People who believe in god are broken

[iNow]

I committed the crime of defending religious people. I've therefore been run off. I get it.

 

No, that's not true at all.

 

First, you've committed no crimes here in this thread. This isn't a criminal issue. Instead, we're simply having a discussion in an online forum where we happen to disagree. We are not murdering, raping, stealing, or anything even remotely similar.

 

Second, you haven't been run off. You received a gentle warning that this topic can be sensitive and can sometimes ruffle feathers easily so it's prudent to be as objective as possible and to focus our arguments crisply on the core positions being espoused without resorting to logical fallacies or personal comments. You have retained your posting privileges, were given no ultimatums, and have not been run off.

 

Third, none of the feedback you received was for "defending religious people." That's not what happened here, and that's clear by simply reading the warning you received. Your assertion above is patently untrue in several ways.

 

As best I can tell, the feedback / gentle warning you received was for suggesting that I (me, a fellow member of this site who agreed to this site's rules the same as you did) am deluded. You were warned because you once again chose to focus your posts against me as a person, my character, instead of the content of my words or the logic of my position.

 

It doesn't matter that I have been asserting that theists are deluded or broken or that this assertion applies to ~80-90% of the global population since they are not here posting at SFN as fellow members. If they were fellow members here and I attacked them personally, called them deluded directly, I suspect I would have been warned just like you were. That's how this works. I would also likely have been warned had I expressed some form of hate speech against non-members, but I have not done that either.

 

You will not be run off from SFN for "defending religious people," and frankly such a suggestion is insulting to the mod team here who IMO do a really solid and consistently good job of keeping order and being as fair as possible to all members regardless of their position. You have not been "run off for defending religious people," you will not be "run off for defending religious people," and I encourage you to continue mounting your defense of religious people without relying on personal barbs, logical fallacies, or anything other than thoughtful, rational, and reasonable debate tactics.

 

Let's try not be so melodramatic, okay? Sound good?

[Iggy]

No, that's not true at all.

 

First, you've committed no crimes here in this thread. This isn't a criminal issue. Instead, we're simply having a discussion in an online forum where we happen to disagree. We are not murdering, raping, stealing, or anything even remotely similar.

 

Second, you haven't been run off. You received a gentle warning that this topic can be sensitive and can sometimes ruffle feathers easily so it's prudent to be as objective as possible and to focus our arguments crisply on the core positions being espoused without resorting to logical fallacies or personal comments. You have retained your posting privileges, were given no ultimatums, and have not been run off.

 

Third, none of the feedback you received was for "defending religious people." That's not what happened here, and that's clear by simply reading the warning you received. Your assertion above is patently untrue in several ways.

 

As best I can tell, the feedback / gentle warning you received was for suggesting that I (me, a fellow member of this site who agreed to this site's rules the same as you did) am deluded. You were warned because you once again chose to focus your posts against me as a person, my character, instead of the content of my words or the logic of my position.

 

It doesn't matter that I have been asserting that theists are deluded or broken or that this assertion applies to ~80-90% of the global population since they are not here posting at SFN as fellow members. If they were fellow members here and I attacked them personally, called them deluded directly, I suspect I would have been warned just like you were. That's how this works. I would also likely have been warned had I expressed some form of hate speech against non-members, but I have not done that either.

 

You will not be run off from SFN for "defending religious people," and frankly such a suggestion is insulting to the mod team here who IMO do a really solid and consistently good job of keeping order and being as fair as possible to all members regardless of their position. You have not been "run off for defending religious people," you will not be "run off for defending religious people," and I encourage you to continue mounting your defense of religious people without relying on personal barbs, logical fallacies, or anything other than thoughtful, rational, and reasonable debate tactics.

 

Let's try not be so melodramatic, okay? Sound good?

I can't argue... you do have a way with words.

 

I seriously am stepping out of the thread though. You call 80% of the population delusional and that's all fine by the staff, but I insinuate as much about one person and get stomped on. That's some really unorthodox shit.

 

I get that this is a science forum and everybody has a bias against religion, but that was just really weird and not something I want to stick around for.

Edited August 24, 2013 by Iggy

[john5746]

Mostly, though, I am suggesting that most people who say that they believe in god(s) are otherwise fully functional intelligent human beings who get along just fine as productive members of society. However, I am suggesting they are more than mistaken in context of this god topic, and concluding the existence of god(s) using broken logic, flawed rationality, and based on a double standard for evidence that they generally use no where else in their lives or for any other belief or conclusion they hold. I'm suggesting they are mostly deluded, and this is obvious when taking even a cursory view of the several definitions of that term I've shared. For that sub-population who cannot be accurately described as deluded, most are either lying or hallucinating.

I think I'm closer to Iggy's position on this. I think you are thinking mostly of the educated, moderate believers. I would say most of them don't really believe much - they just bow to social pressure. Just plain ignorance explains the fundamentalists. And this ignorance is displayed in other areas as well. Thinking the President is muslim, thinking Saddam was involved with 9/11, not knowing three branches of government, etc.

 

If someone like William Craig really believes, then that is what I call broken. But, I'm not sure if he really does.

Edited August 24, 2013 by john5746

[iNow]

I think you are thinking mostly of the educated, moderate believers. I would say most of them don't really believe much - they just bow to social pressure. <snip> If someone like William Craig really believes, then that is what I call broken. But, I'm not sure if he really does.

Do we have reason to suspect people don't "really believe?" Are we to not take them at their word when they say they do?

 

If they don't actually believe, but they continually claim that they do, doesn't that put them into the liar category I mentioned in the quote from me you shared?

Edited August 24, 2013 by iNow

[tar]

Iggy,

 

You sort of tried using one of the general points I consistently try to make, against me, when you accused me of thinking that I had a better objective view than I could have. That I CAN'T have a special, TAR only, grasp of things, is exactly the truth I use to "conflate" the delusions of a Theist, with the delusions of a scientist. Its exactly the truth I use to ground myself with the human judgement of "others". Its exactly the truth I use to claim that Jesus is not the special key to heaven, and that "chosen people" and "the secret of the Vedas", do not "wash" in this reality, this reality that is evident to all. It is the truth, that we are all in this together, and that none of us can either escape it or master it. None of us.

 

But this "condition" exists, and the great majority of us know that we are subject to reality, and cannot outlast it, outthink it, or outdo it. It is exactly in this light that I defend religious people, and defend myself, as a conscious being who MUST be both in and of the thing.

 

It is not possible to actually get "outside" the thing. Not for an idiot or a genius. Not for the "feeler" or the "thinker" or the "doer". This causes me to make some implications and draw some conclusions about the nature of the thing, where I can actually make a solid human judgement, based on the "here and now" that I am so human biasly aware of, and have so much solid evidence that "other" humans also are aware of...to feel and know that I am NOT deluding myself, when I love the thing, or feel its love.

 

Regards, TAR2

[Popcorn Sutton]

I love the universe and the reality in which I live. It's not always easy to be a part of this thing, whatever it is, but I respect it with faith, whole heartedly, because this thing is the reason that I am alive and even able to contemplate these matters.

 

I consider myself very educated, and highly capable of creative inquiry. Sometimes it may not seem that I am "willing to be puzzled"(chomsky), but I have found absolutely, not even one shred, no evidence that can support the claim that god does or does not exist. In fact, in light of recent scientific inquiry, I think that it is more plausible that a creator exists, but I cannot prove it. I know of the many worlds hypothesis, and to combine that hypothesis with statistics is mind blowing to me (to say the least). Given my research in computation, I would have to say that there is at least a 50% chance that god exists, a 30% chance that he/she is already dead, and a 20% chance that I've already known this several times but I am unaware.

 

Popcorn

[tar]

Popcorn Sutton,

 

Am currently watching a show on Jackie Robertson. Most people, white people, at the time enforced segregation in our society. Blacks sat at the back of the bus, served in the war in segregated units, and lived primarily as second class citizens. Many minds were changed, slowly but consistenly, the reality was noticed, that as oppression ended, talent and character and strength and beauty were recognized. Whites realized that blacks could be heroes, even better heroes than the bigoted whites that they played with...and white people became a little less bigoted, as things unfolded, and the civil rights struggle came forefront in the American consciousness.

 

Doesn't make me black to give a black man the respect he/she deserves.

 

Similarly, it doesn't make me a Theist to give a Theist the benefit of the doubt, or make me a scientist when I associate with the advancements in knowledge arrived at by the application of the scientific method.

 

There is a solid truth that you utter, when you state that " this thing is the reason that I am alive and even able to contemplate these matters."

 

iNow is insistent that belief in God is not rational. I am in mostly agreement with him, when claims are made, about God that are not rational, are inconsistent with other facts about reality, and when they are basically based on unsubtantialted, wishthinking.

 

However, there is this other side of the coin, which is obvious and plain to you and me, and probably obvious to the religious majority of the world, and maybe should be obvious to iNow, that it would be quite irrational to look up into the night sky, or into the microscope, contemplate the wonder and immensity, complexity and beauty of it all, and conclude that you had nothing to do with it, or it, with you.

Certain aspects of "God" are evidently true and consistently true, across the board. Certain aspects of "God" are only true to the imaginator of the aspect. And sometimes the figurative and the literal are conflated and interchanged and misappropriated when discussed between one mind and another, but belief in God is not broken, is very rational, and is very evidence based, if such belief is referring to that about the universe that is consistently true, across the board.

 

Regards, TAR

[John Cuthber]

" it would be quite irrational to look up into the night sky, or into the microscope, contemplate the wonder and immensity, complexity and beauty of it all, and conclude that you had nothing to do with it, or it, with you."

Indeed, the universe caused me.

No God needed.

OTOH religion tries to teach me that all that wondrous stuff is for our benefit.

How rational is that?

 

"but belief in God is not broken, is very rational, and is very evidence based, if such belief is referring to that about the universe that is consistently true, across the board."

Also true, as is the idea that belief in God is not broken if you assume that such belief is referring to "chocolate biscuits".

However it doesn't hold for any of the more traditional definitions of God

[doG]

....but belief in God is not broken, is very rational, and is very evidence based, if such belief is referring to that about the universe that is consistently true, across the board.

 

Regards, TAR

 

 

Ummmmmmmmm...NO! There is no evidence for god. If there were any real evidence for god there would be no debate.

[john5746]

Do we have reason to suspect people don't "really believe?" Are we to not take them at their word when they say they do?

 

If they don't actually believe, but they continually claim that they do, doesn't that put them into the liar category I mentioned in the quote from me you shared?

I agreed with your position in regards to some educated people. I'll use myself, since I usually know what I was thinking. I never had any strong belief as in thinking I was personally saved by a deity. But, I considered myself a christian and would tell someone if asked, that Jesus had died for me, etc.

I guess you could say I was lying, but it had more nuance than that.

 

I wasn't thinking "feed this BS to numbnut so they will accept me." It was more like "Well, I really haven't thought about it, but I'm a good person and I believe in God so why wouldn't I go to heaven?". After finishing college, it turned into the first quote, until I finally did that line on an atheist and he grilled me on it. I confessed to him that I really hadn't thought about it much and that started my path towards atheism.

 

So, I still think ignorance is a big player in this. Sometimes willful ignorance, in that people just aren't really that interested in determining truth, unless arguing with someone. I see this with a relative in regards to evolution. She will not accept/admit that people are apes and has no interest in learning about it. Yet, she is interested in geneology and accepts DNA as evidence. I guess you could say she is broken in regards to Biology.

Edited August 24, 2013 by john5746

[iNow]

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. While I may sometimes use sharp words to make points in this thread, I sense that our thinking on this topic overlaps tremendously.

[tar]

John Cuthber and doG,

 

Just lost the rewrite of a post that I lost. Two good posts, I can't reclaim, because I think I have already brought the arguments and examples and am currently at a different place than the contents of the thread would show.

 

I will have to just pose the question I came up with and you can fill in the blanks, or take it from there, as is appropriate.

 

Is there a significant difference in the belief in a universal idea, and the belief in God?

 

Regards, TAR2

and if there is not, are people that believe in universal ideas, broken?

Edited August 25, 2013 by tar

[John Cuthber]

What do you mean by "belief in a universal idea"?

Do you mean belief in an idea that everyone believes or do you mean belief in a universe?

 

In either case there's a clear difference from belief in God.

If there's an idea in which everyone believes, then I believe in it by definition.

I believe there's a universe.

So, by either definition, I have "belief in a universal idea".

But I don't believe in God/

So, yes, there's a difference if I have understood you properly.

[Thorham]

I get that this is a science forum and everybody has a bias against religion

I just have a problem with religions that tell you how to act, what to think, what to believe, what to wear, what to eat, and that if you don't do these things the way they want you to that you're going to hell.

Edited August 25, 2013 by Thorham

[tar]

John Cuthber,

 

Well, I should have tried to reconstruct my post. Not fair of me to expect you to read my mind.

 

Part of the lead up to the question was an establishment of the fact that the God of the bible did not exist, and hence the respin of the Koran was also base on crap. But that there were universal ideas of love (protection of the weak) and equality (all equal in the eyes of god), peace (make no mischief) that could be held without belief in a particular non-existing god, but that could not be held without belief in a common idea.

 

Then, to tie in with the delusion definition, ideas that are not commonly held in a culture, are considered delusional...but whole cultures can hold different ideals, and hence be at odds. Wars between Al Queda and the Zionists...Conserative and Liberal, Communist and Capitalist or whatever are based on universal ideas, that the antagonists believe in. And no god is required to have these differences. Only a lack of common ideals is the blame for the conflict.

 

In this sense, the insights of Mohammed were not unlike the insights of a current day humanist.

 

And Mohammed DID unify the Arab world, under one idea, and serves as a model of "how a person should be" to a third of the population of the Earth. And his last sermon spoke of reconcilliation and peace, of Muslem and non-Muslem being equal in the eyes of Allah, and for all to hear his message, and spread it, and that he hoped the people that would hear his message later, would understand it, even better than those that heard his words that day.

 

These ideals, are the ones to which I refer.

 

Is belief in these ideals, something like, belief in God?

 

If you lead a good life, by the Christian or the Jewish, or the Moslem, or Hindu, or Humanist ideals, and there is a "common thread" to be found between the ideals, is there really a difference in believing in the ideal, or believing in a God that cares about your adherence to the ideal?

 

That was my question.

 

Regards, TAR2

[iNow]

So, you're basically asking, "If we redefine god to be a chair, then do you think god exists?" Well, no. Chairs exist, and we don't need to completely redefine words to make a point about deities. Deities almost certainly do not exist anywhere outside of human imagination and fiction.

[John Cuthber]

It would be tricky to prove but I rather suspect that people realised it was sensible to be nice to eachother before there was any clear idea of a God.

There is evidence that some other primates* have a "sense of fairness", but I haven't seen them setting up churches.

http://www.livescience.com/26245-chimps-value-fairness.html

 

 

this sort

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primate

 

rather than this one

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primate_(bishop)

[tar]

John Cuthber,

 

Well lets suppose we had a sense a fairness, long before the Bishops were around to enforce it.

 

Is there a requirement that it be enforced, or not?

 

Would everything work out well with no one to dole out the bananas equitably?

 

Capitalism and Communism are still at odds, in terms of whose reponsibility it is, to determine what is fair and proper.

 

There were in Arabia warring, idol worshipping tribes, who had no overaching, binding idea, with which to settle the cases, other than the sword and arrow. Christianity had such a thought, and Mohammed borrowed it. Western society doesn't find the rules so equitable...so we fight over whose rules we are going to go by. The "Church" was highly male oriented, and this is not "equitable" to the females.

 

So what should rule the day, money, power, religion, philosophy, science, laws, logic, or what?

 

I agree with iNow, that there are no dieties. But take John Lennon's song "Imagine" and put everybody naked in field, loving each other...which is a nice thought, until everybody realizes that nobody brought any bananas, and its time for lunch.

 

Sometimes it might require "imagining" that there is an "ideal" way to be, inorder to proceed in a manner equitable to all. And even now, with everybodies best efforts to make it so...plenty of people wind up with too few bananas, as far as they are concerned.

 

Humanist thoughts that strive to prove that we might have developed laws and ideals, that would bind us together, without the thought of God are missing the fact that thought about God, got us to where we are, in the first place. That such a progression can be done without God, is an obvious fact, since we did it, without there being a God. But it is also obvious that we got here, with a lot of people involved "thinking" there was/is a God, or acting like there was, or acting as if there were a God.

 

In this, given the fact that there are no Dieties, acting "as if" there are, seems to be a thing everybody is capable of doing, none-the-less.

 

Acting "as if" there is a chair, is not required, you can just sit in a chair.

 

Acting "as if" there is an ideal to adhere to, IS required, because the ideal only exists if you hold it in your mind, and is only society wide useful and functional, if EVERYBODY holds it.

 

Regards, TAR2

To be "godless" is still a problem if it can be thought of, or "redefined" as iNow would blame me for doing, as "operating with no ideals or principles, or societal values".

And if anyone, could pick these values out of the air, and sense and know them, without a church, and without a court, and without parents and society and with only logic and sense to guide them, then I would argue that then these values ARE universally present, and anyone that believed in them would be believing in a "true" god.

[John Cuthber]

Well, for a start

"But take John Lennon's song "Imagine" and put everybody naked in field, loving each other...which is a nice thought, until everybody realizes that nobody brought any bananas, and its time for lunch."wins the non sequiteur of the week award.

 

Imagine that there was a religion, and that everyone was too busy going to church to buy any bananas.

 

There's no reason to think that any sort or religon or lack of it has anything to do with having an organised society.

[tar]

I disagree John.

 

Every society in the world, or at least every society I can think of, has a history of religion.

 

And although an organized society can exist without god (since they do, and there isn't) there are few that operate without the ideas that their forefathers taught them. And just about everybody has a history of religion.

Faith in things that have no mass or energy or any scientifically measurable quantities.

Courage, sacrifice, promises, integrity, and 100 other virtues require reaching into a well that has no physical existence to pull out a thing with no substance, that then exhibits itself in your actions or restraint and affects the world. Edited August 25, 2013 by tar

[John Cuthber]

My culture used to believe in slavery, but we grew out of it.

[tar]

I am blessed this week. Iggy was amazed at the fact that I accidentally said something relevant. And now I've won an award for irrelevence.

 

It's a shame that I actually understand my own logic, and see the connections...I must be broken.

John,

Your culture? Which one is that?

I work 8 hours a day to pay the bank. Not a far cry from the coal mining days of the company store. Which was not so far from the cotton fields.

And I would say our society, regardless of the fact that we elected a black president, is still "working on" issues that slavery caused. Detroit just went bust and it didn't have nothing to do with the black population, and the reluctance of white money to engage in the place.

We are attempting to "grow out of it", but to say it is no longer relevant, would be untrue.

Regards, TAR2
Ideals die hard. And take a long time to foster.

[tar]

And not too irrelevant to the thread, that 50 years ago Rev. King had a "dream".

[doG]

Is there a significant difference in the belief in a universal idea, and the belief in God?

 

apples and oranges....

[tar]

doG,

 

Exactly. There is a much difference between an apple and an orange, as there is between having an idea of God, and believing in the ideal.

 

Regards, TAR2