The things they do in the name of religion

[shinRaiden]

I am so not a math major. I had a secondary process of confirmation that was bogus. I ended up getting 1000000010, because my process of evaluation was flawed.

That don't mean that 10 * 10 does not = 100, nor is math bad either. It means I got to confirm my stuff better.

Same with religion. Most of the alleged inconsitencies are actually misunderstandings based on false assumptions inserted after the fact, like the whole gnostic tradtion of patching things together, which by the way is mirrored in east asian religion's adoption / insertion of christianity.

[Baron Hurlothrumbo IIX]

Quote[/b] ]We get all our information from the world from our senses

With religion, it is commonly believed that there are more senses than are currently scientifically evaluatable.

..But until that has any evidence at all, believing that is not reasonable/ not a sensible thign to do.

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My understanding is that the material recorded post-eden starts from ~6000 years before now. The creation I believe was 7 phases / epochs of unknown duration.

Which, as I already said, are in the wrong order anyway. The light did not come before the stars, for example, and the order for animals and plants are wrong also. You may find it discomforting but the simple fact remains that it did not happen as related in that book.

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The biggest block on this is the difficulties of translation and interprtation. I believe that you can only understand a passage if you have a measure of the same spirit in which it was given. Basiclly, if you believe God said it, but you don't understand it, ask Him and He'll explain it. That's only for personal application though...

....Well, you've convinced me
Might I possibly ask how someone might tell the difference between your method and.. say... a delusional person talking to themselves?

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Again, I have a unique opinion of faith, that faith is not the blind belief in unsubstaniated theories, but rather the willingness to accept, believe, and act on what I have experienced.

... Also known as blind belief in your own unsubstantiated theories.

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Now those experiences are not externally confirmable via known scientific methods, but that does not make those experiences any less real to me.

Well, if you were intellectually honest, they should. They certainly do not appear real to anyone else. If you are having hallucinations, then maybe you might want to see a doctor.

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@barron:

I'd also echo speedydonkey, and thank nearly everyone for discussing this in a civil fashion. While I may view my own personal deep inner beliefs as radical fundamentalist from the macroview, those are my beliefs - independent from yours Baron. I choose my beliefs, and attacks on that are deliberate insults to my life's experiences, of which you are totally ignorant.

I am sorry if the truth hurts. However, like the man who is convinced he is Napoleon Bonaparte, the sooner you see your own problems the quicker you will get better. I do not mean to make you feel bad, simply for you to think in a manner consistent with reality.

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While I believe your time would so much more effectively be spent 'helping' me with my alleged incapacities, the inhumanity of your demagogery is discouraging at best. The choice though ultimately is yours.

I am trying to help you. You are not cooperating.

[Veovis]

Quote[/b] ]I am trying to help you. ***You are not cooperating.

You are trying to help him, eh? Telling people they are delusional, have false beliefs, and have lost all touch with reality is usually not the best way to go about that. Your sarcastic tone makes an intelligent discussion almost impossible, but telling somebody they are a dumb fool because of something that makes them happy, that you can obviously not comprehend, is crossing the line. What would make you so hateful as to do that?

Quote[/b] ]..But until that has any evidence at all, believing that is not reasonable/ not a sensible thign to do.

whisperFF06, myself, and a few others here have tried to explain this to you. Religion is not there to prove anything. Saying it isn't sensible to fill a mental/spiritual hole in somebody's life is ridiculous. Spirituality cannot possibly be explained scientifically, so according to you that is irrational? If you find evidence necessary to explain religion, you won't ever get it, because that's not what it is about. If you are happy without it, good for you. That doesn't mean a religious person is an ignorant moron. There are things that are intangible, and not provable. If you want to argue proof and fact, find somebody who believes the bible is just that. It's a waste of everybody's time to put facts up against things intangible (souls, God, heaven, etc.) There are many of us who accept both science and religion.

