Religion - Help Me Understand

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I was brought up Southern Baptist from the time I was a small child. My parents were both Pentecostal Church goers before then, but the "happy/clappy" bits, I think, bothered them so much they left. Personally, I don't think the Southern Baptists are much better, but for entirely different reasons.

By college, I had started to really question "religion" and was mostly hung up on the idea of faith. I, like many here, I'm sure, am fairly logical and rational, and the idea of faith is something that confuses me because it is believing in something with no empirical evidence (I've heard the "what about the wind?" argument and those like it before, but even those things can be measured and physically felt).

Faith isn't something that is easy for me at all. I need to hold a thing and take it apart and fully understand it. You can't do that with faith. "You can't do that with love, either," I've been told. True, but love has symptoms and, like the wind, can be felt...faith, as I understand it, can't.

So, maybe my understanding of faith is flawed? I don't know.

I will say that I live my life the way I remember it being laid out in the New Testament (the Old Testament, from a Southern Baptist point of view is all hellfire and damnation and "You will never be worthy and are going to hell!! !").

Then, there are the "believers" -

My grandfather, a professed "Godly" 94 year old man, is one of the most racist and hateful people I've ever met. Sure, he's nice on the outside, but some of the things he will say in regard to other humans are downright hateful.

In college, I went to a Baptist church in a small town in North Louisiana with someone I was dating at the time. Her dad was a deacon in the church and would, outside of the church setting, of course, use racial slurs against people all the time.

In the same church, the pastor was a married man, slightly older than I was. One day, I was driving him through the small college town I lived in and we passed a group of college girls jogging down the road. He turns to me and says, "Man...if I lived here, I would never get anything done." You're a married man that is the LEADER of the church.

My ex's father was an Elder in the Church of Christ in Nashville. He was a nice enough person most of the time. After my wife left me, I emailed he and his wife saying that I tried everything I could. He emailed back, "You're a damned liar." I don't know what she told him, but I don't lie.

These are the models of what a "Godly" person is supposed to be? That's a hard pill to swallow.

I've heard the argument that "These are just people and people are fallible. People sin...that's what makes them human." That's great and all...but that seems like a great way to just excuse bad behavior.

This all sounds so cynical, I know. I don't mean for it to...I genuinely don't understand...but I want to.

I started dating someone recently who is also on the spectrum. She's religious and we had a discussion last night about religion. She doesn't go to church because The Church is not how she views religion. Her religion is a relationship with God and, to her, that doesn't require The Church...and that's something I don't have because I don't understand. I've fallen away from it because I don't possess the understanding of the key part of religion: faith.

How can you have faith?
How can you reconcile the disparity between what people profess and what they are?
How do you accept something that you've spent so much time away from?

Sincerely looking for input here. DM's are welcome if you prefer that over responding in the forum.

Thank you.

I look at it as a trade off.

With faith you give up a bit of control, a bit of responsibility. It seems that way to me.

A bit like having a personal stylist, I suppose. You're not going to be choosing your own clothes anymore, so you've lost a bit of personal expression, but in return you don't have to worry about clothes, you'll always have something to wear. You put your faith in your stylist. That might be really appealing if you don't have much faith, or interest, in your own ability to dress yourself well, an easy trade to make.

So with faith in a God, I guess you're submitting to being told what's right/wrong, how you should behave. You lose a bit of yourself when you do that, maybe, but the return is more certainty in the moral correctness of your actions. You possibly don't have to think about stuff so much. What a relief that would be.

I don't know if that's enough. I don't think it is. There's other things going on with faith, something about accepting your lack of control, your relative insignificance - the 'higher power' argument. Also something about rejecting the notion of a chaotic universe, I think that troubles the human mind. We like reasons and stories, not random stuff happening just because.

I think it's probably easier if you're born and raised into a faithful family. Fewer questions to ask, if you don't care to. I don't really understand why anyone would pick an off-the-peg religion mid-way through their lives.

As for the godly sorts who seem curiously intolerant of others, maybe that's a result of having rules clearly drawn for you? If you know what's right, then you necessarily also know what isn't and are probably more confident in saying so.

Sorry, that response was all over the place, but it's a complex subject and my thoughts on it are a work in progress.

