To pick up a challenge from Nancarrow-

The BBQ Pit
41

I have a request.

In response to particular posters being asses, the response has been to say “some atheists/theists are idiots”, or in so many words. And so in turn those condemned insult back in a general way rather than specific.

Is it possible that people, when pointing out the flawed behaviour of others, might actually point to the posters in question rather than just saying “some” or “the theists/atheists”?

For example; Der Trihs is an idiot, far more deluded than his imaginary view of those he despises, and does more to hurt his fanatical cause than help it.

42

And, of course, you can come up with evidence that I’m wrong, that there really is a God, and souls, and an afterlife and all the rest ? Can you come up with evidence that such things are even possible ?

Of course not. You can assert that I’m an idiot all you like; that won’t stop the evidence from being overwhelmingly on my side. And all calling me a “fanatic” does is underline the double standard towards atheists.

And as for my “cause”, I don’t have one; I argue because I enjoy it. I gave up on the people on the other side a long time ago; nothing I do or say will affect their opinions. They are by nature beyond reasoning with. If I had a cause, I couldn’t hurt it if I tried.

43

I am an athiest, you complete and utter fool.

44

You might want to reflect on the fact that you are helping our side.

This thread is a fine example of such. Most of the theists are capable of admitting that they could possibly be wrong. You, on the other hand, are behaving like a screaming asshole (as usual). If you did not find foaming abuse and fulmination to be persuasive coming from the other side, why do you believe it would be persuasive coming from you?

Regards,
Shodan

45

You didn’t even read what you quoted, did you ? I don’t think that the other side is capable of being persuaded.

46

Oh, Lord–that is funny. Thanks for the laugh so early in the morning. :slight_smile: Well done.

47

It would be a better insult if I had said he was a theist. Or, if he had bothered to explain why I’m supposedly an idiot and a fool. Instead of just asserting it.

48

The irony (which is always lost on you, since you are a fucking tool) is that you are among the top 5 members of this board in terms of being utterly immune to reason or persuasion.

And I’m an atheist too. I just don’t like having you on my side.

49

Not at all; what I was referring to, as an example, is people like (to pick an extreme example) Phelps and his gang of loonies who profess to be Christians but condemn others for being homosexuals, or even for supporting homosexual rights. Or, to take a more common situation, Christians who seem to think that the concept of “love thy neighbor” comes with a list of loopholes which allow them to hate people who don’t believe as they do, or whose skin is a different color, etc.

[quote=Der Trihs]
Because I’m not a bigot. Except using the special believer’s definition where you are a bigot just for disapproving of religion, and not other belief systems. Or are you going to call people who talk about the evils of Communism or Nazisim or racism or sexism “bigots”?

A bigot is a prejudiced person who is intolerant of any opinions differing from their own or intolerant of people of different ethnicity, race, or class.

It looks to me like you fit the first part of that definition. You are intolerant of people who believe that there is a God; you justify this intolerance by claiming that because these people are (by your standards) unable to provide any proof that “God” exists they are delusional, and therefore living in a fantasy world, and even use this to claim that they are fundamentally dishonest because they are “lying to themselves”.

People can talk about the evils of other belief systems without being bigots. I don’t consider your constant ravings about the evils done on the name of religion to be examples of bigotry. It is your automatic classification of all theists as delusional and fundamentally dishonest merely because you do not accept their belief system that makes you a bigot.

50

I apologise. I assumed that you thought me a theist because;

  • Your method of rebutting me was to challenge me to provide evidence for theism being correct, that being suggested as my position.
  • And that to do so would be proving you wrong, not us wrong.
  • You suggested that I could not do so, because all the evidence was, not on “our” side, but on “your” side.
  • You suggested that me calling you a fanatic showed a double standard against atheists.

Clearly what you were in fact doing was challenging me to prove a position I do not hold, disincluding yourself as an atheist as I am not on your “side”, and accusing me of having a double standard against myself. I see that now.

Yes, if only I had suggested a reason in my earlier post. Something like “you do more to hurt your cause than harm it”, or suchlike. Drat, a missed opportunity.

Also there’s the seeing my post disagreeing with you and reflexivly attacking me as a theist, which I found amusing. I mean, we tend to post in a lot of the same threads in GD, and I posted that I was an atheist in this very thread.

51

Here in the Pit, sure. But in GD, it’ll get ya a smackdown.

Ditto, +1, what he said, I agree.

Look, I’m nominally religious because my life works better that way. As the Ruler of the Universe says, “It merely pleases me to behave in a certain way to what appears to be a cat. Do you behave any differently?”

Could I be wrong? Sure. Could be right. I’m probably never going to be certain either way. But it pleases me to behave in a certain way to what appear to be forces greater than myself, and (and this is the important bit), as long as I do no harm to myself or others, I have no need to be right. I’d rather be happy.

