TheMaker

Man, I hope this is true. I could use a live Wilco fix.

It is a collaboration over thousands of years. You're looking for cohesion. I think that is one of the great values of it; that the corners aren't rounded, that it's not reworked to all fit together; then you'd have something else to complain about it.

You think the utter lack of cohesion which characterizes the inerrant word of god is a great value? Could you explain that? Because where the deluded faithful see the hand of god informing these books, a rational appraisal reveals only the clumsy hand of man, busily pulling the wool over the eyes of his fellow men. You can find wisdom in folk tales, but good luck finding truth.

2. You have pulled the word "obfuscates" out of your ass so many times, your hemorrhoids must be flaming.

Fun zinger, but I've illustrated the fabrications and contradictions of religion many times over in the course of this discussion (as well as the other). Rather than continue to cite scripture like a zealot might do, I've simply resorted to using a kind of argumentative shorthand to further my points. Since nobody has bothered to address the many internal inconsistencies of the bible, or the tremendous literary debt it owes to earlier religious texts, or indeed its own ultimately muddled assertions, I assumed that nobody would have a problem with this.

3. All of your comments here are just attacks and opinions; pretty weak stuff even by your own standards.

A demonstrably false charge. Kindly re-read the thread, folks.

You claim the pentateuch is pure fiction, you are indeed calling Jews and Muslims a work of fiction as well, since they link their histories to these events. Jews acknowledge this history, even if they do not claim to be of the faith.

It's entirely possible that they do so for traditional and political reasons. Very few Jews remain in the world today - something like 13 million, I think - and the founding of the modern state of Israel was at least partly rooted in biblical claims. Surely you're able to draw a straight line between two dots. Tradition casts a heavy spell over people (hell, it's the only reason religion still exists). I continued to celebrate Christmas, for instance, until my last remaining grandparent died. Old Neon celebrates it to this day.

I'm not denying the existence of Jews and Muslims simply because I deny their religion's truth claims. For any part of the bible is to be considered an unembellished account, it must be able to stand up to the same scrutiny as any other historical document. Exodus, for instance, is most assuredly a fairy tale. Even apologists seem unable to agree on when the trek took place. 1200 BCE? 1600 BCE? For the whiff of truth to even cling to the Old Testament, we have to assume that the Israelites were Hyskos, and even then there is no evidence whatsoever to support the idea of the Jews being enslaved in Egypt.

(I'm half-sure somebody will come along and charge me being an anti-semite now, so fuck you in advance.)

4. Much of the arguments and attempts at conversation on this meandering thread have sought to deal with the human angle of all of this. But you dispose of that completely, constantly.

Do I? I could be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure the historical record, scientific advancement and the role of man in the universe are all distinctly rooted in "the human angle." What you really mean to say, One Wing, is that people don't like it when I point out how wrongheaded and empty their beliefs truly are. You're desperate to anchor this conversation in philosophy, but it simply cannot be done. The very simple fact of the matter is that, in addition to their many absurd metaphysical claims, the world's religions make explicit real-world truth claims that can either be discarded due to a lack of evidence or else debunked completely.

All you have are bitter attacks, blathering to reinforce whatever confidence you find in pursuing people who have frankly gotten sick of you

If they've gotten sick of me, they can simply exit the conversation at their earliest convenience. I'm hardly going to send them mean letters in the mail if they disappear on me.

You pretend to have some obligation to set us all straight.

I feel an obligation to shatter the world's religious shackles, since it's my position that they have held it in check for too long a time.

Even when you say you've had enough, that people are putting upon you to address their responses, you have some need to bring your misery upon others. It is very hard not to dismiss your rants and attacks as bitterness

Is that so? In a discussion in which I've been subjected to more ad hominem attacks than any other single contributor? In a discussion in which my opponents have had the temerity to repeatedly suggest that I harbour secret religious aspirations because I utter epithets and sayings like "Jesus fucking Christ" and "I swear to god?" I'm not one for sprawling internet discussions, believe it or not, but when somebody attempts to score the last word via a ridiculously stupid broadside, a part of me refuses to allow it.

you certainly allude that you've spurned faith(s) in the past -- or vice versa. There is a pride in some of your comments, of being one who is antisocial, of outside of the fray -- above, I'm sure you're convinced -- or misunderstood and at odds against a world that just doesn't see you in your own light. A darkness that will find an end in some bizarre, disjointed way that those around you will never understand.

 

There's the fear -- or maybe dread, or just cold understanding -- that you are TheMaker of your own intellectual hell. The two best conclusions for all concerned are 1) get help, or 2) keep your darkness to yourself. Despite some fascinating discource throughout these pages, I'm through with it, and through with you.

This is pure, laughable conjecture. Nicely written, though.

Cheers, One Wing.

"Hate It Here" in freaking Wal-Mart.

Word.

Any studies of Darwin, regardless of the time over which they took are still a posteriori. Yes it changed size. The why is conjecture that's based upon fact. It's still an assumption that can be as much "common sense" that is reinforced by the happenstance of the one recording the change. Maybe the freakin birds were raised next to a berry tree and they just ate like pigs?

You're really kicking against evolution here. Nothing you say is categorically false, but it's pretty harried and definitely feels like it's radiating suspicion. It also feels like you're playing devil's advocate, so I'm not going to bend over backwards in an effort to steer this conversation into an unflattering (for everybody) debate about the reality of evolution.

Man is an example in some respects of natural selection in reverse. Our ancestors are becoming, fatter, lazier with shorter attention spans, various illnesses from bad diets, inbred illnesses based on how we poison our environment.

Bingo. In short, we're spoiled, lazy assholes. I certainly won't disagree with this.

Maybe Bog and Jebus will save us...?

I think that was part of my point. The point is we would still arrive at the same place.

Indeed. And the point, actually, is that atheists have no need of the god delusion to get us there. I would much rather die defending a worldview that seems logical on its face than die defending an unprovable delusion. The atheist is less likely to die for his worldview at the hands of a Sunni Muslim than the Shi'a Muslim for his beliefs. Nor is the atheist as prone to kill in the name of any god as those who believe in such things.

I'll call it a win for the atheists. Feel free to disagree.

You find what's true and what's not by constantly testing them. "The world is flat." "Blacks are inferior." It is the same as any academic study. You balance your theories on the work of others, and hope to expand upon it, but if you build your career's work on studies that are misproven, aren't you up the same shit's creek? Your literate search is still the opinions and views, which you choose to espouse or condemn. Same with a faith-based search.

