h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Now...where were we...?

Hoping to pick up where we left off on my journal, early tomorrow (Thursday) morning. I should be around by noonish your time, Edward.

Dunno if anyone else will drag themselves over yet. But I'm hoping to hear some good feedback from people of faith who can explain why it is they believe what they do. I'm not looking to be converted back to Christianity, that ain't gonna happen, so I hope we'll avoid proselytizing. But I sure would be keen to hear some intelligent presentation of argument, as opposed to the usual "because the Bible tells me so", or "I can just *feel* it", etc.

It also would be cool to hear from people of pantheistic or earth-based faiths. I have a better understanding of these faiths, and more respect for followers of such belief systems. At least they're based on something which to the believer seems *tangible*, if you know what I mean?

Anyway, who's going to open up the first can of worms?

Here's a couple of cans:

1) What's wrong in believing in a religion, if you get comfort from it?

2) What's the rational basis for morality?

>1) What's wrong in believing in a religion, if you get comfort from it?<

I don't necessarily think it's "wrong" to believe in religion, per se. It does seem to bring many people a great deal of comfort. I've stated before that I see this as being no different from people seeking comfort in alcohol, drugs, or any other psychological "crutch". That soesn't mean I'm saying any of them are inherently "wrong".

It's when the dependence on religion, as with any other crutch, begins to have a negative effect on the livelihood, well-being, and autonomy of other members of society, or society as a whole, that I begin to think that religion in and of itself is "wrong". Many of the major religions are powerful political organizations as well, organizations which use faulty logic, or no logic whatsoever, to apply the teachings of a person who, while he may have been a really nice guy, was also quite obviously a raving lunatic at worst and extremely delusional at best, to secular law. These people try to legislate their "morality" and impose their belief system upon others. This is where religion stops being a mere comfort and becomes something far more dangerous. This is where my problem lies.




>2) What's the rational basis for morality?<

Hmm, tough question and one I'm always keen to hear speculated on. I'm not always 100% rational, who is, and so it's hard to tell to what degree morality has a rational basis and to what extent it's entirely objective.

I do think that "morality" is a little different from "right" and "wrong". All I have to tell me if something is "right" or "wrong" is my gut instinct, and what I've learned through my education and personal experience. Perhaps that's why so many poorly educated people, or people who haven't pursued "further" education, cling to religion and the misguided "morality" that goes along with it?

I'd like to read more ideas of what the rational basis for morality is, so I have something to go on other than "gut instinct" and personal exeprience. 'Cause my perception could very well be off the mark, too.

Sorry if I've sounded like a dolt, or have made no sense. This is actually a new arena of discussion for me- I've pretty much kept quiet about my lack of religious beliefs, not wanting to hurt or offend. It'll be good for me to get the chance to think and talk more about it.

Okay, I managed to get here, but can't stop long, just a spectator for a mo...

OK seeing as you asked:

1) What's wrong in believing in a religion, if you get comfort from it?

I guess you mean morally wrong rather than factually wrong!

I would say that beliefs that do no harm to others are not morally wrong to hold. Where religious beliefs do harm then believers are morally responsible for that harm.

The latter is culpably negligent - not to check the truth of beliefs that may cause harm if false - and the former isn't.

Getting comfort doesn't make any difference to the moral question that I can see.


2) What's the rational basis for morality?

I would say that immoral acts are by definition those that cause harm and suffering to other people and moral acts are by definition those that bring benefits and happiness.

This is perhaps not rational - I am not using reason, just a defintion. But it seems to me that this is what the terms mean. So it is not clear what more there is that needs to be said.

Hokayyyy....

1) What's wrong in believing in a religion, if you get comfort from it?

I guess that it's OK to have comfortable delusions such as 'There's a tooth fairy' or 'I'm going to beat this cancer'. "Whatever gets you through the night." And yet, and yet...at the heart of it seems to be the notion that 'Somebody up there likes me.' What I can't reconcile is what about all the people who god/nature/whatever plainly *isn't* looking after? What are they doing wrong? Just not believing enough? How does that keep tsunamis at bay?

2) What's the rational basis for morality?

Well...in the great scheme of things, there isn't one. We are but Nietschian worms and the universe doesn't give a flying feck how we behave towards one another or our planet.

So...how to proceed. Well, I want to be happy. My happiness is partly predicated on how others treat me. I assume that other people also want to be happy. Therefore I must treat them well. 'No man is an island, entire unto himself' (rave on, John Donne).

