[Lloyd Bentsen voice]
So you think you know Satan? I tell you mister, Satan was my friend. We went for Thai dinners together, we shared eggcreams, we debated on two different boards together.
I knew Satan. And you’re no Satan,
[/Lloyd Bentsen voice]
By the way, there’s some Doper who still has the $1 bill he was paid by Satan for his soul – I was present at the purchase. 
On preview: good post by Voyager
No religion has enjoyed comparable success? I’m not sure what to say to that. Something tells me at this point that level of historical and even current ignorance is too great to be conquered.
Regardless of the above, there’s a fallacy that says just because a large number of people believe something does not make it true. Something can be true if only one person in the whole world believes it and it can be false if only one person in the world believes it. There are other factors to examine, popularity not coming into it. I think it’s rarely used but you’ve seemingly broken it quite nakedly here.
Additionally, this would suggest to me you must accept the existence of unicorns, imps, fairies, goblins, demons, angels, witches, dragons etc. They have been believed in for thousands upon thousands of years, even into the 21st century. I’m sure you’d agree with the angels and demons part, though.
At first I thought you simply made a mistake in reading comprehension. With this I fear you are being extremely disingenuous, since we’re not talking about what the general population believes is true, we’re talking about what scientists believe.
No, there are a whole plethora of other reasons why scientific beliefs are valid. This is simply a somewhat trivial contrasting example between religion and science that springs from their differing modes of operation and logic.
I am just curious about some things. Did your parents actually sit down and tell you there’s no god? Or did they simply never address the topic? Even as a stone cold atheist I find the former a horrifying idea.
Also, you seemed to self correct yourself but atheism is in no way equivalent to secularism. I very much doubt you grew up in an atheist community (that would be a fun gated community though).
Maybe my blood sugar is a little low right now and I’m not reading this correctly but are you suggesting that God is sending different messages to different cultures?
I guess it depends on what one means by “religion exists.” If we’re talking about existential questions and the human condition then it’s my view that there will always be irrational institutions, whether it be Christianity or New Age crystal claptrap.
But if we sit down and examine a single religion…really? If every Christian on the planet decided not to teach their children anything from the Bible or take them to Church or introduce them to the concept of Jesus or any of the other stuff then I imagine Christianity would die within a generation, replaced with something else (probably many things). How could it not? Maybe historical nerds 
would look back and pick it up, but…
I don’t agree unless atheist parents are actively telling their children there is no god. Maybe some do, but most of them? I find that hard to believe. Personally, in my day to day life I never think of god unless someone else brings it up or prompts me. If I had a kid and he asked me about god I’d have a discussion with him but it wouldn’t involve me converting him to atheism.
This sets my claxons off.
There is so much wrong with these three paragraphs I don’t know where to begin.
People have differing beliefs about combustion? What the…! Well, maybe the unwashed masses/Hollywood movie producers, but scientists?
If you were using the cummulative “we” then your statement becomes even more false than if you were using “we” the standard way. Some of the things that you listed as being taught to kids by “we” are not taught by typical parents these days.
1,500 years ago the church preached that Jesus Christ was the son of God, did die to save humanity, was resurrected. It still does. Then it preached that piety, humility, and charity are good. It still does. Churches around the world still cite a creed that was written in the fourth century. Core beliefs have not changed. You point to changing laws about tithes and sex; by focusing on issues of societal organization rather than belief, you’re admiting that the body of ideas which makes “the church” has not changed.
They have; what’s your point. The religion of people on a remote island might survive indefinitely if few outsiders visited the island; in some cases that’s exactly what happened. But that proves nothing about the strength of the religion. To take the measure of a religion, you must see how it responds to new situations, reacts to challenges, and rebuilds after taking heavy attacks. Does anybody doubt that Christianity has successfully met more societal changes, challenges, and attacks than any other system (religious or secular)?
2000 years ago Jesus was still a small baby, possibly not even born yet. But answer with a reasonable time frame such as 1,000 years ago, I’ll say what I said to WhyNot: details have changed, core beliefs have not. Someone who knows what a Mass looks like today could recognize it being performed back then.
(Incidentally, what do you hope to prove by proving that there have been changes in Christianity over the centuries? Obviously all institutions change; Christianity has changed far less than most. Universities are much different today than they were in centuries past. Does that prove that universities are faulty, invalid, irrational? Or does it prove that they are strong, resilient, and useful?)
Maybe that’s what you thought, but Valteron brought up science as the counterpoint to religion, so he was certainly claiming that a lack of geographic variation in science proved science superior to the geographically varying religions. I responded that science does vary by region.
That’s entirely true, it’s exactly what I said in my post, and it’s exactly the opposite of what Valteron said. He said that we could determine the truthfulness of an idea merely based on a count of the people who believed the idea in certain places. I rejected that notion. Perhaps you should discuss this fundamental idea with Valterton since he’s the one who (according to you) needs some educatin’.
Not the point I was making at all, but a very valid point and one that follows from the one I was making.
