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I can state where I'm personally coming from, maybe it'll help some, but it'll probably unintentionally offend others.
Recently I've done a deeper dive looking at my personal fears (common stuff like will my children grow to be happy and healthy, will I die young before I make a big enough impact on their lives, financial fear from childhood) and realized the fear if from me wanting to control the future. So if I give up the desire to control future outcomes, the fear dissipates and I can focus more clearly on my present situation.
I also accept my own limitations and I think it's driving me to try to become better in general and make more of a difference. But this feeling of inner peace and moral conscious is without any specific religious beliefs.
Jumbo, this is very significant. And very understood.
This is how human mind operates.
It can exist only in the past and hope in the future.
Human mind does not exist in NOW.
One that manages to rid of past automatically rids of the future, with that future being nothing but dream castles, as no one really knows what will happen next moment. But, as mind dwells in the past, it has to project past into somewhere and so future is created.
Your hope to focus more clearly on my present situation. is futile, as your present situation is projection of your past.
Interesting thing is, the very moment one rids of the past, mind seizes to exist. It can't be without past.
This is known as enlightenment, when past disappears, future disappears, mind disappears, only NOW is.
There is a wisdom relevant to the "future" concept and god.
When god wants to punish a man
He takes his sanity away
When man wants to make god laugh
He creates a plan.
Fear not your fears, sorry for pun. They are nothing more than lessons for you. Contemplate them, learn from them - but fear them not. And why would you? Can you touch them? Can they harm you? They are, in their essence, figments of your imagination. They may not even be real. As how do you know? When you dream, your dream is real to you, right? But, when you wake up, it is real no more. Same is your fears. They are nothing more than dreams. To be considered, but not to be feared.
I get you. It is that logically that ought be a big factor and, though it seems that love and joy is what Christianity seems to get, deconverts have said that hellfear was (and often is) a real factor.
It was in my childhood church, too, Trans. Sin and death and hell were the focus of the Dutch Reformed Church and its American offspring.
Vincent Van Gogh was the son of a Dutch Reformed minister. His parents previously lost another son as a toddler, also named Vincent. Every Sunday after church, Vincent and his parents and brother went to the cemetery behind the church to pray at the first Vincent's grave. The kid grew up seeing his name on a headstone. Does anyone really have to wonder why he ended up crazy?
(I am a Van Gogh fan.)
It's occurred to me that one of the reasons I returned to a different-yet-still-Christian spiritual path, besides my own Dutch stubbornness, might have been to complete something I had never quite resolved. As I always make clear, I don't believe my spiritual path or Christianity is the only right one or the one for everyone else. It was within a framework with which I was familiar, of course, but there is also this other element that I think is well expressed in this Ashanti saying I came across and liked (and have no idea how to pronounce): "se wo were fi na wosan kofa a yennki"
"There is nothing wrong with going back to fetch what one has forgotten."
The forgotten thing is something I faintly recall from childhood, before the clutches of the sin-and-death-and-hell mindframe took hold.
That's certainly not my belief. People seek many things from religion besides comfort from manufactured concerns. False comfort from real concerns; real comfort from real concerns; to engage in social reciprocity; to participate in group projects; to form committed relationships with others; etc. Many of these things do not require some "secret sauce" that only the church has, but they have successfully branded it as such for countless generations and it's all many people know.
I will read this sympathetically rather than as you wrote it ... I do not believe you meant a believer should fear that god might do some injustice or hurt or harms someone. I think you meant that a believer should think twice before doing those things because god will then do something like that to THEM. I am not sure however which is a worse thing for people to be thinking about your belief-system.
Here in the real world we can ask ourselves whether a child is more apt in the long run to emulate a parent who models good works from healthy motivations or one who merely demands them on pain of ... well, of whatever. And then we can ask ourselves which child will be doing good out of the right motivation. My suggestion has always been that people should do good because, at a minimum, it's in their rational self-interest, and preferably, because it's in the rational self-interest of everyone concerned. Not because someone might smite them if they don't. Because this suggests that people in the main will not willingly do good unless under some horrible threat. I do not have such a pessimistic / nihilistic view of life.
It's a game of probabilities. There is no guarantee but I think there is a high probability that Hitler would have not done as to what he did to the Jewish people if Hitler had the fear of God.
I can state where I'm personally coming from, maybe it'll help some, but it'll probably unintentionally offend others.
Recently I've done a deeper dive looking at my personal fears (common stuff like will my children grow to be happy and healthy, will I die young before I make a big enough impact on their lives, financial fear from childhood) and realized the fear if from me wanting to control the future. So if I give up the desire to control future outcomes, the fear dissipates and I can focus more clearly on my present situation.
I also accept my own limitations and I think it's driving me to try to become better in general and make more of a difference. But this feeling of inner peace and moral conscious is without any specific religious beliefs.
