God of the Credo

beliefnet

Blü:

Yes, gods don't have objective existence.

The objective existence of God for Catholics is rationally observed in the Mass, in particular the Credo.  The Credo describes what God is: One God, the omnipotent father, who created everything, and the Son who is one with God who came down from heaven and became a real person by the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary.  (No hanky-panky by God, just magic and apparently a little help from Joseph and/or David, and/or God's eternal sperm bank.) 

It describes what he did: Was sacrificed to expiate the sins of all men and was resurrected to once again become one God.

It tells why: so all will be resurected to enjoy eternal life. 

Then comes the hook: God will judge all, and only those baptized for the forgiveness of sin will get the goodies. 

There is nothing imaginary or unreal in that for Catholics.  God is more important for them than Blü, J'Carlin, or any other person with the possible exception of the parish priest.

Nyah Wynne on UBI

Nyah Wynne

3 hrs · 

Thoughts on the value of a Universal Basic Income

The biggest reason I support UBI(Universal Basic Income) has nothing to do with our possible automated future, as labor becomes less essential, or at least as we need much less of it, though that's a great reason to support it. It's not even about eliminating poverty or making the unemployment rate a non-issue, though those are very good reasons too.

The reason I want a UBI is to make work at least -technically- optional. I want this because so long as work is not optional, so long as it is mandatory, it is coercive. I want UBI so that every low wage worker whose boss screws them on hours, who reprimands them for taking sick days, who asks them to work too fast in unsafe conditions(see the current fast-food lawsuit), every young employee whose boss secretly grabs their ass while no one is looking, who's constantly making lewd comments, or racist comments, or any other sort of hateful bullshit... So that every employee who finds themselves trapped in the fiefdom of some petty little tyrant of a boss, which is actually The Majority Of Low End Workers, so that they can say:

"TAKE THIS JOB AND SHOVE IT"

So that they can really, truly, meaningfully walk the fuck away. And not have it mean they end up on the streets or their kids starve or they find themselves turning tricks to keep the water running and the lights on. Or for that matter just ending up in yet another job with a slightly different petty tyrant. And they can do this, deal with this, without having to deal with lawyers or Union Reps, who though are better than -not- having them it'd be nicer to just be able to do it ourselves. Because if -enough- of them(us) say 'NO' to this petty fucking bullshit, then firms will be forced to stop letting the petty bullshit happen(those who fail to will simply not get workers), and work in general will end up less awful for everyone.

Because the ability to say 'NO' to someone who's actively abusing you... that should be pretty high on the list of 'Liberties' worth defending. In my mind.

Religious CV

I do not need to defend my knowledge of religions of all cultures including the dominant ones of the cultures I have lived in.  My bookshelf, the opinion of Priests, Rabbi's, Ministers, and university scholars in many religions I have studied at that level give lie to your bigotry.  Not to mention several thousand posts here on beliefnet discussing religion. Including hosting (one of several experienced beliefnet forum hosts) a forum on Paul and Jesus in support of a Peter Jennings ABC documentary on the topic at the request of the beliefnet forum managers who knew I was host of the Atheism Debate board.

Atheism or Anti-Theism?

beliefnet

Perhaps we can get around to actually discussing atheism?
rockyJew

We are discussing atheism that is: why we are not a believer in the various gods, God or G-d that we are respectfully asked to learn more about, distainfully demanded to learn more about, proselytized to believe in, forced to believe in, or forced to pretend to believe in to avoid ostracism at best.  Historically, non-belief is punishable by torture and death. Whether that continues today is, shall we say, arguable.   

Torah Myth as Allegory

beliefnet

Which do you imagine are 'critical stories' in the Torah texts?

As you are well aware, JC, one of the Jewish principles of Biblical interpretation is that the farther back in time the narrative covers, the less 'historical' and the more allegorical the account is seen as being. JewOne

I am an atheist.  I see nothing in any fable religious or secular that is anything but allegorical or occasionally ironic.  Allegory must teach something of value that bears some relationship to the details of the story or it would not persist as a part of the lore of at least a tribe or subset of humanity.  It is not necessary to believe that the wolf in Little Red Riding hood was anything but allegorical to understand that young women should be wary of strangers.  Even strange women.  Female wolves are as predatory as the males. 

