[Merged]All religions are idiocy

[neltana]

The theistic proposition I have been talking about posits that there is no supernatural component to God.

So you've changed the definition of "god" to something else that we know to exist. That's a blatant attempt at trickery.

No, man. It just means that god is something we know to exist. It's not trickery...it's the way this belief system defines god. If we all agree that 'X' exists and this form of theism defines that as "god," then you can say that you agree with a theist definition of god.

Not sure why you think that is so harmful.

I have no burden to disprove the claim that there is a god. How does one show evidence of non-existence anyway?

I firmly believe that this religious belief, like almost all others, is "non-falsifiable.' That is why this isn't science, it is religion.

You have no burden to disprove it, of course. I have no burden to prove it. We are merely discussing the topic to expand everyone's understanding.

There is no "god of first cause" it's BS and it's bad for ya.

Sorry, you haven't demonstrated, either through logic or any other means, that there is no god of first cause. You claim absolute knowledge of the unknowable. That is a statement of faith.

It's the most logical position based on the evidence and logic at hand.

Yes, that is a statement of probability. Do you see the incompatibility between your two statements? Which best represents your position? Has it been firmly established that there is no god of first cause or do you just find that result to be probable? Remember "most probable" <> certainty.

 

[neltana]

These assertions do not follow. You are making at least two assumptions with your "natural" god. You assume there is a first cause that is either a) an intelligent internal (to our universe) first cause, or b) a non-intelligent external first cause, or c) a first cause with some other unkown characteristic. In any case, you are assuming a first cause that has a characteristic of some kind.

Right, this relies on a proof of a first cause (referred to by many theists as a "god" of first cause, but that is just terminology. No claims are made about the characteristics of this "god"). This proof can and has been criticized on a number of fronts.

So, I do assume that there is a "first cause." I do not assume any characteristics other than that the first cause would have to be external to our universe, since an "effect" (the universe) cannot be its own cause. This is an assumption, but I don't think it is super-wacky.

As far as the question whether it is intelligent, semi-intelligent, or random, I do not think that is knowable. My religious beliefs do not require this to be known.

According to your argument it is exactly as simple and equally logical.

If I am understanding what the atheists are saying (versus, for instance, the agnostics), there is an assumption that the unknowable entity is random and not intelligent or semi-intelligent. But, that is just my understanding...it is very easy to be mistaken about what others believe. I apologize in advance for an mischaracterizations I might have made.

 

[neltana]

But a God that is indistinguishable from nature is not "good" or "bad". It is nothing that can be distinguished. This is the difficult part of trying to discuss God with theists. Too often, they won't give precise meanings of what they mean by "God", so we never know if we're talking about the same thing. That is the reason so many atheists must go back to the Bible to ascertain the characteristics of the Christian God. It is the only referential point that is accepted by all Christians. And even then, many don't accept all of it. So you can see the problem.

Yes, I understand the issue here. It makes things difficult.

I think many of my theistic beliefs are adapted to argue for a conscious, biblical God. I don't find those arguments persuasive, but they do have the same starting point.

If that's the case, then I don't see what you gain by calling this thing "God". ,snip> Call it "first cause" and you won't have so much of a problem.

Well, I personally think the term is useful. Remember, this belief accepts the possibility of a conscious god equally with the possibility of a random first cause. This is precious close to agnosticism, I suppose.

Where my belief system splits off from agnosticism is that it examines what man's relationship is with god if it is a conscious or semi-conscious entity, as well as if it is a random first cause. I believe that traditional agnosticism does not do this.

In short, the "no god" position makes no claims whatsoever about the nature of the "first cause". This is much different from saying "The first cause has no intelligence or intention."

We don't know, so we make no claims. Contrast to theists who also don't know, but do make claims.

I don't think they universally make other claims. My belief system does not, and I've talked with a number of folks who do not seem to.

This is a common mistake. The "no god" position is not a positive claim. It is a withholding of any claim. (Technically, the position is not "no god" but "no evidence for god".) If you spend much time on these boards, you will see that point emphasized over and over again. The term "straw man" will probably be thrown out when one persists in telling atheists what they believe, so I'd advise against it.

I'm sorry if anything in this thread was insulting to atheists. I don't think that was the intention of anyone here. Does that make the atheist position essentially agnostic?

