Religion IS crazy!

[Value Collector]

VC, you call people brainwashed yet you constantly post youtubes in here with Dawkins, who is brainwashed?
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I think you need to look up what the word constantly means, I would describe it as "rarely", and if I do post a video, it is only to try and express a point that would take many paragraphs to explain, but which the video explains quicker and in a more entertaining way

I don't appreciate you putting up pictures of brains and lies when anyone mentions something that is against how you think

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I don't do that when they go against what I think, I do it when they go against reality.

Most of these people that have contributed aren't even religious, yet you don't want to hear it?

Who are you talking about? I think you'll find I have been willing to engage anybody in dialogue. The only person I find is a pain to talk to is Cynic, and only because of his dishonest style of debate.

Anyone that has come in here with a different view has to repeat themselves constantly saying they aren't religious, what does that say?That you have your own religion

Who has been saying that? I think it is you and cynic that have been trying to paint atheists with the religious tar, just as you are doing here.

Cynic has talked about science often in all his posts, so how do you conclude that he doesn't believe in science.

I think he believes in science, it's just he suffers from confirmation bias, a big part of the scientific method involves trying to weed out your own confirmation bias, that's all I am saying. You can come to all sorts of wrong conclusions if you misapply the scientific method.

I am happy to sit and watch discussions progress, but its the likes of you and a few others that have just stopped them from going anywhere.

No, the road block seems to be when we ask for evidence, the conversation breaks down when we say the things your guys cling to isn't really evidence. I am happy to dedicate a lot of time to explaining the nature of logic and evidence to people, But if you sit there refusing to be budged by sound logic, then I guess we have nothing to talk about.

Rumpole has mentioned a few things and where did that discussion go, apart from you talking about fairies.

I thought that was a good discussion, I think both rumpole and I both got something out of it.

talking about fairies was simply to illustrate the fact that just because you can't disprove something, doesn't mean you should believe it or that it has truth value.

I brought up fairies on purpose because most people don't believe in them, But they will generally admit that they can't disprove fairies don't exist in the universe somewhere. So they can't expect us to disprove their god, it is up to them to prove their god.

What is the point of these discussions when it never gets off the ground with hard religious folk like you, that constantly push their own

I am not pushing my path, How is asking people, what they believe? and why they believe it? pushing my path. If anything its opening the door for them to preach.

Obviously I am most interested in the second part of why they believe it, which is where I start asking for evidence, and the conversation starts to lean towards what is and isn't evidence etc.

I am only interested in talking to people who genuinely care if their beliefs are true, If they care they shouldn't mind a peer review of their beliefs. If they don't care, then there is no point in talking about whether things are true, and there is no point them engaging anyone except to preach, and I am not interested in preaching.

 

[Value Collector]

All the attributes VC describes about the religious are actually being displayed in his posting

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such as?

Despite more posters rising up and pointing this out he is completely blind to it and "everyone else is wrong".

What exactly am I blind to?

VC is the most fanatical person in this thread.

What do I do that can be labelled as fanatical?

Pushing his agenda.

The only "Agenda" I have is to believe as many true things, and as few false things as possible, and if I can, I like to help people recognise their false beliefs. In a world where false beliefs are killing people, breaking up families and causing a host of other bad outcomes, I think this has value.

None on my beliefs are sacred, every thing I believe gets a question mark hung on it from time to time.

Abusing people who don't agree.

Who am I abusing?

Calling anyone who disagrees with him brainwashed.

Do you believe that religions brain wash people?

Saying others don't believe in science despite them using scientific evidence and his position lacking scientific evidence.

What part of my position lacks scientific evidence? and I never said cynic doesn't believe in science, I am just saying we is using this disparate facts to point in an illogical area, because he has confirmation bias.

 

[pavilion103]

I could spend a good 30 mins going over all of those points and providing answers.

What possible benefit could that provide for me? In all seriousness?

You are an evangelical atheist.

