Topic: Do you believe in god? - page 180. (Read 316209 times)

Just to clarify the class linked above is simply a live reading and discussion of the book Derekh Hashem (The Way of God) a philosophical text about God's purpose in Creation, justice, and ethics. Its author Moshe Chaim Luzzatto died in 1746. Moshe Chaim Luzzatto could arguably be considered a charismatic leader but he is a long dead one. His works have proved influential long after his death so personal charisma is less likely to be a factor. As in all things personal judgement, reason and logic must be applied. I agree with your statement that the word of God should be timeless.  


This is a view I also understand. I read ancient scriptures as guidance from a far wiser being given to help a primitive and desperate mankind. A gift of truth delivered in a way to make it both functional and comprehensible to our limited intellects. You are not necessarily required to believe in eternal torment to believe in God other interpretations exist. The Old Testament for example has no talk of eternal torment. It simply says that iniquity will befall those who hate God and warns us that the penalty for certain actions is death. It is entirely possible that these are simply a warning, a request that we not kill and hurt ourselves for the iniquity is delivered not via divine retribution but the inevitable consequences of our own foolish choices.

The problem I have with lecturers like Rabbi Mark Spiro is that I have always believed they use modern thought processes to intellectualize historical mythology. There have always been carasmatic believable individuals at the heart of every religious movement (see Jim Jones). These carasmatic preachers may even have convinced themselves they are being honest, truthful and really helping people. In fact, they might actually help some societal misfits or weak willed people survive a difficult life path. They have the intellectual capacity to twist the meanings of ancient writings to suit the contemporary situation of man. But, when the direct word of a given god must be interpreted to suit the times or justified to create followers then that's a god not worth listening to. Any real gods words should be timeless.

Almost all religious texts of the world have, at least, some decent guidelines to follow for a happy and long life. Most of them don't really need be told to anyone to make people behave correctly because these rules are so simplistic and innate as to be almost child-like in their brevity. Don't steal, don't lie, don't kill, be good to your parents, etc, are so basic most children know them before they are able to speak. Religious texts aren't really necessary to teach these basics. If people aren't going to follow these rules all the bibles in the world won't make them. I have also have a problem when half or more of the rules (commandments) to live by are about "worship me because I'm so wonderful and if you don't I'm going to torture you forever". No carasmatic orator is going to be capable of justifying that for me.

Any gods word must be taken at face value. If that word is heinous at its core then I can't justify listening to or believing it is anything more than the ramblings of sadistic ancient men on papyrus. No silvered tongued orator of magnificent intellect will be capable of making me believe otherwise.

I am so much on your side QuestionAuthority I can't adequately describe to you my feelings. I will instead try to inspire you with something I hope you will enjoy. Don't let any monotheistic god or any other divine being keep you back from doing what you love.   You are in control and I am on your side.

QuestionAuthority it is clear from your signature that you care deeply about your fellow man and wish to help them. This is one of the most admirable character traits. Your questions are the same as those that caused me to turn away from religion in my younger years. That process was accelerated by the great uneducated masses cryptix mentions eager to tell me everything about their faith but responding like a deer in the headlights when challenged with difficult questions. Your queries are challenging ones. How can God an infinite being the ultimate giver allow horrible things to happen to people? How can a loving god permit suffering, deformity, hunger, strife and misery?

These are questions that have answers and these answers do not rely on blind faith but are instead logical and rational going far beyond the trite response of "God works in mysterious ways". The challenge, however, is that these answers require one to delve deep into the rich intellectual tradition of ethical monotheism which at first glance looks like a shallow pool but on deeper reflection is more of a vast ocean. Your God of love does exist and logic and reason can show you this.

Given the challenging nature of your questions, however, I will freely admit that I am not qualified to answer them. The best I can offer is to direct you to a source that I believe may answer them in a way you find satisfactory.

I would recommend to you to the book The Way of God: Derech Hashem by Moshe Chaim Luzzatto. Which answers these questions logically and systematically in a very organized fashion.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/087306769X/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_1/159-3751462-6767111?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_r=NM9R7T16A9G2147WGMJX&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_p=1944687722&pf_rd_i=1598264672

There is a free class in Seattle that is currently going through this book chapter by chapter taught by Rabbi Mark Spiro. To start I would recommend just listening to the first class so you begin to understand how your questions can be answered see if you are interested at all in going further. The audio links can be found here:

http://www.livingjudaism.com/the-way-of-god.html

This class is obviously taught from the the perspective of the Jewish tradition but most of it is applicable to all variations of monotheism. I have found it to be interesting with vast philosophical depth and I am not Jewish.

