Spiritism

To me personally, the "traditional" (jewish, muslim, christian) belief in God makes complete sense. I'm not going to get into it to avoid the possibility of the pointless "God exists vs doesn't" debate but it makes sense on a lot of levels.

IMHO it's natural to doubt and question things but dismissing faith as being stupid and bull is pretty pretentious, billions of people believe in God.

It's too bad nobody can have a deep discussion about it, it's always about who's more stupid and who's more right. Religion is some heavy shit and it would be cool to be able to get into it on some crazy ass philosophical level.

Having said all that, this spiritism deal simply provides a different possibility to the way spiritual world works. It's something you cannot prove or disprove, therefore, coming up with new theories is unnecessary when old ones make more (or just as much, if you want) sense. It's just a take on life and death that's not particularly remarkable or even all that interesting. Just my 2c.
 
Makenshi said:
1. We're not imortal souls; good for you, all you've done will be for nothing because you will cease to exist just the way you wish.
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euhm, you need to learn how to live.

even if i die and my socalled 'soul' dies with me (which i'm pretty sure it will), i would not regard my life as have been 'for nothing'.

most if not all atheists think this way.

why would their continued existence have any influence of how worthwhile their life was? spoiler: it doesn't at all.

of course, if you stoop to religious thinking, with man keeping from sin -because some book said so- in order to escape punishment and yield reward in the afterlife, one might even suggest that that is not a moral choice, but rather moral cowardise. does fearing god make you a good person? if that's your only motivation not to sin, well, then i think you're quite possibily a bad person (spoiler: since your 'god' is allknowing, you'll be fucked anyway. thought police, pull over.).
me (and many atheists) live by our own morals and ethics, supplemented with local laws instead.
 
Makenshi, I strongly reading some Albert Camus, specifically his writings about absurdism. It perfectly illustrates SuA's point about the aetheist (and often time agnostic) mindset.
 
maximaz said:
It's too bad nobody can have a deep discussion about it, it's always about who's more stupid and who's more right. Religion is some heavy shit and it would be cool to be able to get into it on some crazy ass philosophical level.
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It always irks me how every religion(etc,etc) even down to individual churches(etc,etc) of the same branch is assured of their superior brand of worship(etc,etc).

This is not directed at your beliefs, but rather more of a why it is so difficult to even discuss between the religious.

"Do you go to church"
"Yeah I go to church"
"If you don't go to OUR church you might as well get ready for hell"
"why"
"cuz jesus(etc,etc) didn't like choirs our way is right, you atheist"
 
Dude, Wotan was mentioned wayyyy earlier.

Also, totally agree with SuA.
 
SuAside said:
me (and many atheists) live by our own morals and ethics, supplemented with local laws instead.
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I agree. I don't keep myself from hurting / taking advantage of other people because I fear god. I don't, because I empathize.
 
I'm my own god in a religion of one :)
All is subjective and every human theory is a paradigm. We know nothing about ourselves or the world around us or the infinity above us.

Feel free to disagree.. I've found peace of mind already.
 
White noise is mostly caused by cosmic rays. It's not half as esoteric as esoterics make it. The sun is a huge fusion reactor. You wouldn't expect a man-made fusion reactor to run without emitting some kind of radiation, so why put so much meaning into solar radiation? Not only suns, but planets, too, cause some kinds of interference. Earth itself probably accounts for a lot of noise. There's nothing magical in that.

Believing in an eternal soul that will outlast your earthly existence is both a cause and a phenomenon of leading an unfulfilling life. If your life sucks so much you have to have another life to look forward to, you should get your problems sorted out before wasting more time on prayer or what-have-you.

Live your life to the fullest, because it's the only one you will (or, in your mind, can be sure to) ever have. Maybe at the end of your life you will find that you wasted many opportunities or that you would have liked to do some things you never did, or that other people were able to live longer lives -- or with more luxuries -- but all that means nothing if you consider how incredibly privileged you are for having lived at all.

There are gazillions of possible combinations of genes and outside influences that could have resulted in another person being in your place -- but you won the lottery on that one and came into existence. Think about it and be happy about it. Don't go searching for some higher meaning behind it all, you'll only waste your time.

Try to learn more about the "how" rather than asking a faceless universe "why". If you think spiritism is full of wonder, you'll be astonished at the wonders you'll find in the real world -- evolution itself is one of the greatest wonders and it's right in front of you, in every person you meet, every animal you see and every plant you pass.

It's not wondrous because it's incomprehensible or stupefyingly esoteric. It's wondrous because it's so astonishingly simple and yet so brilliant. Trying to do away with all its complexity by proposing some kind of self-caused omnipotent creator or esoteric mambojambo doesn't do it justice.

There's more beauty in a raindrop than in all the religious dogmas in the world.
 
Why bother denying god if you're going to die and become nothing anyways?

It seems to me that either path is equal as long as the person is happy in their belief.

My only complaint is that we owe respect and continuance to the traditions and ideas of the people who have made our modern lives possible (such as progress in science and government, and the right to free speech and the pursuit of liberty).

But even that is optional, as it is a somewhat altruistic act, and altruism is essentially meaningless in a life where you are only in your own mind.
 
Because religious faith often results in shorter lifetimes and decreased overall happiness in the person's social environment?

Besides, think of all the contributions someone could make to society if they had a scientific mind, rather than one laid in shackles by religion. Imagine Einstein had been a religious literalist. What a waste of human potential that would have been.

I'm not pretending that I could revert every religious nut or even that every religious nut could add more to humanity if they threw off their religion. It's more like combating a disease: curing a carrier may not make any difference for that single person, but it helps preventing the spread.
 
