Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
Atheist Penelope
danman:
--- Quote from: Dliessmgg on 03 Sep 2009, 06:08 ---
You can step out of your door and they too. But they weren't always able to sail to America because their ships weren't good enough, so they made up stories. Their belief in those stories made it true for them.
--- End quote ---
Now you state something entirely different than before, which i can agree with. Except that the 'it made it true to them' is better stated as they considered it true. It was not true any more than it is now, just (next to) nobody knew it then
there is an objective reality and any attempt to undercut it is a 'fallacy of stolen concept'
--- Quote ---
Religion is a part of every culture, so I want to understand it and not trashcan it by saying "They believe because they don't know therefore they're stupid".
--- End quote ---
Firstly god and religion have not so much in common (eg buddhism is an atheist (== godless) religion) and each of them defines a god or multiple ones differently, so your definition is still unhelpful.
Religion possibly was good enough before the advent of science, although namely christianity has done more bad than good by quelling scientific progress (the reason why in the middle ages, arabs were waay ahead of us)
Currently the only reason it propagates in large numbers is that it is put into people in their youth when they believe anything parents tell them. This comes from the fact that it is a great tool of social control. Also there are other psychical reasons - frankly dying sucks whether it is you or your surroundings, so the stories are often soothing in this way.
That are the three elements that compose IMHO an understanding of it - why it has arisen and so.
All and all i am all for trashcanning it, especially since i have firsthand experience :D
Also in great majority of cases the problem is not stupidity as you assert, but ignorance - as you could see even here - KeepACoolIn was trying to use the Prime cause proof, since he was not aware of the fact that it is logically invalid.
Dliessmgg:
--- Quote from: danman on 03 Sep 2009, 07:39 ---Now you state something entirely different than before, which i can agree with. Except that the 'it made it true to them' is better stated as they considered it true. It was not true any more than it is now, just (next to) nobody knew it then
there is an objective reality and any attempt to undercut it is a 'fallacy of stolen concept'
--- End quote ---
Funny thing, to me it's the same thing as I said before. And only the physical reality is more or less (relativity, quantum physics) objective, and even there it's only the stuff we've seen.
--- Quote from: danman on 03 Sep 2009, 07:39 ---Firstly god and religion have not so much in common (eg buddhism is an atheist (== godless) religion) and each of them defines a god or multiple ones differently, so your definition is still unhelpful.
--- End quote ---
Buddhism is clearly not an atheist religion. It's extremely agnostic, but not atheist. The basic message about god etc. is "We can't know what there is, so don't even try to ask". But there's still lots of mythological stuff. I think that my definition can be applied to every bigger religion, even the polytheistic ones, because they have a bigger god (Odin for Norse paganism, Brahman for Hinduism). The lower gods can be compared to angels.
--- Quote from: danman on 03 Sep 2009, 07:39 ---Religion possibly was good enough before the advent of science, although namely christianity has done more bad than good by quelling scientific progress (the reason why in the middle ages, arabs were waay ahead of us)
--- End quote ---
It was the power-hungry popes and priests who prevented scientific progress, not the religion. Let's take the geocentric model. It was part of aristotelian pilosophy, and thanks to Thomas Aquinas, christian theology was heavily based on that. When Copernicus and Kepler came with Heliocentrism, the priests feared that everybody would think that their writing is complete bullshit and they might lose power.
--- Quote from: danman on 03 Sep 2009, 07:39 ---Currently the only reason it propagates in large numbers is that it is put into people in their youth when they believe anything parents tell them. This comes from the fact that it is a great tool of social control. Also there are other psychical reasons - frankly dying sucks whether it is you or your surroundings, so the stories are often soothing in this way.
--- End quote ---
Partly I don't mind that memetic reproduction, because it gives some people a reason not to kill. I don't like it if it degenerates into spam and/or hate. I don't think there will ever be a time without religion because of the psychical reasons and to a lesser extent because of the memetic stuff.
--- Quote from: danman on 03 Sep 2009, 07:39 ---All and all i am all for trashcanning it, especially since i have firsthand experience :D
Also in great majority of cases the problem is not stupidity as you assert, but ignorance - as you could see even here - KeepACoolIn was trying to use the Prime cause proof, since he was not aware of the fact that it is logically invalid.
--- End quote ---
I tend to judge belief and not believers, because everybody's stupid in some kind of way. Belief tends to condense the less stupid stuff.
danman:
--- Quote from: Dliessmgg on 03 Sep 2009, 11:16 ---Funny thing, to me it's the same thing as I said before. And only the physical reality is more or less (relativity, quantum physics) objective, and even there it's only the stuff we've seen.
