Religion, what's the point?

[x42bn6]

For atheism to be a belief, there has to be at least a semi-tenuous argument that God does not exist. However, this would need you to prove a negative, which is extremely difficult, arguably impossible since the concept of God is unfalsifiable. I can't realistically prove God doesn't exist, in the same way that I can't realistically prove that I'm not a murderer.

To me, this means that it can't be a belief unless you specifically assert you believe that God doesn't exist. Very few atheists take that view, because, as defined above, it's arguably impossible to state that. Atheism is traditionally taken as "not asserting anything unless evidence arises to change that viewpoint (in either direction)".

It's like many things we don't know about in this world. P=NP, for example - many people choose not to take a stance on whether this is true or not, but this isn't taken as a tacit assertion that P=NP or P!=NP.

 

[MoskvaRed]

While these religions will always retain popularity so long as humans face the prospect of their mortality, the only way to try to break the cycle is to prohibit religious indoctrination of children. If an adult chooses to devote his life to a semi-mythical 1st century preacher in Palestine (as reinvented by a tax collector and transformed through the prism of the institutions of Imperial Rome) or the "word of God" as revealed to a warlord in the Arabian peninsula 600 years later, then so be it. Quite how you square that restriction on a child's upbringing with the norms of a liberal democracy is not obvious but scrapping faith schools is an obvious starting point. Beyond that, a less reverential approach to reporting on these objectively bizarre superstitions should be welcomed - like many things that draw their strength from the fact they have been around for ever, they should be challenged on the basis of modern norms rather than unthinking notions of respect due to august institutions, although, in that regard, I'd prefer "je suis Dawkins" to "je suis Charlie".

 

[bishblaize]

While these religions will always retain popularity so long as humans face the prospect of their mortality, the only way to try to break the cycle is to prohibit religious indoctrination of children.

The obvious issue there is that for someone deep into religion, to do so would be little more than neglect. It'd be like asking me to raise my child without empathy or morals. Indeed, that is the source from which they believe their morals are drawn.

 

[MoskvaRed]

The obvious issue there is that for someone deep into religion, to do so would be little more than neglect. It'd be like asking me to raise my child without empathy or morals. Indeed, that is the source from which they believe their morals are drawn.

I fully agree but scrapping faith schools would be a start, even if we can't police what goes on at home. Beyond that, it should not be hard to teach secular morality and ethics outside the context of religion - it may not have any effect but, as the last two thousand years have shown, the religion-based version did not fare much better.

Ultimately, religion will always remain (no one likes to think their life is 70/80 years and then finished for good), but we can at least try to avoid the hard sell on the young.

 

[Momochiru]

I think there are many shades of atheism from strong conviction there is no God to conviction there is nothing to suggest there is God, just like there are many shades of Religion - from hardcore Fundamentalism to vague Spiritualism.

I'm an atheist who separates the concept of Religion from the concept of God. When it comes to Religion I'm at the extreme end of the scale: very strong conviction that Religion is a complete BS. When it comes to God I'm not at a such extreme end of the scale: I'm convinced that there is nothing to suggest there is God, but I can't say with conviction that there is no God. (for the sake of semantics I'm using the word conviction instead of belief)

So does this mean that I can be open to certain possibilities of God and still remain an Atheist? I will list a couple different scenarios and evaluate their possibilities:

First lets define God: immortal, omniscient and omnipotent Being that created us, can listen to our prayers and perform miracles and remain invisible to us.

Scenario 1: Billions of years ago on another planet another intelligent life evolved (Possible - we know it already happened on Earth). It developed a very advanced medicine that eliminated all natural causes of death (Possible - even we could achieve it one day with advanced antibiotics, antivirals and genetic engineering that stops aging). It spread itself on multiple planets in multiple galaxies (Possible - even with our current technology we could send spaceships that would reach multiple galaxies in billions of years). At that point immortality is achieved - natural causes of death are eliminated and even disasters of galactic proportions wouldn't kill it. Next is omniscience - this is very straightforward - given billions of years it discovers all the laws of the Universe - from the smallest building blacks of matter to the largest intergalactic forces, multiple dimensions or even multiple universes, hence omniscience achieved (Possible - even with us only scratching the surface of the laws of nature we can see that it's possible to reveal all it's secrets given billions of years of research). Next is omnipotence - even more straightforward - with infinity knowledge comes infinite power (Possible - time-travel, travel between universes, terraforming on a galactic scale - nothing is impossible if you have all the knowledge and billions of years to achieve it). Creating us - while working on some galactic projects it decided to plant a primitive form of life on Earth (Possible - the theory of Panspermia already covers it). Listen to prayers - with it's advanced technology and unlimited resources it could monitor any activity on Earth (Possible - even knowing our thoughts is possible if you have advanced technology to record the electrical impulses in the brain and piece them together). Perform miracles - anything we couldn't explain with our limited knowledge of science would seem a miracle to us (Possible. On a side-note - the bible lists as miracles such mundane tasks like curing the blind as miracles - our medicine is already doing it - does it mean we have achieved partial Godness?). Remain invisible - that shouldn't be a problem with such advanced technology, I can come up with many ways of doing it: hide in different dimension, manipulate the electrical impulses in our optical nerves so that even if we look straight at it we wouldn't see ti, etc. (Possible - have you played hide and seek with an one year old? If you are much smarter you can make sure you are never found). Final result: God.

Scenario 2: Our world is not real, we exist in a virtual reality program (like The Matrix) running on a supercomputer somewhere (Possible - we already have many computer games with similar idea, like The Sims). For all intents and purposes the developer of that program is a God to us - immortal, omniscient, omnipotent, created us, can listen to our prayers, perform miracles and remain invisible.

Scenario 3: Similar to Scenario 1, but instead of a life form evolving, it is an artificial intelligence that developed. It is immortal to begin with, because it's not alive, it becomes self-aware and follows similar path as Scenario 1 (Possible - even Richard Hawkins has warned that artificial intelligence could spell end of human race).

I came up with these 3 God Scenarios in just half an hour - I'm sure many more could be written by a good science fiction writer. Are they possible? Yes, they are, just as any other science fiction is possible, but to start believing in them is pretty farfetched. Which reminds me - there is already a science fiction religion - Scientology was founded by L. Ron Hubbard - a quite popular science fiction writer at the time. Maybe in the future we will have a Star Wars religion, Star Trek religion, Dune religion, Ender's Game religion, etc. - any of them would be more believable that the current, badly written, archaic fiction religions.

