Topic: Health and Religion - page 47. (Read 210871 times)

The question of life outside our solar system is a trivial one. Finding the answer is simply a matter of overcoming a technical challenge. If nothing else physically inspecting all the stars in our own galaxy either directly or more realistically via proxy would go a long way towards answering the question. Other galaxies would be more difficult but still the problem remains a solvable technical challenge.

The fact that the solution is currently beyond us simply highlights our primitiveness. For the ancient Romans launching an object into orbit would have been similarly overwhelming.  Two thousand years of later and the problem becomes very manageable. Now we have eccentric billionaires launching their cars into space as advertising gimmicks.

Proof does take away our freedom to choose. There is obvious and direct proof that the earth is round and the existence of this proof takes away our freedom to believe otherwise. The only way to believe that the earth is flat is to descend into incoherence and self deception. There is a long thread here at Bitcointalk by a flat earth advocate where such incoherence is on clear display.

Freedom is not the only factor when determining good. For example, there are times when it is necessary to deny freedom to preserve life and the potential for later freedom. My infant daughter likes to crawl around everywhere exploring every nook and cranny. Whenever someone opens the front door she makes a beeline for it hoping to get outside. She gets angry and starts crying when you close the door blocking her way out. She does not understand that there is a busy road outside our house and that crawling on it could be fatal. It is a freedom she cannot handle.

I tend to view divine revelation in the same way. The fact that it can be necessary is more likely a sign of human infancy and failure rather then triumph. Its an indication that we simply lack the wisdom to discover God on our own. Perhaps it is the divine equivalent of closing the front door in front of a humanity crawling towards the busy road. The rise of Christianity immediately before Israel turned inward and destroyed itself in a futile confrontation with a Roman empire at its peak can be viewed through a similar lens. Matthew 21:33-40 is interesting to read with this in mind.

You take the position that there is no point in believing any of the big claims if they cannot be falsified. This is not a fully coherent position. The very act of living life requires us to act out worldviews. At the foundation of these worldviews is one of two things 1) A coherent apriori Truth that cannot be falsified or 2) An incoherent mismatch of poorly thought out, possibly false, possibly self contradictory concepts.

Taking the position that you are not going to make a decision on any of the big apriori claims without evidence places you in category #2 by default as you have no choice but to live your life on a day to day basis and that requires making decisions which at their foundation trace back to those same undefined, and perhaps incoherent concepts.

Nihilism is coherent or at least beyond my ability to falsify. That is why it is so prevalent so dangerous and the logical result of rejecting the infinite. I am of the opinion that nihilism leads to cessation and death but I cannot prove it only highlight the multiple hints that this is the case as I have done in this thread.

It is true that scientists take certain things on faith. It is also true that religious narratives might speak to human needs that scientific theories can’t hope to satisfy.

And yet, scientific practices—observation and experiment; the development of falsifiable hypotheses; the relentless questioning of established views—have proven uniquely powerful in revealing the surprising, underlying structure of the world we live in, including subatomic particles, the role of germs in the spread of disease, and the neural basis of mental life.

Religion has no equivalent record of discovering hidden truths.

There are many religious views that are not the product of common-sense ways of seeing the world. Consider the story of Adam and Eve, or the virgin birth of Christ, or Muhammad ascending to heaven on a winged horse. These are not the product of innate biases. They are learned, and, more surprisingly, they are learned in a special way.

To come to accept such religious narratives is not like learning that grass is green or that stoves can be hot; it is not like picking up stereotypes or customs or social rules. Instead, these narratives are acquired through the testimony of others, from parents or peers or religious authorities. Accepting them requires a leap of faith, but not a theological leap of faith. Rather, a leap in the mundane sense that you must trust the people who are testifying to their truth.

