Do you Believe In God

[TheHig]

@ curtis290 too much at once

 

[Ben]

I believe in myself. I am a God.

 

[curtis290]

From what I can gather, they agree, too.

It feels like I have arthritis in my hands...and my whole night went away. If you guys think it takes a long time to read this, imagine how long it took to write it. Probably 10 minutes to read it, almost 4 hours to write it. Perhaps it was a poor decision, but if a few people take the time to read it, at least my work will have been somewhat validated.

 

[Botty]

I believe in God, but lemme just add this in to the mix

Religion is the sigh of the opressed creature

- Karl Marx
If this has already been quoted forgive me.

 

[matyfatymole]

any one who belives in anyfink written in the bible are a absolute complete joke and are living a lie.

I think this is quite offensive. Even if you don't beleive in God I don't think you should judge other people. How do you know everything in the bible is "a joke." And I think you should respect people even though you don't beleive.
I am a Christian and have seen numerous things that show to me that God is real. For one I cannot imagine the workd can be this perfect by coindice. Furthermore me and my family sponser a charity in Africa who are devoted Christian and pray to God to support them in there day to day basis. So far they are running a school with 500 kids. They have got an orphanage and feed 700 people on a daily basis. In my eyes I couldn't see this as a bit of good fortune that they have been able to run this place. And it really opened my eyes to how God is helping poverty when I went there.

 

[ajt09]

I think this is quite offensive. Even if you don't beleive in God I don't think you should judge other people. How do you know everything in the bible is "a joke." And I think you should respect people even though you don't beleive.
I am a Christian and have seen numerous things that show to me that God is real. For one I cannot imagine the workd can be this perfect by coindice. Furthermore me and my family sponser a charity in Africa who are devoted Christian and pray to God to support them in there day to day basis. So far they are running a school with 500 kids. They have got an orphanage and feed 700 people on a daily basis. In my eyes I couldn't see this as a bit of good fortune that they have been able to run this place. And it really opened my eyes to how God is helping poverty when I went there.

I agree. Why judge somebody when they believe something that gives them hope and makes them happy? It's 2011, everybody should be respected regardless of what they don't believe, believe in. I don't believe in God but would never call believers fools. Live and let live

 

[GodCubed]

I think this is quite offensive. Even if you don't beleive in God I don't think you should judge other people. How do you know everything in the bible is "a joke." And I think you should respect people even though you don't beleive.

I dislike hearing things on the Bible. We're all agreed that we can't take the Bible completely literally, right? Otherwise that would be ridiculous.

So what bits do we take literally? Who are we to choose? Why should we take Leviticus 20:13 literally and not Leviticus 20:10?

 

[Joel`]

There are a few currents of thought going on here. First, there is the question of what extent to which religious people are allowed to believe in, practice, and preach their religious values in our society, and whether or not preaching that homosexuality is a sin, or stating this viewpoint as is what happened in the homosexuality thread, is/should be legal in our society. Second, there is the question of whether or not religion is fundamentally "bad." You think it is, I disagree. Not only do I think such a sweeping judgement is impossible, I think if it were possible, it would certainly come down to values and not be a matter of empiricism. Third, there is the question of whether or not societies/governments should be based on Enlightenment principles, particularly liberalism and secularism. I like some of these values, but I value democracy more and I believe that we shouldn't make the sweeping generalization that all societies/governments mustbase themselves on these principles, I think it is up to them, and there is nothing inherently wrong with a society/government based on religious principles (though you think there is). Again, this is a value judgement, not an objective, rational statement, which you think it is. You said that this was religion vs. Science, and you seem believe that liberalism and secularism (which come from the Enlightenment and believe themselves to be incredibly rational and scientific) are logically/empirically/scientifically correct principles of government.

I don't get why you're getting so mad at me anyway, since you said you were atheist and said you enjoyed Religulous, a religious mockumentary, when Bill Maher was just doing exactly what I was doing. Why am I taking liberal rights, and he nor you isn't? It seems like you just have a vendetta against anti-liberal acts and are inferring meanings from my words in order to argue. Religion is still the biggest killer of all time, religion did (and still does) stand in the way of scientific progress. Consider how different the world today would be if all scientist's were treated the way Galileo was. I consider the murder of millions and severely halting scientific progress bad things.

Also, why are you so busy defending freedom to choose a religion, when the vast majority do not? Most children will follow their parents religion, and most of those follow the religion predominant in their culture. What part of that is free choice? Seriously, I don't see why you care so much to write paragraph after paragraph for an argument I haven't even started, you've inferred it.

A few things here. First of all, as for the science part, I wasn't claiming you didn't understand the size of the universe, nor that physicists didn't. That's only a small part of the universe and how it works. Most of the universe is comprised of dark matter or energy, which we don't even begin to understand. I was simply making the claim that no one understands how the universe works, and physicists know this better than anyone, which is why more of them are theists than any of the disciplines in math or science. Taking this into account, believing in God isn't as ridiculous as your claim. Not sure what the drake equation has to do with any of this, and if life exists elsewhere, than a lot of it should, right, because the size of the universe? If so, why haven't they visited us? Of course this is entirely relevant to our discussion. Sure you've studied physics in high school, and may plan on doing so in college, but if the leading physicists in the world claim to know very little of how the universe works, I doubt you do. So to get offended at something like this is quite an overreaction. And it's not a "stupid" remark either, since it's a remark that physicists/astronomers would agree with.

As for the next part, when I referred to the economist not knowing the nature of the universe, I wasn't even referring to you. I was just referring to the fact that people in the social sciences, especially economists, are very atheistic and seem to believe that they know how the universe works, when they really don't. I do find it amusing that you immediately assumed when I said "economist" I was referring to you...an economist would be someone who is paid for his economic analysis in some way or another...aren't you like 18 and a student? Also, not sure how this is even an insult, either calling you an economist or saying that you don't know how the universe works. If the leading physicists don't know how the universe works, I don't mind telling a high schooler who has taken one physics class in his life that he doesn't know how it works. And I don't think anything I've said is insulting, definitely not as insulting/belittling as some of the remarks you have made about religion...not that I mind or feel insulted (though I'm sure some religious people would). I'm not chastising you for it, it's the internet for one thing, but don't accuse me of being insulting. TBH I think you're being insecure.

