No Evidence of God?

Zillah

finlma wrote:

I did read it and stand by what I said. Look around where? Any person partaking in an activity that they find relaxing or enjoyable may extend their life - that has zilch to do with religion.

Well, aside from the fact that some people find religion relaxing and enjoyable. Its not really an argument in favour of religion anymore than DVD movies or walks on the beach.

Seloth

No,What I am saying that Relgiouse services,not the bloody religion

finlma

Seloth wrote:

No,What I am saying that Relgiouse services,not the bloody religion

Yes but that doesn't prove the existence or non-existence of anything. That maybe one of the positive aspects of religion but there are plenty of negative ones which rather than adding years to anyones life have destroyed them.

bonkey

Seloth wrote:

Finlma,It dosent mean it will add on 5 years vai getting hit by a Car.It add's of 5 years to your Biological Clock ass it relaxes you mentaly.

So what is really being said then is that mental relaxation can add years to your life. Of course it mightn't be mental ralaxation. It could be something else.

There's a mantra which is particularly relevant here: Correlation is not causation.

People often think this is a pedantic point, but its a key distinction and one of the most potent tools in the modern scientist's box.

The studies have shown a correlation. What they have not shown is causation. They have shown that churchgoers tend to live longer than non-churchgoers - a correlation. What they have not shown is that going to church will make you live longer, which would be causation.

It could be that both church-going and longer-life expetancy have a common cause. It could be that there's a genetic trait which tends to make people both live longer and feel attracted to organised religion.

It could be that regular church-goers tend to have more routine in their life, and this routine is what helps extend things.

It could be that regular church-goers on average live more conservatively than those who don't do to church regularly, and that it is this conservatism in living which adds to their lifespan.

It could be the mental relaxation thing.

It could be a "false positive" - a study which establishes a correlation where none exists. Random chance, in other words.

It could be a deliberately skewed study.

Lets not fall into the trap where because we can associate the benefits with "mental relaxation" rather than God, then its the right answer. It could be just as wrong as "Belief makes you live longer" as an answer.

jc

Seloth

finlma wrote:

Yes but that doesn't prove the existence or non-existence of anything. That maybe one of the positive aspects of religion but there are plenty of negative ones which rather than adding years to anyones life have destroyed them.

What negatives are there?

finlma

Seloth wrote:

What negatives are there?

Where do I start. Countless wars have been waged in the name of religion and millions have been killed. Just look at the Balkans or even our own country for some recent occurences.

Then there's the pope encouraging Catholics not to use condoms which has resulted in the spread of Aids throughout Africa.

Or how about the harbouring of known paedophiles by the Catholic church.

Then there's the daily suicide bombings in Iraq, the twin towers in NYC - all done in the name of Islam.

Need I go on??? You might say these people are fundamentalists but they are still working in the name of their religion.

Zillah

In a world without religion good people would do good acts, and evil people would do evil acts, but for good people to do evil acts, that takes religion.

Seloth

Lol you know your right Finmla,But if Religion wasent there then Millions would die over another reason.

And I dont think the North should be used as an Example,If you ever saw Des Bishops Joy in da hood when he's in the North in a Protestant Area one of them ask him If he's Catholic or Protastant,He tells him he's not very relgiouse and the guy said it dosent matter and asked him the question again.Basicaly they are fighting because they can.Same as why Football hooligans fight or Why towns and Diffrent areas of a city would.

And The Pope actually approves of Condoms now and You cant say its the popes fault,The two main reasons are 1.They are uneducated about Safe sex and 2.They don't have any way of getting them.

But religion has also brought many great things too.

Countless Charitys((Even though there are a few Corrupt))Countless gatherings of people in celebration,Magnificant Architecture and Art,Something to have hope on,Something which made those people feel like they were dieing for a cause.

Now I'm Sorry but I don't have any Links for this but a study was done with people who had near death experiances and who were Atheist and Agnostic,A high portion of both said that they either prayed for God to help them or that they screamed out God help me.Now I Don't mean people seeing a Light at an end of a tunnel or Out of body experiances,I mean People being trapped in burning buildings or Car accidents,Kidnapped ect.

And Zillah what you said is true and not true,If there was no God people would be a bit more reckless I think,For instance one of the main reasons I wont Shop lift is because I feel it's moraly wrong,Now if there were no God and If I had an opening Chances are I would try it at least once.

P.s The Twin towers wasent a religiouse thing,It was over The overarching motivation for the present al-Qaeda campaign was set out in a 1998 fatwa issued by Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Abu-Yasir Rifa'i Ahmad Taha, Shaykh Mir Hamzah, and the (Amir of the Jihad Movement in Bangladesh, Fazlur Rahman).[80]

The fatwa lists three "crimes and sins" committed by the Americans:

* U.S. military occupation of the Arabian Peninsula.
* U.S. aggression against the Iraqi people.
* U.S. support of Israel.

