The duality of religion

This forum has a lot of religious debate in it, which I guess is one of its purposes (spiritual discussion being the other, but... naaah the arguing is so much more fun :lol: ), but I think there is a lot of lost communication because of the different "breeds" of christians, atheists, and everything in between that all talk to the entire audience, even though their message may not be intended to everyone.

Case in point: I've got to admit, the christians that I interact with on a daily basis are very, very, VERY different from the ones you hear about in the news or through word of mouth, or as testimonials on youtube, etc. Maybe it's because I don't live in the bible belt, but I have no idea of what the REAL demographics are.

But I've found that a lot of my christian friends, whom I love, and feel blessed in my own way to have them in my life, are VERY different from, say, the God Warrior on wife swap. :lol:

All debates about the truth of the mythology, and the existence of deities aside, I think it's really interesting to note a split among them. Sure, there are lots and lots of denominations, but I really categorize christians in two ways:

1) God-loving

2) God-fearing


While I haven't described my own views on these categories, I know a lot of people here, atheists and theists alike, have an idea of what I'm talking about (though the god-fearing like to pretend it's love).

God-Loving:

What they do is truly out of love. Spending time with these folks is really heart-warming. They're not full of themselves, and they're not pushy. They don't tell me I'm a sinner and will go to hell, and for the most part, they don't really believe in "Hell" in any way other than a kind of state of spiritual nothingness, from which you can pull out at any time. I actually went to a fund-raiser some of my friends were putting together for leukemia, and it was really neat. Their pastor has created an organization whose purpose is to get OUT of the "we just go to church" mindset and actually help people out - REGARDLESS of their religion.

They're absolutely wonderful people, and even though their beliefs don't really match mine, I know that that's really just a surface thing. They anthropomorphize "goodness" as being a light shining down on everyone from Jesus/god, while I think goodness comes from within, as a light shining radially outwards from person to person. But you know what? Both of these mental models are the same in practice. The important thing they have in common is the desire to be excellent to one another.


God-fearing:

In contrast to the above, are the god-fearing christians. These are the ones whose main motivator is NOT love of god and his creations, but rather, fear of going to hell. They think of Hell in the most basic, childish, cartoonish "place full of fire where you burn for eternity" kind of way. Not very impressive. These people actually take the tales of the old testament literally, which requires a very impressive amount of schizophrenia.

God-fearing christians are the ones who, instead of focusing on loving all humankind, focus on telling them they'll go to hell if they don't accept jesus. That's not coming from a place of love. It's coming from a place of fear, and ego-masturbation.

If you don't believe their motivator comes from fear, then what do you think Hell Houses are all about? Somehow, it doesn't strike me as a "love thy neighbour" kind of lesson.

And let's not forget the absolutely disgusting idea that all humans are born as horrible sinners until they accept Jesus. That means all newly-born babies are garbage in god's eyes. Finally, there's just no excuse for thinking it's acceptable for a loving creator to burn people for eternity, even if he pulls the lame "jesus died for your sins" argument, cause I don't believe god burned Jesus for eternity. I guess a bit of consistency in punishment (for the crime of someone else eating a fruit from a tree a few thousand years ago) is too much to ask of a god that was willing to flood the entire planet (including PUPPIES and KITTENS!!!!!) for the blunders of his OWN creation.

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The reason I think it's important to keep this duality in mind is that while I do think everyone can and should believe whatever they want, so long as it doesn't impose or hurt others, I think that the beliefs of God-Fearing christians really DO cause harm, in a lot of ways. Subtle ways. For example, if you believe the rapture will happen in your lifetime, you probably won't behave in a way that helps make this planet sustainable and livable for hundreds of thousands of years to come (and beyond). The bottom line is, if your religious motivator is fear-based, that's not spirituality; that's terrorism, by definition.


So I guess what I wanted to get out there was, I know I've made some dismissive comments about religion, and so have some others. While I can't speak for everyone else, I think a large number of them really are aiming their truly dismissive statements at the harmful, god-fearing folks, NOT the wonderful god-loving ones.


If you found any of this post offensive, then all you have to give me is the pro-puppy-drowning side of the argument. ;)

peace out!

Both groups are still equally delusional.

From a christian perspective the second group are not going to heaven, because they haven't 'found' god.' Accepting Jesus and being a good christian is the equivalent of being a good and moral person. I believe that religion was created as a guide to help people live happy, peaceful and productive lives. And that is why family and community is so important to religion.

A question that is often ask, is what happens to a person who never found a religion? Do they automatically go to hell, because they never heard of Christianity and so couldn't accept god into their hearts? The general answer to this is that, even without religion people are able to tell what is good. By living a good and moral life, you are accepting god into your heart weather or not you know him.

I see god and 'goodness' as being synonymous with each other. There is no question that there is something in people, and people innately know what is good and evil. You might call it a soul, or just an evolutionary process that made people want to work together. However it is still there either way. If a person is truly good, then they will do good things. If they truly believe in god, they will do good things.

