a beautiful thing is religion

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
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[warning of extreme arrogance that will most likely offend someone, or at least i hope so, j/k]

religion has been an enormous sore spot with me for years since I painfully lost my own. it is only in recent reflection that i have discovered the enormous beauty of religion and it’s practicality. i have gained a kind of respect for religion and it’s great offerings to the masses. this has lead me to almost feel a blessed tie with the elite of this world in not being constrained by such. i have a great deal of pride in being allowed into what i feel is the elite group of atheists inhabiting this dear planet earth. please do not take my reference to “elite” as a lack of modesty; it is more a fortunate happenstance that we, atheists, probably have some biological neuro-aphasia to the god-piece that has allowed us this bit of clarity. i consider it elite only because it is so much more beautiful a vision than any religion could ever project. i tend to believe that the belief in god has huge evolutionary advantages over the lack of the belief, and that is why it is so enormously fortunate and paradoxical to have my current perspective.

please don’t mistake my pride as lack of modesty either. i am very aware, as are most true atheists that anything is possible, and even an exact semantical argument like a god/creator archetype could be valid. the problem of arguing your point as an atheist is that your debater will never understand until they are allowed to see the same perspective, which is an extremely hard conclusion to come to. it actually requires hearing out many different perspectives to their fullest extent (and of course, fully comprehending their implications and conclusions, which can be a problem for some). at the end of the day, we, the atheist, believe that there is just not any valid argument to either need a “god” or to prove a “god’s” existence, by any common definition of the word.

as the word atheist breaks down, “a-” none, or lacking; “theist” belief in a god, i simply lack this belief. more specifically, per the school of David Hume, i have followed a statistical form of skepticism, in which all things have possibility, some just have higher probability than others. as a great peer once told me, please add a question mark to the end of every statement i make; some just have smaller question marks than others.

as a last argument, i must admit that it is absurd for any normal human being to not have religion; to not believe in a god. it is truly absurd. the belief is entirely sensible until you spend some time breaking it down and asking all of those deep, dark questions. not everyone has the time time, capability, or even care to undertake such a journey. when i first gained my perspective, i found it so hard not to argue with every person i met that the belief in god was silly; how could they believe in such a ridiculous concept. ironically, i had only grown up believing it whole-heartedly myself for 21 years. why did i really think it was so silly of a belief? i just wanted others to join me on my beautiful deserted “atheistic” island. the takers were few and far between, and i have since come to believe that we, the non-believers, are a small congregation of human beings on this planet. the few that can handle such a truth without malfunctioning. i have also found that the issue is not always a problem of intelligence, but maybe an intense fear of the unknown. intelligence and logical reasoning seem to break down in the face of losing religion / god. all that propagates the stability of one’s mind is at risk when questioning our foundational beliefs.

those that i have talked with that grew up with this atheistic world-view have no impedance to the problems it provides “believers”. it is merely impossible to change the basis of your entire structure of reality after it has settled for so many years, without completely dismantling and questioning everything you have ever been told or believed. by the way, i had to do this, and it was not convenient, nor easy; however, i am so much better for doing so. the downside is i am alone in this world. no sense of solidarity or commonality with anyone i meet. i find it incredibly hard to get along well with anyone that doesn’t share my beliefs, and that is sad to me. i really enjoy discussion of the religiously derived questions , “where did i come from?”, “why am I here?”, and “where am I going?” just as much as any other human being; yet I have no one with my world-view to discuss with. where are all of you at?

for those of you are ready to take the leap, here is the big punchline: “god is merely the easy answer to all of your unanswered or difficult questions.” in effect, the “god answer” allows you to merely pass over the difficult questions, and pass on all of your fears to the hope that someone else has got it all worked out.

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Religious people have the exact same problem talking to skeptics. When we point this out, we’re generally accused of having blind faith.

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Agreed. It is impossible to have a debate if neither side is actually interested in truly hearing out the other side. To be honest, I am not interested in hearing the side of the theist because I have already been there and invested much time hearing everything I could from every perspective I could. Fortunately for me, for whatever reason, I was only interested in truth and not worried about how difficult the collapse of my theistic world-view would be.

My argument is that most humans are not mentally prepared to actually question their foundational beliefs, despite intellect, etc. Many believe they are but truly are incapable due to some biological self defense mechanism that protects us from losing our minds. This would go for someone raised as an atheist being given a valid argument of theism as well. (if there were such an argument :astonished: )

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Skeptic

That’s sort of how I feel about atheism. I have been there (though only briefly, and not with a great deal of conviction or knowledge, admittedly), but moreso I’m not interested in the atheist side so much anymore because, as a religious philosopher, there’s more important questions out there than “does God exist”. Sooner or later a person has to decide they’ve answered it as best they can, and actually start taking steps down the path that opens.

It’s funny, I would say the same thing about my move away from Protestantism, while remaining a theist. If this was “IloveBaptistYoungEarthCreationism.com”, I’d be the skeptic saying a lot of the same stuff you are now.

That’s where we’d part ways- I wouldn’t say that about the skeptic/atheist. There are certainly examples of believers who remain loyal because they fear to question, or atheists who quit God because they’re too vain to accept authority, no doubt. But I avoid concluding broadly about ‘the other half’ like that mostly because it doesn’t help with the kind of attitude towards other people that I’m trying (weakly) to cultivate in myself, and also, it seems too…convenient or something. I guess I have a bit of Bertrand Russell in me, where I rebel against answers that I would like too much.