--- End quote ---
The problem was in the wording make it true for someone, because various people can consider various statements
true, but there is only one truth, independant of them (even in rel theory, when two people differ in times of perceiving something, they are located at different coordinates so in fact they are both saying the same thing - like looking at an object from diff sides)
--- Quote ---
Buddhism is clearly not an atheist religion. It's extremely agnostic, but not atheist. The basic message about god etc. is "We can't know what there is, so don't even try to ask". But there's still lots of mythological stuff. I think that my definition can be applied to every bigger religion, even the polytheistic ones, because they have a bigger god (Odin for Norse paganism, Brahman for Hinduism). The lower gods can be compared to angels.
--- End quote ---
Atheist i used in its basic meaning - a-theist ie. lacking a god, such as a-vitamin-osis is a non inflamatory disease caused by lack of vitamins.
Hinduism has 3 equally important ones Brahma, Visnu and Siva ! On a funnier note , i would rather compare angels to lower gods - they are both an earlier and broader concept.
--- Quote ---It was the power-hungry popes and priests who prevented scientific progress, not the religion. Let's take the geocentric model. It was part of aristotelian pilosophy, and thanks to Thomas Aquinas, christian theology was heavily based on that. When Copernicus and Kepler came with Heliocentrism, the priests feared that everybody would think that their writing is complete bullshit and they might lose power.
--- End quote ---
It was an interpretation of the religion which was at fault - an good example is with originally catholics rejecting vaccination, as it supposedly went into god's competence, and now the movement against in vitro fertilisation for example.
And also there is little purpose to it besides being as K Marx said it, opium of the masses used to pacify them into obedience
--- Quote ---Partly I don't mind that memetic reproduction, because it gives some people a reason not to kill. I don't like it if it degenerates into spam and/or hate. I don't think there will ever be a time without religion because of the psychical reasons and to a lesser extent because of the memetic stuff.
--- End quote ---
Who does it give a reason not to kill ? :D The guys who murdered the abortion doctors in the US? The priest who prays for Obama's death? The clerical-fascist regime of ThDr Josef Tiso in my country who collaborated with Hitler and his government deported thousands of jews + POHG (the equivalent of SS) burned down and killed at least two villages? The fanatics who give grease to the fire of the conflict between arabs and the israel state?
Or the nice guys in Afganistan who after winning a war against the soviet-supported democratic forces welded their enemies into steel containers and left them in the desert sun to die? O
Or , to go back , crusades?
You will surely say that a majority of religious people does not do such deeds , which is true, but so does the majority of atheists, so i do not see any added value by the religion. To the contrary i see that only religious influence can persuade people certain cases of extreme injustice, and cruelty are just and honorable
Dliessmgg:
--- Quote from: danman on 03 Sep 2009, 13:47 ---The problem was in the wording make it true for someone, because various people can consider various statements
true, but there is only one truth, independant of them (even in rel theory, when two people differ in times of perceiving something, they are located at different coordinates so in fact they are both saying the same thing - like looking at an object from diff sides)
--- End quote ---
My fault, I'm better with wording in my mother tongue.
--- Quote from: danman on 03 Sep 2009, 13:47 ---Atheist i used in its basic meaning - a-theist ie. lacking a god, such as a-vitamin-osis is a non inflamatory disease caused by lack of vitamins.
--- End quote ---
Siddhartha said that he doesn't teach the teachings of a god. If you ignore trinity and that stuff, the middle ages description of god sometimes resembles nirvana imho.
--- Quote from: danman on 03 Sep 2009, 13:47 ---Hinduism has 3 equally important ones Brahma, Visnu and Siva ! On a funnier note , i would rather compare angels to lower gods - they are both an earlier and broader concept.
--- End quote ---
I meant Brahman (it means something like world-soul), not the god Brahma. Brahma is more or less a personification of Brahman (as god is of heaven). These personifications basically exist because they're easier to understand, but they're also easier to attack.
--- Quote from: danman on 03 Sep 2009, 13:47 ---It was an interpretation of the religion which was at fault - an good example is with originally catholics rejecting vaccination, as it supposedly went into god's competence, and now the movement against in vitro fertilisation for example.
And also there is little purpose to it besides being as K Marx said it, opium of the masses used to pacify them into obedience
--- End quote ---
Yes, the interpretation was wrong, but at that time they clearly didn't want to change it because they feared a loss of power and not because they weren't able to believe it. Always keep in mind that the catholic church was a big political force at that time. You porbably won't see communists saying that communism is wrong or neoliberalists saying that free market is evil.
And you confuse Marx and Lenin. Marx said it's opium of the masses and they take it freely because their life is too hard. Lenin said it's opium for the masses and the priests give it to them for obedience stuff.
--- Quote from: danman on 03 Sep 2009, 13:47 ---Who does it give a reason not to kill ? :D The guys who murdered the abortion doctors in the US? The priest who prays for Obama's death? The clerical-fascist regime of ThDr Josef Tiso in my country who collaborated with Hitler and his government deported thousands of jews + POHG (the equivalent of SS) burned down and killed at least two villages? The fanatics who give grease to the fire of the conflict between arabs and the israel state?
Or the nice guys in Afganistan who after winning a war against the soviet-supported democratic forces welded their enemies into steel containers and left them in the desert sun to die? O
Or , to go back , crusades?
You will surely say that a majority of religious people does not do such deeds , which is true, but so does the majority of atheists, so i do not see any added value by the religion. To the contrary i see that only religious influence can persuade people certain cases of extreme injustice, and cruelty are just and honorable
--- End quote ---
--- Quote ---A few weeks ago I saw a blog somewhere - I forget where. Anyway, there was a post and a series of comments about whether we possess free will or not. The discussion centred on the thought experiment of "would you shoot an innocent person, given no extenuating circumstances"? For the vast majority of us the answer is, instantly and incontrovertibly, no. The application to the free will question then is that if you are incapable of shooting this person, perhaps you don't actually possess the free will to actively decide to shoot them. Of course this invites the argument that, "Well, actually I could decide to shoot them, I just wouldn't." At which point the argument can go in circles for as long as the arguers enjoy it.
Someone raised the question, "Well if you have the free will to decide to shoot, but never actually do shoot, what's stopping you?"
Someone answered, "God."
"And what if God doesn't exist?"
"Well then I guess I'd shoot the person."
--- End quote ---
danman:
--- Quote from: Dliessmgg on 04 Sep 2009, 03:30 ---
My fault, I'm better with wording in my mother tongue.
--- End quote ---
It is normally OK but in this debate it was exceedingly important since it was one of the topics.
English is not my mothertongue either it is slovak .
What is yours?
--- Quote ---I meant Brahman (it means something like world-soul), not the god Brahma. Brahma is more or less a personification of Brahman (as god is of heaven). These personifications basically exist because they're easier to understand, but they're also easier to attack.
--- End quote ---
My error . But then , it is more a kind of pantheistic concept than the concrete deities we were looking at.
--- Quote ---Yes, the interpretation was wrong, but at that time they clearly didn't want to change it because they feared a loss of power and not because they weren't able to believe it. Always keep in mind that the catholic church was a big political force at that time. You porbably won't see communists saying that communism is wrong or neoliberalists saying that free market is evil.
And you confuse Marx and Lenin. Marx said it's opium of the masses and they take it freely because their life is too hard. Lenin said it's opium for the masses and the priests give it to them for obedience stuff.
--- End quote ---
No, i do not - the ending was my addition - i only said it is as marx said opium of the masses and continuing with the original thought just as now. Sorry if it was inobvious.
Each interpretation is a religion in my understanding since just about every such text has countless interpretations. Catholics , orthodox and eg. husites all stem from one set of holy scripts.
--- Quote ---A few weeks ago I saw a blog somewhere - I forget where. Anyway, there was a post and a series of comments about whether we possess free will or not. The discussion centred on the thought experiment of "would you shoot an innocent person, given no extenuating circumstances"? For the vast majority of us the answer is, instantly and incontrovertibly, no. The application to the free will question then is that if you are incapable of shooting this person, perhaps you don't actually possess the free will to actively decide to shoot them. Of course this invites the argument that, "Well, actually I could decide to shoot them, I just wouldn't." At which point the argument can go in circles for as long as the arguers enjoy it.
Someone raised the question, "Well if you have the free will to decide to shoot, but never actually do shoot, what's stopping you?"
Someone answered, "God."
"And what if God doesn't exist?"
"Well then I guess I'd shoot the person."
--- End quote ---
The example is artificial and not something you experience. Secondly it is absurd since a reasonless decision is not free but random. The question can be abstracted as Would you do something without any reason? to see its full absurdity.
And besides the (probably christian)god which stopped one respondent from shooting a random person, there were historically, deities which would encourage such an action. On the contrary many such people would be glad to kill a 'heretic' or a 'sinner' which is equally stupid but directly encouraged by many religions (it is ordered in the old testament for example) (note - i am for death penalty but in cases where it is justified by extent of crime done)
Again i repeat. In reality religion does not force evil people not to do evil deeds, to the contrary it gives good people honorable reasons to commit abominable acts
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