I wasn't raised in any religion. Every Sunday I was plopped down in front of a TV showing NOVA, so I have the background of a cultural elitist, even if I'm not one.
Back when I was a pugnacious teen and confirmed atheistic poser, I would sometimes try to persuade people their beliefs were wrong.
Older now, I realize I don't have the answers myself, but the question I posed back then (though it was really an attempt at provocation) has become a genuine question to me now. I am sincerely curious.
How can someone believes in a particular religion that asserts as truths things which contradict other religions? How can someone be a Muslim or a Christian? Aren't beliefs most often determined most often by what a person was taught when they were young, or, less often, by what was around them at a certain place or time.
Most Mormons (just as an example) wouldn't be Mormons if they'd been born in India. None would be if they were born in ancient Greece.
If a person's religious beliefs are determined in large part by their environment, and thus sort of random, doesn't this make them suspect?
Back when I was that preening psuedo-smarty I'd go about it like this (in my defense, it really only happened 2 or 3 times, it wasn't a hobby):
1) Get person to admit they would be Muslim if they lived in the Middle East, and that they'd probably believe in that faith as strongly as they do their current one.
2) Attempt to establish the following arguement in increasily shrill and hectoring tones: If all other current religions are misguided (at least) and all ancient religions are outdated superstition, and you can admit you believe your religion in large part because of where and when you live, you must be pretty arrogant to think you were chosen to live in the precise time and place where the prevailing beliefs happened to be the correct ones and that there won't come a future where the current supernatural beliefs are seen as outdated superstitions.
I had a surprising amount of success getting people to concede part one, but understandably (due to the tone) less success with the second part.
But I am still curious how people reconcile this? To some degree isn't holding a view on religion (which is beyond the realm of first-hand observation)self-centered? I am right, and they are wrong because I am me?
I don't know, that's how it feels to me, as someone who's always been on the outside looking in.
Now I know some people do examine multiple religions and settle on one after some comparison of the differences. I remember OSC in a past post, which I couldn't find, said that LDS gave him more satisfactory answers than he could find anywhere else. But I think most apples lay near the tree.
Any thoughts on this?
Posted by cheiros do ender (Member # 8849) on :
Ancient religions aren't always outdated superstitions. I'm sure the ones made as an excuse for slavery or some such are, but the main modern relgions stem all the way from Egypt if you think about it. They've just adapted, a lot. The Jews had the Law of Moses and I imagine stll do, though I can't quite see justifying an eye for an eye under current international law. In christianity that changed to the Ten Commandments, and in the LDS church, if I recall rightly (I'm not a member, halfway there:)) they have the Telestial, Terrestrial, and Celestial Commandments.
Likewise, the Jews didn't agree that Jesus was the son of god, and so continued their faith in Moses and are still waiting for their Messiah to this day. Christianity did accept it and people from all over the known world suddenly became christians. Religion doesn't really have much to do with location, except in the case of being in the right (or wrong) place at the right (or wrong) time. Same with being born eg. American, male, white, etc.
Posted by joeyconrad (Member # 8714) on :
"Religion doesn't really have much to do with location, except in the case of being in the right (or wrong) place at the right (or wrong) time. Same with being born eg. American, male, white, etc."
That's close to the point I was trying to make.
Is it right to be American, male, white? People who claim the last two are labeled sexist and racist.
But people feel it makes sense that their religion is right, though it is highly dependent on their place and time in history.
A current Christian would likely have been a Muslim had he been born in Saudi Arabia, a Hindu had he been born in India, believed in Zeus if he hailed from ancient Greece.
Yet his is right in his current situation. Those from the other places or times are wrong.
Isn't there something wrong with this?
Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
quote:in the LDS church, if I recall rightly (I'm not a member, halfway there:)) they have the Telestial, Terrestrial, and Celestial Commandments
That's Kingdoms, not Commandments Those are our "three heavens", so to speak. Though Mormons do talk about "obeying Celestial law", etc, what that usually means is, "living in a way that is worthy of the Celestial Kingdom".
One flaw in the argument in the first post, though, is the fact that it depends on a person growing up in a place where not only would they have been raised to believe something else, but they also would have little to no access to the beliefs they espouse in real life. I mean, of course I wouldn't be a Mormon if I had never heard of Mormonism. Duh. I'd be something else, and I'd probably think it was the best thing out there.
However, had I been raised to believe something else in an environment where I had access to Mormonism, and were it presented fairly to me, I think I would choose Mormonism over pretty much everything else out there. Mormonism is more than the belief I was raised with — it's also something I believe in because it fits my conscience and I agree with its purposes. We're allies, so to speak. That kind of allegiance arises from more than the coincidence of birth, in my opinion. I mean, there are plenty of people who grow up in the Church and never develop it. So I believe there is more to my acceptance of this Church than just the way I was raised, and I think I would have accepted it, had it been presented to me fairly as an adult, rather than as a child.
Posted by joeyconrad (Member # 8714) on :
"Duh. I'd be something else, and I'd probably think it was the best thing out there."
But you, in all likelihood have not been "presented fairly" with an array of other religions, which had you been "allied" with for your entire life, might well feel like they fit your conscience, since they helped mold it, and present agreeable purposes, since they helped define what you feel is agreeable.
At the heart of it, to me it seems that there is an inherent and unavoidable egotism in saying you have the correct religion. In the end, it is right because you believe it, not the other way around.
You are right. People of the past were wrong. People in the distance are wrong. People of the future, if the trend of religion in general changing over time does not arrest itself now that the correct form has finally arrived, will be wrong.
And my apologies here; I am back-sliding into those old hectoring/shrill ways. The subject does confuse me, but I swear I am not a troll at heart, and I hereby desist.
[ January 21, 2006, 04:45 PM: Message edited by: joeyconrad ]
Posted by TL (Member # 8124) on :
joey, I think the problem is you don't seem to understand anything about Mormonism. I'm not Mormon anymore, but I was raised in the religion and have a healthy respect for it.
You seem to be making a false assumption, which is that members of the LDS church believe they have the one true religion, and all other religions are false.
Mormonism is fairly unique in this regard; they *do* believe their church is correct, but they don't make claims about the falseness of other churches (except when it comes to what they refer to as "The Apostasy"); I don't recall the exact quotes, but basically Mormons believe that most religions contain some measure of the truth, and that there is always value in a community coming together to worship God and do good works.
They also believe, in a way that I don't want to get into a big thing about, but maybe someone else will pick up, that good folks will have the opportunity to convert to Mormonism *after death*, in certain circumstances -- so the Mormon message is not a 'fire and brimstone' message, or really a 'winner takes all' message.
They're not one of those churches saying that the non-Mormon population of the earth is doomed.
Which is actually one of the things that its enemies (specifically certain "Christian" churches) use as an example of why it must be false.
At least, that is my understanding .....
Posted by joeyconrad (Member # 8714) on :
Further apologies if it seemed as if I were singling out Mormonism.
The arguement I tried to make would apply to any religion that holds itself as the one great truth. I'm no theologian, but I think that constitutes about all of them.
OSC mentioned something about LDS explaining certain difficulties better than other religions. I wonder if the stuff you mention about being saved after death is part of that.
Honestly, I have no idea if there is a God or not. Life after death seems absurd enough to be dismissed out of hand, but then again so does the little bit of quantum mechanics I've read about and not understood at all.
All I know is I don't know the answers and I suspect those who think they do are wrong.
Posted by IB_wench (Member # 9081) on :
It seems to me that this presents a sort of conundrum:
Either I believe that my religion is correct, or that it is not.
If I believe it is NOT the only correct religion and that other religions are also correct, I am presented with a problem when these religions contradict each other. How can I believe that two contradictory systems or statements are correct? It's like believing that the world is both round and flat; logically it doesn't work.
If I believe my religion IS correct, the rules of logic dictate that I must believe that any other religions or belief systems which contradict it or are not compatible with it are not correct.
So it's not really a case of "it's right because I believe it, and everybody else is wrong because their opinions are different than mine!" so much as a case of "I believe it because, based on everything I have seen and learned and discovered about the world, it's right."
Thanks for starting such an insightful discussion! And everyone's been very calm and rational, not a bit trollish. Posted by TL (Member # 8124) on :
quote:The arguement I tried to make would apply to any religion that holds itself as the one great truth. I'm no theologian, but I think that constitutes about all of them.
Well, you're wrong. And if your intention is to respond to good-faith responses to your question with blanket statements about "all religions", then I think your questions about religion are spurious and therefore unworthy of further discussion.
Just my two cents.
Posted by TL (Member # 8124) on :
quote:If I believe it is NOT the only correct religion and that other religions are also correct, I am presented with a problem when these religions contradict each other.
I think the LDS perspective is a little closer to 'All religions may contain some very good aspects and some very profound truths, and therefore they are worthwhile insofar as they *don't* contradict with Mormonism. Where they *do* contradict Mormonism, that's where they have gone awry.'
So it's not a conundrum, in that respect.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Originally posted by A Rat Named Dog: However, had I been raised to believe something else in an environment where I had access to Mormonism, and were it presented fairly to me, I think I would choose Mormonism over pretty much everything else out there.
You need to explain, then, why not all the millions of people missionarised (is that a word?) every year by Mormons do, in fact, change their beliefs.
Posted by cheiros do ender (Member # 8849) on :
Because it doesn't fit with their moral judgement, would be my guess if I'd known enough about that specific Church to make such a statement. But the fact is, KoM, that had one been raised in a different culture, ones moral judgement would not be the same. And like all those many people that are not persuaded to Mormonism, one would no likelier know for a fact that what one said would happen indeed would. So you make a great point, IMO.
Alternatively, you could look at it as all those people either not giving the missionaries a fair go to try to explain, the missionaries not actually presenting it fairly to the person, or else the person not feeling themself, or being, readily able to convert to Mormonism at the time (like my actual situation at the moment).
(That was my response to KoM's post as if it had been asked of me, because I felt it was important to say and hopeful of a reply, and was in no way speaking on behalf of Dog. And sorry for the overuse of the word "one".)
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Come now. All those bright young missionaries, out on the formative experience of their lives, determined to do their utmost to bring the truth to others - you would theorise that they do not present the information fairly?
Posted by JennaDean (Member # 8816) on :
Not that they would present it unfairly, but since they are so young, they may not present it in the best way for that person to receive or understand it.
Posted by Geekazoid99 (Member # 8254) on :
quote: Ancient religions aren't always outdated superstitions. I'm sure the ones made as an excuse for slavery or some such are, but the main modern relgions stem all the way from Egypt if you think about it. They've just adapted, a lot. The Jews had the Law of Moses and I imagine stll do, though I can't quite see justifying an eye for an eye under current international law. In christianity that changed to the Ten Commandments, and in the LDS church, if I recall rightly (I'm not a member, halfway there:)) they have the Telestial, Terrestrial, and Celestial Commandments.
I hate it when people think an eye for an eye means that you go out and steal someones ipod because they stole yours
No its when someone steals your ipod they pay the price of the ipod or give the ipod back to the owner
Sorry about that but to answer the question Yes that does mean something is wrong with religion but there is nothing better out there to help us comrehend everything in the universe
But that's the idea of faith it is put into you at a young age and you believe what it says so you think what they tell you
So envionment is the key but the people who teach it to you litteraly brainwash you into believing its true
Oh no now someone going to come for me AHHHHHHHHH Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Well, it's sort of a chicken-and-egg conundrum in Geoff's case. Certainly he's been shaped by his faith, and the person he is now is more compatible with Mormonism than with any other faith; if the person he is now were offered Mormonism, of course he'd jump at it.
A hypothetical Geoff who was not raised as a Mormon, or with the values he currently possesses, might not feel the same way. But then he wouldn't be Geoff as we know him. You may as well ask what kind of person I would be today if I'd grown up thin.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
But I think in this case it is reasonable to say that the person is prior to the belief - the chicken came first, if you like. After all, if Puppy had been adopted at three months, there would still exist a human looking like him, but presumably believing something entirely different. But it's not reasonable to say that his beliefs would still exist, if he didn't. (Similar ones held by other people, certainly, but not his particular ones.)
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
quote:You need to explain, then, why not all the millions of people missionarised (is that a word?) every year by Mormons do, in fact, change their beliefs.
I thought the question was about what I believed, and not about why people believe different things from one another.
I also don't believe that my religion, as it is understood today, encompasses all truth. Mormons believe that God established our Church with a certain purpose in a certain time in history, but unlike many other religions, we do not believe that once God made us, He was finished We think there are a lot of things we don't know yet, and won't discover through our faith right this minute, that require us to learn from other sources, or seek further enlightenment in the future.
So for us, it's not an all-or-nothing "We've got the truth and no one else does! Nyah nyah nyah!" with all its improbability. Rather, while we believe we know and possess a lot of important things that other people don't, we think that all people are on the same journey together, and that members of other religions are not to be rejected or despised, but are to be admired and respected for the truths they have discovered.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
quote:Certainly he's been shaped by his faith, and the person he is now is more compatible with Mormonism than with any other faith; if the person he is now were offered Mormonism, of course he'd jump at it.
Some people look at the way they have been shaped by their faith, shudder, and reject it. I don't. While there are aspects of being a Mormon that annoy me at times (R-rated movie debates — ugh!), the core philosophy, and the root of my faith, don't.
I don't feel like I (or any Mormon) knows everything yet, so I'm constantly searching and reevaluating my take on things. It's not a matter of settling into a religion I like and turning the brain off. I'm always searching for ways to revise my understanding of the world. I've found solutions through science, through reading stories, through pondering my own faith, and even through studying others' faiths. But I've never found anything that answered a fundamental question better than my understanding of Mormonism does.
Of course, that's just my understanding of Mormonism There are Mormons around me who look at the same doctrines through such a different pair of eyes that it takes me aback, and I'm like, "you believe WHAT? and for WHAT REASON?" That's another reason why I believe that my faith is my own. I have it for my own reasons, and not just because I was raised in a certain place.
Certainly among any group of religious people, there are some who would choose a different faith if given a completely open-ended choice, and some who would stay right where they are. Why must skeptics instantly doubt that I'd be one of the latter group?
EDIT: Actually, come to think of it, if a "completely open-ended choice" means one devoid of any personal experience with any religion, then I think I wouldn't have enough information to choose any faith. My faith depends so heavily on subjective personal experience that I can't imagine trying to choose one without it.
[ January 21, 2006, 08:50 PM: Message edited by: Puppy ]
Posted by cheiros do ender (Member # 8849) on :
While we're on the subject of Mormonism, can someone please explain the Law of Consecration to me? I know it's a matter of giving all your earnings to the church, but is that after you earn them (like at the end of the year) or the church simply gives you the money they think you can use and otherwise put to good use?
Any other information on it, besides the fundamentals, would be greatly appreciated too.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:members of other religions are not to be rejected or despised, but are to be admired and respected for the truths they have discovered.
Out of interest, are there any religions out there that you believe to have discovered truths which the Mormon church has not yet discovered? If so, which truths?
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
The Law of Consecration hasn't been practiced in a literal sort of way for over a hundred and fifty years. What it means to Mormons today is basically that we are willing to give up our material possessions, our time, and our service for the higher goal of "building Zion" (ie, creating a perfect Christian society). It is the reason why Mormons are able to function without a paid clergy, why they contribute so much of their income to the Church, etc ... ideally, everyone feels like their highest responsibility is to Zion, and not to their own material advancement.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
quote:Out of interest, are there any religions out there that you believe to have discovered truths which the Mormon church has not yet discovered? If so, which truths?
Honestly, it's hard to cherry-pick individual truths out of a religion. But any case in which one religion changes a person's behavior in a positive way and makes them a better person, that is a unique instance where that religion has succeeded at what I consider to be a religion's purpose. I would study any such instance for an insight into what that religion is getting right.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Originally posted by Puppy:
quote:You need to explain, then, why not all the millions of people missionarised (is that a word?) every year by Mormons do, in fact, change their beliefs.
I thought the question was about what I believed, and not about why people believe different things from one another.
Indeed that is true; but I think the question is still relevant. My reasoning runs thusly : The question was, 'how can anyone believe their religion is truth, knowing that they would almost certainly believe something different had they been born elsewhere'? Real truth is not dependent on accidents of geography!
You then offered the belief that, had you been born elsewhere and later Mormonism had been pointed out to you, you would indeed believe it as true. But you cannot offer any data to support such a conclusion; and we cannot, unfortunately, go sideways in time to see what might have happened. So unless we simply accepting your assertion about what a (perhaps considerably different) person of the same name would do in a similar situation, I think it is entirely relevant to look at what different people actually do in that situation. And the answer is that, oddly enough, they are not converting to LDS en masse. It seems to me, then, that your assertion is rather thinly supported, and indeed contradicted by such evidence as is available.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:I would study any such instance for an insight into what that religion is getting right.
But -- and this is a serious question -- have you? Because if your criteria for "getting something right" is "changing someone's behavior for the better," then functional religious commonality winds up having very little to do with religious dogma. And that way ultimately lies agnosticism, barring some kind of personal experience with the hypothetical divine.
Posted by Yozhik (Member # 89) on :
quote:However, had I been raised to believe something else in an environment where I had access to Mormonism, and were it presented fairly to me, I think I would choose Mormonism over pretty much everything else out there.
...that's what I did I was raised Protestant, went agnostic for ten years, then was visited by the missionaries and ended up converting seven months later.
quote:Out of interest, are there any religions out there that you believe to have discovered truths which the Mormon church has not yet discovered?
I know this is directed at Puppy, but can I answer too? For starters, there are churches that have figured out how to worship God through music WAY better than we have. For example, the Eastern Orthodox. (I had my first spiritual experience during an Orthodox service as a twenty-three-year-old exchange student in Russia. Their music is absolutely wonderful.)
I would also like to see greater numbers of LDS studying the original language of the Old Testament and New Testament, as some faiths do, because I think that this better enables a person to receive inspiration while reading it as to what it means.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote: The Jews had the Law of Moses and I imagine stll do, though I can't quite see justifying an eye for an eye under current international law. In christianity that changed to the Ten Commandments
One: there is no such animal as "the Law of Moses"; there is the Law of God, as taught to the Jewish people by Moshe (Moses). But it is not his -- he did not invent it or interpret it, merely transmitted it.
Two: "an eye for an eye" was NEVER literal, and has always meant having to repay the monetary value of the eye.
Three: I'm sorry, who are you saying the Ten Commandments originated with?
quote: Mormonism is fairly unique in this regard; they *do* believe their church is correct, but they don't make claims about the falseness of other churches
This is not actually unique. Many other religions and branches thereof also acknowledge that they are not the only ones with Truth.
quote: The arguement I tried to make would apply to any religion that holds itself as the one great truth. I'm no theologian, but I think that constitutes about all of them.
Actually, while most religions claim to have more truth than any other, few (if any) claim that no other religion(s) possess any truth.
Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
quote:You then offered the belief that, had you been born elsewhere and later Mormonism had been pointed out to you, you would indeed believe it as true. But you cannot offer any data to support such a conclusion; and we cannot, unfortunately, go sideways in time to see what might have happened. So unless we simply accepting your assertion about what a (perhaps considerably different) person of the same name would do in a similar situation, I think it is entirely relevant to look at what different people actually do in that situation. And the answer is that, oddly enough, they are not converting to LDS en masse. It seems to me, then, that your assertion is rather thinly supported, and indeed contradicted by such evidence as is available.
Actually, compared to other religions, Mormonism has a rather high rate of people joining upon encountering the religion later in life. I believe that a rather sizeable percentage of the current LDS membership were not born into LDS families.
If a member of any religion has good reason to assert, using the standard of verification you propose, that they would join their own religion as an adult had they not been born there, a Mormon does.
Either way, though, the issue of whether or not I would do so is extremely difficult to prove one way or another, considering that there is no such thing as another person who is exactly like me, sans religion. Statistics about how many people are joining which faith are pretty irrelevant when you take into account that every one of those people is very different from me (and from one another), and I could just as easily fall into a narrow, quirky range of "person types" who would join certain unpopular religions as a broad one that would join certain very-popular religions. Which of those people am I "most like", and which religion did they join? How in the world could you ever tell?
So it's not like I'm asserting some crazy unprovable thing, and you're the heart of rationality. We're both talking about nonexistent alternate universes. The only difference is, I understand my own personality and spiritual experience much better than you do.
And if you think about it the way I do — realizing that no one has ALL truth, but that I think I'm in the place where God wants me to be, learning the things God wants me to learn, and that I've found quite a bit of truth and real purpose here — how in the world do you argue with that? By saying "No, I think God wants you somewhere else," or "God's not real, NYAH!" or what?
I'll never understand why some people are so threatened by this sort of thing. I could care less that you're an atheist. Why is it so important to you that I'm a Mormon?
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Mormonism is fairly unique in this regard; they *do* believe their church is correct, but they don't make claims about the falseness of other churches (except when it comes to what they refer to as "The Apostasy");
That's a pretty big one, don't you think?
Also, to the extent one believes that 1.) objective truth exists and 2.) any tenet X that purports to be an objective truth, then one is making a claim about the falseness of all other tenets that A.) purport to be an objective truth and B.) contradict X.
I believe, from what I've seen here, that at least one tenet of LDS doctrine meets both 1 and 2. And I know that other religions hold tenets that meet both A and B. So Mormonism does make claims about the falseness of other churches' tenets. So if "falseness of other churches" refers to those church's teachings, then Mormonism does make claims of their falseness.
quote: I don't recall the exact quotes, but basically Mormons believe that most religions contain some measure of the truth, and that there is always value in a community coming together to worship God and do good works.
This is what made me think "falseness of other churches" refers to falseness of those church's teachings.
Also, rivka is absolutely right when she says "Actually, while most religions claim to have more truth than any other, few (if any) claim that no other religion(s) possess any truth." This statement is true at least with the religions I know about.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by TL: joey, I think the problem is you don't seem to understand anything about Mormonism. I'm not Mormon anymore, but I was raised in the religion and have a healthy respect for it.
You seem to be making a false assumption, which is that members of the LDS church believe they have the one true religion, and all other religions are false.
Mormonism is fairly unique in this regard; they *do* believe their church is correct, but they don't make claims about the falseness of other churches
I am also not religious, but attended Catholic school, in my experience, this is a view held by many people of many faiths and is NOT uniquely Mormon. I have heard this kind of view espoused by a member of every religious group I can think of: IMO it is the most prevailent worldview among the non-vocal majority of humans. IMO unless a population or person is actively pressured to disdain and attack the beliefs of others, this kind of general acceptance will emerge. It is probably a function of the same idea that started this thread: That we all are aware that our religious beliefs or ideas or opinions are a large part of who we are, and who and where we are affects what we believe. Humans are inherently good at recognizing cause and effect (mostly) so I think we realize that the same process goes on in the minds of all people everywhere.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Which is why, inexorably, logical thought and reasonable, friendly rationality lead to agnosticism.
Because if you start looking at how similar the effects of all the world's various religions are, compared to how widely varied their dogmas are, it becomes obvious pretty quickly that dogma is far less important to human happiness than culture. (Consider, for example, the fact that Yozhik would take the music from another religion, but none of their actual beliefs.) And that's a slippery slope which, I've observed, is generally only checked by being born into a religion or feeling, for whatever reason, like you've been touched by God (and, ideally, both). If you haven't had the latter experience, you wind up a non-believer. Or a Unitarian Universalist, which is basically the same thing.
Posted by Dante (Member # 1106) on :
So, Tom, you're basically saying that if you are born without religion and/or have no religious experiences, you probably won't be religious.
And if you are born into a religion and/or have a religious experience, you will probably be religious.
If there's a point beyond the obvious, I'm not seeing it.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
I'm also saying that if you're born into a religion and spend time thinking about the commonality of all religions and never have a religious experience, you'll probably wind up areligious.
The "non-obvious" point is this: the mere fact that practically all religions are beneficial in roughly the same ways and for roughly the same reasons, regardless of the dogmas and beliefs of those religions, suggests that their dogmas and beliefs are irrelevant if you also believe that concrete Earthly benefit can be used to measure a religion's utility.
Posted by Will B (Member # 7931) on :
Thing is, Joey (starter of the thread), if you'd been raised in India or Egypt, in a devout family, you wouldn't be saying the things you said in your post -- right? So doesn't that make your post invalid?
Well, no; and applying the same thing to my beliefs doesn't make me wrong, either. But, truth to tell, if I'd been raised in India I don't think I'd be Hindu. People _do_ convert, after all.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"But, truth to tell, if I'd been raised in India I don't think I'd be Hindu."
If I'd been born in Massachusetts, I'd have cured cancer and bowled a perfect game.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
If I hadn't been born in Provo, UT, I could have eventually learned to enjoy green jello.
Posted by Dante (Member # 1106) on :
quote:...if you also believe that concrete Earthly benefit can be used to measure a religion's utility.
Ah, okay. I'm not sure what "concrete Earthly benefit" entails, for you.
You're painting religion--and earthly benefits--with a pretty big brush. Some religions work well as "opiates of the people;" others go against the current regime. Some appeal strongly to the philosophical sense with a detailed theology, while others embrace mysticism, or at least stress a sort of Kierkegaardian arationality.
