Perchance

Good morning, seebs.

Certainly more clearly than it did when we had to discuss the Book of Job in one of my literature classes. We spent so much time on "the allegory of this" and "the allegory of that" that I never felt I understood much of what was going on.

I suppose the difference is that, in some of the discussions I've been in with believers, experiences of God's existence count, but experiences of God's non-existence do not. I've been urged to "keep an open mind and pray with an open heart," but when I suggested that I had done this and God still wasn't there, the response was always: "Oh, well, you weren't sincere, then."

I think some theists do use a double standard: God is knowable to a theist, but not to a nontheist. This complicates the question of what we can know immensely. A nontheist's knowledge might change over time, but does a theist's knowledge ever waver in the direction of uncertainty?

Certainly, put that way, it would be "never will" for the living, unless somebody someday comes back from death and tells everyone there is an afterlife. I think my position here remains "atheist for lack of evidence."

And by "true even within metaphysical naturalism," do you mean that, for example, the body decomposing within nature and returning to the natural cycle is a means of "knowing God?"

I would say: different in intensity, but not different in kind. Of course, what we're calling joy may be two different things.

(I don't, however, buy the argument that believers are always happier than nonbelievers, and that the only way to know 'true' joy is to know God. If there are different kinds of joy, I think it's entirely possible that not all of them depend on 'knowing God.).

I see what you're saying. Again, the one-way progression stands out to me. I suspect from this point of view someone who's an atheist would be seen as having regressed beyond childishness, or as "denying God."

I wish there were words in our language to somehow indicate a progressing viewpoint that could go either way without making a value judgment (even "progressing" and "mature" do so).

I like the idea that we're never going to discover everything. After all, we would probably be really, really bored if we did .

However, the people who try to prevent further asking at all send shivers down my spine. I'm glad you're not one of them.

I'm glad that their words don't bother you. I've seen people intensely bothered.

Yes, unfortunately. I had a student tell me, during a unit on science that I did with one of the English classes I taught, that she thought a lot of modern science was offensive to religious people; when I asked her why, she couldn't clearly tell me that. I sometimes think people equate 'science' or 'knowledge' or certain ways of thinking with atheism, but their own thinking doesn't advance far enough to sort out the reason.

It's a sad symptom of how deeply the opposition against atheism is embedded, that even apatheist people who might not have much more belief than most atheists shun the word and think it's a horrible thing.

One could also argue that "Obey your master" and giving it the stamp of divine approval is a way of insuring the slaves who might rebel won't seek to do so, and that "neither slave nor free in Christ" implies there's not any freedom, either...

But I don't think that Christianity, even if this is true, is any more guilty than any human institution in this regard. I don't think there were a whole lot of people going around saying "Free the slaves!" at any point in history until the nineteenth century. If I'm going to be honest about viewing all human institutions as human-made, I can hardly criticize that one for errors I'm not willing to criticize others for.

I'm glad that you're not vehemently opposed. I've asked several Christians on these boards (including Douglas J. Bender) just what it is about gay sex that makes it so hurtful and sinful, and they couldn't tell me.

On the other hand, I think that promiscuity is a bad idea whether it's homosexual, heterosexual, or bisexual. Sometimes, some people become so anxious about the idea of homosexual people having sex that they don't pay any attention to the idea of one-night stands or serial monogamy among people of other orientations.

Agreeing to disagree on this, as well, I think . I can perfectly understand why someone might want a divine being and an afterlife. I just haven't seen enough evidence to suggest that these conceptions are any more objectively real than tritons from Greek myth.

Yes . This was a valuable lesson, since it taught me that pagans could be jerks too (something you would never believe if you read a lot of pagan-oriented websites, where every Wiccan is a good Wiccan. Sometimes some of them think that the only good Christian is a dead Christian, which is scary enough in itself).

Is morality separate from religion for you?

Hardly. I would put in this same category, "I love you, atheist, that's why I'm telling you that you'll burn in hell if you don't convert!"

That's the difference, though. I think that sin belongs only to religion, since it seems to have a more serious connotation than "crime." So I don't usually think of people as sinners, just as criminals, or as people who are jerks. I do get angry, but it usually doesn't last for a long time unless the person is harassing me personally and constantly (trying to evangelize me, for example).

I think that's a lovely point of view to take.