You're supposed to pray for faith
Then you'll receive.

Wouldn't you need faith to bother to pray? Where does it end?

It is all a scam.

This is a question about faith so is aimed at believers to share. Please tell us about your faith in God and when you became a believer a d why you made such an unusual comment for a believer to make?

Might it be possible that you don't actually believe in any of it?

I don't. I assume anything ascribed to the supernatural has a natural cause, even if I don't understand that cause.


People are self-serving and often work very hard to build and protect their egos. I expect a degree of hypocrisy from all people.


Often it will happen naturally, when it doesn't sometimes that means you've grown away from whatever it might be.

I totally misread egos as eggs then. I was all, "No, you're thinking of birds."

---

Let's Looks at Folks Who Have Written Entire Books

on the Study of Human Development And So-Called

Faith From Both Secular and University Accredited Theologians As Such too...

From the Top of Maslow's Pyramid of Human Development (No Specific Religion Required):

"In his later years, Abraham Maslow explored a further dimension of motivation, while criticizing his original vision of self-actualization.[13][14][15][16] By this later theory, one finds the fullest realization in giving oneself to something beyond oneself—for example, in altruism or spirituality. He equated this with the desire to reach the infinite.[17] "Transcendence refers to the very highest and most inclusive or holistic levels of human consciousness, behaving and relating, as ends rather than means, to oneself, to significant others, to human beings in general, to other species, to nature, and to the cosmos".[18]"


Fowler's Stages of Faith (No Specific Religion Required):

"Stage 0 – "Primal or Undifferentiated" faith (birth to 2 years), is characterized by an early learning of the safety of their environment (i.e. warm, safe and secure vs. hurt, neglect and abuse). If consistent nurture is experienced, one will develop a sense of trust and safety about the universe and the divine. Conversely, negative experiences will cause one to develop distrust with the universe and the divine. Transition to the next stage begins with integration of thought and language which facilitates the use of symbols in speech and play.

Stage 1 – "Intuitive-Projective" faith (ages of three to seven), is characterized by the psyche's unprotected exposure to the Unconscious, and marked by a relative fluidity of thought patterns.[4] Religion is learned mainly through experiences, stories, images, and the people that one comes in contact with.

Stage 2 – "Mythic-Literal" faith (mostly in school children), stage two persons have a strong belief in the justice and reciprocity of the universe, and their deities are almost always anthropomorphic. During this time metaphors and symbolic language are often misunderstood and are taken literally.

Stage 3 – "Synthetic-Conventional" faith (arising in adolescence; aged 12 to adulthood) characterized by conformity to authority and the religious development of a personal identity. Any conflicts with one's beliefs are ignored at this stage due to the fear of threat from inconsistencies.

Stage 4 – "Individuative-Reflective" faith (usually mid-twenties to late thirties) a stage of angst and struggle. The individual takes personal responsibility for his or her beliefs and feelings. As one is able to reflect on one's own beliefs, there is an openness to a new complexity of faith, but this also increases the awareness of conflicts in one's belief.

Stage 5 – "Conjunctive" faith (mid-life crisis) acknowledges paradox and transcendence relating reality behind the symbols of inherited systems. The individual resolves conflicts from previous stages by a complex understanding of a multidimensional, interdependent "truth" that cannot be explained by any particular statement.

Stage 6 – "Universalizing" faith, or what some might call "enlightenment". The individual would treat any person with compassion as he or she views people as from a universal community, and should be treated with universal principles of love and justice."

Where i Live in A Land of 'Tradition' That Used to Have the Guinness World Record For Most Churches

in Locality Per Capita As Well As Many Military Installations of Discipline and Tradition too As Also Yes
Assessed By Social Scientists Per Locality of Metro Area As A Most Difficult Place in the Entire United

States to 'Be Different' As of Course Tradition Naturally Separates 'Us And Them' As Part and Parcel

Of What Tradition Serves to Do; All Kinds of 'Religions'/'Cultures'/'Politics'/'Philosophies' That Bond

And Bind Folks Together STiLL Over Common Ideologies And Symbols Warmly And With Neurohormones

And Neurochemicals More Associated With Perceived Common Enemies in Ways of Fear, Anger, And Hate;

