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Author | Topic: Christianity is Morally Bankrupt | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tangle Member Posts: 9516 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
GDR writes: I agree that it would be evidence, but it would still leave the question of how those specific ingredients and in this specific environment all happened to exist in the first place. Sure, but it pushes your god even further back. Once god was personally responsible for the creation of species, now we know he isn't. If/when replicating life is shown to form spontaneously from simple chemistry it's difficult, even impossible, to say that we're special and a planned action.Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
Tangle writes: Not at all. Science will just have shown how He might have done it. Sure, but it pushes your god even further back. Once god was personally responsible for the creation of species, now we know he isn't. Let's face it. We both have our beliefs and this doesn't prove either one of us wrong or give either one of us a reason to change them.He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
Tangle writes: We are very likely to differ on what we think a conscience is because because for me it's another religious invention like a soul or free will that has no meaning except in a literary or allegorical way.We know that our sense of morality is not the voice of god, instead it's a brain function carried on mostly in the pre-frontal cortex and temporo-parietal junction. Our sense of morality can be interfered with by drugs, surgery and even magnetic interference and it developes as we learn and grow. It's clever, but it's not magic or supernatural. I don’t agree with any of that. (Now there’s a surprise. ) The idea of a conscience is essentially a secular term. When we do something that we know we shouldn’t do then, to put it simply, the fact that we know we shouldn’t do it is evidence that we have a conscience, and it’s common to everyone, religious or not. Well we don’t know where our sense of right and wrong comes from. It’s a matter of belief. It is also obvious that an unhealthy or chemically altered brain can alter, or cause us to ignore that sense of right and wrong. We also know that we can observe activity in the brain with any of our thought processes. In the end though, it is like any other idea that we have. We can observe the activity in the brain but we can’t observe the actual idea itself. Also we have the freedom or ability even in a completely healthy and unaltered brain to ignore our conscience and to just do what we want regardless of the fact that we know that we shouldn't.
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Tangle Member Posts: 9516 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
GDR writes: Not at all. Science will just have shown how He might have done it. Well sure, you have a very flexible view of your religion. Others differ.
Let's face it. We both have our beliefs and this doesn't prove either one of us wrong or give either one of us a reason to change them. Well it can't make any difference to my understanding of how the universe works because abiogenesis is expected. It will be pretty seismic for others though - similar to Darwin I would suggest.Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
Tangle writes: God has given us free will and as a result "others" are allowed to be wrong.
Well sure, you have a very flexible view of your religion. Others differ. Tangle writes: Well it can't make any difference to my understanding of how the universe works because abiogenesis is expected. It will be pretty seismic for others though - similar to Darwin I would suggest. Maybe it will be like Darwin. Darwin showed just how inventive the mind of God is. Edited by GDR, : No reason given.He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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Tangle Member Posts: 9516 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
GDR writes: Maybe it will be like Darwin. Darwin showed just how inventive the mind of God is. Those that still need to believe in the creation stories will have to invent their own chemistry to add to their versions of biology, physics and geology. I quite admire the otherwise abhorrent Catholics on this stuff - they follow the science - eventually. Francis Collins advised his fellow born agains not to pitch their tent on a slope because inevitably they'll find themselves at the bottom of the hill come the morning. All very admirable. I just wonder where the actual breaking point will be. If/ when there becomes a scientific consensus around the Hawking idea that the universe is quite capable of popping itself into existence from nothing (whatever that is) without the need for intervention of any kind - what then? Probably nothing, other than believers will gradually be replaced by non-believers and soppy liberal 'christianity'- as has happened in most of Northern Europe.Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android
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Sombra Member (Idle past 3803 days) Posts: 38 From: Costa Rica Joined: |
There is no "right and wrong", there are only unskillful actions that prolong dissatisfaction and skillfull actions that bring happiness. It does not matter what you believe, if you do unskillful actions you suffer, and those actions can be thoughts, words or bodily actions. There is no god judging if something is "good" or "bad", just an impersonal universal mechanism.
