Does that, in and of itself, not disprove religion?
If you're a Buddhist, and the Christians are correct, you're doomed.
Why do believers go to doctors?
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Does that, in and of itself, not disprove religion?
If you're a Buddhist, and the Christians are correct, you're doomed.
You haven't started with a premise that you can simply jump to these things.
Try a simple, reasonable one: People are guided by their faith (god) and when that outcome is good they thank it for that, when that outcome is bad they are angry. What you seem to demand is that people, themselves are rational and that their thoughts and comments are some sort of truth. In any event there are many, I'm sure millions, of people who don't get angry and accept their faith's path that led them to death or their loved ones to death, why are you discounting what they say?
Really all you are arguing is that people are self-centered, impulsive, and emotional. When good things happen they say overly-happy things and are overly thankful, when bad things happen they are angry and blameful. I'm not sure why that is evidence that god doesn't exist or that people are foolish for believing in the first place.
I'm not ignoring your questions, I'm just a bit stumped with how to respond to the virus question. I'm not sure I understand it. Why must awareness of an outcome equate to total responsibility? Can't a timeless and all powerful God create a world and see all outcomes without directing every detail? Would God necessarily have to command every virus mutation or wish them to be in order for the virus mutation to occur or for God to know they were going to occur? If an all powerful God wishes humans in His creation to have free will, as I believe he does, wouldn't he allow the rest of His creation to be affected by and change with man's free will decisions?
No, of course not, and if you really thought this how dumb do you think our most brilliant scientists/philosophers in human history were? Many of them tackled this very issue, you didn't think of it when you were picking your nose.
There have been offered many, many reasons and explanations and theories regarding this very thing, there are countless books and other things you can read, but I'm sure you won't, because you don't actually want to discuss the issue you want to somehow insert this "whoa, I just blew your mind" bullshit to make yourself feel better.
Hell, the most oft cited: There is some supreme being and cultures from all over worship it separately in their own manner. Like my post above, just because one group says that non-belief will doom everyone else doesn't demand that it be true, they can be correct about religion without proving everyone else false.
Also, again, if you believe all Christians believe the same afterlife story you are entirely uneducated on the topic.
People have faith sometimes that faith is tested. It's really not that hard to figure out.
If you are not willing to have faith then you have chosen your path good luck with that.
If you are not willing to have faith then you have chosen your path good luck with that.
The very fact that there are religions that take avoiding the doctor seriously sort of proves this is a serious question. It touches on the nature of God, the nature of evil, and side steps the usual free will arguments. It's very interesting IMO.
Free will doesn't cover a bacteria infecting a cut. Especially so when God teaches their aren't bacteria but demons that cause disease. Why doesn't that one fact blow up the entire validity of Jesus?
When a person builds an ant farm, they don't claim super powers over every bit of sand and ant which is how God is commonly presented. That is indeed my very point. People claim to believe in a God concept that if real makes God the Devil. The only way to relieve God of that responsibility is to redefine God as a limited being. I think that's a biblically supported view that religion should grapple with.
So you're saying that people are foolish to attribute things to a god they believe in but they are not foolish for believing in the god itself? So if these people are too dumb to even follow their religion properly, are they true believers? They obviously don't understand what it means to believe so how can they really be believers and make it to heaven?
Is this where we come back around to the SIDS baby where god intervenes when the individual being judged wasn't able to properly form a belief in god one way or the other?
I disagree. It might be a serious question to those people, if they turned to medical intervention even in spite of their belief. But it isn't a serious question to the, literally, millions of Christians in the US who utilize medical services, including the most devout (priests, nuns, reverends, deacons, monks, etc.)
You can read Mpls post regarding your virus, as I think he explains it rather easily.
How is a person not claiming super powers over the sand? If being able to move the sand in any direction you choose, either individually or collectively, what is that other than "super power"? In your theory that it makes God the devil you are taking a very strange position compared to your actual outlook on life, believing that there is some objective determination that right/wrong are diametrically opposed. Have you read the old testament? Do you really believe Christians think their god is some uber-nice fella that is there just to help them out?