 

[neltana]

Dislikes:
1. Raises humans to a self-serving level of self-importance.
2. Denial and disregard for the present, in favour of an afterlife.
3. Can be used as a just cause to incite violence or anything else.
4. Innate evolved tendencies (e.g. good Samaritan) are devalued against an arbitrary level of expectation, as defined by religious leaders or texts.
5. Answers nothing.

1. Humanism does the same thing (disclaimer, I am a humanist, so I'm not saying this is a bad thing).
2. Agreed, when this happens, it is harmful. However, take judiasm as a counter-example. Most of the focus there is proper conduct in this life. They do presuppose another world, but say next to nothing about it.
3. Yes. So can nationalism, communism and environmentalism. However, that is hardly the modal conduct of folks adhering to those 'isms.'
4. Morals are culturally transmitted and religious belief is one of many ways that this transmittal can occur. However, things like the "Good Samaritan" are not the default human experience. Any number of studies show that people are, in general, reluctant to help strangers and specifically, unlikely to help those from other social groups.
5. I assume you mean "provides no accurate answers." I think there are a lot of moral and cultural truths in religion. It is the wrong place to look for scientific answers, of course.

 

[D'rok]

If I am understanding what the atheists are saying (versus, for instance, the agnostics), there is an assumption that the unknowable entity is random and not intelligent or semi-intelligent. But, that is just my understanding...it is very easy to be mistaken about what others believe. I apologize in advance for an mischaracterizations I might have made.

I can only speak for myself, but I think I'm probably a fairly typical atheist.

It is a mischaracterization to attribute to atheism a belief/assumption that any unknowable entity exists at all, random, not intelligent or otherwise. That's adding an extra layer to the onion that most atheists don't consider justified. The universe is observable. Why not assume that it is uncaused? Your unobservable first cause (god) is also uncaused, but that just creates a regression and parsimony problem. Atheists just peel back that extraneous layer that theism adds to the onion.

If you want to attribute an assumption to atheism, you could say that an atheist assumes there is no entity that is an uncaused first cause because there is no good reason to assume the existence of such an entity. Evidence of such a being would force a re-evaluation.

It would also be a mistake to characterize that assumption as a positive declaration of the lack of existence of said entity. We simply decline to assume that it exists until presented with some compelling evidence to do so.

 

[cj.23]

If you want to attribute an assumption to atheism, you could say that an atheist assumes there is no entity that is an uncaused first cause because there is no good reason to assume the existence of such an entity. Evidence of such a being would force a re-evaluation.

It would also be a mistake to characterize that assumption as a positive declaration of the lack of existence of said entity. We simply decline to assume that it exists until presented with some compelling evidence to do so.

Surely that makes you an Agnostic, almost exactly as Huxley intended when he coined the term?

cj x

 

[neltana]

It would also be a mistake to characterize that assumption as a positive declaration of the lack of existence of said entity. We simply decline to assume that it exists until presented with some compelling evidence to do so.

And I have the utmost respect for that position. Sure, that position makes no additional assumption. I am curious whether you make a distinction between atheism and agnosticism, though. Do you also consider yourself an agnostic?

For me, assuming that the universe is uncaused seems at variance with everything I can observe about it. Nothing we have seen in the universe is uncaused. It seems unlikely that the first moment of existence differed in such a profound way from the second moment; that one had a cause and one didn't.

This, to me, makes an external cause a logical, albeit unproven, assumption. Given that it is a logical assumption, it leads me to also logically question the possible implications of this.

The results of this questioning and the subsequent reasoning are what form the basis of my religious beliefs. This has been called stupid and idiotic in this thread. I maintain that those conclusions are unwarranted. The purpose of presenting these arguments is to illustrate that, not to knock atheism.

I can understand, and have said repeatedly, how one may challenge the premises or reasoning I and others have put forth. Religious scholars have been arguing these points for thousands of years, of course there is room for argument!

I consider such questioning to be an essential and wonderful part of what it means to be human.

 

[Tricky]

Surely that makes you an Agnostic, almost exactly as Huxley intended when he coined the term?

While there is some disagreement here on the specifics of what atheism and agnosticism are, I find the best explanation (given to me by a member here who is now, sadly, inactive) is that theism/atheism relate to belief, whereas gnosticism/agnosticism relate to knowledge.

