Help Me Understand - Why Would a Religious Person Act This Way?

[En_Route]

Even as we speak, somewhere near you,  a devout theist is placing his immortal soul in jeopardy by masturbating furiously in front of a computer screen.

But that's the thing. Under Reformation Christianity (Protestantism) the believer is saved by faith alone.  A sin here and there doesn't affect that. It may have its temporal consequences, but the believer's relationship with God is secure.  Your post may, however, reflect more of a Catholic theology.  But even they just have to go the priest, confess, and say 10 Hail Mary's and 5 Our Fathers, or something.

Very astute. I was brought up a Catholic though cancelled my subscription at age 14.

[xSilverPhinx]

Perhaps, we're looking at this the wrong way around. Maybe it's his own guilt for his irresistible urges that fires his Christian fervence. He's not a 'sinner' despite his Christianity, he's a Christian because of his 'sin'.

Just a thought...

Could be, though based on what I know about him, his illegal actions happened more recently than his religion. Don't really want to know what sort of things he was into before this whole scandal breaks out.

God does seem more and more like that little place you go to in your head when you want to wipe your conscience clean...

[xSilverPhinx]

Pornography is huge business on the internet, and the no doubt the viewing stats in the US reflects this phenomenon. As there seems to be relatively few atheists in the  US, this implies the vast majority of pornography users there are theists of one description or another. Human beings and not just theists are of course masters of neutralising cognitive dissonance and self- justification so thre is nothing remarkable or even surprising in this.

I don't doubt it, but I'm not talking about pornography in general. This guy was into illegal pornography, and even part of a distribution ring (though not making money out of it, it seems).

It takes it one step further into the extreme, IMO. There are no laws against watching pornography, I don't even think it's inherently wrong, but the ethical and moral implications in his case are just astounding. Not exactly a simple case of knowing but univolved bystander...

[xSilverPhinx]

I couldn't begin to tell you -- this is one of those things that always confused me and helped to eventually separate me from religion.  I was also told the "not perfect, just forgiven" business but c'mon, time after time after time?  That makes god sound like an idiot and conflicts with all the times he's supposed not to forgive, and it certainly didn't help that both the forgiveness and lack of forgiveness were suspiciously convenient for the believer telling the story.

Right I mean, how many recurring mistakes of the same kind can a person have before their god gets a little annoyed and sees that he's being played for the fool?

I'd like to throw the over-used free will argument that some religious people like right back at them in this case.

I don't think "god will forgive me" is the reason at all. I think it's the byproduct of a more basic explanation. When we are alone, we feel alone. I believe that even if he asked his god for forgiveness before he committed the acts, the reason he followed through with it is because his body didn't see people and his brain felt alone. At the subconscious level, our brains can't fight our eyes.

The way I see it, he can believe all he wants, but we'll see if he's able to squirm his way out of this one (as you can probably tell, I really don't like the guy and think that everything that's going to happen to him is totally justified). If god forgave him, then he might have some positive results and be able to escape accountability, wouldn't he (at least until the after-life, perhaps)?

[xSilverPhinx]

I will assume the person in your scenario both knew that what he was doing was wrong (from his perspective) and knew that God knew what he was doing (again, from his perspective).  But since we all have the same disease, perhaps its manifestation in this person was simply too strong for him to resist.  Furthermore, as has been pointed out by DJ, the idea that one can be forgiven for anything does give some license.  It's easier to get forgiveness than permission.

For some Christians, the allure of forbidden fruit is much like Odysseus and the Sirens.  He wanted to hear their voice, but had himself strapped to the mast so that he wouldn't jump overboard and die.  Some want to get as close to the fruit as possible without actually tasting it, but they go over the line and pay the consequences.

On the other hand, there is an alternative interpretation of Christianity in which all law is removed, and thus there is no temptation to violate it.  It's difficult to get into this mental state - I've never been very successful at it. The foundation for this idea is found in Romans 14, where Paul says that essentially nothing is impure unless the person thinks it is impure.  If one could truly reach that state, there would be no law and total freedom.  For me, that remains a hypothetical concept. I waffle back and forth between law and grace.  

"The foundation for this idea is found in Romans 14, where Paul says that essentially nothing is impure unless the person thinks it is impure."

