Would you rather live in a world without science...or in a world without religion? Showing 5,951-6,000 of 12,463

[[deleted user]]

Travis wrote: "Plus, not a huge fan of broad generalizations. They tend to be inaccurate exaggerations and do nothing but bury interesting ideas and sidetracking a conversation. "

Broad generalizations like all believers seeming pretty extreme? ;)

[Hannah]

Travis calling what others believe " imaginary beings " is quite insulting .. Granted a discussion about religion is always going to be problematic but please don't insult others belief in that way

Try " what I believe to be imaginary beings " instead

[Travis]

Shannon wrote: "Travis wrote: "Plus, not a huge fan of broad generalizations. They tend to be inaccurate exaggerations and do nothing but bury interesting ideas and sidetracking a conversation. "

Broad generaliza..."

or as that great philosopher George Clooney said "It's called stereotyping and it makes life easier."

I didn't say I was here to make the conversation easier or on track. I pointed out that this kind of stuff just rolls us towards the cliff and decided it would be less hassle to just move things along to an ultimate/absurd conculsion, so we could move on.

[Drew]

Hannah wrote: "Travis calling what others believe " imaginary beings " is quite insulting .. Granted a discussion about religion is always going to be problematic but please don't insult others belief in that wa..."

They do believe in imaginary beings

[Shanna]

Hannah wrote: "Travis calling what others believe " imaginary beings " is quite insulting .. Granted a discussion about religion is always going to be problematic but please don't insult others belief in that wa..."

Can you offer any proof of the existence of "imaginary beings"? If not, is it not reasonable to refer to them as imaginary beings? After all I willing to bet you don't have qualms refering to fairies, santa, easter bunny, shiva, thor, cernunnos, isis as imaginary beings and all of these have had and some still do have believers.....

[Hannah]

Can you offer me absolute proof that god is an imaginary being !!
And no to someone who believed in them I would not , I may not believe in the Easter bunny anymore but if there are people out there that do I am not going to insult their belief

I may have faith in god but I also have faith in science , I also have faith that people can have a discussion about such things and still respect each others ideas

[Shanna]

Ah now Hannah as the claimant, for the existance of god, the onus is on you to prove the existance, not on me who simply rejects the the god hypothesis.
I see the problem you think people should lie to each other and pretend every idea is equally valid.
Nope I respect people not ideas, just because they are someone's ideas, do you respect the idea that rude children should be killed?

[Gary]

Shannon wrote: "Or, were they statements of fact that are actually quite accurate?"

With apologies to Travis, as I am well aware of his point, even if your points were accurate they are irrelevant to the point I was making.

The point was "if a belief makes you feel good, or even a group of people you belong to feel good, it does not make it true, desirable or even ethical."

As for how accurate your statements were, well they were all absolute statements based on your point of view. When does an "extremist" become an "extremist"?

It's easy to point at people and say oh they're 'evil' or 'extremist' but what about the impressionable youth who has been brought up in an environment where views we find "extreme" are the norm? Are they just evil, or how they been indoctrinated in a belief that we find extreme or evil? To their mind you may seem to be an extremist liberal who is deep in sin.

So to be clear, my point wasn't to derail, but to strongly refute the idea that just because religion may fill the adherent with peace, joy or hope, it does not mean the religion is therefore good or beneficial to society as a whole.

[Gary]

Shannon wrote: "Broad generalizations like all believers seeming pretty extreme? ;)"

Well if you take him out of context like that yes, but I am not sure its fair describing a personal viewpoint of one person as a broad generalisation. :-)

[Gary]

Hannah wrote: "Travis calling what others believe " imaginary beings " is quite insulting"

Surely if a person needs to respect others beliefs then if one person 'believes' that gods are imaginary, telling him he is not allowed to refer to them as such is insulting his beliefs. Why is it that only pro-theological beliefs are defended in this way?

If you wish him to use "believe are imaginary" then perhaps theists should use the phrase "might exist" instead of "exist" when they talk about their own deities or opinions to prevent from insulting the 'beliefs' of other religions and the non-religious?

