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October 14, 2007
Posted at 9:00 am by Richard and tagged death, eternity, funeral, joseph-brisendine, life, Nietzsche, philosophy, podcast, wedding. Popularity: 98% [?]
It seems common to think that Atheists cannot have a positive outlook on life, because the non-existence of god somehow denies life of any meaning.
I recently attended a funeral (not someone I knew, but I was there to support the family) followed closely by a wedding. And then, as if it was all part of some higher plan (irony intended), I find myself listening to this podcast which I downloaded a while ago, but hadn’t got around to listening to yet.
The funeral certainly reminded me of death (which, one might imagine, might be an unpleasant thing to think about), but because of my recent “brush with death”, I was able to appreciate the wedding so much more. Knowing that life will end (and will not go on forever, as many religious people might hope for) made the celebration much more special that it might have been otherwise. As Joseph Brisendine explains in the podcast – how long could you have a orgasm for before it became boring? Life is wonderful precisely because it ends.
If we were to “transcend” death, and live in a “perfect place” for eternity, nothing in this life would be special or have meaning, because we’d always be longing for this “other world”. And isn’t this exactly what religion teaches us? Religion (at least the Abrahamic ones, and probably most others) teach of an “after” life, which is supposed to be much grander and more fulfilling than this life ever can be.
It is claimed that without “God”, life cannot have purpose, but Nietzsche suggests (at least, Brisendine talking about Nietzsche) that it is only without God that this life can have any meaning.
Popularity: 98% [?]
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September 16, 2007
Posted at 10:02 pm by Richard and tagged attis, c.s.lewis, christianity, criticism, dionysus, horus, jesus, movie, mythology, osiris, philosophy, youtube, zeitgeist. Popularity: 56% [?]
Even though I was never really a Christian (although I looked into it seriously for a year or so), I had always assumed that Jesus was, most likely, a real person. There’s a common argument which goes something like this:
“Either Jesus was crazy, or what he said must have been true. There’s no evidence he was crazy, therefore he must be the son of God”. Sure, there are plenty of other responses to this argument, but I think the two simplest ones are:
- Jesus was misquoted, or misconstrued
- Jesus never actually existed
I still maintain that if Jesus did actually exist, he would be quite unhappy about how his teachings have been butchered and interpreted today. So in some sense, I still believe the first option is quite likely. I had not, however (until recently) actually seriously considered the possibility that Jesus didn’t actually exist.
The bible talks about people we know existed, right? Various Kings and so forth? So, it’s fair to assume that Jesus also existed? Given that Jesus is such a central part of the Christian mythology, Christianity would fall if it could be demonstrated that Jesus was simply a myth, right (please, correct me if I’m wrong)? Well, this might just be true!
I first came across these two YouTube videos a while back, and it made me realise that, if true, it would be an amazing coincidence if he actually existed (of course, perhaps that was God’s plan to make Jesus even more difficult to believe, thus requiring more faith). Dionysus (one of the figures discussed in the videos) was supposedly born of a virgin, fathered by the king of heaven, turned water into wine, died and resurrected. Sound familiar? There are, apparently, many other mythical figures who have extraordinarily similar stories – all of which predate Jesus.
There seem to be many others out there who claim similar things, and while there is some criticism of some of these claims, there are, undoubtedly some parts of the Jesus story which were “borrowed” from earlier myths.
I plan to investigate this further, as I don’t believe it’s quite as clear as is suggested, but I wonder – how much of Jesus’ life has to be true for Christianity to remain?
Popularity: 56% [?]
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September 2, 2007
Posted at 7:02 pm by Richard and tagged atheism, belief, friendly-christian, influence, interest, politics, religion, society. Popularity: 40% [?]
I recently read a post by the Friendly Christian, who questioned why some people just “aren’t interested in God”. The suggestion is made that perhaps the Church isn’t friendly or welcoming enough, and that if they improved in this area, perhaps they’d win more converts.
It’s certainly a valid criticism of most of the churches I’ve gone to, as many Churches aren’t friendly to nonreligious people wanting to see what things are like. I’m utterly sick of people asking me “What church do you go to?”, and then seeing the look of shock on their face when I tell them I don’t go to any church, I’m not religious, or (worse!) if I was to use the word “atheist”.
The quote being discussed by the Friendly Christian is as follows:
“I’m not religious. I don’t think much about God, except when I am in a pinch and need some special favors. I have no particular reason to think he’ll deliver, but I sometimes take a shot anyway. Other than that, I’m just not that interested in God.”
This, to me, sounds like a person who has no reason to believe in God except for the simple fact that many others seem to have this belief. If one is raised in a society where God is almost universally accepted, if one made no effort to actively think about God, what possible conclusions could that person come to?
This is where I think the Friendly Christian has got it wrong. This person doesn’t sound like someone who’s been shunned by the church, but someone who (quite legitimately, in my opinion) has no interest in God because the idea has little or no influence on their life. In an ideal world (one where personal beliefs in supernatural beings remained personal – in the sense that your beliefs were unable to affect my way of life), I think such a lack of interest in God would be quite common.
That’s not to say an interest in God is a bad thing, however. As you might have discovered, however, I do have an interest in religion and the concepts of God. These ideas do have an influence on my life because our politicians make them relevant, and because I want to understand why so many people have these beliefs. I find the idea of God interesting from a historical and cultural point of view, and want to learn more.
Are you interested in God? If not, why not?
Popularity: 40% [?]
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August 20, 2007
Posted at 4:02 pm by Richard and tagged australia, christianity, democrats, election, greens, john-howard, kevin-rudd, labour, liberal, lyn-allison, politics, religion, usa. Popularity: 28% [?]
