Thought I'd open this up...perhaps with Pascal's Wager, if you want to discuss it:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager

This has been an argument of mine; never knew it was actually a philosophical development.  Darn that Pascal for stealing my theory!!!  :)

I found the last bit of the article about Buddhism interesting.

I remember having a conversation once along the same lines.  I felt that even if God didn't exist, I'd want to be Christian.  Many of the Christian's I was having the conversation with didn't agree.

As far as Pascal's Wager, I think I'd fall into the response category of saying that it isn't real belief.  Deciding to become be a Christian outwardly doesn't mean there's been an inward conversion.

Of course, someone who followed Pascal's Wager to a church, might get exposed to enough Truth to end up being truly converted.

Quixotic

But I think the point is not "belief," but "hope."  You can hope for it...and what is faith?  Paul said it is "hope."

Excellent article.  I especially liked this bit:

Quix: I agree with you, though, and the criticisms, especcially since Pascal assumed only one Dogma, the heaven and hell dichotomy adopted by the Roman Catholic Church.

The way I used this point mirrored the Buddhism idea.

In other words, religious belief costs you nothing, but could potentially gain you eternal life.  Even if there is no God, religion gives you the "hope" to help you endure life and teaches you to act in a good way.  Therefore, regardless, religion and God are good things to belief in and follow.  (And let's not get nitpicky about crazy zealots who distort their religion and do bad.)
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:56, Fri 17 Mar 2006.

The wikipedia article may not do it justice.  It is important to note that Pascal called it a "wager" because no one can prove God exists, so we must all wager our belief for or against His existence.


He actually discussed that not believing in God if God exists will lead to misery, or in other words, a finite reward.  So he said that believing in God can lead to infinite happiness, whereas all other three choices (believing if he doesn't exist, not believing if he does not exist, and not believing if he does exist) are all limited in what you will get out of it.

The best objection I see is the "many gods" objection because Pascal assumes only one belief system (Catholic Christianity) can be the one to believe or not believe in.  The other good objection is if God does not reward infinitely or punish infinitely, but instead according to more of a merit system.

In any case, I guess my arguments were a bit different from Pascal, as I said trying to believe (or having hope) was better than trying to disbelieve.

Except that there is a counter to this, which was addressed in the article.  If religious belief consists of anything more than just the mental act of believing in God, then it puts all sorts of restrictions on your behavior.  Attending services takes time away from other, possibly more enjoyable activities.  Religious beliefs may forbid engaging in particular behaviors which would otherwise be desirable (I think we can all agree that Catholicism falls into this category; I'm not as sure about Buddhism though).  And lastly, religious beliefs may prevent a person from making achievements which require some violation of said beliefs (e.g. using research on human stem cells to develop an effective treatment for brain damage or Alzheimer's disease).

Religious belief does cost something.  It's just that these costs are insignificant when compared with the infinite reward God grants to believers in Pascal's setup, and may or may not be insignificant when compared simply with the tangible benefits of belief while you're still alive.

So according to your point, behaviors that make you feel good are the most desirable?  Religion teaches disciplined behavior and high moral philosophies.  I'm not sure how that can be considered worse than giving in to your every carnal desire...

But most religions actually allow for individual belief here.  You can't really blame "moral" questions on religion, or else they would not invade the secular society so pervasively.  These are human ethics questions, not religious.


Actually, the point of Pascal's theory is that life is short and the sacrifices you do make are statistically irrelevant compared to the possibilities of eternal life and reward.  Thus, if there is no God, then it is still insignificant, statistically speaking.  (He did not consider the altruistic side of it, which is that most religions engage in numerous humanitarian projects and help the sick and poor and disadvantaged.  There are numerous benefits that were not even considered because he focused strictly on the selfish aspect of it.)


Also, every study I've seen shows that religion has a positive effect on the human psyche.  It is psychologically healthy.  I would need to see a test that says it hurts individuals to believe in God.
This message was last edited by the GM at 18:09, Sat 18 Mar 2006.

Life may be short compared to eternity, but the 20-something years I've been here so far have felt pretty long, and the fact that I'm likely to repeat this length of time several times over while I'm still here means I'd like to enjoy some of it while I can, rather than spend my whole "short" life making sacrifices only to get an eternity of passive unconsciousness afterward.



Hurt people?  No.  But there is a bit more to it than that, which these studies have not addressed to my knowledge.  Recent research suggests that some people are inherently incapable of the leap of faith required to accept God without empirical support (search for the phrase "god gene" to get some interesting reading material).  All the research on the mental and physiological effects of religious belief must be affected by the fact that the research subjects are wired to more easily accept the mode of thought necessary for true religious belief.  However, for someone like me (and I've tried the sincere religious belief thing before; it just doesn't work for me), religion would just be a lot of sacrifice for little to no benefit outside of a superficial affiliation with other people.

What you're saying by this appears to be that the present consciousness and your lifestyle choices put you in a comfort zone you don't want to get out of, or don't exercise faith to change because of your lack of belief.  And when you weigh that against the possibility that the religions are right and you could have eternal life (infinite happiness forever), you don't think it's worth the risk.

And faith and belief are two different things.  Many people doubt their churches, yet still live them and exercise faith in them.  Faith is hope.  The scriptures say that you plant your hope/faith like a seed and it will grow over time as you continue to exercise faith (notice the verb).  Faith is not something you have or don't have; it's something you do or don't exercise.

So I don't buy the argument that a person can or cannot believe.  They can always hope and act in accordance with hope.  It is just easier not to, regardless of whether eternal consequences await in the future.

Either you're not a mathematician, or you've attributed the possibility of there being an afterlife to a straight 0.

Remember the calculation.  Which is larger:
90%*Lotsa fun*80 years + 99%*No Fun/Very UnFun*infinity years <- you put your stakes on enjoying now, and either your afterlife is limbo (you're right) or hell (you're wrong)
or
50%Lotsa fun*80 years + .00000001%*Lotsa LOTSA fun* infinity years <- you put your stakes on living after death and either you hit the jackpot (you're right) or you're in limbo (you're wrong).

We can reduce this to a simple cost ratio - is the difference between living WITHOUT religion vs. living with religion greater or less than one percent times infinity?  Only when you are 100% undeniably certain you won't go to heaven does living without religion begin to pay off, and even then, you're ignoring the health benefits Heath brought up.

As an aside, Buddhism does look to be more restrictive than Catholicism.  It starts with no drinking and goes on from there.  But that's only the local temple we visited, I'm sure there are other varients.



Really?  Where have you read this?  I'd not heard of it and I'd be interested in seeing the research, if you have it on hand.



I would question the broad statement like that based on subjective experience.  Have you tried every spiritual path?  Have you tried psycho-spirituality?  If you haven't tried everything, it's difficult to put forward the assumption like that.  The path you tried didn't work (when you tried it), but there are many, many variables that would have an impact on this.

Not to mention that there's nothing that says religion, faith, even Christianity has to have a 40% reduction in 'fun'.  So I don't drink alcohol or have promiscuous sex.  It's a pretty childish take on life to say that is the ultimate in pleasure, and anything else is sacrifice.

I'd take the pleasure of being a father over those any day.

One of the things that is a tragedy of the modern church is that it has gone along with the idea that religion is supposed to be boring, and that we give up fun in exchange for eternity.

The pleasure of being wrapped up in worship and communion with my God is amazing, and there's no hangover the next day.

I've never looked at church as being boring. (And I certainly don't feel life as a christian as boring.) I see church as enjoyable, and often rewarding in the form of gathering with friends. (Plus there is the additional 'charge' from attending, and finding the service being encouraging, or challenged to follow more closely to God's way.)

There is an LDS scripture which states:  "God is that Man might be; and Man is that he might have joy."

True religious practice leads to the ultimate joy and happiness, in this life as well as in the next.  A rambunctious lifestyle without God leads to temporary pleasures and self-serving, but even in this life leads only to heartache, despair, and loathing.  So the rewards are not just heavenly in nature; they exist throughout life.

Of course, that is talking about the life actions you take, not "faith" in general.  Many atheists could live a life that follows the same guidelines as theists and avoid the same problems, although there may be some emptiness associated with it.

From a psychological standpoint, religion, or at least spirituality, does seem to be very important. Freud was fairly dismissive of religion, however his most famous student, Jung, holds religion and myth in very high regard and pretty much dedicated his career to examining the relation between the two.  From my reading, I'm not aware of any big names in the psychology community who seem to feel spirituality is bad, but quite a number who expound upon how good or even necessary it is.

Spirituality allows us to externalize our internal concerns, conflicts and difficulties in a safe method.  It also serves as a method of growth and self-discovery.

A study released last week also showed that people who have religion feel less lonely in life.

We can reduce this to a simple cost ratio - is the difference between living WITHOUT religion vs. living with religion greater or less than one percent times infinity?  Only when you are 100% undeniably certain you won't go to heaven does living without religion begin to pay off, and even then, you're ignoring the health benefits Heath brought up.

How does any of this counter the fact that god might not be the christian god, that god might be malicious and punish you regardless of what you believe, or that god might reward skepticism and punish blind faith?

Firstly, the equation is a question of believing in God or not on the assumption that there is a possibility you will be rewarded for belief alone.  It doesn't address which belief system to follow (nor does it have to).  The low probability accounts for the possibility of God NOT rewarding you for belief.  It also accounts for the possibility that God rewards you for a belief you didn't pick.



This should be addressed in a different equation, and it would require a study of the different religions.  Presumably, any religion that believes in reincarnation or the result of your belief has no bearing on your end location should not be followed, since your decision doesn't change whether you suffer eternal damnation or not, nor does it significantly change your odds of EVENTUALYL getting an eternal reward.  Rather, we should show preference for religions that give you ONE chance to choose, and you go to hell or heaven.  But as I said, it's a different equation.



This has been answered.  It's accounted for as being equivalent to believing in God when there is none (since your belief doesn't change the result).



This would be accounted for in the religion equation, with the addition of 'mysterious faiths no one has ever heard of'.  We'd have to assign a percentage chance to God not wanting people to believe in Him, or that God wants people to be independent thinkers.  This would require some substantial research and debate.  However, I think it would be fair to assume the odds of this are LOWER than the odds that God DOES want you to believe in Him.  If that is the case, the original equation keeps its original values, and the religion equation would simply have to be fine tuned to account for the possibility of the new religion - skepticism.

The only problem arises when we have reason to believe this skeptic God is MORE likely than a non-skeptic God, because at that point we add another percentage chance of infinite happiness to the other side of the equation with a higher cardinality than the infinite happiness on the 'Christian God' side of the equation.

Premise 1 - God exists
P2 - God wants humans to live up to their fullest potential
P3 - God created us (I use the term loosely here) with minds that are capable of various levels of cognitive functioning
P4 - Examining evidence and making conclusions based on available information uses a higher level of cognitive functioning than accepting conclusions on faith alone
Conclusion - God prefers that people base their conclusions on examining evidence and making conclusions based on available information

I have to say that the premises you give couldn't possibly lead to only one conclusion.

As well, premise #4 would seem to be added based on what you may believe. That's fine if you believe it, but it's a specific premise to lead to a conclusion. It is faith we're talking about in a way, so really no evidence is even needed to make any premise.

So if we're not bothering premises, can we still have a logical argument about the subject?

Sure we can. I think I used logic in making statements about your premises, no?

I was adding that part in to clarify that you don't need evidence to make those premises if that is what you were doing. Otherwise, I suppose I was disagreeing with the conclusion.

I would have to agree, your statement is deductive reasoning, not inductive, and is therefore hardly irrefutable logic.  You're also making a lot of unlisted assumptions.

Premise 1 - God exists
P2 - God wants humans to live up to their fullest potential
P3 - God created us (I use the term concretely here) with hearts that are capable of various levels of relational functioning.
P4 - Trusting in God because of who He is (faith) is a higher relational functioning than relating to Him based purely on intellectual knowledge.

Conclusion - God prefers that people get to know Him and out of that trust Him even when their natural senses or reason have trouble with it.

Another way to state it would be

P4 - Covenant relationship is a higher form of relational functioning than contractual relationship.

Conclusion - God prefers that people interact with Him based on covenant, rather than contract.


-Quixotic

I agree with Quix on this one.

It's not that Psychojosh's logic is particularly bad or anything.  The problem I see is that it pertains to functional reasoning.

Let's look at it again:

Or, even if not, there is still benefit to Man from faith.

Actually, the premise is that faith helps people to live up to their fullest potential.  God's will (although perhaps accurately stated) is not relevant to the logical reasoning here.

I would restate this as:
P3 - We exist with various levels of cognitive functioning that can be developed to a fullest potential, including the power to reason.


This is the problem.  There is a leap past logic into an unsupported conclusion here (i.e. it is not a premise).
I would state it as:
P4:  Developing the power to reason to its fullest potential requires a higher level of logical reasoning than accepting conclusions on faith alone.


Conclusion - Developing our reasoning abilities and looking at evidence and available information helps us develop to our full potential.

P5: Mankind is not in possession of all knowledge or intelligence.
Conclusion:  Where lack of knowledge or intelligence exists, man must use faith in established principles and beliefs to expand beyond the limits allowed by logical reasoning alone.

Conclusion 2: Exercising faith helps man develop further in reaching his ultimate potential than logical reasoning alone.

And thus we have just come back to prove premise 1: Even if God does not exist, there is still benefit to Mankind by exercising faith.
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:52, Thu 23 Mar 2006.

Thank you Heath for cleaning up my statements from before.  However...



I don't see why we must use faith to make up for lack of knowledge.  I'm not saying that it can't be a useful tool in some cases, but it can certainly be detrimental in some cases.  For example, faith in established principles helped to keep concepts like the divine right of kings and the geocentric universe around for so long.

That doesn't really work. How can one have faith, and complete knowledge. That's like saying you have faith in the ability to tie your shoes. Really, you have knowledge in the ability to tie your shoes.

You don't have knowledge you will live another day.
You have faith you will live another day.
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:55, Fri 24 Mar 2006.

Good point, but the "faith" depends on the subject, and that is why God's plan of genius includes a revealer of truth to help people understand if they are having faith in the right thing:  the Holy Ghost.  Plus, there is some logic to it.  Jesus said that by their works you will know them.  Therefore, having faith in something that yields to something logically not right (I'm thinking Muslim fanatics at the moment) doesn't follow with the principles of the religion.  I can't really think of a religion which, at its heart, has any evil intent or would lead to such bad results.  Unfortunately, those perversions are made by men twisting the religions...and then it is not faith, but pride and selfishness...which lead the way.

As an aside, and perhaps going off of a definition of faith no one else seems to be relying on right now, faith may not necessarily refer to the unknown, but rather to the unknowable.  The former simply covers those things we don't know, but one day might.  The latter is what we may 'know', but which is beyond conventional knowing; a reference to divine mysteries which transcend common understandings.

For instance, we "know" Jesus came back from the dead.  However, we don't truly grok it, it is not an experience our science, no matter how far it evolves, can study, dissect or explain, because Jesus' descent and return was not important because it was a literal journey, but a spiritual, internal one, unique to himself.  We "know" Buddha found the divine mysteries, but we cannot be told what those mysteries are, we can only discover them through faith.

Philosophy and religion can take us to the brink of that revelation, but that final step is, by definition, one we must take alone, as it is self-discovery.  That is the point where faith comes into play, and knowledge can serve as little more than a compass.

Found this while looking around the web today:

http://www.atheistfoxholes.org/individualendorsers.php

it's a list of soldiers who are offended by the "there are no atheists in foxholes" cliche that people toss about very casually.  They're atheist soldiers who feel their views shouldn't be belittled by this common (but unsubstantiated) claim.  Thoughts?

I saw briefly on the news recently a particular issue that came up, and despite my business in my personal life nowadays, I thought of this place.

Basically, there's a controversy over the new movie The Golden Compass. One of the antagonistic figures of the story is a extremely dogmatic church that's gone mad with power. In the novel, this was actually a successful but corrupt branch of the Catholic Church, but for the movie, I believe that they downplayed the Christian ties altogether, for PC sake, and made it something of an ambiguous depliction.

Of course, this has set some religious groups afire, protesting the movie and novel as degrading to Christianity, and it "promotes atheism in kids." Now that struck me to write this.

There's a lot of movies that deplict a Christian view of the world and say faith in a church is good. But, here's a movie that deplicts an out of control faith-based organization, and arguably disagrees with organized religion in general, and this sparks protest, this goes too far.

In this day and age, where we're supposed to accept people, regardless of their beliefs (or independant from them), and be respectful to those sorts of choices, is there anything wrong with promoting atheism? If children are constantly being promoted through the various media outlets Christian values and doctrine, is there anything wrong with teaching them the atheistic prospective as well?
This message was last edited by the player at 18:02, Sun 09 Dec 2007.

Personally, I believe it is horribly wrong to teach children ANY religious belief or lack of belief, and that includes atheism and agnosticism (which is my religious philosophy). What religious beliefs to follow are among the more important decisions we have to make in life. Therefore, they are decisions that should be made by mature adults for themselves, and not to be imposed upon children by adults taking advantage of their position as the children's guardians.

Oh, and one more thing, I don't believe the Golden Compass teaches atheism any more than Harry Potter teaches devil worship. It's just a movie, a work of fiction, for crying out loud, and the only reason there's any controversy about it is because fanatics of all types can't stand anything that doesn't fit into their worldview.

For once, Falkus, you and I agree.

As for churches gone mad with power, look at the state of politics today. With the way faith has been mentioned by our presidental hopefuls, you'd think we were trying to put a priest in office. Seriously, I think it is ridiculous. I'd vote for an atheist if I thought he (or she) could lead our country well.

Make no mistake; that series of books strike a chord.

From my perspective there is something wrong about teaching to deny God. I understand that tolerance is the new most popular term in society today. I think that can be very confusing for many people though. They think tolerance is the same thing as acceptance. That loving someone requires you accept the bad if you "really" love them.

So I can understand why someone would protest a book, or movie, or a law, etc and still love someone who is involved with that issue.

From my perspective there is something wrong about teaching to deny God.

No more wrong than teaching them to accept god.

I heard about this contraversy too, and that the movies had downplayed the role of religion that was in the books, and was rather disappointed.  I quite liked the books, and I hope the movies do them justice, which is always hard when books are made into movies.  I have no idea how they're going to downplay the role of religion in the third book, but I suppose it can probably be done in the first.  Mostly I'm just disappointed that they caved to the protestors and watered down the story.  Understandable from a business perspective, of course, but disappointing to those of us who actually liked the books.

Anyway, I'm sort of with Falkus on the idea of not encouraging religious belief (or lack thereof) of any kind in kids, but that really only makes good sense from an atheist/agnostic view point.  For those who feel their religion is the only way to some infinite reward, letting their kids "make up their own minds" is just too big a risk.  Limiting their freedom here on earth is a small price to pay for the everlasting happiness they'll get in the next life.  So while I wish everyone would just let kids be kids, and let them worry about religion when they're old enough to contemplate such things, I don't think it's actually realistic to expect or ask religious people do so.  From their point of view, they're doing what's best for the child.

As for whether the people protesting the film should be more tolerant, again, yes, in my ideal universe they would be, but it's unrealistic to expect them to be so.  If you believe what they believe, they're doing what's right.  As TitL points out, tolerance of other ideas isn't really a christian value at the end of day, it's a secular one (and a fairly modern one, to boot).  That's not to say there aren't any tolerant christians (or tolerant people of other religions), as there most certainly are.  However, their religion teaches 'X is right, Y is wrong, Z is an abomination, etc.,' and it's presumably other influences (eg, laws, documents like the declaration of independence, civil rights movements, concepts like fairness, and just interacting with people different from them) that teach them things like religious tolerance, personal liberties, etc.

Hadn't been part of the Pascal's wager discussion at the start of this thread, so I thought I'd add some thoughts.

First, the problem with the wager is that it involves infinite expectations/means, which generally leads to problems.  For example, consider this game: "You flip a coin, if it comes up tails, you stop and the game is over.  If it comes up heads, I give you a dollar, and you flip again.  If it's tails, you stop, if it's heads, I give you two dollars, and you flip again.  Then four dollars for a heads, then 8, then 16, and so on.  As long as you keep getting heads, you keep getting twice as much as you did last time."  Now, the question is: how much should you be willing to play this game?  The traditional answer to that kind of question is "any amount less than the expected/mean reward."  But in this case, expected value of the reward is infinite.  Would you be willing to pay an infinite amount to play this game?  Obviously not.  Would you be willing to pay a million dollars to play this game?  Not unless you got to play it many, many, many times.  Decisions based on expected values break down when you have infinities involved.  Another example is:  There are two envelopes with money in them.  One has twice as much money as the other in it.  I let you pick one envelope, open it up, and then decide if you want to take the other envelope or keep the one you have.  No matter which envelope you choose, the expected value of switching is (.5+2)/2=1.25 times the amount in the envelope you open, so you "should" switch.  But if you were going to switch no matter what, why not choose the other envelope to begin with?  Again, this is a problem of infinite expected values.  Since there was no stated limit to amount in either envelope, the expected value of each is infinite, since there's even chance of any number.  Basing your decision on the mean leads to nonsensical actions when infinite expected values are present.

Pascal's wager is the same way.  Not that it doesn't matter at all what the options are.  If one of them involves a non-zero chance of infinite reward, you "should" take it according to his reasoning.  We could have a "Tycho's wager" in which I argue that you should smash all your fingers with a hammer, because if you do, God will give you eternal life.  As long as you assume it's even remotely possible that I'm right, then you "should" do it.  A slightly less silly example is that you can make a Pascal's wager for every religion that promises eternal life.  But at the same time, could make a similar wager against all religions, due to eternal punishments predicted by different sects.

The only way to make Pascal's wager actually work is to ascribe some finite value to the rewards/punishments, which would probably be completely speculative.

At the end of the day we know Pascal's wager doesn't actually work, because even the people who promote it have things they don't believe which could be put into a similar wager.  It's a tool used to make an argument, but I doubt anyone has ever actually been converted to religion based on the concept.  As was pointed out earlier in the thread, if your religious views are based on making the 'safe bet,' I can't imagine God is going to be particularly impressed anyway.

I don't think it's intolerant for a church to say 'hey, this movie does not promote Christian values!  You people who this message is aimed at (Christians), don't see this movie if you are looking to cement Christian values in your children or if you do not want to financially support anti-Christian things!'  I mean, if it's just a really bad movie, or say it has a lot of sex in it, I'd like to know that too.  If I'm going to spend my time or money on something, I kinda want to know ahead of time if it's really a good investment.  If my interests include fighting bears and Christianity, hearing this message is probably good for me.  I haven't heard anyone saying 'hey, let's boycott this movie!' or 'lets petition theaters not to run it!'  So it isn't really intolerant.  It's just giving a head's up or a review.

I've not read the books (although I want to) nor seen the movie (might put it on netflix), so I can't comment on how anti-Christian it may or may not be.  I've seen things going either way.  Some people say it's clear the antagonist is a copy of the Catholic Church, others say it's a hierarchal church like the RCC, however it was created by an evil angel who split off from God (so it would be the devil-worshiping version of the RCC).

As an interesting note, when Elizabeth came out (the movie about Queen Lizzie), it very clearly painted the RCC as evil, but Protestants as mostly okay.  Of course, the RCC said 'hey, this movie casts Catholics in a bad light'.  In fact, I would argue that that movie was VERY intolerant, because it really did portray every individual Catholic and Catholic priest as a greedy, violent thug, and it seriously hampered my enjoyment of the movie.  However, I didn't see any Protestants saying 'hey, this is portraying our brothers in a bad light, let's not see it either' (some didn't support it because of the sex and violence though).  Take that as you will.

Well, I would argue it's not the lack of christian "values" that is causing people to tell others not to see it, but the depiction of an unnamed-but-catholic-looking church that commits evil acts.  And perhaps also the depiction of a world in which people can get by without a religious belief.


People have been:
http://www.pr-inside.com/catho...-compass-r282587.htm


I would say it's not anti-christian, but probably is anti-church.  "The Church" in the book resembles the Catholic church in it's power, ornaments, structure, etc., but not in its beliefs or actions.

The problem with this idea is that it completely ignores that the values of a human being are programmed when they are children.  So this is like asking them not to learn how to read and write until they are adults so they can choose to do so.  How far would that get them?

Teach them a religion, give them various perspectives, and let them strike out on their own when they're adults.  But above all, teach them to have a relationship with God when they are young so that they will pray to know what is right (religion and everything else) as they get older.

    I went and saw the movie Saturday after receiveing an email to boycott it.  I've always found boycotts disturbing.  I don't fault people who follow their concience and participate in them, unless they tell me I "have to" participate if I want to be obedient to God.  I think the bible is pretty clear that Jesus went were sinners were and he didn't just go there to preach to them.  The religious people of Jesus' day said he was a "friend" of sinners, so he must have been doing a bit more than just haning out.

    Anyway, about the movie.  I kind of wish I hadn't heard the protests before going to see it, because I went looking for the anti-Christian message.  Here's basically what the email said.  It said the author (I forget the name) wrote the books as a response to the Narnia Chronicles because he didn't like the blatantly Christian message.  The email also said the the author was a vocal athiest and offered "The Golden Compass" as an alternative to the Christian influance of C.S. Lewis' works.  I have not confirmed this I'm just stating what I was told.  I was also asked to boycott the movie and any theater that would show it.  As I said, I went right out and saw it. :p

     Whether you're looking for it or not, the anti-established religious message is there.  In one part Nichole Kidman's character who is supposed to represent "The Ministry" (a corrupt orgaization staffed by men and women dressed very conspicuously like Catholic clergy and who force thier will on people through intimidation, fear and murder) gives a "gospel" message.  I can't quote it exactally but the message was that long ago our ancestors made a huge mistake and "dust" (a substande that is fairly undefined in the movie except to show that it is a key to traveling to other dimentions).  The dust didn't effect children until they reached a certain age, but when it settled on them it made them think and do terrible things.  So The Ministry has come up with a way to make it so "dust" can no longer effect us.  The cure, it turns out, is to seperate the children from TGC's version of the human soul which renders the child in a state called "indecision", basically fearful, mindless followers.  Of course the good guys are all academics who defy the Ministy who are unashamedly wicked, powermad people who will stop at nothing to destroy people's "free-will".

     The film makers, it seemed to me, went out of their way to be the anti-Narnia just as the book is proported to do.  In Narnia, the ice queen is a wicked queen who employs, among other animals, Polar bears to fight against Aslan (the aligorical Christ figure).  In TGC, the main character's champion is a noble polar bear.  In TGC whiches are on the side of right, while they Ice Queen (aligorical Satan figure) in Narnia is, of course, a witch.  Now whether or not I noticed these differences because I was notified of the proported intentions of the author, or because they were intentional, I can't say.



I would disagree, I think the values of the author/producers/director or whoever responsible for the script made no bones about the message in the story.  However I would say this, there is also a theme of redemption and loyalty that is good in the movie.  A pastor friend of mine took his kids to see the movie, not knowing it's thesis, and was disappointed that a movie with such a good message of friendship and loyalty would have an underlying message that the church is more a bondage than a help.

