What Happens When You Remove Faith

I recently saw this comment from Phat in another thread and it really got to me. I remember also we had a poster recently who claimed that he would quite likely cheat on his wife if he wasn't religious although I cannot recall the thread.I seem to see this more and more lately and it essentially this boils down to certain religious people who believe that their supposedly religious based morality exists to the exclusion of any secular or rationally based morality.I find these types of statements very strange because even as I question my own belief in God I would NEVER think that my own morality hinged upon my choice to believe or not.The reason I do altruistic things is because it is the right thing to do. When I see someone get into a car accident ahead of me, I stop and help if I can even if it means it cuts into my video game time at home. I don't need God to tell me that it is the right thing to do to pause The Office to help my neighbor jump start his car. I don't need God to tell me that I love my wife and that I would not cheat on her.It seems like that some of these statements imply that the only thing holding a lot of fundamentalists back from total selfish debauchery is their faith. So the question I like to pose to the forum is what would actually happen to these people if they could be convinced en-mass that there was no God? Would we see divorce rates go through the roof? Would there be a mass exodus from all charity giving and volunteerism? What would happen?With that I would like to offer my opinion and in it my hope for the basic sense of humanity that I like to believe most people hold. I think that nothing would change. Yea sure there would be a few newsworthy issues but for the most part, I tend to think that a lot of people in our current culture currently do things for reasons beyond faith. People would still give to charity for the same reason that they would help a young mother in the parking lot change a flat tire. People now seem to stay married for everything OTHER than religious reasons. (I do in fact know some people who refuse to get divorced because of religion so I imagine that there would be some effect but I don't suspect that lines would start forming outside of the local strip clubs.) Tragedy would still invoke mercy and compassion in our hearts. Our sense of community would be rebuilt not around tall building with stained-glass windows but rather our innate sense of cooperation which is what actually makes us human.I guess what irks me the most about the people who make these statements, their morality compulsory with their faith, is that they forget that what makes us human is our inability to survive without community and cooperation. As nuclear as we have become in the west, we still vitally depend on those around us for both our happiness and existence and I don't see that changing any time soon.Faith & Belief please.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

Need some moderator love please.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

I find it quite disconcerting that some believers don't seem to be able to take responsibility for their own actions in this way.
And I find it scary that if, tomorrow, everyone stopped believeing in the christianity story that suddenly we would have a bunch of people with no one to answer to and nothing to cause them to behave appropriately.Seems to me this behaviour is like that of a bunch of school children who only behave when the teacher is there watching them, and run amok when left alone.Most people grow out of this and understand the concept of empathy.Maybe some good does come of Xianity then?
We will have some tough times ahead during our growth away from the need for mythology to control us and our behaviourEdited by Creavolution, : spelling

Penalties do help keep me in line, althought they aren't a very good reason for good behavior.One of the reasons that my morality hinges on my belief in god is that without god, I see humans as 'just another animal'. One of the reasons that I desire to be good to people is that I think they are special, because of god. I don't really care about the other animals that much.Without god, and any real meaning to our existence, none of this shit really matters. Selfishness isn't 'wrong', it just isn't good for everyone. But that doesn't matter either OTOH, selfishness is good for me, so there is a benefit to it.If we're all godless animals without any real meaning to our existence, then fuck all y'all, gimme mine. None of this shit matters anymore. But then, maybe I'm just a bad person. You should be glad that I believe in god. It makes me a better person. I think I would still help people if they needed it and it was convenient. I don't really see a reason to NOT help someone. I don't think that I would do less good, I'd just do more bad. Selfish acts that benefit myself that I would no longer find 'morally wrong' because nothing actual means anything and there really isn't much of a right and wrong to speak of. I think that I just wouldn't give a fuck. You're probably right that not a lot would change. My day-to-day behavior wouldn't really be any differnt, but my attitude would be. I wouldn't just go on a murder spree or anything, but I think I would be a lot more apathetic. Over a lifetime, I suspect that things would go differently for me. Now that I think about it, I don't think I would ever fuck over my family and friends for my own benefit, even while disbelieving god.

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You need the ones you love, and love the ones you need.

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I'd still care about my family and friends even without god's existence. I don't think my apathy could go that far.

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Science fails to recognize the single most potent element of human existence.
Letting the reigns go to the unfolding is faith, faith, faith, faith.
Science has failed our world.
Science has failed our Mother Earth.
-System of a Down, "Science"He who makes a beast out of himself, gets rid of the pain of being a man.
-Avenged Sevenfold, "Bat Country"

Whatever your religion may be doing for you, it sure isn't giving you elegance in speech!

Good topic, Jazzns! If it could somehow be proven to me that God did not exist, my world view would obviously undergo some major transformations.Why?First off, I believe that I would still do my volunteer work with the inner city youth, since I want so much to empower and educate them to succeed in life. My message to them would still be for them to get an education and find a wider variety of people to associate with who can help them.A Christian world view can mean many things to many different Christians, but essentially the fundamentalist mindset would say that their concept of morality and purpose would originate from the God whom they believe is in their heart.Were there no God, The Greatest Commandment(s) would drop from two to one.No longer would we be commanded to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. We would simply be commanded to love our neighbor as ourselves.As you point out, you need no commandment, religion, or leader to tell you to do this....you feel it to be a natural expression of your human spirit.I would then ask how it was possible for humans to collectively have such an inner goodness without a Creator. But then again, that would get us into the philosophical question of whether humans are basically born altruistically good or whether we were born basically selfish.

Was there any point to that post or was it just a snipe?
or do you find "swear" words so offensive?grow up

Why do you need a creator to explain the unknown?
Is it a case of "I don't understand therefore goddidit"really?in that case God has been steadily loosing his powers over the years.

Exclusivity finally gets a soapbox! So does that mean that without God, we would torture cats and shoot more rabbits? Would Bambi be in danger??I think that the core question of this thread is that if our intellects were wiped clean of God, would our inner transformation that we believe so strongly in also get wiped clean?I think not.I also think that this inner transformation is not just limited to those who say the sinners prayer, take communion, or belong to an organized religion.

There are many who profess belief in God who still behave as if there were no God.

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I read once where an observation was made that deathbed conversions are essentially a glorified myth. The way that a person believes and behaves throughout their life is essentially the way that they leave this life.

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In other words, fear should never be a motivation to believe, nor should unbelief ever be a motivation to misbehave. IMHO anyway.

Good question. Do we?This topic allows me to have some moments of introspection so bear with me...my answers are subject to revision as my understanding unfolds. As far as the unknown goes, God is, IMHO, not needed to explain the outer unknown. The far reaches of the galaxies and the depths of the soils and environments of the earth can be explored and studied by atheist and evangelist alike.I am less certain of the territory between my ears. I biologically may not "need" God...although I heard that they were attempting to link faith to genetic predisposition.Psychologically, it is comforting to me to believe that an all knowing Creator cares so much about each of us individually and collectively. But the thought occurs to me:Were He not to exist, would my own inner spirit continue to strive towards carrying on the work and the meaning of such a universal communion? And I don't see any reason why not!

Hm, funny. I feel exactly the same way too, even though I don't believe in a creator. It's just that I can't be convinced there isn't one either. I'd say "wise words" if it wasn't for all that profanity I too see no reason to not help someone, as long as it's convenient for me. That's why people/I would still do good even if it was certain there was no creator. Just would ignore all helping that isn't convenient.

There's certainly no reason to believe that general standards of behaviour would deteriorate if your country lost its high level (to Western standards) of religiosity. One way to reassure those who worry about this is to take a look at countries which have already gone a lot further down the road to losing their traditional religions. The differences in the statistics in the extract below illustrate how difficult it is to survey religious beliefs due to factors like how questions are phrased and levels of response to questionaires etc., but I think we could safely say that the percentage of non-believers in Sweden is at least four times higher than that of the U.S.From:

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Atheism: Contemporary Rates and Patterns(1) Phil Zuckerman

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According to Norris and Inglehart (2004), 64% of those in Sweden do not believe in God. According to Bondeson (2003), 74% of Swedes said that they did not believe in “a personal God.” According to Greeley (2003), 46% of Swedes do not believe in God, although only 17% self-identify as “atheist.” According to Froese (2001), 69% of Swedes are either atheist or agnostic. According to Gustafsoon and Pettersson (2000), 82% of Swedes do not believe in a “personal God.” According to Davie (1999), 85% of Swedes do not believe in God.

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If Sweden's anything to go by, and an irreligious U.S. ended up like a giant Scandinavian country, you would have to put up with the loss of your ghettos and much of the hard edge of poverty, a considerably lower murder rate and a lower rate of rape and other violent crimes, and, interestingly, a lower abortion rate (in spite of easy availability on demand) and the virtual eradication of one major sexually transmitted disease (these last two at least partly because of pragmatic sex education, something many religious people object to).So I wouldn't worry too much, Jazzns. The U.S. will certainly not become a living Hell through widespread loss of superstition if the least religious areas of the world are anything to go by!

That's really not a good country to compare to. Swedish people just go at everything by luck, that's why they have everything so good there.

In local religious newspaper, I recently read an article that claimed teenage pregnancy and abortion skyrocketed back in the 1950's when coincidentally Evilution was started to be widely be taught in public schools.Hmmm... I thought if that was the case then some European and Asian countries must be a real mess where evolution is widely accepted. I found the below paper and thought about pointing it out to the author of the newspaper article, but realized that it would be a fools errand so I refrained.Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous DemocraciesSome quotes: Edited by iceage, : No reason given.