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[Jon Neu]

Islam being the final revealed Abrahamic religion with the acknowledgement of the previous scriptures being the Word of God.

 

[MiyazakiHatesKojima]

LMAO that was a good one

I could make an entire thread about why I chose Islam but then I'll just get ridiculed and laughed at. I've made my peace with that fact so we shall see at the end of the day* who is right and who is wrong.



*Termination of Life Itself.

 

[strange headache]

Also, that first paragraph doesn't explain it in evolutionary terms, but rather from a sociological perspective which is also an important lens to look through.

Evolution does explain this, as I've already stated. A herd animal that is unable to establish social cohesion between its members would simply go extinct.

How did Human Beings develop this extraordinary ability to think about abstract concepts? Furthermore, was there an evolutionary mechanism that triggered this extraordinary ability to switch on inside a human being's brain compared to the ancestors who had a brain but never exhibited abstract conceptualization (i.e. consciousness capable of allowing a person to believe in something).

Creativity is a prerequisite for intelligence, hence why you observe primates engage in all kinds of artistic expression:

This isn't the same as human beings being able to evolve in physical form, but rather evolving (or transforming) in a way that transcends evolutionary explanation.

The difference between human intelligence and animal intelligence is merely quantitative. Certain animals can recognize themselves in the mirror, hence why they have an abstract notion of themselves and their ontological existence. Nothing you describe is particular to us humans and neither does it transcend evolutionary science.

---> delving deep into philosophy

If philosophy made you become a believer, I highly doubt you delved particularly deep into it or are simply confusing theology with philosophy. The very nature of philosophy implies that god cannot be proven by rational means, hence why it is an intrinsically secular field of science. Everything else is theology, but that's a whole different beast.

 

[Bolivar687]

Don't you find it the least bit odd that an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent creator of the Cosmos would pick sides with ancient tribes fighting over some petty shit, cheering them on in their infanticidal, genocidal raping pillages (however 'successful' they might have been)? It's some weird, weird stuff.

You're mischaracterizing the Heptateuch narrative - He did not pick sides and intervene in an already ongoing war over some petty shit. He set Abraham's family aside from the culture around them, to create a new people who would one day create a nation that all mankind to look to for help and guidance. They had to do some brutal things to survive the harsh world around them, but that was also in proportion to their own "hard-heartedness" or "stiffneckedness." Many of the things you take for granted today derive from this tradition.

If the Old Testament contains specific instructions on how to form settlements and what foods to eat, then why did God not hand down new commandments for, e.g., how to tackle gay marriage in the 21st century? Or, more generally, why does the Bible adapt the moral zeitgeist of the time when it was written, when it is supposed to be a book that transcends culture and time? As it stands, it reads exactly as you would expect a document to read that was written without divine intervention.

You keep moving the conversation backwards. The ten commandments and the beatitudes absolutely do transcend cultures and time.

How can you love God with "all your heart" when you know he will send all those people to be tortured for all eternity simply for being born into the wrong religion? Just because he was too lazy to point out definitively which was the right book to follow? To be tortured for an eternity? Really? How does that not give you pause?

Because that isn't Catholic teaching at all.

 

[Jon Neu]

At the end of the day, our brains will shut down and that's it. We will cease to exist and one day all the people that knew we existed, would cease to exist too.

We are just tears in the rain. A bunch of cells lost in a photograph of time.

The notion of not existing anymore is terrifying, so it's understandable we came up with all kinds of cope mechanisms to deal with the big eternal nothingness that await us all.

I love her and I love the idea of being reunited with her for all the eternity. It's literally the most comforting thought ever, but it's a lie we tell ourselves to deal with the tragedy of our existence.

That's why we don't want to die.

 

[MiyazakiHatesKojima]

Evolution does explain this, as I've already stated. A herd animal that is unable to establish social cohesion between its members would simply go extinct.

Social cohesion doesn't equate or even explain the sudden evolution of human beings becoming conscious and able to create abstract theological concepts. I don't see the connection your making here.

Creativity is a prerequisite for intelligence, hence why you observe primates engage in all kinds of artistic expression:

(Poor) artistic expression from animals does not equate to human being developing super-rational concepts like God, Angels, Demons, Religion, etc. Very distinct categories of abstract conceptualization. I haven't even brought up the concept of languages into the conversation which baffles evolutionary scientists to this day.

The difference between human intelligence and animal intelligence is merely quantitative. Certain animals can recognize themselves in the mirror, hence why they have an abstract notion of themselves and their ontological existence. Nothing you describe is particular to us humans and neither does it transcend evolutionary science.

Can ethics, laws, governmental systems even be quantified? This is a rather absurd claim to make that human intelligence is only superior quantitatively. There is an astonishing difference between human intelligence and animal intelligence in terms of quality, not just quantity. Animals will never ever be able to construct a modern day tower, no matter how many billions of years pass because their intelligence is limited permanently in so many ways.

I'm not satisfied with these answers, I'm afraid. I expected a lot more from you and it seems we both need to dig deeper into the literature regarding this topic.

 

[MiyazakiHatesKojima]

At the end of the day, our brains will shut down and that's it. We will cease to exist and one day all the people that knew we existed, would cease to exist too.

We are just tears in the rain. A bunch of cells lost in a photograph of time.

The notion of not existing anymore is terrifying, so it's understandable we came up with all kinds of cope mechanisms to deal with the big eternal nothingness that await us all.

I love her and I love the idea of being reunited with her for all the eternity. It's literally the most comforting thought ever, but it's a lie we tell ourselves to deal with the tragedy of our existence.

That's why we don't want to die.

*glances at user's tag*

 

[Jon Neu]

You're mischaracterizing the Heptateuch narrative - He did not pick sides and intervene in an already ongoing war over some petty shit. He set Abraham's family aside from the culture around them, to create a new people who would one day create a nation that all mankind to look to for help and guidance. They had to do some brutal things to survive the harsh world around them, but that was also in proportion to their own "hard-heartedness" or "stiffneckedness." Many of the things you take for granted today derive from this tradition.

