Religion:The stupidest thing invented by mankind?

You can say that atheism is an irrational belief, but by that standard everything is an irrational belief.
Walking down the street instead of flying is irrational.
Believing that two handfuls of cyanide will kill you is irrational.
etc.

Atheism in actuality is a rational, neutral state.

Based on current (lack of) evidence, the probability of any given supernatural belief being correct is 'almost surely' zero.
Faith is the outright assumption of the truth of this infinitely unlikely scenario.
Atheism is not.

Therefore, atheism is not in any way a belief equivalent to religious faith.
Saying so ignores pretty much everything we know about the world.

(Thanks for the 'almost surely' definition, btw.)


Also, sorry Ennui, but stuff like the soul and healing crystals and etc. are all equally unlikely too.
 
Mechagodzilla said:
You can say that atheism is an irrational belief, but by that standard everything is an irrational belief.
Walking down the street instead of flying is irrational.
Believing that two handfuls of cyanide will kill you is irrational.
etc.
Click to expand...

Walking down the street instead of flying <- that's not a belief.

The cyanide assumption is proven, therefore not irrational.

I'm not saying that atheism is irrational - however, it isn't actually based on any evidence. The nature of these things is that you CAN'T prove them.

Both opinions are equally valid to personally hold.
 
ComradeBadger said:
Walking down the street instead of flying <- that's not a belief.
Click to expand...
There is an infinitely small chance that gravity will stop pulling downwards, and instead fly you straight to your destination.

The cyanide assumption is proven, therefore not irrational.
Click to expand...
There is an infinitely small chance that all the cyanide in your gullet will hit a tiny black hole and vanish before you can be poisoned.

There is an infinitely small chance that your car will mutate into a banana over the course of three years.
There is an infinitely small chance that ants will develop the atomic bomb tomorrow.
There is an infinitely small chance that the sky will actually solidify and start falling down, causing a hyper-intelligent chicken to warn the british royal family of the danger.
There is an infinitely small chance that the unaged cast of the original Star Wars will fly to your house in the millenium falcon.
Not the real millenium falcon.
The movie set.

The nature of these things is that you CAN'T prove them.
Click to expand...
In that case, the chance of them happening is infinitely small.

Think of a dartboard the size of the solar system with a bullseye that is a trillion billion times smaller than a photon, hidden in a random location on the dartboard.
Now imagine you threw a needle at this thing.

The chance of any theisitic belief about god(s) being valid is more than a trillion trillion trillion (etc.) times less than the chance of hitting that bullseye on your first (and only) shot.

That's the evidence. Infinite unliklihood.
The lack of defining parameters hurts the cause of faith. Without evidence, there is no way to shrink the target.

Lack of evidence does not validate faith in the way you assert.

Both opinions are equally valid to personally hold.
Click to expand...

Wrong answer, my carnivorous communist friend. :p
 
I know exactly what you guys are talking about, just that I have a different way of dealing with the word belief. It's not a belief as in a religion, but it's an assumption/personal conviction (not necessarily strong), and thus a belief.

Don't know if there is a word for that (a theory?), or even if the word assumption is correctly chosen. But an assumption based on rationality is for example the theory of common descent. It assumes a common descent for all life based on mountains of evidence coming from the fossil records and genetics research. It isn't based on a belief, but on rationality.
Click to expand...

The issue here stems from the fact that you look at the word belief with heavy religious connotation, i'm not saying "the atheist religion", but atheism contains certain beliefs as anything else. Denouncing an opinion is denouncing stance on the matter and like I said earlier, you're moving in the realms of agnosticism in that case.

If you don't believe in a god, what is your mental world then? A world with no god, whereas in the case of any religious person, their world is a world under the rule of a particular god who is alive and well.

Because there is nothing that disproves God or the possibility of existence. So claiming God doesn't exist is without evidence backing it up is not rational. I don't see it as necessarily irrational however, but that's a whole other debate in semantics.
Click to expand...

A belief is not claiming something, it's personally assuming the favourable opinion in a particular situation as I see it.

"Until I see substantial evidence claiming the otherwise, considering what i've experienced and what scientific advances have proven so far, I choose to believe there is no god." that's a belief
 
first off

atheism= a + theism

a= without

theism= beleif

therefore atheism = without beleif.

Atheism cannot be a beleif if it is a lack of beleif. That's impossible.

