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What does the answer to the question matter? Are you fucking serious? How many people have killed each other in the name of their god(s)? How much bullshit is going on in the world for the sake of religion? How many inter-religious squabbles are there that do nothing but divide what would otherwise be the concerted effort of mankind to better itself (or at least kill each other over something that EVEN EXISTS.)
The real irony is that the origin of the universe is an unanswerable question Prove it. Just because we don't know doesn't mean it's unknowable. In the ~500 years or so that mankind has adhered to science we went from believing the world is flat to the fucking iPhone, and that's with a small minority of people dedicating themselves to scientific progress. I know it's a totally unrealistic scenario, but imagine what could be done if people stopped satisfying themselves with "God did it" and started looking at the world with the curiosity of a scientist. How many people have killed each other in the name of their god(s)?
If there aren't any gods, then that's just bad social behavior. How can you blame these non-existent "gods" for human behavior? A "god" didn't make them do it; they managed to do it themselves just fine. "Origins of universe unknowable" It is very provable if you believe a mathematic discovery from around the 1930s that states that no system can be self-validated. I can't remember the specifics or the name (I think it was Godel's but it's been a while) but it is impossible from within a system to prove the system's "rules". This is why, for instance, geometry relies on postulates. Or why we only study our world as observers (you can't remove the observer from observation; i.e. there are perceptual limitations). Some of the philosophical works of Decartes delved into this. And some popular expressions "I think therefore I am." Summary: because we are contained within an enclosed system, we have perceptual limits and certain information that cannot be validated with full certainty. Or what Sleeperwalker implied with the modeling the universe from within problem (it can't be done). These types of problems have been examined by mathematicians and philosophers for ages. Disclaimer: This doesn't mean I am the best qualified to explain it, though ;) I did my best. I didn't blame the gods for the actions of the humans - but they (falsely) believed something and then acted on that belief. That's why religion and gods are dangerous and why the question needs to be answered. (Again, I'm fairly confident that at least no god that mankind has invented actually exists.)
It's like if you lie to your best friend and tell him that his wife has been murdered and the person responsible is so-and-so - if he falsely believes you he may likely commit a horrendous act of vengeance because of his emotions. This example illustrates why knowledge, not false beliefs, which have little to no evidence (and even more evidence against them) are important. As for Godel's whatever, I will have to look that up to even see if it is relevant. If you have links, please to provide. Godel:
http://www.statemaster.com/encyclopedia/G%C3%B6del%27s-incompleteness-theorem It's like if you lie to your best friend and tell him that his wife has been murdered and the person responsible is so-and-so Well, you've kind of reached my point. The problem never was "gods" to begin with, but rather that people do bad things. Look at the French Revolution where they started with using the guillotine on Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI and the mob mentality eventually ended up with Antoine Lavoisier -- the discoverer of OXYGEN! -- guillotined! The problem isn't religion but that uneducated people can so easily be manipulated. Educated people who aren't struggling for survival (i.e. they have adequate food, medicine and such) generally are rather peaceful and seem to be able to hold a diversity of beliefs without killing each other or hating on each other too much ;) And if that fails: get them addicted to the interwebs, playing teh XBox 360 and surfing for pr0n. This example illustrates why knowledge, not false beliefs, which have little to no evidence (and even more evidence against them) are important.
I think you and I have been saying the same thing with different ways of expressing the viewpoint, for the most part. Maybe this is a better way to explain
I don't mind religions. But I sure hate the individual people that are filled with contempt towards all the "non-believers". I cannot stand them. If the "answer" is the brand of atheism that is filled with contempt towards people with religion, is that a better world? How is that an improvement? I don't see religions going away soon. Contempt towards religion is, in my humble opinion, is looking to the symptom. The real disease is lack of education. Educate people, give them knowledge and love and support. Don't worry about what they end up believing. Education is the self-help tool. If intolerance is the problem, you don't solve it with more intolerance. Many of the "controllers" of cults/religions with corrupt goals that seek to misuse religion to abuse people have a glaring weakness: they cannot engage in civilized behavior or discussion. They welcome "contempt towards religion", it feeds their power base because their followers understand contempt and the corrupt "controllers" use emotion to their advantage. I don't claim that I even believe I am "entirely right" for sure on this approach, but in my experience you don't fight fire with fire, but instead with water. That approach takes corrupt people out of their zone of comfort and away from the home field advantage of "contempt" and "emotion". What? I've been working. Fuck off. :)
I'm just wishing that this could be a place for actual Quake people to talk about actual Quake. You could try starting a Quake related thread? You never know... it might work. Alternatively, you could write about some irrelevant bullshit like religion, and then start bitching when the crusty old timers come out of the woodwork and start posting... irrelevant bullshit. Put up or shut up. Indeed. How do 1 liners contribute to any thread at all? That's really what he's saying. He's asking that people contribute something of value or don't hit the Submit button.
