Religulous

[Kuya]

Usually a belief that is not theist will include either: Animism (belief in the anima= soul), Mana( belief in spiritual energy), or Totetism( belief in the spiritual affinity to animals, maybe nature in general). You may usually find these simple qualities with no beliefs in deities and such in Africa or South America. Usually it will all tie into the only thing that is absolute for humanity, death. And yes, angel like creatures may also be included, though they don't really fall into what i've mentioned, perhaps Spiritism?

I am probably less inclined to bitch about spirituality, because as a psychology student i find the effects of spiritual belief on the mind and body to be a very fascinating field of study. To me it represents the power of the mind, as it is something that is very intriguing.

[0ni0n]

Kaylia, Do you believe in evolution? How about the bible?

[Blarg]

Do we have records of how long before what could be called a rudimentary religion there existed spiritual beliefs in souls.

[Kuya]

It is generally accepted that any religion will always be based on those basic spiritual concepts, so it is accepted that these are the basic foundations of human spiritual belief and hence the first present.

[Demosthenes11]

Kaylia, Do you believe in evolution? How about the bible?

what are you, retarded?

[Kaylia]

Most theists aren't at all like you, and you know it. (I know you're an agnostic; I've got at least that much from my minimal skimming of this thread.) You're giving far too much credit to the average religious person.

Maybe, but if you argue against them, they will be forced to take similar stance.

Even if you demonstrate that they need a second postulate to explain their beliefs, that they need to rewords certain things, it won't change the essense of their beliefs. That's why I'm saying it doesn't really change anything if their reasoning isn't perfect.

Theists assume the existence of God, they have the burden of proof. Atheists' premise is that nothing exists unless proved otherwise, just like everything in life. I didn't read the whole thread, excuse me if this point has already been made.

I adressed it many times, despite what Neosutra is saying. It's not really surprising, because I don't think he can read more than 5 words per posts.

A belief is something you assume to be true. If they assume the existence of a God is true, it's obvious why their system is coherant.

A theist won't try to convince you that his postulate can be proven true (at least, if he don't want to contradict himself eventually), he can only talk about faith and beliefs. You can choose to not accept those beliefs, but unless they are not consistant and contradict themselves, there isn't much to say against them. At the very least, he will always be able to postulate the existance of his God in the infinity we can't define.


If you want an empirical demonstration that God exists, it won't happen. People have tried, people failled. People simply use the concept to answers what will be forever undetermined in the nature (no matter how far sciences push their understand of the nature, there will always be an infinity of mystery left to define).

If you accept it's not possible to reject completely (without any beliefs) the idea of God, you should describe yourself as an agnosticist who believe in the non existence of God (agnostic atheist).

[Tristam]

Usually a belief that is not theist will include either: Animism (belief in the anima= soul), Mana( belief in spiritual energy), or Totetism( belief in the spiritual affinity to animals, maybe nature in general). You may usually find these simple qualities with no beliefs in deities and such in Africa or South America. Usually it will all tie into the only thing that is absolute for humanity, death. And yes, angel like creatures may also be included, though they don't really fall into what i've mentioned, perhaps Spiritism?

I am probably less inclined to bitch about spirituality, because as a psychology student i find the effects of spiritual belief on the mind and body to be a very fascinating field of study. To me it represents the power of the mind, as it is something that is very intriguing.

The only rub with spirituality in the absence of deities, imo, is that it opens the door for myriad systems of "spiritual healing" which prey on beliefs like this. Sadly, this form of healing when used as a substitute for evidence based medicine can kill you.

This is a basic problem for me with religion/spirituality/whatever, there are no rules whatsoever which is why I contend it is absolutely impossible to define god and our questions should be addressing the concept of the supernatural as a whole. When you base your decisions in the natural world on supernatural doctrines, which for the moment lets say we live in a world where all supernatural doctrines promote equality, reason, justice, "morality" etc.. all the things we believe can be "good" about religion. In that case there is still NO reality-based barrier to someone else coming up with their own system of ideas based on a supernatural supposition that conflicts with the "good" aspects of the other systems of belief.