You mean to tell us that some people invented a religion in which they are the most important people?

It really makes you think.

Because that isn't Catholic teaching at all.

It totally is. Christianity dictates that there's only one true God.

Therefore, believing in other Gods makes you a pagan, a sinner who turns his back to the "true" God and it's going to suffer eternally in hell for it.

 

[strange headache]

I'm not satisfied with these answers, I'm afraid. I expected a lot more from you and it seems we both need to dig deeper into the literature regarding this topic.

You're not satisfied with these answers, because you simply don't want to be satisfied with it.

If anthropology, biology and zoology are anything to go by, the differences between humans and animals are shrinking. It took us humans a long time to finally accept that we are descended from apes, mostly because we thought of us as special.

Sure, compared to our intellectual abilities, animal intelligence seems crude, but it is essentially the same with the only difference being that we can do these things better. A sense of self, existence and death, these notions are not unknown to animals. Many of them even display moral behavior (also here):

Some animals are surprisingly sensitive to the plight of others. Chimpanzees, who cannot swim, have drowned in zoo moats trying to save others. Given the chance to get food by pulling a chain that would also deliver an electric shock to a companion, rhesus monkeys will starve themselves for several days.

Biologists argue that these and other social behaviors are the precursors of human morality.

Sure we can rationalize our own behavior much better and formulate theories and general rules of behavior, but that doesn't mean that animals have no notion of morality. This also means that religion is not a prerequisite for moral behavior.

 

[MiyazakiHatesKojima]

You're not satisfied with these answers, because you simply don't want to be satisfied with it.

I could literally say the same thing to you. What's your point?

If anthropology, biology and zoology are anything to go by, the differences between humans and animals are shrinking. It took us humans a long time to finally accept that we are descended from apes, mostly because we thought of us as special.

Sure, compared to our intellectual abilities, animal intelligence seems crude, but it is essentially the same with the only difference being that we can do these things better. A sense of self, existence and death, these notions are not unknown to animals. Many of them even display moral behavior (also here):

This is the first time I've heard of such a claim. It seems either the research/literature you've read was crude and premature in their conclusions or you may have a misanthropic perspective on human beings. Human intelligence has far surpassed animals just by mere observation of the current world that we live in. This is another absurd claim to make, especially when technology and the advancement of it comes into conversation. Human intelligence is in its own league, even if animals possess crude intelligence. Again, it begs the question: How did we evolve so significantly? The answers are still unsatisfactory for those who pursue the truth through scientific lens.

Sure, compared to our intellectual abilities, animal intelligence seems crude, but it is essentially the same with the only difference being that we can do these things better. A sense of self, existence and death, these notions are not unknown to animals. Many of them even display moral behavior (also here):

I never argued that animals didn't possess intelligence or even a moral compass. My argument was how did Human Beings develop the ability to create and conceptualize super-rational concepts like God? The evidence you provided doesn't serve the conversation and doesn't answer the question because I'm not exclusively talking about morality. You're beating around the bushes, it seems.

Sure we can rationalize our own behavior much better and formulate theories and general rules of behavior, but that doesn't mean that animals have no notion of morality. This also means that religion is not a prerequisite for moral behavior.

This is a grossly oversimplification of the fields of ethics, law, governments, etc. Again, your argument that animals have the potential to be as intelligent as human beings is weak at best. Oversimplification after oversimplification is the pattern that I see in your argumentation. The sign of a person who hasn't delved deeply into these topics.

 

[Jon Neu]

Luna > God

 

[Clear]

Agnosticism is just laziness and cowardice. You're worse than a religious person, at least they take a side, even if it's the wrong & the evil one.

Oh, you can't prove that God exist, but you can't disprove it either. So anything is possible! Aha! Look how superior I am because I don't take any side!

Nah, this is all bullshit. You are conflating assuming a philosophical position with acting in a certain way based on that ideology. Especially when all that agnosticism boils down to in practice is entertaining the notion that there could be something more than what is empirically provable.

More to the point, it posits that faith in a higher power might be useful, psychologically speaking, in life. This I think is the real benefit, you get the comfort without the strict shackles of dogma and observancy of custom.

This is why militant atheists make me laugh. They turn not being religious into a fucking religion. Talk about missing the point... silly cunts.

 

[Jon Neu]

Especially when all that agnosticism boils down to in practice is entertaining the notion that there could be something more than what is empirically provable.

Again, a lazy and cowardly position hold just for the sake of being "better" than atheists.

Maybe the flying spaghetti monster exists and it's flying through the milky way but we can't prove it empirically.

Maybe Donald Trump is a God but we can't prove it empirically.

Maybe.

More to the point, it posits that faith in a higher power might be useful, psychologically speaking, in life. This I think is the real benefit, you get the comfort without the strict shackles of dogma and observancy of custom.

That has nothing to do with agnosticism, anybody knows the benefits of coping mechanisms, placebo effects and the little lies we tell ourselves to make our existence better.

 

[Bolivar687]

You mean to tell us that some people invented a religion in which they are the most important people?

It really makes you think.

It certainly does make you think, because history has proven it true - the Jewish people have indeed had a disproportionate impact on human history and global thought. The majority of people alive today follow one of the three Abrahamic religions.

It totally is. Christianity dictates that there's only one true God.

Therefore, believing in other Gods makes you a pagan, a sinner who turns his back to the "true" God and it's going to suffer eternally in hell for it.

No, that isn't true:

Does that mean that no Protestant, no Muslim, no Buddhist or animist will be saved? No, it would be a second error to think that. Those who cry for intolerance in interpreting St. Cyprian's formula, "Outside the Church there is no salvation," also reject the Creed, "I confess one baptism for the remission of sins", and are insufficiently instructed as to what baptism is. There are three ways of receiving it: the baptism of water; the baptism of blood (that of the martyrs who confessed their faith while still catechumens) and baptism of desire.

