Understanding Religion's Relationship To Human Social Systems

[Note: "Christians", here, refers to fundamentalist and moderate Christians;  which ~just so happens to be~  damn-near-all Christians who post in Stoicism groups.    It does not apply to new-age "metaphorical" Christians who interpret everything in bibles as: metaphors for expressing progressive secular values  via religious language] Stoics and Christians used terms like "God", "logos", "wisdom", "justice", "love", "virtue", etc.. But they were defining those terms in very different ways. Their descriptions and their prescriptions for life were, as I see it, mutually incompatible. Stoics saw "God" and "logos" as impersonal forces which are intrinsic to our universe. Christians see those as literal persons; which are outside of our universe, and have a generally negative/lesser view of the physical realm. (link to video where John Trudell (theist; not an atheist) talks about this . --- ...

A Christian Fundamentalist has said "I love accountability, i think thats what most athiests really run from, accountability to God lol. You have no idea, I felt the best peace, a supernatural peace, April 27th 2007, coincidentally at the worst time in my life, in a jail cell looking at 15 years. The very moment I was experiencing the worst time of my life, I experienced the most peace I've ever felt, after I was instructed to call out to Christ, I did, i felt what i can describe is a peace ive never felt before, almost like a clairvoyant peace, i just knew everything was going to be ok, ever since that day, I was born again. I've experienced countless of times, people, places, things, it takes more faith not to believe, than to believe, so when arrogant atheists or agnostics come at me like I'm the arrogant one. I'm laughing because they have no idea what I know now. My life now, amazing. Everything I prayed to God for I have now. I can't help but say somethin...

Today, a Christian wrote "So many professing to be Christians are some of the most judgemental, unsympathetic, and unkind people I have ever met. I am not sure why, but it is very sad indeed." --------- ~My thoughts about that~ On this, we are agreed. Except ... I do. I understand why it has a negative effect on most people. It encourages narcissism, to tell someone they (personally) are why the universe even exists. It also does damage to tell them: the prime virtue is "faith". Why is that a problem? First, because:  Religious faith is not a virtue.  It's the most dishonest position a person can hold.  Also: It would mean all other virtues are maybe "good" but non-essential, because:  This life is only a test of faith.  So then all the actual virtues get demoted; to nearly trivial concerns. Because they aren't essential to pleasing "God". Because that "God" is only going to judge everyone by how much they "believe" ...

 example: "If you don't believe in my God, then you probably shouldn't care or debate that which you don't think exists" --- Reply: But everyone here knows that: Extorsion exists in the real world. And that's really the thing you're getting blowback for.  Meanwhile, the reason skeptics never stand up to Buddhists, Wiccans, Native American/Indigenous Spiritualists, etc, in these (nor any similar) settings is: Those people don't do the abusive things you and your cult do. Those people don't go onto STOICISM groups to preach the "Good News" that all the early STOICS had to face YOUR GOD when they died, to account for why they didn't embrace YOUR religious narratives and your "God" before they died. And to "friendly warn" everyone here that they'll be sending themselves to your cult's "Hell" if they reject the "authority" you claim to speak by. Those people's religions don't infiltra...

In other words: "don't be surprised if you do end up being judged by God in the end when you had an entire lifetime to make an attempt to speak to him even if you have a hard time believing." ----------  Translation: "don't be surprised if you do end up being judged (with eternal torture; I'm tryin'a keep that part on the downlow) by (my own personally conceptualized) God in the end, when you had an entire lifetime (of an arbitrary length, and with randomized conditions; because my God doesn't do "fair") to make an attempt to speak to "him" (my fictional Mob Boss), even if you have (no logical reason that you know of, to believe (or even CARE about) a damned word anyone says about it) (I'm still hoping I can emotionally manipulate your to surrender to my will over yours. So I'm playing upon any possible emotional vulnerabilities or logic-deficiencies you might hopefully have)" --- --- --- Reply: You're a conque...

There's various ways they can phrase that. Today's randomly encountered fundamentalist put it this simplistic way:  " if you don't want to repent, I mean, that's your right as a human." --- Here's how to reply: Uhm... thanks? I mean seriously. That's exactly like a Muslim saying the same thing. or a Jehovah's Witness saying it. Or a Catholic. Or a Mormon. Or a Westboro Baptist. Repent! ... of not believing exactly what we believe about "God" ... " or else! you'll be "sending yourself to Hell"! As if we all just naturally, instinctively know that their specific cult's authority is the authority the "real God" appointed for us all to fall (to our knees) under. Your extorsion game is weak. 

"make it clear you have a hard time believing and (are) still asking for forgiveness because of it." --- Asking a specific God they don't believe in for forgiveness for the moral "wrong"(?) of: not already having sufficient reason to believe in whatever your religion's claims are ABOUT that God which they either: a.) haven't even heard yet or b.) have heard and recognized as unreasonable. Honestly. Could anyone whose brain works so irrationally even figure out how to access the internet, in order to even stumble into that advice? They wouldn't even be able to ask for more meds in the psych ward, if their brain was that wonky. .

