What if God doesn't exist

[Incomplete]

If you truly love someone, you will never just wake up one day and feel nothing for them, you will always love them unless they do something so fundamentally awful that it becomes clear they are no longer the person you married in any way. And if my husband wakes up one day and just honestly couldn’t care less if I live or die, or would be perfectly fine never seeing me again, then he needs to tell me that because I do not deserve to waste my life on a person who feels nothing for me. I admire his willingness to stick it out, but it would be kinder to ME if he would just leave.

No, you won’t just wake up one day and feel that way. But it can happen over time. I’ve also seen it happen when chronic illness strikes. After years of one spouse being seriously ill, the other one eventually leaves. It doesn’t mean the person never had those strong feelings of what some call love. It doesn’t make their earlier love be any less. But years of chronic illness can change both the person who is ill and the caregiver…so indeed, neither are the same person they were when they got married.

I’ve seen it when a soldier comes home from war, full of anger and PTSD. It can take years and years to get past the trauma of war, and they can be so different that the spouse can’t handle it. You may think that could never happen to you, but it could.

I’ve seen it happen with depression as well. People will say, “That’s not the man I married.” They struggle with what to do because they realize depression is an illness, but to live for years with it is difficult.

In fact, I’m not the same person I was when my husband and I married. After a lifetime together, people do change.

But again, you are talking about those warm fuzzy feelings. And those feelings can and do go away. That’s different from what the Church describes as love. And those warm fuzzy feelings also leave in all those dating relationships you have before you get married. Getting married is about a life-long commitment, until death do you part, not “until those feelings go away do we part.” That’s not the vows we take, or at least, not the vows I’ve ever heard anybody take. Those vows separate marriage from dating, or at least, they should. They don’t seem to any longer.

But my original contention was not just about marriage. It’s the whole thing about love being unselfish. True love is unselfish. True love does not depend on feelings to do good for others. To do for those who are unloveable is an act of unselfishness. To do good for those we have loving feelings towards, that’s nothing difficult at all. Even people who would murder, people who would be cruel to others, even those people tend to be good to those they have feelings of love for. As Christians, we are called to so much more.

 

[Warrenton]

Compassion has to be considered to be one of the main reasons for Buddhist passivity. Who can forget the image of the Buddhist self-immolation while maintaining the lotus position as a protest against the Vietnamese treatment of Buddhists? This is hardly the action of someone who believes resistance to be pointless. The Dalai Lama is after all, the supposed reincarnation of the Buddha of compassion. They respect others immensely and believe all living creatures to be worthy of compassion.

Of course, but we are talking about two different things, and across time.

You have to separate the historical Buddhist approach to the post Christian period. Buddhism does not exist in an intellectual vacuum.

Ontologically, the reasons for compassion have to do with universal harmony, which is something like a giant avatar. Ultimately, though the “meaning” is that there is no meaning.

 

[Thoughtfulone]

No, you won’t just wake up one day and feel that way. But it can happen over time. I’ve also seen it happen when chronic illness strikes. After years of one spouse being seriously ill, the other one eventually leaves. It doesn’t mean the person never had those strong feelings of what some call love. It doesn’t make their earlier love be any less. But years of chronic illness can change both the person who is ill and the caregiver…so indeed, neither are the same person they were when they got married.

I’ve seen it when a soldier comes home from war, full of anger and PTSD. It can take years and years to get past the trauma of war, and they can be so different that the spouse can’t handle it. You may think that could never happen to you, but it could.

I’ve seen it happen with depression as well. People will say, “That’s not the man I married.” They struggle with what to do because they realize depression is an illness, but to live for years with it is difficult.

In fact, I’m not the same person I was when my husband and I married. After a lifetime together, people do change.

But again, you are talking about those warm fuzzy feelings. And those feelings can and do go away. That’s different from what the Church describes as love. And those warm fuzzy feelings also leave in all those dating relationships you have before you get married. Getting married is about a life-long commitment, until death do you part, not “until those feelings go away do we part.” That’s not the vows we take, or at least, not the vows I’ve ever heard anybody take. Those vows separate marriage from dating, or at least, they should. They don’t seem to any longer.

