Religious Affiliation Shrinking In the US

gollum123 notes new U.S. demographic data from the Pew Research Center which show that the percentage of Americans declaring affiliation with a particular religion has declined sharply since 2007. Americans identifying as Christian dropped from 78.4% in 2007 to 70.6% in 2014. Those describing themselves as atheist, agnostic, or simple having no affiliation took up most of the slack, rising from 16.1% to 22.8%. Members of non-Christian faiths collectively rose from 4.7% to 5.9%. Despite the overall decline, the demographics within the Christian group are getting much more racially and ethnically diverse. The willingness of respondents to marry outside their religious affiliation is also on the rise. The median age of unaffiliated adults is dropping, while the median ages of mainline Protestants and Catholics are rising. The study estimates that 85% of adults age 70 and over are Christian, while only 56% of adults ages 18-24 are Christian. They also say that each individual generation has shown a slight decrease in religious affiliation compared to their statistics in 2007.

Comments

23 down, 77 to go

[Rob Kaper]

Subject says it all.

Re:23 down, 77 to go

[Mr D from 63]

maybe the relig-a-phobes will calm down now.

Re:23 down, 77 to go

[Anonymous Coward]

If we all rub our rabbit's feet, wish upon stars, and avoid ladders, mirrors, and black cats, anything is possible.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[Anonymous Coward]

Call me a "religiphobe" all you want. I have good reasons for it and in proud of it.

Religion is outdated nonsense that causes wars and suffering. It also leads to all sorts of bad laws and morals, like being abti-abortion or gay marriage.

There's no reason to be religious in this modern world. People who are religious are idiots and should be treated like second class citizens.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[Guy From V]

I'm fairly certain humanity would find plenty of reasons to wage war if religions were not around to blame it on.

Re:23 down, 77 to go

[mwvdlee]

Spoken like a true atheophobe..

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[Bacon Bits]

People who are religious are idiots and should be treated like second class citizens.

Well, it's good to know that just because you're atheist you don't think any different than the religious folks you despise so much. Idiots with opinions like, "people who disagree with me should be treated like second class citizens," was the entire purpose behind the First Amendment. I'm reassured it won't stop being relevant as the current population ages.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[itzly]

Religion is outdated nonsense that causes wars and suffering.

Religion doesn't cause wars, but it makes it easier to fight them. After all, soldiers who don't mind dying are very valuable in battle.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[Alwin Henseler]

People who are religious are idiots and should be treated like second class citizens.

For a moment assuming that were true: "insanity is just another view of reality".

Who are you to claim your view of reality is any better than anyone else's? Because you have all the answers? Because I sure as hell don't. Even though I'm not religious, and a firm believer in the empirical / scientific method. There is still a lot about the universe we live in that we don't know. I'm just accepting that "as is" - there's gaping holes in our knowledge still, and that's okay. I don't need some divine being to fill those gaps.

But I've long ago stopped 'judging' people if they feel different. If they feel they want/need a different explanation for the world around them, power to them.

Where my tolerance ends (and ends real quick!), is when those with worldview X try to brainwash the rest of society that their worldview is the only, true, valid one. And try to impose/enforce that vision (and any or all rules that come with it) on others. It's exactly that behavior which has been, and continues to cause so much shit in this world. Regardless of "X".

My reason for being non-religious is a simple one: in general, I think the world as we can see it, feel it, measure it, derive (physics) laws from it, reason about it etc (aka the scientific method), is the simplest explanation for how our universe works. Even though it's far from complete. Bring in a divine being, and all you've got is a more complicated explanation for the same (see Occam's razor).

But that doesn't mean you can't hold a different view, or someone else's view is less valid simply because it doesn't line up with yours (remember that to some degree, religion and science are not mutually exclusive!). Just don't interfere with me having my view, I won't interfere with you having your view, and we're cool. Comprendre?

Re:23 down, 77 to go

[Austerity Empowers]

maybe the relig-a-phobes will calm down now.

Nope, as mom constantly tells me, this is because Christianity is under attack. If anything, this will focus those that remain and get them higher and mightier while they still have a majority. I have relatives who run churches, all I hear is how atheists (i.e. me) are ruining everything, driving away our core values.

Nevermind that while I am an atheist, as atheists go I tend to stay pretty close to the christian rule-set as far as morality goes, I tend to accept most of their reasons for most things as being least-bad options, certainly I'm willing to accept that the concept of morality exists which many of my "secular humanist" peers have utterly rejected. That's not the point! The point is you gotta have faith and pay for it! So churches are having to close. That's one point. A meta-point may be that the political capital behind religion is shrinking, and that one I cannot see a single downside to at all.

Re:23 down, 77 to go

[Mr D from 63]

Actually, I am not religious. So, you arrived at your conclusion using faulty rational.

Re:23 down, 77 to go

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I don't doubt that there are some exceptions, possibly even some motivated enough to be slightly dangerous; but those people I've met who actively want religion to die out (as opposed to merely being atheists personally, or apathetic toward metaphysics) specifically want it do die out by persuasion rather than persecution.

It is relatively trivial, if you have the resources, to wipe out a belief just by killing everyone who holds it. However, that's an atrocity and an atrocious 'argument', if it can even be called one. You prove nothing but power, and being an awful person, by doing it. It is only a victory of ideas if people voluntarily come to believe differently.

There's also the consideration that religions(in addition to their metaphysics and their moral prescriptions, which do tend to trouble atheists and non-aligned) tend to be a fairly large chunk of cultural practice(either because they developed it or because they co-opted and modified existing traditions. It is not at all uncommon for atheists to actively enjoy these aspects (the big, scary, Richard Dawkins himself is said to participate in christmas related ceremony with his family...), so long as they don't include religious leaders being granted state power and other unpleasant side effects.

Perhaps Rob Kaper is more ardent than usual, I don't speak for him; but my guess is that, while he'd be pleased to have you lose faith, you are in no danger whatsoever and may continue without incident.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[plover]

I'm fairly certain humanity would find plenty of reasons to wage war if religions were not around to blame it on.

Religions were created as the first rudimentary forms of government or control over other people, and are still remarkably effective at that task. They only require an ongoing group of leaders to ensure obligations are continually felt by the members, as it's difficult to create a new religion quickly with a large enough number of committed adherents to wage an effective war.

The entire process is well understood and practiced worldwide.

Re:23 down, 77 to go

[BradleyUffner]

Not going to happen. As more and more people drift away from religion, only the really "hardcore" people are left. They will fight even harder to hold on to relevance.

Re:23 down, 77 to go

[Mr D from 63]

We probably have a lot in common from a viewpoint perspective. Here's a little deeper take posted below from me;

http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[XxtraLarGe]

You want to treat people as second class citizens because you disagree with their world view.

I'm not really sure why you see this as a problem. Previously you wrote:

There's no reason to be religious in this modern world. People who are religious are idiots and should be treated like second class citizens.

So it seems that you don't have any problem with treating some groups of people as second class citizens, you just want to change which groups those are.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[tempmpi]

So it seems that you don't have any problem with treating some groups of people as second class citizens, you just want to change which groups those are.

That was a quote from the poster before my poster. I'm disagreeing with his position.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[RabidReindeer]

I doubt that. The first rudimentary forms of government involved big sweaty people threatening injury.

Religion's roots are more in the line of bribe God (Nature) to do what you want it to do. Such as end the multi-year drought in Texas.

Secular leaders, however, quickly learned that you can save a lot of money on big sweaty people if you just bribe the priests to say that God will stomp on you if you don't do what the leader wants.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, I can't wait to slag all those idiots who think differently from us, so we can get back to what really matters: murdering those who look different from us.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[cwarrior]

Regarding the atrocities committed in the name of fervor (of which religion is a subset) ... there's no defending the indefensible. But let's not lose sight of a bigger picture. How many institutions of education, healing and social reform were born from religious motivation? Just one example of millions: William Wilberforce didn't tirelessly champion the abolition of slavery due to a strong agnosticism or atheism. He did what he did precisely because he compelled by his fervent faith ... and I'm not talking about a weekend of making posters or organizing a few fund raisers, but roughly forty years of fighting the system ... and we're all better off for it. Fervor isn't intrinsically bad. Like so many other things, it's not that you have it, but what you do with it.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[XxtraLarGe]

So it seems that you don't have any problem with treating some groups of people as second class citizens, you just want to change which groups those are.

That was a quote from the poster before my poster. I'm disagreeing with his position.

Okay, that makes much more sense. Sorry for the mistake. You know they have quote tags you can use which really helps to clear these things up, especially if the post you are quoting is below a reader's score threshold. It's just <quote>.

Re:23 down, 77 to go

[Anonymous Coward]

And literally everything you are saying is not a view held my the vast majority of Christians I've grown up around. The only result is a blanket label used to deride millions of people based on a few inflammatory extreme stories. I grew up in a southern baptist church. Nobody tried to tell me that dinosaurs were fake. I went to a Christian school where we were flatly taught that dinosaurs lived 65,000,000 years ago.

You're also making some serious blanket assumptions at the idea that people become Christians because of only what's in a book as if there's no contrary evidence. God works in people's lives every, single day. Sometimes it's things that can be easily rationalized away, other times not so much. When that happens and somebody talks about it, it's called Testimony. Testimony isn't something that you can just put on the internet because it could easily be made up and dismissed. Testimony is something you share with friends when you trust each other and have no reason to lie. I was an atheist for years before God changed my life when I finally broke down and asked for help. Now there's ZERO doubt in my mind.

A belief isn't something that somebody told you once. A belief is something you see reinforced on a daily basis throughout you're life. You have to take a very reductionist point of view to assume that people are simply doing the bidding of a man at a pulpit without experiencing anything to actually validate it.

It would be like somebody blanket labeling atheists as hateful angry people...and based on your post anybody else could decide that was true of all atheists if we're just using labels.

Re:23 down, 77 to go

[mwvdlee]

My conclussion being what exactly?

Re:23 down, 77 to go

[Mr D from 63]

What your posted. Go back and read it. Or do you want to 'clarify' your intent and say you didn't really mean to assign your description me as a result of my post?

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[Jason Levine]

Bobby: Do religions hate each other where you come from?
Noranti: Oh, good heavens no. Religions are grand lofty ideals. Religious followers, now that's another story.

(Farscape)

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[tmosley]

Likely has to do with the rise of the internet. Free flow of information means people have more access to information disproving their parents' religious beliefs. Lots of contradictions in those bronze age oral histories and iron age letters. Q

Re:23 down, 77 to go

[jellomizer]

What I think is really happening, is our culture is more accepting of people who are not religious. So the good portion of non-religious folks who have always been around, feel more open about it. Where before they would just label themselves the religion their parents said they were.

It is much like how there seems to be a surge in homosexulality, however it is more of a case it was always there it was just people never reported it.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[pe1rxq]

50 million? You are not even close! Billions of billions of babies die each year due to masturbation! Even more than the population of earth!

Seriously... read up on some biology, there is a big difference between the various stages of a fetus

Re:23 down, 77 to go

[mwvdlee]

I think you're using the reasoning that only religious people can be atheophobic. That would explain why you though you saw a rational used that wasn't. Both religious and non-religious people can be atheophobic. Unless you define all non-religious people as atheists ofcourse, in which case this all is merely a semantics argument. Then again, perhaps even atheists can be atheophobic ;)

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[Anonymous Coward]

“I wish to avenge myself against the One who rules above.” (Karl Marx)
“Our program necessarily includes the propaganda of atheism.” (V.I. Lenin)

"Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: 'Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened.' Since then I have spend well-nigh 50 years working on the history of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: 'Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened." (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn)

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[Kjella]

I'm fairly certain humanity would find plenty of reasons to wage war if religions were not around to blame it on.

For sure, there's plenty examples of people of the same religion going to war over various reasons like land, resources, geopolitical reasons, wars of oppression, wars of liberation, power and control with wars of succession and so on. But for most of the genuine atrocities you need more, you need such a burning hate for the opposition that you're willing to slaughter down women and children and burn their cities to the ground. Where simply victory isn't enough, only total submission or even extermination. Religion is a very common fuel for such hate.

When fighting for resources you're also looking for a "return on investment", you have to gain enough to be worth going to war. That you can usually defend against by rational investments in defense, making it too costly to be worth it. Irrational wars fueled by hatred often don't care, a civil war might tear the whole country apart and leave it in ruins as long as the infidels die. The Germans fought the allies all the way back to Berlin, the Japanese until they were nuked. Twice. Neither made sense, it was death before surrender.

Of course you can say that was mostly racism, not religion though I'm pretty sure the Holocaust was a good dose of both though Nazi Germany certainly fought a lot of other nominally Christian nations. Religion is also a very lasting divide. Germany fought most of Europe, now they're a key member of the EU. The US was at war with Mexico, the North was at war with the South but the wounds mostly die with the generation that experienced it. In the middle east they've been fighting for 2000 years and every conflict reopens a wound that never heals.

Of course religion has its good sides, I think a lot of people behave better than they might have because they think God/Allah is watching or it affects their karma. So it's not just irrational evil, it's also irrational good. Mostly just irrational and mostly harmless, really I don't care if you want to bend knee and pray to the FSM or have your own diet because FSM said eating something is unclean or the FSM told you not to work on a Sunday or whatever. As long as you got it dialed down to mostly quaint and charming.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[XxtraLarGe]

And now I noticed you used the quote tags in your reply to me. I really need to get more sleep, 4 hours a night ain't cutting it. :-/

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[jellomizer]

You are basing all religions based on a vocal subset.

So your stance against religion is based on your current political standpoint?

Those Soviets never got themselves in a war. WWI and WWII were all about religion.

Being Anti-Abortion a bad thing? So you are all for killing unborn children, on a whim? Where there is a complex societal issue, on when human life begins and needs social support, vs. the rights of the parent who's own needs needs to be considered as well. That is why they Call themselves Pro-Life and Pro-Choice. They are not Anti-Life and Anti-Choice. They feel the line where one precedes the other are in different spots.

Gay Marriage, Many religions do not have issues with this. Some do. Culturally this had became an issue with this generation, previously across multiple faiths and non-faiths it was considered deviant behavior. As we are now culturally being more accepting of such behaviors we need to consider how this applies to the traditional institutions that have existed.

Getting rid of religion, will not get rid of the Conservatives, who you seem to have more of an issue with. And for many people the fact that they are God fearing is the only thing that is holding them back from being really violent.

There are complex issues, where a particular religion may have a stance on, however you and what ever group you may belong to may have a stance on it too.

Re:23 down, 77 to go

[Mr D from 63]

I think you're using the reasoning that only religious people can be atheophobic.

You are thinking wrong. And IMHO, its irrelevant, but fair enough if that is the statement you wanted to make.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[SuiteSisterMary]

"We shall spread the word of our God by the Sword!" -- heard many times in history.

"We shall spread rational inquiry and the scientific method by the Sword!" -- never heard in history, to my knowledge.

Re:23 down, 77 to go

[Kjella]

I don't doubt that there are some exceptions, possibly even some motivated enough to be slightly dangerous; but those people I've met who actively want religion to die out (as opposed to merely being atheists personally, or apathetic toward metaphysics) specifically want it do die out by persuasion rather than persecution.

Weeeeeeeeeeeeell.... not by persecution, but I'm not sure by persuasion either. Most of those fed up with religion consider it just a silly superstition and don't really see the point of discussing it any more than the Loch Ness monster or if a black cat crossing the road brings you bad luck. They realize they can't talk you out of an irrational belief, they just want it to go away and will probably act more with derision than persuasion.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[ScentCone]

Religion doesn't cause wars

You don't actually pay attention, do you.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[DigiShaman]

To control other people?? Or as a form of cultural self-governance?

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[ScentCone]

But I've long ago stopped 'judging' people if they feel different

Really? So if someone who says that you're not agreeing with their magical history because you're growing your beard properly says that you therefore should be stoned to death ... you're not going to judge them? If you're just going to let them kill you for not complying with their delusional world view, because you find it politically incorrect or socially uncomfortable to do come right out and say that your world view is objectively more sound and rational than theirs, and that therefore their moral code is objectively inferior to yours ... then you're the worst sort of moral relativist (in practical terms) and are part of the problem.

Calling irrational behavior what it is may be socially awkward with all the PC police running around, but how else will the crazy cultures ever improve? If you grant them a moral comfort zone by tacitly equating stone-the-rape-victim with embrace-the-scientific-method in order to avoid sounding judgmental... then please don't make any other value judgments (by, say, voting or something).

Just don't interfere with me having my view, I won't interfere with you having your view, and we're cool. Comprendre?

Oh, so you ARE willing to make moral judgments about other people's world views, but only when it directly impacts you. But if they leave you alone while they, say, butcher someone else who thinks and acts just like you - well, who are you to judge, right?

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[Ol Olsoc]

Religion doesn't cause wars, but it makes it easier to fight them. After all, soldiers who don't mind dying are very valuable in battle.

The middle east called. They left a message "dafuq?"

Re:23 down, 77 to go

[hierofalcon]

... and pay for it

The love of money is the root of all evil.

That certainly applies to churches who have lost their way, and sadly, there are many of those. But it also applies to individuals who aren't charitable. To tar all religious organizations and their member churches as being alike in wanting your goods is no different than considering all non-religious people as being the same because a few horde what they have.

Christianity started out in homes. There isn't anything wrong with wanting to meet in a nice building rather than homes. But I think that in America the Christian denominations have gone too far in the "nice" department. I would prefer to see more money being sent to missions to help those less fortunate. If churches close because they lose membership or people stop supporting them according to the Biblical standards, Christianity itself will not die. It may even become stronger as Christians stop worrying about who has the nicer stuff. Many of the denominations are losing membership because they have stopped trying to live up to Biblical standards and have let the world creep in. At some point perhaps some of those groups will get a clue and put God back in charge of things and return to His standards.

If you're going to be an atheist and reject God, it really doesn't matter if you adhere to the Christian rule set or not. Christian works won't get you to heaven. Living "right" won't get you to heaven. As you say - you gotta have faith - and do a few other free things - none of which require churches. But if you have many Christian relatives, you already know this.

I'm sorry that you grew up in a denomination or church environment where you never witnessed the power of God. If you had, perhaps you would not be an atheist today. From my personal observations over a long life, He is still working in the world today, just as He promised in His word. I hope you will seek out places where you can see His work first hand. The title of this section was 23 down, 77 to go. The world is rapidly reaching a point where it will be 77 up and 23 left. I know that's optimistic - I don't expect it will be anywhere near 77 up, but I do know that there will be rejoicing and parties in certain circles when we leave. Course, it will get grim quickly. Best of luck - and do seek Him out while He can still be found. He's not hiding, and He isn't hard to find - if you bother to look for Him.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt that. The first rudimentary forms of government involved big sweaty people threatening injury.

I doubt that. I would think the first rudimentary forms of government involved extended families, with everybody sorta agreed, as in consented to, the rule of the elders.

I might even think the first governments were closer to a true meritocracy, as life was rough back then and the consequences of failure were huge (fail to grow crops-> starve. Fail to run from tiger -> get eaten). Only those with merit to deliver results would rise to leadership.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[Bing Tsher E]

When you're a teenager, the idea of self-governance never enters your consciousness. It's just those grown ups who don't know YOU are a grownup, imposing their rules on you.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[gtall]

Bullshit. WWI happened because of interlocking alliances and the fact that the Austro-Hungarian empire had existed long after its Use-Before-Date. Germany jumped into the war because the Kaiser felt he needed to support the Austro-Hungarians.

Hitler happened because the Germans still hadn't gotten war out of their system. He saw himself as restoring German honor. The Jewish pogram was used because it was popular to be against the Jews in Europe (still is). Hitler used the death camps to get rid of all his hobgoblins (Communists, gays, Roma, etc.)

Japan decided, after beating the Russian, early in the 20th century, they were entitled to rest of Asia, except the U.S. had it big fat ass in the way and didn't feel like moving it. Much like the Chinese today, the Japanese felt they were the Asian supermen and all should bow before them, especially their fellow Asians.

There were a few religious whackjobs in the Nazi hierarchy, but Hitler and the rest of Germany paid them no heed.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[angel'o'sphere]

Luckily that is only the case for male masturbation.
Females have the advantage here and are obviously superior citizens.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[Bing Tsher E]

There's no reason to be religious in this modern world.

You're right. We've nearly figured it all out. And when we do, then we can impose our understanding on the rest of humanity.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[Copid]

True, but there's something to be said for doing away with the excuses so the real motivations are more apparent.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[dave420]

You can say anything you want - as long as it's factually accurate, there will be no problem with actual political correctness. The 'C' in PC is far more important than the 'P' (which doesn't even matter). People seem to forget that it is all just an exercise in veracity.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[polar red]

Of course religion has its good sides, I think a lot of people behave better than they might have because they think God/Allah is watching or it affects their karm

I disagree. religion amongst murderers is higher than in the general population, suggesting religion has a negative effect on morality.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[zugmeister]

I'm fairly certain humanity would find plenty of reasons to wage war if religions were not around to blame it on.

If there's a fire in your house, you still wouldn't want to throw gasoline on it.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[dave420]

Hitler happened because the victors of WWI were (successfully) trying to extract every ounce of energy and dignity from the German people. Ignoring that little bit of information is not going to help anyone.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[itzly]

What causes wars is the struggle for power and resources. Religion is just a tool to help convince stupid people to fight by declaring them 'righteous' and the enemy 'sinners'.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[itzly]

Correct, but that doesn't negate my point. Religion is used as a tool to control people, so that they'll fight.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[zugmeister]

Next thing you'll tell me is that you'd wouldn't defend your children if they were accused of a crime that you knew they committed.

Assuming the punishment was just, HELL NO I wouldn't defend them. Children need to learn right from wrong and that bad decisions can have consequences. This is how they learn and grow into good people. Defending a child who did something wrong from the resultant penalties should get you a bad parent award of some sort.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[umghhh]

they can stay 1st class if I am one class extra above it (that would be what - business class?). Would that be ok?

Re:23 down, 77 to go

[dave420]

There is everything wrong about wanting to meet in a nice building, instead of spending that money on poor people, and meeting in the barest of buildings suitable for the purpose. I'm pretty sure Jesus was humble, and taught to help others, not spend money on a fancy building (or even a "nice" building) instead of using it to help others.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[CaptainLard]

Currently 50 million people do not exist in the US because of abortion. That's 16% of the population.

If they did they can all live at your house.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[itzly]

You've never heard of suicide bombers being promised an internal life in paradise ? If you believe that crap, it makes it a lot easier to die for a cause.

Re:23 down, 77 to go

[jdavidb]

You know, we're almost getting into "no true Scotsman" here. There are atheists who want religion to die out by persecution (the "make them second class citizens" ideas seem to be very popular here on Slashdot), and there are atheists who are like you are describing, who only want to persuade people. I have no idea what the relative proportions are between the two groups.

By the same token, there are Christians who want to infringe the liberty of atheists, and there are Christians who find that completely abhorrent.

To complicate the issue further there are all kinds of disagreements about what actually constitutes persecution and aggression. The issue of educating children is a prime example - some people feel that that responsibility lies primarily with the parents, and some feel the children are more the property of the state/society. This is on both sides of the argument - many want to use the schools to promote religion, and many want to use the schools to demote religion and counteract religious instruction from the parents.

There are lots of other examples, too. Many Christians are utterly totally blind to the fact that laws against consensual sexual behavior or against alcohol are a complete violation of liberty. I could go on and on.

I wish we'd all agree on the leave each other alone / everyone change their minds by respectful voluntary persuasion position. But that's probably a pipe dream.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[orzetto]

I'm fairly certain humanity would find plenty of reasons to wage war if religions were not around to blame it on.

Governments would, of course, but it would be much more difficult for them to convince soldiers to actually go fighting.

Example 1, Operation Iraqi Liberty: US government wants to gain control of resources in Iraq, but they tell their people it is really for ideals of freedom and to do God's bidding. Iraqi government wants to stay in power and keep oppressing their people, but tells their people they need to fight because God is the greatest.

Example 2, US Civil War. North wants to instate an economy of small farmers who can buy products of northern industry, but tells their people that it is because we're all brothers (which may very well be true, but I don't see the same people so eager to go to war when there is no money to be made); the South wanted to keep mooching off slave labor, but said that the Bible advocates slavery, so it's really a holy war.

In all cases, it is difficult to convince someone to risk taking a bullet if you cannot convince them that there is life after death, and that is eternal and so much better than this valley of tears. This creates a problem for the few countries that disavowed religion and were involved in wars, notably the Soviet Union, which had therefore to develop its own pseudo-religion of Rodina and, just to be on the safe side, extensive usage of barrier troops.

Re:23 down, 77 to go

[ranton]

You are a man of few words Sir, but since you are a "4 digit" old Slashdoter, may i ask you how a (Greek Orthodox) Christian like me can get off your "hit list"?

The research found in the article link shows young people are far less likely to be religious than old people. Around half as likely in fact. So it is likely many of the gains we have seen in the last decade has just been from older generations dying off. So regardless of how open minded you are, you will be off his "hit list" in due time. You will be replaced by someone from a younger generation who far less likely to be religious. And in 20 years the next young generation will hopefully be far less religious than today's millennials.

By the way, this 27% are people "describing themselves as atheist, agnostic, or simple having no affiliation", so i think most of them should be in your "hit list" also, because "agnostic, or simple having no affiliation" does not mean "religious Atheist" as i guess you are mister insightful men of few words...

As an atheist myself, I am perfectly happy with people considering themselves agnostic since by my definition they are basically the same thing. Virtually every atheist is agnostic, and vice versa. Atheism is just a lack of religious conviction, which is something all agnostics share or else they would be worshiping their deity of choice. People who have no affiliation are not necessarily atheist or agnostic, but they do at least help create an environment where lack of religious belief is not looked down upon.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[Ol Olsoc]

I've always said

Science flies us to the moon.

Religion flies us into buildings.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Religion is outdated nonsense that causes wars and suffering.

Somebody who hates science could say make a similar claim and point at the atomic bomb as proof. If you see the problem with that anti-science guy's statement, then you see the problem with yours.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[Whorhay]

I would opine that given pretty much any justice system currently in existence that the accused should always have an advocate to defend them. The prosecution should always have to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt and it is the defending counsels job, as well as the judge, to see to it that the prosecution is kept honest and does their job. Even in cases where the accused has admitted guilt the punishment is nearly always a range options, and defending counsel in that case advocates for a lighter sentence to try and ensure the punishment fits the crime.

In no case should a child be left to stand alone against adults making accusations regardless of the truth of those accusations.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[Penguinisto]

Governments would, of course, but it would be much more difficult for them to convince soldiers to actually go fighting.

I'm pretty sure that most of the USSR's history stands out ins stark contrast to that, if you were to replace "war" with "internal pogroms to root out counter-revolutionaries." Same with Maoist China, Pol Pot's brief regime, North Korea's ongoing regime, etc.

Consider that there are still fully operating concentration camps today in NoKo...

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[Penguinisto]

"We shall spread rational inquiry and the scientific method by the Sword!" -- never heard in history, to my knowledge.

*ahem*

Re:23 down, 77 to go

[hierofalcon]

Jesus taught wherever he could. Much of the teaching time of Jesus (and the early disciples for that matter) was done in the synagogues and the temple at Jerusalem. These were arguably "nice" buildings. They also did a lot of teaching literally in the "field". Jesus, however, didn't spend time teaching on matters of the physical church plant as I recollect. He dealt primarily with eternal issues.

I would also argue that even the early tabernacle that God specified himself was pretty nice, with many gold and silver features. If you translated the dollar value of the portable tabernacle into today's terms you'd be shocked. Solomon's temple was even more magnificent. The New Testament also makes it clear that those who work for the kingdom of God have a reasonable expectation of being compensated. So I am hard pressed to point to scripture that specifically condemns "nice" things. The problem arises when pride, envy, jealousy and the like start to get involved (particularly when things get too nice at your facility or too nice for a particular neighbor church and the people start wishing they could have those things locally as well). The attitudes of the heart are the real danger and not the things themselves.

Every Christian has enough means to give to both God (through His church) and to help the poor. Not all can give monetarily, but all can give something - whether time, money, or materials.

Re:23 down, 77 to go

[Austerity Empowers]

. To tar all religious organizations and their member churches as being alike in wanting your goods is no different than considering all non-religious people as being the same because a few horde what they have.

The people in question in my comment aren't using the money for anything but themselves. It is purely used to sustain the church and presumably pay off the $2M costs for the building which is nicer than the corporate hut I'm sitting in right now. Because they are family, I have insight into what is really going on, and I know exactly how charitable these people are. In their terms, they are simply sinners, in my terms they're just self-serving hypocrites who have lost touch with the value of their institution to the society that protects it. But this is anecdotal, not everyone is as bad as the noise in my ear. By the same token, a few churches that do behave properly does not necessarily validate the institution they are based on.

Yes, Jesus may approve of charity but not all followers of Jesus are charitable. Even Jesus had to recognize this, repeatedly, to his own followers, while he was still alive.

And while I reject the notion of God as being more useful than not to society until such time as He comes down from on High and removes all doubt about his policies, one reason I reject many christian religions is summed up by your comment: "If you're going to be an atheist and reject God, it really doesn't matter if you adhere to the Christian rule set or not. Christian works won't get you to heaven. Living "right" won't get you to heaven."

If I were going to be a religiophobe, which I am not, I would argue this comment entirely removes all value of religion from society, and instead puts it in the status of a cult. I would actively seek to abolish such institutions as being utterly devoid of merit and an active drain on their environment. I would remove all tax protections, I would force them to pay taxes both income and property, and do my best to render their income stream imposible. I would argue a God who demands fealty above action, blind faith above reasoned discourse, is not a God we should follow, even if he exists, even if he is omnipotent. This to me is the definition of the anti-God, a force of nature we may die in vain trying to fight, but which we should fight with all due passion. As far as I am concerned you have described Satan himself.

I do not believe in such beings though, and instead believe that your religion was founded in an attempt to help us get along well, and has been co-opted by politics and "size of my church" in a more profound way than you pointed out. I think if we pick and choose what parts of religion are useful, and what are not (dogma) they do still have significant value, or at least we can debate the values and make a determination. Further, I think most adherents do listen to the useful bits and let them outweigh the dogma, much of the time. Removing the religious dogma from your statement, I will distill it to "There is no morality without religion", a statement I disagree with, and can provide support for, but which we will probably be unable to find common ground on. If you tried hard, however, I believe your greatest argument would simply be that a non-religious basis of morality is sound academically and has strong secular merit, but is not comprehensible to "the average joe", and further without fear of the Almighty and the realization that right and wrong are social constructs, we may see a rise in anti-social behavior. I have no response to that, it might be true, I hope it isn't, because we're going to hit this issue soon enough.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt that. The first rudimentary forms of government involved big sweaty people threatening injury.

Religion's roots are more in the line of bribe God (Nature) to do what you want it to do. Such as end the multi-year drought in Texas.

Secular leaders, however, quickly learned that you can save a lot of money on big sweaty people if you just bribe the priests to say that God will stomp on you if you don't do what the leader wants.

You're underestimating the power of naked, unabashed racism. That "they" worship different "god(s)" from ours is just icing on the cake, as far as finding reasons to attack someone.

Religions don't start or cause wars. They're just used to cement popular support for them. The real causes of wars are these, at the end of the day: group A has something group B wants badly enough for the leaders of group B to be willing to order the MEMBERS of group B to murder the members of group A to get it.

The "it" here is usually land, but it can be another valuable quantity, such as water, oil, gold, or even flowers, (in the case of the War of the Roses). :) But seriously, it's never been about "god". Even the crusades weren't. They were about giving the excess male populace of Europe something to do that would benefit the wealthy, by giving them more land, or more money, or more power. Don't believe? Ask yourself this: how many people said, "we must invade the Holy Land and retake Jerusalem from the heathens, of else Christ will have NOT died for our sins, or God will let the Devil eat all the puppies in the world..." No one.

They weren't fought to earn favor since faith is all that is required for redemption, (John or Mark 2-something,) not any action you did. It's right there in black and white, God doesn't need your sorry asses help, he made EVERYTHING, so sayeth Judeo/Christian mythology.

So get it out of your heads right now that if somehow, everyone woke up tomorrow realizing that gods, and the supernatural in general, isn't REAL, that that would instantly mean an end to all wars, all suffering, etc. It would be a hell of a start, and we could recover a lot of previously wasted money poured into churches (et CETERA,) and end the waste of money going to support witch-doctors and parasites, (priests, et CETERA,) but that alone won't solve all our problems.

Finding a way to live together through mutual trust and respect is what's needed, and ironically, religion has historically been a way in which people do that. WITHIN a religion, obviously, and of course, this isn't always successful, indeed, any time there's a schism, it generally breaks down, but hey, it's worked pretty well outside of that.

Don't get me wrong, I know as well as many, (most?) of the other people discussing this here that religion, in particular organized, dogmatic, magic/superstition-based religions have a crippling, diminishing effect on the mind, and that gods and spirits and ghosts, etc., aren't real, but to blame it ALL on religion is to exculpate other factors of their fair share of blame for human misery and the generally messy state of affairs of humanity on planet Earth.

Re:23 down, 77 to go

[amicusNYCL]

I'll calm down when people stop running political campaigns for higher elected offices based on their religious affiliation and devotion. That shouldn't be a qualification for higher office, and an ancient collection of myths, parables, and legends designed to help warring desert nomadic tribes live in relative peace and safety (while ensuring the patriarchy goes uncontested) shouldn't be a manual on how to govern the United States in the 21st century.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[amicusNYCL]

Of course religion has its good sides, I think a lot of people behave better than they might have because they think God/Allah is watching or it affects their karma.

Ha! No, they still do what they want to do, they just ask for forgiveness after they've done it so they can feel better about themselves.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[amicusNYCL]

Being Anti-Abortion a bad thing?

Yes. Being against abortion in all circumstances is naive at best.

So you are all for killing unborn children, on a whim?

On a whim? Like, just for the fun of it? No. There are many, many reasons why abortion should be a safe and legal option. Feel free to consider the various reasons why women actually seek abortions.

Culturally this had became an issue with this generation, previously across multiple faiths and non-faiths it was considered deviant behavior.

I think the "deviant behavior" thing is actually relatively recent, at least in this country. This is why a gay man like James Buchanan could be elected president in 1857, but today if a gay man campaigned for president the "vocally religious" people in this country (to put it nicely) would have a major problem with it, they would see some sort of ethical or moral shortcoming that people did not necessarily ascribe to gay people 160 years ago. This also completely avoids the fact that the bible does not suggest doing anything like denying services to gay people or holding them as outcasts in any way. Exactly the opposite, in fact. Widespread institutionalized homophobia is a relatively new phenomenon.

And for many people the fact that they are God fearing is the only thing that is holding them back from being really violent.

A have a major problem with people like that. People who don't live by the golden rule are complete shitheads. To paraphrase a comedian, if the only thing stopping you from killing someone is the possibility that you might receive some sort of divine reward, then you're a real asshole.

Re:23 down, 77 to go

[Mr D from 63]

I don't like religion creeping too much into political campaigns either, but recognize it is an element of our society. Many politicians only let religious tenets impact a few critical issues, mostly abortion, death penalty, etc. At least we know where they stand.

Interestingly, the USA came about when people used religious moral authority as a unifying basis to refute British rule. Not to ignore the non-religious elements that played in, but just recognizing and appreciating the past.

Unfortunately most politicians are idiots, religious or not. If not religious ideals, its other ideals. A guy can be as religious as he/she likes as long as they understand how deal with economic and global issues, and use common sense.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[amicusNYCL]

I don't know, females kill babies every month whether they masturbate or not.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[amicusNYCL]

mom CHOOSE to risk getting pregnant. It's closer to DUI than anything else. You might be able to get in the car and drive home safe, but the one time you don't the end result is that somebody died because you made a bad decision.

So you're saying that, just like forcing pregnant women to have a child, you think we should also force drunken drivers to crash and kill someone?

Currently 50 million people do not exist in the US because of abortion.

Good. If there's one thing this country, and planet, does not need, it's more people.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[zugmeister]

The question of guilt or innocence has already been decided at "accused of a crime that you knew they committed". We know they're guilty. At the kid level where mommy and daddy have to stand up for them, the crime in question is probably on the level of "took Jimmy's truck" or "broke Sarah's doll". In the same way a child probably needs to get burned before truly believing a stove is hot and you should listen when you're told not to touch it, an appropriate penalty applied when guilty of a "crime" is important to that child's development. Teaching a child that it's not about right and wrong but rather who had the best lawyer / loudest parent really causes them to miss the point.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[Yosho]

Being anti-religion is not the same as being pro-science. In fact, if you bother to read that article, the only time "science" is ever mentioned is when quite a few people in the Russian Academy of Sciences were arrested and executed on false charges.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[chihowa]

Those, and most purges, aren't about "rational inquiry and the scientific method", but about eliminating fervent devotion to anything but the state. They're really more akin to interdenominational wars. Political purges attack the entrenched and competing power structures, not the metaphysical beliefs themselves. The point is to make sure that there is no authority higher than the state.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[baerd]

Call me a "religiphobe" all you want. I have good reasons for it and in proud of it.

Religion is outdated nonsense that causes wars and suffering. It also leads to all sorts of bad laws and morals, like being abti-abortion or gay marriage.

There's no reason to be religious in this modern world. People who are religious are idiots and should be treated like second class citizens.

What you are is anti-theist in addition to being atheist. Most atheists are happy to live and let live, but anti-theists are not. I wish people who feel like you would self identify as anti-theist so that all atheists do not get painted with the same brush as anti-theists.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[phud]

Oh geez, somebody just apologized on /.! Prepare yourselves for the end times everyone!

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[Jawnn]

People who are religious are idiots and should be treated like second class citizens.

Disagree. Only the arrogant ones who feel the need to make others conform to their chosen religion's "moral laws" should be treated so. I have no objection at all to Christians, Muslims, Pastafarians, or even atheists indulging their peculiar beliefs, as long as that indulgence does not do even so much as inconvenience me.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[Beerdood]

I would generally disagree with that sentiment as well (from GP), though generally agreeing with the rest of the comments. If your religion will reward you for killing infidels and grant you passage to eternal paradise for doing so (Islam), then their followers are more likely to be murderers than if they weren't religious. If your religion is all forgiving (Christianity), well you can do just about whatever you want during your time on earth (rape, kill, steal) but you've got your get-into-heaven free card! In general, people tend to do whatever benefits them and pick and select whatever lines of text from their holy books that suit their agenda (i.e. gay bashing) and ignore the rest.

I think the concept of an invisible santa claus watching out on you might apply for some select religions and their beliefs (i.e. Karma), but I think the sheer number of people in the Abrahamic religious outweighs those that aren't in there.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[Penguinisto]

...until you consider that Communism is an ideology that (allegedly) uses reason and logic...

Oh, and No True Scotsmen allowed. ;)

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[Copid]

I'm all for making real motivations more apparent, but I think you are not quite living in reality if you believe that getting rid of religion will suddenly put an end to concocting flimsy excuses to go to war. All the evidence suggests they will just find another excuse to whip up the hoi polloi to go fight their wars for them.

I just don't understand it. Make a relatively straightforward point that X frequently causes Y and doing away with X will eliminate some instances of Y and you're immediately innundated with arguments about the fact that Y will not be eliminated and you're foolish to say so. Yes, there will still be wars. Yes, people will still do stupid things. That doesn't mean that checking one stupid reason for people to do stupid things off the checklist isn't a positive step. I'm also a fan of healthy diet and exercise even though it doesn't solve all medical problems, and I support using good quality insulation in homes even though it won't eliminate all wasted energy.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[Kismet]

Religion causes wars and suffering because it engenders certainty in people about what constitutes "good" and "bad" (laws, morals, whatever). Of course, there is no objective measure for good and bad, but deluded people think they have good reasons for their prejudices and begin to see others as idiots that should be treated like second class citizens.

Your comment is therefore deeply ironic. You've written yourself right into the class of people you hate and demonstrated Eric Hoffer's aphorism-- that although ours is a godless world, it is anything but irreligious.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[david_thornley]

Wrong. By the time Hitler came to power, the victors were pretty well through with extracting things from Germany, and there was something of a cycle of the Western Allies paying off debts to the US with money taken from Germany, with the US lending the money to Germany, simply changing debtors. Hitler went ahead and broke more of the Versailles treaty provisions, and found that it took only a short time for Germans to stop caring.

Re:23 down, 77 to go

[david_thornley]

Persuasion really doesn't work to convert people to atheism or agnosticism. Christianity is perfectly compatible with science and sound reasoning (reasoning beginning from somewhat different premises than the atheists'), and "personal experience" is a really hard thing to argue against.

Religious people tend to be either people with some sort of spiritual experience, in which case you're unlikely to convince them it wasn't true, or people who accepted their religion without good reason, in which case you're unlikely to reason them out of it. I'd like to eliminate the second group, but have no ideas better than just letting them drift away from their religion (which is working in the US).

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[dywolf]

so proud of it you posted under AC?

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[shutdown -p now]

"We shall spread rational inquiry and the scientific method by the Sword!" -- never heard in history, to my knowledge.

Well, of course. Supporters of the scientific method are more likely to utilize more modern techniques, such as UAVs and nuclear strikes. ~

Re:23 down, 77 to go

[antiperimetaparalogo]

I don't doubt that there are some exceptions, possibly even some motivated enough to be slightly dangerous; but those people I've met who actively want religion to die out (as opposed to merely being atheists personally, or apathetic toward metaphysics) specifically want it do die out by persuasion rather than persecution. [...] Perhaps Rob Kaper is more ardent than usual, I don't speak for him; but my guess is that, while he'd be pleased to have you lose faith, you are in no danger whatsoever and may continue without incident.

I don't feel physicaly threatened by his comment (it was clear to me that he used a figure of speech - i make it clear because i don't want this guy to think that i will call the FBI, or something like that... since especialy Americans -if he is one- are a litle sensitive about such things, no offence to Americans i hope, we in Europe are not much better!).

But since you mention "die out by persuasion rather than persecution", let's examine the comments(s):

Subject says it all.

So, your comment's title is "23 down, 77 to go" - currently (Score:5, Insightful)!

You are a man of few words Sir, but since you are a "4 digit" old Slashdoter, may i ask you how a (Greek Orthodox) Christian like me can get off your "hit list"?

By the way, this 27% are people "describing themselves as atheist, agnostic, or simple having no affiliation", so i think most of them should be in your "hit list" also, because "agnostic, or simple having no affiliation" does not mean "religious Atheist" as i guess you are mister insightful men of few words...

CORRECTION: "[...] 27% [23%] [...]"!

My own comment, i.e., the victim's comment of this "persuasion", that has some extra stuff, is modded down, while a "hit list" of a "4 digit ID" Slashdoter, a comment that only states a personal desire, i.e., the elimination of religious people (like me) is modded (Score:5, Insightful), something you could call a "persecution" if you care about a honest discussion! I mentioned his "4 digit Slashdot ID" because i think i understand the situation in this site. Imagine if i made a similar comment, stating "non-religious people should be eliminated" - how you think it would -deservedly- be treated by fellow Slashdoters? And this is the norm here my friend (exceptions like you are... exceptions), and this is a situation "religious Atheists" (as i call them) create.

Anyway, since i want this "insightful men of few words", and any other like him, to believe in God, i will try to not become annoyed by such stupidity and hypocrisy (stupidity from both Slashdot collectively and the "hitman" who does not see and hear The Lord, hypocrisy of Slashdot collectively only, since the "hitman" is at least honest enough to show clearly his views on the matter, something i respect.)

Re:23 down, 77 to go

[antiperimetaparalogo]

You are a man of few words Sir, but since you are a "4 digit" old Slashdoter, may i ask you how a (Greek Orthodox) Christian like me can get off your "hit list"?

The research found in the article link shows young people are far less likely to be religious than old people. Around half as likely in fact. So it is likely many of the gains we have seen in the last decade has just been from older generations dying off. So regardless of how open minded you are, you will be off his "hit list" in due time. You will be replaced by someone from a younger generation who far less likely to be religious. And in 20 years the next young generation will hopefully be far less religious than today's millennials.

As a religious person my hopes are the opposite of yours as you understand. I must mention to you that other research in Greece (very "free will" culture, so comparison to USA can be made) has found an opposite trend (and younger people returning in churches). Plus you must always take in consideration former "Atheist" by force (ex-Communist) states, e.g., Russia, where after decades of oppression/persecution religion is returning as a way of life. Also... China, the most "Atheist" country (90% i think - don't have the data now), where prediction about Christianity (!) gives hope to people like me.

By the way, this 27% are people "describing themselves as atheist, agnostic, or simple having no affiliation", so i think most of them should be in your "hit list" also, because "agnostic, or simple having no affiliation" does not mean "religious Atheist" as i guess you are mister insightful men of few words...

