Imagine No Religion- Page 7
Imagine No Religion
FindingNamo
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/22/03
#150be excellent to each other
Posted: 12/11/07 at 6:53pmNo, that's just the first point. The second point is to control your behavior and other people with undeliverable promises of something you'll never collect on (ie, hitting the jackpot in the great casino in the sky).
#151be excellent to each other
Posted: 12/11/07 at 6:56pm
The thing is, many people have claimed to see ghosts just as many people haven't. They've gone through the pains of collecting and analyzing data. A lot have had repeated experiences, and after five times of seeing the same thing someone isn't going to write it off as being tricked.
Afterlife itself isn't something that is just used in terms of ghosts. I was just using that to show one way in which afterlife can be argued for.
#152be excellent to each other
Posted: 12/11/07 at 6:57pm
Not really, Namo. . people who are atheist are because they believe there is no god and they believe that they are right, but they don't believe in no casinos in the sky.
And again, you can't prove ANY religion beyond a shadow of a doubt, because then there wouldn't be any. For all we know both of you could be wrong.
#153be excellent to each other
Posted: 12/11/07 at 7:00pm
That reminds me of something I remember reading about called Pascal's Wager. A person can bet on four possibilities:
We don't believe in God and he doesn't exist.
We believe in God and he doesn't exist.
We don't believe in God and he exists.
We believe in God and he exists.
#154be excellent to each other
Posted: 12/11/07 at 7:04pm
Personally, without religion in my life, I would feel a bit misguided.
I feel like a decent person, "despite" my religion...and at the same time I fully recognize how religious doctrine can be perverted.
It's all a matter of personal choice, no matter what actions are taken to perform a religious obligation, the doer makes the choice himself.
#155be excellent to each other
Posted: 12/11/07 at 7:07pm
"No, that's just the first point. The second point is to control your behavior and other people with undeliverable promises of something you'll never collect on (ie, hitting the jackpot in the great casino in the sky)."
Do you know that we'll never collect on it? In the end, they don't force us to believe (especially today); it comes down to personal decision. If someone truly believes, it is because they wanted to, not because the Church made them.
#156be excellent to each other
Posted: 12/11/07 at 7:09pmPersonally - I trust my Magic 8 ball for guidance - but I will definately make sure I am buried with my Bingo dobbers, just in case.
FindingNamo
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/22/03
#157be excellent to each other
Posted: 12/11/07 at 7:11pm
"people who are atheist are because they believe there is no god and they believe that they are right"
Noooooooooo. You're applying the religion template to people who have no need to believe in magic, which like ghosts, doesn't exist either. It's a common pitfall, most frequently voiced as "Atheism is a belief and practically a religion itself!" Nice soundbyte, but unsound reasoning.
"Personally, without religion in my life, I would feel a bit misguided."
That's a shame. But you probably would have turned out all right anyway. I have faith in you.
#158be excellent to each other
Posted: 12/11/07 at 7:14pm
"Noooooooooo. You're applying the religion template to people who have no need to believe in magic, which like ghosts, doesn't exist either. It's a common pitfall, most frequently voiced as "Atheism is a belief and practically a religion itself!" Nice soundbyte, but unsound reasoning."
Technically, Atheism is just as much belief as Christianity is. It's the belief that God does not exist, not necessarily a religion, but certainly a belief.
#159be excellent to each other
Posted: 12/11/07 at 7:22pmI don't share your point of view, but I completely understand it. I think atheism is a belief, but I could be wrong.
Phyllis Rogers Stone
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/16/07
#160be excellent to each other
Posted: 12/11/07 at 7:26pmIt's not a belief system, though, like religion is. It doesn't have rigid dogma and religion does.
#161be excellent to each other
Posted: 12/11/07 at 7:29pm
Which is why it is not a religion. It's belief.
On an ironic note The New York Times had an advertisement for "The Atheist Bible" as a wonderful holiday gift.
DG
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/2/05
#162be excellent to each other
Posted: 12/11/07 at 7:32pmWhile I certainly understand the concept of not believing in 'magic' - I am curious about the thought process that allows someone to completely deny the existence of something we might just not understand. We have limited understanding of our own world, and an even more limited understanding of its place in the 'known universe'. What kind of hubris does it take to absolutely declare that something 'cannot be'
#163be excellent to each other
Posted: 12/11/07 at 7:35pm
Maybe it's a sort of faith. If I have faith or belief in something such as what you mentioned, someone can have equal faith and belief that that something doesn't exist.
The difference between belief and fact are two different things, though. We can believe that God does or does not exist, but no one knows for sure. Which is where faith comes into play...
#164be excellent to each other
Posted: 12/11/07 at 7:37pmYay, DG! I love it when an older and more intelligent person flies in and makes my point for me.
FindingNamo
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/22/03
#165be excellent to each other
Posted: 12/11/07 at 7:40pm
Because, every single day scientists get closer to unlocking the "mysteries" that we would "never" be able to understand because we lowly humans have "have limited understanding of our own world" and only The Creator (who is all-knowing, and all-seeing and somehow simultaneously simpler [God is LOVE] and more complex [God would have to be even more complicated than the most complicated systems that have evolved over millennia in order to CREATE them all in the first place] depending on what position you're arguing.
Scientist are probably a decade away from creating life in a test tube. CREATING LIFE. It's no wonder fundamentalists denounce, belittle and in some cultures outright ban science.
"Technically, Atheism is just as much belief as Christianity is," GuitarGirl, when I make a point about something being a soundbyte but unsound reasoning and I explain why, please don't rephrase and repeat it.
DG
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/2/05
#166be excellent to each other
Posted: 12/11/07 at 7:40pm
Oh, Soapy, Darling - I completely reject the 'more inteligent' designation - hell, some of my posts on this board (if not most) illustrate that!
I wish I could reject the 'older' thing, as well - but, facts are facts 
I just really don't get the assuredness on either side of this centuries-old debate.
#168be excellent to each other
Posted: 12/11/07 at 7:44pm
Which is exactly what is believed: God is more complicated than we can comprehend, which is why there is debate over his existence. And we could create life in a tube, but only using resources we already have. Who or what created the very first cell?
""Technically, Atheism is just as much belief as Christianity is," GuitarGirl, when I make a point about something being a soundbyte but unsound reasoning and I explain why, please don't rephrase and repeat it."
Well then, tell me why it is so unreasonable? I find it pretty reasonable. It's not unreasonable enough for you to condescend someone like that.
FindingNamo
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/22/03
#169be excellent to each other
Posted: 12/11/07 at 7:45pmBuilding your life and "beliefs" on something that can not be proven to even exist is irrational. Being a rationalist doesn't put one in the position of "having to disprove" that the thing irrational people have faith in DOESN'T exist. That's their problem.
#170be excellent to each other
Posted: 12/11/07 at 7:48pmJust because someone believes in God doesn't make them irrational. Building your life on something you can't prove doesn't exist can be considered just as irrational. Those who are religious are just as rational as those who aren't.
DG
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/2/05
#171be excellent to each other
Posted: 12/11/07 at 7:54pm
"Those who are religious are just as rational as those who aren't."
Hmmmm - it seems to me that 'those who are religious' are basing a life around some kind of construct. My contention is that no one knows enough to make ANY kind of construct.
The only thing that makes sense to me at this point is saying, "Who knows?"
FindingNamo
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/22/03
#172be excellent to each other
Posted: 12/11/07 at 7:55pm
"Building your life on something you can't prove doesn't exist can be considered just as irrational."
First off, you just keep repeating the points I make back to me, while trying to reverse them. Which doesn't work.
And to go back to the first point of mine that you repeated back to me, rationalists don't "build their lives on something they can't prove doesn't exist." As I just said, it's not the rational person's JOB to prove that a non-existent thing an irrational person shrugs off and calls "faith" is non-existent.
#173be excellent to each other
Posted: 12/11/07 at 7:58pmI think that it's irrational of you to call people who believe in God, or are religious, irrational. If you make it your life's goal to prove that they are irrational for having faith, perhaps you are a bit irrational yourself, devoting so much time to condescending a group of people who, for the most part, are likely to be very rational people if you took the time to at least consider their point of view. Not to believe, but to hear them out at not condemn them immediately to being crazy or "irrational", which is an insult.
#174be excellent to each other
Posted: 12/11/07 at 8:01pm
I've been getting a tone in the last few posts that you look down on people who believe in something. I've been ignoring it because you can never tell over the internet, but you've made it pretty clear with that last post.
A belief that no greater being exist is based on what exactly? Science? Test tube babies? Last time I checked sex/humans created babies. So, science is getting closer and closer to duplicating that. That disproves what exactly? Nothing. So if we could look into the future to find that such baby will ever be created, would you then change your thoughts?
My point is that no one knows. It's all a dice game. Looking down on someone for calling two instead of six is a little idiotic/weird.
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