And what do you mean by "limited being" and how does it differ from what you claim most Christian's view? I presume you, like the posts I discussed above, are giving GREAT weight to the prayers of mortal men, that when they pray for something to help them it necessarily means they believe their god will grant it. I don't think many Christians you know believe that, and even if they personally do, how is that supposed to define a god in reality?
Also, why should people continuously "grapple with" all aspects of their faith? What goal do you want that to achieve? The one of not believing? Is that your hope?
You could post this same rant in every thread on here. Most every topic we bring up has been discussed before by better minds in more depth and could be read online. But that's not really the point of a discussion forum. The point here is to wrestle with these issues on our own terms. Why are you trying to shut down a conversation?
He is a person who has no idea about faith or Christians and really thought, out of ignorance, he was asking a good question.
The first half of your post is just a personal attack on me and contributes nothing to the conversation so I'll respond to the latter half.
I tend to agree with you that MOST religions were formed from the same "beginning faith" and sprouted off different traditions and beliefs. The problem is that some of those traditions and beliefs are in direct contradiction to each other. So much so that in one faith, doing something may be a direct line to heaven whereas in another doing that same thing may be a sure fire way to go to hell.
I don't think all Christians believe the same thing and that, to me, presents a big problem. Who is right?
No, I am not saying that. I can tell you that I don't know, nor do I need to know or care to know. I will repeat what I posted, as it explains it pretty well: people are self-centered, impulsive, and emotional. They say things that may not be true, they could be true, we know that they hope they are true, they have faith that it is true. You are trying to call them dumb, and you do so because you believe they are wrong. If you didn't believe they were wrong you wouldn't believe them dumb.
Take your silly example of the SIDS baby, in any discussion in faith you have no ability to disprove some sort of supreme being's intervention, right? So you want to point to the bad things as proof that the good things can't be from a god, but it fails the exact same logic, you can't disprove a supreme being's intervention, or in that case non-intervention. You then want to use the grieving person's anger as proof that it can't be god, which is just as silly.
If you are playing cards and you believe you are on a hot streak, if you lose do you simply get up and say, "oh well", or do you blame something you did/didn't do, or some other superstition? You are trying to use the person's words to prove something that is not dependent on those words. The thing itself exists (or doesn't) entirely independent of your comments. Does an angry outburst after cards mean that person no longer believes in statistics, or that statistics aren't real? Of course not, they reacted emotionally.
Have you heard people react with, "it was all my fault" about bad things when their only interaction was something like not making a phone call that night? Was it actually their fault? Because in your premise their comments (accepting fault) somehow proves or disproves the actual fault, which is silly.
If a god exists it exists entirely independent of the comments of its believers. It isn't tinkerbell who goes away when nobody claps.
I do think it's a good question and it is the cause of some decent discussion on the topic of religion so even if the question was flawed, it worked out.
Do I think that I could have started a better thread saying "Let's debate religion without name calling and belittling"? Sure, that's fair. Despite what theIowaHawk says, I don't think I'm somehow smarter than everyone on earth for asking the question nor do I think I'm somehow the first person to ponder these thoughts. I simply think it's personally interesting to discuss and I do think that people of faith are wrong. I don't think all of them are dumb in the slightest...just misguided in their beliefs.
You aren't agreeing with me, because that is not what I said. I don't believe there was some beginning faith that sprouted off, nor is it necessary to believe that in order to have diverging faiths. People formed their faiths in many different places over many different times, but all witnessing similar types of events, many of which we now explain scientifically. The story of a great flood didn't come from one guy and the telephone game got it garbled along the way, there was likely some phenomenon that was witnessed by various peoples who all interpreted it very differently, so entirely different "religions" were all born in entirely different ways.
What is wrong with them contradicting each other? Scientists routinely contradict each other, does that prove all of them wrong? Of course not.
Lastly, why do you care who is right? Are you trying to join a team? Their faith tells them they are right, why is that not good enough?
So you're saying that a baby dying of SIDS is just as much proof of a god as a bus miraculously missing an old lady walking across the street and I'm just using one as an example of a lack of god because people are bummed about it? No. That's not the case.
