I'm fed up with religion. /rant

Sulkdodds said:
Yeah, you know, the burden of broof. I have no obligation to broove them wrong. They've got to broove themselves right. Broovy!
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Strong atheists claim that there is absolutely no God, they also have a burden of proof.

Agnosticism for the lazy.
 
Eejit said:
Strong atheists claim that there is absolutely no God, they also have a burden of proof.

Agnosticism for the lazy.
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Incorrect. Atheists claim there is no god because no proof has been given by theists. The burden of proof still lies with those who choose to believe completely. :)

@Koola Mena: Stop editing your posts so much, haha. I almost responded and then refreshed and was like, "Oh, **** me." :D

It's nice to hear that you're Orthodox and had no family issues. I'm not quite sure what that has to do with anything though, as I was just providing context from my own life so you didn't think your assumption was okay. Speaking of that, great response to that. Very classy. :upstare:

I sort of agree with you saying that I was contradicting myself. I agree that I'm being extremely bullheaded on the subject, but when I wrote that, it was more directed towards someone asking for the thread to be closed simply because they didn't like discussing the subject matter. My beef was that they're not being forced to read this thread nor post here, so why be so upset over it. But you are right, as I said.
 
Malfunction said:
Incorrect. Atheists claim there is no god because no proof has been given by theists. The burden of proof still lies with those who choose to believe completely. :)
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Incorrect. To declare and believe absolutely that something doesn't exist there must be proof against it's existence, just as to declare and believe absolutely that something does exist there must be proof for it.
The only group in this situation without a burden of proof are agnostics who say that one cannot know for certain either way.
 
Eejit said:
Incorrect. To declare and believe absolutely that something doesn't exist there must be proof against it's existence, just as to declare and believe absolutely that something does exist there must be proof for it.
The only group in this situation without a burden of proof are agnostics who say that one cannot know for certain either way.
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Actually, I missed that part in your first post. You're right, but I like what Dawkins had to say a little better, no offense.

He gave a scale of 1-7, 1 meaning that an individual has absolute faith in a god, where 7 indicates absolute belief that there is no god. Even Dawkins labeled himself as somewhere between a 6-7, as, from a scientific standpoint, there is no evidence to prove that no god exists. However, the "trends" and supporting evidence (coupled with the countless false claims by theists and other juicy stuff) seems to lean heavily in favor of atheists, but, Dawkins wrote that if there was some undeniable proof found in support of God, that he would be the first to admit his/her/its existence and study it. I put myself in the same category -- somewhere between 6-7. I've seen nothing whatsoever to prove that a deity of any sort exists. I've seen plenty to convince me that natural selection and evolution are not just theories, but science at its finest.

Good post!
 
Malfunction said:
@Mr Stabby: CORRECT! Ok, now imagine the majority of the world's population going through with these boring [and pointless] rituals on a weekly, if not daily basis. People waste their lives over this shit, which is very dangerous to me.
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It's not dangerous for people to go to church if they wish too. I just find the whole things boring. I also think poetry is boring but it's not dangerous either.
 
To answer the OP's question, I think people believe in religions because to them, to deny the existence of their God would be to deny hope, meaning, purpose, maybe even morality. It is an emotional attachment they have, I think, that keeps them believing in the face of logic. It may be that God is a source of stability in their life, or like a friend they can turn to or something; but you'd have to ask them I suppose. Sorry if that sounded patronising.
TBH, I think logic is used to justify positions just as often as it is to form them. A lot of allegiances are made unconsciously, either due to being brought up to believe that, assuming from the outset that such a position must be correct because it feels right and it just must be true, or because the alternative appears unthinkable.

I don't really have a problem with people believing irrational stuff. There's people like Dawkins, and Malfunction too I suppose, who are outraged by religion because they see it as the systematic deception of millions of people. Some people hate all religion because of the long history of violence, hate, fear and political manipulation associated with it. This is why I think that, overall, religion is more trouble than it's worth, and the world would be better off without it. However, if people are just believing something and not affecting others with it, I have nothing against that. I agree that there isn't much point berrating these people for what they believe; it just creates more enemies.
 
