Random theological stuff - moved from Q about God

[razoredge]

one can only wonder whos live has the largest suck factor when reading some posts.

Religious people do seem to have a better overall ability to overcome or accept than sceptics, I have noticed that.

 

[Judzfell]

Religion as well as other forms of power has been used in mankinds history for many purposes.

Maintaining some form of law and social structure I believe has been its primary use.
Abused into power tripin dominance which applies to religious and non religious bulling through out our history

On a more personal level I believe it has simply been mankinds method to answer or accept that which he does not understand and has no control over.

As well because its so hard to accept that upon dying its all over, all has been for nothing and a general fear of that darkness

So with my low ed logic this seems to explain to me why people of both intelligence and moron can be found in both faith and atheist

This could also explain why many a less than religious person may "look to the Lord" in the autumn of thier life... what the hell right ? Its like buying a lottery ticket... you never know and this could be the most important lottery.

Seem to have nailed everything I could of said about my thoughts. As a kid, when I asked my friends why they believed in god, it was because they didn't understand how a cloud could exist. This is knowledge noncomprehending because they have not been taught yet exactly what that white thing in the sky really is, to them its an unreachable, even mystical. They didn't have the answers to those clouds, so it was easy to conjure up an imaginary being who supposedly could be responsible for this.

As adults, and more understanding of the world and its mechanics and physics, they now have more free thought and the ability to understand a little more of whats going on. Obviously outside of our planet is still very dreary to the human species, and with the vastness of space, will forever be.

I hope this ADDS to what has been said.

 

[monoxide_child]

Do you mean that Once you think scientifically, you stop believing in your religion's teaching? Sorry, the more stuff I know about science, the more it attaches me to my religion, cause science blends in very well in it.

Excuse me
Are you assuming that atheists have better lives than religious people? You never heard somebody thinking the following way : God exists,so he can help me but my life sucks and God didn't help me, therefore he doesn't exist. Isn't it the opposite of what you said?

the "blending of science and religion" is a concept that was created for and by the people that are too indecicive to pick one or the other

i wasn't being properly articulate in my previous post, there are people who "become Christian" as a form of Post-Traumatic Stress Dissorder, where something horrendous happens, and their conversion to Christianity is a coping mechanisim that prevents suicide

 

[monoxide_child]

Seem to have nailed everything I could of said about my thoughts. As a kid, when I asked my friends why they believed in god, it was because they didn't understand how a cloud could exist. This is knowledge noncomprehending because they have not been taught yet exactly what that white thing in the sky really is, to them its an unreachable, even mystical. They didn't have the answers to those clouds, so it was easy to conjure up an imaginary being who supposedly could be responsible for this.

As adults, and more understanding of the world and its mechanics and physics, they now have more free thought and the ability to understand a little more of whats going on. Obviously outside of our planet is still very dreary to the human species, and with the vastness of space, will forever be.

I hope this ADDS to what has been said.

this is exactly how i feel, some adult Christians have child-like minds, being able to believe in something that doesn't make any sense, because they haven't gone through the effort of questioning it

 

[Badbird]

I would like to ask Christians and all other religious people why they believe in it.

 

[razoredge]

I would like to ask Christians and all other religious people why they believe in it.

Then you should do it, sit down and talk to many, and I dont mean on the internet, people you can look into their eyes and converse maturely... find good people not desperate wack jobs, sit and talk to them. Question to yourself why things fell into place for them, why they made such great life time decisions and also have decided to keep the faith. Then continue asking yourself the many things you question about faith and lastly if you really have room to judge or make any conclusions. Answers to these things cant come about in a couple of youthful years, there is alot of stuff out there to observe and evaluate, then re-evaluate... after a few decades you begin to realise you never knew a friggin thing to begin with because you were quick to jump to conclusions, simplify, justify, critize, pass judgement, look the other way, jump on a band wagon, ect, ect, ect.

 

[Blowtus]

people tend to believe they believe stuff for very different reasons than they actually believe. we are expert story tellers, even to ourselves. Read about split brain patients if you want to see just how good at concocting shit to mitigate cognitive dissonance we are.

 

[razoredge]

I need a translator "mitigate cognitive dissonance"

but I do know what you are refering to, somehow to me this seems to coincide with my believe that people DO have different reasons, some concocted and some through ration because we all also have different levels of sanity with split brain people being at one extreme and others more rational at another and may perhaps be people of faith.

This seems to also fall into the catagory of placing blame, while we all have some degree of fault/responsibiliby, some totally at fault, it is possible some situations were furthered by the hands of other assholes to an extreme beyond ones control.... larger than their initial error I guess Im saying.

Now you need an interpreter I suppose..... LOL

 

[Blowtus]

the split brainers are perfectly sane, that's the point. asking people why they believe stuff, only tells you why they think they believe stuff.

I didn't understand your bit about blame but I wasn't going to bother my translator for that one, I assume it's one of your usual vaguely but not accurately connected random tangents

 

[razoredge]

So you dont think people have different levels of rational and evaluation ? You dont think there is many reasons one might be spiritual ? Just the one train everyone against is riding today that is because we were "brainwashed" ? Or momos belief the it all stems from some traumatic experience, to then fall back on the brainwashing ? Then please explain how both my sister and I lost our mother in our youth and she remained "brainwashed" and "grasping for a crutch" and I went the other way? The religious suck up the same bullshit as mono did but only in reverse in my case. Its all very amusing to me, how people cant accept our vast differences.

I fail to see how blame is random in this discussion. Religion itself was used for explaination, same as blame is and has been.

I also fail to see how the blame game and common instinct to not take accountability does not fall into the human trait expressed in this following statement " if you want to see just how good at concocting shit to mitigate cognitive dissonance we are. "

maybe you lost me with your big words but do we not also conoct shit in our heads convincing ourselfs we had no hand in the matter

 

[Blowtus]

mitigate cognitive dissonance = minimise internal conflict due to beliefs that do not fit with actions. ie, make up a story about what we did and why we did it that sounds plausible.

If you don't understand something, isn't it easy to plug it in to wikianswersgooglesomething and find out?

I think there are many reasons one might be spiritual but I am doubtful of the accuracy of answers you would receive by simply asking spiritual people. I am not against spirituality as such, I can't stand the simplistic atheist's assumption that everything can somehow be rationalised. You can make sense of most things to some degree but without some acceptance of irrational base values and drives life is a barren void of nihilist utopia. I am against anything when it stifles that which I value in myself and others, and spirituality comes across as somewhat detrimental quite often - but so do plenty of other things

I value understanding and thought, many forms of spirituality are appealing to people because they give a veneer of 'sense' and 'fairness' to life without the need for actually thinking about it and accepting that it doesn't always conform with our structures of appropriateness.

 

[razoredge]

I would agree, theres not alot of differnt explainations for being religious but I have found in talking to many that some are more confident and convincing where others are off the wall, thats why I referenced talkin to many face to face, it makes it easier to accept they dont feel the same as an atheist on the subject and hard to deny them their faith. I do find it interesting that sprititual people better accept some outside interference or interventions than many people who have no such beliefs.

 

[hexwind]

the "blending of science and religion" is a concept that was created for and by the people that are too indecicive to pick one or the other

I don't think so. There is a document that I have been reading for years that is comfirmed in many ways by some recent scientific studies. Why don't I believe in what it says regardless of its source?
If science and the evaluation of the world and my views ever agree with the New Testament i will probably become a Christian.

Why don't I accept it if is true? Because the people around me believe in the opposite? Or because my former beliefs contradict what I have found out? Or because what I should do contradicts what i want to do?
None of these stuff have affected my beliefs. Maybe they have introduced me to some subjects to think of that resulted the conclusions i have drawn? yes !

i wasn't being properly articulate in my previous post, there are people who "become Christian" as a form of Post-Traumatic Stress Dissorder, where something horrendous happens, and their conversion to Christianity is a coping mechanisim that prevents suicide

Please, when you are examining sth, get a healthy example !

 

[BlackMetalWhiteGuy]

Razoredge, it doesn't seem like you understand what Blowtus is saying. For clarification, here are some excerpts from a book that I'm reading.

Welcome to Your Brain: Why You Lose Your Car Keys but Never Forget How to Drive and Other Puzzles of Everyday Life (2008)
by Sandra Aamodt, Ph.D. & Sam Wang, Ph.D.

... many of the stories we tell ourselves don't even reflect what's actually happening in our own heads. A famous study of brain-damaged patients demonstrates this idea. The patients had been treated for severe epilepsy by a surgical operation that disconnected the right and left halves of their brain's cortex, to prevent seizures from spreading from one side to the other. This meant that the left half literally didn't know what the right half was doing, and vice versa.

In one experiment, the scientists showed a picture of a chicken claw to the left side of a patient's brain, where the language areas are located, and a picture of a snow scene to the right side of the brain, which cannot produce speech. Asked to pick a related image from another set of pictures, he correctly chose a shovel with his left hand (controlled by the right side of the brain). When asked to explain his choices, he responded: "Oh, that's simple. The chicken claw goes with the chicken, and you need a shovel to clean out the chicken shed." The scientists concluded that the left side of the brain contains an "interpreter" whose job is to make sense of the world, even when it doesn't understand what's really happening.

... your brain usually aims to get a half-assed answer in a hurry rather than a perfect answer that takes a while to figure out. Combined with the world's complexity, this means that your brain has to take shortcuts and make a lot of assumptions.

In addition to throwing away information, the brain has to decide whether to take shortcuts, depending on how it values speed against accuracy in a particular situation. Most of the time, your brain favors speed, interpreting events based on rules of thumb that are easy to apply but not alwyas logical.

... the left side of the brain seems to have an intense need for logic and order - so intense that if something doesn't make sense, it usually responds by inventing some plausible explanation.

 

[razoredge]

I think I understand all this but dont get why anyone thinks I dont.

 

[monoxide_child]

I would like to ask Christians and all other religious people why they believe in it.

i don't know so much about other religions, but whith CHristianity, you'll prolly get 2 answers

1
they still believe in Christianity because they were taught Christianity at a young enough age where they just never questioned it, it's just always been a part of their lives

2
there was some sort of "trigger event" where they were suddenly unable to deal with weirdness of life as atheist

there are those who actually believe they can "feel" God "inside", but these people seem to be experiencing somesort of hallucinations

 

[BlackMetalWhiteGuy]

i don't know so much about other religions, but whith CHristianity, you'll prolly get 2 answers

1
they still believe in Christianity because they were taught Christianity at a young enough age where they just never questioned it, it's just always been a part of their lives

2
there was some sort of "trigger event" where they were suddenly unable to deal with weirdness of life as atheist

there are those who actually believe they can "feel" God "inside", but these people seem to be experiencing somesort of hallucinations

1. I was reading a research article that I picked up when I was at the Northeastern Evolutionary Psychology Society Conference and it said that people who are very dominantly right handed were more likely to be extremely religious, because the corpus collosum (area that connects both hemispheres) was weakened and made it more difficult for them to incorporate new information if there was a conflict with what they already believed. Consequently, they were "stuck" believing either what they learned first (what they were told as children), or whatever was easier to believe without putting forth effort toward critical analysis of said belief.

2. I know a guy through another forum who became Christian as a teenager and was extremely defensive about his position because we "didn't know what he had been through." One of his arguments was that he knew God was real because when he thought about Jesus, he felt loved and he insisted that there was no psychological term to explain how people can feel that way, or scientific basis for how he felt, which clearly meant that it was God. I replied that the word "conditioning" was in fact a common word in the vocabulary of psychologists and that it could easily be explained as mild, undiagnosed schizophrenia or some other form of psychosis. He never posted in that thread again.

 

[Badbird]

i don't know so much about other religions, but whith CHristianity, you'll prolly get 2 answers

1
they still believe in Christianity because they were taught Christianity at a young enough age where they just never questioned it, it's just always been a part of their lives

2
there was some sort of "trigger event" where they were suddenly unable to deal with weirdness of life as atheist

there are those who actually believe they can "feel" God "inside", but these people seem to be experiencing somesort of hallucinations

I guess that some good anwsers you said monoxide

 

[razoredge]

you guys are doing really really bad here especially mono, you are so pathetic with your blind hatred that is sounds alot like BMWG's #1. There are many people out there that truely believe their lives are blessed and have been blessed by god. That it aids them on their decision making, their treatment of others, their success in live, you name it and as I said if your talking to the right people you can only look at them and their lives and question who the fuck are you to question or judge them. Because nobody knows, there is no black and white line drawn we all just have our own beliefs

 

[Blowtus]

Not all beliefs are equal. Some beliefs are both more powerful and positive for the rest of society.

If I believe rain dances are useful, and another believes research on the climate / cloud seeding / etc to be useful, would you really want to take the inane pluralism approach and say both are equal?