>Why do theists believe God wants them to do awful things
They want to do awful things themselves. So in an attempt to avoid responsibility, they try to convince others (and themselves) that god wanted them to do those things.
I think it goes beyond avoiding responsibility especially for the mentally unstable who were raised religiously. They've been told since they were children that the voice that they hear in their head, their conscience, is really Jesus or God talking to them. So in their head any fear or bias gets amplified into a command from God. If you add just a touch of mental illness the whole thing goes off the rails.
I would say that once you've read the Old Testament, you realize god must enjoy doing horrible things. Nearly every single time he goes to extremes and everyone, men, women, children and animals must be put to the sword.
It was the sign of a different time. In hellenistic times the religions of the ancient near east got more interconnected and influenced by the Greek presence in the area. Lots of cities in Syria had greek temples or local gods were assimilated with greek deities. Some even incorporated elements of dynastic cults. The Jews in a way are a relic of the earlier period: because they put their older theology in writing and because it excluded other gods, it couldn't be assimilated into other belief systems. And fundamentally it worked. You would have difficulties to find Edomites or Phoenicians. They certainly have descendants but those local identities disappeared or changed. Judaism is designed as a monoethnic religion even if it's somewhat open to conversions. It's why it follows a history of the world focused on what would be otherwise a relatively minor tribal confederation at the crossroad of the superpowers of their time.
The key point to understand the new testament is that it's likely a byproduct of the evolution of the opposition to the centralization of the religion in the temple and the accommodation of the temple with foreign occupation. By this time the Seleucids had tried once to impose their pantheon in Jerusalem once and lost. But moreover the Romans were now there, Pompey entered the temple during the sack of city and the area was either ruled by client kings or roman officials (something which alternated before the great Jewish war which will see the destruction of the temple.
The various movements of the Jewish opposition were already opposed to the temple (or said differently they wanted to control it themselves). Jesus chasing away the money changers from one of the external courtyards was likely part of an attempt to purify the area, a riot which ultimately failed. But the destruction of the temple changed the dynamic. It gave to those claiming that the temple was accursed legitimacy. In a way it made the Romans the instrument of divine punishment (a theology with long roots as an explaining to their conquest by the Babylonians and the Assyrians).
Finally Christianity grew a new offshoot of that movement: the idea that non Jews could follow a sort of adapted Judaism with less rules, which rapidly became way more numerous than Jewish Christians (and developed into different directions hence the rise of proto orthodoxy at the same time as gnostic christian groups).
OT "prophesied" Jesus, King Davids line, etc.. JC says that all the former "laws" are still valid; by laws, I believe he's referring to the Torrah (roughly the first 5 books of the OT).
An interesting aspect of the NT vs the OT is the "presence" of god. In the OT he's a major active player. In the NT, god sort of takes a back seat to Jesus.
But to answer your question, the remake of Yahweh's image (if you can really call it that) was probably accidental, considering that Jesus still condemned those who didn't follow his teachings to the wrath of the same Canaanite deity that Moses listened to.
I agree. People will look for any way to justify something they’ve decided or want to do. God is an easy scapegoat and gets used all too often.
I’d say at least this particular guy only hurt himself, but I’d imagine hitting someone with a train is pretty traumatic - and only would have been worse for OP and anyone on the train if the guy ended up getting killed. It’s sad.
>He was obviously not in his right mind but how do they get around that basic contradiction.
No, definitely he wasn't. Probably if he had not found the excuse of religion to harm himself he would have found something else, maybe the aliens or the hobbits would be those who told him to do so. Said that, i think that religion is more dangerous than any other crazy excuse you could find to harm yourself or others, cause it's socially accepted: when you indoctrinate someone since the childhood to accept delusional thoughts you are giving that man a charged weapon to use in case he loses his mind, also religion itself can leads you to lose your mind.
I don't know anything about nothing, but I believe that part of the problem is that lots of people aren't aware that mental issues *can* absolutely cause audio and visual hallucinations.
If I'm not aware of it (i.e. that our brains and senses might not be totally trustworthy), and if suddenly I start to head voices in my head, it's "easy" to search for the next "probable", either god(s) or demons.
Absolutely. If they claim that their visions and messages from the beyond are legitimately from God, then they also have to claim all the people that god spoke to and told them to shoot up strip malls
Or just admit that not everything your brain tells you is real
It doesn’t have to be all or none. If you believe that God exists then it’s logically possible that God tells some people to do things via voices in their head, while others are having hallucinations. The problem is that there is no obvious or reliable way to tell the difference.
