Mon 29 Nov 2010
Labouring Under a Delusion
Posted by anaglyph under Atheism, Idiots, In The News, Religion, Sad, Skeptical Thinking, Words
[96] Comments
You’ll all have heard about the mysterious and sad case of Kristin and Candice Hermeler, the Australian twins who apparently attempted to commit a double suicide ((Only one of them succeeded.)) at a Colorado shooting range a couple of weeks back. The weekend’s Australian Herald Sun ran this headline for the incident:
Suicide twins Kristin and Candice Hermeler had God Delusion in their luggage
The headline is, of course, referring to Richard Dawkin’s book of that name. I say no more than that the two women also had a copy of Eckhart Tolle’s ‘The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment’ ((Tolle is, as you may know, Oprah Winfrey’s guru du jour. I am deeply suspicious of people who think they’ve found the ‘answers to everything’ and especially of those who feel the need to impart this wisdom to others at a price.)) and The Wisdom of the Native Americans among their belongings as well, but apparently those weren’t as headline-worthy. Funny that. ((Shout out to Bruce Hood for catching this one.))
In other Australian newspaper news in the same vein, Cardinal George Pell, a religious man of big pretensions and small intellect, has called those without faith ((We are to take this as Christian faith, it goes without saying. I don’t think Cardinal Pell believes for a minute that Muslims have any leverage with the Invisible Sky Man.)) ‘coarse, uncaring and without purpose’. He accuses atheists of having ‘nothing beyond the constructs they confect to cover the abyss’, which is odd since it seems to anyone with half a brain that it’s much more appropriate to describe people who hold the fanciful beliefs of religion with those words. Atheists, as anyone with the faintest grasp of philosophy understands, don’t ‘confect constructs’ of any kind, because atheism is simply a lack of belief. And, unlike religious people, we don’t attempt to ‘cover’ the abyss with anything – we just accept it’s there. ((Cardinal Pell’s fear of the unknown is plainly profound. His contemplation of the ‘abyss’ obviously terrifies the wits out of him.))
In the same sermon Pell goes on (quite embarrassingly, in my opinion) to invoke the hoary old Atheism = Nazism argument, and so, via Godwin’s Law, automatically loses all credibility. ((C’mon. We’re tired of this one. It makes no sense. It never did, and it never will.))
George Pell accuses those without faith as being ‘fearful’, when it is plain to all but the most obtuse who’s really the scaredy cat in this picture.
Why does Brad Norrington speak so strangely?
Brad Norrington is just another example of why the Old Media is no longer relevant. It’s not news – just gossip.
They forget; ‘the god of this system has blinded the mind of the unbelievers’. It is our duty to guide the atheist to the ‘truth’. God exists, he cares, he will step in and sort the problems of this world and we are ALL involved in the universal issue of sovereignty.
That actually doesn’t make sense in my construct, my dear Landscaping. Care to rephrase it in a way that is coherent?
Poor old Pell, I think even a tragic rag like the SMH secretly delights in letting him dig his own grave publicly. I can’t wait till his sex scandal erupts…
What abyss? Life’s pretty good and we’re all gonna die, end of story, so what?
I thought the church was about spreading love, oh hang on, they haven’t done that for a while now have they, in fact have they ever done it? Oh that’s right it’s only ‘his love’ that they spread. You could be forgiven for thinking ‘his love’ is in fact hate couldn’t you?
Well ‘He’ still hasn’t struck me down yet, so fuck him!
The King
Just one small clarification, I think. Atheism is the belief in nothing, or to put it differently, to believe nothing exists beyond ourselves with respect to deities, higher power, etc. A lack of beliefs (be it from uncertainty, or some other mechanism) would be agnosticism, I think.
Of course, for the common layman, atheist : agnostic as theory : hypothesis
I have to take exception to your definition of atheism. To see my considered views on this topic you need to visit this post, but for the moment:
The definition of the concept of atheism varies according to your reference (see the post I linked to for more on this), but as a rational person I can’t make a logical case for ‘believing nothing exists beyond ourselves’. To do so means proving a negative proposition, which is logically impossible. My atheism (and the atheism of most other atheists I know) is, therefore, best understood as being a lack of belief. Think of it like this: do you believe in the Egyptian god Horus? My surmise is that you have no active position on this. Horus does not affect your life in any way, so you neither believe nor disbelieve in Him. He is immaterial to your life. For you to take up an explicit stance that He does or does not exist, you would have to try to mount a logical argument for either of those views, which is not rationally possible. So I submit that you are an atheist as far as the God Horus goes.
It is a common misconception that atheism is a belief system – it’s not. It’s a lack of a belief system, if anything. Just as the God Horus is immaterial to your life, then the Christian God (or any other current God) is immaterial to my life. I see no reason to believe in such a deity, but I could not prove there isn’t one. There is, in my opinion, merely no reason to suppose such a being exists.
Atheism is most certainly NOT a belief in nothing, although I suspect many religious people think that. I believe in all kinds of things: compassion, love, humour, grief, kindness, awe… in the vast grandeur of human existence and the stupendous beauty of the universe. I just don’t see any need to ascribe any of those things to the tinkerings of some supernatural being.
Agnosticism on the other hand is best understood as taking the position that ‘the jury’s still out’; that you can’t make a decision because all the evidence is still not in. I most certainly don’t take that view. As far as I’m concerned, the evidence for any god, be it the Christian one or an Ancient Egyptian one is about as good as it’s ever going to get and it’s not at all persuasive.
I was unaware of your post earlier, however, I was merely speaking with reference to the more etymological components, theist being gnostic (atheist, monotheist, polytheist, what have you) and the opposite logically being agnostic. Regardless of that, even Wikipedia defines atheism as a rejection of a system of beliefs rather than calling it an unknown (which wikipedia goes into more detail about under the agnostic entry). And again, I am talking strictly to the religious aspects. Of course, it could be a language thing, our English over here doesn’t always follow the same as the rest of the world.
Although, one could argue that, if there is no higher power, there may be not be some things like entropy. I posit thus that entropy could not exist without some force working toward order, in the same way that darkness can only exist if light also exists.
Although, with regard to your article, I do agree, some folks take things entirely out of context in the interest of sensationalized bias. Unfortunately, many folks assume a ‘christian’ persona to further their goals, when indeed it is all a sham of a facade to gain publicity, or merely perpetuate a falsehood. I know, I have to deal with Tea Party members all the time up in this hemisphere.
Of course, it does strike me how many ‘science-minded’ folk can’t grasp the idea that gravity may not exist, and reject the notion outright that they may also be wrong, even when presented with Einstein’s theory of general relativity.
I do find your articles very interesting, and I will definitely continue reading. Of course, I reckon you shall find some hole in my small dissertation here. Then again, I thoroughly enjoy good civil discourse and debate.
I am going to reply here for ease of readability.
I suppose that, in the interest of somewhat full disclosure, I should point out that I do, indeed, identify currently as a Christian, Methodist in denomination. It is kind of late here, so I am going to pick a few points to respond to, and perhaps get back to others later. Although, my mind is as open as it has ever been, and I think I am understanding some of your points a bit better.
Christianity, as I know it, is not as rigid and unchanging as you seem to believe. I could go into great detail why, but again, the hour is late. Perhaps another time.
I would say that religion and science tend to be far apart, in that religion is mostly anecdotal, whereas science tries to be empirical. It is impossible to quantify a soul, regardless of whether it exists. Can a human pass the Turing test? If not, are they no longer human?
Saying that science just works even if we hold no belief in it is just as anecdotal as saying religion does. Scientific theories are great, but they are just that. I mean, an omnipotent force could make itself unknown, couldn’t it?
Let me get this anecdote out of my system. What if I created a computer program that somehow gained a consciousness, or a self awareness. Would it be aware of anything before the OS loads? Would it be aware of anything outside of its own program? How would it define the operating system? If it did catch a glimpse of the bios, would it think that was the extent of the universe, and that the boot was the big bang? Would it assume that the BIOS created it? Would it believe it somehow created itself, evolved from lines of code, from the OS? Could it understand its own consciousness? Would it ever be able to understand that a Human isn’t really in its dimension? Does the human existing mean that it wasn’t evolved from the earliest lines of code? What about those lines of code that don’t make any sense but are there anyway, relics from a forgotten time?
I would say that the claims are only irrational from the view that science is right, and right alone.
Some science does depend upon us observing it, like light. I wonder, then, if there is any science that depends upon us not observing it.
I don’t know. Maybe I am tired. I am sure that there is something there, but I am simply not eloquent enough to get to express it. This is kind of how I see our debate, anyway. A program debating with itself, in a way. Sure, I mean, I have no way to prove anything, through either science or religion, but hot damn if I could.
With regards to right and wrong again, these are belief systems. Since I am most familiar with christiantiy, or more specifically methodist christianity, I will start here. Wesley said that we should do all the good we can, to all the people we can, in all the ways that we can, for as long as we shall live (paraphrasing a bit there). We have missions to help educate people in third-world countries, to bring them food and water, so on and so forth. We are doing it because of our love for people, and we don’t shove it down throats like the catholics/anglicans/protestants. Think about it though, if you knew in that soul-thing of yours that you were going to burn in hell forever if you did not spread the word and try to help people into heaven, might you be enticed to do so? Of course, many people do change religions over the course of their lives. I hold many of the tenets of Buddhism to be good ideas to live by. Even some of the teachings in the Koran are worth reading. Of course, if you choose to reject them, that is your decision. We can argue with the same amount of fervor about the Higgs-boson, or the nature of quantum mechanics, or the constancy of the universe. It doesn’t mean that we are right, and it doesn’t mean that we are wrong. And yes, I do understand that you can’t prove something exists by not being able to disprove it, that isn’t what I am trying to get at. What drives you, what motivates you? Can it be quantified in an empirical way? Can one show that all desires are merely reactions to stimuli, and that wants don’t actually exist?
But I digress, it is very late. I think you have my e-mail, since I post here. Feel free to e-mail me, then, for this is a most interesting debate, and the most enlightening thing I have done in quite some time. Guess I should have been a theologian after all….
I would broadly agree with the Wikipedia definition too – I certainly reject any systematic religious framework that is based on the concept that a supernatural being has personal interest in human affairs. It’s not that I could ever prove that such a being doesn’t exist, just that in all balance, I believe it’s highly unlikely. Or, to put it another way, I think it’s on equal footing with the likelihood that unicorns or fairies exist.
The logical corollary of accepting any particular religion based on non-rational principles means that you are obliged to accept all religions equally. Otherwise you’re in this completely untenable position of waging one irrational belief system against another. How is it even possible to decide which one is right?
I’m not sure I entirely follow you here. Entropy is the process by which all energetic systems give over their energy to greatest disorder. Nothing actually works toward order in energetic systems. It is true that, in this regard, the arising of life is slightly puzzling to science but there are some hypotheses that go toward offering explanations for this problem. The most likely one, albeit hugely depressing from our human point of view, is that life is a nothing more than a very expedient way of using up energy and radiating it away as heat, thus speeding up the process to eventual heat death of the universe (an analogy would be something like the beautiful patterns you see when snow crystals form. There’s no actual progress toward order – the symmetry you see is just a by-product of the path to the most efficient energy dispersal).
I’m not sure what you mean by this either – most scientists accept that gravity exists. Do you mean it in respect of gravity being an aspect of curved space-time? It’s still a force, by any reckoning, even if it’s a distortion of our dimensions.
The point I was trying to make was that perhaps the deity isn’t this godhead sitting on a chair in some heaven, but perhaps is that consciousness we have, or is perhaps the will of the universe (or something else), and our interpretation of it as a deity is more precise.
I don’t think that a person is obliged to believe anything that calls itself religion equally (if person is religious), any more than a scientist must accept anything that calls itself science in the same way (if they are non-religious). A Christian does tend to have to accept Jewish beliefs, because they are closely related, but is in no way obligated to believe pastafarianism or satanism, any more than a person who believe in newtownian physics has to believe in quantum physics. This is a rather ridiculous preponderance, I think. It is sort of like saying that all Christians are Anglican (which they are not), or that all Christians are governed by the Pope.
Gravity, I was getting at, is usually explained by the hypothetical graviton, whereas relativity is that bending of space-time you mentioned. Perhaps that is splitting hairs a bit, but that tends to be the gist of science and religion.
Entropy was, perhaps, the wrong word (as I wasn’t referring to thermodynamics per se). Chaos and Order, or rather our interpretations of them, which I think you got. I just don’t know a better word off-hand to describe that phenomenon. English is such a devilish language.
And we aren’t deciding which belief system is right when we pick one, we are deciding which one we believe in, be it organized religion, science, nothing, etc.
I wonder, if atheists reject organized religions, deities, etc, then why do they feel the need to correct those who don’t believe in what the atheists do? Why would an atheist care what a theist thinks, unless atheists are actively trying to do the thing that theists are doing? Is this not evidence that both do have beliefs of some sort? If there is no higher power, why try to work against it or the people who believe in it?
I am not saying any of this in anger, please don’t get me wrong. These are actually just the sort of thoughts I have on a regular basis. I have a feeling that your view of Christianity (and possibly a good many other religions) is tainted by what you see so-called christians practicing. Many of these ‘christians’ are really no more christian than the ‘scientists’ are scientists for products like the Shoo Tag. Those are my observations. Feel free to fire back.
Who then are the real christians? When arguing a point, you mean ‘christians who don’t think like me’ Many would disagree. To the flat earthers you are blaspheming. To the pat robertsons and jerry falwells you are a wicked hellbound leftist if you think the world is older than 10,000 years. To moderate christians you are not a true christian because you do not believe as they do. you are a fundamentalist of sorts.
god is not needed to explain anything in the universe. If he is required, show me. You cannot say’science can’t yet describe gravity\big bang\evolution etc etc or whatever and use that as proof of god.
Furthermore, atheists work against the bullshit, hate, and such that is being spouted by so called christians that tries to inflict it’s extremely narrow view on everyone else.
I can see that you are taking a particularly precarious stance against what you think I said, Timothy.
Foremost, I never said that a god was required for anything, nor did I say that such an entity existed. I did not realize that anyone still held that the earth is flat, nor did I realize there was a religious movement associated with it. Televangelists may call themselves Christian, and I can call myself a chicken, but it doesn’t make it any more true. Not sure what you mean by ‘moderate christians,’ saying it as though they are a political party or something (although, perhaps they are in your part of the world, I don’t know).
Christians are really only separated from Jews in that they hold Jesus to be the son of god. Jews and Muslims both hold him to be a prophet, and even Mohammed pulled from the teachings of the bible. Obviously, a real christian should not pass judgement, for ‘Vengeance is mine’ saith the lord. Pride is a deadly sin, in the christian religion. Of course, the christian religion isn’t all about god, it has some good points for living by too (like not killing people, for example). Christians (or the ‘real’ ones, to clarify) should never break any of the ten commandments, and should avoid the seven deadly sins at all costs. Typically, that is grounds for burning for all eternity, and is thereby frowned upon. As atheists do not believe in a god, I am not sure why most follow any of these edicts, aside from simple survival, I suppose. An ethical person who doesn’t believe in any afterlife might still do this stuff anyway, although I am not sure where they might define their morals or ethics from, unless they are simply following what the religious people do. Again, this kind of thinking genuinely puzzles me, so any insight would be appreciated.
Science is not needed to explain anything anymore than religion is. There is no ‘need’ to explain anything. We do so because we want to. We want to survive, we want to know more, we want to build rockets and networks.
It would seem your last point is rather contrary, claiming that atheists are correct and infallible where non-atheists are not. Not all scientists are atheists, are they?
I am not saying that those theories are wrong, just that they are only theories. They are indeed very sound theories, and I happen to believe in them, but it doesn’t make them any more correct or incorrect. I mean, our very nature of what is constant is even being challenged: http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201009176 Science, as we know it here, may not even work in other parts of the universe, which would mean that those laws they taught us in elementary school are similarly not really laws at all, potentially.
Again, I am not saying that a higher power does exist any more than I am saying that one doesn’t exist. Rather, I am merely pointing out what I perceive as fallacies. Perhaps there is a fallacy within my own argument. This is real science, the asking of questions, in its simplest form.
Sorry to be so verbose.
Well, I’ll start off by saying that I don’t interpret anything you’re saying as aggressive or angry. I wish most conversations I have on this topic were this measured and thoughtful.
Well that’s as may be. But as I’ve said before on TCA, that kind of god is a distant and inscrutable entity. I could accept that idea much more readily than the concept of a personal omnipotent being who has an interest in the day-to-day lives of human beings. The thing is, if god is ‘consciousness’ or ‘the will of the universe’, what is all the stuff that’s being handed down from the ancient Middle East about some guy who was sent to earth by this ‘consciousness’ to ‘die for our sins’. This is where it loses me. I can’t hold those two distinct ideas in my head. One sounds plausible, if not really relevant on any practical level, and the other sounds like so many other myths invented by human beings.
There are two distinct and radically different ideas here. The one about religion first:
My argument about accepting irrational claims equally, is sound, I believe. Let me try and put it another way: how did you get the religion that you have? My surmise is that you were born into a family that had that religion Very few people adopt a religion that wasn’t handed to them by birthright, and even fewer choose a religion based on a careful thought process. So you most likely didn’t reason your way into your religion (I’ll assume it’s Christianity, and I apologize if I’m wrong), you just got told that’s the way it is. Now, imagine a Muslim in your exact same circumstance. How is he ever going to arrive at the idea that Christianity is a better option? It’s about as likely to happen as you deciding that the Bible is in error and the Koran is actually right. The thing is, how can you ever tell which of these religions is more ‘right’ than the other. The Muslim thinks he’s right, and you think you’re right. Both of you are adopting principles that have no rational basis, but are, you contend, The Words of God. So straight away you see that you have two irrational systems that are equally ‘right’ because God says they are! How are do you solve this conundrum in your head? Surely if you accept that the Word of God is correct, it is correct equally for anyone who believes that? Do you understand my point? I’ve been having this discussion with a person in the comments on Bruce Hood’s blog, and he avoids answering this question at every turn. I can only assume that he never thinks about it, or he ignores it because it’s too hard. If I was a religious person, I should think this would be the very most important question I’d want to try and answer. Surely your whole religious framework depends on it?
I will tackle the science bit below, because it ties in with something else you’ve said.
From my point of view this is hard to comprehend. You’re saying that you can accept one irrational belief because it’s closer to the ideas of the irrational belief you already hold. From where I stand, accepting that a supernatural being rules your life is equally logical (or illogical) for Christianity or Satanism. Neither of these concepts make rational sense to me. They are in fact, in my mind, equally nonsensical. So if I understand you properly, you will accept Jewish beliefs, but you don’t practise Judaism? Why not? If those beliefs are valid, what makes you think Christianity is ‘more right’? I don’t ask this flippantly, I am really curious about how religious people make these kinds of decisions. Can I ask also: you do see that a person raised as a Muslim believes their faith is the right one, don’t you? How, in your mind, do you decide that they’re wrong?
Yes, it’s exactly like that. And there is a world of difference in both those flavours of Christianity, some of it very contradictory indeed. Who is more right? How does one decide?
Now there I really have to take you to task. Science is explicitly NOT a belief system. It’s a method of getting closer to the truth. The huge difference between science and religion is that any scientific hypothesis can be proved wrong if the the evidence is persuasive. Religious doctrine is, by its very nature, always right (because it’s the word of God) and can never be challenged (otherwise you’re challenging the Word of God!). Science is full of cases where an idea was once thought to be correct until better evidence came along and the idea was modified or even completely abandoned in favour of a better explanation. Science is always evolving. Religion explicitly doesn’t work like that. Religion is static, dogmatic and judgemental. Religion presupposes the answers and then hammers everything in to fit them.
The other thing is that scientific principles don’t rely on whether you believe them or not. You might not believe in the Bernoulli Principle – it simply doesn’t matter whether you do or not. It works independently of your belief in it. Aeroplanes fly – there’s your proof! Religious belief is not like that. You believe one thing, Muslims believe another thing. You can’t deliver any kind of proof that says that something you believe in is an independently verifiable law of your religion that holds across all other religions.
You know, I don’t really go looking for religious people to tangle with. Almost always they start tangling with me first. I have written elsewhere about evangelism and why I find it so offensive (see this post and its comments), and yet, when atheists have an opinion religious people get all upset. The reason that we atheists are vocal about religion is that it has its fingers in everything and it’s very difficult to live your life without being confronted by it. Religion makes no bones about foisting itself on everybody else (indeed, some religions require proselytization). As a free thinking individual, I find this irksome.
Well, I wouldn’t care, if those people just kept to themselves. The problem is that they don’t. Religious people actively go around ‘spreading the word’. The way I see it, if that is what they set themselves up to do, they have to take the hard knocks along the way. If a religious evangelist comes into my life and wants to take up some of my time, then he/she better be prepared to work for the privilege.
On a more comprehensive scale, my personal feeling is that religion is bad for the human race. I think it has played a necessary part in getting us to where we are, but we have now come to a place and time where we need to start taking responsibility for our own actions as a species, rather than deferring them to some infallible mythical being. I believe that if we had the resolve to do that, it would make us much better humans.
“God is not so great! I mean, everything he makes..DIES!!”
George Carlin
Brought to you by the Movement to make George Carlin a Saint (or god)Lose your keys? Can’t find your glasses? worried about your future? Pray to the Almighty George Carlin and end your prayer with those famous words: Shit Piss Cunt Fuck Motherfucker Cocksucker and Tits. If you have enough faith your prayers will be answered. If not George says “What the fuck do I care!!”
‘What the fuck do I care?’
Sounds like some other Gods I know…
Except zombies.
Hmmm… strangely out of context due to threading…
yes, have tried to make sense of your last comment but have failed.
