Why I am not a Christian

[Whaleboy]

My last statement is not completely fair, i know, but the extent of 'Faith Posting' has been the admission from some that God is a possibility. hardly representative of a Christian.

True. I know this is biased in favour of my argument but I think it's much harder to justify the existence of God using logic (I know I said that logic can be used to justify or refute anything out of context... but firstly I'm speaking from my POV and secondly empirical universe is a context). I might be proved wrong there in due course, but that's where my 2 cents are at. If you accept that God is faith-based then using reason would surely defeat the point?*

If an "atheism = categorically false" proponent were to pop up, presumably he'd disagree completely with my statement and we'd have to argue on definitions before we could proceed.

*What I mean is that if you are comfortable in your faith, in the presence of an opposing argument you don't need to defend your faith for it to have validity, and provided faith doesn't try to make scientific claims, then all the arguments in the world can't touch you.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Ned
Whether it would be legitimate to call oneself a Christian without believing that Jesus was a God. .

I don't see why not. Jefferson did it, after all. Buddhists don't believe Buddha was a god, either. Being an "ist" or "ian" denotes being a follower, not necessarily a worshipper, IMO.

So by all means, folks who want to follow the example of Jesus that's described in the Bible should be allowed to call themselves Christian, whether they believe in his divinity or not. Maybe if more people did that instead of just worshipping him in name only, there would be a lot less of those horrible things you mentioned in the world.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
beleiving in god(s) is sort of like beleiving in string theory, there is no scientific reason to or not to (And some very smart peopel beleive in it, and other smart people do not)

I have always been confused about something.

Science, at its very foundation, relies on naturalism. It assumes things in this universe can be measured. It also assumes something you measure at one instant does not change, this is the basis of repeatability.

On the other hand, at the core of Christianity - at least according to orthodox doctrines - is an infinite being who is omnipotent. Therefore this being can change basic physical constants and other things in this universe as easily as we breathe. If this being exists, science can be tossed out the window, as all measurements we took and will take are going to be ultimately unreliable.

So, how do you reconcile this two fundamentally exclusive positions? I remember I used to ask Rogan Josh about this, but he never gave me a straight answer.

[Whaleboy]

UR... I'm not trying to answer your question because this is going off at a tangent but I would say that if God is infinite then he simply can't change basic physical constants and other things in this universe, because if God supposedly did interfere then if he is infinite he would surely have to change the universe with it's current dimensions as spatial according to him (and that means time). If he can only treat time as spatial then a change would work like the sum over histories, we simply couldn't know of Gods existence and God would be unable to communicate with us as conscious beings or the universe, since of course time is the basis for all communications, as well as consciousness.

[Elok]

Well, faith in God vs. a presumption of morality, that's tricky. Belief in a God is obedience to what you assume is a real being. Presumption of morality sounds like simply obeying your own inclinations...which isn't "morality" at all. Moral behavior always involves some denial of what you really want to do. You want to flip the bird at the guy who cut you off in traffic, but you don't, because that wouldn't be nice. You want to wolf-whistle at the cheerleader and grab at her butt, but you tell yourself sexual harrassment is wrong. And so on. Basing your actions on obedience to the "program" is risky, because there seem to be a large number of viruses offering contrary instructions, and many times they do an excellent job of impersonating the program itself. I think the phrase is, "letting the fox guard the chicken coop."

And there are some emotions that are thoroughly illogical. Spite is a big one. So's pride/vanity, which is effectively ego masturbation, rewarding the self for nonexistent accomplishment and distracting from real problems.

I'm not sure about perpetuating my own genes either. I'm aware that it's in the Program, but people have been following the Program for thousands of years and it hasn't solved certain problems. The same can be said of religion, but then I think the negative aspects of the Program have been sabotaging its progress. I bet you're sick of my hijacking that idea already, huh?

I'm not sure we have covered the distinction between faith and religion. I know that there are "personal faiths," e.g. most pagans, but that's just slapping a theistic label on your Program AFAIC. Worshipping what you want to do anyway, bowing down to your own dreams.

And I agree that this thread has been very thought-provoking. And yes, BK's absence has something to do with it. Which is not meant to be a critique of Ben's debate methods so much as an observation that when he joins a debate, the first sign is half a page of long posts, followed by a page and a half of angry rebuttals, and eventually the BK War takes over the whole thread. Then we progress into BK War stage 2, in which someone like UR or GePap gets frustrated and starts telling Ben off, setting off a chain reaction of flames, ad hominems, and tirades about invisible pink unicorns on the moon and primitive superstition yadda yadda yadda. Those damned invisible unicorn comparisons are the bane of all civilized discussion. Grr.

