God exists.
???
Profit!
I’m not going to bother addressing such blatant sophistry, for the reasons noted above. I could go on and on about how Catholicism is just as silly as Protestantism. I don’t think it would do any good. I mean, your beliefs are interlaced with both political, economic, and religious presuppositions. Debating the point would be like trying to discuss evolution with a creationist. I refuse, because I know the result.
At least you can express your thoughts coherently. [Y]
Look, ultimately, you base everything you believe in on something, some ultimate presupposition through which all of reality is interpreted. I base mine on the Bible, and Christian theism (or do I repeat myself?..yes, I do). You base your concepts of “freedom” on religion too, rather you acknowledge it or not.
If you don’t believe the Bible, how on earth can you say Christians are wrong to make that “horrible assumption”? Obviously, to you its not a make or break deal, because you don’t believe the Bible. You cannot accept that the Bible is true, and so make the assertion that accepting the Bible as truth is an odd thing. I believe NOT accepting the Bible as total truth an odd thing as well.
And I don’t know one Christian who believes atheists are criminals, or “amoral”. You can’t be amoral. Relativistic is another matter. I’d say philosophically, all non-Christian religions or belief-systems are ultimately relativistic, or self-contradictory. Everyone is relativistic sometimes.
Well this is one point that I think is fallacious. It does not logically follow that if I do not follow your particular claim to objective morality, that I am a moral subjectivist or relativist. There is such thing as secular objective morality that does not fall back on any arguement from authority appealing to either deities or governments and politics. Ethical objectivism is not a specifically religious or Christian notion, it is a philosophical framework. But in either case, I have always been bothered by the pervasive assumption made by many religionists that in the absence of their particular religion or diety, hedonism or nihilism or relativism are the only options. It strikes me as an attempt to claim a monopoly on ethics.
Rothbard’s own conception of natural rights and natural law, while I openly concede that it is partially influenced from religious sources such as Thomas Aquinas (who, mind you, technically took an “agnostic” or “ignostic” position about the process of discovering natural law in that he proclaimed that the existance or non-existance of a diety is irrelevant to the existance, discovery or practise of the natural law), is secular at its root and dates back to Aristotle. And while there are certainly flaws in her system of ethics, Ayn Rand took a pretty good shot at providing an objective secular morality. I openly concede to being influenced by her, and think that the logical result of applying her own philosophy to politics was anarchism, which unfortunately she did not conclude herself.
That being said, in response to the OP, I don’t think that Christian anarchism is “untenable” or impossible. I do think that it involves cognitive dissonance though in the sense that I see internal conflict within holding onto both the notion that we don’t need a human authority to rule over us yet we need a cosmic, religious authority to rule over us lest the world would allegedly not make sense and devolve into chaos. Of course, I also see cognitive dissonance in the reverse: rejecting the need for and existance of a diety to rule over us while putting forth that there is a need for human rulers. At least etymologially I do see atheism and anarchism as quite compatible. Of course, I’m not going to proclaim that “you can’t be an anarchist and not be an atheist”. That would be ridiculous.
I will grant that the deists don’t really run into the same cognitive dissonance because their conception of the diety or creator is one that does not play an active role in the universe once it has already been created. I would also tend to argue that polytheism seems more decentralized in nature then monotheism in that, to use an analogy, it’s akin to proclaiming that there can be multiple governments while monotheism is akin to proclaiming that there must be a world (or universal) government. I also question wether religious conceptions of morality can truly be “objective” in that they often deny the use of reason as a means to discovering morality. They usually fall back on either revelation or an appeal to authority. Thinkers like Aquinas are a rare acception.
I admit that my criticism of others is egoistic foolishness. The only important debates in the world go on within the individual human mind – from my perspective, mine and from your perspective, yours. Criticizing others is always a gamble because we are fallible and, even with good intentions, run the risk of naively supporting the misery and oppression of others out of our own ignorance.
This fact, however, does little to disprove my assertions and I think my own assumptions about things are reasonable.