The critical stories in the Torah texts are the ones everybody remembers. Most were written by the Yahwist as hesh was by far the best storyteller in the Torah, and herm stories translate well as they deal with universal human issues in any language.  Whether they are translated by a Jew, an unknown Aramaic scholar, or various Roman and Christian translators.  They all say about the same thing.  Believe in and do what God tells you to do or else.  We can argue about the details of "what else" other than the fact that it isn't good.

Some of the later stories incorporate the mediators for God as authoritative interpreters of the B_b drone of "Believe in and do what God tells you to do or else."  

Reinterpreting Jesus as God

beliefnet

Jul 15, 2015 -- 9:50PM, Blü wrote:

Which brings us to this thread, where we consider a being who, the story says, lives in heaven but was incarnated on earth to proclaim the imminent Kingdom - yet knew nothing more about reality than his time and place did. The report (or tale, as the case may be) matches human tendencies perfectly.

Interesting thought.  Let me take it a bit further.  Imagine this multi-omni God created by men but somehow having some sort of numinous existence after a couple of thousand years watching the creators botch things up miserably, decides to go fix things. 

Hesh assumes a human male form and teaches that the priests are the ones botching things up, and shows a few people how to heal, feed the poor and the needy, love everybody even the Samaritans that had just refused hospitality on a hot day, preached that the meek and the poor in spirit (atheists?) would inherit the earth and the kingdom of heaven respectively. 

Pretty good morality. Depending what he taught about healing; maybe the difference between viral diseases and pathogens which needed to be healed differently, and He gets a few people on the right path.   What happens?  They kill him.  The priests and wanna be priests exterminate his cults, and bastardize his teachings to give every Tom, Dick, and Harry the Kingdom of Heaven if they only believe and do what the priests tell them to do. 

Three days after they kill him he goes back to Herm numinous existence to watch the priests and their money-bags continue to screw things up.  So instead of trying to do things single handedly Hesh picks out a few bright rational people teaches them science and humanism and lets the message spread itself, underground at first, but with a few nudges in the right direction to the right people occasionally.  In a couple of more thousand years as predicted and lot of nudges to a lot of people Hesh gets us on the right path to create the promised land on earth that the priests and the rich took away from those that were in it to begin with. 

Maybe the priests and their money-bags will defeat Herm again, they certainly are trying hard enough. But they seem to be losing ground rapidly around the world, winning a few battles here and there, but overall the rationalists, scientists, and humanists seem to be taking over. 

Goo to Zoo to You Redux.

beliefnet

Again, I challenge you to take a look at just what the DNA Information coding and non-coding system is.  The signature of Yahweh is there in every single "jot and tittle" of that three dimensional CODE-SYSTEM.  Codes DON'T evolve!  You need to deal with that FACT! --YEC

Sorry, Yahweh, God or whoever that misanthropist was that Moses invented to control his people, was not around a few billion years ago when that first twisted strand of goo found a lipid bubble to live in and start the process of divide and conquer that resulted in the zoo, originally one celled replicating organisms that found out that cooperation beat fending alone in the difficult environment of the early earth.  Those cooperating organisms made their DNA better and more efficient at eating goo and replicating, until eventually Moses, Yahweh, Blü and I evolved. 

God probably doesn't even have or know about DNA, since Moses didn't know enough about it to invent it when he invented God. 

Born Good Learn Bad

Social animals are born socially responsible at least within their species.  That is they are born good.  Socialization begins at birth and in general reinforces good social behavior.  Play well with others, share, be empathetic, respect authority, and don't hurt others.  The good and bad news is that the socialization is exclusively within the tribe.  Belief Systems (BS) are not generally important at this stage.  I place the break at about Kindergarten, where children begin to be exposed to those outside the tribe.  At that point BS about "them" enters the socialization process and depending on the BS reinforced in Religious Education, and BS group formation in school, bad habits and prejudice may come into play in the social conditioning process. 

Human Worth

beliefnet

If you have one, what is your standard for measuring human worth?
OFS

How well a person embraces the UU First Principle: The inherent worth and dignity of every person.

Not every white male; not every Christian (almost an oxymoron, as Christian theology teaches all are sinners;) not every Buddhist; not every civilized person;  but every person.  

