Searching for GOD...

[bluehillside Retd.]

Gabriella,

My point was only that the belief can be observed.

I don’t think it was – your “Sure, but if its existence is not testable using the normal tests to identify what exists objectively in the material world, but we can see that the idea of it has an effect on a considerable number of people to the point where it becomes a widespread faith claim, we are left with the provisional conclusion that we cannot know whether it 'exists' somewhere or whether it only exists in people's minds” is still a non sequitur. Whether “we can see that the idea of it has an effect on a considerable number of people to the point where it becomes a widespread faith claim” or we can see just it in one person wearing a tinfoil hat in his shed makes no difference to the “we are left with the provisional conclusion that we cannot know whether it 'exists' somewhere or whether it only exists in people's minds” part. 

Same question as to Stranger - where does it leave us if a belief is unqualified due to lack of objective evidence?

Absent any other means to verify the claim, it leaves us with no sound reasons for believing it (ie, with atheism in this context).
 

If people can't choose their beliefs, what difference does it make? Or are you saying that people can choose their beliefs?

Well, I can. Currently I don’t believe that for example there are aliens on the dark side of the moon. On the other hand, if good evidence to that effect was produced then I would choose to believe it.

Wouldn’t you? 

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

Oh yeh, as if he's going to be into Victor Meldrew type unbelievers take on Crusty theists...

You've collapsed into incomprehensibility again. What are you even trying to say here?
 

Another Hillside hypothesis bites the dust.

There is no "another", and if you want to claim that a hypothesis has bitten the dust then you need to produce an argument to justify that claim rather than just assert it.

Good luck with that.

[Stranger]

The Accountant, OBE, KC

I'm, unusually for me, going to start with a rather long quote. It's from Rationality by Steven Pinker and I'm quoting it because I read it last night and thought "well, exactly!" and it puts things far more neatly an eloquently than I probably could.

People divide their worlds into two zones. One consists of the physical objects around them, the other people they deal with face to face, the memory of their interactions, and the rules and norms that regulate their lives. People have mostly accurate beliefs about this zone, and they reason rationally within it. Within this zone, they believe there’s a real world and that beliefs about it are true or false. They have no choice: that’s the only way to keep gas in the car, money in the bank, and the kids clothed and fed. Call it the reality mindset.

The other zone is the world beyond immediate experience: the distant past, the unknowable future, faraway peoples and places, remote corridors of power, the microscopic, the cosmic, the counterfactual, the metaphysical. People may entertain notions about what happens in these zones, but they have no way of finding out, and anyway it makes no discernible difference to their lives. Beliefs in these zones are narratives, which may be entertaining or inspiring or morally edifying. Whether they are literally “true” or “false” is the wrong question. The function of these beliefs is to construct a social reality that binds the tribe or sect and gives it a moral purpose. Call it the mythology mindset.

Bertrand Russell famously said, “It is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatsoever for supposing it is true.” The key to understanding rampant irrationality is to recognize that Russell’s statement is not a truism but a revolutionary manifesto. For most of human history and prehistory, there were no grounds for supposing that propositions about remote worlds were true. But beliefs about them could be empowering or inspirational, and that made them desirable enough.

Russell’s maxim is the luxury of a technologically advanced society with science, history, journalism, and their infrastructure of truth-seeking, including archival records, digital datasets, high-tech instruments, and communities of editing, fact-checking, and peer review. We children of the Enlightenment embrace the radical creed of universal realism: we hold that all our beliefs should fall within the reality mindset. We care about whether our creation story, our founding legends, our theories of invisible nutrients and germs and forces, our conceptions of the powerful, our suspicions about our enemies, are true or false. That’s because we have the tools to get answers to these questions, or at least to assign them warranted degrees of credence. And we have a technocratic state that should, in theory, put these beliefs into practice.

But as desirable as that creed is, it is not the natural human way of believing. In granting an imperialistic mandate to the reality mindset to conquer the universe of belief and push mythology to the margins, we are the weird ones—or, as evolutionary social scientists like to say, the WEIRD ones: Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic.⁴³ At least, the highly educated among us are, in our best moments. The human mind is adapted to understanding remote spheres of existence through a mythology mindset. It’s not because we descended from Pleistocene hunter-gatherers specifically, but because we descended from people who could not or did not sign on to the Enlightenment ideal of universal realism. Submitting all of one’s beliefs to the trials of reason and evidence is an unnatural skill, like literacy and numeracy, and must be instilled and cultivated.

