Selfish Gene?

Original sin and the human genome - Origins of Life - Beliefnet Community:

"In some species the individual is the selection unit. For these organisms your assertion is correct. However for social animals the selection unit is the herd or pack or in the case of humans the parish or village. Until very recently banishment from the parish or village was a death sentence. I am not even talking evolutionary time here. Before gunpowder, a lone human was a dead human.

Even today shunning, disfellowshipping, and excommunication can be a cause for suicide in one form or another, drugs, drink, gun, or bridge. If one has been indoctrinated from birth that God loves only those who conform the the dogmas of the parish, being unable to comply for one reason or another is a serious psychological issue. Some are strong enough to find other groups to provide the necessary community, schools and colleges are a common way to deal with loss of faith in one's milk church, which is why so many religious groups try to control the school environment for their children.

If evolution is forbidden as a subject matter, the myth of original sin can be believably insisted upon with its requisite savior. It is no wonder that the religious areas of the country are so active in insuring that special creation is at least taught as an alternative to evolution."

Changing the World

"Is what you’re doing going to change the world?” asked Larry Page, Google’s co-founder. “If not, maybe you should do something else.”

From SciAm December 2010 P.10

Kinder, Küche, Kirche

Why religious patriarchy is so oppressive - Beliefnet:

"God is losing the Kinder, Küche, Kirche battle, and female believers as well. Although some women will chose (be indoctrinated into) this path, the best and the brightest will leave the religious gene pool.

Think of it as evolution in action."

On Wolves and Poodles.

'not all speciation was caused by mutations'- Beliefnet:

6. How did these 'losses' become fixed in a population? (Remember, you don't have Betty BigCat Breeder there deliberately breeding these cats for specific traits; this is a wild population like wolves. And in the thousands of years that wolves have been breeding, there hasn't been a single instance of them producing a Miniature Poodle.) What evidence can you produce to substantiate your opinion?
McAtheist

Thanks.

Ontological Emergence

Emergent Properties (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy): "Whether there are any instances of ontological emergence is highly controversial. Some metaphysicians and philosophers of mind contend that there are strong first-person, introspective grounds for supposing that consciousness, intentionality, and/or human agency are ontologically emergent. The intrinsic qualitative and intentional properties of our experience, they suggest, appear to be of a fundamentally distinct character from the properties described by the physical and biological sciences.[12] And our experience of our own deliberate agency suggests a form of ‘direct’, macroscopic control over the general parameters of our behavior that cannot be reduced to the summation of individual causal interchanges of relevant portions of the cerebral and motor cortex.[13]"

U.S. divorce rates: for various faith groups, age groups and geographical areas

U.S. divorce rates: for various faith groups, age groups and geographical areas: "Barna report: Variation in divorce rates among Christian faith groups:
Denomination (in order of decreasing divorce rate)

% who have been divorced
Non-denominational ** 34%
Baptists 29%
Mainline Protestants 25%
Mormons 24%
Catholics 21%
Lutherans 21%"

Religious Myth as Wisdom?

Joy and Wisdom? - Beliefnet:

"[Materialists and rationalists are] a small subset of atheists here, albeit a noisy one. I suspect that most atheists are quite comfortable with myth even religious myth as a valuable source of knowledge about people living together. The difference is that since none of it is TRUTH™ we can learn from that which is worth learning from, including incidentally what doesn't work, and integrate all into a coherent and joyful wisdom about living and incidentally dying. One of the things I learned from religious sources is that the proper bet on Pascal's wager is to bet nothing in this life."

The Value of Religion in a Scientific Age.

In a Scientific Age is Religion a Hereditary Delusion? - Beliefnet :

"The spiritual, actually religious component, of human history contains much of value in how to get along, or not, with your fellow humans. But where it becomes a delusion in a scientific age is when it becomes a Belief System, all of which must be adhered to and the God worshiped, feared and obeyed. I find it interesting that Progressive Christianity, in denying the God mediators in favor of the direct relationship of people with God, has largely abandoned the Belief System of Christianity, and is learning from the social truths that are an integral part of Christian history."

