Oh no. Oh God no.

[BROJ]

Broj, I think you're entirely misunderstanding my point on all levels.

Possible... But, correct me if I'm wrong; Metaphysics hinges on pure logic, while science hinges on logic *and* observation.

To Broj, just a quick overall explanation I thought of. How big is your hand? You'll invariably give me a measurement in inches (or maybe centimeters.) Yet is there any objective reality to the measurement 'centimetre' or 'inch'? It is the way we resolve things so as to make sense of them. Things might be long and short, but this division into such measurements is a human thing. That might serve as an analogy to what I'm talking about.

I don't know if this is what you're talking about, but if you're insinuating that I believe that mathematical terms have some intrinsic value--I don't--I believe that mathematic terms are arbitrarily chosen to describe the relative differences/similarities between two given examples in the universe. So the relative differences/similarities are the objective reality here.

After all, the universe doesn't know that light travels at 3*10^8 m/s. It just travels at the speed of light. That's the essense of what I'm saying.

Ah ha, but light travels at different speeds in different mediums; c for example is the speed of light in a *vacuum*, yet light traveling in an Einstein-Bose Condensate travels at the speed of the average bicyclist. But, even light can exceed it's own speed limit, however, information cannot.
Edit:Now I know the last part was not the point, but the speed of light is one of the very fundamental forces in the universe; even gravity changes at the speed of light; so it may have some intrinsic value after all.

[Daniel Krispin]

I'm out of my league. Ancient Greek art history? Yah right; I got a C in that class.

Your argument is, regardless of its true efficacy, beyond my ability to rejoin. =P

What? That's not what I wanted to hear. Darn it, disagree with me, will ya! Tell me how and why ancient Greece is better and more wonderful than I say it is! Dammit, NOW I feel bad.

[Anacalius]

I would like to be totally disregarded as religous at this point. Just so everyone is aware, my religion is up for indefinite and extensive questioning at this point. Though I may be stuck in some of my ways, I want to be treated as an agnostic from this point on. Meaning don't attack me for being religous anymore because at this paticular point in time, I honestly don't know what I am anymore.

That being said, now I want to stress some points and ask some questions.

We all are. Even me. It’s built into the culture. The precedent is in our very genes. Accept it, and become a better person for it.

I agree, absolutely. In fact, I said so in an earlier post in response to ZeaLity:
"What about atheism is so much different? Are you truly trying to say that humanity without religion is not sexist, racist, etc. by nature? You've GOTTA be joking me!"

So you are agreeing with me here, then?

You are probably thinking of a “sexist” as some kind of villain, as if the person in question deliberately chooses to be a sexist. That is true often enough, but, even more often, people simply do not realize that some of their attitudes and behaviors are sexist.

Absolutely correct. We are not this way because we CHOOSE to be, we are this way because we HAVE to be. We are weak minded in these aspects by nature, it's in our genes, it is in our very existence, and we can do NOTHING about it. Even if we (as in you and me) overcome this in our lifetime, it is STILL in our genes, will be passed to our children, and they to, will have to go through the same trials and tribulations we did to overcome this. That's exactly what I meant in my earlier posts when I said numerous times that "Humanity exists this way, religious or not." Obviously, I was defending religion, so most people took that statement differently, but whatever. I still said it and by the look of it, you are agreeing with me, no?

I will tell you something important about the differences between the sexes: Males have sperm, and females have eggs. Put ‘em together and you get a new human.

I'm not in third grade. =P

There. That’s all you need to know. That’s the only reasonable sex-specific limitation on human behavior. (And even that won’t last for long!) Any other judgments on how a person ought to behave or live their lives based on their sex are pure rubbish.

Agreed. Seriously, if you knew me in person you wouldn't even waste the time to type this.

Yet these other judgments persist. We have gone so far as to formulate hypothetical classes of people—men and women—based upon the construct of gender (as opposed to biological sex). Through this vehicle we have our vaunted “gender roles,” which have been the source of so much misery I can’t even tell you. The very idea of a “woman” (or a “man”) gives us a lens through which our worldview becomes sexist automatically. We are all sexists.

Please, please, please, PLEASE do not attack me for saying this, but seriously respond in a straightforward, calm manner.
I agree with the statement here, completely. Off topic a bit now, but I'd also like to point out a huge flaw in humanity and society.
How fucked is our education system? Seriously, we have decided to label people as a certain level of "intelligence", if you will, by the number of dollars/years spent on/in college. I'm a high school drop out, forced to work specific jobs because of this title, when I am capable of so much more. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a job, any job, when branded with this title? As if I am have been pre-labeled as a failure in humanity's eyes? My family had very little money while I was growing up, and after 2 divorces and a lot of other hell besides that, my mother had literally drove us into the ground financially. I decided to drop out of high school and get a full time job at age 16 (and I have been working full time jobs since). Is this a wrong action? Did I do something wrong? I made the a decision, have the backbone to live with it, and have been dealing with it since with little complaint. Now I cannot even get a high school level job because the system HUMANITY built, not religion, says I am not worthy? I don't even get a shot at the job, a shot at showing my talents and skills before they slap me in the face and tell me to look elsewhere? To quote ZeaLity:
"How much is my happiness impacted by this? How much are my dreams impeded? How higher could I have gone in a world of freedom?"
Not whining here, seriously. I know who I am and I'm proud of it, but doesn't this show a huge flaw in humanity? Make no mistake about it, humanity will drive itself into oblivion and damnation with stupid things like this long before it attains something more glorious.

The only way out is awareness and self-discipline. It gets easier with time, though. But first you have to admit that you, like the rest of us, are vulnerable to sexism.

Indeed. Again, as I stated earlier, humanity as a whole is not capable of overcoming this. We exist this way. It is a natural impulse that drives us. Even if you and I overcome this, our children will inherit it. What is the solution? What can we honestly do about this? I feel we're at a loss for answers...

Like Gloria Steinem said, the truth will set you free…but first it will piss you off.

Nice quote, I really like it.

[Burning Zeppelin]

Burning Zeppelin or anyone else who's familiar with Islam, I have the notion in my mind that it was Adam and not Eve/Hawwa who ate the notorious apple in the Islamic version of Genesis -- is this correct? If so, I think it's curious -- placing the blame for sin on the first man, whereas Judaism and Christianity place the blame for sin on the first woman.

Yes, I do think that it was Adam who ate the apple. However, there is no original sin in the Islamic creed, so it wasn't Adam who caused sin.

Or rather... who is to say there are 'two' objects? Why not 1*10^24 objects (each atom?) or more yet for each electron, neutron, proton... or yet quarks?

Two atoms can't hold the same space. Two quarks can't hold the same space. It doesn't matter how you catergorise objects, in the end, two objects can't hold the same space.

The point is, that we say 'two' in this case is a matter of human distinction to what is convenient.

You know a lot about Plato right? Then you must know that Plato believed that mathematics was independent of the human mind, something I very much agree with.

Think of an extra-temporal being (I'm not speaking God here, just the nature of extra-temporality)... I know it's impossible to actually envision, but just for a thought experiement. Each point of time would be concurrent with each other. One would not draw a distinction between one or another.

If by being you mean a rational agent, then it is impossible.

I was a materialist with Descartes

Descartes is a full on dualist.

What it is, BZ, is that you've got it backwards. What you see in, say, the NT isn't the Eastern warping of Greek philosophy

I meant people like Aquinas and other Neo-Platonic and Aristotlean scholastists.

Hey, I apologised for that one.

Oh, didn't notice.

Well, about everything else, I guess I can't comment until I learn more about Ancient Greece.

[Hadriel]

*throws away cardboard box, sets off Alert status*

I don't think Daniel's page-6 was ever responded to in detail, mostly because that's when the discussion degenerated into flaming.  If I might allow myself this liberty:

In the same way I can say that, scientifically speaking, there's absolutely no proof for gravity. There is proof for a cause and effect, that is, when you drop something, the natural effect is that it falls. To some extent it is a little absurd (from a certain point of view) to postulate a massive, invisible, force that acts on all things in the universe that causes this action. In some ways, then, gravity becomes not unlike the postulation of God (this is, note, a viable philosophical thought... not infallible, of course, but it is worth considering.) If we can look at the effects of certain actions and, to explain them, postulate a massive force called 'gravity', why is it any more absurd to postulate that for the general effects we see in the universe there is an invisible acting force called 'god'?

