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scott wrote:

sunlore wrote:You will never get a straight answer from a religious person, at least not where it concerns his religion. That would totally spoil his game. He is always going to refer to his favorite deity and to "evidence" that supports his "worldview". That's the game.

This is a foolish thing to say. So many of y'all anti-religious people need to learn that in your game (logic) there are very few rules, but probably the single most important one is that any statement used in a syllogism must be a generalization that applies to *ALL* of the group in question. Right here, you are basically saying that ALL religious people are playing a game, and that ALL religious people are incapable of giving straight answers.

Actually that's very accurate. You religious people don't see it because you're so full of your own lies that to realize they're lies would crush your worldviews. I have yet to hear a straight answer from any religious person, including you. Here you are focusing on the semantics of that statement instead of the substance of it.

Also, we don't "need to learn" anything. That's another problem with you religous folk, you think everyone else is wrong and that we just need to "learn the truth". Your philosophical arrogance is breathtaking. For some extremely religious folk, pushing their philosophy on others leads to violence and opression.

scott wrote:

sunlore wrote:Religion is institutionalized lying. Especially christianity. Liars, all.

Actually, that answers the question right there. You're lazy with your word choices, AND you're a fool.

Again with the arrogance. You see how the conversation breaks down when you reveal yourself to be the arrogant and close minded person you really are? Is being so hostile really what Jesus taught? Is this what turning the other cheek is?

scott wrote:So very many of the finest people this world has known, the people who dedicate their lives to the greatest cause, helping people who need help, are religious people. But you think they're just liars and game-players. People who devote their lives to helping the sick or the homeless, at their own expense, these people are just liars. You're a fool, and it's sad. Grow up.

Religion and charatable acts are not one and the same. One doesn't need to be religous to have sympathy for others, nor do they need to be religous to perform charity or help others. What's that word I used above to describe your attitude? Oh yeah, "Arrogant". You think he's a fool and you feel sorry for him? Fuck you pal.

El Protoolio wrote:For me I can live without fear with the blanks and hope that someday those blanks will be filled. If it turns out to be filled by god, that's great...

Not if He's a Vengeful God. Yikes! Then you're in trouble.

ps. Is there some sort of argument here about whether there is such a thing as the "unknown"? This, for reasons which I would like to think are obvious, would be a stupid thing to argue about.

Jesus, Buddha, Mother of Mohammed, chill out guys.

Matty's brought down a lot of heat on all the religious people on this forum, which isn't really fair. We're in danger of getting arrogant and overly aggressive in arguing with the believers. I've probably been guilty of this myself recently.

I don't know Scott personally, but he strikes me as a good guy. I don't blame him for defending his beliefs if he feels that he's being called a liar. Though I'm pretty sure sunlore didn't mean it that way.

Why the aggression and accusations of bigotry? Re-reading some of this thread, there seems to be some quite narrow readings of people's quotes. Except in the case of Matty, and I'd bet he's loving the kicking others are getting for his prejudices.

Some of us here believe in God, most of us probably don't. Very few of the former category wish to impose their beliefs on us, I'm sure of this. Correct me if I'm wrong, but apart from Matthew, the interjections of the believers on this forum have mainly been defensive when they find themselves lumped in with the bigots.

We'd probably all get along well enough over a few pints. Or pitcher, depending on the venue.

Peace!

I'm not at work... I just got back from band practice. Now I am going to my girlfriend's place to eat and tend to the kittens.

YOU ATE KITTENS?

Scott,

I come from a family of deeply religious people. I took part in religious ceremonies for at least half of my life. I'm no expert on the topic, but I had my share, so to say. I am also aware that religious people are capable of being good people.

As a result of this upbringing-stuff, a have considered religion a good deal, and I have concluded that it is essentially a set of rituals. Religions come in all shapes and sizes, ofcourse, but rituals (i.e. a set of rules) is what they have in common. I can state that "I believe in god", but that does not make me a catholic. To be a proper catholic, I would have to follow certain rules concerning worship. So clearly a catholic community is a community that distinguishes itself from other communities by following rules that other don't. This is what I call a "game", but I don't mean that in a degrading way, or anything. Games are essential to human activity. Language is a game. I could type out this very post in Dutch, but that would place me outside that community of this forum. The rule here is to write English. If I don't, I'm out.

I think you'd agree that worship and the objects of worship are fixed by cultural variables. If Matthew (I am taking him as an example because, well, we're all painfully aware of his background) was born in, say, Indonesia instead of the US, he would have almost certainly been a muslim, and not a catholic. There's nothing natural about religion. It is a product of humans. Subsequently, I find it absurd to state that whatever idea "we" have cooked up about the supernatural, in "our" cultural and geographical part of the world is the Absolute Truth. Absurd. I don't buy it for one bit. I think it is a lie.

There, I spelled it out for you, in a less being-lazy-with-the-words kind of way. Now you can point out what you don't agree with, or call me a fool. Doing the latter would only support my argument, but if you want to, go for it.

sunlore wrote:There, I spelled it out for you, in a less being-lazy-with-the-words kind of way. Now you can point out what you don't agree with, or call me a fool. Doing the latter would only support my argument, but if you want to, go for it.

I won't say anything except that this post makes a lot of sense to me, and seems more thoughtful and less like cheap shots at entire groups of people, hundreds of millions of which you've never met. I like this post quite fine. It makes me feel stupid for taking so much offense with your previous post.

Mr. Binary wrote:ps. Is there some sort of argument here about whether there is such a thing as the "unknown"? This, for reasons which I would like to think are obvious, would be a stupid thing to argue about.

There is a presumption among the spiritual that there is an awful lot out there that isn't part of the natural world, and we can't know about it conventionally. An eternity of it. They say it hides in the unknown.

I want to know why there is a presumption (insistence even) that there is something there, rather than the more commonsense presumption that there isn't. Certainly there are unknown things. Why suggest that the supernatural is one of them?

Why is there a bias toward magic and against reason?

steve wrote:

Mr. Binary wrote:ps. Is there some sort of argument here about whether there is such a thing as the "unknown"? This, for reasons which I would like to think are obvious, would be a stupid thing to argue about.

There is a presumption among the spiritual that there is an awful lot out there that isn't part of the natural world, and we can't know about it conventionally. An eternity of it. They say it hides in the unknown.

I want to know why there is a presumption (insistence even) that there is something there, rather than the more commonsense presumption that there isn't. Certainly there are unknown things. Why suggest that the supernatural is one of them?

Why is there a bias toward magic and against reason?

Maybe it's because people saw fire in the sky a zillion years ago and decided it was a dragon or something. Maybe it's because it makes life more fun, rather than robotic. Maybe it's because scientific stuff like Action At A Distance suggests that subatomic particles have a means of communicating with each other at faster-than-light speeds, or how the very idea of the collapse of the probability wave function suggests that these particles have a consciousness, an awareness of when they are or are not being looked at. Or maybe it's just because your idea of "commonsense" and other people's idea of it don't line up squarely.

Why do you, Steve, think of Action At A Distance as natural, but telepathic communicaton amongst humans as supernatural? Because science has successfully measured one but not the other?

scott wrote:Why do you, Steve, think of Action At A Distance as natural, but telepathic communicaton amongst humans as supernatural? Because science has successfully measured one but not the other?

Because rational thought, observation and rigorously-proven processes predicted it -- created a falsifyable theory about its mechanism -- and then the prediction was demonstrated to be true. Shit didn't just happen by magic. Nothing supernatural about it.