You Sad Pathetic Man...

[Andrew D]

Do you have any response at all to the point that has nothing at all to do with Reagan?

[Andrew D]

You should identify with that guy....

He's naked....

So neither he nor I has any reason to be embarrassed about being naked. What is your reason?

[Lord Jim]

Do you have any response at all to the point that has nothing at all to do with Reagan?

Be happy too...

By the way, rubato's conjectures self-evidently concern prehistoric matters.

You're engaging in hair splitting pedantry.

That's my response.

[Andrew D]

So what are you engaging in?

Oh, wait, I know:

[dgs49]

Balderdash.

Most people are utterly selfish, and wouldn't give as much as the sweat off their private parts to a stranger. They are occasionally willing to pitch in to help someone with whom they have some connection (family member, friend, neighbor, or someone who has suffered a conspicuous loss like hurricane victims), but as a general proposition, bupkus.

Charitable giving is astoundingly small as a percentage of global personal income, when you discount contributions that merely fund church administration, the Arts, and our cornucopia of redundant, wasteful educational institutions.

People have even washed their hands of supporting their fucking FAMILIES (elderly parents, disabled siblings, etc), dumping all of that on the GOVERNMENT, and whining when Government is not sufficiently generous with Other Peoples' Money.

But organized religion, and most conspicuously the Roman Catholic Church, feeds more hungry people, educates more uneducated people, clothes and shelters more people, saves more widows and orphans, and provides medical care to more people who otherwise wouldn't get it, than any other non-government institution in the world. And the government institutions that take on such missions are so collossally inefficient and wrong-headed that they ofter do more harm than good (while feeding massive supporting bureaucracies), both domestically and internationally.

Which is not to say that there are not many NGO's that do a lot of good (the Red Cross being a significant example), but the contribution of organized religions is incalculable.

And to bring it to the mandatory political point, it is a characteristic of Liberals to want to slough off their "natural" tendencies to be altruistic to Government - pushing for more and more do-gooder programs so that they can feel good about themselves by virtue of extorting "charitible" contributions from the Evil Rich (sorry for the redundancy). This is NOT charity, it is theft in the name of charity.

[MajGenl.Meade]

I think it's arguable that there can be no truly disinterested action. A truly disinterested person would be as likely to poor petrol on a Buddhist as to use a fire extinguisher, the result being a matter of indifference. It is of course a tenet of a certain form or forms of Buddhism that real enlightenment means true disinterest in the non-reality of our perceived world. Even Christians perform "good" acts because Christ Jesus commanded it (that is, we are to be conformed to him and not to our own desires) - but that is, in the final analysis, also selfish in its way.

There is a misconception in several posts that either fear of death/God or fear of damnation is the motivator for (let us say) Christian belief in an afterlife. There is also the misconception that current units of society (i.e. people) are born in some kind of moral vacuum which they inhabit until they get the idea that it's nice to be nice to others. They do this "independently" of any belief in God for they have not at all been influenced, nor have those around them or preceding them, nor has society, by x thousands of years of human development shaped by a belief in God.

The comfort of believing that there is no after-life must be buttressed by a belief that one's actions on earth have any meaning beyond the mere utility of those actions. To do that, it is necessary to close eyes, cross fingers and forget that any achievement which will be utterly obliterated (as both science and religion tell us is the fate of this earth) is no achievement at all.

It is to equate humanity (and our capacity to reason) with, for example, the social weaver birds who join together to build great communal nests at the top of telephone poles in the Northern Cape and elsewhere. Ants and bees could argue (if they could argue at all) that the only purpose is to serve the group and their life and death is made meaningful only by a little bit of dirt moved or honecomb produced. It confuses non-reasoning "accidental" behaviour with reasoned action. Thus "early humans" (long before religion came along) found "better protection" in a group - or "female humans could better plant crops" in a group. Yes, selfish purpose is often better achieved if you can persuade other people to do the work (share the work if you like but I'm prepared to believe that early groupings were not communistic but some form of pride leader dictatorship).

