Is christianity, or religion in general, a belief of convinience?

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So I thought I would bring this tale here, is religion an easy answer?

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Is it a convenient methodology for simplifying your life? Is it a way to eliminate complex questions, and deep thought?

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For a lot of people, yes, it is.

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I presented evidence against evolution to my friends who are biology majors, and they just got mad and didn't want to talk about it. They couldn't even imagine the earth not being 4.6 billion years old. How's that for not thinking freely.

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What evidence did you present, exactly?I can imagine the earth not being 6.4 billion years old.Fortunately, my imagination is irrelevant WRT scientific evidence.If your religion required you to believe that illness is caused by demons (like the Bible says) instead of germs, and you presented "evidence" to your Biology major friends that germs weren't the cause of disease, would you critisize them for being close minded and annoyed with you?

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Critical thinkers and skeptics don't create answers just to manage their anxiety--Karla McLaren

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I think the existence of God certainly makes a ton of sense. But then this always comes back to the fact that if you believe it makes perfect sense and if you don't it doesn't. It is a choice. Do you want to know God or not?

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How do you tell the difference between the "real" God acting in your life and talking to you, and a God that you imagine and invent inside your own head, using post hoc reasoning and confimation bias to pick and choose the life events that you believe God has affected?IOW, how do you know you are really talking to God and not to yourself?

[quote]However, lots of us still think about deep stuff, and I don't care what anybody says; I will NOT condemn homosexuality or peaceful non-Christians. Nothing can justify immoral discrimination. Nothing.[quote] Your're a good guy, do you know that?

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Ofcourse we think it is something else, like a placebo. Otherwise we wouldn't believe. We believe we have the truth, if we thought is was some mental placebo - then we would stop believing. The problem here is, that because we should (according to you)- look at it from another persons perspective, then we should then take that other persons perspective as truth. But why should we? You don't!

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This attitude is not universal to all religions.Several stripes of Hinduism consider there to many, many paths to liberating one's spirit from the cycle of rebirth and that there is no one, true way. They believe that all ways are deserving of tolerance and understanding.Therefore, many Hindus don't think that their way is the only way and the Christian way is wrong, but that the Hindu way is the better way and that Christians are just bad Hindus and will not accumulate much good karma, so will therefore spend more time in the cycle of rebirth.

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The Jews were exposed to false gods in Egypt, and God says have "no other gods" because obviously he means those false ones his children were exposed to.

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Um, mike?There's no evidence whatsoever that the Jews were enslaved in Egypt.None at all.All of that is just a story.

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Rofl. Hasn't he already shown you that he has had numerous answered prayers which do not include post hoc reasoning, and confirmation bias?

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No, he hasn't.

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Like when he was healed for example, and gained a girlfriend etc.. These are specific requests, met by specific responses.

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He refused to provide specific details, so all I have is his vague word.Sorry, not good enough.Besides, if he loses this girlfriend or gets sick again, he will say one of two things:1) God is trying to teach me something by causing me this hardship, or2) I guess the answer to my prayer is coming at a later time; "this isn't the REAL girlfriend sent to me by God", or somesuch.Never, ever will he simply say "well, isn't life funny how it works out?"God will ALWAYS be behind anything and everything that happens that he deems significant, no matter if it triumph or heartbreak. Never will anything ever be just due to circumstances.The thing is, I am willing to bet another million dollars that Christians have their ups and downs in life at more or less the same rate as anybody else, regardless of prayer.

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he had asked for a healing, and received a loaf of bread, and shrugged it off, then maybe I would buy into this post hoc babble.

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Maybe he did get a loaf of bread in response to his prayer, and the Girlfriend had nothing to do with God at all.How do you know the cause?This is the assigning of cause after the fact in order to confirm your bias.You WANT God to answer your prayers, and you WANT God to have a certain type of character, so you interpret everything that happens as if He does answer, and you interpret further to maintain the desired nature of God.That's why uncured illnesses are interpreted as God's efforts to "instruct" us, and why the rape and murder of 6 year old children is interpreted as OK with God in the long run, because there is an afterlife in which the victim gets to see the torment of her rapist.So, how do you tell the difference between God really communicating with you and you talking to yourself inside your own head?How do you tell the difference between a real answered prayer of "no" sometimes and "yes" sometimes, and the completely mundane ups and downs of life?This message has been edited by schrafinator, 07-15-2004 11:29 PM

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I can test gravity and I can see the blue sky.

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...and you can test the ToE and see evolution happening in a test tube. If you have a couple of decades, you can see it happening in birds, like Jonathan Weiner did in the Galapagos.

