| Player1x3 said: Wow, seriously? Comparing the concept of prime mover, higher power and God to snow? Cmon, I think you're smart enough to realize why those 2 arent in any way the same and why that example sucks in itself. |
I was trying to explain why your assertion that "You have to believe to see, not see to believe" looks stupid and I was not comparing snow to a higher power as much as comparing the belief in two unobserved phenomena, one of which happens to be a higher power and the oher happens not to be.
Also, when I wrote it I took it you meant it literally but reading another post by padib where he said "even though the bible is clear that without faith one cannot see God" made me realise that you probably meant see the spiritual world, not see physical things. It still look stupid when taken at face value given that it is unqualified but I understand where you come from if that restating is what you meant: "You have to believe to see spiritual things, not see to believe".
Assuming that I now correctly understand your assertion, my rebuttal would be that if it is your faith itself that causes you to see spiritual things then a muslim's faith or an hinduist's faith is sufficient for each to see spiritual things which leads to the logical conclusion (based on your premise) that every religious faith's spiritual world must exist as they all see it through their respective faith.
On the other hand, if their faith is not enough to conclude that these religion's spiritual worlds exist then their faith only gives them the illusion of seeing the spiritual world, in which case so does your faith gives you an illusion of seeing a spiritual world.
| Player1x3 said: One person can hardly make up dozens of millions who thought otherwise, and dozens of other, more famous and noteble philisophers who were at least deists. |
Your assertion was:
|
I dont see how it was possible not to beleive in higher power back than when people knew very little about the world around them |
I only needed to mention one to disprove it.
| Player1x3 said: Ever since (lets say at least) 18th cenutry atheism was accepted by law and wasnt a punishable offence (at least in wester and middle Europe) he problem is, most atheists just really love to insult religion and religous people and show total and absolute disrespect for someone's beliefs,they were not as much atheists in the real sense of the word as muhc as they were anti-christian and back than people didnt tolerate insults at God or Christ. |
Your argument sounds like blame the victim to me.
Regardless, the fact is that atheism was frowned upon in those time (and still is in America nowadays, I believe* that it would be easier to get elected whilst being gay than whilst being an open atheist).
*yes, it is an irrational belief because I can't prove it, though an educated one. If I were to guess I would say that your religious belief, while irrational by definition, is also quite educated.
| Player1x3 said: Whoa, I think I found the problem in our conversation. I dont, in any way, see religion as ideology that explains the world around us. Parts like ''Earth was creatd in 7 days'' and ''Noah's Ark'' and ''Aerth is center of the universe'' hold absolutely zero importantce in Christianity (at least in y point of view) Those are all stuff that was added to Christianity early one, and some of them are not even the true part of the Bible (New Testament) Old Testament holds little to no ground of importantce in Christianity. Christianity is based off on teachings of Jesus Christ and that is EXACTLY what Christianity is about. That is why New Testament is most importnat (I would even argue THE ONLY important) book of Christianity, because Bible is the New Testament.There couldnt be christian religion before Jesus, and thus, Old Testamen holds no ground. I see religion as the spiritual guide and teaching on how to live your life in good morality and in free will. All that stuff about creating the earth, Adam and eve, and Noah's Ark hold no importantce to the true point of Christianity. This is what most, if not all important christian thinkers in science realized. |
Not knowing the exact details of your religious beliefs I was generally talking about religion in the abstract and getting more concrete in specific cases.
Religions in general do include statements about the world, and that is why they tend to clash with science if/when science sees the world differently. If your religious belief does not include such things then your religious belief cannot clash with science.
Also, within christianity your belief seems to be erroneous as Jesus said "Don't misunderstand why I have come. I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their purpose." (Matthew 5:17)
And the old testament says "Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the LORD your God that I give you" Deuteronomy 4:2
So while Christians may not need to obey the old testament laws because they are fulfilled in Jesus (supposedly, I don't see how as they are quite contradictory with the new testament but what do I know) they are still relevant and their edicts are still considered moral (even the ones we would find immoral today).
Incidentally, while I am agnostic technically speaking (I hold no belief as to whether any god exist) and atheist practically speaking (I live my life by and large like if no god exist) I am philosophically neither because I consider such religious labels (as well as christian, muslim...) to answer the wrong question and to have a wrong assumption.
The wrong question answered is "Does god x exist". My answer for all value of x is not yes, it is not know, it is "who cares". The truth value of a particular god's existence is irrelevant, what is relevant is whether the moral code expounded in its name is actually moral. If it is not and said god was proved to exist I still would not follow it (that would be like following lucifer if he had created the world and would thus be god instead of following yahweh if he had not created the world but had been created by lucifer and had rebelled and thus wasn't god). And if the religious code of a non-existant god is good then the lack of his existence should not prevent one from following it.