I don't mean to derail my own thread, but that's the definition of subjective morality. Of course, even atheists who have no problem saying that their morality is subjective will have a hard time getting into the mental state where anything goes - it's just not how neurologically normal people who were brought up in a culture of morality operate.  

So...to get it back on track, how can a person juggle an idea of both absolute objective morality and subjective morality?

[En_Route]

I will assume the person in your scenario both knew that what he was doing was wrong (from his perspective) and knew that God knew what he was doing (again, from his perspective).  But since we all have the same disease, perhaps its manifestation in this person was simply too strong for him to resist.  Furthermore, as has been pointed out by DJ, the idea that one can be forgiven for anything does give some license.  It's easier to get forgiveness than permission.

For some Christians, the allure of forbidden fruit is much like Odysseus and the Sirens.  He wanted to hear their voice, but had himself strapped to the mast so that he wouldn't jump overboard and die.  Some want to get as close to the fruit as possible without actually tasting it, but they go over the line and pay the consequences.

On the other hand, there is an alternative interpretation of Christianity in which all law is removed, and thus there is no temptation to violate it.  It's difficult to get into this mental state - I've never been very successful at it. The foundation for this idea is found in Romans 14, where Paul says that essentially nothing is impure unless the person thinks it is impure.  If one could truly reach that state, there would be no law and total freedom.  For me, that remains a hypothetical concept. I waffle back and forth between law and grace.  

"The foundation for this idea is found in Romans 14, where Paul says that essentially nothing is impure unless the person thinks it is impure."

I don't mean to derail my own thread, but that's the definition of subjective morality. Of course, even atheists who have no problem saying that their morality is subjective will have a hard time getting into the mental state where anything goes - it's just not how neurologically normal people who were brought up in a culture of morality operate.  

So...to get it back on track, how can a person juggle an idea of both absolute objective morality and subjective morality?

I don't think Pauline theology is interpreted as sanctioning subjective morality in orthodox Christian thinking. There are absolute morals, based on the teachings in the Bible (good luck if you can work out what they are) but within this context if you do something that is objectively ok but which you or a sub-set of your co- religionists subjectively hold to be wrong then you have committed a sin. Incidentally, I don't lay claim to any moral beliefs whatsoever and live quite comfortably without them.

[En_Route]

Pornography is huge business on the internet, and the no doubt the viewing stats in the US reflects this phenomenon. As there seems to be relatively few atheists in the  US, this implies the vast majority of pornography users there are theists of one description or another. Human beings and not just theists are of course masters of neutralising cognitive dissonance and self- justification so thre is nothing remarkable or even surprising in this.

I don't doubt it, but I'm not talking about pornography in general. This guy was into illegal pornography, and even part of a distribution ring (though not making money out of it, it seems).

It takes it one step further into the extreme, IMO. There are no laws against watching pornography, I don't even think it's inherently wrong, but the ethical and moral implications in his case are just astounding. Not exactly a simple case of knowing but univolved bystander...

The consumption of pornography, legal or illegal, is certainly a sin in Catholic theology so the issue of  legality is probably not pivotal here to the double- think involved. Of course illegal stuff improbably requires a little extra effort in rationalisation.

[The Magic Pudding]

So...to get it back on track, how can a person juggle an idea of both absolute objective morality and subjective morality?

Fork knows, I don't.
As a youngen I had doubts that the inquisition Christians truly believed but apparently they did.
People can rationalise to justify their behaviour in non religious circumstances, consider ye Smeagol, justifying to himself the strangling of his friend.  If you (not actually you I'm sure) desire something obsessively it can make your reasoning rather biased.

Some of the "lovers" of children tell themselves they aren't doing a bad thing.
Those inflicting harm, say those beating up prostitutes may think they're justified.

[Ali]

Obvs this guy (if he was looking at illegal and therefore most certainly harmful and exploitive porno) probably has deeper problems than most.  But my basic thought is that the reason he is looking at porn (assuming it was just the normal kind of porn) even though it was against his religion is because he's a human, and that's what humans do.  Humans do all sorts of stuff that they know is "bad for them" and even goes against their ideology on the regular.  Being religious doesn't change his basic human nature, and I think most religious people know this, which is a point in their favor in my book.

[Genericguy]

I dont have much time to spit this out, but i hope i can get my point accross good enough.

