Do you believe in God?

[Imari]

Very true, but if you really want to break it down I suppose you could apply that same idea of thought to almost anything and say that people should be suspicious of anything that arises from outside of their own consciousness. Anything else will always require a degree of faith to it one way or another.

Welcome to rational skepticism?

 

[HenrySwanson]

Very true, but if you really want to break it down I suppose you could apply that same idea of thought to almost anything and say that people should be suspicious of anything that arises from outside of their own consciousness. Anything else will always require a degree of faith to it one way or another.

Are you talking about solipsism?

 

[TRLWNC7396]

You think ONE person can't be unloving, not gentle, or greedy? Have you ever met or interacted with another human?

Because if you have, then you'd know that they absolutely can be. You must just be making excuses as for why all those people don't count, which I'm sure is a fallacy of some sort.

The article implies when it says "In short, James tells us that true religion is a devotion to God, demonstrated by love and compassion for fellowmen, coupled with unworldliness" that you must be a Christian to have true religion. Or at least follow the Abrahamic God.

To your meaning of true religion, can someone who is follows a non-Christian faith have true religion?

I have met many people who don't follow any religion, as well as many who have, who follow good principles of decency and "christian" living.

I also know that most people are selfish and greedy, but, again most, choose not to treat others badly.

I agree that devotion to God is very important. But I am also fine in saying that devotion to God is not the ONLY requirement.

There is no such thing as a non higher power faith. I'm not worried about that. To me, being a good person is what it takes to fill the requirements. Choosing to go beyond that is personal agency.

Very true, but if you really want to break it down I suppose you could apply that same idea of thought to almost anything and say that people should be suspicious of anything that arises from outside of their own consciousness. Anything else will always require a degree of faith to it one way or another.

Any level of trust requires faith. And that can be in a machine or a human.

No religion has a singular hold on being a decent person:

 

[Ghost Lap]

Are you talking about solipsism?

In a way yes.

 

[MatskiMonk]

Very true, but if you really want to break it down I suppose you could apply that same idea of thought to almost anything and say that people should be suspicious of anything that arises from outside of their own consciousness. Anything else will always require a degree of faith to it one way or another.

Maybe, but the thing is with most things that have a basis in reality, it's possible to interrogate them with reason and logic and either prove or disprove accordingly. With religion you cannot do that and have simply have to accept what you're being told. In any case I agree that human nature will sometimes (perhaps even often) lead to perversion of any system, religious or otherwise - the difference for me is that as there's no sound basis for religion, and since most of the core basis for belief can't be reasoned, deducted or demonstrated the person trying to sell you on the idea is already telling porky pies from the outset

 

[UKMikey]

Maybe, but the thing is with most things that have a basis in reality, it's possible to interrogate them with reason and logic and either prove or disprove accordingly. With religion you cannot do that and have simply have to accept what you're being told. In any case I agree that human nature will sometimes (perhaps even often) lead to perversion of any system, religious or otherwise - the difference for me is that as there's no sound basis for religion, and since most of the core basis for belief can't be reasoned, deducted or demonstrated the person trying to sell you on the idea is already telling porky pies from the outset

To play devil's advocate it sounds like you're asserting this last position from a basis of faith. Religionists may be deluded or mistaken but I don't think they're lying as that implies a desire to deceive.

 

[HenrySwanson]

There is no such thing as a non higher power faith.

Is this true?

 

[Imari]

I agree that devotion to God is very important. But I am also fine in saying that devotion to God is not the ONLY requirement.

Sorta seems rude to Buddhists, Hindus and all the other non-Abrahamic religions to simply write them off as not "true religions" because they don't believe in your God.

Very No True Scotsman, find arbitrary excuses to write off groups who don't meet your personal tastes.

To me, being a good person is what it takes to fill the requirements.

So its absolutely a No True Scotsman argument - anyone who doesn't meet your definition of a "good person" is therefore automatically not part of a "true religion".

