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What is a "good person?" And do you really think people who believe in God are just listening to "fairy tails (sic)" so they can be face the reality of death? I

What is a "good person?" And do you really think people who believe in God are just listening to "fairy tails (sic)" so they can be face the reality of death? Is that really the best portrayal of Christians you can come up with?

toomuchtodo 6y ago
Christians base their belief system on a collection of stories from 2000+ years ago and the idea of a deity and other planes of existence (edit: “Heaven” and “Hell”) of which no proof exists. Please correct me if any of the above is inaccurate.
- AuthorizedCust 6y ago
  Sounds accurate, from a super high level, except for the "other planes of existence" part. I'd need to dig into that with you to understand more.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- baryphonic 6y ago
  We base our beliefs in the teachings of Jesus, who was born as a human despite being divine; ministered to people he encountered, performed many signs, taught profound moral truths (e.g. through parables, small debates with the leaders of the time, or even breaking up angry lynch mobs), and then became a scapegoat who suffered, died, was buried and came back. Everything else follows from that, at least in Christianity. I suppose I believe in "other planes of existence" (is this supposed to be Heaven and Hell or something?), but those are contingent upon the truth of Jesus' suffering, death and resurrection. I guess I'd say I think we already exist in another "plane" which is immaterial and inaccessible in this life, but is nonetheless real. I suppose I also "believe in a deity," but not with the connotations you seem to be suggesting. God is not some component of existence or reality or the universe, independent of other things; He is the only source of what it means to exist. I would say I don't even believe that God exists, but that He is below or outside of existence, as He caused everything else to exist that exists. If someone believes in God as a sort of Santa Claus or Jinn granting wishes, then no, I don't believe in that kind of "deity" either. That's just silly nonsense.
  - nicoburns 6y ago
    > We base our beliefs in the teachings of Jesus, who was born as a human despite being divine The teachings of Jesus are a collection of stories from ~2000 years ago. That Jesus is/was divine is something which there is very little evidence for. But even if he was, his teaching are a collection of stories from 2000 years ago.
    - nonotreally 6y ago
      I think you've conceded too much ground here. There is no evidence for the divinity of Jesus. These are simply stories from ~2000 years ago.
      - gumby 6y ago
        There is no evidence the guy existed, either. They are most likely just stories meant to motivate a movement — nothing wrong with that in principle. Especially given that a lot of the message is “be kind”.
        baryphonic 6y ago
        If you really believe that there's no evidence Jesus the man existed, then I wonder what you would consider evidence of any ancient person existing, or even evidence of any fact in general. The evidence does exist, and it is in fact convincing evidence, at least of historicity (even the Gospels are evidence, though several extrabiblical sources mention the historical Jesus as well, including ones opposed to Christianity like Josephus). IMO, the evidence of divinity is fairly strong, too, but can only be resolved as a matter of faith and not solely empiricism. Also, Jesus said quite a bit more, and quite a bit more often than "be kind," though admittedly that's sort of the Therapeutic Moral Deism version spewed out popularly and in a lot of churches today. I'd agree that Jesus' ultimate vision is humanity living in harmony with one another, but that this requires living in harmony with God, too. We're pretty terrible when we try to lean on our own understanding.
        6y ago
- thrww20210329 6y ago
  What counts as evidence? Some of the Catholic miracles sure seem pretty solid to me in terms of conveying God's will to us. Like the one in Fatima, which was witnessed by thousands of people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_Sun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_Sun
  - nonotreally 6y ago
    Every single miracle we have investigated seriously has been proven to be perfectly normal. As an example: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/nov/23/india-blasphemy-jesus-tears https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/nov/23/india-blasphem... Just because something is unexplained currently does not give any weight to the idea that it was a miracle. Millions of people saw David Copperfield vanish the Statue of Liberty as well... But I certainly wouldn't be tempted to pretend he actually made it vanish https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=823GNH4Rczg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=823GNH4Rczg We don't have a single example where the opposite has been true.
    - thrww20210329 6y ago
      https://cruxnow.com/commentary/2017/05/fatima-and-the-atheists/ https://cruxnow.com/commentary/2017/05/fatima-and-the-atheis... The miracle was also seen by sailors on a British ship off the coast of Portugal. Foley recounts an experience in England. He gave a presentation on Fatima at a college in England and was told by one of the teachers that her grandfather saw the miracle from his ship and wrote about it to his wife — “without obviously understanding what it meant or its significance.” And finally, what most convincingly shows that the miracle was not only in the minds and perception of the witnesses is the fact that the crowd at Fatima felt the heat of the sun as it approached them, and their clothes and the ground — which had been soaked by torrential rain — were dry at the end of the miracle. How does one claim this is just some optical mirage?
      - vidarh 6y ago
        One doesn't. At least not only an optical illusion. There is no consistent set of reports. Given that the reports are all wildly inconsistent and contradictory, and many reported seeing and feeling nothing at all, it's clear the reports can not be be taken at face value.
- hajile 6y ago
