Would no religion really benefit anyone?

Sure there are religious wackos, terrorists, god driven mass murderers, and delusional religious freaks.  I'm not talking about those.  I'm talking about the everyday citizen of any given country who happens to believe in their god.  They have some faith, some hope that believing in this god will benefit them later, regardless of whether or not this is a valid belief.  Like believing that "if you're good this year, Santa will bring you more presents" or "if you tip the waitress you'll have good karma brought to you" or "if you work really hard for the company, you'll have an excellent retirement package  and won't get laid off."  In other words, hope is the driving factor behind many of our actions.  To eliminate religion would eliminate people's day to day hope. 

Even if their beleifs are "scienticifally incorrect," think of all the people in the US that cling to God to get through their own lives.  Look at black churches that have joyous singing and dancing.  The Bible typically refers to its followers as sheep, and that's what they are.  But isn't it better than being convinced that there is no god?  To actually KNOW or have it forced upon them that no god can possibly exist?  You'd have people with no hope, purpose, or reason to differentiate right from wrong.  Sure, some people can act morally on their own, but others can't.  They need a reason to not steal or kill or cheat on their wives, and with no moral or spiritual "penalty," what do people have to lose?  Do you really want a completely atheist society?  Religion makes an excellent behavior control system, just like government laws, accepted behaviors, popular beliefs and opinions, TV advertisements, and political statements from our current political leader.  The validity of these systems may be wrong in some instances, but at least they offer some kind of order.   

Also, religion can add emotional and psychological support to those having a hard time in life.  Without that, some may be able to find a sense of hope on their own. 

Religion is also used in taking up people's free time.  People need to dedicate themselves to something, whether its sports or school or a career or sitting and watching TV for the rest of their lives.  With no religion, you've just given millions of people the opportunity to find something else to do, no matter how pointless.  Someone once said that humans are infinitely bored.  Yet some people have nothing better to do than dedicate themselves to religion.  Once they have nothing to do, with no hope of an afterlife to cling to, what then?  Would they just sit and rot with no purpose?

>They have some faith

the fact that there is a built-in place for 'faith' in the human consciousness may hint at the method in which consciousness was designed

others will argue its simply social conditioning that causes this reflectively positive human reaction to unquestioned collective belief or 'faith'
the active element in religion is very social even if one never actually meets another person with the same belief, one feels a part of that larger  mass... something like an omnipresent posse
regardless of 'faith' in what, true 'faith' has been documented to have a reflexive effect within the individual, a positive one..

from a psychological vantage anyway..

scientifically disproving god is as impossible as proving god

And for the alternate view, here's H. L. Mencken.

I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind - that its modest and greatly overestimated services on the ethical side have been more than overcome by the damage it has done to clear and honest thinking.

I believe that no discovery of fact, however trivial, can be wholly useless to the race, and that no trumpeting of falsehood, however virtuous in intent, can be anything but vicious.

I believe that all government is evil, in that all government must necessarily make war upon liberty...

I believe that the evidence for immortality is no better than the evidence of witches, and deserves no more respect.

I believe in the complete freedom of thought and speech...

I believe in the capacity of man to conquer his world, and to find out what it is made of, and how it is run.

I believe in the reality of progress.

I - But the whole thing, after all, may be put very simply. I believe that it is better to tell the truth than to lie. I believe that it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe that it is better to know than be ignorant.

>And I believe that it is better to know than be ignorant.

there is a limit to what can be known in our lifetimes

there is no limit to what can be known by progressive human culture, provided it continues for many thousands of years

We can guess the existence of God in the harmony of the universe. Who or what is the creator of our universe? By contingency or something beyond our understanding? Like this, we can, to some extent, have a rational approach to the existence of God. But that's all we can guess. We cannot make a decision on which religion is scientifically best.

To have faith is very significant. Most people are not so strong as to endure every hardship. If we can have the right faith, we should make our world peaceful. But the most regrettable thing is that there are always wars and battles among religious nations in the Middle East. It's very hard to believe that very religious people are always fighting and killing a lot of people. What is worse, they are saying that they are doing such things for God. 

If we believe everything completely without doubt a religious group says, it would be dangerous, and we would be, to some extent, brainwashed. But even if we are brainwashed if we feel happy, it would be meaningful at least for ourselves. We tend to cling to something. Some cling to religion, some to their company, some to their hobby, and others to the Internet. We all have the right to do anything we want as long as we don't destroy others' happiness.
But what is it that we have to distinguish?  Brainwash and right faith? It's impossible.
What we have to keep in mind is whether the religion which we want to believe in violate the law or not.

my views:
religion is stupid, it has no benifits whatsover to society and is so incredibly farfetched it has to be the worlds largest running-joke.
all 'benefits' of religion can be kept by bringing up children to respect social morals, with the added benefit of them not denouncing pretty much proven scientific theories over what an obviously ficticious religious book says~
science tries to find out how things work. religion tries to disprove science by using the standard 'catch-all' argument of 'god/random diety that we cannot see/hear or prove the existence of did it' which sounds more likey to be right to you?
'god did it' is just the stupid answer, science says either 'heres the evidence that supports this theory' or 'we don't understand yet but we're still looking' which answer do you prefer?

Mencken > U

Thank you.  That is all.

If everyone was truly convinced that god didn't exist, then some might not be able to live with the truth.  They'd resort to being depressed, mumbling "what's the point," not having the effort to get anything done if there's no great christmas present in the sky awaiting them.  Others might find it easier to steal or kill when there's no judge of character other than their own selves.

>the fact that there is a built-in place for 'faith' in the
>human consciousness may hint at the method in which
>consciousness was designed

This is circular logic.  You can't start off with the premise that the brain was designed if you're trying to suggest that it was designed.  Remember, rational & educated people don't believe that animals are designed.

As Mencken said, religion teaches people that it's ok to not think rationally - that you don't have to think at all if you believe something.  Even if some people don't let it affect them much, it's a bad way to have your mind working.