Suffice to say that I unashamedly aspire to 'universal realism'.

Not sure what point you're making here. If you believe that people can choose their beliefs, do you have any objective evidence or sound reasoning for that belief?

I don't think people can choose their beliefs in the 'reality mindset'. As an example, when you discuss counterintuitive logical results (like the Monty Hall problem, for example), some people just cannot see the correct answer, even though it's logically provable, and just refuse to accept it. Basically you're either convinced or not. However, there seems to be some flexibility in ones philosophy of belief (whether you even want to be a universal realist, for example) and perhaps within in the 'mythology mindset'. I don't know because I don't think I actually have one, at least not in the same way that people with religious ideas that they admit there is no evidence for, like yourself, seem to.

You said before that you preferred the person you are as a theist to the person you were as an atheist. That sounds a bit like you were making a choice...? To be clear, that's a genuine question, I'm trying to tell you how you think.

Do you have a link I can read to studies showing evidence of a different level of magical thinking linked to 'tribal' religious identity (as opposed to 'tribal' political identity or ethnic/cultural/ moral identity) that is shown to cause an extra or different level of violence in people?

Since I qualified the statement with "seems to me" and I didn't mention violence specifically, no. But then I haven't looked as yet. Further, the point was more about fundamentalism than tribalism. Tribalism causes divisions in all spheres. In light of the above quote, I think that danger comes when extreme views are moved from the 'mythology mindset' to the 'reality mindset'. Another example from the book is extreme conspiracy theories, like QAnon. Generally speaking, people seem to keep that in the mythology mindset, in the sense that they don't do what any normal person might do if they really believed that a paedophile ring was operating from the basement of a pizza restaurant, like calling the police or something. Somebody did storm into it with a gun to 'rescue the kids' once, presumably because he'd moved the belief to the reality mindset.

So it's not unique to fundamentalist religion, but fundamentalist religion seems to be more common in the world than things like extreme conspiracy theories.

If somebody literally believes that they will instantly go to heaven if they die - especially while "doing God's will", whatever they happen to think that is - in the same way that they believe that the sun will rise in the morning, or that rain is wet, then the potential for extreme behaviour is clearly increased.

Presumably there isn't a problem in a democracy with people holding or arguing for differing beliefs including beliefs about something existing, given the alternative is some sort of a dictatorship?

Of course not, no, so long as they don't harm other people or restrict their rights, people have the right to believe anything.

The problematic issue seems to be with people who believe in the absolute truth of their particular belief AND also believe it is not acceptable to deviate from the norms of behaviour/thought that they hold to be true AND are willing to commit violence to force others to not deviate or to accept their belief is true - presumably because they also believe the end justifies the means.

That's certainly one way things go wrong, yes. I think we could discuss your other examples at length but it would probably be a bit of a derail here.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

Gabriella,

I don’t think it was

Yes it was as they are independent clauses 

– your “Sure, but if its existence is not testable using the normal tests to identify what exists objectively in the material world, but we can see that the idea of it has an effect on a considerable number of people to the point where it becomes a widespread faith claim, we are left with the provisional conclusion that we cannot know whether it 'exists' somewhere or whether it only exists in people's minds” is still a non sequitur. Whether “we can see that the idea of it has an effect on a considerable number of people to the point where it becomes a widespread faith claim” or we can see just it in one person wearing a tinfoil hat in his shed makes no difference to the “we are left with the provisional conclusion that we cannot know whether it 'exists' somewhere or whether it only exists in people's minds” part.

Nope - not a non sequitur. My sentence is made up of independent clauses. In English grammar if you have an independent clause with a comma at the start and end of the independent clause and with the conjunction "but", it's a separate point from the other independent clause and does not need the bit before the comma or after the comma, which would leave us with the “Sure, but if its existence is not testable using the normal tests to identify what exists objectively in the material world, we are left with the provisional conclusion that we cannot know whether it 'exists' somewhere or whether it only exists in people's minds."

