Faith, religion, and the afterlife: A form of denial

Great Debates
481

Did I say atheists? No, I didn’t. I guess I made a semi-moot point since most would say that they believed a god “may exist” if you asked them before prison, but never truly believed. Or, as I said, they didn’t “find their faith” until they were in prison. Many may have claimed association with a certain religion, but that doesn’t mean they believe in god and that doesn’t make them an atheist.

I have no doubt that my point still stands. Currently, 80% of Americans are theists. I’m sure a significant amount of people found their faith in prison to help bump the number up to 93%. Also, prison inmates on average have much lower levels of education and intelligence both of which have also been directly linked to belief in god. As a matter of fact, every atheist/agnostic I’ve ever known has been either an affluent white male or a person of above average intellect.

If you are without the means to learn why religion is false, like many in prison, then you are more likely to be a theist. The fact that those inmates can find piece of mind in a Christian god who forgives them for what they have done, is most likely a more direct explanation than the implication that theists are more likely to commit crimes in the first place.

482

[quote=“x-ray_vision, post:438, topic:677713”]

And that’s confusing to you why exactly? Agnosticism is a philosophical view that is almost never associated with a religion let alone a church as QuickSilver said…

Why don’y you read the definition of an agnostic and if you have any actual questions, then ask them rather than just insinuate a bunch of nonsense.

Agnosticism

No, none of that is made up… Why don’t you look it up before presuming to know the origins of something. Regular and pure are my own adaptations, but nonetheless are synonymous with the official definitions.

Atheism

Agnostic Atheism

Agnostic Theism

Uhhh THIS THREAD is my cite. Why don’t you ask your buddy Der Trihs what science has convinced him. I’ve asked HIM multiple times for cites or proof or examples and he has yet to provide anything substantial. And Simster makes some claims that fall under agnostic atheism, but also makes other claims that might as well be an atheist who believes that gods don’t exist at all. Or IOW a PURE atheist, since you seem to not understand that.

What does that matter anyways? Even if you include all atheists it still only goes from the 1% I was claiming to 2% of the population. I’m sorry, does it make you feel better if I say 98% instead of 99% when referring to people who have a different view than you and Der Trihs?

88% of the world’s population claims to have belief in god. I estimated that at least 50% would say that they at least have a spiritual relationship with god, or IOW have “contacted” a deity.

If you don’t have a real question, you should just say “I don’t understand.” It makes perfect sense, just not to you apparently.

I’m saying that the existence or non-existence of deities cannot be known. Der Trihs claims that it is known. Therefore we have mutually exclusive points of view. What’s so hard to get about that?

Listen, you seem to have a poor understanding of what I’ve been trying to say and/or debate about. Why don’t you go and read all of Der Trihs’ posts from #50-450 and you will see that #433 is just the tip of the iceberg.

I have already identified the difference between a mile-high giant/plastic army men and the like from any major deity. Those are YOUR opinions and are a part of YOUR knowledge, and that’s fine, but Der Trihs NEVER left it there. Him and others went beyond that to go ahead and make claims about what other people “know.” That in and of itself is a fallacy regardless of objective evidence. It’s not like he was saying, “well there is no evidence to suggest that so I don’t believe in it.” He was saying, “believing in god is ridiculous and blatantly obnoxious,” not to mention people saying it’s delusional or a fantasy to believe in a deity existence, when it is quite plainly neither of those things by itself. It is a fundamentally flawed argument because belief in all major deities involves a spiritual relationship which inherently has no objective evidence. Just because a perosn has not experienced the same things that others have, does not mean they know better.

483

I don’t get the point of your rant. I know what agnosticism is. You are not replying to my post in any meaningful way. You claimed that you’re not believer but an agnostic. I pointed out that those two things aren’t mutually exclusive. Your link only backs me up. I didn’t insinuate anything.

Are you putting me on? It’s these “adaptations” that I said you made up. None of the links you supplied were necessary.

Because I’m discussing what you said, not another poster.

It’s not worth my time discussing this any further with someone whose responses are only pretend refutations. Have fun pretend debating with anyone that finds that interesting.

484

Well how do you want me to answer it then? QuickSilver made some comment about “my church” after overlooking or ignoring other comments where I: stated that I am agnostic and don’t affiliate with any religion, I just acknowledge the possibility that a deity could exist.

So, if my comment to QuickSilver was unclear to you given the context of the rest of the thread, then I think it’s safe to say you should ask questions if you don’t understand, not just make statements about what my stance should be qualified as.

Try and be more clear then, your comment seems to imply that I made up all of the different versions. And the links were clearly necessary because they explain my adaptations as well if you bothered to read them.

The adaptations are synonymous with the official definition, there is literally no difference unless you have Aspergers or something and are compulsively picky in your word choice…

Well then understand that what I said can be traced back to the other posters claims or I wouldn’t have bothered to explain the difference. I didn’t really know how atheists or Der Trihs could substantiate the claim that no gods exist, and you know what, I still don’t. Basically, your posts originate from a lack of understanding of the context in which things have been discussed in this thread. This started when you commented on a post that was not directed towards you.

