[Vampyr]

[quote name='Fluffy' timestamp='1357588554' post='695429'
EDIT: also people claim they are tolerant, but that is true only as long as other's beliefs don't interfere on their lives.
[/quote]

Quite right, too. Why should someone else's beliefs interfere with my life?

And you can think up examples on the margins, but it is usually believers (in the US and many other places usually Christians) who think they have a right to interfere with the lives of others.

[Codo]

Vampyr, on 2013-January-07, 14:24, said:

That is not entirely true. Sometimes, for example, people get emotionally stronger or more mature and find that they don't need "God" or (especially) a church with with not just "God" but theology as well. A lot of people brought up in a church later rethink the beliefs they were taught. Catholic school is a pretty reliable atheism training ground.

Sometimes people get emotionally stronger or more mature and find out that they do not need to listen to people who claim to be superior but can never proove this and in fact are not. This is true to theists and atheists...

Of course YOU never found people who grow up in a atheist enviroment and had found their religion afterwards. I may invite you to do some research in societies like eastern Germany or Albany and others which had been formed atheistic by their former leaders but are more openminded and tolerant now...

[Vampyr]

Codo, on 2013-January-07, 16:11, said:

Sometimes people get emotionally stronger or more mature and find out that they do not need to listen to people who claim to be superior but can never proove this and in fact are not. This is true to theists and atheists...

Of course YOU never found people who grow up in a atheist enviroment and had found their religion afterwards. I may invite you to do some research in societies like eastern Germany or Albany and others which had been formed atheistic by their former leaders but are more openminded and tolerant now...

In Russia, where I used to live, religion didn't go away during Communist times. I didn't,, in fact know any Russians who had been brought up as atheists. I suspect that the same might have been true in East Germany and Albania.

[mikeh]

Codo, on 2013-January-07, 16:11, said:

Sometimes people get emotionally stronger or more mature and find out that they do not need to listen to people who claim to be superior but can never proove this and in fact are not. This is true to theists and atheists...

Of course YOU never found people who grow up in a atheist enviroment and had found their religion afterwards. I may invite you to do some research in societies like eastern Germany or Albany and others which had been formed atheistic by their former leaders but are more openminded and tolerant now...

Hmmmm....I don't see anyone here claiming to 'be superior'. I certainly don't think that I am personally 'superior' to anyone merely because I happen to lack a belief in a supernatural deity.

I happen to think that atheism is a superior way of looking at the world, because I think that an evidence-based, sceptical approach to many, but not all, aspects of life is demonstrably better than 'faith' and the irony is that most religious people agree with me. We just differ as to where the boundaries lie. After all, the evidence-based approach allows us to communicate via the internet, while the supernatural has us communing with imaginary entities that only tell us what we want to hear (because the voice we hear is in fact ours). Your holy book didn't give rise to our technology. The scientific method did. So we have some compelling reason to accept that, in at least some aspects of life, the latter affords a relatively bad explanation for the way the universe operates than does the latter!

But just as I see many bridge players who are better than I am at bridge, and don't assume that they are therefore 'superior' to me, I see on here and in life a lot of religious believers for whom I have great respect and in relation to whom I feel no trace of superiority. One of my good friends, and occasional bridge partner and golfing buddy, is far superior to me at the latter, and about the same at the former. He is therefore superior to me at golf, but I don't think either of us think that makes him 'superior' to me in life (or vice versa). He happens to be a devout catholic. So what?

A lot of very successful, intelligent and gifted people have been and are believers. I think they are mistaken for a variety of reasons, many of which I have stated in these threads, but not for a moment do I think that, for the great majority, their religious belief renders them inferior to me.

I'm truly sorry if you can't tell the difference between expressing my profound dislike for and distrust of religion, on the one hand, and my attitude towards individuals, on the other.

[Codo]

mikeh, on 2013-January-07, 11:01, said:

But there is less need for the civilizing effects of religion these days, especially in countries with functioning secular forms of government, both capable of and willing to provide for education, health care, and a minimal social safety net.

