Yes, the transcendent or numinous (great word, Mriana!) feeling does transcend (hee, hee) religious belief. That’s enormously interesting, when you realize that those feelings of peace or light or beauty can be experienced even without god.

thanks

But I think what some people miss when they leave religion isn’t the occasional transcendent moment, it’s the certainty of faith. They pine for that comfort of knowing FOR SURE that there’s a benevolent purpose to the universe, or there’s a Loving Father in heaven working all things out for good in their lives, or there’s going to be a reunion with loved ones in the afterlife and death is not the end. That’s the “god gene” I was referring to: They want a spiritual connection with something bigger that has things all figured out, and minus that they feel a loss or bleakness that is tough to live with.

You know, I don’t think I ever had that feeling. Probably because religion wasn’t a constant in my formative years. It was just enough to cause me to “fear” it, not care much for it. Not even the 3 or 4 years my mother took me to the Lutheren church until I left home, seem to have much of an affect. Yet I did spend a few of my adult years in the Episcopal church, but even when I left that, the only thing I missed was the social contact. Then again, I’ve never had the traditional God concept either.

But, you know I got that same feeling reading a science book not too long ago. That transcendent feeling of the beauty of the universe. I’ve also gotten other, more personal feelings that I would’ve ascribed to god – a sort of peaceful, “everything’s gonna work out despite the crap all around you” feeling.

Yes, the transcendent or numinous (great word, Mriana!) feeling does transcend (hee, hee) religious belief. That’s enormously interesting, when you realize that those feelings of peace or light or beauty can be experienced even without god.

But I think what some people miss when they leave religion isn’t the occasional transcendent moment, it’s the certainty of faith. They pine for that comfort of knowing FOR SURE that there’s a benevolent purpose to the universe, or there’s a Loving Father in heaven working all things out for good in their lives, or there’s going to be a reunion with loved ones in the afterlife and death is not the end. That’s the “god gene” I was referring to: They want a spiritual connection with something bigger that has things all figured out, and minus that they feel a loss or bleakness that is tough to live with.

I felt that too, for a few months, but it honestly didn’t bother me as much as it seems to bother some people. I conclude that’s because I highly, highly value honesty and objectivity – even bald, bleak honesty – over comfort. If life’s tough and death is the end, I’d rather acknowledge that and come to terms with it and do my best to make the world a better place while I’m here, than to adopt a happy fantasy that’s comforting.

But that’s just me. I totally understand how that’s not how a lot of people want to live.

Let me explain it fully for anyone to understand.

Dan, how is quoting Bible quotes explaining anything?. That really does not explain anything, except shows us that you can quote verses from the Bible. God doesn’t punish anyone. You have man’s law and you have natural consequences. Now if you rob a bank, well you’re going to go to prison. To get Dr. Spock on you- you climb a tree, fall out it, and break your leg, you are probably not going to climb a tree again. Sleep around, you could get any number of STDs, including AIDS. This not God’s punishment, it’s a natural consequence. Plain and simple. God has nothing to do with it.

A mother tells a child not to touch that hot Iron and the kid listens and ‘believes’ his Mom. As soon as the Mom leaves the room the child touches the Hot Iron and gets burned. He just went from a ‘belief’ the Iron was hot to an ‘experience’ that the Iron ‘is’ hot with 100% assurance. No one can come and tell him otherwise because his experience tells him different. He is 100% certain the Iron is hot and he has the burn to prove it.

THAT is a a natural consequence. As my mother was fond of saying when I was little, “I don’t have to punish you. You already received consequences because you did not listen.” The burn was a consequence of not listening to parental authority, who has experience. Nothing more. Again, there is no god that had anything to with it.

Now, if you still need a parental figure to tell you not to touch a hot stove, then I guess a supernatural anthropomorphic figure is your choice, but I can tell you, if you make a golden calf, nothing is going to happen. It’s just a golden calf. To be truly grown up is to let go of the security blanket, stand on your own two feet, and take responsibility for your own life. Even Bishop Spong would tell you that. Try reading some of his books for starters, then maybe move on to “The God Delusion” and alike.

Richard: “You are not asking yourself why the Law supposedly exists in the first place. It is not, in Christian teaching, about arbitrary “accountability,” for its own sake. It is about repairing a disrupted relationship.”