 

Well, I can.

Do you have any objective evidence for your belief?

Currently I don’t believe that for example there are aliens on the dark side of the moon. On the other hand, if good evidence to that effect was produced then I would choose to believe it.

Wouldn’t you?

It might feel like you are choosing and you might believe you are choosing - do you have any objective evidence to support your belief that you are choosing your belief?

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

The Accountant, OBE, KC

I'm, unusually for me, going to start with a rather long quote. It's from Rationality by Steven Pinker and I'm quoting it because I read it last night and thought "well, exactly!" and it puts things far more neatly an eloquently than I probably could.

People divide their worlds into two zones. One consists of the physical objects around them, the other people they deal with face to face, the memory of their interactions, and the rules and norms that regulate their lives. People have mostly accurate beliefs about this zone, and they reason rationally within it. Within this zone, they believe there’s a real world and that beliefs about it are true or false. They have no choice: that’s the only way to keep gas in the car, money in the bank, and the kids clothed and fed. Call it the reality mindset.

The other zone is the world beyond immediate experience: the distant past, the unknowable future, faraway peoples and places, remote corridors of power, the microscopic, the cosmic, the counterfactual, the metaphysical. People may entertain notions about what happens in these zones, but they have no way of finding out, and anyway it makes no discernible difference to their lives. Beliefs in these zones are narratives, which may be entertaining or inspiring or morally edifying. Whether they are literally “true” or “false” is the wrong question. The function of these beliefs is to construct a social reality that binds the tribe or sect and gives it a moral purpose. Call it the mythology mindset.

Bertrand Russell famously said, “It is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatsoever for supposing it is true.” The key to understanding rampant irrationality is to recognize that Russell’s statement is not a truism but a revolutionary manifesto. For most of human history and prehistory, there were no grounds for supposing that propositions about remote worlds were true. But beliefs about them could be empowering or inspirational, and that made them desirable enough.

Russell’s maxim is the luxury of a technologically advanced society with science, history, journalism, and their infrastructure of truth-seeking, including archival records, digital datasets, high-tech instruments, and communities of editing, fact-checking, and peer review. We children of the Enlightenment embrace the radical creed of universal realism: we hold that all our beliefs should fall within the reality mindset. We care about whether our creation story, our founding legends, our theories of invisible nutrients and germs and forces, our conceptions of the powerful, our suspicions about our enemies, are true or false. That’s because we have the tools to get answers to these questions, or at least to assign them warranted degrees of credence. And we have a technocratic state that should, in theory, put these beliefs into practice.

But as desirable as that creed is, it is not the natural human way of believing. In granting an imperialistic mandate to the reality mindset to conquer the universe of belief and push mythology to the margins, we are the weird ones—or, as evolutionary social scientists like to say, the WEIRD ones: Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic.⁴³ At least, the highly educated among us are, in our best moments. The human mind is adapted to understanding remote spheres of existence through a mythology mindset. It’s not because we descended from Pleistocene hunter-gatherers specifically, but because we descended from people who could not or did not sign on to the Enlightenment ideal of universal realism. Submitting all of one’s beliefs to the trials of reason and evidence is an unnatural skill, like literacy and numeracy, and must be instilled and cultivated.

Suffice to say that I unashamedly aspire to 'universal realism'.

Interesting and yes it was eloquent.

I don't think people can choose their beliefs in the 'reality mindset'. As an example, when you discuss counterintuitive logical results (like the Monty Hall problem, for example), some people just cannot see the correct answer, even though it's logically provable, and just refuse to accept it. Basically you're either convinced or not. However, there seems to be some flexibility in ones philosophy of belief (whether you even want to be a universal realist, for example) and perhaps within in the 'mythology mindset'. I don't know because I don't think I actually have one, at least not in the same way that people with religious ideas that they admit there is no evidence for, like yourself, seem to.

I am not sure I can choose whether I want to be a universal realist, so much as consciously become aware of my preference - and my preference is probably based on some combination of my nature/ nurture. 

