religion and control

[CreepingJesus]

There is no god.

Ergo there is no reason for religion to exist.

Ergo all religion can be dismissed as worthless rubbish.

The fact that there are placebo benefits to be gained by those unable to find strength without an imaginary friend, does not legitimise the great lie that religion is. Nor does it legitimise the suffering and damage that religion causes.

[ANDY-J2]

Originally posted by CreepingJesus
There is no god.

Ergo there is no reason for religion to exist.

Ergo all religion can be dismissed as worthless rubbish.

The fact that there are placebo benefits to be gained by those unable to find strength without an imaginary friend, does not legitimise the great lie that religion is. Nor does it legitimise the suffering and damage that religion causes.

"There is no God" is an assertion of your point of view-assertions require proofs to support them.Disbelief requires no evidence-positive assertions do.It is incorrect to state religion causes suffering and damage-certain aspects of all religions however are misguided and have the potential to cause harm,these should be challenged.The views of any atheist who states that all religion can be dismissed as worthless rubbish equally need to be challenged-that viewpoint is as unenlightened as that of the most bigoted religionist.It is a perfectly natural thing for human beings to have faith in some benevolent power which is greater than themselves-it is not weakness to have such faith and it is not harmful in fact there is evidence to suggest that having faith is positively beneficial.There are sound moral precepts in all of the world's major religions as well as meaningless dogma-if an individual through his religious beliefs is encouraged to adhere to these moral precepts,as many people are,then religion fulfills a positive purpose.If all religion is rubbish then there are a hell of a lot of misguided people in the world-clearly however all religion is not rubbish-only certain aspects of it.

[Fear_nam_Beanntan]

Originally posted by Neil_Caple
Which do you think is the easy answer to the question of what happens after you die?

(a) You go to live in a beautiful place with all your family and friends and everybody is happy for ever and ever.

(b) You cease to exist.

If you think (b) is the easy, child-like answer then maybe you're right about atheism being easy. I don't.

Indeed, answer (a) is a very childish answer. But that is not what I believe. I believe rather that I can have no absolute certainty about where I will spend eternity, hence I might spend it in a place where the worm never dies and the fire is never quenched, weeping and gnashing my teeth all the while. Moreover, even if I am ultimatley bound for eternal bliss, I will first have to endure a fiery purgation. Also, I can have a moral certainty that, out of my entire family, I will most likely find only my grandparents and perhaps a few others with me in this place of bliss, and only one of my two main circles of friends.

Originally posted by Fear_nam_Beanntan
I can have a moral certainty that, out of my entire family, I will most likely find only my grandparents and perhaps a few others with me in this place of bliss, and only one of my two main circles of friends.

Every Holy Willie knows he's bound for the good place, even if the majority is headed for the bad fire. Strange that, isn't it? You can't all be right if, as you say, very few actually get through the Pearly Gates.

[Fear_nam_Beanntan]

You should have quoted the first part of my last post. I explicitly stated that I can't know that I'm going to heaven.

I agree... rare indeed.

[ScabbyDouglas]

TS:I try to look for the logical explanation first. Because God is part of existence, however, it stands to reason that He has some role to play. In fact, Christianity includes the belief that God often operates via delegation: so you cannot say that Christians always use the 'God in the Machine' approach.

I don't know whether you are referring to the "deus ex machina" - the shorthand for describing the arrival of a deity "from the machinery" in classical drama, or whether you are conflating that with the idea of Koestler's "Ghost in the Machine". At any rate, you are arguing in a rather sollipsistic manner. You start off by asserting that God exists and use that as support for the notion that he must have a role to play. So what I see as unproved, as illogical (not supported by logic), you take as an a priori starting point.

From there, you say well, since he's there, he must do *something*. But since I don't accept your basic assumption, I am not about to accept your next one.

You tell me that Christians do not always use the "God in the Machine" approach. But I don't understand what that means, in the context of your example. Christians (or any other religion) often do like to assert that god uses "delegates" in the shape of human beings to achieve his aims. Presumably, this would most often be when some individual or group carrries out some act that is deemed "good". However, if god works through delegates to do good things, why should god not be equally responsible for the bad things that happen? The questions relating to divine intervention or acts relates equally to good and evil. What justification is there for associating good acts with divine inspiration - "delegation" - and bad or evil acts with human nature?

If god is capable of the one, then why not the other? If the answer is "Because God is good", then I say, "there is no evidence of that".

TS:"I'm a parent." (Scabby)

But I am not talking about age. I contend that atheism is an immature philosophy, irrespective of the age groups of actual atheists. It is a reactionary kind of thinking and not very reflective. You have the audacity to say that Theism is for people who are hard of thinking, not realizing that the most brilliant thinkers in history were usually Theists and that C.S. Lewis, a Cambridge Don, was a remarkably gifted man intellectually.

Tom, you introduced the metaphor of childhood to describe atheism. I rejected your metaphor and introduced one of my own. I am astounded that you could imagine that I was referring to actual age - if you re-read what I said, I was comparing a child's worldview to that of the religious person. I have the "audacity" to say anything I like. I'm an adult, and can answer for myself. As for what I realise or do not realise, you are unqualified to make any such assessments. C.S. Lewis (who I do realise is one your personal heroes) aside, the vast majority of Christians or indeed any other religionists practise their faith unthinkingly. Now, I appreciate you may have an inclination to rebut this, but I urge you to draw breath, and reflect. I would by no means call C.S. Lewis "hard-of-thinking", however neither would I say that he "took an easy way out" - I would, though, say that I believe he was mistaken.

However, I'd suggest that very very few Christians in the world have expended anything like the same mental energy on considering their beliefs as Lewis did. It's evident, not only in the West, but also in the Middle East, that for many peoples throughout the World religion is a tribal affair, and not one of intellectual conviction. That's why religion becomes tied up with conflict, with war, with pogrom, because people almost never make religious choices based upon active thought processes, but all too often upon what tribe they happen to belong to. Which is also one of the reasons why adherents of different faiths which appear to advocate similar things (tolerance, peace, and so on) can commit war, and murder in the name of their separate deities. If these people had ever taken the trouble to acquaint themselves with the basic tenets of their faiths, and based their behaviour upon those precepts then they would be unable to behave as they do.

So until most people make religious choices in a similar manner to you and C.S Lewis, I'll continue to assume that most of them are somewhat challenged in the intellectual department.