You dismiss Yozhik's example of music too quickly, I think. Music, architecture, philosophy, literature: all can be directly affected by religion in different--but putatively equally positive--ways. The Hagia Sophia, the Divine Comedy, and the moai are all results of a religion that differs from mine (and each other) and would not be possible except in the specific milieu of their creators' religious experience and beliefs.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Some religions work well as "opiates of the people;" others go against the current regime. Some appeal strongly to the philosophical sense with a detailed theology, while others embrace mysticism, or at least stress a sort of Kierkegaardian arationality.
And what's especially interesting is that many of the religions you're thinking about have developed sects or cults with slightly different foci that enable them to appeal to different demographics -- so that Buddhists who want to feel ruthlessly rational and traditional have a place to go, and Christians who want to be mushy and mystical and pre-millennial have their own options. The mere fact that this happens -- that religions prosper as cultural memes, rather than the other way around -- suggests an absence of actual divine intervention.
quote:The Hagia Sophia, the Divine Comedy, and the moai are all results of a religion that differs from mine (and each other) and would not be possible except in the specific milieu of their creators' religious experience and beliefs.
And yet all three exist. What, for example, does the existence of The Divine Comedy have to say about the validity of Mormonism? Its religion made it possible -- but what does that mean, exactly? The specific cultural effect of that religion included in it some valuable literature -- but what comment does that make on the actual supernatural merit of the faith in question, or the power of that hypothetical God? If Yozhik managed to steal the Eastern Orthodox church's music, would she find herself believing their dogma -- or does their music exist quite comfortably as an artifact of their culture? By the same token, are Mormons who rewrite classical Christmas carols (like "saints and angels") engaging in religious war, or simply trying to assimilate valuable elements of the dominant culture?
Posted by Dante (Member # 1106) on :
quote:The mere fact that this happens -- that religions prosper as cultural memes, rather than the other way around -- suggests an absence of actual divine intervention.
Perhaps...if you are assuming that people are part of a religion just because it suits their own personal predilictions. I'm not.
quote:but what comment does that make on the actual supernatural merit of the faith in question, or the power of that hypothetical God?
None. I wasn't making any such argument. I was indicating why I disagreed with your assertion that religions have no true individually separate earthly benefits unless you are generalizing to broad abstractions such as, "They make art" or "They promote peace."
quote:By the same token, are Mormons who rewrite classical Christmas carols (like "saints and angels") engaging in religious war, or simply trying to assimilate valuable elements of the dominant culture?
Ask that question again without the false dichotomy and you might get a better answer.
I'm curious about the rhetoric of violence you're using--"steal," "religious war," "assimilate." Are you suggesting that it's not possible to appreciate someone else's beliefs (or "dogmas") and to understand and enjoy some of the products of them without holding those same formative dogmas? That a "Mormon" can't enjoy Orthodox music without either forsaking her own beliefs or adjusting the Orthodox ones?
In any event, most of this is off the very specific topic based on the comment of yours I was addressing.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Perhaps...if you are assuming that people are part of a religion just because it suits their own personal predilictions.
Nope. I'm assuming, as I said earlier, that you can judge the merit of a religion by its Earthly effects. If you argue that every religion on Earth could be identical but only one gives people chocolate after they die, and therefore that one's dogma actually matters, then I can't address that claim.
quote:Are you suggesting that it's not possible to appreciate someone else's beliefs (or "dogmas") and to understand and enjoy some of the products of them without holding those same formative dogmas?
Nope. I'm suggesting that the fact that it IS possible to appreciate those things means that the underlying dogmas are themselves irrelevant -- that religions are memes, not divine guides.
Posted by johnbrown (Member # 8401) on :
quote:If a person's religious beliefs are determined in large part by their environment, and thus sort of random, doesn't this make them suspect?
I think this is a great question. I think TomDavidson has made some interesting points about commonalities. However, there are enough differences between religions that sometimes the commonalities don't seem so common. And they lead adherents into totally different ways of life.
I think the question at the heart of this question is how can you know anything religious is true? Let me suggest it's the same way you know anything is true.
1. Authority. 2. Personal Experience (including what you'd consider revelation). 3. Observation, anecdotal and empirical. 4. Reason. 5. Feeling.
We use all of these all the time. If you look at all of those, they all require some amount of faith. Faith in authority is clear. But there's faith that I'm explaining my personal experience correctly, that my explanations of the observations are correct, that my reason has all the facts beforehand, that my feelings aren't being swayed. So to single out religion as a questionable idea is to miss the point--faith underlies our very existence.
I think your issue should make all of us more tentative in our statements in any field. But it shouldn't lead us to say we can't or don't know anything. Of course, there are things of little import to use, little practical use. For those things, who cares? But in the big things perhaps it's better to say there are many things we believe and have varying degrees of confidence in them. And that we're open to getting more knowledge and having to revise our understanding. In all walks of life.
I don't think we need to assume metaphysical knowledge must come in a complete package. I don't know of any religion that says it must. Nor do I think we should assume that a religion must be universal if it's true or that any truth should be known by all.
So why can't I say "I believe this to be true." Or "this works." Or "this is true, it works." Why can't I say I have supreme confidence in a man who says he's seen angels and received messages from them? And if my actions, based on my faith in his claims, bring the desired results, why can't I believe that as much as I believe a doctor saying that medicine x will make me well?
My understanding might change, but my understanding might change about a great many non-religious things that I say are true.
Of course, we're not always humble and recognize how big a role faith plays. We say it's true and forget the fact that it's based on faith. And when we do, I think we're in the wrong. So I agree that we often overstate what we do and don't know. But that's no reason to say we CAN'T know anything. Otherwise, there would be no science, history, etc. We just have to recognize the limits of our knowledge.
Of course, if we actually do see God or have some revelation and have no reason to believe it was something chemically or non-divenly produced, then that's something we'd be exteremely confident in. Even to the point that we might jump from faith to knowledge as in, there's nothing else that would allow me any more confidence than I now have--I know this. And I'd have no problem with that either.
Posted by Dante (Member # 1106) on :
quote:I'm suggesting that the fact that it IS possible to appreciate those things means that the underlying dogmas are themselves irrelevant -- that religions are memes, not divine guides.
So the only "proof" you would accept that religions are divine guides is if people exhibited, for example, an inability to appreciate those things? That religions can only be true if they cause their followers to be morally, socially, philosophically mutually incomprehensible to each other?
Can you give me an example of what sort of evidence you would need to reverse your position?
Posted by Dante (Member # 1106) on :
quote:If you argue that every religion on Earth could be identical but only one gives people chocolate after they die, and therefore that one's dogma actually matters, then I can't address that claim.
Gah! Bad phantom editor, Tom!
Fair enough. I'll leave further argumentation to the rest of you and enjoy my chocolate in silence.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Thing is, Joey (starter of the thread), if you'd been raised in India or Egypt, in a devout family, you wouldn't be saying the things you said in your post -- right? So doesn't that make your post invalid?
I don't see why an Indian or Egyptian shouldn't make that post, actually - it's a perfectly reasonable question, right? Reasoning is much the same, all the world over. But religion is not.
quote:So it's not like I'm asserting some crazy unprovable thing, and you're the heart of rationality. We're both talking about nonexistent alternate universes. The only difference is, I understand my own personality and spiritual experience much better than you do.
I do not think this is completely obvious, actually. An outside perspective is often valuable. A stereo view, even more so. But I would in any case suggest that, while you know yourself better than I know you, you do not know the hypothetical you who was kidnapped at three months.
quote:And if you think about it the way I do — realizing that no one has ALL truth, but that I think I'm in the place where God wants me to be, learning the things God wants me to learn, and that I've found quite a bit of truth and real purpose here — how in the world do you argue with that? By saying "No, I think God wants you somewhere else," or "God's not real, NYAH!" or what?
Well, clearly, if I convinced you that your god is indeed false, then you would have to give up that belief, yes? But you do raise an interesting question : Suppose you did not believe anymore. How would your life change, apart from not going to church anymore?
quote:I'll never understand why some people are so threatened by this sort of thing. I could care less that you're an atheist. Why is it so important to you that I'm a Mormon?
Because for some obscure reason, you and not I are the one with the vote in the world's most powerful nation. I find this slightly more reassuring than a fanatical believer in the Easter Bunny being armed with an RPG. Slightly.
Posted by TL (Member # 8124) on :
quote:Mormonism is fairly unique in this regard; they *do* believe their church is correct, but they don't make claims about the falseness of other churches.
I didn't say they were *completely* unique; I said they were *fairly* unique.
My experience with religion, in general, has been bad. Certainly I know that there are several other churches that acknowledge the worthiness and truth (really, whatever that means) in other faiths.... But at the same time, there are many other faiths which would have a hard time acknowledging anything worthwhile or any 'truth' within (for example) the Mormon church.
Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
quote:Because for some obscure reason, you and not I are the one with the vote in the world's most powerful nation. I find this slightly more reassuring than a fanatical believer in the Easter Bunny being armed with an RPG. Slightly.
What exactly has my religion caused me to vote for that is any more frightening than what any atheist's political opinions might induce him to vote for?
quote:Suppose you did not believe anymore. How would your life change, apart from not going to church anymore?
I would no longer contribute my time and energy to my ward community, which is the center of social life for most Mormons. I would stop raising my children to share my beliefs, and would have comparatively little support in teaching them different values from those of the mainstream culture. I would no longer have any part in the grander purposes of my religion, but instead, would only be following whatever purposes I invented for myself.
If many Mormons did the same thing, then entire communities would dissolve, along with their means of transmitting their values socially and communally to their children. The relatively stable, moral environments that wards are established to create would vanish, leaving people to find new communities that may not may not fill the same role. Individuals without a common purpose would be left to accomplish far less on their own.
And I'm only really listing the things that you might be able to recognize as valuable. As far as personal spiritual experience goes, that's a little harder to describe in a forum like this, to an audience like you, without feeling like I'm showing too much disrespect.
Suffice it to say that there is very much good that goes on in my life and in the lives of others because I belong to this church. You may not like it, but you can't simply decide what should work for other people, and what shouldn't.
If you did manage to eliminate religion from other people's lives, what would you replace it with? Do you have something in mind? Some kind of plan? Can you provide me and my people with what our church does? Or is the elimination phase all that interests you?
I don't know whether to call it xenophobia or cultural imperialism or what, but the sheer hubris of a person who thinks he can swoop in, tell someone they need to stop having their silly beliefs and their silly culture because his is so much better, then fluttering off and wondering why no one is thanking him ... it's just mind-blowing.
I mean seriously, if you represent the sort of person that I would become if I abandoned my faith, then I think I've found one more reason to stay At least after seeing the contempt with which you treat people who disagree with you. You're like the worst Christian imperialists from the colonial era, thinking that your beliefs are the grand solution to everyone's problems. They're not, and were you to succeed, you would only make the world an emptier, less pleasant place.
Posted by cheiros do ender (Member # 8849) on :
Well said Geoff.
Posted by cheiros do ender (Member # 8849) on :
Tell me KoM, what community do you belong to and how do you get along with, not just your friends, but your community as a whole?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: I don't know whether to call it xenophobia or cultural imperialism or what, but the sheer hubris of a person who thinks he can swoop in, tell someone they need to stop having their silly beliefs and their silly culture because his is so much better, then fluttering off and wondering why no one is thanking him ...
I think the word for this is "missionary."
Posted by joeyconrad (Member # 8714) on :
"What exactly has my religion caused me to vote for that is any more frightening than what any atheist's political opinions might induce him to vote for?"
I think the frightening thing about religion in politics for me, as a befuddled agnostic, stems from the notion of the sanctity of life.
I'll quote Supreme Court Justice Scalia: "Indeed, it seems to me that the more Christian a country is the less likely it is to regard the death penalty as immoral. Abolition has taken its firmest hold in post-Christian Europe, and has least support in the churchgoing United States. I attribute that to the fact that for the believing Christian, death is no big deal."
I don't believe in life after death, and thus death strikes me as a very big deal, about as big as deals get.
Capital punishment does not bother me in the least. Honestly, I think we're too parsimonious in doling out the big deal to killers, and I wish the law made it mandatory for convicted child molesters.
But the notion of leader to whom death "is no big deal" frightens me. These are the people who make the case for, and lead nations into, war. At least over here in the West, when a political leader says death is "no big deal" it's understood he is speaking of someone else's death.
The really scary notion is in the part of the world where people are testifying, through deeds not words, that death is "no big deal," even for themselves.
The way the President of Iran has been talking (about Isreal, glowing auras at the UN, the 12th Imam) and pressing ahead with nuclear research, is terrifying.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
In all fairness, a number of atheist leaders do this, too. The danger is in fanaticism, not necessarily theology.
Posted by joeyconrad (Member # 8714) on :
I agree with you there, Tom.
Unfortunately, the guy running Iran right now sounds like a fanatic.
Even more unfortunately, I can't forsee how we'll (I guess I mean the West) keep the nuclear genie in a bottle. Eventually every nation who wants one, and is willing to sacrifice for it, will have it.
I also have trouble forseeing a world where so many nations have them and don't use them.
The arguement I've heard that alarms me most concerning Islam was put forth in a book I read recently called The End of Faith. Basically the author made the case that Islam in the Middle East now is about where Christianity was during the Inquisition. It would be pretty terrifying if the Pope had tactical nukes at his disposal during the Crusades.
That book was a pretty decent read. Sort of Neo-Con, in its assessment of political realities, but coming at it from the left. It's the most stridently atheistic (thus off-putting at times) thing I've read.
Unfortunately, he makes a much better case for the likelihood of WW3 than he does proposing ways to avoid it.
[ January 22, 2006, 11:16 AM: Message edited by: joeyconrad ]
Posted by Occasional (Member # 5860) on :
"Actually, while most religions claim to have more truth than any other, few (if any) claim that no other religion(s) possess any truth"
I think your missing a point that really hasn't been explained properly. It is true that this is the case, and I admit to a cringe when Geoff said anything about this knowing what kind of reactions he would get. However, it isn't about just how the community feels. It it a unique Dogma/Theology of Mormonism. It is an article of faith and not just a sympahetic platitude. Very few, if any, religions hold that view as PART of the religious doctrines.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
The Catholic Church has similar doctrine, Occasional. The exact, specific doctrine might be unique to Mormonism, but the idea as expressed here ("basically Mormons believe that most religions contain some measure of the truth, and that there is always value in a community coming together to worship God and do good works") is not absent from other churches.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Or religions. Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
True, but I'm speaking solely of what I have direct experience with. Posted by Occasional (Member # 5860) on :
I think that is because we are currently living in a more religiously open and liberal society. I have noticed that such notions are becoming more commonplace where they used to be far more unique to Mormonism when it was founded.
Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
quote:I think the word for this is "missionary."
There are good and bad ways to do this. I like to think that as a missionary, I presented my message in a very different way than King of Men presents his.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
Occasional, in Catholic thought the idea goes back as least as far as Thomas Aquinas (early 13th century). Probably earlier, but I know at least that far. And it's not a part of the doctrine that was rejected by the Protestant reformers, to the best of my knowledge.
It's great that the LDS church embraces it as well, but it's never been unique to them.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Originally posted by A Rat Named Dog:
quote:Because for some obscure reason, you and not I are the one with the vote in the world's most powerful nation. I find this slightly more reassuring than a fanatical believer in the Easter Bunny being armed with an RPG. Slightly.
What exactly has my religion caused me to vote for that is any more frightening than what any atheist's political opinions might induce him to vote for?
Did you perchance vote for Bush, for example? But in any case, you are missing my point. An atheist's political opinions can be reasoned with; although not easy, it is actually possible to convince people, using only rational argument and experimental data, that a given political view is mistaken. Try that with someone who votes from religious conviction.
I'm going to have to respond to the rest of this point by point; pray bear with me.
quote:I would no longer contribute my time and energy to my ward community, which is the center of social life for most Mormons.
Right. So presumably you would have a different community, yes? Oddly enough, even non-Mormons have been known to have a social life.
quote:I would stop raising my children to share my beliefs
Nonsense. You would stop raising them to share the beliefs you have now. You could hardly avoid raising them to share your new beliefs.
quote:and would have comparatively little support in teaching them different values from those of the mainstream culture.
Again, untrue. You would have little support in teaching them the Mormon version of non-mainstream-ness. There are any number of other cultures that cannot be classified as mainstream, and that support their members.
quote:I would no longer have any part in the grander purposes of my religion, but instead, would only be following whatever purposes I invented for myself.
Yes, that is true. But this 'only', now - do you realise how condescending you sound? Coming from a man who is only following the writings of a nineteenth-century, um, religious leader, it is not precisely a compelling argument.
quote:If many Mormons did the same thing, then entire communities would dissolve, along with their means of transmitting their values socially and communally to their children.
Yes, yes, but you haven't shown that these communities are doing anything good.
quote: Individuals without a common purpose would be left to accomplish far less on their own.
Because nobody but Mormons could possibly work together. And incidentally, just what are the Mormons accomplishing?
quote:Suffice it to say that there is very much good that goes on in my life and in the lives of others because I belong to this church. You may not like it, but you can't simply decide what should work for other people, and what shouldn't.
Yet oddly enough, you apparently feel at liberty to decide that gay marriage wouldn't work for other people, either.
quote:If you did manage to eliminate religion from other people's lives, what would you replace it with?
Let me rephrase your question : Supposing you managed to convince an eight-year-old child that Santa Claus didn't really exist. What would you replace his belief with?
quote:Can you provide me and my people with what our church does?
EDIT : Well, that was perhaps a little uncalled-for. Let me instead say, yes, why not? Plenty of communities are non-religious.
quote:I don't know whether to call it xenophobia or cultural imperialism or what, but the sheer hubris of a person who thinks he can swoop in, tell someone they need to stop having their silly beliefs and their silly culture because his is so much better, then fluttering off and wondering why no one is thanking him ... it's just mind-blowing.
I mean seriously, if you represent the sort of person that I would become if I abandoned my faith, then I think I've found one more reason to stay At least after seeing the contempt with which you treat people who disagree with you. You're like the worst Christian imperialists from the colonial era, thinking that your beliefs are the grand solution to everyone's problems. They're not, and were you to succeed, you would only make the world an emptier, less pleasant place.
Speaking of cultural imperialism... So what you are actually saying is, because my life does not include a church, it must be an empty, unpleasant sort of life, yes? Yet I am quite happy with it. You seem to be making precisely the same assumption that you accuse me of making : That only your kind of life can possibly give satisfaction. But that is not true; and even if it were - would you rather believe a comforting lie, or a harsh truth?
[ January 22, 2006, 04:51 PM: Message edited by: King of Men ]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:So what you are actually saying is, because my life does not include a church, it must be an empty, unpleasant sort of life, yes?
Not really. What you accused him of was starting from a general principle ("atheists must be unhappy") and applying it to comment on your life.
He was actually generalizing from you (specifically, the way you show contempt) to other atheists, presumably in a tongue-in-cheek manner. This operation turned the starting principle from above into a conclusion - one whose limitations he acknowledged with "At least after seeing the contempt with which you treat people who disagree with you." I inferred from that sentence that Geoff recognized the inherent limitations of such an observation and was not attempting to generalize beyond those limitations.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
The "non-obvious" point is this: the mere fact that practically all religions are beneficial in roughly the same ways and for roughly the same reasons, regardless of the dogmas and beliefs of those religions, suggests that their dogmas and beliefs are irrelevant
So your saying nature finds a way to keep its little children from killing eachother off? I think religion is just one way for a growing society to sustain itself. But like alot of things good for a growing society, your greatest strengths can eventually weaken you in the face of an environmental change. We fill up the Earth with people who've been rebuilding after the flood (its right there in the bible, our whole society is based on expansion), and pretty soon, alarmingly soon, your geometric expansion hobbles you, so that you produce more mouths than your environment can possibly feed.
Magically though society WILL find a way to survive this dilemma in a few centuries. When people begin to suffer from the gross effects of exceeding the sustainability of their environments without encrouching on the beauty of the natural world, we'll either stop, or we will be stopped by that world. And religions that crammed 12 child families into one room houses will never have been at fault after all.
edit: Believe it or not that's not a condemnation of religion, just an observation of its utilitarian purpose. What I mean is that religion will change to fit the paradigm of the future, or the religion will die. This is an irrevocable part of nature, we see it throughout history, in every religion. So "Dogma" is really just another way of saying "no seriously, we really mean it, this is a good idea."
Posted by cheiros do ender (Member # 8849) on :
"...religions that crammed 12 child families into one room houses..."
As if.
Posted by quidscribis (Member # 5124) on :
quote:What I mean is that religion will change to fit the paradigm of the future, or the religion will die. This is an irrevocable part of nature, we see it throughout history, in every religion.
Hmm. I don't see Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, or Hinduism changing, and they've lasted, oh, a good long time.
While I can see that the blanket statement is appealing, I don't believe it's universally true. I think some religions will change, but others will remain the same as they have been for thousands of years.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: Hmm. I don't see Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, or Hinduism changing, and they've lasted, oh, a good long time.
Actually, all the religions you just cited have changed a LOT. Posted by starter (Member # 9073) on :
"How can someone believes in a particular religion that asserts as truths things which contradict other religions?"
To pose the question back to you: how can they not? Religion, like all things resting on 'truth', is not a democracy, therefore it has no obligations towards political righteousness. People who believe 'a' to be the one and only truth will deny 'b's truthfulness. It's the same in science. (Note: I'm not saying religion and science are the same but drawing a commonality betwee one of their facets, probably the only one). Truths in science aren't established by the popular majority and 'contradiction' is a part of the game. Similarly in religion, when one posits a truth all other statements which negate it are considered 'false'.
"Actually, all the religions you just cited have changed a LOT."
I don't know about the other religions but I know Islam hasn't changed a 'LOT' by any accounts.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Are you kidding? Islam has changed more than MOST of 'em.
Posted by starter (Member # 9073) on :
No I'm not kidding. I happen to know a fair bit about Islam - care to tell me how it has 'changed'?
Posted by IB_wench (Member # 9081) on :
quote:Originally posted by starter: (Note: I'm not saying religion and science are the same but drawing a commonality betwee one of their facets, probably the only one).
I don't know about that... Maybe science and religion have more in common than one might think. Both are methods that people use to try to understand and explain the world around them, and their place in it. And both have their share of rational minds, ardent believers, and fanatics.
Posted by starter (Member # 9073) on :
quote:Originally posted by IB_wench:
quote:Originally posted by starter: (Note: I'm not saying religion and science are the same but drawing a commonality betwee one of their facets, probably the only one).
I don't know about that... Maybe science and religion have more in common than one might think. Both are methods that people use to try to understand and explain the world around them, and their place in it. And both have their share of rational minds, ardent believers, and fanatics.
I understand that; however I think religion and science are fundementally contradictory practices (note again: this does not mean that one cannot be a scientist whilst being a devout Roman Catholic) when it comes to the methodologies used to uncover the truth of the universe.
Science is propelled by the negation of false theories (e.g. 'the earth is round, not flat') or by revising/adding to current theories (the turnover from classical physics to modern physics). The scientific methodology entails that you do not pre-suppose any 'truth' (assumptions/hypothesis are different) and must arrive at a conclusion that is implied 'directly' through your data.
The religious methodology more often than not pre-supposes lots of things such as the existence of god(s), the existence of a 'spiritual' aspect of the universe, etc. and all religious theories are built on these truths as a set of non-negotiable premises. As far as science goes - there are no non-negotiable premises; hence the fundemental contradiction between religious and scientific methodologies.
Posted by IB_wench (Member # 9081) on :
makes sense Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:I happen to know a fair bit about Islam - care to tell me how it has 'changed'?
The schism following the death of the last Caliph is a pretty good start. Posted by starter (Member # 9073) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:I happen to know a fair bit about Islam - care to tell me how it has 'changed'?
The schism following the death of the last Caliph is a pretty good start.
The differences in sects do not entail a difference in "Islam" because Islam is still the religion laid down by the Qur'an. If you said the way Islam is supposedly practiced has changed then that's fine - though that is an impossible statement to qualify with any certainty; however the tennets of Islam has always been the same. The laws laid down in the Qur'an may have been implemented differently by the varying sects using the beautiful word "interpretation" (and in turn, followed differently by different followers of each sect), but the source of Islam, that is the Qur'an, has been 'unchanged' (sans dialectal changes due to translations) throughout.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
In your opinion, does a religion only change if its scriptures change?
Posted by starter (Member # 9073) on :
A difficult question to answer in one word, but yes.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Ah. See, I believe almost exactly the opposite -- that religions change primarily in every other way, but the scriptures themselves only rarely evolve.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Well, even by that definition, the scriptures of Islam have changed, because - like Judaism - they are not limited to the Koran, but also include a very large oral tradition.
Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
Oh, wonderful. A point-by-point-by-point argument. I learned to hate these about twelve years ago.