That’s the other big hang up, too. Faced with the idea of biological imperatives that overrule our ability to examine these issues, we raise the hypothetical that you just did- imperative to believe A vs. a valid argument for B. If we say the biological imperative always wins, then there’s no point in doing philosophy. If we say the valid argument can overrule the imperative, then the imperative isn’t explaining anything, and we have no need to postulate it.

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Agreed again with most all of your statements.

From your replies, it doesn’t seem we part ways here either. I don’t consider it all inclusive, just that most humans are incapable of truly questioning foundational beliefs. Now, I can’t say whether you have or not, especially as you have come to the same place as I, in that you have found more important questions to ponder.

Well, don’t misunderstand. The issue is not about a belief in god but the capability to destroy your foundational beliefs that uphold every other sense of your mental architecture(ethics, religion, friends, politics, etc.) Think about how much you have to lose in losing your foundational beliefs. The belief in god/religion is sensible in a pre-science world, and has remained within the chain of human civilization because it is passed on to people as they are children, who are then incapable as adults of destroying their entire mental architecture, no matter how reasonable the belief. For some, this innate fear is not ingrained as strictly, and they fall for the difficult transformation to truth rather than the stability of their childhood reality. I believe for everyone, there comes a time where they can choose to keep the open mind of science or the more stable path of religion. It seems you have come to some in-between, not to follow a religion as it conflicts with your more modern world-view, but the added stability of a god for the questions that are beyond our reach. I believe that will be the commonplace of the near future. Religion may not be capable of evolving at the rate technology/science needs it to. Look at the strange debacle of the evolution debate. I mean it’s not really strange considering that the majority of people hold religious views on the nature of biological derivation.

I’m curious, what do you think that a god resolves for you? if you were taking my outside-looking-in perspective that is? Thanks for the open mind.

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Skeptic

Ah, ok. I’ve been influenced by the (little) Sartre I’ve read, so I’ll go some of the way with you- I’ll agree that most people do not examine their dearest foundational beliefs, because it’s difficult or uncomfortable. But I won’t say anything about can or can not.

 That's tricky, because as a consequence of what you're talking about, you already have all the important stuff resolved, or else you wouldn't have moved to atheism in the first place.  Theism for me resolves the question of morals, and because of how I see philosophy, that's the first question to everthing else.  God addresses the [i]perception of meaning[/i] in the most comprehensive and intuitively strong way I know, and is also the simplest explanation for the existence of religion. I say this knowing that an atheist is of course going to have their own answers to these questions - some I think are adequate, some not.
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Well, yes, your expressed views do betray an elitism that is condescending and might be off-putting to some ofus in the lowly believing masses. By the way, “the problem of arguing your point as an atheist is that your debater will never understand until they are allowed to see the same perspective” contains some residual quasi-theistic language that you may wish to purge from your perspective/language.

Your "world-view is not all that hard to understand as you would like to believe. Anybody can try it on as a thought experiment with relative ease and see how the assumptions play out. I do agree with you that atheism doesn’t necessarily correlate with high intelligence.

But I think I get it. You live in the Bible belt. You are surrounded by Christians. Your atheism make you feel special but lonely. But, there are plenty of people here that share your world view aren’t there?

However, I don’t see how “the god answer” is any simpler or more complex than the non-god answer or why that makes one option preferable to the other.

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Great dialogue. Nice to stray from the usual debate. I have, of course, resolved my morality without the need for a god, but to each his own; and as long as ‘each is his own’, we can co-exist without need for all the hatred between differing beliefs that has brought us down for millennium past.

I can only assume that you are referring to the word “allowed” as it was bolded, but I’m not sure I caught your drift.

I would argue that the thought experiment you suggest is much less accessible to the majority of believers. This is actually my main point. The elite group are merely these people. I find it hard to believe that anyone could fully involve themselves in such an experiment and not fall into atheism, but who am I to say. I am only me.

Bingo. No conflict there, although I would beg to differ that the problem does not only exist in the bible belt but all over the world. According to statistics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religions), only 14% of the world population is non-religious and furthermore, 2.35% are atheist. The reason it seems like it should be more is that these discussions are constantly in the media regarding education and scientific research. Atheists actually have a large pull in the world culture as they tend to capture the leading roles in science, politics, and law. The bible belt is a difficult place to be, regardless. I imagine a city full of people like myself must exist somewhere?

Well, “the god answer” is just that, an answer. The alternative is a question. Science is based upon questioning and “providing answers” requires thorough experimentation and even then, still remains just a question with a little more insight and clarity. Right?

Don’t be afraid to not have an answer to the big question. This question is even bigger than gods. Why?

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hmmm? Enlighten me on this concept. Are you suggesting that people know that there religion is false, but they choose to believe it anyway? Why would they do this? William James sort of infers this in his famous lecture, “the Will to Believe” from the late 1800’s. It’s a very alien concept to me, but that just may be my personality.

Discordianism, from my recollection, is just a fabricated religion for entertainment, yes? Nobody actually believes it but it fulfills the same needs as a religion? Hopefully that was not an offensive statement, as I don’t really remember much about it except for a few conversations with HVD in the beginning days of ILP.

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I’ll check it out. Any good website to bring me up to speed? Thanks.

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Interesting stuff Churro, and quite entertaining. I believe I had read through much of this years ago, but didn’t see the deeper philosophy at the time. Sort of a clarity of reality by disinformation, and understanding the chaos in the world.

Hail Eris!