Yeah I think most of us can agree that if the caveman was conscious that they were probably sunworshipers or somthing, and if they weren\'t religious its because they were literally to tired and sick to think about literally anything past getting food or shelter.religions arise from an offshoot of some of the evolutionary baggage we have, the tendency to not think in rational patterns, the tendency for emotion to factor more strongly into belief opposed unbiased numerical evaluation of probability, the tendency to put human consciousness behind other living beings and concepts, the tendency for humans to stick to beliefs taught in childhood, the childhood tendency of not being able to filter out poor information due to the evolutionary need of absorbing so much information in youth, etc etc etc.Cavemen would have these things as well as we did.
Quote of Dirtydingus: I honestly (and this is in no way meant to be rude) do not understand why you ever bother to post. Honestly...do you think before you say these things? I really would like to know, I\'m not asking to look like a smart-ass. You asked how we\'re different from a man of faith...because we don\'t have faith...at all...we have evidence. That\'s how we\'re different. We don\'t run to what man is telling us...we run to what science and proof is telling us. Someone who believes in something because of faith has nothing to base it on...just believing in something without proof...that\'s it. We believe in things when we\'re presented with believable probability or just plain fact, not nothing. Wrong. It isn\'t as real...what with it not existing material wise. _____________________________________________________________________________________*Logic* - the SCIENCE that investigates the principles governing correct or reliable inference. - *Science* - a branch of KNOWLEDGE or study dealing with a body of FACTS or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws. - *Knowledge* - acquaintance with facts, truths, or principles, as from study or investigation. _________And no...it\'s not logical.
No, because you can review their criteria for measurement and decide for yourself whether the path they chose was a rational one in making that measurement and then you can review the criteria for the criteria, etc etc. Faith is a problem even if its an individual believing that evolution is true because an authority figure said it. the habit of believing things witout evidence is bad. a believers inability to pick up on the huge amount of direct logical contradictions in many religions is a problem.faith is a problem regardless though i agree that religious faith is quite a bit worse, lowering the amount of both asap is beneficial.
There\'s nothing wrong with faith. At all. There\'s plenty wrong in both basing your life upon, and believing, the literal interpretation of a fairy tale(s). Those who take the literal interpretation to heart are attempting to base \'logic\' upon \"Well, you can\'t prove us wrong.\" Which is not something you can do, as far as the use of logic is concerned (for the record, I don\'t mean you can or can\'t prove them wrong, I just mean you can\'t base logic off of that.) Regardless, faith is a term much broader than what could be applied to \"faith is the opposite of logic,\" IMO.
The difference between religious belief and scientific belief is that science is based on constantly trying to disprove set up hypothesis and theories, its based on meticulous research, evidenec finding, rationality, probability and logic among a number of strict scientific truth finding tools, a number of concepts are held as high priority to reduce things like bias and marred experimental results.Faith is based on belief without evidence based on emotional appeal.The two are worlds apart and the difference is glaringly obvious. We can\'t claim that the sun works via a superfast spinning turtle mechanism in science because thats just a empty claim and falls apart under scientific investigation, but in effect it would be making a religious claim. We don\'t accept on faith that the world is round. You mean proof but thats just emotional appeal and personal experience which do not equal proof. Personal experience isn\'t even evidence because it can always be attributed to a malfunctioning brain and these things can be recreated by applying stimulation to different areas of the brain. It doesn\'t matter what men are telling us, evidence doesn\'t mean authority, and the evidence/proof from science exists within us as well for a variety of subjects. not just the outside world. i don\'t think it would be frightening to learn that we\'d live in an afterlife or that an allmighty all-loving god would take care of them, no these beliefs are of the utmost comfort and are not disturbing. The problem is thats all they are, happy-nonsense beliefs with no supportive evidence or any good reason to believe them. to suggest that its the disbelievers who are afraid of what they might find undermines the fact that most religious are completely wrapped around beliefs which have been purposely designed to comfort people. To suggest its us that is afraid is frankly, ironic. We have absolutely nothing to lose if we\'re wrong and ~everything to gain~ religious people on the other-hand are afraid of the after-life not being real and their afraid that they will never see any of their dead friends and family members again, most nonbelievers have accepted the logical conclusion that once the thing that spawns consciousness shuts down we cease to exist as we do now, so once again why would we be afraid to be wrong when being wrong would make life that much better for us.no, i think its the religious people who are afraid that their comforting beliefs are just that, comforting beliefs.
Yeah, but until you do that you have faith in the men and women who performed that calculation. I was just using this example to show that faith in and of it\'s self is necessary. Not religious faith, but faith to some extent that the things you are being taught are accurate and what not. Yeah, you could experiment for yourself and then it would not be a matter of faith. My point still stands that as every man can not do the experiments or calculations for everything they believe, faith is necessary in some ways. I agree and disagree. Again, faith in things that are logical is necessary. What you call knowledge is not always complete, it always has an element of faith that your knowledge is correct. Believing something just because someone tells you and thats it is bad, sure, however you can take this issue all the way. General relativity. I believe it to be accurate and more or less a correct theory that describes how things are. Why? there is proof that I have read. Experiments conducted. How do I know that these experiments are accurate, genuine, and the results are interpreted correctly? I have faith in the institution and people who conducted the experiments. I have faith that they are being held to a high standard by scientific panels, and have faith that those scientific panels holding standards are doing their job well. My point is that faith in and of it\'s self is absolutely necessary in some ways. I think it\'s a pathetic thing to say to believe in god and have faith because that belief and the faith in that belief are not coherent, logical, or well founded. Still, faith based on knowledge, standards, and logic is important. I think this stems down to more of how you would define faith, rather than the faith. I like taking terms right down to their bare meanings and apply it to everything, even though it might not be the normally used meaning or application of the word. It also comes down to faith with reason (believing in a scientific theory because yada yada yada, and you could repeat it), versus faith without reason (i believe god exists because he has to), or faith with illogical reason (such as circular reasoning, i believe in god because it says god in the scriptures, i believe in the scriptures because they are the word of god).
Its not neccesary but you could make the arguement that it wasn\'t completely harmful for people to accept it without doing the calculations, still its not quite faith because people know that things are peer reviewed in science, without reviewing it yourself I suppose its based on some assumptions, but nothing that i\'d call similiar to faith. In some small way maybe. Skeptical rationalists accept that knowledge is based on evidence, probability and rationality, they accept that their beliefs could be wrong and that at this time only all the evidence/whatever points in that direction, its not a faith-based system. Though i\'ll agree that lots of people everywhere accept plenty of acceptable things on faith and it doesn\'t cause a problem, thats not to suggest that its not a dangerous way to think or practice. Its not just faith though because theres evidence that these people are doing their jobs properly, and you can examine that evidence yourself, though i accept that a lot of people take it on faith because they don\'t look into it themselves, that doesn\'t mean its right to do so. Theres plenty of evidence that science is peer reviewed and goes through rigurous scientific criteria and that science is a self-correcting engine, none of these things are faith in any significant way. I can agree that its faith in some small-way but not in any significant way and if the faithful in this way wanted to get the full discription, that the information is out there. ANd its sitll hard to call faith because there is evidence envolved. Depends how you define faith, I would not call this \'reasonable faith\' that you\'re talking about faith (in most cases) because there is all manner of evidence envolved, still I know what you mean its probably a disagreement of semantics.
well, it downright comes to a difference in interpretations of the word faith. you gravitate towards connecting faith in anything with the kind of faith people hold in religion, which is fine. i interpret faith as the belief in anything at all without having concluded it yourself from start to finish. it\'s just a more general idea. essentially all i was arguing is that you always have faith in the evidence and the validity of it. you still have faith in the institution of science, like you have faith that the medicine you are being prescribed will help you. it\'s not a leap of faith. it\'s faith from experience and knowledge in an institution like the FDA and experimenters testing drugs and such. Ultimately, unless you do everything for yourself, my definition of faith means that you will always have faith in at least one element of a system. if you trust someone and that influences your actions, you have faith that your trust is not misplaced, which is based on experience and knowledge. it\'s still a valid thing becuase it has backing, but it\'s still faith in something. faith in others, and faith in yourself. if you take faith in at all the religious sense, then of course nothing of what i have said holds anymore. religious faith is a whole other thing because it relies on illogical arguments and an overall faith in nothing that has or ever will be concluded by anyone, unlike everything that you can do for yourself and conclude otherwise. these reasons are why i think claiming that faith is the opposite of logic is a gross generalization, applying illogical faith to all faith. faith is subject to logic, or the lack thereof. logic is subject to knowledge, observation, and logical rules and concepts. religion to me is an illogical faith, but there are forms of logical faith that everyone subscribes to in their everyday life that are perfectly valid and necessary.