Claim: "The Bible gives us all an option/choice to make." --- 1. Which bible is "The Bible"? They are many different versions. And they do NOT all agree on doctrine. They don't even all agree on which chapters and books to include, which source texts to rely on, or how those should be translated. Even the scholars quoted in concordances don't agree on what a lot of it means. Various sects founders and "fathers" didn't agree either. That's why there are so many different sects, with competing versions of "the message". Layman readers are even less qualified to understand those texts within the context they were written. And what chance have the got at figuring out what so much of it means, when the major sects and their preferred scholars couldn't agree, despite decades (each) of academic study and comparable hours in earnest prayer? 2. Why should anyone even pick up a bible in the first place? You can't cite anything s...

  In reply to this: Someone replied with: "there’s been crusades and witch hunts and inquisitions, which might have killed a few million people total, but I just don’t see how you could possibly approach even 1 billion" --- My reply: That's a reasonable challenge. --- For thousands of years, they pushed the narrative that most physical diseases, and all mental illnesses were caused by the invisible war between the spirit-forces of good and evil.  That did significantly delay the scientific revolution,  and all medical progress.  --- But for now, let's just focus on the mental health sciences. --- If anyone had signficant suffering from mental illness, Christians typically blamed the victim. They didn't blame themselves or their religion, for fostering toxic dysfunctional social environments which create un-wellness. No. Because they were relating as spouses, parents, and pastors/elders/priests "should" (according to their book and their culture). As...

According to mother, ... ~The meaning of life~ To perpetually seek being validated by a larger-than-life Super-parent. In order to accomplish that, one must: 1. Seek to evade all personal accountability for all of our failings and transgressions by scapegoating those onto an innocent martyr and being glad that patsy died in our place. 2. Get legally, posthumously adopted by that dead victim, through a cult ritual oath of "belief", and perhaps a ritual bath; - directed by the authority of any one of thousands of rival cults (lucky-guess the right one. Or else it won't count). Why? So we can inherit "treasures", and a room in that family's haunted castle, under father's endless hover-parenting, as regressed children whose entire existence (forever and ever) will be all about making him happy, ... and where only ghostly dead-kids are able to "live" (sort of). [Don't forget to brag often, about how you don't have to earn any of it] 3. De...

  James Eldridge, a Christian, said "I enjoy listening to him speak and reading Dr. Ehrman's books. He strengthens my faith that Jesus is my risen Lord and Savior." "Toad", a fundamentalist, replied with "How? He's literally a heretic​.". --------- My reply to "Toad":  @toad  Because Mike Winger (the fundamentalist apologist's whose YT page we were on ) got it wrong. Ehrman doesn't "attack the Christian faith" and doesn't "attack bibles". He's simply a leading New Testament scholar who shares actual facts and reasonable readings of the texts. I don't always agree with Ehrman either. But he doesn't have an anti-anyone agenda. In fact, I'd say he goes too far to smooth relations with his fundamentalist readers. And honestly, a lot of Christians find it comforting to be able to hear from an object New Testament scholar, who himself spent so much of his adult life as a Christia...

"Genesis wins." - Joseph Shellim --- It does. It wins. It's all true. Also, it's the ONLY religious creation theory. Honestly. No other religions have one. That's why Genesis wins by default. That's how we know: Our sun was created on the 4th "day", after our planet existed. Vegetation was created on the 3rd "day". Our sun and our moon are respectively independent sources of light. Our sun, moon, and stars are inside of our solid metallic dome-sky. Outer space isn't space. NASA lied. It's actually a vast, unsalted ocean. And that's where the rain comes from. That's where the great floodwaters came from. Those waters added tremendous mass to our planet; of course. During that time, God used superglue, to make sure our sun, moon, and stars didn't get pulled down to earth from the earth's massively increased gravity. It's a good thing we do NOT revolve around a big SUN, because that increase of mass would have...

in the comments section under the blog, if you want to. Today's topic started here: James Apperson  shared a link. 6 f M S 1 a r c 4 8 h   1 4   o a a a t g n g   8 u o 1 3 4 0 m : 1 6 0   P e M    ·  Is this similar to what early Stoics had in mind? (Notice I didn't use the "G" word. The filter auto-rejected my first attempt to post this, for that reason). BIGTHINK.COM The universe may be conscious, say prominent scientists A proto-consciousness field theory could replace the theory of dark matter, one physicist states. 180 180 81 Comments 42 Shares Like Comment Share Write a public comment… Fred Weller This is my frustration with atheists. They deny / belittle any Christian-Judeo ideology, yet are open to an intelligent design hypothesis such as this. Hypocrite much? 2 Like Reply Share 1h Active James Apperson Author Fred Weller re"This is my frustration with atheists. They deny / belittle any Christian-Judeo ideology, yet are open to an in...