Gravity is simply a name we have given to a nameless concept.  The reason it is less absurd than a universal god is because we can logically deduce its nature from its effects; any scientific hypothesis we might make about "gravity" can be tested via experiment.  By contrast, God as popularly conceptualized is impossible to truly test for, and all attempts at it have reflected this impossibility.  Some individual conceptions of God can be proven wrong, either by being shown to directly conflict with physical reality or via inconsistencies in their description (of which the Bible has more than a few given the clash between the vengeful OT God and the more merciful NT iteration), but until we have a theory of everything, it will be impossible to make a general statement.  One may, however, argue that the definition of a god is relative, which could potentially, given a lot of time and technological advance, allow for such an entity to exist in physical reality.  To ordinary humans, Lavos is so powerful that he might as well be god; he could crush any of us like ants.  And to ants, we are as gods ourselves.  Yet nothing is invincible; even ideas are not completely bulletproof, and so far an idea is all we have of God, an idea which is more often than not expressed within the constraints of self-aggrandizement.

Anyway, some thoughts to consider, BZ. Another thing you can reasonably call into question is causality itself. Who is to say that cause and effect are anything more than the way our mind interprets events? That's a tougher one to explain, mind you. But anyway, what it comes down to is, to semi quote a rather venerable figure from film, 'you'll find that a lot of the things you think are true depend greatly on your own point of view.' In this case, that you're human. Call this holding back science or what you will, but it's no less logical or proveable than science itself, and as such must be regarded.

Causality has to do with our perception of time relative to our surroundings.  Said perception is dependent on velocity; the dilation of time is equal to one divided by the Lorentz factor.  If we were made up of particles with complex mass (and thus native FTL velocity), we could very well perceive causality as working in the opposite direction, at least for irreversible processes.

I'd like to add a further caveat by saying that the entirety of science and the scientific method has sketchy ground for being 'true' as well. Tell me, what's the grounding for its truth? What is the grounding for a sensory perception (which are the bases for empirical scientific inquiry.)? In fact, the only reason we believe it true is because of circular reasoning. We believe something we see to be true because we believe it. Because it is tehre, and we see it there, and all that sort of thing. Science, and the scientific method, is self affirming. The scientific method is held to be right because it agrees with the scientific method. Hm? Anyone see a problem with this? Now not that I think we should stop using it. It has shown itself to be practically excellent. But we must remember it's not infallible and that, moreover, it is doing the equivalent of judging things by its own standards for the reason that it is considered standard. Nothing else you can say can prove the absolute infallibility of the scientific method. What's a true belief, after all? It must be Justified, Objectively True, and Believed... and then is a true belief. Well, any bit of science might be heartily believed (like any religion), might be entirely Justified (unlike some religious beliefs), but Objectively True? We can't by nature know that. If you tell me 'well, we have evidence...' that's making it more JUSTIFIED (which, also, is a little bit subjective itself.) But the objective truth of a thing is absolutely impossible to know. As such, we can never have True Objective Beliefs. What we do have is what I like to call Subjective Beliefs. We know things to be Subjectively True (that is, we use judgments to affirm the truth of the matter, which is cheating a little bit, but works practically.)

They didn't stop teaching math after Godel's incompleteness theorem.  It may be impossible to prove the consistency of a system from within the system, and it may even be that using the scientific method requires a certain measure of faith in the consistency of logic, but so far there has never been an incident in which a logical contradiction has been shown to exist in the real world, whereas contradictions have been shown to exist in religious scripture of all stripes.

And now, ZeaLitY. This is a doozy here. I know, I know, you won't like it. But just remember: don't be closed minded in calling me closed minded, eh? Understand the chains of your own belief, and your own very strong dogmatic tendencies. The greatest lie people can set upon themselves is thinking themselves free when they're not... few delusions are greater.

I could respond to this with the idea that quantum mechanics obliterates the idea of determinism in the Laplacian sense, but there are so many more elegant critiques that could be made.  QM in and of itself does no harm to the idea of probabilistic determinism, but within that framework there is still a chance that one can carve out their own destiny.  Even further, technological advance may well wipe out what we have come to think of as human limitations.  At a superficial level, cyberization, genetic engineering, and micromachine-driven neurosurgery may render average people capable of performing feats of strength, endurance, and intellect that currently are held to be superhuman, or at the very least reserved for the most accomplished and genetically fit humans in existence.  But only information, pure and undiluted, is capable of freeing someone to act upon their own desires; dreams rarely die because they are not wanted enough, but rather because they are not approached correctly.  In fact, consciousness - the "soul" if you will - is composed of nothing but information; this can be seen in the simple fact that people change over time as they are exposed to more information, as well as the stances they take due to their own iteration of logic.  The entire discipline of artificial intelligence is predicated on this idea; in function, the brain is essentially a biological computer, albeit limited by its chemical origins.  By expanding one's knowledge, one is expanding one's self.  This philosophy, that of the death of the mundane, animalistic "soul" and the birth of truly complex, inquisitive consciousness in all humans, is what I have come to believe stands the best chance of breaking the chains of fate placed upon us by the primal muck from which we rose.

ZeaLitY, you have no idea how close you sound to the people in that video. And I don't mean the curators of the musem, I mean the fundamentalist. You're a fundamentalist humanist, and it's driving you to make rash, overarching statements that have no actual empirical foundation - or, worse, have some foundation, but are interpreted to say what you want to believe. It's a classic example of making the facts fit what you want to believe, rather than the other way about.

He is not alone in this, especially on the Internet.  More than a few have seen the deleterious effects of religious fundamentalism, especially in the last few years, and take the philosophy that some healthy tissue (if it exists, which many would dispute) must be cut out to get rid of the cancer.  In any religious system, or truly in any type of belief system, you will find some or the other fragment of truth; if a belief structure was assembled entirely out of frauds and falsehoods, it would be exposed for its mendacity in short order.  It is in this that we see how a half-truth can be worse than a lie; the same logical process that leads to the conclusion that murder is wrong can be supplemented by faulty but correct-sounding logic in order to prohibit stem cell research.

Equality? Yes, religion has been. I'm going to catch hell from certain poeple for saying that, but the vindication is that religion has tended to be more equal than the societal factors surrounding it. It's in religion that women, as priestesses and the like, often had a lot of power, equal to or greater than men. It has been society which has done the opposite. And it makes sense. Why have women been considered inferior? Because of their physical weakness, because of their role in child rearing, any number of things that have social causes, not religious. After all, in religion, which looks at things on a spiritual matter... why would women be considered lesser? If it's otherwise it's because carnal, social, aspects are intruding into the religion. Be careful that you see this distinction.

Religions themselves tend to come into existence in response to social conditions; those belief structures which both appeal to some element of human psychology and are capable of accommodating a wide range of cultural traditions are the ones which spread and acquire followers.  One cannot say that they exist as an entity apart from their societal context.  Christianity is an excellent example of this, as was its fated albatross, the Roman Empire.  Whenever Rome would occupy a new region, they would attempt to incorporate the social mores and customs of the area into the larger network of the empire, and no area serves this thesis better than Judea.  Christianity acted likewise when proselytizing; we can see this today in the existence of Christmas trees and even in the date selected to celebrate Jesus' birth, both of which were pagan in origin.

The mistreatment of women originated in evolutionary concerns rather than religious control, though the two are often intertwined; the female of the species controls reproductive access.  In order to subvert this, males used their physical strength to create a social system under which women are considered property, and codified religious laws to support this.  Whether one subscribes to a religion or not, that it has frequently been used as a tool of hegemonic powers is very well-documented.  The anti-religious wish to cut the problem off at its source by removing supernatural justification for earthly oppression.

