Skepticism

[SSH]

Saying it is irrational is not stupid. Saying that 2+2=5 is irrational and saying 2+2 is not equal to 5 is not. You can' t use the "respect my beliefs" argument here.

Actually, 2+2=4 is PROVABLE from first principles, based on work by Bertrand Russell. You are unable to PROVE or DISPROVE the existence of anything metaphysical. They are hardly comparable. Love is irrational, but I bet everyone here believes in it. The story of Oscar Schindler is irrational, but I believe it. Irrationality is a STUPID reason to dismiss something.

if you want a paragraph telling you can not masturbate, you will find it, if you want  a paragraph saying that you may not marry people of your same gender, you can do it... But if you want to find paragraphs saying JUST THE OPPOSITE, you will find them

Where?

Actually, not, Stupot. I said that the facts are stupid. I never said that literalists are stupids

In the same way that saying "Your mother sells herself" isn't saying she's a whore, she just does whorey stuff.

No, it isn' t... But it' s ok.

Thanks for clearing that up. Now you've decreed, I realise how wrong I was.

Preciselly... Read your post again, and if you can' t see something weird in "I really don't understand why its hard to believe in a talking snake" discussion is over.

Ah, if we're going to quote partial sentences to try and make the other people look stupid:

throw me to the lions

If you insist!

[Andail]

Guys, if we're not gonna lock this, maybe step back and take a little break?

You're like spitting out posts right now and they're getting increasingly personal.

[Ozzie]

That "recpect it all" actually has never done. We do not respect one man who believes that killing virgins is good for his Karma, do we? We do not respect people telling Jews are fags and that we must gas them all, do we? We do not respect someone denying holocaust (We don' t... In many countries we imprison him even...) Which is good.

I am not trying to say that religious people are virgin killers, antisemites or holocaust negationists, ok? My point is just that "We never respected EVERYTHING".

It's one thing to have a personal faith/belief, but another to use it as a motive for your actions. Like I already said, it doesn't excuse crusades, terrorism or some actions of the Bush administration "in the name of god".
I wonder why you come back to this point, though.

[Nacho]

@Andail: Not me... (The personal stuff, I mean)

Okay I reply:

A) 2+2 is 4. I don't think it' s necessary to develope that more...

B) Okay... I think we all agree that there are sentences in Bible against masturbating and homosexual behaviour, no?

"Thou sall not throw your seed", "And Sodoma was punished because of its behave", etc, etc...

Ok: Sentences that can work for someone looking into the Bible looking for phrases supporting masturbation or homosexuality:

Jesus: "That, free of sin, throw the first stone". "Love one each other, in that way they will know you are my desciples"

Want more? We can look for "Sentences saying it is ok to kill" and "sentences saying it is not ok to kill", and go on, forever.

C and D are just rants, so, I don' t mind, I just accept it...

[Misj']

Man... Do I really have to say again that I don' t consider (even literalistics) stupids?

But, sorry... even your decided deffense of the 40 words chickens can say, the whole paradise story is a complete no sense... It' s a irrational story. The history of God alone in the "nothing", who become bored, created earth and created man from mud, then a woman, from his rib, because the man needed irrational story.

Mi no comprende this reaction (and mi no speake Spanish, but that's a different story (and I appologize if I just offended Spanish speaking people...or people who know Spanish speaking people)).

When would it be non-irrational in your opinion? - If one could show a possible mechanism by which such a cration were possible? - If one were to weigh all the options, and consider a creation (in the order as described in Genesis - to keep it Judeo/Christian (but we can also go to what the Hara Krishna believe if anyone cares to...I don't mind)) the most likely conclusion, would it than be non-irrational? - It is only irrational if you cannot come to a particular conclusion by rational means. Personally I believe that either origin idea (whether by a supreme being or not) is equally rational, since I can imagine people comming to either conclusion based on the knowledge of the life, universe, and everything that I have.

Fact is: I still don't understand your raction to my chicken story. So that makes me wonder: what is it you have against chickens? - Were you ever attacked by chickens when you were little? - Does El Pollo Diablo hount your dreams?

