Halx

(I wrote this article and I would like the full TFP treatment.)

I make it a point to observe as much friction between believers and non-believers as possible. My goal is to understand why, with as much that each side has to justify their stance, they can never seem to convince each other. Ultimately, I am an atheist myself, so a religious person's justifications are a curiosity of mine. In this article I hope to explain and understand why people decide to believe what they do, even in the face of contradictory evidence. Viewing belief and non-belief as two dichotomous side of human existence, I feel that if we understand more about the other, we can begin to hold better conversations with less friction and possibly productive outcomes.

Religious faith is the trust in a guiding presence. It is the warmth and reassurance of a community full of like-minded friends. It is the confidence that your soul will be nurtured after the completion of its trials on Earth. It is a deep and fruitful relationship with god. You might be surprised that I'm not more conflicted about rejecting it all completely, so let me help you understand. Religion has been sold to me as a beautiful life, filled with love and security, and it’s not even my skepticism and distrust that makes me shake my head at it all. It is the reason why all the logical arguments in the world cannot sway a believer into thinking otherwise. Atheists and believers do not want the same things out of life, so when someone comes to me promising eternal salvation or the love of a supreme being, they're not playing to my tastes. Similarly, when I provide logical proofs for the lack of any god, I am ignored by the most devout because I am not addressing what religion is about.

As an atheist, my entire view of the world can be summed up fairly easily; you don't need god to explain anything, so why is he necessary? This is Occam's Razor in full effect. When I am "blessed" with fortune, I am able to see all of the factors that combined to provide me with it. Most of the time, I can attribute my good fortune to my own doings. I do not need to involve Jesus or Buddha in the matter. Furthermore, my rejection of their existence does not prevent me from experiencing fulfillment. Then there are spiritual people who do not have a religion but instead believe in forces that defy current scientific logic. People might claim to have experienced supernatural events, but the million dollar prizes for proof of god or proof of the supernatural remain to be awarded. (There is an organization out there that will pay you a million dollars if you can prove it.) It is a simple challenge and all that anyone can contest it with is the assurance that you have to believe in god first in order to feel him. Therein lies all I need to know about religion and spirituality: they contain truths that are only real to the set of people who are interested. The "truths" do not affect me and this fact allows me to deduce that they are neither standard nor comprehensive. The "truths" are different for every religion or spirituality, with each claiming its own universal validity. This means that there can only be one correct belief system or that none of them are right. Trying to flip the stage and use logic against logic, religious people will claim that it is up to atheists to prove that there is no god. The problem is that, logically, you cannot disprove the existence of something that doesn't exist to begin with.

There are believers out there who don't necessarily shun logic. More to the point, they believe that logic is on their side when arguing for the existence of god. Unfortunately, belief and non-belief are two incompatible debates because the logic employed in one uses different rules than the other. I've found myself in numerous discussions with believers and when I begin by stating that God is unnecessary to explain anything, the conversation predictably shifts to the question of our origin. How did the universe come into existence? How do you explain the existence of the matter that made up the Big Bang? Not only is there an illogical leap to assume that this matter had an intelligent creator, there are two more fallacies to starting the "origin" argument. First, if we are in the business of explaining the supposed something-from-nothing, then we also must ask, "Who created god before he created the universe?" Second, even if we concede that the universe must have been "created" by something, it still does not explain anything else. That means that everything that actually matters in life remains within the grasp of rational explanation.

Speaking of rationality, I have one concession to make. Humans are not rational at all. This truth flies in the face of the intellectual believer, who thinks of man as a masterpiece, a superior animal (if animal at all) who uses his dominant, thinking mind to make sound, honorable and moral decisions. One needs only to look as far as Dan Ariely's book Predictably Irrational to realize that humans are far from perfect and every ideal we think we see in ourselves can be stripped away by the everyday situations we find ourselves in. Demonstrated in the book,Ariely conducts experiments that catch the hidden beast at work within every man; the vulnerable and credulous critter at home behind our noble facades. Every lesson rings out loudly; no matter how chiseled, civilized and rational we believe we are, man's brain contains artifacts of the animals we descended from who had far more pressing priorities than serving any higher power.

