Belief in God

[de dominee]

Dear jeremy1952,i am sorry to say that I have made a mistake in my article, exactly in your quote:"When belief in God functions in this way, then there will be reasons to be against this belief, I would think. What do you think?" The word "no" fails: "there will be no reasons"!I am sorry.but anyway: I think that there is more to human live than only the things that are true or false. Or rather: wether things that can be proven or not. To me it is important the wellbeing of every individual: when he is happy in believing, in god, gods, a philosophy, or freethoughts, he should be free to do so. Every way of thinking about ones own live and the world, should support him. When it dammages him it is wrong for him. But in my view it is important that no one should be allowed to force his ideas unto an other persons. You may discuss it, you may have arguments, but that's it. I want to be respected in the way I think, so I have to respect the way some one else thinks. In doing so, there will be no threat in ways of thinking.RolfPS Please bare with me because of my 'bad' English.

[Keith and Company]

Quote:I understand your logic, Mad, but locking threads comes across as censorship. What if you wait until there are 666 posts in the thread, then lock it? It would make an interesting note on the front page...If it goes over 666, you can delete this postto bring it back down... Keith's Place

[Mr. P]

Now that I like! The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.The pain in hell has two sides. The kind you can touch with your hand; the kind you can feel in your heart...Scorsese's "Mean Streets"I came to kick ass and chew Bubble Gum...and I am all out of Bubble Gum - They Live, Roddy Piper

[Niall001]

Thanks guys. I really didn't expect so many people to answer the questions. I will get round to a more detailed reply but just to clarify a few things....There seems to be some confusion about what I mean when I say that morals are an accident of history. By accident, I mean that there is an absence of intent, fate or design. For example, the code of chivalry may have been designed to protect the powerless from the powerful, however valuing the safety of our fellow human beings is pretty arbitrary. You could argue that it is only natural that we value other members of our species but that is accidental in that we are accidents. Evolution is simply what happens. It has no purpose. We possess this trait because under the circumstances of the environment of our evolutionary adaptation, those who had this trait (a phenotype that emerged as the result of random mutation) passed a greater amount of their genotype on to the next generation. On the other hand, some morals seem pretty random, like not eating pork or having sacred cows, you know the stuff. They seem to have survived inspite of their uselessness.Also, the Jewish example seemed to throw a few people. I chose Jewish people as an example because Captain Corelli makes an argument in Captain Corelli's Mandolin about the difference between values and scientific facts. He argues that it would make no difference to him if Jewish people were scientifically proven to be evil because what he knows doesn't really effect the way he feels.Some of you seem to base your morals on what is Natural (TM). Why support Naturalism? Why not? Let us agree, there is no one single reality. Not upon this stage, not in this world, all is in the mind... imagination is the only truth. Because it cannot be contradicted except by other imaginations - Richard MathesonThere are no conclusive indications by which waking life can be distinguished from sleep - Rene Descartes

[GOD defiles Reason]

Nail, did you intend to answer those questions yourself?

[Keith and Company]