  The incompleteness theorem proves unequivocally that our formulations that describe the universe are either incomplete (aka wrong) or cannot be proven correct. The question of planes of existence or deities sits at least on equal footing. The most fundamental question is where everything came from. Even the Big Bang theory requires starting materials. The more generic -1 + 1 = 0 is neither useful nor has any mechanism for initialization. Is little wonder that so many scientists tend toward simulationism. This is just god(s) with different trappings where unprovable metaphysics are studied through modern math and curves instead of ancient math and geometry. It seems observational true that humans have an innate desire for god that is not seen in other species. As a final note, the Bible teaches a final end of the wicked along with the final destruction of Satan along with the wicked (this was the proclamation at the beginning of the Bible telling them that if they sinned, they would cease to exist, through the major prophets like Isaiah’s woes against “the king of Tyre” to the New Testament talking of a final destruction of the wicked. The current tales of hell entered into Christian theology in the 3-400s when the mainstream denomination mixed in ideas from the pagan Roman religion. For this reason, you won’t find eternal torment for a few years of sin anywhere in the Bible. Likewise, Heaven is simply the place where God resides (being called New Jerusalem). It is told that the city will descend to earth after judgment is complete. People don’t go to Heaven after death as some other plane of existence in the Biblical text. Instead, we see the archangel contending with Satan to raise Moses from the dead. Likewise, we see people raised from the dead when Jesus is raised. This would be unnecessary if they were already in Heaven. In fact, the whole Second Coming would be unnecessary if that were what was actually taught. Once again we see this idea entering from the same pagan sources at the same time. Putting aside whatever people have told you and reading the book yourself, you’ll find something much different than the interpretations and sophistries people layer on top. This remains true whether you read as a believer or a non-believer (myself having experienced both at different times in my life).
- jkingsbery 6y ago
  That was the premise that an investigative journalist had in mind when he started an investigation to demonstrate precisely what you said to the rest of the world. Rather than starting with his assumptions and arguing against a strawman, he went to verify every fact he could and went to talk to experts. Instead of proving Christianity is a sham, he ended up converting to Christianity and writing a book about it: https://www.amazon.com/Case-Christ-Journalists-Personal-Investigation/dp/0310209307 https://www.amazon.com/Case-Christ-Journalists-Personal-Inve... . TL;DR: Christians wouldn't say that we base our beliefs on a collection of stories. We base our beliefs in the historical fact of the Resurrection. Perhaps we'll find out we're wrong some day, but having considered the best evidence we have (and the book I linked to walks through why that evidence is compelling), Christianity is a reasonable position to hold.
IsopropylHarbor 6y ago
> What is a "good person?" "How we ought to live," -Socrates
- whatshisface 6y ago
  "How ought we to live?" "How we ought to live." I think that's a bit circular, Socrates.
  - majewsky 6y ago
    Well yeah, that's the Münchhausen Trilemma. When looking for a final reason, if you don't want to make an axiomatic argument like "because God", you must end up either going in circles or down an infinitely deep rabbit hole. Since none of these options are satisfactory, the search for a final reason is doomed from the start (though it can still be fruitful).
engineeringwoke 6y ago
Not OP, but yes, I think that any consumer of organized religion is doing it because fairy tales are easier than life and death is scary. That is all it really is, right?
- kylebyproxy 6y ago
  IMO, that's the most insidious aspect of organized religion. Rather than acknowledging death as an engineering problem to be solved and overcome, it teaches people to embrace death and conditions followers to not even consider fighting back.
  - spaced-out 6y ago
    Exactly this. Humanity is reaching the point where we can truly transcend our biological limitations, yet many follow ideologies that tell them to not even consider this, and instead put their faith in some sort of magical after-death utopia obviously born our of generations of wishful thinking.
- KMag 6y ago
  Not all religions posit an afterlife. Though, I guess a meaningless death is scarier than death, and nearly all religions are attempts to form meaning in life when there's no empirically obvious meaning.
cogman10 6y ago
> What is a "good person?" I know why you are asking this, but honestly it's a silly question. Most humans have empathy. Most humans know "things and people that hurt others are bad. Humans helping others are good". For the few that don't, we've got legal codes built on the same principles. The bible has very little morality in it that's "good" and a lot of really questionable moral statements. For example, beating slaves is OK so long as they recover in a day or 2 (Exodus 21:20-21). These questionable moral passages have been used to make a lot of good people, bad people. From justifying slavery, anti-"race mixing", anti LGBT+ rights, etc. So why hold it up as a good moral code? Because Jesus said "love one another"? He also said "No, I have come to divide people against each other! 52 From now on families will be split apart, three in favor of me, and two against—or two in favor and three against." (Luke 12:49-56) > And do you really think people who believe in God are just listening to "fairy tails (sic)" so they can be face the reality of death? That's a large part of it. Most believe in god because their parents taught them to believe in god. They continue to believe in god usually because of the fear of what happens if that world view is challenged or changed. A lot take "Pascal's Wager" very seriously, the believe because "If I'm wrong, I'll go to hell". Many believe because they are constantly reinforcing that belief, they surround themselves with others that believe. Unless you are a fundamentalist, you'll look at the bible and see it's mostly a bunch of impossible tales. Most people don't seriously believe that god decided to kill the population of the world in a great flood because they broke his rules, they try and make it an allegory (or fairy tale). So, stripe out all the tales that are allegories and what are you left with? > Is that really the best portrayal of Christians you can come up with? It's a pretty charitable portrayal. A less than charitable one is one that sees them as trying to force everyone into christian law. It's watching as they constantly push hate filled rhetoric into the public space because "The bibles says this is a sin". A less than charitable view of Christianity is one that sees all the megachurch pastors preaching a prosperity gospel to bilk old women out of their retirement savings. Those of us outside of religion see the most popular religions as cons draining capital while providing little in return other than "feel good"s. For all the good you can point that a religion might do, the most successful religions have multimillion dollar buildings, large salaries for their preachers, and starving parishioners. You opened asking what is a "good person". I'd say a good person is one that doesn't take money from the poor and give nothing in return. Most christian churches can't be called "good".

