Atheism

[Freecare Spiritwise]

With that caveat, I think we can all agree that adversity either reveals or shapes the soul (personally I think it reveals).

Hmm I was going to argue that it shapes, but I think it both shapes and reveals. I've seen it fundamentally change people, but I've also seen qualities to people that weren't apparent without it. Still the most interesting question is: Is there a purpose to adversity, or are we victims of it?

[Select]

Meh, the sites don't pertain to my interests, but they're out there for those who are on that path of atheism.

[Klast Brell]

Freecare: Thanks for that story. When I had read your previous post I realized that taking a shot at someone's parenting skills, even if it is only implied, is a little low for me. And besides I was drifting way off topic. It's about religion, not parenting.

Maybe god as a parent is a bad metaphor and we should just get away from it. What I should have said is that unless we know why something happens, and how to avoid it, we are not expected to de deserving of those negative consequences. In general we call that an accident. We may learn from the experience. But what does that say about the skills of the teacher? If the lessons are indistinguishable from random misfortune, and the students are left to make their best guess at the point of the exercise, is there any use for the teacher at all?

Quote Embar: "God doesn't put obstacles in our way.. he allows the obstacles to exist so that we may learn, grow, and evolve. Even if that means some innocent souls are taken earlier than others (like children who die of starvation or cholera). The rest of us have the burden of learning from their sacrifice."

He allows the obstacles to exists so we can learn? So if we don’t need the lesson will he remove the obstacle?
And what is the lesson we are supposed to get from their sacrifice? Please tell me so that god can stop “allowing” droughts and earthquakes. Sorry Embar. I don’t buy it. There are easier ways to teach me a lesson than by “allowing” the death of someone’s child. Saying god allows something implies that god has the power to prevent it as well.

[Freecare Spiritwise]

Freecare: Thanks for that story. When I had read your previous post I realized that taking a shot at someone's parenting skills, even if it is only implied, is a little low for me. And besides I was drifting way off topic. It's about religion, not parenting.

Forgiven, /man hugs.

Maybe god as a parent is a bad metaphor and we should just get away from it.

Yeah, you're right, probably not the best metaphor. Maybe I should say "master architect of the cosmic school system".

What I should have said is that unless we know why something happens, and how to avoid it, we are not expected to de deserving of those negative consequences. In general we call that an accident. We may learn from the experience. But what does that say about the skills of the teacher? If the lessons are indistinguishable from random misfortune, and the students are left to make their best guess at the point of the exercise, is there any use for the teacher at all?

The concept of original sin says that we are deserving of tragedy by virtue of birth, but I don't buy that. But who's to say what we are deserving of? Or maybe the line from my favorite Clint Eastwood movie sums it up: "Deserving's got nothing to do with it". And what if we're not smart enough to understand the lesson? What if the lesson is part of a larger context that we don't comprehend? The rational mind likes to pat itself on the back but for all our cleverness we can't engineer a common house plant in the laboratory. Our knowledge of the universe as a species is uh, lacking. What we don't know would fill far more volumes than what we do know.

Assumption: The universe is working as intended.
Fact: We all face adversity; some to greater degrees than others.
Observation: The people I know with the greatest depths of wisdom and character are the people who have faced the most adversity.
Conclusion: Adversity is good for the soul. We are meant to experience it, however painful.

My sister the brilliant mathemetician and scientist would say that there is no true randomness in the universe. Just look at the science of encryption. So if there's no true randomness, would there be a such thing as a random lesson? We may see an event as random and even senseless, and it may appear to be beyond our immediate understanding. But my contention is that if you widen the scope far enough, every event does have some profound greater meaning. That's why I believe in reincarnation. We go through a single lifetime with such a narrow focus, but taken in the context of multiple lifetimes, eventually the soul sees the big picture. And as I've said before, adversity has this galvanizing effect.

A hypothetical example: A small child sees a sibling die at a young age of a horrible disease. That tragedy galvanizes the sibling, who grows up to become a brilliant physician who goes on to save the lives of 1,000 children. Maybe a nurse in the hospital where the young child dies is profoundly affected by tragedy and decides to enroll in medical school so she can do more to heal the sick. Maybe a convicted murderer in the same hospital is so moved by the dying child's courage that he turns over a new leaf.