People in the second group are not evil or bad or anything, they just have growing up to do. As you go through life you eventually realize that everyone is at different stages. You can be an adult in age while still being a kid spiritually. You can be adult spiritually while still being a kid. Some people live their entire lives and never grow up. However when you grow up, you learn things. Like how action of hate spreads hate, and how actions of kindness spread kindness.

When you see a person who is not good, yelling at them, and lecturing them will not help them change their way. If you want to change them, you have to do it through love and kindness. A person in the first group knows that helping others and works of charity will help more people find god(or the path of moral goodness), than going around yelling at people to fear hell will. It is funny how you said that they see hell as childish and cartoony, because that is exactly how children would see it.

You can look at believing in god the same way as you look at the believing in Santa Claus. Young children take all the stories about him as being literal. He literally comes down your chimney, he literally visits every house in the world giving presents to kids. Eventually you grow up and you don't take it literally at all. It is just a story. However within the stories is something to be learned. It was never about a fat man giving gifts, the stories are about the spirit of Christmas. The spirit of giving and helping, and loving others. It is a lesson that is worth learning, and worth spreading.

Religion is the same. The stories are not meant to be taken literal, they are there trying to teach you a deeper meaning. Practicing a religion is like celebrating Christmas. You are partaking in a tradition meant to spread goodness, happiness and love. With Christmas some people get distracted by consumerism, but there are still people who know the true purpose. And religion is the same way.

People in the first group are no more delusional than someone celebrates Christmas.

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Originally Posted by Mario92

Both All groups are still equally delusional.

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Fixed.

In my experience, the divide Replicon is describing is much more indicative of the health and rationality of a person's worldview than the mere presence or absence of a God or gods therein. The internet offers no end of delusional atheists, blinded to large swaths of life and reality by their pet memes, just like a fundie.

Tao - I'd be interested if you'd expand on that. In particular, what do you mean about health/rationality of a worldview, and how it attaches to delusional atheists. Also, what is a "delusional atheist" in your context? Sounds like just an atheist that is ALSO delusional, independently of his thoughts on religion, to me. Finally, what is a "pet meme" and when do you know someone is using a pet meme, as opposed to a perfectly rational argument?

By rationality I meant the extent to which your ideas about what's going on here are internally consistent, and by health I meant the extent to which they help you engage with reality in a way beneficial to your well being and that of society. My point was that how much your worldview promotes or inhibits delusion IS largely independent of your thoughts on religion. From a Buddhist perspective, we are all largely mistaken about what we are and what's happening here. No one has a monopoly on insight or delusion.

Oh yeah, I don't think anyone actually "knows" what we are and what's going on. You can acknowledge that, or you can commit to whatever belief you decide explains it away if you're not comfortable with an existence that has "unknowns" - but I'm quite happy in an existence with unknowns. That just means I'm more open to discovery. :)

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Originally Posted by Replicon

Oh yeah, I don't think anyone actually "knows" what we are and what's going on. You can acknowledge that, or you can commit to whatever belief you decide explains it away if you're not comfortable with an existence that has "unknowns" - but I'm quite happy in an existence with unknowns. That just means I'm more open to discovery. :)

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What "discovery" though? If you are open to discovery than your not happy with the unknowns since your seeking some kind of answer to it.

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Originally Posted by Wantless

What "discovery" though? If you are open to discovery than your not happy with the unknowns since your seeking some kind of answer to it.

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There are drawbacks to our state of being, but one of the best things about it is that there's always more to discover. Accepting that the big questions are never fully answered does not mean giving up on exploring them.

ETA: And speaking of lifelong learning: http://www.youryoure.com/

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Originally Posted by Wantless

What "discovery" though? If you are open to discovery than your not happy with the unknowns since your seeking some kind of answer to it.

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Why do you conclude that loving the process of finding more implies I am unhappy with how I am right now? Happiness is NOT something you attain conditionally (if I get this, then I'll be happy) - it's when you're ALREADY feeling good, and you're loving the PROCESS of chasing something. Because it's not enough to just search for the light at the end of the tunnel; there has to be delight all the way through. :)

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God-fearing christians are the ones who, instead of focusing on loving all humankind, focus on telling them they'll go to hell if they don't accept jesus. That's not coming from a place of love. It's coming from a place of fear, and ego-masturbation.

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Lol at "ego-masturbation". :D

But yes, I do agree with you about that duality. I DO live in the Bible belt, so I've definitely seen my share of these "God-fearing" folk. However, on the bright side, I know many, many God-lovers as well. And I would like to add that I think that the "God-fearing" people are not bad people, I think they just haven't discovered the true meaning of God, which is, of course, to love and to accept love. They focus on all the bad things in the Bible, like Noah's flood and the "fire and brimstone" descriptions of Hell (which I do believe Hell to be a mindset also) and such, instead of focusing on what is good, such as the New Testament. I see a lot of controversy here in the Bible belt concerning other religions and such as well, and it's sad what some of these people will do to others. But like I said, they are just fine, they are good people. They just don't realize it yet. :)

I appreciate how you qualify legitimate yet heretical logic with rapier phrase turning and a relevant sense of humor. Quite a refreshing read! =)

I think you’re very much on the right track; however I believe there may be an even more important psychological component, if we dig a little deeper…

Take for example your motivation for making this post, and ponder if you will the phenomena of Myspace, Facebook, Reality TV, America’s Got Talent, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Dancing with the Stars…

I believe the human being has an innate, almost inescapable compulsion to seek relevance through expression, of ones self, their views, ideas, and creative identity. I believe this evolved out of the only path to immortality ever available to our ancestors: To live on through our works.

