Is there any religious argument that actually stands when scrutinized with reason?

[Theunis]

mythology is the only trail

Sorry tis not so. Based on the rediscovered ancient technology the Germans actually built the "flying saucers" that were seen towards the end of WW II. I got this information from a Russian documentary in a video on Youtube.

 

[outhouse]

Based on the rediscovered ancient technology the Germans actually built the "flying saucers"

LOL

. I got this information from a Russian documentary in a video on Youtube.

You had better throw that ancient aliens garbage in a can where it belongs. It factually is not credible.

 

[jonathan180iq]

Because evidence isn't proof and in this context providing it would be a waste of time.

It wouldn't be a waste of time, it's just not something that you can do outside of relaying lots of individual personal convictions.

I think you're confused in your understanding of what evidence is. Even Pastafarians could pull out evidence in support of their beliefs if they felt like it.

And I totally disagree, Deism is not more appealing to deal with in debates it's the antithesis of debates because you simply can't debate it. There is absolutely no way to prove it either which way and really no substance to argue with at all. Same with Pantheism.

My point was that if God was just a feeling Theists had then there would be no such thing as Deism.

Sure - but what amount of deep Pastafarian conviction (if there even is such a thing) and how many thousands of personal stories would it take to convince you that the Flying Spaghetti Monster actually existed? Would any of that be good enough for you to accept the truth of of Noodly Appendage? I highly doubt it. But when it comes to your deity of choice, that very same argument would somehow be acceptable... why is that? (And I'm not just picking on you - this is true of all theists.)

Deism and Pantheism fall into to exactly the same pitfall as any other claim of deity. How do they not?
All I meant was that they don't seem to be as ferocious in their faith as other, more dogmatic, versions of theism.

 

[jonathan180iq]

Sorry tis not so. Based on the rediscovered ancient technology the Germans actually built the "flying saucers" that were seen towards the end of WW II. I got this information from a Russian documentary in a video on Youtube.

...C'mon man...

Read that as if you didn't write it and then let me know what you think.

 

[Theunis]

Your history is all sorts of incorrect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_nuclear_weapon_project

And I think you mean "Vimanas" and yeah... they have Ancient Alien Fanatic written all over them.

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/vimanas/esp_vimanas_9.htm

"Inspired by" and "instructed how to" are two completely different things, my friend.

Wikipedia is not a recognised source it has actually been referred to as the worst source to consult.
Okay so I remembered the name incorrectly but your link confirms what I said and I see no Ancient Alien Fanatic to it for it refers to an earth technology.
I did not speak of "inspired by" nor "instructed how to"; They are terms well known to me. To rediscover something has no relevance to "inspired by" etc.

 

[outhouse]

Wikipedia is not a recognised source it has actually been referred to as the worst source to consult.

Well your wrong on that as well.

wiki is sourced to individual credible sources. Not all are perfect but if you can use academia and refute said wiki knowledge, it will be updated to reflect the new information.


Nothing you have produced is put through such peer review.

 

[Thana]

Sure - but what amount of deep Pastafarian conviction (if there even is such a thing) and how many thousands of personal stories would it take to convince you that the Flying Spaghetti Monster actually existed? Would any of that be good enough for you to accept the truth of of Noodly Appendage? I highly doubt it. But when it comes to your deity of choice, that very same argument would somehow be acceptable... why is that? (And I'm not just picking on you - this is true of all theists.)

Deism and Pantheism fall into to exactly the same pitfall as any other claim of deity. How do they not?
All I meant was that they don't seem to be as ferocious in their faith as other, more dogmatic, versions of theism.

In Christianity the majority are Catholics, But I'm a Protestant. And not only that but Non-Denominational. The majority argument means less than nothing, honestly. And anecdotes are not the basis of Theism mate, I don't even know where you got that idea from but yeah, no.

 

[Theunis]

LOL




You had better throw that ancient aliens garbage in a can where it belongs. It factually is not credible.

You tickle me pink for all you do is try to refute something with "it factually is not credible".
Nowhere have I spoken of ancient aliens. I have spoken of modern day discoveries and rediscoveries of things in our past.

 

[outhouse]

I have spoken of modern day discoveries and rediscoveries of things in our past.

You provided nothing credible to substantiate your claims.

Based on the rediscovered ancient technology the Germans actually built the "flying saucers" factually cannot be substantiated. What you think you know is not from credible sources.

 

[outhouse]

Nowhere have I spoken of ancient aliens.

No but your promoting the same exact pseudoscience they do.

 

[Theunis]

Well your wrong on that as well.

wiki is sourced to individual credible sources. Not all are perfect but if you can use academia and refute said wiki knowledge, it will be updated to reflect the new information.


Nothing you have produced is put through such peer review.

Quite so but you attempting to refute virtually all I say and the manner in which you attempt to do so does not make you an academic but merely points to your unsubstantiated opinions. You are pointing one finger at me but forget three of them are back pointing your way.
Until a specific article in Wiki has been updated that item remains a very poor source.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

But I would argue that it was religion that began those things.

Well, you'd have to demonstrate that religion pre-dates almost any kind of human society or civilization, which I'm not so sure is such an easy task. I'm fairly certain that the concept of ethics must have existed before religion was there to formalize any such thing, and communities must pre-date it on the same principle. It's like claiming that the name Michael comes from the Bible - the name must have pre-dated the text in order for the text to contain the name.

Untrue. Human behavior causes those things.

Your statement is akin to saying that atheism causes genocide simply because a number of nasty dictators were atheists.

Unless a religion specifically teaches misguided ethics, stress, and a more limited self, your assertion is false.

I've never felt this argument had any real merit. You cannot simply ascribe beneficial traits to religion, and then deny any negative traits on the basis that they are the fault of "people". The door swings both ways. Either religion is a system of ethics that can influence our actions, for better or worse, or people are just people who will do whatever they want regardless of what religion tells them, for better or worse. In the prior example, religion can be said to be a contributing factor to both good and ill, and in the latter you can only really conclude that religion is completely superfluous.

 

[Theunis]

No but your promoting the same exact pseudoscience they do.

Duhh. Please elucidate.

 

[outhouse]

Duhh. Please elucidate.

It is upon you to provide credible references to prove your statement. You have not done so.

because you cannot.

Germans had no UFO

 

[Theunis]

You provided nothing credible to substantiate your claims.

Based on the rediscovered ancient technology the Germans actually built the "flying saucers" factually cannot be substantiated. What you think you know is not from credible sources.

Try looking them up for a change - "factually cannot be substantiated" is now a sway-backed horse that you have ridden into the ground.
Try looking up the so-called American "research" expedition in 1947 to the South pole. The man in charge had some explaining to do to before the American Senate.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Nothing to do with the benefits of religion.

Agreed, they are the benefits of science that vastly outweigh the benefits of religion.

To be honest most of these things were started by religious people anyway, so it is not an "either, or". The Enlightenment was driven by religious people.

I hear the sound of goalpost moving. The fact that many of these things were invented by religious people is utterly and completely irrelevant - they were not a RESULT of their religious beliefs, they were a result of scientific inquiry. That's like saying we can attribute Einstein's theories not to his rigorous use of the scientific method and demonstrable intellect, but to his preference in jumpers. Every single one of the things I listed was necessarily the result of scientific study and experimentation, and not a single one was the result of "religion". Religion played zero part in any of them.

Nobody is saying "science" is bad

I never accused anyone of saying that.

Lasers and electricity provide certain benefits, they don't provide a basis for values, meaning, identity, community or purpose in life.

More moving of goalposts. I was asked to give examples of tangible benefits of science, and that's what I did. I never said electricity "provides a basis for values, meaning, identity, community or purpose in life". Those things can handily be divided up between any number of the other things I listed in science including psychology, sociology and biology.

Every society in history has relied on 'myths' to make meaning. These myths don't have to come from religion or god (mine don't), you can be a secular humanist to do this, or a nationalist, or a communist, or whatever you please. You decide what is important in life: piety, search for scientific truth, tolerance, kindness, wealth, power, racial purity, whatever... then construct a belief system around it.

But that belief system needn't require a belief in outright falsehoods or unfalsifiable or supernatural claims.

You can have a happy, purposeful and ethical existence without being religious in the slightest. The ideologies, worldviews and myths that create meaning for you though are not based on the 'scientific method'. Religion (or ideology) is not a replacement for the sciences. Even a young earth creationist can be an engineer or a doctor.

I agree, though I don't see why science couldn't provide a meaning for your life. For many people (including obviously the many millions of the earth's scientists) it clearly does provide meaning.

Society relies on these myths though; purely subjective preferences. I do, you do, we all do.

To what extent? Does that mean we HAVE to rely on myth? Does that mean we have to interpret myth as fact?

Martin Luther King was a religious man who changed the world. The civil rights movement grew out of black Churches. The abolitionist movement was driven by Christians far more than 'enlightenment rationalists' (many of whom believed in scientific racialist theories anyway).

It was also opposed more by Christians than enlightenment rationalists.

In an alternative universe they could have been secular movements, but in this one they were not. They were driven by subjective values, in this case grounded in God.

So? Are you arguing that God was necessary? That without some stone-age mythology at the core of it, we would never have abolished slavery? If that's not your point, then what exactly is?

Why do you feel sadness and anger when IS destroys some ancient temples? All they did was to rearrange some rocks. It's not a scientific belief, it's about values. They think rearranging rocks makes them heroes, I think it makes them scum. Ultimately, they are rearranging rocks which has no intrinsic value positive or negative.

Now you're naval-gazing again. You're arguing against poorly constructed strawmen. Nobody is saying we are unjustified or irrational in assigning value to rocks. We can value history, architecture and culture without justifying that value with the use of myth.

You mistakenly believe that just because the sciences bring many tangible benefits, then they can replace all subjective ways of making meaning that add richness to life.

I've never once said that, so I have absolutely no idea why you would accuse me of believing it. I can only imagine you're debating a voice in your head rather than anything I have written.

That you believe we can make meaning purely through science is a decidedly unscientific perspective.

Prove it.

We all rely on 'transcendental' and non-provable values to guide us through life.

Name one transcendental, non-provable value I use to guide myself through life, then.

If you could present a 2-3 sentence summary of your worldview and explain why it is objectively true, I would be interested in your reasoning.

That's like asking me to build a five course meal out of two ingredients and explain why it is objectively the tastiest meal ever. It's a completely unreasonable request. I've never claimed "my worldview is objectively true" and these ridiculous strawmen you keep pulling out of the air are wearing very thin with me.

 

[Theunis]

It is upon you to provide credible references to prove your statement. You have not done so.

because you cannot.

Germans had no UFO

Of course they did not have UFO's. Their "saucers" were all identified.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

"Objective" claims are sometimes made by certain religions. In those cases, sure, it becomes sensible to assess those with the sciences. The issue I have is that the lion's share of what religions are about is not about objective claims, and yet some people in my culture thinks it makes sense to analyze all aspects of religion as if it were like a science when it's not. Huge swaths of what religion is about are indeed more akin to the arts and are not making objective claims or even truth claims.

Can you give me an example of what you consider to be a large part of religion that is "more akin to arts" and "not making objective claims or even truth claims" that are regularly incorrectly analyzed using the scientific method?

It's not a "red herring," you're just not quite grasping my point here. As said above, s

ometimes specific religions (or more accurately, specific individuals who claim affiliation with a specific religion or religions) make claims that can/should fall into the domain of the hard sciences.

Not just people. Religious texts and tenets are regularly full of truth claims of all kinds.

Sometimes, not always.

So what claims don't fall in the domain of the hard sciences?

The problem I have with people who fuss and fuss about proof and facts and evidence is that they seem to think that's the be-all and end-all of what religion is and religion does.

Not what religion is and does - personally, I'm very aware that religion isn't all about proof, facts and evidence - and that's part of the problem.

They

seem to think there's a singular point to all religions, and that point is to to make objective claims about reality or have the "truth" or "correct" path. They're

wrong.

In your opinion. In many people's opinions, including many religious people, religion (or, at least, their religion) exists solely to guide people on the "correct path" via asserting "truth". If a religion makes no truth claims then... Well, it's basically just pure fiction. I'm a fan of Lord of the Rings like most people, I have no problem with that. It's when people start telling me Frodo lives next door that I start to question them.

If all we're doing when looking at religions is the slice of it that happens to deal with things that

maybe overlap with the sciences, one is missing the point of religions precisely because one isn't covering the diversity of roles religions play in people's lives.

Except the diversity of roles religion plays in people's lives can (and does) still overlap with the sciences.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Before a "scientific method" ever begins, you are experiencing the world; discovering yourself and/or a person about begin a "scientific experiment." That world was built through faith.

Well, that's a glorious non-sequitur.

 

[Quintessence]

@ImmortalFlame, I'm going to have to decline having a drawn out conversation with you for various reasons. It seems to me you have your mind made up about the way thing are, and are more interested in arguing or being contrarian than understanding other perspectives. My only recommendation is that you work on broadening your understanding of religions. Many of the questions you've asked will likely be resolved by doing that, and you'll also better understand the things I've been getting at.