Why should we give up our beliefs?

[ekim]

Smashing post jakswan.

A few years ago Richard Holloway - that's former Bishop Richard Holloway - wrote a book called Godless Morality in which he argued that when discussing any moral matters religious belief had to be set aside if you ever hope to reach agreement. You can't hope to persuade an atheist that your version of 'God says yes' or 'God says no' has any traction whatsoever; every party around the table has to start and end with principles that they can all agree to, otherwise there's no point having a discussion at all.

You won't find any pagan disagreeing with that. I don't think I've ever read or heard anything from any pagan saying 'God wants' or 'God thinks'. There's not much consensus in paganism but if it does exist it is in agreeing we are all personally responsible and accountable for our own morality.

But I still come back to questioning why, given that we will/would have a secular society in which religion has no say in matters such as marriage equality, it would still be seen as desirable by some atheists that we all lose our personal sense of the mystical.

As it is a 'personal sense' I doubt whether atheists (or theists) would have any control over it.  What they might seek control over is any attempt to proselytise mystical assertions as facts applicable to everybody.  From organised religion's point of view there is a fine line between being a mystic and being a heretic, which is probably why mystics often tended to lead isolated lives.

[jakswan]

Smashing post jakswan.

A few years ago Richard Holloway - that's former Bishop Richard Holloway - wrote a book called Godless Morality in which he argued that when discussing any moral matters religious belief had to be set aside if you ever hope to reach agreement. You can't hope to persuade an atheist that your version of 'God says yes' or 'God says no' has any traction whatsoever; every party around the table has to start and end with principles that they can all agree to, otherwise there's no point having a discussion at all.

You won't find any pagan disagreeing with that. I don't think I've ever read or heard anything from any pagan saying 'God wants' or 'God thinks'. There's not much consensus in paganism but if it does exist it is in agreeing we are all personally responsible and accountable for our own morality.

But I still come back to questioning why, given that we will/would have a secular society in which religion has no say in matters such as marriage equality, it would still be seen as desirable by some atheists that we all lose our personal sense of the mystical.

Cheers Shaker.

Religion does have a say in marriage equality, your marriage equality, but not mine or anyone else's.

[Jack Knave]

Beliefs, religion, or experiences/spirituality?

If we have a secular society, why should it be desirable for us all to be atheist? Why do people look forward to a utopian ideal of universal non-belief?

Because experience has shown that differing beliefs can cause much harm.

You mean like politics?

[Leonard James]

Beliefs, religion, or experiences/spirituality?

If we have a secular society, why should it be desirable for us all to be atheist? Why do people look forward to a utopian ideal of universal non-belief?

Because experience has shown that differing beliefs can cause much harm.

You mean like politics?

Well I was actually referring to differing religious beliefs ... but differing political ones can be just as harmful.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Religious views will never be totally eradicated
[/quote]
Susan. How do you know it's not you and your fellow denizens who are the ailment?

[Sassy]

Can i jump in here, because it makes sense to drop all the silly stuff(religion) and concentrate in what is real/factual/testable/re-testable/honest/reliable and the yet to be discovered wonders for the sake of our planet. Faith answers nothing.

We do not have anything factual about how life first came into being or when...next!

Which is completely and utterly irrelevant to anything important about life here and now.

Explain what HERE & NOW, has to do with life?  Not a brilliant answer from you shakes.. not even a good answer...

Read what was written and try to take in what the reason for the reply is...

[Sassy]

Because hope makes the present not good enough. If it turns out that the present is all we have, then our whole lives become not good enough.

There is a difference between acceptance of life today and the life and hope of the future...

Hope does not have a negative affect on now. It makes now worth living believing things will be as GOOD not Better in the future...
Glass half empty and glass half full.


What happens in a persons life is not about how good or bad they see themselves.Other people and their actions affect how and individual person lives.Christianity...God and Jesus Christ affect the persons life and the power of Spirit is what assures the person that the life here is not the ultimate that is still to come.

[Sassy]

Just found on Wikipedia (on the page for 'Absurdism'):

The rejection of hope, in absurdism, denotes the refusal to believe in anything more than what this absurd life provides. Hope, Camus emphasizes, however, has nothing to do with despair (meaning that the two terms are not opposites). One can still live fully while rejecting hope, and, in fact, can only do so without hope. Hope is perceived by the absurdist as another fraudulent method of evading the Absurd, and by not having hope, one is motivated to live every fleeting moment to the fullest. In the words of Nikos Kazantzakis' epitaph: "I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free."

The bible states:-

Happy people always enjoy life...


15.The life of the poor is a constant struggle, but happy people always enjoy life.

What makes me sad in life is the troubles of other people throughout the world... Seeing children starving and disease ridden.Mentally handicapped being mistreated and seeing those young persons life ebbing through disease here.

If I am honest these things make me sad and really hurt me...
It has been a daily reality for myself seeing and experiencing it first hand due to my own disabled daughter.

One family has a mother and three children with a disease similar to muscular dystrophy, the youngest died and the other are showing symptoms now which means they could soon die.
It breaks my heart to see these things...

