The Christian's Problem

Richard Dawkins Thread v2.0 - Beliefnet:

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. --Edmund Burke

As long as people apologize for the Pope, and moderate Christians apologize for Paul, simply because God appointed them, Dawkins has a valid point that moderates enable fanaticism. If when the average citizen hears 'Christian' the first thing that pops into mind is Fred Phelps, or people protesting mosques, Christians have a problem.

If on a religious site a statement of the form 'Christians are assholes of a particular kind' is censored, because only some Christians are assholes of that kind. Christians have a problem: Christians need to deal with assholes of that kind. Judging people by the labels they accept, is a natural and necessary evolutionary adaptation of humans. Labels cause wars. It is best that the label one accepts is kept clean."

Paul's sins

Sex and spirituality. - Beliefnet:

"I do blame Paul. He needed a bunch of sins that people could adopt to consider themselves sinners so that they would need his savior. In Romans 1 he really covers the waterfront, and in Corinthians he picks up normal sex as a sin. You say you are not a sinner? Do you have sex of any kind? Gotcha! The Romans sins are easier to deny, or point at others as examples, but 'God knows' so all need salvation. This was the genius of Paul. Call it perverted genius if you will, but every Christian can find a sin for hermself in Paul. And for everybody else so hesh doesn't feel lonely."

Gender Definitions.

Sex and spirituality. - Beliefnet:

"In defining what constitutes gender I suspect I am an apostate to the traditional males, although thoroughly and happily heterosexual. I am much more interested in relationships than sex, and partnerships rather than dominance. When I had growing children I did more than my share of parenting since my partner had the more demanding career and I had no problem with playing the male MBA card when necessary to change jobs and careers to accommodate parenting.

Probably because I make a point of noticing them, I see more males adopting this relationship model rather than the traditional if the sex is good it is good model. If this is effeminate so be it. I don't think so, I think it is simply not being a prick. That is one who is driven by testosterone to spread genes as far and wide as possible. I see the testosterone driven model waning at least among the educated elite, but perhaps that is wishful thinking and I am only noticing the minority that isn't growing at all. I hope not, as I think this is the only way a modern society can survive. Relegating half the society's brain power to the bedroom is not going to work."

Common Religious Morality

The Bright Line... - Beliefnet Community:

"There is no common religious conclusion on morality. Each ignorant man, noting the benefit of having a God at his back invented one, and the morals to go with it. That includes your Abrahamic preachers like Moses and Paul. Religious morality is not common or I should say common only in the sense of its trashiness, but each iteration of God has a different despicable moral standard that is only good for the tribe of the shaman, if that. Normally it is good only for the shaman, priest, preacher, pastor, minister, or whatever they choose to call themselves. They take a collection, toss it into the air for God to take his share, and they keep all that falls on the floor. This was called morality by that little vuvuzela in the fancy dress in the overdecorated balcony long before there were vuvuzelas, tinhorns, or shofars to blow at the marks in the pews."

World-Views

Why do they believe? - Discuss Atheism - Beliefnet Community:

"What is a world-view if not the way we operate in and react to reality? Certainly all world-views are dependent on previous experiences with reality. Some are more consistent with reality than others. Those conditioned by myths that reality can be affected by magic will tend to view reality as magical. Those conditioned to see reality as affected only by real actions will tend to experiment with real actions to see how they will affect reality. They adopt a world view based on real actions that affect reality in ways that they have learned to be beneficial. Those with a magical world view tend to wish for changes rather than figuring out how to make changes happen. In the most extreme cases of magical world-views people simply bumble through life wishing that in the end all will be nice. This is abetted by various shamans, priests, preachers, etc. who sell World them a very nice end that they never have to deliver."

Abstinance

Protest the Pope - Beliefnet:

So ... you think that The Bishop of Rome is WRONG about 'Abstinence' ...
teilhard

"Completely, unequivocally, and disastrously wrong. Abstinence advocacy causes more social dysfunction than any other Christian concept. Abuse of children is only a minor side effect of the doctrine. There is no good reason for saying sex, any and all kinds of consensual sex is wrong. Paul and the Pope want it to be sin so everybody is a sinner. But their need to sell their savior does not justify in any way the doctrine that sex is sin."

Paradise

Life after death? - Beliefnet :

"Then you had better build Paradise here and now while you are alive to enjoy it. Select your friends, and your affective inputs, movies, TV, books, music, carefully, and you may find it. Let others choose for you and you are stuck in the equivalent of a religious dictatorship."

Using the Bible

Romans 1:27 - Beliefnet:

"I use the Bible to try to understand the context of my friends' thinking. I don't really care about what ancient people were thinking, I am concerned about how that thinking affects people today. Accordingly I read the Bible large chunks at a time, usually in several English versions. I have seldom found a 'proof-text' that in context means anything at all like what it is claimed to have meant.

