Why be relegious?

[Tenofovir]

What about good caring people that are atheist or agnostic?

How can you decide if they’re good or not? What may be ‘good’ for you, does not have to be good for another.

 

[roothless]

How can you decide if they’re good or not? What may be ‘good’ for you, does not have to be good for another.

Well, good by social standards. You know, like nice to people, volunteering, a good neighbor, generous, friendly. You get what I mean.

 

[Tenofovir]

I have a good link for you to read.

maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2011/10/why-science-will-never-put-religion-out-of-business.html

 

[Tenofovir]

Well, good by social standards. You know, like nice to people, volunteering, a good neighbor, generous, friendly. You get what I mean.

I get what you mean. But what are social standards? Are they objectively true or just the current fad? Are they like the mullet haircut of the early 90s? Cool then but stupid looking now? In ancient Rome, it was a social standard to have gladiators fight to the death in the arena.

You see we can assert that these things are good, but what is good? If we are mere meat machines, what is good? Good because it aids survival? But why should something which aids survival be good? Why should the human animal survive anyway? Because it has an instinctive irrational need to survive? Why should that matter?

I think we can only say that some, maybe even many, atheists are good, because God is.

 

[Robert_in_SD]

Eh everyone’s entitled to live their life how they want but I’d be willing to bet the average age people lose their virginity is like 16.

Hello Roothless. Welcome to the forums. I would like to know why you assume that everyone is entitled to live their life how they want? What is it that you think gives people the right to any freedoms at all? Are there no boundaries on what people can or cannot do? If so, why do you think there are boundaries?

Sexual repression is one of the biggest problems of society especially in the u.s. I’m not saying everyone should go bang as many people as possible, just that marriage seems like a long time to wait to have sex.

Sexual repression is a problem in Western society?! I disagree strongly. Sex is everywhere. Our society borders on being pornographic because it is so steeped in the act of abusing the gift of our sexuality. The BIGGEST problem is not sexual repression, but a complete lack of sexual responsibility and self-control. Also, there is a gross misunderstanding of sexuality in our culture, because the creative aspect of sexual activity has been completely removed from the unitive aspect. Sex is seen as a method of self-gratification, instead of the deeper meaning intended… the complete giving of one’s self to another as an act of natural and supernatural love.

The Catholic teaching on sexuality is really the opposite of what you may think. Sexuality is not seen as dirty or sinful. It is a very special gift from God. And the sexual act itself is so sacred and special that its legitimate use is rightly confined to between a man and woman who have given their lives to one another in marriage. It is not an institution that should be entered into lightly, or simply because one has an urge to use another person to gratify their own feelings or desires.

As a general matter, based upon some of your posts I think you have some very common misunderstandings about what the Catholic Church teaches, and what it does not teach. I encourage you to spend more time participating at this forum. Listen, read, study, learn… Good luck to you on your journey.

Peace,
Robert

 

[roothless]

I get what you mean. But what are social standards? Are they objectively true or just the current fad? Are they like the mullet haircut of the early 90s? Cool then but stupid looking now? In ancient Rome, it was a social standard to have gladiators fight to the death in the arena.

Social standards like if i go punch a random stranger in the throat most people will be like “that’s messed up”. Whereas if I help an old lady cross the street it would be viewed as good, by social standards. So things that are objectively “good” in our current society. Ok yes there was gladiators that fought to the death but many ancient civilizations had practices that would be totally frowned upon today so it’s kind of irrelevant.

I think we can only say that some, maybe even many, atheists are good, because God is.

Eh ok I don’t really know how to respond to this. You are assuming that god is real which some people would disagree with.

 

[Tenofovir]

Social standards like if i go punch a random stranger in the throat most people will be like “that’s messed up”.

I understood you perfectly the first time. Why do you think most people would say that? Is it because most people are just not used to this type of social interaction? Most people are resistant to change, aren’t they? Why is punching someone in the throat wrong? It may be undesirable from his point of view, but why should it be wrong from your point of view?
Obviously it’s wrong to harm someone else, but why is it? It was wrong 2000 years ago and it is wrong today and it will be wrong 2000 years from now. Or do you think if you went back 2000 years in time, you too could be right to force slaves to fight to the death for some enjoyment on your part?

