If we are meant to "be good" and follow the laws/rules of God/dess, why is it so difficult for us? Why should we want to deny ourselves pleasure in order to follow God/dess?

I don't think there are any "rules" but I do think there are laws. To me, the laws are: what you focus on is what you get (you see what you believe) and there are two choices: love and fear. The rest is just details.

A good portion of this existence is in seeing how much we can get away with. It is not just God's laws that we like to play around with; it is science matters, parent’s rules and human law too. People in general do not like to be controlled and have any concerns with authority. They like to believe freely, they like to think freely and they like to act, behave and experience freely.

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"There is one thing that organized religion is not qualified to teach and that is an individual's purpose."-GOD

For the most part, I think you are right; at least I prefer my life that way. But if this is true, then why all the focus on law and rules and the "word of God"?

Because as one of the experiences of seeing how much we can get away, some people enjoy testing others by seeing how much they can manipulate and control. At no other time is this more evident than when an authority figure implements rules and laws that they themselves never expect to follow.

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"There is one thing that organized religion is not qualified to teach and that is an individual's purpose."-GOD

If we truly are a natural species in a natural world, then at the top of our list of needs is survival - at least long enough to successfully raise offspring to begin the next round.

Now, as it happens, we are a highly interdependent, social species, and so to a large extent our survival depends on others, as well as what we ourselves accomplish. Thus, it is important not only that those others upon whom we depend for our survival survive in their own right, but also that they have enough goodwill towards us to perform their necessary role(s) in our survival.

So we see that there is a built-in conflict (which is typical throughout all of nature, actually). And it is that conflict that requires us to formulate "rules" about being "good," and it is also that conflict that subsequently makes it difficult -- and occasionally impossible -- to actually follow those rules.

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evangelicalhumanist: Greek "eu"=good and "angelos"=messenger. Spreading the good news of Humanism.

For the reasons that you mentioned, EH, many of the rules and laws we have make sense. But (isn't there always a but) some have nothing to do with being able to successfully interact in a society. Why do we make a big deal out of them? Personally, words are just words, and yes they can be used to hurt, but only if you let them. Why do we make a big deal out of words? For instance, the Bible uses one of the Ten Commandments: do not take the Lord's name in vain. Why is that such a big law, and why is it given more importance than thou shalt not murder? By the order these laws appear, one is more important than the other.

You take me where most here don't want me to go. That is, once religion (or at least a belief that the things we can't understand must be the work of a deity, rather than natural processes), then at least some of the "laws" that we make for ourselves must be predicated upon pleasing the deity.

Now, as it happens, since the deity -- one should surely imagine -- is perfectly self-sufficient, it has no need of anything whatever from us, and therefore asks for nothing. Not to let this get in the way, some humans, in order to exert power over other humans, are apt to say "the deity told me, because I am a special prophet, what He wants you to do."

And from that moment on, we begin building laws that have absolutely nothing to do with us, and that therefore cannot make sense in any purely human way.

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evangelicalhumanist: Greek "eu"=good and "angelos"=messenger. Spreading the good news of Humanism.

Hi again EH - you seem to have a good understanding of the deity.... are you sure you're not a believer?

Oh, yes, quite sure.

But I occasionally allow myself to answer in an "as if" mode, just to see where the logic takes me.

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evangelicalhumanist: Greek "eu"=good and "angelos"=messenger. Spreading the good news of Humanism.