Is atheism a religion?

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Oh, like cancer?

Nataraja is, and I am. There was another evolutionary biologist on this thread for a moment too. I doesn't mean our insights carry more weight, but you can't dismiss us an uninformed either.

 

"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to coineineagh again."

Yeah but dont take it too seriously, and remember that at least two of us here actually know what we are talking about with evolutionary biology. One of us even has a masters degree in it, and the other is planning on being a university lecturer on the subject one day.

I have studied it, intensely. May come as a surprise to you but I was training to become a church minister in 2002-2003ish. Not something I like to admit, but I was really suckered in by Christianity for a little while there.

Oh I have, quite a bit too. If I wasnt a biologist I would have easily been an archaeologist. I know about the origins of the Sumerian culture, their religion, and how every religion that originated in the area prior to Sumerian cultural dominance was influenced profoundly by Sumerian culture. If you really want to talk about the history, culture and religion of ancient Mesopotamia then by all means lets do it, Im happy with that. But, I would really like to stay talking about biology.

Not quite. There are varying degrees in parasitism, and they all escape me at the moment. Its 5:30am here and I have work in the morning so Im not going to go into it here and now.

Mind first evolution. In other words, there was a god who decided to run an evolution simulation. Its analogous to Daniel Dennetts 'cranes vs sky-hooks' statement. Maybe you dont have that view of life. If you did it is dangerous because it gives a false view of humanity as some sort of fallen creature in need of salvation instead of the real view of humanity as brainy apes that can do amazing things and who were never perfect, never will be.

FOXP2, Broca's Area, and others. Since you live with psychologists you should ask them about this.

Yes, FOXP2 is nonsense. Very much nonsense.

There isnt much I dont know about the bible. I went to a christian primary school because I was a trouble maker kid, and so I still have a lot of friends from back then who have told me a few things here and there. Also in my attempt to get laid by a Christian girl (for the challenge) I joined her church, got baptised, studied towards being a minster, and even preached my fair share of sermons. Reason why I left Christianity was that I went back to university and got challenged, and when I went to defend my beliefs I found they rested on nothing. I went back to the origin of Christianity, and then to Judaism, and I found them both to be baseless. After a year of depressed confusion Shiva came back into my life and I found myself back where I was before I went down the blind path of Christianity. But Ive said enough already.

And I am glad they arent, or else we would never learn anything or improve ourselves and our knowledge. Only religions claim to have absolute knowledge.

Funny how religious people and philosophers say that, but scientists say that deductive reasoning and the scientific method are beautiful, or anything along those lines.

I would never try to make science into scientology, how dare you make such a claim!

Yeah, not a fact. How do you know he didnt have a stroke? How do you know he didnt have any other sort of trauma when he experienced the blinding light in a similar way to Zarathustra did?

Anyone with false beliefs about the world is delusional, irregardless of what their religion is, or even if they are not religious at all. You can be a deluded secularist, for example. This sort of delusion isnt any form of mental illness, just to clarify. It is rather a self-imposed limitation on how you see the world and your place in it.

Never said it defines every factor. I said it makes the proteins that make up our physical bodies. I am well aware of the nature vs nurture debate, I have been studying it and researching it for about 4-5 years. I am by no means an expert, and I wont pretend like I am. All I know is what Ive read in peer-reviewed journals and what Ive learnt in my classes and from my text books, supplemented with a lot of reading and video watching in my spare time.

 

Nataraja - You can't get religion out of a book. Nice try. Anyone with a small amount of training in literature and rhetoric can take any text (even the Bible - espeically the Bible, it seems) and give you any number of different meanings for the same passages. Christians have fought wars and died over slight differences in meaning. You can have a textual meaning, but I can give you a political, social, historical, mythological meaning for the entire text. It is after all, a book of words.

Before I got my degree in literature, I spent 2 years in journalism (and was an editor of the campus newspaper) and even people describing the same event they witnessed, can't give you the same account most of the time. That's one of the reasons the Gospels are important, because they are four accounts of an event that are fairly similar to each other. That's not absolute proof, but even people who are not Christians acknowledge that Jesus was an historical figure.

While you and Coin may be biology students, (as you both keep reminding us) you seem to have an inability to read between the lines on any subject or notion that has been brought into this dialogue. That would be typical of a science person (student?), I guess, who thinks in very literal and linear terms. Even the way in which you describe evolution is very linear. Life really happens between the lines. Look, you are a really smart guy. Why do you need to see everything in such literal and linear terms? I would suggest a few literature classes to go along with all that science.

You did all that just to get laid? Man, you must have been hard up.

 

For some women, there are those who would do anything. As Morgan Freeman told Kevin Costner, "she's worth dying for!"

Otherwise, slick post. It's easy to make snide comments about a text when you have made little effort to understand the underlying concepts and background of both the writer and the culture it came from.

 

I know . It happens all the time. I get annoyed when people take science stuff out of context, but then again I would, so I understand what its like for religious people too.

Yeah I know that too . If I recall correctly they were doing it even while the council I forget the name of got together to make a set canon for the New Testament.

Yep, youre right . I should know better.

As someone who wasnt always a science student and can look at them from the outside sort of, I would say you are pretty much right about that. I live with a physicist who thinks very much like that, and the whole idea there may be a god is just ludicrous and absurd. He thinks in very rational mechanical ways. In a lot of ways I look up to him, despite him being way shorter than me and also a lot younger than me. I always feel like I am not 'sciency' enough, because I look at things a bit too mystically for most of the scientists I know.

Yes, I can see how someone might think that. I havent really describe evolution with as much detail as I should, Im just very lazy and it takes me a while to get rolling. I can do a lot better job than I have so far. But yeah, life is anything but linear. Life is a liquid flow of cause and effect, chain reactions and all that. The only linear thing about it is that it happens over time, which is linear.

People tell me this so often it must be true, but I dunno...I just feel normal.

Scientist

I was thinking of doing a class called something like "Childhood in childrens literature", which was about how childhood is portrayed in childrens literature, in summer school this year. I opted instead for a music class, which was booooring. I should have known this a priori, considering I lived with a Christian girl I went to primary school with here for a while, and she always played loud opera type stuff and was finishing off her BA Music. But anyway, I have done more than just science at university. I have studied Greek history, Roman history, ancient Greek language, Greek mythology, Roman poetry in a political context, ethics, philosophy of religion, political philosophy, cognitive science from both a biological and computer science perspective, metaphysics, epistemology, religious studies, various fields of psychology, anthropology, geography, sociology, tourism, law, computer engineering and geology, as well as chemistry and biology. This year I will be doing mostly biology still, but also maybe some chemistry and definitely some astronomy. I have a broad range of topics that interest me. A lot more than I let on here anyway .

Nah it was the challenge of the hunt, the thrill of pursuing the unattainable 'no sex before marriage' type. In the end I never got her...only her mother

Which I have done. I was training to be a church minister for a while, and for genuine reasons. It was only the girl that got me interested in it, what made me believe though is another story, one of tragedy. Basically my life fell apart and a friend I had ostracized for a year and a half died horribly before I could apologize to him. He was hit by two trucks, one after the other, at a controlled crossing when he had the right of way. The trucks ran the red lights. This plus a lot of other bad bad things drove me to fully believe in Christianity.

 

You did her mother? She must of have thought you were a ....

 

Don't worry, I did it for you. And it was good, how dare you doubt me! *mock anger* I don't think I knew Coin was a biologist, and I had forgotten you were (or maybe I just forgot Coin was).

My presentation may be simplified, but if there are problems with it, please point them out. And don't claim 'There is no God is the problem', because science is unable to make that distinction.

So why did you point me to that half-a**ed 'Annotated' Bible? If you've studied the Bible and it's culture, you should know how BS that stuff was. And on a side note, have you read the book I suggested, or read the bits of it that are online?

Ok, sort of biology, a comment I meant to post in my last one but forgot about. You said you can't believe the Bible because (among other things I think) it's so wrong on evolution. How much of the Big Bang did your evolution books cover? How much of evolution did you're physics texts (I'm assuming you took some kind of physics at some point) cover? You criticize the Bible for glazing over the parts that it isn't really concerned with. As I've said, Genesis 1 is not a text book on the process of creation, it's the Jew's equivalent of, 'Yes, God made the trees, too. And the sand. And the stars. And, yes, Billy, the fish, too. Yes, Billy, God even made your earwax. I don't know why God made earwax, Billy. Billy, please don't eat your earwax.' Seriously, after studying the Hebrews of the time (it was written), I think God must have felt just like that.