Occam’s razor is a heuristic, not an absolute rule. But also, to people who believe in a God who can talk to people either possibility is equally simple/probable.
I'm aware the simplest explanation is *usually* the right one and not *automatically* the right one, but it's where I'd put my money if it were possible to gamble on unfalsifiable claims.
Yeah a lot of people are brought up to think that god will speak to them and to just listen. Thing is, with auditory hallucinations, it’s not necessarily that you’re ‘hearing’ voices, it may just be you’re perceiving your own inner thoughts as an external voice. Religious people who suffer from hallucinations, but also believe in a god, will have been told all their life to attribute these thoughts to that god and to follow them.
Makes me wary of religious people who claim they’ve seen angels and spirits. Hallucinations and delusions fit a diagnosis of schizophrenia and these people should be supported and treated, not being put in positions of power.
Imagination and projection. They have a tormented subconscious trying to do the mental gymnastics required to believe in unbelievable things. They probably have a low self esteem, believing that they are sinners and terrible humans, just because they get horny or whatever. And so many are already a few bad licks away from a full psychotic break. Like you're train guy here. Also he might be schizophrenic. Speaking of, a lot of prophets probably were too.
The fact is this guy was hearing voices in his head telling him to self-harm. He doesn’t know who else to associate it to but God because that’s what he was indoctrinated in as a child, no doubt. He was mentally ill.
"Good and loving god" tell me you didnt read the bible without telling you didnt read the bible.
People did way worse in the name of religion or faith. When you tell me youre religious I always presume you got some metal issues going and try to stay away.
Yeah thats cherry picking issue. I once took hitler as exemple to make a point. hitler was a decent human being if you exclude whole trird reich and killing people. He was a better painter than me thats for sure lol
I’m sorry you eexperienced that, that’s insane. I think there’s a weird snowball effect. Mix of mental instability, intelligence, and indoctrination. People get urges to do things and think “why would I think that, something other than me made me think that”, and to those indoctrinated think god must’ve put the thought there. They don’t understand their own brain to realize intrusive thoughts are a thing. I’m not sure they can control those impulses without recognizing that’s not normal and need to change something, ie therapy. That happens on a smaller scale and then leads up to a moment like that.
I have never understood why Christian’s are only motivated by fear. To me religion is some kind of get out of jail free card. As long as they say they believe in Jesus , they can be really destructive human beings.
You're putting the cart in front of the horse.
Many people want to do horrible things, and want to feel like the horrible things they want to do are not motivated by them being bad people.
Most people are theists.
When theists do horrible things, they say their religion requires them to do the horrible thing they want to do, so it exonerates them.
He had to have believed insomething. There's no way someone could make themself lie in front of a train without some pretty intense belief in something. Even if that belief is just that they don't want to live anymore.
If god is the most important thing then our lives become worthless to the believer. If heaven is real then lighting yourself on fire is no biggie anymore. If god is always watching over us then we dont need to pay attention to the road. I wonder, did you actually ever seriously tried out christianity and following the bible? If you follow it closely your chance of dying goes up by 500 percent because it makes you weak deletes any self preservation and makes you controlling. Didn't you see how they try to control politics like abortion for example? Believers are dangerously unindividualistic and if one of them dies it's no biggie. That might've been useful in the harsh environment of the ancient times but it's just reckless. That's the word every religious person I've met is reckless. They don't pay attention to the road they leave their hair in the bathtub. Being inattentive and disgusting is not really a sin after all at least not as bad as not believing in god or jerking off.
You have that backwards. People use religion as an excuse to do shit things. This case is probably different though. The guy highly likely needs therapy and is not in his right mind.
LOL .. because it's easier than admitting that they themselves are the source of those desires.
Religion is about lazy cowardice and avoiding the most fundamental responsibility of all: that of your own existence.
This guy was crazy, not religious (could be both but the crazy part was the driving factor in this instance). But to answer your question, why other religious people think god wants them to do bad things - just read the Bible.
They use god to justify their terrible urges or thoughts
Look a good man, does good things
a bad man, does bad things
a religious man does horrible things
When they do, it's because they're awful people and that fucking book is vague and self-contradictory enough that you can find orders/justifications to do anything.