To demonstrate, though, why I rarely address “religious” arguments, especially if I think the person isn’t going to be making honest arguments, check out this thread on another forum:
http://www.politicalcrossfire.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=96482
Look at the absurd rebuttals made: Grammar doesn’t matter, truth isn’t determined by reality, etc.. It’s sheer nonsense.
There is God. The proof: Look around you. This lays the argument out pretty well:
That’s the only way they can defend their beliefs. Again, see the thread in the Christian forum I linked above, where you’ll see me arguing against some Christians and the absolutely absurd arguments they make.
It’s interesting to note that with the exception of Christianity and some schools of Buddhism, every other major world religion were created as a means for the ruling regime to justify its grip on power as an expression of divine will. The divine hierarchy of the Old Testament’s angelic pantheon reflects and perpetuates the rigid social hierarchy of the ruling elite of its society. The god of the Old Testament demands taxes (sacrifices) accepts no competition (he murders over two million unbelievers) or critical questioning of the law, and presents a façade of voluntary submission (convert or face annihilation).
The New Testament on the other hand, was written before Christianity transformed to an institution of theocratic dictatorship. It presents a personal rather than collective choice (submit or you will burn in hell, as opposed to your tribe/descendants.) This subtle distinction may be responsible for the success of Western civilization, as secular rulers did not feel personally threatened when reason eroded the power of the church. (Of course, that did not stop the church itself from butchering secularists for as long as it could.) This is still not possible in the Islamic and Confucian world, where the secular and divine authority is united in a single institution. The attempt to introduce Aristotelian philosophy by Ibn-Rushd in particular, was wildly successful in the West, but because rational questioning was a threat to current regime, it was snuffed out by the institutionalization of doctrines such as the taqleed.
In Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam, Mahayana Buddhism has allowed a similar erosion of divine authority, creating the “Asian Tigers.” In this light, Communism can be seen as an attempt to preserve the union of divine and secular authority.
I don’t blame you for not engaging in religious arguments. I use to debate atheists all the time, and believe me, I’ve heard some pretty silly atheistic arguments before, some of them found in that link you gave me. “proof 36” is ridiculous. I was raised a Christian, but went through a period of about a year and half where I considered myself an agnostic, maybe an atheist. Admittedly, arguments from most mainstream Christians didn’t convince me, and affirmed that mainstream Christianity is wacko. But arguments like “if there is a child starving, and God is all loving, and doesn’t save him, God must not exist.” I didn’t buy that crap even when I didn’t believe Christianity. Its so easily disprovable from simply reading the Bible that I’m surprised people still use arguments like that. I looked through all that stuff during my “time” as an agnostic. Most of those arguments on that site are easily disprovable. I’m much more concerned with the philosophical problems, like metaphysics, and epistemology, which is where I don’t think other philosophies hold up.
Hopefully you realize I wasn’t making an argument. I was making an assertion, which is to say, stating my opinion.
I don’t think we can necessarily say that they were created for that purpose, just that they were used that way. The earliest of religions, as it seem to me, seem to just be “bad philosophies” (primitive understanding of science, mixed with superstition) if not outright cults.
I admit I don’t think Jesus himself was pro-government – he said what he did because he was afraid of the Romans. The Romans were suspicious that he was anti-Roman (hence the reason the High Priests tried to trick Jesus into cursing Caesar). It’s no coincidence, then, that the passage supporting the authority of government is in the book, THE BOOK OF ROMANS. There were zealots in his day that were anti-Roman, Jesus apparently hung out with a lot of them because several of his apostles were zealots. I suspect he may have secretly supported the anti-Roman underground resistance movement based on him telling his followers to “get some swords” in Luke 22, or at least “passive resistance” to government (assuming Jesus ever existed historically – I don’t believe that). In either case, though, based on scripture, he was a hypocrite – either openly supporting government or only opposing it secretly while telling people to pay their taxes and obey the law.
Also, about major world religions: You forgot Taoism.
Not trying to nitpick – just saying. The Tao Te Ching (57) says:
Also, while classical Hinduism was a polytheistic cult, a number of neat Vedic philosophies emerged from it that weren’t all Statist – for instance, Jainism.
