Rev. Erudite Redneck, B.S., B.S., M.A., M.Div.

Is the post sort of like that carney bloke that sits above the big ass horse tank full of ice water and spouts off obscene things about your manhood, and tells your girlfriend with you about your inadequacies so as to threaten you, and make you mad enough to spend $5 for three softballs to knock him into the drink; and then when after $25 or so you do, he gets even meaner and nastier and you spend $50 more just to show him who's boss?

These back-yard-bar-b-que atheist who have their most fun talking to each other wouldn't have a past time if religion wasn't such an easy target. I'm mean the tribal morals of 4000 years ago pervade the OT and the public policies and the public's scientific understandings of the first century AD pervade the NT. Then the literalistic try their best to bend and shape and mold these anachronistic viewpoints into actual events and eternal truths to such an extent that many sermons and almost all bible study classes resemble a game of mental "Twister".

Of course the LIBERAL Religious community is no better. That leadership knows where all of the contradictions, stupidities, and out and out forgeries are in their religious tombs but don't trust the layman's' faith enough to teach and preach about it for fear of decrease collections at offering time. So they just stumble along with an inauthentic revelation which they base in the apostasies of church tradition and apostolic primacy.(ever notice that apostasy and apostolic have the same roots)

So sure these, "atheist" wags have plenty of fodder to ruminate on and the reason they can prick so deep is that they are almost always cutting into dead tissue. (is that a mixed metaphor? sobeit)

ER and others talk about their only going after low hanging fruit.
Tell me what fool would climb a latter to get the unripe stuff being formed up at the top, when the sweet ripe targets are reachable from the ground?

OK, I'll play. Here is your $5. Give me three balls please and then stand out of the way.
 

Make that, " what fool would climb a ladder.."
 

Well, re: "LIBERAL Religious community is no better. That leadership knows where all of the contradictions, stupidities, and out and out forgeries are in their religious tombs but don't trust the layman's' faith enough to teach and preach about it for fear of decrease collections at offering time. So they just stumble along with an inauthentic revelation which they base in the apostasies of church tradition and apostolic primacy. ..."

This actually doesn't seem to be the case at the church I attend. That's where I first heard the term "Christian agnostic." ...
 

Oh, and I've never used the "low-hanging fruit" reference. All fruit is fruit for the pickin'. :-)
 

First, I love the cartoon. It answers a question never asked . . .

Second, this is a topic I have addressed at various times. The whole idea of "evangelical" or "fundamentalist" atheists has struck a few folks as a bit contradictory, until I explained what I meant, and it now seems so clear and plain.

If only folks on all sides would take a deep breath and admit that we cannot "know" answers to certain questions, definitively, and that Christianity isn't about "knowing" one set of things or another, but living towards others in a certain way (defined loosely as love), we might be better off. Of course, there will always be those who say, "But, what about . . ." to which there are various responses, but only one actual answer - what others think or do or say or claim isn't here or there.

I do not think atheism, as a general human phenomenon is any more or less dangerous than any other. It is as an ideology, when it mangles the muddy, confusing, contradictory world in which we live to fit whatever precepts it creates to define that world and call it "real", or worse yet "really real", that it becomes dangerous. Again, any ideology is so dangerous, because then the castle in the air is called real, and any and all who do not see it and proclaim its beauty and superiority to all that exists on the ground are purblind fools and self-deluding cranks who cannot recognize the superiority of this grand creation free-floating above the humdrum world we all inhabit.
 

"(ever notice that apostasy and apostolic have the same roots)"

As do Testament and Testicles.

I think that the religion of Atheism is as potentially dangerous as any other religion when used for political, financial, or social gain.

Nice cartoon, although some atheists I know would just call out their own name.
 

Doc said:
"As do Testament and Testicles."
Yes, that's why women in the Old Testament could not legally testify because they could not swear by their balls.
I guess that makes both Testaments ballsy books.
 

Have you been filming atheists having sex? Well, it is about multiplication afterall.

What do christians shout? Don't use god's name in vain?

Some denominations I know think sex is only OK if you dont enjoy it - enjoy
 

Hi ER,

This has to be a joke, but you never know – it is said with so much feeling.

As drlobojo suggested, I’ll pay $5 for a throw, but I’m not sure if the game is really worth it…

I propose we lump all non-nelievers, athiests, scientism adherents (different than scientists) into one pool and judge them.

How very Christian of you… let’s party like it is 1492… Inquisition anyone?

RESOLVED: Atheism is a threat to society, all societies, and atheists need to be exposed for that.

I try not to call myself an atheist – I have when I am being short and quick, but I am yet to find a good label that describes my beliefs (or lack of them in some cases… I don’t believe in fairies, so I’m an a-fairyist, don’t believe in Santa Claus, so I am an a-santa-ist, I don’t believe in unicorns so I am a-unicorn-ist shall I go on?)

Maybe a more positive label like naturalism, or maybe humanism, or maybe just sceptic – don’t know, I tell you when I know, but most labels seem incomplete.

If you wish to label me atheist to be short and quick, then go for it – I’ve used it in the past it doesn’t offend me, but neither does it fully describe my views.

Oh and why is atheism a threat in your book? Worried that reason might get in the way of a good story?

And more importantly, who do you know from history that has killed in the name of atheism? Do you know anyone who has killed in the name of their religion or God?

I'm talking about "evangelist" atheists, those as fundamentalist as any religios fundamentalist, and I think, after having engaged them sone, that these guys fit that.

I can feel the love… So just talking about ideas is evangelistic now?

If personal attacks are all you can do against the arguments, then enjoy your logical fallacy.

It’s a bit of a shame – I was enjoying the discussions, but hate it seems is coming my way for some reason.



Drlobojo ER and others talk about their only going after low hanging fruit.
Tell me what fool would climb a ladder to get the unripe stuff being formed up at the top, when the sweet ripe targets are reachable from the ground?

I always thought it was funny the statement about ‘low hanging fruit’ – if I try and talk about something more interesting on this blog, like say the question about evolution, original sin, Jesus crucifixion and resurrection OR maybe where did anyone here learn about Jesus if it wasn’t from the bible?

It seems no one really wants to address them… are these fruit poisoned, or are people worried that they are eating from that ‘special’ tree in the special garden?

Oh such topics were talked about, but never actually tackled head-on – talked around at best, and with a lot of ‘feeling’ from some. Others have replied to my comments by saying they will ONLY tackle the low hanging fruit from my arguments… almost funny isn’t it?

This blog is one interesting place – what makes it interesting to me is that people enjoy (I thought) questioning their beliefs and that no ‘Christian’ can actually agree about what Christianity is… (maybe ‘the belief in Jesus Christ’ but as I have repeatedly asked, where did this idea come from? A book no one can agree on?)

It’s great that everyone here have their own personal idea of Jesus, God and their religion… a million and one versions of a religion – it actually doesn’t sound like a bad thing in my view. People inventing their own personal religion – it means no one is in a position to use this to their advantage.

What is worse is when a million people agree on the bible as the word of God – that is when the problems start if history is anything to go on.

Doc I think that the religion of Atheism is as potentially dangerous as any other religion when used for political, financial, or social gain.

I could agree - lucky then no one has a ‘religion of Atheism’ then isn’t it :)

If you think I and others have a ‘religion of Atheism’ then please explained how – first by defining it.



OK – paid my $5… football on the telly now, so I’ve better things to do.

Maybe I’ll come back with another $5 – I like a laugh as much as the next man. I did like the cartoon…

Lee
 

Lee asks who has killed in the name of atheism. I shall name two persons, and leave the actual body counts up to researches, since each of these individuals amassed pretty high kill rates - Josef Stalin and Mao Tse-tung. Please don't feed me the line that "communism was their religion!" (that's been done before when I mentioned this little factoid) because that just moves the goal posts in the middle of the game as it were. Each of these men, combined, as heads of state, are directly responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of human beings in the name of scientific socialism and progress (Five Year Plans ad infinitum, Great Leaps Forward, Glorious Cultural Revolution, etc., etc.). Let us not forget all those headless bodies during the Terror in France, killed for the crime of insufficient zeal in support of the state. So, the phenomenon isn't exactly new.

So religion is responsible for human evil. What human phenomenon isn't responsible for evil, suffering, and death? Economics, politics, sexual, gender, race differences, national identity - all are sources of violence. Shoot, there were riots on the docks of Baltimore harbor when the last chapter of Charles Dickens' The Olde Curiosity Shop was late in arriving for serial publication. Do we ban serial literature? Humans are violent creatures, and will use any excuse to act out that violence.

In other words, this line of argument doesn't fly so much with me. It is, in a way, a straw argument, made to distract from the point at issue, which is the danger posed by ideological atheism masking as rational discourse. It is all well and good not to believe in God, a position with which I have no problem. It is a far different position to insist that all others must do the same for the good of society, and humanity in general. I ask you, how is that different from evangelical Christians insisting on the necessity of belief in a theistic God for the benefit of society, indeed as a requirement for inclusion in society?
 

Geoffry,
Could you explain how you actually kill someone in the name of non belief?

Did they also kill in the name of a lack of belief in Santa Claus?

I find such arguments pointless. One thing is for sure though, 9/11 and the crusades were definately carried out in the name of religion.

Here is a simple question. Anyone care to answer? What was the religion of the president who sanctioned the use of two atomic bombs on Japan?

Looks like religion does not make someone a "good" person?
 

Billy, how does someone kill in the name of non-belief? Quite simply, by insisting that the good of society and the state demand that citizens conform to one or another way of life, and that by not so conforming, endanger the health of the body politic as a whole. Since both the Soviet Union and China were officially atheist societies, the ideology for which millions perished was, by definition, atheism. It's really that simple.

Every time I hear about the crusades, I want to sigh. Do you have to reach back a thousand years to find an instance of Christians killing in the name of God? What about 19th century missional imperialism from Britain and the US? What about the enforced conversions of the native populations of South America by the Spanish?

You say that religion doesn't make a person, or people, good. The only people who make such an argument are those who believe they are good people. I don't believe that about myself, and would never make such an argument. In fact, like St. Paul and St. Augustine, I would prefer to argue that belief only renders a sense of our sinfulness, the depths of our depravity, rather than anything that could be called "goodness".
 

"If you think I and others have a ‘religion of Atheism’ then please explain how – first by defining it."

Well, I was speaking somewhat metaphorically as to the nature of religion, so perhaps the "religion" of atheism is more appropriate.
I would point to the etymologies of the word: including Religare (to bind back) and/or?! Relegare (to select). I am using the latter to define religion in the sense of a way of thinking and acting on the basis of what things mean. Sort of acting on the basis of one's weltanshauung.
In that manner, using one's personal philosophy (or religion) for one's own course in life is fine. If, though, an atheist (or group) chooses to wield their belief system in the same manner as has been done throughout history, the results can be equally dangerous.

"Josef Stalin and Mao Tse-tung"

Pol Pot didn't do too badly under the Khmer Rouge, either.

"Could you explain how you actually kill someone in the name of non belief?"

Knives, Guns, Bombs, and the lot. Do you believe in God?... Yes?... Bang. The killing of someone who believes in God, because they believe in God, by some one who believes that there is no God, is as close to killing in "the name of" atheism as I can imagine.
I do not think the crusaders had to shout "In the name of God" with each and every kill to suggest that they were (at times) killing in the name of religion.
As Geoffrey notes though, this does not translate to an attack on the specific belief patterns, per se--but rather, as I noted, a usage of a belief system as an "excuse" to attempt political, social, or economic gain.
 

Doc couldn't be more correct. Charles Manson took Paul McCartney's little song about a roller coaster and heard a call to race war, which he wanted to instigate by murdering the LaBianca's and B-movie starlet Sharon Tate. Does that mean The Beatles are responsible for the deaths of Tate or the LaBianca's? Obviously not. John Hinkley, with an obsessive love for Jodie Foster, sought to imitate Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver, and murder someone to earn her love. Does that make the writer, director, or actor involved in creating that character responsible for the attempt on Pres. Reagan's life? Who would argue that way, with any seriousness?

This is not to absolve either religious belief or its opposite of responsibility for human death and tragedy. Rather, it is to point out that people use whatever is handy as an excuse to do violence to one another. Political ideologies, whether based in religious belief or something else, at least have the advantage of being something somewhat public, open for observation and comment.

By the way, Doc, I thought of the Khmer Rouge, but thought it would be easy enough to extrapolate out from Stalin and Mao to them. I would add that the Third Reich was officially hostile to Christianity, even as it was embraced by millions of German Christians.
 

Quite simply, by insisting that the good of society and the state demand that citizens conform to one or another way of life, and that by not so conforming, endanger the health of the body politic as a whole.

That's dogmatism, not atheism. Such thought is not a consequence of not believing in god.

Since both the Soviet Union and China were officially atheist societies, the ideology for which millions perished was, by definition, atheism. It's really that simple.


Nope, that would have to be an inevitable consequence of atheism - a doctrine of it if you wish. Atheism has no such doctrine - all sorts of people are atheists - the only thing they have in common is a lack of belief. You may see other dogmatic systems as a threat, but that does not mean that you are doing something in the name of atheism.


Do you have to reach back a thousand years to find an instance of Christians killing in the name of God?

Absolutely not, as you have just shown, but they are famous ones. I could also have demonstrated the role of christians in supporting the Hitler regime. The Christians of the Cartellverband der katholischen deutschen Studentenverbindungen declared that it was the duty of good catholics to support Hitler.

The only people who make such an argument are those who believe they are good people.

Thanks for presuming what I actually believe. I fall more on the relativist end of moral philosophy - that means I dont actually believe in good or bad in any absolute sense.
You dont need to be religious to reflect on your actions, although it seems that too many religious people I know think of themselves as totally unworthy. I dont think that is something to boast about.


Knives, Guns, Bombs, and the lot. Do you believe in God?... Yes?... Bang. The killing of someone who believes in God, because they believe in God, by some one who believes that there is no God, is as close to killing in "the name of" atheism as I can imagine.

How is that killing in the name of atheism? That is just killing someone you think should die. It is not done because some one is an atheist, but because that person is seen as a threat. It's another example of dogmatism. Were is the god saying kill people?


As Geoffrey notes though, this does not translate to an attack on the specific belief patterns, per se--but rather, as I noted, a usage of a belief system as an "excuse" to attempt political, social, or economic gain.


It translates as my god (through the pope) wants you dead. That sounds like religion to me - just like when Joshua supposedly killed children in the name of god.

Like I say these discussions are pointless - christians have dropped nukes and people who dont believe in a god kill people too (but not in the name of atheism).
 

Re, "These discussions are pointless."

Only, apparently, if started by someone oher than yourself and your felows. Pbth.


Re, "Atheism has no such doctrine - all sorts of people are atheists - the only thing they have in common is a lack of belief."

And that is the subversive point of this atheist dunk tank. I concede the point.

Now, allow me: "All sorts of people are Christians. The only thing they have in common is Christ."

Note: I left out the connective, "belief in," as in "belief in Christ," deliberately. Because the nature of individual Christians' relationship with, or to, Christ, itself is a matter of interpretation.

So, it's nonsensical to lump us all together. That'd be like me seriously lumping all atheists, non-believers, skeptics, etc., together.

Another point, re: "good." LOL. I neither go to church, nor profess Christ, because I'm good. The opposite is closer to the truth. But the truthiest truth is that I go to get filled.


I'm reminded of a cradle Catholic friend of mine who actually had a epiphanal(sp?) conversion, among a Charismatic bunch. Tongues. The whole nine yards. He was excitedly telling a colleague of his new lease on life as it were, of having met the Living God through Christ, and having been embraced by the Holy Spirit and how his lfie had been totally, radically changed (and it had), and how his relationship with God has just totally energized him.

The colleague listened politely, and when my friend was finished, he said, "Cool. I lift weights, myself."

I love that story.

I'd say to anyone, hey: If the Spirit of God hasn't touched you, don't sweat it. You can't make it up.
 

Oh, Lee. I mean no more hostility with this post than that which is clearly evident in every post on y'alls' side that seeks to ridicule people of faith. If the foo shits, wear it! If not, come back on in, the water's fine.
 

Only, apparently, if started by someone oher than yourself and your felows. Pbth.


I think it is pointless and I generally dont gent involved in you lot did this.... kind of accusations. As far as I am concerned all forms of dogma are dangerous - but I think it is far easier to use religion to enforce your doctrine.

Because the nature of individual Christians' relationship with, or to, Christ, itself is a matter of interpretation.


To me that is a problem with an invisible silent god who leaves it to you to work it out. It looks exactly the same as one that doesn't exist, but you already know I think that.
 

Billy, you refuse to concede the point that atheist ideologies are as deadly as non-atheist ones based on the flimsy idea that "ideology" is the evil here. I would agree to an extent, except that you refuse to concede the possibility that "religious ideology" rather than "Christianity" is the culprit in your counter-claims.

I shall try not to repeat myself. You make the claim that for my observations to be true, there would need to be something inherent in atheism that induces people to kill other people. I would retort that there is something in atheism that does so - the belief that people who profess one or another religious belief are, by their very existence, an inherent danger to the commonweal. This argument was made ad nauseum during the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution. Any ideology, whether religious or secular, which insists that human life conform to a certain set of principles and practices otherwise it is not fully human, rational, in line with the sweep of history, or whatever nonsense is the latest phrase - this is indeed the danger. We are not in need of religious belief for this.

Yet, as usually happens, my citation of secular, officially atheist, instances in which human beings were deliberately murdered suddenly becomes a contentious point. Since I, as a Christian, concede that Christians have committed atrocities, even genocide, in the name of God, what is so difficult about conceding that non-believers are also so capable, unless it simply just doesn't compute?
 

Hi ER,

Oh, Lee. I mean no more hostility with this post than that which is clearly evident in every post on y'alls' side that seeks to ridicule people of faith. If the foo shits, wear it! If not, come back on in, the water's fine.

If we are attacking ideas only, and not people – then no problem.

I felt, as a person, I was being ‘judged’ and not my argument. Maybe, I just read too much between the lines – just as maybe you have when you read our attacks on faith and religion as a personal attack – it isn’t. There is neither any hostility against any individual. If I do have a ‘dislike’ it is to organise religion that discriminate against others for their belief in an invisible friend or irrational idea.

So I apologise for misunderstanding you post as an attack on the people rather than the argument,

I have said before, I don’t personally have any problem with anyone’s religion here – if you want it, you can keep it. You challenge your beliefs and reject the nonsense (well, at least I don’t think you will listen to anyone who say “Do this because the bible/church says so” that’s the important bit for me)

So, in the interest of fairness, lets attack my (and others) ideas and arguments – as I have been doing of yours.

I shall not be defending atheism though, any more than I will defend a-fairy-ism or a-unicorn-ism – you see your attacks are at a strawman
(Erm, many we should take this back to my place – I’m all for strawmen over there). You need to learn a little more about our beliefs before you attack shadows and men of straw.

Lee
 

Re: recent killing in the name of Christ:
Try the Balkans for the last 20 years.
 

Geoffrey Kruse-Safford: Lee asks who has killed in the name of atheism. I shall name two persons, and leave the actual body counts up to researches, since each of these individuals amassed pretty high kill rates - Josef Stalin and Mao Tse-tung.

WOW – didn’t see that one coming…

Please don't feed me the line that "communism was their religion!"

And such a statement would be wrong because?

The method looked rather religious to me (more later when I respond to Doc since your comments are related)

Let us not forget all those headless bodies during the Terror in France, killed for the crime of insufficient zeal in support of the state.

Tell me, weren’t the French ‘fighting’ for democracy here and the removal of a crowned monarch? Don’t remember their non-belief in gods coming into it anyway – in fact, I thought they were Catholics.

This argument doesn’t make any sense…

Doc In that manner, using one's personal philosophy (or religion) for one's own course in life is fine.

We agree

Doc If, though, an atheist (or group) chooses to wield their belief system in the same manner as has been done throughout history, the results can be equally dangerous.

The best (or worst) examples in history seem to come from the religious – they certainly had the longest reign of control over their people.

Though since the classics of Stalin and Mao always arise – I would still like to know what acts they did in the ‘name of atheism’ since what they did seemed more to interject their ideology of communism onto the people rather than non-belief of God.

Maybe you could educate me, since to me it is interesting that the method they used to control their people was copied from the religious. Worship of a man, the offer of miracles, speak out against the method or the man and death follows - the old techniques are always the best. Tried and tested – inspired by God you could say :)

Look, Stalin probably was an ‘atheist’, and he certainly did evil things – but was any of it in the name of atheism, that is the challenge.
Also even IF it were true that the non-belief in gods makes you want to kill everyone – it doesn’t make the existence of God anymore likely, though it could be argued that the belief in a ‘Big brother’ God could stop a lot of people going nuts. It doesn’t prove or disprove God.

The problem though with this line of argument is the evidence is against you since the vast majority of non-believers do not kill or steal – in fact the reverse is true. The more secular the country, the lower the crime rate I hear…

RE "Could you explain how you actually kill someone in the name of non belief?"

Doc Knives, Guns, Bombs, and the lot. Do you believe in God?... Yes?... Bang.

You forgot the gas chambers for all those Jews… I wonder why they were singled out and killed?

The killing of someone who believes in God, because they believe in God, by some one who believes that there is no God, is as close to killing in "the name of" atheism as I can imagine.

Sounds reasonable – know any examples? Stalin killed the church leaders not because they believed in God, but because he wanted to replace their church with his own. It was a power struggle.

Again, history of religion has shown this is a tactic that works (English history and the repression of the RC priests is an example that comes to mind in the 16th century)

I cannot see the difference between what Stalin did and any other religious regime in history. So what are you arguing against?

Are you attacking what happens when people want to control a group or country, or an individual’s belief? There is a difference I think.

Lee
 

Geoffrey Kruse-Safford: Lee asks who has killed in the name of atheism. I shall name two persons, and leave the actual body counts up to researches, since each of these individuals amassed pretty high kill rates - Josef Stalin and Mao Tse-tung.

WOW – didn’t see that one coming…

Please don't feed me the line that "communism was their religion!"

And such a statement would be wrong because?

The method looked rather religious to me (more later when I respond to Doc since your comments are related)

Let us not forget all those headless bodies during the Terror in France, killed for the crime of insufficient zeal in support of the state.

Tell me, weren’t the French ‘fighting’ for democracy here and the removal of a crowned monarch? Don’t remember their non-belief in gods coming into it anyway – in fact, I thought they were Catholics.

This argument doesn’t make any sense…

Doc In that manner, using one's personal philosophy (or religion) for one's own course in life is fine.

We agree

Doc If, though, an atheist (or group) chooses to wield their belief system in the same manner as has been done throughout history, the results can be equally dangerous.

The best (or worst) examples in history seem to come from the religious – they certainly had the longest reign of control over their people.

Though since the classics of Stalin and Mao always arise – I would still like to know what acts they did in the ‘name of atheism’ since what they did seemed more to interject their ideology of communism onto the people rather than non-belief of God.

Maybe you could educate me, since to me it is interesting that the method they used to control their people was copied from the religious. Worship of a man, the offer of miracles, speak out against the method or the man and death follows - the old techniques are always the best. Tried and tested – inspired by God you could say :)

Look, Stalin probably was an ‘atheist’, and he certainly did evil things – but was any of it in the name of atheism, that is the challenge.
Also even IF it were true that the non-belief in gods makes you want to kill everyone – it doesn’t make the existence of God anymore likely, though it could be argued that the belief in a ‘Big brother’ God could stop a lot of people going nuts. It doesn’t prove or disprove God.

The problem though with this line of argument is the evidence is against you since the vast majority of non-believers do not kill or steal – in fact the reverse is true. The more secular the country, the lower the crime rate I hear…

RE "Could you explain how you actually kill someone in the name of non belief?"

Doc Knives, Guns, Bombs, and the lot. Do you believe in God?... Yes?... Bang.

You forgot the gas chambers for all those Jews… I wonder why they were singled out and killed?

The killing of someone who believes in God, because they believe in God, by some one who believes that there is no God, is as close to killing in "the name of" atheism as I can imagine.

