UKH

Bear with me a bit.

Ok, let's assume that (1) there is no God. Let's also assume that (2) as a small group of beings on a bit of rock somewhere near the edge of a minor galaxy, what we call "morals" can in no sense be considered to contain anything that could be called universal truth. I suspect lots of people, particularly in The West, think along these lines.

If a person thinks those two statements to be true, or even if that person only thinks them to be the likliest scenario, how do they know how to behave?. With no God and a moral system that is just a description of how people behave (rather than a prescription of how you should behave) where do we derive our morals from? How do we know that it's wrong to steal, for example?

I don't mind at all if this thread drops like a stone!

In reply to brothersoulshine:
Have you read lord of the flies? That's one take of what would happen.

In reply to Pinky:

Embarrasingly, I haven't :-S.

I'll put it on the list.

In reply to brothersoulshine:

.We 'know' its wrong to steal because someone said so in a book written by some folk a very long time ago. Where those folk got their info I am not sure. I suspect it was because someone tried to take something that was 'someone elses' (they had developed western tendencies even then)and that someone decided that they dind't want them to have it so they said it was 'wrong'. Wrong may not have been a used word. It may have been the action of having their innards gouged out by a particularily sharp knife and the rest of the population gathering from ths act that it is unwise to take something from someone who does not wish you to take it.

In reply to brothersoulshine:

It's wrong to steal because in a group you are working together in a sense. The society will decide that stealing is wrong in all cases because each member doesn't want to be stolen from. That's probably where the commandments in the bible came from anyway.

In reply to brothersoulshine:

If someone steals from me it upsets me.

I don't want to upset people - upsetting people upsets me, I think it's called empathy.

Therefore, I don't steal.

In reply to brothersoulshine:
the answer is that they don't know how to behave

but they know how they want to behave

furthermore in that scenario it would be a lie to say that it is wrong to steal.

One might truthfully say "people generally don't like stealing"

In reply to brothersoulshine: it's a pickle innit?

negotiation
power
social construction

of course none of these exlain the why? the content - just the process - your 'just description' point

do you enjoy evolutionary explanations for things? lots of potential there

here's another book thought

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Straw-Dogs-Thoughts-Humans-Animals/dp/1862075964/sr...

In reply to The Horny Golloch:

I really like that answer. It's something that I'd not really thought of before.

It doesn't really explain why sometimes it's right to do something that will upset someone though.

In reply to brothersoulshine:

Treat others as you would wish to be treated. After that we're just making it up. What we call morals are just the norms of the society in which we live.

Natural human empathy accounts for a lot of how we orientate our moral compass. Unless there's something wrong with you no-one likes to see someone in pain, physical or emotional, especially if you are the one who has caused that.

Morals are just a social construct to enable people to live together in a community - enforced by social approval/disapproval.

In reply to climbingpixie:
but defying norms isn't "wrong" is it. In fact there is an argument that defying norms helps establish their position

In reply to climbingpixie:

If that's the case, then how do we decide what's right or wrong in a novel situation? You know, the kind that's thrown up when a new kind of reproductive technology appears, or when we can prolong life almost indefinitely.

In reply to rich:

another book for my list! ta

In reply to brothersoulshine:

Kind of mosh of
How would I feel?
What if everyone did it?
Are there votes in it?

In reply to brothersoulshine:

Most people who bellieve those statements to be true also believe in evolution & natural selection to some extent (myself inclluded). I reckon you can explain it on that basis. Survival of the fittest doesn't just work on an individual basis, it works for groups and societies so any trait which benefits one social group over another will be favoured. The ten commandments (or the ones I can remember off the top of my head) all fall into this category, especially their modern-day interpretations.

In reply to brothersoulshine:

It's a general consensus we arrived at a long time ago, based on what we like and what we don't like. We don't like being stolen from, so the deal is that we can't do it to others. If anyone does it, we gang up on them and inflict suffering on them to try and teach them not to do it again. The moral authority derives from the fact that we all desperately need such a consensus for our own safety.

In reply to brothersoulshine:

People will ultimately do what they want to do.

The interesting bit is working out why we (as a race) *want* to be what we consider as 'moral', and this is a very complex matter.

In reply to Steve Parker:

So if we could steal without being caught or punished...?

In reply to brothersoulshine:

I could commend to you the Felicific Calculus:

"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felicific_calculus"

personally, I believe that the Universe measures good and evil and that in any given situation there is a greater or lesser good. Beyond that I have not yet discovered my belef

In reply to brothersoulshine:


We don't 'decide' though do we. New issues get debated, people disagree. An example might be the euthanasia (sp?) situation in Switzerland vs the pro-life US bible belt nutters views - no common ground there, but each country has the same basic laws regarding murder, theft etc.

In reply to thomasadixon:

Most of the ten commandments, apart from the god bothering junk, are common sense rules for any society which wants to remain living in some sort of harmony.

Not to kill or steal are the most obvious and are a form of self protection. Some societies have no concept of personal belongings - Tahiti was an example. This removed the concept of stealing, you can only steal something if someone else "owns" it.

This caused a major conflict with Cooke's crew when the Tahitans came on board his ship and promptly started removing anything they took a fancy to. However the sailors benefited from their culture when it came to the island women, as the concept of being in a monognous relationship was also alien. This meant that jealousy was an unknown emotion - so adultery was unknown. Property ownership was also unknown. You just kipped down for the night in the nearest available hut, with the nearest availabe member of the opposite sex and everyone was happy.

Contraception was also unknown, so every now and again when there were too many children being born, the infants were just clubbed to death, thus maintaining a balanced population. I don't think the old were similarly despatched.

Alan Morehead wrote a fascinating study of the clash of cultures brought about when Cooke and his crew landed in Tahiti, called "The Fatal Impact"

In reply to brothersoulshine:

like from hotel rooms you mean? or software companies . . ?

In reply to brothersoulshine:

Doesn't change anything, does it? We still don't like being stolen from, even if we are thieves ourselves, and we still need a consensus that says stealing is not allowed. It's a contract between every member of a society. That's why thieves are such tw*ts - they hide behind the same rules that they break.

In reply to rich:

Yes, or music downloads...

It's interesting how people don't even see this as stealing.

In reply to Trangia:

Excellent book. I recommend most of Moorehead's other books too, especially The White Nile, The Blue Nile and The Journey of the Beagle.

In reply to brothersoulshine:


Give me an example.

I can think of examples where it's right to do something that will upset someone because it will prevent further upset to a greater number of people - I would say legal punishments would come under this.

In reply to brothersoulshine:

It's not stealing - stealing is removing something with the intention of permanently depriving the owner of that thing. It's copyright infringement I guess.

In reply to The Horny Golloch:

Hummm.... How about telling someone that they've got cancer when their family has asked you not to?

In reply to thomasadixon:

That's a distinction that I wasn't aware of. Interesting.

In reply to Anonymous:


That's assuming there's an objective concept of 'wrong' though. Wrong is whatever the majority (or an influential minority) think should not be done. Whether the defiance of a norm is wrong or not comes down to how strongly held that norm is - sometimes to defy it gains you disapproval, other times ostracism (when it is so strongly held as to be 'taboo')

The growth in relativistic morality rather than absolute morality in the 20th century has seen many things previously considered to be wrong become accepted (women voting, homosexuality) and the increase in concern for human rights has made wrong things that used to be commonplace.

In reply to brothersoulshine:

Evolution

Societies that could cooperate and behave productively will have thrived more than those that didn't.

If I could be bothered I could probably discover a gene that determined this.

In reply to brothersoulshine:

Well that is putting the interests of the patient above that of their family, isn't it, which is what we are supposed to do?

In reply to brothersoulshine: I'd say it's a straight choice between a humanist approach (which is natural for most and needs no label) and nihilism.

In reply to brothersoulshine:

This mass morality is a kind of Prisoner's Dilemma, isn't it. We all realise that if we all steal (or whatever), then life is crap. If none of us steal, it's better, but we lose out on the things we could have stolen. If I pretend not to steal, but actually do, then I'm the winner, but then you might do the same, and we both end up losing.

The only sensible solution is that none of us steal, or as few as we can achieve. Same as the Prisoner's Dilemma, it all hinges on a combination of sensible self interest and trust.

In reply to brothersoulshine:

Errr, because if they later find out they have cancer but the truth was kept from them it may make them more upset and I would think it is gerneally upsetting to be lied to, even if the intention is good.

In reply to climbingpixie:
I have to disagree, not necessarily with you, about the use of the word wrong. I think in this context it is meaningless and should be replaced by something like "acceptable".

"Wrong" is an objective term, while "acceptable" is implicitly subjective in that there is an acceptor or rejector

In reply to brothersoulshine: Dawkins made an interesting point in his last book. He pointed out that most religious people don't actually take their morals from the bible any more than atheists do - if they did there would be a lot more adulterers and homosexuals being stoned to death. His position was (suprise, suprise) that morals evolved over time as a kind of 'moral zeitgeist'.

In reply to brothersoulshine:


You av to fink, don' yer!

If you want to benefit from a rather smart person who thought about this a few years ago try Plato... this question has been asked before

In reply to The Horny Golloch and AliceW:

You could engineer the hypothetical example so that the person wasn't a patient of yours so there was no other "moral code" running on top of "normal" morals. You could also make it so they wouldn't ever find out the truth.

In reply to Anonymous:

That's a good point.

In reply to brothersoulshine: Icky question.

Why didn't you start with "Why are rape and murder wrong ?" and then continue with an arguement about the perception of right and wrong and that we might have it wrong. That the enternal power had intented us to rape and murder and that altruism and respect are pissing him off ?

I suspect that in philosophy degree courses around the globe that highly tuned minds are not bothering to struggle with this even as we post.

We seem to just 'know' what is good and what is evil (note the use of the word evil, rather than bad).

Where man has always failed is the greyer areas between the absolutes, the bits that person a thinks are abhorant and that person b thinks are ok. From here we can go to sink estates, social problems, wars, religon, crime and all those other lovely things with which to fill a Friday afternoon.

Gee, Where are my pills ?

Of course your question ('how' ?) is perfectly valid. I dunno is my Firday afternoon answer.

In reply to brothersoulshine:

We are social animals.

We live in tribes.

This is because as individuals, we are weak, and would quickly die! (Just imagine trying to live without any cooperation or effort from any other human being - I find it hard trying to imagine surviving on blackberries and grass, with no clothes, home etc!!!)

However, by working together, some types of animal get a much better chance of surviving to reproduce.

and this particularly applies when some members of the tribe are very weak (children, old people). For humans, children are dependant for a very long time, when compared to other animals...

In order to work as a tribe, individuals need empathy. They need to have a sense that what is good for one member of the tribe is good for the reproductive chances of the tribe as a whole. Certain types of behavior, such as killing one another make tribal life not work!

If you are an individual, who gets a certain amount of pleasure or satisfaction from altruistic behavior, you are more likely to do it, and your tribe has a better chance of survival.

That is why we tend to be much less likely to steal from individuals that we know, and yet may be willing to steal from a big impersonal authority such as Tescos.

You can't act as a tribe if you have to be constantly on your guard against other members of the tribe - it just doesn't work.

So I believe it is a simply, evolutionary advantage for us to work together.

In reply to climbingpixie:

I could go on of course to say that if one thinks there might be a scale of values beyond humanity then that would affect ones judgement in what was acceptable, as it wouldn't just be agreement with what is presented as the greatest good for the greatest number

In reply to thomasadixon:

So - if you bought it legally, it would cost you money. When you get it for free, you intend to permanently deprive the company that you buy it from of that licence fee. You want to have the product without paying anything for the work and resources that went into producing that product. It cost money to create the product, and you contribute nothing....

hmmmm...... Still - if you want to kid yourself...

read conversations with God by neale donald walsh. My answer is that we only use moral codes when there is disorder so the disorder should be investigated. For instance stealing is not 'wrong' its just not optimal. It is not optimal even for the thief who gets a new telly because thieving is itself a kind of affirmation of his poorness. So its like, take away the moral codes, then also strip away the muck that leads to the moral codes being necessary in the first place, then they become redundant. If no one is crazy in the first place no moral codes are necesarry to control the madness.
Then the motivator is not fear and would be some form of inspiration. Thats a whole another answer.

