Atheists vs. Theists -- Why Debate is Impossible

[Revoltingest]

In which way are theists ‘wasting their life’? The theists I know are highly educated, have good jobs and stable family lives with good homes and are law abiding citizens. They go on holidays, have picnics, watch movies and have all sorts of hobbies like gardening and cooking. That they work for peace and help others enriches their lives adding meaning, purpose and fulfilment. And they are happy and contented. Am I missing something here?

They're doing it all wrong if they don't believe
(or disbelieve) the right way about gods, life,
the universe, & everything. Duh!

 

[loverofhumanity]

They're doing it all wrong if they don't believe
(or disbelieve) the right way about gods, life,
the universe, & everything. Duh!

So to them I am damned, a sinner and going to hell?

Verdict: Fanatical rubbish/nonsensical myth.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

How can you rule out some Gods?

Some are logically impossible, since they are described in mutually exclusive terms like a married bachelor. A perfect god that makes mistakes, regrets them, and attempts to correct them is analogous to the married bachelor. The God of the Christian Bible has been ruled out by the evidence supporting the theory of evolution. Notice that I don't need to claim that the theory is correct for that to be the case. Even if it is wrong, even if it is someday falsified, the honest creator god of the Bible is no longer possible. We'd need to postulate a deceptive intelligent designer, and would even go so far as to say that we would have proved that by falsifying the theory. Of course, even that is unlikely to be a god. According to Occam's parsimony principle, a race of superhuman extraterrestrials is still more likely than a sentient universe maker (a god).

what if people don't know what signs/miracles/prophecies are?

Then they don't know, although I don't know how you could not know what a prophecy is. I mentioned them because people claim that some gods do those things perform miracles, leave revelation, come to earth, answer prayers, etc. - what I have called an interventionalist god Such people apparently think they know when a miracle has occurred, although I would argue that they couldn't even if they witnessed what appeared to be a bona fide suspension of the known laws of nature (magic). You've probably seen Clarke's comment about sufficiently advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic. You know how easy it would be to convince unsophisticated people that one possessed godlike magic.

The speech is symbolic and each symbol (word) has a certain position. Is that difficult to understand?

None of theology is difficult to understand. It's only difficult to believe - impossible if one is a strict empiricist.

In which way are theists ‘wasting their life’?

I was a Christian during the seventies. I devoted thousands of hours to Bible study, prayer, and church fellowship. I gave thousands in tithes. Then, I left Christianity, returned to university, and redirected my time and attention to reading other books and studying guitar following graduation. It was shortly after my exodus from Christianity that I changed from reading the Bible to buying up books on philosophy, history, quantum science, evolution, earth science, cosmology, and the works of authors such as Alan Watts, Terence McKenna, and Andrew Weil. This is when I read Cantor and Godel. It's when I began listening to the Grateful Dead in earnest. It's also when I began devoting thousands of hours to practicing electric guitar, and later, playing in bands with my wife. None of these were happening in my church days.

Here I am decades later with a head full of a liberal education rather than theology, and with a lifetime of travelling, collecting art, performing live music (hundreds of times), and attending concerts. We especially enjoyed Grateful Dead weekends in Oakland or Phoenix, where we'd fly, get a hotel, see three shows, enjoy some restaurants and sights, and be home for work Monday - things zealous Christians don't do. For one thing, they generally have children if they are fertile or can adopt. They don't have the time or money for such a life and would be frowned upon by their church peers if they tried to live it.

And I saved several hundred thousand in tithes that I certainly would have spent on preachers and churches, which is especially helpful in these economically uncertain times. I think I rescued my life leaving religion.

How much is being a competent critical thinker worth, one of the benefits of switching from faith-based thought to strict empiricism? How many died of Covid because they were convinced that belief by faith was virtue and refused a vaccine? What's it worth to have a head full of ideas that provide endless hours of interesting conversation and contemplation? We have to live in our heads, so shouldn't that be an interesting place to be, not one filled with biblical verses? How much more valuable is it to live as a sovereign citizen of the universe than a subject of a god? How much more valuable is humanistic spirituality than the Abrahamic version, which does violence to the sine qua non of authentic spiritual experience, and which is characterized by a sense of connection and belonging to our world - not a desire to leave it for something better?