However, it seems to me to be an excellent Autobiography title. “Except Zombies” by The Rev Anaglyph.
Reply to acce24 above (the threading makes discussions like this very awkward. I’m thinking I might turn if off again, unless people feel strongly).
I’ll keep the conversation going here rather than by private mail. Sensible public discussion on this topic is rare and I figure if it’s online, other people might read it and get something out of it…
First of all, I will remind you (I wrote about it in my atheism post) that I was raised in an Anglican Christian household. My mother was a devout Christian, and up until the age of 14 or 15, I attended church regularly. I sang in the church choir, and I studied the catechism. So my knowledge of how a practical religion works is pretty good. I’m not an atheist by inheritance – I made my choice based on a rational appraisal of the world (this, too, is a troublesome situation for religion: how is it that an omnipotent god creates a being that allows it to reason Him out of existence?).
As you know it? Are you, then, able to make a personal interpretation of the Word of God? That seems problematic to me. Surely, if the Bible is a representation of what God wants people to do, then to start making interpretations of it begs the question: whose interpretation is valid, and how do they get the dispensation to make that interpretation.
Science grew directly out of religion. The religious view of the world was once exactly the same as the scientific view – it was just a way of explaining why things were so. Science as we know it today, eschews explanations based on supposition. Religion, on the other hand, only supposes. Science, when practised properly, hypothesises and then rigorously assaults the hypothesis to find cracks in it. Religions of ALL kinds explicitly DO NOT do this. The problem with ‘supposing’ is that you can suppose anything you like – and religions DO.
NO! It isn’t!!!! I can prove it to you. Go throw a ball up in the air – it will come back down, no matter what your religion, your moral code, your scientific discipline or your sexual preference. It’s a scientific principle that holds true despite your ‘belief’. You can attempt to believe that there is no force attracting the ball to the earth, but I can take you outside and show you, in no uncertain terms, that you are wrong. Now, name me ONE THING, that religion can demonstrate so unequivocally, and that ALL religions will agree on. There is not one.
It sure could. But it apparently didn’t do that, if you are a Christian, at least. It chose to ‘speak’ to humans and give them all kinds of instructions.
I will reiterate what I said in my last comment: maybe there is such a thing as some vast, interstellar omnipotent intelligence. Who knows? Furthermore, who could prove or disprove such a thing. It is entirely irrelevant to us. It’s an abstract conceit that has no meaning at all for human beings. If you are arguing that this being has some kind of interest in human affairs, however, I would ask you to prove it to me. Prove it to me in a way that, like a scientific theory, anyone of any religious persuasion (or not) would agree: ‘Yes, there you go. It’s as indisputable as a ball falling back to earth!’ You can’t do it. You have to invent some kind of intermediary excuse like ‘Oh, God wants to remain inscrutable, so you have to have Faith to know He exists!’ Or: ‘There is no ‘scientific proof’ because God doesn’t work like that’ – despite the fact that everything else we observe in our universe (except unicorns and fairies) does.
Sure. That’s entirely possible. Again, who knows? You might like to read Paul Davies excellent ‘The Goldilocks Enigma’ for some more ideas on this. You’d find it engaging. If you’re arguing for some kind of God like this, I can’t dispute it. It’s not logically possible to do so. But consider this – if that kind of god exists, then why not take it to the most extreme logical extension? Maybe the entire world and everything you know, including your memories and even this discussion, was written by the programmer into existence just a half hour ago. How could you know that’s not true either? I wager you don’t think so. But it’s at least as plausible as your conjecture. Or maybe it’s an Evil Programmer, who wants to see his creations suffer and die horribly. Or maybe it’s a completely Indifferent Programmer who has gone off to have a coffee and entirely forgotten about His program running away on a computer in the basement.
Positing a Programmer does not help anything. It’s so abstract that it is entirely meaningless. It does not square with how most religions work. You would have to also say that the Great Programmer cares about what happens to us – there again, you run aground on the reef of logic. Why does He care? How do you know He cares? Here, you must again invent a personal God for whom you can offer no proper evidence.
On the one hand, you are talking about a God for whom there is a rational (if highly unusual and possibly unprovable) explanation, and then on the other a God who is completely supernatural (that is, outside of Nature or the real world). Which is it? Why seek a rational path to something that is irrational by its very nature? Why not just say ‘God is a magical being and there is no explanation for Him’? I assert that you’re looking for a rational explanation because that’s what humans do. You WANT proof of your God to come from a rational process.
No, the claims are irrational because they follow no logic. Science is not always right, and it never says it is. Science is a process of accumulating best possible explanations that don’t call on supposition. Science is always correcting itself, according to strict processes that ANYONE can agree to. Science only ever gets to a point where it says ‘This is the best explanation we’ve got’. If you want to disprove something, you have to come up with a better one. But the thing is, ‘the best explanation we’ve got’, is often pretty damn good. ‘The best explanation we’ve got’ has given us smallpox vaccines, powered flight, digital television, insulin, clean water, alcoholic beverages, food that is safe to eat, healthy children and a billion other things that can be appreciated by people whether or not they ‘believe’ in science.
No, not belief systems. Issues of Good and Bad, Right and Wrong, Kind and Cruel and so forth, are arbitrated by human consensus. You don’t have to be Muslim or Christian or Atheist to understand that it’s undesirable to just go out and kill someone, for instance. That’s not because God told us that, but because we all agree as human that this is not a good thing. Likewise, most people attempt to be kind to their families, and when we see people being unkind to their families (no matter what our religion or belief system) we think that’s a bad thing. There are no ‘belief systems’ at work here. There are just moral agreements. Indeed, it’s often the case that ‘belief systems’ infringe these rules under the advice of God. Hence we have Islamic fundamentalist suicide bombers and Christian Crusaders and Inquisitors. Religious belief systems impinge upon moral consensus – it’s another reason I don’t like religion.
That’s very nice. Why can’t you do it without religious decree though? Why not do it just because it’s the decent thing to do? Why do we need God to tell us to do things that are just obviously compassionate and caring?
Sure. If I knew it. The thing is, I don’t know it. No-one does. Someone human just made all that shit up! I could just as easily tell you that there’s a place you go when you die that’s full of rainbows and candy canes. Who the fuck knows? It’s just another religious supposition. That’s another thing that galls me about religion – it holds people in fear based on fairy tales. And kind of pathetic fairy tales as well – if you’re Good, Santa… oops… God, will give you a present and if you’re Bad, Santa… damn.. God will give you a lump of coal. This is so childish that it strikes me dumb that it’s still believed by humans in the 21st Century.
That’s not true. Statistically, the religion you are born with is the religion you die with. VERY FEW people make religious switches. And, if they do, it’s usually small changes – Christian to Judaism; Roman Catholic to Orthodox etc. The greatest numbers of religious switches are made in affluent countries. The greatest religious countries are not affluent. The picture is clear: if you grow up in a poor country as a Catholic, the likelihood is that you’ll be a Catholic for your entire life.
Me too. So are the tenets of Christianity. And Islam. But the thing is, the good tenets don’t require the religious framework. Tell me I’m wrong! Don’t hurt people. Don’t steal from people. Try and do good deeds. Live a happy life. Look after your family. Protect the environment. Where’s the need for God in any of this?
No we can’t (well, we can, but not in the same manner) We will either prove or disprove the existence of the Higgs Boson in a few years. We already put knowledge derived from quantum mechanics to practical use in our world. God, however, remains unprovable and inscrutable. And just as unlikely (or likely) as ever. God is a philosophical construct. Science has real, provable ramifications. These cannot be conflated. God is a being of irrationality. Science is a way of understanding the world that everybody can agree on.
Ah, you’re attempting to an old religious viewpoint trick here. ‘There is no reason for existence without God’. Of course there is! What motivates me? The love for my wonderful family! The desire to create music! My artwork! The fun of conversations with my terrific friends and Acowlytes! The joy of walking through the wet Australian bush! My cat! The desire to entertain people! In general, the experience of the human condition! The great mysteries of the Universe!!!
Only, I don’t find the need to put God in there, anywhere. And even if I did, what would change? God is irrelevant to my life, just as I think supposing a Great Programmer is irrelevant to an explanation for our existence. You can stick Him in there if you want, but it does not seem to me that it’s necessary.
I will follow suit and just make a new comment as well.
I do agree mostly with your fist points. I was merely stating that religions do change, sometimes very drastically, over time. Religions are not setting out to do science, though, so I think it is logical to assume they aren’t going to get much done. What religion tends to do is work on the moral / ethical side of things. Whether or not a god exists, science still can’t govern our morality, as far as I can tell. I mean, believing in a god doesn’t appear to stop gravity, either. Science, on the other hand, doesn’t tell us which actions are right and which are wrong, religion tries to set about doing this. Science lets us do anything, and our religion attempts to limit that. I don’t think that the two must be mutually exclusive. Again, I am not trying to prove that god is there, like so many of your readers. If I could query a dead person and find out what happens after he dies, then I would set up an experiment to do so. Currently, science does not allow me to do this, because we don’t have the technology to do so.
Now I must absolutely disagree on your next point.
The process of dropping a ball and seeing it fall is merely a fact (observation, evidence). In science, it is nearly impossible to actually prove anything, and this is why theories hold so much weight. Theories, usually, are not disproved, but could be at any given point. This is the realistic nature of science, as I understand it anyway. Theory, Law, Hypothesis, Fact is my understanding of how science works. You observe something (the fact), wonder why it works (the hypothesis), adjust your hypothesis until you have something that works consistently (potentially law), and the law is fairly unshakable thus far (theory) but is also not yet proven.
With the programmer anecdote, I was merely trying to illustrate that, perhaps, we simply don’t have the technology now to test such an observation. Again, quantum mechanics allow for this sort of thing, however, I certainly don’t have the ability to test it myself. Then again, perhaps anything which we are not currently observing doesn’t actually exist until you look upon it. Show me a graviton, show me a square meter second of time space that is bending under the strain of the earth. Currently you can’t, as far as I am aware. Does this mean that those things similarly don’t exist?
I think you may be correct on the rationality. Again, it was late, and I don’t think that is quite what I intended to say, but alas, I had. One minor note, coming up with a better way doesn’t always disprove the old way, and it is not the only way to disprove something, as you implied. Things can be disproved by showing evidence to the contrary.
Actually, as humans, we must be civilized to think that killing is potentially wrong. There have been cannibals throughout history. The Japanese had a whole ceremony for killing people, and it was honorable and right to them. Gangs do exist, sometimes with the sole intention of killing other gangs. Wars still are happening in the name of people, places, governments, things, ideas. There are still serial killers. We have capital punishment in our civilized societies. Perhaps people without moral codes are only frightened that they might get killed if they kill someone. Again, this is just an example. There are all sorts of violent and non-violent criminals. Stealing isn’t wrong unless you believe it to be. Do you, then, base your ideas of right on what other people think is right? If so, how is that any different than a religion? Some dudes at a conference in Nicea decide what is good for me, like not killing people, and it is wrong, but if my neighbors think it isn’t cool, then I shouldn’t do it? It just seems logically fallacious to me. Different means to the same end is pretty strong evidence for the end.
You ask why I would do those actions otherwise, with regard to the Wesley quote, but you provide me no good reason to do so. My conscious might tell me that those are the right things to do, but my hunger would tell me to go eat. If I derive right and wrong from other people, and those other people are religious, am I not vicariously religious to an extent? Do you do things simply because you believe there is a universal constant on what is right and wrong? What people do you base your morality upon? If you want to be scientific about this, as you are asking me to do with religion in an implied way, what objective source do you derive your good and bad from? People, as you have pointed out, are not typically objective. Where does this ‘Moral Concensus’ come from? Is the moral concensus only derived from people without religion, or are religious people included and thereby tainting the pool, so to speak? Again, this is a genuinely interesting conundrum to me.
Methodism does not plant fear into the mind, it plants hope. Yes, you may burn in hell if you are indeed bad, but if you are good, you will go to heaven. You may choose, I suppose, to focus on the negative, as the Catholics have done for some time. And what am I losing by thinking like this? I try to be good to get to heaven, and if it doesn’t exist, then I just die after trying to be good. Still, beyond my religion, I try to do what I think is right because I want to. I don’t do what I think is right just because other people tell me that is what I should do. I don’t do it just because people think it is right. This includes the people who composed those books in the bible. I do what is right, or try to, because I want to. Perhaps I am not like most people, I don’t know. Obviously, I can’t really speak for all Christians. The bible tells me that I should not pass judgement, and I think that is a reasonable idea, so I do my best not to judge other people. Apparently it means I am prone to asking a lot of questions, instead.
I think it may be religious interpretations of this higher power are wrong. What if ‘miracles’ like the separating of the dead sea really did happen, and now they don’t? Would it be wrong to say that they happened? Or, from a scientific perspective, could it just be that the laws of science have changed since then? I am not saying it did happen, but I can’t show evidence that it didn’t, either. Who knows, if that Finite Constant is not constant throughout the universe, perhaps we were in a slightly different area of the universe where the laws of physics were not the same as they are now. I mean, the galaxy moves. What kind of experiment would I set up to test that hypothesis?
I don’t agree with your assertion that very few people change their religion, or change it only very closely. I know of several people who do not believe the same thing now as they did when they were younger, with regards to religion. Some did make only small changes, but some have also done like you and changed rather starkly. Of course, a person can lie, regardless of their religion, so I don’t think that there is an accurate way to test that hypothesis either, and this observation is, again, anecdotal at best.
Again, proof doesn’t tend to exist. We can show evidence, and show it often, for many things. Until now, we thought that organisms needed phosphorus to survive, and that arsenic was poisonous to all of them. NASA has now found an exception to that law, in the form of a bacteria which uses arsenic instead of phosphorus. Something can only be proven, is my point, if it is absolute everywhere, and can be shown absolute everywhere. Just because a species goes extinct doesn’t mean it was alive at one point. Just because we think we are using quantum mechanics doesn’t mean that we actually are, it just means that we can’t show that it isn’t.
To your last point, why do you love your family? Obviously, you believe that love exists. What is love, how do you define it? Love is just as abstract as any religion, I think. I am not saying that there isn’t a reason for existence without a higher power (again, not necessarily a god), and indeed we may be evolved from some lesser life form. I am asking, however, what is it? Obviously, our physical forms can be pretty easily explained through science. How can you explain love with science? Or are you just believing in a concept that someone taught you? Where do our metaphysical constructs come from? I am willing to accept science or religion, or both. Religion is great at dealing with love, hope, feelings, emotions, morals, ethics, and what have you. Science is great at explaining the physical world, showing how things work, creating technology. Science hasn’t created a soul yet. Science did create a small big bang, which shows that it likely happened, but also that it was created (and it didn’t happen by chance, either). Even Einstein said that the universe, and all of its complexity, likely didn’t happen by chance.
As an after note, I think that perhaps our languages are standing in our way. Yes, we are both speaking English as our native tongue (or perhaps you aren’t, but it doesn’t appear that way), but I think our nuances and subtleties are completely different. Perhaps this is one of our barriers to understanding one another better. A god, or higher power, isn’t required for all religions, as a religion is really a set of beliefs. At least, this is how I learned it. My American English apparently is not quite the same as your Australian English. A proof, at least up here, really only exists in mathematics. Perhaps it is little things like this that are complicating our discussion, but I don’t know for sure. Of course, it is still pretty common for folks up here to say things are proven, especially in advertising, even when the only evidence is a clinical trial. Could just be that I am very strict in my interpretation of the language, I did think about going to be an English major, once upon a time….
“Methodism does not plant fear into the mind, it plants hope. Yes, you may burn in hell if you are indeed bad…”
I’m sorry, but just – fucking unbelievable self-delusion.
Let’s just clarify that ‘hell’ concept again shall we? That’s burning in fire, being tortured horribly beyond all description – for all ETERNITY. What kind of fucked up concept is that? Only a human being could come up with it.
And the religious think they’re guardians of our morality.
@univeral
Hell is described as a pit of burning sulfur in most translations, or a lake of fire, so to that point I agree.
So, if I tell you that you get paid to do good things, or thrown in jail for doing bad things, is it a delusion to believe in that money and only accept the jail? Does it become my fault, then, if you get sent to jail for doing something bad? No, I think, it does not. Everyone sins, or does bad things, according to most every religion. Not everyone, however, chooses to accept Jesus as savior, or try to do good to be reincarnated better (Potentially into Nirvana), or try to get their 70 virgins in heaven.
Does this mean that law is a bad idea, and is highly self-delusional, just because it is a human idea? My point is not that god must exist, but that your argument is equally (or possibly more) fallible.
And to your last point, what is morality? Are you telling me that whatever you think is right just because you think it? How, then, does this separate you from any religious person?
How ridiculous. We are talking about ETERNAL TORTURE, not being ‘thrown in jail for doing bad things’. No one, in the entire history of this planet, has ever done anything worthy of such a fate – no one.
Not only could I never believe in a cosmic view that includes such a disgusting idea, but it is so obviously a bit of primitive fear-mongering to keep the peasants in line, the most primitive, base form of threat, it astounds me how anyone in this day and age can believe it.
In fact, by the way ‘modern’ Christianity – in all its many and varied versions, brands and spin-offs – tries to gloss over the subject, most Christians probably don’t believe it either.
I have no idea how you jump to your bizarre conclusions from my words, but what I’m saying is, no religion that includes such a concept as eternal punishment has any right to preach to anyone about morality. It’s an obscene idea, laughably ridiculous when expressed as a corollary to ‘planting hope’, and please don’t try to draw a fantastically long bow by saying I’m no different from a religious person for thinking so.
@universal
So, you have no idea how I might jump to such a conclusion, when you yourself have jumped to the exact opposite conclusion? Why do you assume that any type of higher power must fall into our way of thinking, into our morality, into our code of ethics? Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean that it is untrue, any more than me talking about it makes it true.
And you are wrong about modern Christianity, too. Catholics, Protestants, Baptists do hold the stark view of hell you posited.
I don’t know what you are so angry about if you know this doesn’t exist anyway. I mean, can you go to a hell you don’t believe in? Can you call a hell you don’t believe in wrong? Can you call a god you don’t believe in wrong? And if you do, what have you accomplished?
Of course, at this point, you may be a troll. I don’t know what to make of you.
I’ll tell you what makes me angry. Idiots teaching children that if they’re bad they’ll suffer for all eternity in hellfire. I’m angry because religious people with fucked-up concepts like that in their head affect my life and the development of the human race.
If I’m a troll, does that mean you’re a troll? If I believe in what I believe, does that mean that you believe that what I believe is what you believe?
(Annoying, isn’t it?)
So, all people with worldviews that do not mesh with yours are somehow less open-minded than yourself, who refuses to accept the possibility of something you cannot see? Do you believe, also, that the universe only extends as far as you can quantify it? I can’t see the dark side of the moon, but I am fairly certain that there is one. Should we not teach kids about that, then, until we take pictures of it?
Stating my point in an elegant manner is in no way troll-like. Spouting hate speech on a website and asserting it to be absolute, however, is. Are these religious folk teaching your kids? If so, why are you still taking them to Sunday School?
Believe what you like. No, your last point is wrong; beg the question all you want, it doesn’t change the answer. I have yet to assert that my way is correct, and yet you assume that I have forced my religion down your throat, while doing so and calling me wrong for doing what you did, not me. So yes, you are a troll, and your last point is convoluted beyond anything coherent.
Carrying on my discussion with acce245:
I don’t dispute that. But how is that happening? God certainly isn’t appearing to people out of a cloud these days and handing down His word. What’s happening here is that people are amending the Word of God. Doesn’t that strike you as a little bit problematic? Who are these people? How come they get a dispensation to meddle with God’s commands?
I didn’t suggest, and I never would, that morality could or should be governed by science. Questions of morality are complex societal issues that need to be governed by common sense and consensus. We explicitly don’t need religion to do that, much as all religious people seem to think so. If you start arguing that religion is a necessary arbiter of moral values, then you are on shaky ground indeed. What religion? ANY religion? Gee, there’s a problem. So, once again, I ask (and I point out that you didn’t answer this question before, and neither will any other person with whom I’ve had this discussion): How do you decide which religion is the one that should have this enormous power and responsibility? Which religion is the Right One? You think it’s your religion. Muslims think it’s their religion. Pagans think it’s their religion. Hindus think it’s their religion. Can you not see that this is an intractable and quite undesirable situation?
The problem is that religion is dogmatic. Is it morally right to make women subservient? Is it morally right to kill the children of sinners for the sins of their fathers? Is it morally right to kill people because of their sexual orientation? Should we bring back human sacrifice? My guess is that you don’t think any of these are acceptable. But hey, they are the direct commands of God! If you are deciding to re-write them because they don’t fit with your societal mores, then you have just made a consensus human decision that has nothing to do with religion!
But here you’re saying there are only two options. Science OR religion. What about science and common agreement? What about science and compassion? What about science and plain old common sense? Religion does not have a monopoly on good deeds. Good deeds can happen, and do happen, outside the framework of religion.
Straight away you are making an assumption; that something of a person exists after they die. A scientific approach wouldn’t do that. The scientific view of death would be more like this: When a person dies, what happens? No assumptions. On the evidence we currently have, it looks like the ‘person’ disappears and their carbon-based body decays back to its components. End of story. Anything else is speculation. If you want to set up an hypothesis that there is a ‘soul’ that survives after death, then you have to establish the presence of that soul in the first place. So far, we have no such evidence. You sure can set up experiments to examine all these ideas, and people have, but the evidence for any existence for life after death is non-existent.
