If God Is Real

there may be one god, there may be many gods, but there is no reason to expect them to resemble, what anyone has believed or written.
the only thing it makes sense to expect, is that there are things we don't know.

there could of course be no god. but still, the only thing to expect, is that there are things we don't know.

 

i dont understand the "you have to work to earn it" part.

was killing jesus our way of "working to earn" his forgiveness??

 

if jesus didn't die, what would've happend?

 

more likely then not, very nearly the same things that have.
the invention of agriculture and of the atomic bomb, have both had infinitely more influence on the world we actually live in.

on the other paw, the middle ages might never have happened. resulting in a slower and steadier development of science and technology, requiring no 'industrial revolution' to make up for its thousand years of mostly lost time. and a high probability we'd be out among the stars by now. possibly even more peaceful among ourselves, and toward others we might meet out there.

on the third paw, precisely what do you mean by "didn't die"? do you mean wasn't executed, or do you mean somehow a living mortal human person 2,000 and some odd years ago were to have been somehow made immortal?

at any rate, agriculture and the bomb would still remain more significant events in human history.

 

im proposing that the whole deal god worked out with jesus, making him die for our sins and whatnot, doesn't make any sense. if jesus was never executed it would not have had much of an impact on society as we know it today.

 

so if i understand your post correctly, your saying that our reptilian brain has a hard time accepting unconditional love/forgiveness. but our reptilian brain is hard wired so that we have to work for things to earn them?


and this is the reason god sent jesus to be crucified and forgive us of the sins we were born with?


no offense, but i am a normal reasonably intelligent person and this just doesn't make logical sense to me. care to elaborate?

 

what's not to understand?
it permeates almost every corner of Christendom, from the ritualized crap of Roman Catholicism down to a small local church expecting a person to stop cussing and smoking if they convert,
it's all the same thing, believing that by some action or effort on our part, heaven/salvation can be had.
It also is the main point of most other religions as well and where things such as mediation, vows of poverty, sacrifices and similar practices come into play, working our way to salvation, whatever that may be for that individual.

Christianity and more specifically Jesus' message, is unique in that all that is expected or required is a simple acceptance and belief, nothing more.
don't need to change who or what you are, don't need to recite some lame mantra to gain enlightenment, no need for vows or outward shows of piety or any of that superficial nonsense.

the concept of unconditional acceptance is so foreign to us that almost immediately the message got jumbled into "do this, don't do that" bullshit.


and according to Christian teaching, nobody "killed" Jesus, he willingly gave himself up for crucifixion.

 

this stuff about our reptilian brains not being capable of love and forgiveness without accepting jesus is bunk i have no idea what your basing it on.

sounds innocent enough until you you consider that he wants you to accept and believe that there is something inherently wrong with human kind, like we need something that only this jesus/his religion can provide.


science has shown us that human behavior is "environmentally determined", so perpetuating this concept that we as humans are somehow flawed and need jesus is what is hindering our spiritual development.


imagine a society where children are not taught to believe they are inherently wicked, and they have to accept a certain belief or they will go burn forever. instead children will be taught acceptance and empathy, and how we are all connected in a beautiful and scientific way, not just the human race but every living thing on earth. now thats real spiritual progress.

 

its not unique.

 

If you're saying science has shown that we're a product of environmental factors instead of inherited ones, I don't think science has shown that at all, although for awhile back in the fifties and sixties, behavioral scientists seemed to believe that. For an excellent exposition of why it isn't so, see Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker'sThe Blank Slate..Evolutionary biologist O.W. Wilson tells us that since the time of homo habilis, humans have struggled with a tension between individual-level selection orienting us to competition and group-level selection orienting us toward a;truism and co-operation. Since both were functional for survival, and evolution builds on what was there before, we're stuck with a built-in conflict, with which cultural evolution tries to help us cope. This conflict is expressed metaphorically in the Genesis myth, out of which dour theologians like Saint Augustine unfortunately developed the idea of "original sin" unknown to Judaism. We are, as you say, "somewhat flawed" in this respect, since as rational, willful creatures reconciling these competing urges doesn't happen automatically for us. We need cultural guidance from moral teachers like Jesus and the Buddha.

I won't say that every component of Jesus' message is "unique" (some of it came from the Pharisee rabbi Hillel), or that He even said them all, but the total package of thoughts attributed to Jesus seems to be distinctive among world religions. Buddhism comes closest, but I give Jesus the edge in emphasizing active, non-judgmental unconditional universal love, including society's rejects. The Buddhist doctrine of karma and non-involved presence can get in the way of active altruistic action. Fortunately, we don't have to choose between them, since Buddhism allows embrace of other religions, and makes no demands concerning belief in a deity. Of course there are over 30 thousand different versions of what Jesus' message was, but that's evolution for you: speciation, radiation, competition, extinction, etc. It's not that bad, since they mostly fall into just a few major clusters or categories. I'm satisfied with the one I'm betting my life on, based on a reasoned elaboration of the message and values contained in the Sermon on the Mount, the parable of the good Samaritan, the Golden Rule, the parts about "judge not", forgiveness of trespassers, turning the other cheek, love of God and neighbor summarizing the law and the Prophets, etc.--in sum, the agape principle. Noxious Gas's emphasis on belief and acceptance of Christ's sacrifice is mainly Paul. I accept it, with the qualifiers that I think faith, not belief (they're not quite the same), is the basis of justification, and atonement was achieved by Jesus's example, not dying in our place . May the better meme win!