Do you mind to name these countries you think about?

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Meanwhile the destructive aspects of organized religion continue to be problematic. Judaism is the least aggressive of the J-C-I forms, perhaps because of numbers, but the fundamentalists in Israel certainly appear to cause significant problems in the context of a possible peaceful solution to the Palestinian issue, and they do so at leastr ostensibly on religious grounds.

You believe that religions are just inventions from man. So if they are destructive, they are destructive because man are destructive according to your own logic. If you can find out that the destrucitve aspect is bigger between theists, do and find a reliable source. You won't.

if you ask 99 % of all believers, they would claim that their belives are not destructive at all. But most will admit that there had been much too many crimes, wars and even genozids in the name of religions.

And yes, fundementalists are problematic, allby your example is poorly choosen. There are a million more important reasons why the war between the palestines and the Israelis will go on for decades. Fundementalists are the smallest.

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In Nigeria, muslims kill christians, christians kill gays, and so on.

In the US people kill people and do not even care about their believes. Is this a progress?
In China they execute more people then in the rest of the world. Why is this done if the atheistic people are so superior in your POV?

Quote

In the US, Bush used Old Testament arguments in an unsuccessful attempt to enlist the French in the Iraq invasion, and there are a huge number of allegedly educated americans who believe the end times are coming, if not already upon us. A US general, speaking to his troops ahead of deployment to Iraq, told them that they were soldiers in a new Crusade, and religious indoctrination has been virtually institutionalized at the major military academies in the US (not a very tolerant form, either...just straight fundie Xian approach).

Wow, we agree again. Religion has been used (I would say abused) to claim that the own war is a good war. The soldiers will die for something even bigger then life. This is horrible and not tolerable.
But again, such is life. Mankind works this way, it is not just the religious leaders who make false claims.

We started WW2 with the words: "Seit 5:45 wird zurück geschossen". Hitler claimed the raid on Poland as an act of selfdefence. I do not know how many people believed him, but I guess some did. Why did he do so? Of course just to call his war a "good" war, so that the resistance will be lower.
These things happen with religious themes or with other ones. (Hussein owns mass destruction weapons, Someone asked us for help, we just want to bring peace to ...We will defend Germany at the Hindukusch..." Most of these statements had been false. Men make war to increase their own power and maybe their wealth. Usually it is as simple as that. Surely there had been some exceptions during the centuries, but I guess 95 % of all wars had been for power and ownership.

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So at least in my opinion, the time has come for religion to fade away as a public force. I have nothing at all against anyone who finds it preferable to believe in a god, so long as that person doesn't take his or her view of god's wishes as a reason for imposing his view of the world on anyone else.

Yes imposing the own views is really a bad habit, good luck that all the atheists are matured and open minded enough not to do so.... They would never claim their superiority over theists...

I do not know about your enviroment, but here religion has a positive factor on the society. Time has come to take away the abuse of religion as a reason for hate, intolerance and all other bad things which had been done in the name of god. But it is still the time to support their efforts in supporting the weak, the old and the young- even if you do not belive in the way "they" believe.

[PassedOut]

Fluffy, on 2013-January-07, 15:03, said:

My sister who is an astrophysic atheist (or agnostic, not sure) told me that the notion of god creating universe was absurd, just as absurd as it being there on its own...

But we have evidence that the universe exists and how old it is, so the universe did in fact come into being. But we have no evidence that god exists, nor came into being ever.

[Vampyr]

PassedOut, on 2013-January-07, 17:03, said:

But we have evidence that the universe exists and how old it is, so the universe did in fact come into being. But we have no evidence that god exists, nor came into being ever.

Yes, it's an Occam's Razor problem. Just because there is one extremely unlikely entity does not mean that it is reasonable to increase the number of extremely unlikely entities.

[blackshoe]

Quote

SEVEN DOORS TO SEVEN ROOMS OF THOUGHT

1 Accept the statement of Eminent Authority without basis, without question.

2 Disagree with the statement without basis, out of general contrariness.

3 Perhaps the statement is true, but what if it isn't? How then to account for the phenomenon?

4 How much of the statement rationalizes to suit man's purpose that he and his shall be ascendant at the center of things?

