Whispers

It is claimed on this forum, with all the passion of absolute truth, "that religion has caused more suffering, than it has relieved"....ok, who can say? How do we know this? How do we actually know, or is this just a formula that is sputtered out regularly as part of the atheists armoury? PROVE it to me......I dare you...

So there is no meaning to anything, other than what we assign it? There is no worth, other than what we deem to be worthy. My eleven month old son may not have worth or meaning to an individual, but would it be okay if that individual killed him? If it is not okay, why not? Purely because I say so, because you say so? If the individual thinks the baby has no worth, then he is doing no wrong.....or is he? Is it okay to kill a baby in cold blood? Yes or no? can you explain why you can say no, if the only thing to judge the morality of the question, is that particular individuals beliefs on the issue...

Someone said that religion can help to make it easier to dispose of others that are not deemed worthy. I am not sure I follow this...surely if in the eyes of god, we are all worthy, then this case falls flat?

It was also stated by someone earlier in this thread , that somewhere back in the past non-life became life....okay, prove that to me....do you have proof? If not, then it is just as likely as any other potential happening....somewhere back in the past, *something* happened and millions of years later sentient beings converse and debate on a forum about what that something was....not one of the sentient beings know for definite....not a one of them.....and yet some of them KNOW that there is no god that did it......some of them find the need to make derisory comments to those believers that offer a potential answer to the non-life becoming life question......some sit on the forum and regularly tell others that they are wrong, they are in illusion, they believe because they need to believe, and on and on and on.....and yet....they have no answers themselves for us to consider, debate and pick apart. They sit there confident in the knowledge that there position cannot be challenged, because they do not actually have a position to challenge....they don’t know....

If you are not sure about the existence of a God, then there is no need to shout down those that believe, or is there?
If you definitely don’t believe in God, but have no answers yourself to the mysteries of existence, then why feel so cocky about discounting another's potential answers to these subjects. What is it that drives you to take delight in breaking down another's hope that there is more to life than this? If there is nothing at all after life, than it is fine to believe, because at least there was hope of more....and for some, that is very important.

If there is no absolute truth, than saying that there is no absolute truth is a fallacy....isn't it?

I do not wish to offend by what I say, but I am shocked at how cold and emotionless some of you seem....lets debate this further...

pariah

Just to comment on the original subject...

Why are buddist monks generally happier than others ( I beleive the study compared dopamine levels in buddist monks brains to that of other religions )? Why do we see such strange changes in buddist bodies when they enter their state of enlightenment and whatnot (documented abnormal changes).

Could it be because buddism is really true? Could it be that enlightenment is possible?

Or is it that they have brainwashed themselves so much that their body actually starts to beleive it? Same applies to christians and their comfort from beleiving in God.

scumble

Whispers, you forget that humans are not governed by abstract concepts. You won't kill your son because your body ought to revolt against it, any more than I could kill my sister. Most of us should have a kind of reproductive guard, or we wouldn't survive, especially as our babies usually come one at a time.

Going off on this "how do we know how to not kill our mothers?" trip ignores the fact that most humans don't do such things. Under normal cirumstances most humans cannot kill another human, indeed, it doesn't even cross their minds. One doesn't constantly say to oneself "I must remember not to kill people" to avoid committing terrible acts.

Even if unpleasant thoughts do occur, they go away due to mental revulsion. Your admission that you don't know how you don't manage to kill your son shows you haven't really thought about it.

You can add God on this if you like, but it's far simpler to think of it being inherent to humanity. We just have to know ourselves well to progress.

Because it's always been more than that - many believers think we are less worthy than them, and it's insulting. Preachers denounce us, so we're likely to employ our own methods to counter the invective. We woundn't need to worry if many believers weren't trying to claim morality for themselves.

Stephen T-B

There is a substantial difference between the requirements of the person who needs to believe in gods and an after life and the person who doesn’t.

Whispers, I think, put his finger on it when he wrote that he is shocked at “how cold and emotionless some of you seem.”

