“We gave you three days to recant but you insist on not returning to Islam"

[Skybird]

We do have morality existing already, Armistead, since long before modern religions were given birth to. It's just that you cannot have just one side of a coin only, there also exist the antithesis to morality. And the more you try to sharpen and reinforce morality, the more you boost immorality as well.

It's better to go back to some very essential and easy principals and basics, and trying to set an own example to others by living up to them. The Golden Rule for example is a good beginning. Natural Law is another simple set of very basic fundamental principles. And the denial of the "right" for slavery.

And also helpful is to understand the meaning of Karma: the inevitable causal link between cause and effect.

I cannot see that it needs a specific Judaic, Christian, Muslim or Buddhist mindset to see the reasonability of the above. Maybe instead of trying to be morally outstanding humans, it would be enough if we would allow ourselves to just be humans.

But as I said, that does not mean that the second side of the coin can be avoided. Everything comes at a cost. That's the nature of things. We are no creatures of light exclusively, but light and darkness both reside in our existence. Becoming human maybe means nothing else than understanding this - and resisting the temptation of wanting to deny the existence of the one while exclusively focussing on juts the other. The hedonist and the ascet - to me them both got some things wrong. You cannot find your frfeedom by denying things existing - if you do that, things claim even more power about you, making you even more unfree.

Moderation sounds like a good idea, doesn't it. Moderation regarding any kind of extremes.

[Armistead]

I know many believers will say where does morality or conscious come from since we can't find it in our brains. It's obvious early man had no morals, they killed like animals without guilt to survive. Over time they evolved and learned to survive and build social structures. Simply, morality is a social system and our conscious is how our brain responds to it.

I think the reasons it stop making sense to me is because sincerity and logic don't play a part, you have to choose the right religion or savior or be doomed. I think how the millions of Jews Hitler killed that didn't accept Christ as the messiah, based on fairly good reason if you're a Jew. Yet, they loved God. I can imagine suffering in a concentration camp faith was all they had and the hope of death. I'm sure they prayed to the God they loved. Yet, when they die, they found the God they love worse than Hitler. It would be the same with all religions where culture indoctrinates and people follow. Whatever religion is right, it excludes the masses to hell.

Who wouldn't wish God to be true, eternal life in bliss to be true? I've had several loved ones die, would love to see mom again. But, I see no evidence that it is. If God is true he's either a tyrant and it comes down to the luck of which religion is right, all religions are right or he's nothing like any religion proclaims.

[TarJak]

Or he's chuckling at the religious nutters whilst welcoming atheists into oblivion.

[Armistead]

I would like to think if he exist that he would welcome all humanity, even if some judgment is required..

[Oberon]

I would think, and hope, that when we leave all this behind, we leave all that...stuff...behind with it.

[August]

God is not there to protect us. If he did what would be the point of our existence? Better to not have created us in the first place if all we are is puppets on a celestial string.

No, I believe God gave us the most precious gifts that any father can give his children. Freedom and trust. Trust that we'll use our freedom for good instead of evil. Kind of like the first time your father handed you the keys to his car, we are at the wheel of our own destiny so to speak. Yeah we might get hurt but that imo is far better than a completely sheltered life with no free will.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Armistead

I know many believers will say where does morality or conscious come from since we can't find it in our brains. It's obvious early man had no morals, they killed like animals without guilt to survive. Over time they evolved and learned to survive and build social structures. Simply, morality is a social system and our conscious is how our brain responds to it.

I think the reasons it stop making sense to me is because sincerity and logic don't play a part, you have to choose the right religion or savior or be doomed. I think how the millions of Jews Hitler killed that didn't accept Christ as the messiah, based on fairly good reason if you're a Jew. Yet, they loved God. I can imagine suffering in a concentration camp faith was all they had and the hope of death. I'm sure they prayed to the God they loved. Yet, when they die, they found the God they love worse than Hitler. It would be the same with all religions where culture indoctrinates and people follow. Whatever religion is right, it excludes the masses to hell.

Who wouldn't wish God to be true, eternal life in bliss to be true? I've had several loved ones die, would love to see mom again. But, I see no evidence that it is. If God is true he's either a tyrant and it comes down to the luck of which religion is right, all religions are right or he's nothing like any religion proclaims.