The fatwa states that the United States:

* Plunders the resources of the Arabian Peninsula.
* Dictates policy to the rulers of those countries.
* Supports abusive regimes and monarchies in the Middle East, thereby oppressing their people.
* Has military bases and installations upon the Arabian Peninsula, which violates the Muslim holy land, in order to threaten neighboring Muslim countries.
* Intends thereby to create disunion between Muslim states, thus weakening them as a political force.
* Supports Israel, and wishes to divert international attention from (and tacitly maintain) the occupation of Palestine.

If you want more read here http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=52960478&posted=1#post52960478

Zillah

Seloth wrote:

And Zillah what you said is true and not true,If there was no God people would be a bit more reckless I think,For instance one of the main reasons I wont Shop lift is because I feel it's moraly wrong,Now if there were no God and If I had an opening Chances are I would try it at least once.

Classic religious fallaccy number 304: God=morality.

As we all know, morality is nothing more than terrified obedience to an omnipotent monster :rolleyes:

The reason you don't shop lift is because society and evolution have programmed you that way.

Playboy

Zillah wrote:

The reason you don't shop lift is because society and evolution have programmed you that way.

What about people who do shoplift then? Has society and evolution programmed them that way? If this is true then there is no real morality so why use the word? All we have is genetics and conditioning .. what a boring place the world has become all of a sudden

5uspect

Have a look at game theory, the cheater will always do better in the short term, cuckoos for example. There are the classic experiments of the dove and the hawk etc. Dawkins covers it nicely in the Selfish Gene.

Playboy

5uspect wrote:

Have a look at game theory, the cheater will always do better in the short term, cuckoos for example. There are the classic experiments of the dove and the hawk etc. Dawkins covers it nicely in the Selfish Gene.

been there done that!

Seloth

Zillah wrote:

The reason you don't shop lift is because society and evolution have programmed you that way.

Well that is true but Shoplifting is just one example.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

and zillah's destruction of your argument holds perfectly well for each and every one of them.

finlma

Seloth wrote:

Well that is true but Shoplifting is just one example.

Seloth, it sounds like you need to go away and do some reading on evolution and science. If you read The Selfish Gene or The God Delusion you will see how evolution brings about morality and there are always devolutions from this in all species. Reading the books won't harm you - I've read the Bible so that I can comment on the other side.

Also I'm among millions of atheists on the planet who are very moralistic and it has nothing to do with a god of any kind.

johnnyskeleton

finlma wrote:

If you read The Selfish Gene or The God Delusion you will see how evolution brings about morality and there are always devolutions from this in all species.

I haven't read either of these, but is this the same argument that society makes it's own morality as a way of keeping weaker members in check?

5uspect

no its the argument that helping others results in a greater chance that genes you may share with others survive through the generations (genes being the selfish unit of natural selection). So natural selection favours those who are helpful as the helpful people building genes survive and hence we end up. mostly, with nice people. However in any complex system and there's always more than one good strategy so being a evil pr!ck who rapes lots of women who then have his babies might work too, but not in the long term.

Genes build our brains and bodies, they don't control them so we are capable of doing nasty things, but there is an instinct to be altruistic which can be shown to be genetic.

Zillah

Playboy wrote:

What about people who do shoplift then? Has society and evolution programmed them that way?

Yup. The human brain is an extraordinarily complex system with adaptive cirteria and priorities. If a person's life gets to the point where the benefit of the shoplifting could outweigh the risks involved then they'll do it.

And of course there's the people who are just making mistakes, and were we in a more traditional environment, they'd be taken out by natural selection.

If this is true then there is no real morality so why use the word? All we have is genetics and conditioning .. what a boring place the world has become all of a sudden

What in the name of all that is rational makes people think that the fact that they don't like an argument matters a flying toss when considering its validity?

The universe does not owe you a happy ending.

And for the record, a world created and maintained by the Christian God would be much much more uninteresting than the real world. I'd rather not have a onipotent, petty five year old as my ultimate master.

johnnyskeleton wrote:

I haven't read either of these, but is this the same argument that society makes it's own morality as a way of keeping weaker members in check?

Absolutely not.

Seloth

Zillah wrote:

maintained by the Christian God.

Ok how many times does it have to be said,Accordingly God gave us free will so the world isin't Maintained by a God like figure.

I believe we should leave this thread to die now as were getting no where and there is no way to Prove or disapprove that God/A god like figure exists.

johnnyskeleton

5uspect wrote:

no its the argument that helping others results in a greater chance that genes you may share with others survive through the generations (genes being the selfish unit of natural selection).

I'm not sure that altruism and morality are the same thing.

zillah wrote:

And of course there's the people who are just making mistakes, and were we in a more traditional environment, they'd be taken out by natural selection.

If this is Dawkins' theory, I should probably read it. Seems like a novel take on survival of the fittest.

Seloth

I think what he's referring to is Inbred people.

But you'd be surprised.In France there was a child found((This back in 1600's or 1700's)) crazed and wild roaming the wilderness like a beast,He was apparently inbred and had been abandoned and was roaming the large forests for years.

It was on a show years ago on Discovery about Beast Children,e.g Kid being raised by Wolfs and Dogs since they were a young age.Not one of the nicest shows to watch,Very disturbing mind that.

Sapien

Playboy wrote:

been there done that!

And?

Scigaithris

bonkey wrote:

The studies have shown a correlation. What they have not shown is causation. They have shown that churchgoers tend to live longer than non-churchgoers - a correlation. What they have not shown is that going to church will make you live longer, which would be causation.

There have also been geriatric studies of how owning and caring for a pet dog has been associated with longer life expectancies. There were no religious variables in these studies that I recall. There were also red wine and aspirin studies with similar results, but once again, no religious variables associated with outcomes. So to suggest that churchgoing proves beyond a reasonable doubt that God exists as the result of some correlation, when we also have dogs, wine, and aspirin associations, is problematic?

What bonkey says about correlation is statistically and conceptually correct, in that correlation is not causation. Although correlation is a necessary condition for causation, it is not a sufficient condition (and you can have false positives without other necessary conditions being present); i.e., if someone wants to cite churchgoing study correlations, they must also provide a preponderance of other necessary conditions as their burden of proof that agree with and support the correlations (along with citations or links). So far in this "No Evidence of God" case, it does not appear that anyone has done this.

bonkey

Seloth wrote:

Lol you know your right Finmla,But if Religion wasent there then Millions would die over another reason.

How do you know?

For religion to "not be there", we would require a totally different history as a species to that which we have had. We may also need a different genetic makeup.

Once you allow these degrees of freedom, then your assertion becomes baseless.

To be honest, though, its a flaw that both sides of the argument are often guilty of. Someone (may have been Dawkins) showed a picture of the NY skyline with the twin towers in place, with a banner saying "imagine a world without religion" and all I could think of was the number of religiously-persecuted Europeans who settled the US. In a world without religion, there is no reason to believe that the towers would ever have been built in the first place.

But religion has also brought many great things too.

And?

Does your religion say that your good deeds should be offset against your bad ones, and that you be judged only on the balance?

If a murderer was a fantastic artist who donated large sums of moneyto the poor...does that excuse his murdering ways?

If a child-molestor is a saint in every way other than his child-molesting ways, does that excuse him?

If there was no God people would be a bit more reckless I think,

Or maybe if there was a god, people woult be a bit less reckless.

P.s The Twin towers wasent a religiouse thing,

Yes, it was. You even admit as much....as I will explain....

It was over The overarching motivation for the present al-Qaeda campaign was set out in a 1998 fatwa issued by Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Abu-Yasir Rifa'i Ahmad Taha, Shaykh Mir Hamzah, and the (Amir of the Jihad Movement in Bangladesh, Fazlur Rahman).[80]

The fatwa lists three "crimes and sins" committed by the Americans:

Ching...we can stop here.

Fatwa you say?

Fatwa being a legal pronouncement based on the teachings of Islam, right?

How, exactly, is that not religious in origin????

bonkey

Seloth wrote:

But you'd be surprised.In France there was a child found((This back in 1600's or 1700's)) crazed and wild roaming the wilderness like a beast,He was apparently inbred and had been abandoned and was roaming the large forests for years.

I'd be very surprised to learn that in the 1600s and 1700s they could identify whether or not someone was inbred without having access to said person's geneology.

5uspect

johnnyskeleton wrote:

I'm not sure that altruism and morality are the same thing.

Whats the difference? Morality and altruism both come from our evolutionary conditioning from being a social species. Kin selection explains how this has moved from parent, sibling, offspring altruism to the social level which is in essence a advanced state of altruism. The fact that we use our brains to justify good deeds as being better than bad deeds shows an instinctual bias on our behalf.

bonkey

5uspect wrote:

Whats the difference?

While one may argue that an altruistic action is moral, a moral action need not be altruistic.

<edit>

I also suspect that with a bit of thought, I could come up with an immoral or amoral altruistic action...

5uspect

bonkey wrote:

While one may argue that an altruistic action is moral, a moral action need not be altruistic.

<edit>

I also suspect that with a bit of thought, I could come up with an immoral or amoral altruistic action...

I see where you're coming from. Sounds like a good idea.

finlma

Seloth wrote:

I believe we should leave this thread to die now

I left it when you stated that the Twin Towers had nothing to do with religion - I prefer to discuss with people who can comment intelligently on a topic.

Adios Seloth.

Seloth

Actually if you read the article I have showmen you it will tell you that it's not.

Now it is sometimes viewed as it but it was not a religious attack.