Are You Religious?

[Phazite]

Second, I did a paper on an evil God in college. Basically, I said it was possible, but unlikely. It would be hard to call such a diety "Father" or put any faith in him. And it would be difficult to figure out why such a diety would create us in the first place.

It may be hard to call an evil diety "Father" and put faith in him, but that wouldn't make one less likely to exist. It would be figure out why this diety would create us in the first place, yes, but this seems to me to be true whether or not the diety is evil. Would a good diety create us so that we could enjoy life? Why not an evil diety so we could suffer?

As for Atheism being logically inconsistent, I contend that belief systems aren't logical anyway -- they're emotional. Every atheist I have met personally (or read) is ANGRY about something. The Church did something terrible, or their parents disappointed them, or SOMETHING. So, it doesn't have to be logically consistent, since that's not why people believe.

Atheism itself isn't a belief system, though atheists could still have belief systems. It seems to me that most atheists consider a-theist to mean not-theist (not a believer in god(s)). In that case, atheism couldn't be logically inconsistent. Also, there are atheists out there who are angry at religion or something events in their lives related to religion, but definitely not all of them.

[Markus]

As for Atheism being logically inconsistent, I contend that belief systems aren't logical anyway -- they're emotional. Every atheist I have met personally (or read) is ANGRY about something. The Church did something terrible, or their parents disappointed them, or SOMETHING. So, it doesn't have to be logically consistent, since that's not why people believe.

I completely disagree with you there. Most people I know are atheists because their parents brought them up as atheists. I doubt anyone would choose to be atheist just because they are angry at religious people.

[micronexer97]

Whether it is works of charity, or strapping a bomb to yourself and blowing up children.

..........



I'd say I'm somewhere between religious and agnostic. I don't think there's enough proof that a God exists, but I do believe there is one and live life as if there is.

[BitBuster]

First, it is possible to prove an "if-then" statement to be true, even if you don't know the truth of either part. That is, you can prove "a implies b" to be true or false, based on it's truth table, without actually knowing if a is true or false.

What if our system of logic turns out to be flawed?

Second, I did a paper on an evil God in college. Basically, I said it was possible, but unlikely. It would be hard to call such a diety "Father" or put any faith in him. And it would be difficult to figure out why such a diety would create us in the first place.

Have you looked around the world? Frankly, an evil deity makes more sense than a benevolent deity.

As for Atheism being logically inconsistent, I contend that belief systems aren't logical anyway -- they're emotional. Every atheist I have met personally (or read) is ANGRY about something.

That may be true; I'm not sure. I do know that I'm not angry about anything. Perhaps that's why I categorize myself as an agnostic.

Seriously, I still have a lot of residual Catholic angst. I think the church is full of corruption, but that doesn't disprove the religion, nor is it why I gave up on it.

And things like Eden and Hell are not necessarily literal, in my personal view.

...which raises the age-old question: how do you tell the literal parts of a holy text from the figurative parts?

[Phazite]

What if our system of logic turns out to be flawed?

We need to proove that the logic is inconsistent to show that it's flawed, right?

[BitBuster]

I'm not trying to disprove logic. I'm just saying that if we're saying that we "know" A or B because of logic, that presupposes that our system of logic is accurate/true/whatever.



But yeah, I suppose proving that it is inconsistent would show that it's flawed...I don't know, maybe I'm walking right into a paradox or contradiction here.

[geodave]

Life itself is a paradox, so that's an endless loop.

As I said, an evil diety could exist. I just don't think one does. As has been mentioned here elsewhere, evil is a consequence of free will.

And as for "what's literal and what's not" -- I don't really care if Abraham is literal (and most people think he is), it doesn't affect the truth of the implications (the if-then statements) of the bible.

[BitBuster]

What implications? If Jesus is merely metaphorical, I think that has a large effect on the overall "meaning" of the Bible. Ditto for concepts such as "eternity."

[geodave]

Well, now, I didn't say I think JESUS is metaphorical. On the contrary, Jesus only makes sense to me if he really existed, really died (sorry Muslims) and was really resurrected. Otherwise, as Paul said, Christianity is pointless and miserable.

On the other hand, that doesn't restrict me from believing that perhaps large parts of Genesis are recordings of the oral traditions of the Hebrews. After all, even Moses didn't write the end of Deueteronomy, where Moses dies.

I'm a firm believer that myth doesn't come from nowhere. Do I think that Noah literally collected two of each species (and seven pairs of some)? Maybe. Is it possible that this is metaphorical? Yes. Did SOMETHING catastrophic happen the past involving a flood. PROBABLY.

Does anyone think that all of Revelation is literal? Did you know that 666 is already on most of the products you buy? Hasn't "this generation" died out already, and yet not "all of these things" have been fulfilled?

Hmmmmmmm??????

[BitBuster]

...so you cherry-pick the metaphorical elements so that the text remains consistent? "Hmm, this doesn't make literal sense...therefore it's metaphorical. This, on the other hand, is probable...therefore, we'll consider it to be literal truth." Circular reasoning, no?

Again, it also raises the question as to why the deity would choose for the text to be so impenetrable (some sects believe it all to be literal truth, while others don't). At least give us headers that indicate which parts are merely metaphorical!