I believe you are missing the point of the Law, friend. Let me explain it fully for anyone to understand.

Romans 3:19 “Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.”

1 Timothy 1:9-10 “Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine;”

Romans 7:7-8 “What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead.”

The law was made as a mirror for us. In the same way, we don’t realize what a bad state we are in until we look into the “mirror” of the Ten Commandments.

Richard: “You are not “glorifying God” because you love him, you are glorifying God because you’re scared sh**less not to.”

Again yes, that is Biblical while you are a proverbial ‘child’ learning about God.

Proverbs 9:10 “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.”

Hebrews 10:31 “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

The Bible describes hell as unquenchable fire,(Mark 9:43) outer darkness,(Matthew 22:13) a furnace of fire and a place where people wail and gnash their teeth,(Matthew 13:42) and a lake of fire.(Revelation 20:15) where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched,(Mark 9:48) and where people are in agony in flames.(Luke 16:24) Perhaps the most terrifying passage in the Bible describing hell says that men will “drink the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of His anger; and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever; and they have no rest day and night.” (Revelation 14:10-11)

That should make all of us have fear, like a child fears a spanking if they run out in the street after the parent told them not to.(milk) When the child grows up then the child understand the perfect love and doesn’t fear the spankings but honors and respects the parent.(meat).

1 Corinthians 3:2 “I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.”

Hebrews 5:11-13 Of whom we have many things to say, and hard to be uttered, seeing ye are dull of hearing. For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe.

A proud unrepentant man, such as yourself Richard, needs the milk of hell and damnation and lake of fire talk. After you grow up understanding the Lord and you are ‘born again’ you don’t fear the punishment anymore because it isn’t for you, it’s for the sinners. Do you fear going to jail for a DUI when you sit at home drinking a glass of water? Of course not that is absurd, but if you were drinking scotch all day and then get behind the wheel then yes be afraid be very afraid. It is wise to face you heavenly Father in fear when you have broken His law. When you Repent ( turn away from sin, turn away from breaking His laws) and Trust and Faith in Jesus that he washed you clean and took your punishment for you, then you are forgiven and no longer need be afraid of Him but you respect and love Him for teaching you and you chose not to live to break His laws out of honor and respect, not fear anymore.

Richard: “Indeed, what you picture is more akin to the “fire insurance” many Christians, including myself when I was one, were taught to be wary of.”

That is perfectly fine at first but you, as most, never grow up and STOP sinning like they should. They want to keep fornicating or lying or whatever their sin is at the time and start to resent the “ol man” and thinks he is too hard because He will not let them do as they want. They are spoiled brats. It is Biblical and as you said “teaching you what an pathetic self-absorbed pervert (brat) you are, it offers you undeserved rescue.(out of love)”

No where near what you are alluding to as Stockholm syndrome. Now if you get to heaven after being saved and God STILL PUNISHES you and tortures you by burning you in a lake of fire then I suppose that would happen. Hear on earth though, God is justified to use such tactics to ensure your salvation. Remember Job in the Bible? If he is being tortured in heaven that would be an unjust god but I assure you that just isn’t the case.

Richard: “Honesty about motivations is the heart of self understanding, and of freedom.” I am motivated by the gratefulness that Jesus saved me from my deserved fate. I also bleed for the lost such as yourself, you are a like a little child playing in a burning house and I just want to grab you from that fire. I love you Richard and others. I love you enough to confront you. It takes far more love to confront to just ignore the situation. Perfect love is a constant confronter. Please, I am begging you Richard to just understand what I have said. Use pascal’s wager if you must, get the milk at first so you can enjoy the meat like me, at this point of my 39 years on this earth I am enjoying God’s love and it is difficult to explain it to the lost. God is not some tyrant, he loves you enough to save you if you let Him. Don’t be like that child that keeps wanting to run out in the middle of the street (sin), It is time to grow up and enjoy the gifts that the Lord wants to give you.(meat)

The difference is experience with God (me) vs non experience (you and atheists).

A mother tells a child not to touch that hot Iron and the kid listens and ‘believes’ his Mom. As soon as the Mom leaves the room the child touches the Hot Iron and gets burned. He just went from a ‘belief’ the Iron was hot to an ‘experience’ that the Iron ‘is’ hot with 100% assurance. No one can come and tell him otherwise because his experience tells him different. He is 100% certain the Iron is hot and he has the burn to prove it.

