Exercise in Restraint: What Religion Do You Believe In?

[greg]

Once again (I'm pretty sure), another of George of GMG's signatures :

Martin Luther King: "Hate cannot defeat hate. Only Love can defeat Hate"

does that mean you're actually supposed to fight fire with water?

[Haffner]

does that mean you're actually supposed to fight fire with water?

We're there, dude .

[hornteacher]

What you're describing sounds similar to Deism.

Oh cool.  Now I can get a membership card.   

[drogulus]

When you "believe in" something, you don't necessarily think it's true. You might want to believe it, but can't manage it. Or you do believe it, but would rather not. The odd locution "believe in" indicates a problem. You would prefer not to be descended from an ape. Better to be descended from a god. Better still would be to judge beliefs independently of fear and desire. You don't get an accurate weight when your thumb is on the scale.

It's actually harder to believe things than you might suppose. Things that are unsupported by evidence, I mean. A small voice tells you it's degrading to try to believe things that are not true. That's the voice of your conscience. You might think you don't have an intellectual conscience, but you do. Such a small voice might insist you "believe in" certain doctrines, as a sort of meek protest against actually being pressured into believing them.

In the end, though, very little actual belief is accomplished. Pushing deities out of space and time is like painting a target where no arrow could ever land, then complaining about the marksmanship of skeptics. You have safeguarded your belief at the price of rendering it meaningless. No wonder you "believe in" it. There isn't anything to actually believe. At least Santa can be caught coming down the chimney! 

There, I trust that is sufficiently restrained. 

[Scriptavolant]

I'd define myself an atheist. Or non-religious as Tancata wrote.
But I don't feel really at ease with the definition "atheist", which as many will probably know has been forged by religious people, not by "atheists" themselves.
As Chomsky said "I can't even call myself an atheist because it is not at all clear what I'm being asked to deny." That's the feeling I get.

I'm not sure I want to linger on the debate with my own words. I'll rather express my thoughts through Noam Chomsky again (sorry: it's late here, I'm tired):

I am a child of the Enlightenment. I think irrational belief is a dangerous phenomenon, and I try to consciously avoid irrational belief. On the other hand, I certainly recognize that it's a major phenomenon for people in general, and you can understand why it would be. It does, apparently, provide personal sustenance, but also bonds of association and solidarity and a means for expressing elements of one's personality that are often very valuable elements. To many people it does that. In my view, there's nothing wrong with that. My view could be wrong, of course, but my position is that we should not succumb to irrational belief.

[Heather Harrison]

As Chomsky said "I can't even call myself an atheist because it is not at all clear what I'm being asked to deny." That's the feeling I get.

This describes it very well for me.  When asked to confirm or deny the existence of "God", I must first define the term.  (For certain specific definitions, I may have enough information to make a judgment.)  I can't prove or disprove the existence of something that cannot be defined or something that I cannot gain reliable access to.  So rather than use the term "atheist" (and imply that I deny the existence of that which cannot be defined), I prefer to declare the question intractable and therefore make it a dead option and move on to other questions.  Should good definitions and reliable evidence come along, I'll happily rethink the issue.  If there is one basic idea that I adhere to, it is that there is no final word on any issue of substance.

That said, while I have never belonged to an organized religion, there are groups I sometimes hook up with to find a sense of community and/or interesting people.  These include a philosophy study group, the local atheist group, and (occasionally) the Unitarian/Universalist Church.  One purpose of organized religion is that sense of community that it gives.  With some searching, that sense of community can be found elsewhere.

Heather

[Sean]

Heather, very good. God is just consciousness, or rather the silent essence of consciousness, the subject or featureless Self that perceives all else: we are God. God, Being or Brahman is transcendent though because It's the never changing absolute, in relation to the ever-changing relative, but immanent because It doesn't lie outside the universe but is inherent in its foundations and in us. We are in the world but not of it. This is why Ganesh is depicted having one foot on the floor and one raised: here's not a terribly good picture-

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.heathenworld.com/swastika/ganesh.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.heathenworld.com/swastika/ganesh.html&h=553&w=350&sz=140&hl=en&start=2&tbnid=2RR2dzusynFdvM:&tbnh=150&tbnw=95&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dganesh%26gbv%3D2%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DISO-8859-1

[karlhenning]

we are God

Oh, you think so, do you? 

[karlhenning]

I am a child of the Enlightenment. I think irrational belief is a dangerous phenomenon, and I try to consciously avoid irrational belief. On the other hand, I certainly recognize that it's a major phenomenon for people in general, and you can understand why it would be. It does, apparently, provide personal sustenance, but also bonds of association and solidarity and a means for expressing elements of one's personality that are often very valuable elements. To many people it does that. In my view, there's nothing wrong with that. My view could be wrong, of course, but my position is that we should not succumb to irrational belief.

The belief that all belief can be (or ought to be) "rational belief," may itself be an irrational belief.  But one sees how someone could derive personal sustenance, and a means for expressing elements of one's personality that are often very valuable elements, by embracing a belief that all belief can be "rational belief."  So as long as it does not lead to intolerance for people of faith, why not?

[Michel]

The belief that all belief can be (or ought to be) "rational belief," may itself be an irrational belief.

Nonsensical.

