Important Question

[A_Wanderer]

Do you behave as if you really believe in God?

 

[BonosSaint]

No, but why is it an important question?

 

[A_Wanderer]

I want to know; specifically from strongly theistic people, of course they will probably lie, but that doesn't defeat the purpose.

 

[pgv]

I used to behave and believe in God, but as soon as I stopped believing I stoppped behaving like it too - I don't see any point in lying about that, if you think it's a lie?

 

[A_Wanderer]

Atheists are boring like that, they have nothing to lie about (at least on those matters; as far as anything else goes they are more or less just as human as the next person)

Although I do find it interesting that having abandoned belief you also abandoned some behaviours. The propaganda from some religious institutions would have it that taking the step to unbelief leads down a sinful path.

 

[BonosSaint]

OK, I understand your question now and its purpose.

 

[Caroni]

If you weren´t so irritating when someone talks to you about God I would answer your question

 

[A_Wanderer]

Says more about you than it does me, good things though.

 

[financeguy]

Do you behave as if you really believe in God?

No.

 

[A_Wanderer]

 

[deep]

Do you behave as if you really believe in God?

I want to know; specifically from strongly theistic people, of course they will probably lie, but that doesn't defeat the purpose.

Intolerance and judgment.

Atheists are boring like that, they have nothing to lie about (at least on those matters; as far as anything else goes they are more or less just as human as the next person)

Although I do find it interesting that having abandoned belief you also abandoned some behaviours. The propaganda from some religious institutions would have it that taking the step to unbelief leads down a sinful path.

I have told you before, and as evidenced by your own postings

You are religious, you have not abandoned belief, you have just exchanged it for another belief system.
You are as dogmatic as any fundamentalist.

Says more about you than it does me, good things though.

More, Intolerance and judgment.

 

[A_Wanderer]

I never exchanged any belief for unbelief (other than the obvious Santa Claus delusion), I think that attributing my motivations as a reflection of some childish contempt for faith rooted in being forced to go to Church or being let down by faith is simply false. I would like to think that I can or am at least capable of challenging my assumptions, I am self-critical towards them; although I take a materialist view which I feel is the only one that can possibly be verifiable and in principle explainable. That science has not only made claims of being a method of investigation to find out about the nature of reality (so is Scientology in it's way) but that it has actually produced apparently genuine results is significant. Views informed by science (and that includes religious views) are generally better for it. And again science is not a religion in any significant sense, otherwise many believers wouldn't be able to simultaneously view the world through a scientific lens and hold religious belief at the same time; you couldn't really call yourself Muslim and Greek Orthodox in quite the same fashion as you could a Sikh and a Scientist.

The equivalent fundamentalism argument doesn't identify what makes me a mirror of a devout believer, it is just employed for some ad hominem end. If you mean that I am capable of being arrogant, intolerant and strongly attached to abstract principles I would defend the charge - those are characteristics of human beings not fundamentalists in general. I take a fundamentalist to be somebody to whom a core doctrine contains all the answers; I don't think that science is equatable because it doesn't contain any innate answers, it merely outlines a mechanism to try and find them (assuming some of the fundamental things about what exists). What I think may be a type of scientism but that doesn't mean that it has an equivalent in the supernatural, I don't think that belief is a dichotomy there is a spectrum and at one end there is revealed truth literalists (whom I would take as fundamentalists) tending towards mainstream believers (regular people) edging to broader concepts about God (deism) ending with atheism. You wouldn't be talking about a fundamentalist unitarian, I don't see how atheism is terribly different. God just isn't a consideration in any meaningful sense to me and the corollary of that is that I am not using God as a measuring stick for my own positions. I will use scientific facts and theories, and those are grounded, to me understanding an open question such as directionality in evolution through geological time is far more interesting than the nature of the trinity because the question has a real answer, there are empirical claims that can be tested (in that example against the fossil record). If I was married to one position such as non-directionality (maybe because I was afraid that any directionality would imply higher intelligence - that is not the case) but the evidence swung against me I like to think that I could put aside ego and change my position. You simply don't have that with religious fundamentalists, they don't go out of their way to check their beliefs against other people or the real world: they know that their position is true and there is no amount of evidence or rhetoric that could sway them from that position (of course that is a false picture, given the many people who turn away from hardline beliefs through their lives).