I would argue that religions arose as a result of human reaching for understanding, of revelation and of necessity (of the same kind such as led to scientific advance that is). And further that all reasoned concepts of "altruism" arose (and still arise now) not from animal instinct but from a knowledge that life on this earth is not the finality that a shallow view espouses. "Unselfishness" is an idea co-opted by atheists and agnostics from religious thought by the simple process of denying God as the first and the last element in it and then declaring that it is an original idea sprung full formed from the (almost) perfect human mind.

It also smacks of the "I'm all right, Jack" mode of thought. As long as I have done something useful (helped that old lady, changed tort law forever, changed a light bulb) then death is just the best thing going. Never mind all those who have not done something useful - they die too but who cares? They made no contribution so screw 'em. Christianity teaches that "doing things" or "not doing things" is not the basis of eternal life - it is acknowledging the sovereignty of God (expressed in belief, faith, confession, repentance and so on) that is the gating factor. We are not saved by good deeds but for good deeds, should we be granted the time to do them.

It is interesting that an informed (true) Christian is a person who may have once been either a very kind but lost person or a very unkind but lost person but who has now changed their motivation from self aggrandizement to a desire to please God. An atheist is a person who vows never to change. I was one of those once. I find it so much easier these days to love other people because I know they are all loved by Him first and all have eternal life - and I don't know which ones will be with me and which ones will not. So all deserve from me the same mercy that God gave to me, and I did not deserve it and do not deserve it even now.

Meade

[Lord Jim]

Excellent post Meade.

[dgs49]

similar stuff: Religions arose (and continue to arise) because (1) humans can't believe that life and mother nature do what they do with complete randomness (there MUST be a reason why Dear Aunt Sadie got hit by lightning), and (2) people don't want to believe that our existence ends with death. Putting it another way, nobody wants to believe that the unfairness of life (and it is eminently unfair) is what we are stuck with, with no balancing ever. We want to believe that Hitler suffered for his "sins," and that somehow Father Damian was rewarded. If not, then what's the point?

[oldr_n_wsr]

I am pretty much an agnostic but raised Catholic. I do not shun any religion (having Jewish, Christian and Hindu friends, probably other religions too, just can't recall) nor do I gravitate towards any religion. I do acts of kindness because I think we (people as a whole) should. Maybe my acts are all self centered as doing them makes me feel better, but I do them as they do make me feel better that I helped someone else feel better. After Sandy, I went to the sea shore in the hard hit neighborhoods. I helped people rip out soaked sheetrock and prevent more mold/mildew spread. I carried destroyed family heirlooms to dumpsters (very sad). I was ready to help a poster here get in touch with family. Why? Because it made me feel good to be part of the greater community, the greater good that is manKIND.

My philosophy:
Do the next right thing.
Treat people as you would like to be treated.
Help when help is needed.
Turn the other cheek spanking is optional

[Gob]

I agree with O-n-W but would add; "Fuck with me or mine at your own risk."

[oldr_n_wsr]

I agree with O-n-W but would add; "Fuck with me or mine at your own risk."

I can be armed in a moment and I don't miss.

[MajGenl.Meade]

similar stuff: Religions arose (and continue to arise) because (1) humans can't believe that life and mother nature do what they do with complete randomness (there MUST be a reason why Dear Aunt Sadie got hit by lightning), and (2) people don't want to believe that our existence ends with death. Putting it another way, nobody wants to believe that the unfairness of life (and it is eminently unfair) is what we are stuck with, with no balancing ever. We want to believe that Hitler suffered for his "sins," and that somehow Father Damian was rewarded. If not, then what's the point?

You evidently believe that rationality is an accident. Maybe in some cases (poll! poll!). I would argue that life is neither fair nor unfair - it is simply life, a process of decay that begins sometime before birth. Speaking universally, it began millions of years ago and as the Master sings, we all are "brief elaborations of a tube" as far as this earth is concerned.