Huh? There was never any debate with you. Your points were either trivial or non-applicable to what I was saying. You showed a clear lack of understanding in what was going on as a whole, then I tried to clear things up. That is all that happened.

485

More than 13% of the American population is in prison?

486

The 93% figure I used of American theists incarcerated was something I remembered from some 20-30 years or so ago. I’m sure the figure isn’t exactly the same now, but I’m guessing probably would still roughly reflect what percentage of general population of Americans that identified as theists compared to non-theists is ‘bout the same as in the prison population. I’ve seen some studies which show less than 1% of the prison population identifies with atheist, but not sure of all of the details and how the questions were worded.

487

I’m familiar with these stories. You hear them quite often. And it’s not surprising to me. They may not find their faith until then, but they were pretty much wired with god concepts already, and were just waiting for a time to crash, and to renew their faith and make it stronger than ever. It’s an emotionally gripping experience to be in jail or prison, and often when religion catches many is when one is at their lowest. When down on their luck, and when faced with the music, they cry out for help. You’ll also notice around colleges, churches built right along side them. They know that many young people are leaving home and away from loved ones for the first time. Although they are excited to do something with their lives, it’s also a lonely time for many. I keep reminding myself of Lucian again, and his two great tyrants, and just feel like religion exploits those two emotions to the fullest.

I think some of these prisoners are quiet sincere in their renewed or new religious experiences, but some are also just playing the system, figuring if they were showing to be going to prison church services, and showing others they have now found or a renewed faith in him, maybe, just maybe the parole board and others will shed a more favorable opinion of them and hope to get extra privileges, even lifers. A great deal know how to work the system and are quite the professional cons.

There is no doubt that many do experience something as Susan Blackmore has noted is a premiere researcher as well as Michael Shermer that looks into many of these god experiences (youtube God helmet), along with other stuff that leads them to god such as having a NDE or OBE and many other phenomenon I once took an interest in. They just don’t reach the same conclusions as you. I too, differ in thinking “there just has to be something to all of this.” I think man has an infinite number of ways to delude himself. When god starts describing himself the same, or starts revealing useful information that was previously unknown, it would start getting my attention. It would start getting the world’s attention. I find it difficult why so many people take these testimonials seriously, but it goes back to many of them using a different standard of what they would call evidence.

We had a former poster here who is now banned that went on and on and on and on about his NDE and OBE and how much God had revealed to him about how he was about love, and told us a lot of other things that god had told him. I personally think he could have driven the average religious person insane just by spending a few days with him. Look up NDE sometime on a search engine with this board, and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

488

No no no we’re not that bad! Lol 80% of the American population are theists and 93% of the American prison inmates are theists. I was just highlighting factors that are certainly contributors to the “bump up,” or difference between the two stats.

489

Whew! Okay, I read it differently, but I can see now that this is what you intended. Maybe a little ambiguity in the phrasing.

The thing I take away from this is that religion doesn’t appear to be any real solution to people’s problems. If 93% of inmates are religious, that’s a terrible advertisement for religion!

490

I found a couple cites that shed light on the entire idea of all of this, and it is not what you might think.

“Theists vs. Nontheists” In Prison Populations

Religious Affiliation in Prison, England and Wales

Also, some religions have a well-known high rate of success when it comes to recruitment in prisons. A much higher rate than in the American public that is.

Exploits? Or helps them cope with the feelings of hope/fear that they already had?

You are right though, many inmates may have identified with a religious group, but do not consider themselves religious, and also many would have identified themselves as religious, but do not practice their religion. Their are varying levels of “faith” within the broad sense used to conduct a census.

This would seem to be inconsequential because from what I have read the religious status of an individual is taken right at the beginning of a persons incarceration and is used only for cell/area assignment purposes. In my experience judges and people affiliated with correctional institutes are almost completely indifferent to “cons” as you say. I went to about 10 court hearings where I saw a wide range a charges and how the judge responded to each, and the only major factors were prior arrests/convictions/probation status, level of income, and whether or not you have kids or a family. Parole boards might be different, but I doubt they differ greatly. I even saw a guy who was mentally handicapped (an IQ of 61) who got 30 years because he was a repeat offender. So not even that can get you out of prison time.

491

Existence is a state of being, and has had to always exist, before anyone or thing could exist. I think of existence as the first cause. I don’t claim to know how or when it came into being, Existence must be a place where people or anything must exist. Do I make claim that I know this? No, I don’t, but place has to precede beings.

492

In America and many countries, that may be true. But how do you feel about Sharia law practiced in other countries when they put a Muslim to death if one gives up their faith?

