Do you believe in God?

"He who obeys does not listen to himself." -- Nietzsche

And a system of morality which espouses total obedience is in fact immoral in the extreme. "But our authority is omniscient and all good, " goes the misled believer. And what if that authority is a fiction, a fiction created by ancient, barbaric man in his own image.

God is for killing homosexuals? How convenient. God is for genociding our neighboring people? How convenient. God is for stoning non-virginal brides? How convenient. And of course, he isn't for stoning non-virginal men, no mention of that.

I wonder who devised this god.

"You shall have no other gods before me, " is kind of a veiled confession that the gods are made up. I mean, the religion is a monotheism claiming there is only one god, yet it is concerned about these other "competing" gods. This can only be so if all the gods are made up, are kind of tulpas, and this one is having words put in its mouth about those competing gods, of which there can't REALLY be any because there is only one god. It makes no sense to have this "no other gods before me" clause unless it is to address competing gods, which can't be real even under the doctrine of the religion.

I.e. ... "We are all playing a god game here, and we are claiming ours has dominion over yours."

Babies and fetuses do not deserve damnation. Get out of here with that garbage.

"It is my belief in an Iron Age war god that defines my morality, my cosmology, and my metaphysics. Amen." -- the true believer's creed.

What is it that one is really mourning when a loved one dies? Well, if I believe they are going to a better place, a perfect place, yet I mourn their passing, it must be all about me that I am mourning, that is, that they are no longer with me in my life.

Their idea of paradise combined with their dread and mourning of death makes the practice false on its face, that is, it is exposed as massive dissonance in action. Not a coherent belief system, but a fanciful one not actually practiced, or even believed.

I once argued this last point with a Freudian analyst, who was no fool. She kept citing how adamant the believers are, and how often she witnessed this in her practice. But I chalk that up to Shakespeare's "Methinks they doth protest too much, " which is to say, the more vociferously they profess it, the less sincere it actually is. It amounts to a reaction formation against death, as in, "the more aggressively I insist on my belief the more its opposite is true." And I think she somehow was missing that point.

"Religions are a protection against the experience of god." ~ Jung.

Religions certainly, or at least mostly, are attempts to fulfill the spiritual aspect of human consciousness. But they tend to do it in a veiled, surrogate, by proxy type of way that sidesteps oneself, this world, reality. Magical myths are preferred over stark realities, and all manners of things which do not meet ordinary reality testing are grandfathered into modern worldviews. Most often, in fact, such chimerical doctrine elements are gratuitously lathered on forming the entire foundation of the doctrine, this as escape from reality rather than an explanation of it.

To the extent religion is doing this, it is still a form of spirituality, but, as with everything, there are levels. At a deeper level than simply toeing the line as to what ancient barbarians believed, there is the gnostic journey of searching for spiritual meaning, as opposed to this ceding it to myth-makers and pre-medieval orthodoxes.

A friend high limit poker player who was a mocking, sneering type of atheist, seems to have converted somewhat to Christianity, based on world events, Armageddon and Anti-Christ stuff. I mean he has it all figured out, who the Anti-Christ is and everything. I didn't like his mocking attitude as an atheist ... I don't mock the religion near as much as I attack lying ass apologetics. But anyway, he's become convinced of all the conspiracy stuff around "end times" world events.

Meh. Although its interesting, religious adherents trying to force their worldview into coming true is different than any providence of an actual god. Again, it's just human behavior plying the religion. Big difference.

Religion is a plus in the absence of scientific knowledge about nature. It can also be a plus in a scientific culture, given that it isn't taken literally as a metaphysics, taken literally to the extent that it overrules, negates, denies reality. In milder forms, less extremist forms, it can be both an artistic interpretation on life (i.e. "not literal"), and also crucially, a tribute regarding a sentiment of the sacredness of life.

That last part in particular is beautiful. But when it gets to the point of "And your babies are evil because someone didn't listen to me thousands of years ago" ... then it has way, way crossed the line from appreciation of life to barbaric, immoral, crazy doctrine. Consider that: "They didn't listen to me, didn't mind me. I'm gonna kill'em, gonna burn'em in hell ..."

Perfect love? Perfect righteousness? Maybe, just maybe ... such thoughts of ancient, pre-medieval barbaric societies are NOT actually the rules of morality for the universe. Maybe, just maybe ... they are just another religion, and a very, very corrupt one at that. And maybe being tricked into the grasp of its indoctrination so that we cannot call a spade a bloody shovel within the religion, leaves us on immoral ground.

This is a great, brief interview on Closer to Truth about meaning of/in life. To conflate "There is no meaning written in the sky or handed to us (by a god, whichever one you prefer)" with "therefore there is no meaning" is a very wayward mistake.

You have to work for it and find/create your own meaning according to your own values ... this idea is positive and heroic.