I've tried to dismiss "deserving" from my thinking. After all, if there were an objective point of view one could trust, maybe that point of view could tell us who deserved what, but I tend to think that most viewpoints are subjective, and if one matched a truly objective point of view it would only be by coincidence. So I deal with it the best I can. It's rarely led me to taking action against anyone (the most 'violent' I've ever gotten is sending e-mails to people telling them that I don't want any more contact with them).

-Perchance.

seebs

Morning!

I think an excess of reverence is a barrier to understanding.

Well, to a certain extent, they're right, since after all a single unambiguous response is an existance proof.

But I don't buy the "you weren't sincere then" crap. I know a guy who got what he considered a miracle. He was a gay guy, who was (as you might expect) totally miserable. He spent YEARS praying and begging for God to "cure" him. Prayer, fasting, you name it. I cannot doubt his utter sincerity. And one day, he said "Okay, God, I give up. I don't understand. Tell me what You want." Within a week, someone he ran into by chance told him about a church that would accept him as he was.

The funny thing is, I've heard that story more than once.

So, sometimes, I think, we ask for the wrong things.

I cannot say for certain, but it seems to me that the only people whose belief never wavers are liars. It's like masturbation; 90% of men masturbate, the other 10% lie on surveys.

My certainty wavers occasionally, but not all that much. Enough that I'd probably admit to being technically agnostic - I believe, I don't know.

I think it's more like this: Let's say we both have pretty much the same experience. If I have accepted the idea that there may be a God, it only has to be sort of surprising for me to consider it a possible example of minor Divine Intervention. If you have mostly rejected the idea, it has to be *VERY* impressive for you to even consider it.

Curiously, many people *do* die and come back, and some of them report some sort of afterlife, but if we really want, we can handwave it away.

One occasionally hears stories of these people "knowing" things they shouldn't have known that they claimed to observe, but of course, they're unsubstantiated.

I think part of the game is that we never *quite* get substantiation. The amount of alleged evidence is carefully right at the level where it can be disregarded, but everyone's likely to hear some. I think that's intentional, personally.

Well, if there's no God, and you don't exist anymore, it is arguably the case that you know God.

It may be. I can be simultaneously joyful and sad, but not happy and sad. Although that may be a question of terminology. It's very, very, hard to clarify terms like this.

Oh, certainly. I think the religious experience I have is probably very similar to the religious experience of a pantheist confronted with an exceptionally good sunset.

Many people think of it that way, but I think they're wrong. I see the spiritual development thing as something that only really makes sense within the church, and there are passages elsewhere that suggest that the correct response to "less mature" people is to protect and assist them, not laugh at them.

Still... A lot of the development that seems to be associated with growth as a Christian happens in all people who are actually *trying* to grow spiritually. Basically, if you're constantly looking at and thinking about morals, you'll tend to exhibit the same kinds of qualities.

Indeed. But a continuum implies some kind of measurement, and thus indirectly values.

Indeed. This is actually one of my chief concerns about claims about the afterlife.

It bothers me some. But I cope. Curiously, there's a passage in the Bible saying that Christians should expect this.

I think that's a lot of it. I know an otherwise rational guy who is convinced that God will not let us clone humans, because that would be creating humans. I mean, hey, if creating humans is an issue, we have *problems*.

I think there is a slight tendency for people who are caught up in academia to become contemptuous of "less educated" people, but that's not a conflict between science and religion, that's a conflict between ego and common courtesy.

Well, to be fair, a lot of this is rooted in history; until fairly recently, the word "atheist" was used almost exclusively for strong atheism, and generally for people who were fairly hostile to religion.

I actually think it's interesting to compare with the Bible, in which the only "unbelievers" are "believers in something else".

Also, I think some of the more dogmatic atheists contribute a lot to fear of the word.

One might. The struggle of Christians to reconcile on this issue is a fascinating one, displaying the whole spectrum of human qualities. Fairly early on, they started coming up with rules like "no enslaving other Christians", but it took a while to generalize. I think there was a conclusion reached fairly early that no one should go to war *just* to get slaves - but that, if you took people in war, slavery was acceptable. This was later disregarded flagrantly for economic gain. *sigh*.

I think Christianity didn't *behave* that much worse, on the whole - but at the same time, we're supposed to hold ourselves to a higher standard. One thing that really pisses me off is people denying that any Christians ever took slaves, or participated in the slave trade, saying "oh, no, those people weren't *really* Christians". I think the Bible is a lot clearer in condemning smug condemnations than it is in condemning slavery.

To make a long story short, if it's sinful, it's because it's a deviation from the "idealized" plan for our sexuality. However, this strikes me as a weak argument. I know a woman who had a hysterectomy; should *she* not be allowed to have sex, even with guys?