Whereas if I help an old lady cross the street it would be viewed as good, by social standards. So things that are objectively “good” in our current society. Ok yes there was gladiators that fought to the death but many ancient civilizations had practices that would be totally frowned upon today so it’s kind of irrelevant.

Well it’s not irrelevant because in ancient Rome people would look at you and say “that’s messed up” if you challenged their social standard of fights to the death for entertainment. Why should current fads not be immune to such scrutiny in the future?

Eh ok I don’t really know how to respond to this. You are assuming that god is real which some people would disagree with.

Can there be good and bad, if God does not exist?

If you disagree that God exists, why would you say that some athests are good because they’re friendly neighbours? If I was running a brothel for pedophiles and my jovial atheist neighbours helped me by guarding the child slaves while I was away shopping, would they still be good?

You see, I think many people assume some behaviours and call them good, as left over from the Judeo-Christian worldview, but if that worldview is false, then so is good. It’s just stuff you enjoy and think is cool. It all ultimately returns to what is useful. You could say it’s useful to be kind to others, but what if it’s not. What if I’m very wealthy and powerful and I have to deal with an unimportant person. Will being kind to that person benefit me? What if it won’t and I will suffer as a result? Then I will surely not be kind to him. What can he do? Not much.

 

[Newsy]

Eh ok I don’t really know how to respond to this. You are assuming that god is real which some people would disagree with.

Whether people agree with it or not, has no bearing on it being true or false.

“The Truth is still the Truth, even if nobody believes it, and a lie is still a lie, even if everybody believes it.” - Fulton Sheen

 

[Robert_in_SD]

I’m just going off the top of my head for this one- [Where science [allegedly] contradicts the Catholic Church]…

The human race could not have started with only two people(Adam and Eve)

The Catholic Church does not require one to accept an overly literalistic view of how humanity came to exist. In other words, we are not required to accept the creation accounts of Genesis as literal. But, what is required is that we believe that all of humanity shares a common ancestry with those original two human beings who broke communion with God by their disobedience; because we as their offspring bear the broken nature that arose from that disobedience.

roothless:

Snakes don’t talk

As I stated above, we do not take a literalist approach to the creation account. That being said, the “serpent” in the garden is not identified as a “snake.” Although medieval and renaissance artistic accounts like to portray the serpent as a snake, what we understand from Revelation is that this “ancient serpent” was the Devil, also known as Satan. (Rev 12:9)

roothless:

The earth is billions of years old

I agree. This fact is not inconsistent with the doctrines and dogmas of the Catholic faith.

roothless:

Evolution gives a much more thorough explanation for how humans came to be.

Evolution can be squared with Catholic teaching, provided that we do not exclude God from the process of creation. It is entirely consistent with Catholic teaching to believe that God used the process of evolution to create human beings, provided that we also understand that this process resulted in the creation of our “first parents” Adam and Eve, from whom all of us descend. But this misses the point that Genesis teaches. Evolution provides no explanation of the spiritual side of our nature (we are creatures of flesh and spirit). Genesis is about how humanity lost its original close relationship with God. It is not a science textbook.

roothless:

I am by no means bashing the catholic faith, but how do theists deal with the fact that many many parts of the bible can be put into serious question?

We deal with claims like this “one at a time.” Can you give me an exampe of how “science” contradicts a teaching of the bible?

roothless:

read that birth control article. Imo, one reason that outweighs all of those is that so that teenagers don’t get pregnant.

The best way to avoid getting pregnant is not to have sex at all. Why is it that the teen birthrate was incredibly low before the birth control pill was introduced, but skyrocketed once “the pill” was accepted and enshrined in American culture as a way to “avoid” teen pregnancies. Artificial birth control is not a panacea for teen pregnancy and sexual disease. The opposite is true. Where health policies favor artificial means of birth control, unplanned pregnancies increase. Hence, the rise in abortion to the point that tens of millions of babies have now been killed in the womb, sacrificed on the altar of “choice.”

roothless:

That’s be great if you could PM me info on how the issue of priests molesting kids in misunderstood.

