The Evolution of Morality

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HitchSlap

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This is simply crazy. I love to fool myself? Why would someone love to fool themselves? It just doesn't make sense. Why does it matter to you anyway?

Because the truth matters. I for one would like to live in a world in which everybody strove to reach conclusions using logic and reasonable epistemologies.

It's not that people "love to fool" themselves. It's that they have fooled themselves into believing thing things we really have no good reasons to believe. You might be interested in Shermer's book, "The Believing Brain."
 
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EternalDragon

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Because you so want it all to be true, why? because you don't want to die when you die,
you want to believe that you are going to have another life, that's why.

I for one, don't care if I just die. That would be just fine with me and I am sure it is the same for any other Christian.

The thing is, if the bible is true, then are you prepared to die and then not have eternal life? But rather a life of separation from God in your same old body and in an unpleasant place?

I wouldn't want that for anyone.
 
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Oncedeceived

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Because the truth matters. I for one would like to live in a world in which everybody strove to reach conclusions using logic and reasonable epistemologies.

If truth is only that which arises from the hard wiring in our brains, how do you suppose we ever know the truth? If reasoning is only that which we think we have reason to believe how do we know that it is reason at all?

It's not that people "love to fool" themselves. It's that they have fooled themselves into believing thing things we really have no good reasons to believe. You might be interested in Shermer's book, "The Believing Brain."

Who determines what are good reasons to believe? I have good reasons to believe. Do I allow you to tell me that my reasons are not really reasons or reasonable? What makes your reason more reasonable than mine?
 
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Ginger123

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I can read a passage twenty times and then suddenly God opens it for me and I am amazed that I had not understood it until then. :)

Why would I read the Bible and determine after multitude of times that I have a new awareness of what it means? It is not wanting to believe something or something else, it is simply a new meaning to the words.
The new meaning comes from the fact that you want to find a new meaning, if your brain wasn't geared to Christianity it would remain meaningless and silly for you, you wanting to believe makes you believe.
It has nothing to do with afterlife or doctrine, it has to do with seeing words in a new way.
It has everything to do with an afterlife because if Christianity did not promise you an afterlife you would not be a Christian, they told you that you were a sinner in need of redemption and Jesus was the only one who could save you from eternal damnation and it frightened you rigid.
They lied, you are not a sinner and there is no hell.
 
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Oncedeceived

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The new meaning comes from the fact that you want to find a new meaning, if your brain wasn't geared to Christianity it would remain meaningless and silly for you, you wanting to believe makes you believe.

Then why was it when I wasn't a believer the Bible didn't make sense to me and it was boring? Is my brain geared to both?

It has everything to do with an afterlife because if Christianity did not promise you an afterlife you would not be a Christian, they told you that you were a sinner in need of redemption and Jesus was the only one who could save you from eternal damnation and it frightened you rigid.
They lied, you are not a sinner and there is no hell.

Like I said, I wasn't raised in a religious home nor did they speak about God at all. Not mentioned at all. period.
 
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bhsmte

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The new meaning comes from the fact that you want to find a new meaning, if your brain wasn't geared to Christianity it would remain meaningless and silly for you, you wanting to believe makes you believe.

It has everything to do with an afterlife because if Christianity did not promise you an afterlife you would not be a Christian, they told you that you were a sinner in need of redemption and Jesus was the only one who could save you from eternal damnation and it frightened you rigid.
They lied, you are not a sinner and there is no hell.

I think the reasoning behind believing in christianity and likely other religions goes beyond the hope for an afterlife. It also involves, knowing you can ask for forgiveness (for even horrendous deeds) and have a mechanism to clear your conscious (that can be powerful). Also, believing there is someone more powerful than you that is always looking after you, can be quite enticing.

Since I was a christian for 90% of my life, I understand the appeal of these beliefs. I also came to understand, that I was only fooling myself in these regards, when I examined christianity and the bible more thoroughly and looked at the reality of the world we live in. At that point, I decided I did not want to live a pretend life and instead, wanted to acknowledge reality.

For some, believing the christian story gives them a great deal of comfort, that overwhelms any possibility, they may indeed be fooling themselves.
 
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Ginger123

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So now I am not only fooling myself, I am an uncaring person? How have I shown myself as uncaring?
Yes you are fooling yourself and no you are not an uncaring person but your Christianity makes you put yourself first.

Christianity is all about egotism, it makes you think the universe was put there by God for you and other Christians,
God loves only Christians and will make everyone who is not a Christian suffer in hell for not believing in your God,
how egotistical is that??????????
 
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Ginger123

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I think the reasoning behind believing in christianity and likely other religions goes beyond the hope for an afterlife. It also involves, knowing you can ask for forgiveness (for even horrendous deeds) and have a mechanism to clear your conscious (that can be powerful). Also, believing there is someone more powerful than you that is always looking after you, can be quite enticing.

Since I was a christian for 90% of my life, I understand the appeal of these beliefs. I also came to understand, that I was only fooling myself in these regards, when I examined christianity and the bible more thoroughly and looked at the reality of the world we live in. At that point, I decided I did not want to live a pretend life and instead, wanted to acknowledge reality.

For some, believing the christian story gives them a great deal of comfort, that overwhelms any possibility, they may indeed be fooling themselves.
I expect you are 100% right, never having been a believer myself I will bow to your superior knowledge.
 
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Ginger123

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Then why was it when I wasn't a believer the Bible didn't make sense to me and it was boring? Is my brain geared to both?
No, your brain is now geared to Christianity which makes you think everything about Christianity is right and true,
that's why you see things differently, before you dismissed it now you embrace it, for you Christianity can do no wrong.
 
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Oncedeceived

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I think the reasoning behind believing in christianity and likely other religions goes beyond the hope for an afterlife. It also involves, knowing you can ask for forgiveness (for even horrendous deeds) and have a mechanism to clear your conscious (that can be powerful). Also, believing there is someone more powerful than you that is always looking after you, can be quite enticing.

Since I was a christian for 90% of my life, I understand the appeal of these beliefs. I also came to understand, that I was only fooling myself in these regards, when I examined christianity and the bible more thoroughly and looked at the reality of the world we live in. At that point, I decided I did not want to live a pretend life and instead, wanted to acknowledge reality.

I would be really interested in what reality of the world made you believe you were fooling yourself.
For some, believing the christian story gives them a great deal of comfort, that overwhelms any possibility, they may indeed be fooling themselves.

I think it is hard for someone who has left Christianity to understand how there is belief in something and knowing something. You believed in Christianity at one time. You did not however, know that God existed. You believed He might at that time. You thought that maybe HE did. But you didn't know, because if you knew you would still know. You don't unknow things. You know you exist. You know your mother exists. You know the moon exists. You would not ever unknow these things. There are things we know and things we believe. We believe many things, we believe that mountains are beautiful, water falls too and sometimes we believe that other people are wrong but we find sometimes they aren't. However, knowing is a fact of life that people use to determine what is what. WE have to know certain things and yet we can believe all sorts of things without needing to know if they are true or not. There is a difference and we have to know the difference. To believe is subjective and to know is objective.
 
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Oncedeceived

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Yes you are fooling yourself and no you are not an uncaring person but your Christianity makes you put yourself first.

Christianity is all about egotism, it makes you think the universe was put there by God for you and other Christians,
God loves only Christians and will make everyone who is not a Christian suffer in hell for not believing in your God,
how egotistical is that??????????

Don't handwave it away Ginger. You said you cared about people and I didn't.

God loves everyone and that is why Jesus died on the Cross. It is a choice and you have made the choice not to worship Him. That is your action with your own free will.
 
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HitchSlap

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If truth is only that which arises from the hard wiring in our brains, how do you suppose we ever know the truth? If reasoning is only that which we think we have reason to believe how do we know that it is reason at all?