 

[Mockney]

It's oddly perverse that we're still arguing against religion by picking apart the dogma. It's fun, obviously, but you're essentially conceding defeat before you've even started by agreeing to ignore the daft central concept in the first place. It's all well and good debating how exactly Jesus saved us from our sins by sacrificing himself, to himself, to save us from himself, or why an eminently producable book of era-appropriate poetry was a miracle exactly, but it's all just haggling over the fine print.

The idea there may be some kind of creating force should certainly be up for discussion, but we always end up having this discussion within the same framework. Namely the one that agrees we know this force, and it's a benevolent, loving being, in our image, who created everything in this immeasurably huge, expansive, mind blowingly vast and complicated Universe, but decided to put the only sentient beings on this one, tiny, insignificantly small dot upon a dot upon a dot, hidden away in a far flung corner of it, purely for the purpose of a test, the rules of which he'd only give us tens of thousands of years into our existence as a species, in one specific, small, backward and tribal area, and time, in the form of vague metaphorical poetry. Luckily he popped back a couple times, all within the same area and period obviously, just to clarify a few of the things he'd fecked up, or hadn't made vague enough, before disappearing completely again for another few thousand years.

Yet for some reason it's still usually the rules and the poetry we contest. It's like arguing Santa Clause doesn't exist by quibbling over the realism of Rudolf's nose. It's a man in a flying Reindeer sled who delivers a billion presents in one night! The whole concept's fecking bonkers.

 

[Revan]

I think there are many shades of atheism from strong conviction there is no God to conviction there is nothing to suggest there is God, just like there are many shades of Religion - from hardcore Fundamentalism to vague Spiritualism.

I'm an atheist who separates the concept of Religion from the concept of God. When it comes to Religion I'm at the extreme end of the scale: very strong conviction that Religion is a complete BS. When it comes to God I'm not at a such extreme end of the scale: I'm convinced that there is nothing to suggest there is God, but I can't say with conviction that there is no God. (for the sake of semantics I'm using the word conviction instead of belief)

So does this mean that I can be open to certain possibilities of God and still remain an Atheist? I will list a couple different scenarios and evaluate their possibilities:

First lets define God: immortal, omniscient and omnipotent Being that created us, can listen to our prayers and perform miracles and remain invisible to us.

Scenario 1: Billions of years ago on another planet another intelligent life evolved (Possible - we know it already happened on Earth). It developed a very advanced medicine that eliminated all natural causes of death (Possible - even we could achieve it one day with advanced antibiotics, antivirals and genetic engineering that stops aging). It spread itself on multiple planets in multiple galaxies (Possible - even with our current technology we could send spaceships that would reach multiple galaxies in billions of years). At that point immortality is achieved - natural causes of death are eliminated and even disasters of galactic proportions wouldn't kill it. Next is omniscience - this is very straightforward - given billions of years it discovers all the laws of the Universe - from the smallest building blacks of matter to the largest intergalactic forces, multiple dimensions or even multiple universes, hence omniscience achieved (Possible - even with us only scratching the surface of the laws of nature we can see that it's possible to reveal all it's secrets given billions of years of research). Next is omnipotence - even more straightforward - with infinity knowledge comes infinite power (Possible - time-travel, travel between universes, terraforming on a galactic scale - nothing is impossible if you have all the knowledge and billions of years to achieve it). Creating us - while working on some galactic projects it decided to plant a primitive form of life on Earth (Possible - the theory of Panspermia already covers it). Listen to prayers - with it's advanced technology and unlimited resources it could monitor any activity on Earth (Possible - even knowing our thoughts is possible if you have advanced technology to record the electrical impulses in the brain and piece them together). Perform miracles - anything we couldn't explain with our limited knowledge of science would seem a miracle to us (Possible. On a side-note - the bible lists as miracles such mundane tasks like curing the blind as miracles - our medicine is already doing it - does it mean we have achieved partial Godness?). Remain invisible - that shouldn't be a problem with such advanced technology, I can come up with many ways of doing it: hide in different dimension, manipulate the electrical impulses in our optical nerves so that even if we look straight at it we wouldn't see ti, etc. (Possible - have you played hide and seek with an one year old? If you are much smarter you can make sure you are never found). Final result: God.

Scenario 2: Our world is not real, we exist in a virtual reality program (like The Matrix) running on a supercomputer somewhere (Possible - we already have many computer games with similar idea, like The Sims). For all intents and purposes the developer of that program is a God to us - immortal, omniscient, omnipotent, created us, can listen to our prayers, perform miracles and remain invisible.

Scenario 3: Similar to Scenario 1, but instead of a life form evolving, it is an artificial intelligence that developed. It is immortal to begin with, because it's not alive, it becomes self-aware and follows similar path as Scenario 1 (Possible - even Richard Hawkins has warned that artificial intelligence could spell end of human race).

I came up with these 3 God Scenarios in just half an hour - I'm sure many more could be written by a good science fiction writer. Are they possible? Yes, they are, just as any other science fiction is possible, but to start believing in them is pretty farfetched. Which reminds me - there is already a science fiction religion - Scientology was founded by L. Ron Hubbard - a quite popular science fiction writer at the time. Maybe in the future we will have a Star Wars religion, Star Trek religion, Dune religion, Ender's Game religion, etc. - any of them would be more believable that the current, badly written, archaic fiction religions.

Nice post and agree with you. On Richard Dawkins scale I am at around 6.99 atheist when it comes to religions, but then on a scale 5 or 6 when it comes to God (more likely there isn't such a thing, but it could be that it exists). Even if it exists an entity God, I doubt that it is a personal God and I really doubt that affects us all the time.

About the scenarios, actually the second one is by far the most interesting. The concept of virtual reality has been mentioned in one way or another for a very long time (the earliest might be Plato's cave allegory) and last year started a very big experiment which may give an answer if the universe is actually just a hologram. I know that the general idea would be to get a lot of data and then observe the noise there, but I don't know much more about it.

