I was told this in school, apparently me teacher(s) were wrongQuote:
Originally Posted by Ozme52
Printable View
I was told this in school, apparently me teacher(s) were wrongQuote:
Originally Posted by Ozme52
Many teaches say what they were told and do as the are required by the system.
very foolish way to teach.
This should become a whole other thread.
Growls at education system.
Did somebody mention Intelligent Design?Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolfscout
This is the information I recieved on my post, hope this clears it up for youQuote:
Originally Posted by Ozme52
the time they distroyed the heavy water plant ... (Heavy water was needed for nuclear bombs) they
were 45 days away from full production when the arm forces distroyed the heavy water plant.
In much of the Christian world, literacy was restricted to the wealthy and the ruling elite. Very few middle class members were able to read Latin, and almost none of the poor. And the Church made sure that almost everything was written in Latin. Actually, I believe the Jews, and possibly the Arabs, were among the most literate in Europe and Western Asia. Almost every Jewish boy had to learn to read Hebrew so that he could read the Torah. I don't know about the Chinese or Japanese, but I expect that they were also very literate.Quote:
Originally Posted by TomOfSweden
While I will admit that religions in general have sometimes had a positive effect in the world, overall I believe they've done more to hold back progress and divide people than any other institution. While attitudes around the world have changed, and some aspects of religion have changed with them, I feel it is mostly because the churches could see that failure to change would result in loss of power. I was raised a Catholic and back in those days the church was just starting to allow Catholics to marry non-Catholics as long as any children were raised Catholic. But it was because people were doing it anyway, and saying to hell with the consequences. So they had all those potential Catholic children being raised in other religions. I believe it was even harder for Jews to marry outsiders, but I'm not all that familiar with any other religions.Quote:
Originally Posted by TomOfSweden
But my point is that, in general, religious institutions resist change to the point of ridiculousness. It took the Vatican what, about 600 years, to admit that Galileo was right, and that the Earth does indeed revolve around the sun. Back in the early 80's I worked with a man who was a preacher in a small church. He believed that,since the Bible states there are four corners of the Earth, the Earth had to be flat. All evidence to the contrary was wrong or blasphemous. And Christian views on evolution in this country (USA) at least, are absurd beyond belief. And equally absurd are the fanatical atheists who want to erase God and Jesus and Christ from the American dictionaries. Children in school can get into serious trouble just by wishing their teachers a Merry Christmas instead of the sillier Happy Holidays.
Ah well. If only the rest of the world were like me. What a boring world THAT would be!
'Nuff Said!
Goes to show how some teachers like to "impress" their students with over blown statements that don't hold water... heavy or otherwise.Quote:
Originally Posted by mkemse
That would assume those first, early large scale heavy water plants could actually produce enough weapons grade materials to make a bomb. It assumes the first bomb and/or bomb tests worked (I don't believe the first few Manhatten Project test firings worked. The first few only scattered their detonation materials across the desert... and we only actually officially set off one bomb with fissionable materials...) It assumes that the Luftwaffe could have delivered such a weapon... and it assumes that the allied forces might have capitulated after the first explosion...
After all, we had only accumulated enough material to create and deliver two bombs on Japan... and it took two explosions... and that's all we had available in our arsenal... and likely all we would have had for up to another year. Atomic weapons were expensive and we could actually do more damage during a fire-bomb raid.
Don't forget, Tojo didn't want to surrender despite the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The emperor, Hirohito, used the A-bombs as his rationale to finally, successfully override the Imperial Army hierarchy.
Yes, and these few litterate created masterpieces. Thomas of Aquinas would never have happened without the church. I'm sure of it. He was a monk who devoted his entire life to proving gods existance but all he did was to make it clear that god probably doesn't exist. It just took 700 years before people caught on and started putting two and two together. Or Schopenhauer did. People have extreme subconcious fears of breaking with the social norms. Even the people who try their hardest to do it rarely do. Just look at the Indie pop kids. They all try so hard to be different they all look the same.Quote:
Originally Posted by Thorne
Freeing your mind and thinking in new ways is extremly rare and far apart. It can take centuries before there comes a guy with a new idea. When did atheism have it's big breakthrough? 150 years ago, and we've still got religious people around. Aristotle gave us the logical system with which we today can invalidate all the supernatural claims of any religion. This was 2300 years ago. Ideas catch on so extremly sloooooow.