"Does the Cosmos Have a Reason?" episode of Closer to Truth podcast. (There is also a "Can the Cosmos Have a Reason?" episode.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9ZITShp3fE

If a religious book says there will be an Armageddon, and things begin to shape up like that at the hands of some religious zealots, that doesn't make the religion true or prophetic any more than if you order a medium-rare steak and it comes medium-rare. People are just conspiring to bring it to pass. They can make it happen sans any god. So don't be fooled by eerie end time scenarios.

Imagine thinking that killing all the infants and fetuses on earth because someone didn't listen to you is perfect love. Only indoctrination can do that ... which is the reflex regurgitation of whatever the doctrine says with no actual assessment of its contents.

Of course many of us have done just that, but a lifetime without assessing our beliefs is hardly admirable.

Jesus is the only true king

When a religion has in its doctrine some version of, "If you believe this religion (and maybe jump thru a hoop or two), you will go to heaven ... and if you don't believe you will go to hell, " once its done that, simply believing overrules all, epistemology is thrown under the bus in service of the belief, reality gets sacrificed, and the believer is primed to do anything the religion prescribes, as modern current events demonstrates.

Why is Craig listed as banned?

Why does fellagaga get free rein here?

Craig was banned in another forum.

Everyone has free rein here ftmp.

All of the religions are attempting to connect with/understand Source (whatever that is). Blind, exclusive faith in any one doctrine is in effect to deny The Great Mystery (it bluffs that you, or some pre-medieval system of belief, had the final answer). Faith of this kind isn't virtue, but vice. It's a great religion builder, a great manipulation to garner market share ... but it blinds one to the gnostic path. So the idea that formalized, rubber stamped dogma and doctrine is a usurper of meaning holds true.

This both legitimizes various religions as part of the perennial philosophy, and delegitimizes them as the "final answer." If the purpose of the religion is to "be in the holy club, and to establish the heathen 'other'", then the fundamentalist view and practice is the ticket.

Hold my beer

When the Allegory Becomes Literalized

When the age old legend of the miracle working, virgin birthed, healer, everlasting life giving savior, ubiquitous in the times, was claimed as historical. This cult of literalists broke away from, rivaled, and eventually overcame and vanquished the gnostics with the sales pitch that their story wasn't a fable, wasn't a myth, but was actually about a historical person who walked among them.

Some emperor's dying mum joined the fledgling cult, and the emperor soon made it the official religion of the kingdom. "Know thyself" and the "Christ within" ideas became magicalized, mythicized, literalized, etc. into supernatural internal indwelling ghosts (ghosts and demons being popularly believed in at the time).

The stage was set for a gullible, ignorant, superstitious populous of the day to be awed and mesmerized by this new magic claim. And it was off and running ... another religion, this one with a twist, sort of a reification of the old mythology. To believe that then was one thing, given all the cultural factors, to believe it thousands of years later is merely not examining the history or the reality testing of its doctrine. And that is mere Christianity. CS Lewis was a transparently manipulative apologist wielding the same folklore as history.

Anyway, the whole thing became a tradition, nothing more, like all the other religions. The modern, informed, reality respecting approach is to study the myths, the legends, the traditions ... and see what can be gleaned.

Check out a documentary about North Korea. Everywhere the leader goes, there is constant clapping by all the citizenry, including when his limo motorcade is driving, the streets are lined with people cheering and clapping. It's obscene and nauseating to witness.

According to the Christian doctrine, this is what the one true god wants from us as well: constant adulation, praise, and worship. So we need to ask ourselves what is up with that -- the obscene vanity and glory-seeking of such people and of god. Hmm. Of course we can't really pin it on god, it's the people who created "him" who are the culprits, those who are in line with this state of affairs.

And in both cases it's the same penalty of death if you don't do it.

Lots of conflating god with religion in this thread. The idea of "believing" in god is silly to me. Believing is for Santa, Easter bunny and flush draws. I know and experience god every moment of everyday.

Oh, you solved it. How did that come about? Tell us about experiencing god "every moment of every day." (I'll go out on a limb and predict you can't provide anything impressive, convincing, or even interesting about even one second of one day in that regard. As always, I'm eager to be proven wrong.)

As expected there is absolutely nothing in defense of the "I'm experiencing god in every minute" claim. It's nothing more than a narrative in one's head ... "God did that, God did that, God did that for me ..." etc. And it's a tulpa ... a mental companion created by focusing one's imagination on it to the point where it becomes an entity in one's head.

If it's more than that in these instances where it is being claimed, the detail on the experience would not be zero, zero, zero, zero, zero ... in a thousand different cases. "God found me a parking space, god saved my uncle from his heart attack, god saved my house from the fire."

What I'm doing is soliciting testimony that isn't bullshyt. Because it matters.