Well, Thought, that was nicely put. I did say I would not be returning for further dialogue, but I wrote that with the expectation that nobody would offer anything worth my address. Krispin himself has been in decline for years, and nobody else on the pro-religious side of this ceaseless argument ever had the intellectual gravitas to begin with. But yours is a thoughtful and insightful contribution, and I would be a poor sport indeed not to grant you the courtesy of some attention. Plus, I happen to like your style.
Let me say before I begin that I do not labor under the delusion that I have any chance of changing your mind tonight. Your mind is made up, and I can already see that you are not the sort of person to be converted by your enemies. I admit this frankly and up front in hopes that you will not feel compelled to treat my response from a defensive standpoint, because, as you might concede, such a posture is not well-suited to the embrace of ideas. I would rather you have an enjoyable time considering my point of view, because I enjoyed yours. As you said of religion, for the best insights one must go to the experts. I don’t have a book out, but I do know my stuff.
Lastly, let me apologize in advance that the following is not as long as I might like. I gave up the Compendium for two reasons, and one of them was limited time. As much as I would like to engage you at full length, there are other things I would like even more, and only so many hours on the clock. So if I miss something that you were particularly keen on seeing addressed, be forgiving and let me know.
~~~
First, allow me to sidestep the question of the validity of Atheism for a moment and simply state that of course Atheism is illogical! Yet it is also equally true that Theism is illogical; only Agnosticism is logical, for this particular question.
The short answer is that you are correct, and a number of people have made that point already. I myself am an agnostic, in case you missed it, although admittedly from your point of view I am an atheist, because I do not subscribe to Christianity, whereas by all appearances you do.
The longer answer is that you are not correct. Atheism is illogical only inasmuch as it is not one hundred percent veracious, and in some situations the only binary that matters is the perfect match versus everything else. Empirically, atheism has plenty to support it, especially when we start talking about specific religions and deities rather than the concept of the divine in general. In contrast, theism has a great deal going against it.
To lump the two together is a common tactic among religionists, because it serves a dual and most advantageous purpose: If the atheistic party takes the bait, they are forced into a sudden defense of their position on strange ground. More importantly the tactic infuriates many among the atheistic party, by accusing them of practicing faith by eschewing it—an absurdity.
Much of the substance of this maneuver has already been played out in this thread, so, despite your tardiness to the festivities, only the most cursory of summaries is required: Daniel Krispin began the conversation by proposing that atheism and theism are both illogical positions to hold. Yes they are technically, but conceptually he was making a dishonest argument: Atheism is illogical only in the sense that it is incomplete by virtue of the subject matter, while theism is illogical not only because it is incomplete in the same way, but because it contradicts our reliable observations of the natural world with extraordinary, non-falsifiable claims of its own.
The two are not equivalent.
As the entirety of the evidence on the matter is not yet known (being that a humblingly small amount of knowledge has been amassed by humans over the last 20,000 years, compared to the whole of the universe, and being that a good majority of that knowledge is almost assuredly incorrect), no definite solution can be reached. It is like trying to solve a mathematical equation while half the numbers and variables are missing!
You speak with a conviction that is not borne out by the ideas you present—a flaw of my own when I was younger. You have no immediate standing to assert that “a good majority” of our knowledge of the universe is “almost assuredly incorrect,” and if I asked you to defend that position you would be compelled to research for hours simply to find mistakes in past scientific thought and controversies in modern thought…and even then you would not reach the “good majority” standard you have set for yourself. At this point in our development, many fields of science have matured at the basic level. I am not suggesting that we have run out of things to learn; only that we are learning.
In much the same way, your fondness of pointing out the incomplete status of our scientific progress does not go well with your fatuous (albeit, to your credit, insinuated) declarations of theistic commitment. You will find few counterparts on my side of the debate who are similarly insular. (Emendation: You will find quite a number, but few with whom I would associate.)
It is not a bad thing to be illogical, mind you. After all, no single human (and possibly the species in general) is so long-lived as to have the luxury of waiting until we have all the necessary information before making a decision in this matter.
You are using an incorrect definition of logic. Throughout my early reply in this topic, I was referring to formal logic—the study of deductive reasoning and its principles and methods. Krispin was also referring to that. But in your example of making decisions prior to having full information, your reference to “illogical” applies to those methods of human reasoning other than critical analysis, such as intuition, repetition, and so forth.
In the sense of formal logic, it is very much a bad thing to be illogical. A pity, then, that so many people are, and with such little awareness or concern.