Baptism of desire can be explicit. Many times in Africa I heard one of our catechumens say to me, "Father, baptise me straightaway because if I die before you come again, I shall go to hell". I told him, "No, if you have no mortal sin on your conscience and if you desire baptism, then you already have the grace in you".

The doctrine of the Church also recognises implicit baptism of desire. This consists in doing the will of God. God knows all men and He knows that amongst Protestants, Muslims, Buddhists and in the whole of humanity there are men of good will. They receive the grace of baptism without knowing it, but in an effective way. In this way they become part of the Church.

The error consists in thinking that they are saved by their religion. They are saved in their religion but not by it. There is no Buddhist church in heaven, no Protestant church. This is perhaps hard to accept, but it is the truth. I did not found the Church, but rather Our Lord the Son of God. As priests we must state the truth.

Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, An Open Letter to Confused Catholics (pp. 37-38)

 

[Jon Neu]

It certainly does make you think, because history has proven it true - the Jewish people have indeed had a disproportionate impact on human history and global thought. The majority of people alive today follow one of the three Abrahamic religions.

If we are talking about impact on human history, white people is far beyond all the other races and ethnicities combined. So no, jewish people aren't the choosen ones.

The most significant achievement of the jewish people it's being friends with America. Without America, Israel wouldn't exist.

No, that isn't true:



Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, An Open Letter to Confused Catholics (pp. 37-38)

So an Archbishop decides to pull more doctrine out of his ass and that therefore invalidates all the previous doctrine about paganism that is literally in the bible and not coming from some random archbishop ass.

Really weak deflection of yet another of the terrible contradictions of a religion that makes it literally impossible to defend it's horrible values with a straight face and any shred of logic and dignity.


Not at all, history has proven jews were a bunch of weak ass cowards beaten and killed all the time around the world for thousands of years until the white men came and saved their asses so they could finally beat a bunch of medieval arabs with again the force of the white men.

 

[strange headache]

I could literally say the same thing to you. What's your point?

Point being that no matter what I tell you, you'll never accept it because your religious presumptions won't allow scientific evidence to intervene with your beliefs. I have given your clear examples to emphasize my argument that the difference between humans and animals is merely quantitative. You on the other hand presented nothing to refute these examples.

This is the first time I've heard of such a claim.

Yet you accuse me of not reading my literature? My claims are neither new nor groundbreaking.

It seems either the research/literature you've read was crude and premature in their conclusions or you may have a misanthropic perspective on human beings.

What's misanthropic about accepting the scientific truth that were are nothing else but evolved animals?

Human intelligence has far surpassed animals just by mere observation of the current world that we live in. This is another absurd claim to make, especially when technology and the advancement of it comes into conversation. Human intelligence is in its own league, even if animals possess crude intelligence.

Well at least you seem to finally acknowledge that the difference between human and animal intelligence is merely quantitative, i.e. we are simply more intelligent than animals.

Again, it begs the question: How did we evolve so significantly? The answers are still unsatisfactory for those who pursue the truth through scientific lens.

Out of necessity. For example, according to Arnold Gehlen (on of the most well known anthropologists btw) we are biologically deficient beings, hence why weed to compensate these deficiencies with our intelligence:

Gehlen defines man as an "acting, anticipatory, nondetermined, self-delimiting being—a product of culture." Like other philosophical anthropologists, Gehlen views man, compared with other animals, as a vulnerable, deficient being, lacking the powerful instincts and natural weapons of survival of other animals. Man's fabled power of thought is an artificial substitute for his weak instincts. He is reduced to dependence on technical means for his survival. For survival and to liberate himself from anxiety he has had to develop tools and techniques including language, myth, and magic, and has had to create a common, habitual, and stable cultural environment.

My argument was how did Human Beings develop the ability to create and conceptualize super-rational concepts like God?

How did we develop the ability to imagine fairies, dragons, superheroes and other fantasy notions? Why should it be any different with god? Considering the vast spectrum of different deities that have been invented over the course of human existence, there's absolutely no reason to assume that the god you believe in is special in that regard.

We formulate ideas derived from our impressions and experiences and combine these ideas to new more complex ideas. You can have the idea of a "mountain of gold" because you simply combine these two ideas into one. It's really not rocket science.

This is a grossly oversimplification of the fields of ethics, law, governments, etc. Again, your argument that animals have the potential to be as intelligent as human beings is weak at best. Oversimplification after oversimplification is the pattern that I see in your argumentation. The sign of a person who hasn't delved deeply into these topics.

Ethics and morality are simply about making the distinction between "good" and "bad" behavior. Animals are capable of this in a rudimentary manner, which is evidence enough to show that the differences in that regard are merely quantitative. It's the same for governments, as many animals live in hierarchic social structures, such as ants and wolves. Point being that these notions are not stranger to the animal kingdom.

Also I have never argued that animals have the potential to be as intelligent as humans, that's not what the term "quantitative" implies. But hey, given a few millennia and enough environmental pressure, I'm sure other animals could evolve into similarly intelligent beings as us humans.

 

[Rentahamster]

My argument was how did Human Beings develop the ability to create and conceptualize super-rational concepts like God?

The same way we developed this:

And this:

And this:

And this:

And this:

And this:

 

[Tesseract]

it shouldn't surprise you that humans took the concept of the known / unknown and abstracted it as far as they could

engogenous hallucinations and the bicamerality of input, dear cum chumps

 

[Clear]

Not at all, history has proven jews were a bunch of weak ass cowards beaten and killed all the time around the world for thousands of years until the white men came and saved their asses so they could finally beat a bunch of medieval arabs with again the force of the white men.

If we are talking about impact on human history, white people is far beyond all the other races and ethnicities combined. So no, jewish people aren't the choosen ones.

The most significant achievement of the jewish people it's being friends with America. Without America, Israel wouldn't exist.

I wouldn't expect an anti-semitic shithead like yourself to get this, but Jewishness is about a whole lot more than Judaism as a religion. Its a cultural identity forged in large part by thousands of years of systematic oppression.

Reported your post by the way. Fuck you.

 

[Bolivar687]

Not at all, history has proven jews were a bunch of weak ass cowards beaten and killed all the time around the world for thousands of years until the white men came and saved their asses so they could finally beat a bunch of medieval arabs with again the force of the white men.

If we are talking about impact on human history, white people is far beyond all the other races and ethnicities combined. So no, jewish people aren't the choosen ones.

The most significant achievement of the jewish people it's being friends with America. Without America, Israel wouldn't exist.

There is nothing you could you ever say to dispute that that Jewish scripture has indeed significantly influenced global thought and culture. Abraham, Moses, David, Jesus, Peter and Paul all weigh heavily across human civilization, especially among the "white people" you reference in your post. When it comes to you religion, you simply cannot deny that Israel and Zion have played an immovable role in the faith of the majority of people alive today.

So an Archbishop decides to pull more doctrine out of his ass and that therefore invalidates all the previous doctrine about paganism that is literally in the bible and not coming from some random archbishop ass.

Really weak deflection of yet another of the terrible contradictions of a religion that makes it literally impossible to defend it's horrible values with a straight face and any shred of logic and dignity.

I quoted Archbishop Lefebvre because he was the most publicly unapologetic orthodox traditionalist of the late 20th Century; if he believes that, the less orthodox certainly do. Here is the Catechism of the Catholic Church if you still can't accept it:

Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation. ​

​

CCC 847

 

[Punished Miku]

The most appropriate comparison would be you to taste Cola and then taste the magical Pepsi Cola someone claims makes you inmortal, ageless and also grows your dick 5 inches if you pray for the Pepsi Cola God, the God that created the universe.

And then you decide that you can't say if that is true or not despite not a single person ever becoming inmortal, ageless and having their dick grow 5 inches in all human history. Basically ignoring all the evidence against it and the absolute lack of any single evidence supporting those ridiculous claims for the sake of holding a neutral position and to try to appear more elevated when in reality you are just turning your brain off.

Hot damn lol.

 

[TrainedRage]

This is me slowly reading the thread...

 

[MiyazakiHatesKojima]

Hot damn lol.

Don't encourage the crow.

 

[Punished Miku]

Don't encourage the crow.

He's outnumbered and fighting with passion. I can't let him stand completely alone lol. He got a fire emoji from me.

 

[MiyazakiHatesKojima]

He's outnumbered and fighting with passion. I can't let him stand completely alone lol. He got a fire emoji from me.

Reminds me of Jon Snow during the Battle of the Bastards. Everyone on their own journey towards the truth but let me leave a quote that haunts me to this day:

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened."

 

[The Scrivener]

It's funny, reading these replies, you Gaffers are more hardline Atheist than Richard Muthafucking Dawkins.

 

[Jon Neu]

I wouldn't expect an anti-semitic shithead like yourself to get this, but Jewishness is about a whole lot more than Judaism as a religion.

Reported your post by the way. Fuck you.

I wasn't talking judaism there, I was talking about the -inmoral- creation of the state of Israel. If it wasn't for the USA (and Great Britain), they wouldn't had the oportunity to beat those powerful palestinian shepherds and steal their lands.

Impressive feat in the face of mankind's history, indeed.

Its a cultural identity forged in large part by thousands of years of systematic oppression.

Yes, a cultural identity that also carries the fact that jews have been pushed around through all history, exactly the same as catalans (I'm catalan), we are also weak and scared because our history has shaped us to be that way. It's not an attack, it's not anti-semitism and neither I'm being catalanophobic towards myself, but a cold uncomfortable fact.

There is nothing you could you ever say to dispute that that Jewish scripture has indeed significantly influenced global thought and culture.

Nobody is denying that. But coming from that to "jewish are the choosen people irl because they are the most significant ever", it's a ridiculous statement of biblical proportions (see what I did there?).

First of all, you atribute to jews everything christianism and islam has done, which is a very slippery slope argument. If we followed that thought process, we should strip jews of those "merits" and gave them to the people the jews inspired their religion of in the first place then.

Because again; judaism, christianism and islamism are a collection of older sincretisms with the tales manipulated enough to be ethnocentric.

From an historical point of view, judaism was nothing until white people came and created the greatest religion ever: christianism.

I quoted Archbishop Lefebvre because he was the most publicly unapologetic orthodox traditionalist of the late 20th Century; if he believes that, the less orthodox certainly do. Here is the Catechism of the Catholic Church if you still can't accept it:

Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.

You can quote all the people you want. It's still human beans making things up.

There isn't any archbishop who can change what the bible says and what the most accepted doctrine is. Especially when there is plenty of other religious figures contradicting him.

I know it's hard to face the reality that christianism as a whole it's a deeply inmoral and contradictory doctrine, but that's what you get for following a 2000 years old cult.

 

[Jon Neu]

He's outnumbered and fighting with passion. I can't let him stand completely alone lol. He got a fire emoji from me.

But I'm not alone, I have my man strange headache by my side.

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

[Chairman Tickles]

I'm surprised somebody as educated as Dawkins struggles to grasp the concept of a pious/spiritual mind in those equally as educated as him, and how it can overlook deductive reasoning in favor of emotional stability.

Dawkins: 'I can't understand how a man who can finish my sentences for me can disagree with those sentences.'

Granted the examples are few, but they did discuss some persons of high caliber who still took the bible literally. Dawkins needs to stop trying to extrapolate logical processes from emotion. Highly empathetic, spiritually inclined people no matter their innate intelligence are subject to different cognitive conditions and are driven toward different goals. This can be all the reason and logic that is required. Dawkins is being dumb in this particular case. Maybe they don't WANT TO agree with you, dummy.

Yes, 1+1 = 2, but some people just don't give a shit about numbers and what those numbers represent. Unless they are engineers or math teachers its not going to cripple their efforts. They go their own way.

I agree with Dawkins on all the other stuff. Religion and most hard Scientific concepts don't mix. That does not preclude the idea of an evolutionary biologist that is highly religious and believes in god. That individual is not going to be hindered when it comes to his day-day laboratory tasks.

 

[Tesseract]

I'm surprised somebody as educated as Dawkins struggles to grasp the concept of a pious/spiritual mind in those equally as educated as him, and how it can overlook deductive reasoning in favor of emotional stability.

Dawkins: 'I can't understand how a man who can finish my sentences for me can disagree with those sentences.'

Granted the examples are few, but they did discuss some persons of high caliber who still took the bible literally. Dawkins needs to stop trying to extrapolate logical processes from emotion. Highly empathetic, spiritually inclined people no matter their innate intelligence are subject to different cognitive conditions and are driven toward different goals. This can be all the reason and logic that is required. Dawkins is being dumb in this particular case. Maybe they don't WANT TO agree with you, dummy.

Yes, 1+1 = 2, but some people just don't give a shit about numbers and what those numbers represent. Unless they are engineers or math teachers its not going to cripple their efforts. They go their own way.

I agree with Dawkins on all the other stuff. Religion and most hard Scientific concepts don't mix. That does not preclude the idea of an evolutionary biologist that is highly religious and believes in god. That individual is not going to be hindered when it comes to his day-day laboratory tasks.

 

[Jon Neu]

They go their own way.

By following blindly the tales of interplanetary winged flying horses.

Strong independent religious people, don't you dare to bring out that their beliefs are stupid.

 

[Tesseract]

danny devito once flew on a winged horse, it didn't end well for him

 

[Chairman Tickles]

By following blindly the tales of interplanetary winged flying horses.

Strong independent religious people, don't you dare to bring out that their beliefs are stupid.

And if that does not lead to dumb contraceptive practices (catholic church in africa epic fail), or it does not lead to social turmoil (american evangelicals stirring up anti-gay in africa fail) and it does not hurt anybody (religious wars fail), then so what? We go to war over other stuff too (ww1/ww2 ouch), and we make dumb policy decisions based on science too (turns out burning coal and fossil fuels to generate power was highly destructive to the environment, Ooops, so much for that productivity win).

I'm saying there is room for everything in this universe. Everything in moderation, of course. We don't all have to be Atheists just as we all don't have to be Muslims or Scientists or Musicians.

 

[Jon Neu]

And if that does not lead to dumb

But it does. It always does.

Religions are dangerous, it teaches people to be fanatics, to value their God before anything else.

You can't preach dumbness and then act surprised when it leads to more dumbness.

 

[Chairman Tickles]

People will radicalize anything. The far-left today is living proof that radicalization is independent of religion. The 2019 SJW is just as pious and religious and unreasonable as the most ardent Islamist and just as likely to throw a petrol bomb at an opponent.

 

[Jon Neu]

People will radicalize anything.

That's why reason, logic and provable facts are so important.

Otherwise, you are at the mercy of the fanatics.

 

[Airola]

Do you have statistics on religious violence, bigotry, and abuse?

I wonder how many people religious people should still kill to get to the body count of the deaths by Stalin alone.

And how about all the deaths that have been caused by people thinking only themselves and not having fear of God in them when shooting another person down in the streets? While there's no secular or atheistic dogma telling them to do that, it is still clear that these people are acting without a respect towards God and their fellow men when they gun or knife down someone. So should they also be counted to the same pile of bodies that would be compared to the deaths religious people have caused while believing God would want them to do that?

I would claim that deaths by godless and self-centered persons vastly outweigh the amount of deaths caused by people who kill because of their religion.

 

[Weilthain]

(removed)

 

[Tesseract]

 

[Airola]

At the end of the day, our brains will shut down and that's it. We will cease to exist and one day all the people that knew we existed, would cease to exist too.

We are just tears in the rain. A bunch of cells lost in a photograph of time.

The notion of not existing anymore is terrifying, so it's understandable we came up with all kinds of cope mechanisms to deal with the big eternal nothingness that await us all.

I love her and I love the idea of being reunited with her for all the eternity. It's literally the most comforting thought ever, but it's a lie we tell ourselves to deal with the tragedy of our existence.

That's why we don't want to die.

But that's not the only reason people believed in metaphysical things then or why they believe in them now.

People have had all kinds of odd visions and experiences for a loooooong time. While we now think we have reasoned for example the sleep paralysis experience into being a purely hallucinatory and materialistic non-metaphysical thing, people have felt that and a whole bunch of other things probably as long as we have existed.

God hasn't been born out of people not wanting to die, but a lot of it has come from weird as fuck experiences we for some reason can have.

Someone who drowned but was rescued remembers a warm comforting embrace right as his lungs fill with water. Someone who gets in a truly life threatening accident remember watching through his whole life in a matter of seconds. Someone feels lifted out of his body while having a serious health problem, or even without a problem like when someone experiences sleep paralysis. That feeling of leaving my body is something that happened to me during sleep paralysis, so while I haven't had any real visions or warm embrace while drowning, that's my personal experience of something that absolutely feels like something out of this world and makes it easier for me to try to understand how other odd experiences must feel like.

These feelings of embrace or whatever while almost dying or actually dying for a moment make no sense from an evolutionary standpoint.
I think there are only three possible ways to look at them:
1) Evolution has molded that possibility to us. This would mean these experiences were essential for our survival. However, I think that's impossible to happen through evolution as most who experienced these things actually died and there never were any evolutionary advantage having that experience. Same goes to the "white tunnel" type of experience. What evolutionary advantage would there be for someone who dies to experience that. The ones who ended up surviving were most certainly few and far between for it actually be something that has an effect on our future selves.
2) It's all just a weird coincidence. Chemicals just happen to go crazy in the brain and the body and the effect of that just happens to be something that feels out of this world and comforting while dying. It's just like a super hyper lucky accident that out of nothing appeared material and things that can be aware of themselves and whose brains happen to go wild as much as they can say they float out of their bodies and feel an enormous sense of pure unconditional love in whatever hallucination they have in whatever situation they are in. It's all nothing more than a coincidence and a really really lucky accident.
3) There is an actual connection to what lies beyond our physical lives and these are some of the ways we have been able to experience just a glimpse of that.

