Wet Dream Forum

Hey lazery,

well you said yourself that you don't get why we condemn your fornication escapades, right? You think that we're erroneous, deluded people for thinking that way and therefore challenged us to explain what good reasons we have for thinking so. And yes, I'm saying that none of our reasons will be good enough for you because you're looking at the subject from a limited point of view. When two lovers are in the heat of passion they might describe their experience as being transcendent or spiritual. But then a scientist who has never had a lover comes a long, studies the two lovers, and describe their experience as "merely a work of hormones". And he's not totally wrong; it IS a work of hormones, but there's so much more to it than that! Yet as long as he stays in his materialistic point of view, there's no way he could be convinced of this. And neither can you be convinced of the logic behind Christianity as long as you're still comfortably ensconced in your atheistic corner.

There are several other short points that I should cover:

1) I believe we are all equally special.

2) If you help others just for the sake of helping others, I applaud you! But I don't believe that such a motive is consistent with an atheistic worldview. Nihilist was right when he said that, in an atheistic worldview, everything you do is done so that you'll have more pleasure.

3) Yes I'm a virgin.

_________________
"The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection." -C.S. Lewis

You may call it pain, but if you see it as the ideal emotion to experience in that situation because you are "doing it for its own sake," the pain brings you a form of pleasure. Would you be less happy if you didn't experience the pain and went against your morals? Yes, you subjectively value your morals. Therefore, it brings you pleasure to go through with the pain.


Not really, we have the same idea of the scientific method here. However, we haven't achieved anything approaching undeniable truth yet, so there is no reason to treat anything as such. Nothing is static when we are still chained to logic and perception, they are wonderful tools but not perfect ones. Logic and perception are probably inherently flawed, we will need to correct those flaws if we ever want to reach the absolute truth we are headed towards.1+1 may very well equal 922,891,236,482,376,423.01, but we really can't say until we've figured out how to prove anything completely in the first place. This is why nothing should be fully accepted by anyone who wants to take the scientific method seriously. A scientist should obviously accept the second law of thermodynamics when doing an equation related to the entropy in a closed system, but if he invests faith in it he is throwing the entire system out of whack because that scientist would disregard research proving the second law of thermodynamics to be false. I am not saying it IS false, I am saying we can't believe it to be true because we can't prove anything in the first place until we figure out a way to. Yes, there is no direction we are heading towards an "absolute truth" because we still don't have a set direction to travel in. We have yet to fully link perception with existence and logic with the actual mechanics of said existence, so ignorance in any form should be regarded as detrimental. A technological or intellectual breakthrough could involve something most people are deluding themselves and others about and be ignored, this has already happened too many times in the history of scientific advancement.


Many do not make that distinction, however, and believing in a religion is still a form of ignorance that could hurt our quest for knowledge. For example, genetic and stem cell research are under attack from religious groups everywhere because they decided a big man in the sky told them some things and these potentially life-saving and perception-altering fields violate the rules this big man set forth. "How it ought to be?" How about working towards making our perceived universe better for everyone and therefore yourself while encouraging scientific advancement, instead of doing what strikes the fancy of some imaginary being? All religion does is give people illogical morals, we would still have the logical morals if religion didn't exist. Religious moral codes hold society back from establishing an efficient system of making people happy! As another example, some people are happy marrying those of the same sex, religious bigots keep them from doing so. You missed one of my points too, the simple fact that religion is dangerous. Encouraging people to give their values hierarchy over logic undeniably leads to violence, war, and other forms of unhappiness.


Now this is an example of a misguided and detrimental belief, in this case perpetuated by the assumption that "selfish" is bad and "selflessness" exists. Just because you believe something doesn't make it true, but because you believe it you don't challenge it with logic and reason when new information is presented. Human beings help others because it brings us pleasure! I love helping others, I have done more than my fair share of good deeds including donating over $1000 of revenue generated selling photographs I took on safari in Africa to the African Wildlife Foundation. I found more pleasure in donating every penny of that money than I would have from keeping even a little bit! Saying you do something for the sake of doing it is saying that the action brings you pleasure. If you are motivated to do something, you garner pleasure from it. Our brains reward us for whatever we tell them to reward us for, ignorance is unnecessary to be a compassionate person.


There isn't so much more to it, it IS nothing but brain chemicals. Religious experiences can be simulated with drugs, as can sexual feelings normally only felt when making love to someone you are passionately in love with. Therefore believing there is more to it is ignorance and intellectually detrimental. Religious people talk just like acid heads do, convinced that just because religion/LSD can stimulate a certain center int heir brain it is special and people who aren't a part of it just can't understand it. Well I've been a part of both, my grandfather is a minister and I have ingested many a psychedelic substance. I know a lot of religious people, and I know a lot of acid heads. Sorry to break it to you, but no matter how right believing in something feels, you are still blinding yourself.

Hey Nihilist,

wow I am honored to have you write so much for me. I hope I could cover all the points...



No, not necessarily.



I thoroughly disagree with you on this concept also. In my worldview, 1+1=2 is undeniable, objective truth.



Yes, those religious groups shouldn't attack scientific research. However, it is entirely appropriate for them to speak on what we should do with its results. As I said, the job of science is to tell us "what is", while it is the job of religion to tell us "what ought to be". Science tells us how nuclear fission works. It is not the job of science, however, to tell us whether we ought to blow up Hiroshima and Nagasaki to smithereens with it.



As an atheist, no objective "oughtness" exists in your worldview. Your proposal has no weight on anybody but yourself.



Religion is supra-rational, not ir-rational. It transcends, but does not contradict, reason.



Okay, I was pretty surprised when you started replying for lazery. It is a tricky business because often times you miss out on the discussion's original context. The scientist who says it is MERELY a work of hormones discounts the fact that "the experience" exists at all. But "the experience" obviously does exist (as you have experienced yourself).

ps: I'm glad you had a lot of fun donating $1000!

pps: I know I missed out on some of your minor points, but I feel like the major points above are already a handful to talk about at the moment. I really am enjoying this discourse, but time is always getting ever so limited. If only I stopped mb-ing...

