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The Forum > Article Comments > Heavenly bliss and earthly woes > Comments

Heavenly bliss and earthly woes : Comments

By Rodney Crisp, published 13/9/2010

Religion plays an important psychological role in assisting us to assume the adversities of our earthly lives.

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ink blot,

Thanks for your clear (to me) articulation of your world-view position. There are very few posts on this OLO I could identify with - and learn from - more. I can also understand why runner and Pericles disagree, since their positions have been known to me for quite a while.
Posted by George, Monday, 13 September 2010 7:00:04 PM
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So if belief in a god is not a mentally induced state stemming from some sort of bodily driven need, why are so many people so easily indoctrinated into the multitude of narrow and rule-specific belief-in-god 'corridors'?
Posted by EbenezerCooke, Monday, 13 September 2010 7:03:30 PM
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ink blot,

With all due respect, I haven’t seen you present an argument that hasn’t been discredited many times over.

<<[Faith] is one way of explaining the many things we cannot access through scientific proof, such as love, evil, the problem of suffering in the world etc.>>

Faith doesn’t explain anything at all. It simply asserts.

Faith is a term applied to beliefs that have no justification for being held to begin with and thus have no real explanatory power.

<<It is shortsighted to say that people with religious beliefs hold those beliefs because of some emotional reason, as opposed to a logical one.>>

As someone with first-hand experience with religious belief, I can attest to the fact that it is a purely emotional thing, not rational or logical (although this is never realised at the time) as there are no rational logical reasons to start believing in god or accepting religious claims. Some examples...

<<Even something as basic as Pascal's wager is a good example [of logical reasons to believe in god].>>

I’m really surprised you mentioned Pascal’s Wager. I thought all Christians had abandoned it by now due to its fatal flaws. I certainly had when trying to build a case for believing in god.

Pascal’s Wager is a failed bit of reasoning for several reasons. Firstly, it ignores that fact that there are hundreds of alleged gods, so the chances that you’ve chosen the right god and are not angering the real god, are very small. Secondly, it assumes that a god would be fooled by or satisfied with an insincere ‘insurance policy’ form of belief.

There’s what I call the Atheist’s Wager which, assuming that a god would prefer disbelief over worshipping a false god, is a far safer option.

Not that I ever seriously entertain the idea that a god might exist.

<<A deeper approach would be Aquinas' 5 ways.>>

Deeper, but certainly not better. Actually, it’s more like “three ways” since the first three “proofs” are basically the same argument.

Continued...
Posted by AJ Philips, Monday, 13 September 2010 10:16:10 PM
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...Continued

The first three of Aquinas’s “five” proofs are nothing more than God-of-the-Gap arguments from ignorance with special pleading that come from times where we made naive assumptions about cause and effect that we now know to be silly thanks to science.

The fourth argument is absurd, not only because of its assumption that when many things possess a quality, the one that possesses the most of that quality is the creator of the others, but because it presumes to know what god is to begin with.

The fifth argument is scientifically ignorant as it assumes that a designer is necessary when nothing we’ve ever learned about the natural world suggests that this is the case at all.

Whether they be ontological arguments that claim something exists just because it can be conceived; cosmological arguments that assume the universe had a cause and presume to label that cause “god”, or arguments from transcendence that try to pull a swiftie by sneakily switching from ‘logical absolutes’ to just ‘logic’, they all fall down at their premises and make giant, unexplained, unjustified and illogical leaps to a “therefore god” conclusion.

<<It is the absolute, that which is beyond the truth that we know...>>

Anything that is “beyond the truth that we know”, is indistinguishable from something that doesn’t exist, and thus any speculation about it is pointless.

<<...there are plenty [of other tenets of faith] that are very agreeable even to people without faith, such as moral teaching, the historical fact of the existence of Jesus Christ, his death and resurrection etc.>>

The historical fact of Jesus?!

I’d like to know who the non-believers are who would consider Jesus to be an historical “fact”. A fact is a verified piece of information and there is nothing “verified” about the existence of the alleged Jesus.

There are no contemporary accounts of Jesus; we have no writings from him; no carpentry works - nothing.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and we have no reliable evidence for Jesus - let alone extraordinary.
Posted by AJ Philips, Monday, 13 September 2010 10:16:15 PM
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Brain scans show that when folks are "talking to God" in their minds, the part that lights up is the part that pertains to ones self. So "God" is just the self projected onto the universe. Is this why folks can generally believe in logic, good and justice, yet when in "religious mode" are capable of any insanity, including murder?
I'd say religion is a survival trait that assists bonding within a community and allows other communities to be de-humanised so that war can be waged without guilt. Persecution of "otherness" certainly seems integral to all Theist religions.
As for the modern, rational, quiet Theist: This is often "God of the Gaps" via childhood indoctrination. A little section of harmless insanity that provides comfort during stressful times. It is not rational to dig up and replace such ideas later in life so they remain as "faith". The fact that most folks stick to the religion of their childhood says that religion is a cultural meme rather then something we consciously select.
Posted by Ozandy, Tuesday, 14 September 2010 10:03:14 AM
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These two references give a completely different Understanding of the non-humans as natural Spiritual Contemplatives as compared to us dreadfully sane human beings.

http://www.fearnomorezoo.org/literature/face.php

http://www.fearnomorezoo.org/literature/observe_learn.php

Plus on the ancient and present time etheric-astral religions

http://www.adidam.org/teaching/gnosticon/religion-scientism.aspx

The principal motive of conventional exoteric religion in its institutional form is crowd control--full stop.

This essay gives a unique critique of the state of what is usually called religion in these times. Essentially a form of individual and collective neurosis, and even psychosis in many right-wing forms.

http://www.beezone.com/up/criticismcuresheart.html
Posted by Ho Hum, Tuesday, 14 September 2010 10:59:15 AM
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