>>9
I don't think this is a situation where religion suddenly vanishes from society, but a society that has been built from the ground up without it.  If a society didn't have religion, there would be some other social ideas for what the point of living is, why you shouldn't hurt people, etc etc.  I'm totally without religious beliefs (including atheism), and since I've been that way, I have been able to pretty much easily deal with every aspect of my life, while also still believing that I should be good to other people... it CAN work.

Mencken can easily be wrong, quoting him does not automatically "win"

..and why bother with Mencken, go straight to Nietzsche.. who can  be wrong just as easily

>>11

Hint:  an argument contains actual statements of actual fact and actual reasoning.

>>12

Protip: an argument about god's existence has nothing "actual" about it, it is conjecture on either side.

the difference between animal consciousness and human consciousness is comprehension of the 4th dimension - time.
animals can be conditioned or trained, see pavolv, but they do not have a forward-thinking consciousness that introspects.

mtheory is mathematically sound, and predicts 10 spatial dimensions plus 1 dimension of time.
once we are able to truly comprehend more than the 3 visual spatial dimensions, we may be on the road to understanding in the least what the hell we are talking about.

a child within their formative years is exponentially more receptive to concepts and understanding, you can teach a 5 year old multiple languages and they absorb it almost immediately.
this critical time in the development of human consciousness is when multi-dimensional thinking should be taught, trying to obtain this ability as an adult is near impossible... it must come as second nature to truly achieve breakthroughs in this field

the only problem is, the multi-dimensional concepts currently being exercised by the greatest minds on earth... need to be condensed and analogized into something a child can comprehend, we need proper methods for this and we are very far off from codifying such methods at the moment. then there is always the ethical question of drilling a child to become a multi-dimensional thinking machine, but we will likely get over that as the millennia go by... in this long process it is more than likely that certain physical changes in the human brain will take place to facilitate this kind of thinking

we already have a candidate theory for explaining the 'big bang'
mtheory states our entire universe is contained within a d-brane and collided with another d-brane creating the 'big bang' the question remains who created the higher level multi-dimensional space in which these d-branes exist, how could it have always existed... the further we go scientifically.. higher or lower in scale.. the same question of origin remains

cern's particle collider in switzerland is currently working to experimentally verify this theory by viewing the escape of a graviton, a particle of gravity, a multi-dimensional particle that can pass through the boundaries of our common 3 dimensions

the question then arises, if there is one multi-dimensional particle, are there others? and how sure are we when we refute the multi-dimensional aspects of "the universe"

for our lifetimes it comes down to extrapolation based on current scientific theory and in the end, intuition

i am fully confident we will scientifically understand all dimensions to the last... eventually. but for today.. living arrogantly as if we can understand and refute everything posed to us is not logically sound.

>>14
I might mention that this topic is not about the existence/non-existence of god, but about whether the religion is a help or a hindrance to society.  Regardless of whether there is a god or not, believing that there is one for irrational reasons is still irrational.

>>15
there is nothing irrational about stating our current level of understanding of a much more complex "universe" than is currently provable, there is also nothing irrational about extrapolating from current theory and forming a personal belief based on that extrapolation

what IS irrational is refuting out of hand the fact that nothing  exists beyond our current comprehension, which you seem to argue constantly

>>16

You are pulling lint out of your navel and presenting it as pearls of wisdom.  Random conjecture about the unknowable has no place in science.

The scientific method is gathering facts and drawing conclusions from those facts.  You are presenting a conclusion and casting about aimlessly for facts to support it.

Don't make me get out the steamroller.

back to your steamroller huh,
you really cant think beyond your nose can you

>random conjecture. unknowable.
what is scientific theory i ask you? what is mathematical verification of theory? what is then observable experimentation of theory?

we are past the mathematical verification stage on mtheory, a theory which proves a realm of INVISIBLE PINK UNICORNS.. lets call them gravitons for a second

gravity has been the one hitch in unified theory, we can unify the other 3 forces of nature... because they are essentially the same force

we study the particle only to understand the force

gravity is far too weak to be a permutation of the same force, but what if gravity is only at 'full quantification' if you account for it existing in multiple dimensions of space(11)... and we are therefore only seeing the fractional part visible within the dimension in which we can perform experiment

but alas the mathematics works... and predicts these particles do exist, with a large enough particle collider we may crash a few quarks fast enough to see one release

once we have that, the theory is experimentally verified... it is being worked on as we speak. submitting to the "unknowable" is the one thing humankind has not done...

once there is proof of multiple dimensions evidenced by the existence of a graviton, a whole new plane of science has begun

it is the paradigm shift everyone has been working towards...
of magnitude greater than when einstein shifted it some by proving the 4th dimension of time

we stand on shoulders to build knowledge

if multiple dimensions are proven to exist, reasonable people must then rethink their conceptions of "absolute truth" in the handful of dimensions currently perceptible to us

the conclusions you draw from the new paradigm are purely your own

Sage for "paradigm shift."  Sage for "multiple dimensions."  Sage for gratuitous Einstein reference.  Sage for being unaware that M-theory is empirically untestable at this point in time.  Sage for not knowing that theories of gravitation involving gravitons make exactly the same predictions under empirically testable conditions as the General Theory of Relativity.  Sage for being unaware that, according to the Standard Model of particle physics, quarks are by definition unable to exist alone.  WRYYYYYY

Now, what did any of that have to do with religion?  You have yet to refute even one of Mencken's arguments, from many poasts ago.  WRYYYYYY

the standard model is primitive.
WE DONT UNDERSTAND THE FULL PICTURE YET, hello anyone home

in 2006 the large hadron collider in switzerland will be colliding protons instead of electrons/positrons, individual collisions between quarks shall yield ~2 TeV in energy

on the other front linear colliders are being constructed to experimentally verify the existence of the theorized higgs particle to further explain the higgs mechanism of imparting mass to particles

the larger goal is to prove the entire supersymmetrical plane of particle physics... we will be at the cusp of planck scale extrapolation once this level of understanding is achieved. this is known as a paradigm shift.

this is all very real and currently ongoing research.

with a quantum supersymmetrical level of understanding, gravitons can be experimentally verified and reconciled in quantum field terms instead of by cheating with the special theory of relativity.. combining general relativity with quantum field theory has always given nonsensical infinities between gravitons

mtheory will be next, can check in a thousand years when we are capable of experimenting on that scale. the best we can do for now is use the mathematical framework k-theory provides to scrutinize the development of mtheory, it is quite accurate and utilizes minimal assumptions.