That's very simplistic. We have no formula for guaranteeing that our collective behaviour will lead to happiness. All we can do is to behave as well as we are able. There are differences of opinion as to what constitutes good behaviour. These can be argued about rationally. That's politics, not religion.

This seems to me to be a somewhat Jewish notion. The other day I came across a quote from 'Everything Is Illuminated' by Jonathan Safran Foer. One of his characters, a sceptical Jew, says 'I must behave as God would want me to behave, were there a God.'

You know...I think this thread could get interesting. But we need a few seeds of contention.

btw...Stanley Kubrick's favourite font was Futura Extra Bold.

Hey...I've just clicked you and realised that you were Jowot. I remember you from the early days of FFF. Welcome back!

So far, the tone of this thread is the most civil I have yet seen on hootoo, when it comes to anything religion.

I am not a deep thinker, nor eloquent debater. I only know that as a child, my Roman Catholic up-bringing gave me the solid feeling that someone truly cared about me. Something that was rather lacking in my day-to-day life. But somewhere around age 13 or so, I started to wonder if this was THE answer, or if there even IS an ultimate answer.

So since then, I am of neither atheist nor theist camp. I read what I can of other religious texts, ways of life, philosophies, what-ever. Maybe one day I will know a "truth", maybe not. Until then, my beliefs or lack of are my own. And I will respect anyone else to not force their perspective on me.

Just one final thought ... I often see the non-theist taking the position that everything MUST have a logical or concrete basis in fact. Must be debated, analyzed, picked apart and found to not be wanting in anyway. So anyone who lives by sheer faith MUST be corrected from their folly. Well, in my opinion, there are any number of things that do not need to be studied to death to be accepted. A flower, a butterfly, a pretty smiling girl, ... just seeing them and knowing they can exist, is enough for me. No further analysis needed.

Nick, I don't see much of a problem with your approach. I don't know about others, but I don't demand that people prove their assertions. It is very difficult to prove anything very interesting with philosophical rigour. Perhaps this is what prompts people who demand certainty to retreat into fantasy worlds.

All I expect is that people say what they think is true (something relativists have difficulty with) and are willing to discuss their reasons.

So, I am an atheist, because the problem of evil/problem of suffering proves that an onmimax god is impossible. We could allow lesser beings to be called god, and if you stretch the concept far enough downwards then eventually god will exist. But I would consider that linguistic trickery not an honest argument, so I stick with atheism.

If by 'sheer faith' you mean holding something to be true without considering the reasons, this does seem disfunctional. The connection between seeing a flower and knowing it exists may exercise philosophers, but the rest of us, rightly, take it for granted. You rarely get people arguing over whether a flower exists, so it seems reliable enough. But we don't see God. We have feelings and we interpret them. I don't see how feelings and how we interpret them merit the same 'free pass' when so many people have different feelings or interpret the same feelings differently.

Being neither an argument for or against, mind you ...

"Sheer faith" in a belief, the Bible as "The Word" for example, may come from accepting that generation after generation have been satified with it's veracity. Without needing to delve and seek proof for it themselves.

Accepting basic premises of sciences as 'fact' can be treated the same. Some guy, many generations ago, may have dropped objects of differing sizes, from a tilting tower, proving aspects of gravity. And so, following generations have accepted it, without each individually re-proving for themselves that this was a fact.

I know that's a very simplistic comparison, easily argued. I'm sure there are any number of more esoteric science bits that could be the example, ... something NOT readily confirmed by the average Joe. Still, it IS one way of seeing the ease or difficulty of 'faith'.

It is a mistake to treat science the same for two reasons.

1. There is nobody telling you that you can't check Galileo's result that you ought (morally) to take it on trust. In fact I have just checked it with a pen and a paperclip. Both fell at the same rate.

Of course while I could not check everything science claims, there is no particular thing that is deemed uncheckable. Everything can be checked by somebody, if not by me.

2. Generation after generation has been satisfied with the veracity of all sorts of mutually contradictory and self-contradictory notions. If this worked, as a basis for knowing things, there would be one religion with no doctrinal difficulties. The idea that we should take things on trust leaves open the question of which self-proclaimed authority to trust. Trusting that an accident of birth brought me and not my neighbour into the true faith seems extraordinarily self-centred.

One last comment then, before settling back to watch further ... (I said I wasn't much of a debater )

I guess the greatest weakness then, to verifying anything religious, is that anyone who may have been in direct contact have been dead a very long time. And until a particularly (and proveably) good psychic or necroscope can call up any of them, all that will exist is hearsay.

Nick, yes that does seem to be the problem.

So either, it was meant to be like this - there is a god we are not supposed to know about. Or there is no god.

