Unbelievers are superstitious and unrepentant

Discussion in 'Religion' started by Saint, Oct 27, 2016.

  1. Saint Valued Senior Member

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    Unbelievers are superstitious and unrepentant ,
    what they want is :"I am my own God, I can sin and escape punishment".
     
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  3. zgmc Registered Senior Member

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    Wrong!
     
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  5. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    Saints are smelly and eat kittens.

    See? I can make up unsubstantiated subjective aspersions too.

    A forum is not the place to preach. What you want is a blog.
     
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  7. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    No, believers think they can do wrong and be forgiven so why not do wrong.

    Non-believers aren't superstitious (don't believe in a bearded man in the sky) and there is nothing to repent to/for. We do try to lead a good life however.

    You can have your little safety blanket though. It's OK.
     
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  8. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    Sounds like you've got some baggage there.

    Superstition is believing stuff for which there is no proof. Usually it goes along with a healthy dose of "tradition". Sounds a bit like religion, don't you think?

    Regarding repentance: a moral person should repent when he or she has done something morally wrong. Your post suggests that you think that failing to believe in your preferred god is a moral wrong, for which "unbelievers" should repent. Is that what you think? If so, can you explain why it is morally wrong for somebody not to believe in your god?

    Regarding being one's own God: I'm not sure what you mean by that. Do you think that everybody needs a figure of some kind to worship, and that "unbelievers" worship themselves? Or do you have a problem because unbelievers think that when it comes to moral responsibility the buck stops with them and not with an invisible man in the sky?

    Regarding sin and punishment, you are claiming that unbelievers want to "sin" and "escape punishment". Let's unpack that a little.

    First, the concept of "sin" is a strange concept. A "sin" is like a wrong done to God, isn't it? Take littering, for example. A person who throws litter on the ground commits a sin. Why? Because God doesn't like people making a mess, and God gets offended. Or something like that. Am I getting the idea of "sin" right here? And since the evil litterer deserves punishment and yet gets away with it in this life, then God will exact punishment in the afterlife, or something. And it follows that the unbelieving litterer is hoping to escape God's righteous justice by failing to acknowledge that God exists. Is that how it works?

    Let's leave that aside, and mention a couple of other problems. The second one is this idea of "wanting" to act immorally. Why would an unbeliever be any more prone to that that a believer? Or, if you want to investigate the matter, is there any evidence that, in the real world, unbelievers do wrong more often than believers? And we might also ask: does being a believer make somebody less likely to want to sin?

    Third problem: if the believer is abstaining from sin because he fears God's punishment, rather than because it is the right thing to do, is that good? What if we take away the threat of God's punishment, and just act morally because that's what it means to be a good person? That is, be good for the sake of living a good life, rather than because you fear punishment in the afterlife. Could that possibly work as a life philosophy, do you think?
     
  9. Ophiolite Valued Senior Member

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    When did you first stop believing in Odin? Or have you never believed in Odin? Do you think you will escape Odin's punishment? Or will you repent and believe?
     
  10. Beer w/Straw Transcendental Ignorance! Valued Senior Member

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    I'm still perplexed on your motivation to post that.
     
  11. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Anyone can be superstitious. But secular punishment is real and you can't just ask for forgiveness and escape it, like you can in some religions.
     
  12. The God Valued Senior Member

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    It requires dissection.

    1. Unbelievers, I presume you mean those who do not believe in God or religion or related traditions.

    Now superstitions are mostly matters of faith, same as God. So I do not think unbelievers are superstitious. They are not.

    2. Unrepentant is more to do with remorsefulness. It is not something which can be exclusively associated with believers or unbelievers. A person, whether believer or non, can fatally wound the intruder and may or may not repent afterwards even though realizing that he could have inflicted lesser wound.

    3. I am my own God or I am a self made man.....is more to do with false bravado or showmanship. It has got nothing to do with believer or non believer. This delusion can be in both types of people.

    4. I can sin and escape punishment.

    Now there are two types of sin. Type one Sins are those which may have legal issues and type two are those which may not have legal issues but they are sins as far as religion or Godly association is concerened. Law does not recognize whether you are believer or non believer, if it is type one, you cannot escape either way. But if it is type two then unbelievers do not recognize it as sin, so the question of escaping does not arise.

    None of your claims hold any water.
     
  13. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    Unbelievers in what? This is posted in the 'religion' forum and mentions 'sin' and 'punishment', so I assume that what is being addressed is Christianity or Islam. I'm neither a Christian or a Muslim (I viscerally dislike Islam) so I guess that I'm qualified to speak as an 'unbeliever' in this context.

    Sure, many people who aren't Christians or Muslims are superstitious. Many people who are, are superstitious too. (Our atheists would say that all religions are superstitions.)

    I think that's false. Many of us who aren't Muslim or Christian feel sadness, regret and even shame for things that we've done. It isn't necessary to believe in judgement or eternal punishment in order to believe that we have treated people wrong in the past and wish that we could go back and change that. All it takes is a conscience.

    I don't believe in the reality of 'sin'. I do believe in, or at least intuit the reality of (how does that work?) of right and wrong, good and evil. But none of that has anything to do with God.

    I don't believe that I am God. (That's one reason why I reject philosophical idealism.) I don't believe that my autonomy, my self-determining nature, makes me immune from considerations of right and wrong. Just the opposite, it puts me in a position of responsibility. I certainly don't reject Islam and Christianity because I want to live in an anomic situation of 'anything goes'.

    The reason I don't embrace Islam or Christianity is because my worldview isn't metaphysically and epistemologically consistent with the supernatural doctrines that those religions insist upon. I also perceive some elements of Islamic (and earlier Jewish) law as crude and backward vestiges of more savage times and nothing that a God morally worthy of my worship would command.

    That has nothing to do with moral evasion.
     
    Last edited: Oct 27, 2016
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  14. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    Indeed.

    Atheists take responsibility for their behavior.

    Anybody can do the right thing while someone (or some thing) is watching and judging.
    It takes a person of character to do the right thing when there's no one watching or judging except oneself.
     
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  15. sideshowbob Sorry, wrong number. Valued Senior Member

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    I can't count on any god. I have only myself and my fellow man - and I DO have to account to my fellow man for my behaviour.
     
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  16. Saint Valued Senior Member

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    The pride of the fool makes him spiritually dead.
     
  17. Saint Valued Senior Member

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    Many sinners try to explain and criticize God, but it is the false god that they actually explain and criticize.
    What they said has nothing to do with real God.
     
  18. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Correct, I can't criticize something that isn't real. What I criticize is religion. You can't make me feel guilty about sin or disbelief, those things only work on believers. You can't scare me with hell or accusations of misplaced pride.
     
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  19. kx000 Valued Senior Member

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    Skeptics can't be more scientific than faith. Skepticism is the opposite of life.
     
    Last edited: Oct 28, 2016
  20. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    Accidental double post deleted. (I stupidly hit 'reply' instead of 'edit'.)
     
    Last edited: Oct 28, 2016
  21. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    If there's no such thing as sin, then it makes no sense to call somebody a 'sinner'.

    I don't think that anyone can 'explain God'. If God exists, then there would be no way that a human being could possibly explain him, or his existence, or his way of operating, or whatever. If God doesn't exist, then there's nothing there to explain. (What would need explaining is belief in God.)

    Regarding criticism of God, again we have the problem of criticizing something that arguably doesn't exist. What would attract my criticism are many of the beliefs associated with God.

    In that regard, how would you respond to God commanding genocide against the enemies of his chosen people? Do you really embrace the idea that blasphemers or those who try to change to a different religion should be killed? Should daughters who have premarital sex be stoned to death? Should adulterers be stoned?

    The Old Testament portrays God as ordering these things. Many (in some countries most) present day Muslims still believe that this is God's Law.

    So are Yahweh and Allah false gods?
     
  22. sideshowbob Sorry, wrong number. Valued Senior Member

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    The same applies to believers who try to "explain" God.
     
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  23. kx000 Valued Senior Member

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    Respect.
     

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