I think it's much more plausible and consistent to read the Bible as condemning certain ritual sex acts, and assume that, once again, people have shoved their own prejudices in God's mouth.

Indeed. The thing that bugs me the most is that mainstream Christian opposition to homosexuality has, as a primary result, a huge social barrier to long-term committment in gay relationships, which is frankly killing an awful lot of gay people.

That, and the idea of the "gay lifestyle". My wife and I sometimes go to dance clubs, and if people were seriously worried about sexual morality, they'd be talking about the "straight lifestyle" too.

Uh-huh. One of my friends is a Wiccan who hates Norse Pagans and thinks they're evil. From here, it is to laugh. They're all people, they're trying to sort things out... Hatred seems a bad response.

YesNoMaybe.

My moral sense predates my belief in God, and in fact is one of the things that led to my picking a specific religion; I noticed that one religion was a lot closer to my moral conclusions than others.

I started believing in certain underlying moral principles a *long* time ago. It took several years to start working out good theories about what they *are*, but I concluded that there ought to be some, and they'd be worth looking for.

At the same time, *given* the theistic belief, it seems to me that morality is largely a function of God's will. I am not sure how to answer questions like "could God act in a sinful manner". I'm frankly stumped; it seems to me that there's a contradiction that this should expose, but I'm not sure whether this means that, given a thing we would think of as sinful, God can't do it, or that, if God does it, we would be wrong to think of it as sinful.

Still, I tend to think that God has arranged things such that basic moral impulses come naturally to us, and helps us if we are trying to be better people. I do not see evidence that He only does this for people who believe in Him. It is also possible that people in general are just good at growing morally, but in my personal experience, I perceive active help in these things, so I tend to assume that this is available.

Yeah. It's not helpful. For that matter, it's fucking *STUPID*. If you want to convert someone who has already *heard* all of this, the threats are obviously not your best path.

It does have implications which are perhaps more serious, but even "minor" things may count as sin.

But fine, take those evangelists. Imagine having a moral rule which says "love them anyway".

Right. I think there is an objective point of view, but He's not always very talkative. And yes, for a long time, my model was "there are moral absolutes, but I can't see any way to know when we've found them".

Amos

Protestants can and do claim apostolic tradition on the anathema side of the Church right back to the time when Jesus first broke the bread and many murmered in protest that "this sort of talk [was] hard to endure" (Jn.6:60). They were the first protestant and to this day they do not accept the transubstantiation of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ.

This objection is what caused many wars and that is how the protestant were always the cause of wars including the inquisition.

Perchance

Good morning, seebs.

Yes, I often feel that way. Even English majors in totally secular contexts will start and gasp if you attack a book they like, and never mind if you have a valid point or not.

Unambiguous for that particular person, maybe. It seems as though experience-based theism would be a lot like atheism, proceeding one individual at a time and often taking years. If experience comes only to one person, the very idea of missionary movements and mass conversions seems strange.

I'm glad for him. And I don't buy the "you weren't sincere" crap either.

If there's a barrier to understanding of god in my case (other than my particular lack of belief) I really don't know what it is. And possibly knowledge does come to some people and not to others. If that's so, though, then I don't think the people who do experience knowledge are necessarily better than the ones who do.

Maybe.



I would also add that if there are really people whose belief never wavers, then that's pretty scary. Of course, that there are people whose belief is strong enough, whatever it is, to let them kill other human beings over it is scary.

[QUUOTE]
My certainty wavers occasionally, but not all that much. Enough that I'd probably admit to being technically agnostic - I believe, I don't know.

I think it's more like this: Let's say we both have pretty much the same experience. If I have accepted the idea that there may be a God, it only has to be sort of surprising for me to consider it a possible example of minor Divine Intervention. If you have mostly rejected the idea, it has to be *VERY* impressive for you to even consider it.
[/QUOTE]

True.

Of course, I would probably approach this idea from the other way . I had a theist acquaintance of mine tell me that she nearly got run down by a car on her way in to work, and that God must have stopped the car in time to save her. Now, not having seen the incident, I don't know exactly what happened, but other things leap into my mind, such as:

1) Did you run or leap to safety?

2) Did the driver of the car possibly see you?

3) Perhaps the car wasn't that close after all and fear has made you exaggerate the memory?

And other natural ways of interpreting it.

What really gets my goat is when such experiences are used to give God complete credit and take it away from people who (in my opinion, of course) worked hard enough to deserve a mention.