There are some complicated things here. First of all, yes, the dropping of a ball is indeed a fact. That’s exactly how science works, and the point of my analogy. I chose a very simple scientific observation for that exact reason. Let me ask you: how do you know that a ball drops to the ground? Because you’ve seen it a million times, right? So, in your worldview, your observation (science) allows you to make a prediction: if I go outside and drop a ball, it will drop to the ground. How do you know this for sure? Because it’s an observed fact, verified by anyone you care to ask. It’s a simple scientific experiment. Now stay with me here. Prove to me that next time you go out and drop the ball, it will always fall. You can’t. All you can do is to say that, according to the accumulated evidence, the likelihood is extremely high that the behaviour will be the same next time you carry out the experiment.
That’s how all science works. Dropping the ball is explained by a theory – the theory that there is an attraction between masses – but that theory holds across any belief system you care to name. The theory ‘is not yet proven’ in an abstract sense only because science allows that possibility. If you came up with some persuasive maths that said ‘Every 12 billionth time a ball is dropped it will fly upwards‘, then we’d have to revise that theory. But otherwise, the theory is holding pretty damn well for all cases of dropping a ball. Thousands upon thousands of scientific theories fit this scenario. Arguing that a theory is just a speculation (which is what you’re saying) is inaccurate and misleading, and is indeed the way the Creationists argue about evolution. Yes, the Theory of Evolution is just a theory. Except that it’s a damn good theory and a much better explanation for the way life has evolved on Earth than to say God just made stuff.
It’s exactly the same as saying that when you go outside and drop a ball, it falls because God is making it do so.
I know what you were saying. But I reiterate my point from the last comment: speculating a programmer is irrelevant. It’s the direct equivalent of speculating a sentient blue gas that lives on fissionable hydrogen in the Orion nebula. Sure, we can’t prove it with our current technology. The thing is, it’s entirely irrelevant. We can’t test for God. So what?
More to the point, the Christian religion (and others) puts in a clause to explain, or even eliminate, this problem – you’re not supposed to need to test this hypothesis. You’re supposed to have Faith. Even desiring to make a test for God shows that you don’t trust in His Word. It’s the ultimate escape clause.
But there are good reasons to assert those things exist, based on observations from people who are intent on making their observations checkable by other people. These things are not just metaphysical constructs which are unverifiable.
Um… that’s the same thing. Any evidence that displaces existing evidence is improving the hypothesis. If the evidence can be shown to be lacking – for whatever reason – then you’re going forward in making your description more accurate.
Ooopsie! Bad argument. Just look at what you said above. Are you going to try and say that all those things you mentioned – the cannibalism, the killing, the wars – were committed by people without religion? Dear oh dear. Religion does not stop any of those things from happening. If you’re looking to it as a moral compass and using that as an argument, then it’s a terrible solution! I think religious people fail to understand this. I assume the thinking is: look at all these terrible things that happen when we are religious. Think of how much worse it would be if we were all atheists! Except that the statistics are terrible for that. The atheist population in prisons is WAY lower than it is in general society. In other words, people who commit crimes are more likely to be religious than atheist. I should think that would give religious people some cause for reflection…
I base my ideas on my conscience, my empathy for my neighbours and tolerance of differences. I certainly don’t base them on what a supernatural being told someone two thousand years ago. I seem to be able to live a pretty good moral life. I don’t kill, cheat on my wife, abuse my children, steal from stores or lie on my tax return. Generally speaking I would say I’m a more morally upstanding person than most of the religious people I know. I think you could ask any of my friends and they would agree. Sure, I’m not a saint – I guess there would be people who would think I could do better – but on balance, I believe I am a good person. I don’t see how I could be a better person with God telling me what to do. In fact, I think it would make me less of a person. I would find it confusing to have to decide why I thought it was OK for my gay friends to get married and God didn’t.
Logically fallacious? How so? When you get on the freeway, do you drive your car at 200 miles an hour because you think you’re totally fine with that, fuck everyone else? I say you don’t. Why not? Is it just fear of punishment, or do you think, perhaps, that maybe it’s a good idea to have some kind of agreed limits upon driving speeds on the road? Do you kill dogs with your air rifle for sport? No? Why not? God doesn’t specifically forbid that. Do you stand naked on your front lawn when the local kids are coming home from school? No?
See, we have lots of moral codes that we agree by consensus. It all works pretty well. No logical fallacy there whatsoever.
You didn’t ask me for any. There are abundant reasons to do so. It is not so hard for someone to understand that, if you behave badly, there will be some kind of consequence. It’s fine to walk around naked in your house when no-one can see you, but probably not appropriate to do so on your front lawn. This is an agreement between empathetic beings. You might even have a philosophical objection to being told you can’t be naked on your front lawn (‘What’s the problem with nakedness?’ you might say) but, out of common empathy and courtesy, you would forbear in your community. You probably bring your trash cans in, so as not to make the street look untidy. You probably don’t play music really loud at night, out of respect for your neighbours. I guess you would go help someone if they were hit by a car on the street. God has nothing to do with any of this. You don’t need to be told to be considerate, compassionate or just plain neighbourly. These are all decisions of morals. What’s more, we don’t need religion to tell us that any of these things are a good idea.
I submit that unless you were very desperate indeed, your hunger would not overcome your moral sense. And I also submit, that when you became that desperate, being religious would not make one whit of difference. If you were starving, you would steal food. That’s why poor people get into trouble so often. And most times, they are religious.
I will say it again – religion has no monopoly on right and wrong. There are some very good religious moral instructions, but as I indicated in my last comment, they are just good common sense. Just because a religion says ‘Thou Shall Not Kill’ doesn’t give it the monopoly on that instruction. Thou Shall Not Kill is a kind of good idea that most cultures come up with sooner or later (and I’d like to point out that most religions also freely add caveats to that: Thou Shall Not Kill… except if God says it’s Okey Dokey).
No. There is plainly no universal constant of morality of any kind. However, you don’t get around this idea by inserting religion. Religious thought is no better at handling questions of morality than ethical consensus.
Moral consensus is derived from everyone in your direct community, religious or not. I’m not saying that isn’t so. What I’m saying is that we don’t need religion to derive a good sound moral consensus. Countries with high levels of secularism don’t have any increase in moral depravity over religious countries (East Germany is about 88% atheist, for example, and there is no rampant destruction happening over there). Plainly, religion doesn’t matter when it comes to formulating constructive moral codes.
Well that, of course, is Pascal’s Wager; there’s no disadvantage in believing in God, and a huge advantage. My feeling is that if you arrive at your belief in God through that logic (and it is indeed pretty sound logic) it’s kind of cheating. It’s certainly not ‘in the spirit of the law’ as they would say in legal circles. Presumably, God knows if your decision is based on that kind of reasoning and sends you to hell anyway.
It seems like a null question to me. It’s on a footing with ‘Well, what if elves once existed but they don’t now?’ or ‘What if aliens are visiting us and we can’t see them?’. Once you start down a road of that kind of speculation, you are forced to accept all kinds of speculations according to who is doing the speculating. Was the Red Sea really parted as an actual physical event, or is it just an allegory? Or a myth? Or a lie? The question cannot be answered without empirical exploration. If you abandon the possibility of empirical exploration, the question is nonsense.
It’s not even a question worth asking – if the rules of reality are changeable, indeed, changing then all you’re doing ever is speculating. If you say reality is in flux, then why bother trying to make sense of anything at all? Once you go down that path you must accept anything at all is possible. I prefer to think that there is at least some kind of order to things. An argument like that is perilously close to saying that stuff happens by magic. If you really believe that, we may as well stop the conversation, because I can’t offer up any logic in the face of magic.
Sorry, you’re absolutely wrong in this case. You may know people who’ve done so, but as I said, the most frequent changes of religions happen in affluent countries. Most religious people live in poor countries. Religious people in poor countries don’t change their religions. They are born a Muslim and they die a Muslim. They are born a Catholic and they die a Catholic. That is, indeed why Islam and Catholic Christianity are the world’s two biggest religions. Not many Christians are swapping out for Islam, let me tell you.
Again, that’s erroneous. The behaviour of the quantum world has been mathematically described and some of it verified by physical experiment. Just like the ball falling to the ground, enough scientists have established that the rules are solid enough to make very accurate predictions. They behave like this now, they will behave like this always. Just like the ball. Those predictions have allowed us to use their behaviour in our technology. There is no logical non-sequitur here. We are using the principles of quantum behaviour to achieve predictable physical outcomes. Don’t confuse quantum physics with mysticism. We may not understand some of the behaviour of the quantum world, but, we do understand some too. Just because we don’t understand something doesn’t demand a metaphysical explanation. It simply means we don’t understand it.
I think you’re confusing religion with human desire here. It’s religion I don’t like, not the human desire to be better, or seek answers to the meaning of existence, or the desire to care for and protect one another. Those things are totally exclusive of religion. Religion requires supernatural intervention – that’s where it falls off the wagon for me. Once you add a supernatural guidance, that’s where the problems arise. Again I ask – how do you tell whose God you should obey?
Sure. It’s a good question. The easy answer is to say ‘There’s a God and He made everything’. But there is no reason to suppose that. Aside from anything, it gets you nowhere closer to the truth. Supposing there is a God and He made everything tells you nothing about ‘Why?’ It just goes under the blanket answer of ‘Because!’ If there is a God, then His reasons are out of the ken of humans. It seems like a futile and pointless exercise. Why not just dispense with the god explanation and say we don’t know why things are as they are? It’s exactly the same result.
Well, just like you can explain a rainbow with science, you can explain love. It does not lessen its beauty or its effect on our lives. I think a lot of religious people are desperate to make it seem this way. Most likely, love is a combination of chemical effects that we’ve evolved to help us have tight-knit societies. But that’s kind of like saying a rainbow is water droplets refracting the sun’s light. It tells you about the mechanism, but not the outcome. Can I ask you, do you think God makes rainbows? Like, literally conjures them up every time it rains? Or are you more inclined to think they are the effects of refracted light (I’m betting it’s the latter). So, where does the beauty in the rainbow come from? It’s an explicable physical process, but it’s none the less wondrous for that, wouldn’t you agree? And before you say, ‘Well, yes, but God made the light particles’, or ‘God made the principles of refraction’, let me remind you that once upon a time people thought God made the rainbow. All you’re doing is pushing God further and further back in the process. Eventually, you push God right back to ‘Well, God made the Universe and set it in motion’ which again tells us nothing and is for all human purposes, irrelevant. Why put God in there, when it makes no difference?
I completely disagree. Religion is NOT good at dealing with those things. It sets itself up to be, but it fails. That’s why we have more religious people in jail than non-religious people. That’s why I’m an atheist – because I found no good answers from my church about those things. ‘If God is so big on Love, why does he hate gay people?’ I remember asking. ‘In the Bible, why does God kill so many people for silly reasons?’ ‘How come God gives cancer to innocent little babies?’ ‘Why does God cause disasters to happen to people who pray to him all the time?’
Religion says it’s good at these things, but it just isn’t. Or, at least, it’s only as competent as any other way of dealing with them.
Neither has God. Unless you can show me a soul exists in some way, it doesn’t. God is not winning here.
Einstein actually said he found it hard to believe that the Universe was operating on random principles. That’s NOT the same thing as saying someone designed it. Einstein saw the order in the Universe and was trying to make sense of it. His words, in fact are, much more aligned with my view:
‘I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one.’ – Albert Einstein, letter to Guy H. Raner Jr., Sept. 28, 1949
He also said of the Universe:
‘There is in this neither a will nor a goal, nor a must, but only sheer being. For this reason, people of our type see in morality a purely human matter, albeit the most important in the human sphere.’
You’re defining religion as solely an ethical rule system, which it isn’t. There are very few religions that don’t make some recourse to the supernatural. That’s my issue with religion. If you mean by ‘religion’ a rule system made by humans with no recourse to a mystical or supernatural explanation, then we are in agreement. But I don’t think you are. That’s not a language problem. That’s a philosophical difference.
@analglyph
Religions tend to change based upon observation. Of course people are going to change certain areas over time, just as people wrote the original messages. This is why Catholics hold the Pope in such high regard, because they hold him as the mouthpiece of god. If he says that contraceptives are bad, then people who follow the Catholic religion shouldn’t use them, because it is essentially God saying that they are bad. Other religions are more subtle, and see the world as a work of god. If the church were to observe god working differently, the church may append what a faulty translation of the original Greek might have meant. If everyone in the world spoke Greek, there might certainly be less Christian denominations, as many denominations of Christianity tend to be based on translations, some of which are shown simply wrong, and new denominations are born. I think that partially answers the second point as well. To pull from Surviving the World, since his name wasn’t Jesus, is it really taking his name in vain to say Jesus Christ? I think that kind of covers the two first points.
As a caveat:
I don’t see why believing in a god, or wearing a condom when a scientist has sex, has anything to do with doing good science. Good science must be objective in the first place. I mean, do scientists believe that believing in a higher power will throw off experiments? Or maybe I am one of the few people who can do science objectively and still have a religion. I don’t know.
Back to point.
Common Sense, up here anyway (and I say up here because most people refer to north as up, rather than to imply that Australia is beneath me somehow), is for very simple things. 1+1=2. Don’t touch a hot stove. Don’t stick forks in the outlets. The sun is bright. You should follow the law. Things like that. The law says that it is wrong to kill people. The law is created and abridged by people. We do, indeed, vote on our laws, so up here it is by concensus, but it certainly isn’t that way around the world.
Again, I am not saying that religion is necessary for morality, but simply that science isn’t what defines it. A bunch of people deciding what is or isn’t correct is as much a religion now as it was ever, correct? The bible is full of laws, just as our governments are today, and not ones handed down from god, either. Some laws were from god, like not eating animals that chew their own cud. Others were formal laws, which said things like you must release and pay slaves after 7 years of indenture. The new testament, however, overturns most of this, making slave-holding morally wrong, and not damning you for not eating kosher. True, this still does not get at your point directly.
The ‘right’ religion. Why do you think that any given religion must be right? Let me put it another way. Which nation has the right laws? Which philosopher is right? Which scientific model of the thing that holds us to the earth is right?
“Questions of morality are complex societal issues that need to be governed by common sense and consensus.”
Are you saying that laws are a form of religion, because people do abide by them and believe in them. That is what I am getting at. Religions are really only as absolute as the people who don’t believe in or follow them, don’t you think? Does this mean that, to a criminal, laws don’t exist? My analogy is imperfect, I understand, but perhaps it better illustrates the point I am trying to make.
Does this mean that philosophy is not the same thing as religion?
“Is it morally right to kill the children of sinners for the sins of their fathers? Is it morally right to kill people because of their sexual orientation? Should we bring back human sacrifice? My guess is that you don’t think any of these are acceptable.”
I do not think this, no. However, I am not all people. Are you saying that the concensus which agrees only with the most people, or the people you feel are correct, has any bearing on morality or ethics? The people who don’t agree (either those in the majority or minority), are they somehow wrong? How do you determine this? That is what I am getting at. Leave out [religion] (not just the notion of a god) and what do you have?
“But here you’re saying there are only two options. Science OR religion. What about science and common agreement? What about science and compassion? What about science and plain old common sense? Religion does not have a monopoly on good deeds. Good deeds can happen, and do happen, outside the framework of religion.”
What are good and evil outside the framework of religion? Common agreement, to use your phrase, isn’t all that common. your government feels that you shouldn’t be allowed to play the same games as me. Does that make it common, good, or compassionate? Is there really an agreement between minds? Are the people who want freedom of information better than those that do not? Is network neutrality right if the people we agreed to govern us think it is not? If murdering people is bad, why is Capital Punishment okay? The Amish don’t believe in either of those. Again, you say that I do not need my religion to decide these issues, so show me how you would solve them without it, being completely objective. This is the sort of thing that digs at the back of my mind.
“Straight away you are making an assumption; that something of a person exists after they die.”
“Let me ask you: how do you know that a ball drops to the ground? Because you’ve seen it a million times, right?”
“But there are good reasons to assert those things exist…These things are not just…unverifiable”
So verify for me, the more plausible likelihood of gravity as opposed to consciousness. Every person I have ever spoken with appears to have a consciousness in the same way that every object I have ever dropped falls. But you aren’t showing me gravity, you are showing me the effects of gravity, in the same way you aren’t showing me a consciousness, but you are showing me the effects of the consciousness leaving. Does gravity disappear once the object stops moving, or does the object stop moving once gravity disappears? Does a consciousness disappear when a body stops functioning, or the other way around? If a consciousness simply disappears, where does it go, or does it not exists to begin with? Wouldn’t there be some sort of conservation involved? And if the consciousness doesn’t exist, where do our morality and ethics come from? Wouldn’t that mean that all of our actions are nothing more than complex chain reactions moving toward entropy? A house is nothing more than a byproduct of our chemical reactions?
What I meant by the next part was that General Relativity explains everything, and more, better than gravity does. It doesn’t disprove gravity, but it does better explain things that gravity can’t. That is a rather subtle difference, I think, than merely improving a hypothesis. But I believe that we both agree on that point.
“It’s exactly the same as saying that when you go outside and drop a ball, it falls because God is making it do so.”
Indeed it is. If you can show me the graviton, or the spacetime, or the god, or the god that created the graviton or the spacetime, then I will believe in that. For now, I shall believe in god, and general relativity.
“Sure, we can’t prove it with our current technology.”
Nor can we prove gravity exists, with our current technology. It is good speculation, that is why it is a theory.
“Even desiring to make a test for God shows that you don’t trust in His Word.”
Why would a Christian want to test for something they thereby wouldn’t believe in? Couldn’t a Christian want to test for something that they believe in? Although, I am not sure what you are getting at. Could you show me the passages you are referring to? I am not sure which part of the bible tells us to not try to observe god directly. I do know that the bible says that gods glory is all around us in his creation, and I don’t know why he wouldn’t want us seeing that, so logically it follows that testing to see if he is real can’t be a sin.
I cannot find any study that shows the number of atheists in American prisons, and the link you sent me directing to it was broken. Half of the group listed as your point (the now 1.1 billion in the third point) are theistic but non-religious, according to the source link. That would mean that less than 550million could possibly identify as secular or atheist. The Federal Bureau of Prisons doesn’t appear to keep religious information, so the point is rather moot (as the links to the prison population within that link are broken, or never existed). If you do indeed find an accredited study, I would be more than happy to look at it. Also, please note that there are gaps of over 75 years on some of those numbers, which if they are correct, would still cause great skewing.
I agree mostly with your point on why you do what you do. Although, Jesus does say to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. This means that we should try to follow the laws of our land, not just that we should pay taxes. So if gay folks want to get married, and it is legal, more power to them. One of the main reasons I don’t drive at 200mph is that 1)my car probably won’t go that fast, and 2) I don’t like pain. That, combined with my previous point, is why I tend to follow the laws. Again, animal abuse is also illegal up here. Although, it would probably be wrathful to do such a thing, and wrath is a deadly sin. Standing naked would be prideful (again, a deadly sin, the opposite of modesty, and could also be vain). And also, it is illegal, which would violate another religious construct (as laid out above). So what if some jerkoff who pulled out in front of me in traffic illegally thinks I should drive the speed limit (breaking one law to make me follow another)? Does this mean that he doesn’t believe in that law, and that he changes them as he sees fit?
Again, just because I don’t do them, doesn’t mean that other don’t. We have nudist beaches and nudist colonies. I bring my trash to trash-cans because I like to see order. All of this is a subversion of chaos to create order. Why do you, why do I, why do humans want order? Why do we not want things to be chaotic? Dogs have no problem just doing whatever, nor do most wild animals. Why do we feel the need to be different from them? Animals have no laws, no codes of decency. Why do we feel shame at nakedness? Is it really because other people have told us to?
If religions make no difference on why people perform base functions, then why do some people subvert them? Why do some folks starve to death in prisons on hunger strikes, rather than eating as you say they would?
What you have described at the end is not love, but attraction, or perhaps affection, or perhaps admiration, or perhaps lust, or perhaps beauty, or perhaps something else even. Love does not stand here any more than a god or a soul or a consciousness. Why does the human want to be better, to love, to hate, to do those things? What are we making art for, why are we dealing with science? What compels us to have this discussion? Is it merely a ‘good’ feeling we get when chemicals react in our brain, completely devoid of anything else, and our ‘feelings’ are merely just our interpretation of it? I mean, time is merely our interpretation of motion, it doesn’t actually exists, but it does serve to simplify our lives and explain things. Does this make the idea of time religious or scientific, since it doesn’t actually exist?
I did not mean to sound as though I were saying something else when I paraphrased Einstein there. I didn’t mean to imply that he said that he thought someone created it. I meant merely what I typed, which is coincidentally what you typed. Again, I think this is one of those language things.
The idea of a personal god, is indeed childlike. From the biblical perspective, god is not here to serve my own whims. God is here, and that is the end of that. We cannot model god to be what we want him to be, in the Christian religion, any more than scientists should be allowed to bend science to work for them (such as your ShooTag folks, for example, or the cigarette companies).
Religion, as I understand it, is much as the definition on the Wikipedia article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion It is not exclusive to theology or deities, but does tend to deal more with them.
And perhaps a consciousness doesn’t exist. Then again, it would mean that even these letters are merely the logical conclusion of a long chain reaction starting with the big bang, I think. And to the point about reality being in flux.
Very interesting thread indeed.
hooly dooly
Being easily distracted (and royal) I have only two comments on the above:
I like the threading – it adds a certain je ne sais pas.
If we substituted “fairies” for “religion” and “Fairylovers”: for “Christians”, would this post be so long? (And would there be Fairylover schools?)
Je ne sais quoi
OK. Accepting this is true, how can it be justified? To do this means that you are literally changing the Word of God. I find this highly problematic for a religion, but it seems to be acceptable to you. How does anyone get the dispensation to do this? Is the Bible meaningless as an authority from God? Why do you have it, if humans can change it as they see fit. This is most perplexing to me.