I think the concept of god is a psychological defense mechanism created by humans as a response to the emotions of curiosity and fear that surge when people reflect about certain aspects of existence that they don't understand. A simple question for believers: If god really is all-powerful, how come he has not been able to overcome anger and the other unskillful emotions? I doubt that some being that has not been able to conquer his own mind and emotions has the power to create universes. And another question: If god created the universe, then who created god? Believers asssume that everything has a beginining and an end. How come god does not have one? And if god is capable of not having a beginning or end, then why can't the universe be the same? Why do you have to invent something that is similar to a human to be timeless? I think this points to wishful thinking. WE HUMANS want to be eternal and all powerful, so we create a god that lives out our dreams.
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NoNukes Inactive Member |
There is no "right and wrong", there are only unskillful actions that prolong dissatisfaction and skillfull actions that bring happiness. It does not matter what you believe, if you do unskillful actions you suffer, and those actions can be thoughts, words or bodily actions. We typically call people who act on such a standard psychopaths. And we don't need the Bible to tell us to do so.Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846) I would say here something that was heard from an ecclesiastic of the most eminent degree; ‘That the intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how the heaven goes.’ Galileo Galilei 1615. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass
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Sombra Member (Idle past 3803 days) Posts: 38 From: Costa Rica Joined: |
Hi.
I think you didn't understand the part about skillful or unskillful actions. I did not imply that morality has no place in this world, as nihilists (atheists?) like to believe. My point is that dissatisfaction and suffering, is traceable to distinct causes endowed with ethical significance; it is the inevitable result of our own inmoral actions returning to ourselves. Our actions are not threads in some invisible handiwork of divine perfection (like people who believe in god think), nor meaningless pulsations of nerves and brain (like nihilists think), but expresions of ethically significant decisions having an integral place in a morally intelligible world. They are seen as choices for which we bear full responsibility before an impersonal universal law that ensures the preservation of an equilibrium between deeds and their results, so that virtous deeds bring forth happiness and evil deeds suffering. As to what is virtous and what is evil, I repeat, there are no intrinsically "good" or "evil" actions, only skillful or unskillful (only things that bring happiness or suffering to you and others, depending on the prevailing conditions). As to my questions, care to answer any of them?
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
Hi Sombra
Welcome to EvC and thanks for the well articulated first post.
Sombra writes: There is no "right and wrong", there are only unskillful actions that prolong dissatisfaction and skillfull actions that bring happiness. It does not matter what you believe, if you do unskillful actions you suffer, and those actions can be thoughts, words or bodily actions. There is no god judging if something is "good" or "bad", just an impersonal universal mechanism. I’m not sure how you are using the word unskillful here. It seems to me that lack of skill is not a moral issue but I think I understand what you are saying. You are right. Our actions have consequences in the here and now. I agree with you that if we are just the result of a chance combination of mindless particles then there is no right or wrong. However there does seem to be general agreement that some things are wrong. Take murder for example. Most societies agree that murder is wrong but if we are just another clump of particles that somehow became cells, and then somehow became us, then what is the difference between murdering our next door neighbour or stepping on an ant. I think we do have a concept of some things being right and some things being wrong. That doesn’t say that there is a god judging us for our actions but it does IMHO strongly suggest that there is a universal right and wrong that exists independently of our thought processes.
Sombra writes: I think the concept of god is a psychological defense mechanism created by humans as a response to the emotions of curiosity and fear that surge when people reflect about certain aspects of existence that they don't understand. There are many on this forum who would agree with you. I suggest however that if there is a god who cares about us then that is what we should expect, at least when it comes to our fears.
Sombra writes: A simple question for believers:If god really is all-powerful, how come he has not been able to overcome anger and the other unskillful emotions? I doubt that some being that has not been able to conquer his own mind and emotions has the power to create universes. I understand that if you understand the Bible as being inerrant then I understand where you would have that perception. If you read through my posts on this thread you will see that I don’t believe that we are intended to understand the Bible that way. It is my belief that the Christian God is a god whose essence is one of love. If we love someone we hate, (for lack of a better term), seeing that person hurt in any way by the unloving words or actions of someone else. So yes, I believe that God is distressed, (I think is the term I would use as opposed to anger), when He sees evil in the world that causes pain for the beings He created.
