The Faith & Religion mega Thread

Originally Posted by business_kid And why are atheists posting on a 'Religion' thread, to the extent that they are the majority. Religion is what they don't have, surely?

Not entirely:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_atheism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism_in_Hinduism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_Buddhism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_atheism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Muslim

"Maga", als, means all; check the tags, remembering everything fades...

Belief cannot evolve (as it does) unless forced past our lives.

Kill a virgin or change with the times‽

Like talking common sense with kindergartners, it's still common sense, they're just kindergartners. With book smarts that would make them dumb as hell in 2000 years.

Outie 20000 G!

Originally Posted by ntubski Not entirely: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_atheism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism_in_Hinduism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_Buddhism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_atheism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Muslim

Acknowledged. I feel God is not really in most religions, while He certainly exists. The social element is what holds such religions together. But what you are highlighting are devices for allowing Atheists remain within the various Churches to enjoy the social element and avoid persecution in some cases.You can have the approval of society (where that matters), meet friends, and have your ears tickled in a weekly church visit. People have been doing it for decades here.

Muhammed said to allow foreign religions, but slaughter apostates. Look at the Sunni vs Shi'a conflict. Each views the other as apostate. But you can have shades of those views as long as you are not a sect. Pretty similar in Judaism, where you have your death notice put in the paper by your family if you go apostate. You are then viewed ad 'dead'. "Modernism" in the Church of England is another example. They are devices.

Whereas I find it curious, I accept that people view Atheism as a religion - I'm just surprised by it.

I don't view atheism as a religion but that is because I am one. I view it as a lack of religion personally, or rather a lack of any (supernatural) forces external to ourselves. I don't agree with any of the above wiki posts either but I don't have to: we are all entitled to our opinions, thoughts and feelings. No one opinion or belief is more correct than any other. Whatever beliefs people hold, they hold and that's fine, as long as they don't kill others for that belief or try to push it on someone else. Those things are my chief complaints about organized religion: people are willing to kill others that do not believe in what they believe, or are willing to push their beliefs on other people who don't share the same belief.

Other than that, I have no issues with religion or religious people. I do believe it should have nothing to do whatsoever with politics and government, but that is another topic...

Yeah, Atheism by it's very denotation is NOT Theist, not religion. That business_kid states things like "He certainly exists" reveals his bias of blind faith. Business-kid, you apparently cannot even imagine that a Creator is not a requirement or that any sane person can function without one. I have no idea what you mean by "atheists in churches". I haven't been in any church except for others' weddings and funerals in almost 60 years. It's already been explained why atheists are in this thread. We were invited, just like you.

@sevendogsbsd: Yes, I agree religion should have nothing to do with government, politics or violence. People killing each other (As in countless wars over centuries) is wrong. I firmly believe God is big enough and powerful enough to look after himself and his people.

@enorbet: Yes, I have a faith and don't deny it. But I do object very much to my faith being called blind, when you don't even know what my faith is based on, do you? It's based on reason. Categorization of my faith as blind allows people to be dismissive of my belief without actually examining how sound their own position is.

For instance, a large number have said "No way" to religion based on the conduct of religions to date. I can fully understand their POV. I do not condone in any way the disgraceful conduct over centuries, indeed over millenia. I indeed desplore such conduct. This was only openly exposed here when the Child Abuse scandals finally came out of the closet here in Ireland. I believe there's also a damning report also about Pennsylvania, and other places. But there's wars, Crusades, Inquisitions, abuse of the poor, etc. etc. etc.

But all of us want an explanation of our origins, what our purpose in the world is. Since Francis Crick's Nobel Prize (in 1961?), there hasn't been a scientific theory, even a credible postulation about how life came about. So atheism can't answer one of the basic questions all humans ask. I don't think I'm the one who can be criticized for having a blind faith when I conclude that "Unless there was something that had no beginning, nothing could ever begin."