52

I’m getting 2008: God’s Final Witness, in the Google ad at the bottom of the page…do you think the big fella is telling us something?

53

I was born and raised Roman Catholic. I stopped actively participating in church-related activities in my twenties, except for weddings (including my own) and funerals. It was a gradual thing, mostly because I wasn’t getting anything from attending services and felt that it was a waste of my time. Various events in my life made me question the existence of God, but I never felt that this invalidated the possible benefits of religious beliefs. I’ve occasionally referred to myself as a Christian, in the sense that I believe that the teachings of Christ provide a useful guide for life;* concepts like “love your neighbor” and “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, which a lot of other people who call themselves Christians seem to have forgotten. I try to live my life by those precepts, and feel that belief in a Supreme Being is, or should be, irrelevant to how you live your life.

*And I’ve gotten into a few interesting discussions with people who claim that you can’t be a Christian without also believing in the divinity of Jesus. But that’s a whole other discussion.

54

Oh, hai guyz! I’m in ur thred, making ma respunz.
Okay well lots of stuff to read, so just for now…

I’ve no idea about the etiquette of FriarTed’s continuing my post after the FFA weekend’s gone, but I do know that I don’t mind at all, so go for it.

Secondly, it’s rather a shame that FT opened this in the pit. I can understand why, it’s an offshoot of another thread that started in the pit. But there was nothing in either my post, or FT’s reply, that was pit material. If you’d put it in another forum, maybe peeps would have restrained themselves a bit. Unfortunately it quickly made the Pit it’s only possible home. :frowning:

Fucknuggets, all of you. Eat my shit. Cecil is a doodoo-butt.

Thirdly, FT, what the first guy said about letter vs spirit. I was so pleased with your post, I really thought ‘hey I’ve got this guy all wrong’… until that little footnote. You just couldn’t leave it out, could you? Or modify it, to “*but I’m pretty sure I’m not”? So basically you lost the challenge. Triple points for me! Now, where’s that ayatollah…

Pi-thly, props to the several theists who did play the game with no qualifications whatsoever. You’ve restored my confidence in humanity a little. But only a little. After all, we’re a bunch of smarter than average people in highly developed countries which have had a recent history of defanging religious thought. I’d be more impressed to hear these declarations from an Iranian peasant, but then, I wouldn’t want them to expose themselves to such danger from their rulers.

Fourthly, Shodan, it’s rich of you to snark that so many non-theists didn’t voice their doubt until prompted. Where is your snark that no theists voiced their doubt until prompted? The snark only goes one way, doesn’t it (yet of course you are the gadfly that pricks hypocrisy :dubious: and exposes double-standards :dubious: :dubious: around here)? Every atheist I’ve ever talked to has been quite ready to state that theirs is a philosophical position that is as open to the possibility of being wrong as any other statement that we can make. For theists, it’s been the exception rather than the rule.

Fifthly - Der Trihs, I’ve supported you in the past. From this point on you’ve got one less defender. There are so many people here who can argue the same points you do, point out the same fallacies, contradictions and dangers in theistic belief as you do, without alienating people on the other side and their own by mischaracterising their positions.

Sixthly - someone upthread (was it Malacandra?) mentioned that theists are expected to maintain their beliefs through faith, and that faith, meaning belief in a proposition despite lack of evidence, and even contrary evidence, is a virtue. To me this gets right at the core of my beef with religions.

Believing propositions about the world without evidence is NOT A GOOD THING. At best, it’s neutral, if the belief is that the centre of our galaxy is actually a huge lump of roast beef (and one is not a professional physicist :eek: ). At worst, it’s downright dangerous. There’s not a SHRED of reason to believe that the creator of the universe wants you to kill thousands of people in a skyscraper and will reward you with lots of tail in the afterlife. There’s not a shred of reason to believe that homosexuality is a sin. Note for the slow: “I saw it asserted in an old book” is not a reason. Neither is, “but I really really really believe it”.

And at this point it’s worth noting that while religions probably form the largest and most infective group of ‘dangerous propositions without evidence’, they are not the only group. Obvious non-religious faiths are homeopathy and nazism. (Godwin shoots, he scores!) Failed scientific theories such as geocentrism and phlogiston don’t count. They had plenty of good evidence, they just got trounced eventually by better theories.

Now I’m rambling. Bleh. If anyone wants me to respond to a point I missed, get the neon lights and megaphone out.

ETA: my provisional opinion of the server upgrade, as open to future revision as any other opinion a rational person would hold, is that it can eat shit and die. I nearly lost this friggin’ post! :mad:

55

As you wish. But all I said was that it is not necessary that the faithful person never doubt; I said nothing about lack of evidence or contrary evidence. 'Course, the evidence was right there on the screen and if clarification were needed it could be had for the asking, as the evidence-based rationalist would no doubt know without telling. :slight_smile:

56

This “debate” [crazy ranting really] between the extreme fringes of atheists and beleivers is quite tiresome. Faith is a personal matter and may not lend itself to scientific judgement. I dont think the atheists are ever going to convince a beleiver that his / her faith is a “fairy” tale. And vice versa. I hope these extreme attacks stop. Its arrogant to attempt to coerce somebody into a belief system when nobody here is sure of what is real in the first place.

A healthy exchange of ideas in the spirit of inquiry would be an excellent first step i think. “God is a fairy tale” is an arrogant statement. Likewise “God will come down one day and kick your asses” is also quite presumptuous. You better be sure that he wont kick your ass first.

Human beings feel the need [at least i do] for a inner spiritual life. It does not have to be based on dogma or even a god. It however might need a capacity for humility and an openness of thought - Even to the thought that there is no “god” and nothing watching over humanity. Religion is an attempt to distill our collected wisdom over the ages. The true test of it is to put it into practice in my life and observe the effects and try and make sense of it. I see nothing evil in that per se. Or a denial of reality. Or a sign of an inferior intellect.

When religion is used to coerce people into accepting something they would rather not, then it is debased into thuggery. Even then religion, i beleive, is beyond good and evil. It is the abuse of religion that is evil. A priest can be a paedophile and commit evil acts, it puts into question the organisation he belongs to besides himself. To jump from there to Jesus Christ is a false prophet and the sum total of ALL religion is less than zero is to miss the point. For the record - i am not a christian and do not believe that JC is my savior. But i got nothing against the dude. Many discussions on this board are very Christian centric, and that limits the vast amounts of spiritual work done by other religions.

If you guys are railing against people so full of themselves and so sure of their beleif systems that they are impossible to talk to - i absolutely agree. If you knew everything there is to know, wouldnt you be a god?

57

I misunderstood what you were saying… here’s what you wrote that jumped out at me:

Okay, you didn’t say faith is ‘a resolve to persist in the face of lack of evidence’, you said ‘a resolve to persist in the face of doubt’. Now for me, these two definitions are practically synonymous - because my belief or doubt is based on evidence or lack thereof. But I was interpreting your statement in a way that fitted my ideas on belief and doubt rather than yours, and for that I apologise. It’s another example of people talking past each other by having different underlying assumptions. But if our chats dig up those assumptions and put them in the spotlight, good.

However, to point out my error there is to declare that for you, belief and doubt are not evidence-based (or at least, that it is perfectly okay for them not to be). Are you sure you want to claim that? To a rational person such a declaration seems awfully silly, for reasons I explained in my previous post.

Oh dear. Christ forgave Thomas’s doubt. What a kindly fellow.

What was there to forgive? What kind of mind thinks that doubt is something to be forgiven? An irrational one. Thomas’s doubt was utterly, utterly rational. No sane person, then or now, would accept that a dead body can become alive again after three days in a crypt, without evidence. (and as Carl Sagan said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence)

Now if, for the sake of argument, we assume that that portion of the gospels is true (:rolleyes: but let’s run with it in this paragraph), then Jesus appearing to Thomas later on and saying, ‘well look here I am’, would indeed constitute ample ‘extraordinary evidence’. And that’s fine, Thomas would still be a rational, sane person, because at that point he said ‘oh wow I was wrong, look at the egg on my face’. I like to joke that ‘Doubting Thomas’ is the patron saint of scientists (or indeed rational people in general). It’s a joke because the whole idea of patron saints is rather irrational, but it makes the point that Thomas’s attitude was the smart one.

Oh and just in case it needed saying: those of us who reject Christianity are not ‘dumber than Thomas’, because in response to that part of the gospels, we don’t stick fingers in our ears and say ‘la la la I can’t hear you’, we make the perfectly rational observation that the gospels were just some books written ages ago, and there’s no good reason to accept that anything in them is true.

58

I really wish the first part of that sentence was universally true, instead of transparently ignoring the elephant in the room. How wonderful it would be if no witches had ever been burned, if Mohammed Atta and his ilk had just got on with their lives, if the spread of AIDS in Africa had not been so vicious thanks to the Pope and his loud mouth, if Marx had given up on his writing, at least until he could collect some robust data and refute alternative hypotheses!

The second part - what aspect of faith doesn’t lend itself to scientific judgement? I hold that faith (by which I mean belief in the face of lack of evidence, or counter-evidence) is a bad thing. I have plenty of evidence to support that claim. The results of faith are plain for all to see (everyone, that is, who is facing the elephant’s way). Take your ‘non-overlapping magisteria’ and shove them. That is, after all, what the religious have done throughout history.

Absolutely.

Disagree. It’s the best available fit to the evidence. Every time science fills in more of the gaps in our knowledge, and a reasonable person has to shove God over into the remaining gaps (or even better, discard that hypothesis entirely), “God is a fairy tale” becomes a better supported view. Every time ‘godddidit’ gets replaced by an understood natural mechanism, God looks more and more like a creator who doesn’t want to be found, whose modus operandi more and more becomes “design the universe to look exactly like it would look if I didn’t exist at all”.

Heck, psychologists and neuro-anatomists are even inching towards naturalistic, evidence-based explanations of… why so many of us believe in god(s)!

Absolutely, those are two necessities for our successful understanding of what the hell’s going on around here.

Now, where oh where can I find a capacity for humility and openness of thought? If only there was some community of people somewhere who deeply understood that 99.9(some more nines)% of thoughts we come up with are total bollocks, and that to sift out the kernels of truth requires an unflinching willingness to have one’s ideas ripped apart by one’s peers, to not feel deeply personally wounded when one’s ideas are rejected? Why, surely there’s no end to what such people could do! Give them a bit of time, they could end up understanding what’s up with all those pretty points of light in the sky, they could figure out why we die so young of so many horrible diseases, and fix those diseases one at a time! Maybe they could even invent machines that let me share my ideas in near real time with people on the other side of the planet!

I agree. But it’s an absolute disaster of an attempt. How could it not be, when it (generally speaking) so highly prizes the ability to keep believing, no matter what?

So it IS amenable to the scientific method then? Well, your self-contradiction aside, I’ve no quibble with you here.

Nothing reality-denying or mentally deficient about testing religion, far from it. But religion disdains being tested, often religions prescribe dire punishments for those who seek to test them. Accepting this state of affairs as a good thing is a sign of an inferior intellect. Not that I’m levelling that accusation at you, I hasten to add.

If that alone is how someone comes to reject religion then they’re not just missing the point, they’re being deeply irrational. I can assure you that I made no such ‘jump’. My rejection of Christianity was the total of many more strands of inquiry than just the latest headline about some kiddy-diddler in a collar.

I agree with you, and must admit that my anti-religious stance is heavily influenced by the two religions that make the biggest headlines in the Western World today - Christianity (aka Us) and Islam (aka Them). I can’t say I know enough about other religions (see, doubt!) to be sure that they’re as deeply hostile to questioning as those two. It appears to me at a fairly casual glance that Judaism and Buddhism might be two more rational-friendly religions (the former only recently, of course - “Kill every last man, woman and child in Canaan”? For, amongst other things, the sin of… child sacrifice? Er, logic? I’ll pass, thanks.)

59

My own version:
I believe God exists, but I am perfectly aware that there is no objective evidence supporting that. I may be totally wrong and there could indeed be no God. In fact, if there was objective evidence for the existence of God, I would cease to have faith.

I am a scientist and recognize the power of objective evidence to solve problems and understand the world. But I also see science’s limitations to answer questions about the purpose of the world. How does science decide “why I exist” and not simply “how I came to be”? How does science address why we can use science to understand the world with anything more than “it just does”?

I see your point about the wrongs that people using non-scientific beliefs have done. I see that their actions are wrong and my beliefs would not allow me to do that. How do you determine their actions are wrong? I know there are non-religious moral systems, but are there any evidence-based moral systems?

First, I agree that faith in the face of counter-evidence is bad. Second, I think that faith without evidence may be bad but is not necessarily so.

Think of it this way. Even the most rational person must make decisions without complete information. Sometimes that means a bad decision is made. Later decisions can be made to try to make corrections.

Similarly, I believe things without complete evidence and sometimes with no evidence at all. And that means sometimes I believe something that isn’t so. When I find new evidence that contradicts a belief, I change it. I have not yet found evidence that contradicts my belief in God, so I still believe. If a rational atheist has found evidence against their understanding of God, then so be it, I have no argument with that.

Interesting, but it would not address the existence of God, merely describing the physical mechanism of the belief.

60

I also feel the same about people who think the Earth is flat or inside out, or that AIDS can be cured by sex with a virgin, or racism and sexism, or similar nuttiness. The fact that I apply the same standards to religion that most people apply to everything else doesn’t make be a bigot. It makes me the guy who points out the elephant in the living room.

Faith is simply bad judgement. And it has been subjected to “scientific judgement”, and failed relentlessly. The reason that most statements of faith these days are of scientifically unverifiable claims is because whenever science and religion have disagreed, religion has been wrong, so religion now tends to hide where science can’t come along and whack it on the head.

If I say the giant in “Jack the Giant Killer” is just a fairy tale, is that arrogant too ? There’s just as much reason to believe in the Giant and his death at Jack’s hands as there is in God.