Belief Not Central to Religiosity?

[Sukerkin]

A most thought provoking article from the New York Times - a Facebook find for me

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/30/o...st-part-of-faith.html?src=me&ref=general&_r=0

I particularly was fascinated (and approve in some ways) of the assertion that, for some at least, the act of living "as if" there is a creator deity, who cares what happens to you, is much more central that spending time pondering if there is such a being. I have had that discourse with a few religious people over the years and it is hard to dispute that if someone is happier thinking that way then there is nothing to be gained from debating the reality of their assumptions.

 

[Cirdan]

If living as if there is a creator deity means basically living a good life and being kind to others, and the existence of said deity is not really important, why can`t people live like that in the first place without the imaginary figurehead of a perfect superbeing to worship? Wouldn`t that mean you love the real world, warts and all, instead of a glorified paradise dimension?

 

[granfire]

If living as if there is a creator deity means basically living a good life and being kind to others, and the existence of said deity is not really important, why can`t people live like that in the first place without the imaginary figurehead of a perfect superbeing to worship? Wouldn`t that mean you love the real world, warts and all, instead of a glorified paradise dimension?

HA.

Because 'living as if' often includes excluding those who belong to another club.

Or are those who really believe?

 

[Cirdan]

HA.

Because 'living as if' often includes excluding those who belong to another club.

Or are those who really believe?

Yep.. I guess getting rid of guilt is an important part of it. If you want to kill/imprison/demonize/exile/opress/deny the rights of others, claiming it is the will of the perfect superbeing is a good way to go.

 

[billc]

If you want to kill/imprison/demonize/exile/opress/deny the rights of others, claiming it is the will of the perfect...

...enlightened minority, who know best how to utilize the state to create the perfect world, or to create the "new" man, ...for the people they want to create it for...the proletariat, the Aryan race...atheism is a good way to go...

As these chaps did...from wikipedia...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pol_Pot

When the Khmer Rouge took the town of Kratie in 1971, Saloth and other members of the party were shocked at how fast the liberated urban areas shook off socialism and went back to the old ways. Various ideas were tried to re-create the town in the image of the party, but nothing worked. In 1973, out of total frustration, Saloth decided that the only solution was to send the entire population of the town to the fields in the countryside. He wrote at the time "if the result of so many sacrifices was that the capitalists remain in control, what was the point of the revolution?". Shortly after, Sar ordered the evacuation of the 15,000 people of Kompong Cham for the same reasons. The Khmer Rouge then moved on in 1974 to evacuate the larger city of Oudong.

The Khmer Rouge also classified people by religion and ethnic group. They banned all religion and dispersed minority groups, forbidding them to speak their languages or to practice their customs.

U.S. officials publicly predicted shortly after the fall of Phnom Penh that more than one million people would be killed by the Khmer Rouge;[SUP][30][/SUP] President Gerald Ford had warned of "an unbelievable horror story."[SUP][31][/SUP] Modern research has located 20,000 mass graves from the Khmer Rouge era all over Cambodia. Various studies have estimated the death toll at between 740,000 and 3,000,000, most commonly between 1.7 million and 2.2 million, with perhaps half of those deaths being due to executions, and the rest from starvation and disease.[SUP][5][/SUP] Demographic analysis by Patrick Heuveline suggests that between 1.17 and 3.42 million Cambodians were killed.[9

It is a good thing these guys didn't believe in a perfect superbeing...And since there is no "superbeing" setting down the rules or who we will answer to for our actions, both good and bad...we all get to make our own rules without fear of any consequences for our actions...especially if we are the minority with the power...and the guns...to do our will...

 

[oftheherd1]

A most thought provoking article from the New York Times - a Facebook find for me

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/30/o...st-part-of-faith.html?src=me&ref=general&_r=0

I particularly was fascinated (and approve in some ways) of the assertion that, for some at least, the act of living "as if" there is a creator deity, who cares what happens to you, is much more central that spending time pondering if there is such a being. I have had that discourse with a few religious people over the years and it is hard to dispute that if someone is happier thinking that way then there is nothing to be gained from debating the reality of their assumptions.