Who determines what are good reasons to believe? I have good reasons to believe. Do I allow you to tell me that my reasons are not really reasons or reasonable? What makes your reason more reasonable than mine?

I'm not sure if you're being serious with your first statement, but: We assume reality exists. We can learn something about reality. Using models of reality with predictive capabilities work better than those without.

The individual determines what are good reasons to believe, based on education, logic and reason. Of course, all these things are not innate, and sometimes counter intuitive, so we must guard our minds from superstitions as we learn to evaluate reality as it is, hopefully drawing conclusions that best reflect that reality.

As a Christian, do you believe that Scientologists and Mormons are fooling themselves?
 
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bhsmte

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I would be really interested in what reality of the world made you believe you were fooling yourself.

Reality of the world would include the following:

-the objective findings of science
-the reality of suffering throughout the world
-the reality of the historicity of the bible
-the reality of looking at the God as described in the bible and comparing that to all of the above.



I think it is hard for someone who has left Christianity to understand how there is belief in something and knowing something. You believed in Christianity at one time. You did not however, know that God existed. You believed He might at that time. You thought that maybe HE did. But you didn't know, because if you knew you would still know. You don't unknow things. You know you exist. You know your mother exists. You know the moon exists. You would not ever unknow these things. There are things we know and things we believe. We believe many things, we believe that mountains are beautiful, water falls too and sometimes we believe that other people are wrong but we find sometimes they aren't. However, knowing is a fact of life that people use to determine what is what. WE have to know certain things and yet we can believe all sorts of things without needing to know if they are true or not. There is a difference and we have to know the difference. To believe is subjective and to know is objective.

First of all, believing in something without independent objective evidence is "belief" and can not be extrapolated as fact to others. You may believe it so deeply that you call it "knowing" and that is fine, but that is only "knowing" for you, in your own mind.

You are stuck in this "knowing" vs "believing" and I understand why, it makes you feel better about your own belief. What is "known" in each person's mind, can be quite different than what can be called; "known" to the outside world. It is well known, the mind can convince us of all sorts of things as being "known" to ourselves, but they have no objective evidence for someone outside of yourself to verify.

Being objective to me means the conclusion can be verified, with objective evidence. Otherwise, the conclusion is your own mind making the determination. I believed for many years on faith as many do and never claimed to have objective evidence to show my faith should automatically apply to anyone else.

So, you have a different standard of what could be labeled; "known" they I do and if yours works for you, then that is terrific.
 
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Oncedeceived

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I'm not sure if you're being serious with your first statement, but: We assume reality exists. We can learn something about reality. Using models of reality with predictive capabilities work better than those without.

Right. We all have the ability to determine and learn about reality. People that can not determine reality are not able to be productive in society. We can use inductive thinking and logic to determine what that reality encompasses. However, if we are to logically think about thought and reason how do we arrive that we have any sense of truth? How do we know that how we think reflects the truth? It can't be all predictive because we sense the reality in the future. We know that because today things work a certain way that it will tomorrow. However, we don't have a reason to believe that it will be so. We can only think and be logical and determine reality if we can assume that it will be the same today as it will tomorrow. In a purely naturalistic worldview how do we know that tomorrow will be the same as today? We know this from the past, yet we have no naturalistic reason to believe that all throughout the history of time that uniformity and predictability were expected. IF there is a objective truth and logic how can that come from a hard wired naturalistic cause? IF it is only evolved behavior then it can not be anything but subjective. Logic would have to be subjective. But we know it to be objective. There is logically a true and untrue. So what makes something objectively true if we arrive at logic subjectively?

The individual determines what are good reasons to believe, based on education, logic and reason. Of course, all these things are not innate, and sometimes counter intuitive, so we must guard our minds from superstitions as we learn to evaluate reality as it is, hopefully drawing conclusions that best reflect that reality.

So if someone is educated and has a degree in Physics and claims that the universe appears to be designed has good reasons to believe that based on the education he has been through, he uses logic to determine that it would appear to be designed due to what he knows about the reality of the universe and says he has reason to believe that God exists. He believes that he is drawing conclusions based on his expert knowledge about reality. What makes you think he is wrong? What makes your belief that he is wrong have more value than his?

