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Granted, but I submit that doing the good/virtuous thing pays off better in the long term, in the sense of helping to create a society in which the good/right thing is the norm. (I am aware that this reasoning is a bit circular, as I'm defining the good/virtuous thing as that which creates the 'best' society, if everybody did it. Oh well.)Quote:
Originally Posted by Redzeppelin
As an aside: "is it", in your opinion, "pious because the gods love it, or do the gods love it because it is pious?"
This is workable as long as people possess the maturity to look at the long-term picture (which I would suggest is not necessarily the norm; consider our current levels of credit card debt and the housing disaster in North America where people got into houses they couldn't afford during the low-interest boom of the last 5 years - we are now looking at record foreclosure numbers due to rising interest rates - the examples go on and on that we're pretty much "I want it now and don't care about tomorrow - bill me").Quote:
Originally Posted by cuppajoe_9
I have trouble with the term "pious." I will swith to the word "good": Things are "good" in so much as they reflect the character of God; things are "evil" in so much as they reflect that which is not in God's character. The problem with the statement you originally posed is twofold:Quote:
Originally Posted by cuppajoe_9
1) the first statement implies that it is God who decides what is right/wrong because He likes/loves it - which implies that He could perhaps like/love some other thing and call it "pious": this makes right/wrong a product of God's whim.
2) the second statement implies that "piety" exists outside of God and that He loves it for what it is; this implies that God must hold to some external standard of right/wrong; this disagrees with Christian theology that believes that good doesn't exist outside or independently of God - He is the definition and source of all that is good.
I say 'pious' only because I'm quoting.Quote:
Originally Posted by Red
Ok, fair enough, but saying that God's character is 'good' implies some outside standard of comparison, no?Quote:
Originally Posted by Red
Well one 'outside' standard of comparison is Satan (and his/hers/its demons). Though I fear our friend does not believe in Satan either - kinda hard for me not to though.
God is good because Satan says so? This is assuredly the craziest kind of christianity I've ever heard of.Quote:
Originally Posted by ennison
You asked for an outside standard of comparison.
I don't think you undrstand me. If you want to say that God is 'good' and Satan is 'bad', you obviously need a definition of 'good' and 'bad' independant of God or Satan.
The evidence of Satan's works suits me as a reason for defining him as bad.
Thus implying that what you define as 'bad' has nothing to do with Satan, unless you're a fan of circular reasoning.Quote:
Originally Posted by ennison
No but I don't feel the need to define the obvious until it becomes ridiculous. If my hand gets cut off I need a doctor not a dictionary. If Satan is the enemy of my soul I need a friend for my soul.
Right - I did catch that - was that from Plato? I think one of the dialogues of Socrates begins with a discussion on piety. It seemed familiar. So I could have been more accurate by saying I take issue with the speaker's use of "pious."Quote:
Originally Posted by cuppajoe_9
No - God's character is what-it-is; He tells us that all that is good is a reflection of Him - that "goodness" is defined by its approximation to the character of God. We call "good" good because of its closeness to the character of God. Most people (I would asume) would call the characteristics of God - love, compassion, justice, mercy, kindness, longsuffering, patient, loyal, forgiving, etc - "good" things.Quote:
Originally Posted by cuppajoe_9
It's Plato, specifically the Euthyphro Problem. It showed up on my ethics final a few days ago. In context, 'pious' means the same as 'virtuous' or 'morally correct'. I may be reading from a poor translation.Quote:
Originally Posted by Redzeppelin
But God is self-created according to the Christian conception of him, no? So he must have, at some point, molded his own character. Did he choose the character traits that you mention arbitrarily, or did he recognize them as good in and of themselves, and decide to endow himself with them on that basis?Quote:
Originally Posted by Redzeppelin
Good - that's the dialogue I was thinking of (it's the first in my copy entitled The Last Days of Socrates). I thought it sounded familiar. Yeah, "morally correct" is better than "piety" because "piety" carries a religious connotation (as in "being religious" which Christianity acknowledges as no clear indicator of moral character); "morally correct" is closer to "good" in my thinking.Quote:
Originally Posted by cuppajoe_9
I don't think Christianity sees God as "self-creating" because that implied He didn't always exist; we believe He is (to paraphrase Aristotle) the "unmoved mover" - the First Cause. In Christian lingo, we mean that God is the only "non-contingent" entity in the universe; only He is uncreated. We define "good" based upon God's character. God does not "choose" His character - it just is. In other words: love, compassion, justice, mercy et al are "good" because they are attributes of God. Not vice versa.Quote:
Originally Posted by cuppajoe_9
The beliefs of athiesm in their most basic form are:
The athiest believes in nothing supernatural or unexplainable by science. They believe there is a scientific explanation for everything even if that explanation hasn't been found yet. Most have confidence that science one day will find an explanation.
