Ye Religion Thread

[|iR|Focalor]

Yes, and there's so many other cited references there too.

Like it says:
Some parts of this article may be misleading.[/b]

Just like in most other pagan religions, there is usually a hierarchy where some deities rule over others, in which cases there is usually one at the top of the... totem pole.

[reaper]

Still all generally the same, it's all about a higher power.  And how can you knock wikipedia, wikipedia is the best.

[|iR|Focalor]

Still all generally the same, it's all about a higher power.  And how can you knock wikipedia, wikipedia is the best.

Facts are not general, they are specific. Close only counts in the special olympics and hand-grenades.

[quadz]

god is intrisic to humans, that's why people belief in god on islands, everywhere.

If there's one thing I might agree seems to be intrinsic to humans, it'd be a prevailing inclination to attribute phonemena people can't explain, or emotions they can't describe, to the supernatural.

Big deal.

Just as with the stars being pinholes in the celestial sphere that let in the light of heaven, over and over through history mankind's attempts to explain away mysterious phenomena in terms of manifestations of the supernatural, have been hogwash.

And this doesn't bother you.

I doubt no matter how many books are written, or whatever attemps are made to propagate athiesm, it will all be in vein.  the people in power will still do things the same way they're done now.

The way they're done "now" ?

If we were still living in biblical times, we'd still have slavery, animal sacrifice, polygamy, and tribal warlords.

Why in blazes do you keep up the pretense that somehow religious "values" have been a constant throughout history.

since if people were athiests it would be devastating for civilization, and civilization wouldn't exist in such good form if people weren't religious.

You've said this before, and it's as though you don't care about evidence presented to the contrary.

Once again, when measuring countries various indices including human rights, internal and external conflicts, etc., we see the more atheist/secular countries tending to have the best scores, and the more ultra-religious countries at the bottom.

http://www.visionofhumanity.org/gpi/results/rankings.php

And it's like, you have this "My mind's made up -- don't confuse me with the facts!" response.

It's like the facts don't matter, because they don't conform to what you want to believe.

Why is this not a problem for you? 

take a look at jefferey dahlmer, and what the ghetto would be like if people were athiest.

Once again.  This is a Hasty Generalization fallacy.  And again, you're happy to ignore the equally heinous acts committed in the name of religion.  Somehow those don't matter, I guess, because they interfere with what you want to believe?

Remember the BTK Killer?  He was president of the Congregational Council of his Christ Lutheran Church, which he had been a member for 30 years.

We could make the same Hasty Generalization about churchgoers based on the BTK Killer, as you have tried to get away with with Jeffery Dahmer.  Do you see the problem with this approach?


Finally, are you willing to take Christopher Hitchens' challenge?

Here it is, in two parts:

"If it is to be argued that our morality or ethics can be derived from the supernatural, then (1) NAME me an action -- MORAL action taken by a believer or moral statement uttered by one that could not have been made or uttered by an infidel."

"But If I were to ask you, (2) can you think of a WICKED action that could ONLY have been performed by someone who believe they were on an errand from God, there isn't one of you who would take 10 seconds to give me an example. So what does that tell us? I would say it tells us a lot..."


Ready?  Set?  Go.


Regards,

[DaHanG]

I doubt no matter how many books are written, or whatever attemps are made to propagate athiesm, it will all be in vein.  the people in power will still do things the same way they're done now.  since if people were athiests it would be devastating for civilization, and civilization wouldn't exist in such good form if people weren't religious.  take a look at jefferey dahlmer, and what the ghetto would be like if people were athiest.   I don't ever see the athiests becoming overwhelming in any force.

How do you reconcile such a point of view with the existence of a country like Sweden? 50-85% of its population are non-believers in God. Yet Sweden has more than ten times less prisoners per 100,000 people than America - a God loving country. Sweden is undeniably one of the least "devastating" countries in terms of violence. This, it seems to me, blows your theory right out of the water.

Your favorite source - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Sweden#Imprisonment

It's also more charitable on a per capita basis, and I'm sure beats out the U.S.A in many other areas concerning values/ethics/charity/etc.

Until you can provide a good answer for the foundation of life, and it's building blocks (why they are there, how they are there) , you are dealing with a huge gap in knowledge, and like it or not, god shouldn't be subject to complexities, while the universe should be.

We know for a fact that the human brain evolved. In biology, nothing is more sophisticated or impressive. We know it evolved over millions of years, without the need for a designer, through a slow, gradual, incremental process. Even when we (humans) thought God was directly active in the creation of something like the human brain, in hindsight, we should have known it was a bad explanation (David Hume did, however). It only begs a bigger question of who designed the designer, and unless there's some direct evidence for this supernatural creator, it's self-evidently unhelpful for the time being. Nevertheless, If we know that something like the human brain can come about naturally, why lend credence to the active, supernatural creation of the first forms of microscopic life (even if it's extremely improbable)? It's unconvincing and superfluous. Just because science does not know how life originally came about, we need not seek a supernatural answer. We did not know how humans came about, and we sought a supernatural answer - and we were wrong.