The problem is that faith has yielded a very precise number of testable theories and satisfactory answers to Life's Big Questions:

Zero.

Faith is often too busy pounding the square pegs of science into religion's round hole to bother attempting new answers, let alone new questions. Religion is limited in scope by design, because everything must somehow jive with the god delusion as it was established many centuries ago, even if it means gently annotating faith to allow it to better adapt to the real world as we understand it today. This is dithering. This is apologetics. This is pointless. The razor of Ockham diced religion to shreds long ago. In spite of telling the faithful to simply discard it as a massively flawed theory, the religious instead turn a blind eye to their own rational instinct and cling fast to the security blanket that is Christianity, Islam, et al.

It's tragic. It's dishonest, it's a waste of resources, and whether you like it or not, the end of faith is all but guaranteed on a long enough timeline. I just wish it'd hurry the fuck up and get here, already.

i've completely fucking lost interest in discussing this with you. congratulations - you fucking wore me out. i guess that means you fucking win. or something.

Sayonara' date=' pal. The record will address the fact that you've presented zero evidence of your own and recognized none of mine. I won't call this a win; it simply is one.

Next?

The bible is a history of a people. It is an amazing collaboration over thousands of years.

Well, you're half-right. Given its utter lack of cohesion, its blatantly shifty characterizations, and its largely impenetrable morality, the bible is self-evidently a collaboration, but it's far from amazing.

Great literary explorations, it is everything from history, to theology, to political science and law, allegory, poetry, even a cookbook. It was an oral history, contributions by thousands of writers, when you think about it.

The bible falls well short of being great literature, in my opinion. There are no overarching themes, its hero advertises himself as being perfect rather than flawed, and on and on. Granted, it explores a great many things, some more successfully than others.

Each "book" has its history, it's social and political reasons for being. One passage does not condemn nor prove the entire book. You can't grind the thing up, pour it into a test tube and heat it over a bunson burner and derive a verdict from litmus paper. I'm not saying you believe any of it, any more than you can the Wizard of Oz. There is a degree of the man behind the curtain in everything. But you can't say it's all a lie because, in fact, there is proven history in it. The first five books of the old testiment are laws in which people lived under. To call them lies is to claim the people didn't exist. You should know better.

And so should you by now, my dithering friend. "To call them lies is to claim the people didn't exist?" That's really quite a stretch. (Did you hear that? Just now? I think something snapped.) "One nation, under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." I can find at least four things wrong with that statement off the top of my head, but denying it is in no way tantamount to denying the existence of the United States of America. Many laws are rooted in fallacies. Remember when black people weren't legally human, even though corporations were (and still are), under U.S. law? Fun times, those.

What you've written here is simply more covering fire reported for the benefit of the bible. First of all, we can reasonably conclude that almost none of the individual pseudo-historical figures of the Old Testament ever existed, simply because of the overwhelming lack of corroborating evidence that might lend credence to such claims. We can also reasonably conclude that the New Testament contains a number of exciting cameos (!!!) by actual historical figures (Pilate, Philo Judaes, etc), and we are able conclude this based entirely on corroborating historical evidence that points to the extreme likelihood of their existence.

However, it is incredibly difficult to find truth - not value, mind you, and not merely concessions to the historical record - in a text which so heavily obfuscates its own message. While it's true that corroborating evidence does exist to reinforce certain historical aspects of the bible, from geography to empire and so forth, no evidence exists to suggest that the bible is significantly different from any other work of historical fiction. Given the shockingly local scope of the bible, as evidenced by its only vague physical understanding of the region in which it takes place, it hardly stands up to secular resources as far as historians are concerned. What mainly separates it are its fantastic unique claims (all of which lack fantastic evidence) and the tendency of its followers to take it at its word, however muddled that word might be. Scratch at the bible's surface and what do you see? Folk tales. There is historicity, but should that not be expected from a text that has been positioned as the inerrant word of god? For a cult to recruit followers, it must be accessible, after all. Still - folk tales. Recaptures of pagan mythology. Tips of the hat to the religions it basically swipes from, Greek and Roman alike. Jesus is the "lamb of god." Hey, neat! Just like Krishna, word for fuckin' word.

The bible is tripe.

P.S., Jesus murders like four people in the New Testament. He wasn't without sin.

Holy christ, how is that "evidence?" I really, really, really want you to attempt an explanation. Could you do that for me? Because it's not evidence.

what is your evidence to support your claim that science will eventually answer all our questions?

First of all, I introduced this statement by clearly stating that it was my opinion, not anything remotely like a deeply held belief. I later clarified my position further, stating that I had no vested interest in my best guess (that you requested, I might add; I sure didn't feel any pressing need to volunteer it), and that I wouldn't feel slighted if it were eventually proven false.

But to answer your question, my evidence is Newton. My evidence is LaPlace. My evidence is Einstein. My evidence is NASA. My evidence is the fucking fact that the sum of all human knowledge happens to be multiplying at a truly incredible rate. What could we explain two thousand years ago? Jack fucking shit. What can we explain now? A ton of shit.

You're trying to get me to admit that my position is a "belief." Even if it were (and it is not), at least it's one that holds up to the scientific standard. It's rooted in observation. It weighs evidence. It makes predictions.

Your god delusion does none of that. And I'm truly fucking sorry for you.

That's more of the "what." What enables them to change. After-the-fact musings.

It's not more of the "what," and it's hardly an after-the-fact musing to conclude that Darwin's Finches changed several times in body size and in two beak traits over a 30-year period in order to better adapt to their environment.

What did they do?

They changed several times in body size and in two beak traits over a 30-year period!

Why did they do it?

To better adapt to their environment!

It's practically a union chant, for fuck's sake! What you're after is a philosophical "why," and no clear-headed individual can reasonably expect biology to explain something like that.

It doesn't answer why evolution has been equipped in organisms which causes them to survive.

Neither does the god delusion. The best it can offer is a fantasy scenario involving god's will, man's work, ascension, life after death, and other circular pseudo-answers that resolve absolutely nothing at all. Evolution is a dent in this particular Big Question. It is a far, far bigger dent than the small scratch made two thousand years ago by the joke that is Christianity.

It doesn't explain why natural selection causes some things to adapt and other things to die (don't tell me it's the organism's own choice, or perhaps belief in a zoo in the sky). There is theories but no proof.

