Study Says Videogames "Problematize" Religion as Violent

[BrotherRool]

The thing about Pascal's wager is that people generally don't use it to try to convince others so much as prove that their own faith is a more rational/better position than atheism. Here's another argument to consider though, in a world with multiple conflicting religions you're chances might be better if you don't commit to any of them, just in case you pick the wrong one. That is to say, God might be more forgiving for someone who was skeptical by nature than someone who commits to the wrong faith (assuming they both live lives of equal moral worth). If worshiping false idols is a big no-no for the monotheistic religions, then not worshiping anything would be probably be better.

Yeah I read that one in an article the other day. Of course the problem is that actually it isn't like that and there are far more religions that say any religious person is better off (I think Jainism is an example here, and some strains of Christianity too), than religions that like atheists.

Either way it's not really an argument for anything and I'm pretty sure Pascal meant it as a bit of a joke. Like Goedel's logical proof for God. But it is good to know why it fails, because too many people dismiss it when applied to other things. Like when it was applied to global warming people just said 'oh pascal's wager' when it's entirely appropriate there.

I still think finite existence is worthless though.

'Worth' is a human concept. Finite existence simply is, you're the one who deems it worthless.[/quote]
This isn't true though. Worth might be a concept creating by humans but that doesn't make it any less true. Here I simply talking about actions that have consequences that last forever and actions which have no-consequence in a infinite time scale. Even if you call it a human concept, well I still want my life to have worth

The idea that existence is futile didn't even depress me, or scare me or anger me, because reacting in that way is equally pointless. I was less motivated to do charity work because even the people you help would just die, but I don't think it affected my life much either way. I couldn't work up a passion about anything so much and I guess I might have done some more non-sequitor things, because hey, if you're free from consequence why not make life a bit weirder?

What is the 'meaning' of a rock sitting in the sand? When you pass by the rock you can value it in a certain way. Perhaps you regard it as beautiful, or useful. When you walk away does the rock become pointless? It sits there because it is a rock. Rocks aren't concerned with meaning. Meaning and value are creations of human will. What you have described is your own lack of will.

Well I have a lack of will (Just to interrupt here, from a christian perspective, that rock has purpose because it's been created by God and is glorifying him by fulfilling his will, so it's a pretty awesome rock and we should all think it's awesome)

But still, if we want to make choices in life (and most people stress other choices at some point or other) then those choices have to have consequences (else it's not a choice) but in a finite time scale they don't. Which is exactly what I feel, if time is finite, then well, choices don't matter. You can say value is a human concept, but what you are actually saying, since we both know what value is, is that everything is valueness. Because you agree what value means (although not on what should be valued) but when you call it a human concept what you;re actually trying to tell me, is that value doesn't exist and nothing has value. And anything that doesn't have value is valueless as we both understand the term

"For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? He is God not of the dead, but of the living." And when the crowd heard it, they were astounded at his teaching.- Matthew 22:30-33.

So what is heaven like? What do angels do to occupy their time? Checkers? I vaguely remember something about gathering in a giant amphitheater around God and serenading him for all of eternity, but I can't be bothered to find the passage.

Heaven is cool, because actually heaven is the earth. When time ends the world _and_ heaven get destroyed and created anew and we end up on the world again, except this time God is with us. But it's like we've being looking at our world through frosted glass (through a glass darkly) and the glass gets taken away, what more there is no barrier between us and God anymore so we completely share his joy and love and as you said, generally expressing it.

In practical matters it's hard to tell if the existence is physical, but there are a lot of things that point to it being so. There are a lot of parts of the Bible where it points out that God doesn't hate matter or our world, if we didn't choose corruption it would be a perfect world and not the one we live in now (although that suggests to me that we have new scientific laws than the ones we're supposed to have, because things like tectonics and viruses and evolution and stuff would presumably be different, and as you've said marriage doesn't take place which is a pretty hefty reminder). But Jesus was actual matter and so there's a good chance it will a material existence (but presumably without the laws of thermodynamics).

The big thing is being united with God though, which is unimaginable and rather fantastic

Hmm I don't know. I don't think that the people around me share my opinion, but I've never seen a reason not to have it. I'd be interested if you've got some counter-arguments.

Well, let me ask you, did you happen to explore any other religions aside from Christianity? Or did you default to Christianity because it was most prevalent choice? You seem to be moving in a binary fashion, either Nihilism or Christianity. There's a lot more out there, you know. If the Christian God does exist, then perhaps he prefers blind faith to intellectual exploration.

Oh okay, I did say, I know this is hard to believe but the nihilism really wasn't a factor in my conversion. In many senses I'm still nihlistic, it's just that the world doesn't operate in a way that supports my nihlism.

I don't know, do you actually want me to describe my conversion? It's something that most non-christians object to and to give you warning, there are no astounding moments of logic or even much that would make sense to anyone else.

Basically I started reading the bible because I was a cocky so and so who wanted to boast that he'd read the bible from start to finish. What's more I enjoyed being anti-christian _and_ anti-atheist and I saw this as a way to fuel up. In a forum debate I would take whichever side the other person wasn't and try to beat him into submission with my superior 14 year old mind. But it was strange, I read the old testament and i found myself believing a lot of it, which tbh, I didn't understand because you can clearly see most of it was ludicrous and there's a lot of stuff there that could have fed my hostilities. I didn't even agree of much of anything that was said morally there.

And when I read the New Testament I was basically overawed by Jesus (and hated Paul, I still have problems with that and try to pray nice things about Paul to get me over my hate ) Whatever your beliefs, the things Jesus did as described are just amazing. He had so much authority and so much _right_ in what he said. Of course you should pray for your enemies. Of course you should heal those that hurt you. If someone hurts you, love them forgive them and offer yourself up to them. I'm not trying to argue natural law like CS Lewis, and this was very personal to me, but everything I saw about him was just the way I wanted to live my life from now on. Even though I recognised that I wasn't going to be able to do it and even though I figured I wasn't a christian I decided that that was how I was going to try and lead my life.