You said before that you preferred the person you are as a theist to the person you were as an atheist. That sounds a bit like you were making a choice...? To be clear, that's a genuine question, I'm trying to tell you how you think.

My comment about preference was an observation - it wasn't meant to indicate that I think I have a choice about being a theist or an atheist. I look back on the way I felt and how I interacted with the world and people as an atheist and compare it to how I am now, and I think if I met both versions of me I would prefer to hang out with the theist me as I think I am less concerned about other people's opinions of me and curious and tolerant about alternative perspectives as a theist than I was as an atheist. Of course that could have nothing to do with being a theist or atheist - maybe I changed for other reasons such as getting older or becoming a parent. And it is not meant to be a generalisation about all theists or atheists. But what I do remember is that if I hadn't become a Muslim I would not have decided to get married when I did at age 23 (as an atheist I wasn't particularly interested in marriage so I'm not sure I ever would have married). If I hadn't got married I wouldn't have had kids when I did (I wasn't particularly interested in kids but it seemed like the done thing once you got married to have some), and taking care of children changed me a lot...I feel the change was for the better.

Since I qualified the statement with "seems to me" and I didn't mention violence specifically, no. But then I haven't looked as yet. Further, the point was more about fundamentalism than tribalism. Tribalism causes divisions in all spheres. In light of the above quote, I think that danger comes when extreme views are moved from the 'mythology mindset' to the 'reality mindset'. Another example from the book is extreme conspiracy theories, like QAnon. Generally speaking, people seem to keep that in the mythology mindset, in the sense that they don't do what any normal person might do if they really believed that a paedophile ring was operating from the basement of a pizza restaurant, like calling the police or something. Somebody did storm into it with a gun to 'rescue the kids' once, presumably because he'd moved the belief to the reality mindset.

So it's not unique to fundamentalist religion, but fundamentalist religion seems to be more common in the world than things like extreme conspiracy theories.

I am genuinely interested in getting some stats on which is more common. It's hard to tell - the media focus on religious fundamentalism and widely report instances of it and less so when it comes to conspiracy theories. So is the impression we form based on reporting differences rather than an assessment of actual data and stats?

If somebody literally believes that they will instantly go to heaven if they die - especially while "doing God's will", whatever they happen to think that is - in the same way that they believe that the sun will rise in the morning, or that rain is wet, then the potential for extreme behaviour is clearly increased.

Ok but the belief that they can be sure they will instantly go to heaven isn't mainstream religious belief. So not sure how you can show normal religious beliefs are problematic because of certain non-mainstream beliefs held by a minority of people. Society doesn't seem to operate on the basis of collective responsibility - is there any area where we hold a group responsible if some members of the group hold psychotic or otherwise problematic unverifiable beliefs?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Gabriella,

Yes it was as they are independent clauses

No they’re not because the “but” is a modifier and so turns the two sub-clauses into a single, compound clause.   

Nope - not a non sequitur. My sentence is made up of independent clauses. In English grammar if you have an independent clause with a comma at the start and end of the independent clause and with the conjunction "but", it's a separate point from the other independent clause and does not need the bit before the comma or after the comma, which would leave us with the “Sure, but if its existence is not testable using the normal tests to identify what exists objectively in the material world, we are left with the provisional conclusion that we cannot know whether it 'exists' somewhere or whether it only exists in people's minds."

See above. Your sentence was:

"Sure, but if its existence is not testable using the normal tests to identify what exists objectively in the material world, but we can see that the idea of it has an effect on a considerable number of people to the point where it becomes a widespread faith claim, we are left with the provisional conclusion that we cannot know whether it 'exists' somewhere or whether it only exists in people's minds.” 

The “if” makes the following clause conditional, and the modifying “but” joins the sub-clauses to which the prefacing “if” relates into one compound clause. The following “we are left with” etc then draws a conclusion from the compound (ie, two-part) clause that precedes it. If that were not the case in “but we can see that the idea of it.." etc the “but” would have no purpose.         

Do you have any objective evidence for your belief?

Other than that I have not believed things to be true in the past that I later decided were true what evidence do you think there could be? Do you have evidence for the contrary position?

It might feel like you are choosing and you might believe you are choosing - do you have any objective evidence to support your belief that you are choosing your belief?