You have posted your fundamentalist equivalence argument before, and again I think there are enough differences between a religious fundamentalist and myself to render it moot. And just to clear something up, the positions that you paint as fundamentalist are not inherently bad (as are the religious equivalents in certain circumstances); you could attack somebody for being an enlightenment fundamentalist and they might take it as a positive. Labeling me as a science fundamentalist does seem a bit similar; if it wasn't being used as a pejorative I may not have a problem with it.

You paint my position as inherently hostile and bigoted, I disagree, using intolerant speech provokes a more visceral and I dare say honest response. I don't consider believers to be some sort of different species, we are all people, I respect freedom of religion and my hostility to harmful religious belief has far more to do with consequences in the real world than anything metaphysical (I got angry at having televangelism on early morning TV instead of softcore porn). I would discriminate against certain types of religious people - but by the same token both of us would discriminate against a white supremacist.

For me God is an irrelevance, but I do find it interesting to know why people believe the things they do, it is a useful check on bad thinking, it forces me to think about my assumptions. The intolerance and judgement which you point out is there to serve a purpose, I think it will elucidate a more candid response from a certain type of person. Your totally misunderstanding the fourth quote, the "good things" were complimentary - Caroni obviously has no desire to justify her personal faith to me and thats great, I wouldn't expect to see somebody with that attitude to parade their belief on their sleeve and use it as a justification for any of their positions in real world affairs.

 

[Liesje]

I think so....if people ask me if I believe in a god I will say "yes" and if someone asks me "who created this?" I will say "I believe creation is God-willed."

 

[A_Wanderer]

Would that be a driving force of the universe rather than an interventionist entity?

 

[Liesje]

Hey I already answered the question!

I'm not really sure what you mean, but basically I believe that however earth/life/people came to be, it was God-willed. I won't say God himself actively did it, or that there is no God. I've never felt that science and God/religion are mutually exclusive. I personally don't care whether we came from the Big Bag or God Himself made man with his own hands. I guess I am not interested enough in science OR theology to have a definite answer.

 

[A_Wanderer]

A perfectly reasonable position.

 

[anitram]

For me, the biggest difference between my faith as a child (back when I believed all the stories) and now is that the closer I get to something just past agnosticism, the less guilt I feel. That was the one thing I've left behind - the guilt and the fear of doing something or acting in a certain way because of the little red man with the pitchfork that the nuns liked to tell me all about.

 

[Liesje]

True, that. And funny how looking back, the ones who wanted to make you feel the most guilty never did shit for anyone but themselves.

 

[financeguy]

Funnily enough although, like Anitram, I also come from an RC education background, I never really received the 'you'll burn in hell if you don't believe this' type of education. I think it's probably because I was educated at a time when there was a certain 'loosening up' within the Catholic church in Ireland, a time when they were quietly moving away from the old style 'you'll burn in hell' hectoring.

Certainly, people a generation or two older than me were, frankly, majorly f****d up by Catholicism, and in some cases, they still bear the scars, I suspect. In fact, that's a lot of what Sinead O'Connor is going on about, in her music. A lot of people of that particular generation in Ireland are very negative regarding Catholicism.

It's purely an intellectual problem, to me. I've just never believed. I don't think, even as a child, I really believed. I just thought it was a nice bunch of stories.

 

[the iron horse]

press>>>play


Oh, the gentlemen are talking and the midnight moon is on the riverside,
They're drinking up and walking and it is time for me to slide.
I live in another world where life and death are memorized,
Where the earth is strung with lovers' pearls and all I see are dark eyes.

A cock is crowing far away and another soldier's deep in prayer,
Some mother's child has gone astray, she can't find him anywhere.
But I can hear another drum beating for the dead that rise,
Whom nature's beast fears as they come and all I see are dark eyes.