I think Tronyn is right.
About religion, er... er... yeah. Not all of them are proselytizing, creationist intolerant book-religions. Not all of them are focussed on the afterlife (heaven/hell), either. Some are quite... different. Sami, Native American, etc. Even Hindu (although there are pretty intolerant Hindus, I don't think there are Hindu missionaries). You have nutcases in all religions, as well as outside of them. I think the discussion is moot, really. I'm just glad that I'm allowed to choose - that is the single most important progress in history IMO. Now it just needs to be enforced. 20% of Germans believe in the virgin birth btw - in the 21st century - which is staggering. Things like this (it TOTALLY was a virgin birth) make some religions look very bad. The whole creationist debate is pretty cranky, too. I think creation myths are to be seen as metaphors, which can be enriching or at least entertaining, but religions that have a holy book and *take it literally* are... problematic IMO. As well as religions which try to force their thing onto others. My single problem with Christianity is that they think they're "on a mission". Er, why not let those Amazonas folks have their own culture? Missionaries should STFU. The Jehova's guys are especially annoying. I mean, can I have my religion, please?? Thanks!! Yeah. Also, http://www.beliefnet.com/Entertainment/Quizzes/BeliefOMatic.aspx First off, yes, we agree on being tolerant towards religious people who aren't extremists (post #2, I state my personal opinions.)
The point I was trying to make, which you seem either insistent to ignore or oblivious to, is that religion causes problems. When I made the statement about lying to your friend to prove a point, I wanted to see if you would either focus on the fact that people were lying to each other or if you would focus on the false belief part. You tried to twist away from the point and insert your own, about people doing bad shit to each other, completely trying to ignore the point of the post. False beliefs, whether religious in nature or any otherwise, essentially fight against education and help to keep people stupid. Yes there are intelligent religious people (but let's face it most of them were raised religious.) America has a major problem with religion, we have crazy fundamentalists trying to infiltrate the public education system and replace any science that they think disagrees with their notion of god. (Jesus riding on a dinosaur!) Religion is a huge source of misinformation and false beliefs that I can't possibly see helping educating people overall. If there was only one religion, and not like Christianity with it's little sub-religions, would there be nearly as much hostility towards others as there is now? If there was no religion? By the way, I can dig up all kinds of research/statistics about atheist nations and religious nations in relation to crime, violent crimes, poverty, education levels, etc if you want. And btw, the entire time I've been trying to argue with education and logic, not hate at all. All this has been about educating people and why religion is pretty much wrong in the first place. Arguing through logic is NOT hate. I think when it comes to spirituality, religion, and what you believe about life in general, there's nothing that anyone can really say in a discussion that's going to change your mind. Something has to happen (or not happen) in your life to bring you to your system of beliefs. I don't begrudge anyone their system of beliefs no matter how fucked up I think they are because they probably believe them due to the fact that they're surrounded by other people who believe the same thing. It's more about social survival than anything else.
It's the same reason people are democrat or republican or communist or anarchist or anything really -- something happened or didn't happen in their lives to lead them to that point. It'll take something else happening to them to lead them to another set of beliefs, if it ever happens at all. I was raised Catholic, but gradually through my teenage years, I realized I didn't believe in any of it anymore. I didn't feel the presence of God in my life anymore and realized I probably never did to begin with, but said I did to appease everyone else around me who seemed to have the presence of God in their life. I also think a fear of death is such a huge factor for people belonging to a religion, as that seems to be the main selling point of nearly all of them. "Are you worried about what happens when you die? Well you don't have to anymore when you join us!!" It's a pretty easy issue to get suckered in by because like someone else in the thread said, no one has come back yet to tell us what happens. There are also an alarming number of people out there who lead such shitty, awful lives, that the best part of their week is the hour or whatever they go to church thinking about the day they can kick back in heaven and not worry about things anymore. Religion also seems to be so prevalent I think because people believe that the search for deeper meaning in their lives is something important. Like, "I'll be a better, happier person if I have a relationship with whatever controls the universe." But the search for a god or gods through prayer or meditation or historical texts is totally misguided in my opinion. If anything does control the universe, the only way people will ever find out is by continually investigating it. I find it amusing that so many people love crime scene investigation shows, yet when it comes to solving the mysteries of our universe, very few people are interested. People like mysteries but when there's actual thinking or boring work involved, forget it. There's a lot of people who could probably tell you every little detail about some celebrity or athlete they love, but you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who could even name someone that won a Nobel Prize in science in the past 20 years. I'm guilty of it myself. Is that society's fault, or do most people by nature just care more about the people around them than they do about something as abstract and hard to grasp as the building blocks of our universe? I'm inclined to say it's the latter, but we could do things in society to make people care more about the sciences. People need to be wowed by things -- science needs people as passionate and as charismatic as those screaming preachers who send their followers flying 10 meters back when they touch them. So it goes with me that talking about religion ultimately leads to talking about science. In summary: - People will arrive at their belief system naturally, and likely via the people they're around the most. You can't scold them or debate them into believing in yours. Though if you try hard enough and you do it in an appealing way, you might convert some people. There's really no point in looking down at people who believe in God -- be charismatic and convincing enough to change their mind if you care that much (I don't, and I don't think most intelligent people don't either) - People should care more about making people see the connection between what science is trying to do and what religion claims to do. We need more Sagans, Feynmans, and Dawkinses -- smart, compassionate, scientific people who can get the masses focused on solving the mysteries that will help us understand the origins of life and mankind rather than claiming they have the answer because they read a single book that was written thousands of years ago. - I firmly believe that in time, more and more people will start to come around to listening to scientists tell us about the world instead of listening to priests tell us about the world. It may take hundreds or thousands of years, but as long as science can keep revealing new things about the composition of the universe, people will not be able to turn their backs to it any longer. "The man in the sky made it" will be as unspeakable as saying "We came from apes" was 150 years ago. 1. Unitarian Universalism (100%)
2. Liberal Quakers (92%) 3. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (89%) 4. New Thought (76%) 5. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (75%) We could end any arguments once and for all by doing the quiz and everyone post their top 5. Lets leave it up to some guys website to do the pondering for us!!! well what about the one(s) that mankind has _discovered_? (lol)
re: frib, NE I've got this problem with paranoia over cliques that comes across when I'm not sober as you've probably noted. I just wish you guys would express yourselves in a less condescending way. My point was I would happily put up with some guy's semi-consistent bitching if it meant he made episodes, but I am not happy to put up with some guy sniping when he's not producing anything. My comment regarding what people have done which you misinterpreted Frib was regarding Q1SP, not life in general. 1. Secular Humanism (100%)
2. Unitarian Universalism (93%) 3. Nontheist (78%) 4. Liberal Quakers (76%) 5. Neo-Pagan (73%) I am also 30% Scientologist =/ ... it summarizes it all:
http://rlv.zcache.com/religion_and_science_atheist_tshirt-p235908088116977767gcle_400.jpg When I made the statement about lying to your friend to prove a point, I wanted to see if you would either focus on the fact that people were lying to each other or if you would focus on the false belief part. You tried to twist away from the point and insert your own, about people doing bad shit to each other, completely trying to ignore the point of the post.
It's all good, Zwiffle. I understand your point about how religion can try to indoctrinate people with false "facts". I didn't address that because I think that is commonly known. I had a in-depth conversation with a Christian religious leader on a 6 hour car ride in 2008. He knew I was essentially an atheist and we discussed dinosaur bones, morals, the role of religion. Ironically, he is a highly educated man and describes evolution as "changes over time" and agrees that evolution exists and his perspective is that was put in place by God. (I can't recall if we had the age of the Earth discussion.) And btw, the entire time I've been trying to argue with education and logic, not hate at all. All this has been about educating people and why religion is pretty much wrong in the first place. Arguing through logic is NOT hate. It can take some time especially in a forum with brief posts to completely ascertain someone's perspective and understand what they are trying to say. People will arrive at their belief system naturally, and likely via the people they're around the most. You can't scold them or debate them into believing in yours. Though if you try hard enough and you do it in an appealing way, you might convert some people. There's really no point in looking down at people who believe in God -- be charismatic and convincing enough to change their mind if you care that much (I don't, and I don't think most intelligent people don't either) I think Blitz said this very well.
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