I am an agnostic. I lack knowledge that there is (or isn't) a god. I am also atheist. I lack belief an any god or gods yet described to me. So contrary to what is commonly assumed, atheism and agnosticism are not mutually exclusive. I consider myself an agnostic atheist. I have neither knowledge of nor belief in any gods.

If you want to get really technical, everybody is agnostic as regards the existence of God, because nobody truly knows. But for the purposes of discussion, we will assume that an agnostic is someone who admits that he doesn't know.

 

[cj.23]

We don't know, so we make no claims. Contrast to theists who also don't know, but do make claims.

So, the operational difference is that the "no god" position makes an additional assumption...for, from what I can see, no good reason other than faith.

This is a common mistake. The "no god" position is not a positive claim. It is a withholding of any claim. (Technically, the position is not "no god" but "no evidence for god".) If you spend much time on these boards, you will see that point emphasized over and over again. The term "straw man" will probably be thrown out when one persists in telling atheists what they believe, so I'd advise against it.

Er, no it's not. I will run the risk of being told I am making a Strawman.
An atheist is someone who does not believe in God(s) or Goddess(es). You can be an Implicit Atheist, an Explicit Atheist, or you can argue for various other typologies (a Weak Atheist might not believe in some gods f'rinstance, or might believe God's existed and went extinct, or whatever, but the one thing that defines atheists in their modern conception appears to be not believing in God, not rejecting any evidence for him.

Otherwise you have many Atheists who believe in God - like most obviously the Fideist Martin Gardner, but many in mainstream Christianity I suspect as well. They see no empirical evidence, yet they believe in God. By your definition - they are atheists?

cj x

 

[D'rok]

And I have the utmost respect for that position. Sure, that position makes no additional assumption. I am curious whether you make a distinction between atheism and agnosticism, though. Do you also consider yourself an agnostic?

I consider myself an atheist, although the line can get a little blurry sometimes. I am willing to state that there is no god, but I am basing that statement on an epistemological framework of things knowable through evidence, observation and experimentation. Not proven things necessarily, but knowable things. Within that framework there is no god. But the framework itself is not set in stone. I hold the door open to the possibility that the framework of knowable things may eventually encompass such things as uncaused first-cause entities. At that point, assuming I still exist, I would likely re-evaluate my atheism and be compelled move into the agnosticism camp. Until then, I operate under the assumption that there is no god.

For me, assuming that the universe is uncaused seems at variance with everything I can observe about it. Nothing we have seen in the universe is uncaused. It seems unlikely that the first moment of existence differed in such a profound way from the second moment; that one had a cause and one didn't.

You're still not dealing with the regression problem. You've just moved the uncaused complaint back one layer. Your model still has something that is uncaused, which, as you say, seems to defy common sense and observation. Why complicate things? How do you know that it isn't turtles all the way down?

This, to me, makes an external cause a logical, albeit unproven, assumption. Given that it is a logical assumption, it leads me to also logically question the possible implications of this.

The results of this questioning and the subsequent reasoning are what form the basis of my religious beliefs. This has been called stupid and idiotic in this thread. I maintain that those conclusions are unwarranted. The purpose of presenting these arguments is to illustrate that, not to knock atheism.

You are obviously not stupid or idiotic. Don't let the trolls like the OP or the grouchy atheists get you down. We're all in this together.

I can understand, and have said repeatedly, how one may challenge the premises or reasoning I and others have put forth. Religious scholars have been arguing these points for thousands of years, of course there is room for argument!

I consider such questioning to be an essential and wonderful part of what it means to be human.

Indeed.

 

[cj.23]

While there is some disagreement here on the specifics of what atheism and agnosticism are, I find the best explanation (given to me by a member here who is now, sadly, inactive) is that theism/atheism relate to belief, whereas gnosticism/agnosticism relate to knowledge.

OK, that makes more sense. So Gardner would be a Theistic Agnostic by this definition? Unfortunately it would make my claim Gnostic Christian, which I most definitely am not in the usual sense of gnostic employed in religion. (Gnostic there implies special revelation of the divine, NOT empirical knowledge. When Huxley coined agnostic he did not mean "don't know" as it is employed today, but "does not have direct supernaturally given knowledge".

I am an agnostic. I lack knowledge that there is (or isn't) a god. I am also atheist. I lack belief an any god or gods yet described to me. So contrary to what is commonly assumed, atheism and agnosticism are not mutually exclusive. I consider myself an agnostic atheist. I have neither knowledge of nor belief in any gods.