Many religious narratives are believed without even being understood. People will often assert religious claims with confidence—there exists a God, he listens to my prayers, I will go to Heaven when I die—but with little understanding, or even interest, in the details. The sociologist Alan Wolfe observes that “evangelical believers are sometimes hard pressed to explain exactly what, doctrinally speaking, their faith is,” and goes on to note that “These are people who believe, often passionately, in God, even if they cannot tell others all that much about the God in which they believe.”

It’s better to get a cancer diagnosis from a radiologist than from a Ouija Board.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/11/why-scientific-faith-isnt-the-same-as-religious-faith/417357/

You are finally coming to see the light... somewhat. "Faith is meaningless." Over 2,000 years ago Solomon wrote in the Bible that everything is meaningless.

Why is faith and everything else meaningless? Because it is all that we have. We live by nothing else, because we are not smart enough to know what will happen even in the next second. Sure, our experience suggests things that really DO happen. But we don't know that they will. So, we are meaningless right along with our faith.

Faith is meaningless, and people who live by faith (every last person on the earth) are meaningless right along with faith.

So, why is faith so important to religious people? Because God knows everything. He looks at the faith of people, and wherever that faith is directed, He makes things happen according to that faith. We don't make anything happen by faith or in any other way. God is the One Who directs everything, and makes it happen according to our faith and His desires.

Since you don't want to believe in God, you have faith in all kinds of other things. But mostly you have faith that you don't really know anything, because you don't know if anything that you have faith in is correct or not. Why don't you know? Because you and all other people are not smart enough. Yet faith is all that you really have.

God will give you what you are asking for in the way you maintain the faith you have. What is it that you are asking for? Absence from God. That is what Hell is basically about. The pain of a fiery Hell comes about because you don't understand what you really are. The fiery Hell is God smelting the essence of YOU down into your component parts so that He gets His power back that He put into you. Why is it about fire? Because some of the essence of God is like fire, and He placed some of His essence in you... but you reject it when you reject Him. Since you don't want it, He will smelt you down in Hell and get it back from you... unless you change. There is still time for you to change. But if you don't change, one day it will be too late.

Health and religion are very interconnected.Religious well being can lead to enjoy good health.In the case when an individual fails seek,his religious faith in the God he or she serves can help recovery faster.Health and religion have a lot in common.Some people believe that by praying to their object of worship in the event of sickness, they will get better.Enjoying healthy life and having faith help the human body to function well.

''Faith is essentially the only way to the truth. Will the plane crash or not? We have faith one way or the other. But whatever our faith is, it leads to the truth. Why? Because the plane crashes or it doesn't. And we see the truth, even if it is only for a moment before we die in the crash.'' What? Even if you had no faith one way or the other the plane would still crash or not, you find out because you are there, you don't need faith to find it if the plane is going to crash lol, faith is meaningless, I have faith it wont crash but it does, meaning that having faith in something doesn't mean that something is going to happen.

''Had you been given that direct proof it would have been at the cost of your freedom to choose and define who you are.'' Absolutely wrong, that's like saying if someone gives me direct proof that the earth is round he is taking my freedom away to choose between a flat earth or a round earth. Also many religious people claim that god himself appeared to them so, wouldn't that take their freedom away by your logic?

I'm not sure I understand your last question, english is not my first language (it's my third and I'm still learning) and philosophical talk is hard for me to understand. At the end of the day I can make all sorts of claims that cannot be falsified, right now at least. Like there is life outside our galaxy. I personally think that there is no point in believing any of the claims, specially big ones if they can't be falsified or proven for that matter.

Had you been given that direct proof it would have been at the cost of your freedom to choose and define who you are. You would no longer be a free and autonomous agent but a passive one your beliefs compelled your will largely suppressed by something greater then yourself.  

The situation is more subtle then simply picking one religion and rejecting the rest as false. Accepting for a moment the reality of the infinite it follows logically that all human conceptions of God and consequentially all religions must be "wrong" in that they are at best distorted reflections of underlying Truth. At most they are akin to an explanation of quantum mechanics given to 4 year old and even this example understates the vast chasm between reality and our understanding. The choice then is not choosing which religion is right but choosing which religion represents the least distorted simplification.