My favorite lesson contained in Ariely's book focuses on our decision-making ability when under the influence of sexual arousal. As we can probably predict, our judgment is impaired in most impassioned states: anger, jealousy, desperation. But what happens when we predict how we will feel when we are sexually aroused? The experiment involved asking individuals a series of questions about sexual boundaries ("Can you imagine being attracted to a 12-year-old girl?"), moral boundaries ("Would you keep trying to have sex after your date said 'no'?") and safe sex ("Would you use a condom if you felt your date would change her mind while you went to get it?"). The subjects were first asked the questions while unaroused, but told to predict their answer as if they were actually aroused. The next step of the experiment had the same individuals answering the same questions, but this time they were actually in the heights of passion (masturbating) while doing so. The results were stunning. Without exception, the predictions of sexual boundaries, moral boundaries and adherence to safe sex were way off. Many "immoral" considerations received twice as many approvals during actual arousal than they had been predicted. The example questions that I cited were among those with the highest rates of reconsideration. What does this mean? It is only an example of how flawed humans and their "superior" judgment capabilities are and how little our standards of society matter when we are in the heat of passion. It is also a shining case against "abstinence only" sexual education.

The fact that I can follow a path of logic away from the warm embrace of belief does nothing for me in the way of convincing believers to do the same. The reasons for this are numerous, but all of them have one of two root justifications: either the idea of non-belief paints too uncomfortable a picture or it grates against the most basic of human motivations; the need to be right. As a former believer I met once said, "See yourself traversing a deep, dark chasm, stepping on a bridge illuminated by god's light and steadied by his hand." The notion of abandoning belief is too big of a leap to imagine for someone who has given their religion first priority in all of their life's decisions for so long. "Now turn off that light and remove the hand." One could envision the devastation. This is why churches urge their followers, without trepidation or hashing, to reject logic and let faith be their only guide. It's too scary not to.

It isn't that religious people are staring truth in the face and choosing to ignore it and it isn't because they're unintelligent; they simply cannot (or are not allowed to) fathom such a dramatically different reality for themselves - especially one that is blasphemous. This is the role of dogma in the belief system at work. Dogma is seen by non-religious people as an efficient system through which guilt can be delivered with the purpose of inducing subordination. Conversely, religious people view their dogma as the ultimate source of values and morality. This is why the faithful fear that a world without god would burn down in minutes.

I once met a girl who claimed to be a non-practicing Mormon. When I asked her why she did not leave the church, she replied that the faith provided a good set of morals for her to follow. I, being an Atheist who uses nothing more than his brain to choose how to behave, was spurred by this response to challenge her further. I asked her, "What morals could a church teach you that aren't already taught by secular society and adhered to by our basic human instinct for compassion?" I have yet to receive a response. My own take on her situation is that she probably knows for herself what is right and what is wrong, but the support system that the church community (and the larger "believer" demographic) provides is a powerful tool in recruitment and retention. Social contracts are built upon yet another basic human motivation; the need to belong. Why would someone who does not practice a religion retain a relationship with the church and continue to tithe part of their earnings? The answer lies in the stark truth spoken by another woman, a non-believer. "I'm an atheist, but I find it depressing," laments a 20-year-old test-tube baby. She grew up as a child of two lesbian women in a diverse liberal community; a member of no churches and practitioner of no cultural traditions. She is a human, like the rest of us, but barren of all that we might claim makes up ideal humanity. Still, she is an intelligent, well-adjusted citizen of society with a functioning moral compass, a boyfriend, and a future. Her lack of belonging is sorrowful, but she does not let it stand in the way of her search for truth.

