Religious Freedom

[wendybeth]

Alex, I'm pretty comfortable with my belief system, although I think 'system' implies more structure than it really has. I've arrived at a core belief that I think works for me and I have no desire to share or convert or really even discuss it. To go into why I think Jesus was not an asshole would involve far more discussion than I want to get into to, and it wouldn't necessarily be truth to anyone but me. You grew up a JW and your view is affected by the things you've experienced and learned in your lifetime; I grew up a Catholic and the same goes for me. I've studied (and continue to study) history, science and all the other things that might influence a person's belief system and have largely concluded that most of the bible is political bull****. It's been twisted and so selectively edited that any truth was probably lost long ago.

However, my metaphysical astrologist mother would say that the above is merely my Leo sun sign conflicting with my Pisces moon and it's spiritualistic influence.

[Alex]

Fair enough.

I'm very curious how you simultaneously belive that Jesus existed but that the Bible doesn't really contain any truth since any knowledge of the former only exists in the latter (as well as similar posthumous apocrphya). It is fair to not want to talk about it. But with your willingness to judge the faith of others, as you did above, I hope you can see where I might be interested in knowing more of how you come by such judgments and the method on which you filter what you find to be the wheat from the chaff.

As Richard Dawkins has been so famously saying recently, everybody is an atheist for 99% of the gods, atheists just take it one god farther. I'm fascinated by the process in which non-atheists end up picking that one god (or god-system, to involve the polytheists), and then how all the ones that pick the same god manage to create nearly infinite variations and then start shooting each other over them.

I'm certainly not looking to be converted or convince anybody else of my views. I'm just curious of a process so completely foreign to me since the gods forgot to give me the faith gene. But I can live with curiosity unfulfilled.

[Prudence]

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

I'm certainly not looking to be converted or convince anybody else of my views. I'm just curious of a process so completely foreign to me since the gods forgot to give me the faith gene. But I can live with curiosity unfulfilled.

It's difficult to reconcile a claim of mere curiosity when also presented with statements like this:

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

Since the only evidence we have of Jesus's message are the people who tried to speak for him (no direct authorship exists) how do you have any idea what his message was independent of them? Maybe it is like deciding that Jeffrey Dahmer was a pretty good guy based on the writings of his mother?

I'm having a hard time seeing that as anything other than a dig.

I can't speak for Wendybeth, but the reason I don't usually participate in these discussions is that, for the most part, the "other side" does NOT have a genuine curiosity to know how I think, except as a pretext for "demonstrating" how wrong I must be. Because the "other side" sees my beliefs as silly and fundamentally untrue, they are genuinely unable to prevent themselves from, in their minds, proving me wrong. The questions aren't so much "why do you believe that?" as they are "how can you believe that in the face of all this evidence I've decided proves your God doesn't exist?"

It's nearly, if not completely, impossible to have a reasonable discussion in such an environment. If I respond with any visible emotion whatsoever, it's proof that I've let emotion, and not reason, guide my judgment. If I stop participating, it's conceeding the point. I can't produce God out of my sock drawer or give his address in Jersey as proof. And what I can provide that I consider proof, others consider mere coincidence, which gets no one anywhere. And thus the argument goes 'round and the horse begs to be made glue already.

[Strangler Lewis]

Jesus certainly was an asshole on the "Live and let live," "Dude, what's your problem?" level. So were the Old Testament prophets. If by asshole, we mean treating the people who love and trust him poorly, I don't recall any such stories in the Bible. Of course, the Old Testament God was an asshole to Moses and Job, so it's reasonable to assume that God in the flesh was as well. And, if the question of salvation vs. damnation hinges on faith and belief rather than good works, that's major ass-holiness.

[Alex]

Originally Posted by Prudence

I'm having a hard time seeing that as anything other than a dig.

I don't mean it as a dig, honestly. Change it to "deciding that Gandhi was a pretty good guy based only on the writings of his mother" and my question is the same, if you can't trust the only source of information, how do you decide the truth.