The consequences of any event can have profound and far reaching implications.

And lest anyone think that I'm some heartless bastard who doesn't "eat his own dog food" and can impersonally speculate these things because I haven't faced them myself, I have a 20 year old with the mental capacity of a 6 month old. Not my natural child - I don't have any of those - but one of three I took on when married their mom. People tell us "oh you're so strong, oh you're so virtuous" - where's the fucking choice? You gain strength because you must, and you look for meaning because the alternative is that there is no meaning, and I refuse to believe that. What is her lesson? Most of the people who come into contact with her leave with more empathy in their lives than they started with.

[Select]

I have a 20 year old with the mental capacity of a 6 month old.

Props to you. You chose to marry the mom. A lot of men aren't strong enough and would turn away for something with less 'hassle'. One of my brothers has autism and it's been a struggle. Far from the same situation but I can empathize.

[Arathena]

You know, as I age, and consider the question of God again and again, I find my point of view slowly changing over time.

I find that I desire that there should be a creator - This universe, even in its nearly ineffable quantum nature, is intricately, if occasionally brutally, designed, order foaming forth from chaos. It appeals to me that some entity far beyond myself created these laws of nature. It appeals to me, too, that there should be be a First Cause of all causes, and that it appeals to me that all this creation should have a purpose.

Yet, I find that I cannot observe any direct actions of this Creator, this First Cause, in this current world, or in verifiable histories of the past, save that which can be attributed to the uniform application of all natural laws. Given no input from It concerning It's existence or purpose is forthcoming, I am left only to my own conjectures and desires. Now, while I have plenty of those, I must admit that they are based not on what I observe and analyze, but almost entirely upon what I wish - this is not an objective view of reality, and try though I might, I have yet to bend reality to my desire through wish alone.

Adversity exists. We do not learn from it because it was placed there for us to learn from, but rather, because to do otherwise is to allow it to destroy us. Many people become susbstantially worse off because of what they have learned from adversity. That is why we call abuse abuse, not alternative education.

[Klast Brell]

Freecare: And what if we're not smart enough to understand the lesson? What if the lesson is part of a larger context that we don't comprehend?

Then the creator made a mistake when he made us in a form incapable of learning his lesson.

Freecare: A hypothetical example: A small child sees a sibling die at a young age of a horrible disease. That tragedy galvanizes the sibling, who grows up to become a brilliant physician who goes on to save the lives of 1,000 children. Maybe a nurse in the hospital where the young child dies is profoundly affected by tragedy and decides to enroll in medical school so she can do more to heal the sick. Maybe a convicted murderer in the same hospital is so moved by the dying child's courage that he turns over a new leaf.

Are you putting an omnipotent god in a box where he is helpless to do certain things? If he is omnipotent he could have given us all the free will. All the wisdom. All the lessons. All of it without so much misery.

And hypothetically god could have made the sibling, the nurse, and the murderer with the inclination to do those things from the beginning. Then the child would not need to die of a horrible disease. Some people do not need trauma to make them a better person. There are plenty of ways to learn lessons that don’t involve suffering and tragedy. We celebrate positive role models for the lessons we learn from them.

People want to feel safe and loved. For many people religion is a perfect salve to their pains. No matter how bad things are god loves them and wants good things for them. No matter how horrible something is, there is a wonderful silver lining because it’s all part of god’s plan to make you a better person and the world a better place. That feels better. Now it’s not so sad that the child died. The child is in heaven now! And there is going to be a great doctor who will save thousands of lives!

But that sort of thinking goes too far in too many people. They believe that we should not distribute the HPV vaccine, condoms etc. Cervical cancer, HIV, unwanted pregnancy, etc are lessons from god. Count the number of deaths every year from Cervical Cancer and AIDS. Multiply that by the grief and pain felt by the people who knew and loved them. Now remember the good god loving people who fight to prevent comprehensive sex education in our schools and distribution of condoms to Africa.

If god is teaching a lesson it comes at too high a price. He could find another way but chooses not to. That’s a tragedy for mankind. If there is no god then well meaning people with the best of intentions are making a pointless tragedy for mankind. No matter which is the case. It does not have to be that way, and faith is the source of that suffering.

[Freecare Spiritwise]

At one time bacteria weren't directly observable. Did they exist 2000 years ago? I could list hundreds of examples but you get the idea.

I remember reading somewhere that in the 1800's some famous scientific journal stated that everything discoverable had already been discovered.

So what's left to be discovered? What other phenomena exist that can't be observed in 2008? Quantum physics has already thrown a monkey wrench into our notions of objective reality. I think of that old saying that says when the science reaches the pinnacle of understanding, it will find the theologians have been there all along.

So I would say that a perception of reality based entirely on that which is directly observable is incredibly self limiting. Yeah, the scientific method was a great start, but without human intuition as its input (which can't be quanitifed) science is inert.

Edit: This post is a reply to Arathena. Klast slipped one in before that lol.

[Freecare Spiritwise]

1. Many of the positive role models are celebrated because of their triumphs over adversity.

2. I'm right there with you on the hypocrisy of most organized faiths. I've said all along that if you look at top 5 causes of pain and suffering since the dawn of man, the name of God is near the top of the list. George Carlin did a great comedy bit about it. About the only positive organized religion I can think of is Buddhism.

3. Your impression of my example sounds more like a script. Sure, an omnipotent being could've scripted the entire universe from start to finish and made it a happy script where mankind reaches into the very depth of his soul ... and sees rainbows and puppy dogs.

4. You say that if there is a creator and we are in school, the price of the lessons are too high. Again I would say that we are actors in a play. Tragedy is written into the plot. At some higher level of existence we do see that the tragedy is "simulated", but not until the play is over. The actors are so much better at their craft if they believe the plot is real! Anything else would be a dishonest performance.

5. I would say that truth is defined by its opposites. Love as opposed to what? Would a world that only contained love have any true measure of it? Do we truly value that which comes cheap?

[Garrdor]

I'm very fond of experiments that are in the vein of Miller-Urey.

Not that it really means anything. Though we DO have better evidence of what chemical composition the surface of our planet had, backtracking millions of years, than proof of talking snakes and people without bellybuttons.

On the subject of the afterlife, I think it's selfish and vain to worry about what happens after you die. There's a much bigger picture than us gangly bags of blood. I hope that the fabled 'primordial soup' was different on one of the planets across the stars, and produced a more advanced species (Maybe one that isn't so easily fooled into fairy-tales, or becoming mindless followers)

SALA-ME, BROTHERS!!!

Goooo into da light until we meet againnn, thats what the corrinians say again and again...

[Freecare Spiritwise]

On the subject of the afterlife, I think it's selfish and vain to worry about what happens after you die. There's a much bigger picture than us gangly bags of blood. I hope that the fabled 'primordial soup' was different on one of the planets across the stars, and produced a more advanced species (Maybe one that isn't so easily fooled into fairy-tales, or becoming mindless followers)

So we live in a world of mindless followers who ask too many questions?

[Garrdor]

I guess that doesn't make much sense. It did at the time :-p

The point I was trying to make is: People spend so much of the time that they have pondering what's going to happen afterwards. It's hard for most of them to accept that there might be nothing at all. I think that the religious ideas that we've constructed over the ages are a lullaby to ease the mind.

[Freecare Spiritwise]

Sounds like you're saying that people should be more superficial.

/bonk

[Ariannda Kusanagi]

People spend so much of the time that they have pondering what's going to happen afterwards. It's hard for most of them to accept that there might be nothing at all. I think that the religious ideas that we've constructed over the ages are a lullaby to ease the mind.

I agree with this thought. If people were more worried about living their lives to be the best people they could be NOW then many of them wouldn't have to worry about an afterlife. Sometimes i wonder if it's not all like a super conspiracy. I mean we know for a fact many many many more texts were written that never appeared in the bible, so who decided what should and should not be put in for the people to read ? shouldn't we know all of nothing of the ancient texts ?

Anyway the afterlife, yes if people were so worried about an afterlife then they'd live better lives, it seems to maintain in my mind the opposite holds true as well. Live the best life you can today, for yourself and those around you and those you love and hope your best was good enough at the end, instead of trying to maintain until the end that you've been good enough... and repenting on your death bed for all those misc little details .

