You won't find God in the dictionary.

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

RE:

“Dawkins book is not a guide to anything”.

“But this is a valid criticism of atheism.  It doesn’t say a lot about anything, and if it is to criticise religion, it kind of does have a duty to supply an alternative”.

Which book? Why Simon do you think there is a need to supply an alternative? If a slave gets rid of the chains that have kept him captive why would he need an alternative to them once he is freed from their shackles? No, he just needs rid of them so he can enjoy his freedom to the fullest. If someone stops taking opium they don’t need an alternative, they just need not to consume opium any more. Though I suppose it could be argued that reality is the alternative to delusion.

[Belle Rose]

@Reg

You earlier stated that you did not know what or who God is.

You then said you “knew that there was nothing” which is a knowledge based claim.

And then I began the process of explaining my claim with scientific evidence of which no one has even read….You say things all the time like you will consider evidence if it’s presented… A win some kind of evidence is presented you don’t even consider it. You just mock it. So I call bullshit what do you say that you’re open minded.

You automatically put the onus of proof upon yourself by doing so.

The thing I have against the “onus” argument is exactly what just happened. Instead of actually having an intellectual discussion, we go around in this merry-go-round and never ending circle where you say that you want evidence, but no matter what anybody says or presents as the starting point of evidence you don’t even consider. It drives me fucking crazy. That’s one of the reasons why I think atheists are intellectually dishonest.

There are plenty of people who just “believe in belief” (is that cute enough for you :-))

That’s not who I am. I’m trying to actually explain to you what I think but nobody’s really even engaged in what I’m actually saying they’re just putting words into my mouth. Duck, mock, evade, twist, rinse and repeat….

None of that provides evidence or justification for the existence of or the belief in a deity.

Did you even read my article? Do you want evidence? Look at our evolutionary history. Especially since you’re so keen on evolution… You of all people I would’ve thought would’ve at least read the article. You always say that you would consider evidence when it’s presented but… You’re not doing that at all. You’re getting cute and changing the subject. What are you afraid of? That you might actually be wrong?

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

I know Lucretius did not believe in the Christian god called God because Christianity had not yet been invented when he was alive. But I suspect he was an atheist when it came to Venus, a god millions believed in. I guess he was on of those new atheists.

But do not think that the gods condescend to consider such matters,

Or that they mark the careers of individual atoms

So as to study the laws of Nature where unto they conform.

Nevertheless there are some, unaware of the fixed laws of matter,

Who think that Nature cannot, without supernatural power,

Thus nicely fit to manners of men the sequence of seasons,

Bringing forth corn, yea, all earth’s fruits, which heavenly Pleasure,

Pilot of life, prompts men to approach, herself them escorting,

As by Venus’ wiles she beguiles them their race to continue

So that humanity may not fail. When therefore they settle

That for the sake of man the gods designed all things, most widely

In all respects do they seem to have strayed from the path of true reason.

For even if I knew nothing concerning the nature of atoms,

Yet from heaven’s very lore and legend’s diversified story

I would make bold to aver and maintain that the order of Nature

Never by will of the gods for us mortals was ever created…

From De Rerum Natura by Lucretius, circa 70 BC.

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

And then I began the process of explaining my claim with scientific evidence of which no one has even read..

Please re-link this scientific evidence that shows that there is something, not “nothing”.

That’s not who I am. I’m trying to actually explain to you what I think but nobody’s really even engaged in what I’m actually saying they’re just putting words into my mouth..

No, you put those words in your own mouth. I said There are plenty of people who just “believe in belief”. And there are. I meet them al the time. They all “kinda believe” because they think that “there must be something, not nothing”, but have no idea what that something is except that it is called  “god” whatever that may be.

Instead of actually having an intellectual discussion…

Then stop saying you know things that people cannot possibly know. Instead just say it is your belief that something exists. It is impossible to have an intellectual discussion about the existence of something you “know” to be true but are unable to explain to us what that something is.

Most theists (in general – not you in particular) will assert that they know their God is real. Only upon challenging them with they ever admit that they “have faith” or “they believe” that their God is real. But if they assert it is as knowledge claim, as a FACT, then the burden of proof or onus probandi is on the person making the claim. It is one of the rules of intelligent debate, no matter how crazy it might make you feel.

Did you even read my article? Do you want evidence? Look at our evolutionary history.

Whether or not human societies have been religious is not evidence for the existence of any god.  If it were then thousands of gods would exist. I will write more on this point as it is something than many theists assert as evidence for their particular version of the god they cannot describe.  It is not possible to include all the anthropological and psychological evidence to show that the origins of religious belief are based on fear and ignorance of the unknown in one reply. I might do another post.

 

 

 

[Belle Rose]

Whether or not human societies have been religious is not evidence for the existence of any god

You clearly didn’t read it. And you clearly didn’t read anything I said at all with any kind of sincerity. And you did it again… Throwing back the whole onus bullshit without even trying to understand exactly what I’m trying to say. We’re going to go around like this forever it’s pointless

You are intellectually dishonest.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 10 months ago by Belle Rose.

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

OK, lets start again, one point at a time.

Do you believe that a God exists or do you still “know” something must exist (i.e. “god”) because there can’t be nothing?

[Belle Rose]

Why don’t you go back and read exactly what I said exactly the way I said it including the article that I linked. And read it for real this time… Then maybe we can come back and have a real discussion

It’s right there in black-and-white for you

• This reply was modified 6 years, 10 months ago by Belle Rose.

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

This is the article I read.

Religion may fill the human need for finding meaning, sparing us from existential angst while also supporting social organization, researchers say.

I have already agreed with you on that.

Researchers who study the psychology and neuroscience of religion are helping to explain why such beliefs are so enduring.

Religion has survived, they surmise, because it helped us form increasingly larger social groups, held together by common beliefs.

I have already agreed with you on that.

A common thread to those cognitions is that they lead us to see the world as a place with an intentional design, created by someone or something.

Adults also tend to search for meaning, particularly during times of uncertainty, research suggests. A 2008 study in Science (Vol. 322, No. 5898) by Jennifer Whitson, PhD, and Adam Galinsky, PhD, found that people were more likely to see patterns in a random display of dots if the researchers first primed them to feel that the participants had no control. This finding suggests that people are primed to see signs and patterns in the world around them, the researchers conclude.

I have already said that we are pattern seeking animals that when faced with no answer, will accept any answer, even if it is wrong, like religious explanations of natural disasters.

People also have a bias for believing in the supernatural, says Barrett. In his work, he finds that children as young as age 3 naturally attribute supernatural abilities and immortality to “God,” even if they’ve never been taught about God, and they tell elaborate stories about their lives before they were born, what Barrett calls “pre-life.”

Yes. That is why we should teach children to think critically and to use improve their reasoning skills.

What we’re showing is that our basic cognitive equipment biases us toward certain kinds of thinking and leads to thinking about a pre-life, an afterlife, gods, invisible beings that are doing things — themes common to most of the world’s religions,” says Barrett.

Yes, our basic cognitive equipment leaves us biased towards magical thinking. Religion is the product of this capacity to thinking magically with our unreasoned brains.

Nothing in this article states attempts to offer any evidence for God, be it subjective or objective in nature. It is by studying the brain that we ruled out the idea of dualism, where the mind is separate from the body or that we have a soul. Yet these notions persist among theists.

Having spiritual beliefs might also lead to enjoying a longer, healthier life. A large body of research finds that religious people live longer, are less prone to depression, are less likely to abuse alcohol and drugs…

I agree with that. They “might” do for some. Studies have shown such results. But not in all cases. But for me spiritual beliefs are supernatural beliefs. Spiritual is just a word to make it sound pleasant. Atheists don’t need supernatural beliefs to sustain or comfort us. We deal with the realities of life without appealing to gods we don’t believe exist or by seeking the company of those who do to fill some “spiritual void” or some “hole in our hearts” that religions claim to do as they hawk their magical wares and false promises on their makeshift tables at edges of the market place of intellectual ideas.

Religion has survived and thrived for more than 100,000 years…

Yes and all of those early gods are now extinct. Then 98,000 years later Jesus came along to save us from ourselves. At least this is what you must believe in order to be a Christian.

The article does not say that we have evolved to be religious. If we did evolve to be then everyone would still be. It would not be possible to be an unbeliever as we would be born to believe in gods. It shows the social reasons why religion persists and shows how our brains has the evolved cognitive traits that “lead us to see the world as a place with an intentional design, created by someone or something”.

Religion offered us the wrong answers for most of those 100,000 years because we knew no different. Now that we have credible answers to the bigger questions in life we should move on. Now that science has, in the field of psychology, shown us why our brains are predisposed towards magical thinking and that anthropology has explained the evolution of religions we should see that the curtain is down and that there is nothing there. Not a case of something there. At least nothing for us to warranty believing in.

Religion asked Atheism:

“Atheism, why do people love me , but hate you? Atheism responded, because you are a beautiful lie and I am a painful truth.

[Davis]

“But this is a valid criticism of atheism. It doesn’t say a lot about anything, and if it is to criticise religion, it kind of does have a duty to supply an alternative”.

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! 

 

When I refute that Santa clause exists I don’t have any bloody duty to then provide and answer to what actually exists let alone give you a guide to morality or an existential description of the world. Saying Santa is real is stupid and I can call out that stupidity without providing the answers to life. I have no duty to anything else. That’s absurd Simon to expect otherwise.

All I am doing is calling out BULLSHIT. If I were allowed to mind my own business and not be repeatedly told that some ridiculous God actually exists and that I should be prohibited from marrying a guy because their fucking barbaric immoral book they keep shoving in my face says so…then I’m going to refute their lunatic claim and their world view which they are also trying to use as an excuse to oppress me and others. And no. I don’t have to explain how the universe works just cause I’m telling someone their claim (that I never asked to hear in the first place) is bullshit. I don’t have to give a moral guide to the universe just because I refute the claim that “christian family values morality” is extremely flawed (and offensive in every moral system I know). And even if their claim was mostly harmless and didn’t opress anyone (like Elvis lives on the moon) I can still say “ehhhh…I don’t think so” without following that up with any other information.

I make my own guide to life from a variety of sources, knowledge and life experience in a way that seems logical to me. I don’t need it to come from a packaged presentation of one someone or some collective culture says is how the world works and how to live. How shallow and empty is that? Work it out yourself…it will be so much more meaningful that way. And if you cannot figure it out, be content to admit you don’t know, you may possibly never know, and that’s okay. My life is quite quite quite fine without a comprehensive world view, supernatural stupidity or a package written by someone else (or some other culture)  it and I certainly have a much stronger and independent analysis and understanding of my own world view and moral system than people who are spoon fed it or hope to cling to a book, any book, that will give them an answer. It’s called being authentic. It is an extremely wise way to go for some people. My atheism doesn’t define me for a second. All that is is a rejection of some lunatic ideas other humans have. My world view is independent of my atheism and I wish some people could get that through their skulls.

My only duty is to call out bullshit, especially if it is toxic and oppresses me and others. Nothing more.

[Davis]

Religion offered us the wrong answers for most of those 100,000 years because we knew no different. Now that we have credible answers to the bigger questions in life we should move on. Now that science has, in the field of psychology, shown us why our brains are predisposed towards magical thinking and that anthropology has explained the evolution of religions we should see that the curtain is down and that there is nothing there. Not a case of something there. At least nothing for us to warranty believing in.

+1 Reg

[Glen D]

Is religion in conflict with science? In principle, absolutely .The extent depends on which sect or which religion.

Eg The Catholic church accepts evolution. I was taught that Catholics accept evolution because we don’t know how long was each day of creation; could well have been eons.

Science is accepted by religion if and only if there is no conflict with dogma. Medieval examples; Galileo  (arrested questioned, recanted)  and Giordano Bruno (he was burned at the stake).

Today;  certainly the Abrahamic religions  are against abortion and stem cell research, although science does not support their beliefs. EG that a foetus is a human being from conception.

Religion has always been anti science because  science challenges religious beliefs, starting with the very existence of god(s) for which there is no proof. Science also deconstructs the mythologies which believers accept. Such as The Torah, New Testament, The Quran, which are the mythologies of three faiths.

 

“Religious
Main article: Relationship between religion and science
In this context, antiscience may be considered dependent on religious, moral and cultural arguments. For this kind of religious antiscience philosophy, science is an anti-spiritual and materialistic force that undermines traditional values, ethnic identity and accumulated historical wisdom in favor of reason and cosmopolitanism. In particular, the traditional and ethnic values emphasized are similar to those of white supremacist Christian Identity theology, but similar right-wing views have been developed by radically conservative sects of Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism. New religious movements such as New Age thinking also criticize the scientific worldview as favouring a reductionist, atheist, or materialist philosophy.

A frequent basis of antiscientific sentiment is religious theism with literal interpretations of sacred text. Here, scientific theories that conflict with what is considered divinely-inspired knowledge are regarded as flawed. Over the centuries religious institutions have been hesitant to embrace such ideas as heliocentrism and planetary motion because they contradicted the dominant understanding of various passages of scripture. More recently the body of creation theologies known collectively as creationism, including the teleological theory of intelligent design, have been promoted by religious theists in response to the process of evolution by natural selection.[32]”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiscience

 

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• This reply was modified 6 years, 10 months ago by Glen D.

[Belle Rose]

@Reg

Now that we have credible answers to the bigger questions in life we should move on.

Do we now? What is the evidence for that claim? How do you square away the fact that we have evolved to believe in God even as children who were not even taught with the possibility that may be because one actually does exist? What are the deciding factors that you used to determine that despite us evolving this way that it still is not true? What makes you so sure that there is no evidence for God when this to me is evidence staring you  right in the face? What is it exactly that we have so completely figured out? How do you make the leap from how are cognition is so innately part of us that even as children we believe in God, Yet what you are saying it is the truth is that there isn’t one… And yet you say that you don’t have to provide any evidence for your position? Is that not the heart of any debate is that if you make a claim you must to back it up? So back it up. What is your evidence that we have things so figured out? What exactly do you mean by credible answers to these bigger questions in life?

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

Do we now? What is the evidence for that claim? Yes, I have several example of where our knowledge has kicked god out of the gaps. At least 20 of the top of my head.

How do you square away the fact that we have evolved to believe in God even as children who were not even taught with the possibility that may be because one actually does exist?

It is not a fact. Even in the study the word god is read as “god”. He is writing about a child bias for the supernatural. To which god did the 3 year olds “attribute supernatural abilities and immortality” to. They must be very smart to be able to talk of god and immortality at 3 years of age so that the researchers understood them. How is it that a 3 year old would have a better comprehension of what god is when they are aged 3 than when they reason adulthood? How do 3 year olds “unevolve” this trait a few years later if they are still not informed about any god. I mean if they are not taught about god at 3 why don’t they continue to express such a trait at age 10 if nobody tells them about god.

[Belle Rose]

OK… I’m not exactly sure what you’re saying. Are you claiming that our natural believe in God just goes away?

You said you have at least 20 examples. Can you give me one? What do we have so figured out?

[Belle Rose]

….Let me guess. You’re going to say something like the fact that we used to think the earth was flat and now we know it’s round… That’s the God of the gaps! We sure do have everything figured out don’t we? How could we be so stupid?

The problem with that little theory is that it just doesn’t compute. Have we made scientific advances? Yes we have. But a lot of the scientific advances we have made has actually come to support the existence of God instead of refute it.

[Author]

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