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[Vector]

There is absolutely no requirement that religion, as any other type of knowledge, be stable and fixed.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

No true requirement, but old religions almost exclusively preach objective morality. That does require that it be stable and fixed, or else false.

Newer religions can let this go, but it weakens them to the point of impotence. Can't have a very strong doctrine without objective morality.

[Vector]

Religion doesn't require doctrine, either.  The sole requirement for being religious is that you make an attempt at walking with God, and that's it.  There's no weakness in that.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

The problem with that is why you would even try it in the first place. Thinking that there is a God, and that he cares about the Universe, and that he also cares about humanity in any specific sense are all assumptions, and from where I'm standing there is no good reason to make them.

[Caz]

Eh, it helps some people sleep at night to think there's a God watching over them.

[sjm9876]

 

-snip-

The problem is that the majority of clearly religious people most people encounter are the 'throw the book' at them people. the perfectly calm, ordinary alternatives aren't noticed as they're..... well, ordinary, and not yelling at everyone that they'll go to hell.

And so many damn ninjas.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Eh, it helps some people sleep at night to think there's a God watching over them.

What you want to be true does not effect reality.

[kaijyuu]

Eh, it helps some people sleep at night to think there's a God watching over them.

What you want to be true does not effect reality.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Consciousness_Project (note: I don't necessarily believe any of this, just providing something for conversation value)

Also, affect.

[Vector]

The problem with that is why you would even try it in the first place. Thinking that there is a God, and that he cares about the Universe, and that he also cares about humanity in any specific sense are all assumptions, and from where I'm standing there is no good reason to make them.

Yes, and you're also making assumptions about other people's assumptions on God.

The deity I believe in is something I'm still learning about, and in which no human told me I should believe.  In fact, I came into my belief at a time when it would have been extremely value-added to be an atheist, but I just. . . couldn't.  My first experiences with it were hours spent begging God to kill me.

It's not necessary that God look to me.  It's necessary that I look to God.  I won't tell you that it's necessary for you to do that either, since whatever relationship you have with the cosmos you have is yours--just as mine is mine.

[scrdest]

The deity I believe in is something I'm still learning about, and in which no human told me I should believe.  In fact, I came into my belief at a time when it would have been extremely value-added to be an atheist, but I just. . . couldn't.  My first experiences with it were hours spent begging God to kill me.

Waitwaitwait, I'm confused. This sounds to me that the upon getting the idea that maybe you should not believe in a god, you... begged this god, which you were experimenting with not believing he exists, to kill you? Am I misreading this?

[Descan]

I've got a bit of a mishmash philosophy but it all boils down to "Do what you want if it doesn't hurt anybody nonconsensually", "Actions that lead to a net-gain in preference fulfillment are 'good', with a weighting towards those less well off*," "Ends do justify the means, but the means are part of the end**," "The universe is knowable," "Empirical evidence doped with rational logic are the way to know the universe," and "Nothing is 'moral', there are only 'good' actions and 'bad' actions.***"

Everything I do and believe in stems from those points. Some of them are points that are extensions of other points, but I figured I'd lay them out as separate pieces to be clearer.

*Meaning that if you give a beggar a hundred dollars, that is more 'good' than giving a CEO a hundred dollars, even though they are the same action and both would prefer having more money.

**Meaning if you kill a thousand people to get a utopia, the 'end' is a utopia that has been garnered from mass murder. You can't wash your hands of destroying people, even if you didn't actually do it with your own hands.

***Morality leads to doing things that are "moral" rather than things that are "good", as a signalling method. The priests who are against contraception and condom use are so very "moral" and "pious" that they can back a horrible idea that leads to unwanted pregnancies and death-by-STDs on a continent-wide scale, because contraceptives are "immoral" and thus blocking their use is on a higher level than mere "good" actions.


ALSO ALL OF THIS IS IN FLUX, AS ANY GOOD PHILOSOPHY SHOULD BE. NOTHING IS TRUE, EVERYTHING IS PERMITTED.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Yes, and you're also making assumptions about other people's assumptions on God.

Only because the lack of those assumptions being made would make a claim of deityhood questionable at best.

The deity I believe in is something I'm still learning about, and in which no human told me I should believe.  In fact, I came into my belief at a time when it would have been extremely value-added to be an atheist, but I just. . . couldn't.  My first experiences with it were hours spent begging God to kill me.

It's not necessary that God look to me.  It's necessary that I look to God.

See above. I doubt you believe you're the only person in all of human history to have contact with this True God of yours, though if you do that's concerning. If not though, I question why you call your (apparently) doctrineless, subjective, unconcerned, ethereal deity a god at all, or why you need to do anything with it. If it is as you say, nobody would get the same message from it, which makes it sound suspiciously like it isn't real.

[Xantalos]

Er, we may need to watch the conversation.

[Vector]

No, I'm saying that I was under tremendous external pressure to be an atheist, I had been calling myself an atheist for at least five years, and I was actively being emotionally manipulated into not questioning atheism and told I was effectively "of an inferior race" for even considering it (amongst other things), and in the middle of all that I came to believe in God anyway.

This was not some "lord and savior succoring us and leading us into a state of grace and letting me know I'm totes a prophet" situation, this was "great, there's a God!  Please kill me."

If it is as you say, nobody would get the same message from it, which makes it sound suspiciously like it isn't real.

"Everyone reads this book differently.  Some say it isn't worth reading, and cast it to the fire.  Therefore the book isn't real."

I doubt you believe you're the only person in all of human history to have contact with this True God of yours, though if you do that's concerning.

First of all, the bolded are your words, not mine.

If not though, I question why you call your (apparently) doctrineless, subjective, unconcerned, ethereal deity a god at all, or why you need to do anything with it.

Second all, the fact that I don't need to be threatened with smiting or blessed with a payout doesn't make my belief less of a belief.  Do you love someone in order to extract something from them?  I don't.  My love needs no aim or purpose; it does not need to be acted on.  All that is necessary is the fact that I love.

My faith doesn't need to be rewarded.  I don't need to be blessed.  What matters is the fact of my being faithful.

[Graknorke]

Do you love someone in order to extract something from them?  I don't.  My love needs no aim or purpose; it does not need to be acted on.  All that is necessary is the fact that I love.

Does anyone remember that article someone linked a while back about how unconditional love is something that most people don't actually do? Because I feel like it's applicable here.