As an atheist myself, I am perfectly happy with people considering themselves agnostic since by my definition they are basically the same thing. Virtually every atheist is agnostic, and vice versa. Atheism is just a lack of religious conviction, which is something all agnostics share or else they would be worshiping their deity of choice. People who have no affiliation are not necessarily atheist or agnostic, but they do at least help create an environment where lack of religious belief is not looked down upon.

All people who have no affiliation believe in God (but don't belong to a church), and "agnostics" are surely not what you are, even if often mistakenly categorized as people that don't believe in God. It is a very problematic term, because it is translated from Greek as just someone without knowledge: an agnostic may believe in God (there is belief -in God- either with or without knowledge), and most if not all Christians are agnostics to an extend (based on their "pathos", as in "experience" - of God) because God does not reveal to us fully, and does it in different ways and degree to each one.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[ChrisMaple]

The argument can also be made that religion provides a diversity of power. Without religion, there is one less source of political power to fight a tyranny.

It's a shame that a blatant lie is a primary opponent to worldwide slavery.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[ChrisMaple]

Do murderers get their religion before or after committing murder?

Although there are probably a large number of genuine prison conversions, there are also a lot of fake conversions - prisoners claiming to have accepted ghod in order to get an earlier parole or less arduous conditions while captive.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[ChrisMaple]

That's why a parent hires a lawyer. It's still the parents' duty to tan their kid's hide if they know it did wrong.

Parents seen on TV whining "He's such a good boy. He'd never hurt anyone." when their son has just pistol-whipped a clerk during a robbery are held up to scorn they richly deserve.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[ChrisMaple]

Both of your examples are deeply defective and gloss over many other motives.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[ChrisMaple]

During the history of the USSR, was there any group not subject to being "arrested and executed on false charges"?

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[ChrisMaple]

"Resources" is just a middle goal for the ultimate goal of power, and both resources and religion are tools used in seeking power.

Free trade makes resources available to whoever pays for them. In the absence of power-seeking, the country in which resources are located is irrelevant.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[ChrisMaple]

Who are you to claim your view of reality is any better than anyone else's?

Don't you see that by endorsing the scientific method you've answered your own question?

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[ChrisMaple]

...the bible does not suggest doing anything like denying services to gay people or holding them as outcasts in any way.

Leviticus 20:13

If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

Well, gee, I guess they're not being "denied services" or "held as outcasts" if they've just been stoned to death.

Idiot

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[ChrisMaple]

The atomic bomb did not cause any war, but it did reduce the magnitude and time of the suffering of the Japanese people at the end of WWII.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Thank you for supporting my post by missing the point of it.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[ChrisMaple]

You really, really need to use a dictionary.

genocide n. The systematic extermination or destruction of an entire people or national group: first used of the attempted annihilation of the Jews under the Nazi regime.

If you don't use language accurately, you don't prove your point, and you usually make a fool of yourself.

It's not a baby until it's born. "Unborn baby" is self-contradictory, like "living dead". It refers to nothing in reality.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[antdude]

There are always wars, conflicts, etc. Look at nature like ants. They have wars too.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[Evtim]

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is just one man; I think you'd do better to read the actual history of Russia. During the darkest times of their feudal totalitarian system [before the revolution] the Russians were extremely religious. And it was a hell-hole [Russia]. If you think that the communist totalitarian regime made them atheists you are wrong. At the moment Russia is as nuts as the US on religion. They are VERY religious. Now, how come that after 75 years of atheism you have such explosion of religion? Who taught the new generation?

I am from Bulgaria which was considered one of the most fateful supporters of the USSR among the communist countries. We had churches and we performed all the rituals. No-one was imprisoned or killed for believing. It was not allowed to year religious symbols that are visible in school. ALL religious symbols not just Christian. Some secular modern countries of today also have similar laws.

I consider myself extremely lucky. The communist stiffed all ideology which was competing with theirs. They did it simply by removing the political and monetary power of the competition [thus religion, for instance, could still propagate in families but won't be able to spread propaganda via governmental channels, media and so on...]. So I grew up safely, not subjected to any propaganda except the communists. But their propaganda was ineffective for anyone with 2 brain cells or more because the gap between words and deeds was too large. Very quickly one realizes that those were no communists but simply power hungry criminals hiding behind a label [how different from the great US, eh:)]. Thus at the end most people from my generation [I can speak only for them] grew up with completely free minds - free of ANY bulshit ideology. The natural state of man is secular humanist [stems from biology]. The rest is BS.

Re:23 down, 77 to go

[antiperimetaparalogo]

I want to add in what you wrote that as a (Greek Orthodox) Christan (with my faith "perfectly compatible with science and sound reasoning" - and myself reasonable enough i hope!) i also like to eliminate the "second group" (i.e., "people who accepted their religion without good reason"), and my church is trying to do that by... sound reasoning! Even if it is fundemental for my faith that God can only be a "personal experience", those without it can become better people (as Christians like me define it) just by socializing those who have such a "personal experience" - hopefully everyone (and not only Christians) will experiance God - until then, the church has the duty to keep the second group in the right path (again, as Christians like me define it).

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[sjames]

Yet your pattern of thought still has the signature of the zealot about it.

You might be surprised to learn that some religions consider life to begin with the first breath and so have no reason to oppose abortion. Some don't find homosexuality to be anything to worry about. Some are absolutely against war.

There are, of course, batshit insane religions that believe anyone who believes differently is a second class citizen...

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[SuiteSisterMary]

Hey, there's a lot of science and engineering that goes into making a good combat-capable sword.

Re:23 down, 77 to go

[ranton]

As a religious person my hopes are the opposite of yours as you understand.

Obviously, and I bear no ill will or judgement because of this.

I must mention to you that other research in Greece (very "free will" culture, so comparison to USA can be made) has found an opposite trend (and younger people returning in churches).

One thing I found interesting when reading a publication by the Child Trends organization was the relationship between economic advancement and religiosity. From a summary section: As countries develop economically, there is less emphasis on dominant religious traditions and
values and more emphasis placed on secular institutions. This study was from 2000, but it does help illustrate why a country like Greece would be seeing an uptick in religious belief even though Europe as a whole does not show this trend (to the best of my knowledge).

Plus you must always take in consideration former "Atheist" by force (ex-Communist) states, e.g., Russia, where after decades of oppression/persecution religion is returning as a way of life. Also... China, the most "Atheist" country (90% i think - don't have the data now), where prediction about Christianity (!) gives hope to people like me.

I would assume that any country where religious belief was suppressed by force would see that religion return once the oppression is lifted. It would be interesting to see how that religion returns based on generational demographics though. If the youth are returning to religion at a lesser rate than older adults, it would show this religious resurgence is short lived. I couldn't find any statistics quickly on this though.

All people who have no affiliation believe in God (but don't belong to a church)

That is true, but they are on average more accepting of those with no religious beliefs. The lack of adherence to a particular set of dogma make them more open minded in general. That was what I meant by them creating an environment where lack of religious belief is not looked down upon.

"agnostics" are surely not what you are, even if often mistakenly categorized as people that don't believe in God.

They most certainly do not "believe" in God since they aren't sure gods even exist. Agnostics fill the full spectrum from assuming god(s) probably exist and assuming god(s) probably don't exist. But what they almost universally lack is faith in a deity, or else they would not self-identify as agnostic. They would instead identify themselves as religious but still harbor some doubts, which probably describes most religious people.

and most if not all Christians are agnostics to an extend (based on their "pathos", as in "experience" - of God) because God does not reveal to us fully, and does it in different ways and degree to each one.

I have never run into a study on religious belief where people who believe in God but are not 100% devout are identified as agnostic. Agnostic and atheist both have very loose definitions, but a lack of faith in a deity is one sure piece of common ground.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[painandgreed]

Hitler happened because the victors of WWI were (successfully) trying to extract every ounce of energy and dignity from the German people. Ignoring that little bit of information is not going to help anyone.

Hitler happened because it was a time of conflicting ideals. Monarchism was dead with WW1 and the 20's and 30's was a three way battle between fascism, communism, and democracy across the world. The debts put on Germany for WW1 may have helped Hitler take power, but the foundation of the national Socialist party gained reputation for aiding in fighting off the communist coup in Bavaria in 1920, while fascism was also won out in Spain and Italy with its own movements in Britain and the US.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[amicusNYCL]

Followers of the bible would counter that by saying that many of the laws in the old testament were superseded by the new testament. The story of the villagers bringing the adulteress to Jesus and asking if they should stone her is a good example.

Re:23 down, 77 to go

[antiperimetaparalogo]

As a religious person my hopes are the opposite of yours as you understand.

Obviously, and I bear no ill will or judgement because of this.

I am very glad my dear fellow - since we are in Slashdot i will consider you a rare exception (don't even try to deny this!).

I must mention to you that other research in Greece (very "free will" culture, so comparison to USA can be made) has found an opposite trend (and younger people returning in churches).

One thing I found interesting when reading a publication [childtrends.org] by the Child Trends organization was the relationship between economic advancement and religiosity. From a summary section: As countries develop economically, there is less emphasis on dominant religious traditions and values and more emphasis placed on secular institutions. This study was from 2000, but it does help illustrate why a country like Greece would be seeing an uptick in religious belief even though Europe as a whole does not show this trend (to the best of my knowledge).

Very interesting report BUT those kind of reports are veeeryyy problematic! Latest numbers for trust on institutions from Greeks: 90% for both church and army - as it was ALWAYS (even 5 years ago, before our economic "crisis" begins - note that Greece is 38th most rich country from about 200 others based on GNI PPP, and, despite what you read, Greece is "a poor state with rich citizens"). But here is one more example of a (cultural) problem in this publication: table 3 (religious involvement - Eurobarometer) Greece (excluding Agnostics/Atheist/other/ insignificant numbers thar are accurate in my knowledge/opinion) - Practicing Believer 41.9 / Non Practicing Believer 52.8. As a Greek i can quarantee to you that there is not such thing as "Non Practicing Believer" in Greece!!! I quess that the methodology of the study is influenced by Protestantic norms, but in (Orthodox Christian) Greece EVERY PERSON (even the less than 2% "Atheists"...) goes to church few times a year - but for an Orthodox (including most of this 52.8 "Non Practicing Believers") this does not mean the same as it means for a Protestant, so self-report as "Non Practicing Believer" (the same you can observe it for the Catholics Italy, Portugal, Spain, etc).

Plus you must always take in consideration former "Atheist" by force (ex-Communist) states, e.g., Russia, where after decades of oppression/persecution religion is returning as a way of life. Also... China, the most "Atheist" country (90% i think - don't have the data now), where prediction about Christianity (!) gives hope to people like me.

I would assume that any country where religious belief was suppressed by force would see that religion return once the oppression is lifted. It would be interesting to see how that religion returns based on generational demographics though. If the youth are returning to religion at a lesser rate than older adults, it would show this religious resurgence is short lived. I couldn't find any statistics quickly on this though.

TOTALY anecdotical, but from personal knowledge (for Russia and other Slavic countries): It is the young people that return! Old people are influenced by communism - either as fanatic communists (so fanatic Atheists) OR still afraid that "the monster may return, lets keep our heads down, stupid young people should not expose their belief". Keep in mind that those Slavic states are Orthodox also.

All people who have no affiliation believe in God (but don't belong to a church)

That is true, but they are on average more accepting of those with no religious beliefs. The lack of adherence to a particular set of dogma make them more open minded in general. That was what I meant by them creating an environment where lack of religious belief is not looked down upon.

Yes, i

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[Whorhay]

Defending your child to me, is more about ensuring that they are treated fairly and justly than about protecting them at all costs from any punishment or accusation, just or not. In a hypothetical case where I agree that the accusation and punishment is entirely fair and just, I will still be there to verify all of that and that the punishment is carried out appropriately, that is still defending my child.

All that said though it is also important to teach a child that their luck in the criminal justice system, should they stray that way, is very much dependant upon having the best lawyer and or friends in high places. That is of course a different but equally important lesson. Teaching a child to ignore reality is a dangerous thing.

Re:23 down, 77 to go

[ranton]

I will certainly concede a lack of knowledge on Greek religious culture, and as long as your characterization is accurate (and I have no reason to doubt it) I would guess Greek religious tendencies have more to do with a strong religious culture than their economic woes. They are certainly not unique in the world, although they are fairly unique in the developed world.

TOTALY anecdotical, but from personal knowledge (for Russia and other Slavic countries): It is the young people that return! Old people are influenced by communism - either as fanatic communists (so fanatic Atheists) OR still afraid that "the monster may return, lets keep our heads down, stupid young people should not expose their belief". Keep in mind that those Slavic states are Orthodox also.

Here is the first study I came across detailing the demographics or religious belief in Russia. It appears that in 2008, 53% of 16-29 year old Russians believe in God, compared to 69% of ages 70+. It also showed that the religious beliefs of ages 16-69 are pretty constant, it is only those ages 70+ which are more religious. So I guess we can both see what we want to see from those stats, since even though there is a sharp drop-off for those under 70, there is no additional drop-off for the millennial generation.

It is odd that belief in God was inversely related to belief in the afterlife. I have no idea what to make of that.

hey most certainly do not "DIS-believe" in GOD(s) since they aren't sure GOD(s) DOESN'T exist. EACH Agnostic fill the full spectrum from assuming GOD(s) probably exist and assuming GOD(s) probably don't exist. But what ALL OF THEM lack is KNOWLEDGE BASED faith in a deity, or else they would not self-identify as agnostic. They would instead identify themselves as religious but still harbor some doubts, which probably describes most religious people.

When discussing religion, I guess I use the word "belief" as meaning religious belief. So lack of devotion to a deity is the same as lack of belief. So in this context the opposite of belief is not dis-belief, just lack of belief. I hope that adds clarity to my original statement, since I don't disagree with most of your more precise statements in the above quote.

I do disagree with the "EACH" qualifier you added in the second sentence though. Many agnostics believe there probably are god(s), they just have no idea what qualities they may have. Many agnostics also believe there is the same probability of god(s) existing as there are of unicorns being real. For instance I self-identify as both an atheist and agnostic (as most atheists educated in the subject do), so obviously I am on the latter end of the spectrum. And while this is purely anecdotal, every agnostic I have met who doesn't also claim to be atheist has been someone who has admitted to not putting much though into religion.

The problem is most Agnostics/"Atheists" can't even define themselves, i.e., what the terms mean TO THEM.

This is simply a product of trying to label complex beliefs with simple terms. Labeling all atheists or agnostics the same would be just as inaccurate as labeling all Christians the same. Or perhaps even labeling all religious beliefs as the same. To give just one example my mother and father are both Methodist, but they have very different opinions on the Bible's literalness.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[Yosho]

All ideologies would have you believe that they use reason and logic. You shouldn't classify ideologies by what they label themselves as, but by what acts they perform. In what way did the Russian communist regime actually promote science and reason more than any other ideology?

Re:23 down, 77 to go

[antiperimetaparalogo]

I will certainly concede a lack of knowledge on Greek religious culture, and as long as your characterization is accurate (and I have no reason to doubt it) I would guess Greek religious tendencies have more to do with a strong religious culture than their economic woes. They are certainly not unique in the world, although they are fairly unique in the developed world.

This "Greek strong religious culture" is not unique, since it has many commons with the Catholic Northern-Europe and Latin-America, just different (note: different, not better or worse) from the Protestantic. Greeks have more religious practices OUTSIDE the church's bulding (and i don't mean in the yard!). In many cases (pleasant or sad) you will have a priest present for blessings. In most gatherings about a "happening" you will have a priest. Most of the times when in church you will be alone, with few others, or with only the priest, but not as in a service, but as in a "church visit". But most Greeks attend some usual services, almost all attend the major 10 services in a year, and all attend at least few because of social reasons (but even those are in a normal "official" religious practice, based on Orthodox -and Catholic i must add- ways).

TOTALY anecdotical, but from personal knowledge (for Russia and other Slavic countries): It is the young people that return! Old people are influenced by communism - either as fanatic communists (so fanatic Atheists) OR still afraid that "the monster may return, lets keep our heads down, stupid young people should not expose their belief". Keep in mind that those Slavic states are Orthodox also.

Here [pewforum.org] is the first study I came across detailing the demographics or religious belief in Russia. It appears that in 2008, 53% of 16-29 year old Russians believe in God, compared to 69% of ages 70+. It also showed that the religious beliefs of ages 16-69 are pretty constant, it is only those ages 70+ which are more religious. So I guess we can both see what we want to see from those stats, since even though there is a sharp drop-off for those under 70, there is no additional drop-off for the millennial generation.

Just to clarify my previous point: i meant that younger people RETURNING to religion - i.e., from families not religious (or not exposing their religion because of the reasons i mentioned). In any other ways of examining the data the numbers should be as expected. (by the way, very interesting study - but i must repeat something i often meet in such studies, that are obvious to me because i am an "outsider" to the "examiner" but "insider" to the "examined": cultural differences create problems for methodologies influenced by foreign norms).

It is odd that belief in God was inversely related to belief in the afterlife. I have no idea what to make of that.

And my bad English fail me miserably (or is it just my usual stupidity? hmmm...), so i don't have any idea what you mean... sorry!

They most certainly do not "DIS-believe" in GOD(s) since they aren't sure GOD(s) DOESN'T exist. EACH Agnostic fill the full spectrum from assuming GOD(s) probably exist and assuming GOD(s) probably don't exist. But what ALL OF THEM lack is KNOWLEDGE BASED faith in a deity, or else they would not self-identify as agnostic. They would instead identify themselves as religious but still harbor some doubts, which probably describes most religious people.

When discussing religion, I guess I use the word "belief" as meaning religious belief. So lack of devotion to a deity is the same as lack of belief. So in this context the opposite of belief is not dis-belief, just lack of belief. I hope that adds clarity to my original statement, since I don't disagree with most of your more precise statements in the above quote.

I do disagree with the "EACH" qualifier you added in the second sentence though. Many agnostics bel

Re:23 down, 77 to go

[werepants]

Jesus taught wherever he could. Much of the teaching time of Jesus (and the early disciples for that matter) was done in the synagogues and the temple at Jerusalem. These were arguably "nice" buildings. They also did a lot of teaching literally in the "field". Jesus, however, didn't spend time teaching on matters of the physical church plant as I recollect. He dealt primarily with eternal issues.

I would also argue that even the early tabernacle that God specified himself was pretty nice, with many gold and silver features. If you translated the dollar value of the portable tabernacle into today's terms you'd be shocked. Solomon's temple was even more magnificent. The New Testament also makes it clear that those who work for the kingdom of God have a reasonable expectation of being compensated. So I am hard pressed to point to scripture that specifically condemns "nice" things. The problem arises when pride, envy, jealousy and the like start to get involved (particularly when things get too nice at your facility or too nice for a particular neighbor church and the people start wishing they could have those things locally as well). The attitudes of the heart are the real danger and not the things themselves.

Every Christian has enough means to give to both God (through His church) and to help the poor. Not all can give monetarily, but all can give something - whether time, money, or materials.

All of the theology in this post is absolutely terrible. I don't necessarily blame you for it, because you likely haven't heard anything else your whole life and likely your whole family believes similar things, but still: this is the path by which Christians manage to ignore the majority of what Christ himself said.

The reason that the early church was successful and grew as it did was because of two things: it challenged the assertion typical of the time that the poor and downtrodden were worthless, literally lesser human beings than the rich and powerful. It also backed up this assertion by providing food for the poor and help for the sick, etc etc. So much so that over several decades it overtook the entire Roman empire. It doesn't require any advanced theological constructs to explain this behavior either - people simply took the example of Christ (feeding the hungry, healing the sick, spending time among the outcasts) and enacted it directly.

The thing is, a lot of that stuff is difficult, because people LIKE to have nice things, they LIKE to make money, the LIKE to have a nice clean house where homeless people aren't stinking it up all the time. So over the centuries, as Christianity became entrenched, theologians went to work to construct elaborate rationalizations - e.g. "The attitudes of the heart are the real danger and not the things themselves." - that made it easier to ignore the difficult parts of Christianity.

The point is, Christ was known for reaching out to the outcasts. Early Christians were known for reaching out to the outcasts. Modern Christians are known for: Giant megachurches, sleazy televangelists, and hating gays.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[cerkit]

You can't disprove Christianity any more than you can prove the theory of relativity. It's all about observation or faith. The contradictions are there for a reason.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[cerkit]

I think you miss the entire point of Christianity completely. The gospel of Christ has nothing to do with war. It's about serving others and pleasing God. The fact that humans have used it to wage war is a purely human deficiency. The fact that humans use it to shun others is also a human deficiency, regardless of their beliefs or natural state. That's why it gets such a bad rap. If all Christians lived more like Christ, then we wouldn't have cake stores refusing to serve any wedding. They would serve as a witness to the great works that God does in their lives. They would use that wedding as an opportunity to serve God's purpose for them. They would invite the couple to their Church to hear what God has to say to them, not what other Christians think they should do.

Re:23 down, 77 to go

[hierofalcon]

To set the record straight, the reason the early church was successful was the baptism of the Holy Spirit which empowered them to witness, helped change their lives by increasing good qualities (love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness and meekness) to quote the standard list as a baseline, and which gave them power to act and demonstrate the difference between Christianity and the other religions of the time through the gifts of the Spirit.

The fruit of the spirit manifested itself in many ways that you mentioned, but it was that baptism of the Holy Spirit which made the change in heart and attitude possible.

This was the same exact reason that Jesus was successful in His ministry. He had the Holy Spirit in fulness and literally did what He saw His Father doing.

Regardless of your assertions, it is the attitude of the heart that causes the difficulties with God. All things - nice or not nice - are just things. It is the attitude of the heart toward them that causes the issues.

Yes, church history is littered with problems. But it is also littered with truly good people and ministries. You don't hear about them because they aren't news worthy enough to make the news. I remember when the hurricane hit Haiti. One of our church's organizations was approached by news people wondering how much of the donations went to help the people involved. The math worked out to around 95%. They left because they were only looking for dirt due to some other organizations overhead ratios. You can always find problems. Frequently you don't have to look hard because the reports will be helping you find them. But you can also find good if you look.

Re:23 down, 77 to go

[hierofalcon]

I think your distillery is broken. The Holy Spirit convicts of sin and has been doing so both in and out of religious contexts in all hearts since time began. It is this reason that all can be judged by God at the white throne judgment, for His Holy Spirit has been continually striving with man's individual hearts and actions to draw them to Him.

Thus, morality can indeed exist whether there is religion or not or whether there is a Christian religion or not. This is what was alluded to in Romans 2:11-16,25-29. However, I would suggest that it is much easier to live a moral life with God and the Holy Spirit's help than without it. Thus, even though morality can certainly exist without religion, it is much stronger with it. That comes from both God's help and a collective desire to live up to other fellow believer's expectations. The eternal aspects of this life along with the promise of a future revealing of each man's works also helps to keep people moral.

Sadly, we all fail at times - I more than most, I'm certain. But that doesn't mean I throw up my hands at religion and its bad representatives. I keep pressing toward the mark and try to do better the next week than I did the week before. I hope you can get past your anger. I strongly suspect God is angry at many things as well and his judgment will start with His own house. For every mega-church you are so critical of (and sometimes rightly so), there are 1,000 missionaries toiling in foreign countries with pretty much no resources, and there are hundreds of small community churches that will never be rich on earth led by pastors or priests who will never get rich either and who put in untold hours in His service.

Best wishes.

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[Alsee]

Yeah, because, as we all know, the internet is filled with all sorts of reliable information! /sarcasm

Unlike those bronze age oral histories and iron age letters! /sarcasm

-

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[Alsee]

Do murderers get their religion before or after committing murder?

For rape and other sexual offenses, research did specifically find religion as a strong "before" factor.
I think there was a specific "before" finding for murder as well, but my recollection on that isn't 100%.

-

Re: 23 down, 77 to go

[tmosley]

No they aren't. Just saying that there is a reason without providing one just proves that you are a gullible idiot.

You can't disprove Odin or Quetzalqoatl either. But you don't see me rushing into battle to get to Valhalla or tearing the hearts out of children with curly hair, do you?

Re:23 down, 77 to go

[werepants]

To set the record straight, the reason the early church was successful was the baptism of the Holy Spirit which empowered them to witness, helped change their lives by increasing good qualities (love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness and meekness) to quote the standard list as a baseline, and which gave them power to act and demonstrate the difference between Christianity and the other religions of the time through the gifts of the Spirit.

Do you realize that this kind of language is totally alienating to anybody who isn't a Christian? "The Baptism of The Holy Spirit" is first of all, not directly scriptural (the trinity is inferred from scripture, not explicitly stated. For fun - neither is the rapture mentioned anywhere whatsoever.)
So you aren't talking literal Bible truth here, you're talking elaborate constructs of theologians.

Either way, I think you've basically managed to dress up my original contention in churchy language that fits into your ideological framework - the early Church was compelling to Christians and non-Christians alike. The modern church is dwindling. I think that's because the modern church has gotten very far removed from following Christ's example.

Regardless of your assertions, it is the attitude of the heart that causes the difficulties with God. All things - nice or not nice - are just things. It is the attitude of the heart toward them that causes the issues.

You are asserting a problematic position that may be defensible through theological exercises, but which causes Christians to totally ignore the example of Christ. If the heart (and salvation) is all that matters, then certainly we are justified in torturing people to save their souls, yes? Consider: A tree is known by its fruit - it is not possible to have a good heart and commit terrible acts, nor is it possible to do Christlike things with a bad heart. As Christians, first and foremost we should be concerned with following Christ's example and loving our neighbors. Instead, the church has been most worried about battling gay sex. Strange, that.

Yes, church history is littered with problems. But it is also littered with truly good people and ministries.

Those good people get led astray by bad theology. Stop allowing manufactured theology to distract you from the most potent of Christ's words. Christians are called to sell everything and give to the poor, not create megachurches. Christians are supposed to be known first and foremost for showing love to *everyone*, not for launching massive political campaigns against the margins of society.

If Jesus was here today, who would he be hanging out with? I wager it would be the LGBT crowd and atheists, because those are the equivalent of the samaritans and tax collectors of his time, people who are distrusted and marginalized by entrenched institutional religion.

Re:23 down, 77 to go

[hierofalcon]

The baptism in the Holy Spirit has been going on since Acts 2 for Christians, and a bit earlier if you count Christ. It is one of the divisive issues of the church today, but that doesn't make it less real. Since I have witnessed both baptisms in the Holy Spirit, seen the evidence of changed lives, and have seen the gifts of the Spirit in action, the issue isn't an elaborate construct for me or the Christians I know.

The trinity is clearly present throughout the Old and New Testament.

These are literal Bible truths.

You are correct that Christians today do use terms which are not found in scripture - word for word. We use terms like rapture to describe the events as written in 1 Thess. 4, 2 Thess. 2, and Revelation 4:1 (hereafter being after the church age of Rev 1-3). It is easier to just use one word that is understood among believers than to read out 1 Th. 4 every time you want to talk about the event.

You are right that people who have not heard the truth wouldn't need to hear these things, but if you have been brought up in a Christian household and have chosen to reject Him, you really aren't in that camp.

I won't argue that the church of today has gotten away from what Christ wanted it to be. He tried to make it clear that the church needed to stay united, and every fracture, brought about by sin has fractured the church and weakened it.

Denominations are a curse. But so is the sin in the church that led to some of those splits. Protestantism started because Luther couldn't stand what was going on in the Catholic church and he couldn't find a way to fix it from within. Was he right or wrong? God will decide that.

I can say that the Spirit filled denominations are on the rise and the more classic denominations are failing. The evangelical denominations have had their issues and failures as well because people aren't perfect. You can stand on the outside and throw stones or stand on the inside and try to change things for the better. God wants change first in His children's hearts and then in His church and then in the world outside the church.

You've mentioned LGBT issues a few times. I would agree that Christ would be out trying to save the lost. And once they had accepted His salvation, He would have been telling them to go and sin no more, just like the woman taken in adultery. Preaching against sin is never popular. If you believe people are destined to end up in hell, how is trying to keep that from happening by any means possible wrong? You should love the people and do good whenever possible, But you should also preach the truth in season and out of season.

This Sunday is Pentecost Sunday. It is the celebration of when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the believers in the upper room - the first of many examples in the New Testament. Of one thing I am certain - when the Holy Spirit is in control of God's church, things work fine. When He isn't, there are problems.

Re:23 down, 77 to go

[werepants]

The trinity is clearly present throughout the Old and New Testament.

Citation needed. Nowhere will you find the word "trinity", nowhere will you find "The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit" spelled out directly. The Trinity is inferred, a theological construct. In this particular case, I have no objection to it, but we shouldn't pretend it is literal scripture - it is derived, indirect theology.

You are correct that Christians today do use terms which are not found in scripture - word for word. We use terms like rapture to describe the events as written in 1 Thess. 4, 2 Thess. 2, and Revelation 4:1 (hereafter being after the church age of Rev 1-3). It is easier to just use one word that is understood among believers than to read out 1 Th. 4 every time you want to talk about the event.

The idea that all believers will vanish and disappear into the sky is said nowhere directly in scripture. The Left Behind series has about as much to do with the Bible as Taco Bell has to do with Mexican cuisine. The entirety of rapture theology was conceived in ~1830 - so it didn't exist for most of the church's history.

These are literal Bible truths.

They aren't. They are indirect interpretations made by humans, but you've read the bible in that light for so long that you don't see any other possibilities there when you read it.

My point is, biblical literalists often aren't really taking the literal meaning of scripture - they are taking one specific interpretation of scripture, a certainly flawed theological construct (being developed by humans, and diverging significantly from past doctrine) and claiming that it is the only possible interpretation.

You decry the schisms within the church, but in my mind the phony appeals to Biblical literalism, and every denomination's tendency to mistake theology for scripture, is exactly the problem. We must admit to one another that even if the Bible is divinely inspired and completely flawless, our individual readings of it will always be slightly different and mistaken, and hence we shouldn't get too caught up in any specific brand of systematic theology because we are all certainly mistaken in one detail or another.

The point being: we can say, with no doubt whatsoever, that Love is the priority of Christ. The bible communicates this both taken as a whole and taken as specific verses. Holding this belief also will tend to make us act more like Christ. The rapture, on the other hand, is clear only if you interpret many different verses in very specific ways, and it isn't clear how it fits into the overriding message of Love. What's more, it causes its adherents to behave in very un-Christlike ways... after all, if this world is going away, why care for it? If people's souls are all that matter, we should just evangelize to them and ignore their earthly troubles, right? This is an attitude not at all in keeping with Christ's actions, and this theology produces very "Bad fruit" in believers, so why defend it?

Let's be true literalists, and humble ones, and focus first and foremost on those things that are unilaterally clear from the text, and be willing to compromise on anything that is an indirect derivation of scripture. This attitude will tend to unite us by promoting the things that all Christians already affirm, and it also has the fortunate tendency to move contentious issues into the sidelines, where they belong.

Re:23 down, 77 to go

[hierofalcon]

I would agree with most points you make in your last paragraphs and certainly the last one.

I would tend to say that it is too easy to be critical of using particular modern words like rapture and trinity that are - of course - not written themselves in the texts. A quick off-the-cuff reference to what Christian's term the trinity that comes to mind would be the description of Christ's water baptism by John. I would truly be curious to hear an alternative interpretation for 1 Thess. 4:13-18 that is not consistent with what modern Christians term the rapture - regardless of when the church in its history started to think about the meaning in that particular way. To dismiss the spirit of clear non-symbolic passages (as opposed to clearly figurative passages) because of words Christians have tagged them with or how long it took the church to figure it out, or how long it was forgotten by the church when it was understood by the early church just seems wrong.

I don't agree with 100% of the Left Behind theology - it is a work of fiction. But I do think they did get a better than average amount of the prophecy correct, which isn't easy. My biggest issues with their texts would be the extent of the antichrist's kingdom as I think the prophecy would limit it to the extent of the Roman Empire, and I take exception to their mark of Christ/mark of the beast symbols, but overall not a bad attempt to put into readable form a couple of tough books of the Bible to read in most translations. Is it better to try to read and understand the originals? Yes, of course. But most people write off much of the Bible prophecy because they don't have the time or background to try to unravel it. The fact that it is spread over many books some of which refers to near term events and some yet to be fulfilled doesn't help. So while I'd rather people read the best translation of the original they can find, I don't find the fictional texts to be a problem. As you say - people read things many different ways and it will be interesting to see who is actually right or wrong about Revelation interpretations. The important thing is the eternal end point and not a scorecard or grading of unraveling prophecy before hand. And, of course, focusing on the big things would promote unity. Trouble is, agreeing on what the big things are is just as hard a thing to do as getting unity on them.

I suppose that people could take the approach you suggest about the rapture and the planet and not caring about it since it will all pass away. I guess that to me, God Himself is going to beat the planet up pretty hard according to Revelation, so I'm not sure that what we do is going to be noticed. But I would also point out that regardless of the rapture, the timing of it is not foretold. So doing whatever we wanted with the planet would seem to be a pretty silly thing to do - even if we thought it was going to be happening soon. After all, the early church thought it was going to be happening soon as well. We were originally created to be caretakers, and I'd think this should be our goal with respect to the planet itself. Jesus projected a pretty good "waste not" philosophy while on the earth.

As far as the rest, 1 Cor 13 is a pretty good summary of what to shoot for.

Re: News for nerds

[Anonymous Coward]

This is very important, because religious wackos tend to be the ones against modern science and technology.

Re: News for nerds

[Austerity Empowers]

As far as I can tell technophobia is on the rise.

The inevitability of gradualism

[LQ]

This medieval superstition will die out eventually.

Re:The inevitability of gradualism

[itzly]

No, because in battles between the religious and non-religious, the first has an advantage of being more dedicated, easier to control, and less afraid of dying.

Re:The inevitability of gradualism

[buddyglass]

If you take the view that a predisposition to religious belief is an evolutionarily adaptive trait in the human species then it's highly unlikely it will "die out" any time soon. Become less prevalent? Sure. But if (some) people are hard-wired to believe then it's doubtful we'll see the "end of religion" any time soon.

Note: I'm intentionally not making a "religious" argument for the persistence of religion.

Re:The inevitability of gradualism

[Gilgaron]

Not necessarily, that sort of behavior can be driven to other inherently irrational devotions. Sports fandom pushes many of the same buttons in terms of ritual, doctrine, and affiliation. And you tend to support teams favored either by your family or locality.

Re:The inevitability of gradualism

[shutdown -p now]

There is a theory that stipulates that religion is, basically, a memetic virus that co-opts its host (humanity) to propagate itself. It doesn't mean that the virus is necessarily beneficial to the host, just as physical viruses usually aren't: it just has to be not too detrimental to allow for said propagation.

Re:The inevitability of gradualism

[ChrisMaple]

At least sports fandom doesn't necessarily lead to contradictions, whereas religious answers to the questions you propose always does.

Re:The inevitability of gradualism

[buddyglass]

Unfortunately it (sports) does little to soften the scary fact that some day each of us will die. Or that a loved one will die. Or when the circumstances of our life are especially shitty. It's really not an effective substitute for religion in any of those scenarios.

Re:The inevitability of gradualism

[SirLordGodfrey]

There is only the God-Emperor, and He is our Shield and Protector.

Without Him, we are nothing.

With Him, we wield His Will as our torch; with it, we destroy the shadows.

(Although seriously I'm an apathetic atheist that finds the idea of deities immaterial to living and doesn't care if people believe or don't, unless they try to convert me and annoy me, then I'll ask them, politely, to stop).

Re:The inevitability of gradualism

[LQ]

Unfortunately it (sports) does little to soften the scary fact that some day each of us will die. Or that a loved one will die. Or when the circumstances of our life are especially shitty. It's really not an effective substitute for religion in any of those scenarios.

But it does function as another opium of the people. - something to absorb and distract from existential angst.

Re:The inevitability of gradualism

[buddyglass]

To an extent, I guess. There may be some people for whom being an avid sports fan is enough to distract them from existential angst. But I'd argue most people don't fall into that category and end up needing a more complete solution. Sports fan-dom doesn't "answer" the big questions; it just distracts from the big questions. Just like any number of other things people spend a lot of time and mental effort on. Climbing the corporate ladder. Scientific achievement. Getting rich. Perfecting one's art or music. Dominating in video games. Fantasy baseball. Etc.

surprised?

[argStyopa]

We live in a world of empiricism, where the concepts of faith and religion are - if not outright mocked and denigrated - are under constant pressure.

The benefits that faith brings to individuals and societies are trivialized. The engines of media are actively working to tear religion* down: few films in the last 40 years (aside from those specifically built for sale to the isolated Christian demographic) have identified-Christian characters that don't prove to be motivated to evil thereby.
*hypocritically, the attack is usually on the most benign and banal faiths. The most regressive, reactionary, anti-modern faiths are accorded a curiously protected status.

Finally, the acts of radicals have further poisoned the view of the general public toward religion generally.

This should surprise nobody.
I believe people need faith in proportion to their misery. As long as humanity continues to generally be better off, religious affiliation will decline. But of course, I personally don't expect that will be a ceaseless climb, and people will turn back to religion again.

Re:surprised?

[penguinoid]

We live in a world of empiricism, where the concepts of faith and religion are - if not outright mocked and denigrated - are under constant pressure.

I guess religion mocking and denigrating science kind of backfired on them.

The engines of media are actively working to tear religion* down: few films in the last 40 years (aside from those specifically built for sale to the isolated Christian demographic) have identified-Christian characters that don't prove to be motivated to evil thereby.

Don't most of the Christian films identify non-Christian characters as being motivated to evil thereby? It shouldn't surprise you that people who see Yahweh as the ultimate in morality have different morals than people who don't, nor that each might consider the other evil.

Re:surprised?

[argStyopa]

I don't have time to rebut your whole post, but one part is simply, factually, untrue:

"...the majority of the planet does not even believe in the Judeo-Christian concept of God..."

According to http://www.pewforum.org/2012/1...
31.5% of the world's population are Christian
0.2% are Jewish ...and 23.2% are Muslim.

=
54.9% of the world believes in the Judeo-Christian concept of God.

Muslims, Jews, and Christians may not get along very well, but they all quite clearly are worshiping the same monotheistic entity conceptually. Hell, their prophets and holy books overlap.

Re:surprised?

[mjwx]

We live in a world of empiricism, where the concepts of faith and religion are - if not outright mocked and denigrated - are under constant pressure.

No they aren't.

This is the defence I hear from the worst representatives of religion. The kind that need to pretend they're victimised in order to make their claims about society make sense.

If you go and ask a Buddhist monk if he's mocked and denigrated, he'll smile. If you ask a vicar in the CoE if their mocked and denigrated, they'll say "of course not, my child", if you ask a redneck Baptist preacher if they're mocked and denigrated, they'll say yes and give you a sermon about hell.

The only religions that are mocked and denigrated are those who make a nuisance of themselves. The Jehovah Witnesses that knock on your door, Scientoloists that sue people for criticising them and so forth.

I'm an Atheist, what one believes is one's own choice and should not be foisted on anyone else. I prefer to keep religion at arms length but that does not mean I'm offended by it. If a Buddhist monk or Christian priest were to offer me a blessing, I'd take it with the good intent it was given. If a preacher wants to give me a sermon, I'll ask them once, nicely to stop before telling them to naff off in a very unkind, faith shaking manner.

Re:surprised?

[ChrisMaple]

I believe people need faith in proportion to their misery.

"You look miserable, lying there in the fetid mud. Worms are beginning to bore into your skin. Why don't you walk over to that nice restaurant across the street?"

"I have much faith, and the longer I lie here, the more good my faith is doing me."

Re:surprised?

[ChrisMaple]

The meaning of life is entirely an individual's own responsibility. It's trite but true:
Life is what you make it.

Re:surprised?

[werepants]

The engines of media are actively working to tear religion* down: few films in the last 40 years (aside from those specifically built for sale to the isolated Christian demographic) have identified-Christian characters that don't prove to be motivated to evil thereby.

Have to disagree with you on this one. It is implicit in many, many films (and explicit in some) that the main characters are Christian. The Captain America films are a particularly obvious example, for instance. There is an immense pro-Christian bias in American culture and media, to such an extent that nobody notices it like a fish doesn't notice water. Watch exclusively Asian films for a while and note - how many times does a character go to a confessional, or go in to a church for a funeral, wedding, or holiday? When a character dies, do people cross themselves, ask a religious figure to say some words? These things happen constantly in all American films - the "persecution" of American Christians is totally illusory.

And at any rate - by your argument, you could make the case that Hollywood has been trying for decades to engender hate and distrust towards people with handlebar mustaches. Yet you don't see ranks of abundantly moustachioed gentlemen complaining about misrepresentation. Christians need to stop whining about this trivial stuff.

The trouble with modern Christianity...

[John Allsup]

Ironically, echoing what was happening in the Gospel accounts, the modern religious establishments have to a large degree lost touch with the purpose of the law of Moses and the teachings of Jesus (and so on). People need to move away from blind tradition, look at all major religions that have survived more than a few centuries, and ask exactly why they have been successful in surviving. When it comes to the actual teachings, effort need to be applied to understand the meaning of those teachings in practical real world terms. That means not just explaining 'sin' in terms of 'disobedience' to 'God' without also fully explaining what 'sin', 'disobedience to God' and 'God' mean in real world practical terms, and why, say, 'sin' in then a problem. Too many people leave these words as poorly defined abstract jargon, and end up doing the eight-year-old English lesson thing of just formally rearranging the words according to rules of grammar.

For a mundane example:

There is a cat called Gerald, who has pink fur.
What colour is the fur of the cat?
The colour of the cat's fur is pink.
What is the name of the cat with pink fur?
The name of the cat with pink fur is Gerald.

Now look at some Biblish:

Sin is the result of our disobedience to God. We need Jesus because he died for our sins.
What did Jesus die for?
Jesus died for our sins.
What are our sins?
Our sins are the result of our disobedience to God.
Why are our sins a problem?
Because... because... erm... because they are the result of our disobedience to God, and that's clearly a bad thing.

And that's kind of where such discussions go downhill. The above discussion is an illustration of what happens when genuine understanding is absent, and this is all too often the case, especially amongst members of the religious establishments we have today. On the other hand, just doing the atheist thing often falls into the same traps, but beginning from a different set of basic sentences (there is probably no God; science can explain everything; what is the scientific evidence for the efficacy of prayer). Without fully exploring what meaning can be recovered from ancient teachings given suitable interpretation (and this ultimately must be done by first exhibiting real world practical scenarios where the meaning can be seen at work) we can neither hold them up as truth, nor dismiss them as backward fairytales. Unfortunately the masses are generally doing one or the other.

Re:The trouble with modern Christianity...

[mwvdlee]

Gerald the pink-furred cat only exists in your imagination.

Re:The trouble with modern Christianity...

[slimshady76]

While I concur and support your arguments, I ask you to please, please do away with the monospace font. It really makes the text hard to read, even more when coming from the rest of the comments.

Re:The trouble with modern Christianity...

[slimshady76]

What if he's color blind, you insensitive clod?

Re: The trouble with modern Christianity...

[ceoyoyo]

It was too high. It was reaching for heaven. God is a jealous god.

Re:The trouble with modern Christianity...

[jfdavis668]

The bible is written that way because it is trying to translate Ancient Hebrew and Ancient Greek. You can make a readable translation or an accurate translation to English, but not both.

Re:The trouble with modern Christianity...

[SuiteSisterMary]

The bible is written that way because it is trying to translate Ancient Hebrew and Ancient Greek. You can make a readable translation or an accurate translation to English, but not both.

Correct. Personally, I would hope that, when translating what is purported to be 'instruction manual for avoiding eternal damnation, and methods for right thought and living,' they'd go with 'accurate.' This has, however, been objectively proven not to be the case.

Re:The trouble with modern Christianity...

[Anubis IV]

[...] there is no scientific evidence for the efficacy of prayer, therefore there is nothing here for science to prove.

There is no consensus on the topic and there is no widespread correlation for all forms of prayer, but you can quickly find counter-examples to your claims with a quick look through Wikipedia

a meta-analysis of several studies related to distant intercessory healing published in the Annals of Internal Medicine in 2000 looked at 2774 patients in 23 studies, and found that 13 showed statistically significant positive results, 9 showed no effect, and 1 showed a negative result.

I'm not suggesting that there is evidence, mind you, merely that citing one study rather than looking at meta-studies or the corpus of available research is a faulty way to prove your point when dealing with a topic as wide-reaching as this one, since many religions claim exclusivity or would apply No True Scotsman logic (and I'm saying this as someone who does believe in the efficacy of prayer and holds rather strong religious beliefs, but even I am aware of the logical inconsistencies present in much of the thinking that goes on in mainstream religion).

Re:The trouble with modern Christianity...

