Did you know that atheism is a mental illness? You may have thought it was just the intellectual denial of a deity. But according to bwinwright on Allvoices, you’d be wrong:
Atheism is a mental illness because it is nothing more than a cry for attention. The truth is atheism is a false idea because it is based on the false premise that orderliness does not require intelligent direction.
Every argument with an atheist ends with this point. They can not overcome this one point, no matter how hard they try.
What exactly is orderliness? A rainforest grows randomly, yet it has order. It did not require intelligent direction. Neither do mountain views, galaxies, snowflakes, zebra stripes, or diamonds. I wonder why he thinks atheists cannot overcome “this one point, no matter how hard they try.” There is order in many things without intelligence behind it.
Of course many orderly things do have intelligence behind it — cities, technology, tools, etc. — but even bwinwright believes that order does not require intelligent direction, as I will soon explain.
Fake Atheists
He moves on to another unfounded assertion:
In reality, most of these people, claiming to be atheists, are really simply protesting against organized religion.
It seems Christians can’t stop at accusing former Christians not being “real Christians,” now “most atheists” are just pretending to be atheists because they don’t like religion.
I don’t know any atheists here like that. They call themselves atheists because, duh, they don’t believe in a god. Not liking religion is just part of the package. It’s like saying people who don’t believe in unicorns are just saying that because they don’t like the Unicorn Brushing Society.
How to Defeat the Mentally Ill (Atheists)
Bwinwright then claims to know the key to winning any argument with any atheist. In fact, he thinks it “pisses them off because they simply can’t figure out how to overcome it.” What is this amazing arguing tool? Will it piss me off?
I ask them to give me a single example of anything, outside of what they call nature, that came into being without intelligent direction. Of course, they can not. Everything manufactured by man required intelligent direction, right? Of course.
Let’s try to answer this question. So anything outside of “nature” that came into being without intelligent direction. Okay. What’s outside of nature?
Er, nothing.
Or perhaps he means “natural” — that is, what is made without intelligent intervention. If so, then of course it’s not possible to answer, because it would be counter to the definition.
So we can’t answer his tricky question! Therefore, bwinwright wins the argument! Genius!
Are you pissed off yet? Yeah, me neither — but we’re mentally ill, so maybe we’re just slow to anger.
Theists Don’t Believe in Intelligent Design
But wait — he doesn’t think he has an answer for that question, either. But in fact, he could answer it — and that answer is “GOD.”
If order requires intelligent direction to come into being, and God is orderly, then he must have been intelligently designed by another intelligent being. And then that intelligent being would be orderly, so it must have been intelligently designed, and so on. So when he says:
I just keep going back to my strength, the one thing I do know is that ORDER REQUIRES INTELLIGENT DIRECTION. It is really nothing more than common sense.
He’s not being consistent. He doesn’t actually believe “order requires intelligent direction,” because he believes God, something with order, did not require intelligent direction. It’s only a rhetorical tactic that he does not apply to himself. He says that is the one thing he knows, but we see that he doesn’t even believe it himself.
But maybe I should be easier on bwinwright, because he at least admits we have a superior understanding of evolution:
Atheists like to resort to their superior understanding of evolution and natural selection to explain how orderliness was established.
We sure do.
His whole argument is a massive failure to understand entropy.
From Fundies Say the Darndest Things:
“One of the most basic laws in the universe is the Second Law of Thermodynamics. This states that as time goes by, entropy in an environment will increase. Evolution argues differently against a law that is accepted EVERYWHERE BY EVERYONE. Evolution says that we started out simple, and over time became more complex. That just isn’t possible: UNLESS there is a *giant outside source of energy supplying the Earth with huge amounts of energy.* If there were such a source, scientists would certainly know about it.”
SOLAR FAIL!!!!
I maintain that 75% of arguments with YEC/ID-proponentists would be avoided entirely if they simply understood thermodynamics PROPERLY.
Damn! I just wanted to declare bwinwright an EPIC FAIL, but you trumped me…
Can anybody please list The Official Progression of FAILs(tm), like
FAIL/EPIC FAIL/GLOBAL FAIL/SOLAR FAIL/GALACTIC FAIL/CLUSTER FAIL/COSIMIC FAIL???
bwinwright is fractally wrong.
If they understood thermodynamics properly, they wouldn’t be pushing YEC/ID.
I don’t think ID grew out of a failure to understand thermodynamics…
Granted, I didn’t follow the theory that closely…
No, ID grew out of a failure to understand science at all…
I kind of disagree with this statement. I would say ID came from the fear of trying to understand science.
ID is just creationism repackaged to get around the Supreme Court ruling that creationism cannot be taught in science classes. Creationists didn’t understand science then, and they don’t understand it now.
Intelligent design is creationism with a different name. Literally search-and-replace. Pseudoscience. An attempt to cover a religious agenda with a secular mask.
Also, if the pseudoscience known as “intelligent design” ever did get taught in public schools, it would open the way for these religions to be taught as well (not just Christianity)…
Muslims:
http://www.islamonline.net/english/Contemporary/2004/09/Article02.shtml
Raelians:
http://www.rael.org/rael_content/rael_summary.php
Hare Krishnas:
http://krishna.org/life-comes-from-life/
and the Moonies, to which Johnathan Wells of the Discovery Institute belongs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Wells_%28intelligent_design_advocate%29
I wonder how fundies would feel about that???
ID has now interest in science except to muddy the waters enough to create an impresion that ID and science are just two view points both of which are equally valid.
Ok, I have a question.
And, please tell me if this is a low blow.
(also, apologies for using wikipedia. i’m home for the summer and my books are in storage.)
From the charming Sam Harris: “it is considered normal in our society to believe that the Creator of the universe can hear your thoughts while it is demonstrative of mental illness to believe that he is communicating with you by having the rain tap in Morse code on your bedroom window.”
Correct me if I’m wrong, but Harris seems here to be making a rather direct comparison between religious belief and mental illness. I only mention this because I hear a good bit of this sort of comment from non-theists, and I have never before heard it from a theist.
Obviously, the dude referenced above has some serious issues, and I would like to just insert very quickly here that by no means should what he writes be construed to speak for me in any way. However, is it wrong of me to feel slightly amused that finally someone is ‘turning the tables’ on non-theists? Even if he is crazy, misguided, and perhaps more than a little incompetent?
I mean, is it a common problem, that non-theists are accused of being mentally ill?
I suppose it could be a fluke, and that just last year some prominent voice in the xian community directly compared atheists with the mentally ill, but somehow I get the feeling that this is typically a one way street.
cf. wikipedia
(Harris, Sam (2004). The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason. W.W. Norton & Company, p.72.)
I think Harris is just pointing out that a very fine line exists between what society considers (possibly valid) religious experience, and what it considers mental illness.
Now we are mentally ill? What happenned with the so common “devil speaks trough you to deceive us”?
– Robert M. Pirsig
The Sun?
Proof that a wee bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.
an external source of energy reqyired you say?…like the sun? Wow…oh wait…is that sun or son? LOL
In the comments the author of the piece writes this:
He isn’t sure if the Earth revolves around the sun or the other way around. What’s more, he thinks it’s all about “belief” – that what people believe is somehow more important than what actually is. That pretty much sums up everything I’ve seen of the creationist/intelligent design movement – getting at what’s really going on is not important. Only convincing people that they should believe in your story of what is going on is important, and if enough people believe your story then you win – facts and reason and logic and observed evidence be damned.
If it makes any difference, gravitation is a force that acts on both bodies. It APPEARS as if the earth revolves around the sun, but, in reality, both the sun and earth revolve around a common point, the barycenter.
Nope, it doesn’t make a difference for the argument :-)
And by the way… what happened to the other masses involved?
even the belief in a god evolved lol
great post!
Ewww, aren’t those atheists with all their superior understanding just awful? Who allowed them to understand things anyway? Why weren’t they discouraged from understanding nature like proper Christian children should be? What is wrong with people (everyone besides True ChristiansTM)?
[i]giant outside source of energy supplying the Earth with huge amounts of energy[/i]
I laughed so hard. Look up into the sky sometimes during the day.
Clearly this outside source of energy must be Tonatiuh. Now if you’ll excuse me I must sacrifice a toddler so the spaniards don’t invade.
Christians believe God created space and time. Like the author of a novel, God is “outside the book” and not defined by the same “rules”. As such, no God-creator is needed. His rhealm is incomprehensible to us.
The author’s assertion isn’t entirely untrue: many atheists DO confuse God with the people who claim to represent Him and deny God based on bad religious experiences in their past. For awhile I was one of them.
I follow you on Twitter, Daniel… some very interesting posts once in awhile.
So then, what is the definition of ‘outside of spacetime’? Because, not even the concept of thought, being, existence itself makes any sense in that regard. It is just an empty string of words. A convenient loophole that apparently easily convinces sloppy thinkers.
Outside of spacetime, there can by definition be no change. No change means no change of state from one to the next. This includes every single thought. This includes the act of creation. Moreover, creation itself directly contradicts the alleged perfection of the creator. The Word as an act, as any other subsequent act, breaks perfection.
It’s very easy to say that something exists in a different sense of existence and doesn’t experience time as we do and therefore doesn’t even require time to do anything and therefore can remain perfect while acting within or into a changing universe. See, there I said it. It also means exactly nothing. It is just a gramatically more or less correct string of words, completely irrelevant to objective reality. Apparently God is either an interesting semantic wrinkle, or just simply the ultimate gap.
I would say “problematic”. I wouldn’t go so far as to say “meaningless”.
Felix, first you ask the definition of “outside of spacetime” and then start the very next paragraph with “Outside of spacetime…by definition”. Make up your mind, my friend.
Again, think of a Novel where the characters within the Novel come alive within its pages. The author is totally outside the novel, but his pen defines the existence of the characters within it. Those characters can never fully comprehend the author, ’cause they cannot leave the novel and experience the author’s “world”. They were created by the author’s words. The author was created in a totally different fashion they could not possibly comprehend.
Obviously, this example cannot fully explain an ageless, timeless God who created all that we know, including a free-willed humanity. But this example does make a creator-less God a little more comprehensible. IF an intelligent being created all that we know, obviously that being is going to be incomprehensible to us.
“Again, think of a Novel where the characters within the Novel come alive within its pages.”
Analogies do not prove common causality.
Even if a incomprehensible god exists “outside of time and space” (whatever that means), to meddle in this world requires interaction with time and space and that would leave evidence (and I don’t mean images burnt into toast).