Lets face it, if one of these 'imaginary' beings actually exist how they are imagined to be, then I doubt they are weak enough to be harmed by someone's opinion, and petty enough to care. (Unless we do have an Old Testament style, jealous, petty, murderous god).

[Gary]

Hannah wrote: "Can you offer me absolute proof that god is an imaginary being !!"

In absence of any evidence that any particular god exists, and the prolific evidence that their are many conflicting versions of the alleged entity then the being is constructed of the imagination of people.

So yes I'd say the being is imaginary, but it does not deny the possibility that one of these imaginary beings may represent an actual one that exists. (Though obviously I don't find it personally likely).

So until any credible evidence based on non-imaginative sources can be gleaned then the term I'd say is accurate, though I can see why you'd find it pejorative, though that very attitude reveals a lack of respect for conflicting opinions which are viewed as an attack rather than an alternate viewpoint.

Hannah wrote: "And no to someone who believed in them I would not , I may not believe in the Easter bunny anymore but if there are people out there that do I am not going to insult their belief."

Why is it always an insult to a belief to say you do not share it or you believe something different ... except when the belief is also based on nothing but faith?

Hannah wrote: "I may have faith in god but I also have faith in science."

I no longer have faith in any god.

I do not have faith in science because faith is an anathema to the process of science. I respect the scientific method and I acknowledge the knowledge gained thus far, but I do not have "faith" that its all right. Mainly because we well know its not yet complete.

Hannah wrote: "I also have faith that people can have a discussion about such things and still respect each others ideas."

Yet you have said that other people speaking honestly their opinion is insulting so clearly you do not respect their idea as much as you respect the idea of people who believe.

As Shanna says, I respect people, not ideas. Ideas can fully deserve all the scorn they get. I am sure that their are ideas that even you would find abhorrent and not worthy of any respect.

[Travis]

Hannah wrote: "Can you offer me absolute proof that god is an imaginary being !!
And no to someone who believed in them I would not , I may not believe in the Easter bunny anymore but if there are people out th..."

You can believe in the Easter Bunny, what I have a problem with is in this country it's near impossible to get elected president if you don't believe in the easter bunny.
People will shoot other people because they are following the easter bunny's teachings and the bunny convinced them it's okay to kill, people will disown their children because of what the easter bunny told them is the right way to live.
The USA will go to war with a country, because they don't follow the easter bunny, they follow the Great Pumpkin.

and I have to respect this? Not only is the Easter Bunny imaginary, but he sounds like a jerk.

[Travis]

Hannah wrote: "Can you offer me absolute proof that god is an imaginary being !!
And no to someone who believed in them I would not , I may not believe in the Easter bunny anymore but if there are people out th..."

You have faith in science because it has been giving you evidence all your life.
There are no 'gravity atheists'

If religion gave me a tenth of the proof that science does, then we wouldn't be having this debate, but religion gives no proof, but wants to be treated better and with more respect than science.

You have the right to your beliefs. You have the right to have your beliefs aknowledged.
None of that gets you a magic shield of respect.

I will always try to be tactful, because I like most of the people here and the conversation is interesting, but when push comes to shove I am an atheist and have put religion on the bookshelf with all the other myths and legends.

[Drew]

Hannah wrote: "Can you offer me absolute proof that god is an imaginary being !!
And no to someone who believed in them I would not , I may not believe in the Easter bunny anymore but if there are people out th..."

Yeah, go outside and ask for God to appear, when he doesn't, there's your proof.

[Swagata]

I wouldn't mind living in a world without religion

[Kaeri]

Religion is practical, and I think that even if the Church didn't exist, some sort of organized religion would surface in its place and dominate. I think it's inevitable.

As for myself, I can't deny that I don't need Science. I need it. We need it. But I also need the belief in a higher being. Doesn't matter what name of the "God" is, or the name of the "religion" is. It's important to have faith because I think that's the backbone of what we do, and what drives us to be moral. But that's just my opinion.