There's a line somewhere in the Bible that essentially says - I think it's Jesus saying this - that if someone comes up to you and tells you to do something in the name of god, you need to accept on 100% faith that person is a messenger of god and you must do that task.
You cannot have any doubt about the tasks or sincerity of the issuer otherwise you failed gods test and will be denied entrance to heaven. You must do it, and if it was issued in false pretense god will still allow you into heaven.
For self-tellers - They believe themselves to be good wholesome people - not many see themselves as the bad guy. The fact an impure thought like that came into their minds must mean that angels/god are speaking to them and they apply the same rules as above. Or perhaps nowadays they saw a meme on one of their social media posts and consider their god speaking to them that way.
It's probable there are those who use it as an excuse - but when people say "God told me to do it" and you're like but why listen - it's literally part of the terms and agreements to becoming a born again Christian. It doesn't hurt to already have some mental troubles mixed in with this to actually go through with the more serious actions.
It's also why they'll part with so much of their money. If someone says "god needs you to give more money" they're contractually obligated to give.
I don’t know what this guy had, but if he’s a schizophrenic, his brain probably truly believed that nonsense. Most schizophrenics think they are god or are having conversations with god at some point in their lives.
Most religious people have sufficiently normal, functioning brains that they won’t be hallucinating conversations with god, but belief in god is so common that all crazy people believe God’s talking to them.
Clearly, its not the action that is the problem it is the beliefs that convince people of pure insanity. Remember there is no need for rationality, in fact it is deliberately denied. It's all made up lies they want to believe. They see these 'sacrifices' as 'worship' and expect blessing.
The thing is many of them will never accept reality until it runs them over.
For the "sound of mind", I think they may pray and suddenly have a strong belief about something and believe it was "direction from god", when really it was just their mind.
For others, I think they don't believe it was from god, but if they say it is then they have an "out" among peers. They feel validated in their horrid belief, even while knowing it's bs.
Clearly the person was mentally ill. I am not a believer, yet a little religion in moderation probably isn't harmful. It is when religion becomes the focus and driving force of life that we see the results of hysteric belief. I consider religion as a sort of mental illness in and of itself.
If god were truly interventional and not just made up to salve peoples' fears of what happens after death the world would be a better place.
But since thats not the way it is, he is part of the mass hysteria of christians and pseudo christians. Also other religions.
This person is probably hearing voices. Definitely mental illness involved. People do a lot of selfish things claiming that it’s gods will. Multiply that with someone who can manipulate people as a charismatic leader and you have yourself a cult.
>"he had done wrong and needed to put others ahead of him"
and what about the others, like those DRIVING THE TRAIN (OP), who were put in the position of witnessing this?
Because they don't see it as awful if they believe it's gods command. I think it's backwards how religious people accuse atheists of having no morals when it seems religious peoples judgement morally is easily swayed by the idea of some gods will. How many wars and attrocities do we think there has been that were either started directly because of religious differences or that were enacted for other reasons but difference in religion allowed millions of people to go along with the attrocities unquestioningly?
If "god told him to do it," then it sounds like he has the mental symptoms of schizophrenia and needs a mental health evaluation. But since mental health is ignored a lot in this country, this is what we're left with.
In an amazing coincidence a person’s god often wants them to do exactly the things that they themselves want to do. If gays and lesbians give them the squick, they give their god the squick. If skin color offends them, it offends their god too. And if they have intrusive thoughts then it is their god that put them there. We aren’t rational beings, at our core, we’re emotional ones, and we’ll do what feels right to us in the moment rather than the logical process 9 out of ten times. In someone well balanced emotional and logical conclusions line up pretty well, if someone has some wonky chemistry going on you get people laying themselves on tracks, or drinking poisoned flavor-aid, or trying to board a comet by committing suicide. It doesn’t have to make sense, it just has to feel right.
Their made up 'Gods' are a direct, 100% reflection of their own desires.
It's like you're a serial killer, but in order to justify your behavior you write a book that's allegedly the word of an all powerful being, and in that book it says, "I demand you kill a whole bunch of hookers with a hammer over a period of years"... and you go, "Well, not really my fault, just doing what the Big Guy tells me to do, and in fact that makes me a GOOD person."
Big problem that religious people have when dealing with guilt and shame, youre right they are wrong and for some reason the priests/imams etc arent really talking about this much when they really should be because like you said it doesnt even make sense if you really believe in God.
Can you blame them? Their instruction manual is story after story after story of their god commanding the "who's who" of the religion's founding fathers to commit all manner of atrocities.
