What actually do JREF religious believers believe?

[dafydd]

You're tossing out science because you think biology is dull and mundane?

Isn't biology important for pixies and elves too?

 

[punshhh]

No offense but, this is intolerable fantasy.

I can see now why Rose hasn't had disrespectful replies. She's just telling us how her god beliefs apply to her personally.

Punshhh in his post, on the other hand, is making an unsupportable claim about how he believes gods improve the world. It's hard not to react to that lie, especially when the world is in a round of excessive turmoil fueled by god believers who want their countries' laws and governments to follow the believers' religious beliefs and they are willing to kill anyone who opposes that goal.

I'm going to guess Punshhh believes his god beliefs are essentially different from the god beliefs of those in the Middle East that are currently fueling civil wars. I'm guessing he also believes, for some reason I'm sure he'll tell us, that the Christians in the Ugandan government are also 'different', when after encouragement from American Evangelicals that homosexuality is a sin, passed a law making homosexual acts a death penalty offense.


The 'gift' you speak of, Punshhh, reminds me of one of those gifts with the evil catch in the stories about entities that grant wishes and no matter how the human words the request some, the entity finds a way to add some horrible thing in with the wish. Religions are teaching the gift? Riight.

Well, now you've got that off your chest, let me correct you. I stated that humanity has the potential to improve the lot of life, not gods.

The gift I refer to is the expression of improving the lot of nature, (or more specifically in human culture of doing good) in the activity of a human.

 

[dafydd]

Well, now you've got that off your chest, let me correct you. I stated that humanity has the potential to improve the lot of life, not gods.

The gift I refer to is the expression of improving the lot of nature, (or more specifically in human culture of doing good) in the activity of a human.

You left out the bit about religions reaching this gift. Science does that, primitive superstitions do not.

 

[punshhh]

The scientific evidence says "spirits" are human invented fiction.

We've been over this before, it is only the mythological ideas about "spirits" which are a fiction. Any spirits or gods which may exist will exist regardless of the content of human fiction. As such tracing back the origin of those ideas does not answer any questions about the existence of "spirits", only answers about those human ideas.

 

[dafydd]

We've been over this before, it is only the mythological ideas about "spirits" which are a fiction. Any spirits or gods which may exist will exist regardless of the content of human fiction. As such tracing back the origin of those ideas does not answer any questions about the existence of "spirits", only answers about those human ideas.

Harry Potter may exist too, by your logic.

 

[punshhh]

You left out the bit about religions reaching this gift. Science does that, primitive superstitions do not.

Yes science may give us the means to improve the lot of nature. At the moment it is enabling us to diminish its lot. A bit of philosophy might be opportune if were to survive in any numbers for more than a couple of hundred years, or stave off a mass extinction event.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

Mark

The article you cited doesn't say remotely what you said in your posts.



versus

True. Guess that will teach me to not use hyperbole, eh?

Mea culpa. Point still stands, however.

 

[dafydd]

Yes science may give us the means to improve the lot of nature. At the moment it is enabling us to diminish its lot. A bit of philosophy might be opportune if were to survive in any numbers for more than a couple of hundred years, or stave off a mass extinction event.

Nah, we're doomed. God has it in for us.

 

[punshhh]

Harry Potter may exist too, by your logic.

I have covered this at depth in another thread. Harry Potter is an invention of the human mind. Such notions exist in the mind only and due to the evolved human condition are unlikely to exist elsewhere.

 

[dafydd]

I have covered this at depth in another thread. Harry Potter is an invention of the human mind. Such notions exist in the mind only and due to the evolved human condition are unlikely to exist elsewhere.

Spirits are an invention of the human mind too, very unlikely to exist elsewhere. Well done.

 

[punshhh]

That may indeed be, but as you pretty much lay it out yourself, I don't think many theists want to take that route.

For a start, as you say, that would put an event horizon between us and the creator. Then not only said creator wouldn't possibly know that you even exist inside that black hole, but even when you die, there's no information from or about you that can go OUT the event horizon to the creator.

Not to mention, that being able to make a black hole wouldn't mean he can also make a non-corporeal universe for you to live in forever. In fact, in any case, he'd be thoroughly unable to suspend the normal laws of physics for you, either before or after you die. Just because he can somehow dump a bunch of energy in one place doesn't mean he can also suspend the laws of physics every time you pray really nice, or indeed at all, ever.

