I think of it as a lower mindset and higher mindset.

The lower mindset is concerned with self preservation so it is over protective and sensitive. As a result, it is quick to feel victimized, betrayed, and oppressed; it is judgmental, unsympathetic, and always justifies its anger and hate.

The higher mindset is the growth mindset. It is quiet, determined, and inwardly focused. It seeks to overcome the emotion impulses of the lower mindset. Unlike the lower mindset, the higher mindset seeks change through growth and is willing to venture into the unknown for it. This mindset takes constant effort and awareness to sustain.

The default mindset for everyone is the lower mindset, which is usually operating at a subtle level unless faced with stress, fear, or uncertainty, which then causes it to flare up. Religion is only useful when it is approached with the higher mindset and further encourages the higher mindset. Unfortunately, since the lower mindset is dominant, religion has been and continues to be corrupted by it.

I'm glad you quoted MLK because I think he's a great example of a good political (if you can call it that) use of religion. His roots as far as I know go back to Tolstoy who heavily influenced Gandhi and Thoreau on civil disobedience. I was talking about more politcal agendas that advance selfish or bigoted causes, but MLK was still political, just in a different sense of the word: power isn't the goal here, but the power of love (sorry I couldn't think of a better way to describe it than quoting Huey Lewis. Maybe Kristofero is rubbing off on me).

I would say that if one appeals to universal moral laws when criticizing religion, then they are using religion to criticize religion. I know there are some on here (tame deuces for one) who believe in universal moral laws and not religion, but I for one don't see the two things as separate. If you're going to be persuasive with religious people, it's best to use religion as a starting point and not be an outsider criticizing.

Solid post. This sounds almost Buddhist. I think every Christian should study Buddhism since it is more psychological in nature. I think Jesus was actually a lot like Buddha just completely misinterpreted for the most part. Maybe Buddha was smarter in some ways since he defined everything in negative terms so was harder to misinterpret.

I would say that religion IS the higher mindset. I think that's the drug that people go to church for, a glimpse of that spiritual mindset. Unfortunately religions don't offer a real manual for enlightenment (actually they do, just couched in parables). Enlightenment takes hard work and a lot of faith so most people don't actually go for it.

This is pretty unlikely since Thoreau published Resistance to Civil Government in 1849 when Tolstoy was only 21. In fact, wiki says that Thoreau was influenced by notorious atheist Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem "The Mask of Anarchy."

Thoreau was actually the one influencing Gandhi and Tolstoy.

It's true that MLK preached about the need for love in our use of power, but don't mistake this as a rejection of the search and use of power (including political power) in our attempts to change the world, ( eg "What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love."

Why don't you see them as separate? Philosophers have been talking about non-religious moral laws since at least Plato (who famously in the Euthyphro criticized the attempt to base universal moral laws on god and instead based them on abstract philosophical ideas). Thus, it seems like they are in theory separate. Furthermore, you see many historical examples of important people and movements criticizing religion on the basis of non-religiously based universal moral laws (eg the French Revolution with its strongly anti-clerical flavor or the many secular versions of socialism).

Again, I think you are making analytical errors because you are unwilling to really acknowledge the worldly aspect of religion as important.

As for persuasion, I'll just point out that many critics of religion are not really focused on persuading the religious, so I'm not sure your criticism applies to their goals.

How do you people get to adulthood after 12 years of schooling (and presumably a functioning brain) without realizing that secular law and morality far surpasses religious law and morality? It surpasses religion in consistency, compassion, subtlety, depth and breadth.

Compare modern Western secular laws with Old Testament laws, the narrowness of "do unto others" or "let the first among without sin cast a stone" or lolSharia law, which is brutal, bigoted, xenophobic and inequitable.

esspoker's take on religious morality is just mind blowing. The entire world is evidence against his position. The entire modern Western secular legal framework is highly superior to any religious one, and you would come to this obvious realization after maybe 2 seconds of thought.

And that's just law - secular philosophy on morality kicks the **** out of religious philosophy on morality.

Secular law never done made fish jump 20 feet out of water, no suh.

Possibly because you just stated an opinion. Do you think schooling is meant to brainwash people into a particular way of thinking?

Ah, nice catch on Thoreau.