Now, maybe these experiences combined with "I don't want to die" is a good combo to start a religion, but I think we should give much more credit to the experience part of that combo instead of just making a claim that we just came up with stuff because we are scared of our existence to end.

 

[MiyazakiHatesKojima]

Point being that no matter what I tell you, you'll never accept it because your religious presumptions won't allow scientific evidence to intervene with your beliefs. I have given your clear examples to emphasize my argument that the difference between humans and animals is merely quantitative. You on the other hand presented nothing to refute these examples.



Yet you accuse me of not reading my literature? My claims are neither new nor groundbreaking.



What's misanthropic about accepting the scientific truth that were are nothing else but evolved animals?



Well at least you seem to finally acknowledge that the difference between human and animal intelligence is merely quantitative, i.e. we are simply more intelligent than animals.



Out of necessity. For example, according to Arnold Gehlen (on of the most well known anthropologists btw) we are biologically deficient beings, hence why weed to compensate these deficiencies with our intelligence:





How did we develop the ability to imagine fairies, dragons, superheroes and other fantasy notions? Why should it be any different with god? Considering the vast spectrum of different deities that have been invented over the course of human existence, there's absolutely no reason to assume that the god you believe in is special in that regard.

We formulate ideas derived from our impressions and experiences and combine these ideas to new more complex ideas. You can have the idea of a "mountain of gold" because you simply combine these two ideas into one. It's really not rocket science.



Ethics and morality are simply about making the distinction between "good" and "bad" behavior. Animals are capable of this in a rudimentary manner, which is evidence enough to show that the differences in that regard are merely quantitative. It's the same for governments, as many animals live in hierarchic social structures, such as ants and wolves. Point being that these notions are not stranger to the animal kingdom.

Also I have never argued that animals have the potential to be as intelligent as humans, that's not what the term "quantitative" implies. But hey, given a few millennia and enough environmental pressure, I'm sure other animals could evolve into similarly intelligent beings as us humans.

You know, I was really tempted to reply to each of your points last night and dissect them. You've made some interesting points about the idea thy morality isn't necessarily derived from religion, which I now agree with.

However, it's safe to say that my question was too high-level for me to ask you or anyone on this thread. I have an answer to that question but it's a long complicated answer that involves an overarching connection with theology, metaphysics, and biology. The reason why I won't say my answer is simple: your epistemology will never allow you to accept it and that's okay. We all made our choices when it comes to the nature of truth and what that entails. I'm not here to win an argument or show that you're lacking in knowledge. My question was to stir up a rather intriguing discussion regarding the big problem that materialists still tackle to this day: the consciousness and its evolution.

With that being said, I have to say that Richard Dawkins and his proponents suffer from the habit of specious arguments. I don't know whether the blame is on them or on their firm belief in scientism (an interesting but deeply flawed epistemology) or they just didn't learn the right tools for argumentation. Your arguments, strange headache and Jon Neu , tend to fall in this category. I would highly advise the both of you read up about specious arguments and understand how common it is among the polemicts (both sides, not just atheists). This is why I felt unsatisfied with your answers at the end of the day, because it suffered from being specious arguments.

 

[Bolivar687]

Nobody is denying that. But coming from that to "jewish are the choosen people irl because they are the most significant ever", it's a ridiculous statement

I never said that. Please do not hold me accountable to your own toxic mischaracterizations.

First of all, you atribute to jews everything christianism and islam has done, which is a very slippery slope argument. If we followed that thought process, we should strip jews of those "merits" and gave them to the people the jews inspired their religion of in the first place then.

Because again; judaism, christianism and islamism are a collection of older sincretisms with the tales manipulated enough to be ethnocentric.

No, monotheism is markedly different from the man-made pagan religions it grew up around, which is itself an important piece of the Tanakh narrative. Paganism typically panders to man's impulsive tendencies, frequently culminating in an imperial cult. By contrast, the Lord did not want the Israelites to have a king, and gave commands that cut sharply against human nature and desire.

From an historical point of view, judaism was nothing until white people came and created the greatest religion ever: christianism.

White people did not create Christianity. Jesus Christ was indisputably a Galilean Jew. All of the authors of the Gospels and Epistles were Jews with the exception of Luke, who may have been semitic Jew himself. Its original authoritative hierarchy was seated in Jerusalem. Along with Antioch and Alexandria, the majority of its early power centers were in the traditional near-east centers of Jewish scholarship.

You can quote all the people you want. It's still human beans making things up.

There isn't any archbishop who can change what the bible says and what the most accepted doctrine is. Especially when there is plenty of other religious figures contradicting him.

I know it's hard to face the reality that christianism as a whole it's a deeply inmoral and contradictory doctrine, but that's what you get for following a 2000 years old cult.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church is the authoritative recitation of Catholic teaching,promulgated by the Vatican under the supervision of the Pope. Luke 12:48 confirms CCC 847, that those who are unaware of their wrongdoing will not receive the same punishment as those who knew better. Further, Matthew 25:31-46 suggests that at the end of time, we will each be judged according to how we treated those worse off than us; it says nothing about creed or faith.

You really just need to accept that you were uninformed and move on.

 

[Clear]

You really just need to accept that you were uninformed and move on.

What made me so angry was the conflation of racial identity and religious/cultural identity. You can't separate "white people" and Jewishness when the Jewish diaspora was largely into Europe and Eurasia, and due to the way that entry into Jewishness is conferred either from the matrilineal bloodline or conversion, you cannot disconnect the two.

 

[strange headache]

But I'm not alone, I have my man strange headache by my side.

You know, I was really tempted to reply to each of your points last night and dissect them. You've made some interesting points about the idea thy morality isn't necessarily derived from religion, which I now agree with. [...] This is why I felt unsatisfied with your answers at the end of the day, because it suffered from being specious arguments.

