slavery

[exploring]

most people have heard most of the arguments about whether god objectively exists. Surely the question "does god exist" has not really gotten anyone anywhere for a while. How about this question instead: "should I believe that god exists?"?

The answer clearly depends upon the questioner. People who like to be slaves (I don't mean that perjoratively), will choose to believe in god, whether or not god exists, since they naturally prefer the idea of a greater, external power telling them what to do. Religious belief is necessarily an out-in movement, an attempt by the individual to deny their decision-making freedom by surrendering it to exterior forces. For very many people, this is fine.

Equally, very many other people would prefer to be masters, making their own decisions, whether or not god exists. They would rather let their being explode on the exterior world than let the exterior world implode on them: in-out.

so the objective question "does god exist?" becomes irrelevant. Subjectively, some will choose to believe and others won't, and the truth of the matter has little to do with it.

Now the question: does anyone deny that christianity, or any religion for that matter, is a slave doctrine, in the way I have outlined?

 

[MoonlessNight]

Armchair psychology is fun, isn't it?

Or is this the result of someone's first encounter with Nietzsche?

 

[exploring]

Armchair psychology is fun, isn't it?

Or is this the result of someone's first encounter with Nietzsche?

I haven't read much by Nietzche (spelling?) just the start of Zarathrustra, which i found a bit impenetrable, and some aphorisms, but nothing to do with christianity.

Thats not to say that what I said was my own idea, though. I suppose it mostly comes from Satre and existentialism, which I have been reading.

Still, the question remains: how can you believe in god and not be a slave?

 

[MoonlessNight]

I haven't read much by Nietzche (spelling?) just the start of Zarathrustra, which i found a bit impenetrable, and some aphorisms, but nothing to do with christianity.

Thats not to say that what I said was my own idea, though. I suppose it mostly comes from Satre and existentialism, which I have been reading.

Still, the question remains: how can you believe in god and not be a slave?

How can you believe in the laws of physics and not be a slave? How can you have a friendship and not be a slave? How can you take advice without being a slave?

The only real argument that I can see you make for faith being slavery is that if I am not 100% in control of my own decisions I am a slave. If that's the case it's impossible to interact with anything and not be a slave.

 

[ReluctantProphet]

..Now the question: does anyone deny that christianity, or any religion for that matter, is a slave doctrine, in the way I have outlined?

You can choose to believe that you are not a slave to Reality, but guess what.... you are anyway.

Religions have almost nothing to do with slavery except in the case of Judaism and Christianity in that they specifically fought against emporers and tyrants.

But the doctrines of religions have been efforts to reveal the effects of Reality regardless of you liking those effects or feeling like a slave just because you can't escape the affects of Reality.

If you aren't a slave to my_God, then you don't exist.

 

[Charlie V]

most people have heard most of the arguments about whether god objectively exists. Surely the question "does god exist" has not really gotten anyone anywhere for a while. How about this question instead: "should I believe that god exists?"?

The answer clearly depends upon the questioner. People who like to be slaves (I don't mean that perjoratively), will choose to believe in god, whether or not god exists, since they naturally prefer the idea of a greater, external power telling them what to do. Religious belief is necessarily an out-in movement, an attempt by the individual to deny their decision-making freedom by surrendering it to exterior forces. For very many people, this is fine.

Equally, very many other people would prefer to be masters, making their own decisions, whether or not god exists. They would rather let their being explode on the exterior world than let the exterior world implode on them: in-out.

so the objective question "does god exist?" becomes irrelevant. Subjectively, some will choose to believe and others won't, and the truth of the matter has little to do with it.

Now the question: does anyone deny that christianity, or any religion for that matter, is a slave doctrine, in the way I have outlined?

I absolutely deny it.

While I don't think it applies necessarily to any religion, since you suggest it applies to all religious views, I'll offer Deism to counter.

With Deism, God is no longer active, therefore, doesn't "tell people what to do."

Another example: Multi-god religions. If you believe in a thousand gods, you're free to choose one and reject another.

Ultimately, however, your statement, "Religious belief is necessarily an out-in movement, an attempt by the individual to deny their decision-making freedom by surrendering it to exterior forces," may apply to certain individuals but not to all religious belief, not even to all Christians. There are some, certainly, who look outwardly for God -- but I tend to believe that the "kingdom of heaven is within us." I think your statement applies to the more conservative, and not so much so to the more liberal, theologically.