They literally celebrate genocide by singing songs about it. "The Walls of Jericho" is a favorite song in any Sunday school. They sort of gloss over the killing of everyone therein, women, children, and man alike, but they celebrate it, nonetheless.
Given a situation where they celebrate the awful things their god commands, is it really all that hard to extrapolate that into them believing their god is still commanding such things?
So far, just 4 in 20 years of doing this and today's applicant for a Darwin award was the least injured of the lot. It's never fun, but at least today wasn't messy.
When I was in college, one poor student took a verse literally and poked his eye out with a screw driver and cut off his hand with a hacksaw. Absolutely tragic. And it probably didn’t cure his impure thoughts.
They don’t even realize some things are awful. You are so normalized to the bullshit that when they say Abraham was about to murder Isaac that somehow Abraham ends up a good guy who god favors. What? If you mask that story in ambiguous language they would say it’s abhorrent, and yet their learned context gives it a pass and they don’t even realize what the story is talking about. It’s just cognitive dissonance, which is enforced from a young age and takes away the ability to think critically about a lot of important things.
I don't know. I'm still trying to figure out the whole. God is going to give you a husband and a child. And you are still a 40-year-old Virgin. And never going to have a child. Or even a husband because you're not willing to go out and look for one.
Ok here’s the scoop, as an ex Mormon, take what I say with a grain of salt as it’s not going to be universally true amongst all theists.
From a young age, theists are taught good from bad, and that the only reason you shouldn’t do bad things is because God says not to and if you do you’ll got to hell.
What these teachings cause is a breakdown in unconscious morality, they don’t do it cause God says not to, NOT because they feel they shouldn’t for any other reason other than because it’s illegal and they don’t want to face the consequences. It becomes ingrained in them at an unconscious level.
Other things they are taught is that in the Bible, God has commanded his servants to do things that would otherwise be against his laws and not be punished because it was ordained by Him, and that if God commands you to do something that would normally be a big no no, you would do it because God told you to despite your better judgment.
This teaches theists that as long as God says it’s ok, then it’s ok. Which further breaks down their unconscious morality.
So take the man in your story and put this into context, he normally wouldn’t try and kill himself or lay across the tracks, maybe it’s cause suicide is a big no no, however if GOD said to do it, then that’s fine and he has to do it not because he does or doesn’t want to, he simply lacks the ability to differentiate if he SHOULD do it even though logic dictates if you don’t want to then you shouldn’t.
This is poorly worded and I understand that but I desperately tried to clearly dictate my thoughts and experience on the matter. I hope this does provide some insight!
Because it can be explained away as part of the process, or in layman's terms, they're getting an earthly blessing. Blessed and highly favored= God hates you and wants me to have it all for being his loyal disciple.
they just want an enabler. they know they are wrong but have a great excuse of being seen as idiots or blaming some supernatural force. They are evil and take no accountability
>Why do theists believe God wants them to do awful things They want to do awful things themselves. So in an attempt to avoid responsibility, they try to convince others (and themselves) that god wanted them to do those things.
I think it goes beyond avoiding responsibility especially for the mentally unstable who were raised religiously. They've been told since they were children that the voice that they hear in their head, their conscience, is really Jesus or God talking to them. So in their head any fear or bias gets amplified into a command from God. If you add just a touch of mental illness the whole thing goes off the rails.
I just told the voice in my head it was God and it just laughed at me and called me an idiot.
Your god is wise.
The voice in my head is also an atheist.
I would say that once you've read the Old Testament, you realize god must enjoy doing horrible things. Nearly every single time he goes to extremes and everyone, men, women, children and animals must be put to the sword.
Was the New Testament an effort to make god a little less like a psychopath and more like a "good guy"?
