Religion, what's the point?

Raoul said:
I meant the question is inappropriate because it seems to cling to the idea that all things are created by someone consistent with how humans may perceive their deity of choice. The question should not be who, but by what process or phenomena was the Universe created - and the answer can't have a reason hidden behind it in order to satisfy our human desire to affix one to it.
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Ok then how did the creator of our universe come into being?
 
Raoul said:
Absolutely. We should always seek to find tangible answers as opposed to ones that are entirely fabricated in order to soothe our ignorance about the world around us.
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Oh the irony of the rationalists. Despite not believing in an objective morality, they still hold that rationalist views are inherently superior to non-rational beliefs. Rationalists believe in the very thing they deny the existence of - A 'Right' and a 'Wrong'!
 
Fearless said:
I understand your point of view, until somebody shows my a piece of alien technology then Roswell means bugger all. Doesn't mean there no alien life though.


I hope thats not the case. Curiosity is what drives us.
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But does the creator theory not make some of us lazy and not want to be curious because sure a god just created everything. Why do I need to bother?
 
bishblaize said:
Oh the irony of the rationalists. Despite not believing in an objective morality, they still hold that rationalist views are inherently superior to non-rational beliefs. Rationalists believe in the very thing they deny the existence of - A 'Right' and a 'Wrong'!
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I don't see it in such a convenient duality - just a matter of ideas and common sense, the merits of which can be debated.
 
Stick said:
But does the creator theory not make some of us lazy and not want to be curious because sure a god just created everything. Why do I need to bother?
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We've always been interested in tidy solutions that don't require us to think any further (also known as Religion).
 
bishblaize said:
Oh the irony of the rationalists. Despite not believing in an objective morality, they still hold that rationalist views are inherently superior to non-rational beliefs. Rationalists believe in the very thing they deny the existence of - A 'Right' and a 'Wrong'!
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Don't you see how irrational that is?

lol
 
Raoul said:
We've always been interested in tidy solutions that don't require us to think any further (also known as Religion).
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That is just plain untrue. Or is theology only for the atheists?

Edit: Bold for clarification.
 
Stick said:
Ok then how did the creator of our universe come into being?
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Its an inappropriate question to ask because it presupposes the Universe was created by a comprehensible intelligence rather than by a process that happened through, for example, scientific explanation. Asking the questions of who created the Universe or who created the creator leaves you trapped in loop that you can only escape by examining things through scientific inquiry and proceeding from there.
 
Raoul said:
I don't follow what you're suggesting here....
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That religion doesn't require us to think any further.

Edit: Sorry, that was unclear, I was challenging your point that religion does't require us to think any further.
 
Raoul said:
Its an inappropriate question to ask because it presupposes the Universe was created by a comprehensible intelligence rather than by a process that happened through, for example, scientific explanation. Asking the questions of who created the Universe or who created the creator leaves you trapped in loop that you can only escape by examining things through scientific inquiry and proceeding from there.
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Yeah that's where I ended up.
 
bishblaize said:
That religion doesn't require us to think any further.

Edit: Sorry, that was unclear, I was challenging your point that religion does't require us to think any further.
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Why do you need to look further if the answer to the questions that can't be explained is god?
 
Raoul said:
It doesn't in that the ultimate questions are generally already answered for you, which is one of its main selling points.
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Hardly. For a christian 'is there a god?' is not an issue. The bigger questions are 'why did god create sin' or 'did jesus need to die for our sins?', for which there are no easy answers.
 
bishblaize said:
Hardly. For a christian 'is there a god?' is not an issue. The bigger questions are 'why did god create sin' or 'did jesus need to die for our sins?', for which there are no easy answers.
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Those are all small questions nestled within In the beginning God created the heavens et al. It begins with a fabricated statement then attempts to support itself by creating an ecosystem of logic within its own bubble of delusion.
 
Raoul said:
Those are all small questions nestled within In the beginning God created the heavens et al. It begins with a fabricated statement then attempts to support itself by creating an ecosystem of logic within its own bubble of delusion.
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Ah yes, back to the superiority of rationality again.
 
bishblaize said:
Ah yes, back to the superiority of rationality again.
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Do you think blind belief in the illogical and unproven is superior?
bishblaize said:
Ah yes, back to the superiority of rationality again.
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Surely rationality is of more help to society than a fixed and blind belief in the illogical and the impossible.
 
niMic said:
You have 15 posts in a thread regarding religion, clearly you are involved in an argument. Not that I specifically mentioned you anywhere. I just said "theists". I was explaining why it's not as simple as ignoring "his personality" in favour of "his existence".
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Yeah I had a conversation, most of it regarding God's personality, what you brought up. As I said in those comments too, sometimes I can only guess why God does some things. I haven't tried to convince anyone here He exists. I believe there is plenty of evidence for God's existence but I haven't listed any because I know that particular internet argument will go, can't be bothered going through with it. And before I was a Christian, I found it very easy to ignore His personality.
 