Sombra writes: And another question:If god created the universe, then who created god? Believers asssume that everything has a beginining and an end. How come god does not have one? And if god is capable of not having a beginning or end, then why can't the universe be the same? Why do you have to invent something that is similar to a human to be timeless? I think this points to wishful thinking. WE HUMANS want to be eternal and all powerful, so we create a god that lives out our dreams. Since the beginning of human history we have solid evidence that mankind has always had a belief that there was something beyond what could be perceived. In many cases it was because it brought them comfort but also in many cases it was something that they feared and would offer up sacrifices. The point is that from primitive times onward we always had a sense that there was something more than just the physical. It really has only been in very recent history that that has been questioned, and that something can’t be real unless it is proven. I also know that as I get older I realize that although my body has aged that there is something that is just me and that doesn’t seem to be aging. It is nothing that I can offer up as proof. I think that non-believers believe as you do that believers such as myself don’t have the courage to face up to death. Frankly, I’m just looking for the truth. I’m going to copy this over from what I wrote on another thread a while back concerning who created God. In "The Fabric of the Cosmos" by Brian Greene, (one of my favourite books), he writes the following after talking about how we only experience time in one direction, and that we would expect there to be a law that confirms this.
quote:It seems that our current understanding of the laws of physics indicate that theoretically it should be possible to exist by either going forward or back in time. This alone would allow for an infinite existence. We also know that some scientific theories such as string theory suggest that there might be even more, and maybe even 26 spacetime dimensions. In our existence that has 3 spatial dimensions we can move infinitely around our globe. I am not claiming this as anything but highly speculative but it seems to me that If our intelligent creator experienced existence in a world with 3 dimensions of time, then he/she/it would be able to move around infinitely in time just as we can travel infinitely around our globe. It seems to me that this gives one possible explanation that allows for a creator that has always existed, and will always exist, negating the need for a creator of the creator. Thanks for the replyHe has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
Tangle writes: All very admirable. I just wonder where the actual breaking point will be. If/ when there becomes a scientific consensus around the Hawking idea that the universe is quite capable of popping itself into existence from nothing (whatever that is) without the need for intervention of any kind - what then? I guess my thought would be that having the universe pop itself into existence would require a highly intelligent popper. Actually it is similar to the whole concept of evolution. Evolution is from my POV an incredibly beautifully designed process that took an incredible intelligence to conceive it. Just out of interest it seems to me that in order for science to come to that conclusion would require going the other side of T=0 whatever that would mean. Wouldn't that then put science into the realm of the metaphysical?He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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Tangle Member Posts: 9516 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
GDR writes: I guess my thought would be that having the universe pop itself into existence would require a highly intelligent popper. Well that would obviously be incorrect as something that pops itself into existence does not require a third party to do it.
Just out of interest it seems to me that in order for science to come to that conclusion would require going the other side of T=0 whatever that would mean. Wouldn't that then put science into the realm of the metaphysical? That's beyond both of our understandings, but by definition, the answer is no it wouldn't, it would keep it firmly in the realm of mathematics and physics.Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android
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Sombra Member (Idle past 3803 days) Posts: 38 From: Costa Rica Joined:
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Thanks for the welcome!