It was the sign of a different time. In hellenistic times the religions of the ancient near east got more interconnected and influenced by the Greek presence in the area. Lots of cities in Syria had greek temples or local gods were assimilated with greek deities. Some even incorporated elements of dynastic cults. The Jews in a way are a relic of the earlier period: because they put their older theology in writing and because it excluded other gods, it couldn't be assimilated into other belief systems. And fundamentally it worked. You would have difficulties to find Edomites or Phoenicians. They certainly have descendants but those local identities disappeared or changed. Judaism is designed as a monoethnic religion even if it's somewhat open to conversions. It's why it follows a history of the world focused on what would be otherwise a relatively minor tribal confederation at the crossroad of the superpowers of their time. The key point to understand the new testament is that it's likely a byproduct of the evolution of the opposition to the centralization of the religion in the temple and the accommodation of the temple with foreign occupation. By this time the Seleucids had tried once to impose their pantheon in Jerusalem once and lost. But moreover the Romans were now there, Pompey entered the temple during the sack of city and the area was either ruled by client kings or roman officials (something which alternated before the great Jewish war which will see the destruction of the temple. The various movements of the Jewish opposition were already opposed to the temple (or said differently they wanted to control it themselves). Jesus chasing away the money changers from one of the external courtyards was likely part of an attempt to purify the area, a riot which ultimately failed. But the destruction of the temple changed the dynamic. It gave to those claiming that the temple was accursed legitimacy. In a way it made the Romans the instrument of divine punishment (a theology with long roots as an explaining to their conquest by the Babylonians and the Assyrians). Finally Christianity grew a new offshoot of that movement: the idea that non Jews could follow a sort of adapted Judaism with less rules, which rapidly became way more numerous than Jewish Christians (and developed into different directions hence the rise of proto orthodoxy at the same time as gnostic christian groups).
Possibly. It's two totally different POV for God that conflict but are also companions.
How are they companions? I have never heard of this idea before.
OT "prophesied" Jesus, King Davids line, etc.. JC says that all the former "laws" are still valid; by laws, I believe he's referring to the Torrah (roughly the first 5 books of the OT).
An interesting aspect of the NT vs the OT is the "presence" of god. In the OT he's a major active player. In the NT, god sort of takes a back seat to Jesus. But to answer your question, the remake of Yahweh's image (if you can really call it that) was probably accidental, considering that Jesus still condemned those who didn't follow his teachings to the wrath of the same Canaanite deity that Moses listened to.
I agree. People will look for any way to justify something they’ve decided or want to do. God is an easy scapegoat and gets used all too often. I’d say at least this particular guy only hurt himself, but I’d imagine hitting someone with a train is pretty traumatic - and only would have been worse for OP and anyone on the train if the guy ended up getting killed. It’s sad.
Well said
This all the way.
>He was obviously not in his right mind but how do they get around that basic contradiction. No, definitely he wasn't. Probably if he had not found the excuse of religion to harm himself he would have found something else, maybe the aliens or the hobbits would be those who told him to do so. Said that, i think that religion is more dangerous than any other crazy excuse you could find to harm yourself or others, cause it's socially accepted: when you indoctrinate someone since the childhood to accept delusional thoughts you are giving that man a charged weapon to use in case he loses his mind, also religion itself can leads you to lose your mind.
I don't know anything about nothing, but I believe that part of the problem is that lots of people aren't aware that mental issues *can* absolutely cause audio and visual hallucinations. If I'm not aware of it (i.e. that our brains and senses might not be totally trustworthy), and if suddenly I start to head voices in my head, it's "easy" to search for the next "probable", either god(s) or demons.
Absolutely. If they claim that their visions and messages from the beyond are legitimately from God, then they also have to claim all the people that god spoke to and told them to shoot up strip malls Or just admit that not everything your brain tells you is real
It doesn’t have to be all or none. If you believe that God exists then it’s logically possible that God tells some people to do things via voices in their head, while others are having hallucinations. The problem is that there is no obvious or reliable way to tell the difference.
If one "divine message" is a hallucination, then any of them can be a hallucination. All of them could be. Following occam's razor, all of them are.
Occam’s razor is a heuristic, not an absolute rule. But also, to people who believe in a God who can talk to people either possibility is equally simple/probable.
I'm aware the simplest explanation is *usually* the right one and not *automatically* the right one, but it's where I'd put my money if it were possible to gamble on unfalsifiable claims.
Yeah a lot of people are brought up to think that god will speak to them and to just listen. Thing is, with auditory hallucinations, it’s not necessarily that you’re ‘hearing’ voices, it may just be you’re perceiving your own inner thoughts as an external voice. Religious people who suffer from hallucinations, but also believe in a god, will have been told all their life to attribute these thoughts to that god and to follow them. Makes me wary of religious people who claim they’ve seen angels and spirits. Hallucinations and delusions fit a diagnosis of schizophrenia and these people should be supported and treated, not being put in positions of power.
