waltert

i figure I'll throw in a couple of cents late in the ball game, not that they'll amount to much.

personally, I think it takes time for people to be "ok" with atheism. I've been in several drawn out arguments with...hell, anyone...loved ones, unloved ones, unknown ones, you name it. Its a profound waste of time. they all involve a christian telling me that I'm empty inside, followed by a few stories of bad people who changed their lives for god, and now they're happy. and I just cant accept the arguments they provide, so we go back and forth, they tell me more of the same, and ignore the points I've brought up. it usually ends with the christian giving up and telling me that I must lead a dark, lonely existence.

and I definetely think that its easier to follow the religious path laid out for you by those in front. the free-market religious system has set up all sorts of groups, etc to help re-affirm your beleif...

really, being atheist is fairly similar to being gay in terms of the way you are viewed by religious society and family.

I can recall my christian days, when we christians would go to "jesus now" or some similar conference to sing songs, hear magical stories, and we would be led away to re-dedicate our lives to jesus (if we so chose). I always felt left out, because the only thing that I did wrong was look at porno and beat off....and I didnt figure that I was in need of a re-dedication to christ for fufilling a desire that was imprinted onto my brain by "him"

I guess I am to the point now where I dont care, and if someone comes to me and asks what religion I am, Im a christian (to save time).

and, for practical purposes, I am "muslim"...but thats another story.

ShaniFaye

I wonder how easy the Jews throughout history have thought being devout was?

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I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!

Willravel

I don't have 6 months to explain this, so I'll ask that you go out and buy The Psychology of Love by Robert J. Sternberg and Michael L. Barnes or We: Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love by Robert A. Johnson to explain the psychological side. Her is a 20 year old article written by famed Dr. Brian G. Gilmartin entitled: The Biochemistry of Falling in Love. It's breif, but very well written and explains the broad strokes.
They are making claims without proof, read above for references by doctors and researchers proving proof for my claim. There are not doctors proving information from experiments proving the existence of god.
I can make a case that god doesn't exist based on information about how life evolves. If god created the universe, it's not possible that he evolved in the universe, and since all life develops through the process of evolution, god cannot exist under our current understanding of the universe. It's not an amazingly strong case, but surely it's much, much stronger than a complete lack of evidence.
I have to ask: when faced with unbelievable stories with no evidence, why would one simply make the determination to believe that it is true and correct? What is that extra step that overrides the logical step to dismiss the stories as simply myth?
I'll clarify. Do you think that Zeus', the king of the gods', half son, who had supernatural strength, existed?
Science isn't here to give meaning to existence. That's why we have philosophy. What happens to us after we die? We decompose.
That's not what I said at all. I didn't want you to waste your time. By all means, consult Webster.
God has no evidence, therefore believing in his existence as truth is unreasonable.
Forget the superstition thing then. The bottom line is religion would be fine if it didn't cause injustice, or people to be hurt or killed.
Any political analyst can tell you that the Dems gained ground because of the Iraqi war, not stem cell research.
You're speaking in degrees, though. Sure things are relatively good, but it still sucks bad. I'm asking society to move faster.
Strawman. All religion is encompassed in my argument. Islam is right there next to Christianity. The funny thing is, while Islamic extremists are obviously more violent than their Christian counterparts, I've not heard anything about Islam impeding scientific advancements.

Speaking for a moment as to what I'm doing about Saudi Arabia, I'm friends with several very influential imams (I am very good friends with one of their sons, who is my age and shares my affinity for driving fast cars) in Arizona who often travel back to Iran in order to preach and teach and learn. I've had several serious discussions with them about how to bring the centrists and liberals of Islam into the ME, in order to counter the dogmatic and violent situation there now. They agree that bringing a more international view of Islam into the ME could act to calm down the extremists who have no other source of true Islam, which is very much peaceful. Bringing them the Islam I'm familiar with would be like bringing Vatican 2 policy to the Spanish Inquisition. It could really serve to help.

waltert

Who is persecuted is really dependant on who is in power... and who is in power is both a function of time (t) and position (x, y).

jews, native americans, christians, "heretics", muslims, black people, scientists, philoshophers...the list goes on of groups that have been persecuted.