Celibacy Isn’t the Problem See the linked article. BTW, no good Catholic should make excuses for the small number of pedophiles that grossly abused their clerical power and position to commit such crimes. Nor should we shrink away from holding accountable those who protected such men. But at the same time, we should take the time to set the record straight. There’s a lot of hyperbole and distortion of the issue too. We Catholics should not ignore the claims. But we should examine the evidence carefully and critically. Hope this helps you.

Peace,
Robert

 

[rinnie]

I’m not sure if I believe in god. Define god.

Eternal life in Christ? Please explain. I actually must not decide anything it is all a matter of choice.

Deny what truth? If you look at this whole situation objectively I likely living in more truth than you are. I suggest you look up the definition of the word “Truth”.

Mmk, so what do you say to the other billions of people who are involved in other religions? What about good caring people that are atheist or agnostic? There are no second chances? Actually there are plenty of second chances in Catholicism. A good practicing catholic could go out, rape pillage and murder then go to confession and be forgiven. I am indeed thinking about this and it’s boggling my mind.

?

My soul is fine, thank you.

You have no idea about the Catholic faith or what it teaches. If you did you would not have said that we can sin all we want and go to confession and be forgiven.

God is our Father the reason for our whole being.

Eternal life is what was given to us when Christ died on the Cross for us. It is the most happiest of all. It is a life with no death, no sin, no hate. no hurt. only eternal happiness with Christ and our brothers and sisters who have gone before us.

What about people who deny God??? I do not know I am not to judge. But answer me this, is someone wants nothing to do with God in this world, why would they want him in the next???

Where did the Catholic Church ever teach that if you deny God and his commands in this world and die in a state of Mortal Sin that you will be accepted into heaven???

 

[rinnie]

Social standards like if i go punch a random stranger in the throat most people will be like “that’s messed up”. Whereas if I help an old lady cross the street it would be viewed as good, by social standards. So things that are objectively “good” in our current society. Ok yes there was gladiators that fought to the death but many ancient civilizations had practices that would be totally frowned upon today so it’s kind of irrelevant.

Eh ok I don’t really know how to respond to this. You are assuming that god is real which some people would disagree with.

Where does what people agree or disagree with something make it a truth or a lie.

Jesus said that if you are one of his you will accept him.

 

[Trebor135]

No, in all seriousness, as a non-believer, I don’t think that there are any compelling reasons to think that supernatural religions (like Christianity) are true.

Have you looked at the historical evidence for the resurrection?

But true? There’s really not a good reason for thinking that. As other posters said, you can try asking God to reveal himself to you, but if you really want to be thorough about your approach, you should ask each god of each religion to reveal himself (or herself) to you, one each day. That will keep you pretty busy, since there are hundreds of religions and thousands of different god-concepts within those religions.

I would argue that these can be whittled down to a relatively small number of options, especially given that a large number of the world’s major religions don’t hold to an afterlife where knowing denial of the true faith will land an individual in hell. If Buddhism is true, for instance, one will just be reincarnated until achieving enlightenment. In fact, as I recall, the Dalai Lama himself on one occasion stated that Westerners should go delve into and live out their own faiths rather than converting to Buddhism! Next, if Judaism is true, and–as far as I know–most of that religion’s adherents do not believe in an afterlife, it won’t really matter what religion an individual follows as long as they meet the fairly basic standards of the Seven Noahide Laws to qualify as a righteous Gentile.

After long periods of praying, meditating, fasting, yearing for an answer, you may actually succeed in brainwashing yourself into having an “experience” of some kind (voices, bright lights, visions, etc.). If this happens, you may want to ask this “god” – whichever one responds – why he only seems to reveal himself to people through extremely dubious means of coming to knowledge, like “personal experiences” of hearing voices.

