The God Delusion
discussion
agnostic: the way to go.
cs wrote: "I think there is some evidence if you believe Jesus was who he claims to be."It doesn't count as evidence if you have to start by randomly pre-determining what you're going to believe.
That's like saying that "all alien abduction stories are true if you start by believing that everyone who tells that story is right about what happened."
cs wrote: "....not confrontational, more second best."Second best to what?
Daniel wrote: "cs wrote: "I think there is some evidence if you believe Jesus was who he claims to be."It doesn't count as evidence if you have to start by randomly pre-determining what you're going to believe...."
But what if one person is right?
Devin wrote: "cs wrote: "cs wrote: "...and what do you think I would gain that you would not by assuming Pascal's Wager?>I am not sure you understand what Pascal's Wager is."
Your not? Well I can confirm that I do.
What to I gain that an atheist does not if I bet on the existence of god?
cs wrote: "But what if one person is right?">This is a feeble refutation of Daniel's argument, and really a non sequitur. His example was meant to demonstrate that you employ a circularity of thought in your statement "I think there is some evidence if you believe Jesus was who he claims to be." This same circularity can be used to justify EVERY statement, even ones that are patently absurd (again, as Daniel has shown).
Try this example: "I think there is some evidence cs will give a thoughtful response to this post if I believe he/she will." See? Even wildly inncorrect statements...
The point is, you cannot adopt a general practice of allowing belief to preclude evidence, because then you live in a private world where only the things you wish to be true are true.
cs wrote: "But what if one person is right? "This isn't really clear, but I assume you mean that it should turn into evidence based on the idea that "you're right because you really don't want to be wrong".
Actually, it doesn't turn into evidence regardless of who is right on the issue.
Devin wrote: "cs wrote: "But what if one person is right?">This is a feeble refutation of Daniel's argument, and really a non sequitur. His example was meant to demonstrate that you employ a circularity of th..."
Try this example: "I think there is some evidence cs will give a thoughtful response to this post if I believe he/she will." See? Even wildly inncorrect statements...
...then I view your own example as patently absurd as well because whatever response I give it will be judged by you as to whether it is a thoughtful response or not.
I can assume that the gospels are reliable unless they are proven to be unreliable.
Daniel wrote: "cs wrote: "But what if one person is right? "This isn't really clear, but I assume you mean that it should turn into evidence based on the idea that "you're right because you really don't want to..."
You said......
That's like saying that "all alien abduction stories are true if you start by believing that everyone who tells that story is right about what happened
......I said: "But what if one person is right? "
It is possible that there has been an alien abduction somewhere at some point in time; or at least it can't be proved there was never one. Anymore than at least one of the many objects seen it the sky above this planet at some point in this planets history was an alien craft.
Devin wrote: "cs wrote: "But what if one person is right?">This is a feeble refutation of Daniel's argument, and really a non sequitur. His example was meant to demonstrate that you employ a circularity of th..."
then it was a bad example.
cs wrote: "then it was a bad example."Go buy a pack of gum; I'll teach you how to chew it.
Devin wrote: "cs wrote: "then it was a bad example."Go buy a pack of gum; I'll teach you how to chew it."
get stuffed
cs wrote: "..and what do you think I would gain that you would not by assuming Pascal's Wager? "Nothing, that's the point
cs wrote: "I can assume that the gospels are reliable unless they are proven to be unreliable. "You're capable of (can) assume anything you want. The point is whether there is any rational reason for doing so. There is not.
Daniel wrote: "cs wrote: "I can assume that the gospels are reliable unless they are proven to be unreliable. "You're capable of (can) assume anything you want. The point is whether there is any rational reaso..."
That's it then. Problem solved by Daniel, he says 'there is not'. Even Dawkins would not go that far, he would leave point something of a percent for error.
Shanna wrote: "cs wrote: "..and what do you think I would gain that you would not by assuming Pascal's Wager? "Nothing, that's the point"
...... so we all get to heaven in a little row boat.
No the idea of Pascal's wager is at best useless or at worst (if god exists) insulting. "It posits that there's more to be gained from wagering on the existence of god than from atheism, and that a rational person should live as though God exists, even though the truth of the matter can't actually be known"
Firstly you have to establish that without religion we'd be amoral, and despite your personal beliefs cs, you can't prove something demonstably untrue.
Second if God exists then does not an omniscient being knowing you're only well behaved for fear of punishment or that you've taken up the Wager for personal gain is a little insulting.
cs wrote: "That's it then. Problem solved by Daniel, he says 'there is not'. Even Dawkins would not go that far, he would leave point something of a percent for error. "I think you're attempt to ridicule me would be less hilarious if you weren't confusing two different things.
But then, if you'd read the book instead of just judging the book by a few choice interviews you saw, you might know that Dawkins left room that there could turn out to be a god. Everyone else does the same thing.
What I was saying is that there is no rational reason for believing it.
Once again that has nothing to do with whether there is or isn't a god, but for some reason you don't seem to be able to grasp distinctions between anything unless you think it works in your favor. You must be a republican.
Shanna wrote: "No the idea of Pascal's wager is at best useless or at worst (if god exists) insulting. "It posits that there's more to be gained from wagering on the existence of god than from atheism, and that ..."
I understand where you are coming from and I don't disagree. If I bet you that there was a God and there was, I collect. If you bet me there was no God and you were right, you don't collect.
But I can separate religion from God in a debate so when you said...
an omniscient being knowing you're only well behaved for fear of punishment....
You might be thinking along the lines of a god of a religion rather than god.
The problem with philosophy as a debating tool is that it is designed to ask questions rather than give answers.
Daniel wrote: "cs wrote: "That's it then. Problem solved by Daniel, he says 'there is not'. Even Dawkins would not go that far, he would leave point something of a percent for error. "I think you're attempt to ..."
What I was saying is that there is no rational reason for believing it.
Yes ok, but are you saying there is no rational reason for anyone believing or just you or just atheists? Because most of this planets population have a reason for believing it.
You must be a republican.
I don't live in the US.
cs wrote: "I don't live in the US."That explains your tenuous grasp on proper English syntax, and supports the theory that stupidity is not bound by international borders.
cs wrote: "Yes ok, but are you saying there is no rational reason for anyone believing or just you or just atheists? Because most of this planets population have a reason for believing it."There's a big difference between a reason and a rational reason.
It's also worth noting that most people don't believe for the reason they think they do/tell themselves. Most people believe because before they were old enough to think for themselves, it was hammered into their brains. Now, as adults, they use confirmation bias to explain that belief and will even give you those confirmation-bias-derived answers if you ask them the reason they believe, but the facts just don't support that.
With stunning accuracy you can predict what religion someone will have and if they will believe in god by looking at the area where they are raised and the people who raised them.
Devin wrote: "cs wrote: "I don't live in the US."That explains your tenuous grasp on proper English syntax, and supports the theory that stupidity is not bound by international borders."
stupidity is not bound by international borders
....your right there, you are demonstrating as much with your last statement.
Don't forget that the US does not have it's own national language, you use my English, only you seem to have downgraded it's use.
cs wrote: "you use my English, only you seem to have downgraded it's use."says the man who argues with the dictionary...
Daniel wrote: "cs wrote: "Yes ok, but are you saying there is no rational reason for anyone believing or just you or just atheists? Because most of this planets population have a reason for believing it."There'..."
Most people believe because before they were old enough to think for themselves, it was hammered into their brains.
So if it was not hammered into your brain, how do you know that you are not missing out on the belief 'thing' that a lot of us have. A bit like, if you were never taught music you would not know what you may be missing out on.
except... music demonstrably exists...
cs wrote: "So if it was not hammered into your brain, how do you know that you are not missing out on the belief 'thing' that a lot of us have. A bit like, if you were never taught music you would not know what you may be missing out on. "How do I know I am not missing out on that great brainwashing so many children are abused with? I was brainwashed in childhood like most people. As an adult, I learned to prioritize the truth over what was brainwashed into me.
So now that I've answered your question, perhaps you will answer mine:
How do you know that your belief is not the result of cultural/parental brainwashing?
Daniel wrote: "cs wrote: "So if it was not hammered into your brain, how do you know that you are not missing out on the belief 'thing' that a lot of us have. A bit like, if you were never taught music you would ..."I was taught in the same way I was taught other subjects.
As an adult, I learned to prioritize the truth
What makes you so special that you are able to prioritize but you at the same time you think others can't.
cs wrote: "you use my English, only you seem to have downgraded it's use."*face palm*
cs wrote: "What makes you so special that you are able to prioritize but you at the same time you think others can't. "I'm not special. I just made a choice to prioritize the truth. Anyone can.
I notice you avoided my question about the brainwashing.
People people!!! The future of the world is Chinese. There's more than a billion of them and 80% are atheists. "There's 2 billion of them so we'd better learn to like them," to quote Monty Python. And furthermore: "They only come up to your knees, and they're always so eager, so eager to please!Seriously, to think the whole world worships a god is to deny the existence of China, Japan, Australia and Northern Europe. I'd say that's a fair amount of atheists and agnostics, wouldn't you? And lo and behold! Those countries all have by far the lowest murder rates. Damn these godless atheists and their humane societies!
Daniel wrote: "cs wrote: "What makes you so special that you are able to prioritize but you at the same time you think others can't. "I'm not special. I just made a choice to prioritize the truth. Anyone can...."
I did not avoid it, I just was not sure what to say.
Just because your parents brainwashed you, you should not assume all parents are the same. I was never brainwashed.
But if you feel like it, explain what your parents did to you to brainwash you and why they would want to do such a thing. I thought these things only happened in Guantanamo Bay.
cs wrote: "Just because your parents brainwashed you, you should not assume all parents are the same. I was never brainwashed."You don't know how to answer the question do you? Have you ever thought about what brainwashing is, action movies aside?
Brainwashing is forced indoctrination. It means you take someone in a mentally vulnerable state and then force-feed them what to believe when they don't have the capacity to question it. The idea is that by the time you have the faculties to be able to change your mind about it, it's unlikely that you will because the idea will be so deeply imbedded into you that you'll actually think it's your idea and that you chose it. You'll even fight to defend the idea. You'll argue in favor of it. You define yourself, at least partially, by it. It's totally unthinkable to you that it could be wrong. You won't even seriously consider the possibility. That's what brainwashing does (or what it intends to do).
So when you say that you were never brainwashed, what you're saying is that when you were a child, your parents did not tell you there was a god and/or teach you to pray or go to church or have you listen to sunday school teachers or anything of the like. Is that true? As far as you know, your parents aren't religious and don't believe in god? Or did they wait until you were more grown up to discuss these things with you? Or did they at least teach you to question these underlying assumptions?
No? You believe the basic idea of what they told you to believe?
What a shocking coincidence.
Daniel wrote: "cs wrote: "Just because your parents brainwashed you, you should not assume all parents are the same. I was never brainwashed."You don't know how to answer the question do you? Have you ever tho..."
You don't know how to answer the question do you? Have you ever thought about what brainwashing is, action movies aside?
Parents teach a child everything, until they go to school and then teachers using government teaching standards and values take it from there.
Is it only religion you have an issue with, or were you brainwashed into believing history, politics, philosophy and Santa.
So are you special because you somehow managed to overcome this brainwashing you went through and the rest of us remain in this state of forced indoctrination.
cs wrote: "Parents teach a child everything, until they go to school and then teachers using government teaching standards and values take it from there. Is it only religion you have an issue with, or were you brainwashed into believing history, politics, philosophy and Santa."Declaring things lumped together doesn't make them the same.
History is not the same as politics, for example. In history, there are things that are just true. We have lots of evidence for them so to teach it to a child isn't the same as teaching them that things with no basis are true. Santa and religion are pretty much identical except parent eventually admit the truth about the former.
But since you don't seem to be getting the point, let me clarify: anytime you are told to believe something uncritically when you are not mentally mature enough to question it, you are being brainwashed.
I don't think most people are told to believe history uncritically. People are constantly challenging the perspective we view the past through, but if they are, that's bad, too.
If people who cannot mentally defend themselves are told to take a political stance uncritically, then they are being brainwashed, too.
I know you'll want to take this out of context and pretend I'm saying something I'm not (I've seen you do it), so let's be clear. I am not saying that atheism should be taught. It isn't even really possible to teach atheism anyway, but that's not the point. Nor am I saying that it's automatically brainwashing to tell a child stories about jesus or abraham or any other story that's connected to religion.
The difference comes when you are instructed implicitly and/or explicitly to not question it, to accept it as true. If you want to tell your kids about jesus helping blind people then say "now, let's look at the evidence of whether this story is true" or "let's talk about how this story can teach us things even if it isn't actually true" or "now that you've heard this story, ask yourself if it's true. question each part of it. do not accept things just because someone told you them," then that's different from brainwashing.
There are other differences that come down to threatening them with punishment as well. I don't ever recall hearing of a situation where a child was told they would be tortured forever and ever and lit on fire and made to scream in pain for all time if they didn't remember that Caesar died in 44 BC. But they are told that regarding religion.
I also don't recall ever hearing about a child being told that they would be given everything they could ever want and be rich and happy and live in a big house and everything would be perfect forever if they just remembered that Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin. But they are told that with religion.
These tricks and others are used as essential brainwashing tools to get children to think uncritically about things before they are smart enough to defend the assaults on their minds. Whether the parent sets out calling it "brainwashing" or tells themselves that it's the same as teaching about history makes no difference. It is child abuse by any rational standard and it is textbook brainwashing.
Do you understand the difference, now?
cs wrote: "So are you special because you somehow managed to overcome this brainwashing you went through and the rest of us remain in this state of forced indoctrination. "
I don't know what your obsession with "special" is, but no. Getting off heroin does not make me more "special" than the addict who is still using, does not think they are an addict at all, and imagines that it doesn't change them for the worse.
Since you continue to dodge the question, I'll ask again:
How do you know that your belief is not the result of cultural/parental brainwashing?
Daniel wrote: "cs wrote: "Parents teach a child everything, until they go to school and then teachers using government teaching standards and values take it from there. Is it only religion you have an issue with,..."I don't know what your obsession with "special" is, but no. Getting off heroin does not make me more "special" than the addict who is still using, does not think they are an addict at all, and imagines that it doesn't change them for the worse.
Getting off heroin? Not a good comparrison.
You were brought up with religious parents teaching you their religion. I was brought up with religious parents teaching me their religion.
At some point and for some reason you gave up your religion.
Why do you assume that I did not have the same choice as you in giving up my religion if I wanted to?
Daniel has a point and it's the same point Sam Harris makes so often: it would be absurd to say "Meet my 6 year old, Claude. He's a Marxist." Or "This is Myrtle, our 5 year old daughter. She's a Republican." But nobody thinks twice about referring to "Catholic Children," or "Muslim babies." Do you see how absurd it is for parents to decide what their children are going to be in the realm of religion (all based on speculation and guesswork, I might add) and be appalled at making similar choices for their kids regarding things like their views on economics?
And at the end of the day the only person to be believed regarding death and the afterlife is someone like Kubler-Ross. She held the hands of thousands of people on their death beds, and interviewed thousands more who had been clinically dead and brought back to life by doctors. And you know what? There's nothing to fear. There is no hell. It's something Christianity invented to scare us and then they presented themselves as the only way out! Diabolically brilliant and devious when you think about it.
cs wrote: "Getting off heroin? Not a good comparrison."Why is that a bad comparison?
I don't expect you to be capable of understanding an argument by analogy, but let me point out that Daniel's comparison was perfect. You only object to it because you read the word "heroin" and thought "bad." And since were talking about something you only call "good" (religion), you arrive at the conlusions: "bad" does not equal "good," therefore this comparison is "not good."
His point, however, is that your need to affix the word "special" to certain elements of Daniel's argument are frivolous, and really do no service the discussion at hand. Just as it would make no sense to term a recovered heroin addict "special" in relation to a heroin addict in denial of his condition. The term simply does not apply.
There must be black holes in envy of your density.
Tim wrote: "Daniel has a point and it's the same point Sam Harris makes so often: it would be absurd to say "Meet my 6 year old, Claude. He's a Marxist." Or "This is Myrtle, our 5 year old daughter. She's a Re..."But nobody thinks twice about referring to "Catholic Children," or "Muslim babies."
.....thats not said in my neck of the woods. And do parents still call daughters Myrtle?
Devin wrote: "cs wrote: "Getting off heroin? Not a good comparrison."Why is that a bad comparison?
I don't expect you to be capable of understanding an argument by analogy, but let me point out that Daniel's ..."
It's still a bad comparison.
cs wrote: "Tim wrote: "But nobody thinks twice about referring to "Catholic Children," or "Muslim babies." .....thats not said in my neck of the woods. And do parents still call daughters Myrtle? "
cs you live in the UK it happens there too!
cs wrote: "Why do you assume that I did not have the same choice as you in giving up my religion if I wanted to? "I don't. But the fact that you keep dodging my question does give me room to wonder.
I am simply asking you a question and you keep avoiding it:
How do you know that your belief is not the result of cultural/parental brainwashing?
I don't know why it frightens you so much that you won't answer it.
cs wrote: "Getting off heroin? Not a good comparrison."How so?
Daniel wrote: "cs wrote: "Getting off heroin? Not a good comparrison."How so?"
The "good feeling" of endomorphins are just another chemcial. Almost everything we think or make an effort to "change" our thinking about, is "like getting off heroin".
cs: Do you know what the interrogative word "why" means?
Shanna wrote: "cs wrote: "Tim wrote: "But nobody thinks twice about referring to "Catholic Children," or "Muslim babies." .....thats not said in my neck of the woods. And do parents still call daughters Myrtle?..."
It new to me. We have Catholic schools but non Catholics go there as well.
Daniel wrote: "cs wrote: "Why do you assume that I did not have the same choice as you in giving up my religion if I wanted to? "I don't. But the fact that you keep dodging my question does give me room to won..."
The same reason you know, but I have arrived at a different conclusion. I pick and choose the bits of my religion that are appropriate to me, mix it with a bit of science and some of Shannon’s spirituality and arrive at what I believe in.
I have even listened to the Mormons and the Jehovah'swhen they come calling, but always reject their ideas.
I know a few Christians who are now atheists and who had the same, what you call' brainwashing I did.
Devin wrote: "cs: Do you know what the interrogative word "why" means?"Why?
cs wrote: "It new to me. We have Catholic schools but non Catholics go there as well."My local catholic schools mission statement:
http://www.yorkla.org/LearningSystem/...
I used to babysit a boy who went to this school, he wasn't religious, nor were his parents, nevertheless, some of the ideas he came home with were distinctly religious and utterly ridiculous. He spent a while claiming that television was evil because they'd told him so at school. He was also told he was wrong when he put the answer "yes" to his homework question "does the sun move?".
cs wrote: "Devin wrote: "cs: Do you know what the interrogative word "why" means?"Why?"
That was so clever that I now believe in god.
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I am not sure you understand what Pascal's Wager is.