Historically, it has been very difficult to disown "your people", due to language barriers, etc. it would be at a very minimum extremely difficult to disown your jewish heritage/family and become part of the dominant class.

allow me to provide a hyperbole...a jewish raised man under the rule of the egyptians is no more likely to become an upstanding member of the egyptian society than a black man on a plantation was to wake up and be "white".

back to reality, you cant really compare the historical journey of a race with your life today in western society.

ShaniFaye

um, I wasnt....I was going back to the "its easier to be religous and have a path to follow than to be an atheist"

I dont see whether it be in ancient times, or in Modern (as in the holocaust) how a religious path paved for them made it exactly, espcially since they were persecuted because of their religion

I dont really understand your point in relation to what my point was?

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I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!

asaris

But there is evidence for the existence of God. You might not consider it *good* evidence, but it's there. I've made this point here before. Perhaps you would care to enlighten us with a definition of what you consider evidence? I suspect that either the definition is overly narrow, rendering your inference invalid, or that under your definition, the claim that there is no evidence for the existence of God is false.

I also don't understand your claim that 'love' is nothing other than a bio-chemical reaction. This seems similar to the claim that pain is nothing other than C-fibers firing.* No, pain is that sensation I get when something's hurting me. While the physical mechanism is the cause of that sensation, there is more to the sensation than just the physical mechanism. Similarly, even if love is causally reducible to a physical mechanism, what love is, is the feeling that I am conscious of. To think otherwise is to just ignore the phenomenology of the whole thing.

*I've heard that the physical mechanism of pain is actually not C-fibers firing. If this is wrong, just ignore it -- it's not really important to the point.

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

Judy Taber

You can scientifically prove Love? You must be joking. That is rediculous. You need to get educated because that is about the dumbest thing ive ever heard in my life.

filtherton - 1
willravel - 0

Willravel

If you mean that it's in the bible, then the same evidence exists to prove the existence of Frodo. To which bad evidence are you referring?
I'm saying it can be proven, I'm not defining it. Love is very philosophical, and that aspect cannot be fully explained through scientific method. What can be explained is that it is present or not. That's all I was saying.
Speaking as someone who has his degree in psychology (4.0 GPA) from a private university famous for it's psychology department and is getting his masters, and is the son and fellow researcher of one of the more prominent psychologists on the west coast, I think that you should probably post at least a shred of evidence that I'm wrong before you start throwing scores at me. Read the evidence I posted. I presented two books and an article written by a well respected doctor of biochemistry. Maybe instead of assuming you know the first thing about biochemistry or psychology, you should fact check first. The dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life is that the WWE is real. Think about it.

Judy Taber

Funny thing about all that education...maybe you need to get a lobotomy or somehow lower your IQ because you're wrong here. You've had too much education if you can say with a straight face that you can measure love. Think about that for a long minute: SCIENTISTS CAN MEASURE LOVE.

Hahahaha!

Willravel

Again, quote me an article, quote me an interview, quote me from a textbook. You can make fun of me all you want, but until you prove me wrong your posts remain meaningless.

I'm reminded of a time when I was out with some friends and my then girlfriend. We went to a restaurant that happened to have a piano. The next part was right out of the movie Shine. Someone went up to play the piano and screwed up Fur Elise. I chuckled under my breath. Apparently, he thought he had played it perfectly. Instead of realizing I wasn't trying to disrespect him, he gave me the old "I'd like to see you do better." What he didn't know was that I've been playing piano since I was 4. I went up and played Fur Elise (one of the most hated songs by pianists, btw) correctly and then sat back down again. He insisted that I screwed up. I went back to the piano and played the piano part from Rhapsody in Blue from beginning to end. He realized that I knew what I was doing. As I left, I told him that he was quite talented and that if he had played as long as I had I'm sure he could have shown me a thing or two.