As far as Ethics goes, you've made a fundamental error in not differentiating between the concepts of salvation and ethics, which are entirely distinct. Let's see how to put this... alright, firstly, you're speaking specifically to the Christian context, because a religion like, say, of the ancient Greeks HAD no sort of hell, or at any rate it only existed for the worst murderers and the like (that is, the prison of Tartaros.) If you're speaking Christian wise, as my father would say, there is no such thing as Christian ethics. The ethics you see espoused in the NT are Stoic values, and aren't much different than many other religions and philosophies deal with. The concept of hell and damnation is entirely different. If looked at properly, it has nothing to do with 'do this/ do that', and is entirely seperate from the question of ethics. However, it does maintain ethics as proper action, and as such, works in accord with that. After all, the NT was not particularly new in saying 'self control is good.' Hell, the Stoics had been saying that for HOW long? Really. However, as far as independant ethics go... you'll find actually adhering to that quite impossible, unless you're willing to go to a great extreme. People don't typically prove themselves moral by nature - often we WANT to be, but we can't. As such, to hold to indepandant ethics often betrays us.

Hell is an interesting subject for me.  You yourself have elucidated its origin in Gehenna, the burning, forsaken place of entropy and ash upon which the people's refuse was laid to rest, as well as that the concept was not incorporated into theology proper for some time.  When made use of by religious authorities, it is invariably as a threat to heretics and unbelievers; I consider this to be tantamount to terrorism in and of itself.  Even profoundly intelligent children who could otherwise easily see through the more ludicrous claims made by the religious can be frightened into submission (not to mention depression and mental illness) by the fear of eternal, fiery torment.

You say cutting out religion is a net positive, but no evidence shows us this. In fact, all the studies show that atheists are more discontent than religious people. Ignore that if you want, but you're betraying your own scientific creed if you do. Religion is not a net negative, and if there religious wars, well... let's just say that WWII, and WWI, had nothing to do with religion. We'll not lack for wars and, in fact, we'll probably end up having Eugenic wars, or some scientifically based thing.

Which studies are you referring to, exactly?  I have seen similar results myself, but correlation does not automatically mean causation.

It has been stated in this thread at some length that in America in particular, atheists are a distrusted minority.  In fact, several state constitutions (including that of my state) possess clauses which bar atheists from holding public office, and there have been more than a few horror stories of people being assaulted on account of their nonbelief.  In a climate so enraptured by an us-versus-them mentality held over from the Cold War, when atheism was (supposedly) a mark of communist sympathies, an atheist is bound to experience discontent.  The American public equates religion with morality, and as such automatically correlates atheism with its inverse, failing to realize that morality is also a societal phenomenon.  There are massive numbers of religious people who simply pick and choose the doctrines from their holy books that they wish to follow; this alone is evidence that morality and religion are not synonymous.  The Greek pantheon in particular seals the deal there; morality in their day was largely dictated by your philosophers rather than priests, as the gods themselves were held to be fickle and petty creatures with no regard for human life, or indeed anything except their own self-interest.

To quote you, you say that 'if you think religion is some sweeping force of good...' Look in the bloody mirror, ZeaLitY: you have a vendetta against religion, and no amount of evidence will convince you that you might be mistaken: you're not even willing to be open to the possibility. The religious can be excused on the grounds that their concepts of Faith allow for a certain aspect of irrationality. You, on the other hand, are shaming the very ideals you espouse in ignoring those facets of the evidence which you find disagreeable. And if you want one major piece of it, look only to the fact that you keep, continually, talking about how religion holds this back and stifles investigation and yadda yadda... yet my very existence, and the way I speak, and Thought moreover, entirely disproves your stance. I am not anti-evolution; I am more than willing to study, heck, whatever; my biases and hints of racism and what not stem more from my ethnic German background (we're a rather racist bunch, we Germans), and entirely extra-religious; I have studied sciences and find great fascination in them (do you remember my theories on temporality? On space/time and time travel?) Tell me, I challenge you, where this has limited my intellect or vision? My very existence disproves your concept of religion, yet you refuse to this this evidence right in front of you. You fail to see it for disproven because you are afraid of the implications. This, ZeaLitY, is the tyranny and fundamentalism that can exist even in science.

In the exercise of your intellect or your vision, have you not conceded that freedom is an ideal worth striving for?  In your own way, that of religion and mythology, you seek to free yourself from temporal concerns and live within a realm of pure philosophy.  What is it, then, that humans can never be free from?

Each time I've seen you post, ZeaLitY, you sound like a machine: you're saying the same trained dialogue of 'science good, religion bad' again and again; I don't know what Napoleon has done this to you, but you'll be finding your beloved leaders of science become so very much like the old religious leaders... pigs to humans, ZeaLitY. Orwell saw it happen to the idealism of Marxism, and we'll see it happen to the idealism of Science as well.

Scientists can be egotistical, authoritarian, and even abusive, the same as priests.  This is not a consequence of science, but of humanity, as the scientific method makes no claim to instruct people on how to behave in their interactions with others.  All it can do is provide experimental support for the hypothesis that one will generally catch more flies with honey than vinegar.  However, the scientific community does tend to censor explanations that are not grounded in methodological naturalism; this is not bias, but merely the practice of good science.

[Anacalius]

In the same way I can say that, scientifically speaking, there's absolutely no proof for gravity. There is proof for a cause and effect, that is, when you drop something, the natural effect is that it falls. To some extent it is a little absurd (from a certain point of view) to postulate a massive, invisible, force that acts on all things in the universe that causes this action. In some ways, then, gravity becomes not unlike the postulation of God (this is, note, a viable philosophical thought... not infallible, of course, but it is worth considering.) If we can look at the effects of certain actions and, to explain them, postulate a massive force called 'gravity', why is it any more absurd to postulate that for the general effects we see in the universe there is an invisible acting force called 'god'?

I gotta tell you, Krispin, I really hated the gravity defense. You absolutely cannot justify in any way that 'god' exists scientifically (Or at least with the knowledge we have now), you're correct about that, but you can EASILY say that gravity exists, though not completely "proven" or whatever. As Boo said earlier:
"You tell me fire burns, I might believe it. I stick my hand in fire, I KNOW it."
You tell me gravity exists, I might believe it. I jump off of a house and land on the ground below, I KNOW IT.
You tell me God exists, I might believe it. I look for proof of God, I am left confused and dumbfounded.

They didn't stop teaching math after Godel's incompleteness theorem.  It may be impossible to prove the consistency of a system from within the system, and it may even be that using the scientific method requires a certain measure of faith in the consistency of logic, but so far there has never been an incident in which a logical contradiction has been shown to exist in the real world, whereas contradictions have been shown to exist in religious scripture of all stripes.

Well, those contradictions in religious scripture were made by the scientific system we have, no? A system developed by humanity, to better explain things than the scriptures themselves.
This is kinda hard to explain what I mean here, but religion never had a "need" for this science system. Everything was already explained. Humanity wanted to explain it better, and therefore, found it's OWN contradictions in religion. That's why religion disregards a lot of science. It contradicts their belief, and their is no proof either way of which one is right or wrong (generally speaking). For instance, science (generally speaking) is looking to prove that we started as simple, single celled organisms and over large periods of time became the complex, multi-celled organisms we are now. It is unable to prove this completely, although "Scientific proof and Theories" seem to point at it to be a reality. Religion needs no such proof, because it is stated differently from the beginning.
Did any of that make sense at all? -_-
Let me explain a bit better:
Religion must accept proven facts, it has to. As for unproven things like evolution, religion can reject it, no matter how much evidence makes it seem true, because they have a different answer for it. Maybe the day will come when these things are answered indefinitely and religion will no longer have this ability, but to date, it hasn't happened.
I hope that made sense...

In fact, consciousness - the "soul" if you will - is composed of nothing but information; this can be seen in the simple fact that people change over time as they are exposed to more information, as well as the stances they take due to their own iteration of logic.  The entire discipline of artificial intelligence is predicated on this idea; in function, the brain is essentially a biological computer, albeit limited by its chemical origins.  By expanding one's knowledge, one is expanding one's self.  This philosophy, that of the death of the mundane, animalistic "soul" and the birth of truly complex, inquisitive consciousness in all humans, is what I have come to believe stands the best chance of breaking the chains of fate placed upon us by the primal muck from which we rose.

