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Why do some people have religious beliefs?

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CrazyCatLord
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08 Feb 2012, 8:08 am

donnie_darko wrote:
I am not a religious person, more of a Deist than anything, but I think atheists tend to throw the baby out with the bathwater. They think that just because the Bible is pretty easy to debunk, means that the Universe is just a random accident. They think because Yahweh doesn't exist, or Allah, that means there is no God at all.


No, we don't think that. I think that has been pointed out several times in this thread now. Even people like Dawkins and Hitchens are agnostic atheists when it comes to a generic, undefined god.



CrazyCatLord
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08 Feb 2012, 8:10 am

donnie_darko wrote:
It just annoys me when some atheists (not you) have an 'i'm right, you're wrong' mentality which is really just the same as religious people do.


No, it isn't. "Show me the evidence" is not the same as "worship my god or you'll go to hell".



donnie_darko
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08 Feb 2012, 8:11 am

CrazyCatLord wrote:
No, we don't think that. I think that has been pointed out several times in this thread now. Even people like Dawkins and Hitchens are agnostic atheists when it comes to a generic, undefined god.


Yeah but they would still say it's so unlikely the possibility is almost dismissable. Unless I'm wrong?

I mean, people like to hate on the watchmaker argument, and while I certainly don't completely agree with it, it does imo give the case of intelligent design of some kind (ie, evolution was created by some entity) some reason to be considered highly plausible. Not necessarily probable but worthy of consideration.



donnie_darko
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08 Feb 2012, 8:13 am

CrazyCatLord wrote:

No, it isn't. "Show me the evidence" is not the same as "worship my god or you'll go to hell".


No it's not as bad in the sense that atheists don't threaten believers (at least 99.999% of the time, there are always a few idiots) but many of them seem just as certain in their belief there is no God as Christians feel certain in their belief that Jesus is their Lord and Saviour.



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08 Feb 2012, 8:25 am

donnie_darko wrote:
I am not a religious person, more of a Deist than anything, but I think atheists tend to throw the baby out with the bathwater. They think that just because the Bible is pretty easy to debunk, means that the Universe is just a random accident. They think because Yahweh doesn't exist, or Allah, that means there is no God at all.

'God' is just meaningless utterance.



CrazyCatLord
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08 Feb 2012, 8:38 am

donnie_darko wrote:
CrazyCatLord wrote:

No, it isn't. "Show me the evidence" is not the same as "worship my god or you'll go to hell".


No it's not as bad in the sense that atheists don't threaten believers (at least 99.999% of the time, there are always a few idiots) but many of them seem just as certain in their belief there is no God as Christians feel certain in their belief that Jesus is their Lord and Saviour.


*sigh* But we don't positively believe that there is no god. We simply don't believe in a god without evidence. That's a huge difference.

To explain it in another way, we have different positions on different truth claims:

"Some god exists, but we don't really know anything about him/her/it" -- Ok, perhaps. I find that improbable, because I haven't seen anything that could only be explained by divine intervention, but I don't say it's impossible. I'm agnostic in this case. Show me some evidence, and you have yourself a believer.

"God is the universe and the laws that govern it" -- Great, I believe in the universe too! I know that it exists, so there is nothing to prove or disprove in this case. Personally, I don't see any reason to call the universe god. But if you want to do that, I'm fine with it.

"My god has published a holy book! He says that he wants you to worship him and stop being bisexual, because that's immoral" -- Sorry, but no. Just no. That's an extraordinary claim which requires extraordinary evidence. Unless you show me something very convincing, a lot more convincing than a book that was written by humans, your claim is so highly improbable and unlikely that I might as well call it impossible. And if your book is contradictory and/or logically inconsistent, I know with absolute certainty that it can't be true.

That's all there is to atheism. It is merely the absence of god belief. Positive disbelief only comes in when people make contradictory and/or extremely improbable claims, as in the last example.



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08 Feb 2012, 8:43 am

My cat God, you are maybe just more rational than a lot of self-rational atheists I've debated with online. :D



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08 Feb 2012, 8:53 am

abacacus wrote:
And this is why theistic arguments fail to convince people.


You are making assumptions, many of them illogical, and attempting to have them passed off as canon, irrefutable reality.

Can you find a biblical quote stating that through the human sacrifice of Jesus (Yahweh loves human sacrifice after all!) accomplished everything your pet psychopath wanted to do? As well as a quote stating that such barbaric laws didn't apply to anyone else, both then and now?

OK, but that's only your opinion. The bit about "barbaric laws" is as well. OT laws were much more fair and certainly less barbaric than the Israelites' neighbors. Even if they really were barbaric, which I doubt, that doesn't take into account the historical time period in which they were written. I fail to see the logic of blaming a culture for living in a certain time period.



CrazyCatLord
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08 Feb 2012, 8:58 am

donnie_darko wrote:
My cat God, you are maybe just more rational than a lot of self-rational atheists I've debated with online. :D


Some are just very direct and not particularly polite. Take 01001011's comment up there, for example. I know what he means when he says that god is a meaningless utterance. Nobody has ever met a god, so we don't have the slightest idea what a god might be. The word is therefore not very useful unless people closely describe their gods, which they cannot do because they, too, have never met a god :) But there are different ways of saying that.

Even Einstein believed in a Deist / Pantheist god, which was simply his word for "the universe and the laws of nature". I have nothing against that kind of god. Only religious dogma is a problem for me. The more oppressive and harmful the dogma, the greater my opposition to a specific brand of theism.



donnie_darko
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08 Feb 2012, 9:07 am

CrazyCatLord wrote:
donnie_darko wrote:
My cat God, you are maybe just more rational than a lot of self-rational atheists I've debated with online. :D


Some are just very direct and not particularly polite. Take 01001011's comment up there, for example. I know what he means when he says that god is a meaningless utterance. Nobody has ever met a god, so we don't have the slightest idea what a god might be. The word is therefore not very useful unless people closely describe their gods, which they cannot do because they, too, have never met a god :) But there are different ways of saying that.

Even Einstein believed in a Deist / Pantheist god, which was simply his word for "the universe and the laws of nature". I have nothing against that kind of god. Only religious dogma is a problem for me. The more oppressive and harmful the dogma, the greater my opposition to a specific brand of theism.


Yeah, I'm more or less a Deist/Pantheist myself. I think we are all 'God' if you will subjectively experiencing ourselves, and that individuality is sort of an illusion. Do I have any evidence for this aside from my own intuition? Nah. Of course, neither do the materialists.



MCalavera
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08 Feb 2012, 9:19 am

AngelRho wrote:
abacacus wrote:
And this is why theistic arguments fail to convince people.


You are making assumptions, many of them illogical, and attempting to have them passed off as canon, irrefutable reality.

Can you find a biblical quote stating that through the human sacrifice of Jesus (Yahweh loves human sacrifice after all!) accomplished everything your pet psychopath wanted to do? As well as a quote stating that such barbaric laws didn't apply to anyone else, both then and now?

OK, but that's only your opinion. The bit about "barbaric laws" is as well. OT laws were much more fair and certainly less barbaric than the Israelites' neighbors. Even if they really were barbaric, which I doubt, that doesn't take into account the historical time period in which they were written. I fail to see the logic of blaming a culture for living in a certain time period.


Facepalm.



CrazyCatLord
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08 Feb 2012, 9:21 am

donnie_darko wrote:
Yeah, I'm more or less a Deist/Pantheist myself. I think we are all 'God' if you will subjectively experiencing ourselves, and that individuality is sort of an illusion. Do I have any evidence for this aside from my own intuition? Nah. Of course, neither do the materialists.


I'm open to this kind of philosophy, and I don't see any harm in non-dogmatic spirituality. Organized, dogmatic religion is a different matter, although there are a few utterly harmless brands (such as Buddhism and very moderate Christianity). It's unfortunate that they all use the same god label for very different deity concepts. That makes these debates very confusing and alienates those believers who have more in common with atheists and agnostics than with rabid fundamentalists.



donnie_darko
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08 Feb 2012, 9:24 am

CrazyCatLord wrote:
donnie_darko wrote:
Yeah, I'm more or less a Deist/Pantheist myself. I think we are all 'God' if you will subjectively experiencing ourselves, and that individuality is sort of an illusion. Do I have any evidence for this aside from my own intuition? Nah. Of course, neither do the materialists.


I'm open to this kind of philosophy, and I don't see any harm in non-dogmatic spirituality. Organized, dogmatic religion is a different matter, although there are a few utterly harmless brands (such as Buddhism and very moderate Christianity). It's unfortunate that they all use the same god label for very different deity concepts. That makes these debates very confusing and alienates those believers who have more in common with atheists and agnostics than with rabid fundamentalists.


Yeah, even though I believe in a spiritual reality (believe as think it's probable, not have unshakeable faith) I consider myself closer to an atheist than to a highly religious person in many ways.



CrazyCatLord
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08 Feb 2012, 9:27 am

CrazyCatLord wrote:
AngelRho wrote:
hyperlexian wrote:
doesn't matter if the bible advocates it -

Yes it does. The tenets of Christian faith are defined by the words of Jesus.


AngelRho wrote:
Christ taught that He Himself was the fulfillment of the Law and that through His death, burial, and resurrection "everything is accomplished." That effectively frees the believer from the demands of the Law.


Ok, so Christian faith is defined by the words of Jesus. The Mosaic law does no longer apply. That's great imho, because Jesus taught a lot of nice things.

And yet, in another thread (link) you wrote:

AngelRho wrote:
I just happen to believe that homosexuality is immoral and would support societies that hold that it is a criminal activity.


Can you please point to the gospel verse where Jesus says that? Did he ever say something like "don't judge others, except for gays" or "love your neighbor like yourself, unless he's gay?" Let's see some gospel quotes.


I would still like to see this addressed by AngelRho, because I think this is one of the main reasons for debates between theists and atheists. If it wasn't for the huge religious impact on everyone's life, we wouldn't have to argue.

So, where did Jesus say that homosexuality is immoral? Where does he say that the love between two people should be criminalized?



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08 Feb 2012, 9:30 am

This topic is too broad and would be absurd even if it was narrowed down to why does a specific person hold a specific religious belief. I have always found it amusing the way so many people are more apt to analyze the motives behind other peoples beliefs and actions than they are their own.

Can TallyMan explain his reasons for starting this discussion? Was he simply mocking what he considers to be the consensuses of religious peoples beliefs? Perhaps; the Strident Atheists have been quiet for awhile and maybe he misses them. Was he looking for understanding from people who hold those beliefs? Not likely, for if he was the tone of his opening post was very ill considered. Was he looking for external validation from his fellow atheists? Now that's a possibility; I really think there would be a lot fewer threads of this type if there was a “Church of the Strident Atheists” that they could go to to get it.

Is anyone interested in hijacking this thread to discuss that?


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TM
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08 Feb 2012, 9:43 am

CrazyCatLord wrote:
TM wrote:
abacacus wrote:
And this is why theistic arguments fail to convince people.


You are making assumptions, many of them illogical, and attempting to have them passed off as canon, irrefutable reality.

Can you find a biblical quote stating that through the human sacrifice of Jesus (Yahweh loves human sacrifice after all!) accomplished everything your pet psychopath wanted to do? As well as a quote stating that such barbaric laws didn't apply to anyone else, both then and now?


The argument that he is making about the old testament laws are based on a certain interpretation of the Pauline epistles, which is a popular argument from Christian apologists because it effectively takes away an opponents ability to criticize the majority of anti-social acts done by believers throughout history. It doesn't take away things like both the Lutheran and Catholic church preaching antisemitism as official doctrine until roughly 1950. It doesn't take away threatening children with hell, which is a concept first brought into Christianity by Christ himself. However, it does attempt to take away the criticism of the old testament because the generalized public view is that while the old testament god is a sociopath with severe narcissistic traits, Jesus is all cuddly and nice, despite saying that he didn't bring peace but a sword.

The challenge is that when one argues from scripture, one is arguing from very shaky premises because the texts themselves are open to so much interpretation. While some interpret the Pauline epistles to be carte blanche to toss the old testament out of the window and just needing to believe in Christ to be saved, others interpret them differently. While some view Christ as moral, some (including me) consider him and his statements to be both insulting an immoral. Therefore, an argument would have to be free from arguments that require interpretation of the scripture and rely only on the statements made in scripture that do not require interpretation.


I agree with that, and yet I'll happily accept when people tell me that they only follow Jesus' teachings and not the Mosaic law. That means they won't go around and judge their fellow citizens.

Instead, they will support charity, oppose war-mongering and hate speech, and try their best to love their neighbors and even their enemies. They would never pull out Leviticus and start bashing gays. Or would they?


They only hold that position in a discussion or debate, once they are done debating Mosaic law is back in business and Christians are all to happy to take care of it.

*Note* I'm an atheist in regards to any god that is an author. It's possible that there is a creating force out there but its not God or Allah or Odin for that matter.