Honestly, if I ever started hearing voices or seeing white lights, my first thought would not be “God is communicating with me!” My first thought would be, “I need to get to a doctor!”

This is one decent argument against revealed religion on the model of Christianity. I’d like to see it addressed by one of the posters here better informed on these matters.

Well, you’re already getting a taste of the answers on here: no matter how many contradictions one can find in a religion’s doctrines or holy book – and the Bible is chock-full of contradictions, both internal and external (i.e. it just gets so many things wrong about what we know about the world) – the true believers always have an answer to explain away the contradiction and make the whole thing internally consistent. The same is true of every religion.

Which of these apparent flaws in the Bible would make your top five list of “contradictions, both internal and external”?

But the thing is, it doesn’t matter if an idea is internally consistent or even if it’s consistent with some of what we know about reality: consistency isn’t sufficient to determine that an idea is true.

For example, I could, if I wanted to, write a long book with a complicated story that is completely internally consistent and contains elements from reality, but the moral of the story is that I, NonServiam, am a superbeing whom everyone should worship.

That right there ought to tell you that even if someone can argue that the Bible is internally consistent and doesn’t necessarily contradict reality – and that’s a tough argument to make – but even if someone can argue that, it still wouldn’t come anywhere near demonstrating that its claims are true.

This is true. But dozens of human authors contributed books to the Bible, so the work as a whole remaining consistent gives it a lot more credibility, as long as the prior text wasn’t tampered with or carefully reviewed before a new segment was added.

That’s why it’s a waste of time to try to ask the true believers about contradictions because there’s always an answer that (attempts to) resolve the contradiction.

I understand what you’re saying. This is why I’d be very interested to take a look at that top five list if you get the chance to put one together.

Anyway, I sense from your tone that you probably know all this already and that you’re just here to see what wacky responses you can get or what kind of “lulz” you can get out of the folks from around here…good luck to you.

I’m genuinely curious: what would convince you of the existence of the supernatural world, let alone a divine being such as that of Judaism and Christianity?

 

[NonServiam]

Have you looked at the historical evidence for the resurrection?

I have – I don’t find any of it even remotely close to sufficient to accept a claim of that magnitude.

I would argue that these can be whittled down to a relatively small number of options, especially given that a large number of the world’s major religions don’t hold to an afterlife where knowing denial of the true faith will land an individual in hell.

I guess if your only concern were to avoid punishment, you could do that – though I think the list of potential gods and potential punishments is still pretty vast – but I thought the point here was to discover the truth.

If Buddhism is true, but one won’t face any negative afterlife consequences from believing a different (false) religion, one would still be believing in a false religion.

The point, I thought, would be to discover truth, not just to avoid punishment and look out for number one. If the point is to discover truth, then one has to give equal consideration to every religion and ever god concept. Choosing only one – or only a handful – of god concepts to test indicates that the person doing the testing has already come to the determination of which one is true or likely true, and that’s not a neutral way to approach the search for truth.

Which of these apparent flaws in the Bible would make your top five list of “contradictions, both internal and external”?

As I said, since all of them can be explained away by the faithful, I consider discussing them to be a waste of time. The issue isn’t whether it’s internally consistent but whether it’s true.

But dozens of human authors contributed books to the Bible, so the work as a whole remaining consistent gives it a lot more credibility, as long as the prior text wasn’t tampered with or carefully reviewed before a new segment was added.

You’re forgetting also that many people who wrote the Bible knew the parts that came before: it’s not really that hard to stay consistent with a story when you know the previous parts of a story.

And any contradictions that arise are just explained away. Presto-changeo!

I’m genuinely curious: what would convince you of the existence of the supernatural world, let alone a divine being such as that of Judaism and Christianity?

Off the top of my head, I’m not completely sure since I’ve never encountered anything that’s convinced me of any of those claims. But if there is a God – and if this God is all-knowing, as many people claim – then this God already knows exactly what would convince me, even if I don’t.

If all of that is the case, then for some reason or another, this God hasn’t provided me with the evidence that he knows would convince me.