The truth is, I am not emotionless, nor am I cold, but there is something about my outlook on life which fits that description. I would say I am a hard-line realist. I do not need comforting myths to make life seem nicer than it is: life isn’t nice; it isn’t nasty. It’s Life , and sometimes events coincide which make things good and sometimes they coincide which make them bad. Recognition of this fact is as old as the expression “blind Fate.”
If you play three-card brag, as I used to, you will know that a random arrangement of cards dealt to you may allow you to win a small fortune or allow you to lose a small fortune - or perhaps not to win or lose anything.; I have played for several hours and steadily lost small amounts throughout that time, and come away feeling quite depressed, with a sense of inadequacy; another occasion I may have won steadily, and come away with a small feeling of elation, and a sense of achievement.
Did a god do this for me?
No more than a god makes my daily life good or bad.
Now, it happens that I am content with the notion that I am in the hands of Chance - of Blind Fate. I am happy with the notion that I am not charged by some Higher Being with a purpose,; that when I die, I die as completely as does a mussel on the sea shore. I am happy with the notion that a lesser body in space will inevitably orbit a greater one; that an apple will inevitably fall to the ground; that life on this planet emerged as a result of chemicals inevitably coming together and being arranged in an inevitable manner - inevitable under the peculiar circumstances which prevailed when the Earth was perhaps only a few million years - which resulted in inevitable replication; I am happy with the notion that this first step towards life inevitably led to exponentially increasing complexity of which I am a product.
I am happy with the notion that Life is an inevitable as the formation of mountains, of planets, of stars, of galaxies, and that no external and mysterious agency is responsible for any of these things; I am happy with the notion that increasing knowledge will explain more and more about how Life originated, and am happy with the notion that Life on this planet will inevitably disappear and the sun go cold.

I know that Whispers is not happy with any single one of these notions; that is how we are different.
He asks “What is it that drives you to take delight in breaking down another's hope that there is more to life than this?”

Is it delight?
I perceive self-delusion, which I think thrives in an environment of wilful ignorance and nurtured superstitions, and which induces a flight from reality into a real of myths.
I don’t think any of those things will deliver human beings from disease, poverty or starvation. I think that coming to terms with reality may help us to.

Whispers

It is probably my fault that you have misunderstood me =)

What I was trying to get to, is the hypotheitical situation where a stranger wants to kill my baby son. If there is no absoloute moral law, is there ANY reason that he shouldnt? Does it come down to what I think, you think, the majority thinks? What about what he thinks? What about if in the future, the majority think its okay to kill babies providing your tax rate is 10% higher. I know its a ridiculous idea, but if the majority said it was right, would it be right? How do we know when something is right morally speaking? What is it we listen to? The voices of our parents, forever dwelling in our psyche? Do we just guess? If we are just guessing, than there is no right and wrong, and everything is allowed.....EVERYTHING...

QUOTE---Because it's always been more than that - many believers think we are less worthy than them, and it's insulting. Preachers denounce us, so we're likely to employ our own methods to counter the invective. We woundn't need to worry if many believers weren't trying to claim morality for themselves

Many so called Christians have alienated their brothers and sisters, because of inappropriate comments or judgements on their part...Many Christians are kind and good people. Why do you need to counter a claim that you believe to be totally false? Should I claim that fairies regularly ate my cats food right out of the dish, how long would you wish to debate it with me? Probably not, and that is because the questions and the debate do not lead to any kind of meaning, whereas this one may...

Whispers

quote---No more than a god makes my daily life good or bad.

Reply---I agree, it is your choices that make your day good or bad. I wonder if God just gives us the option to choose?

quote---Now, it happens that I am content with the notion that I am in the hands of Chance - of Blind Fate. I am happy with the notion that I am not charged by some Higher Being with a purpose,; that when I die, I die as completely as does a mussel on the sea shore.

reply---as you can tell i do not feel like that. i dont believe that we are just a fluke of chemicals coming together millions of years ago. do you REALLY believe in your heart that you are just chemicals stuck together in the right formula? Have you no conscience or divinity? how did self aware beings just come out of the primeval soup? I know that not understanding, does not dissprove the possibility, but......c'mon man......just total chance?

