[big-bang-theory]

(Original post by Maker)
Faith has certainly affected your ability to understand. I am not surprised since that is its purpose. One of Morris' other contentions is that faith is used by the powerful to control peoples' emotions while still maintaining a certain amount of limited intelligence.

No doubt, you will deny that but thats just symptomatic of the influence of faith.

Actually, you fit the model quite well. It looks like Morris could be correct in your case,

I'm an atheist. In any case, you've answered none of the distinctions I've drawn.

[Maker]

(Original post by big-bang-theory)
I'm an atheist. In any case, you've answered none of the distinctions I've drawn.

So, atheists can be stupid too.

[big-bang-theory]

(Original post by Maker)
So, atheists can be stupid too.

Then it shouldn't be too hard to respond to my points then should it?

[Maker]

(Original post by big-bang-theory)
Then it shouldn't be too hard to respond to my points then should it?

They are a bit silly but the one about the father based religions winning just because is without any reasoning so can be dismissed likewise.

[big-bang-theory]

(Original post by Maker)
They are a bit silly

Why?

(Original post by Maker)
but the one about the father based religions winning just because is without any reasoning so can be dismissed likewise.

I was actually considering explaining that point but the best example of why it's tripe comes from classics and requires you to get over a number of basic assumptions about the relation between God and man in religion. But hey ho sure

So the only overtly father based religions are Abrahamic. A basic understanding of ancient religion (as an example) would reveal that the emphasis is not on any concept of personal relationship or intimacy whatsoever. Indeed it's blinding indifference to personal relationship is one of the most peculiar things about it (and perhaps one of the reasons Christianity, Mithraism and other "myster cults" were capable of getting footholds).

Indeed in specific Roman terms the state's interaction with religion was based on the 'pax deorum'. Honour the Gods because they can **** **** up if you don't and moreover can help you do things effectively if you're on friendly terms with them. This is not a fatherly relationship this is a contractual mutual beneficence religion. This is clealy evidenced by the overwhelming absence of specific religious dedication to God's as distinct from what they can do to you. Hence things like curse tablets being written in specific stereotyped formats (as opposed to the personal devotions you get in Christianty), it's all about the propriety of the ritual in exact terms. There is no aspect of the personal in it whatsoever it is quite avowedly impersonal.

Given this was the religious domination for the best part of 5 centuries before throughout Europe, and it is purely by virtue of the fact that Constantine converts to Christianity it starts to become a dominant, rather than minority religion. And given that the religious sensibilities of the Greeks weren't altogether different (there are subtle ones but not important for the point I'm making), and given the Greeks conceptualised the religions of other nations around them as broadly similar enough to say they had "equivalent Gods", how on earth does his theory possibly account for it.

[Maker]

(Original post by big-bang-theory)
Why?



I was actually considering explaining that point but the best example of why it's tripe comes from classics and requires you to get over a number of basic assumptions about the relation between God and man in religion. But hey ho sure

So the only overtly father based religions are Abrahamic. A basic understanding of ancient religion (as an example) would reveal that the emphasis is not on any concept of personal relationship or intimacy whatsoever. Indeed it's blinding indifference to personal relationship is one of the most peculiar things about it (and perhaps one of the reasons Christianity, Mithraism and other "myster cults" were capable of getting footholds).

Indeed in specific Roman terms the state's interaction with religion was based on the 'pax deorum'. Honour the Gods because they can **** **** up if you don't and moreover can help you do things effectively if you're on friendly terms with them. This is not a fatherly relationship this is a contractual mutual beneficence religion. This is clealy evidenced by the overwhelming absence of specific religious dedication to God's as distinct from what they can do to you. Hence things like curse tablets being written in specific stereotyped formats (as opposed to the personal devotions you get in Christianty), it's all about the propriety of the ritual in exact terms. There is no aspect of the personal in it whatsoever it is quite avowedly impersonal.

Given this was the religious domination for the best part of 5 centuries before throughout Europe, and it is purely by virtue of the fact that Constantine converts to Christianity it starts to become a dominant, rather than minority religion. And given that the religious sensibilities of the Greeks weren't altogether different (there are subtle ones but not important for the point I'm making), and given the Greeks conceptualised the religions of other nations around them as broadly similar enough to say they had "equivalent Gods", how on earth does his theory possibly account for it.

