Angry and provoking? LOL

Sorry you can't follow the message, but you have the tone misplaced.

I think I'll just retire from the thread.

William, you appear to be saying several different contradictory things. I am very confused by what your point is. You seem very angry as well as trying to provoke people. You first say atheism is indefensible and that agnosticism is almost the same thing and then you put down religion. I am not sure what your point is at all. But I must ask you to please be nicer in your posts and less attacking. I respect your right to an opinion but not where it infringes the rights of others to an opinion as well.

We are trying to have a peaceful dialog here. So far everyone is doing a pretty good job of disagreeing but still being civil. Let's keep it that way. Thank you!

Trevor wrote: "This seems an utter confusion to me, William. I guess you know what you mean and I'm sure that is a good thing.

Life obeys the laws of thermodynamics, just as everything else does. Otherwise we..."

Well of course there are no 'laws of thermodynamics'. Reality is not bound by human conjecture. And many living things do not 'eat' ... they directly convert sunlight to growth ... unless you consider energy consumption 'eating'. If so how much 'eating' is done by life today as compared to its origin? More or less?

Of course I did not invent 'life', so I have not found a way around entropy. However, if you have a light bulb no matter how long it is on and how much its source watts are the energy dissipates with the distance from the bulb. Take the first living microbes and measure the energy they put off .. their living 'heat' if you will. What is the ratio of that level of energy to the energy now put off by all the living things on this planet? More or less? Entropy says (in cosmology) a hypothetical tendency for the universe to attain a state of maximum homogeneity in which all matter is at a uniform temperature (heat death). So is life at a uniform temperature (heat death) now compared with the temperature when life began?

Plus life need not end ... this is simply a function of the DNA program. The first amoeba is still around, so to speak, because it continues via fission. What other source of energy do you know that increases?

"Nothing pisses off fundamentalists quite like atheism"
I think that other "heretical" fundamentalists probably piss them off more. Certainly been a few wars on this basis. Ah, interpretation of scriptures...

This seems an utter confusion to me, William. I guess you know what you mean and I'm sure that is a good thing.

Life obeys the laws of thermodynamics, just as everything else does. Otherwise we would have no need to eat. But if you think you have found a way around this most ruthless of laws - then good on you.

A curious anecdote: When Columbus ‘discovered’ the new world he could not imagine other races beyond those he was familiar with … thus those that inhabited the new world were ‘Indians’. His philosophy was unprepared to deal with that which he had never seen or imagined. Such is the same for those on this rock called Earth who think that the wherewithal of the universe rests here in their mind.

William, what do you mean by: "life, which is anti-entropic as opposed to all other energy.">

Is that really the opposite of a belief in god? I..."

What is 'god'? A white haired old man on a throne in another dimension? The point is how can someone sit on this rock we call Earth and determine all of the possibilities throughout the cosmos to any degree of certainty?

As to entropy. Turn on a lamp to read by. Touch the bulb ... it will be hot to your hand. You can read near the lamp. Now go two miles away from the lamp ... when you reach out your hand will you feel the heat? Can you read by the light? Entropy has difused the energy by the inverse square law (approximately). Now take a simple bacteria and provided it with food ... via fission it will reproduce until the food supply runs out or it's own by products poison it ... this is how wine is made.

Existence was malleable, reality alterable. The Universe was a total phenomena, interconnected, mass was energy, energy was mass, but life was special; connected and wholly dependant on the attributes of energy and mass, yet it was something which denied chaos, built upon order, oriented towards complexity. Life adjusted the inanimate to suit its needs … its wants.

He got up and walked over to the port, dilated the shutters, and looked out to the Earth gliding by below, the blue sky above, and high in the sky a brilliant orb of energy, too bright to look at directly. Death, non-existence, oblivion, chaos is pervasive across all of creation he fully grasped for the first time … even matter and energy themselves are not immune. Entropy rules ruthlessly; is the common enemy of all order.

Life is a form of energy that does not follow the rules of entropy ... you die your offspring go on. The organism becomes more complex.

What else is Life? Magic?

"By all means explain to us the existence of the cosmos and all existence. Explain life, which is anti-entropic as opposed to all other energy. "

Is that really the opposite of a belief in god? Is that the only way one can not believe in god? If they can explain the existence of the cosmos and all existence?

As for life - it is hardly anti-entropic, as we are all destined to find out one day. I'm afraid it is even worse, I don't think life is actually an 'energy'. But I will be keen to hear you explain how it is.

William, what do you mean by: "life, which is anti-entropic as opposed to all other energy.">

Trevor wrote: "I think atheism is only indefensible if the rules of the game are set up so that those claiming to be atheist are required to prove god does not in fact exist. But atheism becomes a fairly obvious..."

By all means explain to us the existence of the cosmos and all existence. Explain life, which is anti-entropic as opposed to all other energy.

I can't wait to find out how this fragment of flotsam in an infinite sea has found the truth.

I guess the word is MAGIC!!

Forgive me if I reiterate points made by others and for coming late to the table.

The irony that lies behind this discussion is that had Dawkins written a book about his belief in Jesus, or Buddha, or zoroastrianism, no one would raise an eyebrow. Anyone who writes about his or her atheism immediately provokes a response as if somehow his non-belief (for that’s what it really is despite all the hoopla about atheism being a faith, etc.) is a personal attack on believers. Does Dawkins have faith in science? Of course, because it’s a process for defining and providing solutions to problems and predicting outcomes. No religion does that. Is that a faith similar to faith in God? Absolutely not, because faith in a supernatural, by definition, is undemonstrable and permits one to believe basically anything you want. Science is the opposite.

Religion, as Dawkins and Harris demonstrate, permits adherents to define a set of values that require no demonstrable proof of their value. That’s a huge difference. A religious person can always fall back on, “well, God told me so,” and therefore you must believe what I say and/or do. From reading Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris, that’s a basic message – and danger – that lies behind their antagonism to any religious belief system

From reading several of the posts, it’s also apparent that the respondents have not read Dawkins’ book. My father, a theologian, by the way, always used to say, and rightly so, “if you haven’t read the book you have no business talking about it.”

I think atheism is only indefensible if the rules of the game are set up so that those claiming to be atheist are required to prove god does not in fact exist. But atheism becomes a fairly obvious conclusion if the first move in the game is to ask just what this god thing is anyway? The god that had started out being impossible to consistently disprove the existence of suddenly tends to become a subject without a predicate and while it is hard to disprove the existence of something that has no properties it is also just as hard to see why anyone would bother believing is such an empty concept.

The word is NECESSITY! I just can't see the need of this concept.

Atheism is an indefensible position. First of all you cannot prove a negative, or coming from a mote in the far reaches of the universe say that you know enough about spirituality to eliminate any possibility of ‘god’.

Secondly no one has ever traversed death for any length of time and returned to describe it. Mostly unconsciousness is oblivion in the sense there are no means we know of of gaining any information about anything.

That said agnostics are not much beyond atheists …. Claiming one ‘does not know’ is not the same as having no reason to know. Fact is the point is open ended when it comes to ‘spirituality’. Grubby fungus on a far flung piece of rock in the universe is not likely to come up with any ‘truth’ on a topic that spans the cosmos and its origin. But occassionally someone sees truth!

Religions have come and gone because of the politics of divesting one or more groups of their beliefs because it suits some purpose of the oligarchy. Hence the polytheism of the Vikings was a mortal target of the Christian Church because it said your life here was most important, what you accomplished was important, and dying for a cause (even if that cause was subjugation of another political province) was a ‘godly thing’ to do. But less than most, the Nordics were not overawed by their gods … they were their equals, even though there might be a first.