I was saying that people have individual experiences of God, not as a group. Of course, people from the same culture will share their experiences with each other, have the same background to frame it and eventually reach a common base of interpretations to their experiences which are the basis of religion.
Yes, I doubt that. Could you perhaps give some examples of these many societal changes, challenges, and attacks that have not been experienced by any other system?
I also disagree that that is a measure of a religion’s truth. It is a measure of a religion’s adaptability.
Ah, I see what you’re saying. The core beliefs have not changed, while the societal factors have. Thus, the core beliefs are the truth. Slight problem; you’re defining core beliefs as the ones that have survived. It should, surely, be the other way around; the ones that survive should be the core beliefs (assuming your argument is correct). Would the beliefs defined by the people 1000 years ago be the same beliefs that you consider core now?
Oh, and would you mind abandoning all your beliefs as to the societal nature of Christianity? After all, as your argument proves, they are transitory and false.
No, it doesn’t. I could say it proves their weakness, that they are unable to survive by staying the same, and are forced to abandon what they once stood for in order to don the coat of a new age.
Actually, it proves neither of these things. All it proves is that people are attatched enough to it to keep it around. Again, this says nothing for it’s truth.
You appear to be claiming that there is a religion that’s enjoyed comparable success to Christianity. Can you name this amazing religion that I’m so ignorant of, or is it one of those mysterious things which all the atheists know about but which they can’t explain to anyone else?
Really? Can you name something true that only one person in the world believes in. (Not something trivial like how many pairs of socks a particular person owns, but something of worldwide significance.)
Funny that you atheists always mention God and unicorns as two things that you won’t believe in. Laying aside the God debate, on unicorns you’re falt wrong. There is a horse-like animal with a horn on its head. Here’s photographic evidence. Admittedly the real-life one is somewhat different from how we’d typically picture it in our head; the same is true for God. As for imps, fairies, goblins, and so forth, I don’t believe in them, and neither do any non-trivial number of other people. I have no idea why you think that’s relevant to my argument about widespread belief in Christianity. Christianity, as a religion, is central to every individual and society that believes in it. Fairies are not. Hence widespread belief in fairies, if it had ever happened (which it didn’t) would not be the basis for comparable logic as what I deduced from widespread Christianity.
At the risk of hijacking the thread…
Valteron wanted to set science up as the rational belief system that contrasted with science. For science to bear that heavy load, surely it has to bring truth and rationality to the bulk of the human race. Saying that science is great because a tiny percentage of the population, the ones called scientists, enjoy living in the light of its reason, is not so impressive, if the rest of the human race is left stranded in the outer darkness.
My parents didn’t do so, and almost never spoke directly about religion at all, but they did definitely herd me away from any chance for a religious experience while I was young. I’ve known other atheist parents who behaved as you described.
Yes. (I’m not sure why this suggestion would induce thoughts about blood sugar, but this is fairly obvious; it even says so in the Bible. If you don’t believe me, read the book yourself.)
Really? What experiment could I literally do to show that combustion happens according to that formula? Mind you, I’m not asking for an experiment that proves that combustion can happen. I’m looking for an experiment which proves that the atoms in question actually do what they’re claimed to do in accordance with the chemical formula.
That’s my point. Combustion is a truth that happens in reality, but children do no learn it in reality. They learn it in classrooms or from textbooks. Hence we have an example of a truth that comes to us from teaching (“indoctrination”, as Valteron called it). Hence we’ve disproved the claim that the results of indoctrination are false.
See response to 2.
No, combustion does not, but other branches have science have been used to suggest morality for us, or sometimes to impose it by force.
I’m glad the paragraph amused; that was it’s point. I’m not sure what you mean by “having a vision and pulling something out of his keister”. If a theist has a vision and reports it, then he’s not pulling anything out of any orifice, is he?
Well Islam has half as many members as Christianity, is it half as true? Catholicism has more adherents than Protestantism; that must make it the one true religion.
Maybe my blood sugar is a little low right now and I’m not reading this correctly but are you suggesting that God is sending different messages to different cultures?
I called that one too.
"The antiquity of the belief is shown by its being found among all branches of the Celtic and Teutonic families, and in countries which haven’t had, within historical times, any communication with each other. If it be no entirely of Celtic origin, there can be no doubt that among the Celtic races it acquired an importance and influence accorded to it nowhere else. Of all the beings, with which fear or fancy peopled the supernatural, the Fairies were the most intimately associated with men’s daily life. "From here.
:rolleyes: Christianity’s success is due to military superiority and ruthlessness, not due to any virtue of the religion itself. You live in a Christian country that is Christian because it’s non-Christian original owners were slaughtered and driven onto reservations. Without the systematic program of murder and torture that was a basic part of Christianity’s spread, it would be just another local religion.
Hey Valteron…
Still farting in the breeze huh?
Since you are proving to be most prolific, maybe you could retunr to this thread to answer the requests for cites of some of your still unsubstantiated claims.
