Ye Religion Thread

[|iR|Focalor]

lolwut!?! NO NO NO. Basically what I meant was that a lot of people convicted of capital murder DO believe in God, probably more than half of them.

A lot more than half, it turns out: http://www.skepticfiles.org/american/prison.htm

Hehe. I don't know how accurate that really is. I've had discussions with a friend who spent several years in prison. From what he said, its more like 10%. Not necessarily all "atheist", maybe what could be considered "agnostic", but basically people who just don't give a shit about or give any thought to any religion or deity at all. He said that Islam is a big religion among the black inmates, and there are even a few white inmates who decided to adopt it. He also told me that discussing one's beliefs in favor of atheism is often a no-no. Talking about such things in the presence of the wrong person can lead to heated arguments and possibly lead to a group of guys beating you to death. And you thought some of the nutty sidewalk preachers were fanatical about their beliefs.

[quadz]

jeffery on god and his behavior

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjW7bezdddE

Haha, damn it.  I actually went running back in here to the computer planning to post a quick P.S. because I remembered that you always cite the specific case of Jeffrey Dahmer, while blithely ignoring other individual psychos who either claimed to be religious, or numerous other individuals who kill *in the name of* religion.

Anyway...

Should I be inclined to give a lot of weight to the words of one individual, whether he says he kills in the name of god, or because he believes there's no god, or whether he believes the aliens riding on the tail of a comet wanted him to do so?

We've been over this so many times... how about if I try it your way:

The BTK killer (Dennis Rader) was for a time the leader of his Christian church.  Therefore common sense tells us that being a church leader has a twisting effect on one's psyche.  Surveys may say that there's no correlative evidence linking church leaders to homicidal behavior, but surveys are often wrong.  It is likely there would be fewer psychopaths if there were fewer church leaders.  Checkmate!

But several times now, reaper ignores the evidence and repeats what he "knows".

I"m not sure what this obsession with evidence is,

As I would asknowledge you frequently demonstrate in your posts - but thanks for stating this so plainly.

If our beliefs aren't subject to any standard of evidence, then indeed we can claim anything:

(*) or as long as your beliefs don't require supporting evidence.

if common sense can't survive we have some serious problems.

I'm partial to the Einstein quote about common sense:

  "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."

Common sense is great for things like, "kettle on stove may be hot."

But common sense also tells us we live in a geocentric universe.  It fails horribly for non-intuitive propositions.

Appeal to common sense is also a logical fallacy: http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-popularity.html

I presume you yourself reject common sense and accept the heliocentric theory of our planetary orbit based on the evidence supporting that view.  But why, if common sense trumps evidence?

  You made some claims below, well first off, as I've stated before, your surveys aren't accurate.  Even if someone puts ahtiest on a sheet of paper it doesn't mean they aren't scared of god.

That works both ways.  Shouldn't we also be skeptical of whether every single person who checks the 'god' box truly believes in a supernatural overlord?

Doubtless there's some error in either direction.  Nevertheless, when one country shows 15% nonbelievers, and another shows 70% nonbelievers, I don't think you're on solid ground arguing, "oh, yeah, but they REALLY all believe in god anyway."

  How do I know this?  There's no evidence; maybe I should disregard it.  No, I'm going to be honest.

That is a kind of honesty I think I could do without.  It is one of the most intellectually dishonest concatenations of three sentences I've seen.

I never claimed I know the truth, simply what I believe is likely to be the truth

Yes, and if what we believe need not be based on any standards of evidence we can claim whatever we want.

I believe it is likely true that you have three nipples.  I definitely don't want to see the evidence, BTW.

And I've read the book "the god delusion"...yeah pretty much a way to totally make enemies - not going to help.

I've read the bible.  Frankly Dawkins' writing is a lot more polite than Yahweh's.



Regards,

[reaper]

The BTK killer killed because he lost god, big difference.

It also doesn't work equally both ways "when they check the god box".

I don't think it's common sense that the earth is the center of the universe.

You read the bible and extrapolate problems and immorailty from it, for the masses it keeps them in check.

[|iR|Focalor]

Not exactly. At the time of his first murder, he was not involved in church or religion. It was shortly thereafter that he became a member of the Christ Lutheran Church where he became the president of the congregation some 30 years later. Of all the serial killers out there, he was probably the smartest and the luckiest. I'm not sure if they ever had latent fingerprint evidence, but they definitely had DNA evidence. It just so happened that he kept his nose clean and was never arrested which kept his fingerprints and DNA evidence out of the national law enforcement database.

But then he had to fuck up and go sending floppy disks to the FBI with data encoded on it linking the disk back to NOT ONLY his church, but the very computer in HIS CHURCH OFFICE where he authored the text on the disk. Happy trails, dumbass.
 

[reaper]

Not exactly. At the time of his first murder, he was not involved in church or religion. It was shortly thereafter that he became a member of the Christ Lutheran Church where he became the president of the congregation some 30 years later.

That really does seem like an oversimplication of the matter; who knows what BTK killers belief in "god" was throughout his life.  If we use some common sense, he probably wasn't scared of any consequence, or believed in any order at the time of his killings.

[QwazyWabbit]

Wait...

The BTK killer killed because he lost god, big difference.

Not exactly. At the time of his first murder, he was not involved in church or religion. It was shortly thereafter that he became a member of the Christ Lutheran Church where he became the president of the congregation some 30 years later.

That really does seem like an oversimplication of the matter; who knows what BTK killers belief in "god" was throughout his life.  If we use some common sense, he probably wasn't scared of any consequence, or believed in any order at the time of his killings.

So you can assert "facts" without basis when you think those "facts" support your opinion but deny anyone can "know" something that doesn't?

[reaper]

So you can assert "facts" without basis when you think those "facts" support your opinion but deny anyone can "know" something that doesn't?

Do you think the BTK killer was really a religious person?

[|iR|Focalor]

Belief in God or not, he has what is known as an antisocial personality disorder, meaning that he cannot feel sympathy for the suffering of others and has a complete disregard for the rights of others when they do not favor of his own will. Such a condition doesn't mean that a person cannot believe in God. I'd attempt to provide an example of a sociopath who was obviously religious...

...but Dennis Rader would be my prime example.

[QwazyWabbit]

So you can assert "facts" without basis when you think those "facts" support your opinion but deny anyone can "know" something that doesn't?

Do you think the BTK killer was really a religious person?

Whether I think he was religious or not is irrelevant. The flaws in your logic are the issue.

[reaper]

Belief in God or not, he has what is known as an antisocial personality disorder, meaning that he cannot feel sympathy for the suffering of others and has a complete disregard for the rights of others when they do not favor of his own will. Such a condition doesn't mean that a person cannot believe in God.

That does go against the primary tentants of all major religions - do on to others as you would do to yourself , and thall shall not kill.  Killiing children slowly...well that's one fucked up individual.  

So here we have people shown what is important and how they should live there life, then you have athiesm.  Can you really deny what Jefferey has to say?  It's not just Jefferey now.

I"m sure there are serial killers who are religious, or maybe even feel god commanded them (maybe hallucinations), but that is the exception to the rule.

[quadz]

The BTK killer killed because he lost god, big difference.

The biblical god has ordered and orchestrated and condoned quite a lot of killing, including genocide, and has commanded on occasion specifically not even to spare the women and children.

So maybe Rader found god, rather than lost god. ^{(*) Yes I'm being slightly facetious. But that Yahweh was a butcher.}

In any event, we also have numerous cases of suicide bombers leaving behind taped messages informing us in no uncertain terms they are carrying out their mission because god wants them to.

It also doesn't work equally both ways "when they check the god box".

Says who?  I've seen, for example, a compilation of (anonymized) interviews with priests and pastors who say they lost utterly any belief in god many years ago, and sometimes for decades they've been up there on Sunday preaching things they no longer believe.  But they're afraid to step down because of the rift they anticipate it would cause in their family and/or community.

This is just an example of some people who might well check 'believe' on a form even though they didn't.

But anyway, you are claiming specific knowledge that it "doesn't work equally both ways", so I'll ask you to back up that claim.

I don't think it's common sense that the earth is the center of the universe.

It's a matter of historical record.

You read the bible and extrapolate problems and immorailty from it, for the masses it keeps them in check.

Oh, "how very white of you", as the saying goes.

Sure WE may know we're just preaching a version of santa claus for adults, but don't tell the poor ignorant rabble, maybe we can scare them into being on their best behavior.  After all "he's making a list and checking it twice" it works so well on children all year long.

That does go against the primary tentants of all major religions - do on to others as you would do to yourself , and thall shall not kill.

Have you ever even READ THE BIBLE?

It would be a somewhat thinner volume if we removed all the parts where people acted contrary to "do unto others as you would have them do to you", and "thou shalt not kill", and were doing so with god's blessing or according to god's direct instructions!

I"m sure there are serial killers who are religious, or maybe even feel god commanded them (maybe hallucinations), but that is the exception to the rule.

Says who?  Based on what? 

Here:

"I'm sure there are serial killers who are agnostic, or maybe even atheist, but that is the exception to the rule."

Now: I've made a specific claim which I haven't backed up with any supporting evidence or reasoning.  So it's just as good as your claim.

[paradisel0st]

3 years later and still no hope for Reaper. 

[reaper]

The BTK killer killed because he lost god, big difference.

The biblical god has ordered and orchestrated and condoned quite a lot of killing, including genocide, and has commanded on occasion specifically not even to spare the women and children.

So maybe Rader found god, rather than lost god. (*) Yes I'm being slightly facetious. But that Yahweh was a butcher.

In any event, we also have numerous cases of suicide bombers leaving behind taped messages informing us in no uncertain terms they are carrying out their mission because god wants them to.

I'm not sure how you dissected the bible like that, all major religions teach peace and to treat others as you would yourself - pretty much the purpose of all the teachings.

Maybe you should look to the reasons why these people committed these acts.  Al Qaeda doesn't like military bases in their back yard, they didn't like a super power playing the enemy of my enemy is my friend deal, and then leaving Afghanistan high and dry.  The references to god were just symbolic.

Take a look a Bobby Fischer, the chess genius who went crazy.  America drove him crazy by "real acts"; they kicked him out of the country away from his family and refused to let him defend his title of world title.  It looks to me like when big brother does something bad it comes around to bite them.  I am not saying I agree, but the causes are clear.  Note that he wrote letters to Osama Bin Laden stating his alliance and understanding of his causes.  Also he was not a religious person, in fact he pretty much called them all scam artists, and stated his views on god that show he was not.

It also doesn't work equally both ways "when they check the god box".

Says who?  I've seen, for example, a compilation of (anonymized) interviews with priests and pastors who say they lost utterly any belief in god many years ago, and sometimes for decades they've been up there on Sunday preaching things they no longer believe.  But they're afraid to step down because of the rift they anticipate it would cause in their family and/or community.

This is just an example of some people who might well check 'believe' on a form even though they didn't.

But anyway, you are claiming specific knowledge that it "doesn't work equally both ways", so I'll ask you to back up that claim.

You are forgetting it's intrinsic in people to fear god to some extent.  Almost like PROM in a computer.  With this in mind and some common sense it's pretty to see it is not an equal checkmark.  Just like you ignore the positive aspects of religion and its teachings, your view seems skewed here.

I don't think it's common sense that the earth is the center of the universe.

It's a matter of historical record.

Depends on the definition of common sense.

You read the bible and extrapolate problems and immorality from it, for the masses it keeps them in check.

Oh, "how very white of you", as the saying goes.

Sure WE may know we're just preaching a version of santa claus for adults, but don't tell the poor ignorant rabble, maybe we can scare them into being on their best behavior.  After all "he's making a list and checking it twice" it works so well on children all year long.

Not sure why you take religion like that, being as it teaches just to live a righteous life, and has helped contribut to charity  more than anything else.

I"m sure there are serial killers who are religious, or maybe even feel god commanded them (maybe hallucinations), but that is the exception to the rule.

Says who?  Based on what? 

Here:

"I'm sure there are serial killers who are agnostic, or maybe even atheist, but that is the exception to the rule."

Now: I've made a specific claim which I haven't backed up with any supporting evidence or reasoning.  So it's just as good as your claim.

Well one claim is true one is not.  I supported my claim earlier, with some common sense you can see it's true.  While when we look at your surveys, you can see they don't really show anything.  An easy way to figure this out would be to look at the prisoners, would they be even crazier if they had no fear of consequence?

3 years later and still no hope for Reaper. 

3 years later and still no hope for "the god delusion"



 


 

[quadz]

"I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it." - Mark Twain

Coincidentally, someone forwarded a Twain quote to my wife yesterday, which she passed along to me.  In the process of checking the authenticity of the quote, I encountered several additional fun ones, a few of which I'll include below as well.