Red Defence said:
Do you think blind belief in the illogical and unproven is superior?
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No.

Surely rationality is of more help to society than a fixed and blind belief in the illogical and the impossible.
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Totally depends. If you're trying to, say, provide clean energy for emerging societies or increase the success rate of heart surgery then yes rational thinking is better. (Even then intuitive leaps or lateral thinking are important components.)

However when it comes to sating that internal yearning that so many people have for some of sort of spiritual satisfaction, rationality doesn't seem to be more successful than any other belief system/way of thinking.
 
In other words being rational is not as satisfying as finding comfort believing in something entirely made up.
 
bishblaize said:
Oh the irony of the rationalists. Despite not believing in an objective morality, they still hold that rationalist views are inherently superior to non-rational beliefs. Rationalists believe in the very thing they deny the existence of - A 'Right' and a 'Wrong'!
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A belief in a god who can not beyond doubt reveal himself to all in order to maintain free will, gets you no closer to an objective morality or superior knowledge of right and wrong. It also means you can not justify your subjective morality in any way that would be universal acceptable.

At least rationality has the hope of a subjective morality with some widely acceptable underpinning. Even if it is only a subjective morality, one accepted by all humans for a while would do for me.
 
Don't Kill Bill said:
A belief in a god who can not beyond doubt reveal himself to all in order to maintain free will, gets you no closer to an objective morality or superior knowledge of right and wrong. It also means you can not justify your subjective morality in any way that would be universal acceptable.

At least rationality has the hope of a subjective morality with some widely acceptable underpinning. Even if it is only a subjective morality, one accepted by all humans for a while would do for me.
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That argument requires an atheists point of view. Theists do believe in god and hence (largely) do believe in an objective morality. Whether it exists or not is neither here not there, the point is that they are consistent with their thinking.

Rationalists don't believe that anything can be considered right or wrong in absolute terms, but still think anything rational is right, and anything that is not rational is wrong.
 
bishblaize said:
That argument requires an atheists point of view. Theists do believe in god and hence (largely) do believe in an objective morality. Whether it exists or not is neither here not there, the point is that they are consistent with their thinking.

Rationalists don't believe that anything can be considered right or wrong in absolute terms, but still think anything rational is right, and anything that is not rational is wrong.
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That argument requires a believers irrational view of rationalism.

Theists rely on human interpretation of their gods objective morality which makes it a subjective interpretation which disqualifies it as truly objective. Also if god doesn't exist then he can't be objectively giving us morality just because we believed in him that would mean believers would be making it all up. Not objective at all.
 
Don't Kill Bill said:
Theists rely on human interpretation of their gods objective morality which makes it a subjective interpretation which disqualifies it as truly objective.
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In this line of thinking, the objective morality does exist out there even if it must be interpreted for human use. Therefore if someone believed that, acting as though it does exist is entirely coherent, because to them it does. Unlike claiming it doesn't exist but acting as though it does, which was my original point.

Don't Kill Bill said:
Also if god doesn't exist then he can't be objectively giving us morality just because we believed in him that would mean believers would be making it all up. Not objective at all.
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'If god doesn't exist' - back to an atheists argument. Again, not one a theist will be worrying about.
 
Silva said:
Unless you're doing some weird ironic comedy show in this thread
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it would have to be funny to count as irony

yes.
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I dont think I have been. Looking back I did make a comment 'For a christian 'is there a god?' is not an issue.' which might be interpreted as me being a christian, but I'm not and I didn't mean to suggest I was. I was simply saying that as I might say 'For a scouser Gerrard is the GOAT'
 
bishblaize said:
In this line of thinking, the objective morality does exist out there even if it must be interpreted for human use. Therefore if someone believed that, acting as though it does exist is entirely coherent, because to them it does. Unlike claiming it doesn't exist but acting as though it does, which was my original point.



'If god doesn't exist' - back to an atheists argument. Again, not one a theist will be worrying about.
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1,The purpose of having an objective morality would be to follow it though, otherwise it might as well not exist. If you can't know objectively and only have access to a subjective version of it then you are not following an objective moral code.

2,You said whether it exists or not is neither here nor there, I made the point that it obviously does matter since it wouldn't be objective if it doesn't. Your argument not an atheist argument.
 
Don't Kill Bill said:
1,The purpose of having an objective morality would be to follow it though, otherwise it might as well not exist. If you can't know objectively and only have access to a subjective version of it then you are not following an objective moral code.

2,You said whether it exists or not is neither here nor there, I made the point that it obviously does matter since it wouldn't be objective if it doesn't. Your argument not an atheist argument.
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I think you must be missing the point of the original comment. The point was that if you believe there is an objective morality then its reasonable to act like there is.

On the other hand if you do not believe in an objective right and wrong, then its unreasonable to act like there is.

The existence of god is irrelevant. All that we're discussing is the actions of the person relative to their belief.
 
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