We May Be Hardwired to Believe in God

[Califan007 The Constipated]

We have records that go back to the beginning of time that show original sin happend but then 8000 years later Jesus died and fixed that?

No take backs.

What does this even mean? lol ...

[oisn1]

So the onus is on me to prove a negative? How convenient. Sorry, but I'm not the one making that claim, and I would be remiss if I didn't remind you that every time people of faith make certain claims that they are told to prove it. So...prove it. Meanwhile I'll be watching the evening news about, murder, oppression, tyranny, war, greed, and abuse all perpetrated by self interested societies.

Really? Societies have evolved to more empathetic...ok...prove that too.

Yes, let us consider the societies of the past where ancient humans would wipe out other clans, except to take women and children as slaves. Let us move forward where nations engaging in ethnic cleansing, mass rapes, slavery, and genocide were the norm. Remember that in the past, there was a time where all tribes were in continuous war. Now, let's compare the injustices of today to the past. There are problems today that we can't ignore, but there is no denying that large swaths of the world have advanced culturally to reject such notions and move towards empathetic behavior.

Many nations today invoke ideals like universal health care, welfare, and most importantly, universal human rights. Please tell me what a declaration of rights is supposed to be other than an affirmation of empathy from one human to another. Why did Jefferson care so much about those rural farmers around him? Why did the founders care so much about representative government? They struggled to improve the world they lived in (and failed on certain issues like slavery) but they were trying to improve the entire nation.

And that ignores the fact that women's rights, civil rights, ending slavery, disaster relief were first championed by the faithful. I will fully admit that in America the church dropped the ball on environmentalism, but that was mostly because for awhile we thought that the Republican party was a Christian denomination....but we're feeling much better now. What's more is that what started as small groups began to gather others around them to force the changes upon others, and the others in many cases only changed when their self preservation was threatened.

Yes, often times empathetic behavior is championed by the faithful. In Japan, those faithful were not Christian. In Korea, those faithful were not Christian. In Turkey, they are not Christian. In India, they aren't Christian. Empathy is a shared human trait that all people have. Religion, most often, will help bring it out as it will reinforce the goodness in our hearts. While I can understand the idea that God could make us all empathetic, it appears quite obvious that human society of all cultures have become more empathetic, with or without a specific god.

Or at least that societies WANT to have empathy, so when they don't they feel guilty.

If good is defined as benign then we might agree, but so far as goodness is a means of doing good things without regard for self...then no.

See self preservation.

Sorry, this is defeatism. Should I state then state that all religious people only believe because of self-preservation? They don't actually love god or anything else, they just want to avoid Hell? No, that's stupid.

[alexey]

You're right the suggestion is there, and intentionally so (Devil's Advocate hat off) because as I stated earlier, humanity was created to love and be in harmonious relationships with one another, this is not an evolved thing for our survival it is the way we were created to be, so who best to follow the leading of our created nature than those who are most in tune with their creator. Now, before someone burps out saying, "then you're saying that non-believers cannot love or live in harmony" I suggest a careful reading of what I just wrote.

I understand how everything ties in together for you. The problem is, this statement attempts to monopolize important achievements of humanity under a religious banner:

"women's rights, civil rights, ending slavery, disaster relief were first championed by the faithful."

Not cool. An atheist could just as easily claim that these things were championed by humanists. Some of those humanists may have been religious, but their faith was merely a way of getting to the non religious humanism... and that hypothetical atheist could surely provide a nice philosophical foundation for that claim. If he wanted to try and push your buttons, that atheist could even bring up all the bad stuff done by the religious folk. Then you'd have to tell him that you get to pick and choose which faithful are the real ones.

Or you fellas could play nice and simply agree that people who did great things understood something greater than themselves. Great stuff, humanity needs more of that. Secular or religious, its all good. Play nice.

[Jumbo]

Just one of the things I would think really shouldn't need to be pointed out is that every virtuous or benign or helpful or gracious (etc) human characteristic (and all their less attractive counterparts) are perfectly and clearly existent in writings that far pre-date Christianity from a variety of geographical, ethnic, and cultural sources.