And I'm not asking anybody to prove that God exists. For the sake of discussion I concede the point. In this case, I'm asking how, if you otherwise discount the Bible, you decide what Jesus's message was?

Is there a scheme to how some religious/spiritual ideas are embraced (for example, Jesus says to love everybody) while others are tossed aside (for example, Jesus says to avoid contact with lapsed Christians).

No, I don't think everybody with faith is silly, but I do think they're wrong. But then they think the same of me. So, faced with a selection of 100, in my view, equally wrong things (from the Greek pantheon through animism and into the various flavors of monotheism), I'm curious how most people manage to pick one of those as true but still agree that the other 99 are false.

This analogy may look like a dig, again, but I don't mean it as such. If 100 people came to me saying 2+2 equals everything from 20 to 119 I'd say "no, you're all wrong." But from my point of view, religion\spirituality is someone saying "no, you're all wrong. Except the guy who said 2 plus 2 is 38." Why?

If it is simply "I looked deep inside myself and this is the truth I found" then fine. That a non sequiter to me, but I can't argue with it. But when other religious views are condemned, as they have been in this thread, I again get curious as the basis for assuming that when other people similarly look deep inside themselves they find the wrong answer.

No, nobody is under any obligation to discuss these things, but I don't feel bad for asking the question.

[€uroMeinke]

Originally Posted by Prudence

It's nearly, if not completely, impossible to have a reasonable discussion in such an environment. If I respond with any visible emotion whatsoever, it's proof that I've let emotion, and not reason, guide my judgment.

This is another tangent, but I fail to see why this is a problem. More often than not we use reason to rationalize what we feel in our gut in the first place. Perahps your argument would not fall into the usual if x then y ,of the socratic method, but does God and belief really follow such logic any way?

[wendybeth]

Actually, Prudence summed it up quite nicely for me. Not in the mood, Alex- my post wasn't intended to be anything other than an observation and expression of dismay at what people do in the name of religion, and it wasn't even particularily original. If you'd like to start a discourse on wherever it is you seem to be trying to lead this, then by all means go right ahead, but I am really not interested in this conversation anymore.

[Alex]

observation and expression of what? The sentence is missing a word.

And again, fair enough on not wanting to discuss it. But when you find other faithss lacking, I'll be interested in the basis by which you do that. I don't feel I'm trying to take it anywhere beyond where you took it yourself, but that's fine, I"ll drop it until the next time.

[wendybeth]

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

observation and expression of what? The sentence is missing a word.

And again, fair enough on not wanting to discuss it. But when you find other faithss lacking, I'll be interested in the basis by which you do that. I don't feel I'm trying to take it anywhere beyond where you took it yourself, but that's fine, I"ll drop it until the next time.

Sorry- edited for clarification. I had another post, but an error 504 message kept popping up and wouldn't let me post it. I copied it and tried again, but it still wouldn't let me. For some reason, it let me post the less verbose reply above, and I took that as a sign.

[LSPoorEeyorick]

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

But when you find other faithss lacking, I'll be interested in the basis by which you do that.

I'm pretty sure that Wendybeth was saying she found others' ACTIONS lacking, not their faith specifically. I don't believe she has a problem with others having differing dogmatic beliefs; she has a problem with their self-righteous actions in defense of their religion.

There are plenty of Catholics who don't bomb abortion clinics. There are plenty of Muslims who aren't violent. It's the extremists who bother me, because their fanaticism obscures the goodness that their religion is supposed to inspire. I suspect that this is what Wendy is talking about.

And I don't know about Wendy, but I really respect what Christ had to say (even if it's only attributable to the oral tradition.) In the Bible, much of what is said by Christ has to do with loving and forgiving others and being peaceful. Regardless of who said it, in my opinion, it's a good way to live. But then, I also like to reach out and see what others have to say about how to live. Buddhism, especially, has some great philosophies that help me day-to-day.

Why do I accept some religious philopsophies and not others? Because I have no desire to be told how to think; because I like to come to my own conclusions. I take a piece from this and a piece from that and I use what feels useful to me. Just like you do, Alex; you simply find different things useful.