Mr Stabby said:
It's not dangerous for people to go to church if they wish too. I just find the whole things boring. I also think poetry is boring but it's not dangerous either.
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poetry rarely preaches hate, poetry rarely preaches violence, poetry rarely preaches death destruction genocide war or ignorance ...religion is more than capable of all of that, so in that sense it is dangerous


btw I refuse to get into another debate on freedom of speech so I'm nipping this in the bud in advance by saying this has nothing to do with free speech ..any further discussions of free speech will be met with copying and pasting of this statement
 
well to be fair being bored can lead to falling asleep ..falling asleep could lead to falling off the bench and hitting your head therefore the potential is there ..I think that's why Catholic Churches stand and kneel so much: keeps the attendees awake

you may now rise, please kneel, arise, kneel, stand and finally you may sit down followed by some kneeling and perhaps one last standing position
 
 
I went to church, once, because they said that they'd give me a free cell phone.




Been using it ever since. :p
 
CptStern said:
poetry rarely preaches hate, poetry rarely preaches violence, poetry rarely preaches death destruction genocide war or ignorance ...religion is more than capable of all of that, so in that sense it is dangerous
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I see what you did thar.
 
Malfunction said:
Right, so I'm currently reading The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins (which I encourage everyone to read, and I mean everyone), and I've been an atheist ever since eighth grade. I love this book. It re-confirms everything I think about religion, and even provides new methods of disproving theists that I would never have realized. My rant is this:

THEISTS ARE ****ING IGNORANT.

I had reason to believe that one of my closer friends was religious in some capacity, and we've been chatting on AIM for a while now arguing. I started slowly, and I hinted at him being religious. He then claimed to not be religious at all, to which I was shocked. Then, he said he was Christian. My initial response [that was not sent] was "WTF?" but I held back and had him explain it. Needless to say, the explanation was ridiculous and hardly made much sense.

Then I hesitantly asked (fearing that my assumptions would be correct) if he supporter creationism and intelligent design. As you might expect, he does. We then argued about this for a good amount of time, with him falling back to illogical and unreasonable ideas, clearly being cornered.

Now we're arguing about the credibility of the Bible, and how it's virtually no different than if a friend of yours in a nearby city called you up and exclaimed that his neighbor turned a bunch of water into Gatorade and then resurrected his grandmother from her grave. His argument is that "hundreds of people saw Jesus do it" to which I inquired "is there proof of this?" Obviously there isn't, and now he's trying to change the subject by suggesting that world history can't be proven either then because we're essentially doing the same thing, believing anecdote after anecdote (though I received no argument after bringing up the shitloads of physical evidence that can confirm much of history).

The point of this thread is simple:
Why is it more acceptable to be an illogical, unreasonable, sheep believing anything your mommy and daddy tell you than being an investigative, logical, reasoning, "charismatic stallion" (thanks Yahtzee) even today in 2008? What the **** is wrong with the world?

I suggested that my normally-open-minded grandma read The God Delusion, and before I could even finish my sentence she angrily cut me off and briskly walked out of my room. She's a Catholic/Christian, just like I used to be. What the **** is wrong with people? How can anyone justify blindly believing something without even attempting to question their faith? Why does the majority of the world support this ignorance and stupidity?

I give my friend credit. At least he was open to questioning his ridiculous beliefs, but still. He's a smart kid. I used to consider him one of my smartest friends, but now things have changed.

Why is it that it is always necessary to disprove someone's belief rather than they prove it? Is it perhaps because there is no ****ing proof behind their bullshit? Are they so naive as to not see these fallacies?

The bottom line is this: I'm completely pro-civil liberties and personal privacy. BUT -- where do we draw the line? Religion is a plague that infests the majority of our planet. It has been motivation for many to pursue violence and war; it has encouraged scientific ignorance through trying to spread the word of creationism; most of all, it is not free of doing harm unto others, whether that be psychologically, intellectually, or physically. Religion has decreased intelligence through its mere existence. How is this not a harmful practice?

I suppose I'm just fed up with all of the bullshit. We live in a society where some people would discuss the latest trials and tribulations of some slutty, stupid celebrity rather than debate nor even question their religious beliefs. This is unhealthy, and if you're too thick to see so, I probably don't even want to interact with you.

And I think the worst part of it all is that I truly believe that atheism is correct; that Richard Dawkins is right. This is the one subject that I'm more than happy to be completely biased and bull-headed on, because I sincerely believe that there is no falsehoods in how I feel about this. I've tried really hard to be unbiased, but there is just no way. There is no God. There are no gods. There is no Holy Land. In the [probable] words of the great Penn & Teller, "religion is BULLSHIT!"