As for faith being illogical, again I will respond with: of course it is! It, however, is perfectly reasonable.
Faith could only be reasonable in the absence of further inquiry, but as faith specifically discourages that very inquiry in favor of a predetermined conclusion, it is
inherently unreasonable.
For the religious individual, faith may replace all logic and reason. However, it is also quite possible for faith to supplement these tools. In the latter case, it is somewhat inexact to call faith illogical or unreasonable; rather, it is used as an extra-logical tool.
Wishful thinking. Faith will never substitute for any fact-based method of speculation, such as hypothesis or inference. You are welcome to defend your claim, but if I were you I would save myself the trouble of such a futile effort and go on to the next quote.
I am most amused that some people have pointed out that religion does not conform to the scientific method or empirical evidence and have therefore concluded that it should be discarded. How terribly unreasonable of them! The Scientific Method does not address the same questions that religion addresses…
An excellent point. There is plenty of room in the human equation for meaningful development outside the accumulation of scientific comprehension. Religion could exist there, if it wanted. But it does not want that. It wants what science, and only science, can deliver: objective truth.
(Oh, and just to be clear, there is nothing religion answers that the scientific method could not, by clever psychological application, also answer, but in practice the two have a different purview. As the cliché goes, science is for “how” and religion is for “why.”)
Just as the humanities can use the scientific method and empirical evidence at its whim without being subject to the tool, so too can we use these tools in the question of the existence of god while avoiding the nasty problem of being subject to it. That is to say, it is perfectly acceptable to point at particulars of science and empirical evidence to support one side or another, though neither is the final word on the matter. It is about the level of circumstantial evidence, at best.
Fascinating. Untenable. The discoveries of science do not amount to “circumstantial evidence.” Indeed, you could not have found a more antonymous pairing. “Circumstantial” implies a condition of the moment, whereas scientific experimentation deliberately attempts to weed out those false conclusions by imposing the requirement of reproducibility.
So then, if science is against religion, I would be most curious as to hear how. Of course, this curiosity is asking rather much, as science might object to part of one religion while leaving three other religions untouched.
One of the most consistent weaknesses I notice in religious thinkers is a fundamental misunderstanding of what science
is, how it is conducted, and where it is applied.
I have spoken, as have we all here, of “science” in the collective, perhaps making it sound as though it were some monolithic force almost like god, and maybe that is confusing to my friends on the pro-religious side of the table. Science is not religion’s counterpart. Science is the methodical investigation of phenomena for the purpose of understanding their nature. Religion is antagonistic to science because it is threatened by science, but the war is decidedly unilateral and science, for its part, does not care. It concerns itself only with questions that can be put to the test. It is utterly without ego, and thus incapable of taking any notice of the threat posed to it by religious fundamentalists.
You did not hear it from me that science is “against” religion. Science discredits religion. Science supplants religion. But it is not against it in the sense of a rivalry or competition, and the two are not opposites.
Simply put, there is nothing in the bible that precludes evolution, and nothing in evolution that precludes the bible.
Simply put, aye. Wrongly put too. Go on and defend your claim.
Oh, wait…you did.
The strict creationist would say that the bible claims that God created man from dust; this is true, the bible does so claim. However, it does not make mention of the means through which God did this creating. An artist creates a painting, an author creates a book, but none of this tells us how it is done.
You will forgive me if I suggest that I find this an apologetic and unpersuasive defense.
Now the “scientist” might object, saying that the methods of evolution are known and without a taint of divine intervention.
Now you are even putting “scientist” in quotes, eh?
What you are doing here is defending the specific mythology of your religion from factual scrutiny by selectively interpreting the Bible so as to arrive at a conclusion which is, once again, untestable, unfalsifiable, and so forth. I’ve got another “un” for you: Unacceptable.
That is, in so far as religion would have us expect the universe to behave in such-and-such a manner and science has shown that it does in fact behave in that manner, we may then claim that science has confirmed religion.
Religion says there is a god who makes the universe run like clockwork. Science proves the universe runs like clockwork. Thus, science proves religion.
That is obviously, conspicuously fallacious.
To move on from science to social science (in a continuing train of how different spheres of discipline may be applied to the issue but do not dominate that issue), it is rather curious that humans have a conception of god in the first place. Humans, after all, are animals of experience (or empirical evidence, if you prefer). It is said that we cannot truly imagine what an alien life-form would look like as we have no basis for that which is truly alien. Indeed, humans are a horribly unimaginative lot; at best we can make small leaps from the known into the unknown; there are no thoughts, no inventions, that have not been built on the ideas that came before it. Why then should we have made the leap to a god?