Belief in God offers no answer as to why Aunt Sadie was struck by lightning and Uncle Herman was not. It's not even a valid question to ask of religion in general. I often wonder about Christians who breathlessly tell me that "it was a miracle" that their car avoided a nine vehicle pile up that killed seven other humans. Apparently the unfortunate ones were not worth a "miracle" and therefore the implication is that God chose to spare one or two because they are 'better' than seven others. Of course, they don't realise that's the obvious conclusion. (I theorise that it is a modern-day confusion of miracle with providence).

Apparently many people do want to believe that our existence ends with earthly death. They are even anxious that other people should not believe it; evidently it is somehow more worthy to inform humanity (on some apparently infallible basis of knowledge) that life actually has no meaning or purpose beyond success (defined as doing something "worthwhile"). Murder, rape, child molestation etc. are all more tolerable (and understandable) if there is no God - but not if there is one. The problem of evil is never satisfactorily resolved by irreligion - it is merely ignored as a social construct which could, under other circumstances, be other than what it is.

I note that oldr suggests that "his" philosophy is to do unto others as he would have them do to him. I suggest that is in fact a borrowing of God's philosophy, imperfectly expressed in many religious formats but correctly in only one.

Meade

PS and don't forget - the first person to mention "Hitler" in any webconv is the self-identified loser

[Crackpot]

Doesn't that count?

[MajGenl.Meade]

"But that was the second mention. One, two. Bwaa-haa-haa!"

[Andrew D]

It's about "the leap of Faith"...it's about transcending material logic, and having a "sense" of something else going on...

That presents what I have for a long time found an interesting, even vexing question. I have a very strong "'sense' of something else going on". But what is that something?

To put a finer point on it, why is the Christian explanation of that "something else" any better than the Buddhist explanation? Or the Hindu expanation? Or the explanations provided by the ancient Greeks, the ancient Romans, small-scale traditional religions from Australia to Kenya to Siberia?

As an agnostic, my problem is not an inability to believe in anything beyond a material universe. On the contrary, it is the combination of (a) my having a strong "a 'sense' of something else going on" and (b) my being confronted with host of possibilities, each of which is equally plausible.

Okay, not all possibilities are equally plausible: "It's turtles all the way down" is not a possibility which merits serious consideration.

But I see no way in which a single lifetime followed by a judgment which has eternal consequences is more or less plausible than a series of lifetimes constituting a gradual journey (often with steps backwards) toward ultimate fulfillment. What drives any particular person to choose one over the other?

Or, more to the point of my own predicament, why should I choose one over the other?

Choosing none of them is not a viable option: I have a strong sense of there being more to life, the universe, and everything, so denying that "moreness" would be to deny the integrity of my own self-perceived being.

But choosing one over another is also, for me, impossible. Even if I were to flip coins or throw yarrow sticks, that would be reliance on some probative value of coin-flipping or yarrow-stick-throwing.

So what is a person in my position to do? I also decline "to embrace the depressing and despair ridden view that after you die, you 'take a dirt nap for all eternity' and 'all you get is non-existence'...."

But declining to embrace that view does not solve my problem. (And being aware that that view might be correct despite my declining to embrace it only makes matters worse.) My problem is the multitude of alternatives to that "depressing and despair ridden view".

So I am interested to know what caused Lord Jim and MajGenl. Meade and dales and anyone else to choose Christianity -- or whatever religious tradition anyone has chosen -- to choose that particular religious tradition. Why one would choose a religious tradition over no religious tradition, I get. (I think.) But why this religious tradition over that one or the other one? I am mystified.

[Andrew D]

The comfort of believing that there is no after-life must be buttressed by a belief that one's actions on earth have any meaning beyond the mere utility of those actions. To do that, it is necessary to close eyes, cross fingers and forget that any achievement which will be utterly obliterated (as both science and religion tell us is the fate of this earth) is no achievement at all.

Wow!

The notion that there is "comfort [in] believing that there is no after-life" is, to say the least, problematic. As Lord Jim put it earlier in this thread, the belief that there is no after-life is "depressing and despair ridden". It would lead one to "become so despondent, that [one] wouldn't be able to get out of bed in the morning". One "would become completely dysfunctional ... curl up naked in a fetal position, and moan mournfully". One would conclude that "we might as well all do the Jim Jones number and suck down the Kool Aid".

