The joy of religion - part xxxxxxxxx

[realibrad]

It was already made clear that you do not necessarily get less but get a different rational for the justification of the evil. Part of the job of religion is to cure people of the motivations that drive evil actions. One could say that evil is the will not to be cured. If religion can't cure that what will?

Your answer to the question as to what evil is was that evil is bad. That's no answer at all. The real question being discussed in this thread, in my opinion, is whether on balance religion creates more evil than it cures.

The notion of good and evil come into existence with language and thought, abstraction, thinking language makes possible. They do not exist. This is what the analogy of the Garden of Eden and our expulsion is all about. In the garden there was no Knowledge, the notion that classifications exist. Evil is an invention of the language of duality. As soon as you have evil as a concept you can apply it to children. Once you do that you cause them to hate themselves. Once they hate themselves they need to deny that pain. That pain is turned outward as evil acts.

The purpose of religion is to present the notion that you are loved even though you are evil so that you will forgive yourself and stop your self hate.

Some make it and some don't.

My opinion is that we might want to introduce psychotherapy into the mix.

Our self hate is deeply hidden and profoundly denied, by the religious and the non-religious.

Isaiah 45:7

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

The bible seems to think God made evil. If god made evil, and evil is something that is used to make people hate themselves, then do you believe God made evil to save people from their self hate? You believe religion is there to help people forgive themselves for the self hate it created?

That seems dumb.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

Isaiah 45:7


The bible seems to think God made evil. If god made evil, and evil is something that is used to make people hate themselves, then do you believe God made evil to save people from their self hate? You believe religion is there to help people forgive themselves for the self hate it created?

That seems dumb.

Perhaps, just perhaps...there is profit in the struggle.

 

[bshole]

Our self hate is deeply hidden and profoundly denied, by the religious and the non-religious.

Self-hate? I think not. If we truly hated ourselves, none of us would fear death.

Self-awareness is the bane of humanity. It is the fundamental cause of 99.99% of all human suffering. It is the knowledge of our own mortality that drives religion. The happiest humans are the ones who can convince themselves of a next life. Humans who are unable to reach this state of delusion are reduced to unhappiness, depression and anxiety.

Life sucks THEN you die should really read life sucks BECAUSE you die.

 

[realibrad]

Perhaps, just perhaps...there is profit in the struggle.

There has to be a better argument then that. Life is not some game where you can learn and eventually win. If you fall into evil, you go to hell forever. If you fall into evil, and breed that evil, and then find God, you get to go to heaven, but the others you spread your evil to may not succeed.

You might have a point if there was not a hell, and people had a chance to make up for this mistakes eventually, but once you die you are done. Atheist who cheated on his wife and dies the next day, hell and torture forever. Atheist who cheated on his wife and finds Jesus the day before he dies, saved.

That is an evil system if I have ever seen one.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

There has to be a better argument then that. Life is not some game where you can learn and eventually win.

I didn't say that. Perhaps the struggle is the cornerstone of our evolution.

 

[bshole]

There has to be a better argument then that. Life is not some game where you can learn and eventually win. If you fall into evil, you go to hell forever. If you fall into evil, and breed that evil, and then find God, you get to go to heaven, but the others you spread your evil to may not succeed.

You might have a point if there was not a hell, and people had a chance to make up for this mistakes eventually, but once you die you are done. Atheist who cheated on his wife and dies the next day, hell and torture forever. Atheist who cheated on his wife and finds Jesus the day before he dies, saved.

That is an evil system if I have ever seen one.

How can you believe in hell when this is where the people who wrote the Bible believed it was? Apparently God didn't know that Earth was a sphere, stars were just little points of light, that bodies of water are physically impossible in the armosphere and that hell was inside the earth.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Car accidents cannot exist without cars, so we must accept that car manufacturers created car accidents.

Are car manufacturers likewise omnipotent and omniscient the way God allegedly is?

If not, then your analogy is a false one. Surprise, surprise.

 

[realibrad]

I didn't say that. Perhaps the struggle is the cornerstone of our evolution.

Then you have to go in a different direction right?

So, if you look at it in terms of a secular evolution perspective, then yes, the struggle is helping shape us. But, that is totally different from a theist argument that moonie made.

The way I took your statement was that god created both to help us learn right from wrong. If you did not mean it that way, then my statement wont make much sense.

