To the believers...

[PedroPonyLikesCrisps]

How does one justify to themselves belief in a supernatural being with literally no hard evidence? This is something I just don't understand. Without the assumption of a god or gods, we are able to explain pretty much everything in the Universe and even those yet-to-be-answered questions are being gradually chipped away at without any need for a deity.

So what makes people believe in a god? Is it fear, conditioning, laziness? Theories of the supernatural were our first attempts at understanding the world (big yellow disc moves across the sky, don't know what it is, maybe a god carries it around up there). You could say they were humankind's first attempt at scientific reasoning. But we've moved on from these archaic theories now and we can explain all these things we couldn't before, yet for some reason, religions live on and people continue to think that some guy lives upstairs and watches over us even though there's no rational way to argue his existence.

Do Christians think Muslims are insane for their differing beliefs? Does anyone still believe in the Greek or Roman gods anymore? Do the religious find Scientology to be just another religion or does anyone else see the the words 'cult' and 'religion' are pretty much interchangable?

Discuss!!

niminy I asked you how you knew your god was the right god to which you replied: because, HeadinHands, there's only one God. It's not like I looked at all available gods and decided he had the edge. There's only one to choose from. I think he's the God that Muslims, Hindus, and everybody else is worshipping under the names they have for him.

And I then asked why did Jesus say he was the only way to god if thats not the case and why was god killing iff people that worshipped other gods in the OT and you replied God didn't write the books: we did.

I'm having trouble understanding how you can accept that all religions lead to the same god if you hold any stock in the biblical resurrection. You obviously manage to though so how is that? Either Jesus was mistaken or you are? You can't both be right?

"I know this is a bit pedantic, but I only listed 6 titles. This suggests to me that you are not reading my posts very carefully."

You actually listed 7 books, not 6. (Look in your 3rd paragraph for the 1st book.)

Or maybe we should stop nitpicking and concentrate on things that matter.

"You would find, were you to read them, that the people who wrote them met God in all sorts of ways"

.... which you can quickly summarise if you would like us to know about them. It is unreasonable to expect people to read seven books just so they understand what you want to say (but won't).

"Science (or scientific method, if you like) is good at answering questions about what the world is like, but it is not good at answering second-order questions about the significance of what it finds out."

I'm not sure what you mean by that. Surely the significance of something or other is different according to each person, unless we are talking about relevance, which science answers very well.

"The idea that it could do this was termed the 'naturalistic fallacy' by the philosopher GE Moore. This could be summarised as 'you cannot derive an 'ought' from an 'is''."

Naturalistic fallacy isn't about science being inadequate at all. You are talking about a philosophical question, and nobody is claiming that scientific thinking should be used to answer philosophical questions - if it were, than there would be no debate in philosophy.

And I have no idea why we are talking about philosophy because religious faith has nothing to do with any of this. It is perfectly possible and even desirable to avoid any reference to religion when talking about philosophical subjects.

"I came to believe Jesus rose from the dead because I can't see that any other explanation makes sense of what came after."

Have you considered the possibility that it is just a story? That it didn't actually happen that way?

"When all the other explanations have been discounted as impossible, what remains must be the truth -- however improbable it seems."

Except that none of it has been discounted because there are no actual records of what happened there. We weren't there. There were no recordings. No proof that he was dead. No proof that he was then seen alive. Nada.

"'I look for the resurrection of the dead': I hope for it."

Hope is not the same thing as reality.

Headinhands. I didn't address your point about Jesus in that post.

My view is that Jesus is the way to God for all people everywhere, in the sense that he reconciles humanity to God through his death. He does this for all people, all the time, not just for Christians. He does it for you, and for Muslims, and for devotees of Cargo Cults. He does it whether you believe in him or not. He does it whether you've ever heard of him or not. If you say, 'yah boo sucks Jesus is is a fairy tale' he still does it.

That's my belief. It isn't at all incompatible with knowing that the Bible was written by humans, or that seeing that all religions worship the one God under a multiplicity of names, or that they all have glimpses of the truth of God.

I never understood that tale. Why on earth did God need to get himself born as a man, then arrange for himself to be killed, so that he would forgive humanity's sins?

It seems so silly. Isn't it much easier for the Creator to say "I'll forgive humanity's sins"? What exactly is gained by going through that whole bloody charade which, let's be honest, also stretches credulity to its absolute limits?

