First, I am a woman. Second, this is no longer fun. I’m not interested in continuing this discussion. Perhaps join a bible study group or something? I’m interested in discussing philosophy, and religion is not that.

The extent of my experience as a “pastor” was spending a couple summers leading teen bible studies and acting as peer support for the other kids my age along with some (non-problematic) grooming for one day leading a sermon. The reason I lost my faith though is because I’m queer and could not accept that I would have to go to Hell because I was made “wrong”. In fact, at the time I was kicked out of church (both my uncle’s mission and the “normal” church that was supporting his effort) after I tried coming out to family and my uncle hasn’t spoken to me since (and that was over 20 years ago). No loving God would make someone transgender (I didn’t choose it, nor would I given the chance to) and condemn them to eternal torture for doing nothing more than accepting they are who He made them to be.

God as the source of inspiration for selflessness and morality is certainly a popular position among some Christians. Please don’t take this as an attempt to talk you out of your faith, but I would offer that many cultures have existed in the world who have never known a God and they have been just as selfless as those that have. The capacity for altruism and selflessness is an inherit trait of most animals. Humans may subjectively seem like the best, but even mice in a lab will go hungry to make sure a younger or injured mouse can eat. Old Elephants wander off to die alone so they won’t be a burden to the herd. These sorts of selfless actions are present throughout the animal kingdom and none of those creatures “know” any god at all. (Probably. For all we know, whale song is them preaching the gospel or singing hymns.) But a God is not needed to be selfless and I would offer that selflessness for it’s own sake, rather than for the hope of eternal reward or to emulate a role model, is more profound and precious.

Love (and hate) can blind someone to the truth because they might not be able to see the subject of their love as they are, but rather as what they imagine them to be in their heart. Curiosity however puts us in an open minded state because it forces you to shift how you evaluate the world around you from judging and assessing to observing and exploring. Love has lead people to do horrifyingly terrible things throughout history, take the crusades and inquisition as an example. Hundreds of thousands of lives were ended because the Christians loved their God and hated the non-believers.

The stories in the bible have many interpretations and the spiritual journey all Christians walk is best served by independent study of the text and arriving at their own conclusions. The sign of Jonah, at least the way my uncle taught it, is a sign of rebirth and renewal. Jonah spent three days in the belly of the whale only to reemerge with new found dedication to his faith. This foreshadows and predicts Jesus’ three days and nights in the tomb after the crucifixion and His return, reborn as His (fully) divine self. In both cases each character leaves behind their fears, anxieties, and sorrows to become a better version of themselves. I’m not sure I see how you’re arrived at the Sign of Jonah being a mandate to teach selflessness, but I also don’t think there is a wrong way to interpret the book (unless you use it to justify hate or cruelty, which many have and still do).

To me the story of Jonah has always been troubling. Jonah heard a voice in his head commanding him to go to Nineveh, but instead he boarded a ship traveling in a different direction. On their journey a storm ravaged the ship, the crew blamed Jonah and decided to throw him overboard. I was raised and taught that the bible was a literal historic account (which I no longer agree with) but through that lens the story of Jonah is tragic and appalling. Hearing voices in your head is mental illness. God offers no proof of His existence because proof denies faith. However hearing the voice of God would very much be proof, which to me means anyone who claims to hear it or know anything about His plan would either be lying, trying to fit in with their peers, or mentally ill. If you assume Jonah wasn’t lying or just trying to fit in, then he would have likely had something akin to schizophrenia. Being blamed for the storm and thrown to his death would be extremely traumatic for someone vulnerable like that and the story of the whale is better explained by a psychotic break triggered by the attempted murder when viewing the story this way. I take the story to be a cautionary tale about the dangers of superstition and careless action (and the importance of seeking help if you’re in distress).

I very strongly disagree that nature doesn’t need explaining. Science and empirical study is one of the greatest achievements of humankind and has lead to progress beyond anything those who have come before could understand. Our study and attempt to understand silicon is the reason we’re even able to have this conversation. Without understanding of our world we never would have created medicine, computers, or gone to the moon. Personally I’m of the opinion that is it our duty and responsibility to know and understand the world we live in because the more we know, the more opportunities there are to experience the wonders and mysteries of the universe. If there is such a thing as a God, I’m sure they’d want us to marvel at the complexity of their creation.

It’s taken me a few days to respond because my attention has been elsewhere.

We’ve gotten a little into the weeds, and I think we might be best served by trying to return the focus of the discussion to your original point.

To summarize my understanding of your argument you are saying that the pursuit of happiness or the desire to avoid suffering leads to more suffering. Therefor in order to eliminate suffering one should learn to accept it as the nature of existence and focus on selflessness as a way to cope.

I think I got sidetracked on the specifics of your argument because I thought you were offering your post as philosophic proof of your arguments rather than a more casual discussion. With that in mind, allow me to start over.

Many philosophies suggest something similar. The Buddhist believe that life is suffering and that trying to change things only creates more suffering. And that to attain enlightenment one should live in harmony with reality. The stoics believed that accepting reality as it is presented to you is how you attain happiness. Though the happiness the Greeks mean is actually what a contemporary philosopher might call contentment.

Camus, an existentialist and absurdist, wrote a book about Sisyphus and used it to explain a similar concept. Sisyphus is doomed to spend all of eternity rolling a boulder up a hill only for it to roll down once he reaches the top. It is grueling and pointless toil and should he ever stop he would be chained to the boulder and crows would peck out his eyes and organs; only for it all to start over the next day. Camus suggests that for Sisyphus to find solace in his existence he must not only accept that his life is meaningless but laugh at how absurd it is to exist at all and for existence to be so utterly awful.