For what is bolded, would that be something like believing that if there is such a thing as deducing there was a big bang, that is more central than spending time pondering if the elom existed until it decided to cease to exist, producing a big bang?

Or something like that. :uhyeah:

 

[arnisador]

I liked her explanation of what 'believe' meant to the translators of the Bible and what it means to evangelicals now--different than how the nonreligious interpret it.

 

[Touch Of Death]

William James wrote on this topic. Believing in God is the most pragmatic thing to do. The kicker is that he did not believe. LOL

 

[aedrasteia]

Sukerkin and others

Religion, historically, has not been about 'belief'. It is about one's practice.

Karen Armstrong (a former woman religious) is my great teacher here:

http://www.religiondispatches.org/b...ut_belief__karen_armstrong_s_the_case_for_god

Belief, as in an intellectual and cognitive acceptance of a set of propositions, is one consequence of the 'modern' age, beginning in the late 1500s and continuing today. it is the great gift of the supremacy of curiosity, inquiry, analysis and concern with evidence.

Sadly, and almost invisibly, fundamentalist believers (in Christianity as we discuss here) have also accepted the primacy of the scientific method and desperately struggle to submit beliefs (as intellectual propositions), to the scrutiny of that process.
It is both tragic and unnecessary. But because even they (fundamentalists) can only accept the literal validity of intellectual propositions, they are deeply threatened. And people who feel threatened at the deepest core of their identity... well, they act in defense of that deepest core.


The Ascent of Intellectual Orthodoxy

For most of Western history, religion has been primarily a matter of orthopraxy, not orthodoxy. In fact, no doctrine made any sense without participation in the community of faith and in its rituals. No doubt, there were certain thoughts or “beliefs” that mattered and were of extreme importance; however, unlike today, these convictions were never understood as either the core or the purpose of the religious life.

In fact, for most of Western history “belief” has meant nothing like what it means today. Today, when someone asks me if I believe in God, for example, they are asking if I assent to the proposed verity or the factual existence of God—and usually it is in reference to a very specific understanding of that God. Similarly, if I'm asked if I have “faith in Christ”, the question is whether I agree with the proposition that Jesus of Nazareth was divine, died on a cross, and was raised from the dead, or some form of that story. In both cases, questions of “belief” and questions of “faith” require answers of thought.

Yet, as surprising as it may seem, these understandings are relatively recent. “Faith” has its etymological roots in the Greek pistis, “trust; commitment; loyalty; engagement.” Jerome translated pistis into the Latin fides (“loyalty”) and credo (which was from cor do, “I give my heart”). The translators of the first King James Bible translated credo into the English “belief,” which came from the Middle English bileven (“to prize; to value; to hold dear”).

Faith in God, therefore, was a trust in and loyal commitment to God. Belief in Christ was an engaged commitment to the call and ministry of Jesus; it was a commitment to do the gospel, to be a follower of Christ.

In neither case were “belief” or “faith” a matter of intellectual assent.

Nevertheless, by the dawn of the 18th century, as knowledge became a rational, theoretically driven venture “the word ‘belief’ started to be used to describe an intellectual assent to a hypothetical—and often dubious—proposition.”

Religion would not be the same. “Until well into the modern period,” Armstrong contends, “Jews and Christians both insisted that it was neither possible nor desirable to read the Bible literally, that it gives us no single, orthodox message and demands constant reinterpretation.” Myths were symbolic, often therapeutic, teaching stories and were never understood literally or historically. But that all changed with the advent of modernity.

more... what are your practices? To what do you give your heart? Each day?

with respect,

 

[oftheherd1]

There are fundamentalists that believe there is an unbroken line of fundamentalists from the time of Christ until this day. That they did not follow the Catholic beliefs (however you wish to define them), and in fact were persecuted by the Catholics because of not wanting to be ruled by a church hierarchy which they believed did not follow the Bible. That is not to attack anyone else's beliefs. Just to say there are other beliefs. But one problem is that even within those that call themselves fundamentalists, there are those who wish to take up 'modern' beliefs.

