Research on Belief in God

[The Hitch]

Yes, that is was a pretty ugly mistake in my English, thanks for pointing it out!




That's an intresting quote by Bentham. I didn't know he extended his utilitarianism to animals.
I guess another reason this ideal couldn't have been very succesful earlier, is that we need a degree of wealth and some of the modern technological advancements to be able to live a lifestyle that doesn't 'exploit' animals. I guess it would be difficult to meet some nutritional needs without animal products, if we couldn't produce that stuff artificily nowadays in supplements. I suppose in ages past in certain contexts it might have been a bit difficult to get food and clothes from animals and it might still be for some people. At least such a lifestyle in certainly a whole lot easier in the modern western world. Would you consider it immoral to kill an animal for food if you're in a situation where you're struggling to get enough food to survive?





Sure
You know, I often get annoyed by this atheist rhetoric of religious people being arrogant because they would feel humans are somehow the centre of the universe, when in my experience the average atheist lives just as if he shares such a conviction with us religious folk. But I guess I will have to be a bit more thoughtful about the fact that there are people who really do try to live according to the idea that humans and animals are equally worthy, as has been illustrated by you and others in this thread. I guess I'm going to have to concede the right to such people, including you, to call me arrogant because I feel humans are superior to animals and feel free to blaim the religious doctrine that gives me a rationale for that conviction!



Right, but I believe in human freedom. Obviously a lot of human behaviour can be explained in a certain perspective through biology, but I don't think biology 'forces' an individual to do something in a given moral dillema. I guess some people in a naturalistic worldview wouldn't leave any room for such free choice, but at that point we can stop discussing morality as far as I'm concerned. Without human freedom there can be no morality in my opinion. Anyway, that's not necissarily very relevant, let's move on!

So yes, I think biology can give an intresting perspective on human behaviour, but there's still a need, in my opinion, for individuals to think about why they act like they act from an ethical point of view. So what I'm intrested in is the ethical reasoning of naturalistic atheists, who treat humans very differently from animals, when they claim they believe humans are really just another species of animals.

You believe 500 billion galaxies each containing hundreds of billion stars the average size of which is 10 million planet earths, were created over 14 billion years purely so that a very small in number terms species inhabiting a tiny landmass of one teeny weeny planet in a tiny tiny solar system stuck in the middle of nowhere in the universe, for an incompreably small period of time could prove to a deity who only loves them and no one else, what the deity already knew cos he's omniscient, and then leave this universe which took so much time and energy to create in what is a nanosecond in astronomical terms, to go to a land of milk and honey and ponies.

How is that not arrogant, and how can you say that those of us who believe we are insignificant in the greater scheme of things, are no different?

 

[hrotha]

I'm not being ridiculous. That's not what you believe? That we evolved from monkey's. I thought that you believed something along those lines....I'm saying there's no proof for anything like that. But, I will look at the site and see if they provide any. Got to go for know. I'm at church right now waiting for my praise band to get here....leading worship tonight.

No, we didn't evolve from monkeys, and dogs don't evolve from cats. We do however share a common ancestor. It's a key distinction. And there's plenty of proof.

Thinking in terms of languages might help: French will never evolve into English, and English didn't evolve from Swedish. But they all share a common ancestor.

 

[horsinabout]

Lol always the same with atheists. Debate on facts, as if facts could be debated.

Morality can be debated, which means religion. Facts can't because they are what they are, stubborn. You can ignore them, invent them but that would be lies. Atheists are masters in that field.

Why only religion? Morals are innate and can be studied in nature and the animal kingdom, and our connection to animals through "the theory of evolution" has been unequivocally substantiated through genetics.

http://www.newscientist.com/article...f-human-morality-in-animals.html#.UxepEN5FDIU


Facts may be interpreted dear boy. "there are no fact, just interpretation"

"Positivism holds, roughly, that the phenomena we observe through our senses are physical in nature and that they actually happen in a material world. Thus positivists take these phenomena as objective fact and use it for their world-explanation, for example by making physical laws. Nietzsche's statement above is that fundamentally, positivists are interpreting observed phenomena as physical (instead of non-physical, e.g. Berkeley), and real, when in fact they have no definite justification to do so. Thus, facts are really the subjective result of information: there is nothing necessarily "true" about them, other than how they fit into a particular interpretation".