The core principle of Jainism? Ahimsa – Complete respect for all life equally and total non-violence. It’s not really any different than the non-aggression axiom, except they apply it to all life, equally.
Ahimsa had a profound influence on Vedic philosophy, such as on the views of Gandhi.
Warning: my thoughts on this subject will probably be very offensive to most Christians.
I’ve concluded that the earliest religions were based on family-worshop or ancestor-worshop. They would literally ritually slaughter an elder and cannibalistically eat them as a diefication ritual. This is what the communion ritual, as well as the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, is symbolic of. Many of these early cult religions also had very similar traits to the Jesus story, with virgin birth in cave and dieing for your salvation and ressurection and everything, so the Christian religion is hardly unique in its archetypes. See the book “Pagan Christs” for a more detailed analysis of this.
I also see religion as historically being tied to politics due to the familial connection. The earliest rulers were either worshopped as literal gods or were thought of as the ancestors of gods. Early monarchs tried to justify their rule by bloodlines that they claimed to be divine. The official union of church and state as a means of justifying political rule did not come until later. In either case, I see both religion and politics as stemming from the cult of the family and/or ancestor worshop. I see all dieties as either being made up or being the glorification of some past ancestor, often one who was ritualistically sacrificed.
Whatever Jesus actually thought, or regaurdless of wether or not he ever existed, I cannot help but see the Christian religion, at its root, as an attempt by the Roman State to unify everyone into one political unit. This is particularly true when it comes to Constantine the sun cultist, who used this budding new religion of Christianity, then little more then a decentralized dispersal of cults, or the purposes of practical politics. Heroic is technically correct though that the scriptures were written before any kind of theocracy was implemented. One could argue that this was an exploitation of the scriptures for political purposes.
But in either case, the actual foundation of the official Christian religion (which the scriptures predate by far) is based in Roman politics in my understanding. Before then, the Christian religion was an entirely different thing with a multitude of sects that have long since been usurped. Most of the scriptures were excluded from the bible and the bible is by no means the earliest Christian text. Arguably, the Koptics and Egyptian Church are the closest to genuine early Christianity then any other currently existing sect. Modern Christianity, by and large, has little to no resemblance to what the original followers of Jesus actually believed and practised.
It is claiming a monopoly on ethics. There is no neutrality when it comes to claims of ultimate reality. Every belief system (acknowledged or not) makes fundemental claims about reality. There is no escaping this. This idea that you can start off from a neutral point of view, and reason your way to truth without realizing the underlying ultimate beliefs about reality is simply not true. And no, you are right that it does not logically follow that if you don’t accept my claim to objective morality you are a moral subjectivist or relativist. However, it may follow that if you don’t accept my claim to objective reality your claim to objective morality may be self-contradictory or relativist. Thats what I meant. And thats obviously where philosophy and debate comes into play.
This brings us back to the fact that no matter what, every belief system has a starting point upon which all other facts and experience is interpreted. Neutrality and objectivity, in the sense you are using them, are impossible, I think. Who says that “reason” is to be the final authority on matters of reality? As I see it, the Bible and God are my final authorities, through which all facts and experience are to be interpreted. Reason, of course, is a tool used to gain truth, but ultimately the Bible is the final authority. Undoubtedly, this will sound very unreasonable too you. It would have sounded the same to me a few years ago. But, honestly, is what you are doing any different? Rather you accept it or not, you follow some ultimate standard as much as any Christian. Everyone does. Too you, reason is the final authority. God must be validated by reason (which would make God no final authority at all). I say, reason is a tool, but that final authority is in God. If reason had to be validated by some other source, then it would not be the final authority. My belief is that reason should not be the final authority. Reason, is your God.
Sam, are you a fan of Soren Kierkegaard?
I find his analysis to be specifically interesting and I like his idea of the knight of faith capable of transcending the knight of infinite resignation.