And yet it remains a cornerstone of modern biology. How wonderful! Goddamn you, science. Goddamn you all to hell.

Natural selection varies from organism to organism, as does pretty much everything. Please correct me if I'm mistaken, but it almost feels like you're ready to debate evolution on philosophical grounds, and that worries me a great deal. Not least because natural selection is an antecedent to breeding animals and encouraging certain natural genetic traits, which is something we've been able to observe for quite a number of years. Nor am I concerned because Darwinian evolution has actually been observed in nature during painstaking studies (refer if necessary to my earlier example of Darwin's Finches). The reason I'm concerned is that you seem to be placing a finer argumentative point on philosophy than physics. In no way am I attempting to undercut the importance of philosophy, mind you, but I think it's slightly absurd to suggest that proven discoveries are not at least as important as The Big Questions which tend to precede them.

Has man yet tried to harness the zoological and biological nature of natural selection in order to protect those endangered, or to enhance those who have benefit in our eyes? Play God, in other words.

Yes, yes, an expression derived from centuries of Christian influence. We get it, thanks. Jesus Christ (LOL did u see wut i sed... jus now... i muss B a kriss-jin yall).

And yes, we see what Darwin referred to as "artificial design" in microbiology and genetics all the time. Could our resources be better focused? Probably, yeah. We sure don't use it to preserve threatened species like we ought to.

I think that's heifer dust. No one is asking you to give a substitute. In pretty much most cases, no one is asking "atheism" to address metaphysical concerns.

Reserving that for Darwinism, are you?

(Fuck, man. I actually felt bad about that zinger. Sorry!)

You say religions are lies, claim you prove them again and again -- you in fact cite occam's razor, which is a principle (an heuristic maxim -- see I know Latin too!) that addresses science, economics rather than a theological discussion -- but then say it is not your job to show this proof, nor are you under any obligation. Who is running in circles here?

Actually, I've claimed repeatedly that it's impossible to prove a negative, but it's perfectly reasonable to mount a case against fantastic claims which sorely lack fantastic evidence.

Once again, religion makes physical truth claims as well as metaphysical ones. Religion intrudes on the secular world far more often, and with greater aplomb, than vice versa. We can present evidence that contradicts the sweeping claims made by religion. We needn't leave the secular world in order to discredit Christianity or Islam or any of the rest.

One other thing, while you're our self-appointed inquisitor, philosophical savior, and, sporactically, a self pronounced martyr, I note this:

Oh, look. Somebody who is pro-faith, and he's ascribing religious tags to me. This is the... seventh time this has happened? Maybe the sixth. I've lost track, honestly. Do you people ever tire of this juvenile bullshit? Yes? No? Maybe fuckin' so? Please stop dragging me down to the level of your myths. I ain't your fuckin' preacher. I ain't your fuckin' Pope. I ain't your fuckin' Daddy God-God. I don't have any interest in personally replacing these idiotic things. I don't wish to replace them with science. I don't wish to replace them with anything. I simply wish to utterly discredit and destroy them, and I wish to do so because they are false and unnecessary. Can you people honestly not fucking process this? Jesus Christ.

P.S., "Inquisitor" fits, I guess. Feel free!

I didn't see anyone appoint you with this role, so it's self-designated. But if you address (attack) only selected aspects of what people are saying you are being as disingenuous and pandering as you accuse the "flock" of being.

Right. As you can see, I've redoubled my efforts to respond to these threads as comprehensively as I can reasonably be expected to do. Happy now? Then let's keep this shit rolling. Why not?

Umm... what?

No idea, dude. Life's too short to deal with certain stupid comments, though. I'm outta here for the night.

[everything]

I don't think it'll surprise anybody that I like the way you think' date=' but man, I especially like the way you write. Your zeal certainly wasn't lost on me!

O.K. Here it is again. "Many", "some" ... one proves all. The exception proves the rule, according to you.

First of all, allow me to introduce myself: I'm TheMaker. I tend to say what I mean in a pretty blunt fashion. Some people go out of their way to chime in about what a "real piece of work" I am. If I were attempting to portray an entire religion's subscribers as stunned cunts, believe me, I would have said "most" or "all" without hesitation.

Did you not catch the part where I went out of my way to mention that most Christians are decent folks who are not prone to disagreeable acts of scientific bullying, violence, and so on? And that my problem with their beliefs lies not with their behaviour, but rather with the belief itself? The destructive aspect of religion is not why I am principally opposed to it. Pretty sure I've gone over this several times. I have no need to suggest that all Christians are a backwards lot in order to discredit their spiritual beliefs, and I don't believe I have ever attempted this kind of spin.

That's a funny graph. You do realize that the greatest recent advancement of Christianity has been in Asia, the Middle East and South America -- at a rate that is staggering by any other faith standards. I don't intend that as marketing, my point is that it is expanding in inhospitable places, not because of missionaries, but because it is spreading within societies based on shared and developing beliefs.

Then they must be true! Or perhaps just coercive in some way. Hey, I don't really remember: is this the first time the West has had a massive, even disruptive, cultural influence on the east? (Yeah, I'm being a sarcastic douche. But hey, I rest my case.)

And it's not happening because someone is using the religion as opiate for the masses or a status or process for comfort and advancement in society. In fact people are dying for their beliefs, tortured, ostracized, branded, starved, beaten. I think you belittle their belief structure by grouping all religion into some lie. Oh the stamina and heart and S-O-U-L of the self-deceived.

While it goes without saying that anybody should be tortured for holding any belief, however nonsensical it might be, is unspeakable, their suffering lends no credence to their beliefs whatsoever. Their religion is a lie, and I am belittling their belief structure even as I oppose their inhuman suffering. I'm a lot of things, but I'm no brute.

Are you willing to die for your beliefs? Frankly, in surprising many societies, despite the advancement of mankind, you and I both could be in grave danger for debating our beliefs here.

You're absolutely right, and it must be noted that most of those societies are theocratic, and yes, unequivocally, I would absolutely die for my right to deny the existence of god before I would ever utter a single prayer. I'd die a thousand times, if such a thing were possible.

And the real kicker, One Wing, is that the strength of my convictions has nothing to do with the validity of any of them. That's a bitter pill for any of us to have to swallah', ain't it?

