Chrono Compendium
Zenan Plains - Site Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Lord J Esq on April 08, 2007, 05:57:40 am
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Three Questions:
1. When it comes to religion/spirituality, what do you believe, if anything?
2. How did you come to believe it?
3. Do your parents (or did they when alive) believe the same?
In all honesty I doubt this thread will yield anything particularly useful or interesting here at the Compendium. But I urge you to prove me wrong. More importantly, I urge you to pass it along to your other online communities, apart from the Compendium, where the discussion may prove more fertile. When I saw these three questions, I was expecting to be able to reply in a short, boring couple of sentences. But when I allowed myself to engage these questions forthrightly, I instead found they were very carefully, intelligently written. Share them with your friends, online and off.
When it comes to religion/spirituality, what do you believe, if anything?
I reject the premise of belief. I subscribe to no religion, I dismiss organized religion as a glorified mob that at best can only hope to behave itself, I reject spirituality as the individualized form of organized religion, I condemn the use of faith as a source of personal conviction, I am atheistic toward every religion I have come to understand well enough to appraise, and on the cosmic scale I am thoroughly agnostic on the question of god.
I am “conversationally intolerant” of the devout in most instances, although I will silence myself either for diplomacy or tact on certain occasions. I am outright hostile toward fundamentalist religious factions, particularly fundamentalist Christianity here in the United States and fundamentalist Islam in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. In my unflattering assessment, and notwithstanding their other redeeming qualities, those people are the blight of the Earth. In contrast, I tend to “pick my battles” and give a much wider berth to small, alternative religions based in the best traditions of liberal progressivism.
But, really, in my mind religious faith of any sort is a barrier to personal awareness and enlightenment, and my ability to forge strong relationships with believers, regardless of their beliefs, depends on my being able to touch parts of their minds that are not tainted by the fallacy of faith.
On a poetic and conceptual level, I sometimes use the terms soul and spirit to represent, variously, our sentient will, our emotional sum, or, as Lisa Simpson so well put it, the symbol of everything fine within us. However, these words do not mean to me anything unknowable, illogical, ineffable, supernatural, or infinite.
How did you come to believe it?
I was raised in a nominally Reform Jewish household. As my teenage mind blossomed and I really began to think about these sorts of questions for the first time, I very gradually realized that “God,” be it ever so popular, is just make-believe. In my final teenage years, and through to my current stage in life, the tenets of reason displaced any lingering spirituality I might have possessed. The closest I can come is an affinity for the wonder with which the late Carl Sagan beheld our universe. “Star stuff”...that appeals to me. But it is far from spiritual, let alone religious. Rather, I use these grand ideas as a source of meaning—not faith—and I acknowledge they are the function of my own, subjective perspective, and do not exist outside my own head.
Do your parents (or did they when alive) believe the same?
Nope. My mom was raised a Jehovah’s Witness, and despite having had difficulty with her parents because of it, she still feels some connection with it. About a decade ago, when one of the chefs of the television cooking show Two Fat Ladies died of cancer, Mom was struck by how that woman bore her suffering by virtue of her Catholic faith. Over the course of a couple years, my mom became a Catholic herself, as she remains. She does so very privately.
My dad was raised in an orthodox Jewish household that became quite devout when one of his brothers returned from yeshiva. Dad himself was secular with a Jewish tint by the time I was born, then immersed himself quite deeply into Reform Judaism as I grew older and my sister was born, agreeing with my mom that we kids should have religion. I was subsequently raised Jewish. I was Bar Mitzvahed at thirteen. I taught Sunday school classes in my junior and senior years of high school. I even led our small temple in Sabbath worship on several occasions, before graduating and leaving California for college in Seattle.
Mainly to please and comfort Dad, I did all of this long after I had abandoned my own Judaism—which occurred honestly from the very first moment I understood what it meant to be a Jew. However, it is true that I greatly enjoyed and benefited from the community offered by my shul and a number of the people in it.
I am an agnostic…
Please be aware.
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When it comes to religion/spirituality, what do you believe, if anything?
I don't really believe anything. I have a supreme difficulty with faith in a spiritual sense in anything, and I always have. No matter what I do or what religion I explore, I always end up returning to my atheism. I'm a natural skeptic of all things and I rarely accept anything with weight to it without some sort of proof(though that doesn't stop me from occasionally making mistakes or being ever so slightly swayed by con men, such as a chiropractor fooling me into getting X-Rays taken until I did a lot of research on chiropractic medicine and realized it was a bunch of bullshit). As such, faith itself is foreign to me and I find it immensely difficult to understand how anyone can have faith. Like Lord J esq I find it to be somewhat abhorrant and I despise the religiously extreme.
Unlike Lord J, however, I can respect those who honestly believe in the tenets of their religion and stick to it, which is extremely rare. My parents are devout Christians but unlike most devout Christians in the United States they are extremely tolorant and open. They do wish I believed in some sort of spirituality but they don't care what specifically, so long as it is spiritual, as seen by my sister, who is quite Pagan, and my other sister who freely mixes Christianity and Paganism.
Frankly, though, I wish more people would stop using faith and religion as a way of ignoring reality. Too often people allow themselves to believe in the idea of Heaven and Hell, or some other form of afterlife, which is a barrier to living ones life to the fullest. For most of the universe's existance a person did not exist, so why do they find it so hard to accept that they will cease to exist after a period of time? By not accepting this fundamental fact of life they set themselves back in many ways.
How did you come to believe it?
I was rasied as a Christian, as were my siblings. I can remember attending Christmas Mass at one point, partaking of some sort of bread and actual wine. I think it might have been a Catholic church, but I doubt it because my parents are Protestant. In any case, I never really accepted any of it and was more amused by the ideas than anything else. Sure, I had a children's bible for a while that I read from--I had an audio recorder of some sort that I used endlessly to record cassettes of random readings from books and my own personal mutterings--but I never saw it as anything other than fictional. Even when I was an early teen in California attending confirmation classes--at the request of my parents--I never believed in it. As for why...well, as I said before, I am a natural skeptic, and I simply cannot hold faith in the spiritual sense, even if I try. And try I did for a while...when I was sixteen I was exploring everything from Buddishm, Sihkism, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, Taoism, Shintoism...even some odd New Age Paganistic style religions, such as Wicca. While I had some respect for Buddism I found none of them to hold any meaning for me...instead I became disappointed in the vast ways we humans have created to delude ourselves.
Do your parents (or did they when alive) believe the same?
If only...my dad is thoroughly convinced of his God's existance...he believes that many years ago while rappelling down a deep hole to reach a cave--he was quite the spelunker in his youth--he slipped and fell and would have died had he not been saved by an angel and pulled to a cliff. He says it had to have been an angel because he did not remember ever grabbing onto the cliff and saving himself. I tried pointing out that he might have sustained a head injury thus explaining the memory loss but he would have none of it.
I am not so certain of my mother...for the longest time I thought she truly agreed with everything my dad believes but lately I've begun to see that she tends not to actually support opinions of her husband and friend so much as she does diplomatically. The telling point was when I was arguing with her friend Jean(amusingly enough my mom goes by Jean as well, a shortened version of her middle name Eugenia)about black poverty and neighborhoods and Jean held a slight amount of racist opinion, and my mother supported her during the argument but later informed me that she did not actually agree with her friend; she was simply being diplomatic. As such I don't know how to think of her beliefs when it comes to agreeing with dad anymore.
Still, she certainly does believe in God, as she goes to church quite often, is a member of a specific group...United Methodist Women or something like that...and has considered becoming a pastor.
In essence, the sum of my beliefs are an essential lack of beliefs. Unlike Lord J I am not agnostic: I am athiestic. An omnisentient God makes no logical sense and I do not see why such a being would exist. The only sort of God I am willing to even CONSIDER is the possibility that our entire universe is a computer simulation of some sort--and by that I don't mean Matrix-esque, but the entire fabric of reality is a simulation by some other beings--but even that is ridiculous, not to mention irrelevant from our own perspective. Thusly I am athiestic until someone can prove to me a god of some sort actually exists.
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Hey, that's a thoughtful reply! I'd forgotten that some Compendiumites are either too new to have been here for the religion fights we had a while back, or have evolved in their personal standing on the matter since that time.
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I surprise quite often, Lord J. With luck, there will be other thoughtful replies as well.
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Hehehe.
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When it comes to religion/spirituality, what do you believe, if anything?
i'm a roman catolic
How did you come to believe it?
i was raised a christian
Do your parents (or did they when alive) believe the same?
yes, both
note before you all start
1: whether God exists or not "ignorence is bliss"
2: when you watch someone die you relaise that if there is no afterlife then what is the point in living, if some one proved the was no afterlife i would commit sucide
3: if there is no God where did life come from?
4: finally not even i agree with all of the churchs decisions
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I would like you to consider editing your reply to make it longer and more expository.
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Heh. I'll be brief for the moment, as I don't at the moment have the mental capacity to explain in further length, but will make it longer at a later time.
When it comes to religion/spirituality, what do you believe, if anything?
Monotheistic God, as confessed in the Apostle's, Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds, and particularly as explained in the Augsburg Confessions (which I hold to, at this moment, by trust rather than examination, having never yet read them. However, this is not much different than someone believing in the precepts of the American Constitution, whilst never having read it. It is a measure of ignorance, but the explanations I have heard that stem from the aforementioned Augsburg Confession have all made sense to me.)
Quite the contrary to what, I think, the majority on these boards would believe, I am a supporter of organized religion.
How did you come to believe it?
I was raised in it, and have yet to have had any sufficent reason not to believe. At any point in which I might have fallen away, I have asked my father about his views and opinions on various subjects, and always he has given me such clear and logical answers that I cannot but trust in what I believe. Indeed, to not believe in this circumstance would be as difficult as doubting the theories of physics whilst having a father who is a PhD level professor of physics. It's difficult to dissent, not because of being forced to comply, but because he can outargue any doubts that fall upon me. So my belief stems not only from traditions beginning in early childhood, but continual learning via my father who is a theologian of high calibre.
Do your parents (or did they when alive) believe the same?
Absolutely, particularly my father. Or, rather, I believe as my father does, as I have mentioned before. In this case to fall away or dissent would be merely a matter of silly and childish rebellion, rather than any reasoned dissent. Basically, I would have no reason to leave it other than just abandoning it for it's own sake.
I am, I think, one of the few who has retained his childhood faith unchanged into early adulthood. That is, I've questioned, and examined, and all that sort of thing. But nonetheless I have never felt that aversion that I've heard some voice. It was never forced upon me, and so that is perhaps the cause for its longevity.
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...I am tempted to answer the questions in detail. However, I am one of the people here who is old enough to remmeber those wonderful religion fights we had a while back. I don't wish to renew hositilies on the matter, as last time, it practically drove me from the Compendium. Maybe I'll give my answers later. Maybe.
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I'm not going to bite anybody's head off, Sentenal. =)
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When it comes to religion/spirituality, what do you believe, if anything?
I don't believe. I seek knowledge, and when I gain more knowledge, or the facts change, I revise my world view accordingly. Belief is an impediment to understanding. At least if you are honest in your ignorance, you know that it is a problem, and can take steps to remedy it. Even with the best of intentions, people who cling to false beliefs are liable to make things worse upon their intervention, as one cannot solve a problem one does not understand, and by clinging to beliefs in the face of reality, one prohibts meaningful understanding.
That's part of why I don't like religions. They weaponize ignorance. Religions provide their adherents with constant stumbling blocks to understanding the world around them, to being able to make the world a better place, and then have the audacity to call this morality, and to even claim moral authority. It is both maddening and tragic that such a backwards worldview is so prominent in the world.
I am, in the abstract, an agnostic, as I cannot say with 100% certainty that there is no god, despite how vanishingly small the odds of such a creature exiting are. To borrow from Dawkins, I am an agnostic about gods in the same way that I am angnostic about unicorns. In the practical sense, however, it may be meaningful to think of me as an athiest. I have seen no reason to believe in any god I've yet heard of, nor any reason to find a theistic universe desirable, and I live a fully secular life.
How did you come to believe it?
It took me a while. I was raised Reform Jewish, and was a theist in to my early teens. I never took things literally, though. In my family, the Red Sea parting was most likely a fortuitous earthquake, and a day to a god needn't be twenty four hours. As I got in to my mid teens, various events, both in and out of the temple I attended pushed me further toward skepticism. Among the rabbis at my temple, their blessings in life seemed inverted to their goodness as people, and that struck me as bizzare. Further, the more I learned of science, the more it became apparent that gods were completely needless constructs; the universe could run itself just fine. At this point, I was more or less apathetic toward religion in the abstract, although I thought it was a bit silly. In my junior and senior years in high school, I had many conversations with believers. Their worldview was abhorent. They actively embraced their ignorance. I am not being rhetorical here; I was told that there were some things people weren't meant to know, and that it was best not to investigate such things. This disgusted me. It became perfectly clear to me at that point that religion was not just mostly harmless fairy tales and hocus pocus, but a force of evil in this world, and that I, wanting to have a positive effect on the world around me, could have nothing to do with it.
Do your parents (or did they when alive) believe the same?
My parents are still Reform Jewish, although my father seems to believe more in a vague sort of higher force rather than a personal god in particular. We don't really talk a lot about religion.
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Hey, that's a thoughtful reply! I'd forgotten that some Compendiumites are either too new to have been here for the religion fights we had a while back, or have evolved in their personal standing on the matter since that time.
Ah, those were the days.
When it comes to religion/spirituality, what do you believe, if anything?
I believe in God, and more specifically, that Islam is the true way to justice. But I believe in being open minded as well, and drawing conclusions based on what I can gather from various sources. I realized that the imam (in short, the Islamic version of a priest) have no divine right to decide what is right and what is wrong, and are people just like me, gathering information. I do not cast away the theory of evolution, as I believe that natural selection makes perfect sense, and the scientific theory of the creation of the universe also seems plausible.
Spiritually, I recognize that being muslim I have to follow the golden rule, and have to respect God's creation.
How did you come to believe it
As most people, my parents.
Do your parents (or did they when alive) believe the same?
In a general term: yes, we are muslim.
More specifically: no, my parents (moreso my dad) believe in a more strict sense of following orthodox law and rulings brought down by scholars and the such. This however can be linked to being brought up in Bangladesh, a country of patriotic pride and a heavily implemented set of ethics. Bangladesh was, and is, a seriously backwards country, and in the 70's, evolution and other scientific discoveries were just being brought in. And who can blame them, they were connected to an Islamic Republic for quite a while.
Also, my parents don't really have faith in an Islamic State very much. As I have said, they were put under an extreme amount of suffering as a result of their connection to Pakistan, and after splitting, they were made into a secular state under the constitution. After that, patriotism was basically a prerequisite of being called Bangladeshi, as another reason for wanting independence from Pakistan was to hold onto their own language.
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1. When it comes to religion/spirituality, what do you believe, if anything?
People hold religious beliefs too strongly, so as far as strangers are concerned, I pretty much believe what they believe. As long as you'll never see an atheist president, I'll never be atheist. I mean, everyone hates atheists.
So call me Christian. Understand, though, that my Jesus was a country boy, not some hypocrite trying to pull wool over God's eyes by acting out their petty ideals of decency. That's why I don't try to be decent. That's also why I don't read bibles or go to church.
I'd like to think that Heaven isn't some grand prize for the best actors and most disciplined ass-kissers.
Truth is, though, I really don't care about the ultimate truth to life or finding universal morality. I don't need anyone or anything to guide or protect me, and I don't need to believe in the possibility of eternal life. Spirituality is just a distraction from what really matters to me. If I place faith in anything, it'll be people and understanding, not the power of God.
2. How did you come to believe it?
It's too easy to alienate people based on religious beliefs. You just don't walk into a North Korean rally and start promoting free markets and Western democracy -- well, even more so with religion. Sometimes it's better to lay low and keep things vague. Given how strongly people in America associate with religion, it's the one area I'm never truly open about.
That could just be my lack of strong beliefs when it comes to religion though. Those sorts of things never really mattered to me. Maybe my own sense of purpose is too strong.