mencken is a philosopher, not a scientist

what he conjectures about the non-existence of the "invisible"is about as valid as what i conjecture about the implications of multidimensional supersymmetry - the difference is multidimensional supersymmetry is a purely scientific non-philosophical theory with droves of credentialed subscribers

read this paper if you doubt the rigor of scrutiny in which multidimensional supersymmetry is processed
http//scitation.aip.org/...

as for mencken, i'm glad he doesn't take himself as seriously as nietzsche did, being the father of his belief system and all.. or should i say non-belief system

"Philosophy consists very largely of one philosopher arguing that all others are jackasses. He usually proves it, and I should add that he also usually proves that he is one himself."
  --  Henry Mencken

i think that means WRYYYYYYY....
so i wont comment further on your philosopher du jour

>>16
>what IS irrational is refuting out of hand the fact that
>nothing exists beyond our current comprehension, which you
>seem to argue constantly
If it seems to you that I'm arguing that, then that's your problem, not mine.  There's a big difference between not making a positive assertion about something and making a negative one ("I do not believe that Sarah does have a cat." VS "I do believe Sarah does not have a cat.")  In that last one, if you have no idea whether Sarah has a cat other than your "intuition", the first statement would be rational - the second statement would be irrational.  So would saying that she surely does have one.  Can you see the analogy?  If you can't, that just proves my point about losing the ability to think rationally.

I had never even heard of Mencken before, but I suppose he does make a claim about the "falsehood" of religion.

>>21
This individual likes to set up strawmen bearing no resemblance whatsoever to his opponents, when he isn't going off on surreal tangents, the main gist of which seems to be "nyah nyah, you can't disprove this."  Which misses the point entirely.  I can't disprove a claim that there is a Starbuck's on Mars, either, but surely I can't be expected to take such a claim seriously.  After all, a claim that can't be disproven can't be tested--and if it can't be tested, it is a meaningless noise that tells us nothing, net information content:  null.

I am not sure whether he's refusing to debate honestly or whether he doesn't understand what debate is, but either way, I've parked a steamroller on top of him again, and am once again standing atop it striking dramatic poses and shouting "WRYYYYYY"

Do I sense a lolocaust?

>>22 you are a silly little man

you quote mencken, a philosopher. science is not philosophy, science will lead to the truth see >>20

but we wont see it happen in our lifetime, so in the meantime(your one lifetime - all that matters to you).. believe what you want. this has nothing to do with organized religion.
with the knowledge that the ultimate answer exists at some future date you can extrapolate a belief based on current theory.. it is the best pragmatic attempt to live a positive honestly-non-nihilistic life

>>24
If Mencken were alive to hear you say that, he'd spit in your face for calling him a "philosopher."  He was a newspaper reporter and a man of letters.  He despised both philosophy and philosophers.

But I do want to thank you for admitting that this has nothing to do with religion--and religion is the topic of this thread, is it not?  Your evasions are noted, and laughed at.  WRYYYYYY

>>23

do i sense a trolling WRYYYYing mod

Nope. It's just that the general 4chan population is rather stupid, with very few notable exceptions.

WRYYYYYYYYYY?

evasions? what planet are you on... is this combat for you, am i dancing to your liking? or am i evading now...

i have nothing TO evade

i simply condensed the non-scientific elements of the same "modus vivendi" belief through pragmatic extrapolation point ive been making since the creationism vs evolution thread >>24

oh and in the words of your hero mencken:
"It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull." --Mencken, H. L.

theory is where all scientific progress begins. if we didn't start we would never get anywhere. your view seems to be a truly worthless one in that every question worth asking is seemingly a moot point. lets just live like simple animals and feel good, lets simply exploit the knowledge we already have the answers for and forget the rest... we'll just write it off as "unknowable" further, lets browbeat despair into anyone attempting to work hard via trial and error to refine these theories down to verifiable truth

what a sad way to live

>>28
I'm not even sure if you're trying to argue for or against faith based spiritual beliefs anymore... not to even mention religion.

religion is faith for those who are too weak to have faith in themselves.

>>1
You answered your own question.  What if there was no religion?  Instead of waiting for the devine to help them, they'd help themselves.  Instead of praying to somebody, they'd actually think about their own problems and how to deal with it.  Meaning in life?  They'll find a meaning for their life if they just look; accepting some pre-packaged meaning is silly.  If all the effort people have put into religion had gone into science or art, imageing the things would could have today.  Some conjecture that due to western religion's influence, the world was set back by between 100 and 500 years.  Instead of discovering America, Columbus may have been the first to step on the moon, instead.

Indeed.  Many people--religious people, that is--seem to believe that without their comforting pet superstition to impose limits on behavior, everyone everywhere will just go berserk.  In other words, scratch a Christian, find a nihilist.

I believe that people in general are stronger than they are given credit for, and can adapt to looking at the world in a new way.  Even if this were not so, saying "but many people will be unable to live without some kind of religion to give them meaning" is the logical fallacy of Argument from Adverse Consequences--which is to say, two and two make four regardless of whether someone personally has a problem with that fact.

Why do people think that superstition gives their lives meaning in the first place, or makes people better than their inclinations?  Are human beings not capable of creating their own meaning?  And isn't someone who only refrains from harming others because he fears Hell-fire and brimstone really a callow monster?

It goes without saying that nobody can decide whether God exists or not. To have a faith is a personal matter. Nobody can deny your faith. If you feel happier when you can believe in God, it would be better to have a faith. But if not, you should not have a faith. 

No.

There are also lots of atheist wackos out there, and lots of works of literature with great insights about it all. For example (one out of many), read: The Man Who Loved Children, by Christina Stead. (http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=238)

Not to mention Lenine, Staline, Mao, etc.

Also, atheism isn't weird in Japan, although they sure are (buddhism and shintoism aren't quite like western religions -- you can be a buddhist and an atheist, or a buddhist and a christian, for example).