The writer in your first link says this:

If this is true and GLBT is highly correlated with pedophilia, then I don’t think health professionals and people voting would be allowing them to marry and have children. It also says right after this that 73% of gay men reported to having sex with 16-19 year olds or younger. I’m not sure if they are using this as a figure to show pedophilia or not, but 16-19 year olds is not what health professionals of today would consider it. Wikipedia defines it as: Pedophilia or paedophilia is a psychiatric disorder in which an adult or older adolescent experiences a primary or exclusive sexual attraction to prepubescent children, generally age 11 years or younger, though specific diagnostic criteria for the disorder extends the cut-off point for prepubescence to age 13.

I did go to Amazon.com to see if I could find out more about these researchers. They wrote a book called “The Gay Report”. It was written in 1979, but there isn’t a single review of it. I’m not the least bit knowledgeable about this topic, but would be curious if professionals today actually feel like that there is a correlation between the GLBT community and pedophilia and in the age groups that Wiki defines it being used.

That’s a tuffy, but I would say a bit of both is going on.

I didn’t know that their religious status played that much of a factor on where their cell area was going to be, but I guess it makes sense. They also take into consideration the crime too though, right? I imagine race is also considered.

493

That’s an interesting point although I’m not sure that’s what the author meant.

Yes kind of an alarming claim. I think it’s relatively harmless given the information you have highlighted. I think an similar percentage of straight adults would say they have had sex with someone between 16-19 at some point in their lives. The other stat is kind of pointless as well: “86 percent of convicted child molesters who molested boys describe themselves as homosexual or bisexual.” I would assume most people who have homosexual relations would describe themselves as gay or bi-sexual.

I too am curious. Not that anti-ssm groups should have ammunition, but I would not be surprised if gay men were more likely to commit acts of pedophilia. I’ve known or been an associate of two pedophiles both of whom I know were gay or bi-sexual. Could be coincidence tho.

Well I’m not sure as to the practical application or how significant it is. Segregation by severity of crime is the major deciding factor in this matter. When you’re getting booked in jail, they ask you a series of questions to gauge your temperament, gang affiliation, and in prison it would seem they go more in depth and ask about your religious status as well.

494

That’s because God’s stuff is all public domain.

495

Unless you are in to $cientology.

496

And some place for existence to exist must have existed before existence existed.

You’re just engaging in meaningless wordplay now.

If you can use this logic to prove that God can’t exist, then you can use it to prove that the universe doesn’t exist.

This partakes too much of medieval proofs of God: you can’t do these things with language alone. Actual, factual, observable evidence is needed.

(Well, okay, Voyager is right: you can disprove the “omniscient & omnipotent” version of God with words alone, because the two terms contradict each other. But…)

497

The flaw in these arguments is that their premise is that all things have causes - but we now know this is not true at the quantum level.

498

Noted. I was speaking generally. I do understand that people’s degrees of belief and what argument appeals to them does vary.

Why doesn’t it? I stated earlier that I agree. with Stan Harris that religious beliefs should be measured the same way any other belief is measured. Available facts sound reasoning. etc. I think it also means understanding how belief systems are formed. In this case, do people in general accept that certain things they are told are true, without checking for themselves? I think they do. So how is that different than a person believing in God because the people around them have always believed. Is it irrational or just being human, or both?

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AGreed, but emotions do affect our belief systems. As humans we have bias for different reasons. We may have unconscious feelings and motives affecting our belief system.

My only objection is the wode blankets tossed by some atheists that all god belief is irrational and delusional because there’s no objecive proof, all the while exhibiting their own tendency to insist things are factual that they can’t prove.

You are incorrect in reading that into my post. My point is that human belief systems share certain things in common, and if we’re going to put religious beliefs on equal footing with all other beliefs as Harris suggests, Religious beliefs don’t deserve any special respect or protected unchallengable status, and they also don’t deserve an assumed catagory of irrational and delusional.

Also, I’m nota theist I’m an agnostic duscussing the validity of certain arguments.

I concede that they are not pointless in every case, so people are free to judge what arguments they prefer, might be successful, or their own motives for making them. I suggest that since god belief is so widespread and ultimately can’t be disproven, it’s sometimes more productive to focus on other aspects of religion. For example; there is tons of facts avalable about the origin of the Bible , the changes made in it, etc etc, Or the ample evidence that beliefs have changed , in order to make the point that it’s okay, even nessecary to question religious tradition, even as a believer.

499

I thought that was alien stuff.

500

Also, they can usually be gotten around by an appeal to a higher dimension, a meta-universe, in which our universe is embedded. God – or the Big Bang – operates in that meta-scale “place” whereas we poor inhabitants of “Flatland” can’t perceive those dimensions.

It’s brutal hard for common sense to cope with the idea that “time began” with the Big Bang. The inner child can’t help asking, “Oh, yeah? Well, what happened before that?”

Modern physics has taken common sense and kicked it right in the teeth!