They tell me to be discreet for all intended purposes,
They tell me revenge is sweet and from where they stand, I'm sure it is.
But I feel nothing for their game where beauty goes unrecognized,
All I feel is heat and flame and all I see are dark eyes.

Oh, the French girl, she's in paradise and a drunken man is at the wheel,
Hunger pays a heavy price to the falling gods of speed and steel.
Oh, time is short and the days are sweet and passion rules the arrow that flies,
A million faces at my feet but all I see are dark eyes.



~Bob Dylan

 

[pgv]

Atheists are boring like that, they have nothing to lie about (at least on those matters; as far as anything else goes they are more or less just as human as the next person)

Although I do find it interesting that having abandoned belief you also abandoned some behaviours. The propaganda from some religious institutions would have it that taking the step to unbelief leads down a sinful path.

Well, I don't attend church, I don't pray and I don't read the bible on a regular basis. I suppose not doing all of those things would be described as sinful?
I'm not going to carry on doing them when I don't think any good will come of them.

 

[INDY500]

Do you behave as if you really believe in God?

As far as anyone here knows, I'm an angel.

And nonbelievers. Do you behave as if your atheism arises out of sober intellectualism or unrepentant hedonism?

 

[A_Wanderer]

I was an atheist before I was a hedonist.

 

[INDY500]

I was an atheist before I was a hedonist.

So if I have it right you're an atheist, rationalist, hedonist, individualist?

Wouldn't nihilist be simpler?

 

[A_Wanderer]

I think that if you get me to say that I am a nihilist you would mischaracterise my position as a fatalistic one. I am a materialist, I subscribe to naturalism and I don't think that reconciles with any idea of an anthropomorphic God.

We can have a high confidence in repeatedly verified scientific facts, they are the only things that have real importance in the universe as they are the only things that are real. In the scale of things emotional attachments between sentient mammals on the planet Earth are of little consequence in the universe . This planet could disappear and it wouldn't have an impact. The scales of space and deep time demonstrate how unimportant we are in the scheme of things, and while we are a lone data point of sentience in the universe that could easily be an artifact of our ignorance.

Of course things like liberties, art, love etc. have an impact on my life; I think it is unfair to say that because my life means nothing on the scale of the universe then it means nothing to me.

Now ethics are an interesting one, there is no universal scorecard; people don't get punished for doing bad things. But people are not all psychopaths, most people have some degree of altruism. Just because someone doesn't believe in God or a universal scorecard doesn't mean that they act to harm others (and it could be argued that morality done out of punishment or reward from the idea of God is somehow less of a moral act than one for the act alone).

I saw an argument which seemed interesting, that there are some transcendental ethics out there for evolved intelligences. That just as arithmetic is transcendental to the universe (2 + 2 = 4 in any universe) things such as the golden rule may be prerequisites for evolving a social animal. This sort of argument would not be an appeal to God and it is falsifiable; if an amoral intelligent species was discovered for instance (note that you can have amoral individuals in the gene pool and they may well succeed but a society of strictly calculating self-serving people would be at a disadvantage to one with some cooperation) . Morality serves evolutionary ends, we are evolved creatures and that is the lens to view it's origins through. Appealing morality to God is meaningless because it leads to the fallacy that in the absence of God morality ceases to exist, and history shows very well that religiousity is no prerequisite for morality.

Just because there is no moral scorecard for the universe does not make people act in evil ways, if you believe that it is only your faith in God that stops you from stealing, raping and murdering that does not condemn atheism.

 

[INDY500]

We can have a high confidence in repeatedly verified scientific facts, they are the only things that have real importance in the universe as they are the only things that are real. In the scale of things emotional attachments between sentient mammals on the planet Earth are of little consequence in the universe . This planet could disappear and it wouldn't have an impact. The scales of space and deep time demonstrate how unimportant we are in the scheme of things, and while we are a lone data point of sentience in the universe that could easily be an artifact of our ignorance.

Which most certainly would be the case if we were exclusively physical beings.

