How did you get to where you are

I was brought up in a weakly religious home in Scotland. My mother believes in God, and I'm not sure of the religious convictions of my father. He, on one occassion, remarked that the Lord was his shepard (my father is a sheep farmer), to a friend at lambing time (when baby lambs are being born). That said, he does have a weakness for quips, and may have just been being kitsch.

We were taken to church on Christian celebrations as a matter of course by our school (we do have a state religion in the UK), and my grandmother took me to Sunday School as a child. I remember being in Sunday School and just not really getting the point of it all - it all seemed overly elaborate, like an old boys' club (not that I put it to myself in those terms at the time) that I didn't really know the rules to. Needless to say, I wasn't really too impressed by it all. In later times, of course, I had questions about the universe, and have been doing the best way I ever found of finding answers - science - ever since.

If there is a God, and he wants to get to know me, it really must be much simpler than all that praying and stuff.

Originally posted by scottishinnz
If there is a God, and he wants to get to know me, it really must be much simpler than all that praying and stuff.

Why? It could just as easily be far more complicated. We tend to project our human values and understanding of things one imagined intelligences such as God.
If we imagine some alien intelligence (God) there is no reason to make any deductions about it based on what we would do unless we can honestly say that that is how every possible rational intelligence would go about things.
If we are to believe Christians that God is human like in his thinking in actions (I am not sure if they make that claim), then why believe that piece of their teachings and not the other teachings (eg that we must pray and believe and go to church on Sundays etc in order to make contact with him)

I find the popular assumption that a creator God is necessarily good to be nothing more than wishful thinking. If a an omniscient, omnipotent (as far as those don't contradict each other) God exists then he could just as easily be bad - and fool us into thinking he is good. We really have no way of knowing - except by looking at the evidence which rather points towards a not so good God (or no God at all).

i was brought up by my Roman Catholic mother, but went to a anglican church, she belived there was one difference, more how you read the bible. im still a anglican going but have the similar out look on all faiths the main point is the person gets to heaven not the church.

My grandparents on my father's side were devout Southern Baptists, profoundly uneducated and into all the fire and brimstone nonsense. Their views always struck me as ugly and filled with hate. My father was an atheist and an opportunist who attended an affluent Catholic church to drum up business for his law practice. When I was dragged to this church every other weekend it stuck me as empty and formal ritual. My grandparents on my mother's side came from deeply religious households in Poland. One was Catholic, the other Jewish, and both fled to the U.S. prior to the Holocaust (though many of their relatives were not so lucky). Neither were able to reconcile their faith with the horror of the Holocaust, and they both became atheists or, more accurately, secular humanists. They were both educated; my grandmother studied literature at Vassar and my grandfather was a physicist and nuclear engineer who worked on the atomic bomb. I spent so much time with them when I was young that I doubt I could have turned out as anything other than an atheist. My mother was a hippie, and after she divorced my father she became a disciple of Maharaj Charan Singh Ji, the spiritual leader of the Radha Soami Satsang in Beas, India. I traveled with her to India when I was young, and learned there to meditate in the manner prescribed by the Sant Mat tradition of Surat Shabd Yoga. I took away from all these influences an unremitting skepticism about organized religion and a thorough distaste for all versions of theism. I am still attracted to mystical traditions, however, and my views now are substantially in line with those expressed by Aldous Huxley in his work The Perennial Philosophy.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I suggest you get hold of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. He puts forward some good arguments for not believing in God. If you don't really believe in Christianity but believe it is OK to pretend that you do, while really just believing in the morals and teachings etc then I think you should read that book and think about the issues he brings up. It ...[text shortened]... it is not the only bad thing about it, there are many others not least of which is segregation.

i have read a good part of it. at times he even sounds objective. sure anyone who doesn't think evolution is the best theory around is an idiot. but calling idiots all who believe in God and saying that all belief is dangerous and harmful is in itself idiotic. i as a believer do not think the i would be any more rational if i was an atheist. that my IQ would suddenly increase tenfold if i were to say we are worm food after we kick the bucket.

i think the man Richard Dawkings is an idiot. very good scientist but a not very nice person. in some way he is as much a zealot in his belief(that all believers are idiots) as any creationists. he doesn't even admit the possibility he may be wrong.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I suggest you get hold of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. He puts forward some good arguments for not believing in God. If you don't really believe in Christianity but believe it is OK to pretend that you do, while really just believing in the morals and teachings etc then I think you should read that book and think about the issues he brings up. It ...[text shortened]... it is not the only bad thing about it, there are many others not least of which is segregation.

sorry for not answering in the first reply but this is a different matter. we are all responsible of our actions. sure, if i make my child eat religion every second of his childhood, odds are he will turn into some kind of freak. my parents however mentioned the God like at most 10 times in all of my childhood. i went to church like once or twice a year. the choice to be religious was entirely mine. i was simply presented with an idea and wasn't forced in either direction. not telling me of God would have meant actually forcing me to choose atheism.

this is true in any child's education. while it is true that Intelligent Design has no place in school(outside religion classes anyway) parents should present children with alternatives. If you treat your kid like an idiot that cannot form opinions, he will make them without your guidance when it comes to choosing drugs or having a child at 14.
Will you present your child with a choice or will you keep quiet about religion or even worse, convince him religion is evil?