All true. The only thing I would add is if I were going to believe in god it wouldn't be one of the vengeful, hateful, cruel, murdering monsters that exist in religious texts today. My God wouldn't turn anyone into a pillar of salt. She wouldn't cause a flood to genocide every man, woman, child and baby on the earth. She wouldn't reign supreme on a platform of fearmongering and hatred for her subjects and she wouldn't be a sexist patriarch of a polluted group of misfits that she herself despises.

My god would be a kind and gentile caretaker for her people instead of a lunatic hell-bent on the destruction of the earth. When they drift astray from her teachings she would caress them and help them back toward the path of enlightenment. She wouldn't allow bad things to happen to her people. She would end suffering, deformity, hunger, strife and misery for her people. She would be a caretaker god that refuses to throw her people to the wolves only to tell them they are at fault for being inferior and bragging constantly in all of her teachings about how superior she is over her creations. In other words, my god would be a god of love. I'll have to create that one myself because she doesn't exist in any of the religions of the world today.

I don't believe in God. The idea of there being someone who knows everything about me, who decides what is right and what is wrong and makes the decision when to take lives scares me. I hate it when people die and others say "God took their lives". No! That people did not die because God wanted it. They died because they died.
God is not more than an idea, somebody else's tale. There is no real evidence to believe in God. All that we see in nature was there and will be there.
God is an imaginary figure, which helps the society to bind together to do good to each other. But real good has to happen as a result of your love and wish.

The two major reason why the U.S. military created ISIS are these:
1. To make some enemy in the eyes of the American people to justify the existence of the military and the government, for monetary purposes;
2. The whole operation of creating ISIS and then fighting ISIS creates more Ponzi money by borrowing from the banking system to keep the worldwide money system going.

Google "military created ISIS."

The natural conclusion is that such inequity is not sustainable and that it will correct itself to the degree that it is not justified by true productivity differences. Most of these extraordinary gains are facilitated by modern finance which itself is unsustainable. Exactly how it will correct itself and how quickly is up for debate. Anonymint in his essay titled Demise of Finance, Rise of Knowledge (linked above) provided one mechanism of correction. I agree with his analysis.

I am asking myself the question how does this thing of sustained wealth permeates to more rather than less human beings if The 85 Richest People In The World Have As Much Wealth As The 3.5 Billion Poorest. It is indeed a pressing question for I do observe the tremendous sustainability of wealth of these persons and I cannot equate this to virtuousness or freedom or indispensable morality or any such wondrous balancing equilibrium as such that I observe in nature. Maybe humans are not as natural as we might like to think?

Sure here is one I came across when I was writing the Health and Religion thread. I have seen others as well.
https://rsc.byu.edu/archived/latter-day-saint-social-life-social-research-lds-church-and-its-members/9-secularization

Its a long read so for those who do not want to go through it here is the summary


Yep sorry you missed the memo. In Europe Government spending now accounts for over 50% of GDP in many countries. The USA is not far behind. Socialism and government cronyism now dominate our economies. The remnants of capitalism which still exist are shrinking and in decline. The two links below will get you up to speed.

Understand Everything Fundamentally
The Rise of Knowledge

Sustained wealth does require good economics and education but these in turn must be built atop a solid moral foundation or they will not last. A prior and far wiser generation understood this.

Your example  is wrong. Industrial revolution in the UK was based of several things like history,  geography,  politics etc. It has nothing to do with religion - religion was in fact an enemy of industrial revolution.
Which rich and religious colonies are you talking about? Most colonies in Africa and Asia are doing pretty bad - except some city states (which incorporated western non religious standards like secularism) or communist nations like China (biggest economy in the world).
Your interpretation is wrong. Sustained wealth is based on good economics and education which leads to new scientific achievements - a positive feedback.

Imperial China had the means for the industrial revolution 2000 years ago but they didn't succeed for various reasons but nevertheless I was talking about communist China.



Please link, because I'm very doubtful about your Mormon studies.


Uh what? When did we stop with capitalism? I think I didn't got the memo
 

BADecker, .... you are a true friend to me. Thanks man! I appreciate your comments immensely. Promise you'll stick around, will you please - pretty please?   

I guess the passage quoted above isn't going far enough. No peace even in yourself, all because of Jesus.

Jeez, I thought to myself wait, let me go check out this particular piece of writing and try to see if I can fathom a little bit the broader context of this particular cast so I went ahead and read the whole of chapter 10 and boy, is it ever confusing. I have to over and over again ask myself good f*ck I can't believe I once, long ago, read this same piece and it never occurred to me the incongruence generated by these writings of a culture that is so far removed from my Western experience, that I have to laugh to think that millions of Westerners actually follow so very blindly the cultural heritage of these writings and never realize the degree of separation between what these writings mean and their particular way of life which is completely removed from the intention of said writings.

It is so absurd in fact that I can't help and laugh about it. At least something positive for me in all of this.

