Just because the creator of all, my creator (assuming this were the case) stated something was right and something was wrong, it would not necessarily be true. If God endorses murder, rape and theft, he can... go to hell. It still doesn't make those things right.Humanity does have a habit of not doing what we're told.
Just because the creator of all, my creator (assuming this were the case) stated something was right and something was wrong, it would not necessarily be true. If God endorses murder, rape and theft, he can... go to hell. It still doesn't make those things right.Says who? Though your intentions may be honourable, what you would be doing is technically evil, because you are defying the basic reason you were created. And as I said, if these ethics were handed down upon humans at the beginning of time, you would be thinking differently right now.
| ↓=correct/→=belief | No God | Christianity | Multiple Religions |
| No God | Good | Good | Good |
| Christianity | Bad | Good | Bad |
| Religion w/ belief needed | Bad | Bad | Bad |
| Religion w/ no belief needed/reincarnation? | Good | Good | Good |
Since he made tangible, big contributions to the Chrono fan community!I should spend more time outside of the General Discussion board I guess.
Unfrotunately, I don't understand what the table means exactly. Why is one better than none? And Faustwolf, where did the creator come from, as it would have had to have had a creator itself (that's one "have had" too many for me)?If you look at the table (I know it is a bit hard to understand) you realize that if you believe in No God, and there is a god, you lose. If you believe in a god, and there is no God, no harm done.
okay I have found where most of my "disbelief", in that this being god dose not fallow physical laws of the world. But it is not beyond me to admit that we could be wrong about something. So I'm stuck at the "can't prove it one way or another" kinda like strings.
And Z doesn't really sound too much like a Nietzchian. The first thing I think about when I hear Nietzche is his disgusting notion of power over the weak and might is right. He is more like his opposite, Kant.
Religion is against reason and inhibits the progress of humanity.
Reason is why humanity awoke on the plains of Africa and came to dominate the world. We developed tools, agriculture, and civilization all by observing that this plow in that ground produces these sustaining plants. Reason is why we decided that living in a cohesive system of cities was better than starving alone. Reason is why we, borne from the most basic atoms of this universe, have come to a position to understand it by adding to human knowledge with an open mind. Reason is not the sole enabler or beauty of humanity; there is passion, emotion, love, and other virtues and vices. But reason and understanding is why we can throw a rock over a cliff and expect it to fall to the ground rather than take flight, and that is how we've eked out with blood, effort, and mistakes over thousands of years an establishment on this earth.
Religion, and the concept of faith, are inherently against reason. Water is blue and fluid; rock is hard and rigid; fire consumes fuel. Human understanding started with basic concepts like these and moved forward. And thousands of years ago, when a native clothed in a simple skin stood on a cliff and quivered with fear when thunder split open the sky, he surmised that a great power occupied that space. Further on, perhaps a need for justice, order, and cause for phenomena such as this formed the idea that a sentient being, like us, occupied that space. This belief evolved into a deity or pantheon of gods explaining why the sun rose and fell, or why family could suffer untimely deaths. As humanity spread and populated the earth, these belief systems differed and became unique. This is reasonable.
We have grown beyond the need for religion, or God. In its place is an expansive, wild universe in which anything is possible; whose very nature continues to fascinate and provoke inquisitive minds to learn more about it. Ancient reason spoke of flat earths (judging from a flat horizon), and modern reason and exploration revised this definition. Four elements of the Greeks became over a hundred. Thunder and lightning went from something to inspire fear to weather phenomena to be respected and beheld with understanding.
But religion escapes this enlightenment, because faith perpetuates its own correctness and itself. Faith demands that the very Promethean fire of open minded reason be quenched to believe in things that defy reason. Faith responds to ever-growing evidence of its falsehood and inadequacies by exempting itself from human scrutiny. And when something as fundamentally illogical like faith pervades humankind, disaster strikes. People are persecuted; groups are formed; wars are started; life is interrupted. But worse of all, faith completely subdues that original human spirit by ordering it to lay prostrate in worship before a god which does not exist. It is the height of folly, and it is dangerous.
We know it caused skin to be ripped from flesh in the Middle Ages and condemned millions to their deaths in other conflicted periods, but let's examine what faith does today. Faith precipitates hatred towards other people. Faith denies alternative biological dispositions for sexuality so that it can persecute those who have it. Faith motivates irrational actions based on the promise of ethereal reward with no scientific basis. Faith squelches basic sexuality and knowledge to reinforce doctrine borne in eras of prearranged marriages. Faith maintains mutilation of newborn children, male and female, based on erroneous concepts of cleanliness. Faith polarizes, divides, and conflagrates humanity based on differences over fantasy.
Faith's time on this earth is obviously limited; now that its proponents understand this, faith's ultimate, natural sin against humanity is entrenched in open warfare with society. Faith no longer asks its own members to suspend belief in human intelligence, but now vies for the power to force this belief on others. Faith is ingrained in political systems; the current American administration has helped it to become further ingrained. Taxpayer money is given to religious schools. Religious monuments decorate federal buildings. Appeals to God are engraved upon our currency. And the entire assault has the odious effect of arguing that humanity is inadequate. Humanity cannot stand on its own two feet; its reason is ill-equipped to define God, its civilizations are doomed to fail, and its very world is going to be consumed in fire. So it is written in major religions; so it is forced upon indoctrinated children and held as truth by adults.
Religion is anti-human. It is poison to the human mind, and adverse to human advancement. Faith cannot be reasoned with, for believers openly defy reason. The evolution and evidence of belief systems in human history is irrelevant to each faith; each faith holds itself to be correct. Inaccuracies and motive-based declarations of inequality are irrelevant to faiths; they ignore internal disagreement and continue to hold prejudice. The validity of other human beliefs and lives are irrelevant to faiths; they believe that other faiths are largely condemned to hell with the rest of the world. But faith is as evil now as it ever was before because it is on the offensive. Faith demands that reason die in public schools and forums; faith demands that its believers die and kill others because of their infidelity; faith demands that some humans are inferior to others and must be subservient; faith demands that human sexuality is inherently wrong despite being natural to human biology; faith demands that biology be rendered fiction in total.
If reason, passion, and enterprise mark the upward spiral of humankind, faith marks the lion's share of its greatest atrocities. The pervasive evil of religion now threatens to vigorously impede human progress, as it is finally feeling the threat of its demise. The evidence transcends speculative philosophy concocted by those still assuming they lived in a clockwork world; it lies unabashedly apparent in our human makeup, the behavior of our world, and the fixture of earth in the universe. But this doesn't matter to faith: God is exempt, and will return to eviscerate and torture every human whoever dared to look upon the stars and feel their beauty without acknowledging one out of several hundred proposed phantasmagorical creators dating from the earliest days of humankind. For some believers, God is taking too long, and faith must now openly oppress and hate those outside its flock on its own schedule and terms, in violation of the very "peaceful" beliefs they allege to hold. The casualty toll of "deviants", "infidels", "nonbelievers", and even women will rise until God is dead.
God help us in a world of religion.
God lies entirely out of our both apriori and aposteriori understanding.
So my first statement wishes to annul a common atheistic position that belief in God is irrational.
I'll hold my stance that for atheism to be in any way a reasonable belief it must allow for the possibility of God…
…but can nonetheless by faith claim that there is no God.
After all, since both the statements that God exists and God doesn't exists are statements made without proof, then shall we dismiss them both. But what are we left then with? A paradox, wherein we cannot say if God exists or not.
Why can this not be dismissed, saying 'even as you do not have proof for saying it is so, I needn't have proof for saying it is not'? Simply because asserting something does not require full knowledge, whereas dismissing does.
All that one CAN do is raise a contrary assertion, which is something altogether different than having dismissed it. So Atheism is not the dismissing of Theism, but instead a contrary faith claim.
Simone de Beauvoire wrote that, since the ethical atheist believes that no God exists, then the ethical atheist must be on his or her best behavior because there's no God to forgive him or her. It might seem like a copout explanation (if there's no God to forgive sin, then there's no God to define sin), but if "sin" can be defined objectively, then it could work
(Beauvoire got around the definition issue by adopting the promotion of freedom as the rubric by which to judge good versus evil behavior).
As for why I'm personally religious, I take a bizarre Occam's razor approach: it's so much easier to explain the origins of the universe if an unknowable Being gave birth to it.
Now, whether religion is "evil" is a lot harder to state. The root of this is in the definition and/or interpretation of the word evil.
Though I can not refute the evils that have occurred under the name of God, how can we trust that the same won't happen under atheism?
Atheism does wish to destroy religion, just like religions wish to destroy every other faith.
On ethics, and we'll use the Islamic god in this example. He says violence is acceptable under certain conditions. Now, you may say this is wrong, and evil, and that violence is never acceptable. Fair enough. However, this can only be said if the God doesn't exist, and that can not be proven. What if you die, and you wake up, and you're standing in front of this God.