 

You mind summing up a few key points from that book by Pinker in response to IMJustfishin's post? I do not ascribe to the 'Tabula Rasa' notion of human behavior myself, which sounds like what one of the key points that book addressess. However, I guess depending how literal you want to be, technically I don't see how one can measure behavior disconnected from the enviroment and I think enviroment certainly plays a crucial role in shaping human behavior.

I'd like the clarification from your assessment of Pinker's argument, because I'm not entirely comfortable with appealing to an extinct hominid species which existed a few million years ago for answers to explain current humans innate capacity for being wicked sinners.

 

I think it's more a tension between physical desires and the order of the pre-frontal cortex. This fits well with the sudden change brought forth by the agricultural revolution when suddenly humans became the producers of our own food eliminating the natural limits on eating and procreation.

 

All I was saying, in a post beginning with the qualifier "If you're saying science has shown that we're a product of environmental factors instead of inherited ones", was that inherited (genetically determined) factors play an important part in our behavior, which I think is the main point of Pinker's book, and that the relevant traits involved in the conflict between self and group go back aways--Wilson estimates to Homo habilis. IMJustafishin made the statemet "science has shown us that human behavior is 'environmentally determined', so perpetuating this concept that we as humans are somehow flawed and need jesus is what is hindering our spiritual development". I was making a case that humans are "flawed" in the sense of a built-in conflict between self and group and that cultural memes like religious norms evolved to give the edge to altruism. The conflict between self interest and group interest is alive and well after all those millions of years, and therefore we still cling to religions that tell us we are flawed. Buddhism emphasizes attachments as the source of suffering. Abrahamic religions put more emphasis on metaphors of "sin" and estrangement from God--personifying altruism.

 

what i meant to say is our environment determines our personal, social, and cultural values, this is not genetically determined.

 

Thanks for clarifying. It sounds like you meant to say exactly what you did say--that our personal, social and cultural values are determined exclusively by the environment, with biology playing no part. So I mentioned Pinker, who challenges this "blank slate" concept. Pychobiologists and sociobiologists believe we are "hardwired" by evolution to be predisposed to certain personal, social and cultural attributes--for example the ease in which people of different cultures learn religion and morality. The particulars are derived from environmental influences.

 

My point is that humans, by nature, are conflicted between anti-social and co-operative instincts. Call that a flaw or a fact of life. Whether we need Jesus, the Buddha, Mohammed, Confucius, Plato or some secular moral philosopher is debatable, but we need all the help we can get.

 

I've seen an elephant push a tree down.

without the tree the elephant could not practice his influence.

without the elephant the tree would not have fallen.

The world shapes the elephant, and the elephant shapes the world.

 

I think we have to find our own ethical sense inside ourselves. Probably familiarity with sources of ethical ideas such as you mention could help in that. But ultimately, it's down to the individual.

 

humans are taught to be conflicted by their beliefs. nature has nothing to do with it. people want people to believe that it does for a whole range of agandas. that even motivate parents to convince their own children of this, and thus perpetuate this myth.
you will see a lot of this in story telling, because it makes a story that is interesting to people to see or read. but even that, has its origens in these learned expectation and demands.
it is a short cut, to dismiss as instinctual, things that are learned behavior, even among non-sapients. if there really even are non-sapients, or even a distinction between sapience and sentience.

 

in other words:

"instinctual" is as much a tautology as genetics can be when explaining behavior. Genetics gives rise to our physiology and can be said to be responsible for anything that happens to any human anywhere, and rightfully so.

For example, alchoholism is a disease. But you also know it as a behavior. In essence, that's what it is. The consumption of alchohol. A genetically determined behavior.

But you and I know that there is more than that. There is more going on than the expression of genes. There is experience. But what is that? The synnergy our mind has with itself? What is it???? Qualia. You elusive bitch. I will never stop chasing you. Even though the more . Think about our relationship, the more I feel like there is nothing there. You do not exist. I am imagining the feelings I have and the colors I see. What is going on is that I am aware of my existence. I am now capable of self influence Which could and might as well be the definition of Free will.

Why can't I deviate from my behavior? I could if I choose to, I just don't choose to. Is the defence of an alchoholic, and it is an undefeatable argument if you really think he has a choice in the matter.

Knowledge is far more powerful than emotions are. In fact, most of the time emotions are made up and could represent the misaprehention of ANYTHING.

They are your minds way of fooling you. there is not anything physically in between you and I, so why aren't we hugging? OUR CLOSEST RELATIVE IS THE BONOBO. What the hell went so wrong with the world that people spend so much of their time feeling terrible about themselves and what they do? It is because they are uninformed about their existence And the nature of their feelings.

Which causes others to do so as well.