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I think that atheists have a hard time discerning the difference between “spiritual” and “religious.”
Mine isn’t faith or belief in God, it’s certitude.
The evidence is right in front of me — from the jaw dropping world of microbiology all the way out to the complex study of the billions of various galaxies, black holes, and into infinity. The evolution from single cells to our complex modern planet!! For me, it’s always pointed to a vastly creative intelligence behind all this, and there’s a love and reverence for it beyond the thinking mind.
I grew up with atheist parents, so I am comfortable using the word God as it holds no religious bagage for me to describe the amazing and stunning creative intelligence behind all this. The mind has its limitations, can only go so far with thought and analysis, but when pushed and challenged to comprehend or take in the vastness of creation, many of us call what we experience beyond the mind’s capacity “spirit.”
I come from a science background and find it more curious how someone would believe THIS is all merely a set of marvelous coincidences and just a lucky rolling of the evolutionary dice….
Per my bolded above, this still ends up being an argument from incredulity, which is fallacious.
Also the prior paragraph is a god of the gaps fallacy, coupled with an assumption that all that's beyond our current understanding, always will be.
Still, if you choose to view reality through this lens, and don't impose it on anyone but yourself, then enjoy! It is a vast and amazing universe out there. Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs -- just not their own facts.
God belief is the foundation of a top-down view of the universe. God created everything, the story goes, so the created reality is a reflection of a higher reality. Philosophically the analogue is platonism.
It's no coincidence that Plato's Republic posits aristocracy as the ideal form of government. Minority rule by an elite is a dream of many but not most, hence the need for the God story to justify minority rule to the majority.
There are a lot of bonuses that come with God belief, or more accurately were tacked on to increase its appeal. But at heart it's about convincing the majority that they must follow a minority, in the extreme case of God everyone following one. You can see how this would be attractive to the ruling classes.
This is a perfect example of how religion and politics intersect and it's impossible to discuss them in isolation.
I would add that your observations are more true of authoritarian religion, and less so of others. But you're correct that the top-down hierarchy of a never-wrong, all-powerful, hyper-aware deity that defines all positive human characteristics -- a being that is even openly referred to as Lord -- provides the template for rule of the many by a "worthy few".
I wonder if anyone has ever concocted a god for themselves that, rather than being the most powerful and having an ownership role over his created beings, is more in the role of "most experienced elder brother" or some such. It could arguably be that the whole concept of "god" as we generally understand is just inherently authoritarian and that is its central appeal. You cannot abrogate difficult moral decisions to a family member or partner, you need a boss. You cannot appeal to authority if it's not really an authority. You cannot let some other being worry about your personal exigencies unless they are all-powerful or at least far more powerful and wise than you.
I don't think modern theists have the intellectual framing to think of the concept of "god" in any other way. It gets teased at somewhat (the verse for example that says that god "sticks closer than a brother") but never really takes off.
People think that the 21st century is a new thing where God can't exist any more, but the 21st century is more Post Modern today as people are believing and living the lies that good is bad and bad is good, and men don't have X chromosome, and women don't have Y chromosome in the 21st century.......... God is very much alive today, and He will be around long after people alive are long gone ...... God has gifts of His Spirit were on my life, if I get a cough or pain and many other things God told here to pray and every time using His Word He removes this, and it is Gone in seconds ....... So did you ever give up trying to find God in your life , If the answer is yes then you will never find God when you give up ....
Perhaps if christianity stopped making teachings focused on tales from 3,000 years ago (and longer), and made things more relevant to people today -- few of us can relate to sheepherders -- people would be less likely to start threads titled "God is a made up thing". Most Americans couldn't even point to Israel on a blank world map, and yet you expect them to build their lives around Israelite stories that are 3,000 years old.
Perhaps if christianity stopped making teachings focused on tales from 3,000 years ago (and longer), and made things more relevant to people today -- few of us can relate to sheepherders -- people would be less likely to start threads titled "God is a made up thing". Most Americans couldn't even point to Israel on a blank world map, and yet you expect them to build their lives around Israelite stories that are 3,000 years old.
I don't know if any of you are familiar with the game WorLdle, in which you get the shape of a country and have six guesses to get which one it is, but I got Israel on the first guess. Just sayin'.
But that is a very good point. We don't relate to sheep herding. Or foot washing. Well, some churches do, and even one priest at my Episcopal church liked to do that on Holy Thursday, but it just totally skieved me and made me not attend that service anymore when he was there.
What a narrow minded view. Perhaps if you listened to atheists instead of blocking them.
If I were her, I would ask the question why have people been "hurt deeply, damaged in an existential way, or just irritated by all the hoopla of organized religion". She blames the people for her misguided psych-analysis instead of looking at what did the dirty deeds.
I wonder if anyone has ever concocted a god for themselves that, rather than being the most powerful and having an ownership role over his created beings, is more in the role of "most experienced elder brother" or some such. It could arguably be that the whole concept of "god" as we generally understand is just inherently authoritarian and that is its central appeal. You cannot abrogate difficult moral decisions to a family member or partner, you need a boss. You cannot appeal to authority if it's not really an authority. You cannot let some other being worry about your personal exigencies unless they are all-powerful or at least far more powerful and wise than you.
I think most polytheistic religions were actually like this. There was still a hierarchy, but the gods were imperfect and could be tricked and sometimes even defeated. However polytheism tends to reduce to monotheism because of questions about the origin story, so it's not really a stable equilibrium.
If I were to ask God to let me go, His reply would be, "no." What if I preferred not to exist - i.e., the annihilation of my soul? The answer would still be no. He paid a price for me. I am His slave now and forever. I will love and serve my omnipotent Master forever.
I think "agreeing to disagree" is a cop out. You've not supplied an argument, just a claim. And you've not supplied any basis for your claim. I expect that's because there is no basis -- with religion, the claim must be based on faith, not evidence. Anyone can "have faith" in anything. So why is any one thing more credible than any other?
If I were her, I would ask the question why have people been "hurt deeply, damaged in an existential way, or just irritated by all the hoopla of organized religion". She blames the people for her misguided psych-analysis instead of looking at what did the dirty deeds.
An interesting perspective. As I have not been hurt by religion*, it never occurred to ask that.
* which is usually an argument to imply atheism is an emotional choice, and not a rational position.
I don't know if any of you are familiar with the game WorLdle, in which you get the shape of a country and have six guesses to get which one it is, but I got Israel on the first guess. Just sayin'.
But that is a very good point. We don't relate to sheep herding. Or foot washing. Well, some churches do, and even one priest at my Episcopal church liked to do that on Holy Thursday, but it just totally skieved me and made me not attend that service anymore when he was there.
And it's even beyond that. Even when I was 10 or 12 years old sitting in church listening to Reverend Durham's sermons, he would go and on about all these biblical characters, and I would sit and think to myself 'why doesn't he go on to tell us how that story relates to us today in the 1950s". And I found the same thing in the catholic church several years later. And maybe that's why, when my gradmother would have us all sit down for Sunday dinner, 90 minutes after that weekly sermon, she couldn't even tell me what the sermon was about.
The first time I had to give a real speech my boss was in the audience, and after I was done we went out for a drink, and I asked her how I did. She told me that I alternated between cliches where she could see that people were glazing over, to personal examples of things that were meaningful to me when she said people literally sat up in their chairs, leaned forward to listen, and began nodding yes. And one of the places I think a lot of ministers and priests go wrong is that they use the same sermon at the same point in the church year year-after-year, and rarely relate that to people's lives. I don't need to hear the story of Moses on Mount Sinai, or Adam & Eve, or Noah and his flood another time; been there, done that, ad nauseum.
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