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Ultimate Religious Debate; Sam Harris And Andrew Sullivan


Domarius

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No, because I don't think like that, and I don't think it's a healthy way for anyone else to think.

I require solid reasons for my beliefs, if not actual evidence, then at least logical possibility, but certainly not just wild guesswork and forlorn hope.

 

Religion started with observations of people, not the other way around. People tried to understand the world on the basis of their experience. The experience was that everything had a cause, so the easiest conclusion is that the world and everything also must have a cause. The easiest and "logical" conclusion is one or more gods. Of course if you really think about it, then you realize that a god doesn't solve the problem at all, but that's where religion usually provides the answer that the god(s) are omnipowerfull, or that they were cfreated when the universe was borne or some other nonsense. The bucket has to stop somewhere and religion doesn't know where, but they provide an answer. That this answer is most likely wrong doesn't really matter to most people.

No, the first 'religions' - they weren't even religions at that early stage - were Dynamism and and Animism. They started off just attributing a 'power' to certain places, or a rock or a tree, not even a spirit or having any personality, just 'power'. Then they started to give them personalities that had to be worshipped or satisfied with gifts and sacrifices..

These simple types of beliefs are far older than anything you're talking about, such as the pantheism or polytheism of the pagan religions where they start to think up entire myths and detailed surrounding the gods.

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

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And why do you think came that desire from to imbue some places with "power"? It's not as if animals suddenly start to think that certain places have some power. The reason why this gets started is, because these animals started to become aware of their surrounding in a more abstract way than just accepting it's existance.

Gerhard

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OF course, but that's a lot different from what you were initially saying, a long winded account of how these primitive people sat down in a meeting and logically decided

'The simple experience is that every action has a cause, so logically it follows that somehwere there must be something tha got it started unless you accept an infinite regress. And once you followed down that road, you came to the conlusion that something must have created all these things that we see, because we know that everythign has to be created at some point. And from this it follows also easily, that there might be some things how to communicate with this supposed creator in order to make him do something ones own favour.'

and then decided to start a religion and invent an entire mythology for themselves.

As I said, it all started simply as a way of trying to control the unpredictable world and the seemly random and cruel nature of it, that has always been the most important aspect of religion, right back to the very earliest ones, and it still is. Many people still 'pray' to their 'gods' for intervention in the world to make things better or to help them out in some way'

The second most important has been the idea of afterlife, that's common to virtually all religions.

So first, your god helps you out here on earth if you're a good boy and be nice, and secondly you get big rewards in heaven when you die.

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

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OF course, but that's a lot different from what you were initially saying, a long winded account of how these primitive people sat down in a meeting and logically decided

 

Maybe that was your imagination because I certainly never wrote that. I don't think that such a process woul dhave been a concsious decision anyway. Rather it would be a mutual agreement that evolves over time in a given society, along with the rules that establish themselve how to get along with each other.

 

As I said, it all started simply as a way of trying to control the unpredictable world and the seemly random and cruel nature of it, that has always been the most important aspect of religion, right back to the very earliest ones, and it still is. Many people still 'pray' to their 'gods' for intervention in the world to make things better or to help them out in some way'

 

I always find this the most hillarious aspect of religion. I mean, there are about 9 billion people on this planet. Even if only 1 billion of them daily prays for one whish or another, this is a bloody big amount of preyers, and there are bound to be a huge number of wishes supposed to be granted which would certainly clash with each other. I never ever heard an expalantion how that would be resolved. Would god decide to grant prayers on a democractic basis. The highes amount of prayers for a given topic will win? Or does he simply grant on a whim?

 

The second most important has been the idea of afterlife, that's common to virtually all religions.

So first, your god helps you out here on earth if you're a good boy and be nice, and secondly you get big rewards in heaven when you die.

 

And whats so surprising about that? This is also tied in with cause and effect. And since humans are built to make sense of their environment, life itself also has to have some kind of sense. And "obviously" life itself can not be the sense, because religion is supposed to explain the meaning of life but we are dying, so the meaning has to be found in some other place. Aka Afterlife. I mean, even the term "afterlife" is kind of stupid already, because either it is life or it is not, but what is it supposed to mean that there is life after life?

 

Is some water wetter then other, and if so what it would it mean to see some wetter water?

Gerhard

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No, because I don't think like that, and I don't think it's a healthy way for anyone else to think.

I require solid reasons for my beliefs, if not actual evidence, then at least logical possibility, but certainly not just wild guesswork and forlorn hope.

Well you don't have to think like that, but I'd like to know why you think it isn't healthy.

 

You like to think you're 100% logical, like a computer, but no human can be - we don't have the capacity to understand every possible thing in the universe - that's why we have the capability for feelings and belief and ideas, to fall back on when we don't have the logic.