In the words of Richard Dawkins:
"Imagine there's a china teapot in orbit around the sun. You cannot disprove the existence of the teapot, because it's too small to be spotted by our telescopes. Nobody but a lunatic would say: 'Well, I'm prepared to believe in the teapot, because I can't disprove it.' Maybe we have to be technically and strictly agnostic, but in practice we are all teapot-atheists"
Click to expand...

so in that sense, atheism is simply a lack of beleif in something. We are all atheists of most of the 6000 gods that have been invented by the human race, the only difference is that some of us choose not to beleive in just one more.
 
as far as i'm aware, theism is not publically accepted as a substitute for the word belief :rolleyes:

theism = belief in a god

I'm not talking about ****ing theism, i'm talking about the action of believing something. It's the same as accepting something as a functional part of the reality we're engaged in, in lack of proof of the opposite

You may not believe in a god, but what you do then is believe in the opposite, the non-existance of a god.

You can't honestly be telling me that you're completely absent of any kind of belief in anything. You're walking around simply observing things not even thinking the slightest thought?

Simply put: We believe that there is no god in this world. is it so hard to understand my point of view?
 
Yes, and by that standard everything is a belief.

You might as well say "I believe in shopping malls".

It's an empty statement.
Like if I asked you your opinion on the Iraq war and your answer was "Iraq exists."

What we are trying to get people to acknowledge here is that there are actually set definitions of what is real and what is not real.
If you don't believe apples are plotting to kill you, you are making that distinction whether you like it of not.

If you can't accept that an infinite unliklihood is not an acceptable probability, then you basically reject all definition of reality as we know it.

If you reject all definition of reality, then you should be utterly terrified of apples.
If you aren't terrified of apples, then all this stuff about atheism and science being types of faith is all just pseudo-intellectual posturing.
 
I believe shopping malls exist, yes, because I've seen them and they are an accepted part of my reality. Maybe I'm going too pseudophilosophical on the matter, but it's just my way of looking at things.

Then again everything might be a construct of, let's say, Absinthe's brain and thus none of us really exist! :D

But shopping malls are a bit more solid in their appearance in our world, rather than the debate whether a god exists or not

Like if I asked you your opinion on the Iraq war and your answer was "Iraq exists."
Click to expand...

I believe what's happening in Iraq is ****ing bad, where as alot of people believe the opposite, simple as that
 
Crazy, what beliefs does atheism entail. And I mean something that's not akin to believing the Earth won't explode in a few hours, or believing that I can move my right foot in front of my left, or believing that I have the ability to turn this computer off. When you reach that level of just plain common sense, calling it "belief" pretty much makes the word meaningless.

Maybe I'm not understanding you. I dunno. It just seems like subjecting everything to belief is an exercise in pointlessness.
 
I'm still right....

It's gonna keep going in circles till we all agree to disagree or a mod closes this thread.
 
No. Atheists simply lack beleif. Beleif is almost like thinking something is real in spite of evidence or lack of evidence. When you say "atheist" you usually apply it to a certain god. It's simply the state of being a "non-beleiver"

You could be an atheist of anything really, as long as there is someone else who has a beleif in it.

EDIT: on second thought atheism would really only apply to a god or gods, or anything that requires you to beleive in it due to lack of evidence.
 
CrazyHarij said:
I believe shopping malls exist, yes, because I've seen them and they are an accepted part of my reality.
Click to expand...

There is an infinitely small chance that shopping malls have never existed.

But shopping malls are a bit more solid in their appearance in our world, rather than the debate whether a god exists or not
Click to expand...

Belief in a god, in terms of probability, is equally valid as the belief that there are no shopping malls on Earth and never have been.
 
Yea well...YOU DON'T EXIST IN MY HEART!

</3
 
There is an infinitely small chance that I am in your heart right now.

Innerspace-style with wireless internet and a scuba-suit.
 
I'm beginning to see your point guys, not that i was too serious on the beliefs thing, it's just a way of looking at things

what i meant was that belief is pretty much the same as assumption, and doens't have to be in a religious sense

you may know that kicking a stone will propel it forward, but you do know that global warming will happen? do you know specifically what will happen tomorrow? those are assumptions/beliefs. same thing with the belief in a god, only that i call believing the opposite a valid belief, and not simply "not believing".

in my point of view, not believing is renouncing any assumptions or beliefs, saying I don't know and i don't take any stance, aka agnosticism

edit: anyway, wikipedia defined it pretty well
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_atheism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weak_atheism
 
I can't keep up with the page rate of this thing to argue with you mech.
If i'm right, last time you posted in answer to me you said that I haven't yet shown how you are wrong. If I could just clarify my criticism:

