God Is Not Great?

[El Viejo]

Everyone has a religion. Everyone's life is guided by some principle or set of principles. A free-market zealot believes that by selfishly pursuing his own interests he does the greatest good for his fellows. That he is a Baptist or a Presbyterian or whatever on Sundays doesn't change the fact that his religion is commerce.

A person's religion consists of the core beliefs by which they direct their lives. If we think of beliefs in terms of a painting or drawing, what is absent is as important as what is present. Present in Christianity, Islam, and Judaism is the omniscient, omnipotent creator. That being is not present in the beliefs of the Atheist, and is a silhouette in those of the Agnostic. But the presence or absence informs and shapes the rest of the picture.

[Dark Star]

The problem with this is that if we give religion such a vague definition as 'a set of principles that guides one life' then it becomes absolutely meaningless. You also run into problems trying to re-define the word that way since religions generally have a set of beliefs and and rituals that go with them which would not qualify for, say, an atheist or an agnostic since the beliefs that guide those (whether ethical, political, or what have you) vary widely. I simply don't see why we need to re-define religion in such a broad sense as to make it meaningless just to say that everyone has a religion.

[Nightshade]

The problem with this is that if we give religion such a vague definition as 'a set of principles that guides one life' then it becomes absolutely meaningless. You also run into problems trying to re-define the word that way since religions generally have a set of beliefs and and rituals that go with them which would not qualify for, say, an atheist or an agnostic since the beliefs that guide those (whether ethical, political, or what have you) vary widely. I simply don't see why we need to re-define religion in such a broad sense as to make it meaningless just to say that everyone has a religion.

I dont think that is a redefinttion, really. I mean if you look at the older 'traditional ' religions some of them speak of the worship of money, use it to describe people who are obsessed with money and gaining wealth. Surley its one and the same. Religion, in it self, is basically a core value that dictates the way you lead your life, not thing more nothing less.

[Dark Star]

I dare you to name one single organized religion (let's not cheat by speaking about those on a 'personal spiritual path' or something along those lines, whom I would still consider religious, though) that constitutes nothing but a core value that dictates the way you live your life and nothing more and nothing less.

[NikolaiI]

Well, by the mere fact that you add the word "organized" to "organized religion," you show that organized religion is something different from just "religion." Otherwise there is an endless loop in the vein of "organized organized organized organized organized, etc...religion." So religion means something different from organized religion. Anyway, I agree with the definition, more or less, that it means core values or whatever. Of course it means different things, but I think this is true and a good way to look at it.

Well, here (from m-w.com):

1 a: the state of a religious <a nun in her 20th year of religion> b (1): the service and worship of God or the supernatural (2): commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance
2: a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices
3archaic : scrupulous conformity : conscientiousness
4: a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith

#4 would be like, "baseball is a religion with him" I think...or...well you know.

And #2 is the way we're (er, El Viejo) is using it.

[Britva]

A person's religion consists of the core beliefs by which they direct their lives. If we think of beliefs in terms of a painting or drawing, what is absent is as important as what is present. Present in Christianity, Islam, and Judaism is the omniscient, omnipotent creator. That being is not present in the beliefs of the Atheist, and is a silhouette in those of the Agnostic. But the presence or absence informs and shapes the rest of the picture.

Atheists do NOT believe in non-believing. If religious apologists reveal only ONE piece of evidence that can prove their biggest claim-the existence of God- a true atheist would give up her previous opinions and accept such claims. Obviously this is not the case for many religious believers. They've asserted that they'd continue to have faith even in the face of manifest evidence.

So let's not fall for extravagant relativism and give all beliefs equal value just because they're beliefs. Sacrificing humans for the God of sun and humanism are both beliefs. Call the second one religious, but please don't try to say that they have no inherent difference.

[NikolaiI]

Well, everyone here will agree sacrificing humans to the Sun God is wrong. So let's at least take that...now about the question of religious...let's look at it again...

Everyone that's living in this world, living, eating, thinking, breathing...lives, thinks about certain things, and thinks according to patterns. They consider objects and solve problems, learn different subjects and do all sorts of different activies. Everyone has some experiencial knowledge and some knowledge they've gotten from others. The majority of humans have also have the priviledge to read books, too.

Now, obviously not everyone has the same morals or precepts. This causes great conflict. To say that anyone believes nothing couldn't really be true... or perhaps it COULD, but see how difficult it would be. Who in the world believes absolutely nothing? If you know anything, then you believe in the existence of something. Even if you have never been talked to, and don't know language at all, then you still have some sort of belief in some way, even if it isn't expressed or understood the same way. Now, saying everyone BELIEVES something is not saying that everyone believes the same thing. And the way they're using religion is in that way. It is not saying at all that there is no difference between religions, it is just saying that everyone has religion.

[Orionsbelt]

Well, so far I can summarize most of this by saying that ideas cause people to do some pretty crazy things. I can only add that the lack of ideas also causes people to do some pretty crazy things.

[Redzeppelin]

Atheists do NOT believe in non-believing. If religious apologists reveal only ONE piece of evidence that can prove their biggest claim-the existence of God- a true atheist would give up her previous opinions and accept such claims. Obviously this is not the case for many religious believers. They've asserted that they'd continue to have faith even in the face of manifest evidence.

"Evidence" for God? You're kidding, right? That's part of God's "problem." God wishes to be freely loved by His creations - just as human beings want to be loved for who they are (not because we can "prove" to other people we're worthy of their love). If God provided "evidence" in the form that many atheists want (and one wonders if even then they wouldn't dimiss it as "hallucination" or "mental illness" - right? Because we can always come up for an excuse for what we don't want to believe), then they would be compelled to fall down and worship Him by very nature of His glory and all-powerful, perfect being. That's worship via "coercion" of a sort - who wouldn't worship God if He appeared as He is described? As CS Lewis wrote: "God cannot ravish, He can only woo." (Screwtape Letters) When God finally shows up, all will "believe" - but that will be too late, because that belief will be due to fear or awe, but not of love - because love cannot coerce or overpower - it can only gently call.

Second: what's all the "manifest evidence" that has banished poor God from existence?

So let's not fall for extravagant relativism and give all beliefs equal value just because they're beliefs. Sacrificing humans for the God of sun and humanism are both beliefs. Call the second one religious, but please don't try to say that they have no inherent difference.

That was well-said, and I do agree.

[Kafka's Crow]

I read the Benazir Bhutto article with baited breath waiting for the description of her desire for her dad etc but it never came about! What a wastage of time. He used 'electra complex' figuratively implying that she fascinated her father's 'politics', yeah, only politics, nothing more nothing less. Taking things out of context and screwing their meanings is the oldest trick in the book. I must confess that I have not read God is Not Great yet although it is waiting on my bookshelf and will be read within a week or so. I finished The God Delusion yesterday and it is very, very impressive. Although Dawkins shows more respect for Sam Harris (also on my reading list) still I will not skip Hithchens. We, all of us, should accept that we have not read God is Not Great and we are discussing it, arguing its merits, authors faults, his theory etc without even reading the book. How intellectually honest..... NOT!

[Dark Star]

Well, by the mere fact that you add the word "organized" to "organized religion," you show that organized religion is something different from just "religion."

I admit my statement was clumsily worded and it may have came across wrong. I simply wanted to avoid getting into ridiculous semantical arguments about whether people 'on a personal spiritual path' as they say are religious or not. I've had someone tell me before that atheism is a religion and his Christianity is not a religion or set of religious beliefs because he doesn't go to church. I was trying to avoid that sort of thing. That said, if we divide religious people from organized religion there is still a key factor: Religion is a system of beliefs so these people saying that atheists are religious too are wrong. One belief (if you choose to call it a belief) does not constitute a system of them. I also tend to find that there is usually a dishonest intention behind it when people try to paint atheism as a religion which makes me get defensive when I see such comments.

Well, here (from m-w.com):

1 a: the state of a religious <a nun in her 20th year of religion> b (1): the service and worship of God or the supernatural (2): commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance
2: a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices [Emphasis added]
3archaic : scrupulous conformity : conscientiousness
4: a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith

#4 would be like, "baseball is a religion with him" I think...or...well you know.

And #2 is the way we're (er, El Viejo) is using it.

No, he is not using two, or rather, he is using a bastardization of two (from my understanding of his post) and that is the problem I have. He is saying that a person's life philosophy is itself a religion, not that a person's religious views or ideas make up their belief. This makes no logical sense since people within the same religion will have different life philosophies and different views of their religious beliefs, and thus, by his definition will have different religions. I don't think it takes much to see the problem with defining religion in such a broad manner that you are claiming that two Christians of the same sect of Christianity, two Muslims, what have you are NOT of the same religion unless they share the exact same 'core values' (let's say political views, views on ethics, that sort of thing).

[NikolaiI]

Okay. So # 4 uses the word "cause" or "system," but I don't think these words are necessary for a certain use of the word. I think the lyric "losing my religion" would be an example of this use of the word, although of course it could mean losing my cause which I hold to with ardor or faith. I think a person's "religion" could be anything in that use of the word. My religion could be blinking my eyes at cats.

The other use of the word-- to argue over it is rather meaningless. Religion in the previous sense is used as an emphasis of something that we do-- blinking at cats is my RELIGION because I DIG it. Using religion to say that everyone has religion is using it to define something that already has emphasis, so it's then religion. Now you may say it's meaningless to say that everyone has a religion, because it means that everyone has a different religion, but again; this is only opinion of how the words should be used and their meaning, it's not an important issue other than that. All I am saying is that I personally support this use of the word, and I think it's respectable. Without going off into what beliefs are, which I've studied and written about too, I would just like to ask what is the difference between a system or a non-system. One is organized, and one is un-organized, perhaps. But this is completely insubstantial. A Christian does not have a religion as opposed to not having one if his beliefs are structured or organized. Nor if they can or cannot be expressed in words-- nor even, if he has never thought about it at all.

Nor are beliefs completely separated by a chasm from what is logical, as some seem to believe. After all, if we believe something, and if we also use reason, then we believe in what we think is reasonable, and we think is true what we believe. Belief or religion in this sense-- as something that everyone has-- does not need to be a system or cause or scheme, it could be a counter-cause or counter-system, or it could be un-organized, etc.,-- all it needs to be is "something" that could be expressed as a whole, either you know in an article, or maybe a work of art. And I am even saying that it can't be contradictory! But maybe it can be contradictory-- maybe that doesn't mean it can't be a religion either.

[Dark Star]

I'll try to respond to that in short:

One reason I do not 'support' that meaning of the word is because it is not what the word means (by modern definition, at least). We could say the word 'computer' means a person's life philosophy but it is obviously not true. Another reason I take issue with it is a more pragmatic one; that it is generally the basis of starting some sort of ridiculous argument against atheism; E.G. 'Atheism is a religion and therefore atheists shouldn't complain about the bad affects of religious beliefs!' Or even worse: 'Darwinism is a religion, so we should teach Creationism in school too since they're both religious beliefs!!!' To extend this a bit further 'Anything taught in astronomy class is the religious beliefs of scientists, therefore we need to force them to teach astrology in there, too!!!'...I think you see where I'm going with this. If the actual danger present behind this kind of thinking and vague semantics isn't obvious, I don't know what more to say.

Also, I think one thing that defines a system and a non-system is that a system must contain more than one component. One component (or belief) alone does not constitute a system.

[blazeofglory]

I've just started reading "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything" by an author named Christopher Hitchens, an avid atheist. As a seminarian and philosophy major in college, it's important to me to view all sides of an issue, regardless of my initial opinions.

With that said, has anyone read this? Or are currently reading it? If so, I'd like to discuss some of the areas he touches upon (religion's effect on government, physical health of individuals, etc.).

So, without further ado, fire away!

What is your opinion after reading the book. Comment.

[blazeofglory]

Everyone has a religion. Everyone's life is guided by some principle or set of principles. A free-market zealot believes that by selfishly pursuing his own interests he does the greatest good for his fellows. That he is a Baptist or a Presbyterian or whatever on Sundays doesn't change the fact that his religion is commerce.

A person's religion consists of the core beliefs by which they direct their lives. If we think of beliefs in terms of a painting or drawing, what is absent is as important as what is present. Present in Christianity, Islam, and Judaism is the omniscient, omnipotent creator. That being is not present in the beliefs of the Atheist, and is a silhouette in those of the Agnostic. But the presence or absence informs and shapes the rest of the picture.

This is indeed a matter of fact I always subscribe to. Indeed you have redefined religions along different lines. You seem to have broken with traditional approaches to religions. The way you included a trader in a particular sect, commerce, really deeply moved me.

Yours is of course a mature observation or understanding of religion.