Well I have felt the Hot Iron of God’s hand on me and cannot be persuaded otherwise because I have an experience that removed ALL doubt, I am 100% certain there is a God and he loves you very much.

For Him +†+,
Dan

Only problem is, it wouldn’t work because I think the experiences are both personality-dependent and quite possibly random as far as our ability to predict.

How often did you go to church, when you went, and feel that same feeling? I’m willing to bet it wasn’t every time you went to church and I’m willing to bet you could not predict it either. It wasn’t with me. There were times I longed for the feeling and didn’t have it in church or even within nature. It didn’t come and then all of a sudden it was almost everywhere I went- church, the nature trail, when one of my sons hugged me, a child’s smile… Then it disappeared for a while, but I maybe walking a nature trail this Fall or listening to some Native American music while going for a walk and it may hit me once again. So, even for those of us who don’t attend church anymore, the variability of it probably isn’t much different. Not to me at least.

Is THAT what you meant? Oh, I totally get that. I’ve gotten that feeling, too. I used to attribute it to god when I was a believer. Usually while skiing and one time while mountain biking (slowly up a steEP mountain). Hmmm, endorphins at work? Nah, must be divine inspiration!

But, you know I got that same feeling reading a science book not too long ago. That transcendent feeling of the beauty of the universe. I’ve also gotten other, more personal feelings that I would’ve ascribed to god – a sort of peaceful, “everything’s gonna work out despite the crap all around you” feeling.
The funny thing is, even as an atheist, I get feelings of “peace that surpass all understanding” when I’m really stressed out sometimes.
If I were to take note of the specific circumstances surrounding those moments and record them as sure paths for others, then that could rightly be called a religion. Only problem is, it wouldn’t work because I think the experiences are both personality-dependent and quite possibly random as far as our ability to predict.

Thing is, it’s not evidence of god, but rather that which comes natural to the human. All these religious texts are just stories written by humans and the ideologies that go with them are made by humans. All the El, Ra, God are Oo’s and ah’s anthropomorphasized. So many people can look at the Grand Canyon and say, “Oh God!” in a majesty awe inspiring manner and all it really is is an expression of awe when you get down to the psychology of it. I’ve seen it so many times, but it’s the religious, esp the extremely religious that turn around afterwards and say, “See there? That’s proof of God.” No, it is a variation what is numinous, but not proof of any deity. It’s a shame few can separate the two.

It makes sense to me. I’ve had “that feeling” when I was a christian and attributed it to god. As an atheist I continue to get “that feeling” watching the sunet or spending time with my wife and daughter. I believe the feeling is within, but people raised with religion think it is evidence of god in their lives.

When I was outside playing or playing with my pets I quite often felt transcendence, as though I was one with nature. I’ve had that same experience a few times during an Episcopal Church service. It was the music, the candles, basically the stimulating surroundings. It is set up to do that.

Given those experiences, I truly think we don’t need religion to help our children develop that part of their brains. Nature alone could very well take the place of that. Of course one may develop “Einstein’s God” with this idea, but it’s not a personal god or the traditional god concept. Even so, I think this would be a more healthy state and relationship with the world than the dogmatics and alike that religion imposes.

Not sure if any of that made sense to anyone, but it is a theory and a very reasonable theory if you think about Einstein, Sagan, even Dawkins or Spong.

In the end, I found that I just didn’t miss religion. I seem to be able to live just fine – better in fact – without it. Maybe I don’t have the god gene or something, because I had very little of the longing to return to faith that some ex-fundies express.

I must not have that gene, either. I don’t miss it. It’s startling how I could just drop such an important facet of my former life.
I know what you mean about “Cherry-Picking” scriptures. Some can pull it off, but the fundie mind (and the atheist mind) just can’t accept that “compromise.”

I read that Bhuddist texts can run into many massive volumes. I asked someone who claimed to be Buhddist if there’s a particular holy book or set of writings to focus on, she didn’t know of anything (I guess “nominal” isn’t just for Xians).
But, really, other than my own coping method – writing – I don’t think I need much else, either. (btw, I typically spell Buddhist in EVERY possible permutation before getting it right)