The Bible you are quoting from is an amalgamation of numerous translations, fragments, revisions, poems etc
There is no real way of accessing what the original writers of the Biblical books actually wrote. It's gone. What we have left is an accepted standard that does the best job it can. Unfortunately this means that anyone with a more than the most simplistic appreciation of what the Bible is is forced to interpret. This also means that use of individual Biblical verses is not very useful for a practical debate about the qualities of Christianity as a religion. It doesn't achieve that much. So that is why your appelaing to a single quote from Matthew and relying on its reference to Old Testament scripture doesn't create an argument. You haven't actually made a valid criticism. You are as guilty of ignoring aspects of the Bible as you accuse me of being, except I am trying to concentrate on the interpretation that is necessary to appreciating what the positive aspects of Christianity are, and why it isn't the worst invention ever. Rremember the title of the thread?
 
"There is no real way of accessing what the original writers of the Biblical books actually wrote. It's gone."

Then christianity is baseless and should be discontinued.

"What we have left is an accepted standard that does the best job it can."

Wrong. There is no "accepted standard", and it is not doing the best job it can.

You are not forced to interpret, and if you are interpreting, you are not "doing the best job that you can."

The best job is to follow even the contradictions, just in case you miss the single line that would send you to hell.
"Interpreting" means "giving up".

"This also means that use of individual Biblical verses is not very useful for a practical debate about the qualities of Christianity as a religion."

No it doesn't mean that at all.

What it means is that instead of playing it safe and following the entire bible, christians have abandonned their god in exchange for their own opinions.

It is failure.

"You haven't actually made a valid criticism."

Show me any logical error I have made which invalidates my criticisms.

"You are as guilty of ignoring aspects of the Bible as you accuse me of being."

What part did I ignore?

I am not ignoring that the bible is a fake-ass pile of folk tales.
I am celebrating that fact.
If more christians can accept that the bible is unreliable and filled with lies, all the better.

I'm just not deluding myself into thinking uncertainty is an excuse to be stupid.
If you don't know what you are doing, and that ignorant action harms people, you should STOP DOING IT.

"I am trying to concentrate on the interpretation that is necessary to appreciating what the positive aspects of Christianity"

Interpretation is not "necessary".

There are two other options: the safer choice of "literal thinking" and the smarter choice of "leaving the christian faith forever"

Name one positive aspect that justifies all the bad, including getting two billion people to base their entire lifestyle off of celebrating deliberate ignorance.

You can't just say I'm wrong and you can't just say that christians have no option but to be ignorant.
You need to actually prove what you say.

Ignorance is not a virtue.
 
mecha, i love you.

also why is everyone so hot and bothered about the semantics of atheism?
 
Belief and religious belief are different things entirely.

No one ever says "I believe that I am human".
Technically, you believe that, but it goes without saying.

Belief is a category.
We are concerned about the sub-categories, as they are the only things relevant to the discussion.

Typically, you only call something a belief if the belief is in some way unusual or irrational. As is the case with religious belief.
Atheism is only a belief in the very loosest sense of the word: the sense that everything is a belief.

The sub-category is what matters.

I think non-religious belief should be sub-categorized as understanding.
 
I think non-religious belief should be sub-categorized as understanding.
Click to expand...

So you mean that you understand that the Iraq conflict is bad, or that blue or whatever color is the best color for painting dry wall

I understand that music is the greatest thing in the world!

just yanking yer chain mate :p
 
Those are all non-religious, true.
But they are truly understood in the sense that opinions can be put forward and justified to others.

The concept of enjoying music or colour is implicitly understood, but it has no relevance except to maybe record execs.
All people have an opinion on music, and it is understood that it doesn't really matter whose is better.

It's sort of my motto in this thread:

Nothing is more important than relevance.

So those beliefs are all understandable in the sense that they can be justified adequately.

Opinion is therefore a sub-category seperate from religious belief that can be grouped with understanding.
It is knowledge about only yourself that isn't really relevant to anyone but yourself.

Maybe knowledge is a better word than understanding, for the concept.


I wish less people had less belief about the Iraq war though, because the bad side quantifiably overwhelms the good. :p
 
You said you were an atheist. Why don't you tell us?

Really, this is getting tiresome.
Try reading the last twenty-eight pages for the answer.
 
yes, the air is indeed fragrant with lotus blossom shall we retire to the atrium?






WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU SAYING MAN!!!!
 
I hope thats not you mecha, because paper mashaying a whole eight ball to put it on bbson john is really not worth it.
 
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