I do like personal religion. People should be free to and encouraged to decide for themselves. Not forced into anything. Which is also why I dislike the anti-religion people. Bashing people for not being smart enough to know what you know is not going to change anyone's belief.

by mattish on 06/17/2009 09:08:58 AM EST

[ Parent ]
Religion is just another set of ideas, and it should be as open to criticism as any set of ideas.  If you believe something that is contradicted by everything around you, you can expect to be criticized.  For instance, if you believe that a virgin can become pregnant without the benefit of sperm, people who think that you're bat-shit crazy are justified in that opinion as much as they would be if you claimed that the earth is flat.

At some point, when religions deny what we have learned, they must be vigorously criticized.  Unfortunately, our First Amendment has been used to protect people who believe ridiculous things at the expense of others.

For instance, as an employer, I want to hire people who can reason and employ logic.  But when someone comes through my door who belongs to a religion that says that some God they've devised forbids the use of birth control, I may have to hire that person...

...even though I manufacture birth control devices.

Sure, go ahead and believe what you want.  But if you believe things that contradict reason, logic, and science, and you communicate your beliefs to others then you must expect criticism.  Those of us who have learned how to learn aren't going to put up with religious bullshit when it gets too obnoxious.

And it always does.

by EveningStarNM on 06/17/2009 09:26:38 AM EST

[ Parent ]

proving my point. I never said I had any religion and you started attacking me and anyone else that does have a religion for not being able to use reason or logic. Never mind all the scientists in the world that believe in a god and still seem to function just fine.

 People like you are just as bad as the religious nuts. Anything that goes against what you say is a sign of stupidity because you said so.

 And did you just argue that science proved there is no god? It sounds like that is what you are getting at.

 I am not religious and I a don't like organized religion. Just like I don't like organized thought. Bandwagon thinking almost always results in bad things happening.

 

by mattish on 06/17/2009 11:25:45 AM EST

[ Parent ]


I'm sorry if I erroneously assumed that you like personal religion.  As for your feeling of being "attacked", I deny responsibility for that.

Show me a religion with logic as its basis rather than some inflexible demand to accept a set of unsubstantiated beliefs and I'll reconsider my view of that particular ideology.

And if someone has some belief in a "God" of some definition, the definition of that God would seem to be relevant, wouldn't it?

Define "God".  Then we'll talk.  Until you do, I have no idea what you're talking about.

by EveningStarNM on 06/17/2009 02:54:58 PM EST

[ Parent ]
Deists believe that god created the world, and then put into place a set of natural laws that can never be broken.  

They think that there had to be a creator, because of their premises: The world had a beginning, and the world is too complicated to be just a coincidence.

Note: The author does not necessarily subscribe to the views, he is only describing them.

by birdboy1 on 06/17/2009 03:10:01 PM EST

[ Parent ]
Assume that the universe was uniform and in a steady state.  Then something happened to disturb that state, an event which we call "The Big Bang".

What caused that disturbance?  "God?"  I guess you might as well call it that.  That name fits as well as any other.  "Creator?"  Absolutely.

I don't have a problem with any of that until someone who thinks they know something starts assigning attributes to "God", the "Creator".  I am convinced that it is a impossible for humans to know what caused that disturbance.  I might be wrong, but I think we'd have to know what came "before" there was time.

I like unanswerable questions.  I avoid trying to answer them.

by EveningStarNM on 06/17/2009 03:37:48 PM EST

[ Parent ]
The First Cause (http://en.wikipedia.org/wik i/First_cause) is a common argument for the existence of a creator deity.  I don't remember the argument against it (I think it has something to do with saying that having a first cause is not a necessary condition).  There is a great book if this kind of thing interests you called Atheism Explained.  

http://www.amazon.com/Athei sm-Explained-Folly-Philosop hy-Ideas/dp/0812696379/ref= sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books& amp;qid=1245270996&sr=1 -3

We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.

by aidbo on 06/17/2009 04:45:29 PM EST

[ Parent ]
You can have a "creator" without having a deity.  My argument is that we have no idea what the creator was and that assigning "deity status" to it is dishonest.

by EveningStarNM on 06/17/2009 05:00:49 PM EST

[ Parent ]
Aidbo,

The argument against the first cause "evidence" of a creator, according to Richard Dawkins, is that in order for there to be a "prime mover" -- what people want to call God -- the prime mover had to have existed before this first cause.  Or at the very least, had to be created at the same time as the first cause. But then the question arises, "Who created the creator?"

There is no answer to this, nor, most likely, will there ever be.

by DaeguBill on 06/18/2009 12:24:48 AM EST

[ Parent ]
Unfortunately, a lot of religionists simply don't recognize them.  They'll say, "No one created the Creator!  God just always was!"  And, given their definition of God, that statement makes perfect sense.

The real challenge is in getting them to recognize that their faith in the truth of that statement is actually dishonesty, since we can never prove whether it's true or false.  Supplying an answer to an unanswerable question is an act of dishonesty.

