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

Great Debates
121

Interesting. I’m not a believer, but I’ll run through your questions anyways. I’m not sure precisely how you would ‘determine’ any God exists. I’m not religious so idc how any one religion would try to disprove another God. If anything, I would think they are all believers in the same God, but have developed variations due to human’s incapacity to truly understand what God is. I would say without a serious backstory and in depth explanation, the IPU IS different.

Well that may be, but comparing a God to an IPU is still ridiculous. Most Christians don’t imagine their God as having a corporeal form at all. Other major religions tend to at least have a humanoid figure of worship, so it’s difficult to take the notion of an IPU as a serious argument.

It seems like it would be more aptly used as an inflammatory analogy directed towards believers. If the atheist who is making the point wants to have any success at a productive discussion then they should use a more reasonable approach.

Yupp, as I mentioned above, the Immovable Paradox makes the same point you are illustrating. So when using a human’s mind it is impossible to see it as logical, but unlike an all-powerful God, we can’t even perceive the fourth dimension(space-time) let alone what else is out there. Whose to say that there isn’t a different Universe for every possible variation of existence.

That was just a joke really. There are too many strings attached to ever attempt something like that. I guess we can agree that the falsehood of most any God associated with a religion is false, but there is room for what I have been getting at. A God that exists, possibly created everything and/or IS everything and may or may not have a plan for us. IDK. I just really want to stress the point that a God COULD exist.

I think I kinda agree with the point, but once again, I don’t agree with your delivery method. You should really try loosening up. No offense, but I just have this idea in my head of you being the atheist version of a religious zealot. You’ve kind of been cramming down every would-be defender of religion’s throat that they’re retarded if they believe in it…

That’s because it’s a touchy subject for a lot of people. I don’t care what you believe, but my original point still stands. The peace of mind one receives from being a believer, can create a frame of mind that leads to better health than if that person were not a believer. This is assuming the person doesn’t also believe in all of the bigotry that is commonly associated with religion.

I agree.

That’s a bold assertion and ridiculous I might add. I’m just trying to weed out an analogy that, IMHO, is not productive.

My apologies. I wasn’t trying to nit-pick. I was just reacting to your post which seemed to intentionally convolute the topic I was discussing with irrelevant questions.

122

I see. didn’t know that. I can see it as an argument to address “well you can’t prove God doesn’t exist” which is pretty lame. All to often now I see it used as a convenient tool to mock believers which IMO, only results in no thoughts being provoked.

I agree that all beliefs , religious or other wise , deserve to be questioned and examined for value.

123

nice typo for sure. However, I find it hard to believe I would have to explain to you what the other ,possibilities are for Sunday School other than sin.

124

Completely beside my actual point.

125

No, it isn’t. It makes perfect sense to demonstrate the ridiculousness of “God” by comparing it to something else ridiculous that people haven’t been enculturated into taking seriously.

Nonsense. It’s the “inflammatory” arguments that work, because an argument working against religion is in itself inflammatory. And making the point of how ridiculous religion is to believers is very effective; that’s why they constantly demand that unbelievers stop, and insist that the unbelievers instead pretend that religion isn’t silly.

And demanding that the other side agree beforehand that you are right isn’t “being reasonable”.

Except that if something is logically impossible, then it isn’t a “possible variation of existence”. And once you argue that logic doesn’t apply to “God”, you are announcing that nothing meaningful can be said about it. So if that’s really your position you should dismiss talking about God as foolish, because nothing of use can be said or even thought about a subject to which logic doesn’t apply. It also of course negates all your arguments for God.

No, there’s no room in physics for a “God”. And “well, one could” exist" is a ridiculous argument; would you say the same about elves? Demons? Goblins? Fairies? Why God and not them? All of them are far more plausible than God.

No, because being a believer is in itself mentally unhealthy, and causes immense harm to the world directly and indirectly.

126

**

[QUOTE=Der Trihs;]
**Because they cause immense harm and suffering to themselves and others. Go tell the kid disowned or abused for being homosexual or an atheist or switching religions how religion means less stress. Go tell the people killed by religious terrorists that. Go tell the wife beaten because God demands she be subordinate to the husband, or the child beaten because God says that "spare the rod, spoil the child:. (end quote)

What about all the harm done by atheism? The millions murdered by Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot in the name of their avowedly atheistic ideology? Or, on the other side of the political spectrum, the social and economic devastation wrought by the likes of Paul Ryan and other admirers of the fervently atheistic Ayn Rand? For a philosophy which has only recently gained mass popularity, atheism sure seems to have a lot of blood on its hands.

