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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Okay, let me try this another way.
The point of all religion is that...
YOUR NOT
GONNA DIE.
Not reallllly... you may change forms, go someplace else but you're still gonna be around, and this gives everybody hope and reconciliation to that scary, though brief, passage we will eventually experience.
Religion offers a kind of grand and hopeful exit.
Science offers no such hope, only the possibility of "understanding" what is.
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Paul nailed it.
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climbera5
Trad climber
Sacramento
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Why do so many people believe in God? I think the simple answer is we all seek answers to the riddles of life. Why am I here, what is my purpose, is this all there is? Many follow philosophical doctrine, humanism, or scientific evidence for explanation. Others choose organized religion in part for structure and a palatable explanation for the mysterious.
There are many learned and well considered posts here that provide evidence we all share this quest. It is an individual journey so I'll share mine. I was not raised in a religious household but I found God in my own heart. I could not hike or climb in the Sierras, dive the oceans, or witness the miracle of birth without thinking, could this all have occurred by mere chance? (I’m a scientist by training and could debate the very unique geological and biological circumstances that allow life as we know it here on earth, but I won’t do that here.)
I sought answers through philosophy but found it wanting. None of it rung true for me. In my moments of silence, of contemplation (prayer if you will), I found answers. To explain to a non-believer what it’s like to be 'saved' or 'born-again' is like trying to explain to a virgin what it’s like to make love. It’s futile and I don't expect non-believers to understand, nor to fully comprehend the life changing experiences that follow.
It is easy to take pot shots at organized religion because they are designed by man, and man is imperfect. The church, temple, etc. has been corrupted for centuries for personal power, riches, and glory. That is the nature of man, so I will not attempt to defend organized religion. Instead, I use my faith to help me become a better person and help mend the errors of my ways (I have far to go).
The presence of God to me is amorphous, without tangible evidence, but it is real. I cannot ignore or deny those feelings, my spiritual fulfillment or the miracles in my life. That’s why they call it faith and it’s the simple answer of why I believe in God.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Walla Walla, WA
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Science offers no such hope, only the possibility of "understanding" what is.
Well, it's not quite that good. More accurate would be something like:
Science offers the possibility of doing more and more cool stuff with the limited, materialistic understanding of how things seem to work to us at the moment.
History shows that this is really what science does, and philosophy of science demonstrates that this is all that science can do. Hume, the great empiricist, was the first to recognize this fact, and the limits of empiricism are now well-known in quite fine-grained fashion.
But, the fact that science can do even that is in no way insignificant! I'm not denigrating science at all! And I'm happy for the cool stuff!
But let's not make grandiose claims that cannot in principle be substantiated. Doing such a thing would be, well, sort of religious. Wouldn't it?
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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climbera5--
i'm impressed by your sincerity.
but then, why do you think the business of god and belief seems to produce such controversy and discord? i'm not talking about the arguments here between believers and atheists, but among believers themselves.
if this god experience were some sort of universal, don't you think it would easily produce accord and agreement among those who experience it?
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cintune
climber
the Moon and Antarctica
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Exactly. It would be obvious. Plain as the sun in the sky. Which is most likely where the whole idea started anyway.
Hail to the Sun God,
For He is a fun God,
Ra! Ra! Ra!
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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in tune, cintune. let's take a break from all the seriousness while largo tries to decide whether to just act superior or roll up his sleeves and do some street fighting.
graces from catholicsville, some years back:
rub-a-dub-dub
thanks for the grub
yay, god!
(geez, fred--didn't capitalize the g-word there--see you in hell)
and for large catholic families:
fodder, son and holy ghost
who eats the fastest gets the most.
someone mentioned "dogma" way early in this thread--i got quite a kick out of that movie. the filmmaker was a sincere catholic, you had to admire him, and rather than welcome the breath of fresh air he offered, he was roundly condemned.
the highlight for me was "buddy jesus". so tired of wan, effeminate jesus, blood streaming from the crown of thorns as he looks heavenward with his "father, forgive them". buddy jesus looks right at you and gives you a smile and a thumbs up. does wonders for his image.
no one has mentioned it here, but i tend to gravitate towards taoism for my eastern religion. in my western religion, i am a confirmed navajo. a seminal book for me was god is red by vine deloria jr., a genuine american indian (native american-first peoples, whatever) intellectual. he wasn't a navajo, but i learned about them from tony hillerman. gold is where you find it.
as i said, i trust beauty, i trust truth. in my experience, god cannot be trusted.
