What actually do JREF religious believers believe?

[Soapy Sam]

Well, I wonder if I qualify - I'm a member of the Lutheran Church of Finland and the Finnish Pietist Association, call myself a Pietist-agnostic, or Christian-agnostic, and I believe that it is exceedingly unlikely that there would be a god (or gods) in existence in the universe, and that it's not healthy to believe so. But I also believe that some interpretations of religion are very serious and very meaningful speech about the human condition, like the best art and best philosophy. Natural science after all is a pretty mundane affair: measuring and analyzing things that exist and establishing trustworthy, evidenced accounts of them. That's all fine and good as far as it goes, but it doesn't really say much anything about how we should react to this wild experience and those accounts.

Certainly you qualify- though I'd hardly describe you as " a believer".

I am aware that religion has at least two very different aspects; the spiritual and the social. I know several social Christians- people who use a church the way others use a camera club, a gym or an internet forum- as a social focus of their life, a place to meet and socialise with other folk.

This is not, to my mind, religious behaviour. It's social behaviour and extremely "normal" for humans.

It's the spiritual part that I fail to grasp. Spiritual is not emotional. I can get as emotional as anyone, whether about the sheer beauty of a night sky, the heart rending notes of "The Last Post" on remembrance day, or the sorty of gibbering hilarious pleasure I got when "Curiosity" pulled off it's skyhook manoeuvre to land on Mars.
But that's not spiritual. It's a sense of awe and a sense of sadness and a sense of fun and excitement. Nothing there of the numinous.

Science isn't dry at all so far as I'm concerned. Of course much research is a methodical hunt for data, but the results still amaze and excite me, whether it's new materials like graphene, or flat, glassless lenses or neutrino photos of the sun, taken through the Earth...How can anyone think this dull?

But gods? Meh.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

How so? Did not Jewish dietary laws protect against food-borne illness?

Complete myth, made up by Bible apologists. In truth, hand washing would have done wonders to decrease the spread of disease (nowhere to be found in JudeoChristian traditions though they care to wash feet) and all the pork needed was thorough cooking, not banning. There were no doubt many other illnesses spread in meat that would have been a more useful food to ban.

It's my understanding that food taboos merely serve to identify the group. "We don't eat pork, they do. We are better than them."

Weren't the 10 Commandments an early codification of rules for civil society?

1 through 4 of the commandments are useless rules to worship a particular god myth. And I'm pretty sure the other six were the cultural norm without the list.

Are you under the false impression societies didn't already have structure including rules? One need merely look at primitive tribal societies that still exist today to see adding something like the 10 Commandments would just be superfluous.

 

[Darth Rotor]

Religion provides a pretty terrible basis for improving the human condition.

Hmmm, the course of human history seems to be in opposition to your opinion.

An example was the utility of religion in Europe between the decline and fall of the Western Roman Empire and the eventual rise of the HRE, massively influenced the shape of Europe for the next millenium. Granted, there was a pretty profound mix of religion and politics.

You can argue that as a cohesive force or institution that it was imperfect, and make a good case. But it was useful and up to the challenge.

For Soapy Sam: I don't see any merit in the position that being Christian, druid, Hindu, wiccan, or Jew by necessity precludes the use of skepticism as a tool.
Neither did Hal Bidlack, in his appeal for big tent skepticism.

Just as there are varying degrees of religious practice and depth of belief, I suspect there are varying degrees of practice and application of skepticism.

I don't subscribe to the all or nothing model your OP seems to appeal to.

Hell, if I did, I'd never have posted here in the first place.
(Good Lord, look at my post count. Had I not started posting, think of the bandwidth that would have been saved!)

 

[Soapy Sam]

For Soapy Sam: I don't see any merit in the position that being Christian, druid, Hindu, wiccan, or Jew by necessity precludes the use of skepticism as a tool.
Neither did Hal Bidlack, in his appeal for big tent skepticism.

Nor do I. I didn't intend to suggest I do. Did you read me that way?
Indeed that's precisely my question. People like Rolfe, Kittynh, Hal, yourself are sceptical rationalists and in no sense stupid. I'm asking what they see in religion that I don't.

Just as there are varying degrees of religious practice and depth of belief, I suspect there are varying degrees of practice and application of skepticism.

