Question for Athiests and church bashers

jonnny68

Not to mention pedophilia/sex abuse is rampant in the Catholic church and the subsequent cover ups,etc,etc so you can hardly blame people having nothing to do with the Catholic faith, it's shocking to think this could still be going on although i don't think it's anywhere near as bad as it was back in the old days.

nozzferrahhtoo

4leto wrote: »

But I don't want to go there and speculate what will happen if extremists states acquire nuclear weapons, because in truth I don't know.

You will have no argument from me about America. The role of religion there is a source of much despair for me and I am with you on that one. I can imagine worse groups to have Nuclear Technology however and America far from the top of my concerns. However this risky becoming tangential to the points so I will leave it there. Suffice to say many of our fears are shared.

4leto wrote: »

But it all comes back to is religion cultural or biological is religion in the human genome. I think it is.

I am not so sure at all. I think Religion is more likely to be a by product of things that are actually in our genes. Remember not all traits are coded for, some are side effects of other traits. Perfectly good traits like the "intentional stance", "Agency Detection" and "Pattern Seeking" are more than enough to have religion as a by product characteristic without actually coding for religion genetically at all.

As for thought experiments, as fun as they are I prefer to stick with the facts and data we do have, not what we can imagine in games of fantasy and as such I am unaware of any current data suggesting religion is in any way coded for specifically in our genetics. However as I said above the traits we do have I fully agree with you will likely lead them to develop religions, and not just any religions but religions much like the ones we saw in our history and still see today.

So in essence what I am saying is that you are entirely right to a point. Much of what makes us human are things that will also lead us to have religious compulsions.

Things like Evolution Theory and Big Bang Theory are not faith based at all however, this is a baseless claim by you. They are the current best conclusions available to us based on the evidence currently available to us. That is far from faith.

nozzferrahhtoo

marty1985 wrote: »

You're not "correcting" anything.

Clearly I am not given you keep making the same errors.

I am trying, but your consistent need to hold on to your errors means I am failing. However as long as you insist on saying that reproductive numbers is evolutionary "only yardstick" and as long as you keep saying that a long surviving characteristic in a species must therefore have some advantage to the species.... I will happily continue to keep pointing out these two positions are entirely wrong.

I note however that when I asked for any links and citations to back up the claims such as reproductive numbers being evolution's "only yardstick" for success, you completely ignored this and failed to produce one. Instead you just keep pretending there are "evolutionary biologists I've read on the matter" that agree with you but you appear unable to cite.

Saying something that is patently wrong and then vaguely and repetitively alluding to nameless faceless scientists does not somehow make you right.

marty1985 wrote: »

I never claim anything about whether God exists or not.

You have made many claims on the subject, on this thread and elsewhere on the forum, including talking about people praying and people being "saved". However the text you quoted from me when writing this part of the reply was not contingent on you. I was talking about such claims in general, not from you. So you can stop worrying I have put words in your mouth personally in this regard, as I was not referring to you at all but to my general position on the subject.

marty1985 wrote: »

I am fairly sure the point was not to make money, or control, since they were very egalitarian. There were no manipulative priests.

What are you basing any of this on? Were you there? I sincerely doubt any of this is true. I would imagine that people have always had questions, and that just like today they gravitated towards people who provided them even when the answers provided were pure fantasy. I imagine the witch doctors and other types of holy men were quite happy to engender the respect, fear and benefits in their fellow men that vomiting out such answers afforded them too. I see no reason to think human nature any different then than it was now, and this certainly is how many act here, now, today.

marty1985 wrote: »

I am aware that a newspaper is not a science paper. I was just pointing out that even they can point out the obvious.

The problem is the "Obvious" is quite often not "the truth" as is the case with your error that simply pouring out more off spring is automatically to be more successful in evolutionary terms. A position you have not backed up by citing an actual scientist, but merely claiming there are such faceless, nameless scientists out there. Even 30 seconds on google would show you that Dawkins who you keep mentioning does not think higher numbers of off spring to be automatically equivilant to success and he certainly disagrees with your claim that it is the "only yardstick" as you put it.

marty1985 wrote: »

I said the correlation is extremely, extremely positive

As are many correlations, many of which turn out to have nothing to do with each other. Correlation is nothing more than a good indicator of where to look for more data and possible causations. To bypass that and present the correlation as an argument however is just lazy.

marty1985 wrote: »

Religions have also been used to curtail fertility when needs be.