I don't mean to start any arguments, but I hope you will grant that my point of view is not blind or unreasonable. I also have examined many other subjects as far as I can, and have very solidly issues with various aspects of other essential planks. Atheism seems scientifically based. When you get into it in detail, the cracks begin to show in many places. But I'm not criticizing your faith as blind. I won't even mention the cracks here, as it is not my intention to start contentious debates with those whose views are fixed. But while I'm at it, allow me to say that I have little common ground with 'Young Earthers' also. Their beliefs are unsound Scientifically in a Major Way.I am sure Creation is much older than 6000 years!

business_kid my use of the word "blind" to describe what I see as evidence of your faith, is based, at this point since I know you so little, on exactly what I said, your statement that "He certainly exists". It is not certain. There is zero objective evidence for any Creator's existence except the classic illogical choice of "proving the book, by the book". If you think proving the book by the book is a valid exercise in critical thinking then that means EVERY religion must be true which is utterly impossible since at least some tenets of almost every one of the many thousands are exclusionary by their very nature. In my hierarchy of logic and evidence, that is in fact, blind.

Further, I submit that in all of logic a conclusion in which the key premise cannot be verified is by definition a faulty and invalid conclusion. That by definition is not reason. It is true that no information is reaching us from before the Universe came into existence to validate any story of any creator. In this manner, believing without even a semblance of evidence which I am to understand is the very essence of faith, I regard ALL faith as blind, not just yours. What exists even to be seen? I suppose it is vaguely possible that some entity created this Universe but all evidence I am able to gather leads me to trust that even if that were so, I would have no way of knowing it... and nor would anyone else.

Why do you think your faith is somehow based on reason but all other religions are not? How are they all so mistaken and you are not? How did yours get on "the inside track"? What makes yours different from anyone elses? If your answer is like so many, scripture, they have scripture too.

Agreed on this much: we don't know each other. Did you actually read what I posted? Did you read what I said about the origin of life? That was the point I hoped to see answered, not an attempt to divert us into a nihilistic discussion about logic.

I'm not proving the book, by the book. Have I once quoted the Book? The only proof I recall offering was the lack of a scientifically based alternative to a Diine origin of Life. Nor will I descend into an argument about Logic - Full stop.

What I conclude from the lack of a scientifically based alternative is that if we were not created, then logically, none of us exist. I feel strongly that there are proofs against that, myself and yourself with our differing opinions being two of them. But I'm unlikely to get an answer from you, as an answer doesn't exist, does it?

In rejecting God and putting faith in Science, it is actually you who are putting faith in the unknown, or 'without evidence.' I would feel as science clearly hasn't got the answer t the Origin of Life. Not only that, there isn't even a reasonable basis for faith that the answer will eventually be found. But if that's your belief, you are welcome to it, and I won't criticise it. After a sufficient amount of time fixed in position, the cement is inclined to set anyhow, and nothing I say or do will change it.

In short, I would say: Just because some faith is blind, don't believe it all is. Some, like Dawkins, define faith as 'belief without evidence.' I would say my faith is 'belief on the best available evidence.' If there is no evidence for something, why should I believe it?

Sadly, in the case of some who shout loudest and toot religious trumpets, it is 'Belief against the evidence.'

I think you need to make a distinction between what someone believes and the mindset with which he believes it. I have noticed that in this thread the two are frequently confused.

My own favorite example is Richard Dawkins versus the late Steven Gould. There is a striking parallelism between the two men: both evolutionary biologists, both brilliant popularisers of science, both atheists, both fierce opponents of so-called creationists. But I always felt that Gould's atheism was purely an intellectual position and did not involve any real hostility towards religious people, as long as they refrained from talking nonsense about science, whereas Dawkins has all the violent passions of a grand inquisitor hunting out heresy. I had a French uncle who was like that. He was a militant atheist and communist, though never a member of the French Communist Party because they wouldn't touch him with a bargepole. They thought he was crazy! I thought he was one of the most religious men I knew.

Excellent example Hazel. Based on what you have given, I would align myself with Gould: I am not militant in any way and as a matter of fact, have only revealed my beliefs to very close family members or friends. I am a firm believer in each person having the right to believe in what they choose to believe in, and in no way is it proper to force one's beliefs on another.

Originally Posted by business_kid But all of us want an explanation of our origins, what our purpose in the world is. Since Francis Crick's Nobel Prize (in 1961?), there hasn't been a scientific theory, even a credible postulation about how life came about. So atheism can't answer one of the basic questions all humans ask.

Here's my problem with this position. To me, "God created life" is not an answer to the question either. It's an anti-explanation. It doesn't add anything useful compared to "I don't know". It might at least be possible, some day in the future, to produce a science-based answer. Whereas religion can only offer this non-answer, and never anything more as a matter of principle.

business_kid, all I'm going to say is that it is not reason to jump from "unidentified" (let alone "unidentifiable") to "therefore it must be identified as X,Y, or Z". It's unidentified. Full stop, as you said. If instead, you "full stop" at Logic, then that just proves the "blind" point. You just choose to call it reason when it is not by anyone's definition but your own subjective choice.

Frankly I don't really understand the modern conundrum of some religious people. It seems it used to be an actual point of honor that faith was unquestioning and blind in that regard. You have every right to believe in whatever you want so why do you feel the need for your faith to be conflated with reason?... all the while breaking the rules of Logic that define Reason?

I don't have business_kid's problem with the origin of life because I don't believe it originated suddenly.I've studied it a bit (I'm a chemist by training) and I can see how there must have been an intermediate area between life and not-life, with self-sustaining and interlocking cycles of chemical reaction getting more and more complex until one could say, "That has to be called life."

But that means that the universe is "set up" as it were to produce life and I find that hopelessly improbable. If there was a book with all the possible universes in it and you chose one with a pin blindfold, it would never have been this one! This is called the anthropic argument and it can easily be disproved when applied to planets: if this planet was not so uniquely suited to producing life, another planet in another galaxy far far away would be, and we would be living there and not here (and doubtless still asking the same question!). But you can't apply it to universes unless you believe that all the possible universes actually exist alongside each other. Forgive me if I find an infinite number of universes less likely than one God.

There is and can be no scientific answer to this because science is about explaining the universe as it exists. Science can't explain why it exists or how far it could have been different. Scientists simply have to accept the existing universe as the frame for their picture. Taking things on from there is the job of philosophers and theologians.

@all: I don't think I said "God created Life," as an absolute statement of faith. I did go as far as saying science has no alternative, which certainly implies I believe God must have. But that's a logical conclusion, and a basis for belief in the best available evidence, not a statement of blind faith.

@hazel: Nice point, succinctly stated. My son watches those debates, and feels Dawkins should cease & desist, because guys like Anthony Flew & Steven Meyer shoot him down in flames too often. That's his opinion.

@sevendogsbsd:+1 on that.

@ntubski: Agreed that 'God created Life' is not an answer in itself, as was simply done in times past. If you feel science will in the future produce a hypothesis, I feel you may not have examined the subject to the extent that I have. There are so many intractable problems and catch-22 situations (you need A to make B, but you need B to make A) that Universities divert students away from 'origin of life' as a speciality, encouraging something more rewarding.

@enorbet: Retreating again into Logic, I see? The favourite retreat of someone who can't answer what he was asked. Who ever said 'Faith & Religion' had to be logical?' I expressed confidence that God certainly exists as an aside, which everybody has jumped on. I'm not going to waste time with you on this subject.

Originally Posted by hazel Forgive me if I find an infinite number of universes less likely than one God.

I forgive you. Let me ask you a question though. What's the difference between God scanning through possible universes and deciding "okay this one, this one will make life", vs all the universes existing side by side. That is, what's the difference between a universe existing in the mind of God, vs just plain existing?

Originally Posted by business_kid @ntubski: Agreed that 'God created Life' is not an answer in itself, as was simply done in times past. If you feel science will in the future produce a hypothesis, I feel you may not have examined the subject to the extent that I have. There are so many intractable problems and catch-22 situations (you need A to make B, but you need B to make A) that Universities divert students away from 'origin of life' as a speciality, encouraging something more rewarding.

Sure, it might be intractable at the moment, and it makes sense to steer students away from it. There's just too much we don't know. And I don't even know that science will produce something with any certainty. But I also don't know of a reason to think it's impossible in principle, unlike say, perpetual motion.

By the way, the question is bit vague here. Would you take hazel's description of chemical cycles as an answer? And if not, what do you think is missing?