I'm glad that you agree that religion is not a prerequisite for morality, but what grinds my gears is your attempt at calling our arguments specious. I have given you ample argumentation from well known thinkers to work with, but so far you've ignored all of it.

You accuse me of not knowing my literature, but so far you are giving the impression that you are ill equipped to even have this difficult conversation. Otherwise you wouldn't be hiding behind needlessly convoluted questions without providing an answer yourself. When others try giving you an answer, you deflect and just dismiss them as unsatisfactory. So far, I've not seen one single argument from your side to refute my explications given to you.

Someone who drowned but was rescued remembers a warm comforting embrace right as his lungs fill with water.

So god is real, because you get a fuzzy feeling when you die? Don't be ridiculous.

I wonder how many people religious people should still kill to get to the body count of the deaths by Stalin alone.

Oh boy, not this dead horse again. Here, you're in desperate need of some Steven Pinker:

Atheist regimes in the 20th century killed tens of millions of people. Doesn't this show that we were better off in the past, when our political and moral systems were guided by a belief in God?

This is a popular argument among theoconservatives and critics of the new atheism, but for many reasons it is historically inaccurate.

First, the premise that Nazism and Communism were "atheist" ideologies makes sense only within a religiocentric worldview that divides political systems into those that are based on Judaeo-Christian ideology and those that are not. In fact, 20th-century totalitarian movements were no more defined by a rejection of Judaeo-Christianity than they were defined by a rejection of astrology, alchemy, Confucianism, Scientology, or any of hundreds of other belief systems. They were based on the ideas of Hitler and Marx, not David Hume and Bertrand Russell, and the horrors they inflicted are no more a vindication of Judeao-Christianity than they are of astrology or alchemy or Scientology.

Second, Nazism and Fascism were not atheistic in the first place. Hitler thought he was carrying out a divine plan. Nazism received extensive support from many German churches, and no opposition from the Vatican. Fascism happily coexisted with Catholicism in Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Croatia. See p. 677 for discussion and references.

Third, according to the most recent compendium of history's worst atrocities, Matthew White's Great Big Book of Horrible Things (Norton, 2011), religions have been responsible for 13 of the 100 worst mass killings in history, resulting in 47 million deaths. Communism has been responsible for 6 mass killings and 67 million deaths. If defenders of religion want to crow, "We were only responsible for 47 million murders—Communism was worse!", they are welcome to do so, but it is not an impressive argument.

Fourth, many religious massacres took place in centuries in which the world's population was far smaller. Crusaders, for example, killed 1 million people in world of 400 million, for a genocide rate that exceeds that of the Nazi Holocaust. The death toll from the Thirty Years War was proportionally double that of World War I and in the range of World War II in Europe (p. 142).

When it comes to the history of violence, the significant distinction is not one between thesistic and atheistic regimes. It's the one between regimes that were based on demonizing, utopian ideologies (including Marxism, Nazism, and militant religions) and secular liberal democracies that are based on the ideal of human rights.

Religion is one of the main causes for armed conflicts and war in this world:

Matthew 25:31-46 suggests that at the end of time, we will each be judged according to how we treated those worse off than us;

So in other words, it's okay if you punch up.

 

[Airola]

So god is real, because you get a fuzzy feeling when you die? Don't be ridiculous.

Try to read the full post and the post I was replying to the next time you want to reply so that you wouldn't look as obtuse.

That wasn't the point of the post at all. The subject was that someone claimed people invented God out of fear and the sentence you quoted was an example of experiences that have led people to think if there's something beyond our reality. Even if you wouldn't believe that "fuzzy feeling" means there is a god, experiences like that have been absolutely important in making religious beliefs happen. To say people have invented god out of fear of not existing one day is amazingly ignorant on actual human experience.

Oh boy, not this dead horse again. Here, you're in desperate need of some Steven Pinker:

Ok, so first take is that in Communism alone there have been 20 million more people killed than what have been killed for religious causes. Pinker tries to bring up some "but think about the rate of killed people when comparing to how many people there were" nonsense to step around that issue. If the world would have only two people and one would kill another, that's still only one person killed and doesn't tell anything about what the kind of person who killed the second person in the world would do if there were 1000 people. No-one in their sane minds would claim someone killing 10 people out of 100 would be worse than carrying out a plan to kill 6 million out of 4 billion. In human death every single person lost counts and it makes zero sense to start to value the morality by proportional amounts.

Also, it's not an example of atheism itself being a cause of anything, but it's an example of an irreligious world not being any better than a religious world would be. That's my claim. Not that atheism makes you an evil killer, but that an irreligious world is not any better than a religious world would be. We have plenty of evidence to show that.

 

[Tesseract]

please don't put agnostics in your goof troop brigade, we're actually honest with ourselves about not being frightened of not knowing things

 

[Jon Neu]

I never said that. Please do not hold me accountable to your own toxic mischaracterizations.

It's already difficult to take seriously anybody who believes in fairy tales, but if you don't even remember what you said two post ago, it's literally impossible.

You mean to tell us that some people invented a religion in which they are the most important people?

It really makes you think.

It certainly does make you think, because history has proven it true

See, you said it.

No, monotheism is markedly different from the man-made pagan religions it grew up around, which is itself an important piece of the Tanakh narrative. Paganism typically panders to man's impulsive tendencies, frequently culminating in an imperial cult. By contrast, the Lord did not want the Israelites to have a king, and gave commands that cut sharply against human nature and desire.

No, monotheism isn't markedly different from other "man-made" religions. All religions are man-made, you are just being obtusely ethnocentric.

And Paganism it's literally everybody who doesn't believe in the christian and judaic God.

White people did not create Christianity. Jesus Christ was indisputably a Galilean Jew. All of the authors of the Gospels and Epistles were Jews with the exception of Luke, who may have been semitic Jew himself. Its original authoritative hierarchy was seated in Jerusalem. Along with Antioch and Alexandria, the majority of its early power centers were in the traditional near-east centers of Jewish scholarship.

The bible is an amalgam of sincretisms and stories borrowed from other religions.

But christianism exists today because white people transformed it in the most relevant religion ever.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church is the authoritative recitation of Catholic teaching,promulgated by the Vatican under the supervision of the Pope. Luke 12:48 confirms CCC 847, that those who are unaware of their wrongdoing will not receive the same punishment as those who knew better. Further, Matthew 25:31-46 suggests that at the end of time, we will each be judged according to how we treated those worse off than us; it says nothing about creed or faith.

You really just need to accept that you were uninformed and move on.

Again, what a bunch of modern men say today is simply irrelevant. They can't change what the bible says, they can't change what the most widespread doctrine is.

And of course the bible is full of fallacies, contradictions and stupid things. Is a collection of ancient fairy tales collected to form a cult thousands of years ago.

 

[E-Cat]

I'm not exactly a fan of your word usage. Indoctrination implies coercion and being taught not to be critical of certain beliefs. Many religious people do question their own faith and to not do so at least once is irrational. Many people aren't fideists who take things as face value. It is always important to question.

indoctrinate
/ɪnˈdɒktrɪneɪt/
verb

1. teach (a person or group) to accept a set of beliefs uncritically.

The sense in which I used the word indoctrinate, which also happens to be the dictionary definition, does not imply coercion. That is also how I was brought up, not coerced, to believe in God uncritically. MTV and Harry Potter were forbidden, because they promoted sex and witchcraft, respectively. Anyway, I turned out pretty normal.

I never said all religious people were fideists.

Again, wishing a way of life to be over even non-violently or gradually is still a horrible sentiment.

We'll just agree to disagree. If it happens organically, i.e., without coercion, then it's because there is no longer demand for that way of life. Nothing horrible about that.

You could argue that. There are atheists who act with civility and are generally good people. But you need to know that at the very least religion can help people and encourage them to think outside of themselves.

Depending on the religion and the person-in-question's interpretation thereof, yes.

He wants religion to be gone. If he had his way my community and place of worship wouldn't exist.

Most faiths are harmless and helpful. Are you saying he is only concerned with religious extremists?

Dawkins is not pushing an agenda to shut down places of worship. He is merely asking people to think for themselves, mostly those people on the fence. He is not actively trying to convert 'true believers', because he knows it's a fool's errand.

As for the bolded part - for the most part, yes.

The heck? How does religion suppress women's rights, stifle scientific progress, inspire bigotry and violence, and abuse children?

Quite self-evident, no? For the suppression of women's rights, look at Saudi Arabia. For stifling scientific progress, look at banning the heliocentric theory or funding for embryonic stem cell research. For bigotry and violence, look at sectarian Sunni-Shia strife in the Middle East or the Israel-Palestine conflict. For abusing children, look at frightening them with stories of Hell or female genital mutilation.

I assume by "women's rights" you mean abortion. The pro-life movement is not a religious movement, though that being said a large amount of them are religious. But there are many secular arguments against abortion and not all pro-lifers are religious people. There are atheist pro-lifers and christian pro-choicers.

The pro-life movement is absolutely a religious movement. That there are exceptions to the rule does not change the fact.

Often what he says about religion isn't true though, and that needs to be called out. The truth needs to be held to a high standard and he generally does not get the facts right when he debates on this subject.

Give me an example.

Faith means to have a deep trust in something. I can have faith in something other than God. I have faith in the scientific method for example.

What you mean is a religious faith, or faith in the supernatural often revolving around God, correct? I can believe in God and have trust that He is real while also reasoning the world around me. I don't have to choose one or the other as they both are two different things that relate in the why and the how.

There is evidence that science works. There is no evidence that God exists. Therefore, you don't need faith to believe in the former, but do for the latter.

One can both be an astrophysicist and a theologian at the same time. These are two different subjects that relate on the reality of the world and don't conflict with each other. While I gaze upon the stars I can be thinking of their placement and what is going on while at the same time believing God put them there in my heart.

But if it's a Clockwork Universe functioning all by itself, according to its own deterministic laws, then postulating a God doesn't really add anything to the mix; one is left with an impression of the Universe giving rise to humans without any outside intervention.

Here lies the heart of the issue that you do not get. Some people are religious NOT because of some weird fideistic belief that defies self reflection, but rather they REASON their religious belief. A theologian DOESN'T go, "Well this is true simply because it is true", instead they reflect and study and try to look at the whole picture.

Ahh, yes, the 'sophisticated' God of the Gaps theologians. I don't really have much to say here, except I find them goofy as hell. First, they reason God must exist because the event horizon of a black hole violates The First Law of Thermodynamics, or dark matter affects the gravitational pull in the Universe, and today's science cannot explain it. And then, using their impeccable logic, they reason away the correct God out of all the 6,000+ religions.

Perhaps I don't know his position enough, and I agree maybe I should read more of his material. However he has made some very untrue statements regarding the beliefs of others without giving the proper research.

Can you give me an example?

I think he is a smart guy, but he doesn't put in enough effort. He doesn't dig at try to get at the meat of the subject. I want his arguments to be stronger.

Debunking religion is more like a side gig for Dawkins. His most compelling stuff is about genetics and evolutionary biology.

 

[E-Cat]

You're mischaracterizing the Heptateuch narrative - He did not pick sides and intervene in an already ongoing war over some petty shit. He set Abraham's family aside from the culture around them, to create a new people who would one day create a nation that all mankind to look to for help and guidance. They had to do some brutal things to survive the harsh world around them, but that was also in proportion to their own "hard-heartedness" or "stiffneckedness." Many of the things you take for granted today derive from this tradition.

And how is that working out so far?

You keep moving the conversation backwards. The ten commandments and the beatitudes absolutely do transcend cultures and time.

But that is my point exactly. You have to cherry-pick the good parts and disregard the other parts. And, yeah, I guess I am moving the conversation backwards, because The Old Testament contains a lot of 'backwards' stuff.

Because that isn't Catholic teaching at all.

And why is the Catholic interpretation the correct one? Because you were born into it?

 

[MiyazakiHatesKojima]

Atheists won ITT.