Thank you.

*rant brought to you buy 3am fatigue, hunger, and angst
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Well done, this could only end in a shitstorm. 9/10
 
Malfunction said:
I've seen nothing whatsoever to prove that a deity of any sort exists. I've seen plenty to convince me that natural selection and evolution are not just theories, but science at its finest.
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Few points, playing something of a devil's advocate here:

You present these viewpoints as if they might be incompatible. Leaving aside a literal interpetation of all of the most popular holy books for a moment, they are only incompatible if one or other faction in this debate - ie. the religious and scientific 'sides' - are entrenched in their stance and intent on scoring points off the other. There is no logical reason, however, that the existence of an omnipotent (from our perspective) creator should preclude the trueness of evolution or vice versa.

From a purely scientific standpoint of evidence-based observations, the latter statement about evolution is of course an infinitely more pertinent statement to make, of course. The problem is that while science is our ultimate tool for understanding the how, we may not come to know the why of the universe (if there is a 'why') until there are no gaps left in our understanding of it. That prospect seems incredibly far away, considering for example that we haven't even yet successfully reverse-engineered the very tool that we use to perceive the universe - the brain.

The question of 'why is there something rather than nothing?' seems a reasonable one to ask. Until human science comes close to approaching an answer, or even a firm judgement on the validity of the question, there is IMO an argument for keeping philosphy and science separated to a degree; philosophy doesn't provide enough answers about the way everything operates, and science doesn't provide enough answers about the way we should think (which sounds like a kind of Luddite argument until you take into consideration that a large part of the human experience pivots around the evaluation of arbitrary intangible concepts like love, morality, honour, etc.).

IMO, philosophically speaking, there are lots of interesting lines of speculation about the nature of intelligence and the universe that do not necessarily lead away from the conclusion that a 'god'-equivalent entity might exist. For instance, we are our own evidence of the existence of intelligence in the universe, and evolution is evidence for a trend in the gradual improvement/ordering of that intelligence. With this in mind, we can ponder: is there an upper limit on intellectual capacity in organisms? Regardless of whether there is or isn't, is there a level of intellectual power that an organism could possess that would make it seem, to us, a 'god'? Is it possible that anything, anywhere has attained or will attain that degree of intellectual capacity? What, in that case, would be the chance that we are a product of such an intelligence? Stuff like that - a lot of which is unfalsifiable, all of which is currently unverifiable - is not particularly scientific but neither in my opinion is it devoid of merit to speculate over, since doing so may provide some insight into the nature of intelligence, of the human experience or of the ordering of information patterns in the universe.

I see modern institutionalised religion as a warped and mutated extrapolation of this line of philosophical musing. Someone, somewhere in the past has postulated:
I think there is an intelligent entitty behind the universe.
Since it created everything, it must be [insert characteristics].
As creations of this entity, it behoves us humans to behave like [such and such].
[Continue in this vein]...

...Insert a few centuries of chinese whispers, self-aggrandisement, prejudice and other miscellaneous facets of human nature and you have the institutionalised religions that are prevalent today.

As a rational person, so I like to think, I of course inwardly scoff at any claim that the chapter and verse of these religions are insightful in their entirety, let alone that they are manuals received directly from god. Nevertheless I have no problem affording the adherents of these religions the freedom to believe just that, as long as that doesn't interfere with my own freedom to live my life in the way I see fit, because I recognise that these people's beliefs stem, at some point in the thought process, from a sincere desire to answer those same unanswerable philosophical questions that I find so interesting. Their conclusions might be riddled with fallacies like a crazy man's clothes are riddled with shit, but then don't people act illogically all the time in human society, in myriad situations completely unrelated to science or religion? For that society to function, the more rational among us have to accept that it is not always possible or beneficial to cut in and forcefully assert control; I might watch my girlfriend playing Wind Waker and think 'lolwtf, why the hell did you go in THAT direction?! that's retarded... I knew it, now you're dead,' but it doesn't mean I'm going to punch her in the face and snatch the controller away. We also should accept that there are probably other areas where our own opinions about certain things are as irrational/poorly supported as the opinions of religious people are about the nature of life.