Atheism is more of a discipline than a belief system. There are more basic human traits that draw us toward the warm light of belief than away from it. We all want to believe there is something more fantastic than just existing on this round rock that is hurtling through space. We all want to feel the love of an eternal creator, especially when we know we will eventually be abandoned by our earthly ones. We want magic and we want synchronicity with nature. We want more than what our eyes plainly see. Atheism asks that you only accept what you can justify, observe and accurately predict. The world is fantastic as it is, and we can make it a far better place if we only realized that it is really all we have. You might call this a depressing view, but in it I find so much more fulfillment than the thought of it being some arbitrary trial and transitional state of being. This is all we've got, folks. Let's make the best of it.

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Xerxys

I read this article of yours when I was in high school. I showed it to my friends and they were like "Xerxys, you are playing into the devils hands. That is a bad story told with a good twist."

So, I will leave you with the movie analogy. The simpletons might respond to that much better.

>>LINK<<

Halx

I don't understand. I just wrote it over the course of the last week. And what you posted has NOTHING to do with my article.

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Xerxys

Sorry, I haven't read the article in the OP (TLDR) but isn't it the same as the one in your other website?

Halx

No. It is not. Why comment if you never read it?

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FuglyStick

I don't understand why people are always trying to find a medium between "logic" and "faith."

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Halx

Are you saying that my article is trying to find a medium or are you concurring?

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Xerxys

OK, just read it and my earlier assumption was right. It says the same thing all religious vs. atheism threads are about i.e., atheists are different from religious people, not another form of religion etc etc.

Now, your other article (I can't find it for the life of me!) said the same thing. It wasn't well received, so I'm hoping if I showed my high school friends the movie analogy they will accept it better is what I was saying.

Confused it with the seven questions blog entry ... so no, it wasn't that one I showed to my friends.

And I am concurring.

Seaver

I treat Atheism as it's own Religion.

The biggest mistake Atheists make is identical to those who are Religious. They attribute the situation in which they sit as solely encompassed within themselves mentally, when in reality both are taught to them by a specific person in which the person yields to the wisdom of the one teaching them.

For Example:

The origin of the universe is an infinity of energy/mass in a single point. Suddenly the universe is born in a massive explosion, the evidence of which is an echo heard from all corners of the universe. Due to the theories of Relativity, Sub-Atomic particle theories, and Gravity not working hand-in-hand, there has been upwards of 18 dimensions to help explain them. Of these dimensions, we can only experience 3, and the 4th we only know by memory leaving 13 of which we have no physical way of experiencing for ourselves beyond the interpretation of someone for whom we yield our own knowledge to. To help all of these individually proven theories (but not inter-linking), we have moved beyond the dimensions to include theories in which everything we know/see/feel/etc is a hologram and is actually a series of strings vibrating in which matter does not actually exist and is simply reality vibrating at different energies.

This is effectively a religion. You can't tell me you came to this convoluted equation yourself, or could ever get to. Instead you yield your own experiences and beliefs to this man who tells you we know this because "(insert here)". You believe in the theory of Gravity, which is supported by your own experiences sure... but do you believe you could come up with the theory of orbital planets on your own without the aid of someone teaching it to you? The root of every belief Atheism hold true has the exact same basis as any religion, it is the yielding to a 3rd party with the belief that this one person helps answer questions you otherwise wouldn't know.

You may fire back by arguing you do not necessarily believe in these theories and that it does not throw interference to your eld result, but then there is no way you can then point to any one part of the bible which you believe is clearly self-conflicting as not all believers allow the little stuff to get in the way of their overall belief.

And as for Believers, you can not use Logic to convince someone out of a position they did not use logic to get into. This goes for politics, sex, religion, etc.

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Willravel

It's independently verifiable, Seaver. That's the difference. The singularity isn't just something that has to be taken on faith, you can educate yourself on verifiable science and then use what you've learned to demonstrate the particular hypothesis is the best explanation yourself. Science is about objective verification, which separates it from dogma.

filtherton

I agree with the piece generally, though I think you make the mistake that many make, which is to conflate atheism with empiricism.

Atheism's defining quality is an absence of belief in a higher deity, not an overriding commitment to scientific standards of evidence or logic. One can be an atheist for completely irrational, scientifically unfounded reasons.