     Another reason for not boycotting is, where do you stop?  I know a few people who are "christians" who have told me not to "support" this movie who religiously watch "24".  I remember watching the first season of "24" on thier recommendation and was disappointed by the futility of the message.  No matter how hard the main character fought, he always seemed to have to do the wrong thing for the right reason, and in the end, he lost his wife and had to shoot his friend.  I found it quite depressing, and not something that promoted Christian values at all (on top of the fact the main character was cheating on his wife).  My point isn't to slander "24" but to just point out that there isn't much anymore that promotes christian ethics in society, especially on television and in movies, so we'd pretty much have to hole ourselves up in our churches and be culturally irrelevant.  Oh wait, perhaps that's where we are already. ;p

BTW, I agree with Heath on the childrearing issue.  anyone who has children or cares for children should have no problem believing in an inborn sin nature.  I never taught my child to sneak candy, punch his sister or throw temper tantrums in the grocery store.  He just somehow figured it out on his own.  To me that's pretty strong evidence that we're born bent toward wanting our own way and wrong behavior.  Besides the fact that they learn and comprehend far more than we give them credit for at young ages and ask many more questions and are more curious than in later years.  Studies show that most people by the time they're 16 yrs old have pretty much decided what their life philosophy is.  Thats why us wicked christians do vacation bible school!  Get em indoctrinated while they're young! ;p

That's kind of what I'm saying.  From your perspective, you're right to teach them right away.  "Program" them when they're young, as you say.  I'm guessing you would think it's right to teach them to pray, but wouldn't, say, teach them to participate in some religion that specifically denies yours.  Thats the whole point.  You're sure your right, so you want to make sure your children are right too.  So you "program" them with your religion as soon as you can.  Ideas like "I don't know if I'm right or wrong, so I'll let the kid make up their own mind without my programming when they're older" is much more along the lines of agnosticism or atheism.  Depending on what your starting assumptions are, you'll be "right" in taking different actions.  So while I agree with Falkus and think the world would be better off if kids weren't "programmed" with religion like they are now, I know it's unreasonable to expect or even ask the followers of religion to agree to that.

Lastly, just to be a bit of a stinker, I'll draw attention to your last line: ...pray about what is right (religion and everything else). I think you know what I mean by that.  ;)

I try to be most careful where I put my money because that's where the power comes from.

For example, I refused to spend any money to watch Bowling For Columbine in the theaters because it is full of lies and propaganda, but I watched it on cable TV to make sure my earlier opinion was accurate (it was).

Same thing with movies that have different values.  I won't spend my money to give them profit.  Maybe I'll watch it to see what it's all about, but only when it's free.

Problem is with mixed items.  For example, I have HBO (for free right now), and I like some of the broadcasts, but others I find to be borderline offensive and inaccurate (like "Big Love") or extremely offensive (adult programming on HBO).  So the question is whether I continue to pay for it or not when my free trial is up...by the same token, I like to watch Big Love to see what inaccuracies are being promoted and what people on the street think.  In one episode, I started counting the inaccuracies, and found 36, everything from the way words were pronounced to doctrinal misrepresentations.

That's kind of what I'm talking about.  It's anti-church, but not anti-christian, if that makes any sense.  The actions/morals it is in favor of are ones that fit with christian actions/morals.  What it's against is the organization--the human aspect of religion more than the specific beliefs of christians (eg, resurrection, forgiveness, etc).

It's not really a matter of being right or wrong though.  It's a matter of teaching them something -- anything -- that cherishes values, family, morals, and things that are good in the world, even if it's for no other reason than establishing them within a good subculture and good examples and helping them understand their own heritage.

The talk about who is "right" or "wrong" is also indicative of atheistic/agnosticism, not so much Christian or religious thinking.  There is some goodness and truth to any religion.  It is better that than nothing at all.

I think the data is pretty overwhelming that teaching children morals when they're young and especially when those morals are lived out by both the mother and the father before those children, that the chances they will make poor life choices (ugh!  I hate politically correct statements like that.  Wish I had a fog horn!) is far less than in children and especially teens who are left to their own devices.  Now you might say that we can teach morals without teaching religion, but I think they're pretty hollow.  Why be good, and who decides what is good or bad?  At some point you have to go back to a "faith" system of some kind.

I think you guys are equating "religion" with "morals."  I'm not advocating, and I don't think Falkus is either, that children not be taught morals.  Though you may not believe it, it is very much possible to be a moral atheist or agnostic.

Good in who's eyes?  Who are you comparing yourself to?  Me?  Heath?  Gandi?  Hitler?  Mother Theresa?  Bill Clinton?  Your neighbor?  Your boss?  How do you even define "good" and "moral" as an athiest or agnostic?

Good in who's eyes?  Who are you comparing yourself to?  Me?  Heath?  Gandi?  Hitler?  Mother Theresa?  Bill Clinton?  Your neighbor?  Your boss?  How do you even define "good" and "moral" as an athiest or agnostic?

As I've said many, many, many, MANY times before on this forum: there are actually ethical philosophies not based on religion. I myself am an utilitarian.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:59, Mon 10 Dec 2007.

Yes, and the natural law theory in at least one form supports a similar atheist morality.

But the point, I think, is that this is far more than morality.  Building a spiritual foundation of faith is not only important from the spiritual perspective, but also for the psychological well being of a person.  Statistically, a religious person is more likely to not be depressed, engaged in immorality, or fall into other such trappings, partly because of a faith in God as well as the morality involved.  Such people are generally happier.  Why not teach children a way (i.e. religion) that will make them happier in the end?  If they choose to reject it later, so be it.

Can you give a citation for all that?  Particularly the "engaged in immorality" part, and perhaps be more specific on "fall into other such trappings."  As for the depression angle, I'd be interested to know if that's for people who were raised with religion but no longer have it, or for people who never had religion as part of their life.  If the study you're talking about doesn't separate the two groups, it's difficult to make any conclusions on this issue.


Because of the exact reason you mentioned earlier:  "programming."  At a young age, children will accept what you tell them because you tell it to them, rather than because they've given is sufficient thought to make that decision for themselves.  The chances that they'll choose to reject it later are much smaller, which means they're also much less likely to accept something else which might make them even happier (be it a different religion, or a lack of religion, or whatever else).
This message was last edited by the player at 13:19, Tue 11 Dec 2007.

Under any reasonable definition of the word, really.  I'm sure you know "bad" christians, and "good" people of religions that aren't the same as yours.  Most people tend to judge someone's "goodness" or "badness" based on their actions, rather than their beliefs.  Being a thief and a murder is still bad, even if you pray for forgiveness every night (and get it), and being kind, fair, and honest is still good, even if don't.  It might not get you to heaven, but that's not what I'm talking about.  Like I said, I'd prefer to leave that part of it up to the child when they're no longer a child, because I don't claim to have the answer.  I wouldn't want to lead them astray.  People who do claim to have the answer naturally do want to "program" their children to believe the same thing.  Like I said, it's not reasonable for me to ask religious people to have the same view on this as me, because mine is based on the idea that I might be wrong, whereas most religious people don't think it all likely that they're wrong about their religion (despite that fact that we know that most of them are wrong, just by the fact that none of them are in the majority!--ie, no matter who's right, most people believe something else).

engaged in immorality,

Oh, well this a rich argument. Because, you see, as a christian, you believe that simply being a non-christian is being engaged in immoral behavior.

because of a faith in God as well as the morality involved.

Since I have a strong dislike of much of christian morality (and believe that many christians are good in spite of it, not because of it), this is not the sort of argument that's going to convince me.

Why not teach children a way (i.e. religion) that will make them happier in the end?

Because it's the equivalent of brain washing. People should be allowed to make choices for themselves, not have them forced upon you by your parents. Should we force political beliefs upon our children as well, punish them if they don't vocally support democrats or republicans?

I think it's funny I'm quoted in debates I'm not even partaking in :P  I must be popular!  katisara = disagreement ;P

Whoa, how did that happen?  I didn't think I was replying to Katisara when I wrote it!  Must have still had it in the cut-and-paste clipboard.  Sorry, I'll go back and fix it!  Apologies to both Katisara and Heath for the confusion.

Not a problem, I was just really amused.  I'm honestly laughing about it, so no worries.  Makes me wonder if I'm playing devil's advocate too well though :P

We discussed it a couple years ago when rogue was around on one of the threads.  I think it might have been the homosexuality thread.  At the time, we cited sources.

That's a false statement.  That's not what the LDS church believes at all.


So you are saying that acting in a morally upright way disgusts you in some fashion?  You would rather be around those who give into their every lusts and desires?  It seems to me that such types of amoral behavior lead to selfish behaviors that typically do not help the general good and would be less appreciated by both theists and atheists alike.

Children are incapable in every way of making such decisions.  Why don't you just hand them the car keys and let them make the decision if they want to drive?  Why don't you hand them matches and let them make the decision of whether to light them? What you're saying does not strike me as something someone would say who understands how children work.


This is a red herring.  That issue doesn't apply here.

You program children from the instant they are born.  It is better to program them with what you think is right than nothing at all.  If that makes them have a slimmer chance of changing later, that's irrelevant.  All that does is put more importance on MY DECISION to teach them and WHAT I TEACH THEM.  Therefore, I have even a greater responsibility to try to make sure I teach them truth.  To teach them nothing is to be no parent at all.  Might as well turn them over to the state and Big Brother.

This is pretty much exactly what I've been saying.  From your point of view, the point of view that claims to know "what is right" on this issue, it's clear you should do what you say.  I've said a number of times now I don't think it makes sense to ask you or other religious people to not teach your children your religion.  Like I said, since you belief you know what's right, it's natural that you would teach them that.  Only people who admit a lack of certainty would see the value in letting children come to their own conclusions on this.

Also, I would point out that not teaching a child a particular religion isn't the same as teaching them nothing.  You can teach them how to weigh the various inputs that lead to ones decision, and teach them that different people believe different things, but no one knows for certain, you can teach them what different people believe, and why they believe it.  You can do all of that without saying "and this is what is true."

You use the car example earlier, which I think is apt.  You don't let your kids drive when they're five.  They're not ready for it.  It's too much responsibility to put in the hands of a young child.  Religions, from the point of view of those of us who don't claim to have proof on the matter, are similar.  It takes a certain level of maturity in order to weigh the various possibilities.  People who, like Falkus and I, think it would be better to let kids make up their own minds when their old enough realize that no matter who happens to be right, most people are wrong about their religion.  And we realize that we're just as human as all of them, so to assume that we're right and everyone else is wrong is dangerous.  We'd rather let people weigh the data, think about, and make up their own minds, rather than have their minds made up before their ready by their parents.  Again, though, it's an issue of point of view.  If you think there's no real chance that you're wrong, you don't look at things the same ways you would if think there is, in fact,  a non-trivial chance.

That's a bit vague.  If you want to convince me, you'll have to dig'em up.  I'm guessing it's not quite as cut-and-dry as you remember.

But Christians do get a bit of leeway here that isn't really afforded to atheists. A few in this thread have insinuated that giving children the atheistic outlook is harmful to a child. It's been insinuated as amoral, even if it wasn't said explicitly. And no one seemed to make a big deal about that except the atheist.

But then, the shoe went on the other foot, falkus suggested Christianity might be harmful, and even Health, whom I consider to be a very reasonable Christian, seems to get offended. Don't you think atheists get a little offended when people out and out call them undignified amoralists and their beliefs harmful to society? In America especially, Christianity often gets this free ride, this "Christianity is moral and that's a given, that's a fact" outlook. And atheism is this crazy cult that'll come and kidnap your children and send them to hell. A bit exaggerated, yes, but it does seem like Christianity does have a bit of public bias going for it.

I'm not against organized religion persay. I think it can help bring value into ones life, and it's simply healthy to have a community to go to, for support and guidance. But, I don't think it's necessary for a happy healthy life either, or for moral development. I myself have had no such community growing up, that I think grew up alright. I'm sure many of the members of this board might be a little skeptical about just how moral or healthy I might be, and I guess that's understandable, cause I really can't prove it here. But, let me just say, I abide by the laws of our nation, I respect authority, I have a good relationship with my friends and family, I'm a rather accomplished student of psychology, I try to be as compliant and courteous as I can be, and I highly value modesty. I'm confident in myself, I love life, and I've never had a bout of depression, even though it runs rampantly through my family. I even vote (how many 22 year olds do that?). Granted, those can be out and out lies, which would be a reasonable conclusion if you're assuming I'm amoral and trying to break your point. Let this be known though: my family never pushed any religion whatsoever on me. They never preached to me about Christ or read me passages from the Bible. Everything I learend about Christianity I learned on my own, through my own searching and initiative. And I still do search. I'm not proposing that this way is superior, just that it can be done.

I feel people don't give children enough credit sometimes. Though unwise in ther early years, they do pick up on things, and are often far more intelligent and observant than people give them credit for. They can come to their own conclusions. It's a parent's job to inform them about the available choices, and hopefully, they'll come to the same conclusion you did.

It has been said that people who belong to a church are statistically happier than those that don't, and I'm not going to deny that, cause I do believe that to be true. But, my reasoning is probably different. I don't believe it's so much the connection to God that makes them happier as so much as just having a positive outlook, and a feeling of meaning in one's life. In my view, Christians make themselves happier. Churches sometimes downplay the importance and power of the individual, that one person, all on his or her own, can do great things. It doesn't take God to live a rich fulfilling life. A person can do that on their own, with the right motevation, conviction, and attitude.

And, for the record, I do feel some beliefs (not religions per say, but beliefs) can be harmful. I disagree with teaching to a child any faith that takes away from the power to question things, the world, and the faith itself. I'll leave to you to decide what faiths those are.

I think you're mixing up people.

I did not say that atheism is immoral or amoral at all.  I said exactly the opposite from the beginning.

So even if I did get upset, it wouldn't be inconsistent.

But I didn't get upset with his opinion either.  I simply said it didn't apply as to the LDS church at least.

I can agree that certain religious tenets can be very zealous and harmful to children.  But it is not an across the board thing.  This is why I come back to the fact that the responsibility is on the parents to try to make sure what they teach is right, and then to make sure they teach what they believe is right to their children.

No one's perfect, and no parent's teachings are perfect, but it is through the imperfections that the children grow to learn.

I really don't remember.  We were discussing something, and I posted a link to a study showing how prayer and faith of any sort and from any religion has a calming effect psychologically and how it positively affects the brainwaves, and it discussed the helpful nature of religion on people from a pure psychological perspective.

Okay, I agree...but even if you lack certainty, it's good to teach at least to the limits you know to be true.

I had a friend who was not religious but wanted his kids to have some kind of exposure to religion, so he sent his kids to church with us so that at least they'd have that exposure.  I think not giving kids that kind of exposure only hurts them in the long run...if for no other reason than their own ignorance of what really goes on.

Not really.  Children learn first and foremost by example.  If you don't practice what you preach, they take it as not important to you.  You also can't teach someone to think as you mention above without actually taking them through the process.


...on their own, yes, which is why they don't get a choice until they're old enough...

Most people are actually right about their religion.  The vast majority of any religion is good.  There may be small problems or untruths here or there, but you don't through out the baby with the bathwater.


Again, see above.  WE point out small differences.  It's not a black and white, right or wrong issue.  You're oversimplifying.


Again, I am surely wrong about a few things here or there, but that's not really the point.  My teachers teach my children untruths too, yet I don't pull them out of school and tell them to go back when they are old enough to make a decision on whether they want to go.

Hmm..seems I wasn't clear on this point. I wasn't trying to imply that Health did say that about atheists (though, a few members of this board did certainly imply it).

When I mentioned Health, I was only really referencing this:


This wasn't a point to say Health was insulting atheism, but rather, assuming that his beliefs in fact are healthy, not selfish, and disciplined. It was an example I was using to make one particular point: it always seems to be the atheist that has to prove their beliefs aren't harmful. For Christians, it's simply implied that they are, a given that they never have to prove. This to me shows a social bias.

And by the way, I can't tell what Health was was thinking at the time, it does to me seem to imply a degree of offense. It's a leap of logic to say that a disliking of Christian values means advocating an amoral hedonistic existance.

Actually, I think that's exactly what it means.  If you reject Christian morality, then you are rejecting:  abstinence, abstaining from alcohol (sometimes) or drugs, etc. etc.

These are the "morals" of the religion, not the principles, tenets or dogmas.  So if you find these morals to your disliking, by default it seems to advocate an amoral, hedonistic existence.

Either that or you like the Christian morals but dislike the dogma.  But you can't reject the morals and claim the morals at the same time.

I just coincidentally saw this article today, which is along the same lines as my earlier claim (although this one is about going to church weekly):

http://www.livescience.com/hea...403_church_good.html


On the flip side, this kind of made me laugh (when others pray for you just before bypass surgery, the chance of you having a complication goes up):  http://www.livescience.com/str...p_060330_prayer.html


Here's another interesting one:  http://www.scienceblog.com/cms...s-prayers-12790.html

Here's another one I just dug up:  http://www.plim.org/PrayerDeb.htm

So the power of prayer has been subject to scientific inquiry, and the atheist response was that the results are what they expect to be a placebo effect.

Even atheists thus seem to acknowledge the positive effect of prayer on the individual, regardless of the existence of God.
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:01, Tue 11 Dec 2007.

In my view at least, reasons can matter. For example, when looking at that little fact that Christians are happier, you and I can both agree, but our reasoning can be different as for why it's true. I believe it's because Christians aquire a sort of peace of mind through the process, while another person might say it's the connection to God. Sure, we might agree with the fact, and in that reguard, the reason might not matter. However, the implications that can be made by the differences in reasons can mean a world of difference in other areas.

Furthermore, it seems arrogant to call these particular values exclusively Christian, at least to me. "If you're drug-free, you're just taking from Christianity". If I decide not to sleep with the first man I see, it's not because of the health considerations, or the lack of desire to bring a child into this world under those circumstances, but because "I'm ahearing to Christian values". I think that's a very inaccurate way to look at things.

By not liking Christian values, perhaps he's simply rejecting the whole set of them, not every moral and value individually. likewise, he might not agree with the reasoning of "God says it thus it's moral/immoral."
This message was last edited by the player at 20:06, Tue 11 Dec 2007.

   OOOHH!  Look at the can of worms I cracked open!  ;p  Fun!


    I'm not going to quote anyone because a few people have made some reference to this idea, and Heath has pretty well debunked it, but I just wanted to throw a thought out as a response to the idea of not teaching a child about your religious beliefs and letting them "figure it out when they're older".  All religion, Christianity probably topping the list, affects how you view the world.  You cannot, in my opinion, not teach children your values because they see them in your everyday life.  Even if you don't preach them to your children, you speak voulumes to them every day when it comes to how you live.  I see this whole line of response as a red herring to get away from the original question.  If you have children, and they live with you and you spend time with them, your passing on your values to them or your not living your values in your daily life, which would mean they weren't really your values.

    I'm going to ask it again.  Where do you get this "morality" from.  How do you even define it?  Who makes it?  Who gets to say what's "moral" or "immoral"?  Falkus, you can tell me how you've said something many many times, but just because you said it doesn't make it true.  I can just say something else many times too.  I'm asking you athiests where you get your "morality" from.  How do you know what you believe to be "moral" is actually "moral"?

I could buy what your'e saying about kids and parenting, Jude. Even if you try to, there's bound to be some unconscience baises towards your own beliefs. I don't think you should hide your beliefs from children, for that's being dishonest. A parent should be allowed to live their life as they should. I would simply hope that they don't send the message that all other ways of doing things are unacceptable.

Well, I'm not an atheist per say, but speaking as an individual who doesn't believe in divine relevation or insight into matters of morality, I'd say I decide what's moral myself, through my own observations and judgements. From seeing how certain actions affect others, and how it sways my own emotions.

Do I 'know' it to be moral? No, no I don't, and I often question my own beliefs and sometimes my opinions and conclusions change, depedning on the things I've expereinced and seen. I believe there's some wisdom in not assuming your way of doing things is the right one.

I'm going to ask it again.  Where do you get this "morality" from.

I get it from utilitarianism. Others have their own philosophies.

How do you even define it?

The best course of action is that which results in the greatest increase in happiness for the greatest number of people.

Who makes it?

It's the result of thousands of years of philosophical development. The basis originated with Epicurus.


Who gets to say what's "moral" or "immoral"?

Me. I make the judgments. I do not answer to a priest or a pope, I have to determine the best course of action for each situation as it occurs, because they are all different.

How do you know what you believe to be "moral" is actually "moral"?

Right back at you. Your religion has been responsible for many, many atrocities over the last two thousands. Witch hunts, crusades, the inquisition. How can you be so sure what you believe is actually moral?

Jude, Divine command morality theory is just one of many, many, many different theories of morality. Perhaps you should do some research on the others, rather than continue to be 'incredulous' that I can have a code of morality that does not originate with a deity.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:26, Tue 11 Dec 2007.

     I thank you for your honesty, and I would agree with you in that there is a value to being open to being wrong.  As hard as this may be to believe, I hold to that even in my Christian faith.  While I believe infatically that God exists and would never doubt it, I also am certain that I don't know everthing about Him or His ways and purposes.  I certainly don't have all the answers.  The things I can be sure of, however, are the things that please Him and the things that don't.

     I heard someone recently say this and I thought it was a very good explination of God's "morality".

When God says "Don't" He is really saying, "Don't hurt yourself".

     I think too often God gets a bad rap for the don'ts because people have used the don'ts to elevate themselves above others and lord them over others.  Falkus, your absolutely right, horrible things have been done to people and by people in the name of Chritianity and just about every other religion and philosopy.  Even your unitarianism, which is the foundation of Communism if I remember my high school governments class correctly (it's been a while).  I don't think you can find a system of belief, devine or not, that hasn't had it's share of extremists and wackos.

      And that is why its difficult for me to believe that you, as a mere human being would leave something as astronomically important as what is right and wrong to "I'm not really sure."  None of us humans are infallable, so how could ultimate good or rightness ever come from us?  The best we can hope to cling to is idealism, which is something unatainable, and if we all individually are responsible for deciding what's moral or right for ourselves, then who's ever really wrong?  By your own system of justice, how can you fault Christians who blow up abortion clinics for doing what they think is "morally right"?  They're just doing what they sincerely believe is the right and best thing to make the most people happy aren't they?

      There is something inside of us as human beings that longs for rightness.  Granted we don't always follow it, but it's the reason that movies with a happy ending do better than those where everyone dies and the hero is defeated.  On a whole, even people who would be considered morally bankrupt who create movies that promote promiscuity and debauchery will still have hints of morality intertwined.  In another thread we were talking about the movie "The Golden Compass" and I commented there that it was suprising to me that someone who was so adamantly opposed to a Christian worldview would include traits like loyalty, self-sacrifice and justice in the core of their story.  Now I know that statement will raise your hackles a bit Vexen, but let me say for the record, I know many poeple who are not Christian and even a few who would consider themselves agnostics that are, by human standards, good people.  They don't steal, murder, cheat, lie, etc, etc.  I'm not saying they can't BE good people, I just don't understand WHY they would want to be good people.

     Without a perfect, divine creator it just seems like there would be no real reason to be moral.  At the end of your life, what have you gained?  It wouldn't be friends, because I guaruntee you Hugh Hefner has lots of friends, money too.  So what does it gain you?  A sense of accomplishment?  Who would care?  So what if your better than your neighbor or your boss?  There's someone out there that's better than you, so in the end your always second in line.  I'm not "incredulous" about anything, I genuinely don't understand.  Perhaps it's because I was raised Catholic and later became a penticostal, so I have alway had an understanding of God from a child.

     The point I'm getting at is, Falkus said he doesn't have to answer to a pope or priest, and your right, you don't.  But if Christianity is correct, then you will have to answer to God.  Now before you go off on me threatening you with damnation, that's not what I'm saying.  Where you spend eternity isn't any of my business, nor is it my decision, and ultimatly, it's not God's decision either.  It's yours.  See, that's what it means when I say don't means don't hurt yourself.  God knows that the things He tells us not to do will ultimatly lead to our harm and ruin, yet because He desires free agents to give love to Him, he has created a system by which you may choose to love Him or not, to serve Him or not, and because He created you in His own image and breathed life into you by His own spirit, you have innate traits of God in you.  One of them is a desire for justice and what I'm calling "morality".  You can't get away from it even if you decide not to believe.  Still something within you longs for justice and truth.  It's what seperates us from the animals, and while we do see some animals that will fight for another animal's safety and take in another animal's child to raise if the parent dies, you don't see things like charity, worship, and longing for purpose in animals.  It just isn't there.  But it is in us as humans, and nothing in the DNA code accounts for it.  It in our soul, because God put it there.  Now you can choose to believe that or not, and if you choose not to believe it, you'll still try and live up to your own moral code.  The only difference is, when you finally come to the end of your life and you find out that God was real all along, you'll have no excuse for not believing in Him, because we've had this conversation, and your making the choice to believe or not to believe right now.  This is a moment in history where God will be able to point to and say, "You chose to reject Me, to believe I was just a fabrication of men."

         Maybe you'll say you lived a moral life, but none of us has lived a perfect life, and if the Bible is true, that's what Jesus did, so he's the standard.  Now if you don't believe the bible is true, that's fine, you don't have to, but one day you'll find out the truth, and then it will be too late.  What if I'm wrong you might ask.  What if I'm the decieved one and not seeing the "facts" clearly?  What if we are just worm turf when we die?  Then I wil have lived a great life, helping an loving people and missed out on none of the pain associeated with "immoral" living.  I'll have children that know how to live a life free of those bondages and vices, just like you did.  See Christians are covered both ways. :p

     As far as doing whatever makes the most people happy, give me a break.  You'll run yourself into an early grave with that one.  And so if what makes the most people happy is for Falkus to crawl on his belly or eat worms for the rest of his life, will you be bound to that for the "happiness" of the masses?  I'm guessing this "philosophy" would loose it's appeal quickly.

    Oh, and Falkus, one more thing, was there no morality before Epicurus?

These are two points in which I have to disagree with you over, Jude, with all do respect. But they are amongst two of my biggest problems with Christianity period.

First, the cost of good. You ask, if there is no God, if there is no reward or trophy at the end, why do good?

I cannot speak for everyone, but I can tell you waht I feel. When I help someone and set no conditions to that assistence, to be honest, I dont' expect anything in return, nor do I want reperations. When I help someone, it's because...something inside me tells me that I should. Because I feel for them. Because, if I were in that situation, I'd appreciate the kindness. Because I feel driven to, it just seems right to me. I don't mean to sound cruel or insulting, but if you need a reward to do "good", I honestly don't think you really understand what it means to be good, or altruistic. To me, kindness and helping isn't about material things, and it's not about doing the smart thing. This is what makes good so endearing, because there isn't anything in return. That's what makes it so special, at least in my eyes. Being compassionate only to buy your way into heaven only seems....well, selfish in my eyes. Not damning, cause at least you're helping, and that's something. But, I can't honestly say it's from the goodness of one's heart.