The real beauty and mystery is in the simple existence of the question "what happened before?"  But it's a question that they will never let stand unanswered.

by EveningStarNM on 06/18/2009 12:44:00 AM EST

[ Parent ]
I think Richard Dawkins puts it best when he insists that it is much more interesting to not know something and to have to work hard to try to understand it (and possibly NEVER understand it) than to say, "I just know" and be done with it.

by DaeguBill on 06/18/2009 01:01:44 AM EST

[ Parent ]
...more Richard Dawkins.  Got any suggestions?

by EveningStarNM on 06/18/2009 02:10:19 AM EST

[ Parent ]

Generally, anything by Dawkins is good, and highly scientific.  The primary origin of most of my concepts posed here come from, as you might expect, "The God Delusion".  This book is much less focused on science, more focused on history, but equally brilliant.

 For a more biting criticism of religion, check out Christopher Hitchen's "God is not great: how religion poisons everything."  Personally, I preferred this one. It's basically atheism with balls.

by DaeguBill on 06/18/2009 03:24:36 AM EST

[ Parent ]
He wasn't attacking you.  He didn't say anything about you.  He said that everything is open to criticism if it is vocalized.

Never mind all the scientists in the world that believe in a god and still seem to function just fine.

He didn't say anything about them.  You seem to be equating religion to fundamentalist christianity.  Which is wrong.
  So if you were hiring an archaeology team for a dig of hominid fossils, and someone came up to you and said they wanted the job, they knew their history, and another person wanted the job who believed that the world was 6000 years old and insists that there is no evolution, who would you hire?

Yes, there are religious scientists, but they are not fundamentalists.  Remember, Darwin was trying to become a priest.

And did you just argue that science proved there is no god? It sounds like that is what you are getting at.
No, he didn't.  I have no idea where you came up with that.

by birdboy1 on 06/17/2009 12:21:13 PM EST

[ Parent ]
EveningStar can be a little abrasive sometimes.  Don't jump to the conclusion that he/(she?) was attacking you.

One thing that I did notice in your post though (and this is not an attack, I'm just pointing out something that you might not have noticed before) is that you anthropomorphized science.  I've done it before too.  We have to remember that science is not a person, it does not have whims, it doesn't make decisions.  It is also not a system of beliefs, which is how some other people seem to think of it.  It is a tool, nothing more.  If used correctly (and there are plenty of people who do not use it correctly) it can be used to learn some truly amazing things.  Because of this I think our human nature is to approach it with some kind of awe.  But we must remember that science (or more specifically the scientific method) was "created" by humans (so was religion!).  It was brought about by people as a way to apply reason and logic to try to come up with rules/concepts/theories to explain phenomena in the natural world.

I believe this is also how religion began.  Some ancient tribe sees some lightning one night strike a tree near their camp.  They didn't have the tools to figure out what that phenomenon represented.  So they invent a deity (individually or by fiat) that must have done it, and pretty soon you have Zeus.  Then along comes other un-explainable phenomena and you get other deities, like Helios, Yaweh, Allah, etc.

Where these two ways of looking at the natural world differ however is their approach to learning the truth.  With religion, generally the truth is just made up.  It works better if it is self-consistent with the other beliefs, but this is not a requirement because of the nature of deities.  If you apply science to learn the truth about a phenomenon, you don't have that luxury and if it isn't consistent with your other scientific beliefs, thats a big red-flag.  You make a theory (a best guess using what you already know about the natural world) and then devise a way to test that theory.  You say to yourself, "I think A is caused by B".  Then apply logic, "If A is caused by B, then I would expect C if I looked here".  Then if you do not find C when doing your experiment, this means your theory was probably flawed (or your experiment) you should consider your findings and come up with a new theory.  If you do find C however, this does not mean that you have come up with the truth, you have just come up with a good way to describe the truth.

A great example of this is Gravity.  Newton's theory on gravity lasted quite a long time, and it does an excellent job of describing most phenomena that have something to do with gravity.  Then along came Einstein and he proposed a theory for how gravity worked that got the same results as Newton's theory in most cases.  So why is Einstein's theory better?  Because his was able to explain the natural world better.  Among other things, his theory said that light's path would be bent by the gravity of a star, Newton's didn't.  They were able to do an experiment, and Einstein's theory was supported (not proved) so his theory is said to better represent reallity.  We have to remember that this is still just a theory, not THE TRUTH.

Well I've done it again, I've put the entire forum to sleep with my long-winded ramblings.  In conclusion, I'll just say that I see religion as something like wisdom teeth in people.  It was useful for what it did in the ancient past, but we have gotten to the point where we don't need it anymore.

We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.

by aidbo on 06/17/2009 02:37:54 PM EST

[ Parent ]

I know it sounds like semantics, but what you described when you said,

" You make a theory (a best guess using what you already know about the natural world) and then devise a way to test that theory"

that is called a hypothesis not a theory. A theory is, to quote the dictionary

"A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena."

 

There is a diffrence in the way the term "theory" is used by the general public and the scientific community. A theory is not a blind guess in the dark, It is an accumulation of facts and proven hypothesis' that has been rigorously tested by peer review, subsequent publication of your theory in a scientific journal and duplication and even more tests by other scientist.

That's not to say that theories are infalable, if they don't fit right into other known theories, can't be duplicated, or other theories come along that fit better then the old theory eventualy loses credibility and acceptance.

by cowpacino on 06/17/2009 04:05:09 PM EST

[ Parent ]
Yes I should have writte hypothesis, my bad.

We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.

by aidbo on 06/17/2009 04:29:33 PM EST

[ Parent ]
I'm still wide awake.  I like this particular rambling, because it is true.  

one thing you forgot to mention though, the beginning of organized religion was just a way to keep order.  Look at all of the ancient civilizations.  Just to name a few- Egypt, Huang He river valley, Indus River valley, mesopotamia.  3 out of 4 of those civilizations saw their leader as a deity or some sort of divine form.  Now look at the incas.  Their leader was supposed to be a descendant of the sun god.  If the people believed that the leader had some sort of divine power, they would be more likely to comply with the society.

by birdboy1 on 06/17/2009 03:19:12 PM EST

[ Parent ]
But if I started to consider organized religion, I'd have to go even deeper.  I'd have to point out how entities or groups that are started by humans seem to somehow also take on a life of their own.  Organized religions like Catholicism, Mormonism, Islam, heck even Scientology (gawd, don't get me started on Scientology) have properties in common with bureaucracies, corporations, political parties, and governments.  Once they get a certain amount of power, they seem to have the will (and now I'm anthropomorphizing again) to retain or increase that power.  This will comes from the collective wills of the people involved in the group, and sometimes a charismatic leader.  But what is interesting is that the really strong organizations survive even after that charismatic leader has left the game.  I can't think of good individual examples right now, but I'm sure you can think of some.

Some people tend to view these groups with suspicion, which is healthy.  They can be responsible for the most horrible atrocities (holocausts, genocides, terrorism).  But they can also be responsible for some great (in the full sense of the word) things that advance the human race (democracy, science-based medicine, public education).

We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.

by aidbo on 06/17/2009 04:27:35 PM EST

[ Parent ]

I saw nothing in his response that I would consider an attack. (although this might actually be one)

 Why do religious nuts always seem to assume an attack when you point out facts? I think it's because they know (way down in the depths of there subconscious) that they are trying to defend fairy tails with no evidence to support them, so when an atheist comes at there beliefs with the big stick of logic, and all they have is naked belief, they see it as an attack.

Would you say I was attacking a flat earthier when I give the evidence why I believe the earth is round? Would you say I was attacking someone who believed that the stork brought babies instead of fertilization?

by cowpacino on 06/17/2009 04:19:21 PM EST

[ Parent ]
You might not want to stand too close to me if you hear thunder.

I did, in fact, "attack" religion.  I think my description of people who believe one of the fundamental tenets of Christian ideology -- the so-called "virgin birth" -- as "bat-shit crazy" could be fairly characterized as an attack.  However, it was not my intent to personally attack mattish.  I don't know if mattish is a Christian.

by EveningStarNM on 06/17/2009 05:10:10 PM EST

[ Parent ]
today, I woke to a thunderstorm that was right over my house.  

So the obvious reason for that is that you were standing too close to my house.

by birdboy1 on 06/18/2009 07:56:37 AM EST

[ Parent ]
Whew!  Sorry about that.

by EveningStarNM on 06/18/2009 07:59:07 AM EST

[ Parent ]
I especially like your dig at the end :)

by DaeguBill on 06/17/2009 12:28:32 PM EST

[ Parent ]

BUT, if they decide to believe something foolish, I have every right to say anything I want about that foolish belief -- including saying "That's foolish".

 

If I started a cult, and my cult said that all my followers must drink glasses of apple juice and imagine that apple juice is my urine, and my urine is a part of me and by drinking it my followers become one with me, EVERYONE will call me crazy and evil and every other slander.  Yet, if an ORGANIZED religion does the same thing with, say, wine being the blood of Christ... well now, that's understandable and you can't make fun of that.

 This is a contradiction. To be fair, either you should not be allowed to criticize anybody or you should be allowed to criticize everybody. I'm for the latter.

by DaeguBill on 06/17/2009 12:25:22 PM EST

[ Parent ]
The Urine of Christ vs. The Blood of Christ.  Apple juice vs. wine.

I'm an alcoholic, so I'd probably have to go for the former.

Where do I go to sign up for indoctrination?

by EveningStarNM on 06/17/2009 03:16:06 PM EST

[ Parent ]
Cenk spoke about this group of Hindu fundamentalists in India who are putting out a soft drink with the main ingredient of cow urine.  People will do some bat-shit crazy nutso stuff because of their irrational beliefs.

We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.

by aidbo on 06/17/2009 05:26:40 PM EST

[ Parent ]
But I guess it's healthier than cyanide kool-aid.

by birdboy1 on 06/17/2009 05:35:45 PM EST

[ Parent ]
...you might wish that it had been cyanide kool-aid.

Sheesh!  Cow-urine kool-aid!  This is a crazy world.

Hey!  Do you think my new hair style will help me attract more girls?  The girl at the shop said it would.

And I believe it!

by EveningStarNM on 06/17/2009 06:39:57 PM EST

[ Parent ]