Including most particularly the myriad lessons on what doesn't work. One could build a pretty decent life just not doing what religions did for most of their existence.

Joy and Wisdom, and Purpose.

Joy and Wisdom? - Beliefnet:

"As I never had the problem of living with God myths and life after death worries, I discovered both joy and wisdom around 2 when every 'Why?' was met with an answer or a 'Lets find out!' I have never stopped asking 'Why?' and having to take charge of finding out for myself has provided a never ending source of joy, wonder, spirituality (the reward mechanism in the mind for special discoveries) and I trust wisdom. The fact that I have a limited time to do it all, just makes it more exciting and challenging.

The other source of joy and wisdom is the intelligent, educated society that I have chosen as my own personal 'village.' Every time am able to help make that village a little better, by helping new people find their way in it, or by teaching which is the best way to wisdom, I find not only joy but meaning and purpose in the finite life that was nurtured by my parents.

Gods and other fictions are great sources of wisdom, a compelling story is the best way to learn, but it is important to remember that the weaknesses of the protagonist whether called God, or Gandalf, or Batman, are as important as their strengths, as they all are all of us writ large."

Spiritual Exercises

Spiritual Exercises | A Sermon by Forrest Church:

"3. Pray for someone you hate. Hatred stokes the mind’s satanic mills, but it is never good for the soul. For this reason, you should choose your enemies carefully. Odds are you’ll become like them. Lifting the burden of hatred from your soul, however, is surprisingly simple. Close your eyes. Imagine your enemy’s face in your mind. And then (in the best 'Love your enemy' spirit) magnanimously pray, 'May so and so find peace within his or her soul.' Such a move is both 'spiritually correct' and self-serving. You are doing yourself the favor. And it always works: you simply can’t hate a person and pray for him at one and the same time."

On Fairies, Pots of Gold and Astrology

Atheists and Jesus - Beliefnet:

"If you could explain what I should reject for all of the above I might be able to answer your question. Must fairies be visible to everyone in the world for them to exist? Must they be visible to anyone in the world? If fairies affect the actions of those who find fairies helpful even if they are never visible, is this data acceptable as to the existence of fairies as conceptual entities?

I have actually seen the end of a rainbow. Technically a halo interrupted by my body which appeared through an artifact of sun position and body position to end at my pockets. The pot of gold turned out to be a few credit cards in one pocket and a bit of change in the other. Must the pot of gold be literally that, or were a couple of credit cards with substantial unused credit lines a modern material equivalent? Or does the fact that the credit lines are imaginary entities in the bank's computer make them unreal? If I use the credit line to buy a pot of gold, does that reify the credit line or the pot of gold at the end of that particular rainbow?

Must astrological bodies actually have a measurable effect on people at the time of their birth to consider astrology to be true. Or since astrological signs correlate with seasonal variations and birth times correlate with conception times, might there be some scientific correlation with personality types and birth and/or conception times? As a speculative example, perhaps a child born in the depths of winter to parents affected by Seasonal Affective Disorder might have less loving care in the critical first few months of life. This could have permanent effects on personality characteristics. If astrologers are using the constellations as a marketing tool for personality analysis guided in part by birth date, does this invalidate astrology?

Just for the record, I consider fairies to be conceptual entities occasionally useful for entertainment value only. I know of no other values associated with fairies. As for the pot of gold, as an allegory for hope at the end of a storm I would find it of some value even though non-existent physically. In spite of my confirmation of its actual existence in one special case. Astrology I consider to be useless, as the potential for scamming totally outweighs any folklore basis for the readings."

Religious history.

How Religion conquered Science - Beliefnet:

I wouldn't hesitate in agreeing that human beings throughout history have been driven by curiosity. They have also been mightily inventive.