"religion is faith for those who are too weak to have faith in themselves."

Satanism is just replacing a fake god by another (yourself). Or better, hedonism with heavy mysticism and bullshit thrown into the mix. Vice-versa the phrase and it makes just as much sense.

Satanists have had their ideas protected from attack long enough due to ignorance of what they really are, so get informed -- http://www.dpjs.co.uk/criticism/index.html , the main page has info on Satanism.



By the way, I'm an atheist, even though that's irrational (I have faith that there isn't a God).

>>33
So, your argument boils down to that if something makes you happy, you should just do it?

>>34
Kewl! A work of fiction containing a ridiculous caricature of the opposing point of view is now an acceptable argument, eh? You will excuse me, I hope, if I call that casuistry.

Stalin et al opposed the church because they saw it as a rival for power. I would be astonished by credible evidence that any of them gave a tinker's damn about truth and lies, given that the governments they headed were themselves so completely built on falsehood that they inspired Orwell, once a dedicated Socialist, to write "1984."

Satanists are as ridiculous as Christians, and I have the same contempt for them.

And there is nothing irrational about atheism. The religious have utterly failed to prove their claims about gods and angels and magic and evil spirits, so there is nothing whatsoeve irrational about laughing at them.

>>33
I'm not sure what he's saying at this point. His reasoning (if that is quite the word I want) grows more convoluted by the day. He has taken sophistry to positively Jesuitical levels, but when you cut through the sprawling weedy verbiage, there's nothing much there except "but it will make people feel bad," as if that were ever an argument against the truth.

>>36
>as if that were ever an argument against the truth.

you dont know the truth. the fact that you claim to know makes you just as laughable as any of the other views expressed herein

>And there is nothing irrational about atheism. The religious
>have utterly failed to prove their claims about gods and
>angels and magic and evil spirits, so there is nothing
>whatsoeve irrational about laughing at them.

If athiesm were merely a lack of thiestic beliefs, this would apply.  However, athiesm is itself a positive thiestic belief.  Athiesm is a positive assertion of the lack of any god or gods.  You can't prove/disprove that one any more than you can prove/disprove christianity.  Look it up.

What I wanna know, then, is what the word is for a lack of any religious/thiestic beliefs.

Lenine, Staline

LOL

>>38
agnostic, belief in only what can be proven

a narrow way to live in that much exists that is yet to be proven

>>38
The word is "atheism."  Religious/theistic beliefs = theism.  A- is a prefix that negates the following word. A-theism = lack of religious/theistic beliefs. Here ya go:

ttp://www.alabamaatheist.org/awareness/questions/agnostic.htm

>>37
Hey, you're the one tripping over your feet to apologize for and defend every kind of ridiculous superstition, not me. You're the one who invoked Argument from Adverse Consequences, not me.

>>40
In a scientific context it is improper to use terms like "belief." I tentatively accept a certain hypothesis pending empirical disproof, I do not claim to "believe in" it. And yes, some of the claims of various religions, particularly Christianity, are scientific in nature and fall into the realm that can be empirically tested--such as the Earth being only six thousand years old, a vast world-deluging flood only five thousand years ago, all land-dwelling life on Earth today being descended from a tiny handful of specimens preserved during this flood on a wooden boat, and so on. These claims are empirically testable, and have been found wanting. They are lies and deserve the same treatment as any other lies.

>>41

a narrow way to live in that much exists that is yet to be proven

>>41
I don't think this guy's definition of Atheist is the proper one.
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=atheism
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=atheism
http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/atheism?view=uk

The question is whether atheism refers to "no belief in god" or "belief in no god"... based on my links, which were not random people's personal websites (one with multiple spelling and grammar errors - not neccesarily a good way to demonstrate a mastery of the English language, which is what is being discussed), it seems it means "belief in no god".  Remember, etymology does not a good argument make.  Just because the "hippo" in "hippopotamus" means "horse" in Greek doesn not necessarily mean that I should try and ride one.

Some of you may think that I'm being asinine or anal about this, and that it's just semantics.  However, semantics is everything.  If we don't agree on our terms to the best of our ability we're just going to be going around in circles.

>>42
More is not always better.  Should I make up detailed alien races for all the other planets and the solar system just so I can believe in more things and have a "less narrow" life?  Is that really what you are suggesting?

>>44
no, but you can look at current proven fact combined with current theory and make a resonable guess as to what will be ultimately discovered
ofcourse you would never impose your guess on anyone else, the way organized religion does

origin is what everyone is guessing at.. how can all this have always existed, something must come into being before existing.
if people are honest with themselves, they must reconcile this issue somehow... the answer must be personal not pre-packaged

"make a reasonable guess" != pulling lint out of your navel and presenting it as pearls of wisdom

We are living in an age of miracles, of marvels.  The sum total of all human knowledge now doubles every two years.  Science is making tremendous strides forward in every field.  Isn't this enough for you?  And aren't you content to withhold judgement on matters of origin until there is sufficient data to have an informed opinion?

what we know of the physical universe is too mathematically beautiful to be accidental.. it reeks of intelligence

"However, if we do discover a complete theory... we would know the mind of God" -- Steven Hawking

unified theory, a complete understanding of the physical universe is what we expect will be ultimately discovered... hope we get there soon

"Too beautiful to be accidental?"  That's not exactly a compelling argument.

>>36

Atheism is irrational because there is no proof that God either exists or does not. Agnosticism is the rational choice here.

"Satanists are as ridiculous as Christians, and I have the same contempt for them."

Thank God for that religious freedom thingie, heh?

"Stalin et al opposed the church because they saw it as a timesucking, brainwasting threat to Lenine's great plan to give every russian 2 spanish Flamingo dancers etc etc"

You completely missed the point, which is that Lenine, Stalin, etc, were atheists "wackos," meaning atheism is not the be all, end all, solution to the world's problems.

And "The Man Who Loved Children" is an autobiographical work by Christina Stead (one of the greatest australian writers of her time, respect her authority yadda yadda) about her own dysfunctional family. If you didn't read the book (I don't expect you too, it's kinda annoying at parts), at least read the preview I linked to.