I often feel very lucky to live in Australia. Particularly when I look at how other countries are ruled by illiterate intellectually void morons (not naming any in particular, of course). I’ve also always been happy that even though Australia is a predominantly Christian nation, religion (in my lifetime, anyway) has never played a large part in politics.
While I don’t think Australia will ever be as dominated by fundamentalist religious dogma as is the case in the USA, it’s scary to see religion and politics closely intertwined in Australia, as it’s certainly possibly that we could head down a similar path. Our two major party leaders, Kevin Rudd, and John Howard are both strong Christians (or, so they claim), as are many of the other Members of Parliament.
Democrats leader Lyn Allison says there are too many federal MPs with strong religious views.
Senator Allison says the separation of church and state is becoming blurred.
“The Prime Minister this morning said that there were a great number of Members of Parliament in Coalition ranks with very strong ties to the Christian church,” she said. “I know this is a Christian country but people with very strong religious views are heavily over-represented, if I can put it that way, in the Parliament,” she said.
I’ve always been a swinging voter, and I don’t support either major Australian party – my votes in the past have gone to the Greens, the Democrats, or the odd independent (with the unfortunate necessity of nominating both of the major parties somewhere with my preferences). It worries me, however, when I can see the line between politics and religion in Australia getting blurred.
Some claim that comments like those of Lyn Allison are misguided, but I think it’s a legitimate concern. There’s certainly no problem with having a reasonable percentage of Christians represented in parliament (if 64% of the population are Christian, then their views might be well represented if we have 64% Christian MPs). My problem is that politics seems to be becoming more about religion than it should be, and who knows where that will lead? Honestly, I don’t care what religious views our leaders have, as long as they’re able to put their views aside when it counts. I worry that the efforts of our potential Prime Ministers to emphasise their Christianity will push the focus where it doesn’t belong.
(Oh, and sorry this post was late – I try to write one major post each Sunday, but I’ve had a rather busy weekend!)
Popularity: 28% [?]
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August 14, 2007
Posted at 12:11 am by Richard and tagged 10commandments, argument, atheism, christianity, ethics, morality, richard-dawkins. Popularity: 30% [?]
I hadn’t really come across the argument from morality much before – at least not enough to seriously think about it. I’d heard people ask “if you don’t believe in God, then where do your morals come from?”, but rather than answer the question (I’d say honestly “I don’t know”), I’d retort with the observation that Christians “pick and choose” their morals from the bible, and clearly their morals come from the same place as mine – and it’s not the bible (an idea I’d always had, but one that Dawkins helped me articulate).
For those not familiar with the argument from morality, it basically goes like this:
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If God does not exist, then there are no objective (i.e. independent of human opinion) moral values and duties.
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There are objective moral values and duties.
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Therefore God exists.
My gut instinct when I first thought about this argument is that the first point has issues. I’ve asserted before that we can have morality without religion, and I still believe that a moral code independent of religion is superior, but as for where this morality could come from – I have no idea. I seem to remember Dawkins talking about how morality could have evolved, but that wouldn’t be objective morality, would it?
Which as got me thinking about the idea of objective morality as a whole, and I can’t help but ask – do we really have objective morality (point 2)? Zach Moore says that, at least at a debate lecture he attended, the idea the objective morality exists seems to be generally accepted, but I can’t help but feel that there’s something wrong with that, too.
What morals do we have that are objective? “Murder is bad” – Surely there’s some times it’s justified? “Do no harm” – but what if my survival is at stake? “Do the greatest Good” – but, what IS good? Even the golden rule isn’t objective (although the rule itself seems to be the most universal law of morality) – “do unto others as you’d have them do unto you” relies on our own opinions! Perhaps I really wouldn’t care if you stole my girlfriend?
Do we really have objective morals? If so, what?
Popularity: 30% [?]
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August 5, 2007
Posted at 1:19 pm by Richard and tagged belief, eclecticism, einstein, god, hippy, jesus, red-dwarf, religion, truth, wwjd. Popularity: 30% [?]
Last week, I mentioned that science could be a way to “religious experience”, and I discussed in one of my earliest posts (Religious Eclecticism) the idea that all religions could be based on some element of truth. Don’t misunderstand me, I believe whatever truth they may be based on has been utterly distorted, but that doesn’t mean there’s no truth to be found.
I think that all the “prophets” and religious leaders believed in the message they preached, but they didn’t expect (or want) their messages to be accepted as divine and unquestionable truth – they wanted people to think for themselves. I believe that Jesus, if he was a real man and if his message hadn’t been distorted by religion, would still be revered today without needing needing to claim that he was “God”.
Christians often ask themselves, “What Would Jesus Do?”, and I think if Jesus lived today, he’d be amazed by the magic all around us, and might even “find God” in a similar way to Einstein:
Sometimes he was really using God as just a sort of convenient metaphor. But he did have, I think, a genuine cosmic religious feeling, a sense of admiration at the intellectual ingenuity of the universe. Not just its majesty, but its extraordinary subtlety and beauty and mathematical elegance.
I think Jesus, today, would be more like a modern Buddhist or perhaps a “hippy” (jokes are often made about Jesus being the first hippy, but I think all jokes aside there’s a lot of truth to that).
If we ask ourselves the question, “What Would Jesus Believe?”, whatever the answer is, I definitely don’t believe he’d be a Christian, a Jew or a Muslim, for that matter. It makes me think of the Cat’s religion in Red Dwarf…
Popularity: 30% [?]
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