I think it's a little offensive to call it "slavery" though, even for those that have that element. Certainly, elements can be seen, for example, in the Alcoholics Anonomous. ("Surrendering to a higher power.") BUT, I think they consider the alcoholism the slavery -- not the higher power they surrender to that helps them overcome. They'd see it that, their "decision-making freedom" is leading them to their destruction as they choose the bottle.

Charlie

 

[exploring]

How can you believe in the laws of physics and not be a slave? How can you have a friendship and not be a slave? How can you take advice without being a slave?

The only real argument that I can see you make for faith being slavery is that if I am not 100% in control of my own decisions I am a slave. If that's the case it's impossible to interact with anything and not be a slave.

We don't have much choice over whether to be slaves to the laws of physics: that is one slavery that even the most egotistical of us must accept.

On the other hand, not believing in god isn't as prohibitively disastrous as say, jumping off a cliff in the hope that gravity won't apply to you. Whether or not to believe in god depends more on our individual preference for slavery or mastery than it does on real life survival factors.

Likewise, if your friend is someone whose every command you obey, then I would call him (sexist) your master.

Clearly noone is master or slave all the time - they would need to be god or not exist - but we can make decisions based upon which role we prefer.

 

[Charlie V]

On the other hand, not believing in god isn't as prohibitively disastrous as say, jumping off a cliff in the hope that gravity won't apply to you.

Nor is believing in God, necessarily.

It would seem to me to be an excersize of free will, and no less slavery than believing in ghosts or believing in UFOs or believing in a conspiracy theory to kill JFK.

"Those who don't believe what I believe are enslaving themselves. Because, of course, I'm right and they're wrong, so they've enslaved themselves into believing the wrong instead of freeing themselves into believing the truth!"

Charlie

 

[exploring]

I absolutely deny it.

While I don't think it applies necessarily to any religion, since you suggest it applies to all religious views, I'll offer Deism to counter.

With Deism, God is no longer active, therefore, doesn't "tell people what to do."

Another example: Multi-god religions. If you believe in a thousand gods, you're free to choose one and reject another.

Ultimately, however, your statement, "Religious belief is necessarily an out-in movement, an attempt by the individual to deny their decision-making freedom by surrendering it to exterior forces," may apply to certain individuals but not to all religious belief, not even to all Christians. There are some, certainly, who look outwardly for God -- but I tend to believe that the "kingdom of heaven is within us." I think your statement applies to the more conservative, and not so much so to the more liberal, theologically.

I think it's a little offensive to call it "slavery" though, even for those that have that element. Certainly, elements can be seen, for example, in the Alcoholics Anonomous. ("Surrendering to a higher power.") BUT, I think they consider the alcoholism the slavery -- not the higher power they surrender to that helps them overcome. They'd see it that, their "decision-making freedom" is leading them to their destruction as they choose the bottle.

Charlie

Firstly deism: if god is no longer active, then I can't see any point in believing in him (sexist again) at all. What is the point of a religion that doesn't tell you what to do?

Polytheism: just because you can choose your god doesn't mean that you aren't a slave to the one you do choose

Liberal theology: liberal interpreters of the bible might be enslaving themselves less, but they are enslaving themselves more than someone who doesn't believe in god at all

Maybe slavery is a harsh word. Perhaps submission is better?

 

[exploring]

Nor is believing in God, necessarily.

It would seem to me to be an excersize of free will, and no less slavery than believing in ghosts or believing in UFOs or believing in a conspiracy theory to kill JFK.

"Those who don't believe what I believe are enslaving themselves. Because, of course, I'm right and they're wrong, so they've enslaved themselves into believing the wrong instead of freeing themselves into believing the truth!"

Charlie

1. It is exactly because whether or not to believe in god is a matter of free choice that believing in god i slavery (or submission). If it were objectively true that god did not exist, then noone would be able to make the choice to enslave themselves to it. What makes religion slavery is the fact that it affects the believers independence: it externalises their decision-making. Who is right or wrong has nothing to do with it.

 

[Charlie V]

What makes religion slavery is the fact that it affects the believers independence: it externalises their decision-making.

I can't think of a single decision in my lifetime that I haven't made myself, but that my religion has made for me.

What do you know of my personal decision making, not knowing me, personally?

I'm perfectly fine with your choices to accept or reject any religious premises, and I don't think that such acceptance or rejection enslaves you. Why do you judge me so, not knowing me?

