Good for you. What about the truth of the finitude of existence, suffering and death? I'm sure you hope that truths didn't exist? — TheMadFool

What I hope and what the truth is are two different things. It seems that many people on this forum can distinguish between the two. Which one were we talking about again?

What I hope and what the truth is are two different things. It seems that many people on this forum can distinguish between the two. Which one were we talking about again? — Harry Hindu

I'm simply pointing out the fact that some truths are unpalatable.

Perfect. Then we agree that what makes us feel good and what is true can be two distinctly different things, and to try and contradict or question someone's truth claim based on the fact that it doesn't make you feel good, would be an error.

Do you think morality is innate? Are we born with it? — TheMadFool

Yes, I absolutely believe that, you can see reactions to injustice even in other primates, see the work of Frans de Waal. All tribes have taboos against most of the stuff we think of as immoral and ostracise those who don't share and support the community. No culture in the world condones murder or theft, all consider generosity a virtue, I could go on, but in summary I consider the evidence that morality is innate to be overwhelming.

The fact that some people find themselves in a situation where they feel their best interests are served by behaving immoraly is a damning indictment of our society. Go into a primary school in those areas and ask the kids if stealing is wrong, what answer do you think you'd get?

Well, they seem to have purpose in their lives, — TheMadFool

What, abusing children? How's having a purpose any use to you if it's a soul destroying one? As I said in my earlier post, having a belief in a soul doesn't make you happy; having good friends and being a useful part of a caring community makes you happy.

Im still not quite sure where you're coming from here. You've just said atheist's morality is weak (implying that of religious people isn't) after I've just supplied you with a liturgy of crimes committed by the deeply religious. What more data do you need to go on?

God comes back again in his usual guise, some really kind and protective bloke with a big beard, mysteriously like the dad we all wanted but never quite had... — Inter Alia

This bearded fellow is lodged in billions of minds, mine too. It's the children's Sunday school story that doesn't grow up with us. Some enduring effort is needed to learn, unlearn, and relearn. The cliché god, big daddy in the sky, is too small, too simple, too literal -- and altogether too familiar. Big daddy god is not suitable for mature adult audiences.

One place (there are others) to look for direction on how to get a grown-up god is (surprise!) the Bible: Like Isaiah:

8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.
9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

or in Job:

4 “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. 5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? 6 On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone— 7 while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy? 8 “Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, 9 when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, 10 when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, 11 when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt’? 12 “Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place, 13 that it might take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it?

More metaphors, yes. It is very hard to think or speak of an immortal, immaterial, immanent God, permanently pervading and sustaining the universe. "All that" is just way out of our ordinary reckoning. So, we use metaphors like "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundations?"

It's a discipline to stop thinking about God in material terms, to get it through our thick skulls that God is not like us. (Such as, God didn't evolve; God doesn't have a body; God doesn't have senses, emotions, ideas... All that is our stuff. God isn't located "somewhere" -- like heaven. God isn't "seated on a throne" because God doesn't sit, stand, lay down, or hover.)

I'm offering this as intellectual advice, not pastoral advice.

Religious people are obviously not more at peace with themselves, I'm mystified as to why anyone would think that. Religious people abuse children, they then cover-up that abuse, they torture people, murder those who don't agree with them, start wars over a stupid building/wall/relic, subjugate women, ostracise homosexuals, stone adulterers, cut people's hands off for stealing, close their church doors to the homeless because 'god made them poor', jail people for touching another man, blow themselves up in public places, murder innocent children because they went to a pop concert. What on earth makes you think religious people are at peace with themselves? — Inter Alia

Why can't I pick the best parts of all God-beliefs and put them together in a way that makes sense to me. — TheMadFool

Inter Alia, aren't you doing the same thing (only in reverse) that TheMadFood proposes? You are picking the worst parts of various religious groups and packaging it as "This Is What Religious People Do"? Had you ranged wider, outside of the Abrahamic religions, you could find even worse things that religious people do.

People--all 100 billion of us that have ever existed--tend to behave badly, and nothing we have thought of so far is able to make angels out of us. That's one thing.

The other thing is that studies have found that religious people, on average, tend to be more at peace, happier, well adjusted--or something--than people without religious beliefs. This good effect of religion might come from regular association with other people. Social isolates usually are fairly unhappy, die at an earlier age than socially involved people, are healthier, and so on.

Religion (for better or for worse) supplies regular social activity and a basket of organizing principles which can be used to make sense of frequently unpleasant realities. Familiar rituals tend to feel good. Doing them with other people is even better.

Religion, as Karl Marx noted, "... is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions."