So, to answer your question: Why do I help if I will get nothing in return? Because I want to. Because I desire to. Maybe I'll get a reward and maybe I won't. But if I do assist with the intention of getting something in return, at least to me, it never feels as....well, for lack of a better term "right" to me. It cheapens it. So, I don't. Now, the skeptic in me could argue that it's that feeling of "right" that is my unconscious reward, that I give to recieve that feeling of pride and rightousness, and that certainly is a point. Maybe I do. But, that still seems like a little payback for a big cost at times. I never said being moral was smart.

My second point is something I simply believe to be vanity on the part of many denominations. To me, it just seems like, if God is this beautiful being that loves us all and rewards us for our charity and kindness, that accepting Him in our lives in a precise and specific manner seems...arbitrary in comparison. If a person has helped millions and denotated all their life to people in need, or built houses for the needy or similar, I just have a hard time seeing such perfectly good being woudl turn them away from paradise because they didnt' worship Him in a way He liked, or accepted a figure from 2000 years ago. It simply seems vain, don't you think? As if God has an inferiority complex, which is of course absurd on many levels.

That is simply my belief, understand. But, it's something I believe fully, that, if there is this God, He wouldn't do such a thing. It's not something you're going to persuade me away from, likely. If I'm wrong...well, I hope you enjoy your reward.

      Vexen you missed my point completly, and it may very well be because I didn't make it completely clear.  I'll try again.

      In Christianity you don't go to heaven for doing good deeds.  You do good deeds because those who have been forgiven much, love much.  I do good for others because I love God and want to please Him, not because at the end of my life I'll be able to get a big crown and God will pat me on the back and say well done.  Of course the well done would be great, but the fact is, whether I do good deeds or not, or live a moral life or not, my eternal life is secure because I've accepted a gift.  See, I owed a debt, a debt I couldn't pay, not with all the good deeds in the world, and God had every right to collect on that debt.  But instead, He sent Jesus to pay the debt in my place, and if I accept that as true, then my place with God is secure.  Now if I'm truely understand that, then out of love for God, I will extend that same love and forgivness to others.  That's where my morality comes from.

     As an athiest, agnostic, someone who doesn't have that belief system, I just don't understand how you can explain the desire to do good deeds for others.  By you own words above there is something inside you that draws you to do good things.  WHAT IS THAT?  Why doesn't your dog have it or your gerbel or polar bears or any other living creature on this earth?  What is it in you that draws you to gain joy from helping your fellow man?  If not a divine creator that designed it into you, then what?  I'm truely curious as to your thoughts Vexen, because I do believe your genuine in your beliefs.

I'm aware of the accepting Jesus necessity of various denominations, but honestly, to me, that makes God sound even more insecure. It's kinda like "You owe me a debt for this world, and I'll have pity on your eternal soul so long as you know your place."  And doing good so someone else will see me better doesn't sound very ideal to me either. It just makes this eternally loving being seem even more dubious, so forgive me if I prefer the children's version.

What is it that makes me do good? I really don't have to explain it, do I? I don't honestly know, but it's not as you describe it, some desire to fulfill a debt or hoping someone is watching. It could be a socialized factor. American society tries to teach children to be nice and kind, and maybe that just stuck with me. Or maybe I learned from my parents, who also tend to go out of their way to help people. Maybe that's God speaking to me. Maybe it's an overactive expression of trying to nurture, being motherly. I don't know. I'm not going to say that it's some supernatural desire, or biological one, cause I honestly have no way to tell. I simply feel it. But if I do do it for some reward, it's not something I'm conscously aware of.

And, I wouldn't say animals don't have this desire. I've heard many stories of dogs, for example, defending their masters without regard to their own safety, sometimes to the death.

Uff da, lots to go on here.  I hope I don't miss anything.  first, to Heath:

I think you're reading a bit too much into the stats you list, and not looking at this from the viewpoint you're trying to reach.  Think about what you're suggesting:  that atheist/agnostic parents intentionally teach their children something that they don't believe themselves?  That's like me telling you to raise your kids muslim.  It's simply doesn't make sense from the prespective of the parent.

As for the stats you list, there's a number of problems.  The first is that they don't deal with the variable we're looking at, which is how the child was raised.  It may be true that elderly christians are happier than elderly atheists.  But what about a child raised christian that stays christian vs. a child that was raised non-christian and becomes christian?  In this study, they'd both be in the same group.  Likewise with children that were raised atheist or became atheist later.  In one of the few examples they gave, they talked about someone who was raised christian, and lost their faith and was unhappy.  That actually backs up what Falkus and I are talking about, rather than refuting it.

Further, it's taking the decision away from the child.  It's telling them, "I know what's best for you better than you will when you're older."  I think (or at least hope) that most parents want their child to grow up to be a better judge than them.  When the child is older, if they find the statistical chance of increased happiness as a good reason to be christian, then they can make that decision themselves.

Also, consider if you would change your parenting practices if the stats showed the opposite.  If the studies actually showed that religious people were statistically less happy, would you raise your child as an atheist?  I'm guessing not.  So it's unreasonable to expect others to act on stats differently than you would.  I've read studies that say atheist are statistically better educated, make more money, and have less divorces than religious people.  (I won't bother to look them up, as I'm not sure how much stock I put in them, and the argument works just as well if they're purely hypothetical)  But I doubt anyone would argue that those are reasons to become atheist.  Correlation is not causation.  And if you stop going to church, you're not going to suddenly become better educated or make more money.  Trying similar tactics the other way isn't likely to work either.

Got a bit of a chuckle from this. ;)  "I think it's good to believe you could be wrong...not that I would ever doubt that I'm wrong myself..."  Believing you can be wrong doesn't just mean that you don't know everything.  It means that some of the stuff you "know" might not actually be true.


I don't think anyone has suggested that.  What's been suggested is leaving "is there a God, and if so, which one is He?" to "I don't know."


No one is claiming that it can.


You keep coming back to this idea, that if I don't agree with you, I have to accept that everyone can just do what they want.  It's simply not true.  And even if it were, it applies just as well to you.  You're trusting yourself (to be right about God) just as much as anyone else is trusting themselves (to be right about morals).  You have to decide what is true and false just like they do.


Because we don't think they did do what's morally right.  We don't think that it really did make the most people happy.  We can accept that they were trying to do what they thought was right at the same time as saying that they didn't actually do what was right.  No one is advocating a "everyone do whatever they like" morality here.  They're only saying that at the end of the day, there's no objective way to determine what's right or wrong.  At some point, you have to make a subjective decision, and you might get it wrong.


They want to be good people because, as you say, there's something that makes people want to be.  How you explain that "something" doesn't change how that something works.  It's there, no matter what you believe.  You think it's there due to God putting it there.  I think it's part biology, part culture.  Someone else might have a different explanation.  But the explanation doesn't change the thing, any more than not believing in gravity makes it stop working.


You're equating the phenomenon with your explanation for it.  You assume that if people don't believe what you believe, then they must not feel the same drives as you.  If you don't believe in God, you don't lose that "drive" to do good.  Again, it's like gravity.  I might think it's explained by general relativity, you might think it's by newton's laws, someone else might think it's explained by magical faries.  But not matter what we believe about it, or how we explain it, it works the same for all of us.


Unless, of course, some other religion is right.  I'm guessing you're not too worried about that.  I'm guessing the fact that you've "rejected" Allah, buddah, Krishna, and the hale-bop comet doesn't keep you up at night worrying that when you die, you may have to answer for your rejection.  Likewise with people who don't accept your religion.  At the end of the day, atheists and agnostics aren't all that different from you.  We're not some different species.  You reject plenty of different religions.  On pretty much all religions but your own, you think atheists are right.  And all the other religions think the atheists are right about your religion.  Everyone rejects pretty much all religion.  Atheists just do slightly more than most.

This message was deleted by the player at 11:44, Wed 12 Dec 2007.

When I was in my Catholic high school, one thing they taught us was Kohlberg's studies on morality.  Basically, someone defines something as being right based on a certain criteria, and that criteria changes as they mature.

Stage 1 is avoidance of punishment.  A child doesn't take cookies because he'll get spanked.  An adult doesn't steal because he'll go to jail.  A Christian doesn't commit adultery because he will go to Hell.

Stage 2 is pursuit of pleasure.  A child makes his bed because he is rewarded with a hug.  An adult gets a job because he earns money.  A Christian does charity work because he expects to go to heaven.

Stage 3 is peer support.  A child starts to smoke because his friends tell him it's cool.  An adult becomes a doctor to gain respect.  A Christian goes to preach and convert because his fellow Christians respect his actions.

Stage 4 is obedience to law.  A child does not use the oven because it is a house rule.  An adult does not steal because it is against the law.  A Christian does not steal because it violates the ten commandments.

Stage 5 is social contracts.  A child does the dishes because he feels he is doing his part for the family.  An adult publicly burns his draft card because he feels the government is taking advantage of its people and no longer serving its proper purpose.  A Christian joins a religious order because he feels he can only do his best for God if he dedicates his life to religion.

Stage 6 is appeal to higher concepts.  A child shares his cookie because he believes to do otherwise would be unfair.  An adult openly revolts against the government because he believes freedom is more important than personal wellbeing.  A Christian is willing to actively defy his priest when he feels his priest has committed an act that is not fully loving.


I was taught that you can only understand one level beyond your own, so I may have explained the last levels poorly.  Most people stop right around levels 3 or 4, most children only make it to 3 around adolescence.  You can make decisions drawing on your current level or any level lower.  To move to the next higher level requires you hit a conflict where your current level is clearly in conflict with what you believe to be right.  If you are never challenged, you will forever be on level 1 (basically like an animal).

What is interesting is Christianity does provide an answer addressing each level (although it gets very murky around 5 and 6, since most churches do not give you the option of breaking the social contract through the church, and discourage you from appealing to concepts above the church.  So most church-goers I would assume will hit 4 and be content - God lays down the laws, the church writes them out, and I'm happy.)

So Jude can happily draw on any of the answers prepackaged by the bible and his church and supply them.  The answer was written out a long time ago by someone far wiser than he or I (no insult intended, but I assume you are willing to accept you are less wise than God or even Moses).

Someone like Tycho who is not operating on the assumption that all good comes from God has to think out his position a bit more.  He's in the same boat with Thomas Jefferson here.  You can't just say 'God said so, case closed'.  So atheists clearly do have a challenge, since they have to do their own homework.

At this point it's important to point out, there are very, very few people without any morals.  They make up less than 1% of the population and are generally called sociopaths.  However, there are also few people with clearly codified morals.  We have a general equation we run off of and we apply it to each situation in turn.  In theory, Christians should go off a level 6 equation - love everyone.  I have seen very few Christians who actually seem capable of such a thing, however, which may be something to be expected . If the church prevents you from being challenged in your ethics, you never have to move to the next level.

So all atheists have morals, although in many cases it's pretty low.  Like I said, level 3 or 4 is average (I have not seen any studies as to whether atheists generally score higher or lower on the Kohlberg scale than Christians.  I would be fascinated to see such a study.)  But that doesn't mean that an atheist can't have a higher moral calling.  Thomas Jefferson is a great example.  He's clearly at a level 5 or 6.  He calls upon liberty, a great ideal, and believes that that is worth almost any other cost.  I don't think anyone here can say fighting for liberty isn't a moral action (whether you agree with it or not).  He had a very admirable moral code.


Don't think that because an atheist doesn't have a bible to rely upon that he is unethical.  Jesus, you'll notice, is not listed as any of the levels (he himself reached level 6 and encouraged others to do the same, of course).  In fact, quite to the contrary, understand that your church has made the process of developing morals quite quick and streamlined.  They're already written and thought out, you just have to accept and follow them.  Whether you're a four-year-old who still draws on the walls or the smartest man in the world, you're still drawing on the same book with the same rules.  You might be doing the right thing, but you may not always understand why (because it simply has not been sufficiently tested).  You may not get to as high a level as someone else who does not have the tools.  The kicker is that, while you may be doing something right and someone else may be doing something right, because you are at a lower level on the scale, you would be incapable of understanding why the other person is motivated to do as he does, because you can only see one level above you.

So yes, morals certainly exist for atheists.  It's not as clear-cut, but they're definitely there, and it's a fascinating topic to study and understand.

Please don't take this the wrong way, katisara, but when I read your post, I can't help but feel this impression of someone who's talking about something they've never actually exerpeienced. Which is funny, cause I'm sure it's something you all feel about me from time to time. It sounds very alien when you speak of atheism.

Let me just say, having been there, it's not quite the moral crisis you seem to paint. Sure, it takes more work to create one's own moral code, but it's not like you exist in some isolateed existence from the world. At least in my case, my morality is based on everything I've learned, I've seen, I've expereinced. When I see some tragic story on the news and my emotions stir, I take from that. When I study religions, I take from that. When I expereience moments of happiness or shame, or sadness from my own action, or from the actions of others, I take from that. When I console a friend and hear their story, I take from that. It's not like we need to come up with this entirely in an intellectual way. Children don't learn like that, most people outside of school don't learn like that. Developing our own beliefs works similarly.

I'm well aware of Kohlberg's studies, being a student os psychology. It should be noted that it's not entirely accepted either, for it doesn't take into account many things. That aside, it shoudl also be noted that the 3 or 4 average was created on an average population American population, which includes primarily Christians. In fact, it's my belief that, assuming this sclae is true, operating on a level that consists of "God says X, therefore we should abide by X" it little different from "The law says X, therefore we should abide by X", which is level 4. You say that atheists tend to have thigns a bit lower on the scale, so givne the generous assumption that theists are at level 4, this assumes that atheists morality consists entirely of child morality, that we do things only because we think it makes us seem cool, because it feels good, or because we don't want to get in trouble. This seems to me to be a very naive perception on atheism.

Your reasoning seems odd as well. You repeatedly claim that it takes challenges to move to the next level, but you also claim that atheists have more challenges, while Christians are handed an easy pass to level 4. That to me says atheists would in fact have a higher level, because they are challenged more, but your conclusion is that Christians are actually higher. It seems like that explination is neeeded there.

Just to let you know, sociopath is an outdated term nowadays. The appropriate title is now antisocial personality disorder.

Jefferson actually wasn't atheist, but he's not a theist as most understand it. He believed in Deism, which believes that God created the universe, but because it's a perfect creation, there's no need to interfere. God plays no active role in life, according to Deists. Miracles don't exist. To this point, Jefferson also created the Jeffersonian Bible, which is the New Testament with all the miracles taken out, focusing soley on the words and actions of Jesus. Deists do believe Jesus existed, but he was just a very honorable and wise man, a model to live by. Many of the Founding Fathers were deists, including Benjamin Franklin, and arguably Washington (though there's speculation over that one). I would be very interested in how Deism is seen nowadays where even Mormons have a hard time being accepted as Christians.

I did not mean to paint a crisis.  And the post was aimed primarily at Jude, who seems to be wondering how an atheist can hold a moral code without God.  Well of course an atheist has a moral code!  It simply isn't handed to him on a silver platter.  It's developed over time.



I certainly did not say that!!  If anything, I was hoping to apply quite the contrary - a Christian does not need to create a more complex moral code because the bible and his church shields him from complex moral questions by providing the answer already.  An atheist does not have that insulation, and so I suspect would be forced to develop the moral code more on his own to compete with the complex code already available to Christians.

I would tend to categorize Deism in with atheism/agnosticism simply because they don't generally feel held hard and fast by the rules set out in the bible.  Jesus was a wise man, but not the son of God, and therefore the rules he sets out aren't from the mouth of God, but simply very intelligent suggestions.  Jesus would be about on par with Confuscius.  Simply said, for the sake of argument, I don't believe people like Jefferson felt the ten commandments was absolute, beyond questioning, the word of God, nor that he should just accept the morals handed out in the bible as they read.

If we were discussing theology instead of morals, I'd probably break Jefferson and his ilk out separately, but in the realm of morals, he seems to fall closer to the Tycho side of the line than Jude's.

Sorry for misinterpreting your statements then. Maybe I woke on the wrong side of the bed this morning, so to speak. Or maybe I need to start drinking coffee again. Again, I'm sorry.

That said, I do still percieve a bias against atheism in your statement. You didn't say anything explicitaly as I stated it, but you did seem to feel the need to express this:



...without saying the same thing about theists. Yes, there's many cases where atheists have "low morals" but I'd say it's not much more, if not simply equal to, the proportion of Christians that have "low morals". That to me does suggest, at least in implication, that Christians have a higher set average.

As for Deism, that's certainly one way to classify it. I'd say it's fairly accurate too, that the Deist way of thinking is closer to Tycho's method than Jude's.  Though, that certainly has some implications I'm not certain some people are willing to accept, classifying Deists as agnostics or atheists.

Seeing as many influencial Founding Fathers of this nation were themselves Deist, and thus with an atheistic viewpoint on many things, that Christianity wasn't really an aim for this country, nor a basis. That Christianity isn't the foundation to the process, or of much importance at all, that Amereica actually has an atheistic basis, at least in it's foundation. Now, some of us, Christians included, are okay with that, but I know quite a few, more fundamentalist thinkers who would have a problem with that implication indeed.

To me, Deism is most certainly theism. I don't believe it to be Christianity though, something more akin to Buddism, more of a philosophy, a belief than a religion.

In his defense, I think Katisara did actually point out that he thought "most church goers" hit level 4 and stop going higher.  He also pointed out explicitly that he didn't know if christians or atheists scored higher "in general."  For what it's worth, I didn't perceive any bias against atheism in the post, and in fact actually thought it kind of hinted at the opposite.

This country was founded on the Judeo-Christian values, so I'm not concerned if people are offended by those terms.  Certainly they can have their own values, but PC is going a bit too far when we try to deny the founding history behind our country's moral principles.  ANd to call such thinking "arrogant" is to avoid the question and instead impose an ad hominem attack (which is a logical fallacy that shows you don't really have anything of substance to say).  Whether you believe it or not, much of our morals (regardless of religion or lack thereof) still stem from the Judeo-Christian morality.  It's just part of our culture.

Your second paragraph creates a whole new point that I don't think was discussed.  Instead of addressing the actual issue, you have imagined up someone said something they didn't and then attack that...and the person through that.  So I don't know how to respond to you making up arguments and attributing them to others, and then attacking those arguments.  In other words, no one suggested what you claim in your second paragraph.

Same with your third paragraph.  That wasn't really the point or argument.

I must say, I didn't expect such an adverse reaction from Health here. And, to be honest, I'm having a little trouble understanding what exactly I said to do so. So, I think I'm going to clear up a few points.

First off, here is what the post was responding to:



From this post, I take it that you're saying to be against the Christian virtues is to, by mere definition, become a self-pleasuring amoralist. It occured to me that if not believing in Christian morality is, by definition, advocating hedonistic existence, then it implies that Christian values are the sore reasons anyone has values such as being drug-free and having retraint in sexual matters. This is where I got the elusive point from. I'm assuming this is where I got my point wrong and where this new bit of chaos begins.

I disagree with this notion, and so took measures to counter it. The post as a whole, was intended to provide my reasoning, that people can come to the same conclusion, but by entirely different reasoning. And I personally find there to be a difference between doing things with different reasons.

By saying arrogant in the second paragraph, it wasn't meant to be an insult, but simply a discriptor of my objection, little different than "I find that argument to be weak". To be fair, I did provide my reasoning calling that particular point of view arrogant, whereas typically in ad hominem, there's an insult provided with the point of not discussing the issue.  I frankly didn't mean it to be insulting at all. If you wish, I can ammend that word, seeing as you seem particularly offended by it, and replace it with "flawed" or the sentence with "I disagree with that particular point of view." Really, my purpose was not to offend, and I'm sorry if someone felt attacked by it.

The third paragraph was simply a couple of different explinations for why someone like Falkus could disagree with Christian values, yet still be a moral and reserved being.

Again, I apologize for any confusion and I hope this clears things up. If not, well then, please forgive me, Health and anyone else agreeing with him, for being pointless, unarticulate, and for wasting everyone's time again.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:50, Fri 14 Dec 2007.

This country was founded on the Judeo-Christian values,

Allow me to quote article eleven of the treaty of Tripoli: "As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion;"

ertainly they can have their own values, but PC is going a bit too far when we try to deny the founding history behind our country's moral principles.

The primary influence on the United States founding was Enlightenment philosophy, which itself was primarily influenced by Deism, not Christianity.

Whew, I'm getting behind.  You folks have been busy!  Vexen, you misunderstand.  Perhaps it's intentional or perhaps not, I'm not sure, but I'll explain it.  If you got into debt, I mean bad debt, like you had to have a major opperation and rehabilitation.  Lets say at the end of the day, you owe a million dollars.  Now, let's say that one day your on RPOL and someone tells you about this guy who pays off million dollar debts.  He even tells you that he's had a million dollar debt paid off by this guy.  You might say, that's amazing!  Who'd do such a thing?  What does he get in return?  Whatever.  The point is, the only way your going to find out if its true or not is if you find out how to meet this person and see if they really do pay off debts or not.  The point is, if your debt gets called in and you get thrown into prison because you didn't believe in the guy paying the debt, then who's fault is it that you're in prison?  Certainly not the debt payer, but your own.

People spend their whole lives not wanting anything to do with God and then expect to go to Heaven, and if they don't then it's God's fault?  If you spent your whole life kicking God out of your life, He's just giving you what you've asked for all your life and that's eternity without Him.  They call that Hell.



You only have to explain it if you want to keep the debate going. :p  I just want to clear this up again, because you seem to be missing this point as well.  As a Christian, I don't do good things because I'm trying to repay a debt.  The debt has been paid, therefore I am free to do good deeds to others because I'm forgiven.  Theres an old poem I love that goes:

Run run the law commands
But gives us neither feet nor hands.
Better news the Gospel brings
It bids us fly and gives us wings.

The point of this poem is that if we try to attain right standing with God by doing good things, we will fail because we have no power to get there.  We're handicapped by our own nature that bends us toward doing the wrong thing (See Romans Chapter Seven).  But in receiving the free gift of God (not free in that it cost nothing, free in that its freely given by Him who gave everything to procure it) through Jesus Christ, we now have every spiritual blessing in the kingdom of Heaven as adopted children of God (see the book of Ephesians).  So God says, "Because I've given you the blessings and the ability, now walk no longer as children who love darkness but as children who love the light.  That's a bit long-winded, but it seems your having a hard time with the idea that God would judge you on the basis of your deeds.  You only have to worry about being judged on your deeds if that's all you bring to the trial.



I like dogs, and I love cats.  I've had many of both in my life, and there are instances where animals can do amazing things, almost to the point of human emotion.  My belief is that God uses animals in these situations to do His will because people aren't around to do what's necessary.  In reality, a dog is nothing like a human.  They eat thier own vomit, sniff each other's butts and lick things that shouldn't be licked in polite company.  The same goes for cats but for the most part they're a bit more civilized and I believe cats would probably take over the world if they could only evolve an opposable thumb so they could get out of the basement without human help.
The "emotions" of animals can be greatly attributed to the fact that we feed and pet them.  They get rewarded for good behavior, punished for bad, and so they look on us kindly if they are treated kindly, however I garuntee for every story you have of an animal risking itself to save someone (I'm talking untrained animals.  Obviously police dogs, search and rescue dogs or guard dogs are trained to protect their masters and others) I can come up with two stories of dogs who ripped the face off a child in thier own house for putting it's hand in it's dish or startled it at just the right time and instinct took over.  There are far more people injured and killed by dogs in America then are saved by them (leaving out trained animals again).  In the end we are the ones that attribute human emotion to animals in most cases.  However I wasn't really talking about attributes like loyalty, sacrifice and honor.  I could be persuaded to believe some animals do have these qualities.  The ones I'm talking about pertain to things only humnans do, like worship, long for a purpose, be charitable.  Things like this are what seperate us from animals far more than our DNA.  I think that points to a difference in where we originatied.

Perhaps you can help me understand this then. It's not that I have difficulty understanding that my actions would be judged. I would expect that to a degree. It's the acceptance and implications of the deal with God I don't get. It seems to be implied that it's the acceptence of God that ensures your eternal salvation. Does you actions then have no bearing other than that? Can a serial killer accept God at the last leg of life and thus earn eternal salvation, while the guy who's lived a modest quite life who's atheistic is doomed?

That's what I'm having trouble with. To me, it does seem callus of God, that accepting him is the only thing that matters. Like a child in a popularity contest. Or that it even matters at all. A person can follow the most Christian of virtues, yet not be a believer in God and thus gets nothing. What about people who've never heard of Christianity? Are they now doomed because the message could never have been spread? This is hypothetical, btw, not suggesting that that actually exists in modern time, but it had to have at some point in history.

Likewise, most atheists I know aren't some extreme band that declares war on God. Most live normal lives, and have litttle issue with the church or God. If someone doesn't accept any particular church because there's so many of them in America alone that seem to contridict each other (Evangelicals vs. LDS vs. Catholics vs. Russian Othodox vs. etc.), now what? What if someone believes in God, but doesn't believe any particular church has the right perception? And what of those of other denominations that don't have the right stance, can they liteterally worship God their entire life, but not be saved because they didn't accept the "right" deal?

That's essentially why I don't think your hypotehtical works. IF there was one guy offering a million dollars and you didn't accept, then that's just fine. But, in actuallity, at least from my perspective, there's not. There's a thousand different people promising that million dollars, and it's all in a big haze, a list on an internet site pages long. But only one actually has it. Is it now the person's fault for not being able to discern which one is the correct one at a glance?

So, please, clarify for me a bit. What is this deal? What are the terms, the conditions?

Also, I'm reading a lot of implications that this deal is what allows a Christian to be moral and free to do good, but I don't understand either. When I try to help someone, I don't feel this impedement that stops me from helping. Quite the opposite I feel compelled more often than not, and I feel guilty if I can't help, even if I try to. Is that false somehow?

The bible never explicitly says if you don't accept Jesus during your life you're going to hell (and suggests to the contrary in many cases, such as Moses).  What it does say is that if you accept Jesus, you go to heaven, and that a lot of people are not going to accept Jesus and are going to hell.  The LDS faith indicates that you'll have the chance to accept Jesus after death, but that it's basically a 'the more you give for the less proof, they better you score' sort of a thing - if someone says 'believe!' and you do, you're doing better than someone who sees an angel and believes, who is doing better than someone who dies, hangs out with Jesus then believes.  I'm not aware of anything in the bible to directly contradict this.

It is suggested that rejecting Jesus is basically a ticket to Hell, but I have difficulty with that - the Jews specifically do not accept conversions (broadly speaking) because once you convert, they believe if you recant, you go to Hell, whereas if you never convert you may still go to heaven.  I feel like this could be the same case - if you're Christian and you recant you're in trouble, but if you were never Christian maybe not so much.  Even if Jehovah's Witnesses came to your door and you told them to go away, you didn't reject Jesus in that you never really accepted him in the first place.  You're just looking over the list of thousands of millionaires dumbfounded.  But this would be just my personal view on it today, liable to change, and not supported by most Christian churches I know of.

The Catholic Church, LDS Church and most Christian churches I know of broadly accept that if you accept Jesus, even as a member of the wrong church, you're still okay.  It's only if you accept some other guy named Jesus who ISN'T Jesus that being 'Christian' might not result in salvation.  The reason most of them compete is because they each think they understand the whole story better or have more to offer - they do it better - but not that the other ones don't do it at all.  Of course, there are exceptions.  I believe they broadly accept Jews also are welcome into Heaven.