How does he get to be the mouthpiece of God? He’s just a human man. Are we supposed to believe that God has had a personal intervention to make him an authority? I, for one, think this is a most bizarre and unacceptable way of having God speak to us.
Personally, I think that is reprehensible. One human man is supposed to be the representative of God on Earth? I’d want a very impressive endorsement to believe that. Is this acceptable as an idea to you? That a man can be a spokesperson for God just on the say so of the committee of associates that chose him? This is superstition of the highest order.
I think you’re misunderstanding me here. I’m not talking about the law. I’m talking about common human agreement. And, it DOES work all around the world. You know it does, because we have societies that don’t tear themselves apart. Surely you must understand this?
I never said science did define morality.
NO! Not correct! A religion is a structure based on the idea that a supernatural being, or beings, has some influence over human affairs. Without the recourse to supernature, it’s just a philosophical construct. A bunch of people deciding what is or isn’t correct is NOT a religion. It’s a committee, maybe, or a community or a parliament, but not a religion.
I’m really not following your argument here. The Bible has laws that are overturned by the Bible? How the hell can anyone ever follow that logic? Which bit of the Bible is right? The Old Testament? The New Testament? Some of the Old Testaments and a bit of the New Testament? None of the Old Testament? Doesn’t this kind of contradictory reasoning cause you to wonder at all about what’s going on here?
I really don’t think you understand my argument, so I will try and explain myself again in different words.
I don’t think any given religion must be right. I think ALL religions are completely wrong. I want you to tell me why you think YOUR religion is the right one. You obviously do otherwise you wouldn’t be practising it. Why is YOUR religion correct? Why are you not a Muslim? Do you believe Islam is exactly equivalent to your religion? Do you think all religions are equally valid? If not, why not? If so, then you must be prepared to accept that the Word of God as handed down by Mohammed is equal to the Word of God as handed down by Matthew and Mark and Luke and John. Do you? You must also be prepared to accept the views of anyone else of any other religion. If not, then you must put up a good case for the validity of your religion and the invalidity of theirs. Since both of you are basing your religions on what you believe how are you going to do this? You are pitting your belief against the belief of someone else. How can you possibly argue that your belief is more valid than theirs?
Well, no. Because religions are formed by supernatural imprimatur. Let me ask you this – is your Methodism completely exclusive of God? Do you read the Bible? Do you think the Bible is the Word of God? Or is it just some kind of ad hoc rule book, that you can rewrite when you don’t agree with it? I really don’t understand your position. What is God to you? Is He some kind of ineffable being that has no real interest in you, or do you believe He is a personal God? If He is a personal God, do you not understand that Muslims have personal Allahs who are just as valid? I am MOST perplexed by this.
Yes. Philosophy is not the same thing as religion. Religion is a system under which followers presuppose supernatural intervention in the real world. Philosophy is just a way of thinking about the world. I am not religious, but I am a philosopher.
Leave out religion and you have exactly the same thing as you have with religion. I’ll say it again: religion has no monopoly on morality. Only religious people think that. And yes, I AM saying that the agreement of most people is what constitutes morality. I think you would find it pretty hard to argue this point with me. Even inside religion it operates like that, except in cases of bigotry (which are rampant in religious thought). Name me ONE ‘moral circumstance’ that is not agreed by consensus! Even if it’s written down in the Bible, it will be a generic commonsense rule that probably holds across most societies.
Good and evil are relative. Some people think homosexuals are evil. Some people think killing is good. Religion has nothing to do with it.
And religion helps any of these conundrums? I don’t think so! You’re just listing ethical conundrums. Religion is just as hopeless at deciding these things as anything else. It’s not just black and white. I never said that I had a perfect solution – I just said I think religion is a poor alternative. Only religious people think God has the answers.
I don’t believe there are definitive solutions to all ethical problems. That’s the real problem with religion – it does. Religions by their nature are dogmatic and doctrinal. It seems you don’t think so, but that is the nature of religion. Are you suggesting that religion has answers to all the things you listed above? If it doesn’t, then how is it better than other methods?
I’m not at all sure what you’re getting at here. These are all speculations to what end? Are you equating gravity with consciousness and a soul? There is good scientific process to describe gravity, none for a soul, and some ideas about consciousness. Are you saying that because you can’t see gravity and you can’t see morality that there is some logical validation of one by the other (because there’s not). I don’t understand your point.
It’s a basic tenet of Christian belief. That’s the whole underpinning of Faith. I sure can quote you lots of parts of the Bible that refer to it, but the best and most famous example is the Story of Isaac. Christians are not supposed to need proof. They are supposed to act only on the instruction of God. I am amazed you don’t know this.
Odd. It works for me…
Here’s another link, to another study. There are several of them (and the Federal Bureau of Prisons does keep religious information). This one is on the generous side for atheist populations in prisons, and it’s STILL a quarter of the atheist population in the general population.
OK, so you don’t have any inclination at all to think that maybe it’s a bad idea for lots of people to think they can drive at any speed they want? You just do it because you don’t want to get hurt and it’s the law? Otherwise, you’d speed? Wow.
Again, wow. So you wouldn’t restrain yourself from shooting a dog because it was cruel? Only because the Bible told you not to, and it’s illegal?
OK, again, the MAJOR reasons you would not stand naked on your lawn in front of the schoolkids is because it’s illegal and the Bible could be construed to forbid it? I really don’t believe you at all. You’re stretching to make your point. You’re telling me you have no moral compunctions, and no compassion for your community? Come on!
Right. You put your trash in the bin out of an aesthetic desire. Not because you understand that you’re acting like a responsible and thoughtful citizen to keep your environment clean? I’m beginning to worry about you.
That’s totally irrelevant to the argument I was making. A hunger strike is purposeful desire for suicide to make a point. I am worried that you are not trying to follow my reasoning by making a comment like that.
No, I described love. You might not like that I described it as a consequence of physical interactions, but if you deny that it’s possible, you are calling upon magic, and our discussion ends. Is love some kind of magical essence that comes from God? I don’t think so. All humans of all cultures of all faiths and all non-faiths have been able to experience love. Love is not something that God can take credit for (again, this a huge conceit on the behalf of religious people – they think they have the monopoly on love. That’s offensive in my eyes).
Why must you demean the process. You use the word ‘just’ – our feelings are ‘just’ an interpretation. You say it’s ‘merely’ a good feeling. Is your life so meaningless that you must look outside it for a reason for being? That is so sad to me. I find no need to make God responsible for my life, and in doing so I have no ‘just’ or ‘merely’ in my description of the way I see the world. My feelings are my feelings. I enjoy a world that isn’t ‘merely’ a lot of physical processes, but is instead an incredible experience. I don’t see the mechanics of the universe the way you plainly see them – devoid of any beauty UNLESS they have been touched by the hand of a supernatural creator. That’s just so awful in my view.
I don’t believe in any way that there is a God, but if there was, then I’d like to think He would have a much greater opinion of me for enjoying His creation for what it really was, rather than on some kind of pretext.
It’s not religious because there is no supernatural being involved.
Now you’re being disingenuous. You definitely implied in context – I went back and read it – that Einstein’s words should be construed as saying that he believed there was order in the Universe (and by further implication, a creator). Einstein did not say that, and neither did I. You don’t understand my words – the fact that the Universe is operating with some kind of order in no way implies a creator. In fact, we have very good ideas about order and how it arises out of chaotic systems. It’s the beauty of mathematics.
So you don’t believe in a personal God then? It doesn’t matter what you do, you can’t be in contravention of God’s will? (because you can’t know God’s will if he’s not a personal God) And yet, you quoted, above, moral imperatives from the Bible as guidelines to your life. I’m totally confused. Do you believe the Bible is the Word of God? But He doesn’t really know or care about you? I need some clarification here.
Yup. The first line is: Religion is a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of life and the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a supernatural agency.
Just what I said. Supernatural agency. The Wikipedia article is misleading by using the words ‘especially when considered’. There are no religions that don’t have some kind of supernatural component. Name me one (don’t even try Buddhism – it has reincarnation as a basis, and that is supernatural by anyone’s accounting).
But it’s back to existentialism. It just seems so pointless to take that view. If reality is flexible, then you must accept the possibility of unicorns and fairies and alien abductions. Do you? Probably not, I’m guessing. It’s just such a banal escape route. Anything’s possible because reality is in flux? Maybe, but who could be bothered talking about it?
It’s like magic. If you contend that God exists and that’s that – can’t be explained, just is, then we have no conversation. If reality is ‘in flux’ and anything is possible, that’s just the same as magic. It doesn’t seem worthwhile to debate a topic that has rules that can change on a whim.
It’s a very tiring sport, moving all those goalposts around, setting up all those strawmen, sidestepping all those logical hurdles, all whilst performing mental contortions.
You must have the patience of a saint, Rev, to try to referee it.
I wish I could get acce245 to simply try to follow my reasoning. He reads only what he wants to read. There is a point beyond which people have to think for themselves. If they choose to let ‘God’ do their thinking for them, they will eventually find themselves running around in circles and making appeals to superstition.
@acce 245:
I just had to go back on this. What you are saying here is the very core of why I find religions worrying. This is a very powerful example of how a religion overrides morality or commonsense. In the case of the Pope condemning condoms, we have a bunch of unsettling ideas:
1: That the Word of God as a literal interpretation of a two thousand year old set of writings has cachet in a modern world.
2: That ‘God’ can have spokespeople.
3: That people feel obliged to obey such archaic and questionable instructions with no regard to their own wellbeing (indeed, as Universal Head said – they educated by the Church to be terrified NOT to obey)
4: Worse than #3 – they feel the need to inflict this command from God on other people who don’t even hold with their religion.
Now, I’m assuming that you don’t agree with Catholics on this matter, and that it is wrong to stop people in poor countries from accessing a powerful tool in the prevention of serious and life-threatening diseases.
What you have done here is to have chosen to ignore the Word of God because it doesn’t suit you. That seems amazing to me! If you’re going to tell me that the Catholic God is not YOUR God, then you’ve made a judgement that YOUR religion is better than Catholicism, and I want to know how you can do that. Is it just preference? Do you ‘prefer’ Methodism because it ‘suits you’. If this is the case, then can you not see that any religion is equal to any other religion because anyone can decide to accept any religion ‘because it suits them’?
I think this is a simple question, but you still haven’t answered it. You keep sidestepping it as if it’s something you don’t want to think about it.
[PS – the Pope has changed his mind about condom usage, under certain circumstances. This is a direct example of morality dictating the actions of religion. This decision by the Pope is not a command from God – it’s a response to a moral predicament. This is about the clearest example I could give you of how morality is not generated by religion, but instead formed by human consensus.]
Jesus Mary and Joseph! Was anybody “saved” by reading this string? or become an atheist? Not likely. This must be your longest to date Rev.Kinda shows what we’re up against. At least he didn’t damn us all to hell.
Starting with anaglyph, I shall reply to the points listed, as best I understand them.
The first point. I was trying merely to show that, if you are religious in such a way that you believe that a god created everything, then logically if those things change, it is god changing them. Did god move me to have this conversation with you, or did I do it because of simple curiosity? If god had moved me to do it, how would I show it? If it is merely wanting to be social or expand my knowledge, how could I tell? Will this change the paradigm of Christianity and Science? Probably not. Is it therefore unimportant to both? I don’t know.
The second point. Catholics have a long process for deciding who is and who isn’t holy. The bible says that god created all of us. Logically, we must all be holy, or something like that. I agree, the catholics don’t make a lot of sense sometimes.
The third point, following logically from the second, is, again, that not all Christians follow the decrees of the pope. To me, the idea doesn’t make much sense either, as I believe that I can see this higher power at work whether people want me to or not, or whether some guy in a funny hat thinks he can dictate the words of god incarnate.
The fourth point. I think we are lacking clarity here. There are still nations at war, societies tearing themselves apart. Take the Kyrgyz/Uzbek conflict. I don’t think that this concensus exists that you are referring to. We wouldn’t need laws to prohibit killing if people didn’t do it, and agreed that it was bad. I mean, we Americans can barely agree on whether people should have healthcare in our own country. Some Americans are extremely xenophobic, and think that non-Americans should not be afforded Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness (where it says ‘We the People’ I think refers to all people, but that is not the concensus). I don’t know, maybe Australia is different.
The fifth point we agree upon, it appears. The sixth point, however, we appear to have different definitions for what a ‘religion’ is. A religion doesn’t need a higher power, but in most cases it does have one, and in common vernacular, it most commonly refers to something like Christianity, Judaism, etc. Indeed, I do agree, there is a difference between that and, say, a committee or a government.
To the 7th point, the new testament is seen by most Christian religions as an overturning of many parts of the old testament. This is, fundamentally, what separates Jews from Christians. Jews believe that Christ hasn’t come yet, and that is why they eat Kosher, among other things. Lots of things in the old testament are laws of the land from that time, genealogy, prophecies about the new testament. Jesus as the Christ supports Moses and Daniel’s prophecies. Daniel’s prophecy concerning King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, however, and the drought it foretold, are not overturned, as they are considered also to be acts of god. Nowhere in the bible does it say that god is the same forever and ever. God is described, however, as jealous, the ‘I Am,’ the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. It doesn’t say he can’t change his mind and change the requirements for salvation or something. Again, I am merely referencing the bible, not trying putting a denominational spin upon it.
To the next point. The Jewish god and the Christian god are exactly the same entity, even according to each other. Joshua, from the old testament, was likely an Imam in the Muslim religion as well. Many people (less Christians and more Muslims) do contend that they are, indeed, the same thing. Muslims, Jews, and Christians all believe that Mohammed and Jesus are great prophets. Christians believe Jesus is God’s son. Muslims believe that Mohammed is God incarnate. Jews don’t accept either as being of god.
To the next point. Again, your definition of Religion is different than mine, but religions are nonetheless created by people. Again all the books of the bible, the teachings of mohammed, all came from people. We religious folk tend to believe that it is indeed divine, but ultimately, the books were still scribed by people and assembled thousands of years later.
Next point. To define religion, from Wikipedia: ‘Religion is a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of life and the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a supernatural agency,[1] or human beings’ relation to that which they regard as holy, sacred, spiritual, or divine.’ ‘Especially when considered as,’ not ‘specifically when considered as.’ Hebrew, for example, doesn’t have a precise translation for ‘Religion.’ Again, it is these translations of the original works from their potentially varied meanings that has created so many different denominations, especially of Christianity, today. Context is extremely important to the teachings, and taking them out of context at all can change their meaning considerably. Of course, we can simply agree to disagree on this point, but I think it will only serve to hinder our conversation.
Next point. Referencing the healthcare again. The bible has the story of the good Samaritan. Most people agree that it is good to help people in need. The bible also says love thy enemy, and pray for him. Thus, the bible suggests that we should strive to help everyone, not just those with our status, class, etc. However, it seems that most Americans are not in favor of reasonable healthcare for all, as there are many trying to get this bill overturned. It would seem to me that anyone who is in favor of humanity must agree that we should take care of those who are less fortunate, but this is not the concensus. When you see a homeless man begging for money, do you give him money? What about a teenage girl with a child, living in squalid conditions, on welfare? Should your tax money go to support these people? As a Christian, it is my duty to help these people, whether I agree with their actions or not. We hate the crime, not the criminal, or the sin, but not the sinner.
To the next point, I think also that we are in agreement on good and evil. To the two points beyond it, perhaps you are correct. Perhaps it is more correct to say that ethics and morals do not exist, as they do not stay the same from group to group, and there is no real constancy between them. I don’t really like that idea, but your argument is convincing in that aspect.
To the next point, http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/questions/question30.html Gravity is not proven. That was my point. We can see the effects of something we label as gravity, in much the same way as we can see the effects of movement as time, but they have not been proven in any way. We see the effects of a consciousness in these ethical and moral behaviors, but it isn’t proven, either.
To the next point, yes, the story of Isaac and the sacrifice is in the old testament, but it is indeed one of those symbolic things as well. This is why Jews still celebrate passover by smearing lambs blood at their door. Jesus was that sacrifice, in the new testament, and now he serves as payment for our sins, rather than animals or firstborns. Of course, since Jews don’t accept Jesus as the son of god, this creates that passover scenario. Of course, Abraham and his lot are supposedly god’s chosen people too, part of the 144,000. If attempting to find god in this fashion is a sin, then it would be forgiven by Jesus, I think, for through god, all things are possible, etc.
To the next point, http://www.bop.gov/about/facts.jsp#2 Apparently, men are much more criminal than women, and are most likely to be doing drugs. There is a disproportionate amount of black inmates compared to the population as well, does that mean that they are more likely to commit these crimes?
To the next points, many folks here do speed. Some fatally. Many drive drunk. I understand that good engineering makes my roads safe only if I use them as designed. Driving too slow is also a minor misdemeanor here, known as Obstructing the flow of traffic. Similarly, we do have an 85% clause, which states that all traffic should be within 85% of the speed of itself. If a line of traffic is doing 75 through a 65, you had best not be doing 60, or you can be at fault also for causing an accident. To the animal point, I don’t care one way or another about animals. I eat them. I pet them. If they aren’t attacking me, I see no reason to attack them. I wouldn’t go out of my way to do such a thing, and I prefer to be as humane as possible, but if a dog is coming at me, and all I have is a pellet gun, I reckon I would shoot at it to stop it hurting me. Again, pain is a great motivator. The last one, being naked, I have no desire to do. I like clothes. They are more comfortable to me than being naked. If it weren’t illegal, though, I might be tempted to go naked in the summer, when it is very hot. Isn’t that why some folks go to nude beaches for vacation? I think litter on the side of the road is ugly, so I will keep it in my car until I get home, and then I empty it out. I am not stretching any of these points, seriously. I do speed from time to time, but only within the confines of my laws. We have a 9mph leniency built into our system, so 74 in a 65 is simultaneously speeding, but not illegal.
To the next point, you are talking about the effects of something you call love, and not the love itself. You can be attracted to things you don’t love. You can find beauty in things you don’t love. You can enjoy things that you don’t love. You can feel affection and sympathy for people that you don’t love. Do you love everyone? If not, why not? Does this mean, if you don’t love everyone, that your love is conditional? If so, how is this different from jealousy? But this still doesn’t get at my underlying point: these are anecdotal observations, not empirical ones. Quantify the love for me. According to current science, our feelings are nothing more than chemical reactions in our brain, the same thing as seeing a light or being cold. Nothing has passed a Turing Test yet. If you do not believe in religion, and only in science, then this must be what you believe, there is no other option. The philosophy, ethics, morals, it is all chemical reactions. It is just that, according to science. Indeed, as you put it, that does sound pretty sad, but sounding sad is still just a chemical reaction.
To the next point, I stand by what I said. You read it with a different emphasis than I intended, which unfortunately happens in text.
To the next point, Buddha wasn’t a god. Further, I still contend that Atheism is, indeed, a godless religion, although you are still choosing to call agnosticism atheism, it appears. Evolutionism seems to fall into the same category: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionism Even Humanism can fall under this broad category. I don’t think that Buddha’s idea of enlightenment falls outside the bounds of the natural, either, and reincarnation is that conserving of consciousness. Can a consciousness exist by itself? If so, then perhaps you are correct on that point. I would contend, however, that a consciousness must be observable by another consciousness, and if they are ever lost, they probably never existed anyway, but perhaps I am stepping too much into philosophy again.
I intended to include a link on that text, about reality in flux. I don’t remember the link off-hand. http://www.economist.com/node/17626874 is an interesting bit of science. Of course, quantum mechanics suggest the multiverse, an idea that many scientists are taking quite seriously, I think. If I believe in this, then we are both correct and we are both wrong, and the universe is in as much flux as I described earlier. The point? I didn’t realize there had to be one. I suppose it is to grow our enlightenment, to increase our knowledge, to interact as humans, to define society, to develop new philosophy, to advance science.
To the next post, I agree, Catholics are strange, as are all religions. I don’t know which one is right, this is why I engage in these sort of discussions. Just because I think it best fits my worldview now, doesn’t mean that it will in 10 years, or that it is wrong now. It means that I am believing in it. My beliefs have changed drastically since I was younger, and perhaps my acceptance of Methodism will someday change as well, but as of yet, it has not. I am not saying that Catholics are wrong, but merely that I do not believe as they do. I am not ignoring the word of god, both catholics and methodists follow that. Where we tend to differ is on what we think he said. Sometimes it appears to be like this: http://abstrusegoose.com/302 Which one is correct? None of them? All of them?
@timothy
Does anyone need to be converted? Let me put this in another light. If I tell you that you must believe or you will burn in hell, do you see it as a warning or a threat? If a Christian had that message, ask forgiveness and get into heaven, or burn in hell, how would you want them to tell you about it? And it is absurd to think that a human can damn someone to hell. That would be god’s prerogative.
Sorry pal, No God, never was, never will be. God is a completely human construct used to explain the unexplainable. Started with the first time a coconut fell on a protohumans head and killed him. “Must have pissed someone off!” says he pal. “Yeah, we’ed better not piss off this thingy either! Let’s go sacrafice a virgin to protect ourselves” sats another. “Does she HAVE to be a virgin? I mean who’d know but us?” asks first pal. “No, could also be a young boy.”
So you flatly deny such an entity could exist? Then I deny the idea that you have a consciousness, until you pass the Turing test. Good luck.
Absolutely correct my friend. Your ‘religion’ is a delusion. All you different bible/torah/koran thumpers can’t all be right, not to mention the hundreds upon hundreds of different “christian” sects, each on claiming to be the only way to heaven is through them. Nope, can’t all be right, but you can all, sure as hell, be wrong.
When you buy into someones deluded fixation, you quit thinking.
