on discussing god and religion

I suppose the irony is that most arguments against theism include what is thought of by the maker of that argument as epistemological caution. So it is generally not a good idea to then venture into epistemological recklessness.

Just out of curiosity, if you’d like to go there, what are the “for all practical purposes” implications of this point given the reason that I created this thread in the first place?

Which was to explore [originally with zinnat13] this:

And then from that connecting the dots between those behaviors I choose on this side of the grave as that relates to what I imagine my fate to be on the other side of it.

What constitutes both epistemological caution and epistemological recklessness in discussions of this profoundly existential relationship?

My point would be that most theists espouse one or another God because 1] it provides them with a transcending font from which they can differentiate good and bad behaviors and 2] having established that, it provides the faithful with a path [on this side of the grave] to immortality and salvation [on the other side of it].

And that it is largely these parts the theists are least likely to explore in terms of what either can or cannot be known philosophically.

I would never assert that anything I say affects all the practical purposes implications. What you quoted above was an addition to the post before it. Sometimes I like to separate out something. But it was still part of a response to your response to Prismatic. I think Prismatic, in his fight against religions speculates wildly while, at least sometimes, arguing against the epistemologies of religious people. That is not a good strategy, I think. Better to remain fast in skepticism.

The title of the thread is ‘on discussing god and religion’. If we look at this topic in the OP my point could be seen as a guideline for the discussion. If you feel that Zinnat or anyone else is making assumptions or speculating wildly or confusing subjective experiences with objective knowledge or whatever, it would be good

in discussions of god and religion

to be parsimonious about making assumptions (including those about him) or speculating wildly or confusing subjective experience with objective knowledge.

I think this is getting in the direction of what can be avoided. There really is no need to get into what you think their motivations are. My sense is you have in the past discussed this in ways that involved more speculation and assumptions than you realize and that this has included going personal and speculating about the internal states of other individuals. So if we were to apply my comment to that, I think it’s a poor choice. It splays the discussion apart from all the other problems that arise with ad homs.

i didn’t write what you quoted above thinking of you or the thread in general. As I said, it was a conclusion related to Prismatic, though I certainly have seen it in many cases. (and not just around the God debate. IOW people are often parsimonious about other people’s beliefs, and judge others for the lack of parsimoniousness, but not their own)

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I think that’s a pretty univeral human trait. People don’t like to look at things that might lead to cognitive dissonence. But sure, many theists, likely most seem to avoid that stuff and certainly when discussing such issues with non-theists. Everyone seems to put on a game face.

So it depends on what your goal is. If you want to have triggered discussions that are a bit all over the place, well, then add in your speculations about what theists are like in their minds in general, emotionally and cognitively. And do this on a personal level with individual theists. Tell them what they are thinking and why - add in your provisos ‘it seems’ ‘I could be wrong’ for consistancy - and enjoy the mess that follows.

If you want to actually look together at their epistemology, I think it would be better to avoid that stuff. I am not especially optimistic about even this latter discussion,b ut I think it has a much better chance of staying on the topic and leaving room for both sides to really look at what they are doing and why.

Edit* And then being epistemologically parsimonius would be more consistant. Once one side is claiming X is subjective or prove to me it is not AND then making what seem like subjective claims, it is pretty much demanding a free for all. If that is the goal, then hypocrisy is a good option. If not, not.

This thread revolves around the discussions of God and religion that Zinnatt and I were having on another thread. It was understood [at least by me] that Z would finally get around to connecting the dots between his intellectual assessment of both, as that actually impacted the behaviors that he chose on this side of the grave — so as to be in sync with that which he imagined his fate to be on the other side of it. It’s about bringing these speculations down to earth.

Sure, different people might understand that in different ways. So all we can do here is to sustain an exchange that makes the attempt to bridge the gap. I just want the attempt itself to be situated out in the world as most of us actually experience it when the discussion does get around to God and religion. How they have come to matter or not matter when those behaviors that precipitate consequences for oneself and for others are in full view.

This part:

To which you respond…

I have no clear idea at all as how this is actually related to the point I raise. It’s all too general. It may be entirely pertinent to the things that I am after on this thread, but nothing really sinks in. I have no idea what “on earth” you are getting at. I need a more concrete set of circumstances from which to flesh out what I construe to be just another general description “assessment”.

My “goal” here is to discuss God and religion as though I have had an encounter with someone in which our views about them precipitate one or another level of disagreement or conflict. With Zinnatt it began with how we think about them differently here in a philosophy venue. But how might that translate into a more substantive discussion if those ideas were to come into contact “out in the world” engendering behaviors which we viewed with disfavor.

If epistemology is going to enter into this discussion, it must revolve around [or get around to] the chosen behaviors themselves.

What can we know about that which motivated us to choose them? How is an understanding of that motivation within reach of the tools employed by philosophers? And how much is instead basically out of reach of them?

To which you respond…

Well, the OP is very general. Read it again. The title of the thread is very general. The post I was responding to was very general. (I made that general suggestion as part of responding to your post about Prismatic) I made a general suggestion about what it might be a good idea NOT to do in discussions with theists, as opposed to what I saw Prismatic doing. And then it applied also to your quote. The quote of yours above - which is a concrete specific set of words in a specific situation between specific people - is heading in the direction of doing that.

I think that will muddle up discussions. Unless the goal is to have muddled up discussions, I would avoid telling people why they do what they do and/or telling them what is really or ‘really’ going on in them.

Yes, this is a general suggestion in response to you asking me how a statement I made relates to the OP. The OP and the title of the thread are extremely general. I then used my quote to make a general suggestion about discussions of god and religion. In fact the quote was, as stated earlier, in reaction to your post about Prismatics posts. And note: your post in response to Prismatic is very general and does not get into specifics. Which is fine.

I am suggesting a best practice, a heuristic: of course that’s going to be general.

Here’s a specific kind of use of it.

Prismatic tells, for example, a theist or readers in general that theists believe in God to assuage their fear of death. Period.

That is him, acting in the world, telling theists what their real motivations and justifications for a belief are. I think once you engage in mind reading like this, you are likely to not end up with focused discussions where people respond to specific points. IOW it will lead to discussions with counter-ad homs, counter mind-reading, and further, since it is, iteself, I think, based on speculative not well grounded epistemology, it is hypocritical - since he is critical of religious people’s epistemology. Hypocrisy, I think, leads to confused and disorganized discussions.

My suggestion is that unless this is the goal, one should avoid mind reading and telling people what their motives are.

This is a thread about how to discuss god and religion, presumably in part between believers and non-believers. Both sides might find it better to refrain from mind reading.

That’s it. A simple point. One concrete example of what I think one should avoid has now been presented. I used an example where it was clearer than the quote of yours at the beginning of the thread.

A general response to a very general set of posts.

That suggestion is: avoid telling others what you think is the why they do things, if you want to engage in some kind of exploratory information gathering process with them. If you want to clarify things collaboratively.

If one wants stirred up emotions and a lack of focus, then mind reading would then be a good heuristic, I would think.

Can a religious perspective get any fluffier than this? The whole point seems aimed at getting as far removed as possible from the actual nitty gritty reality of human interactions as most of us know them to be. Instead, you create “in your head” this hopelessly vague and vacuous “spiritual” reality you can use as a counterweight to anything that might happen to come along and spoil your day.

Really, how on earth is this “grand awareness” applicable to a nature that is a veritable slaughterhouse of predator and prey? How does one square a “higher serenity of peace” with a natural order that is bursting at seams with all manner of catastophic calamities – from earthquakes and volcanoes to great floods and devastating droughts.

Not to mention such things as “extinction events”.

The “deepest power of the universe”? And what might that be? It seems no more able to be examined and explained realistically than the “infinitude of all things.” Instead, it seems more in the way of being able to say it and think it and feel it in your “heart and soul”.

I just don’t get it. Sure, the idea of a particular denominational God existing, then creating the universe and then the human race at least allows one to focus in on something. But God as the “the sum of the natural and physical laws"?

How does one really connect the dots here between an entity of this sort and the choices that one makes from day to day to day. And in a world that is often bursting at the seams with all manner of pain and suffering.

It all just seems to be a flotation device, a psychological balm able to offer up at least something to counter all the horrors built right into the human condition.

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=194924&p=2728744#p2728744

My Gods are Great.

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=194924

The extreme dangers of physical existence, not necessarily higher metaphysical/spiritual awareness, but real life may be draining and damaging, but (assuming all of our basic bodily needs are met), we can reach a purely transcendental state of wholeness and warmth/love, bubbling hearts if we treasure this precious opportunity we have in life to shine our talents and secure wisdom for the future.

The power of nature may be absolutely outrageously vivid, even violent in magnitude and display, but, from our secure scientific vantage points, such phenomena may be a source of fascination and awe, kind of like how swords became lightsabers for hollywood entertainment and geeky play. And, regarding the pain of being eaten, it’s the infinitude of forms in nature that represent the full splendor and spectrum of the divine intellect. Still, there’s a better way, and when we rise up to supreme levels (which is already promised to us in the holy books, God protecting our destiny), we can remove the hurt and death from existence.

This divine, omnipotent, megagalactic power is God - He is real, watches over us, supervises us, and ensures for our highest fate. If we tap into the will of God, imagination (the desired part) becomes at least somewhat real (and perhaps in the future very real). How do we know that God is real? Because of chance/destiny synchronicities and prayers being answered, even feeling in your heart the full embrace of spiritual ecstasy. The existence itself may presently be evil though, but that can be overturned centuries down the road.

The cosmic completeness that can arise in our sanctuaries of soul from the divine outpouring of nature gives effect to passions of lucidity and clarity, finding that center of council that blesses us with the fanciest garb, or maybe if mind was strong enough, then it’s just as we will it, and no law, natural or supernatural will hold us back.

Parts of life are perfect, and parts of it are not, but it’s the growing phase, and the key is this - if we just made everything perfectly suddenly, the invisible code of liberty/free will would weaken, because if there was ever a chance that the devil could overcome us, that triumph over his matrix is victory and freedom every day. Would you ask for it to happen that way again? No, never - hurting people is a sin. But it won’t happen again, so we may as well dig deeper for bigger rewards through more pain.

Yes, it’s escapism, but if we’re pure of constitution and valor/vitality enough/sufficiently, then we can throw down those arrows and chains of miserable, determined/devil-controlled existence, and strike our conquest celebrations enough to take over the universe. And even though I don’t do anything wrong, I’m dark sided, because sometimes I contemplate the poisonous perspective to try to be more unique, or grab for myself huge labyrinths of control grounds to feel the force energy of the eons spent dreaming of the highest utopia.

With regard to discussions of God and religion, the OP revolves around this assumption:

[b]

[/b]

In other words, an open invitation to those who choose particular behaviors on this side of the grave, to discuss how and why their choices are related to that which they construe their fate to be [or want their fate to be] on the other side of the grave.

Instead, as always with you of late, this is all about me. Accusations of this sort:

What on earth does this have to do with the behaviors that you choose on this side of the grave as that relates to your thinking about God and religion as that relates to your imagined fate after you tumble over into the abyss that may or may not be oblivion?

Okay, but this sort of thinking and feeling is deemed no less “fluffy” to me.

That you are in fact able to achieve this frame of mind works for you in that it allows you to sustain a level of equillibrium and equanimity that most of us are unable to attain. Let alone to sustain. But I am more interested in understanding how this frame of mind is applicable to your interactions with others. In particular interactions that come into conflict with those who have a very different understanding of that which is deemed to be wise for the future.

So, the slaughterhouse that is nature and hellholes that natural disasters can become in inflicting terrible pain and suffering on mere mortals from the cradle to the grave…this is just something that you are able to subsume in the manner in which you have thought yourself into believing what you do. Or would you explain it differently?