Nobody is trying to “prove” anything with the analogy… but it does help one wrap one’s brain around a concept.
Yes, the incomprehensible that we can know. That which was created in a way we can’t understand but certainly is the one we are talking about. The author who does something froma a position where doing anything is impossible. Where being is impossible. Where there is no where. Coming all the way from gods who were present, who posed as people, who shook your hand and smote your enemies before your eyes. That is exactly the point I was getting at – when God is defined as that which cannot be defined, that which we can comprehend (a part of) precisely because it is so incomprehensibly grand, it defines itself as the greatest gap of all.
The person called ignorance. Friendly guy. Always has something you can add to. The deist god who is not. Just because.
Sorry if this seems a little rude or condescending or simplistic to you. You probably think it’s a very narrow-minded way to see things.
And yet in itself it omits any necessity to play ontological games. Defining irreality into real existence can be easily done on paper; done centuries ago by Aquinas and others, by Plato much longer ago, or Anselm again more recently. Nothing they wrote added any understanding of reality. It demonstrated that any premise can be logically supported, and that understanding can be simulated.
What is needed though is a support of the premise that doesn’t beg the question. I stop assuming one god earlier, because there’s no reason not to.
Felix,
If a being created all that we know, that being would be able to interact with His creation however He saw fit. The whole of that being would be incomprehensible, yet specific interactions might be pondered.
There is indeed a God, of that I am certain. The Bible was not spoken into existence by this God, but is instead a collection of writings by people over thousands of years – fallible people – sharing their experiences. Much can be learned from those writings. Basing one’s life on literal interpretation of those writings is folly. Those writings, however, are not the point. The point is the Creator. Even many Christians forget that.
It is my opinion that science will eventually prove the existence of an intelligent Creator. Until that time, there will be many of us who accept His existence without full concrete proof.
The creator you propose just seems too convenient to me. Everything we don’t know, everything we know, everything we may never be capable of knowing, and everything we will know in the future is automatically consistent with him. I understand why you believe this and why it seems necessary and certain to you. You appear to be a good parent – that alone makes you ok in my book. You have faith but keep thinking, and that’s good enough. :)
*****It is my opinion that science will eventually prove the existence of an intelligent Creator. Until that time, there will be many of us who accept His existence without full concrete proof.*****
Give Victor Stenger’s book “God: The Failed Hypothesis” a read to see what science currently has to say about the possibility of an intelligent creator.
I can buy your crazy “outside of space time” god who is literally outside all that we can possibly know…but I can’t buy A. that said god moves between the natural and the supernatural and B. that he has done anything do deserve any praise, or any authority over human decisions. There is no evidence for anything that we can’t fully or reasonably explain with scientific theory/data/models…if there was, it would be the most incredible discovery of human civilization. But alas there is nothing.
So one can only conclude:
1. There is no god
2. There is a god, but it has no say in any of the natural matters of the universe.
Here is something to ponder: String Theory supporters argue that the universe we live in has at least eleven dimensions. Our senses can’t perceive most of them, of course. But they probably exist. Personally, I think “God” is one of those dimensions, but that’s just me. If God is one of those dimensions, and is intelligent, and “bonds” everything together… well, that’s just mind blowing. If we eventually learn that sound actually holds everything together (as some theories have postulated), that’s going to give those of us who believe God “spoke” everything into existence something to talk about. God as one of the dimensions of existence would definitely be an interesting perspective on a God that is in all places at all times.
“I think “God” is one of those dimensions, but that’s just me.”
I’m a little confused as to how that could be. Let’s set aside the fact that I think string theory is bunk and likely on it’s way to the dustbin of history. Let’s also set aside the fact that string theorists can’t commit on how many of these dimensions there are.
Each of those dimensions is a shriveled up knot that exists at each point of space. They are posited to exist simply to give the ‘strings’ additional dimensions to vibrate in, so the calculations come out right. I’ve heard some odd definitions of God over the years, but the notion that God is an mathematical place-holder is a new one on me.
To date, String Theory has provided no testable experiments. Calling it “String Theory” is a bit of a misnomer (I blame the media hype on that one… perhaps Brian Greene… hard to say. :) )
It’s mathematically elegant, certainly — but is still wholly unverified. (Ironically, I see many YEC’s believe that String Theory is somehow better supported than Evolution; it must be strange living in the looking-glass world.)
How could a dimension be sentient though? And if God *were* a dimension, that would make him a part of the natural world, and thus not supernatural. Isn’t this just a rather bend-over-backwards attempt to try and find a way to fit God into reality?
I’d accept that the statement “God set all the knobs for the universe parameters, popped the big bang, and went to the pub to have a pint” is as PROVABLE as saying “the big bang occurred spontaneously” — although I’d argue back that the introduction of God does not make the whole scenario any less complex.
Why not just say “Hey I believe ____, but I acknowledge that it’s irrational.” I find astrology fascinating (and at times, fun) — but I wholly recognize that my fascination with it is completely irrational; I am not basing it on anything beyond confirmation bias and the Barnum effect. Why not simply say the same thing about a Theistic belief?
I agree, God is like homeopathy. It is so diluted that it does not matter anymore that this god exists or not.
“I think “God” is one of those dimensions, but that’s just me.”
God cannot be part of those dimensions if he created this universe.
He must even be outside those 11 dimensions.
Right now string theory is not proven yet. But at least we have ways to test it to be true. Now waiting untill the LHC can provide us the answers or tell us that string theory is completely wrong. .
@Olaf –
I’m curious, how would you propose testing String Theory? (I’m not being snarky, I’m genuinely interested. I’m not a physicist but more of a physics enthusiast)
It was my understanding the “next step” for ST was the discovery of the Higgs-Boson via the LHC. Are there some alternate routes that haven’t been explored?
Aaron:
The LHC won’t be able to prove string theory. It can, however, probably prove whether supersymmetry is real, which is a fundamental prerequisite for string theory (with the exception of a few exotic variants of string theory).
So it’s an actual attempt to disprove ST, cool!
Personally, I’m skeptical about ST, but I’m excited about this experiment simply because it will unsettle some of the stagnation in that field — if it’s disproved, we can all move on with our lives, and if it’s not-disproven we can at least make some progress forward in developing further experiments.
Regardless, I hope they get the LHC working right, this time. :)
@Aaron,
one glimps of the string theory could be that the gravity inverse square law is no inverse square at all at size of 0.1 mm or less in I remember correctly the size. But this is only when we are lucky that one of the dimensions is big enough. Also trying to measure gravity attraction between 0.1 mm sizes is tricky.
If we can detect a none inverse square law of gravity this size then string theory “might” be correct. If not detected then we still do not know for sure.
But at this time no know experiment has confirmed the existence of the string theory.
Wow – what a cool theory. A creator god who lives outside of time and space.
Any actual evidence for the existence of this entity?
I have this really cool theory that there is an alternate god who lives next door to your creator god. He’s a little less ambitious than the creator guy. He could create universes and stuff, but instead he just kind of likes to create an animal or two and throw it in to the creator god’s world. (He claims responisbility for the platypus and the tree sloth.) Mostly he just likes to hand out at his pool and eat Twinkies though.
Anyway, this alternate god really wants you to give me all your money. If not he’s going to release a horde of geese on your home. Don’t believe me? Want proof beyond a cool theory?
So would I.
“Mostly he just likes to hand out at his pool and eat Twinkies though.”
Is this god named Meatwad, Frylock, or Master Shake??? ;)
LRA, does this mean Biblegod prefaces most of his statements with, “Gentlemen, BEHOLD!”
LOL! As long as he doesn’t tell us over and over that his “dad owns a dealership”…
LRA, most people know those guys aren’t gods. At least I’m pretty sure they’re just really smart and cool junk food. However, if you have evidence of their omnipotence, omnisicence, benevolence, or that they created earth from the 8th parallel universe, please correct me. (Wait – I get it. This must be the holy trinity!!! I actually understand christianity now, I think…they are separate (meatball, fries, and shake), but they are ONE (part of one McMeal). I see it clearly now! I think I’ll go to McD’s so that the trinity can in-dwell in me. That should make John C happy.
Anything outside the space-time of our universe cannot have any effect on anything within the space time of our universe. Thus, your god can be safely ignored.
PStryder,
How do you reach this conclusion? Is this First PStryder 1:1 speaking? That was a ridiculous statement to make. Of course a creative being that brought space-time into existence could interact with that creation.
“Of course a creative being that brought space-time into existence could interact with that creation.”
But that would leave physical evidence, and as of yet none has been provided.
And as of 100 years ago, lots of evidences for lots of things we currently know to be true were not yet discovered either…
So god exists because you say so, is incomprehensible except for the parts that are because you say so, and has left evidence that we will find eventually because you say so?
I think we’ve found the common theme here.
Because you say so.
@Sunny Day
I think you’ve just summed up almost any argument for god that I’ve every seen!
Hahahahahahahahahaha!
How is it that God is incomprehensible but DOnny comprehends him and comprehends that he is incomprehensible?
Because he’s full of hostility and hate and says so, dammit!
Hahhahahahahahahhaaa!
God exists because we don’t know if God exists?
Ahh…I hear the man of pride (adam) speaking, he sees only in one (limited) plane.
Not you Donny, that was directed at PStryder.
The characters in a novel do not actually exist. That’s kind of an important difference.
…says the man who entirely missed the point of the example…
Sure, from our perspective they don’t exist. But how are they supposed to know that?
So you’re saying that this being or creature or force or what-have-you that you want to call a god exists in another dimension (“realm” as you put it) with different rules of time/space/energy/causality than our own; and it’s essentially unlimited in what it can do “there”.
Then this being decides to create ANOTHER universe, this time limited by the laws of physics, perhaps as some sort of experiment? Or perhaps boredom? He was feeling artistic? Whatever the reason, let’s just say he does it and creates us humans to be tiny little limited versions of himself.
At this point, you’d think one of two things would happen. Either he’d take an active day-to-day involved role in this universe (and when I say active, I mean like, appearing in person using his newly created rules of light and vibration to walk around and talk to everyone every day, not just “signs” and “prophets”); or he’d press “GO” on the universe simulator machine and do all he could not to be detected, so the experiment would run clean.