Cote I did try to indicate some of the ways in which people encounter God. I'm not sure I understand why you are so upset that I listed some of the accounts people have given of their encounters with God. But:

Julian of Norwich: 'At the age of 30 and a half, suffering from a severe illness and believing she was on her deathbed, Julian had a series of intense visions of Jesus Christ. They ended by the time she recovered from her illness on 13 May 1373.' Julian had sixteen visions of Christ which are recounted in Revelations of Divine Love.

That's a concrete example for you.

The reason we are talking about philosophy (and philosophy and theology do have many common areas of interest, for example ontology and ethics) is because I was trying to explain that while science is very good at answering some kinds of questions, it is useless for others. So, 'how did the universe take the form that it now has?' is an example of a question that can be answered by science. 'What is the universe for?' (a second-order question arising from the first, and about the significance of the first) is one that cannot. Solipsism (one's own personal response is enough to determine the significance of events) leads to all kinds of problems -- ones that we have to use non-scientific discourses to talk about.

Yes, I have considered the possibility that the resurrection is a story. But along with all serious scholars in the field, I regard the existence and death of Jesus to be a certainty.

Hope is not reality. Hope transfigures reality.

Cote

it seems so silly

I agree totally - but did you realise you are quoting (or echoing) the Bible almost word for word? : But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 1 Corinthians 1:27

What makes you think I'm upset? We are having a calm little conversation. Why would I be upset?

"Julian of Norwich"

Some time in the 14th century, a very sick man possibly got a bit delirious and saw Jesus. Then he got better. If this is the kind of "experience", I'm afraid I don't think it is very credible as evidence to Jesus being God and God having visited him and made him better.

"The reason we are talking about philosophy (and philosophy and theology do have many common areas of interest, for example ontology and ethics)"

They might have common areas of interest, but philosophy doesn't need religion. So why are we talking about this, if you are trying to show that we need religion to answer questions that don't concern scientific method?

"'What is the universe for?' (a second-order question arising from the first, and about the significance of the first) is one that cannot [be answered by science]"

The universe doesn't have to be for anything, so that is a strange question. Like "What is Uranus for?". I think you would only ask that sort of question if you want to hear "Because we are all loved by God and he created the Universe to house us".

"Yes, I have considered the possibility that the resurrection is a story."

And? Isn't that more probable than God having come to earth born as a human, than killed himself to prove something to people, and then resurrected that poor human shell to prove something else?

Even if the person named Jesus was left for dead and then rose later, isn't it far more probable that they just thought he was dead? You know, like several people per year are taken to morgue and even given death certificates by doctors, who then get up and walk?

"Hope is not reality. Hope transfigures reality."

I lost two friends to cancer. One was at university. Oh how they hoped, but that hope didn't transform their reality

Do you really think that millions who die of terrible illnesses every year do so because they don't have hope?

I wonder why Jesus doesn't come to them in a vision and save them. Maybe because we live in the 21st century, and any such claims of seeing Jesus and getting all better are not as easy to pull off.

town - I don't think that quote is talking about God doing silly things himself.

If decades of such conversations with the faithful have shown me one thing, it is that there is no way to put doubt in the mind of someone who can say stuff like "God moves in mysterious ways", so I'm not even trying to do that.

All I am saying is that the whole story doesn't make one bit of sense. God himself got born as a boy, then arranged stuff to get himself die a gruesome and painful death, so that he would forgive mankind's sins. Err... what? Why?

You sound a little bit upset, that's all. If you're not, fine. Your prose style probably just makes you sound spluttery and hyperbolic and a bit agitated.

I must go to work, so can't answer all your points. But just on a point of fact, Julian was a woman, not a man. She didn't claim that her visions of Jesus cured her. They are what she called them, revelations of divine love.

I can assure you that I am neither spluttery nor agitated

If you see hyperbole in any of my posts, please kindly point them out.

"She didn't claim that her visions of Jesus cured her"

But that is what people writing books are claiming centuries later, isn't it?

Or what exactly is the point of saying "She was in her death bed, then saw visions of Jesus, and healed"?

There's also the question of "Who gets to define sin?" The bible has several things listed as sins, and then there are some sins which are modern-day inventions. Is taking contraception a sin? How about sex outside of marriage? The Catholic Church says yes, the Church of England says maybe. Everybody with any morals, regardless of theism, thinks cold-blooded murder is a sin. So if Jesus is dying for sins which ones is he dying for?