But my original contention was not just about marriage. It’s the whole thing about love being unselfish. True love is unselfish. True love does not depend on feelings to do good for others. To do for those who are unloveable is an act of unselfishness. To do good for those we have loving feelings towards, that’s nothing difficult at all. Even people who would murder, people who would be cruel to others, even those people tend to be good to those they have feelings of love for. As Christians, we are called to so much more.

I’m not just talking about warm and fuzzy feelings. There are days when I want to beat my husband with a frying pan, but I always love him. Even if he had severe brain damage that totally changed his personality, I could never NOT love him. I might hate what it has done to him, or hate the way he is behaving, but I love his SOUL and that is eternal and unchanging. I love who I know him to really be without all the psychological external ******** that the world tends to periodically inject into our personalities, even if for a period of time he might not be living up to that divinity, to the Holy Spirit living inside him.

But what you said about being called to be charitable to those for whom we have no warm fuzzies as Christians, this is of course true. People in prison, drug addicts, murderers, even pedophiles deserve our Christian charity. This is why we are called not to judge others. Judgement leads to feelings of superiority and derision, which make it difficult to see Christ in everyone.

 

[Warrenton]

Warrenton-

I beg to differ. “Faith” has not been purely altruistic ever.

I don’t believe we disagree. Faith is not purely altruistic. Altruism is a by product of faith (by their fruits shall ye know them). But faith itself is larger than altruism, and sometimes is not altruistic at all.

 

[Incomplete]

I’m not just talking about warm and fuzzy feelings. There are days when I want to beat my husband with a frying pan, but I always love him. Even if he had severe brain damage that totally changed his personality, I could never NOT love him. I might hate what it has done to him, or hate the way he is behaving, but I love his SOUL and that is eternal and unchanging. I love who I know him to really be without all the psychological external ******** that the world tends to periodically inject into our personalities, even if for a period of time he might not be living up to that divinity, to the Holy Spirit living inside him.

But what you said about being called to be charitable to those for whom we have no warm fuzzies as Christians, this is of course true. People in prison, drug addicts, murderers, even pedophiles deserve our Christian charity. This is why we are called not to judge others. Judgement leads to feelings of superiority and derision, which make it difficult to see Christ in everyone.

So ultimately we’ve been talking the same thing all along, just using different language. You can love his soul but still lose all those warm and fuzzy feelings because you’re human, and if he was difficult for years, it happens. But you’d stay with him. You’d take care of him.

You’d do what was needed for him, for the best for him, even if you didn’t benefit.

 

[mellestad]

@OP:

My speculation is that, mostly, you’d see stuff like post #4. When people leave religion, I’ve not seen evidence their basic morality veers wildly from whatever their cultural norm was to begin with.

Depending on how theistic their upbringing is, you might see some panic/emotional disruption though. Secular values and ways of thinking are just like the religious ideas in that they must be taught, they are not intuitive. If the underpinnings of a particular system are taken away, there will be some internal chaos until something else can take their place. That process can take a while.

Again, it depends on how long and how deeply their theism is tied to their thinking. Some people wouldn’t even twitch, some might have large existential crisis. Most adults aren’t really that religious, so wouldn’t have much trouble. Kids would rarely have any issues as long as alternatives are readily available.

The people saying they’d just go on blind, short sighted, hedonistic sprees…well, I think that is hyperbole, or maybe just ignorance of alternative ideas. On the other hand, some people might genuinely be unable to function without an objective moral threat/reward system. I doubt it though. If they do exist, I hope they never become atheists, lol.

Fun question!

 

[mellestad]

With the caveat that specific moral imperatives more or less unique to the religion are often abandoned. I guess it depends on your viewpoint whether or not that constitutes their morality ‘veering wildly’. I can see how you could make a case that it is so.

Values that are associated with the general society won’t be likely to change much though.

 

[Soler]

Thoughtfulone:

Not at all. 9/11 in my opinion was completely unjustified. Was the way in which we retaliated justified as a result? Not necessarily. It’s never black and white.