 

[Newsy]

As I said, since all of them can be explained away by the faithful, I consider discussing them to be a waste of time. The issue isn’t whether it’s internally consistent but whether it’s true.

In other words, he can’t think of any defense to his statement. This is a complete dodge. If they are not woth discussing, then why spend your time on a **discussion **forum?

You’re forgetting also that many people who wrote the Bible knew the parts that came before: it’s not really that hard to stay consistent with a story when you know the previous parts of a story.

And any contradictions that arise are just explained away. Presto-changeo!

You forget that the NT writers had the OT, but did not know what each other was writing. It is also a proven fact that people will die for what they believe to be truth, but nobody will die for what they know to be a lie. The Apostles, except one, were all martyred. They could have saved their lives by simply renouncing their stories. If they made up this story, why would they die for a lie?

 

[TexanKnight]

Catholic school was awful because it was extremely strict,

How awful it was so strict! Let me ask…how many people walked into school back with guns? How many folks were selling drugs? How many folks were disrespectful to teachers and other students?

No the catholic church doesn’t teach you how to travel faster than light, obviously. However, a lot of current scientific knowledge can explain what religion attempted to “hypothosize” about.

What, exactly, has science disproven?

I also don’t agree with a lot of things that go against catholic faith like how you can’t use a condom, no premarital sex, how priests can’t get married, how women can’t be priests. Sex is a natural human instinct, and the sexual repression against priests has lead to a lot of bad bad things as I’m sure you know. Also the fact that the pope has helped cover up for priests that were pedophiles is pretty disgusting to me.

Actually, what causes problems with sex is that the Catholic Church teaches modesty and morality while the world (TV, movies, etc) teaches sexual freedom and immorality. The conflict in young people is horrible. And what does the immorality you prescribe to lead to? Unwanted children, abortions, divorce, prostitution…yes, I can see your point…how DARE the Catholic Church teach morality. Immorality is much better! And the “sexual repression”: did not lead to pedophilia. The allowance of bad people into the priesthood in the late 60s and 70s did that.

 

[Adonia]

I was raised a catholic and haven’t gone to church regularily in a long time. I went to a catholic school until 5th grade and it was pretty awful. Anyways, I can’t really think of any compelling reasons to be religious other than it is a healthy thing to help keep things in perspective in life, and be thankful for what I have in life. I’m a freshman in college right now and that would also be a road block. I don’t think I could ever take the catholic religion seriously because I don’t think it’s possible that someone knew all of the answers so many thousands of years ago and science can put so many things in question in the bible blah blah blah. Just some random thoughts.

As your life goes on, you will probably come to realize that there is really nothing down here on earth that in the end means one darn thing. For whatever reason we have to go through this life in order to be with He who created us once again. So, why not be religious? The concept of forgiveness of our sins, prayer to help comfort us when we think all is lost, and the promise of a place far beyond all the mayhem that exists here on earth. Think of it, we have the Master with us in the Holy Eucharist as a constant source of comfort and grace.

You are young yet. We all go through the various stages of life. At 55 I am certainly not the person I was at 19 or 20. So, just hang in there, God is waiting patiently for your return.

 

[Adonia]

Catholic school was awful because it was extremely strict, I was obviously young at the time but with the exception of a few, most of the teachers seemed like generally angry people. One of my teachers was a nun who said something along the lines of “if you sin you will have to go home and sit on a nail in a closet for an hour”. Also one of the teacher got arrested for “feeling up” students. Anyways public school was much better in my opinion.

No the catholic church doesn’t teach you how to travel faster than light, obviously. However, a lot of current scientific knowledge can explain what religion attempted to “hypothosize” about.

I also don’t agree with a lot of things that go against catholic faith like how you can’t use a condom, no premarital sex, how priests can’t get married, how women can’t be priests. Sex is a natural human instinct, and the sexual repression against priests has lead to a lot of bad bad things as I’m sure you know. Also the fact that the pope has helped cover up for priests that were pedophiles is pretty disgusting to me.