Either way, we are left to make our own decisions. If there is a god who wants us to grow up and look after ourselves then worshipping him is defiant!

But suggesting that there is a god who wants us to know him, but stays hidden behind a badly written 2000 year old book. That's a stretch.

It's vaguely possible he/she/it has found an amazingly good book, and has been pre-occupied. Or is trying some 2,500 year long experiment to see how these people make out on their own ...

Or there may be no one at the helm, as you seem to be convinced.

For now, I'll get a bit more comfy on this here fence. And see if anyone comes along with anything really persuasive, either way.

>I only know that as a child, my Roman Catholic up-bringing gave me the solid feeling that someone truly cared about me. Something that was rather lacking in my day-to-day life. But somewhere around age 13 or so, I started to wonder if this was THE answer, or if there even IS an ultimate answer.<

I can appreciate the fact that religious upbringing, for a lot of people, does just exactly that- give them a feeling that someone cares about them. I can also see its appeal to those who have lacked that a bit in real life.

But is it really coincidence that at around age 13 in your case, age 14 in my case, we “wizened up”, outgrew our imaginary friends and sought that sort of fulfillment in ourselves, in relationships with real people, etc.?

>Until then, my beliefs or lack of are my own. And I will respect anyone else to not force their perspective on me.<

I believe we would all appreciate that!

>Just one final thought ... I often see the non-theist taking the position that everything MUST have a logical or concrete basis in fact. Must be debated, analyzed, picked apart and found to not be wanting in anyway. So anyone who lives by sheer faith MUST be corrected from their folly. <

Well, I have to admit to being one of those folks who attempts to correct the folly of those misguided souls who live their lives by faith alone, especially faith alone in things that can be so easily disproved with even the most fundamental scientific knowledge. I don’t go around proselytizing, but I do pity those people. Particularly when those people are people I care for, and know to be otherwise intelligent and reasonable.

>I don't know about others, but I don't demand that people prove their assertions.<

Me neither, really… until those people try to force their assertions on me as fact, as truth, as gospel. Those folks who try to tell me that unless I believe in their farcical religion, unless I pray to their invisible friend, unless I give up my attitudes of tolerance and respect for fellow man, I am “wrong”.

As far as I have seen, most scientific theory can be easily qualified and quantified. Most religious beliefs cannot. In fact, most religious beliefs can easily be proven inaccurate at best, delibrately manipulative and misleading at worst. And most religious dogma is, as far as I have seen, a reflection of humanity at its worst.

Just a query ...

<>

Do you find or feel it a real NEED to correct the 'folly' of these others? Perhaps as much as some evangelicals feel it a 'need' to push their ways on others? In both cases, it would seem to be an internal NEED of the pusher to enlighten the other ... I don't see much difference in that bit.

>Do you find or feel it a real NEED to correct the 'folly' of these others?<

Nah. Live and let live, I say. Until someone starts pshing or trying to "enlighten" me, at which point I then make the effort to correct them. If that makes any sense.

For example, a dinner I recently attended where a number of attendees were Lutheran school teachers. They were discussing my sister-in-law and her hubby, and their child's baptism. Someone made a rude comment about one of the child's sponsors, along the lines of "what kind of mother trusts her child's spiritual welfare to an atheist". My response was along the lines of "the kind of mother who realizes that her child's spirituality and welfare are not mutually inclusive", followed by an "on, by the way, when you refer to 'those people', you're inadvertenly including me in your insults". To which they of course became all apologetic.

I'm more than keen to listen to someone else's beliefs and views. I may learn something, or at the very least I gain valuable insight into what makes that person tick and what is important to him or her. All I ask is that I get the same attention and consideration, and unfortunately, when dealing with many christians of the proselytizing type, that ain't gonna happen.

The "live and let live" works well for me on most days. Of course, there are times when a born-again at work will get me a bit edgy, but I know him and know where and when he ends. And the better part is that after 7 years or working together, he also knows MY limits.

As to you earlier post, ...

<>

I won't say that it was a matter of imaginary friends, or wising up. Around then Erich von Daniken and his books (Chariots of the Gods, Gods from Outer Space, and Gold of the Gods) were prolific. I asked the priest a few things I found contradictory to my beliefs of the day. While vesting as an altar boy for a week-day service. When he answered with simply "We will no longer need your help here", I wondered why. Since then, I have read of any formal religious texts I can find in English (and afford) as well as life-ways. Such as Wiccan, Buddhism, ... If there is an answer, I may find it in my remaining years. And if there isn't, well, ... atleast I will have learned to understand how and why many others live, think and feel as they do.