I am thankful for the LORD because I know those children are with him and they are in full health...

But I still hurt for them and their family...

[floo]

Just found on Wikipedia (on the page for 'Absurdism'):

The rejection of hope, in absurdism, denotes the refusal to believe in anything more than what this absurd life provides. Hope, Camus emphasizes, however, has nothing to do with despair (meaning that the two terms are not opposites). One can still live fully while rejecting hope, and, in fact, can only do so without hope. Hope is perceived by the absurdist as another fraudulent method of evading the Absurd, and by not having hope, one is motivated to live every fleeting moment to the fullest. In the words of Nikos Kazantzakis' epitaph: "I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free."

The bible states:-

Happy people always enjoy life...


15.The life of the poor is a constant struggle, but happy people always enjoy life.

What makes me sad in life is the troubles of other people throughout the world... Seeing children starving and disease ridden.Mentally handicapped being mistreated and seeing those young persons life ebbing through disease here.

If I am honest these things make me sad and really hurt me...
It has been a daily reality for myself seeing and experiencing it first hand due to my own disabled daughter.

One family has a mother and three children with a disease similar to muscular dystrophy, the youngest died and the other are showing symptoms now which means they could soon die.
It breaks my heart to see these things...

I am thankful for the LORD because I know those children are with him and they are in full health...

But I still hurt for them and their family...

You know nothing of the sort, you just want to believe that to be true!

[Leonard James]

Happy people always enjoy life.

What a daft observation! If they don't enjoy life they aren't happy, and if they aren't happy they don't enjoy life.

The statement simply repeats an obvious fact, and conveys nothing.

[Hope]

To deal with the thread title itself, if we gave up our beliefs, how would we decide how to live?

The way some of the rest of us do, I guess, using reason and common sense and compassion, concentrating not on subservience to nonexistent entities who have to be propitiated but the wellbeing of real creatures who really exist and who have real lives that can go better or worse.

Shaker, belief doesn't have to be religious.  We all have understandings of how the universe works, and all of those understandings are based on our experiences, our reading of science and other documentation.  We all have belief systems that educate our lives.  Without them, we wouldn't be in a position to use reason and common sense and compassion.

[Owlswing]

What is likely to happen with the advent of a purely secular society is that reigion will, as (according to Margaret A Murray) witchcraft did with the advent of Chritianity and Catholicism under Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, disappear underground for a couple of hundred years until it is discovered that secularism is not the panacea it was claimed to be; that a lack of religion works no better than religion does - there is no "One Size fits all" and we go back to trying to find a workable compromise.

[Hope]

... it's when religions become organised; when they become a cult with clout; when they achieve critical mass and know it; when they are able to start making demands on the lives of others, that's when the trouble starts. That's what we need less of in this world.

Ironically, Shaker, I'd agree with you.  Take Christianity; until Constantine and his successors decided to formalise and state-ify it, it had been a marginal group that had questioned social mores and offered an alternative world-view.

Hinduism and Buddhism long predate nationalism.  I think that Islam is probably the only world religion that has had world political domination from its outset.

[Shaker]

What is likely to happen with the advent of a purely secular society is that reigion will, as (according to Margaret A Murray) witchcraft did with the advent of Chritianity and Catholicism under Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, disappear underground for a couple of hundred years until it is discovered that secularism is not the panacea it was claimed to be; that a lack of religion works no better than religion does - there is no "One Size fits all" and we go back to trying to find a workable compromise.

Ironically a workable compromise is precisely what secularism means.

[Hope]

Ironically a workable compromise is precisely what secularism means.

As has been said on numerous occasions, Shaker, some people seem to believe that secularism is all about getting rid of religion.  It isn't, but then they don't allow that truth to get in the way of their antagonism towards religion.

[Shaker]

As has been said on numerous occasions, Shaker, some people seem to believe that secularism is all about getting rid of religion. It isn't, but then they don't allow that truth to get in the way of their antagonism towards religion.

It's true only in the limited sense of removing any one religion from a position of privilege and influence, and treating all religions equally as private beliefs which should have no place in the operations of state.

[Hope]

It's true only in the limited sense of removing any one religion from a position of privilege and influence, and treating all religions equally as private beliefs which should have no place in the operations of state.

I'd even ditch the term 'religion' and simply use 'beliefs', Shaker.  The problem, as I see it, is that those who are really antagonistic to religion only want to apply the terms of secularism to religious belief, not their own belief system.

[Shaker]

It's true only in the limited sense of removing any one religion from a position of privilege and influence, and treating all religions equally as private beliefs which should have no place in the operations of state.

I'd even ditch the term 'religion' and simply use 'beliefs', Shaker.

Yes, I'm sure you would.

The problem, as I see it, is that those who are really antagonistic to religion only want to apply the terms of secularism to religious belief, not their own belief system.

Secularism only applies to religious beliefs.

[Owlswing]

Ironically a workable compromise is precisely what secularism means.

As has been said on numerous occasions, Shaker, some people seem to believe that secularism is all about getting rid of religion.  It isn't, but then they don't allow that truth to get in the way of their antagonism towards religion.