Firstly, dark matter is simply a theory, we have no evidence to support it and it isn't considered in our current physical framework, we are searching for evidence to explain it since the energy in the universe doesn't add up, so there must be "hidden" energy which the hypothesis of dark energy attempts to explain. It is not fact until we gain evidence, if we disprove it we move onto new theory's.

Most of physicist's are still atheist or agnostic, the general consensus is that since we can't rule out divine creation, it's a possibility. But most tend to believe that it is a divine being that could be responsible, which I have never denied. However, most tend to move away from the contradictory fairy tale that is the bible.

Given the size of the universe, and other life will almost definitely have different religions to us, it helps disprove our current mainstream religions since the probability of them being true decreases proportionally to the new ones discovered. As I said earlier, 1/infinity tends towards zero, so the chances of Christianity being the "correct" religion are extremely slim.

When did I claim to know more about the universe than leading physicists? Why must they have come visit us, how do we know they haven't visited us? Surely if it's possible for them to have advanced to a stage where they can travel through light years, then it's possible they can disguise themselves from being visible to detection?

It was the fact that you were using the fact that I study economic's to disprove the credibility of my argument's. Why would you randomly say an economist is trying to disprove God, it was clearly directed towards me since, as you stated in many paragraphs before, I was trying to disprove God. Your definition of economist is wrong, it can be anyone that study's or works in the field of economics. Technically someone in their first economics class is an economist, you'd just say "junior economist" if you wanted to differentiate. I don't see why you need to specialise in the term economist because they're "generally atheist", surely a better sentence would be "the atheist trying to disprove the existence of God"? But I find it amusing that you don't see why I wouldn't immediately assume you were referring to me.

Again, when have I claimed I know how the universe works? But again, this: " I don't mind telling a high schooler who has taken one physics class in his life that he doesn't know how it works." shows you were referring to me with the earlier quote.

To end, you're atheist as you said a few times in the "Capitalism vs Socialism" thread. So I really don't have any idea why you insist on debating with me. As far as I can tell, I've been "taking their liberal rights". But tell me, what free thought has gone into a religious opinion? You're born into a family and follow the words from the Bible and live your life that way. That is how religion in most cultures work. If you truly had freedom to decide a religion, you wouldn't see such variances in popularity of religion, there would be a general trend for the world, not individual cultures. And why is it okay for religion to be an excuse for calling religion evil, when I'm pretty sure you want defend terrorism with "it's just their religion"? You can't pick and choose when your argument applies. Islam extremists just have the opinion that we should all be Islam converts, why aren't you out there defending their rights? So, you're either a hypocrite (which you accused me of constantly) or you support terrorism and hate preach.

And since I can see it coming, you can't tell me there's a difference between terrorism and homophobia. Both are quotes from their respective holy books, both are what those respective religions are acting on.

 

[curtis290]

Too tired and too late, will respond tomorrow...though I will say that I'm certainly not 'mad' at you, have no idea where you got that perception from.

 

[donkarlito]

Is this a debate between two atheist about God this will go on for ever

 

[Joel`]

Too tired and too late, will respond tomorrow...though I will say that I'm certainly not 'mad' at you, have no idea where you got that perception from.

Wrong wording, simply I don't see why you're putting so much effort into an argument when I'm struggling to see where we have massive disagreement? I'm just expressing my atheistic views, just like many famous scientists (Sagan, Dawkins etc.) and just generally other atheists. Like I say, I thought you were atheist, so I don't see where we have disagreement, other than that you act like I'm a second coming of Hitler taking away everyone's liberal rights. Who knows, in 10 years maybe I'll be asking everyone to be declare themselves religious, "just in case."

 

[curtis290]

Wrong wording, simply I don't see why you're putting so much effort into an argument when I'm struggling to see where we have massive disagreement? I'm just expressing my atheistic views, just like many famous scientists (Sagan, Dawkins etc.) and just generally other atheists. Like I say, I thought you were atheist, so I don't see where we have disagreement, other than that you act like I'm a second coming of Hitler taking away everyone's liberal rights. Who knows, in 10 years maybe I'll be asking everyone to be declare themselves religious, "just in case."

Why the effort? It's a result of the perpetual state of not getting laid.

In all seriousness, it's more about competing conceptions of the good...many liberals (and this pretty much includes just about every well-educated person I know) are very anti-religion and think it's a bad thing. I used to be like this myself, but after having been in an extremely classically liberal environment (economic, social, and political liberalism to the max) for my university years, it changed my perspective on things. It was a very atheistic environment and made me miss my days of being in a religious community, even when I was an atheist. I think there are a lot of positive aspects to religion and it's something that atheists just don't get...they are way too anti-religious, and I hope America doesn't get like this (although I really don't like the form American religion takes, especially in the past 30 years: this warped American brand of "non-demoninational evangelicalism."

Another point I really disagree about is this overall concept of secularism...again, I used to believe in it a lot and wanted to 'liberalize' other countries (which is why for a little while I wanted the War in Iraq to happen, although I changed my mind before it started), but my views are different now. I'm sort of a communitarian multiculturalist as far as that stuff goes, and I believe that there is something inherently wrong with religious law in some of these countries, and because of my changing views on religion, I have a lot of sympathy for religious traditionalists/conservatives who want to stop the forces of modernity turning their society into a bunch of secular liberals...I think liberalism as a social philosophy and outlook on life is very lacking of a lot of things. It's downright depressing: believe what you want, since it's all not true, do what you want, pursue your own individual happiness, try to make money and get a 'career,' and then in the end you die, ending your consciousness. There are a lot of side effects this has on individuals and communities that are difficult to see.