GDR writes: I’m not sure how you are using the word unskillful here. About the right and wrong/unskillful thing. What I mean is that conventional opinions of what is right and wrong are flawed. Even if every single member of a society, or why not, this planet, agree that a certain thing is right, it can still be wrong.What is important in morality is the volitional action, the intention, behind the word, thought or bodily action. These underlying motives or roots can be classified into six, three of them I call unskillful - greed, aversion, and delusion. Any action originating from these three is called unskillful. I don’t call it wrong, because for example, it is not considered wrong to want to earn more money to buy yourself a fancier car. But it is based on greed. The counterpart to these unskillful roots are the skillful ones. Instead of greed we are capable of generosity and detachment, instead of aversion we are capable of compassion, sympathy, gentleness, and instead of deluded we can be wise. The law of morality would then be as follows: the unskillful are conducive to suffering for oneself and others (among other things that I leave out because they arer’t part of our discussion). The skillful type produce benefits to oneself and others (again, among other things). You agree with me that our actions have a consequence in the here and now, and to that I add that the obvious — our actions also affect the future. Understanding morality as such, skill IS a moral issue. Generosity, compassion, etc. are skills that are to be developed, if we want to have a better present and future. With the previous reasoning, we can solve the difference between murdering your neighbor and stepping on an ant, without the need for a general agreement. (I am of course, talking in the context of morality, this by no means renders useless the justice system, courts, jails, etc.). GDR writes: It is my belief that the Christian God is a god whose essence is one of love... Greed and aversion lead to any and all negative emotions — fear, anger, depression, disappointment, anxiety, distressed — you name it. If god or any sentient being feels ANY of these emotions at all, it is because there is greed and aversion in his mind. It is not posible to feel anger or distressed if there is no greed or aversion in your heart. Besides, when you are angry you are suffering, and hurting yourself. A wise being does not hurt itself.A wise being, has no greed or anger. Instead there is generosity and compassion. When he sees someone hurting another he feels compassion for both. The one being hurt is obvious, but the agressor is also suffering from anger, and will suffer from the consequences such as fear of revenge (and possibly a real revenge), maybe a social punishment (jail, torture?), remorse, and any other moral consequence to his unskillful action. The wise being feels compassion because he understands that the real enemy is not the body of the aggressor, but the ignorance in his mind that caused his greed/aversion and eventually his anger. Thus, the god that everybody believes in, whether it’s the text from the Bible or any personal interpretation that anybody can fabricate with their imaginations, is not only not almighty (since he does not have the power to overcome his weakness in mind), he is not even wise. Why? Because they create him in the human image (and not the other way around, as the bible suggests), and as such has the same human weaknesses and limitations as the human imagination. GDR writes: The point is that from primitive times onward we always had a sense that there was something more than just the physical. It really has only been in very recent history that that has been questioned, and that something can’t be real unless it is proven. I also know that as I get older I realize that although my body has aged that there is something that is just me and that doesn’t seem to be aging. It is nothing that I can offer up as proof. I think that non-believers believe as you do that believers such as myself don’t have the courage to face up to death. Frankly, I’m just looking for the truth. You are dead on about this one. You could not be more correct. There is MUCH more than the physical, in fact, I think the physical is the least part of it!In fact, here lies the basic problem for everybody. You have mistakenly assumed that your body is the self. Your body is only a part of you. You are also composed of feeling, perception, mental formations and consciousness. You know this. We don't need proof, everybody can experience it and prove it to themselves. What better proof than that? When you dream, you don’t have your body with you, but yet you exist. You experience things, you percieve, you have emotions, you react, you are conscious. Not only dreaming, but also in certain mental states you may have run into in your life, maybe daydreaming in a park, using drugs, having sex, playing an intense sport or something. You lose perception of your body, yet you exist. People with near death experiences will tell you the same. This happens in certain states of concentration, which we have all experienced sometime or another in our life, and if you haven’t, you should. You just have to look closely. You read earlier that delusion leads to greed and aversion. This is exactly the delusion I talked about. We are deluded about ourselves. About what we really are. If you end this delusion about a self, you end greed, aversion, and any other type of suffering for you or others, and achieve perfect mental health. This leads to my next point. If you stop considering your self to be ONLY the body, then you can time travel. You have memories of the past, you get caught up in them and suddenly you have mental images of a previous time in your head, and a feeling of maybe nostalgia, and other related thoughts and perceptions start to come up. There it is! You are in the past. If you have a great capacity for concentration, you will be completely in the past, if your concentration capacity is small you will be with your body