The 2024 VT Belief/Non-belief Poll

[Mark Albrighton]

 

[Marka Ragnos]

33 minutes ago, Mr_Dogg said:

I don't understand how someone who appears so curious and open minded can still believe in a god.

It's pretty irrational, I know. I do try hard to respect other people's choices and their beliefs and non-beliefs, although lately in America, people have been discarding their own intellectual freedom so readily, it's frightening.

There are good people across the spectrum. Like I said above, the guy I talk to for psychological support is an atheist (and an ex-punk), and I learn a lot from him every week, and we get on well.

It's basically a choice for me, one rooted in what some philosophers might call teleology. It's always been associated for me with making a life-affirming decision as part of a process of living rather than feelings or empirical data about some mysterious transcendence. I don't know how else to explain it. It works for me because I practice a choice. Not trying to be obtuse. My beliefs seem to offend many religious people I've met. I think many them would, if given free reign, would have me burned.

[fruitvilla]

2 minutes ago, Marka Ragnos said:

rooted in what some philosophers might call teleology

Interesting. What is the purpose of thinking of yourself as a Catholic?

[Marka Ragnos]

39 minutes ago, fruitvilla said:

More or less agree, but I would not ' blame' it all on Paul.

While this is likely true for you, it is at the heart of Catholicism and much of the rest of Christianity. It is a side story in Islam, not core other than that everything is true in the Quran. You seem to say it is not even true, never mind a core story? 

While the Gospels can be taken as a parable of how to lead one's life, fair enough. But I am sure there are more up-to-date books that require less creative interpretation that can inspire us. This leads us to the properties of the God that you 'know' exists and I presume occasionaly pray to.

I myself don't put much store by the literality of the virgin birth, etc. It's not very well supported in textual evidence. I've never really thought much about the properties of God. I don't think I'm intelligent enough to make much headway in such a pursuit. And I'm too intellectually lazy.

[Marka Ragnos]

21 minutes ago, fruitvilla said:

Interesting. What is the purpose of thinking of yourself as a Catholic?

You have to understand, I was at church every Sunday as a kid without fail, did all the big milestone ritual events, etc. I was immersed. It means a lot to me. I imagine it's similar -- and I doubt this will surprise you -- to "Cultural Judaism," following the Levitical dietary edicts, etc., but not really trying to hit people over the head with dogma. There's an emotional connection to the habits etc. But it's not what I consider the important part of my choice to believe. Do I do confession? Sometimes, yes. Take communion? Yes, sometimes. But my own beliefs run a lot deeper than those rituals for me. They're more or less comforting routines of a shared community. My English dad is an atheist, as I said, but he never prevented us from being Catholic. I think he was happy to have Sunday mornings to himself after a hard work week. He'd make his bubble and squeak and listen to the BBC World Service.

Edited March 2 by Marka Ragnos

[fruitvilla]

9 minutes ago, Marka Ragnos said:

I myself don't put much store by the literality of the virgin birth, etc. It's not very well supported in textual evidence.

I get that. To me, it seems a logical position. Yet you have described yourself as a Catholic. I am not understanding something here. Do you see my disquiet?

12 minutes ago, Marka Ragnos said:

I've never really thought much about the properties of God.

Again this seems contradictory to me in some sense. You know something exists but you are not aware of its supposed properties.

15 minutes ago, Marka Ragnos said:

And I'm too intellectually lazy.

Being lazy is a strength.

[Marka Ragnos]

29 minutes ago, fruitvilla said:

Being lazy is a strength.

Now that's a belief I can really get behind. Yes, I think many intelligent people wouldn't have much patience with my cosmic outlook, and I don't blame them. I consider myself a bit backward in this area, to be honest, and I have plenty of doubts constantly. But I'm relatively content with the situation. I believe and don't believe. Not a choice the poll, I note.

