Is reality disturbing?

by sleepy 15 Replies latest jw friends

sleepy

Has the change from witness style religous thinking to an atheistic viewpoint disturbed your brain?
(This post is NOT about whether religion is responsable for morality , but about the change in the viewpoint and outlook from a JW to an athiest. Morality is used as an example.Neither do I feel that you carnt be moral without a belief in a god.)
I bring this up because sometimes I feel a little strange (only sometimes)when thinking about what I am.
What it is is this.My perception of reality was formed according to my witness upbringing.
I believed there was a God who made us.
I belived he was the source of ultimate knowledge and understanding.
Humans were made in his image , as little copies of him.They were capable of following him and acting wisely and lovingly.
The human brain was something to be trusted and any bad tendancies we had were the result of imperfection inherited from Adam.
But when we throw that all away , what are we?
Just machines?There is nothing to stop me doing bad things to others, or no reason that I have to love.
If I do love or do good its only the chemicals in my brain and body that make me do it.I have in fact no real control.
There is no fighting against imperfection.
My body will do what my mind tells it , and my mind will do what the chemicals instruct.
I am no longer the being I once thought I was.
(This is now looking at whether mistakingly believeing in a god has actually shaped the world , maybe for the better)
Is the belief in a God or higher being just some random fantasy that popped into someones head one day long ago.Did it make him feel good?
Did that good feeling make him tell others?
Is peoples belief in God a help in keeping people sane?
Not that we would all of a sudden engage in random killing sprees etc when we no longer believe, but hasn't the belief in a creator shaped the world we live in?
Can we realy take Christany for example,out of history and expect the same outcome?
Doesn't what people believe shape what they do, can we realy deny that religious beliefs are often a source of good morals and kindness to one another, which have turned this into a better world?
Isnt it only when someone uses religion for his own ends and tells other he is an aurthority from God , that bad occurs?
So without God we just are.
Thats fair enought, I can accept that.
But the change from perception from one reality to another has effects.
My whole way of seeing the world has had to change, authority I took for granted is no longer there.There is no right or wrong.
There is no model type of human that we can call perfect.
We are slave to our brains and its workings.
What it wants to do it will do.
Free will is questionable .
All this sometimes, when I think too hard about it,make me feel strange.
So are we just like machines or is there still more to learn about us and the way we work to lead to different conclusions?
Elsewhere

There is nothing to stop me doing bad things to others, or no reason that I have to love
I amazes me how many people say this when they are confronted with the idea of no god.
I am an atheist. Why don't I go around hurting people? Because I'm not inclined to. It goes against the way I think and behave.
I'm not sure why, but when some people are confronted with the idea of no god, they will instantly start thinking about doing all sorts of horrible things. I don't understand that.
You are alive. You are here. You have great potential. Why must you waste that with compulsive thoughts about death and destruction? Come to terms with your mortality. Come to terms with the fact that YOU are responsible for your actions, YOU are responsible for NOT causing harm, and YOU are responsible for helping to improve this life as much as possible.
You can no longer point to an invisible deity and say the responsibility falls on it for telling you what is right and what is wrong. The responsibility is now yours.
As a human you are genetically programmed to want to do good, to help. Listen to it.
"As every one knows, there are mistakes in the Bible" - The Watchtower, April 15, 1928, p. 126
Believe in yourself, not mythology.
<x ><
Elsewhere

I also noticed that you seem to be too wrapped up in the human condition. Try expanding your thoughts more. Think about all of the other life forms we know about.
Think about the birds, the snails, the fish, the bacteria and viruses. Why do they do the things they do? Why does a snail slime its way around under rocks and branches eating what it likes? Why does it seek out a mate and reproduce? Why? Because it has little “tickle buttons” in its brain. When it slimes around eating what it likes, the tickle buttons make it happy and feel good. When a bird pecks at it, the tickle buttons make it sad and want to hid.
Why does a virus invade an organism? Because its chemistry makes it inclined to do so.
Why does a human hug and love its child? Because its chemistry makes it inclined to do so.
Life is simply a very complex runaway chemical reaction. Nothing more. You are part of that chemical reaction. Because you have the little “tickle buttons” in your brain, you too can experience joy or pain. You also have little tickle buttons that make you happy when you do well, when you help someone, when you make someone else happy. You also have tickle buttons that make you angry and strike out, but later regret. You have a choice. What path will you follow?
Don’t moan and groan about life ultimately being meaningless and futile. I’ve never seen a snail do that. You are alive. Enjoy it. Be happy. Tickle your happy buttons and do others a favor by tickling their happy buttons too, unless of course you are fundamentally inclined to cause harm. In that case, people acting in self-defense will quickly eliminate the threat - you.
"As every one knows, there are mistakes in the Bible" - The Watchtower, April 15, 1928, p. 126
Believe in yourself, not mythology.
<x ><
gsx1138

