Quote:
Originally Posted by BlueWing
It would be best of all for people to come up with their own way of looking at the world, or find their own path to spirituality. Most people cannot do this. Belief in God does not give them spirituality as in order to be spiritual you need to think for yourself (otherwise you do not really know what you believe in, therefore cannot be spiritual this way). However, as you mention it keeps us 'spiritually sane' or gives people who lack vision something to live for. It instills the idea within them that there is spirituality of some kind for them to look for. That is perhaps the best we could give them if they are unwilling to think for themselves.
In this regard the idea of God is a good thing, in other regards it is not. For example, a lot of people will think that because they believe in God and such a belief is the best possible thing that could happen to them, they will feel obligated to impose this belief onto others. The consequences of this usually turn out catastrophic. Secondly, the idea of God (because it is obscure) discourages the person from thinking for himself, as the idea of God insists that he just accepts that God is something that he cannot understand because it is sublime. This is a problem because much evil results due to the failure on behalf of the people to think things through. It seems to be the case that the negative aspects of belief in God outweigh the positives.
It is certainly less than desirable to live without hope (be spiritually insane), yet perhaps may be decidedly preferred to the evils that ensue as a result of people believing in God.
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Well certainly the concept of God has its drawbacks, but I looked up the
definition of the word spiritual and it seems as though all you need in order to be spiritual is a spirit lol. But while I understand where your coming from when you say people should form their own views and come up with their own ethical standards, my point of view is that that is exactly what the concept of God allows us to do. Since what God means to each of us is extremely subjective, it allows God as a concept to be a variable benchmark for our own moral standards and views on life and death. Saying that God only stops us from forming our own view is again akin to saying "you're not yourself." How can I ever not be myself? Even when I'm acting strange, it's me who's acting strange.
Also, if God doesn't have any objective value, then how can we blame God for how it is used to justify things like bigotry, war, evangelism, anymore than we can praise God as the cause for acceptance, peace and coexistence?