PS is the Turing test gods criteria to enter heaven?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test
It is the test that attempts to determine whether we have intelligence apart from machines, or whether machines can think to put it another way.
No sir, it is the test to call a computer program Arteficially(sp?)Intelligent. If a human respondent can not tell if the program to which he/she is ‘talking’ is human or program, than the program passes the test for AI.
“Gravity is not proven”? This is one of the most frighteningly retarded things I’ve ever read! It’s functionally equivalent to saying “light is not proven”. It’s a word game, and beyond the purview of those who actually study gravity or light seriously.
I ask you to provide credible evidence of falsification of anything we know about gravity. We know without doubt it exists, and we can model its behaviour with as much precision as we can model any natural phenomenon. Which is not to say we have all possible information about it, but that’s not the kind of claim that science makes about anything.
What you are doing is playing childish semantic games, in order to avoid answering the question of why you find it reasonable, logical, or useful even, to believe in the monstrously internally conflicted entity of the Christian religion. Or any religion. It makes no difference to me (or any of us here, I suspect) that you do believe, or how that makes you feel, or what you personally think of Catholics or whether Buddhism or atheism fit your definition of a religion.
All that I’m hearing, very loudly, from you though, is that you love the sound of your own voice, and use a lot of high-sounding rhetoric and semantic blather where a little honest self-examination would be better applied.
Duck and weave all you want, but I have grown weary of it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitation#Anomalies_and_discrepancies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_to_general_relativity
http://www.theory.caltech.edu/people/patricia/gravtop.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_forces#Fictitious_forces_on_Earth
I mean, is this stuff not common knowledge among science minded folk wherever you are?
Oh, this is precious.
We have a man to whom Newtonian gravity doesn’t apply! A quantum man – all his relatives can say about him is that “he’s special”.
I hope he doesn’t try walking and chewing gum anytime soon – his performance of trying to make a point whilst side-stepping is pure slapstick.
I was under the impression that the Graviton had not been found yet. I await your picture of one, then.
I don’t know about anyone else reading this blog, but I have terrible trouble with basic English comprehension. For example, when I wrote “which is not to say we have all possible information about it” I’m sure I meant to write “we absolutely definitely know everything there is to know about it”.
Maybe I should resume those TESOL classes.
So you are not claiming to have all possible information on anything, but you are claiming that you have enough to disprove my argument, while citing none of it? In your words, “I ask you to provide credible falsification of anything we know about gravity.” I believe that those anomalies would classify, or the introduction of special relativity. Of course, you apparently have credible falsification of a higher power, and are simply withholding this information? ‘Credible falsification?’ What the hell does that even mean? I mean, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability
Seriously?
Ah the foundering of the good ship Maundering Prolixity on the adamantine shores of reality; the gentle, soothing sucking sensation of a conceptual vortex; the rhythmic tippy-tap of tiny feet weightlessly dancing around an issue. Three of my favourite things.
I think I’m going to come.
Yes, you are doing that pretty well.
Gravity isn’t proven, because science hasn’t ever proven anything. Science has show, with great precision, that observations appear uniform. This is not proof. It is, however, evidence. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence#Problems_in_evidence
Since you did say falsification, and not falsifiability, I must assume that you believe there is evidence that scientists are falsifying their findings. It is your burden of proof to show that they are not. Any experiment which is biased shows the very falsifiability of science. This doesn’t make all science wrong.
We do not know without a doubt that gravity exists, which is why we try to show that it does. This conjecture is simply wrong. Its model is not nearly as precise or unwavering as General Relativity, either.
Science doesn’t exist to prove people right and wrong. Science exists to explain why or how things behave in the ways that they do. That is the full domain of science. Thus, when presented with a newer theory which is more conclusive, in this case general relativity, science must grant it credibility, and thus gravitation loses credibility.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organised_order
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_order
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_interpretations_of_the_Big_Bang_theory
Again, the idea of creation can not be dismissed, if you believe that the universe was ‘created’ somehow out of nothingness. Has the universe, then, been around forever? Are you with the steady-state folks? Creation doesn’t seem unreasonable, whether by the Christian god, some artifact of the universe, or something else.
I don’t know which part of your post you think that I am dodging here.
And again, they are not my definitions, they are definitions you can look up, if you would take the time to do so. This makes them linguistic, not philosophical.
So philosophy can’t be written down because it then turns into linguistics. Jesus christ you’re giving me a headache. Reminds me of the old saying: IF YOU CAN’T DAZZLE THEM WITH BRILLIANCE, BAFFLE THEM WITH BULLSHIT.
Well done pal
Anybody mentioned Nazi’s yet!!
Continuing the discussion with acce245:
Of course. The only problem is that believing a god created everything is not logical in the first place. I’ve tried to address this problem numerous times in our discussion, but you don’t seem to understand what I’m getting at. If your world view is based on the concept that a magical being is pulling the strings behind everything, then you have abandoned the recourse to logic. You can, of course, say that this is now a different kind of logic, but it is not logic based on a rational thought process. The acceptance of a god of any kind means that you have abandoned rationality. Rationally speaking, you cannot argue any kind of god into existence.
So why are Catholics wrong? Why ‘don’t they make a lot of sense sometimes’? You have made a judgement call on the beliefs of another religion, and I want to know how you hold that idea in your mind. Obviously, for you, the Catholic view of Christianity is faulty (if they don’t make sense). What I’m getting at here is that you, personally, have made a decision about a religion (Christianity) that is a doctrine handed down by God. How do you do that? Is this just some personal ‘feeling’? If so, how does religion have any coherence at all, with everyone able to act on personal feelings?
So Catholics believe something you consider in error. Yet many millions of them hold this belief. Why are they wrong to believe a man in a funny hat can dictate the words of god? You obviously think they are. Haven’t you just made a personal call? Every Catholic thinks he/she is right and you are wrong. How do you resolve this problem in your head?
Lacking clarity? Not from my end. I think this point is completely clear – you are saying religion gives us a moral structure that is better than we’d have without it, and I disagree and have given you a coherent argument as to why.
I’m not sure why you keep answering this argument with examples of moral problems – you’re shooting yourself in the foot. The Kyrgyz/Uzbek conflict? Do you mean the one being fought between two countries who are highly religious? How is this an example of religion providing any kind of moral guidance?
I find it hard to understand how or why you won’t accept the idea that humans have ethical and moral contracts that exist outside of religion. I know you WANT to believe that, but it just isn’t true. What you are trying to argue is that we only stay together because of the moral imprimatur of religion. You try and give me an example of how humans don’t have moral consensus, and you use a war between two religious countries. This is highly perplexing. Are you saying that Uzbekistan and Kyrgyztan are fighting because they have no moral consensus? If so, then why aren’t their religions stepping up to do the job?
Read this next bit carefully: I am not saying that we have perfect solutions to the problems of humanity. What I am saying is that we don’t need religion to help us.
It is no good you giving me examples of moral disagreements as an example of how we don’t have consensus. We’ll always have disagreements. Religion quite plainly does not help us with these disagreements.
OK, so, just to get this straight – God, as you see Him, is a totally capricious being who can change His mind at any time and for any reason He sees fit? I find this totally incomprehensible. It seems so vastly superstitious to me. This is the kind of primitive view that the ancient Romans held of their Olympian gods. How can you possibly relate to such a being? Taking this logically, it means that you could follow the precepts of this god for your entire life and He could, arbitrarily send you to hell anyway. Or, conversely, someone (like myself) who thinks He is a superstitious invention, may find themselves given the keys to heaven. I just can’t see how you hold this idea in your head!
Aha! So, in fact, you all worship the same God! Well, that makes things easy, doesn’t it? There’s really only ONE right religion. And yet… (you’re not escaping that easily) … why were the Ancient Egyptians wrong in their beliefs? And the Hindus – they don’t believe in that God… Or is the God of Abraham the one true God? How does He get that dispensation? Hindus don’t think that’s right. Why are they in error? Or is their God OK too. But they believe VERY different things.
I still have no satisfactory explanation for you as to how you make a choice about which religion to follow. Is it simple arbitrary? Any religion will do? If not, why not?
And that is a big problem for me. Here we have PEOPLE saying that they are handing down divine provenance. As they say in legal circles, there’s a hole big enough to drive a truck through. The unspoken implication here is that some humans must trust other humans to accurately transcribe the Word of God. As we’ve seen on numerous occasions throughout history, this is not a good idea. When a human gets it into his head (for it is almost always a ‘he’) to ‘interpret’ the Word of God for his own ends, it usually results in pain and suffering for other humans. (And just to be clear – I don’t believe there really is any ‘Word of God’ in the first place – I think it’s ALL human invention).
Pfft. You’re playing word games. As I said previously: ALL religions are based on some supernatural precept or other. ALL of them. I asked you to give me an example of one that’s not. One will do.
On moral points (I’m not going to requote your here – but I will say that I find your ducking and weaving on these matters to be frustrating, and if I may say, dishonest. It seems to me that you are avoiding admitting that human beings can have moral inclinations without them being tied to any kind of religious notion. I’m not going to attempt to disassemble your points on speeding, or healthcare or animal welfare (because, frankly, I don’t understand at all what you were trying to say). Instead, I will tell you how I approach these things in my life (and how, I submit, most people do) and ask you to fault my morality:
I don’t speed because I can understand that it makes good common sense for there to be some kind of regulation on how fast one drives, given the circumstances of millions of other people also driving on the same roads. I’m sure I’m quite capable of driving faster than the speed limit in many cases. I neither think I’d get hurt, nor that my car is not capable of it. And, in most cases, I could probably get away with doing it without being caught by a highway cop. But I don’t speed. I understand that, for the common good we need to have some guidelines for behaviour on the road.
I don’t shoot animals or cause them pain for the same reason I don’t shoot humans or cause them pain: because I empathise with them. God doesn’t tell me to do this – I understand, because I am a thinking, feeling being, how other thinking, feeling beings experience the world. It is true that this sometimes gives me moral conundrums. I eat meat, for example, and I’m not entirely comfortable about killing other beings for that luxury. But here is a critical point: most of the religions in the world would not help me with that dilemma (Buddhism, of course, would, but that’s the thing – why should I choose Buddhism above Catholicism? I like a lot of things about Buddhism, but there are some things I find idiotic).
I don’t stand naked in my driveway because I understand that other people in my community would find that undesirable. Personally, I don’t have a problem with nakedness, but I know that our communities are, as a rule, not comfortable with the idea. So, out of an understanding of how my society works, I control my own behaviour.
I assert that all people are like this, to a greater or lesser degree. I assert that when people make decisions like any of those above, they don’t do so with any referral to God or the Bible. I further assert that ALL human communities work like this for the most part. Otherwise we would just not be able to co-exist.
You are trying to tell me that religion is responsible for this behaviour. Your arguments are far from convincing. In fact, every argument you have put forth for this idea being faulty has offered up an example of religious societies not getting along! Where is the moral guidance from religion in the Uzbek/Kurgyz conflict?
Aha! You don’t really like the idea! This is the heart of rational and scientific thinking. Well done! Rational thought processes often offer up pictures of the world we ‘don’t like’. Personally, I don’t ‘like’ to contemplate the idea that heaven doesn’t exist. It would be really nice to think that when we die we go to some kind of Elysian Fields and meet all our deceased friends and family. Truly, I would like that. But if I look honestly at the likelihood that this will happen, I come up with an answer I don’t like. That’s the tough thing about the scientific view – it often puts forward results that no-one really ‘likes’. Sometimes the truth is not the thing you want to hear.
This is a perilous argument, and it falls right back to existentialism. Nothing at all is ‘proven’ in the way you’re arguing. Matter isn’t proven. Light isn’t proven. The person sitting next to you on the bus isn’t proven. I really don’t see the point of this kind of reasoning. Again, I think that what you’re attempting to do is equate something like gravity (the effect of which we can see all around us, and which obeys rules that are easily demonstrated) with consciousness or the soul, which are ephemeral philosophical constructs which have attributes that vary widely (depending on who you ask).
I’m not entirely sure where your reasoning is going with all this. First of all you distance any value from the story of Isaac by saying it’s from the Old Testament and that it’s ‘symbolic’. I find this peculiar. You appear to be saying it has some kind of lesser value as a result. How do you make judgement calls like that? Some of the Word of God is less important than other bits? Am I to understand that you put a greater importance on the New Testament? If so, your stance is in direct opposition to many Christians because the parable of the sacrifice of Isaac is an important tenet of Christianity. It is, in fact, the very tentpole of Faith. The takeaway from it is that Abraham unquestionably obeys the Word of God because he has faith that whatever God chooses to do is the right thing, even if it’s commanding him to sacrifice his beloved son. Abraham’s faith in God is unconditional, and the implication is that all Christians should act similarly.
Um. Yes, yes and yes. Criminal activity IS much greater in men, as is drug use. And, sadly, black people are represented in higher numbers in prison – it’s not because they’re black, it’s because more black people are poor. If you were to do an income adjusted comparison, I’m sure the numbers would even out a lot. Add to this the situation where black people are arrested disproportionately because of racial problems and it comes as no surprise that US prison populations are skewed in this way. By the reasoning I think you’re trying to put forward here, we’d have to buy into an idea that religious people are over-represented in prison because of discrimination against religion, or because they’re poor. In many countries that might give you a case, but not in America, one of the few countries where religion is fairly evenly balanced right across income brackets.
That’s just playing footsie with words. I’m talking about love. Or agape. Or awe. Or transcendance. Whatever you want to call it. In my view it’s not an abstract thing in itself, but a complex emotional state that includes all the things we associate with love, whether that be passion, self-sacrifice, lust, kindness or admiration.
I’m completely confused by that whole paragraph.
I think you need to go back and read my comment about rainbows. Understanding the mechanics of something doesn’t lessen its beauty or importance. It’s interesting how you use words like ‘our feelings are nothing more than…‘. Why does this idea frighten you so much? Our feelings and emotions can easily be shown to be results of brain functions. Have you ever taken an hallucinogenic substance? I am confident you have not, or you’d know, in no uncertain terms, how chemical is our contemplation of the world. Maybe, like the Amerindian peoples, you believe that God is in these substances, and that’s why they are so emotionally active? (I’d certainly buy that idea a lot more readily than your abstract and capricious God).
What, exactly, is the problem with our consciousness being an electro-chemical one? It makes no difference to how we navigate our lives. All it makes any difference to is the egotistical assumption of human beings that they are the most important things in the Universe.
Any human can easily pass the Turing Test. That’s the point of it.
It only sounds sad to you. It only sounds sad if you make unsubstantiated assumptions that it is otherwise. Personally, I find it quite exhilarating.
I know that. And I even foresaw your objection, as you will see if you read back. I said that religions are based on supernatural foundations. I did not say a religion has to have a god. I didn’t think I would need to elaborate, but plainly I must: Buddhism (which is a particularly unusual religion in many ways) has, as fundamental precepts, two substantially supernatural ideas: reincarnation and karma. Neither of these ideas has any basis in rationality.
You may call an elephant anything you like, but it is still an elephant. Atheism is not a religion. If you think of it like a religion, you make all kinds of assumptions that are wrong (as you have done). And I am not an agnostic – I do not believe that supernatural forces of any kind influence my life. The fact that I cannot offer ‘proof’ is immaterial. I have the same level of confidence that there is no such thing as God as I am that the sun will appear in the sky tomorrow morning, and a ball will fall to the ground next time I drop it.
Oh, if you want to broaden your terms you can win any argument you like. Just keep on broadening. I think you’d have a pretty hard time convincing most people that either belief in Evolution or Humanism are religions. They are explicitly not.
Oh that’s just silly. As I said, reincarnation is a superstitious belief without any basis in fact at all.
But don’t you see that all you’re doing here (cutting around the science, which is quite irrelevant) is saying ‘Well, anything could be possible!’ Sure, maybe that’s so, but it’s a conjecture at best and I don’t see the point of trying to have a discussion based on rational rules if you assume that’s the case. Like I said, if you think that the world is magical (which is the same as saying ‘anything is possible’) then you trump me on every turn. Whatever I say, you just say ‘But you’re wrong, because magic can change it!’ If you accept that highly superstitious view of the world, then any attempt to put up a case for a point of view (which is what you’re doing) is entirely meaningless.
Sure, all good reasons for discussion. And all completely futile if you come from the angle that ‘reality is in flux’ (you do see this, right? If anything can change at any moment on a whim, you cannot develop anything. Advancing knowledge absolutely relies on building on the knowledge that came before. Which means structure and rules.
I think, somehow, you miss the irony of that cartoon.
@anaglyph
In the interest of time, I am going to address this differently than previously.
Yes, I have the burden of proof to show that, perhaps, a higher power is at work in the universe. This does not mean that I have to explain anything that is deemed by you to be supernatural. Reincarnation may be that our consciousness leaves this particular dimension and returns later. This is irrelevant to our discussion, as we are discussing (or at least I thought we were) whether or not a higher power created our universe. It appears we have gone on a tangent here. Conversely, with regards to morality, I contend that religion ultimately dictates morality and ethics. If you contend that it is some sort of human concensus exists, then it is your burden of proof to show that, in the same way it is my burden of proof to show that religion is the main actor. This doesn’t mean that one of us is correct. We can both be wrong here. Showing evidence contrary to the need for religion doesn’t automatically make this human concensus correct. It could be something else entirely, or it could be both. If two religious groups have differing views on things, but agree within their respective groups, then a concensus exists only within the groups, and not as a whole. Can a million people be wrong? Yes. Can the minority be correct? Yes. Are they, or aren’t they? This is what we are trying to get at, I think.
To the point about god being able to change his mind: The bible says that we are created in his image. If we can change our minds, I should imagine that he could. You seem to be implying that religious folks somehow believe that God is constrained by human logic. Can you create something? Can you destroy it? Can you change your mind on anything? Why, then, do you perceive a higher power as not being able to do these things? Is god accountable to us in your reckoning? Or do you just not like it, and therefore refuse to accept any other harsh ideas that nature (without a god) might hold?
Again, why must there be one correct religion? What if god wanted to make 700 different religions? What if we are a social experiment for this god? Are you going to call god wrong for doing so? Or are you saying it would be impossible? What if that god only spoke to us through ourselves, or through burning bushes? Are you saying that a supreme being who set in motion the big bang couldn’t possibly do this?
To the point about definition of religion. Religions try to explain the origins of the world, not just ‘supernatural’ things. By this logic, since science cannot explain love, you are believing in something supernatural, and arbitrarily so. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernatural Anything that is not observable and explainable empirically is supernatural, and in your definition, religious, because it would fall into the purview of Dualism. I do not see this as a simple semantic argument, but a very defining point in our understanding of one another.
Again, morality is not observable, and is therefore supernatural, and by your very definition, religious. I am not trying to sidestep your point at all. Emphasizing is not observable, but its supposed effects are. To assert that all people are like this would require, in the interest of being scientific about it, the ability to observe the morals of everyone, which is impossible. Again, this falls to dualism, or perhaps even monism, which is ultimately supernatural (or beyond being explained by nature or its laws). I am not trying to say that religion is responsible for these behaviors, but that they are religious. Again, I am not playing at semantics here, but I am trying, somewhat Socratically, to make a point, rather than simply asserting it.
I said that I didn’t like the idea that ethics and morals might not exist. Although, as they are not observable (no more than this concensus you keep talking about), they again would fall into the realm of that supernatural you keep talking about.
My point about gravity is more to show that it is something that people take for granted as being somehow proven. I don’t mean to say that you should abandon hope and give up because nothing can be proven. I mean to say that people’s perceptions of such can often be wrong in this regard. Although, I contend that we see the effects of relativity, not gravity, but we still see the same effect. Again, science is to learn why, even if that why changes over time/space.
I believe that Abraham was going to sacrifice his son because he was told to do so by an angel of God. I would reckon, then, that it is less that god is right, and more that god is all-powerful. If an angel appeared before you, and told you to do such a thing, would you do it because you believe it is right? Although, God did save his son and bless him with an insanely long life, so it shows not that you should have unquestioning faith (because I think he also said ‘why would you do this to me’), but that believing in god will keep you safe, and will reward you. Again, that is one of those translative things, I believe. But I think this is getting tangential to our main discussion again, perhaps.
Again, to the point about love, see above. Again, I am not trying to play semantic hopscotch, but trying to point out that it is, indeed, a supernatural phenomenon. If you can show me love, by all means, show it. If all you can do is describe the individual parts, which are still not observable empirically, then you essentially have something that falls out of the domain of physical/natural sciences.
Again, I have never done drugs, I have no tattoos. The body is supposedly a temple, and should be free of such vanities. The few times I have taken alcohol, I don’t remember, because as a half-Irish and half-German, I somehow have no tolerance for them, and I become drunken easily (at least, that is what my friends tell me). This strikes me as ironic. I derive no pleasure from drinking, and I cannot tolerate its after effects, so I cannot speak further to this, except to say that I do not partake of them.
I think that I mistakenly brought the Turing test into this equation. I must have been thinking of something else, which now eludes me. I will concede that point.
Perhaps this entire discussion is, indeed, futile. According to quantum science, all of this is true somewhere and false somewhere anyway. Does this mean that we should not keep trying to understand the universe that contains us, and potentially the unobservable constructs of the others? We cannot observe light as a wave, I don’t think, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try, does it?
“Again, morality is not observable, and is therefore supernatural, and by your very definition, religious.”
For fuck’s sake. You know, I’m beginning to think this guy has been taking the piss the entire time.
He’s not playing hopscotch with words, it’s true. He’s masturbating with them.
So because I use words as defined in the readily available sources (dictionary, encyclopedia, wikipedia, et cetera), I am somehow wrong here?
Atheism: 1) The doctrine or belief that there is no god. 2) Disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/atheism
Atheism, therefore, only addresses the existence (or lack thereof) a higher power. This is, by its definition, a religion. See http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/religion
I suppose that next you are going to tell me the dictionary is wrong.
Aw geez. You can keep on hammering that square peg into that round hole, acce245, but all you’ll manage to do is break the hammer. Atheism is not a religion.
Dictionary wars?
Wikipedia: ‘Atheism is the rejection of belief in the existence of deities… Most inclusively, atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist.
Dictionary.com: ‘Religion: A set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies.’
You just interpret the words you read in the dictionary to mean what you already think.
Not that I have a problem with masturbation, per se, but when it’s compulsive, incessant and public? That needs treatment.
Years ago, While taking computer science (I had a commodore 64, that should place the time context) I read an article about a psychotic/neurotic program that was able to fool a few people into thinking they were talking to a person. It took statements that were input, and turned them around and answered often with a question of its own.
EG: Person: are you a computer program?
Comp: why does that matter?
ETC etcetc
Withina couple of minutes it had you pulling your hair and wanting to beat the beejeebers out of the guy.
acce245 you have made pretty much every logical fallacy in the book. Check out skepdic.com
The program you’re referring to was called Eliza. It wasn’t designed to be psychotic or neurotic, but in fact, designed to emulate a type of psyschologist (when the vogue of psychology was to turn the patient’s questions back on them)
acce245:
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Most of the tangents in this conversation have been introduced by you. I have endeavoured to keep us on topic as much as possible. I only introduced the idea of reincarnation because I maintain that all religions are based on a supernatural premise of some kind. You have failed to accept that, and have instead, merely attempted to redefine the concept of ‘supernatural’ to included anything that suits your argument.
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I know you do. You’re wrong. I have put my case for saying that quite clearly, I believe. Morality plainly exists independently of religion, unless you call all religions equal in morality, or derivative of one another which they are plainly not. Certain moral ideas arise over and over in all kinds of religions, and usually they are the things like ‘Thou shall not kill’, or ‘Treat they neighbour as you would be treated’. These are just basic good ideas to adopt if you want to live peacefully with other humans.
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I have given you several examples, you have just chosen to ignore them. Furthermore you have not given me any persuasive argument to suggest religion is particular good at being a moral arbiter. In fact, you have given good examples of how it isn’t.
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I did not say that religion was not in play as a moral template. I just said it offered instructions that are mostly nothing more than good common sense. As I have said in previous replies to you, the tenets of many religious faiths often contain sound moral guidelines. You are either not reading what I’m saying, not understanding it (although I think I’ve made it quite clear) or wilfully ignoring it.Â
Here’s what I said:
“There are some very good religious moral instructions, but as I indicated in my last comment, they are just good common sense. Just because a religion says ‘Thou Shall Not Kill’ doesn’t give it the monopoly on that instruction. Thou Shall Not Kill is a kind of good idea that most cultures come up with sooner or later”
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Once again, you are offering up an idea that is contrary to your own argument. What are you saying here? That consensus morality can only exist within the religion that has that consensus? How is that a good thing? You are arguing my position. I think that’s exactly right, and I think it’s a big problem. If a whole religion says ‘Women are subservient to men’, what are we to make of that as a human species? How does religion navigate around that terrible situation. Do we just let religions do whatever they want, even if they contravene notions of humanitarian wellbeing?
Let me ask you a question – do you believe women should be kept subservient to men? If not, why not? You certainly don’t get a contrary view from Christianity. Maybe you do believe women are subservient?Â
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That’s just semantic footsie again. You’ve conjured up a wilful, capricious God, and failed to answer my question about why anyone would need (or even want) to follow the whims of such a god. You could worship that god faithfully for all your life and He could decide, quite arbitrarily, to send you to hell at the end of it. That’s just logical nonsense, and I don’t believe for a moment that you see God like that.Â
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I’m flabbergasted at this statement. I really do think you’re failing to read what I write. In the statement above, you conjured up a wilful, changeable god and accused me of not being able to conceive of such a being. Then, in the very next breath, you suppose that I couldn’t handle ‘the harsh ideas’ of nature without such a god. What are you saying? Firstly, I can quite easily conjure up the image of your capricious God. The point is, (as I have said over and over) such a being is completely outside of human understanding, and therefore it is futile to even attempt to have any kind of relationship with such a fickle and inscrutable entity. Do you understand that? Outside of human understanding. As you said above: ‘unconstrained by human logic’. Secondly, as I think I have made quite clear, the ‘harsh ideas’ of nature without a God are EXACTLY the ideas I accept. No refusal there buddy. That’s precisely what I think is going on. How do you get me ‘refusing to accept it’ out of my extremely clear stance on this matter?
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I am becoming exasperated with your refusal to understand what I’m saying here. I’ll reiterate what I’ve put to you three times now: I don’t think there must be one correct religion. I think ALL religions are incorrect. What I’m trying to get at here is how YOU decide that YOUR religion is the correct one. You plainly do think it’s the correct one, because you’ve chosen to practise it. You avoid answering this question every time I ask it. I don’t believe you can answer it.Â
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No I’m not. That’s word footsie again. Love is not supernatural. I (and most other people on the planet) can experience all the effects of love, just as I can experience all the effects of happiness, pain, sorrow, anger and grief. None of those things are supernatural. They are very real, present and demonstrable. All humans agree, to a fairly comprehensive extent, on what they are. What I can’t experience is God, or unicorns or fairies. Those things are supernatural. Those things exists ‘outside’ nature. ‘Super’ to nature. Human beings cannot agree on what ‘God’ is.
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Here’s the definition of ‘Supernatural’ from the wikipedia link you referenced:
‘The supernatural or supranatural is anything above or beyond what one holds to be natural or exists outside natural law and the observable universe.Â
Are you asserting that love exists outside of nature? If so, that’s some kind of weird abstract idea of love that sounds closer to religion to me.Â
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That’s not my definition at all. That’s two of your definitions hammered together to come up with an opinion you’ve already decided. You are saying that I think that something that is supernatural is religious. I don’t. You’re confusing your logic. There are two different things here: religion is recourse to a supernatural view of things, but supernatural things are not necessarily religious. A unicorn is a supernatural being, but it is not a religious concoction. This kind of reverse equation is something we encounter in Logic 101: A dog has four legs. All dogs have four legs. But not all animals with four legs are dogs.
You are making another barren logical assertion there also – that is, that things that you can’t put in a jar are supernatural. That’s just plainly not true as I’m sure you could see if you thought about it for a moment. You can’t see ‘anger’ but it is not a supernatural thing. You can’t see magnetism but it is not a supernatural thing.
So, to clarify this, you have made two logical non-sequiturs in a row; intangible things are supernatural (is not true) and then all supernatural things are religious (is not true).Â
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Well, you’ve failed. You can’t account for how moral choices occur outside religious frameworks. And they do – I make them all the time. So do thousands and thousands of other non-religious people. Your argument would have to conclude that these people are necessarily amoral or immoral. For the most part, they are plainly not. They’re just non religious.
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I think you completely misunderstand the lesson behind the story of Isaac. This surprises me, I have to say.
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I don’t understand what you’re asking me here. You’re posing a hypothetical question involving a mythical being. Let me rephrase it and put it back to you:
If a luminous rabbit appeared before you and told you to run naked into the streets, would you do it? See how much sense that makes as a question? Yours is the same thing. I simply can’t answer that kind of question. And, it is completely beside the point. The idea behind the story of Isaac, whether it is true or apocryphal, is that Abraham unquestionably obeys the Word of God, and, by inference, so should all Christians. This is pretty easy to understand as an idea. I was taught it in scripture lessons as a kid, and I don’t see that there’s much wiggle room on this one.
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You are most definitely playing semantic hopscotch. I tell you what I think love is, and you tell me that what I’m talking about ‘is not really love’. You’re redefining what I’m saying by conjuring up a kind of hypothetical kind of love which sounds to me like some abstract idealistic concept, not real, practical love. I could go out right now and find you examples of love – in fact how about this: I love my children. I love my wife. What’s more, other people would agree that I love my children and my wife. I know my brother loves his partner. What is all this? Imaginary love? Just because I can’t put it in a box for you doesn’t make it any less substantial.
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Well then, if you do a bit of reading I think you’ll find that hallucinogens are very good at creating religious experiences. And also at changing a person’s emotional state. It is no coincidence that many cultures use such substances in their religious rituals. The two things go hand-in-hand. It is not just some wild assertion that our experiences are very chemical. It can be simply demonstrated.Â
I also observe that you equate drugs with tattoos, which I find peculiar – they have nothing to do with one another. That sounds like nothing more than a judgemental generalisation about people you group under the category of ‘drug users’.
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I think you’ve mistakenly brought a lot of irrelevant things into this equation.
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You keep conflating things we understand fairly well with things that are only speculation. We know light exists, we can see it and predict what it will do and use it to do constructive things. We can do none of those things with God. Light might be ephemeral but it is not supernatural. God is supernatural and, as a result ephemeral. You can only speculate about a supreme being. I can show you the effects of light and make predictions about it.
Here’s a rule of thumb – if you can reliably predict things about an ephemeral phenomenon, it is most likely based in science and reality. If you can’t, it is probably based in superstition.
As for making a continued quest to understanding the Universe, that’s exactly what science is. Religion is just an attempt at understanding the world that has passed its expiry date.
This has been very enlightening. Indeed, I believe that I am misinformed, and perhaps I misunderstand. I cannot possibly add anything further to this discussion, and I concede your points, as I am unable to show them untrue. Perhaps we will have an even more enlightening discussion in the future. Until then…
Salut. I’m glad it’s given you food for thought.
My mind is a bit clearer now, and I have had time to consider your points. I believe that the following addresses the core of the discussion we were having.
A caveat: Although, in hindsight, I do find it odd that you hold a different interpretation of these biblical events than I do, but do not understand or accept the function of denominations, which are doing the exact same thing. People who follow you without question, could be said to be Anaglyphian Atheists, could they not? You do seem to have a following of people who accept your interpretation and arguments, and the doctrine of your blogs, almost without question. They also seem just as polarized to your fundamental points as any other ‘religious’ fundamentalists. They get just as angry and ambivalent at my questioning you, as any hardline Christian does to anyone who questions the existence of god, or who doesn’t want to hear ‘Merry Christmas.’
“You don’t have to be Muslim or Christian or Atheist to understand that it’s undesirable to just go out and kill someone, for instance. That’s not because God told us that, but because we all agree as human that this is not a good thing.”
And getting back to the point about this ‘human concensus.’ Serial killers, for example, do not see it as undesirable. People kill for reasons that are not religious, also. They kill for money; in self-defense against the people who don’t think it is wrong to kill; for the environment; for political gains or coup d’etat; in wars to destroy the enemy (who is usually human); for property or other ‘rights;’ or simply to kill other people (for example, the incidents at Virginia Tech, Fort Worth, Columbine, Kent State [a government action], etc). If this concensus did exist, we wouldn’t need the laws, because people wouldn’t violate it. And so again, I contend not that it can’t exist outside of religion, but that it doesn’t appear to. Unless you are saying that every murder ever was committed within that concensus, which every person is supposedly agreeing upon. Yes, you and I both agree on these points, that killing is bad. Could it be that you are saying that the concensus only applies to people who hold it, and not to those who don’t? If so, then which concensus is correct? Sharia law, biblical law, current laws that people vote up (but which are different for every country), or a concensus that resides outside of law? If this concensus just exists outside of human subjectivity, then what grants it or defines it? If you are saying that we should not kill humans because we are human, then we should not kill any living thing because we are living things. Or perhaps I am missing some point you were trying to make here. If I did, I apologize, but I don’t see it.
And this also brings about my point at getting to love and emotions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love
According to that, love is a strong emotion of affection and attachment, to limit it to being something scientific. This puts it squarely in the same category as hunger or thirst. Your body feels it is lacking something, releases chemicals, and you feel hungry, thirsty, lovely. This is that ‘just an emotion’ I keep talking about. Happiness is a simple chemical release. Love is a complex chemical release. Emotions, from the perspective of science, are nothing more than this. They are, as an observable phenomenon, just emotions. You feel ‘love’ for your kids because you have been conditioned by your body to do so.
“Studies have shown that brain scans of those infatuated by love display a resemblance to those with a mental illness.”
Perhaps it is that love is a defect, and people who exhibit it are biased in favor of thinking it is good. ‘Love’ affects the same areas as hunger, thirst and drug cravings. Drug addicts can put forth compelling arguments (at least, to themselves) why they are not addicted, or why the drugs are not affecting them. On a tangent, it has also been shown that atheists cannot effectively contemplate god, it is a sort of cognitive dissonance. http://www.npr.org/2010/12/15/132078267/neurotheology-where-religion-and-science-collide
From the transcript (click the link beside listen)
“Now again, that’s not true across the board, but that’s one of the things that we tend to find is the distinction that when people are religious or spiritual, they engage many different parts of their brain, more so than what other people will engage when they’re just doing other kinds of practices or having other kinds of experiences.
So we do see – and I think the other thing that we’ve studied is we actually have studied some people who are atheists, and we do see differences in the brains of an atheist than we do an individual who is religious.
In fact, one of our cute little studies that we did was we had a few atheists come in and actually had them try to contemplate God and asked them to focus on God. And we got a very different kind of response in their brain, obviously, than a religious person.
In fact, their brain didn’t really turn on very much when they focused on God, most likely because it was kind of a form of cognitive dissonance. They really couldn’t grasp the concept very well because they didn’t believe in it, whereas the religious person really turns their brain on and really gets very active inside their head when they engage the concept of God.”
Perhaps this is a clue as to why I do not accept your positing of love as something more than an emotion, and you cannot accept my explanation of god, because our brains simply cannot function that way relative to each other. Religious folks apparently have areas that are more active simply by being religious (or meditative, as the story goes into more detail on that).
Again, your points have made me think differently, and for this I am glad. However, I still disagree on these particular points, and perhaps others which I have now forgotten or misplaced in my mind. Even if neither of us changes our opinion on anything, I do not think this to be an exercise in futility.
@ace245:
I apologize for the delay in replying to you – I’ve been finishing off the work I’m doing in the US and we’ve had a couple of very long and intense weeks, so not much time for focussing on The Cow or my readers. I expect that to change in the next few weeks!
Thank you for considering my arguments. I think you get some of what I’m saying, but I fear you still don’t quite understand some of the most important points.
You answered your own question exactly as I would have. Biblical events are open to all kinds of interpretations, and the ‘mythical’ nature of them makes for perfect ‘fuzzy decoding’. That being said, I believe that the focal event you are talking about here is the story of the Sacrifice of Isaac that I have spoken about above. My interpretation of it is not just something I conjured up. In this case, it’s your interpretation of it that varies from the commonly understood one.
Well, no. Firstly, I would fervently hope that no-one ‘follows me without question’, and I encourage my readers at all times to think for themselves. There is no religion on Earth that exhorts its adherents to question its tenets at every opportunity (with, perhaps, the exception of Buddhism, but that’s a rather complicated issue.) I have been challenged by my readers on numerous topics, and those challenges have at times caused me to rethink my ideas. Sometimes I’m plain wrong, and I mostly always (OK, OK, I admit to correcting punctuation errors without owning up!) admit it (in cases like this, I’m talking about factual errors that I’ve made – being ‘wrong’ on a point of philosophy is a moot concept. I have frequently been persuaded to shift my point of view on matters of philosophy, but ‘wrongness’ is relative in such instances). Mostly, though, I stand by what I write. This is simply because it’s not often that I just blab something out without thinking seriously about it in the first place.
Secondly, someone who reads my blog or agrees with my arguments is likely to be a skeptic or an atheist in her/his own right. I doubt strongly that I could lay claim to their philosophical worldview. What you’re trying to do here is assert again that atheism is a form of unquestioning ‘belief’ like religion. I say once more to you that it is not.
I think that the reason that they’re accepting my arguments is because my arguments fall in line with what they’ve already decided for themselves, not simply because they have fallen for everything I’ve said hook, line and sinker.
That may well be the case, but that doesn’t mean their reasons for doing so are equivalent to the way religious people argue. Let me give you an example:
Let’s say someone tells you that every morning before you get up, a Giant Pixie comes out and paints the sky blue with a big brush. You patiently explain to them (I am making the assumption that you don’t believe them…) that, no, actually, the sunlight refracting through the Earth’s atmosphere is what causes the sky to appear blue. Then they tell you that you’re a close-minded individual with no soul, for not believing in the Giant Pixie. You explain that it’s easy to demonstrate the principles behind the sky’s blue colour, and, in fact, all the colours of the sky, and you offer many places to which they can go to look up the ample science behind the behaviour of light. But they continue to give you explanations involving the Giant Pixie, without being able to give you one solid piece of evidence that he comes out every morning with his big brush (You get up before dawn with your camera, but they tell you that he’s actually invisible; you watch the sky change from dark and starry to pink to blue, but they tell you he paints the bits you’re not actually looking at… very fast…). Eventually you pin them down enough that they resort to the argument that ‘You just have to believe in the Big Pixie – evidence is not necessary’. You can, I think, see that this becomes quite frustrating. Many people bail out here – to them, it seems self-evident that the Big Pixie is a fictional concoction and they lose patience with those who ‘believe’. It’s especially frustrating when the Big Pixie believers just quote the writings of other Big Pixie believers as ‘proof’ that they are right, or if they become belligerent and abusive. I usually bail out at that point too, because it gets infuriating. The ONLY reason that I’m happy to continue this discussion with you is that you are attempting to at least give my ideas some thought.
This argument is completely spurious. What you’re saying here is that my concept of ‘moral consensus’ is wrong because there are exceptions to it. Let me put this to you: many of the killers you refer to above held religious beliefs, sometimes strongly. I can use your own argument to say that religion is a lousy arbiter of morality. All you have done is pulled out some exceptional behaviour to attempt to endorse your argument. For the most part, people are not serial killers or pathologically violent.
To be clear, I am saying that a moral consensus exists independently of religion that keeps us from committing egregious crimes against our fellow humans. It is NOT religion that keeps this in place. If that were the case, then we should see a strong indication that people who hold religious beliefs act more morally than those who don’t. If you have any evidence to suggest this is true, I’d like to see it. I don’t believe you can turn up any, anywhere. In fact, as I mentioned above, the US prison system provides its own evidence to suggest that the exact opposite is true!
Additionally, I emphasize that I am not saying that any method of morality is superior to any other, just that I see no need (or evidence) to suggest that religion is required for a community to have reasonable moral standards. (And, even though I think I’ve made this abundantly plain in the argument above, I assert that it’s not just the fear of retaliation under the Law that stops me – or anyone – from murdering a person if I feel like it. It seems terribly strange to me that you seem to be suggesting this again.)
Really? Then how do you account for my morality? And the morality of others who are not religious (15% of the world’s population seem to be able to act at least as morally as religious people, and possibly more so…) Moral behaviour plainly exists outside of religious frameworks.
Whoa! You’re not thinking terribly clearly here. You just rolled religion into the argument, except you’re making my point. Assuming religions are the ultimate arbiters of morality, how do you make that call anyway! You’re not helping your argument.
I’m saying that the consensus operates because if it didn’t we’d be in chaos. I’m not going to go through the details for a third time. I believe I’ve made it very clear above.
I don’t know how I can make it any clearer. We don’t commit crimes in the community because I think that for the most part we understand that it’s simply not desirable behaviour within the community (this is not to say that crimes are never committed – this seems self-evident to me, but you seem to think I’m saying that it’s a perfect situation. I think it’s a workable situation, not a perfect one. There is no perfect one). Again, I think I’ve given ample examples above and I don’t aim to just repeat myself. If you think we don’t commit crimes solely because we are afraid of being caught, or because religion tells us not to, I think you’re wrong, and I believe my examples above are sound.


Once again, I feel I’m repeating myself, but nevertheless I’ll give it another go. You have to really look at your language here: you keep saying the word ‘just’, implying that a biological explanation for love is in some way inferior to some other kind of love. I tried to explain the problem of thinking like this (with the rainbow analogy above) but I can see that you don’t understand what I’m getting at. Just because something is biological does not mean it isn’t real and meaningful.
I gave you another example of this above, but I will repeat it for clarity: some kinds of chemicals can make us feel that we’re experiencing love. This is not just some fact I’ve pulled out of my ass – it’s repeatable, verifiable science. And I’ve experienced it myself. How do you explain that? If I experience an extraordinary feeling of love while under the influence of an hallucinogen, how is that different from real love? They feel exactly the same, I can assure you (in fact, experiences under hallucinogens sometimes even feel more real than reality. Unless you’ve had this kind of experience you’ll probably not believe me, but anyone who’s taken LSD or mescaline will know exactly what I’m talking about.) And there is plenty of evidence to back me up.
To put it clearly: chemicals can make you feel deep, profound love. It’s a biological process. What’s more, I could actually prove this to you, if you were really committed.
There you go again: …’nothing more than this…’, ‘…just emotions’. Why are you so intent on trivialising the scientific explanations? Emotions are no less meaningful for having good, sound scientific bases. I believe you are trying to present a mystical explanation for these things because you otherwise feel ‘cheated’ by the reality of them. You are voicing the same exact sentiments as Keats in his famous poem, a matter I’ve addressed previously on The Cow. People like me don’t think that we’ve been cheated out of some kind of wonder by science.
It IS a cognitive dissonance for an atheist. The concept of God is not meaningful to me. There’s no surprise there. If you ask me to contemplate the existence of God in a realistic way I simply can’t do it. You would get exactly the same result if you asked me to contemplate the existence of unicorns in a realistic way. Indeed, I suspect that your brain would show the exact same kind of cognitive dissonance if I asked you to contemplate the factual existence of unicorns!


Sure. So?
I’ve seldom read anything quite this banal. Let’s just re-examine that statement with a couple of words changed:
The implication in the first version is that atheists are somehow inferior because they can’t engage in the concept of God. The language is highly colourful and biased, and, in fact, quite offensive to me. It’s implying (quite heavy-handedly) that atheist’s brains are somehow ‘not functioning’ properly and religious people’s brains are.
But the second version of the statement gives a clearer indication of why an atheist brain has ‘cognitive dissonance’ with the idea. This might seem like a frivolous example to you, but I can assure you that the principles at work are the same.
Nope, I don’t buy that. You are neglecting to take into consideration that I once believed in God and now I don’t. And I’m not the only atheist who has abandoned his religious belief, so it’s plainly not an inherent function of your brain so much as a learned function. If it’s a learned function, you can’t argue that we’ll never see eye to eye. In addition, I bring forward the evidence of chemical religious visions. It is a fact that certain hallucinogens can induce religious experience. It is independent of the kind of brain you have.
I’m not engaging in this discussion in an effort to get you to change your mind about what you believe. All I’m trying to do is to help you understand that the religious view you have of the world is not a necessary or more valid way to experience things. Your choice to adopt a religion is your own, but I feel it needs to be made with the understanding that it is a personal choice. Religious people try very hard to defend their own chosen religion as the only option for living a life, and to this I object. Unfortunately this point of view is heavily embedded in most religions (as is the case with your view of morality) – there are few religions that make concessions to alternate ways of viewing the world.
Firstly, I am glad you were able to come to my fine country. I hope that your stay was most agreeable, and that you accomplished what you came for. I can understand the strains of time and place like that. Take all the time you need to respond, it is your blog and your life after all.
For the most part, I must agree with your first few points, and I know the sort of people you are talking about. I would like to think that I am not one of them. Although, what I was trying to get at was that, just because an idea is popular, doesn’t make it right. Just because the accepted ideology behind the story of Jacob is perpetuated, doesn’t mean it is in any way correct. We had a working model for the earth being at the center of the universe for about 1500 years, I think, but that didn’t stop it from being wrong. (I have been watching Cosmos recently, a most fascinating show). It doesn’t mean that my hypothesis or interpretation is wrong, just that it simply is not what you and millions of others agree upon.
Again, our jail and justice system is rather flawed here. We have a separation of church and state. We have a proportionally higher black prison population compared to the people who are committing crimes. Does this mean that black people are inherently more criminal? I don’t think so. Again, those numbers only show us who is being incarcerated, not who the offenders of the law are, many of which never go to jail. My point is, the logic behind this specific argument is false. Perhaps it is merely that religious people are more apt to turn themselves in. I don’t particularly believe that, but the numbers support that specific argument, too. We can’t show one way or another from this information that religious people are committing more crimes, only that religious and black people are more likely to spend time in jail for them. Could it be the godless judges are out to get religious people? I don’t think so either, but I am not really a conspiracy theorist or whatever they are calling themselves this decade, either.
Let me see if I can approach this idea of love and god that I am getting at from another angle. Your explanations do make good, logical, sense, and I can fully accept them from the point of view that you are presenting them, and I do agree. Firstly, let me make sure we are on the same page. We both appear to agree that things like ‘love’ and ‘god’ can be created from the use of chemicals, namely drugs. Perhaps it would be more clear to say that the drugs enhance our understanding of them, or the experience, or whatever. The chemical reaction, yes, you can clearly show me. If the idea of a belief in god, or the feeling of love, are instead learned faculties, rather than inherent, then you are merely associating the effects of those drugs to those things. Of course, it means that anyone who has not used those drugs can never experience love as you know it. You are stating that you can experience love and religion within the enhancement of the chemicals (lsd, thc, pcp, opiates, etc), but that one can only experience love outside of them, but not god. At least, that appears to be the implication. If they are simply chemical reactions or learned abilities, then any meaning we put into any interpretation of them is equally valid or invalid. I see evidence for a creator in my chemical reactions; you see love in yours and in your drugs I have never taken. People can force certain areas of their brains to work through thought where others use drugs. I am not saying that atheists are inferior, this is not the point I was trying to make. You say that I will never understand the drugs and those emotions until I take them, and I would say that you will not understand the idea of a creator until you …. unlock that part of the brain, take the ‘drug’ of religion, or whatever you want to call it. We are splitting hairs much finer than the differences between gravity and general relativity. Both convey the ball toward the earth, but they both do it in completely different ways. You call it love. I call it religion. Perhaps they are the same. Perhaps you never actually believed in god, not that you were lying, but you only believed because you were told to, yet never had such an experience, and we are both talking about something entirely different, or the exact same phenomenon. Why can’t they both be learned behaviours? Religious people, apparently, feel their religious experiences as much as lovers feel love. Love, then, is either something we are conditioned to feel; or it is a chemical reaction which we decide to give meaning. If religion or god is exactly the same thing, does that minimalize it? Perhaps, it is just god, as it is just emotion, just a chemical reaction we have decided to name. People have claimed to feel and see both for a very long time, but the best we can conclude is that it is either one of those two outcomes.
Which brings me to my next point, the human concensus. These are exceptions to the definitions you have provided. I say it doesn’t exist, and the exceptions are my evidence. You can formulate a new hypothesis, if you like. Regardless of the reasons, we do still commit the crimes. ‘Reasonable’ people might not, but then you must define who is reasonable. You have only shown why the people who don’t commit crimes don’t commit the crimes. I have as well. We have two hypothesis, and both are equally valid given the conditions. I was merely stating that I happen to believe that people follow the law because of the fear of repercussion. You are saying they follow it because it is more agreeable. Logically, the impetus for breaking the law is that the repercussion is worse if they don’t, under my hypothesis. Under yours, it is simply because they do find it agreeable to do so, or because it eliminates chaos, which is less agreeable than order. (I am trying to paraphrase here, to see that I have the point). Both explain the behaviours. Simply asking for anecdotes, like ‘why do you follow the law’ or ‘why do you not speed’ or ‘why do you think people kill people’ doesn’t serve to solve this question, I don’t think, and that was the point I was trying to make.
I apologize for the length, and the rather meandering portion of some of it. Again, I can see the points you are making, however, I also see these quandaries as more than simple misunderstanding. Glad to hear back anyway, regardless of the time.
@acce245:
I have been here numerous times, but this is my longest stay. I arrived in July and am leaving next week. It was a fun time on a great job, and for the last four weeks I’ve had my family with me which has been exceptionally nice.
I didn’t say your interpretation of the Story of Isaac was wrong. I was replying to your assertion that you ‘found it odd’ that I hold a different interpretation of the story to you. I was merely saying that ‘my’ understanding of the story is the commonly advanced one, and that yours was at odds with the common agreement. It’s not odd that I hold this understanding – it is more odd that you don’t. It’s your right to interpret it as you wish, but by doing so you add weight to my argument that interpretations of the Bible are subjective, and by inference, so is the Word of God.
You’ve already voiced this idea, and I’ve already shown you how it is refuted. I’ll go through it again. It has little do do with people being black. You should be able to work it out – the fact is, that poverty is proportionately higher among black people in the US, as is lack of access to education. Poverty and lack of education is what puts people in jail. Thus, black people are over-represented in US prisons. There is no implication that black people are inherently more criminal. That is NOT the argument you can employ for religion vs atheism in prisons (unless you want to buy into the concept that religious people are less well educated than atheists, and you’d be putting yourself in another deep water pickle if you started down that line).
The greater point here is that, in proportion to the normal community, there is a greater number of religious people in prison than non-religious people. If religion was the successful moral arbiter that you claim, we should see a significant reversal of that proportion – if atheists have no moral compass, then we should see a proportionally greater number of them in prison than religious people, compared to the general population. We don’t.
That’s a weaselly wiggle tactic. Here, you’re trying to say that religious people are unfairly discriminated against and inferring that atheists commit more crimes but don’t get caught as much. Tut.
No it’s not. It’s very clear. Statistically, and unequivocally, there are more religious people in prison than non-religious ones than are represented in the community as a whole. This figure is consistent across prison populations throughout the world. In very religious countries, the figures are even more persuasive. It’s hard to draw any other conclusion than that having a religion does not dissuade you from committing a crime any more than having no religion.
You are plainly not comfortable with this idea because it rattles your notion that you MUST have religion to have a basis for morality, but I assert once more that you need not.
And again I ask you: how do you account for the fact that I, personally, have a sound moral outlook? As does my very honourable wife, who was raised an atheist. And as do all my atheist friends. If you can’t give me a good reason for how it is that we have this moral soundness, then your assertions for morality being dictated by religion are baseless.
Oh come on. That’s ridiculous and you know it. You’re fitting a presupposition to the numbers: ‘religious people are good, so there must be some other reason that their incarceration rate is higher than atheists’. Pah.
We can show exactly from the information that there are more religious people in prison than non-religious people. That’s what the statistic shows in no uncertain terms. In the same way that we can see there are proportionately more black people committing crimes than are represented in the general population. What we’re looking for here is the reason these people are represented in larger numbers in prisons. You’re confusing things here – the numbers don’t show that people are more likely to commit crimes because they’re black or because they’re religious. They show that black people and religious people are represented in higher numbers inside prison populations. I don’t think you grasp the logic of this. The salient point is that the ‘morality’ of the religious people does not make them any less likely to commit crimes than non-religious people, and that the reverse appears to be true. Do you understand that?
As for the ‘godless judges’ comment, I’ll just let that one slide. You’re starting to get desperate with that kind of thinking.
NO! You must learn not to argue like that. You just made one fair statement and then qualified it with a highly dubious and coloured one. I vehemently and strongly disagree with your ‘clarification’. I DO NOT think that the drugs ‘enhance our understanding’ of these experiences. What you’re doing again is creating a presupposition that you would like to be true and using it as a fact. You are setting up ‘love’ and ‘god’ as independent already-existing entities and then commencing your argument from there.
If this is what you think I meant, it’s not. I will make it as clear as I possibly can: the chemical substances like LSD create these states in our brains. I can take LSD tomorrow and possibly have a profound religious experience. What does that mean? It’s not ‘enhancing’ my understanding of God in any way because I don’t believe in such a being. So be very careful here – you’re getting close to saying that God exists outside of us, but that he can be contacted through the use of drugs. Do you really want to go down that path? You wouldn’t be the first – it’s the ancient shamanic tradition of the Pan American continent to believe that this is so. But by aligning yourself with that idea, you are distancing yourself substantially from Western religious thought.
And in any case, it’s an unnecessarily complicated step in the process – why do you need to conjure up God and make the brain chemistry strive to contact him, when it’s just simpler to assert that the brain chemistry is responsible for His creation in the first place?
And this argument also applies to love.
I’m not saying that at all. I’m saying that brain chemistry is responsible for the states that allow you to experience love and God. Drugs can alter anyone’s brain chemistry to allow them to experience those things. Outside of drug use, people plainly experience visions and religious feelings and have some kind of affinity with supernatural beings. You seem to think I’m disputing that. I’m not and I never have. What I’m trying to get you to understand is that these kinds of states can be evoked by brain chemistry alone.
Should your brain chemistry be configured in such a way to allow you to have a communication with God, you probably feel very privileged indeed. But it doesn’t help explain a shared, independently existing God, like the Christian God.
Ah yes, but you’re agreeing with me here that it’s all to do with your brain. Are you sure you want to do that? :)
This is what call the ‘Epiphany Problem’ and I’ve spoken about it elsewhere. Simply stated, you’re saying that I can’t experience God unless I have a direct experience with God in some way. In other words, God has to ‘speak’ to me personally. Your implication above (which is a common stance by believers in all manner of pseudoscience, as well as religious people) is that God won’t speak to me unless I ‘open my mind’ and become receptive to that possibility. This is a logical conundrum: to come to experience a belief in God, I must first accept that God exists. It’s not good enough that I simply allow for the existence of God (the Christian religion is completely aware of this paradox and there is much ducking and weaving to attempt to brush the problem under the carpet).
Follow me here: right now, my position is that it is so unlikely that God exists that I don’t believe in such a being for any practical purpose other than discussion of abstract concepts. In the same way, I don’t believe in unicorns. However, if you came to me with irrefutable evidence that God (or unicorns) exists, then I would have to change my mind. As a scientist, I must always allow that possibility. (Please note here very clearly that this does not make me agnostic. I am not waiting for the evidence to come in to decide. I have already seen enough evidence to allow me to make a decision. This is a technical scientific situation. It’s the same problem that Creationists exploit when they say ‘Evolution is just a Theory’)
So, given that neither you nor anyone else is able to provide me with any convincing evidence that God exists, and I am not logically able to create a belief for such a being, the only obvious option now open to me is direct intervention from God – epiphany. As we know, this sometimes happens it would seem. But, until it happens to me, it’s highly unlikely I will come to any situation where I can ‘unlock my brain’ to experience God.If God exists, this seems like a particularly cruel kind of paradox to offer His creation. Of course, God is cruel and hateful in so many extraordinary ways that this would not be surprising, but I’m uncertain that I want to have much to do with such a being.
That’s entirely true. I have never had any direct experience of God, nor experience of any of the direct intervention that God is supposed to show. Are you saying, that as a child, growing up in a religious family, completely receptive to such an experience (my brain was ‘unlocked’ as you say) that God chose not to reveal himself to me and, instead decided to be a right asshole and let me reason him out of existence? What kind of a perverse being is this God? Can you not see the absurdity of this situation? God could have talked to me when my brain was unlocked, but instead, he let me become an atheist!
Um… you’re arguing my argument again. I think that’s exactly what it is. But here’s the crucial point: the state is conjured up by chemistry for each individual. You can’t then go on to claim that independent gods, like the God of Abraham, exist outside that framework. In other words, I accept that a kind framework for transcendence and religious experience exists in our brains, in the same way that a framework for love does, but I don’t accept that you can extrapolate that to create the vengeful and unpleasant Christian God.
If you’re arguing for a shared religious experience, then you have another problem – why are there different Gods? And then (harking back to an earlier point) how do you decide which God you should follow? If the religious condition is conjured by brain chemistry, then all Gods should be totally equal.
(Slightly off topic, but pertinent: you’re probably itching to point out that if I accept there’s a framework for religious experience inside our brain chemistry, why is it there?. It’s a good question. I don’t know, and I haven’t read very much that suggests why our brains should have ‘wiring’ for this kind of experience. There has been some study made on the ‘awe state’ in apes – ethologist Jonathan Balcombe speaks about it in his book Pleasurable Kingdom – which suggests that animals have it too. I would make a guess that there is some evolutionary advantage to it, but it’s one of the great mysteries of science. Please note: this does not beg a supernatural explanation. It simply means we don’t understand it.)
But you continually fail to show how religion makes any difference. Serial killers and pathological criminals can still be (and often are) religious. Your evidence is useless.
Right. Even though the great percentage of the human race is religious in some way or another. How do you suggest your religious morality is helping here? You are completely ignoring this aspect of my argument in order to make your own spurious points! What’s your explanation for this problem?
No need to apologize, I hope that I’ve made my ideas clearer this time.
I apologize, I think I see the points that had slipped through the cracks of my mind a bit clearer now, and I understand your view a bit more clearly as well. My mind is not working at its peak right now, it appears, so I will dwell upon this for a while. This discussion deserves only the best of my thinking, which I am currently unable to deliver. Perhaps someday, I will become a great theologian, and be able to express myself better. Until then, this will have to suffice.
I am glad that we can have this conversation in this way. Time for some contemplation.
My contemplation has brought me a fair deal further than I thought it would.
“If you’re arguing for a shared religious experience, then you have another problem – why are there different Gods?”
I wonder, is this somehow implying that the feeling of love should be the same among everyone? Or are you saying that love can be varied, but that religious framework which may exist should not be? I am not trying to be contentious here, but I simply cannot wrap my head around the idea that people can experience one differently but not the other.
It brings me to another thought, one wherein you questioned who could determine which religion is correct. I think this also goes deeper, to our discussion about what is atheism, what is a religion. Let me put it another way. Say a man calls himself an atheist, but claims to also believe in a god. Is he still an atheist, or does he belong to a religion? Say another man calls himself a Christian, but cheats on his wife, or believes in reincarnation. Is he still then a Christian? If I, being one or the other, were to say that the man was not, would I be passing judgement, or merely making an observation? If one says that they believe in the Christian god, but do not believe in the Christian hell, for example, are they a Christian or an Atheist?
I realize that religion is not required for being an ethical person. However, if an atheist believes in basic human rights, is that not still a form of religion that the atheist practices? You could call it love, a kindredship, or that fuzzy feeling you get, but I doubt very much that a nihilist (certainly not a ‘religious’ person by your definition, I think, as they are squarely atheist, I think) would feel that way. Without some form of religion, I cannot possibly reason that some other person is more important than myself. In another way, why play by human rules when a human life is no more important or valuable than that of a cat or an ant?
Certainly that is the truth from an atheistic point of view. Perhaps your Christian upbringing is engrained, and you chose to accept human life as special, regardless of the fact that there would only be other humans to validate this. Again, I am not trying to be contrary or contemptuous, but I simply can’t wrap my head around it.
I guess what I am asking is, why should an atheist care for the sanctity of human life, if there is no sanctity in the world to be had in the first place?
In my experience that’s never a bad thing.
I think you’re missing my point. Here’s the thing: let’s say, for the sake of argument, that you accept that the Christian God is the Maker of All Things. And let’s say that an Egyptian of the 11th Dynasty believes that Horus and Set and Anubis (and so forth) are the arbiters of the world. My question is this: Who made the world? Was it your God, or was it the Egyptian pantheon? This is not a question of abstracts: either you believe your god is the right one or you don’t (I am assuming that you don’t think that all Gods from all time are equally valid – if you do, then you have another problem, but more of that in a bit). So, if you accept that a supernatural being concocted reality, then you must choose your deity. The problem is, that is a purely subjective choice that depends entirely on the culture in which you grew up. If the Christian God made the world, and you grew up as an 11th C Egyptian peasant, you are, by Christian standards screwed. You have no chance at salvation. By 11th C Egyptian standards, however, the Christian johnny-come-lately God doesn’t hold a candle to a religion that was in existence a full two thousand years longer than Christianity has been around so far. So – how do you, personally, deal with that problem? Do you just think the Egyptians were wrong? Why? I submit that the only reason you think that, if you do, is that you were raised in a white Christian society.
If, on the other hand, you think that the Egyptians were right, and that the Christina God is right too (not to mention the gods of the Australian aborigines, the gods of the Pacific islanders, the Norse gods, the ancient Greek gods and so forth), then you have a different kind of problem: you are forced to accept that all the beliefs that go with all these gods are correct too. And I don’t think I have to give you examples to show that you will very quickly run aground on the reefs of contradiction (cannibalism, anyone?)
Now that’s the religion part of what I was saying. That is a distinct issue to that of love – you are trying to conflate love with religion and as an atheist I object to that. In effect, you are telling me that because I am not religious, any love I feel, is somehow less worthy than ‘love of God’. I think that’s a conceit that religious people like to adopt to justify their sense of righteousness, and nothing more. And I am not saying that religion ‘should be’ anything. It is religious people who do that. I think religion is nothing more than a superstitious framework for attempting to make sense of the world. In my opinion, it’s a framework that has outlived its usefulness.
You can’t make a basis for an argument like that! There is no such thing as an atheist who claims to believe in God! You can’t just set up an hypothesis that is meaningless like that. It’s like saying ‘Say a man calls himself a rationalist but he believes in ghosts’: if he’s a rationalist, then, by definition, he does not hold superstitious beliefs! I’m still not sure you understand how atheism works, so let me try with one further example: when I’m outside on a grey day and I suddenly hear a clap thunder and a rolling boom around the hills, I don’t think to myself ‘Whoa, there goes old Thor smiting the clouds with his hammer again! Someone must have gotten him mighty angry!’ I just think ‘That was a loud clap of thunder, think I’d better bring in the washing before the front moves over’. I don’t spend my life actively not-believing in Thor. It just doesn’t ever occur to me that there IS a Thor. I feel exactly the same way about my lack of belief in the Christian God – it’s not a belief ‘system’. I don’t spend my days going around not-believing in God. The way I view the world doesn’t demand that I factor some kind of supernatural being into it
I don’t know – you tell me. Religion seems to be very floppy when it comes to issues like that. Apparently the fire & brimstone Fundamentalist preachers who bilk their flocks of millions of dollars and drive flashy cars and have sex with hookers are still happy to call themselves Christians. This is another example of why I think religion is a bad choice for moderating your life: it has so much contradiction, and yet it makes claims to being the infallible wisdom of God. How does that work? You’re allowed to break the rules set down by God, but that’s OK, because He’s factored that into the equation? How utterly convenient. In my atheist ‘I-can’t-possibly-have-a-moral-compass’ mind it’s hypocrisy of the highest order. And yet, even if I live my life to the best I can, unless I accept God on his own irrational terms (suspending all the rational faculties He supposedly gave me) I cannot enter his Kingdom? It’s absurdity of the highest order.
Well,they’re not an atheist – an atheist doesn’t believe in God or Hell. A person who believes in God and not Hell is just a Christian who has chosen to selectively interpret the word of God to suit his/her own ends.
No. Stop trying to make atheism a religion. It’s not a religion. It’s not a ‘belief’.Try and follow me here: you know how you don’t believe the Hawaiian Akua Gods are responsible for bringing everything into existence? You know how the Hawaiian Akua Gods don’t even enter your life as an explanation for anything at all? You are an atheist in respect of the Hawaiian Akua Gods. In your life, such a belief system has no meaning. You never even think of the world in terms of the Akua Gods and their business. But – try and understand this – you have no belief system that somehow replaces the Akua Gods and still contains their concept. You haven’t formed a world view based on rejecting the Akua Gods They are just immaterial to your life. That’s atheism. Atheism IS NOT A BELIEF IN SOMETHING. It is NOT A BELIEF IN THE LACK OF SOMETHING. It is just not a belief at all. There is no ‘church’ of atheism (as much as Christians seem to think this concept makes some kind of sense). People don’t band together and form ‘rules’ of atheism. There is no structure to atheism, nor dogma, nor a leader.
Here you are equating nihilism with atheism. This is not valuable: a nihilist is likely to be an atheist, probably, but being an atheist does not infer that a person is a nihilist. Nihilism is an extreme stance. I am certainly not a nihilist. None of my atheist friends are nihilists. My atheist wife and my atheist daughters are not nihilists.
Then I am terribly sad for you. How can you explain that, as a non-religious person, I most certainly can. In fact, most of my life is spent putting other people, specifically my children and my wife, before myself. Religious people like to think they have a monopoly on this sort of behaviour, but guess what? They don’t.
You’re trying to assemble a case for atheism being amoral and immoral but you just shot yourself in the foot. Buddhists believe exactly what you have said: that all lives are exactly the same ‘value’. And yet none of the great Buddhist societies have collapsed into chaotic amorality. I wonder if you can figure out why that is?
No it’s not! Why did you sink immediately to the lowest common denominator view? You just assumed that atheists see human lives as worthless as ants, instead of valuing the lives of ants and cats as much as humans! This topsy turvy view of human superiority is so typically Western Judaeo-Christian.
I accept human life as special because it is special, not because God told me to. I think all life is special. Science is the mechanism that convinced me of this, not God. And, even if your speculation was true – that my Christian upbringing is what’s responsible for my morality – then it doesn’t explain how my atheist wife, with an atheist mother and father, maintains her very moral life, nor how my many atheist friends from all kinds of backgrounds do the same.
Sanctity of human life? Like the Christians believe? Spare me.
And on, and on, and on.
“Atheism IS NOT A BELIEF IN SOMETHING. It is NOT A BELIEF IN THE LACK OF SOMETHING. It is just not a belief at all.”
According to you, perhaps. According to Wikipedia, it is “Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities.[1] In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities.[2] Most inclusively, atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist,” which seems to contrast with the point you are making. The opposite of rejection of belief is certainly the acceptance of a belief. Otherwise, as a Christian, one would not be Atheistic to other gods, because Christians believe in the one true god and reject other gods, the same as Muslims or Jews or various other religions do. They certainly do not lack entirely a belief on this subject. To say that one cannot know which god may be right, to say that one cannot determine if there is a god, to say one simply doesn’t have a belief concerning god, is agnostic.
Also, not everyone who claims to be a Christian is a Christian, is my point. If you claim to belong to a religion, you cannot break those rules which make you one. Also, the verses you proffered apply mainly to Jews, as Christians follow primarily the teachings of Christ and the new testament. This is why Jews are not supposed to trim their beards, and they are supposed to be circumcised, but Christians are not. To lump all forms of Christianity and Judaism together is no different than lumping together all forms of nontheism.
Also, when I say religion, I am talking about a set of beliefs, not necessarily an organized one (like Christianity or Judaism or Hindu, for example). From Wikidpedia, “a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe.” If you got those beliefs, you are religious; the belief for or against or not at all toward a god does not change this aspect.
Also, there is a First Church of Atheism, in which one can be ordained and perform all the civic duties of a pastor or father or rabbi. http://firstchurchofatheism.com/ So the idea that there isn’t a church of Atheism is certainly now incorrect as well.
Um. No, it does not. NOWHERE does it contrast with or contradict what I said. Did you read these words: ‘the rejection of a belief’ (that is not a belief – if I reject your belief, it does not imply an alternative belief); ‘the absence of a belief’ (that is not a belief – that is the ‘absence’ of a belief, just as I said)
.
The second meaning, Wikipedia is quite specific that it is ‘in a narrower sense, and it is also not a belief. If I take the position that there are no unicorns, it is not ‘a belief in the non-existence of unicorns’. That is, it is not an uncritical assumption that ignores evidence.
I’d rather not be playing semantics, but you chose that route. Let’s look at the definition of ‘belief’:
The OED:
Belief, n
1 An acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof.
2 A firmly held opinion or conviction.
3 A religious conviction.
(my emphasis)
All atheists in my acquaintance are in accord with the definition I have given. We don’t go around ‘believing’ that there is no God, just as we don’t go around ‘believing’ that there is no Zeus or no Wotan. They are immaterial concepts in our lives. We simply don’t see the world like that, as impossible as that plainly is for you to understand. I feel no need to suppose that ‘God’ has anything to do with the world that I see, just as I feel no need to invoke Thor to explain thunder. It completely frustrates me that you can’t, or won’t, try and grasp this idea.
So what? That does not make the rejection of a belief a belief in itself. You can keep on trying to hammer that square peg into that round hole but it’s never going to fit. Hear me: I do not have a ‘belief’ in anything of any kind. My atheism, as I have said on numerous occasions, is the stance that I have no reason to suppose that there is any such thing as God. Just as I have no reason to suppose that there are any such things as pixies, unicorns, leprechauns, thunder gods, jackal-headed gods or any other mythical beings you care to name. My world view is a rational one – I don’t feel the need to invent supernatural mechanisms to explain anything.
Right, so you are agnostic in respect to Anubis, and Bast, and the Rainbow Serpent and the Akua Gods? In other words – think VERY carefully here – you are prepared to acknowledge that the ancient Egyptian gods might be the right gods? Really?
And your last sentence:
You have, once again, bundled up your ideas in order to make a case without considering the pieces. Yes, ‘To say that one cannot know which god may be right, to say that one cannot determine if there is a god’ is agnostic, but ‘to say one simply doesn’t have a belief concerning god’ is squarely an atheist position. It is emphatically NOT agnostic, no matter how often you say that it is.
I really don’t know how to make this clearer to you. I do not feel the need to interpose a supernatural being in my life. I’m not on the fence about it. I don’t think that ‘maybe, when the facts come in, I’ll change my mind’, just as I don’t think that one day someone might bring forth convincing evidence that unicorns exist. I am not ‘agnostic’ about unicorns. In the same way, I am not ‘agnostic’ about God.
I’m sorry, have no idea what you’re trying to say here.
OK, so the God of the Jews is the one we don’t listen to, then? He’s the bloodthirsty killer. Christians never killed anyone. Oh come on. You’re being so disingenuous I don’t know how you can even write the words. You are dicing and slicing your beliefs to make them fit what ever you want, just as all followers of doctrine do. Didn’t you say above:
The Christian ‘One True God’ is the SAME ‘One True God’ of the Jews, separated only by history, politics and a bunch of writings by priests with agendas. Since the Ten Commandments are in Deuteronomy too (handed down by that very same bloodthirsty God), am I to assume they are also irrelevant to your beliefs? I seem to remember you quoting them a little way back in reference to morality…
This kind of picking and choosing really irritates me. I demonstrated CLEARLY that your point that Christians value life more than atheists is a selective view, and you counter with a completely bogus argument that says in effect ‘But I don’t agree with those bits of the bible’. Can’t you see how flimsy that kind of thinking is?
There is only one form of non-theism. That is a stance that says there is no evidence to suggest Gods of any kind. You can’t be non-theistically separatist. In addition, I can quite happily lump Christianity and Judaism together because in the scheme of religious beliefs held by humans they are essentially the same religion (as you yourself said in the reply to Timothy that I quoted above). To say that ‘God didn’t say this, he said that’ is merely turning your eye onto whatever suits your argument.
OK. A ‘belief’ against something is distinct from a lack of belief of that thing. You must try and understand this. If I believed that thunder was caused by a giant rubbing sticks together in contrast to your belief that it’s Thor smiting the mountains with his hammer, that’s a belief against something. If I don’t ‘believe’ either of those things, but instead understand that thunder is caused by an atmospheric shockwave after the collapse of a plasma channel caused by lightning, that is not a belief, but an explanation based on observation.
Oh whatever. To put up such a petty riposte reduces your argument. I was completely aware that there is a group calling themselves the ‘Church of Atheism’ (it’s a stupid idea that makes no sense and most atheists would agree with that assessment – it does not in any way represent the majority of atheist thought) and was speaking to what I assumed you would understand as a larger concept. Atheism is not some form of religion, as you seem to think it is. I feel I have made this abundantly clear and your refusal to accept that shows only that you are intent on fitting it to your preconceptions.
And what is the ‘as well’ bit. As well as what? You’ve not made a single valid point in this whole reply. You’ve quibbled about semantics, ducked and weaved on matters of biblical interpretation and contradicted your previous arguments.
There is no ‘as well.’
My own federal government has ruled in the past, on separate occasions, that Secular Humanism, Buddhism, and Atheism, among others are, indeed, religions, and protected in accordance with our laws as such.
http://atheism.about.com/library/decisions/religion/bl_l_TorcasoWatkins.htm
There exists a group of people calling themselves the Church of Atheism. To use that OED definition 1 of Belief, you believe thunder is caused by natural phenomena, rather than believing that it is a deity, as the natural causes are not proven, but rather evinced. This is perfectly logical and acceptable, and is not the point I was trying to make, which is that, up here at least, it is a religion, as it is the opposite set of beliefs of other religions. And that brings me to my second point.
This is what I meant when I said that yes, we are speaking the same language, but we are losing something in translation. I think we are both saying the same thing, or at least meaning the same thing, but there is a breakdown in understanding here. Yes, it is widely accepted that nature is nature, and not some physical being up in the clouds. It is not proven, but it is shown that sometimes, when clouds rub together, we get thunder. This creates the presumption that it is correct. I think this is the point you are getting at, and I haven’t intended to contradict it, but I do intend to partially contradict what you are saying if you mean them literally. Facts exist, but for the most part proofs do not. Thus, believing that thunder is created in the wake of lighting is still a belief based upon a presumption rather than an assumption, as it is still not proven.
According to Merriam-Webster, a belief is:
1: a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing
2: something believed; especially : a tenet or body of tenets held by a group
3: conviction of the truth of some statement or the reality of some being or phenomenon especially when based on examination of evidence
I provide these for the simple fact that Merriam-Webster is more common up here than Oxford, and to punctuate this apparent difference in our languages.
Thus, what you described with relation to thunder fits the definition, all of them, of belief. Your emphasis doesn’t add anything to the definition, it is superfluous. ‘Especially’ doesn’t mean the same thing as ‘exclusively.’ It is certainly your opinion or conviction, is it not? It does not have to be religious, but most religious things are beliefs.
Thus, it appears the crux of our difference lies upon what classifies as a religion or belief. My government tells me that these are all religions, sets of belief or their corollaries. Each appears to fit within the definitions given. There is a church of atheism, as much as you don’t like it, which means that at least some atheists even consider it a religion, and that there is at least one actual church of atheism. This is the objective evidence laid before me. Just because you disagree with them doesn’t make them not exist. This is exactly the same picking and choosing that you just belabored in your latest reply, such that you don’t like it or it doesn’t agree with your prescribed notion of atheism, so it doesn’t count.
Also, this breakdown in communication is also apparent with reference to the posting before this one. When I say ‘I,’ I am talking specifically about me. I am saying that no one has convinced me why, if I were to somehow lose my Christianity, I should follow anything that doesn’t suit me. I did not intend to imply that other atheists are this way, just that I see no reason that I should behave differently. What I don’t understand is why more atheists aren’t more self-serving. This is a credit to atheists, that they tend to value human life and laws, even though there is no code of conduct. It is an anomaly to me, was the point. Again, both speaking English, but not the same language, it appears. Sort of like saying ‘So the god of the jews isn’t the one we listen to?’ Some atheists believe in Nirvana and reincarnation. Are we saying that all atheists should or should not, in the same way that anyone who believes in god should believe in every god and their respective teachings? If drawing those distinctions in that regard is fallacy, I mean.
Well, actually, if you read that properly it doesn’t say anywhere in that ruling that Atheism is considered a religion. You’re lumping things together again and trying to slide something under the door along with them. That whole thing is about Mr Torcaso’s right to believe or not believe in whatever he wants. (The judge in the case certainly does equate secular humanism with religion, which, as the article implies, is a rather contrived stretch).
Man, this is exasperating. No, I do not ‘believe’ that thunder is caused by natural phenomena. It IS caused by natural phenomena. Are you going to tell me it isn’t? It’s not a matter of belief. Because we can stop the discussion if you think that a realistic, logical, provable explanation for something is the same as an irrationally acquired belief.
What a slippery way to try and divorce ‘proven’ from ‘observed to be so’. Yes, the explanation is evinced, because IT IS WHAT IS HAPPENING. It is not in any way evinced that it’s Thor or God or Ra making a noise. Thunder is ‘observed to be so’ because that’s what’s happening. We don’t ‘observe’ Thor striking an anvil. These explanations ARE NOT EQUALLY VALID.
It is NOT A RELIGION to NOT believe something. OK, try and stick with me here. Do you believe in pixies? No? So what religion is that? Non-Pixie-ism? It’s not a belief. You simply don’t believe in pixies. I just can’t understand why you’re pushing this obviously barren point of logic.
No it’s not. It’s not a belief. It doesn’t matter what you or I or anyone ‘believes’ about it – it’s a repeatable, observable phenomenon. I don’t understand this ‘still not proven’ thing that you’re on about. I can totally prove to you that thunder is caused by high pressure air movements. It can be measured, it can be recorded. One thing that is absolutely certain is that it’s not Thor smiting a giant anvil with his hammer. THAT is a belief.
I don’t really care – I only brought up the dictionary example to refute your use of semantics. Scientific views of the world are not ‘beliefs’. You can keep on thinking they are, but they simply aren’t. Just as atheism is not a belief. I’m not going around this circle again.
Don’t care. Forget about semantics. Forget about dictionaries. You brought it up, it’s a futile and frustrating side track and I wish I’d never bothered playing that game.
Answer me this directly: In your opinion, is thunder caused by air movements or by Thor? Just either/or. It can’t be both. Even if you do hold the crazy idea that they’re both ‘beliefs’ which one is more likely?
It certainly doesn’t tell you that atheism is a religion. You want to hear it so badly that you read it even when it’s not there.
No, but I didn’t say it didn’t exist. The so-called Church of Atheism has as much relevance to atheism as someone like the Landover Baptist Church has to religion. These are not representative of the ideas they claim to embrace. You picked a concept that is on the very outlying edge of what could even be considered atheism and you’re using it as the underpinning of an argument – it’s not. It’s an aberrant example that suits your purpose.
It’s not MY prescribed notion of atheism. Most atheists would consider the Church of Atheism to be a stupidity, just as most Christians (I hope) would abhor the Landover Baptists.
If you were to become an atheist you would not be ‘following’ anything. You’d have simply decided that the Christian religion was irrelevant.
But being a Christian, you don’t need a reason. You are a Christian by faith. Faith isn’t reason.
Sobering isn’t it. To be a good person, you don’t need God, so what’s God for? I think that is in fact the major thrust of my argument.
Some people who call themselves atheists might conceivably do that, yes. And provided they haven’t structured a religious view around those things they can technically be considered atheists. They are, however, still harbouring an irrational belief. It’s kind of like saying Scientologists are atheists. In a way they are, because they don’t believe in ‘God’, and they don’t ‘worship’. But they still indulge in an irrational belief.
There is a distinct difference in these two things that I think you still don’t get. Yes, strictly speaking a person who doesn’t believe in Zeus, but is a Christian is an atheist in respect of Ancient Greek gods. But they are not comprehensively an ‘atheist’, as in a person who does not feel any need to indulge in a structured religious belief system involving supernatural beings (which I again assert is the way MOST atheists view themselves). This is most emphatically different from adopting an irrational belief.
I’ve tried to explain this before, but I’ll give it one more go. Believing in something with no evidence (which is what you must do with religion) is irrational. You can sure do it if you are so inclined, but it is, however you cut it, irrational. The problem is that if you are inclined to suspend rationality for one god, then you must be prepared to accept that you can equally take on ANY other irrational belief. It’s quite illogical to do otherwise. In this way, the religion you choose is by necessity bounded only by a preference. And that preference is, for 99% of people, dictated by the circumstance of their birth.
The thing is, when you assess the greater landscape of religion – literally thousands of different ideologies – you’re just elevating one irrational belief over another – completely irrationally! You only think Christianity is the correct religion because you were born into it. You haven’t reasoned yourself into being a Christian. If you’d been born a Muslim, you’d think Islam was the correct religion. I don’t know why that doesn’t give you pause. Do you somehow hold the belief that if you were born a Muslim the Christian God would have somehow contacted you? Or that you’d just have died unsaved purely because of the circumstances of your birth? Why do you not puzzle over these questions? I’ve asked you now numerous times why a person who holds another religion isn’t just as correct as you are, and you evade me every time, with vagueness and tangents. Is your God the right God? Why? If other Gods are just as right, why aren’t you worshipping them? I don’t believe you can answer these questions I think you are just avoiding them.
I can’t seem to post here. Is something wrong?
Well, for whatever reason, it wouldn’t let me post my response. Is it in your spam filter there somewhere? That would take me quite a while to re-type. Could be something I linked to. Guess I will type up my response and save it in another program first………………….
I’ll check.
It didn’t get caught in the spam filter – I checked back several days. And it’s not in the Moderation queue either. Weird. Did anything strange happen when you submitted it?
Darn. Nope, nothing strange. Just refreshed the page and everything like normal. Well, shoot. Guess I am going to take a hiatus from the discussion. It’s been fun, maybe I will get back to playing this side in the future. Keep up the neat posts.
Hmph. Very odd. I’ve not had reports of that kind of thing happening before – I hope not, because I would not know unless someone pointed it out.
Well, I’m sorry your thoughts didn’t make it through. I don’t like a discussion terminated like that.
http://www.ca7.uscourts.gov/tmp/9W1FFIBK.pdf
That is the link I tried to post, which I forgot from the previous post, which does call Atheism a religion. A google search will reveal more discussion on both sides of this issue.
The filters and the moderation queue don’t prohibit links, so you don’t have to spell it out. I’ve reinstated the link.
Whatever happened to your post isn’t related to the links.
It did, for some reason, not post each time I included the link. I don’t know why. It simply did.
And, I gotta say, the deeper you dig with this, the more flimsy your argument looks. Aside from the fact that this is a 1983 appeal let me quote you from it:
It would appear to me that, in respect to your First Amendment, the point is that Kaufman should be allowed to adopt whatever religious view he wanted, even if that was not to have a religious view. This, again, is in keeping with how I think, how most atheists think, and plainly how Kaufman himself thought.
Yes, but they can’t violate someone’s religious beliefs if he doesn’t have any. If it isn’t religious, they don’t have to let him meet, and they don’t have to respect his beliefs, even if it is the opposite of most ‘religions.’ This is the way our court decides things. If they ultimately grant him that it is, regardless of what he says or the guards say or what anyone says, that makes it so. Just like in the next part of the document, where they deem something pornographic even though he also claims it isn’t. This is ultimately my point, just because you say it is or I say it isn’t, doesn’t make it so. My federal government is, indeed, calling it a religion, in the most straightforward manner that they can do so.
Also, it is the plaintiff’s claim that his rights to practice religion were infringed:
“is his claim that the defendants infringed on his right to practice his religion when they refused to allow him to create an inmate group to study and discuss atheism.”
If he does not believe that it is a religion, or religious practice of some sort, it would be nearly impossible for him to bring this portion of the suit, because no one would be infringing upon his religious beliefs. In this way, even though he supposedly claims that it is not religious, he is proceeding upon the presumption of just the opposite.
Yes, our court system is rather backward in this respect, because it takes actual court cases to determine the extent of these laws. We can’t just say that something is protected under our constitution, we actually have to define it, usually in this way, with the courts. If this were to somehow be appealed to the Supreme court, then they could change the ruling, but it doesn’t appear that it will happen, which effectively makes atheism recognized as a religion, at least at the federal level.
You seem to have gotten this idea in your head that it’s just me who thinks of atheism as the absence of a need to hold a religion. Every atheist I know, both personally and through my connections on the web is in accord with this view.
You are, for reasons that are unclear to me still, desperate to foist upon me the idea that atheism is a religion. I will tell you one last time, it is not.
I do not ‘practise’ atheism. I do not have some kind of dogma in place that gives me rules for atheism. I don’t form my opinions based on what other atheists think. I simply do not hold a world view that says that supernatural events are in any way responsible for the course of my life or the world as I experience it.
Now you can go and find examples of other people being confused about what atheism is, as you are, and use them to bolster your argument, but it simply doesn’t matter. Your idea of what an atheist is is incorrect in respect of me and in respect of all atheists I know.
I have said this numerous times in this discussion, but I will try to get it through to you again: my life does not revolve around my atheism. I do not hold an active ‘disbelief in god’ at all as I go about my business. I don’t band up with other atheists and proselytize. I do not care whether you or anyone else are atheists. I have no allegiance to an atheist ‘manifesto’.
Like Mr Kaufman, I think it is my right to assume whatever worldview I like, but that does not mean I am adopting ANY kind of religious belief.
I am completely baffled as to why you are so determined to frame atheism in terms of a kind of religion. I think perhaps that you just can’t grasp at all how my mind works, or how I see the world. Perhaps you want to add weight to your idea that you can’t have morality without a religion, and that if atheism is a religion your view is justified? Well, you’re wrong. My lack of belief in your, or anyone else’s, deity is not an irrational religious belief. And yet, I continue to live my life morally and act as ethically as I am able. Maybe this is the real root of your confusion. Maybe you are afraid that, yes, people actually can live quite a good life without God, so what does that mean for God?