(and it could be argued that morality done out of punishment or reward from the idea of God is somehow less of a moral act than one for the act alone).

God gives you a standard. To judge an action as moral it must be measured by some code. So is morality like money; setup by man with countless currencies and ever fluctuating exchange rates? Or is it universal like the laws of gravity?

if an amoral intelligent species was discovered for instance (note that you can have amoral individuals in the gene pool and they may well succeed but a society of strictly calculating self-serving people would be at a disadvantage to one with some cooperation).

But we have countless examples of observable amoral intelligence right here. Biological and artificial. Tigers are amoral and so is my Dell. The question is, why is man alone driven -- or nagged -- by the moral consequences of his actions?

Morality serves evolutionary ends, we are evolved creatures and that is the lens to view it's origins through.

Even if I accepted every tenet of scientific evolution I don't see how "morality serves evolutionary ends." Algae, flowers, fish, insects, reptiles, birds and all mammals other than man seemed to have developed quite nicely. How does the interjection of morality after 3.5 billion years of evolution secure the future of life on earth or increase the odds of Homo sapiens surviving beyond that of any amoral life form?

Appealing morality to God is meaningless because it leads to the fallacy that in the absence of God morality ceases to exist, and history shows very well that religiousity is no prerequisite for morality.

Is man a prerequisite for morality? You must answer "yes" since you believe we are it's authors. I believe morality, as old as any laws governing the material universe, has been waiting patiently to be discovered and applied to a greater end.

 

[Vincent Vega]

I just don't believe in a God, plain and simple. I don't think there is any intellectual component to it. Just like financeguy, I have never believed in any higher being.
I guess it's a fairly German socialisation I went through. Whether you believe or not, it doesn't play a role here. Doesn't mean morality has left the building. I think it's ridiculous for religious people to say that without them there would be no morality and everything would go down the drain. That's just pure nonsense some people like to tell themselves, but it comes from an utter lack of knowledge about non-religious people.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Even if I accepted every tenet of scientific evolution I don't see how "morality serves evolutionary ends." Algae, flowers, fish, insects, reptiles, birds and all mammals other than man seemed to have developed quite nicely. How does the interjection of morality after 3.5 billion years of evolution secure the future of life on earth or increase the odds of Homo sapiens surviving beyond that of any amoral life form?

I think that you are overlooking rudimentary morality in other species, the classic examples are those of altruistic behaviour in social animals; such as vampire bats sharing blood, parental bonding and kin selection. Even big cats look after their young, of course there are examples where looking out for their genes includes infanticide.

Put simply populations of animals in some conditions will survive better when they cooperate, the odds of passing genes down and having successfuly breeding offspring carrying common genes is improved so social animals and hard wired "moral" behaviour is favoured.

It seems that you are defining morality as some God given law, I treat it as gut reaction that drives social interaction. Such as caring for an infant, helping somebody out etc. There are exceptions in any population but on the whole functional societies contain relatively altruistic people because they may be required foster stability, that is one hypothesis.

And this is a point, that sort of hypothesis is testable; one could verify or disprove it based on the evidence. You simply can't do that with God based ones, although exceptions to the rule of God based morality do seem to exist and do point against it.

 

[Salome]

I believe in God and I try to lead a good life and sometimes fail
I don't think it would be much different (for the outside world at least) if I didn't believe

I might not really understand the question though
like what sort of behaviour I am supposed to have

 

[Irvine511]

i don't believe in a vain, easily upset and grudge-holding God who metes out punishments and rewards on the basis of arbitrary standards of behavior. so, no, i don't behave in a way where i take the cosmic considerations of my actions into account. i behave in a way that measures the real, tangible affects of my behaviors on other people (including myself) and that takes into consideration how this behavior fits into the broader philosophical principles i've learned over the years -- and i hold these principles through experience and rational thought, not through inheritance.

do i behave in a way that takes into account that we might all be from the same "source," that we're all cosmically equal before whatever greater power *might* exist and that the farmer covered in sheep shit is as equal in worth as the aristocrat who owns the land he works?

absolutely.