I would also concede that we humans have largely been religious throughout history, although that propensity has certainly waned over the last three or four hundred years as our species has intellectually and spiritually matured. Religion now is a sort of hereditary delusion, a hangover from the infancy of mankind, or, as someone once put it, a withered figleaf that hid man's ignorance and fear in ancient times."
Vardu

Delightful.

Sexual Maturity

Christian Preschool and Daphne: - Beliefnet :

"Perhaps the confusion is the focus on sexuality. That is the focus of any relationship being on whether or not the pants come off. If the focus is on gender preference, that is who you want to party with for whatever reason, I think the distinction still holds whether or not sex is a consideration or even a possibility.

I will admit that there are many, usually men, for whom the only purpose of a relationship of any kind is sex, testosterone is a powerful driver, a male dog will try to mount a pillow. But part of socialization in humans should be the ability to have relationships where sex is not the driver. In business or community activities sex, as in getting the pants off, had better not be in the picture at all.

In casual relationships one generally sees the heteros gravitating to the opposite gender, and homos toward their own gender whether or not sex is on the horizon. In most cases where testosterone is not the driver, the focus of most casual relationships is developing trust and empathy, perhaps with a closer friendship in mind, and maybe even eventually sex, but the sex would be the icing on the cake. Not the focus of the whole meal. One might call it social maturity. Getting past the puberty rut."

Atheists and Jesus

Atheists and Jesus - Beliefnet:

"The sin of Sodom that got it destroyed by God was inhospitality. In a desert community refusing hospitality was probably comparable to refusing to help an injured man by the side of the road. The chances were good that one refused a drink of water, could dehydrate before getting to the next stopping place.

But he was not telling us to love just the nice neighbors, but all of them. This of course does not mean approving of everything they do, but that violations of the social contract must be dealt with with love rather than hate. This is quite similar to the UU first principle of radical respect for all people. This does not give them open season on your wife, your car, or your dog, but you do not assume that that is what they want in life. Even in the face of direct evidence to the contrary it may be possible to encourage rehab rather than revenge.

This is not an easy standard even today. Many years ago my young kids shared a park with drug dealers in NYC. The dealers had their side, and the kids and university people the other side. It was not easy to teach children that these were not bad people but that their wares were dangerous. It was important to do so because there were 'good' people selling drugs. In fact it was the good people that were the most dangerous as they could mix with the university people and the kids unnoticed. You may have read of my encounter with a drug dealer on the wrong side of the park. He was by all appearances a good person. Had he not solicited me for business I never would have looked at him twice. Prejudice cuts both ways."

Atheists and Jesus

Atheists and Jesus -- Beliefnet:

"Since the God Jesus was referring to was a personal God not subject to anyone else's approval I suspect that your secular conscience would be acceptable to Jesus as the God he was referring to. But again, God was the dominant social paradigm at the time atheists and secularists really were non-existent. Even a personal God independent of any religion was radically humanist for the time.

I see no religious establishment in the sayings of Jesus. He was in all sayings directly attributed to him giving religion back to the people. John and Paul were of course trying to build a religious establishment on the back of Jesus. But I don't find that in the teachings of Jesus."

Men are Dumb.

The Fruit of the Teaching "Males are Superior" - Beliefnet :

Men are dumb. Very dumb.
Dar

"Probably one of the major causes of misogyny. As my med professional ex frequently asserted, 'To succeed in medical research a woman must be smarter than all the men around her. Fortunately, this is a normal condition.'

Intelligence breeds true, and in the Kinder, Küche, Kirche world intelligence, including social intelligence is a key to reproductive success. It is no wonder that when women get out of the house sexism is the only advantage men have.

When you think about it, reproductive success for males has much less to do with intelligence than with power and dominance skills, including sexual dominance, one does not kneel before the male leader to get tapped on the shoulder. Physical skills as in staying alive in the hunt or the battle are important as well. Even today the Homecoming King is not the science geek, but the athlete. As my father the athlete would remind me 'Don't think, you weaken the ball club.'

