Why are Conservatives so religious?

At that time the Temple WAS the government (at Rome's pleasure of course).

 

What about Matthew 19:23:
Then Jesus said to his disciples, "Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.

 

""""I believe religion provides a nice cover for people's beliefs and is a way of saving their ass when people call them out""""


Well, there ya go!




I think you can swing 180 and ask why are religious people so Conservative..... it's because they have no tolerance or compassion for anyone but themselves..

 

I'm being perfectly honest. You won't find many liberals immediately dismissing arguments that don't suit their agenda. This phenomenon seems to be monopolized by the far right, who are proud to say that their values are "non-negotiable". That is conservatism.

 

Such piquant wit and eminent riposte.

 

I know plenty of conservative atheists, & plenty of liberal theists, so i don't agree with the premise. On the forums, the more rabid posters *tend* to be more established in their philosophical camp.. the atheists here seem to be more global warming, leftist/anarchist types, reflecting academian indoctrination. The theists seem to be more evangelical christian in their makeup, & take the conservative positions, which are mostly diametrically opposed to the progressive/leftist ideology. So while this seems to be mostly true in the forums, i'm not sure it carries over in real life.. away from the forums.

 

Its pretty simple really. The Republican party has defined themself as the "god" party. They have done a good job of defining democrats as "godless". Even though neither statement is really true.

 

where do you come up with this stuff? It happens all day long in these threads

 

I disagee about the amount of control a true Christian has, but I don't want to completely derail this thread. But still interesting viewpoint.

 

So then your destiny is your decision?

I thought God has a plan for everyone? lol

How can your life be in your control if god already knows what you are going to do and say before you were even born?

Is that no predetermination?

If you are going to use the "free will" apologetics, wouldn't free will trumping god actually reduce god to something other than god?

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They trade their god for their politics everyday.

They are unable to reconcile the rather conservative aspects of Jesus with their own politics.

 

Free will would appear to be an illusion if we are to assume that a divine being that is all-knowing and all-powerful already set everything in motion knowing ahead of time what choices we would make.

 

Here is my take on political roots & religious beliefs:

1. Natural law does NOT exist. It is a belief. There is no LAW that will deter aggressors without power.
IF enough people hold to this belief, AND IF they have the power to deter aggressors, THEN they can impose this LAW on the collective. The religious 'belief' that the majority holds is sufficient to mold the collective view of LAW.

2. A stateless or lawless society does not exist. There is either anarchy or some form of collective rule. Anarchy ALWAYS breeds despotism, as people are unwilling to live in anarchy, & will surrender their freedoms for law & order. History is full of examples of this. There are no examples of a stateless or anarchist society for any length of time, especially in the modern era. Even atheists want order, & will prefer the order of religious rule to the uncertainty of chaos.

3. Power is always the final arbiter in any human dispute. Those who have the power, make the rules. It can be surrendered by a timid people, or taken by an assertive one. Left to aggressors, power is used to exploit & dominate the people. Taken by the people, power can be a force for freedom, but needs altruistic defenders to make it work. That is the dilemma with power. The altruistic fight for family & freedom. The aggressors fight for wealth & power. Whoever gets the most support behind their rallying cry wins the struggle. It can stay in the philosophical realm, but most of the time, spills to the battlefields.

Liberty and power are in eternal enmity. Liberty is defensive and power is offensive. Power is an armed aggressor. Liberty stands empty-handed, in need of unselfish champions at all times. Power is alluring and inspires both fear and worldly reverence... Those who rise to power, and in power ride rough-shod over the rights of men, seem always to stand in marble on our public squares while those who carry the torch of liberty rest in unmarked graves. ~R. Carter Pittman

 

Know what an outcome will be is not controlling it. If I put in the correct ratio of flour, water, baking soda and butter, mix them together correctly, roll out the dough and bake it correctly, I'm going to get biscuits. I don't control chemical reactions that happen when mix these ingredients together, but I know what will happen as a result.

 

Sure. That's a good demonstration of why you're not a deity. By contrast, God does control the chemical reactions if he's omnipotent.

Again, if God is all-powerful and created everything, then our own natures are little more than programs set by God.

Who you are as a person is a direct result of God's decisions when creating you.

At least, logically, that's what omnipotence and omniscience in combination entail.

 

I would agree that free will is required in love.

However, logically, I don't see how love is part of the equation given the conditions we are to assume about God.

Again, God supposedly created everything. Our existences are not random but are merely part of some greater plan laid out by God. From our limited perspectives, it may seem like free will, but if we logically consider what is explained about the nature of God, then it doesn't seem compatible with the presence of this being.

It would be easier to assume that love and free will are involved if we were not created by God. If our species was the result of random evolution with no divine influence and/or God was not omniscient (or not omnipotent), then some amount of the suffering in this world would be inevitable and not connected to inaction or planning by God.

The problem logically is that omniscience plus omnipotence equals infinite responsibility.

If you created a program for a bank knowing ahead of time all of its flaws and the exact possibilities of failure and didn't bother to remove the flaws, then you would be responsible for the consequences of letting these flaws manifest.

Similarly, the strife that happens in this world happens supposedly under the watch of a being that is completely capable of changing things for the better and also set things into motion from the beginning knowing all of the ills that would happen. Even our traits as a species were planned out.

When faced with these assumptions, it's hard to imagine life as anything other than predestination.

 

I just like to flaunt with the statistics whenever I can you know.

not quite. I recall judea was a client kingdom, headed by a king, not a priest?

I have no doubt you're being perfectly honest, but you're still wrong, and blind to the obvious reality that this exist on both sides. I could give you plenty of names and examples, but we're not really supposed to.

We don't have free wills. A free will requires there being a 'you' which can make conscious decisions without being constrained by outside factors. Why would you want to eat, if not the desire to feed was placed in you? Why would you want to gaze upon something beautiful if there wasn't a disure planted in you to appricate beauty? You can only choose between that which has already been chosen for you: that's not free will, that being a slave under implanted disires. Not only are all your possible choices already chosen for you, 'you' doesn't even exist to begin with. 'you' is a collection of atoms, your conscious is electric connections in your brain. Your feelings and thoughts are the result of the laws of physics.

To take the deterministic argument a bit further.. what is free will? In my view, it's to be faced with a fully identical situation twice, and be able to make different choices. But that's impossible. All events are the result of previous events which could have no other result, and this regression continues until we realise that everything is the inevitable result of the given laws of physics. In such a system there cannot exist free will. it's an illusion.

 

As many from the right love to remind us liberals, our value system isn't carved in stone. They chastise us for this, but it's something that I'm proud of. I know that there are liberals who are set in their ways and unwilling to negotiate, but I don't think this is common and I don't think that it defines their culture. I see Tea Partiers as a subculture, and they pride themselves on their non-negotiable values. I see this as a self-defeating flaw -- history never favors conservatives.

 

Exactly right. I think there is a deep inner core difference...........in how we perceive things; even words.

I perceive my beliefs to be correct, but I recognize that they could be wrong. Ask a bible thumping conservative if he is willing to admit that his beliefs in the bible could be wrong and he will never be able to do it. Democrats are more nuanced and try to look at things from both sides. Conservatives look at things from one side only.........closed-minded.

 

I've noticed self-proclaimed liberals like to say this, and I wonder, what do you really mean by this?

If you define conservative in a rather dishonest way by which it's per definition going to lose due to the march of time, yes, it would be true.

You're getting close to the answer.. Hint: the divide isn't over morals.

You know, the funniest thing is that in many cases, those who proclaim the loudest that they're open-minded and tolerant, are actually the worst of hypocrites. Have you for example, actually tried to objectively analyse the right-left debate? Have you actually been open minded when it comes to conservatives? Be honest.

 

Try readin the whole story. When you read the rest of the story it becomes abundantly clear that it isn't hard, it is impossible for anyone to enter heaven, rich or poor, by his own efforts.