roachboy

my my what a strange thread this is becoming.
there is a scorekeeper now and everything.
something strangely mideval is taking shape--a contest between peripetetics, one of those three-round discursive boxing matches attended by the entire faculty of the local omniversity, a kind of sporting event.

i am confused:
what point is being pursued--not made--with reference to the curious status of love as a category? besides, i thought haddaway had already defined love.


giving a general account of it is simple enough---a directing of the instinct for reproduction routed through a dense, curious linguistic category. in that way, it is not different from any other category, in that once the association is in place, you use it and so what it comes to mean gets sedimented with the history of its usage--a history of associations. if your experience is such that you have come to associate "love" with aspects of attributed to this other category "god" then--well what?---the association doesn't explain ANYTHING---except something about your personal history, your trajectory through informational environments (vector that you are)---any more than managing to equate a bundle of affect that you associate with love with a discrete sequence of biochemical responses would.

in a strange way, they are the same argument: both in the end would respond to the question "what is love?" (damn it, there's haddaway again....) by saying "it happens here." which really doesn't say anything.

if you say "god is love" you are only repeating an experiential loop--since there is nothing that you can say or do that would demonstrate that this loop has any hold on anything (except to other members of the same community, who would be defined in some way by internalization of this loop as if it had some explanatory power)--all you do by using it is demonstrate your membership in that particular community.

besides, it is unlikely that a discrete biochemical reaction that would "explain" love would be meaningfully localized in any event--it could be part of an explanation for love as an embodied experience--but it wouldn't EXPLAIN the experience--if only because you have the mediation of language involved with the experience (without it, what shape would the experience have) and so a whole other set of factors/problems to take into account if you wanted to go this route. the idea that locating a particular chemical response in a particular place in the brain would explain love is hooked to a particular way of thinking about cognition. it is far from the only such model and there is little agreement about which model is preferable to others: each open onto different types of information, each has a function that it serves and any number of others that it doesn't.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Judy Taber

quote...quote...quote. Bah. Feel...feel...feel instead. Do you change your batteries every night before bedtime as well?

Willravel

I'd like to put the love thing to rest. I can provide evidence both biochemical and psychological that someone is in love or that someone has feelings of love. It can't be 100%, but I can be fairly sure (and with psychology, that's often as good as it gets). The thing is, it's all subjective. While I can present the evidence, it's easy for me to be using "love" in one way and you in another. Love, after all, isn't easy to define. The reason it was introduced into this thread was because it was being related to evidence explaining something intangible or philosophical. God, as was suggested by the point, is going to be an intangible or philosophical creature, but the Torah, Bible, and Qu'ran all make it clear that god is more than an idea. God is as real as you or I, and it's made clear when he pulls back a great body of water for Moses, or allows his own son to perform miracles, or allows an illiterate farmer to write a beautiful book. The problem is that you can't relate symptoms of an emotion with proof of a deity, not only because it's a case of apples and oranges, but because there is no evidence for the existence of god. There is some evidence, be it biochemical or psychological, for love.

For the sake of not threadjacking, I'll leave the "love" part of the discussion to end here. This is about atheism, not the nature of emotions.

I'm sure you wouldn't have said that to Galileo, Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Edwin Hubble, or the Wright Brothers. If I were a mystic or pastor, I'd agree with you. I'm not. I see the world through the lens of truth. I dabble in philosophy, sure, but when it comes time for me to figure out what's going on around me, you won't see me pray.

ShaniFaye

with all due respect because you're new.....As much as I disagree with just about every single thing willravel has said, your comments are not doing much to further the discussion are they?

Its interesting to see some of the names you posted willravel, because at least two of them were believers in god, Galileo and Einstein.

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I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!

roachboy

things grow curiouser and curiouser...


anyway, i am not sure of much, but this is one thing i am sure of....this:

says nothing.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Willravel

Galileo was a patient man. If the church had done to me as they did to him, I might have given up. Also:
But, that really doesn't mean much. Many great scientists and thinkers have been atheist, agnostic, or theists.

ShaniFaye

I agree, I just thought it was interesting that you brought up men that believed something you claim not to, thats all

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I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!