So, Dar, don't hold it against men that they are dumb. You women selected them for that feature."

The rough patches in life.

Pulling at the threads - Beliefnet:

"Most of my University educated friends don't reach for history books or religious works to help them through their rough patches. They are more likely to turn to modern philosophical fiction or other modern mythology in cinema, dance, music, or whatever their dominant genre is to gain the strength to solve their problems.

Some use eclectic combinations that may include ancient mythology, (it won't last if it doesn't contain some truth) in my case religious music, not for the God data but for the problem solving data that it contains. But a reliance on a single source God, the Bible, or even a personal conversation with God, generally results in bad solutions to the problem.

Underlying it all is the collected wisdom of the social group chosen by the individual which points them in the most useful direction. For the religious this may well be God or the Bible, but mono-cultural data is normally useful only within that culture."

Atheists and Jesus

Atheists and Jesus - Beliefnet:

"You need to strip the God from Jesus the man, and the stage magic that was his stock in trade, then put the rest of what he said in the context of his time. A good place to start would be the Jefferson Bible in which Jefferson, an atheist, well, Deist politically, literally cut up the Synoptics to find out what Jesus was all about.

While you are at it forget about prooftexing it is no more becoming for an atheist than for a fundie.

As a starter take Matthew 22: 37 ff.

...Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

There is a good reason that much of modern Christianity, the 'Progressive Christians' have for the most part reduced the entire law and the prophets, that is the whole Bible, to this teaching of Jesus. An atheist can learn simply by studying this and its context.

True it refers to God but look at the God it refers to: Thy God. Not the God of Moses or Abraham, or the prophets, or the priests. Thy God, God which speaks directly to the individual. With this three letter word 'Thy' he is basically telling the whole religious establishment to go to Hell in their own way.

'Love thy neighbor.' He goes on to identify the neighbor as a Samaritan, in our terms a Muslim terrorist. He had recently left a Samaritan village where he was refused hospitality, one of the most grievous affronts in that desert society. And now a Samaritan is his neighbor?

'As thyself.' In those days as now religion made a good living selling self-hate. Jesus is clearly stating that all humans are worthy of self-respect. You can't get much more humanist than that. Theistic humanist? Of course theism was the language of the time."

God's All-loving Nature. Not

God - Tales of Mere Existence - Beliefnet:

"As someone who has put serious effort into understanding God I have come to a quite different conclusion. I find nothing at all of God's all-loving nature and therefore have no wish to conform to His mysogynic and hateful teachings. I am assuming you are talking about the Abrahamic God who not only has one but is one. I will admit that Jesus tried valiantly for his era to counter some of this hate, but was immediately trumped by Paul who discovered that self-hate sells better than self love. Perhaps you are one of those fighting a rearguard action to return Christianity to Jesus. But I don't see how that is possible by including God in the picture.

Such effort is not easy, but I can see no other conclusion but to reject God in all known forms. By the way Jesus is excepted from this rejection as he was in no way a God."

Atheists and Jesus - Discuss Atheism - Beliefnet Community

Atheists and Jesus - Beliefnet:

"It is perhaps useful to understand the background and biases of the creator of the entity, but you need to know nothing about Paul to understand that the entity of Jesus Christ is the savior of all who do bad things. You need to know nothing about John to understand that the God he was creating based loosely on the contemporary myth of Jesus of Nazareth was bringing Godhood to humanity. You need to know nothing about Mary Magdalene to understand the message of the itinerant preacher/entertainer she was telling about. You don't even need to know if Jesus was a real person. Her creation, even if a roman à clef was extremely influential, misused, abused, or studied."

Atheists and Jesus - Discuss Atheism - Beliefnet Community

Atheists and Jesus - Beliefnet:

"Kermit the Frog, Jubal Hartshaw, Jesus, and God are well defined, consistently portrayed (at least locally in the case of God) constructed entities that are used for the purpose of entertainment and perhaps teaching. While it is useful to understand the background of the the creator of the entity it is not necessary at all to appreciate the message of the entity.