Thats an interesting history but its really a description of older religions rather than an explanation why most popular religions are now mono theistic. Why was Christianity adopted for example? Just because the Emperor said so doesn't mean people would take it on board. Various other religions was practised by Romans and subjects of the Empire for many centuries after Christianity was made the state religion of the Roman Empire.

But in reality, most of the jobs that used to have individual gods to do are now parcelled out to various saints so one could argue Christianity is not really a mono theistic religion at all but an adaptation of older religions where the centralisation of power is more explicit. For example the Greeks had Zeus as the top god with a lot of lesser gods, similarly Christianity has God at the top with Angels and Satan as the equivalent of lesser gods.

The Christian god can still screw people up, look at Sodom when people didn't follow god's teaching and got the bullet, not very different from the vengeful Greek and Roman gods.

Of course, the Greek gods were one big family and similarly, the Christian god is also a family so its easy for humans to fit themselves into this family

[big-bang-theory]

Once again you've failed to address any of my first 3 points which even if you grant the only point you're focussing on here make your equivalence of religious views with santa and the tooth fairy off the basis of Morris' model demonstrably wrong.

For reference they were these three:

(Original post by big-bang-theory)
So the need for intimacy (what appears to be the main theme of that book) is universally infantile? Right. I think you've missed the point of "developed in infancy", like you know, our entire ability to comprehend the world and almost all of our future character traits and "infantile". In any case even assuming you hadn't missed this difference it becomes the case then it's clearly infantile in a deeply different respect than Santa or the tooth fairy which are based on lack of incredulity and a factional basis from which to think certain explanations for how things happen are clearly wrong. Neither is based on a concept of intimacy on the contrary they actively propagate the thought that they are unreachable in any sense but their isolated sphere of action (Christmas day and when you lose a tooth).

Secondly, the in-built continual need of a parental figure is not mutually exclusive with its existence.

Thirdly it's speculative extrapolation on the reasons people hold certain beliefs given the authors stance on the veracity of that belief. Likewise you get a great deal of theist speculation on the fact that atheists are only so because they fear facing up to their own immorality or whatever. Given both sides say the other are so demonstrably wrong I fail to see why your psycho-babble about "real" reasons for believing in God are any more convincing than theirs for you not believing in God.

With that said let's carry on with this:

(Original post by Maker)
Thats an interesting history but its really a description of older religions rather than an explanation why most popular religions are now mono theistic.

Because religions and intellectual ideas are self-perpetuating insofar as they are sustainable? There's no denying the environment you're raised in is very likely to match the religion you adopt, but the same is fairly true of political views nor does it necessarily make the view any less credible.

(Original post by Maker)
Why was Christianity adopted for example? Just because the Emperor said so doesn't mean people would take it on board. Various other religions was practised by Romans and subjects of the Empire for many centuries after Christianity was made the state religion of the Roman Empire.

Yeah and their temples were slowly subject to loss of funding and support (and in many cases active iconoclasm and looting), political elites converted for expedient purposes meaning it lost top-down support and was eventually declared illegal and rooted out.

Moreover there's no bottom-up incentive to cling to the paganism of the old Roman empire in much the same way as Christians could support Christianity in the face of persecution because of it's concept as a mutual contract (though I would say early Christian persecution is much exaggerated in any case). If the Gods could not protect their own interests and temples how on earth would they protect you, why believe in and sacrifice to them then? Again purely historic reasons for the decline of paganism that are far more detectable (hell the sincerity of Constantine's conversion is eminently questionable given he at one point claimed to have witnessed Apollo, clearly religious sincerity either way wasn't a big deal to him) than some paternalistic narrative of childhood.

(Original post by Maker)
But in reality, most of the jobs that used to have individual gods to do are now parcelled out to various saints so one could argue Christianity is not really a mono theistic religion at all but an adaptation of older religions where the centralisation of power is more explicit. For example the Greeks had Zeus as the top god with a lot of lesser gods, similarly Christianity has God at the top with Angels and Satan as the equivalent of lesser gods.

One could but it would be irrelevant to the point you were trying to make.

(Original post by Maker)
The Christian god can still screw people up, look at Sodom when people didn't follow god's teaching and got the bullet, not very different from the vengeful Greek and Roman gods.

Of course, the Greek gods were one big family and similarly, the Christian god is also a family so its easy for humans to fit themselves into this family

Except that the Christian God is an inclusive family, the Greek and Roman Gods were not. They had their sphere, and could act in ours, we could offer them things to make sure that action was in nice ways. There is very little "personal" attachment to Gods in any intimate sense. More like doing business with a company vastly bigger and more powerful than yours in the hope you get something out of it.

The point is this, if Morris relies on paternalistic substitution as the reason for religious belief then he has woefully misunderstood the history of religion and has failed to account for anything other than Abrahamic faiths in his model (which of course begs the question, what motivated religious belief in others and why is this not more applicable to Abrahamic religion). This should of course, be enough to lead you to question his conclusions.

[Snorrrlax]

Some people on here seem to think there's a big difference between them, but when if you think about it, they are all unbelievable stories.

[imasupercoolgeek]

First and foremost OP, 6 days, not 7 lol. And I must say I am rather displeased at the way you attempted to make believing in God rather idiotic. As one poster said, many have had visions and encounters through NDE's.

People always say "Why doesn't God reveal Himself to us?". HOW IDIOTIC! Jesus Himself came down and yet people still don't believe. The devil has done a good job deceiving this world.

You want to know whether God is real or not? Don't look at what I say. Don't look at what TV preachers say. Don't look at what others say. Look at what God has said. In His Word.


This was posted from The Student Room's iPhone/iPad App

[TheGrinningSkull]

(Original post by Snorrrlax)
Some people on here seem to think there's a big difference between them, but when if you think about it, they are all unbelievable stories.

Some people seem to think there's a big difference between water, petrol and alcohol, but when you think about it, they're all the same really.

/sarcasm in case you didn't detect it.

I have to add though, big-bang-theory's posts are a good read so actually challenge his points instead of going in the same (and quite pathetic) circle that is leading you nowhere. Akin to religious people saying atheists do not believe in a God because they are afraid of being punished as their central argument as he points out.

[aljolson]

(Original post by Snorrrlax)
When you were a child, you were told stories:

Jack and the Beanstalk: A story in which Jack is a poor boy who trades a cow in exchange for some magic beans, these beans grow into a beanstalk all the way up to the clouds where a giant lives, etc.

Santa: The idea that a man from the north pole flies all over the world on the night before Christmas, delivering presents to all children.

The tooth fairy: You were told that if you put a tooth under your pillow over night, a magical fairy would replace it with money.

God: A supernatural being who impregnates a virgin girl without even touching her, created the universe in 7 days, and lives in a mysterious place called heaven, somewhere in the sky.

If you were told that they were all true events, would you continue to believe them all as an adult? It seems to be that we only stop believing in Father Christmas because we are told that he isn't real as we get older. But because we were never officially told that God isn't real, people continued to believe in him. This must be the case, as all the stories seem equally as unbelievable to me.

I accept your analogies, but I don't think that is the reason for theism. Some people just can't accept "nothingness", death frightens the **** out of them, why do so many repent on their deathbed, they cant accept evolution, or the big bang. So they follow multi-millenial aged gossip, and treat it as TRUTH.

[arnoldcd]

(Original post by Snorrrlax)
How do you know that religion isn't something magical set up to satisfy man kind?

technically we dont, we know nothing except we exist... which is why it relies on faith

[arnoldcd]

(Original post by Snorrrlax)
How do you know that religion isn't something magical set up to satisfy man kind?

because i have met with god and he has healed me... i know, whereas you do not, sorry to come across as slightly blunt and almost ignorant but i cannot share with with you what i have i can only try and convince you... for me i know its true, god lives, he reigns in me and i am going to choose to live my life for him... amen!

[TomMc97]

One difference is that there aren't huge communities of people trying to disprove the Tooth Fairy and Santa, and feeling wrongly that they are superior as people because of their denial of these characters' existence.

[JW]

(Original post by arnoldcd)
because i have met with god and he has healed me... i know, whereas you do not, sorry to come across as slightly blunt and almost ignorant but i cannot share with with you what i have i can only try and convince you... for me i know its true, god lives, he reigns in me and i am going to choose to live my life for him... amen!

And the tooth fairy obliged me by bringing many coins! The tooth fairy lives, I know it's true!

[Pinkhead]

(Original post by TomMc97)
One difference is that there aren't huge communities of people trying to disprove the Tooth Fairy and Santa, and feeling wrongly that they are superior as people because of their denial of these characters' existence.

Perhaps that is because there aren't huge communities of people who believe in the tooth fairy and Santa.