toomuchtodo 6y ago

Christians base their belief system on a collection of stories from 2000+ years ago and the idea of a deity and other planes of existence (edit: “Heaven” and “Hell”) of which no proof exists. Please correct me if any of the above is inaccurate.

AuthorizedCust 6y ago
Sounds accurate, from a super high level, except for the "other planes of existence" part. I'd need to dig into that with you to understand more.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
baryphonic 6y ago
We base our beliefs in the teachings of Jesus, who was born as a human despite being divine; ministered to people he encountered, performed many signs, taught profound moral truths (e.g. through parables, small debates with the leaders of the time, or even breaking up angry lynch mobs), and then became a scapegoat who suffered, died, was buried and came back. Everything else follows from that, at least in Christianity. I suppose I believe in "other planes of existence" (is this supposed to be Heaven and Hell or something?), but those are contingent upon the truth of Jesus' suffering, death and resurrection. I guess I'd say I think we already exist in another "plane" which is immaterial and inaccessible in this life, but is nonetheless real. I suppose I also "believe in a deity," but not with the connotations you seem to be suggesting. God is not some component of existence or reality or the universe, independent of other things; He is the only source of what it means to exist. I would say I don't even believe that God exists, but that He is below or outside of existence, as He caused everything else to exist that exists. If someone believes in God as a sort of Santa Claus or Jinn granting wishes, then no, I don't believe in that kind of "deity" either. That's just silly nonsense.
- nicoburns 6y ago
  > We base our beliefs in the teachings of Jesus, who was born as a human despite being divine The teachings of Jesus are a collection of stories from ~2000 years ago. That Jesus is/was divine is something which there is very little evidence for. But even if he was, his teaching are a collection of stories from 2000 years ago.
  - nonotreally 6y ago
    I think you've conceded too much ground here. There is no evidence for the divinity of Jesus. These are simply stories from ~2000 years ago.
    - gumby 6y ago
      There is no evidence the guy existed, either. They are most likely just stories meant to motivate a movement — nothing wrong with that in principle. Especially given that a lot of the message is “be kind”.
      - baryphonic 6y ago
        If you really believe that there's no evidence Jesus the man existed, then I wonder what you would consider evidence of any ancient person existing, or even evidence of any fact in general. The evidence does exist, and it is in fact convincing evidence, at least of historicity (even the Gospels are evidence, though several extrabiblical sources mention the historical Jesus as well, including ones opposed to Christianity like Josephus). IMO, the evidence of divinity is fairly strong, too, but can only be resolved as a matter of faith and not solely empiricism. Also, Jesus said quite a bit more, and quite a bit more often than "be kind," though admittedly that's sort of the Therapeutic Moral Deism version spewed out popularly and in a lot of churches today. I'd agree that Jesus' ultimate vision is humanity living in harmony with one another, but that this requires living in harmony with God, too. We're pretty terrible when we try to lean on our own understanding.
        6y ago
thrww20210329 6y ago
What counts as evidence? Some of the Catholic miracles sure seem pretty solid to me in terms of conveying God's will to us. Like the one in Fatima, which was witnessed by thousands of people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_Sun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_Sun
- nonotreally 6y ago
  Every single miracle we have investigated seriously has been proven to be perfectly normal. As an example: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/nov/23/india-blasphemy-jesus-tears https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/nov/23/india-blasphem... Just because something is unexplained currently does not give any weight to the idea that it was a miracle. Millions of people saw David Copperfield vanish the Statue of Liberty as well... But I certainly wouldn't be tempted to pretend he actually made it vanish https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=823GNH4Rczg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=823GNH4Rczg We don't have a single example where the opposite has been true.