See above. You’re conflating here the underlying epistemic level of abstraction with the colloquial, day-to-day level of lived experience. At the former level there can’t be a separate “we” to “choose” anything without falling into infinite regress. Did “you” “choose” your children's names, whether to have tea or coffee today etc? The ineluctable logic is that the “choice” we perceive we make must instead the playing out of a deterministic system with no “real” choice at all, so choice itself is essentially illusory (the point AB keeps failing to grasp).

On the other hand, we all perceive ourselves to makes choices all the time – our children's names and tea vs coffee included. This is the type of choice I was referring to when I talked about evidence for aliens on the dark side of the moon. At one level, yes – I would then choose to believe there are aliens on the dark side of the moon. If you want go nuclear though to argue that the whole notion of choice is illusory in any case, that statement is also true but at a different, underlying level of abstraction but that negates any discussion of choice at all.       

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

Gabriella,

No they’re not because “but” turns the two sub-clauses into a single compound clause.

What is a compound clause? Got a link with an example of whatever it is you think you are trying to say?   

See above. Your sentence was:

“Sure, but if its existence is not testable using the normal tests to identify what exists objectively in the material world, but we can see that the idea of it has an effect on a considerable number of people to the point where it becomes a widespread faith claim, we are left with the provisional conclusion that we cannot know whether it 'exists' somewhere or whether it only exists in people's minds.” 

The “if” makes the following clause conditional, and the “but” joins the sub-clauses to which the prefacing “if” relates into one compound clause. The following “we are left with” then draws a conclusion from the compound (ie, two-part) clause the precedes it. If that were not the case in “but we can see that the idea of it has an effect on a considerable number of people to the point where it becomes a widespread faith claim” the “but” would have no purpose.

No it doesn't. The "if " is related to the "we are left with the provisional conclusion". The "but" is a separate point that we can observe the phenomenon, namely that the idea has an effect on people.

Other than that I have not believed things to be true in the past that I later decided were true what evidence do you think there could be?

So no objective evidence then?

Do you have evidence for the contrary position?

Other than that I can't choose to believe something I don't actually believe, what kind of evidence are you looking for?

See above. You’re conflating here the underlying epistemic level of abstraction with the colloquial, day-to-day level of lived experience. At the former level there can’t be a separate “we” to “choose” anything without falling into infinite regress. Did “you” “choose” your childrens’ names, whether to have tea or coffee today etc? The ineluctable logic is that the “choice” we perceive we make must instead the playing out of a deterministic system with no “real” choice at all, so choice itself is essentially illusory (the point AB keeps failing to grasp).

Yes and apparently you were also failing to grasp it too, just like AB.

On the other hand, we all perceive ourselves to makes choices all the time – our childrens’ names and tea vs coffee included. This is the type of choice I was referring to when I talked about evidence for aliens on the dark side of the moon. At one level, yes – I would then choose to believe there are aliens on the dark side of the moon. If you want go nuclear though to argue that the whole notion of choice is illusory in any case, that statement is also true but at a different, underlying level of abstraction but that negates any discussion of choice at all.     

It's not going nuclear - it's a simple enough point. Can you choose to believe something you don't believe?

[Stranger]

I am not sure I can choose whether I want to be a universal realist, so much as consciously become aware of my preference - and my
preference is probably based on some combination of my nature/ nurture. 

To be clear, I'm not talking about the impossible idea of 'choice' that Alan keeps on suggesting we have, but rather the idea of choice in the compatibilist sense, i.e. the person your nature, nurture, and life experience has made you has, for all practical purposes, a choice. Rather like I can decide to go and read a book, or watch TV, or do whatever else, after I've finished on this forum.

I am genuinely interested in getting some stats on which is more common. It's hard to tell - the media focus on religious fundamentalism and widely report instances of it and less so when it comes to conspiracy theories. So is the impression we form based on reporting differences rather than an assessment of actual data and stats?

Maybe either you or me will choose to do some research. 

Not sure about the media coverage, I seem to have heard more about batshit crazy conspiracy theories recently.

