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Why do people still believe in God? Some of the things that are written in bible not only contradict modern societal norms but also are evil. How can any sane person believe in God while simultaneously adhering to the societal norms and living by the rule that contradicts bible?

Nobody reads the bible. Nobody has read the bible and nobody takes it seriously, catholic church included. Go talk to any friendly priest, they're pretty open about mostly ignoring the old testament because it's boring and/or evil.

>>64554 People believe for plenty of reasons, from emotional impulses to rational reasoning. Biblical norms contradicting your feelies doesn't make them evil. Serious Christians will generally try to abide by them as best as their circumstances allow, it's not easy in modern society.

>>64554 Christianity is distinguished from messianic Judaism in that Jesus for the most part proclaimed the old Jewish law obsolete, and proclaimed that his followers didn't need to be Jewish. The old testament laws are very clearly intended only to be followed by jews. Additionally, most of the new testament is really more like commentary from prominent Christians around the time of the 1st century AD, and should by no means be considered the word of God. >How can any sane person believe in God while simultaneously adhering to the societal norms and living by the rule that contradicts bible? By lying to themselves one way or another.

Cheap bait thread. People believe in all sorts of ridiculous things who not only break norm but are also sick and evil. Socity and people aprove of absolutly evil and irrational things every day. What is the point of this thread other than bait out the same old discussions that we had a 1000 times.

>>64555 This is the dumbest thing i've read on this website

>>64554 I think it would be more interesting to talk about how we can justify any morality in the absence of God. Most modern atheistic philosophical systems end up with subjectivism (or are plain retarded like the pop philosophies of people like Sam Harris). Further more, how do you justify things as basic as rationality, logic, the scientific method, etc? Saying "they just work" does not justify anything. Work for what? Why should I care? The concept of God and the religions that derive from it can answer these questions in a way that allows for societies to blossom (your mileage may vary). Another interesting thought is that atheistic countries (like most western ones) are transitioning from Christianity to a new religion, just one that doesn't call it self a religion, that being "wokeness" (or whatever you want to call it), and many rationalist types (like Sam Harris) have an issue with that, but can't do anything about it, because their world view is so lacking in answering basic questions.

>>64576 >I think it would be more interesting to talk about how we can justify any morality in the absence of God. Aristotle's eudaimonistic ethics seem to me like they give a perfectly sound basis for natural law and natural rights. I never understood why morality in the absence of divine law would be such a big problem, seems like people got totally brain-fried by Hume's nonsense about a supposed "is/ought gap" that simply doesn't exist.

>mentions god >immediately jumps criticizing the Bible yes. Because god is when Christianity. There is no other god or God. There is no other religion. There is no other idea of Christianity. There is no other idea of the Universe. God is when Christianity, and if Christianity is bad that means the god is bad. And evil. Because all that exists in the world is purely Christian, and even Christians themselves are forbidden from having deviations or obeying their own sets of rules. Thank you for clarifying that up, OP. Thanks to such great thinkers the pillars of philosophy still stand.

>>64578 Yeah, christians speak of the christian god simply as God, causing much confusion because they don't clarify, they simply say God and expect people to understand they mean their God, partly because they've been indoctrinated to think that way, which is understandable, but they still make their assumption without stating it clearly. OP is talking ahout christianity, obvs, not actually about God in the general sense.

>>64580 bah, english is built for christians, like maybe some languages are built for people with a lot of snow, or none at all. Sometimes it makes certain alien concepts difficult to communicate, but on the other hand it makes certain ones most natural and easy. One need only capitalize He or Him midsentance to invoke God or Christ, for instance. Its handy, cleverly built imho.

>>64578 >>64580 I personally dislike the word "God" altogether. For starters, it does evoke something like the abrahamic god, even if just as a consequence of our culture. It is also a very undefined word. What does it mean to say "God"? Some guy who's watching over you and judging your actions? That's a work of fantasy, am I supposed to believe that just because it's in a book, or because some guy uses that book as a way to exert power over people? I do believe there ought to be some kind of divinity, but I have zero experience and zero reason to believe that such divinity is at all the way it has been portrayed by most people. I refuse to just believe there is some guy without at least putting serious effort and research on the issue. Anyway back to the word "God", it's entirely unspecific, and comes loaded with assumptions foremost of which, indeed, it is the abrahamic god who is jealous and favours hierarchy.