Are you talking about NDE's? I tend to be skeptical of those, since astronauts report much the same symptoms when weightless. It sounds like an effect of blood to the brain more than anything else.

I think I remember you saying somewhere else that you don't believe in hell. Is this why you think the game can be insubstantial? Because there's not a chance of people going to hell if they don't believe?

If there was a hell, and god played this kind of game with his followers, I'd have to come down on the side of him being a pretty cruel god.

Ah, I see. Thank you for clarifying that .

I think that, alive, the difference is probably lack of knowledge rather than sure and certain knowledge that a god doesn't exist. (Unless you're a strong atheist, maybe). I consider myself a weak atheist overlapping into atheistic agnosticism, and so I lack knowledge of the divine. Perhaps if I had an experience that stood all the tests I could make of it and all th questions I could ask of it, then I might convert. (Although choosing a religion would probably require more than one experience. If I just became convinced of the divine, I'd probably be a Deist).

Yes, I've felt that way before. Always over human-made things, though, like good books.

It strikes me that we may actually be thinking of very similar experiences, and what differs is the name we give them and the source we attribute them to.

Thank you. If nothing else, you've shown me some possible common ground between theists and atheists.

I suppose that part of my differing here with you is that I don't see spiritual growth as unique in some way (because I lack belief in a spiritual plane). I see it as mental and intellectual growth, and that can happen in totally secular environments, such as college.

Unless someone was becoming specifically more knowledgeable about religion, then I would find it hard to quantify "spiritual growth."

I know I can't manage to regard it as a pure spectrum (because of my own values). However, if I could, I don't think that the spectrum would necessariy encode values, any more than the right and left ends of a number line do.

.

It's also a good hole to poke in the "suffering is a test so that we can understand happiness" argument; if there's no suffering in heaven, how will anyone know they're perfectly happy?

To be called names by other Christians?

Exactly. Sometimes people speak answers that might be perfectly rational if isolated, but even in the framework of the person's own beliefs don't make a whole lot of sense.

I've certainly seen that in my own academic environment . On the other hand, I've also seen it going the other way: that peculiar reverence of "unspoiled ignorance" that some of my colleagues get into.

People are people, and sometimes people's opinions make me scratch my head.

I hadn't known that (at least not for certain). Although a few of the atheists I can think of in the nineteenth century, like Shelley and Swinburne, were strong atheists, to be sure.

Yes, I've met people who could contemplate the existence of other religions with ease, but not the existence of atheists. (My sister is one of them).

I would add that I think some of them link atheism with a belief in no afterlife (or the lack of belief in one), and the idea of dying forever is so terrifying that they shore up their minds against the idea.

Yes. Like I said, though, I don't really think of them as any worse than the abolitionists who thought they were being so good by wanting to send slaves back to Africa, when it can also be seen as just not wanting to live in a multiracial society.

I think it goes along with people denying that members of their group don't do those things: "True Wiccans aren't mean;" "True atheists don't get angry;" "No woman is ever sexist."

People just don't want to believe that their own group is capable of the vices it's fighting against.

I had a Catholic student tell me that her mother was advised not to have a hysterectomy even though it was a health risk for her to continue as she was, because that would be "defiling her body," according to their priest.

People can be idiots.

Do you think that God directly dictated some of the laws, then?

I'm not sure exactly what the difference is. Perhaps the "straight lifestyle" is assumed to always produce a marriage.

I've read that Norse Pagans have a reputation for being racist in some groups, which may explain it.

On the other hand, I've read descriptions of other pagan groups insisting that everyone ought to worship "the gods of their ancestors," and that therefore, for example, white Americans have no right to worship African gods. I despise this attitude in general- that my life should be determined solely by whom my ancestors happened to marry- and just roll my eyes when I encounter it in religion.

I have noticed that I have certain moral predispositions- for example, not wanting to murder people- and have tried to work out the reasons. I have to admit that I haven't been able to find logical reasons for all of them. That doesn't mean I'm going to start going around murdering people .

On the other hand, it does mean, for example, that I lost a belief that homosexuality was somehow "wrong" because I could come up with no logical reason for it.

I think the logical contradiction here is betwene omnipotence and omnibenevolence: God should have the power to act in a sinful manner, because God can do anything; but if he has it, that contradicts the idea of being totally good.

I don't accept the existence of universal moral laws- but, on the other hand, I'm doubtful of cultural universals in general.

I think the problem is that many theists do assume we haven't heard this before.