Ok but the belief that they can be sure they will instantly go to heaven isn't mainstream religious belief. So not sure how you can show normal religious beliefs are problematic because of certain non-mainstream beliefs held by a minority of people. Society doesn't seem to operate on the basis of collective responsibility - is there any area where we hold a group responsible if some members of the group hold psychotic or otherwise problematic unverifiable beliefs?

I wasn't suggesting that your average (say) Church of England member poses some kind of threat, nor any of the very pleasant Muslim neighbours I've had over the years living in Birmingham (don't know nearly as much about Islam, I'm afraid. I was brought up in a culturally Christian environment and then became somewhat disinterested in religion.) On the other hand, I can't help thinking that more 'universal realism' would be a good thing because it would make the extreme views even more marginal.

I always remember when David Cameron was PM, he was on the Today programme one morning, after some Islamist terrorist indecent, and said something like "they don't serve any God", and I was thinking; what!? Do you have some list of 'valid' versions of 'God' hidden away somewhere? Who gets to decide which concepts of 'God' are, in whatever sense, 'valid' or 'real'? Once somebody accepts a version of God or gods, without any evidence, how can they then criticise other people's, more extreme, versions?

How, for example, can some gentile CofE member tell people from the Westboro Baptist Church that their 'God' isn't the 'real' one?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Stranger,

Or perhaps he worships a celestial gamer kid who was given a super advanced version of The Sims for Christmas?

As if the creator of this universe is going to be a character from the early 21 century. It looks like Stranger has custody of the brain cell today. Yes they would probably have to be scientific and technical but their universe need not be like ours at all to be fair to Stranger.

Gamer kid? Are you so bereft of any imagination?
 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

use your loaf. If you state that something is contingent the next logical question is on what.
That cannot be bucked and yet you keep cropping up in your full fancy Roy Rodgers rodeo kit

[Alan Burns]

Yes, it's very easy to read the drastically out of keeping sequel to see where the editors tried to correct the horrendous implications of the depictions of the genocidal maniac from the first one .....

The New Testament comprises 27 books written by nine different authors and contains details about the teachings and events relating to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, purported to be derived from eye witness accounts.
Are you suggesting that these nine authors somehow collaborated to produce the greatest hoax in the history of mankind?
And we have the unique, life changing, world changing teachings of Jesus which have been the foundation of western society.
Was it all just derived from a man made attempt to correct what you perceive to be some misguided human idea of God?
Or was it the fulfilment of God's message of salvation?

[Gordon]

The New Testament comprises 27 books written and revised by an unknown number of by nine different authors and contains anecdotes details about the claimed teachings and events relating to the life, death and alleged resurrection of Jesus Christ, purported to be derived from eye witness accounts for which there is not a shred of corrorboration or clear provenance.

FIFY (red = my amendments).

Are you suggesting that these nine authors somehow collaborated to produce the greatest hoax in the history of mankind?

Yes - since the provenance is unknown the risks of the likes of bias, mistakes, propaganda and outright fabrication cannot be excluded: therefore that there maybe a hoax element is possible. btw - your "greatest hoax in the history of mankind" is hyperbole - Christianity may have survived in certain areas but in some it is in decline, and that implies that for many people (like me) it is an irrelevance, especially since the core claims are too ridiculous to be taken seriously.

And we have the unique, life changing, world changing teachings of Jesus which have been the foundation of western society.

I suspect you're over-egging the pudding here.

Was it all just derived from a man made attempt to correct what you perceive to be some misguided human idea of God?

I'd say it was all "man made", and anyway the "misguided human idea of God" you mention is begging the question. I'd further say that social situation in antiquity, from when these stories emerge, is rather different from today: in some areas Christianity is no longer as influential or relevant as it once was and perhaps people are less credulous these days regarding the obviously fantastical claims that Christians subscribe to.

Or was it the fulfilment of God's message of salvation?

Seem unlikely, and again you're begging the question.

[Outrider]

The New Testament comprises 27 books written by nine different authors and contains details about the teachings and events relating to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, purported to be derived from eye witness accounts.

Contains allegations about the teachings, life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

Are you suggesting that these nine authors somehow collaborated to produce the greatest hoax in the history of mankind?