Master_Shake

Exactly, and that's the difference. Sure, I don't know from personal experience that Mars has two moons, I just read about it in a science book. But I could certainly go buy myself a telescope and look at the friggin' thing, and then I would know from personal experience that Mars does in fact have two moons.

I could buy all the telescopes I want but I'd never be able to see a virgin give birth to the son of a deity who gets killed by peasants and then rises from the grave and floats to the sky.

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Jinn

I have to go with filtherton on this one, too.

As much as I'd like to brand your and my scientific-reasoned empiricism and skepticism as atheism, that would be going too far. As Seaver unfortunately demonstrated, the fallacy of associating scientific explanations of the universe (the Big Bang, singularity, et. al) with atheism is a dangerous one. By conflating the two, Theists believe they can call atheism a religion and thereby erode the credibility of atheism by implying hypocrisy. I am atheist, and that is separate from my rational belief in science as the most effective way of gaining important knowledge about our Universe and how it works. I do not believe in the crazy man-in-the-sky stories of Jesus or Mohammad because I find the evidence for those stories to be lacking. I am an Atheist because of the flaws in their positions, not because I accept the Big Bang as a plausible current explanation of the creation of the Universe. It's a common comparison, too, because theology is often inseparable from morality, philosophy, reason or action for many devout individuals. In the world of Atheism, which clearly has no guiding individual, force, or books, one can be atheistic to Jesus' existence or his presence as our Savior, but have entirely different moral systems, scientific understandings, behaviors and actions from other Atheists. Because they are separated, one cannot reasonably argue that atheism is a religion, as Seaver so ineptly tried to. The obvious counterpoint is that there are a number (a majority, actually) of theists who ALSO believe the Big Bang to be an effective (current) explanation for universal creation.

And there are plenty of atheists who are indeed godless for non-scientific or non-rational reasons, or simply because of a bad experience.

Atheism is just a lack of belief in gods or God. Issues of morality, knowledge acquisition, or even philosophy are separate entities entirely.

I really enjoyed your thoughts Halx, though I can't be certain it's not just a "preaching to the choir" instance. I was long convinced of your points before you posited them.

---------- Post added at 10:31 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:22 AM ----------

EDIT: Just bought . I was looking for another book to read through after finishing the last set.

Halx: I highly recommend ALL of Michael Shermer's books (the head of the Skeptics Society), especially . If you haven't read it already, I'm sure you'd love it.

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Halx

Thanks for the book suggestion, Jinn.

I tried to keep "science" out of the picture as much as I could while focusing more on "logic" as the path to realization. Science, while independently verifiable (an excellent point), is not where my strengths lie.

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Seaver

There is an inability for you to rationalize the primary mental processes in which is identical, concentrating only on the secondary principles to claim the superiority in arguments.

People often look back at the Middle Ages as simply shrugging it off as the people who were dumb, yet the mental powers were identical to ours. The difference between the peasants who hung Rosemary in their doorway to prevent the spread of disease is moot compared to the vast majority of people flipping on a lightbulb.

The average person who flips the lightbulb can not tell you the processes which go about to turn it on. They can't tell you why even though the electron moves about a foot a minute, the power is instantaneous. They can't tell you the difference in incandesant and florescent bulbs, or how the energy is converted to light.

They don't understand it beyond what is taught to them.

Sure, they can do experiments to reinforce what is taught, but when it comes down to it all they know (believe) is when electricity is turned on and they flip the switch... the light turns on.

There is this tendency to nod saying "it's reproducible" without following through with it. You mention you can buy a telescope and see both moons around Mars... but I'd bet dollars to dimes you haven't bothered. Your knowledge, until tested, is faith and nothing more.

The truth is I have faith because I've looked at Science's best arguments for how we got here.... and I find it to be a very large and difficult pill to swallow. The billions of billions of coincidences which fell together to have us end up where/how we are is almost as impossible for me to fathom as a greater power is for you.