Religion doesn't correlate to lower IQ. Rather, higher IQ correlates to a form of brainwashing. High IQ has to do with materialism by making people think that they are better with higher IQ, and so they should get out and earn more money for a better life. This same thinking doesn't prepare people for the eternal afterlife in which God will pay a whole lot more than people could ever receive in this life.

People of Britain and America were not rewarded with material things because of their high IQ. They were rewarded by God for their proper religiosity. People of China have a higher IQ than Western peoples - search http://www.amren.com/ for this statistical info. Then, Western IQ started to make itself a thing of importance above religion, and that is why we Westerners are a declining group of people in as many ways that we are.

IQ that is focused at materialism rather than God, is destined to fail. Both high IQ and low IQ that are focused on God are destined to succeed. There are many evidences of this in both secular and biblical history.

God has a direct hand in everything. The people or society that focuses on God and religious righteousness will be helped by God. Wherein? In the fact that God has built general success into the universe for those who are focused on God.

The wealthiest societies today were until recently very religions or colonies of said societies. It was not imperial China that kicked off the industrial revolution but the very christian and quite religious Great Britain. A more likely interpretation of the data is that increasing wealth leads to decadence and undermines religiosity. High IQ is associated with success and wealth. Low IQ countries stayed poor and religious.

Superstition and religiosity are distinctly separate entities. While it is true that both are currently correlated with low IQ I have argued that only the former will be associated with low IQ over the long term and provided reasons why this may be the case. I also highlighted religious groups that defy this correlation.  

What makes you think we will hold onto capitalism? We lost capitalism some time ago. Freedom requires a solid moral foundation to be maintained. Lose your moral foundation and the rest slowly collapses.
  

Europe’s Abandoned Churches a Warning for America

And it has got better since this article above, more people are waking up, most churches around my area have since been abandoned/sold or just plain old demolished.

One church near my vicinity is Jehovah you can hear them sobbing on Sunday evenings. I doubt this place will go soon as only a few people can be seen when walking past this place.

#1

The correlation is lower IQ equals to less thinking equals to more superstition and religiosity which I think is very logical.

#2
Like you said there are more variables besides religiosity which impacts economic and wealth.
E.g. China is more or less communist which equale to less religiosity but also less economic wealth.

Overall the negative corrolation is easy to understand if you look at #1 and make a link.
More religiosity means less avg. Iq of the population equals to less economic wealth.

#3

For its prediction time frame the model works and we also see that if a nation gets richer there is a positive corrolation with decline of religiosity.
So as long as we hold on to capitalism the end of religion is designed  to happen.

Some interesting links provided by criptix.

Link #1 highlights several studies that show that the average IQ of the religious is less than that of the nonreligious. Fair enough we have all likely met a fanatic at some point in our lives who is unable to coherently string two sentences together but insistent on trying to tell you everything about what is true.

There is certainly a large subset of the population who do not think for themselves but passively go along with whatever is popular. These are the people who embraced Hitler’s ideas on untermenschens, that wholeheartedly enforced Stalin’s purges, and who riot when their football teams win. They are also likely to blindly follow charismatic religious leaders when religion is popular.

However, we are now entering an age of atheism and religion is in transient decline. Soon many these individuals will be flocking instead to the atheist banner because that will be the new “hip” thing. My suspicions is that this coloration will not only prove transient but that it will reverse. This has occurred already in some religious groups like the Mormons and probably the Jews as well.

http://www.mormonsandscience.com/religion--science-blog/education-and-religiosity-mormons-buck-the-trend

Link #2 states that there is a negative coloration between religiosity and wealth but is very sparse on the details. How much of a correlation? Does it still exist if we control for population size rather than simply looking by country. China for example is very big and very low on the religiosity index. Is it being given the same weight as Ghana?

However, let’s set that aside for a minute let’s assume the conclusion is correct and that there is a negative correlation between religiosity and per capita income. Does that mean that religiosity somehow prevents countries from getting wealthy? Probably not because the USA as well as most of Europe was very religious until very recently. The more likely conclusion is that wealth leads people to become less religious and embrace other things like hedonism.


Link #3 attempts to show that religion is in decline and that it will continue to decline using a simplistic mathematical model. “According to the model, a single parameter quantifying the perceived utility of adhering to a religion determines whether the unaffiliated group will grow in a society.” This model is obviously a gross simplification but it may be accurate for short term predictions. The model predicts that over the short term religion is going to decline and I actually agree. However, over the long term the model is overly simplistic and certain to be inaccurate. For example the data I discussed in the Health and Religion thread is not included in this model and would invalidate it over a long time horizon.

When I look at myself and absolutely all that I entail, and I mean everything, then gradually I come to a realization of the signal (symbol) that I am - of something out there.