prayformojo said: DarkWraith said: that would set a very dangerous precedent indeed. a slippery slope resulting in thought crime. that is not a world in which I desire to live. that being said, in the absence of objective evidence for god, the belief is delusional. existence cannot be confirmed any other way. philosophers have tried and failed repeatedly to establish existence through a purely a priori basis. "In the absence of compelling objective evidence for God's existence, therefore, religious belief is, alethically speaking, pathological and, by two-factor standards, delusional." - Dr. Ryan McKay, "Hallucinating God? The Cognitive Neuropyschiatry of Religious Belief and Experience" before I get some incredibly asinine reply like "well you can't disprove it either", I recommend you look up the argumentum ad ignorantium fallacy since you're essentially saying "it's okay to believe until proven otherwise" which is backwards, fallacious thinking. then pursue a study in epistemology and learn what separates an opinion from a justified belief. Yes, but if one much reject the idea of the existance of something entirely due to lack of proof, then the concept of a hypothesis becomes void and thus, science and the pursuit of truth ends. The concept of a creator, in any form, is a hypothesis and one that can't be erased entirely without also erasing science as well. Kill one, you kill the other.

any unsubstantiated claim must be rejected on the basis that it isn't justifiable to believe it. a hypothesis without a test is no different, which is why it is a requirement for a hypothesis to be testable.

Dr.Henry_Killinger said: Religion isn't factual, nor reasonable. People beleive what they want.  As for this: "well you can't disprove it either", I recommend you look up the argumentum ad ignorantium fallacy since you're essentially saying "it's okay to believe until proven otherwise" which is backwards, fallacious thinking.  That is simply an assumption. That assertion means that it cannot be proven and thus is irrelevant in discussion of rationality not justification for the belief itself. A set of irrational beliefs does not conflict with a rational mind. Edit: Its a pointless endeavor to try and blame irrationality on Religion, irrationality is a part of Human Nature, as a construct of Humanity, Religion, which is not formed via the scientific method, would be no exception. Especially, when some in this thread are blaming Religion for the very things that it bans against in the various religions of the world, a delightful ironic display of ignorance.

justification for a belief is derived from rationality, so absent rationality it cannot be justified. furthermore, I have to correct you on this notion that beliefs are based upon wants. that is simply incorrect, that would necessitate choice and that isn't the case. for example, you couldn't merely choose to believe in leprechauns if you do not believe in leprechauns. beliefs are consequences of your rationality; in order to change your mind, you would need more data either external or inferred.

I think you have misunderstood me. perhaps you were too swift to respond...what I said was that it is irrational to believe in god absent objective evidence, I did not say that religion breeds irrationality. it is true that this is an irrational (or arational) belief, but as you correctly said "A set of irrational beliefs does not conflict with a rational mind".

Soriku said: It would be so great if God was omnipotent and could just wish Lucifer away. Oh wait...God is omnipotent according to the Bible. Why doesn't he just do that?

Not sure if I can word it right, but:

God wants Satan to temp people to sin, because otherwise I'd be too easy for people not to sin. You need faith in God to stop sinning as much, and without Satan you wouldn't need faith to stop it, because no one is tempting you to sin (Even though it never stops completely).

Soriku said: Nintentacle said: Soriku said: It would be so great if God was omnipotent and could just wish Lucifer away. Oh wait...God is omnipotent according to the Bible. Why doesn't he just do that? Not sure if I can word it right, but: God wants Satan to temp people to sin, because otherwise I'd be too easy for people not to sin. You need faith in God to stop sinning as much, and without Satan you wouldn't need faith to stop it, because no one is tempting you to sin (Even though it never stops completely). I don't think this whole faith in God bull outweighs the negative consequences caused by sin like murder, rape, torture.

Human Nature is to blame, no point in persecuting someone's beleifs just because of ones actions.

Raper, murders, and torturers are responsible for what they do, not the religion that they may or may not claim they have.

I don't think you get it rigth. See, for the economics/politics side, religion is good. Is a way to tell people what is good, and what is bad.

The only thing bad on the religion for the politcs side is the plurality. With a lot of religions figth against each other, is hard to convince all the people what is good for them, where they should expend, where they should go. Its hard in globalizated world make your bussiness global if in some areas, people stop working in friday(mulism), and in another, they stop on sunday. How can you make global propaganda, if some region don't accept the way people dress, or the music people hear. Everything must be unified if they really want to make globalisation easier.

So, in the future, the best way of the politics control people is making only one religion legal. Was done before, in the 3rd century(when catolicism turned to be the only religion permitted in rome). Was done intelligentilly, because they just doesn't made their religion official, but bougth some of the other religions to their own, like using statues, and making the sunday the official day of worship(used to be saturday, like the jews do, since the first crhistians were jews, but in the roman pagan religions, people used to worship on sunday, because, well, they used to worship the sun - get it now? sunday-> sun's day).

Besides, there is another thing in religion that is efficient: turn someone guilty of other person errors'. One, day, if the economics, get bad, the religion can just say: "Its all happen because there are people out there that doesn't follow our religion, they don't want to pray to our god, buy the things that god want us to buy, they worship in another place, in another day, and all that is wrong, and god is punishing us because of them. Its absolute not related to people in the power making bad decisions!!"

So yeah, while people wanting to take advantage of other stay on the power, you can count that religion will be around for a long time.

Dr.Henry_Killinger said: Mr Puggsly said: I dunno what to tell you, I feel certain sets of beliefs can bring the worst out of people. Whether it be religious or otherwise. You mention homophobes for example. Homophobes often grew up with a set of beliefs that homosexuality is bad or maybe even evil. Assuming people have the free will to accept what ever values they want to believe, then that's simply incorrect and naive. Doesn't matter what you "feel". Point is people are responsible for their own actions.

I shouldn't have said "feel." The reality is being raised with a certain set of beliefs can bring the worst and best out of people.

For example, not all societies see the same actions as deplorable.

cannonballZ said: Atheism will be the new religion in the future, they will join forces with scientologists and conquer the world.

Not really atheism is not a relgion and atheist think that scientology is BS just like all religions.

Dark_Lord_2008 said: I never understood why people make such a big deal out of an invisible man in the sky. How can you believe in someone or something that can not be proven or disproven to exist?

Good point and with a litte research one can easily come to the conclusison that all religious text are pure fiction. 

DarkWraith said: prayformojo said: DarkWraith said: that would set a very dangerous precedent indeed. a slippery slope resulting in thought crime. that is not a world in which I desire to live. that being said, in the absence of objective evidence for god, the belief is delusional. existence cannot be confirmed any other way. philosophers have tried and failed repeatedly to establish existence through a purely a priori basis. "In the absence of compelling objective evidence for God's existence, therefore, religious belief is, alethically speaking, pathological and, by two-factor standards, delusional." - Dr. Ryan McKay, "Hallucinating God? The Cognitive Neuropyschiatry of Religious Belief and Experience" before I get some incredibly asinine reply like "well you can't disprove it either", I recommend you look up the argumentum ad ignorantium fallacy since you're essentially saying "it's okay to believe until proven otherwise" which is backwards, fallacious thinking. then pursue a study in epistemology and learn what separates an opinion from a justified belief. Yes, but if one much reject the idea of the existance of something entirely due to lack of proof, then the concept of a hypothesis becomes void and thus, science and the pursuit of truth ends. The concept of a creator, in any form, is a hypothesis and one that can't be erased entirely without also erasing science as well. Kill one, you kill the other. any unsubstantiated claim must be rejected on the basis that it isn't justifiable to believe it. a hypothesis without a test is no different, which is why it is a requirement for a hypothesis to be testable. Dr.Henry_Killinger said: Religion isn't factual, nor reasonable. People beleive what they want.  As for this: "well you can't disprove it either", I recommend you look up the argumentum ad ignorantium fallacy since you're essentially saying "it's okay to believe until proven otherwise" which is backwards, fallacious thinking.  That is simply an assumption. That assertion means that it cannot be proven and thus is irrelevant in discussion of rationality not justification for the belief itself. A set of irrational beliefs does not conflict with a rational mind. Edit: Its a pointless endeavor to try and blame irrationality on Religion, irrationality is a part of Human Nature, as a construct of Humanity, Religion, which is not formed via the scientific method, would be no exception. Especially, when some in this thread are blaming Religion for the very things that it bans against in the various religions of the world, a delightful ironic display of ignorance. justification for a belief is derived from rationality, so absent rationality it cannot be justified. furthermore, I have to correct you on this notion that beliefs are based upon wants. that is simply incorrect, that would necessitate choice and that isn't the case. for example, you couldn't merely choose to believe in leprechauns if you do not believe in leprechauns. beliefs are consequences of your rationality; in order to change your mind, you would need more data either external or inferred. I think you have misunderstood me. perhaps you were too swift to respond...what I said was that it is irrational to believe in god absent objective evidence, I did not say that religion breeds irrationality. it is true that this is an irrational (or arational) belief, but as you correctly said "A set of irrational beliefs does not conflict with a rational mind".

What is your opinion on the growing hypothesis that we may all be living inside of a super computer? I've seen that some of the leading minds in science have started leaning towards this idea and have begun primitive testing.

Personally, it fascinates me because if something like that were true, and science could actually prove that we were all created by an evolved being inside of a complex set of code, for the first time in human history, science and religion would blend together as one. 

Ka-pi96 said: burning_phoneix said: Ka-pi96 said: Only on current laws. In the hypothetical scenario this thread propose the laws would change and it wouldn't be illegal anymore. Current laws? It's in the damn consititution. Freedom of belief is a basic human right guranteed by nearly every civilized nation.   If that's changed to hunt down religious people, it's not a matter about them anymore. We'd be living literally in George Orwell's 1984 and the situation would be bad for everybody. I'm not American so not familiar with all their laws. But if it is just freedom of belief then hypothetically could religion still be allowed but organised religion be banned? That could easily escalate to hunting all religious people.

Don't know if someone answered this since I don't really want to read the whole topic but no, you can't ban organised religion because that would infringe on the Freedom of Association. A core belief in the US Bill of Rights and many human rights charters.

If a government managed to ban a certain group, it would be a slippery slope as their is a precedent for the government to control who their citizens associate with.

Reading more of this thread, I have to say I hate the tendency to make assumptions of religious people, and then judge them on those assumptions, while making no attempt to actually find out if you're right.

Like, more atheists think of god as "a bearded man in the sky" than religious people, from what I've seen.

And the fact that in 2014, so much people still think most religious people hate science, or evolution, or are in denial or are irrational or uneducated is insane.