Originally posted by Zahlanzi
i have read a good part of it. at times he even sounds objective. sure anyone who doesn't think evolution is the best theory around is an idiot. but calling idiots all who believe in God and saying that all belief is dangerous and harmful is in itself idiotic. i as a believer do not think the i would be any more rational if i was an atheist. that my IQ woul ...[text shortened]... ievers are idiots) as any creationists. he doesn't even admit the possibility he may be wrong.

Actually, he has many times admitted he may be wrong.

Heck, I watched it on Youtube - him saying that if you marked it on a 7 point scale with 1 being "God definitely exists", and 7 being "God definitely does not exist" he would only be a 6. He recognises fully that he cannot 100% say that God doesn't exist. He realises he cannot know that definitivly say that.

Likewise, he doesn't say that you'll suddenly get smarter. He does point out that fundamentalists hide behind the moderates, and that moderates actually, therefore, facilitate fundamentalists.

Of course, he also points out some of religion's nastier habits. One would wonder how a magnanimous God could instigate or condone infanticide, or the stoning to death of people.

Originally posted by Zahlanzi
i have read a good part of it. at times he even sounds objective. sure anyone who doesn't think evolution is the best theory around is an idiot. but calling idiots all who believe in God and saying that all belief is dangerous and harmful is in itself idiotic. i as a believer do not think the i would be any more rational if i was an atheist. that my IQ woul ...[text shortened]... ievers are idiots) as any creationists. he doesn't even admit the possibility he may be wrong.

Sure, I don't agree with Dawkins on every point, and I agree that becoming atheist will not affect your IQ (I don't remember him claiming it would though). However, I do think that religion has both good and bad effects on individuals and society, and Dawkins gives some very good arguments as to why he believes that the harmful effects outweigh the good.
What I certainly do object to is anyone who says "I am more or less agnostic but there is no harm it going to Church anyway". There most definitely is harm and good and you should recognize that and weigh up the two.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Sure, I don't agree with Dawkins on every point, and I agree that becoming atheist will not affect your IQ (I don't remember him claiming it would though). However, I do think that religion has both good and bad effects on individuals and society, and Dawkins gives some very good arguments as to why he believes that the harmful effects outweigh the good. ...[text shortened]... . There most definitely is harm and good and you should recognize that and weigh up the two.

well the bad thing about going to church is wasting several hours talking to god when all the priests in i think all religions, besides teaching that you should go to church(else rot in hell) also teach that god is anywhere so you could talk to him from the comfort of your home. Besides, in my religion(orthodox) churches only have a few chairs so its even more uncomfortable.

some more liberal priests would say that since god's house is the church it wouldn't hurt to pay him a visit from time to time out of politeness.

thats about all the harm i can think off going to church, unless you count being hit by a car or lightning on the way there(just kidding 😀). The good thing is having a break in your life and talk (mostly listen) about some spiritual stuff. maybe talk at God. it certainly does have some therapeutic benefits.


About dawkings: he doesn't say that atheists are smarter for being atheists he does say that religious people are stupid for being religious. hence the name "The God Delusion". And he does say that anyone who is even remotely skeptical about evolution is stupid or insane. Oh well you have to take the bad with the good i suppose

I had minor exposure to a wide range of religions when I was quite young, because I attended my mother's Unitarian Universalist Church for most of my childhood (this church emphasises learning from a wide range of traditions and espouses metabeliefs about openness to the teachings of other religions more than it does any specific dogmas of its own -- I heard a joke somewhere that the militant wing of the UU church burns giant wooden question marks on the front lawns of rednecks). However, I didn't have any specific notions about theism or about a more general spirituality (in a form coherent enough to verbalise) until later.

I can actually point to a specific RHP thread (General, August 2003, I forget the name) which prompted me to actively reject theism, although I didn't believe in any gods before that. I don't consider theism a very useful spiritual model because the simple questions ("Does there exist a god and if so what are its properties?" ) dominate, I think, the viewpoint of anyone who considers theism honestly, to an extent that is distracting to actual spiritual inquiry. I feel that the world has presented us with so much that inspires awe and reverence that it is silly to invent a giant, time-consuming ontological problem as an object of awe and reverence. I used to enjoy considering this problem but have exhausted it for myself. I sometimes discuss it with people, but rarely is anything new added.

There was a period of a few years between my rejection of the theistic and my consideration of the spiritual. As my thoughts about theism tend to be intertwined with thoughts about what constitutes fact and reality in different contexts, my thoughts of the spiritual tend to be closely intertwined with thoughts of psychology and morality.

Some of my "spirituality" derives from an interest in mysticism and its relationship to rational thought -- I'll echo bbarr's mention of Huxley, and also the authors Fritjof Capra, Julian Jaynes and, especially, Robert Pirsig as people who have articulated in detail things that I've wondered vaguely.

Sometimes, in my case, the "spiritual" frame of mind needs to be made apparent in unsubtle ways, and I've found the practice of shikantaza meditation a powerful way of doing this, although it requires more effort than I am always able to muster. I've also had powerful experiences with hallucinogenic and dissociative drugs.

The frustrating and difficult aspect of spirituality is its integration with the mundane and the translation of things known or believed into patterns of action and behaviour.

Originally posted by bbarr
My grandparents on my father's side were devout Southern Baptists, profoundly uneducated and into all the fire and brimstone nonsense. Their views always struck me as ugly and filled with hate. My father was an atheist and an opportunist who attended an affluent Catholic church to drum up business for his law practice. When I was dragged to this church every ...[text shortened]... lly in line with those expressed by Aldous Huxley in his work The Perennial Philosophy.

Very interesting family history. Mine is not interesting at all. I can see how you have arrived at your religious viewpoint. Not to be critical, but I think your bias is heavily influenced by your experience. Which is to say it clouds your view. Especially the fire and brimstone. Do you think that is why your dad became an atheist?

Originally posted by pawnhandler
spiritually or anti-spiritually? I hear people who have a religion often say it's because it was passed down by their parents, and often atheists say the same. Yet my siblings and I only had a brief childhood introduction to religion and then in later years religion was put down but the alleged parent we lived with. Nevertheless, each of us ended up w ...[text shortened]... ining churches, etc.). Our journeys certainly have not been straight lines.

What about you?

I had some exposure to catholicism as a child by my mother, but my dad was agnostic at best. I once heard him say with a snarl that there was no God.
So, with virtually no guidance or discipline I grew up fast and furious and became a hedonist. All the while feeling empty and lonely on the inside. I didn't recognise it at the time though. It wasn't until I was about 28 years old that I became disgusted with myself for my lack of self control, and ashamed for the things I was doing. It wasn't so much that I felt guilty, but that I knew I was guilty.
Up to this point I had tried most of the "paths to enlightenment" that were popular during the 60's and 70's, but without relief for the nagging emptiness.
Then I answered God's call, believed on His son Jesus Christ, trusted in His sacrifice on my behalf on the cross, and got saved.

That's when things got really interesting. But that's another story.

Originally posted by josephw
Very interesting family history. Mine is not interesting at all. I can see how you have arrived at your religious viewpoint. Not to be critical, but I think your bias is heavily influenced by your experience. Which is to say it clouds your view. Especially the fire and brimstone. Do you think that is why your dad became an atheist?

Of course my experiences have shaped my views on religion, but my views have been confirmed to my satisfaction by my philosophical education. Whether it is bias, in an epistemically objectionable sense, depends on whether there is evidence that I am unable to see by virtue of my experiences and education. I have never encountered an argument for theism that struck me as even minimally plausible (and the best religious philosophers agree with me here, so I doubt this is just higher-order bias). The fire and brimstone stuff made me pity my grandparents and their congregation, since it was so obvious they hated themselves and their nature. Other versions of theism are not committed to fire and brimstone, and they are better for it. They are still false, but better in that they do not so obviously contradict the supposition that there is a loving God. My father reports being unable to remember ever having religious beliefs, and that it always struck him as a deeply absurd form of cultural power-mongering. He does not know what role his parents' vicious theology played in bringing about his atheism.

Originally posted by Zahlanzi
thats about all the harm i can think off going to church, unless you count being hit by a car or lightning on the way there(just kidding 😀). The good thing is having a break in your life and talk (mostly listen) about some spiritual stuff. maybe talk at God. it certainly does have some therapeutic benefits.

I think I'll start a new thread for this as this isn't really the right place.
I'll call it "Is being religious harmless?"

Originally posted by Zahlanzi
well the bad thing about going to church is wasting several hours talking to god when all the priests in i think all religions, besides teaching that you should go to church(else rot in hell) also teach that god is anywhere so you could talk to him from the comfort of your home. Besides, in my religion(orthodox) churches only have a few chairs so its even m ...[text shortened]... out evolution is stupid or insane. Oh well you have to take the bad with the good i suppose

he doesn't say that atheists are smarter for being atheists he does say that religious people are stupid for being religious. hence the name "The God Delusion".

Being delusional is not the same as being stupid. One can be very smart, yet be deluded about something. I don't think that's Dawkins point at all.

And he does say that anyone who is even remotely skeptical about evolution is stupid or insane.

That's pretty much true though.