Morals you already see in little children that voluntarily share with each other (or steal ), try to give solace to the other when seeing another child crying, knowing that who found somethign first cannot made to give it up without setting up a fight. We see in some apes, mammals and birds both altruistic motives, social cooperation, and also the cleverness of how to exploit the other and mislead him. I think that is where morals come from: people formed communities, and where there are communbities, there are do'S and don'Ts. The balance between both is a question of collective and individual experience. When the individual sees a given method working well for his interest, it will support it. People take altruistic action into account when in the long run it pays off for them as well.

As I said, biologists report according behaviour patterns form their observations of several apes, birds, and mammals.

I think morals is a lot about group interaction and coordination of single interests in groups. Morals mean to have a choice between complying and disobeying with these rules. For that choice, a certain amount of intelligence and self-awareness and identity concept is necessary. Where these are not given, there is no moral behaviour possible, only preset instincts and genetically encoded behavior programs.

Terrence Malick said in his beautiful movie The Tree Of Life that there is the choice between the path of nature, and the path of mercy. And there is the scene with the dinosaur that sees another, ill one lying on the ground, a smaller creature. And at the last moment before trampling on it and killing it, the bigger dino hesitates, stops, looks closer, then slowly moves his feet back, and turns and goes away. You can make of this any interpretation you want. If you are in the path of mercy crowd, you may interpret it as compassion maybe. If you are with the opath of nature crowd, you may see it as instinct reaction, or realisation that the small dino is no threat.

Anyhow, both views are legit. So maybe, it all is just a dance of words.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Oberon

I would think, and hope, that when we leave all this behind, we leave all that...stuff...behind with it.

Amen

[Armistead]

Originally Posted by August

God is not there to protect us. If he did what would be the point of our existence? Better to not have created us in the first place if all we are is puppets on a celestial string.

No, I believe God gave us the most precious gifts that any father can give his children. Freedom and trust. Trust that we'll use our freedom for good instead of evil. Kind of like the first time your father handed you the keys to his car, we are at the wheel of our own destiny so to speak. Yeah we might get hurt but that imo is far better than a completely sheltered life with no free will.

Yet the bible is full of verses that proclaim Gods protection.

It's sort of like so many of my friends post memes on FB that everything that happens to you is part of his plan and will. When I ask how a child being brutally raped is part of a plan, then it's just God is a mystery. My biggest issue is watching so many claim prayers answered or lil miracles, such as a raise, mortgage refinanced, new job, healing {under a doctors care of course} and a big PTL. It makes God seem so trife when you know millions of children suffer and die each year with mothers praying their hearts out and God turns a blind eye, yet can find time to give someone a raise. I wonder how someone feels that just lost a child to cancer seeing someone else claiming God found them a new car. Americans make God so generic and self serving.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Armistead

Yet the bible is full of verses that proclaim Gods protection.

It's sort of like so many of my friends post memes on FB that everything that happens to you is part of his plan and will. When I ask how a child being brutally raped is part of a plan, then it's just God is a mystery. My biggest issue is watching so many claim prayers answered or lil miracles, such as a raise, mortgage refinanced, new job, healing {under a doctors care of course} and a big PTL. It makes God seem so trife when you know millions of children suffer and die each year with mothers praying their hearts out and God turns a blind eye, yet can find time to give someone a raise. I wonder how someone feels that just lost a child to cancer seeing someone else claiming God found them a new car. Americans make God so generic and self serving.

Great post

[Skybird]

Any god there is cannot be a god if it cares for man or listens to prayers. Prayers are deals tiny little men want to enforce onto an entity they claim is unbelievably above them. If that were true, why should it care, then? I do not care whether I stepped onto an ant while walking in the woods, or not. And never I would start trying to discuss my life plan with it. Prayers are man's way to try bribing fate and get recognised as playing a more central role in the universe, than we actually do. We think that if we spell the magical formula right, beside its irrelevance it nevertheless would make the universe moving differently and bending nature's law. But it does not work this way. The causal link people want to see, is just a random event.

If you watch at the cosmos, at least as far as we can gather it, it is a spectacular but lifeless, desolate place that has its beauty only by what humans attribute to it. So is nature - it just does not care for man, not at all. Without humans, things are still just what they are. Many questions we may yell in frustration at this cosmos, but it never gives an answer in return. The only thing we hear is the voice of our own imagination, and the only truth is that which we have attributed to it by ourselves.

That's why I think the only way for us to find some peace of mind, is by listening into the space within ourselves, and trying to find out in what way it may be linked to the space around us. Whether the world outside really is like our senses tell us, is questionable, the only thing we can be certain of, is the undeniable fact that we are undergoing the process of witnessing.