Edited March 2 by Marka Ragnos

[Mr_Dogg]

7 hours ago, Marka Ragnos said:

You have to understand, I was at church every Sunday as a kid without fail, did all the big milestone ritual events, etc. I was immersed. It means a lot to me. I imagine it's similar -- and I doubt this will surprise you -- to "Cultural Judaism," following the Levitical dietary edicts, etc., but not really trying to hit people over the head with dogma. There's an emotional connection to the habits etc. But it's not what I consider the important part of my choice to believe. Do I do confession? Sometimes, yes. Take communion? Yes, sometimes. But my own beliefs run a lot deeper than those rituals for me. They're more or less comforting routines of a shared community. My English dad is an atheist, as I said, but he never prevented us from being Catholic. I think he was happy to have Sunday mornings to himself after a hard work week. He'd make his bubble and squeak and listen to the BBC World Service.

I was born and raised a catholic. Confession, communion, confirmation etc. I am culturally a catholic. But I don't believe in any of it since I was about 10. It's just stories.

I feel like you are conflicted, holding on to your community and upbringing. No offence intended with anything.

[chrisp65]

9 hours ago, Marka Ragnos said:

I myself don't put much store by the literality of the virgin birth, etc. It's not very well supported in textual evidence. I've never really thought much about the properties of God. I don't think I'm intelligent enough to make much headway in such a pursuit. And I'm too intellectually lazy.

 

It’s hard work explaining to someone that is militantly literal that you don’t have to believe every word is literal. They should maybe stick to tidying up computer code, or sodoku. The angry pushy atheist will point out how unlikely a virgin birth is. Well, yeah agreed, but the idea has to start somewhere. I mean, if they wanted to they could bother to notice there are multiple versions of creation in the same book and the gospels clearly didn’t get their story aligned and straight before committing them to written evidence, and someone somewhere decided what books went in the book and what translations to use. The literal think they’re clever looking at one of the trees and pointing out you can’t base a forest on that. When it’s absolutely evident plenty of people have based a forest on that.

 

 

 

 

[blandy]

32 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

if they wanted to they could bother to notice there are multiple versions of creation in the same book and the gospels clearly didn’t get their story aligned and straight before committing them to written evidence, and someone somewhere decided what books went in the book and what translations to use

There are quite a lot of religionists and branches of religions who appear to believe their inconsistent books are the actual word of [insert name of deity] and need to be adhered to rigorously. Not all, but plenty. There are ancient and ongoing feuds around particular versions of books and war and horrors have resulted and millions of people have been impacted and affected by the fierce battles over interpretation.

S’pose they couldn’t be bothered either?

[chrisp65]

23 minutes ago, blandy said:

There are quite a lot of religionists and branches of religions who appear to believe their inconsistent books are the actual word of [insert name of deity] and need to be adhered to rigorously. Not all, but plenty. There are ancient and ongoing feuds around particular versions of books and war and horrors have resulted and millions of people have been impacted and affected by the fierce battles over interpretation.

S’pose they couldn’t be bothered either?

Well, similar, but different. A different bunch that need to chill out a bit. But similar.

If they weren’t fighting over that, they’d be fighting over unfair tax on tea imports, or not being allowed to sell their opium products in China, or whether agrarian feudalism, Marxism, Leninism, Trotskyism, or capitalism is best for the people of Cambodia.

Some people feud, they’ll soon find a new reason if you remove an old one. Peace will not come because the last Quaker pamphlet was burned.

 

[mjmooney]

10 hours ago, Marka Ragnos said:

You have to understand, I was at church every Sunday as a kid without fail, did all the big milestone ritual events, etc. I was immersed. It means a lot to me. I imagine it's similar -- and I doubt this will surprise you -- to "Cultural Judaism," following the Levitical dietary edicts, etc., but not really trying to hit people over the head with dogma. There's an emotional connection to the habits etc. But it's not what I consider the important part of my choice to believe. Do I do confession? Sometimes, yes. Take communion? Yes, sometimes. But my own beliefs run a lot deeper than those rituals for me. They're more or less comforting routines of a shared community. 