[Klast Brell]

Wow that post got me looking up apocrypha and other non cannon writings.
I had no idea there were so many. http://www.toddtyszka.com/fulllist.html
And looking at the history of the various compilations and edits of the bible it bends my brain to try and track all the different versions and changes made to suit various theological beliefs.
Old testament http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developmen ... ment_canon
New testament http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developmen ... ment_canon

[Harlowe]

Wow that post got me looking up apocrypha and other non cannon writings.
I had no idea there were so many. http://www.toddtyszka.com/fulllist.html
And looking at the history of the various compilations and edits of the bible it bends my brain to try and track all the different versions and changes made to suit various theological beliefs.
Old testament http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developmen ... ment_canon
New testament http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developmen ... ment_canon

I always find this sort of historical information fascinating AND its the primary reason I take issue with the Bible being bandied about as THE word handed to us directly from God and we are suppose to take it in it's entirety literally, except when we aren't. Pick and choose. It's sooooo freakin political.

[Freecare Spiritwise]

Not to mention some of the text that is there has been supposedly modified over time. Growing up my friend's mom was a college professor and she used to ramble daily about different passages being sstricken and even re-written by pope such-and-such. Supposedly when Jesus said that the body is a temple, he also said that all answers are within yourself, which took away power from the church so it was stricken from the bible. She told us lots of supposed changes like that one over the years where the bible was changed to reflect church policy. And supposedly it's all well documented at the vatican.

[Ddrak]

As far as I'm aware, the modern protestant translations (NIV, ASV, etc.) work very hard to find the oldest texts possible for the accepted canon (39/27). I've no idea if it's the same on the Catholic side, but wouldn't imagine it would be different. While the Church certainly went through plenty of times where they tried to rewrite the faith, the modern translations I know of seem to have got past that and do actually attempt for historical accuracy - even to the point of discussing the different variants on translation in "study" versions.

Dd

[Garrdor]

Why wouldn't God do the same?

Once the human mind reaches certain evolutionary roadblocks, things like the idea of a celestial caseworker for billions of people start popping up.

Hey, I've had a whole litter of kittens die unexpectedly. Oh, but that doesn't apply. They're animals. No soul. Got it!

[Taxious]

Of course bad things happen, but in the grand scheme of things, what do they really matter? As depressing as it sounds, I'm kind of at a point in my life where everything feels like a distraction while I wait for my end to come.

Man, that statement is so sad (really, I don't mean it as an insult, I mean it as true sadness that a person could feel this way). I hope your perspective of life, the universe and your place in it changes.

I beleive we are put on this earth for two two things.. to teach, and to learn. Sometimes (most times) we aren't aware we are doing either, until much later, and with a modicum of perspective.

Every human has an intrinsic and unmalleable value. Every single human, from the highest saint to the lowest sinner. From the Ghandi to Hitler. Mother Thersea to Jeffery Dahmer. Everyone. Its just that many of us can't see the value, until we get perspective and time to consider what each one of those humans offered up to the human experience.

This means you too Tax. You have value to the rest of humanity. You may not see it in yourself, and you may never see it, but take it on faith, you affect more people's lives than you can possibly imagine, in ways you can never know. Isn't that a wonderful thought? Don't you see the glory in that?

Embar, I generally like reading what you have to say, and in a way, view you as a role model. You seem like the type of person I could chat with for hours while learning and remaining interested in the process. Don't be worried about insulting me, I care far more about hearing "another side" of the topic rather than trying to get attention through being offended. I don't think it's sad (pseudo-nihilism) but rather a different way to look at things. I think below it all, you would be surprised at the beliefs that we do share.

What you propose is definitely a wonderful thought, but it's hard for me to swallow the idea that everyone is a unique-and-beautiful snowflake. I agree that we all affect each other here on earth, but the value of that interaction is what I'm concerned with. In 100k years, how meaningful will our interactions be? It's hard for me to see value in any life, compared to the great big ∞.

There is nothing I believe in more than my own insignificance. As "sad" as that idea may be, it does allow for some great opportunities in being selfless.