Willravel

I'd probably have spoken up if someone said that a theist scientist was atheist, too, btw. I'm interested in keeping this whole thing factual.

Also, I'll always respect you a great deal, Shani.

abaya

I don't know if this got overlooked, but I wanted to thank Jinn for this post... pretty damn mature of ya there. Will, you know I agree with most of what you're saying, but your approach lacks something in its delivery. I don't know if I speak for any others here, but I definitely switch off my "oooh, interesting thread!" lightbulb when people start dissecting (this goes for Filtherton, too) each other's posts line by line, in some kind of pigs-in-the-mud wrestling match. I'm no doubt guilty of it in other threads as well. But come on here, let's not turn this into a one-upmanship contest...

Unless y'all just like to wrestle and get dirty in the mud, then suit yourself. At least get naked first.

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

ShaniFaye

and I respect you too I dont have to agree with your thinking to do that, a person who has such faith (oh no did I use that word?!?!?!) in their convictions is not a bad thing. I have honestly enjoyed the exchange you and filtherton have been having.

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I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!

Willravel

abaya, you're probably right. I have this competitive thing where I like to win and sometimes it overrides my intention to have a good, meaty discussion. Filth, do you want to start from scratch? You can have the last word.

Jinn

Judy - welcome to TFP. Despite what you might've seen elsewhere, we pride ourselves here on being respectful to other posters, regardless of our disagreements. I'd very much like to hear your opinion on this topic, rather than your opinion of Will.

__________________
"I'm typing on a computer of science, which is being sent by science wires to a little science server where you can access it. I'm not typing on a computer of philosophy or religion or whatever other thing you think can be used to understand the universe because they're a poor substitute in the role of understanding the universe which exists independent from ourselves." - Willravel

asaris

By evidence, I mean the various arguments that have been advanced for God's existence. I vary in whether I think they're logically sound or not, but I don't think any of them will convince the committed atheist. But what they do show is that there are reasons to believe in God's existence.

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

Willravel

Do you have any specific things to list? Example: weeping statue of the Virgin Mary.

Bill O'Rights

Juday, Juday, Juday...
/bad Cary Grant impersonation

If you have a problem with willravel's assertations, then attack his position...not him. As JinnKai has so correctly pointed out, we do pride ourselves here on being respectful to other posters. It is what makes this place a community, and not just another message board. You get a "pass" this time. I invite you to look around a bit, and get a "feel" for the environment that we have going.
Oh...and welcome aboard.

Filth? That was like some kind of subconscious thing...right?

__________________
"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." - Susan B. Anthony

"Hedonism with rules isn't hedonism at all, it's the Republican party." - JumpinJesus

It is indisputable that true beauty lies within...but a nice rack sure doesn't hurt.

Willravel

Will is to Willravel as Filth is to Filtherton, right? It was intended as a nickname and nothing more I assure you. Like calling your BOR instead of Bill O'Rights. It's the manifestation of my laziness.

Bill O'Rights

Riiiiiiight.

__________________
"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." - Susan B. Anthony

"Hedonism with rules isn't hedonism at all, it's the Republican party." - JumpinJesus

It is indisputable that true beauty lies within...but a nice rack sure doesn't hurt.

bparker805

So, its trendy to be an athiest now? finally! I have been ahead of a trend. I think that sudden "raise of athiesm" stems directly from people having the abilty to think for themselves in a day in age where we can have different views and still tolerate each other for the most part. I have been athiest for many years. I dont flaunt it. I hardly even think about it. And if your not athiest and are committed to your belief, that impresses the hell out of me. Just don't push it down my throat. I love religious discusion and debate. Im jsut not a big fan of religious brow beating.

ShaniFaye

Can you elaborate on the "think for themselves" comment? Im not atheist and I think for myself all the time

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I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!

Bill O'Rights

I'm sure that what he meant was the "opportunity" to think for ones self. A lot of the stigma has being lifted in this, our enlightened age. Not so very long ago, to have proclaimed yourself as an atheist would've been akin to coming out of the closet as a child molestor, or...*gasp*...one a them ho-mo-sex-uals.