On another point here, you attempt to simultaneously condemn those who refuse to grow in their beliefs and condemn those who continue to explore and question their values and beliefs. You can't adhere to your beliefs so long as their are based in some creator-based faith;

If your assertion is true, then it's also conditional. First of all, "exploring and questioning" a lie is ultimately pretty useless, don't you think? Instead of continually revising the world's religions as they become ever more archaic and embarrassing, doesn't it make infinitely more sense to simply regard them as fables (which is clearly what they are)?

And I've actually admitted several times now that the underlying fallacies of religion can occasionally produce pretty ripe academic fruit. Theology, fueled as it is by the god delusion, can still inspire, provoke, and even enlighten. (It goes without saying that secular musings can also inspire, provoke and even enlighten, although they do so without a grumpy, invisible father figure peering over their shoulder.) Have I ever stood here and decried everything that Thomas Aquinas ever said? Have I ever attempted to wholly discredit the contributions of John Donne because of his religiosity? I rather don't think so. And it shouldn't surprise anybody that brilliant minds can thrive even under the muggy cloud of religions like Christianity and Judaism. These are ultimately very permissive organizations (mostly thanks to moderation and selective reading of texts, not because of anything inherent in any of them), so it stands to reason that they won't always get in the way of inspiration and the pursuit of knowledge. Theology is all right be me much of the time, in spite of the fact that at its core rests a rather mortifying belief in a celestial pater familias.

I answered this in another thread on here. The whole part of the bible that deals with creation says that it took God 7 days. But who's to say that was 7 literal days, as in one week. Maybe those 7 days were actually millions of years.

...Suggesting that god created the world on seven particular days spread across millions of years, or that "seven days" is somehow a euphemism for "millions of years?" If it's the former, that's one hell of a stretch, even for folks who might happen to be the biggest fans of poetic license. If it's the latter, it simply seems shifty for no good reason. Why such deliberate obfuscation among so much supposed divinity? Is the bible like a word game, perhaps?

The bible also says people lived to be 900 years old, which we know isn't possible. The deacon at my church is actually the one who opened my eyes to this.

I understand what you're saying, but I'm still not entirely sure that I'm grasping your point. If the bible is allegorical, is it allegorical all the time? Some of the time? Nobody knows? Can there be any consensus as regards its general message if this is the case? It seems to me that this helps to undercut the alleged truth of the bible, rather than support it.

I go to church because I feel it keeps me in balance. It gives me an outlet to voice my frustration with every day life and I feel a sense of peace as soon as I walk through the doors.

This I understand, because I feel the same way whenever I walk into a library or a planetarium or a museum or an art gallery. I can celebrate or genuflect upon or rage against or detest the works contained therein, and I always feel more serene upon leaving than entering.

I can pray and feel that God is listening to what I'm saying. It's like instant therapy for me.

Do you ever get a response? Does some sort of outcome that can be traced to your pleas ever manifest itself? Again, I'm sure some will assert that I'm being sarcastic, but I'm genuinely curious.

I've always been Catholic, but lapsed as a child. It wasn't until about 5 years ago that I was confirmed and started attending regularly. When my dad died unexpectedly 4 years ago, my faith held me together like nothing else. I think if it were not for that, I would be in a pretty bad place right now.

All I can say to this is that atheists go through many of the same experiences as the faithful, and we do so without the god concept. We lose loved ones, we face health crises, we face financial turmoil, and all the rest. There are many ways of coping with loss, stress and instability, and many of them don't involve the intangible.

There's more that I'd like to add to this point about the nature of your relationship to your particular faith, but out of respect for what you've gone through fairly recently, I'll save it for a later discussion in case something I say ends up being misconstrued or comes across as too personal, or even nasty, rather than fairly broad (even though I'm definitely still thinking in fairly broad terms).

How could there be such a thing as God when someone you love so much is taken from you?

Again, I'm trying to tread carefully here out of respect for your loss, but this certainly isn't why most atheists are atheists. There's a very big difference between abandoning one's faith due to a sense of betrayal - "How could you be so cruel to me, god, after all I've done for you?" - and not adhering to a faith because of other, more valid reasons.

My mind can't grasp why someone wouldn't want to believe there is something greater out there.

Neither can I, actually. The total number of people asserting that there isn't anything greater out there in this thread is exactly zero, as far as I've noticed. I've heard the saying; I know "god is great," but the universe itself is so much greater, more perplexing and unfathomable that it dwarfs every single creation myth put together! What puzzles me is that we would have to invent a god when we still have what appears to be a virtually infinite cosmos to become acquainted with. The available evidence suggests quite strongly that you and I are both made of matter that exploded into the universe billions of years ago! Is that not absolutely incredible to you? We have every reason to believe that humankind evolved because of our tenacity, our resourcefulness and our innate ability to adapt to challenging environments! What I can't understand is how the rather on-the-nose fairy tale of Adam and Eve is somehow greater than this likelihood. And have you ever seen this .gif?

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff298/s...ctive_stars.gif

Take a look at it! Just sit there and gape, that's all I ask. By all that's holy (no pun actually intended!), take a minute to look at this thing and then try to tell me that science and free inquiry are arguing against the greatness, the majesty, the power and the wonder of all that exists! I challenge you to do it. It boggles my mind that anybody would find any creation myth more engrossing and attractive than even the observable cosmic objects in our universe.

it seems that' date=' for neon and maker, science is their god. in that, science has all the answers.[/quote']

 

How many times you gonna jump the shark, bud? Five? Ten? Do I have to go over all forty-odd pages of this thread and actually quote the number of instances where Neon and myself have asserted that science in fact doesn't have all the answers, and that a large part of its appeal and durability has to do with the fact that it doesn't make promises it can't keep?

 

Look, this is what you're trying to do; it's the same thing Spawn's dad tried (and failed) to do earlier in the thread: you're clumsily attempting to argue that reason is a substitute for faith, when that is simply not true. Hypotheses are testable; religion falls apart when subjected to even the faintest glimmer of reality. You attempt to position atheism and religion as opposite sides of the same coin, perhaps to plant the idea that atheism is in fact an alternative to religion. It is not.

 

A.

 

Theism.

 

No.

 

God.

 

Perhaps I shouldn't be so surprised at your insistence that I prove a negative, considering that it's beginning to look like you have an incredibly difficult time with negatives in general.

but what do you have against "do onto others as you would have them do onto you".

Absolutely nothing at all.