And I had some christian friends who were all awesome people, so I told them that the first one who convinced me to go to a church won. (and in all honesty I ended up choosing the church with the pretty girl ) and everyone was kind and I stuck around and read my bible but still wasn't christian. And then after two years of doing that I looked back at my life and realised at some point I'd become a christian. I'm not a very emotional person and emotions confuse me because I don't seem to have any control over them but I cried and choked up at my baptism with happiness so I take that to mean that yeah, for some reason I do believe in God.

So yeah, not very interesting, no miracles, no damascus road, can't even pin down the day, no logical examination of anything, not even of christianity, never mind other religions, just a realisation that something about me had changed and for some reason I was on the other side.

For the record, I have read the Koran too and I need to read it again becaue I was hostile to it the first time which led to me not giving it a fair chance. But the truth is Mohammed wasn't Jesus and didn't do Jesus things and in the Koran you earn your reward with God's grace whereas in the Bible God's grace is greater than your weakness and I feel the latter is better. Buddhism I feel is a correct solution to the problem, but is playing a zero game. Shutting all that stuff off about yourself will reduce suffering but it's reducing suffering by putting yourself in a white room. Hinduism is my major failing, I've never really looked at it. But even then, I wasn't logical in what I believe and I could understand the switch being the other way.

I can hardly see how an all-loving God could punish people for not believing in him when he doesn't make it obvious that only one particular dogma is the way to salvation. He is omnipotent after all. And blaming the devil makes no sense whatsoever. Supposedly God created the devil, so he could smash him to bits with the snap of a finger. So why does God allow Indians to be Hindus?

This is the hard one, I don't know if you're still reading my posts with the Treblaine but I write a lot about this one. In the end God gives everyone a choice and you can even believe in God without ever hearing about him and just as I've made my choice and would reject Hinduism even if it was proved to me out of faith to the God that I'd dreamed of, I hope Hindus have done the same thing. It doesn't stop me praying that God will find some way for everyone to be saved. There's a parable Jesus told about not being jealous if you turn up to your final reward and find people there who you feel didn't work for it, because you're still being rewarded. He meant it to the Jews, but I hope that maybe he meant it for us too. The problem is that would devalue people's choice to decide where they go and what they believe in, but maybe God will find a solution that preserves that. In the end I trust God to do right, even if I'm in a position imperfect to decide what right is (and I am, I'm writing this on a laptop which I bought with money that could have fed a family for an entire year, who are now starving. I value my laptop more than the lives of people I can't see. How sickening is that?)

What is belief, and why does it matter so much? It's hard to see how something as mundane as a propositional attitude could reward you with eternal life. We've believed all sorts of stupid things over the millenia. For the most part we can't even control our beliefs. Belief arises when someone is presented with enough evidence that they feel compelled to think that something is the case. How is it fair to punish someone for something they can't fully control? I imagine almost any priest will tell you that you can't just get up one day and say, "you know what? I think I'll be a faithful Christian."

So does that mean that God gives you faith as some sort of gift, like grace? If that's the case then how in the hell could he punish someone for not having what he is responsible for giving them? Maybe you have to earn your faith. Well, that's a bit of a catch 22, now isn't it? What would make you want to have faith if you don't have faith? Are you going to ask a God you don't believe in for the power to believe in him?

If there really were an all loving God, then I think he would be a lot more concerned about how we live our lives than what we believe. Let me ask you this: what did Jesus preach? Did he go on and on about the proper way to perform religious rituals? No. He preached about how to live a moral life, to love thy neighbor and to turn the other cheek. He didn't set up the Catholic Church. You know who did? The Romans. Yeah, because they totally weren't a bunch of corrupt assholes.

Have you ever heard of Gnosticism? It's an interesting tradition. It could best be characterized by the idea that one can achieve personal/mystical knowledge of God by studying scripture. The funny thing about Christian Gnosticism is that it doesn't require priests and the church as an intermediary between humans and God. Can you guess what happened to the Gnostics? Yup, wiped out by the Roman Empire in around the 4th century.

So how much of the modern Christian tradition is the word of God, and how much of it is the result of the corrupt human lust for power and control over one's fellow man? The idea that an earthly organization holds the keys to eternal life or eternal damnation should probably raise some red flags. Martin Luther founded Protestantism in order to rebel against what he saw as corruption in the Catholic Church. The problem is that the Catholic Church (aka the Roman Empire) had already controlled Christianity for centuries and molded it into a means of control. So what guarantee is there that Martin Luther, or anyone else for that matter, could purify it and retrieve the central message?

If you have faith, then you have faith. To be honest I haven't the foggiest idea what faith is like phenomenologically speaking, I'm extremely skeptical by nature. Not only of religious doctrine but also of certain scientific theories (primarily theories in Physics like the Big Bang and String Theory). What I understand about faith is that it's supposed to be deep seated and emotive, so rational arguments probably aren't going to affect it.

It's not my life mission to convert people to atheism. In fact, I find people who define themselves as atheists to be extremely annoying. Atheism is not at all an interesting doctrine. What most people mean when they call themselves atheists is that they hate Christianity. If these people were actually philosophically inclined they would identify themselves as physicalists or materialists, which imply atheism because they include a general rejection of supernaturalism. Unlike atheism, physicalism and materialism are substantive philosophical doctrines.

Anyone who views religion as some sort of demonic zeitgeist that causes mankind to go against its inherently rational and peaceful nature is, in all likelihood, a complete imbecile.

Oh my gosh, you are an entirely brilliant person, I hope you know that. I felt genuine love for you when I read all this. You have all the right questions in your life and so much wisdom. Compared to me who basically arrived where I am now by being a bit of a dick (and hopefully am slightly less of a dick now) you've really seen the important things. There is noway I can give you answers to this stuff, but I really hope that you find them, whatever they are however that is.