[Elok]

Oh, and my answer to UR's question on p12 is, "you don't." If the book of Leviticus was meant to be a scientific treatise it would have spent more time on photosynthesis and less on what thou shalt and shalt not do. The fact that most religious texts use only artful asides in referring to the natural world is symptomatic of their intended purpose as moral guides.

Whaleboy pretty much answered it, actually. I'd like to add that, if God felt like changing the universe and laws of physics, He could do it so subtly and thoroughly that we'd never notice. Hence descriptive science would still work. Let the record show that I'm not with JM here. The idea of theophysics, or whatever you would call a science of God, is silly to me.

I wouldn't discard a theological idea for scientific reasons any more than I would discard a scientific theory for moral reasons. Darwinism raises some troubling ethical questions (like accidentally paves the way for Social Darwinism, however obscurely), but it's absurd to say that it must be false because of that.

But UR already knew that I'd say something like that...

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by Odin


Natural selection is pulled out of thin air?

1) Natural selection doesn't select for ethical egoism.

2) Even if it did, you'd need an axiom pulled out of thin air to say that the ethical position selected for by NS is the right one.

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by Whaleboy
Deductively, relativism applies yes but imo that's an empty assertion; you can't really do a lot with it.

It does what I want it to do - vaporize the notion that ethical egoism is the only consistent position for the skeptic.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Elok
Presumption of morality sounds like simply obeying your own inclinations...which isn't "morality" at all. Moral behavior always involves some denial of what you really want to do. You want to flip the bird at the guy who cut you off in traffic, but you don't, because that wouldn't be nice. You want to wolf-whistle at the cheerleader and grab at her butt, but you tell yourself sexual harrassment is wrong. And so on.

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" does not require a deity to follow. It's a pretty logical, rational position. While our base instincts may urge us to behave badly, the notion that by doing so we condone others treating us the same is a powerful motivator for moral behavior. I don't see why that's any different from religious morality, since any religious morality worth believing in has the purpose of making a better society in which to live. Arbitrary moral decrees by gods that are of little relevance tend to be ignored in favor of the ones that do have importance, even by religionistas.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Last Conformist
1) Natural selection doesn't select for ethical egoism.

"The Selfish Gene?"

[Whaleboy]

Presumption of morality sounds like simply obeying your own inclinations...which isn't "morality" at all.

Presumption of others, and inducing morality because of it, but emotively, you’re right, it’s not morality if you consider morality to be some universal system of rights and wrongs. Note I differentiate ethics and morality while others use the terms interchangeably. Ethics to me as I often say is like defining murder; whereas morality goes on to say that murder is wrong (ethics is not claiming essentialism). By that definition, emotivism is not morality, but if we question the idea of a universal morality, we can see instead that emotivism describes how such a system can come to be… our own emotional reactions.

In the sense that you use it, I broadly concur that science cannot provide us with a moral system akin to faith/religion-based moral systems, but then the very definition of morality would rest upon which of those two notions you accept.

And there are some emotions that are thoroughly illogical. Spite is a big one. So's pride/vanity, which is effectively ego masturbation, rewarding the self for nonexistent accomplishment and distracting from real problems.

Ah I think what you’re doing here is looking at “all we do is in our own self-interest/benefit” and using a familial interpretation of the word benefit. Benefit in this context need not be judged by consequence, indeed, if we all acted in our own self-interests the consequences would certainly not always be pretty. Rather, it is the intent, which is what a logical system like the brain would deal with.

I'm not sure about perpetuating my own genes either. I'm aware that it's in the Program, but people have been following the Program for thousands of years and it hasn't solved certain problems. The same can be said of religion, but then I think the negative aspects of the Program have been sabotaging its progress. I bet you're sick of my hijacking that idea already, huh?

The idea of the program? Well I think the danger is that it’s read as prescriptive, in the sense that I think you apply it to my concepts I mean it descriptively.

I'm not sure we have covered the distinction between faith and religion. I know that there are "personal faiths," e.g. most pagans, but that's just slapping a theistic label on your Program AFAIC. Worshipping what you want to do anyway, bowing down to your own dreams.

Well to me, faith is the relevant part here, since the object of a theist here imo would be to validate faith, validate the existence of God. It’s difficult to go from “God” in the traditional definition and then say “by the way, God = Christianity”. The existence of a plethora of monotheistic religions throughout history would call that notion into doubt. To me, a religion is a social construct, a means of control. Look at the word. Religion comes from Latin religio, which in turn comes from “re legare” or “return to bondage”. I’d call these enormous institutions, these systematic regulations of worship and the scripture and customs that go with it, to be a sociological twisting by men in power throughout history of the human tendency to faith. IMO, faith is the sound component of the argument, especially if one assumes that belief in God = faith.

Darwinism raises some troubling ethical questions (like accidentally paves the way for Social Darwinism, however obscurely), but it's absurd to say that it must be false because of that.