Even if some things cannot be explained, we should seek to explain it. Doing anything else is to embrace silly superstition, which is all religion is: the desire to make stuff we don't yet understand make sense.

Hence why it is so popular across the globe; it shows that humans universally think a certain way about certain things because of the way we are made and genetically programmed.

[karlhenning]

Nonsensical.

That's your idea of restraint, is it? 

Even if some things cannot be explained, we should seek to explain it.

Oh, I certainly agree, though this does not in my view 'negate' my point.  The impulse to seek an explanation is itself most worthy.

But the idea that everything can be explained, is itself a species of faith.  Possibly irrational.

I think it is intellectually healthy to seek explanations, with an understanding that perhaps (just perhaps) no explanation may be found.

Then again, I also believe in showing respect to people who think otherwise than I do.  Possibly, Michel, you may not find me dismissing your remarks as nonsensical or as bollocks, just because I think otherwise.

[Saul]

I thought that one of the mods had made a request to refrain from posting threads of this nature. Apparently, this one went through for some reason. Which is a good sign.

[Al Moritz]

When you "believe in" something, you don't necessarily think it's true. You might want to believe it, but can't manage it. Or you do believe it, but would rather not. The odd locution "believe in" indicates a problem. You would prefer not to be descended from an ape. Better to be descended from a god. Better still would be to judge beliefs independently of fear and desire. You don't get an accurate weight when your thumb is on the scale.

It's actually harder to believe things than you might suppose. Things that are unsupported by evidence, I mean. A small voice tells you it's degrading to try to believe things that are not true. That's the voice of your conscience. You might think you don't have an intellectual conscience, but you do. Such a small voice might insist you "believe in" certain doctrines, as a sort of meek protest against actually being pressured into believing them.

In the end, though, very little actual belief is accomplished. Pushing deities out of space and time is like painting a target where no arrow could ever land, then complaining about the marksmanship of skeptics. You have safeguarded your belief at the price of rendering it meaningless. No wonder you "believe in" it. There isn't anything to actually believe. At least Santa can be caught coming down the chimney! 

There, I trust that is sufficiently restrained. 

I've got to exercise lots of restraint not to take this post apart, bit by bit.

No, I won't do it. We are on the "restraint" thread.

[Haffner]

I wonder if some people feel that belief necessarily entails constant announcements of personal beliefs. People like that always remind me of he quote from Shakespeare "the Lady doth protest too much".

[Mark]

A small voice tells you it's degrading to try to believe things that are not true. That's the voice of your conscience.

Really? Mine tells me not to kill or tell whopping great lies. Believing, OTOH, comes as easily to me as breathing.

[greg]

Things that are unsupported by evidence, I mean. A small voice tells you it's degrading to try to believe things that are not true. That's the voice of your conscience. You might think you don't have an intellectual conscience, but you do. Such a small voice might insist you "believe in" certain doctrines, as a sort of meek protest against actually being pressured into believing them.

since we know so little about the past history of the world and the universe, it makes sense that everyone would be confused. Maybe one system of belief is right, maybe even nobody is right. If nobody is right.... that'd be kinda weird... 

[Haffner]

There is so much, day by day, that people "take on faith".  Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil is all about the ramifications of "truth" seeking, and how much one can find out about oneself when contemplating one's lifelong relationship with truth.


One could assert that such exercises help compose the bulk of the discipline in self-mastery: what, when, how, and why does a person choose to accept something as "truth"?

According to Nietzsche, the most interesting way to answer would be with a question: "Why truth at all?". And then he'd go on to ask the reader to look inside and see how many little untruths exist within him or her. And to accept the ones within (those that add to the contemplater's life) as necessary. And to see the bits of self-deceit which harms ones life as being faulty and needing to be pruned. Thus, he writes there "becomes less and less a distance between God and man". Man becomes changeable, as he inevitably will, but he accepts such and molds his accepted religion just as much as it molds him or her.

[Haffner]

Really? Mine tells me not to kill or tell whopping great lies. Believing, OTOH, comes as easily to me as breathing.

For me, total conviction is proof of grace granted. I have had plenty of those "convinced" times, and those are the times I believe that God is giving us a taste how it feels to live in Love.

[Mark]

For me, total conviction is proof of grace granted. I have had plenty of those "convinced" times, and those are the times I believe that God is giving us a taste how it feels to live in Love.

My point was simply this: my conscience isn't there to tell me I'm wrong to 'believe' in anything (save that murder or theft are 'good', for example). It acts, for me at least, like an unseen but deadly accurate moral compass ... and that's all I need it to do. Without it, who knows what awfulness I'd perpetrate.

[Haffner]

My point was simply this: my conscience isn't there to tell me I'm wrong to 'believe' in anything (save that murder or theft are 'good', for example). It acts, for me at least, like an unseen but deadly accurate moral compass ... and that's all I need it to do. Without it, who knows what awfulness I'd perpetrate.

The Danish philosopher Kierkegaard wrote that there are two types of morals for a person, which often bleed into each other:

a) the moral law from "outside": things which are punishable by the civil authorities for example.
b) the moral law on the inside: the one which can make a person sick with grief at the idea of actually killing or raping a person, etc.


It may prove illuminating for many, to look inside and see what repels a person on a moral level. And why. Then go back in and see whether it is more "acquired" or "authentic".