I'm sorry, that's just not how that works.

Is this true?

No. Except in the same No True Scotsman sense that he's been trying to define "true religion".

Nontheistic religion - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I expect the response to this to be that they will attempt to define "higher power" in a way that is favourably vague.

 

[TRLWNC7396]

Wow....

Okay, so the "No true Scotsman" argument is interesting.

But consider this:

You are attempting to make something that is NOT judged by us (after all, God makes the final decision), much less understood fully, a logical black and white answer.

Why?

God isn't logical. He is emotional. He loves us, and He understands us in ways that we can't fully comprehend.

I'm not going to say that "being a good person" is able to be defined.

If you can, please do so.

Even the worst of criminals has people that they love and care for. What happens to them? Do they get a pass for loving their friends? Where does the gray area end?

I understand logic. I am an engineer. But when it comes to a certain point, it just goes gray. And I'm NOT God, nor do I plan to be any time soon!

 

[Liquid]

God isn't logical. He is emotional.

An all-knowing creator surely wouldn't be ruled by emotion... unless he was cruel and wicked, in which case one shouldn't devote or submit to him; respect is earnt, not given.

Although I suppose it would explain why the world and its creatures are so flawed and inefficient.

 

[UKMikey]

I think it would be more logical to say belief in God is more emotional than logical. All those gaps in our knowledge, stuff you can't prove... to believers, that's His department.

 

[MatskiMonk]

Religionists may be deluded or mistaken but I don't think they're lying as that implies a desire to deceive.

Perhaps simply, and perhaps innocently, wanting other people to buy in to their desire to be deceived... like parents lying to their children about Santa Claus every year - people know it's not true, but they go with it anyway because at some point it provides the warm and fuzzies.

... or perhaps it is just groomed in delusion.

 

[Famine]

(after all, God makes the final decision)

[Citation needed]

And again you're excluding any religion which doesn't have your (version of your) God as the sole emperor deity.

 

[UKMikey]

Perhaps simply, and perhaps innocently, wanting other people to buy in to their desire to be deceived... like parents lying to their children about Santa Claus every year - people know it's not true, but they go with it anyway because at some point it provides the warm and fuzzies.

... or perhaps it is just groomed in delusion.

What's unknowable can't be proved false. If you could pull God's beard off like Father Christmas's this thread would've been as short as the flat earth one. I'm not a believer but accusations of lying are just a bad, heh, faith argument.

 

[MatskiMonk]

I'm not a believer but accusations of lying are just a bad, heh, faith argument.

Okay, you're right. It's not lying.

It's generationally self propagating ignorance based on exploiting those with mental illness.

 

[Imari]

You are attempting to make something that is NOT judged by us (after all, God makes the final decision), much less understood fully, a logical black and white answer.

Nope. You are the one who attempted to define what is a "true religion". Not God. God doesn't even have an account on the forums.

Don't attempt to hide your own statements behind someone else's skirts.

I understand logic. I am an engineer.

X to doubt, because you're really struggling with basics like identifying your own statements here.

True religion, and undefiled, is loving and gentle. It never results in or is affected by greed.

This is you. Not God. I can tell from the username.

This is a concrete statement, and while there's a little bit of wiggle room in exactly what is meant by some of the words it's a pretty easy one to evaluate in a true-or-false manner.

It's not about God passing judgement on anything, it's about you providing some sort of framework to explain what appears on the surface to be great, gaping fallacies in this statement. We can see religions that are not always loving, or gentle. It's most of them. We can see religions that are greedy. There are many of them. You attempt to dismiss that with "true religion", and that's the exact standard form of a No True Scotsman fallacy.

That's very simple logic, and I don't think you understand it. If you did, you'd address it clearly and concisely because it would be obvious to you that you haven't framed your statement correctly.

 

[Def-Infinity]

Dump:

Carry on.

