Do you really have to "serve somebody"?

[Taverner]

Dylan sang this song during his Fundie Cult days, and I remember this being hammered into my head when I went to fundie school in Junior High.

Christians and Muslims believe you are either a slave to god, or a slave to sin.

Yet I think this is wishful thinking at best on the part of the religious.

The assumption of there is that since I am not a Christian, or a believer, I am serving the Devil, or sin. It's the old whomever is not with us is against us BS again.

I've always liked the name 'Freethinker' over Atheist. I realize it causes problems, however. There are Christian Freethinkers, and many of them do fit that description. But I emphasize the 'free' part.

Since I rejected god, I stopped being afraid of death, I stopped worrying so much, and I stopped thinking that everything has a purpose behind it. When this dawned on me, it was pure liberation! It was like a 100mb weight was lifted off my chest, one that I didn't even know was there.

So do you 'gotta serve somebody'?

I don't think so.

[MineralMan]

1. It's a scare tactic.

You either believe and follow the religion or you're a slave to whatever demons that religion fears. It's just another myth used to drag you into the community.

In reality, everybody serves him or herself. If you have a strong ethical worldview, you feel pain if you violate it. That's all that's needed to keep people moving on a decent path. No deities or other supernatural entities are needed. As we see on a regular, daily basis, religious beliefs are no guarantee of ethical behavior.

[cleanhippie]

2. +1

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

3. atheist is a more accurate term than freethinker for non-believers

Looking at the etymology of the word, "atheist" literally means one does not believe in god. Whether or not one uses logic or habit to become a non-believer, atheist is still the most applicable label. "Freethinker" moreso defines how one has arrived to their present state of being - it is not unique to the practices/preferences of the individual.

a- or an- Negative, not (abiotic, acaulescent, acephalia, aphasia, asexual, atrophy, anorexia). Note: a- is used before consonants other than h (and sometimes even before h); before vowels, and usually before h, an- is used.

Theism, in the broadest sense, is the belief that at least one deity exists.<1> In a more specific sense, theism refers to a doctrine concerning the nature of a monotheistic God and God's relationship to the universe.

[MineralMan]

4. psst...spelling...

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

6. fine... I'll fix it... (n/t)

[RaleighNCDUer]

8. Of course, one could be a freethinking atheist.

That'll REALLY scare em.

edit for typo

[msongs]

5. first you must be demonized, otherwise their pitch for redemption will not work

if you value and love yourself you have little need for fear based religion

[postulater]

7. I figured that if God made me in his image

I have free will and am pretty darn reliable to make the right decisions.

I owe it to god to make my own decisions.

[RaleighNCDUer]

9. If god made me in his image, I really feel sorry for him.

He has no faith in himself.

[postulater]

11. Good one!

:rofl:

[NMMNG]

14. Suppose God suffered from low self-esteem

If he didn't believe in himself, would that be blasphemy? :shrug:

[tama]

22. In that case

how could you help God to (re)gain self-confidence?

(supposing that "God" is not something external and objective, but just a word and fuzzy idea in your mind)

[RaleighNCDUer]

23. By prayer, of course, and if thngs get REALLY bad

sacrafice and burning of small animals.

That's the traditional therapy.

[tama]

24. Hard to see

how prayer could be therapy for low self-esteem. What do I know, but praying sounds more like symptom than cure of low self-esteem.

[NMMNG]

25. Someone once insisted that prayer would cure my migraines

She was one of those "prayer is the cure for everything" types.

But I was kidding around with my former post, which was an adaptation of a line from a song called "Hell Yeah" by the Bloodhound Gang:

But would I be a good Messiah with my low self-esteem?
If I don't believe in myself would that be blasphemy?

[tama]

28. Yeah, I understood

you were kidding. Nice song with deep message, I like also what U.G.Krishnamurti said: "Messiah is the one who leaves a mess behind."

I believe in the potential of self-healing (call it placebo or what ever) and I don't know the limits of that power. IMHO a good healer just shows or guides the power of self-healing and thus makes external "healer" unnecessary. Healers (and politicians, preachers etc. etc.) with low self-esteem blaspheme by lionizing on low self-esteem of others, making others psychologically etc. dependent from them.

[tama]

10. Gotta serve some body

Like all the cells in this body serve the whole of the body, I'm a human cell in the body of Earth biosphere. It's organic. :)

[Humanist_Activist]

12. That makes little sense, even extrapolated from single cells to biosphere...

it makes no sense, we all are a part of the biosphere, but we don't take orders from it, nor does the term "serve" even make sense in this context. We participate within the biosphere in various ways, some positive for the overall stability of it, and some bad for the stability of it, but in no way is that serving it, because that implies purpose in a purposeless system.

[darkstar3]

16. I see you've met tama.

Here's a tip: Submerge yourself for days in the Pseudoscience group with a whole lot of pot. It'll make interaction easier.

[cleanhippie]

19. Actually, that sounds like a blast!

I may just do that!

[Odin2005]

18. He's Finnish, English isn't his first language, give him a break.

[tama]

21. Presumption of Authority

Do cells and organs "serve" (can you give a better word?) the greater whole of the organism they participate in by taking orders from some central or other authority, or can the manner of organic (self-)organizing be something else than obeying orders of an authority? What is the "purpose" of organic self-organizing, is that a meaningful question?

And one more general question, is the general position of 'staying open to the possibility' against atheism, agnosticism, skepticism and scientific method? Also taking into consideration what Aristotle said, that all potential actualizes?

[Humanist_Activist]

27. There is no purpose beyond what conscious beings choose for themselves...

also I wouldn't call it serve, more like participating in a system that is mostly deterministic based on rules of biochemistry and natural selection. Even if we were to attempt to claim there is a central authority, the only obvious one would be the brain, and even that isn't nearly as centralized as people think. You brain makes choices for you before you are even aware it did. Figure that one out.

Not sure what you mean by your last two sentences, but certainly even the scientific method and everything else should be scrutinized. However, there is, at present, no replacement for it in examining reality that can reduce and eliminate biases of individuals, and increase the accuracy in describing the universe.

[tama]

29. Is purpose or intention

syntactically purely transitive, ie. requires always an object, or can it be also intransitive? E.g. the meaning of just being?

English is not my native language, but isn't it also possible to use the word 'serve' not just as obeying an authority but also in the sense of serving needs, like serving food to hungry children, serving the needs of the body of a beautiful woman (or man) in bed in pleasing ways, etc.? And in the end your body serves the needs of some other body, maggots etc. that turn your body into soil that serves the bodies of plants, etc. etc.

Chemistry reduces to quantum mechanics (quantum electrodynamics) and biochemistry is not limited to classical mechanics, the most important biological exergetic process of the whole biosphere, photosynthesis, utilizes quantum computation in quantum superposition. Do you consider it unscientific to stay open to the possibility that biology can involve also lots of others quantum processes?

[Humanist_Activist]

30. Its unscientific when the word "quantum" is inserted into processes that don't involve...

quantum mechanics, and is instead used to create pseudo-scientific metaphysical claptrap. We see this a lot with so called biological claims(the so called "quantum brain" is a classic example). Hence my natural skepticism of any claims of quantum "magic" for lack of a better word without a solid understanding of the principles involved in quantum mechanics.

Notice that in most of the instances you came up with required a consciousness behind them.

While the word serve can be used in the way you specified, other words can be used that are more accurate. For example, in the maggot example, you dead body will be consumed by the maggots. No need to insert the word serve into it.

[tama]

31. And there was me,

thinking that 'determinism' is a metaphysical notion, or "pseudo-scientific claptrap" as you seem to define metaphysics. ;)

May I ask you how solid is your understanding of the principles involved in quantum mechanics, and just to make sure I understand you correctly, do you claim, based on your solid understanding, than any member of the scientific community that utters the phrase 'quantum mind' without outright rejecting any and all ideas behind it, is behaving unscientifically?

PS: how about 'recycled' instead of consumed?

[deacon_sephiroth]

20. Why?

[Odin2005]

13. I serve Mankind.

[NMMNG]

15. It's a cookbook!

[Odin2005]

17. That's "On Serving Man", ROFL!

:rofl:

[NMMNG]

26. TZ was the best n/t