Charlie

 

[exploring]

I can't think of a single decision in my lifetime that I haven't made myself, but that my religion has made for me.

What do you know of my personal decision making, not knowing me, personally?

I'm perfectly fine with your choices to accept or reject any religious premises, and I don't think that such acceptance or rejection enslaves you. Why do you judge me so, not knowing me?

Charlie

Sorry to quote scripture at you, but it looks to me like god wants you to do as he says.

>Do not judge, or you too will be judged.
>Commit your way to the LORD;
>And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink...But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.

Surely your belief in god affects your decisions somehow?

 

[elman]

most people have heard most of the arguments about whether god objectively exists. Surely the question "does god exist" has not really gotten anyone anywhere for a while. How about this question instead: "should I believe that god exists?"?

The answer clearly depends upon the questioner. People who like to be slaves (I don't mean that perjoratively), will choose to believe in god, whether or not god exists, since they naturally prefer the idea of a greater, external power telling them what to do. Religious belief is necessarily an out-in movement, an attempt by the individual to deny their decision-making freedom by surrendering it to exterior forces. For very many people, this is fine.

Equally, very many other people would prefer to be masters, making their own decisions, whether or not god exists. They would rather let their being explode on the exterior world than let the exterior world implode on them: in-out.

so the objective question "does god exist?" becomes irrelevant. Subjectively, some will choose to believe and others won't, and the truth of the matter has little to do with it.

Now the question: does anyone deny that christianity, or any religion for that matter, is a slave doctrine, in the way I have outlined?

Yes I deny it. Christianity is recognizing that we are not the creators of all that exists and looking for a reason for our existence if there is one. The reason for our existence is connected to the reason the Creator created us and it is not about slavery, but love. You prefer to be a master-you cannot even master escaping physical death. You are not much of a master.

 

[elman]

I haven't read much by Nietzche (spelling?) just the start of Zarathrustra, which i found a bit impenetrable, and some aphorisms, but nothing to do with christianity.

Thats not to say that what I said was my own idea, though. I suppose it mostly comes from Satre and existentialism, which I have been reading.

Still, the question remains: how can you believe in god and not be a slave?

Zarathrustra taught eternal consequences of being loving. That is very much like Christianity.

 

[elman]

1. It is exactly because whether or not to believe in god is a matter of free choice that believing in god i slavery (or submission). If it were objectively true that god did not exist, then noone would be able to make the choice to enslave themselves to it. What makes religion slavery is the fact that it affects the believers independence: it externalises their decision-making. Who is right or wrong has nothing to do with it.

You don't understand Christianity at all if you think right and wrong has nothing to do with it.

 

[exploring]

You don't understand Christianity at all if you think right and wrong has nothing to do with it.

elman. i may well not be the the master of everything - physical death, the external world and whatnot - but I can be the master of my own decision-making. Looking for a 'meaning for life' is looking for a way to externalise that freedom that you have.

Good for Zarathrustra

i didn't mean right and wrong has nothing to do with christianity, but that the truth or falsehood of god's existence has little to do with whether they believe. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

 

[Charlie V]

Sorry to quote scripture at you, but it looks to me like god wants you to do as he says.

>Do not judge, or you too will be judged.
>Commit your way to the LORD;
>And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink...But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.

I take this as philosophy, not to be judgmental, to seek kindness over gluttony.

As to God literally speaking to me from the clouds giving me orders -- it certainly hasn't happened lately. And I'm certainly not a literalist when it comes to Biblical interpretation.

Surely your belief in god affects your decisions somehow?

Well, technically everything probably affects our decisions somehow. Memories of my childhood affect my decisions, and everyone else's. The people around me affect my decisions, and everyone else's.

I don't think, for example, that I don't steal because I believe in God. I don't steal because I'm honest and I don't believe in stealing. I'm not one of those people who thinks that atheists go around stealing and killing because only a belief in God would make you not steal or kill. If that's what you think -- it's pretty anti-atheist, to think that one needs religion to behave morally.

Belief to me, in the sense of interpretting physical reality, is the least thing in religion, by the way. Interpretation of it is more profound. Asking oneself the question, "What is God? What is life? What is a good way to lead your life," and other philisophical questions to me, are much more profound.

It's not about believing in 6-day creations (which I don't believe in.) It's about believing in love, in kindness. I think I'd believe those things, and try to act accordingly, regardless of what religious philosophy (or lack thereof) I adhered to.

