It’s a myth that ‘science disproves religion’ in any general sense. Sure, science undermines many forms of religious belief,... — Wayfarer

Science simply disproves many religious beliefs, such as with evolution and other scientific discoveries that the people who invented world religions had no clue about, so it's not a myth.

... but questions as to whether the Universe is animated by an underlying cause are quite out of reach for science.

Such questions are within the reach of human imagination, and the imagination of scientists is just as good as the imagination of some goofy religious dude in robes.

Science simply disproves many religious beliefs, such as with evolution and other scientific discoveries that the people who invented world religions had no clue about, so it's not a myth. — praxis

Yeah but if you never believed that Adam and Eve was literally true, then the fact that it's *not* literally true doesn't 'prove' anything. That's why people like you are similar to fundamentalists.

Your mental contortions are quite unnecessary, Wayfarer, but if it makes you feel good to think of me as some kind of fundamentalist then be my guest. :smile:

it makes you feel good to think of me as some kind of fundamentalist then be my guest. :smile: — praxis

It makes no difference to me, but it explains everything you say about the topic, so you will understand if I don't engage further with you on this subject.

You make a wild claim that you haven’t even begun to explain, that I’m some sort of fundamentalist and that explains everything I say about the subject of science and religion, and then cower away and refuse to engage further. I would like to think that you’re better than that. I think that you used to be better than that.

We both know that you cannot make a convincing argument that I’m any sort of fundamentalist. It is your dishonesty and cowardice that prevents you from even trying.

Science simply disproves many religious beliefs — praxis

Yes, and herein we saw the whole of Genesis not just go away but get demolished, for it was the polar opposite of what was found, along with more, such as the Earth not being fixed in space. Those kinds of things spoke to the OP, it being about religion's 'God', which is the Biblical 'God', for the most part. Plus, the Guy had no integrity and was a conditional giver/commander, etc.

It was good practice for the next step, which is to figure the probability of a regular, non-Biblical 'Being' vs 'no Being', which positions are not necessarily equiprobable.

To qualify, the Being needs to be person-like, with a system of mind, and must be Fundamental/First, fully intact from the get-go or as ever, which rules out an evolved smart alien dependent on other things having happened.

Known events can tell us more. For example, no magic is apparent. Both cosmic and biological evolution took very l-o-n-g; the Earth is in the Goldilocks orbital zone, not out by Neptune, etc. All looks to be natural.

Or, the Being could be a Deity, a kind a very smart scientist who foresaw every interaction in the Universe that He started going with the right mix of stuff, never intervening in it thereafter. If so, then so be it, and the fine-tuning that worked.

Whichever, the Being does not show itself, which stands against there being a Being. Also, we note a progress from very tiny things to the more and more composite and complex, again a polar opposite, to Complexity First.

Well, that's a start, for all readers here. I invite more, either for or against. We're just doing probability here. No one can know for sure, either way, nor honestly teach/preach either way for sure as truth.

, Women usually are better at looking at things with more complexity. Your teacher is a smart lady.

Science simply disproves many religious beliefs, such as with evolution — praxis

The argument is like this: to believe that science disproves a religious myth then you have to believe that the myth in question was true to begin with. In the case of the creation account in Genesis, about the only people who believe it is literally true are called young-earth creationists. They believe that the earth was miraculously created a few thousand years ago and that the science of radio-carbon dating and everything of the kind is wrong.

Very few people believe that, and I certainly don't believe it. I've never believed that the creation account of the Bible was anything other than a myth. But in the context of the overall Biblical narrative, it's still meaningful. Just because it's not literally true, doesn't make it meaningless.

So, Richard Dawkins, for example, depicts all religious belief as basically being fundamentalism - that to have any kind of religious sensibility, puts you in the same camp as fundamentalism. But it's obviously not true, as there are many religious people who have no trouble accepting the scientific account of evolution, and interpreting the Biblical account symbolically. In fact, the Catholic Church (nor the Anglican Church) has never questioned the scientific account of evolution. It's mainly the province of US fundamentalism.

Here's an interesting passage:

Often, a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other parts of the world, about the motions and orbits of the stars and even their sizes and distances, … and this knowledge he holds with certainty from reason and experience. It is thus offensive and disgraceful for an unbeliever to hear a Christian talk nonsense about such things, claiming that what he is saying is based in Scripture. We should do all we can to avoid such an embarrassing situation, which people see as ignorance in the Christian and laugh to scorn.