Yes, Ironically Con-Social Emotions Bind and Bond in DarK Ways Against the Perceived Other, Even if these

Religions Hypocritically

Insist They Are All Loving

Peaceful With An All Merciful

Forgiving God Even Turning the

Other Cheek And Loving The Enemy

Per One Quarterback of One Religion's Favorite

'God Man' Leader That of Course Totally Contradicts

Itself by the End of that Story Chapter of Matthew, Written

By Whatever Ghost Author, Roman Greek Writing or Scribe Who

Later On Changed The Theme of the Story to Changing Human Sheep

Into Goats And Burning Them Forever For Not Feeding And Clothing The

Hungry
Naked
Homeless
Dude On the Street;

Even if The Homeless Dude May
Feel and Sense Naked, Enough,
Whole, Complete And Doesn't Even

Need That Kind of Support in Life; Just
Emptying Their Pockets and Taking Off
Their Clothes Living off the Kindness of
Others As my Wife Volunteers to Help me ThiS Way too, Hehe...

Never Trust Sacred Text Without Humor; As Humor Comes More From
The Social-Empathic Artistic Real Open HeARTeD Spiritual Part of Life

With More Complex Emotions to Drive Life iN Peace And Love Than Fear,
Anger, And Hate Naturally Do Not; A Sure Signal too Per the Modern and

Respected Research of Scholar/Philosopher/Psychiatrist-Neuroscientist,

Iain McGilchrist As He Describes This As More of A Holistic Process of the Right

More Holistic, Intuitive, Feeling, Sensing Hemisphere of Mind That Brings a Bigger

Picture of Existence Unified All as One Away from Literal Black And White Processing

of the World Materially Reducing it to the point, Hehe of Caging A Concept of 'God'

Into Something As Small Ranging From a Three Letter Word to An Antiquated Book
of 800,000 Words or So Called A Bible Hand Picked in Mix and Match Scripts by the

Same Roman Catholic

Empire Organization

That Protected Pedophiles

As to Not Impact The Hierarchy
Of the Power of the Catholic Church
Aligned the Same Way With the Roman

Empire Similar to How The Republican Party

in Its More 'Evangelistic Black And White Literal

Thinking' Allure of Religion That Subjugates, Controls,

And Masters Others for Gain of Power And Status too For Those

in Charge Falling Far Below An Ideology of LoVE iN Peace For Real;

Yet Remember Ya

Get the Add-Ons

of Changing Human
Sheep into Goats And

Burning Them Forever

As A Powerful Imaginary Stick

Or Virgins in Heaven or Whatever

Other Religions Promise As Carrots too

AS Humans Historically Have Created Stories

to Bond and Bind Over LiGHT and DarK Parts of

The Human Condition, to Both Provide Order and

Restrictions of Human Freedoms too; Particularly, Reproductive Freedoms;

And Particularly, Women's Reproductive Freedoms to Keep Women in Awful Marriages too...

So What Are The Benefits That May Be Empirically Assessed About Religion Today; Well,

Some Folks Both Fall and Rise According to the "Power of Suggestion" Whether That

Includes A 'Sugar Pill' Like Jesus or A 'Nocebo Pill' Opposite From Placebo Like an

Imaginary Story Created Devil too; And Propagated Early By The Roman Empire

Catholic Church too; Does the Sugar Pill of Jesus Work; Well Yes No Different

Really Than the Sugar Pill From A Doctor Potentially Up to Remission of So-Called

Terminal Disease For Those Who Heal in A Way That Science Cannot Even Discretely

Measure in Process Other than the End Effects of Remedy of Condition That Comes...

Also Per Religion Folks Bond Warmly In Community Per Whatever Group Activity

They May Mutually and Consensually Agree to Do Per the Real Healing Force

of Oxytocin That Literally Lessens Anxiety and Pain too Yes

The Natural Social Drug of Warm Loving Cooperation

Together With Plentiful Flesh and Blood Hugs too...