Ps. I'm so proud of myself that I managed to slip a Monkey Island reference into this thread

[Ghost]

And Ghost, you seem to keep saying "Nacho wants to focus this debate if Religion should sepparate from the State". No. I' ve mentioned religion classes, but the parent telling to its 3 years old kids is not "The State".

I didn't say that. And I can't "keep saying" something when my total posts in here amount to three (I think), each one having a different topic. Sorry for trying; I'll leave it be.

[Nacho]

I don't  mind your attempt to speak in Spanish, I appreciate it, actually! (It' s "Yo no comprendo" or "Yo no lo entiendo", though)

So... you want me to say why Genesis is irrational?

*Phew* Okay.

According to what we know about physics, Universe was created from a infinitelly small spot of infinite density and infinite gravity. It' s a physical inditermination, which means that physic laws do not exist there. It is an indetermination that was the beginning of time, and created our physic laws, which means that, if anything existed before that t-1, it was totally erased.

So, even if there was a God in the Big Bang, he was killed. Which means that he had no control over nothing from t=0, so, even what we thing if "IT" must be false, since he was not there to inspire us.

And because I know that the earth was not created in 6 days. And because I know all animals were created at the same time along those 6 days. Because I know (Or "all evindences tell me that..." if you preffer, and you can apply it to all the "I knows" you see here) that some other animals were extinted before the actual ones. Because I know that man was not created by mud, but by history of evolution.

Happy? I guess not, since you believe...

And well... You mentioned Hare Krishna... I don' t know why, a "deffense of christianism because there are even more nuts religions over there"? Some people tried that tactic... Which is a weird deffense, I think... You would be accepting "religion is nuts" (note the quotes), I don' t mind if there are another that are even more... If that is your argument, I agree... Some are more "unreal" than others, and some are more dangerous than others. I talked of "religion" and it it has moved to "Christianism" or "Bible" it' s been just because of the momentum of the thread... I could change "Christianism" for "Religion" if you want...

@Ghost: If you didn' t said that, I am sorry... That was the perception I had of your posts, a perception that can be totally flawed. I am sorry... I post from memory. There' s no need of you the leave this thread, if you don' t want.

[SSH]

According to what we know about physics, Universe was created from a infinitelly small spot of infinite density and infinite gravity. It' s a physical inditermination, which means that physic laws do not exist there. It is an indetermination that was the beginning of time, and created our physic laws, which means that, if anything existed before that t-1, it was totally erased.

So, even if there was a God in the Big Bang, he was killed. Which means that he had no control over nothing from t=0, so, even what we thing if "IT" must be false, since he was not there to inspire us.

And because I know that the earth was not created in 6 days. And because I know all animals were created at the same time along those 6 days. Because I know (Or "all evindences tell me that..." if you preffer, and you can apply it to all the "I knows" you see here) that some other animals were extinted before the actual ones. Because I know that man was not created by mud, but by history of evolution.

Well, all this is based on the concept that if you look at the current state of the universe (or biology, in the case of evolution) and look how it has changed since mankind has been measuring these things reliably (lets say a few hundred years to be on the generous side of the term "reliably") and then keep extrapolating from that backwards through time indefinitely. This makes some HUGE assumptions: that everything has always behaved the same way physically, that there isn't some huge external effect that is making things look like this but that earth is in some localised anomaly, etc., etc. But lets ride with those too at the moment. If there was a God capable of making that singularity that exploded in the big bang, why couldn't he have made every particle have the correct velocity and position AS IF that had happened some time before but actually hadn't? And why couldn't that have happened 600 years ago or whatever. Or with evolution, why couldn't he make it look as if there's been millions of years of evolution, but he made it look like that 6000 (or 34 as far as I'm concerned ) years ago?

I'm not saying that this did or didn't happen like that and of course it leaves the question of WHY do it like that, but  the point is that Christians believe in an all-powerful God, so deciding that X or Y is far fetched is missing the point.