I'm ignorant in this aspect, so correct me if I'm wrong. Has science proven even the existence of a "soul" or "consciousness"? Does it even approach the subject?
As I said, I'm ignorant in this aspect, so fill me in, please. ^^;

ZeaLitY, you have no idea how close you sound to the people in that video. And I don't mean the curators of the musem, I mean the fundamentalist. You're a fundamentalist humanist, and it's driving you to make rash, overarching statements that have no actual empirical foundation - or, worse, have some foundation, but are interpreted to say what you want to believe. It's a classic example of making the facts fit what you want to believe, rather than the other way about.

Heh... Religion is the greatest aspect of making the facts fit what you want to believe. =P

He is not alone in this, especially on the Internet.  More than a few have seen the deleterious effects of religious fundamentalism, especially in the last few years, and take the philosophy that some healthy tissue (if it exists, which many would dispute) must be cut out to get rid of the cancer.  In any religious system, or truly in any type of belief system, you will find some or the other fragment of truth; if a belief structure was assembled entirely out of frauds and falsehoods, it would be exposed for its mendacity in short order.  It is in this that we see how a half-truth can be worse than a lie; the same logical process that leads to the conclusion that murder is wrong can be supplemented by faulty but correct-sounding logic in order to prohibit stem cell research.

True he is not alone, and I don't think anyone said he was.
"It is in this that we see how a half-truth can be worse than a lie"
I see where you're going with this, and I would like to challenge you with this:
Almost all science is a half-truth, in a way. Many things that are accepted by nearly everyone have not even been fully proven (Like the Gravity thing earlier). Does this stop you from believing them because they are only a "half-truth", so to speak? Obviously, Gravity is a bit more than a half-truth, but you get the idea, I think.
I agree with you with the religion statement, but bear in mind that many, many people still believe it to be true. I don't see the "cutting" of religion is society's near future, if it even happens at all. 

Equality? Yes, religion has been. I'm going to catch hell from certain poeple for saying that, but the vindication is that religion has tended to be more equal than the societal factors surrounding it. It's in religion that women, as priestesses and the like, often had a lot of power, equal to or greater than men. It has been society which has done the opposite. And it makes sense. Why have women been considered inferior? Because of their physical weakness, because of their role in child rearing, any number of things that have social causes, not religious. After all, in religion, which looks at things on a spiritual matter... why would women be considered lesser? If it's otherwise it's because carnal, social, aspects are intruding into the religion. Be careful that you see this distinction.

Meh, you're making the same error I did. Religion (Christianity, in this example) is indeed sexist. It clearly states how men should live their lives differently then women. It also clearly states that men are in control of women. Is this a bad thing? Well, I think so. Society doesn't seem to think so, however, as you stated. Many individuals think it's unfair, however.
Obviously, the gender's role in nature is different. But why should their roles in society be different? And since sexism IS a part of society, what is the solution? How can we cleanse ourselves from this? Can we even get everyone to realise that this is a problem that needs to be cleansed? On that note, who's to say whether it truly IS a problem at all? We've lived as a species with this for a very long time now, and achieved a lot of outstanding things, so is this actually preventing us from evolving as a species? I personally have had enough of the splicing in society, but many people disagree. -_-

The mistreatment of women originated in evolutionary concerns rather than religious control, though the two are often intertwined; the female of the species controls reproductive access.  In order to subvert this, males used their physical strength to create a social system under which women are considered property, and codified religious laws to support this.  Whether one subscribes to a religion or not, that it has frequently been used as a tool of hegemonic powers is very well-documented.  The anti-religious wish to cut the problem off at its source by removing supernatural justification for earthly oppression.

Oh my gosh, finally, an atheist who doesn't blame religion for this has played a part in this thread. On that note, good thinking.
Indeed, sexism and what not are in humanity's genes. Perhaps not the genes, but it has been so well fertilized and grown in our society it may as well be. Again, I would ask "What is the solution for this?". I always see people realising this, but nobody has any ideas of how to fix this. Other than cutting off religion completely, but I still say it would exist in society, as it has been here for far too long.

Hell is an interesting subject for me.  You yourself have elucidated its origin in Gehenna, the burning, forsaken place of entropy and ash upon which the people's refuse was laid to rest, as well as that the concept was not incorporated into theology proper for some time.  When made use of by religious authorities, it is invariably as a threat to heretics and unbelievers; I consider this to be tantamount to terrorism in and of itself.  Even profoundly intelligent children who could otherwise easily see through the more ludicrous claims made by the religious can be frightened into submission (not to mention depression and mental illness) by the fear of eternal, fiery torment.

Interesting, a tool used for aeons to control mankind into submission. Indeed, hell is an interesting subject. Perhaps ZeaLity is correct when saying that mankind can never evolve as long as we are looking at our lives through the lens of an afterlife. On that note, we've been doing it for, well, forever. I don't see the "lens" disappearing from humanity completely. Humanity is afraid of death, so it has devised an afterlife to save them from this torment. Can we overcome this fear?

Which studies are you referring to, exactly?  I have seen similar results myself, but correlation does not automatically mean causation.

Indeed.

It has been stated in this thread at some length that in America in particular, atheists are a distrusted minority.  In fact, several state constitutions (including that of my state) possess clauses which bar atheists from holding public office, and there have been more than a few horror stories of people being assaulted on account of their nonbelief.  In a climate so enraptured by an us-versus-them mentality held over from the Cold War, when atheism was (supposedly) a mark of communist sympathies, an atheist is bound to experience discontent.  The American public equates religion with morality, and as such automatically correlates atheism with its inverse, failing to realize that morality is also a societal phenomenon.  There are massive numbers of religious people who simply pick and choose the doctrines from their holy books that they wish to follow; this alone is evidence that morality and religion are not synonymous.  The Greek pantheon in particular seals the deal there; morality in their day was largely dictated by your philosophers rather than priests, as the gods themselves were held to be fickle and petty creatures with no regard for human life, or indeed anything except their own self-interest.

Yeah, yet another example of society's (and perhaps humanity's) stupidity. "Religious freedom" in America, yet if you aren't religious of some kind, you are at a loss, here. There's a whole lot of false freedom in America, I tell ya. =P
Not saying that only applies to America, but you get the gist.

In the exercise of your intellect or your vision, have you not conceded that freedom is an ideal worth striving for? 

Religion is not a prison, no matter what anybody tries to pull. That is a personal opinion, not a fact. To be religious is not something that is destroying someone's life. As I stated in a post a while back:
I've known many people, personally, who were destroying their lives with drugs, crime involvement, etc. and found a way to turn their lives around via religion. Is this a prison for them? Of course not, they have found something to live for, no matter how stupid it may look to other people, and are happy with that decision. If there is no afterlife, and they have served a life of servitude, if you will, in vain, but they were happy whilst they did it, then who cares? They were happy whilst they lived and most likely died believing they led a good life. Because you personally wouldn't do it that means that it is wrong? I don't know, that sounds pretty unfair to me. Is that any different than those dumbass religious people who try to shove their religion down your (Generally speaking, not literally "you") throat and tell you why your life is a waste by not being religious? It sounds pretty much the same, if you ask me.
Don't be a missionary for atheism, is my point.

Each time I've seen you post, ZeaLitY, you sound like a machine: you're saying the same trained dialogue of 'science good, religion bad' again and again; I don't know what Napoleon has done this to you, but you'll be finding your beloved leaders of science become so very much like the old religious leaders... pigs to humans, ZeaLitY. Orwell saw it happen to the idealism of Marxism, and we'll see it happen to the idealism of Science as well.

....

Scientists can be egotistical, authoritarian, and even abusive, the same as priests.  This is not a consequence of science, but of humanity, as the scientific method makes no claim to instruct people on how to behave in their interactions with others.  All it can do is provide experimental support for the hypothesis that one will generally catch more flies with honey than vinegar.  However, the scientific community does tend to censor explanations that are not grounded in methodological naturalism; this is not bias, but merely the practice of good science.