Our Subconscious Minds Are

So Far Beyond Scientific

Measure Per Process; And

Even our Conscious Minds too;

Yep, We Can and Will Observe

And Materially Reduce Much of the

Physical World; Yet the Great Within is

The Place We All Must Look To Find Answers

That Work For Us As Each Human Being Perceives

A Different Universe of Existence as Neuroscience Shows

We Basically Hallucinate Our Realities Now Based on the
Hallucinations We Co-Create With Our Environments Before;

All Unique,

And Ever

Changing For Real;

If You Ask Folks Who Jesus, Or God,

Or What Christianity Is Supposed to Mean

You Do You End Up With Plus 45,000 Denominations

Globally-Wide Plus Different View Points on Each One From

Each and Every Person in Every Pew as Indeed as An Anthropology,

Participant Observer, Actually Trained ThiS Way By Collegiate Means;

i've Been Studying This

Subject Intensely, Globally For Many

Years And i'll Tell You One God Damned

'Thing' for Sure; NOPE, i Surely Didn't Find

So-called God or Faith in Any Religion i Studied;

However, i took the Advice of Many Historical Sages

Including 'Luke 17:21' and Found Faith in Flow and

Oneness With All That is Through A Flow of Free Dance

And Song in Free Verse Poetry Just like i am Doing Now For Real;

While i Love to Sing Each Week in The Catholic Church as they Provide

Uplifting Songs That Just Don't Completely Focus on Worshipping One

God Man to Come back From the Dead From 2000 or So Years ago Again...

As Hey, i Have
FRiEnDS All around

The World, in Many Other

Religions With Even More

Unusual Traditions They

Bond and Bind Over Per

Symbols and Ideologies, Unique too;

And God Yes, They All Provide Different

Views From The Same So-called Religions too...

i Live a Life of No Illusory Fears in Total LoVE iN Peace

It's A Practice of Life, Far Beyond Just Going to A Church

And Eating a Placebo Sugar Pill Wafer of Jesus With a Bit

of Wine Before the Pandemic took That Alcohol Away to Share hehe...

As True Lots

of Folks Use

Alcohol For

Their Faith to Live too...

For True in my View Faith

Is Whatever Makes Us LoVE iN Peace For

Real God Yes iNCaRNaTE As such As the

Wind Free That Never Fears to LoVE iN Peace,

Moving, Connecting, Co-Creating ThiS Way,

Giving, Sharing, Caring, Healing For All With Most

Respect and Least Harm iN JoY oF LiGHT Yes iNHaLinG

Peace ExhalinG LoVE FRiEnDS With Gravity As Every Move;

Finger Tips Twinkle Toes FLoWinG Weight of Body in Balancing

May Become

Holy Dance

And Every Word

May Become Sacred

Song Always Moving,
Connecting, Co-Creating

In Meditative Flow FRiEnDS With Gravity

As Peace Becomes Us Head to Toe in Balance

With No Illusory Fears as A Free Dance in Bio-Feedback

Will Naturally Regulate Emotions and Integrate Senses THiS Way

Head to Toe Making Us more Empathic By Not Only Utilizing More

of Our Right Hemisphere Mind Potentials Yet Also Developing More

of Our Cerebellum Potentials That Are Now Associated With Empathy and

Regulating

Emotions too;

True We aRe More

Than Just A Cerebrum too hehe...

As The More Integrated and Balanced

We Become Head to Toe the More Our

Minds and Our Experience of Life ALL OVeR

Become Unified Too Reaching Potential What

Fowler Describes As Universalizing Love For All

As Faith Inherent As Compassion For All Brings

in Higher Human Vibrations, Frequencies, in Synergies
of Energies; God Yes For Real of Feelings And Senses
That Comprise Our Human Emotions in Synergy

That Lift Us Up

More Than

Con-Social

Emotions Leave
Us in Misery Loves
Company as A Real Addiction


To the Adrenaline Neurohormones
And Hits of Dopamine a Life of Fear,
Anger, And Hate May Bring too Until

IT Wears Us Down

Into Miserable

Human Beings

With Potential Frowns

in Pews With the Same Frowns

After Getting Their Sugar Pill of Jesus

Without Understanding That Faith is Much

Deeper Than Words in A Book Grasping For

Control in A More Material Reducing Word Think

More Restricted to Left Hemisphere Ways of Processing Life Experience

As Iain McGilchrist Shows in His Research, Left Hemisphere Ways of Processing

The World Are More Devoid in Creating and Understanding Metaphor and Humor For

Real As Well As Processing More Complex Pro-Social Emotions too; Yet Let's Remember