Hi Cote

I've just been to the website of the BHA, and find myself in agreement with most of their aims and aspirations. I have seen - on this and similar threads - statements by humanists, secularists etc that they are perfectly happy and content with their world view etc etc. Not a problem to me at all.

The puzzle to me is that you, and your cohort, keep coming back to threads like this with questions and challenges. It is as though there was an itch which just would not go away .....

Since you don't have time to read many more books, may I just assist by quoting a few words of the Humanist 'prophet' Julian Huxley in a visionary 1951 BBC Radio series Evolution in Action (Kindle edition not yet available)?:

" .... the highest and most sacred duty of man is seen as the proper utilisation of the untapped resources of human beings."

"The greatest opportunities ..... would seem to lie in applying scientific method to the exploration of man's inner life. The experiences of the mystics of all creeds and of the practitioners of Yoga prove [sic - my emphasis] what transcendental states of inner peace and unity of spirit the human personality is capable of.

"The systematic study of these possibilities of spiritual development would hold out the hope of devising techniques for making them more generally attainable."

" .... freedom of thought and enquiry and creative expression are necessary prerequisites for anything that we can consider as a full human life or as a social advance."

And finally (for now):

" .... evolutionary humanism, it seems to me, is capable of becoming the germ of a new religion [italics mine] , not necessarily supplanting existing religions but supplementing them.

"It remains to see how this germ could be developed - to work out its intellectual framework, to see how its ideas could be made inspiring, to ensure their wide diffusion.

"Above all, it would be necessary to justify ideas by facts - to find the areas of frustration and point out where they were being reduced; to show how research into human possibilities was providing new incentives for their realisation, as well as demonstrating the means for realising them.

62 years on, it would be interesting to hear from those who know, how this research is proceeding.

I'm off to finish my re-reading of Brave New World.

Cote, most people who are interested in Julian of Norwich are interested in her visions (or 'showings' as she called them), and her position wrt the church as a woman. She is a powerfully authoritative religious person, but what gives her her authority is the content of her visionary experiences. If you're not interested in her, so be it; but don't assume what others, who are interested in her, are saying about her.

Cote, the reason we were talking about second-order questions, and I looked back to the thread for this, was because yesterday evening you said:

"I actually said in the post you reply to that science may not have all the answers now but there is no reason to believe that it won't one day soon". I've been trying to suggest that it is mistaking the parameters of scientific inquiry to believe that science will one day have all the answers.

I don't think having hope will change the course of a disease like cancer. I do think hope can transfigure the reality of having the disease. I think hope can transform how we live our precious life. As the Christian Aid slogan has it, 'I believe in life before death'.

It's not very likely that they just thought he was dead, though, given that he was crucified. That's the kind of thing that really does kill you. It's not like going into a coma. The simplest explanation is still the best one: he died and then he came back to life.

The incarnation (God becoming man) is the craziest, most foolish doctrine in the history of religion (and I say that knowing how that's going to be quoted). What religious group would make up a doctrine that God became man -- not just any old man, but a carpenter in a backwoods bit of the Roman empire, who not only hung around with outcasts, collaborators and the dispossessed, but then allowed himself to be put to death by the full might of the Roman state acting in concert with the elite of the local priesthood. You couldn't make it up, could you?

He didn't 'arrange for himself to die': it was done to him, by other humans who had free will. He was killed because he annoyed the hell out of them. But by willingly accepting that death, he turned back death upon itself and conquered it once for all. Sin is what divides humans from God, it is our relentless messing up, our relentless capacity to be stupid, and cruel, and hurtful, and inattentive, and lazy. Sin is when we don't do what God would want us to do, when we turn away from God. We all do it. In dying Jesus joined us back to God, opened the door for us to walk right back in and claim our inheritance as God's children.

Anyway, I mistrust this thread as it was started by someone who hasn't been heard of since the OP. It makes me feel as though we are all being used for some end, as if we are all playing out someone else's agenda. From a Pre-destination vs. free will POV, it is actually quite interesting. But I'd rather err on the side of free will, so I'm deliberately steering clear.

I have a "cohort"? Who are they?

I had to look up BHA btw. And wondered for a brief second why you thought I had anything to do with British Horseracing Authority I don't have anything to do with BHA, either, in case you're wondering.

"keep coming back to threads like this with questions and challenges. It is as though there was an itch"

We post on threads that interest us? How dare we.