Wrong. The atheist believes in no gods. Buddhist atheists certainly have beliefs that could be consider supernatural.Quote:
Originally Posted by 3x
I'm surprised that one third said they were atheists. Polls say 90% of Americans 'believe in God'. I guess we're not representative of the nation, huh?
Definitely not. Only about 40% of the members here are from North America.
90% of Americans believing in God (most blindly following faith) does represent the western populace. Sad ain't it?
If they are buddhist then they are not very good athiests since buddhism is a very spiritual faith. Vice versa also. One can follow the philosophy of buddhism but if they participate in the faith then they are buddhist not athiest.Quote:
Originally Posted by cuppajoe_9
Wrong - theism is not the same as spiritualism. Buddhist atheists are Buddhists who consider Siddhartha a teacher, but NOT a deity. If they do not believe in a deity, then they may be called atheists.Quote:
Originally Posted by 3kixintehead
It's not at all representative of general western attitudes. Most of Western Europe is non-religious, by comparison.Quote:
Originally Posted by hyperborean
I suppose the question waiting to be asked might be this:
What is the atheist spiritual about - since spiritualism generally refers to some sort of supernatural entity or dimension; if God (or gods) are dismissed as a reality, then what is the Buddhist "spiritual" about?
you could call their spirituality god or soul or mind or universe, but they dont personify or deify the spiritual into something supernatural or beyond reality. their spirituality isnt a godhead who controls or judges or creates. instead, spirituality is the way of things, the workings of nature, the spontaneous unity of the universe. its completely empirical, observable, knowable, but not speakable-only experiencable.
Reincarnation, the idea of a "pure land" afterlife for the virtuous, the concept of Bodhisattvas – noble spirits that continually return to the earth to educated and assist the rest of us (the Dalai Lama being one example), &c. These are all supernatural beliefs held by certain Buddhist sects, while still maintaing that there is no such thing as a god. I'm going to cut myself off here, because I am definitely not an authority on Buddhism.Quote:
Originally Posted by Redzeppelin
Oh, and "the atheist" is as fictional an entity as "the theist".
Aside from the reasons other have given, I imagine a person who is an atheist is more likely to read a thread titled 'Atheists'.Quote:
Originally Posted by cardplay
Quote:
Originally Posted by Redzeppelin
See, you clearly don't understand atheism or Buddhism.
Atheism is a lack of belief in gods.
Buddhists don't have a god.
Ergo, Buddhists can be atheists - and most of them are.
You answered your own question. Say spiritualism refers to belief in a supernatural entity or dimension. God is a supernatural entity. Isn't it logical, therefore, that if athestic Buddhists do not believe in God, then they believe more in the spiritual dimension?Quote:
Originally Posted by Redzeppelin
I think I asked a silly question that I wasn't fully clear on. Excuse, please.
God was created by man in his own image. Before we were aware of our mortality, we didn't build churches, we didn't pray, we didn't imagine some omnipotent "eye in the sky" watching us or watching over us. People are religious because they lack the intellectual resources and personal determination to work out ethical questions on their own.