Just for fun, the Star Wars religion: http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/12/18/czech-republic-sees-rise-of-jedi-knights-as-religious-movement/

 

[Mockney]

The whole "what does atheist actually mean" thing is silly. As with all futile catagorisations, we're trying to fit a human being's myriad of complex and conflicting opinions into a single word who's etymology comes from a nearly 3,000 year old dialect of ancient greek.

Personally I take "theism" to mean any kind of clear collective idea of what a God might be like, and specifically any dogma attached to that, so I'm conclusively and unapologetically without ("a") that. This covers any claim that we were created for a specific purpose, or that our creator watches over us or judges our hats.

However on the notion of a God-like being, or some unknowable form of abstract creative influence, I'm decidedly agnostic. But then I don't think we'll ever find anything approaching an answer to that idea, so it's never anything I bother myself with. If someone wants to claim I'm not strictly an atheist then fine, but I consider myself one regardless, because my outlook aligns far more with the "there's definitely not a God and we're all worm food" attitude than the "there might or might not be a God, so we shouldn't rule out any of the one's we've made up" version. Eitherway it's just a word. I'd rather define myself as a bullshit detector.

 

[RexHamilton]

The whole "what does atheist actually mean" thing is silly. As with all futile catagorisations, we're trying to fit a human being's myriad of complex and conflicting opinions into a single word who's etymology comes from a nearly 3,000 year old dialect of ancient greek.

Personally I take "theism" to mean any kind of clear collective idea of what a God might be like, and specifically any dogma attached to that, so I'm conclusively and unapologetically without ("a") that. This covers any claim that we were created for a specific purpose, or that our creator watches over us or judges our hats.

However on the notion of a God-like being, or some unknowable form of abstract creative influence, I'm decidedly agnostic. But then I don't think we'll ever find anything approaching an answer to that idea, so it's never anything I bother myself with. If someone wants to claim I'm not strictly an atheist then fine, but I consider myself one regardless, because my outlook aligns far more with the "there's definitely not a God and we're all worm food" attitude than the "there might or might not be a God, so we shouldn't rule out any of the one's we've made up" version. Eitherway it's just a word. I'd rather define myself as a bullshit detector.

Yeah. I'm on the same page as old Mockers here.

 

[Mogget]

It's oddly perverse that we're still arguing against religion by picking apart the dogma. It's fun, obviously, but you're essentially conceding defeat before you've even started by agreeing to ignore the daft central concept in the first place. It's all well and good debating how exactly Jesus saved us from our sins by sacrificing himself, to himself, to save us from himself, or why an eminently producable book of era-appropriate poetry was a miracle exactly, but it's all just haggling over the fine print.

The idea there may be some kind of creating force should certainly be up for discussion, but we always end up having this discussion within the same framework. Namely the one that agrees we know this force, and it's a benevolent, loving being, in our image, who created everything in this immeasurably huge, expansive, mind blowingly vast and complicated Universe, but decided to put the only sentient beings on this one, tiny, insignificantly small dot upon a dot upon a dot, hidden away in a far flung corner of it, purely for the purpose of a test, the rules of which he'd only give us tens of thousands of years into our existence as a species, in one specific, small, backward and tribal area, and time, in the form of vague metaphorical poetry. Luckily he popped back a couple times, all within the same area and period obviously, just to clarify a few of the things he'd fecked up, or hadn't made vague enough, before disappearing completely again for another few thousand years.

Yet for some reason it's still usually the rules and the poetry we contest. It's like arguing Santa Clause doesn't exist by quibbling over the realism of Rudolf's nose. It's a man in a flying Reindeer sled who delivers a billion presents in one night! The whole concept's fecking bonkers.

It does sound incredibly absurd when you put it like that

 

[Winrar]

It does sound incredibly absurd when you put it like that

Because that's what it actually is.

 

[XdanielredX]

The idea there may be some kind of creating force should certainly be up for discussion, but we always end up having this discussion within the same framework. Namely the one that agrees we know this force, and it's a benevolent, loving being, in our image, who created everything in this immeasurably huge, expansive, mind blowingly vast and complicated Universe, but decided to put the only sentient beings on this one, tiny, insignificantly small dot upon a dot upon a dot, hidden away in a far flung corner of it, purely for the purpose of a test, the rules of which he'd only give us tens of thousands of years into our existence as a species, in one specific, small, backward and tribal area, and time, in the form of vague metaphorical poetry. Luckily he popped back a couple times, all within the same area and period obviously, just to clarify a few of the things he'd fecked up, or hadn't made vague enough, before disappearing completely again for another few thousand years.

 

[bishblaize]

Scenario 1: Billions of years ago on another planet another intelligent life evolved (Possible - we know it already happened on Earth). It developed a very advanced medicine that eliminated all natural causes of death (Possible - even we could achieve it one day with advanced antibiotics, antivirals and genetic engineering that stops aging). It spread itself on multiple planets in multiple galaxies (Possible - even with our current technology we could send spaceships that would reach multiple galaxies in billions of years). At that point immortality is achieved - natural causes of death are eliminated and even disasters of galactic proportions wouldn't kill it. Next is omniscience - this is very straightforward - given billions of years it discovers all the laws of the Universe - from the smallest building blacks of matter to the largest intergalactic forces, multiple dimensions or even multiple universes, hence omniscience achieved (Possible - even with us only scratching the surface of the laws of nature we can see that it's possible to reveal all it's secrets given billions of years of research). Next is omnipotence - even more straightforward - with infinity knowledge comes infinite power (Possible - time-travel, travel between universes, terraforming on a galactic scale - nothing is impossible if you have all the knowledge and billions of years to achieve it). Creating us - while working on some galactic projects it decided to plant a primitive form of life on Earth (Possible - the theory of Panspermia already covers it). Listen to prayers - with it's advanced technology and unlimited resources it could monitor any activity on Earth (Possible - even knowing our thoughts is possible if you have advanced technology to record the electrical impulses in the brain and piece them together). Perform miracles - anything we couldn't explain with our limited knowledge of science would seem a miracle to us (Possible. On a side-note - the bible lists as miracles such mundane tasks like curing the blind as miracles - our medicine is already doing it - does it mean we have achieved partial Godness?). Remain invisible - that shouldn't be a problem with such advanced technology, I can come up with many ways of doing it: hide in different dimension, manipulate the electrical impulses in our optical nerves so that even if we look straight at it we wouldn't see ti, etc. (Possible - have you played hide and seek with an one year old? If you are much smarter you can make sure you are never found). Final result: God.