Or…wait a second…could it possibly be that Stalin and Ayn Rand were WRONG? Maybe their murderous and inhumane philosophies DON’T really follow by inexorable logic from their denial of God’s existence? Could it be possible that there are actually a wide variety of atheistic philosophies, some of which encourage people to behave in ways contributing to a more just and loving society, while others encourage quite the opposite? And if this is true of atheism, might it conceivably also be true of theism?

If you tell a religious person that you worship Zeus, Odin, or an invisible pink unicorn, the only acceptable response is “How wonderful! I sincerely hope that your spiritual path leads you to the same joy and inner peace that mine has brought me”. If they say anything else, you may tell them that** Thing Fish** thinks they are silly.

It’s not the people who are looking for God that cause problems, it’s the ones who are convinced that they, and only they, have found Him (and those who are convinced that their own failure to find Him means that everyone else needs to stop looking).

127

Ah, the old standard of equating atheists with Stalin.

Except that they do their harm because of philosophies that happen to have atheism as part of them, not because of atheism. Atheism is not the opposite of religion, it’s an absence; the absence of belief in gods. Communism isn’t atheism, it’s Communism. Randism isn’t atheism, it’s Randism.

Atheism can’t make anyone do anything wrong because it makes no demands and has no commandments; it’s an absence. Atheism doesn’t even include the value that it’s better to be an atheist. As soon as someone starts talking about what you should do or should believe they’ve gone beyond atheism.

No, because theism requires the denial of reality, the denial of the facts and the rational thought processes that demonstrate it to be nonsense. That’s why the believers themselves refer to what their believe as a “faith”.

Theism by nature is destructive, because in a world like ours where there are no gods it requires the denial of reality. In a world where gods existed it might be different, but we aren’t in that world.

128

It’s like looking at all the harm that is done in the world by people who don’t play golf, or people who don’t collect stamps.

Stalin and Hitler didn’t play golf and didn’t collect stamps: therefore, everyone who doesn’t play golf or doesn’t collect stamps is as bad as Stalin and Hitler.

129

What is it, exactly, that makes the worship of a tree, IPU, Flying Spaghetti Monster, etc. etc. so ridiculous?

130

I basically more or less agree with your sentiments in the general case, but picking a few nits…

This is not always true as a small minority of atheists are fairly vocal about it – e.g.- Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss come to mind. At that point atheism has become a kind of religion, or anti-religion, or something at any rate that is dogmatic and a little bit annoying. Granted, I think you covered it by saying that at that point they’ve gone beyond atheism, but just pointing out that such types do exist.

Depends on how you define “God”, though, doesn’t it? What if I defined “God” to be the unknowable thing which made the physical constants of matter – like gravity or the strong or weak nuclear forces – have the exact critical values that they do, without which neither life nor the universe itself could have formed? Is that belief harmful? It certainly isn’t “wrong”, because it claims no testable hypothesis.

131

It also isn’t what people are talking about when they say “God”, either. You might as well say "what if when I say ‘God’ I am actually referring to socks; is belief in socks irrational?’ "

You can’t have a meaningful discussion of something if people change the definition of what is being discussed that radically.

132

By “less need”, I mean of course “fewer people need it” since obviously there are still believers. They just make up a smaller percentage of the population now, and as their numbers continue to decline, which they almost certainly will, religion’s influence will keep decreasing. And yes, that applies to modern industrialized civilization, not “to those parts of the world that simply don’t make sense” in this day and age.

Actually, that would be a problem. I’m pretty sure she knows I’m atheist so it would be shoving God in my face, just as I’d be shoving atheism in her face if I tell her there’s no God. But she’s never done it, and knowing her, she never will. As she’s demonstrated for 25 years, it’s strictly a private matter for her and she has no interest in proselytizing. If she’s willing to live and let live, so am I.

133

Fair enough, but what I’m suggesting is that some people hold meaningful abstract conceptualizations of God which are not subject to either factual refutation or refutation by a reductio ad absurdum. So what I think you’re objecting to here is not so much the intrinsic concept of spirituality as you are to some of the nonsensical dogma being peddled by most organized religions. The two are not the same, at least, in my opinion.

134

Where’s your proof that this somehow works better? Because I think my example of replacing the IPU with the universe is still going to generate a more productive discussion. Comparing God to an IPU to a believer is just asking to ignite an emotional and irrational response. Do you not understand that? Or is that what you are trying to say makes it somehow more effective?

Did I do that? Or are you just stuck in some sort of debate mode from past engagements with religious people?

Our perception of time is essentially an illusion. Why would God share the same limited mind for understanding this world as we do? If the Universe were created by God, everything would have been preordained from the moment of creation. Meaning, God would not actively participate in anything. But, being the all-powerful being he is, he could orchestrate every possible scenario to happen simultaneously at all times in an infinite number of universes.

Also, just because our logic can’t explain it, doesn’t mean that there isn’t logic beyond our comprehension that can’t explain it. Your acting like a know-it-all and you won’t be told nothin. If you can’t acknowledge the possibility of some kind of God existing, then we should just disengage.

You keep making these vast overstatements… “nothing of use can be said or even thought about a subject to which logic doesn’t apply” What? lol

So love is not worth talking about?

You act like our knowledge of physics is supreme and nothing else can exist outside of it!

We can’t even figure out exactly why hot water freezes faster than cold water! And you’re going to sit here and claim that our knowledge of physics is enough to disprove God’s existence?

This is an intensely audacious claim. Where is your proof that this applies to every believer?

Geeze it’s ironic. You treat believing as if it’s a sin. lol

135

Since she has chosen to believe (however much choice had to do with it), I assume it makes her feel better about her existence. Without it, I gather she’d be more cynical about life in general and not as friendly and outgoing. I don’t know. We’ve never talked about it, but that’s probably a safe assumption.

We all have to make sense of our existence and deal with it in our own ways, by escaping through drugs or alcohol, or buying more stuff, or accumulating more money, or finding a cause to live for, or whatever. She’s dealt with it through religion, which is a fantasy, but so is half the stuff we do. And her manifestation of religion is so benign that it doesn’t affect anyone around her negatively. If you believe in live and let live (which she certainly does, to her credit), I don’t know how you could criticize her for the path she’s taken.

I’m not so dogmatic as to think that at all, and I don’t know why you’d even suggest it. Nothing I’ve said comes close to that. What I’ve said is that some people seem to need it to be better. You and I don’t, but it isn’t a one-size-fits-all proposition. We aren’t all born with the same DNA, and if hers tells her to believe, who are we to deny that choice to her when it doesn’t do any harm to anyone else?

Well, her way is so small and unassuming that it wasn’t even detectable to me, so I doubt that she’s doing the world any harm. And to repeat a point I’ve made a few times, not all irrationality is bad for us. It can even be just plain fun.

Now that’s a point that made me stop and think. I can say that, knowing her, at least she isn’t terrifying the kids with threats of everlasting hell. Terrorizing them into submission wouldn’t be her way at all, and I’m sure she’d find it just as offensive as we do.

I imagine she teaches the love and peace brand of Christianity. And who knows, maybe it will actually be good for a few of the kids. It is possible, you know.:slight_smile:

136

I’m already 68. When exactly does this kick in?

137

Amen to that brother.

Der Trihs, a clear definition of God hasn’t been set forth by anyone in this discussion, yet you still behave as if anyone who refers to God is referring to some “blatantly ridiculous and obnoxious” religious form.

Like I have basically already said, I think religion can be like a poison. But, there is no way that you can say that we would be better off without it, or would be better off if it had never existed. It is what it is.

138

Because it’s a valid comparison. Any valid comparison is going to make them angry, because any valid comparison is going to make religion look silly, because religion is silly. It is, again, exactly like an adult believing in Santa Claus; that is silly.

Yes, when you demand that unbelievers bend over backwards to treat religion by a special standard; to tiptoe around the hypersensitive feelings of the believers, to avoid making valid comparisons.

Time has nothing to do with it. You were denying that logic had any validity when speaking about God, which means you are denying all forms of thought and reason.

Not if logic doesn’t doesn’t apply to it. That sentence has a logical structure, it was created by your brain which runs on logical principles, and it refers to a universe that works on logical principles. Everything that exists works on logical principles.

Of course. God is flatly impossible by everything we know. And there’s no evidence whatsoever for God to contradict that. Science rules out God as much as it can rule out anything.

It’s not “audacious”, it’s pointing out the obvious. You just need to read the news or a little history to see religion causing harm everywhere. Nor did I say or care if it applies to “every believer”; what matters is the overall effect of religion, which is one of overwhelming evil. There is simply no way that religion could ever do enough good to make up for all the evil it does.

139

Because there are no other kinds of “God” that are of any significance. And I’m not obliged to go along with the rhetorical trick believers like to use in these conversations of refusing to come out and define God; if they won’t, then I’ll refer to the versions commonly believed in.

And what it is and has always been is factually wrong, obviously false, and highly destructive. I can and do say that we would be better off without it, and that religion has always from its beginnings been a destructive force. It has never been a good thing, only a bad one; a parasite upon humanity. It has always been “poison”.

140

This is one of the default theist leaps I often hear “If it can’t be explained by science it must be god”.

Another is trying to lay the burden of proof on the non-believer.
The burden is on the believer who is making a claim for a god. If something exists it is provable.
Turning it around by asking for proof of non-existence is just a distraction from the fact there is no credible evidence of your claim.