5 What if the minor should become major, the recessive dominant, the obscure prevalent?

6 What if the statement were reversible, that which is considered effect is really cause?

7 What if the natural law perceived in one field also operates unperceived in all other phases of science? What if there be only one natural law manifesting itself, as yet, to us in many facets because we cannot apperceive the whole, of which we have gained only the most elementary glimpses, with which we can cope only at the crudest level?

And are those still other doors, yet undefined, on down the corridor?

From the 1960 science fiction novel Eight Keys to Eden, by Mark Clifton

[Codo]

mikeh, on 2013-January-07, 16:59, said:

Codo, on 2013-January-08, 07:11, said:

Sometimes people get emotionally stronger or more mature and find out that they do not need to listen to people who claim to be superior but can never proove this and in fact are not. This is true to theists and atheists...

Of course YOU never found people who grow up in a atheist enviroment and had found their religion afterwards. I may invite you to do some research in societies like eastern Germany or Albany and others which had been formed atheistic by their former leaders but are more openminded and tolerant now...

Mike:
Hmmmm....I don't see anyone here claiming to 'be superior'. I certainly don't think that I am personally 'superior' to anyone merely because I happen to lack a belief in a supernatural deity.

I happen to think that atheism is a superior way of looking at the world, because I think that an evidence-based, sceptical approach to many, but not all, aspects of life is demonstrably better than 'faith' and the irony is that most religious people agree with me.

I'm truly sorry if you can't tell the difference between expressing my profound dislike for and distrust of religion, on the one hand, and my attitude towards individuals, on the other.

1. If someone claims that getting matured or emotionally stronger leads to atheism, this sound as if this writer beliefs that Atheism is superior. It makes no sense to me if I should have understood it different. But maybe someone can enlighten me.

2. I tried to use her words in a balanced way, so that they are true for theists and atheists. I did not write nor did I meant that Stephanie claimed to be superior, she just claims Atheism to be superior.. I surely did not offend atheists with my posting. Well maybe I did offend these who are offended to be named in the same sentence as theists. I can live with that.

3. You are free to think that atheism is superior. As there is no eveidence that it is, you may believe what you want. After all many theists share your POV that their personal belive is superior. I think that all these believes are wrong, but I have erred before and will again...

4. Oh, and I am truely sorry, if you thought, that my reply to Stephanie was meant for you. You are important, but not that important. If I mean you, I will quote or name you- as I did before.

[mgoetze]

Codo, on 2013-January-07, 16:59, said:

I do not know about your enviroment, but here religion has a positive factor on the society.

I would be interested to know what you think these positive effects are given that...

Quote

their efforts in supporting the weak, the old and the young

...are by and large actually the efforts of German taxpayers.

[Vampyr]

Codo, on 2013-January-07, 17:23, said:

1. If someone claims that getting matured or emotionally stronger leads to atheism, this sound as if this writer beliefs that Atheism is superior. It makes no sense to me if I should have understood it different. But maybe someone can enlighten me.

I'm afraid I do think that not believing in supernatural beings is superior to believing in them. Some of the reasons behind my opinion have been mentioned in this thread.

I think that just as children eventually grow out of believing in Santa Claus, humankind will eventually grow out of believing in gods. At least I would like to think so, but humans can be irrational and contrary, and perhaps this enlightened age will never come.

If anyone finds my views offensive, I am sorry for their distress..

[Fluffy]

Vampyr, on 2013-January-07, 17:06, said:

Yes, it's an Occam's Razor problem. Just because there is one extremely unlikely entity does not mean that it is reasonable to increase the number of extremely unlikely entities.

I think this doesn't stand, when one explains the other its still only 1 that is unlikelly, the other is a consequence.

[Vampyr]

Fluffy, on 2013-January-07, 18:31, said:

I think this doesn't stand, when one explains the other its still only 1 that is unlikelly, the other is a consequence.