Why would someone who wrote fourteen hundred years ago, two thousand years ago or five thousand years ago have more wisdom than people who live today.
And why are churches ond of the most lucrative businesses on earth today?
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And why are churches ond of the most lucrative businesses on earth today?[/QUOTE]
Wow, I knew I was at the wrong church. Lucrative?? I've been around Protestant churches on and off over 30 years and have only known a couple of ministers that owned their own homes. SO where is this rich and well off establishment so I can put on my best presentation of a fallen saint that needs picking up? Where oh where--please tell me beacuse it sure isn't in Ohio.:yawnb: :yawnb: :yawnb:
Incorrect.Quote:
Originally Posted by Scrivenor
Would you mind identifying this era of our history? When exactly were people unaware that they eventually would die? I figured that would catch on pretty quick (within at least a generation or so, don't you think?).Quote:
Originally Posted by Scrivenor
Wrong again. Unbelievably wrong.Quote:
Originally Posted by Scrivenor
Because wisdom is not a product of technology, "civilization" or whatever it is you think we have that they didn't. Another wrong idea that we moderns have some sort of lock on wisdom.Quote:
Originally Posted by Scrivenor
You must be in the wrong church.Quote:
Originally Posted by mtpspur
Blokes like this have no troubles - cars, Harleys, Caribbean cruises...
He is by no means alone in being a very wealthy preacher. Never heard of Benny Hinn? Or noticed that the Roman Catholic Church is one of the richest organisation on the planet?
Correct.Quote:
Originally Posted by Scrivenor
I'm amazed at how often I get a sense of deja vu on this subject - I covered exactly that this morning. God is everything we would wish him to be - the ultimate big-daddy who not only kisses it all better, he also lets us live foreever! Who wouldn't love the guy?
I'm not quite sure what you mean here, man has always had gods. The human construct of the Abrahamic god/s is quite simple to acknowledge, but earlier than that, there were certainly religions which dealt with death as one of the subjects. That's one of the finer ironies in christianity - the only way to eternal life is through Jesus and god. Yeah, right. Thousands of years earlier, the only way to eternal life was through Osiris, Baal or other deity. There's nothing new in christianity, people have worshipped gods since they first realised they could think.Quote:
Originally Posted by Scrivenor
I'm just loving the fact that a creationist denies that this is true, because I can prove, beyond any doubt that the more intelligent a person is, the less likely he are to believe in the sky-daddy, and conversely, the dumber he is, the more likely he will be to attend a church, be a creationist, an Amway salesman, or all of the foregoing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Scrivenor
I know some very clever christians, all of whom have a far different opinion of god and creation from fundies. The level of gullibility and doublethink required to be a creationist ensures that the lowest intellectual group will fall for it. Some of them may appear quite smart on the surface - I know a fundie with an IQ of 190, he has appeared on tv as "the human computer", yet he is a complete loser with no personality and is therefore able to practice doublethink on himself to ensure that he nevers asks questions, thus preserving the only social group he will ever fit into.
Amen to that, too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Scrivenor
Do we still mill corn and wheat by hand? Do we travel by donkey? Do we go to the toilet, or do it on the side of the road? I think that in this, at least the Amish are honest - they just ignore the past thousand years or so.
Because it keeps them in business. Money buys television time which sells product and brings in new believers who tithe more money so more tv time can be bought, etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by Scrivenor
The Old Testament sets the financial scene quite nicely for religion when the sky-daddy himself tells the Hebrews:
I can't be bothered finding the precise quote, but that covers it exactly - god has always loved cash.Quote:
Originally Posted by YHWH
Actually, you're completely wrong, wisdom is acquired through experience. Humans today have the collective wisdom of thousands of years of science and society to start from. Children leave school with more wisdom that people used to collate in all their lives.Quote:
Originally Posted by Redzeppelin
This is another point fundies miss entirely - there is 10,000 years of human wisdom and knowledge to refer to, yet they only refer to one book, which hasn't been updated for 1700 years or so.
