If human nature was strictly about self service, then it would have died out long before Jesus ever came.
Human nature is self service. That service is keeping yourself alive. Maybe not so much in today's world, but in the world as it was thousands of years ago. Keeping yourself alive wouldn't be possible by keeping yourself in isolation. One would have to service others, and in turn be serviced by others that they once showed service to. It is very possible that this tactic was the key to individual survival. By trading off things in life with others, people were doing themselves the ultimate self service; the ability to keep on living. Groups of many individuals practicing this would all get what they were really after, their survival. It wasn't until survival became relatively easy that emotions and the concept of morallity came into play.
People never grow up? Your story is the same story that a lot of people have, all of whom had that "experience" without God's help. I have quite different goals from when I went to highschool. Shouldn't I be stuck in whatever I wanted in high-school, given that I don't believe in God?
You gave your personal experience as an example, for the obvious intent of later generalizing from it (why else would you bring it as a counter-argument to my post that talks about general effects?). If your sole point is "what you say might be true for other, but I am different", fair enough, but I think that's backtracking on your part.
The fact that people live their lives according to their natural disposition has been well-researched and documented. For example, despite people claiming that their marriage made them a happier person, research found that after an initial jump in happiness, people quickly return to their natural state of content or discontent. Same thing really.
rumborak
What I'm saying is this: God, like any other thing, can influence lives. It was by sheer luck that I discovered prog rock, but it's completely shaped my view of music. I am a different person because of it. Maybe mentally, I'm the same, but as you'll agree we are more than our mental state.
My problem with this, outside of the "we can't understand god's plan" argument, is that whose lives he influences seems to make no sense. Some of the most religious people I know, the ones who can practically recite the bible, are the most miserable. They have shit jobs, homes that are falling apart, and are stuck working 60+ hours a week. Why doesn't god throw them a bone? Meanwhile, you have the assholes in charge of the banks that can go about financially raping people.
There are many things that occur in people's live that they attribute to god blessing them, things that required years of dedication and hard work. A woman I work wih was a raging alcoholic and decided to go to rehab for it. She was in rehab 3 times, and failed each time. The fourth time, she said she found god through scripture (she claimed she was agnostic until them), and because of this was given the power to overcome her addiction. To me, this is just a placebo affect. Research has shown that placebo anti-depressants have yielded better results than the real drugs. People have the power within them to do great things, and it makes me sad that they can't give themselves the credit for creating something positive in their life.
When I fell off the balcony, I had dozens of people saying things like "someone up there loves you" and "god must have some purpose for you here". I can't give a god the credit for my survival. Had I fallen off a cliff and not found for 2 days, I'd certainly be dead. I have to attribute it the thousands of people in history that have made it possible to call for help and get it within minutes. I have to attribute it to the 20+ doctors I had that spent years of their lives learning how to save people. I attribute it to the engineers and biochemists that were able to build machines that were able to detect blood clots in my lungs and blood stream. I attribute it to modern medicine that prevented me from suffering a stroke. Based on some things said in this thread, god would have chose not to save me anyway since I don't believe in him.
All in all, I owe my survival to thousands of individual humans throughout human history,not a diety. This brings me back to full circle to the first part of my post. All of the people that were responsible for saving my life were, to some degree, servicing themselves. Sure they served me, but without the paycheck at the end of the week that keeps them alive, I highly doubt they would have been there.
Topic: This is one of the biggest problems I have with religious beliefs. (Read 87587 times)