Lel
Actually, you can’t “directly” measure the effects of anything at all. Unlike an anemometer, the best that you can do is evaluate with prejudice whatever wends its way through a manifold of sensors and manages at the end to ooze from a dense filter of perception. Even direct observation with your eyes can deceive you. Standing in the desert and waiting for the wind to blow is quite an excellent metaphor for how I stumbled onto God.
… Of course, unless we’re discounting science (i.e. the anemometer) as well as optical perception, I’d agree there’s much more evidence that dust clouds exist than does god. Show me god measured on a scientific instrument of any sort and then I’ll consider putting it on par with dust.
And an optical illusion like that loses its mystique when you stop trusting only your sight and rationally consider what’s going on. That may be a metaphor too.
Sure, but there are rational arguments for God’s existence, and there are many things that cannot be measured on a scientific instrument of any sort — don’t forget the infamous Mr. J. Evans Pritchard.
If Topaz will do me the favor of reading it, I think the essay on Great Unicorn Debate might interest her.
Ok, in order to avoid the pit (if I can), I’ll focus on only one ubiquitous aspect of religion: the refusal to distinguish between fact and belief.
Religious people state their beliefs as if they were immutible facts of reality. Is it a *fact *that Eve was created from Adam’s rib? Is it a *fact *that some biblical characters lived hundreds of years? Is it a *fact *that Jesus walked on water? Is it a *fact *that we are all “sinners”?
There isn’t one shred of evidence to support belief in any one of these, and especially the belief that there is a supreme being that created us and watches over us. Am I supposed to respect someone’s unsubstantiated beliefs as being equal to a proven-in-reality belief? Is quoting the Bible the equivalent of a rigorous process of reason? In short, a belief without evidence might as well be a belief in pixie dust, regardless of how many people believe it, or how strong their belief.
I remember when I was a kid, maybe 7 or 8. We were learning in Sunday school that Abraham was the first monotheist, that he believed in one God, rather than many. I asked the teacher: What if Abraham was wrong, what if there really are many Gods (I hadn’t thought to ask her what if there aren’t *any * Gods). She just replied that “we believe that there is only one God.” That explanation was supposed to answer my question, as if the belief were self-evident, and anyone questioning it was mentally deficient.
There’s always the attitude that nonbelievers are simply blind to a “higher” reality, that somehow your “faith” reveals a reality that is not bound by such mundane things as identity and causality. Well, identity and causality define everything we’ve ever known, and anything “beyond” that is pure fantasy. And yet I’m supposed to believe that “facts are dumb,” and really “deep” thinkers aren’t bound by things like reality and reason.
I see all around me the fallout of religious teachings. I’ve known people who believe in the most crippling fears and superstitions, because they have never been taught to distinguish between fact and fiction. Most people believe whatever they *feel *like believing, being incapable of rationally evaluating any random thought or feeling.
The most destructive thing religion does is undermining believers’ ability to think. Little kids are taught *what * to think, not *how *to think. When they encounter a new idea, whether someone else’s or their own, they are incapable of evaluating that idea, incapable of ascertaining whether that idea should be accepted or rejected.
I work with a woman who is a devout Roman Catholic, who has never taken the responsibility for thinking about her chosen belief system. She believes in the most outrageous superstitions and irrational fears (for example, she believes that Mary Worth wants to attack her, from the other side of a mirror). I’ve tried to explain to her the difference between a fact and a superstition, and her only response is that “nobody really knows what’s real and what isn’t.” Of course, when it comes to her formal religious beliefs, those are supposedly facts that she’s not allowed to question. So all of her beliefs are either mandatory or random. Either way, she’s lost the ability to evaluate ideas (to think).
From my experience this woman is not far from the norm in our society. Just try watching local news broadcasts without being subjected to stories about angels, ghosts, images of Jesus, and phenomena that are described as “miracles.” And this is considered News!
The terrorists in the world have beliefs that aren’t substantially different from many other religious teachings throughout the world. They were never taught how to question the beliefs that were shoved down their throats from an early age. The only difference is that they followed those beliefs to their ultimate conclusion. But we cannot fight terrorists’ beliefs with simply a “different” irrational belief system. The only way to save ourselves (and them) is by understanding that unsubstantiated beliefs cannot be substituted for reason.
Aide (and MEB: Thanks for the clarification. As I noted in asking, it was possible to construe it in two distinct ways. And I’ve learned from sad experience that “Nothing is so stupid that someone won’t allege it in Great Debates,” so I was really confused as to which you’d actually meant.
Obviously, the Purpurists are a heretical branch of the IPUnians, believing as they do that the actual color of Her Ineffableness is not pink but purple! 
Panache, I’d buy much of what you say, with the proviso that you insert “Some” in a number of places. As the old law goes, “All generalizations are incorrect.”
panache45
Is it then your belief that, absent physical evidence in the existence of a Deity, (regardless of which Deity) than there is no valid reason to accept that one exists, or that in fact, one does not exist? I can accept that one argument may be valid, but not the other.
