Here's one for the religious..

[janie48]

As I've stated: I see people doing good and bad from all walks of life. What I don't see - and I'm not saying it doesn't exist at some small level - is those with no faith in a god doing what quisquose mentioned.

 

In fact, where are the atheist hate groups who advocate that women should be subservient to men while denying women autonomy over their own bodies - that gays should be denied rights - or that pseudo-science and other quackery should be taught instead of science. Where are the atheist hate groups that are rioting in the streets demanding the execution theist bloggers?

 

Sorry Janie, but I'm not seeing them. What I do see is sensible and more rational people - including people of faith - condemning what quisquose mentioned.

I suppose your suggesting now that the only people who ever condemn social and political injustices, gender inequality, gay prejudice etc are only ever atheists.

 

Give my regards to your friend quisquose and the rest of his fan club.

 

---------- Post added 17-05-2013 at 03:08 ----------

 

And see, you are off again attempting to use Dawkins as a club because you personally appear to have problems with him.

On the contrary, did you see the Dawkins/Lennox video I posted?

I thought Dawkins scored higher on looks, the nice smile and charisma almost won me over.

Goodnight and God bless.

[Ryedo40]

I suppose your suggesting now that the only people who ever condemn social and political injustices, gender inequality, gay prejudice etc are only ever atheists.

 

Give my regards to your friend quisquose and the rest of his fan club.;

 

Janie, why do you insist on seeing anything an atheist writes as a fight? Why not try to actually read and understand the points they are making.

 

You could start by trying to read what I actually said "What I do see is sensible and more rational people - including people of faith - condemning what quisquose mentioned[the inequalities, prejudices, etc]"

 

So no. I'm not at all suggesting that only atheists condemn social and political injustices, gender inequality, gay prejudice etc. But I would suggest it is mostly theists who instigate the inequalities and prejudices that quisquose mentioned.

[janie48]

I suppose your suggesting now that the only people who ever condemn social and political injustices, gender inequality, gay prejudice etc are only ever atheists.

.

 

Janie, why do you insist on seeing anything an atheist writes as a fight? Why not try to actually read and understand the points they are making.

 

You could start by trying to read what I actually said "What I do see is sensible and more rational people - including people of faith - condemning what quisquose mentioned[the inequalities, prejudices, etc]"

 

So no. I'm not at all suggesting that only atheists condemn social and political injustices, gender inequality, gay prejudice etc. But I would suggest it is mostly theists who instigate the inequalities and prejudices that quisquose mentioned.

I apologise for that last remark, I was having a bit of a "tit for tat" go at you, just as I assumed you were with me in previous comments.

I don't see anything an atheist writes as a fight at all, I don't like fights its just that some comments do (in my view) justify the kind of reaction you may disapprove of.

I suppose if I was an exemplary model of a Christian I would just ignore them.

 

I'm quite aware of the views quisqoise holds on those issues, I've seen them mentioned on other threads, some recently active. Many of his views I agree with, some I don't.

 

---------- Post added 17-05-2013 at 07:22 ----------

 

By the way do you ever get your and you're mixed up.

[quisquose]

Do you ever see religious people ever do anything good or is that something you would prefer to be silent about for some reason?

 

I think you are missing the point, and slightly slurring my character in the process.

 

Of course I see religious people being good, I used to be one, and many of my best friends are, but I was responding to Waldo's specific question; "So, why even spend time, worrying or speculating over the existence of god?"

 

Given that there are things done in the name of god that I don't like, I am obliged to consider god even though I lack belief in gods.

 

The conversation goes something like this:

 

Atheist: "Why do you hate homosexuals?"

Homophobe: "It's not me, it's God that hate's homosexuals."

Atheist: "Nonsense, god doesn't exist."

 

The fact that atheists have been drawn into the conversation, and even been given a "new" name, is in direct to response to the increasing amount of religious intolerance in recent years. It's not in response to religious people in general, or a denial that they can be good people.

 

There is a conversation that believers can have:

 

Believer: "Why do you hate homosexuals?"

Homophobe: "It's not me, it's God that hate's homosexuals."

Believer: "I don't think God hate's homosexuals."

Homophobe: "Look it says right here." [Points at scripture]

Believer: "That's not how I read it."

Homophobe: "Well it's pretty clear to me, and this book is without error."

etc, etc

 

Unfortunately that conversation is much more convoluted, and I suspect much less effective. Also many good believers seem to get rather more upset at atheists saying they don't believe in god than the intolerant aspects of their own religion. They are also chained by the fact that many good believers actually support some of the intolerant aspects of their religion.

[Obelix]

I suppose your suggesting now that the only people who ever condemn social and political injustices, gender inequality, gay prejudice etc are only ever atheists.

 

Give my regards to your friend quisquose and the rest of his fan club.

 

---------- Post added 17-05-2013 at 03:08 ----------

 

On the contrary, did you see the Dawkins/Lennox video I posted?

I thought Dawkins scored higher on looks, the nice smile and charisma almost won me over.

Goodnight and God bless.

 

And you are doing it again. You use the words "atheist" and "Dawkins" as dirty words Janie. I suspect that you don't even realise you are doing it. Regardless of what you may think and protest, it is abundantly clear you have a problem with athiests, and you treat them as a threat and as second class people. I'm sure you won't see it that way, but sadly that's the way it comes over, so I'll ask you once meore - please stop doing it.

[Waldo]

Given that there are things done in the name of god that I don't like, I am obliged to consider god even though I lack belief in gods.

 

The conversation goes something like this:

 

Atheist: "Why do you hate homosexuals?"

Homophobe: "It's not me, it's God that hate's homosexuals."

Atheist: "Nonsense, god doesn't exist."

 

I think one problem with this, is that god is such a nebulous term..

 

To say god doesn't exist; is a denial of everything that people associate with 'god', and specifically the non-material aspects of our own being. It is to say (some people will interpret it to mean) that there is nothing more to you, than just a bunch of atoms, and 'you' are no more important than any other bunch of atoms, such as a rock (which may be the case, and in any eventuality, 'importance' is purely a human concept).

 

There is so much more to us though, our need for love, to feel it, to give it, to receive it, our need to integrate well and be at peace with our environment and ourselves, to find meaning in what we do, to contribute, to appreciate beauty.

 

I feel there is some spiritual aspect to our being; I don't fully understand the nature of that, any more than I fully understand our corporeal being. Neither can I prove any spiritual aspect of our being or life (and I know it sounds like a cop-out, but I honestly do not think such can be proven; it's beyond the remit of our rational process).

 

So, while I understand and agree with your point entirely; I think there is something of a 'baby in with the bathwater' situation; and it's worth picking apart and seeing what is valid, and what is dangerous. To me, the danger is as you point out; people unquestioningly following religious dogma (such and such is so because god says it, and it's written in his book, so there is no need for me to engage my own grey matter and work it out for myself).

 

But then, the baby; is the totality of our own nature and our relationship to the universe, the context within which we find ourselves.

 

For some reason, I'm thinking of an apple tree; it gives birth to apples, which in turn, gives birth to apple trees. I think in some way, we are linked, there is a connection between ourselves and the wider universe. Some unity. Not separate and distinct isolated beings. I think this connection is part of what the god concept tries to cover.

 

Maybe I'm drifting off topic a bit there; anyhow, also wanted to say thank you to all for sharing your views and perspectives and debating the matter in a friendly a civil manner (these kind of threads feel a lot more civil than they used to be).

[quisquose]

I think one problem with this, is that god is such a nebulous term..

 

<snip>

 

 

I agree with most of what you say, but I'm not concerned about the nebulous nature of the thing that I lack belief in because it is not a nebulous term for the people who use god for harm.

 

I'm an agnostic atheist, and if most believers are honest they are agnostic theists. The concept of an omniscience, omnipotence and omnibenevolent god who hates homosexuals is not a nebulous concept, it is logically impossible. I'm not agnostic on that sort of god which is used to justify hatred towards homosexuals.

 

Militant atheism (ha ha) is not an argument with religious people, or spiritual people, whatever, it's a direct response to increasing numbers of people who claim to know the mind of God and do harm.

 

I fail to see what alternative argument we have against theocracy other than to dismiss their very particular gods.