Not really “we”—although my country (Ireland) did grant use of an airport to the U.S. military.

But in any case, I of course am not trying to say that all methods used in war are appropriate. But I would say one side is usually justified in waging war.

Good Lord. Have you ever seen the instruments of torture used during the Inquisition at a museum? It’s sick John Wayne Gacy/Jeff Dahmer stuff. I cannot argue with someone who actually thinks this was appropriate.

Again you misunderstand me. An inquisition is a form of ecclesiastical court. I was approving of the courts themselves and not the dubious practices sometimes engaged in by their officials. Indeed, one Pope issued a decree aiming to limit torture.

About the courts themselves: heretics were sometimes sentenced to death after their conviction at an inquisition, if unrepentant. While I am practically certain that would not be a good idea for the 21st century, who, may I ask, is to judge concerning times past (or even future)? It is certainly legitimate to completely oppose that particular practice, but it remains a practice that Aquinas approved of. My point is that we must keep an open mind and not judge those who engaged in practices that have never been forbidden by the Church.

And, with that in mind, we certainly must not talk disparagingly about “the catholic Church in the Middle Ages” as if it were universally agreed that it was worse than the Church of today.

Haha. Not quite. Chinese Buddhism, and every other religion in China, is horribly tainted by the Chinese government and Communism. You can’t argue that these people are “bad” or “half” Buddhists or Christians when they are persecuted at every turn for their beliefs and live in constant fear of their government.

Well then, let’s look at Japan. From Wikipedia:

Figures that state 84% to 96% of Japanese adhere to Shinto and Buddhism are not based on self-identification but come primarily from birth records, following a longstanding practice of officially associating a family line with a local Buddhist temple or Shinto shrine.

About 70 percent of Japanese profess no religious membership, according to Johnstone (1993:323), 84% of the Japanese claim no personal religion. And according to Demerath (2001:138), 64% do not believe in God, and 55% do not believe in Buddha.

Sounds like there are plenty of nominal Buddhists out there, just like there are plenty of nominal Christians.

And how many Christians are there in the world? I am specifically talking about Tibetan Buddhism, which is its own religion…it is like the Catholicism of Buddhism if you will, and about 1 in 30 of them are actual MONKS. Face it, they are more devout, peaceful and holy than we are. If China would leave them alone, their society would be damn near Utopian. What is it with the Catholics on this site and the “my Dad can beat up your dad” ********? Would it be SOOOOO painful to realize that we may actually have something to learn from the way other religions are practiced?

(emphasis added)

(You know, I really don’t have any reason to believe any of this. It’s just simpler to take your word for it, because I don’t have any contrary evidence.)

1. They could be more devout and “holy” (in a broad sense) than you or I, but are they more devout and holy than little old ladies who pray the Rosary in church after Mass?
2. Their society wouldn’t be that “near Utopian”, 'cause they’d all be violating the First Commandment, which was still important last time I checked.
3. Would it be SOOOOO painful to realize that we might actually have more to learn from, I dunno, St. John Vianney or St. Thomas à Kempis than a bunch of mountainous pagans, however nice they may be?

 

[Warrenton]

@OP:

The people saying they’d just go on blind, short sighted, hedonistic sprees…well, I think that is hyperbole, or maybe just ignorance of alternative ideas. On the other hand, some people might genuinely be unable to function without an objective moral threat/reward system. I doubt it though. If they do exist, I hope they never become atheists, lol.

Fun question!

My point is it would not be blind. It would be considered. I would conclude that the best thing for me would be to maximize my own pleasure. I would commence doing this without regard to anything except my own pleasure, there being no real reason to do otherwise.

Alternatives? What alternatives?

I like to think I would function swimmingly. Stalin, for example, was mean, but he functioned. I would put Mao in the same category. I am not saying that my pleasures would be as extreme as theirs, any more than I am saying that they are typical atheists. I mention them merely to show that self-centeredness does not imply inability to function.

