Re: Religion Thread: We Could Say a Prayer
Nope. I am there. The difference between you and I is two fold - one in you place importance on the means vs. me on the ends...the other based in misconception.
So me? I believe in the outcome of 'doing good for your fellow man' first and foremost. And faith helps me do that better. You? You're caught up in the means of 'faith or no faith' as more important than its outcome of 'doing good for your fellow man' or 'getting help'. So you frequently criticize others who choose to use the tool of the Bible and its followers whose stated purpose is simply helping others.
Second, you believe somehow that Christianity creates right wingers...at least that's the only explanation for your rhetoric. It doesn't. Its a psychological fact that political persuasion is driven by completely different personality types. Christianity does not create different personality types. In the end, the content of Jesus is compassion. Period.
All of this is wrong, unsurprisingly. We do agree on one thing, though -- exploring morality
is how we get better. It is a muscle to be exercised, and this is one of many reasons why dogmatic faith amputates the soul. It gives a pat answer to questions which are
by definition open-ended and for which the exploration
is the explanation. "God says do x and you're good, so I do x. Now I'm satisfied that I'm good so I can justify all the horrific stuff I do in the rest of my life." The pattern that accompanies dogmatic faith like clockwork throughout human history. Contrast this with, for example, existentialism in which you recognize right off the bat there is nothing except your choices and decisions and their effects. You harm people, that's on you. No Man in the Sky to allow you to rationalize it. You can still be a bad person, but now there's no cover because you have confronted the realities of morality.
I understand your antipathy -- your faith may not be up to the challenge of an honest debate on the merits so you evade and misrepresent. That is a normal reaction from a closed-minded dogmatist. But I wish you would at least acknowledge you haven't the slightest clue what people outside your epistemologically closed bubble, a bubble incidentally which from all your No True Christian exceptions is apparently solely you, think and do. That would at least be honest. But instead we just get your projections followed by some hollow rhetoric like "that's the only explanation for your rhetoric." No, it's
your only explanation because you refuse to engage in a real conversation. Instead there is only your ONE RIGHT ANSWER to be protected at all costs, and then a dark, scary world of ideas that challenge some of your beliefs while refuting many of your ostensible reasons for them. Your only reaction is to tightly shut your eyes and then, from the patterns that form on your eyelids, declare what others "must" think. Solipsism in plain sight.
I hope you do good things. If you do, that's because
you are good. Your faith is merely a cover story to rationalize whatever it is you do, and would fit just as well if you did bad things. You'd have your reasons. You can always find them in the Book of Magic. Actually I guess in a way if you do good that makes you somewhat a better person than I, because I at least have a structure outside of myself to evaluate good and bad against. You, in having only yourself, have no such lanes, so if you drive straight that's very, very good on you.
And if you drive straight... who cares why you do it? The results are what matter, for all of us. We are our behavior and our behavior is what happens in the world due to us. Meaning is solely us. The only "good" is between our ears and then communicated to our hands. So if you do good you birthed that good, exactly as with me.