I would have others evaluate my positions honestly and straightforwardly, which is precisely how I evaluate theirs.

I also said I don't mind being called a dickface, so long as the person calling me one actually has something to add to the conversation.

I've been pretty consistent throughout this discussion.

So yes' date=' many ills occur in the name of religion. But the same can be said of any organization. Enron wasn't a religion (though one could argue that capitalism is in fact a religion [speaking of which the local Hummer dealer closed so did the religion lose a minor god?'])

American-style Christianity certainly reminds one of large corporations (and vice versa), so you just might be on to something. Ha!

The fact that we, as humans, screw things up doesn't negate the power or even the needs for teachings that help root us in morality or provide solace in difficult times.

I agree. And I also believe that these teachings can be gleaned from any morally upright individual, regardless of their affiliations (religious, political, etc).

What the Maker repeatedly points to does contain elements of this, it just lacks a deity, is a wholly humanistic moral path, but most importantly it lacks any soft edges in his explanation as he's too busy belittling and tearing down others.

I've addressed this myself. I'm a rather brusque fellow, I'm afraid. I afford religion approximately the same amount of respect and condescension it reserves for atheism. I used to take the high road, but one day I was driven into a ditch by the slathering tractor-trailer that is organized religion. It bummed me out.

Maker, if you're to be our new religious father

Yeah, I have to stop you here. Please don't ever attempt to do that again. It's petty, it's stupid, and worst of all, it's dreadfully misleading. You're just being glib, I know, but it remains that you're reaching into your semantical kit bag in an attempt to portray intellectual honesty and free inquiry as a new kind of cult - an alternative to religion, if you will - when in fact it is the very antidote to religion. Atheism: from the Ancient Greek, literally meaning godless. I am not your father, Spawn's dad. I'm a young, single dude and I'm nobody's father. Nor do I wish to lead anybody. You're a religious instructor of some kind, you said? Let the record show that I have negative interest in taking up your job.

Moving right along...

All this really points to, which I've pointed out time and again throughout these threads (and which Old Neon declares too invalid to even acknowledge) is that spiritual practice is personal, experiential, and the truths realized fall outside the methodologies most commonly used by science.

My rough edges hardly point to the validity of "personal truth." They point to the fact that I'm a real asshole to people with whom I vehemently disagree (*smiles real big; waves at everybody*), but they hardly point to much else.

Truth is a fairly well-defined word at this point. Conformity to fact or actuality. A statement proven to be or accepted as true. Reality. "Subjective truth" is an inherently dishonest pursuit, and it can lead to some pretty hairy places, morally and intellectually. Most people are responsible enough to avoid these pitfalls; it's certainly a minority of folks who end up believing that they're the reincarnation of Jesus Christ or that space aliens will come to collect them if they gather in a circle and drink poisoned Kool-Aid. But the fact of the matter is simple; if something is unprovable, we have no good reason to believe it. "It gives me hope" is not a good reason. "I got the cancer" is not a good reason. "It allows me to think that one day I'll see my dead wife again" is not a good reason. In short, wishful thinking is not a good reason.

I have argued that religion is a greater force for evil than good in the world, and that's because it's true as far as I have ever been able to discern. My main beef has always been, and will continue to be, that religion is simply bullshit. Lying to people about "life after death" when no evidence to support this belief exists is cruel at best and absolutely devastating at worst. Forced conversions are an abomination. Barbaric rituals and punishments rooted in archaic religions are abhorrent. Pretending to have a personal relationship with the creator of the universe is twisted and delusional to such a degree that it seems disturbing on its face when subjected to neutral analysis. War. Poverty. Land-grabs. The list goes on and on and on and on. Religion is hardly evil in and of itself, but it's tougher to find any other social construct that encourages violence and intolerance quite like religion tends to do. Because it is demonstrably false, because it is unnecessary in the promotion of morality, and because it has the capacity to organize and reinforce the most insidiously evil elements of society, it should be destroyed.

Neon seems to have a hard time dumping on the eastern religions, though I could (and have actually) pointed to many aspects that would require the same sort of experiential knowledge to understand. But the real question would be what is to be gained from dumping on real people who are here talking about their lives and what role religion or spirituality plays in their lives?

Neon may have a hard time dumping on Jainism, Hinduism, Shintoism and the rest, but Neon also celebrates Christmas. I don't do those things. I'm not tolerant of any of this garbage anymore. My line is harsh, it's true, but quite necessary from where I'm standing. Rather than enable and embolden certain religious elements by apologizing for them, I have drawn a line in the sand and seldom consider crossing it. We live in a world held prisoner by hokey, clearly outmoded superstition, and I simply refuse to yield another inch. My intolerance (and I freely admit that it is most definitely a vicious intolerance) is born of intellectual honesty, a holistic worldview and my fascination with detail (historical, scientific, you name it). There's a wonderful televised debate on YouTube between Sam Harris (author of "Letter to a Christian Nation") and Rabbi David Wolpe (a brilliant man in his own right, by the way) on the subject of god and whether he exists, and Harris says something that is just fantastic (and, incidentally, ties into my earlier offense at your bullying insinuation that I desire on some level to be a "spiritual father" of some sort) and that I will never forget if I live to see a hundred: "Religion teaches people what to think; inquiry teaches people how to think."

Believe it or not, I am mindful of the fact that some people dedicate their entire lives to the lies of religion. That's precisely why I don't shy away from confronting them about the irrationality of their beliefs. If I were as insensitive as some people seem to think I am, I simply wouldn't bother engaging them at all. And believe me, I know many atheists who go out of their way to avoid having to deal with Christians. I'm the guy who'd invite the fucking Jehovah's Witnesses into my living room to talk if I were a homeowner. Like the Christians who stop folks on the street, I'm interested in delivering people - from Christ, in my case. I don't want to tell them about Christ, though. I don't want to tell them about anything. I simply want them to start asking intelligent questions pertaining to the very nature of faith. I do this in the hope that they will ultimately arrive at intelligent conclusions that don't make me at least a little ashamed to be fucking human. (Not in the way that self-flagellating Christians are ashamed to be human, mind you, HIYOOOOO!)

It's quite a flawed world outlook that is so devoid of humility or compassion that ones only role in a community is to be proven correct all the time.