If you are talking about me - I am religious - I am proud of my religion, its history and it beliefs.

I only have antagonism to religions and the religious that deny and/or denigrate the validity of any religion other than their own.

[Sassy]

Just found on Wikipedia (on the page for 'Absurdism'):

The rejection of hope, in absurdism, denotes the refusal to believe in anything more than what this absurd life provides. Hope, Camus emphasizes, however, has nothing to do with despair (meaning that the two terms are not opposites). One can still live fully while rejecting hope, and, in fact, can only do so without hope. Hope is perceived by the absurdist as another fraudulent method of evading the Absurd, and by not having hope, one is motivated to live every fleeting moment to the fullest. In the words of Nikos Kazantzakis' epitaph: "I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free."

The bible states:-

Happy people always enjoy life...


15.The life of the poor is a constant struggle, but happy people always enjoy life.

What makes me sad in life is the troubles of other people throughout the world... Seeing children starving and disease ridden.Mentally handicapped being mistreated and seeing those young persons life ebbing through disease here.

If I am honest these things make me sad and really hurt me...
It has been a daily reality for myself seeing and experiencing it first hand due to my own disabled daughter.

One family has a mother and three children with a disease similar to muscular dystrophy, the youngest died and the other are showing symptoms now which means they could soon die.
It breaks my heart to see these things...

I am thankful for the LORD because I know those children are with him and they are in full health...

But I still hurt for them and their family...

You know nothing of the sort, you just want to believe that to be true!

You have just proved that you have NO heart for the suffering of others... Because all you want to do is attack anything to do with faith... SHAME ON YOU! 

[Sassy]

Happy people always enjoy life.

What a daft observation! If they don't enjoy life they aren't happy, and if they aren't happy they don't enjoy life.

The statement simply repeats an obvious fact, and conveys nothing.

There you are Leonard... THE WHOLE TRUTH UNDERNEATH PRINTED AND NOT THE PATHETIC ATTEMPT OF YOURS JUST QUOTING ONE SENTENCE....

Just found on Wikipedia (on the page for 'Absurdism'):

The rejection of hope, in absurdism, denotes the refusal to believe in anything more than what this absurd life provides. Hope, Camus emphasizes, however, has nothing to do with despair (meaning that the two terms are not opposites). One can still live fully while rejecting hope, and, in fact, can only do so without hope. Hope is perceived by the absurdist as another fraudulent method of evading the Absurd, and by not having hope, one is motivated to live every fleeting moment to the fullest. In the words of Nikos Kazantzakis' epitaph: "I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free."

The bible states:-

Happy people always enjoy life...


15.The life of the poor is a constant struggle, but happy people always enjoy life.

What makes me sad in life is the troubles of other people throughout the world... Seeing children starving and disease ridden.Mentally handicapped being mistreated and seeing those young persons life ebbing through disease here.

If I am honest these things make me sad and really hurt me...
It has been a daily reality for myself seeing and experiencing it first hand due to my own disabled daughter.

One family has a mother and three children with a disease similar to muscular dystrophy, the youngest died and the other are showing symptoms now which means they could soon die.
It breaks my heart to see these things...

I am thankful for the LORD because I know those children are with him and they are in full health...

But I still hurt for them and their family...

If that was how you read your bible then no wonder you lost your faith. Your attempt to reply to my post shows that if you ever read the bible it was to cherry pick to find reasons not to believe.
Now that truth will remain with you ALWAYS...

[Sassy]

What is likely to happen with the advent of a purely secular society is that reigion will, as (according to Margaret A Murray) witchcraft did with the advent of Chritianity and Catholicism under Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, disappear underground for a couple of hundred years until it is discovered that secularism is not the panacea it was claimed to be; that a lack of religion works no better than religion does - there is no "One Size fits all" and we go back to trying to find a workable compromise.

Tell that to Russian and Communist countries...
Ans tell that to the Millions of Jews Hitler murdered...
Truth is man uses whatever excuse he can to execute his own form of evil.. Look at Nero and Rome.

Whether religion or not... Man wants to harm not heal...

[BeRational]

What is likely to happen with the advent of a purely secular society is that reigion will, as (according to Margaret A Murray) witchcraft did with the advent of Chritianity and Catholicism under Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, disappear underground for a couple of hundred years until it is discovered that secularism is not the panacea it was claimed to be; that a lack of religion works no better than religion does - there is no "One Size fits all" and we go back to trying to find a workable compromise.

Tell that to Russian and Communist countries...
Ans tell that to the Millions of Jews Hitler murdered...
Truth is man uses whatever excuse he can to execute his own form of evil.. Look at Nero and Rome.

Whether religion or not... Man wants to harm not heal...

Hitler was a sort of Christian.

Did you not know?

[Leonard James]

Whether religion or not... Man wants to harm not heal...

Ah, but if they can hide behind "this is what God tells me to do", it frees them from blame, doesn't it?

[Hope]

Hitler was a sort of Christian.

Did you not know?

What's a 'sort' of Christian?  Is it like a 'sort' of human? 

By the way, if he was a 'sort' of Christian why was it his stated aim to destroy the church?