Why do you think we "need God for a sense of moral purpose", or purpose at all, in life? This is not beautiful enough, the love you feel from those closest to you or the simple, yet constant flow of oxygen from the trees around you, or the mere fact that the Sun exists and regulates the constant state of life on Earth as we know it? There is more purpose to life than merely what we choose to assign to it?
I am not a fan of my every thought and action having infinite weight. I think that's a horrible concept to teach your children. I think it's an even worse trait to carry with you into adulthood. Why that is can't be answered simply. The main reason I am not comfortable with it reminds me something of Minority Report and has been also echoed by prominent atheists like Christopher Hitchens. The basic principle being God can also punish you by your mere thoughts. not just actions. Whether you can control them or not. The Catholic practice of confession early on made me immediately question the concept, and premise of it.
At what point does pre-disposition and free will's line blur? Where is God's plan and how precisely am I to somehow telepathically reach it or understand it? That is a question for believers. For non-believers or agnostics, do you "believe everything happens for a reason?" That goes for believers as well though. A child dying in the womb, or a 5 year old British Boy being murdered by Islamic Terrorists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxor_massacre) would require a pretty elaborate sit down with the ol' creator to see how something so horrid fits into any kind of big picture. I know if I were that kid heaven had better have a pretty fucking serious ball-pit and all the Happy Meals I could eat.
The answer being in the Holy Bible as to how one can adapt to God's "plan for us all" is to immediately surrender to story, allegory, meander through word problem after word problem, and try to find hidden meanings. Have you ever had a discussion with the casual Christian? Or, a local music show? There is not exactly a culture of cryptology fanboys or critical thinkers in either. So to say that we are supposed to search with in ourselves to reach it and communicate with god is in the most practical of essence, to communicate nothing. Furthermore, those Bible experts had ought to start doing a better job of transcribing the Hebrew gibberish spewed upon it's controlling pages so that this hierarchy of the holy can properly organize in the afterlife because clearly someone is going to get it better than the other guy.
Hearing God's voice or feeling his presence to myself, only affirms that your body knows it exists and certain pleasure centers are functioning normally. To loosely quote, "that's not God talking, that's you, thinking".
I'll give a response on the question of free will and pre-disposition. As a Christian who gets the bulk of his beliefs from the Bible, it's my view that we all have free will over our actions and the best affirmation of this belief for me comes from the story of Adam & Eve and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
ReplyDeleteAdam and Eve were created without that knowledge but were given the means through their own actions to obtain it. Eve chose to listen to the serpent, she chose to eat the fruit, she chose to persuade Adam to eat the fruit, who in turn also chose to eat it. There was no high fence around the tree. It wasn't guarded by bears and lions. It was there, with a simple instruction from God not to eat of it.
Conversely, it wasn't the only tree around. In fact God had placed them in a GARDEN, whose description can only lend me to believe this tree was one of several, hundreds maybe. Maybe even thousands. They could have chosen to never eat of it and lived comfortably without any want of food. I can't think of a better description of a free will experiment than the very first story found in the Bible, which is also very telling in my opinion. Chapter one, first story, boom. Let's discuss free will.
This of course leads to another question: Did God know that Eve would eat of the tree? I personally, as a Christian, believe that he did. But I don't believe she was forced to eat it, or not to eat it. I only believe that God knew what the outcome would be. I'll try to tackle more of your post later.
What sect of Christianity takes THAT story literally? That is a terrifying prospect, Josh.
ReplyDeleteI'll try to give a response to the first question of your post now.
ReplyDelete"Why do we need God for a sense of moral purpose?"
We don't. A simple exercise in reason should alone be enough to conclude if everyone treated everyone else well, then everyone would treat YOU well, and everyone would be treated well by everyone.
Utopia.
What I do believe we need God for (speaking as a Christian) is to understand the full truth of our purpose, not just on earth, which is a finite material plane, but on the greater plane of existence as a whole.
As far as your statement about God punishing us for thoughts we have, as well as our actions, I'd like to say that many many times Christ in the Bible, and God as well acknowledge that we are all sinners, we are imperfect. This is a statement toward how we act, but it is also very much a statement toward what we ARE. My belief is that God knows each of us well enough to judge us fairly and patiently. Not only is he fair and patient (in my view), he's also a big proponent of forgiveness. So, for me, worrying about whether or not I'll be punished for that seedy thought about my cousin that popped into my head last Tuesday at 2:30 pm when the girl in the short skirt who could easily be her twin walked by-- worrying about that doesn't keep me awake at night.
Why would God willingly re-create a similar race of people to worship a similar but more fundamentally angry and pious religion (Islam) but then willfully attempt to smite them hundreds of years ago, instilling the hatred still visible today in our current trouble with the Middle East. Presuming you're American of course.
ReplyDeleteThe "why" question really almost should begin why your god has a biological gender identity, how the heck does that not just speak to the pro-male dominated societies we see in every major religion, political office and corporate pay scale? It's unjust to women but I know to strict Christians, they are baby factories and nurturers and not much else. Interesting lot in life.
Tree, you don't have to take the story literally to get an implied sense of there being free will in people.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the question of why would God make muslims, which I think is what you're asking, he didn't make muslims. Just as he didn't make Christians. He makes human beings and then allows to believe what we want to believe.
I refer to God as "he" just for the sake of conversation. God to me does not have a physical being unless it would manifest itself in some form on Earth. You can think of God as a woman if you'd like, but that wouldn't be correct either.
The only thing more pathetic than a religious person, is one who thinks they are not religious but in fact is. For example, tree. The question of morality, is the give away. Morality is for relious folks, strict property of religion. Hands off if you're not religious. In all of science and reason, there is absolutely no evidence that morality exists. People who cling to these religious questions are pathetic. You can recite all the wretched poems about blue skies butterflies and sunbeams, but these things have been shown to be automated physical chemical reactions that occur for no reason and will evolve. There is no beauty, no significance, no purpose, no structure. There is only human delusion. And like I said, I can respect a religious person admitting their beliefs are only illusory, but someone who pretends to have no beliefs and then babbles on questioning morality and purpose and reason... retarded. Ooh, your little girlfriend makes you happy, let me spend a moment being filled with inspiration and hope that she is nothing more than a sack of animated meat. Done.
ReplyDeleteSo do you live your life accordingly then in humanist? Are you a totally joyless person who pushes all love away and tells everyone that everything they are feeling is a delusion constantly? I guarantee you are just like all the rest of us it's whats not said thats important. If you can't figure out what I mean I don't really care.
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