Religion linked to optimism

[-dead-]

So true believers are optimists? I always thought one had to be seriously optimistic to believe all that stuff - but I just put that down to cynicism. Now I find it may well be true

[Dowding (Work)]

Child-like and naive... ok. Keep on reading that 2000 year old book, written by people who couldn't explain the nature of rain, edited as part of a political process in the first few centuries after its writing. No offence meant though!

[Saurdaukar]

Dowding... you sillyhead - GOD makes rain!

[10Bears]

I've only met three or four real Christians in my life. People that actually follow and live by the teachings of Christ. The rest just go to church to be seen or it's politicaly expediante.

I'm not a Christian because it's too much work.. Turn the other cheek?... naw.. I plummet the other cheek.. Forgive your enemy?..  Chaka Zulu says leave no enemy behind.. that makes better sense. (that was a good mini series BTW.. watched the whole thing) Accept Jesus Christ as your lord and savor.. Well that part is cool... you mean he died on the cross for my sins?.. That means I can do plenty more sinnin' before it comes time to confess.. bah what a bunch of nonsense.

[mrfish]

hehe i sure wouldn't site optimism as a credit- it might also imply a naive worldview just as easily.

why does that seem so typically christian though? maybe because they can field a question like:

"why does a supposedly loving caring god allow so much suffering and evil?"

with a stock answer like:

a.   "it's part of his magic plan and we are too primitive to understand!"

b.  "god didn't make evil, people did!"

c.   "he wants us to have the freewill to choose between good and evil because he wants us to pick good on our own."

i'm sure thrawn's already thinking what's wrong with that! well let's see....

problem with answer a: if you were omniscient and omnipotent could you not come up with a better plan? can you pace around in your heavenly bunker and watch hundreds of your priests rape kids and live with the fact that it's necessary for your big plan?

problem with answer b: are you saying that god didn't know that evil would be a biproduct of humanity when he created us? how are we capable of evil if it was not first possible? how could it be possible unless god deemed it so?

problem with c: why? he knows the outcome already anyway because he knows the future. can i change the future in a way that he can not know?

by all means keep smiling though, i wouldn't want to douse your god-buzz. there's a comfort in avoiding tough questions, i suspect that's why christianity does so well - as long as people have a saint that cares about their washing machine and another to care about their finances what more do you need?

[Kieran]

It seems to me that a number of people in these threads, though stating they hate people talking to them about God, spend a great deal of time on these boards doing just that. Perhaps you really DO want those Jehova's Witness folks dropping by.

But, I love the topic.

[SunKing]

SLO said:

"just don't get me involved with your religion or your stats about religion....or i'll come back and show you how many wars where started cause of religion"


Wow someone else thinks like me. I've always thought religion was just good for starting wars, jealously and rebelion.

Its good to believe in something but believing in yourself, friends and family is what life is about.

to each their own.

[Kieran]

Wow someone else thinks like me. I've always thought religion was just good for starting wars, jealously and rebelion.

Yeah, everyone knows "Sister Theresa" is Germanic for "she-wolf".

[streakeagle]

Sometimes people get causes and effects backwards. While optimism and religion may be associated...

It takes an optimist to believe that some all-powerful being is eventually going to make everything in the universe right and that if you give 10% to people who claim to represent this being it gives you a shot at an everlasting life in a heaven whose existence is as well proven as the land of Oz.

Which is better: To be happy because you define the "truth" as an arbirtrary set of beliefs that makes you feel good (blissfully ignorant)? Or to be sad because you define the "truth" as a logical set of beliefs based on real observations which make you feel bad (painfully enlightened)?

Clearly, it is better to be happy, but my mind says logic and reason based on hard evidence is the best way to make decisions rather than wishful thinking. I see it as a much better bet to spend my life doing the best I can to use every moment wisely than to waste even a small fraction of it preparing for an afterlife that in all probability doesn't exist.

[mrfish]

Originally posted by streakeagle
Which is better: To be happy because you define the "truth" as an arbirtrary set of beliefs that makes you feel good (blissfully ignorant)? Or to be sad because you define the "truth" as a logical set of beliefs based on real observations which make you feel bad (painfully enlightened)?

amen- interesting language.

i don't know though- as bad as it is sometimes to not a have a space daddy that cares, it's still a massive relief to just be honest about it all though isn' t it? i think so. it's worse to have nagging doubts than honest uncertainty.

[Hortlund]

Hmm, yes, so are you aware that science cannot give answers to the questions religion answer? And to make it even worse, science cannot disprove the answers given by religion.

Yes, in this area, your beloved science is a blunt weapon.

Suck it up

[Tarmac]

Originally posted by Ripsnort
"The most striking finding, he said, is that nonreligious students "hate school" more.

I'd argue that people that are anti-establishment have problems with both religion and school.  Both are institutions that exert  authority over people.  I think there's a third factor (dislike for authority or whatever you want to call it) that causes both nonreligion and hatred of school.  

In short, there's a third factor that causes both of these.  They correlate, but neither is the cause of the other.

[bounder]

Originally posted by Hortlund
Hmm, yes, so are you aware that science cannot give answers to the questions religion answer? And to make it even worse, science cannot disprove the answers given by religion.

Yes, in this area, your beloved science is a blunt weapon.

Suck it up

Hmm yes so you are aware that religion cannot give answers to the questions science answer [sic]? And to make it even worse, religion cannot disprove the answers given by science.

Yes in this area, your beloved religion is a blunt weapon

Suck it up

[Hortlund]

Ultimately your "faith" must incorporate the entire universe.
As an atheist, ultimately you believe that the entire universe had no beginning, that matter and energy are eternal, and that this mindless matter and energy at one point in time just happened to fall together under the right circumstances and sentient beings were produced.

Atheists must face the existence that their "faith" mandates. An existence where there is no ultimate purpose to his/her existence. An existence in which they are dead and buried in but a spec of time in relation to the cosmos. An existence in which nothing they do will ultimately matter at all.

Atheists must face the fact that their faith precludes any such thing as absolute morality. That morality, in all its forms, is simply man-made and has no ultimate bearing on anything. You can be a Hitler or a Stalin and it will not matter. You can be a Ted Bundy, a Pol Pot, a southern slave owner, or a mad priest during the Spanish Inquisition. You can abuse a little boy or girl, rape, pillage, steal, maim, torture, and kill all you want with no ultimate consequences because nothing is really right or wrong. All morals are man-made concepts and mean nothing and the picking and chosing of which morals you will adhere to is, at its base, a useless and empty exercise that signifies nothing.

[Dowding (Work)]

I'd rather face reality than base my life on a fairy tale (complete with the cliched happy ending).

Essentially religion is about investing in a comfortable fantasy in order to give some meaning to life - essentially attacking the very human desire of wanting to know our place in the universe.  Religion doesn't answer any questions. It gives them a sugar sweet gloss coat, sides-steps them and declares them answered. Ignorance is its cornerstone and was the speciality of the very people who wrote the holy books.

"Why have all the crops died leaving me with dead animals and starving children?"

"It is god's plan and we are too unworthy to understand why."

"Thank you, father."

"Bless you my son. Remember to leave an offering on your way out."

As for knowing my place in the universe. I'm a realist. I've studied alot of astrophysics and astronomy. I, like any individual, am an infinitesimally small entity, on the grand scale of things. But none of us live on this grand scale. Not even religious people. We interact with what is in our immediate vicinity, and that never even touches the smallest part of the sprawling expanse of the universe.

I guess I can sum it all up in one easy phrase: each to their own.

Suck that up.