And I'm sorry you think it's a silly example but does the baby go to heaven? Someone in the thread has said they would because god would intervene. Is that true? If so, why doesn't he intervene for other people as well?
Or, are you saying that god is not all knowing and all powerful and he just lets things happen and has no control over them? See if you're saying that, then I can somewhat agree with that. Hey, it's possible he created heaven and earth and is sitting waiting for those that believe in him to be saved for eternity. That makes sense. The thought that he can intervene but doesn't makes no sense to me. The fact that he doesn't show me something so that I can believe makes him seem indifferent at best.
You've called them dumb in more than one post, and your OP immediately implies idiocy. You are specifically questioning why a person who believes in god would go to a doctor. Either you are 5 years old and it is a cute question where the brain is still forming understanding of the world, or you frame it specifically to allege that the two things cannot be compatible, therefore going to one disproves the other. With this allegation you are immediately implying that they can't put that simple train of thought together themselves and will be slapping themselves on the forehead as the epiphany hits, which is absurd.
Hell, the easiest thing you miss is the simple fact that there are hundreds of thousands (?) of doctors who believe in god. Your basic premise is a redundantly used comment that "You can't believe A and do B, otherwise you don't actually believe A", but who is that according to, you?
When scientists contradict each other, they conduct experiments to disprove the other and further their hypothesis. Sometimes, we don't yet have the science to tell one way or the other which is right but later down the road we realize who was correct.
Are you really saying it doesn't matter if these religions contradict each other? It means that the people that were unfortunate enough to believe in the wrong religion due to geography, upbringing or mistaken interpretation of faith are doomed. Again, this god is supposed to be all loving so why wouldn't he intervene there and set the people following the wrong faith straight?
How does a person become responsible for a thing? I would say minimally they have to take part in that thing coming about, which a god would satisfy by creating the thing. I think that might not be sufficient. If the person intended for one outcome, but their thing reacted unexpectedly or was stolen and misused by other powers, that might relive a person of responsibility. But a supergod doesn't have this out. He both created and knows how his creation will act. What logic would let a supergod off the hook?
I don't see how a timeless and all powerful God can create a world and see all outcomes without directing every detail. Note we are talking about Illness outside of human control and hence outside of free will. Seeing and knowing and controlling everything makes him responsible for everything. Now this God could logically choose not to act on everything, but not acting isn't a responsible act. So if this God chooses to act irresponsibly, it's no longer a perfect being and no longer a supergod. The only way God escapes responsibility is if his nature isn't super. If God has limits and rules and confinement it must respect then not knowing about a virus mutation makes sense and it wouldn't be responsible.
I think the very nature of Christianity points to a limited God. The Christian God wasn't able to forgive mankind without a sacrifice. That means there is some cosmic power imposing that requirement. That means God is limited. Religion avoids these problems if it simple admits it's God isn't super. Why don't they do that? I have theories, but I like to stick to a 3 paragraph rule around here to keep it readable.
No, I am not saying that at all, and I really don't know why you demand on reading 8 steps ahead past my comments to invent a conclusion for me. I am saying that, if a supreme being of some sort exists, it exists independent of what people believe it to have done. Just like so many other things, the theory of gravity exists regardless of whether people understand or believe in it. It didn't come in to existence the day Newton figured it out and wrote it down.
How can I answer whether the baby goes to heaven, the same logic I apply above is true for that as well. Either the baby does or doesn't go to a heaven, your understanding of whether it happens doesn't change that. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of different answers depending on which "Christian" sect you talk to. Just because they don't agree doesn't disprove anything.
Asking whether the baby goes to heaven might have been a good OP question, but even then you probably would have framed it like this: "If you believe that God cures diseases, you must believe God murders babies."
All in all you are looking at this far too simplistically trying to nail down objective "truths" in order to try and disprove them. Like I said before, you aren't the first nor the most intelligent to do so. If you are really interested there are many books on this very subject.
Lastly, it may not make sense to you. Do you know who else it doesn't make sense to? Millions of christians who struggle with the same question, but they have faith in the answer, or faith that their path will be the correct one.