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The fundamental flaw in getting people evolutionist, is that it is past tense.

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Actually, it's not past tense. Evolution is happening constantly all over the world.The problem is one of timescales, not past or present. People get hung up on vertebrate evolution, but this proceeds at a very slow pace, much much longer than a human lifespan.Bacteria, insects and plants are better because they have much higher generational rates.

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Whereas gravity is there to be tested, and is weighed by it's claims,

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The thing is, to understand anything at all about gravitational theory you need a great deal of advanced physics, including Einstein's Relativity.

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and the blue sky is sufficient in it's claims.

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Agsain, to really understand why the sky is blue requires a good bit of physics.

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Saying we came from common ancestors is a bit heavy when it's history.

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The idea that we have parents is heavy?I think people consider it "heavy" because of the Judeo/Christian tradition of viewing humans as the pinnacle of God's creation and utterly separated from nature. We consider it demeaning to be just a highly evolved primate.

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So evolution requires some belief.

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No, evolution requires some study. It does not require any belief.

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But where there's smoke there's usually a fire.

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Not in a barbeque pit.

Hangdawg, I would love to see what a trained psychologist would think of your "demon possession" stories.I am sorry but it is just incredible how gullible the ultra religious can be.You see a world of demons and possession, and I see a world of childish monster stories invented because you like the drama and feeling of importance battling against the Devil.

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Either he is calling you an old hag, which I hope not, or a small plum cake, which wouldn't really suprise me, given the discussion.

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Alternatively, he could be calling him a middle eastern eggplant and tahini dip.

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"evolution didn't happen" is about as hard an attack you'll get from a literalist.

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Actually, you might get your women's health clinic bombed, or if you are gay you might get beaten up or killed.

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Of course it is very easy to use religion for self-rationalisation. Yet I am suggesting that in reality, some people live more happily (though perhaps NOT more meaningfully) when they can indulge in the "security" that religion provides. I am not saying that it is a "good" way of living life, but if they enjoy it and their behaviours don't bother me, who am I to argue?

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I believe it's dangerous to indulge in the security of religion, because this kind of thinking tends to seep into or overtake the way they approach everything else in their lives.They don't question how they think about social issues, race, gender, or politics, they don't question the doctor, they don't question their husband, etc.A mind uncomfortable with ambiguity is unable to analyse anything properly; it views in black and white simply because it's too hard to consider all the shades of gray. Or, simply becasue they are happier not considering shades of gray.These kinds of people DO affest everyone around them in the way they purchase, vote, and treat others.

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It seems most people participating this thread believe that this is what Christianity does too. In Christianity, thought is never discouraged.

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Of course it is, especially your sort of science/reality-denying Christianity.Have you been encouraged to learn about Biology from professional Biologists? Does your Christian college employ professors with diverse views, both professionally and philosophically? Does your college admit students with diverses views? Does your pastor challenge the logic of the basic principal of Biblical infallibility in any of his sermons?

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or that we are all here as products of chance

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...random mutation PLUS natural selection. Not chance alone.Oh, and by the way, it isn't only Agnostics and Athiests who accept evolution. Most Christians do. That's because the evidence supporting it is overwhelming, like the evidence for the Germ Theory of Disease and the Theory of a Heliocentric Solar System, and the Atomic Theory of Matter is overwhelming.

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Critical thinkers and skeptics don't create answers just to manage their anxiety--Karla McLaren

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Some people are addicted to the internet, others to cigarettes, others to alcohol. None of them are breaking the law, all of them are conducting their lives in ways I do not approve of. Yet they are obviously enjoying themselves and not affecting me, so who am I to argue?

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Actually, additction to cigarettes affects me daily. The trash smokers leave everywhere, and I mean EVERYWHERE, in the form of discarded butts and packaging dirties up the sidewalks and streets every single town I have ever been to. I also have to smell it daily. I used to like to go out dancing but my eyes sting, my throat hurts, and I get a headache from being in such a smoke-filled place for hours, so I don't get to go out dancing anymore. My health insurance rates are higher because of the huge cost of treating smokers' illnesses.Alcohol addition also raises my healthcare costs for similar reasons as smoking.Internet addiction probably has little affect upon me directly, but I am sure it has bad effects upon families and children in general.

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If we are to criticise religion based on how it affects its followers, and in turn affect the government or the economy, then I would say that we are taking it a bit too far.

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Why is that "too far"? A big reason we are in the situation in America with Bush that we are is because of his fundamentalist Christian thinking.