Research on Belief in God

[Jspear]

Funny, I don't know that my idea of spiritual guidance (which is really all I'm looking for anyway) is much different from that at all.

I also have no issue with atheists, nor do I have some a desire to convert anyone. Within my system of beliefs, which is completely subjective and individualized, I'm not sure it matters one way or the other whether you believe or not to the deity in which I believe. I have shared my beliefs with innumerable people, but that was in a setting where they were asking. Attraction rather than promotion is such a better philosophy of engaging the world than evangelizing.

I do feel that there is a movement to evangelize atheism, and I find it similarly distasteful to religious evangelizing.

I'm really just posting here to start some sh!t...plus, I found the recent revelation that the theory of the Big Bang is being abandoned by some to be quite interesting as it relates to the concept of infinity.

The reason I personally found it interesting is because it shows the evolutionist don't have as much figured out as they think. I've often been chided here for believing what I believe. Why something that a year ago they would have been adamantly saying I needed to embrace, now might not be true at all. What's to say other "key" elements of their secular doctrine aren't going to be shown to be false in an other year?....

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

25.114 !!! since Spt 2001. Thats the number. (see left part of the homepage)

http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/

Weekly Jihad Report
Feb 07 - Feb 13
Jihad Attacks:
50
Allah Akbars:
12
Dead Bodies:
373
Critically Injured:
496

The "religion" of peace.

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

More about the Rotherham peaceful (sarcasm alert) muslim sex offenders:

http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Muslim-rape-gang.jpg

It could be your daughters next time! Think about that before you vote wrong again. Better UKIP (& some stomach irritations) but save children, than throwing your vote away again by believing the lies of the old parties...

... an article about the bankrupcy of GB politicans keeping quiet to not lose islamic voters. Every brave Englishmen would never ever elect any politican from this party. Only ignorants would still vote for them.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/arnold-ahlert/rotherham-victim-we-were-sacrificed-by-british-left/

 

[Andrew Chunis]

I'm a Catholic... God is Good

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

I'm a Catholic... God is Good

Great. No problem. May god save you.

 

[ChewbaccaD]

I'm a Catholic... God is Good

I'm not Catholic, but I like Pope Francis a lot.

 

[frenchfry]

You're moving the goalposts. The original discussion, again, was about whether or not you can have morality without theism. And you can.

Is it absolute and universal? Of course not. But then, a glance at history will show you morality isn't absolute or universal, whether or not religion is involved. Hell, not even if the same religion is involved at different times - see slavery in Christianity for example.

This doesn't mean that murdering won't be universally held to be evil, because again, it goes against basic biological norms for social animals. You'll note however that the definition of murder has always been subjective.

If the point you're trying to make is that Good and Evil are not cosmic forces under an atheist world view, I tend to agree.

It is my observation that theism, like atheism, is anything but homogenous. It is one thing to establish a set of norms or values which are considered "good" and which regulate the conduct of a group - it is yet another thing to guarantee universal application of said values.

I would guess that theists deviate from the 10 commandments about as much as atheists. Simply adhering to an organised religion does not make anyone virtuous by default, just as not continuously referring to the norms established by a higher being doesn't make a person less virtuous by default.

If adherence to an organised religion and belief in it's dogma helps some people to lead a "good" life, that is great and I am certainly not opposed to that. This doesn't, in any way shape or form, mean that I can't lead a "good" life without adhering to the religious dogma.

My interest in this thread is mostly to counter those who feel that atheists aren't, by default, as good as theists in the manner of conducting their lives. As with chewy, I tend not to appreciate evangelism in any form, as it often goes hand in hand with fundamentalism which is never a good thing.

 

[nepetalactone]

The reason I personally found it interesting is because it shows the evolutionist don't have as much figured out as they think. I've often been chided here for believing what I believe. Why something that a year ago they would have been adamantly saying I needed to embrace, now might not be true at all. What's to say other "key" elements of their secular doctrine aren't going to be shown to be false in an other year?....

As one who was trained as a physicist and regularly reads the scientific literature, let me chime in here. The big bang is, far and wide, accepted by the scientific community as a whole. I admit, it is an incomplete description of the first moments of our universe and not without its problems. However, time and time again similar situations have brought to light not necessarily an error in our current theory (necessitating a complete rework), but instead a simplification we've applied when trying to describe a complex problem with conditions we're not used to. To use a recognizable example, this is exactly what happened during the birth of both quantum mechanics and relativity. Newtonian physics wasn't 'wrong', it was just incomplete when applied to problems with extraordinary conditions. Regardless, using current scientific ignorance as any kind of motivator for the existence of a deity is a losing battle in the long run. A short look back at (even recent) history clearly illustrates this.

I think an interesting part of the discussion lies in embracing our own humanity. As I see it, just about the greatest gift humans have is our ability to observe, reason, learn, and then refine our beliefs. Personal beliefs on creation still allow for this, but accepting any gospel, it seems in my mind, denies you such an important piece of the human condition.

...Then again, I'm fairly confident many people probably feel their relationship to 'god' is what makes them human, so what do I know?

 

[The Hitch]

What's to say other "key" elements of their secular doctrine aren't going to be shown to be false in an other year?....

Your beliefs have been shown to be false.

 

[ray j willings]

Zeitgeist, seriously?

http://conspiracies.skepticproject.com/articles/zeitgeist/part-one/

The "God's sun=God's son" thing is the single most idiotic thing I've ever seen in religious debate.

I think the most idiotic thing is the FACT that the jesus story was the same story given to a long list of gods/saviours before "jesus" even existed.
How do you not understand that its all made up and their is not any factual evidence of jesus written by any of the known historians at the time of his so called existence. Not one historian mentions jesus.
There was 100's of gods before the jesus story took hold.
There was agriculture way before any established religion existed.

Its nonsense, This is Daniel Dennett check his books and get an education.
here is a lecture he did .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ql2yz7XDs2A


enjoy

 

[Echoes]

I'm not Catholic, but I like Pope Francis a lot.

I'm a Catholic but I despise anti-Pope Francis a lot.

 

[Maaaaaaaarten]

I think the most idiotic thing is the FACT that the jesus story was the same story given to a long list of gods/saviours before "jesus" even existed.
How do you not understand that its all made up and their is not any factual evidence of jesus written by any of the known historians at the time of his so called existence. Not one historian mentions jesus.
There was 100's of gods before the jesus story took hold.
There was agriculture way before any established religion existed.

As for the issue raised by you concerning contemporary historians, it's very easy to answer; Flavius Josephus.

Look, a 100 years ago the hypothesis that Jesus a myth and that there is nothing historical about him had some following among historians. Nowadays this hypothesis is virtually extinct. The only people who are still claiming that there is no historical evidence for the existence of Jesus is a weird conspiracy film named Zeitgeist and Richard Dawkins.........

 

[Jspear]

I think the most idiotic thing is the FACT that the jesus story was the same story given to a long list of gods/saviours before "jesus" even existed.
How do you not understand that its all made up and their is not any factual evidence of jesus written by any of the known historians at the time of his so called existence. Not one historian mentions jesus.
There was 100's of gods before the jesus story took hold.
There was agriculture way before any established religion existed.

Its nonsense, This is Daniel Dennett check his books and get an education.
here is a lecture he did .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ql2yz7XDs2A


enjoy

With all do respect it is a naive thing to believe Jesus didn't exist. You might not believe he was deity or a savior, but he most definitely existed. Christian and secular historians will attest to this fact.

 

[rhubroma]

What about the rest of civilization? Evidently, they got it all wrong and for thousands of years. Still now!

 

[rhubroma]

With all do respect it is a naive thing to believe Jesus didn't exist. You might not believe he was deity or a savior, but he most definitely existed. Christian and secular historians will attest to this fact.

PS. The secular historians have doubt, for which no 'fact' exists.

 

[Jspear]

PS. The secular historians have doubt, for which no 'fact' exists.

Yes some secular historians will deny the fact, but it is still a fact. Speaking from an objective point of view, thinking whatever you want about who he actually was, a man named Jesus did live 2,000 years ago.

 

[hrotha]

Chewbacca, looks like we're as close to an agreement on this topic as we're ever likely to be . I don't disagree with much of what you said in your most recent replies. I'm fine with atheistic ethical systems not being necessarily superior by themselves, as long as everybody accepts that you don't need religion to have a working ethical system.

I think the most idiotic thing is the FACT that the jesus story was the same story given to a long list of gods/saviours before "jesus" even existed.

You didn't read my link, did you? That bit about the Jesus story being the same as for all those other gods was simply made up.

 

[Rechtschreibfehler]

In terms of social animals, "good" and "evil" are other names for "benefits the pack" and "hurts the pack". I don't see any problem here, and I certainly wasn't suggesting "mimicking" other animals' behavioural norms - I merely said we have our own, and that they're perfectly natural.

Nothing to do with "reason".

Allright, given that was the case. How would, out of that, arise a sophisticated idea of good and evil as concepts in a culture?

I don't want to make an argument for god, I just believe this argument is so flawed I don't even know where to begin with. At least in the form you are presenting it.

Plus: it's really not the case that human animals and all other social animals are very similar at all. It's a long way from animal group behaviour to anything literaly anything even the simplest human groups do.


On a very diffent note:
It's always been my impression that Dawkins problem with Christianity is that they worship a dude who's not Richard Dawkins.
His buddy Dan Dennet seems much more likable to me, but the way he sometimes talks about "evolution" really isn't any diffrent to what others say about "god". Both - to me - seem to want do exchange christian faith with their private religions. That some of their worshippers start atheist church meetings on sundays doesn't surprise me in the least.

 

[The Hitch]

What exactly is it about Dawkins that leads you to say that he sees himself at God.

The criticisms levied against the main atheist writers often seem to be really generic and unsubstuntiated ones like this, made by people who know that "I don't like Dawkins because I don't like Dawkins" isn't going to be taken seriously, so instead attach some random vice like arrogance to them.

Not that being arrogant would even be any sort of attack on someone who's only like the ****ing master of science at Oxford. But in Dawkins' case even that is thin. He's made documentaries, he's written books, he's been on tv shows, I consider others greater minds than he but he generally just makes his argument and leaves.

 

[The Hitch]

That some of their worshippers start atheist church meetings on sundays doesn't surprise me in the least.

Eh, under that logic - all christians are violent because (insert your favourite murderers name here) was Christian.

PS what's wrong with atheist church meetings anyway?

 

[Rechtschreibfehler]

What exactly is it about Dawkins that leads you to say that he sees himself at God.

The criticisms levied against the main atheist writers often seem to be really generic and unsubstuntiated ones like this, made by people who know that "I don't like Dawkins because I don't like Dawkins" isn't going to be taken seriously, so instead attach some random vice like arrogance to them.

Not that being arrogant would even be any sort of attack on someone who's only like the ****ing master of science at Oxford. But in Dawkins' case even that is thin. He's made documentaries, he's written books, he's been on tv shows, I consider others greater minds than he but he generally just makes his argument and leaves.

Ah well, you know I have a right to be a little polemic once in a whiele as well.

I can't speak about his popular sience books, I haven't read them. But I do believe people who claim they are good.
The thing is that I have a problem with him as a propagator of atheism. Not because I am a theist, I am an atheist in fact, but because he presents himself as a deliverer of truth. "I do the logic thing, all you do is nonsense", and thats not what he'd say, he'd say something that essentially has the goal of damaging his opponent.
My problem isn't his arrogance, a lot of people are somewhat arrogant. He is totally dismissive of people who don't hold his believes - at least in debate. That's something very diffrent. And he seems to be completly unable to deal with critique. I've always had the impression that his war for atheism is just like any other quest to make people believe something. In his case what he says is rationality and morals.
For me as an atheist he's painfull to watch and listen. I do not want to be represanted by such a chauvinistic tool.

 

[Rechtschreibfehler]

Eh, under that logic - all christians are violent because (insert your favourite murderers name here) was Christian.

PS what's wrong with atheist church meetings anyway?

Well I said it didn't suprise me that they existed - I didn't say they were wrong. But the irony of the thing should be pretty obvious, or not?

All I wanted to point out with that sentence is that I have the impression that Dawkins and Dennet treat atheism as a secularised form of religion -and that this might show in what their followers do.

Personally I believe It's a bad sign for campaign that is supposed to be founded on critical rational thinking that it can be turned into something you can simply believe in.

 

[ChewbaccaD]

Chewbacca, looks like we're as close to an agreement on this topic as we're ever likely to be . I don't disagree with much of what you said in your most recent replies. I'm fine with atheistic ethical systems not being necessarily superior by themselves, as long as everybody accepts that you don't need religion to have a working ethical system.

You didn't read my link, did you? That bit about the Jesus story being the same as for all those other gods was simply made up.

I can ascede to that.

 

[ChewbaccaD]

I'm a Catholic but I despise anti-Pope Francis a lot.

Why? He's taken your denomination into modernity, and he speaks truths that it are refreshing to hear. I love the guy in all honesty. His thoughts on capitalism are astoundingly accurate, and needed.

 

[Hugh Januss]

Why? He's taken your denomination into modernity, and he speaks truths that it is refreshing to hear. I love the guy in all honesty. His thoughts on capitalism are astoundingly accurate, and needed.

Answered your own question. Some would rather remain in whatever era their belief system worked best.