[jfdavis668]

Right. An example of that is the modern use of "Good Samaritan." We call strangers helping out as good Samaritans. We even have "Good Samaritan" laws. Good Samaritan are not strangers. If you read the parable, two other strangers passed him by. Samaritans and Jews were enemies. This would be like an injured American being helped by a Taliban. People have lost the understanding of what a Samaritan was. It makes it very hard to create a readable Bible when you lose the knowledge of what the word refers to.

Re:The trouble with modern Christianity...

[SuiteSisterMary]

Well, that's the other issue; historical and cultural context.

Re:The trouble with modern Christianity...

[hexadecimate]

Gerald the pink-furred cat only exists in your imagination.

Ah. About that. Actually Gerald is the result of a science experiment gone horribly wrong. I'm really sorry. I learned a valuable lesson and it won't happen again.

Re:The trouble with modern Christianity...

[kheldan]

The 'trouble' with modern religion in general is that it has nothing to do with spiritual beliefs or helping people, it has to do with a few influential people consoldating power over entire groups of people by leveraging their pathological need to believe in an all-powerful, all-knowing supernatural being. Of late this has resulted in women being kidnapped and turned into sex slaves, children stolen and turned into suicide bombers and 'child warriors', and a growing number getting their heads chopped off on YouTube. It also seems to be resulting in people being encouraged to turn away from logic, reason, fact-based learning, the sciences, and education in general, and turning towards ignorance (sometimes willful), superstition, and mysticism. I'd be perfectly happy to see religion in general go the way of the dinosaurs. We, as a species, need to finally grow out of any need for these things and embrace reason.

Bracing for the inevitable hate that will follow..

Re:The trouble with modern Christianity...

[frank_adrian314159]

Hand me a white-haired cat and I can hand you back the same cat with pink fur about an hour later. And if his name is Gerald, he may be pissed, but given that the ONLY criteria you have are Gerald is a cat and Gerald has fur and Gerald's fur has color pink, he would not be a figment of the imagination. Of course, a month after that, you'll need to touch up his roots, but that's just quibbling.

Re:The trouble with modern Christianity...

[Copid]

There's a very good reason for metastudies, though, especially with a topic like this one.

Re:The trouble with modern Christianity...

[Anubis IV]

Very much so agreed. I even said as much:

[...] citing one study rather than looking at meta-studies or the corpus of available research is a faulty way to prove your point [...]

Re:The trouble with modern Christianity...

[mwvdlee]

We could just call the cat "God" instead and suddenly it'll have millions of devout followers.

Re:The trouble with modern Christianity...

[ChrisMaple]

It violated zoning laws.

I thought Religious affiliation was rising in USA

[Eloking]

I'm not sure how many years ago it was, but I thought Christianity was rising in the USA (I even think it was a news in /.).

Either way it's good news. I prefer my superpowers secular.

We need a republican president ASAP!

[Billly Gates]

These scary views of global warming and evolution are causing people to burn for eternity in hell for not believing in GOD!!

We need a pro God president to change the culture of this country so people stop thinking for themselves! It is only a matter of time before we anger him by voting for things Jesus did like providing healthcare and support for the poor and sick and our nation will fear his wrath.

Re:We need a republican president ASAP!

[Eloking]

These scary views of global warming and evolution are causing people to burn for eternity in hell for not believing in GOD!!

We need a pro God president to change the culture of this country so people stop thinking for themselves! It is only a matter of time before we anger him by voting for things Jesus did like providing healthcare and support for the poor and sick and our nation will fear his wrath.

Not sure if serious or just bad troll...

"Social Justice" should be considered a religion.

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if people aren't following traditional religions, they're still adhering to ideologies that share many of the same traits as religion.

"Social Justice" is a superb example. It rallies its believers around the notion that everybody is equal, but some people (such as feminists, homosexuals, and transsexuals) are far more equal than everyone else.

Much like religion, "Social Justice" brings out inane, anti-social behavior in many of its adherents. This often shows itself as extreme hypocrisy, for example. Take the case of bullying. While decrying bullying as being awful, we see "Social Justice" followers target and harass alleged "bullies" with more zeal and hatred (also known as bullying) than the bullies themselves could ever manage to deliver.

Religions don't have to be hundreds or thousands of years old. Religions don't have to involve worshipping some sky deity. The religious mindset and behavior can very easily work with flawed, hypocritical concepts of "justice" to create modern religions like "Social Justice" that are far more harmful in practice than traditional religions were.

Inconsistent

[EzInKy]

I'd say it is because of Christian inconsistencies. On the one hand they state that God's love is unconditional, on the other they say if you don't love God and follow His laws you will go to hell. There is no logic to religion.

Re:Inconsistent

[TheDarkMaster]

It just depends on how you look at the issue. If you consider that the goal is to make people believe that there is an all-powerful being who knows everything you do, and then tell them that if they do not do all he (I mean, the "enlightened by him") say they have to do then this all-powerful entity will punish them without being able to avoid, then religion makes sense. Just control, as usual.

Re:Inconsistent

[XxtraLarGe]

I'd say it is because of Christian inconsistencies. On the one hand they state that God's love is unconditional

No. Christians claim that there's a very specific condition. John 3:16

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

There may be some debate around what what it means to believe in Jesus, but if someone claims to be a Christian but doesn't believe that, they're not really a Christian.

on the other they say if you don't love God and follow His laws you will go to hell. There is no logic to religion.

Again, no. It is not possible for a person to fully love God and follow his laws perfectly, which is what made atonement through Christ's death necessary. Hell is separation from God. As noted above, God gave a very specific way for people to spend eternity with him. If you don't want to believe in Jesus Christ, then you spend eternity separated from him. That seems perfectly logical to me.

What you seem to be espousing is the secular Hollywood/pop-culture view of Christianity, which is almost always an inaccurate portrayal of it.

Re:Inconsistent

[slimshady76]

I encourage you to read some of the verses by Pedro Bonifacio, better known as Almafuerte: Dios adusto, Dios frío, Dios con libro de entrada y salida como un carcelero, Dios que necesita del dolor, Dios que invento las lágrimas... Vete a tu olimpo...! Dour God, cold God, God who books entries and exits as a jailer, God who needs pain, God who invented tears ... ... Go to your Olympus!

Re:Inconsistent

[Anonymous Coward]

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

There may be some debate around what what it means to believe in Jesus, but if someone claims to be a Christian but doesn't believe that, they're not really a Christian.

I'm a fan of Bertrand Russell's requirements that he discusses in 'Why I am not a Christian': Belief in an eternal soul, a personal god, and the divinity (or bestness) of Jesus, so we're agreed on that.

on the other they say if you don't love God and follow His laws you will go to hell. There is no logic to religion.

Again, no. It is not possible for a person to fully love God and follow his laws perfectly, which is what made atonement through Christ's death necessary. Hell is separation from God. As noted above, God gave a very specific way for people to spend eternity with him. If you don't want to believe in Jesus Christ, then you spend eternity separated from him. That seems perfectly logical to me.

What you seem to be espousing is the secular Hollywood/pop-culture view of Christianity, which is almost always an inaccurate portrayal of it.

I don't understand the "atonement through Christ's death". How does the death of someone, especially if they know they are divine and will rise again, atone for the sins of someone else? Is it like if I pay for someone else's parking ticket? That makes sense in terms of financial punishment, but it doens't make sense for person A to spend time in jail for a murder commited by person B. Why would God accept payment for that? Surely God knew that Jesus's death was not permanent?

Re:Inconsistent

[BitZtream]

You're not a parent are you?

Its fairly easy to love your children and punish them at the same time, it is in fact a requirement of loving your children properly. Without the punishment, there is a good chance they'll do something that is very bad for them.

I love my child unconditionally and punish him regularly.

Just because you don't understand something, doesn't instantly make it wrong or devoid of logic. It just means you don't understand it, full stop.

Re:Inconsistent

[penguinoid]

Eternally torturing people for not believing in eternal torture, but in such a way that no one can notice and change their ways, is probably one of the less effective methods of discipline.

Re:Inconsistent

[TheDarkMaster]

Good point, but note that there is a big difference between "religious laws" so to speak and our "common law". Hopefully our common law is intended to maintain order and prevent us kill each other (a necessary "social contract" which enables us to live in a large group), while usually a religious law in truth express the will of an ancient "guru" who wanted to coerce his people to do his will "in name of God", for good or for evil.

Re:Inconsistent

[XxtraLarGe]

I don't understand the "atonement through Christ's death". How does the death of someone, especially if they know they are divine and will rise again, atone for the sins of someone else? Is it like if I pay for someone else's parking ticket?

Kind of, but not really. From Leviticus 17:11: "For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life." So God gave a way for people to atone for their sins through blood sacrifice, otherwise all would perish. However, it's not something he desired; the tribes of Israel were using it as a loophole instead of an actual act of contrition (See Isaiah 1:11-17).

That makes sense in terms of financial punishment, but it doens't make sense for person A to spend time in jail for a murder commited by person B.

Sins are sometimes referred to as debts. For instance, in some Bible translations, you'll see the Lord's Prayer as "forgive us our debts as we forgive others' debts" instead of "forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us." So when you commit a sin, you essentially have a debt that needs to be paid.

Why would God accept payment for that? Surely God knew that Jesus's death was not permanent?

Yes, of course he knew Jesus would be resurrected. That was always a part of the prophecy regarding the Christ. As to why he selected this method to allow all people to atone for their sin, I'm afraid I can't give a complete answer to that, but I'm not sure anyone can. God says in Isaiah 55:8-9 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways...". From the best of my ability to understand, it has to do with his desire to show mercy to the world, but still uphold justice.

Re:Inconsistent

[Copid]

I think the point is, what transgression would you be protecting him from by punishing him infinitely harshely for all eternity?

I guess it would make some sense if you had two kids you loved unconditionally and were willing to make an example of one of them for the benfit of the other, but only if the surviving kid could verify what you did to the first kid...

Re:Inconsistent

[TheDarkMaster]

Well, I for myself do not need a deity to keep me "in line", I am quite responsible for my actions and I would like to believe I'm not the only one (but see my nickname, maybe the problem is that I'm not really human ;-)). If a person needs to be coerced 24/7 to be a good person by a higher, all-powerfull authority, it will have serious trouble getting to live in society.

Re:Inconsistent

[phud]

Hell is separation from God.
I'll take it. Can I have it now, please?

Re:Inconsistent

[cmdr_klarg]

I'd say it is because of Christian inconsistencies. On the one hand they state that God's love is unconditional, on the other they say if you don't love God and follow His laws you will go to hell. There is no logic to religion.

"Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the end of time!

But He loves you! He loves you, and He needs money!"

- George Carlin

Re:Inconsistent

[Toshito]

No. Christians claim that there's a very specific condition. John 3:16

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Well, I believe that there really was a guy named Jesus who made a lot of fuss a couple of thousands of years ago, he's a real historical figure.

Am I covered now? I'll have eternal life? Please?

Re:Inconsistent

[Chalnoth]

It's probably more down to urbanization. The more people live in denser areas, the more they're exposed to other ways of looking at the world. Religion in general is quite hard to support once you've seen other perspectives.

Re:Inconsistent

[shutdown -p now]

I'm pretty sure that when you punish your children, said punishment neither involves extreme degrees of torture, nor is indefinitely long in application. The latter especially throws this entire construct out of the window, because a punishment that never ends is not exactly a learning experience nor a deterrent for future behavior.

Re:Inconsistent

[shutdown -p now]

The concept of hell itself is rather murky, and different Christian denominations understand it differently. If you take the stereotypical Protestant fire-and-brimstone interpretation, where hell is basically a giant torture chamber, then yeah, your conclusion is spot on. But e.g. in Eastern Orthodoxy, hell is canonically interpreted not as a place, but rather a state of mind that a soul is when it is subjected to the presence of God, and does not love that God, or has otherwise separated itself from him. In other words, God does not do anything special to torment sinners or to make the saints blissful; but the essence of what he is has the corresponding effect on either.

Of course, the glaring logical hole in that explanation is, why exactly is that state eternal and unchangeable after one's death? It would stand to reason that souls would be able to "reconsider" and therefore switch their state at any given moment.

Re:Inconsistent

[TheDarkMaster]

Do not confuse "being different" with "being superhuman".

Re:Inconsistent

[ChrisMaple]

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways...

This is Christianity's ultimate out, a way of playing it deuces wild. Every time a Christian is backed into a corner, every time that Christian doctrine is shown to be harmful to humanity, he'll just quote Isaiah 55:8-9 and say we're not interested in human good, we're interested in good as God knows it.(or words to that effect, depending upon the situation.)

The proper response to which is, of course, "I'm a human being, my good is what rightfully applies to me, you can take your god's good and shove it.

Re:Inconsistent

[micahraleigh]

Do you believe love is completely logical or should we toss that one out also?

Re:Inconsistent

[werepants]

No. Christians claim that there's a very specific condition. John 3:16

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

There may be some debate around what what it means to believe in Jesus, but if someone claims to be a Christian but doesn't believe that, they're not really a Christian.

on the other they say if you don't love God and follow His laws you will go to hell. There is no logic to religion.

Again, no. It is not possible for a person to fully love God and follow his laws perfectly, which is what made atonement through Christ's death necessary. Hell is separation from God. As noted above, God gave a very specific way for people to spend eternity with him. If you don't want to believe in Jesus Christ, then you spend eternity separated from him. That seems perfectly logical to me.
 

You have a narrow view of Christianity, and Hell. Specifically, you are espousing atonement theology (we did bad stuff and deserve to die, Christ died instead) and a Hell of eternal conscious torment, neither of which is the only (or the historical, or most self-consistent) view of Christianity. You acknowledge some ambiguity about what "belief" means (judging by your other statements, I assume you mean some kind of cognitive posture is implied .. either a prayer that was said, or some kind of earnest mental/emotional commitment) but the biggest ambiguity in my mind lies elsewhere - what is meant by the "world"? What is meant by "perish"? What is meant by "eternal life"?

Here's the thing - the OP is essentially right - you've added some semantics to his paradox (how can unconditional love have conditions?) and basically talked some more about the condition, and ignored the original complaint.

So, some food for thought: many early Christian thinkers were not Creationists. Many of them have been (or allude to being) something along the line of Universalists (for ALL have sinned, and fall short of the glory of god, but the gift of god is eternal life). The Hebrews of Jesus' time didn't likely believe in hell (or even an afterlife) in the sense that modern theologians have defined it. Which means that Jesus and the people who wrote the bible likely didn't believe in those things either.

Really, the bulk of the theology you espouse can be tied back to the invention of fundamentalism in the early 1900's, this "Old Timey Religion" that was basically manufactured out of wholecloth: http://religiondispatches.org/... . Historical Christian theology has had very different views, and much of what people find objectionable about Christianity today is actually a product of this fundamentalism, not anything about Christ's message.

Finally

[X10]

US is the only developed (or "more or less developed") country where religious nuts are still a majority.

Re:Finally

[gnasher719]

"Hi, I'm Muhammad, I can't write, read or preform simple math. I'm totally illiterate, have epilepsy, like to wear diapers on my head and ride unicorns. Let me tell you about Islam where women are objects, female children, much like Christianity, are rape objects and science must be outlawed at all costs, oh and don't think about drawing a picture of me, or someone could kill you"

Actually, the "don't draw a picture" is a quite sensible rule for muslims, so they don't get confused that Allah is the important thing and Mohammed is just the lowly messenger, after looking at his picture for too long. Even if you are a muslim, drawing a picture of Mohammed should only result in some explanation _why_ a muslim shouldn't draw this. If you are not a muslim, then nobody should care.

Now of course all those people who are not really interested in religion but in reasons to kill other people take this as a good excuse for murder.

Re:Finally

[Mr D from 63]

Religion is essentially "I believe in a sky daddy because I'm ignorant of science."

I'm not religious, but I surely don't see it that way. I think religion is a very interesting social phenomena. It has emerged in almost all human societies in very similar manners. So, it must fill social needs and help societies, or it wouldn't have thrived and been central to those societies that advanced the fastest. One simple explanation is that religion filled the need to answer questions about the physical world that people didn't have the knowledge to understand. And that is nice and simple, but if you think deeper you see there are purely social reasons that religions thrived. Be it sense of purpose, social alignment or organization, common good aspects, whatever, it certainly became more than just an attempt to explain things.

When one looks at religion in a scientific manner, they should have little reason to fear it, or denigrate those that practice religion. To do so really isn't rational, but rather sometimes seems like a person trying to make themselves feel superior because they can rationalize and away religions beliefs. I've rationalized them away, but I don't think religious people are automatically stupid, and because I know some very smart engineers that are religious as well, I know their sense of reasoning on technical matters is extremely strong. They believe in evolution and established scientific principals. Certainly there are also many that don't, but there are a bunch of non-religious idiots out there as well.

Understanding the impact of cultural upbringing on a person's belief system is important as well. There are interesting psychological phenomenon where very intelligent people can easily dismiss facts and evidence that doesn't align with their cultural upbringing. The brain can work around those inconsistencies. We are all subject to that, not just religious people. But they give us an interesting case study for that phenomena.

So maybe the ever shifting religious landscape it is not a 'good thing' nor a 'bad thing' but actually a reflection of our social needs. And pinning cause on those that are religious rather than looking at the entire social landscape might be quite narrow-minded itself.

Albert Einstein has some interesting quotes regarding his agnosticism. He certainly would never denigrate a religious person, or claim they are intellectually inferior.

Re:Finally

[buddyglass]

Religion is essentially "I believe in a sky daddy because I'm ignorant of science."

How then to explain religious scientists? In all fairness, your summary of religion is pretty lacking. If you'd said, "I believe in a sky daddy because it meets some deep emotional need," then that's somewhat more defensible. Also, it adequately explains the existence of individuals who are the opposite of "ignorant" when it comes to science but yet who are nevertheless religious.

Re:Finally

[buddyglass]

US is the only developed (or "more or less developed") country where religious nuts are still a majority.

Here is a list of countries by the importance of religion in the lives of their populace. Wiki is presenting Gallup poll results. 65% of those polled in the U.S. says religion is important in their daily lives. Here are numbers for some other "more or less developed" countries where a majority say religion is an important part of their lives:

Romania: 99.9%
Poland: 74.5%
Italy: 71.5%
Singapore: 70%
Austria: 55%
Ireland: 53.5%

Re:Finally

[ceoyoyo]

The Christian bible has lots of injunctions against idol worship and graven images too.

Re:Finally

[narcc]

Religion is essentially "I believe in a sky daddy because I'm ignorant of science."

That's completely delusional.

Theology is even worse, take Islam:

Theology is the study of religious beliefs and practices. You'll find no shortage of atheist theologians. Or do you mean theology in the sense of a system of beliefs? In that case, you'll find that Islam is not monolithic, but divided along theological lines. Either way, your statement is incoherent.

science must be outlawed at all costs

I can find no branch of Islam that "outlaws" or otherwise forbids science. On the contrary, there are many Muslim scientists practicing today, as well as many historically significant Muslim scientists.

because I can't and won't ever show myself or preform miracles

Many Christians would disagree. I can't find a Christian sect that would affirm that. It's possible one exists, but it would be exceptional, not representative.

it made no sense back in the day and less sense now.

What makes "no sense" is your post. If you want anyone to take you seriously, you're going to have to offer more than nonsense like this to support your position.

Re:Finally

[buddyglass]

So you agree with me. The statement that, "Religion is essentially 'I believe in a sky daddy because I'm ignorant of science'" is not accurate since there exist living counter-examples. That is, people who are not ignorant of science and yet who are nevertheless religious.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally something I can be proud of(go Denmark):

Country Yes, important No, unimportant
  Sweden 16.5% 83%
  Denmark 18% 80.5%
  Estonia 16% 78%
  Norway 20.5% 78%
  Hong Kong 23% 75.5%
  Netherlands 24.5% 75.5%
  Japan 23.5% 75%
  Czech Republic 20.5% 74.5%
  United Kingdom 26.5% 73%
  Finland 28% 70%
  France 29.5% 69.5%
  Vietnam 29.5% 69.5%
  Australia 32% 67.5%
  New Zealand 33% 66%
  South Korea 32.5% 65.5%
  Cuba 33.5% 64%
  Albania 32.5% 62%
  Bulgaria 33.5% 62%
  Russia 33% 60.5%
  Germany 40.5% 59%
  Uruguay 40.5% 59%
  Hungary 39% 58.5%
  Latvia 39% 58.5%
  Belarus 33% 57.5%
  Belgium 33% 57.5%
  Canada 42% 57%
    Switzerland 41.5% 56%
  Taiwan 45% 54%
  Slovenia 47% 52.5%
  Slovakia 46.5% 51.5%
  Spain 49.5% 50%
  Lithuania 41.5% 49.5%
  Israel 49.5% 49.5%
  Kazakhstan 43% 48.5%
  Ukraine 45.5% 48.5%
  Azerbaijan 49.5% 48.5%
  Montenegro 45.5% 48%
  Serbia 50.5% 46.5%
  Ireland 53.5% 46.5%
  Uzbekistan 51% 45.5%
  Austria 55% 43%
  United States 65% 34.5%

Re:Finally

[Murdoch5]

Excellent job reading my post like a Christian, you cherry picked out of context sections and then used those to prove your point, well done!

Re:Finally

[coinreturn]

Your wikipedia link doesn't specify the nuttiness of the populace.

Re:Finally

[coinreturn]

Mormonism is to stupid to even comment on...

I'll help you out here: Mormons believe that some dude found some magical gold plates that explained all sorts of appendices to the bible, but for some reason said dude lost the plates so there is no evidence; you should have tons of wives and kids, wait only one wife now, but you have many in the afterlife; blacks can't make it to the best part of heaven, oh, wait, now they can; and special underwear gives you magic powers and makes you closer to God.

Re:Finally

[narcc]

out of context sections

Please, elaborate. What did I take out-of-context?

you cherry picked

I could very easily go on. (Would it make you happy if I continued?) I thought those were sufficient to demonstrate that your post was little more than nonsense born of pure ignorance.

Re:Finally

[Murdoch5]

Oh I know, its insane.

Re:Finally

[Murdoch5]

Religion: the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.

So where did I get that wrong? Religion is defined exactly as the belief in a sky daddy, which as far as science has shown this far in humanity, doesn't need to exist. Hence to believe in sky daddy means you're rejecting science, or you're ignorant of it. Point #1 correct.

Theology: the study of the nature of God and religious belief. -- Which I'm not saying you disagree with, just clarifying the definition.

As for Islam rejecting science, just google it, for the love of the FSM, we have Iman's who say the world doesn't rotate, now how is that anything but a rejection of science? You could claim, incorrectly, that you can be a scientist and believer but really you're trying to battle two view points which can't co-exist. You're trying to battle the logical, rational, mature side of humanity, with the one which wants to hold a blanket, sleep with mommy and daddy during a storm and won't grow up. This doesn't make you a true scientist, it makes you an idiot who's trying to mix your sky daddy with science. Point #2 Correct

science must be outlawed at all costs

Have you or do you live the US right now? Law's are being passed which allow the teaching and promotion of biblical ideals above proven scientific fact. Law's are being passed which outlaw gay marriage and abortions, based on the fact that the bible speaks against it. So exactly how what is false about this point? When you allow the bible to be used as the basis for law, you're directly saying that science must be rejected. The bible speaks of a 6000 year old year, which is absolutely 100% incorrect, in all possible cases, yet we teach children this in schools. Point #3 correct! (I'm on a roll).

because I can't and won't ever show myself or preform miracles Many Christians would disagree. I can't find a Christian sect that would affirm that. It's possible one exists, but it would be exceptional, not representative.

Except you can't say something exists because you can't prove it doesn't and then give that thing magic powers. There have been 0 confirmed miracles, as in none, zip, zilch, notta, 0%, total strike out. Christians can disagree all they want, but science has recognized exactly 0 miracles. As for God showing himself, that's never happened, he was even invited to show himself at freedom fest in front of 30,000 people, yet he didn't. So Point #4 Correct.

it made no sense back in the day and less sense now.

What did I get wrong with this statement? What question is solved by inserting God? What does God do for the question, apart from inserting another portion which needs an explanation? Science has and is explaining everything that we use to attribute to God, so what is left? God explains nothing, it's makes no sense to insert a deity where none need be. Point #5 Correct!

I have a prefect score 5/5, so where did I go wrong?

Re:Finally

[buddyglass]

This would be relevant if the original poster delineates between "religious" and "religious nuts". I'm guessing he considers anyone for whom religion is "an important part of their daily life" to be a religious nut. Could be wrong.

Re:Finally

[Copid]

Now of course all those people who are not really interested in religion but in reasons to kill other people take this as a good excuse for murder.

I strongly question this. Do you really think the world is full of people who are desperate to kill other people but won't because they don't have an absurdly thin excuse like "he drew my guy"? And that those people largely just happen to have certain relgious backgrounds in common? Doesn't it seem a little more likely that they're killing those people for the reasons they say that they're killing those people?

All of these arguments seem to boil down to, "People do what people are going to do. Religion doesn't make them do anything (except the good stuff-we'll take credit for that!)." If that were true, we'd be talking about enormous philosophical systems that people build buildings for and sink huge portions of their lives into that have zero bearing on their decision making and actual behavior. Like, if you were to drop populations on different deserted islands with the Koran, the Bible and the Vedas and told the "These texts describe the world and how to live," and came back after 1000 years, wouldn't you be surprised if they were all doing the same thing? I'd expect at least some of that to have taken root as laws--or at least behavioral norms.

Re:Finally

[narcc]

Religion is defined exactly as the belief in a sky daddy

That's not true at all. There are religions that don't presuppose a god or similar figure. Buddhism is the typical go-to example, though I'll also offer Raelism as an interesting example along with Jainism and various schools of Hinduism.

which as far as science has shown this far in humanity, doesn't need to exist. Hence to believe in sky daddy means you're rejecting science, or you're ignorant of it.

Even if we accept that science has "shown" that a god concept "doesn't need to exist" (Which is ridiculous, as god and similar concepts are outside the scope of science.) It does not follow that holding such a belief is a rejection of science. Just as there are many pursuits that are outside the scope of science (such as ethics, politics, and law), the practice and study of which do not constitute a rejection of science.

Further, a significant number of practicing scientists are religious. A 2009 survey of AAAS members found that more than half believed in the existence of a god. A more recent survey found that more than a third "have no doubt about God's existence". Are we to assume that our scientific institutions have been overrun by secret anti-science agents?

we have Iman's who say the world doesn't rotate, now how is that anything but a rejection of science?

We have atheists that believe vaccines cause autism, that deny evolution, and similar silly things. Does that make atheism anti-science?

There is a long history of Muslim scientists and many well-respected Muslim scientists practicing today. The Hadith encourages Muslims to seek knowledge "even as far as China". Muslim countries, like Saudi Arabia, have been actively encouraging science through endowments and the establishment of new universities. If Islam were inherently anti-science, it wouldn't have such a long and proud history of scientific contribution, countless Muslim scientists, or the leadership actively encouraging scientific pursuits. You claimed that Islam teaches that "science must be outlawed at all costs", yet they're spending billions to support science.

Law's are being passed which allow [...]

The mistake in your reasoning here is that you believe religion to be wholly anti-science. This is obviously not true. (See above) While efforts to allow creationism to be taught in schools can be interpreted as anti-science, the other cases you mention (abortion and gay marriage) are not scientific issues, but ethical issues -- which, as you know, are outside the scope of scientific inquiry.

So exactly how what is false about this point?

In none of the cases you mention is there an attempt to outlaw science. The best case you offer is an attempt to introduce creationism along side evolution in public schools, which is not the same as trying to outlaw the study of evolution. The claim you made, by the way, was that Islam asserts that "science must be outlawed at all costs".

There have been 0 confirmed miracles, as in none, zip, zilch, notta, 0%, total strike out.

Just for fun: "There have been 0 confirmed black swans, as in none, zip, zilch, notta, 0% total strike out."

Christians can disagree all they want

That's my point entirely. In your post, you explain your interpretation of Christianity through a parody Christain God. "because I can't and won't ever show myself or preform miracles." In context, the claim is that Christians believe that God can't and won't show himself or perform miracles, by his own admission. I suspect that an overwhelming majority of the world's Christians would strongly disagree with that claim and assert that God can and does perform miracles. (Remember: We're talking about what people believe and what you claim people believe. It doesn't matter if those beliefs are

Re:Finally

[maliqua]

Now we have terrorists to scare people so the need for religion is going away as the ruling class have found it to be equally or more effective than the fear of having a bad time after death.

Re:Finally

[SillyHamster]

Religion is essentially "I believe in a sky daddy because I'm ignorant of science."

Theology is even worse, take Islam:

You've embarrassed yourself on the topic in two sentences.

Theology is the study of god(s).

Islam is not a theology; it is a religion. Category error.

Religions have a theology, and so do you - when you call it "sky daddy" - you are claiming that god does not exist and is the product of human imagination.

So to say "theology is even worse" doesn't make an inkling of sense. It's a field of study, not a specific point of view on which god exists/does not exist. Nonsensical assertion.

Word substitution: does "mathematics/science is even worse" make any sense?

Tangentially, the only way science can displace religion is if it's a religion; is science a religion?

Re:Finally

[phud]

I can't and won't defend the parent post(good god, what a mess!) but i will add to your point and say this about theology. Insofar as it is the study of religious practices and beliefs, it has significant value. But much of theology is the study of the nature of God or gods. Most Christian sects will claim that the mind and perhaps even the nature of god is unknowable. The products of this effort to speculate about the unknowable are often severely at odds with what the people whose butts are in the pews actually believe. Theistic theologians often describe god as a "ground of being", a phrase so meaningless that it cannot be parsed.

Re:Finally

[Murdoch5]

Religion makes a claim that a God or Gods exist. If you can't show us the God or Gods then your claim is debunked until you do. It's not hard, science is a testing frame work and all religion has failed it's own test.

Re:Finally

[narcc]

Theistic theologians often describe god as a "ground of being", a phrase so meaningless that it cannot be parsed.

Oh, you're thinking of Paul Tillich. A rather famous and influential theologian. His "ground of all being" marks a radical shift in ontology (think: god as a being vs god as the ground of all being). Google the name and I'm sure you'll find a better explanation.

Fun fact: Tillich was an atheist.

Re:Finally

[SillyHamster]

When you make fundamental errors in distinguishing between "religion" and "theology", you are not qualified to lecture others on what one's default theology should be.

It even looks like you've made a religion out of science - something that science is ill-equipped for, but a common error of the philosophically challenged.

Re:Finally

[Murdoch5]

Where did I make an error? I said

Religion makes a claim that a God or Gods exist. If you can't show us the God or Gods then your claim is debunked until you do. It's not hard, science is a testing frame work and religion has failed it's own test.

That doesn't turn science into a religion. Theology is the attempt, and a poor one, to explain Religion through texts written by the God / Gods you worship, which again no one can prove. Until the Bible is the proven word of God, it's toilet paper.

Re:Finally

[agm]

New Zealand?

Re:Finally

[SillyHamster]

Where did I make an error? I said

I quoted your errors in my first reply. You ignored the corrections to continue ranting about religion.

Acknowledge the error, and then we can change the topic. Ignore the error - and you demonstrate you are intellectually too short for this discussion.

Re:Finally

[zugmeister]

...they should have little reason to fear it, or denigrate those that practice religion. To do so really isn't rational, but rather sometimes seems like a person trying to make themselves feel superior...

I keep seeing this come up and I don't think it's as simple as you're making it out to be. If I were to explain to you about my practice of communing with my crystals for wisdom and how the fairies help me out every day, you may reasonably doubt the legitimacy of my views when discussing other topics. Bill Nye did a much better job than I could do in this video where he explains that we need rational, clear thinking children and for that reason we should not inflict religious superstitions on the next generation. It's not necessarily about being superior (though the argument has been made that some beliefs are silly and don't deserve special treatment), it's more about weather someone's belief in talking burning shrubbery and invisible sky wizards should make me take them as seriously as a person with a more rational viewpoint.

Re:Finally

[zugmeister]

How then to explain religious scientists?

People are often irrational.

Re:Finally

[Murdoch5]

Except I didn't make any error, the definitions again:

Theology: the study of the nature of God and religious belief.

Religion: the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.

Islam is based on the theologic concepts presented in the Quar'an which are based on religious concepts of Allah, but without the Quar'an you don't have Islam, you just have a deity based religious forced around a being you don't care about but you admit could of started the universe.

It's the same idea with Christianity, The Bible is the foundation of the religious beliefs of Christians, without it, you're not a Christian. The religous concepts in the bible are the basis for the completely horrid stories in the book. The Bible is the theological guide of Christianity, just as the Quar'an is the theological guide of Islam and The Book of Mormon is the guide of Mormonism.

You said to me:

Religions have a theology, and so do you - when you call it "sky daddy" - you are claiming that god does not exist and is the product of human imagination. So to say "theology is even worse" doesn't make an inkling of sense. It's a field of study, not a specific point of view on which god exists/does not exist. Nonsensical assertion.

So to reiterate, you can have religious views without holding theological views. If you hold a religious view with no theological context then you're a deist, the second you add a "holy" book in to the mix you add a label, such as Muslim or Christian, which means that Theology is really worse then just having a religious view point.

Re:Finally

[bingoUV]

Hence to believe in sky daddy means you're rejecting science, or you're ignorant of it.

Further, a significant number of practicing scientists are religious

Irrelevant. Scientists can reject science in some of their walks of life and excel in scientific enquiry in other walks of life. There is no contradiction there. I know people who reject coffee after sunset because it interferes with sleep , and guzzle it down during mornings.

Similarly memory olympic winners may write down their shopping lists, mathematicians might make a mistake in computing fuel efficiency of their cars, and doctors may not treat some disease they have. All this despite being excellent in their professions.

Re:Finally

[SillyHamster]

That's better. But still wrong, and let me step you through it.

Theology dictionary definition:

1. the field of study and analysis that treats of God and of God's attributes and relations to the universe; study of divine things or religious truth; divinity.

2. a particular form, system, branch, or course of this study.

When used generally, "theology" refers to the entire field of study of god, which is the first definition. Having an issue with it is like having an issue with math, or science, or biology. That's just ridiculous.

In the field of theology, there are many sets of beliefs about who/what god is, and that is what the second definition is used to describe.

Christians have a Christian theology - there is one god who is a trinity, Jesus is god incarnate, Bible is god's communication to mankind, etc.

Muslims have a Muslim theology - there is one god and Mohammed is his prophet, Quran is god's communication to mankind, etc.

Atheists have an atheist theology - there is no god.

Each of those theologies are part of Theology, the study of god.

So when you say you have an issue with theology ... that's nonsensical. You could have an issue with various theologies and find them wrong, but that's not having an issue with theology itself. When you talk about how no one should believe in religion or believe that god exists, you are pushing an atheist theology.

So to reiterate, you can have religious views without holding theological views. If you hold a religious view with no theological context then you're a deist, the second you add a "holy" book in to the mix you add a label, such as Muslim or Christian, which means that Theology is really worse then just having a religious view point.

No, you can't. A religious view is founded on a theology, a view of who god is and what man's relation to god is. A deist has a deist theology - that there is a god, who set things in motion but is hands off with respect to mankind. There is no such thing as a religion with no theology.

Religion: the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.

As someone who practices a religion and thus has an idea of what religious practice looks like, I personally find that this definition is incomplete.

Religion is really adopting a system of beliefs and applying those beliefs to one's life. When atheists adopt a creed of "there is no god", and attempt to evangelize that belief to everyone else as the Truth (Science!) ... I find calling that a not-religion to be incredible in the literal sense.

Re:Finally

[micahraleigh]

How is science not just "judging by appearances"?

Don't you feel a little superficial looking at people and experimenting with them that way?

Would you want to be treated like that?

Re:Finally

[Murdoch5]

I still completely disagree with you, but if that's what we have to settle with then that's okay. I grew up heavily influenced with the falsehood and insanity of Christianity, I know the lies, the hate, the filth and the issues with Christianity.

To address your points, out of order, Atheism is not a theology, at least the way I was implying, which is religious theology. Atheism is not a different view point from the standard zero state system, so it's not a "new" view. Atheism simple says, "Hold on here, you can just assume a God exists and never provide evidence, we won't believe in that, it's bullshit", this does not make it a religious theology, as it's the exact opposite. Atheism rejects the very concept of God and hence breaks the definition. For Atheism to be a religious theology, it would first have to assume God exists and then set to provide it doesn't, which is backwards. Atheisms says there is no God because there is no proof, and indeed, no proof has ever been found, discovered or granted.

To be fair, given the second definition of theology, of course Atheism would fall under this, it's a field of study and interest, just like Math, Science or even Pornography. However also to be fair, I made a point of defining which point I wanted to reference, so it's against good taste to bring in a different definition and hold me accountable to it. This entire thread is about religion, not about fields of study, and hence only the first definition should apply here.

On my second point, Religious Theology has to come after Religious belief. Religious belief is the substance which postulates a God or super being. Without it, you don't have anything to apply the study of the "Nature of God", Religion simply inserts God, Religious Theology tries to explain that God. For instance a Muslim, Christian and Mormon all believe in Religion, they all agree that a God, some God, exists. However they then apply the "flavour" of God they want through Theology. Going about this the other way would make no sense, you can't apply the nature of God, to a God you haven't accepted as existing. You can't say that the Christian God is the one you follow and then say, you believe in God, that logic doesn't work, it doesn't make sense, you have to first say, I believe in God, then say, The Christian God! I honestly feel you have this backwards, but if we disagree so be it, no harm in that.

I know all about religious practices, and I know all about what they represent, the problem is when you start with a flawed assumption, why should anyone take you seriously? You can't tell me that you're sure God exists, present no hard evidence, throw a book at me, then tell me you have evidence, that doesn't work, it's insane. Using that methodology, I could take a piece of paper, write my name at the top, write I'm God, for I revealed it to my self and now I have a holy book that proves I'm God, it's flawed logic.

Re:Finally

[Murdoch5]

How is science not just "judging by appearances"? Don't you feel a little superficial looking at people and experimenting with them that way?

I'm confused what you mean? Science is a framework for testing, if you can't get repeatable results, then it isn't science, so it's anything but judging by appearance, as for the second point, I don't know what you mean.

Re:Finally

[SillyHamster]

To address your points, out of order, Atheism is not a theology, at least the way I was implying, which is religious theology.

What do you think is a non-religious theology? Whatever you wanted to imply, I'm taking issue with what you said - which if taken as written is nonsense.

Atheisms says there is no God because there is no proof, and indeed, no proof has ever been found, discovered or granted.

The default position on any truth claim in the absence of evidence is "I don't know", not "it must be false".

I don't see how you can expect anyone to rationally become an atheist when you can't even get the basics of knowledge right.

This entire thread is about religion, not about fields of study, and hence only the first definition should apply here.

You just dug into an indefensible position. You want to stand by the statement: "The problem with Theology as a field of study is that Islam [insert criticism]"

That's as stupid as saying, "The problem with physics as a field of study is that Newton's model of gravity is incomplete."

The criticism of the specific item (Islam, Newtonian gravity model) within the set does not generalize to the overall set (theology, physics). The word cannot be used the way you used it. It makes nonsense. Whatever you find wrong with Islam is not an indictment on the field of study of god.

On my second point, Religious Theology has to come after Religious belief.

No it does not. If someone decides to pray as the practice of a particular religion, they have adopted a belief of what god is (some higher being able to answer prayer), and how man relates to said god. (prayer, etc) That is a theology.

The person may not put it into words so neatly, but the theology (system,form) plainly exists before a theologian comes along to put it in a neatly categorized bin.

I know all about religious practices, and I know all about what they represent, the problem is when you start with a flawed assumption, why should anyone take you seriously?

Don't care what you think. You were unable to properly distinguish between religion, theology, and theologies, and not only are you not bothered by this fundamental error, you're trying to stand by nonsense.

I can't say I'm surprised by the outcome ... but it's still disappointing.

Re:Finally

[Murdoch5]

Lets go back to my original post:

Religion is essentially "I believe in a sky daddy because I'm ignorant of science."

Theology is even worse, take Islam:
"Hi, I'm Muhammad, I can't write, read or preform simple math. I'm totally illiterate, have epilepsy, like to wear diapers on my head and ride unicorns. Let me tell you about Islam where women are objects, female children, much like Christianity, are rape objects and science must be outlawed at all costs, oh and don't think about drawing a picture of me, or someone could kill you"

Christianity:
"Hi, I'm God, I'm a piss poor engineer who has anger issue and love S&M. I put two or one person in a garden, they had children who killed each other, I allowed incest, rape, murder and slavery. I got really pissed off twice, once I wiped out humanity using a fable which no ration human could believe. I then sent my son to die in the greatest sadomasochist grandstanding in history for being mad at my self, oh and remember to give all your money to the church, because I can't and won't ever show myself or preform miracles."

Mormonism is to stupid to even comment on and the same can be done for ALL religions.

So it's a good thing religious belief is falling, it made no sense back in the day and less sense now. You can't call yourself a logical adult human and believe that your sky daddy created the universe and left no evidence, that isn't rational.

This is what you're trying to argue me about, making it clear that you either can't read or lack the understanding of an adult, which if you have religious faith, is not surprising in the slightest.

The default position is I don't know, so lets find out. Except for the fact that every single attempt to gather evidence of the existence of God, or to find reasons why it would have to exist have failed. So I should correctly myself, I mis-typed, zero state is the wrong thing to say, what I should say is that, atheism is waiting for the believe to present one, single, valid reason to believe and to date that has never happened. Atheism is the exact opposite of religion, it's saying there is no God and you can't show there is, the actual definition, to play fair is:

Atheism: disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods.

Religion is the belief in God or Gods, hence Atheism is the exact opposite, there is no other side to this coin, it's a one way argument, Atheism is not a religion, just like not having cancer, isn't a new form of cancer.

Again for another error in your thinking you said:

You just dug into an indefensible position. You want to stand by the statement: "The problem with Theology as a field of study is that Islam [insert criticism]"

Which I never said, claimed or attempted to imply. Theology as I admitted has two meaning, you demonstrated that when you posted them and I'm not arguing that, it really does have two meaning.

1) Attempting to explain the nature of God.

and

2) A field of study.

The original post is about religion, limiting the scope of the definition to only the first meaning, not the second. You can't drag the second meaning in because you're losing ground, which you've never had. The problem with religious theology is that it leads to people doing horrible things, in the name of a God, who can't be shown to exist, that's it, it's a one way argument.

Theology must come after religion, I already said if you disagree that's fine, but instead of accepting to bow out on that point you wanted to argue me, which doesn't change my original stance, it merely shows your impressive ignorance, which as you've already stated you believe in a God, was clear.

The theology of Christianity is summed up in The Bible, which on the very first line says, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,", meaning you had to believe in God to accept that statement, th

Re:Finally

[SillyHamster]

Lets go back to my original post:

You do realize I'm only arguing with your first two sentences, right? Because they're that embarrassing and nonsensical, and undermine any value in the rest of your post.

Atheism is the exact opposite of religion, it's saying there is no God and you can't show there is, the actual definition, to play fair is:

Your misguided religious fervor demonstrates otherwise.

Religion is the belief in God or Gods, hence Atheism is the exact opposite, there is no other side to this coin, it's a one way argument, Atheism is not a religion, just like not having cancer, isn't a new form of cancer.

Someone who mocks religion with "sky daddy" is not lacking belief. He has a strong belief that no gods exist, such that he thinks those who believe in god are foolish and deserve ridicule.

This is a theology on the nature of god (does not exist!) and man's proper relationship to that understanding (mock the believer!).

Which I never said, claimed or attempted to imply. Theology as I admitted has two meaning, you demonstrated that when you posted them and I'm not arguing that, it really does have two meaning.

1) Attempting to explain the nature of God.

2) A field of study.

Okay, I see now that you swapped the order of the definitions. I did not catch that.

Unfortunately, it still doesn't salvage the second sentence in your original post, because you can't generalize to "religious" theologies from Islamic theology. (What is a "religious" theology?)

Theology must come after religion, I already said if you disagree that's fine, but instead of accepting to bow out on that point you wanted to argue me, which doesn't change my original stance, it merely shows your impressive ignorance, which as you've already stated you believe in a God, was clear.

It's not ignorant. The belief in the nature of god comes before the religious practice.

"God is the universe, so clear mind and meditate to become one with nature."

"Gods are a group of squabbling deities, so sacrifice to them all and hope to not anger them."

"God is a single person, so worship him alone"

The theology of Christianity is summed up in The Bible, which on the very first line says, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,", meaning you had to believe in God to accept that statement, there was and is no other way to approach it.

You do not need to believe in the Christian God to understand and accept that the Bible claims that God exists and is an intelligent creator, and that this the book is the basis of Christian theology. You do not believe the Christian religion yet you described Christian theology; you did not need to adopt Christian religion to have an understanding of the Christian God. You're disproving your own position.

On my second point, Religious Theology has to come after Religious belief.

No it does not. If someone decides to pray as the practice of a particular religion, they have adopted a belief of what god is

This is wrong, God is the creator, the -0 on the singularity of creation, that's it, there is no other way to think about God, God started everything, that's it.

A god is not the religion. Religion is the practice of people who follow a particular god. The practice of people who follow a particular god comes after they adopt a theology of who that particular god is.

One does not believe in something without some form of understanding. Even the belief that god is beyond human understanding is a form of understanding. That understanding of god is theology, and that is why religion, that is religious beliefs and practice, follows theology.

On a side of interest what sect of religion do you subscribe to?

Isn't it funny how the atheist is more blatant about his lack of faith than the believer about his faith?

Like I said, your practice is too close to religion for me to consider it not.

Re:Finally

[Murdoch5]

The one thing I'll start off with, is we both have strong opinions on each side, which is a good thing as it generally shows intelligence, and to clarify, I'm not taking any attack at you personally, as this thread has gone on for some time, just want to make that clear ;-).

You do realize I'm only arguing with your first two sentences, right? Because they're that embarrassing and nonsensical, and undermine any value in the rest of your post.

My first two points were

Religion is essentially "I believe in a sky daddy because I'm ignorant of science."

Theology is even worse, take Islam:

I use the term sky daddy to sound silly intentionally because I'm pointing out how silly the concept of God sounds to those who don't believe. At one point I did believe but after years and years of no answers and years and years of no reason to need that belief I dropped it. God, at least in Christianity is literally a father in the heavens, who should care about you, love you, welcome you home but then for some reason drown you in a flood and get mad at you for sinning because he created sin, it's ridiculous.

On my second sentence, I'm not backing down from Religious Theology, it doesn't matter which one you pick, I could of said Christianity, Mormonism, Scientology, FSM, Pink Unicorn, Bacon, Church of the Dude or anything really, I could of invented one on the spot. All religious theologies make claims they can't back up and won't back up, for instance I want a Christian to show me the Garden of Eden, or I want a Muslim to show me the magic horse Muhammad rode to heaven, or the Gold Plates, I mean It's perfectly fair for me as a non believer to ask a person of faith to show me the relics of there faith.

Someone who mocks religion with "sky daddy" is not lacking belief. He has a strong belief that no gods exist, such that he thinks those who believe in god are foolish and deserve ridicule.

This is a theology on the nature of god (does not exist!) and man's proper relationship to that understanding (mock the believer!).

I absolutely mock believers because they look like adults yet hold security blankets. I don't need to assure myself that I'm going to some mythical, magical, wonderful, home in the clouds for ever. The universe doesn't need to care about me and a possible creator doesn't need to care about me. I do have a strong belief that God doesn't exist because I've seen exactly 0 reasons to think otherwise. Even Christianity have exactly zero redeeming reasons to believe, to the point that the existence of Jesus is in question!

It's not ignorant. The belief in the nature of god comes before the religious practice.

"God is the universe, so clear mind and meditate to become one with nature."

"Gods are a group of squabbling deities, so sacrifice to them all and hope to not anger them."

"God is a single person, so worship him alone"

This comes with the problem of having to define the "God" or "Gods" you believe in, which plays into my mockery, I mean if a Christian says only one God exists, then a Hindu can tell me multiple Gods who come from one exist, I want to see them back that up with proof, which they never can. You could also claim God is the Universe but in that case, this is not what I'm talking about. I don't believe in meditation and I don't believe in oneness. Once you can extract God to a concept such as the universe then you can just flip it to what ever you want. God is the bottle of coke I'm drinking well I type this, or God is the box of cookies on my desk, at that point it doesn't stop.

You do not need to believe in the Christian God to understand and accept that the Bible claims that God exists and is an intelligent creator, and that this the book is the basis of Christian theology. You do not believe the Christian religion yet you described Christia

Re:Finally

[SillyHamster]

The one thing I'll start off with, is we both have strong opinions on each side, which is a good thing as it generally shows intelligence, and to clarify, I'm not taking any attack at you personally, as this thread has gone on for some time, just want to make that clear ;-).

Strong opinions are not a show of intelligence. A diehard fan cheering for the Patriots, or Year of Linux, or Xbox, is not showing any great intelligence. Intelligence is measured by clarity of thought and speech, not passion.

I wouldn't take any attack from you personally anyways, but I thank you for the thought.

"Religion is essentially 'I believe in a sky daddy because I'm ignorant of science.'"

I use the term sky daddy to sound silly intentionally because I'm pointing out how silly the concept of God sounds to those who don't believe.

Mocking a serious topic does not demonstrate intelligence. It's a rhetorical attack appealing to the emotions instead of a rational attack appealing to the mind.

"Theology is even worse, take Islam:"

On my second sentence, I'm not backing down from Religious Theology, it doesn't matter which one you pick, I could of said Christianity, Mormonism, Scientology, FSM, Pink Unicorn, Bacon, Church of the Dude or anything really, I could of invented one on the spot.

I have asked you twice to clarify what you mean with this "religious theology", and you have yet to provide an answer.

Combined with your regular use of rhetoric and constant appeals to your own personal experience ... I'm guessing you don't have a rational answer.

You say theology is worse than religion.

Theology is not a subset of religion. Theology is an integral part of any religion. When the basic meanings of your words are different than the common definitions, what you think you are saying and what you are communicating are different things.

Green sounds cat lace.

This comes with the problem of having to define the "God" or "Gods" you believe in,

You seem unable to differentiate between describing a belief accurately and believing said belief.

As an Atheist I can't decide to not pay my taxes because it's my belief, so why can a church?

So you want to be treated like a religion? But yours is not a religion?

You are confused.

Re:Finally

[werepants]

I'm probably going to regret engaging with a troll, but here goes:

Religious people are, on average, happier and healthier. This is supported by science. Participation in a religious community of any kind confers many significant benefits that are well supported in the scientific literature. So, it is not only rational to be involved, it is arguably irrational to abstain!

No, I'm not saying everyone should become religious. What I am saying is that a rational actor is someone who evaluates the impact of an activity on personal happiness and well-being, and continues to engage in those activities that increase personal happiness and well-being. A huge part of religion (of any kind, I'd warrant) can be appreciated with no belief whatsoever. Take an edict like "First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye" - this is a call to self-skepticism and forgiveness of the faults of others, which is a useful and beneficial message regardless of how you assess the reality attribute of the person who is recorded as saying it. I tend to value any activity that helps motivate me to be a more thoughtful/kinder/more honest version of myself, and religion regularly does that.

It is easy to ridicule an absurd strawman (I believe in a sky daddy because I'm ignorant of science), but it would be much more *rational* of you to realize that it provides meaning and value to the people who engage in it, and that perhaps there are reasons (hint: nobody REALLY goes to church because of fear of hellfire anymore) that all successful human cultures across history have accompanying religious traditions.

Re:Finally

[micahraleigh]

So you have a framework: science.

Let's say you observe the natural phenomenon that flashy electronics seem very desirable (confirmed by sensors in your head!). Posit that you don't have enough money for a piece of electronics and hypothesize that, yes, you can steal electronics and get away with it.

To test out your hypothesis you examine newspaper and police reports and on the basis of these break in reports determine that it is possible to steal electronics and get away with it. And this observation is repeatable (and thereby scientific).

Sometimes people get caught, and sometimes they don't, but suppose you learn that those who do get away with it consistently apply certain characteristics (more sub-hypotheses).

So let's say you dig a little deeper and identify the people who successfully stole electronics and conduct some monitoring of them.

They are breathing. Their hearts are still beating. They seem (on the surface, because that's the realm of science) to be doing just fine.

You are not able to (scientifically) detect that they are dealing with any kind of remorse. You don't detect they are trying to run away from having to understand their own actions. You don't detect their despair or lack of self-awareness or dred.

Or another example. By making scientific (and very sketchy) observations you can determine which females are healthy and functionally capable of breeding well. That's not going to tell you anything about any individual person you observe. Only their bodies.

So science can tell you practical things, but there is nothing inspiring about it. Certainly it cannot tell you who you are or what is important to you. If you elevate science over love, morality, religion, etc. you are really going to live on the surface and let life pass you by.

Re:Finally

[Murdoch5]

If you asked me clarify religious theology, I missed that, so to be blunt, religious theology is just clarifying what "field" of theology I'm talking about, it's the theology of religion or Christianity, Islam, Mormonism, FSM and etc..

I mis-type'd again, I should not of said strong opinions as much as strong targeted opinions about important issues. Obviously having a strong opinion about an Xbox vs PS3 doesn't make you intelligent, but being about to argue opinions about the very nature of God, well I personally think that does.

Mocking a serious topic does not demonstrate intelligence. It's a rhetorical attack appealing to the emotions instead of a rational attack appealing to the mind.

It's not really a rhetorical attack:

1. (in Christianity and other monotheistic religions) the creator and ruler of the universe and source of all moral authority; the supreme being. synonyms: the Lord, the Almighty, the Creator, the Maker, the Godhead; More
2. (in certain other religions) a superhuman being or spirit worshipped as having power over nature or human fortunes; a deity.

The entire concept behind God is that something started the universe and rules over it, except that no one has ever shown any evidence pointing towards this thing, so it's a rather pointless and empty idea. If you were able to show me evidence for the existence of God then I wouldn't mock you, but you can't, no one has ever shown evidence, however I'm not close minded, so you or anyone is welcome to try!

I'm not changing the definition at all, I'm taking it at face value, I'll post it again to explain:

Theology: the study of the nature of God and religious belief.

The definition contains religion, so you need to define it first, which turns the full / proper definition into:

Theology: the study of the nature of God and the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.

, Hence you apply theology after you already believe in God. It's printed right on the screen, but clearly we disagree on this point.

My point about not getting tax relief because of atheism is that we allow people who believe in a sky daddy to give money to a body who worships it and that body doesn't pay taxes, so why can't I say I believe in the power of purple cheese, sing some made up crap to it, spin around 3 times slowly and then not pay taxes either, it's the same concept.

Anyway if we're not going to agree, we may as well move past this thread, but at least it's been interesting.

Re:Finally

[SillyHamster]

If you asked me clarify religious theology, I missed that, so to be blunt, religious theology is just clarifying what "field" of theology I'm talking about, it's the theology of religion or Christianity, Islam, Mormonism, FSM and etc..

Okay. You earlier said that it was clear that you were talking about religious theology, as opposed to theology in general.

What is a non-religious theology?

I use the term sky daddy to sound silly intentionally because I'm pointing out how silly the concept of God sounds to those who don't believe.

It's not really a rhetorical attack:

Reason doesn't deal with silly and non-silly. It deals with true or false. Using terms like "sky-daddy" is mockery, which is rhetorical, as opposed to dialectical. You are trying to trigger an emotional reaction instead of a logical one.

It's a rhetorical attack. Own it.

Hence you apply theology after you already believe in God. It's printed right on the screen, but clearly we disagree on this point.

You can study theology without believing in the god of that theology, you idiot.

A believer has to have at least some crude concept of who/what god is in order to believe in said god. That crude conception is a theology. Theological study sharpens that conception ... but the conception must come before belief. Can't believe in something you don't know.

Anyway if we're not going to agree, we may as well move past this thread, but at least it's been interesting.

I'm not replying to you because I think you'll change your mind and agree with me.

It's because you're wrong, and I derive entertainment from correction. (Nerd, go figure)

It'd be nice if you changed your mind... but I don't expect reason from atheists.

Re:Finally

[Murdoch5]

I'm probably going to regret engaging with a troll, but here goes:

Religious people are, on average, happier and healthier. This is supported by science. Participation in a religious community of any kind confers many significant benefits that are well supported in the scientific literature. So, it is not only rational to be involved, it is arguably irrational to abstain!

No, I'm not saying everyone should become religious. What I am saying is that a rational actor is someone who evaluates the impact of an activity on personal happiness and well-being, and continues to engage in those activities that increase personal happiness and well-being. A huge part of religion (of any kind, I'd warrant) can be appreciated with no belief whatsoever. Take an edict like "First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye" - this is a call to self-skepticism and forgiveness of the faults of others, which is a useful and beneficial message regardless of how you assess the reality attribute of the person who is recorded as saying it. I tend to value any activity that helps motivate me to be a more thoughtful/kinder/more honest version of myself, and religion regularly does that.

It is easy to ridicule an absurd strawman (I believe in a sky daddy because I'm ignorant of science), but it would be much more *rational* of you to realize that it provides meaning and value to the people who engage in it, and that perhaps there are reasons (hint: nobody REALLY goes to church because of fear of hellfire anymore) that all successful human cultures across history have accompanying religious traditions.

Religious people are, on average, happier and healthier.

This is completely false, you can't make this claim and defend it in anyway shape or form. Having a belief in God might make some people extreme happy and a belief that God doesn't exist will make others happy. On the healthier note, you also have that wrong. There has been zero correlation between health and religion. Well some Christians might live to be 105 years old, some atheists will also live to be 105 years old, the fact that one worships a child molester in the sky and the other doesn't, doesn't lead towards health, just as Christian dying at 20 years old and an atheist dying at 100 doesn't show the opposite.

No, I'm not saying everyone should become religious. What I am saying is that a rational actor is someone who evaluates the impact of an activity on personal happiness and well-being, and continues to engage in those activities that increase personal happiness and well-being

This contradicts your first point, as it might make me happier ( and it does ), to be an Atheist and it might make you happier to be a Christian, so if we sustain in our own areas of belief, then we will both see a correlation between mood and our actives.

A huge part of religion (of any kind, I'd warrant) can be appreciated with no belief whatsoever. Take an edict like "First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye" - this is a call to self-skepticism and forgiveness of the faults of others, which is a useful and beneficial message regardless of how you assess the reality attribute of the person who is recorded as saying it. I tend to value any activity that helps motivate me to be a more thoughtful/kinder/more honest version of myself, and religion regularly does that.

This also falls against your very first point, that religion helps you, but it helping you doesn't help me. In fact many people find religion is the exact opposite of thoughtful /kind and honest because so many of the holy texts are filled with absolutely gut wrenching filth and hate. It's a fact that the OT in The Bible, God tells man he can rape ltitle girls, and to show I'm not joking or making that up, c

Re:Finally

[Murdoch5]

This is going nowhere, I've been nice and tried to talk common sense but like a typical religious believer you've failed to grasp even simple concepts. I'm sure your God will explain it to you, but he'll have to exist first.

Re:Finally

[Murdoch5]

What was your point? You setup some weak hypothesis and then you tested them and got an answer, which is exactly what science does, it is a testing framework. However you make the hypothesis more exacting, you incompass more detail and you can answer bigger questions, such as "Where did the universe come from."

If you can find out how the universe came to exist and never once have to use the God excuse, then you start writing him off more and more. You can get to the point where there is no valid reason to believe in God and well that doesn't prove he doesn't exist, it makes no reason to believe in him, Welcome to modern science :-) God is dead, grow up!

Re:Finally

[SillyHamster]

I've been nice

Insulting religious people everywhere by mocking their religion is not nice.

And mockery of god and religion is exactly what you intended. Delusional much?

but like a typical religious believer you've failed to grasp even simple concepts.

I'm not the one who has problems understanding the relationship between theology and religion.

Re:Finally

[buddyglass]

Ergo religion is the result of irrationality and not "ignorance of science" like the original poster suggested.

Re:Finally

[Murdoch5]

I don't have a problem understanding the difference. You can't mock something who's basis rests on the ideals of childish, bronze age, superstition, which you kept to make sure the sun came up the next morning.

To your other point mentioned before, yes you can study anyone's theology such as Islam, FSM or Mormonism, but if you don't believe in God then you're just reading fairly tales and even if you do believe in God, you're still reading fairly tales.

I've studied Islam, Christianity, Mormonism, FSM, Pink Unicorn, Bacon and even made my own religion, trust my, they're all the same, at least FSM, Bacon, Unicorn and Docmur ( Mine), are funny and show the true stupidity of religious beliefs.

I didn't become an Atheist because and shed off the false beliefs because religion made sense, I did it because I finally noticed no one had answers, evidence, proof or any bleeping clue what reality was.

Re:Finally

[SillyHamster]

You can't mock something who's basis rests on the ideals of childish, bronze age, superstition, which you kept to make sure the sun came up the next morning.

So you're so deluded that you think you're being nice as you mock religions by calling them superstitious, childish, and so on.

It doesn't count as mocking ... because the target of your mockery is worty of mockery. Where in the definition of "mockery" is that condition listed?

I've studied Islam, Christianity, Mormonism, FSM, Pink Unicorn, Bacon and even made my own religion, trust my, they're all the same, at least FSM, Bacon, Unicorn and Docmur ( Mine), are funny and show the true stupidity of religious beliefs.

Having an understanding *is* theology. It's possible to understand things you don't like.

And even here, you can't stop mocking religion by bringing up things like Spaghetti Monsters and Unicorns. So "nice".

You want two contradictory things - you want to call religion so irrational that even trying to understand it is a waste of time ... yet you also want the prestige of understanding something so thoroughly you can refute it.

You logically can't take both of those positions simultaneously .. and yet here you are, claiming a logically self-contradicting position.

I didn't become an Atheist because and shed off the false beliefs because religion made sense, I did it because I finally noticed no one had answers, evidence, proof or any bleeping clue what reality was.

You're an embarassment to any atheist who claims rationality.

Re:Finally

[Murdoch5]

If you don't want your religious belief to be mocked that back it up, start with proving the existence of God, or at least creating good enough reasons why he should exist and then work out from there. I will literally give you $1000 if you can come up with a single reason why God should exist that I can't rebut.

Re:Finally

[micahraleigh]

"However you make the hypothesis more exacting, you incompass more detail and you can answer bigger questions"

I concede you can answer *BIG* questions (or, as Dr. Hume would correct me), you would *SEEM* to be able to answer bigger questions. But a bigger question does not necessarily make for a better question.

Suppose you could confirm 2000 people around the world die every second. That could seem like a big answer ... but what can you infer from this about when you are going to die personally? You are *only* one guy, so this is a *SMALLER* question. But is it less significant to you? The same could be said about how many people get married everyday, or how many people have babies every day.

Anyway, back to Hume. Hume is not trying to motivate you into the arms of Jesus (I'll take you understand this and not belabor it) like I am, but he understood that science doesn't really prove anything at the end of the day. Science just says what is probable based on past observations. If that is what you prefer to hang the final moments of your life on (which could be 10 years from now or today for all you or I know) then that is your prerogative.

Science isn't giving you any kind of Cartesian certainty about anything. Any it certainly can't explain what is meaningful to you. (Even as far as appearances go, you can't reproduce ameoba's transitioning into primates, and -even if you could- you didn't necessarily reproduce the exact path of their origin).

So call it an excuse or whatever you please, but at the end of the day you are condemned (to use a different athiest's word) to decide how you are going to live your life and how you believe the universe originated.

Re:Finally

[Murdoch5]

You sound like a high school student who is 1/2 way through his / her first philosophy course. If you want to live in a bubble and deny that science can answer anything, then go ahead, except its a highly irrational view point to take. What you're trying to accomplish is to give me a work around for why you don't have to answer why there is a God but merely invalidate the question. Technically we can't prove anything, there is nothing you can say about anything when you break it all down, however, we don't live in a philosophy classroom, we live in the real world, and the real world makes testable, objectionable, observations about reality. So your point is you can't prove anything, so don't try and God exists? I need more on your rationality here.

Re:Finally

[SillyHamster]

If you don't want your religious belief to be mocked that back it up

You don't understand - I'm not upset that you believe the things you do; I'm surprised (well, a little bit) that it's so stupid.

I don't care if you mock my religious beliefs. You've demonstrated that your atheism is so intellectually vapid that it can only mock; it is incapable of a rational anti-theist position. If it doesn't have any intellectual substance, I don't care what it says about my beliefs.

Didn't your Christian upbringing teach you that it's better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt?

if you can come up with a single reason why God should exist that I can't rebut.

Why are you looking for reasons that God should exist? God either exists or he does not, whether or not he should exist is irrelevant to that question of fact.

Re:Finally

[werepants]

There has been zero correlation between health and religion.

False. A study in the 1996 (Kark et al.) has found that death rates for 3900 Israelis in religious and non-religious settlements over a period of 16 years were lower in religious communities.

Also: Church attendance has been found to increase life expectancy (Hummer et al. 1999) with a life expectancy at age 20 of 83 years for frequent attendees and 75 years for non-attendees.
I could do this all day, it is well established in the literature.

This contradicts your first point, as it might make me happier ( and it does ), to be an Atheist and it might make you happier to be a Christian, so if we sustain in our own areas of belief, then we will both see a correlation between mood and our actives.

That has nothing to do with my first point. If you want to be an atheist and find that works for you, go for it. But don't pretend that there isn't the possibility that Christianity has a positive impact on its practitioners, such that it is *entirely reasonable* to continue engaging in it, at least from a cost-benefit perspective.

It's a fact that the OT in The Bible, God tells man he can rape ltitle girls, and to show I'm not joking or making that up, check out this verse: Judges 21:10-24 NLT.

Reading comprehension: try it.

There are plenty of ethically troubling commands by the Old Testament God, but this isn't one of them. This is a group of tribal elders telling some people in the tribe to go kidnap women to be their wives. Yes, it is a bad thing, but nowhere is "little girls" implied, and it is explicitly *not* a command from God.

Finally, to sum this all up, there is no good reason to believe in religion, there is no good reason to believe in God, believing in an unproven, non-existent being who created the universe, wants to punish you, demands you give money other is not rational. Religion is now the security blanket of the adult who is to scared and worried to grow up and venture into reality.

In all areas you have completely failed to recognize the actual meaning of the words in front of you. Because, my assessment was that *belief* isn't the only thing defining rational behavior - it also matters what the impact on your life is. There are criticisms of religion to be made, but you've managed to completely avoid the good ones - all you're doing is manufacturing weak strawman arguments.

Re:Finally

[Murdoch5]

Please share with my the good reasons to believe in God and then the good reasons to believe in Islam, Christianity, Mormonism or what ever sect you prefer to pick.

Also you are 100% wrong on the health stats, because in every single double blind study ever preformed, religious dogmatism has never been shown to impact health, also in every single double blind study of prayer, there have been 0 benefits. There has never been a discernible, quantifiable statistic taken, that those without religious faith live shorter lives. My grandfather was deeply religious and yet he died before my other grandfather who is an atheist, and well that is completely anecdotal evidence, it rejects your facts. As I already stated, some Atheists will live longer then believers and some believers will live longer then Atheists, but that doesn't give credit to fact religious faith allows you to live long, it only means some people live longer then others. To do this test properly, you'd have to take at least 5000 religious believers and 5000 atheist, you'd have to lock them in separate rooms, one person to a room, take way all religious instruments and have at least 4750 Atheists die before believes. Then and only then would you be able to draw a conclusion, of course after running this test multiple times in parallel.

Some people are very happy to close there eyes and blindly worship without considering the facts, if that makes them happy or delivers a "cost-benefit" as you put it, then great. Some people are very engaged and calmed believing that a God cares for them, although I would argue that this shows a deep and disturbed need for attention, which could be better treated with medication then feeding the delusion. However if you like to worship the Christian God, or any God, the cool and go for it, just keep it in private and make sure that church pays taxes.

Now to break down the actual verse I posted, because you got it just a little wrong.

So they sent twelve thousand warriors to Jabesh-gilead with orders to kill everyone there, including women and children. "This is what you are to do," they said. "Completely destroy all the males and every woman who is not a virgin." Among the residents of Jabesh-gilead they found four hundred young virgins who had never slept with a man, and they brought them to the camp at Shiloh in the land of Canaan.

The Israelite assembly sent a peace delegation to the little remnant of Benjamin who were living at the rock of Rimmon. Then the men of Benjamin returned to their homes, and the four hundred women of Jabesh-gilead who were spared were given to them as wives. But there were not enough women for all of them. The people felt sorry for Benjamin because the LORD had left this gap in the tribes of Israel. So the Israelite leaders asked, "How can we find wives for the few who remain, since all the women of the tribe of Benjamin are dead? There must be heirs for the survivors so that an entire tribe of Israel will not be lost forever. But we cannot give them our own daughters in marriage because we have sworn with a solemn oath that anyone who does this will fall under God's curse."

Then they thought of the annual festival of the LORD held in Shiloh, between Lebonah and Bethel, along the east side of the road that goes from Bethel to Shechem. They told the men of Benjamin who still needed wives, "Go and hide in the vineyards. When the women of Shiloh come out for their dances, rush out from the vineyards, and each of you can take one of them home to be your wife! And when their fathers and brothers come to us in protest, we will tell them, 'Please be understanding. Let them have your daughters, for we didn't find enough wives for them when we destroyed Jabesh-gilead. And you are not guilty of breaking the vow since you did not give your daughters in marriage to them.'" So the men of Benjamin did as they were told. They kidnapped the women who took part in the celebration and carried them off to the land o

Re:Finally

[Murdoch5]

Actually your last point is wrong, God doesn't exist until shown otherwise and it's amazing that no one has ever been able to show otherwise. If you multiple all the evidence for God by a million, you're still left with nothing.

Re:Finally

[SillyHamster]

Actually your last point is wrong, God doesn't exist until shown otherwise and it's amazing that no one has ever been able to show otherwise. If you multiple all the evidence for God by a million, you're still left with nothing.

God's existence isn't contingent upon whether or not he "should" exist.

Whether or not mosquitos should exist (hate those bloodsuckers), they do - as can be plainly observed.

God's existence is pretty obvious ... and your inability to see that is due to your inept philosophy rather than his actual non-existence.

Re:Finally

[Murdoch5]

You're never going to listen to reason or logic, you've assumed Gods existence and can't provide any logical defenses for it. I've got to the root the problem, like many, you just assume God exists and have no reasons to back it. This is why you don't want me touching your theology because you know it's weaker then a house of card in the wind. It's only luck it's stayed up this long.

1. If God exists who created him?
2. If God exists why did he wait until 2000 years ago to interject into humanity?
3. If God exist why don't the different religions agree on it's nature?
4. If God exists why doesn't he answer prayer? It's been busted every single double blind study
5. If God exists why does he let suffering plague us?
6. If God exists why doesn't he fund his own church?
7. If God exists why didn't he stop Mother Teresa and her run of terror?

I can keep going, but a believe should be able to answer all these questions.

Re:Finally

[SillyHamster]

you've assumed Gods existence and can't provide any logical defenses for it.

No, I have not assumed God's existence. I have yet to even present a case for why I believe what I believe. Add that to your list of obviously wrong statements.

My focus here has been pointing out your wrong assertions... and rather than acknowledge errors and correct ... you double down and scream louder that God does not exist, because not proven.

Pathetic. A philosophy that is incapable of correcting obvious errors has no insight to offer on the topic of theology.

I can keep going, but a believe should be able to answer all these questions.

I agree that a believer should be able to answer all those questions.

Too bad such a set of rational answers would be wasted on you.

Re:Finally

[Murdoch5]

Too bad such a set of rational answers would be wasted on you

In other words you can't and want an excuse.

Re:Finally

[SillyHamster]

In other words you can't and want an excuse.

Don't need an excuse. Your delusions about "nice" and "rational" are reason enough.

Re:Finally

[Murdoch5]

Fine then I have one question will help me judge if you have any rationality.

Was Mother Teresa a good person?

Re:Finally

[SillyHamster]

Sure, why not.

Was Mother Teresa a good person?

Depends on your standard of good.

If you start with her Christian/Catholic religion's definition of good ... "no, not one".

Me, I don't consider my judgement of another's goodness to be useful, so I haven't paid close attention to her life, or that of other historical figures/celebrities.

As far as she sacrificed and successfully helped the poor; those are good acts. If she was not successful in helping the poor, she had good intentions but not good actions; results matter.

Re:Finally

[Murdoch5]

If you don't examine or investigate her work for the poor then on the surface it would seem very nice and loving. However she is responsible for killing millions of people in cold blood and for influencing change in countries which left millions more to suffer, in vile conditions. She was the direct result of children be killed, abandoned, discarded and orphaned. She paired up with crooks to steal money for the church and then gave none of it to the poor. She was literally worse and more evil then Hitler, she made Hitler look like nice guy, which to even be able to make that statement is beyond shocking.

I made a lot of bold claims so now let me defend them!

Her houses of the dying her camps for the sick where instead of being cared for with a decent standard, they were left in conditions that would have been unsuitable for prisoners. Each person in her care was given room no bigger then a cot, was not allowed to move outside that area and was restricted from recieving proper medical attention or even seeing friends / family. Through the horrible miss use of hygienic practices she allowed the spread of disease and caused those who would of got better to get worse. She would deny medical treatment to people who could of easily been treated by a doctor and instead she would let them die a painful death. She this for upwards of a million people, she made a million people suffer needlessly at the her hands and not once did the church step up and tell her to stop. Not once did God tell her to stop and not once did anyone get involved and take her out.

If she would of stopped there, she would already been labelled as one of the most evil humans to ever walk the earth, but she took it future. She used her grasp as a public figure to head to outlaw abortions and birth control. She had entire countries take away the rights of women because she was delusional. She left millions of women in the third world without the ability to get an abortion even after event like rape. She had governments ban birth control lead to the spread of STD's and leaving millions of children homeless and suffering.

Everything she did was evil, even speaking out against homosexuals. She bar none was one of, if not the, most evil humans of all time. She did this all under the eye of the church, who didn't once try to stop her, she was allowed to kill and get away with it and for no real reason. She was not a saint, unless she was the in the most literal sense a saint of the devil.

Any God which wouldn't stop that is no God I want to even acknowledge, and any organization which wouldn't bar that kind of activity and stop it, is no organization I want to be part out. Shocking how people aren't taught the truth, but at least now you know.

Re:Finally

[SillyHamster]

Any God which wouldn't stop that is no God I want to even acknowledge [...]

God doesn't exist because Mother Teresa is worse than Hitler. Interesting. And stupid.

That isn't evidence that God doesn't exist. And if God doesn't exist, you'd have to explain why Good/Evil exist and why we should be judging Teresa on that.

Shocking how people aren't taught the truth, but at least now you know.

No, I don't know. I haven't forgotten all the unnecessary errors you made over the past dozen posts.

You aren't nice, you don't know religion, you don't know theology, you don't know philosophy; I cannot accept anything you say at face value.

Re:Finally

[Murdoch5]

Good / Evil are relative and based on the situation. Good / Evil exist because human interaction exists and what some people consider good, others evil. In general an act is good if the majority of society deems it good, knowing the full truth, and an act is evil is the majority of society deem is evil, knowing the full truth.

That wasn't hard! So how can I judge Mother T, well simple, killing by societies standards is wrong and killing was her business, both directly and indirectly.

Re:Finally

[micahraleigh]

I wasn't trying to say science can't prove anything.

I was saying it can't prove anything meaningful.

Re:Finally

[SillyHamster]

Good / Evil are relative

Then that means that what you judge to be Evil could be Good from someone else's perspective.

In general an act is good if the majority of society deems it good, knowing the full truth, and an act is evil is the majority of society deem is evil, knowing the full truth.

So majority vote on what is Good/Evil ... Assuming that knowing the full truth is always Good ... except that it isn't, because it's relative too if Good/Evil are relative.

Given your own philosophy, there's nothing wrong with Mother Teresa's actions. You just personally object to what she did ... but it's majority vote if it's actually Good/Evil ... And you haven't actually put that up to a vote.

You believe nonsense, all the way down. The fool says in his heart that there is no god. Ever learn that in your Christian Bible studies?

Re:Finally

[Murdoch5]

If you don't find the existence of Quarks meaningful but you can find a "meaning" in God, then you have serious issues.

Re:Finally

[Murdoch5]

Quoting the bible to defend God is like me quoting harry potter to define hogwarts. Grow up.

Re:Finally

[SillyHamster]

You believe nonsense, all the way down. The fool says in his heart that there is no god. Ever learn that in your Christian Bible studies?

Quoting the bible to defend God is like me quoting harry potter to define hogwarts. Grow up.

Foolish atheist. You can't even get the simplest of points.

I quoted the Bible to call you a fool. I don't even need to defend God against your intellectual diarrhea.

Now grow up and get a real philosophy. Even a house of cards has more durability than what you have right now.

Re:Finally

[micahraleigh]

My dad told me I was too superficial when I was a teenager. I didn't understand what he meant until I had a near death experience a couple years later.

What about you? If your time on the earth was quickly running out, would you reach to quickly learn as much as possible about quarks?

Re:Finally

[Murdoch5]

If i had a near death experience, I would be content in knowing that I was never intellectually dishonest with myself, knowing that I amassed as much information as possible that was enriching to my life. I would also not fear death because in the 1 in a trillion trillion trillion chance I ran into God, I'd simply ask him why he avoided placing any real evidence of itself for man.

Re:Finally

[BarbaraHudson]

Of course, you entirely ignore the fact that Mother Theresa couldn't have believed the bible because she had never read it, and you can't believe or disbelieve something you never read (discovered by some of my former fundy friends when they were helping with her visit here).

Re:Finally

[SillyHamster]

Of course, you entirely ignore the fact that Mother Theresa couldn't have believed the bible because she had never read it,

Mother Teresa's beliefs in the Bible are irrelevant to the points made in this discussion. Of course the topic is ignored.

And I do not accept your claim of fact, because you are irrational and cannot describe reality correctly.

and you can't believe or disbelieve something you never read (discovered by some of my former fundy friends when they were helping with her visit here).

So illiterate people cannot believe anything? Wrong, again.

Re:Finally

[Murdoch5]

Okay well:

The Gospel of Andrew: "And God just said to me, anyone who believes in him is an idiot".

There, if you honestly believe in the bible or that God can talk to man, you have to believe I was just given a prophecy and revealed it to man. The problem is believing in God word on earth is that you must accept all words "spoken" by God, it's a joke, just like religious belief

It should be intellectual abuse to being children up in a religious house hold, parents should face jail time for it.

Re:Finally

[SillyHamster]

There, if you honestly believe in the bible or that God can talk to man, you have to believe I was just given a prophecy and revealed it to man.

Idiot. You have no credbility because you're a liar (lied about being "nice"), you're a fool (doesn't understand distinction between religion/theology), and a self-described atheist (doesn't believe in god or the supernatural).

So when you claim you received a revelation, I don't have to believe you.

The problem is believing in God word on earth is that you must accept all words "spoken" by God, it's a joke, just like religious belief

No I don't. For instance, I just rejected your claim of a revelation, "spoken by God".

Did you seriously not see that coming? Religious does not mean gullible, you ignorant fool.

It should be intellectual abuse to being children up in a religious house hold, parents should face jail time for it.

Do you even have a girlfriend, let alone a wife who wants to make babies with you?

Re:Finally

[Murdoch5]

Religious Faith makes you look like an adult holding a security blanket who is to afraid to live. That was a revelation by God, at least the voice said it was God, could of been an alien, or a delusion, doesn't matter, or I could of made it up, you have no way to tell.

Re:Finally

[SillyHamster]

Religious Faith makes you look like an adult holding a security blanket who is to afraid to live.

Considering your religious level of faith in atheism ... that sounds like pure projection.

That was a revelation by God, at least the voice said it was God, could of been an alien, or a delusion, doesn't matter, or I could of made it up, you have no way to tell.

You made it up. That's what the evidence points towards.

Why? Because if you had an actual experience with some god, and wanted to pass on your revelation ... you would not be mocking religious faith as you are doing even now.

You would be humbled, rather than arrogantly accusing.

That you're not even smart enough to see how your lie falls apart is once again a demonstration of how foolish atheist thinking is. You do not understand faith, and so you belittle it, and then make utterly incompetent criticisms of it in ignorance.

Intelligence would be to criticize with knowledge and understanding, you idiot.

Re:Finally

[Murdoch5]

Religion is entire made up, it has no substance and no actual point. Religion is the belief in God / Gods, we've already agreed on that. God is a concept that is irrational, illogical and immature. God is basically a way of saying, "I give up looking for an answer, so I'll be happy to hold my beliefs over science.", That makes you appear to be an adult holding a security blanket. Deal with it. As I've already said, If science gets to the point where it can prove God, I'll jump on board, but it's never there and has never needed to fall back.

Re:Finally

[SillyHamster]

God is basically a way of saying, "I give up looking for an answer, so I'll be happy to hold my beliefs over science."

Oh look, there's your dogmatic recitation of fatih in SCIENCE, again!

I know religion. You have religion. You made SCIENCE your god ... which is utterly inadequate for.

That makes you appear to be an adult holding a security blanket. Deal with it.

You lied to me about getting a revelation from god, I called out the lie, and now you're immediately changing the topic.

Are the words coming out of your mouth your security blanket?

Here, have a lollipop. Go cry yourself to sleep with your blankie, and learn a lesson that faith in atheism and science will not carry you through a rational argument.

Re:Finally

[Murdoch5]

Actually science is not my God because I never gave science supernatural or superhuman powers. How is faith in atheism not a view to live by? Give me some examples on what religion gives you that I don't have and why it's more rsional then what I believe and why.

Re:Finally

[SillyHamster]

Actually science is not my God because I never gave science supernatural or superhuman powers.

God: 2. (in certain other religions) a superhuman being or spirit worshiped as having power over nature or human fortunes; a deity.

How is faith in atheism not a view to live by?

So you live by faith in atheism. But you don't think you have a religion. Heh.

If you are an example of a faithful atheist, I pray to God that I never get that foolish.

Give me some examples on what religion gives you that I don't have and why it's more rsional then what I believe and why.

This entire thread is exactly that.

You don't get it. That you don't get what I'm talking about is part of why your atheism has zero attraction to me. It's a stupid religion for the fools who hate religion (!).

Re:Finally

[Murdoch5]

You still don't get it, for atheism to be a religion it would have to put a God in place to believe in, atheism is the exact opposite of that. Atheism basically asks the question to the theist to prove God exists or give good arguments. The problem is no theist has ever made a good argument for the existent of God. I've thrown the ball in your court, either start doing that or you've shown you don't have any good reason to believe.

Re:Finally

[SillyHamster]

You still don't get it, for atheism to be a religion it would have to put a God in place to believe in,

For that to be true, Buddhism has to not be a religion.

And you'll note that even then, Buddhism variants everywhere have adopted various deities for worship.

What it comes down to is that religion is not actually defined by the object of the worship, it's defined by the practice. And faithful atheists like yourself practice an "Atheism" religion which apes monotheistic religions like Christianity ... badly.

atheism is the exact opposite of that.

Some treat hate as the opposite of love ... but they're still both emotions/actions.

Atheism may be the opposite of theism ... but as practiced, it can still take on a religious flavor, because no matter if god exists or not, man is a religious being.

I've thrown the ball in your court,

You have done nothing of the sort. Your pathetic attempts at arguments do not stand up to scrutiny.

either start doing that or you've shown you don't have any good reason to believe.

Not to be like you is reason enough to believe.

Re:Finally

[Murdoch5]

I've asked you several times to make arguments in the name of God, you've rejected it.

he belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods. "ideas about the relationship between science and religion" synonyms: faith, belief, worship, creed; More a particular system of faith and worship. plural noun: religions "the world's great religions" a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance.

Which point of my atheism fits into those? I've rejected all forms of a supernatural being or God, I've simply asked you as a religious believer to explain some good arguments, which you haven't done. For Atheism to be a religion I would have to assume some form of supernatural entity and then reject it, I haven't, I've simply never assumed one existed in the first place.

Re:Finally

[SillyHamster]

I've asked you several times to make arguments in the name of God, you've rejected it.

Because you don't have the intellectual integrity to handle it.

For example, you lied about getting a divine revelation and it was trivially easy to poke a hole in the claim.

When you think I'm bound by my religion to accept your lies because you added "god" into the sentence ... reasoned arguments are pointless.

If you can get why that was stupid, and then apologize for insulting my intelligence with such nonsense, I will provide an argument for the existence of god for you to critique.

he belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power

Which point of my atheism fits into those?

You believe in science as a superhuman ("above, beyond"-human) source of knowledge, which takes the place of God in the absence of evidence for god.

Like I said, I know religion. I'm seeing it in you. You shouldn't assume that hatred of god and disbelief in god means you escape the religious nature of mankind.

Re:Finally

[Murdoch5]

First of all I absolutely do not give science any power above that of man. Man preforms science to get answers and pose bigger questions. Science is unlocking the answers about how life started and why, but it never assumes anything and it doesn't have the ability to insert magical events. Science can only tell man, what he / she seeks to gain, that's it, science can never be super human so it can never be defined as a religion:

When you think I'm bound by my religion to accept your lies because you added "god" into the sentence ... reasoned arguments are pointless.

If you can get why that was stupid, and then apologize for insulting my intelligence with such nonsense, I will provide an argument for the existence of god for you to critique.

Except that's what God is, it's an insert to prevent from giving an answer or admitting that you don't know something, for instance "God created the universe", gets you out of having to figure out where the universe came from. As another example, "God gave mankind morality", now we're not accountable to create morals. You can keep doing it and keep interjecting God when you don't want to be held responsible for an answer. Yes I made my quote up, but that's all Christianity, Islam, Mormonism and etc... are. Someone sat down, wrote some stuff on paper, claimed God spoke it to them and then it influences millions / billions of people.

You want me to apologize, but for what? Can you honestly think of way to use God in an answer that doesn't scapegoat the question? Now the alternative which I've proposed to many people over the years, is to prove God exists, without using The Bible, or prove The Bible is 100% accurate and then use it to prove God. Once you do that, insert it's name wherever you want.

I don't intend to insult your intelligence in anyway, I would never make a personal attack directly at you as I don't know you. If you felt at anytime I did then I'm sorry, it was intended to come off that way, but I seriously want to hear what ace's you have in your pocket to prove God, Please!.

Re:Finally

[SillyHamster]

First of all I absolutely do not give science any power above that of man. Man preforms science to get answers and pose bigger questions.

Then no man has any obligation to accept what "science" says, which makes your constant appeals to science pointless.

Yet again, your philosophy contradicts itself. You claim one stance, but act against it.

You want me to apologize, but for what?

The following:

The Gospel of Andrew: "And God just said to me, anyone who believes in him is an idiot".

There, if you honestly believe in the bible or that God can talk to man, you have to believe I was just given a prophecy and revealed it to man.

Followed by:

That was a revelation by God, at least the voice said it was God, could of been an alien, or a delusion, doesn't matter, or I could of made it up, you have no way to tell.

This is an insult to my intelligence, regardless of your intentions.

That you're still asking me to "prove God" demonstrates you had no such experience at all ... and yet you expect me to believe your lies just because I believe there is a god? Idiocy, all the way down.

I don't intend to insult your intelligence in anyway, I would never make a personal attack directly at you as I don't know you. If you felt at anytime I did then I'm sorry, it was intended to come off that way, but I seriously want to hear what ace's you have in your pocket to prove God, Please!.

That is not an apology. You claim ignorance and innocent intentions, and then say you're sorry for my feelings, which you are not responsible for.

The facts are that you made up a stupid lie and you expected me to believe it. Apologize for your actions, not for my feelings, and do so without excuses.

Re:Finally

[Murdoch5]

Okay then.

I'm Sorry

Finally

[Murdoch5]

Religion is essentially "I believe in a sky daddy because I'm ignorant of science."

Theology is even worse, take Islam:
"Hi, I'm Muhammad, I can't write, read or preform simple math. I'm totally illiterate, have epilepsy, like to wear diapers on my head and ride unicorns. Let me tell you about Islam where women are objects, female children, much like Christianity, are rape objects and science must be outlawed at all costs, oh and don't think about drawing a picture of me, or someone could kill you"

Christianity:
"Hi, I'm God, I'm a piss poor engineer who has anger issue and love S&M. I put two or one person in a garden, they had children who killed each other, I allowed incest, rape, murder and slavery. I got really pissed off twice, once I wiped out humanity using a fable which no ration human could believe. I then sent my son to die in the greatest sadomasochist grandstanding in history for being mad at my self, oh and remember to give all your money to the church, because I can't and won't ever show myself or preform miracles."

Mormonism is to stupid to even comment on and the same can be done for ALL religions.

So it's a good thing religious belief is falling, it made no sense back in the day and less sense now. You can't call yourself a logical adult human and believe that your sky daddy created the universe and left no evidence, that isn't rational.

Re: News for nerds

[Anonymous Coward]

And how far can you "tell", exactly? If you care about technology and science and rationalism so much maybe you should learn the difference between evidence and anecdotes.

Re:Sad to see

[Eloking]

Sad to see. Christians made America the glory that it is. Non-Christians are destroying it.

Yeah sure, religious state are the most glorious one nowadays. The modern world clearly benefit from them. /sarcasmoff

Re:Slashdot Poll?!?

[antiperimetaparalogo]

This topic just screams out for a Slashdot Poll! What is your religious affiliation?: 1. Something Christian-like [...] 6. "I'm a doctor, Jim, not a religious preacher!"

According to Gallup's 2002 Index of Leading Religious Indicators, 88% of those with postgraduate degrees believe in God.

Re:"Social Justice" should be considered a religio

[sectokia]

I was surprised to see that all double blind tests are now showing liberals as more racist than conservatives. The average liberal now has a default "affirmative action" position and is racist against white people. This has been confirmed over and over again in studies, one even showed that liberals are far more likely to sacrifice a white person to save multiple black people than they are the other way around. So we gave truely crossed into delusional type unlogical thinking in politics as well.

Re:Diversity

[Anonymous Coward]

This make sense. Diversity mean 'less whites' after all.

Being comfortable around crazy

[sjbe]

maybe the relig-a-phobes will calm down now.

Turn on the evening news tonight. Tell me how many stories you hear that at their core is some form of religious fighting or tribal bigotry. Israel/Palestine. Shiite/Sunni. Most acts of terrorism. Gay bashing. Anti-abortion protests. So called religious restoration acts (actually bigotry in disguise). Child abuse by priests. Oppression of women. It goes on and on. Tribal warfare, bigotry, hatred. While you don't need religion for these things, there can be no argument that religion frequently exaggerates these conflicts.

Would you be comfortable around a group of people who greatly outnumber you and who base a big part of their world view on something so fundamentally irrational and tribal and many of whom have a demonstrated propensity for violence?

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[CastrTroy]

I think that most religions are good and that very few of them condone these acts. It's just that you won't see it on the evening news. Because it's not exciting. I go to a baptist church, and I cringe that the Westboro Baptist Church uses the name "Baptist". It's basically the complete opposite of what they teach at my church. Everybody I have met there is very accepting of and they don't judge people. It's a nice change from the Catholic church I grew up in. They make a huge effort to apply the teachings in the bible to how to live your life as a better person. While I don't think that religion is required to be a good person, I think there are plenty of churches out there helping people to be better people in all aspects of life.

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[NotDrWho]

The war in the Middle East has grown way beyond a religious conflict.

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[RabidReindeer]

I've never heard of mass killing done in the name of science, no.

In the name of ideology, sometimes, but then again, ideology is often hard to distinguish from religion to begin with.

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[RabidReindeer]

A lot of "religious wars" never actually were religious wars. Religion was merely used to "justify" them.

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you miss WWII, the Russian revolution or the Chinese revolution?

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[dargaud]

But then if you have to use another justification, would it be as efficient at starting a war ? I say not.

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[Mr D from 63]

Check out the Nazi medical experimentation for starters.

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[AthanasiusKircher]

While you don't need religion for these things, there can be no argument that religion frequently exaggerates these conflicts.

But is it religion per se, or is it the "tribalism" in general (which you later reference). Religion is just one way of defining who's "in my group," and it's a very, very old and common one. But that doesn't mean by getting rid of religion, we'll get rid of tribalism.

Religion is just as often used as an excuse for warfare or conquest that people in power already want to do anyway. It's an ideological way of rallying the people at times, but there are plenty of other possible ideologies one could use for the same purpose.

Look at the biggest killers in the past century -- Hitler, Stalin, Chairman Mao, etc. They didn't need religion to justify their atrocities, and in fact many such figures have eschewed traditional religion (probably because megalomaniacs want a "cult of themselves" rather than implicitly acknowledging a "higher power").

You're right to be afraid of people who are "so fundamentally irrational and tribal and many of whom have a demonstrated propensity for violence," but both religious nuts and atheist nuts can demonstrate those features. Significant numbers of religious people in the world have activity tried to stop wars, to seek peace, to end bigotry, and to seek justice. Many of the civil rights causes that fought against bigotry and led to modern rights were done partly in the name of religion, too. That doesn't mean religion is all good, either -- it just means that it's an ideology, and like all ideologies it can be used for good or for evil, for rational or irrational purposes.

I'm not at all trying to defend religious nuts. But the reality is that there are nuts everywhere. And you, like many people who have bought into their own ideologies and beliefs, have lumped all religious people into one category. Ironic, isn't it? You accuse people of bigotry and irrational tribalism, when your arguments do precisely the same thing.

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[sjbe]

The war in the Middle East has grown way beyond a religious conflict.

No it hasn't. Almost all the conflicts there are basically tribal conflicts and those tribes have their roots in religion. It's not solely about religion but that is the core of it.

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[khallow]

I've never heard of mass killing done in the name of science, no.

There's also the Belgium Free Congo State and the eugenics movement. And I think it's only a matter of time before some environmentalist themed group decides to try involuntary population reduction on people they don't like.

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[PopeRatzo]

I think that most religions are good and that very few of them condone these acts.

Even though I'm not religious, a surprising number of the religious people I've met are really first-rate human beings. But none of them are what you would call "zealots".

Maybe that's the problem: zealotry. Every one of us has to come to some accommodation with death, moral questions, and the randomness of the universe. If a myth helps you then I actually think that's kind of a beautiful way to go. If you believe that your myth now has to be reflected in society and the world around you, and you act on that belief in any other way than simply showing yourself as an example, then we have a problem.

I kind of like the fact that people react differently to the Big Questions.

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[Red Herring]

Try desert. I hear yellowcake works pretty well to justify wars.

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[BitZtream]

While you don't need religion for these things, there can be no argument that religion frequently exaggerates these conflicts.

Ugm, there most certainly is an argument. Those people fighting aren't doing it BECAUSE of religion. They just do it in the NAME of religion. Entirely different.

They could all be the same religion, be it muslim, atheist or christian, and they'd still be fighting.

It has a whole hell of a lot to do with who has what resources, and nothing to do with actual religion. Religion is just the excuse used to justify their actions, which is why the people doing these killing have completely nut job interpretations of the religion they're part of.

If you think that this stuff happens BECAUSE of religion then you have absolutely no understanding of how humans work. You're doing the old correlation == causation bug.

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[phantomfive]

Probably. Thucydides pointed out that there are three causes of war: fear, greed, and ideology. If religion is gone, then you've eliminated part of one aspect of those, but there even plenty of other ideologies when people aren't tolerant. Was the US civil war about religion? Was WW2 (supremacy of the Aryan race)? Was Vietnam about religion? Was the recent Lybian war about religion?

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[Anonymous Coward]

There's also the Belgium Free Congo State and the eugenics movement.

Those, along with the usually mentioned examples of Communism or what the Nazis did, are killings in the name of power, not science.

Science is a discipline and method to gain knowledge. It doesn't tell you what to do with the knowledge you've gained, or whether you "should" do something with it

Science could teach you what it takes to create a very deadly plague. Science doesn't tell you whether you should go ahead and create it, and who to use it on. That's ethics and morals

Belgium Free State and eugenics are not blemishes on science. It is a blemish on the ethics and morals (lack thereof) of the men involved.

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[jacksdl]

The "moderate" religious folks all carefully choose which parts of their holy writings to emphasize. But don't ignore the fact the Abraham, a guy Judaism, Christianity and Islam all revere, had to pass the test of being willing to kill his child if God wanted him to. Not a club I want to join.

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[angel'o'sphere]

The oldest reports about mass killings in the name of science are Chinese "deep" acupuncture experiments done on war prisoners where thousands died.

Also I suggest to read up who "Mengle" is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J...

In the name of ideology, sometimes, but then again, ideology is often hard to distinguish from religion to begin with.

True, but is that not the same anyway? Ideology based on religion? Well, you could argue that there exist non religious ideologies.

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[ADRA]

Well, Sunni's and Shiites are also largely ethnic in nature as well as religious, so its arguable if that would matter. The same with Israel and Palestinians, but realistically, England wouldn't have cared about a displaced ethnic group (see gypsys) so they never would've repartiated their lands after WW2.

As for the territorial / violence, etc.. Its nothing at all to do with Religion. As another commented posted, the ingroup/outgroup dynamic is a lot stronger when there's a clear selection bias (skin / religion / socio-economic / 'birth caste' / left-handed / (wo-)man).

Of course the best solution is to educate people and hope that their own affirmed hypocracy guilts them into changing their opinions, or at least shutting their mouths from perpetuating the bias.

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[Copid]

People do bad things for all sorts of reasons. It doesn't follow that doing away with one of the reasons to do bad things isn't an improvemenet. I mean, smoking causes cancer, but it doesn't cause all cancer. Do we need to clean up all of the other problems before we suggest that maybe smoking isn't a net win?

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[Mr D from 63]

Lets do away with fire then. People have done bad things with fire.

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[CastrTroy]

Zealotry is probably the main issue. By and large, sports fans aren't that bad of people. But it doesn't take much searching to find evidence of riots and destruction from hard core sports fans, or people using sports as excuse to be terrible people.

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[Copid]

Because cost/benefit analysis is not a thing, right?

The bottom line is that religion gives people nonsensical reasons to do stuff. Sometimes that stuff is good and sometimes that stuff is bad, but the result is arrived at more or less randomly. Your god says we should treat each other nicely and my god says that we should kill the left-handed. Bad luck for left-handed people. We can cross our fingers and hope it's more good than bad, or we can all just take a step back and say, "Let's do stuff for reasons and not because an imaginary friend told us to do stuff." It's likely to produce much better results that are much more concordant with reality.

We've been moving in that direction for a long time as we've moved away from harsh literal interpretations of religious texts and started mixing them with observed reality and coming up with more nuanced and metaphorical interpretations. Essentially, we're making faith "better" by having slightly less of it and making more and more of our decisions based on what we observe in the real world. I applaud this process and think we should take it to its logical conclusion as quickly as possible.

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[Mr D from 63]

Because cost/benefit analysis is not a thing, right?

Actually, I was just showing an oversimplified example/reasoning, in response to your oversimplified reasoning/example. Neither apply, as the construct of religion in our society today and historically is very complex. Both our examples were laughable.

Your god says we should treat each other nicely and my god says that we should kill the left-handed.

Another oversimplification. (BTW, I am not religious). You are doing what I see quite often. "I have rationalized that there is no god, therefore I am smarter than those who haven't and we're better off without religion". You completely oversimplify things, ignoring the role religion has played in our societal development and not even attempting to think why the balance shifts as it does between religion and secular. Not to mention ignoring many examples of religious based societies being also the ones that have advanced technologically, despite the conflict between dogma and science. And then you ignore very modern examples of how societies that suppress religion suffer and those that support religious freedom flourish.

I applaud this process and think we should take it to its logical conclusion as quickly as possible.

You are looking at religion as the fundamental cause of things you don't like in the world. I see the shift as more of a barometer of how ready we are let it move even more. North Korea suppresses religion, and I don't like what they put in its place. Be patient and be tolerant. Maybe even try to appreciate some things that religion brings to society as well. How about some awesome music!

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[swillden]

Look at the biggest killers in the past century -- Hitler, Stalin, Chairman Mao, etc.

Not just the last century, either. In terms of percentage of humanity extinguished, the biggest killer of all time was Genghis Khan. He was religious (Animist), but his aggression had nothing to do with religion and he was very tolerant of religious differences in the peoples he conquered. Assuming there were any left.

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[Copid]

You are doing what I see quite often. "I have rationalized that there is no god, therefore I am smarter than those who haven't and we're better off without religion".

You're reading a lot more into what I'm writing than what I'm writing. There are plenty of very smart religious people out there. I do think we'd be better off without religion, but it has nothing to do with being "smart."

You completely oversimplify things, ignoring the role religion has played in our societal development and not even attempting to think why the balance shifts as it does between religion and secular.

I didn't address history because we're not living in the past. The needs of today are different from the needs of ancient cultures. Before we had access to tons of information about how the world works and before everybody had the opportunity to learn how to come to conclusions based on data, it was probably really useful to have rules that were set in stone that everybody was afraid of breaking. If those rules were terrible, the culture and religion probably died out. If they were useful, they probably helped society flourish. "Because I said so," is also a perfectly good reason for your kid not to touch a hot stove.

The problem now is that we're grown ups. Human societies aren't small children any more. We know more about the world than we did when religion was the only thing keeping us from touching the hot stove. If you raise an adult who doesn't touch a hot stove for reasons he doesn't understand (or worse, won't touch any stoves, hot or cold), you've failed, and I think that's where we are with religion. Superstition may have kept us from touching the hot stove, but if we cling to it, a lot of us will never learn how to cook.

And then you ignore very modern examples of how societies that suppress religion suffer and those that support religious freedom flourish.

Whoa there. Suppress? I applaud us becoming less religious because we're becoming more aware of its terrible limitations and starting to trust our own ability to reason. Bad ideas die on their own, but only if the marketplace of ideas is open and free. The fact that repressive societies that squelch ideas of any sort are generally backward and unhealthy shouldn't surprise anybody. In fact, the fact that religious fundamentalism is less common in places that don't suppress ideas is pretty good evidence that religious fundamentalism itself isn't a winner in the marketplace of ideas. It only seems to thrive in places where ideas are kept down by force.

You are looking at religion as the fundamental cause of things you don't like in the world.

I can't resist the temptation to trot out the word oversimplifying here. I see religion as a cause of many bad things in the world. That one is pretty hard to dispute. I don't think there is a fundamental cause of everything bad, an if you made me come up with something, I'd probably come up with something like selfishness or lack of empathy for others.

The fact that sometimes believing things that are not true makes us do good things is nice, but at this point, we're just better off not believing things that aren't true and starting from there. A mature, educated society with access to all of the information we have access to should not want for places to start reasoning about the world around them. Making up nonsense and stirring it into the mix isn't helpful. I'm pleased to see that people are slowly realizing this (consciously or not) and making religion less and less a part of their day to day decision making process. I think the trend will continue on its own without any suppression or totalitarianism or anything else you're reading into my comments.

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[Mr D from 63]

I think the trend will continue on its own without any suppression or totalitarianism or anything else you're reading into my comments.

Actually, this is not what I am reading into your comments, but part of what I was initially addressing when you responded. So I guess you completely missed the context.

As we talked past each other, I'll just go back to the hope that folks can appreciate what religion really is and has been, both good and bad, and just doesn't focus on the negative elements. You see religion as a "cause of many bad things", I see it as a tool used for good and bad, but also historically integral to human social development. There is really no evidence that absent religion we would have been better off and less very bad things would have occurred, and there are cases to be make that we have advanced faster because of a religious structure in society.

I'd still be interested to know if there is any aspect of religion that you have any positive appreciation for? It seems short sighted to just want it to go away without knowing what society needs to take its place.

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[PopeRatzo]

Zealotry is probably the main issue. By and large, sports fans aren't that bad of people. But it doesn't take much searching to find evidence of riots and destruction from hard core sports fans, or people using sports as excuse to be terrible people.

As an eminent 15th century German theologian put it, "Haters gonna hate".

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[Shortguy881]

The same can be said of all of the problems arising from religious disputes, it is a blemish on the ethics and morals (lack thereof) of the men involved.

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[VitrosChemistryAnaly]

Check out the Nazi medical experimentation for starters.

I hate to burst your bubble, but that most certainly was done for ideology and not science.

They were attempting to use science to justify their ideology, which is just as bad as people who use religion to justify their ideology and no different.

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[Ogive17]

I agree with you, many of the religious people I know are great people.. most of my family is Catholic and we all got together 2 years ago to celebrate the wedding of my male cousin to his husband.

However, my experience is these same people lack critical thinking skills. They are taught their entire life to obey and therefor never question direction they are given. Sometimes they can be frustratingly naiive about current events.

Personally, I tread lightly when religion is being discussed except with my closest friends (some who are athiest, some who are some sort of Christian). Many times I don't feel it's worth the fight.. when someone will admit they are christian because that is how they were raised, there's almost no amount of "evidence" that could ever change their view.

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[amicusNYCL]

involuntary population reduction

That's a good way to describe any war. Also, a good band or album name.

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[Mr D from 63]

They were attempting to use science to justify their ideology, which is just as bad as people who use religion to justify their ideology and no different.

That kind of makes my point. Religion can be as much of a tool as science and technology. Its not religion that is the central problem, but something more fundamental in society that can find its way with or without religion.

The deadliest wars in history were not based on religious conflict. We didn't build the A-Bomb and wipe out two cities for religious reasons. We did stop there though.. was that some moral decision? If so, what belief system played into it?

Humans are gonna to good shit and bad shit. That religions exist is not the reason.

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[Copid]

Actually, this is not what I am reading into your comments, but part of what I was initially addressing when you responded. So I guess you completely missed the context.

Reading back, I don't see anybody advocating any sort of suppression in this thread. Just a general approval of the reduction in religious affiliation. The post you responded did only mention the negative side, but I didn't see any policy recommendations. So I guess I did completely miss the context somehow.

My initial response to you was just a narrow one about the single point I quoted. Nobody is blaming religion for all of our problems as far as I can tell. Just noting that it is a cause of a lot of problems (for which the definition of "cause" and "a lot" is subject to discussion).

There is really no evidence that absent religion we would have been better off and less very bad things would have occurred, and there are cases to be make that we have advanced faster because of a religious structure in society.

I don't think there is a lot of evidence that doing away with all of religion throughout all of history would have been a net win. If I had to bet, I'd bet yes, but I wouldn't bet much. I do think that the argument from history is not a strong one for the present. Horses helped build our modern society, but they're not a centerpiece of how we operate anymore. Things change.

I'd still be interested to know if there is any aspect of religion that you have any positive appreciation for?

I think in modern societies, religion's biggest positive contribution is probably social networking and bonding. The local religious group creates personal bonds with neighbors and a sense of community. There are other ways of fostering those bonds, but common religion and ritual is one of the more effective ones. One problem is that the lines between "culture" and "religion" often blur and religion gets credit for some of the good things that shared culture enables--we can do a lot of these things without religious dogma specifically. But going to a building with your nearest neighbors and weekly sharing a positive-feeling ritual together has value.

Specifically, does the belief in the supernatural or, more specifically, the strong belief in particular properties of the supernatural (what it wants, how its truth may conflict with things we observe) provide a benefit? I doubt it provides one that we couldn't get elsewhere with less probelmatic baggage.

It seems short sighted to just want it to go away without knowing what society needs to take its place.

I'm curious about the things you think religion provides to us currently that can't be provided some other way. The existence of perfectly normal atheists who integrate happily in our society seems to be strong evidence that it can be done in the same way that vegetarian athletes make the claim, "We just don't know whether a person can be healthy without meat," obviously suspect. Is it a case of, "Sure, one person can do it, but what happens if everybody does it?"

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[Mr D from 63]

I'm curious about the things you think religion provides to us currently that can't be provided some other way.

That is an interesting question. I think historically religion has become such a predominant social element due to its effectiveness, so I would ask "what would replace it that would be just as or more effective?". I don't think I can answer that as I think the answer may actually differ depending on the people and their level of knowledge and approach to reason/rationale and even what they would point to as a moral compass or basis. Its a very good question, I don't presume to have the answer. You may assume the role of religion is easily replaced, but religion's weave into our social fabric is deep and complex. It certainly is worthy of a healthy discussion.

A key consideration is that not all people use the same logic and reasoning. Brains are wired very differently, so it becomes quite a challenge to define a moral base using simple logic and reason. Many will even differ on exactly what needs should be filled. I can say that it is very likely that whatever things we put in the place of religion, there is a very good probability that those things can be used as a tool to do bad things as well as good. Logic and reason can overtake simple compassion, or they can reinforce it.

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[PopeRatzo]

However, my experience is these same people lack critical thinking skills. They are taught their entire life to obey and therefor never question direction they are given.

I play cards with a Jesuit priest who is also a physics professor. Dude has "critical thinking skills" that put most anyone else I know to shame. Plus, he's a wicked Omaha player.

Don't mistake religious belief for a lack of critical thinking skills. They come from two different parts of the brain. People are capable of compartmentalizing all sorts of things. Funny thing is, he doesn't see his faith as conflicting with his reason one bit. And I'm certainly not smart enough to argue with him.

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[SillyHamster]

I've never heard of mass killing done in the name of science, no.

Science implies absolutely nothing about morals.

Abducting people, infecting them with Ebola, and taking detailed and accurate notes as they die would be "good" science.

This isn't a hypothetical. There is useful science collected by such immoral means.

What's wrong, from a scientific point of view, of nuking a city as a science experiment, as long as you don't mess with the control group?

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[Ogive17]

My post wasn't meant to be all inclusive, so that is my mistake. However from an early age they are taught "belief" over "question what you see" and this does lead many people to blindly accepting what they are given.

It helps some people be happy, good for them.

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[david_thornley]

They are killings in the name of science. The reason isn't science, but they used the name. Similarly, many religious wars were not really about religion (and Catholic France wound up on the Islamic or the Protestant side in the 1500s and 1600s).

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[khallow]

I merely answered the question. True motives are off topic.

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[shutdown -p now]

Which parts of those were done in the name of science?

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[mjwx]

Check out the Nazi medical experimentation for starters.

So these experiments were done in the name of science?

Or were they done based on a different philosophy, say one about racial purity?

What you're describing is the co-opting of science to support a malicious philosophy. Science is not a philosophy in itself and does lend itself to whatever the user intends. In other words, science is like a hammer, you can use it to build a house or bash someone's skull in. Just because it can be used for evil purposes does not mean that it is evil in itself. This is why science is guided by ethics, not because science is evil, but because people can use it for evil purposes.

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[ChrisMaple]

Saying "it was done in the name of" and "it was done for" are two very different things.

Planned Parenthood was organized for the purpose of wiping out Negroes in the U.S.. Planned Parenthood was organized in the name of assuring that all babies were healthy and loved, etc.. Very different.

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[Barsteward]

"Those people fighting aren't doing it BECAUSE of religion. " - that is because of modern day secularization getting stronger in the past 100 years (even among the religious) but the crusades and inquisitions did do it because of religion. You could make a case to say Hitler was a modern day Catholic inquisitor enacting/reinforcing the centuries old Catholic based antisemitism because the Jews put the criminal Jesus to death (if he really existed of course). But we are still waiting for the groups like ISIS to catch up as they seem to be at least a 1000 years behind the curve.

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[AmiMoJo]

Why describe yourselves as Christian baptists? There is a lot of dodgy stuff in the bible that it sounds like you rejected, so why but start a new religion based on only the bits you like and called something else? Something that makes it clear you are very far from what other baptists believe.

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[CODiNE]

How about forced sterilization of unwanted groups?

Compulsory sterilization

United States[edit]
Further information: Eugenics in the United States

A poster from a 1921 eugenics conference displays the U.S. states that had implemented sterilization legislation by then
The United States was the first country to concertedly undertake compulsory sterilization programs for the purpose of eugenics.[44] The heads of the program were avid believers in eugenics and frequently argued for their program. It was shut down due to ethical problems. The principal targets of the American program were the intellectually disabled and the mentally ill, but also targeted under many state laws were the deaf, the blind, people with epilepsy, and the physically deformed. While the claim was that the focus was mainly the mentally ill and disabled, the definition of this during that time was much different than ours. At this time, there were many women that were sent to institutions under the guise of being âoefeeble-minded" because they were promiscuous or became pregnant while unmarried. According to the activist Angela Davis, women of predominantly ethnic minorities (such as Native Americans, as well as African-American women)[45] were sterilized against their will in many states, often without their knowledge while they were in a hospital for other reasons (e.g. childbirth). For example, in Sunflower County Mississippi, 60% of black women living there were sterilized at Sunflower City Hospital without their permission.

Darwinism was a large part of these eugenics campaigns, and they continue to this day in some countries.

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[khallow]

All three. Hence, why they were mentioned as examples. I fear you may be thoroughly corrupted by bourgeoisie science and simply be unable to understand the scientific proof that has been laid out in front of you!

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[khallow]

Are you, perhaps, unfamiliar with the meaning of the word "ideology" or is your reading comprehension just poor in general?

One could ask the same of you. Keep in mind that this thread started because the original post asked what genocide and such has been done in the name of science? That doesn't imply that actual science need occur in the commission of the atrocities in question.

Re:Being comfortable around crazy

[khallow]

What you're describing is the co-opting of science to support a malicious philosophy.

In other words, exactly what the earlier poster was claiming they never heard of before.

This is why science is guided by ethics

Except when it isn't, of course.

70.6% = oppressed minority

[Anonymous Coward]

From the summary "Americans identifying as Christian dropped from 78.4% in 2007 to 70.6% in 2014"

Why the fuck are they acting like an oppressed minority fearing that muslems and athiests are making their lives impossible?

America is a rich, decadent country

[MikeRT]

Rich, decadent countries always face a decline in their traditional religion. On an international level, the picture is quite different with Islam and Christianity rapidly gaining adherents throughout the developing world.

This isn't the first time that the public started moving away from Christianity. Reports from the time before the black plague spoke of the irreligiosity of the average person and there were similar events in the 5th and 6th century. When the US's foreign policy and economic chickens come home to roost, I suspect you'll see a lot of people turning back to religion instead of consumerism for meaning in their lives.

Re:America is a rich, decadent country

[dargaud]

Nope. Various studies show that religions declined AFTER the black plague. Angry at god for having sent it maybe ?

I Moderate this Article Submission

[BECoole]

-1 Troll

Re:No, it won't.

[slimshady76]

There's nothing "natural" in any cultural act. As such, you cannot categorize religion as a "natural reaction". Religions came out as a way to exploit some ancient fears, I could give you that. Your arguments call for a hiatus in evolution, and could be categorized as postmodern and right-wing oriented. Remember, those who are in power (and who have certainly used religion among many other things to subjugate and control the populace) don't want anything to change.

Re:Slashdot Poll?!?

[msauve]

"According to Gallup's 2002 Index of Leading Religious Indicators, 88% of those with postgraduate degrees believe in God."

What definition of God? The omnipotent, omnipresent, immortal, intelligent creator one, or the Mother Nature one?

They're coming for your children!

[Anonymous Coward]

Watch out, the ATHEISTS are coming! They're coming for your children, to indoctrinate them with logic and critical thinking skills. Younger ones WILL BE EATEN!

Speak for yourself.

[Anonymous Coward]

These scary views of global warming and evolution are causing people to burn for eternity in hell for not believing in GOD!!

We need a pro God president to change the culture of this country so people stop thinking for themselves! It is only a matter of time before we anger him by voting for things Jesus did like providing healthcare and support for the poor and sick and our nation will fear his wrath.

Not sure if serious or just bad troll...

I find the GP's post to be a wonderful sarcastic post that encapsulates the ignorance and hypocrisy of the Evangelical Christians in the US - and the Republican base.

It's only a "Troll" to you because you don't like what is being said. But that's usually the case on the Net these days. If one doesn't like what's being said, just call them a "Troll" and be done with it. It's just as bad as exclaiming, "I'm offended!" It's just a cheap way to shut people up that you disagree with.

Re: Speak for yourself.

[Billly Gates]

I am the grandposter.

I am conservative in alot of areas libertarian leaning. I used to be a Democrat and went to church as a child and had lots of problems and confusion with this topic of Jerry Falwell.

Here is the history which no one can answer. Why is God republican in today's A merica?

Jimmy Carter was the 1st evangelical president in 1976. How did his base betray him just 4 years later and practically worshipped Reagan? It wasn't always like this as Pope Francis is extremely religious and borderline socialis too! He follows Jesus in acts closer than any pope.

My mocking point is by aligning with everything the Republican party as God willed is strange. Jesus did heal and support the poor and said you can't love both God and money. Look it up?

By being far right and fearing global warming as anti biblical because Exxon said so and Christianity and the gop being joined this is hypocrisy and dangerous.

Jimmy carter should have created a religious left. Not destroyed his party for the church goers

Re: Speak for yourself.

[ChrisMaple]

There are a lot of complicated interactions here, but some understanding comes from further back in history. A large part of the Progressive movement comes from the colleges, elitist professors rejecting religion and caught up in the enthusiasm for communism of the early 20th century. At the same time, colleges are deeply involved with scientific progress, and liberal-arts professors pretend that they share the accomplishments of collegiate science. Those same professors work to drive Christianity out of the minds of their students. The brightest students get the most benefit from more higher education, so they spend more time having their minds warped by their professors.

From the conservative end, people who don't spend a lot of time (or any time) at college are more interested in what works and what business activities keep them alive; theoretical considerations that don't affect their daily lives don't get critical analysis (so they don't challenge their own religious beliefs, and neither do their friends) This leaves conservatives in the curious position of being grounded in practical reality, while still believing in Jesus and angels.

Jimmy Carter was making the country poor and militarily weak and pessimistic. Reagan showed a way to prosperity and strength and optimism. Reagan's belief in God was obvious, there was no implied diminution of religion by removing an ineffectual, loopy preacher from the presidency.

Pressuring the majority?

[sjbe]

We live in a world of empiricism, where the concepts of faith and religion are - if not outright mocked and denigrated - are under constant pressure.

Not in the USA we don't. Go to certain parts of this country and openly mock religion and let me know how that works out for you. There are several states where it is technically illegal for me to hold public office if I am an atheist. There mere fact that close to 3/4 of people openly are affiliated (at least loosely) with some form of organized religion proves that your thesis is nonsense.

The benefits that faith brings to individuals and societies are trivialized.

Because in most cases they are trivial in comparison to the problems organized religion brings. There is no benefit that religion brings that necessitates belonging to an organized religion. We're supposed to forgive and forget all the misery, bigotry, tribalism and wars caused by religion just because they open some hospitals and food banks which are really just thinly disguised efforts to convert others to their tribe? I'm supposed to ignore the idiots trying to push their prayers in public schools or theology in the science classroom? I'm supposed to be ok with priests fondling children and never going to jail for it? I'm supposed to overlook the continual and ongoing wars between various religious groups across the world?

I believe people need faith in proportion to their misery.

And I disagree with you on this. People do not have a biological need to believe in fancy mythologies even in times of stress. It demonstrably is not required. Some find comfort in doing so (which is fine) but then some inevitably feel the compulsion to try to force their bizarre ideas on the rest of the world. If believing in something irrational helps you get through the day I have no problem with that as long as you keep it to yourself.

Re:Pressuring the majority?

[Adambomb]

Holy Heck, as a Non-American I thought your claim that there are states that ban atheists from being elected was probably an exaggeration or simply an interpretation of how it is hard in many places to be elected if one is a self-declared atheist. Hit a google search and figured i'd put this in there in case others were thinking like I was but don't bother to follow up.

Arkansas, Article 19, Section 1:
No person who denies the being of a God shall hold any office in the civil departments of this State, nor be competent to testify as a witness in any Court.

Maryland, Article 37:
That no religious test ought ever to be required as a qualification for any office of profit or trust in this State, other than a declaration of belief in the existence of God; nor shall the Legislature prescribe any other oath of office than the oath prescribed by this Constitution.

Mississippi, Article 14, Section 265:
No person who denies the existence of a Supreme Being shall hold any office in this state.

North Carolina, Article 6, Section 8
The following persons shall be disqualified for office: Any person who shall deny the being of Almighty God.

South Carolina, Article 17, Section 4:
No person who denies the existence of a Supreme Being shall hold any office under this Constitution.

Tennessee, Article 9, Section 2:
No person who denies the being of God, or a future state of rewards and punishments, shall hold any office in the civil department of this state.

Texas, Article 1, Section 4:
No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office, or public trust, in this State; nor shall any one be excluded from holding office on account of his religious sentiments, provided he acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being.

from here and the wiki page they probably got it from.

If i had more time i'd look to see if there are cases of anyone actually being denied in the recent past or unseated after the fact but the fact that these provisions even exist to begin with is pretty awful.

Re:Pressuring the majority?

[Nidi62]

And I disagree with you on this. People do not have a biological need to believe in fancy mythologies even in times of stress. It demonstrably is not required.

With even the earliest known examples of human burials having been found to contain objects that were deliberately placed with the deceased person I would argue that there is pretty strong evidence that humans have almost always had some sort of belief in a religion or afterlife. That would imply that it is in fact a biological (psychological at least, but that arises from the capacity of our brain, intelligence, and self-awareness) need, quite possibly as a reaction to the awareness that you will at some point cease to exist and allowing an individual to cope with that fact.

Re:Pressuring the majority?

[sudon't]

Right. And even where it's not enshrined in law, you'd never get elected if you admitted to atheism. This is why Obama was advised to begin to attend church when he got into politics.

Re:Pressuring the majority?

[argStyopa]

"Go to certain parts of this country and openly mock religion and let me know how that works out for you."
Your post is less convincing if you start by disingenuously pegging the histrionic bullshit meter.
There are likewise great areas of this country, including the overwhelming majority of colleges and high schools, as well as a host of government institutions and at least 80% of the media companies that dominate the public discourse in which saying the simple words "I'm a Christian" will get you (at least) labelled a kook, an idiot, or a religious nutso.
If you don't call that marginalizing or trivializing, what is?
Curiously, the same doesn't apply if someone says "I'm a buddhist" or "I'm hindu" or "I'm a sikh". I wonder why?

"The benefits that faith brings to individuals and societies are trivialized."
"Because in most cases they are trivial in comparison to the problems organized religion brings. "
Pedophile priests make the news.
The absolutely revisionist nonsense that the Crusades were some sort of assault on Islam by Christendom, makes the news.
Religious zealots shooting abortion doctors, makes the news.
What doesn't make the news? That 350,000+ local churches feed from dozens to hundreds to thousands of people every week. They voluntarily collect food, clothing, and money to assist those people hundreds if not a thousand YEARS before it occurred to government that it might be the responsibility of the public generally and built their own organizations (compelling the funds for public assistance at the barrel of a gun, no less - how moral is that?). That most of those organizations have partner churches overseas, to which they send books, clothes, food, and $ regularly. That these organizations are the first with charity to those in need after disasters, whether it's materiel or psychological comfort. That aside from the headline-grabbing scandals, these organizations are the most massive public assistance organization ever, and have been (at least for the Christian church) been operating more or less continuously worldwide for at least the last 500 years.
No, your offhand dismissal - as much as it may be gratifyingly self-validating, and in-line with the secularist conventional wisdom on the matter - really just confirms my point, that the gullible cheerfully swallow that "religion is bad, m'kay?" without considering in any real sense the durable, persistent, physical and emotional assistance religion provides - setting aside entirely as incalculable the idea that religion gives people a framework to explain how the world works. You may disagree with that framework, in fact I'm rather sure you do, but that doesn't mean that such a framework isn't comforting on a daily basis to BILLIONS of people.

Not to justify it with an appeal to nature, but I would observe that there is - as far as I'm aware - not a single extant human culture in which there is no such thing as religion of some sort. Either such a thing doesn't exist, or has been out-competed in the Darwinistic struggle between cultures over time. That alone suggests the very concept of religion is either intrinsic to humanity as much as art or music, or that in some sense it offers a competitive advantage to its practitioners on a larger scale.

So I regard your postmodern dismissal for what it's worth - a recent fad amongst a teeny, overwealthy, indolent section of humanity based on current ephemerally benign circumstances. My side of the discussion has the weight of the entirety of human history. I'll roll with that, thanks.

Re:Pressuring the majority?

[phud]

The SCOTUS ruling in Torcaso v. Watkins, in 1961, overturned all of these laws. The do remain on the books, and some times it is a lot of effort to get around them, but in the end they are unenforceable.

Re:Pressuring the majority?

[Anonymous Coward]

The surprising thing to me as an American is that so many find this shocking. It should hardly be so...It's on every coin, the pledge of allegiance, Declaration of Independence, Constitution etc. Apparently I must be the only one who is familiar with United States history.....

Re:Pressuring the majority?

[SoftwareArtist]

Fortunately, these restrictions are all unenforcible. They're overruled by Article 6 of the US Constitution which states, "[N]o religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." But the fact that so many states tried, and that they've continued to leave these restrictions in their constitutions despite being completely unenforcible, is pretty shocking and disgusting.

Re:Pressuring the majority?

[agm]

How do laws that are blantently unconstitutional make their way into the law books?

Re:Pressuring the majority?

[Chalnoth]

These laws are pretty flagrantly unconstitutional, but the states may try to enforce them regardless. Fortunately, elected officials are generally pretty powerful people who could afford to fight the court case, so it'd be pretty ridiculous for the states to actually try to enforce these laws.

But it's still disgusting that these states still have these laws on the books.

Re:Pressuring the majority?

[Chalnoth]

Fortunately this isn't true everywhere. There's pretty wide disparity in such sentiments, with many urban areas being much less concerned.

They aren't very numerous, but there are a number of irreligious people holding US office at present (e.g. Bernie Sanders, who is culturally Jewish but non-practicing).

Re:Pressuring the majority?

[shutdown -p now]

There are no cases of these laws actually being applied, at least within the last 60 years or so, because they clearly contradict the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which has been incorporated against the states for that long. In a similar vein, several states still retain laws against "sodomy", but they're all defunct as unconstitutional since Bowers v. Hardwick, even where they remain on the books.

Re:Pressuring the majority?

[ChrisMaple]

I can find comfort in a fiction, even knowing that it is a fiction. Hug a doll or a stuffed animal in times of stress. Always wear my "lucky hat" to a baseball game. Honor the grave of a family member or soldier.

Comfortable habits and decent behavior do not imply belief in a god or an afterlife.

Re:Pressuring the majority?

[ChrisMaple]

Decent people help their neighbors with or without religion.

One problem with Christianity is that it denies the concept of self-ownership, providing the false dichotomy of being owned by god or by the government, with no other option but a compromise between the two, i.e. "render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and render unto God that which is God's". By having destroyed a person's self in the name of god, an individual is left intellectually defenseless against the claims of government, and can see nothing wrong with being forced to perform "charity" to the poor.

Re:Pressuring the majority?

[someoneOtherThanMe]

Does that mean you can refuse to testify just by being/claiming to be an atheist?

Re:Pressuring the majority?

[htomc42]

>Go to certain parts of this country and openly mock religion and let me know how that works out for you. There are several states where it is technically illegal for me to hold public office if I am an atheist.

FYI- that has been challenged and overturned in all states. You will still find it in the texts of several State Constitutions, but that's just because of the particular rules on when and how to update the text. It has no effect and when (and if) the text of those documents is updated, that change would be automatically made.

Re:Pressuring the majority?

[Yosho]

Fortunately, these restrictions are all unenforcible.

Only if, after you've been discriminated against and filed a lawsuit, your case goes before a judge who interprets the constitution that way. There are plenty in the states in question who would say that the law doesn't constitute a religious test if it doesn't specify which supreme being you have to believe in.

Re:This is not a good thing.

[Yosho]

Thoughtful people would, of course, never use a phrase like 'religious wacko', idiot, etc, so, alas, this thread will see little deep inquiry.

It must be very convenient to be able to ignore the opinions of people who disagree with you just because they used a word you don't like.

If there are a few of you, here, you may be interested in this: lack of religion in the us is strongly correlated with poverty; economic mobility (escaping poverty, "climbing the economic ladder", achieving the "American dream") strongly correlates with religious affiliation.

I'm curious, do you have any source for your strong correlation? My own anecdotal evidence is that the poorest areas such as slums and ghettos usually have very high religious participation, while wealthy, highly educated people are more likely to be nonreligious. And everybody knows that the prison population is overwhelmingly religious.

Re: News for nerds

[Anonymous Coward]

Belief in religion is belief in magic, hence anti-science. That's causation right there.

Re: News for nerds

[RabidReindeer]

Evidence, anecdotes and Congressional appointments.

"Lies from the Pit of Hell", you know.

Re:"Social Justice" should be considered a religio

[Anonymous Coward]

I would be far more likely to be swayed by your argument if you were to show / link / discuss any actual "double-blind tests now showing liberals as more racist than conservatives", Please show me how average liberals are racist against white people, especially 'over and over'. There are kooks everywhere, I know, but claiming massive one-sidedness doesn't work with some sort of evidence by a researcher.

Re:Slashdot Poll?!?

[antiperimetaparalogo]

"According to Gallup's 2002 Index of Leading Religious Indicators, 88% of those with postgraduate degrees believe in God." What definition of God? The omnipotent, omnipresent, immortal, intelligent creator one, or the Mother Nature one?

Anecdotally (i posted the Gallup's data because they were easily found), the vast majority of them believe in the God most people believe: THE God, also called "the Creator"/"the Spirit"/"the Superior Power"/etc - usually those believing in "Mother Nature" are those disbelieving THE God. You can also come to this conclusion by examining the postgraduates in self-defined religious people who define their church - e.g., Christian.

Also anecdotally, because i don't have the data right now, the vast majority of Greek postgraduates believe in the God of the (Greek Orthodox) Christian church, i.e., THE God.

Disclaimer: i am a (Greek Orthodox) Christian - i should had post that in my first comment also, sorry!

from gallup

[buddyglass]

Here are Gallup's historical trends up to 2013. Some things to note:

1. The % of those who say religion is a "very important" part of their life has remained roughly constant.
2. The % of those who says religion is only a "fairly important" part of their life has showed more consistent decline.
3. The % of "nones" seems to be mostly cannibalizing from the "fairly important" group, who are essentially nominal believers. The % of people who are "devout" seems to be more-or-less holding its own.
4. The % of people who claim to have attended church or synagogue in the last 7 days has remained roughly constant.
5. The % of people who self-identify as "evangelical or born-again Christians" has remained roughly constant (except for an elevated plateau from 1998 to 2002).
6. The % who self-identify as "evangelical or born-again" is actually higher (40%) in 2013 than it was in 1992 (36%).

Re:from gallup

[AthanasiusKircher]

Here are Gallup's historical trends up to 2013.

This is the most insightful post here so far.

The real trend seems to be away from a "default" position of "Yeah, I guess I believe in God, and maybe I'm a Christian" to "Yeah, I don't really care that much."

Is that an actual shift in values, or is it just that it's more socially acceptable now to acknowledge that you don't care about religion that much? A few decades ago, these people may have just gone to church on Christmas and Easter, but otherwise showed no daily signs of being "religious," but it was just the default way of things.

Nowadays, these people may still go to church on Christmas and Easter or whatever because it's family tradition, but they behave precisely the same way as they did decades ago... it's just now they feel more free to admit that there are other things they do. (It's worthwhile to remember that socialization was very different a few decades ago; churches were an important hub for communities and still are, but now we have a lot more possible ways to participate in both real-world and virtual communities.)

Basically, the percentage of people who are "devout" and attend church regularly has remained roughly the same. The people who were essentially "meh" before probably still are, but they've found other ways of filling their time and social calendar than attending an occasional church BBQ.

That isn't to say there aren't significant shifts, but I'd be more likely to interpret this as a social shift rather than one in the number of "believers." After all, we seem to still have record numbers of nonsense shows on TV concerning ghosts, aliens, and whatever other crap. People are still willing to believe in all sorts of mystical weirdness (though I'd be interested in seeing some more recent polls than in that link) -- it's just becoming less institutionalized.

Re:from gallup

[buddyglass]

It could mean it's very important to them to have that belief "box checked" even if they don't think there's any benefit to being an active participant. In any case, both the % of those polled who said religion is "very important" to them and the percentage of those polled who claim to have attended a church/synagogue service in the last 7 days have stayed roughly constant over the last ~20 years, so it seems premature to say that religious belief is falling off a cliff in the U.S. Religious self-identification is certainly in rapid decline, but it seems like the folks who formerly identified as religious but now identify as "none" are coming from the set of religious self-identifiers who weren't all that "into" religion in the first place.

Re:from gallup

[wumbler]

What this means is that it's actually getting worse!

The moderates who don't care one way or the other didn't matter, anyway. The moderates (so-called mainline) are in decline. But the extremists (mostly in the "evangelical / born-again" group) stayed the same as percentage of overall population. A whopping, frightening 40%. This means that percentage of extremists amongst religious people have increased. This also means that in religious circles extremist views are becoming more mainstream. It means that the moderating influence of formerly mainstream groups is declining.

For example, consider that the Catholic church for a long time already is very open and ok with science. Catholic schools don't teach any creationism nonsense. However, the number of Catholics is in decline (and would be even more so if it weren't for immigration). Now with the decline of the number of Catholics, the voices of the extremists are getting relatively (!) louder in any discussion that involves religion: State lawmakers, local school boards deciding what goes into biology text books, etc. Their voices are heard, their views considered.

Overall, the poll is very disturbing: It shows that the number of dangerous extremists (people identifying as "evangelical or born-again") has remained the same and is growing in importance within religious circles. This is a dangerous development.

Rationalists and atheists should stop focusing on the mainline religions, since they are "mostly harmless" these days and could possibly provide an outlet for those people who seek a spiritual component in their lives. Instead, with the decline of mainline religions, people are sucked in by the extremists. The extremists, however, are the dangerous ones that we should focus on.

It's worth noting...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

While it'd be fun to take out the atheist triumphalism drum, it's worth noting that the thing being measured is religious affiliation not 'theological position' or 'amount of magical thinking done per day', or 'even the vaguest knowledge of how empiricism works'.

Religious affiliation is quite significant, of course, it's obviously notable that substantially more people both can't be bothered to get their ass out of bed on Sunday morning and are willing to admit that they have no formal affiliation(historically, at least in the US, you might not actually attend all that often, or pay that much attention; but denying association was somewhat transgressive). It's also significant for the hopes of various religious groups to exercise political power through organized bloc voting (the 'moral majority', not that it was ever either, sure isn't going to be done any good by the evangelical protestant numbers, nor is the ability of bishops to bluster during election season going to improve with those catholic numbers.

However, it's by no means the case that religious non-affiliation is necessarily anything other than pure disinterest, or vague belief in supernatural entities(probably shaped by a layman-level understanding of whatever your parents nominally believed, with any overtly objectionable parts left on the cutting room floor). There may also be a story about atheism here; but that isn't really the poll result.

In that sense, the results aren't really too surprising: the liberal protestant and 'cafeteria catholic' congregations have been working their way toward being increasingly irrelevant social activities for years to decades now; some nice people and all that; but pretty light on religion, which meant that they drifted into direct competition with any and all other activities you do with other people, without being obviously more entertaining, conveniently scheduled, or otherwise competitive.

The more conservative groups tended to retain the religiosity a bit more intensely; but they really got burned by their flirtation with state power(let's say roughly Reagan through Bush II in round numbers). They did get some of what they wanted, though not enough to prevent disappointment; but they burned a lot of religious legitimacy in the process. Remember that jewish radical who said that his kingdom was not of this world? Well, it'd be hard to argue that the evangelical power-brokers hanging out at the 'National Prayer Breakfast' and trying to get Washington to do something about homos and abortionists do. Even if your beliefs are fairly strong, and largely 'Christian' in outline, it's hard to avoid seeing the liberal wing of Christianity as increasingly wishy-washy and irrelevant, certainly not worth going to church with; and the conservative wing as dangerously unfocused on the kingdom of god in favor of trying to achieve local political gains.

Phoney Beatlemania has bitten the dust

[starless]

finally we will be left with only true Beatlemania!

The Fabulous Four be praised.

Re:This is not a good thing.

[ej0c]

| I'm curious, do you have any source for your strong correlation?

Yes.

(But not anecdotal).

Re:"Social Justice" should be considered a religio

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think we need to perform formal studies here. The evidence is right in front of us.

Look at the response to the Michael Brown case as an example. Most self-described social justice advocates immediately ran to his defence, proclaiming him to be "innocent" and a "victim of racism and police brutality", just because he was black and the officer involved was white.

But then the evidence and the facts of the case came out. Video footage was released, showing that Brown did in fact attack a store cashier just minutes before his confrontation with the police. Later on the grand jury findings were presented. The evidence here yet again showed that Brown attacked the police officer once while the officer was still in his vehicle, with Brown trying to take the officer's weapon. And yet more evidence showed that Brown was in the process of charging at the officer, thus putting the officer's life in extreme danger, when the officer fired the fatal shots in self defence.

The facts paint a very, very different picture from what the social justice advocates were claiming. Instead of looking at the facts, they allowed their racism toward whites to overwhelm their judgment. The reality was completely different from what they claimed. Brown was not innocent; he had clearly engaged in violent and harmful activities prior to and during his shooting. Furthermore, the officer did not shoot Brown because Brown had brown skin; the officer shot Brown because Brown was in the process of bringing physical harm to the officer. Racism was not the cause of the shooting, and it was not a case of police brutality.

Even now, we see social justice advocates who refuse to accept the reality of the situation. They exhibit hallmark traits of religious behavior, including an inability to consider facts over their own (wrong and unsubstantiated) beliefs.

Re: News for nerds

[jellomizer]

I have seen bad and anti-science dribble spread across equally from Religious and Atheist alike. If the science is against their worldview or political viewpoint then they will choose to disagree with it. You don't see too many Evangelical Religious folks touting the dangers of GMO food, or stating the dangers of vaccines (The religious folks may refuse to take vaccines, but not because of the risks or rewards, but due to other reasons).

Also jumping onto the latest diet trend, (Remember the low fat, high carbs movement back in the 1990's)

Religion and Science are not in conflict nor are they one in the same. The "Proofs" against the existence of God, are just as faulty as the "Proofs" for God.

Good works under false pretenses

[sjbe]

Are you claiming nothing bad has ever been done in the name of science?

I'm not aware of any wars or acts of genocide that have been conducted in the name of science. Of course I didn't bring science up at all so that's kind of irrelevant.

If you tried, could you find good things done in the name of religion?

Sure but almost always with disingenuous motivations usually related to marketing. Incredible amounts of charity work has been done by religious organizations. But this work is done at the end of the day as a marketing effort. Offering a hot meal to someone who is hungry is wonderful. Offering a hot meal and a bible is no longer charity - it is marketing. Doing a work of art celebrating something you personally believe in is fine. Putting it in a church to impress the public is marketing.

So yes I can find good works done in the name of religion but I have a much harder time finding good works done in the name of religion that lack ulterior motives. Good works done under false pretenses loses some of their luster.

Re:Good works under false pretenses

[Mr D from 63]

So, I see you carefully draw boundaries around the amount of good done to support your point. But you are assuming that wars 'in the name of religion' would not have happened regardless of religion, while history shows that wars are not a religious based phenomena of society. And even where religion is used as a tool, it is not generally the root cause/reason for the war.

I also see you conveniently dismiss the good that religious people do, while not dismissing the bad. Its nice to rationalize that away despite the facts. Kind of like how a religious person might find a way to dismiss a scientific principal. If a non-religious person does something good, do you look as hard for a reason to dismiss it?

Maybe if people didn't assume religion is a root cause, but rather a symptom or tool, we'd deal with it better.

Re:This is not a good thing.

[belthize]

Saying religious organizations have been at the forefront of most social change is a bit of a meaningless statement.

If 80% of the population is affiliated with a religion then they damn well ought to be at the forefront. In fact they ought to account for the majority and preferably at least 80%.

One could just as easily say that religious organizations have been at the forefront of resisting most social change, education and civil rights movements (see current debate on gay rights, marriage equality, global warming, abortion rights).

Lastly I see no reason that your assertion that lack of religion strongly correlates with poverty and economic mobility. In fact I believe it's quite the opposite and the facts seem to back that up. The countries with the highest economic mobility and lowest poverty happen to be the ones with the lowest religious affiliation (the US is not a leader in any of those categories).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...

Re: News for nerds

[StrangeBrew]

The problem with general opposition to GMO food is that it's a slightly milder form of the objection some people have to 'chemicals'. Saying all are harmful is as stupid as saying all are perfectly beneficial.

Re: News for nerds

[rbrander]

There are a lot of different beliefs requiring magical thinking. You can believe in any of them, even many of them, without believing in the others. Some of them are even self-contradictory. There are some atheists that believe in ghosts; but oddly, many Christians and Muslims also believe in ghosts, though they already have a whole theology about what happens after death that does not include hanging around on the Earth, causing mischief and pestering Hamlet.

I don't have polling data, but it does pass the sniff test to assume that one form of magical thinking, inculcated from birth, would tend to make the personality more at-risk of accepting other magical-thinking proposals.

Re: News for nerds

[Bongo]

The "Proofs" against the existence of God, are just as faulty as the "Proofs" for God.

That's an important point, wrt not making claims about what we don't know. I realise Richard Dawkins is critical of people who say, "science doesn't understand x therefore I believe in dragons etc." BUT/AND there is the other side where, scientism claims that life after death is impossible, and that's a step too far because, going back to the "we don't understand x", we don't have the faintest idea what sentience is, and nobody has come up with a good answer for how to even define it, or for how sentience arises out of matter, so Occam's razor doesn't help, because we don't know what the simplest answer would even be.

Why if you are a biological machine, are you also sentient? What's the point of sentience? It is irrelevant to life. Ants and birds might not be sentient, they are just machines running, like plants or trees, so why is there also this odd and unnecessary and frankly, annoying sentience? Yet if your body was here, living, yet without you being sentient, it would seem like... being dead? Why are we so identified with sentience, and why have we no idea how sentience works?

Not that I'm saying people should believe in sentience continuing after bodily death, I'm saying people overstep the mark when they claim that it must end and that's that and anyone who wonders otherwise is a religious nut. That's just where a scientific view becomes a scientism view, a belief in itself. So, remain open minded.

I'm not saying there is a god, and frankly my best speculative guess is that there is a cosmos of many kinds of beings, humans, ants, why not other stuff we don't know about, but there is NO evidence for ANY of the Abrahamic Gods, none of the Pagan Gods, whatever, these are all just old stories, and have no evidence at all for any of it. Those guys were not the first to have hallucinations nor the first to start a social movement.

And most of the main religions REQUIRE you to believe in a God, there is no way round that, and that belief or story is a sort of metaphor of then what you believe yourself to be, that comes to define what you believe you are, a sinner; in submission; etc., and all of those stories are simply bad psychology.

So yes, people should quite rightly be becoming atheist as they catch up with the modern world, like, if you are not atheist, then you haven't actually really quite noticed modernity. But that also means dropping the idea that we are "human animals" because, that's actually just another myth. We don't know what we are because we don't know what the real nature of sentience is. And as we discover more actual knowledge, maybe we'll start to discover something about that.

The hardest thing isn't just to drop the religious beliefs, the hard thing is to not go replacing them with pseudo-modern versions, like "we are a clever ape".

Modernity can retain the mystery because like all things we know we don't know, we simply leave it as an open question. And if atheists start getting too dogmatic then maybe we start a new thing called, "remaining being open minded".

Re: News for nerds

[LWATCDR]

"This is very important, because religious wackos tend to be the ones against modern science and technology."
Really? I see a lot of Atheists that are antinuclear and anti GMO.
Sorry but this just about does it for me and Slashdot. I have already turned off Politics on the my front page but the editors of slashdot still keep pushing politics into other sections.
Now they are getting into social issues. News flash folks Slashdot provides as much good information on politics and social issues as People magazine does with science and technology.

For those that want this type of crap on Slashdot. Fine just put into a section I can ignore. If not I guess I will have to vote with my clicks. It is a shame because frankly the community here is so much better than say CNN or Endgadet.

Re: News for nerds

[Gilgaron]

Sentience is just what brains do. It is hard to describe the shape of a waterfall as it changes moment to moment but it isn't magic.

A matter of trust

[sjbe]

So, I see you carefully draw boundaries around the amount of good done to support your point.

Not drawing any boundaries around the amount of good. Their actions stand alone and speak for themselves. I'm merely pointing out that in many cases their charitable acts come with strings attached. Feeding the hungry is not the same act as feeding the hungry while proselytizing to them.

Take religion out of it altogether. Would you trust a for-profit company to be charitable without any ulterior motivations? I wouldn't. Nor would I trust a religious organization for the same reasons. Doesn't mean their actions are bad but they aren't entirely trustworthy either.

But you are assuming that wars 'in the name of religion' would not have happened regardless of religion, while history shows that wars are not a religious based phenomena of society.

"Wars are not a religious based phenomena"? Bullshit. There are countless wars that have been started in whole or in part based on religious dogma and tribalism. They are so numerous it's basically pointless to enumerate them. Religion is not the only reason wars are started but it's one of the most common ones. Religious conflicts are basically tribal wars with the tribes being the followers.

I also see you conveniently dismiss the good that religious people do, while not dismissing the bad. Its nice to rationalize that away despite the facts.

I don't dismiss it, I just recognize that the motives are not always pure. A good work done for marketing is still a good work (usually). But it would be a better work if it were done simply because it was a good work without any ulterior motives. The same would apply if it were done by a secular organization. A company that does charity for marketing purposes still is doing charity but it's not wholesome in the same way it would be if they didn't try to benefit themselves in the process.

Maybe if people didn't assume religion is a root cause, but rather a symptom or tool, we'd deal with it better.

Oh religion is a symptom of a problem. It's a symptom of human insecurity, tribalism, and gullibility among other things. Organized religion is a means for some people to control and gain power over others. Thought I had made that clear but if I hadn't, my bad. Religion is a definitely a symptom of deeper problems in the human psyche but that doesn't mean it isn't a problem itself.

Re:A matter of trust

[Mr D from 63]

Oh religion is a symptom of a problem. It's a symptom of human insecurity, tribalism, and gullibility among other things. Organized religion is a means for some people to control and gain power over others. Thought I had made that clear but if I hadn't, my bad. Religion is a definitely a symptom of deeper problems in the human psyche but that doesn't mean it isn't a problem itself.

Then why so much focus on the symptoms? And, as what you refer to as "problems with the human psyche" might be symptoms as well. Human social evolution is what it is. Assigning 'good' or 'bad' to specific elements of it, and then as to my original point using that as an excuse to denigrate those who practice religion is really just as narrow minded, IMHO, as some claim religious people are, and maybe even more hypocritical. Bouncing back between religion as a 'cause' and a 'symptom' when it suits the point is central reason why we probably can't resolve anything in this discussion.

Would I trust a for profit company's motive for charity more or less than a religious company? I certainly would not trust either more or less based on that information alone. I know for certain that for profit companies see bottom line value in their public appearance, and that is partially why they publicize their charitable work and community service. I also know for certain that many religious people do good things with no expectation of anything in return. It is also proven that when people do good things, it makes them feel better. It can even be addictive. So, you could say that they do it for something in return. Some people do favors hoping that they will get one in return if needed. I don't draw brackets around the good that religious people do and assign it any differently.

http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

Re:A matter of trust

[AthanasiusKircher]

Take religion out of it altogether. Would you trust a for-profit company to be charitable without any ulterior motivations? I wouldn't. Nor would I trust a religious organization for the same reasons. Doesn't mean their actions are bad but they aren't entirely trustworthy either.

Then why are we talking about religion at all? It seems you're just expressing a general cynicism that any organization which does charity must have "ulterior motivations."

I don't dismiss it, I just recognize that the motives are not always pure. A good work done for marketing is still a good work (usually). But it would be a better work if it were done simply because it was a good work without any ulterior motives. The same would apply if it were done by a secular organization. A company that does charity for marketing purposes still is doing charity but it's not wholesome in the same way it would be if they didn't try to benefit themselves in the process.

Is it even possible in your world for someone to do a charitable deed "with pure motives"? Actually, this is a good general philosophical question, or perhaps a sociological one -- do humans ever act "truly" altruistically?

People generally do good to others in the belief that it will provide some "greater benefit." That benefit may simply be an internal feeling that they are "a good person" for doing so, or it may be because they view charity as some greater societal contribution or obligation, or it may be in the hope that by being charitable to one person, that person (and people like them) will have a better chance of being charitable to others in return.

What you call "marketing" is often just an example of that latter motivation. "Marketing" implies that religions are selling something (and thus getting paid somehow), but poor homeless people at a shelter are never going to be the primary people funding most charitable organizations, even if they donate some money in return someday. Instead, the "marketing" is mostly an explanation of the rationale for why the good deeds are done in the first place.

I freely admit that there are some exploitative religious organizations out there, and there may be plenty who are overly pushy. I don't approve of them. On the other hand, I wouldn't consider their actions to have "ulterior motives" and certainly not "marketing" unless they are explicitly making conditions on their charity.

If somebody said, "Jesus tells us to give, so unless you come back to church on Sunday and give us more money back than we paid for the soup you ate, we won't give you any more 'free' soup," then I'd say you'd be justified in calling it "marketing." But I've never heard it put that way even by evangelical organizations, and I've seen the ledger sheets of some non-profits -- they don't expect to get a "return" on their charity work directly. The soup kitchen is never going to "turn a profit" because all the homeless suddenly got jobs and start giving huge sums to the non-profit or church or whatever. So how is it "marketing"? And even if by some strained logic you consider it so, they're still generally operating at a significant loss, so how is the work no longer charitable or altruistic... particularly if by doing their "marketing," they result in more people doing charitable actions in the world (which is often the goal)?

(Please note that I say all of the above as someone who has never attempted to proselytize for any organization, religious or not. But I have worked in a number of charitable organizations, both secular and affiliated with religious institutions.)

Re: News for nerds

[Anonymous Coward]

Any significantly advanced technology appears to the uninitiated to be magic. Just because you don't understand something does not mean that it is not real or that it does not have a scientific basis.

Re: News for nerds

[BarbaraHudson]

Whatever happened to "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof"? There is no reason to believe in the existence of any god, so until there is proof otherwise, forget it. That's not being close-minded, it's being rational. Also, we ARE human animals. Sentience isn't limited to just humans, either. First definition of sentience when I googled for it:

Sentience is the ability to feel, perceive, or experience subjectively. Eighteenth-century philosophers used the concept to distinguish the ability to think (reason) from the ability to feel (sentience).

Animals are capable of both reasoning (solving puzzles, etc) and feelings. Not only that, they are also capable of picking up on the feelings of other species - ask any dog owner if their dog knows when they're depressed or frightened, or if they can tell when their dog is happy.

Was the OP sarcastic ?

[aepervius]

"Bush: No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God."

The language of the GP was inflamatory.... But keep in mind we were deep throated during the last decades with scores of politician calling us second class citizen, or worst. See also scalia's 2014 speech in university of colorado's christian university.

Re: News for nerds

[kilfarsnar]

Not that I'm saying people should believe in sentience continuing after bodily death, I'm saying people overstep the mark when they claim that it must end and that's that and anyone who wonders otherwise is a religious nut. That's just where a scientific view becomes a scientism view, a belief in itself. So, remain open minded.

I wish I had mod points, because this is an insightful post. There is a line of thought that says that if something can't be observed, measured or defined scientifically then it doesn't exist. I think that way of thinking closes the mind. There is a lot we don't know or understand, so foreclosing the possibility of other states of being or consciousness is a mistake. We simply don't know, as you say.

Science and the scientific method have enabled us to understand a lot of the world around us. Its value is self-evident. But we shouldn't make the mistake of thinking that it is the only tool we have for gathering knowledge. It can't answer every question, and that's okay.

Re:This is not a good thing.

[Yosho]

So please provide it, if you expect anybody to take you seriously.

Re: News for nerds

[Ol Olsoc]

As far as I can tell technophobia is on the rise.

Don't buy it. As the pool of willful ignorance shrinks, they yell louder.

Re: News for nerds

[Will.Woodhull]

Belief systems and the practice of science are as unrelated as music and athletics. There are plenty of excellent scientists that are devout believers in various religions. There are more who follow personal spiritual paths that are separate from any organized religion.

There is the unfortunate phenomenon of belief in Science, but that is not science. That is just another belief system, where pseudo-scientists believe that things science once discovered are somehow imbued with an eternal truth. The true practitioner of science knows that: firstly, every single scientific "law" might be overturned at any time by some new discovery that displays reality from a new and different point of view; and secondly, that Science as Religion is totally useless when it comes to guidance with any of the important decisions every one of us must make.

That second part is of direct concern to me, and to many other people. These decisions include whether to tell the truth or lie, whether to work for the common good or grab whatever you can get, whether honor and honesty are more important to the person than status and finding an easy way toward personal goals. Persons who believe in science have substituted Newton's laws and the periodic table for religious/spiritual principles, which just doesn't work. It seemingly gives them a framework that allows them freedom from the encumbrances of morals or ethics. But those encumbrances are part of being human, and without them these persons are just shits.

Re:Slashdot Poll?!?

[loonycyborg]

As an ignostic I can note that it doesn't mean much because everyone have different vision of this term, and ascribe different meaning to the statement. In fact one person can ascribe different meaning to God depending on context or his mood or point he wants to make thus making the term utterly meaningless.

Re: News for nerds

[Ol Olsoc]

"This is very important, because religious wackos tend to be the ones against modern science and technology." Really? I see a lot of Atheists that are antinuclear and anti GMO.

I'm both Pro nuc (but critical of some of it's proponents) and pro GMO, just not in the pesticide dosing concept

But seriously? Trying to equate especially nuc power with religion is pretty silly. One can merely weigh the evidence from Chernobyl and Fukushima and come up with a rational reason to be wary of nuclear power.

What is the religious equivalent of that? I find you might be drawing a line more between Liberal and what passes for conservatism these days.

Sorry but this just about does it for me and Slashdot. I have already turned off Politics on the my front page but the editors of slashdot still keep pushing politics into other sections.

Don't like seeing anything you don't like, eh? Life can be tough.

Re:Slashdot Poll?!?

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Also anecdotally, because i don't have the data right now, the vast majority of Greek postgraduates believe in the God of the (Greek Orthodox) Christian church, i.e., THE God.

Also anecdotally, because i don't have the data right now, the vast majority of Greek postgraduates believe that Greece can stay in the Euro . . .

Re: News for nerds

[narcc]

Insightful? It's completely incoherent!

Belief in religion is belief in magic

I'll accept this premise just for fun. There's far too much ambiguity to consider it further.

hence anti-science

Science has nothing to say on the subject of magic. It is simply not within the scope of scientific inquiry. You'll also find that many practicing scientists are also religious. A recent survey found more than a third claim to "have no doubt about God’s existence", a surprisingly extreme position. Another found that, among AAAS members, more than half believe in "God or a higher power".

All the same, let's pretend we accept this as well and lament that our scientific institutions have not only been infiltrated, but completely overwhelmed by anti-science agents.

That's causation right there.

How on earth do you get "causation" out of the preceding? I can't even begin to guess what you conclude causes ... some other unknown! Even if we accept the previous absurdities, without reservation, this bizarre conclusion simply does not follow.

Re: News for nerds

[Opie812]

your post is a little tl;dr for me, so forgive me if I'm focusing on the wrong details here.

But:

"scientism claims that life after death is impossible"

Science makes no such claims. "Science" would say that there's no credible evidence of life after death therefore it probably doesn't exist. Should credible evidence arise, "science" will re-evaluate.

Re: News for nerds

[LoyalOpposition]

This is very important, because religious wackos tend to be the ones against modern science and technology.

True. But then, irreligious wackos tend to be as well.

~Loyal

Re:Slashdot Poll?!?

[ScentCone]

What definition of God? The omnipotent, omnipresent, immortal, intelligent creator one, or the Mother Nature one?

Does it make a difference? You're basing your world view around magical thinking, or you're not.

Re: News for nerds

[JDevers]

I am atheist and while I am pro-nuclear power, pro-vaccine,and believe in global warming I am very much against GMO foods. I against them though because if the transfer of power they represent, not about the food itself. No study has ever shown GMO corn is any less or more healthy than natural corn. GMO foods shift power from the people and the farmer to the chemical company. GMO crops encourage the indiscriminate use of herbicides that put other crops and the soil itself at risk. If you don't believe this, try to grow a non-"Roundup Ready" (TM) crop in a field that has been sprayed with massive quantities of glyphosate for years.

This is a classic power play.
1. Sell seed that make it easier to grow a crop

2. Sell a chemical that removes the competition in turn raising yields

3. Said chemical poisons the soil making it impossible to grow anything but said seed

4. Profit...lots of it, for now and the future

Re:This is not a good thing.

[Enigma2175]

Actual scientific studies seem to indicate that poorer people are much more likely to be religious than well-off people. For examples, look at this Gallup page that says Religiosity Highest in World's Poorest Nations. Or check out the Wikipedia page on Wealth and Religion which says "The GDP of countries generally correlates negatively with their religiosity, i.e. the wealthier a population is the less religious it is". There are several studies cited on that page that seem to support that conclusion. You claim to have a source for your assertion that "lack of religion in the us is strongly correlated with poverty", can you please provide it?

Re:News for nerds

[mellon]

I think it's pretty interesting to see how successful the bible belt evangelical plan to get as many people out of the church as possible by espousing beliefs entirely contradictory to what Jesus said in the Bible has been. It just goes to show how effective a good propaganda campaign can be. The big boss is very pleased.

Re: News for nerds

[Grishnakh]

That second part is of direct concern to me, and to many other people. These decisions include whether to tell the truth or lie, whether to work for the common good or grab whatever you can get, whether honor and honesty are more important to the person than status and finding an easy way toward personal goals. Persons who believe in science have substituted Newton's laws and the periodic table for religious/spiritual principles, which just doesn't work. It seemingly gives them a framework that allows them freedom from the encumbrances of morals or ethics. But those encumbrances are part of being human, and without them these persons are just shits.

What's most interesting is that it's usually the most religious people who buy into the Republican Party's ideology, which includes "grabbing whatever you can get" and espousing Ayn Rand-style objectivist philosophy.

By contrast, the irreligious people are much more liable to vote for politicians who push social welfare programs ("working for the common good").

So the idea of religion giving people any kind of decent morals or ethics is blatantly false.

Re: News for nerds

[Jahoda]

It's "drivel". Not "dribble". It has never been "dribble".

Re:News for nerds

[dcollins117]

It matters plenty. While it's good news that more people are applying critical thinking skills and choosing to discard that which is incredible, it is very bad news that the vast majority of people lack this capacity.

That says something astonishing about our species and the way the brain works. It's also great news for charlatans. Want to get rich? Make friends and influence people? Tell them what they want to hear. Most of them will buy it hook, line, and sinker.

Re: News for nerds

[LWATCDR]

"But seriously? Trying to equate especially nuc power with religion is pretty silly."
No I am equating the anti-technology views of those that are not atheists with those that are.

"Don't like seeing anything you don't like, eh? Life can be tough."
I don't like the direction that Slashdot has taken. It is like NPR has been taken over by FOX News or MSNBC.
" Chernobyl and Fukushima and come up with a rational reason to be wary of nuclear power."
Actually being worried about Nuclear energy because of Chernobyl is as bad as fearing flying because of Hindenburg. Fukushima should actually make people feel good. The absolutely worst case situation happened it was not the massive disaster of everyone's fears.

Re: News for nerds

[number6x]

This agrees with military research that shows religious believers tend to make better officers. Atheists and humanists have a more difficult time ordering others to their deaths, or directing the killing of other humans. Religious believers handle these tasks better because they have coping mechanisms they can use to justify these actions in the name of a higher power. 'Communist' societies (they were all usually dictatorships and not communist) substituted a belief in the party or the state instead of appealing to 'olde tyme' religion, but the result was the same: You are carrying out [God|The State|The Party]'s will, and so your actions are morally justified.

When this life is all you have and all you believe in, it becomes very precious and harder to justify destroying life. If, on the other hand, you are convinced that there is paradise waiting for you beyond this life there are all sorts of nasty actions you can justify.

I really suggest reading Victor Frankl's 'Man's Search for Meaning'. I don't agree with Frankl's later philosophies, but this is a meaningful look into the depths of atrocities that humans can inflict on other humans. Frankl's work helped explain how attitude and belief helped him and others survive Auschwitz. It doesn't directly deal in this subject, but is an amazing account that highlights both the good and the bad outcome of strong beliefs.

Re: News for nerds

[Will.Woodhull]

The problem I have with GMO is that its safety is based on the assumption that ecosystems are built according to the taxonomy of biology: species, genus, family, and so on. We now know that this is a very simplistic way of looking at the dynamic system of relationships that is an ecosystem. A forest ecosystem is defined more by the interrelationships between the great trees, the soil microbes, the fish in its rivers, and the fisher birds that deliver nutrients to the hillsides than by which particular species is filling this niche on this hillside. Ecosystems involving farmland may look simple by comparison, but they are actually more complex, and much more brittle. It becomes difficult to even establish their boundaries since run-off may be influencing more than one watershed.

GMO research needs to demonstrate that the change in the genes in the ecosystem are not going to damage the ecosystem. So far there is no serious attempt to do that: the most that is being done is to assure that genetic drift, the movement of modified genes between species, is not too bad. But the GMO was done to significantly alter some attribute of the crop, so how does that affect the ecosystem as a whole? If this new sugar beet is more drought tolerant, then the subsoil becomes less moist toward the end of the hot season, and what affect will that have on the soil microbes, and available nutrients?

That kind of research is not getting much attention. Mostly because it is so damned obvious that if you start talking about ecosystems, then the problems with monoculture become glaringly obvious, and without monoculture there is no profit in GMO development. And profit is what drives Monsanto. Without obvious profit, there would be no great push to get GMO adopted. Its development would be slow, conducted by agricultural colleges like University of Oregon, under more appropriate systems of checks and crosschecks than Monsanto's profit driven approach.

Re: News for nerds

[Anonymous Coward]

It's funny that you point out somebody else has faulty line of reasoning, but do not look at what you yourself is saying.

If something cannot be measured, observed, quantified or defined, it is AS IF it did not exist.

So take this entity, we shall call it FSM existed, however it was never ever observed in any way, never interacted with our universe in any shape way or form (not even with the smallest of particles), does not exist in any location (no matter where you go, you will never ever see it), never ever left a trace of anything anywhere....Cannot be measured, is invisible to everything....How do you know it exists? What would ever lead you to that conclusion (that it exists/has existed?) without being insane? Because a logical rational person cannot come to that conclusion. It would require faith (the belief in something despite the absence of evidence).

Take for example dark matter. It cannot be seen, measured. or defined at the moment. But we know it's there. We know because of at least 2 simple reasons (that my simpleton mind knows of, I am not an astrophysicist)......#1 Mathematical calculations predicts it.......#2 It seems to interact with our universe through gravity.

BTW are you seriously going to tell me that satyrs MIGHT exist? I am talking about half men half goats creatures....

The default position for a rational person in the lack of evidence is to not believe. It is not for him to disprove everything somebody can claim. It is up to the person making an assertion that need to prove his position.

Re:Slashdot Poll?!?

[msauve]

Whoosh. To some, "god" is not some intelligent deity, but the explanation for why things are. What makes 1+1=2? Why are the laws of physics what they are? Why did the big bang (if you believe that theory) happen?

In exactly what way is trying to describe physical reality with mathematics not "magical thinking?" Have you ever seen or felt a quark, or do you simply have faith that a mathematical system with some arbitrary level of self-consistency actually describes reality? Didn't Godel demonstrate that even math requires faith in the unprovable?

Re: News for nerds

[HappyHead]

Unfortunately, as that pool shrinks, they also seem to be gravitating towards public office and legislative positions, which allow them to yell even louder, and pretend that everyone else is just like them.

Re: News for nerds

[Will.Woodhull]

You raise some valid points, but they have more to do with the shortcomings of organized religion than the differences between religious beliefs, the practice of science, and the shortcomings of persons who get it all mixed up, and believe in Science as if it were a Religion.

Re: News for nerds

[CaptainLard]

What's most interesting is that it's usually the most religious people who buy into the Republican Party's ideology, which includes "grabbing whatever you can get" and espousing Ayn Rand-style objectivist philosophy.

Check out this story on npr: http://www.npr.org/2015/03/30/...

Basically it would appear religion is in politics for the same reason anything else is, fat cats want more money. Whoda thought?

Re: News for nerds

[ranton]

Belief systems and the practice of science are as unrelated as music and athletics. There are plenty of excellent scientists that are devout believers in various religions.

While your second statement is obviously true, that does not help validate your first statement. Every limitation can be overcome, even being a religious scientist. I equate it as being similar to a professional basketball player who is under 6' tall. It is absolutely possible but it does impact your play.

Neil Degrasse Tyson has a great lecture which goes over how religious thought has impacted some of the greatest minds in history. He also writes about the concept in an article titled "The Perimeter Of Ignorance." As I understood his point, there have been times when great scientific scholars have stopped their pursuit of knowledge because they were content with the "God did it" explanation.

Newton stopped investigating the movement of planets once his current mathematical knowledge was put to the task of understanding how planets affect each others' orbits. This was the man who invented Calculus and wrote the Principia, but even he was guilty of not pushing forward the boundaries of science because he was content with the "God did it" answer. If not for his religious beliefs, perhaps he would have added inventing perturbation theory to his list of accolades and could have introduced it a century before Laplace did.

I am not arrogant enough to think I could keep religious beliefs from impacting my ability to investigate the world rationally if even geniuses like Newton couldn't.

The most troubling causational link he highlights is how the Islamic world lost its place as a center of scientific progress when a radical version of Islam took hold in the 12th century. Over the centuries that followed, the Islamic world went from being the place Algebra was invented to having 0.6% of Nobel laureates in Physics/Chemistry/Medicine with 23% of the world's population.

My favorite concept from his lecture is the danger of Revelation Replacing Investigation. It is at the core of why scientific thought and religious thought are at opposing sides, even though they can both exist within the same human being.

Re: News for nerds

[Ol Olsoc]

"But seriously? Trying to equate especially nuc power with religion is pretty silly." No I am equating the anti-technology views of those that are not atheists with those that are.

Mighty broad brush there you re using. Perhaps there is a bit of a difference between mistrustying some "science", and outright rejecting it. A person who has issues with Nuc power, or GMO accepts some of the science, just doesn't trust it.

My fundamentalist grandparents "knew" the earth was created in October 4004 b.c.e., no science needed and completely rejected.

Regardless, there are people of all political and religious stripes. It would not be surprising to find some atheists who reject science.

But making this somehow an equivalent between atheists and fundamentalists is almost an end run toward claiming atheism is a religion.

I don't like the direction that Slashdot has taken. It is like NPR has been taken over by FOX News or MSNBC.

Its not like I actually disagree with your assessment. Slashdot does employ more clickbait than in the past. The ceaseless systemd stuff, the endless men are pigs - Women in STEM articles. I just don't care that much. I'll either click or ignore. I long ago gave up the idea of trying to control others.

Actually being worried about Nuclear energy because of Chernobyl is as bad as fearing flying because of Hindenburg.

Come on now. I'll address that odd comparison. Here is where the Hindenburg crashed:

http://virtualglobetrotting.co...

Here is Chernobyl :

http://virtualglobetrotting.co...

See any difference?

I might take my family to visit the site of the Hindenberg crash, where there is a memorial to the event.Maybe have a picnic. I can hardly imagine doing that at Chernobyl. There's some serious orders of magnitude of personal danger. They didn't abandon Lakehurst New Jersey after the Hindenburg crash, because there was no need to

It's why I am pro-nuc power, but have serious issues with how some try to downplay the nasty shit that has gone on. Your strange comparison of the two is an example of just that.

Fukushima should actually make people feel good. The absolutely worst case situation happened it was not the massive disaster of everyone's fears.

You do reallze that that comment is the absolute hieight of arrogant irresponsibility, don't you? People like you who tell us to feel good about disasters are a big part of why so many people are anti nuc. Hard to imagine even you looking at the disaster and thinking "Not so bad, I feel good about this" Probably the disassociation of distance there, I kind of doubt you'd feel so good about it if it happened in your city.

Nuc power can be safe. But not with that attitude. The power can be harnessed. The arrogance, politics, and contempt of people cannot.

Re:"Social Justice" should be considered a religio

[serviscope_minor]

I was surprised to see that all double blind tests are now showing liberals as more racist than conservatives.

There's no evidence, but it's a statistical fact that people who despise liberals are 573% more likely to invent studies than other people.

Re: News for nerds

[umghhh]

What is the difference between religious, political and non affiliated wackos?

Re: News for nerds

[nehumanuscrede]

Agreed. Once enough of our species evolves beyond faith based idealism, our eyes will finally be opened to the true wonders of the universe. Science is the vehicle that will get us there, not faith. If you want a good look at what faith will do for you, you need look no further than any Theocracy based government and where their citizens stand in the big picture of things. We can either kill each other off in the name of some man-made imaginary ideology, or we can flourish as a species and maybe finally start understanding the wonders of our universe. In the long term, nothing positive has ever come from faith. Why folks continue to cling to it is beyond my ability to understand or explain.

Plenty of dumb unenforced laws.

[Anonymous Coward]

Elephants may not be used to plow cotton fields. While having sex, you must stay in the missionary position and have the shades pulled. If a man and a woman who aren’t married go to a hotel/motel and register themselves as married then, according to state law, they are legally married. Persons in possession of illegal substances must pay taxes on them. A three dollar tax must be paid on all white goods sold. Organizations may not hold their meetings while the members present are in costume. Bingo games may not last over 5 hours unless it is held at a fair. Serving alcohol at a bingo game is not allowed. All from North Carolina http://www.dumblaws.com/

Re: News for nerds

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't start at the end.

Our best tool for understanding is scientific process, not jumping to wild conclusions. Religion makes grandiose claims with absolutely no evidence to back it up other than their scripture. That is anti-science.

Maybe due to misclassifying, esp. the Big-P?

[Ungrounded Lightning]

I wonder what the numbers would be if "Progressivism" were also counted as a religion, rather than JUST a philosophy or political affilication? B-)

Think about it: It claims to prescribe what behavior is good or bad, generally expects its adherents to take its pronouncements on faith, and has a lot to say against various religions - just like ("other") competing religions do to their opponents.

I could go on with the similarities. But since they include suppression of competing ideas by pretty much any available mechanism (including arbitrary down-moderation, personal attacks, and flame wars), I'd prefer to keep the discussion light.

They're not alone in this, either. (c.f. any of several political philosophies, right, left, libertarian, authoritarian, moderate, ...) But they're my current candidate for the largest not-advertised-as-religion-religion at the moment. B-)

Re:Maybe due to misclassifying, esp. the Big-P?

[Yosho]

Think about it: It claims to prescribe what behavior is good or bad, generally expects its adherents to take its pronouncements on faith, and has a lot to say against various religions - just like ("other") competing religions do to their opponents.

Of course, none of those things are among the criteria for what causes something to be classified as a religion, but feel free to keep drawing parallels if it makes you feel better.

Re:Maybe due to misclassifying, esp. the Big-P?

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Of course, none of those things are among the criteria for what causes something to be classified as a religion, ...

That depends on what set of criteria one is using to classify something as religion, doesn't it? B-)

Re: News for nerds

[__aasehi2499]

One of those groups can generally defend itself from those that would take from them and the other wants other people to have just enough so that they don't try to take away from them.

Re:Slashdot Poll?!?

[ScentCone]

Whoosh. To some, "god" is not some intelligent deity, but the explanation for why things are.

So, to some ... "god" is the laws of physics? Why assign the nature of existence a personality, or at least a noun that historically is associated with such? That's the magical thinking part.

Quarks, by the way, don't require me to believe in them, and nobody is asserting that the fact that one must believe in them without any prospect of every understanding them is somehow proof that they are real. That kind of baked-in insanity is peculiar to religion, not the scientific method (or math).

Re: News for nerds

[PPH]

Religious wackos delegate their ethical decision making to some scripture that cannot be questioned or examined critically.

Re: News for nerds

[itzly]

What's the point of sentience? It is irrelevant to life

Sentience is what you get if you make a realistic model of the world around you, and yourself in it, with the capability to run complicated what-if scenarios on it, like "if I throw a rock at that bear, it'll probably charge me, but I will be able to escape through that narrow cave entrance if I run fast enough". It helps survival, so it is crucial to life.

Re:Slashdot Poll?!?

[msauve]

"So, to some ... "god" is the laws of physics? Why assign the nature of existence a personality,"

Try to follow along. That's exactly what "Mother Nature" is.

Re: News for nerds

[itzly]

But we shouldn't make the mistake of thinking that it is the only tool we have for gathering knowledge. It can't answer every question, and that's okay.

Yes, it is the only tool. Other tools can provide answers, but not knowledge. Knowledge can be used to make predictions, and predictions are testable, and therefore fall in the realm of science. If your answers can't be used to make predictions, they are not useful, and they might as well not exist.

Re: News for nerds

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Belief in religion is belief in magic, hence anti-science. That's causation right there.

Oh the irony of that statement.

Re: News for nerds

[g0bshiTe]

Far as I know modern science has neither proven nor dis proven existence of .

Until we find that rock stamped "Made By God", I'll trust science.

Re: News for nerds

[g0bshiTe]

NOPE, NOPE, NOPE!

Re: News for nerds

[VIPERsssss]

Persons who believe in science have substituted Newton's laws and the periodic table for religious/spiritual principles, which just doesn't work. It seemingly gives them a framework that allows them freedom from the encumbrances of morals or ethics. But those encumbrances are part of being human, and without them these persons are just shits.

That's an awfully broad brush you're using there, Will. Are all religious persons this narrow minded? Do you see what I did there?

Re: News for nerds

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

There is a lot we don't know or understand, so foreclosing the possibility of other states of being or consciousness is a mistake. We simply don't know, as you say.

Cannot be measured, is invisible to everything....How do you know it exists? What would ever lead you to that conclusion (that it exists/has existed?) without being insane?

You rebutted a statement he didn't make.

Re: News for nerds

[g0bshiTe]

If you believe for a second "aliens" for religious explanations, which is more plausible, beings that could exist and are far more advanced vs omnipotent being.

At least with aliens it's not magic as science, with the omnipotent being it's magic.

I'm not saying it was aliens, but it was.

I'd be more inclined to believe aliens.

Re:I thought Religious affiliation was rising in U

[cyberchondriac]

This study is one small indication for why I argue against those who claim that the country has shifted right - when popular media itself, as a reflection of society, indicates the opposite. At least in terms of religion, this study suggests.. well, I'm not sure it suggests a move left, but it sure doesn't suggest a move to the right. I think those who are fanatically religious are just more shrill than they used to be and stand out more.
As an agnostic, I think this study is a good sign. Religion and government do not make good bedfellows. Religion should be a personal thing if anything. I'm wary of large, organized religion particularly.

Re: News for nerds

[VIPERsssss]

We don't have a complete theory of gravity. What if it turns out to be magic? /s

Re: News for nerds

[Anonymous Coward]

Check the Stainless Steel Rat series...
In that story, the protagonist was atheist. The cohort was amazed that he took the time to move the sleeping people out of the way instead of drive over them...

"Since I don't believe in an afterlife, I will not shorten someone's life"

Re: News for nerds

[Anonymous Coward]

I oppose GMOs not because "chemicals" or "nature." I oppose GMO because I don't believe it is society's best interest to have a food supply controlled by corporations. I also worry about biodiversity, the sustainability of modern agriculture, and concern over the overuse of pesticides.

Re:"Social Justice" should be considered a religio

[cyberchondriac]

Damn, I can't give you mod points, but you nailed it. An awful lot of the poeple out there decrying "haters" seem more hate-filled than anyone else, they can't seem to differentiate between hate and basic disagreement with their SJW views.

Re: News for nerds

[LWATCDR]

"Nuc power can be safe. But not with that attitude. The power can be harnessed. The arrogance, politics, and contempt of people cannot."
Sigh....
No, Chernobyl was a disasters waiting to happen. It lacked a containment building and the design allowed for a thermal runaway reaction.
AKA as different from a modern western reactor as a 777 is from the Hindenberg.
BTW I live with a Western Nuclear reactor in my town. You are right that disasters just that a disaster and are not good. Fukushima was the worst case aka a total loss of cooling but did have the large scale results that many anti nuclear folks by.

"But making this somehow an equivalent between atheists and fundamentalists is almost an end run toward claiming atheism is a religion."
Funny but it sure does look like one more and more. The joy in spreading the belief system, sense of superiority, the joy of seeing more "converts" that is see in many replies to this all look like the worst behaviour of civil religious people.

Re: News for nerds

[AthanasiusKircher]

I don't have polling data, but it does pass the sniff test to assume that one form of magical thinking, inculcated from birth, would tend to make the personality more at-risk of accepting other magical-thinking proposals.

Well, there are some studies which suggest what you say is true, but there are other scientists and psychologists who have claimed that supernatural beliefs and superstitions are "hard-wired" into humanity. Many anthropologists have argued that some sort of supernatural beliefs were necessary for the foundation of complex societies, but there's disagreement about the exact role or types of beliefs and their effects.

On the other hand, regardless of upbringing, there seem to be specific psychological traits that are highly correlated with religiosity, such as lower intelligence or various personality traits. There have been literally hundreds of studies on this stuff, and your proposal that various superstitious thinking may be related to and/or substituting for religious thinking has been studied for close to 40 years.

There seem to be no clear answers and a lot of contradictory studies about whether paranormal/supernatural beliefs are basically innate or mostly affected by psychological traits or intelligence, or whether nurturing children affects those tendencies in significant ways.

The only thing I can say is that people have believed weird nonsense throughout history, and even if you expunge various myths and bogey men, people will find other weird nonsense to believe -- whether it's aliens or conspiracy theories or whatever. You can even look at demographic stats and polls for other countries -- participation in institutional religion is very low in Europe, and many countries have relatively high numbers there of people who are nominally atheists, but various other types of occult and superstitious elements are exceptionally popular.

Bottom line: decreasing religious indoctrination of youth may have some impact on overall belief in "magical thinking," but many people will still find various weird things to buy into as adults. Aside from natural cognitive tendencies of humans to "ascribe meaning" to random or natural phenomena and such, religion is historically about defining social groups as well as beliefs, and there's a lot of evidence that people will buy into all kinds of weird crap if it seems like the stuff that most of the people around them are into.

Yeah - progress !!!!

[Morpeth]

The less people believe in their imaginary sky fairies the better... better for science and rational policy making as well.

Plus, I'm kind of pulling for The Flying Spaghetti Monster... cause HE IS the real deal you know...

Re: News for nerds

[chilenexus]

every single scientific "law" might be overturned at any time by some new discovery that displays reality from a new and different point of view

You're confusing laws and theories. Laws describe what things do, with no concern for how that is accomplished. For example, Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation: F = G(m1*m2/r^2)

This accurately describes what the gravitational force is between two masses, but you're not going to see anything about gravity waves or gravitons or gravity elves in there - there's no "how". For this to be overturned, you'd have to contradict all of mankind's collected observational data on the subject, where everything we've ever observed has turned out to be affected by gravity according to that formula.

Theories are our attempts to explain the "how" - and are subject to correction, reinterpretation, and refinement constantly.

Re:I am waiting...

[Morpeth]

Here's a start for you

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...
http://old.richarddawkins.net/...

You might also be interested to know that atheists commit LESS crime than their religious counterparts

http://www.salon.com/2013/06/1...

And their divorce rate is lower

http://www.alternet.org/belief...

Meanwhile shall we look at all the wars, murder and mayhem conducted in the name of religion/god? Not sure what the character limit is on /. posts, might exceed it...

Re:Slashdot Poll?!?

[ScentCone]

That's exactly what "Mother Nature" is.

Exactly. People who feel the need to give it a personality aren't any different than any other magical thinker.

Re:to atheists

[Morpeth]

Like what exactly? And please, not astrological-like vague crap, I mean actual specifics?

Repeat Slackers!

[Anonymous Coward]

The World Ends Tomorrow and YOU MAY DIE!

"Bob" has all the answers to questions you never even thought to ask!

THE CONSPIRACY!

The idea that America (or any country) values individuality as the highest ideal is a myth. Perhaps in simpler times it was true, but no MODERN industrial society can really afford a population of unpredictables. This is not surprising -- the long history of our cult's persecution by the Conspiracy goes back for generations untold, and indeed there are signs of their hoary repression of prehuman SubGenii dating from BEFORE "man's" appearance on Earth. All of civilization's painful and misguided climb up from the primeval slime, and its subsequent loss of Slack AND OF ANY CLASS AT ALL, has been indelibly marked, nay, ENTIRELY MOTIVATED, by the aeons- bridging conflict between the Conspiracy's mindlessly chickenshit Witless Principals and the Jehovah-spawned, grandiose depravity of the superior yet ethnically all-encompassing race of latent SubGeniuses. (You should know this -- YOU WERE/WILL BE THERE IN THE BEFORELIFE!) The fact that only in recent years has "our kind" begun to recognize our own sovereignty demonstrates both how vicious have been Their efforts at further denying us Slack and yet now near is our race to TRIUMPH.

All this is ULTIMATE PROOF that Jehovah 1 has not only promoted the SubGenius as His Special Tool, but has SIMULTANEOUSLY pulled the strings which make THEM endarken Themselves with their hereditary ignorance AND US with their cubistic witch-hunt superstitions. His "reason" for this two-faced obedience-school programming, this fissioning of history into binary "war equations," unfortunately, or, perhaps, thankfully, remains at total mystery.

But Jehovah 1 is not alone in His cosmic meddling, for Earth has been periodically visited for thousands of years by BENEVOLENT ALIENS of such technical and psychic superiority that their powers, while no match for Jehovah's, are nonetheless nothing short of "Godlike" to we roaches, the Human Race. These BENIGN SPACE MONSTERS, the "X-ists," have walked among us throughout history, investigating and sometimes resisting the subatomically-pervading presence of Jehovah 1. We are not, then, alone in our battle/subservience. The rise and "fall" of Atlantis, the erection of the Pyramids and other monuments which NO SLOPEHEADS ALONE COULD BUILD, the miracles of the Old Testament, all these and more are events so inextricably interwoven with the invisible background war between Jehovah and the Xists that all the "Ancient Astronaut" fossils in the world furnish only the barest of clues. (The movie rights ALONE to these gut-splitting tales of reincarnancient history are worth MILLIONS!) Yea, it has even been suggested that the Carpenter of Nazareth himself, God Jr., Jesus 'What, Me Worry?' Christ, was in actuality a 'space detective' of the Xists, walking the Earth in human form with the mission of extricating us from the Monster God's grip.

The black shadow of the Conspiracy, unfortunately, has seen to it that even His teachings were diluted and distorted until human attempts to follow them were fully as misguided as the carving of the heads of Easter Island or the 'runways' of Nazca.

And so the true history of the SubGenius has been kept secret from Man. For Jehovah 1 is to the Xists and Us what a hungry fisherman is to a prize fish and his favorite pet worm - the last in the can. How many million other races were used before us in these ghastly galactic water-sports?

UNTIL NOW!!

For YOU are lucky enough to "live" in the End Times when the Word of Jehovah's Prime Ordinance has been made known to "Man"kind by the Primanimal SubGenius, the High Epopt of the Church!

In the early Fifties an industrious young American drilling equipment salesman, while watching late-night TV, was abruptly REMOVED and transported astrally to the 'IDGE' of JEHOVAH 1 HIMSELF! In this s

Taxation is not charity

[mi]

the irreligious people are much more liable to vote for politicians who push social welfare programs ("working for the common good")

People voting to rob other people at gun-point (which is how taxes are collected) to pay for something, they themselves consider worthwhile are not "charitable" and driven not by ethics, but by simple greed: "I want a better road, I can not pay for it — ergo, I'll vote for forcing others to pay it for instead." It is so blatant, whenever a poor person speaks out against such "spreading the wealth around", he is accosted as "an idiot" acting against "his own interests". These arguments and accusations are proof, that the accusers' own motivation is not ethical, but egoistic, greed and envy — and that they are stupefied to find somebody else not sharing them.

Whereas the "grabbing whatever you can get" Republicans are happy to limit the "grabbing", to what's rightfully theirs, Illiberals aren't satisfied with such restrictions...

So the idea of religion giving people any kind of decent morals or ethics is blatantly false.

Your generalized hand-waving in support of this conclusion hereby destroyed, do you have anything better to offer as evidence?

Re:Taxation is not charity

[Grishnakh]

Hey, if you don't want to live in a society with roads, go live in Somalia.

Re:Taxation is not charity

[mi]

Hey, if you do want to live in a society with roads, go live in North Korea.

Re:Taxation is not charity

[meglon]

Taxes are what we pay for a society. YOU have gained immensely from being in this society...clean air, clean water, safe food, police protection, and a myriad of other benefits. YOU have gained those things since before YOU were born BECAUSE previous generations understood that taxes are what we pay for a society, and by doing that we can make society better for future generations.

YOU, on the other hand, want to be a fucking thief, and instead of living up to YOUR social responsibility to PAY BACK WHAT YOU HAVE ALREADY USED, you want to steal all the value from society so that future generations have it worse than we do. YOU want all the benefits and rights, but want to take none of the responsibility. YOU are simply a greedy little simpering thief who doesn't give a fuck about this country or the people living here.

As for religion and morals.... religion tells people to be "good" so they can get into heaven, and not to be "bad" so they don't go to hell. Someone who has to have the stick or carrot to be a "good" person isn't really a good person, they're just doing risk aversion. Someone who isn't religious doesn't do good to appease some daddy-issue mythology floating around in the clouds, but they do it because they are actually decent people.

In a sense you're right...taxation isn't charity. It's responsibility, and it's love for country. Fucking thieves don't understand that.

Re:Taxation is not charity

[riverat1]

The motivations of people like me have nothing to do with greed but rather a realization that we're all in this together and how well I do as an individual is tied to how well others in the society I live in do. I have nothing against people getting wealthy but they should support the society we have that allowed them to become wealthy. As Oliver Wendell Holmes said "Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society."

Re:Taxation is not charity

[mi]

As Oliver Wendell Holmes said "Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society."

That canard stops being quite so comforting, when you realize, it is your taxes, that pay for NSA spying on you, for example. And for myriads other things you would never have given a dime for, had you been given a choice.

The point of this subthread, however, was not whether or not taxes are good, but that people voting for more of them are not doing so out of some sort of highly ethical altruism, as Grishnank was alleging. And, because this non-existent "altruism" was used by him to prove religion not being a cause of any moral good, that argument is, in turn, null and void, for he — despite already replying again — has presented nothing else to support it.

Re:Taxation is not charity

[mi]

clean air, clean water, safe food

Oh, this is so sweet... Clean air, is what I pay taxes for? As we used to joke back in USSR, "Spring has passed, Summer arrives, thanks be to the Party" (it rhymes in Russian).

YOU, on the other hand, want to be a fucking thief

Don't curse, asshole, it annoys your audience and your argument, such as it is, falls flat.

In a sense you're right...taxation isn't charity. It's responsibility

You got it. Whatever taxation is, it is not evidence of high morals or ethical standards of those, who want more of it — contrary to Grishnakh's above assertion. Case closed.

Re:Taxation is not charity

[Will.Woodhull]

As someone else once said on Slashdot:

I gladly pay taxes. That is how I buy civilization

Re:Taxation is not charity

[shutdown -p now]

Whereas the "grabbing whatever you can get" Republicans are happy to limit the "grabbing", to what's rightfully theirs

Like, say, Iraq? Or someone's fetus?

Re:Taxation is not charity

[mi]

Like, say, Iraq? Or someone's fetus?

I'm pretty sure, the conversation was focusing on the alleged propensity of Republicans to "grab" wealth. Neither Iraq, nor fetus qualify.

Run along and keep your talking points fresh till next time.

Re:Taxation is not charity

[dywolf]

because companies never ever polluted or poisoned food in the pursuit of profits and needed to slapped upside the head by government. ever.

Re: News for nerds

[Penguinisto]

Whatever happened to "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof"? There is no reason to believe...

...that last word I quoted, it is the source of your conundrum. There is a difference between faith (assuming something that cannot be proven empirically) and fact (knowing something to be true based on proofs or observation.)

Or, put in another way, faith (which you refer to as belief) should have no - repeat, no - place in scientific result or process. Science has no room for faith, as faith is antithetical to what science is or how it works. This is because if you hold faith to be acceptable as scientific proof in whole or in part, then science is no longer science - it becomes religion.

Religion on the other hand has room for both faith and fact - see also clergymen such as Gregor Mendel (the Catholic monk who invented Genetics), Georges LeMaître (the Catholic priest who came up with the universe origin theory now known as The Big Bang), Isaac Newton (though not an official clergyman, he was fervently devout), et al. Most of the founding fathers of scientific process, inquiry, and theories were either clergymen or quite devout (e.g. Isaac Newton, Copernicus, Charles Darwin, etc). This is because a successful religion considers scientific inquiry as a means to better understand how God engineered the universe we live in, and is willing (and let's face it, quite able) to reconcile any supposed differences.

That last sentence brings up one other bit: I dearly wish folks would stop conflating *all* religion with the fringe pack of heretical nutcases who think the Earth is only 6,000 years old, or that Noah walked with dinosaurs... it's a dishonest and stupid comparison.

As for animals and feelings, sure - there are lots of semi-sentient species out there. Trying to prove they have a soul is going to be quite tough to do, considering that the existence of a soul is based (at least at this time) firmly in belief (though not for lack of trying to prove the existence of one by various folks throughout the 20th Century... I think someone even tried to literally weigh it.)

Re: News for nerds

[tnk1]

The "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof" rule is merely a means to simplify thinking about problems. It isn't a physical law or a bound of reality. There is nothing preventing the existence of complexity.

It is also a subjective rule. You are defining what is "extraordinary" based on your own view of the issue, mostly because you believe that "no deity" is less extraordinary than "one or more deities". Historically, however, that actually puts you firmly in the minority.

There are other people who believe the idea that the universe came into being *without* a deity would be an extraordinary concept.

Which one of you are correct? I have no idea. You're both stipulating something based on your own tastes.

Neither of you can "prove" or "disprove" an entity that is
a) defined as the arbiter of reality itself and;
b) does not wish to be tested outside of direct revelation.

You can't falsify a hypothesis that you can't design an experiment to test. That does *not* mean that the hypothesis is incorrect (or correct), merely that you lack the capability to prove it.

In the end, science is a useful tool that should not be lightly challenged on ground where it can deal with experimental data.

However, discussions about deities is where science is not at all on firm ground. That's why I can listen to smart people like Dawkins and despite the fact that I know they are good scientists, I don't see them as any more qualified to discuss the existence of deities than anyone else. It is just to their taste to believe otherwise and they can make arguments all day, but they've got no more actual proof of their assertion than the Pope has of his.

Re: News for nerds

[Fire_Wraith]

They won't go quietly, that's for certain. They're going to try to put a stop to things they don't like. They may find more success in some places than others, but overall, scientific and technological progress doesn't stop. If one country tries to dig in its heels, someone else is going to keep forging ahead, and gain an advantage over that country. They're not going to win, not on their terms.

In the longer term, they largely face two choices - adapt, or withdraw from society. I think you'll see a lot of groups, especially smaller ones, picking the latter route, a la the Amish. Larger ones, such as the Catholic Church, or the LDS Church, will probably be the ones that adapt, even if in fits and starts, and will probably focus on the parts of the religion like "don't be complete shits to your fellow human beings."

I also think that, if we ever get to the point where colonization of space becomes a feasible thing, you'll see lots of religious groups heading out to settle, just like they did in times past.

Re: News for nerds

[morgauxo]

In many cases, yes. There's always the naturalist hippies though... I bet we end up seeing a lot more of those as future generations don't take up their parent's faith.

Re:Slashdot Poll?!?

[msauve]

So, all the physicists who call the Higgs bosun "the God Particle" are magical thinkers?

Re: News for nerds

[Anonymous Coward]

National Geographic recently published a piece on the attack on science. Poll items such as belief in the efficacy of vaccines to whether we actually landed on the moon showed less public belief in science and the scientific process. Even though the link between autism and early vaccination has been thoroughly debunked it was still cited as one reason why parents won't vaccinate. That is not an annecdote. The poll numbers cited in this article are a fact.

Re:Tel me...

[maliqua]

These people accept that it's a theory.
Religion is accepted as irrefutable fact. I personally wouldn't be opposed to religion if its practitioners had a bit more acceptance that the stories are lose interpretations based on observations and limited knowledge at the time, not to be taken as fact but as metaphor or guidance to help you live your life

Re:to atheists

[maliqua]

the same way we deal with earth quake predictions
http://science.slashdot.org/st...

Re: News for nerds

[Shortguy881]

And political wackos have no ethics.

Re:to atheists

[maliqua]

http://news.slashdot.org/story...

this is the link i meant to post

Correct figures?

[Epeeist]

I wouldn't be sure that the numbers are correct.

Here in the UK 59% of the population claimed to be Christian in the 2011 census. However attendance at churches of all varieties runs to about 6% of the population. So what happened to the other 53%, are they really Christian or merely putting themselves down as Christian because it sounds better?

One thing that has been reported in the past is that while 40% of the population of the States reports that they attend services each week. However when actual counts are taken the figure is only about 20%

Conclusion? The 77% might be overselling the number of people who are actually Christian compared to being cultural Christians.

Re: News for nerds

[itzly]

There are other people who believe the idea that the universe came into being *without* a deity would be an extraordinary concept.

Of course, they are just fooling themselves into thinking that "a deity did it" actually provides any useful explanation. Even if a deity did it, we still don't know how or why, and we have no information about this deity, or where he came from. So instead of providing answers, we've only added more questions.

Re: News for nerds

[Yosho]

So really you're against specific business practices and abuses of the legal system, not GMO foods.

There is no such thing as "natural" corn anymore. All corn that is grown and sold is GMO corn; some strains of it were simply manipulated (and capitalized upon) more recently than others.

Re:This is not a good thing.

[ej0c]

Comparing countries is rarely a good thing when it's done like this.

For example, Finland is often cited as an educational utopia. However, Finland is nearly homogeneous, has outlawed slavery for about 500 years, has minimal immigration, is the smaller than several US states, and has a climate quite different from the American south. We can glean ideas from it, but we can't reliably cite it as a success model we should emulate in general.

Similarly, many countries spend a fraction of what we do on Defense. When earthquake prevents air support to Haiti, it's the US who has the capacity to open an airfield and coordinate the supply flow. When Tsunami devastates Japan, it's the US who has the resources to bootstrap a recovery. That phone in your hand? It does so much because of the satellites that the US DoD put up there to supply millimeter-level position data, and worldwide communications capability. (It's software and support network was also largely the result of incredibly innovative financial vehicles generally invented in or near the US.)

So taking on your latter comment would be counter-productive. It would be better to examine economic mobility within the US.

As to the former sections of the comment, we were talking religious organizations, not "people affiliated with religions" as individuals. You accidentally conflated the two, or thought I was, when I wasn't in that sense.

Re: News for nerds

[Will.Woodhull]

Newton's "Law of Universal Gravitation" fails at the extremes, does it not? It cannot be used in a region some close distance from a black hole (can we still say event horizon?), nor does it have any application within a black hole, and yet there are definitely black holes in the universe. It also fails at the other extreme, in the realm of "quantum foam", Casimir-Polder forces, and the like.

But more importantly, you are profoundly right that all of science is only about the "how". You have to look elsewhere when it comes to questions of "why". Or to the only truly important question: "What the f*ck should I do now?" Those are matters of ethics or morals, that science cannot answer. And persons who attempt to steer their lives based on an absolute belief in science as the pinnacle of human thought are going to fail it.

I am a tool user. I know that you need to use the right tool for the job. And a true believers' absolute faith in science is not only an attempt to drive a nail with a screwdriver, but is an invitation to a sleazebag salesman to sell that chump a cordless electric hammer and a complete set of left-handed monkey wrenches for those tough "What should I do?" problems.

Re: News for nerds

[Toshito]

You'll also find that many practicing scientists are also religious

That doesn't mean anything. You can be a practicing scientist and still be unable to think critically in certain aspects of your life because of your upbringing (like being brain washed by your religious parents).

Re: News for nerds

[Will.Woodhull]

I see what you attempted to do there. Let's get back on track:

Please show me how anything similar to religious/spiritual principles can be derived from Newton's laws, the periodic table, or any of the other findings of science. Please provide an example of using the findings of science, or the scientific method, to answer an ethical or moral problem.

Re:This is not a good thing.

[belthize]

Fine, there is also an inverse correlation between US poverty level by state (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_poverty_rate) and the general religiousness of a state (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreligion_in_the_United_States).

Your assertion simply flies in the face of the data. The exact opposite of what you claim is suggested by actual data, If you have any data beyond what you decided was probably the case by all means share it.

Lastly I didn't conflate the two. Religious organizations are front in center fighting against marriage equality, abortion rights, income inequality and any number of other issues. They're also front in center in fighting for them. This is because ultimately the organizations are reflection of their constituents belief systems and they gravitate to ones that fit their world view.

Answer to troll because needed

[aepervius]

1) the quote was never disputed by the WH, the staff at the epoch or bush himself. In fact if you read what rob sherman reported afterward instead of deniying the WH tries to justify that what Bush said won't affect policy. They would not state that if it was a false quote.
2) it is typical of the christian conservative of the epoch to think something similar
3) it is a step up from the definition of atheist as "wicked , godless" the albeit archeic but previous definition.


Frankly it would have been easy to debunk this from the WH. But they always avoided to even take a stance or denie it. As for the point of the other journalist not hearing it, how many of them simply dismissed it as a campaign wink at his conservative base ? And simply did not see it as news ? Heck if you do not pay too much attention all you get is "we are christian nation blah blah one nation under gods - OK not reporting worth he is pandering". The atheist things could have been misheard by Sherman , but Bush and co never denied having said this. in fact IIRC later he said in 2004 something similar in the imius morning radio show about the elligibility of an atheist.


So suck it troll.

Re:Finally figured out who the Holy Ghost is

[aristotle-dude]

My girlfriend and I were wondering who exactly the Holy Ghost is. I mean, it's not God, and not his son Jesus, so who the fuck is it? I decided it was God's imaginary friend.

I feel sorry for you. May god have mercy on your soul. You should not blaspheme the holy spirit. I hope for your sake that you are an atheist because if you are not then you just doomed yourself.

Re: News for nerds

[Ol Olsoc]

No, Chernobyl was a disasters waiting to happen. It lacked a containment building and the design allowed for a thermal runaway reaction.

Yes, yes, and more yes. But tell me, What was the general attitude of the public before all that happened? Were they marching on Pripyat to have the plant shut down?

No, the plant was perfectly safe.

Until it went kablooey.

I would counter that an intelligent person might wonder what other perfectly safe nuc power plants are waiting for defenders of the faith's excuses as to why they weren't safe - after those plants go kablooey. Because there were people saying it was a problem, they were highly resisted. Then what they said would happen - happened.

Fukushima was the worst case aka a total loss of cooling but did have the large scale results that many anti nuclear folks by.

I'm not certain if you meant ot put a "not" in there somewhere, but the issue with Fukushima was not a failure of the plant in and of itself.

The failure was multiple support issues.

Big one was that there is adequate evidence, both in written historical records, and in gravel patterns left by tsunami of the past, that the protective walls were absolutely certain to be breached.

Other problems were failures to accomodate that certainty. Having the emergency generators at the level they were made it a certainty that they were going to spend some time underwater when the inevitible breach happened. Not building high enough seawalls. The seawalls ar ean admission of the eventual failure though, not some magickal cure for it.

The plant had absolutely no reason to be there at all, ever. I cannot say for certain, but I suspect that some well connected person made a lot of money off the siting decision.

In a tsunami prone area, you want to site a nuc plant above the highest recorded wave height/ inland ingress. Plus some safety margin. I had looked at some maps and found an applicable river side site not terribly far from Fukushima that would have been safe from the effects of the tsunami. As well as the nasty effects that salt water has on reactors.

But that is the thing. I can say where a good site is, but that doesn't take care of the politics, the bean counting cost cutters, and all the other bullshit that goes into making a nuc plant. The contained energy is simply too high, and doesn't care about any of that shit. It wants out, and we have to keep it in.

I think that the final say on nuc plants needs to be people like Wally Schirra at his grumpiest. And until they execute a bean counter for making certain that vital stuff was axed, highly focused "Its my ass in the sling" engineering people should have veto-proof power.

Even then, some buy into the concept of trying to consolidate a humongous amount of power in one plant. This is foolish from both an engeineering and strategic point. Engineering because of the hugh amount of energy involved, ant the stresses it places on the entire infrastructure, and strategically, well lets just say if I was at war with a country, I would really love for them to have their power generating capacity in as few places as possible, if you catch my drift,

Funny but it sure does look like one more and more. The joy in spreading the belief system, sense of superiority, the joy of seeing more "converts" that is see in many replies to this all look like the worst behaviour of civil religious people.

I'll just refrain from much comment on that one - besides I have my afternoon prayers to nothing I gotta do this afternoon. Want to make certain when I die that I go nowhere, and the nothing that I worship is not pretty adamant about that.

Re: News for nerds

[Archwyrm]

You are forgiven. I believe OP used the term "scientism" to distinguish dogmatic thinking based on someone's misguided idea of the principles of science from the actual thing. Essentially you have just agreed with the OP thus it is kind of pointless to have picked a part out of context to rebut. However, congratulations on all the mod points you received for it.

Re: News for nerds

[PPH]

Or its possible that some people can't recognize personal ethics if they don't contain a book:chapter:verse reference.

Re:Finally figured out who the Holy Ghost is

[coinreturn]

My girlfriend and I were wondering who exactly the Holy Ghost is. I mean, it's not God, and not his son Jesus, so who the fuck is it? I decided it was God's imaginary friend.

I feel sorry for you. May god have mercy on your soul. You should not blaspheme the holy spirit. I hope for your sake that you are an atheist because if you are not then you just doomed yourself.

Whether or not I am an atheist, I have not "doomed" myself. If there is a god and he is that petty, I have no desire to meet him, much less spend eternity with him. My god will have a sense of humor.

that's what you get

[doginthewoods]

when you base your dogma upon worship, fear, and ideology. Not reality. Modern day Christianity is mostly the polar opposite of the things That Jesus taught - note that most religious leaders are very fond of quoting the old testament, and saying "God says". When a religion becomes primarily a social self reinforcing group based upon a set of rules, then it is doomed from the beginning to fail.

Religion is the politics of sprituality

[doginthewoods]

"Belief", aka "Faith" is based upon ideology, ie a set of rules imposed by those who determine who is in and who is out of the religion. Spirituality, however, is based upon one person's relationship with their existence, and a search for meaning and commonality.

Re: News for nerds

[ranton]

Please show me how anything similar to religious/spiritual principles can be derived from Newton's laws, the periodic table, or any of the other findings of science. Please provide an example of using the findings of science, or the scientific method, to answer an ethical or moral problem.

Seriously, just Google the term "scientific basis for morality". You could spend the next few years just reading various scientific explanations for various ethical or moral problems.

Re: News for nerds

[narcc]

Sentience is just what brains do.

The problem, of course, is that isn't the result of some empirical investigation, That belief is based on metaphysics, not science. The only answer you'll get from science is "we don't know". "We don't know" is a very important phrase. Let's not do the world a disservice by offering groundless "conclusions" just to avoid it.

Re: News for nerds

[LWATCDR]

"I'll just refrain from much comment on that one - besides I have my afternoon prayers to nothing I gotta do this afternoon. Want to make certain when I die that I go nowhere, and the nothing that I worship is not pretty adamant about that."

Thank you for confirming that one completely.

Re: News for nerds

[avandesande]

The half life for glyphosate is ~45 days. What you claim doesn't make any sense.

Re: News for nerds

[SillyHamster]

Whatever happened to "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof"?

Begs the question of what is ordinary, and who decides what is extraordinary.

There is no reason to believe in the existence of any god, so until there is proof otherwise, forget it.

Yet, the vast majority of mankind has believed it. So either mankind is irrational, making you the irrational product of irrational humans, with an irrational belief in your rationality; or there are reasons for men to believe in some sort of spiritual concepts.

The default stance is "I don't know", not "that must be false". Because the latter rule can be easily gamed.

"god exists" and "god does not exist" are both "extraordinary" claims, and consistent application of that rule results in contradictory conclusions.

Re: News for nerds

[SillyHamster]

Yes, it is the only tool. Other tools can provide answers, but not knowledge. Knowledge can be used to make predictions, and predictions are testable, and therefore fall in the realm of science. If your answers can't be used to make predictions, they are not useful, and they might as well not exist.

What scientific experiment proves that science is the only valid tool for finding knowledge?

Re: News for nerds

[AgNO3]

Wow i'm guessing you would to a Stalin or Mao. You are the reason the Anti Federalist demanded a bill of rights. I'm agnostic, Because you can't prove that the guy that wrote the simulation we live in isn't God. Let me also Paraphrase and bastardize Buddha. Your hate is a gift that you are stuck with all to yourself. Your hate is different then their hate how?

Re: News for nerds

[phud]

well said!

Re: News for nerds

[narcc]

Sentience is what you get if you

Let's stick to reality, please. Baseless assumptions masquerading as science aren't going to get us anywhere. Anyhow, let me explain the quote, which you clearly misunderstood:

Why if you are a biological machine, are you also sentient? What's the point of sentience? It is irrelevant to life. Ants and birds might not be sentient, they are just machines running, like plants or trees, so why is there also this odd and unnecessary and frankly, annoying sentience?

The unstated assumption here is that, if you are a biological machine, consciousness is epiphenomenal. As an unavoidable consequence, free will would be illusory. Sentience, necessarily lacking causal efficacy, would be irrelevant to life. It could not contribute, in any way, to survival -- or anything else!

Re: News for nerds

[Lagmo]

Another found that, among AAAS members, more than half believe in "God or a higher power".

Seems there's a perfectly cromulent reason for why so many scientists are religious:

Science is the inevitable outcome when you go looking for God in all the wrong places and it requires strong belief to keep searching regardless.

Only recently(last few centuries) have things like necessity, altruism, wealth and fame started to overtake outright belief as the major motivator for scientific endeavor.

(disclaimer 'atheist-by-default' poster)

Re: News for nerds

[Grishnakh]

That's pretty obviously the case (politicians pander to religious people to get their votes), but it also shows how utterly stupid and gullible the religious people are for believing them, and then voting for policies which are directly against their own best self-interest.

Re: News for nerds

[Grishnakh]

Possibly because religous persons are more likely ti donate their own time and money more willingly

No, they don't. They'll donate their money to a megachurch or TV preacher so that they can have private jets and live lives of luxury, but they don't actually go out and help poor people unless there's strings attached, like sitting through a sermon. This allegation of yours is a common meme among religious people and it's total bullshit. If religious peoples' donations really were enough, we wouldn't have poverty, and we wouldn't have needed welfare programs.

Re: News for nerds

[Grishnakh]

Well, let's see: which countries have the highest standards of living in the world? That would be western European nations, especially Scandinavian ones. "Expansive social welfare states" as you would say. Now, which nations have the highest levels of education in the world? Again, western European nations.

Which nations have the poorest levels of education? That would be third-world shitholes in places like Africa and the Middle East and Latin America. Which nations have the worst standards of living? The same nations.

Oh yeah, which nations are the most religious? That would be those in the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa. Which nations are the most irreligious? Again, western European ones.

Hmm....

Re: News for nerds

[MobSwatter]

Holy war? What holy war? I am curious to see just what percentage of religious affiliation remains in the people that are in positions of power either in public office or military. Perhaps to live in denial of holy war was decided? Maybe the church decided that with the increasing numbers of homeless people in the US, maybe they are outing a large percentage of followers?

Re: News for nerds

[phud]

There is a line of thought that says that if something can't be observed, measured or defined scientifically then it doesn't exist. I think that way of thinking closes the mind.

Are you referring to anything or anyone specific here? The closest scientific principle I know to this is Occam's razor: do not multiply entities beyond that which is necessary. in other words, we cannot say that a thing does not or could not possibly exist, but we can say that to discuss such a thing without evidence is pointless unless you are discussing a hypothesis and how to test it. I'll believe in a god or gods when evidence gives me a reason to do so, and not before.

There is a lot we don't know or understand, so foreclosing the possibility of other states of being or consciousness is a mistake. We simply don't know, as you say.
Science and the scientific method have enabled us to understand a lot of the world around us. Its value is self-evident. But we shouldn't make the mistake of thinking that it is the only tool we have for gathering knowledge. It can't answer every question, and that's okay.

There certainly is much we don't know. (Job security for those in the sciences!) That does not, however, mean that it is reasonable to believe a proposition for which there is no reliable supporting evidence. It is a natural part of human nature to believe such things, but this is not the same as being reasonable. Science is demonstrably the most beneficial tool for understanding the world we inhabit, checking that knowledge against new information, and revising it when needed. I don't see religion as a tool for knowledge, rather as one used to cope with what is often a hostile existence, to find meaning where there is none given, and to provide certainty where little can be found. It is a tool I will avoid using. I won't look down on those who do, but it is perfectly justifiable to criticize the ideas that result from it.

Re: News for nerds

[Gilgaron]

It is a matter of definition. If you want to define sentience as something other than 'what brains do' you will have to justify it. By definition I can also assert without further empiricism that blue is 450–495 nm.

Re:No, it won't.

[agm]

Why do we have religion?

Religion is natural reaction to our fear of dying. Until we find a way to make us immortal on earth, there will always be belief in the afterlife.

Belief in an afterlife doesn't mean there is an afterlife. People who cannot imagine not existing haven't thought hard enough about it. What was if like before your birth?

I think that belief in an afterlife as a way to make us feel better is intellectually dishonest. It's also an extremely dangerous belief as is evident from history and current events.

Re: News for nerds

[Toshito]

Hate? Where is the hate in my post?

I said that parents brainwash their children with their religion, is that not so? Where is the choice for that children?

How can HE chose what to believe when his figure of authority (his parents) impose their views on him at an age where he can't form his own opinion?

Personnaly I don't impose anything on my own kids. I answer frankly to any question they ask me, but they'll have to decide what they believe themselves.

I'm mostly atheist, was agnostic for a good part of my life, but these days I'm of the opinion that the idea of a supreme being makes no sense. And if we're in a simulation (a distinct possibility), I would not call the creator of this simulation god, he's just a sentient being probably way out of our understanding, but he's not a god.

Re: News for nerds

[Rasperin]

No mod points to give, but just wanted to give you a "I totally accept that point of view even though I may or may not agree with it". :D

Re: News for nerds

[BarbaraHudson]

There is no such thing as a soul, just as there is no god. Both of these beliefs posit something supra-natural, but they are only beliefs, with zero proof, despite. Both have their roots in wishful thinking that, by having "faith", we can deny that when you're dead, you're dead.

The lack of a "soul" has been used as an excuse to enslave people as "just animals." It's been used to justify cruel animal husbandry - they don't "really" suffer.

Fortunately atheism is the fastest growing religious belief, and will be the majority even in the US within 15-20 years. We no longer see things through a glass, darkly :-) Maybe then it won't continue to distort politics and be used as a reason to deny some people who are different the same rights others enjoy.

In other words, you'll become more like Canada, where bringing religion into politics is a good way to consign your political career to the trash heap.

Re: News for nerds

[BarbaraHudson]

Again, an extraordinary claim requires extraordinary proof - whereas you don't even have a bit of proof for the existence of a creator or god, and there have been so many similar claims throughout history - so obviously at the very least all but one are wrong :-)

And that's not even bringing up the question "who created god?" People who believe in god have no answer, whereas atheists have an answer - "People did."

Re:I thought Religious affiliation was rising in U

[Chalnoth]

Religion has been on a slow decline in the US for decades now. It was probably on the rise back in the 50's or somewhere thereabouts, but not recently.

Re: News for nerds

[BarbaraHudson]

Most of mankind is certainly irrational most of the time. Stock market, mortgage crisis, fear of GMOs as Frankenfood, still arguing over climate change, war, especially religious wars, lack of tolerance for people who are different throughout history (burn the witch, anyone?)

So what if the majority has believed until recent times? As my mother said when I was a kid, "would you go jump off a bridge just because everyone else is?"

When you say that the vast majority of mankind has believed it, you're arguing is that tradition is more important than acting on knowledge. The vast majority of people 50 years ago thought that smoking was actually good for you. Sure, it can be argued that it's a great way to lose weight ... one lung at a time ... but smoking today is seen as irrational behavior. Drunk driving used to be no biggie, too. So was beating your wife and kids - "spare the rod, spoil the child". For thousands of years barbers would bleed people to "release the bad humors". And from ancient Sparta to today, parents still kill their daughters because they wanted a boy. So much for doing something because others do it.

Re: News for nerds

[BarbaraHudson]

Thank you. Some people get upset with the idea that humans are the only "rational, sentient beings". Even kids know better, though. Funny how, as we get older, we tend to dismiss the obvious because it's seen as "childish" or "soft-hearted."

Re: News for nerds

[narcc]

If you want to define sentience as something other than 'what brains do' you will have to justify it.

Why? That presumption is unjustified. Why would I offer some other unjustified presumption? Why would we prefer one to another?

Isn't it much more sensible to say, simply, "we don't know" to questions to which we have no justifiable answer?

By definition I can also assert without further empiricism that blue is 450–495 nm

Sure, but that's not science either.

I think I see what you're going for with the "fixed by definition" but it's very silly. Consider this bit of nonsense: "By definition, digestion is what the heart does". You'd reject that, obviously, as it's completely unjustified.

You accept the phrase in question here not because it's been established through scientific means, but on a purely metaphysical basis. It's just as foolish as any other reason to accept an unjustified proposition, but far more dangerous as it unjustifiably lends scientific credibility, and distorts the public understanding of science.

Re:Slashdot Poll?!?

[ScentCone]

So, all the physicists who call the Higgs bosun "the God Particle" are magical thinkers?

No, that's journalists who call it that. I've yet to ever hear of a physicist who doesn't hate that term.

Re: News for nerds

[foreverdisillusioned]

A recent survey found more than a third claim to "have no doubt about Godâ(TM)s existence", a surprisingly extreme position.

This proportion has been trending down for centuries. And take a look at what they mean by "God"--much of the time, they are not talking about the guy Abraham chatted with. Also: Arguably the most important scientist of all time--the inventor of optics, differential calculus and integral calculus--had no doubt about the existence of alchemy. Science is a thing you do or you don't do; it isn't an identity.

Science has nothing to say on the subject of magic

If you want to define your magic and/or your god as a metaphor or something amorphous as to refer to anything, that's true. Science doesn't have much ot say about things that are merely poetically true, metaphorical or too incoherent to mean anything.

But the moment you start making claims about the way things are, the way things were, or the way things will be then science DOES have something to say about that, even if that something is "we do not have any data to reach conclusions or even speculate about X at this time."

Re:Finally figured out who the Holy Ghost is

[meglon]

Why is it that you are telling GOD how HE has to judge someone else? Do you think YOU are GOD? What fucking blasphemy is that? Clearly if there is a GOD, HE is going to be pissed with you for trying to tell HIM what to do. BLASPHEMER! YOU are going to hell for that one!

Thank the gods! (j/k)

[GeekyGuru]

Perhaps rational thought will indeed become common place...

Re: News for nerds

[david_thornley]

Lots of people have religious experiences, which they interpret as perceiving God. My impression is that the human brain is wired to tend towards religion, which is either an artifact of human evolution or an actual sense of the divine (I look forward to discussing religion with non-human intelligent beings). Most people will believe in their senses and perceptions unless they have a good reason not to, and there are no sound arguments for or against the existence of God.

Re: News for nerds

[SillyHamster]

Most of mankind is certainly irrational most of the time.

If the majority of human beings are irrational, then the odds are that you are irrational as well.

So before we even continue this discussion - you have an obligation to prove that you're not irrational like everyone else.

So what if the majority has believed until recent times? As my mother said when I was a kid, "would you go jump off a bridge just because everyone else is?"

They still do. We're not anywhere close to a majority of unbelievers.

When you say that the vast majority of mankind has believed it, you're arguing is that tradition is more important than acting on knowledge.

No, I am saying that this is evidence against the claim that there is no reason to believe in the existence of god.

The short of it is that anyone who claims there is zero reason to believe has shot their own claim of rationality in the foot. The evidence doesn't support it.

Claiming something contrary to the evidence is irrational. Claiming that there is no reason to believe in god is irrational.

Re: News for nerds

[Sklivvz]

You are completely misrepresenting science. Science works for continuous refinements. New discoveries and theories refine previous ones, and our understanding of nature improves without nullifying the previous knowledge.

Thus it's blatantly false that science gives temporary answers. It certainly only provides an approximation, but generally a sane and useful one. Newton's law of gravity is still widely used to send people in space, even though it has been refined by Einstein and others,

Religion, one the other hand, is blatantly made up stuff that is believed into in the face of tons of contrary evidence.

Re:No, it won't.

[shutdown -p now]

Not all human religions even have the belief in the afterlife to begin with.

Re: News for nerds

[Sklivvz]

You are completely misrepresenting science. Science works for continuous refinements. New discoveries and theories refine previous ones, and our understanding of nature improves without nullifying the previous knowledge. Nothing is overturned.

Thus it's blatantly false that science gives temporary answers. It certainly only provides an approximative model of reality, but generally a sane and useful one. Newton's law of gravity is still widely used to send people in space, even though it has been refined by Einstein and others. No one cares about "truth", besides religious people.

Religion, one the other hand, is blatantly made up stuff that is believed into in the face of tons of contrary evidence. It is not unrelated to science, in fact it makes tons of claims about the physical world. So far, any religious/magical claim that has been studied has turned out to be either blatantly false or ...not magic. Yet, people believe anyways. People go to Lourdes, even though it's statistically bad for them. People pray, even though it has no effect at all. At least in science, hypothesis are discarded once they are disproven.

Re: News for nerds

[Yaztromo]

I am atheist and while I am pro-nuclear power, pro-vaccine,and believe in global warming I am very much against GMO foods. I against them though because if the transfer of power they represent, not about the food itself. No study has ever shown GMO corn is any less or more healthy than natural corn. GMO foods shift power from the people and the farmer to the chemical company.

Unfortunately, you're conflating a few things that don't necessarily belong together.

Genetic modification to make plants herbicide resistant is only one form of genetic modification. And I can't disagree -- the way that Monsanto has gone after farmers, and pretty much "owns" agriculture is disgusting.

At the same time, there are a lot of other genetic modifications in food that have nothing to do with selling chemicals. You can't tell me that you're also against Golden Rice? They have a whole lot of studies which show that their rice is more healthy than the regular kind in areas that a) consume a lot of rice, and b) where there are various micronutrient deficiencies, such as Vitamin A (the deficiency of which can be a cause of blindness in children. More than 2 million people a year die from Vitamin A deficiency).

There is a lot of good that GMOs can do for this world, particularly in parts of the world with various dietary nutrient deficiencies. GMO doesn't necessarily imply "engineered to be herbicide resistant". As another poster said, your problem seems to be more with business practices and abuse of the legal system (and, I'd add, a political system hat allows these transgressions to occur) surrounding certain types of GMOs. But why lump in those that can actually help people in vulnerable populations lead healthy, productive lives?

Yaz

Re:Slashdot Poll?!?

[msauve]

So, you don't consider the Nobel prize winner for physics and Director Emeritus of Fermilab who gave it that name, Leon Lederman, to be a physicist? Or perhaps you've simply never heard of him.

Re: News for nerds

[riverat1]

Umm, the agricultural university in Oregon is Oregon State University.

Re: News for nerds

[BarbaraHudson]

All this debate ignores the main point - to more and more people, there is no god, and that's going to change a lot of things. No more people picketing abortion clinics for Jesus, no more discriminating against LGBTQ because the bible says they should be stoned to death, no more politicians sucking up to the majority religion for votes, no more having to teach creationism beside evolution, no more useless arguments about the death penalty ... and this is just off the top of my head.

Re: News for nerds

[BarbaraHudson]

Because people believe in something is not a reason to believe in it. Circular reasoning at it's worst.

The wisdom of the crowds is disproved all the time - see the stock bubble, the housing bubble, people lobbying against single-payer universal health care even though it's in their own best interests, buying lottery tickets, smoking, gambling at casinos, marrying someone just like their ex, unprotected sex, etc., all prove that the wisdom of the crowds is just a false perception created via cherry picking.

And I'm certainly not rational all the time ... only dead people don't make mistakes in judgment.

Also, I have no more obligation to "prove" my rationality than you do. Consider it like working with noisy data if you wish.

Re: News for nerds

[shutdown -p now]

"Sentience" is kinda like "soul": we can start talking about it meaningfully as soon as someone defines what it actually means. Until then, there's no reason to believe that it's a qualitative rather than quantitative difference, or, for that matter, that it is even a meaningful thing in and of itself, and not just an aggregate of some random and unrelated factors (which, in fact, changes over time as we learn more about ourselves and other species) that we believe distinguishes us from all the other "nonsentient" beings.

Re: News for nerds

[quenda]

try to grow a non-"Roundup Ready" (TM) crop in a field that has been sprayed with massive quantities of glyphosate for years.

Monsanto may well be evil, but glyphosate is incredibly useful, and safe compared to alternatives. Soil life is short, just wait a season if it is that bad.
Where do you get this absurd idea that it "poisons the soil"? I plant my veggies a couple of weeks after using glyphosate to kill all the weeds. They grow fine.

Re:I thought Religious affiliation was rising in U

[Eloking]

I think it was a few years after 9/11 while Bush was still in power. I remember because it hit me that, unlike all other developped country, the religion was rising and atheism was shrinking in the US.

Re: News for nerds

[SillyHamster]

Because people believe in something is not a reason to believe in it. Circular reasoning at it's worst.

Not the argument. That large numbers of people across the globe with different languages/cultures have independently chosen to believe in the existence of god is evidence of there being reasons to believe in god, versus there being no reason to believe in god.

The wisdom of the crowds is disproved all the time

The only way this is relevant is if you want to argue that the crowd is always wrong. Not just sometimes; always.

Probably shouldn't live in a representative democracy if you actually believe that.

And I'm certainly not rational all the time ... only dead people don't make mistakes in judgment.

So are you responding rationally right now?

Also, I have no more obligation to "prove" my rationality than you do. Consider it like working with noisy data if you wish.

I'm just taking your own arguments seriously. This is a result of your claim that people are irrational, and now you add that that you're not rational all the time.

If you're rational, then you would address why what you're saying right now is rational in light of those starting assumptions. Otherwise, others should just dismiss your post as irrational opining per your own premises.

Re: News for nerds

[BarbaraHudson]

What a failure of logic. Certainly you're not acting rationally in believing that, just because other people believe something they can't provide any evidence to support, that's a reason to believe.

Just like the rest of your post. Please, tell me you're an American. It would explain why Americans are so far behind the rest of the developed world in abandoning religion :-)

Re:Slashdot Poll?!?

[antiperimetaparalogo]

I would had agree with you but when, for example, the vast majority of Greek postgraduates believe in the God of the (Greek Orthodox) Christian church, i.e., THE God, the one the church describes, even if it is true that defining God is... problematic (!), when a question "which God those postgraduates believe in?" is made, then the answer "THE God" is o.k. i think.

Re: News for nerds

[SillyHamster]

What a failure of logic. Certainly you're not acting rationally in believing that, just because other people believe something they can't provide any evidence to support, that's a reason to believe.

Large groups of people independently acting in a certain way points at a reason for them doing so. The vast majority of people eat food; there exists a reason why. The vast majority of people believe in god(s); there exists a reason why.