I think that this may be too broad a statement. I feel that I have some religions beliefs, yet I choose to believe that the ages listed in Genesis are large because the decimal point got lost in the 4 to 5 thousand years since Genesis was written. Probably Adam lived to be 93.0, Seth 92…0, Enos 90.5, Cainan 91.0 And the rib thing, I actually counted them in junior high school trying to determine our skeleton was male or female. There is no difference. - but you knew that. And that we are all sinners, that is a matter beyond my knowledge.
Would you change this statement if I told you Albert Einstein was religions until he was 14 years old? He apparently does not fit this pattern.
I appreciate your destination regarding distinguishing between faith, belief and fact. But we all see things the way we see them, and forcing kids to believe is as bad as forcing them not to believe (not that you are doing enther)
Thank for your post.
It’s a way of attacking a caricature, rather than what Christians or theists actually espouse.
** MEBuckner** wrote:
Yes, and who makes that decision?
For every belief or claim of knowledge there will be some people who think it is worthy of being shat upon.
As such all beliefs are opened for major disrespect and contempt from others whether it is admitted, vocalised or not.
In other words there will always be other people who think and are thinking badly of you and what you believe and claim to know.
Isn’t atheism a viewpoint that gets shat upon by many theists?
I would argue that atheistic viewpoints get shat upon far more often than theistic ones in society at large. Our GD forum is atypical in that regard. Hell george Bush Sr. said that atheists aren’t really Americans. Imagine an atheist president saying that about Christians (not that Americans would ever elect an atheist president…hell, they won’t even elect a Jew).
** panache45** wrote:
Yes, but she is allowed to have beliefs that she refuses to put under scrutiny, she hopefully has the freedom to decide to remain ignorant.
In some cases the desire to believe is much stronger then the desire for the truth, or the desire to go in search of the truth, or what appears to be the truth or potentially greater insights. After all fear of the truth of ones beliefs or claims of knowledge, (or what appears to be the truth) or an inquirer in that direction can be a significant challenge to ones sense of security.
And since the truth of this existence is not known by the vast majority there is in fact no “security”. Hence most of us, if we do feel any security or comfort it is usually based in false ideas.
Most of us have some beliefs that we will not question with much depth or seriousness, i.e. most people believe that the material world exists, but rarely if ever will question that belief, which by the way is directly related to the belief in gods.
Very few things are actual “knowledge”, and when there is a claim of knowledge one could always ask the more fundamental question of , “Who posses that knowledge?
Actually, panache, Catholicism does traditionally believe in philosophy and thinking for oneself. It doesn’t always come out that way, but it should.
BTW, wasn’t there a big argument about these terms in the Pit last year?
Iamthat, she is indeed allowed to believe anything whe pleases, but I am not obligated to respect her beliefs, am I?
Criticism of any belief goes both ways, Topaz. I myself am an agnostic, and I have quite a few Christian classmates. We’re friends, we occaisionally have debates, but nothing gets personal. Usually.
Last year, a girl in my school, who I was having a debate about religion with, over lunch, was starting to lose, (it seemed like a pretty polite debate at that point) so she decided to slap me in the face… With a hamburger. And then toss the rest of her lunch at me. She then proceeded to scream something about me being an unholy bastard, and stormed out of the cafeteria.
Christians aren’t the only ones whose beliefs are trampled upon.
I do. We’re dealing with people’s personal opinions here. Everyone makes judgments of this sort.
Exactly. Everybody makes these judgments, so I don’t think you can call MEBuckner out on it. He’s just explained it well.
True. That’s life. It’s a reminder not to be too harsh or treat your opinions like facts, which is what this thread is about, but it doesn’t mean you aren’t entitled to make your own judgments and decisions.
Thank you so much, panache45 for explaining your statements. I think that some things that are in the Bible are unfounded, yet I also think that it takes a lot of faith to understand and believe what it is saying.
Thank you so much, panache45 for explaining your statements. I think that some things that are in the Bible are unfounded, yet I also think that it takes a lot of faith to understand and believe what it is saying.
Sorry for the double post…
Wow… I’m sorry that happened to you. That girl’s reactions were uncalled for. If she was such the “holy” Christian that she claimed to be, she wouldn’t have done that.
The fact that Christians take offense at this is part of the point of the term. The implication of the term “MSP” is that belief in God is no more valid than any other superstitution. The fact that Christians take such offense at this shows the unreasonableness of Christians. Obviously, you as a Christian believe that God is more real than other mythical beings, but atheists disagree. For many Christians, that is unacceptable. Even if someone doesn’t believe in God, they expect them to at least consider belief in God to be special somehow. And if someone says that it isn’t, that’s considered an insult. Treating a comparison of one’s religion to another as an insult strikes me as arrogant; the implication is “My religion is so clearly superior to others that putting it in the same class is an insult”. It’s as if someone referred to Blair as European, and he were to reply “I resent that. I’m British, and comparing my to the general European population is uncalled for”. Wouldn’t you conclude that Blair has a major (no pun intended) superiority complex?