Then you make my point for me as I keep pointing out. Religion does not bring things to us like more kids or less kids. These are things we want, need and decide on anyway. Religion is then appended later to try and make what we know is right anyway more successful.

Which, as I keep saying, shows religion is merely the packaging people put on things that we would have anyway in order to sell their version of the product better. Religion itself has nothing to do with the things themselves however and it certainly does not give those things to us, as those who want us to believe morality comes from god would have you believe for example.

So as I keep saying over and over.... religion is not giving us these good things, or creating them, or any such thing. It is merely adaptable and recognising the things we already want, have and need, and associating itself with them... for its own benefit more than ours.

4leto

Fascinating thread you guys, I am probably out of my depth but anyway some more of my truppence worth.

Marty1985 religion does benefit individuals the way hope and positive thinking does, but the atheist argument is about does religion benefit society, is it good to continue with a philosophy which scientifically is false. Would man progress further without religion. I don't believe he would, but I don't believe he wouldn't either. Seen I hold the view religion is naturally a part of us, I would fear what that urge may lead to if it was to be taken away. Probably something more irrational like astrology or economics (a joke).

nozzferrahhtoo I didn't mean to imply religion has a specific "God gene" but some believe there is one. But even if it is a byproduct of a range of genes and human abilities it is still there. I would couple it with our ability to do and understand art. In the fossil record discovered so far art and religious iconography appeared simultaneously about 70 to 75.000 years ago. But before that there is some evidence of burial rituals which is religious by its nature, it implies there is something else in the flesh a "ghost in the machine" but art expresses that with or by religion. So I would conjecture religion is 75000 years old as well.

And evolution there is evidence of it all around us as it still happens as our newspapers will show it in action when the next asian or swine flu comes about this time of year.

But the realms of quantum physics with the results of empirical evidence we can only believe what we imagine we can never observe it as the uncertainty principle suggests. So we can only have a faith in the conjectures, which is a kind of religion.

So we are a risen ape but we do have the powers of a fallen angel.

nozzferrahhtoo

4leto wrote: »

nozzferrahhtoo I didn't mean to imply religion has a specific "God gene" but some believe there is one.

I know, which is why I have researched the claim so heavily and deeply. What I have found is that there is no evidence there is any such thing, but that there are things about us that give rise to religion.

I used two analogies on the thread which I will repeat.

The first is that of diseases. We do not have genes for catching diseases. We have genes for doing a whole host of other things however which diseases have "learned" to use to their own advantage and to make themselves successful.... to ensure their own reproduction. I think religion is similar to that. It uses things that genuinely are useful to us in order to perpetuate itself, mindlessly, like any virus would.

The second is similar but I include it just for assisting those that are emotionally harmed by the virus comparison. It is that of the moth flying into the candle flame to die. There is no gene that makes moths do this. What they have however is genetic programming to always fly at a certain angle to the brightest light source at night. Since that is usually the moon flying at that angle means flying straight at a fixed height above the ground. Now when we come along with candles, the same instinct causes them to fly a pretty spiral pattern course into the flame and die. Again the behavior is not genetic, but is caused by something else that is.

I only mention it because I agree religion is in many ways "natural" to us, but not for the reasons many people think. It is "natural" to us for many of the same reasons catching a virus is.

4leto wrote: »

it implies there is something else in the flesh a "ghost in the machine" but art expresses that

Art works for us for similar reasons that coca cola works for us. Hyper stimulus. Coke works because it hyper stimulates receptors we have for detecting sweetness in fruit. Coke acts, to our senses, almost like "hyper fruit" and drives many of us wild with happiness.

Art similarly hyper stimulates aspects of our brain in ways that are pleasing to us. I do not think if I do it once a day for the rest of my life that I could ever recommend this talk by VS Ramachandran on the topic enough. It is an hour of your life you will never regret spending. It is relevant to literature as well as visual art.

4leto wrote: »

But the realms of quantum physics with the results of empirical evidence we can only believe what we imagine we can never observe it as the uncertainty principle suggests. So we can only have a faith in the conjectures, which is a kind of religion.

Not really as science does not rely on observation alone to verify findings. One of the most important tools of science is Prediction. The predictions made in areas like Quantum physics I have heard a quote from I think Richard Feynman saying "the predictions of Quantum Theory experimentally are verified to the equivalent of predicting the width of North America to the width of one human hair." and so it is not faith to think that the conclusions of this area of science are accurate.

4leto

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

I know, which is why I have researched the claim so heavily and deeply. What I have found is that there is no evidence there is any such thing, but that there are things about us that give rise to religion.

I used two analogies on the thread which I will repeat.

The first is that of diseases. We do not have genes for catching diseases. We have genes for doing a whole host of other things however which diseases have "learned" to use to their own advantage and to make themselves successful.... to ensure their own reproduction. I think religion is similar to that. It uses things that genuinely are useful to us in order to perpetuate itself, mindlessly, like any virus would.

The second is similar but I include it just for assisting those that are emotionally harmed by the virus comparison. It is that of the moth flying into the candle flame to die. There is no gene that makes moths do this. What they have however is genetic programming to always fly at a certain angle to the brightest light source at night. Since that is usually the moon flying at that angle means flying straight at a fixed height above the ground. Now when we come along with candles, the same instinct causes them to fly a pretty spiral pattern course into the flame and die. Again the behavior is not genetic, but is caused by something else that is.

I only mention it because I agree religion is in many ways "natural" to us, but not for the reasons many people think. It is "natural" to us for many of the same reasons catching a virus is.



Art works for us for similar reasons that coca cola works for us. Hyper stimulus. Coke works because it hyper stimulates receptors we have for detecting sweetness in fruit. Coke acts, to our senses, almost like "hyper fruit" and drives many of us wild with happiness.

Art similarly hyper stimulates aspects of our brain in ways that are pleasing to us. I do not think if I do it once a day for the rest of my life that I could ever recommend this talk by VS Ramachandran on the topic enough. It is an hour of your life you will never regret spending. It is relevant to literature as well as visual art.



Not really as science does not rely on observation alone to verify findings. One of the most important tools of science is Prediction. The predictions made in areas like Quantum physics I have heard a quote from I think Richard Feynman saying "the predictions of Quantum Theory experimentally are verified to the equivalent of predicting the width of North America to the width of one human hair." and so it is not faith to think that the conclusions of this area of science are accurate.

Sorry I can't multi-quote, I think we basically agree with each other, love the analogy of the Moth and the candle. And thanks for the link to that lecture and yes that is right up my street, I will look at it later.

I still think religion is a human expression out side of ourselves similar to art. But that vid may change my mind on that.

Science is predictive and repeatable, religion is neither, I concede that point.

nozzferrahhtoo

4leto wrote: »

thanks for the link to that lecture and yes that is right up my street, I will look at it later.

I still think religion is a human expression out side of ourselves similar to art. But that vid may change my mind on that.

He is my current "hero" if I can ever be said to have such things. A wonderful speaker, and incredibly interesting. Most of the talk I just linked is to do with art not religion so I am not sure whether it will change your mind on that topic, but give it a go.

There is a great other video by him where he talks about methods for asking questions directly to different hemispheres of the brain, and he found that when asking the right hemisphere and the second hemisphere the yes no question of "Do you believe in god" they gave opposite answers.

He comically goes on to express disappointment that this finding did not cascade through the theological community as they discussed whether one half of the guys brain goes to hell and the other to heaven.

He delivered it better than me, but it was very funny. Youll likely hear it if you get as hooked by this talk as I did and then trawl you tube listening to every lecture there is by him.

Edit: Found it. It is only 2 minutes long.

Gunther_Gloop

When the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets. —Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

...As true today as then.

efb

I thank Jobs that my parents are open minded and not endoctired in a blind faith so that are open to their offsprings beliefs

yutta

efb wrote: »

I thank Jobs that my parents are open minded and not endoctired in a blind faith so that are open to their offsprings beliefs

I try not to be too "open-minded" for fear my brain might fall out.

yutta

Depending on the subject of study, you can't engage at the boundaries of human knowledge if you purposely exclude the theological dimension of understanding. The "meaning of life" questions raise all sorts of difficulties in science, theology, philosophy, etc. No one system of understanding is perfect. It's arguable whether the human brain is capable of understanding the nature of the universe.

And then what? Let's say we genetically engineer a brain the size of the milky way that understands everything - what use is it?

I believe that God created the universe and gave us the gifts of science to do good (i.e. cancer treatment research) and not evil (nuclear bombs, guided missiles). Science is a means to an end, not an end in itself.

efb

yutta wrote: »

I try not to be too "open-minded" for fear my brain might fall out.

Just don't be open skulled then!

Your mind can be an expance as vast as a canyon if you allow it to grow with knowledge

Snakeblood

yutta wrote: »

I believe that God created the universe and gave us the gifts of science to do good (i.e. cancer treatment research) and not evil (nuclear bombs, guided missiles). Science is a means to an end, not an end in itself.

By that logic, he also gave us cancer to give us something to think about in the middle ages.

nozzferrahhtoo

yutta wrote: »

The "meaning of life" questions raise all sorts of difficulties

Maybe because it is non-question. People asking "what is the meaning of life" seem to think that because they can ask the question, there must therefore be an answer. The universe owes us no meaning. There does not have to be a meaning for life just because we can ask what it is any more than me saying "What red thing is in this box" means there has to be something red in the box. It could be empty.

seamus

yutta wrote: »

The "meaning of life" questions raise all sorts of difficulties in science, theology, philosophy, etc.

The problem with the meaning of life question isn't that it's necessarily difficult, it's that it's phrased wrong.

"What is the meaning of life" is the wrong question. Before you can even ask that question, you need to be able to answer this one:

"Is there a meaning of life?".

Thankfully that's a question firmly rooted in the philosophical such that it causes no difficulties for science and the furthering of our knowledge of the universe. Science operates on the basis that there is no meaning of life and can soldier on.

We get so hung up on trying to establish the purpose of our existence, that we don't stop to consider if our existence has any purpose at all.

Edit: Dammit, beaten to it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd9CxIlkjpk

That's pretty much all I have to say.

4leto

But we strive for meaning and it could be said that we identify the universe and give it meaning, for us. The old Philosophical question "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

Douglas Adams put all this brilliantly in the famous 42 answer.

4leto

Deleted User wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd9CxIlkjpk

That's pretty much all I have to say.

There is thousands of threads in the After hours forum and you opened this one and put that there

seamus

Deleted User wrote: »

That's pretty much all I have to say.

Thank you so much for that stirring and insightful contribution to this thread.

Through your wisdom and compelling writing, you have not only clearly outlined your opinion, but you have also caused me to question my own in a way I had never considered before your wonderful post.

FFS, if you don't enjoy the discussion, then don't read it. It's not that hard.

saa

Question what exactly is intelligence and does this intelligence usually permeate the masses? I think not.

4leto

saa wrote: »

Question what exactly is intelligence and does this intelligence usually permeate the masses? I think not.

Does it have to??

And if you are asking intelligence is understanding and has been damn useful to us as I tot this post out on this wonderful technology.

Caulego

yutta wrote: »

I believe that God created the universe and gave us the gifts of science to do good (i.e. cancer treatment research) and not evil (nuclear bombs, guided missiles). Science is a means to an end, not an end in itself.

Would that not be at variance with God's prohibition aginst 'eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge'. i.e. knowledge, fact, truth.
Belief is openly promoted as being truly blind, and is the thing that prevents us from finding truth by making believe that we already know it all.
When any of us decide that they can't know more then our current level of understanding, then we just don't want to do so, which is a choice. Knowledge and reasoning open up avenues of choice, which give rise to further opportunities for further exploration and understanding. This is the way. There are good and bad choices, but they are choices, wilful directions taken, and it is these choices that determine either the progress we make towards better understanding, or to hide in the cave of ignorance, and fear the light of good reason.

On the issue of good and evil, I think it's not so clear cut. The use to which things are put determines the good or evil that derives from them, but none of these things are evil in themselves, as it was the spirit of evil within the minds of men who decided to divert them to such utility.
For example, a surgeon can use a scalpel to perform a life-saving operation, and he could also use it to kill the patient; all depending on his intent, which comes from his mind. Evil only exist where the mind is evil, and evil is fed by poor judgment and lack of humanity, and is excused by unfounded beliefs that support the evil act. To justify stupidity and evil, you need to create a belief about the act itself, to make it look like something it is not. If evil is what one thinks, then evil is what they become: simple. Science is a tool, just like the scalpel, so you can't blame 'science' for what people decide to do with the knowledge that comes from using it.

Caulego

saa wrote: »

Question what exactly is intelligence and does this intelligence usually permeate the masses? I think not.

Intelligence is the ability to work out fact from fiction, belief from truth and stupidity from wisdom. Basically, it's a faculty of discernment.
Of course, you can use this tool to do harm, but then that really is not very intelligent, as you will lose because of it. Trees are known by their fruit, so we might think it a good idea to eat wisely

Caulego

seamus wrote: »

Thank you so much for that stirring and insightful contribution to this thread.

Through your wisdom and compelling writing, you have not only clearly outlined your opinion, but you have also caused me to question my own in a way I had never considered before your wonderful post.

FFS, if you don't enjoy the discussion, then don't read it. It's not that hard.

Lol....I think that for some people, trying to form a thought is like pushing aginst a mental hemorrhoid..a lot of grunting and little output

joseph brand

seamus wrote: »

The problem with the meaning of life question isn't that it's necessarily difficult, it's that it's phrased wrong.

"What is the meaning of life" is the wrong question. Before you can even ask that question, you need to be able to answer this one:

"Is there a meaning of life?".

Thankfully that's a question firmly rooted in the philosophical such that it causes no difficulties for science and the furthering of our knowledge of the universe. Science operates on the basis that there is no meaning of life and can soldier on.

We get so hung up on trying to establish the purpose of our existence, that we don't stop to consider if our existence has any purpose at all.

Edit: Dammit, beaten to it

DO many people sit and ponder the meaning of life? Because I don't. But when I do, I just believe it is to procreate, as is evident in all life forms.
I also think that maybe our job is to find new planets, since we are sort of capable (can't go fast enough YET). But that idea seems to be way off in the future, nothing to do with me, so it's back to procreation.

yutta

joseph brand wrote: »

DO many people sit and ponder the meaning of life? Because I don't.

Not everybody does, but when you're on your death bed you will.

seamus

joseph brand wrote: »

DO many people sit and ponder the meaning of life?

I imagine they do. After all, you hear people justify religion on the basis that it "gives people meaning in their lives".

I reckon that most people don't actually consider "What is the meaning of life?". Instead their actual question is, "Does my existence make a difference and if so, how can I ensure that difference continues on after I die?". Of course, "What is the meaning of life?" is a much less egotistical way of saying that you want to leave a legacy and not be another faceless pleb on a small planet orbiting a cold and indifferent sun wandering aimlessly through the infinite vastness of a universe that doesn't care.

In order to stop asking the question, you need to come to terms with the very real possibility that you are inconsequential in terms of the universe. Religion allows people to put that idea on hold because it tells you that you're not inconsequential. It doesn't present any evidence for that, but people are more than happy to hear it because they're evolutionally driven to believe in their own self-importance.

Penn

yutta wrote: »

Not everybody does, but when you're on your death bed you will.

I won't.

Mickeroo

4leto wrote: »

But we strive for meaning and it could be said that we identify the universe and give it meaning, for us. The old Philosophical question "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

I think that's existentialism you described there (could be wrong)

4leto wrote: »

Douglas Adams put all this brilliantly in the famous 42 answer.

Yes but what's the question!? :pac:

The Hitchiker's Guide... are a lot cleverer than some people would give them credit.

Caulego

"The main point of life to consider is; perchance, the lack of one."
(The Son of the Widow)

The above question offers, solely as a point for consideration, that we might in fact not have put a point, an important or fundamental reason, aim, a purpose, in our lives. That, therefore is the main point. If we don’t first take time to think about it, and actually consider whether it actually might or might not have a point, a purpose, rather than automatically presuming that it does or doesn’t, then we shouldn’t be surprised to find that we may have neglected to put a point there. We each choose to put a point into our lives, or we choose to make it pointless, by ignoring the fact that we didn’t do justice to our very existence, by actually considering it in the first place.

We might consider that we don’t go looking for what we already have. Would you not agree that the reason we question and then consider something, is to advance our thinking from its current position, and onwards to a more profitable one? Then again, different minds see profit in different things, don’t they?

Consideration is simply the application of careful thought, so as to untangle our thinking into some sort of coherent process, to work out the fact from the fiction, the known from the not-known, the things of value from the vague and futile. Is this not reason? Is this not logical? Is this not truth? Is this not known fact (knowledge)? Is this not the way to work things out? Maybe you don’t agree, and that’s fine too, as you decide for you. What do you actually think? As you say, why not take it a little further?
People can often be heard asking “What’s the point of life?”, as though something called “LIFE” owes them something. It doesn’t owe them anything, as it is simply a loan that must be paid back, with or without profit, as all things return to their root. Some might consider that they owe it to themselves and to the all the things that support all life, to at least consider their actual position, and then take appropriate action to adjust or correct their course. Don’t you think that to do otherwise will ensure that you become lost to your purpose, your actual point for existing? What do you think?