If you want to get really technical, everybody is agnostic as regards the existence of God, because nobody truly knows. But for the purposes of discussion, we will assume that an agnostic is someone who admits that he doesn't know.

Ah. Yes, you are employing agnostic in the modern sense, got ya. I still think you need a better word than gnostic, or agnostic really given it's meaning has changed a lot, but atheism has the same problem as a word, and Christianity can mean so many things I guess we will just give up! Yes I see what you mean now - sorry I was totally confused, but Is till think almost all atheists mean they reject God(s)

I do like your schematic though, even if the terminaology throws me!

cj x

 

[Tricky]

OK, that makes more sense. So Gardner would be a Theistic Agnostic by this definition? Unfortunately it would make my claim Gnostic Christian, which I most definitely am not in the usual sense of gnostic employed in religion. (Gnostic there implies special revelation of the divine, NOT empirical knowledge. When Huxley coined agnostic he did not mean "don't know" as it is employed today, but "does not have direct supernaturally given knowledge".

Under my classification, yes. And I know a lot of Theistic Agnostics (or agnostic theists, if you prefer) who do not claim either empirical knowledge or divine revelation. I wish there were more, but the majority of theists I know consider the bible to be a "special revelation of the divine". Therefore, they say they "know" their God exists. It is a pleasure to talk to some who are not like this.

Ah. Yes, you are employing agnostic in the modern sense, got ya. I still think you need a better word than gnostic, or agnostic really given it's meaning has changed a lot, but atheism has the same problem as a word, and Christianity can mean so many things I guess we will just give up! Yes I see what you mean now - sorry I was totally confused, but Is till think almost all atheists mean they reject God(s)

I do like your schematic though, even if the terminaology throws me!

LOL. To me the terminology makes better sense than the theological or philosophical definitions. Of course, having no formal training in either, I suppose my vocabulary in those fields leaves a lot to be desired.

Of course, the best way to find out what someone believes is to ask them.

FWIW, in the "real world", I often call myself "agnostic" because explaining what I mean by "atheist" takes too long. The image of the atheist as a rock-headed denier who claims to "know" that there is no God is fairly ubiquitous in the US.

 

[neltana]

You're still not dealing with the regression problem.

To be honest, I have no solution for the regression problem. It is reason to doubt the premise of first cause. My premises are far from unassailable.

Why complicate things? How do you know that it isn't turtles all the way down?

It totally could be....

Why complicate things? Well, that's a good question. Conceiving of a first cause as either conscious, semi-conscious or random gives me a framework for evaluating what, to me, is the more important question: how should this impact human conduct?

If "an angel tapped you on the shoulder," so to speak, would it change your ethics or how you interact with other people?

I believe it should not. But I am a little weird.

 

[articulett]

I don't think anyone said they consider religious people idiots. I believe the OP said that religions were idiocy. I don't even think Martin Gardner was religious... more of a deist...

And I don't think anyone has even agreed on this thread that all religions are idiocy. But we have pretty good reasons to think that no religion has divine truths and they are being dishonest if they claim to have such.

Smart people can believe in god or define what they don't understand as "god" or whatever. That doesn't make god likely nor does it negate the OP nor does it mean that anyone is calling Martin Gardener an idiot. The OP is about religions not people who call themselves religious. And just because other skeptics or smart people believe in something doesn't mean that there are good reasons for such a belief or that other skeptics should "believe in" that something too.

And I've described myself as agnostic plenty of times too... it doesn't have the emotional baggage that people hear with the word atheist.
example: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=108024

Atheism is just a lack of belief... people think of agnosticism as some middle ground between theism and not... but it just saying that no-one can prove there is no god... so we can't no for sure there isn't one.

That doesn't make it likely that there is any more than not being able to disprove demons makes demons likely.

 

[Tricky]

I think many of my theistic beliefs are adapted to argue for a conscious, biblical God. I don't find those arguments persuasive, but they do have the same starting point.

So what is the "starting point"? What is the first thing you must believe about God in order to be a theist (other than the obvious "He exists")? That He is good? That He is the creator? That he is in control? Or is it just a vague feeling that "there must be something more"?

Well, I personally think the term is useful. Remember, this belief accepts the possibility of a conscious god equally with the possibility of a random first cause. This is precious close to agnosticism, I suppose.