Not really. If there is a god, he or she could have done a great many different things. Creating a universe, especially one that contains stars and planets and us, is just one of an infinite number of vanishingly unlikely activities.

[mikeh]

Codo, on 2013-January-07, 16:59, said:

Do you mind to name these countries you think about?


You believe that religions are just inventions from man. So if they are destructive, they are destructive because man are destructive according to your own logic. If you can find out that the destrucitve aspect is bigger between theists, do and find a reliable source. You won't.

if you ask 99 % of all believers, they would claim that their belives are not destructive at all. But most will admit that there had been much too many crimes, wars and even genozids in the name of religions.

And yes, fundementalists are problematic, allby your example is poorly choosen. There are a million more important reasons why the war between the palestines and the Israelis will go on for decades. Fundementalists are the smallest.

Ah, the old no true scotsman argument. It would be funny, if it weren't so predictable, how so many religious people claim that the violence perpetrated in the name of religion is not based on their beliefs. Tell that to the descendants of the Canaanites, who shared Palestine with the Israelites. Ooops, you can't because, expressly in furtherance of the demands of their god, who is, I believe, your god, the Israelites murdered every single man, woman and child.

Tell that to the inhabitants of the 'Holy Lands' during the times of the many crusades.

Tell that to the Protestants murdered by the French catholics, or those tortured and murdered by the Holy Inquisition, or those Catholic killed by Protestants in the wars of the reformation.

Tell that to the women stoned to death in modern Saudi Arabia for adultery. Tell that to the apostates sentenced to death for refusing to believe or to lie about their lack of belief. Tell that to the family of the Pakistani Governor, shot to death because he advocated relaxing the law on blasphemy.....his murderer was accorded open applause by lawyers!

Tell that to the victims of civil strife that killed a million in India upon independence.

That that to the victims of the genocide of Armenians at the hands of the Turks in the 1920s.

Heck, these are just examples I can name off the top of my head.

I don't doubt that almost all believers will claim, with a straight face and a clear conscience, that violence done in the name of their religion was done by people who were not true believers. However, ask the killers, and their victims, and you'll no doubt get a different answer (of course the victims can't really speak, having been sent on to their lake of fire or what have you, to suffer eons of agony just for not believing correctly).

Quote

In the US people kill people and do not even care about their believes. Is this a progress?
In China they execute more people then in the rest of the world. Why is this done if the atheistic people are so superior in your POV?

In the US, a lot of proponents of capital punishment are deeply religious. I appreciate that many of the opponents are as well, but the reality appears to be that the very powerful evangelical, fundie movement generally supports state-sanctioned killing, whether it be of criminals or the inhabitants of countries seen to be 'different'. Tens of millions of Americans support Israel in part because they believe that Israel must survive as a state so as to be around for the battle of Armageddon: a prerequiste to salvation for the believers.

As for the Chinese government, the casual use of executions is horrifying but seems to be based in part on historical tradition: reflecting an attitude towards a person's place in society and relation to the state that long pre-dates communism. A brutual regime practises brutal behaviours. I don't see any attempt by the Chinese to link their criminal justice system to atheism. And while the execution rate is horrific, it isn't as bad as the execution rates in Western Europe in historically recent times, when Christianity was the dominant world view.

Quote

Wow, we agree again. Religion has been used (I would say abused) to claim that the own war is a good war. The soldiers will die for something even bigger then life. This is horrible and not tolerable.
But again, such is life. Mankind works this way, it is not just the religious leaders who make false claims.

We started WW2 with the words: "Seit 5:45 wird zurück geschossen". Hitler claimed the raid on Poland as an act of selfdefence. I do not know how many people believed him, but I guess some did. Why did he do so? Of course just to call his war a "good" war, so that the resistance will be lower.
These things happen with religious themes or with other ones. (Hussein owns mass destruction weapons, Someone asked us for help, we just want to bring peace to ...We will defend Germany at the Hindukusch..." Most of these statements had been false. Men make war to increase their own power and maybe their wealth. Usually it is as simple as that. Surely there had been some exceptions during the centuries, but I guess 95 % of all wars had been for power and ownership.

