http://forum.philboxing.com/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=110093
YAKMAN wrote:We recognize the terrible and vengeful God that’s why we do not want to antagonize him.gejable wrote:Let me add to this, bro, just in case some may think that’s the only reason why we believe. There are actually four, the next three, I suppose are deeper reasons why:1. holy fear – which is quite different than fear of His wrath as you mentioned
2. reverence of His majesty
3. submission to His authority
4. dread of His wrath – this is what you mentioned above.rickym wrote:
i don’t see anything which says that religion is rational and that’s why you believe. then why do people here even bother debating about whether god exists. you believe because you are simply afraid that’s it. in law that would be an open and shut case.to say that you believe because of rationality would make you guilty of the “psychological defense mechanism” called “denial”. and in some cases you would even be thought to be a liar, at the very least, rationally inconsistent.
is this typical of a lot of christians, or is it only the christians in this forum? and is this an official thing or not?
so would you lie and say that your belief is due to rationality, or is it because you were under denial in the first place?
but let me say that i commend you in your honesty, knowing you are in denial is one of the first steps towards healing.
gejable you said:
“We recognize the terrible and vengeful God that’s why we do not want to antagonize him. ”so you admit that god is not moral?
The quotation above is a discussion in an internet forum a few days ago. Theists have long been debating with atheists in two forums I go to that there is proof that God exists. Now I get to read this. Sometimes you begin to wonder whether the theists I have been debating with actually believe that God exists or just want to parrot that phrase for fear of eternal damnation.
As for the ‘psychological defense mechanism’ I mentioned. You could take a look at another blog article that I had made earlier.
Oh, and the second to the last and third to the last lines were my mistakes, it was YAKMAN that said that and not gejable.
Nothing good can come from fear.
It is not possible to make intelligent, informed, and moral choices based on fear. Fear is a base instinct focused entirely on self-preservation; spirituality doesn’t come into it. A religion based on fear does nothing but instill more fear, thereby creating fearful followers. Fear overrides intellect, feeds resentment, undermines hope. Fear is the opposite of love.
I base my religious faith on a response to my first independent prayer, “God, are you there?” Being a backslidden Presbyterian, fear had nothing at all to do with it (that’s a Presby joke).
RevRomansky
http://revromansky.wordpress.com
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Hi Rickym, this is tony from Pacland.
I have no problem with religious belief due to fear. Whatever we believe in, whether we believe at all, we live everyday in fear. We do everything in fear. We do good due to fear. Even if you say that your intentions are noble and you do it out of the goodness of your heart, there is still fear. Fear that you would be labeled as a selfish bitch, fear that your conscience will bother you if you don’t good, fear that you won’t be seen as a good christian. We don’t womanize because we fear that our wives and families will get hurt. We all rationalize our actions and deny that they are not done out of fear. That’s how I read gejable’s post. He doesn’t want to put his god into a bad light so that we would not picture his god as vengeful. He doesn’t want a scary god that’s why he invented the term “holy fear”. We break the law, we get punished. That’s the law. That’s why we fear. We fear jumping off a cliff because we fear death. Nature will administer punishment without favor. That is the way of my God. That is the way of the Universe. Everything in the universe has balance, an accounting, justice. Fear is normal.
“holy fear” ??
Holy crap, what a load of holy hooey!
“Fear is normal.”
Normal. How I hate that word. Normal is a pretty poor place to stay in for the rest of your existence. It is the cousin of the word “mediocre.”
If we do everything out of fear, if it is our only rationale for doing good or evil, if it is the only thing that keeps the human race from slipping into oblivion, then we are not worthy of survival.
So what’s the point here? The writer also wrote “I don’t know what Psychology officially thinks about religious faith. I don’t know if they even consider my analogies above to be reasonable or if they are just skirting the issue and just being religiously tolerant.”
In other words the author of criticalthinker doesn’t even know how doctors in psychology or authorities in psychology officially thinks about religious faith. But he did state psychological facts like “defense mechanism” and the linguistic definitions of the word “faith” . You can’t combine this two and come up with a sound argument. Knowing for a fact that it is a “No man, that’s not how psychology thinks about that” he says, “I don’t know if they even consider my analogies above to be reasonable or if they are just skirting the issue and just being religiously tolerant”. Skirting the issue? Religiously tolerant? At least the author should’ve showed some spine by presenting evidence on these claims of his. Is he a doctor in psychology? A doctor in literature perhaps? Sounds like sour graping and an admission of lack of academic honesty to me.
But hey, your opinion is free to imagine.
^ Ey cedric, nice to see you here. So how do doctors in psychology view religious faith?