For the believers in here, do you think the divine actually cares about ceremonies in its honor?

[Htom Sirveaux]

Or being called by a particular name? Or whether non-believers recognize it as the source of the universe?

I much doubt it. People who would truly believe on the basis of objective evidence would receive that evidence. Maybe in the form of divine instant messages written on their bedroom ceilings. But they do not, and I cannot believe that everyone who says that they would accept objective evidence is actually lying.

Therefore, it cannot be truly important that everyone recognize the existence of the divine. Nothing worthy of the title "divine" would be so callous or negligent as to refuse honest people the evidence they seek if it was important. Perhaps respecting, enjoying and promoting the goodness within creation is all the recognition and honor necessary.

[elleng]

1. No, and if 'it' did, it wouldn't be worthy.

[Cartoonist]

2. The nonsense some believers think.

Some actually believe God cares what they wear on their head or what they eat.

[cbayer]

4. Some people actually care about respecting others when it does them no harm….

unless they are celebrities who will do anything for media attention, including exposing their genitals to the paparazzi or juvenile stunts in places that others consider sacred.

I'll go with those who choose to dress a certain way or eat a certain way over those shallow buffoons any day of the week.

[NYC_SKP]

14. I always thought the Divine like the ceremonies because they piss off the heathens.

The Divine, not above getting a kick out of silly behavior.

And I hear the favorite beer is Dos Equis!

[cbayer]

22. I know that's true around here!

People celebrating all kinds of religious holidays for the sole purpose of pissing other people off.

Did you know that Obama had an easter egg roll on the white house lawn last sunday? You can't make this shit up.

[guillaumeb]

3. ceremonies and names are for the believers.

A means of promoting group identity. Many believers anthropomorphize their deity and invest the deity with human like attributes. Probably a form of identifying with the deity by making the deity more like us.

But is that not normal human behavior? To identify with a group?

[blkmusclmachine]

5. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v248/walker66/popemobile-papa2532011pu.jpg

[cbayer]

7. Perhaps it is not god he distrusts, but humans.

[stone space]

16. Those bullets come from a different God. A God of Metal.

We all have reason to fear these Gods of the Civil Religion.

Designed and engineered for Omnipotence, these man-made Gods of Metal inspire fear in most rational persons.

Bullet proof glass is a rational response to a deadly religion.

[cbayer]

6. "Perhaps respecting, enjoying and promoting the goodness within creation is all the recognition

and honor necessary. "

That is how I live and why it doesn't matter to me whether there is a divinity or not. It would not change a thing.

Great post.

[safeinOhio]

8. Mom and Dad always had

black eye peas on New Years.

It was just a family tradition.

Now I do it, just to remember Mom and Dad.

[cbayer]

9. Exactly.

[enki23]

11. And, according to the vast majority of "mom and dadians" over the last couple thousand years...

And the vast majority of them *now,* Mom and Dad have a special torture place for you for all of eternity if you didn't do the thing with the peas at least once.

[safeinOhio]

15. Unless you are a Universalist.

Then someone drained the lake of fire.

[enki23]

18. The existence of people not in a vast majority doesn't make the vast majority go away.

Seems odd to have to say that, but there it is. If it were otherwise, the existence of an atheist would make you all go away. Yet here you all are. Even the non-Universalists. Of which there are vastly more. Like I said above.

[safeinOhio]

19. I am a U.U. atheist.

That does not keep me from showing love and compassion.

[carolinayellowdog]

36. Thanks for posting this-- had a GREAT experience of UU love and compassion

but then DU hatemongering made me fear ANY environment involving either atheists OR theists as here they seem intent on endless abuse and insults. As a none-of-the-above, all-of-the-above pantheist, I'm not sure which end of the hatemongering spectrum creeps me out more.

[okasha]

10. Ceremonies are one way we come in contact with the divine.

whether it's Mass or sacred dance or a shared meal. They are also a way for people to come in contact with each other, sometimes in profound ways.

Names are cultural The archetypes they express are human. Assuming we don't wreck our planet completely, we will eventually know how near to--or far from-- universal they may be.

[struggle4progress]

12. Amos 5:

... because you trample on the poor and take from them levies of grain, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not live in them ... Seek good and not evil, that you may live; and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you, just as you have said. Hate evil and love good, and establish justice in the gate ... I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies ... Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream ...

[NYC_SKP]

13. Thanks, I've been looking for that passage.

[edhopper]

17. What I find interesting

and a little absurd, are the people who become obsessed with the minutia of following what they have decided or been told is the will of God.
God cares about the hat you wear or when you can turn on an oven or sit next too on a plane.
He cares if you allow two people of the same sex to share their lives or if people from other religions pray in the wrong spot.

In the past he cared if the bible was read in the wrong language.

[mike_c]

27. god sure is petty....

Why, he/she/it sounds just like people!

[edhopper]

29. It's like people made him up

and just projected themselves onto him, or something?

[cbayer]

30. That fact that people have anthropomorphized their gods really shouldn't come as a surprise.

[edhopper]

31. No

not when they made him in their image.

[cbayer]

32. You funny, ed.

[Arugula Latte]

20. You also have to consider that there is very little chance that advanced life does not exist

on many, many other planets (in a universe of a hundred billion or more galaxies, the odds that Earth is the only planet with highly evolved life is ludicrous, IMO). So, you have to wonder if the divine is monitoring the celebrations of the Zorxons on Planet Fleeb or the ceremonies of the Xkronians on Planet Z173, and how they stack up against the Earthlings' fetes honoring the magical sky being.

[mike_c]

26. self deleted....

Oops, meant to respond to the post above.

[libodem]

21. He's too busy worrying about this:

[img][/img]

[cbayer]

23. +1

[okasha]

33. .....

[pinto]

37. +1

[LeftishBrit]

24. Interestingly, a formerly Muslim friend of mine became atheist many years ago...

precisely because he thought that it made no sense for Allah to require people to pray to him five times a day. If he was all-powerful, why should it affect him how many people prayed to him how often, as though he were a political candidate trying to win a popularity contest?

For similar reasons, I find it hard to understand blasphemy laws: if there really is an all-powerful God/ Allah/ Zeus, then (a) why should He be bothered by some lack of respect from a mere mortal; (b) if He does mind, he could just send a thunderbolt or something - why do humans have to step in to protect an omnipotent Being?

[hrmjustin]

25. I believe liturgy connects me to the divine.

Does God care if a priest wares a chasuble or just a stole? I doubt it.

[Maedhros]

28. I'm an atheist, but I've always found beauty in ritual.

I imagine it's left over from my Catholic upbringing.

It's a collective meditation, a way for individuals to be part of something larger than themselves.

[Jackpine Radical]

34. Are you trying to imply that

we did all those expensive ritual sacrifices of kittens & babies for nothing?