The purpose of the Bible as I understand it is to be a functional and transformative document. It must "work" for both illiterate tribal societies who lived in conditions we cannot imagine, for modern educated man, and for a future humanity vastly more sophisticated then we are. The broad range of conditions sharply reduces the way knowledge can be conceptualized in the book.

There are many aspect of the Bible that appear designed to be easily grasped by a simplistic and primitive man. These can be less persuasive to modern sensibilities. However, there is also a massive depth to both the concept of God and to the Bible itself. Its like a fractal and the deeper the examination the more one realizes how subtle and complex the overall structure is. The Bible series by Jordan Peterson does a nice job of highlighting this complexity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-wWBGo6a2w

Here is a question for you to ponder:

In a world shaped and and ultimately defined at all levels by consciousness when does a Truth that cannot now or ever be falsified become your reality?

Faith is essentially the only way to the truth. Will the plane crash or not? We have faith one way or the other. But whatever our faith is, it leads to the truth. Why? Because the plane crashes or it doesn't. And we see the truth, even if it is only for a moment before we die in the crash.

Is faith a good pathway? Look at the things that Coincube has been saying. Coincube has been saying that people are not good, or at least, probably not goodRe-read the rest of it and consider. Who or what is it that has faith? It's people who have faith. So, why would faith be good since it exists in not-good people? Yet because of our weakness in being able to know the future or much of anything, we all live by faith one way or another.

I am not like you because my faith is based in God. And in that other thread, I have been showing you how we scientifically know that God exists, through knowledge, not based on faith/believing.

While science is not truth (the word is broadly used), it is possibly the second best way that we find truth... provided we make no mistakes in the examination of science. So, what is the best way to find truth? Revelation from God. What is the most assured way to find truth? Live out your faith. And that is what we are all doing, living out our faith, at the same time we are attempting to have faith in the truth rather than in falsehoods and lies.

As we live, our faith gradually takes us through experience where we learn the truth. If we are wise, we mostly gain good experience because we follow nature in ways that work. And according to some parts of the definition of "religion," we are living out our personal religion as we go through our life of faith. Wisdom in our religious faith life provides greater health, and ultimately salvation, if we find the best wisdom. Religion and health go hand in hand, but they both work in us by faith.

So you agree that faith is not a good pathway to truth then, just like me. Yes just because someone has faith that a plane wont crash, it doesn't mean it wont and that's exactly my point, just because people have faith in different gods, doesn't mean they exist.

Even if we are able to choose what to believe, how can you know if it's the right thing then? ''Our current situation allows us to freely choose God or reject God.'' Our current situation allows us to freely choose between a few hundred Gods, pick one and reject all the others, again I don't see how can I know which one is real.

I was a strong believer when I was younger and certainly even when a lot of evidence was presented against my belief, I still wanted to believe in God, who wouldnt? Eventually I just couldn't believe anymore because of how much evidence I kept finding and how the bible made less and less sense to me, I prayed to god many many times to give me a clue, some proof of his existence, guess what, nothing happened...

Ultimately we all choose what we believe.

If you drill down to our core fundamental beliefs you will find a host of "truths" some incoherent some sound. Not everyone is capable of doing this and fewer still actually choose to do it. Ultimately, however, at the foundation of our beliefs is a set of metaphysical Truths.

For the simplest among us this truth may be as basic and as incomplete as what gives me pleasure is good and and what causes me pain is bad. For others the situation is more complex.

If we ground ourselves in an incoherent or incomplete "truth" the idea when expounded upon is self refuting. Maintaining such a falsehood requires that we ourselves become incoherent and fractured either by avoiding deep thought or lying to ourselves. The simpleton in the example above would have great difficulties with the concept that excessive pleasure can be bad and that suffering for a purpose can have great meaning.

Grounding ourselves in Truth that can never be falsified, that is something else entirely. This kind of truth is a foundation. It is something we can build upon.