You don't know when to leave things alone.

We have all gone around and around in circles.

I don't want to be harsh, because I'm sure you're a decent person, but dude you need to know when to just leave it alone and close off conversation.

Thus the reason I come and go from this thread from time to time.

 

[Value Collector]

I could spend a good 30 mins going over all of those points and providing answers.

What possible benefit could that provide for me? In all seriousness?

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Well maybe you shouldn't make accusations if your not prepared to back them up.

You don't know when to leave things alone.

I don't want to be harsh, because I'm sure you're a decent person, but dude you need to know when to just leave it alone and close off conversation.

I guess you think the way these conversations should work is that you get to sprout what ever nonsensical rubbish you like, and everyone else should just accept it with out questioning you as to why you believe these things, and if you say you have evidence, we should just accept that with out asking what the evidence is.

 

[bellenuit]

The only person I find is a pain to talk to is Cynic, and only because of his dishonest style of debate.

+100

I agree 100% on that. Cynic's contribution to the debate has been zero, just pure obfuscation. He has never produced any material to support what he says but just alludes to something different or throws back gratuitous replies such as "it's there for all to see" ignoring every request that he detail what's there for all to see. Just look at almost every one of his replies. Nothing ever addresses what is asked, but instead just additional meaningless dribble.

The fact that Tink find his posts worthy of the tick of approval says tons about Tink. I would suggest even that she does not have a clue what he means, but because it is in argument with an atheist, agnostic or non-believer it must be something that she would agree with if she only could understand it.

Pav and Tink have hated this thread from the beginning because it makes them face facts they do not want to deal with. 90% of this thread is about acts committed, usually in the name of a religion, that are seen as abhorrent by every normal person, yet they feel somehow threatened by their exposure.

To VC - good on you. Keep exposing nonsense with facts.

 

[Value Collector]

+100

Cynic's contribution to the debate has been zero, just pure obfuscation.

Yes, complete obfuscation is the best description for Cynics replies.

The fact that Tink find his posts worthy of the tick of approval says tons about Tink. I would suggest even that she does not have a clue what he means, but because it is in argument with an atheist, agnostic or non-believer it must be something that she would agree with if she only could understand it.

Yes, I find it amusing also, Tink's Christian based beliefs are completely at odds with Cynics "we're microbes in the belly of an intelligent being based beliefs", But it seems she would rather side herself with others that believe nonsense rather than those who are simply making rational inquires into what is the truth and what is false.

To VC - good on you. Keep exposing nonsense with facts

thanks mate

 

[pavilion103]

+100

I agree 100% on that. Cynic's contribution to the debate has been zero, just pure obfuscation. He has never produced any material to support what he says but just alludes to something different or throws back gratuitous replies such as "it's there for all to see" ignoring every request that he detail what's there for all to see. Just look at almost every one of his replies. Nothing ever addresses what is asked, but instead just additional meaningless dribble.

The fact that Tink find his posts worthy of the tick of approval says tons about Tink. I would suggest even that she does not have a clue what he means, but because it is in argument with an atheist, agnostic or non-believer it must be something that she would agree with if she only could understand it.

Pav and Tink have hated this thread from the beginning because it makes them face facts they do not want to deal with. 90% of this thread is about acts committed, usually in the name of a religion, that are seen as abhorrent by every normal person, yet they feel somehow threatened by their exposure.

To VC - good on you. Keep exposing nonsense with facts.

Translation: gold star for whoever agrees with my view because if they are a genius then so am I


These acts committed by Christians are contrary to the teachings of Christ (who claimed to be the Son of God.
Just like if someone says "I am trading like George Soros" but they trade the opposite and lose money, it doesn't discredit George Soros only the idiot claiming to follow him (but not really).

Abhorrent acts are committed by all groups claiming to be all sorts of people, claiming to have all sorts of good intentions. Religious, atheist, everyone.