I am not arguing this as a reason to believe; I am arguing that this shows reason(s) to believe exist; where you are arguing that reasons to believe do not exist.

If you cannot grasp the meta argument, kindly leave reasoning to those who have the intellectual horsepower for it.

Re:I thought Religious affiliation was rising in U

[Chalnoth]

Fortunately, I don't think so. Religious people got a lot louder, and became stronger in politics (this article, for example, claims that politics became much more Christianity-infused after 9/11). But in terms of population number I don't think they ever increased by a measurable amount.

If you can find a source that proves me wrong, I'd be interested to read it, though.

Re:I thought Religious affiliation was rising in U

[ChrisMaple]

It may suggest a move toward freedom, as belief in god is one form of tyranny over the minds of men. Whether freedom is well-correlated with conservatism is open to debate, but freedom is not in the realm of the left.

Re: News for nerds

[ChrisMaple]

The "Proofs" against the existence of God, are just as faulty as the "Proofs" for God.

First, ground rules. We're talking about conventional definitions of God, close to what many major religions use. No fair saying "This rock in my hand is God" or "everything is God". Silliness will not be tolerated.

Proofs for the existence of God always involve logical fallacies such as question begging, intimidation, etc.. No such "proof" has ever withstood critical examination. God can not be proved to exist out of thin air, nor can it be inferred from observed reality.

Proofs against the existence of god start from a different place. Somebody has to propose what God is; the disprover cannot be expected to find flaws in every single unstated possible definition of God. The disprover justifiably demands a clear description of what God is, and before long the describer has hung himself with his own words. Historically, all definitions of God meeting the ground rules have been proven either self-contradictory, inconsistent with observed reality, or both. No exceptions.

Re:Sad to see

[ChrisMaple]

Here's a hypothesis for you.

Most American principles and institutions were in place before large numbers of Roman Catholics came to the U.S. One difference between Catholicism and Protestantism back then was that Catholicism had made allowances for human foibles and Catholics were expected to follow church rules within those allowances, and did so. Protestants were given a much stricter code to follow, a code so strict that it was in fact impossible to follow it and live. As a result, American Protestants did not follow their religious beliefs (except on Sunday), thus making it possible to build a great secular government and a free country.

In fewer words: Protestants made America the glory that it is by protecting America from Protestantism.

Re: News for nerds

[bingoUV]

Large groups of people independently acting in a certain way points at a reason for them doing so.

Yes. Then you look at another large group of people, who are acting in certain other ways, and then you can only deduce that the common parts of these ways have a reason.

Now the common parts are demonstrably non-existent. Large number of people think Mohammed was greatest of all prophets, and belief otherwise is seriously wrong. Another large number of people believes that Jesus was the last of the prophets - he will come back but no one else except people peddling false gods. While simultaneously believing that belief otherwise is seriously wrong. History centric religions are mostly contradict each other.

So no conclusion can be drawn from these large groups of people.

Re:Slashdot Poll?!?

[loonycyborg]

If people assert "belief in god" it doesn't even mean adherence to particular church or religious institution. In fact most people tend to get disillusioned with particular religious institutions of their geographic areas long before they stop referring to god and notions like that.

Re:I thought Religious affiliation was rising in U

[Eloking]

Yeah I've done some little research but couldn't find anything so I guess you're right. It must have been something else religion-related that was rising.

Re:I thought Religious affiliation was rising in U

[Eloking]

There, found an article that show that you were right (and wasn't completly wrong).

http://tobingrant.religionnews.com/2015/03/12/7-5-million-people-left-religion-since-2012-three-graphs-latest-general-social-survey/

According to this article, we can see a slight drop after 2001 but the trend is clearly rising. Good.

Re:Slashdot Poll?!?

[antiperimetaparalogo]

If people assert "belief in god" it doesn't even mean adherence to particular church or religious institution.

Correct, but the vast majority of people who assert a "belief in God" define/describe God as "THE God" (the same God all Christian churches define/describe) - in my example with the Greek postgraduates, the vast majority of them believe in God, and the vast majority of them who believe in God choose the (Greek Orthodox) Christian church as their church.

in fact most people tend to get disillusioned with particular religious institutions of their geographic areas long before they stop referring to god and notions like that.

I don't understand exactly what you mean. Greeks choose the (Greek Orthodox) Christian church (which for most things is same as any Catholic) out of convenience (its language is Greek) AFTER THEY BELIEVE IN GOD! None is forced (traditionaly they get "baptized" as babies!). . We Greeks learn about Zeus from our 4 years of age (!), but when we refer to God we mean THE God, the Christian God because... any logical person can understand that THE God is the God the (Greek Orthodox) Christian church defines/describes. If you come in Greece and try to discuss about Zeus, you will have to specify that you mean Zeus - if you just say "i want to discuss God", even while all Greeks know about Zeus, you will end up discussing THE God (even if you only meet with Greeks who don't believe in God).

Re: News for nerds

[Gilgaron]

The brain can still be blackboxed and we can call the output sentience. The GP essentially says that because we don't know all the details then we can appeal to magic. If we blackbox the heart we can call the output circulation, but calling it digestion is still inaccurate without having to appeal much to empiricism. We defined cells before we knew how they worked. Your line of thought leads one to think that we can't know anything unless we know everything, which isn't true. Although perhaps I misunderstand.

Re: News for nerds

[Will.Woodhull]

Yeah, its OSU that I intended to write. The image I had in my head was of the fields just across the river from town, and I was too focused on making my point succinctly to notice I was screwing up the name.

Beaver - Duck, Duck - Beaver... I've spent years in both Corvallis and Eugene and I still get them mixed up. If they'd only play real football rather than that simplistic American football it would maybe be easier to differentiate between them.

Re: News for nerds

[Penguinisto]

Fortunately atheism is the fastest growing religious belief

...again, you express confusion. Atheism is not a religious belief; it is the very antithesis of such.

Mind you, I actually get the complaints against religion... human-run organizations are highly imperfect by definition, because humans are imperfect creatures. That said, the whole concept of "rights" (however you wish to define them) is religious in origin as well, specifically as a Christian one (that is, the concept of all humans being equal in the eyes of God. Before then, people naturally assumed that some humans were better than others, and sorted themselves accordingly... this is even an assumed condition in Plato's Republic.)

In other words, you'll become more like Canada...

This has its hazards as well; recently there have been a disturbing number of cases where voicing *any* opinions in public contrary to LGBT diktat is considered "hate speech", and is punished by law accordingly. That doesn't quite square with one of the US' greatest treasures --that being freedom of speech -- now does it?

Of course, from your POV this may be considered a wonderful thing, but consider that you're merely imposing the beginnings of totalitarianism.

Re:Slashdot Poll?!?

[ScentCone]

So, you don't consider the Nobel prize winner for physics and Director Emeritus of Fermilab who gave it that name, Leon Lederman, to be a physicist? Or perhaps you've simply never heard of him.

I consider him exactly what he is: a physicist who regrets having ever used that phrase.

Re:Slashdot Poll?!?

[loonycyborg]

Stop contradicting yourself. They don't chose it because it's custom forced on them by parents. Most of them don't know much about god and only parrot it because they forced to repeat church's dogma by peer pressure. Some people might think there's something out there but don't agree with all of the church dogmas or don't know them and end up making up something of their own. The very notion of god is content-free. The real question here is are you affiliated with particular religious institution? And number of affiliated people is significantly less than that of those who could contemplate notion of god and redefine it according to their whims.

Re: News for nerds

[Yunzil]

GMO foods shift power from the people and the farmer to the chemical company.

Just like the use of tractors and other farm machinery shifted power from the people and the farmer to the John Deere company, right?

Re: News for nerds

[kilfarsnar]

It's funny that you point out somebody else has faulty line of reasoning, but do not look at what you yourself is saying.

If something cannot be measured, observed, quantified or defined, it is AS IF it did not exist.

So take this entity, we shall call it FSM existed, however it was never ever observed in any way, never interacted with our universe in any shape way or form (not even with the smallest of particles), does not exist in any location (no matter where you go, you will never ever see it), never ever left a trace of anything anywhere....Cannot be measured, is invisible to everything....How do you know it exists? What would ever lead you to that conclusion (that it exists/has existed?) without being insane? Because a logical rational person cannot come to that conclusion. It would require faith (the belief in something despite the absence of evidence).

You cannot possibly make such a statement. You cannot say with any certainty whatsoever that something has not interacted with any matter, even the smallest particles, anywhere in the Universe. Your observational powers aren't even close to being able to make such a measurement. My position is that I cannot say whether the FSM exists or not. I allow for the possibility of the existence of a FSM. You seem to have foreclosed that possibility, which illustrates my point nicely.

Take for example dark matter. It cannot be seen, measured. or defined at the moment. But we know it's there. We know because of at least 2 simple reasons (that my simpleton mind knows of, I am not an astrophysicist)......#1 Mathematical calculations predicts it.......#2 It seems to interact with our universe through gravity.

BTW are you seriously going to tell me that satyrs MIGHT exist? I am talking about half men half goats creatures....

The default position for a rational person in the lack of evidence is to not believe. It is not for him to disprove everything somebody can claim. It is up to the person making an assertion that need to prove his position.

Of course Satyrs might exist. I have no reason to think they do, but they might. There are still places on this earth that have not been fully explored. We discover new species all the time. I don't know what kind of life there is on other planets either. Maybe the Satyrs will show up in a spaceship tomorrow, I really can't say.

Did dark matter exist before we detected it? I would argue it did. But from your reasoning it did not, practically speaking. This is precisely my point and why I love this line of inquiry. The only assertion I am making is that we should not let the limits of our observation limit the world of the possible. We will discover things in the coming decades (and hopefully centuries) that will make the unknown known and the impossible possible. The Universe is not limited; we are. And yet we continue to deny the possibility of things rather than having the humility to tell the truth; that we simply don't know.

Re: News for nerds

[narcc]

The brain can still be blackboxed and we can call the output sentience.

That would be called "behavior".

Re:Slashdot Poll?!?

[antiperimetaparalogo]

Stop contradicting yourself. They don't chose it because it's custom forced on them by parents.

I was custom forced to learn about Zeus also - realy... i am a Greek!

Most of them don't know much about god and only parrot it because they forced to repeat church's dogma by peer pressure.

So, even if you don't know shit about Greece ("repeat church's dogma by peer pressure"...) for example, you know that you are more brave than young Greeks!

Some people might think there's something out there but don't agree with all of the church dogmas or don't know them and end up making up something of their own.

And you also know what others actualy believe, even if they say diferently!!!

The very notion of god is content-free. The real question here is are you affiliated with particular religious institution? And number of affiliated people is significantly less than that of those who could contemplate notion of god and redefine it according to their whims.

I think it's your whims that make you try to RE-define others my friend...

Re: News for nerds

[SillyHamster]

Now the common parts are demonstrably non-existent. Large number of people think Mohammed was greatest of all prophets, and belief otherwise is seriously wrong. Another large number of people believes that Jesus was the last of the prophets - he will come back but no one else except people peddling false gods. While simultaneously believing that belief otherwise is seriously wrong. History centric religions are mostly contradict each other.

You say that people who believe in god do so because they believe a particular historical person is a prophet, that is, a messenger of god. You have just listed a reason why people believe in god.

This contradicts the other poster who claimed that there is no reason to believe in god. That you disagree with those religions' reasons is an entirely different thing than the reasons not existing.

"They have no reason to believe; they are irrational" is a different argument than "the reasons they use to believe in god are wrong". Confusing the two arguments and using them interchangeably is sloppy thinking and unbefitting a rational position.

So no conclusion can be drawn from these large groups of people.

You confirmed my conclusion. Independent groups of people believing in god is evidence that people believe in god for a reason.

Re: News for nerds

[bingoUV]

You say that people who believe in god do so because they believe a particular historical person is a prophet, that is, a messenger of god.

No I don't say that at all. In fact the reason why they believe in god doesn't matter for this statement at all. I'm saying they believe mutually incompatible things, so "wisdoms of the crowds" are canceling each other.

Missing the forest for the trees...

[denzacar]

Though, entertainingly, PP is close to the mark - and then he goes on the whole "Christians are being persecuted" tangent which is pure nonsense.

But he got the opening line right:

We live in a world of empiricism, where the concepts of faith and religion are - if not outright mocked and denigrated - are under constant pressure.

Which again proves that the truth is subversive.
Yes, we do live in a world of empiricism - because that's how the world is, whether we like it or not.
And such world will always put concepts of faith and religion under pressure. Just like it puts everything else under pressure.
It's only that PP finds the reality expressed in that sentence threatening.

I'll digress for a moment... I want to show a familiar example to point out something.
Remember how in "Godfather 2", Fredo tells Michael's son, Anthony, about a "secret" for catching fish?
How he'd always say a "Hail Mary" when throwing the line and he, out of all the kids, would catch the most fish.
Then later, we see him still doing that just before he gets "taken out" by Michael's assassin, Neri. SPOILERS!

Now, that's a '70s movie, done by a Catholic. Not very "observant" as he puts it himself, but still very "religious".
So, that is not "Fredo the idiot" - that is "Fredo the unloved child, becoming a traitor out of unrequited love and childlike innocence". And John Cazale pulled that off perfectly.

Today, that SAME character would be someone with mental issues.
Someone who does not understand the world around him, with that story hinting not at his childlike innocence but at his childlike mental capacities.

That's the '70s.
Showing that by then even for a religious Catholic director something like saying a prayer before every action that you feel is up to chance is something that only a child or someone as innocent as child might do.
An adult doing that... That's someone who's a bit iffy. One way or the other.
Cause Fredo sure as hell has issues. He's not an idiot... but he has emotional issues written all over him.

Compare that to Barry Pepper's Private Jackson in "Saving Private Ryan", praying for "true aim" and "victory in battle".
Which feels completely in character AND not disparaging at all. It feels like something that a young man might do in the war, during 1940s.
And nobody invented that prayer - he's quoting Psalms.

Which are basically a collection of ready-made prayers for various "troubles" one might find themselves in, and for saying "thanks god" for being delivered from them.
There are like 150 specific ways to cry "HELP GOD!" and to say "Thanks god!" just there.
Same thing with all those saints, protectors and patrons of this and that, and their corresponding amulets.
Or with all those relics of various saints, apostles, pieces of "true cross" etc.
Or with all the gods in Hinduism, or all the kami in Shintoism.
For everything out there that may harm or benefit one's existence and/or circumstances - there is a prayer, an amulet, a saint, a kami, a god...

But none of them deal with empirically provable aspects of the thing they are supposed to be influencing.
There is no "make sure that fire has flames" god or amulets - though there are dozens of fire-gods.
Or a kami you could pray to "to make water wet". Though there is a water kami.
Or an amulet with a saint whose job it was to make sure that apples are apples and not oranges. Though there is a saint of apple orchards - St. Charles Borromeo.
There is even a "fear of mice" saint - St. Gertrude of Nivelles.

Because, when you DON'T LIVE IN AN EMPIRICAL WORLD, when you live instead in a "Demon Haunted World" - you need a protector, an amulet, a prayer for everything.
Whatever it is you're not certain of, be it fish biting on a particular day or bullets hitting their target - just use the right amulet or prayer and shift odds in your favor.
If

Re:Slashdot Poll?!?

[loonycyborg]

I just see what people are doing. I'm not going to pretend that they're doing something other than I see them doing. Everyone are aware of subjective nature of religion, and bring it up when it suits them. I'm the same person like any other so I know this first hand. I'm just more honest about it.

Re: News for nerds

[SillyHamster]

No I don't say that at all. In fact the reason why they believe in god doesn't matter for this statement at all. I'm saying they believe mutually incompatible things, so "wisdoms of the crowds" are canceling each other.

So because two crowds each believe in god ...

Their beliefs cancel out and the crowd has no particular belief one way or another on whether god exists.

I think you're going to have to break down the logic for me.

By the way - the Wisdom of Crowds example of weighing a pig involves each individual guessing a specific number that contradicts everyone else's guess. It's not about agreement, it's about averaging out errors.

Re: News for nerds

[BarbaraHudson]

So, back when most people believed the world was flat, that made it right? Or that the sun and stars revolved around the earth? How about the people who voted for George W Bush the second time - like they couldn't even learn from their mistakes? The voters who weighted that last pig sure got it wrong!

Re: News for nerds

[BarbaraHudson]

Fortunately atheism is the fastest growing religious belief

...again, you express confusion. Atheism is not a religious belief; it is the very antithesis of such.

Wrong - a religious belief is a belief about religion, not necessarily IN religion. It can be pro or con, same as a belief in or against the death penalty.

Re:This is not a good thing.

[Yosho]

It's kind of sad that this got modded down, actually. This deserves to be modded up so that everybody can see that you're unwilling to provide any evidence for your own argument, insisting that the people who disagree with you should do your work for you.

Re: News for nerds

[SillyHamster]

So, back when most people believed the world was flat, that made it right? Or that the sun and stars revolved around the earth? How about the people who voted for George W Bush the second time - like they couldn't even learn from their mistakes? The voters who weighted that last pig sure got it wrong!

Why are you repeating the flat earth myth?

You still don't get the argument. Here are the logical steps:

1. 1. It takes a reason for the majority to believe in something
2. 2. The majority believes in god
3. 3. The majority believes in god for a reason.

That's all. It's not saying that people believe in god for the right reason. It's not saying that the majority are right, or must be right.

Rather than address the argument, you've attacked arguments not made, you've repeated a myth, insulted Americans; anything but support your original claim that people believe in god for no reason.

That's not how rational people behave, "Barbara". But then, rational people don't believe they can change their sex/gender, either.

Re: News for nerds

[BarbaraHudson]

There's your problem - point one. No, it doesn't take a reason (in the sense of a fact) for the majority to believe something.

The majority believed in slavery. They had their reasons (the bible, prejudice, personal profit, etc) to believe that slavery was justified. Didn't make them right. Same the the majority believing that the Earth was the center of the universe. Same as the majority believed that the housing boom wouldn't end ("this time it's different").

If the "reason" or premise is false, any conclusions are highly suspect.

There's a HUGE difference between a reason with no underlying rationale and a good reason. We call the first an excuse, or when it's really lame, a poor excuse, not a reason. Same as someone doing something "because everyone is is doing it, and everyone else can't be wrong."

Re: News for nerds

[BarbaraHudson]

Also, your link only refers to what scholars believed. It even acknowledges that this probably wasn't the prevailing view among the peons:

there never was a period of 'flat earth darkness' among scholars (regardless of how the public at large may have conceptualized our planet both then and now)

And there were others who thought Atlas held it up, or that it was on the back of a turtle, or an elephant on a tortoise.

Doesn't matter how many believed it - it was wrong.

Re: News for nerds

[SillyHamster]

There's your problem - point one. No, it doesn't take a reason (in the sense of a fact) for the majority to believe something.

So you think only facts are reasons. Why does it take this many exchanges to get to this point?

The majority believed in slavery. They had their reasons (the bible, prejudice, personal profit, etc) to believe that slavery was justified. Didn't make them right. Same the the majority believing that the Earth was the center of the universe. Same as the majority believed that the housing boom wouldn't end ("this time it's different").

People don't believe in slavery. They believe that slavery is okay, or it's not okay.

Now, what fact provides the reason to believe that slavery is okay, or not okay?

If the "reason" or premise is false, any conclusions are highly suspect.

Duh. But "wrong reason" is not "no reason". Irrational is different than wrong.

And rational/irrational does not mean good/bad. An irrational love for one's friends and family is not somehow bad because of the lack of reasoning behind it.

There's a HUGE difference between a reason with no underlying rationale and a good reason.

Sure. But a wrong reason or "excuse" is still not the same as no reason.

Re: News for nerds

[SillyHamster]

Also, your link only refers to what scholars believed. It even acknowledges that this probably wasn't the prevailing view among the peons:

You have no facts to support that the peons believed in a flat earth. You have "no reason" per your own definition to believe that the majority of people irrationally believed in a flat earth.

Re: News for nerds

[bingoUV]

OK, let me put it this way. Many Muslims do NOT believe in "god" - "La ilaha illillah". There is no god but Allah. Believing in "god" gets you a reserved place in hell.

fashion not substance

[gzuckier]

"Identifying as" "Describing themselves as". It's not like these people used to spend Sundays in church, and study the Bible, and memorize the Gospels, and have long family discussions about Christ and Christianity, but now they're stopped. It's just that it was very unfashionable in most of the US a while back to not say you're a Christian; and less unfashionable now.

Re:"Social Justice" should be considered a religio

[gzuckier]

I was surprised to see that all double blind tests are now showing liberals as more racist than conservatives. The average liberal now has a default "affirmative action" position and is racist against white people. This has been confirmed over and over again in studies, one even showed that liberals are far more likely to sacrifice a white person to save multiple black people than they are the other way around. So we gave truely crossed into delusional type unlogical thinking in politics as well.

Let's see now, where's the pony inside this pile...
"Overall, Republicans are slightly more likely to assess blacks unfavorably on these dimensions. For example, 39% of Republicans place blacks on the “lazy” side of the scale, while 31% of Democrats do. But by and large, Tabarrok is quite correct: both parties include substantial fractions willing to stereotype blacks unfavorably....This graph shows that identification with the Democratic Party tends to decline, and identification with the Republican party tends to increase, as attitudes toward black become less favorable—at least when attitudes are measured with two different racial stereotypes." http://themonkeycage.org/2012/...
"We examined the relation between political ideology and racial categorization. People categorized morphed faces that ranged from 100% Black to 100% White. Conservatism (vs. liberalism) was associated with the tendency to categorize racially ambiguous faces as Black. Relation between ideology and categorization was mediated by opposition to equality. This research helps to explain the ideological underpinnings of hypodescent." http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...
" in Studies 1a and 1b we found that liberals were less willing to endorse the killing of an innocent person on consequentialist grounds when the name of the individual suggested he was Black than when it suggested he was White. Study 2 demonstrated that liberals’ biased application of moral principles, when made salient in a within-subjects design, was eliminated. When given both the Chip and Tyrone scenarios, participants were strikingly consistent in their use of consequentialist or deontological principles, such that their responses on the second scenario almost always mirrored those in the first. This suggests that participants explicitly believed that the principles they were invoking were general enough to apply regardless of the victim’s race. In Study 3 we found that conservatives were more likely to condone the killing of innocent civilians in a military attack when those civilians were Iraqis killed by Americans rather than Americans killed by Iraqis, while liberals did not demonstrate such a flexible set of responses. Finally, in Study 4 we primed participants with either patriotism or multiculturalism, and found that, analogous to the effects on self-reported political ideology in Study 4, participants primed with patriotism (compared to those primed with multiculturalism) were more likely to accept collateral damage when Iraqi civilians were killed by American forces, but not when American civilians were killed by Iraqi forces." http://journal.sjdm.org/9616/j...

Re:"Social Justice" should be considered a religio

[gzuckier]

I would be far more likely to be swayed by your argument if you were to show / link / discuss any actual "double-blind tests now showing liberals as more racist than conservatives", Please show me how average liberals are racist against white people, especially 'over and over'. There are kooks everywhere, I know, but claiming massive one-sidedness doesn't work with some sort of evidence by a researcher.

So.... have you never met a rightwinger before?

Re:Slashdot Poll?!?

[antiperimetaparalogo]

While i disagree (but not totally), your latest answer is honest enough and i respect that - what i can't accept is what the vast majority of Slashdoters do: pretend that they are better than a (Greek Orthodox) Christian, because... you know!

Re:Slashdot Poll?!?

[JimFive]

(Can anyone tell me what the difference between a Presbyterian and a Methodist is?)

Short, wikipedia based answer: Presbyterian's are Calvinists, while Methodists are Wesleyan-Arminianist. Calvinists believe that "sin so affects human nature that they are unable even to exercise faith in Christ by their own will." thus the only salvation is God's choice to save someone, and that this choice is predestined. Arminian's believe that God gave all men free will to choose to have faith in God and it is this act of choice that brings salvation.
--
JimFive

Re: News for nerds

[SillyHamster]

OK, let me put it this way. Many Muslims do NOT believe in "god" - "La ilaha illillah". There is no god but Allah. Believing in "god" gets you a reserved place in hell.

They call their god Allah. How are you not able to abstract that both crowds share a belief in a supreme being, even though their beliefs in the supreme being's attributes vary?

Yes, the religions disagree with each other. That doesn't cancel out and make all of them non-religious groups.

Re: News for nerds

[StrangeBrew]

The days of the mom&pop run farms is over. A large percentage of the North American food supply is controlled by corporations. You can't lay that at the feet of GMOs or claim that if GMOs went away then so would the corporations. As far as reduced biodiversity, agricultural sustainability and overuse of pesticides go, these risks are all still there if GMOs go away AND some GMO 'products' have no risks related to any of these. Likewise, many invasive species are more harmful than GMO's; try zebra muscles, purple loosetrife, sparrows, domestic cats.... With that said, I do think corporations, and independent mad scientists, should be accountable for what they release on the world. Anything created to increase the use of a pesticide is not in the Earth's best interest. Anything created that can out-compete and eliminate natural species should be highly regulated with the potential for fines large enough to reverse damage done.

Re: News for nerds

[bingoUV]

They call their god Allah

You say so, you might even believe it. But it is highly misinformed according to many Muslims I know, and also according to a much more popular interpretation of "La ilaha illillah". Allah is NOT god.

That doesn't cancel out and make all of them non-religious groups.

I am not saying that by cancelling they become non-religious. Each individual religious group remains religious.

I am saying that popular disbelief* of Muslims in god makes belief in god wrong. And popular disbelief in Allah by Christians makes Allah wrong according the the wisdom of the crowds.

And by disbelief I don't mean merely indifference. If it were merely indifference, it would not cancel the other group's belief. But they are warned strongly against "false gods" in their gospels and by leaders. I mean active disbelief and denial.

Re: News for nerds

[werepants]

If your answers can't be used to make predictions, they are not useful, and they might as well not exist.

Is murder wrong? You probably believe there is a useful answer to that question. I assert that there is no way to test the answer.

Re: News for nerds

[SillyHamster]

You say so, you might even believe it. But it is highly misinformed according to many Muslims I know, and also according to a much more popular interpretation of "La ilaha illillah". Allah is NOT god.

Don't be stupid. Small case g "god" is a generic term for deity/supreme being.

Allah may not be the "God" that others worship; but he is a god that people around the world worship; and Muslims believe that he is the only true god amongst other false gods.

That puts Muslims into the group of people who believe in god, as opposed to the group of people who believe there is no god.

Trying to muddy those plain distinctions makes you foolish; and as far as you know better, a liar who deceives and obfuscates.

I am saying that popular disbelief* of Muslims in god makes belief in god wrong. And popular disbelief in Allah by Christians makes Allah wrong according the the wisdom of the crowds.

You are stupid if you think Muslim is a religion centered around disbelief in god. But since you can use a computer and hang out on Slashdot, that's not very likely.

That makes you a liar. Lovely.

"Allah is Great" celebrates the Muslim belief in zero gods, apparently.

I am saying that popular disbelief* of Muslims in god makes belief in god wrong. And popular disbelief in Allah by Christians makes Allah wrong according the the wisdom of the crowds.

Here, have a lollipop. Please don't talk with your mouth full.

Re: News for nerds

[BarbaraHudson]

An irrational belief (for example, in god), is not a reason to do something fundamentally evil such as discriminate against people based on religion, sex, or sexual identity - it's just an excuse.

Parents know when their kids are giving excuses rather than reasons.

Re: News for nerds

[BarbaraHudson]

And you have no reason to believe they didn't - but it was your citation, not mine. You made your bed by picking it - so sleep in it.

Re: News for nerds

[bingoUV]

You refuse to try to understand any of my posts in this thread . Expected, since you hang out on Slashdot.

Re: News for nerds

[SillyHamster]

You refuse to try to understand any of my posts in this thread . Expected, since you hang out on Slashdot.

I diagree with you.

This could be because I would have agreed with you, but deliberately chose not to acknowledge your superior understanding ...

Or, I could be disagreeing with you because your position is that stupid.

Muslims believe in a god, idiot. They call their god Allah. Their belief in Allah counts as a belief in god. It takes a real special kind of "intellect" to take two groups that believe in some sort of god, and conclude that everyone is an atheist on average.

Re: News for nerds

[SillyHamster]

You brought up "most believed in a flat earth".

You have not supported that statement with any evidence. On the other hand, I've demonstrated that it's a myth; and that there is no record of that being a learned belief amongst scholars ... which is also evidence against it being a misbelief of the common man absent evidence otherwise.

Re: News for nerds

[SillyHamster]

An irrational belief (for example, in god), is not a reason to do something fundamentally evil such as discriminate against people based on religion, sex, or sexual identity - it's just an excuse.

You said that only facts are reasons.

What fact is the reason that discrimination, or slavery, is evil?

Parents know when their kids are giving excuses rather than reasons.

No they don't. You just said the majority of the world is irrational. "Knowing" is a rational thing, not an irrational thing.

Re: News for nerds

[bingoUV]

It is not disagreement when straw men are being invoked in your every post.

Re: News for nerds

[SillyHamster]

It is not disagreement when straw men are being invoked in your every post.

You said:

. Many Muslims do NOT believe in "god" - "La ilaha illillah". There is no god but Allah.

"There is no god but Allah" categorizes Allah as a god, the only god according to Islam. But then you said:

You say so, you might even believe it. But it is highly misinformed according to many Muslims I know, and also according to a much more popular interpretation of "La ilaha illillah". Allah is NOT god.

I've already elaborated that my argument is based on people possessing a belief that there is a god; not that they believe in the same god.

You want to take Muslims' belief that Allah is the only god, as disbelief in god (generic, any), so as to refute my position. But it can't, because that's stupid.

Re: News for nerds

[bingoUV]

There is no god but Allah categorizes Allah as a god, the only god according to Islam

Wrong. At least according to a popular theory which you are too stupid to understand.

Re: News for nerds

[BarbaraHudson]

Your mis-quoting what I wrote, which was a direct quote from your citation. If you're going to pick and choose what parts of your own citation you're going to believe, you're no better than they hypocritical Xians who pick and choose what parts of the bible they believe.

If you're going to troll, you have to do much better than that.

Re: News for nerds

[BarbaraHudson]

What fact is the reason that discrimination, or slavery, is evil?

The universe is amoral. It has zero sense of good and evil. THAT is a fact. As for why people engage in stupid behaviour, their EXCUSE (not reason - it's not a rational action) is that the societies they were in believed in something (god) that has zero evidence. This was true even when the Egyptians, and later the Romans, believed in their goofy gods as an excuse to maintain the status quo, which was profitable for those who had the status.

Re: News for nerds

[SillyHamster]

Wrong. At least according to a popular theory which you are too stupid to understand.

So according to this popular theory you assert exists, Allah is not a god. What is he, then? Just "Allah"?

So, supreme being with authority over humanity, creator of the universe ... but not god. Just Allah.

Why would a non-Muslim categorize Allah as something other than "god"?

Re: News for nerds

[SillyHamster]

Your mis-quoting what I wrote, which was a direct quote from your citation. If you're going to pick and choose what parts of your own citation you're going to believe, you're no better than they hypocritical Xians who pick and choose what parts of the bible they believe.

You brought up flat earth beliefs first. This is what you wrote:

So, back when most people believed the world was flat, that made it right?

I disputed that most people believed in a flat earth; and as you made the accusation, you ought to have had evidence showing such.

And again, for the record, this is your failing to grasp that my argument is that a majority believes things for a reason. It may be a wrong reason, it be not be a very good reason, but it's still a reason. Bringing up wrong beliefs is irrelevant; you need to bring up popular irrational beliefs.

Re:Yes it is.

[SillyHamster]

Yes it is. Because if not, then my claim is there is no god and I don't have to have any burden of proof behind my claim that there is no such thing as God.

You need to separate "God's existence is unproven" from "God does not exist".

The former is a lack of knowledge; the latter is a claim of knowledge.

Replace the object of each statement and the distinction should be much clearer:

"The existence of gold in China is unproven."

"There is no gold in China."

Re: News for nerds

[SillyHamster]

The universe is amoral. It has zero sense of good and evil. THAT is a fact.

So ... calling discrimination or slavery immoral is irrational then.

One doesn't need an excuse, then, or even a reason to discriminate or enslave, according to your position. It's not even wrong.

Re: News for nerds

[BarbaraHudson]

And I showed you that your own cite said that it was quite possible the majority believed the world was flat. Not my cite, yours. Why do you have a problem getting that.

The majority do not believe things for a reason. Belief in something that contradicts the facts isn't reasonable. They can make excuses for it, but they don't have a reason - just excuses.

The majority is wrong so often that trying to say they do things "rationally" - based on reason - is just wrong.

Believing something by fiat - for example, the bible - is not using your head rationally. It's willful ignorance, not reason.

Re: News for nerds

[SillyHamster]

And I showed you that your own cite said that it was quite possible the majority believed the world was flat.

That's not remotely evidence that the majority believed the world was flat.

It's possible you're a liar. That possibility is not evidence that you're a liar.

Not my cite, yours. Why do you have a problem getting that.

It's not evidence, you dimwit.

The majority do not believe things for a reason. Belief in something that contradicts the facts isn't reasonable. They can make excuses for it, but they don't have a reason - just excuses.

So far, your definition of "excuse" has been "reasons for things I don't like".

The majority is wrong so often that trying to say they do things "rationally" - based on reason - is just wrong.

What fact makes being wrong, wrong?

Re: News for nerds

[BarbaraHudson]

There is no "fact" that makes any of those actions illegal. They're all common in nature. For example, ants enslave other ants all the time.

However, we have our own sense of what is right and wrong - to use - and we reserve the right to impose it on others. There's a problem with this, because too often it's turned out that our sense of right and wrong is wrong, as history shows.

Still, we're going to apply our own rules because that's the way we roll, and the way we advance. Anarchy just doesn't cut it. We even act against our own belief of "survival of the fittest" by rejecting social darwanism (except for some who have gone full retard). Is it reasonable? It could be argued either way. Most of us are offended by social darwinism, just like most of us are offended by discrimination - but both of those were popular - maybe even the prevailing view - 100 years ago.

Just because the universe is amoral doesn't mean we can't choose to define our own morals and ethics.

Re: News for nerds

[BarbaraHudson]

When you say it's not my cite but yours, you're lying. You're the one who linked to it first, not me. You can't pick and choose just the portions of your citation that agree with you and ignore the rest. That is not only intellectually dishonest, but just plain dumb.

Re: News for nerds

[SillyHamster]

When you say it's not my cite but yours, you're lying [slashdot.org].

I didn't say it was your citation. My citation was in response to an unsupported claim from you; that you have still failed to support with any facts.

You're irrational. You managed to trip up on summarizing the discussion and who has the burden of proof on which claims.

You're the one who linked to it first, not me.

My linking the article is not in dispute. I linked it in response to your unsupported claim.

You can't pick and choose just the portions of your citation that agree with you and ignore the rest.

The Wiki article does not state that the public at large believed in a flat earth.

That is not only intellectually dishonest, but just plain dumb.

You believe that a quotation that avoids taking a position either way is evidence for your position. You are dumb, and your accusations of dishonesty have no weight.

Re: News for nerds

[SillyHamster]

There is no "fact" that makes any of those actions illegal.

Remember saying this?

No, it doesn't take a reason (in the sense of a fact) for the majority to believe something.

If there's no fact making slavery/discrimination "illegal", then those aren't reasons, those are just excuses.

Just because the universe is amoral doesn't mean we can't choose to define our own morals and ethics.

In an amoral universe, there is no morality. Nor does rationality matter. There's no such thing as a reason why a confused transsexual like yourself shouldn't be discriminated against.

Enjoy the harvest of what you sowed.

Re: News for nerds

[BarbaraHudson]

You still don't get it. Your own citation acknowledges that it may very well be that the masses believed in a flat earth at one time. So, unless you have a time machine (which I seriously doubt) or the results of historic polls of the general population, my position, according to your own citation, is quite reasonable.

I don't have to provide absolute proof, just reasonable proof. Just as you can't provide absolute proof against it.

Re: News for nerds

[BarbaraHudson]

Nice to ignore my point - that WE get to decide the rules. These rules are not based on any natural facts - they are quite arbitrary. As such, they are subject to change. See stuff like same-sex marriage.

There is no morality as a part of nature - only what we decide is moral and ethical. If you have a problem with that, then you need to look up the definition of society.

Re: News for nerds

[SillyHamster]

Nice to ignore my point - that WE get to decide the rules.

You think WE is irrational.

These rules are not based on any natural facts - they are quite arbitrary. As such, they are subject to change. See stuff like same-sex marriage.

If it's not based on facts, you say it's not a reason. Thus, no reason, just an excuse. Irrational.

If you have a problem with that, then you need to look up the definition of society.

Why are you asking me to use reason with definitions when society is irrational, morality is irrational, and all the rules are based off of excuses?

Re: News for nerds

[SillyHamster]

Your own citation acknowledges that it may very well be that the masses believed in a flat earth at one time.

The sentence doesn't take a position. It may very well be that the masses never believed in a flat earth at any time.

Logic is hard for the irrational.

my position, according to your own citation, is quite reasonable.

Based on 0 facts. You only have excuses according to your own standards. Why do you use excuses instead of reasons? You've actually said why: "And I'm certainly not rational all the time"

You're being irrational right now ... and most of the time.

I don't have to provide absolute proof, just reasonable proof. Just as you can't provide absolute proof against it.

History doesn't do "proofs", you ignoramus. There's historical evidence, and there's lack of historical evidence. And then there's false histories fabricated to support ignorant prejudice, like the flat earth myth.

Rational people don't feel a need to lie about other people present and past in order to feel better about themselves, "Barbara".

Re: News for nerds

[BarbaraHudson]

Never said society was rational - that would be an obvious falsehood. Our "morals and ethics" have, as I've pointed out previously, changed in contradictory ways over time. Nevertheless even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Look at how many people use the bible as an excuse - they're not acting rationally based on any evidence. The bible is worse than wikipedia. While they're both written by a bunch of people, at least with wikipedia we can independently verify the sources.

Re: News for nerds

[BarbaraHudson]

Then why do you do it?

Re: News for nerds

[SillyHamster]

Do what?

Re: News for nerds

[SillyHamster]

Our "morals and ethics" have, as I've pointed out previously, changed in contradictory ways over time.

In an amoral universe, "morals and ethics" do not matter. They are no better or worse over time. Since you don't think they have any factual basis, contradictory is no better or worse than consistency.

Look at how many people use the bible as an excuse

In an amoral universe with no facts to support morality, everything is an excuse. Why single out the Bible?

they're not acting rationally based on any evidence.

In an amoral universe, why does it matter if people act rationally or irrationally?

The bible is worse than wikipedia.

According to what? The morality you made up today, based on excuses?

While they're both written by a bunch of people, at least with wikipedia we can independently verify the sources.

What does independence and verification matter in an amoral universe where morality is based off of excuses?

Re: News for nerds

[BarbaraHudson]

Lie, duh! Oh, right, you believe that just because people believe there is a god, that's a reason to believe there is a god. No logic there!

Same as people who believed that an eclipse was caused by a toad/wolf/dragon/bear was eating the sun and had to be chased away by banging pots/magic/whatever. Just because people believed it is not a reason to believe in it.

Re: News for nerds

[BarbaraHudson]

As I pointed out before, in an amoral universe, the only sense of ethics and morality comes from us. We get to decide. Why do you have a problem with that, since there's no evidence that the universe is ethical or just or moral?

Re: News for nerds

[SillyHamster]

Lie, duh!

I have no interest in lying to you.

I don't believe people are irrational and wrong the way you do. That's why we ought to expect moral behavior from them; which you expect also, even as you believe in a universe where such expectations are irrational.

Oh, right, you believe that just because people believe there is a god, that's a reason to believe there is a god. No logic there!

I explained my point, and it's not what you are saying here. Oh well.

Re: News for nerds

[SillyHamster]

We get to decide. Why do you have a problem with that, since there's no evidence that the universe is ethical or just or moral?

You are confusing "I" and "We". You are not "We". You are a freak who looks down on mankind as irrational beings.

I do not. And that's because morality is not a popularity contest amongst the irrational; one piece of evidence for that is that you would strenuously object to being burned at the stake for being a transsexual - even if that is the popular thing to do to freakish people.

I would object as well, as annoying as you may be on this online forum. You still have a dignity as a human being that should be respected. Destroy the belief in that moral standard at your own risk.

Re: News for nerds

[BarbaraHudson]

If you expect moral behavior from people, history disagrees with you. This is compounded by the fact that what is considered moral changes over time - radically. One example is same-sex marriage, which since the turn of the century has been gaining public support and legal acceptance (and which the US Supreme Court will probably also recognize as a Constitutional right soon).

Re: News for nerds

[BarbaraHudson]

Morality is a human construct. The fact that what we consider moral or ethical changes with popular belief shows that it is a popularity contest of sorts. For example, as more people abandon religion as their ultimate guide to right and wrong, child beating and spousal rape have been criminalized. 42 years ago the medical community officially declared that same-sex attraction, until then considered a treatable illness, was not.

Now you claim I am a freak and mentally ill because I am a transsexual. The medical community disagrees with you. So does the law.

Also, while you think that burning at the stake is "the popular thing to do with freakish people," it certainly isn't in my part of the world. So, unless you're posting from Uganda, which American right-wing religious zealots exported hatred of those who are LGBTtQ, your statement is another lie. After all, our society sets what is and what isn't moral and ethical, and where I sit, we have laws against that.

Re: News for nerds

[SillyHamster]

If you expect moral behavior from people, history disagrees with you.

History is not a person that can disagree with me.

I'll clarify, though. It's not that I think people will do what is right; it's that I think there is a universal standard of behavior people ought to live up to. We live in a moral universe; that's why we expect morality of people and do bad things to those who don't do so.

Re: News for nerds

[SillyHamster]

Now you claim I am a freak and mentally ill because I am a transsexual. The medical community disagrees with you. So does the law.

I didn't say mentally ill. You cannot help lying about what I actually said.

Your boy parts don't become girl parts just because you're willing to mutilate them. That level of delusion is what makes you a freak.

Now, why do you care what the irrational proclamations of the law and medical boards say about you? (irrational majority, remember?)

while you think that burning at the stake is "the popular thing to do with freakish people

Replace "is" with "were to be". It was supposed to be a hypothetical, not an observation. I guess English is not your native language.

After all, our society sets what is and what isn't moral and ethical, and where I sit, we have laws against that.

What has changed can change again. Why do you expect consistency from an irrational law set by an irrational majority?

Re: News for nerds

[umghhh]

So do all of them. The distinctions still fails.

Re: News for nerds

[BarbaraHudson]

Provide proof that we live in a moral universe. The universe is also not a person. It has no sense of right and wrong - it just is.

Also, how is doing bad things to people who do bad things moral? The definition of "bad things" has changed over time. Inter-racial marriage is no longer a "bad thing". Same-sex couples is no longer a "bad thing." A society where there are no class divisions is no longer a "bad thing." Same-sex marriage and child adoption are not longer "bad things" - to the contrary, children raised by same-sex couples are exposed to far less domestic violence. Divorce is not longer a "bad thing."

If there were a universal standard, we certainly haven't found it. After all, the xians who hold up the bible as such a standard like to forget that it condones genocide, racism, slavery, child beating, polygamy, etc. That's the thing about "universal standards" - there are so many different ones.

Re: News for nerds

[SillyHamster]

Provide proof that we live in a moral universe.

Wrong question.

Evidence that we live in a moral universe: We care about morality.

How many times have you appealed to morality "defined by us" as a standard of behavior?

The absurdity is that "defined by us" morality is no morality at all.

Also, how is doing bad things to people who do bad things moral?

You don't believe in self-defense, then. If a young girl is being attacked by a robber, a rapist, a murderer ... you would call her immoral for defending herself with a weapon and doing bad things to her attacker. She must submit to the robbery, the rape, to die ... or be called immoral by you.

Funny how you do nothing about the immoral robber, rapist, murderer. You help the immoral instead of the victim ... and you call this "morality"?

If there were a universal standard, we certainly haven't found it.

You confuse rebellion against a universal standard with an inability to find the universal standard.

Same-sex marriage and child adoption are not longer "bad things" - to the contrary, children raised by same-sex couples are exposed to far less domestic violence.

Liar.

Divorce is not longer a "bad thing."

Liar yet again.

" Divorce represents one of the most stressful life events for both children and their parents."

That's the thing about "universal standards" - there are so many different ones.

Yes, there are an infinite number of wrong answers.

1+1 = 3 is wrong. 1+1 = 4 is wrong. 1+1 = 5 is wrong ....

That does not mean there is no right answer. That does not mean that it is impossible to find the right answer. People who argue what you just argued are beyond stupid, you are foolish.

The stupid can't help it; the foolish choose it. The upside is that you can choose to stop being foolish. Repent.