3. Do your parents (or did they when alive) believe the same?
Sort of. They're Christian. My dad used to be Catholic as a kid, but as an adult he's been very individual with his religion, having grown to dislike the rituals and hypocrisy found in churches. That's probably where I get my individualistic nature. My mom goes to some Methodist Korean church from time to time.
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1. When it comes to religion/spirituality, what do you believe, if anything?
As with all things, I'm a skeptic. I apply the skeptic's razor to all manner of the paranormal, which ranges from a pseudoscientist presenting poor arguments for the efficacy of some treatment to organized religion. In the end, I rely on the Scientific Method (ask the universe a question by performing an experiment, then replicate, replicate, replicate), not because I have any form of faith in it, but because it works. (I made a post (http://"http://infophilia.blogspot.com/2007/02/why-skepticism-part-3.html") on my blog a while back which covers this in more detail.)
So with this in mind, I believe in anything that has sufficient evidence to support it, doubt anything that has evidence against it, and have measured skepticism for anything that hasn't been adequately tested. As for what qualifies as "sufficient evidence," I go by Carl Sagan's rule: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Religious claims, being some of the most extraordinary, would require some of the most extraordinary evidence for me to believe in them.
What evidence do they have? Generally, there's some old book, which often seems to contradict itself in many places. Maybe there are a few "faith-healings," which end up being either unverifiable or easily explained by the placebo effect or confirmation bias. Sometimes there are stories of answered prayers, when the holy book notably says not to expect prayers to be answered. This is the degree of evidence I usually see for religions which claim to solve the ultimate questions of the universe. In short, it's like they're trying to prove the existence of a mountain by showing a picture of a grain of sand (which on closer inspection appears to have been doctored).
So what then do I believe in, with regards to religion? Nothing, and I go so far as to doubt all religions due to their inconsistencies with the universe I know. Having no religion, I'm by definition an atheist.
2. How did you come to believe it?
My parents were Christians of different denominations, and so they raised me and my sister as generic Christians. We attended churches of different denominations, but they never committed us to one (as in baptising us). I even attended a Catholic school for a period. I can't pinpoint when I gave up Christianity, but I believe my time in this school weighed in on this. Essentially, there were a couple problems that arose at that school:
1. I asked questions that they didn't like to have asked. "How do you know?" was a particularly common one.
2. When I played by their rules and tried to find out things about the universe through introspection, what I came up with never meshed with the dogma. This revealed one of the big problems with this manner of learning about the universe: Different people always come to different conclusions.
In the end, it feels like I simply grew out of religion, much like I grew out of believing in Santa Claus (I figured that one out on my own); it just took a few more years.
3. Do your parents (or did they when alive) believe the same?
My mother's faith has weakened throughout my life, and she's gone from an average Protestant to a Deist. She's very sensitive about talking about religion, though, so I can never really bring up the subject with her.
My father, on the other hand, is best described as a "heretical Catholic." He attended a Catholic high school, and actually ended up not passing because he got into a big disagreement with one of the teachers about the meaning of "Catholicism." Essentially, where his beliefs differ is in the church's presumption that only the believers will be saved. On the other hand, my father felt that the religion was supposed to be "For all," as was the original meaning of "Catholicism."
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OH MAH GAWD, how could a thread as awesome as this be left so virgin, and for so many years? This is rich, rich stuff.
1. When it comes to religion/spirituality, what do you believe, if anything?
With regard to spiritual and cosmological philosophy I've settled on something that I can't quite put a name to, but I suspect it's closer to deism than anything else. I try to avoid preconceptions regarding "God." Its evolution as a concept throughout human history suggests that humanity can only misunderstand what it is to some degree, if we believe in its existence; all this time we've been projecting our own wishes and desires onto it, and thus God has evolved alongside humanity. One day, when we have the scientific tools to finally wrap our minds around the origins of our universe, we may simply overlook it without even realizing it, either because theistic attitudes have been lost by then or else because God does not meet our expectations of it.
The only characteristic I could think of to use as a test to separate what is God from what is not God is its ability to defy the laws of conservation of mass and energy; had Steady State Theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steady_state_theory) held, God would essentially be the C-Field from which matter arises to maintain the universe's density. That's if I'm understanding it correctly, of course. The supposition of this "C-Field" suggests to me that the universe is essentially not a closed system; what lies beyond -- a region where the laws of physics would not seem to apply whatsoever -- would essentially be the "realm of God." For all the grief Lemaitre received over the potential theological implications of the Big Bang, it's ironic that the Steady State model would seem to lend itself to pseudo-religious belief far more than any other scientific theory, arguing purely from a cosmological standpoint.
It's much more difficult to argue for the existence of a God on a logical basis when it comes to the expansionary/contractionary cosmological model, where the universe's lifespan is essentially a succession of infinite Big Bangs followed by contractionary periods from my understanding. The laws of physics indicate that matter cannot be destroyed, which certainly suggests that the universe is infinitely long lived; but nor can it be created, which suggests our universe is a contradiction in its very existence. I'm not comfortable with this contradiction, unless we can make it not a contradiction by opening the system and exposing it to something that is analogous to the "C-Field" of the Steady State Theory; and that is what backs up my core preference to believe in something that is outside laws of physics that are liable to remain stable for the foreseeable future, and therefore "God"-like.
I guess I never saw God as a bearded dude in the sky; nor would I be able to tell for sure whether God has a consciousness. I do sometimes get a nice warm and fuzzy feeling while worshipping in my own way, but the most likely explanation is that it's the result of my own mind/body interaction aroused by the idea of doing something spiritual. I've found prayer a worthwhile stress reducer; just as SETI operators need an environment that minimizes cosmic white noise when they cast their gaze to the sky, someone who entertains the slightest hope of communing with the source of the universe needs a clear and calm mind free of the day's stresses.
I'm not sure that God is interested in justice. In fact, our common experience suggests precisely that if there is a God, it is not interested in human morality whatsoever; it was a brief look at the writings of a Sufi mystic that rammed this home for me. What a bitter pill to swallow for some of us! Although, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, and maybe it does constitute an expression of love for human beings. God, at the very least, is either a being or a realm not subject to the known laws of physics, or at least a subset of them; imagine the power it would have over us if it interfered in our lives -- pulled us out of every danger, stopped us before we were able to hurt another. Unless we were given complete freedom to do good and evil on our own terms, what else could we be other than God's marionettes?
Miracles would be an interesting thing if they're indeed real, and if I experienced one that was scientifically verifiable, it would force me to admit to possible direct interaction between God and the physical universe. A lot of the religiously-oriented miracles that have been described from time to time -- the stigmata always fascinate me -- could probably be explained by complex mind/body interaction when they're genuine.
As for beliefs regarding specific religious doctrine, I've only read the New King James version of the New Testament (published circa 1979) from cover to cover. It was a rich experience; in lieu of trying to put this into my own words for a second time, I'll just quote from an essay from back in senior year of undergrad.
[Within the New Testament I found]...what [Cornel] West terms the “Socratic commitment to questioning” – a “…questioning of ourselves, of authority, of dogma…a relentless self-examination and critique of institutions of authority, motivated by an endless quest for intellectual integrity and moral consistency” (16; emphasis mine). I personally attribute my own development of West’s Socratic commitment to the New Testament Book of John, the eighth chapter of which relates Jesus Christ’s refusal to stone an adulteress whose case apparently met the requirements for capital punishment earlier handed down by Moses (John 8:1-11). According to Matthew 5:17 Jesus told his followers that he had not meant to destroy Old Testament law but rather to fulfill it, yet clearly Jesus appealed to some ethical standard higher than scripture when confronted with the adulteress in John 8 (New Testament). Thus, paradoxically perhaps, religion taught me that I should in fact search outside the realm of antiquated scriptural codes for a universally correct morality. As for what such a morality might entail, I have come up with nothing better than that “…we should live with humility, love our neighbors, and do unto others as we would have them do unto us,” precisely the prophetic standard to which West subscribes (146).
...In order to distill prophetic messages of acceptance and humility from scripture, liberal Jews, Christians, and Muslims must set aside, or otherwise significantly re-interpret, certain teachings and practices endorsed by orthodox Abrahamic institutions. [Sam] Harris asks, in that case, why religious liberals would still defend the passage of Abrahamic scripture from one generation to the next, especially given the existence of Eastern religious traditions like Jainism, which needs no reinterpretation to communicate the prophetic moral principles West sees in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. I would contend that the unique value of Abrahamic religion lies in the fact that those who find it necessary to distance themselves from Jewish, Christian, or Islamic orthodoxy develop a valuable distrust of authority that they carry with them into civic life. Religious authorities are among the first children born into the Abrahamic tradition encounter in life – be they priests explaining official Church doctrine during CCD lessons or clerics instilling the Qur’an into madrasah enrollees. If one concludes that the scripture from which these individuals teach is an imperfect guide to morality, then he or she has established within his or her mind the permissibility of questioning authority in general. It takes significant courage to reject part or all of a holy text accepted as truth by successive generations of one’s ancestors; scrutinizing a politician who has been in office less than one lifetime is a far less outstanding feat in comparison. West finds a “…deep democratic energy…” in the Socratic commitment to questioning, and it is perhaps for this reason that he believes prophetic Christians have a key role to play in perfecting social justice in the United States (16, 162).
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Selected Bibliography for Compendiumites
Harris, Samuel. Letter to a Christian Nation. New York: Vintage Books, 2006.
West, Cornel. Democracy Matters. New York: Penguin Group, 2004.
Note that I tend to view Jesus as wholly human, although I am tempted to ignore Nietzsche and call Jesus an example of a true Übermensch, inasmuch as Jesus acted according to his own moral code and did not settle on deferring to the moral codes of his own forebears. To me, Jesus is a symbol of human evolution; His value lies not in the state of his moral code at the time, but the change in state that he was willing to produce. To me, Jesus is about producing moral momentum.
2. How did you come to believe it?
I hope there are others out there who have also found something like Cornel West's "Socratic Commitment to Questioning" through a religious text, and who did so after being exposed to official religious doctrine. I, for better or worse, cannot make that claim.
I specifically asked for the New Testament from my parents after becoming curious thanks to the "chicken and egg" question brought up in elementary school, and read it without any guidance or pressure whatsoever. In retrospect I'm thankful for that opportunity. I would say that I was raised "religiously unaware" up to the point that I took it upon myself to learn about my parents' religious heritage, and thus my own religious heritage.
3. Do your parents (or did they when alive) believe the same?
Not quite, since they were raised in much more religious households than I was, although I sense that they are considerably open minded with regard to moral standards. For that, I have always been thankful.
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This time I'll be honest.
1. When it comes to religion/spirituality, what do you believe, if anything?
Nothing. I follow a stoic philosophy in the way I live my life, but I consider that neither spiritual nor religious.
Honestly, I only assume the guise of spiritual and religious belief in order to disarm others and put them at ease; however, my philosophical views on life usually resonate enough with typical "Christian beliefs" for most people to avoid asking me questions about whether or not I believe in God.
2. How did you come to believe it?
I never reasoned my way out of any such beliefs -- rather, I simply never had them to begin with. Spirituality and religion being more the sort of thing you feel rather than reason your way into, I'll probably never have any either.
3. Do your parents (or did they when alive) believe the same?
No.
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Aww, and here I was with this cool vision of Jesus as a good ol' country boy, complete with fiddle. And walking into a Bob Evans.
I'm really interested in what all the new folks will have to say; I like the way the topic is set up because it lets you treat yourself holistically as opposed to forcing the respondent to frame his or her beliefs within a line of argumentation already in progress. It's sort of a "let's get it all out there" kinda thing.
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1. When it comes to religion/spirituality, what do you believe, if anything?
I would fit in to the agnostic field. I, unlike several people before me, do have faith and belief. I choose to put it in only two things though. Myself and my brother. I choose to think that what I, or my brother feels/does, is right even when I don't have hard evidence. I find faith very dangerous and don't give it to any one else, not parents/ friends/organizations/or religion. The kicker from being an atheist though is the fact that I don't know whats out there and many parts of the universe don't work they way we think so...I don't know and I won't choose.
2. How did you come to believe it?
As long as I can remember, I always thought the idea of the great sky bully was ridiculous. As for my faith, that was something I slowly grew into. I wanted a moral compass something to live by, but I felt that It was unwise to live by some one else's mindset, so I choose my own.
3. Do your parents (or did they when alive) believe the same?
My father is very stern Atheist/Objectiveist, and my mother bounced around from light Christianity, Buddhism, Paganism, and is now just a Spiritual person. I also had a kinda step mother in from the ages of 10-15, key years in ones life, who was a very casual Catholic.
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*shrug* I put off homework this long, may as well put it off a while longer.
1. When it comes to religion/spirituality, what do you believe, if anything?
I'll have to overview my religious/spiritual history to fully answer this. I started going to the Baptist church when I was 6 or 7 with some friends from school. I took to the idea of a god, but I remember that even at my young age I had ideas about god that were contradictory to the church doctrine. This disturbed me greatly, and I tried to see the god that particular overbearing institution wanted me to see for fear of my eternal soul's damnation (not joking). I honestly could not, though. I did believe in Jesus, in that I believed Jesus existed and walked the earth, and was possibly the son of god or something along those lines. So, I connected with my Baptist friends through the idea of Jesus that I had in my head at the time, as I liked that idea better than the idea of god the church seemed fond of.
When I left the baptist church at the age of 11-ish (or, when my parents pulled me out of the church, rather) I visited a different "religious" establishment with my parents. My parents were both pretty staunch atheists, and so we attended a mostly atheist congregation. The focus of the congregation centered around a kind of "academic" and scientific worldview, if that makes sense, although as I grew in the congregation I found it to be far too academic and not very scientific. Additionally, I still had this idea in my head that there was something else in the world, different from what they were fond of talking about. Call it god, or a guiding force, or whatever. This eventually led me to investigate Buddhism, and to try meditation, with which I did have some early success. I had less success with Buddhist groups, who reminded me too much of the Baptists in terms of how many questions one was supposed to ask at the groups, which was none for whatever reason. So, I continued with my own insight meditation practice.
I also had quite an appetite for spiritual literature. My less-than-agreeable attitude towards Baptism and atheism, caused by that suspicion of something else that was not the Baptist god, led me to read a lot of books on Buddhism. But I still was unable to find answers that jived with me. This really troubled me! I eventually gave up on spiritual literature altogether and tried to "logic" my way around the answers I was seeking in my spare time. This worked to some extent, but really only led me to temporarily suppress my, I guess you could say spiritual, conflict. Crazy, huh? I don't hear about people like myself often; people like myself being people who absolutely cannot just move on from spiritual conflict, who can't just let it sit. I often wondered if I was insane by any number of legal or psychological definitions.
In time I came to find out I wasn't alone, because I guess people like myself have a way of finding one another. I was found by another such individual, two individuals really, who were part of a more vast network of people like us. The network fell under the heading of a particular group with a positive reputation for being both a refuge and a resource for the spiritually restless. I jumped right in. I was aware that I was not going to get another opportunity to figure this stuff out that felt as promising as this group did. So, I met with some local individuals who all shared our interest on a weekly basis, and eventually traveled farther than I ever thought I would travel by car in order to meet with people from all over the world who were part of this network.
The meeting was far saner than I had expected, far saner than any outsider might be tempted to imagine. It struck me as so odd while I was there, that nobody was doing voodoo dances around the fire, or something along those lines. However, the meeting was far from a casual get-together. I felt a definite pressure to get my ideas in order while I was there, really to get myself in order. It became a continuous theme in my exchanges with a number of members of this group at and after the meeting. "Is your house in order?," was what one woman, who was of great help to me, would ask me for the next year or so.