Also, recently I lost faith in Enlightenment philosophy in general, and I don't believe in Rationality, Science, and Material Progress like I used to...there's a lot more to life, and having a big house and lots of material comforts and technologies doesn't necessarily make your life better. There's a more complicated human element to these changes, one that can't really be measured well by empiricism or understood with rationality. People and societies are irrational and infinitely complex, and Enlightenment thinkers overestimate their ability to understand them, and that their method is the right way of going about it.

Since what you believe is more or less what most educated people believe (you're an Enlightenment classical liberal) but has some elements that I disagree with, I think it's a fruitful intellectual exercise to challenge it. A lot of what I said in here was sort of anti-Enlightenment, anti-Modernity, and you don't get much of this in academia or even public discourse (and if you do, it's generally ignorant Christians), so I think it's good for the mind, and someone has to do it to provide a semi-intelligent alternative viewpoint that isn't entirely based on the Bible. There's too much agreement, especially considering how much Enlightenment thinkers and academia supposedly value dissident viewpoints and challenging conventional modes of thought. So yeah, that's why I do it.

But I've already spent more time writing this than I actually would have responding to you...my next response tomorrow will be short, I promise.

 

[Joel`]

Since what you believe is more or less what most educated people believe (you're an Enlightenment classical liberal) but has some elements that I disagree with, I think it's a fruitful intellectual exercise to challenge it. A lot of what I said in here was sort of anti-Enlightenment, anti-Modernity, and you don't get much of this in academia or even public discourse (and if you do, it's generally ignorant Christians), so I think it's good for the mind, and someone has to do it to provide a semi-intelligent alternative viewpoint that isn't entirely based on the Bible. There's too much agreement, especially considering how much Enlightenment thinkers and academia supposedly value dissident viewpoints and challenging conventional modes of thought. So yeah, that's why I do it.

I see, but I could argue that if you need to argue for what The Bible can't, then that is a fundamental flaw in religion! As my quote earlier said, "Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived."

But I've already spent more time writing this than I actually would have responding to you...my next response tomorrow will be short, I promise.

I'm quoting you on this.

 

[Danyul]

For one I cannot imagine the workd can be this perfect by coindice.

You call this world perfect?

 

[Joel`]

I am a Christian and have seen numerous things that show to me that God is real. For one I cannot imagine the workd can be this perfect by coindice.

You call this world perfect? If this world was perfect, we wouldn't have evil, we wouldn't have genetic mutations, we wouldn't have disease and illness. The whole existence of the universe is down to mistakes not perfection.

Furthermore me and my family sponser a charity in Africa who are devoted Christian and pray to God to support them in there day to day basis. So far they are running a school with 500 kids. They have got an orphanage and feed 700 people on a daily basis. In my eyes I couldn't see this as a bit of good fortune that they have been able to run this place. And it really opened my eyes to how God is helping poverty when I went there.

For starters, you can be a good person just for because, you know, you're a good person. You don't need religion to have good acts. Secondly, how is this proof of God in any way? You're giving them money to run the place. Why don't they just pray for God to give them the supplies and see how they do? If God was helping poverty, why is he only helping this select group, why not the whole of Africa, Asia? The homeless in our own country?

 

[curtis290]

Sorry., this went way longer than I thought it would. But "short" is a relative term, and this post is shorter than my last one!

I don't get why you're getting so mad at me anyway, since you said you were atheist and said you enjoyed Religulous, a religious mockumentary, when Bill Maher was just doing exactly what I was doing. Why am I taking liberal rights, and he nor you isn't? It seems like you just have a vendetta against anti-liberal acts and are inferring meanings from my words in order to argue. Religion is still the biggest killer of all time, religion did (and still does) stand in the way of scientific progress. Consider how different the world today would be if all scientist's were treated the way Galileo was. I consider the murder of millions and severely halting scientific progress bad things.

OK, as far as the effort I've put into this, it has nothing to do with you it's more that a)I'm bored and need to exercise my brain, b)I have a lot more sympathy for religion than I used to and I used to think like you and other classical liberals, but now I don't and think it's much more of a good thing than atheists admit, and c)someone needs to defend the "good" of religion articulately. Now I won't try and defend its validity but the academy is of course is founded upon Enlightenment ideals and is very atheist, and most well-educated people have similar attitudes. And of course if you don't have experience with religion, as an outsider it seems crazy. But it's not as bad as atheists make it out to be, and we need more relatively intelligent people that can articulately defend it as a positive aspect of the human experience. From the few pages of the thread that I read, few could do so. We need more dissenting viewpoints that are well-thought out (I mean, I at least took a lot of time on my posts, you can grant me that). Oh, and also, often times liberals who are so morally righteous about their "tolerance" (and many people at my university fell into this category) were incredibly intolerant of religion and basically didn't accept its viewpoints since it disagreed with their own...I think that's hypocritical and something a lot of liberals are guilty of, so I call them out on it while I can. Nothing against you personally.

As far as Bill Maher goes, the difference is he's a comedian. My take on him is that he's a funny *******, and he's entertaining (so his movie is a much different forum than ours). I saw the movie during the height of my atheism more or less, but even then, afterward I thought that he was being a douche for going around and trying to disprove their beliefs, and that he was incredibly arrogant for doing so...I mean who is he to act so smarter than everyone else, he's just some comedian? But the movie was very funny, nonetheless. I love the scene where he's talking to that "recovering gay guy" and basically makes passes at him. But as far as liberal rights go, he never said people shouldn't be allowed to hold those beliefs or discuss them in public, and your attitudes several times seemed to be anti-liberal: they can't preach hate, they can't "force their religion upon us," they must only practice it in private, we must be intolerant of intolerance, etc. Since you made these claims on grounds of tolerance, I thought I should put out these contradictions.

Statements such as "religion is the biggest killer of all time" to me are ridiculous. Religion has been a part of every people in history until very recently, so of course you can somehow tie any war or violent act to religion. But that doesn't mean that religion inherently caused it. The crusades, for example, are events that atheists commonly bring up as proof of the inherent violence of religion, but really they were for political and economic reasons (most of the crusaders just wanted to loot these cities) and the crusaders used religion as a justification...you can't blame religion for that or say it was the cause. I would say people are the biggest killer of all time, but just because they've been "religious" for most of history doesn't mean that religion is the biggest killer of all time. Wars frequently come down to economic reasons, as well, does that mean that capitalism is the biggest killer of all time?

