Does God Really Make You Good?

My reason is trolling.

 

Indigenous people have great repsect for nature and the animals around them. The animals are ancestors, teachers, guardians, spirit guides, providers of clothing and tools, and providers of food. A wolf has a strong sense of family, yet it will kill another animal to feed its family. Humans are animals too. Indigenous people also understand that nothing is free, for everything taken from nature, something must be given back.

You may enjoy playing with sparrows now, but what if one spring you had no food, and you felt the true pains of hunger? The lack of protein in your weakened state made it a struggle of will just to collect fireword to stay warm, and your body began to ache with each move. What if the sparrows felt pity on you? What if you had a dream and the spirit of the swallow came to you, and said it will take care of you and the next day the swallow came to you, only this time it was not playing, and did not try to get away as you would try to play catch? Or what if you simply couldn't stand it any longer, and the only thing you could even come close to catching, was a swallow.

In case you didn't notice, I did not say that these game calling ceremonies described a game of catch, where the people would kill the losers who got too close---in case after case, each anthropologist (or explorer in older accounts) described the game approaching the people where individual animals would then present themselves as an offering.

(...yes, I know that the Aeta or the Bontoc, for example, high in the mountains of the Philippines have had 7-11's for several centuries already, and that even today, perched on a steep jungle cliff just a stone throw away from their village, one can find some of the best stocked grocery stores around (and everyone knows how tremedously humane a Philippine slaughterhouse is when it comes to slaughtering and packaging meat...).)

 

wow..doom, gloom and death...I don't come to ths forum for all of that.

 

I identify fully with this remark. Tribal affiliations or racial or national prides as a matter of extended human relations don't have great respect for nature and the animals around them but have great respect for certain natures and animals and not others. We can see this in the example of some peoples take on some christian missionaries or the effects of christian missionary activity. I have no problem with eating animals as that maintains healthy order for many. I have a function in existing with and for all things around me.

 

I would work up some spit

 

A type of fishing yes I understand that. You fish for personal satisfaction as does anyone trolling.

 

And to clarify a little further, as humans become removed from nature, developing civilization---even if they do carry tribal affiliations with them, it is here that a respect for certain natures and animals really develops. Indigenous peoples have a great respect for all of nature---this is universal, one example being the concept of mitakuye oyase---all my relatives, in which all of creation (all people, all animals, all the plants, all the rocks, stones, waters, and so forth, the moon, the sun, the stars---are all respected and revered). The most feared animal is still highly respected, and fits all the purposes and benefits I posted earlier. It is not until man moves into the Planter Culture that what you describe begins to really take shape. Head hunters, for example, are planter peoples.

Sure there is animosity that develops between tribes---but even the enemy is still a person. The Crows and the Sioux were fierce enemies for example----but there is a story of a Crow who snuck into a Sioux camp to steal horses. He was spotted, and unknown to him was being followed by two young braves who intended to kill him as he quietly snuck some horses out of camp. However, he spotted an old lady who was struggling to carry firewood into her tipi, so he stopped what he was doing and helped her. When he got back to the horses, the two young men, rather than killing him, simply escorted him out of the camp. This is a traditional Lakota story that was shared in Jospeh Marshall's book, The Lakota Way, Stories and Lessons for Living.

 

Respect for, is not a standard metric. Where are human beings removed from nature? There are all kinds of stories of human behavior but human nature is never apart.

 

nothing makes you good or bad. nothing ever can. good and bad aren't things that you can be. they are what you do. and while you may not ever be able to do only one and not the other, you can always choose and endeavor to DO more of one then the other.

 

I think that actions arise from state of being. Like falling off a log.

 

If god told someone to do something immoral like say, murder your children for him alla Job what would be seen as a "Bad" act would be considered "good" simply because the subject was obeying his omnipotent master.

Only religion can make good people do evil things.

 

Those are acts of belief. if you believe and do not doubt it can cause you to bear witness to preposterous things like making a mountain throw itself into the sea. A belief needn't be religious to have this effect.

 

Yeah, but didn't Jesus say: "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, 'Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you'."?
So, what about that?

 

The faith of a mustard seed is a specific reference and is not the same as believing without question. The faith of a mustard seed is a little willingness to consider and as you consider your consideration grows. I brought up the specter of a kind of belief that can lead to distortion.The faith of a mustard seed is understood in conjunction with the saying the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed starting as the smallest of seeds and growing in the largest shrub until the birds of the air come and make their nests in the shade of it's branches.

 

You are correct when you say that faith is not belief. But I think that the mountain-removing reference has to do with removing the source of problems that are seemingly . . . non-negotiable. For example, a chronic or terminal dis-ease asks you the question: how strong is your faith in the viability of the concept of chronic or terminal?

Then again, this is not to say that death is not a healing. Only the belief that death is the end can cause one to see it as a scourge.

 

If "religion" includes secular religions like nationalism, fascism or communism, I'd agree. The acts are still evil, and a god who ordered them would be evil in any meaningful sense of the word. BTW, it was Abraham and Isaac, not Job. Job had his own problems.

 

Not really. Lots of things can. Nationalism, desperation etc. etc.

 

Yes we cannot exceed boundaries we ourselves set.

 

That would be trawling.