[Cavegirl]

I'm not talking about 'science through the ages' - the thread is about those who claim science backs up their religious belief. What they are claiming, and I am alluding to is what we have come to call science which began, or at least began to bloom around the enlightenment period. As the people I'm challenging aren't claiming they have proof from 7th C. science I thought it was obvious that I wasn't talking about science from the pre enlightenment period either.

 

That's a different topic for a different day. When I stated I was speaking about those post enlightenment scientists who were believers and using the scientific method to try to verify that belief - not any random believer from any random period of history.

 

(Ditto on cutting some bits, just trying to keep it manageable )

 

Then we've misunderstood each other again. Let me try to clarify things. See the group of Christian scientists, for whom you set up this debate, as Group A and see post-Enlightenment scientists (non-faith based) as Group B. Both groups share a history within religion, an evolving thread of believing that there are divine laws within nature that can be discovered using scientific methods. Group A's ideas and methods have evolved but still follow this path, Group B however, branched away from Group A during the Enlightenment for many reasons (see I'm a pluralist here because we have evidence for many reasons) including scepticism of the divine law itself- the very driving force of much pre-Enlightenment science.

 

The trouble is, I think, that the people you've been discussing things with (the reason you set up this thread) are not practicing religious scientists, they're people who are trying to interpret what religious scientists have to say and if they don't fully understand it or are not prepared to research it they can't defend it very well and so won't engage with you about it. Is that your thought too?

 

But you agreed with the underlying principle, which is what is essentially the scientific method, but then you said you think it's an outdated concept and suggested the method was down to developing (or at least this is how I read it) individual experiments, but then suggested they still fall within the remit of the underlying principle.

 

So essentially you either agree with the underlying principle or not, but I'm not sure which it is. If you don't (and this is what I'm calling the scientific method - not a method of experimentation - but the underlying principle of method) then I think you need to explain (at least for my benefit) why, because I'm really not sure if you understand what I mean by the scientific method, as you seem to both agree and disagree with me at the same time.

 

I agree with the underlying principle I think the term itself is outdated as it implies there's just one method to science.

 

I never asked you to, I just wondered why you singled out Christianity, the reason you gave seemed too open to missing vital elements out.

 

If I miss vital elements out it will be through ignorance of them and I'd appreciate it if you'd point them out so I can learn more about it.

 

That doesn't really answer the mechanics behind it which I asked for, I'm still not sure how you'd connect an inferred natural order with evidence that God exists - especially when to do so you would have to overlook well established ideas present in things like chaos theory. It would take a great deal of cherry picking on the part of the religious person involved.

 

You remember how we were discussing the notion that you can't apply 'real life' to history- I think this is a great case in point. Modern people, like you and I, struggle to understand the concept because it stems from the Medieval period when people thought very differently and didn't have access to what we now know. Still it has a history and has been built on by generation after generation through to today.

 

I can't explain the mechanics to you, you'll have to look to the historical sources for that, I can only interpret what I know about it from my own perspective, which I've tried to do.

 

I'm not sure the Buddhist approach is technically Pluralist - it doesn't say all religious paths are different but leading to the same goal or all paths are the same. It would say that all ideas should be equally respected but not that they were equal in value. Does that make it Pluralist - I'm not sure.

 

Neither I (and I know my teachers wouldn't), nor the Buddhist texts would condone the behaviour of the Buddhists in Sri Lanka. I can't comment on their behaviour or the ideals behind them further than that.

 

Yes, which is what I was trying to get at - reductionism can miss out alot of vital information, and taking things in their most complex form can lead to confusion. To go back to my map analogy if we just took the whole map and lost sight of our destination we would be just as lost as if we took the reductionist view of just following the compass. That is why we need to look at things in context, but by reducing it to its most simple form we lose the map. We can look at the whole picture without automatically going down the wrong road with common sense - but if we reduce the idea so we don't have the whole picture we will most certainly go the wrong way.

 

I don't associate all Buddhists with this violence, I hope you didn't read it that way. I was just making a point about pluralism not being any better or worse than reductionism.

 

This paper is interesting:

http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-EPT/thur.htm

 

It's about Buddhism and its relationship with pluralist thinking. It talks about how Buddha's teachings aimed to prevent this type of violence because 'dogma interferes with our sense of reality' and can lead to violent behaviour. It also says that it's ok to believe something as long as you explore and examine that belief and don't follow it blindly.

 

I do think I fall into this second camp, I explore history and interpret each case differently based upon what I've learned. With regard to the creation of gods, I find Marx's theory stands up regarding what I know about it, but I don't apply Marxist theory across the board and whilst Marx would argue that the political creation of gods is about controlling people, I think the political creation of gods served to aid people and only later did it end up controlling them. That's my Cavegirl twist.

 

It was actually our 'freedom' discussion that's helped me to perceive the a priori need for a specific type of deity amongst the general populace, previous to this I would probably have argued the creation of gods was more about top down control so thanks for adding this to my understanding. As you can see, with a bit of inspiration, plenty of thinking and a bit more reading I can change my ideas pretty quickly.

 

I think reductionism fails only if it leaves you with nothing to say, nothing to explore. I feel the political angle is one worthy of investigation because you can actually check the evidence against it. The investigation may well lead to a pluralism of ideas, but I haven't come across another idea for the creation of gods, including the Abrahamic god, that I also agree with as yet.

 

I disagree, and you're mixing ideas, you're confusing Taoist thought with Buddhist thought and they don't mix. Taoism deals with the way of things and how to interact with them, Buddhism deals with a single question.

 

As I said before, Buddhism is an aspect of life, a path to a particular goal - it's not about understanding life and all the complex ideas that go with it.

 

I don't understand enough about Buddhism/ Taoism to see the separation here I'm afraid. Could you clarify it for me? The paper I've linked seems to suggest that Buddha understood that given the right socio-political or other external factors (the storm) a belief (the boat) held too deeply and questioned too little could lead to violent behaviour even if that belief was based upon peace- that's what I was trying to get at.

 

But you do - it's called life. If a man was abandoned as a child and somehow survived totally isolated without a helping hand from other people would you say he had no account to give?

 

I would actually. There have been some cases of this occurring and in each case the person, once discovered and brought back into society, has no recourse to learning language and no sense of their own history- no framework for understanding the world. They're humans in their purest animal form. Only others could create an account for them. I have a framework but no religious experience to put on it only what I learn from others.

 

Nothing you have said accounts for the creation of God - it accounts for the politicisation and transformation of pre existing deities. Even in extreme cases like that of pharoah Amenhotep IV it was an elevation of a pre existant God to an ideal. I don't disagree (as I have constantly said) in the politicisation of Gods, what I disagree with is the idea that humans created Gods for political purposes. From a philosophical standpoint we see this politicialisation alot, but rarely - if ever, have we seen the creation of a God for a political purpose.

 

The Aten wasn't a pre-existing god prior to Amenhotep IV, it was a symbol for one of the attributes of the creation god Amun-Ra (Ra being the sun god, the Aten the sun disc). I still believe this deity was created for purely political reasons. I've pointed out that many brand new deities were created at this time as social complexity increased.

[L00b]

Saw this and this, and thought oh-so-very-briefly of this thread

 

It's Fridayyy!

[onewheeldave]

And you are doing it again. You use the words "atheist" and "Dawkins" as dirty words Janie. I suspect that you don't even realise you are doing it. Regardless of what you may think and protest, it is abundantly clear you have a problem with athiests, and you treat them as a threat and as second class people. I'm sure you won't see it that way, but sadly that's the way it comes over, so I'll ask you once meore - please stop doing it.

 

I disagree. While it may come across that way to you, it's certainly not the case for everyone, or even for the majority.

 

Janie does come across (to me) as someone who's somewhat sensitive to critisisms like the above, so I'd just like to emphasise that, as far as I can see from her posts on this board, she has no problem with atheists or Dawkins.

 

I have a bit of a problem with Dawkins- not anything personal, but I think many of his statements and little campaigns of the past have been somewhat couter-productive. In fairness, recently he does seem to have become aware of that himself, and started to tone things down somewhat. Possibly because there was so much critisism from atheists, that he started to think about what he was saying.