Science Still Has No Empirical Way to Discretely Fully Measure How the Processes of Our Conscious

And Subconscious Minds Work Within Per Each Unique Human Being; Nope, We Can't Alone Use A

Tool to Read

Real Organic

SPiRiTS HeARTS

SoULS ThiS Way;

It's Up to Us, PerhapS

With a Little Help from
FRiEnDS to Find Our Own

Paths That Work For Us

For Unity New Now With All

That is LoVE iN Peace FoR ReaL

Or True the 'Other Places' too...

i Try Out the parts of Other Religions

That May Assist me too; And Toss Away

The Chaff From the Wheat into 'Gehenna'

to Stay For Real

As in the Bible

'Gehenna' Is not a Mythical

Place; it is Literally A Garbage

Dump Where You Dispose of What You Don't Want;

Sadly, Most Religion Disposes of Some Diversity of

Humankind That Keeps Our Species Overall Stronger

Like Greater Empathy That Folks of Diverse Gender
And Sexual Orientations Bring And the Neurodiverse

Among Us As Well; And Every Other Difference that

More Closed Minded Folks Want to Erase From the

World As 'They'

Just Don't
Have 'Eyes

And Ears' to

MUCH DEEPER

See/HEaR The Benefit

of All Parts of Reality

DarK Thru LiGHT too...

Oh How Wonderful it is to Include

Oh How Much smaller God is to Exclude...

i Really Don't Have A Name for God or Faith

Yet What i do Do is Do IT And IT Works Without Fail for me...

Yep, At Least

New for Now that's

God Enough, God Yes,
And Faith Enough for me;

Yet of Course Vehicles and

Vessels of Human Automobiles

And Ships Vary Based on Mileage

And Environment too As True None

of This Used Car Business Comes With Any Guarantees

of
Fair;

Truly Intelligent
Folks Make The

Best of Now and Keep
Doing What Truly Works...

If Ya Stick to Only Old Stories...

Chances Are One Will Become an Old Story too...

Stale,

Old,

And

Truly Moldy

As Cocoons Go

With No Butterfly Wings
Escaping For Real...

Mostly
Truly
From WiTHiN;

To Be Clear, In Just
my View/Do; All the Different

Views; All the Different Ways

of Seeing and Doing Life, i Just

Find Ever More Colorful With Depth of SHade too...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Maslow

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_W._Fowler

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Last edited by aghogday on 22 Feb 2023, 2:20 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I suppose it may take curiousity to pray for faith.
I have noticed the huge disparity in what people are supposed to be in the book and reality. It did shock and dismay me, that the more you get to know people the more disappointing things you find out.

I did meet some people who didn't disappoint but they were the minority. In the bible it seems like the majority are like that.
I suppose it hints at the reality but doesn't come out and describe it fully.

It does say we are basically evil, which is the reality. But in Paul's letters it seems to describe people in an idealistic way.
It's Jesus who said we are evil and his account is the more accurate I suppose.

A friend and I both found out disappointing things about one another,due to our experiences we just accepted it about each other and laughed.

Does Jesus say that? I've never read the Bible. Probably should. I always thought that under Christianity we cannot be good because we are tainted by sin, the original one and our own. And that our condition was more about striving to be something, rather than being it. That way you can be a Christian and be a douche to people, as long as you know you're doing it and are trying to be better.

Think of religion as a social technology. It's something people use to find an in-group and socially network, be seen as 'good', etc.. There might be some places where you can find faith healings and all kinds of odd things going on that make it seem like there's more to it but for the most part there isn't. This is where you get doctorate level professionals of all sorts who have the big houses, like to coach CYO football, get involved in church affairs, but have a reliably kindergarten coloring with crayons level of conception regarding life, consciousness, the sublime, the divine, etc. and even less curiosity quite often.

Another way to think of it - we live in a system (ie. the universe, nature, etc.) that's Darwinian first and foremost. John Gray's 'Straw Dogs: On Humans and Other Animals' is a pretty good expose on human behavior, instinct, Darwinian game theory, etc. as we find it in the world today. You can also read or listen to Donald Hoffman's 'The Case Against Reality' which describes a situation where the fundamental reality is consciousness but it's granular, Darwinian, and where we've evolved to see fitness payouts and track fitness payout functions rather than tracking veridical truth (think of how many times encounters with society make it feel like a perpetual lying machine).