One common thread, though. In general, you are reading broader meanings into my comments that are not actually there. This makes for a very frustrating and pointless discussion.
quote:"I would no longer contribute my time and energy to my ward community, which is the center of social life for most Mormons."
Right. So presumably you would have a different community, yes? Oddly enough, even non-Mormons have been known to have a social life.
"I would no longer contribute my time and energy to my ward community, which is the center of social life for most Mormons."
Right. So presumably you would have a different community, yes? Oddly enough, even non-Mormons have been known to have a social life.
"I would no longer have any part in the grander purposes of my religion, but instead, would only be following whatever purposes I invented for myself."
Yes, that is true. But this 'only', now - do you realise how condescending you sound? Coming from a man who is only following the writings of a nineteenth-century, um, religious leader, it is not precisely a compelling argument.
"If many Mormons did the same thing, then entire communities would dissolve, along with their means of transmitting their values socially and communally to their children."
Yes, yes, but you haven't shown that these communities are doing anything good.
"Individuals without a common purpose would be left to accomplish far less on their own."
Because nobody but Mormons could possibly work together. And incidentally, just what are the Mormons accomplishing?
In the interest of not perpetuating the picking-apart-piece-by-piece nature of this post, let me make a few general observations.
1. Your initial question did not ask, "How would your life change if you abandoned your religion, but replaced it with something that functioned identically to your religion, with the exception of the 'religion' part." Your question was, "How would your life change if you abandoned your religion?" That was it, and I answered you.
2. Furthermore, you fail to cite any specific organization that does provide what my religion provides. Instead, you essentially assert that anything my religion provides that I cannot get elsewhere is by definition valueless because it is religious. It's a circular argument. "Prove to me that your religion has value." "I get these things from it." "Those things are part of a religion, and therefore have no value." Please.
3. You call me condescending because I think that the things that I do as a member of my faith have unique value that I could not achieve elsewhere. Of course that doesn't mean that it is impossible for a person to find things of similar value outside my faith. That would be a pretty miserable world to live in, now, wouldn't it? If only 12 million people were allowed to be spiritually fulfilled at a time?
Here's where we seem to differ. I enjoy being a game designer. I'm good at it, and I achieve things that I'm proud of in my field. I don't want to be anything else.
There are people who think that video games are a blight on the world, and would prefer that I didn't make them. They could say to me, "There are creative professions outside the game industry that you could get, and any benefit of being a game designer that you could name, I can match with a similar benefit in another field."
Should that change the fact that I feel happier as a game designer than I can imagine being in any other line of work? Can it alter my innermost wordless dreams of creating wonderful creative works of art within this particular field that I love? Can it change the fact that in some strange way that cannot be justified or explained, I WANT to be a game designer?
No, it shouldn't and it can't. I love games, and I'm going to keep making games, and I dream of one day realizing my dreams of creating amazing games, in spite of what other people might tell me I ought to do instead.
Similarly, I love my faith, I have learned to trust my faith, and I share the purpose and goals of my faith, and long to be a part of bringing them into fruition.
And you're telling me that I should drop it for some social club? Who's being condescending, now, I'm trying to remember ... ?
4. Let me answer this one point: "And incidentally, just what are the Mormons accomplishing?"
Mormons believe in the ideal of Zion — that at other times in the distant past, societies of human beings have achieved a oneness of spirit that resulted in perfect, civilized harmony. Children were raised without needing to fear strangers, there was no crime and no poverty, and these communities could achieve great things that individuals could not achieve alone.
Each Mormon community strives for that ideal, and we hope in the long term to be able to contribute to humanity achieving it on a worldwide scale. That is the endgame of the Mormon expectations for the future.
We haven't achieved it yet, by any means But we share that ideal, and it fuels our efforts with a passion and on a scale that I honestly doubt I'll find many other places. There is passion, naturally, elsewhere, for a lot of things. But this is the one that I have grown to love, and that I believe in.
Telling me that I need to abandon this one and go find another that is just as good, but not religious, is very like telling me that I should give up my daughter for adoption and go find a child with similar physical traits, and she will be just as good.
Isn't there anything in your life that you can make an analogy to that will help you understand why this matters? You keep asserting that you, as an atheist, have everything I have, but your sheer lack of comprehension makes me wonder.
Other atheists and agnostics that I've known have understood this right off the bat. I don't think of "atheists" in general as lacking something.
quote:"I would stop raising my children to share my beliefs."
Nonsense. You would stop raising them to share the beliefs you have now.
I believe that is what I said. The phrase "my beliefs" refers to Mormonism. I'm wondering if you could be a little more picky in your selection of arguments.
quote:... only your kind of life can possibly give satisfaction. But that is not true; and even if it were - would you rather believe a comforting lie, or a harsh truth?
Harsh truth, of course. But a believer in a burning, miserable hell where atheists go might ask you the same question with all the same insinuations ... and make pretty much exactly the same amount of headway in the discussion.
quote:EDIT : Well, that was perhaps a little uncalled-for. Let me instead say, yes, why not? Plenty of communities are non-religious.
I have to say, that is probably the first time I've ever noticed you deliberately holding back from saying something mocking and contemptuous about people who are different from you. Congratulations
And on that note:
quote:Yet oddly enough, you apparently feel at liberty to decide that gay marriage wouldn't work for other people, either.
The only time I have ever entered that arena was over the issue of the laws and customs that govern all of our lives, together. I have made absolutely no opposition to the existence of homosexual communities outside my own. And you'll remember that over a century ago, when my community chafed against the marriage laws of the larger society, first we left, and then we reconciled. I don't think, given the history, that it's unreasonable for me to take the position I've taken.
(Which is WHAT? Pop quiz on Geoff's political opinions!)
[ January 24, 2006, 02:44 AM: Message edited by: A Rat Named Dog ]
Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
One last thing about my previous post (the one before the one directly above).
I specifically said that there were other values to my religion that were personal, and that I shared only the ones that I thought any normal human, of any belief, could sympathize with.
Just so that YOU don't think that I consider MY faith to be nothing more than a social club Posted by clod (Member # 9084) on :
egads.
I like my milk and cookies! I would share them if I weren't so ravenously forthright in chewing 'em to bits. I feel the same about cashews. Let's not talk about the pistacchios.
Posted by WntrMute (Member # 7556) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:I happen to know a fair bit about Islam - care to tell me how it has 'changed'?
The schism following the death of the last Caliph is a pretty good start.
Huh? The last Khalifah was in the 20th century, and what schism took place then? Wahhabism and Salafism all predate the fall of the Khalifate. The largest schism was when the Khalifate passed to the Ummayyids instead of Ali, Muhammad's son-in-law. "Shia" actually stands for "partisan for Ali." That would have been at the very, very, very beginning of the religion. Hardly recent.
All the Khalifate was, was a clearing house for Fatwas. Day-to-day, the hierarchy was exceptionally loose when compared to Christian organizations.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:The last Khalifah was in the 20th century...
By "last Caliph," I was specifically referring to the Ummayyid coup. I don't consider the caliphs since then to be particularly legitimate.
Posted by Irregardless (Member # 8529) on :
quote:Originally posted by joeyconrad: If a person's religious beliefs are determined in large part by their environment, and thus sort of random, doesn't this make them suspect?
It seems to me this argument applies equally well to atheism or non-religion, in that it is also greatly influenced by environment (parents' beliefs, etc.).
Posted by starter (Member # 9073) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Well, even by that definition, the scriptures of Islam have changed, because - like Judaism - they are not limited to the Koran, but also include a very large oral tradition.
No. The 'scriptures' of Islam is the Qur'an and Qur'an only. What you're referring to is the "Hadith" and they are no more the scripture of Islam than the biography of Prophet Mohammed would be a 'scripture' of Islam. Scripture, by definition, is of divine origin - not the re-tellings of someone's life. So no, no scripture of Islam has "changed".
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
starter, why don't you consider the Hadith to be relevant to the practice and beliefs of Islam? Would you consider the oral Torah to be relevant to Judaism?
Posted by starter (Member # 9073) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: starter, why don't you consider the Hadith to be relevant to the practice and beliefs of Islam? Would you consider the oral Torah to be relevant to Judaism?
Because the Hadith has been corrupted many times over and more importantly: I don't see the need for the Hadith. Sure it's relevant to the practice of the orthodox Muslims - but orthodoxy never determined truth and I think we can both agree on that. :-)
In terms of the Torah - I wouldn't comment on it since I don't know enough about Judaism.
Posted by WntrMute (Member # 7556) on :
quote:Originally posted by starter:
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Well, even by that definition, the scriptures of Islam have changed, because - like Judaism - they are not limited to the Koran, but also include a very large oral tradition.
No. The 'scriptures' of Islam is the Qur'an and Qur'an only. What you're referring to is the "Hadith" and they are no more the scripture of Islam than the biography of Prophet Mohammed would be a 'scripture' of Islam. Scripture, by definition, is of divine origin - not the re-tellings of someone's life. So no, no scripture of Islam has "changed".
This is true for a very small minority of Muslims known as the 'Koran Only' movement (the founder was declared an apostate, and I think he was assassinated). For the various and sundry Shi'ite and Sunni sects, who represent the mainstream of Islam, the Hadith are as important as the Koran. There are five schools of interpretation: Shafi'i, Hanafi, Maliki, Hanbali, and Ja'fari (which is the main Shi'ite school). All of these schools are over a thousand years old, in origin, and so hardly qualify as recent, either.
Posted by starter (Member # 9073) on :
quote:Originally posted by WntrMute: This is true for a very small minority of Muslims known as the 'Koran Only' movement (the founder was declared an apostate, and I think he was assassinated). For the various and sundry Shi'ite and Sunni sects, who represent the mainstream of Islam, the Hadith are as important as the Koran. There are five schools of interpretation: Shafi'i, Hanafi, Maliki, Hanbali, and Ja'fari (which is the main Shi'ite school). All of these schools are over a thousand years old, in origin, and so hardly qualify as recent, either.
Yes, I know - I don't follow any of them (including the so-called "Qur'an Only Movement"). Who or what represents the mainstream of Islam is hardly relevant when one considers what Islam actually is. However using the argument "they were declared to be an apostate" is quaintly circular don't you think? Seeing as how the people doing the declaring are also the people responsible for creating the very thing the QOM warns against? I don't know about you, but I find it ironic. :-)
Anyway, you have not disproven my words and my points still stand. The Hadith is the biography of Prophet Mohammed and a 'scripture' is always of divine origins (for those who believe in the divine, of course). You may think it's perfectly safe to amalgamate the two because thousands of years of tradition and scholarity says so, but remember that your defense of such an action is a basic appeal to authority and widespread belief. (And I quote you on this: "All of these schools are over a thousand years old, in origin, and so hardly qualify as recent, either.".).
But then, I didn't sign up here for a religious argument - I simply wanted to point out to Mr. TomDivision that Islam hasn't really changed that much, at least not what I consider Islam to be anyway. So really, I have no intentions of debating with you over the validity of the QOM vs various-sects-of-Islam cause.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:I simply wanted to point out to Mr. TomDivision that Islam hasn't really changed that much, at least not what I consider Islam to be anyway.
But you don't actually get a vote, I'm afraid. Many Fundamentalist Christians and Orthodox Jews will also insist that their religion is practiced the way it's always been practiced since the dawn of time; they're equally wrong.
Posted by starter (Member # 9073) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:I simply wanted to point out to Mr. TomDivision that Islam hasn't really changed that much, at least not what I consider Islam to be anyway.
But you don't actually get a vote, I'm afraid. Many Fundamentalist Christians and Orthodox Jews will also insist that their religion is practiced the way it's always been practiced since the dawn of time; they're equally wrong.
You'd be correct - if I, like you, operated under the assumption that "majority is right". I don't. You may consider religion to be whatever the current trend entails it is, but I personally find that viewpoint to be too naive to be of any real use/research.
But who cares right, since my "vote" doesn't count. :-)
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
I'm saying that you don't speak for the entire faith. No matter how strongly you hold an opinion, that doesn't make you RIGHT.
Posted by starter (Member # 9073) on :
No but do I at least get a vote? :-P
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Depends. Are you an imam?
Posted by JennaDean (Member # 8816) on :
quote:The Hadith is the biography of Prophet Mohammed and a 'scripture' is always of divine origins (for those who believe in the divine, of course). You may think it's perfectly safe to amalgamate the two because thousands of years of tradition and scholarity says so, but remember that your defense of such an action is a basic appeal to authority and widespread belief.
What constitutes "scripture" is defined by the believer. Some consider the Qur'an scripture, some the Torah, some the Bible, some the Book of Mormon, etc. Some of those are exactly what you said wasn't scripture - the biographical account of a prophet's life and dealings with God. But just because they're not entirely in the format of "Thus saith the Lord," doesn't mean they're not scripture to those who believe in them.
Now, whether or not they're all true is debatable, but whether or not they're considered "scripture" is up to the believer.
Posted by starter (Member # 9073) on :
I'd have to be muslim first.
(BTW, I don't hold opinions strongly - disprove me and I'll let go faster than a post-natal woman.)
Posted by starter (Member # 9073) on :
quote:Originally posted by JennaDean:
quote:The Hadith is the biography of Prophet Mohammed and a 'scripture' is always of divine origins (for those who believe in the divine, of course). You may think it's perfectly safe to amalgamate the two because thousands of years of tradition and scholarity says so, but remember that your defense of such an action is a basic appeal to authority and widespread belief.
What constitutes "scripture" is defined by the believer. Some consider the Qur'an scripture, some the Torah, some the Bible, some the Book of Mormon, etc. Some of those are exactly what you said wasn't scripture - the biographical account of a prophet's life and dealings with God. But just because they're not entirely in the format of "Thus saith the Lord," doesn't mean they're not scripture to those who believe in them.
Now, whether or not they're all true is debatable, but whether or not they're considered "scripture" is up to the believer.
I'm not talking about The Bible/Torah/et al, I'm talking about the Qur'an/Islam. In Islam's case the Qur'an is the only divine revelation and the Hadiths were written/compiled almost 200 years after the revelation of the Qur'an as a biography of Prophet Mohammed. Sure it's up to the believer's disccretion to assign definitions, just as it's up to me to believe whether gravity exists or not.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:I'm talking about the Qur'an/Islam.
The two aren't synonymous.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Originally posted by starter: I'd have to be muslim first.
(BTW, I don't hold opinions strongly - disprove me and I'll let go faster than a post-natal woman.)
Since we are speaking of how you define scripture, it is not possible to 'disprove' it : This is certainly the way you define it. I believe that it is an extremely useless definition, because it gives us exactly zero information about how the practice of religions changes over time; but that does not disprove anything.
Posted by WntrMute (Member # 7556) on :
quote:Originally posted by starter: Yes, I know - I don't follow any of them (including the so-called "Qur'an Only Movement"). Who or what represents the mainstream of Islam is hardly relevant when one considers what Islam actually is. However using the argument "they were declared to be an apostate" is quaintly circular don't you think? Seeing as how the people doing the declaring are also the people responsible for creating the very thing the QOM warns against? I don't know about you, but I find it ironic. :-)
Actually, the whole issue as to what determines what is actually Islam is especially important, since failing to meet the criteria can lead to a grossly unpleasant death. Orthodoxy is defined by those who can make the definition stick. By force or intimidation. Dislike it however much you want, it will not change the essential fact that what is orthodox is defined by power and those who hold it. Whether it is the power of the community or the power of a small elite, power define what is orthodox. This is true for all faiths.
quote:Originally posted by starter:Anyway, you have not disproven my words and my points still stand. The Hadith is the biography of Prophet Mohammed and a 'scripture' is always of divine origins (for those who believe in the divine, of course).
No. Biographies of Muhammad are called 'sira.' Hadith are collections of the sayings and actions of Muhammad as recounted in specific 'lines of transmission.' The Hadith are considered vital in Sunni Islam, because they regard Mohammad as the 'seal of prophecy,' the last prophet (Koran 33:40). While the Koran does contain rules of conduct, it does not cover every eventuality or circumstance. The ritual for prayer, for instance, is not fully laid out in the Koran. The Hadith fill that void. Because Muhammad was a holy man, blessed by God, he was an example for all other men. The Shi'a adopted the belief that the Imam (in their view the Khalifa, or successor) was 'rightly guided' and could fill the void that the Sunni used the Hadith for, so they aren't quite as important in Shi'a Islam, but the Ja'fari school still does reference many of them.
You are literally correct, the Koran is the only scripture. However, you are too greatly minimizing the role and importance of the Hadith and other long-fixed traditions in both the Sunni and Shi'ite movements.
In any case, your larger point about the fixed nature of Islam relative to other faiths is actually strengthened by this fact. The hadith, the interpretations of both the Koran and hadith, and even the interpretations of the interpretations have largely been fixed in Sunni Islam (and in most respects in Shi'ite Islam, seeing as how for most Shi'a there hasn't been an Imam) for around 1000 years.
quote:Originally posted by starter: You may think it's perfectly safe to amalgamate the two because thousands of years of tradition and scholarity says so, but remember that your defense of such an action is a basic appeal to authority and widespread belief. (And I quote you on this: "All of these schools are over a thousand years old, in origin, and so hardly qualify as recent, either.".).
My only support for describing the actions of gravity and light are, ultimately, due to "a basic appeal to authority and widespread belief." Unless, of course, we both meet in person and replicate all of the past several centuries' experiments regarding those things 'authority' would be about all we would have to go on, wouldn't it?
quote:Originally posted by starter: I simply wanted to point out to Mr. TomDivision that Islam hasn't really changed that much, at least not what I consider Islam to be anyway. So really, I have no intentions of debating with you over the validity of the QOM vs various-sects-of-Islam cause.
While I agree in the main with part of your premise (ie. the unchanging aspect of Islam, on the whole), the problem is where you start defining things according to your own interpretation. Unless you are the Twelfth Imam (in one tradition), or the rightly guided descendant of the seventh (in another), or the Khalifa, or the Mahdi, then frankly what you decide is rather pointless in any conversation about Islam as a world-wide movement. If I start calling religions "fripnoodles," just because that is my own conviction, in a conversation I am going to be ridiculed. I have to abide by the rules of the larger community and refer to things how they are commonly accepted as being defined. I can buy a Donkey and call him Alsan, but it would just get me into trouble with the Lewis literary estate in the end. (And it would likely annoy my neighbors.) This goes back to the whole issue of orthodoxy.
And I doubt if you know where my opinion with regards to that may actually lie.
Posted by starter (Member # 9073) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men:
quote:Originally posted by starter: I'd have to be muslim first.
(BTW, I don't hold opinions strongly - disprove me and I'll let go faster than a post-natal woman.)
Since we are speaking of how you define scripture, it is not possible to 'disprove' it : This is certainly the way you define it. I believe that it is an extremely useless definition, because it gives us exactly zero information about how the practice of religions changes over time; but that does not disprove anything.
I think my definition of "scripture" is pretty fair - if you believe that *anything* is scripture then there's not much point to a logical discourse is there? Also, my 'definition' is useless for your cause - that is trying to find patterns of change in the practice of a religion; these anthropological studies don't really interest me as much as the text/moral/teachings of a religion. As TomDivision said, he considers 'religion' to be of the practiced form while I consider it to be of the 'idealistic' form.
Posted by starter (Member # 9073) on :
WntrMute:
A few things. Firstly, your point of orthodoxy is largely irrelevant. Who cares what orthodox entails? I'm not in Saudi Arabia - I don't really care if I come of as a "heretic" to the Wahabis. Moreover, "might is right" does not hold sway over an argument involving truth.
Secondly, your statement pretty much said "the Sunnis and the Shi'as have done it this way for over 1000 years so it must be true" - how is that not an appeal to authority? If I said "gravity is like this because Einstein said so" I'd be laughed at. I'd have to show a solid understanding of what Einstein theorised and then I can use Einstein as an authority in the subject. I hope you see the difference between what I said and your "gravity" example.
Thirdly, I'm not 'redefining' anything, but am just giving a more concise definition. If you don't agree with it, please feel free to give an alternative definition of "scripture".
The two aren't synonymous.
Islam is the religion preached by the Qur'an. I didn't want to type the whole thing out, you see.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
BTW, my name is actually "Tom Davidson." I don't know who "Tom Division" might be, but I doubt I'd like him.
Posted by WntrMute (Member # 7556) on :
First off, I'm not saying anything about 'truth.' I have not, nor will I, ever say anything about 'truth.' I am describing Islam as it has been and is. And Islam cannot be understood from the Koran alone, any more than Catholicism can be understood from the Bible alone. It is an oversimplification. Christianity has the same scripture now that it had a thousand years ago, however the practices are completely different. Not to mention the fact that while there is only one scripture for the larger concept of 'Christianity' there are nonetheless several hundred different interpretations of that singular scripture and thereby several hundred different Christian sects. Religions cannot be understood from their scripture alone. Not a one of them.
The issue regarding orthodoxy (and I knew you wouldn't understand where I was coming from) is not that it is 'true' but that it sets the definitions. Definitions matter. Without definitions for the things we discuss there can be no communication whatsoever. You can say that Islam involves Odin worship, you can say that Islam is derived from the worship of a pagan moon-god (like Jack Chick), you can say anything you want about Islam. However just because you say it, that interpretation does not immediately have the same exact value and worth as what an 'authority' may have to say about it.
Also, I don't think you understand what an 'appeal to authority' is. The logical fallacy 'appeal to authority' has to do with when you say something like, "I'm your mother, so I'm right." It is an appeal to a personally held position to justify whatever assertion is made. If I cite some leading scholor, some historical evidence, or even a commonly held opinion that is not an 'appeal to authority.' So when I point out that Shi'a and Sunni have done such and such a thing for a thousand years, that is not an appeal to authority. It would be something that you could ask for documentation or citations about; but it is not an 'appeal to authority,' it is rather a statement regarding a historic reality. Argue the facts, if you want. Bring forth your proofs. But don't just wave your hands and say that I'm committing a logical fallacy. Especially when I'm not.
Posted by Dante (Member # 1106) on :
I don't know, Tom..."Tom Division" has a pretty cool ring to it.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Now, see, if there were A "Tom Division," a team of people either named Tom or dedicated to the support of Tom, that would be cool.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
How many divisions has the Tom?
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by starter: A few things. Firstly, your point of orthodoxy is largely irrelevant. Who cares what orthodox entails? I'm not in Saudi Arabia - I don't really care if I come of as a "heretic" to the Wahabis. Moreover, "might is right" does not hold sway over an argument involving truth.
Starter, sounds like your defending the point I made and you rejected, which was that all religions change. You are changing Islam right now, Islam changes every day. When you talk about the value of one belief or the politics of one decision, you influence the way I look at that issue. Then when I talk to muslims, I bring my knowledge and opinions to a discussion, and they may change the way they see things, or COME UP with a way to negate what I SAY. Therefore, their approach to the world and their religion DOES CHANGE. and the WAY we approach our religion, how we feel about it is as important as what the Quran says, when it comes time to have a point to point about how Islam has changed.
A book of history written for American classrooms in 1930 would have some interesting things to say about, for instance European politics, ancient Judaism, the American economy, etc. This book might have been as close to truth as possible on the day it was published. But we don't look at that history and develop all of our worldviews based on the history of the world UP TO 1930. Instead, we see that book as an historical example of how we viewed the world in 1930, and how we have changed. This is not a religious question, we don't have to BELIEVE in the history written in 1930, it was right at the time, and still is, but its value has shifted, we use it for a different purpose today. Some histories, some books increase in value over time for many reasons, many would say the Quran has become more and more influential as years pass, so the way we see it must also change, we must account for its popularity.
On the other hand, the Quran might yet go the way of many great epic works, like Gilgamesh, or "Uncle Tom's Cabin," revered now much less for their exceptional qualities as stories, and more for their representing a view of the world we no longer recognize, or a world that no longer exists in the same way, or which has become something much different. Books thus take on values which are different than those originally foreseen, and they CHANGE. Undeniably they change.
Posted by enjeeo (Member # 2336) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: An atheist's political opinions can be reasoned with; although not easy, it is actually possible to convince people, using only rational argument and experimental data, that a given political view is mistaken. Try that with someone who votes from religious conviction.
Unless of course the athiest simply votes against whatever seems to be the religious viewpoint. Athiests are just as capable of being bigoted, illogical and obtuse as are some of the religious right.
I found a lot of your other answers very wise though. There was definitely an assumption (in the post you were addressing) that life without the Mormon church would be one without community or sound values.
I'm finding this whole discussion very interesting, because I am in the midst of a rather interesting transition in my life. Without going into the whys and hows of it all, I recently came to the conclusion that the LDS church isn't the 'one true church' but I'm still attending church at the moment. It not just that I need some time to process this, though that is part of it, but it also has to do with the fact that I still recognise the worth of the values the church teaches. If I didn't, I could never have believed the church was true in the first place. And even when and if I'm not attending the LDS church at all any more, many of those values will still be a part of my belief system - not because they're ingrained, and not because I "invented them" but simply because they are sound, and I am happier when I live by them.
As to the original poster's question, my answer is this: the premises of your argument don't lead to the conclusion that no church has the one truth. What they do lead to is the conclusion that establishing the 'truth' of a church requires a benchmark beyond the one set by the community where that religion is popular and/or prevalent. In the end though, whether we can ever prove that it's true in any one particular church's case, the following things are so:
- the truth does exist, and at least some of it is absolute (not relative)
There either is a god (or gods), or there isn't. If God exists, he (or she) either does observe and care about our conduct, or he doesn't. He either has the right to judge that conduct, or he doesn't. Whatever the truth is, there is an existing reality that is the truth.
- it is possible for truth to be known
This will be the most contentious point, I'm sure, but all I mean is that if you have enough information, you can discern truth.
- some religion/church MAY have found it
If so, that means that some people, in spite of being born and brought up in that church, perhaps in an area where pretty much the whole of the population is of the same religion, will still find themselves a member of 'the one true church' (whatever that means), however unlikely it might have seemed that they could be one of the 'lucky few'. In actual fact, they would have been no less likely than anyone else.
In other words, I think what you're saying, the questions you're posing, are valid reasons for someone to question their church/religion's claim, if it's making one, to be the one true way. But to dismiss what might be truth out-of-hand for the same reason - merely because that individual finding the truth in their own context was against the odds - is ridiculous.
Posted by Bokonon (Member # 480) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: "But, truth to tell, if I'd been raised in India I don't think I'd be Hindu."
If I'd been born in Massachusetts, I'd have cured cancer and bowled a perfect game.
No you wouldn't have. We play candlepin bowling here, and there's never been a sanctioned perfect game in it's greater than 100-year history
-Bok
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
I'd say Tom's a uniter, not a divider.
Posted by stihl1 (Member # 1562) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: BTW, my name is actually "Tom Davidson." I don't know who "Tom Division" might be, but I doubt I'd like him.
But why Tom and Davidson? Is that how you define yourself, as say, opposed to being a male? An American? A hatracker?
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
I think it's a little risky to use your first and last names like that here.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
The fact that Tom's been doing it for about a decade or so on Card's forums without it coming back to bite him would seem to suggest that the risk is minimal.
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
which is why you use your real name, right jake? Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
My using this handle had nothing to do with fear for my personal safety.
Posted by Jake (Member # 206) on :
As is evidenced by my original sign-on.
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
I was just trying to err on the side of teh prudence. Someone came on teh Ornery.org and mentioned how sorry he was that he had used the same signon on every site he frequented, because he managed to piss off somebody seriously on one board, and they stalked him from board to board and, even, IIRC, in real life. I wouldn't want to go through that, nor would I want to see a friend be vulnerable like that. Sorry to preach.
Posted by Jake (Member # 206) on :
Oh, you're not preaching, or at least that wasn't how I was interpreting it. I was just just talking, really.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
enjeeo, I hope you realize that in my earlier post, I was only trying to generate a list of valuable things I received from the Church, whose value might be accepted as valid by King of Men.
I tried very hard in the subsequent posts to make it clear that my statements were entirely about my own life and experience, and had no intentional implications for people of other faiths. They only described what I, personally, would lose if my faith were suddenly stripped from me.
That distinction is very important to me, so even though I think I've made it clear in previous posts, I want to reiterate it. I don't think that my religion is the only possible thing that could ever fulfill a person. Many different things have done so for many different people.
But King of Men's assertion that there is no valuable purpose to be served by religion is so clearly and obviously wrong, from my perspective, that I couldn't let it stand without at least trying to express why I care so much about my faith. Whenever anyone does that, they run the risk of seeming dismissive of other people's beliefs, but I hope by now you can tell that that was NOT my intent Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Holy thread necromancy, Batman!
But anyway, the point you seem to be missing is that all the good things you claim for your religion are available without the evil parts. And because I know you are going to be dismissive, let me just make it clear that I'm not talking about eating babies.
Analogy: You are running a coal power station that belches out sulfurous gases. I ask you "Why do you do that?", and you respond "Well, I need the electricity". Which is fine, but two blocks over there are shiny hydroelectric power plants that give the same thing without the pollution. Looking at the electricity is answering the wrong question; I was asking about the pollution.
Posted by Eowyn-sama (Member # 11096) on :
You're right, King, but it is also possible to have the good of religion without the evil *and* without abandoning religion.
Hydroelectric power has its limitations and its drawbacks--what if you don't have a big enough river to dam, and what if people don't want to be flooded out of their homes? But if you could have the coal power (America has vast amounts of coal at its disposal) without the pollution? That would be the best solution. (And just because I'm a nerd and a showoff and extending this analogy way too far anyway, there is technology being developed that would produce clean power from coal)
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:You're right, King, but it is also possible to have the good of religion without the evil *and* without abandoning religion.
No it's not. Possibly you are thinking of some different evils than the ones I have in mind.
Posted by Eowyn-sama (Member # 11096) on :
Really? What evils did you have in mind? What evils does Puppy have to endure/inflict in order to get all the benefits she listed? Or if you'd rather not attack Puppy, what evils do *I* have to endure/inflict in order to get the benefits my religion offers? (I'm a Christian, but you can make your reply as general or specific as you like)
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by Eowyn-sama: Really? What evils did you have in mind? What evils does Puppy have to endure/inflict in order to get all the benefits she listed? Or if you'd rather not attack Puppy, what evils do *I* have to endure/inflict in order to get the benefits my religion offers? (I'm a Christian, but you can make your reply as general or specific as you like)
I can't speak for KoM, but I think faith is one of those evils. (Evil is probably too strong a term.)
Faith, in the strictest religious sense, is belief in something without evidence. By promoting faith as a virtue you are saying that you don't need evidence to support your claims. This then bleeds over into things other than religion.
Believing in things without evidence may not be evil in and of itself, but it can certainly lead to things that are evil. Racism and the formation of cults are just the first two (and I'll grant you, extreme) examples that come to mind.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Faith, in the strictest religious sense, is belief in something without evidence.
That's faith in a non-religious sense. In a religious sense, it means much more than that.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee:
quote:Faith, in the strictest religious sense, is belief in something without evidence.
That's faith in a non-religious sense. In a religious sense, it means much more than that.
Pardon. Without objective evidence or use of rational investigation.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee:
quote:Faith, in the strictest religious sense, is belief in something without evidence.
That's faith in a non-religious sense. In a religious sense, it means much more than that.
Gonna have to agree with Dag on this one. Faith as a mere belief in something barring all evidence is not the faith I practice.
For me faith must first precede knowledge, if it was vice versa we would be unwilling to humble ourselves before God and trust in his judgement. Being unwilling to trust in anyone other then one's self is not a virtue IMO.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade:
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee:
quote:Faith, in the strictest religious sense, is belief in something without evidence.
That's faith in a non-religious sense. In a religious sense, it means much more than that.
Gonna have to agree with Dag on this one. Faith as a mere belief in something barring all evidence is not the faith I practice.
For me faith must first precede knowledge, if it was vice versa we would be unwilling to humble ourselves before God and trust in his judgement. Being unwilling to trust in anyone other then one's self is not a virtue IMO.
Trusting in someone that one does not have good evidence exists is also not a virtue, IMO.
(My apologies for coming off snarky in the above statement...but implying I trust in no one else was also a tad snarky, so perhaps we're even.)
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:For me faith must first precede knowledge
Precisely the evil I am speaking of.
Posted by JLM (Member # 7800) on :
quote:Originally posted by Javert:
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee:
quote:Faith, in the strictest religious sense, is belief in something without evidence.
That's faith in a non-religious sense. In a religious sense, it means much more than that.
Pardon. Without objective evidence or use of rational investigation.
Both of which exist in theorey, but in practicality are mere myth. Nobody (and I mean NOBODY) makes decisions (in either what to believe or how to act) purely based on ratinal means. Emotion and instinct cannot be decoupled from thought.
Also all evidence (empirical, analytical, observational or otherwise) is all based on preexisting assumptions and is heavily filtered. Pure objectivity is impossible.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by JLM: Both of which exist in theorey, but in practicality are mere myth. Nobody (and I mean NOBODY) makes decisions (in either what to believe or how to act) purely based on ratinal means. Emotion and instinct cannot be decoupled from thought.
Of course not. But thought CAN be decoupled from emotion and instinct, and that is an evil.
quote:Also all evidence (empirical, analytical, observational or otherwise) is all based on preexisting assumptions and is heavily filtered. Pure objectivity is impossible.
Which is why I don't base my beliefs purely on my own perceptions. I look at what other people think, believe and observe to create as close to an objective reality as we can all agree on.
Posted by Eowyn-sama (Member # 11096) on :
quote: For me faith must first precede knowledge, if it was vice versa we would be unwilling to humble ourselves before God and trust in his judgement. Being unwilling to trust in anyone other then one's self is not a virtue IMO.
That's a very profound idea that I hadn't thought about before, thank you ^_^
And here's another thought--people who have faith in God do not have an absence of evidence. Whether it's the word of people they trust, a personal religious experience, or merely a long consideration of the nature of the universe, believers have some foundation for their faith, or they wouldn't believe in the first place. This isn't scientific evidence in the sense of God letting scientists run all kinds of tests on him, but eyewitness accounts are generally acceptable in a court of law, and if personal experience isn't sound evidence, what is?
quote: This then bleeds over into things other than religion.
Yes, I can see how this would be very dangerous, but I don't see how that danger is inescapable. In fact, absolute blind faith in anything can be very dangerous, whether it's God, the Communist party, the Nazi party, or Bin Lauden.
But as dangerous as faith can be, you have to have faith in something, at some point. Whether it's faith that a scientist didn't fake his findings or faith that Jesus died for your sins, humans wouldn't be able to function without it.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by Eowyn-sama: But as dangerous as faith can be, you have to have faith in something, at some point. Whether it's faith that a scientist didn't fake his findings or faith that Jesus died for your sins, humans wouldn't be able to function without it.
I couldn't disagree more.
I don't have faith in a scientist to not fake his findings. I look to the scientist to keep his work transparent so that we can see if he has faked his findings. We don't need faith because that transparency is there. And if it isn't there, then we become skeptical and investigate further.
Now, you might say I have faith that my family loves me, for example. I don't know if there's a proper word in English for what that is, but I wouldn't call it faith in the same way you would have faith that Jesus died for you.
Because my 'faith' in my family's love for me is based on their actions towards me...actions that can be verified by any objective observer. Which is why my faith in them is really not faith at all.
Posted by Eowyn-sama (Member # 11096) on :
Hm, maybe 'fake his findings' was too strong a phrase. But the ideal of transparent science that is checked and re-checked so that every study is trustworthy is bull. It's so easy to interpret results so that they say what you want, and for really big, really expensive and complicated experiments, how many times are we going to repeat them to make sure they always turn out the same?
I've been involved in a couple of research projects, and I can't say I was impressed by the hard, cold infallibility of science. In one project we were trying to recreate the results of another research group, and we failed miserably. I'd be willing to blame my own inexperience for the failure, easy, except that the same procedure was done by a post-doc with years of experience in the area, and she got the same results I did. I'm still willing to admit that we both got something wrong somewhere, but still, that's one crack in the perfection of science as far as I'm concerned.
quote: Now, you might say I have faith that my family loves me, for example. I don't know if there's a proper word in English for what that is, but I wouldn't call it faith in the same way you would have faith that Jesus died for you.
Yes, there are different types of faith. My faith in Christianity is not the same as a terrorist's faith in Islam (I'm not willing to kill innocent people for it, for one thing). I realize that's a different angle than what you were taking, but you're right, the English word 'faith' is just about as useful as the English word 'love' for covering all the many emotions and interactions involved.
But as I said, believers in God do have a basis for their faith. It's not as easily observed as the interactions of your family, but people do occasionally agree on their observations of God.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by Eowyn-sama: My faith in Christianity is not the same as a terrorist's faith in Islam (I'm not willing to kill innocent people for it, for one thing). I realize that's a different angle than what you were taking, but you're right, the English word 'faith' is just about as useful as the English word 'love' for covering all the many emotions and interactions involved.
I don't want to start an argument, and if this does so, my apologies.
But I have to ask, would you kill innocent people if you had faith that that is what god wanted you to do, and that he would even reward you for doing it?
No, having faith in Christianity is not the same as having faith that you'll go to heaven for committing a suicide bombing. However, both of those faiths are based on no evidence or bad evidence...which makes them far too close for comfort, as far as I'm concerned.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by Eowyn-sama: I've been involved in a couple of research projects, and I can't say I was impressed by the hard, cold infallibility of science. In one project we were trying to recreate the results of another research group, and we failed miserably. I'd be willing to blame my own inexperience for the failure, easy, except that the same procedure was done by a post-doc with years of experience in the area, and she got the same results I did. I'm still willing to admit that we both got something wrong somewhere, but still, that's one crack in the perfection of science as far as I'm concerned.
That's the beauty of science! You're explaining exactly what science does...it recreates experiments in an attempt to duplicate results. And if you can't get the same results doing the same thing, it means we change how we understand what's going on.
It's not "A scientist did this and got these results, so it must be true". That's the reason research groups like the one you were a part of exist in the first place.
Posted by Eowyn-sama (Member # 11096) on :
quote: But I have to ask, would you kill innocent people if you had faith that that is what god wanted you to do, and that he would even reward you for doing it?
That's a tricky question because I believe that God would never ask that of me. This belief is based on the teachings of the church, human history and my own conscience. With this basis to build on, even a vision of a bright shining angel commanding me to kill an innocent would be dismissed as false.
In a way you've asked me 'if blue was orange, would it still be blue?'
Here's another scenario: would I kill a person everyone else thought was innocent because my faith tells me he's an evil man? (Which is probably closer to the belief of a terrorist)
Even then, I wouldn't. I might investigate the matter more fully, but actually taking a life is so strongly against all the other teachings of my faith and experience that it would be a plain contradiction.
Posted by Eowyn-sama (Member # 11096) on :
quote: It's not "A scientist did this and got these results, so it must be true". That's the reason research groups like the one you were a part of exist in the first place.
The only problem was that there wasn't any outcry over this inconsistency. We tried contacting the original research group, they weren't forthcoming with any help or advice, and as far as I know our results were merely tossed out the window. (I could be wrong about this, because I graduated before it was completely resolved, but no-one acted like our failure to produce results changed the original findings in any way)
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by Eowyn-sama: That's a tricky question because I believe that God would never ask that of me. This belief is based on the teachings of the church, human history and my own conscience.
I want to let you know that I'm very glad that you wouldn't.
However, having read and studied the Bible and other scriptures, it does seem like god has a history of asking people to do just that.
So (and again, forgive me if at any point I offend you, as these are sensitive subjects), it seems like you are creating a god to fit your own beliefs (like not killing people), rather than accepting a god that exists.
Posted by Eowyn-sama (Member # 11096) on :
No offense taken, but I've gotta head home :-p I'll answer that in a bit, unless someone else gets to it first.
Posted by Iarn Greiper (Member # 10731) on :
quote:Originally posted by cheiros do ender: The Jews had the Law of Moses and I imagine still do, though I can't quite see justifying an eye for an eye under current international law. In Christianity that changed to the Ten Commandments
The Jews also have the ten commandments, but as far as an eye for an eye..I think that's Hammurabi ancient. Now, the Jews also had those laws, but modern day Jews, particularly reform/conservative ones, would probably not break someone's arm after being attacked. They would, however, press charges like any normal person.
Posted by lynn johnson (Member # 9620) on :
Javert, I wonder whether you did study the bible. It is full of injunctions to treat others kindly. Over and over, God says he is most offended by our treating the poor badly. Have you looked carefully at Isaiah? The people who were supposed to be killed were throwing babies into fiery furnaces. The Israelites failed to do that, and suffered over and over because of it. There seems to be pretty good evidence that it was the right thing to do in those days. I am a shrink and have to do shrink gobbldygook on you, but the fact is we see what we want to see. Life is a Rorschach, and we read into it what we will. There is an old Jewish saying that we see the world not as it is but as we are. The other scriptures, I don't know. The Bagada Vita (I know, that's not how it is spelled) has a lot of battles and death in it, but it has a redeeming story. Buddhism scriptures don't have that, but they are agnostic. The Qu'ran is pretty confusing to me. I'd like to believe Mohammed was a prophet, but it is a steep hill to climb. The Book of Mormon has a lot of battles in it but it pretty much describes natural consequences of people being up to no good, not God wanting them dead. Finally, if there is a God, then death for him is not a big deal, because it is just a change of address. He knows where everyone is. The idea that hell is waiting for nonbelievers has turned out to be false (I did a small NDE study 20 years ago). Most people are really happy, regardless of how religious or not they were. I realize I am a dirty lurker and probably shouldn't be here. (Does KoM even have a job?) But that is my attempt to move the dialog along.
Posted by lynn johnson (Member # 9620) on :
Just to be a big pain, one more point. The social benefits of religion are substantial. Religious people give much more of their income to charity, both to religious and secular charities. They volunteer much more than non-religious. They are happier, less likely to use drugs and alcohol and tobacco (not just mormons), have more stable marriages. They are lower in illnesses are live longer. The benefits are just phenomenal. Psychologically, religious people are more stable and when they get depressed, they respond better to therapy and medication. Their level of anxiety is lower. They are more willing to forgive. (Wiki the Nickle Mines shooting). Christian Children's Fund is a great organization helping children all over the globe. So the benefits should not convert but should at least create a question about whether you may have missed some data.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
Lynn, welcome! Always good to see new posters. Don't be a lurker, join the discussion!
Now to refute your points.
I have read the Bible. And it is full of injunctions to treat others kindly. But it is also full of human sacrifices (Jephtha's daughter, for example), horrible crimes that are justified (killing every firstborn male Egyptian child), and infinite punishment for finite crimes (the creation of Hell in the NT).
If you're going to take the good, you have to take the bad.
So to say that you're a Christian and then say that your god is all about love is refuted by the bible. The bible says that god and his believers did these things, and says they were justified because god said so. It does say that murder is okay as long as god is fine with it, which could potentially lead to believers that aren't all that different from islamic suicide bombers.
quote: There is evidence that within the U.S. strong disparities in religious belief versus acceptance of evolution are correlated with similarly varying rates of societal dysfunction, the strongly theistic, anti-evolution south and mid-west having markedly worse homicide, mortality, STD, youth pregnancy, marital and related problems than the northeast where societal conditions, secularization, and acceptance of evolution approach European norms.
That being said, I think there are many good things that religions do. However, I challenge you to name me one good thing that religions do that can't be done without religion.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Originally posted by Javert:
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee:
quote:Faith, in the strictest religious sense, is belief in something without evidence.
That's faith in a non-religious sense. In a religious sense, it means much more than that.
Pardon. Without objective evidence or use of rational investigation.
You're still very far away from a religious definition of faith.
Posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer (Member # 10416) on :
The word is "love", Javert.
As OSC pointed out in his most recent World Watch, religions are a uniting force that discourage violence and encourage moral standards.
The example of the Spanish conquest of South America shows that although Christianity was used, in a very poor, bigoted manner, to justify the killing of many and the oppression of natives, there were those who used Christianity to oppose the forces that assumed Spanish superiority and Spain's right to conquer and subjugate.
The conquistadors would have conquered the Aztecs and Incas and done all that cruel stuff with or without Christianity. But those who believed in the love of Christ tried to minimalize the abuses and oppression on the native Americans. While the Conquistadors meant nothing when saying they fought for God, and their minds were really on gold, those who valued the sanctity of God's children, whether or not they knew of their Father or his love, worked to reduce the damages that would have been done with or without Christianity's supposed "help."
This is only one in many ways that religion has been a force for good. And we have not outgrown it as a society. When the meaning of life has nothing to do with glorifying an all-loving, omnipotent being, the meaning of life is happiness. Seeking happiness can lead to much worse than what religion has been "responsible" for.
And my final point (for this post, I have much more ready): The Bible sure depicts a lot of gruesome stuff. You mention Pharaoh killing all the Hebrew children. But does the Bible say that Pharaoh is the good guy in all that?? NO! It is the midwives that spare the Hebrew children that God blesses and honors.
EDIT: (@ Dagonee) Faith is a trust based on precedents, much like scientific conclusions, only based not on lab tests with controlled variables, but on history and actual events. For example, I have know through reasoning, based on historical documents, reliable information, and a sense of morality, that in Jesus's crucifixion, he bore the debt that the inhabitants of the Earth owed God, and in doing so showed the world that his love for his people (that's EVERYONE under God, not just everyone who acknowledges God actively) is boundless and trustworthy. Therefore, I hold, through faith, that Jesus continues to love humanity, despite all the sinning that's been done left and right, east and west.
Faith based on absolutely no evidence is almost impossible. I'd find it a real challenge to believe in something that has absolutely no evidence that points to it. It's impossible to even conceive such an idea. Every idea mankind has created has been based on some evidence, however twisted or misinterpreted. The power to create completely new ideas based on absolutely no account rests with God, and was last exercised when he made the universe.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by Javert:
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade:
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee:
quote:Faith, in the strictest religious sense, is belief in something without evidence.
That's faith in a non-religious sense. In a religious sense, it means much more than that.
Gonna have to agree with Dag on this one. Faith as a mere belief in something barring all evidence is not the faith I practice.
For me faith must first precede knowledge, if it was vice versa we would be unwilling to humble ourselves before God and trust in his judgement. Being unwilling to trust in anyone other then one's self is not a virtue IMO.
Trusting in someone that one does not have good evidence exists is also not a virtue, IMO.
(My apologies for coming off snarky in the above statement...but implying I trust in no one else was also a tad snarky, so perhaps we're even.)
No snarkiness was intended on my part, I was just citing the extreme of the reverse faith/knowledge equation.
I think my reasons for believing what I do are based on "good" evidence. I've already said believing in something blindly for all eternity makes little sense. I imagine we only disagree on what constitutes good evidence.
KOM: You realize that some knowledge is required before any faith could be exercised right? Also you really ought to throw out all your schooling as you exercised faith that the teachers could teach you the truth before you knew what they were saying was right or wrong.
Posted by Eowyn-sama (Member # 11096) on :
quote: However, having read and studied the Bible and other scriptures, it does seem like god has a history of asking people to do just that.
Yes, the OT is full of killing, both smiting by God and him commanding others to do the smiting for him. But that was Old Testament. We're now operating under version 2.0, the New Testament. I'm sure you've heard this argument before, but there's a reason for that--its an important distinction. The word 'testament' used to mean 'a contract with God', and the ancient Hebrews had a testament that was something like "You are my chosen people, I will ensure your survival as long as you behave and follow these Laws." In order to keep this contract in the bad old days of tribal warfare, quite a bit of smiting was required.
But then came the Incarnation. And the thing is that Jesus didn't just come to teach a message, although that was important, but his life and sacrifice actually changed the contract between God and mankind. There was no more chosen people, God's word was available to everyone, so that meant no more smiting for the Jews/Christians. The good news was the whole forgiveness and love thing, but they had to give up smiting.
That's a drastic abridgment of what can turn into a lot of heavy theology, but I hope it gets my point across--that my beliefs are shaped by the God I worship, not the other way around. There is actual scriptural and theological backing to this stuff.
Edited for clarity
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
Alright C3P0 (and Dagonee, BlackBlade, lynn, Eowyn and anyone else), here we go.
quote: This is only one in many ways that religion has been a force for good. And we have not outgrown it as a society.
There are two questions. Number one: does the good that religion does/has done outweigh the evil? Number two: Is it true? If you only care about question number one, I suppose two doesn’t matter. I happen to care about both answers.
quote: When the meaning of life has nothing to do with glorifying an all-loving, omnipotent being, the meaning of life is happiness. Seeking happiness can lead to much worse than what religion has been "responsible" for.
First, you have to show evidence that this omnipotent being exists. Then you have to show evidence that it is all-loving. Then you have to show evidence that it deserves to be glorified.
If the meaning of life isn’t about worshipping god, you can’t just say the only other option is that we all seek happiness. If there is no god, it means we all find our own meaning for our lives. (Which is what we do anyway.) My meaning (at least one of them) is to do as much good and as little harm as possible while I’m alive. Happiness, while important, isn’t a meaning in itself. But I think it will follow from that.
quote: You mention Pharaoh killing all the Hebrew children. But does the Bible say that Pharaoh is the good guy in all that?? NO! It is the midwives that spare the Hebrew children that God blesses and honors.
Actually I mentioned god killing all the Egyptian first-born sons. Innocent children. Thankfully the story has no evidence to support it as being true, because if it were it would make god out to be a terribly evil being. Regardless if it was vengeance for a similar evil act.
quote: For example, I have know through reasoning, based on historical documents, reliable information, and a sense of morality, that in Jesus's crucifixion, he bore the debt that the inhabitants of the Earth owed God, and in doing so showed the world that his love for his people (that's EVERYONE under God, not just everyone who acknowledges God actively) is boundless and trustworthy. Therefore, I hold, through faith, that Jesus continues to love humanity, despite all the sinning that's been done left and right, east and west.
Wow. There’s a lot there.
First of all, historical documents (at most) can tell us what was occurring during the lifetime of the author. Even then, it is better to have more than one source writing about the same events. Unfortunately, the life of Jesus has no contemporary reports, the gospels having been written and published after the time he is supposed to have lived and died. So the most we can say is that the authors believed or wanted others to believe that Jesus existed.
Historical documents, however, say nothing to the validity of the supernatural claims. We can say that there was a man named Jesus who lived in the desert and was an itinerate rabbi about 2000 years ago. But that does not mean he was a god. It does not serve as evidence that he had powers or performed any of the miracles he is supposed to have performed. It only serves as evidence that people believed he could do those things.
Please explain the reliable information you have, and I will gladly respond to it.
As far as a sense of morality…that does nothing to tell us the truth of something. My morality could tell me that we couldn’t live in a world that wasn’t balanced atop four giant elephants, but that doesn’t make it true.
Now, back to what you need to show evidence for.
You need to show evidence that human sacrifice can somehow remove the responsibility for my wrong actions from me, let alone the responsibility of the whole world.
You have to explain how killing a man is somehow a loving act.
You have to explain how it is a sacrifice for a god, who according to its own definitional description cannot really die, to pretend to die only to come back a few days later.
You have to show evidence that a child is somehow responsible for the actions of its parents.
OK. I think I’m done for now. Sorry I went on for a while, but I wanted to give all your points coverage.
[ November 08, 2007, 08:59 PM: Message edited by: Javert ]
Posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer (Member # 10416) on :
It seems to me that the Jews were the Chosen People in order to be the forbearers of the news of the Gospel once the Messiah came. The Bible says very clearly that the Jews had a very humanlike tendency to misbehave. They created idols as soon as Moses took a hike on the mountain, ran away as soon as they saw the land God promised them, and constantly allowed the polytheist practices of surrounding cultures corrupt their nation. It seems that God meant these people to keep alive to be the the people Jesus would identify with, the ones God shaped into a cradle for the Gospel, so that when Jesus came, the ones who believed in him would be the disciples of Christ to show the world what the big idea is. The "Chosen People" stuff looks to me like God chose the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to be the nation that would be the first to accept the Messiah that would save the whole world. In that way, God was very clever; for thousands of years he shaped, protected, and taught a group of people so that they would be ready to get the message out once he enacted his plan. And it seemed to have worked.
Without the Jews, Jesus would have been laughed at, constantly disregarded, and killed before anyone believed him. The twelve disciples had to recognize the Lord that had watched their tribe with great interest for centuries to put their lives aside for the Messiah. Since the Jews were a weakened nation, strong in numbers, capable in skills, and dependent in everyday life on the mercy of their oppressors, many embraced their Savior before he even died and was resurrected. And because of this, the Christian Church had a foothold to get started with saving the world.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
Weird, I thought I responded after you did. No matter. My response to your first bit is above your last post, 3P0. Cheers.
Posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer (Member # 10416) on :
I'll give you more tomorrow, but here is some of the stuff that I can write in the time constraint I have now:
Historical documents include the Bible. In fact, the Bible is rather reliable because it consists of a great many differing historical documents, all verifying the same thing. The Gospels were written, as near as anyone can tell, by people who certainly were alive when Jesus was and were very likely witnesses to his life.
The four different Gospels often tell the same stories, while it is obvious that the different authors had differing views about what was most important about Jesus's life, they are consistent and they support each other.
Later on, we have a HUGE miracle. A guy by the name of Saul is killing Christians, and then, just before stricken inexplicably with temporary blindness, is converted to Christianity and becomes the greatest missionary ever. His letters to this day tell profound truths about humility, hypocrisy, and other persisting problems and jewels of the Church.
And the history of the early Church is consistent throughout every document unearthed. Scores flocked to those who preached, and thousands were added every day. Miracles were performed, so many were baptized that I wonder about the purity of the water. This is a scale equivalent to that of Billy Graham's crusades, and without television, football stadiums, loudspeakers, or anything. There is, in fact, very much historical validity to the Bible, its claims, and what primary sources outside the Bible. For the most part, everything is surprisingly consistent.
Give me a chance tomorrow to befuddle you with startling statistics.
Now, Christianity holds something that is true of all humanity. Nobody's innocent. The Angel of Death that brought forth the Tenth Plague was not killing innocent lives, but it still was terrible nonetheless. Yet it was the only thing that could get to the guy's head: These people need to be let go, or you will suffer the most. Please tell me what else God could have done. He could not have killed Rameses himself, he could not have made more bugs and destruction come (that turned out not to work the past nine times). This was a very very last resort, a right reserved for God alone, to judge what must be done and how to do it in such a shocking way. I'm sure Moses too was mournful of the boys who lost their lives, and God himself did not wish to destroy their young lives. But it still had to be done.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer: Please tell me what else God could have done. He could not have killed Rameses himself, he could not have made more bugs and destruction come (that turned out not to work the past nine times). This was a very very last resort, a right reserved for God alone, to judge what must be done and how to do it in such a shocking way. I'm sure Moses too was mournful of the boys who lost their lives, and God himself did not wish to destroy their young lives. But it still had to be done.
I'm going to try very hard to not be sarcastic here...an omnipotent god can snap its fingers and have his chosen people appear in Jerusalem. He can make Pharaoh let the Hebrews go.
And please don't say that god couldn't have done those things because it would have violated free will. According to the bible, god already violated free will by hardening Pharaoh's heart and keeping him from letting the Hebrews go.
But again, there is still no evidence that any of these events actually happened.
quote:The Gospels were written, as near as anyone can tell, by people who certainly were alive when Jesus was and were very likely witnesses to his life.
Show evidence for this. All the evidence I have seen seems to indicate that the Gospels were written after Jesus' supposed death.
quote:Later on, we have a HUGE miracle. A guy by the name of Saul is killing Christians, and then, just before stricken inexplicably with temporary blindness, is converted to Christianity and becomes the greatest missionary ever. His letters to this day tell profound truths about humility, hypocrisy, and other persisting problems and jewels of the Church.
Please explain to me how this is evidence for anything other than a man being converted to Christianity and believing it.
Posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer (Member # 10416) on :
Pharaoh's heart was not hardened by God's diction, it was by being raised as a Pharaoh. He grew up learning that he was the sun god to be and that he was a divine governor for his people, to succeed the current one. He was raised by a man who believed in sacrifices for the "common good" (i.e. killing the Hebrew sons to suppress the population growth). He grew up spoiled, getting whatever he wanted, and able to get anyone in his kingdom to do anything that he ordered. If there is any perfect formula for irredeemable hard-heartedness, the Egyptians figured it out when they made up their government structure.
And if God "snapped his fingers" and saved the Isrealites their pilgrimmage, what would that help? Think of what everyone would think, seeing a multitude of several million guys appearing out of thin air in their city, and claiming God gave their land to them. That would result in wars and massacres even worse than what we see throughout the Old Testament, and it would get the Hebrews even more cocky than they already were. God just doesn't do that kind of thing, and there are a lot of reasons for that.
He did make Pharaoh let the Hebrews go. Only what it took was an awful lot of persuasion. And yes, free will matters here. If there's one thing God won't do, it is possess someone against his will. He's spoken through people in the past, but only by their offering and later consent.
I'm trying to dig up a book here, but I have been having trouble. Anyway, here's one thing to chew over: it's historically agreed on that Homer wrote the Odyssey. Yet the earliest book we have of that was made centuries after Homer's death. The earliest document of Ceasar's that is available was copied more than a hundred years after Ceasar's death.
And here we have the Gospels. A puny 40 years. The text within it suggests that some parts were written as early as when Christ died. And by that 40 years, the Church had already grown significantly, according to both the Bible, Roman documents, and other sources. The people who wrote it all agree with each other that they were all connected to Christ. This is surprising in that the disciples were very competitive, and each were proud and aloof, wanting to prove himself to be most favorable in God's eyes, and so each was . The fact that they agree with each other on so many things about Christ, despite their personal differences, goes to show that what they saw was the same thing. Here we have a large consensus based on one man by witnesses as opposed to a single man's testimony about how great he is (i.e. Mohammed, Buddha, even Moses to a lesser degree, as he had Joshua to back him up).
After Jesus's death, it is recorded by multiple Biblical sources by different authors, many whom do not regularly correspond by current knowledge, that for a long period Jesus appeared to many witnesses and proved over and over that he had conquered death.
I believe I forgot to answer how dying and then coming back to life still counts as dying. Answer: He suffered the worst death the Romans could think up, and then he went to Hell. He lived his life doing everything perfectly, performing miracles and teaching about the Father, being the only man in history who can be called innocent. Then, when he dies, not putting up a fight that he could have fought, and was even encouraged to fight, teased for not fighting, etc. he goes to Hell. Infinitely pure righteousness is slain, given up, by God, in order pay the debt of the finite sins that everyone's been doing all the time, now, then, and in the future. Jesus was sacrificed so that, in dying once, righteous for unrighteous, the unrighteous would have a way to commune with God. And then, to prove that he had conquered death for all of mankind, he came back after he paid the debt. I must say, Hell must be quite a Hell of a place if three days is enough for God to pay for all the sins ever. (/stupid puns)
The big issue with Paul is that he didn't have anyone tell him what's so great about Christianity. He was on the road all by himself and the next time someone sees him he's loopy, blind, and shocked. Then when he recovers, he evangelizes thousands, suffering tortures, prosecutions, storms, strandedness, and all else happenstance could dish out on him, all for the sake of spreading what he just earlier swore to destroy. All the while bearing the new name that means "little man." This is VERY significant.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Anyway, here's one thing to chew over: it's historically agreed on that Homer wrote the Odyssey. Yet the earliest book we have of that was made centuries after Homer's death. The earliest document of Caesar's that is available was copied more than a hundred years after Caesar's death.
So what? It matters very little to me whether or not Homer wrote the Odyssey. The same with Caesar. And neither are said to have done anything supernatural.
It doesn't matter whether or not Jesus existed. What matters is, if he existed, if he was god or not. You seem to think that proving he existed is the same as proving he was god. I'm sorry, but they aren't the same.
quote:The big issue with Paul is that he didn't have anyone tell him what's so great about Christianity. He was on the road all by himself and the next time someone sees him he's loopy, blind, and shocked. Then when he recovers, he evangelizes thousands, suffering tortures, prosecutions, storms, strandedness, and all else happenstance could dish out on him, all for the sake of spreading what he just earlier swore to destroy. All the while bearing the new name that means "little man." This is VERY significant.
So he believed. And he evangelized. How does this show evidence for the truth of his claims? If Muhammad believed in his claims, does that make them truth? How about Buddha? David Koresh?
quote: in order pay the debt of the finite sins that everyone's been doing all the time, now, then, and in the future.
How does this pay my debt? I believe it was Bertrand Russel (if it wasn't him, it was some other old grumpy atheist, hehe) 'If I owe Smith money, and God forgives me, how does that help Smith?'
quote:After Jesus's death, it is recorded by multiple Biblical sources by different authors, many whom do not regularly correspond by current knowledge, that for a long period Jesus appeared to many witnesses and proved over and over that he had conquered death.
And yet when there is mass communication and most of the world is literate, he does nothing. To me it sounds terribly similar to psychic powers failing to work because a skeptic is in the room.
quote: Here we have a large consensus based on one man by witnesses
Actually told at least second-hand. There is no evidence that, assuming Jesus existed, the Gospel writers ever knew him personally.
quote:Pharaoh's heart was not hardened by God's diction, it was by being raised as a Pharaoh.
"And the LORD said to Moses, “When you go back to Egypt, see that you do all those wonders before Pharaoh which I have put in your hand. But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go." -Exodus 4:21
"And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt." -Exodus 7:3
"But the LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh; and he did not heed them, just as the LORD had spoken to Moses." -Exodus 9:12
"Now the LORD said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh; for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his servants, that I may show these signs of Mine before him" -Exodus 10:1
"But the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he did not let the children of Israel go." -Exodus 10:20
"But the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he would not let them go." -Exodus 10:27
"Then I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, so that he will pursue them; and I will gain honor over Pharaoh and over all his army, that the Egyptians may know that I am the LORD.” And they did so." -Exodus 14:4
"And the LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and he pursued the children of Israel; and the children of Israel went out with boldness." -Exodus 14:8
"And I indeed will harden the hearts of the Egyptians, and they shall follow them. So I will gain honor over Pharaoh and over all his army, his chariots, and his horsemen." -Exodus 14:17
All of the above quotes are from the KJV.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
Mormons have a different take on those verses-- just so you know.
In Joseph Smith's translation of the Bible, those verses reflect that it was Pharoah himself who hardened his heart.
quote:There is no evidence that, assuming Jesus existed, the Gospel writers ever knew him personally.
Assuming Jesus existed, and that the gospel writers were who they said they were, that's "evidence" right there, historically speaking. What were you looking for-- a sign carved in on a tree, reading "J.C. & S.B.J = BFF?"
quote:'If I owe Smith money, and God forgives me, how does that help Smith?'
In Mormon theology, restitution/peacemaking would have to be made before (generally) forgiveness can be granted.
quote:And yet when there is mass communication and most of the world is literate, he does nothing. To me it sounds terribly similar to psychic powers failing to work because a skeptic is in the room.
As a Mormon, I believe that His work is ongoing and that miracles and visions occur today just as often as they did in the days following Christ's resurrection.
But none of those things are necessary in order to believe, and none of those can be counted on to build a relationship with God.
I'm reminded of the end of the parable of Lazarus:
Remember? Lazarus, poor and suffering, but pious died; and then his rich neighbor (not so pious) died as well. Lazarus went to Heaven and the rich man went to hell. And then...
quote: 27 Then [the rich man] said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send [Lazarus] to my father’s house: 28 For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment. 29 Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. 30 And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. 31 And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:As a Mormon, I believe that His work is ongoing and that miracles and visions occur today just as often as they did in the days following Christ's resurrection.
OK. Show evidence for it, please.
quote:But none of those things are necessary in order to believe, and none of those can be counted on to build a relationship with God.
You're right, you don't need those to build a relationship. But evidence would be nice to show that something exists before you can build a relationship with that thing.
quote:Assuming Jesus existed, and that the gospel writers were who they said they were, that's "evidence" right there, historically speaking. What were you looking for-- a sign carved in on a tree, reading "J.C. & S.B.J = BFF?"
First of all, the gospel writers didn't say who they were. The authorship is still contested, and the names were put there by the church when compiling the bible. No, not looking for a sign carved on a tree, although that would certainly be evidence. I'm looking for evidence that the gospel was written during the time the man was supposed to have lived. Without that, you still have evidence, but not good enough evidence to justify that everything they wrote was the 100% truth.
quote:In Joseph Smith's translation of the Bible, those verses reflect that it was Pharaoh himself who hardened his heart.
So Joseph Smith saw that while god is not supposed to violate free will, he does so in Exodus. Then Smith retranslated the bible to get rid of those parts.
How is that evidence of anything?
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
quote:Show evidence for it, please.
:shrug:
What evidence would you accept as permissible? And what do you think (hope) such evidence would provide?
quote:First of all, the gospel writers didn't say who they were.
John did. Rather, the gospel of John asserts that it was written by John.
quote:I'm looking for evidence that the gospel was written during the time the man was supposed to have lived.
They were all written after Christ's death. (Between 50 AD and 100 AD) I'm not sure what that proves, though, in your mind.
quote:So Joseph Smith saw that while god is not supposed to violate free will, he does so in Exodus. Then Smith retranslated the bible to get rid of those parts.
How is that evidence of anything?
Well, it provides evidence that Mormonism doesn't believe in a God that can violate agency. What else were you looking for?
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
Scott, I look for people to have evidence and good reason for what they believe, that's all. You are certainly free not to, and I would never force that on anyone. I just wish people would do it.
And forgive me. When I say "show evidence", I should rather have said "If you wish for people to believe what you claim is the truth, you must show evidence." If you don't care whether other people believe it, then that's fine.
As for what evidence? I'm not sure. Evidence that is sufficiently proportional to the claim being made.
If you tell me it's raining outside, I will probably believe you. I have experienced rain before, I may have seen dark clouds earlier, and I trust you. But if you tell me it's raining gold, forgive me, but I'm going to have to see the gold. I don't think that's too much to ask.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
Everyone has evidence for what they believe. But that evidence may not be sufficient, or may be considered invalid, to other people.
Sometimes, trying to show evidence of religious things to non-believers is like trying to show evidence of evolution to young earth creationists-- the recipient's value/belief system invalidates the proof before the conversation can even begin.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by Scott R: Everyone has evidence for what they believe. But that evidence may not be sufficient, or may be considered invalid, to other people.
I think many people put their religious beliefs in a box, and if they looked at it for the evidence that they look for anything else, they would see it was not there. Which is what happened to me, anyway.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Somebody mentioned that eyewitness testimony is accepted in courts of law. That's a truth with some modifications. I think anyone testifying under oath that they personally witnessed water being made into wine, people walking on water, loaves and fishes being multiplied, and people rising from the dead - or even just one of these - might find themselves in some difficulty with perjury and contempt of court and whatnot. Or at an absolute minimum, you'd find that "The court chose not to rely on the witness's testimony". That's because courts of law, like sensible people, have higher standards of evidence for extraordinary events.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
I don't disagree with that last statement.
Posted by lynn johnson (Member # 9620) on :
In science we have to go with the weight of the evidence, and speculative pieces are generally seen as outliers.
2. We cannot prove or disprove religion. MY opinion is that it is a Rorschach to find out what is in our hearts. I have evidence of that from an acquaintance who had an NDE and challenged the angels on this point, saying he (as an atheist) had read the bible and couldn't find truth in it. He was told "That is because of the way you read it." In other words, the bible is what you want it to be. Like a poem, you are responsible for the meaning you find in it. http://www.near-death.com/storm.html Hence my position that the purpose of life is for us to find out what our character is.
3. Luke clearly identifies himself as the author of Luke and Acts. It is a favorite of mine because Luke is primarily an historian (never saw Jesus in the flesh) and bases his account on interviews. Thus all the early material (Luke 2, for example) that isn't in Matt, Mark, or John. See Luke 7 for the dinner scene. None of the apostles were with Jesus. Who told the story? (A prize if you can figure it out) His books don't give an end to the life of Paul so the attributions of Paul to 85-90 are clearly in error. Paul's last activities in Acts are in Rome, and one way or another, that period of his life ended around 67. So Luke wrote before the end of Paul's life ca. 67.
As I may or may not have mentioned, I did a small NDE study 20 years ago, fascinating stuff. Howard Storm's experience I refer to above is a great resource for people who want to learn how Storm went from atheist to Christian minister.
So be careful. Life is a Rorschach.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
quote:None of the apostles were with Jesus. Who told the story? (A prize if you can figure it out)
Traditionally, Mary is supposed to have given Luke much of the information contained in the Gospel of Luke and in Acts. I'm not sure that it's actually doctrine that she did, but there you are.
What do I win?
Posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer (Member # 10416) on :
That would certainly make sense, Scott R.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
Okay lynn:
1. Whether or not religion is good for people, which I believe is still debatable, it says nothing to the truth of a religion's claims. Which, of course, doesn't matter unless you care if what you believe is true.
2. We can certainly show that there is evidence for or against the claims that religions make, such as virgin births, talking snakes, the shape of the planet and the movement of the celestial bodies.
3. My issues still stand. Luke bases his writing on interviews. I have a book that is based on interviews...interviews of people who claim to have been abducted by aliens. All that it tells us is that these are people who either believe what they say or are deliberately trying to deceive.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
quote:There are two questions. Number one: does the good that religion does/has done outweigh the evil? Number two: Is it true? If you only care about question number one, I suppose two doesn’t matter. I happen to care about both answers.
Hey, Javert! I happen to care about both, too, though my approach is a little different than yours.
The answer to the first question is one that I think a person would definitely need to get a positive answer on before signing up for a religion. In my case, I do believe that my church overwhelmingly has a positive effect on the world and on my life, King of Men's complete lack of understanding notwithstanding
Obtaining the answer to the second question, to a rational and skeptical religious person like myself, is an ongoing process.
Religions make two kinds of claims — moral claims and factual claims.
With moral claims ("Killing is bad", "Some wars can be justified", "You shouldn't smoke", "Clergy should not profit monetarily from their work", to list a few from my own religion), scientific proof is a nonissue. How, scientifically, do you prove or disprove what a person "should" do? That is a question of conscience, and to discover the truth or untruth of a moral claim, a potential adherent to a religion needs to explore the moral question through his own spiritual ponderings, choices, and experiences, and arrive at his own conclusions. When people disagree, they can try to persuade one another, but at no point is there some scientific test that can be performed to determine who is objectively correct.
With factual claims ("God exists", "The soul lives on after death", "Jesus rose from the dead and is the Son of God"), there is an objective standard of truth. Either a thing happened/exists, or not. Or it happened/exists, but not exactly as described.
Within this realm, we can draw another division, between claims that are subjectively verifiable, and those that are not.
By "subjectively verifiable", I mean that a claim can be backed up by personal experience, but cannot be objectively proven to another person.
The (non-religious) claim "I love my wife", for example, is subjectively verifiable. You cannot definitively prove to another person that this is true. But you believe it to be true because of subjective evidence that only you can experience. And you come closer and closer to proving it to yourself by acting on it and watching the results.
To a Mormon, the foundation for a person's faith in the factual claims made by the Church is subjective verification. The Church promises that an individual who pursues a certain pattern of humble religious exploration and prayer will receive a spiritual witness that the Church is true.
This happens on a purely individual basis, and is not meant to be in any way objective or scientific — in fact, it shouldn't be. We don't want people to join because they were reluctantly won over by a mountain of evidence. We want people to join because they feel a strong internal conviction that this is where they belong, even in the face of clear opposition to their choice.
After that point, the idea is for a new convert to study and explore the religion, continually asking questions and seeking subjective evidence that both the moral and factual claims of the Church are true. It's an ongoing process that is never expected to come to a complete close.
Personally, for me, I'm completely satisfied that the Church's moral claims are aligned with my own (with a few quibbles around the edges that are well within reason).
I have subjectively verified that, from where I stand, the Church's basic factual claims (about the existence of God, the meaning of the Atonement of Christ, the veracity of modern revelation, etc) are good. This drives my own decision to be a member of the Church, though certainly, I wouldn't expect anyone to make the same choice unless they had found similar subjective evidence.
As far as the more peripheral claims of scripture go (was the Flood a universal deluge? how was the earth created? what is the historical setting of the Book of Mormon?), I've provisionally accepted the Church's claims, each to a different degree, based on subjective evidence, and (when that is lacking) on the trust I've developed in the Church in general. For some, I have my own divergent interpretations, based on objective or subjective evidence that I have found through independent exploration.
However, I'm fully prepared to learn that any random one of those claims is incorrect or misunderstood. In fact, the Church boldly asserts that in the future, our understanding is going to broaden and change, many times, as new revelations are received from God.
In the light of future evidence that alters my understanding, I am perfectly willing to revise my interpretation of any and all of these claims, the way a scientist revises his interpretation when a new experiment finally invalidates a long-held scientific theory.
Relativity, for instance. A good theory, which fits with all the evidence that we've been able to collect so far. Do I believe it? Sure! Am I willing to trust inventions and decisions that are based on a relativistic understanding of the universe? Sure! Would I be at all surprised if, at some time in the future, a better theory were to overturn Einstein the way he overturned Newton, forcing me to revise my understanding? Not at all. The same goes for many of the peripheral claims of my religion. It's all theory (in the scientific sense), but in my experience, it is good theory that I'm willing to base my life on.
However, I think the difference between us here is actually over a moral claim. You make the moral claim that the only sort of evidence that a person "should" base his personal beliefs on is objective evidence. I make the counterclaim that while objective evidence is critical, I have found great value in basing my personal beliefs, in part, on subjective evidence and the provisional acceptance of unproven ideas taught to me by a church I have learned to trust.
Since the issue here is primarily a moral one, regarding what people "should" or "should not" do, there really isn't any final test that can "prove" one of us right or wrong. Our only tool is persuasion. My intent here is to persuade you that my position is tenable by a rational person, and not that my beliefs are objectively true
King of Men, I realize that it's been a long time, but if you actually intend to reengage me on this subject after slinking away ages ago, I'd recommend that you actually respond to my last post to you, rather than sweeping that discussion under the rug with the same empty claims I criticized you for in the first place.
[ November 09, 2007, 08:55 PM: Message edited by: Puppy ]
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:However, I think the difference between us here is actually over a moral claim. You make the moral claim that the only sort of evidence that a person "should" base his personal beliefs on is objective evidence. I make the counterclaim that while objective evidence is critical, I have found great value in basing my personal beliefs, in part, on subjective evidence and the provisional acceptance of unproven ideas taught to me by a church I have learned to trust.
Which is exactly why religious belief is so potentially dangerous. When you start basing actions on your own personal subjective evidence, with no care for objective evidence, you start down the path where you can justify anything.
Now, I understand that you do care about object evidence. However, I believe you are putting far too much stock in the subjective. Putting stock in the subjective can lead to treating the subjective on equal footing with the objective, and eventually lead to giving it precedence over the objective. Which is what religious extremists do.
I would never say that you were a religious extremist, Puppy. But at the core, what you use to justify the tenants of the LDS Church and what extremists use to justify their actions are the same animal.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:There are people who think that video games are a blight on the world, and would prefer that I didn't make them. They could say to me, "There are creative professions outside the game industry that you could get, and any benefit of being a game designer that you could name, I can match with a similar benefit in another field."
Should that change the fact that I feel happier as a game designer than I can imagine being in any other line of work? Can it alter my innermost wordless dreams of creating wonderful creative works of art within this particular field that I love? Can it change the fact that in some strange way that cannot be justified or explained, I WANT to be a game designer?
No, it shouldn't and it can't. I love games, and I'm going to keep making games, and I dream of one day realizing my dreams of creating amazing games, in spite of what other people might tell me I ought to do instead.
Very well, let us use this analogy. Suppose the nutters who think games cause school shootings were shown to be absolutely and completely correct. Suppose they were able to trace an exact causality from your code (or design, or whatever part of making games it is you do) to some hapless student firing his Kalashnikov at the rest of his school. Would you still assert your desire to be a game designer?
quote:
quote:
quote:I would stop raising my children to share my beliefs.
Nonsense. You would stop raising them to share the beliefs you have now.
I believe that is what I said. The phrase "my beliefs" refers to Mormonism. I'm wondering if you could be a little more picky in your selection of arguments.
Let me rephrase. Since we are assuming that you would actually lose your faith, ceasing to teach your children of that faith would have to be considered a good thing. I assume you would not want to teach them anything false. In the hypothetical we were considering, you are no longer a member of the Mormon church, so what do you care if your children get taught its doctrines?
Posted by Eowyn-sama (Member # 11096) on :
KoM, it sounds like you're trying hard to be as obtuse as possible. Do you actually think that Puppy hasn't shown that her religion is very important to her happiness? (Her personally, that is. You can argue about people at large til you turn blue in the face, have fun)
As far as the gaming analogy goes, I can't answer for someone who actually works in the game industry, but I don't think it would be enough to turn me from my work. If a school shooter wrote in his suicide note that something I created was the reason he did this, I'd be unhappy and horrified but not particularly guilty. Someone with that much rage, hate and despair would have found an outlet or inspiration no matter what.
Edited for wording
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
Eowyn, just so you know, Puppy's a guy. Not that I imagine he'd be terribly upset about the pronoun mix-up, but I'm a little anal-retentive about that sort of thing.
Carry on. Posted by Eowyn-sama (Member # 11096) on :
Whoops :-p sorry.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
quote:When you start basing actions on your own personal subjective evidence, with no care for objective evidence, you start down the path where you can justify anything.
You can do this with objective evidence, too. (Eugenics, for example)
A subjective morality can prevent both the misuse of religious fervor, and the misuse of scientific data.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:When you start basing actions on your own personal subjective evidence, with no care for objective evidence, you start down the path where you can justify anything.
There is no objective (in the sense you are using it here) evidence for what one ought to do. Science is not capable of producing a single moral principle.
Science, to the extent that it's the best way to predict the consequences of one's actions, is absolutely necessary to acting morally. But it's not enough.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Religion, on the other hand, is actively harmful, because it gives you false premises to reason from.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
No, it doesn't.
Posted by Threads (Member # 10863) on :
Puppy, I think the concept of "subjective evidence" can only be taken so far. As I understand it, subjective evidence can provide you with evidence for the existence of God however it cannot provide you with historical evidence. In other words, you cannot have subjective evidence for something like The Great Flood. A geological event like The Great Flood demands physical evidence because it would literally be impossible for something of that scale to occur and not leave behind hard evidence.
EDIT: I don't mean to imply that you believe in The Great Flood. That was just an example. My main point is that subject evidence has limits that arguably make total acceptance of the Bible illogical (total acceptance as in putting faith in concepts such as Young Earth Creationism and Noah's Ark that have been thoroughly debunked by hard evidence).
EDIT2: [slightly off topic rant] Concepts such as Young Earth Creationism and Noah's Ark are so irrelevant to the actual message of Jesus that I don't know why some Christians make them an issue.
EDIT3: Make that "majorly off topic mini rant"
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by Scott R: No, it doesn't.
What are the true premises that religions give us to reason from?
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by Threads: EDIT2: [slightly off topic rant] Concepts such as Young Earth Creationism and Noah's Ark are so irrelevant to the actual message of Jesus that I don't know why some Christians make them an issue.
Not to start a side issue/argument, but not everything that Jesus is supposed to have said is all that great or relevant either.
Posted by Threads (Member # 10863) on :
Scott R believes in God. Therefore, he doesn't believe he is reasoning from "false premises" when he reasons based off of his belief in God. You two are going to end up talking past each other.
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
quote:Originally posted by Javert:
quote:Originally posted by Scott R: No, it doesn't.
What are the true premises that religions give us to reason from?
The Golden Rule.
Posted by Threads (Member # 10863) on :
quote:Originally posted by Morbo:
quote:Originally posted by Javert:
quote:Originally posted by Scott R: No, it doesn't.
What are the true premises that religions give us to reason from?
The Golden Rule.
The Golden Rule is trivial to justify without religion.
EDIT: Trivial to justify as in a normal, rational atheist will easily see the logic behind The Golden Rule without requiring any appeal to religion.
Posted by Eowyn-sama (Member # 11096) on :
Yes, but almost every religion in the world gives us some equivalent of the Golden Rule. You can't trivialize it by saying 'oh we would have come up with it anyway'. Religion does give it, and it is true and good.
Posted by Threads (Member # 10863) on :
I was pointing out that the Golden Rule is not a religious concept.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by Eowyn-sama: Yes, but almost every religion in the world gives us some equivalent of the Golden Rule. You can't trivialize it by saying 'oh we would have come up with it anyway'. Religion does give it, and it is true and good.
Actually, this could equally imply that the Golden Rule is a human concept, and it appears in every religion because every religion is created by humans.
Posted by Eowyn-sama (Member # 11096) on :
Depends, do you think humans are inherently, naturally good? If so, then you could be right. If, however, humans are flawed, this rule would have to come from a higher power.
Posted by Threads (Member # 10863) on :
Not really. The Golden Rule, at its core, has a basis in all societies. It is virtually impossible to have a society where murder, robbery, rape, etc. are permitted. In the interest of self-preservation/well-being, most people will not commit overtly "bad" acts anyways under the expectation that bad acts will not be committed against them in return (bad grammar but w/e).
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:The Golden Rule is trivial to justify without religion.
EDIT: Trivial to justify as in a normal, rational atheist will easily see the logic behind The Golden Rule without requiring any appeal to religion.
It's impossible to justify the Golden Rule without some premise that is not subject to objective evidence.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
quote:the Golden Rule is a human concept, and it appears in every religion because every religion is created by humans.
The Golden Rule-- that is, "Love thy neighbor as thyself," does not feature prominently in most world religions (which is not to say it is not represented among most people of the world).
Especially when the word "neighbor" is defined as Christ defined it.
If I remember correctly, the Mayans, Aztecs, and Inca actively eschewed caring for others. For centuries, the Hindu caste system imposed a fatalistic philosophy, based on the idea that someone's current life reflected their deeds in the past life-- so alleviating someone's suffering was not exactly seen as a work of kindness.
KoM's assertion was that all religions start out from a false premise-- I assume that the premise he is calling false isn't a moralistic directive (like the Golden Rule) but the essential theological one: That there is a God.
I assert that there is a God, and thus religion does not start from false premises.
Posted by Threads (Member # 10863) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee:
quote:The Golden Rule is trivial to justify without religion.
EDIT: Trivial to justify as in a normal, rational atheist will easily see the logic behind The Golden Rule without requiring any appeal to religion.
It's impossible to justify the Golden Rule without some premise that is not subject to objective evidence.
That's only true if you're talking about proving it 100% (which I clearly wasn't given my use of "normal" and "rational"). The Golden Rule only needs to be justified for the normal human being to debunk the idea that the it is a religious innovation, and, as I already pointed out, that is fairly easy to do. The Golden Rule, reduced to the form "don't infringe on my rights and I won't infringe on yours" (which is all that is required for respecting the philosophical natural rights of man), provides a certain degree of security that an average human being would not reject (religious or not). Humans are inherently social creatures and the Golden Rule is logically a good way at providing [partial] security in a society.
Posted by Threads (Member # 10863) on :
quote:Originally posted by Scott R:
quote:the Golden Rule is a human concept, and it appears in every religion because every religion is created by humans.
The Golden Rule-- that is, "Love thy neighbor as thyself," does not feature prominently in most world religions (which is not to say it is not represented among most people of the world).
The Golden Rule is not a Christian innovation.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:). Humans are inherently social creatures and the Golden Rule is logically a good way at providing [partial] security in a society.
Which means that it's based on the premise that providing security in a society is a good thing.
Posted by Threads (Member # 10863) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee:
quote:). Humans are inherently social creatures and the Golden Rule is logically a good way at providing [partial] security in a society.
Which means that it's based on the premise that providing security in a society is a good thing.
And? Thats a premise that the average human being will instinctively accept. Again, no supernatural beings required.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by Eowyn-sama: Depends, do you think humans are inherently, naturally good? If so, then you could be right. If, however, humans are flawed, this rule would have to come from a higher power.
Your argument is flawed unless you accept the premise that only people who are perfect can come up with moral ideas.
I think people are inherently out to take care of themselves, which can lead to both good and evil depending on a number of variables.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by Scott R: I assert that there is a God, and thus religion does not start from false premises.
And this is the point where you must show your evidence, or else run the risk of having your statement not taken seriously.
Posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer (Member # 10416) on :
The argument for God is one of very substantial evidence. Scientists scratch their heads at the order and precision of the universe. Vacuum force and gravity and electromagnetism and the difference between matter and antimatter, according to formulae developed by modern theorists, all balance out very precisely to allow particles to combine into recognizable matter, so that galaxies, stars, planets, and life can form. Estimates place the chances of this balance happening at such a slim factor that it has to be indicated by exponents over the negative exponents.
There are two explanations for this:
One: Universes are born from a common source of a higher level of dimension and structure all the time, and so many have been made that the chances became great enough to produce our Universe.
Two: The Universe was designed by a higher being with the recognition and ability to produce a Universe with such order and balance, with mathematical precision and the possibility for life.
I find that the best explanation is a combination of the two. I won't try to guess exactly what God is made of here, but explanation #1 suggests that there was something before the beginning of any Universe that makes Universes, as does explanation #2. Either explanation cannot explain how the Universe's Creator was created, so either way we must assume a supercosmological constant exists that is able to produce Universes with varying degrees of order and precision.
So both conclusions essentially state the same thing about the nature of the Creator. From an atheist's point of view, there is nothing but chemical and neurological if-then statements that add up, like the vastest supercomputer created, into a conscious and self-aware state of mind. For the supercosmological constant to be able to create any universes at all, with so many factors that add up to something that is recognizable, it would have to be complex enough to either (or both) a. know what factors in the supercosmological constant must be stimulated in order to form a Universe or/and b. know what factors within a Universe must be controlled perfectly to create a Universe that has a degree of order that is accurate enough to allow life to develop. For a. alone, the thing is automatic, a cycle that is unaware of itself and is essentially a perpetual machine.
For a. and b., we have a Creator that would create a Universe for the purpose of creating life, and the chances of this happening automatically are even slimmer than the chances of a Universe being randomly created into order and precision. Assuming this supercosmological constant is automatic cannot work if we assume a. and b.
So either we have a perpetual motion machine in a higher dimension that is too simple to know what it's doing, or we have a complex entity that is complex enough to be aware of itself and, with the power of creation invested in it, want to create something in its Universes that knows of its own existence in the way it does.
But here's why a. alone doesn't work. There is a mysterious force of pure "randomness" in the quantum realm that is shown by the uncertainty principle, the bonds between electrons, and the properties of subatomic particles that seems to be the driving force of the quantum world. This "randomness" determines whether a particle is bozon or a neutrino or graviton or whatever, and is mathematically described as a string. As you zoom out of the picture, random anomalies become less out-of-proportion until you get "laws" of physics. This "randomness" is like Orson Scott Card's aiuas. In fact, almost concept-for-concept, with electron pairs staying true no matter what the distance between them is, the theory that the Universe was created by a this force, and the idea that it makes up all matter and energy and the belief that it is the driving force behind consciousness.
Even without the last of those beliefs, which is mostly just a popular media idea to toss around to the bystanders who know nothing about quantum mechanics, this force seems to be connected to the supercosmological constant that gets these Universes started. I make this connection because theorists behind the evolved "string theory" suspect that our Universe was created by a sort of quantum fluctuation, and that Universes are created all the time by such fluctuations. This is exactly the process I describe in my "supercosmological constant" hypothesis, which is a mechanism that exists above the known Universe to create many universes systematically.
So there are only two ways a. could exclusively go. I. the supercosmological constant is a very large randomly generated mechanism that constantly fluctuates and creates Universes and is the same driving force behind what constantly changes the Universes after they are created, or II. the supercosmological constant is an automatic mechanism that not only creates Universes, but influences them randomly.
And now we get to my favorite part. For I., you have something random from the start. But if it constantly fluctuates, then it forever changes until it fluctuates into something that self-perpetuates (in other words, God evolved from himself. In the Beginning, there was the Word and the Word was God) and then becomes complex enough to be able to think consciously the same way people have, from an evolutionist's perspective, developed consciousness from random mutations. For II., you have to have something that was eternally constant, where the only fluctuations have a purpose which is to create Universes. This God made himself. For II., this is impossible if we assume the Bulk (that is, the collection of all Universes and dimensions membranes and all that exists, whether observable or not) is still driven by randomness here. Or else it was in turn designed by an even higher designer randomly, which was in turn designed by an even higher random designer, but that is just an infinite loop that makes no sense, has no end or beginning, and is an obvious weak stall atheist extremists to cling on to to hold their refusal to believe in a conscious higher being that creates and influences all of what exists. So assuming II. to justify hypothesizing a. alone assumes that the Bulk's supercosmological constant is itself a purpose, not a random mechanism, that creates universes by its own function and influences what is in them by its purposeful structure. This is one heck of a structure to start out everything. But no logic can come up with any explanation for everything starting with zero, neither can any logical explanation starting with negative infinity (If you want to know why, this post is getting long, so I'll tell you only if you ask), so our premises about the Bulk starting perfectly simple and then expanding might not be true.
But either way, you see, with either assuming a. or a. and b., you have to come to the conclusion that the higher order that made our Universe, and possibly others, is conscious in the same way we are, and this does not seem to be by chance. (If it were by chance, you get the infinite loop of higher and higher constants that randomly make each other to a certain purpose, which makes absolutely no sense because it stretches to infinity and only continually decreases the chance of it being true.) Therefore, I assert, by careful logic based on modern science and the best speculation available from physicists and quantum theorists, that there is a God, and that God is one force that creates, destroys, and changes what it creates and destroys, constantly aware of himself and his actions.
So there Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:There are two explanations for this:
False dichotomy, which invalidates everything else.
I may go through the rest later, however.
Posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer (Member # 10416) on :
I fail to see how the idea that having two explanations invalidates everything. Care to propose a third explanation that doesn't ever let a conscious being to arise from the structure of quantum mechanics?
Unless you're so bold as to take Einstein's position that quantum mechanics are flawed. Now what was it he said... oh yeah... "God does not roll dice with the Universe."
Posted by soccer-head (Member # 11044) on :
quote:Originally posted by Javert:
quote:Originally posted by Scott R: I assert that there is a God, and thus religion does not start from false premises.
And this is the point where you must show your evidence, or else run the risk of having your statement not taken seriously.
equals:
quote:
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Religion...is actively harmful, because it gives you false premises to reason from.
And this is the point where you must show evidence, or else run the risk of having your statement not taken seriously.
or:
quote:
quote: Luke, Peter, James and John didn't know Jesus personally or even exist. Neither did Jesus.
And this is the point where you must show evidence, or else run the risk of having your (implication) not taken seriously.
Posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer (Member # 10416) on :
This is why I believe atheism is a religion. Those who don't care at all about God or don't ever give a thought are not atheists, they are nonreligious. But atheists who actively evangelize for their cause are most certainly an unorganized religion.
Posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer (Member # 10416) on :
Wow. Page five already.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:But atheists who actively evangelize for their cause are most certainly an unorganized religion.
Is that true of environmentalists, anti-abortionists, and NAMBLA? That merely telling people of your strong opinion makes you a religion?
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer: This is why I believe atheism is a religion. Those who don't care at all about God or don't ever give a thought are not atheists, they are nonreligious. But atheists who actively evangelize for their cause are most certainly an unorganized religion.
I'm actively evangelizing my cause? I thought I was just asking for you to show evidence for your claims. I guess I could be doing both.
Either way, atheism isn't a religion.
Posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer (Member # 10416) on :
No, no, I was responding to the above comment which showed that while you argue that there is insufficient evidence for the claims made by religions, there is insufficient evidence for the claims made by atheists when they attempt to refute the claims of religions.
I believe atheism is a religion because it is a system of beliefs regarding the nature of God and a standard of morals and hypotheses that pertain to the purpose of life. Polytheists believe there are many gods, monotheists believe there is one god, and atheists believe there is no god. Each system has some way of explaining the nature of God, and therefore, atheism is a religion.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Out of interest, what moral standards do you believe are held by all atheists? When do atheists meet, and what is their doctrine? How are they led, and who gets to decide what they believe?
Merely having a belief about God (or the lack thereof) does not constitute a religion. That's pretty much the definition of a "belief," in fact.
Atheism may, in some cases, be a belief system. I think it's a religion for very, very few people, though.
Posted by Threads (Member # 10863) on :
quote:Originally posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer: The argument for God is one of very substantial evidence. Scientists scratch their heads at the order and precision of the universe. Vacuum force and gravity and electromagnetism and the difference between matter and antimatter, according to formulae developed by modern theorists, all balance out very precisely to allow particles to combine into recognizable matter, so that galaxies, stars, planets, and life can form. Estimates place the chances of this balance happening at such a slim factor that it has to be indicated by exponents over the negative exponents.
There are no valid estimates of the chance of the current distribution of constants because we don't know what causes them. If we analyzed a large number of random universes there is no guarantee that the constants would follow a uniform distribution. It is still highly curious that there appears to be little wiggle room in what constants support life, however, given how little information we have, there is no logical basis for the claim that the existence of our universe is exceedingly unlikely.
You may want to read up on the Anthropic principle. Wikipedia provides a good starting point.
quote:Originally posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer: There are two explanations for this:
One: Universes are born from a common source of a higher level of dimension and structure all the time, and so many have been made that the chances became great enough to produce our Universe.
Two: The Universe was designed by a higher being with the recognition and ability to produce a Universe with such order and balance, with mathematical precision and the possibility for life.
There are clearly more than two options. In fact, given how little information we know, we could probably come up with an infinite number of theories for the origin of the universe. Anyways, the link above lists some of the most common:
quote: * A - The absurd universe - It just happens to be that way. * B - The unique universe - There is a deep underlying unity in physics which necessitates the universe being this way. Some 'Theory of Everything' will explain why the various features of the Universe must have exactly the values that we see. * C - The multiverse - Multiple Universes exist which have all possible combinations of characteristics, and we naturally find ourselves within the one that supports our existence. * D - Intelligent Design - An intelligent Creator designed the Universe specifically to support complexity and the emergence of Intelligence. * E - The life principle - There is an underlying principle that constrains the universe to evolve towards life and mind. * F - The self-explaining universe - A closed explanatory or causal loop: 'perhaps only universes with a capacity for consciousness can exist'. * G - The fake universe - We are living in a virtual reality simulation.
quote:Originally posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer: I find that the best explanation is a combination of the two. I won't try to guess exactly what God is made of here, but explanation #1 suggests that there was something before the beginning of any Universe that makes Universes, as does explanation #2. Either explanation cannot explain how the Universe's Creator was created, so either way we must assume a supercosmological constant exists that is able to produce Universes with varying degrees of order and precision.
If your theories were the only two options that might be the case. At the moment, however, the assumption that a universe factory must exist is unfounded.
What created the Creator? This line of questioning could go on forever and is one of the reasons why the "God made the universe" explanation is so unsatisfactory. There is no reason to believe that the universe requires a creator if the God that supposedly created it does not. It's just turtles all the way down...
quote:Originally posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer: So both conclusions essentially state the same thing about the nature of the Creator. From an atheist's point of view, there is nothing but chemical and neurological if-then statements that add up, like the vastest supercomputer created, into a conscious and self-aware state of mind.
Off topic cool fact: Your statement about the mind being the "vastest supercomputer created" is true for the moment. However it will likely be overtaken by conventional supercomputers by 2015 if the current trends hold up.
quote:Originally posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer: For the supercosmological constant to be able to create any universes at all, with so many factors that add up to something that is recognizable, it would have to be complex enough to either (or both) a. know what factors in the supercosmological constant must be stimulated in order to form a Universe or/and b. know what factors within a Universe must be controlled perfectly to create a Universe that has a degree of order that is accurate enough to allow life to develop.
Why would this supernatural process have to know anything? Why would it have to be "complex"? Complexity in the context you use it in generally refers to how much information a system registers. By this definition, it has already been demonstrated that complex patterns can be generated by trivial rules.
quote:Originally posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer: For a. alone, the thing is automatic, a cycle that is unaware of itself and is essentially a perpetual machine.
Not quite sure what you mean here. I don't see how a mechanism for creating universes could be considered a perpetual motion machine. As far as we know, the total energy in the universe is zero. It's free lunch.
quote:Originally posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer: For a. and b., we have a Creator that would create a Universe for the purpose of creating life, and the chances of this happening automatically are even slimmer than the chances of a Universe being randomly created into order and precision. Assuming this supercosmological constant is automatic cannot work if we assume a. and b.
I'm not sure where the concept of "purpose" fits in with your previous statements and, as I mentioned above, we have no basis for calculating probabilities for theories of this sort as of yet. I can't make sense of your last statement at all ("Assuming this supercosmological constant is automatic cannot work if we assume a. and b.").
quote:Originally posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer: So either we have a perpetual motion machine in a higher dimension that is too simple to know what it's doing, or we have a complex entity that is complex enough to be aware of itself and, with the power of creation invested in it, want to create something in its Universes that knows of its own existence in the way it does.
As was already pointed out, this is a false dichotomy. Not believing in God does not require a higher order process that creates universes (see alternate theories listed above). Also, I see no basis for your assumptions on the possible motives of a conscious creator in creating the universe (assuming such a conscious creator exists).
quote:Originally posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer: But here's why a. alone doesn't work. There is a mysterious force of pure "randomness" in the quantum realm that is shown by the uncertainty principle, the bonds between electrons, and the properties of subatomic particles that seems to be the driving force of the quantum world. This "randomness" determines whether a particle is bozon or a neutrino or graviton or whatever, and is mathematically described as a string.
The "type" of a particle is determined by the types of quarks that make it up. String theory is not accepted as fact, even by string theorists, and it is incorrect to describe the strings as "randomness". It is unclear where quantum randomness comes from (assuming thats even a valid question in the first place).
quote:Originally posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer: As you zoom out of the picture, random anomalies become less out-of-proportion until you get "laws" of physics. This "randomness" is like Orson Scott Card's aiuas. In fact, almost concept-for-concept, with electron pairs staying true no matter what the distance between them is, the theory that the Universe was created by a this force, and the idea that it makes up all matter and energy and the belief that it is the driving force behind consciousness.
Not at all. Quantum entanglement cannot be used to transfer information and is therefore nothing like OSC's aiuas. I also don't see how the hierarchy between aiuas observed in the Enderverse maps to the real world.
quote:Originally posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer: Even without the last of those beliefs, which is mostly just a popular media idea to toss around to the bystanders who know nothing about quantum mechanics, this force seems to be connected to the supercosmological constant that gets these Universes started. I make this connection because theorists behind the evolved "string theory" suspect that our Universe was created by a sort of quantum fluctuation, and that Universes are created all the time by such fluctuations. This is exactly the process I describe in my "supercosmological constant" hypothesis, which is a mechanism that exists above the known Universe to create many universes systematically.
Assuming that string theory is correct, I don't see how it fits in with what you said previously in your post.
quote:Originally posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer: So there are only two ways a. could exclusively go. I. the supercosmological constant is a very large randomly generated mechanism that constantly fluctuates and creates Universes and is the same driving force behind what constantly changes the Universes after they are created, or II. the supercosmological constant is an automatic mechanism that not only creates Universes, but influences them randomly.
This is what Javert meant when he said your entire argument is invalidated by a false dichotomy. Those are not the only two valid theories for your "theory a" so evaluating those two options will prove nothing.
quote:Originally posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer: And now we get to my favorite part. For I., you have something random from the start. But if it constantly fluctuates, then it forever changes until it fluctuates into something that self-perpetuates (in other words, God evolved from himself. In the Beginning, there was the Word and the Word was God) and then becomes complex enough to be able to think consciously the same way people have, from an evolutionist's perspective, developed consciousness from random mutations.
Um... what? Assuming what is random from the start? What do you mean by "fluctuates"? What does any of this have to do with "self-perpetuating"? God developed consciousness from random mutations in what? Why are we even talking about God if these theories are supposed to be excluding God?
quote:Originally posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer: For II., you have to have something that was eternally constant, where the only fluctuations have a purpose which is to create Universes.
Again, where does the concept of a "purpose" come into play if we are talking about an "automatic process" (your own words).
quote:Originally posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer: This God made himself.
I thought these theories were supposed to exclude a God. Why do you keep assuming he exists?
quote:Originally posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer: For II., this is impossible if we assume the Bulk (that is, the collection of all Universes and dimensions membranes and all that exists, whether observable or not) is still driven by randomness here. Or else it was in turn designed by an even higher designer randomly, which was in turn designed by an even higher random designer, but that is just an infinite loop that makes no sense, has no end or beginning, and is an obvious weak stall atheist extremists to cling on to to hold their refusal to believe in a conscious higher being that creates and influences all of what exists.
Again, it's turtles all the way down. The existence of a conscious creator does not magically halt the endless stream of "but what created that?". Why does randomness require a "designer" but a God does not?
quote:Originally posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer: So assuming II. to justify hypothesizing a. alone assumes that the Bulk's supercosmological constant is itself a purpose, not a random mechanism, that creates universes by its own function and influences what is in them by its purposeful structure. This is one heck of a structure to start out everything.
Where does this "purpose" keep coming from? Why does this supposed mechanism that creates universes require a purpose?
quote:Originally posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer: But no logic can come up with any explanation for everything starting with zero, neither can any logical explanation starting with negative infinity (If you want to know why, this post is getting long, so I'll tell you only if you ask), so our premises about the Bulk starting perfectly simple and then expanding might not be true.
But either way, you see, with either assuming a. or a. and b., you have to come to the conclusion that the higher order that made our Universe, and possibly others, is conscious in the same way we are, and this does not seem to be by chance. (If it were by chance, you get the infinite loop of higher and higher constants that randomly make each other to a certain purpose, which makes absolutely no sense because it stretches to infinity and only continually decreases the chance of it being true.) Therefore, I assert, by careful logic based on modern science and the best speculation available from physicists and quantum theorists, that there is a God, and that God is one force that creates, destroys, and changes what it creates and destroys, constantly aware of himself and his actions.
What the hell??? (Sorry, that seriously made absolutely no sense to me. Most of your other stuff didn't either but I tried)
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer: No, no, I was responding to the above comment which showed that while you argue that there is insufficient evidence for the claims made by religions, there is insufficient evidence for the claims made by atheists when they attempt to refute the claims of religions.
First of all, what Tom said.
Secondly, what claims have I made? (I can't speak for all atheists, only myself.) I've argued about the inner consistency or lack thereof of Christian doctrine, but I'm not making any claim beyond saying 'it looks like it says this'.
Beyond that, I'm saying I don't think there's good evidence to believe that a god exists.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Originally posted by Threads:
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee:
quote:). Humans are inherently social creatures and the Golden Rule is logically a good way at providing [partial] security in a society.
Which means that it's based on the premise that providing security in a society is a good thing.
And? Thats a premise that the average human being will instinctively accept. Again, no supernatural beings required.
Which means that there is at least one premise not subject to objective evidence that most human beings will accept. Which is my entire point: anyone who believes in morality believes that the actions of human beings should be based in very large part on some premises that are not subject to objective evidence.
Posted by lynn johnson (Member # 9620) on :
Wow. Lots of stuff happened while I was away. Most energetic discussion, very exciting.
Scott D's Prize: well, you didn't get the prize because Mary the mother of Jesus couldn't have told the story in Luke 7 because she wasn't there There is a period of Jesus' life where he and his mother are somewhat at odds ("Who are my mother and brethern?" suggests that). So, no apostles present, no one to witness the dinner.
The only reasonable explanation is that it was the prostitute herself. Thirty years later, ca. 60 AD, Luke is researching his gospel, finding all the great stuff in Luke 1 & 2 that hadn't been written down, and runs across this woman in the Christian community who tells her story. She knows the name of the giver of the dinner, and recalls the dialog. Luke preserves her anonymity. But who else could have told the story? That's what I love about Luke, it is like reading a detective story.
To me, one of the phenomenal aspects of religion is its ability to profoundly change lives. That is the proof, since, as I postulated, the universe is intriniscally ambiguous. People see the meaning they project. Robert Rosenthal showed decades ago that in scientific experiments we tend to get what we expect. The power of expectation organizes the universe.
By the way, one powerful argument in favor of viewing Near Death Experiences as representing what they appear to, aside from the veridical out-of-body perceptions, is the profound life changes they produce.
The assertion that Matthew, Mark, and John weren't there as witnesses is silly, by the way. They clearly are, unless we abandon the parsimony principle and create all kinds of unnecesary explanations.
lj
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:The assertion that Matthew, Mark, and John weren't there as witnesses is silly, by the way.
So they witnessed everything and then didn't write about it until decades later? Sounds fishy to me.
Posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer (Member # 10416) on :
A lot of people write their memoirs late in life.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
quote:Scott D's Prize: well, you didn't get the prize because Mary the mother of Jesus couldn't have told the story in Luke 7 because she wasn't there There is a period of Jesus' life where he and his mother are somewhat at odds ("Who are my mother and brethern?" suggests that). So, no apostles present, no one to witness the dinner.
I should have read Luke 7; I assumed it was the wedding party in Canaa you were talking about.
And YOU should have read Luke 7 as well; Jesus went to the home of Simon the Pharisee but it doesn't mention that none of the disciples were with him. In fact, this story is contained in all four of the gospels; and in those, at least one disciple critisizes Jesus for allowing the woman to anoint his feet, saying that it could have been sold instead, and the money given to the poor.
AND your question wasn't merely to do with Luke 7-- you'll note that you first asked who gave Luke his information. Traditionally speaking, Mary did.
I want a frikkin' prize. Stop trying to weasel out of it.
quote: The only reasonable explanation is that it was the prostitute herself.
See above. I think your conclusion about who was (or was not) at the dinner is faulty. Also, Luke doesn't say she was a prostitute-- but a sinner. It doesn't change the value of the story if she was a prostitute-- but like the assertion that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute, it's not based on the text.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer: A lot of people write their memoirs late in life.
Perhaps. I can only judge based on myself. And if I saw a guy die and come back to life, I'd be writing that down the second I got to some papyrus.
Posted by Threads (Member # 10863) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee:
quote:Originally posted by Threads:
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee:
quote:). Humans are inherently social creatures and the Golden Rule is logically a good way at providing [partial] security in a society.
Which means that it's based on the premise that providing security in a society is a good thing.
And? Thats a premise that the average human being will instinctively accept. Again, no supernatural beings required.
Which means that there is at least one premise not subject to objective evidence that most human beings will accept. Which is my entire point: anyone who believes in morality believes that the actions of human beings should be based in very large part on some premises that are not subject to objective evidence.
Sorry for the confusion Posted by lynn johnson (Member # 9620) on :
Scott R, my hat off to you because you did read the story.
But (In my never humble opinion)there is a parallel story here. They aren't the same. Mary the sister of Martha ALSO anoints Jesus's feet, and you are conflating the two stories. The second one does occur in Matthew, Mark, John, but not the first, Luke alone has that one. Mary wasn't the "sinner" (perhaps not a prostitute, but that is the type of wickedness we men are most interested in. Right on about me reading into the text.). It doesn't say the apostles were there, although there were at the other anointing. So I still think the most simple way to explain that section is that the women herself, a reformed person, told the story, maybe twenty to thirty years after the event.
The Catholic church associated this story with the Mary anointing story, and turned Mary Magdalane into a prostitute, which really is without foundation. St. Gregory pushed that theory. The eastern church doesn't agree. He was clearly wrong. (true humility is knowing when you are right)
PRIZE: Do you want a copy of my book on how to overcome anger? It has a pretty cover, and surely you know someone who could benefit. I don't know if this board supports member-to-member messages, but I'd send you one. Otherwise, I would be glad to send you a Hearty Handshake, a great honor indeed.
I got a kick out of Javert's comment about writing it down if someone died and came back to life. That is what they did. That is exactly what differentiated Christianity from all the other messianic sects at that time. Peter was transformed, so was Paul. (The idea that the gospels were written much later is a German idea, Higher Criticism which is another term for fundamentalist materialism.) These men gave all their life and time to spreading the Good News, and the notions that the robust movement that resulted were just from forgeries seems silly. The whole Q document is a whole cloth invention of the 19th century. When people want to explain away Christianity, they always have to do Special Pleading and argue for a late date for the gospels. Ain't true.
It looks to me like Luke had to be written beforec 60 AD, probably before Jerusalem is sacked (he has easy access to the early witnesses), and certainly before Paul's demise in Rome, if that is what happened. He writes Luke and Acts in sequence. MY view is that he had Mark and likely Matthew in front of him, honoring those early witnesses, but adding his interviews with Mary the mother of Jesus Mary & Martha, and the mysterious woman at Simon's and so on.
What happened to the gnostics? They certainly were forging the heck out of things in the first century. All kinds of pseudoepigrapha. If late first century forgeries would create a lasting religion, they should have endured. I have Robinson's translation of the Nag Hamadi scriptures. Where did they all go? They died out. So I think the evidence is pretty good (not indisputable, it is always ambiguous) that Christianity is based on a man who did die and rise again, energizing his frightened disciples. IMHO.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:I got a kick out of Javert's comment about writing it down if someone died and came back to life. That is what they did.
*cough*decadeslater*cough*
Posted by Threads (Member # 10863) on :
Lynn, there is honestly no logical correlation between the success of Christianity and the idea that Jesus rose from the dead. The evidence is not "good", it is non-existent.
Posted by lynn johnson (Member # 9620) on :
Well, that certainly qualifies as one of the biggest overstatements in history. This is the problem with trying to discuss religion. People sink to the level of blind adherence to their fundamentalist materialist position. I can have much better dialog with Muslims.
E.g.: when Dean Radin shows clear proof of PSI forces, the skeptical inquirer people simply distort the evidence. When Pim Van Lommel shows data of veridical OBE during heart attacks, Michael Shermer distorts the data and never posts a retraction. When Rupert Sheldrake publishes data that don't conform to fundamaterialism, "scientists" call for his book to be burned. All true events. And when someone makes a case for mid-first century origin of the gospels, there is no coherent answer. Scoffs are not an answer.
Lynn, you implied that the fact that the disciples were so motivated to spread the word of Jesus is evidence for the idea that Jesus rose from the dead. Do I really need to explain in detail why that is faulty logic?
EDIT: I feel like an ass for using a rhetorical question like that so I'll try to explain here. You need to establish the credibility of the witnesses before claiming that Jesus rose from the dead. At the very least you have to establish that these disciples were actually there to witness Jesus' rise from the dead. The only supposed indication that this is true is the writings of the disciples' themselves, which, unfortunately, cannot be used. It's circular reasoning. The credibility of the writings on Jesus' rise from the dead cannot be established by using those writings. You need an independent source to verify that they were there. Regardless, after you establish that they are there you still have to resolve the problem that the number of witnesses in this case is too small to give credibility to a claim that defies the laws of physics.
Relating back to what I was getting at with my initial post, the convictions of the disciples has no relevance to Jesus' rise from the dead because they do nothing to establish the credibility of the claim. It is certainly logical that the disciples would be highly motivated to spread Jesus' word if they witnessed Jesus rising from the dead. However, A implies B does not mean B implies A (Jesus rising from the dead may imply that the disciples would be highly motivated to spread his word, but the opposite does not have to be true).
[ November 13, 2007, 12:30 AM: Message edited by: Threads ]
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:when Dean Radin shows clear proof of PSI forces, the skeptical inquirer people simply distort the evidence.
I have no idea what this is in reference to. Link?
Just for the record, I'm a skeptic too. I don't scoff. I look for and ask for evidence.
quote:I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I'll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be. ~Isaac Asimov
Posted by lynn johnson (Member # 9620) on :
Javert,
You asked for evidence. Here is just a smattering.
Dean Radin has studied ESP for several years, published in peer-reviewed journals. There can be no doubt that ESP exists. The effect size is quite small but consistent. The better the design, the larger the effect size (Mean1-Mean2/pooled standard deviation = Effect Size, or D). So the skeptics that I linked to basically ignore the research because there cannot be ESP. His website: http://www.deanradin.com/ Wikipedia's writeup http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Radin
Note the "skeptic" analysis http://skepticreport.com/pseudoscience/radin2002.htm Basically the report is what it claims Radin does, pseudoscience, pulling conjectures out of thin air to explain away the data.
Another example is the relatively famous debate between Jessica Utts and Ray Hyman regarding remote viewing. Utts, a statistician, comes into the data apparently unbiased. Hyman has a very large ax to grind, so in spite of Utts finding significance in the data, Hyman stubbornly persists in hiding his head in the sand. http://anson.ucdavis.edu/~utts/may.html That is a pretty good summary of the debate.
The bottom line: the universe seems to have some pretty strange stuff in it, and the scientists who dare to pursue it are persecuted.
Well, thanks for the thoughtful question. I appreciate your being willing to learn. By the way, the Asimov quote is something I have always disagreed with. For me, evidence is evidence. It doesn't have to be firmer or more solid, just because it contradicts my current view of the world. That is unacceptable to me because it would imply my view of the world is complete enough to throw out data that don't fit. Read Radin's book, "the entangled universe" for a pretty good review of the rather substantial - firm and solid - data.
Finally, if you are still interested, read van Lomel's reply to Shermer, which the Scientific American refused to print. A shameful lack of integrity, both before (Shermer had to know he was distorting the data, or he is a lot dumber than I thought) and after (when van Lommel provided a correction). http://www.nderf.org/vonlommel_consciousness.htm
HOpe that addresses the questions.
Threads, the only extant naturalistic study is "when prophecy fails" but they didn't follow up for 2 millenia (wry face). Even though the initial reaction was to convert others, the movement did fall apart. On the other hand, persistent and long-term personality change is evidence that something significant happened. You keep ignoring my central point: all such evidence is equivocal, and you have to project your own meaning onto it. Did you google Robert Rosenthal? You project your meaning, I project mine. You are more certain that you are right. Hum . . .
Posted by lynn johnson (Member # 9620) on :
Threads, I responded before reading your edit, which was considerably more gentlemanly. I am warmed and appreciative.
But again, I disagree with your premise. I don't have to establish any such credibility, since I have personally talked to people who have had extensive interviews with a living Jesus Christ. Because some of them have veridical OBE perceptions, and for a host of other reasons too numerous to hijack the thread, I simply chose to believe them. Others chose otherwise. God bless them.
Or, someone could pray, if they were more spiritually attuned and gifted than I, and receive a direct answer themselves. Sort of like the famous C.S. Lewis conversion.
Or they could simply note that they are happier and healthier and more whole (whole-er?) when they are attending church and praying and the like. Everyone's path is different. William James: pragmatism. Read Varieties of Religious Experience on that, a masterful work that holds up exceptionally well.
Or they could follow Dean Radin's investigations into paranormal perception.
Or . . . or . . . or . . . There are as many pathways as there are people, one for each. If your path is that of non-belief, again, God bless you in it. According to Matt 25:33ff, the key is not belief (as most protestents would say) or sacraments (as catholics would say) but service to our fellow men and women. As my associate Howard Storm says, "I didn't go to hell because I was an atheist. I went to hell because I was an egotistical, cruel, self-centered atheist. I believe there will be atheists in heaven."
I believe that too. So I only would encourage you to serve others, and not worry about the existence of God. In that way, you do God's work, like my other friend (yes, I have two of them) Howard Bloom, a firm atheist who has told me more than once that he is doing God's work. www.howardbloom.net
Bless you my son/daughter. lj
Posted by Threads (Member # 10863) on :
Lynn, I greatly appreciate your kind words (which were much kinder than mine! Mine were merely civil!) and especially appreciate the recognition that one can be atheist and also be moral. I feel that the main differences between the average Christian and myself are not moral but rather spiritual.
quote:Or they could simply note that they are happier and healthier and more whole (whole-er?) when they are attending church and praying and the like. Everyone's path is different. William James: pragmatism. Read Varieties of Religious Experience on that, a masterful work that holds up exceptionally well.
I totally understand this viewpoint. As an atheist I don't believe in a higher purpose to life so I see enormous value in being happy during the short lives that we have. When I started evaluating my own beliefs regarding life, God, etc. I decided that my top two priorities in life are to be happy and to practice beneficence.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
quote:But (In my never humble opinion)there is a parallel story here. They aren't the same. Mary the sister of Martha ALSO anoints Jesus's feet, and you are conflating the two stories. The second one does occur in Matthew, Mark, John, but not the first, Luke alone has that one.
Nah. Look at the language used-- this was a unique occurrence. You'll especially note that the Pharisee whose soiree Jesus was attending was named in each account, and has the same name in each.
There's a lot more evidence in the text for all four stories being the same story, with Luke missing out on some details, and adding in a parable, then there is that this happened to Jesus twice.
quote:Mary wasn't the "sinner" (perhaps not a prostitute, but that is the type of wickedness we men are most interested in.
I don't think this is a true statement.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:There can be no doubt that ESP exists.
It's statements like these that are really interesting to me.
There can be no doubt? Really? Then why are people even bothering to continue studying it?
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
Let me also note my skepticism about near death experiences and out of body experiences. While I don't deny that such things may happen, I'm highly skeptical about the validity of every single occurrence.
I'm also skeptical about the importance of such things.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
quote:There can be no doubt? Really? Then why are people even bothering to continue studying it?
Well, gravity exists. There's no doubt about it. But we still study it.
Why do we bother?
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by Scott R:
quote:There can be no doubt? Really? Then why are people even bothering to continue studying it?
Well, gravity exists. There's no doubt about it. But we still study it.
Why do we bother?
Gravity is just a theory.
(I'm so sorry...but I had to. And just to be clear, the joke is not meant, necessarily, about you Scott.)
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
Thinking on this a little bit-- the reason I'm skeptical about NDE's and psychic phenomenon is largely related to my impressions of the people who claim to experience these phenomena. In which case, I'm judging a set of "facts" by the practitioners thereof.
(I have a really big chip on my shoulder against people who claim to speak to the dead-- and use their ability to bilk money out of widows and grieving families)
Hm... do you think there is a correlation for atheists? If believers were all good people, would there be fewer atheists?
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by Scott R: Hm... do you think there is a correlation for atheists? If believers were all good people, would there be fewer atheists?
I don't think there would be. And it depends on what you mean by 'good'.
You (the general 'you') could be a perfectly good person, and want to force your religious beliefs on me because you think they are correct and you're looking out for me. So your intentions would be good, anyway. But your actions wouldn't be.
Posted by Threads (Member # 10863) on :
quote:Originally posted by Scott R:
quote:There can be no doubt? Really? Then why are people even bothering to continue studying it?
Well, gravity exists. There's no doubt about it. But we still study it.
Why do we bother?
To be fair, nobody studies whether or not gravity exists anymore. People study what causes it. The same cannot be said for ESP because it has not been established conclusively that it is a real phenomenon.
On OBEs: There has been some success in recreating Out-of-body experiences in lab settings, so it seems more likely that they are hallucinations rather than true "spiritual world" experiences.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
Not to dogpile on Lynn, but in regards to OBEs: I don't think there's much debate about people having the sensation of leaving their bodies. The question remains, are they actually doing so?
I have heard of many tests where they've put an object, for example, on top of a dresser near the bed of the subject, so that if they leave their body and are over the bed they would be able to see it. But as far as I've researched, they're never able to do so.
Posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer (Member # 10416) on :
Out-of-body experiences are the result of playing too many third-person video games
On a more serious note, I will respond to what was said above regarding my deductions on the Universe's origin. It's just a lot to go through. I'm putting it on Apple Pages to get it all sorted through.
Posted by lynn johnson (Member # 9620) on :
Javert, thanks for your interest. Did you read through some of Jody and Jeff Long's site, www.nderf.org, or have you been to www.iands.org and seen some of the evidence?
The problem is that if you read the skeptical inquirer stuff, you find what they want you to find. That is the point of the skeptical investigations page. The skeptical folks are often dishonest. Sorry, but the record is clear. I already referenced Shermer and Scientific American.
Now as to the content: one part of your answer is in veridical (true) perceptions. There are too many examples of that to doubt it. Mike Sabom, for example, found in his studies that was an earmark. Did you read Pim van Lommel's answer to Shermer? He deals with that.
The best starting point might be the book, "Ghost Hunters: William James and the search for .*" (I can't recall the rest of the title now. Deborah Blum is the author. She's a science writer. Then read Dean Radin's Entangled Universe. Read up on Rupert Sheldrake.
Well, I have to go back to work. Thanks for the interesting dialog. I hope I am contributing something.
Threads, you are certainly on the right track. Be happy and kind. Things will work out. Let's get together after we both die, and we'll have a really great conversation.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
Javert:
quote:Which is exactly why religious belief is so potentially dangerous. When you start basing actions on your own personal subjective evidence, with no care for objective evidence, you start down the path where you can justify anything.
Now, I understand that you do care about object evidence. However, I believe you are putting far too much stock in the subjective. Putting stock in the subjective can lead to treating the subjective on equal footing with the objective, and eventually lead to giving it precedence over the objective. Which is what religious extremists do.
I would never say that you were a religious extremist, Puppy. But at the core, what you use to justify the tenants of the LDS Church and what extremists use to justify their actions are the same animal.
As far as factual claims go, I see very little threat in different, subjective ideas being accepted (tentatively or otherwise) by a wide variety of people. Some people believe in the Great Flood, literally as described in Genesis. Some have different interpretations, and some reject it altogether. These people live happily in the same neighborhood, and wave to each other on the street. When they enter into scientific pursuits, their work is constrained by the rules of science, but in their personal lives, most such things are really irrelevant. I'm not threatened by the young-earth creationist, the die-hard atheist, or the hippie Atlantis guru. Their subjective beliefs are their own when it comes to factual claims.
Moral claims are the riskier area, but one of the biggest risks is in the failure to recognize that subjective moral claims (as I define them, as statements of what a person "should" or "should not" do) are not unique to religion. Neither is extremism. I've seen Libertarians, for instance, who scared me way more than any creationist ... and rightly so. The beliefs that define a Libertarian are all "shoulds" and "should nots", while the beliefs that define a creationist are all "dids" and "did nots".
Extremism, in my estimation, is a set of behaviors that we should all align against, both atheists and the-theists. (I feel a weird need to add a syllable to the word "theists" when setting up a contrast with "atheists").
Extremist behavior includes (but is not limited to) enforcing promulgation of belief through legislation, violence, censorship, or other compulsory means (seen among some creationists and Islamic extremists, but also among other political and social groups), scapegoating and demonizing enemies (seen most violently in recent history among the areligious Nazis and Communists of the twentieth century, as well as among racist groups), and violently quashing dissent.
These are behaviors that are not inherent to religion. They are not limited to religion. And they are not the inevitable result of religion. At most, they have been associated with religion historically, but as we've seen in the last century, the removal of religion from the equation seems to do nothing to diminish the violent effects of extremism. If anything, we've seen more terrible behavior from areligious extremists in the past hundred years than we've seen from religious ones.
This is where the "religion is dangerous! make it go away!" argument falls apart to me. We've done experiments now in which we have raised armies of extremists without religion, it seems to be no more difficult to do so, and the effects seem to be as bad or worse. It seems pretty clear that the whole question of eliminating religion is a red herring. In the end, you'll just have political organizations and other idealistic groups doing every single bad thing you associate with religion, only without a benevolent God or moral conscience to appeal to in opposition to their extremism
King of Men:
quote:Very well, let us use this analogy. Suppose the nutters who think games cause school shootings were shown to be absolutely and completely correct. Suppose they were able to trace an exact causality from your code (or design, or whatever part of making games it is you do) to some hapless student firing his Kalashnikov at the rest of his school. Would you still assert your desire to be a game designer?
As I've noted above, I do not believe that such a causal link can be made between religion and the ills of the world, so my answer is kind of moot But I do believe that religious people all need to answer first to their own consciences, and their behavior should always be judged by that standard. If my religion is encouraging me to do something terrible, then I am responsible for the harm I am doing, and if I'm any kind of good person, I'll stop, though it might be a terrible moral struggle for me to do so. And I'd feel the same way about game design.
But since you have not (and I believe you cannot) demonstrate that my pursuit of religion causes any such harm, this seems like an irrelevant digression.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:The skeptical folks are often dishonest.
In my experience, the credulous ones are more often dishonest.
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
Yeah, but I've caught a few diehard skeptics in lies.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Whereas you've never caught a quack?