On the other hand, when push comes to shove, you insist that your own rendition of God is there to protect your destiny. But what of the hundreds and hundreds of denominational narratives out there that have very different assumptions about God? Are they all just subsumed ecumenically in your own set of assumptions?

I call them assumptions only until you are able to demonstrate to us that what you believe is true here “in your head” is in fact true for all of us.

Instead, in my view, you merely assert things like this:

And this must be true because the whole point of believing it is true is that it sustains the emotional and psychological comfort and consolation that such a belief engenders.

In my own opinion, more of the same. The point seems not to broach, describe and then to demonstrate that what you believe is true, but to note that the fact that you believe it is true is what allows you to nestle down in it triumphantly. After all, any number of others can profess to have achieved the same sort of “lucidity” with entirely different renditions of God and religion.

It just so happens that yours and only yours is the one and the only true calling.

Ever and always keeping it vague. That, in my view, is the whole point of general descriptions like this. Whereas I created this thread in order to go in the opposite direction:

When you are out and about interacting with others, what moitivates you to choose particular behaviors…as this relates to the assumptions you make about God and religion as this relates to that which you construe your fate to be on the other side of the grave?

Are you willing to bring the rhetoric down to the reality of defending your own value judgments on this side of the grave?

Instead, from my own perspective, transcendental thinking of this sort is more in sync with this:

Let’s focus in on a context in which men and women, in thinking about God and religion, might experience this sort of thing.

When, more specifically, would escapism give way to all those other things? Can you cite examples from your own life?

Again, what would you deem to be wrong behavior on this side of the grave? And suppose others with conflicting views of God and religion insisted that this behavior was actually right instead. Regarding an issue like abortion. Which has been in the news here of late in America.

In detail, note your own chosen behaviors regarding an issue like this [on this side of the grave] and how and why you chose it given your assumptions regarding your fate on the other side of the grave.

Some of our experiences are so golden, so ecstatic, that, even when they’re over, we remember them, and to feel those sensations again inspires us to reach that state whenever we can. I’ve been to the Natural History Museum at the Smithsonian in Washington DC, and getting a full scale reconstruction of a whole T-Rex emblazoned into my mind was louder than any thunder crackle I’ve ever been obliterated by. So sharing some of that exuberance that I felt beholding rare sights like that is a great endeavor.

We are a society, and programming the right instructions into the game to flow the right way, towards our highest fate, if you really want my own, old, wrinkled, decrepit opinion is that a few of us do tap into the fullest power/realization of God with full Free Will, but the numbers of us who do that are few (and I do consider myself 1 of those select people), and when you involve the global mass consciousness, things are more satanically dominated by his ill will and predictive powers for our future than ever! More people = less free will; 1-2 or a few smart people = extreme free will (the best possible results).

There’s a beauty to subjectivity if you’re so removed from the real world, that you’re able to shatter and annihilate the old laws to replace them with something exquisite. I used to even believe in Galactic Super Civilizations, and that inspired a lot of my cosmic writings in my notebooks to skyrocket through the roof in quality. With strong enough fantasy (subjectivity), it threatens to break the box and make at least a little but more real those radical daydreams.

I spent very long periods of time in my notebooks collecting from many sources. Some I rated more highly than others. And most highly, I esteemed Einstein, because the firecrackers that he had exploding in his mind on the infinitude, mystery, entanglement, and rapture of learning was so rare, that it may have only been duplicated a handful of times in others (less known) after his death. To be totally immersed in the enigmas of the far-out/extreme can voyage us to somewhere far more spectacular than we might initially envision.

My motivations are wisdom seeking (why else would I be at a philosophy forum), but also to reach a higher fate than ordinary, because life is filled with so many challenges, that if we can blast beyond the point of return, and come back to earth with a repair plan, the impossibilities of sci-fi could reinvent tomorrow, so to be part of that transition would be groundbreaking.

Escapism removes the pessimism of facts, and allows for intriguing interests to influence the course of the future. Pokemon inspired me to publish (a few) of my cherished solitary reflections into a mini story/archetype format here on the forum, and voyaging through all of those would be emperors of Force Powers and Feats sets in motion my ambitions for being the Star Forge Lugia and the favorite to win the Big Omniversal Tournament in the galaxy, whatever type of fighting that may be (perhaps Pokemon cards?). I set my arrow to the highest sun/vantage-point of our ever growing future in space.

I never think that women should give natural births - it hurts them too badly. And the kid’s life might suck too. 1 funny twist I thought of is to have the Female optional player in Pokemon Crystal have Bunny/Pikachu Ears sticking out of Her vagina, and then you just pull the Bunny out, and she goes, “Wah, Wah”!! But I still think that women who sin and give birth are just wimps, because men like Kobe Bryant, frankly, endure more pain.

You wrote about Prismatic. I responded to that post, wrote nothing about you there. I then added a post when something else occurred to me. You asked what it had to do with the OP. I said it had to do with our posts about Prismatic and what he said.

But since you asked me what it had to do with the OP, I explained what I thought it had to do with the OP.

There is nothing in the OP about the abyss of death. The title of the thread is ‘On discussing God and Religion-’ The OP includes your suggestion about how one could better discuss these kinds of issues. My criticism of Prismatic’s approach had to do with what I wrote about mind reading. My post was relevent to the Subject of the thread, to Prismatic’s post, to your response to my response to his post, and included my response to how that quote might relate to the OP.

Now instead of acknowledging any of that, you change what the OP subject matter is, do not respond to my post about Prismatics approach, which was in agreement with you, but extending the critique, nor do you respond to what was a general suggestion for what would be good to avoid when discussing God and religion. You say my post is ‘general’ as a criticism. I point out why it needs to be this way given my intentions and further what I was responding to. No response. Absences. No concessions. No direct responses. No response even to the post agreeing with you.

Nice job.

But fine now the thread is only for discussions of one’s attitudes about the abyss of death. Good to know. I was mislead by your post earlier on this page related to Prismatics postions and approach and then the OP and then your question, but now I know. I am sure someone will engage with you on that topic.

I am still waiting to find myself freaking out and running away like you claim you drove Uccisore to do and mind read that I will do. Or, well, I’m not.

We are clearly in two different discussions here. I want you to take your views on God and religion and note how they impact your actual interactions with others such that the dots are connected between your value judgments on this side of grave, the behaviors you choose as a result of them and the manner which your surmise this will impact your own particular “I” on the other side of the grave.

Instead, you persist in taking us up into the fluffy clouds of psychologism. Or, rather, so it seems to me. A T-Rex at the Smithsonian?! What does this have to do with the request that I made?

As well, from my frame of mind, just another abstract/abstruse “general description” of how you “feel” about all of this. In no way does it address the points that I make. Why? Because [in my view] the whole point of saying and believing fuzzy, featherty things like this is to sustain how it makes you feel. Nestled snugly in the comfort and the consolation of having something like this to fall back on in a world bursting at the seams with all manner of human pain and suffering.

Again:

Clearly you are not. This is the sort of airy rhetoric – “language designed to have a persuasive or impressive effect on its audience, but often regarded as lacking in meaningful content” – that we get from any number of New Age mystic sorts.

So, if you are not willing to contribute to the thread in the spirit of the OP, you can surely continue to post here, but I will not be inclined to read any of what you do post.

Convince me then that you are willing to go in that direction.

In other words…

To which you post:

Sorry, but this is not the sort of thing I am able to take seriously.

And, sure, that may well reflect my own failing here.

But there it is.

Again, we clearly have a need to go in different directions here. But stuff like this happens [a lot] in venues of this sort.

Let’s just leave it at that and move on to others.

First, of course, this presupposes the existence of a God, the God, my God.

But suppose for the sake of argument a God, the God, your God does in fact exist. Would you not want to insist that He favors you and your own flock? And that those who refuse to believe in Him or obey His will are…doomed?

Is it not of vital importance to pin down the existence of the particular flock that God does favor? After all, look what is at stake: immortality, salvation, divine justice.

Of course some will construe themselves as God’s “chosen people”. That would seem to be the only thing that makes sense.

I’ve never really understood the argument of those who presume instead the existence one or another ecumenical rendition of God. The catch-all God who doesn’t play favorites. After all, if this be the case, how then is one to know which behaviors on this side of the grave most please God? It’s like a cafeteria religion. You pick out the behaviors best suited to your own particular wants and needs.

Or it becomes a religion that revolves around the idea [expressed here by, I believe, Ierrellus] that God saves all in the end. But if that is the case then any and all behaviors on this side of the grave are able to be rationalized. If no one is really punished for their sins then morality becomes an entirely subjective cacophony here and now.

What Is the Relationship Between Religion and Morality?
Thomas Swan at the Owlcation website

This thread was created by me basically to address what I have always construed to be the bottom line with regard to God and religion.

We need things. We want things. Sometimes the same things. Sometimes different things. And as soon as these wants and needs become entangled in an actual community of men and women there are going to be conflicts. And where there are conflicts there is a fundamental need for rules of behavior.

Call this morality, call it something else. But who actually decides what these rules are? Maybe those powerful enough to enforce behaviors that sustain their own perceived interests. Maybe that then evolves historically [with the advent of capitalism] into societies more inclined to choose democracy and the rule of law.

But there are always going to be human communities [large and small] where the idea of right makes might prevails. Power is vested in those – the ecclesiastics, the philosopher-kings – that embody such knowledge. They can revolve around one or another political ideology or one or another religious denomination.

But the crucial factor that joins them all together is this general belief that, through either God or reason, it is possible to actually differentiate right from wrong behaviors. The one important difference being that with religion this knowledge carries over beyond the grave.

For the secular objectivists, however, you do the right thing because it it is predicated on such things as “scientific socialism”, or tradition or even things like ethnicity and race. Or based on one or another Humanistic rendition of political idealism. Something able to meld together “for all practical purposes” individual freedom with social justice.

Here the argument of the religious folks is that without God, morality can never really be more than a particular consensus derived from a particular community historically and culturally. Why? Because without God, mere mortals lack the omniscience to comprehend beyond doubt which behaviors really are ever and always right or wrong. And they are not omnipresent meaning they cannot know beyond doubt who is being naughty or nice. Finally, they lack the omnipotence that seems to be absolutely imperative if divine justice is to have any substantive [and lasting] meaning at all.

Then the author basically tackles this head on. No God and how on earth can we realistically think about making those crucial distinctions between right and wrong, just and unjust behaviors?

If religion is able to be put aside in any particular community, what then of morality?

The proletariat as the Second Coming of Christ? Only this time the Savior is literally the embodiment of history understood to be unraveling through an objective understanding of “scientific socialism”.

In either telling though, the crucial ingredient is the certainty that the faithful are expected [obligated] to cling to. And then to embody. One or another ecclesiastical religion becomes one or another secular ideology.

But, here, however, the whole truth is predicated not on leaps of faith to one or another rendering of The Word, but to a rendering of words themselves reflected in the rational pursuit of that which motivates political economy to evolve organically down through the ages.

It’s just that some, after connecting these dots, are compelled to connect this particular “synthesis” to one of their own.

Everything gets reduced down to yet another objective narrative. It might be an entirely different political ideology; or a deontological philosophical contraption; or a dogmatic assessment of nature itself.

But ever and always is the need to anchor “I” to one or another psychological font.

To!
Believe!!
In!!!
Something!!!

And, really, down through the ages, what hasn’t been believed in?

Or, as Cicero once suggested, “There is nothing so absurd that some philosopher has not already said it.”

Or, here, some Kid. :wink:

Seemingly, the wonderful thing about believing something like this is that it basically makes the rest of the world go away.

You can choose to live by any covenant you wish. You can choose behaviors that are perceived by others to be nothing less than abominations. And yet still be saved as long as a God, the God, your God has access to your soul and knows that you believe in Jesus Christ.

God Himself in other words?

Forget the covenants, forget the rules of behavior, forget figuring out what God expects of you on Judgment Day.

Instead, everything – everything – gets reduced down to a single verse in the Bible. Your Bible. Embody that and you are saved.

As for those who grapple mightily with their faith in God. Those who despair as they go in and out of experiences that bring them closer to and then further away from God?

The fools!

Just simply will yourself into believing in Jesus Christ as your savior.

All the rest just follows: Christianity for the masses. Christianity for the flocks of sheep.

What Is the Relationship Between Religion and Morality?
Thomas Swan at the Owlcation website

This is clearly a highly idealized description of “moralitity at the dawn of civilization”.

In fact, if morality/ethics is understood basically as another way in which intellectuals might describe the rules of behavior in any particular human community, it misses the far more crucial element embedded in the power needed to enforce rules that clearly sustain the interests of some over others. Maybe these methods of enforcement are ascribed to one or another God or not. But surely the “Divine Right of Kings” is not just a coincidence.

With religion however morality always moves beyond this world to the next one. And here things can get tricky. The powers that be may rationalize their dictums through one or another ecclesiatic entity [the Vatican say] but at least some semblance of “justice” needs to be preserved. It then becomes a matter of which particular historical and cultural norms prevail.

And it can always be argued that for God the behaviors that one chooses on this side of the grave pale next to the behaviors one must choose in order to prevail on the other side of it. And this will always go back and forth given the complexities of the “human all too human” world that we live in.

And that’s all but inevitable given the gap between what we do know and what is still to be learned. There was once a time when almost nothing was known about the natural world. So everything from great floods and earthquakes to solar eclipses could be wholly attributed to God. Now that won’t do. But there are always going to be profound mysteries embedded in “human reality”. In fact, the more staggering science makes the Cosmos, the more it seems imperative [to some] that there must be a Creator behind it.

And for self-conscious folks like us, what is still the biggest unknown of all? Death.

And there appears to be no way around that than God. A denominational God in particular. After all, how comforting is it to suppose that after you die you will be at one with the universe as star stuff?

As human beings we know lots and lots and lots and lots of things.

It’s just that as human beings – mere mortals – we don’t know why these things exist rather than nothing at all. And we don’t know why they exist as they do and not some other way.

Also, we don’t know what happens to us after we die. And, without access to a set of Commandments, we don’t know how to differentiate vice from virtue on this side of the grave.

It might also be argued that Gods and religions are mankind’s way of not being honest about all the things we don’t know about. That, instead, Gods and religions are invented [historically and culturally] in order to assume that what we think the answers are must prevail over any and all who insist the answers are something else instead.

And, mostly, it is not going anywhere, ever, because it is likely that on into the future people will be afraid of death and need to be convinced that there is in fact a right way and a wrong way to obviate it beyond the grave.

What Is the Relationship Between Religion and Morality?
Thomas Swan at the Owlcation website

But this is accepted by and large only to the extent that the deities are said to be both omniscient and omnipotent. In fact, with respect to the relationship between morality and religion, that is the whole point of God.

Unlike all the rest of us, there is nothing that He doesn’t know. And, so, there is no question of behaving immorally and it not being known. And, in being all powerful, there is absolutely no question of behaving immorally and not being punished for it.

It doesn’t take a whole lot of intelligence to recognize that even if mere mortals did have access to an understanding of the most rational, most virtuous behaviors, what good is that if someone can run rampant committing vice after vice, and no one knows it. Or some do know it but are unable to apprehend the miscreants? To punish them.

God [and only God] guarantees both the knowledge of and a just punishment for any and all immoral behavior.

And then God [and only god] can connect the dots between moral behavior here and now and immortality there and then.