read different parts of the Bible based on the apostolic tradition. Not everything is literal. A lot of it is spiritual allegory, which is important for you to recognize. For instance, most Hindus believe that there exists, beyond all celestial beings and personalized incarnations of "God," an all-pervasive, unconditional reality that we call God, within which all material existence exists. This is called Brahman. It's a very cool idea, and almost identical to Spinoza's spirituality, except it was conceived of thousands of years before him in India.

Anyway, this concept is really no different than Christianity's understanding of God. It is nuanced. It is complex, and more than willing to admit the inherent Mystery of spirituality-- accepting our own inability to even conceive of such a concept as infinity or eternity or God. In Exodus, when Moses asks Yahweh what his name is to be able to tell the others who is calling them, Yahweh responds, "I am He Who Is." From the Catholic Catechism: "This divine name is mysterious just as God is mystery. It is at once a name revealed and something like the refusal of a name, and hence it better expresses God as what he is - infinitely above everything that we can understand or say."

Since nothing within material existence holds within itself the very reason for its existence (that is, you have to appeal to a higher reason for something's existence, such as a flower from a seed from carbon from stars from the big bang from etc.), there must be something whose very nature it is To Be-- To Exist. This is often referred to as the "Argument from Contingency" by Saint Thomas Aquinas, or the "Unmoved Mover," or the "Uncaused First Cause." It's a basic philosophical problem that Christianity deals with in a very spiritual way. It's not "black and white." It's not, "He's a big dude with a white beard in the sky yelling shit at you." That is how modern society views Christianity and it is simply flawed.

[Malice_Mizer]

Originally Posted by Champion_Standing [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Not wikipedia, he reads the links to the sources.

It's called reading a fucking book and not dropping out of high school.