There are people who wake up one day and become a christian. In the Church of England it's 60-70% conversions like mine and the remainder seemed to hinge of one moment. But like you said, I don't know how you control that. If you open yourself up to God he'll let you in, but I don't understand how people open themselves up and I don't really think anyone does.

And you're so right about what people did with the church. I don't know if I respect the gnostics because a lot of what they said was to re-emphasise themselves, it was to lessen God's role and talk about how their own wisdom could kind've save them and they also used some of their arguments to justify doing whatever they wanted because they said that matter didn't matter but it's true that powerful people have abused the church to crush opposition and put themselves between people and God. We had a situation for so many centuries where priests refused to translate the bible into a language people could understand because they didn't want people connecting with God by themselves, didn't want to have to bow to what Jesus said instead of what they said.

Thank you for being understanding with me. You seem to recognise that this isn't something that i even really understand about myself and that it's not something that can be hammered out of me with cunning arguments. I really wish you the best in everything you do and I don't know, if you want I could pray for you, but I understand if you don't want that. It really has been an absolute pleasure talking to you and you've shown me that there's so much more stuff out there to learn and to discover, I guess it's the pleasure of being young that I can hope that if I live a few years longer maybe I'll understand a tiny bit more.

 

[Char-Nobyl]

As improving technology has allowed videogames to evolve over the years, their narratives have become more detailed and nuanced as well, according to Greg Perreault, a doctoral student at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. That increased sophistication has led to a growing incorporation of religion into various storylines, and that in turn has led religion to be "problematized" in videogames by way of strong narrative connections with violence.

Okay...and the problem would be? From an entirely objective standpoint, organized religions and their high officials make good villains. They produce low-level foes who don't flee because of their complete devotion to their cause, allow for higher-tier villains to gain superpowers from their patron deity, and excuse all that Umbrella nonsense about the group not being financially viable. Corporations that produce nothing but evil won't make money. Religions that preach evil well enough will be given money just for preaching.

Perreault looked at Mass Effect 2, Final Fantasy 13, Assassin's Creed, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion in his research and found that all of them tied religion to violence. "In most of these games there was a heavy emphasis on a 'Knights Templar' and crusader motifs," he said. "Not only was the violent side of religion emphasized, but in each of these games religion created a problem that the main character must overcome, whether it is a direct confrontation with religious zealots or being haunted by religious guilt."

Hang on a second there. I'm not sure what the religions component of Mass Effect 2 would be, and I didn't play FFVIII, but the others...

Assassin's Creed takes place during the Crusades. Of course it includes "Knights Templar" and "crusader motifs." Would you have rather they replaced the Templars with some made up hybrid of the Roman Legions and the Nazis?

The Castlevania games, too? Those are pretty much built around the concept of fighting and killing Dracula. You know, something that the church in virtually every Dracula-related media is intimately interested in doing? Or should he only be adverse to crucifixes because he hates right angles?

And Oblivion? Really? That centered around a cult. A demon-worshiping cult. If anything, it was religion that ended up coming through in the clutch and saving the day.

But he also stated that despite the common presence of those themes, he doesn't believe game makers are trying to "purposefully bash" religion. "I believe they are only using religion to create stimulating plot points in their story lines. If you look at videogames across the board, most of them involve violence in some fashion because violence is conflict and conflict is exciting," he continued. "Religion appears to get tied in with violence because that makes for a compelling narrative."

Ah. Great. One of these sorts of studies. The kind that answer their own question in their mission statement, and then just go ahead with the study anyway because they don't have any better ideas. And this one probably involved sitting down and playing video games, so I don't blame him on that front.

This is where I'd normally make a crack about being thankful that organized religion has never been responsible for any real-world violence, but I don't want to offend any sensibilities so I'll simply note that Perreault presented the results of his research at the Center for Media Religion and Culture Conference on Digital Religion and leave it at that.

There is no facepalm big enough. No, not even the Picard one made of thousands of smaller facepalms.

He submitted his work to an organization that doesn't worry about the portrayal of religions, but about how fictional ones are portrayed? That's like the NRA throwing a fit because Shadows of the Damned contains a gun that makes lots of sexual innuendo, and that fictional gun is hurting the family-oriented image of guns. Not of actual organizations centered around guns, mind you. They're worried about how people view the abstract concept of guns.

 

[Warped_Ghost]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition

Yep religion always shows the best in humans therefore I promptly disagree with video games using religion as a violent catalyst. (sarcasm)

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

Space Marines, lol.

 

[George Francis Gaspar]

A University of Missouri doctoral student says many modern videogames "problematize" organized religion by equating it with violence in their stories.

Nevermind the centuries of warfare, racism, intolerance, and bigotry spurred on by religious leaders. Videogames are the real problem.

I can kinda get where this guy is coming from, but his theory doesn't just pertain to games. All forms of media (comics, film, novels, tall tales, whatever) have themes of violence that take inspiration from historical conflicts. And it just so happens that faith and religion played a huge role in some of the biggest (the Crusades, the Catholic/Protestant War).

There's some pretty fucked up stuff in history. That's what makes these stories compelling.

Seriously, that was my thoughts upon reading the article. Never mind the fact that the Crusades (somewhat of a big thing) were religious wars fought against Muslims...and eventually used children.

 

[Charli]

And they're wrong?


Sorry that's all I have to say on the matter, if anything they've taken a good historal look at wars and conflict and found a common theme. Anyone with any decent level of learning could make this assumption AND a decent argument for it.

Organized religion... has... done alot of damage, yes. What more can you say?
I'm sure it's brought goodness into individual lives as well, I will never discount it as an inherantly evil thing, but I think fanaticsm warps ideals and corruption spreads wide and deep when many ascribe to the same beliefs as you and you maintain a position of power or authority over that belief.