There is an interesting story of a famous Viking warrior who was asked by his equals if Odin was the highest of all the gods. The warrior said he would find out and crossed Bifrost into Asgard and met with Odin in Valhalla. He asked him if there were another that was first-among-equals to Odin. Odin replied that he had accomplished much, and was rewarded generously, but that just up the road was another who’s hall was much more lavish and plush than his own. And so the warrior set out for this much better hall, and finding another there asked the same question … and was given the same answer. And each hall he came to the owner told him of another hall greater than his own.

And after a time the warrior got tired of going from greater to greater halls, and returned to Midgard via Bifrost. And all the warriors asked him who was the greatest. And he told them it was all a waste of time to find out, because there was always someone greater than the one he found, and that they would have to be happy with their own first-among-equals, and not bother with seeking the highest power.

Of course all those the warrior met had been Odin, and had just changed appearances. He was showing the warrior as said in Völuspá that each man/woman and their own will, efforts, and accomplishments were what mattered … and that ‘gods’ were not there to be worshipped, but were what all people were made from.

A truism all organized religions have tried to wipe out of the human mind. And something used by the ‘rulers’ to dispose of humans and their belongings since the beginning of time … and even today.

The word is FREEDOM!

FYI, the definition of athiest is

"One who disbelieves or denies the existence of a God, or supreme intelligent Being."

It is specifically in relation to whether there is a god and is therefore defined in terms of God.

This is different from areligious which is someone who has no use for religion.

Just wanted to put that out there because several posts appeared to want to make it more general than that. The word roots are "a/ad" or away from/without and "theo" or god. Someone who calls him or herself an athiest is specifically denying the existence of God, not religion, not organized religion, not spirituality, not supernatural phenomena, just God.

An agnostic is one who does not know. It can be applied to areas other than religion but that is the most common. (a=without, gnosis=knowledge)

Perhaps it would be interesting to consider that it might be said and defended that religion has little to do with God. And as Gandhi said, "God has no religion." I believe simply that belief in God does not require religious involvement. Religion is, after all, about man controlling man. And if one considers every negative, and yes even evil, major thing that mankind has done, it was carried out in the name of religion.

Hi Paul, Yes, Dawkins effectively disposes of this fallacy. He points out that:
(a) the onus of proof is on those who assert something, not those who deny it
(b) just because the existence of something cannot be proven or disproven does not mean that its likelihood is 50:50 - think of Bertrand Russell's assertion that there is an invisible china teapot in orbit around the sun: just because you can't disprove it does not make it likely, nor does it mean you need to be agnostic about it. We don't feel the need to be agnostic about fairies, goblins, Santa Claus or the flying spaghetti monster, or Zeus, or Jupiter or Thor (in fact we are all atheists when it comes to other people's gods)...why then do we need to be agnostic about the magician in the sky?

Trevor,

That was gorgeous. I really love your description so much. I was raised Christian like the bulk of Americans before I decided I wasn't so interested, and I still actually come 'round to a similar place to you.

The other day I was discussing ex-boyfriends with my friend. I had one who was abusive, and I think that people don't get abusive men (whole other topic, obviously). I was telling her that I feel like most people have a range - like, on my medium days I do what I am supposed to and only what I have to, on my bad ones I tend to do less than that, and on my great ones I go way above and beyond. Well, this ex of mine had an amazing side, and when he was great he was great. But when he was insecure he was reminded how he thought that I was surely the one person on earth he should be able to dominate. But both of those people were him. It was just like an instrument out of harmony, and if you could tune him like a piano he had many wonderful qualities. And although I left him behind a long time ago (you know, so he could abuse some other woman - some solution, advocates), I still miss him. I still wish that I could say the right magical thing to make him really realize that there's no rightful gender hierarchy, and that working with his lady is so much more powerful than undermining her. And I still, years later, think he may call and say that to me. But my best friend, she tells me - "you can't change people." Even though we all have and can effect change both through love and through hate.

But this same girl, whom I love dearly, makes up God however she likes. She claims to be a Christian, but her God doesn't match up with the God of the Bible, or of any of the denominations available. And she experiences no cognitive dissonance from this. I actually feel like the perspective we share is more a result of actually being taught Christianity as a child - there is certainly a way that the Christian God would like you to behave according to different schools of Christian thought, and it seems absurd to me that so many people out there make up their own rules as they go along.

My husband's father, who is quite the history buff, says that this 'personal God' is a new invention, a feeling that came about in the 20th Century, along with love marriages and cable TV. I don't know about that, but I meet people constantly who have the idea that God speaks to them through the Living Word, or that they can interpret or pick for themselves. I mean, is it any wonder "faith-based" people don't like the science - there can't be six billion different sciences to please each individual.

Like most atheists, I can parse all the subtle differences between faiths, and spend lots of time reading about religion. I understand where factions split off over interpretation. But I am less comfortable with individual, unstudied interpretation than I am with the most fervent fundamentalist snake-handler. I mean, if you are supposed to be humbling yourself before some great wisdom, how do you reconcile that with the hubris to not even believe something older than yourself?

As for the people of whom you speak, I don't think they do know what's going on any more than we do. Nor do I think they experience a richer emotional life. And yes, it is like atheism with hope. And it rings like a lie to me as well.

And part of the problem for me with the religious types may be the problem that sends you here - that they refuse to help make the world a better place or expect better behavior from others - they take an entirely 'hands-off' approach to their personal lives and think activists are controlling and absurd. Meanwhile, they, in their infinite humility, can make whatever they'd like of God.

***mild disclaimer*** obviously, I have specific people in mind, don't everyone all go 'proving me wrong' by showing how they aren't like that - I hope you're not.

I was brought up atheist, so there came a time in my life when I thought I ought to see what all the excitement was about with Christianity. So, what to do? I thought the sensible thing would be to read the Bible and see what Christians believed. A big mistake, obviously. This was a long time before I realised that virtually no ‘Christians’ read the Bible at all – only the scary ones do that and even then only certain passages.

For a while I would ask Christians how many brothers and sisters Jesus had – standard answer, surprisingly, is none. I think it is eight brothers and an unspecified number of sisters (girls generally don’t get counted in the Bible).

I was honestly struck by how immoral the Bible is – and not just a little bit immoral, but when Moses advices his followers to kill all of the people already in the holy lands, the promised land, I didn’t think he meant everyone and their kids and their goats.

There were even bits of the New Testament I found morally repugnant – so I would ask people who called themselves Christians what they made of all this and how they could justify it. Of course, they could make nothing of it as they had never read the parts of the Bible I was referring to and if these bits had been discussed in Church they hadn’t realised they were meant to be listening.

I’ve no idea what religion is. At least the sort that you are talking of Nated. I really do think you are right. We atheists do prefer to make people like you more fundamentalist than you are. I can really see that as something I do all the time – and it is not something I do just to annoy you, it is just that it seems to me to be the only way to take religion at all. I would assume, if I was religious, that if there is a god and he wrote a book like the Bible, well, gosh... Not taking him seriously in what he says wouldn’t seem to be an option.

So, when people say that they don’t take this stuff as seriously as the fundamentalists I wonder what it is that they do believe. Often I think it is hardly different from what I believe, just with a hope added that somehow all this makes a bit more sense than just the universe in its being, developing and inevitable dying. I can understand that people would like there to be more, but just wanting there to be more doesn’t seem enough to me to make there be more.

I don’t think that a thinking person now could really believe in something like hell. I don’t think a thinking person could really believe in something like heaven either. Both are forms of wish fulfilment that seem terribly childish today, I think. But the ‘spiritual’ (for want of a better term) seem to have a very vague concept of what the extra bit is that needs to be attached to the universe for it to seem to be complete for them.