_________________
"The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection." -C.S. Lewis

"from a limited point of view", again you are making yourself look like you are above non-religious people, because your conscience has been raised beyond people that dont believe in deities so we cant understand it.



i see your point, and a scientist must see it that way in order to be efficient in what he does, but the analogy you make with Christianity and love in order to demonstrate that there is "something more" is flawed. the difference is simple: that "something more" is triggered by a person you love, that you can feel with your five senses, a person that exists; that "something more" that a non believer can't understand that makes a believer see what Christianity says as true is based on the faith of being 100% convinced that an invisible superbeing certainly exsists and analyzes, judges every single movement, behaviour and thought all over the entire universe. please see the difference, as its easy to use that "something more" as an analogy, but its not the same and can be confusing




lol at "logic behind Christianity", and the way you say it as myself being a closed minded person. again, here you are trying yourself look like you have the hability to see sense "beyond reason". the one who is sure comfortably with it is you, as you replace what is unknown with religion.
theres no "atheistic corner" or being close minded, we just dont try to see "beyond reason", so, this means we are not denying that an intelligent being didnt created the universe being 100% sure on it, we just dont consider it/let this idea guide our lifes as there is nothing but faith on it to do so, and we prefer "believe" and work on theories that work inside the "world of reason" rather than faith (think before you make any counterargument with what i just said).
I think that any religion that may exist and its content is complete nonsense derived from man's imagination, as there is absolute no evidence beyond having faith in what that certain religion has to say. I dont see logic in thinking that the religion i choose is the real one, and that my god is the real one, etc. I also dont see logic in pretending that because I am a Christian now I know 100% sure that the origin of the universe was my god's work and nothing else, etc. What I choose to do is admit that we still don't know how the universe originated, and that I as a person can be functional and have morals without god playing the dices involved. pretty sure most atheist dont know what happened "in the begining", we just dont make magic points up to try and explain it.

more here:



sorry, but this sounds like some high level pedantic argument. can you elaborate?

I would like to know if you are a creationist, or what "kind of Christian" you are if that makes sense, how do you interpret the Bible, why it seems that unlike "nomore" you dont believe in a "real hell" (therefore you dont believe in the afterlife with a 100% probability), etc



thats pretty weak. you sound like that the only possible way/source of proper morals is via religion.

ps: have you considered lossing your virginity someday? i havent need mb again since i lost it, i know some people who lost the urge to mb too since they started to have sex, also it would give you a better point of view of what we are talking about. you can experience it, and then come back and talk about it, its not imposible as it depends from another person, and not from faith. (unless if one is a complete failure with girls lol)

cheers

Hey lazery,

nice to have you back.



I agree that it's not a perfect analogy, but I still don't see why that "something more" can't be God. Hmmm....are you a strict materialist (all that exists is matter)? If it's so, then perhaps we should talk about materialism first if we're to make progress in this discourse. Do you believe data is composed of matter?



That's a fairly common conception--that religion hinders the progress of scientific research because it fills God in the gaps. Well, I won't deny that some sects of religion do that very thing. But theoretically, religion is only supposed to fill those holes that science could NEVER fill. Let's take the origin of the material universe. Science, by definition, is the study of the material universe. The question of 'where the material universe came from' is therefore outside of science, since that would be in the realm of something beyond the material universe.



For instance, the Bible talks about the "three-personal of God"--that He is "three Persons while remaining one Being, just as a cube is six squares while remaining one cube. Of course we cannot fully conceive a Being like that: just as, if we were so made that we perceived only two dimensions in space we could never properly imagine a cube. But we can get a sort of faint notion of it....On the human level one person is one being, and any two persons are two separate beings--just as, in two dimensions (say on a flat sheet of paper) one square is one figure, and any two squares are two separate figures. On the Divine level you still find personalities; but up there you find them combined in new ways which we, who do not live on that level, cannot imagine" ("Mere Christianity", C.S. Lewis).



Let me make a correction: the only possible way/source of OBJECTIVE morals is via religion. Remember my first post?



I am actually not well versed with all the Christian denominations and which one I fit best into. The reason why I don't believe in a "real hell" is because it is unscriptural. "[The Bible] speaks of Hell under three symbols: first, that of punishment ('everlasting punishment', Matthew 25:46); second, that of destruction ('fear Him who is able to destroy both body and soul in Hell', Matthew 10:28); and thirdly, that of privation, exclusion, or banishment into 'the darkness outside', as in the parable of the man without a wedding garment or of the wise and foolish virgins. The prevalent image of fire is significant because it combines the ideas of torment and destruction. Now it is quote certain that all these expressions are intended to suggest something unspeakably horrible, and any interpretation which does not face that fact is, I am afraid, out of court from the beginning. But it is not necessary to concentrate on the images of torture to the exclusion of those suggesting destruction and privation. What can that be wherof all three images are equally proper symbols? Destruction, we should naturally assume, means the unmaking, or cessation, of the destroyed. And people often talk as if the 'annihilation' of a soul were intrinsically possible. In all experience, however, the destruction of one thing means the emergence of something else. Burn a log, and you have gases, heat and ash. To 'have been' a log means now being those three things. If souls can be destroyed, must there not be a state of 'having been' a human soul? And is not that, perhaps, the state which is equally well described as torment, destruction, and privation? You will remember that in the parable, the saved go to a place prepared for 'them', while the damned go to a place never made for men at all (Matthew 25:34,41). To enter heaven is to become more human than you ever succeeded in being on earth; to enter hell, is to be banished from humanity. What is cast (or casts itself) into hell is not a man: it is 'remains'" ("The Problem of Pain", C.S. Lewis).



YES, I absolutely want to lose my virginity someday...but with the right person! (a.k.a. my future wife)
I'll tell you when she comes along.

All the best,
Bon

_________________
"The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection." -C.S. Lewis

If the pain doesn't bring you eventual pleasure then you don't enjoy being religious. Being religious without enjoying it is utter stupidity, there is no reason to ever choose one religion over another unless a religion manages to be logical (none of them do.) Plus, you believe it will bring you pleasure in heaven eventually so yes you are doing it for pleasure. If you could deal with pain and manage to live with it without pleasure then being evil would be acceptable from a christian standpoint because the only punishment would be eternal hellfire. Plus you can skip whatever tenants of Christianity you feel like, you masturbate way too much for example and defend it with the fact you can be "forgiven" for it. You are a hedonist and every action you take is entirely out of self-interest. I have yet to be proven otherwise on this point by anybody, even my extremely intelligent (atheist I might add) philanthropist mother. You fail to present any valid arguments.