 

[realibrad]

How can you believe in hell when this is where the people who wrote the Bible believed it was? Apparently God didn't know that Earth was a sphere, stars were just little points of light, that bodies of water are physically impossible in the armosphere and that hell was inside the earth.

I don't believe in Hell, and I think that most theists don't think too deeply on hell either. If they did, it would get so complicated and stupid that they would default to, "there is a hell, but that is all I know".

People realize I am an atheist right? I think you are making a non direct question not at me, but I cant tell.

 

[OverVolt]

How can you believe in hell when this is where the people who wrote the Bible believed it was? Apparently God didn't know that Earth was a sphere, stars were just little points of light, that bodies of water are physically impossible in the armosphere and that hell was inside the earth.

Oh yea this is what I was taught in catholic school derp. Right after biology I - evoloution and AP physics.

I still wonder how the flood gates let out such small and dispersed drops of water. And what lies below the abyss.

I feel the need to clarify that I'm being sarcastic. Cause someone might actually be tricked. Thats sad.

 

[dank69]

I dont think evil is created. I said that must be the view of a religious person. The more I see you post, the more stupid you sound.

Says the guy who defines evil as "bad."

 

[Retro Rob]

You might have a point if there was not a hell, and people had a chance to make up for this mistakes eventually, but once you die you are done. Atheist who cheated on his wife and dies the next day, hell and torture forever. Atheist who cheated on his wife and finds Jesus the day before he dies, saved.

That is an evil system if I have ever seen one.

That is. But people should know that Hell was really a concept borrowed from Plato's belief that a soul inhabited human bodies.

All "Sheol" and "Hades" are, are translations of the word "Grave" in Hebrew and Greek respectively which means "abode of the dead" or something like that.

 

[realibrad]

That is. But people should know that Hell was really a concept borrowed from Plato's belief that a soul inhabited human bodies.

All "Sheol" and "Hades" are, are translations of the word "Grave" in Hebrew and Greek respectively which means "abode of the dead" or something like that.

You would have a tough time getting many to believe that, even if it is true. If you try to tell people that Jews dont have Hell, they simply dismiss that as wrong. I would imagine they would do the same to your argument as well.

 

[realibrad]

Says the guy who defines evil as "bad."

Now you have me completely lost.

Are you saying that is wrong, or so obvious that it saying it makes me sound stupid?

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

Then you have to go in a different direction right?

So, if you look at it in terms of a secular evolution perspective, then yes, the struggle is helping shape us. But, that is totally different from a theist argument that moonie made.

The way I took your statement was that god created both to help us learn right from wrong. If you did not mean it that way, then my statement wont make much sense.

I choose to believe there is profit in our struggle...this can be clearly seen in the physical world by mankind's evolution from incredibly simplistic life forms via natural selection. However, in my opinion, man's evolution is not merely physical adaptation to the environment....it's also demonstrated in our development of social order, morality, intelligence AND spirituality. And in regard spirituality, I perceive many to be spiritually dead (so to speak) and I see many that are spiritually alive as well...with an infinite number of shades of gray between. Most spiritually alive chose to call this spiritual connection "God", but the name we call it is immaterial. I see all the various organized religions as constructs contrived to express belief in this connection...from Zen Buddhism to Christian Pentecostals including everything in between. I also see this spiritual connection as "winning" (for a lack of a better word) for mankind. People who experience this connection see this clearly, as opposed to those who have zero clue about what is being discussed and who typically resort to ridicule towards what they don't understand. I wish I had more time to elaboarte and wordsmith, but I've got to go right now.

 

[Moonbeam]

Isaiah 45:7


The bible seems to think God made evil. If god made evil, and evil is something that is used to make people hate themselves, then do you believe God made evil to save people from their self hate? You believe religion is there to help people forgive themselves for the self hate it created?

That seems dumb.

It is dumb. Here is a quote I picked up on the web that gives a different Christian point of view and which points out the logical fallacy of saying that God created evil:

"Turn in your Bible to Genesis chapter 3. I want to read this passage just so it’s set in your mind. After the six days of God’s creation, He rested. Everything He had made, according to chapter 1 verse 31, was very good and God rested. He had created a perfect universe. But we live in anything but the perfect universe. And there’s a reason. When you come to chapter 3, a dramatic scene takes place and this is the reason why the world is the way it is. “Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made and he said to the woman, ‘Indeed, has God said you shall not eat from any tree of the garden?’ And the woman said to the serpent, ‘From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat, but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said you shall not eat from it or touch it lest you die.’ And the serpent said to the woman, ‘You surely shall not die for God knows in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate. She gave also to her husband with her and he ate. Then, the eyes of both of them were opened and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.”