Instead, we get a weird mish-mash of stories where he appears to some people but not all, tells some people one thing and other people an other thing, leaves vague moral rules in the form of allegory and parable, makes a guy to speak for him for a few years but then gets purposely martyred, and then disappears completely but promises that he’ll be back to turn everything off one day and bring the people who believed in all that vagueness over to his crazy physics-free universe.
So, either God doesn’t exist, or he exists and REALLY likes fucking with us.
…OR, dear CoffeeJedi, you don’t have all possibilities wrapped up neatly in your mind. In fact THAT is the fact of the matter. The evidence for this FACT is that there are millions of people in this world who are aware of possibilities outside the limited either/or scenarios you just listed.
Sorry for the duplicate comment everyone. My first one was stuck waiting for moderation because I swore. I re-posted it without the f-bomb hoping it would just get removed, but now there’s 2… whoops.
Anyway.
I saw in another post that you believe that God exists, but the authors of the Bible didn’t get it down correctly. I suppose that could be true, but it still doesn’t explain WHY he would run the universe in this way. If he’s not a supreme cosmic jerk, he might be simply insane I suppose, there’s another possibility.
Yet they all have contradicting impressions of said God, do they not?
God is a woman, God is a guy, God is legion, God is one, God is love, God is hate, God cares, God doesn’t care, God made Messiahs, God is bound to the same wheel of samsara as we are…
As I mentioned in another thread, God’s unknowable. It’s impossible to know which version is right (especially since each version says the other versions are wrong). We can’t trust the writings, we can’t trust our senses, we can’t trust the warm fuzzy feelings, we can’t trust testimonials… so why should we care at all?
It is a common tactic from believers to defend the concept of belief itself. They know that they cannot defend their actual religious beliefs, so they try to defend the general concepts instead. Naturally this is deceptive, because when confronted they don’t believe in all those things, they believe in a very particular subset of those many religious beliefs. They are aware that their subset of beliefs conflicts with the vast majority of the other beliefs, yet are willing to ignore that because there is no other way to ‘battle unbelief.’
In order to defend belief in Jesus for example, they must also defend belief in blood sacrifice and holy prostitution. Naturally when challenged they will deny those beliefs, which contradicts the position they initially take that all belief systems taken together imply the existence of a ‘god’ of some kind.
So, Donny… think deeper. Study history. You will find that Christian beliefs (a large range of possibilities) are based on Jewish beliefs (another range of possibilities that a Christian would often disagree with) which were in turn based on Canaanite beliefs, which both Christians and Jews would say were ridiculous. Interesting, isn’t it? When you trace the roots of Christianity back through history, it becomes just another cultic temple on a hill where people sacrificed animals. Nothing special about it at all, just another bunch of bronze age herders who thought their god required a little bit of blood now and then to make the crops grow.
They were ignorant, so they believed. What is your excuse?
Good point. The whole idea of sacrificing or shedding blood for sins was pagan too, and christianity borrowed the idea, thinking that this was the only way to appease god(s). The idea that someone needs to be tortured to death for “forgiveness of sins” is atrocious and should offend any rational and moral person.
What if they are pro-death-penalty rational and moral people? (leaving out the torture bit, which isn’t really necessary, since sacrificed animals were not tortured to death)
Actually if a god would exist in the fifth dimension or beyond, then this god woud be so tiny that even a liliputter would call him tiny.
There is no way that a god living in the other tiny weeny curled up dimension would have any effect on our huge universe. Can you imagine a god the size of a flee?
Good point. Although it won’t influence the new age crap arguments about the magic of other dimensions.
Well, I meant “dimension” in the comic book sense. It can be a parallel universe, or another realm of 3D space “on top” of this one that you can travel between. I didn’t mean dimension in the height/width/time sense.
Yes I understand, but those dimensions are still curled up in our 4D spacetime, about the size of a atom or less. If you are referring to the string theory.
But if you would believe that there is a 12th dimension, maybe our 11 dimensions are curled up in this 12th, but so far we cannot detect those and there is unlikely that a god would be able to access us, the same way we are unable to access the 4th and higher dimensions. They are just too smal.
Two words:
Occam’s Razor.
Introducing a 12th dimension simply to satisfy naked assertions that God exists is DEFINITELY multiplying entities beyond necessity.
When I was a kid, for a couple years I had a fun theory that we were some god-kid’s third grade science project. I wasn’t sure he was going to get an A either. The whole thing seemed kinda sloppy and done-the-night-before, you know?
Flowers… @};-
Jasmin
That’s just another way to word the fameous argument from design. Yes a watch is a product of an intelegent maker but that is not in any way proof that so is the universe and yes an author create the story while being outside it and not subjected to the same rules is not an argument for the existence of the big author in the sky.
So you’re saying that this being or creature or force or what-have-you that you want to call a god exists in another dimension (”realm” as you put it) with different rules of time/space/energy/causality than our own; and it’s essentially unlimited in what it can do “there”.
Then this being decides to create ANOTHER universe, this time limited by the laws of physics, perhaps as some sort of experiment? Or perhaps boredom? He was feeling artistic? Whatever the reason, let’s just say he does it and creates us humans to be tiny little limited versions of himself.
At this point, you’d think one of two things would happen. Either he’d take an active day-to-day involved role in this universe (and when I say active, I mean like, appearing in person using his newly created rules of light and vibration to walk around and talk to everyone every day, not just “signs” and “prophets”); or he’d press “GO” on the universe simulator machine and do all he could not to be detected, so the experiment would run clean.
Instead, we get a weird mish-mash of stories where he appears to some people but not all, tells some people one thing and other people an other thing, leaves vague moral rules in the form of allegory and parable, makes a guy to speak for him for a few years but then gets purposely martyred, and then disappears completely but promises that he’ll be back to turn everything off one day and bring the people who believed in all that vagueness over to his crazy physics-free universe.
So, either God doesn’t exist, or he exists and REALLY likes messing with us.
CoffeeJedi,
No, He lives within His people, even is their very life. That’s why He came in the flesh, as a man. We keep looking up in the sky, but He cant be found there, is spirit and consequently lives within redeemed, renewed man(kind) where anyone has made room at the “inn” of their very innermost being, the center. The resulting transformation is one of love, of mercy, of tenderness, Christlikeness. Christ IN you being the “mystery” of the ages as Colossians 1:27 says.
Jesus in disguise.
John, I know that that’s your personal philosophy, and its a nice cuddly feel-good one at that. I know other religious people, Christians, Jews, and Pagans that share your same belief.
But I wasn’t really asking you man. I was just giving my opinion on Donny’s position and making sure that I understood what he meant.
Maybe you should direct your comment at him and you guys can debate whether God lives outside or within.
Fair enough. Its just that it would be nice to see someone with a disparate, non-traditional “atheist” viewpoint once in a while who has a more accurate understanding of the true gospel message, thats all friend.
Dude, I think your point would come across better if you would just stop using so many metaphors and words in quotes and just say how you think it all works.
Like I said before, I know plenty of people like you who believe in this spiritual togetherness thing, its just the Transcendentalists’ “oversoul” idea. I’m a member of a UU church (the fact that I’m an atheist humanist doesn’t bother anyone) and I hear it all the time. It’s a lovely idea (though I treat it more as a psychological trick and not actually physical reality) But the difference is that everyone else just states plainly what they mean, they don’t dress it up in symbolism.
Sure, I appreciate that, thx. The challenge is that sometimes (most times) the metaphorical/allegorical is a much “true’er” , cleaner representation in a sense, being that spiritual language, pure truth is difficult to communicate in plain text, plain text being so…plain? ha.
The fairy tales play an important part, are a clue. But of course as soon as they are even mentioned the “adult” mind automatically seeks to dismiss it, discredit them because we are “all grown up”. Jesus said if we wanted to enter into this kingdom of God in the here and now we would have to approach it like a mere child, foolishly, trustingly, etc. But of course since we dont trust God (childs father) we wont allow ourselves to be made to look foolish, childlike, etc. Simple, childlike faith, humility, emptiness is the gateway into the kingdom. Its so simple that we dismiss it. Its love-birthed, innocent and pure. Its beautiful.
Sorry I’m so simple, ha.
By ‘truer’ John means ‘easier to misrepresent.’ His complete lack of respect for the truth has been shown many times.
He’s just a wacko street preacher who has found a larger and more public box to stand on.
By the way, CoffeeJedi, I agree with the positions John C has so far posted in regards to Christ living within us. God is all around us, of that fact we have no say… inviting Him to reside within us and transform our lives is our choice.
Reposted to reply to your repost:
…OR, dear CoffeeJedi, you don’t have all possibilities wrapped up neatly in your mind. In fact THAT is the fact of the matter. The evidence for this FACT is that there are millions of people in this world who are aware of possibilities outside the limited either/or scenarios you just listed.
Sure there are other scenarios. It just that none of them make any sense.
We observe a universe that shows signs of an INTERNAL logic and order. The only reason why it needs to have order, is that it wouldn’t be here if it didn’t. There very well might have been other universes that didn’t have the laws of physics and then “fell apart”. The one thing it doesn’t show however, is any outside influence from another universe or a being from another universe.
If God created everything, why would he go through all the trouble of creating this giant universe but then remove himself from it almost completely. There’s no evidence in physics, astronomy, or biology for him. The only signs we have are some disjointed accounts in ancient writings. There is absolutely no compelling reason why a higher being would create a whole world full of people, remove the traces of his involvement, and then set up some kind of moral “trap” to let some of us join him.*
Its a nice exercise in philosophy I suppose: debating why its inherently moral to be “good”. But as a humanist, I can find those answers from within, I don’t need extra-dimensional beings to rely on.
*Granted, I don’t know if you actually believe fundamentalist Christianity’s own brand of moral trap. I know several Christians who think that all good people get to heaven regardless of faith.
You claim that Yahweh creating space and time is like a human writing a book. And then you claim that this idea shows why Yahweh doesn’t need a creator. The problem is that you are also claiming that every one of your supporting examples is in stark contrast to the idea you’re trying to support, ie: every novelist was created, every creative work you’ve ever witnessed was done by something that needed a creator. Either I’m particularly thick-headed today, or your point is obscured, or the one I think is most likely: this is a clear-cut case of special pleading.
I associate God with the outright hatred you’ve shown in some of your former posts.
So, they believe snakes used to talk, giving birth used to be pain-free, humans used to live for hundreds of years, and we lost all of this because a talking snake that tricked one of us into eating an apple… and WE’RE crazy?
