[QUOTE=lekatt]
I think what is meant is that every group, tribe, and society of people, both ancient and modern living here on this earth have believed in some kind of God and some kind of afterlife.
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Wrong. Not all societies believe in God; God is a relatively recent fiction on the scale of humanity’s existence, only a few thousand years old. And plenty of societies have not believed in an afterlife.
[QUOTE=lekatt]
One could conclude this belief was part of evolution to help in the survival of the individual when faced with seeming hopeless circumstances. It gave the individual hope of survival afterdeath which allowed heroic deeds to win the day. However, there is now a group of people who say this belief is no longer needed. To be replaced by something called “scientific method.” It might be said to be a fork in the path of evolution. Only time will tell if this “fork” is viable or not.
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Evolution doesn’t “care” about the survival of individuals, only about passing on genes. I expect that the reason religion has been so evolutionarily successful is via the mass murder and mass rape of non-religious tribes in prehistory. That kind of malice is typical of religion, and effective at both destroying rival beliefs and spreading whatever “religious genes” there may be.
[QUOTE=Malacandra]
Not the opposite of what their belief told them to; the opposite of the object of their belief - Christ. I’ve cited an instance of what Christ said and to which they should have paid attention. If they’d built some shell of belief around that which permitted or even encouraged them to go warmongering or witch-burning, then they weren’t following Christ;
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He also said “I come not to bring peace, but a sword”. It’s easy enough to interpret Christ as calling for the death and oppression of unbelievers. Not that it matters, since Christ is almost irrelevant to Christianity.
[QUOTE=cosmosdan]
when Sam Harris made his case for removing the protected status of religious beliefs I agreed and I seem to remember most of the atheists on this board strongly agreeing as well. It seem odd to me that when it comes to the subject of faith there seems to be an effort to keep “religious” faith separate from the day to day faith every human operates on. I suppose that makes it easier to ridicule and criticize.
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Of course, which is why the religious constantly and dishonestly try to pretend there’s an equivalence between faith in something with no evidence, and trust in something that does have evidence. As hotflungwok pointed out, religious faith is put in a special category, which lets it slide on it’s complete lack of evidence. That category is not valid; it’s ONLY purpose is to let religion off the hook.
[QUOTE=cosmosdan]
DT uses a broad brush to paint all religious faith with the same characteristics. It’s ludicrous. If he could be more specific and nuanced I’d agree with some of his points, but as it is, his exaggerated approach ruins any valid underlying truth for me.
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I doubt you’d ever agree no matter what I said. And I lump them all together because all religious belief is the same; empty, based on nothing.
[QUOTE=cosmosdan]
When parents teach their kids about God and Jesus wouldn’t you call that an example of trust? When someone has a powerful subjective experience and they translate it with the influence of those around them wouldn’t that be an example of trust? People trust the good intentions and the “knowledge” of the people around them. When people hear a repeated meme from good people around them they are inclined to accept it as true. That sounds like trust to me.
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It’s trust on the part of the kids, because they are kid; ignorant, trusting towards their parents and incapable of knowing better. It’s misplaced trust, however. And teaching your children lies is disgusting.
The trust of children is little different from the faith of adults, which is why both are so easily exploited and so often destructive.
[QUOTE=cosmosdan]
It’'s important to note that faith in spiritual matters does not have to include a denial of evidence and the kind of closed mind often attributed to a fundamentalists.
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Of course it does; that is what religious faith is. Fundamentalists are just that way about more things, is all.
[QUOTE=lekatt]
Now in another thread a “God spot” in the brain was discussed, didn’t the brain evolve, so how can you say with any certainty that belief in God and the afterlife was not part of evolution. I don’t think you can say that honestly. If we are created by our brain (body) then this belief must be evolutionary.
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So ? Evolution is imperfect by nature; most of it’s experiments end in death. Just because a belief may have evolutionary reasons behind it doesn’t make it right, or a good idea.
[QUOTE=lekatt]
There are very strong emotional attachments being displayed in this thread in the name of science. A very strong belief that science is reason and religion is folly. Why shouldn’t those who believe in religion feel as strongly about their faith and scientists do about science.
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Because science has proven it’s validity again and again. Religion never has.
[QUOTE=lekatt]
There is a lot of talk about blind faith, but to spiritual people there is no blind faith.
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No, they have nothing BUT blind faith.
[QUOTE=lekatt]
The distrust is building between those scientists who wish to deny religion its rightful place and those religionists who wish to deny science its rightful place. Science will never replace nor destroy religion, ala Richard Dawkins, so how about learning to live in peace with each other.
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Because religion is an all consuming, all destroying cancer that is incapable of letting anything else live in peace. And the rightful place of religion is in history books and the trash heap of discarded bad ideas.
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Driven insane by her religion in no small part, by following her faith. Of course, religion IS insane, so insane behavior is to be expected from it’s followers.
[QUOTE=nd_n8]
So, do you have a layman’s understanding of the physical properties of that which comprises an electron? Or an empirical explanation of the mechanics of a graviton? Something replicable by application of the scientific method perhaps?
Or do you merely have some level of faith that such things exist in the first place? A level of faith that is not based on evidence and provability but on mathematics and observation of effects instead of direct observation and identification of the properties of the cause?
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No, I have trust in the people who have studied such things, performed experiments on them, proposed and tested theories about about them. And proven their reliability again and again. Not at all the same as faith in people’s unsupported word, a word which contradicts the equally unsupported word of millions of other believers.
[QUOTE=Jesticulator]
So, you’re saying that it’s okay to have faith as long as there is “real evidence behind it”? Is that what your saying?
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If there’s evidence behind it, it’s not faith.
[QUOTE=nd_n8]
Are any of their opinions based on hypothesis and conjecture? Are there any other opinions based on those hypothetical opinions that can only be held as valid because they fill in the blanks on some mathematical matrix? Do any of these opinions ever serve to fill in the blanks on two conflicting mathematical matrices?.
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Yes, and those are hypothesises that happen to fit what indirect evidence we have, not proven facts. Neither I nor the scientists who propose them have faith in them; they are merely a useful assumption, to either be verified or discarded when and if more evidence come in. And as said, the evidence for such things is the same for everyone. That’s nothing to do with faith.