Really? I didn't know that. I can imagine one might call something a parasite if it provides both benefits and harm, yet the harm outweighs the benefit. Unless you're saying that 'parasite' is a broader category, such that even symbiosis would be a sub-set of it. I don't think that works, though, at least not unless you define something else as the traditional meaning of parasite.

Ok, the belief in such a structure (God made it) does not necessarily mean the assumption of it simply because there's no other explanation present, which is what I think you mean by the 'cranes vs sky-hooks' comparison. I'm totally lost on what you mean by 'mind first evolution'. I've looked at neurology and psychology and the like, and I see that even the experts can't find a solid causal connection, just kind of occasional bridges that seem rather important. That tells me it is unlikely that the brain is the sole source of the mind. Personally, I think the brain and the mind have a connection closer to computer hardware and computer software (only without an obvious hard-drive connection). Mess with the CPU and my BG2 doesn't run right, but that doesn't mean you've messed with BG2. BG2 is a collection of files, and all their data is still the same. It's just the hardware that has a problem. On the other hand, if I got a virus that re-wrote bits of my files, the problem is software, not hardware. Neither one causes the other, but both are designed for each other. Where does the mind come from, then? I don't know. Maybe there is some DNA origin, but it grows freely from there (it's certainly not pure DNA, as I've already shown). Maybe there's something else to it. Maybe it's more connected to the soul. Maybe not. The evidence is what tells me it isn't just simple DNA, not an assumption.

I'm familiar with Broca's area, and another language center that's key to actually processing incoming language (though I think it's only verbal language, not written, not sure about that though). I hadn't heard of FOXP2, but I'm not surprised. Broca's area is part of the brain, after all. This is actually a part of my point. Broca's area provides for the potential to produce and use language, but it doesn't create language any more than your computer screen creates the internet or the eyes create light.

No, it's just not what you seem to think it is. Take FOXP2 out, and you have no spoken language, yes. Put it in and take socialization out, however, and while you have the potential, you still don't have the actuality of language.

... It doesn't sound to me like you actually gave Christianity a try, though I don't doubt you studied it and have experience with it. I'm also quite sure there's a great deal you don't know about Christianity. You've proven that already.

By absolute, I mean absolutely verifyable. We'd still learn stuff, we'd just never have to correct old stuff, because it was right, and provable so.

Oh, I think they're beautiful, facinating, and worthy of study as well. The problem is that many people (it seems yourself included) are taking science as the be-all and end-all of existence. Like science is the only kind of reasoning that is valid. It isn't.

Nope, even worse than scientology, if you can believe such a thing exists. Believe! Believe!

Again, this is a factor of functionality. A brain having a stroke is like a car blowing a tire. The car doesn't suddenly start flying (sustainably) because a tire blew. It doesn't wag it's tail. It acts like a car, it goes forward. It just doesn't work right. Likewise, a man who hated Christianity, who made a living persecuting christians, and who was the rising star of the pharasees, having a stroke and producing halucinations/delusions, would not produce one that said Christianity was right. He may produce a vision of God telling him there were christians in town X, go persecute them, or a vision of God telling him it was his divine mission to wipe out this herasy, but it would produce a dysfunction of the existing patterns, not something endorsing a complete reversal of them.

Ah, but to claim delusion you must first prove within a reasonable margin that the thought process is false. If a man runs up to you and claims the FBI is after him for a murder he was framed for, before you claim he's delusional, you must show reasonably that either he wasn't framed, or the FBI isn't after him. If he's right, he's not delusional.

Then how can you make such claims that DNA is the most basic part of life? You have proof there are other significant factors. It'd be like me claiming the proton was the most basic part of matter and ignoring neutrons and electrons (even assuming we don't know these can be split).

 

Yeah, for a while. Now we are friends still.

None, none, and none since I havent done any physics since I was 15. I just live with physicists.

For fun, pure and simple. I rarely post anything in a serious context. This is basically my intellectual stimulation while I am on my summer break. And besides, I like arguing with people about anything worth arguing over.

Doubting my personal experience huh? I was a genuine Christian, and I sincerely made an attempt to make it work and to make it last. In the end I couldnt justify my beliefs, so I went back to my previous ones.

Never said I was an expert on it, I was just training to be an expert on it. And I am holding back, again, not being as honest about things as I should be etc etc.

Because it is. Do you want me to run through the steps of DNA to organism?

Not quite. DNA just makes the proteins which make the organs which make the organism. The environment acts on the organism from the outside, through the senses and through the ecology and through the nutrient cycling. Of course there are other factors in life than just DNA -> protein synthesis. But at its most basic level, life is just self-replicating DNA...which needs the proteins it makes to self-replicate...which require the DNA to code them using other proteins the DNA makes...and so on. Its this endless chain reaction.

A nice video for you NOG (and others who want to watch it). He is a Christian too, btw. I think he is from around your area, if Chapel Hill, NC is near you, I wouldnt know, Im not from that area and have never been there.



Also by the same guy, a nice one on RNA replication. Most of the vid is not applicable here.

 

Well, that's good that you are still friends (although kinda weird) . I still have to give you plus rep for your audacity.

Oh, the system won't let me give you a plus rep. At least you should get one for making me think of "Mrs. Robinson" also.

 

No worries, I have no shame or guilt complex anyway. So when pressed I will be honest, but not often. Im Chaotic Neutral, if anyone didnt notice.

 

That's your first mistake. You should live with chemists -- they're more experimental.

 

What I will say, is that these are very powerful archetypes: The Separatoin of Light and Dark, The Garden, The Tree of Knowledge (at the center of the Garden), The Serpent, even the Apple. These are very powerful symbols and images; pure Jungian theory. There is no doubt that these archetypes are of God, and that they are placed within the unconscious of everyone, and since they are divine, to refer to them as mere "metaphors" is unsatisfying. God laid them as part of our psyches at the founding of the world. Who can resist their power? Poets, writers, artists, musicians, have all been enthralled by them since the beginning of history and have worked them into a language of their own. Ask yourself why these images (archetypes) possess so much power over us.

Joseph Campbell was also influenced by Jung and wrote extensively on myth and archtypes and their power within our psyches:

BTW, Campell was a direct influence on George Lucas and his Star Wars story. But it was Jung who understood that all of us share these archetypes and that they possess power over all of us, regardless of culture.

Getting back to Christianity: I believe that Christ came at the center of human history to fulfill God's affirmation of Life over Death, Light over Darkness and Virtue over Sin. All of this is illusrated within Christ Himself and His actions (the Way). He is Salvation.

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

 

I seem to remember Nataraja bringing up banging a mom shortly after he arrived. Just wanted to throw that in.

And uh... fun to read guys! I won't even try to say anything because of my lack of knowledge in all these subjects Or at least compared to other members of this discussion.

 

What the...?!?

When I first arrived I was posting on the thread from years ago about homosexuality, defending it because I am bisexual.

Yeah I wish, but beggars cant be choosers. Id rather live with biologists or hippies than geeks anyway.

Whatever the reason I am sure it is related solely to our evolution. Im at work at the moment, and I should get back to cutting down the tree and finish painting the fence, but I will get back to this when I get home later. I have researched this, and if I wasnt a biologist I would easily do anthropology. My favourite is Indo-European mythology and the rich symbolism in it that is not like what you said above.

Far too many people have told me to read Joseph Campbell, I really should get around to it one day.

Life over death is a common element of Afro-Asiatic mythology, the best example is ancient Egyptian mythology. Light over darkness is deeply rooted in all peoples, and since we know that the darkness is just the earth facing into space at night, and the light is just radiated photons coming from the sun, we can explain that away readily. Virtue over Sin is a bit more complicated. By sin I assume you mean that it is anything that goes against society being productive, and it is natural for there to be an opposition towards selfish behaviour. This is obviously an over simplification, but I am running out of time and out of excuses for why I am not working.

 

ISAAC (singing): Yo, they say this cat Nataraja is a bad motherf...

DANCERS & Nataraja: Shut your mouth!

ISAAC: I'm talking about Nataraja!

DANCERS: Then we can dig it!

ISAAC: He's a complicated man and no-one understands him but his woman

DANCERS: NATARAJA!!!

 

And I swear the mom thing got thrown in there somewhere

I'll get back to just reading now.

 

Thats funny as you said you worked as a nightwatchman.
So do biologists get paid that little in your country that you have to take a second job?

 

Hey, a personal attack. Well, if you want to hear about me, then fine:

Oh, not just biologists. I've heard of professors doing all sorts of jobs on the side. One guy builds doll houses and sells them; they call him the puppet doctor.
I earn more than a PhD-student, about the same as the head of a police station. In Holland, some jobs are overrated. Since working in science is viewed in high regard, they can get away with underpaying people for quite intense work. Police officer is also a popular job, so they again are payed quite badly. An unpopular job like security gets constantly better rewards, not to mention it's recession-proof. Many low skilled jobs in Holland get paid more than the high skilled ones, due partly to their overrated status in society, and the abundance of educated people. Plumbers and other freelance workers earn serious money, while civil servants feel the need to go on strike!

Think about it: In a lab, I'd have to work really hard while my professor takes the credit. I'd be expected to work overtime if there's a hurry, and won't get paid for that overtime. Science grants mean that you may need to move to another city every 4 years or so, or commute to and from your home to work. I was finally getting a nice appartment in the heart of Amsterdam (took 7.5 years waiting time and some luck), and wasn't in the mood for taking a big risk. Working at a university just had nothing going for it, so last year I changed my student job into my fulltime profession.
In the lab, I'd be running pcr reactions, doing southern blots, and GCMS analyses until I was blue in the face. Nowadays I surf, play computer games, and watch TV, and I get paid better for it. I have no regrets.

I did have a small ambition when I studied, but I studied mainly for myself, just self-improvement. I wanted to be a malacologist (specialist in sea snails/ seashells, because i collect them), but I burst both of my eardrums when diving on an internship in Thailand. I tried working in a lab for a while, but it didn't suit me; I noticed that my student job in security was so much better, so after a while I couldn't put in the effort. When I went to job interviews in other labs, one of them called back to say I was their second choice, and just didn't get the job. I was surprised by the fact that I was relieved to not get the job, and had to face the fact that I didn't want to work in a lab. The hardest part was telling my mom actually; she was very disappointed.

In Holland, when we complete our study, the loan we took from the government is converted into a gift. So it's worthwhile to get a university education, even if you won't end up in such a job. It's something you guys in the States could learn from, coz there's a severe lack of education in a lot of your country.

 

Yet you still trusted those texts, I'm guessing. You didn't toss them out the window because they didn't properly cover topics they weren't concerned with, I'm betting. Why do that with the Bible?

See, now I'm not sure if you're lying, or if any conversation with you is entirely pointless because you're not being serious about it. You've sounded quite serious at times, at least in my head.

Well, then, from what else you've said, I can only guess you ran into the really]/i] wrong set of christians.

You came awefully close to claiming to be an expert. You said there wasn't much you didn't know. That sounds like 'expert' to me. But if you weren't serious... That's really gonna screw with me, you know?

As for DNA and all, yes environment is a factor as well. I'm glad you recognize that. Still, twin experiments show that even identical twins raised in the same environment show unique personalities by age 10 or earlier. One may love school while the other hates it. One may love math while the other loves languages. One may be excellent at the piano, while the other prefers to paint. Odds are they'll both have similar levels of intelligence, but how that manifests itself can radically differ. Both DNA and environment (as far as we can measure it) are the same. It is likely there are still more factors.

 

No coin, it wasn't a personal attack, i really was just confused by your comments.
And it seems i was right in a way, as you stated that the sciences are underpaid.

See, over here in the states, a security job is not going to pay better than a police officer*, never mind even getting close to what a professor makes.

The security job you described would pay anywhere from $7-$10/hr over here unarmed(14k - 20k a year) or $10-$15/hr(20k - 30k a year) if armed as opposed to the average professor salary of $45,000+** at the beginning of your career.

* - Now on the other hand those with prior law enforcement or military experience can get security jobs not available to the general public.
** - a quick search showed average starting salary ranging from 40k to 85k depending on state so i went with the lower end of the range.

But with what you said about not having to repay your college loans, i guess they can get away with it. See over here only grants & scholarships don't have to be repaid.