We’re the one who deny evidence when faith, their trait they hold so dear, requires a complete lack of evidence by definition? It’s no wonder they get compared to sheep so often. Dumb as goddamn livvestock these guys…
No, not an accurate rendering.
Who are you to demand accuracy when you consistently lie to defend your beliefs?
@Daniel: Great post. One or two thoughts:
* “Neither do mountain views, galaxies, zebra stripes, or diamonds.” Diamond is a very orderly substance – that’s why it’s so hard. The trouble is, as soon as you say something is ordered (like diamond, like a crystal, like a snowflake) the answer is that God made it so. QED.
* An orderly god needs an orderly god to create him or her (or it). Reminds me of (sorry for the probable misquote): Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite them. Little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.
* I guess the pic is not of the writer, but do you see how “happy” the cat looks with his helmet. They know so much more than we do.
“Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite them. Little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.”
It’s turtles all the way down!!! :P
I feel like half of our country is inbred. How do you get to be so stubbornly stupid as not to believe the theory of evolution? Grown, granted largely undereducated, people being so blissfully ignorant! It truly embarasses me. These people might as well argue that the world is flat. America needs a Renaissance, this dark age has gone on too far.
Belief in God does not exclude belief in evolution. I believe in both. Read this essay in favor of Theistic Evolution:
http://theistic-evolution.com/theisticevolution.html
You do not believe evolution, you accept the evidence presented in support of the theory as valid and true, therefore validating the theory as true.
PStryder, do you live in momma’s basement? This is the second unintelligent post I’ve read from you. I’m beginning to think you’re very young.
PStryder is right. You don’t “believe” in evolution. Either you understand it or not. And he was also right about space-time. You’re the one making unintelligent comments.
More condescending, patronizing from Donny.
Your eloquent, powerful oratory, consummate delivery, and compelling message are turning the tide of the human spirit. You have accomplished what you came here to accomplish… you have won a soul for Christ… your hatred has worked its magic… I’m converting to Christianity… this hate-filled Christian must be a shining beacon of the Lord Jesus Christ’s pure hate… the invective has won over a soul at last… the spewed vitriol is so persuasive… I’m shaking all over with the power of the spirit (or is it repressed laughter?)… I’m becoming a Christian…
You do not believe evolution…
Where your definition of “believe” is “to accept based on faith.” That’s not the definition I use. When I say “I believe,” I mean “I hold it to be true.” So yes, I do believe in evolution, but I believe it based on the vast scientific evidence for it, not based on unevidenced faith.
Then god is responsible for over 200,000 deaths from the 2004 Tsunami?
I think Laplace said it best;
Napoleon: “You have written this huge book on the system of the world without once mentioning the author of the universe.
Laplace: “Sire, I had no need of that hypothesis.”
In other words, it adds nothing to claim “this is how god did it”. Hypotheses and theories work fine without adding entities.
Fentwin,
You’re going down a tired road that has been answered many times by a concept called “Free Will”. For true free will to exist, bad things will happen along with the good. If only good things happened, and bad things were prevented, that would not be true free will.
If I were to stick my finger into a light socket and grab you while reaching for help, you’d be negatively affected by my free will (and stupid decision). The shock you’d receive wouldn’t be based on whether or not you were “innocent”. It would just happen.
Likewise, for true human freewill to exist, bad people are going to have an impact on good people, period. Bad things are going to happen. Good things are going to happen.
A perfect parent doesn’t prevent their child from experiencing all negatives in life. Such a child would end up living in a bubble and would not be able to make it in the real world. Humanity as a whole learns from tragedy. Preventing all tragedies would just be bad parenting.
And IF there is an existence beyond this realm, it’s not such a bad thing for those 200,000 people to enter into that existence as a result of the tsunami.
What we learn from tragedy is to cope with further tragedy. If all tragedy is prevented, there is no need at all to learn such. Your argument refutes itself I’m afraid. Unless there’s tragedy in heaven that we need to be prepared to overcome of course.
Is that ALL we learn from tragedy, Felix? I think think of a few other things, and if we were to have a brainstorming session I am sure plenty of other positives could be listed. For example: tragedies sometimes remind us of what is important in life. Volunteers sometimes take leave from such mundane jobs as, say, day trading to help other humans. Some might give up the purchase of that next gas guzzler to instead help a victim of a tragedy with the money. We might learn that interaction with those outside our borders isn’t so scary. I can go on and on, as I’m sure you could as well.
Tragedy is a heavy word. Someone who needs a little help will find someone to help him, and someone who needs great help will too – but also often not. If good and bad exist because of free will, then free will can not be there to deal with good and bad. This is setting the cause as a precondition to itself.
Morality as an evolved trait supports survival. Free will is the seemingly neccessary addition to validate the assertion of purposeful creation in the face of suffering. We’re right in the middle of the classic theodicy problem. It remains unsolved, and free will only extends the argumentation. As the creationists need to add more and more miraculous interventions to support their ideas, the philosophical theologian needs more and more abstract concepts, without ever getting anywhere.
In the end it remains a process of defining things into existence to fulfill an emotional need.
I’m a Deist, and I have often wondered about tragedies that could easily have been prevented by an all powerful being. It would be a pretty simple choice for ay of us if we were God, of course we would stop the tsunami, its a no-brainer. The only logical explanation is, if there is a god at all, he/she/it is either aloof an uncaring or sees a convoluted benefit for human tragedy that we can’t see yet.
I’m an atheist, but I entertain different forms of god that I’ve heard about for “plausibility.”
Most people talk of the omniscient god, the one who is aware of every hair on our head and thoughts therein, and can somehow track billions of people all at the same time and hear their prayers and somewhat arbitrarily intervene, which to the recipients of that attention always feels like “proof,” but from the analysis, amounts to a random coincidence and based on statistical chance that something good would happen to some people. So I was thinking yesterday, Hmm. Is god really watching me go to the bathroom? People-watching can sometimes be interesting, but I’m skeptical of the notion of a god who knows everything, even if he designed himself so perfect that his attention can be everywhere and not mix up the records. Hardly anything is this fascinating for so long that you never need to put in a DVD of “Kids in the Hall” or blow an afternoon watching all the Rocky movies back to back. But we cannot comprehend his actions nor his intent. He must be tireless and this soap opera is never boring to him. Do you notice when you get to your 30s, he seems to put you on fast forward. Curious.
Then sometimes we think of the Intelligent Design god, you know the one with the earth just so far from the sun and a habitable atmosphere just so humans could exist. As you mention though, it’s quite a violent earth at times in some places more than others. If god could design the earth and the atmosphere for habitability, then wouldn’t he have done something about the cracks and the seismic shifts and the nature of water to carry a giant wave to kill 200k people? That doesn’t seem to fit the definition of habitability. The nature of the earth itself is cause for human deaths and it seems only somewhat of an afterthought that it’s safe for humans at all. I can make the temperature just so and make so much water so that you can live, but scientifically, if god exists outside the scientific realm itself that humans claim we were not meant to comprehend, he still could not create water without the destructive power of movement (forgive my lack of physics terminology) or an earth that would stay still and not quake up.
The type of god who made the world and let it be, I guess they call that the watchmaker? is also really implausible. It implies a creator who has decided not to interfere at all. At some point, I thought this was the most plausible god, but after some deep thinking, I now consider it the least plausible. There’s no justification to create a world and let the people live on it and then not have any concern for your creation at all, unless maybe you’re unhappy with it. The universe that I conceive appears to some as the same universe they are unwilling to accept does not have at least some hand of god to make it spin. I don’t require that excuse, science really does account for most of it so far.
I do, by the way, accept the possibility that there are beyond space and/or time, things we have not discovered, but when we do, those will also be science and scientifically explained. Or they may never be discovered, but that doesn’t require discovery to make it true. For example, if you don’t know how your toilet works, you’re just glad that it does, that doesn’t negate how it works. If we don’t know why some people get skin cancer and some people don’t, you just stay out of the sun or risk it. It doesn’t negate the science, it just remains something you haven’t studied. On a large scale, I definitely think there are things we may never find or solve, which doesn’t prove god, it just means that it’s larger or smaller than we have taken to notice it yet.
Kodie,
Great post, thanks I really enjoyed reading it, provides me with more insight into you, your perspective, etc.
Im very familiar with the concept of free will (independent your pedantic condescension).
Free will implies I have a choice, and in certain situations that is true. I decide to not kill, rape and pillage. Where this free will when it comes to “evils” such as malaria, volcanoes and tsunamis, ebola, ad infinitum?
Those 200,000+ people then died due to an omnipotent whim? What exactly did we learn from these deaths? Move further inland?
Read my reply to Felix above to answer your “what did we learn” question.
And again, if the existence of those 200,000 people continues in another realm, moving from this one to the next really isn’t such a negative. You’re making the assumption that ending one’s existence as you know it is a bad thing. Those who believe in another existence beyond this one do not.
I think that should only be underlined.
“tragedies sometimes remind us of what is important in life”. I understand your sentiment. Yet I do think that 200,000+ deaths is a high price to pay in order to learn something that you could easily get for $2.99 in a Hallmark card.
And not only did the dead pay a high price for me to learn a lesson, their surviving relatives and friends are probably still paying that price.
Thats a tuition I’d rather not have anyone pay.
Fentwin,
I see you’ve solved all the world’s problems! Congratulations on your discovery that all we need are more $2.99 in a Hallmark cards!
Astounding discovery, my man!
You are saying you absolve god because there might be a good reason, and this comforts you and should comfort the survivors of the dead.
I mean, there might be a good reason, you said. When something senseless happens to – a lot of people all at the same event – it’s something one really takes notice of. It’s like god would not prevent such a thing if he had a good reason to let the earth be that it was, crack open and pour torrents of water on the inhabitants of an area. More often you can look into statistics of things like fires and auto accidents and communicable diseases, things that only kill one or a few people at a time, injure or disfigure others, or war “that people make,” often enough in the name of a higher power. It’s not like an epidemic of death really, but it tends to stand out when it’s a large group and god didn’t step in and say, you know, a carful at a time, but this is over the limit.
There’s way too much chance going on, when you step back and notice, how could god have prevented all these deaths or just not mean to anyway. Was he out for a night checking out a new jazz combo, or at the mall getting some new glasses frames and trying on khakis at the Gap? No, it makes so much sense he selected by name each person to coincide with a fatal event because there’s a heaven. That really is retarded.
… unless they didn’t believe and were arbitrarily murdered by something entirely beyond their control before they could see the light, mm? Then they’re f-ed. Forever and ever and ever.