Sounds reasonable – know any examples? Stalin killed the church leaders not because they believed in God, but because he wanted to replace their church with his own. It was a power struggle.

Again, history of religion has shown this is a tactic that works (English history and the repression of the RC priests is an example that comes to mind in the 16th century)

I cannot see the difference between what Stalin did and any other religious regime in history. So what are you arguing against?

Are you attacking what happens when people want to control a group or country, or an individual’s belief? There is a difference I think.

Lee
 

drlobojo
Re: recent killing in the name of Christ:

Try the Balkans for the last 20 years.

People doing bad things in the name of religion is rather common in history - I doubt people will argue against that. (This doesn't mean all religious people are bad - no one is arguing this.)

It is not so easy to find people doing evil things for their non-beliefs - be that in gods or Santa Claus.

It is what a person believes IN that can cause problems - not what they don't. At least, this is what I think, I could be wrong so welcome to learn more.

An atheist doesn't believe in gods acting in the universe for greater (or worse) - this doesn't mean there isn’t an atheist out there that believes kicking puppies is a good idea.

I say that such an act is wrong, not because of my non-beliefs in gods, merely that increasing cruelty is wrong. Why? Well, it seems to work and gives a better society - good enough for me. If I am wrong, tell me – I will listen and change my views.

Lee
 

Man, way too much history and not enough 2,000 year olds on this topic.

Can we at least agree to sound somewhat snooty in the pronunciation of "testacles" and opt for "test-ah-klees"?

I have always wondered just who, exactly, does the requested damning in an atheist's world, and exactly where is one damned to if no hell exists?
 

I believe lee has a point and a flaw.
First, the concept of an atheist is by definition a non belief/ non believer that there is a God.

Trouble is, large numbers of individuals flying under the flag of an atheist are not non-believers but are actually practicing anti-theist, anti-god believers. Certainly the communist would be a prime example of such.

If in fact they were a actual atheist, they wouldn't give a rat's ass about religion, theism ,deism, et. al. at all. They would be inured to any concern of religiosity. If they are not then they aren't an atheist, but rather an anti-theist. Certainly an atheist can have humanistic concern that religion is creating problems of culture, society, a country etc. but that can be shared by any believer as well, so such is not a product of their atheism but rather of their humanism and would be approach in that manner.

As a corollary example, as a believer, I still agree with most of the facts and many of the conclusions presented in the book "God Is Not Great". I come to that because I am a humanist as well as a believer.

So ER's point would be valid, if we recognized that many self define atheist not behaving as such are anti-theist instead, that anti-theism is a belief in that it is a form "anti-belief", rather than non-belief and that they can be evangelical in that anti-belief.

A somewhat parallel concept would be calling all Republicans anti-Clintonist or all Democrats anti-Bushist. They of course all don't qualify for the anti- nomenclature (well except maybe for the Democrats who all seem to uniformly hate Bush to some degree).

I would also submit that the underlying psychology and motivations of the anti-theist would be significantly different from those of the atheist.

ER, here's $10, I next at least 6 more balls for this.
 

drlobojo, thank you for a clarifying point, viz.:
"[L]arge numbers of individuals flying under the flag of an atheist are not non-believers but are actually practicing anti-theist, anti-god believers. Certainly the communist would be a prime example of such.

If in fact they were a actual atheist, they wouldn't give a rat's ass about religion, theism ,deism, et. al. at all. They would be inured to any concern of religiosity. If they are not then they aren't an atheist, but rather an anti-theist."
A good example of a real atheist is Duncan Black, also known as "atrios" who runs the blog Eschaton. He has repeatedly stated he doesn't give a fart in a hurricane one way or another about religion - the mark of a true atheist. Those who go out of their way not only to proclaim "there is no God", but "belief in God is a sign of mental illness/irrational behavior/political or social or cultural reaction and must be ended" are ideologues, what drlobojo calls "anti-theists". Thank you for the clarification.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have things to do. TTFN.
 

Hi drlobojo

I believe lee has a point and a flaw.

That’s better than I could have hoped… at least I have one positive mark to my name… need to learn more about this flaw though.

Trouble is, large numbers of individuals flying under the flag of an atheist are not non-believers but are actually practicing anti-theist, anti-god believers.

Erm… any numbers? A large number of people in America believe in alien landings, but they are far from the majority.

I personally have no problem with people believing in a theistic God – I think they are wrong and fooling themselves (just like the theist thinks I am doing to myself) but neither side can confirm their position 100%.

It is the level and ‘root’ of this theistic belief that might cause me concern, but I hope the ones that scare me the most are not the majority and the rest of the believers will ‘control their own’.

If anything I am anti-‘certain religions’ – I’ve heard nothing from anyone on this thread that concerns me greatly since you all question the sources greatly and rejected much as nonsense.

I stick around because I like the discussions about religion.

I hope they are friendly and that no one thinks I am trying to convert anyone (which I think would be impossible anyway, so I don’t understand the "evangelist" comment by ER) I would rather think of it as if I was supporting the next town’s football team or something – we can talk about football but not agree on who is ‘right’ on certain (rather major) points – but we both can learn some stuff along the way why the other supports the team they do.

If in fact they were a actual atheist, they wouldn't give a rat's ass about religion, theism ,deism, et. al. at all. They would be inured to any concern of religiosity.

If they are not then they aren't an atheist, but rather an anti-theist.

That doesn’t seem right… just because I don’t personally believe in God doesn’t mean I should be blind to what some religions can do. By noticing that certain beliefs have a negative effect on a community doesn’t necessarily make me an anti-theist does it?

An antitheist seems to be defined as "One opposed to belief in the existence of a God."

That doesn’t define me very well… I’m against ‘nonsense’ thinking when it leads to danger. For example, I’m not a fan of alternative medicine if it hurts the patient – if it makes them happy though, they can take the placebo all daylong.

If belief in God makes someone a ‘better person’ and happy – then no problem, enjoy.

Non-belief in God’s isn’t for everyone some people like to ‘know’ there is a ‘hidden purpose’ in life – who am I to say they are wrong?

Certainly an atheist can have humanistic concern that religion is creating problems of culture, society, a country etc. but that can be shared by any believer as well, so such is not a product of their atheism but rather of their humanism and would be approach in that manner.

I agree.

So ER's point would be valid, if we recognized that many self define atheist not behaving as such are anti-theist instead, that anti-theism is a belief in that it is a form "anti-belief", rather than non-belief and that they can be evangelical in that anti-belief.

No ER’s point would only be valid IF he did not attack a strawman of atheism, but the root of his concerns (whatever they are).

We might actually agree on many points.

I think anyone who is certain that there is no God is mistaken, and more religious than they care to admit.

All the ‘atheists’ I know are only ‘pretty’ certain that there is no God and are waiting for the positive evidence, bit of a difference. (We can argue about the quality of evidence another time since this isn’t the point) Some may have a greater dislike of ‘God’ and ‘religion’ based on their past experiences… I’ve never been ‘touched’ by God or religion so have no axe to grind.

Lee
 

Billy, you refuse to concede the point that atheist ideologies

Thet are not atheist ideologies, but the ideologies of some atheists. There is a difference.

I would agree to an extent, except that you refuse to concede the possibility that "religious ideology" rather than "Christianity" is the culprit in your counter-claims.


I tought I made it perfectly
clear that it is dogmatism in all the above cases.

I would retort that there is something in atheism that does so - the belief that people who profess one or another religious belief are, by their very existence, an inherent danger to the commonweal

Let me repeat myself. You are talking about dodma here - unless you believe that Lee and myself are somehow predisposed to wanting to kill you because we dont believe in a god.

what is so difficult about conceding that non-believers are also so capable, unless it simply just doesn't compute?

If you actually read carefully, at no point do I deny that atheists have done bad things - my point is that it is not in the name of atheism! No one kills because a non god tells them to. Anyone that thinks christians should die is being dogmatic. I could be wrong, but I dont think Stalin actually went about killing hindus - atheist dont believe in any god - not just yours.
 

Current example of people killing in the name of Christ? That's a no-brainer -- Iraq. I've read quite a few interviews with U.S. enlisted military personnel where they say stuff like "God wants us here." There are fundamentalist Christian ministers praying for our troops to do their duty and kill the Islamofascists.

I would never assume those people are typical of all Christians, but they do exist.

As for the strawman that is Stalin, Hitler often expressed his belief in Christ and said that he knew God wanted the Third Reich to triumph. A power hungry socio-path will use whatever tools he or she has to manipulate the masses. Stalin and Mao used communist ideology, the ayatollahs in Iran are using Islam, and George Bush and the Repugnican right have hooked their wagon to fundamentalist Christianity. Bush is convinced he's doing God's will -- and thanks to current U.S. policies, the body count in Iraq may well exceed that in Cambodia. I'm totally convinced the 100 years from now the current U.S. administration is going to be lumped right in there with Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot. Our supposedly "Christian" nation has incredibly bloody hands.
 

Lee, Re, "You need to learn a little more about our beliefs before you attack shadows and men of straw."

Right back at ya. And that is *another* point of this subversive post. For me to pretend I know enough aboout your beliefs to attack them is ludicrous. Which is why *y'all* are so quickj to attack shoadows and men of straw. You don't know very much about Christianity at all.
 

More anon. Off to church! Then to meet some fam for dinner 100 miles away. Y'all have fun this fine potentially weatherful Sunday!
 

Re, "So ER's point would be valid, if we recognized that many self define atheist not behaving as such are anti-theist instead, that anti-theism is a belief in that it is a form "anti-belief", rather than non-belief and that they can be evangelical in that anti-belief."

Bingo.


Now, are Richard Dawkins and his acolytes atheists, anti-theists, self-woershipers -- or are Dawkins and those who write in a similar vein just out to sell books and ride the waves of doubt, anger and fear sweeping over the West in the wake of 9/11 and our president's son-sequitur in Iraq?
 

Just glanced at Billy's place again. I'd say he see3ms to be against way more than dogma. Just a glance suggested he's against belief in God in general, the Bible specifically -- no matter how one takes it. Called Matthew, Mark, Luke, et. al., as if they were writing news or a journal article, and not apologetics. Assumed that anything that "got wrong" was an example of dishonesty, rather than just maybe being wrong.

Which always makes me wonder: If non-believers hold the holy writings of all faith traditions to their own standards, why are they so quick to scoff at those who scoff at the way they tend to treat the writings of their own writers as beyond reproach?

It's just weird.
 

Atheist, anti-theist, whatever, are no different from "believers" in that they come in all degrees of belief and non-belief. Those who have a cause, the true believers (or should we say true anti-believers) have as many reasons for their position as any evangelical Christian true believer.
On any point of the belief/non-belief scale most people are hoping they have the truth.
Trouble is, we can never be quite sure. So sometimes we bluff, or maybe even lie to ourselves, or others, so as to hold on to some confidence in what we think we know, at least for a little while.
 

And just for the record during the Official State Sanctioned Purges from 1936 up to Stalin's death:
Stalin as a Communist and anti-religionist purged (a.k.a. killed, exterminated, depopulated, etc.)
in addition to the Russian Orthodox Church, these officially listed religions: Roman Catholics, Uniats, Baptists, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Truly Orthodox Christians, Innokentians, Seventh Day Adventist, and Adventists-Reformists (among others) for their violation of the Soviet Law: "On the Separation of Church from the State and the School from the Church".
The records revealed by Kruschev also recorded that two Hindus were also purged. Whether that meant individuals, sects, or temples wasn't clear.

Now who did this?

"Stalin and his Government were not afraid of strengthening religious fanaticism by wounding the feelings of believers as Lenin and Trotsky had been! Religion, they believed, could be liquidated, like the kulak, by a stroke of the pen. The Society of Militant Atheists, under Stalin’s orders, issued on May 15th 1932, the “Five Year Plan of Atheism” – by May 1st 1937, such as the “Plan”, “not a single house of prayer shall remain in the territory of the USSR, and the very concept of God must be banished from the Soviet Union as a survival of the Middle Ages and an instrument for the oppression of the working masses.”!
Say what? The Society of Militant Atheists? “Five Year Plan of Atheism”? Well now, ain't history a bitch.
 

Re, "So ER's point would be valid, if we recognized that many self define atheist not behaving as such are anti-theist instead, that anti-theism is a belief in that it is a form "anti-belief", rather than non-belief and that they can be evangelical in that anti-belief."

I am evangelical. I am positively militant. I may even be assertive (I'll leave that for others to judge).

I have no objection to those labels. I see no problem about being evangelical in support of the wonders of science, of the power of human reason, of the need for humility in the face of what we know about reality, and in the need for people to face this reality, and not go off onto religious ego-trips. That is an indulgence humanity can do without in a potentially dangerous century (prayer is not going to fix global warming, or droughts, and the belief that Jesus is coming back in a short while can be positively inhibiting of such fixes).

I have no objection to being militant about the need to have science taught properly, and not contaminated by religious views (something that is increasingly a problem here in the UK).

I also have no problem with people discussing atheism in the context of Stalin. Stalin believed lots of things. I am sure he believed in aerodynamics (as he flew occasionally). Stalin being an atheist does not make atheism wrong, or even immoral. Stalin's action mean he was a very bad fellow. The problem with religion is people can be very bad indeed and claim divine backing. I'll leave others to decide if that gives the potential for leaders worse than Stalin.

So, use the terms militant and evangelical all you like. I am militant about my desire for another cup of coffee, so I shall stop now.
 

Steve I am militant about my desire for another cup of coffee, so I shall stop now.

Heathen…. It’s TEA you are suppose to drink – milk and two sugars as the good Quetzalcoatl commands, sorry suggests.

Apart from that – well said sir.

Lee
 

Heh. I appreciate seeing the shoe on the other foot, ER. :) The irony here (from statements on both sides) is pretty amusing.

As we see once again, when one critiques atheists, they simply attempt to change their definitions in such a way so as to avoid criticism. And yes, I recognize that's at the very least a significant overgeneralization. But what's good for the goose is good for the gander. And anyway, stereotypes save time. ;)

Killing someone because they don't believe in god(s) is not killing in the name of atheism, according to them. Yet, somehow killing someone because they believe in the wrong God is killing in the name of one's particular religion. Umm...yeah....right.

But the argument regarding who has killed more people in history is a little stupid, particularly (I would think) for atheists, who (I would assume) would look at this more pragmatically. I can only speculate of course, but I'm pretty sure that the folks Stalin killed wouldn't have been any happier or sadder about dying whether he was a Christian or an atheist. And, I don't need to speculate about this, they'd still be just as dead either way.

Eliminate all religion and there will be no killing in the name of God. True enough. But only a fool would believe that would mean there would be no killing (or less killing.) Don't confuse people's *reasons* for killing with their *excuses* for killing.
 

Eliminate all religion and there will be no killing in the name of God. True enough. But only a fool would believe that would mean there would be no killing (or less killing.) Don't confuse people's *reasons* for killing with their *excuses* for killing

Sorry, but the logic of this eludes me.

You are claiming that religion has no influence? So, if people have a given number of reasons to do wrong, and you remove one of them, it is likely to have no effect? What a bizarre argument. So religion is, perhaps, a powerful force for good, but a really ineffective force for bad?

The problem with religion is that it gives people the feeling of divine authority for their decisions. Theism alone (a belief in God) isn't enough to have any effect on belief. The situation with atheism is not symmetrical. You need to have theism combined with some idea that you know what God's mind is in order to believe in divine influence.

People say "Allah says this is right", or "This is God's will". What is an atheist supposed to say? "I prayed to atheism, and I got back the message that I should do this.."?

People may certainly do evil things in the name of atheism. They may do evil things in the name of rich tea biscuits for all I know. The difference from religion is that they can't say "atheism told me to do it". Being told to do things is not part of atheism, just like it isn't an innate part of theism. It can certainly be part of religion.

It is the claim to have a link to universal divine truths that is a real problem. In fact, any dogmatic claim to a link to universal moral truths of any kind is worrying, if the link is not based on reason.
 

"You are claiming that religion has no influence?"

No.

I'm saying people will kill each other regardless of which excuses they use to do it. Take away religion and folks will find other excuses to kill each other. People murder other people because they're psychotic, or greedy, or jealous, etc. not because they're atheists or theists.

If you live in a fantasy world in which you believe removing all religion would actually decrease the amount of killing in the world, then I'm not the only one who believes in Pink Unicorns and Leprechauns. ;)

It's difficult to understand how someone can write, "The problem with religion is that it gives people the feeling of divine authority for their decisions."

and then also write, "People may certainly do evil things in the name of atheism. They may do evil things in the name of rich tea biscuits for all I know."

Why does it matter if someone kills someone because they have a feeling of "divine authority" or not? Murder is wrong, regardless of why the person does it. It isn't somehow more wrong when a Christian does it, nor is the victim somehow more dead.

Whether people kill in the name of religion, atheism, or tea biscuits, their victims are just as dead. Singling out religious folks for additional chastisement simply because they use some excuse you don't believe in seems, well, odd. Is it somehow better if someone commits a murder and doesn't do it because "God told them to"?
 

Why does it matter if someone kills someone because they have a feeling of "divine authority" or not? Murder is wrong, regardless of why the person does it. It isn't somehow more wrong when a Christian does it, nor is the victim somehow more dead.

It isn't somehow more wrong if a Christian does it. What is wrong is that we treat the idea that people believe they have a connection to the divine with any respect.

It is also wrong that we respect institutions that support such thinking.

People have to take responsibility for their beliefs and the consequences of them. That means questioning their religious convictions, along with all others.

Religion is problematic because it can enable people to encourage others to do wicked things and call it holy.

Also, people are subject to persuasion. It is unjustified to believe there is a fixed reserve of wickedness in the world that will inevitably result in bad deeds no matter what.
 

I get it, Theist believers are men, and aTheist non-believers are super men! Thanks Fred.

One's motivation is God's will, and the other is obviously inner directed without outside motivation.

None of those genetic survival behaviors such as territorial imperative, fear of strangers, unknown agents, and causality do not apply to the aTheist's behaviors, as they do to Theist who react to them as ...God.
 

"Religion is problematic because it can enable people to encourage others to do wicked things and call it holy."

Meh. Nationalism is problematic because it can enable people to encourage others to do wicked things and call it patriotism. But I doubt we'll be getting rid of Nation-States any time soon. Soccer is problematic because it can enable people to encourage others to do wicked things and call it team spirit. But I doubt we'll be getting rid of soccer anytime soon either. LOL

"It is unjustified to believe there is a fixed reserve of wickedness in the world that will inevitably result in bad deeds no matter what."

I think people are people regardless of their beliefs.

Unjustified? So you have a belief that without Christianity, for example, there would be less killing? Rather than just calling my belief "unjustified", perhaps you can actually add something to the discussion by producing some real evidence for your belief that eliminating religion makes people less inclined to wicked deeds? For my part, my "unjustified" belief is based on the the fact that there was plenty of killing in the world before the birth of Christianity 2000 years ago, and I'm pretty sure there is plenty of killing in the world today, even in countries that are only marginally Christian. Just some fact that those of us in the reason business like to call "evidence." ;)

If "people are subject to persuasion" then they can be persuaded to do all sorts of wicked things, for any number of reasons other than religious ones, including violence against religion. Unless you think perhaps that there is something magical about atheism and people would somehow be impervious to being convinced they should kill religious folk just for being religious?

Call me cynical, but I don't think it would be that hard to do. History shows that people will kill over far less.
 

Unless you think perhaps that there is something magical about atheism and people would somehow be impervious to being convinced they should kill religious folk just for being religious?

There is nothing magical about atheism. However, in some societies atheism is a consequence of not being quite so gullible as many religious people. It is a sign of not taking for granted matters of tradition and culture, especially when it comes to matters of reality and morality.

Such an independence of mind is a good sign.

If people kill over far less, then how much more dangerous it must be for them to throw aside rationality, and allow their minds to be manipulated by preachers. Thank you for helping me make my case.

I good analogy is that religion is like thinking without a seatbelt. Probably does not have much consequence for 99% of people, but when it does, it certainly does.

And, whenever you hear someone say "faith", try substituting "gullibility". See how it sounds. Should the USA have someone with strong gullibility as president?
 

Meh. Nationalism is problematic because it can enable people to encourage others to do wicked things and call it patriotism. But I doubt we'll be getting rid of Nation-States any time soon. Soccer is problematic because it can enable people to encourage others to do wicked things and call it team spirit. But I doubt we'll be getting rid of soccer anytime soon either. LOL

Nationalism for nationalisms sake is very much a problem in our world. Just because we won't be getting rid of it does not make it less of a problem, or religion less of a problem.

There is also the difference with religion that people can be persuaded to do nasty things based on nationalism. But at least most of them still think it is nasty. It takes religion to convince people that doing nasty things is holy, and will grant rewards in the afterlife.
 

Steve, didn't you say you grew up Catholic? (Maybe it was another Steve; if so, ignore the following).

So, you believed in the Big Santa Claus in the Sky. And when he didn't bring you the presents you asked for, you got pissed. And you're still pissed at the myth you were duped into believing, and you're pissed at everyone who still believes. Looks like you're unreasonably projecting your own previous unthinking gullibility onto every else in the world who is a person of faith, no matter how thoughtful, and self-examining, and self-critical -- you assume that everyone is as shallow and gullible as you were? Is that about it?

The key word up there is "unreasonably." Don't look now, but your present god, Reason, is probably way pissed at you.
 

"It takes religion to convince people that doing nasty things is holy, and will grant rewards in the afterlife."

Nah. Two words: Stanley Milgram. One can convince people to do nearly anything, even in the name of "science."

"Just because we won't be getting rid of it does not make it less of a problem, or religion less of a problem."

And yet the evangelical atheist types are not arguing against nation-states. Interesting. If it is true that it is also as much of a problem as religion, then it seems pretty irrational for you to focus so exclusively on religion. You've given up religion in your life, have you also given up citizenship?

"There is also the difference with religion that people can be persuaded to do nasty things based on nationalism. But at least most of them still think it is nasty. It takes religion to convince people that doing nasty things is holy, and will grant rewards in the afterlife."

That could only be written by someone who doesn't live in the United States. I'd say our history, and by history I mean very, very recent history over say the last 8 years clearly shows you have no idea what you're talking about regarding nationalism and patriotism. Or, I guess to be more charitable, at the very least our perspectives on those issues are wildly different given our different locations.

Still waiting, by the way, for evidence that my belief that eliminating religion would reduce the violence of the human race is "unfounded."
 

Nah. Two words: Stanley Milgram. One can convince people to do nearly anything, even in the name of "science."

Precisely. That is why celebrating gullibility - the ability to be convinced by just about anything - is to be deplored. That is why religion is troubling.

Yet again, you help make my case.

I'd say our history, and by history I mean very, very recent history over say the last 8 years clearly shows you have no idea what you're talking about regarding nationalism and patriotism.

You are talking to somehow who lives on a continent that has had millenia of war based on nationalism.

It is worth nothing that Bush said God told him to go to war...

Still waiting, by the way, for evidence that my belief that eliminating religion would reduce the violence of the human race is "unfounded."

I believe what people say when they give their motivations. To not believe that you have to presumably have researched their lives in detail or be psychic.
 

"Yet again, you help make my case."

Nope, as again, you've failed to demonstrate why those same gullible people would be any less gullible without religion and/or why atheists are less prone to mindlessly obeying authority figures. Just substituting one authority figure for another doesn't make one any more rational.

"It is worth nothing that Bush said God told him to go to war..."

And those who haven't used such an excuse were any better?

"I believe what people say when they give their motivations."

Heh. A belief, eh? Without evidence? So much for your definition of "unfounded." Thanks for making my case. LOL

"To not believe that you have to presumably have researched their lives in detail or be psychic."

Sort of like assertions that everyone who has beliefs that run counter to yours are simply "gullible", eh? ;)
 

Nope, as again, you've failed to demonstrate why those same gullible people would be any less gullible without religion and/or why atheists are less prone to mindlessly obeying authority figures. Just substituting one authority figure for another doesn't make one any more rational.

I have already covered this. But I shall patiently do this again.

People are succeptible to marketing. Less marketing, and they will be less manipulated. Religion is very good at marketing ideas. The ideas it markets is that people can get divine support for their beliefs.

You seem to be pushing the bizarre opinion that people are immutable. There is a fixed amount of nastiness in the world, and there is a queue of equally effective manipulators all waiting to persuade people to do bad things. I have to say that this is both a very bleak and very strange view of the world. You assume that if one authority figure (the preacher) steps out the way, there is another waiting in line.

And those who haven't used such an excuse were any better?

No, but cutting back on excuses is good.

Heh. A belief, eh? Without evidence? So much for your definition of "unfounded." Thanks for making my case. LOL

Erm no. I am afraid yours is the belief without evidence. You take what people say is their motivations, and you hand-wave it away saying you know better.

Sort of like assertions that everyone who has beliefs that run counter to yours are simply "gullible", eh? ;)

Woah! Huge straw man there.

I said no such thing. All I said was that religion encourages gullibility. That is self-evident, because it praises faith (belief without evidence) as a virtue.
 

"You seem to be pushing the bizarre opinion that people are immutable."

Immutable? No. Predictable? Yes.

"There is a fixed amount of nastiness in the world, and there is a queue of equally effective manipulators all waiting to persuade people to do bad things."

I wouldn't say "fixed". As the number of people increases, I'd say that the potential for nastiness increases. And yes, I do think that if you removed one "manipulator" then at least one more would pop up to take its place, particularly if there's money to be made. Again, the evidence for my opinion is that there are plenty of things out there manipulating people that have nothing whatsoever to do with religion. We see new manipulators popping up all the time: Pharmaceutical commercials, political correctness, Fox News, etc. I see no reason why these other "manipulators" would disappear if religion disappeared, nor do I see any reason to believe that the gullible hoards would suddenly become less susceptible to manipulation if you took away their religion.

Thinking that without religion, people would all suddenly become better, more rational, more peaceful...well, that sounds pretty gullible to me. Imagine if there were a group of people committed to selling the notion that the world could be a better place, based on the completely unfounded belief that eliminating religion would make everyone a better person. I bet their leaders could spend all sorts of time getting famous on TV. I bet they could make a lot of money on books. LOL

"No, but cutting back on excuses is good."

Good? If it doesn't actually reduce the number of wars, I'd say your definition of "good" is a bit problematic ... at least for the dead and wounded. "Ack! I died for oil/land/political ideology/food!! Thank not-god I didn't die in a religious war!! Ack."

"You take what people say is their motivations, and you hand-wave it away saying you know better."

Pot, meet kettle. LOL

"I said no such thing. All I said was that religion encourages gullibility. That is self-evident, because it praises faith (belief without evidence) as a virtue."

Self-evident only if faith and gullibility were actually synonyms. I suppose if I simply redefine "reason" as gullibility I get to make the same argument? Oh wait, I'm sure that's different because only people who agree with you get to redefine terms in those sorts of ways, eh?

BTW, religion also praises love for one's neighbor as a virtue, not stealing as a virtue, not murdering as a virtue. Shame on it!
 

Self-evident only if faith and gullibility were actually synonyms. I suppose if I simply redefine "reason" as gullibility I get to make the same argument? Oh wait, I'm sure that's different because only people who agree with you get to redefine terms in those sorts of ways, eh?

I am not the one defining faith as gullibility. The religious are. Examples are the Catholic Church getting its scholars to swear an oath to not let reason conflict with dogma. Or Martin Luther calling reason the Devil's Whore.

I am afraid I am not the one saying that religion says "just believe what we tell you" is a good thing. Religion shouts it loudly enough by itself.

Religion has to put up this "don't question" barriers around it to survive in the modern world. Such barriers include orders from religious leaders and the fortunately decreasing taboo against criticising it. However, now we have religious apologists trying to hand-wave away its problems and believers telling non-believers that they are just as bad as them in terms of faith. So it goes.

BTW, religion also praises love for one's neighbor as a virtue, not stealing as a virtue, not murdering as a virtue. Shame on it!

You need to get this right. It praises love for one's neighbour, unless they are gay. It praises not stealing unless it is from infidels. It praises not murdering unless you are dealing with an apostate.

These are all different religions, of course. But that is the point. Religion can be really comforting. It can be a blank page onto which you write down whatever morality you like, and have it declared divine. How convenient!
 

"I am not the one defining faith as gullibility. The religious are. Examples are the Catholic Church getting its scholars to swear an oath to not let reason conflict with dogma. Or Martin Luther calling reason the Devil's Whore."

Ah well, since I'm neither Catholic nor Lutheran I've got nothing to worry about. (FYI, Luther is still dead.)

"Religion has to put up this "don't question" barriers around it to survive in the modern world."

You should stop by here more often. All we've got are questions.

"However, now we have religious apologists trying to hand-wave away its problems and believers telling non-believers that they are just as bad as them in terms of faith."

As for the first, I haven't seen any of it. As for the second, pointing out the obvious is hardly our fault. One would think that the less gullible, more reasonable non-believers would also be more self-critical of their own unfounded beliefs, and would welcome someone pointing out where their beliefs are just as irrational as ours. It's irrational to dispute well-founded criticism, isn't it?

"You need to get this right. It praises love for one's neighbour, unless they are gay. It praises not stealing unless it is from infidels. It praises not murdering unless you are dealing with an apostate."

No, it doesn't. No it doesn't. And... no it doesn't.
People don't need religion in order to be jerks. Do you honestly think Pat Robertson would be running his local chapter of PFLAG if he weren't a Christian? Puh-lease.

(And clearly atheists are so tolerant. LOL. Love your neighbor, unless he's religious, perhaps?)

"Religion can be really comforting. It can be a blank page onto which you write down whatever morality you like, and have it declared divine. How convenient!"

Hmm...and here you just said, "I believe what people say when they give their motivations. To not believe that you have to presumably have researched their lives in detail or be psychic."

So which is it? You've researched their lives in detail, or are you just psychic?
 

You should stop by here more often. All we've got are questions.

And some answers. Like, it is OK to call me militant :)

No, it doesn't. No it doesn't. And... no it doesn't.
People don't need religion in order to be jerks. Do you honestly think Pat Robertson would be running his local chapter of PFLAG if he weren't a Christian? Puh-lease.

Yes it does, yes it does, yes it does. People decide what sort of jerks they want to be, and then pick the appropriate way to end up believing that that is what God wants too.

So which is it? You've researched their lives in detail, or are you just psychic?

I listen to what people actually say is justified by their religion. If they say that Allah wants them to kill apostates, I believe that this is what they believe. If some people don't like the dogma of one religion, and so they move to another, that is doing precisely what I claimed: they don't get some universal truths given to them by religion - they decide what the truths are, and then seek out those who claim that God agrees with them. A lot of that happens.

It is useful to actually read what people write and listen to what they say about their beliefs. It can be quite shocking.

People don't need religion to be jerks. But their chosen religion sure doesn't help by telling them that being jerks is holy.

For goodness sake, there are enough jerks around without religion encouraging them.
 

SZ asked: "It is unjustified to believe there is a fixed reserve of wickedness in the world that will inevitably result in bad deeds no matter what."

Absolutely. If there were a "fixed reserve of wickedness" that would mean that there was a potential to use it up or run out of it. Can't see that possibility. So it must be being replenished, say at the same rate at the number of human births.
 

"People decide what sort of jerks they want to be, and then pick the appropriate way to end up believing that that is what God wants too."

If what you mean is that people are jerks and use any number of excuses to rationalize their jerkiness, including but not limited to religion, then I'd agree with you, as that's what I've been saying here all along. But that hardly makes religion, which you are against, any worse than national citizenship or soccer team loyalty.

And again, writing this: "But their chosen religion sure doesn't help by telling them that being jerks is holy." followed by this "For goodness sake, there are enough jerks around without religion encouraging them." simply sounds like the point I've been making. People would be no different if we got rid of religion entirely. They'd find plenty of other reasons to rationalize their jerkiness.

And again, saying that "if some people don't like the dogma of one religion, and so they move to another, that is doing precisely what I claimed: they don't get some universal truths given to them by religion - they decide what the truths are, and then seek out those who claim that God agrees with them." and yet saying that you respect their beliefs seems pretty contradictory. Unless you've personally met people who actually say, "Well, my prior religion didn't agree with my preconceived biases, so I picked another one." I don't think I've ever heard anyone ever say that.

Though if, as you suggest, people can so easily change one dogma for another, I'm baffled as to why you wouldn't believe that, if we got rid of all religion in the world, they wouldn't just find some other "irrational" belief, which again is what I've been saying all along.
 

Unless you've personally met people who actually say, "Well, my prior religion didn't agree with my preconceived biases, so I picked another one." I don't think I've ever heard anyone ever say that.

I have. There have been public examples. One was the British MP Anne Widdecombe who changed from Anglican to Catholic over her bias against women priests. There were thousands who followed her. There have been major complaints about the direction of the Anglican church regarding the attitude to homosexuals, with threats of splitting the community.

People certainly do pick and change religions to suit their biases. This is well documented.

Though if, as you suggest, people can so easily change one dogma for another, I'm baffled as to why you wouldn't believe that, if we got rid of all religion in the world, they wouldn't just find some other "irrational" belief, which again is what I've been saying all along.

What matters is how you reduce religious influence. It is clear that generally increasing education in general, and specifically scientific education, certaintly helps. People also need to be shown that all beliefs need to be subject to a high standard of evidence if they are allowed to affect public policy. No more preachers proclaiming that something is "against God's will".
 

WOW - it's the Alan and Steve show.

Great stuff, but it will take me most of the day to catch up... hope I have something good to say after all this.

Probably not.

Lee
 

You leave a thread alone for a little while and it just goes all over the place. . .

Alan and Steve Zara's exchange seems to cover familiar territory. It all seems to boil down to how one perceives human beings acting. Do we act, then use whatever tools are handy to justify our actions, or do our beliefs exist as a catalyst for our actions? Or do some people do one, and some another, or do some people act one way at some times? These questions all have examples to give them qualified positive answers. The idea, however, that eliminating one or another ubiquitous human phenomenon will somehow end human suffering, war, and degradation is not only demonstrably untrue, it is self-refuting and just plain silly on its face.

I shall take the middle term - self-refuting - first. In order to eliminate "religion" as a factor in human life, we would need to eliminate not just the ideological substructure - all the dogma and ritual, the Holy books and liturgy - but the actual human beings who profess various religious beliefs. Quite simply put, we would need to wage genocidal war against the religious faithful in order to eliminate religious belief as a factor in human history. Now, if you believe there is something inherently wrong with religious belief, indeed something dangerous to the on-going project of human living, then by all means, at least be honest enough to say that a crusaded against religious believers is necessary in order to make the world safe for real peace.

As for the other terms, if you reject the self-refuting argument (as I am quite sure most would), the argument that it is just silly suffices to show how absurd a position this is. There are as many variants of "religion" as there are groups of people who gather and profess such beliefs. Eliminating and all of them would be impossible (short of the first modifier, examined above). Does this mean there are groups of people who are immune to reason, to rational discourse, to enlightened self-interest? Only as defined by their intellectual betters, it would seem.

As for demonstrably untrue, officially secular, even atheist, nations, from the United States to the People's Republic of China, have waged aggressive war for all sorts of reasons that have little to do with religion. So, how do we deal with these examples? Dismiss them out of hand as not part of the potential pool of examples needed to prove one's point? That's highly unscientific, if you ask me, eliminating counter-examples because they do not support your thesis.

Since "reason", and "rationality" have been used to justify horrid crimes, from the Terror to the Kampuchean horror of the 1970's, it seems to me to rely solely on "reason" as some kind of catch-all savior of the human race is to ignore the reality that human beings are quite able and willing to find any tool at hand to kill, intellectual and otherwise.
 

The idea, however, that eliminating one or another ubiquitous human phenomenon will somehow end human suffering, war, and degradation is not only demonstrably untrue, it is self-refuting and just plain silly on its face.

It is plain silly. That is why no-one claims it. It is just that religion is one of the most pressing failings of humanity right now. For example, there are major ongoing battles in the most powerful country in the world about whether or not Evolutionary theory should be taught to children. That is not a situation that is healthy for the USA, or the world in general.

Now, if you believe there is something inherently wrong with religious belief, indeed something dangerous to the on-going project of human living, then by all means, at least be honest enough to say that a crusaded against religious believers is necessary in order to make the world safe for real peace.

That isn't honest. That is absurd. The point about science and reason is to change minds by discussion and debate.

Does this mean there are groups of people who are immune to reason, to rational discourse, to enlightened self-interest? Only as defined by their intellectual betters, it would seem.

That is nonsense. In all societies where educational standards are higher, the trend is for religious beliefs to decline. The answer is education. I have a great deal of respect for people, and people will respond to the opportunity to find out about reality and their position in it.

As for demonstrably untrue, officially secular, even atheist, nations, from the United States to the People's Republic of China, have waged aggressive war for all sorts of reasons that have little to do with religion. So, how do we deal with these examples? Dismiss them out of hand as not part of the potential pool of examples needed to prove one's point? That's highly unscientific, if you ask me, eliminating counter-examples because they do not support your thesis.

Yet again this rather silly straw man. No-one claims that religion is responsible for all evils or for all wars. However, how many times have people been encouraged to march into battle with the cry "God is with us"?

We deal with all examples by looking at them in detail and finding out the motivations. That does not mean that a single counter-example of a secular society going to war rules out the problem with religious influence. There is also the issue I raised earlier of how one could arrive at a justification for war on the basis of being secular. However, there are plenty of examples of conflicts that have arisen on the basis of religion. The partitioning of India and the current Indian/Pakistani conflicts are a clear example.

This isn't about rejecting counter-examples. I am asking a serious question about motivations. People don't have conversations with "atheism" and receive back instructions to go to war. Atheism alone (like theism alone) is not supportive of anything.

One has to show that lack of belief in a God or Gods leads to a moral and ethical position that encourages such hostile acts.

Since "reason", and "rationality" have been used to justify horrid crimes, from the Terror to the Kampuchean horror of the 1970's, it seems to me to rely solely on "reason" as some kind of catch-all savior of the human race is to ignore the reality that human beings are quite able and willing to find any tool at hand to kill, intellectual and otherwise.

This has been covered in some detail in discussions here. The issue isn't to rely solely on reason as a catch-all savior. It is to attempt to reduce the influence of organisations that promote unreason, and that allow people's prejudices to be supported by supernatural authority. That is an unhealthy situation.

It is one thing to say that people are free to make decisions to do bad things (and suffer the consequences), it is quite another to consider admirable or acceptable international institutions that actively encourage irrationality and that people can find support from the creator of the universe for their morality.
 

Steve, this is an argument I have had many, many times before. I address your specific points, and when I do, you say that you never said what I am claiming you said. As for the whole "reason/unreason" business - please define. This isn't pedantry but a way to make sure we're talking about the same things here.

As for changing people's minds - I await an example where either individuals or groups have ever been convinced by an appeal to rational argumentation. I'm just glad I never held my breath, because I'd have been dead long ago.

Ah, well, I thought I'd try. As is usual for these kinds of things, the opponents continually move the goal posts when their arguments are addressed, just to show how clever they are. 'Twas ever thus.
 

Steve, this is an argument I have had many, many times before.

I have as well. The same points are repeatedly raised. It can get wearying.

I address your specific points, and when I do, you say that you never said what I am claiming you said.

Unfortunately you didn't address specific points. You addressed very familiar straw men arguments - that us "fundamentalist atheists" claim that religion is a primary source of conflicts, that people will be vastly better if religion is removed from the world.

I have lost count of how many times I have encountered these specific straw men. They seem to be a primary defence against claims of religions being harmful.

As for the whole "reason/unreason" business - please define. This isn't pedantry but a way to make sure we're talking about the same things here.

I can do no better than quote someone posting on RD.net as Dr. Benway many months ago:

1. Confidence. It's not ok to assume that one's uncorroborated personal revelation from God is actually and undoubtedly from God. The brain plays a few tricks on all of us.

2. Egocentrism. Just because it seems self-evident to you that ham is forbidden by God desn't mean everyone has the same "inner knowing" or intuition.

3. Sock puppetry: your God, like your appendix, your farts, or your dreams at night, is actually a part of yourself. Saying "I humbly submit to the Lord" is like saying, "I humbly submit to a part of myself," which, frankly, is the opposite of humility.

4. Blank checks: the ineffable unknowable has to stay that way. No fair getting specific or concrete about the mind of God at a later date.

If the religious stick to those rules, we have hope of promoting reason in a society.

Ah, well, I thought I'd try. As is usual for these kinds of things, the opponents continually move the goal posts when their arguments are addressed, just to show how clever they are. 'Twas ever thus.

I am afraid I agree. The best example is "that isn't my version of religion" when examples are given of men of faith promoting hateful views.

Mind you, I have had an interesting new one recently: "That isn't my version of the Trinity".

As for changing people's minds - I await an example where either individuals or groups have ever been convinced by an appeal to rational argumentation.

I have personally had experience of such mind-changing. It is quite something to see. Gentle but firm argument can be quite convincing to some people. The quality of the arguments has to be good, as there is considerable goalpost-moving in religious circles. The trick is to get well-defined agreement on terms.
 

So many posts, where to begin (again)... I want to dig up some ‘history’ first written by ER

I wrote: "You need to learn a little more about our beliefs before you attack shadows and men of straw."

ER Right back at ya. And that is *another* point of this subversive post. For me to pretend I know enough aboout your beliefs to attack them is ludicrous. Which is why *y'all* are so quickj to attack shoadows and men of straw. You don't know very much about Christianity at all.

Do I stop at one strawman argument, or do I try and learn more of what you actually believe and question your replies?

When we know little about the a person’s belief, then we will probably be attacking straw at first - especially when so few Christians actually agree, but hopefully, through good discussions, the straw is removed and we get to the bones of the argument.

Maybe, Maybe not. I do try at least.

So I’m happy that you posted this thread to ‘show a mirror’ at some debates. General ‘bible attacks’ for many will be just strawman attacks since the old line of ‘that isn’t my God you are talking about’ will always come up.

Yet I feel at least when discussions begin the strawman arguments decrease when discussing one or one with someone (though I admit to getting mixed up with who believes what on this blog – you guys do not agree on many points as you know.)

So in short, now I understand your motives I’m not offended but I hope you try and question me and others more so try and attack the actually beliefs rather than some straw.

If you continue with the ‘one argument fits all’ you will be doing what you hate about the ‘atheists’.

I’m sorry to say that this thread is going down that path, whether intentionally or not - a common ‘theme’ is appearing.

Summary?

Who mentioned that ‘all religion should be banned, removed or outlawed’ or that all religion should be eliminated?

I missed that one?
Challenged and question religion yes, but not to eliminate

Who said non-believers cannot kill people and think it is a good idea?

I’m sure there are nasty people being born everyday – I blame their parents of course, but hope that the society and the education system can help them. What we don’t want to do is gave these nasty people a reason to be nasty – that would be stupid

Who said there are not many things in the world that make people do bad things – drugs, alcohol, patriotism or tribalism for example?

No not me... does that mean we should not try and reduce the problem by at first investigating the causes and effects of these ‘bad things’?

And lastly, Who is arguing that ‘atheism’ is FOR anything?

The classic strawman attack – it is what people believe IN that should be questioned.

So start asking why someone doesn’t believe in something, but where do you stop? - “So, why do you not believe in fairies, the Loch Ness monster, Zeus, Thor etc etc”

Anyway... just an observation.

Lee
 

SZ quoted:
"1. Confidence. It's not ok to assume that one's uncorroborated personal revelation from God is actually and undoubtedly from God. The brain plays a few tricks on all of us.
2. Egocentrism. Just because it seems self-evident to you that ham is forbidden by God desn't mean everyone has the same "inner knowing" or intuition.
3. Sock puppetry: your God, like your appendix, your farts, or your dreams at night, is actually a part of yourself. Saying "I humbly submit to the Lord" is like saying, "I humbly submit to a part of myself," which, frankly, is the opposite of humility.
4. Blank checks: the ineffable unknowable has to stay that way. No fair getting specific or concrete about the mind of God at a later date.
If the religious stick to those rules, we have hope of promoting reason in a society."

Four great echoes of abiding priciples.
Those are four excellent points of Gnosticism in the first century A.D.. Although a little en-elegant, I for one, can't disagree with any of them. Of course orthodoxy can't stick to those concepts, regardless of which religion or philosophy it represents otherwise it wouldn't be orthodoxy.
But I disagree with the premise that somehow these would lead to "reason". They didn't the first time around. After about two hundred more years even the Gnostics had added trash to their simple truth and split into so many factions that we still don't know how many they were, and the orthodox took over completely.
Faith may be able to sustain itself in the rarefied atmosphere that these principles require, but religion can not. Human organizations require a more earthly substance.
 

You're too late! Ford Motor Company got to it first!

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/05/what_if_they_wouldnt_sell_cars.php

Those darn innovators at Ford, first in mass-production, leaders in company-sponsored Anti-semitism...and now taking the lead in atheist-baiting.
 

"I would add that the Third Reich was officially hostile to Christianity, even as it was embraced by millions of German Christians.
"

Actually, this isn't true, if you read Mein Kampf, you will see Hitler's constant and consistant referance to religion to justify what he was doing, and in particular to the works of Martian Luther, who he admired greatly and whose works he used as propoganda.

Hitler may have had a warped view of religion, but he insisted he was doing God's work, and a majority of the Christian nation agreed with him, or at least went along.

If you also read the biographies of people of that time (Hansi: the girl who loved the Swastika Comes to mind, you will see that calls to religion and traditional morality were the largest part of Hitler's appeal to people, and allowed him to come to power.)
 

drlobojo-

You are correct. Those are far more about constraining the effects of faith than about reason.

But I think that is what has to be achieved first....
 

Steve, many of your comments appear to be similar in style to the religious dogma that you wish to discredit. It shows clearly that an atheist believes in something.

I do like one statement:

"One has to show that lack of belief in a God or Gods leads to a moral and ethical position that encourages such hostile acts."

I would counter with: One has to show that a belief in a God or Gods leads to a moral and ethical position that encourages such hostile acts.

You state that atheism cannot provide such a position because there is no belief in a god telling one to to such things. But there can be belief in other, non-God related, tenets. You have provided such beliefs in your own discourse. History has provided ample examples of atheistic groups' and individuals' anti-theistic beliefs. Where do these beliefs come from? The human mind. One, of course, sculpted by genes, society, and experience, but the mind nonetheless. Some of these beliefs do end up being used as tools by individuals or groups as rationale for hostile acts.

Where do such beliefs come from in the religious?
 

Steve, many of your comments appear to be similar in style to the religious dogma that you wish to discredit. It shows clearly that an atheist believes in something.

You are missing the point. I don't believe in such things because I am an atheist, I believe in them because I am a rationalist and a materialist, and a skeptic. Atheism is a consequence of those, not a cause. Getting these things the wrong way round is a common mistake.

However, I believe things with a passion, but I honestly don't believe I hold these beloefs dogmatically. Part of the delights of the scientific approach is to argue a position with vigour, and then to take joy in finding out you are wrong.

I would counter with: One has to show that a belief in a God or Gods leads to a moral and ethical position that encourages such hostile acts.

I have already covered this matter. A belief in a God or Gods does not necessarily lead to a moral and ethical position that encourages such hostile acts. It is logically possible to be a sort of don't-care-less theist, who believes in Gods, but also believes they are of no consequence. Some versions of Buddhism are like this.

History has provided ample examples of atheistic groups' and individuals' anti-theistic beliefs.

It is a BIG mistake to confuse atheism with anti-theism. That is as bad as to say that religious people are necessarily anti-atheist. I am not necessarily anti-theism (although I believe it is a mistaken point of view). I am against religion - the baggage that is added to theism that actively encourages dogmatic beliefs to arise from it, such as the ability to know what God wants and that his views match yours. People can believe what they like as far as I am concerned, as long as they don't want to say, in the context of public discussions: "I know what God wants".

Some of these beliefs do end up being used as tools by individuals or groups as rationale for hostile acts.

Where do such beliefs come from in the religious?

Of course. All people can have such beliefs. The Big Thing about religion is the way such beliefs can be considered holy.

Religion is particularly bad because it can work like this:

1. Get raised as religious, so believe in God.
2. Get told that inner convictions come from God, and personal revelation is a way of finding truth.
3. Have inner convictions of a fact, and then believe that you have had a revelation from God about it.
4. Search until you find scripture, or a religious group, that agrees with you.

I have given examples of this in action. It can happen for things as relatively mild as the ordination of women, or as drastic as the murder of authors or apostates.

Religion is the ultimate backing for views. It can say that your view is approved of by the Creator, and you will get eternally rewarded for such views. As we can see, religion can be used to provide such ultimate backing for just about any views you like.

This is why we have to stop people using "it's God's will" as a justification when things are publically discussed. Presumably, if it is God's will, he can provide some rational basis for things that a believer can provide.

Religion is, of course, not the only justification for hostile acts or views. It can also be used as a justification for rather wonderful acts or views. The problem is that it isn't a sound basis for justifying any kind of views. As described above, it is unwitting sock-puppetry: "What God thinks" is actually "what I think". When people start to realise that, the world could be a significantly better place.
 

If you "believe things with a passion, but I honestly don't believe I hold these beloefs dogmatically. Part of the delights of the scientific approach is to argue a position with vigour, and then to take joy in finding out you are wrong."

and one of these non-dogmatically held beliefs is: "When people start to realise that, the world could be a significantly better place."

then one would think, after being asked for actual evidence for that position about half a dozen times you'd be able to present quite a list. Yet so far ... nothing.

And again this, "Have inner convictions of a fact, and then believe that you have had a revelation from God about it.") is yet one more example that you do not, in fact, "...believe what people say when they give their motivations."
 

then one would think, after being asked for actual evidence for that position about half a dozen times you'd be able to present quite a list. Yet so far ... nothing.

The first bit evidence for this has been a reasoned argument: that people can be targetted by marketing, and marketing of delusion will be effective.

However, if you want practical evidence, there is plenty. If you look at countries with reduced religiosity in the Western World, they also have increased education, and reduced crime rates.

Also, I presume you agree that not having people campaign for creationism to be taught in schools would be a good thing, and that creationism is a religious belief? If you could list any major non-religious groups who wish to influence science education to the same degree, I would be interested.

I am actually encouraged that you found so little in my recent post to disagree with. We seem to be making progress.
 

And again this, "Have inner convictions of a fact, and then believe that you have had a revelation from God about it.") is yet one more example that you do not, in fact, "...believe what people say when they give their motivations."

On the contrary. I am saying precisely what they have said about their motivations for selecting scripture and changing denominations. I have already given you the example of the issues of women priests.

It is you who wish to hand-wave away what people actually say in your puzzling efforts to make religion seem innocuous.
 

Here you are, hand-waving away all religious experience by simply redefining the word "faith" as "gullibility" and you have a problem because I don't think your examples are representative? LOL Ironic.

Fine, I enjoy your game. Demonstrate, using evidence, that the examples of the women you gave are representative of all theists. Thanks. In fact, give evidence that any examples you've given so far are actually representative of all theists. A peer reviewed study would be nice, since we can, I'm sure, both agree on that sort of evidence.

"If you look at countries with reduced religiosity in the Western World, they also have increased education, and reduced crime rates."

We scientists have a saying, "Correlation does not equal causation." Economic factors/differences can explain all the same observations just as easily. If other countries spent as much as we do on a craptacular health care system maybe they wouldn't have as much money for advanced education for their populace. Or, if we weren't spending bazillions on our defense budget, perhaps we'd have more money for free education, etc. See? I can come up with any number of theories that explain the same evidence, and mine have the benefit of actually making sense.

"Also, I presume you agree that not having people campaign for creationism to be taught in schools would be a good thing, and that creationism is a religious belief?"

Creationism is indeed a religious belief. So? Gee, you got me there! LOL But, I am not interested in government censorship over what should be taught in the schools. Creationism is not a science, obviously, but I'd have no problem with it being discussed in a Current Events class, a World Religions class, etc. Heck, I'd even have no problem with it being discussed in a science course, to examine why it does not fit the definition of a scientific theory.

"I am actually encouraged that you found so little in my recent post to disagree with. We seem to be making progress."

Nah, just losing interest in playing your game with its ever changing definitions (faith=gullibility), constantly moving goal posts, and refusal to present actual evidence for your so-called reasoned beliefs so I just picked the low hanging fruit. LOL This is a well-worn track.
 

"It is you who wish to hand-wave away what people actually say in your puzzling efforts to make religion seem innocuous."

I've been attempting no such thing. (But then, perhaps you know my motivations better than I? LOL) Perhaps that is the source of your confusion.
 

It is tiresome indeed to see the goalpost-shifting of the defenders of religion, and the game-playing.

Every single point you have asked for evidence to support I have given it.

In return you have given nothing.

Nothing to support your weird view that there is a constant supply of nastiness in humanity, and if religion goes, people will be equally unhinged in different ways.

If you think the path is well-worn, then isn't it time you stopped marching along it?
 

I've been attempting no such thing.

Of course you have. You have assumed to know what people's motivations are for commiting evil acts. They say "God told me". You say they were not inspired by religion.
 

Once again, Steve, I can't help but notice how you fail to address the points I made that refute yours. You say religion makes life worse in western countries. I point out there are all sorts of other ways to explain your evidence. Silence from you on that point. Way earlier on you suggested that religion causes homophobia. I asked if you genuinely thought that, without religion, Pat Robertson would be founding a chapter of PFLAG any time soon. Silence from you on that. I asked for evidence that your examples of religious folk I've never heard of are actually representative of all (or let's say a majority of) theists. Silence from you on that. Etc., etc., etc.

"Nothing to support your weird view that there is a constant supply of nastiness in humanity, and if religion goes, people will be equally unhinged in different ways."

Well, it is your claim that getting rid of religion would make the world better. Seems to me like you should have the evidence. I've already given mine. There've been lots of comments, perhaps you missed them. I particularly liked drlobojo's response. Just wondering, we have predictions on when the world's oil supply is going to run out. Do we have similar predictions about the world's supply of nasty?

Clearly given your MO here calling people "weird", "gullible", given that you've been insulting when commenting here before, we've got nothing to worry about. Odd that your responses would get so nasty, given you don't have a God to tell you to be so. LOL
 

"I've been attempting no such thing.

Of course you have. You have assumed to know what people's motivations are for commiting evil acts. They say "God told me". You say they were not inspired by religion."

Ouch...ouch...ouch. Irony headache.

You tell me you take people at their word, and now you say you know better than I what my motivations are? ROFL. Excellent. Truly you are a powerful psychic!
 

"You are missing the point. I don't believe in such things because I am an atheist, I believe in them because I am a rationalist and a materialist, and a skeptic. Atheism is a consequence of those, not a cause. Getting these things the wrong way round is a common mistake."

I do not think that anyone believes in anything on the basis of their title. Being an atheist has no a priori mandate. Neither does being a member of any religion. You believe in your beliefs by choice.

"Of course. All people can have such beliefs. The Big Thing about religion is the way such beliefs can be considered holy."

We agree. I add that such beliefs can also be considered "truth." And that is my entire point. People have philosophical/dogmatic/religious beliefs which they consider truth. They act on those beliefs, sometimes in a malevolent manner. If you wish to state that organized religion is worse than the philosophy (or whatever you wish to call it) of atheism--or of Raiders' fans for that matter. Feel free.

"It is a BIG mistake to confuse atheism with anti-theism."

Yes, fortunately I have not made that mistake when I note that: "History has provided ample examples of atheistic groups' and individuals' anti-theistic beliefs." This is as it reads, and does not incorporate all atheists in the statement. I'll be happy to clarify with inserting "some" into the statement.

"Religion is the ultimate backing for views."

I do not agree here. I would say that believing that you are right is the ultimate backing for views.

"This is why we have to stop people using "it's God's will" as a justification when things are publically discussed."

Why? To insert "It's my will?" I do not pay attention to the guy on TV telling me he talked to God, but I don't think he needs to be stopped. I do not know if the guy talked to God. You don't believe he talked to God. Others do believe he talked to God. You follow the "God" of "truth", but it's "your" truth.

I'm squared my mental circle to the point of over-quotating, so, in the words of Roberto Duran, "no mas" for me amigo. I've enjoyed this thread!
 

Yet again you miss the point and attack straw men.

I have shown you that societies can be much better without religion by pointing you at western societies where religion has a reduced influence (such as the Scandinavian countries) and that they have higher education and reduced crime, and higher social tolerance.

This does raise the issue of what you would actually consider "evidence".

The point isn't that certain people won't be wicked, or that they won't be homophobic. It is that religious institutions encourage them to be so.

I haven't been calling people here weird, or gullible. I have been calling faith equivalent to gullibility. I see no issue with that, given the clear evidence I have given that religious institutions wish people to keep away from reason in areas that threatens these institutions.

Oh, I and I have also held back from the use of "LOL"s. I hope that counts in my favour.

Time for you to actually answer a question, I feel.

Do you believe that having institutions that encourage the abandonment of reason is a good thing?

I would also be interested in your background, and why you are so persistent in defending superstition.
 

You believe in your beliefs by choice.

I don't think it is that simple. Childhood indoctrination, cultural pressure, and peer pressure can be significant.

If you wish to state that organized religion is worse than the philosophy (or whatever you wish to call it) of atheism--or of Raiders' fans for that matter. Feel free.

It clearly is. There is no requirement to "submit one's will" to the support of Raider's fans.

Also, I would be interested if anyone could point to a "philosophy of atheism". I suggest one look in the library along side "philsophy of a-fairyism".

"Religion is the ultimate backing for views."

I do not agree here. I would say that believing that you are right is the ultimate backing for views.

No, that isn't the case. One can believe one is right with varying degrees of certainty. Having scripture and God to back those beliefs can be significant.

Others do believe he talked to God.

Indeed, and that is the problem. They get this deep satisfying feeling that their beliefs are true, as a result.


You follow the "God" of "truth", but it's "your" truth.

I certainly don't. I am a skeptic.
 

"Do you believe that having institutions that encourage the abandonment of reason is a good thing?"

LOL. Gee, care to rephrase those questions in even less reasonable ways? How about, "When did you stop beating your wife?" LOL

Anyway, I have no problem with institutions that encourage the abandonment of reason. Sports clubs, the Society for Creative Anachronism, The Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America (just to name a few) are all fine institutions that have nothing whatsoever to do with "reason", but I don't see the harm in them. If people want to join them or other "unreasonable" institutions, fine. Personally I don't feel the need to be a busybody, telling people how to live their lives. Now I, for one, don't belong to any such institutions because I've never been very good at sports, but if people want to belong to them, it's a free country.

"I would also be interested in your background, and why you are so persistent in defending superstition."

Ah...see, once again you're confused. I'm not interested in defending superstition. Nor am I interested in convincing anyone that I'm right. Perhaps those are your motivations (I wouldn't presume to guess, I'm not psychic), but they're not mine. So I'm afraid I can't answer your question since it's based on a false premise.

As for my background, I'm not even sure what that means, and given how the rest of your question was "coded", I'm not sure I want to know.
 

You tell me you take people at their word, and now you say you know better than I what my motivations are? ROFL. Excellent. Truly you are a powerful psychic!

On the contrary, I have merely been reporting what you have been saying.

I have said people are performing acts due to religion because they say so. You have disagreed, presumably because you have better knowledge of their motivations.

Oh dear. I should have learned. Never try and discuss rationally with "LOL"ers.

Enjoy the rest of the conversation.
 

Wow, how fragile! And just when it was finally getting interesting. Oh well. Thanks again for the interesting conversation, Steve, and take care!
 

Alan-

I'm not fragile. As others can attest, I have engaged in debates lasting months, involving thousands of posts. I have also engaged in formal debates (one soon to finish) involving tens of thousands of words of theological and philosophical discussion, again over a considerable period of time. Whether or not those actually achieved anything, I am not sure, but they were rewarding.

The trouble is, what I have seen here is just not of that quality. It isn't rewarding.

It seems to be common practice to casually dismiss evidence as irrelevant, or to ignore it. To throw accusations of straw men and goal-post moving around when there seems to be little understanding of what these terms mean, or when it is appropriate use to use them.

Useful discussions should be delicate and precise. Words should be used with care, and they should be used honestly.

I am afraid what I have lost over the years I have been discussing these matters is patience.

The battle against the influence of organised religion and unreason is a very important one. Creationism is turning out to be a disaster for the education of a significant proportion of a generation in the USA, and it's spread into Europe is increasing. Personally, I don't fear the influence of religion in terms of terrorism. I worry that excessive cultural sensitivity will allow religious views and principles to seep into a significant fraction of schools in the UK. They already have a worrying influence on government.

So carry on with your platitudes. Keep thinking that religion is no worse than supporting a football team if that makes you happy. Meanwhile, some of us are having to deal with real life.
 

This comment has been removed by the author.
 

Now I'm confused, are you storming off in a huff or not? (I'd insert some sort of indication that I'm simply attempting some friendly kidding around with that statement, but in order to do so I might end up ticking someone off, so I won't. That second sentence was also written tongue in cheek, too. If only I could think of some sort of very concise, simple way of denoting that so that, almost a shorthand of sorts, so that during a conversation people could see when I'm simply engaging in friendly kidding. Ah well...)

"It seems to be common practice to casually dismiss evidence as irrelevant, or to ignore it."

Actually what I've done is ask questions about your evidence. This is how I assumed you would prefer to have a rational conversation.

For example, you provided some "evidence" for your belief about religion promoting irrationality. I asked questions, such as, "Is that evidence actually representative, or is it just an anecdote?" and "Can you provide additional support that the few people you're using as examples are actually a representative sample of the entire population?" Perhaps that is what you mean by "dismissing evidence" but in my experience, making sure that evidence presented is actually good evidence is crucial to making a reasonable argument. Questions about representativeness should be second nature to anyone having these sorts of conversations.

For example, you claim that reducing religion in some Western countries has led to higher educational levels, etc. as "evidence" that eliminating religion would make the world a better place. I suggested that such evidence demonstrated nothing, since that evidence could be explained by any number of equally reasonable and equally simple theories. (I mean, for heaven's sake, Steve, for the $3 trillion we've spent in Iraq, don't you think we could have had a much better educational system?? Do you really think yours is the only possible explanation?) Again, you call that "dismissing evidence" perhaps, but I'm actually doing precisely what you say you want, attempting to have a rational conversation by questioning your evidence, and questioning how your evidence does or does not support your claims. I'm sorry if having someone actually question your evidence is a new and/or annoying experience for you, but if you're going to ask for such a conversation, you should expect that you might actually get it.

"Words should be used with care, and they should be used honestly."

Indeed, which is why I haven't asked you the sorts of "gotcha" questions you ended with. I mean, please, given how they were phrased, were those actually supposed to be "honest" questions? Like I said, they were worded pretty much like, "When did you stop beating your wife?"

And do you really believe that simply redefining words like "faith" as "gullibility" is an "honest" way to have an honest or rewarding or high quality conversation about faith? Sorry, but that is neither an honest nor a careful use of the word "faith." So, step down off your high horse for a moment, please.

Using words honestly and with care is why I haven't called your beliefs "weird", or your ideas "gullible." It's why I haven't made snotty comments such as, "Meanwhile, some of us are having to deal with real life", particularly given that you know nothing about me.

But hey, whatever, no one owes anyone anything here, and no harm, no foul. So again I say, thanks for the conversation!
 

Oh, and regarding this: "Keep thinking that religion is no worse than supporting a football team if that makes you happy. "

I said nothing about religion being better or worse than supporting a football team. If you want to use words "honestly" and "carefully" than you should be able to point out exactly where I rated them in similar order of importance?

I've simply pointed out here (and in our previous conversations) that sports teams, casinos, political parties, SPEBQSA, SCA, and lots of other groups encourage the abandonment of reason, which is exactly what your question asked. (Now clearly in your "honest" and "careful" use of words that is precisely what you meant to ask, right?)

Perhaps you can see why one might believe it's inconsistent for you to be so dead set against one group you see as promoting the abandonment of reason, but not others?

I mean, you folks on that side of the pond have had casualties and even deaths at soccer games, right?
 

Alan-

No, huff. I just don't see any more fun in conversation on this. I would rather discuss a subject, instead of getting involved in meta-meta-discussions.

I have one of these "blogs".

http://zarbi.livejournal.com

You (as is anyone else) are welcome to join in discussion here. However, people contribute there who are far more savage in their dealings with posters than I am!
 

Well, unfortunately Steve, in my experience these sorts of conversations always go down this road because one side or the other (or both) refuse to acknowledge actual points being made.

You accused me of ignoring evidence. I just spent 2 paragraphs explaining that I'm simply questioning the evidence you provided. Then, you ignore my response, refuse to point out why my questioning of your evidence was wrong, and refuse to concede the point that your evidence is, if not completely flawed, then at the very least open to reasonable questions. Nor do you even acknowledge that you were obviously completely wrong to say I "ignored" your evidence. Nor do you acknowledge that your questions were hardly "honest". Nor do you acknowledge that making up your own definitions for words is hardly an "honest" or "careful" way to use words.

Those sorts of tactics are all I've ever seen in these conversations, unfortunately, and as long as that's how people argue (vs. debate) very little is going to be accomplished because it appears to show how folks want to be "right", instead of wanting to have an actual conversation.

"However, people contribute there who are far more savage in their dealings with posters than I am!"

Ah. Thanks for the invite, but that's reason enough for me to stay away. If it ain't fun, I'm not interested. "Mean people suck", as we say over here. :)

Thanks, and take care!
 

Re, "What matters is how you reduce religious influence. ... People also need to be shown that all beliefs need to be subject to a high standard of evidence if they are allowed to affect public policy. No more preachers proclaiming that something is "against God's will".


Wow. You say you want a revolution?

Good luck with that. I think the best you might hope for is to get more non-beleivers-atheists-whatever involved with politics. I'd be for all that, BTW.
 

Re, "to rely solely on "reason" as some kind of catch-all savior of the human race is to ignore the reality that human beings are quite able and willing to find any tool at hand to kill, intellectual and otherwise."

Yep.
 

Actually, I think I generally agree with the following, and I think most of the regulars 'round here do, too:


Re, "1. Confidence. It's not ok to assume that one's uncorroborated personal revelation from God is actually and undoubtedly from God. The brain plays a few tricks on all of us.

2. Egocentrism. Just because it seems self-evident to you that ham is forbidden by God desn't mean everyone has the same "inner knowing" or intuition.

3. Sock puppetry: your God, like your appendix, your farts, or your dreams at night, is actually a part of yourself. Saying "I humbly submit to the Lord" is like saying, "I humbly submit to a part of myself," which, frankly, is the opposite of humility.

4. Blank checks: the ineffable unknowable has to stay that way. No fair getting specific or concrete about the mind of God at a later date."


BUT, I'd add to caveats:

To 3. In a nutshell, many, if not most, strains of Christian belief profess that God DOES become "part of us" in a mystical way. So, I reject the assumption of non-humility here. The life of faith is a working out of where "I" end and where "God," within me, begins. So to speak. See St. Paul's personal anguish.

To 4. I think it's acceptable for one to conclude different insights, for oneself, as one's faith journey goes on. The problem comes when one projects it onto others who reject it. The joy comes from relationships with others who share certain insights freely.
 

GASP! Re, from DrLobojo: "Although a little en-elegant, I for one, can't disagree with any of them."

OMG. You and me on the same page! Now, I AM scared.


As for religion not being able to survive the rare air of those principles: Fine with me. Faith is a different thing entirely.
 

This is just a tiny example of Steve just being a damned prick. Stop it, man. There's no reason for it. This has been a pretty good thread, except for you being so insulting and astoundingly arrogant. Simmer down, 'k?
 

I swear, I truly fear people who think they have a direct line to God and the Truth less than any single human beaing, utterly on his own in the Cosmos, who think HE is the Truth. And, Steve, that's how yer coming across. And it's all in the attitude, not in the argument. Stop. Being. An. Arse. (Just for you~!)
 

Sorry. THIS isd the tiny example I meant:

Never try and discuss rationally with "LOL"ers.


Steve, are you just old and crusty when it comes to new stuff? I mean, "blogs" -- with the quote marks!

LOL, I say! And again, I say, LOL!


BTW, are u against "philosophy," too? Or just religion? Both are empty sets, and, as such, both are benign.
 

"Re, "What matters is how you reduce religious influence. ... People also need to be shown that all beliefs need to be subject to a high standard of evidence if they are allowed to affect public policy. No more preachers proclaiming that something is "against God's will"."

Now that would be a first step in the establishment of an "anti-theist" orthodoxy. Can we say goose and gander? Seeking to "Control" formation of public policy on my terms, or terms I agree with. I have access to the methodology for truth, my way or the highway.

"... beliefs need to be subject to a high standard of evidence..." In the end, it is all, THAT IS "ALL", just beliefs. But they are beliefs that allow us to function in the time and space we occupy(granted some in the 21st century are trying to occupy the middle ages). To think that truth is inherent in any system of thought or behavior is a self delusion. Ask an astrophysicist how long their beliefs/truths have lasted in recent years.

Telling point isn't it. Of course not, it leaves it too open. OK, trot out the terminology.
 

Ask an astrophysicist how long their beliefs/truths have lasted in recent years

5 years, maybe 10 – if you are talking about ideas are the ‘front line’.

But this is more to do with the difficulty of getting good measurements - the scientific method still works just fine.

The Earth going around the Sun has evidence going back to Galileo so this belief/truth goes back several hundred years – but this required the telescope to be invented.

The actual idea went back to ancient Greeks but no one could prove it. Though some chap did measure that the Sun was heavier than the Earth – this should have ‘awoke’ someone, but the ‘idea’ of a fixed Earth with the Sun, planets and stars orbiting us had more ‘appeal’ for some reason.

Lee
 

Lee said: Re: Earth going around the Sun... "The actual idea went back to ancient Greeks but no one could prove it."

Actually they did mathematically in about 300 B.C., see the Library/Museum at Alexandria. But, it didn't have value at the time. The flat earth worked just fine in that world.
By Galileo's time the global Earth and the Earth-Sun relationship was beginning to be necessary to support the expansion of Empire and commerce.

Lee said: "But this is more to do with the difficulty of getting good measurements - the scientific method still works just fine."

The scientific method works in science, that is what it was designed for, that is where it is proven. That's where it needs to stay. Shall we apply the scientific method to public policy?

"People also need to be shown that all beliefs need to be subject to a high standard of evidence if they are allowed to affect public policy."

You mean the scientific method works better than anything else and should be the standard used?

Even though within the last decade the science that thought that the universe consisted of all we could see found out that that was only 4 percent of it. That 96% was unknown just a few years ago. Bad science? Bad data? Bad belief? Bad insight? Bad imagination.

Maybe they should have asked Shiva. He/she seems to have known about this.

Public policy in a Republic is made by consensus, it should not be by edict or "fact" from the Church or from the Science.

Rule One: TRUST NO ONE!

If you can't swallow the church but can swallow science then you can't claim to be a skeptic, much less a cynic. You can never join me at the acme of crumudgeonism believing in either.
 

Re, "Shall we apply the scientific method to public policy?"

That *was* the approach of scientism -- in public policy, economics and business, etc. Which is why I call what these guys espouse "scientism." Not "science."
 

Scientism defined, from a PBS "faith and reason" site:

"Unlike the use of the scientific method as only one mode of reaching knowledge, scientism claims that science alone can render truth about the world and reality. Scientism's single-minded adherence to only the empirical, or testable, makes it a strictly scientifc worldview, in much the same way that a Protestant fundamentalism that rejects science can be seen as a strictly religious worldview. Scientism sees it necessary to do away with most, if not all, metaphysical, philosophical, and religious claims, as the truths they proclaim cannot be apprehended by the scientific method. In essence, scientism sees science as the absolute and only justifiable access to the truth."

LOL. They wear more blinders than I do, yet they think they're more open minded. Amazing.
 

Speakin' of Shiva ...

http://chrisqq.wordpress.com/

... interesting.
 

Hi drlobojo,

Re: Earth going around the Sun... "The actual idea went back to ancient Greeks but no one could prove it."

drlobojo Actually they did mathematically in about 300 B.C., see the Library/Museum at Alexandria.

We might be agreeing, I was thinking about Aristarchus of Samos who lived around 300 BC.

He actually took measurements and estimated the relative sizes of the Earth and Sun.

Is this the chap you were thinking about as well?

The flat earth worked just fine in that world.

Not so sure, Aristotle (~350BC) proposed a spherical Earth based on observation evidence like how ships appear on the horizon, different stars being seen in the night sky at different places and lunar eclipses.

In fact some chap (Eratosthenes of Cyrene) actually measured the circumference of the Earth to a reasonably precision.

The flat Earth idea, and why it was held dear for so long, came from other ‘thinkers’ – dare I suggest the bible?

By Galileo's time the global Earth and the Earth-Sun relationship was beginning to be necessary to support the expansion of Empire and commerce.

The spherical Earth was not in question at this time, certainly not by sailors (1492 and all that – the ‘shock’ that Columbus got was not that the world was a sphere, just that it was a lot bigger than he had thought)

Not sure where the Earth-Sun relationship had to do with Empire expansion or commerce. Maybe you could educate me on this one.

I thought the Earth-Sun relationship was challenged merely by trying to match the observations of the movements of the planets in relation to the stars to the ‘best’ models at the time.

Actually, the geocentric model of Ptolemy was in fact better at making predictions of the planets than Copernicus’ heliocentric one (the prefect circle idea just didn’t work – it took Kepler to solve this problem)

What Galileo did was to test these ideas with his telescope – the moons around Jupiter raised an interesting problem, but the ‘death nail’ was the phrases of Venus that the geocentric model could not answer.

The scientific method works in science, that is what it was designed for, that is where it is proven. That's where it needs to stay.

Interesting... ‘where it needs to stay’? Science has no practical uses then in say, medicine, engineering or farming? Should we just keep science to the dusty classrooms and lecture halls?

Shall we apply the scientific method to public policy?

Darwinian ideas do not work well on modern society if that is what you are getting at. (The oldie Stalin debate)

However thinking up new ideas to solve problems, and testing your ideas to see if they work in practice could be a good idea.

When someone says “Hey, this guy has weapons of mass destruction and is about to us them” - it could be a good idea to test this idea to the max before we react.

What do you think?

Would that be following the spirit of the scientific method – to question and look for the evidence? - would this be a good idea in public policy, or should be just ‘trust in God’ with our foreign policies?

Steve wrote: "People also need to be shown that all beliefs need to be subject to a high standard of evidence if they are allowed to affect public policy."

drlobojo You mean the scientific method works better than anything else and should be the standard used?

Can you think of any better method? Until you do your criticism are empty.

Praying perhaps? Have you tested prayer lately?

Even though within the last decade the science that thought that the universe consisted of all we could see found out that that was only 4 percent of it. That 96% was unknown just a few years ago. Bad science? Bad data? Bad belief? Bad insight? Bad imagination.

Oh the critics – I suppose all along religion had the better answer?

God did it, so we should stop looking now :)

Care to tell use what the other 96% is all about then? Or how much of the known 4% is actually mentioned in any holy texts or was known by any holy man including Jesus?

Just remember how small the universe is in the so called God inspired texts... they are not even close is a tiny fraction of 1 percent. A few thousand points of light is all they knew in a galaxy of 100 billion stars, in a universe of billions of galaxies.

How small the universe is if you listen to just religion.

Religion and belief in God has added zero knowledge about the physical universe and provided zero evidence of an unphysical one.

Bad Science?
No – measurements just getting better. It isn’t easy investigating the universe – if only God could have made it simple :)

Oh, and for the record it wasn’t ‘just a few years ago’ unless you count 75 years ago as just yesterday (when dark matter was first suggested) and 10 years ago for ‘dark energy’ and the accelerating universe (though ‘missing matter’ has long been talked about since Einstein’s GR)

Bad data?
Nope – just better data coming in all the time. Improving all the time. This is why in the 1930’s people where debating if the universe was merely our galaxy – until new data came in from Hubble (the man, not the telescope) showing a much larger universe.

Bad belief? Bad insight?
You will need to explain your logic here – nice sound bites though.

Bad imagination
You mean we need more imagination to think up an invisible friend? You could be right, but I see no benefit in doing so. Could you please explain one?

General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics show anything but bad imagination – and guess what, they work, add value and make testable predictions.

Any value come from being in a god?

Public policy in a Republic is made by consensus, it should not be by edict or "fact" from the Church or from the Science.

Rule One: TRUST NO ONE!

How does the public come to this ‘consensus’? From listening to their church leaders or scientists?

Would you prefer your leaders have been elected by the educated who could weigh up the pros and cons of each party – or someone who just follows the flock and does as they are told?

If you can't swallow the church but can swallow science then you can't claim to be a skeptic

Not sure what you are arguing here.

I am as sceptical as I can be and should be – trusting on the best evidence available, but knowing that new evidence can come in at anytime.

Some churches are better than others – some we really should worry about.

‘swallow science’? – As I said, it is the method I try and follow – unless you can provide a better system. Until then, I will put up and ‘swallow’ the best idea mankind has come up with.

You can challenge this, but please provide your better idea and evidence :)

Thanks

Lee
 

ER wrote:
Speakin' of Shiva ...

http://chrisqq.wordpress.com/

... interesting.

I wonder if they believe in Jesus?

You should try and convince them that Jesus is the only true way to God

Lee
 

Lee writes, "When someone says, 'Hey, this guy has weapons of mass destruction and is about to us them' - it could be a good idea to test this idea to the max before we react."

And what would be the control experiment? LOL

Is it OK for one country to invade another? What does your version of "science" have to say about the sovereignty of nation-states? What experiments have been done to demonstrate that the boundaries of current nation-states are the most ideal? What would be the control in that experiment? Should we take two countries (chosen at random and that are a statistically representative sample of the world's population) and merge them to see what happens? We could do this across the planet, drawing and redrawing borders to see which were the most ideal. Do you think that would be an ethical "scientific" experiment to test the hypothesis?

Not every situation that calls for evidence is, by definition, a "scientific" question, as you're saying. Legal questions, for example, use very different standards of evidence and the questions asked and problems posed are not the same nature as scientific questions.

Science can indeed help us in many areas of life. It can help us make decisions about non-scientific areas of life.

However, there are many ways of knowing about the world, religious, scientific, political, artistic, kinesthetic, just to name a few. All are useful not only in their spheres of influence, but in various interdisciplinary ways.

But if you're going to propose that science, and science alone should be the one and only standard by which we live every aspect of our lives, then you've got quite a job to do. That is a testable hypothesis. Go do the work and show us that scientists can make better art than Picasso, or better music than Bach.

This is the old computer programming GIGO problem: garbage in, garbage out. Ask nonsense questions of science and you'll only get nonsense answers out. Which is more beautiful and stirring, Beethoven's 5th or 9th symphony? What is the meaning of life? What are "human rights" and how do we decide what those rights are? Science may have things to tell us about each of those questions, but they are not fundamentally scientific questions.

So, your entire comment Lee, is nothing but a false dichotomy, a logical fallacy with which I'd assume you'd be familiar.

No one here is suggesting that religion take over every aspect of life, nor that science is not eminently useful in many areas of life. Truly it does surprise me that, after all the time you've spent commenting here, you still make these ridiculous assertions. Seriously, with whom exactly do you think you're having a discussion?!

You might agree with me that the fundies, whether they'd admit it or not, rely on science all the time. They take aspirins instead of praying their headaches away. Well tell me Lee, then just how consistent are you? Do you scientifically analyze every belief you have? Do you conduct experiments on each piece of music on your iPod to find the best ones? Have you conducted controlled experiments on your family to find out which members love you and which do not?

What I'm suggesting is that your slavish devotion to science above all, is no more useful than the fundies slavish devotion to religion. Nor is it any more consistent.

(BTW, regarding the flat earth, that model is still used today any time a building contractor drops a plumb line. Now I suppose you'd suggest that since science tells us that two plumb lines are not, actually parallel because the Earth is a sphere, you'd prefer that the contractor actually does the calculations necessary to account for the curvature of the Earth, as he/she nails studs every 16 inches on center? Plenty of non-scientific ideas are actually more useful on a practical level than their more correct scientifically sound ones.)
 

Lee,

Yes, it was Aristarchus and Eratosthenes I had reference to. Very good.

"The flat Earth idea, and why it was held dear for so long, came from other ‘thinkers’ – dare I suggest the bible?"
You really think that all those people got that idea from the bible?

Orthodoxy does not lead. Orthodoxy follows and reinforces status quo.
Religion may start as revolution but never suceeds to maintain as such. The flat earth is in the Bible because was written by people on a flat earth.

By the way, think about losing all those stock challenges you use. Your thinking is better than that.


"How small the universe is if you listen to just religion."

Science hasn't even begun to come close to the vastness of the Universe that Hinduism has proclaimed for 3000 years.

I think ER has very nicely addressed science as a belief system and reasons to be skeptical of the results.

"‘swallow science’? – As I said, it is the method I try and follow – unless you can provide a better system. Until then, I will put up and ‘swallow’ the best idea mankind has come up with."

Good for you, a man of a principle.

"Drlobo: Public policy in a Republic is made by consensus, it should not be by edict or "fact" from the Church or from the Science.
Lee: How does the public come to this ‘consensus’? From listening to their church leaders or scientists?"

First, the public does not make public policy. In a Republic the elected leadership does by permission of the public. To whom do they listen? Church leaders and scientists should be on the list along with philosophers, and acadamicians, and their grandmothers, and their children, and sometimes even their constituitcies. Basically anyone who knows something about it should have a platform. But the representative have to make the final consensus. Most often they get it right or near right. I will grant you that the last 8 years in the American Republic has seriously tested the rule.


"I am as sceptical as I can be and should be – trusting on the best evidence available, but knowing that new evidence can come in at anytime."

Lee, no one alive today can weigh the evidence for everything. It is not evidence you trust but those who present it to you and interpret for you. You trust that they have actually used the evidence to arrive at the conclusions they present.
Therefore Rule One;
"Trust No One!"

Again: "I am as sceptical as I can be and should be."
"You can challenge this, but please provide your better idea and evidence :)"


If you think that you are free, and where you should be, you are unkowingly as lost as anyone else in this world of ignorance. We are all lost and adrift, the only dichotomy is that you know it or you don't.

Ideas, evidence, proofs, beliefs,....play with them as toys, or lose them completely, but don't hold on to them or you will be sucked down with them when they sink.

Enough, this being wise stuff, is tiresome even for me.
 

Re, "You should try and convince them that Jesus is the only true way to God."

Might be better to persuade you, and other fundamentalists, that Jesus can be seen as an avatar.

Lee, honestly, you keep bringing a fifth-grade approach to discussing science, religion and faith into a place where thought actually takes places, doubts are acknowledged, and virtually no one worships the Bible as THE source for all answers, but fairly venerate it for being a GREAT source for what questions to ask.

Sometimes your vexing. More often, I wonder who your false-dichotomous arguments are with, 'cause it's not really anyone here.
 

Re, "Legal questions, for example, use very different standards of evidence and the questions asked and problems posed are not the same nature as scientific questions."

I recall this whole notion stumping Le back in January.

Also, Alan: Great point about construction, plumb lines, etc.
 

Speaking of Dark Matter, science, religion, and stuff:

http://www.reallivepreacher.com/node/184

Pretty good.
 

Science hasn't even begun to come close to the vastness of the Universe that Hinduism has proclaimed for 3000 years.

I am sorry, but this is just so absurd.

Some religions come up with very, very small universes, based around local areas of the Earth. Some religions come up with very, very big universes that last for absolutely ages.

If science comes somewhere in between, you claim that it hasn't "begun to come close" to the vastness of the big ideas of religions.

That is just crazy. It makes as little sense as to criticise biology because it hasn't yet found a dog-ancestor as powerful as Fenrir the wolf of viking legend.

It is precisely like criticising herpetologists because they have not yet found a turtle as big as Great A'Tuin of the Diskworld novels.

Science is about reality. Religion just makes stuff up. Science does not need to be judged by the standards of fantasy.

A better way of describing the universe as envisaged by religion is how dull and human-centred it is.
 

Two thoughts on this never-ending post. First, I think Alan nails it on the head by asking Lee with whom, exactly, he believes he is having a conversation. Most likely himself.

Steve Zara's last comment, in which he says the "religion just makes stuff up" is so ridiculously silly one could almost imagine that he really doesn't believe it. Has he read any of the 111 comments so far, and by reading I mean thoughtfully considered each word and phrase, pondered what is being said, how it is being said, etc.? It would seem not.

All I can say to all this is, like all such discussions, it is following a well-worn path. I decided a while back not to get in to such "arguments" because, quite frankly, those involved talk past one another. Suffice it to say that all the religious folks writing here - myself included - have a far more open, nuanced appreciation for the complexity of the universe we inhabit than the Steve Zara's and Lee's of the world, at least as expressed in the comments here.

And, just so Steve and Lee are wondering, I got that from the evidence, viz., reading the actual comments here.
 

Re, "Religion just makes stuff up."

This is just so much bullshit. There, I've done it myself: taken this thread to its only possible eventuality when one arrogant asshole thinks he's the only one in the room, whose brain works, and that everyone else is an idiot.

Just bullshit. It's insulting, it's beyond arrogant, and it's bullshit.
 

What's worse is that Steve apparently not only knows nothing about religion, he also knows nothing about science either.

Let me be clear: Science just makes stuff up.

Every theory out there is just "made up". They are models. They're tested. The good ones survive and the bad ones (usually and after some time, occasionally after a very long time) get thrown in the trash. Why do they survive? Because they're right? No. Because they're actually describing reality as it is? No. They survivve purely due to the utility of the model. They work therefore they survive (until some new piece of evidence consigns them to the trash heap too.)

Utilitarianism and naive realism are not the same thing. Even an undergrad philosophy major knows that. Heck, I bet even Wikipedia knows that.

But to believe those models are *actually* how the world works is nothing but foolish naive realism. It's like looking at a globe and saying "This is the Earth." No it isn't, you moron, it's a globe. It's a model of the Earth, and the only reason it's a good model is not because it's actually fundamentally true, but because it's utilitarian. It works. (Though it only works for some purposes, and it fails miserably for others. All models are like that.)

As I've said before here, quoting Kevin Throop, "Celestial navigation is based on the premise that the Earth is the center of the universe. The premise is wrong, but the navigation works. An incorrect model can be a useful tool."

But the fact is, that's true of EVERY scientific model. Unless someone has developed a way of getting outside our reality and objectively judging how close to that our reality our models really are, all we can know is that they work, we cannot know that they actually model reality as it is.

Rene Magritte had it right, that's not a pipe he painted, it's a picture of a pipe. And every scientific theory is not the thing it describes, it's a MODEL of the thing it describes, a model that is only based on its utility, not its accurate description of reality. It's made up.

It's bad enough to listen to these folks go on and on about religion, which they evidently know nothing about, but then to listen to them do the same thing about science, which they claim to understand, is excruciating. And then to do so while pretending the rest of us are morons ... well, one expects the British to have better manners than that.
 

Hi Alan,

Just noticed you have made a new reply, but I've not read this yet - just saw the bit about the British should have better manners – we aim to please :)

Anyway, I am replying to your earlier comment first

+++

So Alan, I think you spend too much time attacking strawmen. Attacking the argument I never made, or the views I do not hold.

We agree on so many things, and most of what you attack in your reply I would also.

I have never said ‘science alone should be the one and only standard by which we live every aspect of our lives’ so why waste your time arguing against it.

Probably I am guilty of building strawmen as well, just tell me when I do and show me - don’t fall into the trap of building your own.

Maybe we can discuss views and opinions we actual hold? It would be more constructive.

Which is more beautiful and stirring, Beethoven's 5th or 9th symphony?

Don’t know – which one goes dah, dah, dah daahhh again?

I wonder why random placing of notes sound awful, but when they are grouped together in a certain order they sound much better?

Does God answer this problem? Does Christianity answer this question?

Is it unanswerable in your view?

What is the meaning of life?

Who says it has one? Maybe we have to make our own meaning?

How do you know it has meaning, assuming that it has?

What are "human rights" and how do we decide what those rights are?

Will God and the bible help you here... please tell me how

Science may have things to tell us about each of those questions, but they are not fundamentally scientific questions.

I think we could agree on this last point, I am just wondering though if you don’t use the scientific method to investigate these questions how you might try and come to a solution that could be agreed on?

So, please tell me the improved investigation techique that you use :)

No one here is suggesting that religion take over every aspect of life, nor that science is not eminently useful in many areas of life.

Phew – that is lucky :)

I know this, and I think everyone here would agree that if/when religion does ‘take over every aspect of life’ it is a far poorer world for it.

I think this is one reason why people here don’t like/agree with the fundies?

Truly it does surprise me that, after all the time you've spent commenting here, you still make these ridiculous assertions.

Sorry, I’ve forgotten which ‘ridiculous assertions’ you are referring to.

Please just highlight a couple of my stupid assertions so I have a chance to retract them. Your strawman is your own making – not mine so is for you to retract

Seriously, with whom exactly do you think you're having a discussion?!


A group of rather clever people who have thought long and hard about their God but for some reason still do not agree with one another about Jesus Christ and his message in the bible?

What I'm suggesting is that your slavish devotion to science above all, is no more useful than the fundies slavish devotion to religion. Nor is it any more consistent.

‘slavish devotion’?
‘above all’?

I keep asking which ‘better’ method I should use to investigate the world around us? No reply, just attacks on the best method that I am aware of.

I just try and question things, and understand why the best I can. I do not accept something just because some tells me. I want to know why they came to their conclusions and why I should trust them and their answer. (And yes, trust is a key word here)

For example, I don’t know anything about biochemistry and medicine and the such but when I go to the doctor and they prescribed me medicine, I trust them. Why do I trust them? Probably the same reasons you do. The doctor’s medical certificate on the wall, the building they are working in, the legal system that would kick his arse if he made a mistake – the look in his eye?

I don't trust them because they tell me their invisible friend Bob told them - this would not give me reasons to trust them since I cannot test they claim - maybe you could agree to this in the situation of the doctor surgery?

BTW, regarding the flat earth, that model is still used today any time a building contractor drops a plumb line.

There was I thinking it was Newtonian mechanics still at play and that gravity can be considered acting as point like source at the centre of mass for an object?

I wonder how your building contractor and his plumb line will be building a suspension bridge spaning several kms?

If your point is that we can use simpler models depending on the situation, then I will agree – I much rather use Newtonian mechanics for everyday situations then invoking Einstein’s theory of General Relativity - it is easier for the mind - so you are still arguing against something I am not. This is yet another strawman agrument.

OK... now onto the other comments, if I have time.

Lee
 

Hi drlobojo

Yes, it was Aristarchus and Eratosthenes I had reference to. Very good.

Hooray... and people tell me I learnt nothing useful at uni.

Orthodoxy does not lead. Orthodoxy follows and reinforces status quo.

I will agree.

I have not seen religion adding any new knowledge about the universe/world that has been either proven true or accepted by the majority as the most likely explanation. (Oh sure, many people believe in a god, but they don’t agree on THE god or the type of food they should eat.)

The flat earth is in the Bible because was written by people on a flat earth.

I’m glad you agree that the bible writers speak of a flat Earth; so many Christians (“fundies”) try and argue otherwise.

It does cause me a problem though (which you most have resolved) that the writers could not be very ‘inspired by God’ if they cannot get this one little fact correct.

Am I to believe the story of an after life, heaven and hell if they cannot get correct what can be tested?

Why should I trust religion?

By the way, think about losing all those stock challenges you use. Your thinking is better than that.

Erm... sorry.

They might be ‘stock challenges’ because they have been around for a long time, but it is not my fault I have not seen a good resolution to the challenges.

Science hasn't even begun to come close to the vastness of the Universe that Hinduism has proclaimed for 3000 years.

So is Hinduism true now, and Christianity is false?

Your point seems to suggest though that the Hindu 3,000 years ago just had bigger imagination.

Just because some people write a big story about the universe doesn’t mean it is right.

I think ER has very nicely addressed science as a belief system and reasons to be skeptical of the results.

You should always be sceptical about the results, but no one has yet provided a better method than the scientific one. Have they?

Still waiting :)

Good for you, a man of a principle.

Shit – now I have principles, when did that happen? :)

Lee, no one alive today can weigh the evidence for everything. It is not evidence you trust but those who present it to you and interpret for you. You trust that they have actually used the evidence to arrive at the conclusions they present.

I think I agree... in science I trust?

Therefore Rule One;
"Trust No One!"

Not sure... as you just said, no one can have all the answers, so we need to trust those around us, or at least have a method to determine who and why we trust people and how much trust we should give them.

If you think that you are free, and where you should be, you are unkowingly as lost as anyone else in this world of ignorance. We are all lost and adrift, the only dichotomy is that you know it or you don't.

Who said ‘free’?

Ideas, evidence, proofs, beliefs,....play with them as toys, or lose them completely, but don't hold on to them or you will be sucked down with them when they sink.

Please explain how the scientific method might ‘sink’ or be wrong?

I’m not talking about scientific conclusions or theories today – I’m talking about the method (the evolving method that has been getting better and better these last 400 years)

Enough, this being wise stuff, is tiresome even for me.

I never have that problem – not being wise or anything, but thanks for the input.

Lee
 

Re, "Which is more beautiful and stirring, Beethoven's 5th or 9th symphony?

Don’t know – which one goes dah, dah, dah daahhh again?"


Hey, and here I turn your weak-legged table on yourself, Lee:

Answer the damned question, using your oh-so-vaulted science! Or quit being such a fifth-grader.

Science is not the end-all, be-all, just because it's the safe harbor you've chosen to hide behind.

And you, and y'all, really *are* the ones hiding.

I am NOT.

I stand, or fall, before the Cosmos, in ignorance -- but in faith.

You don't? Jolly well(?)!

What DO you stand for, other than yourself and others like you?

Nothing? Then get thee behind me.
 

(Edited)

This is just so much bullshit. There, I've done it myself: taken this thread to its only possible eventuality when [two] arrogant asshole[s] thinks [they're] the only one[s] in the room, whose brain works, and that everyone else is an idiot.

Just bullshit. It's insulting, it's beyond arrogant, and it's bullshit.
 

Hi ER,

Re, "Which is more beautiful and stirring, Beethoven's 5th or 9th symphony?

I wrote: Don’t know – which one goes dah, dah, dah daahhh again?"

Answer the damned question, using your oh-so-vaulted science! Or quit being such a fifth-grader.

I did answer the question... the clue was in ‘don’t know’ (what then followed is known as humour where I come from – sorry)

I then ask how I was suppose to know which is better, and why random notes sound a mess and painful to the ear, yet if they are arranged in the right why they are ‘beautiful and stirring’.

This is after all the point of the question isn't it?

If science cannot do, what can – it seemed a reasonable question... is that really fifth grade to you?

Science is not the end-all, be-all,

And at what point did I say it was?

All I have said is that the scientific method seems the best way to answer problems/questions in the physical world. (If you want to claim an unphysical world, then show it to me)

You are free to show me a better method - no one has yet on this thread, but I have heard a lot of shouting.

What I have not said it is the best way to run a country, for example – though I do feel that a government of people that challenges and ask questions is a better one that just accepts what they are told unquestioningly – do you disagree?

just because it's the safe harbor you've chosen to hide behind.

Safe? To know that what I know is incomplete and is likely to be changed tomorrow by a new discovery? Fair enough.

And who is hiding?

I’m here talking about what I think I know and having it to challenged.

I am happy to be challenged, and happy to change... are you?

What DO you stand for, other than yourself and others like you?

Do you mean you want to question what I am rather than attack what I am not?

So what do I stand for? How about - Truth, Justice and the American way? Sounds close...

Naturalism sounds closer though...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Naturalism_(philosophy)

and humanism sounds close as well...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Humanism

This is just so much bullshit. There, I've done it myself: taken this thread to its only possible eventuality when [two] arrogant asshole[s] thinks [they're] the only one[s] in the room, whose brain works, and that everyone else is an idiot.

Well, I certainly don’t think anyone in this ‘room’ is an idiot – I am happy to be shown wrong and won’t get all emotional about it - just accept the improved philosophy and ideas.

If a teacher is struggling to explain what they think they know about a subject to a pupil then maybe they don’t know it as well as they think. The teacher should not shout at the pupil now should they for not understanding?

Just bullshit. It's insulting, it's beyond arrogant, and it's bullshit.

I am arrogant for not understanding your position? Now this really doesn’t make sense.

Lee
PS
I did answer your question about evidence over at my blog, not sure if you had chance to read it :)
 

Steve Zara's last comment, in which he says the "religion just makes stuff up" is so ridiculously silly one could almost imagine that he really doesn't believe it

It may be ridiculously silly, but it also happens to be true.

Apologies in advance to E.R., as I am going to be harsh.

I have read most of the posts in detail, and to be honest, it has been embarassing. It is stunning what the human intellect can be reduced to when it tries to protect the absurdities of religion.

Most here just don't seem to know what science is, or how it works. Or perhaps "don't want to know" is a better way to put it.

There aren't "different types of knowledge", and there aren't "different ways of exploring reality". There are things we are confident of because we test them and we discuss them with others, and there are things we feel in our guts, and that is it.

There is science and reason, and there is subjective experience and emotion. By "makes stuff up", I mean when we rely on the latter to provide descriptions of the cosmos. We end up with Sky Fairies.

What is laughable is when one religion comes up with a particularly big and old set of Sky Fairies, someone claims that this is somehow impressive because the age of these fairies is far older than the universe that we know!

Also, I am afraid I am impatient with those who are after a more nuanced reaction to religion. I believe we should deal with people carefully and with consideration, but not beliefs, especially not when they do so much harm.

A friend of mine recently suggested to me that the intellectual rot set in with post-modernism and the idea that no opinion should be privileged over others. That let some consider superstitious views to be considered somehow on a par with the rationality. Well, they aren't.

Compromise with religion in the intellectual arena is silly. It is like biologists attempting to compromise with fairy-believers.

It is time for me to finally cease posting on a thread when I have got annoyed, and I have. Honestly, some of you really do need to look back at your arguments, and think if you really do mean them.
 

Lee writes, "So Alan, I think you spend too much time attacking strawmen. Attacking the argument I never made, or the views I do not hold."

LOL. Thanks for the laugh, Lee. It's a pleasure being accused of building strawman arguments from the undisputed master around here! ROFL

"If a teacher is struggling to explain what they think they know about a subject to a pupil then maybe they don’t know it as well as they think. The teacher should not shout at the pupil now should they for not understanding?"

Meh, if the kid is just being ridiculous for the sake of hearing himself talk, then I don't think the teacher has much reason to continue the discussion.

All you do is ask questions, ridiculous questions built on sand. You never answer them seriously except with fifth grade "I know you are but what am I?" responses.

Such as:

"Which is more beautiful and stirring, Beethoven's 5th or 9th symphony?

Does God answer this problem? Does Christianity answer this question?"

Never said it did. Welcome to Lee's Strawman making class!

I'm afraid Lee, that I agree with ER here, this response would be amusing coming from a child, but from a grown adult it's just plain silly.

You're the one claiming that science has all the answers. So answer the questions. I asked you many, many and all you can do is spout nonsense.

Tell us how science can determine the correct boundaries between nations. Tell us how science can determine which Beethoven symphony is more beautiful. Tell us how science can determine anything about human rights and what those rights are or should be. Tell us. No more stupid questions, tell us. Again, I am not saying that religion has all the answers to these questions. Like artistic, political ways of knowing, religion is another way of knowing about the life in the world and like those other ways of knowing, it has areas of expertise.

It is you who have argued we should make our decisions based on science so, using science answer the damned questions.

I never said religion can tell us much about Beethoven symphonies. What I said was that science can't either. The study of music, music composition, music theory, and music history however, (which I hope you're not going to be ridiculous enough to assert are sciences) can tell us a great deal about those symphonies.

So, just as there are ways of finding out about music that have nothing to do with science, there are many other ways of knowing about the world.

Now you and your buddy Steve may privilege science above all things. Fine. Then I hope you at least have the intellectual consistency to remove all music from your life, since it is clearly a non-scientific, irrational pursuit.

Steve wrote, "Most here just don't seem to know what science is, or how it works."

Pot, meet kettle. Nothing you've written demonstrates even the remotest understanding of the nature and philosophy of science.

"By "makes stuff up", I mean when we rely on the latter to provide descriptions of the cosmos. "

Well once again, you argue against yourself, not us. I don't think anyone here is looking to "Sky faeries" to tell us about Dark Matter. Grow up.

Oh and Steve ... ROFL. ;)
 

I started reading this thread. Then I got depressed and skipped to the comment box.

On the whole, the scientific method has proven to be a better means of testing claims about our world and its history than divine revelation.

Of course religion is more than a set of claims about the world and its history. Religion also serves as a repository for the literary and artistic expression of enduring human values.

Religion as an art stripped of the unsupported assertions would content me. Followers of an art do not screw up scientific discourse.

The world could use an art concerned with how to live fully, how to work together with our fellow humans toward a pleasing future, and how to master our own emotions.
 

Steve Zara writes that there are not different ways of knowing. I would say that the phrase itself is meaningless, because "knowing" is an undefined term, begging far more questions than it answers.

Alan is correct. He does not ave the faintest grasp of what science is, how it operates, or its limitations. When challenged, he dodges and weaves, refusing to answer a simple question.

If by "subjective", he means personal opinion not open to scrutiny, criticism, or testability, then I think he understanding of "science" (as opposed the stuff real scientists do) falls under that category. This entire business has been a wonderful example of what happens when fundamentalists encounter far more open-minded folks. Except, in this case, Steve Zara is the fundamentalist, with a dim grasp of both his own alleged view and that of his opponents, while we religious types - caricatured as dogmatic, uncritical fantasists worshiping "Sky Fairies" (what a wonderful name for a rock band) - actually manage to be pretty open and understanding. All in all, a most interesting, and finally (one hopes) exhausted comment thread.
 

This caught my eye: "Which is more beautiful and stirring, Beethoven's 5th or 9th symphony?

The answer to this question is a factual assertion regarding neither the 5th nor the 9th symphony, but the speaker.

The method of science - corroboration, falsification, logic, parsimony - is sometimes called "reason" or "the inductive-deductive method." We all use this method for solving problems whether we're professional scientists or not. Tom and Ray of NPR's Car Talk use this method to figure out what's wrong with their callers' cars. Juries use this method to figure out if the accused is guilty of some crime or not. Historians use this method to determine if some manuscript is fraudulent or not. Investors use this method to determine where best to put their money.

The method is not limited to particular academic departments or fields of study. Any claim subject to corroboration and falsification is a proper subject for this method.

What then is beyond the bounds of rational analysis? Chiefly any matter of personal feeling, preference, taste, or value, as claims regarding one's subjective experiences are difficult to corroborate.
 

"Religion as an art stripped of the unsupported assertions would content me. Followers of an art do not screw up scientific discourse."

I'm still wondering who you're arguing against. Unsupported assertions? Which of those have been made here, and which of those, precisely have we made that have "screwed up scientific discourse"? I think you'll find that the folks here seem no more happy with unsupported assertions in either religion OR science than you.

By "unsupported" are you talking about assertions that cannot be supported by science? So wouldn't you, by your own definitions, suggest that art itself (full of unsupported assertions, merely personal taste) should be thrown out the window because its assertions cannot be supported scientifically?

If you throw away anything that isn't supported by science, how do you have anything BUT science left?

(I'm not even sure what "followers of an art" actually means. That phrase seems nonsensical to me.)

"What then is beyond the bounds of rational analysis? Chiefly any matter of personal feeling, preference, taste, or value, as claims regarding one's subjective experiences are difficult to corroborate."

No argument there, but I think the list is longer than that. Science is great for examining scientific questions, that is, questions that can be addressed through experimentation and falsification. Not so great for a whole range of other human endeavors.

"The answer to this question is a factual assertion regarding neither the 5th nor the 9th symphony, but the speaker."

If you're saying that it's simply personal taste, I'd agree that for most of us, that's true. And I have no problem with that. But others here, speaking for atheism, such as Lee --

"As I said, it is the method [science] I try and follow – unless you can provide a better system. Until then, I will put up and ‘swallow’ the best idea mankind has come up with. "

-- may have a problem with "personal taste" as a means of decision making, since clearly it isn't scientific. And as he's said over and over, until someone invents a better system, that's the only way he can make a decision.

But, I would say that there are other folks, people who unlike us aren't just music amateurs, who would disagree that this is just a matter of personal taste. I have no doubt that there are a great many of them with significant opinions on which of the Beethoven symphonies are the most beautiful, and I bet they have all sorts of reasons for those opinions based on their particular expertise and study of musicology, music history, music theory, etc... not simply based on personal feeling.

But, even if it just boils down to personal taste (and I don't think it does, otherwise it would be hard to figure out why EVERY piece of music from that time isn't as well known as Beethoven's work) does that make personal taste somehow less important in life?

Perhaps the music example is too easy. How about the human rights example I gave, or the national boundary examples? Surely those sorts of questions are not subject simply to whim and personal taste.

And if science has nothing to contribute toward our values, as you say ... well, science seems suddenly far less important, particularly since what is being debated here are which modes of knowledge we value in the first place. So if science can't tell us that we should value science over other modes of knowing, exactly where does Steve get that idea?

Sky faeries, perhaps?
 

Dr Benway writes as a convinced Kantian when he says that art is a matter of personal taste, which Kant called "judgment" in his third critique. Yet, it should be noted that philosophy of art (like philosophy of science) has moved significantly beyond Kantian subject/object dichotomy. Indeed, most philosophers now simply reject as false any attempt to create "subjective" versus "objective" categories at all, since they beg far too many questions.

While I know Alan will hate this, his is a wonderful distillation of contemporary post-modern views of science, my own included. Science is a wonderful tool for answering specific questions in a specific way. Beyond that, it doesn't do a lot of good; the scientific status of sociology is the best example I can offer for the dubiousness of the assertion that science is the only serious solution to what ails our epistemological malaise.

If one wishes to reject religion because it fails to meet one's own criteria of "evidence", that's all well and good. The assumption, however, that these criteria are universal, is a false one. As in all real science, the answers one gets are based solely upon the initial conditions, the limiting factors, and the standard of significance one chooses to use as a measure. Beyond that, correlation does not equal causation, one cannot generalize even from a thousand experiments that any theory even comes close to approaching a description of something called "reality", and most real scientists who do the work would acknowledge the inherent limitations of science precisely because the central tenet of scientific inquiry isn't verifiability, but falsifiability. That is to say, all theories are inherently provisional, subject to change once the evidence becomes conclusive enough that it just doesn't cut it anymore.

Religion no more addresses issues of forces upon material objects, the evolution of species by natural selection and population genetics, or the nature of the chemical composition of DNA than does science address matters of ultimate significance. Sir Karl Popper, in The Logic of Scientific Discovery proposed what he called a demarcation between what he termed "metaphysical" questions, and the strictly limited vocabulary of scientific theories. A scientific theory is not scientific if it addresses issues that are beyond the scope of the scientific method. While there are many parts of Popper's theory of science with which one can disagree (his naive realism, as Alan calls it, is really a verbal realism, in which the "final theory" would be the theory the sentences of which were, while falsifiable, immune to falsification; in other words, he was as aware as anyone that science deals in words and numbers, not in something we can call reality), his description of demarcation, as well as his insistence that falsifiability rather than verifiability is the true hallmark of real science are pretty much beyond dispute.

This does not mean that non-scientific statements are meaningless, a la the logical positivists, who insisted that only sentences with certain definable qualities were meaningful (using the physical sciences as their measuring rod for meaning). It only means that non-scientific statements are just that - non-scientific. They are only devoid of scientific meaning and significance, not human meaning and significance.

Somehow, the notion that science equals true knowledge has yet to die out among some folks. Too bad. The world, science, religion, philosophy, theology, have all moved on yet these folks are all stuck somewhere on the cusp of French, German, and Scottish Enlightenment and German and English Romanticism.
 

By "unsupported" are you talking about assertions that cannot be supported by science? So wouldn't you, by your own definitions, suggest that art itself (full of unsupported assertions, merely personal taste) should be thrown out the window because its assertions cannot be supported scientifically?

I have privileged but imperfect access to my own feelings. Thus I stand as the expert regarding my own feelings.

I can never be the expert regarding your feelings.

If you can corroborate some claim that I make, that claim becomes shared knowledge.

Yours, mine, and ours.

You have your God whom I cannot know. And I have my God whom you cannot know. Science is all things that are ours.
 

Dr. Benway writes: "Science is all things that are ours." Yet art, like science, the geisteswissenschaften, literary studies, music - they are all "ours" in the same way the science is "ours". Religion, too, is not subjective in the sense he seems to offer it - some private language so totally walled within our minds there is no way to communicate its meaning and significance to others. If this were so, there would be no "religion" per se, but ecstatic experiences incommensurable with all other human activities.

In other words, the way he describes religion is kind of silly, not to mention wrong.

We'll let him try again, shall we?
 

Sharing can be and often is illusory. We prove that sharing is real by independent corroboration.

If you cannot corroborate any experience of God that I have, how can we know that you share my experience?
 

Re, from Teditor: "You may not know him personally, but I know I rode the elevator with you and his dad once. :-)"

Ah, gotcha now. Yer right!
 

Dr. Benway madre sense up to this point: "Investors use this method to determine where best to put their money."

No, they all do not. Jesus, so to speak. Wow.
 

Re, "You have your God whom I cannot know. And I have my God whom you cannot know. Science is all things that are ours."

An amazingly arrogant assertion! "All that we do not agree on is on my side."

It's wack, I'll tells ya. Just wack.
 

Re, "Sharing can be and often is illusory."

Do what? (as we say 'round here). Sharing, like eating, would seem to me to do be self-evident: I eat. I give you to eat. You eat.

Re, "We prove that sharing is real by independent corroboration."

We know that sharing is real by eating, or giving others to eat. WTH?

Re, "If you cannot corroborate any experience of God that I have, how can we know that you share my experience?"

By your profession.
 

AQnd, yes, that is all I personally require: One's testimony. One's word.

I'm really old-fashioned that way.
 

Hi Dr Benway

I started reading this thread. Then I got depressed and skipped to the comment box.

Do the comments make you feel any better?

I was about to take a break myself – I am beginning to tire of saying the same things, being ignored and attacked for what I never said.

But finally, glad to have a new voice of reason around here.

Lee
 

Hi Alan,

LOL. Thanks for the laugh, Lee. It's a pleasure being accused of building strawman arguments from the undisputed master around here! ROFL

Always a pleasure and always happy to help.

When you attack arguments of your own making, this is normally called a strawman argument – you have being doing a lot of this recently. You are normally better than this.

If you have not noticed, I am surprised, but I guess we cannot always see it ourselves.

I know I have made a few in my time here – one problem I am always facing is not actually knowing what anyone believes without asking first (or posing a question) I get attacked as making a strawman when in fact I am just trying to investigate.

Most humorous of all though is when I attack one persons views on this blog, and someone else replies that I am attacking a strawman because they don’t believe what the other person has said.

Always like that one…

All you do is ask questions, ridiculous questions built on sand. You never answer them seriously except with fifth grade "I know you are but what am I?" responses.

Oh, I forgot about the ad hominem arguments – thanks for reminding me. Never tried to answer these questions did you, just say they are 5th grade and not qualify why.

I answer your questions seriously; you disagree and return with playground insults saying I talk like a 5th grader – if it has come to this I think we both need to take a break :)

RE ”Does God answer this problem? Does Christianity answer this question?"”

Never said it did. Welcome to Lee's Strawman making class!

This was a question, you know that – I never said you thought this was so; merely pointing out that you might have a similar problem trying to answer your own questions.

Remember I am asking if not the scientific method, then what else - how else should this type of problem be investigated?

Are you saying that people’s pleasure in listening to certain music or the ‘pain’ at listening to random notes cannot be investigated or indeed should not?

If you say it can be investigated, but not by the scientific method – then by what?

If you say it cannot be investigated, then please explain why.

Any more 5th grade remarks will result in a ‘yellow card’ unless you can provide evidence that any 5th grader has suggested investigating the pleasure of music via the scientific method :)

You're the one claiming that science has all the answers.

Nope… I will repeat again since you are finding this difficult to grasp – I am asking if not the scientific method, than what else?
(I've lost count now how many times I have said this)

Until you provide something better (which hidden between the lines your replies you are suggesting you know of something) then I have no choice but to continue using this scientific method.

So, please tell me this great new method, or stop criticising the best method that I think mankind that come up with for investigation.

I am happy to be shown wrong, I have repeatedly asked for this wonderful new method that you seem to claim to have – yet silence and playground insults is all I receive.

Tell us how science can determine the correct boundaries between nations.

Never said it could – strawman

Tell us how science can determine which Beethoven symphony is more beautiful.

Answered – Never said it could – another strawman.
(I did however expand and suggest how science could help investigate this further, but you took this to be a childish remark implying that investigation isn’t what you are looking for – neither have you provided a better method of investigation or why it cannot be investigated further)

Tell us how science can determine anything about human rights and what those rights are or should be.

ctlr+c, ctlr+v

Never said it could – another strawman

Tell us. No more stupid questions, tell us.

Investigation is obviously closed to you on these matters since you seem to ‘know’ that such things cannot be questioned – there you go, a statement I think :)

Again, I am not saying that religion has all the answers to these questions.

Hooray – I say it is not even close.

Why? Because no two religions can agree, no two Christians can agree.

Religion has no mechanism to explain why they think they are correct compared to another religion, or provide any means to be shown why their religion might be wrong.

Unlike a certain method I have heard about…

Like artistic, political ways of knowing,

???

In light of your direct questioning at me, like try it back at you.

Why does person 'A' prefer one piece of music to another?

Is it impossible to ever find out or at least have reasons to suggest and predict other types of music the person may like or dislike?

I am just wondering how this ‘artistic way of knowing’ helps you – please explain so I may understand better.

religion is another way of knowing about the life in the world

Why is person with religion A right, and person with religion B wrong IF the core doctrines of those religions are contradictory so logically, at best, only one can be right (though of course, both could be wrong)

How do you investigate who is right and who is wrong? How do you start to justify why you may hold such an opinion?

Just interested :)

Thanks

Lee
 

Of course I do not claim that all investors are rational. I claim that there is a rational method used for assessing financial risk.

I'm afraid that we cannot always take humans at their word.
 

Yours, mine, and ours. "Ours" means I extend to you the right to double-check what I say. This is the opposite of arrogance.

You sane and noble religionists ought to embrace the corroboration rule as it will diminish the crack-pottery about you.
 

Re, from Lee: "I am asking if not the scientific method, than what else?"

Hmm. Instinct. Experience. Even emotions. Community. Words and meanings. The employkents of all these are methods of seeking truth. And none is a new method.


BTW, it was I who tossed out the first "fifth-grade" label, I think, not Alan.

Also, dude, reminder: Just becausde not every sing;e question youpose is engated does not mean you are being ingnored. It means, in my case, that, I considered some of your questions and opted not to engage them for one reason or another. Repetition. Lack of germaneness to my own thinking at the moment. Plain confusion over whop is taling to who; you seemed to think a rantlet I'd meant to direct to Steve Z. was intended for you. The one where I said he seemed to thunk he was the only omne here with anything useful to say and that the rest were idiots. Anyway, Lee, you are not being ignored.
 

Re, from Dr. Benway: "You sane and noble religionists ought to embrace the corroboration rule as it will diminish the crack-pottery about you."

Sane being a legal concept in most cases, I cop to that one.

But don't go accusing me of being noble!

Corroboration occurs among congregants of particular congregrations and groups, of course.

As for the outliers, within and without groups -- hey, freedom is messy. Crack-pottery is part of what makes the U.S. great. How else is the bell of general consensus to be formed? LOL
 

Hmm. Instinct. Experience. Even emotions. Community. Words and meanings. The employkents of all these are methods of seeking truth. And none is a new method.

I am honestly fascinated and grateful you posted this. It is an answer I have been wanting to hear for some time.
 

We wouldn't be here if our insticts and emotions weren't generally trustworthy.

But brains are dodgy things that make certain predictable errors. Reason is a method for seeing beyond these limitations.

We've made great advances over the past few decades in understanding how to manipulate instincts and feelings. We can induce false memories in people. We can induce feelings of certainty about uncertain things. We need a widespread understanding of basic rules of evidence and due process as a necessary check against malevolent groupthink.

Crack pottery can be charming. But not when you're innocent of some crime and the crackpots are sitting in the jury box --and particularly not if the prosecuting attorney happens to be tall, attractive, male, and a co-religionist with the jurors.
 

"Corroboration occurs among congregants of particular congregrations and groups, of course."

Independent corroboration of some phenomenon is necessary if one wishes to rule-out conscious or unconscious collusion.
 

We wouldn't be here if our insticts and emotions weren't generally trustworthy.

True, but only in certain circumstances, such as at human scales. There is no reason why instincts or emotions should be trustworthy when considering matters such as how life arose and diversified, what space and time are and how they began, how the many, many trillions of synapses in our brains produce minds, and so on.

Indeed, we know that instincts and emotions, and traditions and other of these ways of finding "truth" really have no power at all in these realms. And yet, these are the realms in which people suggest they have found truth through revelation and the culture of religion.
 

Hi ER,

Hmm. Instinct. Experience. Even emotions. Community. Words and meanings. The employkents of all these are methods of seeking truth. And none is a new method.

Thanks for the reply – I think Dr Benway has responded better than I could have, but I will add a few thoughts.

How trustworthy or reliable are some of these methods – how to you measure how useful each are?

Experience I will agree with, since this comes into the scientific method I think in the sense that our knowledge is built in stages.

Community – I think I can agree to this again, it is after all where I think many of our morals are cultivated and refined. (i.e. many morals could have evolved – just don’t ask me how)

However Instinct? Gut feelings? How reliable is that – how would you test it reliability anyway?

Emotions? Well, these can screw up many a decision I am sure you will agree. (This is not to say emotions do not play a part in our everyday decisions, they do come in - just that we better be careful it is not our sole reason at times.)

BTW, it was I who tossed out the first "fifth-grade" label, I think, not Alan.

I think you were the ringleader, but no problem :)

Alan did use the phrase, but lets move on – it’s pretty meaningless to me, I don’t get offended, just disappointed if this is the only attack that is made against my argument (actually, no – maybe I should be ‘proud’?)

Also, dude, reminder: Just becausde not every sing;e question youpose is engated does not mean you are being ingnored.

I didn’t mean ignored, I should phrase myself better – sorry.

I ask so many questions at times, I don’t expect them all answered. Never have, never will expect that. I just put them out to be thought about.

What I meant was that although many questions are tackled, many are ‘dropped’ just when the discussion gets interesting. You know the questions I am thinking about I am sure, so I will not repeat myself.

It means, in my case, that, I considered some of your questions and opted not to engage them for one reason or another.

No problem – my question could just be childish or boring, understood if you don’t engage everyone.

Repetition

Guilt as charged :)

Lack of germaneness to my own thinking at the moment.

These are normally the interesting questions, the ones where we don’t really know the answer yet - but if this is your reason for not engaging I can appreciate that – just wish you tell me so I can move on and not repeat myself so often.

Plain confusion over whop is taling to who;

If you think the question is interesting, or that you can add to it – just jump in. It doesn’t matter to me who the question was originally addressed to.

If however you have no idea what the hell I am talking about – just ask me to be clearer, and I will try and rephrase the question.

Cheers

Lee
 

This thread just doesn't want to die, which tells me the themes have struck a nerve, at the very least. The discussion has also turned into something very interesting.

ER and Dr. Benway (and others) are now engaged in a discussion of various ways in which human beings come to terms with their surroundings (I much prefer this phrase, clumsy as it is, to the far more loaded term "knowledge"), and discuss the role, in particular, of communal understandings and dealings with the world in which they live. This is a step forward, because it begins to grapple with the reality that human beings are always negotiating their way through this maze of life with other human beings.

Yet, in his latest comment, Dr. Benway insists there be something he calls "independent corroboration" in order to rule out "collusion". I'm not even sure what he means by this, unless he is suggesting that a disinterested third party do some sort of test (how would one construct such a test, determine variables, and rank the conclusions?) to ensure that a community's self-expression isn't a fabrication. If this is what he means, then we are back to discussing all sorts of issues that have already been cleared, or at least exhausted, including issues of bias, the false dichotomy of "subjective versus objective", and the lot.

Richard Rorty described human beings as creatures operating within what he called webs of belief. The term "belief" is an unloaded term in Rorty's usage; it does not refer to Plato's hoary old dichotomy of "belief" versus "knowledge". It is just what it is, a reference to a tendency for human beings to operate under a set of conditions they accept as functional, without any regard to independent corroboration or verification.

Most human beings are not willing to accept argument as a way of altering those webs of belief and desire. Since these webs of belief and desire are constructed of sentences (what he calls a "sentential attitude"), it is only with the introduction of new words, new sentences, and the elimination of old sentences, that these webs change (one of Rorty's assertions, with which I happen to agree, is that meaning is something human beings give to events and things through the use of language; thus, the necessity of talking about this "sentential attitude"). Since any analyst of communal beliefs and desires would come equipped with certain biases, certain webs of belief and desire, whether similar or vastly different, the question becomes one not so much of subjectivity versus objectivity but one of translation and understanding. Is it possible for someone outside to really grasp the internal coherence and meaning, the vocabulary and grammar as it were, of a communities language-game of belief? I have my own answer to this question, but I pose it to the good doctor, Lee, and anyone else who might wish to address it.

Many years ago, when I was a wee little seminary student, I had to write a credo and defense of my own religious beliefs. While limited to 20 pages, I managed to spend quite a bit of time at the beginning setting the context for religious belief outside my own privileged sphere, within the far larger context of a community of belief. Christianity is not a set of dogmatic, doctrinal assertions, nor even in the end a moral code. It is, rather, the expression of a communities understanding of itself as living under the loving care and dependent upon a force which it chooses to call God. The specificity of the Christian claims - this God is the historic God of Israel; revealed definitively in the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus; continued in the varieties of expression of belief over 2000 years of the history of the Church - is rooted in an ongoing reality that millions of human beings accept as guiding their lives. While, like all such systems of belief and desire it strives for universality, it is highly specific, and diverse in its expressions. Unless one is willing to accept that there is ultimate truth somehow embedded within the contingent words and phrases of a variety of languages living and dead (from the Aramaic and Syriac and Coptic of the early Church to contemporary English, German, and Spanish) against Hegel's most important insight (the finite cannot contain the infinite), it seems to me that we have to accept the reality that, despite our most forceful assertions and fervent beliefs, even our best guesses about what we call God are most likely wrong.

I believe that no matter what test Dr. Benway's "independent corroborators" come up with, the end result will be a failure because the rhetoric and grammar of Christianity is soaked in the same illusion of universality and transcendence as all other human vocabularies, science included.
 

Excellent, excellent, excellent, Geoffrey.

I expect, though, a response from across the pond, or down under, couched in sciencey-sounding language that means, at bottom, something like:

"Does not."


I cannot echo enough that the faith you and I share is defined primarily by relationships, not assertions of fact, historical, scientific or otherwise. "Disproving" any of it
would be akin (so to speak) of someone proving that my biological brother is not actually my brother. While such a revelation might cause a twitter of conversation at first, befoee long I'd say "so what?" Blood may be thicker than water, but love conquers all. He concluded tritely.
 

I cannot echo enough that the faith you and I share is defined primarily by relationships, not assertions of fact, historical, scientific or otherwise.

That is all very well, but then you are in no position to criticise those who have less benign faiths. If you aren't prepared to subject your faith to demands for evidence and justification by reason, or to say that evidence and reason are irrelevant, then you can't require that of those whose faith causes major problems, such as oppression.

So how do we "get along"? How do you tell troubling fundamentalists that they are wrong? They are using the same methods as you to justify their position - emotion, tradition, community, instinct.

How do you say "my instinct and emotion are right, but yours are wrong"?
 

I believe that no matter what test Dr. Benway's "independent corroborators" come up with, the end result will be a failure because the rhetoric and grammar of Christianity is soaked in the same illusion of universality and transcendence as all other human vocabularies, science included.

Science does not contain an illusion of universality. The apparent universality of physical law across space and time is frequently and rigorously tested.

Science certainly does not have any illusion of transcendence. The very nature of physical law is under constant questioning.

Science just isn't "yet another way of investigating reality": it works. There is a nice discussion of this here:

http://mphil.livejournal.com/1236.html#cutid1
 

Oopsy. The chief relationship, of course, is the one we all share through Christ.


Stevey, you are the one here striving to knock down religions. I am not. And I do not. The main arguments I have within my faith traditions is with those who deny that I am a part of it! That is, those who insist that I cannpt be a Christian because I do not believe in, or adhere to, the exact same things that they do. And that's a family fight.

I don't actually try to disprove others' religions or traditions. All who seek truth, I think, find some of it. Those who fake it, whatever "it" is, have their own reward, so to speak.

But again, your need to "test" and line people up under signs that say "right" and "wrong" is a need I do not have.

There are more than two lines: There are many, and they have labels something like "Close to Right, "Closer to Right," Even Closer to Right," "You're Getting Cold, "You're Getting Colder," etc.

I have spent my conscience faith life as a Christian coming and going among those lines, trusting that the journey is the thing.

As for Christians not agreeing, or as for their being a litmus test, if you will, fior "being a Christian," it's this, within the Christian family, the one line:

"Jesus is Lord."

Allegiance to Christ. Period. Within the family are various and sundry ways of understanding that and expressing it. But there it is.
 

Steve Zara writes: "If you aren't prepared to subject your faith to demands for evidence and justification by reason, or to say that evidence and reason are irrelevant, then you can't require that of those whose faith causes major problems, such as oppression."

It's not a question of "not being prepared to subject [my] faith to demands for evidence and justification by reason" so much as saying that such "demands" are meaningless. Whose reason? What criteria of justification? What standard of correlation would make one's views statistically significant? Who decides? You? Me? Some "disinterested third party", the existence of which is questionable? In other words, the entire premise begs so many questions, and assumes so much that needs to be fleshed out, we are left wondering what, exactly, you would have us do.

As for dealing with fundamentalists, all I can say is they exist, they aren't going away any time soon, and the best we can do is ignore them and get on with the business of being who we are without worrying too much about what they profess to believe. That would certainly illuminate one big difference between fundamentalists, who are nothing more or less than busybodies convinced they have all the keys to reality (kind of like all you folks who push your "science", no?). I stopped trying to communicate with these folks when I realized they have far too much invested in being "right" (kind of like you, Steve). I have no such investment. I honestly do not care which of us is right or wrong. I do not believe for one moment that any of us - Christian, Muslim, Hindu, atheist-cum-scinetistic-humanist - have the whole answer. In fact, I don't think life has "answers". Rather, religion, like science, art and music have therapeutic value. That is to say, they are ways of coping with our world, ways to structure meaning in a somewhat coherent fashion. They have no other meaning or function other than that. Transcendent truth is for those who believe (!!) that there is only one correct answer to every question ever posed.

This isn't dodging the issue so much as it is correcting the impression that your views have some merit, at least with me. They don't if for no other reason than I have heard them far too often to take them seriously. Whether it's a bunch of fundies calling me a heretic damned for all eternity, or some atheist crackpot, with not a lick of understanding of either religion or science, telling me I'm an obscurantist crank who is a threat to all things bright and beautiful, a fanatic who insists there is only one way to live and think and be truly human is a fanatic, devoutly to be ignored.
 

I don't actually try to disprove others' religions or traditions. All who seek truth, I think, find some of it.

So you have no problem with attempts to change the nature of education by creationists, for example?

But again, your need to "test" and line people up under signs that say "right" and "wrong" is a need I do not have.

There is no "right" or "wrong". What I am after is very simple:

That anyone who wishes to contribute to public discourse on a subject, be it gay marriage, or the teaching of science, should provide something better than emotion, or cultural tradition, or instinct.
 

While responding to one point, Steve offers another: "Science just isn't "yet another way of investigating reality": it works." With the cluelessness of a true believer, he has no idea that he has just contradicted himself. Science is indeed just another way of investigating reality. It works because it functions according to the rules that make it "science" as opposed to, say, "art" or "journal writing". No more and no less. It is just another way of dealing with the world in which we find ourselves.

It doesn't get any closer to "Truth" or "reality" than poetry or politics. All it does is answer specific questions using a particular method. That's it and that's all. Obviously it works. That is about as unexciting and unrevealing and saying that objects fall at a uniform acceleration on planet Earth.
 

One final comment before I'm off to that stew of misinformation, myth, and mystery we call "church". Steve writes: "What I am after is very simple:

That anyone who wishes to contribute to public discourse on a subject, be it gay marriage, or the teaching of science, should provide something better than emotion, or cultural tradition, or instinct."

So, you have a litmus test for participation in public dialogue. Bully for you. Literally.

I am quite tired of intellectual bullies telling other people they cannot participate in discussions if the way they present themselves and their views doesn't conform to some arbitrary canon of "rationality". In a free society, even ignorant cranks have every right to participate in our public discourse. Such ignorant cranks would include those who claim special insight in to the way our public discourse should operate.
 

With the cluelessness of a true believer, he has no idea that he has just contradicted himself.

I did actually point you at a useful link which covers this matter in more detail.

The reason why science is more than just another way of looking at things is that it extends the reach of human intellect. It has taken us to realms beyond what we could ever have reached by contemplation, or emotion of instinct.

Just one example: as soon has Galileo looked through his telecope, he saw that the universe was more than humans over tens of millenia had ever realised.

But hey, why bother with such wonders when science is no better than politics :)
 

Steve, Steve, Steve. I have dealt in the past with the whole Galileo issue quite fully. While I hate repeating myself, since you only recently arrived at our little garden party, I shall reiterate. This comes not from my own (self-described) limited intellect, but from a more thorough discussion by Thomas Kuhn, as well as other historians and philosophers of science.

In the first place, those who questioned Galileo's "discoveries" were being good scientists in a variety of ways. In the first place, the optical theory under which Galileo operated was still highly controversial. In the second place, the cosmological theory was hardly better established. One point made by Galileo's critics was that he might just be seeing imperfections and smudges on his "telescope"'s mirror and lenses, rather than something that was "really" there. Like Percival Lowell's "canals" on Mars, we might have been subjected to a serious misinterpretation due to any number of factors.

Galileo, Huygens, Newton, Einstein, Heisenberg - name your poison - did not "extend" anything. What they did was offer a new context in which to interpret data we receive, either immediately or mediately through tools such as telescopes, radio telescopes, and the like. To reiterate, science is an interpretive tool, working under certain principles and methods, limited in scope and function. We can marvel at its accomplishments in all sorts of areas, but we should not invest in it the already failed hopes of two centuries of western dreamers who foresaw a time when it would supplant other ways of interpreting and coping with the world.

Science is no better than politics. It is not worse, either. It is what it is. To see some higher moral standard being reached by science is to place a burden upon it that it has already collapsed under (see much of the intellectual life of Europe in the aftermath of the First World War).
 

I swear, in a rush (to get ready for church!), I missed this point, Steve:

"So how do we "get along"? How do you tell troubling fundamentalists that they are wrong?"

Well, in this country, you din't -- not until such oppression becomes big enough, prevalent enough and agreed-upon by the general population enough, to justify a public-policy response to it. Then, it can takes decades or generations to deal with -- and here, I'm talking about the kinds of "oppression" that are debatable. Someone starts kidnapping kids and raising them for the whie-slave trade, or rounding up women to make them concubines, or something of that sort, we're liable to shoot first and ask questions later. On the other hand, at present, we have a situation in West Texas involving a fundamentalist sect of a polygamist strain of some kind of mormonism, in a separated community in the middle of nowhere, that is totally an outlirer when ti comes to generally accepted beliefs and practices, where religious or not. Authorities kept an eye on them for years. Then recently someone reported one instance of child abuse, and the state swooped in an rounded up FOUR HUNDRED-SOME-OD CHILDREN and took them into pubpic custody. It was outrageous, in my opinion. More recently, the Texas Supreme Court said as much, although the status of the children was in limbo, last I read about it. In other words: You deal with oppression, religios or otherwise, very damn carefully in a free society. Let me trite again: Others' rights end where my nose begins.
 

Science is no better than politics. It is not worse, either. It is what it is. To see some higher moral standard being reached by science is to place a burden upon it that it has already collapsed under (see much of the intellectual life of Europe in the aftermath of the First World War).

I seem to have put forward a confusing message. Perhaps that is part of the nature of being a bully.

There is no higher moral standard in science. Science is nothing whatever to do with morality (although it can give insights into how morality arises).

I have been defending science because of your absurd claim that it is no better at exploring the nature of reality than any other method.

But that really is a side issue.

The main issue is how do we engage in public discourse on matters such as education, research and ethics.

My view is that we need to have a standard of discourse which requires more from contributions that a justification based on instinct, emotion, tradition and a feeling that God is one one's side when we are attempting to discuss matters such as ethics. My view is that it is unacceptable, for example, to campaign to restrict the rights of homosexuals from a position of religious privilege (such as a bishop in an established church).

This is about how we co-operate in society. At the moment religion is given a privileged status.

My view is that I am probably not an "intellectual bully" as I intend no other method of persuading people than discussion.

However, if you wish to claim that I am a bully because of my views, then I will accept that label with pride.
 

Well, in this country, you din't -- not until such oppression becomes big enough, prevalent enough and agreed-upon by the general population enough, to justify a public-policy response to it.

Good response.

I guess what I was getting at is how do you ethically justify dealing with it? What is your basis of argument?

Let me trite again: Others' rights end where my nose begins.

Ah, but that is just your feeling. Other have different feelings. (Such as that you shouldn't put bits of rubber on areas of your body). Why are your feelings right?
 

Re, "That anyone who wishes to contribute to public discourse on a subject, be it gay marriage, or the teaching of science, should provide something better than emotion, or cultural tradition, or instinct."

Good luck with that. I see no way to impose something like that, in general, in a free society, without making it less free.

As for ID, creationism, etc. I personally think public schools in multicultural societies, especially, should teach ALL of the creations myths and stories. There are some American Indian stories, for example, that have gotten short shrift for too long. And I personally don't see why, even in a science class, during discussion of origins, a nod couldn't be made to such origins stories AS EXAMPLES OF EARLY HUMANS STRIVING TO MAKE SENSE OF THE WORLD AROUND THEM, much like modern science.

Alas, the ID people want much more than that, and that I am not prepared to give them. I'd say that any religious approach to science is junk science, and any scientific approach to faith, by definition, is junk religion.

More anon! Off to church!
 

Geoffrey-

You are missing my point in your discussion of Galileo. I may have phrased things badly.

The point I was making was not that Galileo was right in what he considered he saw through the telescope. It was that the telescope, and the scientific approach, opened up whole new vistas of exploration and thought.

No amount of political discussion would have led to the discovery of the moons of Jupiter, and to the profound re-modelling of the solar system that followed.
 

Good luck with that. I see no way to impose something like that, in general, in a free society, without making it less free.

I agree. I don't think such views should be imposed. They have to be argued for. It may take a very long time, but at least a debate has started.

As for ID, creationism, etc. I personally think public schools in multicultural societies, especially, should teach ALL of the creations myths and stories. There are some American Indian stories, for example, that have gotten short shrift for too long. And I personally don't see why, even in a science class, during discussion of origins, a nod couldn't be made to such origins stories AS EXAMPLES OF EARLY HUMANS STRIVING TO MAKE SENSE OF THE WORLD AROUND THEM, much like modern science.

Absolutely. I think that is a very valuable idea.
 

I have not made an "absurd claim" that science is no better than any other way of understanding the world. I have only said it is not better, and no worse, and qualitatively indistinct from other ways of understanding the world.

I called you an intellectual bully because of your words. Period. You set an arbitrary standard for participation in public discourse, one you do not even meet, because you display a profound lack of understanding of religion, which you disparage, and science, which you support.

Again, science works only because it operates according to a certain set of rules, and follows them. Obviously, by following those rules, it works. An automobile works, too, because it operates under a certain set of rules. This doesn't make an automobile superior to other forms of transportation.

Religion, art, philosophy are also ways we come to understand and live in the world, operating under their own rules, with their own vocabularies and grammars. When they follow them, they work well within those guidelines. No shocker there. I'm waiting for something more, some angel's eye view that allows you, or anyone, to say that there is something qualitatively distinct about science that privileges it above any other way of understanding and living in the world.

I am no crank, no Luddite anti-science reactionary. I marvel at the wonders science and technology provide for us. I also do not believe for one moment that there is something special about science as a pursuit or body of understanding that makes it a better tool for human beings to use than any other. It is one among many tools in our tool box. Different societies offer different tools that work well for them; since science and technology provide us with certain advantages, we believe it has some kind of transcendent value, but that just isn't the case. Implicit in your criticism of religion and boostering of a certain interpretation of the scientific project is what Alan has correctly called "naive realism", i.e., that the scientific method provides us with some form of privileged access to the real world (Galileo's telescope opening up the vistas of the cosmos). Nothing could be further from the fact that science is just a special way human beings have developed to answer specific questions in a specific way. Generalizing from the specific successes (and failures) of science is a dubious business.
 

Implicit in your criticism of religion and boostering of a certain interpretation of the scientific project is what Alan has correctly called "naive realism", i.e., that the scientific method provides us with some form of privileged access to the real world (Galileo's telescope opening up the vistas of the cosmos). Nothing could be further from the fact that science is just a special way human beings have developed to answer specific questions in a specific way. Generalizing from the specific successes (and failures) of science is a dubious business.

Science really is privileged. The reason, as I keep trying to illustrate, is that it extends the reach of human intellect. It moves beyond what we can imagine unaided. The idea of theorising and hypothesis testing is the only reliable way of exploring reality. It is, after all, what we all do when we really want to know what is going on in a situation, ranging from why a car won't start, to what quasars are.

It's isn't appropriate for everything. One doesn't apply science to questions of artistic judgment, or questions of ethics. However, one can still apply reason to those.

Your position is like claiming that spacecraft aren't a privileged way of getting to the moon; after all, some of have lots of ladders, and faith.

Anyway... in spite of your abusiveness, it has been an interesting discussion.

I would say that your view regarding science and reason is very common, but you might consider that an insult :)

You may at least agree with the following statement:

Science at the very least broadens the range of things we can be wrong about.
 

Re, from Steve: "My view is that it is unacceptable, for example, to campaign to restrict the rights of homosexuals from a position of religious privilege (such as a bishop in an established church)."

Light bulb goes off! You sre in the UK, correct? The state church is what you mean when you say church?

There is no state church in the US, thanks GOD. No churchman has any more status, by definition, that any other interest group or individual. Some have more influence than others, because of wealth or earned prestige (for good or ill), but there is no institutional privilige accorded any bishop, priest or pastor, at least not in the same way as in the Church of England.
 

BTW, Steve, for what it's worth, I don't thubk yer a bully because of yer views. I think you, as can I, can be a bully because of the way you express yourself. However, whether you're a bully or not, if you want some arbitrary standard set, or even one carefully proscribed, for admission into public discourse, then you are potentially a threat to freedom. Poll taxes, race-based sufferage, property requirements for the vote, literacy tests -- all that crap is gone, thank God, from the US. We fought bloody hard, and bloodily, to get here; forgive us if we find the very notion of any kind of test for involvement in public affairs repugnant on its face.
 

Free people can vote IN their own oppression, Steve. Self-imposed oppression is still oppression.
 

ER-

Yes, I am in the UK! The constitution of the USA is, in many ways, an highly admirable document.

I do agree that people can vote in oppression. That, to me, makes the case even stronger for the use of reason in public discourse.
 

Re, "Science really is privileged. The reason, as I keep trying to illustrate, is that it extends the reach of human intellect."

OK, if science is merely a vehicle to get somewhere, then its privilege exists only if people agree on where it is they're going, and agree that the value of ultimately getting there trumps the trip itself. I mean, a car is superipr to a horse if speed is the ultimate value; and comfort, being able to listen to a CD and air-conditioning are also valuable. But sometimes, I'd rather ride a horse, for other values -- intimacy with the scenery; the companionship one can enjoy with a horse; other benefits that come from actually being outdoors rather than being inside a car; and benefits that come with getting somewhere slowly as opposed to quickly.

Re, Science seen as a tool for extending human intellect:

I'm not sure "extending" is the best word, but then you are arguing that your own subjectivity regarding science, itself, is superior, and "extending" is a good word for that, since it suggests "more" and "better" But: more data, more information, I dare say a closer look at something doesn't necesarrily equate with "better." Sometimes more information is just more information. ... I grew up being in awe, and more than a little scared, as a kid, of the powerful and often hellish thunderstorms that regularly occur this time of year in Tornado Alley here in the US. Then I took at class in meteorology. I learned about isobars, and all kinds of details about the weather; and it cost me a wonder and awe for storms that it took me years to reacquire. ... In retrospect, I could have done without the scientific knowledge, because the awe and wonder of the weather is really what interests me.
 

Something else Re: "My view is that it is unacceptable, for example, to campaign to restrict the rights of homosexuals from a position of religious privilege (such as a bishop in an established church)."

Then it is wrong also to campaign to open up rights to homosexuals from a position of religious privilege? As does the pastor of my own church, and many others?
 

ER-

I do get your point.

I suspect we are perhaps talking at cross purposes. By "better" I did not mean to imply any ethical value to the scientific approach.

However, if one wishes to investigate physical reality, science really is the way that has been proven to be effective.

I am sorry if this sounds offensive, but any claim that science is no better at investigating reality than politics sounds just barmy to me. (Although perhaps that is just an illustration of my ignorance of the power of politics).

An issue I have is when religion is put forward as an alternative and valid way to investigate physical reality (as with creationism, and the matter of miracles).

I believe what might be happening here (not so much from you) is some attacking of the limits of science as a way to imply limits on the use of reason.

Reason is far more than science. It includes philosophy and mathematics. I believe philosophy has an important contribution to the way we view the world and organise our societies. I have strong doubts that theology does.

I would be very interested if anyone could suggest useful ways of organising what we would consider reasonable and equitable societies that was not founded on reason and rationality.
 

Then it is wrong also to campaign to open up rights to homosexuals from a position of religious privilege? As does the pastor of my own church, and many others?

What an interesting point.

First, I don't think what happens in a local church should be dealt with in the same way as an Anglican Bishop in the UK, where their position is part of the mechanisms of the state. You have free speech, and that is a good thing.

However, even if an Anglican Bishop stood up and campaigned for gay rights using his religious authority, I would have to consider that inappropriate.

Even though I am gay myself, I could not support that.
 

ER, Alan, still at it I see. I dropped out when my direct answers to specific questions were treated as my own assertions to be proven. ER, I think your 5th grade analysis is too generous. Usually the "but why" and "but how",and "but can you prove it" is satisfied by the second grade. Timing is everything in development. Often if you miss a critical window for a certain stage of learning or specific life skill the organism has lost any opportunity to acquire that level or skill and build on it. Generally by interaction you can ascertain when this has happened. As an example my brother-in-law has recently hand raised a orphaned baby crow. Having a soft heart and a sense of responsibility to the life force of the cosmos he didn't feed it to his cat like I would have. His intent was to turn the crow loose after it was raised.
Well birds only have certain times in their development where they learn what to eat and what songs to sing and how to communicate. So now he has a crow that eats only a specific brand of dog food; mimics his cars, the dog, and his wife; and does this while sitting on a post outside the garage waiting for the door to be opened so he can sneak back in to his nesting box.
Some crows are crows. Some are not.
 

Re, "an Anglican Bishop in the UK, where their position is part of the mechanisms of the state"

I think we in the US should keep this in mind always when talking about matters of faith and religion and public policy. Something else I've been thinking about that is different in the UK than here is the circling of the wagons on the part of the church in the UK as it seems to gasp its last, AND the threat of fundamentalist Islam that European is dealing with that we in the US are not. What frightens me most about your situation is that the very existence of a state church int he UK, and the all-but-official authority of the church in other places in Europe, is a setup for a situation where radical Islam could become institutionalized in the same way Christianity is now. Which is why, as a Christian, I will fight any such institutionalism of ANT religion or faith tradition in the US. Fundamentalism of all kinds sucks. And, in my opinion, religious fundamentalism, even the kind of Christian fundamentalistm that seeks formal recognition or institutionalization as part of the state, sucks most.
 

DrLobo on the cros story.

BTW, I like this thread. For the occasional snark, it's a great discussion, and damned if Steve and I haven't stumbled into agreement on a few points!

Man, I have to quit this and get some actual work done now, dagnabit.
 

Sigh. "DrLobo on the cros story." Was supposed to be: "DrLobo, on the crow story: Wow."

And sad.
 

and damned if Steve and I haven't stumbled into agreement on a few points!

Indeed. For a fundamentalist and militant atheist, it has been something of a shock :)

I have been impressed by many of ER's arguments, and by his honest answers.
 

Oh, oh, re: "if one wishes to investigate physical reality, science really is the way that has been proven to be effective."

No argument here!

It's the OTHER kinds of reality that science can't handle well! :-)
 

Re, "I believe philosophy has an important contribution to the way we view the world and organise our societies. I have strong doubts that theology does."

But isn't atheism itself a theological concept? I think it is. If it posits. "There is/are no God(s)," that is a theological claim by definition. It sure isn't a scientific claim, since science can't ascertain anything outside physical reality.

I mean, that is, if one's concept of God, or gods, is not physical, and especially if one assumes, as I do, a concept of God as transcending ALL realities, physical and otherwise.

God is not physical for God created all that is physical and God, as God, did not create God's self.

God is not spiritual for God created all that is spiritual and God, as God, did not create God's self.

God is not anything within the sphere of reality, of any sort, since God, for God to be God, had to have created all realities, which therefore ARE apart from God's self -- but just to the extent that God wishes them to remain apart from God's self.

Which leaves enough room for the Incarnation, and other words that mean: God has entered reality as God has seen fit to do so.

Holy shit, I'm feelin' downright ontological! And my head hurts now. Off to smoke a very physical cigar!
 

I wouldn't disagree that science is effective at describing physical reality. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that no structure of human intellect is as successful at doing so as science.

I understand now that you do not put a moral value on science, privileging it above any other way of understanding the world. Yet, in saying this you are conceding a major point of my own - if this is the case, why attack religion, based upon science? We are back to this question again.

Since you are British and not American, as ER has said there are fundamental differences in approach to issues of the relationship between religious privilege and public policy. I am glad that you find our Constitution admirable. I, for one, find many things admirable about the British Constitution, although I have this vague uneasiness concerning the monarchy (no offense intended).

In any event, we have fewer differences, I think, than might at first blush be apparent. I do not think we have been talking at cross purposes; rather we have been operating under slightly different rules of engagement, slightly different assumptions, etc. I apologize for calling you a "bully", because that was rather harsh.

Anyway, all in all this has been a good discussion. It has gone from both well-worn territory to interesting places, and although it has been testy at times, each side has taken the other seriously. I, for one, have also respected your position, and tried to put forward my own views as thoroughly and thoughtfully as I can. Come back and discuss other things with us, because I think you'll find that most of us here aren't really as different from you as you might think. You can also come to my blog (click my name then follow the bouncing ball, as it were), and visit as often as possible.
 

WOW this thread moves fast...

It is hard to keep up.

All good stuff as always...
(Apart from it being implied I question at the level of a 2nd grader now, I’ve gone backwards, but hey - getting used to the name calling now)

ER, I think your 5th grade analysis is too generous. Usually the "but why" and "but how",and "but can you prove it" is satisfied by the second grade.

Oh well... at least it gives me room for improvement.

Lee
 

One thing this thread has done is remind me (once again) that "religion" is a group activity, a community, a congregation, and as such is reinforced by the group. Orthodoxy takes it out of the hands of "group leaders" and into the realm of government with a small "G". I have been studying a religion this Spring that is individual teacher based, hidden, and secret. It is maddening to find facts about it because it evolves so fast over time and different places. Names, meanings, symbolism, etc. change from teacher to teacher and generation to generation. Even so the core concept of "God" remains constant even for the past 500 years though the name has changed.
This religion has been deprived of the group because it is not an acceptable public religion. I am watching it closely and will continue to do so to see if it forms open groups and a published orthodoxy. As always it is the "exception" the test the rule.

Faith is an individual activity. Religion is a group activity. Even Atheist seek a group, albeit an informal one. It is just the way we are wired.

And say, Doc, sometimes that outside collaboration simply reinforces a wrong concept because it is predisposed to do so.
For example, belief and teaching:
don't go outside the cave at night a Tiger will eat you.
999 times out of a thousand there is not Tiger out there at all. But dang if we don't point to that one instant in a 1000 to prove that the statement is true. So we have colaboration that will keep us in the cave all of the time at night.
Sometimes the collarobation needs collaboration and often we won't believe it anyway.

88
 

I had prepared quite a long post, but unfortunately my laptop is prone to suddenly powering off due to overheating, and I forgot to keep saving my text....

So, I am going to be brief in the next few posts :)

Geoffrey - thanks for the apology.

I argue points forcefully, but would never consider that views such as mine should be imposed.

I'll reply in more detail later.
 

(Yay – I have remembered I have a text editor with autosave!)

But isn't atheism itself a theological concept? I think it is. If it posits. "There is/are no God(s)," that is a theological claim by definition. It sure isn't a scientific claim, since science can't ascertain anything outside physical reality.

What an interesting point. There are various kinds of atheism. Some might certainly be theological in nature, but others can be of a different kind. We don't have a belief in many things, but that does not mean we have researched the possible existence of such things and have come to a conclusion that they don't exist. It is because you simply haven't encountered them.

I mean, that is, if one's concept of God, or gods, is not physical, and especially if one assumes, as I do, a concept of God as transcending ALL realities, physical and otherwise.

God is not physical for God created all that is physical and God, as God, did not create God's self.

God is not spiritual for God created all that is spiritual and God, as God, did not create God's self.

God is not anything within the sphere of reality, of any sort, since God, for God to be God, had to have created all realities, which therefore ARE apart from God's self -- but just to the extent that God wishes them to remain apart from God's self.

Which leaves enough room for the Incarnation, and other words that mean: God has entered reality as God has seen fit to do so.

I just don't see how that works. It seems a huge leap to me. In such discussions I now start of by asking a pretty blunt question:

If you wish to claim that God created a certain reality, then I would say you have to provide convincing arguments for two points: (1) That reality needed creating by a thing. (2) You can come up with a mechanism for that creation. Otherwise, I would say, you are in no position to make that claim.

The real big problem I see with God as used in these arguments is that you are invoking something that has a mind, with thoughts and intentions. Minds are the most complex things we know of. It has taken nearly 4 billion years for natural selection to produce structures rich enough to produce self-aware minds. These days, any attempt to suggest that mind is simple (as some theologists still try to do) just won't do.

I would have far less problem with the idea of God as some kind of pure creative essence (although I am still not sure what that would mean). If you are going to say that God is a person, then there is an awful lot to explain, I would suggest.
 

Steve (Yay – I have remembered I have a text editor with autosave!)

Science be praised… a miracle!

Lee
 

Hi, just wanted to drop by and comment on a few things... don't know how much time I'll have to comment further. But Steve and the others are doing a fine job.


I grew up being in awe, and more than a little scared, as a kid, of the powerful and often hellish thunderstorms that regularly occur this time of year in Tornado Alley here in the US. Then I took at class in meteorology. I learned about isobars, and all kinds of details about the weather; and it cost me a wonder and awe for storms that it took me years to reacquire. ... In retrospect, I could have done without the scientific knowledge, because the awe and wonder of the weather is really what interests me.

Symptomatic I'd say - valuing mystery over understanding. I find that rather sad.


I mean, that is, if one's concept of God, or gods, is not physical, and especially if one assumes, as I do, a concept of God as transcending ALL realities, physical and otherwise.

Transcending ALL realities is a nonsensical concept, for then the supposed deity would have no reality at all. We cannot concieve of something that does not have a base-level of ontological existence - and that is what this implies. No causation would be possible.

God is not physical for God created all that is physical and God, as God, did not create God's self.

The concept of something physical caused by something nonphysical makes no sense. The concept of "causation" necessitates a spatiotemporal framework. This is one of the reasons why both interactive substance dualism and theism fall. Since the concept of causation doesn't make sense except in a spatiotemporal framework, the whole concept of interactive substance dualism is shown to be illogical, as is that of theism.


God is not spiritual for God created all that is spiritual and God, as God, did not create God's self.

God is not anything within the sphere of reality, of any sort, since God, for God to be God, had to have created all realities, which therefore ARE apart from God's self -- but just to the extent that God wishes them to remain apart from God's self.

The notion of aseity - logically inconsistent. The theologian Paul Tillich recognized this as well. God is said to be the source of his own nature. We have two options: Either god's nature is random, in which case - from the theists POV - no real moral values can be ascribed to God, nor can his commands be anything but arbitrary. Or god's nature is not random - that is to say determined. Theologians usually say that God is responsible for his own nature - ie properties. Now, an entity is defined by its properties. So for there to be an entity that does something, that entity is already determined by its properties. So, no entity can cause/create/determine its own properties - because that which does the causing/creating/determining already has to have a specific set of properties. Aseity, therefore, is an inconsistent concept. The only way to avoid this would be to identify the entity with its attributes. But the attributes include supposedly "being a person" and a lot of other properties that only persons, agents can have. But a set of properties is no person, no agent. And thus the property-ascriptions are in contradiction with the identitfication of the entity with the properties.
Aseity makes no sense.

To list a few more - we cannot even have a logically consistent concept of an entity that is:
-omnipresent and nonspatiotemporal
-personal and nonspatiotemporal
-personal and immutable
-omniscient
-nonspatiotemporal and causal agent
-transcendent and omnipresent
-triune

etc

These have all been shown to be impossible concepts.

I cannot elaborate on each of them - so I'll just take my favorite: Personal and nonspatiotemporal:

Being a person, an agent necessitates having thoughts, conceptions, ideas and being able to act - this necessitates change. Change is a temporal concept. Personality and agency also necessitate causation - which is not coherently conceivable outside of a spatial framework. Also, as we know - space and time are inextricably linked as spacetime. Thus, as far as god is supposed to be a person, an agent, he has to be spatiotemporal. This is true regardless of supposed immanence and transcendence (which alone don't quite make sense).

Of course Steve is absolutely correct in saying that we also cannot coherently conceive in sufficient detail of a mind that is not the function of a complex information-processing system.

Furthermore, triunity is a mereological impossibility - because "=" is a transitive relation.

The whole collection of concepts to form a concept of a deity is a bunch of logical inconsistencies.

Thus, god not only doesn't - but could not possibly exist. Logically contradictory concepts cannot have a real referrent.

Therefore, this:
Which leaves enough room for the Incarnation, and other words that mean: God has entered reality as God has seen fit to do so.
...is both wrong and irrelevant.

Even so the core concept of "God" remains constant even for the past 500 years though the name has changed.
That's just blatantly wrong - Compare the conceptions of god from Chrysostomus with that of Aquinas, compare that of Aquinas with that of Tillich, of Plantinga or Swinburne. They are radically different.

This comes not from my own (self-described) limited intellect, but from a more thorough discussion by Thomas Kuhn, as well as other historians and philosophers of science.

Yes, Kuhn had an important point... but why stick with Kuhn... Lakatos managed to distill the important and true points of Kuhn and incorporate them into a larger framework, uniting Popper and Kuhn, making it clear that science is indeed rational, and the scientific method the most productive and reasonable.

Even Paul Feyerabend, the "anything goes"-proponent who was diametrically opposed to Lakatos was very scientific - he even took a physicalist position on the question of the nature of the mind.

Also, the post-modernist position is self-defeating. If it's really all just stories, with no real truth-value or even comparable gradualities of reasonablenes - then how can post-modernists affirm that their post-modernist ideas are "true" with a straight-face? Wouldn't the conclusion, upon looking at the world, that science is just another way of "telling a story about the world", just another way of looking at it, no more rational or reasonable than anything else be itself just another non-reasonable, non-rational conclusion? Why should anyone accept that as true, or the most reasonable conclusion...

...not to mention that it thereby denies any claim to religion being able to grasp even part of "the truth"...

Actually, the post-mopdernist position some people on here seem to take would terminate in "every man is an island to himself", which would make even any intersubjectivity of observation and conclusion completely irrelevant and perhaps even impossible.
 

Hi Mphil,

So, no entity can cause/create/determine its own properties - because that which does the causing/creating/determining already has to have a specific set of properties.

This seems to kill the first cause argument in one sentence… damn. I spent ages on another blog trying to do just that and you do it so quickly and neatly.

Now I just wish I could understand the proof.

Thus, god not only doesn't - but could not possibly exist. Logically contradictory concepts cannot have a real referrent.

I should just go home now… I’m not needed.

Thanks

Lee
 

Now I just wish I could understand the proof.

Okay, I'll try to elaborate:

When god determines his own properties, there is something which determines the properties of god.
But an entity is defined by its properties, so whatever determines god's properties has is defined by its properties.

But since god is said to be that thing which determines the properties of god, we arrive at a contradiction - because that which does the determining already has to be defined by its properties - the idea of an entity without properties makes no sense.


I should just go home now… I’m not needed.

Please don't - I'm not sure how long I'll be able to stick around... and as I said, I think you're all doing a fine job.
 

Hi MPhil.

Re, Tillich's comment:

"God does not exist. He is being itself beyond essence and existence. Therefore to argue that God exists is to deny him."

Is that, in your view, a clever quip or something worth seriously considering? The limitations of logic and reason are just that, limitations.

If definitionally, God is separate and apart from all that is not-God, how any discussions can amount to much more than kids playing in an intellectual sandbox excapes me.

I mean, some kids can build pretty cool sand castles, but they're still kids, and it's still just sand.
 

If definitionally, God is separate and apart from all that is not-God, how any discussions can amount to much more than kids playing in an intellectual sandbox excapes me.

If God is separate in that way, he cannot have had any contact with our reality, and we can have no knowledge of him.
 

I find Tillich's view to be reasonable answer to all the serious objections there - given that abandoning the concept altogether is not an option. But it is an option - so, while Tillich's view is - in my opinion - more mature, it is also quite meaningless.
Of course from Tillich's position, the classical theology and all of religion were rather infantile. If I were a theist, my conception would probably be similar to that of Tillich, but then I am not, for reasons already stated - and I see absolutely no epistemic justification for Tillich's view.

Oh.... and what Steve said :)
 

Re, "If God is separate in that way, he cannot have had any contact with our reality, and we can have no knowledge of him."

Ah, but that is the wonder of the claim that God DOES inject God's self into our realities, whether in the tradition of the Incarnation, or as Wisdom-Sophia-Logos-Christ. God chooses to, is the claim, out of love. Plumb silly, ain't it?


Re, the relevance of the Incarnation: Relevance is in the eye of the beholder, I reckon. It's the very heart of my experience, my seeking, and my finding -- as well as my discarding over the years. The assertion that God, God's Godly Self, has entered into our realities, into humanity, means that God God's Godly Self has entered into MY realities and MY self. Figuring ou what the hell that means for me, and those around me, is the very stuff of the life of faith.

Re, "takes quite a leap." LOL. Thanks for the setup. Yes, it takes, erm, ah, ahem, a helluva leap of faith. :-)

Re, God as a "person." I concede that almost everything we think we know about God, the First Cause, The One, whatever, is anthropomorphism -- window-dressing on the tiny, cracked lens through which we're looking. St. Paul's way of saying it was that we see through a glass darkly. And how. But we see glimpses. I do, at least, as do many others.
 

Speaking of lenses. Once in West Texas, sprarsely populated, with very little ambient light at night, the astronomy club in Fort Worth brought out its big guns, and Dr. ER and I drove out to give space a looksee.

I came away as if, by looking back in time, and seeing the jewels of this and that nebula and other "objects" (poor word for such wonders) I had looked God God's Self in the eye. It was creepy and inspiring and humbling as at once.

Why is it that some, such as myself, come away from something like that with what amounts to a deeply religious, or faithly, experience dancing among stardust, wuith the impression that all any of us, any of it, whatever it is, is holdy stardust, and others look into a telescope and sees the same wonders and beauty yet conclude it all is not holy stardust, but mere dust, no more than the dust on my computer desk here?

I've been remembering tat experience ever since we all got acquainted -- hi, Lee! -- and it makes me want to go give it another looksee. Images on the 'Net are fine. Pictures in books, great. Putting my eyebrow against that scope and looking into the past with my own eye, with nothing but that len(ses) between me and it was utterly profound.
 

I am so sorry for the typos. I really do speak (American, Southwest) English.
 

Ah, but that is the wonder of the claim that God DOES inject God's self into our realities, whether in the tradition of the Incarnation, or as Wisdom-Sophia-Logos-Christ. God chooses to, is the claim, out of love. Plumb silly, ain't it?

In that case, he isn't separate, is he? :)

Any interaction can therefore be investigated, and the existence or otherwise of God can start to become a scientific question.

Re, "takes quite a leap." LOL. Thanks for the setup. Yes, it takes, erm, ah, ahem, a helluva leap of faith. :-)

Don't you find it fascinating that people in the same culture all tend to leap in the same direction ? :)

Re, God as a "person." I concede that almost everything we think we know about God, the First Cause, The One, whatever, is anthropomorphism -- window-dressing on the tiny, cracked lens through which we're looking. St. Paul's way of saying it was that we see through a glass darkly. And how. But we see glimpses. I do, at least, as do many others.

We know vastly more about what a "person" is than St Paul did.

As soon as anyone states that God wants, or God loves or anything like that, then we are involving "mind".

It may have been reasonable to think of mind as something simple back in Paul's day, when the function of the brain was not know, and when there was no understanding of information theory (relevant to the discussion of what minds do).

As the effect of accidents with baseball bats, and the result of several beers, tells us, the minds that we know of require the operation of trillions of synapses.

I wonder what God's synapses are made of?
 

I'd like to apologize for the typos and grammatical errors...

Also, was it just me or was blogger inaccessible for the last few minutes?

Now, to business:

Ah, but that is the wonder of the claim that God DOES inject God's self into our realities, whether in the tradition of the Incarnation, or as Wisdom-Sophia-Logos-Christ. God chooses to, is the claim, out of love. Plumb silly, ain't it?

Redressing logical inconsistency as wonder.... cute.

"See, that is the wonder of the claim that there is a square circle!"

Nope, sorry - I'm not impressed. Rather the opposite.

Re, God as a "person." I concede that almost everything we think we know about God, the First Cause, The One, whatever, is anthropomorphism -- window-dressing on the tiny, cracked lens through which we're looking. St. Paul's way of saying it was that we see through a glass darkly. And how. But we see glimpses. I do, at least, as do many others.

The last part is simply a petitio principii - and a huge one at that.
Re: Anthropomorphism - I'm afraid that won't help with the logical inconsistencies and complete lack of epistemic justification either.
From "we see something" (which in itself I find dubious - it's, I think, implanted interpretations of feelings and observation without warrant) to "those are glimpses of the nature and reality of an entity to which we ascribe, at least partially correct, the following attributes" -... that doesn't take a huge leap of faith, that takes a suspension of all rationality. A logically inconsistent conception cannot have a real referrent, pure and simple - and without the epistemic justification, there is no sufficient reason for anyone to believe any of that. The "leap of faith" translates back into reality as the irrational (not a-rational, irrational) clinging to a postulate that has been shown to be logically inconsistent and unjustified.

Unless someone comes up with a solid epistemic foundation (Plantinga tried it but failed quite miserably) and with a coherent conception, there is no justification for holding such believes whatsoever. And since it has already been shown that the logical inconsistency is right there in the central claims and doctrines - IF there could be a coherent, epistemically justified conception (I seriously doubt it, people have tried for millenia and failed every single time) of a deity, it would certainly be nothing like the ones that are around now. And, of course, from all of the above it follows that all the claims to having a sacred duty, to having a working and revealed moral code, the claims to exclusiveness (where they are made), the claim to rationality and reasonableness, and most prominently the claims to having working explanations fail.

Of course, most of these claims already fall for other reasons. (For example, I do not tire of stating that theism cannot provide a coherent and functioning ethical theory)

As I said, causation cannot be conceived without a spatiotemporal framework, thus "supernaturalism" falls in its entirety. It was introduced to provide a plane for agency and causal origin of phenomena in our spatiotemporal reality (and as such a rather lame excuse for not being able to provide evidence - oh, and as a rather infantile projection of certain emotions, certain feelings that just don't match the world we see) - and we can see that it just doesn't work.

It's all projection, unwarranted mysticism (not unwarranted six thousand years ago - but most definitely since the beginning of philosophy - of rational investigation - remeber Tales of Milet?) and by now the largest part of theism consists of auxiliary hypotheses designed to evade criticism. These auxiliary hypotheses have become tradition, therefore it's hard to recognize them as such, but they were very ad hoc orginially. Theism is, in that respect, like the geocentric model - as knowledge accumulates, so do criticisms, and it has to make up a neverending series of auxiliary hypotheses to be maintained, when it is evident that rationality demands it be abandoned.

The basic idea wasn't unwarranted six thousand years ago (although some of the logical inconsistencies were there already), but by now I think it's rather embarrassing. - No sufficient epistemic foundation from within any independent, reasonable epistemological framework, a bunch of logical inconsistencies, a complete non question begging explanation for why and how it came about, plus the knowledge we now have of minds and brains, of causal closure and oh so many things.

And I'm not even talking about the infantile practice of ascribing perfectly explainable events and processes to the working of god, which I, personally, find the most embarrassing: Someone gave birth and the child is healthy, someone got a job etc etc.

It's understandable that elements of post-modernism are attractive as further auxiliary hypotheses. It has been attractive for every single ridiculous idea put under pressure in the last 50 odd years. From stones with supposed mystical forces to astrology, tarot cards and so forth... But it only makes the whole thing more self-defeating.
 

Re, "Redressing logical inconsistency as wonder.... cute."

Rather, dismissing logical inconsistency as irrelevant.
 

Seriously, you will not find me consistently making any firm claims to rationality or reasonability, except for expediency in attempting to understand or explain this or that interim conclusion, when it comes to the search for meaning in life, vis-a-vis God.
 

Re, Steve, "In that case, he isn't separate, is he? :)

"Any interaction can therefore be investigated, and the existence or otherwise of God can start to become a scientific question."


Fair enough. I'll play. Investigate me. Cut me open and see if you can find anything you recognize as "God." Or take a sliver of my brain and slide it under a microscope and see if you can find, God's handiwork. Or record the synapses firing and see what you get.

While you're in there, see if you can find any love, hate, jealousy, fondness, crankiness or pettiness. They are all in there.