 

So you don't have any solid evidence to say what happens after death, so you can't draw a scientific conclusion. Do you honestly ignore the thought about what happens after death? I doubt any human can. You must have some thoughts. What are they?

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I think you're referring to organised religion. Yes it does befuddle the mind. But that's not what I'm talking about.

 

What I'm talking about is simply having the idea that something greater than decomposition happens after you die, and there's some guiding force to everything. All this does is put one's mind at ease, it doesn't have to affect any other part of life.

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I dunno, maybe it's connected to the fact that I'm the only person I know who doesn't do the lottery.

I just think these blind 20 million to one chances are a poinltess waste of time to even consider, yet millions of people do it every single week for years in the blind hope that they'll win.

I just don't think like that.

The chances of fantasising what you want after you die and it coming true are significantly higher than that. Infinity to one.

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

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And whats so surprising about that? This is also tied in with cause and effect. And since humans are built to make sense of their environment, life itself also has to have some kind of sense. And "obviously" life itself can not be the sense, because religion is supposed to explain the meaning of life but we are dying, so the meaning has to be found in some other place. Aka Afterlife. I mean, even the term "afterlife" is kind of stupid already, because either it is life or it is not, but what is it supposed to mean that there is life after life?

Life after your physical existence here on Earth.

Again, I can't have anything to do with this fantasy, since I have no reason to think that we are anything other than complex biological machines which one day simply cease to function.

There is no need for, nor reason to justify, any further explanation that that.

Occam's razor again. it's a beautiful principal to live by.

Don't think up more of an explanation than your evidence or logically arrived at deduction supports.

If one of your socks goes missing, don't assume that aliens came in the night and took it.

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

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Do you honestly ignore the thought about what happens after death? I doubt any human can. You must have some thoughts. What are they?

 

I know for a fact what happens after death: rigor mortis, lividity, decomposition. That's assuming you aren't incinerated or blown up or something.

 

To me the idea that "consciousness" can survive death is ridiculous, it's like asking "where Windows goes" after you switch off your PC.

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Life after your physical existence here on Earth.

 

That was more a rethorical question. :)

 

Again, I can't have anything to do with this fantasy, since I have no reason to think that we are anything other than complex biological machines which one day simply cease to function.

There is no need for, nor reason to justify, any further explanation that that.

Occam's razor again. it's a beautiful principal to live by.

Don't think up more of an explanation than your evidence or logically arrived at deduction supports.

If one of your socks goes missing, don't assume that aliens came in the night and took it.

 

We agree there, as I pretty much have the same view.

 

And you know what I really like about this view? If I'm good to other people, I'm doing it because it is my decision to do so, not because I fear that I get punished in some afterlife. IMO that feels much better then having a god to rationalize good behaviour.

Gerhard

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I'm doing it because it is my decision to do so, not because I fear that I get punished in some afterlife. IMO that feels much better then having a god to rationalize good behaviour.

 

This is a good point, and I think it is one that needs to be made over and over, the fact that not relying on such fantasies has its rewards as well. Many of the bleevers I know are quick to point out the comfort factor of their faith "It gets me through the tough times" or some such crap. It may very well do that, but its like a pain killing drug that also scrambles ones senses, it takes away the pain as well as your ability to look at the world critically. I'd prefer the pain frankly.

 

These are really important questions because at least here in the U.S. it seems we are entering a sort of mini-Dark Age in terms of literacy, critical thinking, and freedom from superstition. (Im going to take back that last bit about superstition, USers have always been so in great numbers.) Im currently working on a presentation for a conference of adult educators, those are teachers of people who dropped out of high school or who need english as a second language support. The literacy statistics for this country are abominable, something like slightly over fifty percent of the population is functionally illiterate. For minority groups, it can go as high as seventy to eighty percent. At the same time, the job market is changing in that high tech, high education jobs are the fastest growing segment of the job market, which means at least half and in actuality much more than that are totally unqualified for these types of jobs. These people will be relegated to low paying crap service work for their lives, and they will suffer accordingly. And third, immigration now accounts for fifty percent of our population growth (which is fine in and of itself) and something like eighty percent of these folks have no high school diploma or equivalent. And as an adult educator, I can tell you there is little infrastructure in place to deal with such an influx.

 

Now, mix into this mess the fact that something like eighty percent of US adults claim some sort of religious belief, and we see a quagmire of ignorance stretching in front of us. Rational thinkers have to go on the offensive, taking bleevers to task for their superstitions at every turn. And frankly, I still think we are fucked here in La La Land. Christ, I have to get to Toronto.

Edited by Maximius
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These are really important questions because at least here in the U.S. it seems we are entering a sort of mini-Dark Age in terms of literacy, critical thinking, and freedom from superstition.

 

It would be cool if it were in some way possible to create a "mental virus" which would only attack the stupid people, and would cause their brain to spontaneously self-destruct thus effecting their removal from the gene pool. This virus could be subliminally encoded into broadcasts of Big Brother and other mindless crap, so its attack vectors were maximised. Just imagine how much better the world would be if all of the idiots just fell over and died.

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It would be cool if it were in some way possible to create a "mental virus" which would only attack the stupid people, and would cause their brain to spontaneously self-destruct thus effecting their removal from the gene pool. This virus could be subliminally encoded into broadcasts of Big Brother and other mindless crap, so its attack vectors were maximised. Just imagine how much better the world would be if all of the idiots just fell over and died.

Lest you forget how it's no longer survival of the smartest :P : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1fOt4QMBjw

Edited by Vadrosaul
Loose BOWELS are the first sign of THE CHOLERA MORBUS!
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Of course that statement is simply wrong. Or would you also say that a hole is just another kind of matter? Probably not.

 

Wrong. A lack of something is NOT the same as having something. Unless of course you are defining "atheist" to mean "somebody who is 100% certain that god does not exist", but that does not describe most atheists.

Perhaps I should have been more clear as to what I meant. I was specifically referring to disbelief, rather than a lack of belief. The statement, "I do not believe in god," does not specify whether it is a lack of belief or if it is disbelief (although it does imply the latter), but "I believe there is no god" is a disbelief in god and therefore also a belief. In sparhawk's analogy, antimatter or negative matter is still a type of matter, not a lack thereof.

 

The point that I had been trying to make is that atheists almost necessarily still have beliefs, such as a belief in the power of science. Belief is a necessary evil, as a complete lack of beliefs requires that one either knows everything (and therefore has no need for belief) or that one knows nothing (and consequently cannot learn anything). (If anyone cares, I could easily use Plato's Image of the Divided Line to further elaborate my argument.)

 

It's a common slang term for an ignorant and credulous person, you'll find it used commonly on any sceptical discussion board.

I've never heard it before. I honestly thought you had misspelled "believer," but it still sounds like a Larry Niven curse word. :P

 

It seems we do agree after all.

Indeed. Occam's razor gives foundation to a belief in a lack of a god, and furthermore, it is falsifiable--the key trait of all knowledge (the fact that a counterexample would be unfalsifiable only makes it stronger).

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In sparhawk's analogy, antimatter or negative matter is still a type of matter, not a lack thereof.

 

I was not talking about anit-matter, I was talking about a simple hole, like the one you can have in your pocket and where your money falls out. And don't try to tell me that it is filled by air next, because you can bring your trouser to space and then the air would be gone but the hole would still be there. <_<

 

The point that I had been trying to make is that atheists almost necessarily still have beliefs, such as a belief in the power of science.

 

It's a common misconception among psychics, to claim that there is a "believe in science" which is the same as a belief in god. It is not. Also most sceptics don't simply believe in science, which would be quite a strange thing if you understand the process of scientific investigation.

Gerhard

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Perhaps I should have been more clear as to what I meant. I was specifically referring to disbelief, rather than a lack of belief. The statement, "I do not believe in god," does not specify whether it is a lack of belief or if it is disbelief (although it does imply the latter), but "I believe there is no god" is a disbelief in god and therefore also a belief.

 

Fair enough, some people make a distinction between a "strong" or a "weak" atheist, or state that most atheists are in fact agnostics because they don't specifically believe that god does not exist. I tend to take "atheist" to mean "somebody who lacks a belief in god" rather than indicating any strong disbelief.

 

The point that I had been trying to make is that atheists almost necessarily still have beliefs, such as a belief in the power of science.

 

Yes, but that's a very different kind of belief because it is based on evidence rather than faith or superstition. It is the latter that atheists and skeptics reject, not belief in its entirety.

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The (IMPORTANT!) difference between a belief in religion and a belief in science is what it would take to get you to change/update your beliefs.

 

And there are degrees of belief in science as well, I think, and they are oftentimes nestled, certainty with uncertainty, within the same collection of ideas. For example, take genetics, or rather the little I know about it. We know with a high degree of certainty that our genes are the mechanisms by which characteristics are selected for reproduction by the environment. This seems unassailable, but surprises probably remain anyway.

 

But when the question turns to how this process actually works, there is an entire battlefield of ideas to deal with. Dawkins and his adherents argue that the gene, each individual one, is selected or not selected by the environments it lives in. Others disagree, and say that its suites of genes, whole sets of characteristics, that are the "unit" of selection, although it is allowed by some that a few individual genes may be the unit of selection at times.(I'm in favor of the second point of view personally.)

 

My point is that even within "accepted" beliefs in science there are often tremendous controversies. I'll give Roman Catholicism this much, as it's dogma about the world was the lens through which many people viewed everything around them, honestly and truthfully looked at it as if Biblical stories were actually describing reality, it actually helped to set the grounds for the growth of science in a way, I think. Because it claimed that things were a certain way and set off huge discussions and investigations trying to jive dogma with observed reality, it actually helped to foster scientific inquiry while of course often actively working to stamp it out at the same time.

 

Modern self named Christians, especially the fundamentalist, evangelical, and now the uber-scary Dominionist Protestant sects, not only accept the literal truth of the Bible but much more worrisome is the fact that they reject rational, evidence based thinking as a way of viewing the world. I was reading the letters of Abelard and Heloise a few months back, two brilliant Catholic religious figures from the medieval period of Europe, one of the characteristics of their writings was their use of Biblical truth to make logical, reasoned arguments. Now we would laugh at their assumptions but at least they were trying to be critical within the boundaries of their day. Thomas Aquinas would be another example I guess, trying to discover what logically were the limitations of God Himself and so on.

 

Not that these things were universal by any means, but they certainly existed as important themes, ones which would inform later ideas. Today, it strikes me that the Christians I know travel on a sort of auto pilot, faith is the answer to any problem, question, or contradiction. Blind, dumb, faith. People I work with talk about "taking Jesus with you" as if to remember an umbrella, in any bad situations however defined, one is supposed to whip out "Jesus" and apply liberally.

 

In fact, a recent poll I heard of reveals that something like 80% of self named Christians cannot name all the 10 commandments, cannot remember important New Testament names and places, etc. Not that all Christians at other times could do so, most could not in fact, but these are different times with much more widespread literacy rates and much higher availability of Bibles. But most don't bother to actually read and learn what they claim is the foundation of their world view, they are just on auto pilot, what the guy at the pulpit tells them is sufficient, why worry about it when its already taken care of?

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It would be cool if it were in some way possible to create a "mental virus" which would only attack the stupid people, and would cause their brain to spontaneously self-destruct thus effecting their removal from the gene pool. This virus could be subliminally encoded into broadcasts of Big Brother and other mindless crap, so its attack vectors were maximised. Just imagine how much better the world would be if all of the idiots just fell over and died.

 

 

The really scary thing Orb is that some of the few Christians I know who are really Christians, actually read the Bible and struggle with its meaning and whatever, talk about it and worry about its meaning, are pretty bright people. I reject their beliefs utterly but I cannot deny they have something going on upstairs.

 

Its the "autopilot" crowd, the "stick worshipers" who would kneel before a stuffed animal if they were told to, that need to be culled from the herd. Then we can get to work convincing the few left of their errors.

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But most don't bother to actually read and learn what they claim is the foundation of their world view, they are just on auto pilot, what the guy at the pulpit tells them is sufficient, why worry about it when its already taken care of?

 

Replace the 'at the pulpit' with 'on TV' and you've just described our culture in a nutshell.

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Replace the 'at the pulpit' with 'on TV' and you've just described our culture in a nutshell.

 

 

Yeah, I forgot the televangelists, not to mention the mega churches of 30K even 40K members, places where you can buy a Starbucks coffee,take a pottery class, a rock climbing course, swim, run some track, take a nap, then go into a service for an hour or so and flush your rational mind down the hopper while the man in the 3K dollar suit at the front of the room works his home grown, pious sorcery on you.

 

I've been listening to some shows about these places, cults of personality centered on older ,mostlywhite men, with the father of the church occupying an unquestionable position of authority at the top. Oh, and millions of bucks in the bank from his devoted followers. And this is pretty much the norm here, AFAICS. Its like living inside a nightmare cartoon, without the cool special effects and flesh eating toasters and all.

 

http://www.njhn.org/audio/ETFF_20061217.wma

 

http://www.njhn.org/audio/ETFF_20061112.wma

 

http://www.njhn.org/audio/ETFF_20060305.wma (this particular show has two parts, dont miss em!)

 

http://aud1.kpfa.org/data/20070130-Tue1200.mp3

 

and for good measure

 

http://aud1.kpfa.org/data/20061225-Mon1200.mp3

 

OH, and lets not forget the good folks at Blackwater USA, the most powerful and influential mercenary organization in the world, HQ'd in North Carolina I think, led by a Dominionist christian lunatic with close ties to the Bush regime. Heres a discussion of Blackwater:

 

http://www.archive.org/download/dn2007-012...0126-1_64kb.mp3

 

 

These people really threaten the rest of the world. They are far more dangerous than any terrorist organization or any "rouge state."

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