Essay talk:A Comprehensive Examination and Analysis Concerning the Existence and Rationale of Religion and God

Before anyone says anything, I'd like to defend the title "A Comprehensive Examination and Analysis Concerning the Existence and Rationale of Religion and God." It is a very sophisticated, intellectual, and boring title and that's how I wanted it to be. It deserves a Courier New font. So ya. Moving on... Socal212I can't find my talk page 05:22, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Some points of disagreement
07:18, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * When people describe the origins of ancient Greek religion, for example, it is always that the ancient Greeks could not find a way to explain the natural phenomena around them and thus turned to creating gods to explain what they could not explain themselves. I think that oversimplifies the richness of ancient Greek religion. It is a caricature. God or Gods perform many purposes, explanation is only one of them, and not necessarily even the most important. Also, it is a hypothesis that lacks any actual evidence — do we have records of how ancient Greek religion originated? Its origins are lost in the mysts of time, and theories like yours to explain its origins are just guesswork, which lack any compelling evidence. And if one doesn't accept your argument with respect to the ancient Greek religion (a religion for which I have a lot of respect), one will not accept it for other religions (such as Christianity, Judaism or Islam) either.
 * I believe the cause of people’s strong attachment to religion to this day is rooted in their upbringing... being brought up to believe only in one’s parents’ religion I’m sure would be quite enough to leave a person believing in that the rest of their life - you ignore the situation of people who follow a religion different from the religion they were raised in, or people who were raised without a religion, but later adopted one. In my case, my mother's half-hearted attempts to pass on her Catholicism to me failed woefully, and I became an atheist in my late childhood/early teen years (can't remember precisely when). I later returned to religious belief, but it was not because of my mother's influence. My mother's Catholicism, whatever it means to her, always came across to me as just thoughtless repetition of things she'd got from childhood. But, I don't see my mother's Catholicism as necessarily a problem with Catholicism in general or religion in general, just a problem with the intellectual shallowness of her own faith.
 * I’m sure this would be enough to somehow subconsciously reconcile God into scientifically-satisfactory explanations for natural phenomena. Again, the assumption that the primary purpose of religion is to explain things, and that science does a better job at explaining, thus science supplants religion. But what if explanation is not the fundamental purpose of religion, and religion's actual purposes are things science can't do?
 * Being brought up to believe in a religion is an exceptional means to account for the belief of a religion that that religion is correct unlike every other Ignores again the numerous cases of people who believe this with respect to a religion other than the one they were raised in. Ignores that many people (e.g. religious liberals) take a much more inclusive approach to religion, and see all religions as containing some truth (even if maybe they still think their own religion has more truth than others), and see different gods as just different names for the one God, and so on.
 * Something religion doesn’t seem to address is the lack of “miracles” in the post-biblical era. I believe in God, but I don't necessarily believe in any miracles reported in the Bible. I think many of them have an allegorical or symbolic meaning. Some of them are probably just fanciful folk tales which got swept up into the text. I think, an omnipotent God could choose to work miracles, but the fact they don't seem to happen indicates she doesn't want to.
 * why would a benevolent God allow such cruelties as genocide to occur? - my explanation: without the evils of history, we would not exist. If history had been free from such great evils as war, genocide, famine, plague, tyranny, slavery, murder, rape, etc., the world would have turned very different, so different that, although people would still exist, the world would contain completely different people. Thus, we depend on these evils for our existence. If God loves us, not just as persons in general, but as particular persons, then she expresses that love for us by creating all those evils necessary for our existence.
 * why would he create an epic biblical flood to kill everyone instead of just making them good - personally I don't believe in a global flood. The account of Noah is probably just a local flood that got exaggerated in the retelling into a global one. But even if there really was a global flood, the particular persons theodicy I outline above can account for it.
 * Another contradiction concerning God’s benevolence and omnipotence is the embodiment of evil in such entities such as the devil - given that God must create many grave evils to secure the good of our own existence, of we whom she loves as particular individuals, it is unsurprising that she would establish particular agents to implement these necessary evils, and we can consider the "devil" to be one of them on the physical level, just as Hitler or Pol Pot were such agents on the physical level
 * I am sure many theists all over the world view the Bible as a gift handed down from God or the writing of mortal people telling an accurate truth of what happened - I believe the Bible contains the Word of God in parts, intermixed with a lot of merely human ideas. I think you'll find this approach (partial inspiration) is common among religious liberals. I would say the same thing about the scriptures of other religions (e.g. the Quran, the Mishnah/Talmud, the Vedas/Upanishads, the Tripitaka, etc.)