Note that this principle does not embrace bad behavior just that the bad behavior is not a result of being a bad person.  That rogue cop, or despot, or exploitive capitalist is not a bad person, hesh has just embraced a bad belief system that leads them to ignore the first principle.  If somehow one could change the belief system the inherent worth would emerge and the conscience (since this is OFS' thread) would repair the bad behavior. 

Changing belief systems is an extremely difficult task.  The brain builds blocks to information contrary to strongly held beliefs, so that contrary data is not even processed by the brain.  Not impossible, Andrew Carnegie and Bill Gates come to mind as examples from the capitalist belief system.  Possibly, it is early yet, but some have even attacked their own belief systems to bring them more in line with the First Principle, Pope Francis and Bishop Spong come to mind

In order to embrace the first principle it is necessary to be aware of and resist the brain's inherent tendency to create beliefs about other people.  That is to generalize from behavior to the person.  Currently, all Muslims are terrorists is a common belief that leads to terms like Islamist which reinforces the belief system to make it for practical purposes unassailable.

Even atheists can fall victim to beliefs based on belief systems: All Christians are bigots.  Theists aren't reasonable. 

Hillel, Jesus and the Decalogue

beliefnet

christine3 wrote:

"These are our highest most honesty-keeping rules and should be considered sacred. If you follow these rules you will not be cut off, you will live in the world to come." For the Commandments were written with the foreknowledge that there was going to be a world to come.

Neither the Hebrew nor the OT Commandments were written with salvation or a world to come.  There was a hint of a world to come in Isaiah but the life after death, sin, and salvation were all invented by Paul. The Decalogue is simply a sacred rulebook as you note.  
I do find it interesting that in the Hebrew Decalogue the social rules are mashed into 2 verses.  In your version the 10 could be contained in 3.  1 through 8 condensed into ""These are our highest most honesty-keeping rules and should be considered sacred."  I can see where Hillel the Elder got his one foot Torah.  And Jesus found his Two Commandments: 1-8 condensed into Love the Lord thy God, and the rules condensed into Love thy neighbor as thyself.

I know why my Jewish friends liked to talk about Hillel the Elder.  I didn't really notice that God was missing from our discussions.  I have no doubt that God was assumed by Hillel and my friends as the originator of the social rules, but the overemphasis on worship and obedience to "I am the Lord Thy God" was clearly missing.  No wonder atheism is compatible with Judaism.  If the rules, all 613 of them were the result of a tradition that worked there is no reason to add God to the tradition except to establish a supernatural cop that would punish transgressors. Moses was for some reason having trouble governing his tribe, and perhaps thought that a supernatural supercop was just the thing he needed. It sure did work.  A few thousand years of working.

The Church Across the Street

In the UU RE Curriculum there is a unit called the Church Across the Street.  A Sunday School class and teacher from a neighbor church, synagogue, or mosque if available is invited for the children's part of the service and join their cohort in RE to discuss, comment and compare.  The next weekend the roles are reversed with the neighboring church, synagogue or mosque hosting the UUs.  When an exchange cannot be arranged the class discusses what they have learned in the previous exchanges.  I can't speak for the exchange RE programs but the tolerance, respect, and humanism learned by the UU kids is incredible.  "They are just like us!"

Critical Thinking in Religion

In some religious traditions, Jews and Jesuits come immediately to mind, critical thinking about religion is encouraged post puberty.  But by that time the belief mental blocks are firmly in place.  Even the critically thinking Jesuits seem to understand this: Give me the child, and I will give you the adult.  OK the quote is boy and man, but it works with girls and women as well. 
As Michael Shermer discusses in The Believing Brain belief blocks even skeptical belief blocks are unassailable.  Contrary information isn't even processed by the brain.  The la, la, la, la, I can't hear you! is real, not metaphorical.   

Outside the belief blocks critical thinking can be encouraged and taught, although it is generally considered dangerous by the more dogmatic religions for fear that it will spill into faith thinking.  

Belief Genetics

I doubt that the belief gene has been identified. (And probably won't be, people have been burned at the stake for less.)  But according to Shermer it exists in a large segment of the population.  Not always religious, but politics and religion are the most common expressions.  Probably tribe membership or authority related from an evolutionary viewpoint. 
But look around you.  Believers beget believers.  It would be hard to separate out nature vs nurture, but believers occasionally beget people who can actually read the Bible and the newspapers, or actually think about what they watch on the boob tube (for them.) One might think of them as deficient in the belief gene as the occasional green-eyed redhead is deficient in the melanin gene. 