Well said.

[ZeaLitY]

an atheist who doesn't blame religion for this

...

"What is the solution for this?"

Education. Reinforcement. Savage punishment. Sexism is a relic of humanity's childhood. Machismo needs to be utterly destroyed, and females need to resist with impassioned, violent will. This involves the outright annihilation of several societal cornerstones and traditions. I will be the first person to cast the torch on the tinder, provided Lord J doesn't beat me to it.

Religion is not a prison

mankind can never evolve as long as we are looking at our lives through the lens of an afterlife

[Lord J Esq]

I honestly don't know what I am anymore.

You are better off.

I'd also like to point out a huge flaw in humanity and society.
How fucked is our education system? Seriously, we have decided to label people as a certain level of "intelligence", if you will, by the number of dollars/years spent on/in college. I'm a high school drop out, forced to work specific jobs because of this title, when I am capable of so much more. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a job, any job, when branded with this title? As if I am have been pre-labeled as a failure in humanity's eyes? My family had very little money while I was growing up, and after 2 divorces and a lot of other hell besides that, my mother had literally drove us into the ground financially. I decided to drop out of high school and get a full time job at age 16 (and I have been working full time jobs since). Is this a wrong action? Did I do something wrong? I made the a decision, have the backbone to live with it, and have been dealing with it since with little complaint. Now I cannot even get a high school level job because the system HUMANITY built, not religion, says I am not worthy? I don't even get a shot at the job, a shot at showing my talents and skills before they slap me in the face and tell me to look elsewhere? To quote ZeaLity:
"How much is my happiness impacted by this? How much are my dreams impeded? How higher could I have gone in a world of freedom?"
Not whining here, seriously. I know who I am and I'm proud of it, but doesn't this show a huge flaw in humanity? Make no mistake about it, humanity will drive itself into oblivion and damnation with stupid things like this long before it attains something more glorious.

I don’t have a word of disagreement to offer. Religion is not the only thing that messes people up, or that is itself messed up. Education in America needs to be reconceived from the ground up.

In the meantime, you should go for a GED and then take night classes to get a low-level college degree, if you’re able. You certainly seem smart enough to do it.

Even if you and I overcome this, our children will inherit it. What is the solution? What can we honestly do about this? I feel we're at a loss for answers...

The principle of the answer is so maddeningly easy. Only the implementation is hard. The principle is: People ought to be competent to have kids before they have them, and, once they do have kids, they should build a friendly, educational environment, teach them well, and set good examples.

Making that happen is a slow, multi-generational task. For one thing, for the foreseeable future there will continue to be petty and incompetent parents, spoiling a percentage of any given generation. For another thing, generational improvements are necessarily slow since generations themselves are quite long. But we’ll go in that direction, both from the bottom and from the top, steadily.

Cheer up.

The mistreatment of women originated in evolutionary concerns rather than religious control, though the two are often intertwined; the female of the species controls reproductive access.  In order to subvert this, males used their physical strength to create a social system under which women are considered property, and codified religious laws to support this.

You’ve got your order mixed up, Hadriel. Humanity inherited sex-specific behavior from its animal past. At the dawn of civilization, these animal roles evolved gradually into cultural attitudes. Over still more time, religion arose and tried to deduce universal truths from the human condition, cementing sexist mores into human society along the way.

On the other hand, you got this part exactly right:

The anti-religious wish to cut the problem off at its source by removing supernatural justification for earthly oppression.

Today there are no remaining coherent reasons to impose gender roles on people. Religion, cultural momentum, and inherent bias are what cause sexism to persist. Cutting religion out of that equation would be a crucial step forward.

Has science proven even the existence of a "soul" or "consciousness"? Does it even approach the subject?

Science cannot prove what it cannot define. There is no scientific definition of the soul. As for defining human consciousness, I know only enough to know that there is a lot of fascinating scientific literature out there. Perhaps you should spend an afternoon at your local library skimming through the latest editions of the various scientific periodicals, journals, industry publications, and magazines. The ones you like, you could subscribe to.

Almost all science is a half-truth, in a way. Many things that are accepted by nearly everyone have not even been fully proven (Like the Gravity thing earlier). Does this stop you from believing them because they are only a "half-truth", so to speak? Obviously, Gravity is a bit more than a half-truth, but you get the idea, I think.

Whether or not they realize it, what people like Krispin actually mean when they talk about the “half-truth” of gravity, is that all of us must take a leap of faith in order to accept as “real” the circumstances of any external environment with which we interact. Krispin himself talked about watching a movie, seeing the reality on the screen but having no knowledge (and no way to achieve that knowledge) of what actually went into the creation of that reality.

Any criticism against the realities—the actual, underlying, objective realities; not our perceptions thereof—is essentially a position of solipsism, which is of course a rather unproductive use of one’s limited brainpower.

I don't see the "cutting" of religion is society's near future, if it even happens at all.

Eventually it will happen, if we don’t kill ourselves off first. The United States is, somewhat famously, one of the most religious of all the developed nations. Our fundamentalist Protestant heritage is something of a cultural aberration when considered on the global scale. Nations like the UK are, just as famously, post-religious in their social attitudes.

Europe is an interesting contrast. Many of the nations of Europe retain official religions, semi-mandatory Church membership, and all sorts of stuff that would make Americans cringe, yet it backfired in the end: Religion won, but people realized they didn’t need it. Thus religion passed from Europe peacefully. (Except now an influx of Islamic radicals is rekindling the flame…)

In the United States we have tried to curtail religion legally, with disastrous results, and yet even here there is significant progress. Religion as we typically conceive of it simply cannot compete with the information and comforts available to individuals in the modern developed world.

Obviously, the gender's role in nature is different.

Gender does not exist in nature. It is a human construct designed to facilitate gender roles (which, despite the term, preceded the concept of gender itself). In the wild, biological sex is all there is.

I always see people realising this, but nobody has any ideas of how to fix this.

Hah! You should talk to me sometime. Sexual equality is my top social passion and I have put a lot of work into it over the years. I have some ideas, all right…

The most important one of them all is to reform education in America, but there are many more.

I've known many people, personally, who were destroying their lives with drugs, crime involvement, etc. and found a way to turn their lives around via religion. Is this a prison for them? Of course not, they have found something to live for, no matter how stupid it may look to other people, and are happy with that decision. If there is no afterlife, and they have served a life of servitude, if you will, in vain, but they were happy whilst they did it, then who cares? They were happy whilst they lived and most likely died believing they led a good life. Because you personally wouldn't do it that means that it is wrong? I don't know, that sounds pretty unfair to me.

You’re talking about the Crutch Exemption—that is, people whose shit is so ruined that they’re pretty much doomed, but are able to buy into the illusory comforts of religion and, thereby, achieve some measure of tranquility, vicissitude, and perhaps even happiness in their lives.

Yes, a valid exemption. Religion, of course, is not the only such aid open to the desperate, but because of its pervasiveness in our culture it does come up quite often. If the lost can right themselves with religion, then the better for them.

Two notes, however: Those are compromised people, and probably should not be afforded the same status as ordinary citizens. Secondly, and more pertinently, take a closer look at some of those people whose lives were “saved” by discovering religion, and you will find that religion itself most often played a role in their development or corruption, directly and indirectly, in the person of their parents, in the style of the upbringing, and in the mores and values of the institutions of the environments in which they lived. Much of what is wrong with America today can trace itself to religious values—including the many ills that you would typically think of as completely secular, like Las Vegas. Ah, but a discussion for another time, that is, since I have to go.

The point, then: Yes, it’s a valid exemption. For now.

Machismo needs to be utterly destroyed, and females need to resist with impassioned, violent will.

Not quite, ZeaLitY. What must happen is that females must gain access to those privileges and virtuous attitudes typically reserved for males, while males must gain the same typically reserved for females.

Aggression certainly has its place, but an armed female uprising (and let’s not have the peanut gallery be making “hawt” remarks here…) is not a very good solution. Perhaps a workable solution in certain specific instances, but not as a general rule.

Education and the availability of social aid—both community-driven and institutional—are the best bets.

[FaustWolf]

LET THE FEMINIST REVOLUTION COMMENCE

[ZeaLitY]

Can we still kill machismo? With impunity and without regret?

[FaustWolf]

Question in my mind is, what is the proper role of men in such a revolution? Should we not allow women to cast the torch? Are we subject to a subtle paternalistic chauvenism by believing that *WE* - the male elite - must accomplish this for them?

Some feminist writers don't even consider the possibility of male feminism, as if they believe it's not our battle to be fought as well. I reject this notion personally, however, because men must be the primary targets of feminism if the sexism that harms us all is to be torn down. Therefore, I get frustrated when women label our beliefs "pro-feminist." Call a spade a spade, and drop the "pro." We are what we are.

[Hadriel]

Well, those contradictions in religious scripture were made by the scientific system we have, no?

Uh....no.  Contradictions in scripture are not the fault of science, but of whoever wrote it.  In fact, the practice of science is not strictly required to pick out doctrinal gaffes, just the practice of logic.

It contradicts their belief, and their is no proof either way of which one is right or wrong (generally speaking). For instance, science (generally speaking) is looking to prove that we started as simple, single celled organisms and over large periods of time became the complex, multi-celled organisms we are now. It is unable to prove this completely, although "Scientific proof and Theories" seem to point at it to be a reality. Religion needs no such proof, because it is stated differently from the beginning.
Did any of that make sense at all? -_-
Let me explain a bit better:
Religion must accept proven facts, it has to. As for unproven things like evolution, religion can reject it, no matter how much evidence makes it seem true, because they have a different answer for it. Maybe the day will come when these things are answered indefinitely and religion will no longer have this ability, but to date, it hasn't happened.
I hope that made sense...

How do you define "proven" then?  There is no more debate on the theory within the scientific community; it is considered as close to factual as it is possible for a theory to be, on par with gravity, relativity and quantum mechanics.

I'm ignorant in this aspect, so correct me if I'm wrong. Has science proven even the existence of a "soul" or "consciousness"? Does it even approach the subject?
As I said, I'm ignorant in this aspect, so fill me in, please. ^^;

When I speak of a soul, I am speaking in a strictly figurative sense.  However, we are conscious and have the capability to think, feel and make our own decisions, because of our capacity to learn and analyze information.  As I have no desire to hold wrongheaded ideas, I would encourage anyone who has an objection against this hypothesis to bring it forth.

True he is not alone, and I don't think anyone said he was.
"It is in this that we see how a half-truth can be worse than a lie"
I see where you're going with this, and I would like to challenge you with this:
Almost all science is a half-truth, in a way. Many things that are accepted by nearly everyone have not even been fully proven (Like the Gravity thing earlier). Does this stop you from believing them because they are only a "half-truth", so to speak? Obviously, Gravity is a bit more than a half-truth, but you get the idea, I think.
I agree with you with the religion statement, but bear in mind that many, many people still believe it to be true. I don't see the "cutting" of religion is society's near future, if it even happens at all.

When I say half-truth, I am not referring to unproven ideas, but to truth mixed with lies.

Meh, you're making the same error I did. Religion (Christianity, in this example) is indeed sexist. It clearly states how men should live their lives differently then women. It also clearly states that men are in control of women. Is this a bad thing? Well, I think so. Society doesn't seem to think so, however, as you stated. Many individuals think it's unfair, however.
Obviously, the gender's role in nature is different. But why should their roles in society be different? And since sexism IS a part of society, what is the solution? How can we cleanse ourselves from this? Can we even get everyone to realise that this is a problem that needs to be cleansed? On that note, who's to say whether it truly IS a problem at all? We've lived as a species with this for a very long time now, and achieved a lot of outstanding things, so is this actually preventing us from evolving as a species? I personally have had enough of the splicing in society, but many people disagree. -_-

I sure as hell think it's unfair to shoehorn someone into a role based on whether or not they have a penis.

Oh my gosh, finally, an atheist who doesn't blame religion for this has played a part in this thread. On that note, good thinking.
Indeed, sexism and what not are in humanity's genes. Perhaps not the genes, but it has been so well fertilized and grown in our society it may as well be. Again, I would ask "What is the solution for this?". I always see people realising this, but nobody has any ideas of how to fix this. Other than cutting off religion completely, but I still say it would exist in society, as it has been here for far too long.

I do blame religion where it deserves it; for the Inquisition, the Crusades, the massacre of the Native Americans, 9/11, and the Iraq war.  I also blame the Abrahamic faiths for condoning slavery, as well as for the numerous atrocities of the Old Testament.

Interesting, a tool used for aeons to control mankind into submission. Indeed, hell is an interesting subject. Perhaps ZeaLity is correct when saying that mankind can never evolve as long as we are looking at our lives through the lens of an afterlife. On that note, we've been doing it for, well, forever. I don't see the "lens" disappearing from humanity completely. Humanity is afraid of death, so it has devised an afterlife to save them from this torment. Can we overcome this fear?

Theoretically, if you kept a reserve of fresh genetic material and kept cloning new organs for yourself as old ones failed, you could live forever.  Alternatively, going full-cyborg could facilitate immortality; believe it or not, that level of technology isn't too far off.  But even absent those technologies, the idea of an afterlife which we cannot prove stifles efforts to make this one better by diverting energy away from the pursuit of progress.

Yeah, yet another example of society's (and perhaps humanity's) stupidity. "Religious freedom" in America, yet if you aren't religious of some kind, you are at a loss, here. There's a whole lot of false freedom in America, I tell ya. =P
Not saying that only applies to America, but you get the gist.

It amuses me how Americans still believe they have freedom of speech.  Saying anything that even slightly criticizes the status quo apparently warrants abject censure from the profitmongering, irresponsible corporate whores who dare to call themselves the media.  Say anything that even vaguely opposes America's actions or calls its history into question, and you are branded a traitor; this was demonstrated recently in the response to Jeremiah Wright's sermons, which, aside from AIDS being a government conspiracy, really aren't that far from the truth as far as discrimination against minorities goes; America has had an abysmal track record.  We annihilated the Native Americans, pressed Africans into slavery, passed the Espionage Act and Sedition Act during World War I, incarcerated Japanese-Americans into what were effectively concentration camps during World War II, continue to levy economic oppression upon the lower classes, and again, have a tendency as a nation to discriminate against non-Christians and especially people who subscribe to no faith at all.

Religion is not a prison, no matter what anybody tries to pull. That is a personal opinion, not a fact. To be religious is not something that is destroying someone's life. As I stated in a post a while back:
I've known many people, personally, who were destroying their lives with drugs, crime involvement, etc. and found a way to turn their lives around via religion. Is this a prison for them? Of course not, they have found something to live for, no matter how stupid it may look to other people, and are happy with that decision. If there is no afterlife, and they have served a life of servitude, if you will, in vain, but they were happy whilst they did it, then who cares? They were happy whilst they lived and most likely died believing they led a good life. Because you personally wouldn't do it that means that it is wrong? I don't know, that sounds pretty unfair to me. Is that any different than those dumbass religious people who try to shove their religion down your (Generally speaking, not literally "you") throat and tell you why your life is a waste by not being religious? It sounds pretty much the same, if you ask me.
Don't be a missionary for atheism, is my point.

If religion is a prison, it is because many of its principles are not applicable to the modern day, because they were not devised with our current knowledge base in mind.  This would be more forgivable if religion had a method for self-correction of its scripture as science does; as it stands, Abrahamic religion is limited to "interpreting" its verses.  It treats religious literature as divinely revealed truth rather than the philosophical reflections of human beings, which renders it rigid and unaccommodating to new knowledge.

Humanity inherited sex-specific behavior from its animal past. At the dawn of civilization, these animal roles evolved gradually into cultural attitudes. Over still more time, religion arose and tried to deduce universal truths from the human condition, cementing sexist mores into human society along the way.

