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What is God to you?
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Ickle Magoo wrote: »Do you have any proof they weren't? Nobody is "trying" to do anything. Given the well known correlation between scientists and atheists, added to the consequences of not conforming to religious norms of their day, it is hardly an outlandish assumption.
The very fact a faith has to be compartmentalised in order to carry out logical, rational work would suggest it is neither of those things.
I have faith in their word
If they say they believed in god then who am I to question that held belief? Plenty of modern scientists are religious too I'm sure.. there's no rule that says a scientist must not believe in god. Again you're assuming that everyone's individual definition of god is that which the church itself applied to it.. when in fact it could be completely pantheistic and in no way a 'creator god'Anyway, I'm not trying to find any reasons for anything. If people are going to go on about how all great people of history were theists, well, it has to be said not necessarily. Not that we'll ever know one way or the other.
I wasn't 'going on' about anything, my post was a reply to the statement that no logical person could believe in a god, which is simply untrue.0 -
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Donkey Oaty wrote: »You may be mocked for these thoughts Caseyann, but as an atheist let me say that many of us non-God-botherers, while expressing it in different terms, can identify with this sentiment.
I dont mind been mocked,thanks though for that
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You're mixing things up a bit. You're confusing the logic that one individual can use to endorse slavery/stoning and the logic that a society can use. Yes one man can profit from slavery but a society cannot because there must be the enslavers and the enslaved. A system that endorses slavery inherently results in the profit of one person at the expense of another who does not benefit in any way so the only way such a society can exist is by making the aforementioned exceptions, eg enslaving white people is wrong but not black people. It is not possible for a society to define a general rule that there is nothing wrong with slavery and survive, at least not without perpetual war
I stated deliberately that I was talking about the individual. At the end of the day it is up to the individual to justify their beliefs. And I think that's what this has been about.
And I do think these other practical conserations are off the point, this has been an argument about describing certain things in a certain way. It's not "just" semantics. The words you use are very important, just as using the wrong mathematics to describe physical phenomena will confuse things, using the wrong words here will confuse things and lead to contradictions.
But anyway, the downfall to naturally occuring "this helps us live together" morality, is that it doesn't apply to pepole outside of the tribe. Enslaving these "others" is fine. As people have done, greeks, romans, americans, africans. Everyone has done it. Well, maybe not Irish people
In these systems the whole of society can easily benefit from having slaves do the manual work and them do none.Perhaps objective is the wrong word to use. You say "arguments about 'this definitely harms society, so it's objectively wrong' hinge on people valuing society" and this is quite true. That humans value living alongside one another for their mutual benefit is not an objective, never changing fact. But until you can find a human being who does not value interaction with any other being in any way other than as a means of taking something they want, who treats every single person as they would their worst enemy and who is quite happy to live in a cave on their own feasting on whatever human meat they could get without being killed, you're just arguing semantics.
Again I think semantics are very important. It's ridiculous to suggest that such a person has never existed. Just think about people who do shootings in school due to how they were treated. Also hermit monks, also live outside of things, perhaps in caves.
An easy to observe example would be a small group of people who have defined society at large as "others", don't respect the law or other people outside of their group. Groups of highway robbers are one such example. There are millions of examplesNo our ethics are not objective in the way gravity is but as social animals we all share a set of common values, e.g. "i don't want to die", and these common values that are universal within (sane) members of the group can be used to make laws that may not be universal, objective and magical enough to satisfy the needs of the religious but still allow a society to function quite well without killing themselves off. That human beings value society is not an objective fact but it is as close to a universal value as it is possible to be. Those who don't are generally considered mentally ill
We are back to the subjective standard, but you can't ignore that an individual need not accept it.
I can live in a society, pretend to be good and reap the benefits from that like sex and friendship and what have you, but then go around doing bad things and not getting caught. Unless I'm a coward.
Now, I've said a million times, yes many people will be fine without ever questioning why they follow laws or anything like that. Some people like reasons for why they act. And if you thikn that makes them mentally ill, then I'll gladly place myself amongst the class of people who are mentally ill.
It is contradictory though, to go about saying "ooh, why won't pepole listen to reason, why aren't they rational?". And then give out when people apply it to morality. And it becomes evident very fast that any rational enquiry into why one should act in a certain way will demand an arbitrary (or derived from something else arbitrary) set of values/morals.0 -
Donkey Oaty wrote:It's the right answer though. They can't lock up everyone who believes in God because there are so many of them.
It is also the reason why belief in God is being seriously discussed on a forum like this.
Of course that is how it stands and I am not suggesting the religious require locking up, it's just not a great reason to give faith any more respect that alien abductees or those visited/talked with/looked after by elvis. Until an individuals faith and deistic interactions are not always related to the religious ideals indoctrinated by family or general local society then they are easily explained as anything but other-worldly.My name is URL wrote: »I have faith in their word If they say they believed in god then who am I to question that held belief? Plenty of modern scientists are religious too I'm sure.. there's no rule that says a scientist must not believe in god. Again you're assuming that everyone's individual definition of god is that which the church itself applied to it.. when in fact it could be completely pantheistic and in no way a 'creator god'.
I am obviously a little more sceptical, especially given the all pervasive power religion insisted/insists on holding and given that EVERYONE claimed religion in those days, it is statistically unlikely that was actually the case.
No-one suggested that scientists could not also be religious, what was pointed out was that scientists must compartmentalise their religion when conducting science or every scientific endeavour would require a footnote that the results may be skewed due to deistic intervention and cannot be taken as in any way meaningful - which of course they don't.
As to whether pantheism falls under atheism or theism is still under debate as they don't refer to a "god" in the traditional sense and even many pantheists think using the term "god" is misleading - not sure that's a great example.0 -
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Everything you just said is right. Small groups can decide that they don't want to live by the rules and people can pretend to be upstanding members of the community while doing bad things and not getting caught but there are two things to consider:I stated deliberately that I was talking about the individual. At the end of the day it is up to the individual to justify their beliefs. And I think that's what this has been about.
But anyway, the downfall to naturally occuring "this helps us live together" morality, is that it doesn't apply to pepole outside of the tribe. Enslaving these "others" is fine. As people have done, greeks, romans, americans, africans. Everyone has done it. Well, maybe not Irish people
In these systems the whole of society can easily benefit from having slaves do the manual work and them do none.
An easy to observe example would be a small group of people who have defined society at large as "others", don't respect the law or other people outside of their group. Groups of highway robbers are one such example. There are millions of examples
We are back to the subjective standard, but you can't ignore that an individual need not accept it.
I can live in a society, pretend to be good and reap the benefits from that like sex and friendship and what have you, but then go around doing bad things and not getting caught. Unless I'm a coward.
It is contradictory though, to go about saying "ooh, why won't pepole listen to reason, why aren't they rational?". And then give out when people apply it to morality. And it becomes evident very fast that any rational enquiry into why one should act in a certain way will demand an arbitrary (or derived from something else arbitrary) set of values/morals.
1. These people cannot just do whatever they want. They have to be either devious enough or strong enough to avoid being caught and punished by the rest of the society and they have to keep it up for their whole lives. Think of someone like Saddam Hussein who had to have multiple palaces and body doubles because his life was always in danger. Unfortunately individuals can and do choose not to live by the rules but this does not mean that we cannot define these rules and punish any offenders that are caught.
2. If you actually look at the world you'll realise that this flawed morality whose downfall is that it doesn't apply outside the tribe is the one that people have hard wired in their brains. As you say there are millions of examples of it, e.g. slavery and racism. So while we can all agree that it would be nice if there was an over arching objective morality that applied universally, that doesn't mean that such a morality exists. There are many people who claim to have this universal objective morality but each one is different to the next. This type of morality isn't even the one in the bible, that makes a distinction between chosen Jew and damned gentile, then saved Christian and hell bound non-Christian. When the Old Testament was written "thou shalt not kill" meant "thou shalt not kill another Jew". They could and regularly did, often at the direct command of god, slaughter and enslave outsiders.
We have to do the best we can with what we've got and the best we can do is convince people that these outsiders that they've classed as different for the purposes of not applying the same rules to them as they do their own family and friends are not actually so different. Yes it would be nice to be able to say "you're doing wrong. Book says so and you're going to fry for it after you die" but my desire for ultimate morality and ultimate punishment does not make these things exist
I said that in order for a society to define rules that allow killing raping enslaving and stoning its members must like being raped, being killed, being stoned and being enslaved. You'd gladly place yourself in that category would you?Now, I've said a million times, yes many people will be fine without ever questioning why they follow laws or anything like that. Some people like reasons for why they act. And if you thikn that makes them mentally ill, then I'll gladly place myself amongst the class of people who are mentally ill.
Could you pop around to my gaff? I've got some chores I'd like you to do before I stone you to death. I'll leave out the raping if it's all the same with you
you keep saying things like "oh but you can't call it morality". If a society can define a system of mutually agreed rules based on universal values (ie not arbitrary) where the majority live by them, where offenders that are caught are punished and any that aren't live in fear of being caught, I don't care if I can call it morality or not. I'll just call it ethics instead.And I do think these other practical conserations are off the point, this has been an argument about describing certain things in a certain way. It's not "just" semantics. The words you use are very important, just as using the wrong mathematics to describe physical phenomena will confuse things, using the wrong words here will confuse things and lead to contradictions.
Again I think semantics are very important. It's ridiculous to suggest that such a person has never existed. Just think about people who do shootings in school due to how they were treated. Also hermit monks, also live outside of things, perhaps in caves.0 -
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My name is URL wrote: »It perfectly demonstrates my point. 'God' is a term which people can have their own definition for, not necessarily always that of a deity. I doubt that too many Pantheists would genuinely care whether or not they're accepted as a form of Atheist.. it isn't some exclusive club that you need to be granted access to, it's a personal philosophy for the most part
What are you talking about? The debate is largely by pantheists - do you think anyone else cares or gets offended about what they refer to themselves as? Are you really so embittered towards atheists you just have to jump to these weird conclusions? It's just bizarre.
Regardless, none of which changes the fact that "god" has a generic definition in each and every dictionary and most people will understand what is meant when the term is used in general discussion, whether you choose to include or deny that your personal beliefs are covered by that particular generic description or not. I think god is a man made character &/or a lazy way of answering the more complicated questions about the natural world or way of making people feel a little less alone and powerless - should the dictionary and everyone referring to god from here on in take that into consideration?0 -
MagicMarker wrote: »Well, it's no coincidence that the majority of Scientists are atheists. Of course there will always be those who slip through the cracks.
Quite a number are believers as well. It's roughly 60%, 40% as far as I remember. There are groups such as Christians in Science who advocate that people in scientific faith can both be good scientists, and active Christians. So I wouldn't call this evidence that believers are some how devoid of logic or reason.MagicMarker wrote: »I don't know exactly how many famous philosophers were atheist or not tbh. I'm sure a lot were and a lot were not, although things were a little different back then.
Most philosophers have believed in some form of God. From the Greeks right up to the present. There are still a large enough group of philosophers who believe in God to the present.MagicMarker wrote: »My comment was aimed towards those who don't really practice any kind of religion, the laymen who just ticks ''christian'' on a questionnaire because he/she happened to be baptized. Someone who may say they believe in God but really gives it no specific thought and just lives their life day by day regardless. I'm sure if these people were sat down in a room and just given logical arguments for and against the existence of God in fine detail, a lot of them would not believe.
Why wasn't this clarification given at the start? - Perhaps what you say is true, but it is also quite clear that if people argued well and cogently for why belief is reasonable, they might also go away with a greater interest in finding out more.
Logic and reason isn't confined to atheism, although the terms are bandied around so much they almost become meaningless in discussion.
bluewolf: I didn't find the bit you quoted from caseyann to be that patronising. All she said, (correct me if I am wrong) is that people need to be open in respect to Christianity, and God if they are indeed to find Him. Effectively all she did was paraphrase the Gospel when Jesus says "Knock and the door will be opened unto you, seek and ye shall find". The impetus being on the individual to open their mind and heart and find out more about it.0 -
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