So really. "Cool story, bro?" is all I can say to that astounding student.

 

[ReiverCorrupter]

Yeah I read that one in an article the other day. Of course the problem is that actually it isn't like that and there are far more religions that say any religious person is better off (I think Jainism is an example here, and some strains of Christianity too), than religions that like atheists.

I agree that many traditions might favor people who belong to other religious traditions than nihilists. The real question is why. My sneaking suspicion is that these traditions presume that a religious background will give someone a better moral backbone. That might be true in many circumstances, but I don't think it's true by necessity. A capacity for compassion (which I take to be the real ground of morality) isn't necessarily tied to any belief system.

'Worth' is a human concept. Finite existence simply is, you're the one who deems it worthless.

This isn't true though. Worth might be a concept creating by humans but that doesn't make it any less true. Here I simply talking about actions that have consequences that last forever and actions which have no-consequence in a infinite time scale. Even if you call it a human concept, well I still want my life to have worth.

The fact that you don't think something finite has worth is a reflection of how you measure worth. If your finite existence was worthless to God, then how could your finite actions be worthy of eternal reward?

Well I have a lack of will (Just to interrupt here, from a christian perspective, that rock has purpose because it's been created by God and is glorifying him by fulfilling his will, so it's a pretty awesome rock and we should all think it's awesome)

Does an infinite, eternal, perfect and transcendent entity really think the rock is awesome? How could something not fulfill God's will? Does God have a will? I have a will because I am a finite being. I exist in space and time, and my will is a reflection of my spatiotemporal nature. It is what drives my actions in the world. When I will something then I act in space and time to bring about a certain state of affairs in a future space and time.

But still, if we want to make choices in life (and most people stress other choices at some point or other) then those choices have to have consequences (else it's not a choice) but in a finite time scale they don't. Which is exactly what I feel, if time is finite, then well, choices don't matter. You can say value is a human concept, but what you are actually saying, since we both know what value is, is that everything is valueless. Because you agree what value means (although not on what should be valued) but when you call it a human concept what you;re actually trying to tell me, is that value doesn't exist and nothing has value. And anything that doesn't have value is valueless as we both understand the term.

What is the meaning of meaninglessness? What is the value of value?

The big thing is being united with God though, which is unimaginable and rather fantastic.

So are you separate from God now? Do you exist outside of God?

Oh okay, I did say, I know this is hard to believe but the nihilism really wasn't a factor in my conversion. In many senses I'm still nihlistic, it's just that the world doesn't operate in a way that supports my nihlism.

I don't know, do you actually want me to describe my conversion? It's something that most non-christians object to and to give you warning, there are no astounding moments of logic or even much that would make sense to anyone else.

...

So yeah, not very interesting, no miracles, no damascus road, can't even pin down the day, no logical examination of anything, not even of christianity, never mind other religions, just a realisation that something about me had changed and for some reason I was on the other side.

It sounds to me as though you've become a cultural Christian. That isn't necessarily a bad thing. It can good to belong to something, to identify yourself with a side. Everything you've said describes a search for personal worth. Human beings are social animals, being part of a group and identifying yourself with other people can give you a great sense of personal worth and identity. But you should recognize that this is not the same as a spiritual revelation.

The question you have to ask yourself is what you really want: personal worth and a purposeful life, or spiritual transformation and divine truth? No, the two aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. That depends upon what kind of person you are. Christianity is a social religion that revolves around morality, so it is more naturally suited to social people. Hard ascetic practice is necessarily an individualistic enterprise, and isn't suitable for certain people.

For the record, I have read the Koran too and I need to read it again becaue I was hostile to it the first time which led to me not giving it a fair chance. But the truth is Mohammed wasn't Jesus and didn't do Jesus things and in the Koran you earn your reward with God's grace whereas in the Bible God's grace is greater than your weakness and I feel the latter is better. Buddhism I feel is a correct solution to the problem, but is playing a zero game. Shutting all that stuff off about yourself will reduce suffering but it's reducing suffering by putting yourself in a white room. Hinduism is my major failing, I've never really looked at it. But even then, I wasn't logical in what I believe and I could understand the switch being the other way.

If you feel a burning desire for knowledge and you love ideas for their own sake, whether you agree with them or not, then keep reading. If you want to feel contented then stick to being a Christian and focus on feeling loving compassion for your fellow human beings.

Buddhism and Hinduism are traditions that evolved out of an incredibly academic and generally more open minded society. You could spend your entire life reading Sanskrit texts and you still wouldn't have scratched the surface. They are incredibly deep and complex traditions, and you really shouldn't skim them to get the gist. Since you're already committed to the Christian tradition, I would instead suggest that you read Augustine's "Confessions" and the works of Meister Eckhart. And then, if you're feeling adventurous, the works of Soren Kierkegaard.

So why does God allow Indians to be Hindus?

This is the hard one, I don't know if you're still reading my posts with the Treblaine but I write a lot about this one.
(snip) And you're so right about what people did with the church.
(snip) it's true that powerful people have abused the church to crush opposition and put themselves between people and God. We had a situation for so many centuries where priests refused to translate the bible into a language people could understand because they didn't want people connecting with God by themselves, didn't want to have to bow to what Jesus said instead of what they said.

There are more than a few apocryphal texts that suggest that everyone is saved in the end. You noted the general timeline of the new testament books in your other post, but what you have failed to consider is that there were TONS of christian gospels and texts and only a few were selected to be part of the cannon by the Church, which happened much later on. All of the Church meetings to establish dogma were unabashedly political and usually involved compromises. You have to realize that texts that were too forgiving for non-Christians would inevitably undermine the power of the Church. Even if we grant that many of the texts were divinely inspired, it still seems fairly obvious that the selection of which texts were the 'official' word of God was a decidedly human and imperfect affair. The problem with divine inspiration is that it involves human interpretation.

In the end God gives everyone a choice and you can even believe in God without ever hearing about him

Interesting. And what would this belief look like? Perhaps it would take on the cultural features of the person it belonged to. Are you sure it would look like Christianity?

and just as I've made my choice and would reject Hinduism even if it was proved to me out of faith to the God that I'd dreamed of, I hope Hindus have done the same thing.

What if God told you that Hinduism was just the way he revealed himself to Indians?

There are people who wake up one day and become a christian. In the Church of England it's 60-70% conversions like mine and the remainder seemed to hinge of one moment. But like you said, I don't know how you control that. If you open yourself up to God he'll let you in, but I don't understand how people open themselves up and I don't really think anyone does.

When God presents himself to people, does he say that he is the Christian God? Does he speak in Aramaic, or Greek, or Latin, or English?

I don't know if I respect the gnostics because a lot of what they said was to re-emphasise themselves, it was to lessen God's role and talk about how their own wisdom could kind've save them and they also used some of their arguments to justify doing whatever they wanted because they said that matter didn't matter

True, Gnosticism is quite mistakenly focused on duality. If you're open to hearing it, I would bid you to reflect upon the nature of the self in relation to God. What is the greater act of arrogance: to identify yourself with God, or to think that you are independent of God?

Thank you for being understanding with me. (snip) I guess it's the pleasure of being young that I can hope that if I live a few years longer maybe I'll understand a tiny bit more.

My pleasure. However I would remind you that age doesn't automatically entail greater understanding. You have to work for it. Part of the process, at least according to my own experience, is learning to appreciate unanswered questions. Oh, and if you feel like praying for someone, I think your time is better spent on people in less fortunate positions.

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

"Study Says Videogames 'Problematize' Religion as Violent"?

Religion, collectively, is the leading cause of human death on this planet. Has been for quite a while. Not to mention religion is inherently anti-woman. No source needs to "problematize" religion as violent when IT BLOODY WELL IS VIOLENT!

And for no reason whatsoever, I'll add this in:

Spoiler: Beware of uploaders music choices. You may wish to have your volume lowered or muted.

I absolutely despise religion as it has proven one fact over and over again to me: that a perfectionly functioning penis that is attached to a less-than-functioning brain is the destroyer of all things good on this planet. That's not to excuse the women who have done evil on this planet; but, as far as religion goes, men have done infinitely more harm to each other and the planet we call home than their female counterparts.

 

[Kimarous]

And then, if you're feeling adventurous, the works of Soren Kierkegaard.

A warning to anyone considering that - you'll have to understand sentences like this:

"Faith is precisely the paradox that the single individual as the single individual is higher than the universal, is justified before it, not as inferior to it but as superior - yet in such a way, please note, that it is the single individual who, after being subordinate as the single individual to the universal, now by means of the universal becomes the single individual who as the single individual is superior, that the single individual as the single individual stands in an absolute relation to the absolute."

- Soren Kierkegaard (Fear and Trembling)

 

[Nu-Hir]

...Why is it that atheists are actually getting up of their ass to make counter-protests, to challenge them in public debates? HOW can most Christians not even know about such an infamous organisation as this?!?! Other than willful ignorance of what their ideology alows?!?

Well, it shouldn't be just atheists who counter-protest WBC, it should be anyone who sees them for who they are, a domestic terror group. I think the only reason they haven't been targeted in a Waco style raid is because they haven't tried to kill anyone over their beliefs (but they have no problems shitting on the memory of those who have died so they could voice their beliefs).

I've found that most do know who the WBC are, they just don't know them by their name. If they don't know the name of Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, KS, you just start mentioning other things. Ask them, "Have you heard of the God Hates Fags people" or "The guys that protest soldiers' funerals" and they'll know who you mean. It's not willful ignorance, it's just that this hate group is so insignificant to their beliefs that learning their name is inconsequential to them.

 

[Vuljatar]

So, I think this study is right.

And you know what? I'm okay with that. It's about time that the world starts realizing that organized religion is a problem.

I'm tired of the supporters of religion getting off the hook because "the really crazy ones make the rest of them look bad". I'm sorry, but believing that an invisible man in the sky controls your destiny is exactly what I consider to be "really" crazy!

Jesus Fucking Christ people, get real, get with the times, and let Christianity, Islam, Judaism and all the rest go the way of Zeus and Poseidon. They are heroic and humorous myths, and they are all no more than comic book superheroes.

 

[lRookiel]

Erm, who cares? I hope religion burns to the ground! :3

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

Erm, who cares? I hope religion burns to the ground! :3

I'm sorry but I really hope it doesn't. There's a reason behind this seemingly maddening statement, however. You see, religion still has a firm hold of power and relevance over many people on this planet. And one thing I've noticed is that when power begins to lose said relevance, it does one of two things: either change to maintain/regain whatever power it has/had OR take down as many other people as it can before it loses all of its power. Any other decision it makes is basically a variation of the two. Now, should religion lose all of that relevance and power at once...

*thinks of World War 3*
*thinks of Einstien's quote regarding said war*
*shudders*

I'd rather it just fades away gradually than burn to the ground. Much less of a chance, then, of you and me burning to the ground with it, wouldn't you say?

 

[BrotherRool]

I agree that many traditions might favor people who belong to other religious traditions than nihilists. The real question is why. My sneaking suspicion is that these traditions presume that a religious background will give someone a better moral backbone. That might be true in many circumstances, but I don't think it's true by necessity. A capacity for compassion (which I take to be the real ground of morality) isn't necessarily tied to any belief system.

I think it's more the idea that we're all looking at the same God but in a different way suits some people. I can't do it justice because I feel that different religions are different enough that God would be awfully contradictory, but if you think about what you said about Hindu's then it's very attractive to feel that actually they're looking at God too. And with Hinduism, a Hindu person was describing Hinduism to me once (with a language barrier) and looking only at the surface it took me a while to work out he was talking about Hinduism because he talking about multiple God's but all actually being aspects of the one true God.

The fact that you don't think something finite has worth is a reflection of how you measure worth. If your finite existence was worthless to God, then how could your finite actions be worthy of eternal reward?

Does an infinite, eternal, perfect and transcendent entity really think the rock is awesome? How could something not fulfill God's will? Does God have a will? I have a will because I am a finite being. I exist in space and time, and my will is a reflection of my spatiotemporal nature. It is what drives my actions in the world. When I will something then I act in space and time to bring about a certain state of affairs in a future space and time.

This is the thing, I'm lucky because God is eternal and so what he places value on has eternal meaning, because he can remember that action for eternity, so it doesn't have finite consequence (and ties in nicely about how in the end, it's all about loving what God loves)

And God can think the rock is awesome because he chose to make it and he chose to make good things. However it seems that he chose to make some things with the ability to choose. Maybe because a rock is awesome, but as you said, it can never deviate from his will, but if that rock had choice and chose to exist in the right way, that makes so much better than it was before.

And I differ with you on the perception of free will. If you know what I did in the future, that has no affect on my free will, because free will isn't about doing random or unpredictable things (we don't embue dice, or electrons with free will) but that I had paths I could have gone down and I chose one. In fact if you couldn't predict what I would do, it suggests the decision is actually irrelevant to who I am, because either decision would have been fine for me. I chose to cook ratatouille today and knowing that's what I chose doesn't affect that at that time I made a choice.

So equally, although God knows how everything happens and everything that he will do, it doesn't affect the fact things turned out how he chose them too. It's the good aspect which may impact on God's will. I believe God defined good so he has choice over his actions, because good is how he has chosen it. However I've got a friend who believes that good is something that always is and always was, so for him God has only one course of action he can take, because God is good.

The big thing is being united with God though, which is unimaginable and rather fantastic.

So are you separate from God now? Do you exist outside of God?

...True, Gnosticism is quite mistakenly focused on duality. If you're open to hearing it, I would bid you to reflect upon the nature of the self in relation to God. What is the greater act of arrogance: to identify yourself with God, or to think that you are independent of God?

Yep partially. It sounds weird, but Christians don't believe God _is_ the universe, but that the universe is the creation of God. So when I punch someone, that's not God punching God, that's me punching someone. If I was fully part of God, my mind would be blown and it would be impossible for me to do wrong, how could God disobey God? And that's the seperation that our choice caused and his plan is how to heal that seperation.

I think in general since God has chosen to speak to us and has told us roughly that we're seperate(ish) then that's probably the path of least arrogance

It sounds to me as though you've become a cultural Christian. That isn't necessarily a bad thing. It can good to belong to something, to identify yourself with a side. Everything you've said describes a search for personal worth. Human beings are social animals, being part of a group and identifying yourself with other people can give you a great sense of personal worth and identity. But you should recognize that this is not the same as a spiritual revelation.

The question you have to ask yourself is what you really want: personal worth and a purposeful life, or spiritual transformation and divine truth? No, the two aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. That depends upon what kind of person you are. Christianity is a social religion that revolves around morality, so it is more naturally suited to social people. Hard ascetic practice is necessarily an individualistic enterprise, and isn't suitable for certain people.

I think this is us looking at the limit from different sides. Because I find what I want to do slowly improves in the direction of God and I take my conversion as part of that process. And I mean you said that the two aren't mutually exclusive and that's how I feel... well I don't know. I have all the personal worth I ever need. My life is essentially sorted, I could die tomorrow with no regrets and I know that whatever happens, God values me to the cost of his own death. If I do good things that he wants, I'm not increasing my worth, because God already values me more than that. I'm doing them because, well they're the right thing to do and I _want_ to do the right thing. I do horrible things everyday and that doesn't affect how God looks at me, because he's chosen to look at me as if I were Jesus. I try to stop doing the horrible things, not because it improves me as a person but I don't want to do things God finds horrible, regardless if it changes my status or not.

I just read the bible and felt that that was right, divine right and truth and the only option is to follow that. You can't recognise something as good and then not try and do it.

(Btw I'm not really a social person by any person's definition. To the point where I changed a church because it was small and people knew who I was and noticed that I was there. It's not good and I've gone through a particularly bad patch lately, but it is what it is)

There are more than a few apocryphal texts that suggest that everyone is saved in the end. You noted the general timeline of the new testament books in your other post, but what you have failed to consider is that there were TONS of christian gospels and texts and only a few were selected to be part of the cannon by the Church, which happened much later on. All of the Church meetings to establish dogma were unabashedly political and usually involved compromises. You have to realize that texts that were too forgiving for non-Christians would inevitably undermine the power of the Church. Even if we grant that many of the texts were divinely inspired, it still seems fairly obvious that the selection of which texts were the 'official' word of God was a decidedly human and imperfect affair. The problem with divine inspiration is that it involves human interpretation.

This is a bit iffy, because in all honesty, there isn't an apocryphal text (apart from the Apocryhpa ) that has any evidence that it was written before (i think it's 200AD?) and none of them have evidence that support that they were written by an apostle or someone who was a peer of the apostles. Most of them falsely claim to be written by people it's impossible to have been written by, and most of them feature very bizarre or contradictory stories that are never referenced by any of the other books.

Finally, although there were councils to formalise them, the current selection of books was already the selection used by most churches at that time. There is evidence of the Paul letters being currently used, being collected and used as early as the first century, then by 200AD Origen, the Antilegomena and the Muratorian fragment were all using the New Testament as it's known today, 200 years before the first council to formalise the NT.