Plus that brings us back to those questions of mine about whether a creator would actually care about you. I'm pretty sure that if the guys at the LHC sometime create a super-giant black hole, they'd have at most a theoretical interest in whether life can exist inside it, if the singularity in the middle goes unstable. They wouldn't feel deeply hurt that humanoid Xnorg in their black hole wanks in the shower, nor intervene if one humanoid girl in their black hole there is about to get raped. Again, they wouldn't even know it.

Even allowing for some kind of wormhole isn't really doing much, because that still wouldn't mean they have a view into every bedroom and dark alley and cave where someone got trapped by a cave-in. They'd have some viewport somewhere on the grand scale universe there, but that's about it.

What you'd get there is a deity which is the polar opposite of omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient and omnibenevolent. You'd have a creator with zero power, knowledge or even the faintest intent to hold your hand and see to it that everything turns right for you.

Would many people want a god like that? I seriously doubt it.

Nice illustration of my point about science making it difficult to see past QM, GR and maths, when considering notions like spirit or creators.

 

[punshhh]

Spirits are an invention of the human mind too, very unlikely to exist elsewhere. Well done.

See post 544 this is dealt with there.

 

[dafydd]

See post 544 this is dealt with there.

You basically said ''spirits exist'' People have been saying that for thousands of years, without a shred of evidence, only anecdotes and the primitive superstitions called religions. ''Dealt with'' is not the phrase that comes to mind.

 

[dafydd]

Nice illustration of my point about science making it difficult to see past QM, GR and maths, when considering notions like spirit or creators.

Why should science consider fictions like spirits or creators? You didn't get the point of the post.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I have covered this at depth in another thread. Harry Potter is an invention of the human mind. Such notions exist in the mind only and due to the evolved human condition are unlikely to exist elsewhere.

Spirits are an invention of the human mind too, very unlikely to exist elsewhere. Well done.

Mind boggling denial, IMO. God fiction is different.

 

[kerikiwi]

Such notions exist in the mind only and due to the evolved human condition are unlikely to exist elsewhere.

All notions exist in the mind only. That is what notions are: things that exist in the mind only.

The highlighted part makes absolutely no sense.
Every living thing is in an 'evolved condition', and that condition has no bearing on whether things imagined by people actually exist or not. I can imagine many things: some are real, some are not.

 

[punshhh]

Mind boggling denial, IMO. God fiction is different.

Don't you remember the last time we discussed this?

The notion of Gods that humans talk about is largely a fictitious or mythological construct. Any Gods which actually exist are not and as we don't know if they exist or not. The exposing of the fictitious nature of mythological gods does not help us to prove that they don't exist in a non fictitious form.

Tooth fairies and magical boys may live out there somewhere. But as they are a creation of human anthropocentric brain activity it would suggest that where they exist they are accompanied by human brains.

A creator God/god is one potential cause of the existence we find ourselves in and is not in principle anthropocentric.

 

[punshhh]

Why should science consider fictions like spirits or creators? You didn't get the point of the post.

It shouldn't, therefore using scientific concepts to discuss (or cloud) the issue is pointless.

 

[punshhh]

All notions exist in the mind only. That is what notions are: things that exist in the mind only.

Yes, so we should distinguish between notions and things that exist outside the human mind and discuss them separately.

The highlighted part makes absolutely no sense.
Every living thing is in an 'evolved condition', and that condition has no bearing on whether things imagined by people actually exist or not. I can imagine many things: some are real, some are not.

I shortened the point to such an extent that it will require teasing out. My point was that the human mind is a product of evolution and is therefore developed as a tool for the survival of the species in a terrestrial ecosystem. This conditioned state is what I am pointing to and is a primate coloured pair of rose tinted glasses.

A pair of tinted glasses we have no choice but to look through. Basically we look at existence through the eyes of monkeys.

 

[Mashuna]

Don't you remember the last time we discussed this?

I remember it as a combination of begging the question and special pleading.

The notion of Gods that humans talk about is largely a fictitious or mythological construct. Any Gods which actually exist are not and as we don't know if they exist or not. The exposing of the fictitious nature of mythological gods does not help us to prove that they don't exist in a non fictitious form.

Tooth fairies and magical boys may live out there somewhere. But as they are a creation of human anthropocentric brain activity it would suggest that where they exist they are accompanied by human brains.

A creator God/god is one potential cause of the existence we find ourselves in and is not in principle anthropocentric.

Hey, I was right!