It is indeed close to agnosticism. And it still sounds to me as if you are allowing one definition of "God" to be "something I have no information about whatsoever." That doesn't seem like a very useful term to me. More like a placeholder.

Where my belief system splits off from agnosticism is that it examines what man's relationship is with god if it is a conscious or semi-conscious entity, as well as if it is a random first cause. I believe that traditional agnosticism does not do this.

I'm really not sure what sorts of beliefs about God are mandated by agnosticism. I find (from cj.23 -thanks!) that my concept of gnosticism is different from the philosophical one. But I don't think agnostics, as I understand them, believe that man has any relationship with God, since they don't know whether or not He exists. But you may be talking about their relationship with the concept of God, so I don't want to put words in your mouth. You'll just have to explain what you think man's relationship to God is. We don't have to give it an "ism". Forcing things into artificial categories has never been conducive to understanding, in my experience.

I don't think they universally make other claims. My belief system does not, and I've talked with a number of folks who do not seem to.

Perhaps "claim" was the wrong word. Theists believe in something they call God. For them to believe in it, then they must have some definition of God that they find acceptable. Atheists need not have a definition of "no god". They can examine your definition and many other definitions and decide whether or not they believe in them.

But when we get into pantheistic definitions of God, then weirdness ensues. Take this scenario:

Atheist: I have never heard of any concept of God that I believe in.
Pantheist: I believe God is nature.
Atheist: I don't believe God is nature.
Pantheist: You don't believe in nature?
Atheist: Of course I believe in nature, I just don't believe it is God.
Pantheist: Well it is MY God, so you must have some kind of other God that you believe in that you are comparing to MY God.
Atheist: No. I have not found ANY gods I believe in.
Pantheist: Don't you believe in nature?
Atheist: Arrrrrrghhhh!
.
.
.

You can see that simply defining God as something that has another definition is not really a definition of God. It is simply substituting "God" for another word. Suppose you decided to call trees wombats? If you told somebody, "I want a house near the woods because I love to sit under a shady wombat," then that person would rightfully look at you like you were crazy. They might do so even after you explained that you called trees "wombats".

I'm sorry if anything in this thread was insulting to atheists. I don't think that was the intention of anyone here.

I know it wasn't, and I wasn't at all insulted, but one of the things that most people of any persuasion find annoying is to have their beliefs defined wrongly by someone else. I know Christians get annoyed when somebody says, "So you're a Christian? That must mean you hate gays, right?" It is equally annoying to an atheist to be asked, "Why do you hate god?"

That is why most people here work very hard to eliminate strawmen.

Does that make the atheist position essentially agnostic?

As discussed below, there is a lot of overlap. By my definitions, it is possible, even likely, that most atheists are also agnostic. That's why we have to make sure people know what we mean when we use the words.

 

[D'rok]

I don't think anyone said they consider religious people idiots.

Fraid so:

If you are religious, you are an idiot.

I'm surprised the mods let this thread live initially.

 

[articulett]

that reminds me of a conversation I had somewhere... where I ended up saying, "yes, I believe there are things humans don't understand... no I don't call those things we don't understand god".

I guess I believe is some of the semantic gods... if "god is love" then I believe in love... but it ends up just getting silly so that someone can tell you why it makes sense for them to say they believe in god without having to define that god in a way that you find unbelievable.

 

[articulett]

Fraid so:



I'm surprised the mods let this thread live initially.

Oh. My bad. I don't agree with that, but I've been called much worse.

 

[Tricky]

I'm surprised the mods let this thread live initially.

Probably because it didn't attack any named person here. If we eliminated all of the threads that began with some variation of "Such and such kind of person is really stupid", then half the threads in Politics would be gone, along with quite a few here.

Besides, mods don't mod unless something is reported. I don't see that anyone here has flown into a fit of rage over DD's opening salvo. For such an inauspicious beginning, this thread has turned into a model of restraint and class by the more recent posters.

 

[Tricky]

I guess I believe is some of the semantic gods... if "god is love" then I believe in love... but it ends up just getting silly so that someone can tell you why it makes sense for them to say they believe in god without having to define that god in a way that you find unbelievable.

LOL. Yeah, that goes under the catagory of "When smart people say stupid things". I remember years ago when I first heard The Beatles sing "All You Need Is Love" on the Magical Mystery Tour album, I thought, "Cool! Can I have your royalties then?"