The Concept Of Being "God Fearing"

[Laphroaig]

I don't recall 'poo pooing'

[buttslinger]

As to what you mean by the "WRONG side of the moral fence" you'll have to elaborate.
Until you post photos, I'll just have to use my imagination.

Why are you people arguing with the world, the world is PERFECT. Even with it's flaws.
I can prove it.
There.

[trish]

The World clarifies it's position when you engage it in argument and it thereby imparts its perfection.

[buttslinger]

The World clarifies it's position when you engage it in argument and it thereby imparts its perfection.

God clarifies His position when you detach your self from the World.

[martin48]

I did post a photo which left little to the imagination, but didn't seem to add much to the debate!

As to what you mean by the "WRONG side of the moral fence" you'll have to elaborate.
Until you post photos, I'll just have to use my imagination.

Why are you people arguing with the world, the world is PERFECT. Even with it's flaws.
I can prove it.
There.

[Stavros]

We seem to have stepped into the area of morality. “God is dead, so all hell breaks lose”

"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hopes of reward after death."
Albert Einstein


Regardless of where you believe morals innately come from, the idea that you behave in a good way to either achieve a celestial reward or to avoid eternal suffering is grossly immoral. Not to mention the fact that the Bible is hardly the “good book” it claims to be. It’s full of genocide, sacrifice, murder, mayhem, slavery, rape, incest, not taking accountability for your own shortcomings and much, much more. This is supposedly the holy word of god, and it’s fundamentally evil.
I don’t need to read a 2-3 thousand year old book to tell me that it’s wrong to kill someone. I don’t need a book to tell me that cheating on my spouse is not a good thing. Just because I’m an atheist doesn’t mean that I go out raping, pillaging and killing people because I have no morals without the Bible. The thought is ridiculous to an extreme, but it’s unfortunately not that uncommon.
A lot of believers find it impossible to accept that morality is something innate in the human species and that it doesn’t exist because of a Bronze Age set of rules says so. The fact of the matter is that many of the “10 Commandments” existed long before the Jewish people did, and they’re hardly unique to the Jews. In fact, early records put some of the 10 commandments hundreds of years before the Jews were around. They’re simply basic human principles.
You don’t have to think too hard to understand the principles for an overall morality. You see evidence of it in the animal kingdom, so it’s not something that is strictly exclusive to human beings. Chimpanzees, Gorillas, Wolves, Dolphins, Whales and other high-brained animals all exhibit some forms of societal morals, and it’s for the same reason that humans do. As humans evolved, they recognized that survival was much more likely if they came together as groups. In order to function as a group, certain things had to be understood. Basic human morality stems from the idea of avoiding harm and collectively focuses on the good of the group instead of the will of an individual. The idea of individual property that belonged to one specific person didn’t evolve until much, much later. The tribe communally owned things and shared them as needed with others. They didn’t kill each other because they depended on each other for their very lives. The infant mortality rate was so high in some areas that they avoided intentionally killing children. It’s the foundation of human morality completely separated from the concept of an overpowering god. God simply did not create human morality – humans created religious morality – and ironically the laws attributed to god tended to follow the customs that were already in practice by the people who dictated them, and they demonized the behavior of that particular culture’s territorial enemies.


BTW --- I still feel it odd to have these discussions on a porn site. Where's the morality in that?

Although I agree with a lot, indeed most of what you write, there is a gaping hole in your argument -if what you say about morals is true, why have human societies developed such elaborate religious systems of belief that make moral judgements about what it is right and wrong to believe, why some activities are good or bad, what is selfish behaviour and what is good for society as a whole? Why are there so many rituals in religion based around times of the week, or year; or recollections of and symbolic repetitions of sacrifice, or phenomenal events or shows of reverence for individuals long dead? Why are there so many detailed lists of rules on sexual behaviour, on diet, and on issues related to kinship and property? If we do not need a religion or its 'sacred texts' -let alone its clerics- to tell us how to live and what to believe, why have religions been so fundamental to the human experience?