God cannot be falsified but his existence is not something that you will be able to prove or disprove to your satisfaction it is an apriori Truth. What I find so elegant about this ambiguity is that it is a basic necessity to maintain freedom.

Without such an ambiguity we would not have true choice when it comes to our beliefs. Our situation would be  akin to that of complex robots follow our creators explicit instructions and fulfill our purpose or acknowledge we are defective and rebel against the obvious purpose of our creation.  

Our current situation allows us to freely choose God or reject God. This is far superior as it ultimately leads to a people who have willingly and freely chosen God. It leads to a people who contemplate God not because God demanded it, but because we have freely chosen it.

If you have not had a chance to read it I recommend this essay by Charlton as he articulates these issues with more eloquence then I. See: Metaphysical Attitudes.

You always live in faith. Why? Because you don't know with absolute certainty what is going to happen in the next second. So, you live in faith that you will be able to go on successfully.

An example of living in faith is someone who gets on a plane. Then the plane crashes, and he finds that his faith was in something that wasn't actual and real.

Or consider the person who gets into his car and has faith that he will reach his desired destination. Then he dies in a car crash.

Or consider a person who buys a lottery ticket. He never won a thing in his life before. The reason he buys the ticket is that he has a tiny bit of hope, but no faith. The he wins a $million.

Most of these people don't realize they are living in faith, but just like you, they are.

If you want to know what you did wrong, compare what the Bible says with your life. Yes, it may take a bit of study to get most of it.

Then I would argue that the act of believing in something is not something I can choose to do. For instance I can't force myself to believe in ghosts and the more videos of ghosts I try to watch the less I believe in them because I see how ridiculous it is. Faith is not a good pathway to the truth, all the other religious people claim to have faith in their own gods and yet they would still get punished if it turns out that the real god is the one described in the bible, what did they do wrong?

At my opinion helath and religion is not associated things and you would be healthy if you have head with brains. Religion is just an app in your head for fun.

Religion is about the mind . It keeps the mind healthy . So religion guide to keep the mind healthy .

I question the idea that there are any "good people". We grade ourselves on a curve, but the existence of others who are worse then us does not make us good.  

If we honestly compare ourselves to a true and perfect good each and every one of us would fall horribly short in comparison.

The belief in God gives us an ideal to strive towards. With God at least we can define good and from that definition comes a reason to improve ourselves and a goal to strive towards. It gives us an ideal that can never be achieved only approximated.

Humans clearly do not deserve an afterlife of any kind. We have not earned one, nor are we in any way fit to inhabit one in our current state. If an afterlife is on offer it could only be through an act of extreme generosity the ultimate charity case.

There are certainly atheist's who behave well by relative human standards and there certainly are religious fanatics and hypocrites who behave very badly. Take away the curve and apply an objective standard of good and evil and I am not at all confident where humanity falls on the scale.

You argue "If a true benevolent God exists then you wouldn't need to believe in him in order to be saved"

This line of thought fails to consider the possibility that the very act of believing in God is transformative. It is possible that it is the act of belief that allows one to be saved not so much via external intervention but from the changes in our essence our souls if you will that become possible once we define our first principles and ground our existence in them.

I think so. It may be only false idea. And I would like to give you a piece so you should know more and only then to take decisions. I hope that right decisions.

''I agree that rules should follow logic. However, just because we cannot always follow the logic does not mean that the logic is not there. '' It also doesn't mean that there is, why take it for granted? Even if God is real, why follow him if his rules aren't good? If a true benevolent god exists then you wouldn't need to believe in him in order to be saved, in fact atheists that are good people should be valued more than religious people that are good because religious people are good because they know they will go to heaven and they fear hell, however atheists that are good, are good because they want to.

People who attend religious services at least once a week are thought to have a stronger immune system and are less likely to be sick.

Keeping faith at a moderate level, religion can bring benefits such as lowering blood pressure, boosting the immune system and prolonging the life span.