I would even say 90 percent of non-believers, god is self-evident. science is simply not in the realm yet of a complete explanation, and you can choose to consider "this" an accident.

Think of it like this. Has there ever once, in the history of human existence, been a compelling case of the laws of nature breaking as some god/spirit intervened to benefit certain individuals? No. There has not been any credible evidence. I am open to any that may arise, however. This is all an atheist really is, someone who does not believe there is some god mingling with human affairs. It's also why the tooth fairy analogy comes up.


P.S. D'oh Quadz posted before me! my post stands!!!

[|iR|Focalor]

Poor Reaper, he's being stoned to death in the village square like a common whore, hehe.

Sounds like DaHang and Quadz are trying pretty hard to get you to admit that there is no God, to me anyway. Hopefully none of my replies come across that way. I think I only got involved in the serious religious discussion here because my own views were called to question and I wished to make it known that I do not "hate" Christianity, as much as people would like to think that a guy like me really does. From my point of view, I don't give a crap what religion anyone practices so long as they practice it within the bounds of the law. Doesn't matter to me what religion anyone chooses to believe in. As long as it proves to be a useful means of keeping one happy and productive in this life, it's good. Yes, even the Baptists.

Anyway, concerning the religious practices of Native Americans...

It's too bad [EoM]Shogun isn't around. I believe he's of Native American descent, perhaps Eskimo, I think I remember him mentioning something to me about his family living on a reservation. I'm sure he could provide some very interesting first-hand illumination on the subject. So if you read this Shogun, CHIME IN!

[quadz]

Sounds like DaHang and Quadz are trying pretty hard to get you to admit that there is no God, to me anyway.

Auuugh...

I don't know if there's a God, damn it, goddamnit.             

There's no possible way for me to know such a thing, and from my view it would be asinine to try to get someone to 'admit' the nonexistence of something I can't possibly know, myself.

I've tried to be really clear on that point.  That's why I'd quoted that story from Dawkins' friend explaining why scientists technically would have to be agnostic, because there's no way to prove a negative, etc.

Yes, it's true I do find the evidence for a Biblical god that resorts to some sort of inelegant design that has to be tweaked and shepherded to be less than compelling. etc. etc.  And yes, I'm arguing from the standpoint that there appears to be a profound lack of evidence for any need for supernatural tampering in either cosmic or biological evolution.

However, my beef with reaper's recent post is along very specific lines.  I'm not trying to say "you have to believe what I do" -- I'm trying to strenuously object to blatantly contra-factual claims, like, "if people were athiests it would be devastating for civilization", and, "civilization wouldn't exist in such good form if people weren't religious", and "god will be present everywhere, all showing the same common belief system", and, "in court it's held as self evident god exists", and fallacious inferences like, "take a look at jefferey dahlmer, and what the ghetto would be like if people were athiest".

Reaper is making testable claims about objective reality, and they are claims that can be evaluated based on evidence.

They are in the same category as Eternity's recent claims like, "The God of the Bible is wholly good, not swayed by human passions" and, "most science indicates the earth to be ~6000 years old", and, "DNA mutations violate the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics."

And so, when I respond to these claims I try to present (hopefully compelling) evidence to the contrary.

But my intent is to attack these specific claims, not to try to coerce or bully someone into 'admitting' God doesn't exist, or whatever.

And I'm sorry, frankly, if that's how I've come across.  Because it indicates a communication failure on my part.


Regards,

quadz

[DaHanG]

Sounds like DaHang and Quadz are trying pretty hard to get you to admit that there is no God, to me anyway. Hopefully none of my replies come across that way.

Reminds me of the "I'm an atheist, but..." routine.

I don't know if you want to dwell on this, but is there anything in particular that made you feel this way? Perhaps you just skimmed through and misinterpreted?

My last 3 points can be summarized as:

1) Current atheistic civilizations (silly phrase, but you get the point) are not out ravaging and pillaging, but on the whole are much more peaceful than Godly nations.

2)  Should this gap in knowledge of the origin of life, given everything else we know about biology and laws of physics generally, be attributed to something supernatural? Does not seem to be the most reasonable option

3) Reaper said for 90% of non-believers, god is self-evident. I mean...talk about grabbing something out of one's ass. Basically, I interpreted this as reaper being unable to visualize most non-believers as being genuinely in a state of disbelief. Perhaps he thinks most atheists don't like the concept of god or are angry at him/it. The tooth fairy analogy seemed appropriate, because he could likely relate to such disbelief, as, to speak for myself (presumably, most atheists feel this way) the same lack of passion or emotion is evoked regarding both god and the tooth fairy.