It is quite reasonable to discuss the social and moral views of the entity as depicted in the realization of that entity, without knowing anything at all about the creator. It is useful to suspend disbelief in the reality of the character to appreciate the entertainment/message but not necessary. One can appreciate the message of It isn't Easy Being Green even if one is well aware of the fact that what is being referred to is a green sock puppet. Of course the target audience is not adult curmudgeons who cannot get past the reality of a sock puppet, but small children for whom suspension of disbelief is as natural as breathing.

As an aside one of the reasons for the success of Sesame Street was that much of the entertainment/message was directed at the parents who were being lulled into not believing the sock puppets were real. It is no easier being a minority parent than it is to be a green sock puppet."

US Politics and the Third World

As you know I was active in the Obama and health care campaigns. It turned out he was just another Chicago politician. He had the votes for real health care reform, real stimulus, and real financial reform. He blew all three. I won't say he was listening to the big money he claims he didn't take, but you can draw your own conclusions. He sure is listening now.

I am beginning to think that the federal government is largely irrelevant anymore. They will continue to drive the red states into third world status, and the university enclaves will make their own little worlds. The beach states in the West, New England and the Middle Atlantic and a few enclaves in the rest of the country will, in effect ignore the rest of the country and Washington, and build their own society.

Watch California. We beat the money. Whatever you think of Gov Moonbeam he was the best Governor in the past 50 or so years. We may even get our own health Care system. The rudiments are in place now. It will be interesting. Even Orange County left the tea party. It was either that or join the third world.

Blag Hag: Ripping MS -ogyny

Blag Hag: Does the media really care where the atheist women are?
:
The main article is an incredibly good response to a MS(ogyny) article on female atheists. Don't bother with the MS article.

"jgbel in reply to J'Carlin
So, when you say 'theists,' you of course mean only male theists, right? Which makes up what percentage of the population, and excuses what?

J'Carlin in reply to jgbel
Not really, look at any religious site and see the number of females that buy into the 'be submissive' role. I don't have demographic data, I don't think Pew Research has done a survey on submissive females in the churches.

It excuses nothing. Bigotry and sexism has no excuse. But it is all too common among both genders in religious circles. Certainly more among the men, and men are more blatant and proud of their misogyny."

Atheists and Jesus

Atheists and Jesus - Beliefnet :

"I think it is important to recognize in any discussion of Jesus by atheists that we are dealing with a very sketchy story heavily edited to conform with the theistic tenor of the times. Even emperors were promoted as gods.

What I get from the story is a humanistic and anti-religious message. Radical for its time and place. Certainly God is there but it is a personal not a male religious God. I find a strong feminine influence on the message at least as unpolluted by John and Paul who were usurpers not apostles of his message.

Admittedly a lot of soup from one oyster, but when the oyster is strongly and uniquely flavored, it may not be a useless soup. Even for an atheist. I and many Christians frequently use Jesus as a powerful weapon against Christian hate. It is hard to rationalize a hate mongering preacher/pastor in the face of 'love thy neighbor.' In particular when the neighbor explicitly referred to was a member of a hated group that had just caused Jesus to 'shake the dust off his sandals' for one of the most serious breaches imaginable of the social contract of the time. Even the 'love thyself' can be a powerful weapon as the control mechanism of the preacher/pastor of hate is self-hate. 'I confess I am a miserable sinner who can only be saved from Hell by Christ' This of course is pure Paul, and has nothing at all to do with Jesus."

Fighting Two Fronts - Discuss Atheism - Beliefnet Community

Fighting Two Fronts - Beliefnet From a generally useless thread:

"For those for whom God is the awe-ful, controlling big daddy (always male) in the sky, they must fight every loss of power. If God looses control over creation, and in particular creation of man (human males) in His image, He loses control over everything: Morality, the prieshood, women and even men.