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Willravel

That's not what science has established. There are not billions and billions of coincidences at all. The development of life on earth could have happened no other way. Mutations are a fact of life, as is the process of beneficial mutations being more likely to continue on and less beneficial mutations being less likely to continue on. Once you put this into the proper context—4.7 billion years—the process isn't billions of coincidences but a very straightforward process.

Would you like me to follow through? I can show you how bacteria evolved to be more resistant to antibiotics using verifiable data showing the rates of resistance. There's a 2007 edition of Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences that demonstrates it beyond any doubt.

The problem with your axiom is that it assumes unless a person him or herself tests a thing, it cannot be known to them. This assumes systemic corruption in every science, which to me communicates massive intellectual dishonesty. But if you really do doubt something scientific, you can test it. The fact that every time I've tested something, it's been confirmed gives me good reason to trust it.

Zeraph

Indeed what Will said. Science is not based on faith, but trust, but a damn good reasonable trust, and the fact that all its proven theories are objectively verifiable. If I don't personally, or can't, test the knowledge then I can go pick up a peer reviewed journal and check another source.

Me personally, when I see science or biology or evolution I see god. But that's based on faith, not trust. I know normally faith and trust might be somewhat interchangable, but if we're getting down to the nitty philosophical gritty, then they are definitely two separate concepts.

Trust is based off specific, objective, past information. Faith is based off...yourself (whole other thread there).

Halx

More importantly, science can be verified by people who DON'T believe in it.

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Seaver

No Will, you misunderstand. I was talking about the billions of billions of ways to have us end up the way we are. The fact that our planet is the perfect distance, happened to get hit by a meteor to create a moon which prevents the large wobbles that throw the planet in to chaos and kept a very dense core to prevent our atmosphere from being stripped like on Mars... etc etc etc.

The way multiple asteroids laid the path to clear out (multiple times) all evolutionary trees until the one that spawned... us.

I see a hand guiding all of this. I'm no Intelligent Design pusher... but it's a very large/hard pill for me to swallow. Had a butterfly flapped it's wings we'd be lizards with detachable tails for example.

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filtherton

I think that complexity theory (however nebulously defined it is) provides a better explanation for our existence than the notion of a creator does. The sheer number of probabalisitc events that have occured between the development of life on earth and the theoretical dawn of the universe point to the inevitability of our existence. Given a sufficient number of chances, anything that can happen will happen.

That, and the fact that the concept of evolution seems a more plausible explanation for all of the idiosyncracies of carbon based biology. Algorithms produced via simulated evolution also tend to have similar seemingly random but highly effective structures within them, unlike human-designed algorithms, in which all of the structure tend to be based on obvious design principles.

Baraka_Guru

A "faith" in science is different than a "faith" in God.

There is a difference between having confidence that the sun will rise tomorrow versus having confidence that I will have a happy afterlife if I subscribe to specific moral guidelines for being "good."

There is a difference between trusting the theory evolution as the most probable means of life being what it is today versus trusting a document written before the scientific age for the main source of ecologic history.

That said, atheism can be called a religion in that it can mean a faith in science. But this is based on the thought: "How can we really know anything?"

I don't know how microwaves, cell phones, or computers work. They're like magic to me....but I have faith in them.

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Jinn

Alright, well I'll be honest and say that I'm not 100% convinced either, at least now with contemporaneous explanations of Universal creation. There are certainly a lot of 'coincidences' as you say that would have to indeed come into place for our existence. I'm not naive enough to say that current theories address all concerns, but I will tell you how I rectify my belief with your concerns.