Your worldview, otherwise known as your beliefs, has no bearing on actual objective truth. Objective truth is still unattainable when we cannot prove perception valid.


Hitler wanted to use nuclear weapons to rule the world in the name of Jesus Christ, a technology he almost got his hands on. The inquisition used plenty of sharp bits of medieval technology to keep people alive and suffering for days. Technology is dangerous, and scientists don't drop bombs or torture innocents. Even if your personal intentions are good and the intention of your religion is good, religion encourages illogical action.


On the contrary, your statement has no weight for anybody but yourself. First of all, I am not an atheist, calling me an atheist is like me calling you a Hindu. Atheists deny the existence of gods, I say everything probably doesn't exist but it might. Second, my proposal has bearing because it is logical, selfishness is sometimes a virtue. Objective "oughtness" for human beings is what makes the maximum number of people happy and keeps the maximum number of people alive. As a human being I like to see others happy and I don't want others to die, same with you. Making everyone in the world happy would mean making the world a better place for everybody.


So if you decide something transcends reason and it leads to death, the deaths are justified? Who decided religion transcends reason? Saying religion transcends reason is saying anything we feel like can transcend reason, because religion is make believe. Once again you fail to present any logical points.


However, the experience is nothing but those hormones and neurotransmitters, so it's nothing supra-rational, just like religion. I was religious once, I have had more than 20 pseudo-religious experiences I was too twisted to not believe in at the time, completely mind blowing stuff that feels like the end-all be-all answer to existence. They all proved the same thing: absolutely nothing.


I don't see why it is time consuming for you unless you seriously need some therapeutic or medical help. This looks like an excuse to not back up any of your claims, honestly. Admit ignorance or back up your claims, your persistent irrationality when logic is slapping you in the face offends me when I'm working hard to explain all this to you. Debate is supposed to be for intellectual advancement, otherwise it's a waste of time.

Ah...nothing like closing the day by reading a Nihilist post. Without further ado--



Of course in your worldview it would be stupid because pleasure is the sole guiding principle. My worldview, however, contains moral axioms which transcend the pleasure principle, and thus making perfect sense of what I do.



Every worldview (and every branch of knowledge for that matter) starts out with a certain set of axioms which cannot be proven. In the Theistic worldview one of these axioms is that Reason is God-given to see Truth, and thus I could know Objective Truth. Unfortunately, in your worldview you will never prove perception and Reason as valid tools for seeking truth, since everything is based on random chance.



Sure, there have been many times when religion has been corrupted. And as you can see the results are most devastating--the more potential for good something has, the more potential for harm it also has if corrupted. But I am glad that you have gotten my point! Those people used religion to get people to do stuff--to infuse an "oughtness" into the people (even though it was a corrupted "oughtness").



If you say that God probably doesn't exist and live your life as if God doesn't exist, then I don't think I'm too far off the ball park in calling you an atheist.



I'm guessing you're referring back to Hitler and the Inquisition again? As I implied, I do not in any way support those movements, so throw away your straw man in the garbage.



Again, this is why I was hesitant when you started replying for lazery. I never claimed the sexual experience to be supra-rational.

On a side note, wow I'm actually pretty jealous that you underwent those religious experiences...



I could say the exact same thing to you, my friend. Let's pass the ad hominem next time, shall we?

_________________
"The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection." -C.S. Lewis

When I'm watching debates, it seems the atheist, when asked similar questions, tends to roll over and obfuscate.

Religious people assume that moral truth is an absolute fact, and that it couldn't exist without God. I see this more as wishful thinking than factual pontification. What they say is this:

"Without God there is no objective morality. Even atheists believe in their heart of hearts that there are things that are good and things that are bad. Therefore God exists"

What they should be saying is this:

"I'm an intellectual and emotional infant. I can't deal with the fact that maybe my morals aren't as perfect as I'd like them to be. If I say God exists, and God's morals agree with mine, then that's all well and good. If God doesn't exist, morals will keep changing, and in two thousand years my morals will be looked upon as atavistic and outright ridiculous"

Hey thor,

those are some fancy words you got there...had me using my dashboard dictionary a couple of times. Funny, it seems like during these sorts of forum debates the atheists always seem to outnumber the theists. I shall now engage in a three-frontal discourse--with lazery, nihilist, and you.



So here comes thor to save the day??



Let me make a correction: "Without God there is no objective morality. Even atheists believe in their heart of hearts that there are things that are good and things that are bad. Therefore I CHOOSE TO BELIEVE THAT God exists"



That I am.



If there is no God, there is no objective standard which judges how 'perfect' my morals are. I myself would be the standard, and thus my morals would always be perfect from that reference point.



Actually, one of the basic inductive proofs of the Moral Law is the fact that the vast majority of human morality through the ages are similar. Yes, my entire belief system would collapse if, upon traveling 2000 years into the future, I find that the vast majority of humans believe we all ought to be selfish. But based on human history as we know it today, I have no reason to suppose that will ever happen.

Cheers,
Bon

_________________
"The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection." -C.S. Lewis

Your worldview contains denial and irrationality, congratulations.


A worldview is not a separate reality, it is either a delusion or logical based on current human knowledge. Everything is not based on random chance, everything happens for whatever reason it happens and if we move forward intellectually as a society we will eventually be able to obtain the technology to discover reality for what it truly is and figure out these reasons once and for all. We have so many fields that need to investigated for potential to figure the actual truth out, and even if we never find the actual truth the pursuit of knowledge contributes more to human survival and happiness more than anything else and we might as well learn as much as we can about our perceived universe. Inventing some story to explain it all is the lazy way out. We discover something new every hour, and if people would stop deluding themselves because they can't handle uncertainty and start contributing more this process would move faster.