When you have no reason/evidence for the beliefs you hold other than supernatural decree, which by definition cannot be addressed in the natural world, why is my system of belief any less correct in achieving spiritual happines or everlasting life or whatever? The only way you can answer that question productively is by subtracting religion from both sides and arguing about what is better for society as a whole, which is an argument devoid of the supernatural.

I suppose I can sympathize with the agnostic's argument, but if we're arguing about first causes, which I think Kaylia is doing, again I say why do we need to invoke the supernatural when there is no evidence that anything in the universe requires the existence of anything supernatural? Just because we do not understand certain things about the universe right now does not mean it is incomprehensible.

[Kaylia]

Kaylia, Do you believe in evolution? How about the bible?

How is that relevant to anything in this thread? I've no choice but to accept evolution, unless I want to deny the beliefs at the base of the scientific methods...

Christian also accept evolution (if that's what you meant by Bible).

[Jefe]

Flying pink monkeys explain everything to me.

Flying pink monkeys are love.

Flying pink monkeys ARE everything.

Flying pink monkeys are everywhere.

Flying pink monkeys created the universe.

Flying pink monkeys created whatever created the universe.

Flying pink monkeys require me to donate 10% of my money to the flying pink monkey fund weekly.

There we go, I have the same proof/definitions of theism for my religion.

That flying monkey of yours is not the greatest conceivable being. Try again.

Edit: Oh shi... Wait, wasn't this covered already and some of you were too dense to get it? Baawwwwwwww why botherrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Edit 2: Wouldn't the derail be split and be dumped elsewhere, say like in the spam forum? It's a question, not backseat modding t('-'t)

[Kuya]

The only rub with spirituality in the absence of deities, imo, is that it opens the door for myriad systems of "spiritual healing" which prey on beliefs like this. Sadly, this form of healing when used as a substitute for evidence based medicine can kill you.

It was used as a method for healing in the past when medicine was not as advanced as it is now (i'd wager that we abuse our drugs, but that's a different issue all together), and since some of these tribes do generally live in a very primitive setting and not some industrial country, the existence of modern medicine is moot to them, and as for this case within an industrial nation, then it is really up to them whether they want to supplement modern medicines with their practices, there isn't some basic rule within all spiritual beliefs that say they can't do this, this is pretty much up to them individually. It should be noted that, many Native American tribes were accepting of medicine from the invaders, they weren't really against the idea of using them, and using their spiritual methods. You are trying to characterize people who belief in much simpler spiritual beliefs as over zealous fundementalists, when these qualities usually purpose some sense of superiority that usually is not present in a belief with no deity, because it lacks hierarchies

This is a basic problem for me with religion/spirituality/whatever, there are no rules whatsoever which is why I contend it is absolutely impossible to define god and our questions should be addressing the concept of the supernatural as a whole. When you base your decisions in the natural world on supernatural doctrines, which for the moment lets say we live in a world where all supernatural doctrines promote equality, reason, justice, "morality" etc.. all the things we believe can be "good" about religion. In that case there is still NO reality-based barrier to someone else coming up with their own system of ideas based on a supernatural supposition that conflicts with the "good" aspects of the other systems of belief.

Now you're talking about moral relativity in on itself, you are essentially proposing that nothing stops anyone from thinking they can make a spiritual belief based on say, killing everything in site, though as we have seen in history, nothing really stops anyone who wants to do something detrimental to anybody else, and quite frankly, if some person decided that killing everyone is the logical thing to do, i doubt arguing this person logically is going to be of much effect. If you're going to make this argument, then by necessity you propose that all morals are relative, and if that is so, and i assume by this that you think that logic never proposes anything detrimental to anyone. You're going to have to be a little more concrete because your counter point is really far out there, even for a religious person.

I should warn you, you're essentially telling me that human beings are highly irrational by nature, and if this is true, then not even logic will save you. You're really attacking human nature now, though people can be irrational, you sure do assume that they are highly prepended to being blood thirsty and hateful beings.

[0ni0n]

what are you, retarded?

It's a legitimate question. Oh right, it's not something a troll like yourself would understand.

Maybe, but if you argue against them, they will be forced to take similar stance.