Anyways, who cares. :P

>>48
what we know of the physical universe is too mathematically beautiful to be accidental.. it reeks of intelligence

from fractals to particle supersymmetry, too mathematically elegant.. reeks of intelligence, overwhelmingly coincidental, statistically improbable, logically curious

and no one is here to compel you.

belief is personal, organized religion is folly

it wants to be solved, the human transtemporal scientific drive for knowledge is hard to explain in other terms

the pieces have all been there infront of us since the beginning, our pace of understanding has been quickening exponentially.. the learning curve is steepening

we will know soon

>>50
You're going at it the wrong way... let's look at a soldier who has survived for 20 years in lots of intense battles who is not more skilled than any other average soldier.  However, he has had over 30 unbelievably coincidental events that have allowed him to always survive.  Under your logic, you start with the end result - a veteran soldier - and work backwards, saying all his narrow scrapes must have been miracles, god is on his side, whatever.  However, this is kind of backwards.  The thing is, ANY soldier that has survived that long MUST have had a lot of coincidences in order for him not to die.  It's the same for any functioning system - BECAUSE we live in a universe with existence, it has to be perfect & beautiful and work flawlessly... otherwise, it would have deteriorated by now and we wouldn't be here to discuss it.

"the pieces have all been there infront of us since the beginning, our pace of understanding has been quickening exponentially.. the learning curve is steepening

we will know soon"

Well, if history repeats itself, then our doom is imminent. And it won't be just the fall of Rome, or of the Mayas, it might be of the whole world, thanks to globalization.

I'm not worried about global warming though; even if it's a fact, the world's scientists will most likely reach a solution before it's too late, for mankind anyways. What I'm more worried is that we're driving with the pedal to the metal and we don't even know if there's a light at the end of the tunnel or just a dead end.



Wait, what the hell am I talking about? It's so vague that it could mean just about anything. I guess I don't have a very deep oppinion about whatever, I can't remember, oh look a shiny thing hmm pretty, oh and I guess I just wrote something very shallow about humanity too. I need sleep wooooo pretty lights, if you look at soap bubbles when you bath you can see yourself naked repeated thousands of times, distorted.


 Holy Monk of Banana Monkeys, what the hell?

>>49
There's no proof that invisible pink unicorns exist, or don't.  Shall I refrain from laughing my guts out when people tell me with a straight face that I must propitate the invisible pink unicorns or face eternal punishment?

I tell you what, if everybody acted christianly towards another itd be a great world.

Also, muhammed is right about one thing: females are worthless distractions and should be covered up and left at home. 99.999% percent of anything of worth achieved by humans was achieved by a man.

My utopia would be a cross of iran, some hippie commune and baptist country USA.

I tell you what, if everybody acted christianly towards another itd be a great world.

Also, muhammed is right about one thing: females are worthless distractions and should be covered up and left at home. 99.999% percent of anything of worth achieved by humans was achieved by a man.

My utopia would be a cross of iran, some hippie commune and baptist country USA.

you know whats awesome

doubleposting trolls

>>52
>>It's the same for any functioning system - BECAUSE we live in a universe with existence, it has to be perfect & beautiful and work flawlessly... otherwise, it would have deteriorated by now and we wouldn't be here to discuss it.

all the more reason to suspect it was intelligently designed.. or that perhaps it is intelligence itself

all the knowledge we have amassed has been "learned" by solving various aspects of nature, we are deriving knowledge from the very existence in which we find ourselves. the ultimate knowledge is still located within, it wills us to solve it.. generation after generation.. evolution is but a biological manifestation of the same force

all functioning technological systems we claim mastery of today have been carefully designed, just the system of nature is so immensely complex and elegantly unified in myriad aspects and scales that it simply defies logic to have been accidental

>> god is on his side, whatever.
"god" is a quaint notion, lets just forget that
we are talking about the full spectrum of scientific coincidence not human coincidence of circumstance

"Coincidence" is in the eye of the beholder.  To paraphrase Douglas Adams, should a puddle be astonished that it is exactly the same shape as the depression in the ground in which it lies?

Your astonishment seems to contain the unspoken assumption that the universe could have been anything else but what it is.  There is no empirical evidence to support this.

You are once again digging around in your navel for belly-button lint and presenting it as pearls of wisdom.

>>57
His trolling technique is extremely crude, but the double post may not be his fault. Quite frequently, when I click on "add reply," I get a "connection closed by remote server" error message, but when I reload the page, my reply is there in the thread. Perhaps he got that error message and thought it meant his reply never got posted.

>>59
>anything else but what it is.

things dont just "is" out of nothingness, they come into being. especially 'perfect & beautiful' things.. or a thing so complex and intricate it may always escape complete quantification by even our fully developed perceptions

for a thing to come into being, some force or action must be initiated to bring such a thing into being, this is the empirical view at its core

causation breaks both micro and macro sciences at their terminus
it must be reconciled.

>>should a puddle be astonished that it is exactly the same shape as the depression in the ground in which it lies?

this is too narrow a question. you should be asking how that depression in the ground was created, once you can answer that.. perhaps what created that depression in the ground will become more apparent

then maybe you can stop moping about being just a puddle...


>>You are once again digging around in your navel for belly-button lint and presenting it as pearls of wisdom.

hey, my navel is full of lint tonight! i have to present this somewhere?

mind using a new analogy... i tire of this one

>>61
Argument from personal incredulity? Well, that's a new one. I don't think the universe really cares one way or another about either your opinion or mine, however.

I too am tired of belly button lint. How about presenting something substantive, or even substantial?

>>61
>things dont just "is" out of nothingness,

I don't see how this is an argument for the spiritual.  All this suggests is that either: yes, things DO apparently "is" out of nothingness, or failing that, the universe did not "is" out of nothingness - there was either something "before" it or it was always there.

>>63
I don't see it either. But he seems to really, really want it to be one and perhaps even has some psychological need for it to be one.

Magical thinking and cognitive dissonance in action are ugly to watch, aren't they, kids?