People don't need an oughtness, especially if the oughtness is convincing them untruths are truths. Telling people to be anything but logical can do nothing but harm. Sure, sex is unhealthy in excess, but saving yourself until marriage is unhealthy as well. Abortion prevents overpopulation and some people should not have a dependent for financial or psychological reasons. The foster care system is brimming and most foster kids are abused physically or financially in some way. Prayer has never helped anybody and has been scientifically proven to not increase the survival rate of cancer patients.


If you say divine beings exist without a doubt and so do Hindus then I am not too far out of the ballpark calling you a Hindu. Only one similarity doesn't make two philosophies even remotely the same. Atheist: "There are no gods" Me: "There are probably intelligent life forms on a greater scale than us, the universe could even be a giant living thing. However, first you must define 'being' on such a grand scale, and what it means to be a god. Furthermore, such a great being probably wouldn't devote all or most of his attention towards some little blue and green planet that makes up less than .000000000000001% of the matter under his control. Nor would its method of thinking be anywhere close to ours and it wouldn't be as emotionally fickle as mankind, though most of us like to think it would be. This was why Benjamin Franklin and most of the other founding fathers (incredibly intelligent men) introduced themselves as Deists, they knew this would be mildly socially acceptable in such a christian time as opposed to calling themselves Pyrrhonists or Atheists which would have probably gotten them burned at the stake, and it does make some logical sense."


Awesome, that doesn't mean your religion that helped cause these movements is justified in deluding people.


Yes, but you claim religion to be supra-rational for no reason greater than because you think it to be. This is your neurotransmitters and neurons believing something illogical because you have been indoctrinated to do so, not some magic universal objective truth.


Show me a point I haven't backed up with rock-solid logic and one that you have please.


No, you can figure out what your morals should be with a bit of logical thought, a "standard" that doesn't exist means your morals are being compared to a reference point that doesn't contribute to the greater good of mankind logically.


No, they have figured out what is good and what is bad because they aren't idiots. Compassion means ensuring the survival of others and ourselves will make the majority happy, technology is the best way to ensure our survival, intellectual advancement leads to technological advancement. It is that simple.


It doesn't matter if one believes we ought to be selfish, we simply are. There is a reason you only follow your christian objective morals and not those of other religions: selfishness. You will only ever follow your own morals, and if you follow another's morals it is because your morals allow for it. You don't follow Buddhist morals, Hindu morals, Jewish morals, and Islamic morals unless your morals tell you to because you do not believe in those religions. Human morality has not been similar through the ages at all, except for the fact it has always been selfish! Racism, sexism, and irrational thought are slowly being phased out of societal morality luckily, but there will continue to be idiots who cling to archaic systems of "supra-rational objective morality" simply because they were told about that particular system of irrational belief before another and probably indoctrinated by their parents, especially by regular church visits. There is no place where more brainwashing happens than in a church, there is a reason why you are forced to repeat hundreds of prayers every week. Bonbon, are you too deluded to question your faith? Admitting yourself to be an intellectual infant, why not try to be more mature and wise? Infants draw on society's resources because they don't give anything back, but it is assumed they will start giving back once they come of age. As an intellectually infantile masturbation-addicted virgin you should seek psychological help so you can overcome your mental blocks and start giving back. I'm not joking, your brain is chemically imbalanced and you can become a more logical being that doesn't need ignorance to function if you overcome enough mental blocks to realize it is the sane thing to do and pursue it. I'm no stranger to therapy, I enrolled myself in therapy where electrodes were hooked up to my head to detect my brainwaves and I was trained to be able to control my cognitive functions better. My formidable intellect (proven at a young age to be at the same level as Einstein's) has been sharpened by this process and I overcame my anxiety, OCD, and ADD, all caused by an inability to control my emotions and a few nasty preconceived notions caused by deluded metacognition. I have always been more of an a careful observer of the world around me than a blind participant, becoming an observer of my own mental process was very useful.

Nihilist!

Phew I almost thought this thread was over.



Sure thing, just keep reading.



Again, that's a statement that makes perfect sense only with respect to your worldview.



I absolutely agree that there's only one reality. But I disagree that there's only one worldview that's "logical". All world views are derived using logic; choosing one is a matter of deciding the highest level of transposition you're willing to believe. For example--the system of emotions is a 'higher', or 'richer', than the system of bodily sensations. Bodily sensations don't have as many expressive facets as emotions, which is why when emotions are transposed into bodily sensations one sensation must account for multiple emotions. This is why you cry when you're happy AND sad. It isn't a one-to-one transposition. Or like the transposition from three to two dimensions. We can't draw a 'cube' on a whiteboard: we could only draw it's two-dimensional 'shadow', which looks like a hexagon with lines inside of it. Now if a two dimensional man has set his mind to believe that the three dimensional world doesn't exist, there's nothing you can do to convince him, and yet he isn't illogical. If he wishes to believe that cubes don't exist, that your pictures are "merely hexagons and lines in the middle" there's nothing you can do to convince him otherwise.



You've already stated that before. And my response is that we are already capable of discovering reality, to which you responded "Objective truth is still unattainable when we cannot prove perception valid". Now, I agree that with perception comes uncertainty--for all I know we could all be in the Matrix right now. But Reason itself, its fundamental axioms, and deductive proofs which stem from those axioms, cannot be invalidated in that way. It's like having a proof that there are no proofs. This is basic Decartes philosophy 101: "I think therefore I am", which even the most sophisticated atheists believe in.



It's erroneous to believe size is proportional to importance. You'd have to believe that a big tree is inherently more important than a small animal, or that a shorter man is less important than a tall one.



Yes they did, but their position is FAR closer to mine than yours. Second paragraph of the Declaration starts off, "We hold these truths to be SELF-EVIDENT...". They believed that morals exists on its own merit, not merely on the merits of pleasure. Or else they would've said "We hold these truths to be THE ONES THAT GIVE US THE MAXIMUM PLEASURE...".



That was a response to thor, and therefore should be discussed in that proper context. No offense, but Thor understands the Theistic position so much better than you. Even though an atheist, he was the one to first admit that "Even atheists believe in their heart of hearts that there are things that are good and things that are bad." And I confirmed his statement.