Well, what I am basically saying is that until God is without a doubt, proved or disproved, the question of ethics is up in the air.
But in the end, for me, it boils down to this: am I willing to risk an eternity after death for a single question born out of curiosity?
Also, your criticism of religion, that it is illogical because it calls itself illogical, is illogical in itself. Just because you do not understand something, does not make it illogical.
Yes, when you look at your religion and you say "I believe because I believe", yes, that may be illogical. However, what else can you say when you are arguing against an equally bullheaded and stubborn foe? Someone who has put their faith in other matters, such as their faith in science, the word of men, the structure of experimentation.
Quantum mechanics was born out of metaphysical bullshit, and yet it is becoming more and more accepted, even though it proves theories with more theories, and so on.
I believe in science.
You are forgetting many of the evils religion extinguished.
What God wants you to do is beyond that, believe so much that you feel as though you can see God, and that god is as close to you as, quote, "your jugular vein".
Now, say there is no God in the end. No one loses.
The Creator, for me, is the "end of the line," so to speak -- the unknowable source from whence everything knowable sprung. The universe paradoxically defies itself if all the matter in the cosmos sprung out of nowhere. Therefore, the source of the universe must lie in something that does not operate according to the laws of physics. Gah, now I'm just confusing myself.
The UofA gets all the funding; the Lutheran university gets nothing public.
Fact is, religion is part of our history and what makes us human.
I'd really challenge your view that religion holds back humanity. Most of the great artists and thinkers have been religious.
See, a lot of people think 'the church held things back.' Held us back in the dark ages. No. Look, dark ages are not a religious occurance, they are a socio-political one. (…) That wasn't religion. That was war, and people movements. Did the church cause the dark age after Rome? Certainly not, and to think so is rather naive. Rome was falling long before Constantine or anything like that. Look at the incoming peoples, the political fragmentation of the empire... that's what caused it's fall. As for prolonging the dark age... did the Church rule Charlagmagne, or was it the other way about? As I recall, it was he that forced the Pope to bless his rule. Where is the control there? ZeaLitY, it was the volatile and fragmentary nature of Europe in that era that held it in darkness, and afterward the feudal system which turned the common people into slaves.
My religious view would be, I think, described as rather devout. But this doesn't stop me from keeping an open mind and learning. I suppose I'm trying to set myself up as proof that religion doesn't poison our human spirit nor weigh us down. How does knowing God exists and that He cares for me keep me from learning? It's my bloody duty to learn. That's my calling, you know. To think, to question.
You know what it means when it says that God made people in his own image? Creatures with reason and with free will.
And sometimes He destroys us. It's just the way things are.
I'm just tired of having religion knocked down as irrational and weighing us down and all that sort of thing. Take religion out of Shakespeare; take it out of Aeschylus; take it out of Tolkien. It is the heart and soul of art, ZeaLitY.
Actually, no, reason can't tell us that ZeaLitY. All we can say is that when we throw a rock off a cliff, it happens to fall down. That there's a connection... well, can't be proven. 'Causality' is merely a category of understanding. So reason tells us we really can't know, for certain. We're just taking that on faith.
With all that reason, um, how do you explain things like, oh, remote viewers? The police use those guys, and they work. How does that happen? Some 'reasonable' explanation you assume? What qualifies you to make that assumption? You're clinging then to reason and evidence all too like a faith.
Well, one day the manager walked in and found knives and forks stuck in the ceiling. He assumed the guy had been high and had done it himself, but he goes 'it wasn't me'... and as the manager watches a fork leaps off the table and gets stuck in the ceiling. Now, tell me, where is the reasonable explanation in THAT? Reason can't tell you, and if you go 'well, I'm sure there's some explanation', you've made the mistake of putting FAITH into something.
Blue, fluid... these things are all just ways the human mind sees things. They might not be how they really are.
Fact is, there's always been a concept of an 'original' God... people have always understood that, even amidst the pantheons. Tell me, where does THAT come from?
Seriously, faith polarizes? People polarize, constantly. Rich and poor; black and white; young and old. It is in the way we think. To pin it on religion is grossly erroneous.
And yes, humanity is inadequate in its current form. If you think it's adequate, or can make itself adequate... isn't that delusion, when all the evidence of five thousand years of human history speaks against it?
But meh, I know you have hopes otherwise, but if Christianity has withstood the persecution of Rome, it'll sure survive this persecution.
Now along comes Krispin, bearing in hand a new message: God, the supreme being whose powers are beyond imagining, whose very existence renders all other truth arbitrary, has revealed itself (ahem, “Himself”) to us. This god is so fundamental to the nature of our existence that to not know him, is to know nothing.
That by itself is extraordinary, but what catapults Krispin’s claim beyond all reason is the final stroke: Faith. As Krispin himself put it, the road to this most heavenly and supreme truth of truths is completely, altogether opposite to the system of scientific inquiry by which we have attained all other factual understanding of our universe.
Before I am depleted I wish to make one, last, great argument: It is the unending folly of the believer to interpret all things through that insidious lens of religious devotion. You, and many like you, have never truly understood the elegant simplicity of science. You are forever bound to an absolutist mentality that closes your mind to the understanding of the real working of things.
You asserted that the church has not held humanity back. You know better than this. You know it was the church that betrayed Galileo and today promotes policies that help the spread of AIDS in Africa. You know that it is the ignorant men of the churches that are trying to halt progress in stem cell research, despite the great hope of educated men of science that these cells can lead to treatments for many dreaded diseases. It is the church that is the ever present enemy of both women and homosexuals, wanting to hold back over half of humanity to second or third class citizens. It is the faithful that are fighting to teach the absurdity of creationism to innocent children in public schools, denying them an understanding of the basis of modern biology and condemning them to ignorance of the living world. You know these things Daniel, so unless you can show rationally why striving to spread deliberate ignorance and needless suffering throughout the world is propelling humanity forward, I hope that you will abandon your claim.
I, for one, got a lot out of this discussion at least, and I thank you for bringing it up Daniel. I come from a very religious family and, quite frankly, it's healthy for me to be exposed to the atheistic ideas propounded here. Not what you wanted to accomplish, perhaps, but certainly not a waste of time by any means IMO. Sorry for my useless quips -- I know that didn't help bring the level of discussion up either :mrgreen:.
Hey, don't start things off on that wrong foot, the 'you know better than this' rhetorical tactic. No, this is my viewpoint. There is nothing to 'know better.' I think you're wrong. You are merely speaking your own rhetoric, and your own viewpoint, not facts (as much as you might consider them 'facts', you're clinging to them as surely as someone religious to their dogma... hey, at least I know where my faith lies. You're worse of, thinking you're free, when you're not.) No, there isn't ignorance in this all, and no, obviously I don't know this. And I'll throw it back at you: surely you know history better than to buy into the media-washed teachings that you're spouting there.
Yeah, Sokrates was accused of 'corrupting the youth', but guess what? We all know, and they all knew, it was a pretext. There was nothing really religious about it, and to think so is either having an agenda (ie. making the historical facts fit your view, which I see atheists doing all the bloody time) or else simple ignorance. Damn, I hate it when things get to this point, but you must know I have nothing against atheists per say. The most brilliant professor I've ever had is an atheist, and I'm switching classes just so I can get taught by him again (coincidentally, he being the one that taught me about Kant... indeed, he very much likes Kant.) But these things are just terribly misconstrued.
So please, just try, try very hard, to understand your viewpoint isn't so enlightened as you take it to be. Frankly, I've read enough of antiquity to know that there were people thinking just like your 2500 years ago, so this struggle isn't exactly anything new, and will continue for a long time. And unfortunately, it's always been the religious rationalists that win out: not the theistic or atheistic fanatics. Or that's what history has shown, anyway. Progress has not been the cause of atheism, but theists who follow reason.
Yeah, I asserted God is needed because of death, but I broke off, because that's not a philosophical claim. If you want me to be specific, by death I didn't mean temporal death, but that's all theological, and that's an entirely different issue. That's a theological one based on my own beliefs, and that doesn't have currency here. Just like statements like 'religion has done such and such and is terrible' shouldn't, because there isn't any proof. You're just buying into one or another guru that's told you these things about history, and not free thinking. That's what's troubling me. The atheists seem all superiour (ironic because that's the same thing they accuse the religious of) in thinking they're enlightened, but they're just following the herd.
Eep, gotta make one more comment. Actually, you're off in your first comment. Fact is, it is an unknowable thing. To use the term 'evidence' in this way is to make a grave metaphysical blunder that charactarised pre-Kantian metaphysics. Your statement about 'with the present evidence' is absolutely meaningless. 'Evidence' has no currency on what I said, as I was speaking bloody 'a priori'. Prior to evidence. Specifically, I'm speaking synthetic apriori, but that's more complicated. So, simply, you're wrong. Not on belief grounds, but Kantian logic has you in a stranglehold. Your example is, to put it bluntly, ridiculous. Why are you saying 'play the lottery every time'? As though there are multiple instances? Then the chances wouldn't be fifty fifty. They would be 25/75. No, this is a single yes or no. Your example is irrelivant upon that issue, and in the 50/50 chance to believe you will win or believe you will lose has equal currency. THAT is what we're in, and it doesn't make sense that you say 'every time you play' as though there were multiple instances of this.