The shame is not so much that an ignorant person is laughed at, but rather that people outside the faith believe that we hold such opinions, and thus our teachings are rejected as ignorant and unlearned. If they find a Christian mistaken in a subject that they know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions as based on our teachings, how are they going to believe these teachings in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think these teachings are filled with fallacies about facts which they have learnt from experience and reason.

Reckless and presumptuous expounders of Scripture bring about much harm when they are caught in their mischievous false opinions by those not bound by our sacred texts. And even more so when they then try to defend their rash and obviously untrue statements by quoting a shower of words from Scripture and even recite from memory passages which they think will support their case ‘without understanding either what they are saying or what they assert with such assurance.’ (1 Timothy 1:7)]

That was written by Augustine, 430 AD De Genisi ad litteram (The Literal Meaning of Genesis). One can assume he would take a dim view of today's fundamentalism.

Atheism has been invented by those who fear God, — Drazjan

Socrates did not fear gods. He just realized the god-concept is an unnecessary concept.

Most atheists I know don't fear god. If you believe something does not exist, then it's impossible to fear it. That is self-evident.

You seem to imply that atheism is born, or created, by a fear of god. That may be partly true, in some instances, but in most instances of atheism, people are raised without a god-belief and they simply follow the crowd, much like religious follow the crowd.

There is a slim stratum of atheists, who are the most vocal, and their atheism is stemmed from their realizing that religions are self-contradictory, and although they would otherwise accept it, they can't abide by a system that is ruled by logical self-contradictory tenets.

For an overwhelming majority of Europeans life now is understandable and science answers more and more questions now, which could only be answered by religious faith before. The need for religion is fading fast in western type democracies in the Europe.

And there are a lot of needs of humans and societies, that can be satisfied, while no prayer or other appeals to gods are needed-- so mankind can and does cast those practices away, along with the belief in the supernatural.

I don't think you are right in saying that atheists simply fear god and therefore they deny its existence. Many people do use denial as a defence mechanism against anxiety, but the atheists mostly don't, they instead chose a no-god world view because they can and because it is conducive to their lives. In fact, if anything, then it is the LACK of fear of god that enables the atheist to cast away or stay away from a belief in god.

That was written by Augustine, 430 AD De Genisi ad litteram (The Literal Meaning of Genesis). One can assume he would take a dim view of today's fundamentalism. — Wayfarer

He was at the same time advocating to deny the truth claimed by the bible.

If one or more claims in a certain set of claims, which set comprises the truth because it is spoken by god, are proven to be certainly wrong, it establishes a valid doubt in the rest of the claims to be true.

It’s a myth that ‘science disproves religion’ in any general sense. — Wayfarer

The fact is, that facts and reason support anti-religionism — god must be atheist

Do you understand what ‘positivism’ is? Or ‘scientism’ Do you know why Dawkins/Dennett are accused of ‘scientism’? — Wayfarer

Why would i need to understand what the concepts are behind these expressions?

You don't understand a simple sentence. I wrote "Facts and reason support anti-religionism", and you read it as "science disproves religion". The two are not even remotely equivalent.

If you don't understand English, and you don't understand science, and you don't understand the concept of "proof," then you don't understand a lot more than what I don't understand, and your non-understanding is more basic than mine.

1. Science never proves anything. You claimed that science can prove things.
2. Your paraphrasing is way too liberal.

This shows a basic non-understanding on such a level, that I don't think I can penetrate your thinking with my reason and arguments.

god must be atheist
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Arguing with religious fanatics, I've noticed it on several philosophical websites, is like drinking a strong poison and not dying from it.

The best is to leave them alone. If you don't, you may blow up in anger or in frustration by seeing them claim so many fallacious, improper, stupid, and ignorant facts and arguments, and then sticking by them despite overwhelming evidence, both a priori and empirical.

Religions are no longer opiates that sedate... they have turned noxious. The shelf-life has expired a long time ago, and the followers of them still try to force them dow our throats.
2 days ago Options
Wayfarer
7.9k
↪god must be atheist This often also applies to anti-religious fanatics.
2 days ago — god must be atheist

This often also applies to anti-religious fanatics.
— Wayfarer

I'd say it applies to even to moderates of both camps.
a day ago — Coben

Wayfarer and Coben, you just proved my point.
— god must be atheist
Please show how I proved your point.
The fact is, that facts and reason support anti-religionism. You can't say "this applies to anti-religious as well."
— god must be atheist
You seem to be confusing the merits of a position with the behavior of the adherents. I was writing about the latter. Nothing I said is countered by what you say here.
You are right that we, the anti-religious are toxic for you, make you angry and frustrated,
— god must be atheist
I didn't say that anti-religious people are toxic to me nor that they make me angry and frustrated.
I agree with you, however, that the debates should stop. They are fruitless, they are vengeful, and they create a level of unnecessary frustration.
— god must be atheist
I didn't say the debates should stop.
Please don't include me in lists, if you are going to assign positions to me. — Coben

Coben: "I didn't say that anti-religious people are toxic to me" yes, you did say it by agreeing with Wayfarer, who stated this as a counter-claim to mine. I you read the texts carefully, you will see.

