I’m quite at a loss to know what you think I’m supposed to believe. By God do you mean the Western, Christian style god? Do I actively have to believe that each version of this God does not exist? How about the Hindu and Shinto gods? How about the cargo cult god? How about unknown and undefined gods believed in by beings on other planets? I can believe in three impossible things before breakfast, but I just don’t see where I’m going to find the time to believe that each of this near infinite set of gods does not exist.
I can believe that some gods don’t exist - like the fundamentalist type. Surely you believe Zeus doesn’t exist, so we’re in the same boat there. But for the most part I just don’t believe, not having seen any good reason to believe. I now know that when I did believe in a God, it was because my parents did, and all my friends seemed to, and the paper did (even if they seemed to believe in that Jesus guy none of my family or friends believed in) and because going along and going to shul and getting bar mitzvahed meant I got a party and got presents. But as soon as I started thinking about this, and reading outside the limits of my religious education, it all was absurd.
If there is a god,. he’s doing an awful good imitation of someone who doesn’t exist.
One of the many problems I have with religions is that they indoctrinate young children before they can think clearly. I think that is a crime. Other than eradicating religion I suppose my solution is: “no religion until age 28 and you must first pass courses in comparative religion, philosophy, chemistry, physics, astronomy, astrophysics, world history, ancient history and a historical/psychological study of power hierarchies and the ways they can manipulate large groups of people, followed by a 100 page thesis on that subject.”
Thus the comment about different flavors of Atheism. I gave but one example of such.
So you’re saying there’s no such thing as an abstract noun? This will come as quite a shock to the English teachers of the world.
You mean, you’ve not been given sufficient reason to.
Are you reading someone else’s post? I never asserted you agreed with me. I just said you believe something. And you do. That’s really, abundantly clear.
Well, at least you acknowledge the existence of abstract nouns. So are evil and religion the only two that are evil, in your worldview?
Religion’s nature is no more viral than any idea - and while some draw the comparison between memes and viruses, it doesn’t hold water with me. One’s tangible, one isn’t. Night and day.
Is this even an argument? You’re exaggerating complexity where there is none. If you believe there are no gods, that’s your belief. If you beleive there are 24 and a half gods, that’s your belief.
Well, he’s a perfect being, after all.
In essence, yes. Would you claim that an inanimate piece of metal is “evil”? I’m not saying it’s not dangerous, mind you.
But we all would like to have some justification for our belief, right? Even the most arrant of theists will give you something, even if it is just that the sky is blue and roses are red.
Now, believing that no gods exist at all is problematic, because the term “god” is not well defined. I might as well say I don’t believe there are any bobosnats. Believing that a specific god doesn’t exist is a bit better, but there are so many of them. Why would I believe that the god of Zebulon V doesn’t exist? it seems far more reasonable to say that I believe that some subset of gods do not exist, gods I’ve examined or who have self-contradictory properties, and the rest I have no belief in. And, remember I said believe. Some I can prove don’t exist, to my satisfaction, and some I believe don’t exist. Two different things.
As an aside, those who belief a monotheistic god does exist at least have a basis for the belief that the others don’t - because my god said so. Or at least said so in the later books of the Bible.
The fundamental problem with religion is that it is nothing more than an elaborate con game. It’s a scam designed to accumulate wealth and gain power over the adherants, nothing more.
It is that certainly, but you go too far to say “nothing more.” As a general rule (with many exceptions), the shepherds believe as fervently as any of the flock. Not your typical con game.
When Marx characterized religion as “the opiate of the masses,” he did not mean to imply it is a drug the ruling class peddles to the proles to keep them quiet. He meant it is something the proles themselves cook up to ease the pain of existence. (And he was writing before it was understood that there is anything bad about opiates, or that they could be addictive or dangerous.)
My level of evidence required for belief is probably higher than most. I’m comfortable with the lack of belief for but no general belief against state.
None of which have anything at all to to with atheism. I like spagetti; is that part of my atheism ?
Not in the sense you seem to mean. After all, those English teachers have those nouns stored as patterns in their brain matter.
:dubious: Well, yes, “no reason” generally qualifies as “insufficient”.
No, you claim I’m operating on faith; like most religious people, you deny the possibility of disbelief. Religion is so implausible that it’s adherents must insist at every turn that you must believe in religion; any religion; just not atheism.
If something damages the wrong area of your brain, the ideas stored there are destroyed. The same if you burn a book with them written in it. OTOH, you can take a virus apart, store it’s DNA/RNA in a computer, print it out on paper, type it back on a computer, then manufacture a new copy of the virus. It is information; all that changes is the medium.
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As a general rule (with many exceptions), the shepherds believe as fervently as any of the flock. Not your typical con game.
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That’s because to a large degree to “con artist” is the religion itself.
It can be, but it’s much more likely a part of Flying Spaghetti Monsterism.
Like it or not, Denying the existence of God is an act of Faith, because the existence of God cannot be proved or disproved. Agnostics are the ones who truly lack belief.
Well, clearly, there’s some reason, or there wouldn’t be any religions.
Not true - agnostics are without faith. (With regard to the existence of God)
I refuse to give God a special standard of evidence. I am not “agnostic” on fairies, elves or magic; I’m not going to give gods a pass. If there is no evidence for something - no evidence it is even possible, then you should assume it does not exist. That’s not faith; that’s basic reasoning.
Religion is based on faith; it does not require evidence or internal consistancy or the slightest shred of sanity; it’s a self supporting belief system.
As far as why religion exists, I expect it’s genetic. There’s evidence that religion has a genetic component; back in prehistory, I expect that the religious tribes systematically killed the men and children of non-religious tribes, and raped and impregnated the non-religious women with religious babies. A few millenia of that, and here we are with a majority religious population.
God (in general) cannot be disproved. Certain classes of gods can be. But, using proof loosely, God can be “proved” as well as the existence of the Sun. If the Exodus had actually happened, and if you were marching along with Moses, I think you would be convinced. I’d be.
So, God can be proven, loosely, but hasn’t been. I can think of three reasons for this.
God is testing our faith. But Jesus did miracles, as did God. God doesn’t have to be testing our faith, and he even punished Moses for doing something that made it more necessary to have faith. So this can’t be right.
God has some mysterious reason for not showing up. But so can the FSM. If God is punishing those who disbelieve, then he got some 'splaining to do.
Fine, let’s use Fairies. Fairies, based on the common descriptions of their nature, are impossible to disprove, and impossible to prove unless they materialize in front of a team of scientists and say hello. Agreed? There’s no concrete evidence they exist - just circumstantial folklore. There can be no concrete evidence they don’t exist, either.
So. When someone asks you, “Do fairies exist?” Your basic response falls in one of three categories. “Yes.” “No.” “I don’t know.”
With me so far?
If you answer “Yes” - you have come to a conclusion that the evidence does not oppose, but one that it doesn’t really support, either. You have used the shreds of folklore to form a belief, and you have faith in that belief.
If you answer “No” - you have come to a conclusion that the evidence does not oppose, but one that it doesn’t really support, either. You’ve taken the absence of evidence as the evidence of absence. You’ve formed a belief, and that is faith.
If you answer “I really don’t know. There’s no way to prove it either way.” - you have not come to a conclusion at all with regards to their existence. You have not formed a belief.
Making any conclusion at all about an entity that is completely obfuscated from observation is an act of faith, because you don’t have the evidence to back up a scientifically rigorous conclusion.
So you’re saying religion is evolutionarily advantageous? Isn’t that a good thing?
So now I’m supposed to take seriously the possibility that fairies exist ? Riiiiight.
With no evidence for the existence of something, or even that it can exist, the probability of that thing existing is so low that it counts as zero for just about anything else but religion. There exists an astronomically tiny chance that I will spontaneously explode in a nuclear fireball; I’m perfectly fine in saying and assuming I won’t explode, because the chance is small enough to ignore for many lifetimes of the universe. The chance of that happening is greater than the chance of any particular god existing, so I dismiss gods.
What you are unwilling to recognize is that religion is silly. Even religious people usually recognize that - about any religion but their own.
“I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.” - Stephen Roberts
So you think rape and genocide are good ? Evolution’s not some sort of moral commandment; it’s simply a description of how things are. Good, evil, better, worse; evolution doesn’t care. Evolution is about nothing more than competing genes.