[CaptainHaplo]

My how the subject has changed.... Still, a couple of notes...

First of all - yes, Christianity is a religion. If it wasn't, please tell all the Christian churches to give up their tax free status because they are religious entities....

Second, what is so often lost when it comes to issues of faith is that there is a huge difference between a religious belief system defined (and redefined) by men and a spiritual communion with Deity.

The thing is, Islamic "extremists" are those that take their belief system as literally as possible and do their very best to hold to it. The religious system itself is being followed by the extremists. Compare that to Christianity, where the "extremists" are those who choose simply do not choose to recognize or accept "sinful acts" of others, such as homosexuality. While both religious structures hold the acts as abominations, Islam calls for the execution of the homosexual, while Christianity has moderated from stoning the person to hating the action while loving the person. Where Islam calls for the killing of those who leave Islam, Christianity moved away from calling for death to the apostate. It is an interesting case study that "extremists" in one religion are the moderates in another, is it not?

As for asking how God could "allow" this or that, there are so many numerous theories on the why it would take months to discuss them all. Personally, I am at peace with the actions of God, and thus am not driven to question them beyond what I have already done. Still, I understand and respect that not everyone can have - or accept - the answer I have. Others will have different answers, and some will have no answer at all.

[Wolferz]

Nice analogy, Haplo.

In a nutshell, religion and faith in a supreme being is in the mind of the beholder. Many people need it to stave off the depression and hopelessness that would be caused by the answer to the age old questions...
"Is this all there is?"
"Do we just cease to exist when we die?"

From scientific studies we know that there is more out there just waiting to be discovered. Much more.
The answer to question number two is far more elusive and won't be answered until we experience the death of these physical biological robots we run around in.

I'd like to think that I am much more than the sum of these atoms that this physical body is made of. That idea requires faith in something greater than scientific proof.
Everything about religion is a made up construct by men who were possibly mentally ill.
"If you talk to God you're religious"
"If God talks to you you're a nutter"

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by CaptainHaplo

The thing is, Islamic "extremists" are those that take their belief system as literally as possible and do their very best to hold to it. The religious system itself is being followed by the extremists. Compare that to Christianity, where the "extremists" are those who choose simply do not choose to recognize or accept "sinful acts" of others, such as homosexuality. While both religious structures hold the acts as abominations, Islam calls for the execution of the homosexual, while Christianity has moderated from stoning the person to hating the action while loving the person. Where Islam calls for the killing of those who leave Islam, Christianity moved away from calling for death to the apostate. It is an interesting case study that "extremists" in one religion are the moderates in another, is it not?

While it's true that Christianity has mellowed with time, I have to wonder how much of that was voluntary and how much was due to the growing influence of the Enlightenment. Not claiming, merely wondering. I enjoy exploring the causes, though I know I'll never have a real answer. Did Christianity reform on its own or was it forced to by reasonable people objecting to religious squabling in the civilized world? Probably some of both, because there are reasonable people everywhere, and if they're not shouted down or intimidated by unreasonable people they do have an influence.

I'm reminded of what I was once told is an old Hindu saying: "No God should ever be judged by the sort of people who claim to worship him."

[Dread Knot]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Did Christianity reform on its own or was it forced to by reasonable people objecting to religious squabling in the civilized world? Probably some of both, because there are reasonable people everywhere, and if they're not shouted down or intimidated by unreasonable people they do have an influence.

Here lies one major concern I have regarding Islam. In contrast with the general historical awareness, even recognition of the manner in which the scriptures were gathered in Christianity, which made criticism of the texts possible, there seems to be little corresponding recognition in Islam. After all, it was a Roman emperor who ordered that an authoritative biblical text be put together. There was never a pristine original copy of the Bible to adhere to, and the essence of the faith was defined by synods and in creeds.

In the case of Islam, we have a sacred immovable text, so perfect and unamendable that only the original classical Arabic is considered valid for the practice of true Islam. (Which in turn has produced arguments regarding the perfection of classical Arabic.) This absolutism at the level of the Koran itself, is the key obstacle to the modernization of the faith as practiced and is what always threatens a return to its worst forms at any time.

I perceive it as sort of a 'Dale Carnegie' one-upsmanship, making its absolutism more influential and so taking it to the next and now impossible level. Perhaps it was a ploy at the time to make it more competitive with the well established Jewish and Christian faiths in the area. But its consequences are nasty.