Do you think it's possible to accept the teachings of a religion while being indifferent to the core of its faith?

[Betonhaus]

There's a lot of people here that want to go into very fine nitpickings of what certain faiths officially accept as truth, and use the absurdity of these irrelevant details to reject the entirety of that faith. I don't really belief it's really all that smart to do so, unless you're part of the-religion-that-must-not-be-spoken-ill-of-lest-they-sue-you-oh-and-they-have-volcano-aliens. To me religion is more a way of life, providing a base of ground rules for communications and interactions that anyone can understand.

 

[Chilson]

That is called just having your own set of morals. Some people need a god to tell them to live by a set of morals, some people don't.

Accepting god has really turned around some peoples lives. Some people are just pieces of shit by default and see taking on god as a way to escape responsibility. Just as some people have hit rock bottom, realized they were pieces of shit and decided to turn things around on their own without a religious doctrine and some stayed at the bottom.

What we can't deny is that these moral codes we have created even if they are not explicitly religious are informed by religion to a certain degree simply due to how religion has shaped society for the last several thousand years.

 

[Claude Sigma]

Yes it's possible.
I actually believe that it's what most people do.

It's very difficult when you live in a modern setting of the 21st century to actually believe in traditional religions.
I'll take Christians as an example because it's those I know most and the religion with which I have the most affinities, but I do not believe a majority of Christians actually believe that there is an omniscient God, nor do they believe in souls, nor do they believe in heaven and hell.

If people really believed in heaven and hell they wouldn't sin all the time like they do, and would certainly lose sleep, rife with anxiety if they did.
If people really believed in souls they wouldn't tolerate abortion facilities (which would be seen as baby-killing facilities).
If people really believed in God they wouldn't care so much about the mundane events of daily life and their egos and stuff.

What's the expression? Something about "The stupid man believes in God and religion, the smart man doesn't, and the wise man finds it useful".

I'm not a Christian per se because I do not actually believe that Mary gave virgin birth to a God-man that committed miracles like raising the dead before dying himself (killed by jews, the most believe part) and resurrecting.
This does not prevent me from having the ounce of wisdom necessary to see the endless well of wisdom that can be drawn from within Christianity. I've read the Bible, I've learned and adopted some of the morals (that have been proven to work and contribute to the greatest civilization that ever was), I practice the psychotechnologies that are prayers (forms of meditation), etc.

Rejecting religion because you don't believe in the story is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Religion isn't a mere set of beliefs, it's a repository of wisdom, culture, dogma, tradition, way of life, etc.

 

[Ita Mori]

No.
That's like trying to adhere to the principles of math while making up bullshit formulas and algorithms.
Either follow a faith or don't.

 

[SouthernBitchBob]

Yes. You can find wisdom in "people are more receptive if you aren't a massive hypocrite", or "lying in a crime accusation makes you a bad person", or "approaching life with gratitude is the better way to live". Believing in global floods with a planet descended from two of each species, sin-cleansing blood sacrifices, levitating donkeys, or seven-headed dragons isn't a prerequisite.

 

[Betonhaus]

No.
That's like trying to adhere to the principles of math while making up bullshit formulas and algorithms.
Either follow a faith or don't.

...do you know what a mathematical "proof" is? You seem to missing out on some of the more spicy idiosyncrasies in the math profession.

 

[DJ Grelle]

No.
That's like trying to adhere to the principles of math while making up bullshit formulas and algorithms.
Either follow a faith or don't.

What the fuck did you just say about maths you little bitch? I'll have you know I graduated top of my class at the Deutsche Realgymnasium, and I’ve been involved in numerous secret proofs on Algebra, and I have over 300 confirmed QEDs. I am trained in making maths hard and I’m the top autist in the entire US academia. You are nothing to me but just another target. I will wipe you the fuck out with precision the likes of which has never imagined before in Euclidian and non Euclidian space, mark my fucking words. You think you can get away with saying that shit to me over the Internet? Think again, fucker. As we speak I am contacting my secret network of math professors across the USA and your IP is being traced right now so you better prepare for the storm, maggot. The storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your life. You’re fucking dead, kid. I can be anywhere, anytime, and I can confuse you in over seven hundred ways, and that’s just with bare arithmetics. Not only am I extensively trained in formal logic, but I have access to the entire arsenal of the Kurt Godel Society and I will use it to its full extent to wipe your miserable ass off the face of the continent, you little shit. If only you could have known what unholy retribution your little “clever” comment was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have held your fucking tongue. But you couldn’t, you didn’t, and now you’re paying the price, you goddamn idiot. I will shit fury all over you and you will drown in it. You’re fucking dead, kiddo

 

[Too Many Catgirls]

I think so.

Maybe this is related to the topic but maybe not. I absolutely refuse to go to Confession. It never made sense why I need to tell a man my sins when God is already well aware of them. I can hold my own Confession with God in the privacy of my own home or really anywhere at all. And while I still go to services every week and do all of the other stuff, I will not do Confession. It is very obviously a means of gathering information and therefore control over the congregation.

And if the Church is going to impose an injustice like that upon me, I will impose the injustice of skipping Confession upon them and I'll take it up with the Lord when I see Him. And when the leader of my congregation bugs me about not going to Confession, I'll go and rattle off a list of true, but insignificant things to satisfy the quota.

 

[Lord of the Large Pants]

No, I really don't. People do it all the time, but they shouldn't.

It's building castles on sand. The reason a religion orders society and morality a particular way is because it has a concept of the kind of cosmos we live it. You might order a society according to the will of God, or the law of karma, or harmony with the Dao. Those are all going to look different, because they believe different things. If you don't believe the foundation is true, you have no way to arbitrate. And anyway, why would you ever base your morals and society on something that doesn't exist?

Nietzsche predicted all this, saying that people would continue to worship a dead God, trying to hold onto the values and morality of religion and living like God exists even while denouncing faith. I have infinitely more respect for someone like him, who knew that killing God means staring nihilism in the face and trying desperately not to blink.

 

[Feefee81093]

Of course. I don't believe in anything but I let Satanism guide my morals. I believe in sin as a natural occurrence to be celebrated without all of the silliness.

 

[Otterly]

No, I really don't. People do it all the time, but they shouldn't.

It's building castles on sand. The reason a religion orders society and morality a particular way is because it has a concept of the kind of cosmos we live it. You might order a society according to the will of God, or the law of karma, or harmony with the Dao. Those are all going to look different, because they believe different things. If you don't believe the foundation is true, you have no way to arbitrate. And anyway, why would you ever base your morals and society on something that doesn't exist?

Nietzsche predicted all this, saying that people would continue to worship a dead God, trying to hold onto the values and morality of religion and living like God exists even while denouncing faith. I have infinitely more respect for someone like him, who knew that killing God means staring nihilism in the face and trying desperately not to blink.

I suppose a thought experiment. A person is raised atheist, and wants to be good. They read the bible and think that everything Jesus says about ‘how to be in the world’ is very good sense. They strive to live that way. They manage more or less, and then they die. Is the world a better place? Yes it probably is.
Religions have a practical aspect and a mystical for want of a better word one as well. If someone can’t believe, but lives according to a moral teaching they’re not a bad person and I can’t fault them.

If you don't believe the foundation is true, you have no way to arbitrate. And anyway, why would you ever base your morals and society on something that doesn't exist?

This is a very salient point. Perhaps simply by thinking that the way it orders things is good is an acceptance of the belief on some level? I’m probably not explaining this well but to believe that the setup of the rules makes sense means you do in fact accept on some level the starting parameters? If you share the outcome beliefs of Christianity, the moral framework and feeling to be right, you’re very likely to arbitrate as a Christian would. On that level Christianity can be a way of being in the world
Of course it can’t work past a certain percentage of people who feel like that, it gets hollowed out and then we are back to individual vs group beliefs amd their impacts on society. Society that deeply beloved the rules are moral becomes that society by living like that.
It’s a lot to think about.

 

[EmpGulcasa]

Yes, absolutely.

 

[Gog & Magog]

I have infinitely more respect for someone like him, who knew that killing God means staring nihilism in the face and trying desperately not to blink.

And yet eventually he did blink. Poor man.
Edit: I immediately forgot what I meant by this. Don't ask me to explain because I won't.

 

[Matt Damon]

There's a lot of people here that want to go into very fine nitpickings of what certain faiths officially accept as truth

It's not "nitpicking" to point out the internal contradictions in what purports to be eternal, universal truths about the world.

 

[YE24]

"the core of its faith" -- the problem is that this is being written from a culture with a lot of baked-in Christian worldview tenets. If you consider the other so-called "Abrahamic" religions, faith features much less centrally, especially when you take the apostle Paul at his face when he says "Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness." (Romans 4:4-5)

Christianity is the only religion focused on faith and not works. Judaism is, to some extent, because Abraham was justified by faith. But if you accept what Paul says here, and place your trust in the finished work of Christ, then you are not indifferent to "the core of its faith", and you accept its teachings.

For other religions, "accepting the teachings of a religion" directly implies doing what it tells you to do. Talmudic theology has a laundry list of dos and don'ts, as does Islam. Indeed, the two co-pollinated in developing jurisprudence.

 

[Lord of the Large Pants]

I suppose a thought experiment. A person is raised atheist, and wants to be good. They read the bible and think that everything Jesus says about ‘how to be in the world’ is very good sense. They strive to live that way. They manage more or less, and then they die. Is the world a better place? Yes it probably is.
Religions have a practical aspect and a mystical for want of a better word one as well. If someone can’t believe, but lives according to a moral teaching they’re not a bad person and I can’t fault them.

This is a very salient point. Perhaps simply by thinking that the way it orders things is good is an acceptance of the belief on some level? I’m probably not explaining this well but to believe that the setup of the rules makes sense means you do in fact accept on some level the starting parameters? If you share the outcome beliefs of Christianity, the moral framework and feeling to be right, you’re very likely to arbitrate as a Christian would. On that level Christianity can be a way of being in the world
Of course it can’t work past a certain percentage of people who feel like that, it gets hollowed out and then we are back to individual vs group beliefs amd their impacts on society. Society that deeply beloved the rules are moral becomes that society by living like that.
It’s a lot to think about.