[Khris]

1) Comparing the existence of love and the existence of god is silly. Plus, the believer doesn't want the existence of love to be proved, he wants proof that the non-believer loves e.g. their parents.
The important difference is that there's tons of evidence that a deep emotional bond we call love exists (even if it's just a chemical reaction of some kind), as opposed to zero evidence that a god exists.
Thus, no sane person would (should) deny that love does exist, and saying that there's very probably no god is equally logical, regarding the amount of evidence for both hypotheses.
In my book, believing in whatever deity you chose is fine, as long as you don't live life differently because of it. It all breaks down to Pascal's Wager, which is flawed in many ways. Look it up.

2) I'd like to remind everyone that the current bible was put together by people. Many centuries ago, church leaders got together and decided what's going to be in the book and what isn't.
Much more importantly: arguing about whether this or that bible passage is true is completely pointless.
This thread is about skepticism, i.e. "doubt concerning basic religious principles (as immortality, providence, and revelation)".
Why don't we stay on topic and a few believers start telling us why they chose to believe in God, if they DID choose consciously, at a mature age, that is. What I'd like to hear from the other believers is whether they think they'd still believe in their god if they were raised in another environment (an African tribe, or a Muslim/Hindustan country), and if not, why not?
The first step to understanding atheists is realizing why one doesn't believe in Shiva or forest wraths.

[Misj']

Happy? I guess not, since you believe...

When did I ever say or indicate that I believe? - I just said that I can understand why someone would rationally come to either conclusion.

So... you want me to say why Genesis is irrational?

No, I wanted you to say to which criteria an explanation should apply for you to be considered non-irrational. That is actually quite the opposite. I was challenging you to not to defend your own opinion, but to give an opening for other to explain you theirs. If you re-read my posts you will see that all I try to do is to be the 'voice of reason' (and yes, there is a pun there).

According to what we know about physics

I take your physics, and raise you quantum physics: it is known that an observer can change and even create (and create can be described as 'creating order') by observing (actually...it's even worse, the observer always changes the observed; so objectivity is actually impossible according to quantum mechanics and quantum physics...this again implies that quantum physics is not a true science, since science 'demands' objectivity. But that's a whole different story). 'Creation' on a quantum physical level occurs every day. This is nothing new. So that means that I can come up with a rational mechanism that would allow the creation by an intelligent being (were he to comprehend quantum physics in it's entirety...something which is way beyond the scope of human possibilities at the moment). Since there is an explainable mechanism (quantum and physical) even by means of our current understanding of the universe, I cannot consider anyone who accepts the story of creation as irrational. Anyone who sais that it is IMPOSSIBLE is (or lacks knowledge). That being said: the fact that something is possible does not mean that it also actually happened. That is a whole different ballgame.

And because I know that the earth was not created in 6 days. And because I know all animals were created at the same time along those 6 days. Because I know (Or "all evindences tell me that..." if you preffer, and you can apply it to all the "I knows" you see here) that some other animals were extinted before the actual ones. Because I know that man was not created by mud, but by history of evolution.

So based on the evidence you interpret it in a certain way. But that does not mean than if someone has the same evidence he or she will interpret it in the same manner. That would - thus - make you two equally irrational or rational.

And well... You mentioned Hare Krishna... I don' t know why, a "deffense of christianism because there are even more nuts religions over there"? Some people tried that tactic... Which is a weird deffense, I think... You would be accepting "religion is nuts" (note the quotes), I don' t mind if there are another that are even more... If that is your argument, I agree... Some are more "unreal" than others, and some are more dangerous than others. I talked of "religion" and it it has moved to "Christianism" or "Bible" it' s been just because of the momentum of the thread... I could change "Christianism" for "Religion" if you want...

The reason why I mentioned the Hare Krishna is because this I talk about creationism vs non-creationism independant of a religion. I did not judge the Hare Krishna (I did not say they are more nuts than christianity), I was objectively (as objectively as humanly possible) talking about creation or not. There was no judgement, there was no defence. There was only reason and objectivity.

