Understanding Religion's Relationship To Human Social Systems

Picture, first, a universe where there are no "gods" (whatever the that may mean, to whoever is employing the term). In regards to this hypothetical universe, I suspect most people would agree:  the title statement holds.  --- Moving forward. Next, .. Picture a universe where there are some god(s); - by any definition, these points all still hold. However, I primarily mean: perceived or hypothesized Super-"entity/ies".  --- In this other hypothetical universe, ... They are hidden from sight. So then, either: a.) no one in this universe can know anything about them; - exactly the same as a universe where there are no gods. or b.) some few people make:  some sort of objectively true cognitive-contact with those entity(ies). However, inevitably, their human minds still "fill in the blanks" of their blind-spots; - with filler their "mind's eye" automatically provides. Thus, they still can't fully tell where the externally-supplied data ends v...

  Now, I don't happen to think the God-issues really matter in-and-of-themselves. I used to be a believer. I've also had a lot of long conversations with believers. So I have a fair understand why it matters to many.  Meanwhile, ..  I realize that by diving into these issues with believers, skeptics are often 'giving the impression' that the issues of a God's existence, nature, involvement, and will ... matter to us too, on a personal level. Ironically, that just fuels the common theistic assumption that we're acting upon a common urge or 'intuition',  to seek out the truths of a "God", or otherwise "rebel" (further inferring there is someone to rebel against). Somehow, many theists manage to totally misunderstand the real motivators for various skeptics. We don't all have the same motivators. However,  it seems (to me) that the most common motivators (for skeptics) are purely academic. The second most common reason seem (to me)...

When Christians oppose abortion on moral grounds, they are actually contradicting their own moral premise. Consider:  Bibles says to "put first the kingdom (of Heaven)". If an aborted fetus = a "dead baby", then that "baby" gets a free ticket to paradise (unless your "God" is evil enough to send babies to a Hell). - Whereas, if it lives to see "the age of accountability", then the odds of it ending up in "Hell" are very very high. Therefore: Morally speaking, Christians should be WANTING all fetuses be aborted; to ensure their "eternal fate" is a good one. ---- Meanwhile, ... * If the reason the Christian "God" allows so much suffering and death ... is because: HIS own moral view is: "free will" must not be interfered with, ... then: Christians are actually fighting AGAINST their God's moral foundation ... by trying to interfere with other people's "free will"; - worse yet: w...

 In an effort to present mythicism as something respectable to more popular scholars, Carrier is far more charitable than I would have been. For example, Ehrman has straw manned mythicism in several ways. One of those ways is: Bart claims mythicists claim the mundane claims (about Jesus) in bibles should be utterly dismissed ... just because the magical claims in bibles aren't credible. Carrier has been quick and consistent to say: he actually finds many of the mundane claims about (ordinary mortal) Jesus to be plausible.  (along with that) An ordinary human Jesus is plausible. In other words, as a mythicist, Carrier does NOT toss out muggle-Jesus with the magical bathwater. He grants plausibility to various mundane claims without arguing that the magic claims sink the mundane claims. Although, I'd argue that: The mundane claims DO sink beneath the waters of credibility, by virtue of being: * inseparable from the debunked magical claims, and * coming from a people who were ...

A seldom-used apologetics argument is here proposed: "Ultimately I believe:  the presupposition of the orthodox Christian notion of God justifies (my) knowledge, rationality, logic and arguments." -And that the assumption of a/any God is required, in order to justify confidence in (any)one's own imperiale senses and reasoning faculties." --- My thoughts on this: I have to wonder if there's an underlying psychiatric disorder at-play here. Hypothetical: Someone has a disorder which causes them to irrationally doubt their own senses, and even doubt logic itself. While that's happening, they're immersed in a religious culture which ~science has strongly suggested~: causes and worsens serious psychiatric disorders. As their reasoning abilities diminish, they are effectively creating good reasons to doubt their own sense and reasoning abilities. Thus, there is further worsening of their own trust in their own senses and reasoning abilities. This ironically v...

[responding to a Christian-fundamentalist, about this issue] Hypothetical: Some random psychopath wants to kidnap and torture someone I care about, because it sounds like a fun way to spend a Saturday. I find out, just in time to be ABLE to prevent it. Meanwhile, I am standing there with a Muslim. Let's say ... the person in danger is our sister. The person I'm with is our brother. Perhaps their thought processes begin-and-end with "What Would Muhammad Do?". -similar to a Christian asking themselves "WWJD?".  So then it would depend heavily on which sect's subjective interpretations they've subjective ly decided to defer to, as (in place of) their own. So if our sister recently left Islam, they might conclude the right thing to do is let her die. It will save them the trouble of killing our sister; which they were already considering. Such is the nature of religion; where people subjective ly assume some Super-Entity has a list of priorities which ...