Yes, I absolutely believe that, you can see reactions to injustice even in other primates, see the work of Frans de Waal. All tribes have taboos against most of the stuff we think of as immoral and ostracise those who don't share and support the community. No culture in the world condones murder or theft, all consider generosity a virtue, I could go on, but in summary I consider the evidence that morality is innate to be overwhelming. — Inter Alia

Amazing.

Even dogs dislike it when they are not rewarded for effort and they can see that other dogs are rewarded.*** Canine through Primate morality is rather limited. It may be the basis of cultural elaboration by us primates, but I think you'll have a hard time proving that connection.

You bring in culture: "No culture in the world condones murder or theft..." Is culture innate too? OR, do we develop cultural features and pass them on to the next generation through instruction and example? Language (in which so much culture is encapsulated) isn't innate either. The capacity and urge to learn language seems to be innate, but there is nothing innate about any particular language.

*** The difference between canines and primates on this point is this: In laboratory situations, where dogs in experiments can see each other, dogs object to not being rewarded for effort. It doesn't make any difference what they are rewarded with, as long as they receive something. Primates in laboratory situations object when they do not receive equal quality rewards. Dogs stop cooperating if they are unrewarded. Primates stop cooperating if they are rewarded with inferior tidbits, like a slice of cucumber instead of a slice of apple, or a piece of turnip instead of a piece of orange.

As for innateness, sure: evolution has developed innate capabilities in many species. But in humans, it seems to require the medium of culture to develop innate qualities -- because it takes so long for humans to reach maturity.

Do you think morality is innate? Are we born with it? — TheMadFool

Whenever I consider this type of question, I try to imagine one or more people born on an island, isolated from any sort of existing human culture.

I think morality is based first on survival, then on thriving. Think of two people growing up alone on separate sides of an island, each with an adequate supply of food and shelter. One day, they meet. I don't think either person would feel compelled to hurt the other. After the initial shock of seeing another human, I think they would eventually feel compelled to communicate in some way, and maybe even cooperate. At a minimum, I think the instinct would be to avoid, rather than engage in a hurtful way.

However, change the circumstances by drastically reducing the available resources, and the meeting might not go so well. The individuals may feel compelled to eliminate each other, in order to secure more resources for their own survival. If they had already met and formed a relationship prior to the scarcity of resources coming into play, I imagine the spirit would be more of a cooperative one.

Perhaps my logic is tainted by the hope that we are all innately moral, and that hurtful choices are only made by those who haven't had a decent upbringing, have grown up in a morally questionable society, or have experienced more than their fair share of difficult circumstances...

I came here to say this but you already said it well, so I won't even bother.

I will say, though, as to why anything exists at all, that is something I will never stop reflecting on and being infinitely puzzled by. I'm sure it's impossible to find an answer--it's impossible enough just to think about it coherently, like trying to look at your own eyes or taste your own tongue. Still, that doesn't stop me from thinking about it nearly every day. It's truly the single greatest mystery.

like trying to look at your own eyes or taste your own tongue. Still, that doesn't stop me from thinking about it nearly every day. It's truly the single greatest mystery. — JustSomeGuy

Hahaha! Especially funny when removed from the rest of your comment... :)

That gave me a laugh.

I'm offering this as intellectual advice, not pastoral advice. — Bitter Crank

I'm touched by your concern for my intellectual development, but you have completely (deliberately?) missed the point of what I was saying, Perhaps I should have been clearer. My point it that God ends up in everyone's mind as the bearded 'dad you never had' regardless of what anyone says he is, and that includes the authors of the bible.

aren't you doing the same thing (only in reverse) that TheMadFood proposes? You are picking the worst parts of various religious groups and packaging it as "This Is What Religious People Do"? — Bitter Crank

Yes, are you denying that these things were done by religious people? So the statement "this is what religious people do" would be entirely accurate. What you mean to do is apply a lazy caricature of my argument so that you can trot out the stock response that religion has some good things too, but that has nothing to do with the actual line of argument.

What has been argued here is this;

the possibility of a creator, all good and loving, can and does uplift some souls. — TheMadFool

nihilism and bloodthirsty God belief, are, indeed, dismal alternatives. But you don't have to look at atheism or god in those ways. — Bitter Crank

Why shouldn't someone believe in God then, even if such a belief ignores what you call cracks? — TheMadFool

they seem to have purpose in their lives, they believe in an eternal soul. Atheists, on the other hand have to constantly struggle to find a purpose in their lives, their morality is weak, etc. — TheMadFool

The summary of which is that something about a belief in God solves something that atheism does not solve i.e it is a necessary condition for membership of the set "people who are OK" (where OK, is the state we are aiming for (I'm English so we don't go for 'great' or 'wonderful')), If you remember your undergraduate set theory, all I have to do to disprove that assertion is find one single example of a person who has the property 'being religious', but who is not 'OK' and one person who is atheist who is 'OK'. What the majority of religious people are like is irrelevant.