You still haven't answered why anybody would convert to christianity to begin with. Why and what could they gain from it?Quote:
Originally Posted by Thorne
First off, the Germans were very, very far from doing anything threatening with nuclear weapons. They were struggling to create a prototype chain reactor when they were overcome by the allies, and they came close but failed. The Americans, meanwhile, had accomplished this in Dec. 1942 at the U of Chicago -- and still took 3 years to make bombs, even dedicating HUGE resources to it (~equivalent to $21.5 billion today, nearly as much as the ~equivalent $24 billion the US spent on all small arms for the entire war) -- and Germany was dedicating almost no resources to the program at all (the US built entire towns for the project, Germany assigned about 40 scientists). Finally, there is some controversy over whether Heisenburg, the head of the German project, was intending to ever create a bomb at all.Quote:
the time they distroyed the heavy water plant ... (Heavy water was needed for nuclear bombs) they
were 45 days away from full production when the arm forces distroyed the heavy water plant.
Secondly, the lack of heavy water wasn't a big deal; there wasn't enough being made in the entire world to enable any serious production, and while it's theoretically possible to achieve a chain reaction with heavy water it's really, really hard to do. Graphite is far superior and is what enabled American production.
Thirdly, it's very doubtful a couple of atomic bombs in the hands of the Germans at that late date would have accomplished anything. The blitz did far more damage than any bomb was likely to accomplish, and did little more than solidify the British resolve to resist.
To correct a few errors, though: there were no "live" (using fissionables) misfirings during the American program, although it was a huge concern. We also did have another bomb available when the war ended.
Although I'm not a believer, I will forward that logic is pretty worthless for disproving religious possibility. You can't prove something doesn't exist; and you can't prove that something you don't know about has no effect on anything. Indeed, the fact that we constantly find new forces and phenomena is actually a very strong argument in favor of the existence of "things beyond our understanding."Quote:
Aristotle gave us the logical system with which we today can invalidate all the supernatural claims of any religion.
Hope is generally the biggest appeal, I would expect: we all fear death and the unknown it contains, and the promise of a heaven (and threat of a hell) are pretty strong motivators. In the same way, it gives a purpose to life, something everyone struggles with at some point. It also gives a morality and method for a stable society. Also, the existence of a benevolent being willing and able to work in favor of its followers was one of the original big selling points: precursors like Zeus were followed because their wrath was feared, not because they were swell personalities.Quote:
You still haven't answered why anybody would convert to christianity to begin with. Why and what could they gain from it?
You're starting in the wrong end. Nobody ever proves that something doesn't exist. It's impossible. I hear it all the time in the religious debate and it's rediculous. This is me proving you're gay. I have no evidence you're not, so you must be gay. In logic it's called "argument from ignorance" and is a logical fallacy. Even Aristotle knew that.Quote:
Originally Posted by ElectricBadger
Now it's getting interesting. Yes, there evidently is things beyond our understanding. A very valid point. But that's saying absolutely nothing. Litteraly. The error in supernatural religions is that they draw conclusions from this where the evidence is at best hearsay or according to science, pure fantasy. It gives no suport what so ever for god. Nothing.Quote:
Originally Posted by ElectricBadger
Just saying it's a matter of faith isn't good enough. We all need evidence to believe. All of us. It's just that we often need to accept other peoples words as evidence rather than to work it out ourselves. Most of us do. I don't know for a fact that the world is round. I'm just hoping that science isn't lying to me. After we have gathered the evidence or collected explanations from authority figures we draw conclusions. This is how all people function.
Using supernatural religions as a way to explain the world is the old paradigm, because we today know that they don't have the answers. We can work that much out for ourselves. Religious people are turning to obsolete authority figures to explain the world. That is the basis for religion. When people stop it'll dissapear, but it doesn't seem like it's going to happen any time soon.
[/QUOTE]Quote:
Originally Posted by ElectricBadger
Yeah. Sadly you might be right. People needing a big daddy in the sky is an amusing thought. The proffesor, (a European proffesor. You call teachers proffessors in USA and I don't know what you call the heads of departments) of philosophy at Stockholm university has "christians are really childish" on his car. Funny.
edit: sorry for falling asleep. Now I'll activate my brain. You have explained why people might turn to religion as such. But not why people would turn to monotheism or christianity specifically? Which was my question to begin with. Why would somebody convert from, lets say mithraism or sol invictus, (the two dominant faiths of the time) to christianity. Especially if they in the begining where persecuted. It needs a bit more advanced argumentation.