As for why I think universal moral laws and belief in God are not separate, that's probably subject for a different thread. I will say it is possible for a person to believe in universal laws and not believe in any religion. The practices of religion can be messy and not always live up to their highest purpose. But the essential aspects of religion such as devotion, obedience, etc etc are very important and people need that kind of thing. People need divine symbols and if we take them away (we already have in many ways thanks to mass media) we're in real danger as a society.

As for critics of religion not trying to persuade the religions, I do agree with you, and that's a mistake that they think that way because it comes off as douchey, unempathetic, and unthoughtful. It's a good way to come off as an arrogant ass, which is how many people do perceive atheists. It's not going to help their PR by disrespecting religion, but that's their fight and more power to them. If they want to be effective, persuasion might be a more useful method.

The Scandinavian countries, where we are seeing a rapid decline in religious practice and affiliation, seem to be doing quite well. I would say that countries like Sweden and Denmark probably have stronger social bonds than more religious countries like the US. So I am not convinced that a decrease in the use of divine symbols presents a "real danger" to society.

And I am also not convinced that religion has the universally positive features you seem to assume. For instance, I think there are good arguments that in some countries the dominant religion is repressive and damaging to people's happiness and autonomy. For instance, the official religion of Saudi Arabia, the Wahhabist version of Islam, has led to significant repression of minority groups and women and has contributed to increased violence and conquest.

Meh. I actually think these stereotypes of atheists are based more in prejudice and bigotry than in the actual actions of atheists. I disagree with some of what Sam Harris, Dawkins, Coyne, et al say about religion, but I don't think they are any more rude or arrogant than leading religious leaders often are about atheism. Christianity is a dominant ideology in the US, and so Christian leaders are used to a level of respect that they often don't feel the need to show towards atheists.

For instance, it is a commonplace among Christians to claim that atheists are just angry at God or the church, or that they are atheists because they just want to sin all the time, or other silly speculations about their motives for the beliefs about God. In my experience, atheists have on average a better understanding of religion than vice versa.

Original Position is so erudite and clear and direct, I feel privileged by his generosity to this forum.

Word.

I do think that atheists are angry or rebellious. I think it's a natural stage of development, like hating your parents as a teenager. Eventually people realize there is something more. I think religious people who bully people into their belief end up creating more anti-religious people than religious people, and that's a mistake.

It's kind of crazy to say that atheists have a better understanding of religion than vice versa based on the simple fact that they don't have faith. It's impossible to understand faith unless you have it.

You forgot sinful and blasphemous.
Yes. At the end of my time as a believer in Christ (Catholic) - which coincided with just about the age you discover reason (12 yrs old) - I realized there was something more to live for.

Sin.
I think religious people who implicitly refer to non-religious people as 'under-developed' need to get laid more.

I do think that Christians are stuck in child-like patterns, wanting and feeling the presence of a daddy, like you do as a kid. Eventually some people realize there is something more once they learn about the world, themselves, their own psychology and biases and flaws, and turn to atheism, seeing the mind virus for what it is.

Nonsense. Atheists understand the idea of blind trust, hope, belief, and how they come together to create faith.

Atheists understand that there are 1.6 billions Muslims, who believe something pretty different from the 2 billion Christians, who believe something pretty different from the Buddhists and the Sikhs and the Hindus.

They look at all these and see that all of these groups:

- Deeply believe in the (inter-group contradictory) tenets of each faith.
- Defend these tenets with a great deal of energy and logic
- Can't all be right

And therefore see what faith is worth as it relates to truth, or even spirituality, or even God if he existed: absolutely nothing. They're all just mentally masturbating themselves in the way they've been trained since birth and nudged by their social alliances, lost and confused but believing they all have truth.

It's often the person outside who sees the nuances of these systems the best.

I've been an atheist and I've been a believer and I got laid a LOT more as a believer. I got laid last night actually

Religious people "understand" all these things to. Faith is a choice, not something you're brainwashed into. If it was, then it wouldn't be faith. This is why I get frustrated arguing with atheists. It's this superior attitude like religious people are incapable of rational thought. Lol it's ridiculous.

My faith in God was not a choice afaik. It was something i was taught before i could really think for myself at all.

Though i wouldn't call it brainwashing any more then any of the other things my parents taught me that i now think differently about.