Coben: "I didn't say the debates should stop." Yes, you did say it, when you expressed your agreement with Wayfarer, who said my statements of the religious also apply to anti-religious fanatics. Wayfarer did not specify which part of my script applies, so the infernece is valid,that all my text applies. Therefore by agreeing with Wayfarer you agreed that the debates should stop.

I have included you in that list, because you voluntarily joined to be on that list. You voluntarily joined when you expressly stated agreement with Wayfarer, who expressily said "this applies" to all. And "this" in "this applies" was not specified, so I have the right to include all I said that Wayfarer reacted to, as included in "this".

Yes, you did say it, when you expressed your agreement with Wayfarer, who said my statements of the religious also apply to anti-religious fanatics. Wayfarer did not specify which part of my script applies, so the infernece is valid,that all my text applies. Therefore by agreeing with Wayfarer you agreed that the debates should stop. — god must be atheist

OK, seems a stretch to me to assume I meant everything and not that last portion, but fine, I get how you took it now. In any case I saw those quaities of debating style in both groups and extended this to include moderates of both sides. I was not referring to the debates being useless. Now, one could wonder if I also agreed with your conclusion that the debates are useless. IOW one ought to be able to see the difference between what is potentially implicit in my agreement and

my having said.....X,Y and Z, when you can't even quote yourself accurately and then attribute statements to me I did not make.

I do see how it would be fair to think I might have agreed to the whole post via him.

But as it happens I do not in regard, for example to the debates.. And apparantly, by your behavior, and despite your assertion, you do not either, think them useless. Isn't it hypocritical to participate on your part?

And I stand by the position that anti-religions can exhibit all sorts of aggressive frustrated behavior and also to engage in fallacious arguments, ad hominim attacks and a poor understanding of epistemology when dealing with theists. I also see this behavior in theists and I see it even in moderate examples of both theists and antitheists.

You present perfect examples to support this....the post that set our dialogue in motion

is off topic, offering no substance on the issue of the thread. Is a general insult and is, sure, toxic. And it is not toxic because it offers reasoned anti-reglisious arguments, but rather because it is off-topic bile. Effectively, if not intentionally, trolling.

So are other posts in this thread...

Let's look at your first contribution, I think, to this thread....

Janus, you speak truly like one who is devoted to a faith, and facts, arguments, will never daunt you. This diatribe you wrote only proves your ignorance borne out of blind faith and borne out of a conviction to never accept an otherwise valid argument if it speaks against your religion.

Your devotion to faith on the expense of rejecting known facts and valid teories is well described in your little note there.

When you say "they can provide no good argument" you admit that the huge amount of good arguments already extant, you simply, by necessity of convenience, ignore. — god must be atheist

Now in your defense the other poster was using a general ad hom, against those he disagreed with. Your contribution is to make this personal, about him, including mind reading about his characte: 'will never daunt you' and more. You decided that what the thread needed was insults or more insults and mind reading, including about what someone else will never do. We could call that an implicit claim to having precognitive powers.

Oh, pardon, that was your second post. Your first begins as debate, discussing an issue, but quickly moves into ad hom mind reading.....

To call these tales scientific metaphors or moral- or religious metaphors is one the vile tricks the religious employ to defend their indefendible faiths.

IOW it is not the case that they are mistaken yet truly believe what they are arguing, for example. You know it is a vile trick - meaning intending to mislead, an ad hom focus on the people and not the issue.

Presumably you are anti-religious and you exhibited some of the traits I think that the anti-religious, just like the religious can exhibit.

And in this second example, you were not responding to a person using ad homs, at least going by the quote they were making an argument and were on topic. Whether they were right or wrong is no justification for your ad hom and insulting approach at least in some post.

You may not stop being hypocritical and may continue to engage in debates you consider useless.

But I can ignore you and will. There are atheists, anti-religionists, agnostics and theists I can discuss and debate with who do not fit, in many ways, your own description of religious people. I can have these discussions with them and not find the discussion useless.

"I didn't say that anti-religious people are toxic to me" yes, you did say it by agreeing with Wayfarer, who stated this as a counter-claim to mine. I you read the texts carefully, you will see. — god must be atheist

OK. I didn't recognize the phrase 'toxic to me' I can see now it's a reasonable paraphrase of what you originally wrote. Next time a direct quote instead of a synonym would be better. I intended to agree with the last part of you post that I thought he was referring to. I can see how you applied it to the whole post.

I hope that's clear to you now.

double post

Socrates did not fear gods. He just realized the god-concept is an unnecessary concept.

Most atheists I know don't fear god. If you believe something does not exist, then it's impossible to fear it. That is self-evident.

You seem to imply that atheism is born, or created, by a fear of god. That may be partly true, in some instances, but in most instances of atheism, people are raised without a god-belief and they simply follow the crowd, much like religious follow the crowd.

There is a slim stratum of atheists, who are the most vocal, and their atheism is stemmed from their realizing that religions are self-contradictory, and although they would otherwise accept it, they can't abide by a system that is ruled by logical self-contradictory tenets.

For an overwhelming majority of Europeans life now is understandable and science answers more and more questions now, which could only be answered by religious faith before. The need for religion is fading fast in western type democracies in the Europe.

And there are a lot of needs of humans and societies, that can be satisfied, while no prayer or other appeals to gods are needed-- so mankind can and does cast those practices away, along with the belief in the supernatural.

I don't think you are right in saying that atheists simply fear god and therefore they deny its existence. Many people do use denial as a defence mechanism against anxiety, but the atheists mostly don't, they instead chose a no-god world view because they can and because it is conducive to their lives. In fact, if anything, then it is the LACK of fear of god that enables the atheist to cast away or stay away from a belief in god. — god must be atheist

It is not my contention that Atheists fear God. The Abrahamics are said traditionally to fear God. They invented Atheism as a term for convenience when dealing with people who do not see reality through their dogma. That is one reason I am not an Atheist. I am not going to buy into the trichotomy of Atheist-Agnostic-Theist. The sky is blue, now that's important.

For an overwhelming majority of Europeans life now is understandable and science answers more and more questions now, which could only be answered by religious faith before. The need for religion is fading fast in western type democracies in the Europe. — god must be atheist

Continuing from my previous post on the Being's probability of being…

Since the Being never shows and we note the long and slow but natural road of 13 billion years leading to us, either there is no Being or the Being doesn't have the power to create more quickly what it wants, the latter lessening the likelihood of a Being. This lack of power applies to both a hands-off Deity and an intervening Theity (a word I invented).

How, then, is an Intelligent Designer going to be able to foresee all eventualities and kick off a fine-tuned universe when we don't even have the math to solve the three body problem?

If there is intervention or foreseeing, how it is that extinctions, notably the one wiping out 95% of all life, including the dinosaurs, would be an intelligent sledgehammer for providing an opening for mammals to evolve, such as a shrew-like creature at the time? And, again, why can't the Being operate directly instead of always presumably under the cover of natural events.

Finally, why is a Great Complexity of a large System of Mind of a Being suggested as being able to be Fundamental/First, for systems ever have parts, these parts then having to be more fundamental. Here we come very close to disproving the Being. Plus, that we see the opposite, as a progression of the tiny and simple to the larger and more complex.

You’ve not made an argument that I’m any sort of fundamentalist. If you’re going to make a wild claim like that you should at least try to support it.

Well, let's look at it in terms of Richard Dawkins' books.

Fundamentalism takes a 'literalist' view of the meaning of sacred texts; that they are to be understood in a literal sense. Obviously a scientific theory such as evolution by natural selection threatens that view - which is central to the whole 'culture wars' between religion and science, as in, for instance the books of Richard Dawkins.

But assuming that all Christians are fundamentalist, is a dogmatic view that is ironically similar to the dogma being criticized. So saying that 'evolution undermines religion' is only true for a fundamentalist view of religion.

How, then, is an Intelligent Designer going to be able to foresee all eventualities and kick off a fine-tuned universe when we don't even have the math to solve the three body problem — PoeticUniverse

If you're not familiar with it, google Barrow and Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, and have a read about it.

Anthropic — Wayfarer

During conscious observation,
The ‘hereness’ and ‘nowness’
Of reality crystalizes and remains,
We establishing what that reality is to some extent.

We define and refine the nature of reality
That leads to the mind’s outlook.
Counterintuitive? Cyclical?
Yes, but it is the universe in dialog with itself;
The wave functions, and yet the function waves.

The universe supplies the means of its own creation,
Its possibilities supplying the avenues
And the probability and workability
That carve out the paths leading to success.

So, here we are, then and now,
The rains of change falling everywhere,
The streams being carved out,
The water rising back up to the sky,
The rain then falling everywhere,
The streams recarving and meandering
Toward more meaning and so on.

... assuming that all Christians are fundamentalist... — Wayfarer

Dawkins doesn’t make this assumption. While verifying that online I ran across the curious notion of non-overlapping magisteria (NOMA). Stephen Jay Gould describes it as follows:

Science tries to document the factual character of the natural world, and to develop theories that coordinate and explain these facts. Religion, on the other hand, operates in the equally important, but utterly different, realm of human purposes, meanings, and values—subjects that the factual domain of science might illuminate, but can never resolve.

Oddly, according to the principal it could not be considered a factual principle until its scientifically proven, and that’s never going to happen.

Religious people are so goofy.

In the case of the creation account in Genesis, about the only people who believe it is literally true are called young-earth creationists. They believe that the earth was miraculously created a few thousand years ago and that the science of radio-carbon dating and everything of the kind is wrong.

Very few people believe that, — Wayfarer

While the number of people who believe in biblical inerrancy is slowly diminishing, that number is still quite large - and these people have significant influence on American (and global) politics.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/210704/record-few-americans-believe-bible-literal-word-god.aspx

While the number of people who believe in biblical inerrancy is slowly diminishing, that number is still quite large - and these people have significant influence on American (and global) politics. — EricH

They have zero visibility in Australian politics. One of the most well-known fundamentalists, Ken Ham, is an Australian, he had to relocate to Kentucky to find an audience.

"I didn't say that anti-religious people are toxic to me" yes, you did say it by agreeing with Wayfarer, who stated this as a counter-claim to mine. I you read the texts carefully, you will see.
— god must be atheist
OK. I didn't recognize the phrase 'toxic to me' I can see now it's a reasonable paraphrase of what you originally wrote. Next time a direct quote instead of a synonym would be better. I intended to agree with the last part of you post that I thought he was referring to. I can see how you applied it to the whole post.

I hope that's clear to you now. — Coben

Dear Coben, thanks for clearing this up.

I read what is written, and I understand what I read. If someone makes a mistake by writing what they don't mean, then it is something they must fix later; and you came through with that. I appreciate your effort.

I appreciate your effort. — god must be atheist

That’s what she said.

I didn’t say you were. — AJJ

Yes, you clearly did, and now you're contradicting yourself. You should reread what you wrote. You said that I was suggesting something I wasn't. Your exact wording was as follows:

So implicitly your answer is “no”. — AJJ

I deliberately rejected your question itself, as opposed to giving either an affirmative or negative answer, on the grounds that it was irrelevant and inapplicable, given that it was framed as a false analogy. We aren't talking about maths and fashion anymore if you're going to break that analogy. I stand by my previous answer about the incompatibility of science and religion.

You then responded with nothing other than your own misinterpretation of what I said. And you repeat that same misinterpretation yet again, as though it is fact, here:

It’s what follows from you implicitly answering ‘no’ to my previous question. — AJJ

You need to learn the difference between an implication and a misinterpretation.

If you aren't even capable understanding what I'm saying, which isn't all that complicated, then further discussion with you will be futile.

and also the respective methods of arriving at belief are opposed and incompatible for any given belief.
— S

What is the scientific method for arriving at the belief in a transcendent God, and why is it incompatible with the Kalam Cosmological Argument’s method, say? — AJJ

That's an odd question to ask in relation to my comment. I have no idea why you'd assume that there's a scientific method for arriving at the belief in a transcendent God, and I'm certainly under no burden to answer for your own peculiar imaginings which appear to have no logical relevance to my comment.

I appreciate your effort.
— god must be atheist

That’s what she said. — Noah Te Stroete

I live in an apartment building. The surrounding gardens on the premises are kept up by the tenants, on a volunteer basis. There is no contract with the landlord that we must do it; it's just that some of the tenants are keen on gardening.

One day I come home and Chuck was sweeping up the sidewalk. I told him, he is doing a good job. He thanked me. Then I screamed at him in an agry, ugly voice, saying it very abruptly, "BUT THAT'S NOT ENOUGH!"

We both laughed.

:grin:

I somehow figure you like to gaze into Crystal balls. Crystal eye balls, to be more precise. Crystal's eyes, to be incredibly precise.