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Is religion a lifestyle choice?

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WCH said:
Walking by faith means living life in light of eternal consequences. To walk by faith is to fear God more than man; to obey the Bible even when it conflicts with man’s commands; to choose righteousness over sin, no matter what the cost; to trust God in every circumstance; and to believe God rewards those who seek Him, regardless of who says otherwise

Walking by sight is what the materialist of this world do. The sheeple if you will.
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While I respect the desire to be a better person, I suspect that most of you would be just as moral and feel the desire to be better people, even if it could be shown, beyond the shadow of a doubt that there is no god....
 
Amadeus said:
Just curious what your thoughts are on this. Being an atheist, I don't understand faith. However, I often see religious folk say that their faith is constantly tested, and that it requires work and dedication to maintain.

At the same time, people say that opinions derived from religious convictions can't be judged by the same criteria as other opinions. Which kind of confuses me, and I think is part of what frustrates other atheists.
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"Is religion a lifestyle choice?"

of course there only one factual answer to your question and it will always be YES its a choice.

god(s) existing or not doesnt even play a role in the matter its still a choice
 
Amadeus said:
Just curious what your thoughts are on this. Being an atheist, I don't understand faith. However, I often see religious folk say that their faith is constantly tested, and that it requires work and dedication to maintain.

At the same time, people say that opinions derived from religious convictions can't be judged by the same criteria as other opinions. Which kind of confuses me, and I think is part of what frustrates other atheists.
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What do you mean that people say religious opinions can't be judged by the same criteria as other opinions? If you mean that the teachings of a religion must either be true or not, without middle ground, then sure, that's only logical.
 
Paleocon said:
What do you mean that people say religious opinions can't be judged by the same criteria as other opinions? If you mean that the teachings of a religion must either be true or not, without middle ground, then sure, that's only logical.
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I mean that all things being equal, a religious opinion is given far greater latitude than a non-religious opinion.
 
csbrown28 said:
While I respect the desire to be a better person, I suspect that most of you would be just as moral and feel the desire to be better people, even if it could be shown, beyond the shadow of a doubt that there is no god....
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Might be true for most here but, there's a world full of people who have no guidance, no idea of right or wrong. We are not born with those qualities.
 
WCH said:
Might be true for most here but, there's a world full of people who have no guidance, no idea of right or wrong. We are not born with those qualities.
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Actually we are born with the capability, and show it at six months, long before any religious concepts are inserted. That's a religious opinion colored by the need to justify the religious as being specially good, a cut above the "people who have no guidance". Anyone who is guided by a shepherd shouldn't be using sheeple as an epithet.

http://phys.org/news192693376.html
 
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Manc Skipper said:
Actually we are born with the capability, and show it at six months, long before any religious concepts are inserted. That's a religious opinion colored by the need to justify the religious as being specially good, a cut above the "people who have no guidance". Anyone who is guided by a shepherd shouldn't be using sheeple as an epithet.

Psychologists say babies know right from wrong even at six months
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Sounds more like psycho babble biased towards religion.

The "sheeple' I'm referring to are not the ones who follow the Lord. They are the ones who love big government and materialism...worldly things.
 
WCH said:
Sounds more like psycho babble biased towards religion.

The "sheeple' I'm referring to are not the ones who follow the Lord. They are the ones who love big government and materialism...worldly things.
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The right-wing have successfully convinced their base that the government is a malevolent entity, when it's really just people working together to solve problems.
 
Amadeus said:
The right-wing have successfully convinced their base that the government is a malevolent entity, when it's really just people working together to solve problems.
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You need to listen.
 
Amadeus said:
I mean that all things being equal, a religious opinion is given far greater latitude than a non-religious opinion.
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This is simply a matter of practicality, since our society is religiously pluralistic.
 
WCH said:
Might be true for most here but, there's a world full of people who have no guidance, no idea of right or wrong. We are not born with those qualities.
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First I'm not sure how you know that. To the contrary I would assert that humans are born with a sense of morality. There are studies that show babies, some under one year old displaying an innate sense of morality. The experiment involved showing the children 2 puppets. One of the puppets is mean to the other and the other is kind. When the puppets are given cookies to share, the children choose to take the cookie from the nice puppet 80%+ of the time.

There are several experiments of this type that are evidence to the fact that we are, in fact, born with an innate sense of morality. We know that mean is bad, and kindness is good, but if we're not born with those qualities, how did the human race make it the 100,000-250,000 (depending on who you ask, unless you're a YEC) before god announced himself to the world?

While I think guidance is an issue I suspect that this is a cultural problem brought about by the rapid pace of change over the last 200 years. I mean, the pace of technology has exploded and literally overnight the human race has changed in ways that any specie would have difficulty with. Around the year 1000 the worlds population was estimated to be around 250 million. 800 years later it hadn't even reached 1 billion, and since then its grown to 7 billion.

100 years ago most armies in the world still used horses, today we can launch missiles from hundreds of miles away and send them down the smoke stack of the building we wish to destroy.

I believe there is a non-subjective morality without having to turn to a higher power to find it....
 
Amadeus said:
Just curious what your thoughts are on this. Being an atheist, I don't understand faith. However, I often see religious folk say that their faith is constantly tested, and that it requires work and dedication to maintain.
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Faith is faith: accepting something as true without prior evidence. Like when you enter into a contract 'in good faith' you expect the other party to do their part even though you may have little to no proof that they will do so. Same exact thing. See also "full faith and credit clause". Again, same exact thing.

Amadeus said:
At the same time, people say that opinions derived from religious convictions can't be judged by the same criteria as other opinions. Which kind of confuses me, and I think is part of what frustrates other atheists.
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As a believer that also confuses me. A given conviction is generaly judged by its merits and flaws regardless of where it came from.
 
Amadeus said:
The right-wing have successfully convinced their base that the government is a malevolent entity, when it's really just people working together to solve problems.
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Do you realize that the problem with government is the eventual consolidation of power? Governments tend toward this end, and every time this happens to a great degree we see great evil emerge. Government is a necessary evil and we should all be on guard perpetually.
 
Jerry said:
Faith is faith: accepting something as true without prior evidence. Like when you enter into a contract 'in good faith' you expect the other party to do their part even though you may have little to no proof that they will do so. Same exact thing. See also "full faith and credit clause". Again, same exact thing.
As a believer that also confuses me. A given conviction is generally judged by its merits and flaws regardless of where it came from.
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A minor but perhaps important quibble: Faith is based on evidence and reason. It does not necessarily require proofs. The "evidence" portion is what sets many aflame here. Some only accept empirical evidence. But this isn't in my mind the correct position to take on a spiritual paradigm. It is by definition lacking empirical evidence. It is beyond the physical.
 
TheNextEra said:
Actually partially true. Can you rule out multiple Gods and what are those roles? Is the God a Christian God, etc.

Yes, the ANSWER to those questions COULD be a FACT, but you cannot say a deity(ies) exisitence or non-existiance is fact.

Regardless, religion is still a choice. You CHOOSE what to believe and that belief is not fact as it hasn't been proven.
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If the Christian God exists it rules out multiple Gods necessarily, considering the nature of the Judeo-Christian-Muslim God is in a totally different ball park from Pagan Gods.

Actually I can say a dieties existance or non existance is fact, because it IS fact, whether I'm right or not is up to debate.

I'ts a Choice in the same way loving someone is a "Choice," my point is it isn't that simple, there is a marked difference between a Choice as in "chocolate or Vanilla" and a Choice like loving one's wife, or child .... or religious faith.

If I decided to not believe in and love God tommorow ... i would still believe in him and love him, you can't "choose" to not to believe in something and love someone you do.
 
csbrown28 said:
1. Here is the thing...You are given 5 senses to interpret your world. The question is, can your senses be fooled? There is lots of evidence that it's possible to fool sight, touch, taste and smell. When you evaluate your world you make the assumption that your senses can know the real world.

As a non-theist, the only faith I have (that can be compared to religious faith in that I cannot prove what I'm about to say), is that my senses are at least sometimes accurate. Everything else, truth, and morality can be determined via evidence. Having said that I know it takes 10's, 100's or even thousands of pieces of information to determine if something is true, and only one piece of information to make a belief that was formally considered true, false

2. Now not all truths (what your calling facts) are of equal wight and value. The "truthiness" of a claim is proportional to the evidence for it.....

I understand that there may be facts and truths which are external to us, that are true independent of any interpretation of their truth value, but no one lives in that realm. We live in the realm of interpreting the world though the imperfect instruments of our senses, thus all facts held by us, are in fact opinions....
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1. Morality and truth CANNOT be determined via the evidence, FIRST you need a worldview, you cannot evaluate whether an action is right or wrong unless you have a worldview determining what it means to be morally right or wrong.

2. Actually the truthiness of a claim is proportional to it's truthiness, that's it, before anyone had any evidence of the existance of other galaxies those galaxies existance are just as true then as they are now ... Our discovering evidence that those galexies exist didn't change the fact or add to the truthiness of them existing one iota.

But hey, you're throwing out a red herring, if you want to talk about the evidence for Gods existance or non existance start a thread about it.

Your insinuating that there are two choices and thus equal chance for each.....

If I drop a dart out of an jet flying at 30,000 feet trying to hit the bullseye on a dart board laying flat on the ground. There are two choices, either ill hit the bullseye or I won't, but the chances that one of the outcomes is much greater than the other. I'd say I have about the same chance of hitting the bullseye as you have of demonstrating that your god, in fact, is real.
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You're just pulling the odds out of Your ass really .... I'm not insinuating anything, but if yo uwant to debate on whether or not it's more or less likely that God exists start a New thread about it.
 
Aunt Spiker said:
True to the believers and followers of said faith - that is what's key to establish, here. It's not a matter of universal fact.

Things cross the line when people of those beliefs try to govern others based on those beliefs. That crosses from religion to politics.
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EVERYONE who governs ANYONE does so on the basis of their beliefs .... as they should and they must.
 
Amadeus said:
Just curious what your thoughts are on this. Being an atheist, I don't understand faith. However, I often see religious folk say that their faith is constantly tested, and that it requires work and dedication to maintain.

At the same time, people say that opinions derived from religious convictions can't be judged by the same criteria as other opinions. Which kind of confuses me, and I think is part of what frustrates other atheists.
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James 1:27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
 
RGacky3 said:
If the Christian God exists it rules out multiple Gods necessarily...
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Not at all, actually, since the Christian God commands to not worship any other god before him. If there were no other gods then there would be no need to command not to worship them.
 
Jerry said:
Not at all, actually, since the Christian God commands to not worship any other god before him. If there were no other gods then there would be no need to command not to worship them.
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They are Gods in the pagan, sense, not Gods in the sense of creator of everything and Source of all being.
 
RGacky3 said:
They are Gods in the pagan, sense, not Gods in the sense of creator of everything and Source of all being.
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I know, and they are still gods and nothing about the christian god negates their existance.
 
Jerry said:
I know, and they are still gods and nothing about the christian god negates their existance.
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Fair enough, but then we are using the term "god" differently.
 
RGacky3 said:
Fair enough, but then we are using the term "god" differently.
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"God" simply means "superior being". That there is one who is superior to all others in no way means those others aren't still superior to us.

And there are gods who aren't gods at all, but jungian archetypes, personified natural phenomena or legondary humans.

"God" is more or less just a vague reference to some higher power.
 
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RGacky3 said:
EVERYONE who governs ANYONE does so on the basis of their beliefs .... as they should and they must.
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No, there's a limit.

But in the US we don't really cross that line much (an example would be banning ALL birth control because of the religious beliefs of some - that's how things were in the US 100 years ago). Religion holds more influence in other countries, though.
 
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