Your other argument comes from science. "Religion is still the biggest killer of all time, religion did (and still does) stand in the way of scientific progress. Consider how different the world today would be if all scientist's were treated the way Galileo was." Religion no longer really stands in the way of scientific progress. The only example I can think of would be stem cell research, but this is minor when you think about science in the grand scheme of things. The same would go with the Galileo example. Sure, in that instance religion held back science, but this was a fairly isolated example and in general this wasn't the case. Or else we would still be in the Middle Ages, since atheism didn't get popular until relatively recently.

Enlightenment thinkers, particularly liberals, have an incredible amount of faith in the good of science and material progress. Religion doesn't share this faith for a few reasons. First of all, they don't think material advancement is the end-all be-all goal of civilization. Material progress is very easily empirically measured, so Enlightenment thinkers believe very strongly that it's the best thing in the world and what we should pursue as a society. The social impacts this progress has though on humanity are much more difficult to measure empirically (and we have only been able to even try to measure these things in the past few decades with sociology and psychology, and even then we are just scratching the surface and probably not using the correct framework since we're using rational modernist thought), and since Enlightenment thinkers have so much faith in rationality, they dismiss these thoughts. The Church does provide an invaluable humanistic voice for humanity since it understands society as an organic whole as opposed to a rational Enlightenment conception of society.

Religion recognizes that people will simply be used to what they are brought up with. This is one reason why depression and suicide are so common in the OECD countries. Since we have it so good in so many regards (both materially and politically with our rights and all that), we should be jumping up and down for joy right? That we aren't that starving person in Africa with AIDS? But we're not because we're obviously used to what we have. I'm always shocked when I visit third world countries at how happy the people are even though they have nothing. And at how unhappy the wealthy people I grew up with were. Psychology has even started to prove this, if you want me to use a rational example (once your income passes 67,000 dollars in the US, there is no increase in well-being).

And as a result of all of this material progress, certain social ills arise that are very difficult to measure. Sure, advances in communication have brought us closer together, but it also means that relationships are much less face to face than they used to be. TV and video games are so prevalent now that it's our society's new addiction, and I'm one of the worst addicts. All of the older people I talk to (especially educators) note the difference in our generation, the high tech kids who were raised by TV's and computer games and use messenger and facebook to talk to each other are much different. Even though we live in an era that has "progressed" since my grandparents' generation, do I think their lives as kids or adults were any worse than mine? Were they not as good people for not having these technologies? I really don't think they missed out on a whole lot for not having 500 TV channels and not being able to be addicted to FM. If anything, they probably have better interpersonal skills and are more in touch with reality.

There's also the question of how science is used...religion is aware of how powerful our advances in technology can be and it doesn't trust mankind to use them. We are a reckless people that worship science and technology so much just for the sake of "progress" that we advance as quickly as possible but don't think of the proper use of these technologies. Our advancements in science, for example, have made us create a civilization that consumes so much that it is entirely ecologically unsustainable. And of course, science is the biggest killer of all time. When we developed the first tools we could develop better weapons to kill people. Metallurgy was a big step, and then of course gunpowder was a bigger step. Then you get mass production and industry that can produce so many weapons that we can kill millions of people. What about the science that we used to develop the gas chambers at Auschwitz? We also have enough nuclear weapons on this planet to destroy the world 12 times over. Did you see what I just did there? If you look at a huge concept of humanity such as "science" or "religion," we can easily list the ills and benefits it has given us. I think they both are good if used correctly, and I disagree with Enlightenment liberals such as yourself that worship Science and call religions evil.

And of course the most obvious point is that Christianity holds that you get eternal life when you die (depending on other things, such as being a good person). Any worldly progress is incredibly insignificant in comparison. Science has enabled us to live longer, more comfortable lives, prolonging our time on earth until the infinite goodness that is the afterlife...of course it's unimportant in the Christian perspective. And of course science and comfort has made us lose sight of what is truly valuable in life, especially if you look at this from a religious perspective. Nowadays we value youth to the highest degree and as soon as we're in our 40's we're already depressed about "getting old." If you're an atheist who only believes in science and material comforts, well, life is pretty depressing. You have it good, physically speaking, and then you slowly deteriorate until you die. Along the way you try to work as hard as you can and accumulate as much wealth and consumer goods along the way, all of which will disappear when you lose consciousness and die. So, can you at least see why science and atheism might not be so highly revered if you're coming from a religious perspective? At least look at it from their point of view.

Also, why are you so busy defending freedom to choose a religion, when the vast majority do not? Most children will follow their parents religion, and most of those follow the religion predominant in their culture. What part of that is free choice? Seriously, I don't see why you care so much to write paragraph after paragraph for an argument I haven't even started, you've inferred it.

I'm busy defending religious freedom because we live in a liberal society that champions these rights, and you're a liberal that believes very much in individual rights...so if you're going to be against these rights in principle, I'll call you out on it. As far as children following their parents' religion, this is a poor argument for a few reasons. First of all, they have the freedom to raise their children religiously, since in our society we have the right to do so. This is what I'm defending. Second, they can stop believing any time. Third, if you look at it that way, we have no free choice at all. We get most of our beliefs from our parents (our opinions and values are either in accordance with or in reaction to those of our parents, meaning they were inevitably influenced by their parents, and this is something proven by the social sciences), this is an inevitable fact of life. Whether it is religious attitudes, political attitudes, our favorite sports teams, how many kids we want to have, what our overall outlook on life is...children are inevitably influenced by their parents. It doesn't mean we should single out religion and get rid of it, especially since such an attitude is a completely violation of our liberal principles, including "tolerance," what you were defending in the other thread.