Contrary to popular the belief, the only controversy found amongst the early centuries collections is do we have too many. James, Jude, Hebrews, 2 Peter, 3 John and Revelations were all being queried as possible not having enough evidence to support the time and authority of their writings. Many churches in the 300's (still 100 years before the meeting) only used 22 of the 27 books we use and no extras. In comparison the apocalyptic gospels have evidence to suggest they were written 250ish AD at the earliest, 50-100 years after canon had been established.

Finally there were a set of books that weren't considered heretical or false, but they were just written by people who were a century or so removed from events, so are roughly the equivalent of any book you can find in a christian book store today. Very useful, possibly informative, invaluable in understanding the context of the times but in the end, just some book written by just some christian.

In the end it wouldn't make sense for everyone to be saved yet, it would make nonsense of what God did, what I'm hoping for is possibly one more revelation, after the end. But if it doesn't happen and it doesn't happen and I'll trust that God is right.

In the end God gives everyone a choice and you can even believe in God without ever hearing about him

Interesting. And what would this belief look like? Perhaps it would take on the cultural features of the person it belonged to. Are you sure it would look like Christianity?

...
What if God told you that Hinduism was just the way he revealed himself to Indians?

It's Romans 2:14 'Indeed when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves,even thought they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness and their thoughts also accusing and also defending them).

So it's implied it would look very similar, the stress is that it's people without any knowledge of christianity, there's implication here and later on that these people if they heard about God would recognise it for what they believe and finally that it's very rare and difficult. Also remember this is in the context of a passage talking about how the law is not enough to save a person.

If God said otherwise, then I'd follow that, but the truth is he makes it clear that this isn't what he's done at many many points, as well as instructing the importance of making sure that every person has as much opportunity to hear his word as possible.

When God presents himself to people, does he say that he is the Christian God? Does he speak in Aramaic, or Greek, or Latin, or English?

Are you talking about the miraculous conversions? I don;t know much about them, but apparently when he actually speaks most people recognise it as English. That fits with Acts where Peter gives the worlds first christian sermon (whilst being accused of being drunk) and every person thinks he's speaking in their mother tongue.

 

[BrotherRool]

he has no right to forgive people for such a heinous crime they have committed against OTHER people! Arrest is not enough, justice demands they must be PUNISHED! Prevention is not enough. The Catholic church followed this logic of prevention over punishment when they caught their priests raping children. These re the perverse ideals of Christianity.

And yet you challenge God when he suggests people need to be punished for corrupting the whole world? The world is not a nice place, neither you nor me are nice people.

So forgiveness is God's he can forgive us because he's better than us, and because he knows that forgiveness has a price and he has made that price all his to pay. There is nothing greater a person can do than forgive somebody, nothing more than that they should do, because when God will forgive us for everything, how can we not make forgive each other for the things we do?

 

[Treblaine]

he has no right to forgive people for such a heinous crime they have committed against OTHER people! Arrest is not enough, justice demands they must be PUNISHED! Prevention is not enough. The Catholic church followed this logic of prevention over punishment when they caught their priests raping children. These re the perverse ideals of Christianity.

And challenge God when he suggests people need to be punished for corrupting the whole world? The world is not a nice place, neither you nor me are nice people.

So forgiveness is God's he can forgive us because he's better than us, and because he knows that forgiveness has a price and he has made that price all his to pay. There is nothing greater a person can do than forgive somebody, nothing more than that they should do, because when God will forgive us for everything, how can we not make forgive each other for the things we do?

"Yet you challenge god when he suggests people need to be punished for corrupting the whole world?"

#1 God doesn't exist any more than the Tooth Fairy does. There is not a shred or proof nor even the remotest possibility that either exist. Your "choice" to deny all reason and stubbornly believe won't change that.
#2 God as a concept supposedly punishes even people who have done nothing wrong; Hindus and Homosexuals and so many others that would supposedly go to hell have not "corrupted the whole world".
#3 God's punishment is an infinite and totally out of proportion punishment for a finite transgression. Even rapists don't deserve to burn in hell for all eternity.
#4 even by the rules of the bible, those guilty of heinous crimes can get out of Gods punishment by saying a few magic words... without even getting forgiveness from their victims! As with the Catholic priests who raped and abused all those children. Don't say "well they're Catholic", they're playing by the same set of corrupt rules.

"There is nothing greater a person can do than forgive somebody"

There is nothing more insulting that to forgive someone else's crimes regardless of the victim's feelings. For a victim of such terrible trespass to watch their tormentor have all guilt absolved. God has no right to forgive FOR other people. Even if he did exist. Religion definitely doesn't have that right to use this god-concept to forgive.

As to personal forgiveness (victim forgiving their abuser) there MUST be a distinction between forgiveness and denial. If those victims of horrible crimes simply will themselves to be totally fine with what has been done to them, they can call this forgiveness, but it is de-facto denial. Forgiveness is something that has to be worked for by the perpetrator mainly, can only be found with justice, therapy, reconciliation and rehabilitation. The perpetrator must understand what they have done, and truly regret it not because they were caught or that they will be punished... but out of sheer empathy for their victim's suffering. Forgiveness is the greatest and hardest thing that the perpetrator must EARN! And for some crimes, it is almost totally improbable to ever gain. THEY must pay the price.

God cannot just say: "oh, i'll pay this price. Magic, forgiveness done, I'll take this, because I say so"

All that's happening there is Christians are in denial about the personal severity of the transgressions.

 

[ReiverCorrupter]

And then, if you're feeling adventurous, the works of Soren Kierkegaard.

A warning to anyone considering that - you'll have to understand sentences like this:

"Faith is precisely the paradox that the single individual as the single individual is higher than the universal, is justified before it, not as inferior to it but as superior - yet in such a way, please note, that it is the single individual who, after being subordinate as the single individual to the universal, now by means of the universal becomes the single individual who as the single individual is superior, that the single individual as the single individual stands in an absolute relation to the absolute."

- Soren Kierkegaard (Fear and Trembling)

Yeah, I'm not a fan. He's not as bad as Hegel or Husserl or most of the other existentialists. But if someone is interested in Christian philosophy, he's kind of inescapable.

 

[ReiverCorrupter]

I think it's more the idea that we're all looking at the same God but in a different way suits some people. I can't do it justice because I feel that different religions are different enough that God would be awfully contradictory,

Where would the contradiction be, in God, or in our varied representations of God?

This is the thing, I'm lucky because God is eternal and so what he places value on has eternal meaning, because he can remember that action for eternity, so it doesn't have finite consequence (and ties in nicely about how in the end, it's all about loving what God loves)

How does an eternal entity place values on things? How does he remember? Memory is the capacity to recall past events, when one exists outside of time one can have no memory.

And God can think the rock is awesome because he chose to make it and he chose to make good things. However it seems that he chose to make some things with the ability to choose. Maybe because a rock is awesome, but as you said, it can never deviate from his will, but if that rock had choice and chose to exist in the right way, that makes so much better than it was before.

Your version of God seems to do a lot of thinking and choosing.

And I differ with you on the perception of free will.

I wasn't talking about free will or determinism. I was talking about how an eternal (aka non-temporal) entity cannot be said to perform temporal actions. Weren't you just complaining about God being too contradictory?

So equally, although God knows how everything happens and everything that he will do,

This implies that God has a future and that he exists in a certain point in time.

it doesn't affect the fact things turned out how he chose them too. It's the good aspect which may impact on God's will. I believe God defined good so he has choice over his actions, because good is how he has chosen it.

When did God define good? Did God make this choice at a particular moment in time?

However I've got a friend who believes that good is something that always is and always was, so for him God has only one course of action he can take, because God is good.

What if God isn't just good? What if God is the Good?

Yep partially. It sounds weird, but Christians don't believe God _is_ the universe, but that the universe is the creation of God. So when I punch someone, that's not God punching God, that's me punching someone. If I was fully part of God, my mind would be blown and it would be impossible for me to do wrong, how could God disobey God? And that's the separation that our choice caused and his plan is how to heal that separation.

I suggest that you read some Augustine and Meister Eckhart.

I think in general since God has chosen to speak to us and has told us roughly that we're seperate(ish) then that's probably the path of least arrogance

Well, if faith means that you accept religious teaching on face value without reflection, then there isn't much I can say. On that interpretation it would seem that God doesn't want people to think about his teachings that much, but just accept them blindly. That seems strange to me. Most other religions have an idea that by deeply reflecting upon their texts one can be rewarded with an even deeper understanding of divine truth than what is immediately apparent in the text itself.

Literalism about the Bible seems to contradict the idea that God is mysterious and capable of working in metaphor. You'd think that God would want people to think about what he says. But you can't really reflect deeply upon something without questioning it.

I have all the personal worth I ever need. My life is essentially sorted, I could die tomorrow with no regrets and I know that whatever happens, God values me to the cost of his own death.

Good! The question is whether that is all really you want.

I just read the bible and felt that that was right, divine right and truth and the only option is to follow that. You can't recognise something as good and then not try and do it.

We've gotten to the heart of the matter now. If you don't feel like you need to question the bible, and believing that it is the truth brings you happiness, then you're good. Socrates said that "the unexamined life isn't worth living," but what he failed to realize is that not everyone is constituted in the same way. For most people, unanswered questions and existential doubt are just too uncomfortable to sustain for very long, so they inevitably fall into a belief system that suits them. Like I said before, I'm not going to try to undermine your faith.

As regards the historical development of the new testament, I was merely trying to point out that orthodox Christianity was a later historical development and did not come from the mouth of Jesus himself. The fact that most of the major texts were disconnected from the life of Jesus by about a hundred years, give or take (as I recall, Paul's letters are the earliest pieces), leaves (at least for me) room for doubt. Before they were written down these stories were in all likelihood passed on by word of mouth. As such they were probably heavily influenced by the communities that they passed through. And different communities probably came up with their own versions of the stories. In comparison both Mohammed and the Buddha's teachings were recorded immediately.

But none of this really means anything if you have faith, because you can believe that God influenced the Church leaders and the selection of the texts as well as the authors. So it's kind of a moot point.

it's people without any knowledge of Christianity, there's implication here and later on that these people if they heard about God would recognise it for what they believe and finally that it's very rare and difficult. Also remember this is in the context of a passage talking about how the law is not enough to save a person.

Well, historically that just hasn't really happened. Christianity hasn't had much success in the Middle East or Asia. Ultimately Christianity doesn't offer much of an argument to convert people except for the promise of eternal life. Philosophically speaking, it's pretty circular. Christianity is the word of God because the bible is the word of God. How do we know that the Bible is the word of God? Because it says so, I guess. In cultures that already have a strong religious tradition with an afterlife, Christianity isn't very successful. It's hard to imagine that this was merely an oversight on the part of God, largely because God is incapable of oversights.

If God said otherwise, then I'd follow that, but the truth is he makes it clear that this isn't what he's done at many many points, as well as instructing the importance of making sure that every person has as much opportunity to hear his word as possible.

If you have faith, then this won't affect you and neither will anything else because faith apparently makes you unreceptive to anything that might challenge it. That's fine so long as you realize that your faith doesn't constitute an argument, which you do seem to realize.

 

[FalloutJack]

This was already too silly to take seriously, but YOU'RE A LITTLE LATE! Final Fantasy X pulled the evil religion shtick years ago! And yes, it was totally evil, the entire thing from start to finish including their savior!

Also, before that? Xenogears! A game whose religion was the evil machination of the bad guys so many times over that it's crazy...AND that was all the 10 millenium Xanatos Gambit of your robot god and mine, Deus Ex Machina!

The religious angle has been done and gone WITHOUT INCIDENT!

 

[roostuf]

well from what i read, it felt pretty even.