Re Julian Huxley's quote, what was visionary in 1951 isn't that impressive these days. You might be interested to know that a lot has been discovered about the brain and "inner peace" since 1951. Since we are recommending books (and assuming strangers will read them), I can point you to Carl Sagan's Dragons Of Eden (published in early-1970s) and My Stroke Of Insight, where you will see that scientific method has indeed explored the states of inner peace and unity of spirit... and has found that these have to do with decreased activity of the left brain.

Since you don't have time to read many more books, may I just assist by quoting a few words of the Humanist 'prophet' Julian Huxley in a visionary 1951 BBC Radio series Evolution in Action (Kindle edition not yet available)?:

" .... evolutionary humanism, it seems to me, is capable of becoming the germ of a new religion [italics mine] , not necessarily supplanting existing religions but supplementing them."

What a bizarre thought. It is my pleasure to report that upholding rationalism & evidence against faith-based dogma has not become a new religion. Thankfully.

I'm wondering if David Icke will be revered in a couple of thousand years? After all, he definitely exists. What about the hundreds of "saints" who are carrying out miracles today? Will any of them get picked upon by history to become the new Messiah or does modern-living, modern communications (and modern cynicism) mean the Messiah-role has become defunct?

I'm also interested in who Cote's "cohort" are? Is it her fellow atheists, or just anyone (like me who is actually very religious/spiritual) who questions the beliefs of the religions of the god of Abraham?

"I've been trying to suggest that it is mistaking the parameters of scientific inquiry to believe that science will one day have all the answers."

I see where the misunderstanding has come from. When I said "science will have the answers one day", I was referring to scientific topics like electron transport chain in mitochondria that puzi was talking about, not questions like "What is good?"

"It's not very likely that they just thought he was dead, though, given that he was crucified."

They took him down from the cross, thinking he was dead, because his vital signs were gone. Or were they just so low that they couldn't be detected without electronic devices?

"The simplest explanation is still the best one: he died and then he came back to life."

Death and resurrection is not "the simplest explanation"! It is the most fanciful and convoluted one.

"You couldn't make it up, could you?"

Of course, you could. Especially if you want to convince an ignorant rabble that something exceptional and divine has taken place.

:He didn't 'arrange for himself to die': it was done to him, by other humans who had free will."

Are you saying God didn't know that he would be killed? Careful here. You don't want to mess with omniscience.

"But by willingly accepting that death, he turned back death upon itself and conquered it once for all. "

Why did God have to "conquer death"? What does "turned back death upon itself" mean?

"Sin is what divides humans from God, it is our relentless messing up, our relentless capacity to be stupid, and cruel, and hurtful, and inattentive, and lazy. Sin is when we don't do what God would want us to do"

Why do you think God created us in a way that would make everyone behave in a way God doesn't want us to?

"In dying Jesus joined us back to God, opened the door for us to walk right back in and claim our inheritance as God's children."

Was the door closed before?

What about people who lived and died before Jesus?

world - You can be my cohort, if you like. Just sign here, where it says you promise to obey me and do as I bid on all MN threads

I've devoted quite a lot of time to this thread, and it's been interesting. But I'm all argued-out now, and need to concentrate on RL work. So see you around (probably on another thread).

There are a few topics I usually get pulled into. I went through a stage of getting embroiled in debates about circumcision. Did my habit of frequently hopping in to such threads to point how unecessary and barbaric it was suggest I secretly wanted to circumcise my ds? Of course not.

HH wrote
'm not sure that the scientific community works the same way as the religious one? I don't think the scientific one makes claims without any evidence even when evidence runs to the contrary. It's not a comparison that means anything. You may as well compare it to the world of cooking? And which religious community are you referring too?

I didn't say they worked the same way, just that both involved evolving knowledge. And you could in fact make a comparison to cooking - my knowledge of how to do wiener schnitzel, for instance, changes and evolves every time I do it.

This was in response to your argument that God should have added later revealed truths to the bible.

I wasn't referring to any religious community in particular, but I would point out that in Judaism the Talmud, in RC Christianity canon law and the catechism, and in Islam the study of the Quran are understood as evolving knowledges, which will in future evolve still further. Rather like physics; we know we don't know as much now as we will in a hundred years.

Niminy I can't understand why Yahweh had such a big problem with other gods if he actually was those other gods?

sieg as you see it, what are these 'later revealed truths to the bible'?