Look, guys, what I'm seeing mistaken in you is not your atheistic belief. You simply have it for the wrong bloody reasons. Most of your reasons and 'logic' can be entirely circumvented by Kant. And that's what I find so painful: that while you're accusing the religious of being unswerving, of not having open eyes, of being stuck in their own beliefs to the exclusion of 'evidence', you fail to see yourselves as the biggest perpetrators of this. Kant, via logic, has two hundred years past dismissed many of your viewpoints - evidence, if you wish to call it that! - but still you cling desperately to it. And you'll get mad at me for questioning what you see as 'unquestionable.' You're acting for all the world like those stuck in their own beliefs. After all, if you're so open, why can't you open yourselves to the possibility that God might exist, even an equal possibility? Because just now I, a religious person, have shown myself more open minded in saying that it is, philosophically speaking, entirely reasonable to have an atheistic position. Hm? Match that one, and I'll call you enlightened. Till then, have fun in your pre-Kantian dark age.
Hmph. Well, I think I'm outta this. Sorry guys, but I guess even the Compendium isn't up for this level of discussion. Lord J, and the rest of you, I'm sorry this topic came up. I thought we could all handle it like philosophers, but all we got was a bunch of opinion ridden rants. I'll leave this discussion to my philosophy club... there there are atheists that I can brings this up with without being told what my religion believes and how horrid it is. This has utterly disgusted me. I thought for once we could talk about the reasons for ideas, rather than just accusing each other's beliefs. But heck, you guys really made a bad showing of yourselves. Like I said, my philosophy club will give me far more intellectual stimulation. I'm just sad that the Compendium wasn't able to rise above their petty vehemence against religion.I loved this personally, if this is below your normal level of discussion then I envy you greatly. I rarely have many of these so I treat all of them as truly precious chances to learn foreign philosophies and views. If there's any thing I love about talking it how the conversion can move from topic too topic.
Now, say there is no God in the end. No one loses.
Not true. Those who followed a religion lived a lie, constraining their behavior, sacrificing their intellectual integrity, and quite probably influencing other people to similarly demean their own lives.
What is it to you if they have lived a lie? Does it affect you? Does not every human have the right to live according to how he or she wants to? If someone wishes to live in total ignorance, then so be it.
You are saying that a human must live according to reason and fact. Who are you to say how a human should live? You're displaying the very thing that you say is evil in religion: a preconcieved notion of how to live. If there is no God, then death is final. If I die, and I have lived my life according to how I want, what is wrong? When you die, you die. There is nothing left. How I lived my life does not matter, because I would be dead! How I influenced others would also not matter. The actions I partook in, the things I said, none of it would matter. If one person devoted themselves to chastity and a life of no pleasures, and another of sex and pleasure, and they die, then that's it. They lived how they wanted to live, and they can't exactly regret it can they? Do you not understand that?
How I influenced others would also not matter.
Radical_Dreamer, I don't find the traps set by scripture any more nefarious than the traps set by evolution itself -- the very physical differences between human beings can sow hatred even in the absence of religion, I daresay. But finding it within ourselves to overcome the various traps with which we are confronted -- those things, be they scriptural doctrine or otherwise, which cause hate -- is, to me, the essence of ethical growth. And in that way, religious differences, racial differences, differences in orientation, etc., are absolutely desirable. Humanity cannot advance if it is not challenged. Woe, indeed, that the price of failure is so great.
As far as the Creator setting the traps, well -- the Creator didn't fax it from heaven IMHO. People gave us scripture, and thus through the human element were the traps set. As for why a merciful God allows people to fail ethically, I can only say I would loathe a God who prevents suffering by controlling human behavior. If that were the case, we would have no free will to begin with, and there would be no meaning in our actions.
Some sects of religion may hinder reason, but others cherish and propagate it.
In fact, it has left me colder, and made me more apprehensive and pessimisstic.
"Be wary of strong drink, it can make you shoot to tax collectors, and miss"
However, what is certain is that at least some of these deaths could have been avoided without religion. Generic person of religion A kills another person of religion B because they follow a different religion.
Now, some readers will know that there is no such thing as a truly altruistic human act. And I'd agree. All our actions are to satisfy ourselves. We are all inherently selfish.
However, a person carrying out such an action with the ultimate aim of salvation (unless it's their last kind act before death) will inevitably need to carry out another act to fulfill their perceived quota to achieve it.
Submitting to such ideas leads to discrimination based on irrational beliefs. This is clearly not a good thing. Imagine two people apply for a job. One is Muslim and is the better qualified but botht he potential employer and the Muslim's competition are Christian. The Christian gets the job by virtue of the fact they are Christian. This, I'm sure you agree, is not desirable, and probably the only way to utterly stop such religious discrimination is to attack the problem at its root: religion itself.
Religion protects itself from logical criticism by being illogical. When every last argument of the religious type has been broken down and they are proverbially cornered, they produce their last resort, their trump card, their deus ex machina: faith. And while someone remains bullheaded, stubborn, unmovable in their faith, they cannot progress. Faith transcends logic only because it is inherently illogical.
Morality does not require a God or humans or this universe to exist. It is a concept any sentient mind can appreciate. It is this kind of mentality that lets parents think they can abuse their children because they "live under their roof" and they "created them".
Perhpas by definition, faith in science is only faith in a different sense of the term. Faith in science is faith in what is most likely, what has been demonstrated through rigorous testing and practical applications, what can be observed, described and recorded. The faith I talk of is belief based on no valid evidence. It is indeed pretty much "I believe because I believe," whereas the scientific faith is "I believe because of sound evidence."
My definition of evil is this: “Ignorance, or willful ignorance.”
That by itself is extraordinary, but what catapults Krispin’s claim beyond all reason is the final stroke: Faith. As Krispin himself put it, the road to this most heavenly and supreme truth of truths is completely, altogether opposite to the system of scientific inquiry by which we have attained all other factual understanding of our universe.
We are a species that has only known civilization for a few thousand years.
We ourselves have not changed at all, biologically.
He is an all-perfect father, yet failed to prevent the fall of his children and doomed them to live wretched lives until the Judgment. He is loving and compassionate, yet routinely inflicts eternal torture on his own creations. He is supreme, yet was thwarted in his intentions at Eden by the Devil. He is merciful, yet allowed his progeny to be caught up in a struggle far beyond their means to fight. He entrusted his holy message to a book overrun by factual errors and ancient politics.
It would do better to read, “What can be asserted without proof, can be dismissed without evaluation.”
Religion, with its predication upon faith, is an institution of willful ignorance, which qualifies it as an evil. You may evaluate that for yourself.
Any atheist who acts against a religion is not doing so because they are an atheist
Not true. Those who followed a religion lived a lie, constraining their behavior, sacrificing their intellectual integrity, and quite probably influencing other people to similarly demean their own lives. That’s another flaw in Pascal’s Wager: It completely ignores the penalties that one pays in this life for being religious.
We should also not be surprised that, as religion has waned over the past century, that share has changed—now a great many of our finest people are nonreligious, or belong to alternative religions.
Oh boy, this is the kind of blatant historical revisionism that can only be refuted through exhaustive documentation. Fortunately, I would fall back to that earlier quotation we discussed: That which is asserted without proof can be dismissed without evaluation.
I will say, simply, that “naïve” is to speak of the war, famine, mass migrations, pestilence political fragmentation, feudalism, economic stagnation, and technological decay that gripped Europe for a thousand years, and suggest that the mighty Christian religion had no part in any of it
4) despite that, the universe behaves in such a manner as to satisfy our expectations of a god.
I am not picking a side in this argument. But here's some food for thought.
IF God were a perfect being, as he is believed to be, then he could simply choose not to be discovered. Therefore, those believing in him would have no proof of him, and the sceptics would have no disproof of him. Therefore, religion and nonreligion are simply two different ways of looking at things. For neither have any solid proof that thier ideals are indeed correct.
One more thing. The universe is a very intracite thing. It has many laws and complications. Gravity, magnetism, friction, velocity, time. There is no definite explantions for how or when these came to be.
Now, just for a moment, let's compare the entire universe to an old-style pocketwatch. The watch has many small gears and cogs, all turning in sequence, causing the hands to move. All of these work together to make the watch functional. In order to make the watch work, careful intelligent planning was done on the part of the creator. If a single gear were misaligned, the whole machine could fail. If you were to take the materials used to create a pocketwatch, and tossed them into the air, it would be absurd to think that the pieces would simply "fall" into alignment and create a working watch. Therefore, is it not equally absurd to believe that a universe could just "happen" and its laws materialize out of nowhere?
