The Faith & Religion mega Thread

Jay, I don't understand how you come to the conclusion that one would be meaningless without the other. Let's stay with man/woman or blue/green just for simplicity. If all that lived would reproduce asexually then those lifeforms wouldn't become meaningless. Just your concept of sexuality would become meaningless - which those critters could not possibly care less about. Just because your concept of something looses it's meaning does not have any effect on the physical world. If all you're saying is that a definition or concept will fall apart if you remove a vital part of what makes it what it is - that's like, doh - obvious. Who cares? Where are you going with this?

I don't see where you are going here. If sexuality disappeared from the planet, who cares, we would simply establish some other criterion to distinguish between species. I get the impression you are ignoring the word "arbitrary" that I have been stressing all along.

Atheism infers believe, that's absolutely correct. Without people believing in invisible sky authorities, it would be pointless to take a counter position. It would be the default condition.

No, it would not. I already pointed that out, I believe. I have never met any atheist who is not vehement about his/her conviction that God does not exist. If no-one had ever come up with the God concept, there would be no religious conviction at all, either positive or negative. What one would have instead would be more like agnosticism if that is defined as "don't bother me with it, I don't care one way or another".

Maybe linguistically, but no scientifically. According to wikipedia green is the light spectrum between 520nm and 570nm.

Yeah, OK, but is green inherent in nature or is a psychological entity? From the "scientific" point of view there is no such thing. All we have is a spectrum and that very notion is incompatible with "things", "units" - those come into existence only when people start breaking the spectrum up into parts, a largely arbitrary act that does not proceed from observation but that appears more or less out of nowhere and imposes order on observations. Why would you draw the line at 520 and 570? Why not 200 and 800? Why not 233 and 652? The same goes for so many other things, such as sound. Why are certain sounds meaningful to a speaker of one language and not to the speaker of another language? Why, in German, would o and ö have the power to distinguish between words that are otherwise identical (schon - schön), giving them different meanings, when in another language the sounds are interchangeable to the point that one could use either and the two pronunciations would still refer to the same thing. Dutch has "schoon" for "schön", which sounds like "schon"; now if you pronounce it exactly like schön instead, no one will be confused; at worst they will think you have a speech impediment or that you are speaking some sort of dialect. Or Think of the pronuncations of r "in" British and American English or in African and European French.
Surely that very fact demonstrates that to the human mind, just like colours, phonemes (meaningful sound units) are primarily cultural artefacts, not physical realities.
And what makes you think that linguistics is not scientific? I can assure you that modern linguistics involves mathematics, physics, biology, neurobiology, logic, etc. Just because a certain discipline studies cultural phenomena (language) does not mean that it cannot proceed in a scientific way.

No, it would not. I already pointed that out, I believe. I have never met any atheist who is not vehement about his/her conviction that God does not exist.

The problem is that you don't go quite far enough with this when ou say "God does not exist". The proper understanding of atheism is that it says that NO god exists.

If no-one had ever come up with the God concept, there would be no religious conviction at all, either positive or negative. What one would have instead would be more like agnosticism if that is defined as "don't bother me with it, I don't care one way or another".

It's hard to understand how people can continue to insist that agnosticism is the default condition. Are you agnostic about the psychedelic brunny gobster? Are you agnostic about the FSM? What about the Greek gods? It almost seems like you believe you are exempt from agnosticism because you believe in the "One True God". I have to tell you: I probably have the same convictions as you do about Wodin, Thor, Zeus, and the rest of the gods you "don't believe in whether you've heard about them or not". The difference is that my disbelief includes one more god than yours does. Belief does not disqualify agnosticism.

The proper understanding of atheism is that it says that NO god exists

So? That is a conviction, too.

Are you agnostic about the psychedelic brunny gobster? Are you agnostic about the FSM?

Yes and yes. Do they exist? Who knows. If I do not care, it is only because they have limited value as normative cultural realities. Think of such things as laws, nations, money and the like. Those do not exist either, they only "exist" because we want them to "exist". Why is there a Mexico and a New Mexico? Would it not make sense to lump them together? And while we are lumping things together, why not immediately collapse all of North and South America? Illegal immigration solved at once. Now that is efficient.

Here is the fundamental flaw with the whole atheist camp: they utterly fail to acknowledge the realm of culture. I had to suppress a grin when I was watching that video that Oskar posted. Richard Dawkins refuting religion by presenting a map of the world that shows that religions are distributed into geographical areas. Apparently, the man has not stopped to think that similar spheres can be drawn when it comes law, language, economy, etc. etc. So all of those things should be abolished... Worse, the man's specialization, biology, is only one among many disciplines in academia. Surely that alone must be evidence that he is peddling nonsense... His arguments are pure rhetoric, just like his whole notion of "hereditary" religions. The point here is not that religions do not fit into a tradition, the point is his choice of words: "hereditary", which makes one think of "hereditary disease". Such conscious choice of words to affect the audience subconsciously is one of the hallmarks of rhetoric. Not to mention the overwhelming number of quotes from scientists that he feels compelled to present. Why? This, too, is just an old rhetorical trick, the "argument from authority". If I can present a few big names, then surely my audience will be awed enough not to look to deeply into my own arguments... In short, Dawkins and co are creating their own worldview - there would be nothing wrong with that- democracy, you know - if at least they were willing to admit as much. As it is, we have fundamentalists on both ends of the spectrum.

Yes and yes. Do they exist? Who knows.

Just verifying that you don't really believe that the Abrahamic God is "the one true god", that's all. And, since you're not a "true believer" but rather an agnostic, I think my arguments are done.

Found on the internet:
Adopt religion of the cat

Originally Posted by ErV Found on the internet: Adopt religion of the cat

Sounds good. I'll convert to that. I'll bury my poop in a neighbour's garden.

His arguments are pure rhetoric, just like his whole notion of "hereditary" religions.

Wow! That's pretty good! Is anyone familiar with: "Bend the twig, so grows the tree"? I'd hesitate at calling "religion hereditary" but seriously you do have to admit that training from an early childhood is really damn hard to break.

Just like our animal shelter rescue we've had for 10 years. He still will not get up on the furniture, even when I put him on it, he will immediately get off. And he won't bark (not sure if that is a result of training) with the exception of squirrels and stranger at the door gets one woof. We thought he was mute till a squirrel moved into the yard. What I'm getting at is humans and early training aren't any different than animals, they retain the programming their entire lives and require un-training to get rid of the faulty trained responses.

How many Atheists reading this thread came from a go to church every week and pray everyday childhood type environment? Did you have to work at turning Atheist? Do you still find yourself giving a churchy type response and then have to correct yourself? I know I do, it's a pain in the ass having to put up with myself!

Why as parents, do people insist on training their kids with religion? So they can sit back and watch the kid go through all the hell, confusion and double-standards for the rest of their lives? Oh, yeah and all the guilt-trips.

Originally Posted by yonnieboy Wow! That's pretty good! Is anyone familiar with: "Bend the twig, so grows the tree"? I'd hesitate at calling "religion hereditary" but seriously you do have to admit that training from an early childhood is really damn hard to break.

I don't hesitate to call it hereditary, at all. Children generally have very little free choice in their lives. Everything they "know" is what has been poured into their little heads. This works pretty well when it comes to schoolwork. Actually, I guess it works pretty well with religion, too. Imagine the problems you'd face as a child if your parents were Christians and you announced, at the ripe old age of 8, that you're a Muslim. (Or vice versa, of course.) Every parent wants their children to grow up to be socially just like them.

How many Atheists reading this thread came from a go to church every week and pray everyday childhood type environment? Did you have to work at turning Atheist? Do you still find yourself giving a churchy type response and then have to correct yourself? I know I do, it's a pain in the ass having to put up with myself!

I think most Atheists (as opposed to the subclass atheist who is so due to neglectful parents) come from a church family. And, it takes a lot of work for most of us to become atheists. The stakes are high in the Abrahamic religions when it comes to apostasy. With Christianity it's usually social shunning; whereas with Islam, death is proscribed. I think most of us remember the numerous sermons about those bad old "backsliders" and what to do about them.

Yes, I went to church (C. of E.) with my parents when I was a kid. I was even in the choir. My singing still evokes religious feelings in people, they tend to say "Oh, My God!!" when I start.

Originally Posted by brianL Yes, I went to church (C. of E.) with my parents when I was a kid. I was even in the choir. My singing still evokes religious feelings in people, they tend to say "Oh, My God!!" when I start.

LOL, it's a good one.

I feel that somehow we have got immunised to the concept of Christinaty or the concept that Jesus is God. No matter how much we claim that we are logical or scientific generation we would always find something we dont understand or does not fit in our neat equations.

I would say to all of you who are Christians to just step back for a moment and relook at God without having any prejudices and I am sure that you will find Him.

I feel that somehow we have got immunised to the concept of Christinaty or the concept that Jesus is God.

It's just a concept and whether you want to believe it or not is up to you.

No matter how much we claim that we are logical or scientific generation we would always find something we dont understand or does not fit in our neat equations.

So you're asking us to stop using our brains and to blindly believe what the bible says. In other words: it's okay if we don't understand something. Let's not bother trying to understand it. We can always say that it's a god's work. Problem solved. Brilliant! It's so easy and convenient!!!

In my opinion, religion should be the LAST area which could fill in the gaps in our logical/scientific theories/equations.That's what ancient Greeks did. e.g. when they couldn't scientifically explain earthquakes, they just came up with Poseidon. He's responsible for it. Simple. Again, it's just a convenient way of giving up. AFAIK, it's just mental laziness.

I would say to all of you who are Christians to just step back for a moment and relook at God without having any prejudices and I am sure that you will find Him.

I don't have any prejudices. I managed to get rid of what the years of religious indoctrination/brainwashing that I received by my parents, school and church did to me.

It really amazes me when a person who encourages believing without questioning points out the lack of objectivity in the views of others.

I went to church (C. of E.) with my parents when I was a kid. I was even in the choir. My singing still evokes religious feelings in people, they tend to say "Oh, My God!!" when I start.

Different church but same thing, we even put on slide-shows with the sing-a-long piano stuff. Pass-out literature all-weekend, from the time I was still in a stroller.

Oh around 12 or so, I woke up. Maybe I had read "waiting for godot" or had asked the right person about how science could claim the Earth was more than 7 thousand years old. I really don't remember what started it for me, could have been some fossils I had found.

Originally Posted by Quakeboy02 I think most Atheists (as opposed to the subclass atheist who is so due to neglectful parents) come from a church family.

How dare you insult my parents like that! How dare you! My parents have raised me as an atheist because they know how the scientific method works and have explained that to their children. One has to think for himself and be responsible for his own actions, not trying to "feel guidance" from a god, not following orders from a priest, not just blindly following tradition.
Your statement renders my upbringing and therefore my parents as "neglectful" which is a pure insult, to my parents as well as to humanism in principle.

I don't know if my parents were really believers or just went to church because it was the socially accepted thing to do. I can't remember ever discussing religion with them. Think I became an atheist when I was about 15. So in around a couple of years I will be celebrating my Golden Atheism Anniversary. Whoooopeeee!!! The drinks and drugs are on you! LET'S PAAAAAAAARTY!!!!!

No, not a couple of years. Next year. Tempus fugit.