The whole point of science is that when something is unknown, even if it's something that seems really strange, you reserve judgment until more facts are known about it.  Throughout history, natural phenomena (gravity, lightning, creation of the planet, etc) were always thought to be caused by God.  The strange thing is, EVERY SINGLE TIME that the cause has been found it has NEVER, EVER been God.  It's funny that way, isn't it?

The whole point of science is that when something is unknown, even if it's something that seems really strange, you reserve judgment until more facts are known about it.  Throughout history, natural phenomena (gravity, lightning, creation of the planet, etc) were always thought to be caused by God.  The strange thing is, EVERY SINGLE TIME that the cause has been found it has NEVER, EVER been God.  It's funny that way, isn't it?

The whole point of science is that when something is unknown, even if it's something that seems really strange, you reserve judgment until more facts are known about it.  Throughout history, natural phenomena (gravity, lightning, creation of the planet, etc) were always thought to be caused by God.  The strange thing is, EVERY SINGLE TIME that the cause has been found it has NEVER, EVER been God.  It's funny that way, isn't it?

>>62
>I too am tired of belly button lint. How about presenting something substantive, or even substantial?

is this a polite way of trolling for speculation on substantive evidence we will only know a hundred or a thousand years hence

who is the unreasonable one here, kids

read these again and tell me there is not a massive circumstantial case for a pre-loaded intelligently designed universe set into motion at some point, the same force driving  probabilistic causation to have evolved particle systems into biology and most recently consciousness
>>42 >>45 >>47 >>50 >>51 >>58 >>61

"god" is a chaos engine, the endlessly driving force of intelligence is what results from trial and error/theory and experimentation on this chaotic dataset, at the moment we are the furthest biological manifestation of this same intelligent force

all we create in the technological realm is a crude manipulation of what has been pre-loaded into the universe and therefore into us.. the universe's most recent product

collections of individual human consciousness/intelligence working the same problem is akin to distributed computing, using the linguistic mechanism as networking interconnects. this exact mechanism was pre-loaded into the universe when it was infinitely dense and infinitely massive, we just wont see the final result of this mechanism with our own eyes... so in our lifetimes we must make a best guess as to how it will turn out and then form a personal belief about the unanswerable question: why it was turned out

my guess is, it was turned out to solve itself.. for sheer amusement

>about either your opinion or mine, however.
this is honest. as all that can be formed on this topic is theory and opinion based on, and extrapolated from, _current_ fact

>psychological need
yes. anyone honest and in possession of an introspective consciousness requires a reconciliation of these issues.. save the easy excuse of nihilism, at worst.. and agnosticism, at best

clearly this topic is circular, anyone who stipulates base assumptions, builds a circumstantial case and then ventures a guess is easily disproved by lack of _currently_ observable evidence. but all progress starts in theory, you must then follow your logic combined with your intuition, apply it to the spectrum of scientific fact to produce a plausible theory by which to live your life

you may even be right, but you will never know

and from page 1... >>14
>>3 >>13 >>16
>>18 >>20 >>24 >>28 >>37 >>40
i'm going to take a break from this thread, all that can be said from my vantage has been said

have fun reconciling these extrapolative issues for yourself, it is personal.. no one is "right". just be sure to base your assumptions on a thorough understanding of current verifiable scientific fact

>>68 "god" is a chaos engine

Put down the bong.

"god" presents us with a chaos engine? does that give you something to argue now?

have at it..

oh and learn about chaos theory and fractals, and how scientific fact evidences the various states of energy and forces are all permuted fractals of the same

WRYYYYYY

In reply to the very first post, religion serves as a way to teach basic morals to people. This is essential for civilization's survival, but unfortunately, it can also lead to the civilization's end.

I personally believe that a balance of religious and nonreligious peoples is required to make my own ideal society, but sadly, throughout history, both forces of peoples have worked only against each other, rather than with each other.

So much for my idealism.

>>73
Then perhaps there is a better way to teach morality, one unfettered by reliance on silly ghost stories.  ("Do as you're told, or Jesus will get you!  WooooOOOOOooooOOOO!")

"a balance of religious and nonreligious peoples" ... rubbish. Morals, civility, collective production, is all possible with adequate psychological understanding of the _real_ human nature (and not the myths we're currently indoctinated with) and a good dose of Mathematical Game Theory that 'for some strange reason' gives the exact same results, without all that bogus crap about magical sky faires who play favourites according to when/where/how you were born.

>>74

Try to explain to someone why they should love their enemies, help a starving person on the other side of the world, visit murders in jail or in general give a fuck about another person without talking about heaven or hell. Social contract theory only goes so far. Its hard to get the good of christian morality when you eliminate the bad (unprovable things such as god, heaven and hell).

I think that unconditional love for mankind, staying celibate, fasting, etc. are completely not in the interest of an individual, but make you a more advanced person as you are in total control of your body and mind and not a slave to instinct.
If only there was a good way to take god out of the equation.

>>76
Read >>4.

Then consider that "loving their enemies" is strictly a Christian eccentricity, and, frankly, rather irrational.  Nor have I ever seen any point in visiting murderers in jail--if you want to help someone, visit the families of their victims; they deserve the comfort, killers don't.

In any event, you are making the "argument from adverse consequences."  You're saying "but without my favorite pet superstition, people will go fucknuts and kill everybody."  I think people are stronger, smarter, and better than that.  Even if they weren't, truth is truth.

I think it's possible to create a system of morality based on respect for other human beings, one that doesn't carry with it all this neurotic superstitious baggage about gods and demons and evil spirits.

most of this thread is highly enlightened in the scientific aspect and in the eventual concession to the yet unknown
but to >>76
organized religion is a silly thing, any rational person will agree
that TYPE of control is too easy to pervert by the "gatekeepers" of "X" religion
Marx said it best 200+ years ago... "Religion is the opiate of the masses"
Its hard to get the good of christian morality when you eliminate the bad
i disagree, morality is taught. not coaxed out of irrational fear
Its easy to get the good of morality when you teach morality
remove "X" religion out of the picture and it becomes very clear how morality is simply a function of our earliest education

>>77

I think you overestimate people. Most of them are suprisingly stupid. 70% of people are completely unable to comprehend that they should not harm another person because they've signed an unwriten contract to live in a peacful society. The only reason they don't is because god said not to, their parents said not to, and the law says not to.