The true diagnosis of the human condition stems from that event. God, the creator of the universe, is all good and only good. And His original creation was all good and only good. The goodness of His creation was a reflection of the goodness of His nature. Now, let me get a little philosophical with you here. God is not the author of evil. If God created evil, then God would be both good and evil. And if God were both good and evil, there would be no hope for the ultimate triumph of good which the Bible promises. If God were Himself evil, He could not therefore triumph over evil, so good could not triumph. If God were the source of evil, He would have to be evil Himself. And if He were evil Himself, then there could be no basis for salvation, for God could not save us from evil if evil was in His nature.

So, the biblical revelation of the original goodness of creation protects the goodness of God. And it makes the source of evil outside of God. Only if the source of evil is outside of God can God conquer evil and can God save sinners from evil. And just as a footnote to that, if God used any kind of evolution to create, evolution is dependent on decay and death, all effects or reflections of evil. So, if God used any kind of evolution to create, then God authored evil. He created decay and He created death. And if God used any form of evolution, then His creation was not all good, it was not perfect when He created it, and it is what it is now because of decay and death, which He must have used in His creation which are evidences of evil, then God must Himself be evil. Our God is not evil. God is all good and only good.

The question then is: where did evil come from? And the answer to that is that we only know what we know from the Bible. It is really useless to speculate about that. Nobody would argue that there is evil in the world. Everybody admits that. Not everybody admits that we are totally depraved and that we have original sin in us. Not everybody admits that we are evil and wretched to the core. But everyone admits there is evil in the world to some degree."

Remember, as I often point out that if you are not dealing with paradox you are not close to the truth.

Evil can't exist without the good, and the concepts of good and evil depend on thought, language, and the duality they create. It is knowledge, thinking, memory of the past and the association of feelings with words that create good and evil. They do not actually exist. There is only Gods perfection and man's separation from it as a result of duality thinking, the notion that there is division between things. Imagine living in the world is a state of consciousness unaffected by thought, where everything that is and the sense of self are not separated, where you and the universe are one. That is the state of God Consciousness, the state of Unity and Perfection. The question is whether one can achieve such a state. Of course any attempt to achieve it will create conflict since it's the only state that there is and we are always already in it. The ego is separation and longing and it's the ego that must die. But the ego can't kill itself. This is the paradox we are in and the origin of the ego and conflict is self hate.

 

[Moonbeam]

I choose to believe there is profit in our struggle...this can be clearly seen in the physical world by mankind's evolution from incredibly simplistic life forms via natural selection. However, in my opinion, man's evolution is not merely physical adaptation to the environment....it's also demonstrated in our development of social order, morality, intelligence AND spirituality. And in regard spirituality, I perceive many to be spiritually dead (so to speak) and I see many that are spiritually alive as well...with an infinite number of shades of gray between. Most spiritually alive chose to call this spiritual connection "God", but the name we call it is immaterial. I see all the various organized religions as constructs contrived to express belief in this connection...from Zen Buddhism to Christian Pentecostals including everything in between. I also see this spiritual connection as "winning" (for a lack of a better word) for mankind. People who experience this connection see this clearly, as opposed to those who have zero clue about what is being discussed and who typically resort to ridicule towards what they don't understand. I wish I had more time to elaboarte and wordsmith, but I've got to go right now.

I've heard that in the Apocrypha, is it, that Jesus said, 'did you but suffer you would not suffer'. You will have the truth when you know what you feel, you will be free from the cross and arise when you collapse in suffering and die. remember and relive the death we experienced as children when we bought into the notion of the good we should strive for and the evil we feel that we are.

 

[realibrad]

It is dumb. Here is a quote I picked up on the web that gives a different Christian point of view and which points out the logical fallacy of saying that God created evil:

"Turn in your Bible to Genesis chapter 3. I want to read this passage just so it’s set in your mind. After the six days of God’s creation, He rested. Everything He had made, according to chapter 1 verse 31, was very good and God rested. He had created a perfect universe. But we live in anything but the perfect universe. And there’s a reason. When you come to chapter 3, a dramatic scene takes place and this is the reason why the world is the way it is. “Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made and he said to the woman, ‘Indeed, has God said you shall not eat from any tree of the garden?’ And the woman said to the serpent, ‘From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat, but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said you shall not eat from it or touch it lest you die.’ And the serpent said to the woman, ‘You surely shall not die for God knows in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate. She gave also to her husband with her and he ate. Then, the eyes of both of them were opened and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.”

The true diagnosis of the human condition stems from that event. God, the creator of the universe, is all good and only good. And His original creation was all good and only good. The goodness of His creation was a reflection of the goodness of His nature. Now, let me get a little philosophical with you here. God is not the author of evil. If God created evil, then God would be both good and evil. And if God were both good and evil, there would be no hope for the ultimate triumph of good which the Bible promises. If God were Himself evil, He could not therefore triumph over evil, so good could not triumph. If God were the source of evil, He would have to be evil Himself. And if He were evil Himself, then there could be no basis for salvation, for God could not save us from evil if evil was in His nature.

So, the biblical revelation of the original goodness of creation protects the goodness of God. And it makes the source of evil outside of God. Only if the source of evil is outside of God can God conquer evil and can God save sinners from evil. And just as a footnote to that, if God used any kind of evolution to create, evolution is dependent on decay and death, all effects or reflections of evil. So, if God used any kind of evolution to create, then God authored evil. He created decay and He created death. And if God used any form of evolution, then His creation was not all good, it was not perfect when He created it, and it is what it is now because of decay and death, which He must have used in His creation which are evidences of evil, then God must Himself be evil. Our God is not evil. God is all good and only good.

The question then is: where did evil come from? And the answer to that is that we only know what we know from the Bible. It is really useless to speculate about that. Nobody would argue that there is evil in the world. Everybody admits that. Not everybody admits that we are totally depraved and that we have original sin in us. Not everybody admits that we are evil and wretched to the core. But everyone admits there is evil in the world to some degree."

Remember, as I often point out that if you are not dealing with paradox you are not close to the truth.

Evil can't exist without the good, and the concepts of good and evil depend on thought, language, and the duality they create. It is knowledge, thinking, memory of the past and the association of feelings with words that create good and evil. They do not actually exist. There is only Gods perfection and man's separation from it as a result of duality thinking, the notion that there is division between things. Imagine living in the world is a state of consciousness unaffected by thought, where everything that is and the sense of self are not separated, where you and the universe are one. That is the state of God Consciousness, the state of Unity and Perfection. The question is whether one can achieve such a state. Of course any attempt to achieve it will create conflict since it's the only state that there is and we are always already in it. The ego is separation and longing and it's the ego that must die. But the ego can't kill itself. This is the paradox we are in and the origin of the ego and conflict is self hate.

Do you believe this argument is valid? Are we supposed to ignore the bible verse where it clearly said god created evil?

 

[Retro Rob]

You would have a tough time getting many to believe that, even if it is true. If you try to tell people that Jews dont have Hell, they simply dismiss that as wrong. I would imagine they would do the same to your argument as well.

Read up on it.

The Homeric poems, with which most ancient writers can safely be assumed to be intimately familiar, use the word ‘soul’ in two distinguishable, probably related, ways. The soul is, on the one hand, something that a human being risks in battle and loses in death. On the other hand, it is what at the time of death departs from the person's limbs and travels to the underworld, where it has a more or less pitiful afterlife as a shade or image of the deceased person.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ancient-soul/

The fate of the soul is unclear from the Hebrew BibleHebrew BibleLatin, biblia, "book"
the primary sacred text of Judaism, known within Judaism as the Tanakh; outside of Judaism it is also known as the Jewish Bible or, in Christianity, the Old Testament
View Dictionary. Most historians agree that Jewish belief in the immortality of the soul began after the Biblical Period (c. 450 BCE) with the influence of Greek culture. By the Common Era, Jews generally agreed that the soul did not expire with physical death, but they disagreed on the nature of the soul's state.

http://www.faithology.com/beliefs/jewish-belief-immortality-of-the-soul

I don't claim to know that Jews have a hell or not, but Hell (Eternal Torment) isn't at all a part of the Hebrew Bible

 

[Moonbeam]

Self-hate? I think not. If we truly hated ourselves, none of us would fear death.

Self-awareness is the bane of humanity. It is the fundamental cause of 99.99% of all human suffering. It is the knowledge of our own mortality that drives religion. The happiest humans are the ones who can convince themselves of a next life. Humans who are unable to reach this state of delusion are reduced to unhappiness, depression and anxiety.

Life sucks THEN you die should really read life sucks BECAUSE you die.

I offer my words to those who may have greater need than you do. You do not know that the fear of death is the fear of never having lived. You do not want to know what you feel.

 

[Moonbeam]

Do you believe this argument is valid? Are we supposed to ignore the bible verse where it clearly said god created evil?

If the Bible tells me that black is white am I supposed to believe it?

Can you understand that evil is an artifact, a product of duality thinking, dependent on thought, memory, and emotional attachment to concepts that all evaporate in a state of Now Awareness? To be fully awake, to be fully conscious of the now is a state of perfection into which nothing else can enter, not even death. The now is eternal.

You are a thinker. Stop thinking and feel. Or see the trap you are in, that thought is death. Thought can end when one sees the danger of that trap. Thought is division, the thinker and the object of thought. There is no separation when thought ends. There is only being.

 

[realibrad]

Read up on it.



http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ancient-soul/





http://www.faithology.com/beliefs/jewish-belief-immortality-of-the-soul

I don't claim to know that Jews have a hell or not, but Hell (Eternal Torment) isn't at all a part of the Hebrew Bible

Lol, I think you missed the fact that I am agreeing with you. Hell as many Christians know it was something invented fairly recently.

 

[realibrad]

If the Bible tells me that black is white am I supposed to believe it?

Can you understand that evil is an artifact, a product of duality thinking, dependent on thought, memory, and emotional attachment to concepts that all evaporate in a state of Now Awareness? To be fully awake, to be fully conscious of the now is a state of perfection into which nothing else can enter, not even death. The now is eternal.

You are a thinker. Stop thinking and feel. Or see the trap you are in, that thought is death. Thought can end when one sees the danger of that trap. Thought is division, the thinker and the object of thought. There is no separation when thought ends. There is only being.

So how do I know what parts of the bible are real, and what parts are not? I'm guessing you are going to tell me to feel what is right, and honestly, I don't feel the vast majority of it is right. I don't believe the Jews there the slaves of the Egyptians. I don't believe God commanded genocide. I don't believe Moses split water to walk across the bottom.

So if I dont believe its true because of how I feel, and I dont believe its true because its not logical to me, what else can I do to believe?

 

[Retro Rob]

Lol, I think you missed the fact that I am agreeing with you. Hell as many Christians know it was something invented fairly recently.

My bad, I didn't catch that you agree with that. Tradition is what makes them dismiss my arguments as false, not because they're actually "false".

 

[Moonbeam]

So how do I know what parts of the bible are real, and what parts are not? I'm guessing you are going to tell me to feel what is right, and honestly, I don't feel the vast majority of it is right. I don't believe the Jews there the slaves of the Egyptians. I don't believe God commanded genocide. I don't believe Moses split water to walk across the bottom.

So if I dont believe its true because of how I feel, and I dont believe its true because its not logical to me, what else can I do to believe?

Maybe we should look at what it means to believe. Typically people of faith believe because of faith. Their belief is faith. This is a good thing because what they believe in is real. God is real but the personal concept they believe in isn't. Thus the faithful and atheists alike believe and disbelieve in a god that doesn't exist. This is because the knowledge of God's existence is had via entry into a God conscious state. in such a state of consciousness one doesn't have faith that God exists, one enters into God Being. This is the state of Real Knowledge. One need have no faith because the apperception of God is manifest. That is a completely different kind of faith. One doesn't believe, one knows via direct experience.

One can't go get that state of consciousness because seeking it is ego. It comes by grace with ego death, the recognition of the hopelessness of our ordinary conscious state. It is like discovering the blackboard when all the chalk on it is wiped away. It is the emptiness on which everything is written rather than the writing itself. It is the ultimate state of knowing and the total lack of belief in anything. One is full of emptiness. All that can exist there is what is real and what is real is love the infinite love of everything.