 

[|iR|Focalor]

I don't know what routine you're referring to, but... I'm an atheist, but... I try to at least make sure that people are fully aware that even though I may personally find their religious beliefs and morals to be ridiculous and irrational, it's not my intention to personally offend them with anything that I may have to say about it... unless they deserve to be offended, of course.

Hmm, a bad choice of words I suppose. Maybe I should've said something like "it appears as though Reaper is getting clusterfucked by opposition." And certainly it was not my intent to suggest that the arguing points in either one of your (Quadz and DaHang) posts were not logical or rational, I myself do agree with them. There are an awful lot of Christians out there who are convinced that there is a massive conspiracy being carried out against them by some growing army of atheists who wish to see Christianity and Christian morals wiped from the face of the earth forever, which is clearly evidenced by Reapers statement that "belief in God and Christian morals is what keeps society civilized". True, there are many atheists out there who seem to have a bug up their ass, hate Christians, and want to see Christianity exterminated. Hopefully one day these kinds of people will come to realize that within ANY belief system (and DIS-belief system), there will be those who are "radical extremists". One or two bad apples shouldn't be allowed to spoil the bunch.

[|iR|Focalor]

Reminds me of the "I'm an atheist, but..." routine.

[reaper]

god is intrisic to humans, that's why people belief in god on islands, everywhere.

If there's one thing I might agree seems to be intrinsic to humans, it'd be a prevailing inclination to attribute phonemena people can't explain, or emotions they can't describe, to the supernatural.

Big deal.

Just as with the stars being pinholes in the celestial sphere that let in the light of heaven, over and over through history mankind's attempts to explain away mysterious phenomena in terms of manifestations of the supernatural, have been hogwash.

And this doesn't bother you.

Who said the majority of people still don't believe god created everything? 

The explanation of mysterious phenomena being attributed to god, now being explained as natural phenomena, does not mean god didn't create them; it just means you can get away from lighting by knowing the electrical fields around you.  What a great gift from god to have that knowledge.  Perfect isn't having things just be explained without going through the process of learning them, kind of like the adage "if it doesn't kill you it only makes you stronger". 

To you it may seem like some kind of retreat for religion, but to people who believe, god is still doing everything, including being the real cause of lighting, since god created everything.  There's no backtracking when god created everything, just insight into how natural processes work.

If anything, i'd think you'd realize god is still going to be the prevailing belief system, when NASA calculates orbits, and sends objects hundreds of thousands of miles away, and the people are still preaching about god.  Surely these people understand natural processes, and the equations that govern them, yet it means little to them that people used to say god did things like that, since they still believe he does.  Back to the whole intrinsic nature of belief in god, and how god is the reason why things are the way they are - the order, purpose and perfection of life.  It's not about evolution or anything like that, it's about good & evil, order, and the likes.  God is why things the are way they are, that's what matters to most people.

And if you're going to quote that 95 percent of scientist don't believe in god, that's seems a little strange, when you look at the NASA control room after the landing to the moon, and they all are saying "thank god" and they clearly mean it in a literal sense.  I'll get to the problem of these statistics later, referencing Sweden, and why the results are skewed.

I doubt no matter how many books are written, or whatever attemtps are made to propagate atheism, it will all be in vein. the people in power will still do things the same way they're done now.

The way they're done "now" ?

If we were still living in biblical times, we'd still have slavery, animal sacrifice, polygamy, and tribal warlords.

Why in blazes do you keep up the pretense that somehow religious "values" have been a constant throughout history.

And if people didn't believe in god, so there was little order, civilization would of never formed, albeit it formed with problems.  It's easy to see religion had a positive effect regarding purpose and order creating civilization, when you look at what would of happened with the alternative - people behaving like jefferey dahlmer.

since if people were atheists it would be devastating for civilization, and civilization wouldn't exist in such good form if people weren't religious.

You've said this before, and it's as though you don't care about evidence presented to the contrary.

Once again, when measuring countries various indices including human rights, internal and external conflicts, etc., we see the more atheist/secular countries tending to have the best scores, and the more ultra-religious countries at the bottom.

http://www.visionofhumanity.org/gpi/results/rankings.php

And it's like, you have this "My mind's made up -- don't confuse me with the facts!" response.

It's like the facts don't matter, because they don't conform to what you want to believe.

Why is this not a problem for you?

Because just like Tony Blair, or George Bush, and I don't know... maybe 90 percent of the population, I think that is all bull.  You can't say the people of Sweden don't believe in god - have them kill someone then ask them if they fear god.  It's not going to be that easy as an atheist to convince people with these sets of data.  Even if the above was the proper conclusions, I'm sure you're aware, it doesn't matter if it's based on reason.  In some form god is going to exist to "everyone," and debate won't matter.