So much for free will.
Donny… so God killed 200.000 + people in order to you could learn what’s important in life? You are the CHOOSEN ONE!
According to your comments, the lifes of that people were used. Again, your God has no morals. I couldn’t decide the death of a single person in order that a billion people would live better – an important difference: not to save his lives, only for them to live better.
So an earthquake is a consequence of free will. Talk about unintelligent comments.
Nope, that’s part of earth’s ongoing evolution. We live with it.
“Fentwin,
I see you’ve solved all the world’s problems! Congratulations on your discovery that all we need are more $2.99 in a Hallmark cards!
Astounding discovery, my man!”
Despite your absurd depiction of my statement in order to build a straw man, my point still stands. My comparison was to highlight the high cost you have put on learning a particular lesson about life. To live an appreciative life shouldn’t require the death of a single human, much less over 200,000. Yes, I’ve read cards that express the very sentiments that you suggest require mass death to be appreciated.
Donny
I guess the victims of the Tsunami could have exercised their free will and decide not to drown.
“And IF there is an existence beyond this realm, it’s not such a bad thing for those 200,000 people to enter into that existence as a result of the tsunami.”
Judging by the part of the world that was hit I assume the majority of the victims were not christians so after your loving god have drowned them he is going to torment them in hell for all of eternity. I’m sure they feel really lucky to have entered the existence beyond this realm.
To be fair, I don’t think Donny believes in the ‘eternal torture’ version of hell.
Bingo. The word Jesus used in the Bible that we translate as “hell” was Gehenna, which was literal place during his time. It was outside the city, was where people burned trash, and was a place where people went to “weep and wail and gnash their teeth” when despondent. Jesus, who loved speaking in parables, wanted to save people from a life like those who go to Gehenna to mourn.
“Hell” would be eternal separation from God. That could perhaps be a ceasing to exist, rather than choosing to be united with one’s creator. Mormon’s believe people have yet another chance to make that decision after this life as we know it ceases. Personally, I don’t bother myself contemplating who gets to be with God and who doesn’t. Fortunately, that’s not my decision to make. I don’t mind sharing what I’ve embraced: Jesus residing within me, transforming my life, a conduit between me and God. God who took human form for a time. If a being created all that exists, certainly he has the power to become a human himself.
I’m here because I like to discuss. I’m not trying to save anyone’s soul. Call it a character flaw, but I won’t lose any sleep tonight if nobody on this board has a change of heart because of this discussion. I don’t know a single one of you in person, and won’t mourn for you if you cease to exist tomorrow.
In the meantime, discussions like this are entertaining ways to pass time. But since my Kindle DX has just arrived, I’ll probably not be back for awhile.
Thanks for the discussion Gentlemen (and any ladies who might have participated as well).
Donny,
I’m considering buying a Kindle myself, please let us know how like it, thx.
Donny:
Very well. An existence without God. OK.
Tell you what – I’ll take that. Your Unknowable God certainly didn’t care enough to show me the way as he did to you special people (in every flavor in existence, of course, from the Hindus to the Amerindians to the Aborigenes).
I lived thus far without him. I’ll take eternity without him, too. I tried to go to him the ways I was thought how, and I received no answer. None. Obviously he doesn’t care all that much for my presence, eh?
Good for you that you’ve a Jewish Zombie to transform your life – I’ll transform mine by myself, k? K.
Yoav,
“I guess the victims of the Tsunami could have exercised their free will and decide not to drown.”
Nice leap in logic there. If you’d like to actually have discussions, I’m all for it. Let me know.
Incidentally, Laplace was also the guy who completed the planetary gravitational influence calculations that Newton had left unfinished – because Newton was afraid to gain knowledge that was God’s alone, by his own words.
That is the monstrosity of adding unnecessary entities. You not only muddy the waters, you discourage investigation.
But you don’t really believe in Evolution, you believe a version of evolution that has had all the elements that no reasonable person could deny minus the parts that would prove the bible wrong. People leap on that theory because it provides an easy way out of a difficult situation, stuck between to incompatible beliefs Evolution (not the theistic flavor) and the bible. The question of if the bible is true is hard, Its something I wrestled with for a long time. I even bought into this theory for awhile. But eventually the more I learned about how Evolution actually worked, combined with other scientifically sound facts that conflicted with my faith I could no longer support the fundamental assumption that the Bible was correct.
The way you can tell “theistic evolution” isn’t scientifically sound, by the way, is that the predictions it makes as a theory, as to what you’d expect to find provided the theory is correct, Is the exact same evidence that proves it wrong (i.e Scientific evidence that the earth is older then 10,000 years old is proof that the earth is 10,000 years old just like the theory states). A pretty convenient loophole I’ll admit, but not one that is scientifically acceptable.
Naw, it’s just that half the country is dumber than the average guy. Convinced that being dumb is fine, and that telling as many people about it as possible is a virtue.
Dunning Kruger effect, anyone?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect
Ha, that is indeed correct. 50% of the population is dumber than the average.
lol
It’s not necessary correct. Average and median are usually distinct
True dat.
It seems Christians can’t stop at accusing former Christians not being “real Christians,” now “most atheists” are just pretending to be atheists because they don’t like religion.
I don’t know any atheists here like that. They call themselves atheists because, duh, they don’t believe in a god. Not liking religion is just part of the package. It’s like saying people who don’t believe in unicorns are just saying that because they don’t like the Unicorn Brushing Society.
I agree with you insofar as I think atheism is pretty simply defined and articulated here. I don’t think atheists are atheists because they’re made at religion; they’re atheists because they don’t see sufficient evidence for belief in God.
There are, however, plenty of atheists who are made at religion and/or religious people (converse is true, true). That anger isn’t the motivator for their atheism, but it doesn’t mean the anger isn’t present.
Well, I confess I have had anger at religion in general and religious people in special. Kind of sucks to be treated like you failed at life due something you can’t control at all. Kind of sucks to lie about yourself because to some religious people, being an atheist is an unthinkable perversion. Kind of sucks to have your life and your choices (about your body, about your rights, about who to love, what to do) controlled by the latest flavor of the latest hot myth’s interpretation.
Yeah, I’m bitter. Sometimes.
Siberia,
I saw your long, thoughtful post a while ago to me, thank you for your candid response, that took courage. Its hard for me to respond on this forum with any detail or depth in a satisfactory way that your comment deserves. I noticed that you said you are young, I think 24? Your journey is not over, He does not turn away any who have a heart for Him as difficult and contrary to your experience as that may seems to you. I look forward to future discussions, sharing and I wish you all the very, very best my courageous friend. JC
Indeed I am, JC. 24 and countin’.
I look forward to our discussions too, darlin’. Make no mistake, I actually do want to see other people’s point of views – even if I’m bellicose and bitter at times. Many thanks for your kind words <3
More witnessing, John? Are you still denying being here to proselytize?
Without wanting to be ironic – Mentally ill people often think that it is everybody else who’s suffering from delusions, not them. I give you case in point!
Thinking of anyone in particular there Custy?? lol
Obviously the original poster, bwinwright on Allvoices, you f’ng Moron.
But I forget you don’t read the posts you just pop in to babble bullshit, (witness) to people.
Sunny I’d personally appreciate it if you weren’t so unkind to John. I know you find him annoying, but I don’t like that kind of name calling to someone who is part of the community.
Daniel,
Thx for your sensitivity and sense of fairness, I appreciate it. But honestly, I’ve been a little off myself lately, a little shorter with people than I used to be, so I think I need to apologize to you and your readers as well. I appreciate you guys.
Agree with Daniel on this very strongly. John C has beliefs which are completely opposed to my own, but I’ve said it before and I’ll say it agin: At least he’s polite about it. Most fundies are not.
Daniel,
I think a number of us are sick and tired of John C.’s ‘contributions’, for reasons you don’t have to look far to find on this forum. So, fair enough of you for criticizing the language used when replying to him, but, boy oh boy, sometimes you do wonder what will get through to him. Nothing, it seems.
What you’re seeing is weary frustration, not a campaign against John C. He’s boring, boring, oh so tediously, insipidly, repetitively boring; saccharine gibberish ad nauseum. After a while, the perpetual nicey-nice smugness and ludicrous content just gets to some of us. Rationalism, logic – it all bounces off, is ignored; tritely asserted nonsense laced with insipidity triumphs over all.
You may find him an amusing contributor; I find him utterly, unrelenting wearying; an unremitting, content-free fool who has free reign to express his utter vapidity. He appears to be safe here however, but I am sure most other forums would have relegated him to the killfile or spam folder long ago.
I commend your patience, but question your discrimination.
I am waiting for Paul C.
Ein Wulf-
How is it that you can not accomodate even one dissenting opinion on an entire forum with hundreds if not thousands of daily readers, contributors? Forgive my candor, but isnt this a bit of a narrow, even dare I say “unreasonable” position to hold in this day and age?
I realize this is a skeptics forum, but there are also numerous discussions regarding topics of personal interest to include quantum physics, philosophy, etc and I enjoy reading, learning and sharing as much as the next guy. Just last night someone posted a fascinating teaching video on order out of randomness/chaos principle, etc. I like that stuff, its pretty cool.
Surely if I can stand the heat here (and it gets pretty fiery sometimes) certainly you can tolerate my occasional contrary and foolish, ha viewpoints without lobbying for my banishment? Just seems kinda…unfriendly my friend.
I would argue that Reeses Peanut Butter cups are substance that was created outside of nature without the direction of intelligent design. Imagine an astronaut, strolling down the hallways of a space station, minding his own business while enjoying a chocolate confection. All of the sudden, a food-service droid carrying some peanut butter, turns the corner and *BAM* they run into each other. The astronauts chocolate flies from his hand landing in the droids peanut butter. Thus creating a completely new tasty treat born from a completely accidental and chaotic interaction in an environment that is completely un-natural. I give you exhibit A: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93hxKtd4CdA&feature=related
Just goes to show you how “nutty” this argument is.