God told them to isn't a valid argument :)
I haven't the slightest idea why anyone would voluntarily convert to ANY religion. It is my view that all religions only perpetuate superstition, of one form or another. Most people are born into a religious group, the same group their parents where born into. This was the case with myself, but I stepped away from it.Quote:
Originally Posted by TomOfSweden
People will join church groups, for social reasons primarily I think, and therefore enter into the religion promulgated by that church. Many of these groups perform good and honerable services to their community. But the propaganda which accompanies those services is pervasive.
And of course, there's always the "convert or die" method of recruiting new members. That's always filled the churches in the past. "God told them to" may not be valid, but "that soldier with the nasty sword told me to" will convert thousands!
thorne,
I haven't the slightest idea why anyone would voluntarily convert to ANY religion
the reason is some religions require both spouses to be of the same religion, so if they want to get married some spouses be it the female or the male may be required by that relgion to convert before marriage so the marriage is recongnized, example i believefor example that if a person is of say Muslim up brining, theirreligion may require a person to convert from say christianty or jewdism to Islam for the purposee of marriage, or even coonvert from a reformed version of the same religion to orthodox of the same
I am not defending any 1 religion, but an Orthodox Jew MUST marry and Orthosed Jew and not one who is of Reformed Jewdism
Similar to Catholosism, unlike most religions I have heard about, if you are catholic and wish to marry a cathilic you must go through church mandated cousling before the church wil regonize the union even if both spouses are Catholic
I do think it's important to understand though. Religious superstition still does a lot of damage. The subject interests me deeply.Quote:
Originally Posted by Thorne
These are all nice reasons, but religions tend to make some remarkable claims. Believing things like that we go to heaven after we die isn't just superstition. That's standing all reason on it's head.Quote:
Originally Posted by Thorne
If that's all it takes to make people superstitious, then it should be super easy to get people off it? All we need is a scientific comunity club and having meetings where we read scientiffic reports together. Do you really think it's that simple?
Hmm... Maybe that's why Sweden is such an atheist country. We've had socialist comunity clubs for 140 years now where most workers got together in studygroups and studied science. I'm not kidding. It was organised by the unions. It's called ABF, (Arbetarnas Bildningsförbund, ie the workers education society). It's a theory. Anyhoo I'm just thinking aloud. The goal wasn't to get people off religion off-course but to get them more highly qualified jobs. It still may have worked.
Yeah, but that doesn't in the least explain how religion still can survive today in the West. We're suposed to be the educated ones.Quote:
Originally Posted by Thorne
Religion feeds a deep seated insecutiry within most people.No matter how much we like to think ourselves as advanced,we have created asociety that puts excessive demands on its citizens,many of whom are unable to do all that is asked.For such people religion and preachers hold a special promise because they make them feel good about themselves.Of course,I'm talking about the overzealous ones here.Some people actually say,"this is as reasonable and undisprovable an explanation as any I've heard till now."To understand why so many kind of people take to religion is an exhaustive task..
First of all, I want to make sure we are differentiating between faith and religion. One can have faith in God, or Jesus, or Muhammad, or Santa Clause or the Tooth Fairy, without becoming entangled in an organized, or even disorganized, religion. Faith is simply a belief in something. I would venture to say that a very large majority of people have some form of faith, even without religion.Quote:
Originally Posted by TomOfSweden
Religion is the codification of people's beliefs, setting everything down so that all of the members of the religion believe the same things. (I realize that this is a simlplified definition, but it's no less valid.) My quarrel is not with people's faith but with the religions which try to exploit those beliefs.
I have seen many people, struggling to make ends meet, living paycheck to paycheck, but still willing to put that money in the collection plate every week while the preacher is riding around in fancy cars,wearing expensive clothing and telling his flock that if they DON'T put that money in the plate they're going to hell!
History is filled with stories of religious groups killing other religious groups for no other reason than their different beliefs. And it's still going on today, all over the world.
As far as education is concerned, that doesn't necessarily eliminate the need for faith. But I do think it tends to separate people from the religious groupies. I feel that those with a good education tend to be more tolerant of other's beliefs and less inclined to take the word of a smarmy guy in a $500 suit as gospel.
But the vast majority of people in this world are brought up from infancy being taught a specific belief system. Overcoming that upbringing is very difficult. And, as you say, the need to believe that there is some kind of afterlife, something beyond the mundane world we live in, will always draw people to some form of belief system.
Actually EB... that's what I actually said.Quote:
Originally Posted by ElectricBadger
Quote:
(I don't believe the first few Manhatten Project test firings worked. The first few only scattered their detonation materials across the desert... and we only actually officially set off one bomb with fissionable materials...)
Are you sure? Our two bombs weren't even using the same technologies, we had so little in the way of fissionable materials. One was enriched uranium and the other plutonium.Quote:
Originally Posted by ElectricBadger
I guess we're annoyed with different aspects of religion. I have a problem with adults clinging to childish notions of how the world functions.Quote:
Originally Posted by Thorne
People "exploiting" peoples faiths is just a natural development. Is NASA "exploiting" peoples belief in science that we can go to different worlds? Are the Greens "exploiting" that we believe in the global warming, (which finally last week got some serious proof backing it)?
We are social animals. We like doing things together and especially with people we have something in common with. If people believe in a supernatural god then they'll off-course like to hang out with others who share the idea. Off-course strong people are needed to hold them together. We can call them sect-leaders, popes, chairmen, doctors, proffessors or presidents. They all do the same thing but with different connotations but given power for different reasons.
Easy to say that but what about the innumerable sect-leaders who mislead their throng?It's human nature to from groups but shouldn't we take a long hard look at the kind of groups we're forming?
Now you're on thin ice. Please define misslead. A good start is to define the meaning/purpose of life. Moralism is always bad.Quote:
Originally Posted by himind
If you're asking someone to give up his life or to take lives for the sake of you rreligion,I guess you are being misled.I mean, look at Manson, or the Aum sect in Japan...There other examples too but those would come under the grey area in between.There's this religious leader in India whio tells his followers not to seek medical help because he claims to treat all illnesses with cucumber juice and such. Now you may argue that people are doing this of their own free will,but aren't they being misled?Does freedon=m include the freedom to be fooled and taken for a ride without anyone to help you out in this?
You hit the nail on the head straight away. Thanks. Whether or not they're being fooled is the big question. But what if using that cucumber juice will lead to them going to heaven? Once you've opened the door to the possibility of the supernatural and a intelligent all-powerful being you've destroyed any platform from which to judge anybody. What if they are right and you wrong?Quote:
Originally Posted by himind
Since the whole basis of faith in religion requires that you don't scientifficaly scrutinize it, you have taken away your tools to attack the sects you are claiming are missleading others. Which religion is best or most correct? Which is most moraly upstanding?
If you judge those sects and you yourself are religious you are making claims that your gods moral code is superior to others. You have no basis for making this claim since you cannot prove whether your or the other god is the correct one. Naturally, because making a religious stand requires that you don't analyse evidence suporting the supernatural. See, it's a logical dilemma?
Or you could just say that you are right and they are wrong and base your prerogative on sheer numbers or superior fire-power. But then we're not discussing ethics any longer.
This whole dilemma evaporates if you call yourself atheist. Then we can judge them by how much actual damage they are causing. The biggest problem in the world today, I'd say is people activelly fooling themselves and ignoring evidence. The sects are just cashing in on the rampant ignorance.
hmm...I'm a bit tired. This looks tight at a glance, but please let me know if I've got any logical holes in this. I'm going to bed now. Good night world. :wave:
You're half right here, the sects are just caching in on the ignorance. Or, rather, the leaders of the sects are doing so.Quote:
Originally Posted by TomOfSweden
People are innately gullible and want to believe they have a chance for a better life, even if it is through suicide. There are people who twist the words of every religious teacher in history to accomplish their purposes, but that is not the fault of religion. Believing that is like believing the moon is made out of green cheese.
If the entire world were populated by atheists, people would still fight. Often we make the mistake of looking at all the bad that was done in the name of religion; instead we should look at the good that was done in the name of religion and see where that gets us. There are religions out there that not only do not sanction violence, but refuse to be a part of it.
It's the twisting part I have problems with. It says in the Bible that the world was created in six days. How could you possibly twist that in any way to make it more perverted? It's just plain lies, and it always was. When it was written they didn't know it, but today we know it is. All the supernatural claims in all religions are bullshit.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rhabbi
My point is that if you are open to the possibility of the supernatural then you've taken away any reference point to judge what is twisted. The, "what if the Satanist are right" argument.
Yes, I'm sure you are right. But the upside is that then we might fight over relevant issues. It will make it a lot easier to understand conflicts in the world. Nearly all conflicts that have ever been in the world are all basically an "I was here first"-quarell. Maybe it would help to take away all the symbols and coloured robes and just see the conflicts for what they are, money-grabbing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rhabbi
I feel only a religion or sect that tells you that it's way is only one of many to view the same truth deserves recognition. A religion that preaches hate can't be the way to God,not as almost every religion defines Him anyway...
That's valid if your an atheist. If not we still haven't solved the "what if the Satanists are correct about god" problem. If god exists, how do we know what it wants? How can we comunicate with god in a way that we can validate the comunication? How do we know what is comunication from god and what is just noise? I doubt every strange notion that pops up in my head is a message from god. How can I distinguish between random thought and devine messages?Quote:
Originally Posted by himind
Ooh... this has been fascinating to read. I love religious discussions.
*takes a deep breath*
I also have somewhat odd beliefs and views of religion.
I am a highly skeptical pagan. Instead of going the atheist/agnostic route of saying, if we can't prove something, we shouldn't believe in it, I have the tendency to believe in everything. I know, how is that skeptical? Well, it's like this: I believe in different planes of reality. That there is a reality, a metaphorical and sense-related reality in saying "The sun rose." This is contradicted by scientific thought which informs us that the sun remains in place and the earth turns and revolves around it. However, if I was writing a poem, I'd never write anything about "the beautiful earth-turn".
I don't think that we, as humans, can judge the truth of someone else's reality. We can only judge our own truth. And I think that people need to find what resonates in their own soul, as opposed to just doing what their friends, parents, culture, etc. thinks is right. A part of me lives in great fear that one of the very belief-centered religions might be right, and that I might go to hell not just because I don't practice that religion but because I'm so adamantly against the idea that one should be blamed or punished for a belief. A god who acts in that manner is not a god I want to serve. Yes, this is an assumption on my part, that everyone has a right to their beliefs. It might be a wrong assumption, but it's one of the few things I believe in absolutely. I believe that when people assert the opposite that it is done out of insecurity about their own belief and not out of true spirituality.
I don't think that the fact that I believe in the supernatural means that I automatically lose the right to have that belief. My own religion (which I've created and which suits me and probably no one else) is not based on the idea that it is Right and all others are Wrong. Now, as I said, it's possible that my religion is Wrong and that some other religion is Right. Again, as I said, that possibility scares me. I'm arrogant, some would say, in assuming that I have the right to judge God. I don't know what happens after death. I only know that spirituality has enriched my own life more than anything else. I know that it has not caused me to run out and try to convert anyone or see anyone as lesser to me because they have a different religion. It's made me work on my own issues to become a better person, by my beliefs, of course, or perhaps by Hers (my Goddess').
So, as to "what if the Satanists are right?" Well, I've read some Satanic writings of Anton LaVey and they actually aren't at all what we imagine. They question authority and have strong views on serving yourself first and being honest and firm about who and what you are. I don't remember all the details, but it's not about calling up demons or performing Black Masses or sacrificing people or animals. So, if they're right, I wouldn't mind too much, I don't think.
As for fundamentalists of any sort (and there *are* pagan fundamentalists, too), those are the people I hope are wrong. But note my language: I'm not saying they *are* wrong. I think they're wrong because I believe that the universe is way too vast to be summed up in one religion, but I realize that that belief is not based on anything that can be proven.
On the other hand, I'm not a scientist and cannot prove on my own, without being told, that the earth really turns. I believe it, because I know how the scientific process worked, but for all I know there's no earth and I was born yesterday with a whole bunch of implanted memories and a whole environment designed to make me think I've been alive for 30 years. Do I think that's likely? No, not at all. But it is possible and I have no real proof to the contrary.
And: "How can I distinguish between random thought and devine messages?"
Well, I know that I can distinguish between those two things, but that's because I've chosen to have faith in my Goddess. I will admit that it could all be a delusion. I don't think it is, but who knows. The way I can tell is that the divine stuff usually seems to have no reason and then have changed something drastically later. Or it is something that I know is right already but am resisting doing for some reason.