 * Many religious people would apply this as an explanation to any other religious text except for their own - or they could accept all religious texts as reflecting some revelation from God, intermixed with corruptions and distortions of human origin - again, the position of many religious liberals
 * As more and more modern discoveries and breakthroughs explain the phenomena around us, it seems only natural that belief in God would decline, since God was first created to explain what the ancients could not explain themselves (which we discussed earlier). Oddly, this is not the case. Unless, you have completely misunderstood the purpose which God serves; if the actual of purpose of God is not to explain things, but e.g. to guarantee the existence of an objective moral order, then the advances of science should make little or no impact on belief in God, which is closer to what we actually observe
 * Religious people all over the world take careful steps to ensure they will be going to their preferred version of life after death - you ignore the existence of universalism - the belief that everyone will be saved in the end, and everyone will in the end go to heaven (even if maybe some people get there quicker than others)
 * Most people in this case would argue that because their respective religious texts, leaders, and traditions claim an afterlife and describe its characteristics it must be true - not true for me. I don't believe in an afterlife because some religious text or leader tells me so. I believe for two reasons: (1) I try to imagine the cessation of my own existence, and find that prospect impossible to imagine. Thus, I conclude it is very unlikely to ever happen. (2) I think it is a good thing for us to believe that good always triumphs in the end, and the deepest desires of the human heart are eventually fulfilled. An afterlife is necessary to ensure that.
 * The most hotly debated issue concerning believers and nonbelievers in God has to be the existence of God... The purpose of God is not to explain the existence or features of the universe. The universe doesn't need explaining, it just is, it is a given. Scientific explanations of why the universe has certain features are all wonderful, but they are fundamentally irrelevant to the topic of God.
 * Probably the second most fiercely debated topic between pro- and anti-religious people is whether or not the role of religion in the world is positive or negative. Religion is such a broad category, asking the question of whether religion as a whole is a force for good or evil is silly. It is a much more sensible question to ask, what particular types of religion have been forces for good or evil? Otherwise, we end up tarring religious groups with the misdeeds of other groups who had totally different beliefs (e.g. the Spanish Inquisition or the Crusades are not an argument against Buddhism)
 * religious people should not be ignorant or stubborn about what they believe - the same can be said of atheists. There are quite a few ignorant and stubborn atheists in the world; ignorance and stubborness are not the unique prerogative of the religious.


 * Maratreanism, thanks for reading and analyzing my essay, I really do appreciate your points of disagreement (and you make some very good ones). You've shown very well that I didn't address all the points I could have and that I'll need to refine it (which I'd like to do). I wrote it while I was still 17 so I haven't had quite enough experience to truly produce a really comprehensive essay on religion and God and your disagreements will help me a lot. I think while I was writing it I was thinking predominantly about religious beliefs held by very religious monotheists and not all kinds of religious people. You make very good points about religious liberals and how they have a more open-minded view of God and religion. So I'll try to address each of the points you made...


 * I'm sure you're more knowledgeable than me about ancient Greeks and their religion. For me it seemed to be the best example I could think of for an ancient culture who's religion seemed to be able to explain what the culture could not. I'm sure you're right about the richness of Greek mythology and that it played a bigger role in Greek culture. But I think one of the important roles the gods played when they were first developed would be to explain all the amazing natural phenomena the Greeks observed. I think all ancient cultures used their gods to some extent to explain these phenomena as it would be a pretty good argument at the time to explain things. Eventually I think this could have spread to monotheism which is basically the same in my opinion but with only one god (with obvious cultural differences and the like). If human civilization for whatever reason hadn't come up with, or "discovered," gods then I think we wouldn't have God today (although it is certainly possible that the idea of God or gods could come up later in history (its popularity might depend on how advanced civilization has developed when it's proposed) but it would, I think, be radically different). You're right about my lack of evidence of this being the origin of Greek religion but it seems to make a lot of sense to me that this is why. I think the Greeks could have come up with other, less-deistic mythology for morality and such if they weren't aiming to explain phenomena. It also would have served to explain the creation of the world which would lead into explaining natural phenomena.
 * Again, I was kinda thinking a lot about people who kept the religion they were brought up in and defend it fiercely and I did overlook people who's religion changes. I think for people who kept the religion they were brought up in, my argument makes a lot of sense. As for people who change their religion, my argument isn't too good. I think an independent spirit allows people to change religions, especially if deep philosophical thought into it (as my essay sorta discussed) isn't done. If one really disagrees with the religion they were brought up in, I imagine that a serious, deep, philosophical pondering into God and religion would make them more deistic or agnostic than joining a "hardcore" (for serious lack of a better word) religion such as Catholicism or Islam. I think I can look at religion and God and its existence more objective, less biased, and more fundamentally than most people (hopefully that doesn't come off too cocky or arrogant or anything). If I were to assume people looked at it the same way as I do and analyze it the same way I do (deeply and skeptically) then people who break off from the the religion they were brought up in would be more agnostic or deistic (I admit that I am a tad bit haughty about my worldview). You make a very good point though.