This is a very common phenomenon. I personally know several people who identify 'culturally' as Catholics, Jews, Muslims or Hindus, often with little or no belief in the associated theology. The words 'familiar' and 'comforting' crop up a lot. My wife is an atheist, but as a girl used to attend her village church and sing in the choir. If we go into a church nowadays, she feels a certain amount of happy nostalgia - whereas I feel like an alien in there. 

[mjmooney]

11 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

If they weren’t fighting over that, they’d be fighting over unfair tax on tea imports, or not being allowed to sell their opium products in China, or whether agrarian feudalism, Marxism, Leninism, Trotskyism, or capitalism is best for the people of Cambodia.

Some people feud, they’ll soon find a new reason if you remove an old one. Peace will not come because the last Quaker pamphlet was burned.

Of course it won't. But at least it would remove one of the most - no, the most - spurious reasons for going to war. All those other things are arguably worth fighting over. Theology absolutely is not. 

Edited March 2 by mjmooney

[blandy]

20 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Some people feud, they’ll soon find a new reason if you remove an old one

You’re right…but some of these religious schisms kind of are or were the root of feuds, based not around water or riches or food or land, but around different and fervent views around which bits of god books are the true ones. It’s another reason to have a killing spree, on top of all the ones you alluded to

[chrisp65]

1 minute ago, mjmooney said:

Of course it won't. But at least it would remove one of the most - no, the most - spurious reasons for going to war. All those other things are arguably worth fighting over. Theology absolutely is not. 

Religion not worth fighting over, shiny metal, Maoism, opium sales, arguably worth fighting over.

One day we can console ourselves that the last methodist is dead, and now we fight over the arguably more worthy cause of crips and bloods.

I struggle with that ranking system. It’s taking an attempt to argue for the rational to a weird extreme.

 

 

 

[blandy]

Just now, chrisp65 said:

I struggle with that ranking system. It’s taking an attempt to argue for the rational to a weird extreme.

 

It’s not extreme. In all the other ones, the winner can point to “I got me some opium sales” or whatever the tangible thing is - land, water, cattle, spices, oil…

what do Shia or Sunni “win”? For example?

[chrisp65]

3 minutes ago, blandy said:

You’re right…but some of these religious schisms kind of are or were the root of feuds, based not around water or riches or food or land, but around different and fervent views around which bits of god books are the true ones. It’s another reason to have a killing spree, on top of all the ones you alluded to

 

I’m not arguing that it isn’t, I’m arguing it’s another reason, no more or less spurious than the others. I’m not attempting a ranking system for good reasons for genocide. 

[chrisp65]

Just now, blandy said:

It’s not extreme. In all the other ones, the winner can point to “I got me some opium sales” or whatever the tangible thing is - land, water, cattle, spices, oil…

what do Shia or Sunni “win”? For example?

Really?

Wow.

You stick with your ranking the legitimacy of it all, if it works for you. 

I’m not that sophisticated, I’m just seeing bad people craving more power and personal gain.

 

[blandy]

4 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Really?

Wow.

You stick with your ranking the legitimacy of it all, if it works for you. 

I’m not that sophisticated, I’m just seeing bad people craving more power and personal gain.

 

None of it is legitimate. I can get my head round why a hungry person takes the food of another. I can understand why a greedy person takes the money of another. Doesn’t mean I approve or legitimise it. I can’t understand why a [x religion] person takes against a [y religion] person over some words in a compiled inaccurate book of stories from thousands of years ago. I have no issue with people believing or worshipping whoever they want or worshipping no one. S’all cool, but folk fighting over their sky fairy is another matter.

[Villan_of_oz]

What better way for small groups of people to control entire masses than to tell them that if they don't follow their rules, they won't be allowed into a paradise after death. 

What better way to keep people oppressed than to tell them that if they behave then they will get to exist even after their body is dead...

What better way to wage wars and to kill more people than any evil tyrant ever did, than to do it in the name of an almighty power.

It's been working for over thousands of years now, you actually have to kind of respect what they have managed to achieve....

 

Edited March 2 by Villan_of_oz