It's not controversial that at least some of gospel accounts are heavily plagiarised from other gospel accounts. Otherwise, for the rest, it's a possibility, but I think it's more likely that of a diverse range of opinions and ideas those people who selected particularly these works - and then in some instances edited them - had a particular agenda and selected these works. That it reflects, probably, a broader shift in the emphasis of Christianity from the Judaism that came before it is undoubted, but that doesn't change the point that it's an attempt to recalibrate the depiction of God from a wrathful bringer of vengeance, a legacy no doubt of its origin as a war god, and to the (for the time) more pastoral, loving god that modern Christianity typically tries to focus on.

The problem Christianity has is that it explicitly stands by those earlier works, and therefore still needs to explain the apparently psychotic breakdown of the allegedly 'perfectly moral' god that leads to genocide, advocacy of rape and slavery, blatant misogyny and homophobia.

And we have the unique, life changing, world changing teachings of Jesus which have been the foundation of western society.

They were the foundation of Western Society, perhaps, but thankfully we're starting to move beyond their fairly obvious limitations. Where western civilisation is at its best is not where Christianity leads, but where the shackles of religion have been neutered.

Was it all just derived from a man made attempt to correct what you perceive to be some misguided human idea of God?

That seems likely to me, yes.

Or was it the fulfilment of God's message of salvation?

Which message of salvation? Ask ten people and you'll get twelve answers, all certain that the other four are wrong. As messages go, it's a piss-poor piece of communication, especially given how self-evidently bad the translations are that most of that 'Western Civilisation' you're lauding relies on.

O.

[Stranger]

use your loaf. If you state that something is contingent the next logical question is on what.

Interesting that you responded to this, and some later posts, skipping over my more substantive replies: #46888 and #46891, the first of which explains the amusement I expressed in the post you responded to here and asks you a pertinent question (albeit in a rather light-hearted manner, I really do find this hilarious, sorry). The second explains (again) the exact nature of your logical blunder.

Take all the time you need but it will be telling if you end up just ignoring them...

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

To be clear, I'm not talking about the impossible idea of 'choice' that Alan keeps on suggesting we have, but rather the idea of choice in the compatibilist sense, i.e. the person your nature, nurture, and life experience has made you has, for all practical purposes, a choice. Rather like I can decide to go and read a book, or watch TV, or do whatever else, after I've finished on this forum.

Thanks for the link to the philosophical opinions on whether compatibilism is an accurate description of human free will. From your link, we have Schopenhauer's  "Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills."[14] In other words, although an agent may often be free to act according to a motive, the nature of that motive is determined.

In that compatibilist view, where people are held morally responsible for their choice on whether to act on their desire (though the feeling of desire or motivation is not something they can will), society decides to hold an agent morally responsible for their actions, but presumably not morally responsible for thoughts or desires or beliefs? So it is possible (e.g. in France) to fine people for wearing hijab in public or to punish people for forcing someone else to wear hijab, but would not make much sense to hold people morally responsible for having the desire to wear hijab or the belief that it is pleasing to Allah for a woman to wear hijab, since under compatibilism that desire is considered to be determined and not free.

It seems to be possible to brainwash or indoctrinate a small group of people into a particular desire for a limited amount of time, so perhaps it is possible to indoctrinate some people to aspire to be universal realists, but given it hasn't worked that well for religions despite the centuries of trying - since there are so many differing interpretations and views on religion - I think human motivations and desires and aspirations will remain diverse.
 
Regardless, we don't seem to have a definitive empirical answer about the level of determinism /free will/ randomness in our choices. Based on my experience, I doubt it is possible to argue someone into belief or disbelief if the proposition (god) is not suitable for objective testing, and remains a subjective interpretation of personal experiences based on nature/nurture.

I wasn't suggesting that your average (say) Church of England member poses some kind of threat, nor any of the very pleasant Muslim neighbours I've had over the years living in Birmingham (don't know nearly as much about Islam, I'm afraid. I was brought up in a culturally Christian environment and then became somewhat disinterested in religion.) On the other hand, I can't help thinking that more 'universal realism' would be a good thing because it would make the extreme views even more marginal.

Yes - I think it's always good to keep all the different groups in check by having a variety of philosophical views so one view does not dominate and turn into group-think or indoctrination and people start going down the thought-police route.