And so what if a supreme being was "indifferent"? What does that change?
That's fair. As I said previously, I could/should have started a thread with an OP stating that I wished to discuss religion. I was being a dick/purposely facetious and I get that. It's hard to have a real conversation when you walk up and call someone an idiot and punch them in the mouth from the start. But, here we are and let's just put that OP aside and start from a good place where we're having a constructive discussion.
Oh, we do realize? Geez, I guess I didn't realize science was done, and we've all agreed on who was correct.
No, it doesn't mean that they are doomed, you are the one that keeps demanding that. First, there are infinite possibilities of outcome if you are discussing them in regards to peoples' beliefs. You always demand that it is the "everyone else is doomed!" scenario while ignoring the millions of people who do not believe that.
You also keep saying that this god is "all loving", in the sense that nothing bad can happen. I'm not sure I know a religion that actually adheres to that belief, certainly not any christian ones I'm aware of. You are attributing that where I don't think it belongs.
Oh, ok, carry on. Three pages later I got my answer to: "Serious question, did you think this was clever?"
So if science is fluid and we can't claim to understand what is true and what is not, how are certain sects of Christianity not also fluid? Why is it black and white in the sense belief=heaven, nonbelief=hell? There are a lot higher stakes when it comes to religion and which you believe in than whether you believe in gravity or not. No one is saying if you don't believe gravity exists you're going to burn in hell for eternity.
The above means that others are doomed. Anyone that does not believe in the Christian god and his son Jesus Christ is going to hell. There is no wiggle room in that. The millions that believe something else are doomed. What way around that is there other than the Christians are wrong and one of the other religions is correct in which case Christians may or may not be doomed.
OK so "all loving" doesn't mean nothing bad can happen but doesn't it mean that if he can send you to heaven or hell and decides to send you to hell, he doesn't love you?
A person building an ant farm who crushes the tunnels and ants isn't building an ant farm. That's definitional.
You're not following along very well, so let me try to clarify. Contrasting the modern notion of the super God with the limited fallible God of the Bible has been my repeated point. Yes I do think the Christian God often gets represented as "some uber-nice fella that is there just to help them out". He has been represented as such right in this thread. Pointing out that error and explaining why it's a logical problem is what I'm doing.
Not believing would be fine. Believing theology based on their own book would be ok too. Simply discussing an interesting topic is all I really hoped for. Why is this topic so threatening to you?
Well, I didn't think it was clever in the sense of "Geez, no one has ever thought about this brain buster!" But I do still not understand the question of why people that truly believe would go to the doctor unless it's just for pain meds perhaps.
To go a step further, why don't people who truly believe in god shoot themselves in the head immediately? This, assuming the criteria for entry to heaven is solely belief. Heaven, by all accounts is better than earth so why wait to go?
I'll finish with a few things about my beliefs:
1) Religion, in general terms, is very good for humanity. Whether that be a system of morals, a specific denomination, or just a community, it generally is good. It helps to teach the young about morals, and imo, is no different than different variations of different parables like Aesop's Fables, Hans Christian Andersen, Mother Goose, the Bible, or whatever else. More importantly it creates a community. Take a look at any small town in Iowa and the most attended events are that of religion, bringing the community often in support or celebration.
Certainly "religion", as in Christian vs. Muslim vs. Buddhist vs. etc. may not be required for any of this, but people define religion far too narrowly, and in doing so lose sight of what it actually means. In fact, most people that claim to not believe in religion simply don't believe in a supreme being, as discussed at length in this thread. They "believe" in many of the exact same things as the religious, but refuse to follow a god, they still form communities of like-mindedness and come together for support and celebration, it is just much easier and "built-in" when doing so with a specific religion.
One of the things I think people like about being a member of a church is that they know that wherever they travel, wherever they move they will have like-minded individuals to make community with. I think this is vital to our human existence.
