Quote:
Originally Posted by Imagist
Oh, that's just priceless. You couldn't have picked a better personal attack. For your information, I spent about the first 15 years of my life as a devout Christian, the next two as an unsure theist, and up until recently as an agnostic. I missed fewer than one Sunday church service per year up until about three months ago. I used to read three chapters of the bible every day and in this manner completed the bible from cover to cover more than five times. As for other holy books, I have also read the Bhagavad Gita and about half the Koran. Since I began to have some doubts about Christianity at a young age, I spent years struggling with my beliefs and trying to prove to myself that there was a god. As a result, I have read thousands of pages of material that attempts to prove or disprove the existence of god, and have researched the beliefs of a wide variety of religions including (but not limited to) Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism. I have extensively read on related topics such as ethics, evolution, psychology, ancient history, and sociology in order to gain a better understanding of the implications of religion. I am confident that I have "looked into" religion more than you have "looked into" atheism, and I have probably even "looked into" religion more than you have.
Oh, and that's only the "looking into" that I did actively. Since my father is a professor of history of religions, I grew up discussing religion with him. While he was working on his Ph.D. my family lived in Israel for a year, where I experienced Judaism, and, to a lesser extent, Islam, firsthand (granted, I was a bit young to appreciate this fully). I have also taken ethics, history, and psychology classes in college.
You should look into my background before assuming that I have not looked into religion. You wouldn't sound so foolish.
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I'm going to go a bit further than my last post.
When you try to cast a shadow on religion by saying there are as many religious people in prison as there are non-religious, you should recall “there are lies, damned lies and statistics.” Actually, the percentage of religious people in prison is slightly higher than non-religious people—at least in the U.S.—but what happens when you look at the per capita? I'm not sure, but if even 60% of the people in prison and 80% in the nation are religious, what does that tell you? But let's assume that the numbers reflect the population or even reflected poorly on religion. Why would this be?
Off hand, I can think of two reasons: first, even the devil wants to look like an angel; second, if you know anything at all about Christianity, you know (or should know) that a man is as he thinks in his heart. And let's face it: we live in a very secular, very materialistic society in which the measure of success is anything but the Christian ideal. It would therefore be astonishing
As I explained somewhere else: those who “have religion” are no better or worse than those who do not. It is what one believes
at the unconscious level rather than what one knows or thinks he knows at the intellectual level that determines conduct and dominates personal performances. Purely factual knowledge or mere belief exerts very little influence upon the average man unless they become emotionally activated. Men believe there is such thing as morality because it is written upon his heart. They thirst to be
like God. This is so apparent men have given it the name “general revelation.” (The Apostle Paul knew this and if you were really a Christian, so should you.) People
disbelieve because they want to be a law unto themselves: they want to
be God as they believe God ought to be. But reason based on likes, dislikes and acculturation is their god, but it is this kind of reason that corrupts the heart of the believer and disbeliever alike.
Anything can be rationalized and taken to heart—from the slaughter of millions in the name of an atheistic or secular cause to the slaughter of millions in the name of a loving God.
When you delve deep into religion, and by that I don't mean the kind of stuff written by popular preachers, you find a whole different world than what most religious people grow up in. This led to doubts. I understand that. I've been there. It takes practice to find meaning behind the ideas--to look beyond the ideas.
But this thread is about morality.
All religions point to a good beyond the self. The non-religious have
nothing but the self to point to the good. Unfortunately, even brilliant religionists like Robert Morey let the self get so wrapped up in the words and ideas they lose sight of the source of good: they are
practical atheists.
09-05-2008, 09:07 PM