Hmm, but what exactly is the purpose of progress?
I can find no personal self gain for contributing to the world.
So ideally, a person should not contribute if it makes them happiest, yeah?

I feel no need to contribute, especially if I have to do anything pleasant to accomplish it.

You have too much faith in the cult of science, sir.


Question everything.
 
[nitpick]I suppose you mean "if I have to do anything UNpleasant to accomplish it"?[/nitpick]

If you find no pleasure in contributing to the world, then that's your subjective view and there's little I can do about it. Maybe you're just less social than the average human being? Evidently, your view is not as popular as one could extrapolate, otherwise the world would look significantly less developed.

There's no personal "gain" in dropping religion. There's no personal "gain" in adapting religion either. Most people do not even CHOSE to be religious, they are raised religious.

The merit of abandoning religion is freedom from religion, itself. If you think it "turning your back" on whatever you deity you happen to think real, you don't fully grasp the concept -- it's not about "believing in" a deity, it's about believing the existence of that deity a fact -- like believing the existence of your parents (or their past existence, if they have passed away) a fact.

There's nothing the lunatic gains in abandoning his conviction in the CIA reading his thoughts, really. But he may stop feeling under constant observation (much like religion-imposed guilt -- most Western religions thrive on it) and actually be able to make sense of the world.

Knowing that bad things happen to you not because you did something wrong or because some invisible person hates you (or wishes to "test your faith" or whatever sadistic motive you can think of) but because of a long chain of events can be more comforting than it may seem. If you actually WERE involved in some of the events, it even allows you to learn how to prevent similar bad things in the future.

Moderate religiousness isn't too harmful. But not all religious persons are moderate, and a surprisingly large amount of religious persons are willing to use violence to pursue their beliefs. And they even do so while thinking they are doing it for a greater Good.

If you, as a moderate, find that the God Hypothesis gives you something you cannot find outside religion, that is okay.
The problem is the waste of time and resources that goes into such religions, and the amount of destruction it can cause.
 
Hmm, I suppose it's fair to say that I loathe the idea of organized religion, but personal religion (lets call it faithful agnosticism) is very very satisfying as long as it doesn't get in the way of your ability to function and pursue things as best you can for personal gain.

Faith is an intrinsic part of the human capacity to function, but so is skepticism.
 
Credulity is an intrinsic part of the infant human's capacity for obvious reasons (questioning the deadliness of alligators, for example, would be bad).

IMO religious faith (based on opaque dogma, rather than transparent empiric studies) is merely the remainder of that credulity after the process of maturation (of which scepticism seems to be an intrinsic part).
 
Ashmo said:
There's more beauty in a raindrop than in all the religious dogmas in the world.
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Now this is a poetic sentence! I'll try to make a version of this one to use with the girls :mrgreen:

xdarkreyx said:
Faith is an intrinsic part of the human capacity to function, but so is skepticism.
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Maybe it is in the genes? I'm a bit afraid of Brother None here, but I think that all physical capabilities of the human are linked to the info on the DNA; even in the case we all have souls (or are intelligent & imaterial beings incarnated in bodies [spirits]), the link through which the soul/spirit can/could interact with the body should be the DNA, right?

And if there's no soul/spirit in the process, than it's almost certain faith/skepticism are built in the DNA of human beings.
 
There was a philosopher that I can't remember the name of who held a very strong view that there was a specific part of the brain that channeled the human spirit, and it was what allowed the human body and mind to act as a medium for our unearthly souls.

It might have been Descartes, but I really can't remember.

In any case, there have been significant studies to assert that in or near the Broca's area (language recognition part) of the left hemisphere of the brain, there lies a hard-wired structure that causes people to feel as though they have a purpose (intentional stance) that might be the sole reason we have the power of initial motivation and also the same reason religion has pervaded our societies. It has to do both with the motivations behind curiosity.

Or perhaps it is Descartes spirit channeling mechanism, who knows ;)
I'll have you know though, Descartes wasn't exactly a physician or neurologist.

*edit*
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/René_Descartes
Descartes argued that only humans have minds, and that the mind interacts with the body at the pineal gland. This form of dualism proposes that the mind controls the body, but that the body can also influence the otherwise rational mind, such as when people act out of passion. Most of the previous accounts of the relationship between mind and body had been uni-directional.
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Disregarding the supernaturalist soul, religious faith is not mysterious. There have been several proposed explanations for evolutionary reasons for religion and the most sensible one seems to be that it is a by-product of childhood credulity. It probably doesn't have any use of its own, but merely arises as a consequence of childhood credulity, which is very useful to protect the young.
 
Ashmo Wrote:
Believing in an eternal soul that will outlast your earthly existence is both a cause and a phenomenon of leading an unfulfilling life. If your life sucks so much you have to have another life to look forward to, you should get your problems sorted out before wasting more time on prayer or what-have-you.
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So, Ashmo, are you saying Sir Isaac Newton, Sir Roger Bacon, Nicolas Copernicus, Galileo Gallei led unfullfilling useless lives? Seems to me that is incorrect. So you applying your statement to all of Christendom shows just how little you know of what Christianity means. Condemn it if it makes you happy, but under NO circumstances are you superior, as you seem to intimate, to believers just because you do not believe.

By your flawed logic the West should still be the level of pre-Roman barbarism, because all Christians are losers. So, why then does the West dominate in the areas that require freedom of thought?

Yes, a lot of believers are morons, but so are a lot of people who do not believe. So where do you get your 'superior' 'tude'? You seem to make a lot of assumptions and generalizations in your stereotypes, I wonder why? Compensating for something there bud? :wink:



Cheers, Thorgrimm
 
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