It is impossible to dismiss religion until we know absoultely EVERYTHING there is to know about the universe.
For an example I turn to the story of Noah's Ark. At the conclusion of the story we see God admitting that he made a mistake in flooding the Earth, and promising to never do so again. This is hardly what I would call an all-knowing being that exists outside the flow of time; indeed, it suggests that, at the time Genesis was written, it was believed that God experiences time just as humanity does!
I wish I had more examples, but alas my knowledge of history is little better than that of a layman. I am certainly open to examples to the contrary.
You then move to social science and history examples that you claim further support your point. I will accept that these examples are unusual, and perhaps inexplicable with current knowledge. (Certainly I could not provide an explanation!) But this is the worst possible time to bring a supreme being into the discussion, as it invites us to just turn our brains off rather than digging deeper in an effort to advance human understanding. To me, this makes this line of thinking unreasonable as well as illogical.
Furthermore, the hypothesis that "God could have done it" does not provide an answer, but instead only changes the question to "How and why did He do it this way?" rather than simply "How and why did it happen this way?" And I believe that, when deeper inquiry is made, the understanding gained will in no way require the presence of a creator.
As an example of this I turn to the concept of "irreducible complexity" that Intelligent Design proponents love to use as evidence of a creator. One commonly cited example of a system argued to be irreducibly complex is the human eye. As ID proponents explain, the eye is made up of an unusually large number of parts that are strongly dependent on one another to function; this suggests to them that the eye could not have come about via evolutionary processes. Of course, scientific research has shown that the human eye very well could have evolved. This understanding would not have come about under the principles of Intelligent Design.
To your credit, you readily and often admit that evidence that a supreme being could exist does not mean that a supreme being does in fact exist. However, I do not believe that the examples you have provided contain any new evidence of a supreme being, but is instead the same line of thinking that almost every religious discussion I have been a part of has come down to.
The stuff I was referring to earlier is in Kant's Metaphysics of Morals. I, for my part, haven't been exposed to any of Kant's wider philosophical writings like you have, Daniel -- only a narrow part of his writings that dealt strictly with ethics.
First, allow me to sidestep the question of the validity of Atheism for a moment and simply state that of course Atheism is illogical! Yet it is also equally true that Theism is illogical; only Agnosticism is logical, for this particular question.
As the entirety of the evidence on the matter is not yet known (being that a humblingly small amount of knowledge has been amassed by humans over the last 20,000 years, compared to the whole of the universe, and being that a good majority of that knowledge is almost assuredly incorrect), no definite solution can be reached. It is like trying to solve a mathematical equation while half the numbers and variables are missing!
It is not a bad thing to be illogical, mind you. After all, no single human (and possibly the species in general) is so long-lived as to have the luxury of waiting until we have all the necessary information before making a decision in this matter.
As for faith being illogical, again I will respond with: of course it is! It, however, is perfectly reasonable.
For the religious individual, faith may replace all logic and reason. However, it is also quite possible for faith to supplement these tools. In the latter case, it is somewhat inexact to call faith illogical or unreasonable; rather, it is used as an extra-logical tool.
I am most amused that some people have pointed out that religion does not conform to the scientific method or empirical evidence and have therefore concluded that it should be discarded. How terribly unreasonable of them! The Scientific Method does not address the same questions that religion addresses…
Just as the humanities can use the scientific method and empirical evidence at its whim without being subject to the tool, so too can we use these tools in the question of the existence of god while avoiding the nasty problem of being subject to it. That is to say, it is perfectly acceptable to point at particulars of science and empirical evidence to support one side or another, though neither is the final word on the matter. It is about the level of circumstantial evidence, at best.
So then, if science is against religion, I would be most curious as to hear how. Of course, this curiosity is asking rather much, as science might object to part of one religion while leaving three other religions untouched.
Simply put, there is nothing in the bible that precludes evolution, and nothing in evolution that precludes the bible.
The strict creationist would say that the bible claims that God created man from dust; this is true, the bible does so claim. However, it does not make mention of the means through which God did this creating. An artist creates a painting, an author creates a book, but none of this tells us how it is done.
Now the “scientist” might object, saying that the methods of evolution are known and without a taint of divine intervention.
That is, in so far as religion would have us expect the universe to behave in such-and-such a manner and science has shown that it does in fact behave in that manner, we may then claim that science has confirmed religion.
To move on from science to social science (in a continuing train of how different spheres of discipline may be applied to the issue but do not dominate that issue), it is rather curious that humans have a conception of god in the first place. Humans, after all, are animals of experience (or empirical evidence, if you prefer). It is said that we cannot truly imagine what an alien life-form would look like as we have no basis for that which is truly alien. Indeed, humans are a horribly unimaginative lot; at best we can make small leaps from the known into the unknown; there are no thoughts, no inventions, that have not been built on the ideas that came before it. Why then should we have made the leap to a god?
Did someone see thunder and think it a god? Why would he have questioned it in the first place? Perhaps I am wrong in this statement but to my knowledge there was never a god of gravity in any society, yet gravity would be just as mysterious to primitive man.
And, why should more than one people have imagined a god in the first place?
As it makes no sense for any god to be postulated in the first place (unless there was experience, of course), why should numerous independent peoples of created an idea as beyond experience as the divine?
But now onto the supplemental questions as to if Religion is good or evil. Ha, how unreasonable such a question is! The very question of ultimate good or evil is a religious question; to attempt to address it assuming that religion is evil is like attempting to argue that logic (as a system of perceiving the world) is illogical by using logic!
What we call good and bad are inherently steeped in the assumption that there can be an authority higher than humanity and such assumptions are religious in nature.
A hammer may be very useful for driving a nail into a piece of wood, or bashing your opponent over the head when you get frustrated with their arguments…
I would propose, then, that the use to which Religion should be put is the preservation and advancement of human civilization and individual societies. The first part, that of preservation, is rather simple. To survive societies need a common; societies are not made up of strangers but fellow believers in whatever that society decides to believe in. Religion can serve this role just as well as anything else.
Christianity is a perfect example of religion preserving it. The knowledge, laws, and customs of the ancient world were preserved through the Church.
So then, has Religion advanced society or civilization? I highly suspect that the advancements is theological discourse will be discarded out of hand by those who disagree with religion, therefore allow me to return to Christianity and note the wonders of monasticism (specifically the Irish brand of Monasticism).
Now one might claim that the enlightenment and scientific revolution would have still happened regardless of the role religion played in it. Perhaps – when one gets into counterfactual historical arguments things get a bit tricky – but it is rather assured that IF these things still happened, then they would have been delayed by several centuries or millennia.
But what has religion done for us lately? Charity organizations aside, of course. And Hospitals. And basic laws.
Basic tenant of the modern western world is that everyone is equal, which is an inherently religious perspective. How is that a religious perspective? Quite simple; people are NOT equal, as even the simplest of observations will show.
If we are left to the laws of nature, un-tempered by the urgings of religion, then we are left with survival of the fittest.
Certainly, Religion has its uses.
There are truly altruistic human acts; just because an altruistic act usually benefits the doer and the receiver does not make it any less altruistic.
Two points; not everyone who is religious is interested in salvation. Buddists and Taoists, for example. Also, this is actually an internally debated Christian concept; salvation through grace or salvation through works. If there is salvation through grace, then works are not needed (and thus the person will have no perceived quota); yet in the same turn, salvation through grace should lead to good works, just as eating will lead to sustained living (as it were).
This is not to say that even the best apologetics will not include faith. But they will include logic and reason that you can accept (on a technical level, at least) as well. As mentioned above, for the learned religious individual, faith is used as an extra-logical tool. To expect it to be absent is, well, illogical of you.
No, scientific faith is “I believe because I believe I have sound evidence.”
Science recognizes only one type of “fact,” that of the observation. The observation itself may be flawed, but it is a fact that it was observed. These observations are then used to support a hypothesis (though really it happens in reverse, unfortunately) which, if it stands up to peer review and rigorous testing may, MAY, be promoted to the realm of theory. Theory is still not a fact. To be fair to science (and to make sure I am not misunderstood), a scientific theory is nearly as good as fact.
Now to Lord J, though he (she?) clearly stated that he would not return to read responses. It is only proper to address some of the issues brought up by such an “evil” individual (his definition of the word, not mine). (…)
Curiously, that makes all of humanity evil without remorse. I highly suspect that you are ignorant of all of the laws contained in the Code of Aethelbert, King of Kent. Therefore, you are evil. If you do not go out and learn about these law codes, then you are willfully ignorant and all the more evil for it. I am ignorant as to your street address, thus I am evil. As no one, at any point, has ever been without some ignorance, everyone is always evil.
I am afraid your definition is simply too unreasonable and it must be rejected.
It is not that the road to Truth is opposite to the system of scientific inquiry, but it is in addition to.
I feel like I am in a Monty Python sketch. “I’m thirty-seven, I’m not old.” “It’s around twenty thousand years of civilization, that’s not a few.”