Where is the "comfort" in that?

[Sean]

So I am interested to know what caused Lord Jim and MajGenl. Meade and dales and anyone else to choose Christianity -- or whatever religious tradition anyone has chosen -- to choose that particular religious tradition. Why one would choose a religious tradition over no religious tradition, I get. (I think.) But why this religious tradition over that one or the other one? I am mystified.

Simple. People inherit the faith of their parents. Religious affiliation is usually an accident of birth.

[Andrew D]

The comfort of believing that there is no after-life must be buttressed by a belief that one's actions on earth have any meaning beyond the mere utility of those actions. To do that, it is necessary to close eyes, cross fingers and forget that any achievement which will be utterly obliterated (as both science and religion tell us is the fate of this earth) is no achievement at all.

The core of the argument appears to be that any action which does not have eternal significance has no significance at all. (The linguistic shift from "actions" to "achievement" is unexplained.)

That argument is problematic for at least two reasons.

First, it is not at all clear that for an action to be significant, it must be eternally significant. If I do something which brings joy to a despondent person, that person's life has been changed for the better. So even if that person's life will end in nothing but "a dirt nap for all eternity," so what? On one hand, there is a life of despondency which ends in an eternal dirt nap; on the other hand, there is a life whose despondency has been relieved by joy and then ends in an eternal dirt nap. On what basis can one say that that difference is of no significance?

Second, an action can have eternal significance even if it does not last for eternity. If I do something which brings joy to a despondent person, that fact is is true forever, even if my life and that person's life both end in eternal dirt naps. Uncountable eons from now, it will still be true that I brought joy into a despondent person's life. Why does that eternally existing fact not have eternal significance, even if my life and that person's life both end in eternal dirt naps?

Even setting aside ontological problems, it seems clear to me that my actions can have significance beyond my own dirt-nap-ending life (if that is what my life is). If I bring joy into the dirt-nap-ending life of someone else, that may give rise to that person's bringing joy into another person's dirt-nap-ending life, and that may give rise to that other person's bringing joy into yet another person's dirt-nap-ending life ....

Etc.

My simple act of bringing some joy, even some small joy, into some despondent person's dirt-nap-ending life could result in other people's bringing joys, even small joys, into yet other despondent people's dirt-nap-ending lives, and so on, like ripples caused by dropping a single pebble of joy into an unbounded lake of dirt-nap-ending lives.

In sum, an action can be significant without being eternally significant, and an action can be significant without either the actor's or the action's recipient's being eternally existent.

[Andrew D]

So I am interested to know what caused Lord Jim and MajGenl. Meade and dales and anyone else to choose Christianity -- or whatever religious tradition anyone has chosen -- to choose that particular religious tradition. Why one would choose a religious tradition over no religious tradition, I get. (I think.) But why this religious tradition over that one or the other one? I am mystified.

Simple. People inherit the faith of their parents. Religious affiliation is usually an accident of birth.

I agree with respect to the usual cases.

But what about the unusual cases? Conversions from Christianity to Buddhism, Buddhism to Islam, Islam to Hindusim, Hindusim to Christianity, etc.?

More saliently, what about conversions from nothing to Christianity? Or, more broadly, from nothing to something?

Such conversions do not seem to me explicable simply by socio-cultural contexts. (Except, of course, in the sense that one is not likely to convert to a religious tradition of which one is entirely unaware. But I think (hope) that we all know that that abstract possibility is not genuinely at issue.)

[Sean]

I don't think that conversions from nothing to X usually happen because somebody stumbles on a Bible, has a flick through and decides that it all makes perfect sense. I reckon a lot of conversions happen when somebody experiences a life-changing or otherwise profound experience and decides that it is evidence of a higher power. How they decide whether it's God, Buddha or Zeus is responsible is a question that only they can answer. Others are influenced by a believer and decide that this religion lark is a good idea.
It's usually the same (but in reverse) for those who convert from X to nothing...

Maybe CP can shed some light on this one...