Firstly, dark matter is simply a theory, we have no evidence to support it and it isn't considered in our current physical framework, we are searching for evidence to explain it since the energy in the universe doesn't add up, so there must be "hidden" energy which the hypothesis of dark energy attempts to explain. It is not fact until we gain evidence, if we disprove it we move onto new theory's.

Yep, I agree. We know very, very little about the universe.

Most of physicist's are still atheist or agnostic, the general consensus is that since we can't rule out divine creation, it's a possibility. But most tend to believe that it is a divine being that could be responsible, which I have never denied. However, most tend to move away from the contradictory fairy tale that is the bible.

The fact that the ones that study the nature of the universe yet are the most theistic out of all the sciences should say something...often times atheists use physics as a justification for their atheism, and I'm just pointing out that physicists are the most likely to believe in God out of all the disciplines of math and sciences.

Given the size of the universe, and other life will almost definitely have different religions to us, it helps disprove our current mainstream religions since the probability of them being true decreases proportionally to the new ones discovered. As I said earlier, 1/infinity tends towards zero, so the chances of Christianity being the "correct" religion are extremely slim.

Fair enough, but maybe the aliens on other planets believe in Christianity, did you ever think of that? Also, if there is no other life out there (and we haven't found it and more importantly, it hasn't found us), that would confirm the uniqueness of man and certainly make the possibility of religion much more likely. And if there did happen to be alien life out there and they had their own religions, that wouldn't necessarily disprove the existence of ours. God would obviously have to change his message for a different species and different planet, they same stuff wouldn't necessarily apply. Maybe the other alien species reproduces asexually and since they don't marry, God wouldn't have to talk to them about that. Of course the same idea could exist on earth, maybe God gave us the different religions so that different cultures could understand him and that for each culture he inspired their beliefs. He couldn't give all the cultures a one-size fits all religion because it wouldn't have worked. Now maybe I'm stepping out the realm of mainstream Christianity though (although the Catholic Church has accepted the belief that other religions have had God's word revealed to them), but I'm not trying to make a defense specifically for the validity of religion or any specific sect of Christianity. I'm just trying to point out that it's not as bad as most atheists make it out to be.

When did I claim to know more about the universe than leading physicists? Why must they have come visit us, how do we know they haven't visited us? Surely if it's possible for them to have advanced to a stage where they can travel through light years, then it's possible they can disguise themselves from being visible to detection?

Well you seemed to say that Science and physics disproves the possibility of God, but I'm just pointing out that since the leading physicists and astronomers claim that we know very little about the universe. So I don't think you can make such a claim.

It was the fact that you were using the fact that I study economic's to disprove the credibility of my argument's. Why would you randomly say an economist is trying to disprove God, it was clearly directed towards me since, as you stated in many paragraphs before, I was trying to disprove God. Your definition of economist is wrong, it can be anyone that study's or works in the field of economics. Technically someone in their first economics class is an economist, you'd just say "junior economist" if you wanted to differentiate. I don't see why you need to specialise in the term economist because they're "generally atheist", surely a better sentence would be "the atheist trying to disprove the existence of God"? But I find it amusing that you don't see why I wouldn't immediately assume you were referring to me.

No, I never did that. I used the example of an economist since economists are the most atheist out of the social sciences and the perfect example of Enlightenment liberal thought. You won't find a discipline that is based more on such principles...political science can be, but there are some Marxists out there (who also are Enlightenment thinkers, but they aren't liberals, and we seem to be talking a lot about liberal ideals here). It made perfect sense to refer to the economist in that scenario who claims to be atheist and understand the nature of the universe. I guess I consider myself an agnostic, because I don't think ultimately we can know these things.

Oh, and as far as the definition of economist, does that mean I'm a "junior scientist" since I've taken science classes? According to your definition, every child is a scientist, social scientist, mathematician, literary critic, etc. since they take these classes in school, just "junior" ones. Clearly, if someone says "the economist" they are referring to a professional economist. Why would you think it was you? You're in high school, right? So you study many different subjects. You're not any more an economist than a physicist or an historian if you take those classes. I don't even know what your subject interests are. It seems like economics is probably one of them, but for all I know, you're equally interested in political science based on your posts in the homosexuality thread. And in your last post you said you wanted to study physics. You could be a history buff for all I know. I don't know exactly where your interests lie, so I wouldn't think to think of you when I mentioned an economist.

Again, when have I claimed I know how the universe works? But again, this: " I don't mind telling a high schooler who has taken one physics class in his life that he doesn't know how it works." shows you were referring to me with the earlier quote.

Well, you said that the existence of God was a pretty much ludicrous idea, right? And that science proves it to be untrue? You brought up examples of physics in your arguments, and I simply am pointing out that we don't know much about the universe and that physicist, of all people, are actually more likely to believe in god than the members of any other discipline in math or science.

To end, you're atheist as you said a few times in the "Capitalism vs Socialism" thread. So I really don't have any idea why you insist on debating with me. As far as I can tell, I've been "taking their liberal rights". But tell me, what free thought has gone into a religious opinion? You're born into a family and follow the words from the Bible and live your life that way. That is how religion in most cultures work. If you truly had freedom to decide a religion, you wouldn't see such variances in popularity of religion, there would be a general trend for the world, not individual cultures. And why is it okay for religion to be an excuse for calling religion evil, when I'm pretty sure you want defend terrorism with "it's just their religion"? You can't pick and choose when your argument applies. Islam extremists just have the opinion that we should all be Islam converts, why aren't you out there defending their rights? So, you're either a hypocrite (which you accused me of constantly) or you support terrorism and hate preach.

I insist on debating with you for the reasons stated previously, part of it is boredom, part of it is wanting to represent other points of view, part of it is thinking you're too anti-religion, among other things. Also, I think I'm agnostic, but I don't really think about the label too much or even what I believe as far as that stuff goes. And "taking their liberal rights" was also an essential part of it. You are a liberal and were attacking Christianity for its "homophobia" in the name of "tolerance," yet seemed to be quite intolerant of Christianity. A lot of liberals think this way, and it bothers me because I think it's a contradiction.