It's really too bad, because a few minutes' reading in old threads would show them.

I think we also have different definitions of "love." I can't really love an amorphous mass. I usually only love individuals. I try to respect people in general, and I consider them to have the same rights as I do, but I don't care about them deeply unless I become individually involved with them.

I have a rule about evangelists which says "give them a chance to be polite and explain to you their beliefs, but don't keep quiet and don't be illogical, and if they get rude or threatening, show them the door."

If someone has an objective point of view but isn't very talkative, then I think we have to muddle through as best we can.

I'm not sure about moral aboslutes. There are things people can claim to be morally absolute (you should never murder), but always a case comes along (self-defense) that can question it. I think that many people would be happier if they accepted that moral absolutes are not just lurking around every corner waiting to be found.

-Perchance.

seebs

Yup.

Ahh, but often these experiences happen in response to suggestions by other people! Mine didn't, but I know people who have experiences like mine that happened when they prayed at someone else's advice.

Luke 12:47-48

"47 And that servant, which knew his lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.
48 But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more."

Luke 12 is full of stuff addressing this.

My grandma-in-law has probably never had a moment of doubt. On the one hand, I envy her - but at the same time, she would be useless in apologetics; she simply cannot understand.

For all that I sometimes envy the certain folks, I cannot regret that I was made as I am; I am very happy.

Understood. At the same time, at least among the believers, it is reasonable for us to give God credit, since we believe He influences us.

It might be. I tend to file things like this as "possible evidence"; it's not definite, but it may be suggestive.

I wouldn't say I don't believe in hell. I don't particularly believe in a literal lake of brimstone. I have experienced things which I consider consistent with all the available theology about hell. When I, knowing better, do things to drive my loved ones away, the experience is well-described by everything in the Bible about Hell. I used to do that a lot more; now, when I'm about to do that, sometimes I stop myself, and sometimes I am stopped; the latter feels substantially different, and does not mesh at all with my experience of self-control. I attribute it to God.

I wouldn't - I don't think that it would be *possible* to have faith if we knew with certainty. It is very very hard to make moral decisions when threatened. How much more so when the "threat" could be *eternal*?

I was a theist/deist for some time.

It is the nature of such things, IMHO, to be untestable. This doesn't bother me; my belief that I am free-willed is also untestable.

In a book I rather liked, the angel Raphael laughed at someone who was convinced he was damned, and said "No, no, no. You think the world is so beautiful; how could you do this without loving the Creator?"

Language skills, programming, mathematics, and history are all intellectual growth, but they are not the same kinds of intellectual growth. I think spiritual growth is, at the very least, a substantially different type of mental growth.

Well, one thing I've noticed: The people I know who believe in magic all seem to come to the same conclusions about me. (They think I have the weakest aura they've ever seen, until I focus on something, and then they ooh and aah.)

As soon as we draw a line, we can start measuring it.

God will tell them, I guess. Maybe that's why we have to live in a flawed world even briefly.

Well, it doesn't say "by other Christians", but it's pretty generic.

Look at dictionaries, and common usage. I think "weak atheism" was somewhere around "freethinker".

Yes. Unlike most of those groups, though, we have a book telling us we can go to hell for denying our wrongdoing.

That is stupid. I believe the modern Catholic Church is getting the hang of "medicine".

Dunno. I'm unsure. I think He may have, but I wouldn't be surprised if He didn't.

I think it's just that they think all gay men spend all their time fucking.

Yeah. Anyway, I *do* worship the God of my ancestors, only some of 'em were atheists.

Indeed. I think it's instinct, which I find Biblical support for; the Bible says that God's law is written on every man's heart.

Yes. This suggests to me that it was a purely cultural thing.

As discussed in another thread, I think there is a general problem with trying to define omnipotence. We know what we mean; we don't know how to define it.

I'll bet on the "don't murder" one.

Oh, I don't love them as a group. (Among other things, group sex is too kinky.)

But the Christian moral standard is to *love* them. Not just put up with them, but to try to actually love them, the same way you love your closest relatives.

To quote G. K. Chesterton, Christianity has not been tried and found wanting, it has been found difficult and left untried. I *still* find myself making excuses for why I don't have to love a given person.

Agreed. Or listen more closely, which is what I'm currently doing.

Not all killing is murder. Murder is killing "with malice aforethought", and I am willing to say that it is probably universally wrong. Note specifically the requirement for malice; this changes things.