So freedom of religion is a freedom that people should have, IMO, but problems arise when people start being shortsighted and saying stuff like 'I believe in Christ therefore evolution is a lie', since that is an interference in other people's freedom to scientifically investigate the universe without encountering a load of illogical bullshit. However, science and the less fanatical elements of religion should be able to coexist, since 'science is true therefore there is no god' is an almost equally shortsighted conclusion to draw, philosophically speaking, IMO.

tl; dr - ruv and peesu
 
@Godron: Great post, sir.
@CptStern: Thanks for dealing with the poor analogy.
@Laivasse: Great post as well. This might be shocking (considering how strong my distaste for theism and such and such is) but I actually enjoy philosophy and "free thinking". I absolutely recognize that there are intangible "forces", if you will, that science has a hard time explaining. Things like this make me really appreciate life. However, I do strongly believe that there are scientific explanations for such "forces". Love is a good example. There have been plenty of studies on the human body post-intercourse to see what happens. One of the more interesting findings is that the brain (I believe) is flooded with a substance known as oxytocin, leading scientists to hypothesize that this substance is directly related to "love". One thing I've never quite understood is why (wait for the irony, you'll see) people always need to know "why", in a very open-ended sense. I like understanding why my arm is capable of moving. What I have no desire to understand is why life exists. It seems like such a vague question to ponder over, and the fact that religions essentially thrive on this question annoys the piss out of me. People then start relying on false hope and psychological tricks to make bad situations seem better. A loved one dies, but no worries, he/she is watching down on us, looking after us. W-W-WHAT?

I'm at work, so I must be off.
 
Eejit said:
Strong atheists claim that there is absolutely no God, they also have a burden of proof.
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Hey now that's unfair. I have absolutely no reason to credit something with 'existence' if I have no evidence for it. For me, saying that any given thing exists is merely shorthand for "currently all the evidence available to me leads me to suspect..." Similarly, if I say that something does not exist, this is to state there there is no compelling evidence for it.

This is what the clich?d questions like "what if there were a chocolate teapot orbiting mars" boil down to. The question is why, in the absence of a decent body of evidence, anybody would attach any credibility to the notion of a God.

I don't claim there there is no God as an article of faith. I claim that there is no God because I have no reason to think that there is. Maybe it's possible that there is some kind of godlike being. But I don't care. A million things are possible - some of them I will never even dream of - but I will continue not just to not believe in them, but also to believe they are not.

Earlier we were talking about Banks' The State of the Art; well, what if the good ship Arbitrary was above our heads right now? There's no possible way we would be able to tell - something very similar could be happening right now as we speak - yet I'm not going to hold out my judgement, as an agnostic does, and say "well, I'm undecided on the question of the Arbitrary."

Of course, this entire discussion is taking place within the metaphysics of presence, whereby something can be said to be either existant or non-existant - when, in fact, it's probably that existence for us is bound up in language; that the very statement "God does not exist" depends for its meaning also on the concept of God existing, and so contunally invokes the very thing it seeks to dispel; how maybe we do have a God, because the sources of our ideas, our identities and our definitions - which are bound up in language and cultural assumptions - are all external to our 'selves', and how accordingly we do not so much view but we are viewed, and do not so much speak as we are spoken -
but probably that is for another time.
 
Sulkdodds said:
Hey now that's unfair. I have absolutely no reason to credit something with 'existence' if I have no evidence for it. For me, saying that any given thing exists is merely shorthand for "currently all the evidence available to me leads me to suspect..." Similarly, if I say that something does not exist, this is to state there there is no compelling evidence for it.
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That's what you mean yeah, but there are atheists just as certain in their opinions as the most zealous theists are in theirs.
 
Laivasse said:
..***v and peesu
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Excellent writing, imo :)

For me, this seems to be a fundamental issue:
Laivasse said:
That prospect seems incredibly far away, considering for example that we haven't even yet successfully reverse-engineered the very tool that we use to perceive the universe - the brain
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Rationality is often made out to be black and white, but there there are assumptions on assumptions on assumptions. E.g. assumptions about the brain/mind, our perceptions of reality, and us as a species being able to rationalise successfully.

Our entire thought processes are where? in our brains. Rationality, and the reality we perceive are (or at least appear to be) functions of the brain. Do cats stay up all night wondering if there's a God, or a dog? :p
 
Eejit said:
That's what you mean yeah, but there are atheists just as certain in their opinions as the most zealous theists are in theirs.
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And why was that worth saying or relevant? :p

Not even strong atheists need a burden of proof to remark that "God doesn't exist" - since there is no evidence for the positive existence of God. Some of them (who exactly?) might believe it more fervently than seems necessary. They might phrase their claims aggressively, saying that there is no God, rather than that there is no reason to believe in God (just as you've frequently used the word 'proof' even though nothing can really be proven). That's regrettable, but unless they start going out of their way to remark how we can be absolutely ultimately transcendently certain of what they think, it's really immaterial.