more than in the past with your mind. But your mind is in the past, complete with emotions, perception and all the others. Who says that this particular experience is not real? It is real! Its just not CONVENTIONAL reality, its YOUR reality, and in it your actions also have moral consequences, just like the real thing! Conventional reality is the one we can all agree on (like fiat money, its being real comes from everybody agreeing that the paper is worth something). But as I said there are things outside conventional reality that have moral consequences (which makes it real enough for me, whether I am awake, asleep, or in meditation, I try to watch over my actions).The same thing applies to the future, when you make plans for something you are living in the future, to some degree. I also believe that physical time travel is possible, but that is still out of our reach, given time maybe the scientists will crack it. Hence, I also agree with the posibility of a timeless being. But I see nothing in your reasoning that excludes the possibility of a universe also being timeless, and this implies, you agree with me that the universe can be timeless, which negates the existence of a creator, or at the very least, renders a creator useless. Anything I just wrote you can prove for yourself with your own life experience. Who needs gods or science? Just kidding! I understand both are necessary in our world Thanks for your detailed reply
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
Sombra writes: Absolutely. I think of it in simpler terms though. I see our motivation as being either at one end totally selfish and at the other totally unselfish. There is of course the line that runs between them with right in the middle being an act that has no negative impact at all on anyone else and is neither moral nor immoral
What is important in morality is the volitional action, the intention, behind the word, thought or bodily action. Sombra writes: To a large extent I agree. We all believe in a god or gods in our image. However where we differ is that I believe that God speaks through us in the "still small voice" or our conscience and that we can no matter how imperfectly gain knowledge of God. We can distinguish between good and evil and know that at a deep level that we should choose "good". As a Christian I believe that God is perfectly good and that as humans He has given us the capacity to reflect His goodness into the world. Nobody does it perfectly. At best we reflect it dimly. However it goes back to the last paragraph which involves our motivation. We become what our hearts desire.
Thus, the god that everybody believes in, whether it’s the text from the Bible or any personal interpretation that anybody can fabricate with their imaginations, is not only not almighty (since he does not have the power to overcome his weakness in mind), he is not even wise. Why? Because they create him in the human image (and not the other way around, as the bible suggests), and as such has the same human weaknesses and limitations as the human imagination. Sombra writes: You are dead on about this one. You could not be more correct. There is MUCH more than the physical, in fact, I think the physical is the least part of it! I wish I could remember who it was but I remember reading the speculations of a physicist who suggested that we are actually residents of a totally different dimension or universe but that we experience our lives through the 4 dimensional world that we perceive. I often refer to the headline for the lead story in an issue of Scientific American a couple of years ago. It was "Hidden Worlds of Dark Matter .. An Entire Universe May Be Silently Interwoven With Our Own".
Sombra writes: Hence, I also agree with the possibility of a timeless being. But I see nothing in your reasoning that excludes the possibility of a universe also being timeless, and this implies, you agree with me that the universe can be timeless, which negates the existence of a creator, or at the very least, renders a creator useless. Obviously we agree that we only experience time in one direction. If however we are only experiencing a part of a greater reality where there are additional time dimensions then there has to be a first cause that resulted in the creation of the reality that we experience. Science tells us that as part of the universe we experience there was a T=0. I believe that that first cause was intelligent and moral. It is my personal view that we are an emergent property of a greater reality. Let me add though that I am not educated in this field at all and so my views should be taken with a very large grain of salt. Edited by GDR, : typoHe has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 315 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
We typically call people who act on such a standard psychopaths. And we don't need the Bible to tell us to do so. Well, I think Sombra is a Buddhist or something. Sombra is following a respectable ethical tradition. She's saying that we should seek happiness. Now, you want to object to this because (for example) you don't want serial killers to be happy by doing serial killing. But a further examination of what Sombra thinks would reveal that she thinks that serial killers must be utterly miserable. They are among the "unskilled people" who haven't worked out how to be happy. And indeed I believe that this is factually true. But whether it's true or not, it is certainly true that many people have advocated ethical hedonism without advocating psychopathy. For example, Epicurus taught that the goal of life was happiness, but he also said:
It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and honorably and justly, and it is impossible to live wisely and honorably and justly without living pleasantly. Plato said similar things. Advocating the pleasant life is not, therefore, advocating immorality, if one also says that the pleasant life can as a matter of fact best be achieved by living morally.
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