What a delightful thing it was to discover that there was a reply from you, and I'd just missed it. Of course, this wrecks my bedtime schedule again.

Perchance

Hello seebs,

I've tried to reply, and the stupid message board keeps eating my posts . We'll see if this one goes through.


I tend to see those conversions as influenced by the other person, rather than by rational argument. Especially if the new convert hasn't had a religious experience in his life until that point.

So I'd only get a few stripes, huh?

I don't think I can accept the idea of a master/slave relationship. It strikes too fundamentally at what I believe.

As am I.

What gets me mad is when believers assume that everyone shares their opinions, or, for example, give God credit for catching the DC sniper rather than the police.

I think there are too many other explanations for them. "Divine experience" is far down my list.

Yet I too have learned self-control that I didn't have before. I think self-control can be learned, just like honesty or honor or courage or loyalty. It doesn't necessarily have to be a god.

And the problem I have with hell is not the idea of punishment per se, so much as its length.


But why is faith such a great and good thing?


Deism seems to me at once both logical and silly. It fits in with the available evidence, but so well that the distinction between atheism and belief gets blurred. I always wondered why the few Deists I met hung onto their belief.

People claiming these things to be "untestable" yet "true" are the problem I have with it. If they are untestable, the best they can say is that they might possibly be true.

I like that. I've read a similar thing, about how the gods prefer an honest atheist to a dishonest believer.

I would disagree (again). I think that certain things can be learned, and that people simply are trained to give god the credit for them, and to call things they learn and like "spiritual." I've rarely heard people claim that a person has experienced spiritual growth in nastiness.

I've been told I have a weak aura, a strong aura, and a nonexistent aura. I'm still skeptical.

But we don't necessarily have to give the different places "right" and "wrong."

Not as flawed for some as others.

Do such things come under the heading of "persecution" for you? I've met Christians online who thought even questioning of their beliefs was persecution.

I think a lot of people still don't make the distinction. They hear "atheist" and think I'm angry at God and want to burn their church down.

I think the problem is that they rarely think of it as "wrongdoing." It's not so much hyporcrisy as just a very special kind of blindness.


It certainly didnt do the church any favors. It had made the student bitter to the point where she didn't attend mass any more.

If something direclty contradicted God's will but was presented as his will, would he give some kind of sign?

I suspect many of them would like to spend their time doing the same thing .

I wouldn't know where to begin. Catholic-raised father, Methodist-raised mother, ancestors from Eastern Europe and England... which gods should I even choose?


I think this, too, is cultural.

I can only go off my own ideas about it, but I find it contradicts the other attributes of god (as does everything omnimax, really).

I think the other is the incest taboo. But even those could easily have practical origins: you don't do those things if you want to survive.

I think such love is simply impossible for all human beings, and shouldn't be required. To set up a standard is one thing, but to feel guilty of falling short of it...

Is he speaking softly? Not at all?

Ah, the delightfully sticky moral conundrum!

If you knew that someone would otherwise kill a family member of yours, would you kill him?

I think that even murder can be more complicated than it appears.

Sorry if I've messed with your schedule again .

-Perchance.

seebs

I definitely agree it's not rational argument. I think it's the "religious experience" thing; something happens that feels different, and that's taken as evidence to convert.

I don't accept it either; I just thought it was a useful analogy; a way of showing that ignorance *is* a defense in many cases.

Yeah. The only person whose successes I will attribute to God is me; anyone else, how could I know?

If it's self control, then for some reason I have two different kinds of self control, one of which feels like stopping myself, and one of which feels like being stopped, and the latter sometimes kicks in when I have no reason to believe I need to be stopped, and it takes me a while to realize that there *was* a good reason.

I think it's a consequence of the idea that souls are eternal.

Good question. One of the interesting arguments I've seen is that the opposite of sin is not virtue, but faith. I think faith consists largely of being open to any divine prodding that should come to be necessary.

To have someone to thank when the world is beautiful.

I think there are whole classes of things which are true, but cannot be shown. I don't think anyone can ever prove or disprove determinism, but I suspect that either determinism or free will is "true".

In general, I don't think that's *growth*. Nastyness makes us smaller.

I mostly am, too. I don't particularly believe in magic, although I've seen enough good coincidences to last me a lifetime.

True - but as soon as we assign values, we'll tend to think of movement as "progress towards...".

True enough. This strikes me as a bit of an issue, and I occasionally try to address it a bit.

Somewhere out there, it starts looking like persecution. If someone follows you around from one message board to another harassing you about your beliefs, it's probably persecution. (Doesn't happen to me, but hey.) Calling someone a "false teacher" is probably getting into persecution territory.