In reply to tlm:


Nope it isnt legally speaking stealing. It is a intellectual property/copyright offence. Since you are not depriving them of the item just of any reward for it.

As the morality coming from God, i am scared by any religious person who says that. I mean if they lose their faith does that mean they will become an axe wielding mass murderer.

In reply to brothersoulshine:

It's all social, innit?

A person alone on rock wouldn't need "moral values"... they are only rules that groups of people invent to make life together work.

A universal code of moral values is one that is accepted universally, it's pragmatic.

And unfortunately this is more and more implied these days especially when concerning kids education. Unsurprising though seeing who's leading the country...

On a similar note, I always wondered whether it was safe to climb with someone who believe in after-life?

A.-

In reply to brothersoulshine:

Answering the original question - people what people have always done - make up one or other or both of them. It makes life easier for everyone, and means they can go out climbing more often.

In reply to adam carless:

Insert missing "do" to make a sensible statement.

In reply to tlm:

Look at it from a very simple point of view - if you're stealing something tangible (like a chocolate bar) it's simple, you've taken something and will not give it back. What you're saying isn't stealing, it's something else because nothing is ever taken! It's copied.

In reply to thomasadixon:

CAB call it 'copyright theft'.

http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/nm/i_the_internet_-_using_other_peoples_mater...

and so do the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT).

You are stealing intellectual property. You are stealing ideas.

Of course, you will not agree with this ever. Because you have decided that it is not really stealing. I understand. Lots of people do this. It's fine by me. I guess you have your own logic which makes this make sense.

The 10 year maximum prison sentence is just for copying. yes. You are probably right actually, now I think about it. It really isn't stealing is it? I am reformed.

In reply to tlm:

*shrug* The point you're making is that *I* am doing these things, and that I'm bad for it - I was answering the person who said it's odd that people don't think of it as stealing. That's why. If someone steals a CD from a shop no-one can possibly convince themselves it's not theft as they have a tangible object.

In reply to tlm:


An industry pressure group would have no interest in hyping it? Do you believe that criminals use software pirating to support selling drugs?


that would be the case if you copyrighting their idea first after nicking the info. As it happens you are taking a copy of something.

In reply to brothersoulshine:


Simple:

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you".

End of.

(exceptions: fails for psychopaths and those who are unable to empathise)

In reply to captain paranoia:

What about sadists?

In reply to captain paranoia:



That'll teach me to read the whole thread before I reply, although I didn't quote from the bible

But it is pretty obvious, isn't it?

In reply to brothersoulshine:

We don't need religion to tell us what is right and wrong. You wouldn't like someone to steal something of yours, and you would consider that "wrong", so - pretty clearly - it would be wrong for you to steal something that belongs to someone else (or your company, or another company / business).

It's pretty simple, really.

(re-post 'cos of bad typos)

In reply to Bruce Hooker:


more the masochists i am worried about. they are the ones who would be happy getting hurt

In reply to dissonance:

Sorry, that's what I meant to say! A bit sleepy.

In reply to tlm:

How can you steal an idea? Do you suck it out of my head so I don't have it any more?

Copyright is a legal mechanism, not something tangible or with any a priori existence. 'Intellectual Property' doesn't have any simple meaning at all, just being an umbrella term for copyrights, patents and licenses based thereon.


It isn't stealing, it's breach of contract, or unauthorised copying of something protected by copyright law. Doesn't make it right, just makes it not stealing.


I don't really consider it immoral to copy MP3s from a mate - if I really like something I'll probably buy the album anyway, and if not, I'll delete it or just not listen to it. This usually applies to stuff I wouldn't have bought just on the offchance, so nobody lost any income.
Would you describe that as stealing?

It isn't really the same case as organised piracy, which attempts to divert proceeds from sales of authorised copies away from the copyright holder. Is it?

In reply to rich:


yes, lots of it is definitely crap - he's a philosopher not an evolutionary biologist - but if you thought humanism had anything going for it, or for that matter any other kind of universal morality, this book will make you realise it doesn't (at least it did me, but them I'm a bit thick).

In reply to Steve Parker:

Exactly - we all have different strategies. We play the games in different ways, as Maynard Smith and game theory would see it. One strategy is to steal and another is not to. There is limited evidence that we have a genetic predisposition to follow a strategy, whatever behaviour we might be talking about.
Of course, just because you might have a genetic predisposition to the stealing strategy doesn't mean you can use it as an excuse in a court of law. we rely on the fact that this strategy is socially unacceptable and therefore uncommon. otherwise the whole thing would be evolutionarily unstable. of course, maybe that's just rubbish - I've never really been in favour of applying human evolution mumbo jumbo.

In reply to tlm:


This is all well and good, but we only really work together in limited groups and the sizes of these groups is such that we are quite happy to be nasty to some people but not others. We all exploit other people, even if mostly it's very indirectly. Exploitation and subjugation is made very easy by global capitalism. Don't let's pretend that we'd all be happy for everyone else to be equally well off.

In reply to ArnaudG:

Maybe, but if we really are making up our moral values based on 'what seems right to most people' then we'll be having a complicated and fraught time for a while to come. Moral relativism is a difficult place to be.

In reply to dissonance:


If you create software or a picture, you AUTOMATICALLY own the copyright to it. You can't 'copyright' something. It isn't like patenting.

I don't think people are 'BAD' for doing it. Just that you are kidding yourself if you don't understand that it is stealing. It is like a meat eater saying that they could never kill an animal..... they do so all of the time indirectly, by eating meat.

By the way, of course, like most people on here, I have stolen things myself at times during my life. It is a fairly normal thing to do. Just, it doesn't make it not stealing, just because it is something that you do yourself.

It is like saying that using works computer to access rocktalk is not stealing....

In reply to turnersi:



Hmmm.... I'm not convinced. After all, if you are that uninterested in it, why would you bother copying it in the first place? After all, you can listen to your mates version.

I still think of it as stealing. It is just that we kid ourselves that it isn't, so that we can carry on doing it without feeling guilty.

I've heard people use arguements to justify why stealing from a big organisation is ok and not the same as stealing from an individual - well - they don't lose any money by me doing it, they set the prices to cover the cost of some shoplifting. Things are going to be stolen anyway, so they may as well come to me.

Or even to justify burglery - well , they don't pay for it, their insurance does....

I think we don't like to think that we are stealing when we take home a ream of paper from work, or when we have an extra half hour on our lunch. But we are. We are taking something that is not ours.

In reply to brothersoulshine: another essential for the reading list:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Demanding-Impossible-Anarchism-Peter-Marshall/dp/00...

In reply to Duncan Bourne:


well a) you need to prove it, eg have evidence you created it first and b) for software you do need to patent it, otherwise i would simply reverse engineer it and stick it into a different language.


ermm, it isnt. It is a crime yup but it isnt stealing, have a look at the patent office website (which covers copyright as well) if you are still unsure. You will not see the word stealing but rather infringement


who says i do?


not if it is authorised it aint, and i would say that is more getting money by deception primarily.

In reply to brothersoulshine:

Many times people have moved away from society, even to populated areas.

Is it wrong to steal? The American Indian's think so but the settlers that took their land didn't. They didn't accept it as a wrong they had to do to get what they wanted... the settlers thought it was their right as a superior people (questionable anyway)... So IS stealing (universally) wrong?

In the scheme of the universe if you drink dry a pool of water next to a bed of plants... haven't you stolen from the plant?

In my mind - disreguarding the concepts of evil and good - it is written into the makeup of all life that
'you must do all you can to survive reguardless of the consequences'
and
'when assigning value to life, your own species is most important to the way you live your life'
and
'In order of respect, the higher up the food-chain/intelligence/technologically-advanced you are the more respect and rights to do anything you want - you have'

Worryingly whilst in biological life the last appears to be true... if 'The Matrix' or 'Terminator' or 'StarTrek (the Borg)' were real events... wouldn't the "computers" be doing the (universally morally) right thing???

... It's a bloomin' good post-question brothersoulshine!

In reply to brothersoulshine:
It has always amazed me that people need some concept of God to tell them how to behave.
Our "morals" as we call them fall into two main camps as I see them a) cultural b) basically social
a) Is anything imposed on us by our cultural background ie. No sex before marrage, covering your face/body, not eating certain foods drink and drugs restrictions

b) is anything that is generally accepted across humanity ie. not murdering each other, rape, stealing etc.
It is my view that these are behaviours deeply seated in our position as social animals and are there to reinforce and strengthen the group, however even these have mitigating circumstances. They are generally only effective within family groups or close knit groups. After all murder is fine in a lot of societies, as long as it is to punish wrong doers or attack a rival group. Stealing is fine as long as it is outside your percieved group (witness the theft of Indian lands in the States by supposedly highly moral Victorians). Rape too was even condoned in certain chapters of the Bible.
The prime purpose of any moral behaviour is restriction. Initially to stop groups fragmenting and later to form group identities. Any state wishing for stability must control murder, rape and stealing or else chaos would ensue. You don't need a god to see that.

In reply to Duncan Bourne:

Amazed and frightened! If the only thing keeping someone from raping and murdering their friends is the threat of eternal damnation, I think I'd steer clear of them in case they ever lost the faith...

In reply to brothersoulshine:



This is a really really 'stupid' thread.

In reply to Duncan Bourne:

A lot of people would say that you're right, you don't need a God to see that, but if there is a God, he made the world such that it only works well if those types of rules are in place and we can understand that. If he made it that way, then you don't need a god to see it, but there needed to be a god for them to be required in the first place.

In reply to Castleman:

a lot of "ifs". also pretty crap design considering how often it fails.

In reply to Castleman:


Why did there need to be a god for them to be required in the first place? (that bit was a bit of a big jump in logic and I didn't follow your reasoning?)

In reply to dissonance:

Alright, same without the if's

There is a God, he made the world such that it only works well when those types of rules are in place and we can understand that. He made it that way, so you don't need a god to see it, but there needed to be a god for them to be required in the first place.

Only crap design because humans screw it up. Most of us are striving to live in "harmony" just can't manage it!

In reply to tlm:

Not saying that there needed to be a god for them to be required. More that if the Christian God created the universe (in someway), he created it for relationships, as such moral laws are wired into us, call it our conscience if you will, that we understand.

In reply to Castleman:

Ah! And therefore if there was no god at all, then he didn't?
Hmmmmm.....

In reply to Castleman:


ermm, but your point is it was her design to set the humans in this way, personally i would have put in some extra safeguards.
With or without the ifs it is a meaningless statement.

In reply to tlm:

Or if there was a god, he didn't and left us to work it out on our own? Which I don't think works, due to general understanding of morality, conscience, honour etc etc in many different societies, ages and civilisations.

In reply to dissonance:

I think extra safeguards to make us follow "the rules" would make us more like robots and less able to fully experience relationships and emotions etc.

In reply to Castleman:


So slavery is ok and women arent equal? A fairly common scenario in history (and today).
Also alternatives as to how understanding can occur(and how it can fail giving the scenarios above) are available with invoking an imaginary being.

In reply to Castleman:

What makes you believe in god?

As opposed to unicorns, or tree spirits, or crystals, or ghosts, or a great turtle, or any other thing that I could think of?

I just don't get it?

Why choose that one thing to believe out of all the things that you could believe?

(or maybe you actually believe in all of them!

It just seems so.... out of kilter, somehow... I mean - there must be a reason that makes god seem more believable than the other things?

Feel free not to answer! I can imagine the hyenas and vultures decending to pick the bones of any answer you give, and not listening with any openess!

From a power perspective it makes sense to promote the concept of God, so long as you can retain ultimate control over the God-image and it's dictates. Passive and compliant citizens are far easier to manage than rebellious ones and religion provides a convenient framework.

That's why it's important for a leader who wants personal power to project themselves as having been appointed by God and acting as his spokesperson. This is also why it's important for God to be male; because this gives the greatest impression of authority over the largest number of subjects. It doesn't matter whether or not the ruler believes in their own God as long as the subjects do.

In reply to Alison Stockwell:

What about Shiva? She was a naty bit of work too if I remember correctly!

Women can't get completely off the hook tht easy

In reply to Bruce Hooker:

the morrigu/morrigan of irish mythology wasnt the nicest either.

In reply to tlm:


Yup, but I'm happy to and been in situations far worse than being shot down on a forum! Expect lots of people won't listen, but hey. Plus I may waffle, sorry.


I've thrown my weight (intellectually, theologically, philosophically) against Christianity and it stands up again and again, other religions and things haven't.
To my mind a religion has to be 3 things -
Firstly, consistent in itself. Yes, there appear to be discrepencies in the Bible but I often find that these aren't incompatible issues, just different viewpoints on an event or similar. Christian theology is sound within itself it doesn't change according to the situation you are in.
Secondly, consistent with the world around - in my questioning, Christianity answers a lot of questions about why the world is the way it is, eg wars, suffering etc.
Thirdly, consistent with myself - my experiences, feeling and thoughts are addressed through Christianity. I find that I understand who I am, why I feel the way I do about things etc etc.


Because much as I would like to believe in Santa, it doesn't stand up to my questioning.

It is bizarre and that is part of it. If I could fully understand God, he wouldn't be God or I wouldn't be human. Whilst I struggle, because I can't put him in a box and make him as believable as I'd like, or pull him out to do party tricks when I want, it makes him more trustworthy and believable.
He's proven true on various things through experiences, so I can trust him with other stuff. It's not just an intellectual belief, it is a relationship that I find hard to get my head around.

In reply to Castleman:

I asked about god, not christianity. You've answered why you picked christianity over any other religion...

Mind you - I'm not sure that I like discussing this too much with people, in case I accidentally cause someone to lose their faith, and I would imagine that it can be quite a comforting thing to have! (I would feel like I had told a child that Santa wasn't real).

In reply to brothersoulshine:

As has been said previously, moral laws and the sense of right and wrong have been forged by evolutionary forces and as such are in our genes - most probably.

I suggest you read The Blank Slate by Stephen Pinker, you should find it illuminating and it will save you a certain amount of intellectual masturbation.

Some of George Orwell's essays on fascism are also worth reading for an attack the proposition that there is no right or wrong, only power.

In reply to Castleman: I think religion creates more questions than it answers. Why do you believe in a god over, say, fairies, or unicorns? Your "questioning" doesn't seem to go very deep...

Quote "It's not just an intellectual belief"

You mean even, not "just". Or you have a very different view of "intellectual" than I do.

In reply to tlm:

I thought Castleman put up a good summary of his case for Christianity.

I wouldn't worry about discussing faith with people. Any faith that could be destroyed so easily wouldn't be worth much. Real faith is much stronger than that and has probably been arrived at after much thought and personal searching and questioning.

In reply to Gazza:
why not ask what the reasoning is before saying it dosen't go deep?

it may not lay itself open to easy explanation. many people believe in scientific fact while knowing insufficient information to prove that belief.

In the case of faith , it is ariving at a knowledge that something is true, rather than making a "choice" about what to believe. In that sense it is like science, in that one doesn't choose to believe that water exists.

In reply to Anonymous:

Oh, he did. It's just that he answered a question that I didn't ask, and ignored the one that I did ask.



Hmmm.... my ex husband stopped believing in god after living with me for a few years!

In reply to tlm:

Sorry if I didn't answer the one you asked. Why do I believe in God and not fairies etc...

Basically for the reasons above, although I obviously didn't describe that very well.

If a God is there to know (not just know about), then he will have interacted with humanity. This interaction must be sourced somewhere other than just in my own experience. This is religion. So, if I can inspect religions and see which one matches the 3 points above and tell me about this God, I can believe and trust him.
Why believe in him? because whilst I don't find life easier, I find it more joyous, more fulfilled and that I have more rewarding relationships, including one with him, than I ever did before. I have seen a change in my own, and others lives that is amazing.

In reply to Gazza:

I'd say that you don't know my questioning, my bookshelf or my address book so therefore not sure how you can say my questioning doesn't go very deep.
I don't want to sing my own praises of what areas I've studied and looked into, of what I've learnt and had corrected, of what I've questioned, argued, discussed and the repurcussions of this.
However, suffice to say that it has been fairly thorough and is continually ongoing.

In reply to brothersoulshine:

read 'the selfish gene' by richard dworkin, it covers this idea well, with darwinism as it's base for many points.

'prisoners dilema' basically - if we're stuck together, we'll co-operate as far as poss, but once i know i can leave you behind, i'll screw you over if i can if it benefits me. basic human nature it seems.

In reply to Anonymous:


Superstition that has been thought over and has been the result of deep personal superstition is.....still superstition

The casual elevation of the serene and supposedly spiritual is so much specious nonsense upon stilts*. Deeply held bollocks it may be but.....


*copyright J Bentham

In reply to Castleman:

So god has interacted with you personally?

What was it like?

I guess this is the nub of what I find strange - that people could believe in god with no personal experience of any interaction with him, but just based on what other people have said. In that sense, I could quite understand it if someone said, "well, a big hand came down from the sky and pointed at me and told me to stop doubting". Then it would make sense to believe. But without any personal experience, how would it differ from any other made-up thing?

also - thinking historically - obviously, there was a time before christianity, when god existed. How could people at that time be expected to believe in god?

In reply to Enoch Root:

you are entitled to your opinion. However, it is devalued by your underestimation of other people and the casual elevation of your own viewpoint above them

In reply to tlm:
Funny trying to put my finger on it; but yes, in lots of ways. There are the moments of strength and inner calm that come after praying. Moments of sudden understanding, like a curtain has been raised. Times when I've suddenly unexplicably read something in the Bible and just been instantly comforted/had questions answered. Times when I seem to have the perfect words for a moment (according to other people) but not known them beforehand or be able to say what it was afterwards. A lot of it is through praying and giving time to being answered, allowing time to "get to know God". It really is hard to explain, but is as real as the desk I am in front of.
As to what was it like - amazing, reassuring, like spending time with a friend who knows you really well.
However, I do have periods when I feel that I am distant from God and I struggle with why its not always this perfect relationship.


True, it is hard. Then again, the Bible says that there were people who saw Jesus' miracles and still discounted him, or the Israelites in the desert who still complained after miracles.


Through his revealing, through creation of his eternal nature and eternal qualities. Isaac Newton said that the thumb alone is enough to convince him of God.

In reply to Anonymous:

you are entitled to your opinion. However, it is devalued by your underestimation of other people and the casual elevation of your own viewpoint above them

In reply to Castleman:


Yes but Issac was also a wildly speculative alchemist who was up to his eyballs in mercury by the time he died and was obsessed with eschatological interpretations of biblical chronology.

We should thank him though for his contributions to scientific method and thus allowing that other English genius to see the stunningly simple truth of his own thumb.

In reply to Castleman:

And what led you to attribute all of this to god, rather than any psycological reasons?
If god is real, then how come no one ever sees any direct evidence any more? Do you know of anyone yourself, amidst all of the christians that you know?



So your talk of what the Christian church means is not particularly anything that is needed in order to get someone to believe in god?

I'm not really sure what you mean by 'creation of his eternal nature and eternal qualities'. It sounds like a quote, rather than your own thoughts on the matter? but maybe I am just a bit stupid!

In reply to tlm:
Some psycological stuff i easily recognise as such and can discount it. Some stuff I just know isn't - funny as people who know me would say that I'm not an emotional person who plays mind games.
I know people who have seen direct evidence. Direct evidence is normally discounted by others so didn't bother bringing it up. People tend to say either "it can't understand it happening without there being a God, so therefore it didn't" or try and find a reason out of it (a bit like saying stuff is all psycological or coincidence...to quote "it's amazing how many coincidences happen when you begin to pray"). Will give one direct example, I have plenty more similar ones that regularly occur. I was raising funds for a project in South America - had an amount £x left to raise and held a free event. Donations only, no publicity, we collected £x.
not sure I understand what you mean here. If you mean is there a definite proof of God. No, I don't think so, but when you ask him to play a part in your life, and he does, it is unmistakable.


Lol, it was a bit of a quote, from the beginning of Romans. I'd agree with it though, that you can see evidence of God through his works (ie the universe around us, its patterns, its beauty etc) and his power and qualities (through our understanding of relationships, love, anger, justice etc). So, as he is eternal, these things are consistent, so he has always been revealing himself through those. Hence my original post, that morals are given by God and can be shown to point us towards him as the ultimately moral being.

In reply to Castleman:
I am glad that you decided to be brave enough to post details of your beliefs on here. It shows conviction and I respect that. You have said some interesting things that I don't necessarily believe in but interesting none the less.
To put my self clearly I am approaching the argument from the stance of a Buddhist atheist. By which I mean that I donot believe in an objective God, who created the universe (though I will say that hey I can't prove it)and regard such a being as largely irrelevant even should it exist. And that I adhere to a philosopy which roughly equates to that of Gautama Buddha, less a follower and more of a sharing of ideas. I believe that being whole and at one with yourself is an attainable human state and I believe in personal spirituality (because I can think of no other way of describing it) as an expression of what it means to be truely human. The only moral code worth a damn is that of compassion both for ones self and others.

With this in mind I wanted to address your three points:


What exactly do you mean by this? Most religions I have studied have their own internal logic and are consistent within themselves. Also why is this an important issue? Do you mean that it should be consistent in the way that a liar isn't and therefore it is an indication of truth?

>Christian theology is sound within itself it doesn't >change according to the situation you are in.

You could say this about most religions too.


How does it answer these questions in a way that is any better than those of ...say.. Buddhism or Islam or Hinduism?


That at least is good. Go with personal experience!


Or maybe fully human??

Whilst I struggle, because I can't put him in a box and make him as believable as I'd like, or pull him out to do party tricks when I want, it makes him more trustworthy and believable.

May be God is you? May be if you "woke up" you would see how everything thing fits together and you wouldn't need a God to lean on because you would be as one with God. States of bliss are fleeting they come and they go. It is my feeling that they and God are distractions from the real work which is that of your own inner calm.

In reply to Castleman:


Oh well, that settles that then. In a galaxy of 100 billion stars, in a Universe of 100 billion galaxies, there really is a divine being that sees to it that Castleman's tombola comes good when it matters.

In reply to Enoch Root:

You are forgetting that He's omniscient and omnipotent. Two handy qualities for any self-respecting God.

In reply to Castleman:


but surely a generous God would have ensured even more got donated, or prevented the need for it.


dont you think that is kind of arrogant and strange. He intervenes for you but not, say, for the poor buggers in darfur?


Dont you feel scared about all the atheists and believers in other religions since surely by not following Christianity they are also opting out of morality?

In reply to dissonance:

In reply to dissonance:

I purposefully used a single money example without details of number of people, amount raised, location etc to show that it will automatically get knocked back without even discussion and normally through sarcastic comments! No doubt documented accounts of people running orphanages without asking for donations only praying and yet every month for years, someone would have sent just the right amount of money would be knocked back as well, so it doesn't surprise me.

I think you are missing the point with how God intervenes - he doesn't give all the time, or more than is necessary, or on demand, or to me more than any other "believer". He may well work in peoples lives or politically, but we cannot necessarily demand that he acted in any way. I certainly would like all conflicts to stop immediately, but I don't believe that is the way he works. I know Christians who were nearly killed by the Khmer Rouge, but still say that they had God working in their lives in that time. There are also those who died there and said (up to their deaths) that God was working in their lives.