Actually, we have. Modern advancements are actually speeding up evolution, as a larger population allows for more genetic variations to enter the species and a larger playing field for those variations to find an advantage niche. True, these aren’t major biological changes, but for one humans are genetically predisposed to longer lives now-a-days than in the past (which is actually a result of older men procreating with younger women).
QuoteQuote from: Lord J esq on January 06, 2008, 03:53:28 PM
He is an all-perfect father, yet failed to prevent the fall of his children and doomed them to live wretched lives until the Judgment. He is loving and compassionate, yet routinely inflicts eternal torture on his own creations. He is supreme, yet was thwarted in his intentions at Eden by the Devil. He is merciful, yet allowed his progeny to be caught up in a struggle far beyond their means to fight. He entrusted his holy message to a book overrun by factual errors and ancient politics.
This is a rather poor argument as you are essentially claiming that because you do not understand the basics of Christian doctrine, the Christian God must not exist. How does your lack of understanding effect reality one way or the other?
All in all, the bible is an invaluable historical source that is happily used in academic circles as such. It is reliable and it is well preserved; the worst that can be said for it is that is has some odd stories mixed in.
But anywho, it takes us back to Descartes, back further really. Nothing can be asserted “with proof.” If you make an assertion, you must then provide proof, to which due diligence requires that we ask for proof in turn. Finally, we are back to “I think, therefore I am.” Actually, we are back further as you cannot offer proof that you think!
However, there are evangelical Atheists.
QuoteNot true. Those who followed a religion lived a lie, constraining their behavior, sacrificing their intellectual integrity, and quite probably influencing other people to similarly demean their own lives. That’s another flaw in Pascal’s Wager: It completely ignores the penalties that one pays in this life for being religious.
Pish posh, we can figure this one out economically. Let us say that when you die your net balance is zero. The individual who has “penalties” during their life, the religious fellow, at the end of the transaction will have a balance of zero; much was put in but there was no net result. The individual who has rewards during their life, the atheistic fellow, at the end of the transaction has a balance of zero as well. Your reasoning is rather illogical.
… this is just wrong on grounds of basic composition! You state that religion has waned and that the share of intellectuals between religion and non-religion has changed. You then claim that a great many of our finest people are nonreligious or belong to alternate religions. Alternate religions are still religions, so they should be counted in the first category, not that latter.
As an aside, however, I should note that there is nothing wrong with some degree of revisionism in history. A history text tells us two things; it tells us about the events that the text describes and it tells us about the society in which the text was written.
There is a difference between being a cause of something and being part of something.
So of course Christianity had a part. The Pope was using church money to buy grain to feed the starving, regardless of their faith. Monasteries were protecting ancient texts, preserving them, and refining them. When there was pestilence there were priests, nuns, and monks to tend to the sick. It was Christianity that helped maintain the productivity of otherwise barren farmland. It was Christianity that provided for the elderly in their waning years. It was Christianity that protected the people from overreaching political ambition. It was Christianity that spread laws and order.
efore I end my post, allow me to clearly state my stance, as after so long a post it is easy to loose a point (even assuming that the points are well-made in the first place, which I will not assume): 1) atheism is an illogical stance, but it is unreasonable to fault it for being illogical. 2) The universe as described by human understanding, in all its parts, does not preclude the possibility of god. 3) Indeed, the universe as described by human understanding does not concern itself with god. 4) despite that, the universe behaves in such a manner as to satisfy our expectations of a god. 5) Religion is not a uniform force in the world; it is often good but it can be bad as well, but such a criteria is poorly suited to address the question of if religion is true or not.
(being that a humblingly small amount of knowledge has been amassed by humans over the last 20,000 years, compared to the whole of the universe, and being that a good majority of that knowledge is almost assuredly incorrect)
As for faith being illogical, again I will respond with: of course it is! It, however, is perfectly reasonable. Logic is strict, we cannot make leaps with it, yet reason can tell us that such a leap may be needed. If we define the question of the existence of a divine entity as an important issue, then we can not afford to be purely logical. To do so would be unreasonable.
extra-logical tool
So then, if science is against religion, I would be most curious as to hear how.
This is called Theistic Evolution, if you are not already familiar with it.
Why then should we have made the leap to a god?
Humans didn’t just take that which we didn’t understand and make them gods, we made even that which we did understand and made them gods. Some unimaginable forces were defined, others were ignored, and some mundane concepts were defined… why? And, why should more than one people have imagined a god in the first place?
if there is no god, there should have been no conception of god.
In short, we have more historical reason to believe that the bible is accurate and trustworthy than we have historical reason to believe the same of Plato’s Symposium (and let us not even mention Socrates, of whom there is no definitive record, or the Iliad).
They have been scattered and persecuted, yet they endure. Going from pure historical probability, they should have been wiped out several times over by now.
but as I have presented it there is more weight on the side of theism one the grounds of circumstantial evidence.
The very question of ultimate good or evil is a religious question
It is not absolute; at best it can be called useful or utilitarian.
But what has religion done for us lately? Charity organizations aside, of course. And Hospitals. And basic laws.
[equality is an] inherently religious perspective.
Take the Quakers during WWII
Communist China works well enough in this case.
This is actually a good thing, as it should lead to the increase of good works in the world.
Discrimination is the common element in all forms of discrimination, which probably means that it is the problem.
You have not seen religion backed into a corner, not ever, so you don’t know what its last argument might be.
More often than not, this is a lay-individual, someone who is religious but not focused in religion.
As mentioned above, for the learned religious individual, faith is used as an extra-logical tool. To expect it to be absent is, well, illogical of you.
morality must come from something greater than humanity.
we’ll have a major paradigm shift.
This brings me to tears. Science is not some narrow field of study, but a way of explaining physical phenomena and behavior. Science may not concern itself with poetry or religion, but religion concerns itself with science. Religion argues that the world was created recently; that God created beings instantly; that people are reincarnated; that three-day eclipses are possible; that heaven is two fathoms above earth; that etc.. And when people believe these unlikely, overwhelmingly-evidentially-challenged assertions, reason is eroded and humanity suffers.
but you and Lord J both have a very elementary understanding of religion
religion is entirely static' is entirely mispoken. If it were, we should not have had several schisms within the church, heresies (some of which developed into seperate branches); we should not have the divisions within even church denominations themselves, say between more traditional and more contemporary movements, or any such thing. We would not be adding extra books to Samuel (as we are) with the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls.
the Church has not stifled thought, and in fact has often been the birthplace thereof.
why are Thought and I so varied in our thoughts anyway?
Descartes, but it is he, the devout Catholic, who set the stage for much of our method of scientific method
don't know the first thing about religion other than what your own creeds have told you.
Maybe if less people, from the pro-religion side and the irreligion side, stopped looking at spiritual texts so literally, we'd have less statements like the ones you mentioned.
All this talk of reason, and you bring up psychological moments completely devoid of reason? Are you being ironic, or did I just miss the point?
God only knows.
In support of your position you argue that our current knowledge of science coincides with the Christian perception of God as "omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent". I would argue that you have it exactly backwards: the Christian perception of God is colored by our current knowledge of science.
Hmph, well, if you have philosophical questions, you should probably ask Thought. I think he knows these things way, way better than I do, and seems to have a clearer way of explaining them.
Lastly, let me apologize in advance that the following is not as long as I might like. I gave up the Compendium for two reasons, and one of them was limited time. As much as I would like to engage you at full length, there are other things I would like even more, and only so many hours on the clock. So if I miss something that you were particularly keen on seeing addressed, be forgiving and let me know.
The short answer is that you are correct, and a number of people have made that point already…
The longer answer is that you are not correct. Atheism is illogical only inasmuch as it is not one hundred percent veracious, and in some situations the only binary that matters is the perfect match versus everything else.
To lump the two together is a common tactic among religionists, because it serves a dual and most advantageous purpose: If the atheistic party takes the bait, they are forced into a sudden defense of their position on strange ground. More importantly the tactic infuriates many among the atheistic party, by accusing them of practicing faith by eschewing it—an absurdity.
Atheism is illogical only in the sense that it is incomplete by virtue of the subject matter, while theism is illogical not only because it is incomplete in the same way, but because it contradicts our reliable observations of the natural world with extraordinary, non-falsifiable claims of its own.
You speak with a conviction that is not borne out by the ideas you present—a flaw of my own when I was younger. You have no immediate standing to assert that “a good majority” of our knowledge of the universe is “almost assuredly incorrect,” and if I asked you to defend that position you would be compelled to research for hours simply to find mistakes in past scientific thought and controversies in modern thought
You are using an incorrect definition of logic. Throughout my early reply in this topic, I was referring to formal logic—the study of deductive reasoning and its principles and methods. Krispin was also referring to that. But in your example of making decisions prior to having full information, your reference to “illogical” applies to those methods of human reasoning other than critical analysis, such as intuition, repetition, and so forth.
Wishful thinking. Faith will never substitute for any fact-based method of speculation, such as hypothesis or inference. You are welcome to defend your claim, but if I were you I would save myself the trouble of such a futile effort and go on to the next quote.
Fascinating. Untenable. The discoveries of science do not amount to “circumstantial evidence.” Indeed, you could not have found a more antonymous pairing. “Circumstantial” implies a condition of the moment, whereas scientific experimentation deliberately attempts to weed out those false conclusions by imposing the requirement of reproducibility.
One of the most consistent weaknesses I notice in religious thinkers is a fundamental misunderstanding of what science is, how it is conducted, and where it is applied.
I have spoken, as have we all here, of “science” in the collective, perhaps making it sound as though it were some monolithic force almost like god, and maybe that is confusing to my friends on the pro-religious side of the table. Science is not religion’s counterpart. Science is the methodical investigation of phenomena for the purpose of understanding their nature. Religion is antagonistic to science because it is threatened by science, but the war is decidedly unilateral and science, for its part, does not care. It concerns itself only with questions that can be put to the test. It is utterly without ego, and thus incapable of taking any notice of the threat posed to it by religious fundamentalists.
Most of what we do creatively is analogical, or, at best, metaphorical. Seldom do we create anything that is truly original—and when we do, it is often poorly received. (Postmodernism comes to mind.)
But back then, in the oldest days of civilization, our thoughts were simple and our gods were too. Indeed, your observation that we tend to borrow from what we know when we engage in creative acts is so astute, and so straightforward, that I am surprised you did not follow it to its natural conclusion. Instead you accuse humans of being unimaginative (quite demonstrably untrue), then bizarrely conclude that, therefore, we must have come up with the idea of god because, in fact, god came up with us.
We questioned thunder because of its relevance to our lives, its dangerousness, and its overwhelming, fear-inspiring presence.
Again, your religious point of view obscures your understanding of the wider world. You characterize the concept of good and evil as requiring an authority “higher” than humanity—a religious construction of an irreligious concept. People’s sense of good and evil can come from any number of sources. Mine comes from an observation of human nature, and then follows by ascertaining what is best (and worst) for humans, from a human standpoint.
Not “out of hand.” Now that is a straw man. For you to suggest it is to imply that all those who reject religion, such as myself, are either pitiably irrational or up to no good.
My argument is not that those events did not occur. Obviously, I know better than that. There will always be some progress inside even the most oppressive society. That Christianity did not destroy society completely during the Middle Ages is to be expected; humans are made of heartier stuff than that, and churches can fall. Rather, my argument is that the adoption of Christianity itself slowed what progress might otherwise have been made. Had another imperial power, free of the corruption and excess that had diminished Rome, arisen and taken over the West of Europe before Christianity set in, the Goths could have been turned back, society could have been rehabilitated, and commerce could have regained its footing.
Nonetheless, from our perspective, the story is plain.
Justice is not a choice between religion and survival of the fittest. That’s a false dilemma, a logical fallacy. Yet again your religious perspective has muddled your mind and prevented you from recognizing the palpable fact that nonreligious principles are as effective as religious ones in determining civic ideals.
Although it might not be obvious from inside a religious frame of mind, Ms Black is right again: Christianity shapes its followers’ behavior with a clear system of rewards and punishments. Christians don’t want to be damned; they want to be saved.
This is one of those times where the length of your reply gives away your feeling of vulnerability. Ms Black, myself, and others, have all stated pretty clearly why faith is illogical. It’s a one-sentence answer: Faith is illogical because it declares itself exempt from logic.
That’s the very sort of thing that Krispin just doesn’t understand. I’d like to think that you do, and are just playing dumb so as to further your argument (and, at the same time, give me a chance to further mine even more), but maybe I’m wrong. You tell me.
You are certainly not a scientist, then. In colloquial usage, facts are superior to theories—witness that old canard, “Evolution is just a theory.” But in science, facts are the small coins, and theories the mighty houses of exchange. In science, a good theory makes use of many facts to describe a piece of the natural world and its function. A fact on behalf of evolution is nothing compared to the theory itself, which is supported by legions of facts. Just as facts rule the day, theories “light the way.” Okay…that was not as poetic as I had hoped. But, you get my idea. Your usage of these terms is decidedly in the colloquial sense, and does not capture this important distinction, so I thought I would point it out for your erudition.
To be fair to science (and to make sure I am not misunderstood), a scientific theory is nearly as good as fact. It is as good as money in the bank, as it were. However, there is still that gap, albeit very small, between Truth and Theory.
Science recognizes only one type of “fact,” that of the observation. The observation itself may be flawed, but it is a fact that it was observed. These observations are then used to support a hypothesis (though really it happens in reverse, unfortunately) which, if it stands up to peer review and rigorous testing may, MAY, be promoted to the realm of theory. Theory is still not a fact.
Yes, I recall you tried to prove that earlier. It didn’t go very well for you, did it?
I think this is the first (and hopefully to be the only) anti-intellectual cheap shot you have taken at me. By quibbling over my artistic use of the word “few,” you are, effectively, making argument where none exists.
Revisionism is about the worst thing any historian could do with their position of authority.
There’s a book that came out a couple of years ago by Rodney Stark, I think his name is: The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and the Success of the West
Forget that Lord J accused him improperly of straw man arguments... that was misapplied (I've been accused of that improperly, too.)
the Church has not stifled thought, and in fact has often been the birthplace thereof
Music, painting, architecture... how did it hold these things back, may I ask?
Why the heck will I be studying, in depth, Homer's Iliad (book XXIV) this semester, in Greek no less?
I'll attempt to clarify Zeality's assertion that popularity does not lead to accuracy. I think this is a communication breakdown. While having many copies of an ancient text can indeed lead to a more accurate picture of what the text contains, it speaks nothing to the accuracy of the content itself.
(look at Byzantium! The rot of the Roman Empire needed to be cut away to allow for new growth).
the Printing Press is what made Christianity earn its keep
Anything that humans envision can easily be discarded by humans.
I'm pretty sure instinct comes from subconsciously processed sensory information. So I'd say it stems from a (not necessarily correct) chain of reasoning based on what has actually (in at least most cases I'd guess) been observed.Depends how you look at it. Most people say that the thing that seperates humans from other animals is reason, and if animals display instinct, but lack reason, then instinct can't stem from reason. But then again, I'm not a psychologist or a biologist.
I think that there is a fundamental divide here, Daniel. It seems that you believe the question of a theistic god is beyond the scope of science, but that's not the case. A theistic god meddles, and if there is meddling, it'll be observable. For example, the flood from the Noah's Ark story. That would have left evidence in the geological (and biological for that matter)record had it occurred. But the evidence does not support the hypothesis of a worldwide flood several millenia ago.Though it may sound like a copout, remember, the God we are arguing about here (since you mention Noah's Ark) is one that is omnipotent. I'm quite sure that if God did not wish to leave evidence of interference, it could be done.
Religion got along just fine in the business of squelching thought and dominating human life before that invention. If anything, the printing press extended its expiration date.You too often talk about religion as if it supressed all thought. You fail to recognize the progression modern religions made in education and health. For all we know, if it wasn't for Christianity we may still think that thunder was an act of God. The likelihood of pre-Christianity religion supressing science is near certain. It is also quite possible (though correct me if I'm wrong) that one of the major reasons Christianity stayed with Ptolmeic (think that is how you spell it) system was not because they felt it was wrong, but because the public did. It would be a crying shame if the Church had to lose half of its followers because of what the sudden change in the Church's beliefs. (anything wrong in what I say is because my knowledge of history is either ancient (pre-B.C) or very modern (1800-present))
I love it when Christians criticize Byzantium.
The question is a bit further back than how gods developed, but why they were started. The divine is a curious luxury for primitive man to have afforded. As I originally concluded, the idea of the divine could have developed in a universe without the divine. However, as I also concluded, that it did develop is unexpected. That this is unexpected tells us nothing definite, unfortunately.
Of course I think of gravity as something as obvious. My point was that early humans should have thought lightning was just as obvious. It is not hubris, it is quite the opposite. If things can be obvious to us so that we do not question it, things should have been obvious to people in the past. These things might be (and are) different, they might be (and are) obvious for different reasons. I am questioning why the obvious was questioned.
Now theories can obtain near factual status, but they never reach it. True facts can always out do it.
Though it may sound like a copout, remember, the God we are arguing about here (since you mention Noah's Ark) is one that is omnipotent. I'm quite sure that if God did not wish to leave evidence of interference, it could be done.
Really? I thought Byzantium was, at least for a time, a centre of culture and learning.
...I don't know, but the Byzantines seemed to me to be really quite a good sort. Until the Franks came and took the city over (theirs is the citadel at the top.)
and a theist myself, I find it kinda sad to be an athiest, but I can see where they come from.
I don't believe in church sayings or anything like that (I'd rather make my OWN moral judgements then listen to some really old book.) but to say "welp, I'm gonna die and go back to nothing?" doesn't really give much to live for.
true, but that's mostly if you believe in a religion from what I figure. I don't think God as sort of this watchful person, but rather, just someone who was bored out his friggen mind in nothing.and a theist myself, I find it kinda sad to be an athiest, but I can see where they come from.
I don't believe in church sayings or anything like that (I'd rather make my OWN moral judgements then listen to some really old book.) but to say "welp, I'm gonna die and go back to nothing?" doesn't really give much to live for.
Of course, their argument is interestingly the exact reverse. Because you have somewhere to go, you'll not make as much of this life. Knowing that there isn't anything to go to, insteading of making there nothing to live for, makes this world all the more important. Sort of an Achilles complex, like when in the movie he says (more or less) 'everything is more beautiful when you're doomed.' (Nb. His actual words to that effect are, after the fashion of Homer, far more lengthy. Sufficed to say I'm not just ignorantly quoting a movie, but understand the actual Iliad as well... to some extent. Just so you know I'm not just throwing out a Classical allusion in ignorance.)
Now, there is some logic to that. It doesn't always pan out so easily, but a strong case could be made for it.
true, but that's mostly if you believe in a religion from what I figure. I don't think God as sort of this watchful person, but rather, just someone who was bored out his friggen mind in nothing.and a theist myself, I find it kinda sad to be an atheist, but I can see where they come from.
I don't believe in church sayings or anything like that (I'd rather make my OWN moral judgements then listen to some really old book.) but to say "welp, I'm gonna die and go back to nothing?" doesn't really give much to live for.
Of course, their argument is interestingly the exact reverse. Because you have somewhere to go, you'll not make as much of this life. Knowing that there isn't anything to go to, insteading of making there nothing to live for, makes this world all the more important. Sort of an Achilles complex, like when in the movie he says (more or less) 'everything is more beautiful when you're doomed.' (Nb. His actual words to that effect are, after the fashion of Homer, far more lengthy. Sufficed to say I'm not just ignorantly quoting a movie, but understand the actual Iliad as well... to some extent. Just so you know I'm not just throwing out a Classical allusion in ignorance.)
Now, there is some logic to that. It doesn't always pan out so easily, but a strong case could be made for it.
still think you should have a belief in something beyond just this. think about when you get to the end. do you really wanna go out thinking that it's all gonna be black, and all your thoughts are now null and void?
So, just to confirm, you (Zeppy and JEEZUZKRYSTE) believe on faith and/or for reassurance?I do.
So, just to confirm, you (Zeppy and JEEZUZKRYSTE) believe on faith and/or for reassurance?Sorta.
Debates take place for the audience's well being, not the other party's.I thought debates take place so others could see both point of views.
Realistically it's impossible to know everything, but you can assume for matters of example that it is possible. But omniscience still can't prove or dismiss religion.
The religious person who says ‘you’re a terrible, deluded, person because you don’t believe what I do’ is no different than the atheist who says ‘you’re a terrible, deluded, person because you have faith in something I don’t.’
That said, I don't advocate tolerance. Absolutely never tolerance. It is the most idiotic and insidious concept in the world. Because when you tolerate someone, you just have to put on a face. You can't tread on toes, you can't say anything or disagree, and just internalize frustrations with an opposed party. You end up getting more an more annoyed till it becomes hatred, and eventually that hatred snaps into something worse. That is the result of tolerance, and it's only a small bit better than outright prejudice and bigotry, only better in that it's not seen at once but rather takes time to germinate it's hatred. Anyway, what I always advocate is respect.
I think I'm entirely superceeded in these arguments by Thought, who has said anything I would and then some with far more deft, and even beaten Lord J soundly (sorry J, but your arguments were very weak and 'personal' next to his. And your revisionist stance on history is nothing short of strange... it is you who follow the revisions, and the likes of Thought and I who look to the old and standard sources. You can gripe and rant all you like, but you're no historian, or apt at social commentary, that much is plain.)
He obviously has his view, but it doesn't keep him understanding both sides which, I must say, is more than can be said for you or Lord J. In fact, I'm a little aggrieved with Lord J for maligning him with what amounts to little more than opinion. Most glaring is Lord J's insistance on historical 'revisionism', when the stance we take is the one that has been standard for thousands of years, back to Herodotus and Thucydides.
See, one thing that Thought managed to do was remain cool and collected. Forget that Lord J accused him improperly of straw man arguments... that was misapplied (I've been accused of that improperly, too.) Lord J is an excellent orator, but of the sort that would sway masses less by his rightness and more by his words and personality. Lots of fury, but not much backing it up. Lots of mockery, but not much logic. Often he'll come down to just say 'my logic has reigned supreme' when he's said little more than just 'no, you're wrong! Wrong!' (or something tantamount). At those points, I honestly don't know anymore if he's serious or joking.
Thought has put forward a very strong argument, and it'll take more than Lord J's replies to refute it. A lot more. And neither have you made very good cases against. Maybe it's just my position (my father being a theologian and all), but you and Lord J both have a very elementary understanding of religion, and are basing a lot of your opinions on that.
Unfortunately, a vendetta is what both you and Lord J have.
The second argument that’s going on is the one I’d originally intended, and that’s the metaphysical one (though that’s probably a bit of a misnomer.) The one where we’re trying to view the belief in God from purely philosophical constructs, apart from religion, and as such apart from ethics, societal, and historical points. This means you have to put a lot of your own views and opinions aside which, I’ve noticed, very few are willing to do on either side. Lord J has, as is his wont, arraigned religion rather harshly. But his foray into the metaphysical left a lot to be desired, as he couldn’t say anything but that belief in an omnipotent God is irrational, without providing much in the way of logical, non-biased, reasons (and note that in such a discussions evidence based on ethics and human interaction are inadmissible.)
I have seen prejudice from both side, though in this particular thread the greatest vehemence has come from the atheists who categorically deny any rationale for belief.
(A)rguments such as ‘religion is insidious because it is mind control’ can quite easily be dismissed on the grounds that any sort of system, be it the most basic concept of civilization and the order of scientific learning is mind control, because it orders us to think in certain ways.
(B)e cheerful, sir.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
I merely proposed the hypothesis the purely philosophically the only viable stance one can have is that of an agnostic (as Thought has said.) Interestingly, the atheists immediately countered with a view that professed knowledge of something unknowable, and as such illogical. It was, in fact, my intent to show that to make such a knowledge claim is, from purely philosophical grounds, impossible... that is, either religiously or anti-religiously. But the replies showed to me an interesting trend: that the supposed ‘scientific’ claimed to know the chance of God being ‘remote’... a comment that is, logically speaking, irrational because it is impossible to say.
However, there is a gross breach in creed for any scientist to claim that they can know something which, by the very nature of their science, they cannot. It is, in fact, more reasonable for a person to say ‘I believe in God’ than for a scientist to say ‘it is scientifically unlikely that God exists.’
So, the irony I see with what has occurred is that the most illogical replies have, in fact, come from the atheists. At least the religious are saying ‘well, we believe this beyond reason; we don’t have evidence to believe this, but are relying on faith’, so they know their limitations: what they can rightly make knowledge claims about via reason. But the atheist have been saying they can know things about something unknowable…
Scientific truths are taught to us that are not self-evident. How many of you have proved the age of the universe? The size of the sun? Evolution? These things appear to us reasonable, but recall that to the ancients things appeared reasonable that to us are absurd. How do you know we have a monopoly in truth, and that what is to come may not utterly shake our understanding? Indeed, this is why the study of metaphysics is needed, because what it shows is that even what is perceived by the sense, what we glean via science, is in fact only a representation via our mind’s categories of understanding. Time doesn’t have meaning apart from something that perceives time; likewise space not as we understand it to be. It is impossible for you to prove to me that a force of gravity exists, and that it isn’t just an effect in itself (Berkeley’s criticism of the materialist Descartes: why do you require some ‘invisible force’ to believe in to effect the change? Why not only have a causal effect? That is, when you drop something, it falls. Why an extra redundant force? It is only helpful in giving future predictions in similar circumstances, but doesn’t provide us with truth, per say.) Kant would go further. Causality itself is a necessary category by which we perceive things, but doesn’t have objective reality (note he was very upset with people who considered what he said to mean that everything was an illusion, which is certainly not his concept.)
I think a good test of how one believes what they believe was what I did: throw out the philosophical idea that something like causality is in fact just a mode by which we perceive things. That is a perfectly valid claim to make (and if it is wrong, can be reasonably disproven via cool logical progression), as Kant, an eminent (and still highly regarded philosopher - in the view of my atheist philosophy prof still unmatched) thinker. The form of replies was a good gauge on the way one views things. I must point out, specifically to Lord J, that your reply was very inordinate, and shows me your thinking does not follow rationally. How else to explain this, that when I make a statement that is born from a logical philosopher’s mind I am leaped upon, an Achilles to a Hektor, as though propounding claims of faith?
never questioned or criticized Judaism
but rather because it comes naturally
feeling of brotherly equality?