His god is so boring… at least mine created a delicious meal :) and therefore my god is better…. and could beat up his god in a fight! nah-na-nah-na-na! (btw the one true god is obviously the Flying Spaghetti Monster, here’s a link: http://www.venganza.org/ ) but to be serious it really doesn’t matter how the universe was created because it’s like knowing who at the last piece of cake, no matter who ate it, the fact is the cake is gone and knowing who ate it will not bring it back. So if it turns out there is no God it won’t make the universe stop exsiting, and the same if there turns out to be a God the universe will still exsit (unless s/he gets pissed and blows up stuff) so the whole issue over this is a waste of time, also i bet this guy thinks smoking is a disease and same with drinking (it’s a choice, get some willpower and your cured)… To conclude, it’s fun to point out the flaws with religions >:-D
True, good thing “religion” is not what Christ offers, dead rituals, rules, its all external BS. Christ is internal, transformative, powerful, life-giving. Religion is lifeless, is oppressive, it sucks. We need to learn to dis-associate religion with Christ, thats the problem.
The whole basis of orderliness in the universe is derived from seeking low-energy / stable states. Look at a snow-flake, for example — beautiful little buggers they are — high amount of order, but a mere product of polar bent-molecules crystallizing together.
Same thing with a magnet and iron filings — the iron filings arrange themselves around the magnet in a very orderly (and yet simultaneously RANDOM!) fashion; why would God be necessary for that to occur? Put another way: How does a God-behind-the-curtain explain things ANY BETTER than simply saying that the universe operates a certain way because of molecular (and submolecular) interactions?
The original article author (bwinwright) is a 59-year old man living in Marietta, Georgia (Part of Cobb County, remember that infamous science-book-sticker debacle from a few years back? Yeah…that Cobb County). He’s also a rampant conspiracy theorist (of the “The Rothschilds are running the world!!!!” variety) — why should we give any credence to what he says at all?
Isn’t the behavior of energy a kind of order and not the other way around?
Order does not require intelligence, it’s the other way around. Order is the universal language of existence and intelligence. Even disorder is only a specific, definable type of order (whereas order is not a subset of chaos… order could not arise from apparent disorder unless it was inherently present as a potential in the first place).
Our order, and our sense of order as is the same thing as intelligence but that does not mean that order cannot exist without being the subject of human consciousness. It also doesn’t mean that order itself is devoid of some form of ‘awareness’ – an awareness which, unlike ours, is not defined and shaped by the accumulated biological, anthropological, historical, social, and psychological conditions of a a human mind.
Where scientifically informed conventional wisdom fails is in it’s capacity to justify it’s own purpose – which is to provide meaningful answers to the important questions of our existence. Without explaining the origins of order itself, the atheistic perspective is nearly as flawed as the creationist, since, as pathetically misguided as Bronze Age theology has turned out to be in a modern context, it remains formidably powerful.
Why religious thought remains powerful today, I think, is because it succeeds where conventional science and materialism fails – it remains true to it’s original purpose of providing meaningful answers which address the human subjective realities in a way which (however falsely) empowers individuals to overcome the limitations of their ego and magnify its power at the same time. Science needs to use it’s own powers to overcome the danger of fundamentalism – not philosophy and reason, but technology. Something along the lines of a fundamentalism vaccine perhaps.
just read the full article on allvoices and i’ve come to this conclusion: anyone who loves god and thinks evolution is a crock of sht needs to put up some evidence or shut the fuk up.
i’m sick and tired of all the bible verses and pseudo science
responses like :
“No, He lives within His people, even is their very life. That’s why He came in the flesh, as a man. We keep looking up in the sky, but He cant be found there, is spirit and consequently lives within redeemed, renewed man(kind) where anyone has made room at the “inn” of their very innermost being, the center. The resulting transformation is one of love, of mercy, of tenderness, Christlikeness. Christ IN you being the “mystery” of the ages as Colossians 1:27 says.”
hold no water because every atheist will tell you the bible is full of bunk. Therefore you cannot quote it as a basis of an arguement because you might as well quote j.k rowling . its all fiction
Yes Cynic, it is merely fiction to the one who will not believe, take the red pill.
so put up some evidence or agree that your view is illogical.
your next response should include some evidence backing up such claims as “He lives within His people, even is their very life” or a positive acknowledgement of your illogical view.
no bible babble
When has anything I have ever said here been “logical”? Everyone here knows I offer a differential diagnosis, a radical, wildly disparate viewpoint. To the unrenewed mind, to the natural man, these statements “appear” quite illogical, even ridiculous. But when we’ve entered into the disambiguity, when all the factious divisions within, all the crooked paths have been mercifully straightened, the Truth is left standing, is all that remains and darkness gives way to the Light.
This division (knowledge of good & evil, morality) is a loss of innocence, a duality, a separation, plague. It is the very reason for the wars, the pain, the strife and suffering of mankind for it is “outside the garden”, outside the One mind where man was lured, ventured, tasted the rotten fruit (of death) and where he still resides, now subject to temporal limitations, ie death, decay, the elements, pain, as a beast, a mere animal of flesh losing his etheral nature, even abdicating it.
The illusion is intoxicating, yet the Cure is more than adequate for the healing of the nations, is readily available. Who would take the Medicine, who would be whole…again?
You think you know something Cynic? What do you know, tell me. You know that I’m a crazy “theist” huh? Tell me some of your worldly wisdom, when will the wars cease, when will hatred and evil and every vile and wicked thing be no more? When will the suffering and starving children be fed, tenderly held, comforted? When will the tears, the anguish stop Cynic? You say “religion” is part of the problem eh? Yes, “religion” must go, it will, it is and you and your’s are helping the cause, doing a good work indeed, even Fathers work. Your screen name, Cynic- do you know why/how one becomes cynical? Do you know how destructive a force that is? It robs, steals us of the innocence, dis-believes any good intention, any sincere and honorable motive. Makes one all grown up and keeps us outside, way outside the garden.
The garden would grow within you, within your very being and that Tree of Life within would overshadow that other withered branch (of dis-belief, cynicism) we allow to grow in ourSelves. So tell me Cynic, tell me something I dont know, no more name calling, that’s just old, everyone does that, do something new, something different, surprise me Cynic, I want to know, I really do.
Strong words huh, but you are all grown up right, you can take it. Who are you Cynic? Who are you really? What if we awaken, shake off the intoxicating illusion. Who is it that you are then? The same man? Heavens no. Tell me something Cynic, I want to know.
“…yet the Cure is more than adequate for the healing of the nations, is readily available.”
Yes, I have their greatest hits CD in my car, so the Cure is indeed readily available to me. I didn’t think they could heal nations, though.
Good one Mogg, a music reference is always welcome!
” What do you know, tell me. You know that I’m a crazy “theist” huh? Tell me some of your worldly wisdom, when will the wars cease, when will hatred and evil and every vile and wicked thing be no more? When will the suffering and starving children be fed, tenderly held, comforted? When will the tears, the anguish stop Cynic?”
well, what do i know? i know that believing in sky daddy yawehis illogical
when will the wars cease? when illogical thinking is thrown out the window
when will hatred and evil and every vile and wicked thing be no more? when illogical thinking is thrown out the window
When will the suffering and starving children be fed, tenderly held, comforted? When will the tears, the anguish stop ? when greed and illogical thinking is thrown out the window
“You know that I’m a crazy “theist” huh?” i don’t consider you crazy, just illogical.
“do you know why/how one becomes cynical? Do you know how destructive a force that is? It robs, steals us of the innocence, dis-believes any good intention, any sincere and honorable motive. Makes one all grown up and keeps us outside, way outside the garden
The garden would grow within you, within your very being and that Tree of Life within would overshadow that other withered branch (of dis-belief, cynicism) we allow to grow in ourSelves. So tell me Cynic, tell me something I dont know, no more name calling, that’s just old, everyone does that, do something new, something different, surprise me Cynic, I want to know, I really do.”
what are you talking about? what garden? eden? i want no part of that, remember
i’ve never resorted to name calling with you and i’m not gonna tell you anything new. everyone on this blog tells you the same thing over and over again , so do i. unfortunately i don’t have anything new for you
so i guess you have no evidence and you do agree that
your statements appears quite illogical and even ridiculous to the natural man
Ha, your a good sport Cynic…I appreciate you!
wtf does that even mean
Just that you didnt resort to name calling, etc kept it mostly at a higher level and I appreciated it, were a good sport, thats all.
indeed my friend, indeed
Cynic, you said that “every atheist will tell you the bible is full of bunk.”
Which is hyperbole, but all right. If that is the case, then every theist will tell you atheism is full of bunk. Right? You effectively announced that one side of a debate had declared itself the winner. And this matters why? If John C did it, you’d be upset at him…
wait…
he did, and you were.
Maybe you knew this and were making a point I didn’t pick up on. I freely confess, it is awfully late.
jonjon
“Cynic, you said that “every atheist will tell you the bible is full of bunk.”
Which is hyperbole”
the fact that all atheist disagree with the bible is not heyberbole. its a fact. an atheist who believes in the bible is like a vegan who eats meat
“then every theist will tell you atheism is full of bunk”
atheism is not a fundamental set of beliefs wrapped up in a 66 book collection ,so it grammatically cannot be full of bunk.
athesim is full of bunk = lack of belief in god is full of bunk.
makes no sense
“You effectively announced that one side of a debate had declared itself the winner”
no i did not. i am saying that the bible, to atheists , holds as much weight as harry potter, so john c needs to put up some evidence like the evolutionists do and not just bable from the bible beccause he might as well babble from harry potter
i am effectively announcing that the bible quotes are not evidence of the existence of god
Um…snowflakes? Incredibly complex, detailed things. Lots of order in a snowflake.
Of course, I don’t know that Jack Frost isn’t an aspect of God carving out every damned one of the little suckers, but…
I love Creationists. They are soooo cute when they try to be smart. :)
The request of this guy can be easily accomodated.
Fractals are abstract figures generated out of algorithms.
They show order but they are not generated by intellect, rather by mathematical formulas.
Also, they closely resemble shapes seen in nature, so they’re not inherently human or intelligent.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal
But then again, why waste time with the fundies?
I thought about fractals too, but their response would be: someone needs to create the math formula. So I left it out so as not to complicate things.