>>80
I hope you're wrong.  There are societies less religious than the US that are less violent than ours.  Japan comes immediately to mind.  And in the US, some of the most religious people are the most violent.  Any prison is full of people who are only too eager to tell the parole board, "Jesus has changed my life," or "Allah has shown me a new way to live."  The urban poor in the US are far more religious than most of the rest of society, yet tend to be more violent.

I believe that human beings are more intelligent than you give them credit for, and I believe that there is a better way.

>>80

I wouldn't call Japan a psychologically healthy society. In addition, the more peaceful countries are mostly those that are ethnically uniform and have a fairly even distribution of resources. When these criteria aren't met, inequality and conflict arise and things get harder. That's when people really turn towards religion. The poor whites say, these rich liberals are sinners. The poor blacks say, these white people are the devils. Being "god's children" is enpowering to them. If they get everything they needed then they won't care about god. The whole thing is ironic because god is supposedly omnipotent AND loving. Why would you lack anything you needed if he was both and you believed in him?

About the urban poor, they yell about bitches and crack and wear a platinum crucifix. I think thats just a poor implementation of religion.

"poor implementation of religion" is redundant.

the enlightenment came and went

This is a step-by-step deconstruction of the first two posts' arguments.

Even if their beleifs are "scienticifally incorrect," think of all the people in the US that cling to God to get through their own lives.
>>Is false hope a good reason to live? Sounds like 'ignorance is bliss' to me. When you use religion as a reason for anything, whether it be being a good person or simply living, you are corrupting the motivation behind your actions. After all, the 9/11 terrorists didn’t see themselves as evil in the eyes of their religion; but, if they had used rational and ethical thought, thousands would not have died. From a relative moral point, they were good people; however, anyone with the least sense of ethics can condemn their actions.<< 
Look at black churches that have joyous singing and dancing.  The Bible typically refers to its followers as sheep, and that's what they are.  But isn't it better than being convinced that there is no god?
>>Depends. Would you like to live with your parents for your entire life? Maybe. But most wouldn't. Having a god is like having a parent you can listen to only when you WANT to. Realizing there is no god is a very liberating force; just like a man out of college, you find a world that is, as moot says of 4chan, of your own making. You suffer the consequences of your failures, but can fully celebrate your successes without attributing them to an extraplanar being.<<
To actually KNOW or have it forced upon them that no god can possibly exist?  You'd have people with no hope, purpose, or reason to differentiate right from wrong.  Sure, some people can act morally on their own, but others can't.  They need a reason to not steal or kill or cheat on their wives, and with no moral or spiritual "penalty," what do people have to lose?
>>Well, this is the same thing from before. Do people really need to be tricked into obeying ethics? No. Absolutely not. Just because God doesn’t say “Don’t run red lights,” would you do it? Religion can and has been in the past replaced with a sense of ethics and societal trust.<<
“Do you really want a completely atheist society?  Religion makes an excellent behavior control system, just like government laws, accepted behaviors, popular beliefs and opinions, TV advertisements, and political statements from our current political leader.  The validity of these systems may be wrong in some instances, but at least they offer some kind of order.”
>>This is a particularly amusing angle from, I can only assume, a theist. The idea that religion is useful as a controlling force has existed since Roman times, and we all know how successful Rome’s civil rights record was. When religion is used to control the people, it removes their humanity and reduces them to essentially slaves. And, if you suppose ignorance is a decent tradeoff for stability, let me recommend a book to you: 1984 by George Orwell.
As far as completely atheistic societies go, there haven’t been many. People have a hard time leaving religion behind voluntarily, and state-enforced atheism is impotent. Although many associate authoritarian communism with state atheism, the connection is insoluble. Marx saw religion as the support of the aristocracy/bourgeoisie, and that its removal would be one of the major forces of liberation. It never fails to amaze me, though, how often people will gladly wear the yoke and pull for the priest, content in the labor of Sisyphus.<<

“Also, religion can add emotional and psychological support to those having a hard time in life.  Without that, some may be able to find a sense of hope on their own.”
>>I’m going to assume you meant ‘without that, some may not be able’, because that’s more germane to your argument. While it is true that religion may help people recover from things such as drug abuse, alcoholism, family problems, etc., there are plenty of alternative, secular solutions to such problems. Why have a priest vaguely familiar with you and your problem giving you advice, as opposed to a psychiatrist or a counselor trained and experienced with people? Besides, religion can often do more harm than good to its partakers (Waco, TX, the numerous ‘faith healing’ attempts no one hears about because they failed), as well as have no effect at all (i.e. the baptist church-going gang members at my school)<<

“Religion is also used in taking up people's free time.  People need to dedicate themselves to something, whether its sports or school or a career or sitting and watching TV for the rest of their lives.  With no religion, you've just given millions of people the opportunity to find something else to do, no matter how pointless.”
>>This is really amusing to read; it’s not really a valid point, and seems to hurt your argument. So… wait, spending your time in useless prayer is somehow better than enjoying the company of family and friends, working at a job, helping others, making something of your life? That makes a lot of sense.<<

“Someone once said that humans are infinitely bored.  Yet some people have nothing better to do than dedicate themselves to religion.  Once they have nothing to do, with no hope of an afterlife to cling to, what then?  Would they just sit and rot with no purpose?”
>>Some indeed may; that ideology is called nihilism. But others, such as existentialists, see the one life they have as valuable, and strive to enjoy it to the fullest extent possible. Besides, if you have an infinite, perfect afterlife to anticipate, what’s the purpose of staying on Earth? You should just bite the bullet now. Btw, the idea of suicide as a sin appears nowhere in the Bible; it comes from St. Augustine’s City of God.<<

>>84

good points. i also, would like to hope that all people are capable of thinking about things for themselves and acting rationally, despite their best efforts to convince me otherwise.

i dont know though. i often feel that, because i know i am capable of great things, i will be inadaquite if i do not achieve them. in order to be happy, i think, i have to spend most of my time working hard towards some goal. i suppose that religion provides a way to be contented while not working quite so hard. if you're really happy, does it really matter if what you belive in is true? of course you dont need to be religious to be content, and even if i did belive in god i would probably still feel inadequite...