But non-believers also beget non-believers.  I come from a family that goes back to the earliest colonists for which "He would have been mayor except he pissed off the preacher." was their characterization of most of the famous members.  "He" was usually run out of town as the original settler was run out of England. An ancestor was a General in Washington's army, but was run out of Virginia (and America) to Ohio.  

They also perhaps necessarily marry non-believers weeding out the belief gene.  My great grandmother married into the family but was an atheist, free thinker and feminist.  (late 19th Cen.)

Pure Thought

beliefnet Jun 21, 2015 -- 10:54AM, Blü wrote: And can you offer a testable (hence falsifiable) hypothesis about the manner in which thought on its own could exist, could be informed, could change, could remember, could reason, could formulate and articulate (or otherwise communicate) information (&c)? If so I'd be delighted to pursue your question. Another way to detect thought is through EEG. The thoughts produced and measured by MRI admittedly a physical process can be observed to be synchronized by mirror neurons, musical expression, and synchrony of movements in animals and people.  These thought patterns can control computers, prosthetics, etc. and the computer interface can process the information to incorporate feedback to refine control like being able to pick up a raw egg.   Is it not possible that another brain can process, change, remember and reason on, and store the information of this synchronized information?   The information must be physically created originally by a brain, but is the result not observably "pure thought?"   My observation is that God is nothing more than repeated and memorized fictional reality data created over time by people and incorporated into religious ritual and dogma.

Catholic Experience of God through the Eyes of an Atheist.

Beliefnet
In my experience, mainly with Catholics, I have found that for them God is a real construct of the historical collective consciousness of the parishioners of the particular church or cathedral.  When several very good friends genuflect to acknowledging the presence of God, they get a clear and real image of God as present in the space that is unique to the space.  That is raiment and ethnicity is different in each space.  The overall concept is in accord with the Credo, but the dominant Jesus expression is local.  The blond, straight nosed palefaced Jesus depicted in all the traditional images is pretty much what they "see" except in ethnic spaces.   A very good friend is Italian and is somewhat put off by the image he gets at St. Pats.

I have actually tried myself but all I get is a vague "presence" feeling as described in the God Helmet experiment.  But the genuflect does trigger it.  The human mind is a weird and wonderful thing. 

God and BS - Is there a Distinction

beliefnet

Ancient history but worth preserving

	jcarlinbn 2/2/2004 1:52 AM	1 out of 26
	Tr1nity, TheRaUch, Mas, and other advocates of BS (Belief System(s), thanks Acira and TheRaUch.). First. I have no doubt that God exists for you. I have no doubt that for tr1nity Christ lives. Second. When I open a mass I have no doubt that Kyrie is there to Eleison and that Christe is right behind Herm to help. Indeed it is proven each time it happens, as neither will strike dead the soprano with the atrocious vibrato that is destroying the beauty of the music. They are also able to make the believers in the audience, and yes, even the believers singing, not hear it. Just as they help believers not see the atrocious art in some of the crucifixes they have on their walls and around their necks. Belief in God can be empowering. However, many threads on this board have been presenting a powerful demonstration of one of the greatest dangers of belief. They are trying to convince a rather skeptical group that a belief in God can be transferred to a BS that defies all reason, and then circularly use the BS to find God. Mediators for God have exhorted people that if they believe, God will be real for them. Even though they must ignore the evidence of their senses, and must not expect rational evidence to believe. So far, so good. If one stops with God advising and helping to manage one's life, and one trusts only God to sort out which parts of the BS that are being thrown at them are true, the chances are excellent that they will have a spiritually rewarding life. Then the trouble starts. The mediator says God inspires ME, Believe Me. This is easy to do, especially if God does inspire the mediator. Unfortunately, this is also semantically equivalent to the classic con man's "trust me." At this point it is critical to understand that it is the mediator's interpretation of God's inspiration that hesh is preaching. A believer must check that interpretation with God directly before transferring belief to the mediator. By the way this is where most atheists and agnostics part company with believers. It may be reasonable to ignore sensual and rational evidence for an omnipotent, omniscient entity, especially when the entity cares about everyone. It is definitely not reasonable to ignore sensual and rational evidence to believe a guy in a fancy dress, no matter how impressive the pulpit is. Ultimately the balcony of the Vatican is no more persuasive if God (or the evidence) says bad BS than the dirty top of the cardboard box with three bent cards on it. Please note that neither is necessarily unpersuasive for some who wish to believe. But once belief in an omnipotent, omniscient entity that cares about everyone is transferred to real people whose BS may have personal agendas that conflict the best interests of others, a BS can and does get real ugly. Some threads here are advocating some really ugly BS. No God I have ever had occasion to believe in would approve anything about them. It is clear to me that some mediators behind them are pushing extremely antisocial BS. I find the motives to be pretty transparent: To acquire political power and bling-bling to impress the flock. The three-card monte dealer is at least honest about herm scam. J'Carlin AciraZade 2/2/2004 12:44 PM 3 out of 26 In regards to BS, this needs to be credited to Robert Anton Wilson, who was the first I ever read use it in regards to Belief Systems. It's SUPPOSED to register in your mind as bullsh**... :P Actually, I could go on and on for many posts explaining the mindset and perspective behind BS and why RAW uses that acronym, and why I happily adopted it, but it would be easier to just refer you to any RAW works. If you're interested, let me know, and I'll get you a title.

