Let me try Czarcasm’s approach to expletives since I’ve learned it won’t get me banned by you:
Marley, I’m glad to know you’ve got Czarcasm’s back. In the future I won’t have to waste my time and effort complaining about his posts.
Good?
I’ve suspended mishagoe for 24 hours.
I have concerns with how this thread was handled. See ATMB.
People ARE free to believe what they want, unless they live in a suppressed, totalitarian society. If you would impose that people should only believe in the “truth” how can anyone impose what people should or should not think without becoming totalitarian or violent and wouldn’t this violence of imposing a “truth” contradict the notion that the “truth” would bring peace, justice and stop the bitterness of violence?
We can discuss what people should or should not believe in, but in practice, it’s something that cannot be implemented and will remain just speculation and ideas.
Should people believe in things without evidence?
If a person believes in principles as opposed to religion, how do you obtain evidence to that? Can evidence be applies to principles, should a person then not believe in principles if it can’t?
In theory what would happen if everyone were in absolute possession of the “truth of the universe” and had all its evidence? If, suppose, science finally had evidence to prove that there is no such thing as a parallel dimension where we are conscious beings of energy and that there is no God, people will still be people. I wouldn’t be surprised if religious fanatics, in face of losing their riches and their influence over people, started terrorist attacks on scientists! And even if somehow religion is taken away from the world for good, mankind has an intrinsic ability to be either good or bad, we wouldn’t have a “happy ever after”. There would still be disagreements over a whole variety of matters. If you think that taking away religion you will take away all the problems, I say that ignorant and evil people will find another reason to do evil, or to kill (as they do already): be it geopolitical, or drug related, or power related, or due to vanity, or they can’t stand someone, or they are prejudice, or they kill in the heat of an argument… Most of the chaos I read in the newspaper (because the world IS full of chaos) does not come due to a person’s belief in souls, it comes from revenge, money, power, pride… and we see plenty of that in anything and in every institution created by man.
So long as people don’t impose a morality on others that is based on their beliefs, I’m cool with whatever they believe. But that doesn’t mean they can’t be mocked as ignorant fools.
They may believe what they wish, but they must be prepared to defend those beliefs if they want to participate in the marketplace of ideas.
If the principles are not based on fact, they are called opinions. “I like asparagus” requires no evidence.
No one has suggested the absence of religion would eliminate all bad people and the evil that they do. But it would remove a widely used justification for oppressing others.
If we remove these justifications for oppressing others, they will create or use other justifications for oppressing if it is in their nature to be oppressors.
I see no reason enable them by remaining silent. If we don’t fight ignorance, it wins.
You are making the implausible assertion that false beliefs cannot be in themselves a cause for oppression. It’s a variation on the standard religious practice of demonizing humans in order to shift the blame away from religion; even when a religion openly calls for some barbaric practice, it’s somehow not responsible in any way when people do exactly what it demands of them. Religion is portrayed as a shining paragon of perfect goodness, while all the evil associated with it is because of those horrible vile humans.
This is in fact another reason to oppose religion; it makes humans hate humanity itself.
I wouldn’t, and I think I already made it clear that I don’t think anybody should be forced to believe anything. We are talking about what beliefs make sense and are supported by evidence.
That’s what I was asking you. And in the paragraphs subsequent to this one, you don’t answer that question.
Principles are evaluated according to things like their rationality, their results, and their practicability. So as far as those things go, yes, they can be supported by evidence.
Would you please tackle the question head on? Should people believe in things without evidence or not?
And I totally agree that we should contribute to lessen ignorance.
Um, no; when you argue that people should believe whatever they want to believe, you are in fact arguing in favor of ignorance. Eliminating ignorance is all about people learning the genuine facts, regardless of whether or not the facts match what they want to believe.
Der Trihs, do you believe what you want to believe?
No. Not if we are talking about beliefs as a matter of opinion.
If I believe that hard work and earning lots of money is what is important in life, this might make my life happy or it might not depending on how I go about my life. If I believe that having children and earning just enough to have a satisfactory life is what is important, than evidence doesn’t apply here either.
Are you leading up to some kind of equivalency between principles of social conduct, and a religious belief in invisible spirits that interact with human lives? Because I do not accept any sophistry such as, “one set of beliefs are pretty much the same as another” and should therefore be subject to the same rules of evidence.
Hardly. I’d like to believe that I’m immortal, rich, invincible, and can fly; none of those are true. And no amount of belief will make them true.
Martin Gardner, a well-known skeptic, and one of the most rational minds in history, practiced a kind of religious belief called “credo consolans.” “I believe, because it makes me feel better.” He compared his life with, and without, religious belief, and found that religious belief improved his quality of life.
To his credit, he stopped well shy of claiming that his beliefs were true.
If modern religious thought were based on such a subjective basis, then it would devolve into little more than a set of personal opinions. It would come to resemble Fear Itself’s example of “I like asparagus.” Religious tastes and preferences can, at this level, be “irrational” and “without evidence,” but remain entirely valid, because they would be subjective, and relevant solely to each individual, personally.
The problem only really starts to become critical when those who like chocolate start to pass laws infringing the freedoms of those who like vanilla.
What? I don’t know what you’re trying to say.
Then read again what Trinopus wrote just above, he made it very clear.
Of course, if we close our eyes and wish hard to become a super-hero it will not work. We know that because we are rational beings. People have their subjective evidence, their logical interpretations of things and because their belief is not scientifically based or irrational to many does not make them ignorant. I don’t agree in blind faith, that is my opinion. To others it gives them comfort. Where is the ignorance in trying to seek some comfort to the mind? If, for instance, prayer helps a mother to grieve her lost son do you call her ignorant? If her belief that her son is still present in spirit and that gives her a sense of hope in one day having him in her arms in another level of existence is that ignorant? It would seem unfair to call her ignorant because to you these things are not true. That is her opinion, based on her own logic, because she is capable of rational thoughts. It seems you underestimate the capacity people have of being rational.
I link lack of morality to ignorance, not freedom of belief.
On another note:
You can fly if you use a flying device.
This one is pretty cool:
You are rich enough to have access to a computer with internet. Richness is relative.
In my opinion you have a soul and it is immortal. 
I just can’t come up with anything good for invincible… As the saying goes “We lose some, we win some”.