You've pretty much said it there: faith is the willing suspension of rational thought. And the amazing thing is that you choose to have faith (i.e. you choose to ignore rational thought).

"Understanding" and following to the rational conclusion are two different things. Women that get seriously physically abused usually "understand" that the man is bad and not good for them, and can see other people's point of view, but they love him. And ultimately, they don't really get it, even if they can process the ideas intellectually, because they're blinded by love and habit. They think the rules of objectivity don't apply because they have a special exception arising from their special connection with the abuser. Sound familiar?

Faith is not dissimilar, as a way of blocking the rational part of your mind from seeing reality as it is. Why do you think the Catholic church teaches guilt (that you can never repay) and faith? It's the only way to block your mind from going "this is ****ing ridiculous". Attaching faith and guilt to a story criminalizes the very act of questioning of the veracity of the story. It's the ultimate Trojan horse. It's like the abusive boyfriend appealing to love.

I was responding to your absurd arrogance, not providing my own.

And yes, religious people are incapable of decisive rational thought when it comes to their own religion. Obviously. That they can understand the concepts of why their religion might be wrong as well as atheists is irrelevant. 9/11 truthers are sometimes as capable as sane human beings of understanding the arguments against 9/11 conspiracy. Yet they chose to stick with the fact pattern in their head (a pattern that is far less rigorously engrained, emotional and socially linked than religion). Does that mean they have "faith" that 9/11 conspiracy is real? Do they feel the love of the 9/11 conspiracy God? No. They chose an established model of the world that's ended up in their head over rationality and reality. Why are religious people different or special? Why is belief in the (objectively absurd and in fact insulting to an actual God should he exist) tenets of a particular called "faith" and considered something holy or special? It's not.

I think your model of the human mind is rather naive. Some to all of claims of Christianity and Islam and Hinduism and Sikhism and Hinduism and Buddhism are incompatible. Why do 2 billion Christians believe that Jesus is the final messenger of God, rejecting Muhammed out hand, while 1.6 billion Islamic people believe Muhammed is?

Is faith the difference? No, it isn't. Both groups have faith, yet believe entirely contradictory claims. So what is the difference? Childhood, cultural and social indoctrination that created enduring habits are the difference. These get labeled as "faith" but are in fact habit and indoctrination.

If you want to have faith that there is in fact a mystery to the world, and possibly an entity or pervading force or some description that is essentially good or gives meaning to everything - that is faith. It is a position about the unknowable and ultimate structure of the world taken without reason.

If you want to believe that a man who lived 2000 years ago, described hilariously implausibly in a book that's an obvious creation of man, is a messenger of that entity, and that the miraculous things claimed about him are true, that's not faith. That's habit, indoctrination. Don't hide behind "faith" to cover your absolutely absurd beliefs in particular aspects of the world that even intelligent 12 year old, non indoctrinated children would laugh at you for believing.

A historical example to be picked up by a postmortal humanity?

Said hilarious implausible to inevitability: More pain, Dad?

Genghis. Gaius Julius. Jeanne d'Arc, Attilla, Hirohito, Mao...

Do those figures not matter too?

I'm sorry for the way you were forcibly exposed to religion. I don't think that is right. But now as an adult you have a choice to believe in a higher power or not. I don't know that God exists, and neither do you, but I choose to have faith.

Well for someone claiming you understand the mind of a religious person, I am a religious person and I don't think like that. So if you're genuinely curious, why don't you ask me? I can tell you that for me the world is a mystery, and faith is evidence that I think it's a mystery. If it weren't, I would call it "fact" and not faith.

If what you're saying about the limitations of the human mind is true, then atheists are indoctrinated as well. The logic cuts both ways.

There might be a God, there might not be a god. Anyone who says for certain there is no God is a moron, someone incapable of intellectual honesty.

esspoker,

In such the way that the more you learn about the mystery and turn it into inalienable fact, the more the mystery deepens and expands?

I suppose life is CYOA.

So it's 50/50, just like drawing to an inside straight (you either catch the card or you don't).


...and by the same logic, anyone who says for certain that there is a God is a moron, someone incapable of intellectual honesty. (Or is this where the faith kicks in?)

You don't get to post this

after posting this