There is no simple answer to this, and attempts to answer it range far and wide. There is, for example, the evidence from archaeology and anthropology which suggests that rules on sexual behaviour became fundamental to human existence when early humans -possibly through their mating with neanderthals and other humanoids- realised that unrestricted sexual behaviour led to the propagation of sexually transmitted diseases with all its complications and death; that procreation within the family led to genetic deterioation and thus threatened the very survival of the family and the wider community. Religious thought and practice at this level imposed a group-based moral code on individuals to prevent the extinction of the group, because individuals did apparently need to be warned off the perils of sexual temptation and an apocalyptic religious verse in this case may actually have been close to the truth even if the subsequent journey to heaven or hell is not. But here one notes what a Dante scholar once wrote about the Inferno, the Italian poet's depiction of a journey through Hell -that it was not written as a warning of what might come but a chastening experience of what actually exists, in the here and now.

Another perspective from anthropology and philosophy formed part of the early work of Lévi-Strauss for whom the study of Amazonian myths and rituals led him to a comparative study of language and ritual, whether it was the various ways in which humans denote their kinship through language or the reason why humans eat cooked as well as raw food. Embedded in the human experience there may be structural affinities with all humans- Lévi-Strauss was influenced by Roman Jakobson just as in recent years Habermas has taken this aspect of language and behaviour further in an attempt to discern in human societies a 'universal pragmatics'. What these studies tend to look at is what it is that unites humans, but they could just as well engage in comparative theology to discern what it is that unites all the major religions, where surely the emphasis on a rule-based form of behaviour is the most common, for religions appear to come laden with rules.

If these issues are important, it may be because of the way in which human societies have changed since the Neolithic. The transition from a nomadic to a sedentary life has not been complete, but one notes that the Bedouin of the Middle East always considered themselves superior to sedentary farmers, associating their freedom of movement with freedom from government and the entrapments of taxation and conscription even if these days they participate in the modern state. When Cain killed Abel, it was a sedentary farmer growing crops with no animals to sacrifice, murdering his nomadic brother, who did. Embedded in that confrontation the modern world comes alive in which two brothers fall apart over resentment, and what it is that each other does or does not possess. Religion thus becomes in this context the rule-book that establishes what property rights are in a society and culture where possession matters, and once you have a stability of possession -'this land is my land'- you can see the development of a sense of belonging, and by extension group identity, an identity buttressed by shared beliefs, shared rituals, and shared outcomes of work. Out of that too, must come social stratification of the kind that enables some crafty humans not to work for a living, but to 're-invent' themselves as Kings, or Pharaohs and thus get other people to feed them and clothe them.

In other words, while we may not agree on the reasons why, it is clear that elaborate religious thought and behaviour has indeed been the means whereby crucial rules on sexual behaviour, diet, property rights and kinship have been developed to maintain the species. To wish all that away because we can see how obvious morals are without the apparatus of religion, seems to me to wish away thousands of years of culture that may yet have more to tell us about who we are and why we are asked to 'fear god' or 'love god' or ignore God altogether. Because ultimately it is about us, and how we have used language to seek dominion over the earth -and each other.

[martin48]

A few thoughts

Many other animals exhibit altruistic behaviour, social hierarchies, seemingly meaningless rituals and other aspects, which we would normally associate with religion. So what makes us different? May be the knowledge of our own mortality. This knowledge produces an unbearable emotional drain.


Was religion (which grew out of the proto-humans in Africa – sorry, but we are all descended from Africans) was a response to fear. We, as a unique species, were self-conscious, had long-term memories, and above all had language that could express abstract thoughts and allow oral traditions to develop. These developing abilities of proto-humans were a double-edge sword. On the one hand, they aided their chances of surviving in a cruel and unpredictable world. They helped each successive generation to build upon the knowledge base of their ancestors.

Religions were created to give people a feeling of security in an insecure world, and a feeling of control over the environment where there was little control.

During our evolution from proto-human to homo sapiens, we developed questions about ourselves and our environment:

What controlled the seasonal cycles of nature - the daily motion of the sun; the motion of the stars, the passing of the seasons, etc.

What controlled their environment - what or who caused floods, rains, dry spells, storms?

What controls fertility -- of the tribe, its animals, and its crops?

What system of morality would best promote the success of the tribe?

And above all: what happens to us after we die?