As far as your freedom of thought argument goes, I already answered it a few paragraphs back, and anyway, a lot of people come into religion who didn't start out religious. Beliefs are passed down from one generation to another, and culture/religion falls into this category. You're an Englishman and that's your culture, you inevitably inherited the English culture as well as many of its beliefs, attitudes, way of looking at life, etc. Now of course that doesn't mean every English person thinks the same way, but there is something that is irreducibly 'English' about you. If you went to America, people would notice a difference, and if you went to Vietnam, people would definitely notice a difference (even if you became fluent in the language).

Does this mean you don't have free thought? Values, opinions, attitudes, religions, cultures, lots of things are passed down from generation, it doesn't mean that they were wrong. And again, "free thought" is overrated. I know a lot of people that don't exercise free thought in the sense that you want them to, and they are much happier than over-thinkers such as myself because of it. Ignorance is bliss, and I wish I could be one of the religious people who have accepted their faith without questioning it. Unfortunately I left my religion because of free thought, and I think I'm a much less happy person as a result of it. Enlightenment thinkers champion rationality so much that they would think this is a good thing because I'm "right," but I don't give a **** about being right or how "free" my thought is, I'd just prefer to be happy. Why is it so important that people know the "right" answer about God? Atheists seem bent on educating the general populace and ruining the belief systems, way of life, and societies that have been passed down from generations. I don't believe that Rationality is as important as these Enlightenment thinkers make it out to be, and I think religion fills some fundamental needs that pure Rationality doesn't, so I don't want to see religion stamped out in the name of Rationality.

And since I can see it coming, you can't tell me there's a difference between terrorism and homophobia. Both are quotes from their respective holy books, both are what those respective religions are acting on.

Of course there's a difference between terrorism and homophobia. Do you think there's no difference between not cheating on your wife and terrorism, since they both come from the same books? Believing that homosexual behavior is a sin since the Bible says so is much different than going out and killing people because that's what you think the Qur'an tells you to do. On to terrorism. First of all, it's silly to speak of "terrorism" as a monolithic concept. Every terrorist has his own objective and ideology that his terrorist act is based on. Many of them don't do it simply for "Islam," they do it because the nation in question is imperialist, forcing their values on their people, or because they don't like their materialistic lifestyle. These were the main reasons behind 9/11. Sure, religion was a part of it, but ultimately everyone is influenced by some ideology, and you can't blame the ideology for the people that follow it. You can't blame Marx for what Stalin did.

Terrorism is not unique to religion, nor is violence. People have killed in the name of many different things, whether it's religion, their nation, their people, etc. That doesn't mean that all of these things are bad just because a few individuals went and killed some people in their name. Homophobia is the same, why pick on Christianity for it? People in many cultures and societies have been homophobic, it seems to be a natural trait of humanity to fear and condemn that which is different. So don't pick on religion for it. This is common in these anti-religious tracts, they take all of these broad social ills that aren't necessarily caused by religion (they're either caused by other factors, such as politics, or are just an inherent part of human nature and human societies) and they blame it all on religion. It's such a simplistic way of looking at things. I might as well say that "parents" are bad because they're ultimately responsible for so many of society's ills. And since it is the Enlightenment thinkers who are so anti-religion, and they hold these values because of their undying faith in Rationality, I'll go ahead and call them out when they're not being rational.

 

[Matty]

I didn't believe in God, until at Wembley before we kicked off against Arsenal, i looked at the grey and gloomy London sky and said come on mate, we deserve this! Now... IM CONVINCED (H)

 

[Scott]

This Argument still going on.. Sigh., I left about 10 pages back, cause we are never going to agree, surely everyone else should do the same

 

[donkarlito]

Better to believe and be right than not believe and be wrong, It doesn't hurt to believe in god and it's a safer bet,

I still thats the best way to go about it believe in God

 

[Joel`]

we need more relatively intelligent people that can articulately defend it as a positive aspect of the human experience. From the few pages of the thread that I read, few could do so. We need more dissenting viewpoints that are well-thought out.

That is most definitely what religion needs.

As far as Bill Maher goes, the difference is he's a comedian. My take on him is that he's a funny *******, and he's entertaining (so his movie is a much different forum than ours). I saw the movie during the height of my atheism more or less, but even then, afterward I thought that he was being a douche for going around and trying to disprove their beliefs, and that he was incredibly arrogant for doing so...I mean who is he to act so smarter than everyone else, he's just some comedian? But the movie was very funny, nonetheless. I love the scene where he's talking to that "recovering gay guy" and basically makes passes at him. But as far as liberal rights go, he never said people shouldn't be allowed to hold those beliefs or discuss them in public, and your attitudes several times seemed to be anti-liberal: they can't preach hate, they can't "force their religion upon us," they must only practice it in private, we must be intolerant of intolerance, etc. Since you made these claims on grounds of tolerance, I thought I should put out these contradictions.

As I said, someone has to draw the line and say "No, this is unacceptable." Of course there's going to be contradictions and hypocrisy involved, but there needs to be a sense of morality. If we just said "How can you tell them not to do that, that's hypocritical!" We'd be going around in circles with very few laws and disorder. A murderer was just of the opinion someone didn't deserve the right to live, a Christian is of the opinion homosexuality is evil. Should we allow these things to be acceptable so we avoid hypocrisy or have a sense of morality?

Statements such as "religion is the biggest killer of all time" to me are ridiculous. Religion has been a part of every people in history until very recently, so of course you can somehow tie any war or violent act to religion. But that doesn't mean that religion inherently caused it. The crusades, for example, are events that atheists commonly bring up as proof of the inherent violence of religion, but really they were for political and economic reasons (most of the crusaders just wanted to loot these cities) and the crusaders used religion as a justification...you can't blame religion for that or say it was the cause. I would say people are the biggest killer of all time, but just because they've been "religious" for most of history doesn't mean that religion is the biggest killer of all time. Wars frequently come down to economic reasons, as well, does that mean that capitalism is the biggest killer of all time?