P.S. I’m still working on the tax stuff. I have a large paper due today, so I can get back on that with you after it’s done. [:)]
Let me add my two cents worth about the tax stuff. This bears repeating: Jesus said “give to Caesar what belongs to him” and leaves it to His audience to determine what rightfully belongs to Caesar. Jesus does not say that you should pay taxes. As pointed out before, the Bible also says: “detecting their malice” or something to that effect. He was avoiding entrapment. His answer is ingenious. Leave religion or any affiliation to God aside and consider this: if Jesus was just a plain anarchist 2000 years ago, His answer is a wonderful breath of fresh air.
I, too, am a proud Catholic Anarchist and I want to expand personally on the concept of accepting religion.
Warning: my thoughts on this subject will probably be very offensive to most Christians and agnostics alike.
I am not ashamed to say that I take a lot of my faith for granted. I believe God exists because I prefer it and I was raised that way.
The following may come as a bit of an intellectual shocker: I am not ashamed to say that I believe in the super-natural or call it “magic” if you want. I believe in magic. Also, I believe that gravity and electricity and magnetism and light are all forms of magic which glues the natural world together. Physical scientists can spend their time trying to explain those natural phenomena all they want. I do not feel any need to explain them for myself.
From this point of view, it is not difficult for me to take a further step and believe that God exists. I accept that I can not prove why my vision of God is correct and I am comfortable with that. If I was born a Muslim, I would probably be a fanatical Muslim. If I was born a Jew, I would probably think that Christians were an insult to my faith. If I was born a thousand years ago, I would probably believe that the Earth was flat too. I just happened to be born Christian just like for the better half of my young life, I just happened to be born in a culture that takes The State for granted as if it was a divine authority. Similarly, my parents just happened to be born in a communist country whereby everybody believed worshipping dictators was our moral duty – they themselves did not believe it but they had comarades who did. Et cetera.
We all take things for granted.
Jesus was hardly afraid of the Romans. He willingly endured an excruciating death, a death He did NOT have to endure.
“Do you refuse to speak to me?” Pilate said. “Don’t you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?”
Jesus answered, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above.”
"For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from me, but I lay it down on my own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from my Father. "
That seems rather extreme. Here’s my view: People are stupid. In the absence of science and a good education, they are very stupid.
See this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
All of those are pretty good indications of why early people believed in religion: It’s human nature. Also, the “list of cognitive biases” correspond in philosophy to fallacies. I.E., there is the bandwagon effect (Objectivists like HeroicLife just call it “Collectivism”) and it corresponds to appeal to popularity. There is “confirmation bias” (something I think a lot of you all are guilt of) and it corresponds to circular reasoning.
I think it would be very difficult to prove that the earliest of religions involved family-worship and widespread cannabilism: Contrary to what adherents of Abrahamic religions may think, Judaism was NOT the world’s first religion. Judaism stole a great deal of many ideas from previous Mesopotamian religions that were polytheistic. What made Judaism unique was monotheism. Before then, most religions were polytheistic, where each tribe would have a specific God and tribes would each tell one another, “My God is better than yours!!!” In the early Jewish tradition, you can see the polytheistic influence, since the figure of “God” in the Old Testament acknowledges the existence of other Gods by saying, “Don’t worship other Gods. I’m jealous.”
By the end of the Tanakh and the beginning of the New Testament, the picture has changed: Yahweh is no longer a weak, petty child that slaughters random people when he doesn’t get his way. Instead, he is transcendental, truly all-powerful, truly all-knowing, and all-loving.
Now, if you go back even earlier before polytheism, you find that people didn’t even seem to worship “gods.” They just invoked the idea that everything has a spirit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamanism
All religion is rooted in both the core ideas of either Animism (belief in spirits and magic) and Shamanism (a beleif in the power of spiritual healers). Modern science is a rejection of both concepts as nonsense.
There’s a problem with that, though: Christianity existed before Constantine. Before Constantine, there was a tiny religious cult around Jesus – who may not have ever existed. The Romans had an ambivalent relationship with these people: Early Roman historians paint early Christians as troublemakers who would harass Roman guards so that they could be publicly martyred. Because of its rejection of the Greco-Roman religion, many adherents of Greco-Roman paganism viewed Christians as at best, stupid, at worst, evil, and to some degree they oppressed them.