     Well the simple answer is yes, however that comes off sounding a bit harsh as the question intends it to, so I'll elaborate a bit.  Since a lot of this I just talked about in the "Return to Sender" thread, I'll be brief (if such a thing is possible).  Again it seems your focused on living a certain kind of life equaling being worthy of eternal life.  If the bible is true and God is real, then He's in this for the relationship.  You can see it as insecure or arrogant or even childish if you choose to, but let's face it, if you create something, you kind of have the final word on how it works.  Here's perhaps another example that might help.  Jesus said that He was going away to prepare a place.  He referred to it as a mansion with many rooms.  So even if, by human standards, you lived your life peacably and quiet and morally, but in your heart you just didn't believe that God existed or that there was sufficent evidence in the rising of the sun or in a newborn child's sighs or even the nagging thing inside of you that asks why am I here, where am I going and what should I do with my life, to belive in God, when you die and find out that there is a God and you knock on His door and say, "Wow!  I was wrong, oh well, can I come in and live with you now," what do you think the logical response would be.  Again, if you spend your whole life saying "I don't need you God" it only seems logical that when you get to eternity, because God believes in freewill, He will allow you to live in eternity without Him.  Eternity seperated from God, by default, is a really bad place of torment, not because God is punishing you, but because that is what a soul seperated from God experiences.

     As far as dealing with the LDS doctrine on conversion after death, I don't know enough about it to comment.  What the bible says is that it's given to man to die once and then the judgement.  I find nothing in scripture to support the idea that there is a chance for conversion after death.



        I'll agree the analogy isn't perfect, but let me try anyway.  So let's say you do decide you want to find out about this guy with the million.  So you google "Million Dollar Man".  Well you might get info about your guy, but mostly you'd probably get pictures of Lee Majors.  If you really were serious and you really wanted to find the man who could pay your debt for you you wouldn't just give it a "glance" but you'd search and research and talk to people who know the man and probably go to places that the man had been seen and talk to many people who had gotten their debt paid, etc, etc.  That's the deal in a nutshell, and I guess I've said that pretty clearly in the other thread so I won't repeat it here.



        I cannot speak for anyone but myself in this.  When I used to try to help people it was as you say, out of either guilt or compulsion (someone needs to do something).  It wasn't out of genuine love.  It's hard to love others when you feel condemned over your own sin.  Forgiveness frees us to think past ourselves to others and give not so we can mask our own guilt or shame or inadiquicies or to give ourselves a sense of accomplishment, but simply because those who have been forgiven much love much.

Huh, for some reason the million-dollar man when applied to this case keeps making me think of Star Trek V, where Spock's half-brother goes around and heals people of their emotional baggage, so they suddenly become his devoted followers.

"They're the things we carry with us, the things that make us who we are. If we lose them, we lose ourselves. I don't want my pain taken away! I need my pain!"

(Sorry, don't mean to derail, just had to share.)

    Yeah, there's a ton of those.  Which is why I don't understand all the hoopla over TGC.  Maybe I missed it, but I don't remember anyone in Chrisendom suggesting a boycott of Star Trek V.

Falkus, please see the other thread.  I think we are talking about different things.  I am talking values and you are talking religion.

To rebut your point, I will point you generally to the book:

"The United States:  A Christian Nation" (by David Brewer)

I think your foundation is wrong, and pulling odd quotes here and there doesn't really prove or show anything.

From the book description, for example:



You want more...I can get lots more.  But saying that the Enlightenment philosophy and Deism are the guiding factors of the founding of the country is only one piece in a much larger puzzle, which has as its roots the Christian religion.

...that and Judeo-Christian values.

Moving this discussion here from the OOC thread:











This message was last edited by the GM at 08:52, Wed 22 Oct 2008.

Okay, so the article generated a bit more discussion than I had expected.  I had sort of found the campaign a bit silly, since I doubt anyone is going to have their mind changed by a couple sentences on the side of a bus.  But Katisara seems to view it as worse than just a waste of money, and in fact mean spirited and an attack.  I found that a bit interesting, since most people don't view messages like "Jesus is Lord!" and such as attacks, or mean-spirited.  Can atheists promote atheism without being mean spirited?  Is it possible to tell someone you think they're wrong in a way that's not an attack?  I tend to think so.  IF there is no God, I would hope most people would want to know that fact (though I've certainly heard people say that they would rather keep on believing in God, even if God weren't real, which may be the key difference in opinion here).  While the lack of belief in God is the defining concept of atheism, I don't think it's fair to say it has no value other than that statement, any more than it's fair to say Christianity has no value beyond the supposition that there is a God.  The important thing in each case is what you do with the information.  If there is no God, how does that affect how one lives ones life?  Is the idea that there is no God just so offensive to theists that an atheist simply can't express it in a non-mean spirited way?  Is the opposite true?  It seems like there is a double standard here (and highlighting this may have been more a motivation for Dawkin's and company than actually changing people's minds).  Why is that?  What makes "There's probably no God" significantly different from "Jesus is Lord?"

As to gammaknights point, yes, "probably" implies they're not sure.  And that's a good thing!  Absolute certainty without absolute proof is unjustified, and should be avoided.  I think one of the problems most atheists have with theism is the idea that you should believe in God more than you have evidence for (ie, the stronger your faith, the better--doubting Thomas admonished for not believing until after he saw, etc.).  While there are atheists who will tell you they're absolutely certain there is no God, they usually haven't realized that that is a faith-based position just as much as theism is.  Realizing that new evidence could change your mind is always a good thing, in my opinion.  Some people think "atheism" only applies to those who are feel they are absolutely certain, while anyone who admits any possibility of being wrong is "agnostic."  It's a quibble over labels, so it's really important, but my take on it is that an atheist is someone who thinks there probably isn't a God, whereas an agnostic prefers not to even give their best guess.

I disagree that it's a waste of money.  They probably did cause discussion, which was their goal.  But it did seem to be a direct attack.  This isn't the same as "Jesus is Lord!" sort of statements since those are a positive statement.  It may contradict other statements, but it is not directly saying they are wrong.

The statement on the bus says "THERE IS NO GOD".  The article wrote it as "There's probably no God".  Notice the capitalization.  That means it's referring to a specific god, not Zeus, not Allah, but God of the Christian religions (the only one I know of who refers to their god simply as 'God').  Obviously, the bus sign is all in caps so it's ambiguous, but it can still be read that way, especially paired with the statement below, "so stop worrying", which seems to tie back into the idea of guilt and shame being caused by religion (Christianity and Judaism specifically).  If the statement had a lowercase 'god', it would be difference, if only because it isn't singling out Judaism/Christianity specifically to say 'no, you're wrong'.  Whether their intent was to publish "God" or "god", we can't be clear, but the message, not its intent, is what is important.

But like you brought up, the question is, does atheism have any value beyond 'there is no god', or it is it inherently a contradiction of another belief and absolutely nothing more?  Or is the only value in contradicting another belief system?

Just for clarity, the bus sign still had the word "probably" in it too.  I know you were focusing the caps issue, but I just wanted to make clear that the paper didn't add the 'probably' themselves.

Anyway, the sign is in all caps, so its not really possible to distinguish between God/god, though as they are atheists, I imagine their intent was god, not just God.  Assuming they're not talking about other gods seems odd to me.

Is "There is a god" a fundamentally different type of statement than "there isn't a god?"  Is one an attack and the other not, simply because one is asserting a negative instead of a positive?  Does "there is a god" not imply atheists are wrong in the same way that "there isn't a god" implies theists are wrong?  I guess I don't see why theists should be more offended by "there is no god" than non-christians should be by "Jesus is Lord."  If there were another word, other than atheist, to describe the view, would that matter?  If atheist could state their view without reference to gods, would that change things?  Would "there exists nogodness" be fundamentally different from "there doesn't exists godness?"  Is "the coin is heads" fundamentally different from "the coin is not tails?"  Do atheists need to come up with a new word, that doesn't reference gods in the way that "heads" is a positive thing while "not tails" is negative?

As for the value of atheism, it comes down to the fact that what you believe about the existence or non existence of any deity affects how you live your life.  Believing there isn't a god has the same type of value that believing there is one does.  Both views affect what you consider important, what choices you make, how you treat other people, etc.  Both views are beliefs about reality.  They both contradict each other.  It seems odd to me to think one view has no value, while the opposite view does have value.  At very least, can we assign value to believing that which is true rather than that which is false?  If so, that would be a value atheists would attach to their view.  Put another way, does it matter at all if theism is true, or is its value independent of its truth or falsity?

One is asserting a positive (more generally it's 'my god is real', not simply 'yes, there is a god', and it's not addressing anyone else in particular as being wrong), the other is a contradiction of a specific group's belief ('your god is not real').

Like I said, if the sign said 'there is no god', it would have a different meaning and at least be a little less of an attack ad; it isn't saying specifically 'YOUR religion is wrong', it's a statement on its own.

It's like the difference between saying 'Ford is the best car company' rather than 'Chevrolet is a terrible car company'.  One is a positive, constructive statement, even if, by virtue of its being true, it perhaps denies anyone else the spot of being the best company.  The second is specifically attacking one entity.

So yes, lowercase 'god', which refers only broadly to any god, but no one in particular (or gods, if the sign is all in caps and therefore unclear), or in a culture where there is no particular god named "God", using it would be alright, since again, it isn't specifically attacking any one belief or group.



I would have to disagree here.

As a Christian, not only must I accept there is a god, but I must accept my relationship with that god, and how my life should change to reflect that.  It's an entire body of belief.  If you took out all of the lines about God from the bible, you'd still have quite a large quantity of material.  Even without a god, Christianity can be judged on its own merits and qualities, of which it has many.

So this is why I'm wondering what more there is to atheism.  Is it just 'there is no god.  That's really all I've got to say on that topic.'  Does it have no value beyond denying another belief system?  Does their belief extend beyond 'don't go to that church!' to something which actually provides a service?  Or is it only specifically there to tell me not to believe someone else, without providing anything of its own?



Because we can't possibly prove its veracity compared to say Christianity, I think we need to 'judge it by its fruit'.  Does it have anything else to offer?  Christianity, for all of its failings, at least tries to promote moral living, as an example.

That's fair enough.  I'm pretty confident that was their intended meaning.  And I'm willing to concede the point that perhaps all caps was a poor choice to convey that meaning.




Agreed.  And as an atheist, one does not only accept that there is no god, but also must accept how ones life should change as a result of that.  As I said, either way, ones beliefs will affects ones life, choices, behaviors, etc.


I would say if you took any given atheist's body of belief, and removed all the lines about gods, you'd still have quite a large quantity of material.  Granted, atheists are a less uniform group than christians, and don't have a collected book that they all agree upon the way christians do, but I don't think that should be taken to imply that they don't each believe in large quantity of things due to their atheism.  I would say that any given atheist's version of atheism can be judged on its own merits and qualities.  The fact that those merits and qualities may very significantly from atheists to atheist shouldn't, in my opinion, make their views valueless, any more than disagreements over transubstantiation should make christianity valueless.


Yes, the beliefs do extend beyond "don't go to church," however, there isn't an organized body to tell you what those beliefs should be to the degree that there is in christianity.  As an example, not believing in an afterlife should cause one to value this life more (which was part of the message on the buses).  I would argue that most atheists also consider skepticism very important, rationality very important, open-mindedness very important, etc.  These are the kinds of things that one can come to value after concluding that there is no god, akin to how charity, purity, faith, tradition, etc., are things that one can come to value as a result of concluding that God is real.  While I'm sure there are atheists who get to "there is no god" and simply stop thinking about the issue, I don't think they define atheism anymore than people who go to church simply because that's what their parents did define christianity.



While I'm quite comfortable with a comparison of the "fruits" of atheism to those of christianity, I don't think this really addresses the issue.  I would wager that every group would think the "fruits" of their particular belief system are the best, but even if not, I don't think it's a good way to judge the truth-value of something.  If the people who drank the coolaid with that Jones guy back in the day were the happiest people to ever live, does it make it any more likely that they were right?  That's sort of what I'm saying about is the value of theism independent of its truth value.  You seem to be implying that it is; that whether it's true or not, it's value is still the same.  To me, however, I wouldn't want to follow a false religion, even if I got benefits from it.  I think most atheists would say the same.  I think most atheist place an intrinsic value on believing that which is true, even if it's not the most pleasant or beneficial thing to believe.  It's sort of the issue of religion being the "opiate of the masses": believing something might make you feel good, but if it's not actually true, it's just enjoyable self-delusion.  Which is very much like opiates.  Especially if one thinks there are downsides to religions as well as upsides, such as giving up part of your income/time/etc., or such as causing hatred/fear/etc., of those who aren't part of the religion.  I would say many atheists view religion as an enjoyable, but potentially harmful self-delusion.  "there's probably no god," might be akin to a "say no to heroine" message. ;)

(as an aside, would you consider "just say no" a mean-spirited attack?  Would it be if it specified a specific drug?  Would a "wait till you're married" sign on the side of a bus be a mean-spirited attack add?)

I would say that for all their failings, atheists too try to promote moral living.  They may disagree about just what constitutes moral living more than christians do (though, christians disagree about that quite a bit too--just look at the Anglican church right now), but each individual is trying to promote what they consider to be moral.  In addition to morality, there's also a more general issue of how own figures things out.  For atheism its more of a method for finding out for oneself, rather than simply a book that tells you all the answers.  Some might prefer the book to the method, but I think atheists would view it as a "give a fish vs. teach to fish" situation and put value on the process of thinking things through, of trying to figure out an answer, rather than just being told the answer.  Different strokes for different folks, perhaps, but even if one thinks theism has more to offer, I think it's unfair to say that atheism has nothing to offer.

But how many of those beliefs are distinctly atheist?  Would you consider rationalism 'atheistic'?  What about a preference for chocolate?  A dislike of authority?  Are any of these 'atheistic'?

I think most people agree that charity is a 'Christian' value.  I'm not aware of anything in particular which is an 'atheistic' value.  But if they were pushing for those sorts of things, rather than trying to pull down someone else's, it would definitely shift the nature of the ad.



Then I think that that's the sort of thing that atheists should be trying to teach and push, rather than the line of 'you're wrong'.  I think if a church put up the ad, "Muhammed was wrong", people would agree that's an attack ad.  If atheists said something like "Your life is in only your hands" or something positive, no one can really argue that's an attack ad, even if you personally believe in divine intervention.



The problem is, no one can be sure which religion is 'false' or not, so that line of argument is moot.



Which is why it would be an attack ad :)  We don't get concerned about attack ads against heroine because most people agree that heroine is a bad thing.



I don't think it's mean-spirited to attack something which everyone agrees is wrong.  However, we're also differentiating between actions and beliefs.  If you believed drugs were the key to inner awareness, my saying "drugs are stupid" would probably be offensive against you.  The drug-oriented ads above are attack-ads (even if they're not 'mean-spirited', since they aren't trying to tell anyone, at least anyone I'm aware of, that their beliefs are wrong, just that those actions are wrong).

I don't think 'wait til you're married' is supporting a particular behavior.  If it said 'don't bang her until you're married', it would be stepping across that thin line (although again, I don't think it would be 'mean' because no one believes God told them to have sex before marriage).



This too would be a great thing for an ad.  I should have brought that up.

I wasn't trying to say that atheism has nothign to offer, but to genuinely ask, what is it offering?  What does it provide of value?  Because once you have that, you have something worth putting on an ad, rather than just 'these other guys are wrong'.

I would say rationalism is characteristic of atheism.  It's not uniquely atheist, nor is it universally atheist, but I would say it's a quality it that a large majority of atheists consider valuable/important/desirable/whatever.


I would consider rationalism, skepticism, rejection of dogma, and a desire to figure things out instead of just being told, to all be atheistic values.  Again, doesn't mean every atheist does all these things anymore than all christians are charitable.  Just means that most atheists would consider these traits to be desirable.


True, but it would also change the add if they changed "Jesus is Lord!" to "give money to charity!"  In each case, I think the idea is that accepting the primary premise (eg, "there is probably no God" or "Jesus is Lord") will lead one to naturally accept the values in question.


The trouble, though, is that the central idea of atheism is the lack of any deity.  There's just not really a way to phrase that positively, unless we come up with some new word that is the positive trait of God not being there (similar to 'dark' being just a lack of light, but actually having it's own positive word).  "There's probably no god" isn't just a statement that everyone else is wrong, but rather an actual, positive belief, in the same way that "it's dark outside" is.  The difference, though, seems to be that we have a word for "dark" so we don't have to say "it's not light outside," whereas we don't have a word for the lack of deities.  I suppose they could have said "reality is probably secular" or something, but I'm not sure that would have conveyed the intended meaning properly.



I disagree.  The fact that a viewpoint can't be confirmed or denied doesn't make it valueless.  While we can't know with certainty if any religion is true or false, we can say that IF it's true it has more value than IF it's false (or, at least some people would believe that, myself included).  I would say that many atheists would argue that there is intrinsic value in believing that which is true over that which is false.  It's not just the practical benefits of a belief system that determine whether or not you should accept it.  Even if believing that magical glue holds you to the Earth makes you happy, most atheists, I would wager, would say it's still better to believe in gravity.  The point being that I don't think it's true that there has to be a practical benefit to believing there is no god to justify pointing it out.  If one thinks its true, that's enough reason to justify pointing it out to others, in my opinion.  There doesn't need to be any type of "believe me, and you'll get this prize" situation involved.


So what determines it's means-spiritedness is how many people disagree with it, not the feeling it is intended to produce in the observer?  I would have to disagree with that--but I don't consider you mean-spirited for making the statement! ;)


Again, though, "there's probably no god" is more than just "these guys are wrong."  It's a different view of reality, which, due to our language lacking a word for it, can only be expressed with reference to the opposite.  The next line of the signs was "so stop worrying and enjoy your life" is an example of what it's offering.

I am going to break my silence on this, because this is not a political issue, but a religious one.  Also I feel the end coming more and more quickly and feel I need to try to save someone. :)

Athiest and agnostics have always confused me.  I didn't grow up in a religious home, though both my parents confest some belief in God.

I seems to me that athiest are going through life like they have their eyes covered by blinders and agnostics with their hands cupped over their own eyes.

Let me elaborate.

Athiest, as far as I know, are saying that there is no god(s) what so ever and no afterlife.  Or if they say there is an afterlife, its usually something like reencarnation or a joining of spirits somewhere.

Agnostics say, I don't care if there is a god(s).  I am going to live my life and when I die we'll see if there is one.

Both a flawed in their thinking.  If an athiest would take the blinders off and look at the world, weigh the evidence in nature alone, they would see that something created all this.  (I'll talk about this more in the creation thread.)

Agnostics though have to look at what they're doing like this.  You walk across the street and say, "I'm not going to look for the cars, I'll just deal with whatever happens."  Then they walk out in the street without looking to see if traffic is coming.  Now they might get across the road this time, but eventually they'll get creamed.  I'm sorry, but when your dead, it'll be too late then.

God sent his book so that you would have no excuse on how you live this life, He also made nature to reflect Him as well.

Please let me know if what I view of their views is incorrect and I'll adjust as needed.

This is just using the old Romans argument (that verse is probably my least favorite in the bible, by the by), which is one of my biggest pet-peeves regarding christianity.  It's one thing to say "I'm right" it's another to say "it's so obvious I'm right, that everyone who disagrees with me secretly knows I'm right, but just won't admit it."  The fact is, to many, many people it's not at all obvious someone create nature.  In fact, to many, many people, it looks very much like a natural (ie, non-divine) product.  Making accusations of blinders is sort of verbal shorthand for saying someone is holding to assumptions which make objective assessment of the situation impossible (ie, that even if they were wrong, they wouldn't be able to see it).  That may be true, though, to me it looks like its creationists who hold such assumptions.  As I said in the other thread, if you hold a position such as "the bible is always right.  If it looks like the bible is wrong, it's actually right, and whatever is making it look wrong is what's actually wrong.  And if I can't see how the bible is right after looking at it that way, well then I'm just not meant to understand right now, so I just need to trust that it's right, and move on," you'll not be able to realize it if the bible happens to be wrong.  That, to me at least, seems more like "blinders" than an atheist position of "reality appears to be explainable without a deity, so we shouldn't make the assumption there is one."

Perhaps a more even-handed way of looking at it is that one side defaults to no god, and will believe in god only if there is sufficient evidence, while the other side defaults to god, and will only stop believing in a deity if sufficient evidence against it is found.  To me, the former seems more reasonable, to others that latter will.  Trying to prove something doesn't exist is pretty difficult, when it doesn't have to follow the normal laws of nature, then it's pretty much impossible.

For me, the fact that religious people dismiss the evidence cited by all other religions seems to indicate that none of the evidence is particularly strong.  Christians will say it's obvious the bible is true, muslims will say it's obvious the Koran is true, and so on.  But neither finds the other's book convincing.  So it's not just a predisposition towards not believing in a deity that causes atheists to doubt any particular religion, I don't think.  Every religion is doubted by most of the world.  Atheists just happen to doubt them all at the same time.

Gammaknight, also note that a lot of agnostics are searching, but really just don't know yet.  I know plenty of agnostics (Tycho included!) who have read the bible, read the book of Mormon, read the koran, read the Tai Te Ching, etc. and don't feel that any provide convincing evidence for their claims.  That isn't saying "I won't look for cars", it's saying "I hope a car comes so I can see one, I keep searching all of the roads but none come along."



See, and this is the point that I like to see from atheist texts and ads.  Not that 'hey, you're wrong about God', but rather 'we add value by critically examining our lives'.  That's positive and a building statement.  Even the word, "atheism", is a negative one - without-god.  That and agnosticism are the only belief systems I know which define themselves by what they are not.  If you asked me, atheism needs a bit of a face lift, to stop focusing on what they are not, and focus on what they are.  Otherwise, even unconsciously, they'll always be painting themselves as contrary or destructive (because that's what the name itself means).  "Humanism" or "rationalism" seem like much more logical choices.  It's like the difference between calling yourself a chocolate-hater and a vanilla-lover.



Is the premise of atheism "don't believe in god", or is it "critically examine your life"?



That is a problem.  Someone should fix it :)




Again though, I think you've gone into the core message of atheism.  Rationality, a critical view of reality.  That is a belief system.  I think you as an agnostic can agree, the goal of atheism is not to actively prove that God doesn't exist.  The goal is to approach the question honestly, open to whether he exists or not, but with the awareness that so far no evidence has shown that to be the case.  The ad also seems to touch on that ("there probably is no god"), but emphasizes their answer, when it's the question that's important ("is there a god?")  If atheism were about the strict belief that there is no god, it would be just as dogmatic as any other religion.



It would seem to me that the value of saying "there is no god" is about equivalent to saying "there is gravity" - none unless your focus is on the proof and method of getting it.  If someone went through the scientific process completely and proved gravity is in fact magical glue, doesn't that just go to show, again, it's the question, NOT the answer which is critical?  Why is our focus on the answer?



No, the difference is that if you're attacking no one at all, you're not hurting anyone, you're not being mean.  If you're intentionally attacking someone, that is mean.  If you are trying not to attack anyone, but attack someone by accident (say you claim there is no pasta-based god, being unaware of devout pastafarians), that isn't mean on your part (it lacked knowledge or intent).  I suspect these guys knew there is a large religious group who worships a fellow named God.  And I hope they realized that "god" and "God" look identical in all caps.  If they said there probably is no ZZykdor, since no one believed there was a Zzykdor in the first place, it's not really an attack against anyone at all, and therefore not mean.



I'd be interested in seeing any evidence that atheists enjoy their lives more than believers.  I don't think that's really the goal of most atheists, to enjoy life more (at least it isn't in the list you provided).  I could be wrong though.  When I read it, it would seem to me to imply "your God doesn't exist, so the guilt caused by believing in Him is unnecessary".  It doesn't say to me "there is no god, so we can finally have margaritas by the beach" (although maybe it does to you, or maybe the authors didn't realize the alternate message to what they wrote).

Again, I don't think the "benefits" of atheism are enjoying life more, or the goal is to disbelieve in something.  The benefits are getting to the truth, a critical eye, rationality (which, by the by, are not necessarily incompatible with theism, just like charity isn't incompatible with atheism).  So why are they talking about how my religion is wrong rather than how their beliefs are right?

A bit of both.  "There's probably no god" is a conclusion that's come from critically examining reality.  "Critically examine your life" is something that comes from reaching that conclusion.  It's sort of like "be charitable" isn't the core premise of christianity, but sort of just comes naturally (in theory) once one accepts Jesus is the son of God.


I agree that the question is important, but I wouldn't say it's all there is to it.  The answer that atheists reach is important because the effect that answer has on their lives, behaviors, etc.  Would you consider the sign less offensive if it said "Is there a god?  Probably not, so stop worrying and enjoy your life"?  While asking the question "is there a god?" is a key component of atheism, deciding/realizing that the answer is "no" is also a key component.


If 90% of americans didn't believe in gravity, I would think "gravity is real" would be a valuable statement to make.  It's true that having the actual evidence there to back up the claim makes it more valuable, but keep in mind this is the side of a bus we're talking about, not a journal article.  The reason why the answer is important, I think, is that it is the product of the method of investigating the question.  Put another way, one shouldn't aim for one answer or the other during the investigation.  But after the investigation, one shouldn't ignore the fact that you've reached on answer or the other.  It is the implications of the possible answers that motivate investigating the question in the first place.  The reason that we ask "is there a god?" is that the answer will affect our decisions, actions, etc.  Atheism isn't just rationalism, or skepticism, anymore than christianity is just charity or humility or whatever.


That's not quite what the sign said, though.  It wasn't "believe there is no god because it will make you happier."  That's sort of reversing the premise and the conclusion.  The premise was "there's probably no god," and the advice on how you should act on that information is "so stop worry, and start enjoying your life."


I think that's the goal of pretty much everyone!  I didn't list it as an atheist quality because I thought of it more as a universal to everyone quality.  Everyone wants to be happier, no?  I would agree that increasing ones happiness isn't necessarily a reason to accept the atheist premise (or reach the atheist conclusion, or however you want to describe it).  But if believing there is no god allows one to cross one worry off their list of things to worry about, then they should indeed stop worrying about it.


No, I think your take is what they were aiming for (though I might phrase it slightly differently, such as "no gods exist, so all the fears, guilt, hatred, etc caused by believing in any of them are unnecessary.")


I think they are talking about their beliefs are right.  It's just that there's not really a way to express it in english without reference to your beliefs being wrong.  There's just not a word to express the positive lack of existence of a deity the way there is for many other things like darkness (which is a lack of light), coldness (which is a lack of heat), contentedness (which is a lack of want), fullness (which is a lack of additional space), etc.  For many situations, there are two words to cover two opposite conditions (eg, tall/short, fat/skinny, rich/poor).  For others, there's just one word, and it's negation (habitable/uninhabitable, for-profit/not-for-profit, theist/atheist).  If you have a way of conveying the idea that atheists are right, without making a reference to deities, I could probably agree that that'd be a better thing to put on the sign.  But I just don't know how to make such a statement in english.

     Then of course, there are the dyslexic atheists who don't believe in any dogs ....