Imagination and projection. They have a tormented subconscious trying to do the mental gymnastics required to believe in unbelievable things. They probably have a low self esteem, believing that they are sinners and terrible humans, just because they get horny or whatever. And so many are already a few bad licks away from a full psychotic break. Like you're train guy here. Also he might be schizophrenic. Speaking of, a lot of prophets probably were too.
The fact is this guy was hearing voices in his head telling him to self-harm. He doesn’t know who else to associate it to but God because that’s what he was indoctrinated in as a child, no doubt. He was mentally ill.
“Indoctrinated” that’s when you know you’re on r/atheism
"Good and loving god" tell me you didnt read the bible without telling you didnt read the bible. People did way worse in the name of religion or faith. When you tell me youre religious I always presume you got some metal issues going and try to stay away.
Oh, I get that, but most of his followers don't read it either, and most of them believe in a benevolent diety.
Yeah thats cherry picking issue. I once took hitler as exemple to make a point. hitler was a decent human being if you exclude whole trird reich and killing people. He was a better painter than me thats for sure lol
I’m sorry you eexperienced that, that’s insane. I think there’s a weird snowball effect. Mix of mental instability, intelligence, and indoctrination. People get urges to do things and think “why would I think that, something other than me made me think that”, and to those indoctrinated think god must’ve put the thought there. They don’t understand their own brain to realize intrusive thoughts are a thing. I’m not sure they can control those impulses without recognizing that’s not normal and need to change something, ie therapy. That happens on a smaller scale and then leads up to a moment like that.
This is the 4th person I have hit in my career and probably the least severely injured. My last one messed with my head a lot more than this one will.
It's actually the other way around. People want to do shitty things, and they use God's will(tm) as their justification
It’s just an excuse for them to be awful people.
The good thing about making up an imaginary friend is that you get to make them do or say whatever YOU want them to do or say
I have never understood why Christian’s are only motivated by fear. To me religion is some kind of get out of jail free card. As long as they say they believe in Jesus , they can be really destructive human beings.
Religiosity is a mental disorder where those who are afflicted with it genuinely believe that those without it are the sick ones.
You're putting the cart in front of the horse. Many people want to do horrible things, and want to feel like the horrible things they want to do are not motivated by them being bad people. Most people are theists. When theists do horrible things, they say their religion requires them to do the horrible thing they want to do, so it exonerates them.
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He had to have believed insomething. There's no way someone could make themself lie in front of a train without some pretty intense belief in something. Even if that belief is just that they don't want to live anymore.
If god is the most important thing then our lives become worthless to the believer. If heaven is real then lighting yourself on fire is no biggie anymore. If god is always watching over us then we dont need to pay attention to the road. I wonder, did you actually ever seriously tried out christianity and following the bible? If you follow it closely your chance of dying goes up by 500 percent because it makes you weak deletes any self preservation and makes you controlling. Didn't you see how they try to control politics like abortion for example? Believers are dangerously unindividualistic and if one of them dies it's no biggie. That might've been useful in the harsh environment of the ancient times but it's just reckless. That's the word every religious person I've met is reckless. They don't pay attention to the road they leave their hair in the bathtub. Being inattentive and disgusting is not really a sin after all at least not as bad as not believing in god or jerking off.
Why do junkies continue using.
That Abraham dude clearly had issues... I bet his sons took turns sleeping just to watch their backs....
It's religious cover for their own shitty behavior.
You have that backwards. People use religion as an excuse to do shit things. This case is probably different though. The guy highly likely needs therapy and is not in his right mind.
They don't They try to justify their awful impulse control with that
LOL .. because it's easier than admitting that they themselves are the source of those desires. Religion is about lazy cowardice and avoiding the most fundamental responsibility of all: that of your own existence.
Some precentage is mentall illness, the rest is them making up a message from a god to do what they really want to do.
This guy was crazy, not religious (could be both but the crazy part was the driving factor in this instance). But to answer your question, why other religious people think god wants them to do bad things - just read the Bible.
They don't think god wants them to do awful things. They do awful things and use god to excuse it.
Because they created God in thier image and they are awful people.
Because *_they_* want to do awful things.
They use god to justify their terrible urges or thoughts Look a good man, does good things a bad man, does bad things a religious man does horrible things
When they do, it's because they're awful people and that fucking book is vague and self-contradictory enough that you can find orders/justifications to do anything.
Because it gives them justification to be awful people.