I won't argue with you on the basic point. Individual leaders are usually more in it for themselves than for God. Cromwell, in the UK, was a noticeable exception, but he killed a lot of people, particularly in Ireland, and did it for the glory of god.

However, I have never seen nor cannot imagine a leader rallying people to his cause by arguing: 'Join me in the name of not believing in a god...let us kill and maim in the name of rejecting superstition!'

Quote

Yes imposing the own views is really a bad habit, good luck that all the atheists are matured and open minded enough not to do so.... They would never claim their superiority over theists...

I do not know about your enviroment, but here religion has a positive factor on the society. Time has come to take away the abuse of religion as a reason for hate, intolerance and all other bad things which had been done in the name of god. But it is still the time to support their efforts in supporting the weak, the old and the young- even if you do not belive in the way "they" believe.

I have conceded that religion has some beneficial attributes. You, on the other hand, seem to be in denial about the costs. You resort to cheap and invalid arguments to avoid recognizing that religion not only often demands violence but is also a very handy, reliable means for leaders to rally and motivate the sheep into committing acts of incredible violence and brutality.

Yes, humans can no doubt be and often are motivated to such behaviour by other factors. So what? Eliminate the public use of religion, or deprive it of its power over the populace, and we will have reduced the power of the leaders to manipulate their people. Isn't that a worthy goal?

[BunnyGo]

mikeh, on 2013-January-07, 09:48, said:

Deism is far more plausible than any particular religion. We appear to have evolved in such a way as to have a desire for answers, for explanations. Science cannot yet and maybe never can provide a definitive answer for how the universe came into existence. It may make no sense to think in those terms, but that's the way our brains seem to work, so we look for an explanation.

If there was a 'prime mover', there is the logical problem of how that came into existence. So to me belief in a god, as prime mover, simply moves the question back one step and is no real answer at all. But I can see an argument in favour of there being some god concpet that explains how the universe came into existence.

Religion is something else altogether, especially the judeo-christian-islamic varieties.


Religion, in that sense, is very different. It posits not merely a deistic explanation but one that involves a entity with a number of human characteristics, including an overweaning need to be worshipped. It requires a belief, unfounded on evidence, that humanity is profoundly important in the universe. It requires a belief that, contrary to the best evidence, prayer is effective, altho any positive response appears to be, shall we say, capricious? It requires accepting as accurate, true and valid internally inconsistent and often implausible stories.

Now,if we were to treat the bible as simply a set of tales designed to provide us with a philosophical way to live our lives, that would be completely different. Altho I always wonder whether those who suggest such a view have actually read the whole bible, since the OT contains quite a few horrific 'moral' pointers. Just look at the brutual genocide mandated by god, and the list of offences that merit death. Look at the way women are treated. And so on. But no religion treats the bible in that secular way! Especially in the J-C-I tradition, the acceptance of dogma is required as is the practice of praying to this divine, but fortunately for us, probably imaginary entity. And the expenditure of countless dollars supporting an elaborate edifice built entirely on deception, often self-deception. And the creation of various levels of animosity towards those who don't belong to one's particualr creed or subset of a creed.


It seems to me that the apologists for the Xian religion pick and choose the 'nice' bits: the bits with which they agree, in order to say: see..it works as a moral guide.

Btw, there is a huge difference, at least imo, between belief and disbelief. Anyone who says that atheists are similar to believers doesn't, it seems to me, understand that I am ready to believe subject to the provision of evidence. Religious belief, we are often told, requires 'faith'. Faith is the anthithesis of reason. Indeed a number of religious leaders, over the years, have deplored the effect of reason on society, precisely because (tho they never explicitly frame it this way) it erodes their power over their followers. Change religion into an evidence-based process and the numbers of believers would likely drop rather dramatically.

There is arguably some evidence in support of deism. My take is that such 'evidence' is negative, not positive. Deism remains as possible, due to the unarguable fact of our existence and the lack of scientific explanation therefor. Thus this is the argument of the gaps, and I don't like it. But no religion can avail itself of even that thin reed, because all religions have specific (even if internally contradictory) details for which there is no logical argument or acceptable evidence.