That's just because no one here is Jewish, and it hasn't been brought up. Go ahead and apply the whole condemnation of the Judeo-Christian God to Judaism. Throw in ritual child mutilation, too. It's another basket of party favor atrocities!Fair nuff, just that I though Lord J's Jewish upbringing had something to do with it.
Dawkins talks about this and severely criticizes it. Children in this environment are conditioned without any choice in their own beliefs, just as male infants have no choice whether to be circumsized (to retread that example). Dawkins alleges that there should be no such thing as a "Christian child", as children aren't mature enough to decide these things. Yet they are thrust into them.What about teaching kids there is no God?
Black religion is its own story. Whatever benefits that had, nowadays you can turn on BET at 4 AM and see the REVERUND DANNEH DAVUS selling -- believe it -- a rainbow cloth for your wallet that makes people give you money, and oil you can put on your street sign to ward off evil. I have no idea why this incredible bullshit is allowed on national television. But moving on, Bill Cosby spoke at length about the Black condition and the role of religion in one of his famous, incendiary speeches; he noted that people look to Jesus for help instead of cleaning up their neighborhoods themselves. "Jesus isn't going to pull up your pants," he spoke.Like any snakeoil seller or quack actually believes in what they're selling. And even though that Bill Cosby quote is pretty incredible, I can't help but laugh when I hear his name. Must be because I've seen thousands of his Fatherhood books at these charity donated book sales I help with.
What about teaching kids there is no God?
I’m talking about these people who cry when their son is standing there in an orange suit. Where were you when he was two? Where were you when he was twelve? Where were you when he was eighteen, and how come you don’t know he had a pistol? And where is his father, and why don’t you know where he is? And why doesn’t the father show up to talk to this boy?
The church is only open on Sunday. And you can’t keep asking Jesus to ask doing things for you. You can’t keep asking that God will find a way. God is tired of you . God was there when they won all those cases. 50 in a row. That’s where God was because these people were doing something. And God said, “I’m going to find a way.” I wasn’t there when God said it -- I’m making this up. But it sounds like what God would do.
We cannot blame white people. White people -- white people don’t live over there. They close up the shop early. The Korean ones still don’t know us as well -- they stay open 24 hours.
The bible was NEVER intended to be read literally.
No, Zeality, I mean parents telling kids that there is definetely no God. And abiogenesis should be proposed in the classroom, but not stated as fact.
Children should never be constrained or forced to believe in something.How about saying "there may be a God, there may not be", and eventually telling them "find out for yourself"?
And as for whether evolution is fact, look up Lord J's rebuttal of Thought's feelings on "fact versus theory". ITS JUST A THEORY is a common, ignorant cop out by the religious.I'll check it out later. I'm not saying do not teach evolution in the classroom, I am saying do not treat it as a fact, especially since abiogenesis is not even agreed upon by all evolutionists.
Mathematics is just an imaginary system, but we needn't tell children that there's a 0.0001% chance that something better or divine exists.This is just silly. Mathematics is not comparable to evolution.
"there may be a God, there may not be"
I am saying do not treat it as a fact,
Uh, did I say it was 50/50? If I say "it may rain, it may not rain", does that mean it is 50/50? No. Neither has anything to do with chance, more so with the God statement.Quote"there may be a God, there may not be"
Oh, so it's a 50/50 probability? That's news to me.
Unlike Newtonian physics, abiogenesis is still in its most basic of states. Evolution may be a fact, or at least a very strongly supported theory, but how evolution occurs, and the origin of life, is still a theory. I am all for teaching students the evolutionary changes in organisms, but saying "life originated when many pieces of matter formed into a primordial soup etc." and then enforcing it is true, that is wrong. You can always just lay it out there, show the different sides of the arguments and let kids make their own minds up on the subject.QuoteI am saying do not treat it as a fact,
What is the effective difference between scientific fact and scientific theory? Physics may have Newtonian theories, but people accept them and believe them just the same.
Uh, did I say it was 50/50? If I say "it may rain, it may not rain", does that mean it is 50/50? No. Neither has anything to do with chance, more so with the God statement.Quote"there may be a God, there may not be"
Oh, so it's a 50/50 probability? That's news to me.
Unlike Newtonian physics, abiogenesis is still in its most basic of states. Evolution may be a fact, or at least a very strongly supported theory, but how evolution occurs, and the origin of life, is still a theory. I am all for teaching students the evolutionary changes in organisms, but saying "life originated when many pieces of matter formed into a primordial soup etc." and then enforcing it is true, that is wrong. You can always just lay it out there, show the different sides of the arguments and let kids make their own minds up on the subject.QuoteI am saying do not treat it as a fact,
What is the effective difference between scientific fact and scientific theory? Physics may have Newtonian theories, but people accept them and believe them just the same.
Just a few little questions I'd like to ask (and a couple of statements relating to your points), though I doubt you'll come back to answer them:
I noticed that between your attacks on Islam and Christianity, you have never questioned or criticized Judaism. Is there something within the Jewish faith that piques your interest, demands your sympathy, or maybe even makes you...believe a little bit of it?
Religion is for the most part propagated virally, whether by preachers or parents, but is it not true that it is not so much because parents are told to spread their religion to their offspring, but rather because it comes naturally, like telling them how plants grow, how to eat their food and (eventually) where babies come from? Or is this subconscious education a symptom of the virus?
I have no idea what America is like. Atheism is a major "faith" here in Australia.
But back to America, didn't many blacks, slaves and freemen, join the Church and other religious institutions because it gave them hope, a reason to live, and a feeling of brotherly equality? I am quite sure the original teachings of most religions did not teach racism
I've read the His Dark Materials trilogy (I even made a thread about it here recently), but I haven't seen the movie yet, though I heard it was horrible. What is your view on the movie?
You really dislike Krispin, don't you?
I have nothing else to add, except that I think for the first time I read one of your posts in its entirety.
Children should never be constrained or forced to believe in something. But what is wrong with saying that the existence of God is totally unlikely and unreasonable, which is true? And as for whether evolution is fact, look up Lord J's rebuttal of Thought's feelings on "fact versus theory". ITS JUST A THEORY is a common, ignorant cop out by the religious. Mathematics is just an imaginary system, but we needn't tell children that there's a 0.0001% chance that something better or divine exists.
"..."Thanks for answering my questions clearly. I agree with you on most parts, and I think I'll...try the Golden Compass before I watch it in cinemas. I see where you are going with Judaism - I have heard that it is actually hard to convert to Judaism, which is a long process.
It may rain, and it may not rain, but if you step out of your house in a desert to clear skies, is it really worth considering "It may rain" in the immediate term?Yes, the chance is slim, but possible. It has happened to me many times, when I though "it is impossible that it will rain on such a sunny day", and yet it did.
And since you mentioned it, abiogenesis has nothing to do with evolution. Evolution is a function of life; it doesn't matter if life as we know it is the result of abiogenesis or divine intervention, evolution still marches along.I completely agree. I am sorry if you misunderstood me, or if I was not clear enough, but I meant we shouldn't treat abiogenesis as a fact. Evolution definetely happens, and if you believe in genetics, you'll believe in evolution.
A 2006 study by researchers at the University of Minnesota involving a poll of 2,000 households in the United States found atheists to be the most distrusted of minorities, more so than Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians, and other groups. Many of the respondents associated atheism with immorality, including criminal behaviour, extreme materialism, and elitism.
dial back the tone a bit.
I think for the first time I read one of your posts in its entirety.
You can't call that a "pile of stones".
the hell, it basically a neatly made pile of stones.You can't call that a "pile of stones".
Actually, to be fair, the development of the pyramids can be traced back to basic buriel mounds, which were nothing more than a pile of stones (though even those had religious significance). So I suppose the pyramids are more of a fancy, refined, pile of stones, then ;)
Yeah, a neatly made pile of stones that matches up with the equation pi at its foundation, is aligned with the stars, and is made out of stones that even modern technology has difficulty lifting. No matter where you are on the religious spectrum, you simply cannot dismiss the pyramids as worthless. They are among man's seven wonders for a reason!
There's still no confirmation. The slave thing's just a theory.Fine fine, I was being a bit unfair. But the underground chambers weren't too exhilirating either - nothing there :P. But anyway, the only two good pyramids are the pyramids of Kufu and Kafre.
And the pyramids are more than just "piles of stones". They have vast underground chambers within them. That's where the dead kings and all of their important belongings were buried. Not to mention all the hieroglyphics that give insight to Egyptian culture. You can't call that a "pile of stones".
Now, now. You can't say religion is completely worthless.
I mean, after all, think of the wonders of civilization. Would the mysterious pyramids be built if religion didn't exist? I don't think so. And yet science has yet to discover how they were built. Religion has been a motivational aspect of many cultures.
There's still no confirmation. The slave thing's just a theory.
It's not that we couldn't build the pyramids, just that we don't.