  - thrww20210329 6y ago
    https://cruxnow.com/commentary/2017/05/fatima-and-the-atheists/ https://cruxnow.com/commentary/2017/05/fatima-and-the-atheis... The miracle was also seen by sailors on a British ship off the coast of Portugal. Foley recounts an experience in England. He gave a presentation on Fatima at a college in England and was told by one of the teachers that her grandfather saw the miracle from his ship and wrote about it to his wife — “without obviously understanding what it meant or its significance.” And finally, what most convincingly shows that the miracle was not only in the minds and perception of the witnesses is the fact that the crowd at Fatima felt the heat of the sun as it approached them, and their clothes and the ground — which had been soaked by torrential rain — were dry at the end of the miracle. How does one claim this is just some optical mirage?
    - vidarh 6y ago
      One doesn't. At least not only an optical illusion. There is no consistent set of reports. Given that the reports are all wildly inconsistent and contradictory, and many reported seeing and feeling nothing at all, it's clear the reports can not be be taken at face value.
hajile 6y ago
The incompleteness theorem proves unequivocally that our formulations that describe the universe are either incomplete (aka wrong) or cannot be proven correct. The question of planes of existence or deities sits at least on equal footing. The most fundamental question is where everything came from. Even the Big Bang theory requires starting materials. The more generic -1 + 1 = 0 is neither useful nor has any mechanism for initialization. Is little wonder that so many scientists tend toward simulationism. This is just god(s) with different trappings where unprovable metaphysics are studied through modern math and curves instead of ancient math and geometry. It seems observational true that humans have an innate desire for god that is not seen in other species. As a final note, the Bible teaches a final end of the wicked along with the final destruction of Satan along with the wicked (this was the proclamation at the beginning of the Bible telling them that if they sinned, they would cease to exist, through the major prophets like Isaiah’s woes against “the king of Tyre” to the New Testament talking of a final destruction of the wicked. The current tales of hell entered into Christian theology in the 3-400s when the mainstream denomination mixed in ideas from the pagan Roman religion. For this reason, you won’t find eternal torment for a few years of sin anywhere in the Bible. Likewise, Heaven is simply the place where God resides (being called New Jerusalem). It is told that the city will descend to earth after judgment is complete. People don’t go to Heaven after death as some other plane of existence in the Biblical text. Instead, we see the archangel contending with Satan to raise Moses from the dead. Likewise, we see people raised from the dead when Jesus is raised. This would be unnecessary if they were already in Heaven. In fact, the whole Second Coming would be unnecessary if that were what was actually taught. Once again we see this idea entering from the same pagan sources at the same time. Putting aside whatever people have told you and reading the book yourself, you’ll find something much different than the interpretations and sophistries people layer on top. This remains true whether you read as a believer or a non-believer (myself having experienced both at different times in my life).
jkingsbery 6y ago
That was the premise that an investigative journalist had in mind when he started an investigation to demonstrate precisely what you said to the rest of the world. Rather than starting with his assumptions and arguing against a strawman, he went to verify every fact he could and went to talk to experts. Instead of proving Christianity is a sham, he ended up converting to Christianity and writing a book about it: https://www.amazon.com/Case-Christ-Journalists-Personal-Investigation/dp/0310209307 https://www.amazon.com/Case-Christ-Journalists-Personal-Inve... . TL;DR: Christians wouldn't say that we base our beliefs on a collection of stories. We base our beliefs in the historical fact of the Resurrection. Perhaps we'll find out we're wrong some day, but having considered the best evidence we have (and the book I linked to walks through why that evidence is compelling), Christianity is a reasonable position to hold.

IsopropylHarbor 6y ago

> What is a "good person?" "How we ought to live," -Socrates

whatshisface 6y ago
"How ought we to live?" "How we ought to live." I think that's a bit circular, Socrates.
- majewsky 6y ago
  Well yeah, that's the Münchhausen Trilemma. When looking for a final reason, if you don't want to make an axiomatic argument like "because God", you must end up either going in circles or down an infinitely deep rabbit hole. Since none of these options are satisfactory, the search for a final reason is doomed from the start (though it can still be fruitful).

engineeringwoke 6y ago

Not OP, but yes, I think that any consumer of organized religion is doing it because fairy tales are easier than life and death is scary. That is all it really is, right?

kylebyproxy 6y ago
IMO, that's the most insidious aspect of organized religion. Rather than acknowledging death as an engineering problem to be solved and overcome, it teaches people to embrace death and conditions followers to not even consider fighting back.
- spaced-out 6y ago
  Exactly this. Humanity is reaching the point where we can truly transcend our biological limitations, yet many follow ideologies that tell them to not even consider this, and instead put their faith in some sort of magical after-death utopia obviously born our of generations of wishful thinking.
KMag 6y ago
Not all religions posit an afterlife. Though, I guess a meaningless death is scarier than death, and nearly all religions are attempts to form meaning in life when there's no empirically obvious meaning.

cogman10 6y ago

> What is a "good person?" I know why you are asking this, but honestly it's a silly question. Most humans have empathy. Most humans know "things and people that hurt others are bad. Humans helping others are good". For the few that don't, we've got legal codes built on the same principles. The bible has very little morality in it that's "good" and a lot of really questionable moral statements. For example, beating slaves is OK so long as they recover in a day or 2 (Exodus 21:20-21). These questionable moral passages have been used to make a lot of good people, bad people. From justifying slavery, anti-"race mixing", anti LGBT+ rights, etc. So why hold it up as a good moral code? Because Jesus said "love one another"? He also said "No, I have come to divide people against each other! 52 From now on families will be split apart, three in favor of me, and two against—or two in favor and three against." (Luke 12:49-56) > And do you really think people who believe in God are just listening to "fairy tails (sic)" so they can be face the reality of death? That's a large part of it. Most believe in god because their parents taught them to believe in god. They continue to believe in god usually because of the fear of what happens if that world view is challenged or changed. A lot take "Pascal's Wager" very seriously, the believe because "If I'm wrong, I'll go to hell". Many believe because they are constantly reinforcing that belief, they surround themselves with others that believe. Unless you are a fundamentalist, you'll look at the bible and see it's mostly a bunch of impossible tales. Most people don't seriously believe that god decided to kill the population of the world in a great flood because they broke his rules, they try and make it an allegory (or fairy tale). So, stripe out all the tales that are allegories and what are you left with? > Is that really the best portrayal of Christians you can come up with? It's a pretty charitable portrayal. A less than charitable one is one that sees them as trying to force everyone into christian law. It's watching as they constantly push hate filled rhetoric into the public space because "The bibles says this is a sin". A less than charitable view of Christianity is one that sees all the megachurch pastors preaching a prosperity gospel to bilk old women out of their retirement savings. Those of us outside of religion see the most popular religions as cons draining capital while providing little in return other than "feel good"s. For all the good you can point that a religion might do, the most successful religions have multimillion dollar buildings, large salaries for their preachers, and starving parishioners. You opened asking what is a "good person". I'd say a good person is one that doesn't take money from the poor and give nothing in return. Most christian churches can't be called "good".