Thread: Is it possible for us as men to have a discussion on God

Originally Posted by hoglahoo

Well, I follow you up to a point, but it breaks down because who taught the first guy to have a belief system? And who taught him? etc

And if someone came up with it on his or her own, why did they do that? If it was self-taught, then why would that person have any reason to feel guilt?

The light analogy proves a different point though. You cannot prove to the blind man that light is visible or that visibility even exists unless he chooses to believe what you say about it. He has no way to observe the visible spectrum that you claim is visible. Even if he did have an indirect method, he'd still have to believe his own observations and inferences

Everything you and I have proof of are really just concepts we've chosen to believe but we're not right just because we've accepted the evidence we have as proof

C'mon Lee, you must have seen Monty Python's Life of Brian. People were running around torn between various mythologies worried that the wrong belief might make them lepers or blind or damned for eternity. A few of the better hucksters got together on one line and refined it to serve whatever agenda they had at the time. They then convinced the political leaders that it would be in their best interest to support this particular belief. Eventually, the political boss was also the religious leader. In 325 ad, the Roman Emperor Constantine gathered a bunch of his buds together in a place called Nicea (which is now someplace in Turkey) and they had a big conference to hammer out what the rules should be. They came up with that little ditty known as the Nicene Creed. Well some of the guys weren't down with that much regulation and dogma so they decided that if there was a god, it certainly couldn't be that holy trinity business it had to be only one thing or being, a unit. Those guys stormed off and began their own teaching and called it Unitarian. Well, the rest is history. The rules get changed as needed. The people are beaten down in the name of God.

A person's fear of the unknown is a powerful weapon for controlling that person.

icedog-> very insightful, very thought provoking. good post.

I feel a little full disclosure would be instructive at this point, be warned, some of this may offend you. it's not intended to be anything more or less than my personal experiences:
myself, I was extremely active (as a child and teenager) in the evangelical church that the American South is so famous (infamous?) for. I got a very close firsthand view of how they operated, and how they "won souls."

it was, to be quite frank, nothing short of terrorism. I mean that in the literal sense and not in the sense that the DHL uses (someone who is brown and we don't like them). you know what the number one conversion tool was? selling religion as a form of eternal fire insurance. you can laugh, and say that's ridiculous... and you'd be right, but that's how the church, (in my experience) operates.

as I grew into adulthood, I realized that I was sick of the guilt, sick of the scare tactics and sick having to hide the fact that I was flat out ashamed of how my fellow churchgoers behaved towards people who thought differently. I found the weekly proceedings to be ridiculous pep-rallies (you ever see the Blues Brothers? my church was exactly like that, seriously; people foaming at the mouth and dancing in the aisles, speaking in tongues and hitting you on the forehead to knock you over. Benny Hinn was guest speaker there once, that oughta tell you something) that favored emotion over reason. it was entirely mentally bankrupt. that's pretty much never ok in my book.

over the years, I've seen religion (I won't equate church to God, it's not fair to either party) turn otherwise decent people into slavering maniacs who thought it was fun to harass everyone who believed different. I've seen it turn bright young seminary student into rhetoric-wielding bullies. on a nice day in September, 7 years ago, we all saw what religion can do when it runs unchecked. I've watched little kids throwing rocks at other little kids on the playground because their parents went to different churches. literally. here in America, not over in the middle east. here in Texas, where the Bible Belt buckles.

"but jockeys, maybe you just had a bad experience! not all religion is that way, you are throwing the baby out with the bathwater!" I don't care. honestly, after the baby has been in water that nasty, I'm just as happy never touching it again. intellectually, I realize that some religious folks are probably not like this. some of them are most likely decent folk who happen to anthropomophize the laws of nature into an invisible friend. (according to my thinking) that's all well and good, I really don't have a problem with it. seems silly to me, but hey, if it makes you happy, knock yourself out.

but you know something? I've never had a brush with religion, irl, that didn't involve smug condescension at best and soul-blackmailing hellfire at worst. the folks here on this forum seem to be a little less rabid, and have perhaps even restored one small shred of my faith in the religious portion of humanity. but I have an entire lifetime (so far, heh) of experience, direct, firsthand exprience, that tells me, in no uncertain terms, that relgion is not just nonsense, it is DANGEROUS nonsense that ruins people, and is a big contributor in man's inhumanity to man. I KNOW it's not always like this. I'm just talking about what I've seen. and what I've seen is not good. I've seen religion ruin people emotionally (hey kid, see that girl, think she's pretty? well then you're bad and dirty and going to hell.), financially (just half a million more dollars and we can build a new sancuary, yay! God wants us to build it, if you don't give, you're going to hell!), and even physically a few times (cancer? don't mess with chemo, we'll just lay hands on you and PRAY the cancer out. if God likes you, you'll live!). those examples are phrased a tad sarcastically, but I have watched them unfold before my eyes more times than I can count.

the reason I'm telling this story is that I think I may have come across a little abrasive a few times in this thread, and that's not the face I like to show folks, especially ones I like. so I thought that maybe if people understood where I'm coming from, some of the sting in my words might be eased. maybe not, maybe this is just making it worse, I dunno. but I wanted to be honest, and say that if I have any hostility towards religion and religious folks it's really not aimed at any of y'all, nor is it because of my interactions here that I feel the way I do. y'all are a classy bunch of gents (and ladies) and I'm sorry if I've come across too harsh.

