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Hi Insaneindamembrane (love the name! lol)...
Thanks for sharing that clip.
Some thoughts on it...
1. Faith does tend to prevent skeptimism, yet it also gives motivation, passion & a sense of meaning to much of life.
2. Disregarding objections to religion as Satan's influence may be rooted in the same idea of when subjects were expected to say or do certain things in the presence of or when speaking about a King. Religious beliefs were used for political power.
However... there is some truth to "Satan's influence" if you consider that which we try to deny within ourselves... why we're addicted to things, what we're trying to run from, etc.
3. "God knows the big picture"... "I don't understand it, so I just put it on the mental shelf until later" These are attempts to justify inconsistencies like God commanding "Thou shalt not kill" & then a few short years later, commanding mass genocides.
However... there is some truth to this. Our subconscious (which, IMO is our "kingdom (experience) of God within"... often sees a bigger picture than our more superficial, logical mentality.
4. Pick your denomination... if one is too threatening, go to another...
We do this in shopping for products & services, why would shopping for religion be any different?
You don't go to kindegarden at Harvard, do you?
5. (** My favorite...) That's Allegory - isn't it all? Yes! The bible is not a history book, but a spiritual book. Even if it has some historical bits here & there... what matters is what we get out of it, spiritually & morally.
6. Heaven & Hell... Mind control=creating a problem & then proposing a solution for that problem.
It seems obviously plain how unjust for a "Loving" God to punish someone via eternal hell simply for not believing a story.
However, there's some truth to "heaven & hell" now, in this life.
One's thoughts dictate it... by inspiring feelings & associated behavior... then more thoughts, feelings etc.
7. Old & New Testament flip-flops. The differences between the 2 parts of the bible, indicate the progress, consciously, socially & spiritually. Yes, there's been attempts to tie them together, indicating Jesus didn't do away with the law but "fulfilled" it. This is often referring to animal sacrifice, & Jesus being a perfect human, being the ultimate sacrifice, that all the others were only representing.
This is twisted thinking in a few ways, IMO.
-Giving up spiritual responsibility - thinking that just belief in a Savior will save one from doing all of the soul-searching & behavior modifications necessary to truly be "saved" from one's own created personal hell.
-God is defined according to how we see ourselves & others. Believing God demands a human sacrifice for sins he created us to have goes against the scripture, "God is love." Love is not la la happy feelings... it is doing what is best for one... in the big picture. God knows we tend to learn more from mistakes (sins) than anything else.
-Putting Jesus up on an impossible perfect pedestal gets us off the hook. We might think, "How can we possible even come close to following his perfect example? He'll just do it for us, so let's not even worry about it."
Faith may motivate, inspire and give passion to life.
I'm not even going to go into the less attractive inspirations it can sometime impart, but would say that motives, inspiration and passions do not have to be faith - based. Theists have noted our Godless passion for what we do here and it often looks like a religious faith to them. It isn't since it is based on reason rather than Faith, but by golly it sure motivates and inpires us and imparts plenty passion.
You don't need faith (religious faith) to have all those things.
Hi Insaneindamembrane (love the name! lol)...
Thanks for sharing that clip.
Some thoughts on it...
1. Faith does tend to prevent skeptimism, yet it also gives motivation, passion & a sense of meaning to much of life.
2. Disregarding objections to religion as Satan's influence may be rooted in the same idea of when subjects were expected to say or do certain things in the presence of or when speaking about a King. Religious beliefs were used for political power.
However... there is some truth to "Satan's influence" if you consider that which we try to deny within ourselves... why we're addicted to things, what we're trying to run from, etc.
3. "God knows the big picture"... "I don't understand it, so I just put it on the mental shelf until later" These are attempts to justify inconsistencies like God commanding "Thou shalt not kill" & then a few short years later, commanding mass genocides.
However... there is some truth to this. Our subconscious (which, IMO is our "kingdom (experience) of God within"... often sees a bigger picture than our more superficial, logical mentality.
4. Pick your denomination... if one is too threatening, go to another...
We do this in shopping for products & services, why would shopping for religion be any different?
You don't go to kindegarden at Harvard, do you?
5. (** My favorite...) That's Allegory - isn't it all? Yes! The bible is not a history book, but a spiritual book. Even if it has some historical bits here & there... what matters is what we get out of it, spiritually & morally.
6. Heaven & Hell... Mind control=creating a problem & then proposing a solution for that problem.
It seems obviously plain how unjust for a "Loving" God to punish someone via eternal hell simply for not believing a story.
However, there's some truth to "heaven & hell" now, in this life.
One's thoughts dictate it... by inspiring feelings & associated behavior... then more thoughts, feelings etc.
7. Old & New Testament flip-flops. The differences between the 2 parts of the bible, indicate the progress, consciously, socially & spiritually. Yes, there's been attempts to tie them together, indicating Jesus didn't do away with the law but "fulfilled" it. This is often referring to animal sacrifice, & Jesus being a perfect human, being the ultimate sacrifice, that all the others were only representing.
This is twisted thinking in a few ways, IMO.
-Giving up spiritual responsibility - thinking that just belief in a Savior will save one from doing all of the soul-searching & behavior modifications necessary to truly be "saved" from one's own created personal hell.
-God is defined according to how we see ourselves & others. Believing God demands a human sacrifice for sins he created us to have goes against the scripture, "God is love." Love is not la la happy feelings... it is doing what is best for one... in the big picture. God knows we tend to learn more from mistakes (sins) than anything else.
-Putting Jesus up on an impossible perfect pedestal gets us off the hook. We might think, "How can we possible even come close to following his perfect example? He'll just do it for us, so let's not even worry about it."
The person who did the video clearly has ONE type of Christian in mind and that is the beauty and confusion of the religion. You can basically customize it to suit one's taste. You can take it literally or spiritually.
Faith may motivate, inspire and give passion to life.
I'm not even going to go into the less attractive inspirations it can sometime impart, but would say that motives, inspiration and passions do not have to be faith - based. Theists have noted our Godless passion for what we do here and it often looks like a religious faith to them. It isn't since it is based on reason rather than Faith, but by golly it sure motivates and inpires us and imparts plenty passion.
You don't need faith (religious faith) to have all those things.
Thanks, Arequipa.
I see what you mean... you're sane & everyone else isn't.
Just kidding! I know you're as insane as the rest of us!
Seriously, even scientific or logical "reason" is limited in "reason."
You wake up each morning... & the day is filled with infinite possibilities! How do you know if you decide to hop on a plane to Bermuda... if everything will be as beautiful as you always dreamed? You don't know! But you have faith... or some kind of reason (within limits of what you've learned) to believe.
Continually asking "why" about any motive, I found that passion is based on illusion... Yeah, some motives are more "logical" than others. Still, the motive is often based on a tiny part of a huge picture, & if we're honest, it's often selfish (in a good or bad way).
One must have dreams & passions to create & maintain enough motivation.
I want to believe again... I need to...
To open up myself to more possibilities... realizing that I can orchestrate my life by orchestrating my thoughts & related feelings & actions.
Excellent arguments, and ones I'd love to see addressed in point form (which is not, obviously, my strong point...). But I do know that, in accordance with some of the points so well made in this video, a fundamentalist Christian cannot, in all truthfulness, ever honestly answer without becoming hostile.
So, I suppose, in a sense, that response completely validates each and every point this YouTube author has made so effectively.
Bravo
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Wow! Great video!