The atheists in this thread persist in using the acts of moronic people claiming to follow Jesus as evidence that following Jesus leads to these abhorrent acts, when the opposite is true.

Sneaky. Sneaky.

But let's not dare bring up Hitler and those who wanted to create a super-race by survival of the fittest using evolutionary principles. Oh no.
"It's all the Christians I tellz ya"




In terms of facing up to facts, I can comfortably defend my beliefs.

You have the miracle of something from nothing and life from non-life etc, which you have no scientific basis for.

You and no one in this world can account for this scientifically.

It is all philosophy: personal opinions on the story of the past.

It's a shame that you are so insecure about your beliefs that you can't label them as philosophy. You need to believe that you have something firm to grasp to: science.
Not only can science not account for your worldview at all, but it completely invalidates it.


You're smokescreens and under-handed labeling of things may possibly fool some, but I can see them from a mile away.

 

[pavilion103]

Now that I have exposed this clearly for all to see I will once again be taking myself away from this thread as there is nothing left to add.

I won't be checking it from after this post. I might re-visit it down the track.

 

[DeepState]

I am only interested in talking to people who genuinely care if their beliefs are true, If they care they shouldn't mind a peer review of their beliefs. If they don't care, then there is no point in talking about whether things are true, and there is no point them engaging anyone except to preach, and I am not interested in preaching.

This is not a piss-take. Really.

What if the beliefs are not provable or are unreasonable in the sense they are actually incompatible with the hard core reality that realists/scientists believe to be truth of the type you espouse? Yet, in the face of that, they produce a better outcome anyway for the person with this belief than a belief derived from pure logic? If this were the case, isn't it logical to believe in things that are beyond the type of argument presented in a, say, Popper-esque falsifiable proposition scientific method framework?

Examples can be provided upon request, if you should be interested in pursuing this. I believe the above is true. This is coming from someone who uses scientific methods in the literal sense for investments, observes it to be an effective means of obtaining progress in other scientific fields but observes that it is not be best method to apply in life more generally, outside of the hard sciences. In some human endeavors, it is logical to be illogical.

Belief is more important than some notion of scientific fact in important areas that go to the heart of what makes us human.

 

[Value Collector]

But let's not dare bring up Hitler and those who wanted to create a super-race by survival of the fittest using evolutionary principles. Oh no.
"It's all the Christians I tellz ya"

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Hitler was a Christian, and the holocaust was mass murder down religious lines, the catholic propaganda against Jews certainly contributed to his and German societies mistrust and hatred of the Jews.

Nothing Hitler did was based on the theory of Evolution. The theory of evolution simply explains the origin of the many species that exist, it says nothing about how we should operate societies.

In terms of facing up to facts, I can comfortably defend my beliefs.

then why don't you.

You have the miracle of something from nothing and life from non-life etc, which you have no scientific basis for.

So do you, you haven't explained it either,

You and no one in this world can account for this scientifically.

Not yet, But saying it was a magic god doesn't account for it either

 

[SirRumpole]

Hitler was a Christian, and the holocaust was mass murder down religious lines, the catholic propaganda against Jews certainly contributed to his and German societies mistrust and hatred of the Jews.

Please , not this old chestnut again.

I have no brief for religion, but just because a persons parents decides to send their child to a particular church does not mean they have to follow that church's teachings in adult life, or even that they believed them in the first place.

Hitler left the church as soon as he could and went his own way. Several things may have influenced his later philosophy, I tend to think it was mainly shaped by Germany's defeat in WWI and his ultra nationalism that decided to avenge that humiliation. I doubt if you could attribute very much at all to his early Christian upbringing.

 

[Value Collector]

What if the beliefs are not provable or are unreasonable in the sense they are actually incompatible with the hard core reality that realists/scientists believe to be truth of the type you espouse? Yet, in the face of that, they produce a better outcome anyway for the person with this belief than a belief derived from pure logic? If this were the case, isn't it logical to believe in things that are beyond the type of argument presented in a, say, Popper-esque falsifiable proposition scientific method framework?