 

[The Hitch]

I'm not being ridiculous. That's not what you believe? That we evolved from monkey's.

Humans did not evolve from monkeys, though having seen some of creationists better known promoters, I can see why some of y'all may have reached such a conclusion.

 

[RetroActive]

Nobody knows...

From Soup to Cells—the Origin of Life
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evo101/IIE2aOriginoflife.shtml

However, within the field of evolutionary biology, the origin of life is of special interest because it addresses the fundamental question of where we (and all living things) came from.

Nobody knows...

Cosmology/Big Bang
http://www.ias.ac.in/jarch/jaa/5/79-98.pdf

To Abbé Lemaître this was very attractive, because it gave a justification to the creation ex nihilo, which Saint Thomas had helped establish as a credo. To many other scientists it was more of an embarrassment because God is very seldom mentioned in ordinary scientific literature. There seem to be rather few scientists (but among them Whittaker and Milne) who, like Jastrow (1978) in his book God and the Astronomers, explicitly draw what seems to be the logical conclusion of the Big-Bang cosmology, viz., that the universe was created ex nihilo by God. “When the scientist has scaled the mountains of ignorance, he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries." However, most of the Big-Bang believers prefer to sweep creation under the rug. In fact, they fight against popular creationism, but at the same time they fight fanatically for their own creationism. Peratt (1983) suggests that the creationism extra muros is inspired by the Big-Bang creationism intra muros.

Doesn't mean science isn't cool but some perspective also helps. "The map is not the terrain".

 

[Jspear]

No, we didn't evolve from monkeys, and dogs don't evolve from cats. We do however share a common ancestor. It's a key distinction. And there's plenty of proof.

Thinking in terms of languages might help: French will never evolve into English, and English didn't evolve from Swedish. But they all share a common ancestor.

What is the common ancestor and where is the proof?

 

[Pentacycle]

What is the common ancestor and where is the proof?

The proof is that you can't find the common ancestor, as it has only existed in small numbers and during a short time period.

The same applies to the deep origin of most current global religions.

 

[hrotha]

What is the common ancestor and where is the proof?

I'm not an evolutionary biologist. I suggest you read books about it written by non-creationists, if only to get the other side of the issue. Creationist scientists are a tiny minority for a reason.

 

[Buffalo Soldier]

The common ancestor is a unicellular organism

 

[The Hitch]

To be honest, those biologist works are hardly a laugh a minute even for people with an interest in the subject. besides the debate struggles to get past the - we say there are fossil records, you say they don't exist stage.

If jspear is not having us on, and my paranoia teaches me to rarely totally dismiss such a possibility, then it's not his fault hee was born in a small much maligned part of the world (by which I mean Falwell country, not the US) where creationism is taught and I imagine it might be distressing to, having lived ones life believing it, be confronted on the internet with 10 people ridiculing it so fiercely.

 

[Echoes]

I'm also aware that you tend to turn hard right and I had some awareness of where rhub. was coming from. That post was a good one, imo.

I don't know what hard right means but a friend of mine is a commie and we agree on many points. He even told me that he had some Gaullist ideas (I'm some sort of a Gaullist). I don't know if that is hard right. Anyway I think even hard right posters deserve as much respect as any other posters. But thanks for the compliment.

That's an intresting quote by Bentham. I didn't know he extended his utilitarianism to animals.

Poor animals, then. You know that we - humans - are still suffering from hedonistic and liberal philosophy.

And the defence of usury ! The Greek must appreciate.

Right, but I believe in human freedom. [...]Without human freedom there can be no morality in my opinion. Anyway, that's not necissarily very relevant, let's move on!

Why not relevant? It's the basics of the Christian doctrine, in my opinion. So let's not move on, let's discuss it.

I think Georges Bernanos said something like "Freedom is man's supernatural vocation." I'll also remember the opening credits of "The Prisoner", in which McGoohan said "I don't want to be a number, I want to be a free man !!"

(McGoohan was Christian and had culture)

 

[RedheadDane]

The common ancestor is a unicellular organism

Despite not being an expert on the field I can't help but having a lingering feeling that you'd be able to go even further back in the chain.
After all; I'm pretty sure I read a cool fact once about how the carbon in our bodies came from the stars.

 

[rhubroma]

I don't know what hard right means but a friend of mine is a commie and we agree on many points. He even told me that he had some Gaullist ideas (I'm some sort of a Gaullist). I don't know if that is hard right. Anyway I think even hard right posters deserve as much respect as any other posters. But thanks for the compliment.



Poor animals, then. You know that we - humans - are still suffering from hedonistic and liberal philosophy.

And the defence of usury ! The Greek must appreciate.



Why not relevant? It's the basics of the Christian doctrine, in my opinion. So let's not move on, let's discuss it.

I think Georges Bernanos said something like "Freedom is man's supernatural vocation." I'll also remember the opening credits of "The Prisoner", in which McGoohan said "I don't want to be a number, I want to be a free man !!"

(McGoohan was Christian and had culture)

But you don't show anyone respect with your willfully circumscribed, moralistic and judgmental worldview.

You have been a Nazi apologist (Priebke). You disdain modernity for its liberty (not in the false liberal sense), openness, tolerance and lack of dogma. You would prefer that society returned to the Middle Ages when the Church regime held society under a socio-religious tyranny. You claim that cultural liberalism is oppressive (how, one really doesn't know). Hard right means all of this, and the Catholic-fascism to which your sect belongs. You hypocritically preach a moral world view, when in fact you have none.

No, tollerance doesn't apply to the hard right, its ideology and the society it preaches. It is to be resisted, no more.

 

[Maaaaaaaarten]

You believe 500 billion galaxies each containing hundreds of billion stars the average size of which is 10 million planet earths, were created over 14 billion years purely so that a very small in number terms species inhabiting a tiny landmass of one teeny weeny planet in a tiny tiny solar system stuck in the middle of nowhere in the universe, for an incompreably small period of time could prove to a deity who only loves them and no one else, what the deity already knew cos he's omniscient, and then leave this universe which took so much time and energy to create in what is a nanosecond in astronomical terms, to go to a land of milk and honey and ponies.

How is that not arrogant, and how can you say that those of us who believe we are insignificant in the greater scheme of things, are no different?

Well, first of all I would point out that I don't really see a relation between size and importance. Why is it that God should care more about some huge but lifeless galaxy, as opposed to a living being on a small planet? I really don't see the point here. Do you feel some distant star is more important than a human? I don't for one, I'm in many ways much more intrested in a human being that I can have a relationship with and it doesn't seem unreasonable to me, that God would feel the same.

But if you feel some galaxy of lifeless matter is somehow more significant, than a living human being, sure, feel free to call me arrogant....

Why only religion? Morals are innate and can be studied in nature and the animal kingdom, and our connection to animals through "the theory of evolution" has been unequivocally substantiated through genetics.

Well, you can study what type of morals humans or even animals seem to display. You can study how morals are influenced by sociological, psychological and biological factors. You can study what kind of a decision a person makes in a moral dillema and you can even study some aspects of why he makes that decision, but you can't study what decision he should make, in my opinion.

Why not relevant? It's the basics of the Christian doctrine, in my opinion. So let's not move on, let's discuss it.

Well, I guess I meant it wasn't necessarily relevant to the specific point I was talking about. But I would certainly think free choice is a premis for any discussion about ethics to even make sense, so in that way it is relevant to all discussions about morals, I guess. I certainly also agree it is a basic Christian doctrine.

 

[RedheadDane]

Do we know that the rest of the Universe is lifeless? The Universe is pretty darn huge.

 

[Maaaaaaaarten]

Do we know that the rest of the Universe is lifeless? The Universe is pretty darn huge.

Nope, I guess not. But I've already stated that if it turns out there actually are other intelligent lifeforms outside of our planet, I wouldn't be inclined to think humans are more important than them. There really isn't any christian doctrine about extra terrestial life, to my knowledge. So it wouldn't be a problem to the christian worldview if it turns out God has created some other intelligent lifeforms in other planets, in my opinion. Maybe they've never had a fall like we did and still live in a more harmonious state with God? That would make them better than us in a way!

But yeah, it's all just meaningless speculation, that I don't care about very much, until we'd actually come across life on other planets...... But yeah, it's a funny thought to play with, I guess.

 

[hrotha]

Do we know that the rest of the Universe is lifeless? The Universe is pretty darn huge.

Mathematically, it's a given that extraterrestrial life exists.