I think that once a person devotes so much energy to trying to make sense of these kinds of things, that person's life experience comes to resemble a path. Any movement on the path begins to amount to advancement in the direction of trying to make sense of the problems that got the person on the path in the first place. Deliberate or not, one is always walking on the path. By the time I visited with the aforementioned group, I was definitely on a path. I spent a lot of time deliberately on my particular path over the next couple of years after my connections with this group faded. During this time I tried to make sense of the atheism my parents embraced. I turned to numerous resources trying to just understand what it meant to be human, the most helpful of which happened to be anthropological documentaries and Native American philosophy. I came to understand animal psychology to the point where I turned significantly vegan. (For honesty's sake, I'm still not 100% vegan, but I'm consistently above 90%.) I mentally toiled quite a bit on all of my experiences up to that particular time in my life, and tried to make sense of them in the light of any number of ideas about spirituality or god -- ideas coming from spiritual teachers and philosophers throughout the ages.
I can't say that I've found answers that would satisfy everyone or even just anyone. Interestingly, though, I just recently began to see likenesses of my own path in teachings I had long struggled to make sense of. I've come not to a belief, per say, but to an understanding that I can accept and work with.
I'm also still on a path, though it doesn't look much like the same path I started out on. There are many more things I hope to someday understand.
Anyway, it looks like I've managed to combine my answers to all three of these questions pretty well, so:
2. How did you come to believe it?
3. Do your parents (or did they when alive) believe the same?
Thanks for the thread necromancy, Faust. I like your reasoning behind your decision as well. Nothing wrong with putting all the cards on the table.
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alright i guess ill do this.
1. When it comes to religion/spirituality, what do you believe, if anything?
well... ive seen no evidence of any kind of deity. theres books about them but i havent seen any proof that those things happened. a deity might be there but he hasnt shown himself or herself to me yet.
and even if this deity were to suddenly pop up in front of me and say 'Matthew, I am the Goddess Athena, goddess of knowledge and the city of Athens. Now that you know I am real, I expect you to kiss my toes like a good grovelling human.', why would i care? what has athena or any other god or goddess done for me? why should i care that they exist? they dont step into my life every single day. if they did that, i might not even worship them then. for all i know theyre just dudes or dudettes running around in funny clothes.
i guess thats called apathetic agnosticism or atheism or whatever.
2. How did you come to believe it?
i guess it started when my dad sat me down and started reading the bible. both my parents are christian, but different sects (mom is catholic i think, dad is protestant). both of them wanted me to read the bible, so i read it. one day i asked my dad if a miracle would ever happen to me, like it happened in the bible to other people. would i be able to part the ocean and lead my people to the other side? would i be able to see a burning bush? would i be greeted into heaven with a chorus of angels? dad said that if i was faithful to the book and to God's word, i would be able to see those things.
so i was.
for five years i was a model christian. i attended both churches each week. i joined the choir and was somewhat decent (that is until i hit puberty, then they made me leave). i was an alterboy for a while. i even got to read scripture in front of the church. i lived by the word of God and Jesus Christ Our Lord and Savior, and i thought i would die by it. i wanted to be one of the chosen few.
and then my parents started fighting.
night after night, day after day, when i said my morning and evening prayers i asked God to make them stop and get back together again. instead of it getting better it got worse. mom would take her anger out on me and yell for no good reason. dad started drinking more. my siblings were out of control. finally, dad asked me who i wanted to live with until i was all grown up.
God said that love was eternal and that a man and woman should be together forever. that marriage was eternal, till death do they part. why was it ending? if what God said was true, he wouldve ended the fighting and kept them together. dad told me that God worked strangely and that mere mortals like ourselves could never comprehend him. my faith was shaken.
until i started liking guys.
man shall not love man! man must love woman! so why did i like guys? its against God's will!
thats when i figured... God has no will... because there is no God, that i can see. thats when it happened.
(wow that was long)
3. Do your parents (or did they when alive) believe the same?
hahaha. my dad and sister are protestant and my mother and brother are catholic. yeah i totally fall into one of those fields. :?
theyve tried to convert me though. it didnt work out well.
im pretty sure one time when they tried to 'purge me of the atheist demon within me' i took the bible they were holding, started reciting random verses, and tossed it in the fireplace. when they were like 'OH GOD MATT WHAT ARE YOU DOING' i was like 'its a book, theres more of it.' and walked away.
that was the best thing ever.
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1. When it comes to religion/spirituality, what do you believe, if anything?
I believe in the Christian God, and that his son Jesus is the messiah. I don't believe that God wants to control every aspect of our humanity, so He gave us free will. We have the choice to do good or evil, or to just live our lives. I don't believe He hates gays, blacks or atheists. I don't believe He approved of slavery(since His chosen people were often taken as slaves). I don't believe He cares how you worship him, as long as you don't use His name to commit evil.
Suffering and death are the result of free will.
I don't believe religion is something to be taken lightly, but it's certainly not exempt from the lampooning or criticisms of the modern world. In fact, you'll hear me joke about the FCA tons of times, I'm sure, over the next four years.
Basically, if you live a moral life, whether you're a Jew, Muslim, Buddhist or Jedi, you go to Heaven. If not, you go to Hell. In other words, Ronald Reagan goes to Heaven, Charles Manson goes to Hell. Simple as that.
2. How did you come to believe it?
My parents systematically brainwashed me from the age of 4.
No, but seriously, I've been a member of our family's church(Methodism) since I was a kid. When I got to middle school, I decided that religion and God were bupkis and weren't cool any more, so I became an atheist until about the tenth grade. Ironically enough, it was the DaVinci Code that got me on the path to being a Christian again. After about a year or so of living and thinking, I became convinced that the Christians did have it right after all.
Of course being an atheist for so long, I grew a bit of resentment for Christianity and a lot of their restrictions. I decided that if I became a Christian again, I wasn't going to worship some deity that hated everyone or wouldn't allow people into Heaven just for "getting it wrong", so I officially joined Methodism. Unitarianism is a bit too...enthusiastic for me, and Methodism's emphasis on doing community service really appealed to me.
3. Do your parents (or did they when alive) believe the same?
My father's not really a religious person(the reason we go to a Methodist church is because it was closest. You call it being lazy, I call it Divine Intervention). The Woman That My Father Married™ is some brand of Christian, don't really care. My father's new fiancee belongs to the church of the Nazarene.
My grandparents belong to the Southern Baptist Church, I think. Some form of Baptism. My uncle on my father's side is a Baptist minister, but he's also extremely corrupt so screw him.
My mother is an atheist or at least an agnostic, but she's lived in Oklahoma for three years now, so she didn't have a big influence on my regained faith. She and her side of my family tree, however, did have a huge impact on my tolerance of other religions and cultures.
I actually dated a Muslim girl in high school once. That's about everyone I can think of though.
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Duuude, Truth, what was it like dating someone across stark religious boundaries like that? Were there any weird conflicts with her family or anything, or is it just that they were really liberal and didn't mind in the least?
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My parents were both pretty staunch atheists, and so we attended a mostly atheist congregation. The focus of the congregation centered around a kind of "academic" and scientific worldview, if that makes sense, although as I grew in the congregation I found it to be far too academic and not very scientific.
Ok, I don't really understand this. There is such a thing as "atheist congregations" ? I find this really unusual.
Otherwise, the responses in this thread have been very interesting. I'm just going to leave it at that for now...
1. When it comes to religion/spirituality, what do you believe, if anything?
I dunno, really... I guess I'm an atheist/agnostic. I believe in some form of spirituality, but I am interested in the religions that are self-improving and are more into nature and that part of the spiritual realm. Wicca is something that I could possibly be into. Also, some aspects of Hinduism and Buddhism. I guess I don't want to exclude the monotheistic god that Christianity, Islam, and Judaism share, but I'm very turned off by those three religions and most sects associated with them. Especially the Orthodox and other strict sects.
2. How did you come to believe it?
I never had a religious upbringing. My dad never believed in god, and I'm not sure if my mom believes in god. Maybe not. I developed the beliefs myself.While my dad doesn't believe in god, his side of the family is Jewish and I am most familiar with Judaism when it comes to the 3 major religions. I am hesitant to call myself a jew, even though dad says I am, because first of all, my dad's side is Jewish and in the strict sense, it goes by the dad's side. Secondly, I do not practice any of the religious things associated with Judaism. I don't keep Kosher or do any of that. What is interesting about Judaism, and unlike Christianity, is that people are also considered jews by race. So in that sense, maybe I am a Jew because half of my blood is Jewish.
Also, and important note is that my family is from the USSR (We immigrated in 1990) and the USSR was a pretty atheist country...
When I was young, I went to Jewish day care camp because my parents both worked and needed a place to send me in the summer. I apparently became "religious" and learned the Torah prayers and did them myself. My mom said she found it creepy that I was so into that since I was raised non-religiously.
3. Do your parents (or did they when alive) believe the same?
I think I already answered 3... I'm not really sure of what they believe in, if anything. We don't really talk about it. I'm pretty sure that dad doesn't believe in god and I'm not sure about mom. When I was little, I guess I got very sick and my mom took me to get baptized. My dad's side of the family was pretty pissed off, but mom was scared that I'd die or something, I guess XD; I think mom's mom may believe in god, not sure about mom. Religion is never a thing we talk about in my family.
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FaustWolf, we didn't delve too much into it. We didn't try to proselytize each other, and we always respected each others ways of living. I understood that Friday nights were a big no-no, and while Sunday wasn't a big deal for me personally, she tried to work around it whenever possible.
I suppose they were fairly liberally Muslim, in that the women didn't wear burqas and the men didn't wear thawbs(I believe that's how you pronounce it). The parents accepted me, so they couldn't have been too fundamentalist.
The Woman That My Father Married™ was pretty skittish about me having anything to do with anybody outside of her white suburban circle, but she probably eventually got over it, maybe, but if not I couldn't care less.
Zaichik: Trust me, Wicca is nothing you want to get involved in. I'd rather be a Scientologist. I'm tolerant of most spiritual matters, but I have absolutely nothing for these people. If you think that Fundamental Christianity is bad because it restricts behavior on the basis of morality, then wait until you see what kind of sick shit these people are into.
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Zaichik: Trust me, Wicca is nothing you want to get involved in. I'd rather be a Scientologist. I'm tolerant of most spiritual matters, but I have absolutely nothing for these people. If you think that Fundamental Christianity is bad because it restricts behavior on the basis of morality, then wait until you see what kind of sick shit these people are into.
That is kind of judgmental. I don't know about what kind of "sick shit" they're into, but I've never heard of Wiccans doing anything sick. Everything is relative. A significant number of Christians do pretty sick things too "in the name of the lord". You very well know that.
On a somewhat unrelated note, I don't agree with saying Ronald Reagan will go to heaven. I really don't like him. I'm not sure why you chose him over other more noble Christian presidents. I was hesitant on starting another political argument, so I refrained on saying this before, but your Wicca comment was offensive.
I think I am interested in those "Coexist" bumper stickers a lot of people have around here. Comments like "Wiccans do really sick shit" are an example of why religious tolerance is one of the most important things we can do for this planet...
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I think I am interested in those "Coexist" bumper stickers a lot of people have around here. Comments like "Wiccans do really sick shit" are an example of why religious tolerance is one of the most important things we can do for this planet...
I laugh when I see those. Most religions represented by those symbols think the others are going to hell or condemned to suffer because they don't share the correct belief. Co-exist, indeed.
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Ok, Zachik, you know me to not be a judgmental person. I don't pass judgment on something unless there is something seriously wrong with it. Rather than raise my ire, here are a few resources about it.
Wiccans believe that children should lose their virginity in a public ceremony...at the age of 13. By their mothers or doctors. (http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/morality-and-religion/open-minded-wiccans-raping-children/t.36783017/)
In fact, this rite can be done as early as ten years old. (http://www.1888pressrelease.com/human-sacrifice-against-child-molestation-and-rape-at-intern-pr-p7w1x7g91.html)
Or if these are too blogged down for you, read the damn Wiccan Bible(1972) where they very openly advocate child molestation, human and animal sacrifices. Wiccan priestesses are little more than prostitutes.
I'm an extremely tolerant person, but something I do not, and will not tolerate is child molestation. If they want to kill each other, fine, less of them on the street.
And don't even try to compare this to Christianity. No where in the Christian Bible does it advocate prostitution or molestation in God's name.
On a somewhat unrelated note, I don't agree with saying Ronald Reagan will go to heaven. I really don't like him.
Fine, Barack Obama then. On another unrelated note "I don't like him" is a rather bullshit reason for condemning someone to Hell. Y'know who I don't like? Ulysses S. Grant for being a horrible general and an equally horrible president. That doesn't mean I think he should go to Hell.
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I laugh when I see those. Most religions represented by those symbols think the others are going to hell or condemned to suffer because they don't share the correct belief. Co-exist, indeed.
Yeah, I recall your opinion about those stickers and it pisses me off, but whatever.
Ok, Zachik, you know me to not be a judgmental person. I don't pass judgment on something unless there is something seriously wrong with it. Rather than raise my ire, here are a few resources about it.
Wiccans believe that children should lose their virginity in a public ceremony...at the age of 13. By their mothers or doctors.
In fact, this rite can be done as early as ten years old.
Or if these are too blogged down for you, read the damn Wiccan Bible(1972) where they very openly advocate child molestation, human and animal sacrifices. Wiccan priestesses are little more than prostitutes.
I'm an extremely tolerant person, but something I do not, and will not tolerate is child molestation. If they want to kill each other, fine, less of them on the street.
And don't even try to compare this to Christianity. No where in the Christian Bible does it advocate prostitution or molestation in God's name.
Actually, my bf taught me what a "straw man argument" was the other day, and you seem to be using one. I read those articles and this is what I gathered from that: some Wiccans advocate molesting their children, and most don't. You cannot judge a religion based on sick practices. Christianity has largely condemned homosexuality. I recall reading about Sodom and Gomorrah from the bible. Some angels got raped by men in one of the two towns, and then God let everyone in the town die except for this guy and his two daughters. Then the daughters decided to fuck their dad because I guess they wanted to proliferate the human race? Or something like that. So if I were to be *more* judgmental about Christianity, I could say that that story proves this:
1. Homosexuality is strongly condemned in the bible and all homosexuals should die
2. The bible says that incest is ok.
Also, I didn't say you were a judgmental person in general. I said you were being judgmental. I am a very judgmental person in general and it's hard work for me to improve this characteristic...
Also, I did not imply that Reagan should go to hell. He definitely has his following. My dad's a huge Reagan supporter. He says that Reagan's largely responsible for Communism crumbling and us being able to move out of the USSR (dad really didn't like it there). I guess I wished you'd have picked some other Christian who wasn't responsible for spending bazzilions of dollars fighting communism, thereby putting us into a recession, and allowing Afghanistan to be run by the Taliban because they "were better than the communists". Same thing for other countries which I can't recall, some in South America, I believe.
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I laugh when I see those. Most religions represented by those symbols think the others are going to hell or condemned to suffer because they don't share the correct belief. Co-exist, indeed.
Yeah, I recall your opinion about those stickers and it pisses me off, but whatever.
"And it pisses me off." Well, aww. I didn't direct that comment to you, even though I quoted your post, but it seems you take it personally.
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"And it pisses me off." Well, aww. I didn't direct that comment to you, even though I quoted your post, but it seems you take it personally.
It seems like you directed it to me because you quoted me, AND you have mentioned your hatred against that bumper sticker several times already. Also, you are further provoking me by acting patronizing. BTW, people being patronizing to me or others I like pisses me off more than anything. I hope you note that the next time you're patronizing to me.
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Incest isn't something widely practiced in the Christian community, this brand of child molestation is in Wicca, though.
You've got me with homosexuality, but that's a far cry from prostitution, molestation and sacrificing animals and human beings.
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Truthordeal, about child molestation in religion: consider that the Prophet Muhammad married Aisha when she was a teeny 12 years old! However, it's not like I've read the Qu'ran from cover to cover, so it could be hadith or even just apocryphal. Nor does this necessarily imply that the marriage was consummated when Aisha was 12. Still, the precedent could be used to dangerous effect, just like the teachings of Wicca that you've cited.