Once again--this makes perfect sense to you because in your worldview "oughtness" doesn't exist and Hedonism is all there is to life. And there's nothing I can do to convince you otherwise--you're just like the two-dimensional man who stubbornly insists that cubes don't exist.



Since you believe that selfishness is the sole motivation in life, this statement has no meaning to me.



Of course I have questioned my faith! I was once in your position too, my friend.



Admitting myself to be an intellectual infant is a parallel to Socrates' "I know nothing". The more you know, the more you realize how much you don't know.

----------------

Now in your posts you implied a couple of times that all theists are idiots. I'll tell you what you need to overcome--your arrogance and temper. You wouldn't even be living your fancy, pleasure-filled, life right now if it weren't for the great theists in the past.

Bon

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"The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection." -C.S. Lewis

Oh gosh, not surprised this thread is dead. CS Lewis should have stuck to writing fiction for children instead of defending fiction for adults.

ummmm.....who was the one who stopped responding???? >_>;;

_________________
"The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection." -C.S. Lewis

Apparently everyone.

except for me

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"The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection." -C.S. Lewis

Hello there, I've been reading this thread, along with a couple of other threads related to this one. Some bits were a bit sad to hear, things such as particular members of this site, apparently having some real problems dealing with their sexual lives because of religion (don't get me wrong, I respect it anyway, to each to its own). I am an atheist-leaning agnostic, a former fundamentalist, and a psychiatrist, so I hope I can bring that perspective to this discussion.

What I suggest as part of the reason for the flourishing of Christianity is apologetics – but not the “conscious”, logical sort of apologetics debated on this site, but rather a more “implicit” sort, more emotional and rhetorical (in the sense of classical rhetoric), that otherwise uncritical prospective believers come across.

I recently wrote my deconversion story and, as part of that process, went back and looked at some of the apologetics that I used to find convincing. What an interesting exercise! It is fascinating to re-examine these things, now that I am a much more critical reader, and note the assertions and bad arguments I used to accept.

Most significant for me was CS Lewis (like many people), especially his Mere Christianity and The Problem of Pain. Here’s what I noticed:

It is quite noteworthy, I think, that Lewis does not begin with philosophical or evidential arguments about God or the Christian Bible. He instead argues from the basic human experience of guilt. He asks his readers to consider all of the times they have acted, or thought, selfishly, or done something they knew was wrong. This is a master rhetorical move, because it gets his readers into a state of affective arousal (we are social creatures, and all experience guilt), which makes them less critical. And then he pulls a bit of slight-of-hand, which it goes without saying I did not notice at the time.

(a) He defines “sin” extraordinarily broadly, encompassing anytime we have any bit of self interest in our actions (for example, if we take any pleasure in having done something good – i.e., the fact that *I* did something good – rather than pure egoless pleasure in the fact that *good was done*, that’s sin), as well as any “primitive” emotions, such as jealously (which implies selfishness) or irrational anger (“If you are angry with your brother…”). Since human beings cannot control what they feel, then obviously, by this definition, we are all sinners.
(b) He suggests that these experiences of shame and guilt are the truest and most accurate intuitions we have, so we should heed them. They imply what kind of creature we are. There is no irrational or misplaced guilt, for Lewis.
(c) He suggests that this is only the tip of the iceberg, that we are actually much, much worse than we realize. He does not even bother to argue this. He simply states, in Problem of Pain, that once we *feel* how bad we have acted, that something about us is really awful and unforgivable, then we will begin to see how pervasively wicked we really are.

Lewis then makes another Christian assertion, which is common (not unique to Lewis) but is almost never argued: that God cannot tolerate sin. Yet this seems curious and at least would seem to require an argument. Why not? Isn’t he God? Doesn’t he tolerate our “corruption” already, while we are alive? Why does he stop after 80 or so years? Lewis does make a somewhat oblique argument for it, when he suggests that “real” love, such as God has for us, “demands the perfection of the beloved.” Love that does not wish its object to be perfect is disinterested, and therefore not real love, according to Lewis. Yet this, too, seems curious, and is inconsistent with human relationships: we wish those we care for to be the best they can be, yet accept their foibles nonetheless, indefinitely. We even laugh about them. Its what makes us interesting! But Lewis’ readers are not likely to notice this. Now that they are convinced how utterly corrupt they “really” are, being told they are loved fiercely by God (Lewis has a stirring passage describing this) is likely to engender even more guilt and a sense of undeservedness.

Taken together, if Lewis is effective (and his popularity suggests he is very effective) then it is likely because, it can be argued, he gets his readers into emotional arousal, taps into bad feelings they have about themselves, and then convinces them that they are much worse than they think and God will not tolerate even minor imperfections.

What out does a reader have at this point but accept the cure that Lewis offers?

I think some psychology can shed some light on this process. Most schools of thought within psychology, though they differ on the details, agree that self-esteem is a learned phenomenon. We are not born knowing how to feel okay about ourselves, and feeling that we have worth. But anything that is learned, can be learned well or it can be learned poorly. Self esteem can be spotty, uneven, even in healthy people, and can be lower during times of difficulty in our lives.

Moreover, modern psychology suggests that the emotional life of young children is much different than the emotional life of adults. Consider when you are angry, as an adult, at someone you love. You may be very, very angry, spittin’ angry in fact, but somewhere, deep down, you still know (and could say, if pressed), that this person is still the same person they were, the same person you love, and still has good qualities, despite your being so angry. This sense is what children probably lack. Their emotions have a global, totalizing quality. When they are mad, that anger is, for the moment, all they know and all they have ever known. It colors their whole experiential world.

The reason is that the ability to discriminate emotions from self is also a learned behavior. In older analytic terms, it is an ego function. It takes brain maturation and good parenting to learn that what you feel at the moment is not all of who you are; feelings are part of the self but not identical with it. Thus, the upshot is that, for a young child, there is no or little difference between *feeling bad* and *being bad.*

The point here is that we all carry within us a residual sense of “inner badness” that most of us eventually learn to master, but during periods of stress and emotional upheaval, can be reactivated. Christianity has a keen sense for human frailty, and well-honed methods for rooting out any sense of imperfection we already harbor.