1) Arrogance. While yes, our specific existence is coincidental and a lot of things had to line up to make our existence as we speak possible, the same is true for every other organism in existence. For all we know, there were organisms predating our current understanding of geologic history who had the collective intelligence to ask "Isn't it crazy that all these things lined up to create US?!" Only by a dramatic arrogance could be declare ourselves so special, so unique, that our 'random' creation is any more unlikely than the random creation of a dolphin. If a butterfly flapped it's wings somewhere in history dolphins could be like an alligator with a bird's wings. But does that give anything special to the dolphin's existence? Not to me. This current moment (later for you, because it won't be the same time I'm typing) everything that exists, from you and I to the computer's we're using to communicate, to the Earth's animals, to the earth's geology are the sum of a great number of circumstances which, when looked at from a detached party, would appear random. But once you make one 'random' decision, the rest fall. You're not living in a world of infinite possibilities as soon as the initial condition is satisfied. Our existence is the sum of many chances combined, but there is nothing inherently special about the way the cards fell.

2) The second point which ties tightly to the first, for me, is in probability. We know there are billions of planets in billions of arrangements in billions of solar systems being pulled towards billions of other star formations in billions of galaxies in (possibly) billions of Universes. It is likely that the probabilistic constraints satisfied by our existence - yes/no on carbon life, yes/no on moons, yes/no on asteroids, etc., have been played out differently in other places, other times, and in other conditions. Our 1 in a gajillion possibility is not special, it's just one of them. For all we know, there are a number of conditions that, while different, could've resulted in our same situation.

People feel special winning the 1 in 10 million odds of Lotto, but they really aren't special, from a probability standpoint. All enumerations of the probabilities have exactly the same worth. They all had the exact same likelihood of happening before the lotto drawing was made. Just because you have the numbers does not mean yours was any more likely, any more likely, any more coincidental or determined. You just happened to be holding it. Applying any sort of divinity or serendipity to it would belie a misunderstanding of statistics and probability and demonstrate dramatic arrogance. The fact that you're holding the lotto ticket that allows you and I to exist on a carbon-based planet in a Solar System with Sol (and not some other of the bajillions of stars) does not make it special. You're just holding the one that the probabilities resolved to. If we could go back to the beginning of the Universe, sum up all the probabilities for our existence, it's probably something like 1 in 10000000000. Re-rolling the dice would be unlikely to create us again. But does that make us special?

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Willravel

Sorry. Okay, so the cosmological argument.

The way evolution works is that the traits with more survivability tend to be carried on and become the norm. If we were farther from the sun, humans as we know them today probably would be here, but there's no reason to assume that life in some form wouldn't, in fact I'd say it's a safe bet based on what we know of evolution. Look at the water bear (tardigrade). If a life form can survive temperatures as high as 151 °C (424 K) and as low as –200 °C (70 K), can survive pressures as low as a complete vacuum and as high as 1200 atmospheres, can survive a decade in a dehydrated state, and can take normally lethal doses of gamma rays... it seems silly to me to suggest that if such things were different there couldn't be life.

The true weakness of the cosmological argument is really quite simple: we have no way of determining the likelihood of the way things are because we cannot test it against the way things aren't. We cannot assume the status quo is in any way unlikely until it can be compared to other possible outcomes. We don't have data on other possible outcomes, therefore it's at best premature to make even a guess as to how "fine tuned" the universe is.

Halx

Seaver sees a guiding hand. I see coincidence. Apply Occam's Razor.

I mean, let's not forget that there are billions and trillions of other solar systems. I'm more than certain there is life on other planets. I'm willing to bet that some life is more developed. Of course, there is no way of confirming this, so it is not taken into consideration when I contemplate my existence. My point is that we're NOT special.

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Zeraph

Perspective Halx, even if there are innumerable other life forms out there I still see life as special. To me god is in ordinary everyday life. When I stop and ponder I see god in the trees, the bees, and automobiles.

frogza

Here is, as I see it, the fundamental flaw in these arguments. I think we can agree there is only one absolute truth. You can’t say “There is no god” and “There is a God” and be right on both counts. Either there was a Big Bang or there was a guided organization of the universe as we know it.

