# The end of religious discussion in GD **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 21, 2008, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-religious-discussion-in-gd/446240 "2008-04-21T15:41:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 22
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-religious-discussion-in-gd/446240/421 "2008-04-24T19:25:57Z")
[QUOTE=mswas] brain =/= personality [/QUOTE] Brain = personality. There’s plenty of evidence. [QUOTE=Lord Ashtar] Damn, but you’re an ignorant schmuck. [/QUOTE] And you can explain why I’m wrong ? ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-religious-discussion-in-gd/446240/422 "2008-04-24T19:27:48Z")
[QUOTE=Der Trihs] Brain = personality. There’s plenty of evidence. [/quote] Prove it. And while you do it, I’ll point out that the brain determining personality is not the same as the brain = personality. Now, let’s get cracking on those cites. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Ashtar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ea924/32.png) [@Lord\_Ashtar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Ashtar)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-religious-discussion-in-gd/446240/423 "2008-04-24T19:28:09Z")
[QUOTE=Der Trihs] And you can explain why I’m wrong ? [/QUOTE] I doubt that yet another explanation to you about why science and religion are unrelated will have any different result than the first 100 times it’s been tried. You’d just reject it, which, by the way, doesn’t make you right. ---
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-religious-discussion-in-gd/446240/424 "2008-04-24T19:33:39Z")
[QUOTE=Lord Ashtar] I doubt that yet another explanation to you about why science and religion are unrelated will have any different result than the first 100 times it’s been tried. You’d just reject it, which, by the way, doesn’t make you right. [/QUOTE] **Der Trihs** might be more convincing in his insistence on rationality in regards to relgion if his view of religion was at all rational. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-religious-discussion-in-gd/446240/425 "2008-04-24T19:39:03Z")
[QUOTE=mswas] Prove it. And while you do it, I’ll point out that the brain determining personality is not the same as the brain = personality. Now, let’s get cracking on those cites. [/QUOTE] Once again, proof =/=evidence and vice versa. Are you denying that there is evidence that personality comes from the brain? You can change personality by messing with the brain-they are not separate from each other. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Ashtar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ea924/32.png) [@Lord\_Ashtar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Ashtar)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-religious-discussion-in-gd/446240/426 "2008-04-24T19:42:44Z")
[QUOTE=Czarcasm] Once again, proof =/=evidence and vice versa. Are you denying that there is evidence that personality comes from the brain? You can change personality by messing with the brain-they are not separate from each other. [/QUOTE] Just because two things are related does not mean they are equivalent. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-religious-discussion-in-gd/446240/427 "2008-04-24T19:50:31Z")
[QUOTE=nd\_n8] Well then, after reading Dawkins’ **The God Delusion** , given this as the presented basis of atheism around the beginning of this year, I agree with **mswas** and find atheism, at least based on this book, laughable nonsense. I would need to reborrow the book from the library to cite specifics but in general I found the condecending tone of the book distracted greatly from the point Dawkins was trying to make in a way that mirrored religious apologetics perfectly. Once I put that aside and tried to approach the rest of the book with the appropriate grains of salt prescribed by the tone, I found the rest to contain roughly the same amount of straw as Iowa, nicely tied into many different man shaped statues. The problem being that each of these strawmen was followed by it’s personal tin of red herring that drew the reader away from supposing actual questions about the subject the strawmen represented thus denying questionability. [/quote] I finally got it from the library, and am starting the last chapter. Condescending? Perhaps in the professor at Oxford way. But maybe you consider his unwillingness to treat religion with the respect it has come to expect on our society as condescending. As for strawmen, having read some of the discussion on the book I was expecting to find far more than I did. He very specifically does not claim all religious people are literalists. He very specifically admits that religion can do good in some respects. A lot of religious people here believe in a more pantheistic or deistic god than he discusses, so those people quite rightly think that his model of the God he refutes isn’t what they believe in. It would be interesting to see what he says about that kind of god, but he is clearly addressing the mainstream one. Do you remember any particular strawmen, even vaguely? > [@](#): > > As I said, I am unable to quote specifics right now but can later if relavant. However given the above as my opinion only and based on one book only (I have not read anything else, but am strongly considering reading The Blind Watchmaker to see if it is as condecending and apologetic or if it actually makes some decent arguements, specificaly against long day creationism and indirect thiestic involvement) I fully hold the opinion that athiesm is indeed, laughable nonsense. The Blind Watchmaker (and Climbing Mt. Improbable) are against the ID or Creationist argument about the improbability of evolution, which he addresses very briefly in The God Delusion. I hope that Creationist argument isn’t one of your strawmen - we’ve all heard it hundreds of times. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-religious-discussion-in-gd/446240/428 "2008-04-24T19:56:00Z")
[QUOTE=mswas] Yes, I showed contempt for my own line of reasoning. :rolleyes: Do you feel like you won yet? I think you’re feeling like you’re ‘winning’. I mean that’s the point right. To be smarter than the stupid theist? I’m showing contempt for your line of reasoning actually. Comparing a Unicorn to God is stupid. A unicorn is a definable creature, not some sort of mysterious indeterminate state of being that is beyond all definition. Generally I give you credit for being more intelligent than **Der Trihs** maybe that’s a mistake. I mean he thinks he wins some sort of rhetorical victory for showing me that I can’t provide evidence for something I have said long ago that I have no evidence for. Is that the level of your intellect as well? [/QUOTE] I’m not trying to “win” jack shit, because I’m not playing a game. I’m trying to get straight answers by asking questions, If you don’t wish to answer questions, just say so, but don’t try to pull the old “bait and switch” by crying that there is no way to prove that your deity exists when what is asked for is evidence. If your deity interacts with with the natural world, evidence of that interaction must exist(unless, of course, your deity is a deceptive S.O.B. that erases the evidence, in which case I suggest you find something else to worship). If your deity _doesn’t_ interact with the natural world, she/he/it might as well not exist, and isn’t even worth thinking about. Now, do you want to make another snide and dismissive “joke”, go with the standard “I’d show you evidence, but you’d only dismiss it”, or do you want to seriously debate the subject? ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-religious-discussion-in-gd/446240/429 "2008-04-24T19:56:30Z")
[QUOTE=Lord Ashtar] Just because two things are related does not mean they are equivalent. [/QUOTE] What he said. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-religious-discussion-in-gd/446240/430 "2008-04-24T19:58:13Z")
[QUOTE=Czarcasm] I’m not trying to “win” jack shit, because I’m not playing a game. I’m trying to get straight answers by asking questions, If you don’t wish to answer questions, just say so, but don’t try to pull the old “bait and switch” by crying that there is no way to prove that your deity exists when what is asked for is evidence. If your deity interacts with with the natural world, evidence of that interaction must exist(unless, of course, your deity is a deceptive S.O.B. that erases the evidence, in which case I suggest you find something else to worship). If your deity _doesn’t_ interact with the natural world, she/he/it might as well not exist, and isn’t even worth thinking about. Now, do you want to make another snide and dismissive “joke”, go with he standard “I’d show you evidence, but you’d only dismiss it”, or do you want to seriously debate the subject? [/QUOTE] For me to have evidence I have to show it in relation to other examples where that same evidence doesn’t apply. If God is actively interacting with the world at every level all the time, then I cannot show evidence because there is nothing to contradistinguish one bit of evidence from. ---
**Author:** ![hotflungwok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/edb3f5/32.png) [@hotflungwok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hotflungwok)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-religious-discussion-in-gd/446240/431 "2008-04-24T20:04:10Z")
[QUOTE=Lord Ashtar] Any evidence he has is subjective in nature and will be unlikely to convince you. [/QUOTE] Then it isn’t evidence. > [@](#): > > That doesn’t mean that he has no reason to believe what he believes. Shrug. ‘Cuz the voice in my head told me to’ is a reason, but I wouldn’t call it a very good one. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-religious-discussion-in-gd/446240/432 "2008-04-24T20:04:14Z")