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go-B
climber
In God We Trust
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Nothing from nothing leaves nothing! You keep holding onto your nothing!
I'll keep holding onto God!
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Please, how can anybody have faith in a God that would construct a universe and world filled with such vicious violence, a world that demands you slaughter other living entities in order to feed the passion of your own desire, your own need for a continued existence.
Watch a child die of small pox and then tell me God is love and beauty. And don't give me that crap about the world as an illusion, it's no illusion to the millions suffering its horrors on a daily basis!
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go-B
climber
In God We Trust
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God created the world perfect,(our) sin messed it up, but Jesus will forgive our sin when we ask Him to! But you blame God for what others do!
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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I see, human disobedience created small pox. Well, I have to admit that makes some real sense.
I think I'm beginning to understand. Maybe you're right.
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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if all that really bothers you, paul, you have to consider that the vicious violence, the deaths of children, the eating of one another as required by the second law of thermodynamics are only aspects of the universe. there are other aspects, wonderful and beautiful. do they balance the bad ones? i wouldn't look for balance, i'd look for a keyhole to fall through.
no one is going to answer your questions, but you're directing them towards a certain notion of god, perhaps a common notion, but not a viable one. all i can say is rethink the drink. the old notions don't hold up well, but there's enough good in the universe to rebuild it. the good ideas will be in the future, and they could come from you or me or one of the youngsters here trying to figure things out. the ideas of the past are interesting, perhaps worth considering, but they were formulated by people with only a dim understanding of things we know so much more about now, and i'm sure will know even more about in the future.
gobee, you go girl!
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go-B
climber
In God We Trust
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Most people with deadly illness still love life, we lament it, and God more so!
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Lynne Leichtfuss
Sport climber
Will know soon
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Tony Bird, have we met in the real? It would be good to have one on one discourse with Yo.:D
You say jesus is wan and effeminate.....don't think so. Read the history of what he endured.
Then you say you learned from Tony Hillerman about Indians. So you discount the Bible but trust TH and what he writes. ??
You conclude that you "Trust Beauty and Trust Truth". What in essence does that Mean ? Jess Askin' :D
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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The universe is what it is and I accept that, I find joy in it, you jump on the back of the tiger and ride like hell until it devours you. There is good and there is bad and the two function in a complementary storm of wonder.
What is problematic is the imposition that the structure of our lives, of this universe, is a function of human disobedience.
The world is the way it is precisely because it is, and as such it remains a mystery. No human being is responsible for "natural evil." What hubris to think that the actions of humanity in some distant garden resulted in the faults of creation.
To think so is to give yourself over to a slave morality that chains you to the guilt of your own perceptions.
If there is God it cannot be just good, otherwise how could its plan be so richly diabolical?
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Walla Walla, WA
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Now, Paul, you're getting into the "problem of evil," which is a deeply philosophical topic.
I will admit that more people have "left the faith" or never had it to begin with over this issue than probably all the other combined. And the adequate philosophical answer is deep and filled with modal logic, etc. People don't want to hear it. So, because they don't want to go through the rigors of seeing an adequate answer, they just punt intellectually and say, "Well, I just can't believe there is such a monster as this supposed 'God.'"
But, I emphasize that this response is a punt. MOST of the things in the universe that need explaining are deep, difficult, and are explained by counterintuitive answers. Witness quantum theory. If you want to understand that answer, be ready for some hard work. Ditto with the problem of evil.
In lieu of that, since I doubt anybody here really wants to tangle with the issue in an intellectually responsible way, and a forum thread would be a painful place to try to have such a discussion, I would start by pointing you to the famous dialogs on the subject between J.L. Mackie and Alvin Plantinga. Don't take the "Cliff's Notes," superficial and pre-digested version. Go to the sources. Some of it is tough going, but it is worth the effort.
Then I would also say that it's really ironic to me how secularists use this "problem" to attack the Christian notion of God. After all, the very values (good, bad, evil, righteous) that are needed to formulate the problem are CHRISTIAN values. And VERY FEW people formulate the problem in a purely, objectively philosophical way. So, in most cases, people are just helping themselves (intuitively) to a whole spectrum of values that they are not entitled to!