In this conflict, Constantine adopted the Christian cult, for a simple reason: The Greek religion had many gods and if he adhered to it, he couldn’t have that much authority. If he adopted Christianity, however – which posits the existence of a single God and claims all rulers are put in place by that God – it could solidify his rule. So, Constantine, while not really being a Christian, adopted it superficially. While his predecessors (some, not all) oppressed Christians, Constantine oppressed Pagans.
It was at this point that Christianity “took off” – with official government support. Christians today treat this as a “miracle” that a “Pagan Roman emperor” would be “saved” and “Christianity spread like wildfire.”
You’re right. See the remarks above.
A strong Christian clergy was around, I believe, before Constantine. But yes, they did modify it heavily. Under Constantine, Christianity was combined with Neo-Platonism.
slap
They why did he tell his followers to get swords in Luke 22?
Also, please tell me: In Luke 22, Jesus heals a slave’s ear right in front of the Jewish High priests. It doesn’t make any sense, then, for why they’d arrest him – see him perform a miracle – then shortly after that, in court, say, “Give us a sign!” He already allegedly did.
Lastly, I think his blasphemous cries demonstrate it wasn’t “voluntary.” He had no choice because he was just a man (if he existed), who never conjured up any miracles, and certainly couldn’t to save his own life.
Excuse me if I sound naive, but huh?
Admittedly, I’ve only read bits and pieces of his writings. I had meant to get a book or two of his a few months ago, but that didn’t happen. I’ll look into him more, though.
Sweet! Take your time. And thanks!
It was foretold 1000’s of years before His coming that He would die. He told the disciples He was going to die. If He knew a thousand years ago He would be our sacrifice, I think he’d have not only the ability to avoid it but to save Himself in the midst of it.
**Messianic Prophecies** This is a chart of the messianic prophecies from Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22. The promise, prophecy, and fulfillment for each prophecy are shown on this chart.Isaiah was written 700-750 years prior to the birth of Christ. Psalms was written about 1020 years prior to Jesus’ birth. Since Jesus died in A.D. 30 or 33, the prophecies concerning his death were between 800 and 1050 years old when they were fulfilled.
Messianic Prophecies from Isaiah 53
|
Promise |
Prophecy |
Fulfillment |
|---|---|---|
|
Who has believed our report? |
Isaiah 53:1 |
John 12:37-38, Romans 10:16 |
|
Despised and rejected |
Isaiah 53:3 |
Mark 9:12, Luke 17:25, John 1:10-11, 1 Peter 2:4 |
|
He has borne our infirmities |
Isaiah 53:4 |
Matthew 8:16-17 |
|
Considered smitten by God |
Isaiah 53:4 |
Galatians 3:13, Matthew 27:38-44, Luke 23:35 |
|
Wounded for our transgressions |
Isaiah 53:5 |
Romans 4:25 |
|
We are healed by his stripes |
Isaiah 53:5 |
1 Peter 2:24 |
|
Jesus was flogged |
Isaiah 53:5 |
Mark 15:15, Luke 22:63-65, John 19:1 |
|
Silent before His accusers |
Isaiah 53:7 |
Matthew 26:62-63, 27:12-14, Mark 14:60-61, 15:3-15, John 19:9, Acts 8:32-35 |
|
Christ died for our sins |
Isaiah 53:8 |
1 Corinthians 15:3 |
|
Died with the wicked |
Isaiah 53:9 |
Matthew 27:38, Mark 15:27-28, Luke 23:32-33 |
|
Buried with the rich |
Isaiah 53:9 |
Matthew 27:57-60, Mark 15:43-46, Luke 23:50-53, John 19:38-42 |
|
Lived a sinless life |
Isaiah 53:9 |
1 Peter 2:22 |
|
Jesus was an offering for sin |
Isaiah 53:10 |
1 Corinthians 15:3, Hebrews 10:12-14 |
|
He would justify many |
Isaiah 53:11 |
Acts 13:38-39, Romans 5:17-19 |