I always remember when David Cameron was PM, he was on the Today programme one morning, after some Islamist terrorist indecent, and said something like "they don't serve any God", and I was thinking; what!? Do you have some list of 'valid' versions of 'God' hidden away somewhere? Who gets to decide which concepts of 'God' are, in whatever sense, 'valid' or 'real'? Once somebody accepts a version of God or gods, without any evidence, how can they then criticise other people's, more extreme, versions?

How, for example, can some gentile CofE member tell people from the Westboro Baptist Church that their 'God' isn't the 'real' one?

Maybe Cameron was just expressing his right to make claims about god to counter the claims made by the terrorists - to teach them that anyone can make claims about gods, and terrorists don't have a monopoly on claims about beliefs just because they accompany their claims with illegal violence.

ETA: Not sure I understand the point you are making about criticising other people's beliefs. Surely we are all free to criticise anything anyone else believes? e.g we are all free to criticise views such as:  it is ok/ not ok to commit violence to save animals or the planet; it is ok/not ok to go to war where civilians might be collateral damage or use drones or poison or some other means to assassinate certain people who your government deems to be enemies of your country because it might prevent more deaths in the future or serve your country's economic or political interests.

[ekim]

From your link, we have Schopenhauer's  "Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills."[14] In other words, although an agent may often be free to act according to a motive, the nature of that motive is determined.

This is possibly why some religions distinguish between self determined motives and God determined motives so that there is an element of freedom from self centredness when God centredness takes over e.g. it is the Will of Allah.

[Alan Burns]

Which message of salvation? Ask ten people and you'll get twelve answers, all certain that the other four are wrong. As messages go, it's a piss-poor piece of communication, especially given how self-evidently bad the translations are that most of that 'Western Civilisation' you're lauding relies on.

I am aware of only one message of salvation derived from the New Testament:
The eternal salvation of the human soul for those who can accept Jesus as their Lord and Saviour.

John 3:16
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

[Sebastian Toe]

I am aware of only one message of salvation derived from the New Testament:
The eternal salvation of the human soul for those who can accept Jesus as their Lord and Saviour.

John 3:16
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

What happens to the souls of those who are/were not aware of , have/had never heard of or will not become aware of Jesus and his path to salvation?

[torridon]

I am aware of only one message of salvation derived from the New Testament:
The eternal salvation of the human soul for those who can accept Jesus as their Lord and Saviour.

John 3:16
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Most religions teach something similiar; whilst the vocabulary and specifics may vary, the underlying idea of achieving spiritual liberation or union with the divine is a common theme across most religions. 

[Alan Burns]

Most religions teach something similiar; whilst the vocabulary and specifics may vary, the underlying idea of achieving spiritual liberation or union with the divine is a common theme across most religions.

But Christianity is the only religion which can claim to have had direct dialogue with God in the person of Jesus Christ

[Alan Burns]

What happens to the souls of those who are/were not aware of , have/had never heard of or will not become aware of Jesus and his path to salvation?

I am sure God will take into account those who have not encountered the message of salvation given by Jesus.
But I fear for the salvation of those who have heard His word and rejected it.

[torridon]

But Christianity is the only religion which can claim to have had direct dialogue with God in the person of Jesus Christ

And Islam is the only religion where the scriptures were dictated word by word.

Now what ?

[torridon]

I am sure God will take into account those who have not encountered the message of salvation given by Jesus.
But I fear for the salvation of those who have heard His word and rejected it.

And Allah will not be pleased with those who fail to honour and follow the righteous path given to the Prophet.

Now what ?

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

But Christianity is the only religion which can claim to have had direct dialogue with God in the person of Jesus Christ

Well, if we're discussing competing claims, Islam claims that the Quran is the word of God and the Quran states that Jesus never claimed he was God to his followers because Jesus preached there is only one God, which is the God that Jesus worshipped. That would mean there was direct dialogue with Jesus, who was not God....

 

[Gordon]

But Christianity is the only religion which can claim to have had direct dialogue with God in the person of Jesus Christ

Have you considered the possibility that this claim may be misguided or just plain wrong?