Whether I like the passage or not is quite immaterial. If it is important to a friend it is important to me to see why they find it important, and whether they are ignoring context or not. If they are ignoring context that is an important data point, that will tell me how I want to deal with that person, if at all."

Midwest Cuisine cooking

The Tea House - Beliefnet:

"I grew up in Toledo OH along with Gael Greene food columnist for the New Yorker. She summed up Toledo as a place where Velveeta Cheese is found on the gourmet counter of the supermarket.

I told my Chinese wife about boiled vegetables, and she said 'That would make good soup.' I told her mom threw out the cooking water and she just sighed and said no wonder you like Chinese food."

My mate is also Chinese.

I get "You are not throwing that out are you?" all the time.

My dumb question of the week was" are you really going to eat...???" in reference to a little octopi , still wiggling and slightly pickled, she replied "isn't it cute?" and plopped it in her mouth.

I turned whiter than I already am.
Dar-

Asparagus

The Tea House - Beliefnet:

"One of the veggies I hated most as a small child was asparagus. My dad grew it, we would lovingly harvest it, mom would boil it until it was grey, and I ate it cause I had to. Tonight at dinner I had a Shanghai style stir-fried asparagus with beef. Even late season asparagus was wonderful. Never too old to learn."

On Wicked Hearts

Romans 1:27 - Beliefnet:

"Thank you for asking. I not only deny that the human heart is deceitfully wicked, but I hold anyone teaching that it is must be held responsible for the damage that such teaching inevitably causes. I begin with Paul, and continue through current 'Pastors' that fill their limos with the hatred they run on.

There is a current revival of South Pacific, and one of the key songs is 'You've Got to be Taught' As a child your heart is filled with love for everybody, until mom or some other mentor says 'they are not like us.' From the song: 'You've got to be taught to hate and fear, its got to be drummed in your dear little ear. You've got to be taught to be afraid of people whose eyes are oddly made or people whose skin is a different shade. You've got to be carefully taught. You've got to be taught before it's too late, before you are six or seven or eight.' (from memory, any misquote is mine.)

It doesn't really matter who it is that you are supposed to hate, it comes down to they are not us, be afraid. And from fear comes hate, and all the evil fruits of hate. Sirron has shown us some of the fruits of that hate.

I was fortunate, hate was not a part of my childhood, I didn't even understand the song when I went to South Pacific as a young man. I asked my parents about it, and they didn't think I was old enough to deal with it, and told me to think about it later when I found out about hate. They did things like that frequently, so I put it in the hate file along with other things I wasn't ready for yet. They did not want to contaminate my heart with deceit and wickedness. They knew I would be exposed to deceit and wickedness soon enough and gave me the tools to deal with it but not in my heart, in my head. They expected me to keep my heart unblemished by evil."

The Ice Cream Diet

The Tea House - Beliefnet:

"At one point in my life I was packing on some 'swivel chair spread' keeping up with my teen age sons at the dinner table. One day on the way home I gave in to the Flavor of the Month at Baskin-Robbins, I always was a sucker for caramel. One day led to the next and they renewed the flavor for another month. My then wife asked if I was sick since I was losing weight and just picking at my dinner, I said no, I feel great, and added up two scoops to two scoops and my mothers 'no cookies you will spoil your dinner.' It equaled 4 pounds/week lost.

Since then whenever I am chubbing up I add real ice cream before dinner and fix it. (The butter fat and sugar just destroys any appetite.)"

Tough Times and Atheism

Separating truth from superstition - Beliefnet:

"As for the tough times, even smart, tough, atheists run into them. It is called living long enough to enjoy them. Not while you are in them but later. As Forrest Church says in Love in Death, 'We cannot protect love from death. But by giving away our hearts, we can protect our lives from the death of love.' I find that thought useful as much for living as for dealing with death. To love is to risk hurt. It is always worth it."

Learning from Religions

Separating truth from superstition - Beliefnet:

"Picking and choosing among religious beliefs is not only tolerable it is the only way to learn from religions. All religions have a lot to teach about being alive and having to die. That is why they are all still around. When I go to any religious meeting, or even sing a prayer or Mass, I do my best to understand it from the POV of a believer, and then think about it later to figure out what was worth learning, what needed to be reinterpreted, and what needed to be rejected lock, stock, barrel and dogma."

Atheist Belief Systems?

How many flavors are there? - Beliefnet:

"In a lifetime of living as an atheist, and primarily with atheists, I have yet to find any with belief systems. They may incorporate items from other belief systems into their world view, or as I prefer to call it their paradigm for making it from birth to death and in my case building a legacy in the process. Is the space I am building for others to enjoy when I die a belief in an afterlife? I don't think so. I won't be there to enjoy it.

