Religion, or the lack thereof

[AlexMax]

:words:

When you go into personal issues with religion, you get the standard "Well, not all religious people are like that, you just got unlucky." from believers. And to be honest, I agree with them, in fact I have a number of good friends who are all highly religious (my roomate is baptist), and I'm sure we all know a few gigantic assholes who are athiests or are at the very least apathetic.

I do have a problem with religion as a whole, but I've been trying to the past half hour to formulate my thoughts, and have only suceeded in writing a few paragraphs about how systems that don't encourage skepticisim are bad, so if anyone can bring a rebuttle to the table about how christianity encourages debate and free thought, please do so, because I certianly can't find any evidence for it.

EDIT: And I am aware that not all religious types are indoctrinated crazy people, but it seems like any 'free thought' in a religious community happens at the pleasure of whoever is in charge of the church or family.

[The_Amaster]

However, scientifically it is impossible to know that

Exactly! Can't prove it, can't disprove it, no one can know. Hence Agnosticism.

[AlexMax]

Exactly! Can't prove it, can't disprove it, no one can know. Hence Agnosticism.

My problem with the common use of the word "Agnostic" is that it commonly is understood as a weak word, as if to say that both possabilities have an equal probability of being correct, a 50/50 shot as it were. To do so almost seems to undermine Bel's and my stance on the subject. No, we as a species have not been able to scientificly figure out "The God Hypothesis", but that doesn't mean that we won't be able to do so in the future, and I certianly can't think of anything else in the sciences that lends any sort of evidence in the hypothesis favor.

Of course, we're simply arguing back and forth over semantics, which obfuscates the issue at hand. The first couple of chapters of The God Delusion seem to iron out many of the semantics issues inherant in discussing religion quite nicely, and I recomend everyone, even those who don't agree with its subject matter, should give the first few chapters a whirl.

[Beldaran]

Richard Dawkins is one of my intellectual heroes. He is so awesome. I'm currently reading The Selfish Gene.

[Masamune]

Jews don't go around killing around adulterers.

Ya-huh.

[AtmaWeapon]

Hey is this The God Delusion thing an original work or does it have some cited references too? Basically I get a big boner for books with radically different opinions where the author at least took the effort to find other individual research to back up their claims.

I'll probably read it, but I think there's an inherent problem even if it cites sources well. Allow me to illustrate.

This conspiracy theorist I worked with bought me You Are Being Lied To, a book chock full of conspiracy theory essays. I wasn't even going to read any of it but then I noticed Noam Chomsky was one of the authors and I at least read his piece, which I admit had a good point. Anyway what impressed me was that even the most loony essays in the book had several sources cited.

The problem is, the sources that were cited were, more often than not, sources that could only be considered credible if you already subscribed to the theory. While I lack a concrete example, in general it was as if a documentary on the existence of sasquatch were using Art Bell as a serious reference. If I already have a strong belief in sasquatch, then odds are I view Art Bell as more credible than the average person.

This is the reason why I think it is futile for a Christian to argue with an atheist. The Christian makes the fundamental assumption that the Bible is a sacred text and anything that disagrees with it is wrong. The atheist makes the fundamental assumption that the Bible is at best a history of the Jewish people mixed with folklore and mysticism, and anything in it is suspect.

Because of the opposing assumptions, the argument between a devout Christian and a devout atheist is a stalemate. The Christian's only source of evidence is the Bible*, a book the atheist does not accept as a credible reference. The atheist's strongest source of evidence is scientific facts that discredit interpretations of the Bible, which the Christian is already prepared to disbelieve**.

In short, I believe everyone makes a personal decision to follow something that works for them. I believe everyone gets along better when the discussion of these beliefs is voluntary and welcomed. Because of this, I've never believed in door-to-door evangelism; if someone wants to hear about Jesus they will ask me or someone else. Life is much better when we let each other be, and honestly I think that was a big part of Jesus' message. I think what He really wanted is what I kind of have always wanted out of atheists: make your point, provide your evidence, concede that your evidence only proves the point in the context of your beliefs, then let the other individual decide if your beliefs make sense to them.

Does this mean there are many paths to Heaven? Not in my opinion, but I do think it means that some of the more aggressive evangelistic Christians will be held accountable for the souls they have turned away from Christ. Trust me, I hold them with pretty much the same contempt that I believe you do.

*Logic is not a tool of religious debate, or, more appropriately, religious debate is not something that can be debated with proper logic. Every logic class I took discussed early on that in matters of faith, the conclusions are based on hypothesis that may not be logically provable. Because of this, matters of faith are not to be considered topics of logical debate. Any "logical" proof that God must exist almost always relies on the implicit belief that He exists in the first place, which is a fallacy. The only way in which logic may be used against an atheist is to point out fallacies in the atheist's arguments, taking care to avoid "fallacies" that are only fallacies if you implicitly believe in God's existence.

**Because matters of faith are, by their nature, illogical, a believer has usually encountered many of the arguments an atheist could put forth and found a way to resolve them with their beliefs. In some cases, the believer is willing to stand against scientific proof; this is a show of good faith but possibly a sign of poor thought. However, I believe the only entities with the authority to judge a belief system as correct are the individual and the deity(ies) that may or may not exist. We'll all find out one day.

--EPILOGUE--
Also I really hate this argument because, try as I might, I always spell "atheist" the wrong way and have to correct it.

[Beldaran]

It's highly unfair to lump Richard Dawkins in with conspiracy theorists. You should do some research on him. He's very academically and intellectually legitimate.

You owe it to yourself to read some of his stuff, especially The God Delusion. I think you'll find it's brilliantly written, even if you utterly disagree with all of it. Dawkins is compelling, intelligent, and extremely well spoken. His language is very precise and logical. I love it.

[rock_nog]

You know who really creep me out? Those people who claim that without religion, we would have no morals and the world would fall into chaos. Seriously - I just get a tad nervous around people who are basically implying that the only thing between them and a homocidal rampage is a belief in God.

On the other hand, what about religion as metaphor? I mean, I could imagine God as being a symbol for our own conscience, and religion just being a life philosophy. In this case, (a) you choose a religion suited to your philosophy (which god or gods is more in line with what you think is most important in life), and (b) the whole thing about it being provable goes out the window 'cause it's just a metaphor. I mean, if I said that life is like an orange, you wouldn't demand me to prove the relationship between life and citrus. Honestly, that's the way I see religion - I've always thought that the message was more important than the messenger. Heretical, perhaps, but it always made more sense to me that way.

And I mean then, God becomes a source of inspiration, and prayer becomes a form of meditation. Here's the thing in terms of prayer and the like. We all know that there are things that we can't normally do, but if we really believe in ourselves, we can accomplish them. The way I've always seen it, it's much easier to believe in yourself if you imagine an omnipotent deity is on your side. Right or wrong, there's a lot of power there, so should we just ignore it?

[phattonez]

^^Religion already kind of supports that notion. Have you ever heard this? "God is love."