2) Respect for differing religion is important and must be protected. Humans have very emotional and protective mindsets that often jump to "us vs. them" attitudes and is extremely easy to do when religions have specifically built and designated places of worship. If this respect isn't maintained it is one of the easiest things to attack, and is shown such throughout history. This includes understanding that people believe things that are different to you, things you might not be able to reconcile or explain, and most importantly that they don't have to reconcile nor explain them to you, or anyone else. When you demand that reconciliation/explanation you question its very existence.
3) I don't know and neither does anyone else, which is why people have "faith", whatever that may mean. As I've said above, the existence of a god or not does not rely on our beliefs, nor does it rely on our comments or prayers.
Most importantly of all, imo, anybody who believe they can disprove someone elses faith or god is an ignorant, self-righteous fool.
1) Religion, in general terms, is very good for humanity. Whether that be a system of morals, a specific denomination, or just a community, it generally is good. It helps to teach the young about morals, and imo, is no different than different variations of different parables like Aesop's Fables, Hans Christian Andersen, Mother Goose, the Bible, or whatever else. More importantly it creates a community. Take a look at any small town in Iowa and the most attended events are that of religion, bringing the community often in support or celebration.
Certainly "religion", as in Christian vs. Muslim vs. Buddhist vs. etc. may not be required for any of this, but people define religion far too narrowly, and in doing so lose sight of what it actually means. In fact, most people that claim to not believe in religion simply don't believe in a supreme being, as discussed at length in this thread. They "believe" in many of the exact same things as the religious, but refuse to follow a god, they still form communities of like-mindedness and come together for support and celebration, it is just much easier and "built-in" when doing so with a specific religion.
One of the things I think people like about being a member of a church is that they know that wherever they travel, wherever they move they will have like-minded individuals to make community with. I think this is vital to our human existence.
2) Respect for differing religion is important and must be protected. Humans have very emotional and protective mindsets that often jump to "us vs. them" attitudes and is extremely easy to do when religions have specifically built and designated places of worship. If this respect isn't maintained it is one of the easiest things to attack, and is shown such throughout history. This includes understanding that people believe things that are different to you, things you might not be able to reconcile or explain, and most importantly that they don't have to reconcile nor explain them to you, or anyone else. When you demand that reconciliation/explanation you question its very existence.
3) I don't know and neither does anyone else, which is why people have "faith", whatever that may mean. As I've said above, the existence of a god or not does not rely on our beliefs, nor does it rely on our comments or prayers.
Most importantly of all, imo, anybody who believe they can disprove someone elses faith or god is an ignorant, self-righteous fool.
That makes little sense. You are standing on the definition of "build"? Fine, call it manipulate, call it whatever you want. A person controlling an ant farm needn't control every aspect of the ant farm, that was the point.
Why is it a logical problem, because you say it is? You would have to first find a person on here claiming that god only does good before you can disprove that. Even then you are discussing only specifically with one person, not Christians in general. It is like discussing with OiT, you should understand that you can't attribute his comments to anybody else, so as you go down his wormhole you have excluded everything else.
What I find interesting is the ego some people must have to believe they can disprove something they claim is not proveable. If the latter is true, the former can not be.
Well they get demoted when nobody claps. That has happened many times. It's hardly an exaggeration to say hundreds of gods have been demoted from God status to mythology because people stopped clapping. Which should show who God really is; the clapper.
I can only answer you with questions:
Do you believe that Christians think the minutiae of their lives is directly controlled by a god?
If yes, you believe that Christians believe that god gave them every medical issue, and therefore he solves (or doesn't) every medical issue?
Why is it not entirely reasonable to think a god created people, people discovered/created medicine and people now seek out that medicine?
Your last one gets even sillier considering most religious views on suicide, but even putting that aside why are you demanding that every belief must be that some afterlife is the goal, or that it is better than the current life? That is simply not what any major Christian religion believes. For that you are looking to the people trying to catch a ride on Hale Bop.
Your better question, I would think, is why people "waste" their time at regular jobs that help nobody if the goal is the attainment of goodness and helping other people. I think you know the answer and the answer is simple, most people aren't "good _____________________________ (insert religion)" according to their own religion.