If that's the take they were going for, they probably should have realized it would upset some people, since it is attacking their beliefs.  It could be that that was also their goal, since people talk more about controversy than about stuff everyone agrees with.  That's a great way to get publicity.  HOWEVER, even if it is effective (just like mud-slinging campaign ads are effective), no one should be surprised if they call it an attack ad or mean.  They knew it would be seen as mean, and thought it was worth that cost because of the value added to their advertising campaign.  Perhaps they even thought it was necessary, that they're doing some sort of charity, like an intervention (and interventions can definitely be mean, even if the intention is tough love), although I sort of doubt it.  But that doesn't make it any less aggressive.

How about compared to signs that say things like "Jesus is the one true God?"  Would you put that in the same category?  Or "it's not a choice, it's a child?"

I suppose I could agree that the ad is an attack on an idea (though not on a person), but I don't think that makes it mean-spirited.  I guess I just don't feel it's automatically mean-spirited to point out that someone is wrong.  I realize it can cause offense, and if you said the ad was offensive to some people, I probably wouldn't disagree.  But "mean-spirited" seems to imply an intent that I don't think was necessarily there.

Yeah, that one sort of gets me.  Or worse still, "Jesus is the God of gods", implying that their god trumps your god.  Still, at least it's a positive message in that it's not directly addressing anyone else, just sort of generally out there.  If it were "Jesus beats Buddha", that would be really mean.



I'd consider that an attack ad, but not mean in that I don't think a lot of people consider their stance on abortion part of their identity.  An attack against someone's religion really is generally an attack on their identity.



To quote the article you originally posted:

"Professor Dawkins said: "Religion is accustomed to getting a free ride - automatic tax breaks, unearned respect and the right not to be offended, the right to brainwash children. "

Since Dawkins did most of the work funding the thing, I would tend to think that confirms it was in fact mean-spirited.



I don't think it's mean-spirited to say someone is wrong, or to attack their position.  However, I do think it is mean-spirited to attack the person's identity.  Religion is a matter of identity, hence part of why it is a taboo topic of debate in many circles.  Even here, if we went out and said "all cat-lovers are stupid", I think most people would shrug and continue on their way, because cat-loving is an attribute, not not really a personality-defining one.  If we went out and said "all Catholics are stupid", that would be deeply offensive, because so many Catholics hold their religion so dear to them.

I think in fact that most of the taboo points of conversation; race, politics, religion, etc. are points linking to identity.  Those things not related to identity, or when we can discuss them while disassociating ourselves from it for that time, are the safe topics.

  Both a flawed in their thinking.  If an athiest would take the blinders off and look at the world, weigh the evidence in nature alone, they would see that something created all this.  (I'll talk about this more in the creation thread.)

I see a flawed world. One that we can't survive naturally on most of its surface, one that gets routinely covered by ice, bombarded by meteorites, and is close enough to other stars that a supernova among them would wipe this planet clear of life. Our body is fragile, and full of flaws, prone to falling ill or dying at the slightest disruption

If this universe was created, it was not by a benevolent, omniscient, omnipotent being. The craftsmanship present indicates unskilled labor, a drunken student, perhaps, trying to hammer out a research paper the night before its due.

Agnostics though have to look at what they're doing like this.  You walk across the street and say, "I'm not going to look for the cars, I'll just deal with whatever happens."  Then they walk out in the street without looking to see if traffic is coming.  Now they might get across the road this time, but eventually they'll get creamed.  I'm sorry, but when your dead, it'll be too late then.

If there is a god, and that god would punish me after death for not believing in him or her, then that god does not deserve my worship or belief. Period. All it deserves is for someone to cast him or her down from its throne, and end its tyranny.

God sent his book so that you would have no excuse on how you live this life, He also made nature to reflect Him as well.

Odin did no such thing.

That's a common thought for many. A more appropiate one though is that you have a choice. You can choose God or not God. Whatever you choose, you get.

To go further with this, Jesus went to the cross, and paid the price for your wrong doing, and my wrong doing. He paid that price in full so that you would no longer owe anything for the payment. It is payed for in full.

Now, as a person you have your choice. You can choose to accept this gift, or you can leave it unused. That's your choice. If you accept it, great, at the end of your life here in this realm, in this body, God will allow you that choice. If you choose not to accept it, well, that is your choice. God doesn't want you to take that choice, but it is your choice. I suspect God will do things like place people in your path, He might put people on rpg forums, and bring up ideas, challenge you, etc. God does not want you to choose to leave the gift unused.

In the end, it is your choice.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:49, Fri 24 Oct 2008.

I would like to add that God has been represented by Christians and others for a long time.  God doesn't punish sinners in everlasting torment.  On the contrary, a careful read will find that unrepentant sinners are consumed by the fires of Hell and only Satan and his angels are tormented eternally.

God is a father, and like a father he will teach you what you can handle and with hold what you can't.  Also, I use this myself when teaching my children, if they choose to disregard my warnings or teachings, I let them take the consiquenses.  If it means they fall out of the tree I've told them to get out of and hurt themselves, then I let them.

It is an active choice.

Anyway, things in the universe are falling apart because of Man's sin, not God's work.  His work was perfect, but we had to go and screw with the machinery. :)

Oh and sorry about the blinders thing.  It was the only way I could think of at the time to describe what I understood and was looking for clarification.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:21, Fri 24 Oct 2008.

That's a common thought for many. A more appropiate one though is that you have a choice. You can choose God or not God. Whatever you choose, you get.

Choosing the right religion is not a choice, by the definition. A better term would be: blind, random guess. Choosing a religion is not making a choice, it's playing the lottery and hoping you chose the right number.

Now, as a person you have your choice. You can choose to accept this gift, or you can leave it unused.

And how, precisely, do you know that this is the 'gift' you should be accepting? How do you know, for instance, that the real way into the afterlife is not by accepting Jesus, but rather by dying honorably in battle, and being carried off to Valhalla by the Valkryies, so that you may spend your days feasting and fighting, until it comes time to fight in the final battle at Ragnarok?

God is a father, and like a father he will teach you what you can handle and with hold what you can't.  Also, I use this myself when teaching my children, if they choose to disregard my warnings or teachings, I let them take the consiquenses.  If it means they fall out of the tree I've told them to get out of and hurt themselves, then I let them.

Except that there are no obvious consequences to religious choice. The god as a parent analogy doesn't work. Do you hide from your children and not let them ever know you exist?

If you start talking about the bible being proof, let me just point out to you that Christianity is not the only religion in town, and there is nothing that suggests it is any better than any of the others?

Anyway, things in the universe are falling apart because of Man's sin, not God's work.  His work was perfect, but we had to go and screw with the machinery. :)

Even if I were inclined to be a believer, it's things like this that would keep me from being a Christian. Allowing this to happen means that your god is either petty, or weak, and neither has any real attraction for me.
This message was last edited by the player at 11:33, Fri 24 Oct 2008.

Ah, but its not.  I had a hard time truely believing until I read Case for Christ and other literature.  Your are making a choice right now in what you believe.  I didn't choose Jesus, because I just spun a wheel and it landed on Him, I chose Him because he was the only one that made sense.  Also what other religious leader could claim that they were raised from the dead?



If you wish to believe that, it is still your choice.  You know the gift, by the knowing the giver.



What do you call the Bible?  Definetly not hiding.
If you start talking about the bible being proof, let me just point out to you that Christianity is not the only religion in town, and there is nothing that suggests it is any better than any of the others?



Okay so you are in the camp that believes that a child should be protected from everything.  That nothing bad should ever happen to a kid.  Is this correct?  I want to make sure I am following you before I continue.
This message was last edited by the player at 13:09, Fri 24 Oct 2008.

Ra, Odin, Isis, Osiris, Baal, Adonis, Mithra and some Roman guy whose name I've forgotten (off the top of my head).

The word "choice" is a bit problematic in these situations.  As you point out, you had a hard time believing at one point.  If it were just a choice, there'd be no hard or easy about it.  You'd just choose what you liked.  As you say, though, you believe Him because it's the only one that makes sense to you.  It's not so much a choice what you believe, but rather you automatically believe that which makes the most sense to you, and then choose your actions based on your beliefs.  To illustrate the point the point that belief isn't a choice, let me bring out a couple tests (apologies to those of you who've seen me say this a million times now):
1. grab a pencil and hold in out in front of you in your hand.  Decide to believe that when you let go of it, it will just hover in front of you rather than fall.  Then let go.  If belief is really a choice, rather than something that is the result of all your previous experiences, then you'll be surprised when the pencil falls.  If, on the other hand, it falls and you're not really surprised, this shows that you can't just choose your beliefs.  Something other than just your own decision has to cause you to believe it.
2. just as an experiment, choose to believe the Jesus isn't God, and instead become a Muslim for 10 minutes, and then switch back to being a christian.  My guess is that you can't change beliefs like that at will.  Again, it's not that you choose to believe in Jesus, but rather that you do believe in Jesus, and choose how to act on that belief.

In my opinion, beliefs are not choices.  Actions are choices.  Beliefs are reactions to experiences you have.  Believing one thing may lead you to believe another (ie, beliefs can be experiences themselves, and thus be causes as well as effects), but you can't just change your beliefs at will.

Going back to the original point: you believe in christianity because it's the only religion that makes sense to you.  You don't believe other religions because they don't make sense to you.  People of other religions are just the same: their religion makes sense to them, but your religion doesn't.  Everyone believes their religion makes the most sense, and all others are nonsensical to some degree.  Atheists go one religion further, and feel that none of the religions make much sense, and agnostics believe they can't reliably tell which, if any, makes the most sense.

There is a problem though with that analagy.  Your assuming that you have the power to over right the laws of physics.  The only one's I ever heard say that are the ones who believe that nothing is real except them, and they are usually put in a looney bin!  Something you wish to admit Tycho?  :P

People do change their beliefs.  There are ex-muslims, ex-gays, and sometimes, ex-christians (though I hate to admit it :)).  Beliefs grow and change sometimes do to new information or new insights.

How would you respond to this situation:  someone grabs you, holds you over a cliff, and says "oh no!  you're in horrible danger!  if I let go, you'll fall down this cliff and die!  But if you give me all your money, then I'll pull you back here to safety!  It's your choice.  I don't want you to choose not to give me your money, but I'm not going to force you to do it.  It's your call.  Choose to have me drop you to your death, or give me all your money.  I'm trying to be a savior here.  I'd love to keep you from falling.  But in the end, it's your choice."
Would you say someone who did that is a good guy?  Personally, I wouldn't.  The whole "it's your choice, I won't force you" argument rings a bit hollow, when you take into account the unspoken part that says "...but if you don't choose what I want you to, I'm going to sentence you to eternal torment in hell."  Sure, there's a choice being offered, but there's a lot of coercion involved.

Giving someone a choice between doing what you want them to, or you doing something horrible to them doesn't absolve you of the blame for doing that horrible thing if they choose not to do what you want.  I can't point a gun at someone and say "do X or I'll shoot!" and then say "hey, I gave him a choice!" when people get mad at me for shooting him.  Perhaps a better example would be if I were walking across a bridge, and found TitL clinging to the edge, about to fall off.  He says "hey Tycho!  Give me a hand up, will you?  I slipped over the edge, and I'm losing my grip here!"  If I say "hmm, seems like you're in a jam, Trust.  I guess I can help you, but I'll only do it if you renounce christianity."  TitL would likely say "No way!  I'd rather die than that!"  If I then shrug my shoulders and say "well, it's your call," and walk away, then I would be a horrible person.  Offering him a choice in the matter doesn't make me any less horrible.  The right thing to do is the right thing to do, and the wrong thing to do is the wrong thing to do.  Offering him a choice doesn't absolve me from the the fact that I didn't the right thing.

It's not just that one has a choice, in the christian model, but rather that God has forced a choice upon you.  It's not like the rules were set, and now His hands are tied.  He made the rules.  He created the situation that caused you to make the choice.  He's like the guy pointing a gun at you, saying "do X or I'll shoot!"  He's not so much offering a choice, but forcing a choice on you.

Now, you can say "hey, He's God.  If He wants to force a choice on us, who's gonna tell Him He can't?"  And that's true.  He can make up whatever rules He likes, I suppose.  But I think you miss a key aspect of the situation when you portray it as "hey, He lets you decide, it's all up to you, He won't force you, etc."  It's not the kind of thing we'd accept if a human did it.  That doesn't necessarily mean we shouldn't accept it from a Deity, and to a degree, should/shouldn't isn't really an issue if you believe in Him, anymore than it is if someone has a gun at your head forcing you to do X or die.  The choice in both case is yours, but in neither case do I think it's appropriate to present that choice as a virtue.

Ah, but its not.  I had a hard time truely believing until I read Case for Christ and other literature.  Your are making a choice right now in what you believe.  I didn't choose Jesus, because I just spun a wheel and it landed on Him, I chose Him because he was the only one that made sense.

A Jew, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Hindu, a Wiccan, they would all say the same thing. Why should I listen to you instead of them?

Also what other religious leader could claim that they were raised from the dead?

The Buddha achieved Parinirvana, what other religious leader can claim that?

Also what other religious leader could claim that they were raised from the dead?

I call it a holy book, just the same as every other holy book in existence. The bible is not a unique text, there is nothing suggesting that it is any more valid than say, the Koran.

Okay so you are in the camp that believes that a child should be protected from everything.  That nothing bad should ever happen to a kid.  Is this correct?  I want to make sure I am following you before I continue.

What precisely does that have to do with anything?

Everything my friend, everything.  God had a perfect plan of everyone living with him in the Garden of Eden and God told our original ancestors that they could eat anything they wanted, but this one tree.  Now some would say that this was mean, but it actually shows God's character.  Ask yourself, why would God give them such a choice if He knew that they would eat and destroy everything He works so hard to make?  Because he didn't want our devotion without an active choice.  Either follow what God said or do what you want.  Tycho says that this is not a choice or is a mean spirited choice, but its not.

Holding a gun to my head is not the same as saying I love you so much you that I will let you fail and even leave me forever then make you stay were you don't want to be.  It would tear me up if my children left and never came back to visit once, but I wouldn't hold them in their rooms if they told me that was what they were going to do.

Like the saying goes, "If you love someone let them go, if  they don't come back it was never ment to be."  The saying doesn't go, "If you love someone grab them and don't let them leave, ever."

The choice is to either love God or not.  If you don't want to be with God here, then why would you want to be with him in heaven?  Unfortunetly there is will be nowhere left to do, but to be consumed in hell fire.  This is why he spelled out everything for everyone, so that the choice could be offered.  He has also shown Himself in nature as well.

Honestly, I kinda have to agree with Falkus, GK. I mean, if given a choice between "believe in me or go to hell" or "lead a good life and you'll be rewarded", I'll choose Door #2 every time. That's basically the way you're phrasing it, and that's how a lot of Christians I know explain Christianity. (The only exception I know personally is my sister, who says she thinks good people go to heaven regardless of their beliefs... including me. =p) I'm sorry, but I'm not masochistic enough to believe in a "perfect" God. Gods, to me, truly did make us in their image, flaws and all. We just can't complete as massively epic fails as they can unless we're really, really determined to do it. ^_^

But seriously, if as you say we're made in your God's image, then why are there so many different, but nearly concurrent, mythologies and stories from the past, outlining gods and goddesses and heroes and titans and such?

That's because your seeing it as an ultimatum when its not.  If you don't want to spend time with God in eternity, God still will give you what you want out of this life.  He doesn't remove all happiness from you, but happiness on earth is only temporary and never fullfilling.  If the choice was an ultimatum, then God would hold back blessing from those that don't follow Him.  He causes the rains to fall on the righteous and unrightous alike.

The mythologies are easier to explain, we all have a God shaped hole in our souls that can only be filled by God himself.  If you choice not to fill it with the Holy Spirit, then you will be drawn to try to fill it with something else, like money, fame, and gods of our own making.

Religion is not the goal of God for us. A relation is what God desires with us. When one goes to heaven, you won't see separate line ups for each religion.

I could go on and on about bible verses. And that is a good place to start. But overwhelmingly, look back at the threads of this forum. How many threads discuss ideas based around Valhalla? How many Valkyrie threads are there?

It is clear, only Jesus has such an impact that people of numerous beliefs are drawn to talk about Jesus so much.

Who is attracted to Jesus? Everyone. It's written on your heart, it's written on mine. Only the name of Jesus draws so much attention.

Everything my friend, everything.  God had a perfect plan of everyone living with him in the Garden of Eden and God told our original ancestors that they could eat anything they wanted, but this one tree.  Now some would say that this was mean, but it actually shows God's character.  Ask yourself, why would God give them such a choice if He knew that they would eat and destroy everything He works so hard to make?  Because he didn't want our devotion without an active choice.  Either follow what God said or do what you want.

If god is omnipotent, that's irrelevant. God can have it both ways, he can force us to be one thing while maintaining free will. That's definition of omnipotent: the ability to do anything.

This is why he spelled out everything for everyone, so that the choice could be offered.

What? Christianity did not become known worldwide until over a thousand years after it's introduction.

He has also shown Himself in nature as well.

Then how come only you can see it?

Religion is not the goal of God for us. A relation is what God desires with us. When one goes to heaven, you won't see separate line ups for each religion.

How many threads discuss ideas based around Valhalla? How many Valkyrie threads are there?

What are you saying? That religion is based on popularity? So in a hundred years, when Islam is bigger than Christianity, it'll be the right religion and Christianity will be the wrong one?

It is clear, only Jesus has such an impact that people of numerous beliefs are drawn to talk about Jesus so much.

We talk about Hitler a lot too.

Who is attracted to Jesus? Everyone. It's written on your heart, it's written on mine. Only the name of Jesus draws so much attention.

Buddha. Mohammed.

Omnipotent is the ability to do anything you want, true, but God doesn't work that way.  If he did, the fall wouldn't have happened, Hilter wouldn't have happed, the inquisition wouldn't have happened.  Instead He let's us screw up, because failure is the greatest teacher.

If you read the Old and New you'll find  that the same thread runs through both.  Christianity came from the Jews and is a part of the Jewish tradition and should be viewed as seperate, but joined.

The Jews are God holy people, and Christians are outsiders that have trusted in the Jewish messiah.

Making your decision should never be based on popularity, but on careful research and questioning that faith.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:26, Sat 25 Oct 2008.

Omnipotent is the ability to do anything you want, true, but God doesn't work that way.  If he did, the fall wouldn't have happened, Hilter wouldn't have happed, the inquisition wouldn't have happened.  Instead He let's us screw up, because failure is the greatest teacher.

Apparently, god never read the parable of the good Samaritan.

Making your decision should never be based on popularity, but on careful research and questioning that faith.

Why do you think I'm an agnostic?

Omnipotent does mean one can do anything. But that doesn't mean God will do everything. Just because you want it that way, doesn't mean God will do it that way. Saying God should have done it one way doesn't mean He is not omnipotent if He didn't.

Jesus paid the price for all sins, past, present, future. When we die doesn't change that our price for our actions that are wrong have been paid for in full.

I don't think we need to ignore signs within nature. There does appear to be beauty, and design within nature. We can agree to the basics, even if we disagree to the specifics.

No, I'm not saying popularity makes it true. I'm saying the truth will impact everything. For example, if true, the bible would be impactful. There are plenty of old books. There are plenty of books with history. There are plenty of books with inspiration in them. Nothing compares to the impact on people's lives as the name of Jesus.

I'm saying the name of Jesus, His actions, His life, God makes people react.

I don't really believe that to be true. I think far more threads here are about Jesus, rather than Hitler. I'm not so sure that Hitler has anywhere near the amount of impact Jesus does. I just don't see too many churches of hitler, or the book of hitler, etc. I don't see why you feel Hitler has an impact as much as Jesus does. Really, I cannot think of any other person that comes as close to the impact Jesus does. I mean any person, past or present.


I don't see why those two names would carry the same impact. What makes you think they do?

I get that you feel hell is a negative. But that doesn't stop you from doing anything right now. Would you agree that you can chose to do pretty much anything you want within the law? I assume you're not looking to do illegal things. So if you can do whatever you want, I don't think that's quite the same as saying God is holding you over a cliff.

You do feel you have a choice to live a life to follow or not follow what God has spoken of in the bible, don't you?

This might be me, but I think you feel like that God is going to punish you if you don't choose Him. How about thinking of it this way, are you comfortable in being judged for the things that you do? Now would you feel being put in front of a good judge? A judge who is righteous, and judges perfectly?

To me, that's not the same thing as just being thrown over a cliff for not picking God. Your life is your life. The afterlife is only a judgment for the things you did in this life. It's not picking you to die early, it's just a choice, and the results of that choice.


The analogy is off though. In this case, Jesus came up to the bridge, jumped over the side to be with you, and then quite literally would have fallen in your place, so that you wouldn't have to fall.

The truth of the situation is that God has done everything for you. He's explained what He wants, He's paid the price of sin debt, and He's left a love letter for you to read and learn from. This mortal world we live in seems to focus on the physical. But we can all feel that pull to want more. God desires this relationship with you, me, all of us. He does know people are torn because of their physical mortal desires, but our spiritual self wants to be with God.

I don't agree. People can choose to live as they want. God allows you to do things that are not helpful to you or others. But in the end, we will be judged for what we do.

I'm not sure what you mean about virtue. I think a choice of God or not God is just a choice.

To be honest, picking God means more difficulty in life. But the advantage to choosing God is that no matter what, we can live in the hope so much more. No matter how bad it gets in life, we will always have hope in Jesus as our living redeemer.

The law isn't promising eternal torture, though.  When we see laws that promise a punishment far in excess of the crime, we call them unjust.  If the law sent a person to be tortured for 2 years for going 5 miles over the limit, we'd think that was a horrible, horrible, law.  Cruel, unjust, and wrong in every way.  Further the law doesn't try to sell itself as some kind of benevolent, "it's your choice" thing.  When people make laws, they tend to have the honesty to just say "yeah, you have to do it this way, or we're going to punish you."  They don't try to make it sound like some "hey, do whatever you like, it's your choice."  They make it quite clear they're imposing their will on me.  I'll I'm saying is that God is doing the same thing as the law under your model of reality.  He's not saying "do whatever you like, it's up to you."  He's saying "do it this way, or take the punishment for disobeying me."


Yes, I certainly have a choice to follow or not to follow.  Just as I have a choice to do what the guy pointing a gun at my head tells me to do or not.  It is a choice, but it's a choice force upon me by someone who is using threats of extreme suffering to coerce a certain decision out of me.


It's more that I don't think God exists, not that I think he's going to say "oh that 'follow me' stuff?  Ha!  I was only kidding!"  It's the same way that you think Allah isn't going to punish you for not following him.  It's not that you think Allah will forgive you, but that you don't think Allah is real.


Quite comfortable, yes.  But I don't consider a judge who would impose an infinite punishment for a finite crime to be righteous, perfect, or just.  The question, though, isn't whether I'm comfortable being judged by God, but whether or not I think there actually is a God to do that judging.


In the same way, someone shooting me for not doing what they told me to do is the result of my choice not to follow their orders.


Except that Jesus gets to fall off the bridge and not die.  And I still have to fall and die if I don't do what he wants me to.


Yes, we are allowed to live as we choose.  Just as the guy pointing a gun at my head "allows" me to do what he says or not, but just happens to shoot me if I don't.  I'm not saying there's not a choice.  I'm saying that it's not offering me to options I didn't already have, but rather creating a situation where I have to pick between two things I didn't want to pick from.  You guys seem to be acting like it's a "Hey!  here's two cars, take whichever you like!" choice, but I'm telling you it's a "Hey!  give me your car or I'll shot you!" choice.  If God didn't demand that I act a certain way, I'd still be able to act how I choose, so He's not offering me a freedom I didn't already have with his choice.  What he's doing is forcing me to pick between two options that didn't need to be mutually exclusive.


I mean that you're selling this choice as a reason to think God is great.  You're acting as if God is a great guy for giving us this choice.  I'm saying that's an odd way to look at, and that we tend not to think that people are great nice people when the force us to make analogous choices.

Please explain the good Samaritan to me.



Fair enough, but also explain that.  It is looking like you are not going to research the information, but have given up.  I hope that this isn't the case.

As Hanity says "An informed American is a Great American"

Someone can hold a gun to your head and say "I love you so much that I let you walk away and get shot in the head, even though I want you not to!"  But you won't really think it's a very loving thing.  If hell were something imposed on God against his will, something that He didn't want to be there, but something He simply couldn't do anything about, then your analogy would be fair.  But "letting" you go to hell isn't what God is doing.  He sending you to hell, actively, Himself.  It takes God's action to put you into hell.  He has to decide whether to send you there or send you to heaven.  That's the trigger.  He has to decide whether to pull it or not.  The fact that He tells you the conditions under which He plans to pull it or not doesn't free Him from responsibility of pulling the trigger if he does, anymore than me saying "Don't walk away or I'll shoot!" means I'm not guilty of shooting you if you walk away.


How much pain would you intentionally inflict on them if they left?  One second of torture?  Ten seconds?  I'm guessing that as much as it would hurt you, you wouldn't wish any harm on them for doing it.  Not one bit of pain.  Not one half-second of sadness.  But God not only wishes, but inflicts torment unlike anything anyone living has ever experienced on those who don't believe in him.  He doesn't just let them walk away the way you would let your child walk away.  He says "okay, if that's the way you wanna be!  Here you go, an infinite amount of pain for you!"


It also doesn't say "if you love someone, let them go.  And if they don't come back, inflict immeasurable pain on them for all of eternity."


Actually, the choice is how you act.  It's not an issue of "wanting to be with Him here," but rather not believing He exists.  There's no one I know of that believes in God but just doesn't like Him.  I'm sure there's a few people out there that think that, but there's not many.  Instead, it's people thinking "hey, I'd love to hang out with this perfect being if he existed, but all the stories you tell about him just don't make sense.  I don't think He's real, as nice as it might be if He were. "

Wanted to touch on this separately, as it's a slight change of topic:

Will we be judged for what we do, or for what we believe?  Is there any action we can take to save us from hell?  Or is it only faith that can tip the balance?  Are we judged for our actions, or for our faith?

In reply to Tycho (msg #134):

You are baseing your arguement of eteranal punishment on a misconception.  Careful reading of the passages show that the unrepentant are consumed by the fire, not continuously tormented.

This misunderstanding usually comes from where the Bibles says something like, "Where there will be weeping and nashing of teeth" or "seperated from God for all eternity."  The weeping and nashing are from the Devil and his angels and if your soul is destroyed, then this is eternal seperation.

I see some validity in your arguement about the gun anaolgy.  I'm not sure how to explain it to make sense, but I trust that this is not the way it is.  All I can think of at this time is that God doesn't talk about his wrath as much as He talks about his love.

Heaven is set up for those who want to be with God.  God is perfect, heaven is perfect, so to keep heaven from being tainted by sin, He can't allow in anyone who doesn't wish to be there.

So you don't believe there will be suffering for non-believers in the afterlife?


And I think this is the main difference between our points of view.  When I reach a point where I can't make sense of it, I think "hmm, it doesn't make sense, must be something wrong."  You trust that it's all okay.  That's fine, I think we can each be comfortable with our respective reactions.  Just realize that yours is non-self correcting: if you are wrong, it's very difficult for you stop being wrong if you just trust that all will be okay.  Not an issue, I suppose, if you don't think there's any chance that you're wrong.  I've just been wrong about enough things that I don't want to take it for granted that I'm right.


Guys who beat their wives usually tell them they love them far more than they beat them.  Doesn't make it okay, in my eyes, though.


Again, though, it's not an issue of wanting to be with God, but believing that God is real.

Omnipotent does mean one can do anything. But that doesn't mean God will do everything. Just because you want it that way, doesn't mean God will do it that way. Saying God should have done it one way doesn't mean He is not omnipotent if He didn't.

And if god's not going to bother to provide any sort of proof or evidence of its, despite its power, it shouldn't be surprised when I don't believe in it.

Jesus paid the price for all sins, past, present, future. When we die doesn't change that our price for our actions that are wrong have been paid for in full.

My point was that Christianity was not a world phenomenon until long after it was founded. It was not spelled out for everyone, only a few people in the middle east.

I don't think we need to ignore signs within nature. There does appear to be beauty, and design within nature. We can agree to the basics, even if we disagree to the specifics.

No, there isn't. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and you only see design if you want to. I see the product of natural processes over billions of years which, in many ways, is much more impressive than being designed by some god.

No, I'm not saying popularity makes it true. I'm saying the truth will impact everything. For example, if true, the bible would be impactful. There are plenty of old books. There are plenty of books with history. There are plenty of books with inspiration in them. Nothing compares to the impact on people's lives as the name of Jesus.

Ever hear of the Koran?

I'm saying the name of Jesus, His actions, His life, God makes people react.

So does Mohamed. So does Buddha. Heck, so do Hitler and Stalin. Impact doesn't imply truth.

I don't really believe that to be true. I think far more threads here are about Jesus, rather than Hitler. I'm not so sure that Hitler has anywhere near the amount of impact Jesus does. I just don't see too many churches of hitler, or the book of hitler, etc. I don't see why you feel Hitler has an impact as much as Jesus does. Really, I cannot think of any other person that comes as close to the impact Jesus does. I mean any person, past or present.

Hitler is possibly the single most influential person ever. He reshaped world politics on a scale never before known. His actions caused the United States to become a super power.

I don't see why those two names would carry the same impact. What makes you think they do?

There's 1.5 billion Muslims in the world, and 400 million Buddhists, to each of whom the name of their religion's originator carries the same impact as Jesus does to you.

The reason you don't think they have impact is not because they don't, but because they don't have an impact with you.

Please explain the good Samaritan to me.

If you have the ability to help someone in need, you should.

Fair enough, but also explain that.  It is looking like you are not going to research the information, but have given up.  I hope that this isn't the case.

I did my research, and have come to the conclusion that there is nothing suggesting that any religion is any more accurate than any other one. Nothing I have learned since then has changed that opinion.
This message was last edited by the player at 13:34, Sat 25 Oct 2008.

Also, have you ever read the Old Testament, GK? It's filled, IIRC, with your God's wrath against those he claims to love. Sodom/Gomorrah? Lamentations? Letting us hurt ourselves... that's one thing. But S&G was an event caused by him, as it was written. The plagues were caused by him -- sure, to save "his people", but if he was trying to convert the Egyptians to have faith in him, I don't think he did a very good job.

"Yeah, some higher power that my slaves believe in made a mess of my kingdom, so I'm gonna bow down to his 1334 h4x0rn3zz too." Right, like that would happen. But then you turn around and look at events like Hiroshima, or the World Trade Center, or the Third Reich... those weren't caused by God, or the Lady, or Buddha, or Odin, or Amaterasu... they were caused by us people thinking we have the right to control others, or dominate them, or whatever.

It appears you're saying that in the afterlife, you feel anything that is negative, is unjust. And this is where your analogy is not accurate. This isn't God taking us to a cliff, and threatening us to decide or else. This is where God is saying, do not live your life as if this is all there is. Live your life for the eternal life that comes afterward. God is telling us what to do if we want to enjoy our lives. I think there's a huge flaw to the comparison to being threatened with death if we don't follow.

With my children, I explain things on how to succeed. I tell them about consequences as well. Just because I explain that bad things can happen if they choose poorly, I'm not a bad person because I have pointed out there is bad consequences. With my youngest children, I may need to correct them to help them learn what is good, and what they need to do to succeed. I'm still not a bad person just because I point out that actions do have consequences.

I hope this makes it more clear that If God points out that certain actions result in negative responses, that does not make God evil. Now let's talk about excessive.

You mention that you feel that choosing to be without God for eternity would be excessive. However, this is only if you choose not to be with God. That's a choice. I made that choice for many years. I later chose to be with God. Being born into a culture or family does not eliminate you from making a choice.

From what I remember in being an atheist, I felt it was easier to choose not to be with God as that was a safe choice, I didn't believe in Him after all. I think we as people choose our sin sometimes willingly and openly, even knowing there will be bad consequences. For example, someone who cheats on their spouse is knowingly choosing bad consequences. They may not want to pay the debt on it, but they accept they are doing wrong.


I remember when my children were very upset with me for enforcing a grounding, or chore they did not like. They sometimes said very hurtful things in their anger with me. Even though I know I had to use correction, I knew they would not be thankful or grateful for the things I had to do because I loved them enough to do things they did not like, so they would grow up into an adult with a good solid graps of responsibilities.

Comparing me to a gunman might have made their view more emotional, but it doesn't make it more accurate. The things I did was because I loved them. Doing things that upset someone does not mean it it is done out of hate, anger, or hostility.


Maybe yes, maybe not. I don't compare Allah to a gunman, or some other negative analogy. But your writing does point out you feel God is hateful, or at least an angry God.


If you feel there is no God, then no amount of punishment would matter. I'll use your earlier example of Allah. Correctly, I fear no amount of justice from Allah. No mater if Allah were to torture me by multiple painful methods for two eternities.

If the consequences of your actions do not matter, then we can move onto other things, right? I don't mind leaving Allah behind for example, as it wouldn't matter what it says for punishment.


Right. I agree.


Well Jesus did die, and did suffer horribly. And no, you don't have to pay that price anymore. Or at least you don't have to if you don't want to. Some people do feel they want to pay their price for their sin. They really can't pay it in full though.

I think you are saying Jesus would come back to life, but He did die horribly, in great pain, and in utter fear of what was to happen. I do agree we will die at some point, but death isn't the end.


I think this is good. This goes into heavily why I feel the analogy is off. Just as I might correct my children, I do it because the end goal, to raise them to be able to handle things well as an adult, God is giving us things to develop us for the afterlife.

God is telling us what is good for us, and I know that upsets people to be told that some of the things they do are not good for us. God's moral laws help us live better with each other.

God telling us that we will be better off if we do things a certain way, does not mean Him punishing us is wrong, as illustrated by looking at many parents, we do these things because we want our children to do well.


Well, I look at it that Jesus suffered greatly for us, and did so because He wants us to succeed. He doesn't want us to think of the immediate now, and short time here on Earth is all there is.

I am acting like God is a great God. That's because I know God is doing it because He loves us, me, you, so much. As we know, if we do something out of selfishness or love, that determines how it is perceived by others. A man who steals to feed his family is looked at with sympathy when compared to the man who steals a car to go joy riding. And because God loves us so much, I do act like God is a Good and wonderful God.

We're judged for what we do. Only through the grace of God, through the actions of Jesus, and our choice to accept that Gift spares us from the payment due for our actions.

Don't get me wrong, we're all deserving of punishment. Only through Jesus are we spared from paying that price. I was an atheist, and I would have been held to that punishment too. Regardless of belief.

The one action we have control in changing our debt, is accepting that gift from Jesus. Through our faith in Jesus do we change from sinners. Only at that point do we change.

Two things, why do you feel there is no evidence for God? If there is evidence, then God has done what you said, provided evidence to follow Him.
Second, God isn't surprised by what you do or choose.

I know what you're saying, but I don't feel when the sin was committed, or when forgiveness takes place matter when it comes to choice.

Yes, I know we disagree with the specifics, but we seem to agree with the basics. You mention impressiveness, and I mention beauty. You mentioned billions of years of development, and I mention design within nature. I know you attribute the same things talked about from different reasons, but I think it's reasonable to agree on the basics.

Yes, and I still don't feel that compares to Jesus.

I see the direction you're going. But I'm not saying other things don't have an impact. I'm saying that nothing else has the impact as much as Jesus does.

Yes, I agree Hitler will be remembered and will be looked upon with hatred or awe by various people. I really doubt though he will ever come close to the impact Jesus has placed on the entire world through economy, charities, influence, politics, laws, family life, hope, inspiration, and love.

I'm quite confident that's evidence they are not as impacting as Jesus who has had many more billions of followers.

I mentioned earlier that I'm not talking about nothing else can make an impact, but rather nothing else has made as much an impact as Jesus. I do agree with you that Buddha, and Mohamed have made an impact on the world.

Certainly there are some view points you disagree with though. Many of your posts come across as negative towards a christian God, and yet if it were true you felt it was possibly valid, I don't negative would be justified.

For example, I don't agree that it is possible for all religions to be equal. They differ in numerous ways, and it requires that some must be wrong in their view of God. Simply for the matter that they conflict is evidence they do not agree. If one says the path to God is through wearing a thorn branch pierced through your ear, and another says the path does not require a thorn through your ear, we can make some clear indicators that not all are equal.

Two things, why do you feel there is no evidence for God? If there is evidence, then God has done what you said, provided evidence to follow Him.

Because none has been found? There's nothing in this physical world suggesting the existence of the divine?

Second, God isn't surprised by what you do or choose.

Your god, if it exists, is making an unreasonable demand of me. Your god is asking me to turn off my brain, and that is an unacceptable state of existence for me.

"The unquestioned life is not worth living." Socrates

Yes, and I still don't feel that compares to Jesus.

A Muslim would disagree with you on that.

Yes, I agree Hitler will be remembered and will be looked upon with hatred or awe by various people. I really doubt though he will ever come close to the impact Jesus has placed on the entire world through economy, charities, influence, politics, laws, family life, hope, inspiration, and love.

The crusades, the witch hunts, the Spanish Inquisition. Does the negative counter the positive, I wonder?

I'm quite confident that's evidence they are not as impacting as Jesus who has had many more billions of followers.

So, in the year 2025, when, at present growth rates, there are five to ten percent more Muslims than Christians in the world, Christianity will suddenly stop being the right religion and Islam will start being the right one?

I mentioned earlier that I'm not talking about nothing else can make an impact, but rather nothing else has made as much an impact as Jesus. I do agree with you that Buddha, and Mohamed have made an impact on the world.

Again, this is because of your viewpoint. A Buddhist or a Muslim would disagree with you on that.

Certainly there are some view points you disagree with though. Many of your posts come across as negative towards a christian God, and yet if it were true you felt it was possibly valid, I don't negative would be justified.

I'm an agnostic religiously, but I do find several aspects of Christian belief to be repellent and abhorrent, both morally and intellectually. Traditional viewpoints on women, homosexuality, missionaries, science, etc.

If I do ever find faith, I assure you, I will not be a christian.

In order for you to state there is no evidence, that means you are stating you've gone through all information in the universe, and have shown there is no evidence.

If you're stating there is no evidence for God, then you have also proven there is no God. I don't think that is true. I'm asking why you feel there is no evidence for God. You stated there is none, are you doing this because of the evidence or your belief there is no evidence?

I'll come back to this, as that's a good point to begin a discussion.

I don't think an honest or informed muslim would say that. Belief doesn't make Jesus the most impacting person on Earth, history makes Jesus the most impacting human on earth.

I don't think it counters the positive. Negative is bad, and positive is good, but I'm not so sure that we can say that balances each other out. What did you mean when you brought those ideas up? They don't really counter my point about Jesus more impacting than Hitler.



With about 2000 years with Jesus being the most impacting person on the face of the Earth, I don't how that is going to change in a 16 year period. 2000 years versus 16 years.

It's very possible I can be shown wrong, as the antichrist will likely show up soon, and satan will be very influential in a negative on the entire earth. So I do accept that in the future there will be plenty of change yet to come. But I don't think that will show christianity as untrue, even though more issues and complaints will come against christianity.

I don't think so. Our laws, religion, charities, organizations, and politics would have their biggest impact from Jesus. Quite frankly Jesus changed the world, and still is making change in the world. Viewpoints cannot alter this.

And that's a choice. I think you would find it grossly unfair if God made you choose to go against your will, and choose God in the end of life. This is precisely why I feel choice is a good thing, and also a good thing for Tycho to see. People will choose "not God", and I feel it is wrong for God to make them lose free will just so they can be going to a place where God will be with them all the time forever.

Without free will, People will end up nothing more than robots with no choice in the matter.

In order for you to state there is no evidence, that means you are stating you've gone through all information in the universe, and have shown there is no evidence.

If you're stating there is no evidence for God, then you have also proven there is no God.

You can't prove a negative.

I don't think an honest or informed muslim would say that. Belief doesn't make Jesus the most impacting person on Earth, history makes Jesus the most impacting human on earth. 

I disagree on the impact that you think Jesus has had compared to Mohamed. Islam has been an extremely important force in history

In any case, you still haven't demonstrated why influence suggests truth. To me, all it suggests is a good PR campaign.

don't think it counters the positive. Negative is bad, and positive is good, but I'm not so sure that we can say that balances each other out. What did you mean when you brought those ideas up? They don't really counter my point about Jesus more impacting than Hitler.

My point is that the hundreds of thousands of people tortured and murdered by your religion might have found the world to be a better place if Jesus hadn't existed.

With about 2000 years with Jesus being the most impacting person on the face of the Earth, I don't how that is going to change in a 16 year period. 2000 years versus 16 years.  I

You just said that the higher population supported your argument. Now you're saying it doesn't? Which is it?

I don't think so. Our laws, religion, charities, organizations, and politics would have their biggest impact from Jesus. Quite frankly Jesus changed the world, and still is making change in the world. Viewpoints cannot alter this.

The United States (and pretty much all western countries), the most influential country in the world, has its constitution and laws based on the thinking the Enlightenment period, in which Reason, not Christianity, was the primary influence.

I'd agree with you on that. So then if you feel logically one cannot say there is no evidence for God, are you saying due to belief, or something else? I'm looking for something to show counter to people who say there is evidence, and you can state they cannot have any.

Ok, why do you feel Mohammed has a larger influence then? In the past I've used the bible to show it had the largest sales than any other book. Jesus has been an important figure for a longer period of time, and has resulted in more followers.

So you'll have to explain to me why Mohamed is more influential.

I was saying that because Jesus is true, that is why Jesus has been the most impacting person on Earth.

I see. I don't think that really changes anything though. Think of it this way, the people killed by the Nazi's might have felt better if Adolf Hitler didn't exist either. That doesn't really change that he did exist. Bad things happening changes remove or change truth. It does change perspective in some cases, on that I can agree with you, but I don't feel that changes what truth is.

Both. Jesus has more followers, and He has been impacting for more than 2000 years, and I don't think it will change short of having the antichrist show up.

I think this is good. If people were to go back into history and see the base of law, they might be surprised how much the bible has impacted the laws of the Western world. William Blackstone was the influence of pretty much all lawyers, and William Blackstone put God and the bible as the basis behind law. The way the Western world developed was due to the bible influence.

No, not anything that's negative.  Just the specific negative of infinite torment.


Yes, it's fine to point out that certain actions have consquences.  It's great to tell your kids "don't do this, or this bad thing will happen."  However, when you tell your kids that, you're constrained by the fact that that bad thing is beyond your control.  If you intentionally make a bad thing happen to them, that's a different story.  God isn't just warning us about some danger, he's warning us about what He is going to do to us.  He's not saying "don't get too close to the cliff, buddy!" He's saying "do what I say or I'm going to hurt you!"


Again, there's a difference between pointing out a danger that's already there, and creating a danger in order to get people to act how you want.  Hell isn't something that God just has to accept.  It's something God intentionally created.


I think an eternity of torment is excessive for any finite action.


If you're saying you knew it was wrong to be an atheist back when you were one, then I don't think you were actually an atheist.  I don't actually think it's wrong to be an atheist.  I know you think it's wrong, and I accept the possibility that I may be mistaken, but I promise you, with all sincerity, I'm not just acting like an atheists but keeping some deep-down secret that I really know it's wrong.  It is honestly what I think is mostly likely to be true.


Ah, so hell is actually just a learning experience?  We won't like it, but it'll make us better people in the end?  I guess I don't see how any punishment that is infinite in duration can be a learning experience.  I don't see how it will make us better in the end.  It seems like it is the end.  It's not to help us grow, it's the end of growth.


Causing an eternity of torment doesn't seem at all loving to me.  I can't think of anything less loving than eternal torture.  If I understand your view of hell correctly, there is really nothing worse that it.  It's as bad as it can possibly get.  And it lasts forever.  There's nothing loving about that at all.


I think the God you describe would have to be spiteful, or at very least not loving, which is why I don't think He is real.  The picture you paint of Him just doesn't make sense, because He's supposed to be loving, but then does the most evil, horrible thing imaginable.  The story doesn't add up, which leads me to think it must not be right.


If you're suggesting we stop discussing God, fine by me.  I have a feeling that's not what you were suggesting, though.  Care to clarify?


Hell will help us develop for the afterlife?  Again, I just don't see how eternal torture of the worst imaginable kind will benefit anyone.


I think you misunderstand my position.  I'm not saying God shouldn't say "do this" or "don't do this."  There's nothing wrong giving orders, per se.  What I think is off is eternal torture for not obeying the orders, especially if one of the orders is a self-serving "you have to love me!" thing.


Again, you punish your kids in order that they might learn, and be better off for it later.  Hell doesn't offer that opportunity.  There doesn't seem to be any benefit to it.  It seems purely sadistic and vengeful, and of no benefit at all to those who suffer it.

I'm going to skip over the points for the most part here Tycho. I'll hit back on the major problem, and hopefully that will resolve the rest. We can go back to them if needed.

Your analogy of a gun man taking you to a cliff, and pulling you away from the danger is not accurate. God does not take you to a cliff, and and He allows for you to choose freely. You can live your life as you see fit, and at worst, you simply have things in your life that remind you about God loving you, or why things seem hard on your own, without the help God freely gives to anyone who wants His help.


You seem to feel strongly that God is wrong to not bring you to heaven if you do not want to go to heaven. Literally, the alternative is to deny your choice if you do not want to be with Him. I feel that if you want to choose God or not God, and you do feel it is a choice, then the matter is moot. If you want to choose God, then choose Him. If you don't want to choose Him, then don't. In the past, I chose not God. Though I'm glad God did not give up on me, and I have now chosen God.

I don't feel the analogy is accurate as God is allowing us the choice, and He is allowing us to choose freely. He's not pulling us to a cliff, He's not putting a gun to us. For that matter, he's not even asking all that much. You mention he's asking you to obey Him. God even points out He expects us to fail at obeying Him. So really, I don't actually understand why anyone feels all that bad about what God is asking us to choose.

Part of my problem is that most Christians, when they're talking about it, make it sound like it's a black-or-white choice. (Not saying you do, Trust.) What I mean is, either you believe in God and go to heaven, or you don't believe in him and go to hell. And I think that's what Tycho was getting at, too. If that's the case, then it shouldn't matter how much good I do in my life. I'm an inherently good person; but because I don't believe in God, if I die tomorrow does that mean I go to hell, no if's, and's, or but's? Despite the fact that I donate to charities as I can? Despite the fact that I hold the door open for random people? Despite the fact that I treat others as I would want them to treat me? Sure, it's all for different reasons than, say, you, Trust, but it has the same core philosophy, IMO.

Here's another way of thinking about. We are all going to go to hell for the things we do or did. Whatever you think hell is, torment, torture, being away from God, endless black, the end of all things, and no more existence, cold black ending, where there is no conscience, etc, we would go there for what we deserve.

God is offering another way, if you want it. He wants us there, as He knows we would enjoy it. God created our souls for eternity. Our bodies are just fragile husks that we won't be keeping. We lose those at some point.

God wants us to be with Him, and literally has provided a way that is fair, and pays off any debt we have deserved. Jesus paid for our bad actions, and choices.

God only asks that you follow Him. He even points out you're going to fail at following Him. So really, He's not asking much, is He? He has pointed out if you just follow two commands, Love God, and love others that's good. Further, He says you're going to fail at doing even that.


If you die tomorrow, only God will be able to tell you what will happen. In the bible it says,

 So for those who have accepted Jesus, they are promised eternal life.

Okay, we're getting back to stuff we've covered over and over again, TitL.  As usual, you don't just disagree with me (which would be fine), but seem to want to re-frame my position so that it actually matches yours.  In your view, it's not that I don't believe in God, it's that I don't want to be with Him.  In your view, I'm not saying that eternal torture is an unjust punishment for any finite crime, but rather I'm saying that there should be no free will.  I know you disagree with TitL, and I don't expect you to change your mind based on anything I say.  But it would be nice if you would actually put some effort into understanding my position, rather than just assuming these things about it.


The guy with a gun at my head allows me to choose freely too.  He lets me make my decision as I see fit.  At worst, he reminds me that if I choose one thing, he'll shoot me, but if I choose another, he won't (because he loves me, of course).  He wants to help me, that why he tells me what I need to do to avoid getting shot.

Tell me, where's the error in my description?  When you find it, ask yourself if you're making the same error in describing God?


This is what I'm talking about, TitL.  I've never said this.  I've never implied this.  This is you making up a position for me that has nothing to do with my views, and applying it to me because it's easy for you to dismiss.  To be clear, if someone believes in God, and heaven, and thinks "hmm, heaven sounds okay, but hell just sounds better!  I pick hell!" then I would have no problem with God sending that person to hell.  However, I don't think there are many such people, so that situation isn't particularly important.

What I'm saying I think would be wrong would be for a loving God to inflict infinite pain on someone for any finite crime.  I think it's unjust to demand that people believe in something in order to get a reward, since beliefs are not choices.  I think it's doesn't make sense for a loving deity to demand faith, rather than just making Himself obvious to everyone.  I'm not talking about any odd people who'd simply rather go to hell than heaven.  If that's what they want, more power to'em, the system as you describe it works fine for them.  For the rest of non-christians, though, it doesn't seem like a just or loving, or even rational system.


I'm not sure if you were just a very different atheist than me or anyone else I know, or if you're just re-interpretting your previous actions in terms of your current beliefs.  Did you honestly think "yeah, God is probably real, but I'd just rather not hang out with Him?"  Because that's not what I think.  That's not what any atheists I know think.  They're not choosing "not God."  They are choosing not to go to church, not to worship God, etc., but not because they don't want to be with God, but because they don't actually believe God is real, so they don't think they have the option to be with Him.

Again, I bring up this analogy:  often I get emails, supposedly from Nigerian bankers offering me millions of dollars to help them out with this or that.  I always delete those emails without replying.  Not because I wouldn't like to have millions of dollars, but because I think it's a scam.  I'm not choosing between "money or no money," I'm choosing between "reply or don't reply."  If you said I was choosing not to get a million dollars, you'd be wrong.  Even if one of them were actually a real, honest-to-goodness banker with a million dollars to give away, it wouldn't be accurate to say that I chose not to get the money.  You could say that a result of my choice not to reply is that I don't get a million dollars.  That'd be fine.  I wouldn't object to that.  But if you say I chose not to have a million dollars, I'd say "wait a minute, that's not what I decided!"  Likewise, if you want to say that I'm not going to heaven because of my choice not to go to church, not to worship God, etc., that's fine.  I can see why you'd think that, and it wouldn't bother me when you said it.  If, however, you say I choose not to be with God, or say that I don't want to go to heaven, then you're saying I've chosen things that I didn't actually choose.  You're saying I want things that I don't actually want.  You're implying things about me that aren't true.  That's what I object to.  That's what it would be nice for you to understand and acknowledge.


No, he's not holding us over a cliff, he's holding us over an eternity in hell.  It's much worse than just pointing a gun at us, as being shot, as unpleasant as it may be, is finite in duration.  It might hurt a lot, but it's over pretty quick.  Hell, on the other hand, not only is more painful than being shot, it also goes on forever in your model.


And that's what I'm saying is unjust.  No finite crime deserves an infinite punishment.  God didn't have to make the punishment an eternity of torture.  But he chose to, according to your model.  That's not the quality of a loving being.  It's the quality of a sadistic being.


The issue isn't how much he asked us to do.  If someone points a gun at my head, and says "Gimmie thirty cents or I'll shoot!" the fact that he's only asking for 30 cents doesn't make it any more justifiable that he's pointing a gun at my head.  It's still wrong to demand payment at gunpoint, even if the payment you're demanding is small.

And you also brought full circle to my point, Trust, with that verse, because you're not disputing the statement that, because I don't believe in your God, I'm going to hell in your mind even though I'm a good person. To me, heaven (the ether, nirvana, the Elysian Fields, or whatever name you want it to go by) is a place where anyone can go to enjoy their afterlife until their time again comes to be on this plane of existence. Good, bad, smart, dumb, beautiful, ugly... doesn't matter. (On that note, I also believe karma comes back to bite you in the rear if you're bad now, but that's a different topic.)

In reply to ashlayne (msg #151):
Part of my problem is that most Christians, when they're talking about it, make it sound like it's a black-or-white choice. (Not saying you do, Trust.) What I mean is, either you believe in God and go to heaven, or you don't believe in him and go to hell. And I think that's what Tycho was getting at, too. If that's the case, then it shouldn't matter how much good I do in my life. I'm an inherently good person; but because I don't believe in God, if I die tomorrow does that mean I go to hell, no if's, and's, or but's? Despite the fact that I donate to charities as I can? Despite the fact that I hold the door open for random people? Despite the fact that I treat others as I would want them to treat me? Sure, it's all for different reasons than, say, you, Trust, but it has the same core philosophy, IMO.

There is a slight misconception here. No one, especially not us Christians has earned heaven. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. It's as if we've all turned in variants of "A cat sat on a mat" as our Theology finals, because that's all we've learned. Who here has never lied, never thought lustfully, never had misplaced anger, and never taken God's name in vain? Who, even among the most pious, has loved God with all his heart, soul, mind and strength, and in everything has loved his neighbor as himself? Who can hear the words of Jesus, "Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect" and honestly claim, "that's me!"

No one meets that standard, and thus we all are in danger of the fires of hell. The question that needs to be asked is whether there is a way out. The Christian claims to have found a way out in the sacrifice of Jesus; his perfect life was sacrificed so that we may escape our due punishment. Metaphysically, this is true or false.

I'm not saying anyone has earned heaven or otherwise, to be perfectly honest. What I'm getting at is that Tycho, and a lot of Christians, believe that because they believe the way they believe (and can I say the word believe one more time in the sentence? Apparently so!), they will be going to heaven when they die, because they're good people and they believe in Jesus (there it is again! ^_^). Not because they've earned it, necessarily, but because that's what God has promised them.

I, on the other hand, despite being a good person, have no chance of getting into heaven regardless, even if I was the most perfect example of goodness in the world, because I don't believe in God the way Christians do. (To be honest, it's that kind of attitude that drove me away from Christianity in the first place, the holier-than-thou view of the world, although that may be my personal experiences skewing my point of view.)

Indeed, but the Bible does say that "those who cast out demons in his name" may not even get into heaven.  While I tend to believe that this applies to those who twist the word of the Lord into something hateful (God Damn America!  It's in the Bible! :P), some decide to read it literally that Exorcists are damned to hell (most likely because they're included in the former description themselves.)

I find it a bit more unnerving, however, that "Jesus" is used more often by Christians than "God" or even "Our Lord (unless followed by 'Jesus Christ')".
----
Psalms 44:20,21

If we have forgotten the name of our God, or stretched out our hands to a strange god; Shall not God search this out? for he knoweth the secrets of the heart.

---

Now sure, we have the Trinity, so Jesus is God, I guess.  But you never hear very many Holy Ghost praises.  Not even that many God praises.  Mostly just Jesus praises.  Even with the Trinity, this to me seems to be having a god before another god, even it is an aspect of a greater whole.

Why are we again devolving this to Christianity vs. Atheism I thought this was a thread for Atheism vs. Theism which is actually simpler. Since one can assume a multiplicity of dieties for the arguements. Since ,say, the problem of evil that Christianity has trouble with a deist can argue there are many dieties, a percentage that are malevolent so therefore there is evil. Even a follower of one Creator if one takes out Christianity can make this being rather balanced, or envision two being the Good Creator and this beings Evil Counterpart that are evenly matched so one cannot destroy the other.

In the case of Atheism I can just argue that its simply an act of faith there are higher powers at work, its not scientific provable but can be demonstrted by looking at the created universe around us. I cannot envision a black hole and think that is a random event forged by chance but had to be placed in the universe for a reason. Its that simple for me.

<brief re-derail>

I think it's because, at least in my experience, those Christians who don't see us Pagans (and people of other religions) as devil-worshippers see us as atheists. we're either one, or the other; no gray area allowed.

</brief re-derail>

I agree with Ms. Libertarian's views on atheism. To me, atheism just doesn't make sense. I mean, without some intelligent design of some sort behind it, what are the chances that evolution as it happened... er... happened? One in a million, or something like that. How can you not believe in some higher power? I'm not denouncing atheism, it just confuses me.

Agnosticism, sure, I can understand that -- there's something out there, you're just not sure what. I was there for a while, before I took my first steps on the Pagan Path. But I've never believed that there was NO higher power. To me, that borders on a pessimistic view of the world. If there is no higher power, nothing to look forward to after our time in this world, then what's the point of life?

There needs to be a point?  Objectively, no.  But subjectively, I suppose, in which case the point of life is determined by us.

I suppose the only "Higher Power" would be Probability.  After all, if you have enough stars with enough planets for a long enough time, apparently life forms, and it just so happens that sentient life developed on this particular world.

Has life developed elsewhere?  Certainly, I believe one of Jupiter's Moons has some cellular life upon it, or at least the remnants, can't remember which.

Has intelligent life developed elsewhere?  Perhaps.  Of course, they might very well be in the same predicament we're in in regards to the ability to travel the stars.

Is intelligent life developing elsewhere?  Is intelligent life developing HERE? (that's not a smack at humans, I mean other lifeforms reaching higher levels of sentience themselves)
----

Basically, and I'm just making an assumption here:

Higher Powers don't govern the Universe in an Atheistic view; only Forces acting based on Laws that govern them in an unpredictable manner (that is itself predictable as a whole, but not in part).

No matter how many faces a die may have, it will land upon every single one of them if given enough time.

In the case of Atheism I can just argue that its simply an act of faith there are higher powers at work, its not scientific provable but can be demonstrted by looking at the created universe around us. I cannot envision a black hole and think that is a random event forged by chance but had to be placed in the universe for a reason. Its that simple for me.

Your logic on this matter is essentially this: You cannot imagine X. Therefore, X can't occur.

Argument from Incredulity is a logical fallacy. Just because you can't envision something being true doesn't mean it isn't true.

I agree with Ms. Libertarian's views on atheism. To me, atheism just doesn't make sense. I mean, without some intelligent design of some sort behind it, what are the chances that evolution as it happened... er... happened? One in a million, or something like that. How can you not believe in some higher power? I'm not denouncing atheism, it just confuses me.

There are two hundred billion stars in this galaxy alone. There are well over a hundred billion galaxies in the universe. I don't think you understand how truly immense the universe is.

Agnosticism, sure, I can understand that -- there's something out there, you're just not sure what. I was there for a while, before I took my first steps on the Pagan Path. But I've never believed that there was NO higher power. To me, that borders on a pessimistic view of the world. If there is no higher power, nothing to look forward to after our time in this world, then what's the point of life?

The point of life is whatever we make of it. That's a far better situation than having everything dictated by some uncaring deity.

In reply to Falkus (msg #158):

I do understand how vast the universe is and that is why as a person with faith I believe there is some measure of higher forces at work that are untestable by science. And atheist can't fathom one can be happy with that beautiful and simple leap of faith that is needed to believe that there is one or more higher powers that guide the universe. No one denies science but when science conflicts with ones faith many people will take that leap to their faith regardless on what science says.

Evolution is an example for me its simply the physical evidence the higher powers left for us, the amazing thing the act of creation is a mystery of faith that life started through some designer(s) making it so. Was this a one week creation or over eons it doesn't matter to me save it was done with agencies outside of natural law as we see them. That is what faith is to accept the fact to us that your science cannot ever prove this but that we feel it is true.

And that is why any debate is not a debate we just see the universe differently and I would say fundamentally so. You just deny a higher force or forces that are intelligent and more powerful are at work and we deny that this wonderous universe is purely the way it is due to chance.

And atheist can't fathom one can be happy with that beautiful and simple leap of faith that is needed to believe that there is one or more higher powers that guide the universe.

Why be satisfied with a leap of faith, when we could actually try to understand how the universe works?

No one denies science but when science conflicts with ones faith many people will take that leap to their faith regardless on what science says.

And that's why religion has no place in science. Science is about learning the truth, and accepting faith over science is denying reality.

That is what faith is to accept the fact to us that your science cannot ever prove this but that we feel it is true.

And I cannot live like that. I cannot just simply say: I refuse to learn anything more.

Or do people of faith accept reality and atheists don't?

We at least are willing with the faculties of imagination and of reason to understand humans will likely never know everything about how the universe works. If one includes all the likely parallel universes that was demonstrated by science could exist it makes it to me more unlikely there is nothing greater that guides it. That is just as reasonable to me as assuming that its all just there due to chance.

But who says I ,or others of faith, oppose science many of the greatest scientists in history were deists and explored the mysteries of creation with logic. Just because they also cannot prove a diety doesn't mean there isn't one. For me every new mystery science explores it creates for me more proof of a designing force that is intelligent so science reaffirms my faith in this principle - that we are here due to a design and purpose by some agency or agencies that guide the universe.

Or do people of faith accept reality and atheists don't?

Science gives us a structured, organized way of understanding reality. Faith and religion have their place, but understanding the functioning of the universe is not one of them.

We at least are willing with the faculties of imagination and of reason to understand humans will likely never know everything about how the universe works.

That strikes me as being the opposite of imagination: the refusal to accept that humanity can learn everything.

That is just as reasonable to me as assuming that its all just there due to chance.

Not under the rules of logic.

that we are here due to a design and purpose by some agency or agencies that guide the universe.

The only purpose life has is that which we give it. To me, that's more inspiring than any deity.

Okay, I think at this point it's devolved into a "can't be proven with our current level of technology, can't be DISproven, either" debate. (My fiance and I run into that a lot with other subjects.)

People of faith, as Ms. Libertarian so succinctly put it, don't necessarily not want to learn any more about the world around us. We tend to take some things on faith, like the fact we're going to wake up tomorrow to enjoy another day of life, and have another opportunity to ask ourselves, "How exactly does this universe thing we're in work?" Faith lets us believe we'll find the answers we seek. Hope, if you will.

Heck, as long as you believe in something -- hope, yourself, that flower blooming through the weeds -- I don't think it truly matters what precisely it is that you DO believe in. I just stated what I did about atheists because I was always given the impression that they didn't believe in anything, themselves included.

...Admittedly, I haven't read into much atheist philosophy, so I may be completely off-base there, but still...

That's just a silly statement.  I don't call you silly for thinking it, but the statement IS silly, to say the least.  It's the equivalent of "how can there be an Anarchist Organization?  They're Anarchists!", or "How can you say you're tolerant of other beliefs if you won't let me kill jews?  It's what I believe in."

These statements show an underlying misunderstanding of the philosophy/concept in question.

Everybody believes in something.  Atheists simply don't believe in Deities.  You don't have to believe in a Deity to believe in anything else, after all.

Exactly my point, Sciencemile. Atheism is the one... I hesitate to call it a religion, but I guess it kinda is... that I haven't studied at least cursorily.

So yes, I will call myself ignorant when it comes to that subject.

I'd say "Belief System", since that encompasses Theism and Atheism, essentially.

Like everything that can be incorporated into our lives, we can go to far and become overzealous.  If you only encounter the Fanatics, you aren't likely to get into the Hobby/Belief in question.

I mean, I'd imagine a lot less people would become Wiccan if the only Wiccans they ever came into contact were Skyclad enthusiasts?

...or maybe that would make more people join :P.

The thing is, "atheism" is like the "other" category. There's no single defining feature which binds all atheists together, only features which separate them from every one else. You can have atheist buddhists, taoists, philosophers, Joe Sixpacks and even base animals could be considered atheistic. That isn't much to go on to cut it in any particular way.

Hmm....speaking of, you reminded me of something, Katisara.

Are Dogs capable of worship?  When your pet brings a dead animal to your doorstop, are they being silly, or making a sacrifice to you? :P


If not, I think "unwilling to accept the idea" and "unable to accept the idea" are different things.

For instance, it's said that babies are given a slightly lower circle of hell, since it's not their fault that they couldn't accept Jesus as their Savior, if I remember correctly from Dante's Inferno.

I dont recollect babies appearing in the inferno. I believe they go to purgatory.

I dont think dogs have the intelligence to worship. They do pay obiesance, however, and I could categorize it as that.

Errr, unless they're the same things, I might be mistaking Limbo for Purgatory...and unbaptized infants for dead babies.  My mind catagorized them as the same thing, but I could be wrong.

So uhh...for humans, at what point does obeisance become worship?

Depends on the Christian sect often split between the orthodox and the protestant faiths what happens to babies. Most protestants I know feel very assured the innocent child goes to heaven and God since their accountability is not in question for any sins. The minsters I know from the evangelicals thinks any child under nine will go to God and be raptured when the Rapture happens regardless of their faith. The same for mentally incompetant adults who are incapable of acting in a capacity to cause accountability and others who are innocent. If one never knew of Jesus then they are judged by their understanding and that could be going to Heaven hased on their moral understanding. Not that it all makes much sense to me but that is what most believe on that side.

I for one am a Theist in that I do believe in a Creative Power that runs everything, but I'm not tied to a faith I favor the philosophical approach of Natural Law tempered with an understanding not everything will ever be understoods as long as one is a mortal with flesh and bone encasing ones spiritual force. For example I grant Evolution is the apparent way the Creative Power guided creation to its present form but that the mystery of the quickening of life and the power of the spiritual realm is beyond our complete understanding as far as science can go. So give that over to my faith that life was indeed granted by a supernatural force and therefore outside the realm of scientific inquiry.

So under Natural Law and understanding that the Creative Force made us for a purpose we should live well and try to be worthy of it, any child being innocent would not therefore be accountable for any so called sin they are not functioning at an adult capacity. Its just common sense a baby or a four year old child is not responsible due to their innocence. The same way a madman who is insane medically is sick of the mind and therefore not culpable for any crime before that which govers all. Now if there is a heaven, hell or some other plane of existance beyond this one where all go that is the mystery that even I can't fully explore. I have faith that there is something beyond this plane of existance that is all I can say on that.

I understand this is not a rational and logical position in some areas but that is indeed the difference between a "leap of faith" and "scintific inquiry".

Like I said though, I may just be misremembering Dante. You could be right.

Obiesance and worship are separated by matter of degrees. I express obiesance to my boss and even to my president, but not worship.

Not sure if this is what you meant by the above quote or not, but just thought I should point out that I don't actually think I'm going to heaven (because I don't think heaven exists), but rather just think that's what the bible says: that what you believe gets you into heaven, rather than what you do.  I don't agree that it's true, but I do agree that's what the bible seems to say.

Ms. Libertarian, as Falkus pointed out, your views on atheism don't seem to be a product of a rational argument, but rather just a rejection of that which disagrees with your current views.  It's sort of an "You can't be right about atheism, 'cause that would mean I'm wrong about Deism!"  Your arguments for Deism seem to be "well, it's just got to be true!"  What you believe is your business of course, as is why you believe it.  But if you're going to attack the views of others, you should try to lay out a more convincing argument.  The fact that you're sure you're right doesn't actually help other people who aren't sure evaluate your position.

Somethings I would suggest you consider:
1.  Why do you feel a blackhole (or whatever else) can't be the product of "chance" (by the by, I think a problem here might be that you think "chance" means something somewhat different than it does, but we can address that later if necessary)?  Why do you feel this isn't possible, or isn't an acceptable explanation?
2.  When do you think it's right/good/okay/whatever to make the "leaps of faith" that you're talking about.  If I say "Well, it's just a leap of faith I've taken that 1+1=7.  Science might tell me otherwise, but as a person of faith, I just have to go with my gut on this one," am I being ignorant?  If I try to buy groceries, and the guy at the checkout stand says "The total is $25.  You just game me a dime.  You'll still need to give me the rest," and I say "Well, I'm afraid that I believe that I really did give you $25.  It's just a leap of faith I've made.  As a person of faith, I simply cannot accept that I've only given you a dime and not the full payment," should the checkout person take me seriously, or just think I'm a loony?  When does "it's just a leap of faith I've made" constitute a legitimate reason for believing something, and when is it just a statement of lack of real reason for believing something?
3.  Once you've made a "leap of faith," when should you change your mind?  You've said that when science contradicts people's faith, they often side with their faith anyway.  Is it even possible to undo a leap of faith once it's made?  If so, how?  What kind of evidence is needed?
4.  Why did you make your "leap of faith?"  Why did you make a leap of faith to deism, rather than say Catholicism, or LDS, or the hale-bop comet cult, or any number of other options?  Why make that leap at all, and why make that particular leap?

The thing that binds all atheists together is their lack of belief in any deity.  It's not so much just an "other" category.  There is a single quality which all atheists share.

Granted, atheists are a diverse bunch, and what's true of one may very well not be true of another, but that's true of theists as a group as well.  You can have theist buddhists, taoists, philosophers, Joe Sixpacks, and even base animals could be considered theistic (though, I'll grant that most people probably don't consider them to be).

I think the trouble tends to come up that people treat "atheist" as a descriptor at the same level as "Catholic" or "Jewish" rather than at the level of "theist."  It's a fairly high-level descriptor, so when you compare it to lower-level, more specific terms, it can come off as just an "other" category.

Also, because atheists are a bit more individualistic in their beliefs, and lack any real central leadership or structure, the lower-level, more specific terms really don't exist.  It's tough to divide atheists into a small set of mutually exclusive or nested categories, the way you can with most religions.  You can have a theist/christian/protestant/lutheran/ELCA chain of specificity for someone, but it's tough to do the same for atheists, because below "atheist" you pretty much have to just list the individual's own beliefs.  This is more what I think you were getting at, katisara, yes?  If so, I'd say it's not that "atheist" is just an "other" category, but rather that it's not a category that's easily subdivided into a simple hierarchy.

Precisely. There's no sub-category. I don't know of any theists who just say "hey, I'm a theist!" People define themselves by which god they worship.

The funny thing is, even those people who don't actually worship or believe in a god will oftentimes define themselves by their religion. Catholics who don't go to services (if they truly believed in God, obviously they would be willing to spend an hour a week to avoid damnation), Jews who see it as a cultural thing and so on.  But for the vast majority of atheists, their lack of belief in a god isn't a defining feature any more than their lack of being female (or, as appropriate, male), or their lack of owning a limousine. Very few athiests actually specifically feel that their ardent disbelief in a god is a defining feature (such as Douglas Adams).



Given that basically all of China is officially atheistic, and China is hardly the paragon of individualism, I would tend to say this statement is a false generalization set in a western mindset.




It's half that they aren't easily subdivided and half that, like I said, it isn't really much of an identifier. With the exception of Adams's "fundamentalist atheists", it seems the majority of atheists just figure they're normal and atheism isn't special in any way. They don't feel closer to the Chinese peasant because neither of them believe in God. It's just not a serious identifying trait.

I would more or less agree on this, though I guess I don't see this as making it "an other category," anymore than "theist" is an other category.  I'd call it a very broad category, the same way theist is a very broad category.  It's not that the group as a whole lacks a single shared characteristic, but that it lacks subgroups.  To me that's not what "other category" seems to mean.


Not sure if I buy the "vast majority" part of this.  Where are you getting the numbers (or rough estimates of them) from?  Most atheists I know consider it a somewhat important aspect of their personality, somewhat along the lines of whether they consider themselves conservative or liberal, democrat or republican, etc.  Put another way, I don't know of many (can't think of any at the moment, but I imagine I could if I put my mind to it) atheists who simply aren't interested in the question, or who don't care one way or the other.  Put yet another way, I guess most people I know do consider their gender somewhat defining to their identity (at least much more so than whether or not they own a limo), so when you say atheists view along those lines, I'm not entirely sure what you mean.  I guess I'd put these atheists you're talking about in a group somewhat like that of the casual catholics, or 'cultural' jews you mentioned.  It's important to them, and it's part of who they are, but it's not the most important thing to them, and it's not a singularly defining trait.  Just as there are probably more 'catholics' who only go to mass twice a year than those who go every day, there are probably more atheists who view it as just one of many of their traits than those who view it as the single most important thing about them.  Again, I don't think this makes it an "other" category, though.



Yes, guilty as charged.  I was thinking of a western population when I said that.  I guess I don't consider "officially" atheist people, who get their view on the matter handed to them by law to be 'real' atheists in some sense (though many of them could be, I don't really know).  I tend to think of the majority of the chinese population to be a mixture of confuscionism and taism when it comes to religions, rather than being atheists, but I readily admit I don't know much about religion in china, especially in modern china.

In regards to the number of atheists, I was referring to countries like China, where they really don't have a religion (by law) and they easily outnumber all the atheists here in the West :)

re: the gender thing - I think we're getting closer to being on the same page.

My identity includes being a male. It does not include 'not a female'. Most atheists I know identify themselves as being rational, scientifically-minded, etc., but not 'not-Christian' or 'not-religious'. If you took the average American off the street and asked him to define his identity in a few short words, it would probably be something like 'American, auto worker, father, Lutheran' or somesuch. Even people who don't go to church categorize themselves oftentimes by the cultural church group they associate with. Most atheists I met, if I said "define your identity in a few short words" would probably include American, auto-worker, father, etc., but 'atheist' not so much, as compared to say 'humanist' or 'scientifically minded', 'rationalist', etc. - things which imply atheism, but aren't necessarily atheistic.

Not entirely sure I'd agree that most atheists wouldn't consider it one of the words to describe them.  My guess would be that they'd use "atheist" about as often as a non-practicing Lutheran would use "lutheran" to describe themselves.  And I'd be fairly confident that it'd come up more than "theist" would, despite that fact that there are far more theists in the US than atheists.

Also, I think we're back to the issue of the word origin of atheism.  One could argue that "female" just means "the opposite gender to a male," but must females, I would wager, really do consider "female" to be an actual trait they posses, rather than being the lack of a trait.  Likewise, I'd wager most atheists would consider atheists to be something they actually are, not just a label for something they're not.  Or, perhaps a closer analogy, "protestant" originally just implied a disagreement with the Catholic church, but I'd wager that people who consider themselves protestant view it as a trait they actually have, rather than just an indication that they disagree with some Catholic views from the 1500s.

Like I said before, I agree that it's not as specific a term as individual sect names like "Catholic" or "Mormon."  But I disagree that the term has no more meaning than "not one of the other options."

We discussed this a while back, but I saw it in the news again today, so thought I'd mention it for those who weren't around the first time:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01...europe/07london.html

I particularly liked the comment made by the christian woman from LA:  "I think it’s dreadful. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but I don’t like it in my face."  I wish they reported would have asked her if she felt the same about pro-christian (or pro-any religion) messages on buses.

I also found it interesting that they had to use the word "probably" due to advertising regulations (The first time I heard about this, I just figured they didn't want to overstate their case).  It doesn't seem like theist groups have to use such language, however.  Does this seem odd to anyone?

I think I've stated my case :)

When it comes to belief, I've only ever met three people in the real world.

The person who doesn't want to talk about their beliefs: he will go out of his way to avoid you if you happen to like preaching, and if you are friends, he will go frowny-faced when you go into diatribes, and tell you that he'd rather not talk about it.

The person who DOES want to talk about their beliefs:  The natural enemy of the above person, they either perceive everyone around them as being in need of their sermons and lectures, or they just feel insecure enough about them that they need to say them out loud in order to make themselves feel better.

The person who talks about their beliefs, but really just wants to Yell: This is the guy who, when he talks, if you say anything that he/she can latch onto as being offensive to him, they'll immediately launch into spewing hatred and quote-mining from their favorite book.

The above person can be further categorized into two subdivisions: The guy who doesn't expect to be attacked for his actions, and the guy who wants a fight to break out so that he can use his muscles to do the arguing.
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When it comes to anonymity, however, or a level of safety/separation is put between these individuals and the others, it gets a little muddy-watered as to who is who.

I'd have to say that the people who came up with the "probably" thing on the bus weren't thinking very clearly.  They probably should have worded it better.

The woman complaining, however, probably would have protested it no matter what it said.
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It's only natural that those who demand the most free speech feel the same way their opposition does about it: They don't just want free speech, they don't want anybody else to have it either.

If you look at the state of Washington right now, it's extremely liberal; having conservative views on the University Campus is responded to the same way that the University of Alabama responded to black students way back when.  The ostracism is amazing, and hypocritical when you compare it with what the Left Wing preaches.

But it's perfectly natural.  It's a very rare few who truly want free speech for everyone.  Most really just want it for the people who agree with them.

So which category do I fall into? I suspect most people here don't know what I really believe. I don't think I engage in hate-speech or quote-mining either. But I'm certainly eager to talk.

Like I said; anonymity muddles the distinction.

It's not how you are here.  It's how you are in person.  Having never met you in person, I don't think I'm qualified to describe how you approach having to discuss your faith to anybody.

EDIT:  Having met myself, however, I can say that I'm a lot more outspoken on the web than I am in real life.

I'd definitely put myself into the "Doesn't like to discuss it" category.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:33, Wed 07 Jan 2009.

I'm basically the same in real life. I always find myself getting into trouble defending an unpopular point of view, to the point that most people don't know what I really believe, and are surprised when I actually seem to speak earnestly about a topic.

So would you say you play the Devil's Advocate, or that your actual views tend to be unpopular to begin with?

It's easier to debate an opposing side of view when you know you don't actually support it, because you can abstract yourself from the argument, even if the person you are arguing against gets red-faced with veins popping out and spittle running down the side of his mouth.

The problem is this; can you abstract yourself from the argument if you actually believe in what you're defending?

Devil's advocate all the way. However, I do generally come out having more sympathy for the argument, if it seemed to actually work. If it's shot down, or if the line of argument never addresses my ACTUAL arguments against the position, it's all just abstract.

New twist on the atheist bus ad thing:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/eng...ampshire/7832647.stm
A christian bus driver refused to drive a bus with the ad on it.

At heart, every individual is at times an atheist, and every individual is at times a theist.  It is our professed belief or disbelief that categorizes us, and it is our actions that cement in that belief (or lack thereof).

(If you doubt the above, remember that even Mother Teresa said there were days when she questioned her faith and the existence of God.)

Continued from another thread...



No, atheist means they believe there is no God.  Not that they don't believe anything at all (which is closer to nihilism).  Nor is Atheism a refusal to take a position (that's agnosticism).  It's not a 'failure' to believe in gods, anymore than theism is a failure to believe that gods aren't real.  The beliefs are opposite, not one a success and the other a failure.

Think of it like this.  I toss a coin up in the air, catch it, put it down on the back of my left hand, and cover it with my right.  One person says "I think it's tails!" and another says "I think it's heads!"  It's not that one person 'succeeded' at believing and the other failed.  They just happen to believe two mutually exclusive events.  The atheism/theism question is similar.  You believe one thing, I believe the opposite.  Your reason before believing what you do may be different from my reason for believing what I do (eg, you might believe in God because whether it's true or false you feel you're better off believing than not, while I might believe the opposite because I consider the likelihood of being correct the important factor,), OR we may have the same reasons for our beliefs, but have different information that influence it (eg, we both think our side is the most likely to be correct; you've seen what you consider to be miracles so you think God is real, and I haven't so think He probably isn't).  Either way, it's not that one is a failure and one is a success.




Atheists are a fairly diverse group, so I don't know if there's a single statement that all would agree to, except "there probably is no God."  Some would drop the 'probably.'  But that's not exactly what you were getting at.  Everyone, atheist or theist, has their own criteria for what to believe and what not to believe.  For me (and the atheists that I know), it boils down to "believe that which seems most likely to be true."



I don't really think that's why it's called faith.  Yes, that is what many people mean by faith.  I'm saying that type of faith, in my opinion, is counter-productive, and likely to lead you to believing false things.  If you don't care whether what you believe is true or false, but rather only on the effect that believing it gives you, then you'll disagree with me.


In my opinion, though, there is plenty of evidence (though, again, not proof) of "no God."  Contradictions in the bible, the state of the world around us, the demand for faith rather than providing evidence,  etc., all make me think the story of God isn't likely to be true.  Similar story for other gods that I've heard proposed.  Granted, that doesn't get us to "no gods at all, even ones I haven't heard of."  That requires the idea of parsimony.  In this context, that's the idea that you shouldn't believe in things without reason.  Put another way, the explanation that requires the least assumption is the better one.  Sure, there could be a tea pot in orbit around the sun exactly opposite the earth, and I can't prove otherwise, but unless I have some reason for thinking that there is, I'm more likely to be right if I think there isn't.  Assuming a teapot is there is a "bigger" assumption than assuming there isn't.  It requires more explanation, more things-going-on than the 'nothing is there' version of the story.  Now, if we send a spacecraft out there, and get some blurry images that may or may not be a teapot, then we have to re-evaluate things.  We have to weigh up whether assuming there's a teapot is there takes more explanation than whatever story we come up with to explain the images.

As another example, if you tell me you found a quarter on the sidewalk this morning, I'm likely to believe you, even if I don't see the quarter.  Why?  Because coming up with some story to explain why you would lie to me about that takes a bit more assumption than coming up with a story to explain how a quarter got there.  Could I end up being wrong?  Sure could.  But it's simply not possible to guarantee that you'll be right about everything when you're dealing with limited information.  So the best plan is to accept whatever seems most likely to be true.  AND be willing to change your beliefs as new data come in.

*** But when it's a question of belief, then there is a success and a failure.


*** But one is still right and the other is wrong. And if the object is to believe in "Heads", then the one that picked "Tails" did fail.


*** Yeah it is. We may not find out 'til we die, but one of us is wrong. (And fyi, I'd rather you were right.)


*** So if you were given evidence that made believing seem more likely? What then?


*** Well no, I do agree with you that it can cause people to believe false things. I just don't necessarily see that as a problem.


*** I've read the Bible thru a couple of times, and I've yet to find any contracdictions, but even if there are, you're confusing the medium with the message. And what does the world have to do with God? That's like saying there's not an American President becos there's crime in L.A. And so if I asked you to trust me on something, becos I wasn't able to explain right now, you'd start believing I didn't exist? That's ... interesting.


*** Which, as has been stated, is an idea I don't agree with.


*** Occam's Razor. Right. Not always true, but a reasonable model, certainly.


*** I can understand this. Don't understand how that thinking leads you to "no God", becos for me, it quite obviously leads to the opposite.

Not really.  It's just one believes one thing, and the other believes the opposite.  Belief isn't really a task.  It's not something you fail or succeed at, really.



Yes, one is still right, and one is wrong.  But that doesn't mean one "succeed" at believing and the other failed.  They both believed something.  You can say that one of them failed to believe in the correct thing, but not that they failed to believe in anything.
As for the "object," your claim shows the arbitrariness I'm talking about.  IF the goal is to pick heads, the picking tails is a failure.  But if the goal is to pick tails, the picking heads is a failure.  Automatically assuming that "the goal" it to believe in whatever Mr. Crinkles (or anyone else) happens to believe in is an entirely arbitrary decision.  Thus, saying atheists "fail" to believe in God due to some lack of skill in believing things tacitly presupposes that the 'goal' is to believe in God.



True enough, but even after one of us is right, and the other wrong, it won't be the case that one of us "failed" to believe something.  One of us will have believed the wrong thing, but that's not the same as failing to believe.


If I were given evidence that made God's existence seem more likely than his non-existence, then I'd start believing that He exists.


But as the medium is the only evidence (or at least main evidence) for the claim, it's fairly important.  If the only reason for believing in God is the bible, then the quality and reliability of the bible is quite important.


A great deal of God is supposed to have made the world.


Umm, not sure where you got that from.  If you ask me to trust you about something, I may or may not believe what you tell me (depends on what you tell me about).  Clearly you exist, since you'd be talking to me, so I'd have no reason to doubt your existence, but might have some reason to doubt what you asked me to believe.  If you ask me to believe that you have a magical pink unicorn that lives in your kitchen, and say "you're just going to have to trust me on this one, it's true.  I can't show him to you, because he's invisible to everyone but me.  And you can't test for him by..., etc." I will doubt the existence of the unicorn, not of Mr. Crinkles.  Similarly, if God personally told me "hey, the following things are true, but you're just going to have to trust me on it," I may or may not believe what he asks me to trust him on, but I wouldn't doubt His existence.  However, that hasn't happened.  I've only had normal human beings (whom I very much believe exist) say "there's this guy called God, and the following things are true about Him, but you're just going to have to trust me on this."  Part of the reason I don't believe in God is that it's only by using 2nd hand (or 1000th hand) stories that he supposedly uses to talk to me.  If he exists, He goes out of His way to not give me solid evidence for His existence, despite it being trivially easy for Him to do so, and despite him apparently caring about me believing He exists a great deal.



Yep, and that's your call.  Believe away, mate.



Well, it's probably due to your "I don't see any problem believing things that are false" view, your "I don't put much stock in the world outside my own head," view, and your "I don't think we need reasons to believe in things," view.  Just different assumptions, really.  Start with different beliefs about what you should do, and you'll very quickly end up with differences in what we actually do.

Anyone ever consider that being an atheist requires a leap of unfaith?

Unfaith isn't a word.  It's a leap of faith like any other view.  The leap just happens to be made after a lot further consideration than most other views.

No wait, I take that back; you don't need to think long to shallowly support a belief; all you need to do is skim a tract by Jack T. Chick, a book by Dawkins, or what have you, and then start marching up and down shouting out quotes you remember reading.  Those would be the "Leap of Faith" people, and usually what they leaped off of was the deep end.

Any person who takes a long time to consider what they believe before deciding their faith is somebody to be respected.

*** If you believe it'll rain tomorrow, and I don't, one of us is right and one is wrong. We won't know 'til tomorrow, but one of us is still right and one wrong.


*** It is.


*** Might as well be. It's the same end-result.


*** And how is that different from what I said?


*** Granted. I just don't happen to think that that's the only reason. I don't even consider it one of the major reasons.


*** True. But just becos He made it, that doesn't mean He maintained it. It's like blaming an architect becos you destroyed the house he designed and had built.


*** That you're aware of, I think you mean. He may very well have been talking to you; you just didn't notice.


*** Yes. It's very annoying when He does that. And I agree, part of the problem is that it's basically all hearsay. That's why I don't consider the Bible an especially valid reason for belief.


*** Yeah, that's true. The thing is tho', I don't believe in God becos I just don't see a reason not to. I believe becos I see reasons to. It's like I said, I accept your premise that it's best to believe in whatever is most likely; I just find it more likely that there is a God than that there isn't.


*** Is now.


*** And if anything I have said indicates that I don't respect Tycho, then I completely apologise. I may not agree with him on all things, but respect? O my yes.

Yes, but the person who's right isn't necessarily any better at believing, they're just better at predicting the weather.  Being right doesn't mean you're good at believing.  The person who ends up being wrong in your example isn't wrong because they tried, and failed, to believe the right answer, but rather because they believed the wrong one.  Both people succeed at believing, even though only one of them believed the correct thing.  If you believe it's going to rain tomorrow, and I believe it won't, you can say "well, you've failed to believe, you silly arainist!  If only you were better at believing, had more skill at believing in rain then you'd agree with me!" but you could still turn out to be wrong.  Just because you believe that it will rain, and I don't believe it doesn't mean you're going to be right.  The goal, in my opinion, should be to be the one that believes in what turns out to be correct, NOT to be the one that believes the more positively-stated version (ie, "it will rain" instead of "it won't rain.")



Are you sure, maybe the goal is to believe that it will rain?  Or won't rain?  Or will rain frogs?  Or men?  Who knows?  Pre-supposing that whatever you happen to believe is the goal of belief is a bit pointless.  It sort of like starting a derivation with "assuming that whatever I say at the end of this derivation is true..."



Different in two ways:
1.  I look at evidence, you said you only looked at proof.
2.  Yours is a "believe it until it's proven wrong" approach, mine is a "believe whatever seems most likely to be true" approach.  Yours accepts an unlikely-but-possible state, mine looks for the most likely state.

For example, say I take 100 d20s, put them in a cardboard box, put a top on the box, and give them a good shake.  With the lid on the box still closed, two guys show up.  One says "when you open that box, every single one of those dice will have rolled a 20,"  and the other guy says "no, there'll be a mix of different numbers, but whatever is there, it's not going to be all 20s."  Now, the first guy could be right.  I can't prove him wrong (at least not until I open the box), so under your version, I should believe him (especially if he tells me that believing him is "the goal").  Under my version, though, I believe the second guy, because he's more likely to be correct.  I can't prove that he's correct, but it's the more probable story, so that's what I'll accept.

That covers my second point (2 above), but what about the 1st?  the difference between "evidence" and "proof?"  Imagine these two guys open the lid of the box, and take a picture of the dice, but don't let me look inside the box.  They close the box up, and show me the picture, and it's a bunch of different numbers.  The first guy says "well, I know it looks like they're not all 20s, but what you have to realize is that this camera is a magic camera, that distorts 20s to look like other numbers.  I promise you, all the dice are 20s inside the box, the magical camera just makes it appear otherwise in that photo.  (The second guy just shakes his head in disbelief.)  Now, I can't prove the 1st guy is wrong.  Maybe he's telling the truth about this magic camera.  But the photo is very strong evidence that he's wrong about the dice all having rolled to 20.  I'm willing to accept the photo, and take it as evidence, and let it influence my decision.  If I only accepted absolute proof, however, I would ignore the photo and keep listening to the first guy.




Okay, what do you consider to be the major reasons?


Fair enough, but if I'm not allowed to look at the world for evidence of God, and the bible isn't one of the major reasons, I'm not sure what that really leaves.  This is sort of what I'm saying with my dice example above.  I look at the photo and see evidence that it's not all 20s, you accept the magic camera story.  I look at the world and think "this isn't what the world should be like if all these stories about God were true," and you think, "well, yes, but that's because..."



Heh, yes.  I do discount evidence that I'm not aware of since...ya know...I'm not aware of it. ;)  That sort of like the first guy taking a picture inside the box, and not showing me the picture, and just saying "well, you can't see it, but I have a picture that proves what I say!"  It's at least as likely that there's proof against God that I'm not aware of as it is that there's proof for Him.  I'm not going to apologize for going on only that information which I'm aware of.  I'm quite happy to look at new information if people point me to it, but I'm not about to simply assume that proof of God that I haven't seen exists somewhere.


Okay, what do you feel the reasons are for believing in God?

*** Which means they failed to believe the right one.


*** But if the positive version is the correct one ....


*** I said something to the effect that atheists say they won't believe in God unless they get proof (which, as far as I'm concerned, is the same as evidence). You said that wasn't the atheist pov. Yet you're now saying that you would believe if you got proof. How's it different?


*** The world. Testimony of people I trust. My own experiences.


*** I didn't say one couldn't look at the world for evidence of God; I said that one cannot take the current state of the world as evidence of No-God.


*** Um ... okay. How'd you figure?


*** Okay, granted.


*** Fair enough.


*** See above.

Yes, but that's not the same as failing to believe.  It's not a "skill" at believing that's the issue, its a skill at spotting what turns out to be true.  If you think it's going to rain, Bob thinks it's going to hail, Jim thinks it's going to snow, and I think there won't be any precipitation, one of us will still be right, and the rest will be wrong (well, I guess multiple of us could be right, but lets stick to one at the moment).  Say it hails.  Bob turns out to be right.  He was good at predicting the weather.  But I don't think it's fair to say that because you thought it was going to rain that you were any better at believing than I was.  We were both wrong.

Similarly with religion.  You might end up being right, I might end up being right, or someone else might end up being right.  But whoever ends up being right will just have been good at spotting what's true, not at simply believing things in general.


Again, starting with the assumption that agreeing with you is the goal leads to rather silly situations.  I consider it a crucial trait to have to recognize that we may be wrong about what we believe.


Well, I just told you! ;)  Proof isn't the same as evidence, that's the first bit.  The second difference is the difference between "I won't X unless Y" and "I will X if Y."  The first limits the situations when X will be true, the second doesn't.  In the second case, if Y isn't true, X could still be true.  In the first, if Y isn't true, than neither will X be true.  In symbol form, the first is:
(~Y --> ~X) & (Y --> X)
while the second is
X --> Y
So the first statement contains the second, and then some extra stuff.  Basically, yes, proof would change my mind, but I could have my mind changed even without definitive proof.  Your original summation implied that without proof I wouldn't be willing to change my mind, which isn't accurate.  Put another way, it's the difference between "if" and "if and only if."



Can you give examples?  (I know that's a bit personal, so no worries if you don't want to explain any further, just curious here).



Why not?  That doesn't make much sense to me.  If the world is to be used as evidence, that evidence should be able to point me either way.  I see no reason to limit the evidence to helping one side or the other a priori.



A number of things.  First, if God were so concerned about us loving him as we're told He is, I wouldn't think He'd go out of His way to not leave evidence of Himself that was perfectly obvious to everyone.  Personal visits, burning bushes, etc., (which He can do trivially) would seem as common as anything.  The lack of Him making Himself completely obvious makes me doubt the story as given.  Second, many imperfections and problems we see in the world make much better sense (to me, at least) in terms of a natural world than a divinely created one.  Cancer?  Ebola virus?  Still born babies?  Degenerative diseases?  These don't seem like things a loving God would add to the world.  And saying they're a result of original sin makes no sense to me (though, someone giving that as an explanation does make sense, in a meme-theory way), as no mechanism is given on how one causes the other.  Seems like God still has to make a conscious decision to allow sin to create those effects.  Third, people all over the world believe lots of different and contradictory things all very strongly.  There are people from every religion who honestly and sincerely believe they have experienced their own deity, witnessed miracles caused by their deity, etc.  And yet, because their beliefs are contradictory, they can't all be correct.  In fact, no matter who's right, the majority of people must be wrong.  This shows that being 100% that your religion is right is not is not evidence that you are right.  It shows that people can make honest mistakes about seeing miracles and feeling the divine.  It means that people can be wrong about things they're absolutely certain about.  What this says to me is to not trust people just because they really and truly believe something.  Good, honest people can be wrong about this just as easily as dishonest people.  And where this leads me, is that all religions look more or less likely in terms of evidence supporting them.  None of them stands out as having way more to back it up than the others.  If a deity were real, and concerned about people worshiping him instead of any other deities, I don't think it would be so difficult to tell which was the real one.

*** But isn't the point to believe in what's true? Anyone can believe in anything, if it doesn't matter whether it's true or not.


*** Okay, I see what you're saying now.


*** Well, as far as the world, I figure someone had to make it. As far as testimony of those I trust ... I'm not sure how to give examples (I mean, my Grandmother, my "should've been my dad", my ex ... <shrug>), but people I personally believe to be both intelligent and good say it's true, so I trust them. And my own experiences ... it's stupid, but like, I had a question this one time, and I prayed about it, and the next song that came on the radio answered the question. Things have happened that ... I don't believe in coincidence, so I look for explanations for things. I find the idea of some sort of Supreme Being to be the most rational explanation.


*** But there's a difference between the existence of the world and the state of the world. I can make a case either way using just the state of the world, but I don't see how one can look at the existence of the world and say, "No-God".


*** He wants Faith.


*** I do agree with you on this one, and I get quite annoyed with Him for being so bloody difficult.


*** Why can't the natural world be created?


*** True. I for one think His biological design sucks a lot (speaking of the human body). But it's like ... you use the tools you've got. Sometimes you get less than stellar results.


*** Yeah, I don't buy this either. Okay, so we got death out of the deal, but apart from that, I don't see it.


*** And therein lies the rub. You're 100% right. He did have to make that decision. I personally think He totally effed up on that one.


*** Which doesn't mean there's not a God, just that we're a tad confused on which one it is.


*** Not necessarily. Wrong about details, yeah, okay, but not wrong about the big thing. I think it was Kahlil Gibran who said, "God made truth with many doors, that everyone might enter"; point being ... it's like the elephant thing, you know? Six blind guys with an elephant; one says it's a snake, one says a spear, one says a palm tree, one says a wall, one says a rope, and one says a pillar. 'Cos they can't see the totality of it, they only get part.


*** All true. But the same could be said about science. For centuries, people believed this planet was at the center of the galaxy; now they don't. 100% certainty is not proof. But neither is it proof of "not".


*** Okay, why not? And who says they're not all real?

That's sort of my point.  You implied that because theists believe in some god, and atheists don't, theists are "better" at believing things.  But what matters is whether they're right or not, not whether they just happen to believe in any old god.


Interesting.  Any particular reason you believe that?


Have any of these people ever been wrong about anything before?  Have you ever disagreed with any of them on anything in the past?


You don't believe in coincidence?  What exactly do you mean by that?  If I roll a bunch of dice, and get a bunch of different numbers, you feel there's a divine message in them, no matter what they are?  Do you believe things can be described statistically?  Are you saying you don't believe in chance?  I guess I'm a bit confused by exactly what you mean by this.  But whatever you mean, what is your reason for believing what you do?


How so?  What you've said so far is mostly along the lines of simply believing without much rational argument behind it.  What is the rationale, as it were, that you're relying on?  Are you saying it "just seems right," when you say "it's the most rational?"  Not trying to disagree with you here, but it just sort of struck me as odd that most of what you were listing were some what non-rational, intuitive, gut-feeling type reasons, but then sum up by saying you find it the most rational explanation.  I might not be understanding what you mean.


Ah, I see.  This sounds like an assumption of God from the start.  It sounds like "is there a God?" isn't really a question to be answered by looking at evidence for you, but rather a given before you start looking at evidence.  Sort of a "if anything exists, then God exists," point of view.  In my view, that's problematic, because it's more or less just an assumption of God, rather than a conclusion.  It doesn't matter what we see, so long as we see anything, then we conclude there's a God.  I want to find out if there's a god, not simply find confirmation of my assumption that there's a god.

Put another way, if you can't imagine a world existing without god, then you've already assumed that God exists before you even look at the evidence available.  Your position isn't something that can be tested, because you don't consider the alternative a possibility.  I try to avoid such positions as much as possible, because once you get into one of them, if you happen to be wrong, it's nearly impossible to get out.  I'm sure I'm wrong about many things, and I hope that as I learn more, I'll change my mind about some of the things I'm wrong about.  But certain frames of mind don't lend themselves to being changed once you're in them, because they cause you to deny even the possibility that they aren't true.



Yeah, that's what they tell me. ;)  And I can see very easily why a group asking me to worship a god that's not real would tell me that.  I can't see, though, why a god that is real would want faith.



Sure, but then we get back to parsimony.  If the natural world could have come about by natural causes, or by divine intervention and then natural processes, the first option is the simpler explanation.  In other words, while it's possible that God created the world to look like it was a result of natural process, it's simpler to just say that the world looks like a result of natural processes because it really is a result of natural processes.  If natural process look like they're enough to do the job, then adding in a deity at the start is superfluous.


Use the tool's He's got?  I thought He was supposed to be omnipotent and unlimited.  Nature seems like it would be subject to "use the tools you got," but not an all-powerful deity.


You seem not to feel that He is perfect, then?



True, but if people can drop the ball on that part of it, I think the could mess up the "does he exist" part too.  At very least, the people telling me about God lose some of their credibility, and I become more skeptical of what they're telling me.  You're right that this doesn't automatically prove that they're wrong.  But this is where the difference between "if" and "if and only if" comes into play.  I don't need absolute proof that they're wrong to stop believing them.  I don't have "I'll trust you until I know without a doubt that you're wrong" condition, but a "I'll believe you if it seems likely that you're correct," condition.  Each thing they get wrong makes it seem (to me) a bit less likely that they're right about the big thing.


Yeah, that's possible.  But to me, it seems more likely that the thing they're all seeing partially is just part of nature, not something outside nature.


Definitely, and I would certainly discourage people from putting science on a thrown the way they do with religion.  A key difference between science and religion is that science has a mechanism for self-correction.  It is expected that your beliefs should change based on the evidence in science.  Also, science puts the evidence first, rather than promising that evidence cannot be given.  It's a quest to find out what is true, rather than a quest to demonstrate what you already think to be true.  Similar to what we were talking about at the beginning of this post, science makes to goal 'find out what is true,' whereas religion makes the goal 'believe that this is true.'  One starts with the question and looks for the answer, the other starts with the answer looks for a reason for believing it.



Well, the people who tell me that any of them are real, really. ;)  The majority of religions not only have a "this religion is true" part, but also a "all other religions are false" part.  If they can't get the latter part right, I'm less inclined to believe them on the former.  And again, we get back to parsimony.  It's much easier for me to believe that humans have a natural tendency to fall for religions than it is for me to believe that every religion ever has been completely true, because the first only requires me to accept on phenomenon, the latter requires me to accept the existence of many supernatural beings.  Could it be that all the religions are right (except for the part where they say other religions are wrong)?  Maybe.  But like I've said, I'm looking for what's most likely to be true, rather than starting with one position, and believing it until it's proven impossible.  So simply saying "well but isn't it possible that..." isn't enough to sway me.  I can happily admit the possibility that I'm wrong.  But admitting that possibility isn't sufficient reason for me to change my mind.

*** But ... that's how we know they're right? I'm confused.


*** Logic. If you see a watch, you figure there's a watchmaker. I just extrapolate from that.


*** Given that one of them is an ex .... But yeah, I disagree with Hal on lots of stuff. But it's ... my grandmother liked vegetables, I don't. It's little stuff. And it's not that I think they're wrong about where we disagree (well ... usually), it's just preference.


*** I mean I don't believe in coincidence. If things happen which seem to have a connexion, I figure they prolly do.


*** Not necessarily. I believe there might be.


*** Some things, yes.


*** Yes, I do believe in chance. And the reason I believe what I do is, again, logic (or what passes for it where I'm concerned). I figure most things happen for a reason. Cause and effect, you know?


*** Given things which cannot otherwise be easily explained (ie most of the world), it makes more sense to me that Someone is responsible.


*** Well yeah, but it seems right becos it seems rational, not the other way 'round.


*** I tend to trust my instinct. My subconscious tends to be more rational than my conscious.


*** Well it's just a difference in how we approach the problem, I think. I dunno what they're using now, but when I was in school (back when the world was young and dinosaurs roamed the earth) the Scientific Method we were taught was Question, Hypothesis, Experiment, Observation, Conclusion. My Hypothesis is that there is a God, yours is that there isn't. Not to say that one is more valid than the other, just different hypotheses.


*** I can imagine a world which exists without God, I just would prefer not to. But if Nietzche is right and God is dead, then okay. Would explain a lot.


*** Really? That's interesting. Why would you think a real god wouldn't care about faith? (Not arguing, just genuinely curious; I've never heard that before.)


*** Occam's Razor. Okay.


*** Which is why I tend to stay sort of vaguely pissed at Him about it. I can't think of a good reason for Him to choose not to use all the tools at His disposal, but (presuming that He did do it) apparently He did.


*** "Perfect" is one of those tricky words. If you mean, "without flaw", then no, I don't think He's perfect.


*** I guess I just don't see this. I figure people can be wrong about all sorts of small stuff, and still be right about the biggie. I understand your rationale, I just don't subscribe to it.


*** Okay, what do you mean by this? To me, God is part of nature, so I'm not sure how you're meaning this.


*** But see, I don't agree with that. I mean yes, a lot of people (religious and not) would agree that that's how it is, but I don't think so. Science is there to prove the truth of religion ... they're just two sides of the same coin. It's like ... Religion says, "Here's the answer; can you find evidence to support it?" Science says, "Here's the evidence; what answer does it support?" They go together.


*** Which is (I think) partially true, but not as true as it is often put out to be.


*** Fair enough.

*** Logic. If you see a watch, you figure there's a watchmaker. I just extrapolate from that.

"For human artifacts, we know the designer's identity, human, and the mechanism of design, as we have experience based upon empirical evidence that humans can make such things, as well as many other attributes including the designer's abilities, needs, and desires. With ID, proponents assert that they refuse to propose hypotheses on the designer's identity, do not propose a mechanism, and the designer, he/she/it/they, has never been seen. In that vein, defense expert Professor Minnich agreed that in the case of human artifacts and objects, we know the identity and capacities of the human designer, but we do not know any of those attributes for the designer of biological life. In addition, Professor Behe agreed that for the design of human artifacts, we know the designer and its attributes and we have a baseline for human design that does not exist for design of biological systems. Professor Behe's only response to these seemingly insurmountable points of disanalogy was that the inference still works in science fiction movies."

— Ruling, Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, page 81

Again, you seem to be assuming your own correctness.  Sort of a "let's see if you're right or I'm right?  Do you agree with me?  No?  Well, I guess you're wrong then. Next!" argument.  You're using "correct" or "right" to actually mean "believes what I believe" rather than "believes what is true."  Assuming those two things are equal from the start denies the possibility that you're wrong, which sort of defeats the whole point of asking the question.


Falkus summed this up pretty well, but basically, you figure there's a watchmaker because you know a priori that that's where watches come from.  You know humans make watches.  And even if you didn't, you do know the kinds of things that humans make, and can recognize those similarities.  If you see an apple on the ground, I assume you don't figure there's an apple maker, but rather that there's an apple tree.  If you see an egg, you don't think it's from the egg-maker's shop, but rather from a chicken.  Both an egg and an apple are far more complex than a watch.  So the idea that you think a watch requires a watchmaker due to its complexity is off.  If you see a loaf of bread, you also expect it comes from a bread-maker, again because you know that's where bread comes from.  But bread is comparatively simple.

Taking it a step further, though.  If you see a unverse, and assume a universe-maker, why do you not also assume a universe-maker-maker?  Why do you stop at God, and not feel it's "logical" to demand a God-maker?


So they've never been wrong on anything factual?  Interesting.  Perhaps if I knew such people, it might change my position as well.  My lack of familiarity with infallible humans is certainly a large part of the evidence I used to base my beliefs on religion on!


But, that seems to be something that can be shown as false.  If things happen randomly, then somethings will appear to have connections that they really don't.  For example, if enough people buy lottery tickets, someone is going to win, just by dumb luck.  To assume that they won because of some divine intervention, or to deny the possibility of dumb luck seems like ignoring the world around us.



And how can you tell when there is and when there isn't?


But don't you see that cause and effect doesn't always require intent or intelligent intervention?


Why?  Why is your 'default' answer "someone did it?"


Looks like maybe we have different meanings of "rational," then.


I'd say it's our conclusions that differ, more than the hypothesis.  I had a hypothesis of "There is a God," tested it, and concluded the hypothesis was probably false.  You seem to have concluded otherwise.  The question, though, is did you try to falsify, or confirm your hypothesis?  Did you take an "if I'm wrong, then I should see X" approach, or more of a "how can I prove that I'm right?" approach?  Did you try to find out if your hypothesis was wrong, or did you try to show that it was right?


How would a world not created by god look, then?  What would be different about it than what you see, in your view?



Well, firstly because it doesn't buy Him anything.  Love, worship, work, whatever, those I can see a being wanting.  Belief without evidence, though?  Why?  What does He get out of that?  Doesn't seem to have a point.  Nothing else I've ever interacted with (besides people trying to deceive me) seems to have any desire for it.


And this seems to be where we differ.  You can't make sense of it, but just assume there's a reason.  I say "this doesn't make any sense, probably it's not true."


Interesting.  Do the people you trust share that view?


Fair enough, but again, it seems like you're starting with the assumption that it's true, rather than trying to find out if it's true.  The answer isn't a goal for you, but the starting point.



I mean something non-supernatural (ie, not God).  Something with an explanation that is, in theory, knowable, even if we don't know it just now.  For example, a human tendancy towards agent identification, because evolutionarily speaking, it's better, for example, to mistake a shadow for a tiger than a tiger for a shadow.  Thus, we have a tendency to see "agents" (ie, beings with some sort of intent) where they're not, which could possibly lead people to "see" gods where their not.  Also, we have a natural tendency to look for causal relations, because finding them is often very valuable.  But again, this tends to cause us to error on the side of seeing a cause-effect relation when one isn't there.  Those sort of things sound more plausible to me (or something similar to them) than some deity sneaking around doling out just enough info to keep everyone killing each other of it.


Oh, I have to disagree very strongly.  The two approaches seem complimentary, but they're very different.  They lead to very different answers, too.  One leads to "cigarettes cause cancer," and the other leads to "more doctors smoke camels!"  One is an attempt to learn, the other an attempt to convince (ie, one looks to gain knowledge, the other looks to spread belief).  The latter can be done regardless of whether the belief is correct or not, which is the problem.



Why's that?