I do not spend any time on the supernatural, the natural contains enough transcendent wonder for my needs, especially when enhanced by the beauties of well done science at all levels. It is amusing to build fantasies on Universalist afterlife theology (which I am not sure even they believe in) but they are fantasies not a reason to abandon a focus on living."

Atheists, agnostics know more about religion than believers

Atheists, agnostics know more about religion than believers, finds US survey:

"A new survey, which measured Americans' knowledge of religion, has found that atheists and agnostics knew more than followers of most major faiths. According to the survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, a majority of Protestants could not identify Martin Luther as the driving force behind the Protestant Reformation.

It also revealed that four in 10 Catholics misunderstood the meaning of their church's central ritual, incorrectly saying that the bread and wine used in Holy Communion are intended to merely symbolize the body and blood of Christ, not actually become them.

It said that atheists and agnostics - those who believe there is no God or who are not sure - were more likely to answer the survey's questions correctly."

Surprise, surprise. If you only know what that little vuvuzela in the fancy dress in the overdecorated balcony tells you you can know it is easy to believe because he won't tell you anything else. Once you start learning about your religion, read your Holy Book without the study guide, maybe look at related religions that your friends believe in and find out more about them the less sense any religion makes. So then you start down the slippery slope of finding a religion that makes any sense at all, end up in woo-woo land and finally pick a church for the social and networking benefits, and/or the music. The one thing the Christian God does better than any other God is inspire composers to comment on the Mass and the prayers. Some of the comments are not too nice, but the music is still great.

Inherent Morality

The Bright Line... - Beliefnet:

it is 'The Point' consider this: before you or I or anyone ( indigenous tribes included), can take any action, we must first pause and consider the rightness or the wrongness of that action... we pre-read/re-read the law/morality affixed upon our conscience.... and we act upon the resolution of such thoughts (hopefully that which is right)... we take our self to court 'first', and then act.. we are so constructed, that like in the above exercise of defining a moral action with non moral components, it is logically and linguistically IMPOSSIBLE
Leight

Perhaps it is, however, it is only theists that are claiming that ANYONE is trying to make moral decisions without a moral framework. What you so consistently and valiantly ignore, time and time again, is that ETHICS and MORALITY are qualities inherent in all people. Those concepts were not invented by Christians, they were not handed down by any god, they are a valuable and necessary component of human survival, brought about by impersonal forces of survival and death. It really is that simple. Just because some religion thousands of years ago (and I'd wager it was one much older than yours) decided to USURP the concepts of morality and PRETEND that morality was only given by a god, that does not make it true in any way.

Morality is the evolutionary tool by which social animals (like humans, but not only humans) survive to provide the next generation. Morality is built upon empathy, and flavoured by an ability to understand consequences of one's actions. Those species that depend on their community to survive, will not survive long have no instinct for protecting and helping others as well as themselves. Thay instinct becomes 'morality' in animals with more brainspace than they really need.
cptspith

Becoming Atheist

The Bright Line... - Beliefnet:

"There are no atheists who believe they are Godlike. That means that no person indoctrinated in the belief that they are made in the image of God can be an atheist. They can only attempt to do the truly impossible for themselves that is erase the Godlikness (sic) from themselves.

A Christian or any other theist can become an atheist but only by coming to realize that they are not made in the image of God and have no wish to be because God as depicted by their faith is petty, insecure, violent, and misanthropic, that is God hates all people. They have no interest in maintaining that image of themselves and must take on the difficult but not impossible task of rejecting their childhood indoctrination. In my experience, those who accept the indoctrination as adults have a much more difficult task of discovering what the God they are supposed to be in the image of is really like. Once they do the rest is easy."

Selfish or Social

Life after death? - Beliefnet:

There's no such thing as a selfless act. When people do good to others they only do this to benefit themselves.
Timothy

"Not only a wrong opinion but scientifically wrong. Humans are highly evolved social animals. Until recently anti-social acts were a death sentence, including acts that benefited the individual only, that is, a selfish act. There is no such thing in a social animal herd as a 'good' that only benefits the adult that performed the act. Maturing animals certainly, they must be selfish as infants to stay alive, but maturing is learning the rules of the herd, pack, or tribe, and violating those rules is banishment at least and a even a lone wolf is a dead wolf.

Even evil acts by adults must be done in the context of a social good, usually but not always blessed by God. Torquemada and Hitler were both protecting their chosen societies, and the benefit was not to self, but to the ideal of the betterment of the local Catholic or Aryan society."

Spiritual but Not Religious

Common ground? Maybe we can all get along after all. - Beliefnet:

"Spirituality is a natural human response to awe and wonder at unusual things that can be used as landmarks. Constellations, Rock formations, etc. Also for unusually beautiful and centering phenomena like rainbows, a beautiful sunrise or sunset, or just the Milky Way on a crystal clear night in a non light polluted area. The shamans and that little vuvuzela in the fancy dress in the overdecorated balcony will try to co-opt this natural response into the service of God, but spirituality came first and God was created later. But since God can be a centering phenomenon as well it is not a surprise that this co-opting is common. Theists are welcome to their God based spirituality, I will take the naturally generated stuff straight."