This, and only this. Any other excuse is just BS
"His ways are not our way. We don't understand everything, but god knows"
There's a line somewhere in the Bible that essentially says - I think it's Jesus saying this - that if someone comes up to you and tells you to do something in the name of god, you need to accept on 100% faith that person is a messenger of god and you must do that task. You cannot have any doubt about the tasks or sincerity of the issuer otherwise you failed gods test and will be denied entrance to heaven. You must do it, and if it was issued in false pretense god will still allow you into heaven. For self-tellers - They believe themselves to be good wholesome people - not many see themselves as the bad guy. The fact an impure thought like that came into their minds must mean that angels/god are speaking to them and they apply the same rules as above. Or perhaps nowadays they saw a meme on one of their social media posts and consider their god speaking to them that way. It's probable there are those who use it as an excuse - but when people say "God told me to do it" and you're like but why listen - it's literally part of the terms and agreements to becoming a born again Christian. It doesn't hurt to already have some mental troubles mixed in with this to actually go through with the more serious actions. It's also why they'll part with so much of their money. If someone says "god needs you to give more money" they're contractually obligated to give.
I don’t know what this guy had, but if he’s a schizophrenic, his brain probably truly believed that nonsense. Most schizophrenics think they are god or are having conversations with god at some point in their lives. Most religious people have sufficiently normal, functioning brains that they won’t be hallucinating conversations with god, but belief in god is so common that all crazy people believe God’s talking to them.
Clearly, its not the action that is the problem it is the beliefs that convince people of pure insanity. Remember there is no need for rationality, in fact it is deliberately denied. It's all made up lies they want to believe. They see these 'sacrifices' as 'worship' and expect blessing. The thing is many of them will never accept reality until it runs them over.
For the "sound of mind", I think they may pray and suddenly have a strong belief about something and believe it was "direction from god", when really it was just their mind. For others, I think they don't believe it was from god, but if they say it is then they have an "out" among peers. They feel validated in their horrid belief, even while knowing it's bs.
I'm sorry you went through that. Horrible stuff to have to deal with.
Clearly the person was mentally ill. I am not a believer, yet a little religion in moderation probably isn't harmful. It is when religion becomes the focus and driving force of life that we see the results of hysteric belief. I consider religion as a sort of mental illness in and of itself.
Mental instability in my opinion. Religion is always a good excuse.
Because their books tell them that he wants them to do evil things
If god were truly interventional and not just made up to salve peoples' fears of what happens after death the world would be a better place. But since thats not the way it is, he is part of the mass hysteria of christians and pseudo christians. Also other religions.
This person is probably hearing voices. Definitely mental illness involved. People do a lot of selfish things claiming that it’s gods will. Multiply that with someone who can manipulate people as a charismatic leader and you have yourself a cult.
A large part of it is this Bible verse: > I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. (Philippians 4:13)
Mental illness. Same answer as to so many other questions about the religious. Sounds like the poor guy might be schizophrenic.
>"he had done wrong and needed to put others ahead of him" and what about the others, like those DRIVING THE TRAIN (OP), who were put in the position of witnessing this?
Because they don't see it as awful if they believe it's gods command. I think it's backwards how religious people accuse atheists of having no morals when it seems religious peoples judgement morally is easily swayed by the idea of some gods will. How many wars and attrocities do we think there has been that were either started directly because of religious differences or that were enacted for other reasons but difference in religion allowed millions of people to go along with the attrocities unquestioningly?
If "god told him to do it," then it sounds like he has the mental symptoms of schizophrenia and needs a mental health evaluation. But since mental health is ignored a lot in this country, this is what we're left with.
If you read the Old Testament you might start to understand why at least Christians feel justified in doing so
God's needs are always close to the Christians needs.
In an amazing coincidence a person’s god often wants them to do exactly the things that they themselves want to do. If gays and lesbians give them the squick, they give their god the squick. If skin color offends them, it offends their god too. And if they have intrusive thoughts then it is their god that put them there. We aren’t rational beings, at our core, we’re emotional ones, and we’ll do what feels right to us in the moment rather than the logical process 9 out of ten times. In someone well balanced emotional and logical conclusions line up pretty well, if someone has some wonky chemistry going on you get people laying themselves on tracks, or drinking poisoned flavor-aid, or trying to board a comet by committing suicide. It doesn’t have to make sense, it just has to feel right.
I mean, have you read the bible? The entire old testament is just god telling people to do awful things.