I don't subscribe to the all or nothing model your OP seems to appeal to.

Hell, if I did, I'd never have posted here in the first place.
(Good Lord, look at my post count. Had I not started posting, think of the bandwidth that would have been saved!)

I have clearly mis represented my case somewhere. I totally agree that we all exercise different degrees of scepticism. I would expect though that we all are pretty much in agreement about some things- Homoeopathy can't work. Poltergeists are examples of misreporting of events, not violations of TLOP, and so on.
If we are to disagree, I'd expect it to be on matters of detail:- Maybe belief in an afterlife really is good for some people. Maybe chiropractic works for a specific range of conditions. Maybe there is some sort of high altitude squirrel that leaves yeti tracks. Edge stuff.

But religious belief is emphatically not an edge detail. It's central to much of human society. It dominates politics in many nations. And yet, to my eye, it's obviously as false as a brass transistor- pure, meaningless nonsense.

Now I can't prove that, but I can't prove there are no flying saucers either.

What I want to know is what is different about religion from other "woo" that lets it past the filters of some of the smartest and most rational individuals I know, while I dismiss it all, tens of thousands of years of historical belief and certainty, without a qualm.

I know it's not my towering intellect.

I know you ain't dim.

This cannot be a matter of intelligence. So what is it?

 

[Last of the Fraggles]

Hmmm, the course of human history seems to be in opposition to your opinion.

Well I suppose that might depend on what you class as 'improving the human condition'. I wouldn't include 'blind obedience to a set of rules written by people who knew less about the world than you do' as any kind of improvement.

 

[Soapy Sam]

One must also take into account how the human brain functions. We all like to think we have thought through and given weighty consideration to all subjects but in truth we seldom do. What tends to happen is that we hear a statement, true or false, we decide very quickly whether we believe it or not, and then we create our own narrative to support this new "truth."

So, believers have simply created their own narrative for why they believe and non-believers have created their own narrative as for why they don't. Most really haven't given it a whole lot of thought although to hear us talk, it is all we have done our entire lives. Each believes equally that their narrative is the truth because each freely accepts the information supporting their narrative and discard that which doesn't so we feel we have overwhelming evidence.

Our brains make up stories to fill in the blanks of the world around us. It works pretty well for allowing us to survive but not so well when we get down to the hard details of the real truth.

Oh aye. We all tell ourselves stories. One reason I have a fairly clear memory of my story on this subject is that I really wanted to be a minister, when I was about five. The Batman robes; the hushed reverence of the adult congregation; he even had a man who opened his book for him!. It all looked great to me.
But the stories he told just didn't ring true. The whole place reeked of hypocrisy, people going through a show for each others' benefit. It just felt downright weird. Not like the real world at all.

Concluding it was all daft was the earliest independent decision I ever made- and possibly still the best.

Much later of course, I realise that being an innate and instinctual atheist is no obstacle to rising in the hierarchy of the Kirk. Maybe I should have gone for it after all.

 

[Professor Yaffle]

This cannot be a matter of intelligence. So what is it?

I hung on to religion for quite a while (years) after I really realised it was nonsense. I think its more a matter of an emotional/community connection than anything to do with reasoning.

 

[Soapy Sam]

Prof. , that's the most honest and best answer yet and IMO the only one that makes much sense.
I find it hard to believe that I missed something fundamental about Christianity that would make me a believer if I had seen it.

I honestly find it hard to believe anyone else has either, though I'd be happy to hear about it if they have.

The overwhelming majority of people I know who claim to be religious appear to me to be social adherents of the type you describe. Of those who claim actual belief, I have yet to meet one who made or was even capable of making a coherent case for it. That's why I hope for better here, from people I know are able to clearly express a coherent argument.

There may be a kind of revelation or understanding of which I just am not capable. Any mathematics thread reveals that such exist. But I know some absolute numpties who claim religious conviction. I really don't think I'm incapable of those levels of understanding. But it's certainly possible.

 

[eight bits]

Sam

Thank you for the additional details about your thinking. Whatever beliefs people have about uncertain contingencies (that is, about pretty much any subject other than mathematics) reflect some mixture of what makes sense to them in general, and what evidence they know of that might bear on the particular contingency.

Some of the questions that have come up in the thread enjoy massive bodies of evidence which would swamp any estimate about whether or not some other answer would make sense. Santa and homeopathy were mentioned. For other questions, there is almost no bearing evidence. Supernatural ontology would be typical of that kind, as are many future contingencies. Who will win the 2013 NBA Championships? Is Goldbach's conjecture true? Do people have opinions about such things? Of course. Why shouldn't they?

People answer such questions, if they do, based on what fits best with other beliefs they hold, as they determine what "best fit" means. There is nothing else, or almost nothing else, upon which to base an answer.

It would be unreasonable to suppose that because somebody agrees with you about homeopathy or Santa Claus that they should also agree with you about the next basketball championship. They are different kinds of questions, not just in subject matter but also based upon the amount and unanimity of the available evidence in the Santa-homeopathy cases compared with the future contingency-supernatural ontology cases.

To some others who commented on my earlier post, apart from the above:


Last of the Fraggles

If it truly was a matter of opinion - such as what music they enjoy or their view on the Lord of the Rings movies then you might have a point.

Those are aesthetic preferences. Both preferences and also uncertain contingent findings may be described as matters of opinion. So I did.

I think Soapy Sam is right to point out that there is something interesting about being quite clearly able to see that 'there is no evidence this is true' for homeopathy and psychics but not being able or willing to say the same about God.

You and I agree about that. The OP is interesting. I suspect where we part company is that you find that circumstance surprising, while I find it routine, and would expect to find such disagreements wherever independent thought is allowed expression.

Ginger

Because it's hard to reconcile belief in god(s) with critical thinking.

It is often difficult to reconcile someone else's constellation of beliefs, and so maybe the thread will help. Deists believe in their idea of God, and they seem to arrive at their views by that very route you propose, thinking critically. "Thinking critically" in the absence of clear evidence is compatible with a wide variety of findings.

I didn't borrow your belief about homeopathy, I simply share your view, which I arrived at for reasons that have nothing to do with it being your view. In the absence of something external to both of us that bears on some question, in other words, with no evidence to coordinate our belief formation and modification, then why would any agreement between us be anything except fortuitous? Why would any disagreement be surprising?

 

[DreamingNaiad]

I would have thought agnosticism was the most rational viewpoint. Atheism a religion both make a claim that they know for definite a deity exists or doesn't exist. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realise that without evidence this is just a belief, not a fact.

I've never understood how people can demand evidence to back up a claim but then turn around and blindly insist that religion is fact or fiction. If I was asked for citation and told people to take a leap of faith my argument would be considered lost.

I remember being asked when I was younger if I believed in god and my response was something along the lines of "I won't know until I'm dead, will I? Why spend a life I definitely have worried about a life I might have later?"

The minister visiting our primary school wasn't impressed

One of my friends is considering returning to church. But just for the sense of community. If they asked her if she believed in god she would probably say that anything was possible then change the subject.

So while community explains people going to church, it doesn't explain why people believe in religion. They could just hang out and talk or start a book club.

It might be that people crave acceptance. There is nothing better than being in a group that agrees with you all the time and tells you're right. We can see that in religion, football, politics and many other things. Posting on forums too, probably.

Again this doesn't explain believing in the unknowable but quite frankly I've confused myself at this point.

 

[qayak]

Oh aye. We all tell ourselves stories. One reason I have a fairly clear memory of my story on this subject is that I really wanted to be a minister, when I was about five. The Batman robes; the hushed reverence of the adult congregation; he even had a man who opened his book for him!. It all looked great to me.
But the stories he told just didn't ring true. The whole place reeked of hypocrisy, people going through a show for each others' benefit. It just felt downright weird. Not like the real world at all.

Concluding it was all daft was the earliest independent decision I ever made- and possibly still the best.

Much later of course, I realise that being an innate and instinctual atheist is no obstacle to rising in the hierarchy of the Kirk. Maybe I should have gone for it after all.

My ex-wife told me that when she was a little kid her grandmother took her to a very conservative church for her first ever service. Apparently, when the dude walked in in his robes she leap up onto the pew and began singing the Batman theme at the top of her lungs which didn't endear her to the rest of the congregation, or her grandmother, who never took her to church again.