Your post is exactly what I discovered. I used to be afraid of dying while my daughter was still young. Omg! My husband would be teaching her his friendship skills. The horror. But as a result of discovering this point of view, that you state nicely in the post above, I learned a few things, made new fantastic friends and asked them if they could answer friendship questions my daughter may have should I die early. Until then, I show her daily how relationships work. Thanks to Mordant, I can now add the clear differences between regret and disappointment.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GoCardinals
It's a game of probabilities. There is no guarantee but I think there is a high probability that Hitler would have not done as to what he did to the Jewish people if Hitler had the fear of God.
Did you get the idea?
I agree. It is is a game of probabilities. I grew up in a Christian community where people had a fear of God. What they feared most was a changing world that they felt was the result of unbelief. It was not necessarily the fear of the change but fear of the wrath of God for allowing such changes to occur. What is the effect of this fear? Controlling behavior of others, not of oneself. This was back in the 80's. I truly believe this is what drives politics today.
But anyone can be in a constant state of fear, not just Christians, so I pay attention to words while many focus on actions. Words will bring forth intentions and motivations and whether or not the person thinks in a state of fear. I like to identify them early.
It was in my childhood church, too, Trans. Sin and death and hell were the focus of the Dutch Reformed Church and its American offspring.
Vincent Van Gogh was the son of a Dutch Reformed minister. His parents previously lost another son as a toddler, also named Vincent. Every Sunday after church, Vincent and his parents and brother went to the cemetery behind the church to pray at the first Vincent's grave. The kid grew up seeing his name on a headstone. Does anyone really have to wonder why he ended up crazy?
(I am a Van Gogh fan.)
It's occurred to me that one of the reasons I returned to a different-yet-still-Christian spiritual path, besides my own Dutch stubbornness, might have been to complete something I had never quite resolved. As I always make clear, I don't believe my spiritual path or Christianity is the only right one or the one for everyone else. It was within a framework with which I was familiar, of course, but there is also this other element that I think is well expressed in this Ashanti saying I came across and liked (and have no idea how to pronounce): "se wo were fi na wosan kofa a yennki"
"There is nothing wrong with going back to fetch what one has forgotten."
The forgotten thing is something I faintly recall from childhood, before the clutches of the sin-and-death-and-hell mindframe took hold.
I'm quite a Van Gogh fan. too. 'Many paths to God' (or many "Spiritual" paths) is of course, much more the sort of view that humanists, skeptics, rationalists and like Double -dammed Satanspawn can live with, even if we regard 'Spiritual' as no more than the highest possible human moral and ethical ideals rather than some kind of Cosmic Reality - as - existing- being that we can have a relationship with.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 12-13-2017 at 05:39 AM..
Perhaps this comment would have some value if you were a Cbristian or Muslim who would be representing the faith of over two billion people combined.
But again, that is the 'Dambuster fallacy'. "Those who were not in it are not qualified or entitled to critique it". In fact it is often those outside who can see the wood rather than the trees.
This is the fallacy in its' merely illogical form. When used as part of a religious argument it quickly becomes crackpot with the claim that only those who have Faith can understand the Bible, even when those without Faith understand it far better than the Believer.
This fallacy is indeed Faith -based in its' form of bias -confirmation and rejecting any input that isn't liked. "I was there - you weren't" is simply a trick for dismissing any unwelcome evidence and is just part of the "Fingers -in -ears' denial, so regrettably common in humans "Commonsense" thinking as it is called.
Popeye "You don't know anything about looking after babies!"
It's a game of probabilities. There is no guarantee but I think there is a high probability that Hitler would have not done as to what he did to the Jewish people if Hitler had the fear of God.
Did you get the idea?
Possibly. But God also drives people to do horrible things to others, so I'm not certain. My take is it's kind of a wash. Some people are better off with the belief and others are not. Some situations it has a net benefit on society, some situations not so much. But people of deep faith are more likely to believe that their faith is superior and the world would better off if everyone believed in their faith. It's probably tougher for them to see where others are coming from, especially non-believers and people living in different countries.
Your post is exactly what I discovered. I used to be afraid of dying while my daughter was still young. Omg! My husband would be teaching her his friendship skills. The horror. But as a result of discovering this point of view, that you state nicely in the post above, I learned a few things, made new fantastic friends and asked them if they could answer friendship questions my daughter may have should I die early. Until then, I show her daily how relationships work. Thanks to Mordant, I can now add the clear differences between regret and disappointment.
Instead of dwelling on the disappointment and having it turn to regret, sounds like you accepted it, learned from it and improved your situation because of it
It's a game of probabilities. There is no guarantee but I think there is a high probability that Hitler would have not done as to what he did to the Jewish people if Hitler had the fear of God.
Did you get the idea?
Rubbish. Not only was anti - semitism there in the particularly virulent form that Hitler picked up purely because of Gospel antigonism towards Jewry, but he believed that his god totally approved of what Hitler was doing.
Go back to square 1 and start again.
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But as a result of discovering this point of view, that you state nicely in the post above, I learned a few things, made new fantastic friends and asked them if they could answer friendship questions my daughter may have should I die early. Until then, I show her daily how relationships work. Thanks to Mordant, I can now add the clear differences between regret and disappointment.