>>53
Anthropogenic global warming is mostly dangerous because of natural disasters (storms, droughts, rising sea levels, etc.).

There are somewhat larger problems of the same kind of a less tractable nature having to do with solar cycles (ice age cycles) and steady increases in the luminosity of the sun over time (expected to raise the mean surface temperature of the earth to 100C and above in the distant future, though long before it goes nova, and far less is required to wipe out life on earth).

Does anthropogenic global warming even exist, or is it like the spurious "hole in the ozone layer" that always appears in winter at the poles, because ozone is unstable and breaks down into ordinary oxygen in the absence of ultraviolet light from the sun?  It seems to me that environmentalist controversies are 99% politics, 1% science.

It probably depends on how you define religion. Most organized religion is pretty badly flawed in my view, but personal religious beliefs aren't necessarily a bad thing. Though it's popular to dismiss religion and philosophy as bullshit or intellectual masturbation, science has a great deal of limitations and cannot be used by itself.

For one, science can tell us many things, but it cannot tell us what is morality or happiness. It is also very deterministic and regards humanity as nothing more than chemical reactions without free will. It is religion and philosophy that tempers this anti-human viewpoint and without them, science wouldn't have a point since it can only describe, not recommend. It doesn't provide goals or meaning.

>For one, science can tell us many things, but it cannot tell us what is morality or happiness.

I think the've done MRIs and some kinda electrical and chemical readings of the brain and found out what happiness is.

let me ask one thing
if you cant proof that god exists or not.

then can you proof that god is not a horrible space monster that invades earth zillion years ago?

>>88
You don't understand what science is or what it is for.  Science isn't FOR meaning.  Science tells you how, not why.  Science isn't FOR morality.  Science is mathematical models of reality within boundary conditions set by empirical testing.  Period.  Full stop.

Saying that "science has a great deal of limitations [sic]" because it contains no morality is like saying there's no point to calculus because it can't tell you whether to have cake for dessert or pie.

Morality and ethics belong to philosophy.  Philosophy and science are unrelated, unconnected disciplines.  Do not confuse one for the other.

Play Xenogears. The answer is in the game.

I think science is the new religion. Majority of the people still do not really want to think for themselves, they're content if you just say that some Doctor Science Professor said that this is like this and that's that. The whys are not all that important, they just want simple explanations on what and how. Some pseudoscientific circles use this gullibility and blind belief in authorities to their advantage. All they have to say to back up their claims is "hundreds of scientist agree that" and "there are studies that show this". Whether or not these scientists and studies actually exist is not important. Nobody bothers to check.

In this light it's not all that strange that people were okay with the explanation "it's God" for so long. It can be little purple men as long as they can get the damn machine to play those adult videos.

That's a failure of the educational system, I believe.  The purpose of education is not only to teach facts (though that is part of it), but also to teach the people to think.

>>91

I was mainly addressing the frequent claim that science alone is enough. I see people regularly dismiss philosophy as useless and saying that only science has a point. What I really meant to say is that science is incomplete without philosophy.

>>95
I think what you mean to say is that someone's worldview is not complete with only science.  Science IS complete with just science - it's not trying to be anything else.  Science is no more incomplete without philosophy than baking is incomplete without cobbling.

Perhaps that's true, but some philosophy of science is in order too. For example, you and I may know that correlation is not necessarily causation, inherent limitations on what science can prove (can it prove?), theory vs law, that science has nothing to say about God, etc.

Some people don't. This all directly descends from the scientific method, but is non-obvious. The philosophy aspect may be necessary for no other reason than to understand science's relationship with the rest of the world.

ay caramba

>>98

Let it die.

Holy shit.

>>1
People who need such a control system aren't worth having around...

PS, 101get

102GGGGET

103GET THIS IS ORIGINAL RIGHT?

People who actually bother to follow the religions would realize that every religion promotes good behaiviours and the importance of knowledge.

Without it, without them the human race would be nowhere, sex greed and lust would just end up making people lazy. notice whats happened to society now that the importance of religion is downplayed?

>>104
Read the rest of the thread you idiot. I'm an athiest and I don't do any of those things. I isn't because I don't want to go to hell, it is because I don't want to go to jail.

People don't need religion to realize that you shouldn't kill/hurt people.

>>105
People might not need religion specificly, but they do need a philosophy (which is for all intents and purposes, a religion) to tell them to not "do bad things".

Otherwise, why shouldn't I just go ignore the needs of everyone else? As it is I don't give a damn about the homeless and poor. If I had no reason for restraint, trust me when I tell you I wouldn't. Because if I had no reason for restraint, I would have blown the heads off of half the people in my school back in the days of high school. Oh how I wanted to.

>>105

but those laws were originally based off of the laws you get in religious scriptures. only now people are starting to think that we dont need all of them. just think about it for a moment.

and sorry for not reading the whole thread, but the XXXGET bits just made me read the start & the end.

>>104, 105
You're both wrong, in my opinion.

1. A universal good doesn't exist.
2. The idea that the human race have evolved beyond survival of the fittest is a myth. Someone who holds this belief doesn't understand evolution.
3. Your view of the world has been determined by those around you. Not everyone is like us. There are different classes. We are plebs. We are manipulated by those who fight for their family's long-term survival. The idea that the human race is fighting for each other is wrong. You only need to get a job to experience the smallest taste of how earning money involves fierce competition. At the very top it is completely ruthless.

I have been pretty much stating my views without giving you reasons to believe it, but if you seriously consider and research what I've said I think you'll find it correct. It is the only theory of how the world works that I know of that doesn't have gaping holes in it.

I believe the key is to start from evolution and develop your view from there, rather than developing your view from your perception of politics.

WOO HOO ! IM BUMPING THE OLDEST THREAD ON /sci/ !!

Strangely enough, most of these bumped threads are mine.  I guess I'm the most interesting topic starter on this board.  Which makes this a pretty sad place actually.

>>107
The fact that this went three years without refuting is a sad reflection on the state of /sci/ throughout its history.

No, we were just too uppity to dignify the thread with a response