Religulous

[Blarg]

Yep, but the question is, are you going to get more charitable anyone if people follow a particular religion.

If you consider religion as a teaching, and those morale guideline are good (ie: love everyone), it shoud increase the amount of charitable person.

Well then you need to invent a new religion not made by someone 2000+ years ago that forgoes all the bad parts and hopefully spends more than half of charitable contributions on actual charities and not polishing their granite and marble floors or protesting abortion and same sex marriage. You then need to convince everyone this is actually true. OR we can try to raise our kids to be generous and charitable while forgoing the huge cost burden of the church without invoking a higher power as the law giver. Just because you get rid of a religion and it's beliefs doesn't mean you say 'love your neighbors' (assuming they deserve it) and other positive messages needs to be thrown out the window too.

[Kuya]

Kaylia seemed to be stating that religion, and possibly spiritual belief, is necessary based on the fact that evolution hasn't selected against it, as well as some other reasons I think. I stated that if it were actually necessary a nation/country that exhibited low spirituality and religion should show negative effects because they are lacking something inherently important. Since these 2 countries that I mention actually show above average results the assumption that it is necessary is likely false.

That assumption would be highly questionable; is the analysis taking into account any other factors that might influence into the qualities that you're using as examples? I'm not saying that being an atheist nation would affect negatively or positively; i am just saying that using those examples is disingenuous. More than spiritual belief goes into account for a nation's "success", and this plurality is far more poignant with industrialized nations.

I put "success" there, because certain nations consider simply having a high GPD to be a "success".

[Cow_k]

Well then you need to invent a new religion not made by someone 2000+ years ago that forgoes all the bad parts and hopefully spends more than half of charitable contributions on actual charities and not polishing their granite and marble floors or protesting abortion and same sex marriage. You then need to convince everyone this is actually true. OR we can try to raise our kids to be generous and charitable while forgoing the huge cost burden of the church without invoking a higher power as the law giver. Just because you get rid of a religion and it's beliefs doesn't mean you say 'love your neighbors' (assuming they deserve it) and other positive messages needs to be thrown out the window too.

And while in a perfect world teaching all our kids that you should love your neighbor etc., there will always be people who need a real reason to be good to someone and if you throw 'survival of the fittest' as the basic mode of thought, then you start to see a lot of people doing a lot of bad things to each other simply because it's the only thing that really makes sense in the world. I'm not saying that some people can't see past that, but scientifically why shouldn't we just stomp all over anyone who gets in our way? Because society as a whole will work better? There's plenty of people who don't give a flying rats ass about society as a whole and I can't say that morally they're that wrong other than that they go against the majority.

Edit: Basically what I'm saying is, all our problems won't magically go away because religion is gone.

[0ni0n]

See, what I'm trying to argue is that religion doesn't cause more bad than good, but rather the people who use religion as a scapegoat for their wrong doings.

I mean, most of America is overweight now, does that mean that food does more bad than good and we should stop eating and just have controlled injections or something? I know that's an extreme, but it's the people that abuse these things that are the problem. I'd say that alcohol does more harm than good, yet people worldwide accept it. Unfortunately, a lot of good things end up abused and used by people when given a chance. Until we become a society where all mood is controlled by psychotropic drugs and all we care about is base survival, we'll always have these problems. Religion at it's core (at least much religion) teaches overall decent practices and if you really follow the core tenants of a religion you'll usually live a peaceful happy life.

Sometimes religion is a scapegoat, sometimes it is down right the cause, such as the ones listed in my previous post. You don't even have to look any further than our current state of affairs. Under islam, you, i am assuming you're not a mulism, have less rights than regular mulisms in some arab society and are categorized an infidel. The list goes on, women can't vote, drive, or go out without the company or approval of a male. That's alot of harm done considering islam is the second largest (1.8 billion people) but fastest growing religion in the world. Western religion is more benevolent but is still occasionally imposing its religious value upon everyone else.

[Cow_k]

I haven't read to Koran and as such I can't completely speak to the authenticity of my following statement, but I believe that many of popular Islam beliefs aren't actually in any of their holy teachings. It's the same as many tenants in Christianity you see pop up, stuff like... and crap I can't think of the term for it, but back in the middle ages you could buy your way into heaven by donating to catholic churches. Or heck, where in the bible does it say to burn the gays rather than say "Let God handle all the people that aren't following his tenants"?

[Cow_k]

And ugh, another double post, but if you want an example of what I see as a harmful religion where it's tenants actually point to some craziness, I'd point to Mormonism. I think there's a lot there that's downright harmful to the people who follow the religion which is why I can't figure out why people follow it.

I'll agree that some religion would be better off if it wasn't around anymore, but to say all religion is bad seems ignorance to me.

[Blarg]

That assumption would be highly questionable; is the analysis taking into account any other factors that might influence into the qualities that you're using as examples? I'm not saying that being an atheist nation would affect negatively or positively; i am just saying that using those examples is disingenuous. More than spiritual belief goes into account for a nation's "success", and this plurality is far more poignant with industrialized nations.

I put "success" there, because certain nations consider simply having a high GPD to be a "success".

Yes of course there are other factors, but the fact that the exact opposite result is observed leads credence to the assumption of religion being a requirement isn't very likely. The success as viewed by the worldwide poll could be viewed many ways, those 2 countries happen to be near the top of many of them, life expectancy, happiness, gdp and so on.

I'm not saying that because they are atheists they are great since it's probably due more to them having higher standards of education if i remember right. The higher % of atheism would be the result of geography (not being born in a religious country) as well as the correlation of education and lacking religious beliefs.

[0ni0n]

And ugh, another double post, but if you want an example of what I see as a harmful religion where it's tenants actually point to some craziness, I'd point to Mormonism. I think there's a lot there that's downright harmful to the people who follow the religion which is why I can't figure out why people follow it.

I'll agree that some religion would be better off if it wasn't around anymore, but to say all religion is bad seems ignorance to me.

I have never said all religion is bad. I said collectively religion has done more harm than good. The funny thing is most people who have the same religious faith are exposed to the same teachings and reading the same book, yet they have very different interpretations of the underlying values, ranging from the good to the crazy. I don't think it's possible to separate the two, and that's why i was saying that we should just do away with organized religion. My opinion is that faith is a private matter and should be kept as so. It should not be a subject of exploitation like it has always been for centuries.

I would like to add that religion being an evolutionary trait is an outlandish, unsubstantiated claim. You can entertain the possibility of higher dimensions without falling prey to the religious doctrines.

[Blarg]

And while in a perfect world teaching all our kids that you should love your neighbor etc., there will always be people who need a real reason to be good to someone and if you throw 'survival of the fittest' as the basic mode of thought, then you start to see a lot of people doing a lot of bad things to each other simply because it's the only thing that really makes sense in the world. I'm not saying that some people can't see past that, but scientifically why shouldn't we just stomp all over anyone who gets in our way? Because society as a whole will work better? There's plenty of people who don't give a flying rats ass about society as a whole and I can't say that morally they're that wrong other than that they go against the majority.

Edit: Basically what I'm saying is, all our problems won't magically go away because religion is gone.

Since when is survival of the fittest a basic mode of thought anywhere in this time/age? It seems like you are equating evolution with lack of religion and also with Social Darwinism which would never become the norm. The rest of your posts seems to say that without a divine lawgiver there will be anarchy which is a huge stretch. It really wont be a problem with people not already brought up to believe in a divine lawgiver since some of them think there are no morals without god. If you aren't brought up in that mindset it shouldn't be a problem to accept that morals don't have to have divine origin.

As for your edit. No one is saying all our problems will go away, but the problems due to religion will go away if/when religion is gone and I don't see how removing more problems is a bad thing since as I stated earlier good things can stay obviously. Remove the bad, keep the good.

[Kuya]

A factor that matters quite a lot there is the type of economic system they have, which has been credited for being the most successful. Granted, religion may play a role here too.

[Blarg]

A factor that matters quite a lot there is the type of economic system they have, which has been credited for being the most successful. Granted, religion may play a role here too.

Do they have a super free market system? Maybe a super duper free one?

[Cow_k]

I apologize if I gave the impression that there would be chaos without religion, that's not what I intended. I'm just trying to say that a lot of the problems associated with religion would just find a new outlet and that for some people, religion actually is what they need to stay decent people. To say that they'd find another reason isn't always plausible. Again, look at some of the people who are hopelessly addicted to drugs or sex etc. who can't seem to find any way out with science or logic. For many people, human logic would point to that nothing matters. Again, I'm not trying to say that everyone thinks this way, but that some people do and some people need something higher than themselves in order to live a productive life.

[0ni0n]

people who are hopelessly addicted to sex

I must confess, it's probably too late for me. not even religion can save me from this willful addition.

[Denchi]

Maybe you'll be one of the people my gf sees in the clinic with crazy STD's or being pregnant and have breast cancer at 19.

[Cow_k]

You can be addicted to delicious pancakes if it has a negative impact on you or the people around you.

Though yes, in many cases, sex is gud~

[0ni0n]

Maybe you'll be one of the people my gf sees in the clinic with crazy STD's or being pregnant and have breast cancer at 19.

Which one is your gf then? Nothing wrong with having alot sex with a long term parter, perhaps you need another gf or a bottle of blue pills.

[Denchi]

No, I just took "Addicted to sex" the wrong way I guess.

Sex is fine, just don't be dumb and promiscuous about it.

[Cow_k]

This is a crazy derail and I'll stop talking about it after this, but honestly the word addiction is supposed to have a negative connotation and I did mean it in a bad way. heh.

[Kaelan?]

Damn, thats a lot of posts in 24 hours.

If religion dissapears, it's because it's not needed anymore (from an evolutionary standpoint).

It's not that straight-forward. There are plenty of situations where certain properties or traits evolve due to being useful or productive to a species during some point in time but eventually become completely useless without necessarily disappearing. And this is completely disregarding the fact that religion is a set of ideas not a genetic trait (which evolve similarly but not exactly in the same way).

One of the major ways of arguing from an atheist standpoint is exactly that - religion exists because it was (probably) once beneficial to our survival as a society, when we had no better alternative to knowing or explaining anything. Now that we do, there's no good reason to keep clinging to it instead of moving forward to something better (its existence often will, in fact, directly attempt to prevent us from doing that very thing).

It will never disappear by itself out of people's efforts into "wishing it away" because it's a self-sustaining meme. One of the major reasons it's still alive is because it has several properties that are extremely good at doing nothing but keeping itself alive. Which is exactly why confronting it is so important to anyone who really does believe it's far more harm than it's worth.

If you don't mind repeating yourself, what were you suggesting with the bit about largely atheist nations...

Not to butt into someone else's point, but I can put what he said in a different way.

There is no "human biological or moral necessity" for religion or spirituality or anything of the sort (which is not to be confused with a feeling of transcendence or awe or ethics/morals/philosophy - none of these have anything to do with the supernatural). It's surplus to requirements; it explains nothing, is required for nothing and very rarely offers any real help, especially when compared to the alternatives (to mention nothing of the problems it introduces).

Obviously atheism by itself does not give you any guarantees of any kind of perfect world - nevertheless, those societies are a perfect example of how religion today is, from a logical standpoint, completely optional at best. Hence my earlier Ockham's Razor argument which I don't think Kaylia quite got.

I haven't read to Koran and as such I can't completely speak to the authenticity of my following statement, but I believe that many of popular Islam beliefs aren't actually in any of their holy teachings. It's the same as many tenants in Christianity you see pop up, stuff like... and crap I can't think of the term for it, but back in the middle ages you could buy your way into heaven by donating to catholic churches. Or heck, where in the bible does it say to burn the gays rather than say "Let God handle all the people that aren't following his tenants"?

Actually, it says homosexuality is an abomination and the Koran (and the hadith) have plenty of little gems that make the old testament look like it was written by gandhi. You should read these texts more closely. Don't let what you wish was written in religious texts distract you from what they're actually saying.

[Neosutra]

Where is the philosophical interpretation you're talking about. It's strictly mathematical.


A model IS a mathematics interpretation of the universe. Saying you can avoid mathematics logics is retarded, but mathematically, philosophically and physically.

No, Godel's theorem is a PHILOSOPHICAL math postulate and should NOT be applied to standard physical models.

But let's break it down for you:

You state that you cannot completely model a system that is infinite correct? (Please correct me if I mistate your assumptions here, I dont want to put words in your mouth).

This premis can be disproven via a simple logical examination of an integral of an infinite series. The series may be finitely modeled as the area under the curve for a given distance. A larger model would have to be made to encapsulate a subset of the original finite models, and an even larger simple model could be developed to encapsulate those finite portions of the curve.

However that approach to modeling a specific correlated event (in this case a functional curve) is impractical. A more practical way to model such instances is to represent the model as the original function, in which a detailed point could be located in any x/y axis. The function models the entire infinite series, without the need to make an infinite subset of solutions.

Godel's theorem is not meant to be interpreted as an absolute that modeling infinite subsets are impossible, but rather the approach of examining a system that is infinite by modeling finite parts is ineffective.

To be more clear, in this argument we are talking about modeling our three dimensional space and causel time space (assuming an infinite causel line) in a close system that is time invariant.

Special relativity and other such areas have several models that are time space transforms that factor in such consistancies and develop working systems that do not require infinite subsets. String theory as well, provides some interesting ways to encapsulate our system into a multi dimensional model of causel timespace that doesnt require an infinite number of super models to explain itself. I dont personally agree with several of the postulates of string theory, but some it its premises are dead on.

I realize you are convinced of this, and you have found a foundation to hold onto and continually misrepresent this theorem, but I assure you that there are a number of models that do not fall into your failing criteria and there will be more models as we develop our knowlegde of the universe.

The reason I get a bit flustered when you make such broad reaching statements, is it is very annoying to have a sophmore level math major (correct me if you are a junior >.>) tell a post graduate physicist working for a national lab that his work and the work of everyone around him is superfluous, when your knowledge and expertise on the subject is nill. So no, you dont really know what you are talking about when you state such broad conclusions on the possible models of our universe, PLEASE stick to other arguments and leave your ignorance of physics out of this.

Godel, who often walked with Einstien and talked about the GUT would probably be ashamed of you.