If anything, agonistcs need to justify exactly why they are sitting on the fence on the issue of an Abrahamic God but not on the issue of pink orbital teapots, voodoo Loa, or the Egyptian god Set. Let's face it, science has given us active evidence against the Christian God (as he is claimed to be) just as it has given us active evidence against the Loch Ness Monster's possible existence - but who the hell sits on the fence about the Loch Ness Monster, umming and ah-ing that until some undefinable future date, we just can't be sure?
 
Malfunction said:
@Laivasse: Great post as well. This might be shocking (considering how strong my distaste for theism and such and such is) but I actually enjoy philosophy and "free thinking". I absolutely recognize that there are intangible "forces", if you will, that science has a hard time explaining. Things like this make me really appreciate life. However, I do strongly believe that there are scientific explanations for such "forces". Love is a good example. There have been plenty of studies on the human body post-intercourse to see what happens. One of the more interesting findings is that the brain (I believe) is flooded with a substance known as oxytocin, leading scientists to hypothesize that this substance is directly related to "love". One thing I've never quite understood is why (wait for the irony, you'll see) people always need to know "why", in a very open-ended sense. I like understanding why my arm is capable of moving. What I have no desire to understand is why life exists. It seems like such a vague question to ponder over, and the fact that religions essentially thrive on this question annoys the piss out of me. People then start relying on false hope and psychological tricks to make bad situations seem better. A loved one dies, but no worries, he/she is watching down on us, looking after us. W-W-WHAT?
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When it comes to intangibles and manmade values, I have no doubt that all are explicable in their simplest sense by scientific methods - the feeling of love stems from physiology, our understanding of honour or integrity or justice stems from our experience with human behaviour, etc. However even with this considered, I believe their meaning varies so much from individual to individual due to the variability of the human experience that, barring humanity's evolution into a hive mind or something, it will be forever impossible for science to provide a single empirical answer of what those intangible values (love, etc.) are that is true for all of humanity.

Nevertheless, we still want to know what to think about them, so we turn to non-scientific debate in an attempt to try to assign value, or meaning, to these things. This is because humanity needs meaning, IMO. Many of the threads on this forum are indirect examples of our striving-for-meaning. Without the concept of there being a non-physical meaning to our lives, human society might collapse - either through widespread despair at the ultimate futility of human endeavour, or through too many people concluding that the pursuit of physical gratification at the expense of others (raep) is the only real meaning to be found, or whatever.

The answer to the question of why life exists is an answer that promises to grant us an ultimate sense of meaning, one which would take us by the hand and lead us in one sure direction througout our lives, from cradle to grave. It might appear so vague as to be pointless, and it might not even be a valid question with a valid answer, but until it is proven to be such then it is as valid a question as all the other alternatives that a person might ask themselves in an attempt, consciously or otherwise, to validate their life. For instance, in an atheist scientist this question and answer might take the form of:
Q: What is my ultimate purpose in life?
A: To be an information processor which gathers knowledge for the furtherment of the species.

Whether this derivement of meaning is consciously or subliminally arrived at is besides the point, and so is the matter of whather the answer involves a mandate from a supernatural entity. What is important is that it's no more possible to dissect that answer and find it to be a 'good' answer, than it is for someone who has asked:
Q: Why does life exist?
A: Because God created it and we must glorify him.

The latter conclusion might ultimately result in war, suffering and loss of life, but what value, or meaning, does human life have that we haven't arbitrarily assigned to it ourselves? That conclusion might require an individual to psychologically trick themselves, but who doesn't resort to psychological tricks for their own comfort, eg. the psychological trick that almost everyone falls prey to; of convincing themselves that they are significant in the universe?