Agreed, indeed the same could be said of many big ideas throughout history. I don’t think you can deduce social Darwinism from evolution though, it’s an implication that rests upon other premises which are debatable, such as what makes a good society and the individuals role in society etc etc.

Natural selection doesn't select for ethical egoism.

I grant that we have instincts for affinity toward other humans but that’s not an end in itself. It’s a means to an egoistic end.

It does what I want it to do - vaporize the notion that ethical egoism is the only consistent position for the skeptic.

Well I’m not sure of that… it’s a good line of reasoning but then I think it’s committing the relativistic fallacy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativist_fallacy ) which is something one should always be careful of when invoking relativism. For me as a relativist it’s a useful fallacy to be aware of. That the claim is relative and not absolute, allowing for equal validity of other claims out of context doesn’t mean that the claim is invalid or relative in context. Any logical claim rests upon its premises and argument, or the context, and its validity is in virtue of the context, and it is that which is relative. Accept the context and one may proceed unhindered.

[bayraven]

WB,
Don't take my complaint as discouraging even the tangential discussions that have happened here. I have learned more about the context of (faith, religion, God) here than in any church based format I’ve been in. When the discussion here gets too far off what I'm reading for, I skip to the next post. I agree that the people posting here are comfortably set in the opinions they espouse, and are not likely to be 'converted' by anything written. But I also believe there are some reading this thread that aren't posting, perhaps less fixed in their opinion and looking for answers to the basic Does God Exist question.
It is for this reason that I bemoan the absence of a qualified spokesperson for the existence of God through Jesus Christ. My real angst is in the revelation that every argument that I can conceive for faith is predicated on a preexisting possession of faith. Without faith to begin with, the things I believe to be tenants are only mantra. For example, Berzerker asked me something like; 'so, those that follow the teachings of Christ without accepting his deity are tortured in hell, while completely rotten people that believe in the resurrection go to heaven, is that the plan?'
Brilliant question! (especially if asked looking for an answer and not just lauding his existing position). Because my understanding already 'exists' in faith, it is clear to me that someone genuinely committed to belief in Christ wouldn't allow themselves to remain 'rotten'. Or, in the context I've learned from reading this thread, Mr. Rotten would begin to use the morality of Christ as the objective point, and wouldn't be satisfied with ethical egoism, which allows for that person to benefit themselves to the detriment of another.
Back to my point, knowing that a true Christian would not want to remain rotten requires a preexisting faith in its own reality, and is unconvincing to a person without faith. To the person without faith, Mr. Rotten IS a Christian and hypocrite as well.

[Boris Godunov]

Social Darwinism has nothing to do with actual Darwinist theory, other than sharing a name. We had a thread on this a while back. Racists simply took the new name and slapped it onto a pre-existing belief system of hate and ignorance.

Anyone who truly knows Darwin's theory would realize that the logical leaps taken by SD were completely unsubstantiated by it.

[Whaleboy]

Boris, I have never paid much attention to the logic of SD, I never realised it was that different.

Bayraven, I agree it must be difficult. If belief in deity is predicated in faith, I don't think faith is something you can pick up in a debate but then I haven't really made my mind up about whether or not it's a good idea to have a debate on this topic to try to convince people. Ordinarily I say that there are two types of debates, a debate like this one, which is more like a game of chess that is very interesting to those who like the game, or a popular debate designed to recruit, as a marketting tool. On this topic, my gut tells me that if the undecided are looking in, the best bet would be a cross between the two, but I have a personal hostility toward popularism, democracy, public opinion and the marketing that goes along with it.

On the other hand, I agree... For the sake of the debate I wish there was someone who was diametrically opposed to me/the atheist position so that we could have a really good look at each others views. I know that it probably wouldn't work on the off topic without degenerating .

[Whaleboy]

My real angst is in the revelation that every argument that I can conceive for faith is predicated on a preexisting possession of faith.

Take faith and reason as oppositional for the minute (yes we're in *that* context again ). In the absense of faith/emotion/love (replace with what you identify on that level), we become automatons. If you accept that emotions are premised in logic there is no necessary reason to deny those emotions and faith is no different. Without wanting to sound corny, but it's part of being human. Admittedly, I think the concept of "human" is ultimately empty and you have to accept it first, but then I'm moving away from strict reason and being more subjective.

It all begs the question of faith in what? I previously said that faith cannot be touched by scientific or reasoned arguments if it doesn't make scientific or reasoned pretensions, so imo that moves it away from established religion.... a nice conclusion would be a "god unto my consciousness", which allows for a universe with no god, but a god as subjective as our own experience of the world.

If that makes any sense? Just a stab in the dark... what I'm trying to show is that the idea of reason -> faith is not a dead duck. That may seem contrary to my position at first glance but I think it's consistent with it.