Humanity conceives of the divine because, as curious creatures, we have a desire to understand the working of things. This is biologically advantageous, as such an understanding allows that we may manipulate our surroundings or ourselves to our advantage.
However, without good information—and in antiquity there was scarce little of that—it is easy to draw poor conclusions. You would think that a poor conclusion would get weeded out right away because it doesn’t work, but the story of history is filled with bad ideas that lasted for a long time because they were just ambiguous enough, and just appealing enough, to become culturally significant and therefore traditional.
Nowhere is this better evidenced than with the creation of god. Humanity, having finally evolved to the point where its curiosity expanded to include the existential, did not realize that meaning is self-made, and therefore sought to ascribe it to the universe in the form of divinities. These concepts, being wrong, were nevertheless not wrong enough to be
obviously wrong, and at the same time they were very appealing, and became a currency of social cohesion. Thus, they stuck with us easily.
Of course, every tribe had its own god image, and these images came to be powerful symbols of “Us versus Them,” resulting in millennia of bloodbaths from which we have yet to emerge. But I digress.
You are right that humans are creatures of experience, and have a difficult time with abstract creativity. Most of what we do creatively is analogical, or, at best, metaphorical. Seldom do we create anything that is truly original—and when we do, it is often poorly received. (Postmodernism comes to mind.) Anyhow, your observation explains quite tidily why the earliest gods were merely humans with a little extra power. When explaining the workings of nature beyond our control, or exploring the questions of existence and sentience, humans simply took what they knew and imagined more powerful beings—gods—running the show. Consequently, all early and most modern gods fit into one of these three categories:
1) Aggrandized humans, such as kings or elders;
2) Anthropomorphized beings and physical phenomena, such as wind or eagles;
3) Personified concepts, such as fertility or wisdom, or war, or death.
This is even evident in the Christian tradition: Back in the times of the Old Testament, the pre-ancient Hebrew god was emotional, temperamental, fickle, and suggestible—category number one in my little list. By the time of the New Testament, human thinking had advanced to the point where god was stripped of many of his more obvious human weaknesses, but the resulting deity still consisted of the supposedly more virtuous human traits like love and mercy.
As humanity became more advanced in its thinking, so too did its gods grow more sophisticated. Today, as the era of monotheism draws to a bloody close, our deities of choice are decidedly more modern and well-connected to our everyday lives. They include mobility, humor, and even free-market economics. Any time we have an unusual fondness for something, which we cannot easily explain in rational terms, we are caught in an act of deification—or, to use a more contemporary and appropriate concept—worship.
But back then, in the oldest days of civilization, our thoughts were simple and our gods were too. Indeed, your observation that we tend to borrow from what we know when we engage in creative acts is so astute, and so straightforward, that I am surprised you did not follow it to its natural conclusion. Instead you accuse humans of being unimaginative (quite demonstrably untrue), then bizarrely conclude that, therefore, we must have come up with the idea of god because, in fact, god came up with us.
Remarkable.
Did someone see thunder and think it a god? Why would he have questioned it in the first place? Perhaps I am wrong in this statement but to my knowledge there was never a god of gravity in any society, yet gravity would be just as mysterious to primitive man.
We questioned thunder because of its relevance to our lives, its dangerousness, and its overwhelming, fear-inspiring presence.
Gravity, by comparison, was subtle enough of an idea that it did not occur to us for a very long time. We knew all about falling, flying, and other gravity-related things, and deified some of those, but gravity itself was too difficult an idea to be readily apparent. You might think of gravity as something obvious, but if you do then you are behaving under the hubris of hindsight. Light bulbs are also simple, but we didn’t come up with those for a long time. So are windmills. Scissors. And more. In most cases, it took visionaries or geniuses to come up with those things for the first time. It should come as no surprise that there were many gods of thunder but few of gravitation.
And, why should more than one people have imagined a god in the first place?
Because all people share in common a curiosity about themselves and their world. That is a fundamental part of human nature, and anyone lacking it tends to be psychologically disturbed.
As it makes no sense for any god to be postulated in the first place (unless there was experience, of course), why should numerous independent peoples of created an idea as beyond experience as the divine?
At this point, your entire argument is in tatters, so please forgive me if I jump forward a bit.
But now onto the supplemental questions as to if Religion is good or evil. Ha, how unreasonable such a question is! The very question of ultimate good or evil is a religious question; to attempt to address it assuming that religion is evil is like attempting to argue that logic (as a system of perceiving the world) is illogical by using logic!
You are getting caught up in a kind of gibberish here. The question of good and evil is not religious; indeed, the former preceded even the latter. The concept of good and evil arose as a human plea for boundaries by which to assemble cultures and give purpose. Freed from the restraints of instinctive behavior, early humans found themselves in the difficult position of deciding what to do with themselves. In addition to the animal questions of “what” and “how,” human sentience compelled us to interpret it all by asking “why.” This unique uncertainty, while it was not frontally addressed, motivated a good deal of early human behavior.
Today, good and evil has evolved in its sophistication, but it is still premised upon our need to find meaning with ourselves and the world, which itself is a natural consequence of consciousness. When anybody gets it in mind to ask whether religion is good or evil, you can be sure that the question is an honest one.
What we call good and bad are inherently steeped in the assumption that there can be an authority higher than humanity and such assumptions are religious in nature.
Again, your religious point of view obscures your understanding of the wider world. You characterize the concept of good and evil as requiring an authority “higher” than humanity—a religious construction of an irreligious concept. People’s sense of good and evil can come from any number of sources. Mine comes from an observation of human nature, and then follows by ascertaining what is best (and worst) for humans, from a human standpoint. I mentioned that, by my model, the only true evil is ignorance, or willful ignorance. I have carefully determined, over a period of years, that this is an excellent way by which to evaluate human-related concepts and behaviors, in terms of meaningfulness. Ignorance does not require some “higher” authority to operate. Indeed, I think it quite antithetical. (And it is, after all, my model.)
A hammer may be very useful for driving a nail into a piece of wood, or bashing your opponent over the head when you get frustrated with their arguments…
Or lack of arguments. I admit to being particularly disappointed by Krispin’s evasive, slanderous, intellectually absent reply to me earlier in this thread. He and I have had our ups and downs in the past (mostly downs), but I had hoped he would offer something thoughtful on the occasion of my surprise (and very fleeting) visit. Let me repeat how glad I am for the opportunity you presented me, by writing such a thoughtful reply of your own.
I would propose, then, that the use to which Religion should be put is the preservation and advancement of human civilization and individual societies. The first part, that of preservation, is rather simple. To survive societies need a common; societies are not made up of strangers but fellow believers in whatever that society decides to believe in. Religion can serve this role just as well as anything else.
A noble argument—except for the last sentence, of course—and I am sorely tempted to simply concede you the point if only out of esteem for your respect for human progress. But I cannot do it, because I have seen religion’s report card at preserving and advancing our civilization. We are at a fundamental impasse on that point.
Christianity is a perfect example of religion preserving it. The knowledge, laws, and customs of the ancient world were preserved through the Church.
Yes, in some regards. Not so much in others. The Church was not a bunch of lovey-dovey do-gooders looking to bring comfort and salvation to god’s children. The Church based its policy upon ambition, greed, and political leverage. No different than any other authority, really, but the Church was special because it enjoyed such dominance over much of Europe, for so long a time—both at the political and the cultural level.
You know, the first science report I ever remember doing was on Galileo, who I admit having had some admiration for, given my own cosmic interests. I still remember reading about what the Christians did to him, simply because his discoveries threatened their control. They didn’t teach that stuff in the classroom textbooks, but it was right there in my school library. That was one of the first times I realized what an evil history the Christian religion has.
Of course, the
very first such lesson I got was outside school altogether. I was raised in a Jewish household, so I know all about the past two thousand years of Christian “peace and love.”
So then, has Religion advanced society or civilization? I highly suspect that the advancements is theological discourse will be discarded out of hand by those who disagree with religion, therefore allow me to return to Christianity and note the wonders of monasticism (specifically the Irish brand of Monasticism).
Not “out of hand.” Now that
is a straw man. For you to suggest it is to imply that all those who reject religion, such as myself, are either pitiably irrational or up to no good.
Now one might claim that the enlightenment and scientific revolution would have still happened regardless of the role religion played in it. Perhaps – when one gets into counterfactual historical arguments things get a bit tricky – but it is rather assured that IF these things still happened, then they would have been delayed by several centuries or millennia.
This is much like the argument Krispin made. To take historical fact and turn it completely around is easy enough, but to get millions of people to believe that, in the face of all evidence, now that is impressive.
Much like the Dominionist resolution now pending in the House, which revises the history of America in stark defiance of the well-preserved facts, you would have us all think that the Middle Ages were actually a golden age, and that Christianity led the parade. Well, you’re half right, but all wrong.
For a thousand years, Christian authorities blocked nearly all progress in Europe. The old Roman infrastructure decayed, the people fell into darkness, and even the great Charlemagne was almost illiterate. Christian authorities thwarted science, art, commerce, and liberty, imposing a strict control on each, and declaring with unfettered authority what people were and were not allowed to do. And when I say “people,” I mean “Christian males.” Females were beats of burden and sexual slaves under the Christianity of this era. Non-Christians, meanwhile, were either converted, exiled, murdered, or, at the very best, segregated and disenfranchised. These were dangerous times, with economic stagnation, rampant war, and the near-total absence of imperial power. The Church was active, all right, sending its missionaries across the land to win new minions, enacting its prohibitions on human pleasure and happiness, lining its coffers with the silver of lords and peasants alike, and generally terrorizing everybody with its apocalyptic portents (inspired, no doubt, by the fall of Rome and the hardships that ensued).
Let me be plain: I do not mean to deny your claims that Christian influences helped preserve knowledge during the perilous times of the dark ages. You are not mistaken when you point out the role of the monasteries in dispensing education and preserving knowledge, etc., etc.
My argument is not that those events did not occur. Obviously, I know better than that. There will always be some progress inside even the most oppressive society. That Christianity did not destroy society completely during the Middle Ages is to be expected; humans are made of heartier stuff than that, and churches can fall. Rather, my argument is that the adoption of Christianity itself slowed what progress might otherwise have been made. Had another imperial power, free of the corruption and excess that had diminished Rome, arisen and taken over the West of Europe before Christianity set in, the Goths could have been turned back, society could have been rehabilitated, and commerce could have regained its footing. Had those things happened, human learning and technology would have proceeded much more quickly, and we might have walked on the moon by the year 1000. Billions of people might not have been made to lead wretched lives. Who knows what that world might have looked like today?
Perhaps the argument could be made that Christianity’s rise was ineluctable. Many of Christianity’s most notorious practices in the early Middle Ages were not of its own doing, but were set by existing political and cultural trends. When Rome fell, people wanted bearings in their lives. So they turned to faith and religious submission. Christianity rose to fit the needs of the day. Thus, continuing that line of thought, it is hard to blame Christianity itself for rising up and becoming such an oppressive force over Europe. In that case, any discussion of how Europe might have fared better might be moot. Nonetheless, from our perspective, the story is plain.
But what has religion done for us lately? Charity organizations aside, of course. And Hospitals. And basic laws.
You have a singular wit. And a lot of cheek.
Basic tenant of the modern western world is that everyone is equal, which is an inherently religious perspective. How is that a religious perspective? Quite simple; people are NOT equal, as even the simplest of observations will show.
I point out with some amusement that, in your patently silly suggestion that anything non-literal (like the concept of equal opportunity) is “inherently” religious , you are also implying that anything which isn’t true is “inherently” a religious point of view. That kind of ambiguous phrasing doesn’t do much to help your case.
If we are left to the laws of nature, un-tempered by the urgings of religion, then we are left with survival of the fittest.
Justice is not a choice between religion and survival of the fittest. That’s a false dilemma, a logical fallacy. Yet again your religious perspective has muddled your mind and prevented you from recognizing the palpable fact that nonreligious principles are as effective as religious ones in determining civic ideals.
Certainly, Religion has its uses.
Aye, it slices and dices and rapes your daughters. Call in the next five minutes and you can get three gods for the price of one!
There are truly altruistic human acts; just because an altruistic act usually benefits the doer and the receiver does not make it any less altruistic.
She was talking about motive. It isn’t possible for a human being to behave with any motive other than what they perceive at that moment is in their own interest, unless that person is psychologically disturbed.
Now, “in one’s interest” can and often does take on a stretchy look. People smoke their lungs out, they ignore politics, they play games when they should be cleaning the bathroom, they date their ex’s roommate…they do all sorts of stuff that is decidedly not in their best interest. Sometimes they even know it. But at the level of the will, even those things which they acknowledge to be bad are in their self-interest, at least at the time.
Two points; not everyone who is religious is interested in salvation. Buddists and Taoists, for example. Also, this is actually an internally debated Christian concept; salvation through grace or salvation through works. If there is salvation through grace, then works are not needed (and thus the person will have no perceived quota); yet in the same turn, salvation through grace should lead to good works, just as eating will lead to sustained living (as it were).
Although it might not be obvious from inside a religious frame of mind, Ms Black is right again: Christianity shapes its followers’ behavior with a clear system of rewards and punishments. Christians don’t want to be damned; they want to be saved. Actually, I suspect that many of them privately believe they are going to be saved, but that doesn’t stop them from applying the fear of Hell and the lure of Heaven to their decision-making.
Nonreligious folks, in the meantime, often take actions with no obvious personal incentive, let alone an eternal reward. They make these decisions out of a more sophisticated sense of ethics. Christians can do that too, but not when they apply the religious test to their judgment.
This is not to say that even the best apologetics will not include faith. But they will include logic and reason that you can accept (on a technical level, at least) as well. As mentioned above, for the learned religious individual, faith is used as an extra-logical tool. To expect it to be absent is, well, illogical of you.
This is one of those times where the length of your reply gives away your feeling of vulnerability. Ms Black, myself, and others, have all stated pretty clearly why faith is illogical. It’s a one-sentence answer: Faith is illogical because it declares itself exempt from logic.
You can’t have it both ways. Either you use faith to support your arguments, in which case those arguments are logically invalid, or you rely on evidence alone.
No, scientific faith is “I believe because I believe I have sound evidence.”
I might be sounding like a broken record at this point, but again you are letting your religious worldview corrupt your judgment and your ability to conceptualize beyond a religious context. There is no faith in science. There simply is not. The facts always have the final word. Scientists may entertain hunches, suspicions, and all of that good stuff, but in the end they go with what the facts say. Many a proud scientist has willingly humbled himself or herself after an experiment produced an answer they did not expect. That is the beauty, and the power, of science. It takes a certain kind of person to be in that business, though.
“Believing that one believes one has sound evidence” is not faith. If the scientist is behaving ethically, his or her “belief” (although “assumption” is better) is supportable by facts—or, at the very least, testable.
That’s the very sort of thing that Krispin just doesn’t understand. I’d like to think that you do, and are just playing dumb so as to further your argument (and, at the same time, give me a chance to further mine even more), but maybe I’m wrong. You tell me.
Science recognizes only one type of “fact,” that of the observation. The observation itself may be flawed, but it is a fact that it was observed. These observations are then used to support a hypothesis (though really it happens in reverse, unfortunately) which, if it stands up to peer review and rigorous testing may, MAY, be promoted to the realm of theory. Theory is still not a fact. To be fair to science (and to make sure I am not misunderstood), a scientific theory is nearly as good as fact.
You are certainly not a scientist, then. In colloquial usage, facts are superior to theories—witness that old canard, “Evolution is just a theory.” But in science, facts are the small coins, and theories the mighty houses of exchange. In science, a good theory makes use of many facts to describe a piece of the natural world and its function. A fact on behalf of evolution is nothing compared to the theory itself, which is supported by legions of facts. Just as facts rule the day, theories “light the way.” Okay…that was not as poetic as I had hoped. But, you get my idea. Your usage of these terms is decidedly in the colloquial sense, and does not capture this important distinction, so I thought I would point it out for your erudition.
Now to Lord J, though he (she?) clearly stated that he would not return to read responses. It is only proper to address some of the issues brought up by such an “evil” individual (his definition of the word, not mine). (…)
Curiously, that makes all of humanity evil without remorse. I highly suspect that you are ignorant of all of the laws contained in the Code of Aethelbert, King of Kent. Therefore, you are evil. If you do not go out and learn about these law codes, then you are willfully ignorant and all the more evil for it. I am ignorant as to your street address, thus I am evil. As no one, at any point, has ever been without some ignorance, everyone is always evil.
I am afraid your definition is simply too unreasonable and it must be rejected.
Hah. In eight minutes of typing (if that), you knocked down eight years of my philosophical work, eh? I would be the first to congratulate you, had you managed to pull that off.
In fact, ignorance is a condition of circumstance, and not a persistent, inherent quality. To call humans evil because we all are ignorant is to inappropriately transfer culpability away from ignorance itself and into the general character of the person. By your reasoning, everybody short of an omniscient god is evil.
That we are ignorant is a motivation, not a condemnation. We are each born into ignorance, and, hopefully, raised up so that we can pursue our lives freeing ourselves from it, by learning, exploring, creating, communicating, and achieving. Unlike Christianity, I see no need to condemn a human being from birth. On the contrary, at that moment we have every day of our life ahead of us.
Willful ignorance, meanwhile, represents the abrogation of what I see as the intrinsic human obligation to shed ignorance. Thus, as a personality trait rather than a situational condition, it is more accurate to ascribe a judgment of “evil” (in whatever degree of severity) to one who purposely refrains from learning so as to preserve some existing bliss or simply avoid the work.
This is why I qualify religious faith as evil. It is not evil in the religious, demonic sense, but in the sense that it prevents people from broadening their understanding of the world in which they live and on which they depend. As faith superimposes a predetermined conclusion above whatever the truth in question might be, it sustains the ignorance of the practitioner, who does this willfully…even if they do not fully realize the consequences of their choices.
I thank you for providing me with the opportunity to expound upon this.
It is not that the road to Truth is opposite to the system of scientific inquiry, but it is in addition to.
Yes, I recall you tried to prove that earlier. It didn’t go very well for you, did it?
I feel like I am in a Monty Python sketch. “I’m thirty-seven, I’m not old.” “It’s around twenty thousand years of civilization, that’s not a few.”
I think this is the first (and hopefully to be the only) anti-intellectual cheap shot you have taken at me. By quibbling over my artistic use of the word “few,” you are, effectively, making argument where none exists.
I used the word “few” deliberately, because I know enough about human history to understand that the beginnings of civilization were diverse enough—and, to this day, remain poorly understood enough—that attaching a specific number would simply invite criticism upon myself. So I chose “few.”
You’re no John Cleese, m’boy.
Actually, we have. Modern advancements are actually speeding up evolution, as a larger population allows for more genetic variations to enter the species and a larger playing field for those variations to find an advantage niche. True, these aren’t major biological changes, but for one humans are genetically predisposed to longer lives now-a-days than in the past (which is actually a result of older men procreating with younger women).
You are correct. I was wrong to say the human genome has not changed at all over the past few thousand years. There have no doubt been numerous mutations. What I was speaking of was the appearance and function of the whole, which, for the most part, remains identical to that of humans of ages past.
You are not correct, however, in some of your specifics. Most of our gains in health, longevity, and the rest are the result of improvements to the nurture side of the equation. But it is the beside the point.
Quote from: Lord J esq on January 06, 2008, 03:53:28 PM
He is an all-perfect father, yet failed to prevent the fall of his children and doomed them to live wretched lives until the Judgment. He is loving and compassionate, yet routinely inflicts eternal torture on his own creations. He is supreme, yet was thwarted in his intentions at Eden by the Devil. He is merciful, yet allowed his progeny to be caught up in a struggle far beyond their means to fight. He entrusted his holy message to a book overrun by factual errors and ancient politics.
This is a rather poor argument as you are essentially claiming that because you do not understand the basics of Christian doctrine, the Christian God must not exist. How does your lack of understanding effect reality one way or the other?
Sometimes it takes an outsider to judge something objectively. Just because your myths are taught to you with a specific slant, does not mean that any of my original observations were mistaken. In fact, each of them is fully correct, verifiable in that holiest of books. My choice of verbs—“failed,” “doomed,” “thwarted”—may not be consistent with your interpretation of your god, but it is consistent with the facts, such as they are, laid out by your religious texts. It isn’t so hard to fill in the blanks. The Bible is an old book, written by simpler people in simpler times. A modern, educated person with some patience and a library card would have little trouble grappling with it.
All in all, the bible is an invaluable historical source that is happily used in academic circles as such. It is reliable and it is well preserved; the worst that can be said for it is that is has some odd stories mixed in.
I think the worst that can be said of it is that people swear by it…and live and die, and kill, by it. Then there’re also all those passages about rape, slavery, genocide, etc., etc. Not exactly a book to live by, I think.
But anywho, it takes us back to Descartes, back further really. Nothing can be asserted “with proof.” If you make an assertion, you must then provide proof, to which due diligence requires that we ask for proof in turn. Finally, we are back to “I think, therefore I am.” Actually, we are back further as you cannot offer proof that you think!
Knock off the solipsist babble or it’s ring-a-ding-ding for you.
The claim that a claim offered without supporting evidence can be, absent mitigating factors, dismissed without evaluation, is logically sound because in logic there are guiding rules, and if you break the rules then you don’t get to play.
However, there are evangelical Atheists.
Every side has its rabble, I admit. “Evangelical” is not the appropriate word, but I get your point.
Not true. Those who followed a religion lived a lie, constraining their behavior, sacrificing their intellectual integrity, and quite probably influencing other people to similarly demean their own lives. That’s another flaw in Pascal’s Wager: It completely ignores the penalties that one pays in this life for being religious.
Pish posh, we can figure this one out economically. Let us say that when you die your net balance is zero. The individual who has “penalties” during their life, the religious fellow, at the end of the transaction will have a balance of zero; much was put in but there was no net result. The individual who has rewards during their life, the atheistic fellow, at the end of the transaction has a balance of zero as well. Your reasoning is rather illogical.
My reasoning is beautiful. Bow before the might of my awesome reasoning!
You are, not for the first time, allowing your religious worldview to confuse your understanding of the world as it is. I, who do not accept the premise of an afterworld, do not evaluate a human being in terms of the afterlife. I evaluate it in the dual terms of their own life, and history.
A religious person who has lived a lie, constrained their behavior, etc., etc., has wasted the one and only life we know that they had. That doesn’t mean their life was necessarily without happiness or satisfaction entirely, but simply that they deprived themselves of something greater.
… this is just wrong on grounds of basic composition! You state that religion has waned and that the share of intellectuals between religion and non-religion has changed. You then claim that a great many of our finest people are nonreligious or belong to alternate religions. Alternate religions are still religions, so they should be counted in the first category, not that latter.
Yes, a genuine mistake on my part. Well spotted.
I was trying to make a point about the diffusion of monotheism into neo-paganism, but I never followed through.
I stand corrected.
As an aside, however, I should note that there is nothing wrong with some degree of revisionism in history. A history text tells us two things; it tells us about the events that the text describes and it tells us about the society in which the text was written.
Any historical narrative should strive to be as objective and disinterested as it possibly can. That is a fundamental ethic of both historical research and academic composition.
Revisionism is about the worst thing any historian could do with their position of authority.
There is a difference between being a cause of something and being part of something.
As the major power in Europe for a long time, it goes without saying that the Church was an instigator of events, and a guiding force in social mores. Of course, you may throw that back in my face with the “What is asserted without proof” line, but I don’t think you’re likely to open a book and realize your mistake, so I’ll save us both the trouble. I’ll make the assertion, and you can throw it out. =)
So of course Christianity had a part. The Pope was using church money to buy grain to feed the starving, regardless of their faith. Monasteries were protecting ancient texts, preserving them, and refining them. When there was pestilence there were priests, nuns, and monks to tend to the sick. It was Christianity that helped maintain the productivity of otherwise barren farmland. It was Christianity that provided for the elderly in their waning years. It was Christianity that protected the people from overreaching political ambition. It was Christianity that spread laws and order.
Pure, shameless Christian revisionism. There’s a book that came out a couple of years ago by Rodney Stark, I think his name is:
The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and the Success of the West.
If you’re going to rewrite history, you might as well go whole hog. The Middle Ages were a golden time, Christians lavished one another with chocolates and roses, god invented the steam engine, and the Black Plague was actually a tea party that got a little raucous.
Oh, and the mean old unbelievers conspired with Satan to burn down England in 1666, but Jesus did some breakdancing on a cloud and that thing spat out enough water to drown the whole city…in salvation.
efore I end my post, allow me to clearly state my stance, as after so long a post it is easy to loose a point (even assuming that the points are well-made in the first place, which I will not assume): 1) atheism is an illogical stance, but it is unreasonable to fault it for being illogical. 2) The universe as described by human understanding, in all its parts, does not preclude the possibility of god. 3) Indeed, the universe as described by human understanding does not concern itself with god. 4) despite that, the universe behaves in such a manner as to satisfy our expectations of a god. 5) Religion is not a uniform force in the world; it is often good but it can be bad as well, but such a criteria is poorly suited to address the question of if religion is true or not.
Your timing is perfect! I myself am out of time and have to go. Quickly:
1) Atheism is not illogical in the same way that theism is illogical. The former is merely incomplete; the latter is not consistent with fact.
2) Agreed.
3) Agreed.
4) Implausible, and unproved, but not strictly incorrect.
5) Agreed, provisionally: “With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.” ~ Steven Weinberg
Thank you again, Thought. I disagree with you utterly, but I enjoyed the opportunity to engage with you. Again, no time for a substantive review and edit, so please forgive any obvious errors!
