I have found recently, from all the noise on Facebook about the recent passage of the Health Care bill there has very little investigation of the issue beyond the bumper sticker rhetoric. I am looking to have a discussion. One where the topic is explored thoroughly with opposing view points in a respectful fashion. I thought I might start that discussion here with this topic:
Are We Born with God?
I have been confronted recently on both Facebook and here in this blog with peoples assertion of faith and the idea that I am a fool because I have none. As many know I started as a Christian (Mormon). I didn't have any real sense of what that meant until I was 8 or 9 and I was done with it at 16.
Here is what I think about the question for starters:
Religion is largely geographic. Where you live is will influence the religion you belong to.
"God" varies depending on location and historical period. The Judeo-Christian God was only known in a small region of the world until after the fall of Rome. Mono-thesism was not globally accepted until the beginning of the last milennium.
"God" in concept has to be taught.
This is meant to be a discussion not an argument/fight. You can give your opinion but be prepared to back it up with evidence/support for you opinion.
I am really interested in ideas and am hoping that most will participate.
Facebook friends follow the link to the original post and post comments on the blog.
I'll go first. :) I am a mutt theologically, but probably identify closest with Christianity though I don't hold to exclusivism. I agree that religion is geographic. If I were born in India, I would probably be obsessing about Vishnu. :)
ReplyDeleteI am not sure that God has to be taught. It would seem to me that, given no outside influences, one might still look at things around them and assign some sort of "god" solution to their existence. If there is no god of any sort, then our present view of religions must have originated with people groups doing that very thing.
Still, I agree with your overall point. The reason most people hold the religious views they do is because they were taught so, and this is primarily determined by where they are born.
You are right, Dudley. Religion is what we used to explain things before we had science. If you witnessed an eclipse several hundred years ago, then, one of the, "God's" (or, God, as it were) was eating the sun, would explain it. But since we are much smarter now, we don't need to believe in an, "Imaginary Friend" who lives in the sky, and will take good care of us when we die. When we die, we die. End of story. But it gives people who's lives here on earth suck (the reasons are a whole another email: Poor, stupid, criminal, whatever) a false hope that when they die, they will be removed from their earthly strife, and given Heaven. It's crap, but it sells, and money is the real reason for religions. No taxes, and people pay every weekend.
ReplyDeleteI like this idea Kevin and it's a nice break from the stuff I've been reading from both parties over the last couple of days.
ReplyDeleteMy thoughts:
I'm really trying to put myself in a thoughtful position of someone, sitting in a park without knowledge of God or Science and how that would affect me. Either way, one, or both, of the concepts are going to be taught to me and I'm going to have to decide what to accept.
I was born here like you, I was brought up in the LDS church, so for me it was both historically taught (family moving from England to Utah) and geographically given, but I find that those who are strong in their faith without being overzealous (pushy, intolerant, etc) are those who have had internal struggles with it and found some sort of resolution and peace, whether that is to continue on their path of faith or to seek and follow a different path, like science or atheism.
So I think that we can agree that religion is definitely taught. My bigger question is whether God exists in our minds and hearts from birth or is he/she as rationalization to explain what we don't understand.
ReplyDeleteI tend to accept the Dawkin's theory that all children are born atheists. God and religion are inserted through culture. This would be contrary to your point of view Chris that the concept of atheism is taught. I am of the opinion that it is at the baseline. The explanation of what we don't understand is taught which be a refutation to your position Andrew.
What was your earliest experience with God and what made it ring true to you or what was thing that changed your paradigm on God?
My point was that if there is no God, then there was no God to receive a view of him from. Therefore man must have developed it... kinda chicken and eggish... but that would seem to mean that it could develop independently of merely being passed on.
ReplyDeleteI think though I am missing the significance of Dawkins theory. My son may not know there is a country named India until I tell him, but its existence was not in limbo until he knew that. Of course, if there is no such country... that becomes a new point all together.
To answer your knew question. This may sound totally bizarre, but I think one of my earliest memories is seeing Victor Garbor play Jesus in Godspell. I was probably 6. I am trying to articulate what was probably on a purely emotional level, but I remember feeling love,goodness,compassion all being exuded from this person on the screen who, for some reason, I knew to be God. I wanted to be like that... I wanted everyone to be like that.
My biggest paradigm shift in recent history is to reject the exclusivity of my Christianity and embrace a universalistic view.
Dawkins' theory would suggest that atheism is a baseline and god is a concept rather than an actual person or force. For the Dawkins theory to apply one would have to assume there is insufficient evidence that god exists. Because the person who asserts to the affirmative has the burden of proof and the existence of god has yet to be proven the baseline is also godless.
ReplyDeleteConversely, if a tree falls in a forest and there is no one there to hear it.... it still makes a sound. We now that because we can prove it through experimentation with controls. Thus India certainly exists whether we knew it at the time.... but we can prove it.
I was a church going kid but never a kid that really could connect to 'God" I remember at 8 when I was about to be baptized wondering why, if this was my one chance to start anew, it didn't come later in life. I knew that they baptized converts at later stages of life and they got to start new. To me that was the beginning of the end as I struggled with the mental gymnastics that faith required.
My biggest paradigm shift came at 16. Like you a little musical theatre.... A Chorus Line. The Mormons have this belief called Moroni's Promise. If you read the Book of Mormon and then pray about it's truth the spirit will reveal(not withstanding) itself to you in a testament to the truth. In A Chorus Line Morales has this song called "Nothing" in which she describes reaching to the bottom her soul and trying and feeling nothing. That’s where I was and the promise wasn’t fulfilled. I was not a child who easily suspended disbelief. I would peak during the blessing of the food or opening prayers to see who else peaked. Again I struggled with the mental gymnastics that faith required.
There are a lot of ideas people are born without. Do we really want to make our birth-state the baseline and moral standard for what we should believe? Do we really want to say that one can accept no post-natal idea unless it is first positively proven to the satisfaction of the scientific community?
ReplyDeleteChris are you suggesting that we are born with "God"? The interjection of "God" in to the subject of morality is a different question. What is your position and what is the basis for your argument?
ReplyDeleteIn my recent post I am working on showing "How to make a Christian". In my model, all the modules to make a God are in-born. So, for your question, both taught and in-born are sort of "yes".
ReplyDelete