Ritual, Belief, and Understanding

beliefnet
I use ritual as a shorthand for important belief sets for any religion.  If you learn them early enough and repeat them offen enough they become part of your identity as a member of the "tribe" (the general sense of the term.) The Pledge of Allegiance is an identity ritual of the Tribe of Ammerruhcuns.

Understanding is quite different from belief.  I understand the Credo as fundamental to Catholicism, and can respect and interpret it musically in my case to reinforce it in the minds of believers even though I do not believe any of it myself.  The Church paid big money to composers to create memorable Masses to indoctrinate believers in an enjoyable format.  Part of the compensation was for setting the Mass to reinforce the dogma.

J neat.

beliefnet

Argumentative Jew wrote:

I don't know of a 'Jahwist' faith community - so I'm not sure at all what you're talking about there.

As far as I know Scripture is recognized as having many authors one of which was the Yahwist, Jahwist, or J even by Jewish scholarship.  Hesh wrote all of the memorable stories that many people in many faiths who have adopted the Pentateuch as fundamental, whatever they call it, think of as "Scripture."  Adam and Eve, Noah, Abram, Lot, Moses, of course God or YHWH from whom hesh derives the moniker and many other protagonists male and female. The stories about them attributed to J are what people remember.

When I say J "neat" I am referring to reading those stories as a coherent whole without all of the Priestly context. I first read them that way in a new translation from the Hebrew by David Rosenbloom.  I have no way of criticizing the translation as I know nothing of Hebrew but the collection was a great read, and sent me back to the other Bibles on the shelf to reread those stories as a coherent whole.  I must admit that I knew most of them well.  And very little of what I skipped. 

The Whiite, Male, Middle Class, MBA Perspective

beliefnet

Jun 7, 2015 -- 7:01PM, LDS wrote:

My thing is that too many people - including certain posters - are so caught up in their pet projects that they're starting to lose perspective.

I lost the white, male, middle class, MBA perspective long before I even got the MBA. Despite the fact that I am white, male, middle class and have an MBA.  I lost it so long before I entered an elite university, that it was glaringly obvious in most of my classmates and somewhat uncomfortable for me although I could not avoid it or combat it and still participate as a student.  It was kind of like being an atheist in a Christian culture.  One had to find an unobtrusive way to remain true to your values without offensive behavior.

Science, Religionm and the Theory of Everything

Just to be clear:  Science says nothing at all about how the universe(s) came to be.  Science observes the fact that the universe(s) exist and things in them behave in observable ways.  Science also observes than humans are the ultimate top predator, and can even affect the planet which supports them.
  
Many humans have attempted to explain these facts.  Science drops back 15 yards and punts.  Some of the attempted explanations have been shown to be inadequate; others are sloppy enough that they cannot be shown to be inadequate.  One explanation of the facts is that God created everything that exists with many puzzles to keep humans busy not destroying the planet which supports them.  Believers, non-believers, and anti-theists can and are studying this theory to falsify it or prove it to be the correct explanation of all that exists.  None have succeeded and science doesn't care.