Did anyone read Bwinwrong’s profile? He thinks 911 was a conspiracy by the Jews, fantacizes about being a porn star, holocaust never happened, was abducted by aliens. Total whackjob
My Story:
I am a 59 year old man, born in Newport News, VA. went to Ferguson High where I played Football, Basketball, and Baseball,…
more I am a 59 year old man, born in Newport News, VA. went to Ferguson High where I played Football, Basketball, and Baseball, then went to Ferrum Junior College where I played Basketball and Baseball, then graduated from The University of Richmond in 1971, where I played baseball and was voted Athlete of The Year in 1971 after hitting .344 as the regular left fielder and posting a 6-0 pitching record too. I was drafted by the SF Giants in the June draft of 1971 but was soon released because I preferred drinking, doing drugs, and chasing women to playing baseball. I then played world class fast pitch softball for Fox Hill, one of America’s premier teams. I experienced the ZONE against Ty Stofflet, the best fast pitch softball pitcher in the world, clocked at 104 MPH. I’ve hosted two radio sports talk shows, written two books about sports psychology, had two children, done the open mic thing two times too, once at a comedy club in Virginia Beach, VA and once at The Punchline in Atlanta. I’ve been in the wholesale business most of my life, calling on plumbers, but I’ve sold radio air time, insurance, automobiles, and motivational tapes. I’ve been a ship designer, a purchasing agent, and a porn star in my dreams. About 4 years ago, I became interested in conspiracy reality research after learning the truth about 9/11. I have really done a lot of homework now about the Jesuits, the Rothschilds, the Rockefellers, and the rest of the criminals calling the shots and destroying everything they touch. I love to write, cook, and play golf. I’d be a male stripper if I wasn’t so fat and had a bigger tool. I happen to like dogs “and ” cats. I believe it’s all one, we are all 100% divine, and love is always the right choice. Even though I don’t like the things the ruling elite are doing to us, I really try to let go and let God handle their asses. That way, I can stay calm and peaceful and create similar experience.
less
“He thinks 911 was a conspiracy by the Jews” Aw crap. I already talked about this on the “religion flies you into buildings” thread!
I find it funny that he’s a “porn star in his dreams”.
… and that he doesn’t know how to correctly use quotation marks. (re: ‘dogs “and” cats’)
I think I need to start a business selling religious t-shirts that read, “I don’t care if it’s true, it makes me feel good.”
I think I could do very well.
faith = the feeling of knowing
Candidly, I dont think that characterizes the meaning of faith accurately Question. I think your definition would be a closer fit for the word…intuition, for what its worth, probably not too much eh? ha.
No, I don’t think so. When I use the term ‘feeling of knowing’ I’m trying to be specific about an emotional condition. Intuition is more of a mild emotional disruption when observing or thinking about what would otherwise be obvious or normal. Faith results, I think, from the attachment of positive emotion to a proposition. Then the rationalizations follow. In classic evangelical conversion stories, the focus is not generally on how one logically comes to an irrefutably reasoned decision but on ‘the moving of the Spirit’, feeling God’s love and ‘the inner witness’ which are simply misunderstandings of a positive emotion common to all humans and meant from an evolutionary perspective to help us commit.
It’s nice to feel good about one’s core decisions but the nice feeling has absolutely nothing to do with the practical value of the decision. That is unless you have some evidence that what acts and looks exactly like emotion is in fact a spot in the brain where gods, demi-gods, demons and angels all spark the feel good for different beliefs in various people.
Thx Q, some great thoughts there for sure.
Here’s a nice video of orderliness coming from randomness: http://www.sixtysymbols.com/videos/011.htm
Is that order from randomness, or order out of chaos principle?
I’d say randomness. Random is having a bag of 1000 marbles exhibiting three different colors (red, white and green lets say). What is your chance of pulling out a particular color?
Chaos would be when the marbles change colors. (A geology professor put it to me this way many years ago).
So I would say its a bit of order rising out of energy (shaking) being put into a system of randomly arranged particles. (come on physicists…..is that correct?:)
Thx Fentwin, I appreciate your response. I am hoping for some order to come out of some chaos myself, :).
I’m no physicist, but I’d say that the shaking is a random input of energy. This is in contrast to a chaotic system which – at least according to the mathematical defintion – is strictly deterministic.
A chaotic system usually appears random, due to its sensitivity to initial conditions and its ability to produce complexity, but mathematically speaking it isn’t random at all (although for practical purposes it may sometimes be indistinguishable from randomness).
Notice the input of energy– the shaking causes the pattern to emerge.
I’m sorry, I got as far as ‘Atheism is a mental illness because it is simply a cry for attention’. As someone with an actual mental illness, I think he’s an ever bigger idiot for saying that, and an ignorant a**hole to boot. Someone who starts off an argument like that doesn’t merit listening to.
On second thoughts, why did I expect any different? My bad.
After reading the whole post, this comment was my favorite.
“When you have them (atheists) against the ropes, pounding on them real good, they try to change the argument. ”
hahahahah when does this EVER happen?
Fundies don’t believe in mental illness. You either need to get saved or you need an exorcism.
Also aren’t fundies who push intelligent design committing the same sin and Simon-Peter did in the Bible, denying Christ. When you ask them who created the universe, they say it was some generic intelligent designer and not Jesus’ old man. It is like they are embarrassed to say whom they really created the universe. But people who believe in talking snakes and magic fruit trees are probably mentally ill.
The Genesis story has nothing to do with literal “snakes and magic fruit trees”. Silly guy.
To you, perhaps not. Down here in the buckle of the bible belt thats about all you hear about, literalism. You may think you have access to the truth, yet the funny thing is, so do the fundamentalist. And as convinced as you are as to their error, they would see a similar error in your views.
This isn’t a case of what right or wrong, but what people actually believe.
***typo***
“This isn’t a case of who is right or wrong…….”
Understood…thx
Btw not sure what you mean by the bible belt buckle, I suppose the deep south? I reside in the Dallas area but do not identify with any denomination or church association if thats what your getting at, have no priest, not even a pastor but I do occasionally “fellowship” with other believers who long fro truth, for a spiritual walk.
I have found three “phases” of “bible”. The first being the topical text meaning (lowest form), the second being what I refer to as the “deeper meaning” (where most christians are who really know Father) and the “spirit of the Word” (where few ever go).
You claim that “The Genesis story has nothing to do with literal “snakes and magic fruit trees”.” Well, I have neighbors who would disagree with you.
Point being, a fundamental literalist is as convinced of the truth of their beliefs as your are yours. You both claim to have “the truth”
As you see error in the perception, so they see error in yours.
Claims require evidence, extraordinary clams require extraordinary evidence. Do you have anything other than what you think may be true? I have yet to see you post anything other than pretty prose.
****All typos are the property of the author**** (rassin;, frassin,)
“As you see error in their perception, so they see error in yours.”
Clams = claims (unless you like clams)
So what parts of the bible should be taken literally and which parts should not? Give me a detailed list, since you and not Betty Bowers are American Best Christian.
The best answer is prob longer than you want to hear Mark. But “bible” in itself is not meant to be “taken” at all. Its part and parcel of a larger entity, Being and so by itself is not interpretable at its core, can only be superficially skimmed. That’s not a cop out, its the truth. The analogy could be made to attempting to read a letter in a foreign language from a stranger as opposed to one in english from your dad. Makes a huge difference eh? This is a problem not only with unbelievers but also baby christians who do not yet know Father. At this premature stage “bible” only causes more division, contention as we all come to diverse and sundry conclusions.
This is why I say its not so much about the external print (bible) but rather the internal blueprint, His life and transformative nature within us.
All the best. PS…God is not religious.
Would you say that even the human authors of the Bible didn’t really understand what they were writing?
Wow, good question. No, I think they actually did, had to, were “caught up” as it were in the inspiring breath, the light of the moment. But did they foresee the eventual compilation of these various words, ie bible? Ever read the little known, ancient book of Jasher? It’s basically a Genesis account, a close fascimile. It’s even referenced in the book of Kings (cant remember which one, first or second kings) in one translation but not another??
So the authors were under the influence of the Holy Spirit or some such phenomenon?
Come to think of it, did the Holy Spirit exist in OT times, or was it a manifestation/aspect/whatever that was put into existence at the time of Jesus?
The Holy Spirit, part of what is termed the GodHead, or Trinity is Eternal (although personally I see “the Lord is/as One” scripture in my little mind) IS God and so has always been but was “poured out”,given in abundance, the spirit of Truth (Christ Himself being the truth) in the NT as part of the progressive leading, lighting of Truth in man, the restoration.
Everything is available to us today, thats whats not well understood, or “seen” in the natural, physical realm.
“Everything is available to us today, thats whats not well understood, or “seen” in the natural, physical realm.”
We know as to NT, yet it is interesting as John C.
So even the authors of the Bible didn’t know what the heck it really meant, except through the mediation of divine spirit. The Bible has given us the guide to salvation, but our puny minds can’t understand it. Instead, we have to use our heart, which, although we’re speaking metaphorically, is something that works on a completely different level of cognition than our mind.
Does that about sum it up?
[blockquote]So even the authors of the Bible didn’t know what the heck it really meant, except through the mediation of divine spirit. The Bible has given us the guide to salvation, but our puny minds can’t understand it. Instead, we have to use our heart, which, although we’re speaking metaphorically, is something that works on a completely different level of cognition than our mind.[/blockquote]
Exactly. Which is my main problem with belief systems in general – it’s a situation you can’t win, because you can’t even “trust your heart”. Hindus and muslims and pagans trust their hearts, too, yet each comes to a different conclusion. I have no doubt many Hindus are as genuine about their belief as JC, yet each would claim the other is in the wrong.
This supposed Truth unknowable, or so subjective it no longer means anything remotely like Truth. You can’t know it through feeling alone, you can’t know it through words, you can’t know it through reason – not through innocence, it seems. If you’re born in the wrong country – say, Japan – there’s a great likelihood you’ll never even know a different Truth exists out there.
Food for thought: if Christ is within and God is Truth and supposedly just there waiting for innocence and what not how come there are no people spontaneously discovering it everywhere? Why are there no spontaneously Christian Amerindians, for instance? Why are missionaires and indoctrination always necessary before these people – who would otherwise not even know Christ exist – convert?
Ok, but to be fair, you were just mentioning that these religions, even though occasionally different in where they end up, rely on fundamentally similar things: non-physical perception, is the big example, right?
Rather than looking at the differences between religions, although that can certainly be a constructive exercise, take a look at the similarities. Even island cultures which have literally no contact with outside groups generally correspond to similarities. Things like the divinity of nature, powers which exceed human experience and capacity, taboos on certain interpersonal and social behaviors, and often an emphasis on community good over individual good, are remarkably common no matter the religion.
the idea that there is a fundamental thread through all human religion is not a new one, nor is it primarily religious in origin (unless sociology is finally considered enough of a pseudo-science to qualify as ‘faith-based’ — *crosses fingers hopefully*.)