.

That was my point, If a person doesn't care if the things they believe are true or not, but would rather just believe things that make them feel good, that is fine with me, But if that's the case, then we have nothing to talk about, Because the person has already said they don't care what's true.

How ever, if that's the case, I think they should refrain from pushing their beliefs on others, and they should not discriminate or lobby the government to discriminate for them based on these beliefs and should not make threats of physical or spiritual violence.

It's my personal opinion that the facts about our universe and the origins of our planet and our species is a much more awe inspiring story than any religion has, and bringing up children and adults that snub reality in favour of myths and legends, means society is missing out, and it can be damaging to society also.

In some human endeavors, it is logical to be illogical.

such as?

Belief is more important than some notion of scientific fact in important areas that go to the heart of what makes us human

Yes, I know. Beliefs inform actions. Our actions are based on what we believe probably more than what we know. Hence why I say I want to believe as many true things and as few false things as possible, That way my actions will be better informed.

I am not saying its possible to only believe true things, I am simply saying I think its best to believe as many true things and as few false things as possible, and part of that is being able to kill off even my most treasured belief if new information arrives.

 

[Value Collector]

Please , not this old chestnut again.

.

Yes, Note I didn't bring it up. I am tired of theists bringing out Hitler as a nonsense argument against evolution and atheism also.

I have no brief for religion, but just because a persons parents decides to send their child to a particular church does not mean they have to follow that church's teachings in adult life, or even that they believed them in the first place.

Yes, I know, But you can't get away from the fact that he was brought up in a society that was filled with hate and mistrust for Jews that was carried on by the catholic churchs propaganda, and this would have contributed to Hitlers hatred of them and made it easy for his propaganda to sway people.

Hitler left the church as soon as he could and went his own way. Several things may have influenced his later philosophy, I tend to think it was mainly shaped by Germany's defeat in WWI and his ultra nationalism that decided to avenge that humiliation.

Yes but you can't get away from the Religious lines he drew, It wasn't an accident he targeted Jews.

I doubt if you could attribute very much at all to his early Christian upbringing

As I said, I think the catholic stance towards Jews had a lot to do with it. Where as you can't attribute it at all to the theory of evolution.

 

[Tink]

Nice of you to pick and choose who I should be agreeing with, I must have hit a nerve in my post.
What happened to GB, I used to agree with some of his posts too.

I think cynic has added plenty in this debate, you just don't like what you read and see in it.
I have mentioned a few of cynic's posts, chromosomes being one.
I agree with cynic's posts on science, and thank God he is in this forum for that.

Great post, Retired Young, agree.
I have said that a few times, the cold reality of science without the warmth of religion.

 

[SirRumpole]

Yes but you can't get away from the Religious lines he drew, It wasn't an accident he targeted Jews.

Positive Christianity (German: Positives Christentum) was a movement within Nazi Germany which blended ideas of racial purity and Nazi ideology with elements of Christianity. Hitler included use of the term in Article 24[1] of the 1920 Nazi Party Platform, stating "the Party represents the standpoint of Positive Christianity". Non-denominational, the term could be variously interpreted, but allayed fears among Germany's Christian majority as to the expressed hostility towards the established churches of large sections of the Nazi movement.[2] In 1937, Hans Kerrl, the Nazi Minister for Church Affairs, explained "Positive Christianity" as not "dependent upon the Apostle's Creed", nor in "faith in Christ as the son of God", upon which Christianity relied, but rather, as being represented by the Nazi Party: "The Fuehrer is the herald of a new revelation", he said.[3] To accord with Nazi antisemitism, Positive Christianity advocates also sought to deny the Semitic origins of Christ and the Bible. In such elements Positive Christianity separated itself from Christianity and is considered apostasy by Catholics and Protestants.