My concern isn't really whether or not an individual is a "bad person" for following a religion's teachings without believing in rather. Rather, I don't think that it's actually possible to separate the belief in the transcendent from the every day teachings, because the latter comes from the former I'm generalizing here, but religions don't normally teach "be a good person, therefore believe in God". It's just the opposite. It's "if you believe in God, you should be a good person". (And that's a MASSIVE oversimplification of what religion actually IS, as though belief in the divine is primarily "about" moral behavior rather than that being just one end result, but nevermind.)

Now I'm going to piss off a lot of people. I actually don't think it's possible to reasonably believe in any kind of objective morality without also believing in some sort of transcendent reality. I don't mean that atheists can't be moral or that people need religious teaching to tell them right from wrong. What I mean is that without some kind of transcendent foundation, good and evil aren't even coherent concepts. Good and evil by what standard exactly? Human standards? I can't even agree with my next door neighbor on human morality, much less societies that take slaves and beat women. Without grounding in God, or karma, or the Dao, or something like that, what ARE morals? How can we argue that they even exist, much less are universal? They're just standards of human behavior that are sort of just... floating out there? Isn't that awfully anthropocentric for a materialist?

I don't mean to put words in your mouth specifically, this just seems to be where it eventually ends up whenever I have this discussion.

And if objective morals and values do, after all, exist... maybe that should be a hint as to what kind of universe we live in.

 

[Balalaika Z Bree]

I don't even think it's possible to properly understand the teachings of a religion without first embracing the core tenants of the faith.
To accept some of the teachings of course is possible, but by reason alone you will not see the correct relationship between them. Combining them with lies seems inevitable if you aren't anchoring them to their source. While you might think you have accepted a teaching (e.g. God is good) by also embracing a lie (making yourself, money, or anything imperfect your god) you are mistaken overall.

I should explain: the above is for religion that is true. If a religion is false then it's all rubbish, the teachings might be much better divorced from the damnable lies intended to drag you and as many others as possible to hell.

Maybe this is related to the topic but maybe not. I absolutely refuse to go to Confession. It never made sense why I need to tell a man my sins when God is already well aware of them. I can hold my own Confession with God in the privacy of my own home or really anywhere at all. And while I still go to services every week and do all of the other stuff, I will not do Confession. It is very obviously a means of gathering information and therefore control over the congregation.

And if the Church is going to impose an injustice like that upon me, I will impose the injustice of skipping Confession upon them and I'll take it up with the Lord when I see Him. And when the leader of my congregation bugs me about not going to Confession, I'll go and rattle off a list of true, but insignificant things to satisfy the quota.

There is such a thing as “Anonymous” Confession . If you look into the history of Confession you may be surprised. It is a mercy, not an injustice.

 

[Mnutu]

If people really believed in heaven and hell they wouldn't sin all the time like they do, and would certainly lose sleep, rife with anxiety if they did.
If people really believed in souls they wouldn't tolerate abortion facilities (which would be seen as baby-killing facilities).
If people really believed in God they wouldn't care so much about the mundane events of daily life and their egos and stuff.

“I believe Lord, help my unbelief”

I believe if I were to quit smoking and I would be 100% healthier and happier, yet I find myself still smoking. This is a pretty common Christian concept, the idea of the fallen nature of man. That our entire nature is focused towards sin and death, and we are to struggle with Christ to focus it back towards God and life.

On topic; it’s possible for awhile but it won’t last and while faking it it’s really really gay. Just be honest that you think there are right ideas but don’t believe in God or whatever other deity or spiritual concept. Belief is absolutely a choice. If you’re not even going to try to believe, but instead just live by cherry-picked tenants, then be honest about it.

 

[murph]

Yes. Thomas Jefferson made an edited version of the Bible with all the mysticism and magic edited out of it. George W. said to some interviewer that his favorite philosopher was Jesus Christ. There are Deists who accept the concept of God even if they don't believe in the reality of God. You can accept the wisdom of a religion without having genuine faith. Many such cases.

Not me, there has to be a hell for my enemies to burn in, but many people are more live and let live/die.

 

[Betonhaus]

Yes. Thomas Jefferson made an edited version of the Bible with all the mysticism and magic edited out of it. George W. said to some interviewer that his favorite philosopher was Jesus Christ. There are Deists who accept the concept of God even if they don't believe in the reality of God. You can accept the wisdom of a religion without having genuine faith. Many such cases.

Not me, there has to be a hell for my enemies to burn in, but many people are more live and let live/die.

I feel like the Thomas Jefferson Bible would be very very dull

I think a good analog is Buzz Lightyear. In the original series his team were comprised of aliens and a robot, with him being the only human. What this allowed them to do is when they wanted to write a story about morals and other concepts, they would devise a part of the alien or robots backstory or personality to be the perfect example for discussing that concept in an isolated environment. This allowed for anyone to relate to the characters and find meaning in the theme of the story. In the new movie they took out the aliens and robots and replaced them with people of colour, which then completely collapses the story to adhere to heavily defined concepts of race and doesn't allow for story concepts that everyone can find meaning in.