Ye Religion Thread

[quadz]

Interesting that religion gets good people out of bed in the morning, turns bad people good, and operates medical facilities in foresaken places.

None of that requires religion, as you well
know.


As per usual, we await your answer to the following:

(1) Let anyone name one ethical statement made, or one ethical action performed, by a believer that could not have been uttered or done by a nonbeliever.  (2) Can any reader of this column think of a wicked statement made, or an evil action performed, precisely because of religious faith? The second question is easy to answer, is it not? The first -- has been asked for some time -- awaits a convincing reply.

Here's a (2) for you: "In Haiti, to keep the spirit of poverty, the sisters reused needles until they became blunt. Seeing the pain caused by the blunt needles, some of the volunteers offered to procure more needles, but the sisters refused."

Awaiting your response to (1).


In any case:

Thank you for posting the following.  From my perspective it is one of your more substantive posts to this thread, as it poses a concrete idea to grapple with:

To the original questions, about helping someone trapped out.  There's no way to know this isn't the best of all possible worlds.  There is reason to believe this is the best of all possible worlds, and plenty more reason to understand we couldn't perceive how a creator functions.  I'm sure ya'll will mock this, as the idea was mocked originally, but it makes absolutely perfect sense.  This is as direct an answer to the question as possible.

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

Fortunately for us, Leibniz "best of all possible worlds" idea appears to be a non-starter.

It's true that we can't claim Leibniz' idea is untrue simply because it is unpleasant.

But unpleasent it would be.  Leibniz' idea implies the totality of our experience here on Earth is a zero-sum game.

Leibniz' idea implies we can't improve the experiences of some persons in the world, without causing a corresponding negative impact to others, in order to sustain the balance.  (I would argue this is also an immoral precept.)

I would submit that history shows Leibniz' idea of this being "best of all possible worlds" to be observably incorrect.

Our species has existed for at least 100,000 years.  (Possibly 250,000 years or more, but let's posit 100,000 as the low end for the sake of argument.)

During 90,000+ of those years, our lifespan has been estimated at about 25 years on average, with many of us dying during childbirth, or of our teeth, etc.

Since then, we've learned how to increase our average lifespan considerably, and prevent numerous medical emergencies that were fatal in the past.

Leibniz' idea implies that by improving our medical expertise, there must be a complement degradation to keep the whole of the balance in zero sum.

I see no evidence that this is has been the case.  (Are our most impoverished worse off than they were over the past 100,000 years?  Would our modern citizens prefer to regress to the healthcare of their ancestral past?)

As such, it appears we have made improvements to our health and wellbeing that were unavailable over the past 90+% of our species existence.

Thus, most of our ancestors lived in a sub-optimal world... for at least 90,000+ years.

Thus, our ancestors themselves did not live in "the best of all possible worlds", as we now know how to improve their world -- medically, at the very least.

If we could improve the world of 90,000+ years of our ancestors, with today's medical advances, they were not living in the best of all possible worlds; and neither, by induction, are we.

[|iR|Focalor]

The best of all possible worlds at the moment... that's what he meant. If you're gonna focus on one word like "best" in that statement in order to find egregious faults in it, you could just single out "possible" and make it a whole lot easier on yourself.

[quadz]

The best of all possible worlds at the moment... that's what he meant.

If we can easily see the world of the past was sub-optimal; we can easily imagine (and posit) the world of the present to be sub-optimal.

[|iR|Focalor]

If we can easily see the knowledge of the scientists of the past to be sub-optimal, we can easily imagine (and posit) the knowledge of the scientists of the present to be sub-optimal.

[quadz]

If we can easily see the knowledge of the scientists of the past to be sub-optimal, we can easily imagine (and posit) the knowledge of the scientists of the present to be sub-optimal.

Apparently we're agreed?

For your next task: try to develop a theory which allows you to predict some newly-undiscovered aspect of nature before we've measured it?



(Hint: "you'll find out after you're dead" doesn't count.)

[The Dreaming Dragon]

http://videosift.com/video/Evil-Chanting-Cat-Chants-At-Girl-Evilly

It's almost a religion,complete with funny hats!

 

[QuakeDuke]

Frederick Douglass told in his Narrative how his condition as a slave became worse when his master underwent a religious conversion that allowed him to justify slavery as the punishment of the children of Ham. Mark Twain described his mother as a genuinely good person, whose soft heart pitied even Satan, but who had no doubt about the legitimacy of slavery, because in years of living in antebellum Missouri she had never heard any sermon opposing slavery, but only countless sermons preaching that slavery was God's will. With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil — that takes religion.

Uh, haven't posted for awhile obviously . While I don't doubt the truth of the comment about the justification of slavery or MT's mother,  I have to take exception to part of the quote stating With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil — that takes religion..