Even if you demonstrate that they need a second postulate to explain their beliefs, that they need to rewords certain things, it won't change the essense of their beliefs. That's why I'm saying it doesn't really change anything if their reasoning isn't perfect.





I adressed it many times, despite what Neosutra is saying. It's not really surprising, because I don't think he can read more than 5 words per posts.

A belief is something you assume to be true. If they assume the existence of a God is true, it's obvious why their system is coherant.

A theist won't try to convince you that his postulate can be proven true (at least, if he don't want to contradict himself eventually), he can only talk about faith and beliefs. You can choose to not accept those beliefs, but unless they are not consistant and contradict themselves, there isn't much to say against them. At the very least, he will always be able to postulate the existance of his God in the infinity we can't define.


If you want an empirical demonstration that God exists, it won't happen. People have tried, people failled. People simply use the concept to answers what will be forever undetermined in the nature (no matter how far sciences push their understand of the nature, there will always be an infinity of mystery left to define).

If you accept it's not possible to reject completely (without any beliefs) the idea of God, you should describe yourself as an agnosticist who believe in the non existence of God (agnostic atheist).

I understand that you could prove the existence of God as much as you could disprove it. What I want to know is how you feel about religion and its negative impact on the world.. Everyday as technology advances, mysteries demystified, religion becomes less of an importance to humanity in explaining the unknowns. Don't you think religion is more of an impediment to our societal advancement by imposing its established, or obsolete, moral standard upon everyone else. Stem cell research comes to mind as Neosutra already mentioned.

[Kaylia]

I suppose I can sympathize with the agnostic's argument, but if we're arguing about first causes, which I think Kaylia is doing, again I say why do we need to invoke the supernatural when there is no evidence that anything in the universe requires the existence of anything supernatural? Just because we do not understand certain things about the universe right now does not mean it is incomprehensible.

We don't need to, but we can without having to deal with mathematical contradiction. I don't like the term "first cause" much (even I use it), because it implies something finite. The problem here is, from our perspective, infinite.


Any specific elements in our universe can be understood by us, I've no doubt about it (unless our technology prevent us from studying farther eventually) , but there is an infinity of elements that will need to be understood.

[edit]
and I'm not talking about the physical size of the universe, I'm talking about Godel's theorem applied to any model that we will ever come up with.

[Demosthenes11]

It's a legitimate question. Oh right, it's not something a troll like yourself would understand.

you were using that in a way to try and make him look stupid. You want trolling? that is trolling

[0ni0n]

you were using that in a way to try and make him look stupid. You want trolling? that is trolling

I have known a couple people on this board who don't believe in evolution. There are even presidential candidates who don't believe it. According to the census survey, more than 56% americans believe the bible literally. My question is perfectly legitimate, if anything, his response could make himself look stupid easier than my question ever could.

How is that relevant to anything in this thread? I've no choice but to accept evolution, unless I want to deny the beliefs at the base of the scientific methods...

Christian also accept evolution (if that's what you meant by Bible).

I like how you mentioned evolution, scientific methods, belief in the same breath. I don't think belief means what you think it means.

[Demosthenes11]

or perhaps you don't know what a theory is

[Kuya]

Actually, the scientific method is a postulate ( a very efficient postulate), but in order to work in science you have you assume that the scientific method is perfect and never wrong. You have to believe in it, but i think that's about where any belief involved in science ends. I could be wrong about the postulate thing, anyone care to correct me?

[0ni0n]

or perhaps you don't know what a theory is

be·lief http://cache.lexico.com/dictionary/g...una/thinsp.png http://cache.lexico.com/g/d/speaker.gif /bɪˈlif/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[bi-leef] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation –noun
1) something believed; an opinion or conviction: a belief that the earth is flat.


Evolution
Evolution is usually defined simply as changes in trait or gene frequency in a population of organisms from one generation to the next. However, "evolution" is often used to include the following additional claims:

1. Differences in trait composition between isolated populations over many generations may result in the origin of new species.
2. All living organisms alive today have descended from a common ancestor (or ancestral gene pool).

According to Douglas Futuyma, 'biological evolution may be slight or substantial; it embraces everything from slight changes in the proportion of different alleles within a population (such as those determining blood types) to the successive alterations that led from the earliest proto-organism to snails, bees, giraffes, and dandelions.' [10]
The term "evolution", especially when referred to as a "theory", is also used more broadly to incorporate processes such as natural selection and genetic drift.

[edit] Fact

Fact is often used by scientists to refer to experimental data or objective verifiable observations. "Fact" is also used in a wider sense to mean any hypothesis for which there is overwhelming evidence.
"Fact" Observation Established Hypothesis

• Facts are empirical data, objective verifiable observations.[11][12][13][14]

• 'A fact is a proposition affirmed to such a high degree that it would be perverse to withhold one's provisional assent.' Stephen J. Gould. [2]
• 'A fact is hypothesis that is so firmly supported by evidence that we assume it is true, and act as if it were true.' Douglas Futyuma. [15]
• 'A fact means something that has been tested or observed so many times that there is no longer a compelling reason to keep testing or looking for examples.' National Academy of Sciences U.S. [16]

Evolution is a fact in the sense of it being overwhelmingly validated by the evidence. Frequently evolution is said to be a fact in the same way as the Earth revolving around the Sun is a fact.[15][17] The following quotation from H. J. Muller, "One Hundred Years Without Darwin Are Enough" explains the point.
There is no sharp line between speculation, hypothesis, theory, principle, and fact, but only a difference along a sliding scale, in the degree of probability of the idea. When we say a thing is a fact, then, we only mean that its probability is an extremely high one: so high that we are not bothered by doubt about it and are ready to act accordingly. Now in this use of the term fact, the only proper one, evolution is a fact. [3] The National Academy of Science (U.S.) makes a similar point:
Scientists most often use the word "fact" to describe an observation. But scientists can also use fact to mean something that has been tested or observed so many times that there is no longer a compelling reason to keep testing or looking for examples. The occurrence of evolution in this sense is fact. Scientists no longer question whether descent with modification occurred because the evidence is so strong.[18] Philosophers of science argue that we do not know anything with absolute certainty: even direct observations may be "theory laden" and depend on assumptions about our senses and the measuring instruments used. In this sense all facts are provisional.

Additional reading here, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evoluti...heory_and_fact

[Kuya]

I disagree with that bit about opinion being synonymous with belief (if that is in fact what it implied), because it is not the same thing to say that you think that poverty may be why some criminal acts occur or to say that you believe that poverty is why criminal acts occur. When you have an opinion you usually have doubts about this information and it is generally based on some information that you've obtained previously, more so than a belief at least, and it is certainly not the same thing as imagining something.

[Kaylia]

I understand that you could prove the existence of God as much as you could disprove it. What I want to know is how you feel about religion and its negative impact on the world.. Everyday as technology advances, mysteries demystified, religion becomes less of an importance to humanity in explaining the unknowns.

I personally don't think the world would be a better place if human didn't have any spiritual beliefs. All the bad stuff would happen one way or the other. Religion in my opinion facilitate the acceptance of belief like "equality, justice" even if anyone could in theory accept those.

My personal beliefs, as a pessimist, is that there is no sentient supreme being out there (not that I would mind if there is one). I don't know what's up there...hell, I can barely justify my own existence ("I think therefor I am" is just circular logic).

you think religion is more of an impediment to our societal advancement by imposing its established, or obsolete, moral standard upon everyone else. Stem cell research comes to mind as Neosutra already mentioned.

Do you believe in evolution?


Do you understand the concept of "fitness" (efficiency) behind genetic algorithm? Why do you think mankind believe in religion for the last 30 000-150 000 year. If religion was really a burden to the society, it would have dissapeared on its own.

[Blarg]

I personally don't think the world would be a better place if human didn't have any spiritual beliefs. All the bad stuff would happen one way or the other. Religion in my opinion facilitate the acceptance of belief like "equality, justice" even if anyone could in theory accept those.

I understand that bad things would still happen but you can't say that the same amount of bad things would happen regardless of what you did. There is no quota for how many bad things must happen in 1 day/year. Good people do good things, bad people do bad things, but good people do bad things when they believe in certain dogma. If you eliminate the dogma those good people will largely stop doing those bad things because they can no longer justify them. It won't be perfect at reducing those kinds of bad things but it should surely help.