[QUOTE=nd\_n8] I can’t, the only evidence is circumstantial at best and apologetic at worst. No evidence for or against exists. **Reason** for exist and **Reason** against exists but that’s about it, no evidence either way to be found. My beef is with those on either side of the coin who refuse to accept this. I can’t prove God exists, you can’t prove God doesn’t exist. I can reason and rationalize a belief that God exists, you can reason and rationalize that He doesn’t. Both of these reasons, even though they contradict each other are perfectly valid. [/quote] Oh, good grief. How many times do we have to say that no one thinks that we could prove God does not exist, even to the level that an appearance by God doing his tricks would prove he did, in the loose sense. Even Dawkins said that he was presenting a very strong argument against the existence of God, but specifically not proof. BTW, the reason that I am just now reading the book is that I didn’t expect anything new in it, and I was right. It is better than Sam Harris’s first book, which I found poorly reasoned and more of an attack on religion rather an argument against God. As far as evidence, the lack of the evidence that would be expected if Bible stories were true is good evidence against that particular brand of god. The evidence in support of a naturalistic explanation is good evidence why god is not necessary to explain our world. > [@](#): > > Neither are exclusive though. > > Whereas I see irreducable complexity as being a valid reason you may not. Whereas you see lack of tangeable evidence as being a valid reason I may not. The point is not whether or not God exists, the point is whether or not a concept of a higher power exists and to what extent does our existance depend upon that concept from creation through evolution to personal birth, death and what lies beyond not only our own short lives, but what lies beyond all that we view as reality. I don’t think anyone disputes that the _concept_ of a higher power exists. What’s at issue is whether that higher power really exists. > [@](#): > > This is the point of debating religious issues. There is no need to debate scientific issues, where there are proofs or at least terribly strong validations for a given theory there is no need for debate (one can debate the meaning or influence of a theory but not the theory itself). Thus providing proof of God or proof of No God effectively ends the debate right there. > > And, as I develop beyond the casual study and debate of issues perhaps my opinions will change. However for now, looking at all of existance, at least all of “known” existance and considering the unknown as well, and declairing that God does not exist is laughable. Much interesting science is at the point where there are two ways of interpreting the evidence, and thus there are plenty of scientific debates. Evolution has gone well past that as a foundational theory, though not in the details. But, speaking of strawmen, which god are we declaring not to exist again? I lack belief in any gods, and I even go beyond that in believing no gods (provisionally, like I believe all things) but there are only certain gods I’d feel comfortable making declarations about. ---
**Author:** ![Omegaman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e480ec/32.png) [@Omegaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omegaman)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-religious-discussion-in-gd/446240/433 "2008-04-24T20:05:14Z")
[QUOTE=Der Trihs] Well, yes, but I’m not a brain surgeon. They DO open people’s skulls and poke inside their personality. [/QUOTE] Now your just full of shit. Saying that a surgeon operates on a person with the intent of doing _anything_ to thier personality is just bullshit. You know **DT** , there was a time I felt a little bad for you, what with your aspergers and whatnot but shit like this just shows me you act like an ass on pretty much a daily basis. I hope you posses the common sense to keep your mouth shut about controversial matters when interacting with others for your own safetys sake. ---
**Author:** ![hotflungwok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/edb3f5/32.png) [@hotflungwok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hotflungwok)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-religious-discussion-in-gd/446240/434 "2008-04-24T20:10:10Z")
[QUOTE=Lord Ashtar] Just because two things are related does not mean they are equivalent. [/QUOTE] Brain and personality are ‘related’? Really. Ok, fine. Is there anything else in the equation? Is the brain & personality ‘related’ to anything else? Cuz last time I checked, there was mountains of evidence for brain = personality, while there was absolutely no evidence whatsoever for brain =/= personality. ---
**Author:** ![hotflungwok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/edb3f5/32.png) [@hotflungwok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hotflungwok)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-religious-discussion-in-gd/446240/435 "2008-04-24T20:12:46Z")
[QUOTE=Omegaman] Now your just full of shit. Saying that a surgeon operates on a person with the intent of doing _anything_ to thier personality is just bullshit. You know **DT** , there was a time I felt a little bad for you, what with your aspergers and whatnot but shit like this just shows me you act like an ass on pretty much a daily basis. I hope you posses the common sense to keep your mouth shut about controversial matters when interacting with others for your own safetys sake. [/QUOTE] This is one big obviously stupid strawman. He never said anything about surgeons operating on someone with the intent of doing anything to their personality. If a person’s personality is their brain then anything that pokes into their brain pokes into their personality, surgeon was just an example. You clearly do _not_ possess the common sense to keep your mouth shut when it interacting with others. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-religious-discussion-in-gd/446240/436 "2008-04-24T20:13:38Z")
… and so this thread goes the way of all the others. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-religious-discussion-in-gd/446240/437 "2008-04-24T20:15:19Z")
[QUOTE=mswas] No I don’t. You can’t do it and neither can I. The argument goes like this… Voyager: There is no evidence for the existence of God MsWas: There is nothing BUT evidence for the existence of God. …Crickets… You can presume that your view is the baseline, and I can presume that mine is the baseline. It’s simply cock waving of the kind **Der Trihs** likes to engage in for it really to be controversial to say what I said. [/QUOTE] Well, I agree that **Der Trihs** uses this kind of argument, but I don’t use the “there is no evidence” argument as my whole argument. My argument has two strands. 1. We can explain everything in the natural world, up to the limit of our understanding, without need for a god. The amount we can explain keeps on increasing. The predictive value of our explanation is good. There are things we can’t explain yet, as we dig deeper, but no things that we should be able to explain but can’t. Some things that might have fallen into that category are irreproducible complexity and a fossil record falsifying evolution and supporting a Biblical timeline. The second strand is construction of a model of the world with a particular god in it. We’ve got to do this for each god. The traditional Western God fails this test in many ways, since any model I can construct is contradicted by reality. (Which is why I became an atheist in the first place.) The model for a deistic god is not, but it is identical to the non-god model anyway, so I don’t believe in it by Occam’s Razor - a heuristic to be sure. As for yours, I don’t but much credence in the “flowers are pretty so god exists” position. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-religious-discussion-in-gd/446240/438 "2008-04-24T20:16:30Z")
[QUOTE=hotflungwok] Brain and personality are ‘related’? Really. Ok, fine. Is there anything else in the equation? Is the brain & personality ‘related’ to anything else? Cuz last time I checked, there was mountains of evidence for brain = personality, while there was absolutely no evidence whatsoever for brain =/= personality. [/QUOTE] No one has provided his vaunted evidence. Apparently, “OMG Cite” is only ok when atheists do it. 😉 Also, since you seem to not understand the concept, one cannot prove a negative. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-religious-discussion-in-gd/446240/439 "2008-04-24T20:19:00Z")
[QUOTE=Voyager] Well, I agree that **Der Trihs** uses this kind of argument, but I don’t use the “there is no evidence” argument as my whole argument. My argument has two strands. 1. We can explain everything in the natural world, up to the limit of our understanding, without need for a god. The amount we can explain keeps on increasing. The predictive value of our explanation is good. There are things we can’t explain yet, as we dig deeper, but no things that we should be able to explain but can’t. Some things that might have fallen into that category are irreproducible complexity and a fossil record falsifying evolution and supporting a Biblical timeline. The second strand is construction of a model of the world with a particular god in it. We’ve got to do this for each god. The traditional Western God fails this test in many ways, since any model I can construct is contradicted by reality. (Which is why I became an atheist in the first place.) The model for a deistic god is not, but it is identical to the non-god model anyway, so I don’t believe in it by Occam’s Razor - a heuristic to be sure. As for yours, I don’t but much credence in the “flowers are pretty so god exists” position. [/QUOTE] The traditional Western God is rarely brought up in these debates, as the ‘traditional’ western God is hard to pin down as to how it’s actually defined. There is no ‘Bearded man in the sky.’ definition within western tradition, that’s just sort of a folk accretion. As far as it goes, if you can explain in the natural world, explain to me what it was like before the Big Bang. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-religious-discussion-in-gd/446240/440 "2008-04-24T20:20:49Z")
[QUOTE=mswas] Here is the fallacy. Just because _I_ cannot present evidence and _YOU_ have never seen evidence presented, does not mean that no evidence exists. [/QUOTE] Not believing something for which no evidence has been found doesn’t imply a belief that no evidence can be found. It is perfectly ok to change a belief based on new evidence - scientist do this all the time. What’s not ok - well, not logical, is to believe because maybe someday evidence will be found. What evidence are you waiting for, and what are you doing to find it? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-religious-discussion-in-gd/446240.md?page=21) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-religious-discussion-in-gd/446240.md?page=23)