Summer means no religion or politics?

[Andail]

Nacho, sometimes I think that you - the Internet-you at least - simply don't understand when you're being provocative and inappropriate.

Those who believe in God have such a deep throath to swallow illogical things that it's just silly to try to convince them of something different.

The spirit of my post is that "God" is such an unbelieverable that, if someone does believe in it, he/she is a lost case. If someone understood something different, I apology.

We don't need to understand it differently; it is exactly what you wrote that is provokative.
A large part of this community is bound to believe in some sort of deity, but people stay away from these threads because the tone is so harsh.

You spend so much time with your clique of mega-atheists that you perceive every one who's even close to religious as an uttery illogical person, worthy of your mockery. I don't see what drives you to behave like this.

[Nacho]

Okay. Now, explain me why saying something of "X" is not provocative, and saying EXACTLY THE SAME about "religion" is.

Thanks.

[Lionmonkey]

Football gives me a feeling of belonging. I see people who likes my team, I share moments with them, I worship my team with them every weekends. I feel comfortable with F.C. Barcelona... I like football because it makes my life better, not because there is a supernatural being above.

I believe that some people believe in their religion for the very same reason.

About the whole "believing in something unproveable" thing, I must say that, actually there is nothing that cannot be disproven.
Let's take microorganisms for example. Let's imagine a dialogue between a believer and a non-believer:
- Now, why would you believe in their existence?

- Because that's what they taught you at school, on Biology lessons!

- But what if the teachers lied to you, deliberately or not?

- But the smart books, websites and TV shows say there actually are these very small life forms!

- But what if all the writers, web-designers and TV personalities also lied?

- But I have seen the proof through the microscope! They really do exist!

- How do you know the microscope showed you what you think it did? How do you know that you can trust your eyes. Eventually, how can you  know that you, this world and these microorganisms actually exist? That it isn't a dream of some freak creature from a freak universe?

You cannot prove anything. You can only choose in what to believe. And you choose to believe in what makes you feel comfortable or happy or gives you something else.

So is it more offensing to be laughed at for believing in a God than in smurfs and unicorns? I think not. I think it's equally offensive, because you laugh at person's choises. The choises that are only up to that one individual to evaluate and make.

[Nacho]

Yup, but you will agree with me that, if someone here says "I believe in Unicorns", no one will complain. No moderator will threat to lock the thread, there won't be a mainstream of non unicorn believers saying "hey! Respect the guy who believes in Unicorns". Non believers in Unicorns defending the unicorns believers... Can you imagine that???

Do you imagine DG MacPhee saying "Hey... relax... If the guy likes George Bush, he has the right to do it".

I do not, either.

As you see, Lionmonkey, religion has some advantages that some other beliefs do not have.

That' s what annoy me, not religion per se.

[Andail]

Jesus...
Everyone's entitled to their opinion!
And everyone's entitled to question that opinion!
But everyone is not entitled to call other people stupid, illogical, lost cases!

I seriously don't understand how you can ignore the fact that you're being offensive and impolite. Read the parts I quoted above. Those are the parts where you're being inappropriate.
If the mere thought that people believe in God(s) upset you so much, then do what you've promised and avoid these threads!

I just wish that once, just for once, religion could be discussed here without everything boiling down to the you-can't-prove-that-God-exist-ergo-religion-is-wrong. Surely there must be some other aspects of religion that we can talk about, without every other post being a disclaimer that God cannot be proven! That's why I threaten to lock this thread, because it's basically just about you displaying your contempt towards religious people.
People everywhere are religious, people in this very community, Nacho, that's why we must discuss respectfully and as adults.

[Tuomas]

Funny you should mention it, but it really seems at times, that there are less people that really believe than you'd think. But once you start asking about, it really is something people don't shout at others so often. It's a personal thing, as I have understood. I mean, a thread like this attracts people who have strong opinions about shouting out their views: about how God does not exist. And there's no reason for someone who believes in God personally to come here and shout about it. then reading the thread we'll easily make the assumption, that almost everyone here is a nonbeliever, yet there are only a selected few from the forums that even bother to write on this thread after the question arose.