 

[Danoff]

Dump:
View attachment 1303063
Carry on.

Wut?

 

[UKMikey]

Wut?

As a very wise man once put it: "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit".

 

[Def-Infinity]

Wut?

It's just a page of a book I just finished reading - not directly related to the current conversation.

The chapter was about the role of religion in forming the European Identity, and to some extent, the "Western World" as a whole.

Might be interesting to discuss. Might not be.

 

[Danoff]

Might be interesting to discuss. Might not be.

Maybe if you got the ball rolling...

 

[TRLWNC7396]

[Citation needed]

And again you're excluding any religion which doesn't have your (version of your) God as the sole emperor deity.

Am I?

 

[HenrySwanson]

Am I?

I think so.

What do you think about the non-theistic ones that @Imari quoted?

 

[Famine]

Am I?

Yep.

In saying that big g "God" makes the final decision, you're excluding any religion for which that deity is not the figurehead - or which doesn't have just one figurehead, or any figureheads.

Also I'm not wholly sure what the omniscient being needs to decide given, you know, omniscience. It should already know what the answer is - for all people*, even those not yet born - so there's no decision at all. In any case omniscience precludes free will, so any choice is an illusion.

I wonder why an omniscient emperor deity would need to make a "final" decision anyway. Every "decision" (such that it is, given the above) is "final" because it's not possible to "make" the wrong one and need to amend it.

Of course then we get into the realms of whether people being punished/rewarded for all eternity for their actions in 0-130ish years (or less, as we've previously seen with assertions about the unborn already carrying sin) in a physical realm is fair or reasonable, and why their actions afterwards cannot be continually or dynamically assessed once the emperor deity has made their "final decision".

But then we know that the Abrahamic deity is not the forgiving type, given the whole Lucifer thing (hey, turns out that heaven/hell decision isn't "final" after all...).

Unless it's a serial child molestor who "sees the light" on their deathbed and then all is forgiven. Naturally his victims would join the angel he cast out of heaven in eternal torment because they were born in sin, were raped by the child molestor, and don't believe in a deity who'd allow/cause (because omniscience precludes free will) that to happen so go to hell when they die (by, at a higher rate than average, their own hand).

Big g "God" is - as described by all the equally true different books he wrote in various languages, and by a chain of his acolytes in this thread over the years - a monster.


*and animals; for some reason the monotheists always struggle with the afterlife of the animals...

 

[UKMikey]

*and animals; for some reason the monotheists always struggle with the afterlife of the animals...

Are you telling me all dogs don't go to heaven after all? Don Bluth lied to us

I remember a discussion I had with a kid at school about how in Buddhism the repeated accumulation of negative karma can cause you to be reincarnated as an animal lower down the evolutionary scale on each go round.

He immediately asked whether, if you'd done so much bad stuff you ended up as an amoeba and then mistreated your fellow amoebas, you could end up clocking the wheel of life like a cheap odometer run in reverse and enter nirvana via the back door.

 

[Danoff]

enter nirvana via the back door.

Kurt Cobain did tell us God is gay.

 

[Brett]

That's still very No True Scotsman.

"I'm a nice guy, I haven't been corrupted, I follow it the right way. It's those big groups that don't."

What you're describing to me just sounds like personal belief. One person believes, many people organise it as a religion.

You (insert specific group here) sure are a contentious people.

 

[TRLWNC7396]

You (insert specific group here) sure are a contentious people.

That's probably the saddest part of it all.

@Famine, I understand. True. We shall see.

 

[TRLWNC7396]

This is a rather deep concept, but it is quite an amazing one to consider:

 

[Imari]

This is a rather deep concept, but it is quite an amazing one to consider:

Here, I'm just going to drop a 50 minute video but not actually give any information as to why I think it's worth your time or even what concepts it elaborates on that I think are worth other people considering with relation to the thread.

Y'all have nothing better to do than spend an hour watching stuff random people post on the internet, right?