Posted by lynn johnson (Member # 9620) on :
You didn't deal with the Shermer case, which broke my heart because I wanted to believe the best about him, and wanted to believe that _Scientific American_ was a scientific magazine.
The other heart-break was reading Blum's _Ghost Hunters_ and seeing how shabbily several well-known main-stream psychologists treated William James and his colleagues.
Tom, I didn't intend to set up a competition about who is more dishonest. That is not the point. The point is that we all have axes to grind. Some axes are bigger than others. People like Shermer who have made their profession skepticism have very large axes. That makes them dangerous because we all tend to select facts that fit our ideas. But when we start to twist the facts, that is very upsetting to me, especially when those twisting the fact purport to be scientists or apologists for science.
I personally have never caught a religious person in such an egregious lie as the one I mentioned. That means, in a national magazine of considerable stature. On a personal level people lie to me, and I suppose I lie or misrepresent myself to them. I don't know how to completely avoid that. But when I write a scientific paper, I try very hard to be rigorous. Not all do.
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
"Whereas you've never caught a quack?"
That isn't the point. You've seen me go after religious folks before. Not that they deserved it, entirely.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:You didn't deal with the Shermer case, which broke my heart because I wanted to believe the best about him, and wanted to believe that _Scientific American_ was a scientific magazine.
You're applying the wrong burden of proof. It is not necessary to prove that all skeptics are honest in order to prove that, for example, ESP is real; the two questions are completely unrelated.
quote:People like Shermer who have made their profession skepticism have very large axes.
And people whose professions rely entirely upon the gullibility of others -- like "psychics," "mystics," and holistic "healers" -- are surely just as invested. The question is whether the extraordinary claims of the latter group can be reproduced reliably in controlled situations; so far, no such qualified evidence has ever been produced.
It's also worth noting that the page to which you linked is, well, full of crap. Useful ad hominems like calling James Randi an "angry man" and bald assertions like "there is ample evidence of telepathy" (meant as a rebuttal to Shermer's claims of the opposite) stand in the place of actual information, and certainly don't discredit the "media skeptics" -- who are, by the way just that: media skeptics, many of whom are not scientists themselves, and many of whom are former "parapsychologists" (and therefore definitionally not mentally rigorous) -- to the extent that the authors of the piece must think they do.
quote:I personally have never caught a religious person in such an egregious lie as the one I mentioned. That means, in a national magazine of considerable stature.
Do you believe that statues all over India began drinking milk a few years ago?
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
Tom's got a lot of good points in that post.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
[/QUOTE]As I've noted above, I do not believe that such a causal link can be made between religion and the ills of the world, so my answer is kind of moot But I do believe that religious people all need to answer first to their own consciences, and their behavior should always be judged by that standard. If my religion is encouraging me to do something terrible, then I am responsible for the harm I am doing, and if I'm any kind of good person, I'll stop, though it might be a terrible moral struggle for me to do so. And I'd feel the same way about game design.
But since you have not (and I believe you cannot) demonstrate that my pursuit of religion causes any such harm, this seems like an irrelevant digression. [/QB][/QUOTE]
The answer to a hypothetical question cannot be moot, since the question specified "Assuming X" in the first place. It may be un-interesting if the hypothetical was sufficiently unlikely ("Assuming you are actually a pink, female monkey with a laser cannon...") but it's not moot.
Apart from that, at least N-1 religions where N is the number of religions that claim sole access to truth are causing people to believe untrue things, which I think we can both agree is harmful.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
quote:at least N-1 religions where N is the number of religions that claim sole access to truth are causing people to believe untrue things, which I think we can both agree is harmful.
Well, I don't know who you're arguing with, but I don't agree.
I think that it's entirely possible to be happy, healthy, and socially functional, and still believe in things that aren't true. For example, Tom is an agnostic-- despite the fact that he's wrong about God, he's still happy, reasonably healthy, and as far as I know, he functions well in society.
His belief does not cause him harm, despite it's not being true.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
King of Men, I think we can safely assume that everyone in the world believes things that are untrue, as will all human beings throughout the rest of future history. We do our best, but we get things wrong all the time, no matter what standards we apply to potential incoming knowledge. I don't think that this constitutes "harm".
It would be harmful to science if we lost the scientific values of skepticism and objective reasoning, and if science is harmed, then that harm will be transmitted to individuals. But I'm not suggesting that we should change the way we do science to accomodate religion. I'm only suggesting that individuals and communities should be allowed to pursue knowledge through faith and subjective reasoning, and can gain things through that process that I consider valuable — including the religious community that I belong to.
Posted by JLM (Member # 7800) on :
quote:Originally posted by lynn johnson: ... and wanted to believe that _Scientific American_ was a scientific magazine.
I used to subscribe to Scientific American, but when it became obviously apparant that the staff was more interested in advocating their socieo-political agenda and preaching to the choir than reporting on a diverse range of real scientific inquiries, I canceled my subscription.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Originally posted by Puppy: King of Men, I think we can safely assume that everyone in the world believes things that are untrue, as will all human beings throughout the rest of future history. We do our best, but we get things wrong all the time, no matter what standards we apply to potential incoming knowledge. I don't think that this constitutes "harm".
I do. And what's more, your argument apparently hinges on "We are going to get some stuff wrong anyway, so why sweat another few doctrines?" Well, in the first place, the claims of religion are a pretty big thing to get wrong. And in the second place, being unable to get things 100% right is not a reason to stop striving to do so. I mean, duh, why am I even telling a religious person that?
quote:It would be harmful to science if we lost the scientific values of skepticism and objective reasoning, and if science is harmed, then that harm will be transmitted to individuals. But I'm not suggesting that we should change the way we do science to accomodate religion. I'm only suggesting that individuals and communities should be allowed to pursue knowledge through faith and subjective reasoning, and can gain things through that process that I consider valuable — including the religious community that I belong to.
Fine. My subjective reasoning requires me to badger you when you believe things that are obviously wrong. Repent, or else.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Fine. My subjective reasoning requires me to badger you when you believe things that are obviously wrong. Repent, or else.
There's probably medication you can take for that.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Well yeah, Dags, that's kind of my point.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
quote:Well, in the first place, the claims of religion are a pretty big thing to get wrong. And in the second place, being unable to get things 100% right is not a reason to stop striving to do so. I mean, duh, why am I even telling a religious person that?
My point is that as long as we maintain the values of science within our scientific communities, I don't see harm in supporting individuals who explore other means of learning within their own individual and community belief systems.
Of course we shouldn't stop striving to get things right. All I'm saying is that we shouldn't cut off certain lines of inquiry because you've made a personal value judgment that they are not worthwhile.
quote:Fine. My subjective reasoning requires me to badger you when you believe things that are obviously wrong. Repent, or else.
Your subjective reasoning leads you to believe that scientific objectivity is the only valid means of seeking truth, and that people who believe otherwise and act on those beliefs are causing great harm to the world. Your personality requires you to badger me.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Originally posted by Puppy: My point is that as long as we maintain the values of science within our scientific communities, I don't see harm in supporting individuals who explore other means of learning within their own individual and community belief systems.
Well then, I'll have to point you to the statistics on top scientists and atheism. Briefly, scientists as a whole are less religious than the general population, and this tendency increases towards the very top of the profession. So religious people are less likely to become scientists, and upon doing so, they are less likely to do the very best work. The obvious explanation is that people dislike applying a standard to their work that they aren't able to apply to their personal lives, and so they abandon either science or religion, in statistically significant percentages. That's harm right there. You are cutting off a large percentage of the population from being an effective part of the scientific community, because they lack, or are too honest to apply, the compartmentation that religious scientists need.
quote:
quote:Fine. My subjective reasoning requires me to badger you when you believe things that are obviously wrong. Repent, or else.
Your subjective reasoning leads you to believe that scientific objectivity is the only valid means of seeking truth, and that people who believe otherwise and act on those beliefs are causing great harm to the world. Your personality requires you to badger me.
How do you tell the difference? I could just as well claim that only your personality is leading you to believe the doctrines of the LDS church.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
You've stuck a lot of subjective qualifiers in there, KoM:
"Top scientists"
"Best work"
"Effective part"
I'm not convinced at all.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
I'll point you to the studies later, it's half past midnight in Italy. Out of curiousity, though, suppose I were able to show (for the sake of argument) that no scientist of, say, Nobel-Prize caliber was religious, would you find that convincing? (I don't think this is true, the effect is not so large as that; I'm asking as a hypothetical.)
Posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer (Member # 10416) on :
Some scientists who made "great discoveries" are actually quite arrogant (I'm thinking of this biologist who was interviewed on a documentary, I'll try to find the name) and are not quite the kind of person I'd want to be like. Truth be told: When I'm not "religious," I'm blabbing about some scientific topic. My literacy in most especially astronomy, physics, and biology came naturally to me; I could explain the theories of relativity in great detail and understanding at a very early age. I deduced through much of quantum mechanics and relativity in third grade, only to find a few years later that many of my hypotheses matched those predicted by physicists (most especially those regarding the need for the unification of gravity and electromagnetism to give a base for a grand theory of everything). I could name the properties of different isotopes of plutonium in fourth grade. I have a great value scientific ability and understanding.
However, I find that while many scientists were stunning in their ability to deduce truths about the world, a good many were arrogant jerks and not great role models. Take Isaac Newton, for example (who was in fact very religious, though he assumed very non-canon ideas about God) who was criticized by another scientist and spent the rest of his life getting even.
Being learned in what natural processes affect the world is very important to me, but not nearly as good as being a good role model for society. In the latter value, I find the most respectable and admirable role models more practiced in the field of religion.
So if you told me Nobel-caliber scientists were hardly ever religious, I'd ask "What about the Nobel Peace Prize?"
Posted by Threads (Member # 10863) on :
You are probably thinking of Watson
Posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer (Member # 10416) on :
I don't think so, I know who James Watson is from seventh-grade. I haven't read enough about him to really analyze his personality.
Posted by Threads (Member # 10863) on :
I actually slightly misread what you wrote. Anyways, the recent controversy with Watson is that he made some racist comments. Link.
quote:Watson was quoted as saying he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours, whereas all the testing says not really."
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
quote:I'll point you to the studies later, it's half past midnight in Italy.
Where are you in Italy?
quote:suppose I were able to show (for the sake of argument) that no scientist of, say, Nobel-Prize caliber was religious, would you find that convincing?
You'd also need to connect the statistic with your claim-- that the reason they aren't religious is because they are scientists.
EDIT: Additionally, you'd need to show that the organizations that stamp "Top Scientist" on folks' lab coats don't have a bias against religious belief.
Also, define what "religious" means in terms of your data.
Also, show the correlation between religious beleif and degradation of empirical thought.
[ November 16, 2007, 07:54 AM: Message edited by: Scott R ]
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by Threads: I actually slightly misread what you wrote. Anyways, the recent controversy with Watson is that he made some racist comments. Link.
quote:Watson was quoted as saying he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours, whereas all the testing says not really."
It was a double-whammy, as he was both racist and wrong about the data.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
C3PO the Dragon Slayer: Thats a bit of a implication leap there. You claim that the scientists that make great discoveries tend to be arrogant. Later, you make the claim that religious figures tend to be less arrogant.
I would say that it is not so much that scientists that make great discoveries tend to be arrogant, but rather that making great discoveries tend to make one arrogant. Heck, doing anything great, whether sports, politics, science, or writing probably helps make one more arrogant simply because you have an actual reason to be arrogant.
I'm reminded of this exchange:
quote: Mark Antony: You seem to forget that our war is not over yet. Cato and Skippy are still at large, given time they will raise another army. Caesar: And when they do I shall crush them. Mark Antony: I'm glad you're so confident ... some would call it hubris. Caesar: It's only hubris if I fail.
As for why religious figures tend to be less arrogant, I would both disagree in some cases* and in the cases where that it not true I would point out that they may very well have done less on Earth to be arrogant about
* Depending on the figure, thinking that there may be a generic god is not inherently arrogant. Claiming that not only a specific god exists, but that he talks to you or has given you personal instructions (or in very extreme cases talks through you specifically) seems to be almost the definition of arrogance.
[ November 16, 2007, 02:23 PM: Message edited by: Mucus ]
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mucus: Scott R: Thats a bit of a implication leap there. You claim that the scientists that make great discoveries tend to be arrogant. Later, you make the claim that religious figures tend to be less arrogant.
No I didn't.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
Whoops, read the wrong name. That was for "C3PO the Dragon Slayer"
Posted by lynn johnson (Member # 9620) on :
It reports on a convention of atheists and the writer slyly points out all the religious aspects of the group. Fun to read.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
quote:Well then, I'll have to point you to the statistics on top scientists and atheism. Briefly, scientists as a whole are less religious than the general population, and this tendency increases towards the very top of the profession. So religious people are less likely to become scientists, and upon doing so, they are less likely to do the very best work. The obvious explanation is that people dislike applying a standard to their work that they aren't able to apply to their personal lives, and so they abandon either science or religion, in statistically significant percentages. That's harm right there. You are cutting off a large percentage of the population from being an effective part of the scientific community, because they lack, or are too honest to apply, the compartmentation that religious scientists need.
It's not a question of honesty. A faithful person can recognize the limits of what faith can teach him, and refuse to apply it to his scientific work because of its inherent subjectivity. Recognizing the subjective nature of faith doesn't imply denial or lack of faith — in other words, a religious scientist doesn't have to say, "I believe THIS at home, but believe THIS at work." There are other approaches that are both completely honest and completely responsible.
(Conversely, the same scientist also recognizes the limits of what science can teach him, and pursues other lines on inquiry to obtain answers about moral questions that are irrelevant to science.)
In any case, I think that the individuals who are rendered unsuitable for scientific work by their faith would be unsuitable for it without their faith. There are different ways to approach faith, and those who value intellectual rigor, and who are not particularly credulous, DO find their way into science when it suits them, with or without faith. Those who pursue the highly-credulous, hungry-for-something-to-believe-in form of faith are not well-suited to scientific work, no matter what they are taught. If it's not the Bible, it's Lysenkoism.
quote:How do you tell the difference? I could just as well claim that only your personality is leading you to believe the doctrines of the LDS church.
I'm sure my personality does play a part. There are plenty of personalities I might have had that would have driven me away from the church for one reason or another. When I'm already recognizing that my choice of religion is a subjective one, attributing some part of that choice to personality isn't exactly intimidating Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
It reports on a convention of atheists and the writer slyly points out all the religious aspects of the group. Fun to read.
Well, if you would equate a Star Trek convention as a kind of religion, then I would agree with you.
But in all seriousness, I don't think atheism is a religion.
But even if it was...so what?
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mucus: I'm reminded of this exchange:
quote: Mark Antony: You seem to forget that our war is not over yet. Cato and Skippy are still at large, given time they will raise another army. Caesar: And when they do I shall crush them. Mark Antony: I'm glad you're so confident ... some would call it hubris. Caesar: It's only hubris if I fail.
It reports on a convention of atheists and the writer slyly points out all the religious aspects of the group. Fun to read.
Define "religious". It seems that you think atheists are religious because some of them are passionate about their beliefs. That's not a standard definition.
Remember, atheists only share one belief.
Posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer (Member # 10416) on :
Christians don't always agree on things either.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer: Christians don't always agree on things either.
Right, but atheists only have to have one thing in common. I could literally be the opposite of someone on every belief and philosophy they have...but if we both don't believe in god, we're both atheists.
But again, if we're a religion, so what?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Lynn: I don't think the word you wanted was "slyly." I think you meant "smugly."
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
"...he said slyly." Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
I think he said it dryly, actually.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
Tom's a the-glass-is-half-full kind of guy-- but either way, the glass isn't dry.
Posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer (Member # 10416) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mucus: C3PO the Dragon Slayer: Thats a bit of a implication leap there. You claim that the scientists that make great discoveries tend to be arrogant. Later, you make the claim that religious figures tend to be less arrogant.
I would say that it is not so much that scientists that make great discoveries tend to be arrogant, but rather that making great discoveries tend to make one arrogant. Heck, doing anything great, whether sports, politics, science, or writing probably helps make one more arrogant simply because you have an actual reason to be arrogant.
I'm reminded of this exchange:
quote: Mark Antony: You seem to forget that our war is not over yet. Cato and Skippy are still at large, given time they will raise another army. Caesar: And when they do I shall crush them. Mark Antony: I'm glad you're so confident ... some would call it hubris. Caesar: It's only hubris if I fail.
As for why religious figures tend to be less arrogant, I would both disagree in some cases* and in the cases where that it not true I would point out that they may very well have done less on Earth to be arrogant about
* Depending on the figure, thinking that there may be a generic god is not inherently arrogant. Claiming that not only a specific god exists, but that he talks to you or has given you personal instructions (or in very extreme cases talks through you specifically) seems to be almost the definition of arrogance.
On the issue of making great discoveries leading to pride: I agree completely. I don't think it's inevitable, as long as the guy is constantly watching himself for signs of pigheadedness.
I did not claim that religious figures tend to be less arrogant. I claim that those who are visible, yet humble are more religious. From my limited experience, those who are not visible, are humble, and considerate of others are even more devout in their faith.
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
quote:Originally posted by lynn johnson: Dean Radin has studied ESP for several years, published in peer-reviewed journals.
lynn johnson, I went through the publications list on the linked DR website, and I think this only works for a certain definition of "peer-reviewed:" namely, reviewed by other people who are doing research in paranormal activity.*** The non-paranormal journal articles didn't seem to be about ESP, or they were in magazines for the lay press (e.g., Nature, Psychology Today, "Journal of Irreproducible Results").
I won't quibble with that use of "peer review," other than to comment that it might be implying a different level of review than might be the case. However, I could be missing something in my read, if your definition of "peer review" was not limited to parapsychology peers.
----
*** Edited to add:
These are the journals to which I am referring: Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing Journal of Scientific Exploration Shift: Journal of Alternatives (? I think this is the reference) Journal of Consciousness Studies Journal of the Society for Psychical Research Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine Noetic Sciences Review Journal of Parapsychology Subtle Energies and Energy Medicine European Journal of Parapsychology Journal of Parapsychology Parapsychology Review Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research
There is also a publication in the APA's Psychological Bulletin, but that seems to be a comment on a statistical meta-analysis, not an original article establishing the existence of ESP. Similarly for an article in British Journal of Psychology, which is about the collaboration between skeptics and paranormal investigators (a sociological take), not an article establishing the existence of ESP.
I also see a few things in Behavioral and Brain Sciences, which uses "open peer commentary" (not the same thing as "peer review," which is an exclusionary process).
----
Edited again to add: And I don't mean to say that this isn't a valid use of the term "peer review." I just mean to clarify what you mean by the term so that I understand the claim made about his work and its publication. I was expecting a peer base for the review broader than what I seemed to find, but as I said, I may be missing something.
Moreover, it may also be true that one cannot do this research and get it accepted for review by persons other than those already involved in this research -- and that may be a due to a bias that should be critiqued. My post is directed toward understanding what you meant, not whether you were right or wrong in saying it. I hope that makes sense and that asking about it (or the way I asked) does not cause offense.
[ November 18, 2007, 08:16 PM: Message edited by: ClaudiaTherese ]
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
CT, you're so cool.
Posted by soccer-head (Member # 11044) on :
quote:Originally posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer:
quote:Originally posted by Mucus: C3PO the Dragon Slayer: Thats a bit of a implication leap there. You claim that the scientists that make great discoveries tend to be arrogant. Later, you make the claim that religious figures tend to be less arrogant.
I would say that it is not so much that scientists that make great discoveries tend to be arrogant, but rather that making great discoveries tend to make one arrogant. Heck, doing anything great, whether sports, politics, science, or writing probably helps make one more arrogant simply because you have an actual reason to be arrogant.
I'm reminded of this exchange:
quote: Mark Antony: You seem to forget that our war is not over yet. Cato and Skippy are still at large, given time they will raise another army. Caesar: And when they do I shall crush them. Mark Antony: I'm glad you're so confident ... some would call it hubris. Caesar: It's only hubris if I fail.
As for why religious figures tend to be less arrogant, I would both disagree in some cases* and in the cases where that it not true I would point out that they may very well have done less on Earth to be arrogant about
* Depending on the figure, thinking that there may be a generic god is not inherently arrogant. Claiming that not only a specific god exists, but that he talks to you or has given you personal instructions (or in very extreme cases talks through you specifically) seems to be almost the definition of arrogance.
On the issue of making great discoveries leading to pride: I agree completely. I don't think it's inevitable, as long as the guy is constantly watching himself for signs of pigheadedness.
I did not claim that religious figures tend to be less arrogant. I claim that those who are visible, yet humble are more religious. From my limited experience, those who are not visible, are humble, and considerate of others are even more devout in their faith.
Sorry for being sort of lurky, but since you both made unsupportable claims, isn't this whole argument moot?
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Well then, I'll have to point you to the statistics on top scientists and atheism. Briefly, scientists as a whole are less religious than the general population, and this tendency increases towards the very top of the profession. So religious people are less likely to become scientists, and upon doing so, they are less likely to do the very best work. The obvious explanation is that people dislike applying a standard to their work that they aren't able to apply to their personal lives, and so they abandon either science or religion, in statistically significant percentages. That's harm right there. You are cutting off a large percentage of the population from being an effective part of the scientific community, because they lack, or are too honest to apply, the compartmentation that religious scientists need.
You seem to conveniently forget to point out that Mormonism specifically went against this trend, and that the entire study was conducted again for Mormon scientists and the religion still bucks this trend.
Not every religion either in theory or in practice requires scientists to choose sides.
Posted by lynn johnson (Member # 9620) on :
Claudia, you make a very good point. I agree that "peer reviewed" may be a bit narrow for Radin. On the other hand, I have been a peer reviewer for journals, only when they deal with areas I know something about and have some expertise in. I am sure it is the same for you. So I guess it doesn't surprise me to see Radin publishing in journals that are interested in ESP.
In any case, Radin's argument is that ESP is clearly established by many studies of similar effect size and significance levels. Since I have seen that at a personal level, I tend to think he is onto something.
There is a dilemma. I am not sure you could get main-line psychologists to serve as peer reviewers for psi publications, and you generally cannot get a pub into a journal that isn't appropriate for the topic. So where else will he publish?
Last year I read Blum's _Ghost Hunters_ and found her reporting the same kind of attitude a century ago. The scientific model that William James and others used was different than ours today, but the social dynamics were the same. Rather than look at the data, the whole enterprise was simply attacked and dismissed. These are areas where people have made up their minds, proving I suppose that scientists are only open-minded where they choose to be. It is not necessarily a general trait.
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
*nods
Getting to the point of being accepted for peer review, especially in one of the more standard scientific journals, is a huge hurdle. It's rather like deciding which hypotheses will be even entertained for testing -- so much work is done in the initial assumptions, and that is generally an unexamined process. It's surely a source of much bias.
Thanks for the clarification.
Posted by LargeTuna (Member # 10512) on :
Francis Collins, leader of the Human Genome Project, for example, believes religion and science can coexist harmoniously, and has faith that both Christianity and Darwinism are true to enough an extent to base a solid lifestyle and framework for a rough view of fact and reality.
This is just one example among many. Most of the really famous scientists are either moderately or fervently religious, while the ones who don't gain notoriety are the ones who tend to scoff at religious premises.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer: Francis Collins, leader of the Human Genome Project, for example, believes religion and science can coexist harmoniously, and has faith that both Christianity and Darwinism are true to enough an extent to base a solid lifestyle and framework for a rough view of fact and reality.
This is just one example among many. Most of the really famous scientists are either moderately or fervently religious, while the ones who don't gain notoriety are the ones who tend to scoff at religious premises.
Unfortunately, in the case of Collins, he doesn't use the same criteria to judge his faith that he uses to judge science. Luckily he doesn't let his religious faith interfere with his work.
Posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer (Member # 10416) on :
He holds that religious faith needs not interfere with his work. He believes that God could have been perfectly capable of creating the Universe through means that comply with the laws of physics he invented.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer: He holds that religious faith needs not interfere with his work. He believes that God could have been perfectly capable of creating the Universe through means that comply with the laws of physics he invented.
Exactly. Which I have no problem with it, although I would disagree with him about his beliefs.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: I'll point you to the studies later, it's half past midnight in Italy. Out of curiousity, though, suppose I were able to show (for the sake of argument) that no scientist of, say, Nobel-Prize caliber was religious, would you find that convincing? (I don't think this is true, the effect is not so large as that; I'm asking as a hypothetical.)
I realize that this is a hypothetical, but it is worth pointing out that it is rather emphatically not true. Several recent Nobel laureates are devoutly religious; many other renowned scientists are as well.
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
Rivka is correct. *shrug* The fact of what she said doesn't mean anything totally specific to me, but it's true...
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At least after seeing the contempt with which you treat people who disagree with you. You're like the worst Christian imperialists from the colonial era, thinking that your beliefs are the grand solution to everyone's problems. They're not, and were you to succeed, you would only make the world an emptier, less pleasant place.![[ROFL]](graemlins/rofl.gif)
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And just to be clear, the joke is not meant, necessarily, about you Scott.)
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