If I wanted to get a comprehensive and, more importantly, a perfectly accurate description of the universe, one which excludes the possibility of a god, and approached a 3rd grade science teacher to explain it to me, I would certainly be disappointed with the answer. I would easily find flaws, however I would be foolish to assume that I had been educated enough on that belief system to reach an informed opinion on it’s merits and faults. You have to talk to someone who is completely educated in all relevant sciences to get a full explanation of the universe. Which means there are, at most, a handful of people in the history or foreseeable future of the world who could even begin to explain it all.

With theism we encounter an even more problematic search for truth. Assuming that absolute truth was found in polytheism, one would have to meet with someone who knew, inside and out, the complexities, personalities, strengths, weakness and regulations for each god. Of course, depending on the number of gods, this could be impossible simply because of the time that would be required to investigate and follow each one long enough to know all about them.

Monotheism presents another unique hurdle. Assuming that there is only one god and that he is, as the Christians say, all knowing, all powerful and more importantly perfect, then there could only be one set of rules to follow him perfectly. That premise is where we find the great difficulty, since there are thousands of churches that claim that monotheism is the only truth, yet each one has a different explanation of god and the universe. Only one can be absolutely true. This makes it difficult to reach an informed conclusion on monotheism since even after one has found the religion that really is “ordained of god” that person would still be stuck trying to find a person who is fully versed on god and the universe within that church to get a comprehensive explanation.

What I’m positing is that we are not in a position to, with any real certainty, state that either theism or atheism is correct or complete using the methods of debate that are most common. In fact, I don’t think there is a wholly rational way to reach such a conclusion, since there are few, if any, people who are qualified to present either case. In the end, I think what matters is that we follow what we hold to be true while continuing to search out more of the truth. If there is a god, I can’t see him damning us for using the truth we have to make the best of ourselves. And if there is not a god, and we have applied ourselves to the truth we had, we still end up better than we would have by sitting and doing nothing.

YamiYasha

What's really happening here is a question of faith. It seems to me Willravel believes in Determinism and Seaver does not. I personally believe in Determinism myself. Determinism is the view that every event, including human cognition, behavior, decision, and action, is causally determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences so that there is ever only 1 possibility, one version of history; everything is pre-determined by chance. While it cannot be scientifically proven (existence precedes essence), it is correlated with the future-oriented population. There has never been another possibility that could've occurred because everything was the way that it was. If you believe in God, maybe God intended this (even though there is no reason to think that He did, which would be irrational, but then again humans are irrational creatures).

OMI, Occum's Razor is faulty; simplest explanation is objective. Again, existence precedes essence; there is not only 1 way to define things.

---------- Post added at 07:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:56 PM ----------

What I disagree with here is that there is no absolute truth, IMO. refer to existenialism, postmodernism, existence precedes essence etc. For example, Did Hitler cause WWII? To make an in-depth philosophical discussion, we would have to define every single word precisely (post-modernism, questioning and trying the limits of the medium) If there is an absolute truth, there would be an absolute answer to that. But there is not. (Determinism) Everything before it caused it.

Willravel

Evidence leads me to believe there is one objective reality, and the veil covering the various facets of that reality is turned back a bit more every time we make a scientific discovery. So far nothing we've seen behind that veil requires or suggests a god or gods to explain them. Considering there are no exceptions to this rule, certain belief in god cannot stand up to scientific fact.

Regarding determinism, I don't have enough information to make any determination.

girldetective

Wait a minute here! After reading the OP, and scanning the subsequent posts, there is an out point (unless I missed it).

Faith is a totally different ballgame than that of religion, logic, or science. Its a magical thing.

Also, to group atheists as a religion is illogical.

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Willravel

You're right, GirlDetective, but the same rules of logic can be applied to religion. Why, for example, does a Christian believe in Jesus and a Greek believe in Zeus? Even when reduced to the realm of the entirely supernatural, the laws of logic apply. Doesn't a Christian believe in Jesus because followers of Zeus are quite rare in the 21t century? Why can't that line of thinking be expanded upon, even while keeping the religious in the supernatural way of thinking?

girldetective

One can look at history. It is always of interest, but remember this is the history of magical thinking. It is of value to study though because of how it has shaped and continues to shape cultures.