I personally don't put much stock in Armstrong. I think he is mistaken in much of what I recall he said. Others may agree or disagree. Nor for that matter, do I agree with much in the Ascent of Intellectual Orthodoxy. I think there is a twisting of words to support the writer's beliefs. You or anyone else is of course, free to believe otherwise.

 

[DennisBreene]

This is the first I've read of the arguments of Pseudo-D but his concepts have resonated with me for years. Being unable to know God (ie. conceive of the inconceivable) leaves one's ethical responsibilities to be defined by ones upbringing and culture. Therefore my concepts of right and wrong are essentially Judeo-Christian. As to the modern religious concept of "knowing God" as a personal entity. I guess I'll find that out when I die, if modern theology is correct. Since I have no control of the situation either way, it seems quite reasonable to just live life as a reasonable, moral person so that I am able to interact in society. My concepts of God and the afterlife have absolutely no impact on anyone else and I don't have to feel threatened or vexed by the beliefs of others.

 

[grumpywolfman]

A most thought provoking article from the New York Times - a Facebook find for me

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/30/o...st-part-of-faith.html?src=me&ref=general&_r=0

I particularly was fascinated (and approve in some ways) of the assertion that, for some at least, the act of living "as if" there is a creator deity, who cares what happens to you, is much more central that spending time pondering if there is such a being. I have had that discourse with a few religious people over the years and it is hard to dispute that if someone is happier thinking that way then there is nothing to be gained from debating the reality of their assumptions.

Just a quick note, this article is a journalist's personal point of view from a section of the New York Times entitled "The Opinion Pages."

 

[grumpywolfman]

And people who feel threatened at the deepest core of their identity... well, they act in defense of that deepest core.

Hmm... and the liberal-minded have 'evolved' beyond this character flaw? There are enough responses just on this website alone to suggest different data results. I demand a recount!


* My PM box is open for anyone who wants to talk science.

 

[grumpywolfman]

Just a quick note, this article is a journalist's personal point of view from a section of the New York Times entitled "The Opinion Pages."

I correct myself, she is professor of anthropology at Stanford who is a guest columnist for the New York Times. She focuses on an "intellectual's perspective" of why people choose to believe in the supernatural. I wonder what her opinion is about the happenings at Bohemian Grove?

 

[arnisador]

Did you read the article? I thought she was pretty even-handed.

 

[grumpywolfman]

Did you read the article? I thought she was pretty even-handed.

Yes I did, and I appreciate her article on "Living With Voices."

But God is very real to me. How can I deny Him after all that He has done for me? How can I not want to defend his existence, when someone claims that He is simply a myth of the mind, a convenience for the conscious, or a means of social acceptance; looking down upon my Lord from a turned-up nose of subtle pomposity, clothed under a guise of "the educated" ?

 

[arnisador]

Yes I did, and I appreciate her article on "Living With Voices."

But God is very real to me. How can I deny Him after all that He has done for me? How can I not want to defend his existence, when someone claims that He is simply a myth of the mind, a convenience for the conscious, or a means of social acceptance; looking down upon my Lord from a turned-up nose of subtle pomposity, clothed under a guise of "the educated" ?

How should a Hindu react to your (false, in his eyes) belief in the Christian god?

 

[grumpywolfman]

How should a Hindu react to your (false, in his eyes) belief in the Christian god?

Instead of engaging me in private discussion, I suppose he might take the coward's way and give me a rep. deduction for offending his religious views Arni :wink2:

 

[elder999]

How should a Hindu react to your (false, in his eyes) belief in the Christian god?

Actually, being a pantheistic religion, Hindus generally have very little reaction to Christianity. Many so-called "Christians," on the other hand, do have a negative reaction to Hinduism....or any other "ism."

Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!" -Mark 9:24

 

[grumpywolfman]

Actually, being a pantheistic religion, Hindus generally have very little reaction to Christianity. Many so-called "Christians," on the other hand, do have a negative reaction to Hinduism....or any other "ism."

...especially the religion of evolutionism :asian: