I Miss This Guy!

[Guest]

Liberty,

 

Sanj talked about "any scientist" and I wanted to send that his way.

 

Also, what do you feel about Flew's conversion to Theism?

 

By the way, you didn't really talk much about your views on morality. Can you please share those with me?

 

[Liberty]

Also, what do you feel about Flew's conversion to Theism?

 

I don't really have an opinion specifically about him, and I've stated my position on the generalized idea in a previous post.

 

By the way, you didn't really talk much about your views on morality. Can you please share those with me?

 

Maybe over a beer someday ;)

[Guest]

Also, what do you feel about Flew's conversion to Theism?

 

I don't really have an opinion specifically about him, and I've stated my position on the generalized idea in a previous post.

 

By the way, you didn't really talk much about your views on morality. Can you please share those with me?

 

Maybe over a beer someday ;)

 

Hopefully one of us will have a coupon then. We are value investors, after all. ;)

[SouthernYankee]

A couple of questions.

 

1) How is religion anywhere near as tyrannical as government? If the government is not controlled by a particuliar religion, how would it exert power over someone like Ericopoly (just as an example)?

 

2) If one defines marriage as "the union of one man and one woman", can someone explain to me how that discriminates against homosexuals? That definition applies to all men and all women, it discriminates equally. The definition does not include love.

 

I don't mean to be a simpleton, but I do honestly get confused about why people in the United States fear religious people so much, and I do not understand how that definition is discriminatory. I am not allowed to marry a man under that definition. I do ask why the state is even involved in the marrige business, I would be fine with government getting out of that business and letting society figure it out.

[racemize]

A couple of questions.

 

1) How is religion anywhere near as tyrannical as government? If the government is not controlled by a particuliar religion, how would it exert power over someone like Ericopoly (just as an example)?

 

Actually, most of my problem with religion's exertion of power is via the government, e.g., changing what is taught in schools to support a religious viewpoint and/or downplay current science, exerting the will of the religious conservatives on the rest of us (e.g., birth control, pro choice, etc.).  I personally don't care about other's religions as long as it stays away from my rights.

 

2) If one defines marriage as "the union of one man and one woman", can someone explain to me how that discriminates against homosexuals? That definition applies to all men and all women, it discriminates equally. The definition does not include love.

 

I don't care about the name "marriage", but the issue is that married people get certain benefits that do not apply to other couples.  That's where the discrimination is.  For example, sharing medical coverage, visiting rights when one member is in the hospital, taxation, etc.

 

Perhaps other people want it to be called marriage, but if it were civil unions, I'd be fine with it. 

[rkbabang]

 

Pascal made a wager in the 17th century. You might want to read about it. Some people will say it is garbage, some will call it brilliant,

 

Pascal's wager is exactly what I had in mind when I wrote my 2nd to last post above.  Pascal's wager comes down to: "If you don't believe, the giant sky-bully might decide to torture you for a long time.  If you do worship him, no harm done."    It is an appeal to power and a threat.  "Do this or you might get hurt." 

 

My ultimate theory is this:

Any god that cared what I believed (might even hurt me because of it) and at the same time provides no conclusive evidence of his existence, is not a god I would want to spend eternity with or have anything to do with.  Whereas any god that I would care to spend eternity with, wouldn't give a damn what I believed.  So why bother?

 

God either exists or he doesn't.  If he doesn't, then the whole discussion is pointless and I don't need to bother with religion.

 

If he does exist, then there are only two possibilities:

 

  1) He doesn't care what you believe, in which case I don't need to bother with religion.  or:

 

  2) He is not a good and decent civilized moral being.  In which case I'll take my punishment and know that I'm better than him. 

 

There is no situation in which any good and decent person needs to bother with religion.

And as a bunch of people have already pointed out during this discussion, there is no evidence of god, so there is no good reason to think that there is one. 

 

"I don't know how [X] happened."

"My loved one died and I want to think (s)he went to a better place and I will see them again someday."

"I'm going to die someday and I want to think that I go to a better place and keep living."

"I'm afraid of what the people around me would do to me if there was no threat of hell looming over their heads."

"I can't deal with life very well without someone that can hear my thoughts who I can talk to silently whenever I need to."

 

None of these is a logical reason to start making up magical places inhabited by magical beings.  If you need an imaginary friend to get through your day or to deal with realities (like death) then admit that to yourself.  Don't try to pretend your "friend" is real though and call anyone who tells you that he isn't "arrogant" or "rude".

 

[Guest]

There is a concept, though not popular, in Christianity called "annihilationism." Essentially, believers in Christ have everlasting life while non believers are destroyed. No eternity burning in hell and things like that.  rk, wouldn't that be considered a moral/just god then? Also, (yes, I sound like a broken record) but have you read Mere Christianity?

[rkbabang]

There is a concept, though not popular, in Christianity called "annihilationism." Essentially, believers in Christ have everlasting life while non believers are destroyed. No eternity burning in hell and things like that.  rk, wouldn't that be considered a moral/just god then? Also, (yes, I sound like a broken record) but have you read Mere Christianity?

 

So it isn't "Believe or I'll torture you"  it is "Believe or I'll kill you, but I'll make it quick and painless."  No thanks, that might be OK for a mob boss, but I'd like to be able to hold supreme beings to a higher standard.

 

I haven't read Mere Christianity, until this discussion I had never heard of it.  I just put it on my "to read" list in goodreads so that I don't forget to read it.  I've spent my life thinking about this stuff, ever since I fist admitted to myself that I was an atheist at about 9 or 10 years old.  I've read the bible cover to cover more than once.  As well as certain sections 10's or hundreds of times.  I've read the Book of Mormon, the Urantia Book cover to cover (2000+ pages).  I did a 200+ page humanities project on the history of Zoroastrianism (basically the oldest monotheistic religion) in college.    I got credits equal to an entire course just for writing that paper. I've looked into Buddhism and shamanism, and all kinds of other things.  Religion interests me.  Having never really believed myself, even though I was raised in a strict Catholic home, I'm interested to know why people believe what they do.  I'll certainly read Mere Christianity, and I'm sure I'll even enjoy it.  But I'd be shocked if it changes my thinking on the matter. 

 

All this said, my wife and I have had a pact since we were teenagers that the first of us to die will haunt the other one (if possible) to let them know if there is an afterlife (if there is one).

 

[Guest]

There is a concept, though not popular, in Christianity called "annihilationism." Essentially, believers in Christ have everlasting life while non believers are destroyed. No eternity burning in hell and things like that.  rk, wouldn't that be considered a moral/just god then? Also, (yes, I sound like a broken record) but have you read Mere Christianity?

 

So it isn't "Believe or I'll torture you"  it is "Believe or I'll kill you, but I'll make it quick and painless."  No thanks, that might be OK for a mob boss, but I'd like to be able to hold supreme beings to a higher standard.

 

I haven't read Mere Christianity, until this discussion I had never heard of it.  I just put it on my "to read" list in goodreads so that I don't forget to read it.  I've spent my life thinking about this stuff, ever since I fist admitted to myself that I was an atheist at about 9 or 10 years old.  I've read the bible cover to cover more than once.  As well as certain sections 10's or hundreds of times.  I've read the Book of Mormon, the Urantia Book cover to cover (2000+ pages).  I did a 200+ page humanities project on the history of Zoroastrianism (basically the oldest monotheistic religion) in college.    I got credits equal to an entire course just for writing that paper. I've looked into Buddhism and shamanism, and all kinds of other things.  Religion interests me.  Having never really believed myself, even though I was raised in a strict Catholic home, I'm interested to know why people believe what they do.  I'll certainly read Mere Christianity, and I'm sure I'll even enjoy it.  But I'd be shocked if it changes my thinking on the matter. 

 

All this said, my wife and I have had a pact since we were teenagers that the first of us to die will haunt the other one (if possible) to let them know if there is an afterlife (if there is one).

 

I'm glad you've read all that. That's really, really impressive. When you read it, let me know your thoughts. :)

 

 

[twacowfca]

You make some good points, green king.  Dawkins, the high priest of science as a religion, has some weird ideas.  For example, in Ben Stein's movie, Expelled, he expresses the opinion that life arose on the earth as a consequence of being visited by aliens from another world, a tautology of the origin of life if ever there was one. 

He most certainly does not think that. Being edited by a dishonest foe can yield weird results.

 

Toward the end of his interview with me, Stein asked whether I could think of any circumstances whatsoever under which intelligent design might have occurred. It's the kind of challenge I relish, and I set myself the task of imagining the most plausible scenario I could. I wanted to give ID its best shot, however poor that best shot might be. I must have been feeling magnanimous that day, because I was aware that the leading advocates of Intelligent Design are very fond of protesting that they are not talking about God as the designer, but about some unnamed and unspecified intelligence, which might even be an alien from another planet. Indeed, this is the only way they differentiate themselves from fundamentalist creationists, and they do it only when they need to, in order to weasel their way around church/state separation laws. So, bending over backwards to accommodate the IDiots ("oh NOOOOO, of course we aren't talking about God, this is SCIENCE") and bending over backwards to make the best case I could for intelligent design, I constructed a science fiction scenario. Like Michael Ruse (as I surmise) I still hadn't rumbled Stein, and I was charitable enough to think he was an honestly stupid man, sincerely seeking enlightenment from a scientist. I patiently explained to him that life could conceivably have been seeded on Earth by an alien intelligence from another planet (Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel suggested something similar -- semi tongue-in-cheek). The conclusion I was heading towards was that, even in the highly unlikely event that some such 'Directed Panspermia' was responsible for designing life on this planet, the alien beings would THEMSELVES have to have evolved, if not by Darwinian selection, by some equivalent 'crane' (to quote Dan Dennett). My point here was that design can never be an ULTIMATE explanation for organized complexity. Even if life on Earth was seeded by intelligent designers on another planet, and even if the alien life form was itself seeded four billion years earlier, the regress must ultimately be terminated (and we have only some 13 billion years to play with because of the finite age of the universe). Organized complexity cannot just spontaneously happen. That, for goodness sake, is the creationists' whole point, when they bang on about eyes and bacterial flagella! Evolution by natural selection is the only known process whereby organized complexity can ultimately come into being. Organized complexity -- and that includes everything capable of designing anything intelligently -- comes LATE into the universe. It cannot exist at the beginning, as I have explained again and again in my writings.

 

This 'Ultimate 747' argument, as I called it in The God Delusion, may or may not persuade you. That is not my concern here. My concern here is that my science fiction thought experiment -- however implausible -- was designed to illustrate intelligent design's closest approach to being plausible. I was most emphaticaly NOT saying that I believed the thought experiment. Quite the contrary. I do not believe it (and I don't think Francis Crick believed it either). I was bending over backwards to make the best case I could for a form of intelligent design. And my clear implication was that the best case I could make was a very implausible case indeed. In other words, I was using the thought experiment as a way of demonstrating strong opposition to all theories of intelligent design.

http://old.richarddawkins.net/articles/2394-lying-for-jesus

 

Thanks, alwaysinvert. That's kind of what I thought when I saw the video, that Dawkins was merely engaging in idle speculation. 

 

My strongest disagreement with Dawkins is his view that religion in general and Christianity in particular is a harmful influence.  With a few glaring exceptions, History supports the idea that Christianity has been a moderating force in society. The most destructive tyrants in the 20th century, who deliberately murdered tens of millions of people such as Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot have been doctrinaire athiests or, in the case of Hitler, someone who was captivated by Pagan thoughts rituals and symbols involving death and racial superiority.

[Liberty]

My strongest disagreement with Dawkins is his view that religion in general and Christianity in particular is a harmful influence.  With a few glaring exceptions, History supports the idea that Christianity has been a moderating force in society. The most destructive tyrants in the 20th century, who deliberately murdered tens of millions of people such as Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot have been doctrinaire athiests or, in the case of Hitler, someone who was captivated by Pagan thoughts rituals and symbols involving death and racial superiority.

 

1) Something being desirable and something being true are two completely separate things. Maybe it would be really cool if Santa Claus was real, but that doesn't make him exist. I'd argue that all that is desirable about christianity or other religions could be had without the magic and superstition, and that all that is undesirable about it in great part offsets the desirable stuff anyway.

 

2) People with all kinds of beliefs have committed atrocities over human history, and trying to pin this on atheists is ridiculous on its face to anyone who knows any history. And if you research the supposed atheism of people like Stalin, you'll find that they gave ridiculous reasons and pretty much just wanted total power so they had to get the very powerful church out of the way. It wasn't about principle so much as a power struggle between two competing institutions. Communists didn't want to share power over people's lives with anyone, including churches, so they created their own secular religion with very similar cults of personality and such. But yeah, being an atheist doesn't make you automatically a good person anymore than being a christian or a muslim. I think that's pretty obvious.

 

3) Without religion-inspired dark ages like medieval times, chances are that we'd be hundreds of years ahead in knowledge. Religious leaders made us take big steps back from the ancient greeks and romans in the name of their truths, similar to what they did more recently in Afghanistan. At a point, the whole of Europe was basically under the then-taliban's power, the most religious people you could ever find, and that didn't turn out so well..

[ERICOPOLY]

2) If one defines marriage as "the union of one man and one woman", can someone explain to me how that discriminates against homosexuals? That definition applies to all men and all women, it discriminates equally. The definition does not include love.

 

How about this for your answer:

 

Redefine marriage as between men->men or women->women.

 

How does this discriminate against heterosexuals?  The definition applies to all men and all women, it discriminates equally.  The definition does not include love.

 

[SouthernYankee]

"How about this for your answer:

 

Redefine marriage as between men->men or women->women.

 

How does this discriminate against heterosexuals?  The definition applies to all men and all women, it discriminates equally.  The definition does not include love."

 

-If you are willing to deny science and thousands of years of human history, let's do it. I am sure there are no reasons that certain traditions have evolved over time. Let's do it. I'll tell the Christians and the Jews, YOU tell the others.

[ERICOPOLY]

"How about this for your answer:

 

Redefine marriage as between men->men or women->women.

 

How does this discriminate against heterosexuals?  The definition applies to all men and all women, it discriminates equally.  The definition does not include love."

 

-If you are willing to deny science and thousands of years of human history, let's do it. I am sure there are no reasons that certain traditions have evolved over time. Let's do it. I'll tell the Christians and the Jews, YOU tell the others.

 

I see.

 

Your position is that bigotry is okay as long as it's a long accepted tradition?

 

[SouthernYankee]

Liberty,

 

I would please ask where you find in America today, these religious people wanting to subjugate everyone to their way of thinking. Most Republicans and/or the religious people that support them just want to have government stay out of certain areas of our personal lives, especially when it comes to the use of tax monies.

 

And for the people who will bring up defense/war spending, considering it is a power expressly reserved for the Feds in the US Constitution, your argument fails on constitutional grounds. If you don't see the difference between defense spending and satisfying Sandra Fluke and Planned Parenthood, then there is not much more to be said.

[SouthernYankee]

"Your position is that bigotry is okay as long as it's a long accepted tradition?"

 

-How is it bigoted to treat all men the same way, as well as all women. We are ALL restricted to marry someone of the opposite sex, under that definition. Where is the bigotry??

 

 

 

 

 

[ERICOPOLY]

"Your position is that bigotry is okay as long as it's a long accepted tradition?"

 

-How is it bigoted to treat all men the same way, as well as all women. We are ALL restricted to marry someone of the opposite sex, under that definition. Where is the bigotry??

 

Let there be a law in America that states all persons, men or women, may only be Muslim.

 

This law treats all men and women the same way.  Where is the bigotry?

 

[SouthernYankee]

Ericopoly,

 

This issue is one that is evolving, as most laws do. You are calling me a bigot, along with millions (billions?) of others who think they are correct, that there are certain reasons why marriage being between 2 people of the opposite sex is a good way to organize society. One of those reasons is SCIENCE, for the perpetuation of the species. Of course, with today's scientific methods, we see new possibilities. Should tradition just be discarded, to please you, or would it be better to have adult conversations, without politics entering into it?

[Rabbitisrich]

 

Can you provide an example that would show the difference between a moral violation in a God paradigm versus a no-God paradigm? I'm looking for some method of discrimination that doesn't rely upon being true by definition.

 

A moral violation in a no-God paradigm?  I've been arguing this conditional: if God does not exist, there are no necessarily true moral propositions.  Well, I still think that is true.  As near as I can tell, you agree.

 

My confusion is that you aren't arguing the conditional. You simply state is as a tautology. Obviously, we can come up with many tautologies, but it would be a trivial exercise without some method to identify it in reality, in other words to find reasons that one concept is more likely than alternatives.

 

Let's ignore the word "morality" because we are getting stuck in language. Please identify how we would distinguish the two universes, God and No-God, when someone commits something that may be considered wrong. There must be a non-trivial difference, as opposed to simply stating that God exists in one, and therefore in that one a wrong is immoral.

[SouthernYankee]

"Let there be a law in America that states all persons, men or women, may only be Muslim."

 

You forgot to write "So it shall be written, so it shall be done!"  ;D

 

That is just a silly statement. That law would not even get out of committee. Didn't you ever watch Schoolhouse Rock when you were a kid? ("I'm just a bill, sittin' here on Capitol......)

 

[SouthernYankee]

Maybe one monkey should communicate with the others by telling them, "I'll climb up to get the banana, then I'll bring it down and we'll cut it up 5 ways."

 

Of course, they can't speak as humansdo, and they still live in tribes, or dens, or whatever they call them. They usually (Disney says otherwise) leave the weak among them to fend for themselves, as opposed to valueing each INDIVIDUAL life!

[Rabbitisrich]

 

Pascal made a wager in the 17th century. You might want to read about it. Some people will say it is garbage, some will call it brilliant, but nonetheless, it is trying to put logic into the argument of the existence of God vs not. This guy was likely more intelligent than any of us here and he did not seal the deal based on some rebutals that I have read and this was once again in the 17th century! So you guys might want to get back to investing and let each individual decide how he or she wants to conceptualize or imagine life or not after death.

 

He is definitely smarter than me, but not for that wager! First note that the wager relies on the unproven statement that there are two possibilities: A specific God concept exists or it does not.

What about other God concepts? Or what about concepts not even considered by the wagerers?

 

So you end up with an even bigger problem: How does Pascal assign probabilities to his scenarios? If he can't assign, even with huge errors, a probability to that specific God-scenario, then what distinguishes it from any other scenario? You could just as easily say that God is seeking arch-positivists, and has seeded the world with tests to weed out the faithful. It's simply too unspecified a wager to lead to fruitful insights.

[ERICOPOLY]

That is just a silly statement. That law would not even get out of committee.

 

Then is it okay to have bigotry that would pass committee?

 

 

 

 

[alwaysinvert]

 

Pascal made a wager in the 17th century. You might want to read about it. Some people will say it is garbage, some will call it brilliant, but nonetheless, it is trying to put logic into the argument of the existence of God vs not. This guy was likely more intelligent than any of us here and he did not seal the deal based on some rebutals that I have read and this was once again in the 17th century! So you guys might want to get back to investing and let each individual decide how he or she wants to conceptualize or imagine life or not after death.

 

He is definitely smarter than me, but not for that wager! First note that the wager relies on the unproven statement that there are two possibilities: A specific God concept exists or it does not.

What about other God concepts? Or what about concepts not even considered by the wagerers?

 

So you end up with an even bigger problem: How does Pascal assign probabilities to his scenarios? If he can't assign, even with huge errors, a probability to that specific God-scenario, then what distinguishes it from any other scenario? You could just as easily say that God is seeking arch-positivists, and has seeded the world with tests to weed out the faithful. It's simply too unspecified a wager to lead to fruitful insights.

If it's Jahve it won't matter what you do since you aren't a true believer anyway and will burn in hell no matter what (at least if you're Protestant).

 

And wouldn't it be a pretty lousy God (never mind his other properties) if he couldn't see through your charade of 'believing' and treat you just like the other non-believers?

[Liberty]

Liberty,

 

I would please ask where you find in America today, these religious people wanting to subjugate everyone to their way of thinking. Most Republicans and/or the religious people that support them just want to have government stay out of certain areas of our personal lives, especially when it comes to the use of tax monies.

 

They're not hard to find, but if I named any you'd say they're an exception or not significant or whatever, so it's pointless (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_scotsman). But I wasn't talking about them, merely that we must not confuse what is desirable with what is true and vice versa, because that's an error of logic.