The General Religion, Mythology, and Theology Thread

With the old testament YHWH, I'd argue there's a case of Seinfeld Is Unfunny. At the time and place, Jerkass Gods and downright Lovecraftian Abominations were the norm rather than the exception. YHWH would have been considered subversively kind, particularly when compared to such deities (for example, his request to have Isaac sacrificed to him would not have seemed unusual at the time).

Yeshua, I'd argue he basically agreed with YHWH (I'd go as far as to say they are more or less one mind), but he served a different function. YHWH was running the universe, where as Yeshua was merely living in it. He wasn't here to judge anyone, but to give us a positive example for us to follow.

Correct, but I don't see a problem with that, the divine is simply helping us understand them memes and pick out good ones.

It's not unique, but it is a very American thing, it has a very strong presence in the US Christian community.

I'm Anglican, so all the talk of hell confuses me, I can't think of a time when hell has been mentioned in my church, we tend to focus on Christ, being kind to each other and the local village notices.

Christianity in the U.S. was seeded by evangelical Protestants being cast off from England because they were too into the hellfire and damnation stuff, so it's no surprise that it's big over here. But the hellfire and damnation is a big part of Islam as well — you know, the other big Abrahamic religion.

If you say so. I go with the interpretation that people came up with the memes and figured that the whole religion thing made a great mechanism to transmit them. "Do X because it's good for society." "Huh? Fuck off." "Do X because God said so." "Right, boss!"

Edit: It's important to remember that, for most of humanity's existence, religion has been designed to provide surcease from the unmitigated squalor of daily life, promising rewards in the afterlife as compensation for the horrors of mortality. In such an environment, transmitting pro-survival memes was pretty challenging, because few people saw any value in bettering themselves in life.

Dying was a portal to a world in which you didn't suffer, which seemed pretty attractive, so any survival meme had to be couched in terms that would get you bonus points in Heaven for adopting it.

edited 27th May '16 11:56:06 AM by Fighteer

Organized religion would be fine if it didn't entail controlling the lives of people who didn't want their lives controlled by somebody else's beliefs.

Then again, you have the anti-religious who'd be glad to get rid of all religions...those people tend to stir up animosity too.

Well, societies shift. With progress comes new values, and religion tries to reflect that. Interconnectedness means people are learning from each other, but it just makes it easier to see how everyone divides themselves.

How about "Do X because it's actually beneficial for both of us, and here's why."? Why is it always gods, kings or abstract moral or political ideals, and never, you know, people?

People have tried that sort of appeal for thousands of years; it doesn't work very well because most people lack the ability to reach outside the narrow scope of their particular world view. It can work with sufficient patience and demonstration of beneficial effects, but sometimes you just need the ad baculum to get the message across.

As just one example, taxes benefit society, but it's really hard to get people to vote for higher taxes.

edited 27th May '16 11:31:49 AM by Fighteer

I guess that is to be expected from a species that invented the concept of Hell, but I still hope that we will eventually make ourselves better than that.

If you could get people to agree on a singular system of morals, you wouldn't need cops...

For instance, one of the tenants of good religion tends to be charity, so you give to people, but how much? Your attention? Your money? Your food? Your general happiness?

Geez, I should ignore this thread more often, it seems to cause an explosion of activity.

@Handle: "Indeed, that is the question: if one's religious belief relies on reclaiming an overtly irrational choice, what grounds are there to tell the person leaping to, say, ISIS's interpretation of God, that they are wrong for doing so?"

I cant see the video, so I can only reply to the comment. I'm not familiar with ISIS's religious beliefs. but I can't think of any reason why they are wrong to believe in a God. They have other beliefs we might want to dispute, but why that one?

Pascal's wager is silly. No actual Theist has ever based their faith on it.

That said, I agree with Corvidae's assertion that we are all heretics, in a metaphorical sense, at least to the extent that we rely on our own conscience to define our beliefs.

@Hellomoto: "Indeed, that is the question: if one's religious belief relies on reclaiming an overtly irrational choice, what grounds are there to tell the person leaping to, say, ISIS's interpretation of God, that they are wrong for doing so?"

If you don't already believe in God, then of course there isn't any reason. If you already believe, then naturally you would have to align your sense of morality with that.

@Terminus: "Really, if you don't need it there's no reason to believe."

That.

@Jhimmibob: "In other words, persuading the other guy on his own grounds, in his own terms, might not always be possible, because on such grounds & terms, the other guy isn't wrong."

That's true, and sometimes we just have to disagree with someone on subjective grounds. We are under no obligation to tolerate the actions or beliefs of those who do not tolerate ours. I'm a values pluralist, so I'm willing to extend the benefit of the doubt to a great many belief systems, but not all of them. There are some that cross my line.

@Handle: "So it boils down to Might Makes Right, or, if one is to be charitable, Pragmatic Ethics and Moral Ecology: the ideologies, religions, ethics that survive are the ones that form the basis for sustainable societies able to adapt to changing conditions."

Those are two very different things that you just conflated. It's funny how the belief systems which succeed the most seem to be the ones that are most compatible with each other. Of course, it's likely that the belief systems people adopt are a reflection of their emotional needs, so that makes some degree of sense. What this implies about the potential nature of a God will depend on one's perspective.

@Keybreak: "Now I just stay agnostic, because if people still can't agree now, they probably never will. And centuries of beliefs are hard to change. Which is why I like the idea of pushing the Internet to everybody in the world...let them educate themselves."

You know that there has been a convergence of ethical and ideological beliefs around the world as a result of the spread of the enlightenment? While doctrinal differences still separate certain communities from the mainstream, there is now a discernible international mainstream to differ from.

@Corivdae "That really is the core of the problem, isn't it? Still, I'm disappointed by how "God is real" almost inevitably seems to lead to "Let's do as he says, no matter what!" Why isn't misotheism more common?"

Because of the very large number of people of faith who do not believe like that?

@Keybreak: "That inner God of yours? Your conscience? If that conflicts with the standard, it must be wrong.

Organized religion relies on conformity and submission. It's easier to maintain power when you float eternal paradise as reward and eternal damnation as punishment."

You're stereotyping. Not everyone believes that. Nor every church. The one I grew up in taught me to listen to my conscience, and that oppressing people is wrong.

As an American, I would like to point out that my faith isn't fear-based.

@Fighteer: "If they are good ideas, then they are good ideas whether or not God said so, and your religion acts more as a channel for transmission of pro-society memes than it does as a way to interpret the Divine."

Hah. Only if we're wrong. It's the other way around if we're right.

"Mind you, my view is that every person needs to try to decide for themselves what God wants for them. You may not come to a conclusion that society or the church agrees with, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, since society doesn't always understand God's will."

Couldn't have said it any better myself.

Does this imply that there are things you wouldn't do even if you believed that God wanted you to, or am I missing the point here?

Yes, I am stereotyping. But if your church taught everyone in your congregation to listen to your conscience and that oppressing people is wrong, then anybody who disagreed would be outnumbered, right? The more authoritarian types.

It's not just about what happens after you die, it's about having a community. "Believe as we do or you're unwelcomed". But then that's organization...suppressing your own feelings for the sake of the whole.

I think that's why non-theistic faiths are still seen as organized religions: because people are united in their disbelief.

Since I believe that God wants me to use my own judgement, and doesn't tell me what to do...

I guess your god's morals are compatible with mine then, at least in a practical sense. That doesn't necessarily make either one of us right, though.

This line of thinking, on the other hand... How is this kind of morality anything other than completely arbitrary? If say, ISIS's version of God turns out to be correct, and suicide bombing civilians is good, I'd have no problem whatsoever with being "evil".

That's my problem with the idea as well. When people claim morality is inherently dependent on God, it reduces the concept of morality to utter arbititrariness. Saying a thing is good or bad just because God wills it means nothing to me unless you can explain why he'd consider it good or bad. Otherwise it's just dodging the issue.

Well, as a previous video in that series explores, this apparent vacuousness of morality does bother some theists so there's a bunch of philosophical schools of thought all about trying to patch it up.

Others, as this forum shows, are totally ok with it.

because as far history show, morality being source on god have not stop other from using it

Ultimately, all ethical systems have a certain amount of arbitrariness.

Alternatively, morality could be something separate from God, but even then, I'd argue said morality is way over humanity's head and God literally can't break it. In this view God doesn't define morality, but it would mean that God doing something is evidence that, indeed, it is good. Otherwise God wouldn't have done it.

That doesn't bode well for anyone who believes that there is both Good and Evil in Creation, though, since if God cannot do anything that is not Good, and God made everything that exists, then everything that exists is Good. There's no escaping this logic.

I like to think of God as a video game developer, creating and managing the world's biggest, oldest, and most complex MMORPG ever. this God designs all the mechanics that define how the gameworld works.

So. What does 'moral' mean anyway? Or 'good'? Does it mean that if a majority of people practiced a 'good' thing, society will benefit as a whole on a long-term basis?

And if the above statement is true, God defines what is good because the mechanics He sat down lend themselves to certain types of actions bringing more benefit to society than other types of actions?

edited 27th May '16 10:41:32 PM by hellomoto

I believe this is fundamentally wrong. If a thing is true on its own merits alone, then it is not also sound.

@Fighteer: I and another person pointed out a second flaw in Pascal's wager. Therefore there are at least two problems with it.

There are several ways to escape that logic.

@DeMarquis: "Pascal's wager is silly. No actual Theist has ever based their faith on it."

Except Pascal.

I know. He didn't either.

@Protagonist: I don't want an arbitrary moral system. That would ultimately be a pointless waste of time. If you just threw metaphorical darts at a board to select moral principles, you might as well throw them out and take up a hobby.

edited 28th May '16 12:44:05 AM by war877

Sure. My own system is ultimately just based on my own desires and biases, but at least it's mine. If people question my actions, I have to actually defend them instead of hiding behind an appeal to authority.

And is the idea of basing an ethical system on the wants and needs of the people who are actually affected by it, (using a combination of self-interest and empathy, in my case) rather than those of long dead prophets or distant gods, really so unreasonable?

In theory, since morality is a product of our brains, and presumably God designed those, any ethical insights we have must ultimately have been anticipated by God, that seemingly being the point of creating us. However, since God (afaik) hasn't told us in unambiguous form what his exact criteria are, there's no way for us to know precisely which set of doctrines, if any, are "right". God apparently wants us to use our own creativty and judgement, and so by implication must not care much whether we get things precisely right or even come to the exact same conclusion.

There may not be a single "right" answer to many ethical problems.

Possibly. I run on the theory that there are problems that have no right answer. But in these cases, it is because at least two choices are equally good. If they are equally good, then it is not a choice of morality to choose between them. Rather a choice of preference.

I like to think that every ethical theory has a non-arbitrary core. A core of rules that exist for reasons. The remaining rules can safely be ignored.

"Look Gabriel, the humans are fighting each other!"

"What... why?"

"Oh, cause I designed them to hate each other of course. Look at all their little religions, ideologies, and xenophobic biases... isn't it cute? Ooh... this one's got a nuke!"

"You're enjoying this way too much, dad."

I knew God's a video game developer!