You might perhaps say I am being too generous; however I believe that while many are indeed quite fearful, to the point of being violently intolerant and socially cannibalistic, some of these God-pushers do what they do because they seek an audience for what they honestly believe is a God-given gift of knowledge and clarity and truth and supreme awesomeness.

How could they not share it with the world? To keep such amazing awesomeness to ones self would surely be selfish beyond redemption!

So, a third category then?

3) God-acting.

They are compelled to push as they do because they associate their view of god with their own ego, as you yourself pointed out, in as many words. They empower themselves with the messages of truth by obsessively taking “ownership,” putting their little psychic piss tags all over it and re-packaging it into there vacuum salesman “good news” spiel.

Preaching to them then becomes as an act of thrusting their spiritual shtick into our unwashed intellectual receptacles; an act of benevolent anointment by the living manifestation of God on Earth.

The Pharaonic mindet of Roman Liberation in full pseudo-intellectual riot gear. Never mind the "ask." With them, its all about "receive."

I suppose you could say this is another facet of the loving side, specifically an over-expressing love of self. But then that wouldn’t really be “God” loving, unless you’re into that whole Heinlein sharing water thing… ;)

But taking your second example, the God fearing, I believe it important to ask the question, why? Why are they so fearful?

Of course the answer seems obvious. All religion first and foremost was born in ancient times out of a primal terror in light of the reality of our condition, as sentient creative intelligent beings with a few multiples of dog years to contemplate our inevitable mortality, and the loss of everything and everyone beautiful and precious and unique and irreplaceable we have ever known to the seeming futility of a cold, uncaring universal entropy.

In order to remain sane enough to procreate the species, we invented stories of an afterlife. Yet the only way to float that boat was on a mighty wave of radical detachment and desperate, almost subconscious denial.

Our brains even evolved a biochemical doping mechanisms to stimulate reward and pleasure centers in support of this compromised (in the absence of better tools) survival gambit, as spiritual training wheels awaiting the strange aeons when death itself may die, oh, five years or so from now. For those who can afford it most likely, at least at first.

I suppose it will be just a coincidence when only the super rich go all Machiavellian rapture on our asses?

So, all this reveals the reason for what you hit on which is the fundamental duality not just of religion, but our entire way of thinking. We’re smart, but not of infinite capacity. So, we have evolved all these fancy tricks to correlate and classify and simplify and symbolically relate to information.

The upside is it saves on storage and memory space, freeing up our minds from constant fret over the devil in the details to pursue more pressing matters or personal interests, like enjoyment of life with what precious little time we have.

The downside of course is that this all too often results in the oversimplification of prevailing reality, particularly where it touches on these most sensitive issues of death and faith, so the tendency is if it isn’t immediately for us, it gets lumped automatically into "ask questions later" against us category.

It is all so confusing after all. How can we really know whether the evangelist is lying or the mechanic is screwing us or our leaders have sold us down the river? Sure we could THINK about it, but it’s so much easier to pre-assume the worst, and prove ourselves allies by endeavoring to save each other from ourselves. Then we can identify our true allies but the super secret code phrases we recite from our shared theosophical cipher.

So even the God-fearing operate out of a misguided sense of love... They seek to convert people so they can feel safe enough to make friends. All relatively innocuous really...

However, when pressed to think critically, we do still too often see relevant and necessary ideas marginalized into arguments of right and wrong, good and evil, black and white… Right down to the hemispheres, dissolving more rational concern over what steps will be necessary to survive this modern transition into petty social contests over non-issues like the right to smoke pot (an herb bearing seed incidentally), or the next racial/gay pride parade…

Someone has to be ultimately right and someone ultimately wrong. That way we can have our situational closure we associate with microcosmic proof of our greater transcendentalism, and with new resolve get back to not thinking too much about such troublesome complexities of the brave new world all around us.

You can’t handle the truth! Sad but true.

That is why I believe it is important to cultivate a healthy spiritual pluralism. To give ourselves enough creative archetypal options to justify coming down out of our cloud long enough to cultivate a REAL survival mechanism relevant to the environment of our time, by adapting our infrastructure in such a way as could weather the coming biotech storm.

Spirit of the buffalo, meet zeitgeist of the internet on secure mass-produced modular green opt-in public housing and accountable resource management network as entitlement to all citizens of the modern world. Brought to you by Carl's Junior.

Of course, there is always a tendency to almost welcome Revelations as a vindication of faith-based social terrorism…