Watch out Elsewhere, your coming dangerously close to being pagan/wiccan ;) I do think that people find god/satan as a convenient scapegoat for whatever befalls them. I believe our lives are up to us. We have no one to blame for our bad descisions or anything bad that comes to us. You can choose to go out and hurt people or not love anything but the consequences of such actions will be entirely of your own making. If spending the rest of your life in a prison cell appeals to you then by all means kill away.
I was watching the 700 club one time (purely for comic relief). They said that the new Pagan movement and Atheism were on the rise because they were beliefs of convenience. I find this to be quite the opposite. As a wiccan I don't have anyone to fall back on for all my problems except me. I'm not atheist so I'll leave the matter of convenience debate up to Elsewhere. Sorry if that was rambling. I too get tired of the belief that without a set belief system we will all resort to primitive emotions.
Jewel

I've seen this before, too, but have to say that I agree with you Elsewhere.
Why does lack of an "authority" require amorality? I have always felt that the ability to develop a system of morals and ethics in the absence of a "higher power" forcing one on me shows that I am NOT an animal or a machine, but a thinking and reasoning creature.
Why don't I do evil? Not because I fear punishment but because I am not evil!
Why do I love? Not because I have been commanded to love but because I feel love and compassion for my fellows.
To not do bad things because you're afraid of punishment is to be a child. To not do bad things simply because they are bad and you have chosen to be good is to reach a higher level of being.
To me this means that I DO have control. I am not dependent on some higher being to serve as a parent and tell me right from wrong. I have choice and since the choices are mine, they are much more telling about me as a person than simple obedience ever could be.
When we raise our children, we start out as their "higher authority". "Don't get in the road." "Don't touch the hot stove." But my goal as a parent is to show my children how to begin to think for themselves-to form their own values and exercise them as individuals independent of me. If I have to supervise my children, dictate right and wrong, tell them how to think, enforce good behavior when they become adults I will have failed.
Jewel
Edit-I'm not an atheist (though I tried!) I'm slowly becoming more pagan. One of the things that suddenly "fit" for me was the belief that I am responsible for my life, that I don't need a set of rules to be honorable but that my honor has to come from within...
teenyuck

I agree Elsewhere, gsx and Jewel. You summed it up very nicely.
The "responsibility" issue is one people do not want to seem to acknowledge.
DCs Ghost

thanks Elsewhere
i was thinking the same as i was reading the post,
Sleepy
how do you explain Atheists who live life without a belief in a higher being and still manage to be productive citizens of society while at the same time avoiding to give into the temptation of slaughtering their neighbors while they sleep?
by the sounds of your writing the borg has a hold on you still. . .
"we do not see the world as it is,
we see the world as we are. . ." Anais Nin
Will Power

Sleepy
There is a very good book you might like to read, only 200 pgs and written in layman's english. Can We Be Good Without God?..Robert Buckman
Behaviour, Belonging and the Need to Believe.
"Beliefs do not work because they are true, but [are] true because they work." William James
With this quote in mind, I can't help thinking what Dr. Phil might say to a JW "And how's that workin for ya?"
jacket cover:
Whatever religion we may follow, many of us act as we do because of a set of rules that direct our behaviour towards 'goodness". The 10 Commandments, the Koran, the golden rule and all religious codes of behaviour provide a framework for our actions. Fear of reprisal, or anticipation of rewards, motivates us to at least acknowledge, if not adhere to, those rules.
Dr. Buckman argues that religion began as the personificatin of the "because" - as a spirit or god or animus that held the key to the universal "whys" (why death, why does the sun rise, flowers each spring)...
This book suggests that you can. {be good without god]. Indeed it suggests that the world would be a better place if we all believe what we wish, but behave as if there is no deity to sort out humankind's problems...."
sleepy

Point missed chaps.
"Don’t moan and groan about life ultimately being meaningless and futile"Whos moaning?
You seem to have misdirected you replies at aurguments that were not made.Read it again.
It was about the nature of reality and how the switch from one type of thinking to another can be quite strange.
The morality issue was just an example of how our view of reality changes.
Of course athiests can do good things, my point with religion is that it has played a part in how the world has developed into a more moral place other the ages. And why a belief in God may have been benificial for some.
When you were or if you are religious , the thought of God watching you could make you do good even if you didn't want to.
What my seen moral today to the majority of people may seem barbaric in the future.
Morality is fluid if it is just a majority opinion.
There are no definate standards.
Animals eat eacn other , even their own children , is this wrong?
Its just all part of the natural world which we are part of.
I can choose to treat people as I will, and feel I am right, but there is no universal standardthat we must obey.
gsx1138

Your argument is flawed. A good study of cultural and historical relativism would help. I do not believe the world is "MORE" moral than before because you can only think in the context of what you know now. You assume the world is more moral now because you may/maynot agree with how the world was back in ancient times. I would say that in general religion has caused more problems than it has cured. Personally, I would have loved to live in ancient Greece with Plato and all of them.
What my seen moral today to the majority of people may seem barbaric in the future.
This is true, but does that mean that you're a babarian? While religion seeks to control our moral center it often breaks its own rules in doing so. I don't think we are more or less babaric than those is ancient times. While we can speculate on the future, I think that religion will still play a part in hoisting up these fake beliefs that all should adhere to. If anything, at this time, religion is stunting our growth as humans. I think our sense of "morality" would be shifting and changing regardless of religion.

Is reality disturbing?

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