The average person does not come to the problem of evil saying: "On the Christian model, there are these particular values, and the Christian God is supposed to be all good, so He shares these particular values, and He wants to protect them; and the Christian God is supposed to be all powerful, so He could eliminate threats to the 'good' values if He wanted to; and the Christian God is supposed to be all knowing, so He would know how to eliminate the 'bad' things in the universe; so, since the Christian God is supposedly all good, all powerful, and all knowing, there should be no 'evil' (bad) in the universe; but there IS 'evil' (bad) in the universe; so no such God can exist: modus tollens; QED."
Sorry, the average person does not come at it that way!
Instead, the average person says something like: "There is a lot of bad happening in the universe, and any decent 'God' should not have all that going on. I just can't believe that there is such a thing as a Christian God while I see so much crap going on." THIS is a very intuitively compelling response to the observations, and it has compelled many.
However....
Formulated in this second way, the "argument" is pure garbage.
First, the secularist has NO basis upon which to talk about anything like objective goods and bads. ALL the secularist can talk about is, subjectively, all the things that HE doesn't like about how the universe works. He says that he can believe that the universe all by itself could work in this crappy way, because, after all, in a purely materialistic universe, he has no reason to think that things should go AT ALL the way he wants. But, somehow, amazingly, the secularist thinks that with the Christian God in the picture, things should be a lot "better" than they are! Somehow, the Christian God should share HIS perspective of how things "ought" to go in the universe.
Problem is that in order to even get the notion of "better" off the ground, the secularist has to appeal to some objective goods and bads, and these he simply has NO basis for! The BEST he can do is talk about how things SEEM "bad" to him, that there are things HE thinks "should" (whatever that can mean) be "better" (whatever that can mean) than they are.
Somehow he thinks that the materialistic universe "should" not care about things from HIS perspective, so he's okay with that. But, amazingly, he thinks that GOD should care about things from HIS perspective! WHAT IN THE WORLD could ground that perspective???
So, somehow the secularist experiences this deep, intuitive angst that the universe "should" be better than it is, and "God" isn't helping, so, doggon it!... there can't be a "God."
But these intuitions know nothing of a God's-eye perspective on things. These intuitions try to bend God's values and priorities to those of the subjective individual. Again, from a secularist's perspective, there is no reason on either model (secular or Christian) to think that there should be ANY correlation in values!
Just because you don't like how things go in the universe is NO basis for thinking that God isn't getting things right! And the deeper you get into what God's values and priorities really are, the more you have to give up your own deep-seated intuitions about how things "should" go in the universe.
If you respond that you hate/disdain/disbelieve in any "God" that doesn't get things right from YOUR point of view, I would respond that this is such an arrogant perspective that it completely closes you off from ANY possibility of seeing things from another, deeper, more accurate perspective. Only if you are willing to consider that there are other values/priorities besides your own that are legitimate can you be ready to seriously consider the problem of evil.
Until then, you are just venting angst.
So, Paul, I don't know what your perspectives are. But the problem of evil is no threat to the Christian world view AT ALL, and Christian philosophers have a more than adequate response to it, if you care to check it out.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Walla Walla, WA
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To think so is to give yourself over to a slave morality that chains you to the guilt of your own perceptions.
So, just curious what you are contrasting with the "slave morality." What is your notion of morality? Just "jump on the back of the tiger and ride like hell" through anybody that gets in your way?
If not, why not?
What is your "unchained" morality?
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Walla Walla, WA
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No human being is responsible for "natural evil."
You have given exactly NO account of the EVIL in "natural evil." You have no right to such a concept. You have no account of such a concept!
There are things that happen in the natural world that YOU (and some others) don't like. That's the most you can say. But that is a FAR CRY from "evil." On your model the phrase "natural evil" is a contradiction in terms!
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Human consensus tells us that the death of a child by small pox is a "bad" "evil" "negative" thing.
You can tap dance around that until the cows come home but it remains a sword in the heart of Christian dogma.
Simply because most will simply ask why? Adam's sin? I don't think any reasonable thinker would agree!
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