Red wrote:
mis wrote:
I was born a Catholic and raised in a strong religious household, had to attend Sunday mass, and even went to Sunday school up until high school.
I'm pretty happy with the progressive changes that we as a religion have made, mostly in that we become more tolerant of others and it's less about redemption and more about saving.
What would you have to say to someone who still wants to believe in a higher power, but not in the faith of it? It's pretty hard to keep faith when all you really have to rely on is yourself in the world, yet preachers and followers say to you every single day to "believe in God's work" or "God has a plan for everyone". When you hear about the stuff that happens every day in the world, from disease to conflict, I find myself questioning what this "plan" is for people staring down the barrel of a gun or having their bodies literally torn apart from the inside. Some people live lives without worry, while others fear if they can even survive the day. In other words, why is he so unfair?
I think it's important to understand that God is not in competition with creation, that is, he himself is not contingent and that by the nature of non-contingent things (of which there can only be one) he is the ground for the contingent universe.
It's also important not to reduce him to a watchmaker who creates things and remains indifferent to them, because this conflicts with the ontological truths about -what- can exist outside of the purely physical.
In fact, I must hold that all other such gods of different religions simply do not cohere with these truths as well as the Christian concept of God does.
So, by the nature of God he is always acting, to say that the unmoved mover can remain indifferent is to say that circles can be squares.
Now to the point, you say "all you really have to rely on is yourself in the world," and I can understand why.
I'm going to respond to certain points that jump at me while I read, since I find it much easier to respond in that manner. If you find that I missed any vital point or if this manner of response omitted an important message you're trying to convey, please tell me.
For man naturally desires happiness,
I must disagree with this minor point, especially since it seems like a gateway to something bigger. Man desires the ultimate benefit for himself and his 'pack', as is what the most base instincts demand. While this normally is in conjunction with happiness, happiness is simply a byproduct or an indicator that all is well, much in the same way that the brain uses pain to signal that it's vessel is damaged or anger to stand their ground in the face of danger. Most of these emotions are simply indicators to help us navigate these base instincts. However, since our benefit does not always make us happy, I'd like to correct this into man naturally desires his benefit. Believe it or not, the difference is there and is substantial enough to not ignore it.
To elucidate, any being and any inference upwards to conscience partakes in God, the only danger is (and this is VERY important) when people become obsessed with scientific fact as means of explanation, because the only choices left for such a person are:
1.) consciousness cannot be defined empirically (that is, it is not composed of matter), therefor it is an abstraction upon the experience of mere self-awareness
2.) consciousness exists, but it exists only because of physical phenomena and nothing more
Both of these lines of thought are jointly and commutatively put to death the is-ought problem and the categorical imperative, and the second view is not even scientifically sound.
Again, I must speak up here. When you say 'people become obsessed with scientific fact as a means of explanation', I must throw my hat in due to the fact that, well, I am likely one of those people, so I feel in a good position to put my two cents as a person with that point of view.
First of all, it's difficult to really call it an obsession. Is it an obsession to be determined to call everything that is red 'red'? Is it an obsession to be absolutely certain that all that is wet is 'wet'? These are basic things we all know and agree on and exactly how my archetype views scientific fact. It's not an obsession. We can go about our day fairly easily without thinking about the explanation for everything. Do I dissect nearly everything given to me until it's little more than a hollow corpse I can examine? Absolutely, but only because I wish to understand. That's moreso severe curiosity with everything rather than obsession with scientific fact, especially since my explanations sometimes don't even pertain to scientific structure.
As for your presented thought processes? They are false.
Both they themselves and the implication that they are the only explanation we can come up with and stand by at all times. To anyone who shares my view and has half a brain, we have a much more sane explanation: We don't know.
Consciousness is a very tricky thing to approach, as is most things pertaining to the brain. Anyone who says everything involving can be explained already is completely asinine since it still remains one of the greatest mysteries that we have yet to completely understand. This is where my gripe with certain religious peers comes in as they are not content with that answer and wish to know at all costs (at which point I suppose that is also called obsession). This often comes to the taunting joke of "We do not know, therefor God". Is it a tasteful joke? No, but it exists for a reason, and that's very much the reason.
Given enough time and research, and you'll have to trust me on this one, we'll find out all there is to know about consciousness to a more grounded level. Much the same way that turning oxygen into water would be considered completely impossible but a few years ago and an act of God several centuries ago.
TL;DR "We don't know" is an acceptable answer.
So Christianity, is not a club, we don't claim to know the truth, and we don't claim exclusive rights to the truth, it was given to all mankind.
The "divine science" as aquinas calls it (referring to a kind of generalized philosophically-imbued theology) deals in the study of divine revelation, and those who are captivated by it do worship and services, not because it's a rule, but because of a genuine fervor for the truth.
While I'm certain you have enough wits about you to not treat Christianity as a club and not claim the truth, please do look around and see your peers, as a good portion of them do exactly that. Were that not true, the Crusades or, in more recent terms, religious discrimination wouldn't exist at all, seeing as how your perception leaves quite a bit of room for compromise. As a result, and I hope this doesn't create any bad blood, your statement is completely false.
I'll have to admit that I completely scratched my head at what tangent you went off of as for good and evil, but I'll throw what I can in there.
Since I'm going to draw out of human instinct again, this means that Good and Evil isn't real, but Benefit and Detriment is. What comes to our detriment and is perpetrated by something tangible (more than often at least) we interpret as evil. What comes to our benefit and is perpetrated by something tangible (again, more than often) we interpret as good. That is why we cannot 'fight' evil, because something will always come to our detriment and why we will always know what good is to us, because we know what comes to our benefit.
The only way for good and evil to exist objectively is with the presence of some God, apparently, and even then it'd still be subjective because God himself is still an individual and, as such, it'd be an opinion rather than absolute fact.
If you'd be so kind as to condense what you mean on that last portion, mayhaps I can come up with a more coherent response.