However, this is not by any stretch all theists. Frequently atheists spend entirely too much energy and ammunition (torches for straw men) on this God which you note correctly is increasingly irrelevant.

In general God is a centering/focusing point or entity which is a community building aid for the moral and social cohesion for a functioning society. I would suggest that a majority of theists in Europe and the 'Blue' USA are using God in a beneficial way for the larger society including atheists, and atheists should be careful in choosing the enemy. A blanket condemnation of all theists or even all Christians, may be alienating some powerful allies in the fight against fundamentalism. Many of the scientists eliminating the gaps for the creationist God to hide in are Christians, and quite devout in their God beliefs. It is just that the Male Creator is not the God they focus on. It is important to be aware of the difference. I find 'He' is the touchstone. Anyone referring to God as He can be presumed guilty. Those that are aware of the gender issues are our friends."

I find it very encouraging that many devout Christians are focusing on the direct connection with God advocated by Jesus. "Worship the Lord thy God with all thy heart...." in effect eliminating that little vuvuzela in the fancy dress in the overdecorated balcony unless hesh looses the hubris of speaking as God but is speaking for God as hesh understands God in herm society.

Lust, Commitment, and Morality

Question about Actions and Consequence - Beliefnet :

"The difficulty here is that unfortunately bullying is one of the social contract enforcement mechanisms. This does not excuse it, but it is up to the people who are establishing the social contract to insure that bigotry is not a part of it. I think in Tyler's [Clementi] case the bullying was independent of the nuanced definition of sexual immorality I was discussing. It was pure homophobic bigotry. The nature of the relationship other than the homosexuality was immaterial.

I think in Paul's moral teaching he was trying, clumsily, to differentiate between lust, that is sex for gratification only with sex in a committed relationship (marriage.) As an amusing aside it would be interesting to question Paul about the morality of the relationship between the Centurian and his pais.

I would find it a major advance in social morality if people did look down on others who have lustful sex, particularly heterosexual lustful sex, which I hope was clearly the point of my post. A few of the homosexuals I knew well enough in the NYC arts community to know their relationship status were in committed relationships and did in fact 'look down' on the gay bar scene.

'Tis a dream of course. Until the churches and other 'tight' communities are inclusive enough to provide relationship incubation for all, the bar scene will be well patronized by all gender preferences, lust is too powerful to be thwarted by Paul or any mortal."

I have often wondered if choirs would have any males at all if they weren't relationship incubators for gays. Or dance groups. I don't know about other arts groups, but those groups seem to have more than their demographic share of gays.

Morals without God?

Morals without God? - Beliefnet:

"How could [morality not follow current fashion.} Morality is the genetic propensity of an intelligent social animal to comply with the mores of the society of which hesh is a part. It actually does not follow current fashion, but follows the dictates of the individual's chosen society. It may be a church, it may be a gang, it may be an intelligently selected community of, for example, university educated people, or an industry or charitable consortium, etc. All are influenced by the integrated mores of the larger society, currently national, but regional differences are emerging at least in the USA."

Atheists and Jesus

Atheists and Jesus - Beliefnet :

"Atheists arguing about the existence of Jesus or the 'truth' in the Gospels among themselves are being willfully blind to the importance and humanistic message of the preacher who probably was called Jesus or Yeshua depending on the language assumption.

The story if you will or oral history which was probably the case in that illiterate culture was probably originated by a companion of Jesus in his travels, my guess is Mary Magdalene. She probably helped him hone his message, I see a lot of anti-misogyny in it, at least in the context of the time. No man thought up the tale of the unstoned whore.

I am of course speaking of the Synoptic Gospels, by the time John and Paul came around to create a God the story was destroyed beyond recognition. I think there is a lot to be learned by atheists from the Synoptics, I generally use Jefferson's extract. Hey, if a famous atheist like Jefferson can find value in the Bible who am I to argue.

Disclaimer: I owe much of my interpretation of the Gospels to Heinlein and his allegory of Jesus in Michael Smith and Gillian Bordman in Stranger in a Strange Land. The thinking is of course mine."