Yeah. Amazing how ignorant people can be, if they set their mind to it.

Yup. And a nasty one to try to cure.

Perhaps. Not a very visible one, I'd guess. Supposedly, Amazing Grace was written by someone who had long believed that slavery was endorsed by God, and then realized that there was a problem.

I know people who have been listening and praying, and gotten what they considered signs. But... I think you only find out if you're looking. If you're sure you know God's will, He's not going to waste time arguing with you.

Well, if you only look back one generation, you're set!

I think parts of moral law are cultural, but basic empathy is instinctive.

I think people who spend too much time beating themselves up are missing the point of "forgiveness". Keep trying, keep improving, and never forget that you *can* improve... but don't get all angsty, it's useless.

Softly, I'd say. But only, perhaps, to people who are listening. Thus the phrase "still, small voice".

Depending on context, that could well be a variant on "defense of self or others".

Perchance

Hello, seebs. Sorry for the delay. Moving back to school and getting ready to teach classes again took me longer than I thought .

I think the people who have experiences like this, and then proceed to annoy me, fall into two classes:

1) People who insist that such things are on the same level as scientific proof.

2) People who insist that only their experiences are valid, and, therefore, people in another religion cannot possibly have experienced anything real.

You don't seem to be saying that, though .

So you don't consider that someone who deconverted from Christianity, or heard about Christianity and was not convinced (I'm in this class), is simply denying god?

You're a rara avis among theists, seebs .

I suppose it depends on who assigns what where. I've felt at certain times that I would really, really like to scream at someone, and I didn't do it. However, there are too many explanations for me to pick one. I could have known subconsciously it was a bad idea. I could have screamed at this person before and had such a bad experience I didn't want to go through it again. There are lots of explanations, and I think I would have the same problem assigning God as the source of one as I would knowing God in general (simple lack of certainty).

Another parting of the ways. I don't really accept the existence of a soul, because I haven't ever heard a clear explanation of one.

So would an atheist who keeps an open mind but never hears anything fit in then? .

Hmmm. Could be, I suppose. For me, taking delight in it is enough. I suppose I could thank my aesthetic sense and the forces of evolution for liking certain animals, though, and pollution for a pretty sunset, but I would feel slightly silly.

There's a difference between "true" and "real" here that I think comes into play. I am willing to accept that the symbols of "unicorns" and "gods" are "true" in a sene that I am not willing to accept them as real. They speak to people. This does not mean they have an objective existence.

Ah, but you see what I mean? Things that people like count as spiritual growth. Things they don't like don't. I think it's ultimately just another facet of the human mind, rather than a facet of the undefined human spirit.

I've had weird coincidences, too (rare books I was looking for and might never have found if I hadn't walked into a certain store on a certain day, thinking about a song I haven't heard in a long time and then having it play on the radio, and so on). However, most of the time I have to laugh when I think about a supernatural explanation for them. Why would a god hang around making sure I got the books I liked? What would be the purpose?

Maybe. But if we can conceive of different goals, then we may have different ideas. Perhaps theism is a "progress towards" a kind of joy the theist needs, and perhaps atheism is a "progress towards" an intellectual freedom the atheist needs.

Hmmm. Tangential idea for a new thread...

I think one of the hardest things for an atheist who lacks belief in an omnibenevolent deity to accept is that there is no idea of eternal justice, there is no reward waiting, and no one will judge what we do except other humans.

To quote Death, from Terry Pratchett's books, THERE IS NO JUSTICE. THERE'S JUST ME.

I was thinking more along the lines of:

Theist: Posts Pascal's Wager or John 3:16 or "You will go to HELL if you do not worship the Lord!"
Atheist: (takes issue with this).
Theist: "You're PERSECUTING me!"

It makes me want to yell at them to go read history or actually pay attention to the news. If they think that's persecution, they don't have enough to worry about.

True enough.

Especially because it's very hard to criticize someone without sounding as though you're attacking him or her.

So an atheist who doesn't believe in God and doesn't get convinced because God "won't argue with him" is damned?

This is where the "eternal justice" thing pops up again. If someone will go to hell for not knowing God, then there is no way in the world that God can justify keeping himself hidden.

Not very good examples. My mother doesn't seem to care most of the time, and my father violently hates the Catholic Church and broke with them as a teenager.