Living in a pre-scientific society, people had no way to resolve these questions.
But the need for answers (particularly to the last question) were so important that some response was required, even if they were merely based on hunches. Some people within the tribe invented answers based on their personal guesses. Thus developed:

The first religious belief system,

The first priesthood,

The first set of rituals to appease the Goddess – usually a female deity (there lies fertility),


Other rituals to control fertility and other aspects of the environment,

A set of behavioral expectations for members of the tribe, and

A set of moral truths to govern human behavior.

These formed an oral tradition which was disseminated among the members of the tribe and was taught to each new generation. Much later, after writing developed, the beliefs were generally recorded in written form. A major loss of flexibility resulted. Oral traditions can evolve over time; written documents tend to be more permanent.

Unfortunately, because these belief systems were based on hunches, the various religions that developed in different areas of the world were, and remain, different. Their teachings are in conflict with each other. Because the followers of most religions considered their beliefs to be derived directly from God, they cannot be easily changed. Thus, inter-religious compromise is difficult or impossible.

Religious texts are often ambiguous, so divisions developed within religions. Different denominations, schools, or traditions have derived different meanings from the same texts. Thus were laid the foundations for inter-religious and intra-religious conflict.

[trish]

In other words, while we may not agree on the reasons why, it is clear that elaborate religious thought and behaviour has indeed been the means whereby crucial rules on sexual behaviour, diet, property rights and kinship have been developed to maintain the species. To wish all that away because we can see how obvious morals are without the apparatus of religion, seems to me to wish away thousands of years of culture that may yet have more to tell us about who we are and why we are asked to 'fear god' or 'love god' or ignore God altogether. Because ultimately it is about us, and how we have used language to seek dominion over the earth -and each other.

The various religious proscriptions restricting human sexuality may have (and may still) somewhat function to minimize the transmission of disease, maximize fertility and the chances of tribal survival through the generations. If so, nevertheless “because God says so” is not the reason they function in this way. That “diseases are caused by demons or sent by angry gods” is not a viable hypothesis. If we wish to refine and develop more effective prophylactic behaviors and measures against the spread of disease, we need to understand (indeed we do understand) the real causes of disease. The question then becomes, is it still moral to use the fear of God as a way to enforce (or at least encourage) safer sexual practices? I think not.

God was never a real hypothesis, for the hypothesis of His existence entails nothing without additional ad-hoc assumptions. “God exists” doesn’t entail that a woman shouldn’t cuckold her husband. “God exists and He doesn’t want women to cuckold their husbands and if you disobey Him you will be eternally punished” does. You need some variant of all three components to get the entailment. Though the proscriptions of religion may have survived and evolved to serve a useful function for the tribe, they are as ad-hoc as thumbs and appendices. Some proscriptions still function well and some no longer serve any function at all. Some may even misfire and do real damage. Other than the shape they are given by their social evolution and the fiction that they spring from a common source (the will of the gods) the laws of religion have no coherence; certainly no logical coherence.

Fear of God was always just a way to motivate people to follow the laws of the tribe (whether those laws serve the tribe well or not). This is not to say the history of religion isn’t valuable. Just because we choose now not to follow an ancient collection of tribal laws doesn’t mean we have to forget who we were and from where we came. To appreciate our culture and understand our history, we don’t have to believe the same silly things our ancestors believed or live by the same standards. Indeed, if we wish to propagate our culture into the future, we have to acknowledge that some of our old ideas and practices were wrong and obstructive. We don’t have to burn our history books or destroy our religious texts and artifacts; but neither do we have to furnish our moral space with uncomfortable antiques.

[buttslinger]

Whoa, you guys are not talking God, you're talking SOCIETY.
If I were up on that cross looking down at the crowd, I might have thought...
"Gee, maybe they weren't ready for God yet...."
Who wouldn't?
JESUS!!!! That's who!!!!!!
Even on his worst day he was enlightened.
Is eternal peace an illusion???
Was all that homework I did in school a complete waste of time?

It wouldn't be too hard to "play" this crowd, if it amused me I could write a post that got 10 thumbs up or 10 thumbs down. The only people who really agree with gays and trannys are other gays and trannys. WORD!!! (uh oh, thumbs down, Claudius)

It hurts my eyes to look up directly into the sun, but I'm glad it there, warming us all.
The Universe has one God,
The World has one KING..........

[trish]

Even on his worst day he was enlightened.

Was that the day he cursed a tree for not bearing him a fig?