The weirdly, willfully, ignorant zomblie-like (cuz it never dies :pfft:) misstatements in various permutations that these traits are products of Christianity is one of the many (almost bafflingly) numb-brain contentions that keep arising in these discussions.

Now arguing that Christianity or Islam or Buddhism or Judaism or humanism helped spread the acceptance/popularity of such desirable traits at least has some legs. So please, seize that argument as it sounds way less stupid and is still open to debating. :cool:

And, of course, for those still wanting to "get the credit" served to their theistic beliefs for any of the "good" in man, can simply go with the basic, "Well, God put those good things in man < should we add women?> long before he gave us Christ...<etc etc>....so he/we/ourway still gets the credit."

And at some point I have to get back to the glaringly ridiculous sentences (two in particular) in Dallasux first paragraph of a recent post.

[Koolblue13]

Harm none, do as ye will. Back that up any way you want. I do it because it's how I want to be treated, not because "I should".

I want to believe in God, but I can't. I believe in life and that everybody should have a good one. Be kind to everything you can. Make an effort and do it because it makes everybody and everything else have a better life.

Smile at people, pick up trash, pet a stray dog and spread your love and it'll come back to you. Always pay it forward.

God doesn't make me feel like this, I do it for selfish reasons. I want others to smile at me, I don't want to see trash or strays.

If there's a God, he'll understand this. Just be kind because you should. The reward is being treated the same.

[Prosperity]

Sin has corrupted it.

Thus the potential for both good and evil exist in us. But just because the potential for evil exists, does not mean we therefore don't have some innate goodness.

Original Sin is also heresy in my (not so) humble opinion.

I mean, Jesus wasn't born a sinner was he?

[AsburySkinsFan]

Thus the potential for both good and evil exist in us. But just because the potential for evil exists, does not mean we therefore don't have some innate goodness.

The problem is that sin has so corrupted our lives that the goodness we know and show is over shadowed by the evil we do.

Original Sin is also heresy in my (not so) humble opinion.

I mean, Jesus wasn't born a sinner was he?

And thus the Virgin Birth. Jesus wasn't born of man, ergo not subject to the sin of humanity.

[Prosperity]

The problem is that sin has so corrupted our lives that the goodness we know and show is over shadowed by the evil we do.

but we still have innate goodness then, right?

And thus the Virgin Birth. Jesus wasn't born of man, ergo not subject to the sin of humanity.

Let's assume virgin birth, he was still born, he didn't spawn out of the dirt, so he was born of a woman, don't they count?

[AsburySkinsFan]

but we still have innate goodness then, right?

We call it the Imago Dei, the "Image of God", but sin has corrupted that image and the only goodness that is in us is the grace of God, think of it as the gift that God gives us to woo us to Himself.

Let's assume virgin birth, he was still born, he didn't spawn out of the dirt, so he was born of a woman, don't they count?

If you count an incubator as a mother hen then sure.

[Thiebear]

We call it the Imago Dei, the "Image of God", but sin has corrupted that image and the only goodness that is in us is the grace of God, think of it as the gift that God gives us to woo us to Himself.

If you count an incubator as a mother hen then sure.

Could you expand on this please?

Mary was only an incubator or a mere device to birth.. Did she not also raise Jesus to give him the path he needed to clear our sins as was his plan from before birth?

[AsburySkinsFan]

Could you expand on this please?

Mary was only an incubator or a mere device to birth.. Did she not also raise Jesus to give him the path he needed to clear our sins as was his plan from before birth?

Insofar as she is concerned with Jesus' birth, yes Mary was only the incubator. Jesus was not 50% of God's DNA, and 50% Mary's. Jesus was not conceived as the Son is pre-existent. The fact that Mary and Josepsh raised Jesus has zero bearing on whether or not Jesus was subject to Original Sin. I am not discussing how Jesus was raised, I am only discussing the Virgin Birth as it pertains to Jesus not being corrupted by Original Sin.