The real religion?

[SteveII]

All you are doing is claiming that they are different people.  If they really are different people then there should be evidence that they have changed.  But you don't have that evidence.  So you just keep repeating the claim.  Repeating the claim doesn't make it true.

Moreover, this is only evidence that different people respond to the same conditioning in similar ways.  It isn't evidence that the underlying cause lies outside themselves.  Have you heard of the 'god center' in the brain?  It appears that we are pre-wired to have religious experiences.  If that is so, then all those experiences are evidence for is that pre-wiring, not of the religious experience itself.  How do you know these 'billion' people aren't simply experiencing the same fundamental neural events having nothing to do with an actual religious experience.  I've heard Buddhists claim that their experience of meditation has changed their lives as well.  Same experience, different interpretation.  You're holding up the feelings and claiming that they are evidence of a particular interpretation.  They're not.  They're just evidence of common feelings.  Despite your claims that Christianity is unique, these same feelings pop up in all sorts of different religions.  So what we have are nothing but evidence of the feelings, which isn't unique to Christianity.

Why isn't the 'god center' in the brain further justification for the position that belief in God is properly basic? In regards to the other religions, I agree that feelings can be affected by all sorts of things--including religion--including Christianity. That does not mean that the stronger claim of a Christian to be changed by a relationship with God is false. 

Do you believe that the mind is contingent on but separate from the brain?

[Jesster]

Your lack of response weakens your further posts to others. The NT has far too much cruelty and immorality to justify any benefit cherry pickers gain from other verses. Christians, like yourself, love to ignore those parts though.

---

"Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but with a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man's foes will be those of his own household. He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy." (Matthew 10:34-37)

"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple." (Luke 14:26)

"Wives, be submissive to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands." (Ephesians 5:21-24)

"...the women should keep silence in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as even the law says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church." (1 Corinthians 14:34-35)

"Slaves, be obedient to those who are your earthly masters, with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as to Christ ..." (Ephesians 6:5)

"Let all who are under the yoke of slavery regard their masters as worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and the teaching may not be defamed." (1 Timothy 6)

Can I get an amen?

[downbeatplumb]

Why isn't the 'god center' in the brain further justification for the position that belief in God is properly basic? In regards to the other religions, I agree that feelings can be affected by all sorts of things--including religion--including Christianity. That does not mean that the stronger claim of a Christian to be changed by a relationship with God is false. 

Do you believe that the mind is contingent on but separate from the brain?

I do not believe in a god nor have I ever felt any compulsion that way.
Am I in some way brain damaged in your opinion because I lack that part of the brain?

[Minimalist]

One specific example I can think of is disenfranchised criminals who "find Jesus," start to adopt new attitudes and behaviors, and join a community of overall pretty decent human beings who can help support them in getting work, avoiding bad social influences, etc.

So you are suggesting that no one ever, across the length and breath of history, ever got his ass thrown in jail, didn't like it, and adopted a lifestyle more consistent with the society he lived in so he wouldn't go back without fucking "jesus?"  Really?  That is the kind of bullshit I'd expect to hear from the fucking pope.

Jesus freaks claim credit for the sun rising or, as Robert Green Ingersoll put it...

"It may be that ministers really think that their prayers do good and it may be that frogs imagine that their croaking brings spring."

[SteveII]

Why isn't the 'god center' in the brain further justification for the position that belief in God is properly basic? In regards to the other religions, I agree that feelings can be affected by all sorts of things--including religion--including Christianity. That does not mean that the stronger claim of a Christian to be changed by a relationship with God is false. 

Do you believe that the mind is contingent on but separate from the brain?

I do not believe in a god nor have I ever felt any compulsion that way.
Am I in some way brain damaged in your opinion because I lack that part of the brain?

No, not damaged. Atypical. I don't think the lack of the intuition most people have prevents belief in God.

[Whateverist]

Why isn't the 'god center' in the brain further justification for the position that belief in God is properly basic? In regards to the other religions, I agree that feelings can be affected by all sorts of things--including religion--including Christianity. That does not mean that the stronger claim of a Christian to be changed by a relationship with God is false. 

Do you believe that the mind is contingent on but separate from the brain?

Within th(e) basic framework of foundationalism exist a number of views regarding which types of beliefs qualify as properly basic; that is, what sorts of beliefs can be justifiably held without the justification of other beliefs.

Steve if all you're arguing for is the right to choose the beliefs you wish to regard as foundational, have at it. Of course the same can be said by anyone who holds a whacko idea very highly so long as doing so results in no life threatening consequences. The Heaven's Gate group is an example of 39 people who were so convinced of their whacko idea that they committed mass suicide in order to meet up with the supernatural power they were convinced was waiting for them. Amazingly none of them were awarded a Darwin Award.

[Jesster]

I do not believe in a god nor have I ever felt any compulsion that way.
Am I in some way brain damaged in your opinion because I lack that part of the brain?

No, not damaged. Atypical. I don't think the lack of the intuition most people have prevents belief in God.

The bible quotes I posted a few minutes ago that you are ignoring are a small part of what prevents belief in your god. The lack of evidence beyond simple claims is the rest of it.

[Whateverist]

I do not believe in a god nor have I ever felt any compulsion that way.
Am I in some way brain damaged in your opinion because I lack that part of the brain?

No, not damaged. Atypical. I don't think the lack of the intuition most people have prevents belief in God.

What do you make of the fact that so many of us are NOT possessed of this 'god hole'?  Perhaps you belief is less basic than you'd like to believe.

Edited to fix glaring omission.

[SteveII]

Why isn't the 'god center' in the brain further justification for the position that belief in God is properly basic? In regards to the other religions, I agree that feelings can be affected by all sorts of things--including religion--including Christianity. That does not mean that the stronger claim of a Christian to be changed by a relationship with God is false. 

Do you believe that the mind is contingent on but separate from the brain?

Within th(e) basic framework of foundationalism exist a number of views regarding which types of beliefs qualify as properly basic; that is, what sorts of beliefs can be justifiably held without the justification of other beliefs.

Steve if all you're arguing for is the right to choose the beliefs you wish to regard as foundational, have at it.  Of course the same can be said by anyone who holds a whacko idea very highly so long as doing so results in no life threatening consequences.  The Heaven's Gate group is an example of 39 people who were so convinced of their whacko idea that they committed mass suicide in order to meet up with the supernatural power they were convinced was waiting for them.  Amazingly none of them were awarded a Darwin Award.

There are conditions to being a 'properly basic belief' (a technical term). One of which is that there is no external defeaters for your belief.

[Whateverist]

But if those external defeaters don't manifest until after you've drunk the kool-ade what good does that do you?