The Fallacy of the Cipher.

Life after death? - Beliefnet:

"Timothy, 2 + 2 = 4. But 2 + 2 + 0 = 4, too. What you are arguing is what I like to call the fallacy of the cipher (perhaps one day it will make it into the logical fallacies' lists), or is similarly called Occam's Razor. The simplest explanation usually is the correct one, and if you are interested, there are some pretty neat examples from science I can give you.

What you are arguing is yes, when death occurs, all life functions cease, and that yes, the life functions are what animate the body. 2 + 2 = 4. To that point, we agree. But then you argue that some unseen, unmeasurable, unknown substance/entity which you call a 'soul' is responsible for all the life functions doing what they do to animate the body. That's a cipher. (2 + 2 + 0 = 4) You can't demonstrate one, you can't show a disembodied 'soul', you have no evidence whatsoever for your 'soul' except for what you want to believe because you have a lot of trouble getting over the idea that your 'self' ends when your life functions cease.
Tolerant Sis"

The best argument against the existence of a God generated soul I have seen. Thanks TS.

Works well as an argument against God as well.

B flat.

The 'existence' of gods - Beliefnet:

"My answer to lack of faith is to enjoy the symphony of life without the vuvuzela in the fancy dress in the overdecorated balcony droning loudly in B flat. I don't need to E-X-P-E-R-I-E-N-C-E B flat. I hear it wherever there are mindless idiots doing whatever mindless idiots do. There are all too many of them, but fortunately B flat is easy to ignore while you are getting to interesting places where it isn't the only note on the program."

Who Cares?

The 'existence' of gods - Beliefnet :

"'Who cares?' or its many street language equivalents is a 't'riffic' argument against any religious assertion. It is the one argument God can't deal with.

God says do this or don't do this with your penis (God doesn't care about women,) someone says 'Who cares?' and sin and Paul evaporate from the world and salvation is a non issue. But then, who cares?"

The Gospel of Wealth

Op-Ed Columnist - The Gospel of Wealth - NYTimes.com:

"The United States once had a Gospel of Wealth: a code of restraint shaped by everybody from Jonathan Edwards to Benjamin Franklin to Andrew Carnegie. The code was designed to help the nation cope with its own affluence. It eroded, and over the next few years, it will be redefined."

Please note that the Robber Barons of the 19th Century did well by doing good. Building the railroads, the banks, the commercial empires, the utilities etc. Some frittered away their fortunes, others used them to create libraries, universities, and other public assets. But the important thing was the way they made their money. Today's super rich are rebuilding the financial system, the information infrastructure, and the other necessities of modern living.

God or Mammon - Take your pick

Op-Ed Columnist - The Gospel of Wealth - NYTimes.com:

"The tension between good and plenty, God and mammon, became the central tension in American life, propelling ferocious energies and explaining why the U.S. is at once so religious and so materialist. Americans are moral materialists, spiritualists working on matter.

Platt is in the tradition of those who don’t believe these two spheres can be reconciled. The material world is too soul-destroying. “The American dream radically differs from the call of Jesus and the essence of the Gospel,” he argues. The American dream emphasizes self-development and personal growth. Our own abilities are our greatest assets."

These two spheres cannot be reconciled because the American dream requires intelligence and reasoning to achieve the self-development and personal growth. Religion requires conceding self-development to the church, that is, the little vuvuzelas (tinhorns are archaic) in the fancy dresses in the overdecorated balconies like David Platt.

Religion and Evolution

Keeping state out of church? - Beliefnet :

"Religion is one of the ways societies evolve. It is where social paradigms are tested and worked out. As long as they are not accepting public money, except for the tax exemption, a bad idea imo but historically entrenched, they can do anything they want inside the church. Including educating or not educating their children as they please. If they wish to discriminate on any basis they wish inside the church that is no business of society.

I don't even have a problem with political action by churches, although I wish there were a way to tax their political action funds, but religions have the same rights as any other 'person' in our society to create a society that they want. It is up to other 'persons' in the society to insure that dysfunctional religious ideas do not affect the rest of the society. This is how evolution works."

Good and Evil

Epicurus? - Beliefnet:

A personal view of good and evil is "Perhaps an Epicurean POV, or a caricature of a theist's view of atheism. Or both.

It has no basis in reality. Good and evil are determined by the effects of the action on the society of the person. The effect on the yenta. If she shakes her finger it is evil. If she perchance smiles it is good. We all have yentas in our lives. It usually starts with mom and ripples out from there to the yenta on her stoop. Some people replace the yenta with God but God usually devolves into that little vuvuzela in the fancy dress in the overdecorated balcony. If hesh blows the vuvuzela better not do it again. Hesh never smiles."

Christian for Eternity

The Bright Line - Beliefnet:

"We atheists will die and as a result of our living a righteous and moral life according to our chosen society that society will be a little or a lot better because we lived. We get continuous feedback from that society that we are doing the righteous and moral things that improve that society so that when we die the society will be better than when we were born. We have no need to imagine what will happen when we die, we can look back as others will and see how we made our society better. I am using 'we' here not to represent all atheists, just the ones that think as I do about living and death.

I am glad you, as a Christian, believe that God will take care of you when you die. You seem to have done nothing of worth in this life but annoy strangers with your blather about God and the Hell you created for yourself in this life as a rebelling Christian. I hope God will ignore all that and reward your belief with His eternal presence. I doubt it, but hang tight to that belief. It is all you have."

The Mind?

Where Is The Mind? - Beliefnet :

"Lets be honest here. In Christian myth, human minds created God, in order to create and sustain their little universe. Y'know the circle of the earth with the canopy of the heavens and a pile of dirt to turn into a human in the image of the minds that created God."

Good and Evil

Epicurus? - Beliefnet:

"Human social structures originally tribes and later villages and parishes decided definitively what was good and what was evil. Basically what was good was what created trust and cooperation within the tribe and what was evil was that which weakened the tribe by causing divisiveness and intra-tribal strife. Shamans quickly discovered that using God as a super cop not only gave them power as the interpreter for the super cop, but allowed them to add control rules to the natural good and evil recognized intuitively by the tribe.

As societies got larger the God interpreted good and evil was no longer effective as inter-tribal warfare was the norm for God, and the society needed to control this with secular laws and punishments for transgressions in this life not the next.

Good and evil were still defined by what created trust and cooperation and evil was still that which created divisiveness and strife. One important advancement in larger societies was recognizing that God inspired intra-tribal strife was an important evil and must be controlled."

Scientific Literacy

Scientific Illiteracy - Beliefnet:

"Your elitism is showing, I know people of average intelligence that paid attention in good schools that can read a science article in the NYTimes and discuss, for example, the political implications with competence and incidentally correct English. That is what I mean by scientific literacy. In fact I have discussed science articles with a Down's Syndrome adult, that could make sense of them and make reasonable decisions about them. No special ed. Just an ordinary NYC public high school. He took biology and chemistry, and was delighted that I had a BS in Chem and would discuss things with him. Yeah, a Nobel Prize isn't in his future, in fact college wasn't either, a minor problem with College Board scores. But he was very good at what he did, and did what he could with what he had intellectually."

Cultures Decay

The Bright Line... - Beliefnet:

There is no reason for amazement: surely one always knew
that cultures decay, and life's end is death.
Robinson Jeffers The Purse-Seine, 1937

"I might add that religious cultures also decay. In any event life's end is death. For the theist, for the failed theist and for the atheist: life's end is death. Perhaps only atheists have come to terms with that truth."

Christianity or Shinto

On replacing Christianity with Shinto - Beliefnet:

"I find the evolutionary reason behind religion is not spiritual fulfillment, but for community identity. The spiritual fulfillment is co-opted by the shamans as a community building and unifying technique.

While Shinto has some very attractive attributes, I suspect that trying to convert Christians is a lost cause. Christ gives hope to the hopeless at least after they die, and the minister makes sure they are hopeless sinners, at least in their own minds.

A more useful exercise, is to promote 'Progressive Christianity' with its emphasis on Jesus' teachings of a direct personal relationship with God and its corollary love your neighbors even if your other neighbors hate them. It is a natural progression for Christians who get tired of the hellfire and damnation bigotry of traditional Christian teachings. They get to keep their Jesus mediated afterlife, and all the spirituality. A much easier conversion process.

I find the Two Great Commandments very easy to live with as an atheist, and the personal God of the first does not bother me at all. If a person needs to believe and many do, the absence of proselytizing is welcome. They will of course be enthusiastic about sharing, but they can't really tell you how to believe in their God except have faith. Much easier to live with than Christ or Hell, take your pick. As the classic Jack Benny line goes 'I am still thinking about it'"

Tell Me of the God You Don't Believe In.

When You Say "God"... - Beliefnet:

"In the general sense, anything that is greater than, and superior to, an individual that an individual can commune with is not useful for me. I do not say it doesn't exist for a believer but I suspect it is an emergent property of a human mind after years of conditioning or, as the religious say, indoctrination.

I have yet to encounter an emergent God that I would wish to commune with, although there are many that I can learn from. I learn from the myths, stories, beliefs, rituals, and the related liturgy relating to them. Usually what not to do, and what is immoral that the gods try to justify: Genocide, misogyny, sexual sin, even misanthropy for at least one common God."

The concept of sexual sin is probably the most prevalent immorality in many religions. There is always something, usually nearly everything, that one can do with sexual parts that is sinful. These activities are all natural reward mechanisms for creating and preserving the pair bond. Shamans observe that pair bonding interferes with God bonding. So anything that improves the pair bond must be sinful. A properly pair bonded couple turns inward to the relationship first, and to the family and extended face group that they can effect and which effects them. Generally this extended face group will exclude God as they can never hope to be face to face with God.

Vuvuzela Music?

WHY belief in gods? - Beliefnet:

"Ah, the wonder of the internet. You can find out more than you ever want to know about something that you don't want to know anything about in just a few minutes. Like how to make music on a vuvuzela. One of the most hilarious introductions to a serious topic that I have ever read.

Aug 15, 2010 -- 3:12PM, J'Carlin wrote in response to teilhard pointing out that a tinhorn in a fancy dress was hopelessly outdated:

'that little vuvuzela in the fancy dress in the overdecorated balcony?'

On Truth

Hidden Secret? - Beliefnet :

"I am using human knowing in an individual absolute sense. For an individual something they know is true is in fact true for them. For you God exists is true. Whether God exists or not as a supernatural omnipotent alpha humanoid or anything else the statement that God exists is true for you (I assume.)

What I interpret from sensory data is true for me. Whether the things I touch, see, hear, etc actually exist is of no importance. For me observations of the material world including other people and their truths whether expressed as fiction, myth or fact, as I interpret them are true. I could not function if they were false.

For either of us new data may indicate that a truth is in fact not so, and we must deal with that as we must. For me, if a Universalist God were shown to mediate a real afterlife, I would have to figure out how I must modify my life to reflect that new data. You can forget the God of Paul, Even if proved unmistakably, I would change nothing to spend eternity in Herm presence. That would in fact be Hell."

The ability to determine personal truth, appears to be an innate function just like language and morals. Certainly it is heavily conditioned by the circumstances of life, but the ability to sort out all of the conflicting data, weight it appropriately with social values, and come up with truth on a particular subject seems to be as human as speech. Truth is as idiosyncratic as an accent, like an accent it may be understood by someone with similar truth conditioning, and may even be accepted as truth by others. It appears that we are conditioned to accept truth from others who are effective communicators of their truth if and only if it doesn't stray too far from our previous conditioning. Shamans, novelists and other story tellers, artists in several genres. Indeed people tend to choose shamans, novelists, and artists that agree with their previous conditioning, as those folks speak the truth.

But stray too far out of your comfort zone, and extreme efforts are necessary to even begin to understand the truth being presented as for example a fundamentalist preacher of a tradition far from your own. For some it is not even worth the effort. There are large areas of fundamentalist Christianity and Muslim that I will waste no time trying to understand. They have no truth that is useful for me, even though they spell it TRUTH!

I have strayed out of my comfort zone to understand the truths of Catholicism, just because the Catholic God has the best music, and Reformation Protestants and Jews, just because they have so much influence in and over my life. I may take their truths with much salt, but I can appreciate how they work for believers, or should I say adherents to the faith. I am not implying there are not both, and probably a continuum between adherents and believers.

Scientific Illiteracy in America

Scientific Illiteracy in America - Beliefnet :

"The good science journalists, are no longer found on the general news channels. They are on the blogs sponsored by the real science popular journals that are written at the GED level or higher. The US is headed for a self selected third world underclass of science and general education illiterates coexisting with an educated small segment of the society that does the science, technology, and economics that matters.

Whether or not this educated minority will be able to support the third world underclass is mostly a political issue but I suspect that the third world economists will insure that meaningful adequate 'stimulus' support to pay for the subsistence retail jobs will be shouted down by the couch potato media and their 'conservative' that is super rich supporters. I hope the fundamentalist churches are up to providing the beds for the believers that will need them."

Christianity and The Empty Tomb

Why Was The Tomb Empty? - Beliefnet :

I think Paul's brilliance in making everything people do sinful including sex and judgement is what gave his sect a leg up on all the rest. The peroration in Romans 1 continuing on through the first lines of Romans 2 insured that everyone needed a savior. Paul touched all the bases there, and the cherry on the top was the better to marry than burn. It is no wonder that Christians think sin is pervasive. One can't do anything that isn't sinful. Then adding in the Original sin so that just breathing is sinful, made salvation an absolute necessity.

Just to set the record straighter for me. The only Christian cult was Paul's. The others were more or less Jesus cults maybe with a bit of savior God especially in John, but the synoptics celebrate the ministry of Jesus not his Godhood

As for the empty tomb, the best explanation I have heard is that the rich guy donated it only for the burial and maybe anticipating a need for it removed the body over the weekend. Or maybe he was part of the conspiracy, and since it was his tomb nobody asked any questions.