And incidentally, sometime in 2000, I wrote a story about a woman who was a sadist in the French department and was writing fantasy stories where women were superior. I did not know about BDSM at the time, and in fact, believed (*rolls eyes*) that it was wrong and that no one would ever want to be submissive and that people who said they were were being brainwashed by their abusive partners... *hem* *hem* Switch here. Um, anyway. I opened the document again last Friday and I discovered a very short story about my life -- HIGHLY autobiographical, down to the street I lived on, in which I took advantage of someone and made them into my sex slave. The last part was fiction, but clearly expressed my own dominant side. I do not remember this story. I thought maybe I had saved the other story under another title, but that story doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. This one does. I have no idea how that happened or why. I know I couldn't have written the story I found because I know I did not see myself that way at that time. Clearly I somehow tricked myself into revealing the truth when I thought I was writing something else. Any rational ideas on how that could have happened? I'm serious here, not trying to be argumentative: *are* there any rational reasons I'm missing?
The other thing I keep in mind is my own sense of morality. Again, I tend to be pretty arrogant, to some people's mind, in assuming that I have the right to have my own sense of morality, but on the other hand, this world IS the only world we know, and it only makes sense to do what's right by the standards of this world. If a god really wants us to blindly follow and not question things by our own sense of morality, again, I feel that god does not deserve my service. So, if I were to receive a message from the divine that *felt* like a message from the divine but was advocating something I felt was morally wrong, I wouldn't do it.
What I find interesting in all of this, as a kind of rambly personal aside, is that I see now that I'm talking of gods in much the way I would talk about possible dominants. I do feel that way: that in religion, we are creating a relationship with the divine and there is some sort of contract between the devout/believer and the god, and both sides need to have fair expectations of each other. To me, a god asking for blind obedience and for someone to go against their personal morality -- these things are wrong and abusive. Other people would say that I don't have the right to say that because I'm merely human and cannot possibly comprehend what is truly Good or Evil... then again (at least from the perspective of those who believe in Genesis), isn't it because we *do* know about Good and Evil that we aren't granted eternal life? I think people do have an innate moral compass, and that in reality, we do all agree about what's truly right and wrong... the problem comes when we add to the list of "wrong" things in order to make ourselves feel superior. Again a personal belief that I have no way of measuring. And it's a little off-topic. I'm rambling a lot here, and I apologize.
I am loving this thread. I know it is off topic as far as the site is concerned, but I am addicted to considered debate.
Oh and please ramble on Amberxiao. I read your post completely engaged, taking each point as you made it, considering and agreeing or disagreeing. And there was a mixture of both.
Thank you for that exercise, and for the pleasure of reading such a gentle well articulate thesis.
cariad
I'd just like to point out that it annoys me when agnostics and atheists are clumped together. The agnostics belong to the religious since they don't deny it. It's seen as some kind of middle-ground but it's really not. Agnostics judge the evidence for and against the supernatural and somehow manage not to see that the supernatural camp has no evidence or credible theories at all to back it up. That to me is taking a stand. A very definate stand.Quote:
Originally Posted by Amberxiao
Aren't you mixing up human interpretation of the world with the actual physical state? I live in a different plane of reality then, let's say somebody colourblind. But both of us can understand the physical properties of colours just as well. The goal of the scientiffic language is to minimize the room for interpretation, (hence all the boring maths). I'm sure that with enough shrooms I can see god, that will never be any proof for gods existance. We all know that our senses aren't particularly fine tuned. So we can't really trust them. You do agree on that one, right?Quote:
Originally Posted by Amberxiao
You missed my point a bit. Sorry, for being unclear. The issue is whether or not human morality comes from an external source. Can we and are we working it out for ourselves or do we need to be told by a god? Christians for example believe in that humanity was told by an external source. Somehow comunicated through a myriad of people, (by thought control?) and written in the Bible. It's a mystery to me how christian know which people have had their minds under gods control, and which people just are plain crazy or lying. But nothing else about christianity makes sense so I'll just let that one slide.Quote:
Originally Posted by Amberxiao
This is where I think your otherwise excelent post loses it a bit. You've presented a tautology. The evidence you present to believe in the godess derives from your belief in the godess. You are obviously capable of making a coherant case so I won't dwell on this. Why not follow through and draw conculsions from the evidence you yourself have collected?Quote:
Originally Posted by Amberxiao
The religious theories of god and the supernatural are proper scientiffic theories. Nobody is contesting that. The only difference between them and theories like evolution is that nobody bothers to test the religious theories because we know that the results will be inconclusive. What do we all do in a situation where we don't know? Schrödinger cat. We off-course don't make any sure fire claims, leave it on the pile of maybes and stick to whatever makes the most sense. So on the one hand we have the supernatural improbable theories backed up by nothing, and on the other hand the non-supernatural theories plenty of evidence and a large number of plausible explanations for the world. That anybody in that situation still chose to believe in "the godess" is well....strange.
I find the subject very fascinating. Not the supernatural as such, but the large number of people who in spite of evidence take it seriously. That's....to me is just amazing.
You tell me. I think people generally are smarter than they give themselves credit for, (and act). And they pick up on many more things than they think they do. You aparently knew yourself better at the time than you give yourself credit for.Quote:
Originally Posted by Amberxiao
ok, let's follow your reasoning. I've interpreted it as, in your state of existance there are three possible scources for morality for humanity.Quote:
Originally Posted by Amberxiao
1) There is no god and we make up our moral standards alone.
2) There is god but does not have moral codes for us to follow or they are optional and we make up our own moral standards.
3) There is a god and does have moral codes for us to follow.
In the first two cases god can be ignored. In the third case gods rules should be followed blindly and all we can do is interpret them as best we can.
See the problem? A god with optional moral codes doesn't really have moral codes to follow does it?
ha ha ha. Yeah, off-topic and then some. I think I'm more guilty for it than anyone else here. But since it's Cariads thread and she let's us get away with it I'll just keep going. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Amberxiao
Whew.
Well, after your other post about being worried about how you come across, I must admit, I was looking forward to seeing your response here :). Anyway, the problem is that I can't really counter your arguments as a scientist, which is making me feel really stupid. I want to be very clear on my wording on that, because I most certainly do NOT mean that you are making me feel stupid.
First, then, an apology. The last time I had this conversation, it was with someone who considered himself an agnostic, not an atheist, and it had a very similar feel to it. I did not mean to suggest that they are the same thing, but that this particular argument/discussion was common to both.
The basic misunderstanding or difficulty lies here:
"Aren't you mixing up human interpretation of the world with the actual physical state? I live in a different plane of reality then, let's say somebody colourblind. But both of us can understand the physical properties of colours just as well. The goal of the scientiffic language is to minimize the room for interpretation, (hence all the boring maths). I'm sure that with enough shrooms I can see god, that will never be any proof for gods existance. We all know that our senses aren't particularly fine tuned. So we can't really trust them. You do agree on that one, right?"
No. I'm not mixing up physical reality with personal interpretation. I'm saying that personal interpretation reveals or creates another reality that is equal to physical reality. And as far as trusting senses, we really only have a few sources of information:
1. our senses
2. our logic
3. other people/hearsay, which is filtered through 1 & 2.
Logic cannot create data, therefore ALL our data about the world comes, in some way, from our senses. There was apparently an experiment done in which they somehow proved that if no one was looking, a single particle of light could be in two places at once, but if someone was looking, it was where they expected it to be. Again, I have no way of knowing if this was true, but it's really interesting to me. This is sort of what I believed before I heard about the experiment anyway. For example: love. How do you know you love someone? It feels a certain way to you, physically and emotionally, but how do you describe that to someone who's never felt love before? How do you convince them that it exists, at least for you? I'm not trying to tell you you should believe in something spiritual or supernatural. I'm trying to explain why I do. For me, the feeling is as great as the feeling of love, and yet it's different. It's like submission, but it's different than that, too. When I do magic, it's like being dominant, but different. It's not something I can easily explain, since it's well, like an emotion. It's the same sort of feeling as reading something really well-written and feeling your skin shiver at how -right- it is. Not necessarily nice, but -right-.
Now, as for the moral code -- there are a couple of problems here:
1. You seem to have an assumption that in any relationship between the supernatural and the natural that the supernatural must always be right, or that the supernatural is somehow separate from the natural or that the supernatural is way more powerful than the natural and thus you end up in a Might makes Right situation. I don't believe that at all, so your three possibilities don't really make sense to me. What I really believe is that I am God, and everything exists within me, and at the same time, I'm not God, and everything exists outside of me. Everything is God. And Nothing is God. Everything else we "call" God is just faces that make sense to us as individuals. But I don't think that God, in this sense, has any desire other than to learn more. I think we are souls in bodies because bodies do allow us to experience things through our senses, which are less accurate, but deeper and more "real" than the view God would have. Which is another tangent from the discussion about why I believe what I do and whether the existence of the supernatural means it's either irrelevant or defaultly demanding blind obedience. Again, if there's a supernatural "moral code", it would be to experience things through our senses, and really, I think it's true that we can't really escape that too easily or for very long, without having major nerve damage. So, I guess we are in agreement on that one.
The other thing is that I don't think the lack of a moral code makes the supernatural irrelevant anymore than any other emotion is irrelevant. Yes, they are irrelevant when trying to look at the world in a purely logical manner, but not when trying to actually live *in* the world. A smile at the check-out is not really relevant to completing a purchase, but it's generally appreciated, and thus not irrelevant to the people engaged in the smiling. Similarly, an angry comment would affect the two people as well, and the more negative aspects of spirituality can cause equal problems.
*rereads* Whoops... I haven't been responding rightly. I forgot what the context was. As for *that*, the problem is that I don't believe in omniscinet or omnipotent deities. I think they get their information as much from us as we get it from them. I'm going to go back to the whole dominant thing:
Let's say you tell your submissive to wash the dishes. But in some way, washing the dishes is causing harm to someone, and you don't see that, but she does. So, she doesn't wash the dishes, and then explains why. What do you do? Or what if you tell her to eat something with eggs, not knowing she's allergic? Should she eat them blindly, or inform you of the allergy?
In the case of the supernatural, I think that if there's some sort of intelligence, rather than just random spiritual energy, it is aware of how little we know about it and thus does not expect more than we are capable of and trusts us to do what we decide is right (i.e. our own moral system, not an imposed one).
As for my Goddess... I don't think she is omnipotent or omniscient or It. She is a form, just as we are a form, and equally connected to the source and separate from it as we are. I think that, being somewhat between, she has a greater impersonal awareness, but a lesser ability to experience individual moments in their totality.
I think I'll close on this:
"That anybody in that situation still chose to believe in "the godess" is well....strange. "
*grins* Well, I've never claimed to be normal ;) And as for Shrodinger's cat: I believe it is simultaneously alive and dead and in the process of dying all at the same time. And probably pretty angry, as well, no matter what state it's in.
Good. I don't want you to feel stupid. My goal is to understand you by testing your arguments. With any luck we'll both learn something :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Amberxiao
This is a bit confusing. No, you can't explain love to somebody who hasn't felt it before. You, (or me) have no idea if the way you experience love is the same as for other people. So far I'm all with you with seperate realities. This is all pretty basic stuff which I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone who doesn't agree with. But then you go into particle of light being at different places depending on who looks. Light is energy. Energy behaves the way energy does. No mind control in the world can change that. You do agree with that one right? physicsQuote:
Originally Posted by Amberxiao
Ok, so you're a pantheist. ie we are god. So where does the supernatural come into the picture? It doesn't sound like you believe in the supernatural at all. You sound like more like an atheist in denial.Quote:
Originally Posted by Amberxiao
Indeed! And I forgot I had written that -- by the end of the post, I no longer felt stupid. I seem to be getting better/more comfortable with this kind of conversation. And that's definitely a good thing.Quote:
Originally Posted by TomOfSweden
I'm not sure I agree on that. The experiment was one of quantum physics, and I learned about it in What the bleep do we know?! The premise of the movie/documentary is that we, as Observers, are in ultimate control of our reality, and that the reason we have a more fixed view of reality is that we don't believe other things are possible. I'm not sure I agree with that, either.Quote:
This is a bit confusing. No, you can't explain love to somebody who hasn't felt it before. You, (or me) have no idea if the way you experience love is the same as for other people. So far I'm all with you with seperate realities. This is all pretty basic stuff which I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone who doesn't agree with. But then you go into particle of light being at different places depending on who looks. Light is energy. Energy behaves the way energy does. No mind control in the world can change that. You do agree with that one right? physics
Ha ha! Good question. And you're right - I don't believe in the supernatural. I believe in a natural reality that has not been discovered or accepted by those who only look to the physical world. I think there are deities and spirits, just as I think there are plants and animals. That is, as I said, they are as differentiated from each other as we are, but do not exist, except in a few situations (possession being one), in the physical world, though they may affect it at times. Again, I believe this because of things I have experienced through my emotions and senses. An atheist, I assume, would not believe in deities or spirits of any kind, whether they are called natural or supernatural.Quote:
Ok, so you're a pantheist. ie we are god. So where does the supernatural come into the picture? It doesn't sound like you believe in the supernatural at all. You sound like more like an atheist in denial.