Scenario 2: Our world is not real, we exist in a virtual reality program (like The Matrix) running on a supercomputer somewhere (Possible - we already have many computer games with similar idea, like The Sims). For all intents and purposes the developer of that program is a God to us - immortal, omniscient, omnipotent, created us, can listen to our prayers, perform miracles and remain invisible.

Scenario 3: Similar to Scenario 1, but instead of a life form evolving, it is an artificial intelligence that developed. It is immortal to begin with, because it's not alive, it becomes self-aware and follows similar path as Scenario 1 (Possible - even Richard Hawkins has warned that artificial intelligence could spell end of human race).

I came up with these 3 God Scenarios in just half an hour - I'm sure many more could be written by a good science fiction writer. Are they possible? Yes, they are, just as any other science fiction is possible, but to start believing in them is pretty farfetched. Which reminds me - there is already a science fiction religion - Scientology was founded by L. Ron Hubbard - a quite popular science fiction writer at the time. Maybe in the future we will have a Star Wars religion, Star Trek religion, Dune religion, Ender's Game religion, etc. - any of them would be more believable that the current, badly written, archaic fiction religions.

Some good sci fi speculation in there. A few comments.

If indeterminism is a thing in physics, such as in the copenhagen interpretation, then nothing of this universe could be truly omniscient. Some things are by definition unknowable to anything that was subject to the laws of this universe. That's not to rule out something from another universe I suppose.

Also, even ignoring that, for a computer to have a total awareness of everything in the universe would require a computing substrate that was at least as large as the universe itself. Obviously we could come across something that had the appearance of omniscience, but that wouldn't quite be the same thing as a god. An awesome book about near omniscient future AI is Stephen Baxters' Time (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifold:_Time)

L. Ron Hubbard was a second rate sci-fi writer and came up with a second rate sci-fi religion (Xemu?). Its just a shame it was him and not arthur clarke or asimov that went all weird, since they probably would have come up with something I could relate to.

On the point about solipsism, i read a good book by daniel dennet recently that had an interesting breakdown on the topic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness_Explained) that's well worth a read. A bit old but still worth it.

Also spiritualism is a cod-religion to do with ouija boards and seances. Perhaps you mean spirituality, though personally I hate to have that term linked to god and things of that type, since it puts people off from the kind of personal spiritual development that would probably make a lot of people happier.

 

[Momochiru]

Some good sci fi speculation in there. A few comments.

If indeterminism is a thing in physics, such as in the copenhagen interpretation, then nothing of this universe could be truly omniscient. Some things are by definition unknowable to anything that was subject to the laws of this universe. That's not to rule out something from another universe I suppose.

Also, even ignoring that, for a computer to have a total awareness of everything in the universe would require a computing substrate that was at least as large as the universe itself. Obviously we could come across something that had the appearance of omniscience, but that wouldn't quite be the same thing as a god. An awesome book about near omniscient future AI is Stephen Baxters' Time (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifold:_Time)

L. Ron Hubbard was a second rate sci-fi writer and came up with a second rate sci-fi religion (Xemu?). Its just a shame it was him and not arthur clarke or asimov that went all weird, since they probably would have come up with something I could relate to.

On the point about solipsism, i read a good book by daniel dennet recently that had an interesting breakdown on the topic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness_Explained) that's well worth a read. A bit old but still worth it.

Also spiritualism is a cod-religion to do with ouija boards and seances. Perhaps you mean spirituality, though personally I hate to have that term linked to god and things of that type, since it puts people off from the kind of personal spiritual development that would probably make a lot of people happier.

Interesting, I'll check out these books. Regarding the fact that nothing residing in this universe could be truly omniscient, i.e. to know everything about every single particle in the universe all the time - of course that's impossible you don't even need the indeterminism principle to prove that. My little scenario was to show that something could evolve completely naturally and from our point of view it would be indistinguishable from a God.

 

[MrMarcello]

 

[MrMarcello]

L. Ron Hubbard was a second rate sci-fi writer and came up with a second rate sci-fi religion (Xemu?). Its just a shame it was him and not arthur clarke or asimov that went all weird, since they probably would have come up with something I could relate to.

"You don't get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you start a religion." L Ron Hubbard, 1949*

*This quote has been debated: Did Hubbard actually state this? Is it word-for-word?

 

[Gannicus]

I think there are many shades of atheism from strong conviction there is no God to conviction there is nothing to suggest there is God, just like there are many shades of Religion - from hardcore Fundamentalism to vague Spiritualism.

I'm an atheist who separates the concept of Religion from the concept of God. When it comes to Religion I'm at the extreme end of the scale: very strong conviction that Religion is a complete BS. When it comes to God I'm not at a such extreme end of the scale: I'm convinced that there is nothing to suggest there is God, but I can't say with conviction that there is no God. (for the sake of semantics I'm using the word conviction instead of belief)

So does this mean that I can be open to certain possibilities of God and still remain an Atheist? I will list a couple different scenarios and evaluate their possibilities:

First lets define God: immortal, omniscient and omnipotent Being that created us, can listen to our prayers and perform miracles and remain invisible to us.

Scenario 1: Billions of years ago on another planet another intelligent life evolved (Possible - we know it already happened on Earth). It developed a very advanced medicine that eliminated all natural causes of death (Possible - even we could achieve it one day with advanced antibiotics, antivirals and genetic engineering that stops aging). It spread itself on multiple planets in multiple galaxies (Possible - even with our current technology we could send spaceships that would reach multiple galaxies in billions of years). At that point immortality is achieved - natural causes of death are eliminated and even disasters of galactic proportions wouldn't kill it. Next is omniscience - this is very straightforward - given billions of years it discovers all the laws of the Universe - from the smallest building blacks of matter to the largest intergalactic forces, multiple dimensions or even multiple universes, hence omniscience achieved (Possible - even with us only scratching the surface of the laws of nature we can see that it's possible to reveal all it's secrets given billions of years of research). Next is omnipotence - even more straightforward - with infinity knowledge comes infinite power (Possible - time-travel, travel between universes, terraforming on a galactic scale - nothing is impossible if you have all the knowledge and billions of years to achieve it). Creating us - while working on some galactic projects it decided to plant a primitive form of life on Earth (Possible - the theory of Panspermia already covers it). Listen to prayers - with it's advanced technology and unlimited resources it could monitor any activity on Earth (Possible - even knowing our thoughts is possible if you have advanced technology to record the electrical impulses in the brain and piece them together). Perform miracles - anything we couldn't explain with our limited knowledge of science would seem a miracle to us (Possible. On a side-note - the bible lists as miracles such mundane tasks like curing the blind as miracles - our medicine is already doing it - does it mean we have achieved partial Godness?). Remain invisible - that shouldn't be a problem with such advanced technology, I can come up with many ways of doing it: hide in different dimension, manipulate the electrical impulses in our optical nerves so that even if we look straight at it we wouldn't see ti, etc. (Possible - have you played hide and seek with an one year old? If you are much smarter you can make sure you are never found). Final result: God.

Scenario 2: Our world is not real, we exist in a virtual reality program (like The Matrix) running on a supercomputer somewhere (Possible - we already have many computer games with similar idea, like The Sims). For all intents and purposes the developer of that program is a God to us - immortal, omniscient, omnipotent, created us, can listen to our prayers, perform miracles and remain invisible.

Scenario 3: Similar to Scenario 1, but instead of a life form evolving, it is an artificial intelligence that developed. It is immortal to begin with, because it's not alive, it becomes self-aware and follows similar path as Scenario 1 (Possible - even Richard Hawkins has warned that artificial intelligence could spell end of human race).

I came up with these 3 God Scenarios in just half an hour - I'm sure many more could be written by a good science fiction writer. Are they possible? Yes, they are, just as any other science fiction is possible, but to start believing in them is pretty farfetched. Which reminds me - there is already a science fiction religion - Scientology was founded by L. Ron Hubbard - a quite popular science fiction writer at the time. Maybe in the future we will have a Star Wars religion, Star Trek religion, Dune religion, Ender's Game religion, etc. - any of them would be more believable that the current, badly written, archaic fiction religions.

There are many shades of belief, but only one shade of atheism.

The atheism knows (I'll try to avoid using the word "belief" here) that there is no God and that all religions are pure human constructs. He knows that all physical experience is purely physical, in the sense that physical forces caused what exists today, what existed before today and what will exist tomorrow. He concedes that we do not yet know the all the complexities of the universe but that the universe is not explained by an intelligent being that oversees, and is independent of, the universe.

The theist believes all kinds of weird stuff, or can believe in any one of thousands of creation stories. I can't remember all the details now, but I came across a creation story that's still believed in central Africa that starts with a god vomiting on the crust of the third planet from this sun and that's how the flora and fauna on Earth were created. There are many religions from which to choose, but we can describe anyone who embraces any of these accounts as a theist, the antithesis of the atheist.

Agnostics are a bit difficult to describe in one fell swoop. They fall somewhere between the atheist (who knows that creation accounts that involve an intelligent being are pure man-made horseshit) and the theist (who embraces any one of thousands of creation accounts) -- they're open to the possibility that God exists but based on the set of facts at their current disposal see no sufficient proof of a divine being. That sounds like you, momo!

It's a colossal error to confuse an atheist with an agnostic. Not a calamitous one, but a colossal one. If you hold out the possibility that God (not religion) exists, you are simply not an atheist, which is neither a good thing or a bad thing. It simply is what it is.

NB: "God" does not have to be ominpotent or respond to our prayers to be "God". One could have a perfectly coherent (if still absurd) account of a God that set the world into motion and the rest just happened on its own. The gentlemen Jefferson viewed God as nothing more than the creator of the universe but that this Creator did not intervene in the affairs of human beings and did not even have the power to do so, as he viewed man as having pure free will, by which he meant that man was not bound by the laws of the Bible or would face punishment in the afterlife for his misdeeds in this life. I personally believe (sorry, I couldn't think of another word) that Jefferson did not believe in the existence of a God at all, that he had to give some lip service to the idea of "God" to maintain political viability, but I only infer this from his writings. He was accused of being an atheist in his day, but that was a day when being accused of being an atheist was like being accused of being a communist in the 1950s. In any event, what "God" is or does is not limited what you've described above.

 

[Winrar]

There are many shades of belief, but only one shade of atheism.

The atheism knows (I'll try to avoid using the word "belief" here) that there is no God and that all religions are pure human constructs...

...

Knowing is not the same thing as believing.

NB: "God" does not have to be ominpotent or respond to our prayers to be "God". One could have a perfectly coherent (if still absurd) account of a God that set the world into motion and the rest just happened on its own. The gentlemen Jefferson viewed God as nothing more than the creator of the universe but that this Creator did not intervene in the affairs of human beings and did not even have the power to do so, as he viewed man as having pure free will, by which he meant that man was not bound by the laws of the Bible or would face punishment in the afterlife for his misdeeds in this life. I personally believe (sorry, I couldn't think of another word) that Jefferson did not believe in the existence of a God at all, that he had to give some lip service to the idea of "God" to maintain political viability, but I only infer this from his writings. He was accused of being an atheist in his day, but that was a day when being accused of being an atheist was like being accused of being a communist in the 1950s. In any event, what "God" is or does is not limited what you've described above.

There's a word for that actually. It's called deism.

 

[Momochiru]

There are many shades of belief, but only one shade of atheism.

The atheism knows (I'll try to avoid using the word "belief" here) that there is no God and that all religions are pure human constructs. He knows that all physical experience is purely physical, in the sense that physical forces caused what exists today, what existed before today and what will exist tomorrow. He concedes that we do not yet know the all the complexities of the universe but that the universe is not explained by an intelligent being that oversees, and is independent of, the universe.

The theist believes all kinds of weird stuff, or can believe in any one of thousands of creation stories. I can't remember all the details now, but I came across a creation story that's still believed in central Africa that starts with a god vomiting on the crust of the third planet from this sun and that's how the flora and fauna on Earth were created. There are many religions from which to choose, but we can describe anyone who embraces any of these accounts as a theist, the antithesis of the atheist.

Agnostics are a bit difficult to describe in one fell swoop. They fall somewhere between the atheist (who knows that creation accounts that involve an intelligent being are pure man-made horseshit) and the theist (who embraces any one of thousands of creation accounts) -- they're open to the possibility that God exists but based on the set of facts at their current disposal see no sufficient proof of a divine being. That sounds like you, momo!

It's a colossal error to confuse an atheist with an agnostic. Not a calamitous one, but a colossal one. If you hold out the possibility that God (not religion) exists, you are simply not an atheist, which is neither a good thing or a bad thing. It simply is what it is.

NB: "God" does not have to be ominpotent or respond to our prayers to be "God". One could have a perfectly coherent (if still absurd) account of a God that set the world into motion and the rest just happened on its own. The gentlemen Jefferson viewed God as nothing more than the creator of the universe but that this Creator did not intervene in the affairs of human beings and did not even have the power to do so, as he viewed man as having pure free will, by which he meant that man was not bound by the laws of the Bible or would face punishment in the afterlife for his misdeeds in this life. I personally believe (sorry, I couldn't think of another word) that Jefferson did not believe in the existence of a God at all, that he had to give some lip service to the idea of "God" to maintain political viability, but I only infer this from his writings. He was accused of being an atheist in his day, but that was a day when being accused of being an atheist was like being accused of being a communist in the 1950s. In any event, what "God" is or does is not limited what you've described above.

I don't think I'm confusing atheism with agnosticism. Your definition of atheism "The atheism knows that there is no God" is not correct - knowing something implies prove and it's impossible to prove either the existence or non-existence of God. The correct definition is: "Atheism is the rejection of belief in the existence of God". Agnosticism doesn't reject the belief in the existence God, but doesn't accept it either - the agnostic is undecided when it comes to God.

With that in mind I think I'm correct when I identify myself as an atheist - I reject the existence of God, but I recognize that it's impossible to prove it, so I can't say with absolute certainty that there is no God. When it comes to Religion my position is even stronger - I not only reject Religion, but also know that Religion is wrong, because the ancient books on which it is based are wrong and there is plenty of prove for that. If I was an agnostic I wouldn't have rejected the existence of God, I would've remained undecided.

Regarding your comment that God does not have to be omnipotent or respond to our prayers to be God - sure, that's one view - I think that's how Deism defines God. But since the topic of this thread is Religion, I was sticking to the more restrictive definition by Theism. In both cases the point I was trying to make with these scenarios still stands.

 

[Gannicus]

I don't think I'm confusing atheism with agnosticism. Your definition of atheism "The atheism knows that there is no God" is not correct - knowing something implies prove and it's impossible to prove either the existence or non-existence of God. The correct definition is: "Atheism is the rejection of belief in the existence of God". Agnosticism doesn't reject the belief in the existence God, but doesn't accept it either - the agnostic is undecided when it comes to God.

With that in mind I think I'm correct when I identify myself as an atheist - I reject the existence of God, but I recognize that it's impossible to prove it, so I can't say with absolute certainty that there is no God. When it comes to Religion my position is even stronger - I not only reject Religion, but also know that Religion is wrong, because the ancient books on which it is based are wrong and there is plenty of prove for that. If I was an agnostic I wouldn't have rejected the existence of God, I would've remained undecided.

Regarding your comment that God does not have to be omnipotent or respond to our prayers to be God - sure, that's one view - I think that's how Deism defines God. But since the topic of this thread is Religion, I was sticking to the more restrictive definition by Theism. In both cases the point I was trying to make with these scenarios still stands.

Regarding your definition: "Atheism is the rejection of belief in the existence of God" how is the affirmative rejection in the belief in the existence in God functionally any different than the belief itself that there is no God? The word "rejection" necessarily implies an affirmative state of mind, the affirmation that the notion of "God" is complete and utter bullshit, a pure human construct. You cannot reject something and at the same be open to embracing the very conclusion that has been rejected.

The agnostic has not rejected anything. He has not embraced the notion of God but he remains skeptical.

In your case, you're reflecting upon a logical conundrum -- the impossibility of proving a negative -- to confuse a straightforward proposition, the affirmative belief that God does not exist even that claim can no be proven than any other negative proposition. It sounds like you might be open to the possibility that there is a God, but in your formulation that's really no different than, for example, stating that you might be open to the possibility of the existence of Superman and kryptonite, that extraterrestrial aliens landed at Roswell or that 2 of every species on earth was once stuffed into an ark. You and I know that every one of these three fables -- Superman, Roswell and the ark story -- are really no different than the God story of the Christian Bible (or the many God stories around the world), yet you seriously can't believe that because you can't prove that Superman doesn't exist that there's a slight chance he might.

My friend, you are an atheist because you are sure in your considered judgment that God does not exist as anything other than a pure construct of the human imagination. True, you have no more proof of God's nonexistence any more than you have no proof of Superman's nonexistence, but there truly is no doubt in your mind that the idea of "God" is a pure human construct and that He/She/It has no real existence.

But let's see what Bertrand Russell had to say about this very topic:


In 1958, Russell elaborated on the analogy as a reason for his own atheism:

I ought to call myself an agnostic; but, for all practical purposes, I am an atheist. I do not think the existence of the Christian God any more probable than the existence of the Gods of Olympus or Valhalla. To take another illustration: nobody can prove that there is not between the Earth and Mars a china teapot revolving in an elliptical orbit, but nobody thinks this sufficiently likely to be taken into account in practice. I think the Christian God just as unlikely.

Bertrand claims to be an atheist even though he acknowledges that the nonexistence of God can no more be proven than the nonexistence of the Gods of Olympus or Valhalla or a china teapot revolving in an elliptical orbit between Earth and Mars. When he says "just as unlikely" he really does mean zero percent chance, does he not?

 

[RexHamilton]

Regarding your definition: "Atheism is the rejection of belief in the existence of God" how is the affirmative rejection in the belief in the existence in God functionally any different than the belief itself that there is no God? The word "rejection" necessarily implies an affirmative state of mind, the affirmation that the notion of "God" is complete and utter bullshit, a pure human construct. You cannot reject something and at the same be open to embracing the very conclusion that has been rejected.

The agnostic has not rejected anything. He has not embraced the notion of God but he remains skeptical.

In your case, you're reflecting upon a logical conundrum -- the impossibility of proving a negative -- to confuse a straightforward proposition, the affirmative belief that God does not exist even that claim can no be proven than any other negative proposition. It sounds like you might be open to the possibility that there is a God, but in your formulation that's really no different than, for example, stating that you might be open to the possibility of the existence of Superman and kryptonite, that extraterrestrial aliens landed at Roswell or that 2 of every species on earth was once stuffed into an ark. You and I know that every one of these three fables -- Superman, Roswell and the ark story -- are really no different than the God story of the Christian Bible (or the many God stories around the world), yet you seriously can't believe that because you can't prove that Superman doesn't exist that there's a slight chance he might.

My friend, you are an atheist because you are sure in your considered judgment that God does not exist as anything other than a pure construct of the human imagination. True, you have no more proof of God's nonexistence any more than you have no proof of Superman's nonexistence, but there truly is no doubt in your mind that the idea of "God" is a pure human construct and that He/She/It has no real existence.

But let's see what Bertrand Russell had to say about this very topic:


In 1958, Russell elaborated on the analogy as a reason for his own atheism:

I ought to call myself an agnostic; but, for all practical purposes, I am an atheist. I do not think the existence of the Christian God any more probable than the existence of the Gods of Olympus or Valhalla. To take another illustration: nobody can prove that there is not between the Earth and Mars a china teapot revolving in an elliptical orbit, but nobody thinks this sufficiently likely to be taken into account in practice. I think the Christian God just as unlikely.

Bertrand claims to be an atheist even though he acknowledges that the nonexistence of God can no more be proven than the nonexistence of the Gods of Olympus or Valhalla or a china teapot revolving in an elliptical orbit between Earth and Mars. When he says "just as unlikely" he really does mean zero percent chance, does he not?

I posted it earlier in the thread but you can define Atheism as the absence of belief in a god. Hypothetically, If you take a town and decide that no one in the town is ever going to speak of a god or religion again and if the internet was censored so that there would be no mention of god or religion. If there was some way you could make sure that children of the town never heard about god or religion, in 12 years time all of the children would be atheist. They wouldn't actively deny the existence of a god, they'd simply have no belief in a god as they had never heard of one. They wouldn't be militant atheists who go around arguing the cases against religion, it just wouldn't be on their radar and they would be atheist. It would be their absence of belief in a god that would define them as atheists.

To argue that the only form of atheism is for someone to be positive that there is no such thing as a god, then no one in the world is atheist as a claim like that would require proof. There are very few atheists that you would hear saying that there is definitely no god, as we just couldn't prove that and in general, people who have come to that conclusion have had to be critical thinkers who have come from a somewhat religious family.

As Dawkins said on the 1-7 scale of atheism, even he couldn't regard himself as a 7 on the scale because as a scientist, he couldn't completely reject the idea of a god without proof, but that doesn't mean he is unsure of the existence of a god. He has no belief in a god whatsoever. Is the most ardent Atheist on the planet actually agnostic? Or are you just trying to say that only people who are a 'seven' on the scale? De facto atheists people from 6-7 on the list are atheists.

"Very low probability, but short of zero. "I don't know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there." That's atheism.

Dawkins argues that while there appear to be plenty of individuals that would place themselves as "1" due to the strictness of religious doctrine against doubt, most atheists do not consider themselves "7" because atheism arises from a lack of evidence and evidence can always change a thinking person's mind. In print, Dawkins self-identified as a '6', though when interviewed by Bill Maher[3] and later by Anthony Kenny,[4] he suggested '6.9' to be more accurate.

 

[Amethyst]

Regarding your definition: "Atheism is the rejection of belief in the existence of God" how is the affirmative rejection in the belief in the existence in God functionally any different than the belief itself that there is no God? The word "rejection" necessarily implies an affirmative state of mind, the affirmation that the notion of "God" is complete and utter bullshit, a pure human construct. You cannot reject something and at the same be open to embracing the very conclusion that has been rejected.

The agnostic has not rejected anything. He has not embraced the notion of God but he remains skeptical.

Because not accepting (x) is not the same thing as accepting (y). The theist is making a claim that God exist, the atheist is rejecting that claim and nothing more. How much you can be proven or disproven is an entirely separate question (gnosticism/agnosticism) but you seem compelled to keep agnosticism and atheism apart.

 

[bishblaize]

"Very low probability, but short of zero. "I don't know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there." That's atheism.

I know Dawkins is keen on lazy theology, but I've always objected to this particular use of lazy statistics. You can only state the probability of something happening if you can build a statistical model to describe it. Even a vague model would be better than nothing - but nothing is what we have.

Any attempt to build a statistical model about god always boils down to completely subjective and baseless claims about how god would or wouldn't work, what evidence we should or shouldn't see if god did or didn't exist.

The truth is you simply can't make such a claim objectively. We cannot say one way or another what the probability is. But Dawkins should really know better.

 

[RexHamilton]

I know Dawkins is keen on lazy theology, but I've always objected to this particular use of lazy statistics. You can only state the probability of something happening if you can build a statistical model to describe it. Even a vague model would be better than nothing - but nothing is what we have.

Any attempt to build a statistical model about god always boils down to completely subjective and baseless claims about how god would or wouldn't work, what evidence we should or shouldn't see if god did or didn't exist.

The truth is you simply can't make such a claim objectively. We cannot say one way or another what the probability is. But Dawkins should really know better.

Well he's making a claim based on the evidence we have, which is nothing but stories from a desert tribe of 2000-6000 years ago. So based on that surely the probability is very low. Unless I'm missing something? which I could well be. I know you're talking about probability from a purely mathematical point of view.

 

[Silva]

Well he's making a claim based on the evidence we have, which is nothing but stories from a desert tribe of 2000-6000 years ago. So based on that surely the probability is very low. Unless I'm missing something? which I could well be. I know you're talking about probability from a purely mathematical point of view.

Well, you see, unlikely all the other tribes with silly stories that we laugh at, this tribe was contacted by the one true god and this god wants you to give all your money to their spiritual leaders. What's so unbelievable about that?

 

[bishblaize]

Well he's making a claim based on the evidence we have, which is nothing but stories from a desert tribe of 2000-6000 years ago. So based on that surely the probability is very low. Unless I'm missing something? which I could well be. I know you're talking about probability from a purely mathematical point of view.

Those stories are about Jesus and latterly Mohammed, not God. Besides that's an ad logicam fallacy. Proving Jesus was a fraud wouldn't neccesarily disprove the existence of God.

But the point is that Dawkins should really know better than to wave dodgy stats claims around to support his case. How ridiculous is it when creationists claim that the 2nd law of thermodynamics disproves evolution (or whatever it is they claim)? Truth is this is little better than that. But he's the scientist who should be avoiding going down that road.

 

[Winrar]

Those stories are about Jesus and latterly Mohammed, not God. Besides that's an ad logicam fallacy. Proving Jesus was a fraud wouldn't neccesarily disprove the existence of God.

But the point is that Dawkins should really know better than to wave dodgy stats claims around to support his case. How ridiculous is it when creationists claim that the 2nd law of thermodynamics disproves evolution (or whatever it is they claim)? Truth is this is little better than that. But he's the scientist who should be avoiding going down that road.

But it does discredit the specific deity of Judeo-Christianity and Islam. Which is what about half the population believes.

Dawkins, I'd say, is simply using Occam's razor. Just like the same logic many people would use to discredit the existence of fairies, loch ness monster, Zeus, etc. Dawkins came to a conclusion to believe that there's no God.

 

[bishblaize]

But it does discredit the specific deity of Judeo-Christianity and Islam. Which is what about half the population believes.

No it doesn't, it simply discredits Jesus & Mohammed. As I said that's a logical fallacy. If I told you I'd been on holiday to Tenerife and it was really hot and then you found out I hadn't actually been there, you wouldn't assume that Tenerife in fact really cold. You'd simply decide that what I said about Tenerife had no bearing.

Jesus or any other divine figure or prophet may claim that their god is specific to them & different from the other bloke's god. But if you find out that what they say is bollocks, then so is their claim that their god is different to the other blokes.

Dawkins, I'd say, is simply using Occam's razor. Just like the same logic many people would use to discredit the existence of fairies, loch ness monster, Zeus, etc. Dawkins came to a conclusion to believe that there's no God.

Using reason to conclude there's no god is perfectly fine. But that's not the claim he (repeatedly) makes, which is that there's a near zero probability of God existing. He puts it that way as though to suggest there is a scientific or mathematical method to prove there's no god, when no such method exists. And as I say, for a scientist that's a bit off.

 

[Silva]

As per usual, you're having a discussion no one else is, bishblaize. No one gives a solitary feck if the deist god exist or doesn't. Dawkings doesn't really have debates with deists, because even they don't really care enough.

 

[bishblaize]

As per usual, you're having a discussion no one else is, bishblaize. No one gives a solitary feck if the deist god exist or doesn't. Dawkings doesn't really have debates with deists, because even they don't really care enough.

Are you still put put by that joke I made at your expense like 40 pages ago?

 

[Silva]

Are you still put put by that joke I made at your expense like 40 pages ago?

Christ. I don't even remember what happened 5 pages ago. I'm just put off by the fact that you relentlessly argue against things people aren't saying.

 

[bishblaize]

Then to quote a superior mind than my own.

So what? It's like you don't know how the internet works. We're responding to each other as we go along.

 

[Silva]

Then to quote a superior mind than my own.

Unless you misread my post, I was talking about your constant posts about Dawkin's statements, as you seem to think he's arguing against a deist god, when in reality he's perpetually arguing with Judeo-Christians. What keeps happening is this: Christian says something, Dawkings argues against, then you come on the internet and make posts about how he's wrong because he can't prove that a vague deist god doesn't exist, when he doesn't actually try to do that.

 

[Winrar]

No it doesn't, it simply discredits Jesus & Mohammed. As I said that's a logical fallacy. If I told you I'd been on holiday to Tenerife and it was really hot and then you found out I hadn't actually been there, you wouldn't assume that Tenerife in fact really cold. You'd simply decide that what I said about Tenerife had no bearing.

Jesus or any other divine figure or prophet may claim that their god is specific to them & different from the other bloke's god. But if you find out that what they say is bollocks, then so is their claim that their god is different to the other blokes.

Jesus and Muhammed are the embodiments of their respective religions. Without Jesus it wouldn't be called Christianity, and without Muhammed it wouldn't be called Islam.

Using reason to conclude there's no god is perfectly fine. But that's not the claim he (repeatedly) makes, which is that there's a near zero probability of God existing. He puts it that way as though to suggest there is a scientific or mathematical method to prove there's no god, when no such method exists. And as I say, for a scientist that's a bit off.

We'll have to agree to disagree on this one, because the bolded is your opinion that I disagree with.

 

[bishblaize]

Unless you misread my post, I was talking about your constant posts about Dawkin's statements, as you seem to think he's arguing against a deist god, when in reality he's perpetually arguing with Judeo-Christians. What keeps happening is this: Christian says something, Dawkings argues against, then you come on the internet and make posts about how he's wrong because he can't prove that a vague deist god doesn't exist, when he doesn't actually try to do that.

A quick search shows Ive mentioned Dawkins 4 times total in this religion thread, and 3 of those posts are on this page.

So, as Descartes once said - what the feck are you on about?

 

[Silva]

A quick search shows Ive mentioned Dawkins 4 times total in this religion thread, and 3 of those posts are on this page.

So, as Descartes once said - what the feck are you on about?

This page.

 

[bishblaize]

This page.

Right, so I'm only allowed to have conversations that involve 2 or fewer posts. Yessir, thankyousir.

 

[Silva]

Right, so I'm only allowed to have conversations that involve 2 or fewer posts. Yessir, thankyousir.

You do do it a lot though. Come to a thread about religion and defend a deist god, which is literally the dullest thing in the world.

 

[bishblaize]

You do do it a lot though. Come to a thread about religion and defend a deist god, which is literally the dullest thing in the world.

Funny. I just looked back through every post I made on the religion thread and not one was either explicitly or implicity about, or in defense of, deism.

So as Buddha once said - what the feck are you on about?

 

[Silva]

It's just something I've noticed.