The so-called Christian nations are the most enlightened and progressive ... but in spite of their religion, not because of it. The Church has opposed every innovation and discovery from the day of Galileo down to our own time, when the use of anesthetic in childbirth was regarded as a sin because it avoided the biblical curse pronounced against Eve. And every step in astronomy and geology ever taken has been opposed by bigotry and superstition. The Greeks surpassed us in artistic culture and in architecture five hundred years before Christian religion was born.
-- Mark Twain, from Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain, a Biography (1912), quoted from Barbara Schmidt, ed, "Mark Twain Quotations, Newspaper Collections, & Related Resources"


Between believing a thing and thinking you know is only a small step and quickly taken.
-- Mark Twain, 3,000 Years Among the Microbes


You can never find a Christian who has acquired this valuable knowledge, this saving knowledge, by any process but the everlasting and all-sufficient "people say."
-- Mark Twain, Autobiography


A God who could make good children as easily a bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave is angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice, and invented hell -- mouths mercy, and invented hell -- mouths Golden Rules and foregiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people, and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites his poor abused slave to worship him!
-- Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger


When one reads Bibles, one is less surprised at what the Deity knows than at what He doesn't know.
-- Mark Twain, Mark Twain's Notebook


The Christian's Bible is a drug store. Its contents remain the same; but the medical practice changes.... The world has corrected the Bible. The church never corrects it; and also never fails to drop in at the tail of the procession -- and take the credit of the correction. During many ages there were witches. The Bible said so. the Bible commanded that they should not be allowed to live. Therefore the Church, after eight hundred years, gathered up its halters, thumb-screws, and firebrands, and set about its holy work in earnest. She worked hard at it night and day during nine centuries and imprisoned, tortured, hanged, and burned whole hordes and armies of witches, and washed the Christian world clean with their foul blood.
     Then it was discovered that there was no such thing as witches, and never had been. One does not know whether to laugh or to cry.... There are no witches. The witch text remains; only the practice has changed. Hell fire is gone, but the text remains. Infant damnation is gone, but the text remains. More than two hundred death penalties are gone from the law books, but the texts that authorized them remain.
-- Mark Twain, "Bible Teaching and Religious Practice," Europe and Elsewhere (1923)


Blasphemy? No, it is not blasphemy. If God is as vast as that, he is above blasphemy; if He is as little as that, He is beneath it.
-- Mark Twain, from Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain, a Biography (1912), quoted from Barbara Schmidt, ed, "Mark Twain Quotations, Newspaper Collections, & Related Resources"


If I were to construct a God I would furnish Him with some way and qualities and characteristics which the Present lacks. He would not stoop to ask for any man's compliments, praises, flatteries; and He would be far above exacting them. I would have Him as self-respecting as the better sort of man in these regards.
     He would not be a merchant, a trader. He would not buy these things. He would not sell, or offer to sell, temporary benefits of the joys of eternity for the product called worship. I would have Him as dignified as the better sort of man in this regard.
     He would value no love but the love born of kindnesses conferred; not that born of benevolences contracted for. Repentance in a man's heart for a wrong done would cancel and annul that sin; and no verbal prayers for forgiveness be required or desired or expected of that man.
     In His Bible there would be no Unforgiveable Sin. He would recognize in Himself the Author and Inventor of Sin and Author and Inventor of the Vehicle and Appliances for its commission; and would place the whole responsibility where it would of right belong: upon Himself, the only Sinner.
     He would not be a jealous God -- a trait so small that even men despise it in each other.
     He would not boast.
     He would keep private His admirations of Himself; He would regard self-praise as unbecoming the dignity of his position.
     He would not have the spirit of vengeance in His heart. Then it would not issue from His lips.
     There would not be any hell -- except the one we live in from the cradle to the grave.
     There would not be any heaven -- the kind described in the world's Bibles.
     He would spend some of His eternities in trying to forgive Himself for making man unhappy when he could have made him happy with the same effort and he would spend the rest of them in studying astronomy.
-- Mark Twain, Notebook


Surely the ass who invented the first religion ought to be the first ass damned.
-- Mark Twain, on the margin of a newspaper report titled "God & the Earthquake; Rabbi Says God Who Would Kill The Innocent Isn't Worthy of Worship," about an earthquake in Italy and how people were fleeing into churches, only for the building to collapse in aftershocks, killing the followers (contributed to Positive Atheism by Twain scholar and collector Robert Solatta)

[QwazyWabbit]

Quoth the reaper:

Everything I say is self-evident truth.
Everything you say is unsupported or not evidence I consider self-evident truth.

Everything I say is common sense.
Everything you say depends on the definition of common sense.