Yes capitalism will have caused wars, but I said religion was the biggestkiller of all time, which it is. Israel-Palestein is still going on right now due to religion, and there have been hundreds of Islam related wars in history. Religion is founded on principles of intolerance, of course it's going to create conflict.

Your other argument comes from science. "Religion is still the biggest killer of all time, religion did (and still does) stand in the way of scientific progress. Consider how different the world today would be if all scientist's were treated the way Galileo was." Religion no longer really stands in the way of scientific progress. The only example I can think of would be stem cell research, but this is minor when you think about science in the grand scheme of things. The same would go with the Galileo example. Sure, in that instance religion held back science, but this was a fairly isolated example and in general this wasn't the case. Or else we would still be in the Middle Ages, since atheism didn't get popular until relatively recently.

Just because the Church didn't always go as far as they did with Galileo, it still shows how scared they were of scientific advances. The Earth was still flat, the sun orbited us and the Earth was 6000 years old according to them.

Religion recognizes that people will simply be used to what they are brought up with. This is one reason why depression and suicide are so common in the OECD countries. Since we have it so good in so many regards (both materially and politically with our rights and all that), we should be jumping up and down for joy right? That we aren't that starving person in Africa with AIDS? But we're not because we're obviously used to what we have. I'm always shocked when I visit third world countries at how happy the people are even though they have nothing. And at how unhappy the wealthy people I grew up with were. Psychology has even started to prove this, if you want me to use a rational example (once your income passes 67,000 dollars in the US, there is no increase in well-being).

And how many in third world countries are actually aware of the alternative? It is amazing that they can be happy, but it's still a sorry state of affairs.

There's also the question of how science is used...religion is aware of how powerful our advances in technology can be and it doesn't trust mankind to use them. We are a reckless people that worship science and technology so much just for the sake of "progress" that we advance as quickly as possible but don't think of the proper use of these technologies. Our advancements in science, for example, have made us create a civilization that consumes so much that it is entirely ecologically unsustainable. And of course, science is the biggest killer of all time. When we developed the first tools we could develop better weapons to kill people. Metallurgy was a big step, and then of course gunpowder was a bigger step. Then you get mass production and industry that can produce so many weapons that we can kill millions of people. What about the science that we used to develop the gas chambers at Auschwitz? We also have enough nuclear weapons on this planet to destroy the world 12 times over. Did you see what I just did there? If you look at a huge concept of humanity such as "science" or "religion," we can easily list the ills and benefits it has given us. I think they both are good if used correctly, and I disagree with Enlightenment liberals such as yourself that worship Science and call religions evil.

Science too is aware of its flaws, though. It doesn't need religion to regulate it. Science just creates the tools, it never pulled the trigger on the gun. When people go to war for religious reasons though, and just use the creations of Science for bad, then they are pulling the trigger. And I also don't think humanity is stupid enough to kill ourselves with nukes. Every country that has them knows that they'd a) End the world as we know it. b) Kill themselves anyway. You can't even really protect yourself from nuclear warfare, it'd be suicidal.

And of course the most obvious point is that Christianity holds that you get eternal life when you die (depending on other things, such as being a good person). Any worldly progress is incredibly insignificant in comparison. Science has enabled us to live longer, more comfortable lives, prolonging our time on earth until the infinite goodness that is the afterlife...of course it's unimportant in the Christian perspective. And of course science and comfort has made us lose sight of what is truly valuable in life, especially if you look at this from a religious perspective. Nowadays we value youth to the highest degree and as soon as we're in our 40's we're already depressed about "getting old." If you're an atheist who only believes in science and material comforts, well, life is pretty depressing. You have it good, physically speaking, and then you slowly deteriorate until you die. Along the way you try to work as hard as you can and accumulate as much wealth and consumer goods along the way, all of which will disappear when you lose consciousness and die. So, can you at least see why science and atheism might not be so highly revered if you're coming from a religious perspective? At least look at it from their point of view.

It's their choice if they decide they're "getting old" in their 40's. It's not like a religious person can't be depressed about age either? And there's many psychological factors at play too. I know many atheists how are perfectly happy with life as they age, and religious people who value their youth as well too.

I'm busy defending religious freedom because we live in a liberal society that champions these rights, and you're a liberal that believes very much in individual rights...so if you're going to be against these rights in principle, I'll call you out on it. As far as children following their parents' religion, this is a poor argument for a few reasons. First of all, they have the freedom to raise their children religiously, since in our society we have the right to do so. This is what I'm defending. Second, they can stop believing any time. Third, if you look at it that way, we have no free choice at all. We get most of our beliefs from our parents (our opinions and values are either in accordance with or in reaction to those of our parents, meaning they were inevitably influenced by their parents, and this is something proven by the social sciences), this is an inevitable fact of life. Whether it is religious attitudes, political attitudes, our favorite sports teams, how many kids we want to have, what our overall outlook on life is...children are inevitably influenced by their parents. It doesn't mean we should single out religion and get rid of it, especially since such an attitude is a completely violation of our liberal principles, including "tolerance," what you were defending in the other thread.

Read above on tolerance. And it still isn't justification for religion spreading its dogma by brainwashing children. Everyone should be free of religious influence until they're old enough to make a decision. Religion is taught at a much earlier age than the scientific alternative is. Yes, we follow our parents habits, or some of them. But that doesn't excuse religion becoming the main feature of their life before they can decide. Yes, they can abandon it. But how many raised in a catholic family abandon their faith? Very few.

The fact that the ones that study the nature of the universe yet are the most theistic out of all the sciences should say something...often times atheists use physics as a justification for their atheism, and I'm just pointing out that physicists are the most likely to believe in God out of all the disciplines of math and sciences.

Key words being out of all the sciences. Science has a far lower theist rate than normal population, Physics is just slightly higher than the rest in that sense. Physicists also accept the possibility of a "divine being", we can't rule it out so it's possible. But we still have multiple theories garnering momentum to solve the mystery. String theory, multiverse theory, quantum gravity is thought to explain much too. Religion wouldn't attempt to answer the question, it's content with not knowing.