IMO the statement "for good people to do evil - that takes religion" actually damages? hinders? negates? the impact of the first two statements because it is not true.  All it takes for good people to do evil is fear and fear is caused by many more things than religion.  I have known and seen good people,  non-religious good people - do incredible, almost unimaginable evil things out of fear.

Respectfully,

QD

[quadz]

Howdy, QD!

Uh, haven't posted for awhile obviously . While I don't doubt the truth of the comment about the justification of slavery or MT's mother,  I have to take exception to part of the quote stating With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil — that takes religion..

IMO the statement "for good people to do evil - that takes religion" actually damages? hinders? negates? the impact of the first two statements because it is not true.  All it takes for good people to do evil is fear and fear is caused by many more things than religion.  I have known and seen good people,  non-religious good people - do incredible, almost unimaginable evil things out of fear.

Good call.  I'm inclined to agree about the weakening effect of the last statement.  I'd heard it delivered verbally before ever reading it in print, and had formed a sense of it being somewhat hyperbolic.

But now that you mention it, it does seem annoying that it's not true as stated.


Regards,

quadz

[reaper]

I said previously:
"
Interesting that religion gets good people out of bed in the morning, turns bad people good, and operates medical facilities in forsaken places.
"

Quadz said:

None of that requires religion, as you well
know.

/* I don’t “well know that”, look at the prisoners, they believe in god, and don’t do crazy shit because “they believe in god”, religion is certainly intrinsic to decision making processes to some people*/

As per usual, we await your answer to the following:


Quote from: Hitchens Challenge (paraphrased)
(1) Let anyone name one ethical statement made, or one ethical action performed, by a believer that could not have been uttered or done by a nonbeliever.  (2) Can any reader of this column think of a wicked statement made, or an evil action performed, precisely because of religious faith? The second question is easy to answer, is it not? The first -- has been asked for some time -- awaits a convincing reply.


/* I don’t see a large amount of atheists leading as righteous a life as a dedicated preacher, guiding society, although a non believer could do the same, but obviously there’s something to the religious belief’s impact*/


Here's a (2) for you: "In Haiti, to keep the spirit of poverty, the sisters reused needles until they became blunt. Seeing the pain caused by the blunt needles, some of the volunteers offered to procure more needles, but the sisters refused."


/* seems just like not seeing the forest for the trees, look at how hospitals and churches are related, along with people donating sourced from their faith*/


Awaiting your response to (1).
* comments above


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In any case:

Thank you for posting the following.  From my perspective it is one of your more substantive posts to this thread, as it poses a concrete idea to grapple with:

[reaper]

My response to Quadz reply against the "best of all possible worlds" theory:

You can argue that the world has improved, therefore obviously the world wasn’t created as best, and additionally argue that the “balance” was broken over time, however as they say god works in mysterious ways, and there is no ways to understand his methods, although you can observe harmony.  For example, pleasure and pain, learning and failure, this is a perspective, but the conditions being so correct to even consider such an idea warrants investigation in my opinion, and this investigation has highlighted only what we don’t know.

Sorry for the formatting, I put this in an HTML editor and I really don't feel like messing with it on my tiny laptop screen : ).

[quadz]

god works in mysterious ways

 

It's amazing the way the universe appears to behave according to fixed physical laws (whether or not such laws were "fine tuned") which produce what we call Nature without any apparent need for supernatural tinkering.  And then when one tries to force-fit an idea of "god" on top of nature, it's such a bad fit that one can do nothing but make lame excuses like "god works in mysterious ways."

such an idea warrants investigation in my opinion

What kind of investigation?  I hear the scientifc method works well...

[The Dreaming Dragon]

http://videosift.com/video/Sunday-Night-Inside-Australias-Chilling-New-Cult

Is  the Sacrement Fosters and Blooming Onions?

[The Dreaming Dragon]

Because somewhere....God is named Michael......


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdWkKKSckNk&feature=topvideos_mfh

[|iR|Focalor]

 

I guess the Romans weren't the only ones to ever arrest Jesus.

http://www.mugshots.com/Historical/James-ONeil.html

[quadz]

[15:44:14] <@quadz> hahaha ... our new/replacement oven was just installed, and the manual says it has a "Sabbath mode for Jewish holidays" ... basically a 'delay' cook timer for cheating so that you can cook on the Sabbath without pressing any buttons (having programmed it the day before)
[15:44:56] <BadBrent> lawl
[15:44:58] <BadBrent> that's awesome
[15:45:00] <EmmaWatsonsBF> hahahaha
[15:45:29] <EmmaWatsonsBF> that is awesome, my mom would like it lmao