I don't think that by not being a christian you are opting out of morality - my argument is that it is engrained in us, by God, so you cannot opt out of it, though we can all supress it.

In reply to Castleman:


but then the plural of anecdote is not data.
I just cant see how someone can come to that conclusion


its more that i couldnt follow someone who could intervene easily but chooses not too.


and religion is particularly good at allowing it.
I am not sure why anyone would go for a supernatural explanation when there are adequate natural explanations for morality.

In reply to Castleman:

Saying that God only interfers when he wants to is a bit of a cop out. If something happens that fits what you want then God did it if it doesn't then He had his "mysterious" reasons for not making it happen. Also if that were the case then he works across the board. When I was a practicing occultist I witnessed many strange and "hard-to-explain-through-normal-physics" things including getting the right amount of money, finding the right book in an unexpected place etc. If things didn't work then, well, I hadn't done the ritual right had I. Now that I consider it all tosh I still get "lucky" with things happening at the right time out of the blue. Some times it is just luck other times it is the logical conclusion to your actions.

In reply to dissonance:


That is why I didn't mention that sort of thing to begin with - it is not data, it can be seen as coincidence etc, it is only when things happen in situations in which you are involved you can really decide on whether it is supernatural or not. I am also cynical of other people experiencing such things - so don't expect it to make any difference to others when it happens me.


I wouldn't on its own, if it was just explanations for morality I had issues with, I would pick a "natural" explanation. I find that in as I have questions about a lot of other things, in conjunction with nearly everything else it makes sense to have a "supernatural" answer set.

In reply to Castleman:

But other than cultural predisposition, how do you know which supernatural answer set to turn to?

In reply to Duncan Bourne:

Duncan, thanks for the encouragement in your above post - I'd agree, better to discuss things, although I see forums like these more for info on other peoples views than debate - the pub, face to face is where real debate happens


I'd agree, though say that fulfillment of this, comes from following (Christian/Jewish) God.


I feel that inner calm is being one with God (rather than leaning on him)- but in purpose, love and relationship, rather than actually "being" God.



You're right, it is a cop out. The way I see it is that if I could make God intervene all the time, I either wouldn't have choices to make (he'd stop us all making bad ones that hurt others), or he'd be on call (to me and how I want him to act). One denies us being fully human, one denies him being fully God.
As an engineer, my thinking is generally logical (someone is bound to make the "how can a christian follow logical thinking comment!), step-by-step and often cynical. As such, I see coincidence as coincedence. However, after repeat coincidences for some areas and not others I find it hard to ignore.
Areas where I "have seen God act" are the ones where I can see his purpose being carried out. Yes, that phrase is woolly, what is his purpose? Those things where it has been for the benefit of others, where others have been healed, supported, encouraged, loved coincidences have happened. Where it has been for my own selfish good, they haven't. Coincidence? Maybe. Or maybe just the sign of a loving God?

Mike

Ps Man, I really wish this was a pub, I could do with another pint already - and it is not even 10!

In reply to Rid Skwerr:

Thats where the judgement I posted above comes in - my sort of 3 criteria (internally consistent, worldly consistent, personally consistent).
Oh, and a hell of a lot head scratching!

In reply to Castleman:

Castleman, I'm with you mate, I'm a Christian too and proud of it! I've seen God do amazing things in my life and in the lives of others around me.

In response to someones comment about why God helped Castleman and not the people in Darfur, my answer to that would be that the bible says Christians are the body of Christ on earth, and that we are called to be the hands of Jesus to people. Therefore, Castleman was praying for money in order to help others (not just for himself). God gave him this money to bless others with. I suspect if Castleman had been praying for a Lamborghini Gallardo to show off to his mates, he would not have had his prayers answered, as thats a selfish prayer!

And who says God doesnt help people in Darfur, or anywhere else for that matter? Help doesnt always involve giving money - in fact God has helped me more emotionally and psychologically than financially. God can help out just by being a hand of support to people, comforting them in a time of need.

As an aside, Its good to have debate around this, and I respect other peoples opinions totally. However, from reading this thread, I think some people maybe need to soften their approach a little bit - you can still hold an alternative opinion without clubbing down other peoples beliefs.

In reply to dissonance:
"am not sure why anyone would go for a supernatural explanation when there are adequate natural explanations for morality. "

explaining morality starts by explaining the existence of the cosmos, and even the possibility of it existing. Has anyone explained how the possibility of morality came into being? To speak of quantum fluctuations, field equations, zero states etc is only going back another step on that quest

In reply to Yamsy:

So he was giving the money to the Christians so they could use it to help the heathens rather than directly intervening with the heathens since they'd mistakenly thank Allah instead?

In reply to brothersoulshine:


I recon there is no right or wrong, we do (as we have always done) simply what is best for us.

As a civilised society, generally the best thing to ensure our freedom, survival and ultimately our ability to reproduce is to act in a responisible and in a sociable manner. We make friends, dont steal and have long term relationships as its (now) the most effective way of reproducing healthy and well adapted offspring.

We are sociable beings, so have evolved to act sociably, have a body that can talk, communicate, have facial expressions, and out lifestyles and fasions have also adapted to that. It is in our interests as a society to be civilised, so we are (mostly!!).


If we werent so civilised, wed probably be in smaller family groups helping, which again would benafit our own gene pool, but on a smaller scale, which is much the way we were in the huntergatherer situation.

If we were very uncivilised, say like cats who are a totally solitary animal, wed think nothing of stealing, raping, murder, whatever as we would have no one to try to convince we would be a good hunter/partner/friend/nurse/bricklayer worth making a little civilisation with.

I dunno. Just my thoughts. I just recon were all selfish and so all want to survive, but the best way to do that was to get into groups, and so our bodies and minds have evolved to be sociable (good) and not chaotic (bad), and our cuture has reflected and greatly reenforced that.

Mat

In reply to Rid Skwerr: lol, but no thats not what I'm saying, God could help anyone who asked him, but in Castlemans particular experience, God helped him so that he could help others by getting him the right amount of money that he needed, thus allowing Castleman to be the hands of Jesus on earth.

He was giving the money to the person who he felt was best placed to help the people in need, regardless of whether they were Christian or 'heathen'(I hate that word!)

In reply to Castleman:

Sure you're asking the right questions then? Nothing that I have seen or read or heard has left me in any doubt whatsoever that god is any more real than the aforementioned unicorns, fairies etc. For someone to say it's a matter of "faith" or other such bollocks, is to me the greatest cop out of all time.

In reply to Gazza:

For them to say it's a matter of "faith" is pretty much bang on. Believe one particular implausible explanation because it feels right in your head. Plenty of folk do it with things other than gods too.

In reply to Gazza:

Sure you're asking the right questions then? I'm in no doubt that God is more real than you...after all I've experienced God, and as far as I can see you, you could be a bot or not real. I make assumptions that because I post on a message board, every other post must be from a human too and normally lots of different people. Not necessarily true as I can't check it!

In reply to Rid Skwerr:

But it explains nothing, that's my point. I prefer to use the word deluded. At best I think, most people like to believe in belief, if you catch my drift. Apart from the retards that take it word for word as gospel (pun intended), creationists and their ilk.

In reply to Rid Skwerr/Gazza:

Yes faith is the correct word, but probably not in the way you mean it. Faith means to lean on the reliability and trustworthiness of said object, God or not. It is not a leap into the dark randomly following something on a whim.

In reply to Rid Skwerr:

No.

In reply to captain paranoia:


You're forgetting that He's a fiction. A bit of a draw-back for any self-respecting causal agent.

In reply to Castleman:

Very true. But in probability, which one do you think most people would put money on; The ability to see me (Garry Hughes of Edinburgh) or your omniscient master?

In reply to Castleman:
>Not necessarily true as I can't check it!

But that's exactly the point. In principle you could actually verify it.

In reply to Castleman:


Or indeed in ANY way or pattern that could be distinguished in the slightest from 'not giving at all'

Your theory is unfalsifiable. Ergo meaningless.

In reply to Yamsy:


so how can you justify mentally that she allows so many people to die in vicious wars, but gives a quick few quid to some orphanage. I might be missing something but that seems misplaced priorities to me.

In reply to Castleman:

The other option of course it to lean on the probability of the existence of such an object, god or not.

It is not a leap into the dark randomly following something on a whim.

That's exactly what it is though. Just because there's a tradition for doing and writing about it, makes it no more real.

In reply to Gazza:


sorry the flying spaghetti monster wins every time.

In reply to dissonance:

But if you start with the faith you can always arrive at a convoluted theological explanation for anything.

In reply to Enoch Root:

Because you camnnot see or measure something does not mean it does not exist.

For example, you could die of Leukaemia or cancer caused by radiation you do not know about, and cannot see, and have no meter to measure it.

In reply to Rid Skwerr:


What you could certainly do is falsify it. One couterexample would do it.

Castleman's conclusion is that he believes that his tombola money was a divine intervention. His theory is that the Divine intervenes in a non-random way in such acts of charity.

The question has to be then; "what observational data would disprove your theory". If he can't answer that then there is no difference between a world with and a world without divine intervention and it is essentially an empty hypothesis.

Castleman - straight question, straight answer please - what observational data would disprove your theory?????

In reply to sutty:


it just lowers the probability, particularly if any actions attributed to it can be explained by things that do exist.


But the effects are clear and given the appropriate tools the cause can also be seen. The radiation is fairly good example of something that might have been attributed to God/devil etc, eg go to this place and you will get ill.

In reply to dissonance:

Maybe we just haven't yet got the right tools to prove God? Radiation occurred before there were tools to measure it.

In reply to sutty:

Radiation and that it can cause cancer/Leukaemia is a matter of fact, there is evidence of this (Or didn't you know?). You can also detect and measure radiation!! You may not know that you are dying of said ailment as a result of contact with radiation, but an autopsy would. Welcome to "Science in Action"!!

With god, there is nothing there to measure apart from a load of superstitious twaddle.

In reply to Enoch Root:

I know. I was leaving the F-word for the professionals

In reply to Enoch Root:

Sorry, will try and give a straight answer, but am not quite following what theory you want me to refer to. Can you just clarify please?

In reply to Castleman:

Ergo, it doesn't exist

In reply to Castleman:

Your theory seems to me to be that the Divine intervenes in a non-random way in acts of charity, such as the one you mentioned.

Is that about right? If not please clarify what your theory actually is. Then please tell me what would, for you, be sufficient evidence to disprove your theory.

Thank you.

In reply to Enoch Root:

Ok cool. I'm with you Will try and use scientific terminology and set it as theory, evidence, results, disproving theory, to make it clear (though each may not be the perfect word for describing my thoughts).

My theory is that the Divine intervenes in a non-random way in a manner of things (including acts of charity).

Ok, I think that these acts often do appear as random to us (because otherwise we think we've got a certain prayer that we can say and it guarantees divine intervention) but aren't. The actions are always consistent with Gods nature (loving, eternally just).

My "evidence" for above theory (not total justification of God): that improbable events regularly occur that only seem to happen when that event is in line with Gods nature. (Eg, fundraising exact amount as mentioned above is not a single event - I've had it a number of times with charities, aid, time given etc when for the benefit for others. When raising funds for sport clubs I've been involved in for new sports equipment this hasn't happened).

Results: Appear to be in line that when others are set to individually benefit and the result will often glorify God the theory holds true. When it is for selfish, or excessive wants, it doesn't and there is no interaction.

Disproving this: a) To be shown that Gods nature is not as laid out in the Bible, that he has no interest in humankind, that he does not care about peoples wellbeing.
b) to be shown that God controls all events anyway, and as such is evil as therefore actively causes wars, persecution etc.
c) to be shown that historically and statistically there is no difference in "improbable events" occurring that are inline with Gods will and those that aren't.

In reply to Castleman:


Okay, so far so good, but a bit on the spiritual side. What measurable, empirical evidence about THIS world would disprove your theory?

Bear in mind that your theory is about tangible effects of the Divine upon 'this world' so there should be some conceivable evidence in 'this world' that would disprove the theory.

In reply to Castleman:

Do you believe in the literal truth of the bible?

In reply to Castleman: Are you aware of any of the experiments into the healing power prayer which, as far as I know, have not shown any positive results. Would these ever have any bearing on your own belief?

As an example, here's a link to a bbc news story:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4681771.stm

A quick google search will provide many more articles.

In reply to alanw:

And that in spite of hedging faiths.

In reply to Enoch Root:

Firstly, what would prove my theory beyond doubt for most people (bear with me, I'm getting there!)? That something known as scientifically impossible occurs before their eyes (eg a missing eye regrowing, someone coming back from the dead). However, even with this there would be the automatic thing from people not there that "he wasn't really dead" etc.
So what would disprove my theory (part 2 - "this world" evidence, lol).

I think that it is a matter of probability - if it can be proven that all the events that I would attribute to God are not actually improbable (even when combined), or that they have occurred without any trust in God as regularly as when people do trust God.
Also, that the occurence of "coincidence" is all that could be expected (extreme example - people recovering from severe lung cancer without any treatment. If this has occurred in 4 out of 8 cases through prayer alone and is never documented as ever occurring before medically yet has full medical confirmation that is what happened, I would almost certainly consider it proof of the interaction of God in certain cases. If however, it was shown that statistically 50% of people recover from severe lung cancer with no treatment anyway, I would consider it disproved).

"Science can purify religion from error and superstition; religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes. Each can draw the other into a wider world, a world in which both can flourish."
-- Pope John Paul II

In reply to Gazza:

>Radiation and that it can cause cancer/Leukaemia is a matter of fact, there is evidence of this (Or didn't you know?). You can also detect and measure radiation!! You may not know that you are dying of said ailment as a result of contact with radiation, but an autopsy would. Welcome to "Science in Action"!!

Now measure ESP, we know it works, but not how to measure it to prove it does. I have got people to do things by concentrating on them sometimes, witnessed by a cabin full of workmates, and written down beforehand, yet nobody can explain it, YET.

100 years ago there was no method of diagnosing lots of things, the computer and increased knowledge is helping in all sorts of ways now, that would have been discounted as daft then.
How could Asbestos kill you, or radiation if you had nothing to measure it with, all things that were discovered injurious in the last 120 years.

In reply to brothersoulshine: Wow, theres some pretty aggressive responses coming out on this thread. Calling creationists 'retards' etc. Someone is getting very hot under the collar, I would recommend a chillpill or two...

As a Christian, and a bit of a hippy too, I would actually query that science can prove anything. I work with people with mental health problems, who are constantly being doped up on medication, when in actual fact, they report finding more support in people accepting their bizarre beliefs and working with them rather than traditional interventions of doctors saying 'here have some olanzapine and be doped out for the rest of your life'.

Science is not always right, nor can all things be proved by science. Love for example, is not something that can be seen or proven, but very few people doubt its existence. I just have a different frame of reference from the atheists and scientists - I respect your frame of reference, perhaps you should learn to respect mine?

In reply to Rid Skwerr:

Not exclusively. I believe that parts of the Bible are to be taken literally, parts are written figuratively and symbolically, parts as history, parts as poetry, as parables, as prophecy, as prose.

In reply to Castleman:

How d'you know which is which?

In reply to Rid Skwerr:

Through looking at the bigger picture and the Bible as a whole (which is where I think fundamentalism is often from; taking parts in isolation without the referencing from within the wider texts).
Jesus said "I am the true vine" - now, I don't take that literally. Why? Because, a) he was obviously a man, b)in that context he was talking about relationships with God and the image illustrates his point about relationships and dependance c) and in other parts of the Bible, the vine is used to illustrate relationships

In reply to Rid Skwerr: Thats a matter of personal interpretation, but I know you werent asking me, sorry Castleman for stealing a question directed to you

NB My above post was a general post, not specifically directed at Brothersoulshine but at the thread people as a whole just in case anyone was wondering

In reply to Castleman:

I'll give you a bit of encouragement too! Well done on being willing to discuss things on a public furum (where you know people will simply resort to saying YOU'RE WRONG! without bothering to think about it...)

Even though am a total atheist, I have experienced all of the things that you describe. I never pray, and yet my life is filled with an inner calm, luck aplenty, ethics and morals.

Where (in your opinion) is all of that coming from then? And if it is coming from god, what is the advantage/point of being a devout christian, as opposed to a raving atheist like myself?

In reply to brothersoulshine:

Take responsibility for our own descisions and actions instead of blaming everybody else for what goes wrong in our lives. Pete

In reply to tlm:

Its not about gaining an advantage, many of the early christians were persecuted and killed for their faith. Its about believing it, because you have faith in Jesus and who he is.

In reply to Yamsy:



really? Can i have a quick def of "prove" please.


Which has nothing to do with science, simply doping someone is cheaper than providing expensive councillors and support.
Incidently how do you define bizarre beliefs? ones that are not commonly shared?

but Science accepts that, hence why theories come and go. Religion doesnt tend to.


actually there is fair amount of research that shows changed levels of hormones etc. There are also various theories put forward to its purpose.

In reply to Castleman:

I can imagine why people would want to believe in god. After all, it gives a reason and a purpose to everything, which is very comforting. It is someone to pray to when things are going badly, and someone to thank when things are going well. It is a 'super parent' figure, who alwyas knows best, who understands the overall reasoning behind things, even when it might not be clear to you.

When you feel happy, you can attribute this to being filled with the holy spirit. When you feel down, this can be seen as being at a distance from god.

Everything can be fitted into a belief in god.

To not believe in god means that a person has to take ultimate responsibility for their own life. They have to make choices about right and wrong for themselves. It means that there is no purpose, no reason. Which can be scary for many people.

Really, to me, it just feels as though 'god' is a handy label to put on things, but belief in god actually makes no real difference to anything.

I think the two things that made me realise that there was no god were understanding the reasons why people would make god up in the first place, and also realising how religions change and develop over time - that is such a man-made thing, rather than a god induced thing!

My world is internally consistent, worldly consistent and personally consistent - so how come you don't have the same beliefs as me?

In reply to Castleman:


I think that we have to understand science as a method by which to understand the world through an iterative process of observation, theorisation and adaptation to further new evidence. From that point of view it is a process, not a static body of knowledge. I often wish it were a verb rather than a noun.

Anyway - if those things happened we would have to look again at our current scientific theories in those areas. That's all.


Okay that sounds like a test to me. Difficult bit would be separating out 'secular' placebo effects from the 'power of prayer' but I'm prepared to conced you have a theory there.

One I'd bet my every worldly possession on the falsehood of, but a meaningful theory.


Don't agree. They are two fundamentally incompatible ways of understanding the world. Religion commonly claims to be able to give moral structure that a materilist science can't. But that claim to morality is all predicated on an ontological world view (there is a God) that is a claim of fact, not a claim of value.

So you can't have your spiritual cake and eat it.

In reply to Castleman:


so what do you make of the doctrine of the literal truth of substantiation?

In reply to Castleman:


Off on a slight tangent, but there's not really any such thing as a "scientific impossibility". There are things that do not accord with current theories, but...

Anyway, you can of course prove that there's no such thing as a miracle. There are several "classes" of miracle, but the one described above is really a violation of natural law miracle, and the disproof basically goes:

1) A natural law is something which is always true
2) Evidence that a violation of natural law has occurred is really evidence that the "natural law" is in fact not a natural law.

In other words, the more evidence accumulates that such a violation occurred, the more evidence there is that what was violated was not a natural law, and hence the violation was not a miracle...

In reply to Castleman:


I tend to go with c). Perhaps it is easier for me to explain why I am an atheist. There was a time in my life when I "knew" that God existed, it was a fact with out doubt in my mind. But what sort of God? I reasoned that he couldn't be purely a Christian God as there were people in the world who had never heard of Chritianity, what of those in the Amazon, or those who came before Christ came on the scene? Were they all damned for something that they had no choice in? I looked at other religions and found that they were very similar (ie one God, even where there was more than one god there was usually an overiding deity. A sacrifice of some sort etc.)But none of them told me anything about God only to have faith and to do as we were told. I embarked upon the study of magic and occultism as that seemed to provide tangible evidence for the supernatural and for many years I was convinced that I had come to an understanding of what it was that drove reality, that I had, through ritual, discovered my "Holy Self". I saw many fantastic things that I couldn't explain "scientifically". I was convinced of the Divine origin of life and creation. But things didn't quite sit right, Why would a loving God cause all the pain and suffering in the world? A suffering that affected all without prejudice and seemed totally arbitary.I soon realised that our world is not as well desigined as I had imagined (the human eye alone is a piece of shoddy work requiring the brain to correct the inverted image) and that evolution fitted the facts far better than the creationist view I had held. Finally it was when someone asked me how I could explain all the improbable things in the world with something even more improbable (ie God)? That I began to analyse and check my beliefs against the scientific method and I realised that all of my "objective" supernatural experiences, even those that had seemed the most real at the time, and they were very real! Could be explained away as coincidence, or subjective mental images. To date have have yet to have the existance of God as a Physical reality proven to me in a way that satisfies. And How could it? Even if a great big hand came down from the Heavens and pointed at me saying "BELIEVE!" I would think that a) I was hallucinating b) It was a great big alien but not God c) I was stuck inside some computer matrix. So really it isn't that I proved to myself that God didn't exist but that I couldn't prove that He did. He was to all purposes irrelivant. So what held up in the end? Well dowsing for one, I can't explain it but I have proved to myself that there is something in it which may one day have an explanation and the way of the Buddha as a means to "awakening" oneself to personal spirituality. Conciousness and the way inwhich our minds work is one of the most amazing things about our existance. I am sure that science may one one day give a complete breakdown of how the firing of neurons, linking of proteins and various other quantum effects conspire to give us our self awareness. But really that sort of misses the point. In the way that an analysis of pigment chemistry, and brushstroke dynamics will not give us a Mona Lisa. Our brains, like the painting, are more than the sum of their parts. Understanding how they work is enough spiritualiy for me and as much as I require.

In reply to Yamsy:

None of this proves the existence of a god. It's just belief in belief itself. Love is an emotion, it can be felt. Are you saying that god is actually an emotion that created all and judges us still?

Of course science isn't always right, but when a theory is found wanting, then it is either thrown out or revised. The bible/koran or whatever, on the other hand, is just a load of ramblings than can neither be proven nor tested, to be picked at at will. What makes me laugh is when Ihear someone say that Christianity/Islam/JUdaism preaches love. THis all dependes on interpretation, and which points the reader chooses to believe in, or not. Someone that says that these tomes preach hatred, war, bigotry etc, has an equally valid reasoning behind it.

Why should I respect your views? I think they're a load of shit. However, I won't try and stop you from having them.

In reply to Enoch Root:

Quite. Nothing 'scientifically impossible' is ever going to happen because if something unusual or previously inexplicable started to be demonstrable, 'science' would simply have to be adjusted to accommodate it. Science isn't an orthodoxy, it's a way of thinking about things.

For instance, there's nothing 'scientically impossible' about an eye regrowing, in certain situations (and especially in other species). However, it would be pretty unusual and we can't make it happen to order, as we might like. That's not to say we won't figure it out. It's a question of learning how to reprogram the biology.

Other stuff is more improbable, like messing about with the fundamentals of physics (anti-gravity, faster than light travel, that kind of stuff) but maybe even that will turn out to be possible evntually. That doesn't mean the present science is 'wrong'. It means that the model is incomplete, but a pretty good fit for our experience so far. That's all science ever is.

In reply to Castleman:


Okay. Proof. Unless God has a very funny way of showing that he cares about people's wellbeing, there seems to be an awful lot of suffering going on in the world. Your answer will probably be something along the lines of 'oh, well that's because they're not following God's law, or because he allows people to have a choice, or there's a Purpose behind the suffering' etc.

That he allows this suffering to continue, so that we can somehow prove our worthiness in his sight, seems utterly, utterly abhorrent to me, and shows no evidence of care. In fact, it shows a rather sick disdain.

If, when I die, it turns out that there is a God, and there is a Heaven, and I am called to judgement, Someone is going to get such a kicking they'll wish They'd never created the universe. "Omniscient, Omnipotent, All-caring, Loving, and yet you let all THIS happen? You smug, sanctimonious, self-important ****; get ready for an Eternity of kicking..."

In reply to captain paranoia:

Just a general thought, but wouldn't being omniscient do away with the need to be omnipotent, or vice versa?

In reply to Hghes:

How so? One means 'all knowing', the other means 'all powerful'. You could be onmiscient and yet impotent.

In reply to captain paranoia:


If god is omniscient, then it must already know how it will intervene to alter things by use of its omnipotence power. But that would imply that it cannot change its mind about interfering. Ergo, it is not omnipotent.

Quote: You could be omniscient and yet impotent.

Yes, but not omniscient and omnipotent. There's a case for mutual incompatibility.

In reply to dissonance: Not true re your theory on doping someone up being cheaper - actually would be cheaper to acknowledge and work with their beliefs in order that they are no longer psychologically distressed thus avoiding the revolving door syndrome common in mental health services.

Perhaps I should rephrase my first sentence, I would query whether viewing things through the eyes of a scientist is any more valid than viewing things through the eyes of a religious man. Each is valid in the eyes of the beholder.

However if you insist that the science route as the only legitimate form of verification or falsification, then it might be worth checking out the work of Randolph Byrd,William Harris etc, who conducted double blind experiments into the power of prayer, with some astonishing results.

In reply to Hghes:

You are just plain rude. I'd like to remind you that I am a human being not a computer, and I would hope you wouldnt be so disrespectful to me if we were to meet in public.

I think its very sad that you are so aggressive towards people who are just trying to have a friendly discussion.

In reply to Yamsy:

I think you're mixing up respect for other people with respect for other ideas

There is no reason why anyone should have respect for other ideas. Some of them are just 'shit'. The world is not flat, homeopathy doesn't work etc.

But we should respect other people, if we're going to endure as a society. If your beliefs are honestly held, in good faith and do no harm to others, I for one respect you.

But that is not equivalent to respecting all of the beliefs you hold.

In reply to Enoch Root: I can see your point, but I still think its important to respect other peoples opinions, even if you dont agree with them. So I wouldnt go up to a muslim and say 'I think your views are s--t' because that would be disrespectful to them, but in discussion with them I might say 'I'm not sure I agree with that, my opinion is...'

You can disagree with someone without being aggressive to them, and without slating their personal beliefs.

In reply to Enoch Root:
while I agree with your distinction, the point is that Yamsy was replying to someone who was showing no respect for others in either sense.

In dismissing ideas as rubbish so rudely he is clearly saying that he will not respect the holders of the beliefs

a very arrogant attitude for someone made out of a type of matter now thought to make up only about 2% or so of the universe

In reply to Enoch Root:

Just to be controversial, I'm not sure I agree with your viewpoint that homeopathy doesnt work - there's a lot to be said for alternative remedies, and my best friend who is a doctor tells me that there is scientific evidence to prove homeopathy can be beneficial. Not that I'd believe her just cause she's a doctor mind you!

In reply to Anonymous:

Thanks for your support there!

In reply to Yamsy:

Ideas endure and are logically separate from the people holding them. I think you can recognise ideas as flawed, plain wrong etc without necesarily impuning those who hold them. How you make that case has a bearing of course.

Personally I think of religion as an idle, anthropocentric, wishful and occasionally deangerous fiction. But that doesn't make every believer a bad person.

In reply to Yamsy:


It has a placebo effect. So do white starch tablets.

In reply to Yamsy: You are just confusing respect and courtesy. Two different things I believe. I personally do not respect anybody's opinion that god exists, because I have no respect for this belief. I do however respect their right to have an opinion. But these are two different things. I can however show/feign courtesy, by saying "I believe religion is a load of shit, but I do respect your right to follow such ill-conceived tripe, sir"

In reply to Yamsy:


nope, if they work they are no longer alternative.



as a placebo yes, anything else i would get another doctor.

In reply to Yamsy:

and how many councillors are available? Admittedly it would probably be cheaper long term but...


It is interesting you state the two as not being compatible.



it is the main one with a framework available to prove or disprove unlike religion yes.

In reply to Gazza:

Just to play devil's advocate here. You don't actually know that it is tripe that is an opinion formed by a belief in certain kinds of evidence

On the omnipotent/Omniscient and, I presume, omnipresent theme if God is all powerful and all knowing then it follows that the world is created exactly as he intended. He would have seen any mistakes in advance and rectified them. Therefore all the evil in the world is also a part of God because if it wasn't intended then he could easily have prevented it. Also therefore everyone, even the atheists, are doing God's will because he allows it. Therefore evolution is also part of God's purpose because otherwise why waste so much time with evidence that backs it up. Which of course invalidates those who go for a literal interpretation of the scriptures.
Just a thought

In reply to Duncan Bourne:

Havent you heard of the dinosaur test?
By planting that evidence she is testing your faith in the bible.

In reply to dissonance:
What's the point of a test in which you already know the outcome? Except for laughs may be

In reply to dissonance:
Councillors wouldnt be a lot of use as I imagine they'd just want to talk politics.

Counsellors on the other hand might be quite useful.

I dont think I did, I just said they were equally valid perspectives. I reckon the paradigms can overlap too.

As I said, thats your frame of reference. Somebody else might have a different one, equally valid to them.

In reply to dissonance:
I've not heard that definition before...?!

Doctors don't know everything...

What's the difference between God and a psychiatrist?

God doesnt think he's a psychiatrist (ha ha ha!)


...Sorry, crap joke

In reply to Duncan Bourne:

because those who believe regardless of the evidence will be saved, those that fall for the fake evidence burn in hell.
So yeah laughs really.

In reply to dissonance:

Some Christians believe that, but I dont. But just supposing I did, dont I have a right to believe that? After all what makes that theory any more or less valid than any other? None of us were around then to see the dinosaurs existing, so who's to say that God didnt plant them to test people's faith? Why not?

Science isnt always right. Aliens might land on earth tomorrow and say 'ha ha, bless them, they're still at that 'the earth is round' stage. How primitive!'

Just as we might land on another planet, where they believe their planet to be flat, and we might laugh at them and their 'primitive' beliefs, but only because we are judging them from our frame of reference.

In reply to Yamsy:


fairly standard. If it works it aint alternative or complementary.


true, especially if they are pushing homeopathy as anything other than placebo

In reply to Yamsy:

you think that the earth is round? thats a little passe.

In reply to Yamsy:


Just as a likely explanation it is fair way down the list. Lets see believe one book or view lots of evidence.


well it is oval, but apart from that pretty meaningless. Unless someone is playing serious games with dimensions it is "round".


nope, because the evidence supports it, a completely different issue.

In reply to Dr.Strangeglove:


oblate spheroid

In reply to Enoch Root:
Danker

In reply to captain paranoia:



Hey Kev! Perhaps you're not ready for grown up theology? But I'll answer this point alone and then quit since of course in any debate the Atheist will simply move on from point to point demanding explanation again and again. If they really wanted to know about christian doctrine they could read rather than badger the subject of their criticism...

Firstly in Christian doctrine "proving ourselves" has nothing to do with the reality of human suffering, which is seen as a product of free will. In fact all denominations have a common doctrine that "proving oneself" is a meaningless construct.

Secondly to address the problem of pain first we need to define something about the will of God... Christians, believe that an evil power has made himself for the present a power in this World. And, of course, that raises problems. Is this state of affairs in accordance with God's will or not? If it is, He is a strange God, you will say: and if it is not, how can anything happen contrary to the will of a being with absolute power?

But anyone who has been in authority knows how a thing can be in accordance with your will in one way and not in another. It may be quite sensible for a mother to say to the children, "I'm not going to go and make you tidy the schoolroom every night. You've got to learn to keep it tidy on your own." Then she goes up one night and finds the Teddy bear and the ink and the French Grammar all lying in the grate. That is against her will. She would prefer the children to be tidy. But on the other hand, it is her will which has left the children free to be untidy. The same thing arises in any regiment, or trade union, or school. You make a thing voluntary and then half the people do not do it. That is not what you willed, but your will has made it possible.

Most Christians believe it is probably the same in the universe. God created things which had free will. That means creatures which can go either wrong or right. Some people think they can imagine a creature which was free but had no possibility of going wrong; most people, including me, cannot.

Finally the main point. If a thing is free to be good it is also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of automata—of creatures that worked like machines—would hardly be worth creating. The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other. And for that they must be free.

Of course an omnescient God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way: apparently He thought it worth the risk. Perhaps you feel inclined to disagree with Him. But (if you do meet him in your scenario above) there is a difficulty about disagreeing with God. He is the source from which all your reasoning power comes: you could not be right and He wrong any more than a stream can rise higher than its own source. When you are arguing against Him you are arguing against the very power that makes you able to argue at all: it is like cutting off the branch you are sitting on. Only your free will will permit you to criticise and the suffering that offends you is a product of your free will.








Now by all means post an alternative philosophy but ranting at the problem of pain is childish. Either God exists and we have free will and pain is a product or God doesn't exist and we definitely have free will and pain is a product.

In reply to The Crow:

... or God doesn't exist and we have free will and pain is just a fact of life. It doesn't have to be a product of free will.

In reply to Duncan Bourne:

In reply to The Crow:

But God knows everything so He knows that you will be untidy. Secondly if there is an "Evil power" in the world that is not of God then ergo God can not be All powerful and all knowing. To be all knowing is to know everything from every perspective, so God would have to view the world as I view it too, otherwise there is division.
Also we do not know if we have freewill because we can not change our actions from the future, all of our actions may be preordained.



I prefer the happiness of being an "awakened" individual I do not need to feel connected to a god to have that. Infact I am far happier than I was when I believed in a god.


How do we know that we used our freedom the wrong way, may be we are using it in the only way possible?


I disagree on most of that, my reason is my own or a product of my genes to the best of my knowledge. The whole argument seems a bit wishy washy and vague with numerous get out clauses and seems to reduce an all powerful being to that of a rather bizarre parent figure. But I do agree that the suffering we feel is a product of our freewill.

Really interesting thread this. Wish I had more time to spend on it.

In reply to The Crow:


You're right; I'm not ready for any theology, because I think it's a waste of time.

There is no God.

You will say that I can't know this, and thus this is a belief, and you would be right. In which case, this is also theology. However, my theology is very simple, because I'm a very simple bloke.

As for the issue of free will causing pain. Yes, the choices people make can cause pain. However, the suffering I refer to is more to do with events that cannot be influenced by free will; natural disasters, disease, birth defects, etc. The evil that men do is falls within the scope of man, and is nothing to do with God. The evil that God does is entirely within his domain.

I imagine that the advanced theologist would argue something along the lines that natural disasters are not God's will. Funny that most simple religious people respond to such events with the resigned mantra 'oh well, it is the will of God'. They obviously can't cope with advanced theology, either.

In reply to captain paranoia:


Of course, God doesn't do evil. How could he; he doesn't exist.

Shit just happens. Deal with it.

In reply to Anonymous:

Wrong. I just have no respect for his/her opinion on the matter of the existence of supernatural phenomena. I may have respect for other opinions that he/she holds on matters such as music, football etc. (But, not if he/she supports Chelsea and likes Coldplay though)

I'm sure that in all other aspects of his/her life Yamsy is perfectly rational, but I think that ALL people who believe in a god are simply deluded.

In reply to captain paranoia:

Actually a lot of christian theologists envisage the same trade-off for natural disasters as freewill in that creating a universe that supports life requires big forces/physics and those lead to natural disasters.

IME more advanced theology sees Gods role as a spiritual one and the physical world only important in how it effects the soul. In that case 'oh well, it is the will of God' is perfectly correct and a very profound statement of belief and can come from a viewpoint very difficult for 'someone who doesen't countenance eternity' to understand.

That's not actually as much as a cop out as it sounds since if the soul has eternity and could spend that with God or damned then 70yrs of pain/joy/while alive is a tiny flash in the pan. If you are playing for forever, and that depends upon your soul, and only your soul survives, then nothing else in human experience could be considered remotely important. Once you accept that then spirituality becomes the be all and end all.

BTW I only put my thoughts on chistian doctrine down because I have some experience of that... Don't assume that I'm unaware of other religous perspectives be they Hindu Islam or whatever. I just can't presume to comment from any little authority on them.

Personally I find the fundamentals of christian doctrine to be absolutely beautiful and well rooted in logic although the starting precepts differ from an Atheistic view. Sorry to say this but you clearly aren't familiar enough with them to criticise as vehemently as you do.

In reply to Yamsy:

So if being a christian offers no advantage, and there is no point in being a christian, rather than an atheist, then why on earth would anyone be one?!

Are you saying that you should be a christian because you should be a christian?

You aren't doing a very good conversion job on me

In reply to tlm:
Ah, I think you should look up Pascal's argument
on this point.

devalued in my view when you add more than one
religion to the equation but still elegant.

In reply to brothersoulshine: who defines what is morally acceptable. with no higher being than man (i.e. With no god) there can be no absolutes. If we assume there is a god and he made eveything and is in charge of everything then if he says this is an unacceptable behaviour its unacceptable.......whereas if i say its unacceptable if you disagree hen what the hell can i do about it.....
no God = ultimately no definite righ or wrong

In reply to tatty112:
Not sure if you are arguing for or against there being a God.

Incidently I am currently reading the "History of God" by Karen Armstrong inwhich she suggests that God (ie Yahweh) was one of a pantheon of early Judaeic gods and just happened to make it to the top dog slot (following the usual pogroms of course). One could also argue that he had always been top dog and no one was aware of that "fact"

In reply to The Crow:

Thanks for confirming so publicly and unequivocably that theology is just made up as theologians go along.

In reply to The Crow:


If you start with 'God exists' as an axiom it is, I grant you, easy to demostrate that God exists.

In reply to Duncan Bourne:


'you shall have no other gods before me' (the First Commandment) does tend to imply that there are other (inferior) Gods.

In reply to my earlier post and Enoch Root:

What I meant was that both you and I have fallen into the trap of discussing theology as "whether God exists or not". This is of course often absolutely stupid since theology/doctrine is a "study of (the nature of) God" or a "statement of the nature of God".

It depends upon the assumption/belief that there is a God/Gods/higher power. The arguments for or against this are mostly seperate to a lot of theology. Certainly in the subjects your raised which I replied to.

Theology is a study and 'good' theology is not contradictory, it works from a particular philosophy and what are considered to be "observable" (perhaps observed in the conscience) moral truths. Clearly you have some sort of a moral sense of justice or you would not have felt any "righteous" anger and suggested kicking God's butt etc.

Anyway the arguments you have made above about suffering be it human or environmental have been answered meaningfully by most religions (certainly christianity). They are 'childish' questions in that respect, but in fact, if you do not have the first step of a belief in a general God/Gods/higher power then on a personal level they are absolutely irrelevant to you. Why should you care about a hypothetical scenario?

(I appreciate that understanding another faith is important in interacting with people of that faith, and that you may need to understand for direct reasons such as persectution etc. but in fact you aren't doing that above, you are finding simplistic flaws in doctrine to support your Atheist viewpoint. It's pathetic because the theist then tries to teach RE to a sceptic who doesn't really want to study their theology and moves from point to point.

Attempting to find logical inconsistencies in a doctrine is broadly speaking something a theist should do to see if a particular faith suits their experience. An Atheist needn't move from the core precepts after all God might indeed "be a bastard with an ant farm" but he'd still exist. What point your theological nit-picking then?).


Now before you flip out and think I'm being harsh with you I'll propose a similar scenario I'm guilty of...

Modern physics.

I'm vaguely aware of Einstein, but I don't really understand in that I can't derive and calculate his equation. I do know that many great minds have considered his theory and pronounced it mostly sound as "General Relativity" I gather from confusing articles in New Scientist that there are problems with the fine detail much beyond my ken. Effectively I believe what I'm told. I'm not unusual in this, millions of other people have this simple understanding. For us it's enough. I think your knowledge of physics surpasses mine.

Now believe me when I say that where I have studied my faith the same scenario exists, there are problems only with the fine detail. Given the great philosphical minds that have studied the problem this isn't suprising. I believe the same applies to many other religions the difference is mainly with the initial precepts one religion to another. You will also find the same variety of understanding in religion, for some a simple faith is enough just like my simple science. If you are really interested in inconsistencies of theology go and find the Hawkings of various religions and read up rather than the man in the street.







Consistency of approach might be nice, but I admit it is unlikely.

In reply to The Crow:


Apologies for any offence caused. The vehemence only bubbles up as an emotional response to images of human suffering. It subsides fairly quickly when my brain kicks in and reminds me that I don't believe God exists, and neither do I see any need for his existence.

In reply to captain paranoia:

Damn you Kevin how dare you be consistent and logical now after I've written all that.




Humbug!

In reply to Duncan Bourne:

for.

No God = no moral absolutes

incidently heard an interesting talk by a bloke bashing relativism.....and more interestingly dorkins latest literary offering...Dorkins obviously feels he is the new 'God" in town

In reply to brothersoulshine: Sorry fella but your assumptions are wrong

In reply to The Crow:

Our posts must have overlapped. I was composing a long response about how theology is only necessary to explain away the inconsistencies that arise as a result of positing the existence of God, and ascribing certain properties to him.

If you don't posit the existence of God in the first place, you don't need 'advanced theology'...

But since I seemed to have upset you, I opted for the simpler, apologetic response. "Do unto others...", empathy and all that...

In reply to The Crow: of course if we learn lessons from the soldiers who fought in the world wars...there are no atheists in the trenches!

In reply to tatty112:


Sorry, positing the existence of God does not lead to moral absolutes. It just depends on your view of what God says. So you create a different sort of moral relativism, only this is given an 'absolute reference' by 'God' (aka a set of religious tracts allegedly of Divine inspiration, but, in reality, written by Man).

Oh, and then there's the issue of interpretation of these tracts, so that the 'absolute reference' isn't absolute at all, but subject to further moral relativism, depending on the prevailing social climate.

In reply to captain paranoia: but if you believe god is a 'supreme' being who has authority over man then his 'moral' code is absolute.
However if you put man and god at the same level then what you say is true

In reply to tatty112:


And how does He invoke this authority? How do you know what His moral absolutes are? Do you have a direct line to Him, or do you go via earthly intermediaries (prophets, etc?). Since (unless you're pretty special), you don't have a direct line to Him, you can only behave in a way you think He wants. Moral relativism by proxy, only you are abdicating your responsibility for your actions to God.

God didn't create Man; Man created God.

In reply to captain paranoia: therein lies our fundamental difference i firmly believe god created man...sic

In reply to tatty112:
While I agree with most of what Dawkins says about evolution (though I swing more to Gould) he has no more understanding of what religion is all about than most "God-haters". In focusing on the extremes of bigotry he misses the point. In life there are no absolutes.

In reply to tatty112:

Is that a good thing, in your view, or a bad thing?

In reply to The Crow:


You might well have fallen into that trap but I know fine what theology is, thanks. I also know it's unfalsifiable and therefore meaningless bunk.

In reply to captain paranoia:

I think I need to use more smiley's was never upset, just to the point since we've met enough times to be direct.

YHM BTW.

In reply to Duncan Bourne:

I'd better stress here that I'm not a 'God hater'. I don't care either way, as, as The Crow points out, it is of no concern to me, as a non-believer. If people want to chat about it, though, I'm happy to share my thoughts.

I have given it some thought over the years, and have come to my conclusions as to where God comes from, and it's firmly from the creation of Man. For very good, and useful reasons of social engineering.

Unfortunately, as with many of Man's creations, it has its downsides, when his creations are used against him. So I do have an interest in things done in the name of religion.

My thoughts also reflect the fact that I wasn't brought up in a religious environment, and my reliance on empathy is as a result of my parents always asking, when I did wrong: 'how would you feel if someone did that to you?'. This was almost always enough to make me change my ways; I needed no fear of Judgement, eternal damnation, baby Jesus' tears etc. If I could see that I wouldn't want something done to me, then I shouldn't do that thing to someone else.

In reply to The Crow:

By the way, I gather that current thinking is about 12.67 angels to the average household pinhead.

In reply to Duncan Bourne:


Sure theres a paradox in that sentence somewhere!

In reply to Enoch Root:

Who are you calling a pinhead?

In reply to Enoch Root:

Really, save your time, I've read enough of you posts to get your M.O.

You bore me even when you try it with other folks.

In reply to The Crow:


Just as well I'm not here to be your court jester then, isn't it.

My M.O. is to look for the truth, wherever the evidence leads me. If that's boring, then you'd better live with fact that the truth often is.

In reply to captain paranoia:


lead me not into temptation......

In reply to tatty112:

wrong

In reply to Enoch Root:
Life is a paradox

In reply to Dr.Strangeglove:

As opposed to flat, I know its supposed to be a bit squashed, but I'm speaking in lay terms not science.

In reply to Hghes:


Cheers for that one, mate. Appreciate your judgement.

Oh and I'm a girl by the way.

In reply to tlm:


LOL - dont worry, I'm not trying to convert anyone!!!

No, I've probaby been a little over-simplistic in my response. I'm saying that I am a Christian because I believe Jesus loves me and died on the cross for me. It offers no MATERIAL advantage on this earth, but I find being a Christian gives me a hope and a purpose and therefore gives me an advantage over not believing.

However, if you want a really cynical reason to believe in God, how about this one:

We dont know whether God exists or not. So we have four options.

a) We believe in him and he doesnt exist
b) We believe in him and he does exist
c) We dont believe in him, and he doesnt exist
d) We dont believe in him, and he does exist

For the Christian (b) is the best option, but there is no risk involved if (a) is right. We'll just die and be buried and thats the end of it.

For the atheist (c) is their preferred option, but what about (d)? What if he does exist? What if he's mad at you for not believing in him? Isnt there a higher risk involved in not believing, than in believing?

Of course, thats a really cynical perspective, and I personally believe theres a whole lot more to being a believer than that. I believe Jesus is my friend and my helper and he supports me through hard times.

But even if I'm wrong, and God doesnt exist, then at least I know that I've lived my life guided by good moral principles (love your neighbour, turn the other cheek, forgive others, etc) which is really important to me. So I hope that answers your question as to why I believe in God.

In reply to Yamsy:


A psychological prop for those who cannot cope with the otherwise 'futile' existence without some 'higher purpose'. Or who cannot cope with the finite nature of life, and look for some continued existence (an eternity) in a blissful afterlife. But a harmless prop.


Good. They are the same principles by which I try to lead my Godless life. But please don't try to claim that only those who hold a religious belief can live by those same principles. Which is where this thread really came in...


If he's mad at me for not believing, and yet I have lived my life by the same principles as believers (for an even better reason; that I freely believe this to be the way that one should live, not because I'm afraid of some later judgement), then I think he's not the forgiving God that he is made out to be. <cue lecture on advanced theology of free will and choice, blah blah>

Which brings us back to my earlier question: how do YOU know what God REALLY wants? You believe he exists, and behave in a way you believe he wants. But what if you're wrong? What if you're not behaving in the way he wants? What if you've picked the wrong God? Won't he be mad at you too? Will you expect him to forgive you for making a mistake?

In reply to Yamsy:

and why not? Surely, if Christianity is such a great thing, you would like others to share it?


I don't really believe in any purpose. And come to that, what is hope? Hope that things will improve? I don't really live in hope, because I don't feel a need to (which doesn't mean that I live my life in a hopeless way!) I'm quite happy with the fact that life is purposeless and chaotic and imperfect and will never be anything other than that. (I always wonder if people believe in god because to accept the imperfections of life is too difficult for them?)


Do you think that people have a CHOICE about what they believe? Can I think that it would be a very nice thing to believe in god and therefore I will do? I could pretend to believe in god. I could say that I believe in god. But would I really believe in god, in my deepest heart? I don't think I CAN believe in god, whether I would like to or not....


I don't believe in god, and yet I know that I have lived my life guided by good moral principles (love your neighbour, turn the other cheek, forgive others, etc) which is really important to me.

I try my best to be true to myself, to be honest and to do what is for the greater good (which for me starts with treating myself correctly and with respect).

I think the difference for me seems to be that it is very comforting to have a sense of a greater purpose, to have a big parent figure guarding you and looking after you... and it must be quite scary to think of life without that friend and comforter....

In reply to tlm:
surely you can't live a good life - good is an objective expression. you perhaps live it according to principles you like, but that isn't necessarily good?


I agree with you about not choosing what to believe. I cannot help but believe that everything that happens or is done is measured in some scale of good or evil by universality itself. ie an objective measure. This is not choice, it is what I have discovered by lifelong self examination. The current state of knowledge about myself.

In reply to Anonymous:

I didn't say that I lived a good life??? Although, believe me, my life is goooooodddd!) I said that I did my best to try to do what is for the greater good. If I am trying my best, then obviously I am using my own measures as to what the 'greater good' is, and I am perfectly capably of being biased or wrong.


Did this bit mean that you believe there is an objective measure somewhere of how good or bad your life has been? (Just trying to clarify - it got a bit confusing in between me reading and understanding it).

In reply to Anonymous:
just a few arguments for the non-existance of God

1. If God is defined as omniscient and omnipotent, then God has absolute knowledge of all events that will occur in the future, including all of his future actions, due to his omniscience. However, his omnipotence implies he has the power to act in a different manner than he predicted, thus implying that God's predictions about the future are fallible. This implies that God is not really omniscient, at least when it comes to knowledge about future events. So a God defined as omniscient and omnipotent cannot exist.

2. Hume's Fork

Hume's fork is often stated in such a way that statements are divided up into two types:

* Statements about ideas - these are analytic, necessary statements that are knowable a priori.
* Statements about the world - these are synthetic, contingent, and knowable a posteriori.

In modern terminology, members of the first group are known as analytic propositions and members of the latter as synthetic propositions. This terminology comes from Kant (Introduction to Critique of Pure Reason, Section IV, pp. 48).

Into the first class fall statements such as "2 + 2 = 4", "all bachelors are unmarried", and truths of mathematics and logic. Into the second class fall statements like "the sun rises in the morning", "the Earth has precisely one moon", and "water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit".

Hume essentially proved that no certainty exists in science.

First, Hume notes that statements of the second type can never be entirely certain, due to the fallibility of our senses, the possibility of deception (see e.g. the modern brain in a vat theory) and other arguments made by philosophical skeptics. It is always logically possible that any given statement about the world is false. (note that statements like "either the Earth has precisely one moon, or not" are really truths of logic, and say nothing about the world).

Second, Hume claims that the cause-and-effect relationship of events is not certain like it may seem, just something people judge out of habit, and so it is impossible to state definite truths about the world or make definite predictions. Suppose one states this as a "truth" of the world: "When a rock is dropped while on Earth, it goes down." While we can predict with probability that when you drop a rock it will go down, since in every instance thus far when a rock was dropped on Earth it went down, we technically cannot prove that it always will. The next time we drop a rock, it might abruptly be subject to a previously unseen upward force. In the same way, it is not possible to prove a mathematical fact by stating examples, no matter how many you state. So for this reason, matters of fact cannot be used to prove relations of ideas.

Third, Hume notes that relations of ideas can be used only to prove other relations of ideas, and mean nothing outside of the context of how they relate to each other, and therefore tell us nothing about the world. Take the statement "An equilateral triangle has three sides of equal length." While some earlier philosophers (most notably Plato and Descartes) held that logical statements such as these contained the most formal reality, since they are always true and unchanging, Hume held that, while true, they contain no formal reality, because the truth of the statements rests on the definitions of the words involved, and not on actual things in the world, since there is no such thing as a true triangle or exact equality of length in the world. So for this reason, relations of ideas cannot be used to prove matters of fact.

The results claimed by Hume as consequences of his fork are drastic. According to him, relations of ideas can be proved with certainty (by using other relations of ideas), however, they don't really mean anything about the world. Since they don't mean anything about the world, relations of ideas cannot be used to prove matters of fact. Because of this, matters of fact have no certainty and therefore cannot be used to prove anything. Only certain things can be used to prove other things for certain, but only things about the world can be used to prove other things about the world. But since we can't cross the fork, nothing is both certain and about the world, only one or the other, and so it is impossible to prove something about the world with certainty.

If accepted, Hume's Fork makes it pointless to try to prove the existence of God (for example). Since God is not literally made up of physical matter in the world, making a statement about God is not a matter of fact. Therefore, a statement about God must be a relation of ideas. So if we prove the statement "God exists," it doesn't really tell us anything about the world; it is just playing with words. It is easy to see how Hume's Fork voids the causal argument and the ontological argument for the existence of God. However, this does not mean that the validity of Hume's Fork would imply that God definitely does not exist, only that it would imply that the existence of God cannot be proven.

Hume famously rejected the idea of any meaningful statement that did not fall into this schema, saying:

If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.

3. It is unreasonable to explain the complexity in the world by invoking a being even more complex.

In reply to Duncan Bourne:
Some arguments for how a loving God can allow suffering.

1. God the Gardener

If God loves the world and all in it as one would love ones garden. Then would he allow it to run wild and become over grown or would he prune it occasionally? Love is not the same as being nice all the time as any parent will tell you

In reply to tlm:
I don't mean in the old sense of being a final judgement and a gate leading to heaven or hell.

More that let us say the universe or something bigger that encompasses it "cares" about what happens to every single thing in the course of history

that all things matter objectively. Can't justify it or help believing it - it's not a choice, but a base level belief.

Don't class myself as having a religion though

In reply to Duncan Bourne:
thank you for your long and thought provoking rsponse. I think I'll have to ponder on it for another day. Boiling Hume down at this moment it seems that things that fall between the prongs are indeed unknowable in any final way.

In reply to Yamsy:
etc etc

Pascals argument.
Now introduce more than one religion - your odds are far worse.

In reply to Duncan Bourne:


Hume's fork has a whiff of Gödel's incompleteness theorem.

I was tempted to reply to The Crow's comment:


with some smart comment about confusing God and Gödel...

Good job you didn't then

In reply to Castleman:

Or should that be God job?

In reply to brothersoulshine: Kill it or f*ck it. Live by those two basic drives

In reply to Castleman:

Only 'cause the context was him kicking God's ass... might've been a pretty fair point otherwise.

In reply to Duncan Bourne: Oh my gosh, did you just type all that out?!!!

I did philosophy at A-level and at Uni so I've heard Humes arguments against God before. I still believe in God though, but I have far too much work to do to go into deep philosophical reasons why. The main reason is because I believe in Jesus and believe what he says is true. And because I've experienced the Holy Spirit in my life in a variety of different ways. Even if God were only a social construct, he would still exist within the believing community. So you can never get rid of him no matter how many arguments you present, just as you can never get rid of Aliens in the minds of those who believe in Aliens.

I must say though, I do think God is far more than just a social construct.

In reply to Dr.Strangeglove: Yes I thought about that as I was writing it.Here's my perspective based on the four other main religions in the world ( I know there are more religions than this though, before someone cleverly points it out...)

Buddhism: can become one in my next life
Hinduism: can become one in my next life
Judaism: I believe Jesus is the fulfilment of Jewish teachings, so hopefully I'll be ok there.
Islam: Looks like i might go to hell for a bit, until my sins are purged, although some Muslims believe Christians go to heaven too.

So my odds aren't bad considering, and certainly better than the average atheists!!! (Bring it on, guys!!)

In reply to Yamsy: flying spagetti monster: was one in my pasta life

In reply to Duncan Bourne:

Hume was just great wasn't he?

Popper got it spot on though, the 'problem' with extrapolating from a specific cases to general law is not a problem for science as such - you can make generalisations in a rational way as long as your theory is falsifiable - ie: you could state possible observations that would convincingly disprove your theory.

So 'the sun rises every day' can't be proved by a finite number of observations but it is a sound theory, being well supported and obviously falsifiable.

Whereas any claims of faith are,well, just plain old sophistry and illusion.

In reply to brothersoulshine:

I don't have time to read all the posts so,

I believe that "morality" is in part evolutionary, in that it is beneficial to the continuation of the species for them to create norms.

Morality can exist in the absence of religion, and indeed religion has been proven to undermine moral judgement. Dawkins cites an experiment using children to judge moral acts. The first was the sacking of Jericho. this was held to be moral as the children were told it was God's will. the second was a suitably abridged version of something along the lines of the Rape of Nanking, where the children where told there was no religious element. They held it to be immoral. both were similar acts.

so, immoral acts can be justified if they are seen as god's will.

Dawkins goes on to say in his theory of Memes, that societies pass down norms and values that is to their benefit, and that religion is only on way of recording and enforcing this. He expects that religion can be taken out oft he equation and yet morality will still continue.

In reply to Duncan Bourne:
And on the subject of evolution..

We could say that an engineer who builds a plane that travels without a pilot is more intelligent than an engineer whose plane needs a pilot. Yet passengers may feel better in the second type of plane. Similarly a God who creates evolution, which needs no further intervention, is more intelligent than a God whose creation needs constant supervision and directives. Perhaps some people feel better and more cared for by the second type of God?

In reply to Duncan Bourne:

But what has the first god been doing for the last billion years? He must have on hell of a golf handicap?

In reply to John Rushby:

Well yes, not existing could be thought of as a handicap to playing golf.

CCW

In reply to Duncan Bourne:
This is the one I was looking for earlier...

From New Scientist

"Whether or not the intelligent-design model is religious, it still exhibits the same logical flaw as creationism. The model postulates that some structures (X) are so complex that they cannot have arisen spontaneously, but must be the result of an intelligent designer. This leaves the question: "Where did the designer come from?"

Since the designer must be even more complex than X, clearly it cannot have arisen spontaneously, but must have been made by a designer of even greater power and complexity, which is even less likely to have arisen spontaneously...

Since this leads into an infinite series, let us stop at the first step. Now we have to choose between the spontaneous appearance of X, or the spontaneous appearance of something capable of designing X. Clearly the first is a much simpler proposition and, until the ID proponents can come up with a compelling logical reason to accept the second, I see no need to invoke ID"

In reply to John Rushby:
That reminds me of an old joke

In reply to Duncan Bourne:


And why do they give the alternative to ID as something spontaneous or just "chance". Evolution is the only plausible alternative, and this is neither spontaneous nor does it occur by chance. As someone once said "Intelligent Design is just Creationism in a cheap tuxedo".

In reply to The Crow:

re: Intelligent Design

I feel it's time to quote Oolon Colluphid's proof of God's non-existence. Note especially the bit about the Babel Fish:


The argument goes something like this:

"I REFUSE TO PROVE THAT I EXIST", says God, "FOR PROOF DENIES FAITH, AND WITHOUT FAITH I AM NOTHING. "
"But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't, QED."

"OH DEAR", says God, "I HADN'T THOUGHT OF THAT", and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.

"Oh, that was easy!", says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black equals white and gets killed on the next Zebra crossing.

Most leading theologians claim this argument is a load of dingo's kidneys, but this did not stop Oolon Colluphid making a small fortune when he used it as the central theme of his best-seller, "Well That About Wraps It Up For God".

In reply to captain paranoia:

Ha ha LOL