Lewis taps into these feelings. This sense of inner badness and (potentially) low self-esteem is ubiquitous in our development and so Lewis, in activating these feelings, presents what is essentially an emotional argument that serves as both an amplification of bad feelings, low self worth, and a solution to them.

And if we feel overwhelmingly that we are bad, worthless, and unable to help or improve ourselves, well then what option to de have except to accept the “rescue” of a larger-than-life figure such as Jesus?

My proposed solution to this focuses much more on emotional health than on the more cognitive arguments that many atheists gravitate toward. We should be teaching our children – perhaps in schools? – how to deal with their emotions. How do you recognize when you are upset, or hurting? How do you seek support when you need it? How do you ask for and get what you need from others, effectively? How do you make, and keep, friends? How do you make yourself feel good about yourself? What do you do when you get mad, or sad, or lonely, or upset? How do you “regulate” emotions, as psychotherapists say? These are skills that many of us learn, imperfectly, as part of growing up, from watching others and trial-and-error, but they can also be taught explicitly. I think we can make people much more resistant to Christianity or any other form of ideological indoctrination, not only by making them more adept at critical thinking, but more adept at managing their emotional lives. We can impede Christianity by getting people to need it less.

So, my basic idea is this: critical thinking is extremely important. But it goes out the window when emotional needs are not being met. We need to teach people how to take care of themselves emotionally. Psychotherapists know how to do this. I’m not saying everyone needs therapy; these are skills that could be taught in a classroom.

I apologize for the length of this post, but this material is hard to summarize quickly.

Hey Rich,

it's nice of you to join us, shedding a different perspective on the issue. I get the impression that your views run deep within the psychology/psychiatry community; the school psychologists I'm seeing now often implies that some of my personal problems stem from my Christian beliefs. Well, before I start rambling about what I think I'd like to summarize some of your key points. Please tell me whether my interpretation of your beliefs is correct because I wouldn't want to be arguing a straw man.

1a. C.S. Lewis, in his arguments, evokes the emotion of the readers.

b. Because he does this, his arguments must be false.

2a. Humans, through proper therapy and/or education, could live healthy, balanced, lives without Christianity.

b. Therefore, we don't need Christianity.

3a. Christianity, far from being remedial, often times is destructive to a person's well-being; by encouraging exaggerated amounts of guilt and shame it inhibits a balanced life.

b. Therefore, we should stay away from Christianity.

_________________
"The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection." -C.S. Lewis

yo i dont know if this has been mentioned before but out of curiosity, since you are into CS Lewis works i would like to know: what exactly made him chose Christianity and not other religion such as Islam, and what was his opinion on other religions.

cheers

you asked for it. here's an excerpt from Lewis's letter "Christian Apologetics" from the book "God in the Docks":

For my own part, I have sometimes told my audience that the only two things really worth considering are Christianity and Hinduism. (Islam is only the greatest of the Christian heresies, Buddhism only the greatest of the Hindu heresies. Real Paganism is dead. All that was best in Judaism and Platonism survives in Christianity.) There isn't really, for an adult mind, this infinite variety of religions to consider. We may salva reverentia ["without outraging reverence] divide religions, as we do soups, into "thick" and "clear." By Thick I mean those which

have orgies and ecstasies and mysteries and local attachments: Africa is full of Thick religions. By Clear I mean those which are philosophical, ethical and universalizing: Stoicism, Buddhism, and the Ethical Church are Clear religions. Now if there is a true religion it must be both Thick and Clear: for the true God must have made both the child and the man, both the savage and the citizen, both the head and the belly. And the only two religions that fulfil this condition are Hinduism and Christianity. But Hinduism fulfils it imperfectly. The Clear religion of the Brahmin hermit in the jungle and the Thick religion of the neighbouring temple go on side by side. The Brahmin hermit doesn't bother about the temple prostitution nor the worshipper in the temple about the hermit's metaphysics. But Christianity really breaks down the middle wall of the partition. It takes a convert from central AFrica and tells him to obey an enlightened universalist ethic: it takes a twentieth-century academic prig like me and tells me to go fasting to a Mystery, to drink the blod of the Lord. The savage convert has to be Clear: I have to be Thick. That is how one knows one has come to the real religion."

_________________
"The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection." -C.S. Lewis

He's just a Colonialist then.
It's nice that he at least recognizes that there are other religions in the world; however, he gives them no real chance in his argument. He immediately counts out all but Hinduism and then he brushes that off without much of an explanation either.
His choice in Christianity is not because it's some sort of perfect combination of all things religion should be but rather because he feel extreme racial superiority as you can see from the way he refers to the Africans in his dialogue.

I cannot really blame Lewis for this because it's the time in which he lived; however, it just further proves that his belief system really is based on his society's habitual norm and not some kind of elevated thinking that allowed him to come to access his personal epistemic system from outside of custom.

If you know anything about Colonialism, you can see it ripe in that quote.

You know, even though i initially LOL-ed at your post, I can see where you're coming from.

There were times i felt the same way as you did, especially when C.S.Lewis put a bad spin to the dark-skinned Telmarines in "Prince Caspian" and the 'brown girls' in "Pilgrim's Regress". And if you were to talk about these books, perhaps you would be right. But to draw such a conclusion from the passage I quoted? I think not. Lewis here is not saying that the purely 'thick' religions (the ones they have in Africa) are worse than all the rest. He's saying that they're just as bad as the purely 'thin' religions, such as Buddhism and Stoicism (which do NOT come from Africa).

_________________
"The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection." -C.S. Lewis

You fail to understand that just because he's not only dismissing African religions alone, he's no less of a Colonialist.
Colonialism implies cultural superiority over all other cultures, including Asian and other European ones.
Also, being someone who practiced Stoicism for several years, I take insult to it being described as a religion and whoever would describe it as such has clearly no idea what they are talking about.

Epistemic belief systems come about based usually on the society and the norms in which we live. If he was born in Afghanistan, he would probably be as devout a Muslim as he was a Christian.
Because there are some beliefs which transcend cultures, scientific beliefs for example, it is logical to assume that those beliefs are more accurate or more able to access reality than those which cannot easily convince anyone from any other culture of their correctness.
Most people believe in gravity but millions of people do not believe in Christianity.
This is why religions in and of themselves are poor epistemic systems that clearly do not come to access reality directly in almost any way.
There is nothing wrong with spiritualism since in one form or another we see it accepted as a form of hope and moral holiday in cultures around the world, regardless of cultural norm.