Look, atheism is nothing new. It's been around since man first uttered the words; "Say what, now?" I remember being in the first or second grade, and asking if Adam and Eve were cavemen. That ponderance began a lifetime of questioning, and searching for real answers...not rhetoric. Today, I am the result of what I've found.
Who knows? Maybe tommorow I'll turn over a rock that I have heretofore overlooked, and find something that will change my entire outlook. But, for now, and for the foreseeable future, I am an atheist. Have been for most of my life.

__________________
"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." - Susan B. Anthony

"Hedonism with rules isn't hedonism at all, it's the Republican party." - JumpinJesus

It is indisputable that true beauty lies within...but a nice rack sure doesn't hurt.

Charlatan

But what did that get you? You've been banished to Omaha!

Seriously, I started reading today's posts and as they went on, I was thinking, "shit, this getting nasty." But then... you guys just pulled it out of the nose dive.

Thank you.

Carry on. Pretty much all I wanted to say has been said, I just wanted to tell you all that you're awesome... really.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

FoolThemAll

I don't know if filtherton was headed in this direction, but these two quotes get to what I consider the heart of the matter: there is no evidence for meaning. Meaning is unreasonable by scientific standards. It may be that, in general, theistic philosophy has more useless baggage than atheistic philosophy - thank William of Occam for the seeds of that idea - but neither has its values supported by any kind of evidence. It seems like you're criticizing theism for something that is inevitable in any kind of philosophy that claims the existence of meaning.

Am I missing a key distinction?

__________________
I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.

roachboy

fta: i assume that you are talking about Meaning as in the Meaning of Existence or Life and not meaning in a more general sense (like semantics)?

which leads me to a little aside:

i am not sure about the way in which the opposition science/religion has been cast in this thread: scientific claims and theological claims get tangled up all the time--think about the claims made about string theory as giving some access to a single, ultimate structure of reality as we know it---the idea that reality has a single ultimate structure is itself a religious assumption, a mapping of notions of some divine agency--it doesn't follow from other premises---and you see this kind of mapping all the time in popularizing books and films that address developments in, say, theoretical physics, from "the tao of physics" onto that bizarre-o film (can't remember the title) that tries to combine ramtha with arguments for quantum physics as a lifestyle---the sciences are carried out by social groups and the folk who comprise these groups have a wide range of personal beliefs that can easily get crossed with their professional activities, particularly at the level of interpretations (but also in fashioning premises for experiments/modelling procedures, etc.)--it is not like someone who works in physics, say, leaves all their assumptions about the world at the door when they put on a lab coat.

in other words, i see no reason to position science as a realm of Objectivity positioned somehow above or outside ideologies (which include various religious affiliations)---to do this is to at once give the sciences too much credit (by virtue of assuming that they have climbed out of ideologies that continue to shape the views of the rest of us) and not enough credit (you make the sciences into a machine-like operation, and strangely enough put it in the same problematic position that a religious person would be inclined to put, say, the church)---you also erase the simple fact that the sciences have histories and that these histories are marked by quite radical changes of the most basic assumptions that shape/inform various interrogations of the world.

what is also curious is the way in which this thread has moved from what was essentially a sociological question (is there a new "atheist movement" out there and, if so, why now?) to a debate about axioms particular to two abstract systems---theism/religion vs. science--in a way that seems to me to reduce both to fictions.

at the same time, the debate is interesting in its circularity--which brings me back to fta's question, and to the start of this post.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

filtherton

I don't want to know the theory behind it. I want to know how you can prove it. What is the process and who does the certifying? Surely there should be some method. You can generalize it for me if you want. Certainly, if you're as educated as you claim to be you should be able to dumb it down for us physical science folk.

It's one thing to be able to theoretically prove something, actually proving it is something else entirely. Theoretically it's possible to make a heat engine with 99.999999% efficiency. As far as i know, no heat engine exists that comes close to that. For me to claim that the fact that it is possible means it is doable doesn't jibe with reality.


But okay, assuming that there is some way to prove it[not that i think that there is], to the extent that you can prove anything, have you gone ahead and proved that eveyone whom you think loves you actually loves you? Do you have any sort of certification you can provide if anyone in your family wants to be sure that you love them? If not, how can you justify your faith in their love, if indeed, you do have faith in their love?


You are also making claims without proof. Telling me to read a psych textbook doesn't amount to a very compelling argument.

It's not a case at all. Theism doesn't necessarily rely on the idea that god created the universe, or that god evolved within the universe. The fact that something cannot exist under our current understanding of the universe isn't good evidence either; any reasonable person will tell you that our understanding of the universe is relatively limited.

Well, i don't think that it's that simple for people who put a lot of thought into their faith. Why would the logical step be to dismiss?

I don't know, it doesn't really matter to me.

Then why did you even bring it up? You said that science can explain everything that religion tries to. And i pointed out that you were wrong; your response seems to indicated that you knew you were wrong before you even mentioned it.

I don't understand. I explained how it was reasonable based on definitions that i looked up. You said that i needed to use your definitions. I said that that was an irrational expectation because you aren't an objective player in this. Now you want me to use the dictionary. You didn't succeed in not wasting my time.

You keep saying this, but i do not think that word means what you think it means.

As if religion is the only thing that does this. For a psych major, you certainly seem to be unaware of how fucked up humans can be; they don't necessarily need religion to cause injustice or pain or death.

Political analysts aren't scientists, why would their position be evidence of anything?

By pretending to be superior to those whose opinions you want to change? Good luck with that.

I'm sorry dude, but you don't have anything relevant or compelling to say about "all religion".

Do you constantly point out to them how unreasonable they are?

FoolThemAll

Yes, that's what I mean. Sorry for the confusion.

I wouldn't call objective science a fiction, I'd say that it's impossible to disentangle objective science from our nonscientific assumptions. But maybe that's just a different way of saying the same thing.

__________________
I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.

Willravel

...but our understanding through science is ever evolving and expanding. The same cannot be said of the Bible, Qu'ran, Torah, etc. which all remain stagnant. That's kinda what I've been getting at. It's not fair to assume that the Bible will give us some indication of quantum theory because it's 1500 years old. Using the Bible to address things like the origin of life or the origin of the universe isn't fair to the Bible, which is a book of philosophy. As a philosophy, theism can work just fine. If you want to give meaning to your existence through the belief in a god, go for it. It's not necessarily reasonable to believe in something that basically isn't there, but there isn't harm allowing yourself to take some better understanding of yourself or your world from it. When integrating it into science, everything falls apart. That's where the rise in atheism is coming from. The separation of science and faith is happening the same way that the separation of church and state happened (and continues to happen).
Maybe I should be having this debate with a theist.
No, religion is trying to explain the world around us, not just our philosophy. Science is for explaining how the world works on a fundamental level, not religion. That was the point I was making. When I became a humanist, I realized that not all the decisions I made could be made with science. Altruism, for example, is difficult to explain away by Darwinian theory. It's one of the things I take on faith (gasp!). The marked difference between my believing in altruism and a theist's belief in god is that my belief is in something that never claims to be tangible. There is no ancient altruism scripture that explains how we received altruism from a flying white guy that I follow. It's a philosophical decision that has no roots in the belief in unprovable creatures. When a theist is altruistic, it is because they need to believe that the altruism was given to us by a higher, supernatural being. I see a marked difference between the two.
I never said you need to use my definitions. Use any reasonable definitions. I suggested Webster, in order to reference one of Webster's dictionaries, but use whatever dictionary you want, so long as it isn't Jesus' Dictionary for Atheism Arguments.
Are you saying "it's one of many unreasonable things, so it's okay"? That's hardly reasonable.
My buddies who were all Political Science majors in school will be crushed.
Unless you're god, you can only speak for yourself when you declare what I say as being relevant or not.
One step at a time. First, end violence, then move on.

filtherton

They are evolving. Interpretation of religious texts have been known to change with the times and a particular theist may or may not derive all of their beliefs from the bible.

Maybe, though i think we've frightened all but the most daring of them off.

I think that science is for explaining the things it can explain, which are less in number than the things that could theoretically be explained. Any other explanations are great, provided they don't contradict the things that science can tell us.

I used dictionary.com.

I'm saying that the idea that religion isn't okay because some religious people use it to justify bad things is like saying that economic theory isn't okay because some people use it to justify bad things. People who want to do bad things will find a way to justify the doing of bad things. Charismatic people are the mcguyvers of drivel.

I know, it was a dumb thing to say. I was totally thinking james carville when i wrote it, and then when i was walking to class after i posted it i realized that james carville is, in fact, a douchebag and not a political analyst.

I was speaking for me. I personally don't think you're qualified to speak authoritatively about all religion.

Amen to that. You may find that the differences between the more progressive/moderate religious folk and you are superficial.

I hope that the exchange between mr. ravel and i has been entertaining. I know feel personally entertained.

asaris

Well, take the Argument from Design. If we found a stopwatch on the beach, we'd presume someone put it there. It exhibits an orderly design we generally don't think happens by accident. But the universe, like a stopwatch, exhibits an orderly design. Therefore, someone must have put it there. Now, you might not think it's a good argument. But it's an argument, and not nonsensical. And you also have the teleological argument, the ontological argument, the argument from evil, the fine tuning argument, and probably others. These all indicate that there are in fact reasons to believe, even if you don't think they are particularly good reasons.

I also think you dismiss too quickly the claim that "Since lots of things cause injustice, Christianity can't be that bad." The conclusion that this leads me to is that injustice, strife, etc. must be a result of us, not our ideologies. If all the contemporary ideologies were eliminated, and people just stuck to science, do you think injustice would end? If not, then how can you claim that injustice is a result of these things? And this argument ignores all the good that Christianity has brought about. If it has contributed to the oppression of women and colonialism, it is also responsible for the rise of the modern liberal state and the end of slavery (not to mention the role it has played in the fight against racism and sexism). If you're going to criticize an ideology for its effects, it's not fair to only consider the bad effects and ignore the good.

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"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

Willravel

I see that as the ultimate in nonsensical assertions.

Your argument assumes that the universe is perfectly designed. That is a flawed assumption. Let's look at it from a meteorological perspective. Sure, the rain brings water to places not near bodies of water, but what about floods? Other times it doesn't rain for years and drought follows. How is this orderly? As someone fascinated by biology, I can tell you that nature is ruthless. To live, each life form has to kill other life forms around it. Millions of human babies are born with physical or mental disabilities, or are stillborn and die soon after being born. Orderly, indeed.

I would argue that the evidence that you would present isn't evidence for god, but for natural selection. Why is our planet a perfect distance from the sun for life? You're thinking of it the wrong way. Life on Earth developed and the life forms able to survive in our atmosphere survived. All the life forms that didn't survive died off because they were not suited for this world.
I never claimed that injustice was a result of theism. This is the kind of strawman that gets us off track. I'm saying that god isn't real.

roachboy

fool them all:

i was making more a sociological argument, but it comes to the same thing in this context. so yes. i think so.

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asaris: i think i know arguments that are referred to as "fine-tuning" arguments, but not in this kind of context, so could you explain it please?

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on the will/filtherton bout---a side comment.

in my world, the strongest arguments against belief in god come in two registers:
(1) on its own terms--that is within judeo-christian theology--god is unknowable. if i were xtian, i would be all about nominalism--in other traditions more about negative theology because both seem at least consistent with something that is axiomatic within these traditions themselves.
(2) belief in god tends to be also a belief that the world is ordered in advance. among the implications of this is that human beings do not create anything, not in any strong sense of the term. i think that is false in itself and the consequences of believing to the contrary have tended to produce such disastrous political outcomes that i would reject the idea of god as a function of them.
at least of this god that the major traditions have constructed for themselves.

personally i am fine with the cloud of unknowing.

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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite