Atheism vs. Religion Dead Horse Beating Round 473!

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Just when I think I'm out, they pull me back in!

I would argue that the mass phenomena of personal experience isn't taken a face value, because they are, in fact, NOT that similar. I'd go so far as to say each personal experience is unique. If each personal experience were exactly the same, there would be a lot more support for seriously considering them.

 

I think the difference between people's standard life experiences and what many religious people describe at one point or another are sufficiently significant to lend some creadibility to the grouping. You're right that there can be a lot of differences, especially between religious practices, but my numbers were really more targeted at Christians alone (religious people worldwide most certainly rank in the billions, after all), and I think the similarities within that group are pretty strong.

I'll agree it's something to take with careful consideration, and something where we may disagree as to just how creadible it is, but I can't see anyone reasonably throwing it out as completely insignificant without good cause.

 

NOG, there is no difference between there is no God and I do not believe in God in content -- they both have the same root for a premise. Just as the comments I believe Jesus was the savior of mankind and only a vile heathen would not accept Christ as their savior have the same content. The only difference is tone.

In very basic terms an athiest does not believe in the divine -- not Jesus, not Zeus, not Mother Earth, not Father Bear, nor the Spirit of the Tree; neither does the athiest believe in an all encompassing consciousness nor the force. On the other end of the spectrum are the religious leaders who communicate directly with their god (the Pope, Mormon Prophet, etc.); these men absolutely know god exists because they talk to Him. The agnostic does not know if a god exists and does not care. The last portion is italicized because it is an important distinction. There are many who attend church and do not know if god exists, the key difference is they care -- we used to call that a "crisis of faith." The weak/strong argument is simply about personality and tone, not content.

In my experience the observation of one person is never taken at face value (well, almost never). These observations are always noted as being a single observation and scientists (along with the social sciences) understand the single observation must be validated before it can be fully believed. The reason the historical record of Pompeii was originally believed was solely due to the fact similar eruptions have also been observed. After Pompeii was rediscovered and archeologists uncovered the city the archeological evidence was consistent with the observations -- now the observation Pliny the Younger is regarded as accurate. Many of those few cases where the observations of one person have been taken at face value have come back to really burn the science community (it actually occurs far more often in the social sciences).

Mass phenomena is often a case where people want to believe something and want to have experienced something. I have seen a group of people talk themselves into believing a ghost existed on the Missouri when individually -- a few days before -- none of them believed it. These guys wanted to be a part of a special group (and they were, but not in the way they intended). You can see the same phenomena throughout history with various religious sects (the Greeks were famous for it -- just looks at the rituals of Dionysus or Lesbos). You would not believe the number of people I spoke with when active in the Mormon church who personally knew someone who'd been raised from the dead or had used God's power to raise a person from the dead. There must be hundreds of "formerly dead" people in the Mormon church, perhaps even thousands. I've also talked to many people who "have a close friend of a relative" who was there, at the hospital when Rod Stewart had four ounces of semen pumped from his stomach before a show ... mass phenomena is not reliable.

 

NOG, I agree that there can be a lot of differences, but I think there are a lot of differences even between people of the same faith. Two devout Christians can witness the same phenomenon, and one would describe it as a "miracle", whereas the other would describe it as a "freak occurrance". And that's just the thing - for something to be a miracle it assumes that God was somehow involved in the occurrance, and it can be difficult to get two people agree on this. Sure, you might get them to agree on what was witnessed, but you may never get them to agree on how they interpreret what they witnessed - and that's even true of people of the same faith.

 

T2Bruno

I have to say that I appreciate your take on agnosticism (don't know) & atheism (think no). Granted that is the way I referred to it in the past so my bias is there.

An agnostic may think it is worth enough to care about, but still readily admits not knowing.

I don't think your use of them agrees with Dr. Skepticus.

I think that it is a helpful way to use the definition because it clarifies, simplifies, and makes definitions more understandable. Thus people can communicate better than arguing over what is the difference between "weak" and "strong" atheism.

I do think NOG has a point about assumption of a null. Maybe this is a bad example but in stats class when seeing if a treatment worked or not according to the data we were given (college days) we would compare a control group (no treatment), group with treatment A, group with B, and some with both (depending on how complicated the question we were given was).

The null was to assume no treatment made a "significant" difference. When it did we disproved the null if our math was right.

But the null is, first and foremost, an assumption. To test it also requires us to be able to test ____. If God exists then we currently may not have access to a reality without him/her/it and the same is true in reverse.

Thus the idea of a "null" may be being used improperly when discussing the existence of God and even if it isn't (and I think it may be in this discussion) it is still an assumption (which may or may not be true).

I never heard of that thing you referred to with Mormons claiming to have revived other Mormons and I while I do believe miracles can happen (I do believe in God and thus the possibility of divine intervention) I suspect at least a few were staged in some fashion and if I understand you correctly you do as well or that the people involved were somehow talked into believing such an event took place even if a staging of it did not occur (unlike the staging of when some supposed healers call go around healing supposedly sick people that are actually healthy and do not suffer from the described problems-in cases like this the event was trickery but an event occurred).







NOG

Actually one of the important things about science (as far as I know) is that evidence is continually examined. Thus one person's experience may seem noteworthy it is not considered scientifically validated until tested and examined.

This is hard to do for a personal experience. Such an experience may, if true, prove God exists to the person who goes through it but may be circumstantial evidence to others and thus isn't foolproof.







Dr. Skepticus

If you look towards the beginning of the discussion you will find a link to a group of atheists who repeatedly tried telling me that Communism wasn't atheist.

Though this discussion was very long and I think at least a couple of the atheists I was debating with seem to think the best way to discuss something is to insult or try to bully the person who disagrees (I have to say the people here atheist or not act much better than they, in specific, did).



If you want I can put forward a link to youtube where a couple of atheists try to say Communism wasn't atheist. It is both far quicker than reading through page after page of discussion and without much of the bullying.

I still contended that it was atheist because what defines atheism is thinking there is not a God or gods. As practiced in Russia, Communism certainly did and actively promoted such thinking within the population.


While you did mention people who have agendas being against atheism I think, and you may agree, there are also people with agendas against religion(s) who at least act as if they have an axe to grind with it. They may or may not have a valid gripe but at least some of those I've read or listened to have been making unrealistic claims about the problems religion is responsible for.

If you want examples there is more than one youtube video I could refer you to with speakers like Richard Dawkins who blame religion for various problems unfairly and/or inaccurately imply (at least) those problems would be solved if people were atheist.

 

The whole Mormon thing is funny --my friend and I joke about people who "know a guy whose second cousin is married to this guy, and his best friend's uncle is . . . . "

It's silly but such rumourmongering is common all over the place. It can make for great entertainment.

 

On the second, you are correct. On the first, you couldn't be more wrong, and that is what I'm trying to get you to understand. There is a huge difference between undecided and decided against. "I don't believe in God" only states the undecided opinion. Now, such a person may also actively believe that God doesn't exist, but that's not certain. On the other hand, "There is no God" is the 'decided against' position.

Again, this is only the limit for agnostic atheists.

Except that that isn't the "other" end, because your previous statement wasn't an end of the spectrum, but the middle ground.

Here you could not be more wrong. In fact, there is a school of thought called the Strong Agnostic which claims that, not only do they not know if there is any divine or not, but it is impossible for any man to know. They are quite certain and care quite a bit about their non-position.

And today we can call them agnostic theists, or just Churchians. Actually, a "crisis of faith" is not what you described, because a "crisis of faith" implies a sudden and temporary position of uncertainty, which will shortly ("shortly" being a relative term) be resolved with either a return to the faith (implying they were faithful before) or a complete falling away.

Oh, I'll agree that it shouldn't simply be taken at face value, but neither should it be disregarded alltogether. The writings of Pliny the Younger were actually discovered before vulcanology began, and naturalists at the time took the writing as creadible. They didn't call such eruptions "Plinian" yet, nor define a "Plinian column", because they only had one testamony of such an event, yet it was still accepted as creadible, because other volcanos of other types had been witnessed.

Those cases of "mass" describe, at most, a few hundred people in a singular sect or clique. The phenomena of mass-psychology breaks down the larger, more diverse, and more seperated the mass is. Christianity as a whole is not subject to any mass-psychology phenomena which are not present in all humanity for the simple fact that Christianity trancends nations, societies, and millinea. In short, hundreds of millions of people throught the world over the course of two thousand years are not an example of a mass hallucination or mass delusion. 150 people in a single building or complex over the course of a few days may be. Even a thousand in a tightly knit Mormon community over a decade or so might be if the delusion is a key matter of faith and is rigidly taught.

And, just to be clear on that last part, the kind of spiritual experiences I've had are not taught, even casually, in most churches in the world today. In fact, most Baptist churches out and out teach that they don't happen.

This is true. The only difference between a miracle and a freak occurance is the perception. Still, the factual claims about what happened should substantially match up, even if the interpretations of it don't.

pplr, the use of the term "null set" differs from discipline to discipline. Mathematically, it is a vector or array of size 0 with all contents being 0. I understand it's different in electronics and in computer science.

Hmm, actually, thinking about it that way, I think the difference between strong atheism, agnosticism (atheistic or theistic) and strong theism can be portrayed thusly:

Strong Theism (of a particular religion):
[1,0...] (meaning, one God is true, all others are false)

Strong Atheism:
[0...] (meaning all gods are false)

Agnosticism:
0 (meaning a null set, no beliefs on any values)


Agnostic theism may lean toward the practice of some religion or another, but ultimately the real belief is some uncertain "sorta, maybe" or, more often, an "I go because I've always gone, but I don't guess I really believe anything". Agnostic Atheism would be the reverse, with the belief being similarly uncertain but "eh, maybe, maybe not" or, more often, "I've never really thought about it".

I agree, and this is actually the point I'm trying to show. I don't expect anyone to be converted because a lot of people claim some spiritual experience or another, but I also don't expect those claims to be outright dismissed as completely invalid simply because there's no hard evidence.

As I've said before, I believe because my personal experiences are, to me, hard proof. I don't expect them to convince anyone else, though.

 

Weak atheism is NOT "agnostic atheism" and Gnostic atheism is NOT "strong atheism"(in fact there is no such type of atheism because Gnosticism implies KNOWING God(exists). I would not have a huge problem with re-tooling the definition of Gnosticism so that 'Knowing God does NOT exist.' could be included but I do not see the need for doing so.

I am a strong Agnostic and a Strong Atheist. Most atheists are weak agnostics and weak atheists.

Exactly what I have a problem with. NO atheist says there are NO gods and we know this(save for those who simply refuse to deify ANYTHING or oppose the act of worship on moral grounds etc.). Every morning when I wake up there is a big spherical God shining through my window. I know the sun exists but I deny the act of willing worship to the sun as I think worship a bad idea. I am 100% certain that the "supernatural" does not exist just looking at the definition(s) of such. I am an agnostic atheist and I do not fit into your definition of such whereas there is no such problem using the definitions I have put forth here..

The error you are making here is that you are attributing characteristics of SOME people(some of which are atheist), in a blanket fashion to atheism itself. To say that deniers of the supernatural represent some "extreme atheism" is like saying that violence is a distinguishing trait of people from the south(in America) because you met rednecks who got into fist fights before. And furthermore this slapping "extreme" onto skeptical or atheistic labels to pain a picture that says that 'Fundamentalism is a problem for both theists and atheists' when this is not at all true. The reason we tend to do these things as humans is due to evolutionary biology and how are abstract-thinking evolved. We are sort of wired to seek 'balance' in our answers when in reality such balance is often not found. That is why conspiracy theories exist and persist...the explanation that the leader of the free world was assassinated by a nobody with a rifle he ordered from Sears is not a 'balanced' explanation so we invent shadow government plots and schemes to balance things out in our minds.
Likewise there are no atheist fanatics. We have no sacred martyrs for the cause of 'atheism' and so you will never see an atheist suicide bomber or abortion clinic bomber or doctor murderers etc.
We do not even have anyone comparable to the Pat Robertsons and Jerry Falwells of the world. At worst we have people who know a thing or two about science or rationalism who openly mock people who do NOT know such things and yet openly challenge them.

Again, I have never met such an atheist(though I would be shocked if there were not some 12-13 year olds who fit the bill) and no one seems able to point to one when I ask. Occasionally some will try to pain Richard Dawkins as such but to me this is pretty desperate and absurd. I think ANY rationalist worth his salt will agree that if someone were able to provide good evidence for such a claim then we should concede such.

The real problems arise when someone actually DOES try to provide such evidence and we invariably end up debunking it which always provokes the reply that I/WE are the "ultimate atheists"/"Extremist atheists".

Well, as I said strong atheism is provisional. In fact I would go so far as to say we are ALL of BOTH types of atheism with regards to specific gods. Most Christians are pretty certain that Zeus is not real(strong atheist), but that God MAY be unlike any of our ideas about him(weak atheist).

I say, as a rationalist but not as an atheist, that the supernatural does not exist because the definitions I have heard make no sense. Most strong atheists will also be rationalists who say the same thing I suspect.
But this is not "extreme" or at all, comparable to religious extremism. I could see if we were denying the existence of trees and rocks and stuff then...yeah, that would be extreme, particularly if we were out to maim and kill people who disagree or even just try to mandate our beliefs through law.

A term I heard recently that got a chuckle out of me was "Dogmatic rationalism". I always get a laugh from the idea that you can simply place "dogmatic" or "extremist" or "fundamentalist" before or after any term and THOSE people become contrary examples to, in this case, 'faith-based believers'. "Dogmatic rationalism" would be...what?! It is like saying "He's a really fast slow poke.".

No doubt.

And when it appears that I am masturbating, it may be true that I am actually making love to my invisible, intangible girlfriend.

What is the difference between a "real" thing which CANNOT be impacted, measured, known/experienced and an IMAGINARY thing?

Nope. I only accept that the scientific methodology is the best, most sensible means of examining and studying reality to figure out how things work. And a hypothetical real thing that is somehow beyond science is nonsensical. On what grounds could we say it was real? Can someone cough up such a thing so we at least have a reason to think them possible? How could you?!
I see no good reason to grant the premise that things somehow exist without bearing the qualities by which we distinguish the existent from the non-existent.

Neither. I am just saying that it is irrational as can be for one to argue that if we CANNOT be any credible means infer the existence of a supernatural thing we should by default say it is a problem or limitation of SCIENCE. That is the same logic that would say that if a police officer goes on patrol but does not fund vampires in any alleyways, it is because he is poorly trained/equipped or from too primitive an era.

False analogy. Your hypothetical assumes some scientist 150 years ago just dreams up this "radiation" stuff then goes to tell others about it without being able to explain the stuff and these other scientists would then be guilty of being too closed minded to see the truth.
If a scientists today or even 150 years ago were to put forth something that can be sensibly explained, supported via evidence, concurrent observation and experiment, then his 'theory' would at least be considered 'possible'. But if you CANNOT give evidence, convincing argument, predictions, falsifiability, etc. then scientists are right to not take your claims seriously.

Not exactly true. Even in some extreme 'Year 3,000' scenario, 'future science' is not going to discover, for example, that the earth is actually cube-shaped or that evolution does not occur. We are not going to discover that really BELIEVING that one can do some impossible feat actually enables the performance of said feat(i.e. flying by flapping your arms and jumping off a skyscraper).

Will have to go back and read this part again to re-familiarize myself.

It is your characterizations themselves that I am rejecting. Who are these alleged atheists who are holding beliefs without "proof"(and by "proof" I will assume you mean a preponderance of evidence)?

I do not agree with this characterization at all. If you are trying to paint axioms as "assumptions" with the implication that these axioms are no better supported than any faith-based belief/claim then we will be at an impasse because following this line of reasoning to it's logical conclusion renders all ability to comprehend, communicate, arrive at truth, and so forth, null and void. Science accepts materialism/naturalism as it's axiom because no other axiom will work or allow us to really know or learn ANYTHING about reality.

Whoa. So you arbitrarily define "irrational" as 'not agreeing that all things are possible' or not conceding the unearned point that 'nothing can be proven'? And you further try to support this by asserting baldly that anyone who defines themselves differently than you would define them are just lying about how they think/reason?

That seems a bit wonky too me.

This is a bit silly. Since Jesus of Nazareth did not exist, except as a fictional composite of several other characters both real and fictional, there can be no "corpse" belonging to him and thus no one can prove to you that you believe in a falsehood. That sounds pretty dogmatic to me because you are in effect saying "You cannot convince me. Period.". This is strongly reminiscent of Creationists who say "All you have to do is to provide a single 'transitional species' in the fossil record and I will agree that evolution happens." but then for every transitional you put forth they respond :"Nope! That is just another species entirely different than 'A' and 'B'!"(thus moving the goalposts).
Ideally if a claim is being offered for what is probably an imaginary entity then there should be some grounds on which we can demonstrate for you that the thing is indeed imaginary. A Crypto-zoologist telling me to go find a Sasquatch's corpse and scientifically prove he was not a primate is a silly request.

Ocham's razor/Principle of Parsimony tells us that it is far more likely that this "one person" is delusional, lying, has mis-perceived something, etc. That is the exact reason that anecdotal and 'revealed' knowledge is considered worthless in such discussions. We cannot scrutinize the evidence. And a god who only reveals himself to one person is as irrelevant to me and my positions as almost anything I can imagine.

Kind of an aside but Mother Teresa was not a very good example for you. She exploited men, women and children to further her political and celebrity goals. She kept stolen money(millions and millions of dollars that belonged to the people shafted in the S&L scandal), refusing to return it. She often made use of private jets to attend celebrity events held for people who were at odds with her own beliefs(Lady Diana etc.), etc.

And Jesus did not even exist. Not a single contemporary mention of him by ANYONE who was alive at the time of the alleged events. Every mention of him occurs many years after his alleged life and death and many of these are Christian insertions.

Good people will be good people, with or without religion. Bill Gates has no religion and he probably does more for charity than the entirety of the Catholic church, all things considered. Can good people cite their religion as a motivating factor in doing good? Sure. We see this every day. But it does not seem relevant to the overall point here.

You are making this more complicated than it should be. "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" simply means that evidence such as anecdotal experiences is fine if you are claiming "I have a pear tree in my yard." but this sort of 'ordinary' evidence is NOT AT ALL good to support a claim like "I have a talking, invisible tree in my yard that grants wishes!".

I could not care less whether you are preaching to me or simply asserting that God exists on an internet forum. Without extraordinary evidence, the correct conclusion for me(or any other rationalist) is atheism.

I define 'Free will' as the ability to ponder decisions. That seems the only definition that really matters here. When we hear about Taliban atrocities involving forcing children and women into sexual slavery, we are not only incensed about the violent rape-assault that occurs against the victims but the denial of free will. The women and children are not allowed to make their own decisions about where they want to go, whom they want to be coupled with and what they want to do with their lives.

If an omniscient being exists then he knows the future as well as he knows the past and with divine certainty. Therefore he cannot EVER ponder any decision about whether to, for example create humanity or what have you.

A lot of theists will try to somehow fudge the decision-making process to somehow precede the omniscience(and then add the nonsensical qualifier that God "would have made a decision but he just would know what his decision would be!") but this falls flat because the omniscience cannot be switched on and off to allow for God to make decisions and be surprised once in a while and if there is ever any moment when he lacks certain knowledge about anything then he cannot be omniscient.

What claim is this? I also do not agree with the above definitions but that is not i8mportant right now.

Such as...?

I criticize the ACT of worship(of ANYTHING). The very best that can be said about worship is that it is unnecessary in that I can fully appreciate good ideas, the beauty of nature, etc. without worshiping such. When someone engages in worship the first thing they do is to demean themselves. To basically say "I am (far) less than *THIS*!". Humility is fine but worship comes off as something that some men pay prostitutes to experience(usually as the subservient getting whipped/doing the worshiping/being peed upon etc.).
As far as alleged BEINGS go, no being worthy of worship would want to be worshiped.

While I may have some minor quibbles with this, for all intents and purposes I can concede this point.

EDIT: Adding something here to clear up the "Weak/Strong atheism/agnosticism" thing since I am seeing a lot of confusion still(on both sides of this).

The qualifiers of "weak" and "strong" have NOTHING to do with strength of conviction. Strong atheists are no more prone to 'bothering' people or trying to mandate unjust laws than weak atheists are. In philosophy the two terms denote a sort of 'passive/active' distinction. Weak denotes a LACK of a certain belief and Strong denotes a certainty that said belief is false(usually for logical reasons and again, this is always provisional).

 

A few points. About the language part I put forward the suggestion that agnostic and atheist be used as I and T2Bruno have been as a means of avoiding confusion relating to what a strong and/weak atheist is.

Actually I have had conversations with atheists who feel there is no God or gods and that if they exist they should be considered supernatural. Thus like you, they feel there are not any. You could be brining up a point that if God exists then he/she/it is natural and thus what is viewed as "supernatural" shouldn't exist.

I would disagree with you here there are atheists and religious people that are quite dogmatic and the term "fundamentalist" seems to fit them well.

Now you're making an assumption about how I and others think.

I've spoken with people that strike me as followers of a doctrine. This is me using experience, some of which I can refer others to so they can examine it, to inform my understanding-not some desire for balance in the world.

I'll grant you that people may have a desire for feeling there is balance, karma, and whatever. And there may be times when I may begin to wonder if or feel that there could be but that is very much not what I used (and I expect ditto for NOG) when determining that there is such a thing as a fundamentalist atheist.

Not only did I mention there were atheists who tried to bully me online but one of them seemed hateful/angry enough that I wouldn't be surprised that if he met me in person he would be willing to try to use physical force on me.

He did, after all, say it was a "pity" that me and my "ilk" weren't going to be killed.

I wouldn't be shocked if that level of emotion popped up frequently or was encouraged in at least some suicide bombers.

You do have Dawkins and other speakers that are comparable to right-wing radio and about as unbiased.

You seem to be toning down how vocal or irrational an atheist can be. That is making an overly broad/sweeping assumption in itself.

Ok. I mentioned Dawkins before and even offered to provide such evidence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbza-UtseE0

I think this is the video (within the first 15 minutes) where he associates religion and both spousal abuse and genital mutilation. While religion can be associated with either I'll assert that for the majority of cases it is not a primary cause and the problems would continue if everyone became atheist. Thus what he implies is misleading.

The following link includes results of a survey as to why female genital mutilation occurs.
http://www.path.org/files/FGM-The-Facts.htm

Religious beliefs were a distant third behind tradition and cleanliness (which I'm guessing is form of cultural proof of virginity).

Moreover the survey seems to indicate Protestant religious organizations are actively discouraging genital mutilation and thus are a religious source of opposition to it that he does not heed.

Dawkins is biased in that he is too eager to assume the bad when it relates to religion and avoid mentioning good. Thus I don't think he is that credible on the topic (or as credible as Rush Limbaugh is on democrats).

I suspect your assertion that criticisms of Dawkins were "absurd" was based more on emotion than looking at when we discussed him.


I haven't finished going through your comment but these were some things I noticed and I'll be back later. There are some other people I'd like to reply as well but I'll be AFK for a bit shortly.

 

Agnosticism refers only to a lack of knowledge (i.e. being uncertain). It, by itself, doesn't refer to any particular group of knowledge. Similarly, gnosticism is about knowing, not about knowing God (gnosis is Greek for knowledge). It has been applied to a sect of Christianity, but that's hardly the only application. With that realization, then, an Agnostic would be someone who doesn't know, who isn't sure. That, whether 'weak' or 'strong', is not strong atheism. Unless you simultaneously hold two opinions on the subject, you are not both a strong agnostic and a strong atheist.

Now you're just playing with semantics, as I don't know anyone who thinks of the Sun as a god. If you really want to play that game, though, then you can just replace my use of the word "gods" with the phrase "true gods".

Only because it conflicts with your beliefs about the nature of the universe.

I'm not sure what you were trying to say here, but it seems kind of pointless from my perspective. You've just said that your definitions aren't the same as mine. You have no arguement there. Pointing it out doesn't do anything, though.

Actually, no, I'm not. I'm attributing those characteristics to some atheists and attempting to identify them as a specific sub-category of atheism, like leafy greens are a sub-category of plant life. I am attempting to do so specifically to avoid attributing those characteristics to atheists as a whole, or to a vague, undefined group of atheists called "some atheists". Instead, I'm trying to specify which atheists.

Again, you're wrong. I'm not useing 'extreme' in the sensationalist way you're expecting. I'm using it in a more scientific way, like saying "X is more prevelant at the positive extreme of the spectrum." It's also why I originally avoided the term 'extreme' and rather used 'ultimate', a term without such loaded conotations in modern culture.

I agree with the psychology part, but recent research suggests it's actually a development of modern socialization, not biology.

No martyrs, but still fanatics, including those who are willing to kill anyone who disagrees with them.

... Go onto YouTube and look up a movie called Zeitgeist. If you know anything about the history of the subject, or about Egyptian mythology (or care to just do some quick research on it), you'll see it's complete BS. That's easily on par with Robertson, probably beyond.

Any rationalist, yes, but I doubt most atheists are rationalists. And, incidentally, I've seen plenty of them, including in a state university.

All I can say is you must have a lot of experience with some very militant theists.

In specific contexts, I'll agree with you on strong atheism (with the exception of the nutters who follow 'all paths to the divine unity'). For the weak atheist point, I think you'd have to cherry pick individuals. There are some Christians who readily admit they have very little idea who their God is. There are some who are quite sure they have a vague understanding. There are even a few who claim to know Him as well as they know themselves.

Supernatural
I can understand you saying you don't agree with, or believe in those definitions, but to say you don't understand them, that they don't even make sense to you, suggests that you are so locked into your own assumptions that you can't see anything beyond them and, as a fellow rationalist, I'm sure you know how dangerous that is.

I think you're overestimating the strong atheist population. I think that, just like most any large population, you'll find the majority of them aren't educated enough in the issue to be called something like a 'rationalist'.

Dogma
Behold a few examples of Rationalist dogma.
I'm sorry, but I really am a stickler for the proper use of words.

If you believe in an absolute universe which does not change with our perception of it, if you believe that Pluto was there long before any human laid eyes on it, then the difference is black and white. If you believe in a relative, fluid universe where perception and belief change reality, then there is no difference.

And this is why I said you assume a perfect form of science. There is a huge difference between 'the qualities by which we distinguish the existent from the non-existent' and what science can currently percieve. In fact, we are continuously trying to expand the latter by discovering more of the former.

No, that's not what it's like at all. Here's what I'm trying to get across to you:
Science grows. In it's growth, it discovers new things. Before it has discovered them, it completely lacks all capability to discover them (be that through technology, access, or time limitations). Those things that actually exist yet are currently beyond science's ability to detect, still exist. And yes, science can't detect them because science is still too primative to do so.

No, actually, quite accurate. Your logic states that anything that science can't percieve can't exist. 150 years ago, science couldn't percieve radiation, sub-atomic particles, or many, many currently recognized celestial phenomena. By your logic, they didn't exist since science couldn't possibly detect them.

Think again. When Einstein first published his theories of relativity, almost nothing in them was testable. There were theoretically testable predictions, yes, but no scientist on earth could even make an educated guess as to when we'd be able to test them. There was no proof at all. Nonetheless, his theories were taken seriously. They were criticized seriously (which is the nature of science). Eventually, some aspects were proven. Others were disproven. Many others still cannot be tested today. Special and General Relativity are still valid, commonly taught scientific theories.

Ok, let me rephrase that. Neither you nor I can know the limits of what some future science may prove/disprove. We may be pretty sure about what is beyond those limits (though even there we may be wrong), but we can't know the limits themselves.

You. Every strong atheist. If you claim there are no gods, if you actually believe that, then you are who I'm talking about. You cannot prove it, therefore you believe without proof. Not that I'm criticizing you for it, so long as you don't try to pass laws based on that belief or anything. Still, it is important for you to realize that this is an unproven belief.

Materialism is not an axiom. It's an assumption. An axiom is a self-evident truth. Materialism is the belief that matter (and energy these days) is the only reality. Materialism is not an axiom. It's a very useful assumption, and science functionally makes it because, as you pointed out, it's the only useful way to learn anything about our reality, but it is an assumption. Go back through your 'axioms' and ask yourself how many of them are truely self-evident. And remember, to be truely self-evident, something must be beyond the realm of proof/disproof.

No. I define 'irrational' as those who would refuse to consider new evidence that contradicts their established position. If a Christian is presented with the (absolutely proven) corpse of Jesus, and he still believes Jesus rose from the dead and ascended to Heaven, then he is irrational. Likewise, if an atheist sees God Himself descend from the clouds with angels and Elvis ressurected, with signed statements from eye witnesses, video confirmation, and everything, and still refuses to believe, then he's irrational.

Outside of the New Testament (much of which was written by first-hand observers within a generation of the death of Jesus), you can look to Cornelius Tacitus, Gaius Suetonius Tranquillas, Flavius Josephus, Pliny the Younger, portions of the Talmud, and Mara Bar-Serapion. The fact of a man named Jesus, from Nazareth, living and dying (and causing a lot of inspiration/trouble along the way) is a matter of historical fact. His ressurection of the dead, healing of the blind, and divine nature are another matter, but the man lived.

Ah, but neither Occam's Razor nor the Principle of Parsimony are absolute. They're rules of thumb, things that are generally true, but not always. In fact, several of humanities greatist scientific blunders were due to the application of those principles.

Short of some scathing reviews of a book by Christopher Hitchens titled The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice (which basically said he was a biggot and a liar), I couldn't find anything about what you're talking about. Could you point me to some more trustworthy sources?

This is a noble position, but history tells a different story. Historically, charities have been the realms of religion, not secularism. The modern age is a rarity, and still religious charities vastly outnumber secular ones.

And this is exactly what I was saying. Without extraordinary evidence, I don't expect you do believe me. However, without extraordinary evidence to the contrary, you can't expect me to believe you.

An omniscient being can still have free will if it is seperated from our linear perception of time, or if it is the source of reality. For a good example of this, look to J.R.R. Tolkien and the world of Middle Earth. Tolkien was 100% seperate from the timeline of Middle Earth. He could go back and forth however he wanted, without restriction. He was also the very source of that 'reality'. He created it. Nothing happened in it that didn't happen by his will. He knew everything that happened in it because he wrote it. He was omniscient within that realm, and yet still had free will to choose it. Incidentally, this analogy of God as an author also serves to explain away the conflict between human free will and divine free will quite nicely.

Those must be some pretty slow theists, is all I can say.

The claim that there are no gods. Not to be confused with the lack of belief in gods. We're talking strong atheism here, so it is a positive dis-belief in the existence of gods. They are sure that such things don't exist. Just like if you tried to convince the scientific community that there is no such thing as extraterrestrial life anywhere in the universe, you need proof, and some pretty extraordinary proof at that.

I think it was Joacqin who said that all theists are either mentally ill, retarded, or willfully self-deluding. If it wasn't Joacqin, I apologize to him.

I think you have a very twisted view of worship (which explains you position nicely. Suffice it to say, it doesn't have to be like that.

I hate to say it, but I think your attempt to clear things up just muddied the waters more. Specifically, it seems you're use of 'conviction' is the same as my use of 'action'. To me, conviction is belief, not action. Beyond that, though, I think we agree.

 

I would have agreed with the whole post since I had just mentioned the first part, except where the second is concerned we actually use imaginary numbers in our power system computations.
As it is it could be said that, in a way, imaginary numbers may actually be responsible for letting you read this.

 

It was me and if you look through Dr. Skepticus' posts you will see that he is saying something quite similar. It is the only sensible explanation for the personal religious experience of people.

It is pretty much me who keeps kicking the hornets nest but one thing I have found is that the more you discuss this issue like this the more theists or fence sitters you push over to the atheist side. Can't open the eyes of people if you don't talk about it.

 

Actually, it turns out they're very important numbers in stress cycle calculations, too. That's right, imaginary numbers have a very real physical impact.

Only if you start with the assumption that it's false, which pretty much means circular reasoning.

That's true, and in reverse as well. I've found the best way, though, is to encourage genuine examination of the issue. I've seen story after story of hard-core atheist scientists setting out to 'disprove' God, only to end up convincing themselves He's real.

 

You read these in religious magazines didn't you?

 

To be a bit nitpicky:

I'm glad you put thoery in quotation marks, because what you described would probably not be considered a theory in the scientific community. A thoery is actually a damn high standard to reach. It's basically one step below absolute proof. To qualify as a theory it actually has gone through extensive testing and application without disproof. Chances are what you are describing would be a hypothesis, at best.

Even as an agnostic and weak atheist, that was my understanding of it as well. But I think you go a bit too far in calling the writers of the New Testament first hand observers. There is no evidence that any of the authors of the four canonical gospels - Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John - ever actually met Jesus, and it is likely that they weren't even born yet at the time of Jesus' death (except for possibly Mark, although he would have been a child). However, at the time of their writings - especially Mark who wrote circa 65 AD - there certainly were people still alive who WERE first hand observers. But that would make all four gospels (which as you know make up a huge chunk of the New Testament) second hand accounts. Matthew, Luke and John wrote later, generally accepted to be very late in the 1st century (circa 80-100), so there were very few first hand observers left who would have been old enough to have stong memories of Jesus, but would still be alive.

That said, I largely agree with what NOG is saying. I do not believe in the divinity of Jesus, but I do not doubt that there was a dude named Jesus who lived around Jerusalem, had his ministry during the first few decades AD, and upon which the religion of Christianity is based.

 

Actually, no. I attended a conference held by one and I've seen TV bits on several others. Of course, I don't expect Discovery to do a documentary on any of them, but when a man publishes a book attacking religion, and then three years later publishes one defending it with a conversion story included, I don't assume some vast conspiracy or anything.

This isn't entirely accurate. Theory is just short of absolute proof (which doesn't exist in science), but it's also a very wide range. There are numerous theories that have never been tested, because we lacked the capabilities to do so, yet they are still considered theories. A hypothesis is a single testable claim, while a theory is generally a complex idea or mesh of ideas to explain something, typically including multiple hypotheses and a lot more detailed work. Basically, the hypothesis is a single soldier, while the theory is a battalion, including equipment, group training, and leadership. Neither needs see battle to be one, but those that have are better accepted, and those that avoid battle when needed are, well, usually jailed and/or executed.

It is generally accepted, though not unanimously, that the disciple Matthew wrote the book of Matthew, thus being a first had witness to it all, and it was most likely written somewhere around AD 50, with AD 70 being the latest reputible estimate I've heard. It is generally accepted (and I haven't heard this one argued) that Mark was written by an associate of Peter, thus having second hand information, and written somewhere between AD 50 and AD 70. Luke was all but inarguably written by an associate of Paul, the same man who wrote Acts, giving him first hand knowledge of the events of Acts, but second or third hand knowledge of the evens of his Gospel. There is generally no debate that John was written by the disciple John, was very young at the time of Jesus's ministry, and experts argue between a date as early as AD 50 and as late as AD 85 for it's authorship. John 1, 2, 3, and Revelation were also written by him. The book of James was almost certainly written by James the brother of Jesus either in the mid AD 60s or shortly before AD 50. First and Second Peter are generally accepted to have been written by the disciple Peter. The book of Jude was likely written by either Judas the disciple (not Judas Iscariot, there was another) or Judas the brother of Jesus, though neither of those are certain. I don't know where you got that these authors weren't even born when Jesus walked the Earth. Likely the youngest was John, and he was a man (by Jewish law, at least 14) durring Jesus's ministry.

I don't know where you got your dates, but not a single expert I've read put any of them that late (the 85-100 AD). I believe Mark writing around AD 65, though it's not certain it was that late, and that would probably have put him a child (though not necessarily a young one) around the time, but his information is second hand anyway.

 

Well, here's one source, that actually puts the dates of all four Gospels somewhat later than what I listed, with John being written as late as 110 AD! The relevant snippet:

So most scholarly writings puts three of the four Gospels written around 80 AD, and John possibly a generation later. However, the article does acknowledge a little further down on the same page, "Christian scholarship has generally preferred to assign earlier dates." However, even those earlier dates puts the composition of the Gospels in the 55-80 AD timeframe, with none being written before the late 50s, meaning if any of them were contemporaries of Jesus, they would have been considered extremely old for the time they lived in.

Here's the Full article. Click on the "dating" link if you just want to see the dates. That's the first link that popped up when I googled "Gospel Dating", so it's not like it's cherry-picked, but it's not like it's extensively researched either.

 

First off, I wouldn't trust Wikipedia on anything religious, conspiratorial, political, or otherwise likely to be subject to heated opinions. Wikipedia is far from an unbiased source, and tends to lean liberal. That being said, though, if you read on you in that page you'll see mention of the earlier dates and a bit of their reasoning.

Secondly, the criticisms of the early datings primarily rely on a few things:
1.) Anonymous authorship, which was the standard at the time. Almost no ancient texts of any kind are anything else. Furthermore, this is useless for dating, as it simply means it could have been written at any time, even before Jesus's ministry (mind you, that'd be rather prophetic). More to the point, though, all the earliest manuscripts found of each Gospel refer to them as the Gospel According to X, with X as the traditional name.
2.) Connection to Mark. Matthew and Luke share a lot of information with Mark and the three are grouped together as the synoptic gospels. Critics tend to claim that Matthew and Luke drew from Mark and thus had to be written afterward. Defenders point out it is just as likely that Mark drew from Matthew and Luke, or that all three drew from a common earlier text, or even that all three simply draw from the same events (though this last one is less likely considering the commonality between them). Oddly, many critics use this argument to date John later, even though John shares nothing more than common events with the others, which would be expected from different people describing the same events. This argument with John is generally disregarded as ridiculous. As said, the relationship between Mark and Matthew/Luke is an issue of much debate, one side using it as evidence of a later date (though still 100AD is extreme) and the other using it as evidence of an earlier date.

Defenders use primarily three things to date all four gospels:
1.) Reference to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. Matthew and Luke make no reference to this major event, which is unusual. This heavily suggests they may have been written before this happened. John and Mark make vague reference to it, which may suggest it was written after AD 70, or earlier in the war, when Roman vengeance was obvious, but had not happened yet.
2.) The trial of Paul in Rome. This is particularly useful for dating the authorship of Luke, as Acts (the sequel to Luke) ends with Paul awaiting trial, heavily suggesting the outcome of the trial was unknown to the author at the time. This places Luke in the late 50s to early 60s, and Acts in the early 60s.
3.) The language used. Languages change over time, and the languages of Judea were radically changing at this time. Inclusion of Latin words, use of Greek phrases, and idioms that only make sense in Hebrew or Aramaic may be used to date the texts. All of these point to mid-first-century, vaguely somewhere between AD 50 and AD 75.

There are other things hinted at and suggested which can be useful, such as the martyrdom of Peter, the status of the Christian church, the conflict between the Jewish Christians and the Gentile Christians (over circumcision and the Law) which can be useful as well.

I suggest looking at this site for more info, as they go into more detail with citation. It's a Christian site, but also one of the most detailed and well-organized reference sites I've seen. Interestingly, they do mention later dates than I had previously seen as considerations.

Regardless, though, for a historical reference of this period, even early to mid second century (generally considered ridiculous for most gospels, and disproven by evidence for at least John) would be considered reliable, especially if four different texts all agree.

 

And this is what I am contending. You are not clarifying anything or avoiding confusion at all. You are making things MORE confusing by using these errant mis-definitions. It leads to the difficulties I have pointed out in my posts here.

You MAY well have met such atheists. That does not even strike me as improbable necessarily. Again, as I said in the very post you were responding to, there ARE atheists who simply refuse to call people's 'natural gods'(Kim Jong Il, the sun, the moon etc.) "gods". In this the point they are making is that what is traditionally and most commonly called a "God"(a transcendent supernatural being) cannot exist or does not exist. While I agree with them on this I still recognize that 'Treated as a god IS a god'(just not MY gods...any of them). I define a "god" in this context as anything granted willing worship.

That too.

I know you believe this. It is a common sort of straw mannish assumption but my point is that this is almost entirely a mythical construct. You are taking people like Dawkins and listening for the evidence you want to find.
As I said, I would be shocked if there were not SOMEONE(probably a younger teen) who fits that bill but for the most part this really is just a straw man.

More below on this and Dawkins specifically.

Not at all. I was just explaining some facts we know about how HUMANS think in general and the reasons we so frequently believing in absolute falsehoods, even in massive numbers. An "assumption" would be drawing a conclusion without real reason for inference. Like the gal who clasps her purse tighter when a black man walks by than when white people walk by.

This is my point. The key words in what you wrote above is that YOU have spoken to unspecified "people" who SEEM to fit a caricature you want to believe is true. I cannot scrutinize your anecdotal discussions with "people" and to the degree that I have been able to examine such claims I have consistently found that they are rooted in bias and misinterpretation.

You misunderstand what I was referring to as "balance". The way our minds work is that we expect to find, seek out and give gre4ater crede4nce to explanations that are 'balanced' against the events they seek to explain. Again, the JFK assassination is a perfect example of what I am talking about because here is a case where it was conclusively proven that Oswald acted alone and killed the President but still people do not want to believe it. To that end they will ignore and rationalize away evidence which contradicts their beliefs. The REASON they do this has long been known and verified in psychology and that is because we seek 'balance' in our explanations.
Our minds careen and short out when we hear that an event of monumental import was pulled off by people of little to no importance with modest resources etc.
So we invent explanations that are more balanced. I.e. JFK was secretly a Liberal who wanted to stop the Viet Nam war and was assassinated by the CIA/Mafia/Some other nation/etc. In reality JFK was a Conservative who was the person primarily responsible for us going to Viet Nam in the first place and increased our troop presence there every year he was in office. He thought Nixon to be one of the most capable and admirable politicians he knew. There was no reason for war hawks to want JFK dead because he was one of them.

While this may be true, it is irrelevant to what I was talking about.

I say the nay. This is EXACTLY why you believe such. You are looking at things through a sort of warped dualist set of peepers. In our minds(not just yours...everyone's!) we form dichotomies and then we presume that whatever drawbacks occur for the option we advocated(say theism) must also exist for what we think is the contrary option(re: atheism). If there are fundamentalist theists who seek to force everyone to believe as they do then there MUST be fundamentalist atheists who do the same, in relatively equivalent numbers. I say that reality does not conform in this case.

Welcome to the wonderful world of internet debates. Again, anecdotes do not do us any good here because there are too many freaking likely possible results to explain your perception here.

*It COULD be that a few atheists bullied you online exactly as you (sort of)describe.

*It could be that you persisted in spouting so many nonsensical assertions and some atheist who was already not in the mood said "F*ck it..." and proceeded to harass you with something equally annoying as what he felt you were being.

*It could have been an angry teenager out to 'troll' theists.


And so on...dozens of possibilities here and I have no real way of saying *this* or *that* is more or less likely.

Could be. Maybe it is true that you said nothing deserving of such responses and your account is 100% accurate. Unfortunately I cannot scrutinize this anecdote at this time and furthermore I do not see how it's truth or falsehood would have any impact on THIS discussion.

You are engaging in so many logical fallacies here that I feel weary even thinking about them. Your above 'argument' is virtually identical to this one:

p1 : People drunk on whiskey tend to be really dour, depressed people.

p2: I have observed a few plumbers who seemed to be pessimistic and I imagine those people drunk on whiskey are also this way.

c1: Plumbers(or at least those whom I met who seemed to me to be very pessimistic) are drunk on whiskey.

c2: there is a significant subset of plumbers who are so drunk on whiskey that they are dour/depressed/pessimistic/apt to do atrocious, suicidal things.

Do you see the problem with that? Atheists are akin to "plumbers" above in that it is very possible for some atheists to be angry/nasty and it is at least as possible that many atheists will be presumed to so without warrant.

Being "vocal" does not entail or infer or even remotely SUGGEST irrationality. For example I am VERY vocal when I am presented with irrational claims(especially when they are accompanied by unjustified insults/ad hominem attacks) and for a theist who wants to believe that atheists are so, my responses, justified or not, will only confirm for them what they already believed. It does not matter that I was attacking arguments and points made and not the people making them necessarily. I will be lumped in the same category as Dawkins and others are lumped into by theists.

I think you are reading far too much into what he is saying. Ritualistic genital mutilation occurs primarily because of religion(sadistic serial killers and other violent sickos are a distant second and brain damage itself can be blamed for those). And I don't think he is saying that religion is the reason for spousal abuse(OR genital mutilation per se). He seems to be saying that having an omnipotent spiritual justification is a powerful motivator for such and a roadblock in the path of rationality(and thus ending such behavior).

A lot like the 'war' stuff. Getting rid of religion will not end war...but it will sure put a damper on a lot of it. People forget the a lot of the reason war and terrorism exist is because religion exists. 9-11 was a "faith based initiative", as was the invasion of Iraq that followed which further drove more people to join the terrorists, etc., etc.

Still watching the Dawkins video you posted a link to. Will get to this one later...

I will have to look at the link but just what you wrote here points to some more problems. For one thing it seems suspicious that they are separating "tradition" and "cleanliness" from "religion" when, in certain Muslim cultures these three are all tied together and primarily motivated by religious zeal.

Again, you are reading too much into what he is saying. Dawkins was not making a case that ALL(or even very MANY at all!) religious people support genital mutilation. Even anti-religious people like myself do not believe such nonsense. But just because most 'religionists'(at least in civilized, developed regions of the world) do not support the most extreme acts of religious zealots does not mean that these are not a problem of religion itself.

In short, you will not find irreligious atheists(aside from a hypothetical brain-damaged and insane person) mutilating genitals, blowing themselves up to kill innocent women and children, shooting down doctors etc. because we lack the irrational beliefs that drive such actions and desires.

The "bad" he is talking about are things resulting from RELIGION. The "good" you are referring to is stuff that would be had WITHOUT religion. A charitable, moral person will be so whether he is a religious atheist, an irreligious theist, a non-religious atheist or what have you.

False analogy and patently dishonest of you. Rush makes no bones about lying, manipulating, being a hypocrite and several other immoral acts to keep his ratings and insult his 'enemies'(Democrats/Liberals). Dawkins has not done such things even ONCE and contrary to popular characterization he does not seem at all interested in just attacking religious people like the rabid dog that Rush is.

You are really stretching here.

I have not looked at whatever discussion you are referring to and in fact have no clue where such a discussion might be found if I were interested but I can assure you that your above suspicious is off the mark. I don't really get emotional about internet debates and particularly would not lose any sleep if Dawkins or anyone else WAS a jack-ass. Would have little-to-no effect on my position here I think and it would be in my interest to join everyone in dismissing him as a bad egg.


[/quote]
I haven't finished going through your comment but these were some things I noticed and I'll be back later. There are some other people I'd like to reply as well but I'll be AFK for a bit shortly.[/QUOTE]

No problem. I am not able to respond as much or as timely as I would like either.

 

When the gospels were originally written is pretty irrelevant. What's much more important is just how different they are now. In 2000 years of war and unrest over religion, you expect me to believe that massive, sweeping changes haven't been made?

Hell, Christianity isn't even it's own religion. When it was adopted by the Romans, they merged it with their own religion to placate the people.