Spiritualism as an epistemic system of hope in a continuation of life and moral holiday, upon which most religions are generally based, comes to access reality far more directly than any specific religion.

Regardless, Lewis was clearly a Colonialist who felt that his belief was correct because he was raised to view his belief is correct, as are we all.
If you could convince almost every person in the world of the correctness of Christianity, then it would be a good belief system; however, since you can't, we must say the only good belief systems which come to access reality would be scientific materialism and basic spiritualism since it is much easier to convince others in the existence of a form of spirituality and a round Earth than any other specific religious ideas.

PD: Oh, and the convincing must be done through logic, not through threats, desire to conform, or ostracism.

If you can convince someone that Christianity is correct through reason then it is a good system, otherwise, it is not.

Alright, there are three main concepts here which I shall deal with:

1) //You fail to understand that just because he's not only dismissing African religions alone, he's no less of a Colonialist.
Colonialism implies cultural superiority over all other cultures, including Asian and other European ones.
Also, being someone who practiced Stoicism for several years, I take insult to it being described as a religion and whoever would describe it as such has clearly no idea what they are talking about.//

I would say the burden of proof is still on you, my friend. The biggest case of colonialism in the name of Christianity was started by the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) by Spain and Portugal, neither of which C.S.Lewis comes from (he's British).

Oh, and of course C.S. Lewis would know nothing about stoicism; he only graduated from Oxford with first-class honors in philosophy, among many other things. Silly me.

2) //Epistemic belief systems come about based usually on the society and the norms in which we live. If he was born in Afghanistan, he would probably be as devout a Muslim as he was a Christian....Regardless, Lewis was clearly a Colonialist who felt that his belief was correct because he was raised to view his belief is correct, as are we all.//

You've committed a logical fallacy called "circumstantial ad hominem".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem#Ad_hominem_circumstantial

3) //Because there are some beliefs which transcend cultures, scientific beliefs for example, it is logical to assume that those beliefs are more accurate or more able to access reality than those which cannot easily convince anyone from any other culture of their correctness.
Most people believe in gravity but millions of people do not believe in Christianity.
This is why religions in and of themselves are poor epistemic systems that clearly do not come to access reality directly in almost any way.
There is nothing wrong with spiritualism since in one form or another we see it accepted as a form of hope and moral holiday in cultures around the world, regardless of cultural norm. Spiritualism as an epistemic system of hope in a continuation of life and moral holiday, upon which most religions are generally based, comes to access reality far more directly than any specific religion.//

Okay, let's deal with "spiritualism" first. You're trying to fabricate some sort of moral system called "spiritualism" which most--if not all--cultures believe in. First of all, not everybody believes in "a continuation of life". If you reply by saying MOST cultures do, then I'll reply gladly by saying that most cultures believe in a god. And yet you don't believe in a god. Hence, your argument has no weight.

And I have no idea what you mean by "moral holiday".

Now, it's true that there is more division between moral systems than there are on merely rational systems (such as science). But it is utterly groundless to deduct from this that all moral systems are crap. Here's the true reason as to why such divisions exist:

"The main difference between Reason and Conscience is an alarming one. It is thus: that while the unarguable intuitions on which all depend are liable to be corrupted by passion when we are considering truth or falsehood, they are much more liable, they are almost certain to be corrupted when we are considering good and evil. For then we are concerned with some action to be here and now done or left undone by ourselves. And we should not be considering that action at all unless we had some wish either to do or not to do it, so that in this sphere we are bribed from the very beginning."
--C.S. Lewis, excerpt from "Why I am not a Pacifist"

_________________
"The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection." -C.S. Lewis

I see no real reason to even reply because you completely failed to understand more than a sentence of my post and you think that psychological reality is an ad hominem.
So, maybe it's an ad hominem to say because I was born in America, I speak English, but if you deconstruct everything into an ad hominem, then there's absolutely no reason to argue about anything in terms of cultural moral or epistemic relativist.
You are doing the same thing Lewis does, simplifying everything beyond recognition to prove a terrible point so that logic never enters into it.

You fail to understand the definition of spiritualism. Continuation of life insinuates that there is some sort of life beyond that which we currently experience. This can be represented in the form of a god or in the form of an afterlife or both. It is the logical opposite of materialism which believes in only the physical.
Moral holiday means that those who believe in spiritualism have the ability to think that the things that happen to them and those around them, be they good or bad, can potentially be attributed to the actions of the spiritual.

If Lewis thinks Stoicism is a religion, he clearly didn't get his money's worth out of that college education. It's a system of logical philosophy, not religion in any sense of the word because it possess neither of the two qualities of spiritualism.

You also fail to understand what Colonialism means.
Colonialism as cultural superiority still exists. It's called post-Colonialism. Where he pulled that date from is beyond me. You clearly looked up the word on Wikipedia which gave you some vague definition and a date that you are now using as a personal canon.

When did I ever say that moral systems were crap? I mean, really, are you just pulling shit out of your ass?
Making up bizarre phrases to put in my mouth simply because my post when over your head just makes you look like a total and complete idiot.

I said Spiritualism is fine and dandy, and not at all crap. I even said why believing in Spiritualism can be a good thing - life beyond life and moral holiday.
I said specific religions come to access reality poorly because it is very difficult to convince people that any religion is true while it is not difficult to convince them that most scientific theories, like gravity are true.
Of course we should always doubt even basic theories like gravity, since we cannot see or access them directly; however, since the scientific epistemic system exists across cultures, moral systems and religious factions, we can say it probably accesses reality more directly than any religion since non of them are so widespread.
Science is not infallible, nor does it probably come to access reality very often; however, we can say that it seems to be convincing in many cases.
This also doesn't preclude that Materialism is without morality, by the way.
Morality is inherent to society whether it is Spiritual or Material in various forms because it allows society to function. It exists as a part of the human condition in some way or another to maintain a cohesive society.

Hey Thor,

I can't give a lengthy reply because finals are imminent, but I want to clear a few things up because we have incurred some obvious misunderstandings.

1) The reason I'm pointing out the "circumstantial ad hominem" is not because I'm trying to evade psychological reality. On the contrary, it is because I feel that YOU are trying to evade the essence of Lewis' arguments. The fundamental concepts in the passage were about the "thick" and/or "thin-ness" of belief systems. You, however, just dismissed everything on the basis that he's merely a European prig.

2) I must apologize, for I assumed at the outset you are against Theism. Apparently you are not. But I still disagree with the notion that specific religions are poor at accessing objective reality, and have provided a better explanation (in my previous post) as to why many disagreements happen between various moral systems. You have yet to respond to those arguments.

3) When you are making accusations against a European Christian for being a Colonialist due to his remarks about Africa, it's pretty safe--in educated circles--to assume connotations regarding the 16th century European colonialism era. I'm more than happy to go along with your new definition of Colonialism; the burden of proof as to why Lewis was a Colonialist is now pressing even harder on you.

4) And lastly, sure--Materialism doesn't preclude SUBJECTIVE morality. But an OBJECTIVE morality can only exist in a theistic worldview. I apologize once more for assuming you knew I was talking about objective morality: I will try to be more specific in the future to whittle potential misunderstandings.


Bon

_________________
"The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection." -C.S. Lewis

Hi all,

Can I just ask bon some questions:

1) When did you become a Christian?
2) Are you a Creationist and do you believe in the Resurrection?

More on-topic:

3) What is your belief on justification?
4) Did you ever entertain being a Theist but not a Supernaturalist ie. a belief that God is not the source of moral absolutes?

Youup!

Nice of you to join our conversation

1) Hmmm, I would say....sometime in the past couple of years. Sorry, I hate to be so ambiguous, but it's really difficult for me to pinpoint a specific time.

2) I don't believe the whole universe was created in 24*7= 168 hours (does that answer your question?), but I do believe in the Resurrection.

3) Justification? That's a very tangly subject, but I believe that--even though it's true God does the majority of the work--we humans do have freewill.

4) Yes, I thought about that...but how is that possible? I'd be very grateful if you could provide another valid source of moral absolutes.

May I also ask what your position is?

Thanks,
Bon

_________________
"The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection." -C.S. Lewis

Allow me to make some assumptions based on the fact you have come to Christianity in the last couple of years:
- you were not 'born' into your religion in that people are born into practising Catholic/Protestant families; so furthermore
- you came to your belief of your own volition;
- you will be very familiar with Christian apologetics; but
- your understanding of the Christian faith is in its infancy.

I don't know whether you have understood justification as it applies to Christian theology but I am going to assume that you take a position very similar to the Protestants' Free Grace Theology or "justification through faith alone". I'm going to take your disbelief in Hell as further evidence for that position. So if this is the case, why do you continue to observe the moral absolutes laid out by God?

If you are not a Creationist, where do you attribute the Fall of Man and Original Sin? This has large consequences for the meaning of the Ressurection.

You could believe in God and be a naturalist so you believe that God creates His world such that moral absolutes are self-evident in nature. You could also take the position of a God who abandons His Creation.

So your initial four assumptions are correct, except the first one. My parents are very religious, actually. Yet, even though I was going to church and running through the motions, I did not really understand what I believed in. I mean, I would be able to recite my beliefs, but I did not really know what it meant (just like a preschooler could 'say' e=mc^2). Then during the first year of college I made a sort of rebellion against my parents, refusing to do anything that didn't make sense to me at the time (like singing in church and giving tithes). It was during this time period that I started to really examine Christianity myself. And, when I finally did come back to it, it was really 'my own', so to speak.

It seems pretty self-evident that you know a crap load more about Christian theology than I do, for I'm not really sure what 'Free Grace Theology' is. But I don't believe justification is through faith alone...works are also in the picture, operating together with faith like two halves of a scissor (an analogy I got from Lewis).

As far as hell...I did mention that I don't believe in a literal lake-of-fire hell (as if there's a Soak City stuffed with bunsen burners sitting at the edge of the cosmos), but I do believe hell exists--more as a state of a soul's disintegration.

When evolution produced man, God instilled in man consciousness and morality. And man has gone against that morality so much to the point where we have a natural inclination to do evil. To undo what we have done, Jesus' incarnation and resurrection is necessary.

//You could believe in God and be a naturalist so you believe that God creates His world such that moral absolutes are self-evident in nature.//

I still think it's impossible to find moral absolutes via the observation of nature.

//You could also take the position of a God who abandons His Creation.//

If God completely abandoned us, then there's no need to care about moral absolutes.

------

I'm going to repost my very first post in this thread because I feel it important to reiterate my position.

Oh, and you haven't told me what your position is. May I know?

Thanks,
Bon

_________________
"The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection." -C.S. Lewis

***********RE-POST**************

Hey Check9,

may I contribute to the discussion? I too am a Christian, and I'd like to explain why I am one. After dabbling in apologetics and debates on this subject long enough, I have concluded that being a Christian is a choice. What I mean is that there is no "proof" for the existence of God (like a proof for the Pythagorean theorem), and neither is there such a "proof" for the non-existence of God. It all boils down to a preference of world views.

1) The Theistic Worldview:

a) An objective moral law exists.

b) Reason is a tool for us to find/see truth.


2) The Atheistic Worldview:

a) All morals are subjective and are derived from the "sic volo, sic jubeo"

b) All behavior (including reasoning) has only one sole purpose: to increase survivability.


Both world views can be justified fully. I happen to prefer the first worldview, perhaps due to my upbringing, or perhaps due to my "innate sense of the fitness of things," as Sir Arthur Eddington would say. I used to think that no one in their right mind would choose the atheistic worldview once they understood its repercussions, but alas I was wrong--I have met those who honestly prefer it over mine. Note that I labeled the first worldview as the Theisic--not the Christian--worldview: I feel that it is quite pointless to edify Christianity if you do not even believe in Theism, like teaching quantum mechanics to an algebra student. Sorry if my sentences seem rather choppy; it's past midnight and I'm very sleepy.

****************

_________________
"The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection." -C.S. Lewis