Just because some Physicists are religious proves little. It's still the minority of the group, and there's still a great deal of Physics and Science in general that contribute to "disproving" religion. Some Physicists accept the unknowing part could be God, others see the Physical evidence and dismiss general religion (But most will still accept the divine creator). The majority are still atheist, you can use it to contradict atheism, I can use it to support it.

Fair enough, but maybe the aliens on other planets believe in Christianity, did you ever think of that? Also, if there is no other life out there (and we haven't found it and more importantly, it hasn't found us), that would confirm the uniqueness of man and certainly make the possibility of religion much more likely. And if there did happen to be alien life out there and they had their own religions, that wouldn't necessarily disprove the existence of ours. God would obviously have to change his message for a different species and different planet, they same stuff wouldn't necessarily apply. Maybe the other alien species reproduces asexually and since they don't marry, God wouldn't have to talk to them about that. Of course the same idea could exist on earth, maybe God gave us the different religions so that different cultures could understand him and that for each culture he inspired their beliefs. He couldn't give all the cultures a one-size fits all religion because it wouldn't have worked. Now maybe I'm stepping out the realm of mainstream Christianity though (although the Catholic Church has accepted the belief that other religions have had God's word revealed to them), but I'm not trying to make a defense specifically for the validity of religion or any specific sect of Christianity. I'm just trying to point out that it's not as bad as most atheists make it out to be.

If aliens had the same religions then it would somewhat help the cause, but 1/infinity aren't great odds, are they? Why do we dismiss Ancient Egyptian, Greek religions etc. with such ease, when they're no different to mainstream ones? Even just taking into account Earth's past religious beliefs, the odds would be extremely slim.

Well you seemed to say that Science and physics disproves the possibility of God, but I'm just pointing out that since the leading physicists and astronomers claim that we know very little about the universe. So I don't think you can make such a claim.

Helps disprove religion. Carbon dating of the Earth, natural selection, proof that the Earth is round, that it orbits the sun etc. Are all direct contradictions of religion, no? I classify that as helping to disprove God, not sure what else it can be when you prove something isn't true.

Well, you said that the existence of God was a pretty much ludicrous idea, right? And that science proves it to be untrue? You brought up examples of physics in your arguments, and I simply am pointing out that we don't know much about the universe and that physicist, of all people, are actually more likely to believe in god than the members of any other discipline in math or science.

But they're still less likely to believe than the general public. So, as they discover Science their belief reduces. That's what the stats suggest, yes?

Does this mean you don't have free thought? Values, opinions, attitudes, religions, cultures, lots of things are passed down from generation, it doesn't mean that they were wrong. And again, "free thought" is overrated. I know a lot of people that don't exercise free thought in the sense that you want them to, and they are much happier than over-thinkers such as myself because of it. Ignorance is bliss, and I wish I could be one of the religious people who have accepted their faith without questioning it. Unfortunately I left my religion because of free thought, and I think I'm a much less happy person as a result of it. Enlightenment thinkers champion rationality so much that they would think this is a good thing because I'm "right," but I don't give a **** about being right or how "free" my thought is, I'd just prefer to be happy. Why is it so important that people know the "right" answer about God? Atheists seem bent on educating the general populace and ruining the belief systems, way of life, and societies that have been passed down from generations. I don't believe that Rationality is as important as these Enlightenment thinkers make it out to be, and I think religion fills some fundamental needs that pure Rationality doesn't, so I don't want to see religion stamped out in the name of Rationality.

Indeed, ignorance is bliss. But unfortunately I, and many others won't be satisfied with just accepting it and doing as the Church wants. Perhaps it is a character flaw to not be able to "just have faith", but I see it as the opposite. I don't believe I'm less happy being atheist than I would be Christian. People may wish they were Christian, but I'm sure there are Catholics that wish they weren't in religious culture either. It goes both ways.

Of course there's a difference between terrorism and homophobia. Do you think there's no difference between not cheating on your wife and terrorism, since they both come from the same books? Believing that homosexual behavior is a sin since the Bible says so is much different than going out and killing people because that's what you think the Qur'an tells you to do. On to terrorism. First of all, it's silly to speak of "terrorism" as a monolithic concept. Every terrorist has his own objective and ideology that his terrorist act is based on. Many of them don't do it simply for "Islam," they do it because the nation in question is imperialist, forcing their values on their people, or because they don't like their materialistic lifestyle. These were the main reasons behind 9/11. Sure, religion was a part of it, but ultimately everyone is influenced by some ideology, and you can't blame the ideology for the people that follow it. You can't blame Marx for what Stalin did.

Terrorism is not unique to religion, nor is violence. People have killed in the name of many different things, whether it's religion, their nation, their people, etc. That doesn't mean that all of these things are bad just because a few individuals went and killed some people in their name. Homophobia is the same, why pick on Christianity for it? People in many cultures and societies have been homophobic, it seems to be a natural trait of humanity to fear and condemn that which is different. So don't pick on religion for it. This is common in these anti-religious tracts, they take all of these broad social ills that aren't necessarily caused by religion (they're either caused by other factors, such as politics, or are just an inherent part of human nature and human societies) and they blame it all on religion. It's such a simplistic way of looking at things. I might as well say that "parents" are bad because they're ultimately responsible for so many of society's ills. And since it is the Enlightenment thinkers who are so anti-religion, and they hold these values because of their undying faith in Rationality, I'll go ahead and call them out when they're not being rational.

I'm not saying they are the same or that there aren't other motivations. But if the book says homosexuality is wrong, and you defend the religious persons right to think this because of their religion. Then surely a book with quotes such as:
"Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, harass them, lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war." - Qur'an:9:88
"Fight them until all opposition ends and all submit to Allah." - Qur'an:8:39
"Fight the unbelievers around you, and let them find harshness in you." Qur'an:9:123

Surely if you defend their right to be homophobic because their religion says that, then you should also be defending Islam extremists acting on these quotes from the book? Just because terrorism and homosexuality are different causes, how can you say religion is an acceptable excuse for one and not the other?