This is an excellent description of an authentic spiritual experience made possible by atheism (but also by Dharmic and pagan polytheistic religions). Listening to the first five minutes is enough to get the gist of it all. See if you can sense the sense of connectivity and belonging this man felt, combined with awe, gratitude, and a profound sense of mystery all without gods - spirituality without spirits - which only became possible when he put his distracting religious ideas to bed and chose a direct, unmediated relationship with the cosmos over one with gods inserted as objects of worship:

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

In which way are theists ‘wasting their life’? The theists I know are highly educated, have good jobs and stable family lives with good homes and are law abiding citizens. They go on holidays, have picnics, watch movies and have all sorts of hobbies like gardening and cooking. That they work for peace and help others enriches their lives adding meaning, purpose and fulfilment. And they are happy and contented. Am I missing something here?

Or perhaps it’s that we don’t binge drink or go to casinos and night clubs that we are wasting our lives? I don’t see anything wrong with mindfulness or meditation or reflection as it sharpens my mind and living a virtuous, honest and truthful life means others trust me and helps form deeper friendships. As to prayer it helps inspire me to be a better person and that enriches my daily life.

If you are referring to asceticism or fanaticism then I agree that it is harmful as we Baha’is are told to enjoy life to the fullest ‘to walk the spiritual path with practical feet’ and ‘moderation in all things’.

Consider all the people today who, for purely religious reasons, are waging battles against LGBTQ+ people, against their right to be married, or against their right to have a cake decorated or a website created for them. Think about the ones who, again for religious reasons, want to keep the fact that there even are such things as gay people out of the ears of "innocent children" (see Florida's "Don't say gay" law). Children who may very well have gay family members who must be taught in school to be ashamed of them.

Even your own religion exhibits what can at most be characterized as one of "sympathetic disapproval" toward homosexuality, insisting that Baha'i members 1) can't marry someone of their own sex, and 2) if they can't get married, they can't have a full life (i.e. one including a fully sexual love life). Very few extended families have no LGBTQ+ members, and teaching that such family members ought to be disapproved of is not enriching anybody's life -- and in fact is impoverishing that of some.

Other religious types are much, much worse, of course, with most Muslims convinced that people should be harshly punished for just being who they are, or the various churches (especially in the United States) that routinely hurl anathemas at such people so their congregations (again, whose extended families generally include some gay members) are taught to hate some of their own kin.

One thing that you will never find from a non-theist is one who cites any sort of scripture to anathematize that which is known to be 100% natural (remembering always that uncommon is not even close to be the same thing as unnatural).

 

[loverofhumanity]

Some are logically impossible, since they are described in mutually exclusive terms like a married bachelor. A perfect god that makes mistakes, regrets them, and attempts to correct them is analogous to the married bachelor. The God of the Christian Bible has been ruled out by the evidence supporting the theory of evolution. Notice that I don't need to claim that the theory is correct for that to be the case. Even if it is wrong, even if it is someday falsified, the honest creator god of the Bible is no longer possible. We'd need to postulate a deceptive intelligent designer, and would even go so far as to say that we would have proved that by falsifying the theory. Of course, even that is unlikely to be a god. According to Occam's parsimony principle, a race of superhuman extraterrestrials is still more likely than a sentient universe maker (a god).



Then they don't know, although I don't know how you could not know what a prophecy is. I mentioned them because people claim that some gods do those things perform miracles, leave revelation, come to earth, answer prayers, etc. - what I have called an interventionalist god Such people apparently think they know when a miracle has occurred, although I would argue that they couldn't even if they witnessed what appeared to be a bona fide suspension of the known laws of nature (magic). You've probably seen Clarke's comment about sufficiently advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic. You know how easy it would be to convince unsophisticated people that one possessed godlike magic.



None of theology is difficult to understand. It's only difficult to believe - impossible if one is a strict empiricist.



I was a Christian during the seventies. I devoted thousands of hours to Bible study, prayer, and church fellowship. I gave thousands in tithes. Then, I left Christianity, returned to university, and redirected my time and attention to reading other books and studying guitar following graduation. It was shortly after my exodus from Christianity that I changed from reading the Bible to buying up books on philosophy, history, quantum science, evolution, earth science, cosmology, and the works of authors such as Alan Watts, Terence McKenna, and Andrew Weil. This is when I read Cantor and Godel. It's when I began listening to the Grateful Dead in earnest. It's also when I began devoting thousands of hours to practicing electric guitar, and later, playing in bands with my wife. None of these were happening in my church days.

Here I am decades later with a head full of a liberal education rather than theology, and with a lifetime of travelling, collecting art, performing live music (hundreds of times), and attending concerts. We especially enjoyed Grateful Dead weekends in Oakland or Phoenix, where we'd fly, get a hotel, see three shows, enjoy some restaurants and sights, and be home for work Monday - things zealous Christians don't do. For one thing, they generally have children if they are fertile or can adopt. They don't have the time or money for such a life and would be frowned upon by their church peers if they tried to live it.

And I saved several hundred thousand in tithes that I certainly would have spent on preachers and churches, which is especially helpful in these economically uncertain times. I think I rescued my life leaving religion.

How much is being a competent critical thinker worth, one of the benefits of switching from faith-based thought to strict empiricism? How many died of Covid because they were convinced that belief by faith was virtue and refused a vaccine? What's it worth to have a head full of ideas that provide endless hours of interesting conversation and contemplation? We have to live in our heads, so shouldn't that be an interesting place to be, not one filled with biblical verses? How much more valuable is it to live as a sovereign citizen of the universe than a subject of a god? How much more valuable is humanistic spirituality than the Abrahamic version, which does violence to the sine qua non of authentic spiritual experience, and which is characterized by a sense of connection and belonging to our world - not a desire to leave it for something better?

This is an excellent description of an authentic spiritual experience made possible by atheism (but also by Dharmic and pagan polytheistic religions). Listening to the first five minutes is enough to get the gist of it all. See if you can sense the sense of connectivity and belonging this man felt, combined with awe, gratitude, and a profound sense of mystery all without gods - spirituality without spirits - which only became possible when he put his distracting religious ideas to bed and chose a direct, unmediated relationship with the cosmos over one with gods inserted as objects of worship:

I think we need to live a normal and balanced life and be down to earth so the arts and music I believe are very important to human happiness and restaurants, I love Indian and Chinese food with the occasional pizza and Big Mac/KFC.

I’m not sure about the video though. It says it’s banned in my country so I can’t seem to view it. It sounds interesting and maybe you can help me search this out. Why is it banned? I’m in Australia.

 

[Revoltingest]

So to them I am damned, a sinner and going to hell?

I don't know.
It's all above my pay grade.
(I gots no religious training.)

 

[loverofhumanity]

Consider all the people today who, for purely religious reasons, are waging battles against LGBTQ+ people, against their right to be married, or against their right to have a cake decorated or a website created for them. Think about the ones who, again for religious reasons, want to keep the fact that there even are such things as gay people out of the ears of "innocent children" (see Florida's "Don't say gay" law). Children who may very well have gay family members who must be taught in school to be ashamed of them.

Even your own religion exhibits what can at most be characterized as one of "sympathetic disapproval" toward homosexuality, insisting that Baha'i members 1) can't marry someone of their own sex, and 2) if they can't get married, they can't have a full life (i.e. one including a fully sexual love life). Very few extended families have no LGBTQ+ members, and teaching that such family members ought to be disapproved of is not enriching anybody's life -- and in fact is impoverishing that of some.

Other religious types are much, much worse, of course, with most Muslims convinced that people should be harshly punished for just being who they are, or the various churches (especially in the United States) that routinely hurl anathemas at such people so their congregations (again, whose extended families generally include some gay members) are taught to hate some of their own kin.

One thing that you will never find from a non-theist is one who cites any sort of scripture to anathematize that which is known to be 100% natural (remembering always that uncommon is not even close to be the same thing as unnatural).

I really like your post. I think it is honest and unbiased. I was taught the Baha’i Faith by gay Baha’is and always saw them as fantastic people and we became good friends.

To regard homosexuals with prejudice and disdain would be entirely against the spirit of Bahá'í Teachings. The doors are open for all of humanity to enter the Cause of God, irrespective of their present circumstances; this invitation applies to homosexuals as well as to any others who are engaged in practices contrary to the Bahá'í Teachings. (House of Justice)

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I’m not sure about the video though. It says it’s banned in my country so I can’t seem to view it. It sounds interesting and maybe you can help me search this out. Why is it banned? I’m in Australia.

I can't tell you why it's banned in Australia. Here's the gist of the spiritual experience without spirits:

Science Saved My Soul
transcript
from YouTube user philhellenes

Three summers ago, I was staying in a caravan a long way from the nearest city. It was usually pitch black at night. I had given my word that I would not smoke inside, so at 1 a.m. I stepped outside for a cigarette. After a few minutes of standing in the darkness, I realized that I could see my hand quite clearly—something I’d noticed that I could not do on previous nights—so I looked up, expecting to see the glow of the full moon, but the moon was nowhere in sight. Instead, there was a long glowing cloud directly overhead. The Romans called it the Via Galactica (the Road of Milk); today we call it the Milky Way. For those who missed the lesson at school that day, the basic facts are these:

Remembering that 1 light year is equivalent to 6 trillion miles, our galaxy has a total diameter of somewhere around 100 thousand light years. Our Sun is located towards the edge of one of the galaxy’s spiral arms—about 26 thousand light years out from the central bulge of the galaxy. It takes 200 to 250 million years for the Sun to complete one orbit of the central bulge. Surrounding the galaxy, above and below the disc in a spherical halo, there are approximately 200 globular clusters which may contain up to a million stars each. The Milky Way itself contains 200 billion stars, give or take.

These numbers are essential to understanding what a galaxy is, but when contemplating them, some part of the human mind protests that it cannot be so. Yet an examination of the evidence brings you to the conclusion that it is. And if you take that conclusion out on a clear dark night and look up, you might see something that will change your life.

[photo of a galaxy]

This is what a galaxy looks like. From the inside. From the suburbs of our Sun. Through binoculars, for every star you can see with your naked eye you can see 100 around it, all suspended in a gray blue mist. But through a modest telescope, if you wait for your eyes to adjust to the dark and get the focus just right… you will see that mist for what it really is: More stars. Like dust, fading into what tastes like infinity. But you’ve got to have the knowledge. Seeing is only half of it.

That night three years ago, I knew a small part of what’s out there—the kinds of things, the scale of things, the age of things, the violence and destruction, appalling energy, hopeless gravity, and the despair of distance—but I feel safe, because I know my world is protected by the very distance that others fear. It’s like the universe screams in your face, “Do you know what I am? How grand I am? How old I am? Can you even comprehend what I am? What are you, compared to me?” And when you know enough science, you can just smile up at the universe and reply, “Dude, I am you.”

When I looked at the galaxy that night, I knew the faintest twinkle of starlight was a real connection between my comprehending eye along a narrow beam of light to the surface of another sun. The photons my eyes detect (the light I see, the energy with which my nerves interact) came from that star. I thought I could never touch it, yet something from it crosses the void and touches me. I might never have known. My eyes saw only a tiny point of light, but my mind saw so much more.

I see the invisible bursts of gamma radiation from giant stars converting into pure energy by their own mass. The flashes that flashed from the far side of the universe long before Earth had even formed. I can see the invisible microwave glow of the background radiation leftover from the Big Bang. I see stars drifting aimlessly at hundreds of kilometers per second, and the space-time curving around them. I can even see millions of years into the future.

That blue twinkle will blow up one day, sterilizing any nearby solar systems in an apocalypse that makes the wrath of human gods seem pitiful by comparison—yet it was from such destruction that I was formed. Stars must die so that I can live.

I stepped out of a supernova… And so did you.

[snip]

That night under the Milky Way, I who experienced it cannot call the experience a religious experience, for I know it was not religious in any way. I was thinking about facts and physics, trying to visualize what is, not what I would like there to be. There’s no word for such experiences that come through scientific and not mystical revelation. The reason for that is that every time someone has such a “mindgasm”, religion steals it simply by saying, “Ahh, you had a religious experience.” And spiritualists will pull the same ****. And both camps get angry when an atheist like me tells you that I only ever had these experiences after rejecting everything supernatural. But I do admit that after such experiences (the moments when reality hits me like a winning lottery ticket) I often think about religion… and how lucky I am that I am not religious. You want to learn something about God? Okay, this is one galaxy.

If God exists, God made this. Look at it. Face it. Accept it. Adjust to it, because this is the truth and it’s probably not going to change very much. This is how God works. God would probably want you to look at it. To learn about it. To try to understand it. But if you can’t look—if you won’t even try to understand—what does that say about your religion? As Bishop Lancelot Andrewes once said, “The nearer the church, the further from God.”

Maybe you need to run. Away from the mosque. Away from the church. Away from the priests and the Imams. Away from the Books to have any chance of finding God. Squeeze a fraction of a galaxy into your mind and then you’ll have a better idea of what you’re looking for. To even partially comprehend the scale of a single galaxy is to almost disappear. And when you remember all the other galaxies, you shrink 100 billion times smaller still—but then you remember what you are. The same facts that made you feel so insignificant also tell you how you got here. It’s like you become more real—or maybe the universe becomes more real. You suddenly fit. You suddenly belong. You do not have to bow down. You do not have to look away. In such moments, all you have to do is remember to keep breathing.

The body of a newborn baby is as old as the cosmos. The form is new and unique, but the materials are 13.7 billion years old, processed by nuclear fusion in stars, fashioned by electromagnetism. Cold words for amazing processes. And that baby was you. Is you. You’re amazing. Not only alive, but with a mind. What fool would exchange this for every winning lottery ticket ever drawn? When I compare what scientific knowledge has done for me and what religion tried to do to me, I sometimes literally shiver.​

.

 

[loverofhumanity]

I can't tell you why it's banned in Australia. Here's the gist of the spiritual experience without spirits:

Science Saved My Soul
transcript
from YouTube user philhellenes

Three summers ago, I was staying in a caravan a long way from the nearest city. It was usually pitch black at night. I had given my word that I would not smoke inside, so at 1 a.m. I stepped outside for a cigarette. After a few minutes of standing in the darkness, I realized that I could see my hand quite clearly—something I’d noticed that I could not do on previous nights—so I looked up, expecting to see the glow of the full moon, but the moon was nowhere in sight. Instead, there was a long glowing cloud directly overhead. The Romans called it the Via Galactica (the Road of Milk); today we call it the Milky Way. For those who missed the lesson at school that day, the basic facts are these:

Remembering that 1 light year is equivalent to 6 trillion miles, our galaxy has a total diameter of somewhere around 100 thousand light years. Our Sun is located towards the edge of one of the galaxy’s spiral arms—about 26 thousand light years out from the central bulge of the galaxy. It takes 200 to 250 million years for the Sun to complete one orbit of the central bulge. Surrounding the galaxy, above and below the disc in a spherical halo, there are approximately 200 globular clusters which may contain up to a million stars each. The Milky Way itself contains 200 billion stars, give or take.

These numbers are essential to understanding what a galaxy is, but when contemplating them, some part of the human mind protests that it cannot be so. Yet an examination of the evidence brings you to the conclusion that it is. And if you take that conclusion out on a clear dark night and look up, you might see something that will change your life.

[photo of a galaxy]

This is what a galaxy looks like. From the inside. From the suburbs of our Sun. Through binoculars, for every star you can see with your naked eye you can see 100 around it, all suspended in a gray blue mist. But through a modest telescope, if you wait for your eyes to adjust to the dark and get the focus just right… you will see that mist for what it really is: More stars. Like dust, fading into what tastes like infinity. But you’ve got to have the knowledge. Seeing is only half of it.

That night three years ago, I knew a small part of what’s out there—the kinds of things, the scale of things, the age of things, the violence and destruction, appalling energy, hopeless gravity, and the despair of distance—but I feel safe, because I know my world is protected by the very distance that others fear. It’s like the universe screams in your face, “Do you know what I am? How grand I am? How old I am? Can you even comprehend what I am? What are you, compared to me?” And when you know enough science, you can just smile up at the universe and reply, “Dude, I am you.”

When I looked at the galaxy that night, I knew the faintest twinkle of starlight was a real connection between my comprehending eye along a narrow beam of light to the surface of another sun. The photons my eyes detect (the light I see, the energy with which my nerves interact) came from that star. I thought I could never touch it, yet something from it crosses the void and touches me. I might never have known. My eyes saw only a tiny point of light, but my mind saw so much more.

I see the invisible bursts of gamma radiation from giant stars converting into pure energy by their own mass. The flashes that flashed from the far side of the universe long before Earth had even formed. I can see the invisible microwave glow of the background radiation leftover from the Big Bang. I see stars drifting aimlessly at hundreds of kilometers per second, and the space-time curving around them. I can even see millions of years into the future.

That blue twinkle will blow up one day, sterilizing any nearby solar systems in an apocalypse that makes the wrath of human gods seem pitiful by comparison—yet it was from such destruction that I was formed. Stars must die so that I can live.

I stepped out of a supernova… And so did you.

[snip]

That night under the Milky Way, I who experienced it cannot call the experience a religious experience, for I know it was not religious in any way. I was thinking about facts and physics, trying to visualize what is, not what I would like there to be. There’s no word for such experiences that come through scientific and not mystical revelation. The reason for that is that every time someone has such a “mindgasm”, religion steals it simply by saying, “Ahh, you had a religious experience.” And spiritualists will pull the same ****. And both camps get angry when an atheist like me tells you that I only ever had these experiences after rejecting everything supernatural. But I do admit that after such experiences (the moments when reality hits me like a winning lottery ticket) I often think about religion… and how lucky I am that I am not religious. You want to learn something about God? Okay, this is one galaxy.

If God exists, God made this. Look at it. Face it. Accept it. Adjust to it, because this is the truth and it’s probably not going to change very much. This is how God works. God would probably want you to look at it. To learn about it. To try to understand it. But if you can’t look—if you won’t even try to understand—what does that say about your religion? As Bishop Lancelot Andrewes once said, “The nearer the church, the further from God.”

Maybe you need to run. Away from the mosque. Away from the church. Away from the priests and the Imams. Away from the Books to have any chance of finding God. Squeeze a fraction of a galaxy into your mind and then you’ll have a better idea of what you’re looking for. To even partially comprehend the scale of a single galaxy is to almost disappear. And when you remember all the other galaxies, you shrink 100 billion times smaller still—but then you remember what you are. The same facts that made you feel so insignificant also tell you how you got here. It’s like you become more real—or maybe the universe becomes more real. You suddenly fit. You suddenly belong. You do not have to bow down. You do not have to look away. In such moments, all you have to do is remember to keep breathing.

The body of a newborn baby is as old as the cosmos. The form is new and unique, but the materials are 13.7 billion years old, processed by nuclear fusion in stars, fashioned by electromagnetism. Cold words for amazing processes. And that baby was you. Is you. You’re amazing. Not only alive, but with a mind. What fool would exchange this for every winning lottery ticket ever drawn? When I compare what scientific knowledge has done for me and what religion tried to do to me, I sometimes literally shiver.​

.

That’s awesome. I’m always awed by the night sky. It’s magical and fills me with wonder. Great description. Thanks for taking the time.

 

[Balthazzar]

You know, I recall Stephen Jay Gould's argument that religion and science are "non-overlapping magisteria (NOMA)," and therefore there is no profitable way to to argue one against the other. And I think this is true: science works from observation, hypothesis, experiment, test, review and revise. Nothing in science can be considered "dogmatically true," because any evidence that may possibly come along can refute it -- and this is expected.

Religion, on the other hand, depends upon observation and hypothesis -- but the similarity ends there. Stories are invented to explain the observations. The wind blows, I can't see a fan, therefore, there must be a god that causes the wind to blow. It is written, therefore it is true and infallible. That kind of thing.

I think something similar can happen in debates between theists and atheists, but it is a bit different -- but immensely important.

Please note: I am not talking about ordinary folks, religious or not, who don't care to debate, don't fuss about their peculiar dogma. Nothing I say here will change how they get on with their lives, and that's good. Instead, I'm talking about those theologians and philosophers, skeptics and purists who really focus on these issues -- as if they were somehow important.

And to those (among whom I include myself), I say this:

The theist basically tells the atheist, "you are giving up the most important part of your life -- the eternity of joy that comes after it ends," while the atheist tells the theist, "you have wasted the only life you will ever have fussing about a myth."

Perspectives - "No profitable way to argue one against the other" on that point I would agree. On your perspective of that point, I'll contest.

Your perspective employs your view of theists, not necessarily the views of theists. I'm a theist. I agree with the point in terms of compatibility as opposed to incompatibility between science and religion. The presentations are in question and based on articulation and expression. Science simplifies the mechanics of life. Religion attempts to understand purpose, values, and duty as I understand it. The word (logos) comes to mind, which is literally defined as being an expression utilizing terms and language - acts of expression in attempt to articulate a point.

 

[Balthazzar]

Science argues from a position of something being true. Religion argues from a position of something being true. When science finds error in a position it is sought to be corrected. The issue with religion is in the absolute nature of its truth. If the way of life is about truth, then any error found would or at least should be corrected, or at the very least, an attempt to correct the error with truth should be utilized. The spirit of truth and the spirit of error - 1 john 4 - valid to this line of reasoning.

 

[The Kilted Heathen]

Here's the gist of the spiritual experience without spirits:

You should listen to Endless Forms Most Beautiful by the Finnish band Nightwish.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Science simplifies the mechanics of life. Religion attempts to understand purpose, values, and duty as I understand it. The word (logos) comes to mind, which is literally defined as being an expression utilizing terms and language - acts of expression in attempt to articulate a point.

The thing is, philosophy also tries to understand purpose, values, duty, ethics and how to live a "good life," as well. It just tries to do so without invoking magic and untestable assumptions.

I say "tries" because, of course, sometimes philosophy fails in the attempt, the result of the necessity to accept some few things a axiomatic in its effort to formulate a priori arguments. And this, I think, is something like what religion does, except that -- in my personal view -- religion goes way overboard and assumes far, far too much. Gods are one of those sorts of assumptions which, as generally defined, can hardly be thought of as axiomatic.

 

[Balthazzar]

The thing is, philosophy also tries to understand purpose, values, duty, ethics and how to live a "good life," as well. It just tries to do so without invoking magic and untestable assumptions.

I say "tries" because, of course, sometimes philosophy fails in the attempt. The necessity to accept some few things a axiomatic in its effort to formulate a priori arguments. And this, I think, is something like what religion does, except that -- in my personal view -- religion goes way overboard and assumes far, far too much. Gods are one of those sorts of assumptions which, as generally defined, can hardly be thought of as axiomatic.

The stigma attached to religious thought derives from a lack of knowing or understanding. The same is true for those who stand outside looking in. We have all been witness to the extreme side of radical religious groups, most of whom I would suggest we ourselves misunderstood, hence our own attached stigma as outsiders. Understanding is never one sided, yet somehow it always is. At least in terms of true equating to true or not.

 

[WonderingWorrier]

Some are logically impossible, since they are described in mutually exclusive terms like a married bachelor. A perfect god that makes mistakes, regrets them, and attempts to correct them is analogous to the married bachelor.

The two different sides of a coin can still be logically the same coin.

Like I get why some people think the god of the bible is evil. There are words of evil in the bible.
But the symbols of good and symbols of evil are saying exactly the same things.
I see no contradiction.


"Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?" Lamentations.


As symbols the good and evil say exactly the same things. It is simply good symbols, and evil symbols. And they share the same positions.


As the blessings are curses, and the curses are blessings.

"If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name, saith the Lord of hosts, I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings: yea, I have cursed them already, because ye do not lay it to heart". Malachi.


Their words can be shown to be both truth and lies at the same time.

There is wisdom in the foolishness.

 

[WonderingWorrier]

Then they don't know, although I don't know how you could not know what a prophecy is.

Some people think prophecy is nonsense.
Are you sure you know what prophecy is?

For example:

Consider the three words moon, stars, and sun as being a set of three symbols.

"And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring"; Luke.


And the three words spear, sword, and bow as being another set of three symbols.

"Therefore set I in the lower places behind the wall, and on the higher places, I even set the people after their families with their swords, their spears, and their bows". Nehemiah.


Now consider this prophecy:

The sun and moon stood still in their habitation: at the light of thine arrows they went, and at the shining of thy glittering spear. Habakkuk.


Perhaps someone could try to tell me how scientifically wrong the prophecy is with the sun and moon staying still.

But please consider the rest of the prophecy. The connections of arrows and spear.


What you are looking at is two symbols out of each set of three that I showed.

Position1 - Position2 - Position3
Moon - Star - Sun
Spear - Sword - Bow

Can you notice one symbol from each set of three was left out?

The moon, stars and sun are different symbols with specific positions.
That is how the sun and moon is still. Logically.

 

[Brian2]

So what's your point? Science can't study what it can't detect.
Isn't it reasonable to disbelieve in that for which there is no evidence? Isn't non-existence even more probable when there is neither need for nor reason to suspect the existence of a thing?

Science can't say there are no herds of unicorns grazing on the far side of the moon, but does anyone keep that in mind as a real possibility?

So you are into scientism and see scientific evidence as the only kind of evidence.
Isn't it more reasonable to be wholistic in what we accept as evidence. Science and scientific evidence is not all the evidence available to us.
I'm not concerned about unicorns mostly but the existence of God is something that does not come to mind when wondering how a match works. The existence of God comes to mind when wondering how we got here and where life came from, all those things that God in the Bible tells us that He did.
This is something that science tries to analyse as if a God does not exist and comes up with naturalistic speculation and even seems to say that all evidence points to a naturalistic explanation, or so I am told by atheists. However the answer is really that the unicorns on the dark side of the moon gave us life. But science doesn't even know how to determine if that is true or not and so looks at dirt becoming animated and conscious and says it has to be all naturalistic because that is what we see. How to turn magic into the natural. Science is good at it because of it's naturalistic presumption.

In a word, yes.
It is often unreasonable to accept unsupported reports. Even first hand eyewitness reports are well known to be unreliable. How much more unreliable are they after being told and retold, embellished, and edited, by people with an agenda?
There are all sorts of legends, tall tales, and sworn, eyewitness reports; of innumerable gods, monsters, magicians, space aliens, supernatural events, and even natural events, from every culture, now and historically. Do you believe in all of them, or is there, rather, an evidence-based hierarchy of probability?

The Bible is not a reliable, historical source. It's full of contradictions, inaccuracies, and outright falsehoods. It's testimonies are hearsay, agenda based, often edited, and usually of unknown authorship. Even the four gospels are inconsistent.

Unknown authorship is not a problem except when historians using naturalistic methodology decide that the books were written many years after the internal evidence shows, because they had to have been written after the events that were prophesied. That is not testing the supernatural that is just dismissing it.
The 4 gospels are minor inconsistencies which show witness reports from different angles, evidence for witness reporting it is said.
Other inconsistencies are in the main no problem at all and just speak to how they have been written and the genre.
Just dismissing the supernatural is not the right approach imo.

Science doesn't accept eyewitness reports, even if first hand. It's skeptical. It questions and tests every claim. It's the opposite of religious folklore.

The naturalistic methodology in history (scientific presumption in history) does not test every claim, it dismisses them.

 

[Brian2]

Why do you say these things? Do you expect to convert someone? Do you expect anyone to seriously consider your assertion, when you provide no evidence?

I spoke of Jesus resurrection in response to The Kilted Heathen's mention of Jesus being dead and then he said something about it being irrelevant, which it was, but I got the blame for bringing it up.

You seem to have an extraordinary fear of insignificance.
Do you enjoy anything in life: music, food, sex, sports, nature?

All our earthly pleasures are transitory, but they're pleasures nevertheless. We create our own meaning, purpose and significance in life. Why must life have some cosmic purpose or significance to be enjoyable?

We strut and fret our hour on stage, and then it's over. Sorry that distresses you so.

I also enjoy life.
Why do you say a "fear of insignificance"?
I'm just being realistic about any significance that we can put on our hour on stage. It is usually people who say I am wrong who want to inflate this life. But I guess that is understandable when this life is all there is for them.
If you understand that it is insignificant except to us in this life and a some others for a while that is good. You also seem to understand that we should be content with what we have and not keep striving for more, which tends to make our lives miserable.

 

[Brian2]

How would one whittle them down, without critical analysis of evidence? If actual evidence is critically analysed, how can anyone conclude that the scriptures are anything but folklore?
Haven't those scholars who have done this concluded that the book is mostly mythology?

I think critical analysis has presumed mythology more than shown it to be the case with the Bible.
One way to whittle it down is to look as prophecy and fulfillment. Another would be to place the scriptures in real historical settings. Another way would be to look at how the scriptures compare with science where relevant. Another way would be to see which scriptures have lasted the test of time. Another would be internal consistency of the scriptures.

 

[DNB]

The inborn apophenia that got us through the stone age, coupled with a fear of nature, a craving for control and a strong-father figure to look out for us.

How come fish, mosquitos or bears don't have a need - creatures with a fraction of the intelligence of man?