I knew I shouldn't have made the joke about lucrative churches. I also need to stay off this forum. BUT to be serious. I am a believer in the Lord Christ as a personal Lord and Savior for sins to anyone who believes in Him which makes him available to anyone whether they have wisdom or not. I also know I'm a weak Christian in the faith due to my predilection for doing a Jonah--thinking I have a better plan then God for the "way it ought to be." If you think about the 10,000 years of recorded history for wisdom and the fact that the ONE BOOK doesn't need updating to get the lesson across should be a telling testimony to its authority. Professing themselves to be wise they become fools. Best to stick to the basics. With respect and no real interest in batting back and forth. I leave that to the more erudite amongst us. Faith, people, faith. All else is dust ands ashes.
mtpspur, I've been staying away from the religous texts forums for quite a while, but I've noticed several posts lately, and had to say. To Atheist - Do me a favor...please...TONE IT DOWN. I agree with many points you make, but you can take it too far. The intelligence of a person is not related to their belief in a higher being. Faith is the major thing. I would have quoted mtpspur, but its just above my post. Its true, the ability to believe is paramount to faith.
Only part right, experience and reflection can lead to wisdom, but experience alone will not lead to wisdom. What else can be involved? Gee, I don't have my all knowing recipe.Quote:
Actually, you're completely wrong, wisdom is acquired through experience
I know that people feel passionate about these topics, but discussion is one thing...I wonder why religous topics give me a headache.
Couple of nice coherent posts for a change!
I have no problem at all with faith - as I've said, I know some extremely clever christians who accept pretty much all scientific truths, including evolution, without any trouble to their faith at all. Those kind of people, who see a philosophical need for a god and have faith that he exists, I can admire. I can make an excellent case for god myself within those parameters, I just don't buy it.
What irks me, and it's not just in religion, is wilful ignorance - the refusal to accept that gravity works, physics rules the physical universe and that the laws of mathematics cannot be broken. Creationists are among the worst at trying to avoid these things.
And yes, mea culpa, my patience with them is thin!
I'll tell you that I was raised Roman Catholic, and quite a stink was made when the diocese spent 3 million dollars on a glorified garden. I know that there is a lot of things that could have been done with the money, but a garden doesn't seem high on my list.
Revise: "Couple of posts [that agree with my worldview] for a change!"Quote:
Originally Posted by The Atheist
"Clever" apparently, because they agree with you. The people you described above do not sound like Christians at all - at least Christians who truly know who God is and recognize their need of Him. People who see God as a "philosophical" need have equated Him with some sort of intellectual "vitamin." I question that type of "Christianity."Quote:
Originally Posted by The Atheist
Since I rarely see you make any real case here (but I do see you dismiss other people's) why don't you lay out your "excellent case for [G]od" - I would love to read it.
You know little about Christians - perhaps you ought to hang around some and listen to them on occasion so that you might stop making such ill-informed statements about them. We acknowledge science's veracity in many areas (Christians who deny that gravity works would be denying the existence of God - because He created gravity). Your comments are based largely on your non-stop begging-the-question of the truth about evolution. Once again: you have a theory, with some pieces of "evidence" that appear to support that theory. Congratulations. Quit pretending that evolution is equal to gravity - to do so seriously puts to doubt your credibility as a spokesman/woman for evolution.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Atheist
We try to avoid things that are flat-out mistruths if we are able to do so.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Atheist
We forgive you.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Atheist
Thank you, B-Mental.Quote:
Originally Posted by B-Mental
I think this is a suggestion we can all benefit from.
Please do not personalise your arguments and/or post off topic comments.
And The Atheist, I think it is very lucky for us all that the patience of the Moderators of this Forum is not so 'thin'.