[split] Are Questions About God Important?

[The Grand Nudger]

Let's try a thought experiment.  If you went to your church or temple or fellowship or whatever, and told the folks there that...if god weren't real... there'd be no reason you could think of not to eat their kids....what do you think would happen?

Of course, I could think of a lot of reasons that people wouldn’t eat their kids. They’ve been avoiding that for millennium. Similar for stabbing little johnny, whether we eat him afterwards or not. But that’s not the point that it seems like, as you describe it, theists are trying to make. And their point is not my point, when I referred to Holland’s book. And that isn’t even the main point of the thread!
(NB: I love these kinds of discussions, but they do bring up many, many branches. I will try to prune the variants. Avoiding the many branches just from this, I will make one post on this topic and then try to go back to somewhere on the original thread. I do not have much of a life, but the natural lack of focus in these threads is more than even a simple caveman wants to handle)

Holland’s point is that a rigorous review of Roman and Greek cultures makes it clear that most people would find their mores to be alien. This is because western culture (as well as many cultures they indoctrinated) was steeped in Christianity for, let’s say, 1300 years. Even 50 years ago, most people would gladly, fully, identify as Christian of some sort. You can’t come out of something like that without being heavily influenced by it. To use an analogy you may enjoy, If you plant crops on the site of a nuclear explosion, the corn’s going to be radioactive.

Now, back to the main thread (probably tomorrow).

Pax et bonum

I did enjoy that one, and that's exactly what I think happened with christianity in the west.  What explains it's current death spiral.  Christian mores being both radioactive, and as alien to people, generally speaking..under 50...as greek ones are to you and I both.  It's almost like something has been happening these passed few decades to make people who might have happily identified as christian once put as much distance between themselves and the brand as possible.  Even the remaining "christians" are more pagan than christian, according to their own religious authorities and...amazingly, even their own self stated beliefs.

I have obviously been heavily influenced by christianity, but not because my beliefs about meaning or what matters or what is important or the nature of moral statements comes from christianity. I've been strongly influenced by christianity to become an anti-theist. Christianity rejects meaning. Rejects what matters. It utterly fails at moral instruction. To a great extent, this is a quality it shares with every other belief in personal and intervening gods.