I really don’t need whatever that extra bit is, because I really do know that we are at the end of a scientific dark age. There are so many things we just do not know, so many things that it is just staggering, but that is reason for joy, delight and excitement. I just can’t see how adding a god in there helps the story along in any way.

Like you, Nated, I prefer narrative to numbers – I’m just not as keen on omniscient narration, perhaps.

Sorry, all a bit rushed...

Perhaps I reacted to the 'supermarket' comment in the way I did because it's been used by the fundamentalists a great deal on people of my persuasion, but in the sense that we should, 'fly right' and get on board their little hatewagon...anwyay, I didn't get the humor, but I wasn't that upset, just being a bit touchy, i suppose...anyway...

I do reserve the right to claim that I'm a better christian than some other people, since Christianity is a defined set of rules, which in my interpretation, hate-type fundamentalists are ignoring. Of course, they have exactly the same argument, which is why I don't proselytize, not intentionally anyway...too tough to back up and it is a feeling, not really empirical, and I don't think that's really communicable by argument.

I don't mean to be disrespectful to the atheists in this conversation by talking about the things experienced through spirituality...that kind of "wow, how can you not see it" kind of disprespectful. I'm sure what this is that I feel and experience (partially) through spirituality is perceived by you guys in a different way. I think it's all a question of lenses and contexts. The way Trevor and Alejandro are talking about evolution and the cosmos make sense to me, and I don't think anyone must put God/gods/etc. in there to make it wondrous and viable and respectable, all that.

That god of the gaps thing, Trevor, i agree, is a supremely lazy way of explaining the universe. To me, that divinity shows itself in the amazing complexity of the systems that exist, evolution, space/time, etc., but that is more of an invitation to exploration than a stop sign. I think people employ that gap/science/theology when their curiosity is satisfied/frustrated, to justify their stoppage on the (theoretically) infinite path of scientific inquiry.

I also fully agree that the 'god between the sheets' stuff is an extremely creepy expression. I mean, i do think that everything we do reveals some of that sublimity, but its still what we do...the puppet master concept should be left in the middle ages. Again, part of what makes me in awe of all of this stuff is the way it was set up, like the awe for an amazing experimental demonstration, in which one is impressed by the 'set up' as well as the spectacle of the result displayed, nature is really what makes the impact. What would those creepy priests say about all (probably the majority) the fantastic, non-church sanctioned orgasms going on out there? I wonder...probably Satan, another lazy catch-all.

Well well...the blessing. I dunno, it's a nice thing to say, even if it's meant aggressively (all in how one takes it). It can aggressively assert the existence that you may be denying...I mean, no matter the spirit, they're wishing the favor of what they believe to be an omniscient and omnipotent super being upon you, and that seems to me to be affirmative. Anyway, half the time it's said, in response to sneezes and whatnot (at least in the US), it's just a kind of knee jerk politeness reflex with little real content.

I would just add: "Understanding the mountain of probability is a way to better understand evolution and see where we have climbed up to this point" - for you - I dunno, hard to make absolute value judgments work here, since what brings about understanding in one may not for another. Probability makes me sleepy - maybe my dislike of mathematics and my attraction to narrative is the reason I'm drawn to the side I'm voicing here...I just see the universe more clearly as a novel with characters... ;-P

Yeah, so, let's keep being funny just understand when some of us are reading tired and don't get it...

Trevor I'm with you all the way. The supermarket comment is exactly what we need and makes this subject light and part of our lives. No need to apoligise to me at least sir. I totally understood your humor the first time. Looking into the abyss and we laugh at the theatre of our lives, 'as in a divine comedy'. I've heard the word inperfection a few times as to suggest flaw in design. The tone in some of the comments also imply their spirituality is more truthful than others who claim to be spiritual. Same as the religious from various sects and branches, negating the christianity of others because their christianiaty is the right one. At the risk of being pinned an agressive comentator, I also find arrogance in 'some' religious folks who claim the ability of blessing me. Therefore implying that we atheists know nothing for there is a mystery we aren't capable to tap into, wich they happen to do so with ease.
Trevor I've attended my cousins' confirmations and even baptisms and heard that similar comments from the mouths of asexual men in robes, god being in between a couple's sheets. Understanding the mountain of probability is a way to better understand evolution and see where we have climbed up to this point, is the best we as organism have adapted to climate and food supplies from around the globe. The same way the eye of a frog in the Brazilian jungle has adapted to the amphibian lifestyle it has led through milenia, that still strikes me with awe.
I strongly believe that atheists are their own moral gaige. I do right and don't kill for my survival nor steal nor rape because I'm afraid of some eternal punishment, I don't do these things because I and only I am responsible for my actions to other humans.

Why can't these things inspire awe all on their own? In Keats' case adding God as the mover of the pen only takes away awe. As for the universe, the God that tends to be added is the God of the gaps who tends to stop us asking why? And this again diminishes awe.

I went to a Catholic wedding service once where the Priest said something to the affect that God was with a couple during sex and was responsible for how nice the climax feels. I'm not making this up. I thought at the time, "that would be just typical really, wouldn't it? He's always taking credit for the good bits and we get left with the work in getting there."

I really don't mean to upset you - the supermarket comment was me trying to be funny and I shouldn't with issues like this. My apologies.

Trevor, your knowledge of religion in general seems to be limited to 16th century Catholocism. There are nuances, man!

Okay, there's no Nuremberg defense for a religious person, and there definitely isn't one for those that fall under the unfortunately vague and maligned term 'spiritual'. That's not a consequence of one's choice of metaphysics, it's a symptom of weakness. Again, I don't understand why the conversation has to go to extremes, as if I am going to go shoot up an abortionist and say 'god made me do it'. Trevor, my point is not that 'everything is spirituality', rather that deciding that one will ignore extra-scientific consideration, ignore the possibility that perhaps we cannot concretely perceive all that is relevant, is not a viable position. I'm not saying that 'nothing is science', i'm saying that science isn't everything. So we seem to agree.

Perhaps I'm not representing my ideas that well, but i mean to argue for plurality here, science and spirituality laughing and running through fields of pretty flowers with a serious understanding of the ecological niches through which they stomp. One thing can be looked at from scientific and spiritual perspectives AT THE SAME TIME, or just one, or neither. I'm not trying to defeat atheism, I'm arguing against a view that excludes the...

Are we starting to carry banners here, Trevor, everybody? I don't want to carry the 'Religion or DEATH!' banner...Does anyone really want to carry the 'Atheism or DEATH!" banner? I mean, that's type of positioning is basically what I want to argue AGAINST.

Okay, I object to your supermarket anger Trevor. I never said that if someone is a part of a religion, that they must be an absolutist believer. What, you want us all to be fundamentalists or atheist? One does not sincerely believe just to get the 'benefit' of being lazy and adopting a 'framework' that one does not have to think about. You're not listening, those that really believe do so because of experiences with and through their religion or spirituality that hold relevance to their lives on every level. Again, here is an argument for sheep when I'm trying to suggest that being a person is what it's all about.

Of course we must pick and choose, at least in Christianity. The Bible has been picked apart and retranslated by so many different people, with so many different world domination agendas that it can hardly be taken literally, word for word. And that's beside the fact that it was put together by Roman academics in the first place, with a specific view to what these four or five guys liked most. So it's been a supermarket from the beginning, we have what we have, and not all of it is real. What would you call it, when you're told to love everybody, but hate these people, what's the solution? You can't do both, so you have to pick, that's why Christians, for instance, don't get a Nuremberg defense. You can't avoid choosing, either way you risk being 'wrong' in the eyes of the 'rules'.