I've definitely established that my worldview is comprised of much more than petty concerns. You charge me of being devoid of humility. I'm as willing to entertain any idea as I am to research it, evaluate it, and ultimately accept or reject it. Believers try to box atheists by suggesting that their worldview is lacking due to the fact that it doesn't attempt to explain everything right now, even at the expense of logic; I would counter that a mere demand for evidence lacks nothing, least of all patience and a contentment with not having to know everything, but continuing to learn as much about the world as possible. I would also suggest that the ridiculous idea of a "creator" being sufficient explanation for the many wonders of the cosmos is not only conceited, it's also extraordinarily limited in scope.

Faith is characterized by a lot of things; a desperate need to know, wishful thinking, laziness, ignorance, and so on. Atheism is characterized by a lot of things, too; restlessness, free inquiry, patience, open-mindedness, humility by design, and so on.

But even if that's true, my personal path makes that existence, for me, more joyful and rich.

I would hate to have to require such validation.

You are a piece of work. Yeah, ad hominem, ad shmominem.

I didn't issue anything remotely like an ad hominem insult. (Once again, simply asserting something doesn't make it so.) I told him to pay attention, because my then-most recent post was proof enough that his assertion about me was totally false. Was I all sunshine and roses about it? No, I wasn't. That might have something to do with the fact that I really, really dislike it when people go around deliberately misrepresenting the things I say (or completely ignoring them).

Again, please fuck off with the ad hominem insults. I've seen you post some pretty cool shit in other threads, man, but you're being almost trollish in this one. Either join the conversation in earnest or kindly stop insulting me for the sake of insulting me. Because believe me, we get it now: you don't like me and you don't like my evidence. Enough. Thanks.

saying there is no creator is less logical than saying there is one simply by virtue of existence' date=' prove that wrong buddds.

(Im not saying its a he or she or an it even but we do exist duh! and don't say the onus of proof is on me)[/quote']

 

What's so maddening about this argument is that the onus actually is on you. What you're doing is making an assertion based on an already-held belief rather than on any actual evidence. Nothing in nature points to matter having been "created" per se. "We are star stuff." Because the notion of a "creator" has already been introduced, it's pretty easy to say "a powerful dude/force created all this" and then challenge somebody to "prove them wrong" (even though it's impossible to prove a negative, as we've established several times over). Atoms are nothing like a birdhouse. Matter is not a television set. Devices have creators, and this can be proven simply by tracing their origins. Answers aren't that easy, or obvious, when it comes to the building blocks of the universe. We can naively assume that a vaguely anthropomorphic creator figure made us in his image, or even simply in ours, but we do this because we've seen houses and trucks and circuit boards assembled by human hands.

 

(Sidebar: I think it might be fun to create a new religion based around a television-shaped god; there's an amusing irony there, I think!)

 

Add to that cognitive closure and bias and one realizes that even the most rational and intellectually astute of us are limited in ability to even ask the right questions. The empirical limit of science is my philosophical starting point' date=' not my concession.[/quote']

 

Sure. But new discoveries prompt new questions. New vistas are always opening up. Theoretical physics exists to explore new ways of blowing people's minds. We see this all the time in science. That science has an empirical limit at all is a statement that seems rooted in little more than supposition to me.

 

I definitely agree that it's important to ask the right questions, however. Half of science comes down to astute theories, and the other half is astute research.

 

would you be more comfortable if i called my belief a "hypothesis"? my hypothesis is that there is a creative force at work in the universe. your hypothesis is that science will eventually answer every question that we are capable of asking. these are competing in the sense that yours precludes the existence of a creative force.

 

is there a concession in here somewhere?

 

Not really' date=' no.

 

If your "hypothesis" - as opposed to your "belief" - is that a creative force is at work in the universe, it seems rather grandiose, doesn't it? And as I've already pointed out, fantastic claims always require fantastic evidence. You have thus far presented roughly none.

 

Additionally, I sense that you're attempting to frame "hypothesis" and "belief" as synonyms. They are absolutely not. A belief is something that is held true and dear, whereas a hypothesis is something that simply has to be proven. Christians get all fucking whiny whenever anybody suggests that their god is stupid and a lie (even though it plainly is), but you don't see scientists getting upset when rigorous peer review shoots down one of their pet theories. In fact, you can guarantee that the scientist who formulates the initial hypothesis will be working harder than nearly anybody to [i']disprove[/i] it. Science is not about wishful thinking. It's about proof.

 

my hypothesis is more logical to me.

 

Your hypothesis lacks logic completely. Sorry if it sounds harsh, but... please provide a single shred of actual evidence that points to the existence of a "creator." Bonus points if your creator sufficiently answers every existential quandary you've ever found yourself contemplating.

 

The most obvious hole in the god theory is the intellectual feedback loop created by the question "Who created god?"

"Nobody. God is eternal. He is everything and everywhere"

"Care to explain that?"

"Sorry. Can't. Maybe I'll find out one day, though."

"So did he create himself?"

"You're being silly!"

"Right. I'm being silly. Of the two of us, I ain't the guy slapping a fucking Mister Potato Head face on the goddamned universe and saying that it 'loves' me..."

Nothing in nature supports the god delusion, and it's been said by men many times smarter than any of us participating in this discussion that if the universe is ever conclusively proven to be infinite or finite, either scenario would be equally baffling to the human mind. With all the wonders of the universe, and all that remains to be explored, why cop out by attributing the origin of man and the cosmos to something as silly and relatively unimpressive as god?

I also don't take the bible as literally as most, which explains the contradictions. A lot of that is just metaphors.

 

I'm still happy being Catholic, so keep trying

Can I ask you a totally honest question? If you're a Catholic and you don't take the Bible literally (or at least not "as literally as most"), then why do you bother? "Oh, this bunch of nonsense really makes sense to me! Yeah, it speaks to me!" Is there some sort of psychological workaround that you've devised to get around this rather incredible sticking point, or...?

Also, how do you go from the reality of evolution to the "metaphor" of Adam and Eve? I have always been terribly curious about this. Is there an apocryphal text I haven't read, or...?

Edit: and that's me done for a while. I'll drop in again a few pages from now. Don't have too much fun without me.

See this is exactly the point a number of people make. You paint the "Christian flock" as one collective mind.

This charge is absolutely, unequivocally false. In fact, in my most recent post I was careful to differentiate between the more radical elements of evangelical Christianity and what has gradually evolved to become mainstream Christianity.

Please don't feel pressured to issue an apology; I'd be more than content if you would simply start paying attention to the things I say, instead of merely how I say them.