She dodged a bullet there.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

...
Ginger

It is often difficult to reconcile someone else's constellation of beliefs, and so maybe the thread will help. Deists believe in their idea of God, and they seem to arrive at their views by that very route you propose, thinking critically. "Thinking critically" in the absence of clear evidence is compatible with a wide variety of findings.

I didn't borrow your belief about homeopathy, I simply share your view, which I arrived at for reasons that have nothing to do with it being your view. In the absence of something external to both of us that bears on some question, in other words, with no evidence to coordinate our belief formation and modification, then why would any agreement between us be anything except fortuitous? Why would any disagreement be surprising?

The evidence overwhelmingly supports the conclusion gods are mythical beings humans invented. There is no evidence otherwise. So when people say they believe and come up with apologies like NOMa and Deism, that may be their prerogative, but that doesn't shake my conclusion about what the evidence supports. Show me contradictory evidence and I'll consider it. Claim you don't need any, fine, but I'm not wavering in my level of confidence just to be PC.

Deism is no more than trying to have a definition of god that is outside the natural universe. A Deist god is essentially irrelevant, and in addition, how would people be aware of said god if said god doesn't interact with the Universe?

 

[qayak]

I would have thought agnosticism was the most rational viewpoint. Atheism a religion both make a claim that they know for definite a deity exists or doesn't exist.

No, agnostics are just weak and/or lazy. They believe everything is equally possible when it comes to the question of god. The evidence for the Tooth Fairy, or Santa, is much more compelling than the evidence for god but agnostics reject the first two all the while claiming the last is "possible."

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I would have thought agnosticism was the most rational viewpoint. Atheism a religion both make a claim that they know for definite a deity exists or doesn't exist. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realise that without evidence this is just a belief, not a fact.

Sure, except you ignore the evidence we do have that gods are works of fiction. There is plenty of evidence people make god myths up. Why do you then need evidence against non-existent gods when you know the gods people do believe in are all fiction?


And what qayak said about being agnostic about Santa and the ToothFairy. You learn that both are fiction. Ergo....

 

[DreamingNaiad]

Sure, except you ignore the evidence we do have that gods are works of fiction. There is plenty of evidence people make god myths up. Why do you then need evidence against non-existent gods when you know the gods people do believe in are all fiction?


And what qayak said about being agnostic about Santa and the ToothFairy. You learn that both are fiction. Ergo....

What evidence is there against a god-like being? I didn't say the bible was fact just that we can't know what's out there. So why decide one way or the other?

 

[DreamingNaiad]

No, agnostics are just weak and/or lazy. They believe everything is equally possible when it comes to the question of god. The evidence for the Tooth Fairy, or Santa, is much more compelling than the evidence for god but agnostics reject the first two all the while claiming the last is "possible."

There's evidence for Santa or the Tooth Fairy!?

Also, you can say something is possible but not probable. So while I could agree that a god might possibly exist, I could still see it as unlikely.

 

[DreamingNaiad]

Until there is definitive evidence either way you can't say for certain whether a deity exist. You only believe they do or don't.

 

[psionl0]

For most of us most of the time, the phrase "it is scientifically proven" represents the entire justification for the things that we hold true. (Can you explain the general theory or relativity)? We go along quietly confident that we can drag up a scientific proof when necessary but the truth is that in our threescore and ten years, few of us will personally test more than a handful of the things we believe and even then, we will not prove anything to a mathematical certainty.

In light of this, it is not wise to rule anybody's beliefs a delusion just because they don't coincide with our own.

 

[qayak]

There's evidence for Santa or the Tooth Fairy!?

Also, you can say something is possible but not probable. So while I could agree that a god might possibly exist, I could still see it as unlikely.

By the same reasoning, fairies and fire breathing dragons exist, too. Do you live your life like they do?

You only see it as a reasonable argument when it applies to god because we have a cultural bias toward believing in gods. Apply the same reasoning to anything else and the absurdity becomes obvious.

Millions of kids all over the world get presents from Santa every christmas and mllions get money under their pillow, for teeth they have lost, from the tooth fairy.

Pretty shoddy evidence I admit but far better than the evidence for god.

 

[qayak]

Until there is definitive evidence either way you can't say for certain whether a deity exist. You only believe they do or don't.

You do realize that you have to apply this to all unknowable things right? So, we can safely say that you also believe in fairies, Santa, flying teapots, ghosts, pink elephants. . . ad infinitum?