My Beliefs Part II

[Memnoch]

Here's the new thread. The old thread is HERE.

I'm glad the tone and the personals settled down somewhat - you were all on trial here for a few pages. I adopted a hands-off policy to see if you could all pull your heads in - your behaviour on this thread would have been our basis for determining if we felt you were mature and gracious enough to be able to conduct a debate/discussion on religion as reasonable adults. You teetered over the edge there a few times, but I'm glad to see you've all settled down (sort of) - and largely without moderator intervention, which is really good! [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

Don't think you're off the hook though- you are ALL still on trial in this thread. The way you debate this issue will determine whether we allow people to discuss religion here. If we end up with flames, flamebaiting, personal attacks, etc with this thread we will be locking it and you will have lost the privilege of discussing religion in this forum. I won't care whose fault it was - so you all need to work together to make sure that you don't go over the line. In other words, don't f**k it up for everyone. I have confidence that you'll all be able to collectively work to avoid this happening. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Please remember the title of the thread ("My Beliefs"). Please don't try to browbeat people by deciding for them what their beliefs should be. Opinions are good. Passion is good. Fanaticism is not. Please listen to each other's point of view with an open mind. You don't have to agree. It's very easy to agree to disagree and talk about something else. Do not try to force your ideas on others. You do not need to repeat your same opinion on something 122 times. If the first 121 times didn't work then it's unlikely the 122nd time will.

Enjoy, and here's a tip - if you feel like this is happening to you: - then stop. The only person hurting his/her head is you.

Have fun. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 11-27-2003, 02:50 AM: Message edited by: Memnoch ]

[LordKathen]

Thank you Memnoch. [img]graemlins/awesomework.gif[/img] I asked about this twice, with no responce. I figured a mod would come in at some point and do it though.

[LordKathen]

Well said Timber, on the last thread replying to Yorick on his thoughts of atheism. I completely agree.

[Link]

I've got a little something to say, Yorick. In the first thread I asked you how you see atheism, and you replied saying:

Originally posted by Yorick: I see atheism as a remarkably arrogant position. It presumes that a mere human who inhabits a few decades on a small planet in the corner of the universe can extend their knowledge throughout the entirety of space and time and declare with certainty that there is no God. In the process completely overriding the reality of other humans who will die rather than refute their knowledge of God.

This answers indeed the first question I asked you, but you never really went on with my second remark, being "IIRC God gave mankind the choice to choose for him or not"
Isn't it so that he therefore created atheism himself? After all; he gave us the opportunity to choose for him, and all who didn't choose for him, well, they became atheists (or something else). Why is atheism then arrogant, if it evidentially is something God created himself?

If we kick back to the Original Sin, where Adam and Eve were seduced by the devil, we see the entire same thing happening. The devil himself is also a product of God: he gave his angels the same choice as he gave humans. Choose for Him, or not choose for Him. Lucifer chose to not follow Him, and therefore fell out of paradise. He became the devil; something God knew that would happen (as God is all-knowing).
Adam and Eve were also supposed to eat the apple, following this reasoning. They were supposed to sin, otherwise God simply could have not given the whole concept of choice beforehand to his creations.

The only conclusion I can draw from this here, is that if we simply assume God exists, then there's absolutely no justification for saying that atheism is arrogant towards God. He created it that way, after all.

yorick - at the end of the other thread you claim a pre-biblical oral history as proof of the veracity and historical accuracy of biblical writings.

yet, in another thread, i recall you deriding others' "paganism" because they did not have a written history (eg bible) to back it up. (please dont make me dig up the thread [img]smile.gif[/img] ).

the point is that evidence with a similar pedigree (ie oral history) is being denigrated in one instance and exalted in another.

as chewbacca has already pointed out, it's a matter of faith in both cases. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Maelakin]

In reply to Yorick's last thread addressed to me:

My questioning didn’t stop there, nor did I stop searching other places for answers.

I knew I did not have to go to church based upon what the Catholic Church told me. There is no reference that I could ever find within the Bible that stated I must show up at mass every Wed. and Sun. in order to be saved. It was a simple conclusion.

However, that was only one of the questions that came to mind. Over the years I have asked many more questions, and I have asked a greater variety of people, pious and not. In the end, it is up to me to form a conclusion of my own accord.

I can state that I am an agnostic. I do not know the answers, yet, and I may never discover them. However, I do know that every religion and faith currently in existence is found wanting if you actually dissect them. For example, you often hear a person state that they choose their religion because it was “most” correct. That is not good enough for me. It is either the correct one, or I will keep searching.