Originally Posted by icedog

C'mon Lee, you must have seen Monty Python's Life of Brian. People were running around torn between various mythologies worried that the wrong belief might make them lepers or blind or damned for eternity. A few of the better hucksters got together on one line and refined it to serve whatever agenda they had at the time. They then convinced the political leaders that it would be in their best interest to support this particular belief. Eventually, the political boss was also the religious leader. In 325 ad, the Roman Emperor Constantine gathered a bunch of his buds together in a place called Nicea (which is now someplace in Turkey) and they had a big conference to hammer out what the rules should be. They came up with that little ditty known as the Nicene Creed. Well some of the guys weren't down with that much regulation and dogma so they decided that if there was a god, it certainly couldn't be that holy trinity business it had to be only one thing or being, a unit. Those guys stormed off and began their own teaching and called it Unitarian. Well, the rest is history. The rules get changed as needed. The people are beaten down in the name of God.

A person's fear of the unknown is a powerful weapon for controlling that person.

The Unitarians are actually a very recent branch of Protestantism. Perhaps you are refering to the Monophysites? Their doctrines were contended at a later ecumenical council in 451AD.

The first big split was the Roman Catholic church breaking away in 1054AD. And from them the Protestants broke off, and so on, and so forth...


Details of the timeline

Something to consider: Ok, if you take the cynical view that the Church is run by folks interested in only gaining power/money (many of the groups now most ceratinly are, mind you...) then what was it that the people who were Christians for the first 325 years in it for?

Was it that they had lost their leader, who was crucified by the people in power? Did that sound so very appealing? Were they digging the whole *get thrown to the lions* aspect?

325 years of persecution, not raking in the money.


Jockey:Sorry to hear about your experience. It sounds alot like my father's. I was not raised under any sort of religion, I converted as an adult (25). My dad told me one time that when he was a kid (out in Ohio)he'd go to the kid's downstairs church school. He learned that God loved him, etc. He said that sounded pretty good. Then one day he attended church with the adults, and the preacher storming up and down the aisle talking about hellfire and damnation pretty much closed the door on the subject for him. It's a shame.

Originally Posted by Seraphim

The Unitarians are actually a very recent branch of Protestantism. Perhaps you are refering to the Monophysites? Their doctrines were contended at a later ecumenical council in 451AD.

"The issue that polarized the inheritors of these philosophical differences was the doctrine of the Trinity, adopted in 325 AD by means more political than religious. The Trinitarians, who believed in, "God the Father, God, the Son, God the Holy Ghost," said that those who stressed the unity of God (later known as Unitarians) were heretics. Many of the Unitarians were executed for their beliefs. Best known of these martyrs is Michael Sevetus, who was burned at the stake in 1553 for writing "On The Errors of the Trinity." You can read the rest here: A Brief History of Unitarian Universalism

Brad, thanks for the Life of Brian recall. Politics and religion are the two greatest avenues through which to control our fellow man. Let's use them to their greatest potential, right? Wait a minute.... lol!

Jockeys,

I appreciate you sharing your thoughts and experiences! The two pieces I've snipped from what you said below intrigue me because I think there's a similar element in both statements. Read below:

Originally Posted by jockeys

...I have an entire lifetime (so far, heh) of experience, direct, firsthand exprience, that tells me, in no uncertain terms, that relgion is not just nonsense, it is DANGEROUS nonsense that ruins people, and is a big contributor in man's inhumanity to man...

Originally Posted by jockeys

...you know what the number one conversion tool was? selling religion as a form of eternal fire insurance...

On the surface it seems like you are at least irritated that religion tells people that if they don't see things their way, they will be ruined. But then you also went on to say basically the same thing about your point of view. Accept religion, and be ruined. And religion says, if you don't accept religion, you'll be ruined.