I take exception to your statement that "Especially in the J-C-I tradition, the acceptance of dogma is required as is the practice of praying to this divine, but fortunately for us, probably imaginary entity." This is far from true. Among Jews, a majority are atheists (http://en.wikipedia....Jewish_theology this does not have the stats, but I couldn't quickly find them). The religion (until the late 17th century) was more a legalistic philosophy (that did and does refer to a God) than a belief based requirement. It's not just "lapsed Jews" who are atheists either; among one of the best educated congregations in Boston (4-5 rabbis as members, several other members who know more about Judaism than most rabbis) a majority of the weekly attending members are agnostic or atheist--this is not an uncommon position among religiously observant Jews (but I expect it is no longer a majority of us).

[32519]

What is the purpose of life?

[mikeh]

BunnyGo, on 2013-January-07, 20:21, said:

I take exception to your statement that "Especially in the J-C-I tradition, the acceptance of dogma is required as is the practice of praying to this divine, but fortunately for us, probably imaginary entity." This is far from true. Among Jews, a majority are atheists (http://en.wikipedia....Jewish_theology this does not have the stats, but I couldn't quickly find them). The religion (until the late 17th century) was more a legalistic philosophy (that did and does refer to a God) than a belief based requirement. It's not just "lapsed Jews" who are atheists either; among one of the best educated congregations in Boston (4-5 rabbis as members, several other members who know more about Judaism than most rabbis) a majority of the weekly attending members are agnostic or atheist--this is not an uncommon position among religiously observant Jews (but I expect it is no longer a majority of us).

This post confuses 'Jew' with 'believer in Judaism'. It also confuses the 'traditions' of the 3 religions, which are in any event heterogenous, with the current trends of one minor branch of one of the faiths.

[PassedOut]

Fluffy, on 2013-January-07, 18:31, said:

Vampyr, on 2013-January-07, 17:06, said:

Yes, it's an Occam's Razor problem. Just because there is one extremely unlikely entity does not mean that it is reasonable to increase the number of extremely unlikely entities.

I think this doesn't stand, when one explains the other its still only 1 that is unlikelly, the other is a consequence.

Conjecturing that god created the universe leaves the even more difficult problem of explaining what created god -- an entity for which there is no evidence. It's simpler to start with what we know exists, rather than introducing an unnecessary complication.

In any case, the timeline is wrong. The universe is 4.5 billion years old whereas god is only a few thousand years old.

[blackshoe]

AFAIK, the Universe is 13.75 billion years old, ± 0.11 billion. Earth is 4.5 billion years old, but this planet ain't the whole Universe, in spite of what some may believe.

[awm]

Blaming religion for the various wars and massacres throughout history is a somewhat tricky business. I agree that there have been many such horrors, and that religion is often used to justify them. However, I suspect that religion is more often used as an excuse or post-facto justification than as the real cause. Various non-religious excuses (communism, racism, nationalism) have been invoked for the same purposes; in fact some of the communist massacres of the religious did use atheism as an excuse (i.e. these religious people place loyalty to their imaginary deity and/or his purported earthly representatives over "the state" and therefore must be brainwashed or eliminated). An awful lot of the religious wars seem to have other true causes (for example the crusades were caused by a surplus of "younger sons of the nobility" without enough land; the acts of modern terrorism often have more to do with poverty and desperation than religion, etc).

However, I do think religion takes a lot of blame for resistance to science. A significant number of people ignore all evidence to believe ridiculous things like the world is only 6000 years old, the "end of days" is immanent, gay sex causes of hurricanes, using contraception is against god's will, etc. I don't think this "know-nothing" problem would be as severe without religion in the public sphere. Inevitably most people are going to decide what to believe in some cases based on appeals to authority rather than some scientific pursuit of their own -- religion props up some authorities with millions of followers and thousands of years of history, despite what they say contradicting modern science and leading to generally bad behaviors.