It's like you have life, good & evil, order and purpose that arose from belief in god, and still holds civilization together.  Our understanding of good and evil, and the way life actually is, meaning how beautiful it is, how evil it is, etc, and how order is formed, leads people to believe in god.  No matter what the LHC finds, or what books are written, little is going to change.  Even if logical thought were able to indicate an alternative explanation, not many people will care, and I do not see atheists being overwhelming in any force, even after new generations grow up with new information.

take a look at jefferey dahlmer, and what the ghetto would be like if people were atheist.

Once again. This is a Hasty Generalization fallacy. And again, you're happy to ignore the equally heinous acts committed in the name of religion. Somehow those don't matter, I guess, because they interfere with what you want to believe?

Remember the BTK Killer? He was president of the Congregational Council of his Christ Lutheran Church, which he had been a member for 30 years.

We could make the same Hasty Generalization about churchgoers based on the BTK Killer, as you have tried to get away with with Jeffery Dahmer. Do you see the problem with this approach?

I'd say it's a question of magnitude, that without order from fearing god, civilization and hence order and purpose would not form, meaning there has to be a god.  I just like the way Jefferey Dahmer spelled things out, because wether you agree about the effect or not, he's certainly an example of what atheism can do.

 

Finally, are you willing to take Christopher Hitchens' challenge?

Here it is, in two parts:

"If it is to be argued that our morality or ethics can be derived from the supernatural, then (1) NAME me an action -- MORAL action taken by a believer or moral statement uttered by one that could not have been made or uttered by an infidel."

"But If I were to ask you, (2) can you think of a WICKED action that could ONLY have been performed by someone who believe they were on an errand from God, there isn't one of you who would take 10 seconds to give me an example. So what does that tell us? I would say it tells us a lot..."


Ready? Set? Go.

I answered this above, it's a scary thought that cops would be the only thing holding someone back from killing someone.  Thankfully people do believe in god, and civilization was able to form properly.

Think of it like this. Has there ever once, in the history of human existence, been a compelling case of the laws of nature breaking as some god/spirit intervened to benefit certain individuals? No. There has not been any credible evidence. I am open to any that may arise, however. This is all an atheist really is, someone who does not believe there is some god mingling with human affairs. It's also why the tooth fairy analogy comes up.

I'd say it's compelling what belief in god has done, it certainly had a very large effect.  God is what supposedly caused good and evil and life to be the way they are, where is the natural explanation, other than just saying everything just exists..the end..?

So to summarize, you ignore what everyone else considers as evidence for god, say religion has been backtracking, god is to complicated, we explain a lot of how the universe is the way it is, it's probable matter/energy just exist on its own in some form or another forever past and present......that's not going to suffice.

  (the hypotheticaly symbol of alien god's)

Anyways, I am happy you are happy ahtiests.

[DaHanG]

Think of it like this. Has there ever once, in the history of human existence, been a compelling case of the laws of nature breaking as some god/spirit intervened to benefit certain individuals? No. There has not been any credible evidence. I am open to any that may arise, however. This is all an atheist really is, someone who does not believe there is some god mingling with human affairs. It's also why the tooth fairy analogy comes up.

I'd say it's compelling what belief in god has done, it certainly had a very large effect.  God is what supposedly caused good and evil and life to be the way they are, where is the natural explanation, other than just saying everything just exists..the end..?

Belief in god has nothing to do with the existence of god. The natural explanation is that people do good and bad things, and can be labeled good and evil, which can then be attributed to the god and the devil. There is no need to invoke a god and/or devil to explain human events. It's pretty fully understood in scientific terms.

So to summarize, you ignore what everyone else considers as evidence for god, say religion has been backtracking, god is to complicated, we explain a lot of how the universe is the way it is, it's probable matter/energy just exist on its own in some form or another forever past and present......that's not going to suffice.

I've addressed the so-called "evidence" for god in earlier posts. I didn't ignore anything. You said the world is perfect: I tackled that head on. You said we have a gap in knowledge as to the origin of the life, and we should attribute this to a god - I tackled this head on. You said we have a gap in the origin of the big bang and we should explain this by a god. I tackled this head on. Anything else I'd be interested to hear about...

I think you need to elaborate more. What does one get out of me saying "You think God created life. That's not going to suffice" It's a pretty meaningless statement without reasoning behind it.

[deft]

I honestly don't know why you guys bother with reaper, he doesn't understand elementary science and has no concept of logic and reasoning.

[Whirlingdervish]

OMG deft posted.

everyone check the sky for flying pigs!!

 

[|iR|Focalor]

God made the pigs to fly, it is the only reasonable explanation.