Maybe when doctrinal issues get too important or the devout think they have everything figured out, the emphasis is moved away from what religion is supposed to be. Who are christians, for example, to tell their God that he can’t let muslims into heaven? I think a fair case can be made that the overwhelming importance and peculiar similarity of human religion is at least consistent with the idea that a God exists. Obviously, this won’t serve as proof that God exists, but I think it is probably not your best shot at disproving God either.
above post is @ siberia, btw.
trj, I really appreciate your willingness to follow that reasoning so far down the line. Always nice to see actual philosophy going on!
“Ok, but to be fair, you were just mentioning that these religions, even though occasionally different in where they end up, rely on fundamentally similar things: non-physical perception, is the big example, right?”
But to be fair, you are trying to see the similarities -and then finding coincidences- when you could be seeing the non-coincident points. There is not any precise “fact” that is coincident in all those religions. Abrahamic gods are the creators of the universe and powerfull, and are monotheists, while an awful lot of other religions are politheists. Other religions have no gods at all, but spirits -humanizations of nature’s forces. Some gods are perfect and other fallible; some of them are very human-like. Creation myths are very different one from another -except those who have the same origin.
In fact, if you want to see similarities, you can’t deny that abrahamic religions are kinda the exception. So the conclusion -following your argument- should be that they are probably the less “true” religions. You should be pagan :-)
“Even island cultures which have literally no contact with outside groups generally correspond to similarities”
mmm… do you think someone created those people from nothing, in their islands? They are homo sapiens too. Their religion probably evolved from previous continental religions, wich they brought with them when they reach the island.
“Things like the divinity of nature, powers which exceed human experience and capacity…”
Humans try to understand their world. If they can’t explain why it rains, it’s because something made it rain. (by the way, one of those similarities is that world is flat. Have you forgotten it? And that doesn’t make the world flat, sorry)
“…taboos on certain interpersonal and social behaviors, and often an emphasis on community good over individual good…”
It was some threads some time ago on Daniel’s blog about morality, where did it come from? there is an universal morality? Do animals have morality? My opinion is that morality evolved as humans did, so that a hominid social group who had different taboos on those behaviours wouldn’t have survived. E.g: killing an other member of the group is losing his strenght to defend your group and your descendants, and the members of the same group had usually family relationship, so most of his genes are your genes…
So, again, if it is a natural explanation, why are we still looking for a magical one?
To JonJon-
Consider the fact that our brains are remarkably similar across cultures. There is a word for red in every language… does that mean that “redness” exists in Plato’s heaven?
@ LRA
‘redness’ as such does indeed exist as a Platonic Form (if you like Platonic Forms, obv.)
Yes, our brain is similar across cultures, which is a fair point, although if the similarities in religion that I mentioned are actually caused by similarities in our brain I still find that remarkable.
@ Francesc
I didn’t say that dissimilarities didn’t exist. I think it is perfectly fair to regard monotheistic religions as an exception if you would prefer to. The fact that different religions are different comes as no surprise to anyone here (I hope.) Like I said, I think it can be instructive to look at the differences between religions; heck, comparative religion makes an entire discipline out of it.
All I’d like to point out is that there are similarities between religions which are often ignored (in my opinion) in order to present religion as a phenomenon which is non-essential to human development, history, culture, society, etc. Durkheim, the founder of sociology as a discipline, devoted considerable study to religion in order to quantify the reasons it is what it is, and its functions within society. To dismiss religion as something which is no longer necessary is shortsighted *even if there is no longer always an intellectual need for religion.* Human society has a niche for religion that is something considerably more than a mere intellectual exercise.
He is agreeing with you that atheists are not mentally ill, but some are in his reasonings.
Ok, but to be fair, you were just mentioning that these religions, even though occasionally different in where they end up, rely on fundamentally similar things: non-physical perception, is the big example, right?
That depends on what you consider fundamentally similar. If that is only belief in the supernatural, then yes, they do have that in common. But that hardly proves anything other than people seem to be “preconditioned” to believe certain things – even if they are wildly different from each other.
Rather than looking at the differences between religions, although that can certainly be a constructive exercise, take a look at the similarities. Even island cultures which have literally no contact with outside groups generally correspond to similarities. Things like the divinity of nature, powers which exceed human experience and capacity, taboos on certain interpersonal and social behaviors, and often an emphasis on community good over individual good, are remarkably common no matter the religion.
Indeed but that is less an argument for the existence of God(s) than an argument for herd behavior. Those things are important for human society to exist. Religion is a mechanism to enforce certain rules. It doesn’t surprise me. It’s a good mechanism. Humans have imagination and curiosity. Storytelling is a good way to teach and explain the unexplainable – until they do manage to explain it. Notice how nobody but the few remaining “primitive” cultures believe in thunder-gods anymore. Notice how the beliefs change the more sophisticated the tribe or civilization becomes, even if they’re nominally the same religion and the same god. How a very real, very present, very solid god becomes more and more ethereal and ineffable as time and civilization advances…
How similar is similar? Notice how said taboos and rules vary from one tribe to another: some are patriarchal, some are matriarchal, some are polygamic, some are monogamic, some had human sacrifices, some had animal sacrifices, some have castes, others do not…
And what of Buddhism? There’s a religion that has no god at all – in fact, Buddha himself mentioned that the Gods (which he considered just another type of creature) are bound to samsara just as we are. It’s been a long time since I studied Buddhism, but I do remember a mention that it’s futile to appeal to Gods, because they are as flawed and bound as we are. Redemption comes from within – not because of some mystical presence but by ethics and common sense. There is an appeal for the supernatural – samsara, reincarnation, karma, nirvana – but those are drastically different from other religions.
the idea that there is a fundamental thread through all human religion is not a new one, nor is it primarily religious in origin (unless sociology is finally considered enough of a pseudo-science to qualify as ‘faith-based’ — *crosses fingers hopefully*.)
Quite true. Still doesn’t say anything for a higher “truth”. To be honest I wasn’t even arguing that God(s) does not exist but mainly the assertion that there is a Truth out there and that this Truth is bound to a Jewish dude born roughly 2000 years ago. If that’s so True, how come nobody spontaneously discovers it?
Maybe when doctrinal issues get too important or the devout think they have everything figured out, the emphasis is moved away from what religion is supposed to be. Who are christians, for example, to tell their God that he can’t let muslims into heaven?
I agree with you entirely. But truth isn’t very truthy if it changes over time, mm?
I think a fair case can be made that the overwhelming importance and peculiar similarity of human religion is at least consistent with the idea that a God exists. Obviously, this won’t serve as proof that God exists, but I think it is probably not your best shot at disproving God either.
Ah, but what flavor of God? God the mystical entity of deists and some subsects of New Age woo – which are painfully modern – or the dark Anubis of Egyptians? Or maybe there are gods but they are powerless, as bound to samsara as we are. Or maybe there aren’t gods as to speak but natural forces.
Or maybe there are no gods and they just appeared because human mind conjured them up as a defense mechanism. A byproduct of evolution, if you will.
Which brings us back to the starting point: if there’s a Truth, it’s unknowable.
Above for JonJon, btw :p
So i’m beginning to realize the problems with posting lots of stuff at once. replies get involved very quickly.
Will you be mad if I only respond to part of this right now?
Francesc said up above there that creation myths are dramatically different.
1) you bet they are.
2) they are also all creation myths.
I only really set this up to point out that similarities do in fact exist. Now, as you pointed out, they may mean very little. And there are certainly several viable explanations for these similarities. Heck, one explanation which doesn’t even completely suck is sheer coincidence. (not very satisfying, but its easily possible.) A more likely explanation is that social forces typically produce mechanism which have certain similar qualities.
I agree that it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to attempt to attach these perceived similarities to a God’s direct involvement without some other kind of evidence.
I do, however, think that it is often the tendency to decry religion as ‘magical thinking’ and dismiss any modern need for it. If we know what causes thunder, then we don’t need a thunder god. My point is basically that while yes, thunder gods certainly served as an explanation for why thunder happened, they filled other roles as well.
know what I mean?
I’ll just come out and say it:
I’m a Christian Creationist. — But Atheism is not a mental illness anymore than religion is, There are just some mentally ill Atheists and Christians. The ideologies themselves are not mental problems at all.
I desperately want to respond to your statement that the “ideology” of religion is not a mental problem. But I’m just too tired. It should be obvious, and if you have read the comments on these threads, you should know it too.
I’m game, what’s obvious now?
We have gone over this ground ad nauseum on this blog, thread after thread. I suggest you go back to some previous articles on this blog and read the comments. It’s boring for regulars to have to listen to us discuss the same issues over and over. If you are really interested, maybe start with this vid, as it presents one of the essential arguments: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVuw1wEuaAQ
It’s the other way around: mysticism, including religiosity, is based on delusions. It should be included in the DSM. Seriously. But treatment shouldn’t be forced. There is a right to be crazy, if one doesn’t initiate force against others. Just a suggestion.
I am an athiest, but you are wrong. There are two states, ie nature and culture. So to state there is nothing outside nature is errant. Nature is all that exists naturally, and culture is all that is man made.
Even if your reply was right, what it is not — because culture is a subset of nature — it would not prove your first statement (that I’m wrong).
I think it’s funny that there’s so much noise about religion in this day and age. Religion probably should have started fading out around the time of the Renaissance; not only is it still going strong, but it’s still got a somewhat iron grip on our society. And I giggle when I see creationists trying to use science to prove the existence of God; the chances of that happening are absolutely none. Science only deals with what is observable and measurable in the natural world. Even if God did exist, science would never find him or her or it or them; what science HAS found is a lot of compelling evidence that the existing religions are not true.
Religion is primitive science. People didn’t understand the world, so they made up stories to explain things. Why do women have periods? Why, they’re being punished for great sins (nobody really understood about hormones or how we made babies, it was all very magical). What sins? Er, well, you see, there was this tree…
Later, religion became a sort of legal system, then an excuse for dictatorships, monarchies–an excuse for wars. There was never any God; religion was science, then politics. All totally man-made.
It is surprising to me that Western religion survived the age of discovery. I don’t understand how there being hundreds of completely different claims to unique truth is rationalized. I guess people think of “foreign” religions the same way they think of ancient religions. Almighty Zeus!
1. It’s a primitive philosophy (since it’s speculative).
2. Re politics and religion: the common factor is Platonism.
If I were not typing this comment right now, I would be closing my laptop and hitting myself over the head with it from the exposure to the asinine stupidity.