[Drew]

Erika Etherviere wrote: "Religion is practical, and I think that even if the Church didn't exist, some sort of organized religion would surface in its place and dominate. I think it's inevitable.

As for myself, I can't d..."

You don't need religion to be moral, we would still have morals whether religion existed. We don't need religion even a little bit.

[Maria]

Drew said: "Yeah, go outside and ask for God to appear, when he doesn't, there's your proof."

When you went outside, did you see beautiful flowers that had wonderful scents? Did you maybe see a beautiful sunrise or sunset? He appeared. At least that's how I see it. I know you'll disagree, Drew, but that's ok - totally acceptable!

[Travis]

Maria wrote: "Drew said: "Yeah, go outside and ask for God to appear, when he doesn't, there's your proof."

When you went outside, did you see beautiful flowers that had wonderful scents? Did you maybe see a b..."

No beautiful, scented flowers and a sunset appeared.

[Maria]

Hannah wrote: "Travis calling what others believe " imaginary beings " is quite insulting"

No, it's not. They are expressing their opinion as you expressed yours. To them, they are imaginary beings so it's fine for them to say that. Nothing here should be taken personally.

[Maria]

Drew said: "You don't need religion to be moral, we would still have morals whether religion existed."

In this case I agree with you, Drew - there are plenty of immoral religious people and plenty of moral athiests. Absolutely.

[Hazel]

Maria wrote: "Drew said: "Yeah, go outside and ask for God to appear, when he doesn't, there's your proof."

When you went outside, did you see beautiful flowers that had wonderful scents? Did you maybe see a b..."

what if I'd walked outside and seen a child who was dying of leukaemia, or turned on the news and see an earthquake that has killed people, and left even more homeless. Is that him appearing too? If you going to claim looking at the world is looking at god, then you have to look at the bad things too, and wonder if you're right.



or even better, an interview on the same subject.

http://www.boreme.com/posting.php?id=...

A man I wanted to be like as I grew up, I wanted his job.

[Maria]

Travis said: "No beautiful, scented flowers and a sunset appeared."

That's true, but I have a hard time convincing myself, no matter how hard I try, and in the face of no evidence to prove it, that these things happened entirely by chance. Of course the sun could rise and set, but why would it be so pretty? And flowers are needed to support human life, but why all the different varieties and scents? Not necessary, but maybe put here by someone so we could enjoy them?
Convince me otherwise.

[Hazel]

here, convince yourself, as theres far too much to cover in a post on a forum, this is one of the best resources available atm:

http://www.talkorigins.org/

[Travis]

Then god also wants you dead, as he put wolves in the forests, sharks in the oceans, bees in the flowers and snakes everywhere.
Amongst the flowers he put plants and berries that are poisonous and scattered germs over everything.

Obviously, so we could enjoy the deaths of others or they could enjoy ours, since you think nature is made solely for our enjoyment.
So, tell me again what a nice guy the man in the sky is.

[Drew]

Maria wrote: "Drew said: "Yeah, go outside and ask for God to appear, when he doesn't, there's your proof."

When you went outside, did you see beautiful flowers that had wonderful scents? Did you maybe see a b..."

Your right, I don't see that as proof, it's just the same old watchmaker argument. It is nothing more than an assumption, based upon an appearance of order. The appearance of order in nature is not alone sufficient justification for assuming that this order is the result of purposeful, intelligent design by a supernatural - trees providing oxygen etc.- but most of the sciences have shown us that there are practical, mechanistic explanations for how and why things work in nature the way they do. In order to mount a convincing argument that things in nature require a Divine Creator to explain them, Christians must first demonstrate that it is impossible to explain them in any other way, and their argument fails to do this.

[Maria]

Fair enough. And I know there are dangerous things in nature too. I didn't say that I thought the intelligent creator/designer was benevolent, just amazing.

[Travis]

Drew wrote: "Maria wrote: "Drew said: "Yeah, go outside and ask for God to appear, when he doesn't, there's your proof."

When you went outside, did you see beautiful flowers that had wonderful scents? Did you..."

It's also the same old 'god does such god things! Yeah, what about this bad stuff? religious folk mutter vaguely and then wander off' argument.
it doesn't have a cool nickname, like 'the watchmaker', which is weird, because it happens so frequently.
I just call it the 'Boy, god sure is a jerk' theory.

[Gary]

Erika Etherviere wrote: "It's important to have faith because I think that's the backbone of what we do, and what drives us to be moral. But that's just my opinion. "

Why is "faith" important?

Does it matter what particular "faith" it is?

How does "faith" alone make us moral? Faith in what exactly? If a person places their faith in something others consider evil, is it justified just because of faith?

Is a faithful Satanist more moral than an faithless atheist? Is a faithful Communist equally moral as a committed Christian because he has equal faith in the state as the Christian has to their God?

[Travis]

Gary wrote: "Erika Etherviere wrote: "It's important to have faith because I think that's the backbone of what we do, and what drives us to be moral. But that's just my opinion. "

Why is "faith" important?

Do..."

or why is a good thing to say 'I have faith and base my whole life on something imaginary?' instead of something from the real world?

As Maria pointed out, there's all this amazing stuff in the world that you can see and touch, why put all your belief in an invisible intangable thing?

How is that better than an atheist having faith in his family, friends and the big world around him?

[Maria]

Just because someone is faithful, i.e., has faith in their religion or in a deity, that does not make them moral. Look at the priests who molested all those boys. Did they have faith? How about all the televangelists who have been caught with prostitutes? They probably had faith as well. They believed in God and figured they were "saved". Faith without works is dead. Sometimes the "works" undermine the faith.

[Travis]

Maria wrote: "Just because someone is faithful, i.e., has faith in their religion or in a deity, that does not make them moral. Look at the priests who molested all those boys. Did they have faith? How about ..."

So, if what you do is more important than what you do, why do you need faith in the equation?
Why not just do good because: it's your job, your responsibility,you like helping, you're not a jerk etc...why do we need to bring the man in the sky, Ganesh, Thor or Athene into it?

[Maria]

I agree, you don't. You are either a moral person or not. Although even morality is in the eyes of the beholder. I personally would find it immoral if my husband brought another "wife" into our household, like Sister Wives. But the people on that show, obviously religious people don't find it immoral at all that the husband is sleeping with four wives. They are probably not jerks, would help people in need, etc. but I still consider them immoral.

[Drew]

Maria wrote: "I agree, you don't. You are either a moral person or not. Although even morality is in the eyes of the beholder. I personally would find it immoral if my husband brought another "wife" into our ..."

People who don't believe in God or don't follow any religious beliefs get their morality by considering their actions, weighing the consequences, and deciding whether they are doing more harm than good to themselves and other people.

Despite what evangelists tell you, the threat of hell is not what stops most people from, say, going on a mass-murdering spree. Even if there was no hell, there are still bad consequences for bad behavior. Our society has laws that threaten criminals with fines, imprisonment and sometimes death. And even if those laws didn't exist, there would still be the threat of punishment from other sources. For instance, if you commit a murder, the victim's family and friends might come looking for revenge. Nobody likes to be taken advantage of. The justice system just makes the whole process a little more orderly, which is a good thing.

However, it seems like the threat of punishment and the promise of rewards is not really the only thing that keeps people from being bad. With or without religion, people don't like to be hurt, and they usually recognize that other people getting hurt is a similarly undesirable thing. Jesus didn't invent the principle of treating others the way you would like to be treated; it was around for centuries before. When people are in danger of being mistreated, they seek out protection through cooperation and relationships. Society is simply a much larger extension of those relationships.

With rare exceptions, people (atheists included) don't really have the urge or desire to run out and kill or steal or otherwise harm other people. And honestly, when people say "If it weren't for God holding me back, there would be nothing to stop me from being a criminal", I worry about them. If your grasp of right and wrong is so shaky that you can't stop yourself from doing bad things, and you need someone threatening you with eternal punishment to keep you in line, then we wonder how safe you really are to be near.

Having more than one wife or husband doesn't do any harm unless one of the people in this arrangement gets emotionally hurt. If that is the case then they should not have agreed to the arrangement.

[Travis]

Maria wrote: "I agree, you don't. You are either a moral person or not. Although even morality is in the eyes of the beholder. I personally would find it immoral if my husband brought another "wife" into our ..."

Sorry you brought up having four wives and I blanked out for a minute there.
What were we talking about?

[Peg]

I think more harm than good has come about because of religion which has caused unhappiness, pain and war. I believe people are basically good whether they have religion or not. When religion is involved almost everyone think theirs is the best and they want to judge other people. Who can say one religion is more believeable than another, they all have to be accepted on faith and none of them make much sense. I feel that science has improved life immensely and continues to do so. Has a war ever been fought over science??

[Gary]

Maria wrote: "Convince me otherwise."

Hi Maria, well I read that and thought 'a person can only be convinced of something if they are willing to be open to it', but then I read;

Maria wrote: "Just because someone is faithful, i.e., has faith in their religion or in a deity, that does not make them moral..."

...and that convinced me that perhaps you wouldn't reject ideas out of hand and the conversation may be worthwhile. Whether it successfully convinces you, or merely gives you a better understanding of where we're coming from.

So to avoid too much verbosity I will restrict myself to addressing the questions you posited.

Maria wrote: "these things happened entirely by chance."

This is a common theistic stance on origins without god, but it does not demonstrate a flaw in the idea, it demonstrates a lack of understanding.

When theists talk about chance they usually give an image of classical chaos, the "formless void" if you will. The problem with these ideas is that according to physics a uniform state such as this is actually highly ordered compared to a state with structure.

Importantly scientists do not claim that everything just appeared by chance like a person throwing sand up in the air and it coming down as a city. Instead what we see is an interaction of very simple rules that quickly become complex, a process that is known mathematically as 'emergence'.

A good example is Langton's Ant, which is a simple program

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langton&...

Squares on a plane are colored variously either black or white. We arbitrarily identify one square as the "ant". The ant can travel in any of the four cardinal directions at each step it takes. The ant moves according to the rules below:
* At a white square, turn 90° right, flip the color of the square, move forward one unit
* At a black square, turn 90° left, flip the color of the square, move forward one unit

This simple set of rules forms extremely complex patterns, patterns that can be effected greatly by the change of a single pixel.

Maria wrote: "Of course the sun could rise and set, but why would it be so pretty?"

You are assuming that your comprehension of 'pretty' has been projected onto the universe by a powerful entity that shares your own concept of 'pretty'. Can you not see that it may happen in reverse, we are products of the universe so we experience 'pretty' as a consequence of what we see. The former point of view is actually quite pompous of us, the latter is the true humility.

We also understand quite well a lot of what humans define as beauty. A lot of it has to do with mathematics and symmetry, which has been known about since ancient Greece and Euclid's 'golden ratio'. Now we also understand fractals and the intricate beauty that comes from the emergent properties of actual simple rules.

Fractal mathematics can produce images more realistic to nature than any conceived design, just as we are beginning to recognise that evolving a concept turns out to be potentially more powerful and more efficient than designing it from scratch. Experiments in computers that learn by trial and error like us instead of having everything preprogrammed has lead to robots that can walk almost naturally and programs that act far more intelligent than anything deliberately designed.

Maria wrote: "And flowers are needed to support human life, but why all the different varieties and scents?"

Actually that again shows the conceit of religion, as it assumes that we are important therefore things are there 'for us'. Flowers were not necessary to support human life, all evidence suggests that they evolved after land animals did, and they only really achieved dominance in the late Cretaceou, which means that the huge animals of the Jurassic managed fine without them.

Nowadays flowering plants are important to us, but that is because they are the most prolific.

Maria wrote: "Not necessary, but maybe put here by someone so we could enjoy them?"

Well there is actual proof that isn't true. A lot of flowers have patterns on that are invisible to us and yet visible to the insects that pollinate them. So if they were 'designed' with an audience in mind, it wasn't humans.

I also find it occasionally odd that to please a mate or to decorate occasions as joyful as weddings or as solemn as funerals, we display the severed genitals of other life forms.

(Pro tip: not the best way to refer to your Valentine's gift... as confirmed by experiment...)

[Hazel]

A lot of flowers have patterns on that are invisible to us and yet visible to the insects that pollinate them. So if they were 'designed' with an audience in mind, it wasn't humans.

theres also evidence that different pollinator species of insects prefer certain colours of flowers, then theres the flowers that have evolved symbiotically with specific insect species, so they can only be pollinated by those insects (this has happened with hummingbirds and bats too); the milkweed plant produces latex which ensnares insecst that try to eat it, but is used as a nursery by monarch butterflies, which not only manage to successfully survive on this dangerous plant (well, enough of them do), but are also its pollinator. And seeing as some flowers produce bloody awful smells, the idea that they're fragrant doesn't always hold up. The largest flower in the world smells like a rotting carcass.

I was watching this the other day:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hv4n85...

it seems just a little bit germane

[Alexis]

Shanna wrote: "Alexis wrote: "Oh! It also depends on which religion we are talking about."

Which religion?"
What do you mean what religion?
I only meant that i would be more keen to to live in a world with certain religions in comparison to others because some are more developed and cover more grounds. Also some promote harmony rather fear or war so I think that the original question needs to be more specific as to which religion we would have if there was no science.

[Hazel]

I think she means which religions do you feel are more developed, cover more ground, and promote harmony, rather than a fear of war.

[Shanna]

That's what I was asking you, you added the qualifer
"Oh! It also depends on which religion we are talking about." I was asking you clarify.
Which religions would be acceptable to you?

[Zohal]

I think all religions with evidence for it. So maybe like their holy book which provides evidence to their religions such as *The Bible* and *The Qu'ran*

[Shanna]

Isabelle wrote: "I think all religions with evidence for it. So maybe like their holy book which provides evidence to their religions such as *The Bible* and *The Qu'ran*"

What are they evidence of?

[Jettcatt]

The bible or the Qu'ran are not evidence just a really good yarn that has been around awhile.

[Gary]

Alexis wrote: "I only meant that i would be more keen to to live in a world with certain religions in comparison to others because some are more developed and cover more grounds. Also some promote harmony rather fear or war so I think that the original question needs to be more specific as to which religion we would have if there was no science. "

Actually the point is that if religions are different (which they are) and make different claims (which they do, often to the exclusion of other claims) then "faith" is obviously not useful on its own. You mention that some religions are more developed and some promote fear and war less than others, so there you are making empirical value judgements about the religion you choose. This value judgement must be made on ethical and moral standards derived from something other than religion otherwise it would be a completely circular argument.

Therefore religion and faith is not the source of morality. This is amply demonstrated by the fact that the current major religions contain things that many modern people find ethically reprehensible.

[Zohal]

Now that I think about the question I don't think I can live in either world. Because to me Science and Religion are both important in a world.

If we lived in a world without religion then what exactly do we believe about life. What is our faith ?

If we lived in a world without Science we'd be living in a world where we know nothing of what is beyond. Space, planets, dimensions, universe, density, evolution etc.

Although not everyone believes Evolution (me being one of them)

But yeah I can't live in a world without either.

[Zohal]

Also this is probably contradicting what I said earlier but to have a belief or faith means

Something one accepts as true or real; a firmly held opinion or conviction.

So we may never have complete evidence to say one is true or not. We just have to have faith in what we believe in.

[Hazel]

you need to add a caveat to the end of your definition of faith, which is "without any evidence, or despite evidence to the contrary".

[Zohal]

Although if we had a world of religion,science could still exist because it is a man-made thing.

Science is something that has evolved over many many centuries

[Hazel]

well, thats what we have now, isn't it, which kinda defeats the point of answering whether you'd prefer a world without one or the other.