Again I ask you, are you seeking truth or affirmation?
But that’s because they had the wrong religion. If they worshipped the right god they would have won.
“Flat wrong” is pretty strong when the person making the claim is actually the one in error.
The existence of a beast with a projection on its nose made up of modified hair (and in which some varieties of the beast carry two such projections), with an odd number of toes does not qualify as “being” a totally different beast with a single true horn projecting from its forehead and cloven hooves, particularly when the unicorn is always described as a beast of surpassing beauty–a trait not commonly ascribed to the rhino. If you are not careful in using that sort of logic, someone is going to wander by and note that Jesus “is” Osiris or Mithra or some other religious figure, based on the level of similarity that you permit in order to equate unicorns and rhinos.
Why are you still alive, then? I mean, there must be Christians who know or can find out your real identity; why haven’t they tortured and killed you? This is only partly a rhetorical question; if your statement were true, it should have happened by now. And I do expect a explanation of why that logical inference from your assertion has not occurred, or a retraction of your statement.
I fully grant, as I think that almost every Christian posting here would, that some deplorable, indeed heinous deeds have been done in the name of Christ – just check the Pit for some fairly contemporary examples, with worse in every history book. But that is not the content of the majority sects’ ethics historically, it is not a core element of either the key Scriptures or Tradition (albeit if you grab a Bible you can locate a case where someone attributed a genocide to God’s command or someone told a fable about how God gave them evildoers their comeuppance, yup, yup, and you oughta go out and whomp them eeevilll types, yup, yup. But dammit, that’s a perversion of the key teachings of Christianity throughout history, by people who rejected the teachings of the established churches to start their own “Bible-believing” ones, and by some barbarians whose barbarian mores were not changed much by being baptized.
Remember that the object of this place is to fight ignorance, not perpetuate it. If you have proof that Christianity historically and systematically was a religion of torture and murder, trot it out. If you have sample items of when Christians did that, consider them ratified as valid bad examples by those of us as disgusted by them as you are – but not as “what the Church taught people to do” – except in those cases (see Valteron’s posts for a few examples) where some part of the church in one time and place did just that.
====
As for the OP, I think that people do tend to buy into the belief structure taught in their area – or to answer the questions it poses with new and different answers. Notice that the Buddha dealt with how to transcend the fate of karma and reincarnation, not how to live a righteous life following God’s commandments, while Jesus and Mohammed dealt with God’s Law, not karmic retribution.
And that all of them tend to offer a “Get out of Hell free” card. Even Buddhism, the ultimate in do-it-yourself doctrine, evolved into salvation by intercession of Amida. There’s something at work there that requires analysis.
And you have just demonstrated again that you don’t know what the crap you’re talking about. The holdings of scientists do not vary, even if the belief of people do - beliefs sometimes influenced by religion.
And to repeat, since you didn’t get it the first time - the lack of regional variation in the findings of scientists do demonstrate that science is superior in discovering physical truths - at least. We’re still living in the time of tribal gods, though some of the tribes are big. If you are an anthropologist, and you see that tribes A, B, and C each have gods who created the world - just for that tribe - in different ways, you can conclude that none of them are likely to be correct, right? Do the math.
In invite you to stop lying about what Valteron said. You are not exactly giving your religion a good name.
Because they fear the law more than they fear God; the law has more of a record of following through. I’m sure most Christians would love to see me dead; the ones who actually know me just aren’t willing to put themselves at risk. And I was also speaking more about how Christianity spread so far historically, not how it behaves now. Nasty as it still is, it’s not nearly as bloodthirsty as it once was ( or there probably wouldn’t be many Iraqis left alive, for example ); not coincidentally, it’s no longer spreading as it once did.
I’m sure all the people and cultures destroyed in Christ’s name take comfort in that they weren’t destroyed by “real” Christians. This idea that Christianity is some religion of peace is modern revisionism; for most of it’s history, Christianity has been about conquest and slavery and mass murder and conversion by the sword.
So, you’ve already decided that any Christians who did bad things in Christ’s name weren’t really doing it in the name of Christianity, whether or not they said that was what they were doing ? I’m not going to take the effort of compiling yet another list of Christian atrocities just to have you wave them all aside as not counting.
Right. More than the Diaspora and the Holocaust - and the pogroms, the ghettos, and the expulsion from England and Spain, to name two. That’s both ignorant and offensive. You can apologize to me and my ancestors now.
We’d hardly know now, would we? But at one point, only Einstein knew about relativity. For a while, only Darwin knew about evolution. Any great discovery starts within the mind of one person.
Anyone and everyone is invited in. Everything is published, and both scientists and journalists write for the person without training - with various degrees of success. If you are in the outer darkness - and given your ignorance of science, it seems so to me - you have only yourself to blame.
But besides that, the benefits of science are available for all. You don’t need to know semiconductor physics, or processor design, or test, or computer science, to use your PC. So stop insulting those who make your posting possible.