Hitler himself was hostile to Christianity, and historians, including Ian Kershaw and Laurence Rees, characterise his acceptance of the term "Positive Christianity" and involvement in religious policy as driven by opportunism, and a pragmatic recognition of the political importance of the Christian Churches in Germany.[2] Nevertheless, efforts by the regime to impose a Nazified "positive Christianity" on a state controlled Protestant Reich Church essentially failed, and resulted in the formation of the dissident Confessing Church which saw great danger to Germany from the "new religion".[4] The Catholic Church too denounced the creed's pagan myth of "blood and soil"" in the 1937 papal encyclical Mit brennender Sorge and elsewhere.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_Christianity

 

[Value Collector]

I think cynic has added plenty in this debate, you just don't like what you read and see in it.
.

Its all window dressing, he has become pretty transparent.

 

[DeepState]

such as?

1. Eight of the fastest men in the world mount the blocks for the 50m Freestyle at the Olympics. All are winners. They have won all their lives to get this far. They have trained their guts out. The contents of their meals are measured. The have been psychologically processed to dispel doubt. Each honestly believes they will be the winner of this race. Not to do so condemns them never to have the slightest chance. Yet only one can win. Totally illogical. But illogical not to believe so.

2. Can you scientifically falsify that I love my kids or prove otherwise? Did I have kids to consciously and scientifically pass down my genes for generations that I will never live to see? Their school fees set me back $100k per annum gross income wise and would represent something approaching two million in current dollars just on education alone when they likely emerge from tertiary bliss and get a monster reality check. Forget about all the other stuff like tickets to ski fields on every part of the planet or collecting Disney visits and going bonkers going around "It's a Small World" for the damned 15th time - at least they are in different languages. It's illogical. In contrast to the past, children are a negative tangible asset. Not like in agricultural societies. Many relationships break in the early years of child raising due to the stress of it. Yet I did it and wouldn't have it any other way. Is that logical? A Sharpe model Utility optimization framework would have me short-sell them. When the model does not accord with reality, fix the model. Converting my affection into dollar equivalents? Are you (metaphorically) nuts?

2. Going to religion. Of all the things likely to be remembered in the next 1000 years of our current era, landing on the moon would have to be #1. Wow.

The astronauts with the right stuff from Kennedy's call were chosen from the most able. These guys were the best of the best. Gruelling processes, tough, calm, smart, situationally aware....they were supreme individuals for this type of endeavor.

The most amazing steps included: First orbit (John Glenn); First Circumnavigation of the Moon (Apollo 8); First Lunar Landing (Apollo 11). Each of these people faced the very real possibility of dying. Many had families. The crew of Apollo 1 perished. Imagine how subsequent crews felt.


John Glenn who piloted Genesis is Christian and interviewed as such on a space shuttle trip with Discovery in 1998.

The astronauts of Apollo 8 read scripture on the way to the moon and broadcast it back.

When they landed on the moon, Buzz Aldrin reveals he actually smuggled...get this...a bible, silver chalice, sacramental bread, wine and takes communion. He has to be told not to offer prayer on the microphone back to the world. Neil Armstrong is a deist.

At the time, polls run by Gallup show that 60% of the US population were very religious and 15% said religion is "not very important" in their lives. Given that religion has declined over time, I am guessing that the younger part of the population was less religions. Yet, without even making allowance for that, if you randomly picked Americans and whacked them into just those three missions, you wouldn't dream of getting anything like this outcome.

The tooth fairy may not exist, but kids feel good when they believe it is out there. Part of having the Right Stuff appears to have something to do with religious belief. It makes an astronaut feel that all will be taken care of.....allowing him to be super cool under unbelievably stressful situations. It may not seem rational, but it produces better outcomes than what you might regard as rational thought.



Catch-22. Logic and science only takes us so far. Paradox is plentiful and its junctures are found at the most meaningful parts of human endeavor. Logic and what we accept today as scientific method are just a, admittedly and thankfully, powerful tool for a set of purposes. However, I don't use a hammer to brush my teeth.