Doesn't it come down to what Alex mentioned earlier, that he knows what will happen after death? Isn't that what both arguments are about - what do you know? A definition of "know" is "to be fully convinced of the truth or factuality of". You and Alex know the other is wrong, but you can't both be right. The truth hasn't changed regardless of what we know, but we are so sure of ourselves that we are willing to say we know what the truth is (even if in a round-about way someone likes to think they are only saying they know what the truth is not.) You can draw on theories, experiences, trust, people's ideas of what proof should be and what data is incontestable etc, but it will always come down to what convinces you. Will you admit ideas and convictions about the reality or nonexistence of God as truth or will you not? Everyone answers that question for themselves and even though we can talk about why we know what we know, we can't really make anyone else know. Like Mark pointed out to me the other day, you are only truly taught when you realize something for yourself

Originally Posted by hoglahoo

Doesn't it come down to what Alex mentioned earlier, that he knows what will happen after death? Isn't that what both arguments are about - what do you know? A definition of "know" is "to be fully convinced of the truth or factuality of". You and Alex know the other is wrong, but you can't both be right. The truth hasn't changed regardless of what we know, but we are so sure of ourselves that we are willing to say we know what the truth is (even if in a round-about way someone likes to think they are only saying they know what the truth is not.) You can draw on theories, experiences, trust, people's ideas of what proof should be and what data is incontestable etc, but it will always come down to what convinces you. Will you admit ideas and convictions about the reality or nonexistence of God as truth or will you not? Everyone answers that question for themselves and even though we can talk about why we know what we know, we can't really make anyone else know. Like Mark pointed out to me the other day, you are only truly taught when you realize something for yourself

Thanks Lee for bringing things back to the topic!
I was truly beginning to despair that people were missing the point!

Thanks again!

Originally Posted by hoglahoo

On the surface it seems like you are at least irritated that religion tells people that if they don't see things their way, they will be ruined. But then you also went on to say basically the same thing about your point of view. Accept religion, and be ruined. And religion says, if you don't accept religion, you'll be ruined.

Doesn't it come down to what Alex mentioned earlier, that he knows what will happen after death? Isn't that what both arguments are about - what do you know? A definition of "know" is "to be fully convinced of the truth or factuality of". You and Alex know the other is wrong, but you can't both be right. The truth hasn't changed regardless of what we know, but we are so sure of ourselves that we are willing to say we know what the truth is (even if in a round-about way someone likes to think they are only saying they know what the truth is not.) You can draw on theories, experiences, trust, people's ideas of what proof should be and what data is incontestable etc, but it will always come down to what convinces you. Will you admit ideas and convictions about the reality or nonexistence of God as truth or will you not? Everyone answers that question for themselves and even though we can talk about why we know what we know, we can't really make anyone else know. Like Mark pointed out to me the other day, you are only truly taught when you realize something for yourself

1. like I said, I don't think every religious person has been ruined, just most of the people I've seen. and I don't go around threatening people and trying to convert them. I'm irritated that they can't live and let live.
2. but i DON'T "know" to me, knowing implies "having knowledge of". I don't have that knowledge, no one does. I do not know if there are deities or not. I never claimed I did. I SUSPECT that there is not a personal deity, but of course I can't prove it. Alex doesn't know either, he only believes/has faith. which is fine. neither one of us can ever prove the other wrong, because neither of us truly knows. semantics I guess.
3. I fully admit the possibility of a power beyond my own understanding. but if there is, I don't think it's personal, I don't think it's relevant enough to base your life on, and I certainly don't think it's an excuse to behave like a jerk, which is what I see most frequently in my surroundings. I suspect (but don't know) that it may be something like Aristotle's "unmovable mover" if it exists at all. maybe it's just the personification of the laws of nature. I don't know, no human knows, and no one ever will, by my definition of "knowing". it is unknowable.
4. "Will you admit ideas and convictions about the reality or nonexistence of God as truth or will you not?" NOT. as I've said before, you can't know. no one can. people can suspect (as I do) people can feel (as Alex does) etc. but by my definition, it's not possible to know. back when people "knew" the Earth was flat, they didn't know... obviously, they were totally wrong. we actually KNOW that now, because we have objective knowledge of it. it's observable and repeatable. deities aren't and never will be observable repeatably. so we won't KNOW.

Originally Posted by jockeys

...we won't KNOW.

yes we will

(I feel ornery today! but my short reply illustrates my argument: each person has to be convinced him or her self. You're convinced we won't know, but I'm convinced we will. I've already got the evidence I needed to be convinced, and it appears you have too - so what else is there?)

I think Shakespeare calls it about right. He describes death as;

"The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns,"

and correctly identifies that it;

"puzzles the will"

None "KNOWS" despite one's protestations and surety. We can only guess and believe, as fervently as you will, that which makes us comfortable.

By choosing this life alone, I concern myself with each precious moment here and do not concern myself with that which makes no difference to me, the person or intellect that I am. Supernatural musings I leave aside as a distraction from that which is.

X

We had an old family friend, a much wiser man than I, who would react to the death of someone by saying, "Now, he knows."

Better than "So it goes," no?

j