 * My focus on the religious views of people like YECs probably comes into play a lot for this one. Those kinds of people obviously have to substitute their religion for science and I think my argument works well for them. But for others who view explanation as not the primary reason for being religious (as I failed to address) I think my atheist bias might've got the better of me. I guess I viewed explanation as always the primary factor and saw it as sort of ignorant and logically irresponsible for people to constantly assert religion over science in today's world. So basically my argument's only really good for the YECish people of the world.
 * I think my argument is pretty good for people who keep the religion they were brought up in but you make another good point about those who change their religions. I think my explanation for this one would be pretty similar to the one I made for point two.
 * I agree with you about miracles in the Bible and if I believed in God I would also say he (*or she) chooses not to perform them today. And yet again I think I was focusing on the more literal Bible interpreters here. If biblical miracles are metaphorical and not to be taken literally then that's great. But if you think they were real, why don't they happen today? I don't think religious texts (often the Bible) explain the utter lack of miracles today. Granted, things that could be considered miracles, like pulling people from the rubble days after an earthquake (which I believe I mentioned in my essay) happen, but not "biblical" miracles.
 * It is very true that without all the terrible things in the past we wouldn't be here today. But that would be assuming God wanted us specifically (you, me, and everyone else individually alive today) to be here and that he cares whether or not it's us or other people who would be here if there wasn't evil to change the course of history (I assume there would still be people and generations today if there wasn't evil). My argument about this would've been aimed mostly at the hypocrisy of asserting God's infinite benevolence when atrocities occur that would really suggest otherwise. Personally, I don't see why God would care for us specifically as individuals. When he started making atrocities way back when, I don't think he could've had us in mind. If I were in God's place, I would care about the individuals of the future (in our time), but let them come into their time from a world without these terrible evils. Us and these hypothetical people should be the same in God's eyes, only one required atrocities to occur to make them.
 * In my opinion, the story on Noah's Ark probably came from a similar story within Mesopotamia's Epic of Gilgamesh. What "particular persons theodicy" is I don't know (which makes me feel kinda silly because I'm sure I should know what it is if I'm discussing this) but my best guess would be a person's personal religious beliefs and interpretations. If it is (which sounds right), then you have a good point and hopefully people see the story as metaphorical (even though it still undermines God's supposed benevolence).
 * For this one, I pretty much assert what I said two points above.
 * Yet again I was probably focusing on literal interpreters. Personally I think the Bible contains solely human ideas. To me, it seems only logical that no matter how religious you are or how holy you think the words of the Bible are (and when I say "you" I'm not necessarily talking about you) it was written entirely by people with their ideas of how they want the Church's view on God to be. The stories are probably mostly metaphorical (although I do believe Jesus was a real historical figure - but not divine) and descriptions of God and what he expects and the like I think were written by the early Church people to make Christianity's stance clear. The authors, however, probably thought they were writing that God would want and what they believed to be true.
 * I'm sure it's true that many religious liberals find some truth in all religious texts but I doubt there are that many religious people out there who are that liberal (I wish there were though).
 * Here you make another good point. There seems to be, however, (at least in America) a lot of people who keep God in the same place as he was in a few hundred years ago in that he's still used to explain things that science can now. You're right about people's position on God not really changing if he's more of a moral figure but I think scientific advancements would naturally chip away at all the "duties" and roles of God (especially for explanations). I find it odd that there are still people today (again, YECs and the like) who don't really accept a lot of the science, or try to somehow (and not very well) reconcile it with God.
 * A lot of people it seems don't embrace universalism (mainly Christians because you can go to hell instead of heaven). In my opinion, no one can possibly know exactly what happens after death (and whether or not you have to do specific stuff to get there properly) and I don't see why people have to claim they know. I guess when your religion convinces you they're right and they know about the afterlife, people are going to go along with it. Still, even if you don't have to do good deeds to got to heaven or whatever good place there could be after death, you should still act morally and ethically. But if belief in the afterlife and having to do good things to get there makes people do good things, then I guess it's a good idea (even in fundamentally unfounded).
 * I'm glad you don't believe in the afterlife or what it could be like because your religious leaders or texts tell you so. But unfortunately people out there do believe this way and I probably was generalizing there (as I seem to have done a lot throughout the essay, probably unfairly at times as you point out). Cessation of conscious existence, as you said, is impossible for anyone to imagine. If it does happen it could just be something that transcends human comprehension because we've never experienced it before and therefore can't comprehend it (much like a four-dimensional object for instance). This kinda leads into metaphysics and to be honest I don't really want to try beginning to discuss it (not that it's really necessary to our discussion anyway).