I would agree. I just don't think empathy is enough to cut it most of the time. People can agree they wouldn't like to be killed, and still kill bugs. People can murder others but argue they should not be put on death row so they can see what it's like.

Setting up a standard and insisting that people live up to it or else causes this problem, I think. It's why I'm wary of the "Jesus was the perfect example" thing. Even though I think there are good ideas in the Bible, I think the world has simply moved on too much to allow people to live by all of them, and that others need to be reevaluated.

To others, does he shout?

(Sorry. I just got the most amusing picture of God banging people over the head with a 2x4, shouting "I'm TALKING to you!")

But he hasn't done it yet.

-Perchance.

seebs

Good deal; my hand was fucked up yesterday and I couldn't type that much.

No. Actually, I will in many cases hold my experiences *above* scientific evidence; I don't care what anyone tells me about chemicals and love, I know what I feel. I recognize this as irrational, but what the fuck do I care?

Er, hard question. I don't accept the implication that they "really" know and are just being stubborn.

I have never been convinced that anyone has denied God. I have met many people who have denied things that other people told them, but my claim "God exists" is not God, it's just a claim made by some guy on a BBS.

Oh, I agree that it's uncertain. However, from the sheer experiential difference between these events and other times when I feel like I stop myself, I am inclined to attribute them to an external force.

I think the soul is the distinctive pattern through which your experiences are filtered. Whether that's a pattern in the brain, or a pattern imposed, is a difficult question. I am willing to believe that souls are immortal; I have no direct data, but the idea doesn't bug me, and it's part of the Christian teachings... I don't care that much. Whatever I am, I experience existance now, and I can let the future take care of itself.

I dunno. I'd say it's quite possible; I think searching for truth and righteousness is pretty important, and may be sufficient. You'd have to ask God.

Yup. Thus the argument-from-joy, "I want someone to thank for the things that make me happy". No logical force, but often quite compelling anyway.

Hmm. I was referring more to claims about reality, such as "we have souls" or "we don't have souls". I don't think either can be proven, but I believe it likely that one or the other is true.

It may be. I don't see a way to test it, but I will observe that strength of convictions exists, and correlates positively, I think, with "good" ideals.

Dunno. Maybe He's friendly? I tend not to assign supernatural explanations to most coincidences.

Interesting! Very interesting to play with. I have often suspected that there's more than one series of steps by which people grow closer to God, and it wouldn't surprise me if there were a path for skeptics.

Indeed. At the same time, I've known people that I think deconverted just to *escape* the idea of justice.

I came to believe in justice before I believed in God; I just figured it was an inherent quality of things that some things were just or injust. I don't necessarily think this implies that the external standard is enforced, unless we go out and enforce it.

Oh, indeed. I think a lot of people are unprepared for a world that doesn't always agree with them. Not much we can do for 'em.

Yeah.

I dunno. I don't think it's how much you do or don't know; I think it's how much you tried to find out. The Bible says "blessed is he who hungers and thirsts after righteousness, for he will be filled".

I don't worry much; I have faith, after all, in a merciful God, so I can only assume that He's got a working plan. I think that earnest seeking after truth ought to improve your chances, anyway.

Consider, though: Perhaps, with rare exceptions, people who *know* cannot maintain the kind of faith and seeking they need to have to be saved. Think of how awful certainty can be in many people; imagine how much worse it could be if they had "proof". Perhaps the barrier to salvation would be even higher, then, as people became *certain* they knew, and were done searching, and were no longer open to God.

Belief alone is not enough; as the Bible says, the demons *believe* in God.

Indeed. Nothing you can start with could be the whole answer; the best it can be is a place to start looking.

Indeed. I fail to follow His example in many things. I am not a carpenter. I'm married. I plan to have kids some day. I think Jesus was a very good *moral* example, but morals isn't verbs, it's ways of approaching life.

Amusingly, when I talk to "sinners" as friends, and refuse to condemn them, I am generally accused of being a bad Christian. I always wonder what book these people are reading.

You have reminded me of a fantasy novel called _Oath of Swords_ by David Weber which I rather like.

I don't know. I think God is fairly quiet for most of us. There may be exceptions; I have never seen one I found convincing, and indeed, the people who seem most certain that God is telling them specific things are the most likely to do things which create in me a sense of great sadness.

Well, as I said, it depends on circumstances. Sufficiently good evidence of a likely outcome strikes me as cause for some kind of action, although if you have enough warning, it's probably wiser to try to get the police to deal with it.

Still, I don't think you have to wait until someone has been killed to react to a death threat.