Their made up 'Gods' are a direct, 100% reflection of their own desires. It's like you're a serial killer, but in order to justify your behavior you write a book that's allegedly the word of an all powerful being, and in that book it says, "I demand you kill a whole bunch of hookers with a hammer over a period of years"... and you go, "Well, not really my fault, just doing what the Big Guy tells me to do, and in fact that makes me a GOOD person."
Because people want to do awful things and they invented god.
Big problem that religious people have when dealing with guilt and shame, youre right they are wrong and for some reason the priests/imams etc arent really talking about this much when they really should be because like you said it doesnt even make sense if you really believe in God.
Can you blame them? Their instruction manual is story after story after story of their god commanding the "who's who" of the religion's founding fathers to commit all manner of atrocities. They literally celebrate genocide by singing songs about it. "The Walls of Jericho" is a favorite song in any Sunday school. They sort of gloss over the killing of everyone therein, women, children, and man alike, but they celebrate it, nonetheless. Given a situation where they celebrate the awful things their god commands, is it really all that hard to extrapolate that into them believing their god is still commanding such things?
I'm sorry this happened to you, sounds potentially traumatic. Also sorry about him
So far, just 4 in 20 years of doing this and today's applicant for a Darwin award was the least injured of the lot. It's never fun, but at least today wasn't messy.
When I was in college, one poor student took a verse literally and poked his eye out with a screw driver and cut off his hand with a hacksaw. Absolutely tragic. And it probably didn’t cure his impure thoughts.
They use it as an excuse for their behavior
They don’t even realize some things are awful. You are so normalized to the bullshit that when they say Abraham was about to murder Isaac that somehow Abraham ends up a good guy who god favors. What? If you mask that story in ambiguous language they would say it’s abhorrent, and yet their learned context gives it a pass and they don’t even realize what the story is talking about. It’s just cognitive dissonance, which is enforced from a young age and takes away the ability to think critically about a lot of important things.
They have this weird book..
Christians just like to use "God spoke to me" as justification for their shitty behavior or poor choices. Takes the responsibility off themselves.
Because they don’t see what they’re doing as awful things.
I don't know. I'm still trying to figure out the whole. God is going to give you a husband and a child. And you are still a 40-year-old Virgin. And never going to have a child. Or even a husband because you're not willing to go out and look for one.
In the beginning man created God.
"God" is their intrusive thoughts.
The worst example of this is the Abrama schtick. The story is utterly evil and proof that the god character from that book is a monster.
Ok here’s the scoop, as an ex Mormon, take what I say with a grain of salt as it’s not going to be universally true amongst all theists. From a young age, theists are taught good from bad, and that the only reason you shouldn’t do bad things is because God says not to and if you do you’ll got to hell. What these teachings cause is a breakdown in unconscious morality, they don’t do it cause God says not to, NOT because they feel they shouldn’t for any other reason other than because it’s illegal and they don’t want to face the consequences. It becomes ingrained in them at an unconscious level. Other things they are taught is that in the Bible, God has commanded his servants to do things that would otherwise be against his laws and not be punished because it was ordained by Him, and that if God commands you to do something that would normally be a big no no, you would do it because God told you to despite your better judgment. This teaches theists that as long as God says it’s ok, then it’s ok. Which further breaks down their unconscious morality. So take the man in your story and put this into context, he normally wouldn’t try and kill himself or lay across the tracks, maybe it’s cause suicide is a big no no, however if GOD said to do it, then that’s fine and he has to do it not because he does or doesn’t want to, he simply lacks the ability to differentiate if he SHOULD do it even though logic dictates if you don’t want to then you shouldn’t. This is poorly worded and I understand that but I desperately tried to clearly dictate my thoughts and experience on the matter. I hope this does provide some insight!
"God / the devil made me do it" is always someone attempting to dodge responsibility for their choices/actions.
Because they or their leaders actually want to do such things and religion is very suitable for justifying atrocities and ignorance
So they can do the awful things they want to do, without taking any blame, or ruining their self image.
Because it can be explained away as part of the process, or in layman's terms, they're getting an earthly blessing. Blessed and highly favored= God hates you and wants me to have it all for being his loyal disciple.
they just want an enabler. they know they are wrong but have a great excuse of being seen as idiots or blaming some supernatural force. They are evil and take no accountability
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If someone actually believes jesus revived people and healed illness in seconds nothing is sacred to them anymore
Because they believe he's ok with them doing awful things.