As for Jesus resurrecting and pushing the rock and leaving in the dark of the night, before anyone could check the three day prophesy, seems pretty goofy to me. It would have been much better theater to push the stone, and be sitting there and say 'Don't cry ladies, here I am again. Go see if you can find a few disciples that aren't hiding from the authorities and tell them to come and see for themselves.'"

America Goes Dark - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Columnist - America Goes Dark - NYTimes.com: "The antigovernment campaign has always been phrased in terms of opposition to waste and fraud — to checks sent to welfare queens driving Cadillacs, to vast armies of bureaucrats uselessly pushing paper around. But those were myths, of course; there was never remotely as much waste and fraud as the right claimed. And now that the campaign has reached fruition, we’re seeing what was actually in the firing line: services that everyone except the very rich need, services that government must provide or nobody will, like lighted streets, drivable roads and decent schooling for the public as a whole.

So the end result of the long campaign against government is that we’ve taken a disastrously wrong turn. America is now on the unlit, unpaved road to nowhere."

Continually Seeking God

Continually Seeking God:

The Talmud reads, 'Never pray in a room without windows.' Never pray without the world in mind, in other words. The purpose of the spiritual life is not to save us from reality. It is to enable us to go on co-creating it.
- Joan Chittister

God or no god the best reason for spirituality that I have ever heard.

Constrained Choice

Is the world intrinsically knowable? - Beliefnet

"The option to free will is constrained choice.

Believer or atheist, one can go months making choices that while theoretically can go either way are constrained. The constraint for believers comes from the little tinhorn in the fancy dress in the overdecorated balcony speaking for the local mores in the congregation or denomination. In the case of a non-believer the choice is constrained by their internalization of the mores of their chosen society.

If you really dig out the root of the constraint in either case it is the memory of a parent shaking herm finger and saying 'We don't do that!' The we is clearly defined in the child's mind as everybody in the child's world. Siblings, relatives, other caregivers, friends, and God if the parents are believers. In big things like unprovoked hitting, or little things like table manners, one simply has no free will to do what is contrary to a life time of doing 'What is right' and not doing 'We don't do that!'

As a thought experiment, at a formal dinner, say your daughter's wedding banquet, imagine yourself making the free will choice to pick up the bone of the steak and gnaw on it.

Go ahead. You have free will. Your daughter won't spoil the party by slapping you upside the head and shouting use your damn knife and fork.

Your spouse won't give you that look that says you are sleeping in the doghouse tonight. Hmm, since that is a very private communication hesh might, but your free will will let you ignore that.

So what is stopping you? You have free will! Go ahead. The best part of the steak is the taste of the bone."

Carlton Pearson

uuworld.org : the gospel of inclusion:

"Then Pearson got a divine revelation, as he tells it. Watching a news report one night in the spring of 1996, he was getting worked up about the genocide in Rwanda. His assumption was that the victims were bound for hell, persecuted yet unsaved. Feeling angry at God, and guilty that he himself wasn’t doing anything about it, he recalls, he fell into a sort of reproachful prayer: “God, I don’t know how you can sit on your throne there in heaven and let those poor people drop to the ground hungry, heartbroken, and lost, and just randomly suck them into hell.”

He heard God answer, “We’re not sucking those dear people into hell. Can’t you see they’re already there—in the hell you have created for them and continue to create for yourselves and others all over the planet? We redeemed and reconciled all of humanity at Calvary.”

Everything Pearson thought he knew was true started unraveling, as he began to realize: The whole world is already saved, whether they know it or not—not just professed Christians in good standing, but Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, atheists, gay people. There is no hell after you die. And he didn’t have the good sense to keep it to himself."

200 of his 5000 Pentecostal flock followed him eventually to the Tulsa UU Congregation where he got the first of two similar services the first of which is decidedly not the typical UU frozen chosen.

Legacy and Reminder - John Dobbs

REMINDER

John Dobbs

The world began the day that I was born
and on the day I die the world will end.
Between these dates there will have been
Matters of great importance.
But no awakening apparently
to the neglected knowledge
that energy lies in the grains
of wheat and rice
as well as mass twice multiplied
by the speed of light.
The poor are as poor
as history has ever recorded
and there is nothing I can leave
on the final date
but a legacy of urgencies.

LEGACY

John Dobbs

I leave you this space
which I have occupied
temporarily,

now clean as a vacuum
to hold short sorrow,
and brief remembering.

There are no shards,
no broken statuary.
I had no idols.

The proud thoughts
and the humble things
remain unshattered.

I leave you this valuable
and useful
space.

Properties of Thought

Spirituality and humanity - Beliefnet:

"The one thing I can be sure of is that bio-chemical reactions exist in the body and brain that allow me to exist as a living animal, and think as a rational being. Everything else even my thoughts as a rational being are the constructs of the one rational being I am sure of, myself.

These thoughts have properties, such as being based on observations, or second level observations of others, products of fictions and myth, and self generated thinking on all of the above. These properties can be evaluated as to reliability, and a level of trust can be assigned to all in theory.