That is what makes quantum mechanics so beautiful. When we look at the basic building blocks of the universe, the best we can do is know the probabilities of events happening one way or another. This deeply disturbed many of the greatest scientists of the 20th century. Einstein, for one, refused to his dying days to believe that this is correct description of the universe(on an atomic scale). His famous saying \"God does not play dice with the universe\" emphasized his beliefs. Nonetheless, he was wrong.
i have apsolute faith that trying to have a caonversation with you fucking assholes is imposable regardless of what you think you all suck never have i seen such a bunch of assholes who cant even contemplate that there is more out there than they can currently understand i feel sorry for the things you will miss out on in your lives to bad soleless wastes of space fuck you
ouch, someone gets their panties in a bunch about their jesus friends too easily. there is plenty we don\'t understand out there. that doesn\'t mean there is anything supernatural like a god that we don\'t understand. there is no reason to invoke god unless something directly suggests god, and besides some old books and myths, there is no reason to believe such a being exists. believe in god all you want. thats your belief and its your choice. but not understanding something does not equal god. the sun used to be a representation of a god because people didn\'t understand it. there used to be gods for every unexplained event. then culture moved on, and we eventually explained the event. get over yourself.
In actuality, western religions (christianity, jewism, islam) _is_ rooted in sun-worship / astrology. It still is sun worship. The entire christ myth for example is nothing but an allegory over the changing of astrological age from the goat to the fishes. It\'s not even an original myth, it is stolen from the egyptian Horus myth, the Roman Mithra myth and the Hindu Krishna myth. But yes, the knowledge of nature we hold today is littered with the bodies of dead gods. We really don\'t need superstition anymore to explain anything. That is not to say our current knowledge is complete or entirely correct in all its facets, but we do have the means to eventually get there by the method of logic, skepticism and rational inquiry. Aka enlightenment. And there is nothing dull or soulless about it. It is awe-inspiring, fantastical, puzzling and deeply spiritual. and best of all, it does not require blind faith in anything.
Real mature. hah. Again, real mature. I\'m sure theres quite a few things modern science doesn\'t understand, maybe even things that humans can never understand given our limited intelligence. What you don\'t understand is that by making wild faith-based assertions you are making grossly improbable assertions. If a claim has no evidence and is grossly improbable beyond the ability to express in any comprehensible number, i think its safe to easily rule out REGARDLESS of whether or not we understand the entire universe.We can rule out thor the same way. And I feel sorry that you can\'t understand that an appeal to irrationality and emotion (faith) is a inefficient truth finding tool and is the opposition of any rational method. Again, mature. Its ironic that you think we\'re missing out on anything. I\'ll take rationality and education over feel-good-comfort-faith.
People on here, even the ones who have opposite opinions to yours, have had many conversations without any problems like the ones you\'re causing right now. Just because we point out that your opinions are highly unlikely or that your understanding of a word is wrong or misjudged doesn\'t mean we\'re assholes or that we can\'t have a conversation with a perfectly *normal* or *civil* individual, unlike yourself. You\'ve freaked out like this in too many threads every time someone went against your opinion, which is COMPLETELY normal when they have a logical explaination for so. You go on about how nobody cares what other people think (after they\'ve replied to you already) then when you freak out you say \"This is *my* fact...regardless of what you think\". Nice...you\'re really getting a logical and fair point across. Wait...no your not. Again. Nice for ALL the people who didn\'t say anything. Oh yeah!...that was most of the people in here. Almost every time any of us have spoken we\'ve talked about how we can\'t comprehend some things, understand them, and yet you still say this...AGAIN...when you prove nothing in doing so. And again with the assholes thing. Don\'t bother. You can\'t even comprehend basic logic. If anyone is pityful, it\'s you. haha....ah*sigh*. Man this is really getting pathetic. Insulting people who haven\'t done anything, swearing constantly, making judgements when you can\'t even grasp simple concepts. Honestly, quit while you\'re ahead. You\'ve already proven what kind of person you are, your opinions don\'t really matter when they\'re always so vile as soon as they\'re challenged. Especially with the hating most people here when they\'ve barely done anything. We past useless comments about 3 posts ago here.