Ps. I don't want to attack your believes, nor am I here to defend relgion or not. I'm just discussing whether or not someone can be religious (or if you want to pin-point it down: believe in the judeo/christian/muslimic deity) from a rational or intelligent background. And I do think that one can (although that doesn't imply that it also has to be true). And I do think that people who disagree (with the possibility of a rational faith) lack imagination. This was the original subject, and I try to stick to that.

[SSH]

The important difference is that there's tons of evidence that a deep emotional bond we call love exists (even if it's just a chemical reaction of some kind), as opposed to zero evidence that a god exists.

I've already explained how there is evidence. You need to perhaps understand what the word evidence means, as you are confusing it with proof.

In my book, believing in whatever deity you chose is fine, as long as you don't live life differently because of it.

So as long as I don't talk about it, go to church, pray or spend any time thinking or reading about theology its OK with you. Nice to see this tolerance you have come to the fore.

It all breaks down to Pascal's Wager, which is flawed in many ways. Look it up.

I'm sure I'd heard about it before you were even born. You're assuming very bad faith on the part of all believers on the basis of what, exactly?

I'd like to remind everyone that the current bible was put together by people. Many centuries ago, church leaders got together and decided what's going to be in the book and what isn't.

And an all-powerful god would be completely unable to influence that in any way, of course.

What I'd like to hear from the other believers is whether they think they'd still believe in their god if they were raised in another environment (an African tribe, or a Muslim/Hindustan country), and if not, why not?

Whatever people say is in answer to this likely to be biased and supposition anyway. It's easy to say "Yes, of course I would still believe". Its easy to imagine a situation where one could meet a missionary or see TV or something. Its easy to imagine a situation where that never happened, too.

[Ozzie]

1) Comparing the existence of love and the existence of god is silly. Plus, the believer doesn't want the existence of love to be proved, he wants proof that the non-believer loves e.g. their parents.
The important difference is that there's tons of evidence that a deep emotional bond we call love exists (even if it's just a chemical reaction of some kind), as opposed to zero evidence that a god exists.
Thus, no sane person would (should) deny that love does exist, and saying that there's very probably no god is equally logical, regarding the amount of evidence for both hypotheses.
In my book, believing in whatever deity you chose is fine, as long as you don't live life differently because of it. It all breaks down to Pascal's Wager, which is flawed in many ways. Look it up.

I'm sure everybody believes in love. Just as we all believe in belief.
....ehm, wait, this doesn't sound right, though that would be the right comparision.
So I think you missed the point there.
I compared love to faith, because the latter was deemed irrational. I thought this didn't describe the problem if there was any.
So it's not about believing in love, but the irrationality of it.
Faith in god is irrational, love is irrational.

[InCreator]

Nacho suggested that the people who DO take every word of the bible literally were "stupid", and he's been trying to defend that statement for 11 pages.  If you really beleive that Jesus actually turned water into wine, that he fed 5000 with two loaves and a fish, that Adam and Eve were tempted by a talking snake... then you certainly can't be called 'intelligent'.  But just because the word 'stupid' might be a slightly harsh term doesn't make it untrue... it VERY true.

No, damnit, no no.

Want to know what's stupid?
Taking an old book and saying that you have to do whatever book says.
Decide over good and bad, people and things over this book.

I see NOTHING harsh in saying that doing this is stupid, if you're really obsessed with idea that every single word is pure gold. In case of Bible.

But it's not all black and white. Humans have always set themselves a "book" to live by. What about constitution? Laws? We all follow some book.

Now, believing into greater forces than man, I see nothing stupid here.

Modern science classifies as a religion too. At least in terms of believability. The more you learn chemistry, physics or whatever from same area, the less you see holy aura of "very important and concrete" and much more than it's all so theoretical and every law is actually relative, and there's more exceptions than proof in any scientific base.
People who say "science knows all" are stupid also. No, I don't think the bible knows it all - but neither does any alternative. Like science. Simply, one has more to touch and feel, so I chose this one.


I'm personally not against religion or following the Bible or whatever book of that matter. From my rock, people who live in wonders of modern era and still think that god took 6 days to create all matter, damn, be as offended as you want, I think you have a screw loose. I think so. I don't ask you to like me or be happy with this, I don't hate your or try to change you or anything. This is simply how I feel. Look, sorry, ok? If you don't agree with me, do whatever you like and be happy as you want.