[Albert Schweitzer]

veovis. welcome to our board. You will see not every thread is as explosive as this one. But according to your style of argumentation I am sure you gonna enjoy it. But I guess you have already seen most threads yourself and you are very well able to judge yourself. I am just happy we also get new members, most of us are dusty heads here and we are just repeating what we already said here months and years ago. Or as Karl Valentin put it: "everything has already been said, just not by everyone"

[brgnorway]

veovis. welcome to our board. You will see not every thread is as explosive as this one. But according to your style of argumentation I am sure you gonna enjoy it. But I guess you have already seen most threads yourself and you are very well able to judge yourself. I am just happy we also get new members, most of us are dusty heads here and we are just repeating what we already said here months and years ago. Or as Karl Valentin put it: "everything has already been said, just not by everyone"

Damnit Albert! - That's good manners. You are undoubtedly the most well mannered and polite of us all!

[denoir]

Quote[/b] ]We get all our information from the world from our senses

With religion, it is commonly believed that there are more senses than are currently scientifically evaluatable.

Fair enough. Science certainly does not eliminate that possibility. It is however far from being the case that it is accepted as a scientific truth. It is a theory yet to be proven, meaning from a scientific point of view that you cannot build additional theories on it.

This is of course, assuming that you define those senses in a way that they do not contradict current scientific models. If they do, then you have some serious job ahead of you as you'll have to demolish most of physics to get them to fit. An example of that: IIRC the Quran states that god communicates with people through spirits that travel at the speed of light. I won't go into details but sufficient to say is that if you want to comply with existing principles in physics, such a god would not be very useful due to the lag in communications

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Quote[/b] ]The bible says that the earth is 6,000 years old

My understanding is that the material recorded post-eden starts from ~6000 years before now. The creation I believe was 7 phases / epochs of unknown duration.

Ok, let me put it like this: When I was in China a couple of years ago, I held in my hands a vase that is older than that. And sorry, there was no "Made in Eden" label on it

We have archeological findings, including human remains that are far older than 6,000 years.

The creationist usually counter this by saying that carbon dating is based on the flawed assumption that decay rates are constant over time. It only shows however that their knowledge of physics is very limited. Had decay rates not been constant, the universe would be looking a whole lot different than it looks today and it would produce some very observable and measurable effects.

The literal creationist theory is today only advocated by more or less fundamentalist christian groups. For instance the Catholic church has accepted evolution and said that it is fully reconcilable with the Bible. In short they use the "not to be read literally explanation. So they mean when the Bible says that he made Adam out of clay that it is just a metaphorical description. Kind of ironic coming from an organization that used to kill people for saying that the earth is round. But that only points to the good fact that religion is adapting to the changing perception of reality induced by science. It does however put a dent on the ambition of religion to be eternal and absolute.

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Quote[/b] ]Saying that the religious text isn't supposed to be read literally and that it's impossible to exactly say what the text meant

The biggest block on this is the difficulties of translation and interprtation. I believe that you can only understand a passage if you have a measure of the same spirit in which it was given. Basiclly, if you believe God said it, but you don't understand it, ask Him and He'll explain it. That's only for personal application though...

Could you explain to me how that exactly works? How do you ask your question and how do you recieve your answer?

Ok, if we assume for a second that you are actually talking to another entity rather than psychologically going through a process of understanding yourself and your wishes ŕ la Zen. How do you know that the entity is god? How do you know that there is only one entity? How do you know, without any external validation that the thing you are talking to is doing what is in your best interest?

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Quote[/b] ]the following of authority, without critical evaluation

Here, I view two types of 'authority': 1) is authorization to act for and on behalf of a religious organization in the authorized capacity, and 2) the self-manifest 'omnipotent' 'authority' assigned to God.

3) Religious texts. I think that they are your set of axioms. You are taught about god throgh those texts or interpretations of those texts. You have however no way of evaluating the accuracy of those texts or knowing the source. You have to take a leap of faith to accept the Bible/Quran/whatever as the ultimate truth, without having any possibility of determining if that is the case or not. While "leap of faith" might sound like a positve term, in the domain of science it's not. A leap of faith is required to believe that Earth is controlled by the Smurfs, but I don't think you would categorize such a leap as positive

Bottom line is that you have a plethora of religions to choose between - all of them claiming to have the ultimate truth and demand of you to believe in it without any feedback. Usually which religion you end up with depends on where you are born. If you are born in a muslim family, the chances of you becoming a hindu are slim indeed. This again puts the ambition of absoluteness into question. If there is an absolute god, a right religion etc, how come that religion is so dependant on geographical, social and historical context?