The Intellectual Poverty of Rationalism

Antitheism? - Beliefnet:

"If a rationalist is unable to suspend disbelief as claimed to enjoy a learning experience or even a rollicking good time at a movie, reading a worth while fiction, listening to an emotional piece of music, or attending a religious service, but must analyze every nuance for compliance with their understanding of reality, usually material, is missing a major portion of what I experience as being an intelligent human.

The wonder and joy of a rainbow does not need be parsed into light ray patterns and ignored as merely physics. Although doing so after enjoying the wonder of the moment does not diminish and may increase the wonder and joy. Understanding that a rainbow is created by and uniquely for oneself is 'not merely physics' the interaction of the non-rational portion of the mind is essential.

I suspend disbelief in God each time I sing a Mass or a prayer in order to appreciate the non-rational wonder and beauty of a transcendant being that watches over me even after I die. Sure when it is over, all that remains is the wonder and beauty, and I might add the appreciation of the faith of believers, although I do not participate in it. I finally came to grips with the finality of death by understand the power of the 'Et Expecto' by believing it for a while."

Conundrums

There Is No God - Beliefnet:

"There is no materialist conundrum. WE are not the ones having a problem with a god - we simply don't accept that one exists. THEISTS are the ones with the conundrum - how to convince (i.e., proselytize) others of the existence of something for which they have no inductive or deductive evidence?

They've figured it out to an extent - brainwash children before the age of reason with the creation mythology nonsense, and hope it sticks out of habit, or approach people who are emotionally fragile or medically fragile and are looking for any comfort, and hope it works with them over the long term.

But they are unable to deal with rational adults who don't need their particular night light, and it totally frightens them. As well it should. Because if rational, thinking people don't need their myth after exploring it in depth, maybe their myth isn't real at all, and maybe the theists should rethink things."

Thanks TolerantSis

Theodicy

There Is No God - Beliefnet:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent.

Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.

Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?

Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

~Epicurus

Thanks Kwinters for this

Morality as Face Group

Please Critique My Idea Of God - Beliefnet:

"Managing my life for the good of my chosen society is more basic than a call by God on my conscience. Humans as highly intelligent and extremely social animals are genetically programmed to learn all they can about the customs and mores of their tribe or social group as defined prehistorically by those whose faces they encountered on a daily basis. There could be no thought of violating these customs and mores, as doing so would cause banishment and a solo human was a dead human. This is the basis of conscience, not some big daddy in the sky. As tribes got larger and the face groups dispersed, myth and lore took the place of customs and mores, and the shamans in charge of maintaining the myth and lore found that an imaginary superface as part of every group, inevitably in the image of the group was very useful to enforce the precepts of the myth and lore. Hence the evolution of your First Cause, traditionally referred to as God. As shamans and God became more powerful and manipulative many of the conscience functions and exceptions to them became the province of God. Do what God tells you to do began to override the do what is right of the conscience. Especially when God got to be Maitre d'Hotel of the afterlife, and doing what God tells you to do became the cumshaw.

The reason I feel the need to take control of my life is twofold. The first is as you note the conscience but in the original sense of internalized customs and mores of the face group. The world is too big to be a face group these days but if we choose carefully there are a group of people whose customs and mores we can internalize. That group will look a lot like our family and close friends even when extended to people we probably will never meet. My group consists of intelligent, well educated, self actualizing people who are capable of and interested in making changes to the relevant society of intelligent, well educated, self actualizing people. Most of us have found God and gods of any form limiting and dysfunctional to our society.

One of the results is the second reason for ignoring God, that is that the only life that counts is the one that begins with birth and ends with death. It is the only one we can be sure of, and Pascal's wager fails on the plethora of possible God bets each with different rules for living. So we live as if the only important contribution we can make is by living according to the best interests of our chosen society. The agnostics among us suggest that if God is the Maitre d' in the afterlife that is all Hesh would care about anyway."

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."