So perhaps the Catholic faith tradition is not for you. The Unitarians I believe is an everything goes Christian sect, maybe your religious home is there?

 

[Godith]

After long periods of praying, meditating, fasting, yearing for an answer, you may actually succeed in brainwashing yourself into having an “experience” of some kind (voices, bright lights, visions, etc.). If this happens, you may want to ask this “god” – whichever one responds – why he only seems to reveal himself to people through extremely dubious means of coming to knowledge, like “personal experiences” of hearing voices.

Honestly, if I ever started hearing voices or seeing white lights, my first thought would not be “God is communicating with me!” My first thought would be, “I need to get to a doctor!”

Who said God only reveals Himself through visions etc? Your comment is curious to me because it doesn’t represent the experience of any Christian I’ve ever met.

Firstly, I don’t know anyone who’s spent hours fasting, praying, meditating and the like before they found faith. People’s stories about their faith journeys just don’t seem to include a period like that, in my experience. People talk about asking a lot of questions, reading books, talking with Christian friends, that sort of thing, but prayer and fasting? Not so much.

As for visions and whatnot, that is the exception, and not the rule. We didn’t all become Christian after we saw some bright light, or heard angels sing or whatever. Some people have experiences like that, but it’s unusual. Most people’s experiences are much more prosaic. lol

Perhaps your experience is different? Have the Christians you’ve met talked about seeing visions and hearing voices? Has it seemed to you from what they say that they have invested a lot of time in ‘working up’ a religious experience? I’m genuinely interested to know.

 

[NonServiam]

In other words, he can’t think of any defense to his statement. This is a complete dodge. If they are not woth discussing, then why spend your time on a **discussion **forum?

Because I’m interested in discussing the things that are worth discussing, which is why I answered the other parts of the post but not this one.

I will grant, for the sake of argument, that the Bible doesn’t contradict itself or that its contradictions, if some assert they exist, can be explained away by the faithful.

My issue here isn’t with whether the Bible is consistent (which is irrelevant) – my issue is with whether the Bible is true.

Since I’m granting that the Bible doesn’t contradition itself, it’s a waste of time to talk about something that I’m willing to accept for the sake of argument.

You forget that the NT writers had the OT, but did not know what each other was writing.

Most Biblical scholars have long determined that at least two of the Gospel authors (Matthew and Luke) were likely working from an earlier source, the so-called Q source, and it is widely thought that Matthew and Luke were also working from Mark.

EDIT: I should add that scholars come to these conclusions by comparing the texts and seeing very similar language present in them – similar enough that they can conclude that they were likely borrowing from a common source.

It is also a proven fact that people will die for what they believe to be truth, but nobody will die for what they know to be a lie. The Apostles, except one, were all martyred. They could have saved their lives by simply renouncing their stories. If they made up this story, why would they die for a lie?

Well, in the first place, no one is asserting that they “made up” anything: they may have very well sincerely believed that Christ was resurrected and were simply mistaken, or they may have sincerely believed in the teachings of Christ and embellished on the stories (and thus they were willing to die for Christ’s teachings or for the memory of their friend), or they may have realized that simple recantation probably wouldn’t have saved their lives – since they were likely going to be executed as political radicals no matter what – so that they decided that the most honorable death would be to go down affirming the convictions they lived for, or the stories of the Apostles’ martyrdom – which exists mainly in Church tradition and not really in any independent sources – may also have been exaggerated, embellished, or otherwise made into a legend.

Or any combination of the above, or other possibilities.

It’s a mistake to present the scenario as a simple dichotomy: either the stories are completely true or the Apostles are completely lying! There are many more options.

 

[Langdell]

Religion is like the cup. And Jesus is the coffee.

You can’t order coffee at Starbucks but not get a cup, or it gets all messy and you burn yourself. Same thing with religion.

Religion is the vehicle, the container by which we get Jesus. You can try to have Jesus without religion but like coffee without a cup, it’s hard to handle and in the end you just get a mess.

-Tim-

I love this. Did you come up with it?