What science, as opposed to religion gives is a universality. Regardless where you are born and under which social conditions etc, you can easily verify existing physical models. So we have a christian following his dogma saying that earth is 6,000 years old. Then we have a Hindu who says that the earth is 4 million years old (I'm not sure what hinduism says; this is just an example). They both refer to their holy texts that are the absolute truth according to them. An agreement is hardly reachable. If they on the other hand both use radioctive dating, they'll get the same result. They can follow the deduction line to why it has to be correct. They don't need any advanced assumptions. So, tell me, which is more universal?

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Quote[/b] ]It requires 100% blind faith in the issuing authority

Again, I have a unique opinion of faith, that faith is not the blind belief in unsubstaniated theories, but rather the willingness to accept, believe, and act on what I have experienced. Now those experiences are not externally confirmable via known scientific methods, but that does not make those experiences any less real to me.

Experiences and self-introspection are all important, but they should not be confused with factual general reality. While you can draw the conclusions for yourself, you can't claim that they are valid for everybody just based on your experience. A collective model has to be built from collective experiences and observations. So you personally "talking to god" cannot be used as a validation for the claims made in the Bible etc

[Major Fubar]

As a point of interest, I notice that a lot of people seem to equate religion = Christianity.

I would just like to point out that Christianity is neither the most widely spread nor the oldest established religion in the world.

[Albert Schweitzer]

dito, and the bible itself is not my personal base of belief! The funny thing is that science SO FAR is incapable to proof that there IS NO SUCH THING AS GOD. And I thought science is deductive!!!

[Veovis]

Thanks for the welcome, Albert. I've had OFP since 2001 but never came to these boards until a few months ago.

Quote[/b] ]As a point of interest, I notice that a lot of people seem to equate religion = Christianity.

My only experience with religion is Christianity, so I didn't want to use examples from other religions that I know very little about. It certainly does seem that people making religion = Christianity, but that's probably because (I would guess) that is the religion most of the members of this board know best. It is somewhat ironic, since this post started with a disagreement between Islam and atheism.

[Baron Hurlothrumbo IIX]

You are trying to help him, eh? Telling people they are delusional, have false beliefs, and have lost all touch with reality is usually not the best way to go about that.

How would you tell someone who is convinced his underpants are inhabited by gnomes that they are not?
Answer, please.

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{Ad hominem Attacks: Snip}

whisperFF06, myself, and a few others here have tried to explain this to you. Religion is not there to prove anything. Saying it isn't sensible to fill a mental/spiritual hole in somebody's life is ridiculous.

No it isn't.
It is not sensible at all. There is absolutely no reason to do so = it is not sensible.
There is no reason to set your head on fire; doing so is not sensible.

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Spirituality cannot possibly be explained scientifically, so according to you that is irrational?

According to reality it is delusional. And it can be explained scientifically: People delude themselves about what they would like to be true, long and short of it.

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If you find evidence necessary to explain religion, you won't ever get it, because that's not what it is about.

How handy for it. One might suggest that is because it does not exist/ has false conclusions.

As I said before, give me an example of something you need religion to find out. Something that actually exists outside of people's heads.

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If you are happy without it, good for you. That doesn't mean a religious person is an ignorant moron.

...In your opinion.... In my opinion, someone who believes something with so much evidence against it and no evidence for it is, at the very least, delusional.

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There are things that are intangible, and not provable.

No there aren't. Name one.

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If you want to argue proof and fact, find somebody who believes the bible is just that. It's a waste of everybody's time to put facts up against things intangible (souls, God, heaven, etc.) There are many of us who accept both science and religion.

Perhaps I wasn't taking exception to those who leave their wacky ideas behind when involved in science? Although there are not many who can do that...