Hey, hi there Willravel.

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Zyr

I really like the article, Halx.

A thought occurs, that is roughly "Believers like answers, non-believers like questions", which is nice and succinct, rather... bumper-stickery, but probably not really what I'm trying to say. Atheists are fine with the idea that we really don't know the answers to some rather big questions.

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Lasereth

Praying to a milk hug has the same success rate as praying to God. Sorry that's all I have to add to this conversation.

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boink

I don't know about that...I mean, believers seem to be fine with something like:

who made the world daddy ?
god made it son.

now, obviously that's not much of an answer.

what happens when I die ?
you go to heaven

ok, wtf is heaven ?

again, fairly open to interpretation.

can't be done. if you could prove a "supernatural" phenomenon it would no longer be supernatural. it's like exposing the mechanics behind a magic trick.

if you could prove god exists, you wouldn't need faith you'd have proved it's existence as an entity as a fact. your faith would no longer have any value at all.

creationists can't logic their way to prove gods existence, or they'd kill the concept of faith. the creationists argument is a tactic (I believe) just invented by the church to expand (i.e. push into schools etc) the church. it may be held as real by some of the faithful, but that's just because they've drank the coolaid.

someone mentioned trust, that's just faith. knowledge is a different thing, I know the rock is there, I don't trust the rock is there. science proves A so I know A is a fact I don't trust or believe facts, I KNOW them.

god needs your faith. that's all he (it ?) wants. if you prove he exists, you take away any possibility of him getting what he wants from you and any value you get from him. I think.

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Baraka_Guru

If you consider all the factors, I sincerely doubt it.

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Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
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Jinn

What other factors? Truly empirical, double-blinded experiments could be designed to test the efficacy of prayer to God and prayer to milk jug, even controlling for the placebo effect of a believer's faith in God's power. The "results" of the prayer are material (pertaining to matter) and are thereby within the realm of science to empirically verify.

I'm sure the results would be quite reproducible, and I personally believe the conclusion would as Lasereth proposed.

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Halx

The last few comments have made me want to post a fairly succinct explanation: god is placebo.

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Baraka_Guru

It's not hard to find an atheist who doesn't understand the purpose and effect of prayer.

A milk jug doesn't have a well-known and highly refined system of morals, lessons, and other teachings attached to it.

You know, those teachings that appear in their own forms even in atheists' codes.

[Note: Christianity wasn't created in a vacuum, and atheism didn't "materialize" from nothing.]

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Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Halx

We have a lot to thank religion and faith for. It was created to explain the things people could not answer with their knowledge at the time. I understand the purpose and effect of prayer in a humanist sense: as noted, it creates a placebo effect that pleases those who believe.

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Baraka_Guru

But this isn't the extent of it. Prayer isn't just a means for feeling better for oneself; it's also a means for focusing one's values.

You see, that's what religion is--a set of values. Although I'll admit that most religious systems were appropriated and abused so that they could be used as a tool of control, pacification, and destruction, that's not why or how they came about.

We can trace something such as Christianity as far back as the pagan religions. Why did these come about? Well, for several reasons, I'm sure. But the most influential aspect of religion, belief, and prayer is that they are a means for one to focus on a set of values that many can generally agree upon. For the lack of a better analysis, this is like the Golden Rule. Most of us can generally agree that the Golden Rule is a good thing in practice. Well, that's what these sets of values do: they enable one to practice what's generally acceptable behaviour amongst the populace.

And this is why it's interesting that we can trace several parallelisms between faiths such as Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism, etc. Even atheists will agree to some, if not many, of the fundamental principles of these faiths.

These are codes for decent living.

We tend to focus on whether or not there is such thing as a sky god, or whether or not we are reincarnations of previous life forms, yet we overlook what in essence these systems are saying and teaching.

Is there a God? Not likely.
Is religion outdated? Maybe.
Is prayer ineffective? I have to say no. It serves a purpose, just like any other form of self-reflection.

Even atheists practice self-reflection.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot