The Faith & Religion mega Thread

What religion or what god, opinion; and/or un-nourished kids whose minds get none or maybe someone who wants to be president but doesn't believe, just has to say so for the average folk.

Drink poisonous Kool aid, you'll die. Drink regular Kool aid you'll die. Facts.

Do religious people not know what opinions are or do they ignore all the other gods and religions claiming that theirs is not an opinion‽

Originally Posted by business_kid Agreed. It's an interesting tangent to read about. As a tangent, I for one won't explore it. I'm surprised you chose to raise it here.

It seemed on-topic, since the discussion was on Big Bang Theory. Actually, I remember now, how I bumped into it. You had written something that I thought was obviously false, and I was looking for a reference. Specifically this:

Originally Posted by business_kid Relativity tells us that if we go far enough in one direction, we'll come back to where we started again.

AFAIK, it's only of the possible shapes that result in that kind of looping (didn't find a reference that ties it directly to Relativity though, maybe it's just an unfounded credence (see quote at bottom from article that eight.bit.al linked) I have?).

Originally Posted by business_kid And I agree, assigning creative forces to blind forces is a common theme of mine. I don't like the this sort of thing: a theory that lumps of meat falling out of the sky developed wings. Nobody said that, of course. It's just a knee jerk reaction of mine when blisnd forces appear to solve their own problems.

What confuses me most about your point of view, is that since you believe in God, why not just say that God is directing these ostensibly "blind" forces?

But I gather you're starting from a diametrically opposite viewpoint.

Possibly, although I'm not clear how you define a "blind" force specifically. Or "creativity" for that matter.

Originally Posted by eight.bit.al https://www.theatlantic.com/science/...-faith/417357/

Oh, I like this one.

Many scientific views endorsed by non-specialists are credences as well. Some people reading this will say they believe in natural selection, but not all will be able to explain how natural selection works. (As an example, how does this theory explain the evolution of the eye?) It turns out that those who assert the truth of natural selection are often unable to define it, or, worse, have it confused with some long-rejected pre-Darwinian notion that animals naturally improve over time.

Originally Posted by eight.bit.al I ran across two articles from David Bloom and thought they might be of interest to this group: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine...cident/304425/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/...-faith/417357/ We return you now to the never ending "I'm right" thread. 8bit

In this case you were right. They are interesting.

Regarding "credences" (not the swamp rock band ) The author is correct even if I disagree with some of his percentages. Even the great Dr. Carl Sagan when operating outside his area of expertise fell prey. He concluded that Samurai Crabs had the "face" on their carapace they do from a blend of natural and unwittingly imposed artificial selection. What he concluded, that because many fishermen threw back the ones that looked most like grimacing samurai more of them survived to have offspring. While it has been shown that may have had some minor effect, not only was their an evolutionary advantage in far more important areas, but History shows they existed in great numbers long before the Chinese Warriors ships wrecked on Japan's seacoast.

It is true that many throughout history have made the mistake of assuming Evolution is goal-oriented when much of it is pure chance. Had our ancestors been unable to adapt as jungle gave way to savannah and a completely different diet and means of harvest, they would have failed, died out, and we wouldn't be here. That change in diet was largely responsible for the increase in brain size and intelligence. One doesn't have to be brainy to sneak up on a leaf.

Had a much earlier ancestor not been the size of a mouse living in underground burrows but instead the size of say a modern day horse, we would have gone extinct with the majority of other large dinosaurs. We are not The Crown of Creation. We are just at the top of the food chain for now. Hmmm... maybe the meek shall inherit the Earth

Originally Posted by enorbet The author is correct even if I disagree with some of his percentages.

Huh? What percentages?

Originally Posted by ntubski You had written something that I thought was obviously false, and I was looking for a reference. Specifically this: Relativity tells us that if we go far enough in one direction, we'll come back to where we started again.

Well, if it's obviously false to you, it's probably false. It was in one of those 'summaries of chief effects of relativity' done some time back. I think it was based on gravity being curved, and I never checked it.

Originally Posted by ntubski What confuses me most about your point of view, is that since you believe in God, why not just say that God is directing these ostensibly "blind" forces?

I don't think it is that simple. I would regard gravity, for example, as a blind force. Gravity doesn't provide any creative power to things undergoing the unfortunate experience in it's grip, but they must suffer the inevitable consequences.

The Bible doesn't explain how God did things. So I cannot say. It would appear that God sets things up to keep going, and does not micro-manage things. The earth has a water cycle; an oxygen cycle; even a carbon cycle. And we see the difference that a little over one hundred PPM had in that in the air! Looks like 300PPM was well designed.

Likewise, I feel (yes, only feel) that after the events on a macroscopic level leading up to the CMB, There was a long gap, perhaps many billions of years before the earth was prepared for life. Genesis 1:2 apparently describes the earth near the end of that. God is not afraid to use slow processes. For instance "Let there be light" is said on the 1st day/period; But the process is not completed until the 4th day/period, where day & night were delineated.

On the Atlantic.com links: I groaned inwardly when I saw the photo of the Young Earth, "born again" preacher. It wasn't shown, but I can imagine his collection plate obstructing the door on the way out. He was no doubt working emotions, not minds or hearts and talking about what's in the news more than in the Bible. Please don't associate me with them.

And not that I want to go here, but I share common ground (that applies to all areas of training). People are best within their specialty. That's why a scientist calls a plumber. As Richard Feynman put it: "Outside of his specialty, a scientist is just as dumb as the next guy."

I don't like the "I'm right" title; I'd much prefer 'I want to know if I'm right." Ok, I get that you guys are atheist/agnostic/?? and I'm a believer (THE believer?) here, but am I goring somebody's Sacred Cow? Doesn't science welcome being questioned? Being found lacking? Or do people take it like a kick in the Proverbials?

Originally Posted by ntubski Huh? What percentages?

Actually I probably should not have said "his" percentages since he was mostly quoting various polls but he did choose those particular polls to quote. There were a few that seem skewed to me but the most questionable is "Just about everyone in this country—96 percent in one poll—believes in God." The poll for this thread displays 44% are atheist and another 19% agnostic for a total of 63% not self-classified as "Believers". Why this huge discrepancy, 4% vs/ 63%?

I think this highlights the serious problem that is at the root of why I bother to check on this thread regularly - the repression created by the political power of organized religion. While it is likely that LQN has a cross-section of people a bit more science and technology oriented than the general public I doubt that alone accounts for the massive disparity. I suspect it is instead the anonymity and I know that while atheists don't even see themselves as any sort of community, religious zealots absolutely thrive on and require an Us and Them accounting or there wouldn't even be a term "evangelism"

For my part I really don't care what anyone else believes regarding anything outside our Universe since from my POV it is entirely subjective. I just oppose organizing and gaining political power to enforce collectivism on subjective matters that hopefully are becoming clearer due to discussions like this thread are irrelevant to morals and values. Instead, in the realm of public opinion, some fairly large percentage rate atheists as less moral, and trustworthy, than pedophiles.

I'd simply prefer that Mr. Bloom was a bit more circumspect in quoting such percentages. I largely enjoyed the articles.

Originally Posted by business_kid I groaned inwardly when I saw the photo of the Young Earth, "born again" preacher.

That's a picture of Republican U.S. presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson speaking at the debate held by Fox Business Network for the top 2016 U.S. Republican presidential candidates in Milwaukee, Nov. 10, 2015. Not a preacher. Probably should do research before making claims.

8bit

Originally Posted by business_kid I would regard gravity, for example, as a blind force. Gravity doesn't provide any creative power to things undergoing the unfortunate experience in it's grip, but they must suffer the inevitable consequences.

Does that mean you reject the standard idea of planet formation by coalescing of materials due to gravity?

Likewise, I feel (yes, only feel) that after the events on a macroscopic level leading up to the CMB, There was a long gap, perhaps many billions of years before the earth was prepared for life.

Well, it would be pretty surprising if Earth could be life-bearing immediately after the events leading up to the CMB (especially since, as far as I know, evidence like radiometric dating suggests the Earth didn't exist yet).

Originally Posted by enorbet Actually I probably should not have said "his" percentages since he was mostly quoting various polls but he did choose those particular polls to quote.

Oh, that's the other article.

There were a few that seem skewed to me but the most questionable is "Just about everyone in this country—96 percent in one poll—believes in God." The poll for this thread displays 44% are atheist and another 19% agnostic for a total of 63% not self-classified as "Believers". Why this huge discrepancy, 4% vs/ 63%?

Well first of all, you can't take this thread's poll numbers as even vaguely representative. So toss out the 63% entirely. Now, I will agree with you that the 4% could be an exaggeration: since he said "one poll", and most polls are ±3, 19 times out of 20. So if you look at 20 or more polls, you can probably find some outliers. And depending on the wording of the question, you might be able to put (some) agnostics in the "believe (at least a little) in God" bin. See https://news.gallup.com/poll/268205/...lieve-god.aspx for example.

While it is likely that LQN has a cross-section of people a bit more science and technology oriented than the general public I doubt that alone accounts for the massive disparity.

But really, you can't take numbers from a voluntary on-line poll seriously (and this one is especially poorly worded, IMO).

Hiya ntubski

I think you may have under-represented the ironic intent of matching one skewed poll against another. I seriously doubt the US or any country really is 60+% atheist but just as much as I doubt it's only 4%. Even that it isn't a clear average between every such poll speaks volumes to me that people prefer to keep such data/views hidden or anonymous for fear of prejudice and reprisal. I've witnessed that one should be careful even checking a "No Preference" box for "Religion" in Doctor's medical forms. I'm quite sure checking any "Christian" box in a Muslim society is similarly risky and I know it can be when vice versa.

@ eight.bit.al: Thank you for the correction: I'm in Ireland, fyi. I put 1+1 and got 3. I am not familiar with our own politicians, never mind the US ones, unless they start a big war or something.

Originally Posted by ntubski Does that mean you reject the standard idea of planet formation by coalescing of materials due to gravity?

No. The Bible is not specific, and it makes sense to me, until a better idea comes along.

Not that I want to get into the current subject, (Atheists/agnostics discussing religious statistics) but Ireland shows in polls as 90-95% Catholic. The percentage is nearer 20-30%. Atheists are around 50%. Membership is nearly all in the 60+ age group. Churches are being sold and no new priests or nuns are enlisting. 2 nearby seminaries have closed. Convents are imploding. Now one geriatric pries drives between 2 country parishes to say a Mass in each one on a Sunday. Or they drone out the same ritual to an empty church that was said last week, and put it online. Saying you're agnostic here is a coward's way out of saying you're atheist. It causes less offense. There's a few percent each for minorities (Protestants,Muslims, Jews, etc) but they're all shrinking; The rest is in a rapidly growing "Don't know/Don't care" group.

I like the David Bloom articles. He comes over as an intelligent and thoughtful man. But his arguments cut both ways. For example, if

It’s better to learn about the age of the universe from an astrophysicist than from a Rabbi,

then it's better to learn about the possible existence of God from a Rabbi than from Richard Dawkins. A Rabbi is more likely to know what he's talking about.

The discovery that religion is wired into our brains is also significant. Let's do a little thought experiment.

Suppose that there was in the universe a force called gleek and that we had an organ to detect it. When we did so, we would have a certain kind of subjective experience. Let us call that a corban experience. We have auditory experiences when our ears detect sound and visual experiences when our eyes detect light, so we would have a corban experience when we detected gleek. Of course that would also open the door to corban hallucinations. We might feel we had detected gleek when actually there was no gleek there. But the fact that we could have such hallucinations would make no sense in a world without gleek.

Actually of course there is no such thing as gleek and so we don't have corban experiences, not even hallucinatory ones. But we do have religious experiences. Nearly everyone has them (though apparently enorbet doesn't). Non-believers have their own ways of explaining these away. They regard them as illusory. But how come our brains are tuned (and finely tuned according to Bloom) to give us these experiences if we live in a world where there is no such thing as God?

We evolved the ability to have visual experiences because we live in a world that is full of light energy. We did not evolve the ability to have corban experiences because we live in a world that contains no gleek for us to detect or process. But we evolved the ability to have religious experiences because...

Yes and we also see Rabbits in clouds. It's an anomaly of Pattern Recognition.

If it is logical and true that because Dawkins is not a Biblical Scholar we should rely on Rabbis and Priests, does it follow that we should rely on Druids to inform us of Wood Faeries?

Haha. The Jews I have come across are close to 50% atheist/agnostic. My kids went to a Jewish school.

@Hazel: 'corban' is a loaded word. It's one usage in Scripture is in allowing someone to weasel out of their religious obligations . Is there some subliminal meaning here?

And on religious percentages, the trend line is towards atheism, for one reason. A toddler who is introduced to any God by his parents (when he comes asking why this & why that) can get to believing anything - no option is closed to him/her. But a child (heaven forbid ) raised by Richard Dawkins will not have God introduced to him/her. God is nonsense. For a child, parental influence is vital at a young age; Answers are required by teenagers. But God is not an option considered by teenagers raised by atheists, because there's no God; they know, because Dad/Mom told them when they were toddlers, and that usually overcomes the spiritual pre-programming Hazel talks about.