In Christianity there is also Liberation Theology which is rooted in an idea almost exactly like yours. They view God more as a metaphorical ideal to aspire to than a real entity and that through helping others we are all helped.

I agree with you in a broad sense. Life is a bunch of bullsh!t and there isn’t much we can do about it. We’re better served focusing our energy on the things we can change and finding things that give our suffering meaning because we’ll never be rid of it.

I think we mostly disagree on the causes for the state of reality we live in and some of the conclusions and arguments you’ve made to support your position.

Just so you know, I’m not an atheist. I was raised American Southern Baptist and was very involved in the church. My uncle was a pastor and tried to push me into the ministry too, but around 16 I lost my faith. From there I explored skepticism and as many religions as I could, including, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Atheism, Satanism, Occultism, Zoroastrianism, and a bunch of post-medieval western philosophy. In my early 30’s I discussed Christianity at great length with something I dated for a few years that had their masters in Theology and was a former youth pastor (but had lost their faith prior to meeting me).

Today I would consider myself agnostic because I don’t see God as needed to explain anything about the nature of existence, but am willing to examine any evidence presented for the existence of a God.

Dolphins and elephants don’t write dissertations because they can’t hold pens and don’t have the same values as humans. Just because an animal does not behave like a human, does not mean it’s less intelligent. I’ve never written a dissertation and I bet you haven’t either. They don’t shit where they eat in the wild, in captivity they do, but so would you or I if we were in jail. No other animal has all of the markers of intelligence we have defined, but many of them are close or equivalent to humans in one or more of those aspects.

But more than that, we don’t know how other creatures think and view the world. The blue whale, for example has a brain twice the size of a human’s, they have language (and individuals have names), social structures, and regularly set thier own interests aside for thier pod. They may not write dissertations, but they do engage in creative activities recreationally (singing).

Respectfully, that is not the simplest explanation, the shortest perhaps, but there is no evidence I am aware of that would even suggest that as an explanation. It also has the baked in assumption that humans are conscious on purpose. Intention implies some kind of intelligent hand guiding things, but nothing changes about the world if you accept a creator exists or doesn’t. All the evidence science has been able to collect though suggests natural processes and pseudo-random chance are why the world is the way it is.

I make no assumptions about the kind of god or creator you offer beyond what you’ve said about it. I used examples from history to point out that many people have dreamed up many gods, few of which are good. To me that brings into question your premise that your god must be the avatar of selflessness. If anything an inactive god who allows so much suffering to exist in the world is the opposite of that.

But humans aren’t the only animals capable of selflessness. Most mammals have instinctive drives that encourage risky behavior in some circumstances (a momma bear defending her cubs from predators, for example). Some types of insects (like ants and bees) will sacrifice their own lives in defense of their community.

Just because humans are the most advanced intelligence (debatable) we are aware of doesn’t make them special. Some of the other intelligent animals on earth, like crows, primates, octopuses, dolphins, and whales all demonstrate human-like intelligence in one or more areas. Gorillas and bonobos can be taught language, crows use tools, octopuses are better problem solvers than most people, whales and dolphins have naturally developed their own proto-languages. All of those creatures demonstrate behavior that suggests they have some form of consciousness (though probably not as advanced as humans, except maybe the octopus). Much of our study of the animal kingdom has been from an anthropocentric perspective, but in the last 20 years or so science has been leaving that behind because the more we learn the less merit it has.

Existing to suffer discounts most of the human experience. If there was a logically grounded reason for consciousness a simpler explanation, based on the other animals we have to study, is that consciousness is a useful trait for social animals and provides a significant advantage for survival.

It’s also not reasonable to assume that a hypothetical god must be selfless. Almost all gods humans have worshiped have demanded sacrifice in one form or another. The Abrahamic God (which I am most familiar with) for example demands faith, love, and adherence to a code of conduct or be tortured for the remainder of existence with no possibility of forgiveness. Infinite punishment for finite infractions is not selfless, it is capricious and evil.

Suffering, be it physical or emotional pain, is the way our automatic systems (like breathing or the cardiovascular system) communicate with the decision making part of our brains. Almost all macroscopic creatures have some form of this behavior.

I read your entire post several times before responding. You made a number of factual claims that have no basis in reality, such as humans being the only animals capable of self sacrifice and rich people all being corrupt and obese.

I focused my rebuttal on the points that I did because, those were the aspects of your essay that seemed worth discussing because it felt more productive to give you concrete arguements than going point for point refuting your argument.

Your fundamental premise (to the best of my ability to determine) seems to be that human suffering is somehow special because we can choose it and somehow that supports an argument for a creator or god.

Attempting to explain subjective experiences (suffering) through objective logic is folly. Inherently emotions are irrational, especially from the perspective of the “sufferer”.

Scientifically, yes the brain is constructed in such a way that physical and emotional pain are commonplace. Regardless of how that came to be it is a useful trait for self-preservation present not only in humans but many other intelligent animals. Crows have funerals for their dead, bonobos have extremely human-like social structures, and whales sing songs of sorrow. Suffering is not unique to humans or special in some way, it is simply a biological process that most animals possess.

No combination of words will ever end suffering, nor should we try to. Suffering has subjective value, it makes you appreciate good things more, it warns you of situations that might disturb your emotional health, and has inspired almost all human innovation (and cruelty). A life without suffering would be without substance.

As to a creator, God is quite literally your understanding of God. Our brains have a specific section that creates profound “religious” experiences or epiphanies. Contemplating the nature of god or a creator can only ever be explained in terms of your beliefs as God offers no proof of thier existence (at least all the popular gods anyway) so any attempt to know them is doomed to failure. That is doubly true for the abrahamic god, who is understood to be inherently ineffable.