Quote: By accident, I mean that there is an absence of intent, fate or design. For example, the code of chivalry may have been designed to protect the powerless from the powerful, however valuing the safety of our fellow human beings is pretty arbitrary. Okay, i hate it when jargon gets in the way of discussion. Like on the atheist/theist boards, where the atheists think 'inerrant' means without error, while sometheists use it to mean 'with no more than an acceptable number of errors.'Or the whole 'evolution is only a theory' rant.If chivalry was designed...then it was not created with 'an absence of intent.' Your use of such phrases means, as i read it, that if there is no divine will behind something, then it's an accident. Pretty steep separation there, and i think most responders felt that there was a lot of room for a middle ground that wasn't accidental, and wasn't divinely ordained.Holding our own species to be of value is NOT 'pretty arbitrary.' Most species on Earth above a certain level of complexity do that. It's a clear evolutionary advantage for a gene pool to defend individual units contributing to the success of the individual. It's a survival trait. Evolution may have no end goal, but it is not without purpose.Quote:On the other hand, some morals seem pretty random, like not eating pork or having sacred cows, you know the stuff. Once upon a time, someone observed that the cow was the perfect animal, and proof that there was a god, and he loved us. He provided the milk of the cow, the meat of the cow, the clothes and containers that can be made from the skin, the horns, bones and hooves can be made useful as tools, containers, bottle openers, everything on the cow can be used.After a few years of being an example, someone observed: If the cow is so holy, why are we eating it? Now the cow is still the proof of a loving god, but our restraint from frying him up in burgers is proof of our commitment to the recognition of god.Holy cows are not random. And it's not useless, to those that worship in a system that holds them to be holy. Your whole tone, it seems to me, is to dismiss any non-divine explanation for events, morals, culture and so on. And you're rather dismissive of certain religious trappings, such as Kasruth. If keeping Kosher is, in fact, part of the covenant with Jehovah, then it certainly isn't 'useless' any more than prayer, confession, meditation, testifying, shriving or any other religion's effort.I don't join in it, but as a soft atheist, i'm not going to tell anyone that it's useless.

[Niall001]

God defiles reason: Honestly, I don't think that I can answer those questions. I might give it a shot, but the reason I asked them is because I don't know the answers to them.Keith: Don't bother yourself with my tone, because you're imagining it. I asked the questions because I want to understand a position held by many people. The questions that I asked are not designed to pick holes in anyone's beliefs, values etc. They are designed to address the things that I don't fully understand about certain belief systems. Also, your cow story while nice, is simply a just so story. Similarly, of what use are prayer, meditation and testifying to the survival of a society?However, I have to take issue with your claim that evolution has a purpose. It does not. That much I know. Evolution is just what happens. There is no end goal. Also, the absence of a divine does not make something accidental in itself, at least how I use the phrase. Let us agree, there is no one single reality. Not upon this stage, not in this world, all is in the mind... imagination is the only truth. Because it cannot be contradicted except by other imaginations - Richard MathesonThere are no conclusive indications by which waking life can be distinguished from sleep - Rene Descartes

[Keith and Company]

Quote:However, I have to take issue with your claim that evolution has a purpose. It does not. That much I know. Evolution is just what happens. There is no end goal. Evolution has no goal. I said that. But the processes by which evolution occurs do. Survival. Anything that enhances our survival has that purpose, to contribute to the gene pool's survival. Anything that contributes to our development as a species has a purpose. It's not an accident, or arbitrary.If we had no emotional connection to the other members of our herd, we'd never gang together. If the tigers ate Fred, then we'd shrug and hope we never fall out of the tree.We can't face a tiger one on one.But we don't. We face it mob on one, and we've been kicking the tiger's asses for centuries. The tendency to find our own species more valuable than the tigers may have come about by an accidental mutation in the long ago, but it did have the direct result of enhancing our (and others') species survival.Same with the development of moral codes to allow the development of societies. Keith's Place

[Keith and Company]

Quote:Also, your cow story while nice, is simply a just so storyOne thing i hate about being so much older than the internet is that i can't always find the books i read when i learned what i know. But many pages googled for 'why to hindus revere cows' echo the sentiment of the story, that it is a sign of the divine's beneficence. If you have proof that it is just a 'just so' story, that the historian i originally read was just making shit up, please indicate it.www.hindubooks.org/david_...page26.htmQuote:Similarly, of what use are prayer, meditation and testifying to the survival of a society?If they're right, lots. Even if they're not, hope and tradition are social glues that hold members of a society together. If there is no God, then those religious traditions come from the same place as ethics, morals, codes of behavior that, as Tevye says, tells us who we are and what we're expected to be. Even if wholly man-made, it's still not an accident of history. Keith's Place

[Jeremy1952]

Niall001Quote:God defiles [sic] reason: Parapraxis?