As a Christian, do you believe that Scientologists and Mormons are fooling themselves?

No, as a Christian I believe they have been misled.
 
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bhsmte

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Right. We all have the ability to determine and learn about reality. People that can not determine reality are not able to be productive in society. We can use inductive thinking and logic to determine what that reality encompasses. However, if we are to logically think about thought and reason how do we arrive that we have any sense of truth? How do we know that how we think reflects the truth? It can't be all predictive because we sense the reality in the future. We know that because today things work a certain way that it will tomorrow. However, we don't have a reason to believe that it will be so. We can only think and be logical and determine reality if we can assume that it will be the same today as it will tomorrow. In a purely naturalistic worldview how do we know that tomorrow will be the same as today? We know this from the past, yet we have no naturalistic reason to believe that all throughout the history of time that uniformity and predictability were expected. IF there is a objective truth and logic how can that come from a hard wired naturalistic cause? IF it is only evolved behavior then it can not be anything but subjective. Logic would have to be subjective. But we know it to be objective. There is logically a true and untrue. So what makes something objectively true if we arrive at logic subjectively?



So if someone is educated and has a degree in Physics and claims that the universe appears to be designed has good reasons to believe that based on the education he has been through, he uses logic to determine that it would appear to be designed due to what he knows about the reality of the universe and says he has reason to believe that God exists. He believes that he is drawing conclusions based on his expert knowledge about reality. What makes you think he is wrong? What makes your belief that he is wrong have more value than his?



No, as a Christian I believe they have been misled.

Misled by whom exactly?

And if they are misled, why is it you think they can't figure out they have been misled?
 
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Ginger123

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I expect you are 100% right, never having been a believer myself I will bow to your superior knowledge.

Wow. Why must you always put down people. Even people who believe what you believe. You call me uncaring?
Put people down? I put no one down, on the contrary I put his knowledge above my own because he has knowledge that I do not, bhsmte do you think I was trying to put you down.
 
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bhsmte

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Put people down? I put no one down, on the contrary I put his knowledge above my own because he has knowledge that I do not, bhsmte do you think I was trying to put you down.

Not really no. I would have worded what you said a little differently like; you have experience in believing on faith and I don't, but I have more important things to worry about.
 
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HitchSlap

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Right. We all have the ability to determine and learn about reality. People that can not determine reality are not able to be productive in society. We can use inductive thinking and logic to determine what that reality encompasses. However, if we are to logically think about thought and reason how do we arrive that we have any sense of truth? How do we know that how we think reflects the truth? It can't be all predictive because we sense the reality in the future. We know that because today things work a certain way that it will tomorrow. However, we don't have a reason to believe that it will be so. We can only think and be logical and determine reality if we can assume that it will be the same today as it will tomorrow. In a purely naturalistic worldview how do we know that tomorrow will be the same as today? We know this from the past, yet we have no naturalistic reason to believe that all throughout the history of time that uniformity and predictability were expected. IF there is a objective truth and logic how can that come from a hard wired naturalistic cause? IF it is only evolved behavior then it can not be anything but subjective. Logic would have to be subjective. But we know it to be objective. There is logically a true and untrue. So what makes something objectively true if we arrive at logic subjectively?



So if someone is educated and has a degree in Physics and claims that the universe appears to be designed has good reasons to believe that based on the education he has been through, he uses logic to determine that it would appear to be designed due to what he knows about the reality of the universe and says he has reason to believe that God exists. He believes that he is drawing conclusions based on his expert knowledge about reality. What makes you think he is wrong? What makes your belief that he is wrong have more value than his?



No, as a Christian I believe they have been misled.

The belief that there is no god is based on the fact that you have no independently objective evidence to suggest a god/s exists. To believe a god/s exists because based on incredulity is one thing, to assert that it exists and claim you know it does, is delusion.
 
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