When you take into account the commonalities between the different religions, one can easily understand that there has to be some truth backing the religion as a driving force. Every religion I have encountered contains some form of divine, but at the same time religion gives society a set of morals to gauge them against. It is more logical to believe the ties between religions exist as a moral foundation, not as proof of a divine.

Many of the fundamental Atheistic beliefs also state that believing in God is only an extension of personal Ego. This is further supported by the way the human mind works. However, this only works to the extent of a God whom takes notice of us, and whom actually cares personally about us. Even a hardcore Atheist would have to admit the possibility of God, if that God was only a factor leading to our existence, the “personal” relationships with this deity aside.

Enough of this topic…there is another point I wanted to address.

Love. It cannot be felt. It cannot be defined. It is not an emotion.

It is a word. It is man’s attempt at defining a culmination of emotions resulting from shared experience. Love is different for each person, because love is defined by each person’s experiences in life.

[LordKathen]

Originally posted by Maelakin: Love. It cannot be felt. It cannot be defined. It is not an emotion. It is a word. It is man’s attempt at defining a culmination of emotions resulting from shared experience. Love is different for each person, because love is defined by each person’s experiences in life.

I would agree.
I was thinking, we could replace the word "love" in your statement with others. Like, "faith" or "religion". Interesting.

[Maelakin]

Exactly LK. It is one of those words whose definition is nothing more than a perception garnered from personal experience. Many times the reason people cannot come to an agreement in a discussion is because words like these are being used as a basis for description. A word that has a different meaning to different people will never convey a clear and concise thought.

[Timber Loftis]

Just felt the need to repost it here before the other one falls.[

Originally posted by Yorick: I see atheism as a remarkably arrogant position. It presumes that a mere human who inhabits a few decades on a small planet in the corner of the universe can extend their knowledge throughout the entirety of space and time and declare with certainty that there is no God. In the process completely overriding the reality of other humans who will die rather than refute their knowledge of God. As I have said before, all you can say is "I have not experienced this" not "this does not exist". In saying "I know God" I am not devalidating your statement "I do not know God". I find agnosticism a much more open minded and reasonable position. I am agnostic concerning the existence of alien life for example. I find no compelling evidence that allows me to believe they do exist, but I'm not so arrogant as to extend my experience of reality into parts of the universe I have no knowledge of.

I disagree, Yorick. I do not consider it arrogant to believe there is no god. It is not because I can extend my knowledge throughout space and time that I believe this. In fact, it is because I can't that I believe this. I believe there are possibilities that I cannot fathom, and occurrences I cannot explain. However, I do realize my own cosmic insignificance -- which you hint at with the "few decades in my corner of the univers" -- and this leads me to determine I am no better than other creatures and, as such, I will simply cease to exist at some point, as the evidence tells me all things do.

While I recognize things exist beyond my comprehension, I think it would be arrogant for me to believe those things hint at some larger consciousness that gives a crap about me or reserves a special place for some inner "soul." Just because there may be other, greater things, it does not give me license to personify those things or think I have any place in their scheme of the universe. In fact, I find it a metaphysical conceit (which it is) to even suppose a scheme exists at all -- especially one my puny brain can attempt to comprehend.

And, let's be frank, your religion, and most religions, do believe you can "know" god. That I find to be the more arrogant position.

In the end, I think there are two problems we may have communicating regarding this. One is your definition of aetheist vs. agnostic. While I do not suppose I can know or prove the absence of something, I do not even have the little bit of arrogance in me to think I can possibly ever "know" these unexplainable things (such as "god"), and I therefore shun the notion that I would leave room open to one day "know" these things. Please don't go getting definitions, as I don't want to get into a "my definition is better than yours" debate. Especially because, in the end, my fallback position would be that my religious/non-religious beliefs about the cosmos are mine own to define, and someone else's definition carries little weight with me.

Second, you and I disagree about what is arrogant about religion, as this post may point out. You say

As for a charge that it's egotistical to expect the creator of the universe would come down as a human and die for me personally... well that's the beauty of it. God can do what he wants. The idea is at once humbling and esteem building at the same time.

As I may have pointed out, it is not the notion that your idea of your station vis-a-vis god that makes me think religion arrogant. I realize you find the power/awe/knowledge of your god humbling. What I find arrogant is the basic notion that you can "know" this uber-entity to even define it enough to find beauty in it/him, or think it/him has a personality that includes such banal notions as "want," or to think it/him even realizes you exist for a brief few winks of the eternal eye, and especially to think it/him has a place reserved for you and your fellow homo sapiens.