I think any one who is not risk averse, or for whom rejection is not particularly painful could operate quite nicely in the absence of a moral code. Those who are so get to be the relative losers, absent chance.

But, Fortune favors the brave.

 

[mellestad]

My point is it would not be blind. It would be considered. I would conclude that the best thing for me would be to maximize my own pleasure. I would commence doing this without regard to anything except my own pleasure, there being no real reason to do otherwise.

Well, in once sense that is true. The trick is the realization that ‘maximizing your own pleasure’ is not something that can be accomplished without some enlightened self interest. Possibly if your level of instinctual empathy is lacking and/or you are clinically psychotic, you might be able to proceed as a social and emotional vampire and achieve happiness. You’d have to avoid anyone finding out though, as people will not react in a pleasant manner to such behavior.

Warrenton:

Alternatives? What alternatives?

shrug There are hundreds of secular philosophies. Just Google secular morality, secular philosophy, stuff like that. You can find a wiki article that quickly goes over some basic stuff.

A moral code is simply picking a particular axiom and working from there in whatever way you find effective. Attempting to be cohesive, ideally.

Warrenton:

I like to think I would function swimmingly. Stalin, for example, was mean, but he functioned. I would put Mao in the same category. I am not saying that my pleasures would be as extreme as theirs, any more than I am saying that they are typical atheists. I mention them merely to show that self-centeredness does not imply inability to function.

Certainly, it does not, I’d agree with you there. However, unless you have the charisma, ruthlessness and can find a suitable meme to prop yourself up with, I wouldn’t hold them as any kind of example. I’d also be curious as to why they would be considered figures to emulate from an atheistic standpoint…I’m not aware that they were particularly ‘happy’ individuals. Driven, certainly, and in the right time and place for that drive to have massive impact on their societies…but off-hand I don’t think their lives are something I would ever envy.

Warrenton:

I think any one who is not risk averse, or for whom rejection is not particularly painful could operate quite nicely in the absence of a moral code. Those who are so get to be the relative losers, absent chance.

But, Fortune favors the brave.

I think you are correct, with the caveat that being absent a moral code isn’t possible. You might actively choose amorality, but you are still subject to your own internal desires. Perhaps you could better phrase it, “a moral code that shuns altruism of any sort”?

Needless to say though, that would be like eschewing a retirement plant because you’re planning on winning the lottery.

Even in the event your psychology is warped to such a degree that you are incapable of empathy and then you choose to follow a moral system that abandons the concept of altruism (I don’t know why you would want to) you’re in the position of having to hide your actions and motivations from everyone who doesn’t abandon those concepts, which is going to be…well, pretty much everyone. Certainly I wouldn’t be eager to be your neighbor and would be perfectly willing (and motivated!) to see you removed from society by exile, imprisonment or death.

I guess my main complaint with this sort of thing is it assumes everyone is a psychopath or a sociopath and the only thing holding them back is fear of retribution. The majority of people don’t seem to work that way…humans are social animals. The humans that are that way must go through considerable effort to avoid the gaze of those around them. That doesn’t seem like a life anyone would volunteer for.

 

[Trevor_Stamm]

I guess my main complaint with this sort of thing is it assumes everyone is a psychopath or a sociopath and the only thing holding them back is fear of retribution. The majority of people don’t seem to work that way…humans are social animals. The humans that are that way must go through considerable effort to avoid the gaze of those around them. That doesn’t seem like a life anyone would volunteer for.

Well for one, the majority of people are religious. Only 1.1 billion (16%) of the world is Non-religious. And the majority of modern world is Christianity (33%) 2.1 billion, and the majority of Christians are Catholic 1.1-1.2 billion (16% of the world). So speaking of the majority of people, always remember, the majority (which is 84%) believes in a moral code of conduct and retribution of sin.

And saying humanity can be moral without religion is very strange, given the fact that morality stems from religion. Your social norms and laws of government as how to act as an “upright citizen” is taken from religious doctrine that wrong action is meant with judgment and virtue is meant with reward. So whatever you do or say of secular morality (be it that whatever particular morality you point out is truly good and virtuous) will always take its roots in religion.

Also we can use models of how humans act without fear of retribution or fear of God, take for instance Communism. Communism is diametrically opposed to “morality” and good religion, source doctrine is that “the survival of the fittest”, atheism, and whoever doesn’t conform to the Communist Manifesto is put to death. This practice is very young, and since it’s start of practice, 1918, (not the start of its theories) to present day has destroyed more lives in it’s name than any other belief in human history, 150 million human lives. Who knows how many more in the future, and scary to think about.

No one is saying humans, without religious morality, are psychopaths or sociopaths. But if you believe that they aren’t then I offer a parable. Say a man is born is raised without a hint or an idea at all of morality and acts totally of his own will whenever he pleases. One day he kills another out of rage. If there is no heavenly morality given by God, is this man in the wrong? If so, by who’s standard? He sees himself justified, as “the strongest survived”. But if you are to argue that the human mind has an innate will of morality without being taught this, would this man feel guilty of his crime? If he would feel guilt out his own will, where does this guilt originate? And out of this guilt, would he condemn himself?

We as humans are required to be taught orally and academically on any subject of interest, be it the culinary arts, chemistry, too astrological science. Why I wonder do non-religious people tend to exempt morality of this same principle.

 

[Thoughtfulone]

B

ut in any case, I of course am not trying to say that all methods

used in war are appropriate. But I would say one side is usually justified in waging war.

Even the Catholic Church doesn’t believe this.

Again you misunderstand me. An inquisition is a form of ecclesiastical court. I was approving of the courts themselves and not the dubious practices sometimes engaged in by their officials. Indeed, one Pope issued a decree aiming to limit torture.

About the courts themselves: heretics were sometimes sentenced to death after their conviction at an inquisition, if unrepentant. While I am practically certain that would not be a good idea for the 21st century, who, may I ask, is to judge concerning times past (or even future)? It is certainly legitimate to completely oppose that particular practice, but it remains a practice that Aquinas approved of. My point is that we must keep an open mind and not judge those who engaged in practices that have never been forbidden by the Church.

Um, the Church still hasn’t admitted to heliocentrism. When the Church is wrong, she rarely admits it. Pope Innocent IV issued a Papal Bull advocating torture during the Inquisition. The “limiting torture” idea was that life and limb could not be imperiled and drawing blood was frowned upon, which is where we get the invention of the rack. Lovely. Sorry, but I feel very confident in judging this particular matter as a blight on Catholicism.

And, with that in mind, we certainly must not talk disparagingly about “the catholic Church in the Middle Ages” as if it were universally agreed that it was worse than the Church of today.

Well today, the Church has its own unique problems. This era too, will sadly be considered a blight on the Church by history.

Well then, let’s look at Japan. From Wikipedia:

Sounds like there are plenty of nominal Buddhists out there, just like there are plenty of nominal Christians.

All it says is that their birth certificates identify them as Buddhists. They do not self-identify as Buddhists.

1. They could be more devout and “holy” (in a broad sense) than you or I, but are they more devout and holy than little old ladies who pray the Rosary in church after Mass?

There is a big difference between praying the rosary after mass and giving your entire life up to your faith, following the tenets of selflessness and compassion.

1. Their society wouldn’t be that “near Utopian”, 'cause they’d all be violating the First Commandment, which was still important last time I checked.

Again, and this is just a personal opinion, I think God would look at these people and find them to be very holy indeed, very peaceful and very compassionate. If all of society were like this, there would be no war, no killing, no selfishness, etc.

1. Would it be SOOOOO painful to realize that we might actually have more to learn from, I dunno, St. John Vianney or St. Thomas à Kempis than a bunch of mountainous pagans, however nice they may be?

The thing is, you have to throw in examples of actual canonized saints to even approach the holiness of a good percentage of Tibetan Buddhists. They actually live their faith, whether we agree with it or not. When you live in a society where more than 1 in 30 give up their earthly desires to live lives of monastic peace and harmony with nature, you have to admit that they have something that we as average Catholics are missing. You might call it faith or devotion or even compassion and selflessness. Whatever it is, we don 't have it.

 

[onenow1]

If God did not exisit we would not exisit, this is simply common cents and the truth.

God Bless
:compcoff:

 

[Trevor_Stamm]

Um, the Church still hasn’t admitted to heliocentrism. When the Church is wrong, she rarely admits it. Pope Innocent IV issued a Papal Bull advocating torture during the Inquisition. The “limiting torture” idea was that life and limb could not be imperiled and drawing blood was frowned upon, which is where we get the invention of the rack. Lovely. Sorry, but I feel very confident in judging this particular matter as a blight on Catholicism.

You can read the truth of the Spanish Inquisition
here.

 

[Thoughtfulone]

You can read the truth of the Spanish Inquisition
here.

I know the truth about the Spanish Inquisition. My information comes from the Catholic Encyclopedia. Look up the Papal Inquisition, not the Spanish one.

 

[Trevor_Stamm]

I know the truth about the Spanish Inquisition. My information comes from the Catholic Encyclopedia. Look up the Papal Inquisition, not the Spanish one.

The article I presented has loads of information on the Medieval (Papal) Inquisition as well; it was leading up the Spanish Inquisition. It’s a good read, hope you enjoy it.

Inquisition, is this the article on Catholic Encyclopedia you are referring too?

 

[Warrenton]

The trick is the realization that ‘maximizing your own pleasure’ is not something that can be accomplished without some enlightened self interest. *.

 

[1234]

Let me just start by saying that this is a complete hypothetical. It is impossible to prove that something does not exist, so technically it would be impossible to disprove God, but what if somehow it was proven to you God didn’t exist…how would your life change?

Would you morality change if you somehow knew for a fact that God didn’t exist? How would your life change? Would your life be better? Would it be worse?

Also, just so you know I’m not looking for “answers” to this question about God’s existence being truth and there is no point in thinking about what if God didn’t exist, etc. This is a completely hypothetical and if you can’t play along then feel free not to reply.

Anyway, I already know how my life would change because I recently lost my faith in God. I can’t say for sure that God does not exist, but it seems much more likely that there is no God. To be honest, my life really hasn’t changed much though. I still have the same set of morals as I did when I did believe in God. Then again my morals didn’t line up with the church at that time either. I would think things like condom use would be taken off the immoral list without God because without the existence of God condoms cease to be immoral.

Anyway, what do you guys think?

To answer the original question.

Nothing would change for me. Nothing has changed in the decades since I lost my faith. There are very strong reasons for a person to exhibit ethical and moral conduct in society. Enlightened self-interest suffices to provide plenty of ethical and moral underpinning to one’s life. I donate to charities to help the less fortunate. I vote to support social legislation, bonds, etc. because it helps the community in which I live. I get alone with my family members and neighbors because I have to live with them and they are part of my life. I obey the laws, pay taxes and vote to support the society in which I live. I treat my co-workers decently because I have to work with them. I don’t do drugs, etc. because they all have serious consequences and I don’t like the side effects. Et cetera.

If there is no ethical reasons to support a doctrinal belief, practitioners have a hard time defending the doctrine or practicing it --contraception is a good example of this.

The human race has always been very violent, self-centered and sinful. We are just a lot more well-informed about sin these days. We now know about virtually every act of violence in the world. In the past, you didn’t know about what happened in the next town. The definition of what was sinful has changed, of course. It used to be perfectly accepted to torture people to death in public. No longer. Wars were considered honorable and necessary. We do make a lot more serious effort to avoid war–for the most part. Everyone says that sex is a much greater problem these days. Really? Illegal abortion has been rampant since history was recorded–many recipes for abortion are found in ancient manuscripts. Illegitimacy was commonplace, so was suicide for pregnancy out of wedlock. Early genetic researches in the 1950’s in the US, studying similarities of newborn with their parents, discovered that at least 10% of the newborns were illegitimate, caused by the mothers having sex out of marriage and getting pregnant. Never mind the incidence of what the men did, or incidence of all of the adulterous sex acts that didn’t result in pregnancy. Each generation feels that its generation is a lot worse than the previous.

Increasingly, modern physics appears to be doing away with the necessity of a Prime Mover to invent the universe. I don’t understand any of this, but feel that, in any case, the existence of such an entity wouldn’t mandate belief in the gods worshiped in current religious practice.

 

[Soler]

Thoughtfulone:

Even the Catholic Church doesn’t believe this.

Indeed. It is my personal opinion. It is also, as far as I know, a perfectly orthodox opinion.

Um, the Church still hasn’t admitted to heliocentrism. When the Church is wrong, she rarely admits it. Pope Innocent IV issued a Papal Bull advocating torture during the Inquisition. The “limiting torture” idea was that life and limb could not be imperiled and drawing blood was frowned upon, which is where we get the invention of the rack. Lovely. Sorry, but I feel very confident in judging this particular matter as a blight on Catholicism.

Sorry, but you either ignored or misunderstood everything I said. Read it again if you will.

Well today, the Church has its own unique problems. This era too, will sadly be considered a blight on the Church by history.

Finally we find some common ground!

All it says is that their birth certificates identify them as Buddhists. They do not self-identify as Buddhists.

Well, many Catholics do not self-identify as such. And many who self-identify as Catholic do so only in a very broad sense.

There is a big difference between praying the rosary after mass and giving your entire life up to your faith, following the tenets of selflessness and compassion.

The devout old lady is still likely to be more holy. Buddhism is fundamentally an egocentric religion. As I once heard a priest say, it is a religion where you have nothing to love.

Again, and this is just a personal opinion, I think God would look at these people and find them to be very holy indeed, very peaceful and very compassionate. If all of society were like this, there would be no war, no killing, no selfishness, etc.

There is a lot more to holiness than being “very peaceful and very compassionate”. A LOT more.

The thing is, you have to throw in examples of actual canonized saints to even approach the holiness of a good percentage of Tibetan Buddhists. They actually live their faith, whether we agree with it or not. When you live in a society where more than 1 in 30 give up their earthly desires to live lives of monastic peace and harmony with nature, you have to admit that they have something that we as average Catholics are missing. You might call it faith or devotion or even compassion and selflessness. Whatever it is, we don 't have it.

Certainly, it might be an idea for Roman officials to see how Tibetan religious authorities manage to keep the people so devout. (I imagine that the answer would be connected to nationalism—look at Ireland under the Penal Laws or Poland under Communism.)

But you are comparing a subset of Buddhism that consists of 1.8 million people with the whole Catholic Church. Simply put, the comparison fails.

 

[mellestad]

mellestad;7611508:

While I generally agreed with what you wrote, I am not sure I can follow you this far, for two reasons. Maximizing my own pleasure is the desire, enlightened self intererst, is simply a matter or pragmatics.

I agree.

Warrenton:

The second, and more serious scruple I have is that I do not believe in instinctual empathy. I think empathy is learned. Many so-called primitive societies kill or harm or ignore other people for reasons that baffle the rest of us. Most of what we think is instinctual, I suspect is learned behavior. Plus, that which may be instinctual, is easily overcome.

You think? I think it is instinctual, but there is an enormous caveat:

Our strongest instinctual empathy is tied to individuals and our immediate social group. Once you leave that dynamic the process becomes more intellectual and subject to our (also instinctual) drive to create ‘us’ and ‘them’ groups. That simple caveat gives the idea of instinctual empathy enormous explanatory power.

As evidence (if you want I can cite this stuff, just let me know): Chimps display empathetic behavior, even when there is no immediate reward for doing so. Social animals tend to avoid harming those in their own grouping, but are less reluctant (or even eager) to harm animals in the same species, but in different groups. Brain scanning with fMRI shows that different parts of the brain become more active when presented with moral problems involving direct harm to an individual, but they don’t become active when presented with a problem that will lead to indirect harm. The same studies show that the brain activity happens before a conscious choice is made.

In humans, the drive to protect our own social group over that of others seems nearly universal, which would point to it being instinctual.