quote---I am happy with the notion that a lesser body in space will inevitably orbit a greater one; that an apple will inevitably fall to the ground; that life on this planet emerged as a result of chemicals inevitably coming together and being arranged in an inevitable manner - inevitable under the peculiar circumstances which prevailed when the Earth was perhaps only a few million years - which resulted in inevitable replication; I am happy with the notion that this first step towards life inevitably led to exponentially increasing complexity of which I am a product.

reply---why are you happy with this? not knocking you, just curious? there are a lot of missing spaces in how non-life turned to life? can you enlighten me, in how you can be happy with something you cannot explain? are you actually saying that you are happy not knowing, because that is another matter entirely? if you can explain it to me, i would be glad to hear...

quote---I don’t think any of those things will deliver human beings from disease, poverty or starvation. I think that coming to terms with reality may help us to.

reply---i agree. i just disagree with your version of reality. tell me, has science led to a decrease in starvation, hunger, war, disease, loneliness, divorce, hatred?

Has it given us the Nuclear bomb, airborne germ warfare, cloning, experimentaion?

You see, followers of religion have caused huge suffering and i agree with this, but so have followers and practitoners of science and the sciences. both have hurt us, both have helped us.

We both have made decisions....

I beleive that there is more than has been discovered and so do you. But you wait to the men of science to give you answers because you cannot believe they exist outside the provable.

I look to the divine and the answers held there, as well as to the men of science. In our own way, we both are looking for definite answers dont you think?

I cannot prove to you that my wife loves me. But she does. proof is not everything. faith and trust MUST play a part in our lives to some degree...

Whispers

I suspect they are happy because they are leading Godly lives.

They have renounced attachment to the senses, they work to remove craving, and they partake of the vows of refraining from harm, sexcual misconduct, false speech, intoxicants and taking that which is not given freely. These are all Godly qualities in my mind...

DMB

The trouble is, Whispers, that I can't see any essential difference between the two claims, except that by careful observation it would be possible to prove or disprove the claim about who eats the cat's food, whereas centuries of claims on behalf of various religions have left us no nearer any hard evidence.

In your OP you were apparently suggesting that beliefs that lead people to make significant change in their lives might therefore be true. I am 63 and have made a number of significant changes in my lifetime and I didn't need religion to prod me into it. Religion may indeed be one cause of people changing their lives, but it's not the only one, nor do the changes validate whatever beliefs the people may hold.
This is known as the argument from personal incredulity. As far as I am aware, no-one is claiming that any sort of self-aware beings stepped out from primaeval soup. Most of us would support evolution. If you want to argue about that, there is a forum for it.
When it comes down to it, religious adherents can't explain very much about the dogma of their faiths. That doesn't stop them from believing it fervently, whether it makes sense or not.
Well religion certainly hasn't; it has poured fuel on the flames. It is not a direct object of science to do the things you list. Science is about discovering reliable knowledge. Nevertheless, the fact that so many of us in the technologically advanced nations no longer die off by the time we are 40, no longer suffer torments from diseases that can now be cured or protected against and in general enjoy an enormously better standard of living than the ultra-religious witch-hunters of Salem (to take but one example) has a lot to do with science. Even in the pooreer countries, people are living longer. The world would not have been able to support its current population without scientific advances in crop development. Perhaps you should count your blessings .

Stephen T-B

If moral principles are based on the precept of Do As You Would Be Done By (From The Water Babies) they do not alter because we all want to be treated kindly, honestly and with justice.
This is the "Golden Rule," which has evolved in very many cultures around the world; it is a result of socialisation. It's the "You-scratch-my-back-and-I'll-scratch-your-back" principle of mutual cooperation and support within a community, and is seen in elemental form among other social animals such as wolves and meercats.
Morality based on Scripture is far less reliable because it depends on how the Scripture is interpreted. Thus Christian communities which have embraced capitalism sanction the sin of Usury, without which capitalism could never have come in to existence.
Historians, I think, could point you to other "sins" which modern Christians commit on a daily basis and which Christians of 100 years ago or more would have been careful to avoid, for fear of going to hell.

Vylo

Could it be these people had the capacity to do those things, and just needed something to focus on, fictitious or not?