Myth and fiction are of course the least trustworthy, at least as raw data, but when combined with observation and self generated correlation and evaluation may be assigned a high level of trust or truth if you will."

Death Myths

Spirituality and humanity - Beliefnet:

"It is correct that facing death after it happens is a myth, one that must be comforting to some as it is quite popular. I have indeed studied those myths, and have chosen to reject them as the costs are too high in the life that I am sure of, the life which began when I was born and will end when I die. Meaning and purpose in this life come from doing what I can to improve the lives of all that I can affect in my chosen society and not incidentally improving my own tiny part of it as the ripples spread, some reinforced by others, others not."

Christian Baggage

The Bright Line - Beliefnet:

it is 'you' that the instrument [the cross] is meant for, it is 'you' who are damaged beyond repair, it is 'you' whose every chacteristic must be 'snuffed' out of existance, and that with the greatest fanfare of pain... justice..... have you ever considered yourself such baggage upon creation?
Leight

"It is only Christians that suffer from this disability. And even they have to accept on faith the denial of their human heritage of social responsibility, innate morality, and respect for all humans that do not prove themselves unworthy of that respect. This is the heritage you give up when you are 'born again' and forsake your humanity for the baggage of sin and bigotry that is inherent in the faith you accept.

You may carry that instrument of self-hatred and work on snuffing out the human heritage of social responsibility, innate morality and respect for your fellow humans on this earth. And when you die you will be forgotten by all as another useless Christian. I doubt that even God cares, but that is your problem not mine."

Spiritual but Not Religious

Spirituality and humanity - Beliefnet: "Jul 23, 2010 -- 3:01AM, wrote:

Spirituality has to do with seeking improvements to one's spirit, to achieve such values as tranquility, joyfulness, meaning in life, wisdom, and generally any improved vantagepoint on life. That's spirituality in a nutshell.
eudaimonia,
Mark
Eudaimonist

One of the best definitions of "Spirituality Without Religion" I have seen.

Spirituality

Spirituality and humanity - Beliefnet:

Spirituality is 'just' an evolved reward mechanism, in the same way that breathing is 'just' a way to stay alive. Spirituality came first as we see in cave paintings and archeological figurines. The shamans came later and figured out how to make a buck by selling people something they already had, created God to bottle it in, then tossed the bottle into heaven so nobody could look too closely at it.

Legacy and Reminder

substance - Beliefnet:

**Stands and shuffles some papers behind the pulpit.**
Ahem.
I have been asked for a self supporting defense of atheism as a religion. This is of course impossible as any definition of religion requires acceptance of or belief in some higher power that creates and gives meaning and purpose to the universe or at least to those arrogant apes that think the universe was created to give meaning and purpose to their lives. Without this higher power there is no religion. Atheists have none.

Thank you. And good evening. For those of you with a higher power may that higher power bless you with the meaning and purpose that you are unable to discover for yourselves. Amen.

What is that? You in the back. You will have to speak louder. It sounded like you said 'Without God there can be no meaning and purpose or even morality in the world.' That is what you said? Thank you. I am so very sorry that your religion is so constraining that you are unable to interact with a larger society to build a moral, meaningful and purposeful life for yourself, but must rely on dead males to tell you what to do.

I have no such constraints. I am constantly learning from the best and most intelligent people about what behaviors will improve the society of which I am a part as well as improving my tiny part of it. This entails the intensive study of past and current moral teachers of all genders. (Moms, even gay and lesbian moms, have a lot to teach if we would only listen to them instead of those dead men.)

My studies which began with my mom, have taught me that meaning and purpose in my life must come from within myself, my family and the larger society of which I am a part. I am expected to pay attention to what works for others and ask meaningful questions based on my studies to date. This provides me enough meaning and purpose that I do not worry about creation myths, I was created for a purpose by loving parents, and when I die I will leave a Legacy of a beautiful, valuable, and useful space for those who remember me affectionately as well as:

From John Dobbs who wrote Legacy

REMINDER

The world began the day that I was born
and on the day I die the world will end.
Between these dates there will have been
Matters of great importance.
But no awakening apparently
to the neglected knowledge
that energy lies in the grains
of wheat and rice
as well as mass twice multiplied
by the speed of light.
The poor are as poor
as history has ever recorded
and there is nothing I can leave
on the final date
but a legacy of urgencies.

For my Atheist friends - Discuss Atheism - Beliefnet Community

For my Atheist friends - Beliefnet:

Yeah, perhaps, but you are missing out on the woo-woo's and all that 'fun stuff' that theists just love to wave in the athiest's faces... nah nah nah naaaah nah....
Kodiacman

When I want woo-woos I can always pour myself a double bourbon. Nowadays I drink so rarely that a single bourbon usually does the trick. It's much more economical than going to church.
Ken