The thing I had to get my head around is that Christianity, Islam, and Judaism all seem to put a conscious God at the center of our lives, the universe, one who cares about us deeply and individually whereas Advaita, Buddhism, Neoplatonism, etc. describe a universe where you might have a kind of superorganism or cosmic intelligence that all of this emanates from but it's largely indifferent to the morality of creation or our morality for that matter. I think the later view describes human beings and human social behavior, especially as it compares to that of other animals, much better.

I'll stop there because I don't want to get into the metaphysics of miracles or why they wouldn't exactly be what the faithful think they are. Lets just say the cultural and historic situation of faith, belief, and spiritual practice in the west is very strange.

I tend to split faith into two types:
1. Cognitive faith - the state of assuming something is so before it's occurred to you that it might not be. When you think about it, there's always at least a shadow of doubt. I think it's healthy (though not always immediately comfortable) to accept that doubt, and unsafe to pretend it doesn't exist, because that can easily lead to wrong conclusions and crooked thinking. Rubbish in, rubbish out. Cognitive faith is common in children until they learn to question what they're told and what they've told themselves. It's also quite common in adults, but not universal.
2. Behavioural faith - e.g. waiting for a bus that might never turn up. You know you're taking a chance but you think the potential benefits are worth the risk.

Me, I'm fairly comfortable having little or no cognitive faith. I have to do quite a bit of behavioural faith, or I doubt I'd survive. It works quite well as long as I've not made any gross errors in weighing up the risks and benefits. Often the one hugely outweighs the other, in which case the decision is dead easy. When they're neck-and-neck and the stakes are high, it's much more difficult to figure out the best thing to do.

As for religion, having researched and considered the evidence available to me for a long time, I've concluded that the balance of probabilities very strongly suggests there's no soul, no afterlife, no deities. So I don't bother with church or anything else that religionists or scriptures might tell us to do, at least not just because they say so. I take particular exception to their notion that (cognitive) faith is under the individual's control and that people are morally obliged to have it. I also take exception to their idea that we should obey their deity as our prime directive. Even if there turned out to be a deity, my five senses tell me nothing about what any deity wants, so I'd have to take the word of religionists as my sole source of instruction. They claim to be inspired by their god, but I don't believe them, I think they're wrong. The arguments they presented to me presupposed my acceptance of scripture as absolutely true, but there don't seem to be any objective grounds for accepting that.

That's a brief summary of my understanding of religion. It works for me. It's a shame it tells me that when I die I'll no longer exist, and I never wanted it to be that way, but I can't "just believe" that it's otherwise. It must be nice to believe in a comfortable afterlife, and obviously I would if it made sense to me, but it doesn't. I don't think that's because I'm too stupid or stubborn to understand it, I think it's because there's no sense in it that could ever be understood.

That's what Jesus said himself. There are other verses in different parts that say we're evil as well.

It’s not possible to claim to know anything if you don’t have faith.

For example: If you are to maintain a hard empiricist view, then you cannot make ANY assumptions. The scientific method, therefore, must hold itself to a high standard. But that means that it must be proven just like anything else. That means you cannot use any part of something to prove itself. You could say the scientific method “just works,” but you cannot say that without observing the method to see firsthand that it “just works.” Observation is part of the scientific method. Therefore, use of the scientific method is circular reasoning.

The way around it is understanding that the scientific method is AXIOMATIC to science. It doesn’t solve the problem of circular reasoning. It just means that everything you do within science by definition depends on a method by which to study things.

With religion, you can’t talk about theology without assuming certain things: God exists, Jesus is the Son of God, Jesus died for our salvation, was resurrected, and ascended into heaven. Nicean Creed, etc. There is a misconception that one must prove God exists in order to believe in Him. That’s not what Christianity is about. You can’t really be a Christian without having a relationship with God, and that relationship is impossible if there is no God. We have no need to prove God exists any more than a scientist needs to prove the scientific method exists, or any more than ANYONE needs to prove gravity exists. Gravity, science, and God all require faith from the outset, with some things requiring more faith than others.