If I were to argue that something about redness was intrinsic to apples, all I would have to do would be to find one red thing that wasn't an apple and that would disprove the theory, there might then be thousands of red apples, but 'redness' and 'appleness' are not linked because there exists one non-red apple. There are happy content and kind religious people, there are nasty selfish and devious religious people, therefore religion has nothing to do with one's happiness, kindness and contentment, it is not an argument about numbers it is one about necessity.

Amazing. — Bitter Crank

It's funny how one can mention on this forum that the word of a book that talks about seven-headed dragons and an angry god striking people down with thunderbolts might not actually be true and be met with concern that one might be being a bit harsh, but suggest that there might be some truth in the work of several leading primatologists, neuroscientists and ethicists, with hundreds of years of combined expertise in the field might actually be right and you get met with incredulity.

What exactly is it about the possibility that sufficient knowledge of 'right' and 'wrong' might be innate for us to not require religious instruction that you find so difficult to believe?

It's funny how one can mention on this forum that the word of a book that talks about seven-headed dragons and an angry god striking people down with thunderbolts might not actually be true and be met with concern that one might be being a bit harsh, but suggest that there might be some truth in the work of several leading primatologists, neuroscientists and ethicists, with hundreds of years of combined expertise in the field might actually be right and you get met with incredulity. — Inter Alia

The issue is simple; literal interpretations of scripture. Your view of scripture is a literal caricature.

And alternatively, if the issue is "hundreds of years of combined expertise", then reference some intro theology texts, like Tillich's "A History of Christian Thought", which spans more like 2,000 years.

Your view of scripture is a literal caricature. — Noble Dust

No, my view of scripture is a literal one, to conclude that it is a caricature requires there to be some objective reason why scripture is not to be taken literally, if so where did this objective knowledge come from. Have I got a missing page in my King James' that says "Oh and by the way, don't take all of this literally"?

One cannot be an expert in theology because there is no objective measure of one's theory. Theologians can be popular, they can be considered interesting, insightful, but they cannot be experts, no-one has yet tested any of their theories, so no-one can say if any one of them is more right than any other. a million years of speculation wont make anyone more right about religion, the book says what it says, the rest is just guesswork.

No, my view of scripture is a literal one, to conclude that it is a caricature requires there to be some objective reason why scripture is not to be taken literally, if so where did this objective knowledge come from. Have I got a missing page in my King James' that says "Oh and by the way, don't take all of this literally"? — Inter Alia

You have a lot of research ahead of you.

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I have studied religions, faith, the body and the mind for decades. The way I see it, if there is a God and we have only one chance, and it effects our soul (assuming one has a soul) for eternity then it would be the most important thing to get right. When I say I studied, I mean obsessively, not out of fear, out of curiosity. There has been no stone unturned. The problem that people have with religion have less to do with theology and more to do with its members/followers. The Bible isn’t wrong, it’s poorly translated based on preconceptions. The word elohim, translated as God actually means gods (or heavenly beings) The word Jehovah is translated as Lord, in the Old Testament. If you actually read what Genesis says is that everything was created/engineered by heavenly beings. Jehovah is the Leader. Humans were designed to be workers, made in their image, humanoid. They are all physical. That’s why they walked and talked with Him on several occasions. This is also why they can make hybrids as in Genesis 6, “sons of gods/Elohim, mated with the daughters of men and had children, the men of renown.” The stories of Greek gods and heroes are also in the Bible. They just couldn’t expand on it because when you are trying to sell monotheism, you can’t muddy it up with other superior beings. However, that’s exactly what it states happened preflood. What people mix up is that there is also the Spirit of God. This is the lifeforce, the frequency, or music that Michio Kaku is describing in his string theory equation. This is as describable as a red blood cell would describe our soul. We are all part of a big “machine/body”. Jehovah is the brain and hypothalamus physically dispatching impulses and hormones, to achieve balance/homeostasis. Because humans were tampered with, like a cell may be tampered with, we no longer obey the proper protocol for that we were created. Like cancerous cells we just multiply and consume, apart from any higher purpose. Like cancer the imbalance effects surrounding tissue/Earth. This is the curse/fall that we were born into. Jehovah sent Yeshua/Jesus to direct us back on track and to reconnect us with Jehovah/Brain and ultimately join the “song/frequency/Spirit of God”. The apocalypse coming is going to be like radiation and chemotherapy. It’s not a heartless God who destroys us for being naughty. He’s a doctor delivering medicine. He provided a way to be cured. The reconnecting is also known as born again, spiritual birth and enlightenment. It just means you become receptive to the music of the universe.