Hmm good opinions. Not everyone bashed just Christianity. They bashed all faith. I\'ll show some more respect for the non-theist considering this. Most atheist in America bash Christianity and its annoying. Most just had trouble with the religion and used science to degrade it and feel better about not being a theist. Problem with non-theist is some believe in no god and some believe in another \"mysterious\" god to define the creation. The ones who believe in no god basically claim there is no creator. Thats the defense of faith really. Claims there is a creator. The offense used by non-theist is creationism thats logical. Math.... completely made up and the only thing we can understand. Science... created but extremely logical but still unsure nonetheless. I\'m a Christian till I die. I read a bible I feel very understanding of it and such. Also theres more to the bible than what it says. It has many different meanings and it doesn\'t express those meanings and thats why people generally say its bogus. Great thing about Christianity is you can interpret it for yourself. Its no longer controlled by the Catholics. Islam its shoved down your throat sunni, sufi, or shi\'ite. Polytheistic religions are purely bogus and a little open mindedness will make anyone realize how dumb it is. Only thing I recommend is if your gonna be a non theist don\'t bash theist. Respect them, or how are they gonna respect you?
So what\'s your criteria for judgement on what was and wasn\'t intended as a metaphor? Perhaps you\'re aware that interpretations vary widely. Theres literally thousands of denominations all with their own unique interpretive spins, and only one can be right.add on top of that - that the word of god and the bible is so scripturally and morally contradictive, so plainly ambiguous that anyone can form *any* justifications or beliefs from it, and routinely do.
Most athiest bash Christianity because the christian bible contradicts itself at every turn. BESIDES all the other things that are wrong with just plain faith, christian or not. We don\'t use science to degrade it. We use science to prove that science itself is a much more *probable* answer for everything then some god that you have absolutely no proof of. Like the fact that the earth IS billions of years old, we can prove that. But the bible says otherwise, so right there, the bible\'s wrong on something. You can\'t choose to trust some things in science and choose not to go with others just because they prove something you don\'t agree with (especially when there\'s no way you can disagree with proof) I claim no such thing. I just say that it\'s extreemly EXTREEMLY unlikely what with everything we\'re discovering science wise and having no proof god wise. When you talk of probablilty, because we have evidence pointing towards so, no it\'s not. If you\'re talking about evolution, no not really. We\'re as sure about evolution and where we came from as we are that the moon exists. Kind of hard to argue with that. So we\'re a little more justified in our statements* What about if they do fully prove where the earth came from/started? Just going to decide science is faulty? Or are you going to do like other christians do and say that doesn\'t mean god didn\'t create the stuff that created the earth, even though that\'s not what the bible says, because a lot of christians do that as well. If you understand something that completely contradicts itself so often then you have a real messed up way of understanding things. Because the bible says one thing, then close to the exact opposite at some points. Here\'s a little tip the bible doesn\'t tell you...WE EVOLVED. We were NOT put here as we are by some greater being, that has been proven. Adam and Eve...were not the first two human beings on earth. They just weren\'t, there\'s nothing you can argue against that. Unless as I\'ve said before, you\'re just going to say that science is faulty. In which case you couldn\'t have anything proven to you since you\'d be refusing to accept evidence and probability due to thousands of studies. That or two ape-like creatures a long time ago were named Adam and Eve somehow...I guess that could work. Yes, because someone went astray and decided not to take *all* of the bible literally and seriously, means that chistianity is good because you can interpret it yourself. Hm...kind of like crappy poetry that you *can* think of in different ways, and that\'s the only thing that makes it good (since you can think of it in ANY way you see fit). Okay what you just said here, completely contradicts your next statement and coming from a christian is completely 100% ridiculous. You\'re beliefs are just as ridiculous or \"dumb\" as theirs are. Both just as unprovable and just as unlikely. Just because they believe in more than one god does not mean that your beliefs aren\'t just as \"dumb\" as theirs. So I\'d watch how you pass your hypocritical judgements around here. If a thiest chooses not to repect me because I said (example) they\'re completely ridiculous for believing that the earth is only a few thousand years old then good riddance. Just because someone choses to point out your faults or the unlikelyhood of your beliefs in no way means they\'re disrespecting you. And this coming from a person who called a bunch of other religions \"dumb\". You\'re just a hypocrite. It\'s really sad. You ruined your entire post by even stating that other religions are wrong let alone \"dumb\".
Really?! I mean, I agree ofcourse, but what in your opinion makes polytheistic religions less plausible than monotheistic religions? And what is the trinity if not basically polytheistic (even though doctrine tries to twist it around to be more monotheistic)? Have you considered both might be somewhat, in your words, bogus? And for exactly the same reasons. That neither have any evidence for any claim they make.