Other people might find life's meaning in what they believe to be the destiny of the species; others might believe that the point of life is to contribute to the waveform of intangible values that might be collapsed to produce a truth that transcends humanity. The point is that - again, consciously or not - we sometimes have to depart from strictly scientific, evidence-based thinking in order to find the drive to do anything at all. The conclusions we reach individually might not all be qualitatively equal - I certainly scorn some and warm to others (based on my own inherently irrational, basic assumptions about the universe, eg. life is 'good', knowledge is 'desirable', etc.) - but I don't think that any should be disallowed by definition, or used to suggest that a particular person is of less worth for arriving at said conclusion, unless they should cause that person to inhibit someone else's life or search for purpose.
 
Malfunction said:
Right, so I'm currently reading The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins (which I encourage everyone to read, and I mean everyone), and I've been an atheist ever since eighth grade. I love this book. It re-confirms everything I think about religion, and even provides new methods of disproving theists that I would never have realized. My rant is this:
*Actual rant*
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Nice post.

I'm glad that you are reading that great book of this truly remarkable man.
Don't care about ignorant believers or oversensitive religion apologists here or anywhere else, just stand out and be free.
Peace.
 
Sulkdodds said:
If anything, agonistcs need to justify exactly why they are sitting on the fence on the issue of an Abrahamic God but not on the issue of pink orbital teapots, voodoo Loa, or the Egyptian god Set. Let's face it, science has given us active evidence against the Christian God (as he is claimed to be) just as it has given us active evidence against the Loch Ness Monster's possible existence - but who the hell sits on the fence about the Loch Ness Monster, umming and ah-ing that until some undefinable future date, we just can't be sure?
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I'm an agnostic because the existence of intelligence makes possible the the existence of god-like intelligence, which creates the possibility of a god-equivalent entity. We already see, in nature, examples of inferior intelligence to whom we as humans could be comparable to gods, and so, depending upon the nature of intelligence itself, there could be a 'god' to us. The shortfall of human understanding about that very nature of intelligence makes it difficult to guess at the relative probabilities involved in this scenario - they could be great, they could be infinitesimal, but the demonstrable trend of increasing intellectual capability at least makes it possible. Respected futurists are speculating along the lines that we'll effectively create a 'god' within the next century, so it's not necessarily as farfetched as it might sound. The answer as rehgards the current situation is unknowable since anything that would be omnipotent from our perspective should also be well able to conceal the evidence of its own existence.

Chccolate teapots and the loch ness monster, in contrast, are not an extrapolation of a demonstrable trend in anything other than humanity's tendency to make wild shit up.

Edit: looks like I was selectively blind to the terms 'Abrahamic God' and 'Christian God' in there. Suffice to say, without commenting on the cultural tenets of Christianity, etc., I do not think their idea of god would be accurate. As I hope is evident, I reinterpreted the term 'god' to mean 'anything that could appear godlike to humanity'.
 
Sulkdodds said:
Not even strong atheists need a burden of proof to remark that "God doesn't exist" - since there is no evidence for the positive existence of God. Some of them (who exactly?)
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What? You are familiar with our forum members, right? :)

Sulkdodds said:
If anything, agonistcs need to justify exactly why they are sitting on the fence on the issue of an Abrahamic God but not on the issue of pink orbital teapots, voodoo Loa, or the Egyptian god Set. Let's face it, science has given us active evidence against the Christian God (as he is claimed to be) just as it has given us active evidence against the Loch Ness Monster's possible existence - but who the hell sits on the fence about the Loch Ness Monster, umming and ah-ing that until some undefinable future date, we just can't be sure?
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Why do people keep bringing this back to a Christian God? I've been talking about a general Big Banger type of God.
Of course people don't sit on the fence about the Loch Ness Monster - whether he exists or not doesn't change our entire outlook on life, the universe and everything.

The existence or not of a Creator is a question with rather large philosophical implications.
Dismissing the question due to lack of evidence is rather pointless.

Besides, scientists have often debated whether unobserved phenomena (e.g. black holes, the existence of certain subatomic particles, the Big Bang theory, Cold Dark Matter) could or could not exist based on our understanding of physics with no direct evidence. Theoretical physicists can still come up with accepted theories without evidence.
The only difference is the lack of understanding what the nature of a Creator might be. There's certainly no need to dismiss the question out of hand due to 'lack of evidence' given how important it is.
 
Eejit said:
Why do people keep bringing this back to a Christian God? I've been talking about a general Big Banger type of God.
Of course people don't sit on the fence about the Loch Ness Monster - whether he exists or not doesn't change our entire outlook on life, the universe and everything.
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So the standard of proof you require actually lowers the more 'important' the question is?