 

[Descender]

Virtually all humans act on the assumption that it is true for some species, and false from others, I would say (and I'm between them). For istance, as introduced by Netserk, ants are animals but very few of us consider them to be any worth of mercy. How many of us think, let's say, that worms have feelings? I suspect not many. Still both ants and worms do react to stimuli pretty much the way we do, that is the same way every living being do, if it's able to react.
We share common ancestors with any of them, not just animals. Also plants, fungi etc. So where's the line?

This is very much not true.

Reaction to stimuli does not equal capacity to feel pain.

Insects lack a complex nervous system comparable to the nervous system mammals and generally vertrebrates have.

That is usually taken to be the line: vertrebrates. There is of course another interesting family: cephalopods (octopus, cattlefish, etc.). They aren't vertrebrates, yet exhibit an advanced brain.

In short, while we can never be 100% sure, we have more reasons to believe cows, chickens and pigs feel pain when being hit by a metal rod or burned alive than to think ants or flies do.

 

[Buffalo Soldier]

That's not how statistics work, hrotha.

on a different note, and out of genuine curiosity: I just read scientists in Portugal discovered a new kind of Dinosaur (80 million years older than a T-Rex). How do creationist treat this kind of messages? The same way I treat messages about a pancake with Jesus his face on it?

 

[Descender]

Would you consider it immoral to kill an animal for food if you're in a situation where you're struggling to get enough food to survive?

No. I consider it immoral to kill an animal without needing to. Those who struggle to get enough food on their plates or their family's plates should by all means eat meat if they have access to it.

But I guess I will have to be a bit more thoughtful about the fact that there are people who really do try to live according to the idea that humans and animals are equally worthy, as has been illustrated by you and others in this thread.

Just for clarity: I don't believe humans and animals are equally worthy under all circumstances. I believe no living being is superior to any other by definition, just because they are part of a particular species.

Whether a living being is worthy of preferential treatment has to be justified by other means than merely their belonging to a particular species.

If I'm standing before a house on fire, and there is a 10-year-old child in one room and a puppy in another one, and I have time to save only one of them, I'd save the child every time.

But that is not because I think humans are intrinsically superior to dogs: it is because the human child is a more complex sentient creature, able to form thoughts about the past and future, able to hold dreams and expectations that would be truncated were they to die, and quite possibly linked to many other human beings who would suffer enormously while mourning their loss.

 

[rhubroma]

But that is not because I think humans are intrinsically superior to dogs: it is because the human child is a more complex sentient creature, able to form thoughts about the past and future, able to hold dreams and expectations that would be truncated were they to die, and quite possibly linked to many other human beings who would suffer enormously while mourning their loss.

Only the living suffer death.

 

[RetroActive]

Only the living suffer death.

All things born in time die in time (Saturn, the grim reaper; Lord of the Rings)
All forms emerge from no thing (space) and return to no thing.

It's a big bang - this paradox.

 

[hrotha]

That's not how statistics work, hrotha

Obviously it was a simplification, but proponents of the Rare Earth hypothesis seem to be a minority.

 

[rhubroma]

All things born in time die in time (Saturn, the grim reaper; Lord of the Rings)
All forms emerge from no thing (space) and return to no thing.

It's a big bang - this paradox.

Nil fieri ex nihilo, in nihilum nil posse reverti.

At any rate, for Lucretius death can be neither good nor bad for this being. It as a simple ceasing-to-be. A dead person, being completely devoid of sensation and thought, cannot miss being alive. Fear of death is thus a projection of terrors experienced in life, of pain that only a living (intact) mind can feel. Against the fear of death Lucretius puts forward the 'symmetry argument'. He says that people who fear the prospect of eternal non-existence after death should think back to the eternity of non-existence before their birth, which probably did not cause them much suffering.

 

[RetroActive]

Nil fieri ex nihilo, in nihilum nil posse reverti.

At any rate, for Lucretius death can be neither good nor bad for this being. It as a simple ceasing-to-be. A dead person, being completely devoid of sensation and thought, cannot miss being alive. Fear of death is thus a projection of terrors experienced in life, of pain that only a living (intact) mind can feel. Against the fear of death Lucretius puts forward the 'symmetry argument'. He says that people who fear the prospect of eternal non-existence after death should think back to the eternity of non-existence before their birth, which probably did not cause them much suffering.

Indeed. In the interim this animated earth/self awareness thing remains an amazingly confusing dichotomy; vesica piscis.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HgJ6xFXKaM