 * Whether or not God exists might not be a hotly debated topic for, say, Deists vs YECs who might debate his role in the universe, but between atheists (nonbelievers) and theists (believers) it's the predominant debate (and what separates atheists from theists by definition). Granted, whether God is to explain the universe or to provide a moral compass might be more important to believers in God, but between atheists and theists it would be God's existence in the first place.
 * It is true that religion is so broad that you can't easily say whether or not it's a net force for good or bad and I believe I mentioned this difficulty in getting to a conclusion in my essay. Buddhism can't really be compared with the Spanish Inquisition. But overall we see that religion is both helpful (Christianity can lead to charity, Buddhism could lead to peace) and hurtful (in Christianity there was the Spanish Inquisition and in some places a denial of evolution (which is intellectually harmful) and in extremist Islam there are terrorist attacks). A definitive answer may never come around because of religion's broad scope but I think one can still can make an estimation. Whether individual religions are good or bad may be a more sensible question but by looking at religion in its entirety's effects on the world may give some form of an answer (however unfair it may be to some religions).
 * Again you are very right about you're last point. My essay's argument there was aimed mostly at the people who are ignorant and stubborn about there religion. I'm sure there are, though, many stubborn and ignorant atheists who wouldn't approach a logical argument or don't want to think deeply about religion and God. If either side wants to claim they're right, they need to look as objectively as possible at both sides of the argument and be willing to concede points or change their stance if they're proven wrong. Most of the accusations of ignorance and stubbornness on this issue are directed at theists (in my opinion and from what I've seen and experienced, most of the stubbornness and ignorance is from the very religious side as they have a higher bar, so to speak, to prove their points but that doesn't mean atheists can or should get away with being stubborn or ignorant). It can be very hard for either side to admit being either quality when they're convinced they're right.

So hopefully I addressed your points of disagreement satisfactorily. Thanks again for taking the time to read my essay and for giving me your feedback; I really appreciate it. And I'll make a point of looking into Maratreanism. Socal212I can't find my talk page 02:04, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * When I said "particular persons theodicy", well that was just my name for my argument that "God made evil because she loves us as particular individuals, and as particular individuals we only exist because of evil". So don't feel bad for not knowing it, it is just myself slipping into the bad habit of using my own jargon without sufficiently explaining it. For me, personally, part of why I believe in God(dess), is the experience of loving other people - you love other people, not just because they are people, but because they are the particular the people they are. Someone could be the most wonderful person who has ever lived, but they are not your mother/father/sister/brother/son/daughter/husband/wife/lover/friend/etc; someone could be the worst person they ever lived, but they are nonetheless someone close to your heart. People say "God is Love"; Martin Buber (in I and Thou) suggested that our relationship to God is about our relationship with others. So, maybe from that viewpoint, the idea makes more sense?
 * You say in particular Personally, I don't see why God would care for us specifically as individuals. When he started making atrocities way back when, I don't think he could've had us in mind. If I were in God's place, I would care about the individuals of the future (in our time), but let them come into their time from a world without these terrible evils. Us and these hypothetical people should be the same in God's eyes, only one required atrocities to occur to make them. If you look at many religious ideas of God, God is not seen as being inside time but somehow outside of it, or at least having perfect knowledge of the future and the past. So, back then, God already loved you, because now and then don't apply to God in the same way they apply to us. My own view, is that time is circular, and God has perfect memory, so back when she chose to create the world, she'd already done it, and remembered exactly how it would turn out. I suppose that must sound rather crazy, if you haven't encountered that view before, but that is my view.
 * I also think, that we are all part of God, and so God has to create us, in order for God to be the God she is. God creates evil, because without evil we are not, and without us she isn't herself. God loves us as particular persons because she loves herself as a particular person. Condemning God for creating evil, in my mind, is like objecting to your own existence - "I wish I was never born!". I think we should love ourselves, and one another, more than that, and say "Yes!" to each other's and one another's existence, despite the great evils involved - we should say, "I am, you are, we are, worth all the evils of history before us". It is a challenge to love ourselves and one another that much, but I don't think it is impossible.
 * If you ever read some of the work of Nietzsche, such as, in my mind it teaches very similar ideas. Anyway, I have said enough for now. 07:29, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * The idea of circular time, God being outside of time, us being part of God, and thus we should love ourselves and each other because of this is actually quite a comforting way to look at it. Personally, I don't believe in it but if you do then I would consider that an exception to my above statement. I think what I said would be better applied to a more traditional religion (not that yours is really "untraditional" so to speak...). SoCal212I can't find my talk page 22:30, 18 July 2011 (UTC)