But if your only definition of God is 'something that created the universe' and nothing more, the question hardly affects you. You reduce the notion of God so far that he becomes merely another theory of creation. If you added more to your theory of God (like that he was a He, that he Thought, that he specifically intended to create humans - anything at all) then you start venturing towards the more concrete, more falsifiable, religious theses.

In fact, if you are merely discussing a Creator as 'uncaused cause' you are merely discussing a certain kind of Big Bang. Adding anything else to your theory apart from the- like sapience, intention, or even the identity necessary to call it an 'act of creation' (which requires an actor) - complicates matters enormously, without having any actual grounding.

Strong atheists rarely say "there is no nonspecific nonidentified not-necessarily-sapient being that created the universe but did not in any other way intervene in our development."
They say "there is no God", and drastically changing and vaguifying the definition of the word 'god' hardly undermines their claim.
 
Oooh, not to mention that the idea of there being a creator is NOT as important to religions and religious people (whatever they might think) as various other philosophical questions we could ask. Like:

- is the concept of 'sacred' at all valid?
- do things have essential forms?
- is there a centre of the universe? That is to say, is there one thing in relation to which all others are defined?
- Is there any such thing as ultimate truth?

Of the two statements 'God is dead' and 'God doesn't exist', I'm just as if not more interested in the former than the latter.
 
God is totally dead. All my favourite bands told me so.
 
I wish I could interpret The God Delusion to its fullest. I was just reading more of it on the way home from work (not while driving >< I take the bus) and it's so impressive. I'd really be surprised if Dawkins happened to overlook even the smallest pro-theism argument in the text, as he just hits so many little details, citing so many sources (both in favor of theism and atheism to compare and contrast), and referencing so many scientific, biological, chemical, and physical terms and theories. It's overwhelming at times, which is actually a good thing in this case.

As nice as it is to discuss all of these supra-complex philosophical things, let's get back on topic, shall we? Religion disgusts me. I hope it disgusts you. If it doesn't disgust you, take a long hard look and ask yourself why. If it still doesn't disgust you, I volunteer myself to put you into various choke holds until you agree with me. =D
 
Sulkdodds said:
So the standard of proof you require actually lowers the more 'important' the question is?
Click to expand...

Of course not, I didn't say that. I'm saying that an idea with no concrete proof for it can be ignored if it's unimportant and irrelevant, however if it's something that explains the very cause or nature of the universe it should be contemplated regardless.

Again, examples from theoretical physics are somewhat apt - some ideas are debated to try and explain phenomena without any evidence for them.
What's the big difference between an agnostic accepting the possibility of a creator and a physicist considering the Cold Dark Matter theory to be reasonable?

Surely if you absolutely reject the possibility of there being a creator of some kind you must also reject all other theories unsupported by direct evidence. You would surely have rejected abiogenesis prior to the Miller Experiment. Or the idea that Black Holes might exist?

Sulkdodds said:
But if your only definition of God is 'something that created the universe' and nothing more the question hardly affects you. You reduce the notion of God so far that he becomes merely another theory of creation. If you added more to your theory of God (like that he was a He, that he Thought, that he specifically intended to create humans - anything at all) then you start venturing towards the more concrete, more falsifiable, religious theses.
Click to expand...
And? Why do you think an atheist must semi-subscribe to one particular theory on the nature of God? All they are doing is accepting the possibility that some kind of Creator may exist, and that it may have some features generally associated with

Sulkdodds said:
In fact, if you are merely discussing a Creator as 'uncaused cause' you are merely discussing a certain kind of Big Bang. Adding anything else to your theory apart from the- like sapience, intention, or even the identity necessary to call it an 'act of creation' (which requires an actor) - complicates matters enormously, without having any actual grounding.
Click to expand...
Refusing to reject a possibility does not require evidence.
There are many possibilites with regards to the nature of a theoretical Creator. Theists choose one. Atheists reject them all. Agnostics consider either one or many - depending on the individual.

Sulkdodds said:
Strong atheists rarely say "there is no nonspecific nonidentified not-necessarily-sapient being that created the universe but did not in any other way intervene in our development."
They say "there is no God", and drastically changing and vaguifying the definition of the word 'god' hardly undermines their claim.
Click to expand...
Of course not. Strong atheists are inherently reactionary to the theists imo. They like to ignore the middle ground between "Our God exists" and "No God exists".
If they weren't trying to pull down the theists all the time they might consider that "Some God may exist" is a reasonable statement.
Science - the 'holy grail' of most atheists - is vague at times too, as is philosophy. Just because an theory or idea is vague doesn't mean it should immediately be dismissed.