|
He will be great |
Isaiah 53:12 |
Matthew 28:18, Luke 24:27 |
|
Numbered with transgressors |
Isaiah 53:12 |
Matthew 27:38, Mark 15:27-28, Luke 23:32-33 |
|
Made intercession for sinners |
Isaiah 53:12 |
Luke 23:34, 39-43, Romans 8:34 |
|
Promise |
Prophecy |
Fulfillment |
|---|---|---|
|
The forsaken Christ |
Psalm 22:1 |
Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34 |
|
Verbally abused by men |
Psalm 22:6-7 |
Matthew 26:67-68, 27:27-31 |
|
Trust in God ridiculed |
Psalm 22:8 |
Matthew 27:39-44, Mark 15:29-32, Luke 23:35, 39 |
|
Surrounded by enemies |
Psalm 22:12 |
Matthew 27:27-31, Mark 15:16-20 |
|
Physically weakened |
Psalm 22:14-15 |
Matthew 27:32, Mark 15:21, Luke 23:26 |
|
Thirsty |
Psalm 22:15 |
John 19:28 |
|
Surrounded by enemies |
Psalm 22:16 |
Matthew 27:39-44 |
|
Hands and feet pierced |
Psalm 22:16 |
John 20:20, 25 |
|
Bones not broken |
Psalm 22:17 |
John 19:31-36 |
|
Stared at by the people |
Psalm 22:17 |
Matthew 27:55-56, Luke 23:35, 48-49, John 19:20 |
|
Lots cast for His clothing |
Psalm 22:18 |
Matthew 27:35, Mark 15:24, Luke 23:34, John 19:23-24 |
|
God heard His prayers |
Psalm 22:21, 24 |
Hebrews 5:7-8 |
Pairunoyd, nearly all of those aren’t Messianic prophecies and weren’t regarded that way until Christ came along. Christ had a habit of trying to act in such a way so as to make prophecies fit. One example is his quoting Psalms 22 by saying, “God, why have you forsaken me?!” when Psalms was partially about the Jews’ groaning in the Torah and that same pattern of behavior in figures such as King David. And it’s regarded as subtle blasphemy since as Psalms says:
Psalms 22:1 (NAS):
How did Christians deal with this problem? By translating the truth out of their Bibles. Most translations inaccurately translate the above passage, to remove the fact that accusing God of forsaking you is blasphemy. Anyone who can either read Hebrew or has at least read literal translations (like YLT) knows that this is a mistranslation, where it’s been distorted to be posed as a question rather than a blasphemous accusation against God.
Psalms 22:1 (KJV):
Psalms 22:1 (NLT):
Psalms 22:1 (NIV):
Psalms 22:1 (NRS):
In every case, this is a mistranslation. The word “why” isn’t in the original and it isn’t posed as a question. You see this in the original American Standard translation:
Psalms 22:1 (ASV):
The passages notes that the accusation is blasphemy.
Christians have regularly tried to distort scripture to make the prophecies fit. And Jesus did this himself. The most ridiculous example of this was when he hatched a scheme to convince people he was the Messiah by riding around sideways – on two donkeys or a horse and a donkey (depending on how you translate it) – in Matthew 21.
Matthew 21:1-12
What blatant fraud!
Wow… You’re really bad at history too.
You do realize that Gaius Julius Caesar and Gaius Julius Caesar Octavians were both deified, right?
So were the Phaorahs and the Chinese Emperors, but there were still tons of schisms. Attempting to combine Christianity and the Greek religion into one pro-government philosophy helped Constantine consolidate his power because it was clear to anyone that knew the man that he wasn’t a God and many of the Greeks were surely rational enough to realize this. Whereas, under Christianity, he could claim to have divine authority from everyone – and even if his behavior is irrational, he can simply say, “I’m not perfect. I’m a sinner, like all of us. But I’m your king and it’s your Christian duty to obey,” and encourage a respect for non-violence and the martyrdom of Christ, so that nobody would attempt to overthrow him with violence.