Its inevitable but id look to judaism if you want to see how and why people still believe in God. Many christians dont understand this, though many also do, but a religion is not just its fundamental texts. I used judaism as an example cause its (largely) self realized in this aspect and is cut from the same cloth, but other religions such as buddhisms and sects of hinduism also are like this. While every jew reads and knows the torah, a larger amount of the texts reads are commentaries or even bordering on original prophecies and mysticism. There is a lot of "divining" new modern meanings from these old texts, in a way that from the outside could just be seen as coming to their own original non-religuous conclusions. Id say its that but it retains an essence and is still tied to the religion. Simplified you could say religions that survive today always have an element that incorporates discovery and adaptation, just through its own social lense. This often means what people believe and practice something very distant from the original text even contradictory. Jews are not allowed to work or transport things between homes and places on shabbat, but there is something called "eruv" which are essentially these wires tied around an area that signify it as a single domain, and thus things can be transported within on shabbat. Not all Jews are okay with this, but most are. This was not a system specified by the torah but one rabbis crafted and explained, and while on the surface it seems like a cop out, if you read their whole religious academic studies and reasoning its all very convincing of course and tied back neatly. This is sort of emblematic of how and why people believe in god and their books. The eruv isnt at a glance anything more than a cop out, yet it retains the essence of the religious laws and texts. It would be wrong to say its utterly detatched from the religion, the rituals have simply changed. Religions are fluid things. But thats just my opinion, the reason your asking this is in the first place in my opinion is fundamentalists often are loud and get to hold the title of "The most X" of their religion and thus become to outsiders, the representatives of that religion. It doesnt matter if one day or even now a majority of muslims smoke, sometimes drink, dont always wear hijabs and thobes (which by the way the koran just calls for unspecifiied "decent" wear), right now from the outside we look at wahhabists and saudi arabia and decide "They are the most representative of Islam". And they are happy to claim this title, even if often they have beliefs equally as revisionist. Christians are like this too, you can disparage "casual christians" as some are in this thread for "never having read the bible". Id say many have read the bible but never read Anselm or Thomas Aquinus or numerous other christian scholars who expanded christianity to incorporate reason. There is numerous iffy but interesting connections even between Jesus being logic. God made into man, something about fish, yada yada. You can look into it yourself if you want. For whatever reason christianity in america at least does not in large hold these scholars or thinkers up as other religions do. As such they fall into the accusation by fundamentalists that these modern adaptions and changes dilute and corrupt the religion, and that opinion is parroted and then we hear it and go "Even they do not believe what they say". When a religion falls into this territory often we are right in that, the fundamentalists rarely practice what we preach. Numerous "hardcore catholics" nowadays who converted cause they saw edgy memes online but chronically masturbate to god knows what. And then they will come in this thread and tell you no one reads the bible anymore and thats the problem. For a final little bit of info, many jews nowadays do not even believe in God as christians do. They see it more as a fundamental reality. Again things are retained, god is still one, god is still above all and simultaneously everything but not any one thing. However there is hundreds of names for God describing in essence things like the demiurge, the void before creation, aspects of our reality. Youl often see this thought that creeps up called kaballah but its such a buzzword these days. I think this starts to happen around the 1700-1800s, so is it fairly a modern invention? Yes. Does that to me personally make it less valid than orthodox judaism (which actually still very much incorporates non-canon rabbinic literature), no it does not. Im not jewish or christian or muslim or anything, I simply like religions. When you start to see them as a project and a collective expression of a group of people its easier to understand how God can live into the modern era. There may come a day where these religions still exist without belief in god even, at least in any way that resembles how we think of that now. A religions foundational text and leader is only its foundation. Christians may always have this complex around humans being inherently evil without regular maintenance and forms of prayer, but that today may manifest more as voting against things like gay marriage or heavier sentencing rather than stoning adulterers. In the future it may simply look like a preference to being modest and structured. In my experienve many Jews you talk to when asked about God will not describe God as he is in the torah at all, they often will describe something that in christianity borders on idolatry, but they still go to synagogues and dont eat shellfish and pork and partake in jewish holidays. Ive seen muslims who drink and smoke plenty but pray 5 times a day even in the middle of the street if thats when it happens to be time. I met one once who lectured me on how I shouldnt get the beef pizza from this halal pizza place cause he knows people who work there and only the chicken seems genuinely halal, later that day we did coke together. People do not behave according to rules in a book, but that doesnt negate the religion and god being real to them. Im sure if anyone bothers to read this il get replies talking about how the type of person im mentioning isnt a true believer. I think youl find what they call the true believer is always at any given moment fading while the one ingrained in the modern society and thought of their homeland is a far more accurate representation of the religion. And how they believe in god and worship and relate is far more indicative of what God is at its core then purely the single book that started it all. Fundamentalists types will always and have alwyas since the inception pointed to the state of today as evidence of the decline of humanity and impending doom, they will continue to forever, always lagging a bit behind and taking up the most volume.

>>64591 I like the way you think, Lain. Kabballah is older than you suggest though (depending on who you ask) and there were even attempts to find a Christian version during Elizabethan times but some critics thought this was forced and not legitimate.

>>64592 My dates could definitely be wrong to start with and I also gave the most conservative estimate ive heard based on like the most skeptical interpretation. I think regardless of its historical age I do know its a very influential mode of thought and the series of texts its produced are basically ingrained into modern jewish thought, even if someone doesnt "study kaballah" they seem to be aware of and use concepts from it. also side note apologies for all the grammar errors in that post, reading through it again I can see its really confusing at parts. I just got excited cause this topic of being a "real believer" interests me.

>>64577 >Aristotle's eudaimonistic At that point you could might as well believe in God. Hume is correct. You can't arrive at morals (or many other concepts) through empiricism alone. Believing in natural law requires a "leap of faith". Catholics believe in eudaimonia and natural law, and justify it through the christian God (Orthodoxy is harder for me to understand).

>>64656 Not sure what "empiricism alone" has to do with anything, knowledge begins in the senses, it doesn't end there. >Hume is correct. If I tell you that Bob is a farmer, and you know what a farmer is, you therefore also know what a farmer ought to do in order to be a proper farmer, and therefore what Bob ought to do. There, gap bridged. >Catholics believe in eudaimonia and natural law, and justify it through the christian God Thomists certainly don't, they make it a point of emphasis that natural law can simply be deduced by reason and observation, even in absence of any knowledge of divine providence and will.

>>64554 Over time I've came to the conclusion that whatever they say, most people don't fundamentally care about truth the way I and other Internet spergs do. They just believe whatever makes them feel warm and fuzzy inside, or helps them fit into their group, and they find a way to rationalize it later. If that involves believing in two thousand years old fairy tales with zero evidence, so be it. The behavior of the typical believer makes sense if you reject the assumption that beliefs should be selected for truth rather than to be socially useful. They get the benefits of religion, like alleviating the fear of death and feeling part of a community which shares their values, while behaving almost exactly like an atheist in day-to-day life. It's a great solution if you think about it, or rather if you don't think about it. If you don't believe that, I refer you to the literature on the psychological effects of being religious. You'll find that religion doesn't make people more moral: some studies go in favor of the religious, others go in favor of atheists, and overall it's a wash. But people who are part of a religious community quite consistently score higher than atheists on happiness.

>>64659 >Farmer How can you tell who a good human is? Someone who acts good? What is good? Are you gonna try defining good out of the effectiveness of survival and procreation? By that metric Dschinghis Khan is the role model. >Catholics I don't know too much about Catholicism (I should'nt have brought it up) but even when discovering objective "natural law" it begs the question why you should follow it instead of oppose it. God being the creator and source of everything considered good is a decent argument (and I guess that plays into the catholic position), but you are also given the opportunity (by God) to oppose him through your free will.

>>64575 Deconstruct and show us it is

>>64576 >justify morality in abscence of god Oh, that one is simple! Our goal is to make this world convenient and joyful to live in for as many people as possible and abolish sufferinf. I think its pretty straightforward that this has been the case throughout our entire history. Everything morality-related basically stems from this principle. Trying to advantage as many people as possible simultaneously without disadvantaging the other ones. >how do you prove logic itself works You can't. Even logic itself admits it. You see, there's always a certain point past which you can't break things down any further, you ALWAYS take something as axiom (unconditionally true) and then assume everything else is based on it. To illustrate: you can doubt statements like "vaccines cause autism" and decinatruct them, but you can't doubt simple one's like "the sky is blue" or "grass is green" because it would be just absurd. You see that in every explanation everything eventually boils down to proving more complicated notions with more simple and intuitive one until it gets down to pure intuition and human basic perceptions (but in any complicated enough discourse things usually don't go this far because explaining to someone why grass is gree is technically possible but theres no need to do it)

>>64820 The good is that which we seek for its own sake, not as a means to any other good. That's what Aristotle called eudaimonia, or "flourishing". If we rationally look at human beings, how they are constituted and how they live their lives, it's not hard to see when they flourish and when they suffer and decay. He summed flourishing for human beings up as essentially the pursuit of excellence, guided by reason, in all our faculties and natural predispositions (in short, virtue). In that context it doesn't make sense to ask why you "ought" to do good, because all human beings seek what they think is good anyway - nobody ever set out to do what is bad and harmful to them, people fall into vice out of ignorance of what is actually good. Virtue ethics isn't about sets of rules that do the thinking for you, but about realizing that a rational mind *can* distinguish good from bad and that goodness is a skill to be learned and practiced. Understanding what is right for humans to do is the same as understanding what humans are, is --> ought. That may not be satisfying or situationally specific enough for the kinds of people who worry about stuff like trolley problems, but in my experience works very well in actually living life, certainly more so than theories about util calculations, veils of ignorance and what not.

>>64554 >Why do people still believe in God? There are many religions. But honestly, you don't need one because you can be spiritual without organized religion. I highly recommend that you start reading about various religions and see which one resonates with you. You can find a lot of texts at https://www.sacred-texts.com and https://vedabase.io/en/library/bg/ >bible Some people think that the God of the old testament is different from the god of new testament. Gnostics believed that the lesser creator god (aka demiumrge aka Yaldabaoth) is either evil or just jealous and arrogant (depending on the school). >http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/nhl.html >http://www.gnosis.org/valentinus.htm