But for my hysterical post above, well. I took random "oh god I'm so offended, must protect my almighty lord with my wise and angry word over internet"-type of religious poster here and replaced <insert religion name> with "science".
Sarcasm? Likely.
There's a bit truth in it anyway, I feel. And addressed anyone who would go for idea that me (and similar thinkers) being not politically correct over the issue is being a "dickhead".

As I said in first response in this thread, a grand soap opera is default way those threads tend to play out.

For my math and logic posts, to be honest, I tried to bring some fun into this really long and unreadable thread...  : and sabotage Nacho's crusade 

But I can take advantage from this now saying that from this simple scientific standpoint, I don't see heaven as a possibility. From higher science, it's actually possible I think... how many dimensions we know exist?

So to suggest anything, take it less seriously, please. No internet word could stray a true believer and if I was religious, I wouldn't really give a damn what atheists say. I would still argue, argument or joke about it like I do in whatever debate, but for exploration and pure fun of it. Not to change people or world or something.

[Khris]

SSH:
Are you trying to say that there's evidence a god exists? Please clarify. I'm pretty sure I'm not confusing evidence with proof, btw.

When I say "as long as you don't live life differently because of it", I'm saying it shouldn't influence your life in a negative way, how is that intolerant? It's my view of going through life like this.

Pascal's Wager is often cited by believers, and since you've mentioned you believe to be saved because you believe, your argumentation for why you believe is very similar to his (and equally flawed IMO, of course).

Are you implying an all-powerful God made the church guys behave in such a way that the resulting book reflects his word? Why would an all-powerful, omniscient God "create" such a self-contradicting, time-specific book as the bible? Why didn't He formulate a simple, clear message that can be understood by everyone? Why an ambiguous collection of rules that can interpreted practically any way you like?

Whatever people say is in answer to this likely to be biased and supposition anyway. It's easy to say "Yes, of course I would still believe". Its easy to imagine a situation where one could meet a missionary or see TV or something. Its easy to imagine a situation where that never happened, too.

How does that counter the point I was trying to make?

[Sam.]

I don't know if I'm allowed to do this, it is technically on the topic of scepticism but there is something else that has been bugging me in this thread, and I wondered what other people's opinions were, especially some of the religious members.

Nacho mentioned something earlier about "thou shalt not throw your seed"
He also equivocated this to mean that you shouldn't masturbate. But it doesn't actually say that. Couldn't it just be about throwing away valuable crops or something?

The interpretation of the bible and other religious texts is something that has always confused me, where do the interpretations come from, and what gives them authority. I mean, in my opinion the Bible itself cannot possibly be the direct word of god, it is at the very least (supposing a God's existence of course) going to be the writer's own interpretation, so it is surely subject to bias from the outset? And then if it is interpreted wrongly by preachers/religious believers, how do the texts retain any value?

I am in no way trying to undermine the authority of such texts, it would just be interesting for me to know what people think of this?

Also I thought it might be a nice way to get away from personal feuds?

Feel free to tell me to eff off.

[Nacho]

I am happy that this debate is being re-conducted into something profitable!

I am specially happy that SSH used an emoticon (This one--->  )in a post directed to me. It is the way I wanted this discussion to go, and I deeply apology for the times where my behaviour made it not going that way, if I did...

Now...

@SSH: Physics allways behave in the same way. In the way particles behaved in the initial instants of big bang there was hidden a secret code of how things would be in the future.

In time=0 everything could have happened. If any particle changed it' s possition, things could fall up, and not down, in this universe, and we wouldn' t see it like "weird". In time=0.000....1 the rules for how the biggest were going to behave were set. In an instant our physic model was here. There'  s no room either (IMO) to say: "See? God was there to make this complicate indetermination in order, directing it to take us preciselly to the place where we are" because if that indeterminations behaved different and physics were different, there would have been another "Universe" where everything would be seen as "normal", even if "weird for us, (The "things falling up" example).

There is no room, according to what we know now, and apparently that knowleadge can be increased, but not substantially changed, to say "Assuming everything behaved the same allways is a HUGE assumption". It is not... things allways behaved the same, physically, in non microscopical terms. That theory also implies that, if there was something before Big Bang, it' s been erased. Big Bang it' s a "tabula rasa".

The "We don' t know what happens in indeterminations" thing (Sorry, I can' t recall who said it) is not a valid example. What happens in indetermination, like Hawking radiation that can escape from Black Holes travelling at hyper-lightspeed, does not affect us, but the smallest particles. It is like if you tell to me that a cell in my brain is going to explode because a fish in the Chinese sea is swimming south. It simply does not affect. Its range is limited. It' s like saying that you can get burned by the shine of the star that is out of the solar system, and I was there, measuring it' s radiation and telling you "Meassures say 0. Atmosphere does not allow the tiniest effect of that star to enter here".

They are not good examples, since the light of the stars would be entering in my eye, I couldn' t see it otherwise, or "the fish could affect you in a weird "butterfly" effect", but my point is that indeterminations, or what happens in quantum mechanics can't "affect" us.

My last point is about the "You can' t explain love either". Well... I can' t, because I haven' t focused on this, but love has a rational, evolutive and cultural explanation. "Love" is explained by something happening in our body, (difficult to explain), but not inexplicable. Please, don' t make me google for "Physiological explanation for love", but I will if you want. That "happening in our bodies" has been turned by the evolution and our culture into the Occidental idea of gentle, platonic love. But that physiological thing happening in another places of the world did not end in the same place where we (Occidentals) are. Muslims can marry three women. In certain tribes of Africa "real love" is just between males, women are just to lie with them for a night and have babies. Love is not equal everywhere because "love" is not something metaphysical that sprouts magically in our souls.

Like God. If you want to explain the concept "God", using "Love", think it twice because you are opening your own tomb. God was not an unique concept that magically sprouted in the minds of everybody, at the same time, as we could expect of something "superior" to happen. "God" is cultural.

First Godesses were fat ladies (Paleo Venusses). Troglodytes thought that God was giving women big hips to have healthy strong kids.

In some other places "God" was a thunder. In some others "God" was a river... Centuries after we had the polytheism and some centuries after we had the Monoteism. Nowadays some people believe in Allah, some other in Yahve, some others in God (This three are supposed to be the same, but we hate the other sides more than any others...), some others believe in Vishnu, some others in Druidism and some others in Manitou. How can "a real Omniscent God" allow that? All the evidences show is that we are facing a cultural developement, perfectly documented. Like love...

So, if you want to go on with this "Love and God is the same", I concur. Both are cultural conventions, one took us to marry with a person of the opposite sex, and the other took us to look to the skies and tell "there' s someone there superior".

And Zoot... don't show your ignorance in such a obvious manner please... The "seed" thing was told by God when punishing Onan when He caught him performing a "coitus interruptus". So, yes, God was meaning "semen" when He said "seed", and he was punishing him for that. Every "sperm" is sacred for God, and every wasted drop is a Sin... 

[Sam.]

So instead of asking questions I should pretend I know everything?

What a wonderful idea.

I have tried to join in this debate in a constructive manner, but you seem to be determined to prove yourself the most intelligent person here, so I'll leave you be.

[Nacho]

Googling a bit before assuming that I was wrong could save you from showing your ignorance, yes... I mean a "Which is that episode of the bible you are talking about, Nacho" should have been better that "You are a silly idiot who doesn' t know what is talking about, man... I am sure the Bible was talking about crop, or something else. I mean... it said "seed". It had to be something vegetal!!!" 

[Sam.]

You are addictive to argue with.

I wasn't assuming you were wrong, not at all, that wasn't my question, I was just trying to find an example in the thread of somewhere where the bible is open to interpretation. I did that so I could raise a question that I genuinely think about. I thought that was clear from my post, evidently not. 

So, as to my earlier question, does anybody have any opinions?

EDIT: With added secret sarcasm code!

[Nacho]

Man... When somebody wants to argue does not use this----> 

Got it?