So your bias stands as the whole proof of whatever you believe.

I really don't know how you could begin to assert such a petty false charge. (Fine, so I'm being disingenuous; it follows from your earlier false charge.) It would be closer to the mark for you to say that the evidence I have examined stands as the whole proof of the conclusion at which I have arrived. The many irreconcilable contradictions of scripture hardly stand as proof of my bias. The outlandish and impossible physical claims of virtually all religions are not examples of my bias. Nor are the even more absurd metaphysical claims of religion examples of my bias. The unrelenting insistence on the part of the faithful that an omniscient deity exists, in spite of zero evidence to support this belief, is certainly not an example of my bias.

About two-dozen posts ago you said "religion is a lie," but now you're backing away from that.

I'm not backing away from it at all.

Religion is a lie.

Its metaphysical claims are false. Its "miracles" are hardly sophisticated, and tailored to impress audiences who would have read the Bible when it was still relevant and might have had something valuable to impart. Its ludicrous hucksterism is nothing like an alternative for genuine knowledge and wisdom.

What's true is that I've clarified my position after several parties rather unsuccessfully attempted to block me into a corner using semantics. Look: we can reasonably conclude, even though we cannot categorically prove, that the legend of Jesus fuckin' Christ is a massive lie, a bullshit story, that Jesus never existed, and that he was probably a huge asshole if he did exist. We can't prove that Allah doesn't exist, because it's impossible to prove a negative. But what we can do is consider God and Allah and the rest (and yes, I'm aware that they are mostly one in the same) in a realistic context and allow ourselves to arrive at the conclusion that religion is bullshit.

You're content to explore what can be explored and yet you claim to know what scientists agree at this point can't be known.

This is an idiotic statement, One Wing. Put simply, you're lying. I have NEVER in my life made any such truth claims. Lies of this scope are strictly in the domain of faith. I have only ever advocated free inquiry, skepticism, evidence-weighing and open-mindedness. I have speculated that mankind may one day be able to provide satisfactory answers to life's trickiest questions, and I have admitted that I may be wrong just as easily as I may be right.

Congrats. Your self-serving obfuscation and deliberate mischaracterization of my remarks has succeeded in pissing me the fuck off. If you're smart, and I can tell by reading your stuff that you are, you'll think twice before doing it again. Because if you try, I'll just show up to tear your absurd charges apart.

Shit. I somehow double-posted when I meant to slap up something new.

Long story short, I agree that evolution isn't something that rules out the existence of a "creator," but it sure plays havoc with organized religion, doesn't it? Many evangelicals still quibble with the reality of evolution, but most Christians accept that it's precisely as legitimate as the scientific theories which explain, say, the complexity of gravity or the laws governing thermodynamics.

It remains in religion's best interest to roll with the punches science delivers on a fairly regular basis. This is why Christianity, the religion of choice in much of the free world, has been so heavily self-edited over the years. Moderation spares contemporary Christians the embarrassment of having to stone faithless wives to death, murder homosexuals and non-believers, and avoid wearing poly-cotton blends at all costs. Conversely, it stands to reason that the Islamic world is such a beastly place precisely because of the fact that Islam has been allowed to spread mostly unfettered across several centuries.

Also, I would argue that evolution does much to address the "why" even as it explains the "how." What is evolution? The process of change in the inherited genetic traits of an organism from one generation to the next, ad infinitum (presumably). Why does this change occur? Because organisms need to better adapt to their environment. Why? Because their earliest iterations made survival difficult. Maybe because their environment has changed over time.

There is a philosophical "why" that evolution does not attempt to answer, of course

Of course, it is not up to evolution to address philosophical concerns. This reminds me of the earliest bits of this discussion, when believers still expected "atheism" - literally, a lack of belief in god - to address unfounded metaphysical concerns. "Give me a substitute!" they moaned. It's pretty absurd. In fact, it makes no sense whatsoever.

So now you backpedal.

Hardly.

A creator does not exist because this is what you believe.

Again, hardly.

I have never even come close to arguing this line, One Wing. I'm surprised you can still type from your position, having bent over backwards to obfuscate my actual argument with your fuzzy, backwards psychology.

My logic is as follows: a creator does not exist because no evidence points to the existence of a creator. Yours is a classic argumentum ad consequentiam. You see matter, and you assume that it must have been created by a being or a thing. You already know you want to introduce the notion of a "creator," and so you begin with your hypothesis rather than any actual evidence.

You look for facts to disprove him, you weigh different philosophies and theologies and they don't hold up to your scrutiny. What makes you think that those who, just as truly ignorant of the truth as you, do not continue this mode of inquiry. This is where you spout heifer dust. You presume and accuse and you hold this up as your proof.

I can have a grand old time weighing philosophies. Theologies I haven't any time for, since they're all light as featherdust and rooted in fantasy.

I don't know how many times you people want me to type this, but one cannot reasonably be expected to prove a negative. The best one can do is attempt to disprove an illogical belief by producing evidence which strongly suggests said belief is irrational and untrue. I have produced a mountain of rather damning evidence that conclusively proves, as far as any lucid mind need be concerned, that Christianity, Islam, Judaism, et al. are little more than wild rubbish.

I don't know, you don't know. You pursue the answer, I pursue the answer from a different direction, both of us based on our knowledge, experience, beliefs, opinions, defense mechanisms, biases, all funneled through the neurological road show that Joe refers to. That we're withstanding these slings and arrows shows that we are exploring this line of inquiry as well.

This is beautifully worded, Wing. I will grant you that. (I would definitely like to see your degree, once we start scanning and posting them in this thread!) It's also a bit dishonest, though, isn't it? We can talk about "exploring roads" and "experiential beliefs" until the cows come home, but we are doing ourselves an intellectual disservice if we don't shine the harsh light of objective evaluation on the fantastic claims made by all religions. In most cases, sufficient evidence exists to disbelieve the truth claims made by the books of the Bible, the Koran, the Tanakh, the Gita, or indeed any text along those lines. As a registered social-democrat and a person who self-identifies as a progressive (because "liberal" just ain't a strong enough tonic for me), I believe in being open-minded (how many left-wing atheists do you know who generally lend their support to the war on terror? Probably one, including me), but I also can't be bothered to lend credence to any idea that is false on its face.

That you belittle any responses, any questions, any countering of your biases, is where you become troubling to those who debate with you. You claim people don't follow your reasoning and then you cherry pick any response. Faithful is as faithless does.

I rarely cherrypick my responses, actually. I would have finished my work for the day hours ago were it not for the fact that I've been going out of my way to address most of what's been discussed in this thread today.

I have no beef with you, One Wing. You've said some interesting things here, and you haven't yet stooped to ad hominem attacks (although the statement "faithful is as faithless does" comes pretty close to the mark, given the pair of sentences which immediately precedes it), but when I read your posts I can't help seeing a lot of philosophical dithering and tolerance for the sake of tolerance. I understand that not everybody will respond to what I have to say because of how I tend to say it, but I'm not here to play nice, and I'm sure not here to support ideas that are fractured, divisive and false on their face.

You still haven't said anything substantive, Spawn's dad.

What am I ignoring, exactly? Just what do you want me to address, specifically? Tell me, and I'll address it, since it's apparently my sole responsibility to address every single fucking question, anecdote, challenge and rejoinder thrown at me in this thread, in spite of the fact that the faithful (and their advocates) outnumber the secular by a pretty impressive margin.

And speaking of the faithful, I've repeatedly asked them to address the LaPlace/Napoleon example, to no avail. I've repeatedly asked the faithful to defend the many contradictions found in scripture. When no challenges ever manifested themselves, I was more than content to move on and entertain yet another tack. And you know what? I still haven't run out of things to say, and I still haven't been caught in a logic trap. That's a hell of a lot more than I can say for the supporters of Bog the Great and Dingus Christ, Jr.

I'm not attacking anything other than the stupid lies and astonishing leaps of logic that fuel every religion to which I have ever had the misfortune of being exposed. If you feel offended by that, well hell, I'm genuinely sorry. I'll buy you a beer the next time you're in southern Ontario. I'll sit here and exchange jabs with you guys, but don't ever expect me to respect any fucking cults, because it ain't gonna happen. Believe it or not, I tried doing that for a whole lot of years. It didn't work, and the main reason why is because the faithful never seem remotely willing to meet me even halfway. Where's my incentive? You're not even willing to answer any of my unaddressed points, for fuck's sake!

If you've got a "real life philosophy degree," that's absolutely fantastic. I mean, I don't particularly care - would you like me to scan my CV? It has nothing to do with philosophy, but if academic dick-swinging is what this conversation has truly been reduced to, I think I'd rather continue to play along than be accused of slinking out the back door.

For somebody who has absolutely nothing to say, caliber66 sure posts a lot. I guess that helps explain his 13,000+ posts on these boards. I don't like being the de facto moderator of this discussion any more than you guys like seeing me kick people's legs out from beneath them, so hey, let's maybe step this shit up a bit, okay? No more stupid ad hominem attacks, how's that sound? If you want to kick me in the balls, I'm okay with it. Just make sure you're actually have a fucking point to make when you do it.

you asserted that "it stands to reason that on a long enough timeline we'll prove smart enough to answer them". i take issue with the reasonableness of that assertion. i think it stands to reason that a creative force is at work in the universe. these are our competing beliefs. neither one has any proof.

Okay, the most obvious problem here is that in no way are those competing beliefs. Sheesh! If your belief is that a creative force is at work in the universe, then what prevents us from eventually isolating and explaining it? Conversely, my secular hypothesis precludes the existence of a "creator" not definitively, but through a total absence of available proof. It's not often I'll issue a concession when it comes to the religion vs. science debate, but this aspect of it syncs up rather harmoniously. One is still far more logical than the other, mind you, but... y'know.

This next part isn't a problem for me at all, but I suspect it will prove rather irksome for you: if I'm proven wrong thousands of years from now, and humankind's potential is less than I have estimated it to be, I would be more than fine with that. My entire worldview is based on the evaluation of evidence and the application of intelligence. It makes no grand claims unless they are rooted in evidence.

Flipside of that coin: are you okay with the probability that there is no god?

"my opponent"... ha

Have you seen some of the shit these people have been writing? Apparently Neon holds my dick for me when I piss. Or maybe he shakes it, I don't quite remember. Either way, I think "opponent" fits pretty nicely given the gradual decline of this discussion.

The empirical limits of science arise from problems with observation. There are sensory limits in human ability to inquire and answer questions about phenomena.

I certainly can't disagree with this. Five senses aren't nearly enough to even identify the vast majority of matter in the universe, let alone parse it in a way that makes absolute sense to us. This does not invite wild speculation, but rather focused researched and diligent experimentation.

Again, I believe I've stated quite definitively that I have no strong "belief" concerning mankind's latent ability to explore anything. The best I, or any of us, can do is speculate. One of my theories is that as our knowledge increases, so too does our ability to make sense of our environment. Unlike, say, the Christian flock, I have no pressing desire to know absolutely fucking everything about the universe. I certainly don't feel the need to pretend to have access to knowledge which no man in truth possesses. I am rather content to explore that which can be explored.

this is a leap of faith. there's no proof that this is true. i would say that this is your religion.

It's not a leap of faith at all, actually. And neither did I assert that it was true. Furthermore, I clarified that it was a suspicion, or hypothesis, and not a belief. That's three strikes, bud. Yer outta here.

At one time it was beyond our means to explain the relationship of celestial bodies to one another in our solar system. Now we can.

Once we thought the earth was flat. Now we've seen enough to know better.

Once we were unable to replicate the conditions under which the Big Bang may well have occurred. Now we're on the cusp of doing exactly that.

I have a hypothesis, and it is based on the fact that the sum of all human knowledge multiplies as we go forward into the future. It's based on observation. It's rooted in logic.

It's not a leap of faith as belief in god represents a leap of faith.

Evolution is as much a fact of life as gravity and Newtonian mechanics. It can and has been observed, and it supplies a "how" and a "why" answer to the ways in which life develops on Earth. Please, for the sake of my fucking sanity, DON'T START THIS.

Okay, could you, like... contribute something of substance? Soon? Please?

Before I just add you to my ignore list? Because the meter is running at this point. (In more explicit terms, this means that your next post really needs to include something besides an ad hominem attack.)

And just for the record, I'll entertain a lot of things, but I WILL NOT dispute the reality of evolution. Even if my opponent were willing to meet me halfway by discussing the relative instability of the theory of gravity, I still couldn't be bothered.

Yeah. You're done, Spawn's dad.

Everybody get a load of this guy's mentality?

He has absolutely nothing left to say.