In any case, it seems to me that both Islam and Wicca will have had positive value if their adherents mutually reject the notion of taking advantage of children for sexual pleasure, despite what the texts suggest. Both religions will have had negative value otherwise. While child molestation may not be quite as applicable to Christianity, it seems that other dangerous concepts (killing gays, prostitutes, etc) have been justified on its basis by people who overlook humanism in favor of...something that isn't really even a literal interpretation of the text; a literal interpretation should at least leave people confused, and therefore seeking answers elsewhere. I say this in reference to prositution specifically; it's true that I've seen no example of Jesus sticking up for gay people specifically.
This is precisely why I think all sorts of religious texts should be kept around for use in moral schooling, even in atheist schools. They probably belong most in atheist schools -- they've already been producing atheists with some efficiency for years. Atheists will accuse us moderates and liberals of "cherry picking," but picking the right cherries can be a beautiful thing indeed, and a child who can pick the correct cherries based on humanist principles is probably close to passing into moral adulthood.
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1. When it comes to religion/spirituality, what do you believe, if anything?
I'm atheist and don't believe in any religion, god, etc. Generic answer, but I don't really believe in anything, so...
2. How did you come to believe it?
I had a very half-hearted sort of faith growing up catholic, after a while I found myself often thinking to myself how illogical the concept of "Heaven" was, wondering how all this could be possible, and when I was around... 12 or 13, I decided to go atheist partly due to a friend's beliefs rubbing off on me. I haven't changed my mind about it at all since.
3. Do your parents (or did they when alive) believe the same?
My dad's been atheist for his whole life, my mother's catholic but doesn't go to church. My sister doesn't believe in god either, as far as I'm aware.
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Indeed, FW. If Wicca were to drop the molestation and Islam were to drop the castration, jihad and...well, I guess molestation, then both of them would be more universally accept. They can be crazy if they want, in my opinion, because I realize that I sound crazy sometimes, but lets not molest children, shall we?
This thread has brought up a question for me though:
Those of you who identify yourselves as atheists/agnostics, what do you think the afterlife entails? Do you believe we have one, or that we rot in the ground for all eternity? Do you believe in Heaven and Hell, or reincarnation? Or do you think its just another plain of existence? Do you just not know and hope to find out?
I've always been rather curious about this. I know where the Christians on the Compendium stand, but what about you guys?
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This is precisely why I think all sorts of religious texts should be kept around for use in moral schooling, even in atheist schools. They probably belong most in atheist schools -- they've already been producing atheists with some efficiency for years.
Reading this made me realize that there may be a day in the not to distant future where a lot kids are essentially taught comparative religious studies from an early age. Unitarians already do this, believe it or not. They have a version of Sunday school called "Religious Education" in which they teach stories and principles from many of the major religious traditions. I'm optimistic about this kind of education, because I think that being able to discern the good and bad in the most influential books in human history would be of absolutely incredible value to kids. If kids can look at something as confusing and powerful as religion with a level head, imagine what other problems they'll feel confident in assessing.
Also, I think that teaching some basic religious moral tenets and stories to youngsters is definitely not a bad idea, so long as they're told to keep an open mind. Stories from religious traditions have a certain, I can't think of a better word, weight to them, a certain gravity. That in itself may inspire kids to try to make more sense of moral problems. It might push them to think a little harder. Also, stories from religious traditions can often be ridiculously cool, like ancient mythology is cool. (Inner child speaking here.) Cool stories inspire kids' imagination, and breakthroughs in moral reasoning often require a little imaginative kick.
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what do i think the afterlife entails...?
um.
it doesnt concern me at the moment. when i know for sure ill come back to you.
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what do i think the afterlife entails...?
um.
it doesnt concern me at the moment. when i know for sure ill come back to you.
Why do I get the feeling the afterlife will entail braaaaaaaiiiinnnsss... ?
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Indeed, FW. If Wicca were to drop the molestation and Islam were to drop the castration, jihad and...well, I guess molestation, then both of them would be more universally accept. They can be crazy if they want, in my opinion, because I realize that I sound crazy sometimes, but lets not molest children, shall we?
This thread has brought up a question for me though:
Those of you who identify yourselves as atheists/agnostics, what do you think the afterlife entails? Do you believe we have one, or that we rot in the ground for all eternity? Do you believe in Heaven and Hell, or reincarnation? Or do you think its just another plain of existence? Do you just not know and hope to find out?
I've always been rather curious about this. I know where the Christians on the Compendium stand, but what about you guys?
I think fringe groups in the religions bring out the most ugliness... Religion is constantly evolving. I guess I think the best we can do is to use the best ideas and principles for the good of humanity.
Interesting question about the afterlife. I like the idea of reincarnation the best. I have always looked at it this way: how far is it that some creatures are born humans and some are born as cows? Or other, less intelligent creatures than humans. But I guess life isn't always fair. I don't really believe in heaven. I don't strongly believe in reincarnation, either, but to me, if I wanted to believe something about the afterlife, reincarnation would be what most resonates with myself and my ideals.
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Mmm...braiiiiins.
Also, stories from religious traditions can often be ridiculously cool, like ancient mythology is cool. (Inner child speaking here.) Cool stories inspire kids' imagination, and breakthroughs in moral reasoning often require a little imaginative kick.
I think this is one of religion's main draws, psychologically speaking. There's an element of "coolness" that comes into play when Jesus resurrects a dead guy, Muhammad rides a flying camel, or when Crono casts Luminaire. I wonder what the basis is for this human reaction to coolness? Do we secretly desire the power to overcome nature, and receive some vicarious satisfaction from stories of others who have reportedly done so?
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Those of you who identify yourselves as atheists/agnostics, what do you think the afterlife entails? Do you believe we have one, or that we rot in the ground for all eternity? Do you believe in Heaven and Hell, or reincarnation? Or do you think its just another plain of existence? Do you just not know and hope to find out?
I've always been rather curious about this. I know where the Christians on the Compendium stand, but what about you guys?
Well, I'm an atheist. Our bodies rot in graves (if we're buried). Probably not for all eternity--maybe there will be a nuclear war that will inseminate all the buried bodies. But "we" don't necessarily rot in the ground because "we" will be dead, and I believe that there is nothingness after death. I mean...you don't remember a time before you were born, right? Is there going to really be all that much of a difference once you die? So that's what I think happens after death.
To be completely honest sometimes I do wish a sort of Heaven existed. Because I think most people like the thought of a place of eternal joy with no suffering and pain where you can be with those you lost in life. It seems like a comforting concept. But I don't believe in it.
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Does the existence of a God necessitate resurrection/survival after death? And does the lack of a God necessitate no resurrection/survival after death? I'm not sure why the questions of God's existence and life after death shouldn't be considered separately. Perhaps our thoughts and personalities survive as quantum waveforms that will be measured one day, like the elusive graviton.
In any case, I've decided that I'll get my brain frozen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuropreservation) toward the end of my life. Consider it an inverse Pascal's wager. And more importantly, an adventure!
EDIT: Shit, $80,000. (http://www.alcor.org/BecomeMember/scheduleA.html) How horrible is it to allocate eternal life only to those who can afford it? Can you imagine Alcor passing out freebie passes to favored politicians? It'd be like indulgences, except Alcor actually has some power in the way of granting eternal life.
I wonder if President Obama could push this through as part of his universal health care goal...but something tells me Sarah Palin would lead a campaign against frozen braiiiiins.
Well! Queen Zeal was on to something at least.
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Our bodies rot in graves (if we're buried).
For everyone who read that and felt a little pang of terror, is your life such that you even have anything to lose by dying?
In 11th grade, I also read something like that by an atheist, and it scared me. I had been told since childhood that I would be an immortal through an Abrahamic myth, and I had grown accustomed to that security. To think that it might not be so hurt inside, and only made me cling harder to my religion in the short-term.
But those who are scared by statements like that, what do you honestly have to lose? Have you achieved your ambitions? Have you made reality your grand dreams and even petty desires? Have you even lived the present to its fullest, enjoying things like friends and family as much as you can, while you can? For many people, that answer is no, and the only thing they'd have to lose by dying is a mass of gray, lacking meaning, purpose, or clarity. What can even the most active person do, without striving for some goal, or in appreciation of some moment?
Before you fear death, fear not living a full life.
(http://chronofan.com/Zeality/bscap117.jpg)
(http://chronofan.com/Zeality/bscap319.jpg)
Be in the springtime of youth. Death can wait.
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Our bodies rot in graves (if we're buried).
For everyone who read that and felt a little pang of terror, is your life such that you even have anything to lose by dying?
In 11th grade, I also read something like that by an atheist, and it scared me. I had been told since childhood that I would be an immortal through an Abrahamic myth, and I had grown accustomed to that security. To think that it might not be so hurt inside, and only made me cling harder to my religion in the short-term.
But those who are scared by statements like that, what do you honestly have to lose? Have you achieved your ambitions? Have you made reality your grand dreams and even petty desires? Have you even lived the present to its fullest, enjoying things like friends and family as much as you can, while you can? For many people, that answer is no, and the only thing they'd have to lose by dying is a mass of gray, lacking meaning, purpose, or clarity. What can even the most active person do, without striving for some goal, or in appreciation of some moment?
Before you fear death, fear not living a full life.
Be in the springtime of youth. Death can wait.
YES.
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I think this is one of religion's main draws, psychologically speaking. There's an element of "coolness" that comes into play when Jesus resurrects a dead guy, Muhammad rides a flying camel, or when Crono casts Luminaire. I wonder what the basis is for this human reaction to coolness? Do we secretly desire the power to overcome nature, and receive some vicarious satisfaction from stories of others who have reportedly done so?
Sounds like a million dollar question to me. Now, excuse me while I crawl out on to this limb over here...
I think that we do have some ingrained desire to overcome nature. In a very real sense we actually do have the ability to overcome nature, because we're able to engineer ways to protect ourselves from various undesirable aspects of nature. The presence of our aforementioned ingrained desire makes sense given that actually being able to engineer ourselves out of harmful natural situations is very beneficial to us. It's what's gotten us this far, and I'm convinced it's the only thing that's going to get us through the next century.
But, our desire to overcome nature is in no way limited to the strictly practical or the physical. There's an undeniable element of artistry, sublime imagination, and/or alchemical persuasion inherent in this desire. The instances of "cool" which you listed play on this element of our desire, as do things like elaborate tribal costumes and trance music. They lift our minds out of the mundane world and into loftier, more ideal worlds. As to whether or not we receive satisfaction from these kinds of cool, I think that is obvious. We do. But I don't think that the satisfaction we get from watching Crono cast Luminaire, or watching Samus hyperbeam the mother brain to a dusty grave, or reading about Magil erupting a foe's head into a ball of flame is merely vicarious. We connect with our mythological heroes on a very deep level. We fancy their struggle as our own, and we're empowered by their victory. If their story is particularly arduous or confounded, we try to relate, to understand. Essentially, like a house on stilts can keep one out of the mire of a swamp, a good story can keep us out of the mire of the day to day toil. Sometimes it can remind us of a higher purpose.
That's a bit of a simplified version of the importance of religious or mythological "cool", but you get the idea. These kinds of sublime/artistic/alchemical pursuits are as deeply woven into humanity as our feats of engineering. Perhaps, simply, because they helped us to carry on. Perhaps there's something more to it. As feats of engineering reveal deep and far aspects of our cosmos, these feats of artistry reveal the deepest aspects of ourselves. People speculate that scientists may one day find god, or a god. Creativity and imagination have already yielded humanity a multitude of gods, and in a sense that is perhaps more real to me than others, these are our gods; these representations of the greatest goods, evils, and the deepest hopes and fears of humanity. We've already established their influence on us; it was given in Faust's question. How much progress can this kind of influence yield? Well, with science we do not progress by taking shots in the dark, rather we progress when we approach science with the aim of progressing. I think we have to understand our gods or mythologies in the same light, approaching them with the aim of progress in the forefront, and then we stand to gain a great deal of self-knowledge and/or understanding of our fascinating and tumultuous species.
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1. When it comes to religion/spirituality, what do you believe, if anything?
I never thought that deeply.
Few of us are religious, in my whole life I only know one or two who announced that they believe religion so far, and I don't know how strongly they believe in...So I don't say I'm an atheist, I think it is just natural (for anyone who's born in a non-religious family).
2. How did you come to believe it?
Like I said, I think it is natural to believe in or not believe in, due to the society/environment one lives in.
3. Do your parents (or did they when alive) believe the same?
I'm not sure whether my father is atheist. I don't think he believes in god(s), but I recalled he claimed that he saw a ghost when he was a small child. I think that is what is called "fake memory", like many of us has.
As for my mother, I think she's a bit superstitious sometimes, but that never becomes a problem. She's just less educated than father.
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This point I make is a very subtle one, but profound. The belief in anything beyond this life, diminishes one's immersion into this life. Such a belief is a coping mechanism against loss, suffering, and mortality, but it is extraordinarily costly, for it wounds people's ability to appreciate this world and our own short time in it.
That much is straightforward. Agree with it or not, you probably understand the idea. Or at least you think you do. The word "appreciate" is given here in two senses; these being the sense of "value" and the sense of "understanding"; you must comprehend this in order to fathom what I am trying to say. The incredible subtlety--the part that I have found few people to truly recognize--is that all things, both real and conceived, are fundamentally less significant to a person who is overcome with the illusion of eternity. Even the illusion itself is a flimsier form of what it could be if it were not actually believed. As it is, one who resorts by belief to contrasting this world with whatever they believe lies beyond it, is inherently less capable of valuing and understanding the universe laid before them. That is what I call a cosmic irony.
On a related note, it strikes me as so intellectually cheap that people think they can pick what they want to believe, as if their preference makes any difference at all as to the truth. You can pick your favorite color. You can't pick the way the cosmos operates. Something which continually surprises and amuses me is that most people are far more egotistical than I am, because they are so incredibly unaware of their egotism in nearly all matters.
Magus was right. Nothing can live forever. Everything about us that is a part of our identity, exists in the human brain. When that brain stops, the wonders inside stop as surely as do the wonders in the other organs. All that we are, depends on our brains. There is no immortal soul to preserve this information, and no divine and everlasting entity to know us as we know ourselves. These are the dreams of an imaginative but vulnerable species that has not yet come to terms with the realities of this universe. There are no secret brain waves outside the detection of any mortal instrument. There are no second chances once a brain rots. Our brains, and by extension our whole bodies, are everything to us. They are the vessels of our dreams and the creators of our civilization. There is nothing supernatural or magical about our brains or our bodies. Wondrous though they are, they are absolutely mundane, and knowable. Human nature itself is just as mundane. All meaning, value, and significance, comes from us, ourselves.
That's why I've always been against the indiscriminate use of healing potions and spells in storytelling; these very ideas cheapen what it means to be alive, as surely as visions of eternity do. But at least with storytelling nobody is making any cosmic claims; the offense is purely artistic. When it comes to religion, and spirituality, the offense of ignoring our true nature in favor of some eternal dream is philosophical. It offends in a way that is difficult to describe, not provoking anger or malice, but a sense of wrongness, pity, and disappointment.
If somebody needs to believe in an afterlife to soothe their existence in this life, I can sympathize. But many of us choose these illusions unknowingly and without need, because we are too lazy or too frightened to put our brains to a stronger use. I loved it when ZeaLitY posted those two particular pictures; they're absolutely spot-on here. You'll never realize, let alone achieve, your full potential...if you're not willing to distinguish between desire and truth.
(http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/199/chronotriggerluminairea.gif)
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We're all just protons, neutrons, electrons (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_PcUJxY63Y)
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Depends on what you consider the self -- the actual physical material or simply the processes and patterns that come about due to their interactions.
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J and others, I'm curious -- do you feel life would be cheapened if made eternal through scientific means? It seems to me that eternal life could broaden our horizons infinitely; there's not enough time to explore every culture, experience every natural wonder, and fulfill every creative dream over the course of a single lifespan. If we didn't want more time in this world, we wouldn't have modern medical technology and life saving procedures.
Maybe I'm just drunk on what Uboa calls the "ingrained desire to overcome nature;" I am also interested in the potential of artificial wombs after all. But if the history of scientific advancement has shown us anything, it's that terrific things will one day come to pass if we can just keep from annihilating one another.
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Depends on what you consider the self -- the actual physical material or simply the processes and patterns that come about due to their interactions.
Well, the whole of life consists of layers upon layers of interaction. Truly turtles all the way down, if you're familiar with that metaphor.
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J and others, I'm curious -- do you feel life would be cheapened if made eternal through scientific means?
There are three things I want to say in response to that.
First, there is no such thing as "eternity," unless you're talking about a big null sign. Unless the laws of thermodynamics are inaccurate and the universe possesses the means to be rejuvenated from within, it makes absolutely no sense to talk about the lifespan of the universe as infinite. Even protons and neutrons themselves are not eternal. Medicine, diet, and engineering may well extend the human lifespan, or reconfigure the human condition so that life is naturally longer. I fully expect those things to happen if our civilization does not collapse first. But it is sheer folly to think that extending our few decades on the Earth into the realm of centuries or even geological eons is in any way comparable to achieving immortality.
Second, life as we know it is defined in large part by its ephemeral quality. The human mind (in many though not all of us) has a hard enough time coping even with our current long lifespans. The experience of life is dynamic; as we go through our days, the passage of time affects our perceptions. What would happen to a human psyche exposed to hundreds of years of life? I am reminded at once of two kinds of people: those who waste their days because they feel they have all the time in the world, and those who are worn down by the passage of time and by their experiences. Both of these sizable groups of people would become the walking damned if human life were extended greatly beyond its currently-evolved capacity. This bit of conjecture is not me making an argument against the prolonging of life; rather, I offer it as a follow-up to my first point, which is to say that it is another disagreement with your conceptualization. Not only is eternity invalid as a realistic timescale, but the premise of attempting to approach indefinite if not infinite life is one that must be questioned, yet you present it uncritically.
Third, and here I will actually answer your question, now that I have aired my objections to the concept you have presented: No. The extension of life does not inherently cheapen it, because, unlike the illusions of eternity and immortality, what you're talking about is the actual extension of our ongoing experiences. Those are as tangible and accessible as our present real lives are; the objective timescale is only modestly relevant to the equation, specifically insofar as it affects our psychology.
Maybe I'm just drunk on what Uboa calls the "ingrained desire to overcome nature"...
I'm with you on that, one hundred percent, but there is a clear and significant difference between surpassing our animal nature and redefining the laws of physics.
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J and others, I'm curious -- do you feel life would be cheapened if made eternal through scientific means? It seems to me that eternal life could broaden our horizons infinitely; there's not enough time to explore every culture, experience every natural wonder, and fulfill every creative dream over the course of a single lifespan. If we didn't want more time in this world, we wouldn't have modern medical technology and life saving procedures.
Maybe I'm just drunk on what Uboa calls the "ingrained desire to overcome nature;" I am also interested in the potential of artificial wombs after all. But if the history of scientific advancement has shown us anything, it's that terrific things will one day come to pass if we can just keep from annihilating one another.
Interesting question. I'm really into it. I wonder if some day in the future it will be possible. In the only Ben Bova book I read, Venus, everyone has eternal life except for one character- a professor. For some reason, he wasn't into the whole eternal life thing. I don't remember if there was a reason or not for that. In the end of the book, he ended up dying. The main character seemed to really respect him, even though aging kind of disturbed him because he'd never really seen old people before.
Yeah, I don't think that eternal life is anywhere in our near future. Right now, I think the good thing to do is to try to extend life as best as we can. We can do this by investing things such as cancer-fighting and heart disease research. But if we want to extend life, we also have to do something about population growth. Actually curbing population growth is more important.
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1. When it comes to religion/spirituality, what do you believe, if anything?
I am a believing, practicing Christian. I’ve seen such for as long as I can remember. This does not make me any less tolerant, any less understanding, or any less capable of deductive reasoning as to how I came to this position. From the evidence I found, the data supports my worldview of a divine being who exists beyond the bounds of this universe.
2. How did you come to believe it?
This was the result of me wanting to find some evidence of God’s existence, and what do you know? I found it. I am now adamantly working to do away with the stereotypes, myths, and misconceptions about Christians that do such a persistent job at being perpetuated. I’d be happy to answer any questions any one here may have.
3. Do your parents (or did they when alive) believe the same?
Yes, they do.
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1. When it comes to religion/spirituality, what do you believe, if anything?
What do I believe? Ask me again in a year and chances are the specifics will be different. My “faith” is constantly evolving, as it were. While I am Christian, I am not the same sort of Christian that I was when I was 18 (which is starting to be a disturbingly long time in the past). A great many concepts that are generally seen as being important to Christian belief (as these often separate one sect from another) are probably totally uninteresting to the general public, so I won’t go into those (do many people even know the difference between consubstantiation and transubstantiation?). Therefore let me be broad. My general stance can best be described with the following common saying:
“In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; and in all things, charity.”
For what I consider essential, that is nicely summed up in the Nicene Creed. However, I also tend to believe that an essential quality of Christian belief is a dedication to truth and a rejection of any non-essential belief that becomes a hindrance to belief in others. This means that I have an interesting position in religious debates as I am about as likely to attack “religious” stances as I might be to defend others, depending on how the debate goes. Additionally, while I generally accept the Christian belief that Jesus is the only means of salvation, I also reject the notion that only those exposed to one of the gospels (or in general someone who has heard the name “Jesus”) will make it to heaven. Likewise, I reject the reward/punishment nature of heaven and hell as traditionally portrayed.
To elaborate a little bit on non-essential beliefs that become a hindrance to belief in others, this includes the idea of God as a universal busy-body/helicopter parent, God as a vending machine (insert prayer, receive desired outcome), or God as a cudgel (political or otherwise).
Perhaps curiously to some atheists, I also have no problems accepting evolution, I admit the universe doesn’t need a god/God, I acknowledge that theism is not a perfectly logical or reasonable stance, and I do not believe in the inerrancy of the bible (or any text, for that matter). Yet at the same time I generally value logic and reason very highly, and attempt to conform my various thoughts and arguments to such parameters.
But you now know what essentials I believe in. Non-essentials is a much more varied field, comprised of an eclectic collection of random bits of wanderings, philosophy, science, etc that I have come across. As I can’t paint a picture of those with broad strokes, or at least not better than I already have, I’ll refrain for now from further discussion in that topic.
I am, however, rather hypocritical in that I generally have an instinctual dislike of “spiritualism” and neo-paganism (the Asatru in particular).
2. How did you come to believe it?
A combination of being born into a Christian family and my own research/thinking. I grew up in a Baptist church (note, just Baptist, not Southern Baptist), yet I definitely was an Arian heretic for awhile, rejecting both the trinity and the homoousios nature of Christ. As I investigated the matter further, I came to be agnostic on that particular stance, leaning towards trinitarianism but generally not finding this essential enough to be worthy of schism. Likewise, I used to be a young-earther creationist, yet my own investigations into the matter changed my stance first to being an old-earther, then eventually to being an evolutionist.
Part of my reason for continuing belief in the divine is the result of my studies in academia. History is a messy, twisted field, requiring a great deal of due diligence and awareness to navigate its waters successfully. Study of history has provided me with two tools that have been most instrumental in my intellectual and religious development. Foremost, it taught me about logical fallacies. Seriously, it is amazing that these things aren’t a required part of everyone’s education. I’m not as familiar with them as I’d like, I certainly fall into their use at times myself, and I’m not as skilled at identifying them as I’d like to be, but this knowledge has been terribly useful. Secondly, History has provided me with valuable perspective. Anachronism abounds in debate about religion, but with a historical background I am better able to identify these trends and evaluate them properly. I thus find the dread with which some view particular aspects of religion to be almost comical in their unimportance or in the held misunderstanding.
As I mentioned before, my faith is always evolving. My support of homosexual rights (including same-sex marriage), for example, if a fairly recent development, resulting primarily from religious considerations. Likewise, the argument that essentially kicked me off the fence in regards to abortion (and subsequently made me “pro-choice”) came from G.K. Chesterton in the form of a book of his that I read… oh, probably about a year ago now. Before that I was undecided with pro-life leanings (oddly enough, most my reasoning is still the same, just with a slight additional that totally changes those I’d be grouped with).
A lot of change has resulted, actually, from the tension of growing up religious. I’m a cautious, conservative fellow. I am quite happy to “move forward,” but I tend to be very sure that forward is a good direction to head and that where I am isn’t actually the better place to be. Which means that even as I was rejecting parts of religion, I investigated enough to find parts to keep.
3. Do your parents (or did they when alive) believe the same?
On some levels, yes. However, there is a very real possibility that if they knew the fullness of my particular beliefs, then they’d think I am no longer Christian. I know my brother-in-law questions my religion.
4. Do you believe in an afterlife? And if so, what is it like?
Aye, I do believe in an afterlife. Far from being comforting, it is a bit terrifying. I find it much nicer to think our bodies just rot in the ground (or our ashes float on the swami river, or the vultures consume our flesh and poop it out, depending on one’s chosen means of eternal repose). Maybe I’ve just read too much science fiction/fantasy where eternal life is depicted as being full of despair. But then, who is to say that the afterlife will be government by linear time?
As for what it will be like. The best description I have heard of “hell” is mentioned in C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce (if he said it or if he quoted someone, I can’t say). Specifically, “the gates of hell are locked from the inside.”
Heaven, on the other hand… that is a bit harder to describe. I just got back from taking my dog to the vet with my wife. My dog chipped a tooth and it has to come out. However, just being there with my wife made the entire situation so much better. I suspect heaven might be something like that; it couldn’t matter less what everything else about it is like, as long as the big G is there.
And of course, the particularly insightful individual might notice that my depiction of hell is essentially the great ostracization from the community while heaven is the great embracement of community. How very much like a fundamentally-social-animal for humans to conceive of heaven and hell in those terms.
I do sometimes get a nice warm and fuzzy feeling while worshipping in my own way, but the most likely explanation is that it's the result of my own mind/body interaction aroused by the idea of doing something spiritual.
True, but just because there is a neurological explanation for an experience doesn't mean that experience isn't real. There is a neurological explanation for why food tastes good, but that doesn't mean that the food doesn't really taste good, or that the food itself isn't real. Doesn't mean it is real, either, of course.
You cannot judge a religion based on sick practices.
To note, this is particularly true of most neo-pagan religions, as they tend to lack any unifying doctrines or traditions. A wiccan in Texas could very well share absolutely no beliefs with a Wiccan in Wales.
I mean...you don't remember a time before you were born, right?
No, but that seems to be a bit non-sequitur. I also don't remember anything from when I was one year old, or all the dreams I had last night. Yet, logically, I know that I was around and experiencing things. There seems to be little to distinguish being dead and having a bad memory.
I'm not sure whether my father is atheist. I don't think he believes in god(s), but I recalled he claimed that he saw a ghost when he was a small child. I think that is what is called "fake memory", like many of us has.
Interesting. If he claimed to have seen President Kennedy (notably, prior to Kennedy’s assassination), would you suppose that it was a “fake memory”?
I find it very curious that we readily accept things that we find believable without much consideration but, when the same quality of evidence is presented for things we find unbelievable, we reject it. Now I’m not saying your father did really see a ghost; I just find it interesting that on this particular topic you choose to doubt him.
This point I make is a very subtle one, but profound. The belief in anything beyond this life, diminishes one's immersion into this life.
Quite true. I believe that there is more to life than my day job, and so I certainly don’t throw myself into my day job as I might if that was the whole of my existence. If this is a good or bad thing, however, is a different issue.
Now you go on to note that belief in eternal life (specifically, life after death, as it seems like you are discarding the possibility of artificially extending one’s “earthly” life indefinitely) fundamentally and undesirably taints one’s current perceptions of the world. Now I am curious; let us suppose for a moment that I did not now nor ever believed in the afterlife. However, I do like to perceive the world “as it should be” in order to guide my own conceptions of how things currently are and how I might best attempt to bring about that utopia. It would seem that this process is very similar to what you are describing, and so under your hypothesis would I still be “inherently less capable of valuing and understanding the universe laid before” me?
If I am understanding you correctly, it would seem that since I do not claim that this imaginary utopia is a real thing or place, it is fine. However, because I “believe” in it, I would be working in the real world to best fit those perceptions, just as someone who did believe in the afterlife would regarding that, so it would still seem to fall into your general diagnosis.
Nothing can live forever.
Why? If consciousness is nothing more than random firings of the brain, it should be transferable between mediums, yes? And if the multiverse is real and travel between universes is possible (two admittedly large but plausible states of existence), then a single consciousness could continue to jump between universes in order to avoid heat death/ a big crunch. And if the multiverse is the result of cyclical brane collisions, rather than one-shot collisions, such an individual should be able to live quite literally forever.
If such a being would choose to live forever is a different matter, but if we have the ability to transfer awareness between mediums, it should be a small thing to adjust one of those mediums to be quite happy with it.
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I mean...you don't remember a time before you were born, right?
No, but that seems to be a bit non-sequitur. I also don't remember anything from when I was one year old, or all the dreams I had last night. Yet, logically, I know that I was around and experiencing things. There seems to be little to distinguish being dead and having a bad memory.
I wrote that as a potential defense against the "But aren't you scared of just not existing?", not really as an argument.
Perhaps curiously to some atheists, I also have no problems accepting evolution
What I don't think many people know is how recent the young-Earth movement is. I mean...Ussher's chronology is only a few hundred years old, correct?
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Study of history has provided me with two tools that have been most instrumental in my intellectual and religious development. Foremost, it taught me about logical fallacies. Seriously, it is amazing that these things aren’t a required part of everyone’s education. I’m not as familiar with them as I’d like, I certainly fall into their use at times myself, and I’m not as skilled at identifying them as I’d like to be, but this knowledge has been terribly useful.
Yes indeed. For what it's worth, it was a part of my mandatory education, in AP English, 11th grade. I still have the copy of every major logical fallacy that she gave us, with my handwritten notes covering the paper. The logical fallacies are absolutely critical to critical thought, and I'm with you that they should be mandatory. The fact that I learned them formally in an AP English class toward the end of my K-12 education is dispiriting. All students should have a mandatory logic class somewhere between 6th and 12th grade...perhaps two classes, a comprehensive survey at middle school level and a more rigorous compositional examination at high school level.
Logical fallacies are everywhere. I notice them all the time here and elsewhere. I try to avoid their unintentional use in my own writing, but I'm sure I fall short on occasion. Sometimes I "fall short" on purpose: The use of specific logical fallacies--namely the fallacious appeals--can be very persuasive, given how illogically most people tend to reason. Among the respectable, however, I take great pains to avoid fallacy, and I appreciate when the gesture is returned. Indeed, being able to identify and avoid logical fallacies is one of many criteria by which I develop respect for people in the first place. There's another thread floating around here, a leftover from years ago, back in the days when I still held out hope for sophisticated intellectual discourse on this site. Maybe with the current crop of Compendiumites we can get some more of that. I'd like that.
Nothing can live forever.
Why? If consciousness is nothing more than random firings of the brain, it should be transferable between mediums, yes? And if the multiverse is real and travel between universes is possible (two admittedly large but plausible states of existence), then a single consciousness could continue to jump between universes in order to avoid heat death/ a big crunch. And if the multiverse is the result of cyclical brane collisions, rather than one-shot collisions, such an individual should be able to live quite literally forever.
See, my problem with your reasoning here is that it isn't logical. =)
In science, even the most fervent desire does not ever make a premise true. The "multiverse" is a wild-eyed proposition; there is no data which provides for its existence. Further, on what grounds do you assume that, in a multiverse, there would be a permeable boundary between constituent universes?
This is an example of why I have such distaste for the common practice of bringing cosmology and quantum physics into ideological, or philosophical discussions. Science is immiscible with philosophy; the former is in the business of generating data; the latter is in the business of generating concepts. Science is about approaching the truth and philosophy is about building perspective. The two have far less overlap than people like to believe.
More to the point, however, not you, not I, and not anyone else here is qualified to invoke this highly theoretical and excruciatingly mathematical science, even to merely try and explain it, let alone to use it as support in a discussion of philosophy. That's disrespectful and anti-intellectual, if you would bear with my reasoning. I made a reference to this upthread, when I wrote about people who think they can pick the truth when it comes to the fundamental operation of the universe and the hypothetical existence of anything "outside" the universe. That's preposterous, and no less preposterous is using pseudo-science to justify dubious claims.
Nothing can live forever because the function of the universe precludes it. Now, maybe our understanding of the function of the universe, or of factors beyond the universe, is inaccurate in such a way that "nothing can live forever" is false. But, there is a similar statement that I could offer in lieu of "nothing can live forever," one which not you or anyone else can knock down: "We know of no way by which a thing can live forever." This phrasing leaves open the possibility that there is such a way and that we simply aren't aware of it. Yet, in science, one of the hardest concepts for people to understand and accept is that the open-ended phrasing by which scientists avoid statements of metaphysical certainty does not in itself make any implications about what might exist outside our current understanding. In the statement "We know of no way by which a thing can live forever," the intuitive conclusion to draw from the statement is "There is an unknown way by which a thing can live forever," but the cold truth of the matter is that such a conclusion is unsupportable, because there is absolutely no data to support it.
No data, no deal.
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Unless the laws of thermodynamics are inaccurate and the universe possesses the means to be rejuvenated from within, it makes absolutely no sense to talk about the lifespan of the universe as infinite.
J, could you elaborate on this? I think it's the Heat Death of the Universe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_death_of_the_universe) you're referring to, but I'm not sure, and I'm curious. Do you worry that supporting a linear model of the universe's lifespan (as opposed to an infinite cyclic model (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclic_model)) risks encouraging a singular Big Bang's potential theological implications? At least one atheist seems cornered into arguing for an infinite universe, (http://www.freethoughtpedia.com/wiki/Creation_of_the_Universe) so you deserve major kudos for not being swayed by a preconceived goal in your cosmological view.
True, but just because there is a neurological explanation for an experience doesn't mean that experience isn't real. There is a neurological explanation for why food tastes good, but that doesn't mean that the food doesn't really taste good, or that the food itself isn't real. Doesn't mean it is real, either, of course.
Agreed. It sounds a bit like I might have been devaluing what the experience of prayer means to the individual, but I didn't have that intention. I guess my curiosity is just tickled more by the neurological factors and mind/body processes underlying some religious experiences since I imagine they can be observed and studied with our crude implements, and perhaps put to some practical use. Taking the stigmata as an example: If a person's fervent belief in Jesus' imminent presence causes their palms to slit open and blood to spill out, something fantastic is happening regardless of the source, and if it's exploited it could represent an advancement in medical science. Assuming the person isn't just gouging him or herself, of course.
It sounds ludicrous on its face, but there were some tests done on a few children experiencing Marian apparitions back in the 30s, weren't there? With needles poked into their eyes and stuff, and they didn't flinch? I'm trying to find a Youtube video of this; I remember seeing a documentary. While that's a crude way of testing, if true, it suggests massive production of natural painkillers due to the powerful subjective experience these children were going through. When I think of these things, I get so wrapped up in the natural mechanisms involved for some reason.
If consciousness is nothing more than random firings of the brain, it should be transferable between mediums, yes? And if the multiverse is real and travel between universes is possible (two admittedly large but plausible states of existence), then a single consciousness could continue to jump between universes in order to avoid heat death/ a big crunch. And if the multiverse is the result of cyclical brane collisions, rather than one-shot collisions, such an individual should be able to live quite literally forever.
If such a being would choose to live forever is a different matter, but if we have the ability to transfer awareness between mediums, it should be a small thing to adjust one of those mediums to be quite happy with it.
Do we necessarily need cross dimensional travel, or would linear time travel suffice? I was thinking you'd just hop into H.G. Wells' time machine and hit the rewind button to escape the heat death of the universe, the big crunch, or whatever else is in store. Either that, or you could fast forward to a time after the big crunch and the associated Re-Big Bang has occurred.
From the evidence I found, the data supports my worldview of a divine being who exists beyond the bounds of this universe.
Genesis, I'm curious about this. Would you mind elaborating a bit?
EDIT: Can't find video evidence of the pin pricks I claimed about the Marian apparition earlier; I'm pretty sure the episode I had in mind was in Garabandal, Spain, in 1965. I can only find video evidence of doctors testing for their response to lighting (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDmzyfXECZM#t=03m33s), which is of course a far less dramatic demonstration of mind/body interaction. The video quality is so poor it's really impossible to objectively tell what the reaction is; one would have to rely completely on written medical testimony.
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See, my problem with your reasoning here is that it isn't logical. =)
In science, even the most fervent desire does not ever make a premise true. The "multiverse" is a wild-eyed proposition; there is no data which provides for its existence. Further, on what grounds do you assume that, in a multiverse, there would be a permeable boundary between constituent universes?
This is an example of why I have such distaste for the common practice of bringing cosmology and quantum physics into ideological, or philosophical discussions. Science is immiscible with philosophy; the former is in the business of generating data; the latter is in the business of generating concepts. Science is about approaching the truth and philosophy is about building perspective. The two have far less overlap than people like to believe.
More to the point, however, not you, not I, and not anyone else here is qualified to invoke this highly theoretical and excruciatingly mathematical science, even to merely try and explain it, let alone to use it as support in a discussion of philosophy. That's disrespectful and anti-intellectual, if you would bear with my reasoning. I made a reference to this upthread, when I wrote about people who think they can pick the truth when it comes to the fundamental operation of the universe and the hypothetical existence of anything "outside" the universe. That's preposterous, and no less preposterous is using pseudo-science to justify dubious claims.
Nothing can live forever because the function of the universe precludes it.
J, I agree that tossing quantum-mechanical arguments around in philosophical debates or discussions about the possibility of the afterlife, or eternal life, usually amounts to nothing productive and typically lacks respect for the rigor of investigation into quantum phenomena.
However, your distaste for such bandying about of scientific theories makes me wonder about your insight into the problems of dark energy and the as-of-yet unexplained increasing rate of universal expansion. You use the "function of the universe" to support your repeated assertions that nothing can live forever, yet even astrophysicists today are agnostic as to the actual function of the universe. This is far from a cut-and-dried matter.
Additionally, while I generally accept the Christian belief that Jesus is the only means of salvation, I also reject the notion that only those exposed to one of the gospels (or in general someone who has heard the name “Jesus”) will make it to heaven.
Admittedly I am little surprised that you believe Jesus is the only means to salvation, in some form or another. Could you elaborate on what you mean by this?
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However, your distaste for such bandying about of scientific theories makes me wonder about your insight into the problems of dark energy and the as-of-yet unexplained increasing rate of universal expansion. You use the "function of the universe" to support your repeated assertions that nothing can live forever, yet even astrophysicists today are agnostic as to the actual function of the universe. This is far from a cut-and-dried matter.
Ultimately, you're right. It's very hard to make statements as to the nature of the universe with absolute certainty. However, science has no such taboo on high confidence. Just as surely as it is poor form to bring highfalutin pseudo-science into a discussion to support claims as to the universe's nature, so too is is good form to understand and embrace and work with the considerable data and tested theory that we do possess. I must concede the point that I used "function of the universe" too cavalierly for scientific scruple, but we very much indeed have a considerable ability to verifiably explain the behavior of many observable phenomena in our world and out there among the stars. In this instance I was speaking of the entropy effect, the progression of energy in a closed system to be less available to perform work, which is a well understood and easily understandable physical trend that is measurable and predictable. For anything to live forever, the entropy effect (and specifically the second law of thermodynamics) would have to be inaccurate or false. That's certainly possible, but possibility by itself does not equal actuality.
It pains me to have to point out to the gallery that we must be wary of the most complex and theoretical areas of sciences, because I am one of those who likes for science to be accessible to everyone, and for everyone to care about science and to use science in their deliberations. Thankfully, most of us have at least a basic understanding of simple science. Thermodynamics is a comapratively maturer branch of physics than cosmology, and, at the risk of being dismissed as a fool by history, it is pretty clear to me that nothing can live forever, because the universe doesn't provide for eternal rejuvenation. Eventually all the stars will burn out; all elements are approaching iron through fission or fusion; the galaxies are moving apart as the universe's expansion accelerates, permanently separating vast quantities of matter and energy (so long as the unknown agency of the universe's expansion remains in effect); matter itself finally breaks down to the subatomic level. Ultimately there will simply be nothing left: Everything will be a dark mess at near-absolute-zero temperatures and utterly untransformable by any known process. Life on this planet has thrived for as long as it has because it is an open system, provided with continuous energy from the sun. Some of that energy is absorbed on the dayside and released on the nightside. Some of it gets caught up in the biological web of life on Earth and fuels life processes. Without the sun, the party's over.
There are many processes in the universe besides nuclear fusion through which energy can be transferred (thus enabling, for instance, life), but all of these processes are dependent upon "fuel" of some variety or another. In stars, that fuel is the light elements from hydrogen to iron. Above iron, fusion consumes energy rather than releases it. (And the reverse is true for fission, which is why fission reactors require heavy elements and fusion reactors require light ones.) The output of a star process requires an abundance of light elements to persist, but the process itself uses up the universe's supply! Light elements can be replenished by the breakdown of heavy elements, it's true, but eventually all the elements that can break down, will, due to radioactive decay, and what then? As it goes with stars, so it goes with every other energy transfer process that we know about. Eventually, all the fuel will run out. There is no phenomenon out there that we know about, no process, that contradicts the curve of entropy. So what happens in the end? Everything fades out. Everything points to the conclusion that, unless there is some huge X quantity out there that goes against what is observable, this universe may well continue to exist forever, but will be unable to support activity beyond a finite period.
Those who want to assert that we can live in some form forever, need to explain how that would work, and they need to do so in a credible way. The burden of proof is on them to describe what set of processes would be necessary, without resorting to pseudo-scientific mysticism and wishful thinking such as "the multiverse." You know that old canard about easy money?
1. Put kittens together in a room.
2. Add ninjas.
3. ???
4. PROFIT !!
Well, here we are. The live forever crowd has figured out Step 4 just fine, but what about Steps 1, 2, and 3? Those are kind of important.
Far be it from me to knock anyone down when the unknown prevails, but in this case there're a lot of knowns that have to be accounted for in order to theorize eternal life in any form. It might be a more productive conversation for people to ask how we can live forever, and develop a workable answer...OR DIE TRYING!!
:franky
J, could you elaborate on this? I think it's the Heat Death of the Universe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_death_of_the_universe) you're referring to, but I'm not sure, and I'm curious. Do you worry that supporting a linear model of the universe's lifespan (as opposed to an infinite cyclic model (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclic_model)) risks encouraging a singular Big Bang's potential theological implications? At least one atheist seems cornered into arguing for an infinite universe, (http://www.freethoughtpedia.com/wiki/Creation_of_the_Universe) so you deserve major kudos for not being swayed by a preconceived goal in your cosmological view.
I'm not immediately aware of the specific "theological implication" to which you are referring. To the extent I understand the subject, I am under the impression that the cyclical model has been disproved by observation, leaving us with an undoubtedly expanding universe. Of course, here I am getting into cosmology when I'm not qualified to do so, but, to the best of my amateur understanding, I don't see why one Big Bang should in any way require the agency of a deity in a way that more than one Big Bang should not.
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So...gathering ninjas and kittens in a room is how you live forever?
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No, gathering kittens and ninjas in a room is how you profit. Read the prompt! :kamina
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I don't see why one Big Bang should in any way require the agency of a deity in a way that more than one Big Bang should not.
In the case of infinitely successive Big Bangs, you've got all the universe's matter and energy there and ready to go in time for the most recent Big Bang. In the case of a single Big Bang, there's a great big void, and some of us will be tempted to fill that void with a "first cause." Some will ultimately replace "first cause" with "God," and therein lies a spot in scientific studies to which all manner of wondrous religious ideas can potentially cling.
But in the end, I have to agree with you that a "God"'s presence or lack thereof is equally applicable to both models. It's just that the contractionary/expansionary model (the "cyclic model" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclic_Universe)) has a logical advantage in combating theistic interpretation by "trumping" God with something that's already eternal. I wouldn't be so ready to dismiss it either; while Hoyle's Steady State (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steady_state_universe) model of the universe appears to no longer be treated seriously, the cyclic model is something separate and appears to be a contender thanks to the Dark Energy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_energy) Uboa mentioned earlier.
It's dangerous, of course, to claim absolute truth on the basis of things like this that the armchair observer doesn't have a chance at understanding the deeper nuances of, and which the world's greatest minds still disagree on. However, I feel it could be equally dangerous to hesitate bringing up cosmology and other less-understood sciences in our discourse and explore their meaning to us, as long as we make that caveat clear. Shuttering up scientific knowledge, theories, and opinions can only decrease human curiosity relative to a free flow of information and discourse; therefore, if something in science excites us, we should feel free to say what it is, and why it excites us. There's already a huge amount of theory locked in for-pay scientific journals, and I fear that very fact is depriving some individuals the chance encounters that would have made them interested in some scientific field.
As for the processes that would be necessary for everlasting life, this is what I was imagining.
1. Human brain preservation. This is becoming more sophisticated with modern vitrification (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryopreservation#Vitrification) methods, but we don't know just how good it is at retaining information and human experience either. This is ultimately the great unknown in life extension. I will have to presume that there is no mind/body dichotomy, and that the totality of our awareness is locked into something physical just as sure as our computer hard drives can be turned off and still contain our Word documents when some juice is injected back into them.
Obviously those whose brains become physically destroyed will be incredibly unlucky (if they entertain a desire to experience earthly life infinitely).
2. Nanomachines for the repair of tissues damaged in the presumably imperfect vitrification process, plus for brain mapping (http://www.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/3853/brain-emulation-roadmap-report.pdf), the process of recording the brain's physical structure and thus capturing all life experience accumulated within that brain. So, add ninjas...but really, really small ones.
3. Mind uploading (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_uploading), also something already being discussed in some scientific circles. Given Moore's Law's uncanny ability to fulfill itself, I'd imagine that computers capable of containing a "savestate" of a human brain could come into being even before nanomachines. Currently our best machines can simulate a small portion of a rat's brain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_brain).
4. Some process for imprinting the mapped brain structure onto a fresh brain devoid of experience (if the goal is continual human life and not life inside a machine of some sort). The brain could be kept in a vat with glaring eyes connected to it if you like, and it could live like Renee Descarte. Or, hopefully a new body can be grown around the brain.
5. Time travel. This would hypothetically allow for one's escape from the ultimate fate of the universe, if it indeed has an ultimate fate.
6. PROFIT
Points 2, 3, 4, and 5 are probably what some would call "pseudo-scientific mysticism and wishful thinking." I admit that readily, and it is a fair criticism. However, there was once a point in time at which it was perfectly fair to criticize humanity's ability to fly with wings or set foot on the moon on those exact grounds. While those examples are not proof that what has not yet happened will happen, they demonstrate that what has not yet happened may happen. The fact that significant progress has been made on point 1 and there is ongoing (non pseudo) scientific exploration pertinent to points 2 and 3 gives me heart that humanity will transcend every limit currently placed on it, including mortality, if we only have the desire to pursue it.
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It's dangerous, of course, to claim absolute truth on the basis of things like this that the armchair observer doesn't have a chance at understanding the deeper nuances of, and which the world's greatest minds still disagree on. However, I feel it could be equally dangerous to hesitate bringing up cosmology and other less-understood sciences in our discourse and explore their meaning to us, as long as we make that caveat clear. Shuttering up scientific knowledge, theories, and opinions can only decrease human curiosity relative to a free flow of information and discourse; therefore, if something in science excites us, we should feel free to say what it is, and why it excites us. There's already a huge amount of theory locked in for-pay scientific journals, and I fear that very fact is depriving some individuals the chance encounters that would have made them interested in some scientific field.
This side-topic perhaps deserves its own thread. Science really is the instrument of ultimate understanding; to abuse it is unlike anything else. One could perhaps draw a parallel to engineering, where abuse would lead to technological failures. Even now you might well be content to try all kinds of experimental paper airplane designs in your search for the best, but would you feel comfortable being in charge of building an actual modern jetplane, given your current level of expertise in aerospace engineering?
You shouldn't be comfortable, because you're not qualified. So, then: Just because there isn't an airplane to fall out of the sky if someone make a mistake, we should all go ahead and bring these ridiculous cosmological ideas into our discussions on life, the universe, and everything? Even though many of these ideas are not scientific and bear little resemblance to actual cosmology? Even though, owing to their erroneousness, they are likely to obscure the subject rather than illumine it?
Given how little I see people bring up simple science to accentuate their everyday conversations, I am particularly wary when they suddenly bust out into speculative discussions on the very frontier of modern science. What they are saying is science fiction, but it's not treated as fiction: People talk about it as though all their wild ideas were true. That's what troubles me. It's no problem at all to be speculative; that's more like building paper airplanes to see what might happen. But when someone touches the claim of speaking the truth, when in fact they don't know what they're talking about, innocence is lost and anti-intellectualism takes over. Hadriel, an ex-Compendiumite, was the worst when it came to this. He'd talk about wormholes and string vibrations and dark energy as if all those things were perfectly settled science and he had a doctorate to profess them. But I see others make the same mistakes to a lesser degree whenever these kinds of subjects come up.
It is crucial that people be able to distinguish between real scientific knowledge and fantastical make-believe, and that they never use the latter to support claims of fact.
I would hate for people to say, "Oh, it's too much trouble to learn about science." It is a terrible loss for society when individuals come to the conclusion that science belongs only to trained professionals in white coats. Science belongs to everyone one of us, and has its place in our daily lives. We should all be taught, better than we currently are, to understand what the scientific method is and what the principles of good experimentation are. However, we should also be taught to respect that science cannot simply be made up, and that we should always avoid making scientific claims when we don't actually grasp the concepts we are invoking. Science, like an automobile, must be wielded responsibly and with respect...because bad things happen otherwise.
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To be fair, a lot of us have already spent considerable time in environments where cosmology is discussed openly. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34-1W_9BhoU) It's only natural for those who spent more time with Carl Sagan than Big Bird to try and keep up with the latest discoveries and advances once their interest has been sparked, and yes, even to bring that into regular discourse. We should be able to make a distinction between "Hey, I think I know about airplanes, let's build one!" and "Hey, I saw this new theoretical wing design pop up on the Aerodynamics wiki! Could this change air travel one day?"
On another level, we are already well entrenched in a war with cosmology-aided indoctrination. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQQ_fXDZohk) From all sides. (http://www.freethoughtpedia.com/wiki/Creation_of_the_Universe) These are the people who are trying to build airplanes, or perhaps use the airplanes with a concrete goal to transport people somewhere. I'm sure we can do enough digging to find other sciences that have been so victimized.
I'm clearly unqualified to specify how the universe really works with any certainty, or to propose an official model of my own; but even an armchair enthusiast can develop enough familiarity with the concepts that are out there to tell that both these specific examples are oversimplifications and leave out critical facts and alternative hypotheses, probably to serve ulterior persuasive motives.
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But in the end, I have to agree with you that a "God"'s presence or lack thereof is equally applicable to both models. It's just that the contractionary/expansionary model (the "cyclic model" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclic_Universe)) has a logical advantage in combating theistic interpretation by "trumping" God with something that's already eternal. I wouldn't be so ready to dismiss it either; while Hoyle's Steady State (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steady_state_universe) model of the universe appears to no longer be treated seriously, the cyclic model is something separate and appears to be a contender thanks to the Dark Energy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_energy) Uboa mentioned earlier.
I agree, Wolf. A Steady State universe model is not to be taken seriously, and for good reason:
The theory ran up against the reality of the observations of the universe. There are no stars greater than 14 billion years old, even though small stars can have a lifetimes greater than 30 billion years. In addition, all the galaxies we see are fully formed. The only "young" galaxies we see are those that are at the limits of the age of the universe (i.e. very far away). In reality, because of relativity, in looking at young galaxies, we are looking at galaxies that were forming only 1 billion years after the Big Bang event (it has taken the light 12 billion years to reach the earth). Because of these problems, there are virtually no cosmologists today who believe in the steady state universe.
That said, I now have to swing the pendulum back and say that the cyclic model (aka the Oscillating Universe) doesn't hold water under scrutiny either, and for good reason:
The ability of the universe to oscillate is dependent upon a certain critical mass. This critical mass is required to slow the expansion of the universe and force a contraction. If this total mass is not present, which seems likely, then the universe will continue to expand into eternity. Even if there were enough mass to cause the universe, the result of that collapse would be a "Big Crunch" as opposed to another Big Bang.
The reason that the universe would not "bounce" if it were to contract is that the universe is extremely inefficient (entropic). In fact, the universe is so inefficient that the bounce resulting from the collapse of the universe would be only 0.00000001% of the original Big Bang. Such a small "bounce" would result in an almost immediate re-collapse of the universe into one giant black hole for the rest of eternity.
Check out this article for more reference.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v302/n5908/abs/302505a0.html (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v302/n5908/abs/302505a0.html)
It's an MIT Professor. That should at least provide some credibility, right?
To date, the Big Bang theory is the most credible and well-supported theory for the origins of the universe. However, there have been objections to it:
"Apart from being philosophically unacceptable, the Big-Bang is an over-simple view of how the Universe began, and it is unlikely to survive the decade ahead."
(Maddox, John 1989. Down with the Big Bang. Nature 340: 425)
"...smacks of divine intervention."
(Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time).
And there's this one bit from Christopher Isham:
"Perhaps the best argument in favor of the thesis that the Big Bang supports theism is the obvious unease with which it is greeted by some atheist physicists. At times this has led to scientific ideas, such as continuous creation [steady state] or an oscillating universe, being advanced with a tenacity which so exceeds their intrinsic worth that one can only suspect the operation of psychological forces lying very much deeper than the usual academic desire of a theorist to support his/her theory."
(Isham, C. 1988. "Creation of the Universe as a Quantum Process," in Physics, Philosophy, and Theology, A Common Quest for Understanding, eds. R. J. Russell, W. R. Stoeger, and G. V. Coyne, Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory, p. 378)
What says you, FW?
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I think cosmology is so easily wrapped up in philosophical goals and wish fulfillment on either side that we need to give the science some room to breathe, without trying to crush specific theories unduly. Alternative theories need to compete freely for survival amidst gradually acquired evidence. Since both you and J have the impression that even the most recent cyclic models are becoming outdated in the face of accumulating observational evidence, I will review the available criticism of it for my own edification. Therein lies some worth to discussing these things.
I don't mean to get into a huge argument and swing around concepts I don't have the mathematical tools to investigate first hand; I just want some five year old Chrono fan to see the confusion and the wonder and decide to go into cosmological science so s/he can figure it out once and for all. That is my goal.
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We should be able to make a distinction between "Hey, I think I know about airplanes, let's build one!" and "Hey, I saw this new theoretical wing design pop up on the Aerodynamics wiki! Could this change air travel one day?"
If I might make a different analogy: we have awoken to find ourselves on a plane that is already in flight. There is no pilot around, but a few of the other passengers have, through careful experimentation, figured out how a few switches in the cockpit function, and maybe have a few guesses at what is keeping the plane aloft, but no one’s mastered the controls. We can either sit down, saying we don’t know how the plane flies (or even what principles are keeping it aloft), or we can get in the cockpit and use what little we know to the best we can. Our actions might doom us all, but our inaction certainly will.
Further, on what grounds do you assume that, in a multiverse, there would be a permeable boundary between constituent universes?
Because if there is ever a way to prove that the multiverse exists, then there would have to be some way to observe it either directly or indirectly, yes? If we can observe something, it tends to mean that interactions with it are possible. Thus if we can every prove it, we can use it. Probably.
Additionally, the multiverse has been used to explain where dark energy/matter are. They’re in another universe that is effecting ours.
If we can’t observe, then it is a moot point all together. The multiverse might be there but we have no way of knowing, so no means of interaction, and no reason to even pursue interactions. We can't prove its there, after all.
But I must apologize. When someone says something is impossible, my first instinct is to start imagining ways that they are wrong. In this case it was a bit of a bird-walk.
I'm not immediately aware of the specific "theological implication" to which you are referring.
It is that the universe seems to have required "fine tuning" to exist as it does. If I am recalling correctly, given the range of variables that effected the start of the universe (and everything since), there is somewhere around 101000 possible outcomes, with only a handful producing one anywhere like ours (the vast majority should produce universes that fail to start, or ones that start but never develop).
Of course, there is the analogy of the intelligent puddle that attempts to address this oddity. If the universe didn't happen to produce life, we wouldn't be around to realize that it didn't. This is like a puddle that imagines the hole it inhabits was created just for it, because it fits it so well. The problem with that analogy is, while it legitimately urges us to be cautious, there truly are some puddles that find themselves in holes that were created just for them. We tend to call these puddles “swimming pools.”
The statistics seem to imply that our universe, being like it is, is significant; the P value is ridiculously low. However, with an n=1, the statistics are also ridiculously shaky and no reasonable conclusion can be drawn. But it is enough to allow reasonably-intelligent people to continue to believe in a divine origin of the universe. Even if it isn’t true, it gives enough room for it to be supposed.
Which is why the multiverse is such an attractive concept to some scientists. Instead of a single roll of the dice producing a livable universe against unimaginable odds, there were an unimaginable number of dice rolls to overcome these odds, once again seemingly removing even the faintest whiff of the divine. And of course, a cyclical brane model for the multiverse would indicate that not only is there one multiverse, but that multiverses keep getting created again and again and again, not only allowing for our universe to exist, but essentially necessitating it (a non-cyclical brane model would still have multiple multiverses, but those would be of a finite number). But... then we start getting the problem of Boltzmann brains. Totally improbable things become reality when given enough chances; indeed, the improbable should outnumber the probable, so it would actually be more likely that we popped into existence as-is a few seconds ago with memories of a developing world (that never actually existed), rather than the universe as we know it developing on its own.
Ah, philosophy, is there anything it can’t suppose is false on a whim?
That said, I now have to swing the pendulum back and say that the cyclic model (aka the Oscillating Universe) doesn't hold water under scrutiny either, and for good reason.
One of the great advantages of the cyclic model, however, is that we don't have the problem of what caused the big bang. As soon as all matter and energy gets recompressed into a geometric point, it explodes again. Without that, we have the problem of all the matter and energy in the universe existing in a "cosmic egg" for an infinite amount of "time" before the big bang. What caused it to change? Is change even possible before the big bang? Is time even possible? Is “is” even possible?!
To note, theories regarding the multiverse also tend to have this advantage.
The big crunch under a cyclical model, if it happened, could be very efficient if it would be drawing in everything that was expelled beforehand. One might suppose that some energy or matter would escape the big crunch; that is certainly a possibility, but space isn't a constant. As the universe contracts, space too would be contracting, so anything that was too far away would be drawn back in as well, just because the space between it and this super black hole (I will call it... the Omega Hole) would shrink. Now I know that this goes in the face of what that article you linked to claimed, so I will admit that I am very likely overlooking something. This MIT professor seems to assume that something is being lost with every "bounce" of the universe. Given my limited knowledge of the topic, I am unable to identify what would be lost, where it would go, or why it wouldn't be retrieved.
The answer to the beginning of the universe may well be as the BioLogos foundation notes:
The common sense assumption that everything must have a cause or a reason to be as it is also suffers from what is called the fallacy of composition. This fallacy comes about when we assume that properties of the parts apply to the whole. For example, just because every member of the human race has a mother, we cannot infer that the human race itself has a mother. Similarly, a collection of spherical things would not itself have to be spherical. In discussions about the origins of the universe, we would say that just because every individual part of the universe has a cause, that does not mean that the entire universe has a cause.
As a side note, even if there was a failed big crunch, things wouldn't end in a black hole; even that would evaporate eventually. Heat Death for the win!
I will have to presume that there is no mind/body dichotomy, and that the totality of our awareness is locked into something physical just as sure as our computer hard drives can be turned off and still contain our Word documents when some juice is injected back into them.
Oddly enough, zombies have been used by philosophers to explore that very possibility (well… p-zombies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-zombie)). I'm not going anywhere with that comment, I just found it random-yet-interesting enough to be worth sharing.
Additionally, while I generally accept the Christian belief that Jesus is the only means of salvation, I also reject the notion that only those exposed to one of the gospels (or in general someone who has heard the name “Jesus”) will make it to heaven.
Admittedly I am little surprised that you believe Jesus is the only means to salvation, in some form or another. Could you elaborate on what you mean by this?
First, allow me to establish this stance in the common form and then explain how I differ. However, I must stress that these comments are from "inside" a religion, which means that certain religious concepts are assumed to be correct. Thus I must ask the read to suspend disbelief to a degree for a little while.
A basic Christian tenant is the need for salvation. Some believe that this is due to original sin, though I reject such a notion on scriptural grounds as well as rational ones (which, in the context of religion, may be an oxymoron, but as I said, “suspension of disbelief”). For me, salvation is necessitated due to individual "sins," with sin being defined as essentially "that which turns away from God." Anywho, that isn’t particularly important for the present. While it is possible for a human to live in a sinless manner, it tends to be incredibly unlikely (happening somewhere around 2 or 3 times, as recorded in the bible at least). A crime committed is a crime that must be atoned for, which is why I tend to reject the notion that if you are "just a good person" you'll go to heaven. "Good" is the baseline, that which is required. Something needs to atone for the deficit created by crimes. Jesus then, in some manner, satisfies that need.
This is one of those points where Christianity comes across as a hindrance to critical thinking; Christians don't know exactly why Jesus' time on earth and death were needed. Why couldn't God just wave his hand and forgive everyone? Why was pain and suffering needed? Individual Christians sometimes have personal answers to these questions, but there isn't a universally or even widely accepted dogma to this effect. There are indeed a great number of Christians who can't give you an answer at all. My particular answer involves time travel (more or less). But be that as it may, the belief goes on in that while other sacrifices might alleviate a little bit of culpability, there is really only one that does the job fully and eternally. Thus, in order to completely atone for sins (those in the present, future, or past) one would need to accept Jesus' sacrifice.
Why it doesn't count regardless of if someone accepts it or not is a very simple matter, but one that often gets brought up so allow me to address it. If I give you a thousand dollars, you can't very well spend it if you don't first accept it. Like that, like this.
This generally leads a great many Christians to the belief that one has to hear the literal gospel as contained in the Christian bible and specifically "accept Jesus Christ as their lord and savior" for God to cut them in on the deal. This is supported by particular interpretations of various bible verses, such as when Jesus claims that he is "the way, the truth, and the light; no one comes to the father except through" him.
I find this stance to often be a stumbling block for a lot of people. Darwin rebelled against his earlier Christian faith because he could not tolerate the belief that a good God would send good people to hell just because they didn't happen to pray a special prayer. Indeed, this stance does cause a problem: what of people who have never been exposed to Christian religion (either because they lived before Jesus, or they live in a part of the world that hasn't been exposed to it yet)? If one accepts a strict stance on this topic, one must generally believe that God condemns them through no fault of their own, which is against the common-but-not-universal Christian belief in free will.
Now my own stance on this matter is largely summarized in the Chronicles of Narnia. Names aren’t important but intent is key. Anyone who earnestly seeks for the divine will find a connection to God and the will be sort of “grandfathered” into the salvation that Jesus provides. Now this isn't just me being an apostate without cause; particular interpretations of scripture support this stance (for example, it is stated the Jewish patriarchs are saved, even though they had no idea who Jesus was; they were quite literally "grandfathered in." Likewise, Jesus states that anyone who seeks for him will find him, in a non-literal but still meaningful sense. And others). One might suppose that if an ethereal connection is all that is necessary, then an exact connection through the gospels is extraneous and could be done away with. I reject such an assumption based on detailed knowledge being better and more useful than merely a working understanding. See above regarding my airplane analogy. I’m a big proponent of using what you have but adjusting your thinking on the fly.
But the effective end result is that while I get to believe that Christianity is "right," I am not required to believe that all non-Christians are damned for all time. Though, this is such a convenient stance that I have often wondered if it is nothing more than wishful thinking. So far my theological pursuits seem to uphold it, but as I said, my beliefs are constantly evolving.
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One of the great advantages of the cyclic model, however, is that we don't have the problem of what caused the big bang. As soon as all matter and energy gets recompressed into a geometric point, it explodes again. Without that, we have the problem of all the matter and energy in the universe existing in a "cosmic egg" for an infinite amount of "time" before the big bang. What caused it to change? Is change even possible before the big bang? Is time even possible? Is “is” even possible?!
Yes, it is possible . The Big Bang model allows for the creation of time as a dimension at 0 to 10-43 second. We know only that at least 9 dimensions of space existed as what is called singularity. All of the universe-to-be existed as a point of no volume. Time as we know it was created.
To note, theories regarding the multiverse also tend to have this advantage.
But the multiverse theory lacks something that all hypotheses require: empirical testability, which without hard physical evidence is unfalsifiable. This theory lies outside the methodology of scientific investigation to confirm or disprove.
Then there’s Occam’s Razor. Need I say more?
The big crunch under a cyclical model, if it happened, could be very efficient if it would be drawing in everything that was expelled beforehand. One might suppose that some energy or matter would escape the big crunch; that is certainly a possibility, but space isn't a constant. As the universe contracts, space too would be contracting, so anything that was too far away would be drawn back in as well, just because the space between it and this super black hole (I will call it... the Omega Hole) would shrink. Now I know that this goes in the face of what that article you linked to claimed, so I will admit that I am very likely overlooking something. This MIT professor seems to assume that something is being lost with every "bounce" of the universe. Given my limited knowledge of the topic, I am unable to identify what would be lost, where it would go, or why it wouldn't be retrieved.
Perhaps, except the universe, as an entropic engine, is very inefficient. The universe has a mechanical efficiency of 1/100,000,000 of a percent. Engineers in the audience will tell you that anytime an engine falls below a 1% mechanical efficiency, it will not oscillate. The universe falls 8 orders of magnitude short of that limit. Therefore, it’s physically (to an extent) impossible.
The multiverse sounds scientific, but it is really philosophical wishful thinking, since there is no evidence supporting the idea. If one really thinks about it, the multiverse is impossible over the entire period of eternity (which is what atheists would propose for the age of the "invisible" part of our universe - if such a thing exists at all). The problem is that our part of the multiverse has managed to make itself completely inaccessible to contraction and future expansion. If it were possible for one part of the multiverse to become thermodynamically dead, it would be expected to be possible for others. Even if entry into such a state is extremely unlikely, eternity is a very, very long time. Certainly by now (over all eternity), the entire multiverse would have entered into one of these thermodynamically dead zones. So, one would expect the entire multiverse to have suffered thermodynamic death by now. Therefore, it makes absolutely no sense that the universe is eternal with the characteristics that we observe.
What says you , Wolf?
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Perhaps, except the universe, as an entropic engine, is very inefficient. The universe has a mechanical efficiency of 1/100,000,000 of a percent. Engineers in the audience will tell you that anytime an engine falls below a 1% mechanical efficiency, it will not oscillate. The universe falls 8 orders of magnitude short of that limit. Therefore, it’s physically (to an extent) impossible.
The multiverse sounds scientific, but it is really philosophical wishful thinking, since there is no evidence supporting the idea. If one really thinks about it, the multiverse is impossible over the entire period of eternity (which is what atheists would propose for the age of the "invisible" part of our universe - if such a thing exists at all). The problem is that our part of the multiverse has managed to make itself completely inaccessible to contraction and future expansion. If it were possible for one part of the multiverse to become thermodynamically dead, it would be expected to be possible for others. Even if entry into such a state is extremely unlikely, eternity is a very, very long time. Certainly by now (over all eternity), the entire multiverse would have entered into one of these thermodynamically dead zones. So, one would expect the entire multiverse to have suffered thermodynamic death by now. Therefore, it makes absolutely no sense that the universe is eternal with the characteristics that we observe.
I just want to point out that there was a single original idea there, thpse were a direct quote from Hugh Ross (http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com/audio/newevidence.htm) and Rich Deem (http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/atheismintro3.html). At least give credit dude.
Edit: Not trying to sound accusatory, sorry.
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There is nothing supernatural or magical about our brains or our bodies. Wondrous though they are, they are absolutely mundane, and knowable.
I am backtracking here to a point which, on the surface, I had no problem with. But, something about this actually caused me to stew for the past couple of days. Looking at Lord J's post again, I don't know that I should be disquieted at all by it, because my gut reaction to this quote is probably way out of line considering his intentions. Still, I can't shake this feeling that I should offer a caveat to this, because I feel like the word "knowable" as it sits there is only presenting half, if that, of a very important whole picture which is often neglected in the context of the debate that was at hand here.
I wonder if this is one of those things where one would have to be raised at least partially in a new atheist community to understand. I don't think that this issue I'm about to raise applies to atheism as a whole, but specifically to the new atheist movement with which I've already made my grievances known. The reason for that is the new atheists have this tendency to portray science as this all-powerful force with which all problems can be solved and everything can be known, and my understanding is that they do so in order to counter the influence of the supposed all-powerful and all-knowing gods of religion. I'm aware it's no coincidence that my reaction to J's statement stems from my distaste for the new atheism, as J's statement was given to counter the powerful idea of the afterlife. But, like the all-powerful portrayal of science in the new atheism, the word "knowable", to me, is a misrepresentation of the actual state of our relationship to ourselves and our surroundings, because it conveniently leaves out a great deal of what we have to contend with in our lives and negates the impact and profoundity of that contention.
It seems to me that most people, religions, and institutions built upon ideas do not sufficiently respect the concept of the unknown. Religions often try to justify certain beliefs with the "gaps", the unknowns, of our scientific understanding, and often seek to blanket part or all of existence in the "known" that is their set of beliefs. Individual persons have a hard time admitting their lack of knowledge to themselves and others, despite that proceeding as though they know something they do not will only lead to a great deal of trouble. Particular branches of academia do not sufficiently address gaps in our understanding of how things work, and don't prepare students for dealing with unknowns which could destroy themselves professionally as well as devastate others. All of this seems like a terrible and wasteful avoidance mechanism, and all because there's this tendency to cling to what we know in the battlegrounds of our ideologies. We want to believe that what we know is best, so we find ways of bolstering our supposed knowledge in our spare time instead of challenging ourselves.
We are born into a great unknown, and I don't think there has been a person who has died in the history of humanity that has made but a dent in that unknown on their own. Buddha, Einstein, and Galileo, with their profound insights, still only scratched the surface in the grand scheme of things. Consider, they were lucky, as circumstance allowed them more leaps in insight than most on this earth will ever be blessed with. Most of us do not have the luxury of a life that will lead to great insight. Still, we spend our lives gathering knowledge, making connections, and processing data to know the world as we need to, but the imperfections of these processes often find ways to grind us to a halt in our lives. We also often grind to a halt when we encounter a new and strange situation, one for which our preparation up to that particular point in our life has little to offer us.
These instances in our lives are often painful and worrisome. But as upsetting as these events may be, when you think about it, this is the contention with the unknown that essentially makes us who we are, or evolves our understanding of ourselves. I'm waxing into the personal realm, into the field of individual experience, because in this realm the most important knowledge we can gain is through this contention. From our earliest days we contend with the great unknown, and children who are denied this contention in some form or another are often permanently at a loss for it. If we spend our days in the comfortable, and realistically, often uncomfortable realms of what we know, we lose our tenacity, and we lose chances at obtaining valuable understanding. On the other hand, if we make a habit of grappling with things we do not understand, or if we make a habit of trying things with which we have no previous experience, we uncover a much fuller potential for ourselves. We also stand to augment our existing knowledge tremendously. Individuals can often gain perspective of psychological damage and hangups through life-changing encounters the (up to that point) unknown, and this perspective would not have come without said encounter, or it would have come at a much slower rate.
The point that sparked my need to divulge all of my concern here is essentially this: It troubles me deeply that those who use science to make such a hard stand against religion with the intention of broadening minds have this tendency to get caught up in science's, ironically, brilliant and profound successes in the expansion of our realm of knowledge. Again, I understand why they do this, but too often they don't know when to hit the off switch, so to speak. An image of this flaw which has haunted me over several years is that of children in a "Free Thought" church learning to work circuit boards during Sunday school. "That's great!" some may be tempted to say, however I couldn't help but feel the opposite way. Instead, I felt that the minds of those children were not being challenged in such a way that would be more beneficial to them. They, and their parents, were comfortably exploring the realms of the known with which scientific advancement has blessed us. In an activities or hobbyist group that would be fine, but in a progressive Sunday school setting I couldn't help but feel as though I was witnessing an opportunity for important critical thinking being cast aside in favor of bolstering the truths revealed by science, perhaps so the children would not be tempted to be led astray by religion.
The capacity for knowledge from scientific discovery makes us a ridiculously powerful species, and one could say too powerful if we're unable to harness that knowledge in a way that won't lead to our demise. True, this knowledge helps those blessed enough to be aided by it to live longer, healthier, and happier lives. But, the fact remains that in the big picture of human experience, scientific knowledge comprises only a tiny part of that picture to any experiencer outside the realm of the study of hard sciences. The comfortable knowns in our lives, from a subjective point of view, are not the most memorable or notable points to us. If they are, then that seems to me to be a sign of lacking perspective and dangerous stagnation. However, reflections on a life in proper perspective will likely hold meetings with the unknown and the outcomes of those meetings which are of most importance, because they are what shape who we are on a very deep level.
Believe it or not, it really is not my intention to accuse Lord J of the fault that I find with the new atheism. Right or wrong on my part, it was this minute point that he made that caused me to reflect extensively on my own conflicted feelings toward using science, or "knowledge" at large, to counter religion due to the strange light in which this endeavor often casts science/knowledge. I was actually troubled enough to the point where I had to say something to get this off my chest, something which is entirely a reflection of the depth of my own grievances. Read this as a side note, not a point in a debate.
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I was looking for an appropriate religion thread to put a post about religious charity, and I found this thread. It's not the right fit for my charity post, but it's a quality thread! I am bumping it for new Compendiumites.
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I was looking for an appropriate religion thread to put a post about religious charity, and I found this thread. It's not the right fit for my charity post, but it's a quality thread! I am bumping it for new Compendiumites.
I checked the dating on the first time I posted here. It was exactly two years ago tonight. That being said, I'm taking another crack at this. In the two years since I first posted on this board, I've been through two years at a Christian liberal arts college, met some people I feel are truly enlightened, and some whose views and the way they expressed them revolted me so much that they made me really think about how I stand in this whole "God" thing, as well as a few other areas. In other words, I've grown up a bit since last you saw me, and a heck of a lot since the last time I posted in a thread like this one. I've changed a bit, so I feel my answer from two years ago needs changing. And now that I'm a distance from home, I've been able to process situations that were difficult to wrap my head around when I was back downstate.
I'm trying not to read too much of my old answers to avoid cheating, but here it goes.
1. When it comes to religion/spirituality, what do you believe, if anything?
I still believe in the Christian concept of God. I still believe in the divinity and sacrifice of Jesus. I still believe that God is not an interventionaist deity. He'd rather sit back in his cosmic rocking chair and sip iced tea(for it is the nectar of the gods) than deal with our petty squabbles. I also believe that He is the creator; He created everyone and everything. He got the ball rolling for evolution. Humans are the apex right now, but we still have a long way before we can emulate the ideals of his Son, Jesus Christ.
Suffering is still caused by human will. Actions or inaction determine this. That being said, He is a god of justice. Our job in this world is to act as stewards. We all have a duty to leave this world a better place than we left it. I came to this conclusion after re-reading the New Testament, particularly the Gospels and the Parable of the Talents. How you go about doing that depends on your individual gift. If you help to progress the world, you'll have a spot in Paradise when your life is over.
I'm still as flippant about religion as always though, constantly lampooning it. In retrospect, this probably has to do with the almost Quaker-level modesty which I've approached the subject; I tend to see wearing your spirituality on your sleeve as obnoxious or ostentatious. That's why I never use "cuz the bible sed so" as a reason to do something.
I remember asking about the afterlife in this thread, and now's confession time. For the longest time, mostly when I was younger, I was clinging to the concept of God because I was scared of death. In that time, I deconverted, reconverted, then found myself faced with the same issue. I read a Steven Hawking book recently where he made the case that there is no God, and there's no purpose for him. After reading it, I considered the possibility that there was no God, and still felt very calm and good about the concept of having no afterlife.
Obviously, I'm still a Christian today, so that's not the end of the story. It's just where I feel like leaving off for now.
2. How did you come to believe it?
As you can probably tell, I've switched from a morally driven mindset to a justice driven one. We have to do what's right, not what's adequate. The status quo is unacceptable in many different ways and we all need to work to change it. I made this jump in mindsets, as I mentioned before, from re-reading the New Testament, and experiencing things through the collegiate-intellectual world, and especially seeing how taking a neutral stance can often lead to regression.
My first real experience with the latter happened in, fittingly enough, a critical thinking class. The professor set up a blog for us to discuss noteworthy news items on. One day he posted a question about whether or not we believed homosexuals were living in sin and...well, I forget how he worded the rest of it. Point is, I was the studious one in the class, so I left a decent explanation of why I didn't think that was the case: how Jesus never mentions it, how Paul probably didn't have the same understanding of the matter that we do today, etc. Given that I was in the middle of evangelicals, I expected a few people would say I was wrong, but that wasn't the case. Most of the people did that. And their only argument was from Leviticus of all places. When I responded that they were going to hell for wearing a polyester blend I got a deluge(felt the word was necessary, given the place) of comments back saying that I should be more civil.
And that's when I realized Lord J was right. Sometimes you have to hammer logic into people, at least in an intellectual setting. Bigotry and ignorance won't go away on their own and while I have to live with it in some cases(friends, family) in situations where intellectual integrity is at stake, I cannot.
It's worth pointing out that the New Testament reading came before this. I had the notion for a while that community service was the way to improve the world. Now I'm not so sure that's enough for me.
Everything in my previous post was from my start to then, so I think I'll leave that unchanged.
3. Do your parents (or did they when alive) believe the same?
Sorry, digression time.
When I was teacher shadowing at a high school this past year, my cohort teacher had an empty period for an hour, so I went next door to help a Biology teacher with his class for that period. As you can imagine, one day the theory of evolution came up. One student asked, verbatim, "how does this fit in with God?"
My point with that is, I'm glad I never grew up in a context where that was an issue. Even in southern South Carolina, one of the most conservative states in the union. I've come to the conclusion now that my dad is pretty irreligious. He learned all the facts and trivia in Bible school, but doesn't really care for the religion aspect itself.
My mother's still an atheist, my grandparents are still SBC, and The Woman My Father MarriedTM still does not matter to me.
But since then my dad and my step-mom have gotten married and I've learned a good bit about her side of the family. Her mom and step-dad are both Nazarenes, from, what I can tell, is a very Gospel-driven, community type church. When it comes to their religion, they are very smart. Unlike most Christians who are functionally agnostic, these people are both functionally and spiritually with Christ. They're very anti-judgmental; the type that are really driven on the love-aspect of Jesus' teachings. It's really a great thing to be around, especially when you're around as many of the opposite types of Christians as I am up here.
So, yes and no. My parents were very casual about religion during my upbringing, and I know my mother doesn't believe it(she still supports me from afar though). My dad probably does, but he's not an outwardly religious person. My new grandparents from marriage do, and so does my step-mom.