I don't think this actually contradicts what I said, though perhaps I failed to make myself clear enough.  It's true that we inherited these cultural attitudes from our animal forebears, but with the rise of intelligent thought, the potential existed even in biblical times for women to throw off the yoke; this had to be suppressed by the patriarchy, and there are in fact many verses in the Pentateuch devoted to furthering the idea of female inferiority - too many, in my opinion, to not be reflective of a concerted effort by the religious caste to maintain male dominance.

[Anacalius]

an atheist who doesn't blame religion for this

...

Hey, I'm not picking on anyone, just was glad to see something else. ^^;
I for one, have come to realise in the last few days that religion is definitely responsible (Not completely, but it definitely played a role) in the sexism issue we have today.

Education. Reinforcement. Savage punishment. Sexism is a relic of humanity's childhood. Machismo needs to be utterly destroyed, and females need to resist with impassioned, violent will. This involves the outright annihilation of several societal cornerstones and traditions. I will be the first person to cast the torch on the tinder, provided Lord J doesn't beat me to it.

Now, now, relax. =P
Education is obviously an undeniable must here.
Reinforcement... Not sure exactly what you mean here, but I assume reinforcement of the education, in which case, of course, it's a must.
Savage punishment? =O
Now, calm down a bit. Savage punishment would obviously lead to war (which would probably happen anyway, with all the proud fuckstick sexists out there), not to mention the fact that it's a bit rash, eh? I think humanity is at a point where if we could actually somehow promote the education on a large scale (And yes, reinforce that education), it would mostly gladly accept. There would definitely be resistance from hillbillys though, no doubt. One of my relatives is one of those "Proud to be a white, american, racist, sexist, christian" pigs, and let me tell you what, he wouldn't go down without a fight, and I'm sure he'd have plenty of allies as well.
So we promote the education, reinforce that education, society accepts, and the hillbillys start their own war. Then we begin the "Savage punishment", but we let our enemies make themselves known first, eh? Granted, maybe they won't even start a war, and all they do is bitch about it, well, I think most people would just disregard them, and you're always going to have a few spoiled factors in stuff like this. I mean, honestly, you can't COMPLETELY annihilate it (Even with "Savage Punishment"), can you? As long as you win the majority, I think it'd be fair to say it's a success. 

Honestly though, if you think you're going to see the death of sexism in your life, I think you're mistaken. We'll most likely not see it happen, or even begin to happen. D=

Religion is not a prison

mankind can never evolve as long as we are looking at our lives through the lens of an afterlife

Meh, I stand corrected, to a point. Lord J esq says it a lot better than I ever could in his post. =P
I will say though, that I'm glad religion has played a role in my life and my friends I speak of lives. It helped me get through a very rough time in my life, but now that I've made it through it and seen the faults of my religion, I have found I no longer need it (And quite possibly, never did). I don't see my friends having overcome their problems without it though, and I would have been devastated to lose most of them.
But again, Lord J esq speaks of that as well, and says it very well, at that.

I honestly don't know what I am anymore.

You are better off.

Thanks for the encouragement. I'm honestly feeling kinda, mixed up right now, but at the same time, so genuinely, purely liberated. ^^;

I don’t have a word of disagreement to offer. Religion is not the only thing that messes people up, or that is itself messed up. Education in America needs to be reconceived from the ground up.

Thank you!! No, seriously, thank you. About time I hear more people agreeing with this.

In the meantime, you should go for a GED and then take night classes to get a low-level college degree, if you’re able. You certainly seem smart enough to do it.

Actually, I just got my GED a few days ago. =D
I'm wanting to get back into school, I'm looking into a few things. I work 50+ hours a week, though, and man, school schedules alone are rough enough, but to find one that fits in with THAT as well, wow...

Even if you and I overcome this, our children will inherit it. What is the solution? What can we honestly do about this? I feel we're at a loss for answers...

The principle of the answer is so maddeningly easy. Only the implementation is hard. The principle is: People ought to be competent to have kids before they have them, and, once they do have kids, they should build a friendly, educational environment, teach them well, and set good examples.

Yeah, that part is a lot easier said than done. Around where I live, people are spurting out babies left and right, and most of the parents are high as a kite most of the time. >.<

Making that happen is a slow, multi-generational task. For one thing, for the foreseeable future there will continue to be petty and incompetent parents, spoiling a percentage of any given generation. For another thing, generational improvements are necessarily slow since generations themselves are quite long. But we’ll go in that direction, both from the bottom and from the top, steadily.

Education MUST play a role. I honestly, truly believe that if our education system was simply more strict on these matters, and seriously, more harsh on punishment (Who cares about getting suspended or something anymore?), then it'd be a win situation.
The education system in this world is a joke, an absolute joke.

Has science proven even the existence of a "soul" or "consciousness"? Does it even approach the subject?

Science cannot prove what it cannot define. There is no scientific definition of the soul. As for defining human consciousness, I know only enough to know that there is a lot of fascinating scientific literature out there. Perhaps you should spend an afternoon at your local library skimming through the latest editions of the various scientific periodicals, journals, industry publications, and magazines. The ones you like, you could subscribe to.

Fair enough.
Question though:
Has science even been able to prove that such a thing (a soul) MIGHT exist? Perhaps there is no such thing as a "soul"? I see no reason to believe in such a thing (But again, I'm extremely uneducated in this matter). We have a brain and a consciousness to go with it, where in the world does a "soul" even come into the factor? 

Any criticism against the realities—the actual, underlying, objective realities; not our perceptions thereof—is essentially a position of solipsism, which is of course a rather unproductive use of one’s limited brainpower.

Heh. Well put. Basically, you are saying people need to stop copping out behind "But that's not necessarily true" when it's so obvious that it is?

Europe is an interesting contrast. Many of the nations of Europe retain official religions, semi-mandatory Church membership, and all sorts of stuff that would make Americans cringe, yet it backfired in the end: Religion won, but people realized they didn’t need it. Thus religion passed from Europe peacefully. (Except now an influx of Islamic radicals is rekindling the flame…)

Wow, I don't think I ever really knew that. So Europe is a prime example of the fact that we just straight up don't need religion anymore. That's actually insanely interesting, and I'm going to do some research on that, now. =D

I always see people realising this, but nobody has any ideas of how to fix this.

Hah! You should talk to me sometime. Sexual equality is my top social passion and I have put a lot of work into it over the years. I have some ideas, all right…

The most important one of them all is to reform education in America, but there are many more.

If the most important is to reform the fucked education system, then I'm all ears. =D

I've known many people, personally, who were destroying their lives with drugs, crime involvement, etc. and found a way to turn their lives around via religion. Is this a prison for them? Of course not, they have found something to live for, no matter how stupid it may look to other people, and are happy with that decision. If there is no afterlife, and they have served a life of servitude, if you will, in vain, but they were happy whilst they did it, then who cares? They were happy whilst they lived and most likely died believing they led a good life. Because you personally wouldn't do it that means that it is wrong? I don't know, that sounds pretty unfair to me.

You’re talking about the Crutch Exemption—that is, people whose shit is so ruined that they’re pretty much doomed, but are able to buy into the illusory comforts of religion and, thereby, achieve some measure of tranquility, vicissitude, and perhaps even happiness in their lives.

You make a good point, but what of the people who live their entire lives in servitude to religion and are happy with it their entire lives? Is this a prison for them?

Yes, a valid exemption. Religion, of course, is not the only such aid open to the desperate, but because of its pervasiveness in our culture it does come up quite often. If the lost can right themselves with religion, then the better for them.

Two notes, however: Those are compromised people, and probably should not be afforded the same status as ordinary citizens. Secondly, and more pertinently, take a closer look at some of those people whose lives were “saved” by discovering religion, and you will find that religion itself most often played a role in their development or corruption, directly and indirectly, in the person of their parents, in the style of the upbringing, and in the mores and values of the institutions of the environments in which they lived. Much of what is wrong with America today can trace itself to religious values—including the many ills that you would typically think of as completely secular, like Las Vegas. Ah, but a discussion for another time, that is, since I have to go.

The point, then: Yes, it’s a valid exemption. For now.

Holy crap, you're right, and amazingly, I've made this same argument time and time again (Sad how I've never put 2 and 2 together until now).
One of the things I hate most are overbearing parents. Not good parents, overbearing parents. The kind that don't send their kids to school because they are afraid of the "dangers" of peer pressure, etc. etc.
Or the kind that send their kids to religious private schools, is another prime example. I tell ya, every person I speak of actually in the post you're responding to grew up like this. -_-
Parents literally condemn their children this way. The kids grow up so secluded from the rest of the real world, that as soon as they hit that age where they can make their own decisions, they SNAP! They go insane, experimenting with all the evils of the world they were never allowed to simply out of prolonged curiousity.

Machismo needs to be utterly destroyed, and females need to resist with impassioned, violent will.

Not quite, ZeaLitY. What must happen is that females must gain access to those privileges and virtuous attitudes typically reserved for males, while males must gain the same typically reserved for females.

Aggression certainly has its place, but an armed female uprising (and let’s not have the peanut gallery be making “hawt” remarks here…) is not a very good solution. Perhaps a workable solution in certain specific instances, but not as a general rule.

Education and the availability of social aid—both community-driven and institutional—are the best bets.

Good point. What most people don't seem to realise with the sexism issue is that males are prone to it as well. Our society has a distinct typical life set in motion from the second you are born. If you are a girl, you are dressed in pink, if you are a boy, you are dressed in blue.
Barbie VS G.I. Joe gets it into our heads as children as well.
And it just keeps spiraling from there, more and more extremely.
Our society literally has devised a nearly perfect system to keep boys "masculine" and girls "feminine", both of which are nonsense. Masculine VS Feminine is a system that needs to be killed, mercilessly. As a matter of fact, those words themselves can be killed along with it.

Uh....no.  Contradictions in scripture are not the fault of science, but of whoever wrote it.  In fact, the practice of science is not strictly required to pick out doctrinal gaffes, just the practice of logic.

Good point, I don't think you understood me completely though. Things that haven't been absolutely 100% without a doubt proven are still going to be denied by people stuck in their ways. Look back at my posts to ZeaLity a while back (As well as others on this thread), it's being done right here in this thread. The blame is placed differently on religion or science based on who is placing that blame. It's a "he said, she said" thing until it is proven indefinitely. Humanity just loves to disagree.

How do you define "proven" then?  There is no more debate on the theory within the scientific community; it is considered as close to factual as it is possible for a theory to be, on par with gravity, relativity and quantum mechanics.

If it isn't proven enough to completely disprove the other side (Religion), than it's not an indefinite fact, I guess is what I am saying. I'm not at liberty to say, honestly. I've never actually had to take the stand of fighting against science to prove religion, but people are doing it all the time. Ask them, I guess. -_-
You see what I am saying though? I don't know how to state it well, I suppose.
Look at it this way, it is a known fact that if it is indefinitely proven via extensive fossil records and other works that we evolved overtime from simple to complex, religion is murdered. MURDERED! It will completely disprove the Bible, 100%
Am I wrong in that statement? Or am I just not making any sense at all?

I sure as hell think it's unfair to shoehorn someone into a role based on whether or not they have a penis.

Heh, of course, any logical person does, when you directly ask them that. That's not what I was getting at. I mean that most people don't realise they even do it though.
As I just said to ZeaLity:
"I think humanity is at a point where if we could actually somehow promote the education on a large scale (And yes, reinforce that education), it would mostly gladly accept."
What I was getting at here is how many people just don't care that the world is sexist, or just aren't realising it at all? There are so many deluded people who actually believe that a "free country" really means equality and freedom from sexism, racism, etc. They are sadly mistaken, but in today's society, no one really seems to even notice.

It amuses me how Americans still believe they have freedom of speech.  Saying anything that even slightly criticizes the status quo apparently warrants abject censure from the profitmongering, irresponsible corporate whores who dare to call themselves the media.  Say anything that even vaguely opposes America's actions or calls its history into question, and you are branded a traitor; this was demonstrated recently in the response to Jeremiah Wright's sermons, which, aside from AIDS being a government conspiracy, really aren't that far from the truth as far as discrimination against minorities goes; America has had an abysmal track record.  We annihilated the Native Americans, pressed Africans into slavery, passed the Espionage Act and Sedition Act during World War I, incarcerated Japanese-Americans into what were effectively concentration camps during World War II, continue to levy economic oppression upon the lower classes, and again, have a tendency as a nation to discriminate against non-Christians and especially people who subscribe to no faith at all.

Amen.

If religion is a prison, it is because many of its principles are not applicable to the modern day, because they were not devised with our current knowledge base in mind.  This would be more forgivable if religion had a method for self-correction of its scripture as science does; as it stands, Abrahamic religion is limited to "interpreting" its verses.  It treats religious literature as divinely revealed truth rather than the philosophical reflections of human beings, which renders it rigid and unaccommodating to new knowledge.

It's not "To be religious is to be dead" or "To be religious it to be inprisoned" but "To be religious is to be ignorant" then?

[Daniel Krispin]

Hadriel! Nice to have you back! Interesting additions to the discussion. I like your reply to my gravity thing.

See, I'm not sure it has been understood by some, but I'm not in favour of skeptcism regarding gravity per say. Gravity exists, if nothing else than as a culmination of a certain set of effects. And you're right, God is vastly more difficult to put into such a framework because we cannot measure effects nor come to any sort of prediction of future action.

There are those that disagree, of course. There are those of philosophy that will say that, say, the complexity of the universe and the like is evidence of God. But I'm with Hume in disputing that sort of reasoning. I'm just throwing out a lot of the ideas that have been thrown around, well, a thousand times before.

And one more thing, and this might just get everyone's goat, so to speak, but especially the atheists. Um... you guys see what you are doing as something new, some sort of scientific revolution whereby we'll remove religion, but... there have been atheists for as long as there have been theists. I was just reading Aeschylus today (who, by the way, is entirely pro venerating the gods) and it strikes me that even in that age you had people talking much as you do. The question that remains then is... are we doing anything new here? Or are we just going so the same things again and again just like our ancestors for ten thousand years?

[Burning Zeppelin]

Hadriel! Nice to have you back!

Definetely. Now if only we could get LotP, Exodus and a few others back too.

Well, those contradictions in religious scripture were made by the scientific system we have, no? A system developed by humanity, to better explain things than the scriptures themselves.
This is kinda hard to explain what I mean here, but religion never had a "need" for this science system. Everything was already explained. Humanity wanted to explain it better, and therefore, found it's OWN contradictions in religion.

No. There are a few ways in which theists claim that God has given us, say, morality. One that it is through religious scriputure, or Two, that he punishes us for good, and rewards us for bad. According to you, 1 is false, since it was created by humans. I agree with that. How can it be the word of God if it is written and interpreted by humans? Two is also contentious. If morality really did work on a reward/punishment system, then I can't see it anywhere. When a student is bad, the teacher punishes him to make an example out of him. How can a system of morality where no one is punished by God on this world, or at least, we don't know if God punished them or not, work then?

For instance, science (generally speaking) is looking to prove that we started as simple, single celled organisms and over large periods of time became the complex, multi-celled organisms we are now. It is unable to prove this completely, although "Scientific proof and Theories" seem to point at it to be a reality. Religion needs no such proof, because it is stated differently from the beginning.

We have not proved it yet, but the beautiful thing about science is that chances are we eventually will.

I'm ignorant in this aspect, so correct me if I'm wrong. Has science proven even the existence of a "soul" or "consciousness"? Does it even approach the subject?

Consciousness is pretty much a fact. How we become conscious is another matter. Lord J is right when he said science has no defined the soul, but philosophers have. Science, or neuroscience more specifically, is generally destroying the concept of the soul, or non-physical substance. How can non-physical and physical substance interact? I can go on for a long time on this matter.

Machismo needs to be utterly destroyed, and females need to resist with impassioned, violent will.

I disagree. Education, yes. Violent revolution? No. This is the sort of idealist nonsense I have to see at universities.