Sulkdodds said:
Oooh, not to mention that the idea of there being a creator is NOT as important to religions and religious people (whatever they might think) as various other philosophical questions we could ask.
Click to expand...
Point out where I said it was the only important question? Or even the most important?
 
Sulkdodds said:
Strong atheists rarely say "there is no nonspecific nonidentified not-necessarily-sapient being that created the universe but did not in any other way intervene in our development."
They say "there is no God", and drastically changing and vaguifying the definition of the word 'god' hardly undermines their claim.
Click to expand...
ITT I've said stuff which runs in in opposition to what could be construed as a Strong Atheist viewpoint, so I'll deal with this as if it were addressed to me too.

The term 'god' is already so vague as to cripple any debate in which it is used, should no definition be set forth. A 'god' as a concept exists independently of any one religion in language. Merely capitalising it to 'God' does not solve this problem, since the term then still has to incorporate the descriptions of every monotheistic religion which has ever seen fit to capitalise their deity's name. Then differing theological interpretations, within the religion, of what that God is have to be taken into account, - these can range from the level of culturally schismatic differences in interpretation down to the spin a preacher puts on scripture as they relate it to their flock. Then in turn there is individual interpretation of that interpretation, including, among other things, whether an individual believer believes their scriptures to be literally true, or just a collection of allegorical stories in which are encoded insights about the nature of God and life. Then you have to incorporate the definitions of all the people who aren't adherents to any particular mainstream religion, but who believe in 'just something', yet they consider that something still important enough to capitalise.

All that coupled with the fact that I have actually seen plenty of Strong Atheists argue that "there is no nonspecific nonidentified not-necessarily-sapient being that created the universe but did not in any other way intervene in our development" - ie. "there's just what there is" - means that if Strong Atheists want to be specific about what they are denying the existence of, then they should be specific, or else their argument will indeed be undermined.

Also I quote this because I feel like I'm not really understanding the point of it:
Sulkdodds said:
Oooh, not to mention that the idea of there being a creator is NOT as important to religions and religious people (whatever they might think) as various other philosophical questions we could ask.
Click to expand...
I don't get it. Considering how much reinterpretation and cherrypicking goes on in religions, why should any of these questions be more important than the existence of god to a mainstream religious adherent, considering that as long as their god should exist they could just reinterpret scripture to fit each one? As in:
- is the concept of 'sacred' at all valid?
Click to expand...
It is anything that our God deems important to Him, or anything directly derived from Him, or anything we deem to be so based on what our holy manual says.
- do things have essential forms?
Click to expand...
The way God perceives something is its essential form.
- is there a centre of the universe? That is to say, is there one thing in relation to which all others are defined?
Click to expand...
God.
- Is there any such thing as ultimate truth?
Click to expand...
Godditygodgod.

Soz, it's mainly my confusion prompting this inquiry but I can't see how the question of 'God's' existence is superseded in importance by those questions for any of the religions I can think of.
Malfunction said:
As nice as it is to discuss all of these supra-complex philosophical things, let's get back on topic, shall we? Religion disgusts me. I hope it disgusts you. If it doesn't disgust you, take a long hard look and ask yourself why. If it still doesn't disgust you, I volunteer myself to put you into various choke holds until you agree with me. =D
Click to expand...
Eiiiih, I typed reams earlier explaining why I think religion is no more inherently disgusting than any other ubiquitous example of human fallacy. COME TRY CHOKE ME DA FUK
Mr Stabby said:
What's disgusting about Anglicans?
Click to expand...
Tried to censor Resistance: Fall of Man based on shitty reasoning.
 
This sounds like something from Anton Szandor LaVey, aka the devils right hand. You will all burn in hell.
 
Here I thought all atheists/eggheads agreed with one another, that it was impossible to disagree with any agnostic/atheist point of view?
Are you guys telling me there's more than one way to "not believe in a god?!"

Oh well. This site is Atheist2.net.

BTW, I call some agnostics "eggheads". Cause you know, "ag-nos-tic" kinda reminds me of "eggs" or "egg-nos-tic". *Shit Nevermind*

/leaves thread
 
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