To me, my Christian faith has little to do with my belif in an interpretation of the life of Jesus or the literal interpretation of the stories of a translation of the Bible. It has more to do with my belief in the philosophies taught -- the parable of the good Samaritan wasn't a literal truth, but it has more moralistic truth to me than any literal truth, and has great meaning to me personally, and this, to me, is what it's all about.

Charlie

 

[ReluctantProphet]

explorer,

What you are overlooking in all of this is that believing in ANYthing causes a similar affect as slavery represents.

Slavery is having absolutely no choice without dire consequences. If you believe in gravity, then you are a slave to that belief. If you don't believe in gravity, then you are a slave to that disbelief.

Religion is no more a slave concern than any governance or personal belief.

The degree of free choice is a preference but not to the extreme of freedom to choose what destroys you. Often a person (almost always) comes to believe in harmless freedoms when in fact those choices will eventually bite them. They cannot know in advance of the possible consequences of all choices, thus at any moment, they are slave to what they have already come to believe.

Some beliefs will allow for more harmless freedoms. Some will causes more harmful freedoms. The issue is not about religion versus freedom. The issue is which religion (including science) will allow for the least harmful freedoms.

Nothing can be free from Reality. The religion that inspires you to learn of and follow Reality toward its best offered harmless future, is the religion that should be preferred and due to evolution concerns, will be the final one accepted.

Religions offer advice as to how to get along with what they believe reality to entail. They make mistakes just as science makes mistakes.

But a VERY important concern with science is that it offers no friendly doctrine to your personal joy nor survival. Science is examining how things work. It says nothing about how its discoveries are going to be used against you and all that you might be concerned about. This area is left open and presumed by naive people that all information in science will only be used to help others. But Science makes no such promise at all. Science can't even answer why it is that you exist at all nor why anyone should be concerned that you should continue to exist.

At least Christianity offers the promise of being loving to you. It might not achieve that, but Science doesn't even offer it. Science allows for your tyrant king to accurately ensure that you can NEVER survive or know joy. Christianity makes the promise, but might not keep it.

Which do you prefer, someone who promises to be nice but might not, or someone who didn't even concern themselves with the thought?

Science allows for the selfish desires of others to become your enslaver. Christianity stands against any form of slavery except that to the Holy Spirit that by its very definition does nothing but attempt to help you survive joyfully.

In addition Christianity has as doctrine to not judge and thus become an enemy to others. It often makes this error even in itself because it did not clarify enough about when you can actually judge without harm. Some judgment is required in life, thus such clarifications are needed.

Science says nothing about judging you. It implies that you are to be judged simply for not being perfectly correct in whatever you might be saying or doing even thought the person doing the judging doesn’t really go to the trouble to fully understand what you were saying or doing. Christianity says to let God do the judging because ONLY the real God can know whether you were really right or not. Science returns with the rebuke, “We have observed nothing that we can identify as God, thus such does not exist and should be ignored.”. This leaves presumptuous judgment open for all to exercise freely upon each other – on YOU.

If you want a more ensured future against slavery, then Christianity stands well above Science in offering such. But in reality, they are basically on the same side. It is only Christians and Scientist who argue, not Science and Jesus.

 

[MoonlessNight]

Perhaps submission is better?

If you use the word submission then you've at least got Islam covered.

Really I don't have any problem with you saying that I obey god to a point in which I lose "freedom." I say crazy stuff like "there is no freedom except through obedience to God" so it's probably true from the common standpoint.

The first thing that I rejected was that you seemed to be arguing that this "slavery" to God was a bad thing though I see it as no worse than "slavery" to Physics. Now the thing that I object to is your insistence that I only believe in God in some psychological desire to be controlled. I could just easily repeat ad naseum that you don't belive in God because of psychological need for rebellion, or denial.

 

[MoonlessNight]

What makes religion slavery is the fact that it affects the believers independence: it externalises their decision-making.

It doesn't "affect the independence" in any way more severe than appointing an advisor for help on certain issues when you are in office. Certainly there are external forces on the decision, but that's true of every decision.

Anyway, you'll find that Christians tend to be much stronger believers in that we can actually make independent decisions than atheists tend to be. A sizeable number of atheists on this board (perhaps most) will reject free will altogether and say that every single one of our decisions is determined by factors that our ultimately outside of our control. If you think that Christianity is slavery because it makes decisions determined externally, what do you call that?