 

[DeepState]

Great post, Retired Young, agree.
I have said that a few times, the cold reality of science without the warmth of religion.

Thanks. I think we all have our own set of beliefs.

There are some things that influence our beliefs. These include the sorts of things that science brings to us. I believe that 1+1 = 2. I did not have that belief until I discovered it was true. Actually, 1+1 = 2 is an axiom. We take it to be true and we cannot disprove it from within the sphere of logic in which it resides (rhymes with anything here?) There are things where our beliefs inform science and the causality is in that direction. For example, our behavior is such that we herd. Hence, if we want certain things to succeed, we need to create swarms of network effects...like ASF, or Facebook, or mobile phones...for them to be more successful. Science helps with that and backwards inducts what happens when we behave like this. It has no real hope of predicting that we would. It's all along a spectrum and these are just examples of the wings. But life is more...lovely...than that.

Then there are things outside of science. What scientific method produced Harry Potter? I've never seen the equation. Thank goodness, or it's just a matter of cloning and cross breeding it via the literary equivalent of eugenics. Yuck.

A society of purely optimized, self-determining, automatons would actually collapse in on itself. But, then again, without some sort of binding, it would also collapse on itself. It's a fascinating creature. In an effort to explain things to the nth degree and remove the grey bits, we can end up making the same, similarly motivated, mistake as Laplace who believed that all could be predicted with perfect knowledge of the present. It can't. I like it that way. But even if I didn't, that's the way it is. This urge arises a lot from a scientifically testable aversion to uncertainty. We seek succor in various beliefs and practices, holding fast to them. Hoping for science to draw back the shades to flush out the monster in our cupboard is not so dissimilar to having other beliefs in that regard.

There are real limits to what is knowable and what knowledge can be applied to. It is not actually known that science is the most rational course of action to take as a species. To soon to tell.

Overall, I think...believe as you wish...as long as you don't harm others. I may not share your beliefs, but what the heck. I like reading your stuff.

 

[Value Collector]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_Christianity

Yep, was there anything in particle you wanted me to get from that?

I already had a pretty good understanding of that stuff, Pav and many other Christians often try and charge atheism with the out come of the holocaust, however as you can see from that it was caused by a mix of religious based antisemitism, leader worship and strange blood myths, racism and economic scape gloating, not atheism and not evolution.

 

[luutzu]

I think Value Collector has been quite reasonable - he didn't say that there's no God, just he doesn't know for sure so prefer not to believe one exists until proven otherwise.

To say that since something is so complex and so miraculous that it couldn't possibly have been there by chance or adaptation, it must have been created by a superior being... that doesn't make sense to me.

That's like saying a mountain shaped by the wind over millennia and now look like an old man or a parrot's beak or a horse's head.. .that it must somehow be created by someone. Unless it's Mt. Rushmore and the like, it's just wind and rain or something... not necessarily human or divine being sculpt it.

---
At first glance, it might seem that to have faith, to believe in a higher being is good for us, psychologically and emotionally... I don't think that that's true either.

If God exists and has been paying attention to His creations, he's not someone worthy of respect and admiration, and not someone you ought to pray to for forgiveness or for world peace let alone a lottery ticket.

If God is a parent and we his children, even DOCS would be able to see the neglect.

I got two kids and when they fought over toys or not sharing their stuff, we step in and teach them why and what to do... not stand back and be all mysterious and let them fought it out thinking that they ought to know that I have my reasons and I gave them free will or testing them... Henry Ford show no love and always "toughen" up his his dutiful son and the poor guy was miserable til the day he died.

I don't know why people would pray or talk to a guy who clearly hasn't given a dam. I guess the last time he intervened he drowned the entire world except for Noah and his family so maybe it's a good thing.

But say you worship God for the tough love and neglect because that's how you build character... wouldn't it then make more sense to not believe there to be a Judgement Day, no reward of eternal life for being good, no Almighty Father to watch over you so you better watch over yourself by working harder...