Einstein said this thing about there not being a solution to a problem on the same level of consciousness that created it...Most religions contain paradoxes, because their 'sacred' texts were mostly written by several imperfect humans. So thinking religious people have to shift up from the words of the book and take other factors into consideration. For instance the horrible eternal punishment you seem to suggest that all religious people should set aside for you.

The real question, beyond any argument, that I'm interested in, is where that sense of awe comes from when you think about the infinity of universe, or Keats' youthful genius. I think the answer to that would be a lot more meaningful than any of the stuff I just said above to justify my egos reaction to your post.

Oh, Trevor, clearly you were not raised Catholic. A "bad" Catholic is one who was ever baptized yet doesn't go to Catholic mass every Sunday, take the oh-so-Catholic sacrament, drink the wine (bizarrely, it was generally Mogen David for many decades), and believe without questioning. Depending on who asks, I sometimes describe myself as a lapsed Catholic. You could have converted to Mormonism, then Buddhism, then Satanism, then ended up a Scientologist, but if you were ever baptized Catholic as a baby, the Catholic church will forever, for political reasons, consider you one of theirs. I was even conformed...uh, I mean, confirmed Catholic, though I was only 15 at the time (that was when they moved the confirmation age from 16 to 8, as if 8-year-olds could decide for themselves that this was the religion they wanted to accept and commit themselves to for the rest of their lives).

Even my mom, who for most of my life told me about how Mary was her personal savior and she prayed to her every day, is now pretty disgusted with the Catholic church and its insistence upon male dominance without the influence of women, which has led to priests who don't have sex with women, but cost the church millions of dollars because they have sex with little boys instead. One can be a "bad" Catholic for many reasons, and it often has little to do with one's faith in god. My mom would call herself a bad Catholic these days, and she won't go to church.

What I do agree with you 100% is that at some point, if not immediately (there's always a cultural influence), an atheist must look at the options and choose a moral code (I call it ethics, because the word 'moral' seems so loaded toward forced rules to me, though it's much more usage than definition) for him- or herself. The religious have the choice to do so or not to (and to accept the one that comes with their religious culture). I really don't believe that amoral atheists come to that conclusion without a great deal of thought...I think that any atheist who's ever discussed, and therefore had to defend, his or her position, is pretty clear about the implications of their moral/ethical responsibility. I've really met very few amoral atheists, though I'd be interested in having a conversation with one (who was beyond adolescence, anyhow...it's easy to be that black and white when you're 17 and you're brain's not done cooking yet).

“It seems that the opinion that the non-scientific does not exist is based on the assumption that materialist science has a monopoly on truth. On what evidence does this belief rest?”

It depends on what you mean by ‘truth’ or ‘the non-scientific’.

My problem is the opposite of the one you have here. You are concerned all ‘truth’ is being lumped under the term ‘scientific’. My concern is with lumping everything that isn’t to do with calculating the boiling point of water or the flight path of a stone once it has been thrown or anything else that has a clear empirical measurability under the title ‘spiritual’. This is really loading the dice and seeking to defeat atheism by definition.

So if your question really is: do you think there is no truth other than that which can be measured in a way that a number with a decimal point can be placed along side it – then the answer clearly is no, I don’t think that at all. I would doubt anyone would.

There is morality, aesthetics, politics and so many other branches of human knowledge and experience that do not and, I would think, never will admit of the kind of precision that could be so narrowly defined as ‘science’. But I still think these are areas in which there are ‘truths’.

I don’t need to think there is a God to be awestruck by the wonder of the universe, nor do I need to believe in spiritualism to explain this awe. I feel awe when I glance at the night sky, or watch a bird in flight, or remember Keats was younger than 25 when he wrote Ode to a Nightingale. It might have been Einstein who said that calculating the pressure variations that occur in the ear when one hears a symphony by Beethoven doesn’t really tell us anything interesting about the symphony. This is unquestionably true. These tools of ‘empirical science’ are too blunt to say anything interesting here.

But I don’t think spirituality or God say anything interesting about Beethoven symphonies either – I find it difficult to see that they say anything interesting at all. Words like ‘spiritual’ are so loaded that one cannot use them without both carting along mountains of baggage and begging the question.

I don’t think I ever said that the religious were sheep – if anything, they tend to say that about themselves. As Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep.” Or “I am the lamb of God.”

What I said was that if many of the religious are right and there is a god who has provided incredibly specific instructions on how we ought to live our lives, it is clear that their god – if he is to be believed at all – might find it a little hard to accept that after he went to all of trouble of being quite so specific in his instructions that his ‘believers’ decided not to bother following them.

I’m hoping that come Judgement day I’m far enough back in the cue to hear some of the religious ‘explain’ why they didn’t take their God as seriously as He clearly told them to. That would be enough to compensate me for having to listen to all the smug, self-satisfied comments I could expect from the ‘believers’ that there is an afterlife – though possibly not enough to compensate for the eternity of unspeakable torments and punishments and tortures this most loving of gods has in store for myself and the vast majority of humanity.

My knowledge of Catholicism is limited – I didn’t even know there were good and bad branches or that someone would more or less happily belong to the bad branch – but as a religion surely even bad Catholicism makes claims to live one’s life. Or is it just a ‘moral supermarket’ where one can choose to fill one’s moral shopping trolley with chocolates and soft drinks and skip the vegetables?

I would have thought that religion is about placing one’s self in relation to a power outside of and greater than one’s self in recognition of that greater power’s moral authority. How ought I live my life? Would seem to me to be the big question here and that religions tend to come up with a series of moral strictures in the form, ‘thou shalt not’ as the answer.

To deny this (as you seem to be doing) seems to me to be denying one of the few benefits religion could offer: a more or less coherent moral framework in which to live one’s life. If religion doesn’t even offer this it is rather hard to see what its point is.

That this is different in kind to how a thinking atheist must approach morality seems totally clear to me. A thinking atheist must find a ground for their morality somewhere other than in the unchanging word of God. An atheist must be more responsible for their actions in a deeper and truer way than is possible for a religious person to be. An atheist can never say God made me do it – because there is no God. For an atheist to say, “Society made me do it” is for the atheist to admit they did not think. I believe an atheist is more moral than a theist – virtually by definition.

There is no Nuremburg defence for an atheist, and never can be. Atheists are morally responsible agents in THIS world – and this was the idea that filled Nietzsche with fear and trembling. But thinking through the full implications of this moral responsibility isn’t something most atheists bother to do, unfortunately. I think the world would be a better place if they did.

I am not convinced that religion is inherently morally neutral, quite the opposite – but we would need to define terms if we were to have that discussion. When religion becomes spirituality and spirituality starts sounding like it has no characteristics that can even be stated it makes it impossible to say anything about it at all.

Amen Lisa, amen colleen (meant in a non-religious colloquial sense, i assure you, sort of). Anway...the only think i would say is to Lisa, that sometimes the only evidence we have of something issubjective, but I think it's important to have respect for the subjective experience's ability to indicate really relevant things, even parts of 'reality'...for instance, leading into scientific investigation that can produce what we're willing to call 'objective' evidence... I agree with your Jesus lady story...most people I hear talking like that make it harder for me to be in touch with my chosen faith ('bad catholic'). I suppose religion, (should we call it organized spirituality?) is a feature of the world and inherently neutral (morally), meaning it can be used badly or used well...

Lisa, what a beautifully brain post. Not sure I'm quite up to replying, but I'll try.

Full disclosure: after (and thanks to) a bout with depression, I turned away from my Catholic roots toward Eastern philosophy and spirituality, specifically through yoga. I'm now studying to become a yoga teacher. I'm delighted to find that a) most of the tenets of the yoga tradition are not black and white-- they allow for shades of gray, b) no authority is judging whether you are good enough-- you are evaluating yourself, and c) the personal path to know oneself and one's personal connection to a higher power is considered one of the best (and most effective) ways to find true peace and joy. In other words, everyone should be asking the difficult spiritual questions and wrangling with the answers. In fact, some might argue that this process is what gives life purpose.

So, I disagree with the idea that religions are good because they give people who can't struggle through the tough questions a simple set of answers. I think everyone can and should ask themselves these questions.

In fact, after reading Under The Banner of Heaven, I was convinced that distributing a "simple set of rules" to follow is a dangerous idea. If people are assured of their goodness simply because they've followed such and such religious laws, they have no reason to evaluate their actions. What happens when the rules don't address a specific situation? The rules are written by humans, who are inevitably fallible. Moreover, sometimes following the rules to the extreme leads to fundamentalist adherence to said rules. When you're absolutely convinced that your way is the right way, there's little reason to tolerate people with different perspectives.

Not quite sure how all of this comes together, but maybe what I'm trying to say is that although I don't follow a religion, I am spiritual. And I think many people could live more ethical, rewarding lives through self-examination and questioning whether they see divinity in the world around them.

Nated, I'm a psychologist, so I give great credence to experiential evidence...and also know just how fallible it can be. One's prior experience, culture, and expectations hugely influence how people interpret their experiences, and how they describe these experiences to others. On the other hand, one's own experience of their reality is the only thing that matters when trying to understand what someone may be going through.

The thing is, I don't count on other people's subjective reality to inform my own (except in understanding the social world and what people perceive/how they behave). When I was 13, a woman in a public library told me that she'd seen Jesus Christ in her living room. Something like that sure would help me understand her behavior in other contexts, but doesn't do much for my understanding of whether there's a god.

I certainly wouldn't argue that all religious people follow a morality blindly. There are those who achieve the ability to envision the greater good and act accordingly despite personal consequences (often great religious leaders). That's not blind, in my view, but deeply considered. I would argue that religion allows people who might be stuck there anyway to rely on "good/evil" or "law-and-order" moral systems (I'm basically describing Kohlberg's stages of moral reasoning-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kohlberg%27... ), but it's kind of a chicken-egg argument. Does religion offer answers to people who (probably anyway) have difficulty with thinking through moral questions, or does having a system in place they can adopt prevent the thinking and hard questions that would advance the development of people who find these tasks difficult? Hard to say.

Sorry Jessica I should have aimed my responce but I hear that all the time.

I think it's a mistake to assume that 'evidence' and 'materialist evidence' mean the same thing. Experiences are also evidence.

It seems that the opinion that the non-scientific does not exist is based on the assumption that materialist science has a monopoly on truth. On what evidence does this belief rest?

Also, I have to say, I really object to the suggestion that all 'religious' people follow a morality blindly, and that it is therefore meaningless. Almost all contempoary concepts of morality share the same tenets with religion. That's not to say they originated there, but the two are mostly the same. So I don't think anyone can claim to have invented their own morality, utterly from scratch, and take full credit for it. At the very best, you pick the majority of your morality from the moral information floating through society, much of which has religious origin. Those personal bits, the things that just 'feel' right, are usually deeply ingrained from childhood. All we get credit for, I think, is the bits we decide to keep. Yes there are lots of sheep, but unless you mean to suggest that some of them are taking part in this discussion, why make such a blanket statement? Remember, we're discussing spirituality as well, people that go out of their way to seek truth in an organized way, mostly not sheep. It's easy to believe any cultural dominant, of which faith in materialist science is one.

There's a misnomer here, in: "Why is it labeled...?"
rather than: "Why do you write...?" The expression came from me, an imperfect human being.

Why is it labeled "imagined dragons"? When a Judean who was a decendant of the first king of the Hebrew tribe of David was seen to walk on the Jordan river and turn water into wine at a wedding, he surely must have been the son of god.
The belief in dragons eminated from the unearthing of fossils but we can't even begin to guess if they believed in dinosaurs before then. We have to place our imagination in the miystical realm that existed in ancient times from a hunter and farming rural societies.
The medicine men, shaman and priests guided people through rituals dances and visions. There was a thin line between the mortal world and the realm of the spirit world. It's not fair to see the ancient world with western eyes.

My understanding is that the Chinese, having come across so many dinosaur fossils, imagined dragons....so that dragons really have their genesis in dinosaur fossils [because my son was obsessed with dinosaurs for about 8 years, I read a lot...]

So you're saying that the Chinese believed in dinosaurs before the discovery of fossils because they had discovered fossils?

They were not mad, they incorporated them into their culture. Explanations of natural phenomenon were simply assimilated. This excerpt in Wikipedia was discussed by scholars about the origin of legendary icons. "Coiled dragon" forms have been attributed to the Hongshan culture.[4] Why the Hongshan peoples "coiled" their dragon motifs while other cultures did not? Possibly the sleeping dinosaur fossil may offer a suggestion, because it was discovered within the same province, Liaoning. Perhaps Hongshan peoples found additional "sleeping dinosaur" fossils.

Folks when we woke up one morning streched our dormid and cold bones, set out that day to hunt a fresh antilope or byson, we came back to the cave and our grateful child look into our eyes. Asked us how and who, we answered what seemed obvious, the sun has provided me with the strength to hunt, the wisdom to find water and it makes the trees bare fruit. That I think was the birth of religion.

"For most of human history there was no evidence of the existence of dinosaurs, but that did not mean that they did not exist."

I think you could argue though that anyone who believed in dinosaurs before the discovery of fossils was slightly mad.

"For most of human history there was no evidence of the existence of dinosaurs, but that did not mean that they did not exist."

True. And I'm willing to believe that there are more things than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio. I'm willing to agree that there is more out there than we've seen yet, because there is plenty of historical evidence to support this claim. However, before there was evidence of dinosaurs, groups of people didn't run around talking about their faith that giant lizards once dominated the earth. It's that belief in something *specific* that is as-of-yet unproven that is the basis of faith.

"What about that scientific maxim: "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"?"

I've said before that proving a negative is nearly impossible in a scientific sense. Absolutely agreed. However, the choice to believe in a specific god strikes me as entirely arbitrary, except in a cultural context. There's no evidence that the flying spaghetti monster isn't running the show, instead of a god, but that doesn't mean I'm going to start believing in the flying spaghetti monster. I choose only to base my reality on the things I can see and demonstrate, and as new things come into the realm of human understanding that can be demonstrated, I'm happy to adjust my reality to accommodate. In contrast, if it were a belief system, faith and reason are two separate systems, and it would be harder for me to adjust my 'faith' in the nonexistence of something when presented with newly discovered reasons and facts.

"...it is clear that these are the people that need to prove the existence of this proposed force – not those who doubt."

Good point, Trevor. If I say something is true without some sort of demonstrable evidence, it's not up to other people to prove me wrong. If I want to convince others, I would have to be the one to provide the evidence. If I were to describe some sort of heretofore unknown subatomic particle, and told you all about its supposed properties, I would need to be the one to bring the evidence to the table.

"...as the final word will be from the faithful, “I know this to be true – not in my head, but in my heart.”"

Thank you, Trevor. That was very well-put. I have chosen to stick to only things that I can know with my head. And that is no more a faith-based decision than it is for any person, believer in the non-demonstrable or not, to accept that things that can be demonstrated are true. I'm perfectly happy with others choosing to believe with their hearts things the head can't prove, but I don't. I don't take it on faith that there's nothing else out there, but I won't choose some specific things (various conceptions of god, or ghosts, or the flying spaghetti monster) to believe are out there until the evidence is in. That's not faith, that's just waiting for proof before believing in something.

“When I say that atheism is a belief, my point is that it seems to me that atheism is a decision to 'believe' that anything that is not supported by scientific evidence does not exist.”

No, not really. Nietzsche, he to whom ‘god is dead’, would surely be considered an atheist and he would definitely have problems with the belief you are here ascribing to all atheists. As I’ve said before, atheism is a refusal to believe in a supernatural force or guiding principle to the universe. Nothing more.

I do believe that in the end the only consistent argument that the faithful – the believers – can put forward for their belief is some form of personal revelation, which seems to be what you are saying in the body of your post. In this sense I feel all standard rational discussion must come to a close on this topic – as the final word will be from the faithful, “I know this to be true – not in my head, but in my heart.” Where could one begin to discuss this?

“As I have said before, people that believe in the 'supernatural' do not generally do so out of whimsy.”

“Similarly, there is usually evidence to support an individual's belief in gods, etc. The issue is that this evidence is not accessible to materialist investigation.”

I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but it seems to me that this evidence can only really be a form of a personal revelation of the truth – the oft quoted ‘leap of faith’. The problem I have with this is what is the nature of this truth? Why do similar practices – mediation, prayer, and other religious practices that seek atonement with this supernatural force (pilgrimages, and so on) lead to such remarkably divergent conclusions among the various faithful? Even a cursory glance at the beliefs of the world religions is enough for one to be astounded by the sheer incompatibility of these religions and religious views – often incompatible to the point of a sword.

The truth you are talking of here seems to me to be a very potent kind of truth. It is not one seated in the head, but in the heart, or the liver or in the bowels. It is one that once it is grasped in its full and frighteningly awesome beauty makes obligations of those who see its light – some of these obligations are truly terrible. To me, this truth is beyond reason, it is something that cannot really be explained, and probably does not need to be, by those who believe in it. And it is this that makes it most frightening to me. I fear this kind of belief as it is potentially the most destructive power imaginable, and one that is not open to reason on any level.

Reason may not provide much hope for human happiness, but at least it provides some. The history of faith is a history of repeated and devastating destruction of those of different views. I prefer the very little hope reason affords.

You seem to be saying that because the atheist cannot conclusively prove that ‘god’ does not exist, their ‘belief’ in his non-existence (and the consequences of that non-belief) are the same as for those who do believe. You seem to be saying that both atheist and theist have untestable claims – and so both are ‘faith based’.

I don’t agree with this conclusion. Firstly, it isn’t really up to the atheists to disprove the existence of god. If someone is proposing a remarkable force in the universe – a creative and positive force for good, say, or one that judges us and provides the basis of our morality, one that is jealous and vengeful – well, it is clear that these are the people that need to prove the existence of this proposed force – not those who doubt.

Secondly, my non-belief requires nothing comparable to the believers leap of faith. There is a tendency to lump everyone into the same basket and to say ‘everything is that same as it ever was’. But non-belief is fundamentally different from belief.

Besides, I think if I was a God I would be much more impressed with my creatures who did not believe in me than those that did. On judgement day, when I speak to those who do believe in me and ask them why they did not follow my word to the letter they will probably say how difficult my instructions were to follow (some might even say impossible – if they are being honest). The atheists won’t say this – they will have to say, I found the very idea of you absurd, so I was forced to live my life according to moral principles I could understand and choose for their own good. When I choose to act on these principles (and often I am ashamed to admit all I did was follow convention – nothing more thoughtful than that), but when I did act on principle it was for its own sake – because good is good for its own sake. If I was a god I would prefer that answer – I would prefer my creatures not to believe in me, but to learn the truth and choose the good for its own sake. To me, faith is a barrier to being truly good and the faithful people who can never be sure just why they are good. That seems horribly wrong to me.

Lisa, you seem frustrated by the suggestion that atheism is a belief, I don't understand.

What about that scientific maxim: "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"? In the same sense that there is no scientific evidence for the presence of a god or gods, there is not scientific evidence that there isn't one or some. Science simply does not address this area of human experience.

When I say that atheism is a belief, my point is that it seems to me that atheism is a decision to 'believe' that anything that is not supported by scientific evidence does not exist.

The belief element seems to enter on the decision of the primacy of the kind of materialist fact with which science occupies itself. The scientific method does not indicate that things it has not discovered do not exist, it merely states, according to it's own rules, that there is no scientific evidence for it. Belief comes in when we extrapolate that because there is no scientific evidence, there is no existence.

For most of human history there was no evidence of the existence of dinosaurs, but that did not mean that they did not exist. Science has been driven often by belief in unproven hypotheses. Perhaps I don't 'believe' in the accuracy of the plum pudding concept of matter and the atom, though I can't prove it's not true, just evidence seems to me to line up with another structure. So I put up a screen of gold and shoot alpha particles at it, and then I have proof that atoms contain empty space...

Why then, do some people vigorously insist that lack of evidence is evidence of non-existence?

As I have said before, people that believe in the 'supernatural' do not generally do so out of whimsy. There is evidence, experiences, that lead to belief of all kinds. The incredible productivity that has been brought forth with the scientific method is the root of belief in the value of scientific fact.

Similarly, there is usually evidence to support an individual's belief in gods, etc. The issue is that this evidence is not accessible to materialist investigation. When a monk, say, has transcendent experience in meditation there is no direct evidence left over that can be accessed by materialist science, there is not material. But there is evidence in the memory of the monk, and memory is accepted as evidence in courts of law and in social passage of information.

The development of meditation techniques, especially in easter 'religious' traditions, has been carried out according to the scientific method, but with a wider field of acceptable evidence to accommodate the ephemeral nature of the consciousness, which is what such investigation is concerned with. In this way techniques have been developed which are much more powerful than any one monk could have come up with alone, have been developed and passed down over generations. It was done with trial, error, and extrapolation from evidence, which is all part of the scientific method.

The strength of materialist science is that it gives us unprecedented ability to influence our physical environment. This is not, however evidence that there is nothing else worth considering, merely that we can get by very well without anything else.

Exactly. Evolutionary and genetic have two very different meanings.

I brought up genes to play devil's advocate, that even very complex things can be directly genetic, but really, what evolves are structures (like the brain) and how they influence the way we behave in certain situations. Genes themselves don't confer any evolutionary advantage--they're just little bits of DNA. Genes offer many possibilities and constrain some others, but it's what genetic possibilities get expressed and in what contexts (ethology) that is the basis for the evolution of everything, including behavior.

Evolution has led to certain things the human brain does exceedingly well compared to other species (planning, metacognition, reasoning, all located in the prefrontal cortex; language, left frontal lobe), and other things it does quite poorly (sense of smell, for example). That doesn't mean that there is a gene for metacognition, or for poor sense of smell. It means they've evolved as part of the way humans are built. I'm just saying there are some compelling arguments for putting religious thought/spiritual belief on the list of things the human brain has evolved to do. And like all human abilities, it varies from person to person, probably largely based on context, but potentially also in some intrinsic way.

Trevor, Lisa is it safe to say that the religious and or trascendetal expirience is an evolutionary behaviour not a gene to bond communities together. In order to mantain surviving needs such as food supplies and maintenace of the strongest in the species? If so would this be another clue into why philosophies and mythologies were created as a by-product from reason and written language. When I was a lad, and came across Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth, it triggered the idea inside me that we were historically to arrogant to admit we were just a droplet in the ocean of the cosmos and intuition, the voice in our head, inspiration, the holy spirit, a muse, enlightment after meditation, eminated from inside, outside and above. For starters when I read the virgin birth was a recurring theme in all kinds of religious thought then I knew we were simply no more than Plankton. Thanks Trevor again for your vast and accurate explanation.

“Both the believer's likelihood of mating and the believer's own and offspring's chance of survival are increased by several community-related aspects of religion.”

So, why not skip the speculation into religion having a genetic basis and just say we have a genetic predisposition towards acting socially? – That we tend to form groups? This is clearly the case. To say that there are genes that make us believe in supernatural forces seems an unnecessary step here – and one that then requires us to speculate on an atheist gene and even to create another story for the evolutionary advantages of atheism. I feel complex social phenomena, such as religion, require explanations at a social level and seeking to find increasingly complex genetic explanations probably isn’t all that helpful.

“It reinforces social norms not only when other people are watching, but when people are on their own--because god is watching.”

You see, this is a good argument – I can see that having social norms reinforced while other people aren’t watching is a handy thing for a social animal to have – I can see that this might have an evolutionary advantage. However, I’m still not sure how talk of genes adds anything here. Couldn’t this be something that emerges out of our tendency towards being social animals? Surely we should drop the talk of genes here for the sake of Occam’s razor alone.

I can see that we have genes that allow us to have big brains and that big brains allow us to seek meaning – but to then say that we have genes that explain one particular path in that search for meaning seems to me a leap into the dark.

“Accepting things that can be demonstrated by at least a preponderance of the evidence is not a belief.”

Yes, exactly – and well said.

"But seriously, i suppose atheism is a position on religion, rather than a properly religious position. But then again, it is a belief in a certain state of the metaphysical (that it does not contain a God)."

I know it's natural for most people to see things, and word things, in terms of beliefs. But I've tried, I really have, to explain that atheism isn't a belief system. People with religious/spiritual beliefs usually (there are some bizarre exceptions out there) accept things that can be shown by evidence, and also choose to believe in things that cannot. That faith in things that cannot be demonstrated is a belief. Accepting things that can be demonstrated by at least a preponderance of the evidence is not a belief. I do not believe I have five fingers on each hand. I DO have five fingers on each hand. Atheists have chosen to accept only those things that can be demonstrated, and not those things that require faith or belief in things that cannot. It is not a faith-based position, but a rejection of the faith-based position that there is something beyond what we can demonstrate.

"My understanding of evolution is that for a trait to be selected it needs to confer an advantage on the holder that either increases the holder’s likelihood of mating or increases the holder’s offspring’s changes of survival. I would be surprised if a gene or brain structure was discovered that both did this and made one feel religious. Because there is a brain structure that ‘lights up’ when people report having religious experiences or seems to be affected in some way in the very religious, does not necessarily mean that is the evolutionary point of that brain structure. I’m not sure there really is such a simple causal relationship between brain structures and complex social behaviours."

Both the believer's likelihood of mating and the believer's own and offspring's chance of survival are increased by several community-related aspects of religion. It reinforces social norms not only when other people are watching, but when people are on their own--because god is watching. A common belief system is a powerful social bonding tool, as well as a force of competition with other groups (cuts down on the competition for resources). It also reinforces other evolutionary forces such as family bonds. It doesn't cause any of these behaviors, but it strengthens and solidifies them--think of it as evolutionary-social glue.

Keep in mind that human evolution didn't happen in our own social era, but in the 'environment of evolutionary adaptedness' very early in human history.

And you'd be surprised how localized some things are, even some fairly complex behaviors, in the brain. It's just that what humans have going on that (arguably) no other creatures do is the additional ability to then reflect on, plan, and organize these behaviors and feelings by using our extremely complex prefrontal cortex, the seat of all metacognition, planning, impulse control, and ability to allocate attention to different tasks.

"I feel cultural and social structures, like religions, really need to be explained on a scale somewhat different from the genetic one."

Individual genes aren't responsible for behavior, but the structure of human behavior is, indeed, evolutionary. That's slightly different than saying it's genetic. A tendency toward certain behaviors is certainly carried in the genes, but unlike eye color, which is controlled by a single gene, behaviors are influenced by a whole host of different genes working together, and is much more flexible. Saying that a tendency toward depression is moderately hereditary is somewhat different than saying there's a gene for depression.

A side note on looking at the evolutionary basis of behavior--it's exceedingly complex. As an example, some researchers were wondering what could possibly be the evolutionary argument for homosexuality. Interestingly, the female siblings of gay men tend to have a slight advantage in fertility. It could be that a gene or (more likely) particular combination of genes remains in the gene pool because of the evolutionary advantage it conveys on females, despite its reproductive detriment to males. A more intriguing explanation is that this gene remains in the gene pool not only because it provides a reproductive advantage to females, but because women who have more children benefit from a) having a family member without children as an additional provider or caretaker, and/or b) the diminished competition for resources for her children. And if this gay male does act as provider/caretaker for his sister's children, he is also indirectly promoting his own genetic survival through the genes he shares with the sister and her offspring.

Why is a certain female waist-to-hip ratio (a moderate hourglass shape) fairly universally attractive to men across cultures? Most likely because at one time it indicated health--well-enough fed and without intestinal parasites. It's also associated with greater fertility than being skinnier or being obese.

Even non-behavioral hereditary things have explanations that aren't obvious. Sickle-cell anemia is a single-gene hereditary disorder. If you have it on both chromosomes, you have sickle-cell anemia. If you only have one copy, though, then you have an advantage in retaining water--you're drought-resistant. It shows up more often in dark-skinned people because most areas in which drought posed the most danger were hot deserts near the equator, where people developed dark skin to protect from the sun.

My argument is simply that the evolution of behaviors is very complex and can seem strange from a current perspective. But an evolutionary argument for religion doesn't mean that religious belief is inevitable--just like any behavior, there are wide variations in the behaviors available in the gene pool. We atheists aren't an endangered species by any means. Like homosexuality, it may be protected in the gene pool due to some unexplained, hidden ancillary benefit.

"Transcendental Mediation uses it when they stand for political office as the Natural Law Party – proposing to cut unemployment and the crime rate through meditation as a means to rebalance the natural law of the universe."

Um, this view is completely ridiculous. Obviously I would never support something like this. My theory (I shouldn't say 'my' since I wasn't the one who came up with it) has absolutely nothing to do with what you've just written.

Nated, yes, the stories of Christianity. It seems to me that there are basically two groups of Christians – Fundamentalists (who take these stories quite literally) and moderates (who take these stories as interesting instances of moral instruction or as culturally significant – I guess a third camp are those who don’t believe they are literally true in the sense of “I went to work yesterday” – but literally true in some other realm outside of everyday criteria of ‘truth’). Obviously I will have much more in common with the second group, but the problem most atheists get accused of is seeking to lump both groups together. I think that is because with these stories, and I’m sure this would be the same for an atheist born in a Hindu culture, it seems impossible that one can literally believe in such nonsense as the virgin birth or Vishnu’s dancing or Thor’s thunder-bolt making. However, the texts presenting these stories don’t say – “I do hope you enjoy these as a moral diversion – WARNING: all stories contained in this work are metaphoric only and meant to be taken as a guide. If you feel you are taking them literally, take two aspirin and have a bit of a lie down.” Rather they say quite the opposite – in some of these texts even going as far as to say one should not only kill non-believers, but even their goats.

Believing these stories are metaphors is already a kind of non-belief. There is an interesting similarity between now and the Classical Greece of Plato where the philosophers simply could not believe in the religion espoused by the society around them and were not sure that to do with it if they were to create an ideal republic. Effectively ban it seems to have been Plato’s solution.

To not know the stories of the Bible in our culture would deny us access to far too much of the wealth of allusion in our literature – although, I suspect here in Australia the process works backwards, with many people learning the Bible stories from literature rather than from the Bible itself.

It seems that whenever atheists take the religious on their word – you know, literally – the moderates scream that we are dumbing down the religious experience. But it also seems that the moderates (also not one position, but a near infinite spectrum of opinions) are more or less saying, “Look, this is little more than literature and the religious experience is little more than the feeling one gets after reading a good book.” I think this is partly the cause of atheists getting called fundamentalists, as like religious fundamentalist we often take religion literally, otherwise it is very hard to say anything about it at all.

When Scientology was seeking tax exemption for being a religion in Australia the courts had to come up with a legal definition for what a religion was – they said ‘belief in a supernatural Being, Principle or Thing’. I think we could get rid of a lot of confusion on this topic generally if there was such a definition. I’m more than happy to say that I am an atheist in so far as I do not believe in a supernatural Being, Principle or Thing. I also believe that on such a definition of religion many people who would consider themselves to be ‘religious’ moderates might not actually be ‘religious’. For many others their belief of such a being, principle or thing would be so slight as to barely merit distinction from my non-belief.

Salma, yes, I did get excited when you used the term natural law to describe light and dark being in balance. I assumed you were using it in the scientific sense – but it seems you were using it in the sense that Transcendental Mediation uses it when they stand for political office as the Natural Law Party – proposing to cut unemployment and the crime rate through meditation as a means to rebalance the natural law of the universe. And you are quite right, I’m very narrow minded when it comes to such ideas. They seem like a complete blind alley to me.

I do have to add that Hinduism is often seen as a philosophy rather than a religion (though it definitely is the latter as well).

It's interesting to read about- I would recommend it...but not to anyone who thinks learning about religions is a 'waste of life' of course.

"Hinduism is interesting in that it's Gods also represent various purified essences, like Kali and destruction/rebirth. It seems that even if one didn't believe in the big many armed lady, one could still meditate on this concept, and basically could still be said to be 'praying to Kali', or meditating to her anyway..."

Yeah, you're not too far off the mark. Some people do consider Hinduism polytheistic, but actually the various goddesses and gods are forms of one larger essence, Brahma. THe Westerners view Kali as a dark, even evil figure (like that ridiculousness in Indiana Jones- Temple/Doom), and she does represent destruxn, along with her consort Shiva (the god of destruction itself). But it's the destruction of negative energies that they really represent, or the need to destroy old inner selves before new ones can be born. Also as a representation of destruction as part of a life cycle.
The life cycle being, creation, preservation, and destruction, represented by the deities, Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. This cycle is partly what was behind my light and dark statement a while ago, which people vehemently opposed.

That's funny to me, that some religious people are offended by the term 'fundamentalist' being applied to atheists. Hah, I have only ever heard it used as a pejorative. Sort of like a synonym for 'narrow-minded', except with an added connotation of proselytizing.

I suppose we do drift into this colloquial realm when we apply the term to atheists, but still, I think the suggestion of closed-mindedness is the operative term in that case. Anyway, it doesn't seem like there are any of those here (in this discussion) since we're all speaking civilly still, hehe.

Trevor, i really like that stamp collecting thing, not collecting stamps is one of my favorite hobbies too. Sometimes I spend hours walking around, doing productive things and not collecting stamps.

But seriously, i suppose atheism is a position on religion, rather than a properly religious position. But then again, it is a belief in a certain state of the metaphysical (that it does not contain a God). So I can see why people are tempted to say it's a religious position. But you're right in that a lot of what makes a religion a religion is the ethics and ceremony and stories...which are not a part of atheism necessarily. But someone can still be a bastard about it, though this is true for any idea people have had, probably even stamp collecting.

You know, atheism is usually spoken about in reference to Christianity. I wonder what the interaction is in other religious traditions...Hinduism is interesting in that it's Gods also represent various purified essences, like Kali and destruction/rebirth. It seems that even if one didn't believe in the big many armed lady, one could still meditate on this concept, and basically could still be said to be 'praying to Kali', or meditating to her anyway...Christianity is different (and Islam) in that it insists on there being a physical/historical cast of characters.

But I don't know that much about hinduism.

The Portable Atheist is by Christopher Hitchens.

I worry about genetic or brain structural explanations for complex social and cultural modes of existence, like religions. It is the same way I feel when I hear they have ‘discovered’ the gay gene – god save us.

My understanding of evolution is that for a trait to be selected it needs to confer an advantage on the holder that either increases the holder’s likelihood of mating or increases the holder’s offspring’s changes of survival. I would be surprised if a gene or brain structure was discovered that both did this and made one feel religious. Because there is a brain structure that ‘lights up’ when people report having religious experiences or seems to be affected in some way in the very religious, does not necessarily mean that is the evolutionary point of that brain structure. I’m not sure there really is such a simple causal relationship between brain structures and complex social behaviours.

As is said in Not In Our Genes – if you remove a resistor from a radio and the radio starts making a horrible screeching noise, that does not necessarily mean the role of the resistor in the radio was to act as a screech suppressor. I take it human brains are somewhat more complex that radios.

I am not saying that there is thinking we do that is somehow outside our brains, but that the relationship between brain and world – the feedback and interdependence between the two – just would seem very odd to me if it was quite so one-to-one as in ‘there’s this little lump of grey matter and that’s for belief in supernatural beings’.

Dawkins alludes to the idea that we may be hard wired for belief briefly in his book – but I’m not sure such a pessimistic view is necessary. It is interesting, though, as many of the religious and many ‘agnostics’ are continually trying to make atheism ‘just another belief system’ which is ‘just as full of fundamentalists’ as any other belief system. Personally, I reject this view, as much on the basis of a quote I read on a friend’s favourite quotes – “If atheism is a religion, then not collecting stamps is a hobby.” I am an avid non-collector of stamps – I spend all of my time not collecting them. I guess that could make me a fundamentalist non-collector of stamps.

I just can’t see how having a belief in a supernatural being can really confer an evolutionary advantage on the holder of this belief. You know, in something more than an evolutionary just-so story. If it doesn’t confer an advantage how could a genetic basis of religious belief ever have evolved?

I feel cultural and social structures, like religions, really need to be explained on a scale somewhat different from the genetic one. It would be like trying to explain the motion of a billiard ball on the basis of the bonds between its electrons. The electrons all might come along with the billiard ball when it moves, the bonds might be necessary to ensure the billiard balled rolls in the first place and doesn’t fall apart when it clicks against another ball, but we are a few orders of magnitude too small to say anything meaningful about a game of pool if we keep talking about electrons. I think we are also a few orders of magnitude too small to saying anything meaningful about religion if we keep talking about genes. Lisa, I don’t think you have any need to give up your day job just yet.

The alltime favorite Dawkins book was the blind Watchmaker. It has made me look at evolution in a new way. Plus his intention is to provoke discussion, conversation and thought. I recommend the website: Richard Dawkins.net

Fundamentalism is a term with differing meanings and definitions.

The term "fundamentalism" was originally coined to describe a narrowly defined set of beliefs that developed into a movement within the US Protestant community in the early part of the 20th century. These religious principles stood in opposition to the modernist movement and espoused the strict adherence to and faith in religious "fundamentals".

The term "fundamentalist" has since been generalized to mean strong adherence to any set of beliefs in the face of criticism or unpopularity, but has by and large retained religious connotations (especially since the Iranian revolution, when Islamic fundamentalism became a term used to explain the political Islamic movement based on fundamental Islamic beliefs).[citation needed] The collective use of the term fundamentalist to describe non-Christian movements has offended some Christians who desire to retain the original definition. "Fundamentalist" has also been used pejoratively against those who hold an intransigent set of beliefs. The term has been used to characterize religious advocates as clinging to a stubborn, entrenched position that defies reasoned argument or contradictory evidence