The same applies to everything really. At a different forum there was a thread about why people dislike growling as singing. After 8 pages, there were no posts, NONE what so ever indicating, that someone would not like it. In fact, everyone would just think it was great. I brought this up, and after that, we got a lot of posts from people who stated their opinion which was negative, as was mine.

But back to the original question. I select my friends. Not consciously, but in a way, some just stay there, while others find new people to hang around with. Only one of my closest friends is part of the church anymore, we aren't. But I know a lot of people who would never consider leaving. Most say that they do believe, and I do believe myself, that the 85% is almost correct, if a bit high for Finland, but close. Most people I know are religious, even though my family from my father's side is not.

It's like sitting in a bar wondering, who the hell listens to Shakira, I don't know anyone who'd listen to Shakira. Yet the artist sells thousands of records. You have to remember, that you don't always hang around in the fruit bowl.

[discordance]

Phew, this was the last place I expected to find a heated religious debate. There must be some kind of Internet law that every forum gets at least one.

Anyway, many people don't just believe in God because of creepy social conditioning. Actual experience, for one thing. It still happens. And back to the question of morality that died about two pages ago: If there is no God, where did our sense of ethics originate? The idea that it's good to protect the weak and helpless, for instance. When did that spring up? It doesn't make any sense from an evolutionary standpoint.

I guess my point is that belief in a God isn't at all the same thing as a belief in Luke Skywalker. It's sometimes logical to believe in things you can't see or understand if they still affect you.

And I believe in unicorns. They are awesome. Healing-horn powers.

[Vince Twelve]

[discordance]

I have that shirt. It really works. GAY = POWER!

[Tuomas]

Actually I'd love to wear pink speedos and die my hair blonde...But I can't, I'm married!

This bothers me... Is your wife a nazi fascist? what's wrong with pink + blonde?

And back to the question of morality that died about two pages ago: If there is no God, where did our sense of ethics originate? The idea that it's good to protect the weak and helpless, for instance. When did that spring up? It doesn't make any sense from an evolutionary standpoint.

Before the war breaks out, I'd like to point out, that as a question, this is a good one. Or well, there are more of them. I mean, not rethorically, but they're really something to consider. as far as I know, evolution doesn't explain morality. Or does it? Did I once hear about a thingie in the head of ours that emits empathy-goo. Something that makes you feel alike with the people/animals you hack'n'slash? I mean, morality is part of, do onto others as you would have others do onto you, right?

[Phemar]

I'm with Nacho. I agree with everything he's said so far and do not think he's insulted anyone or made attacks on anyone.

As it's been said, it's prefectly alright to question the belief, and that's all that Nacho's been doing. He's been questioning the irrationality of a belief in a higher being by comparing it to various things.

And irrelevant of where you stand within your beliefs, one has to admit that the belief in God is irrational. It's an illogical thing to believe in -- And that's not an offensive comment. It's fact. Even if you believe you have to admit that your belief is irrational, whether you like it or not.

Edit: Btw, if God did instill us with a sense of morality, he did a pretty hack-job of it.

[discordance]

Or we did a hack-job by ignoring it.

Evolutionary science does have some explanations for morality insofar as they preserve the species -- or rather, because they preserve the social structure that supports us.

That doesn't explain, though, the fact that self-sacrifice is commonly regarded as a crowningly awesome thing to do. I think most people would agree that dying to save someone else would be supremely ethical -- that sounds cheesy but I'm not sure how else to put it. Yet it doesn't make any sense evolutionary-wise, since our main instinct is supposed to be the survival of our genes.

[Vince Twelve]

Perhaps we all like to say "Ooh, it was so gallant of that guy to give his life to save ten people." and "I would totally have done it as well, were I in his place." But in actuality, our evolutionary sense of self preservation would kick in and stop us from doing so.  We just say that it was gallant in the hopes that someone, in a similar position, would give themselves up to save us.  Thus, declaring that self-sacrifice is somehow noble, we're actually just selfishly protecting our own life.

I think saying that ethics or morality could only have been bestowed upon us by a god is a very dubious assertion.

[discordance]

But throughout history, there have been people who gave up a lot (e.g. their lives) to help other people, at no apparent benefit to themselves. Why did they do that? Insanity? Peer pressure? Obviously the self-preservation instinct sometimes fails to kick in.

If you saw someone drowning, to choose a terribly cliched example, do you think it would be right to jump in and try to save them? You'd have one instinct that says, "no, I must not risk my life", and another that says, "go pull him out, it's the right thing to do". Which one wins? Sometimes, number two wins. Is that really always some convoluted hope that if you do that someone else might later do it for you? Like maybe if you give the eagle a mutton chop he'll pull you out of the roc's nest later on?

[Lionmonkey]

And irrelevant of where you stand within your beliefs, one has to admit that the belief in God is irrational.

I doubt, that anything in the world is rational.

[Phemar]

Everything stems from our own selfish desires. We do it because it makes us feel good about ourselves. We're feeding our own egos - pure narcism.

[LimpingFish]

Questioning the irrationality of believing in a God, and ultimately declaring that belief as irrational are two different things.

Also, religion is not God. The validity of Organized Religion and the existence of God are separate arguments.

[Khris]

KhrisMUC, yet I don't see people fighting over unicorns. You stopped believing but others didn't, and the seed was planted in you, you just have to let it grow again.

What seed?
The only thing that grows inside people are tumors, those nasty things that kill people in really ugly ways, all in accordance to God's plan, I assume.

discordance:
The idea that if there was no god, everybody would behave like an amoral egoist is very wrong. Being bad to other people is inseperatably connected with feeling pain, as much as being good is connected with feeling joy. Happy people are much more prone to procreate; a primitive, isolated society a few thousand years ago surely was much more likely to flourish and expand if they helped each other rather than kill off themselves over food.
Maybe morality is just a further developed parental instinct.


The existence of religions can be explained very easily using basic psychology (we don't want to die, we want to be taken care of, we want to know why we're here). It's hard to face the fact that we have to die and will turn into rotten, smelly stuff, that there's no one watching out for us except ourselves and that there's no purpose to the existence of the earth or us, but that's the way it is.

Sure, there are many people who claim some personal religious experience, but all those can be explained easily by science, too. The brain is conditioned to see patterns everywhere. A sound in the dark turns into a whisper, randomly burned toast or bird shit turns into images of Mary, and being really lucky turns into a prayer being granted.

To see any of this as evidence for god, one must deliberately ignore the more reasonable explanations. Just look at those ridiculous biblical literalists/creationists. They're so desperate to fit all those awesome discoveries and fossils into their narrow, pathetic world view that they constantly make fools of themselves.

Moderates are barking up the same wrong tree, just not nearly as loudly.


Lionmonkey:
The stance that nothing can be proven because we could all be the product of a dream, etc., etc. isn't going to lead you anywhere. If that were the prevailing world view, any progress would come to a screeching halt.
It's very, very likely that there's a very definite reality and we're all part of it.
Just because some hypothesis might be true doesn't always mean it's worth being considered a realistic alternative or even investigated.

[Lionmonkey]

@ Phemar and KhrisMUC: I'm glad there's someone else who shares my cynisism on subject of empathy.

@ The last part of above post: Our existence can ultimately be neither proven, nor disproven. That's why, in order to not take a huge risk, we just have to act the same, we would if we knew for sure the world is real. Just in case it is. That is my opinion, a win/win, I think.

[miguel]

EDIT: Miguel, I can't see bitterness in the posts and no insults either..
Really? You don't?

KhrisMUC, please be serious, you're smarter than that. God's plan is very simple but I will not bother to tell you about it.

There are very different ways to live a life. I chose not to mock what others believe.
All I could see from the recent posts is that Andail,Babar and LimpingFish are being adults about it.
Vince, you're just being mean.

There are some confused people around this thread that I want to speak to,
if a child is raised into a religion, no mater what that may be, doesn't mean the grown man will follow it. Actually, during teenage years (who many of you haven't overcome yet) the same individuals tend to rebel against it. The grown man, and I mean the man that is responsible for others, will then chose what to believe. This is logical.
And please stop talking like you're living in the desert and you had to follow this weird cults since you were born!
You don't, you live in a modern world society! Now, learn how to be nice to others!