1) I agree with you on this point to an extent. I think in the United States, in modern times, what you've stated is fairly true. Religion is a good thing and makes people better. However, in modern times in other parts of the world, I do not think this is necessarily true and in the past this certainly was not necessarily true. It has started many wars, caused the suffering and demeaning of many people. So, in the end...is it really a good thing or not? I'm not honestly sure.
2) I agree with everything you've said here despite me sometimes lashing out by being facetious or condescending. This is one of the reasons I love this country. I can choose to believe in any religion I choose. However, I am not demanding anyone explain anything. I'm asking questions on a message board and people are free to reply or not reply. Just because I quote your post and challenge your beliefs does not somehow compel you to respond to me. I'm glad you have responded because I do think you're intelligent and make some good counter-points even though I don't agree with some of them and I think you sidestep some things.
3) I'm not trying to disprove your personal beliefs. You can still believe in whichever god you choose even if I question him or completely disprove his existence somehow. I just like to have a conversation about why you believe what you do because it's interesting even if I think it's wrong or foolish myself.
See now you fail exactly the logic I discussed earlier. The existence of the god (or gods as you point out) are not dependent on the clapping. Just as reasonable, following you and longlive's proddings, is that one of the now-defunct religions could have been "correct". They haven't stopped being correct just because people moved on.
As I asked before, did gravity not "exist" simply because nobody knew what it was nor talked about it?
Great! The correct religion died out centuries ago so now we're all going to hell!
Relax man, I'm being facetious. It's a joke. Kind of.
Mother Teresa had an interesting view on pain. She called it the kiss of Jesus and limited pain mitigation in her clinics. These are good questions to explore.
Completely disagree. Religion is an idea, or a system of them. Like Socialism. No matter what 22/IMCC/Tradition spew on here, socialism (not even communism) has never killed anybody. People kill people. Ideas can be dangerous, and ideas derived from religion can be especially dangerous, but it is the people wielding them that have caused the wars and suffering. People inherently seek battle, whether it be literal fighting, politics, sport, whatever, and religion has certainly played a part in fueling all of them, but it has played significant parts in stopping all of them as well.
I think that respect for religion (and the rest of the First for that matter) is at the top of my list for the incredible success of the US. If that respect for religion failed, so too would have the nation, imo. Many of the places you are likely thinking of are resultant from fighting over the same things men have fought over for eons, land, resources, survival. Religion simply bands them together, creates the community that I was discussing.
3) Yes, you ARE trying to disprove people's beliefs. You are not having this discussion in order to decide something internally, you have already decided. Is there anything, literally, any explanation that would change your mind? Of course people can still believe how they choose, but that doesn't mean you aren't attempting to disprove what they claim. Again, you prove it by calling it foolish. If you are interested in simply learning about their beliefs and challenging them, calling it foolish should be one of the obvious no-nos, as it serves absolutely no purpose other than to satisfy yourself.
Yes, if you discus it with mother theresa herself. If you simply claim that it is true of all "believers" you have started from a false and insulting premise.
Sure, if you have somebody who has made a specific claim like, "There is no point in medicine, because God will protect me," then by ALL MEANS question and ridicule them when you catch then in the waiting room of your family practitioner. But questioning all "believers" about it is not a "good question" by any stretch.
It wouldn't be any different than asking this, "Why do Christians all hate gays when Jesus tells them to love." A pointless, overbroad and ignorant question to begin with, something that you would read popping up on your idiot friend's facebook. Asking it about someone who believes that very thing (that they must hate gays AND that Jesus tells them to love) may be a good question.
A person controlling an ant farm doesn't, but a God controlling it does, you missed the point. I laid out my argument pretty clearly. Your objections have already been addressed.
No, you only say so because you believe you objectively decide what that god must do/not do, which is absurd.
Is your theory (as in not that of any christian denomination) that if there is a god he is literally manipulating every single thing at every single moment? Down to the atom?
Great! The correct religion died out centuries ago so now we're all going to hell!
Relax man, I'm being facetious. It's a joke. Kind of.
In what you are discussing, this is entirely possible.
Man has great ego, to believe that we not only understand the workings of a supreme being, but also that we would have any control over him. But as i said, just because man has great ego it doesn't make him wrong.