Let's exaggerate the scenario for clarification.

"Mark" and "Joe" are alone in a alley. Joe did something to Mark. Even though he is a christian, Marks rage takes over and he kills Joe.

Now let's have the same situation, but this time let's put a cop in the alley. Would Mark still try to murder Joe? Obviously there can be many outcomes, but for this example let's say no. (not very unreasonable)

Why then, "knowing" his god was watching would he kill Joe, but when a cop is watching, would not? As Ali said, being religious doesn't change his basic human nature. Although, I don't think it's a point in their favor. I think it's a point for Darwin. We have millions, or even billions (How long have animals had eyes?) of years of our eyes telling our brains we are alone and only thousands of years of our brains going against our eyes. When we are alone, we feel alone. Yes, sometimes if a theist is alone they can "feel" their god with them, but in situations like these, when our urges take over, we revert to basic instincts. His eyes tell him he's alone, therefor he kills Joe. To me it weakens the idea of a god actually watching.

[En_Route]

Obvs this guy (if he was looking at illegal and therefore most certainly harmful and exploitive porno) probably has deeper problems than most.  But my basic thought is that the reason he is looking at porn (assuming it was just the normal kind of porn) even though it was against his religion is because he's a human, and that's what humans do.  Humans do all sorts of stuff that they know is "bad for them" and even goes against their ideology on the regular.  Being religious doesn't change his basic human nature, and I think most religious people know this, which is a point in their favor in my book.

I don't think it is necessary for porn to be illegal before it becomes exploitative.

[Ali]

Obvs this guy (if he was looking at illegal and therefore most certainly harmful and exploitive porno) probably has deeper problems than most.  But my basic thought is that the reason he is looking at porn (assuming it was just the normal kind of porn) even though it was against his religion is because he's a human, and that's what humans do.  Humans do all sorts of stuff that they know is "bad for them" and even goes against their ideology on the regular.  Being religious doesn't change his basic human nature, and I think most religious people know this, which is a point in their favor in my book.

I don't think it is necessary for porn to be illegal before it becomes exploitative.

I can't think of a scenario that involved legal, consenting adults that is also exploitive, unless you assume that legally consenting adults should not be able to (legally consent, that is).  I think legal, consenting adults should be able to do whatever they want with their private parts.

[En_Route]

Obvs this guy (if he was looking at illegal and therefore most certainly harmful and exploitive porno) probably has deeper problems than most.  But my basic thought is that the reason he is looking at porn (assuming it was just the normal kind of porn) even though it was against his religion is because he's a human, and that's what humans do.  Humans do all sorts of stuff that they know is "bad for them" and even goes against their ideology on the regular.  Being religious doesn't change his basic human nature, and I think most religious people know this, which is a point in their favor in my book.

I don't think it is necessary for porn to be illegal before it becomes exploitative.

I can't think of a scenario that involved legal, consenting adults that is also exploitive, unless you assume that legally consenting adults should not be able to (legally consent, that is).  I think legal, consenting adults should be able to do whatever they want with their private parts.

There is plenty of porn which is legal but which requires the participants to perform sexual acts of various degrees of perversity ( I don't use the term pejoratively, but just to avoid the trouble of having to specify them) in return for payment. This is in some cases fairly comparable to prostitution which is not illegal per se in the UK, which is often carried out consensual,y and without duress but which is  nonetheless inherently exploitative.

[Firebird]

I have no idea whether they really believe in god or not at that point, but I'm willing to bet that he puffed up his moral, Christian credentials precisely because he felt ashamed and was trying to compensate for it in some twisted way. There's all sorts of examples like this both inside and outside the church (Ted Haggerty, for example). Most of the times, the ones who yell loudest about "morality" are often the ones doing it to make up for the shame they feel.

[xSilverPhinx]

If you (not actually you I'm sure) desire something obsessively it can make your reasoning rather biased.

True, people are better at rationalising than they are rational. I find it intriguing how, considering how he's in deep water, he keeps on doing it as if nothing's wrong. Must be because he really never did think he would get caught. Especially because he is, or was a true believer...

This is a question that one could wonder about for years. ???

I do agree in part with GenericGuy. There must be a difference in feeling as if there was some amorphous present but not present god watching, and a real Big Brother watching. People certainly act differently.