I guess you could say that I view the idea of "it is moral because god said it was" as the epitome of the fallacy of argument from authority.
| Player1x3 said: Again, believe to see. There really is no point in arguing about this, because a person without faith couldnt possibly realize what am I talking about. Not that I blame you, I just think that we'll never reach common ground due to our different beliefs on the matter. As for the actual response to your replay, its the same as before. In theism, faith CAN LEAD TO KNOWLEDGE, where you no longer believe in God, but know that he exists. |
I do understand what you mean because believe it or not I used to have faith back when I was a kid and before I started questioning it. My argument is not that you can't feel like you know god's existence. My argument is that it is an illusion. If it is not then every religion's gods must exist for in all of them you can find people with enough faith that they just know that their god exist, or so they (and you) think.
Somebody having hallucination without knowing that they are hallucination (like a paranoid schizophrene as opposed to someone knowingly taking LSD) won't believe in the hallucination because for him they are not hallucinations; he will know that they are real. But his knowledge of their realness does not make it so.
Now I am not making the argument that religion is akin to paranoid schizophrenia (though I am not making the argument that it isn't either; I am simply silent on the subject) but the same principle apply.
| Player1x3 said: In theism, faith alwas leads to realization (maybe thats a better word than knowledge) |
Do you mean self-realisation? Or, to use a christian term, epiphany?
If so, not only do you not even need faith for it as you can also gain it through meditation and even sleep can suffice (hence the old advice to sleep on things) but I would argue that it is not so much the gaining of new knowledge as it is our brain analysing what we already know without our conscious input (which can often get in the way).
If such epiphany is about the material world or philosophy then you can test such newfound understanding to check if it is correct.
If such epiphany is about knowledge of supernatural things then it is derived from your former belief and is nothing more than a rearranging of same into a coherent whole. As it still has its foundation in beliefs it cannot be termed rational (whereas the case in the preceding sentence can be verified or disproved and if verified is rational).
| Player1x3 said: Like I said before, theism is different than science, in theism, true faith can lead to discovery and realization, and later, to the point, where you no longer beleive in God, but know he exists. For this, true and righteous faith is necessary. As for you last sentence, yes you are correct. And I think you'll find that all religions deliver the same message, only they use different symbolics and worshiping methods, regardless how many fanatics choose to interpret it for thier own purposes, because religion has been greatly abused by men in higher power. |
I agree that theism and science are different, but it does not follow that theism's axioms are necessarily true. As for true and righteous faith to be necessary, many (including me incidentally) go through the same process with similar results through mediation which does not necessarily require faith (just ask an ardent atheist like Sam Harris).
Such things help us organise our thought and can lead to new thoughts but it is not so much the gaining of new knowledge as much as the revelation into our consciousness of things we already knew inconsciously (whether on their own or as a synthesis of unconscious thoughts).
To reprise my example of the boy in the desert (sorry), he could imagine the concept of snow without seeing any or being told about it (no need of faith or meditation for that, just imagination) and could through such a meditative process convince himself that there has to be such a thing as snow somewhere in the universe but that perception of knowledge would not be actual knowledge until he travels to a place where there is snow.
Of course he would believe that he know that there is snow just like you believe that you know there is a god because from his subjective view it is knowledge even though it objectively isn't.
As for all religions delivering the same message I would say that a lot of them deliver the same core principles (peace, love...) but they often contradict them; which is why you can have a situation where some christians (not all) believe that it is logical and moral that unbelievers be sent to hell by a loving god to be tortured for eternity for failing to believe in a religion's subjective beliefs (like the deity of Jesus).
If god was so just and loving he would at worst send to hell those humans who have an evil heart and send to heaven those that have a good heart regardless of whether they believed in Jesus, maybe with a purgatory period before acceptance where he would correct them in their incorrect beliefs about the world and morality.
| Player1x3 said: Like I said above, religion isnt here to explain this world, thats what science does. Religion has totally different purpose and aim than science, regardless if some misguided and misinformed fanatics told and tricked people into thinking otherwise. To answer your question, I would choose the first plane, as I would always choose science over religion when it comes to explaining this world and life from biological standpoint. |
Yeah, I retract that as I did not understand that you are claiming that it could lead to spiritual knowledge but that you are not claiming that it can lead to physical knowledge.
| Player1x3 said: I dont know, I was always under the impression that evolution was fully proven fact, seeing as how many evolutionists are active and liud about their beliefs all over the internet and media. |
It is a scientific theory which means that it will never be proven. It is however highly unlikely to be disproven because of the huge amount of evidence supporting it. I think the loudness of scientists on this subject is simply a reflection of many religious people's attempts to replace it with their beliefs. You would not see such vehemence with respect to the theory of gravity or to insist that the earth is an oblate spheroid because hardly anyone would bother to claim that there is no such thing as gravity and those few who claim that the earth is flat are not taken seriously.
The strong defense of evolution is because it is under an attack that may succeed, not scientifically because it can't, but politically; and such a political defeat would not be a defeat of evolution as much as a defeat of the scientific principle, the corruption and perversion of science for religious ends and the start of a new dark age.
"I do not suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it"
