Are you religious / agnostic or athiest?

[Nick M]

iwantagta said:

Question for the believers (of any denomination/faith):
Does anything shake your belief? Either on a personal level or wider scale?

I dont want or need answers about the below specifics but just how you reconcile.

Hope you don't mind but I'd like to take the liberty of tagging on another line of thought here about reconciling beliefs.

The Vikings worshipped a number of gods who had different attributes. So did the Romans, and the Greeks. And the Egyptians. All of these were civilisations which were pretty well developed and which operated under a social framework which, for the most part, worked OK.

Now, given that people no longer worship Norse, Roman and Greek gods, why would that be ? What changed within those societies to move them away from worshipping their chosen gods to worshipping something else ?

I'm sure there might be suggestions that those were false gods and not the one true god, but if they got dropped like a hot brick, what's so special about the replacement which means the same might not happen to them as well ?

In essence, how do you reconcile the differences between a false and a true god ?

[Art0ir]

Nick M said:

What changed within those societies to move them away from worshipping their chosen gods to worshipping something else ?

Genocide tends to have that effect

[Nick M]

Art0ir said:

Nick M said:

What changed within those societies to move them away from worshipping their chosen gods to worshipping something else ?

Genocide tends to have that effect

I didn't think the Vikings, Romans and Greeks were on the receiving end of that though - at least, not on a mass scale

[Art0ir]

Nick M said:

I didn't think the Vikings, Romans and Greeks were on the receiving end of that though - at least, not on a mass scale

With the Vikings it helps that they were already polytheistic, so accepting the Christian god wasn't too much of a stretch. After they settled across the British Isles they quickly adopted Christianity (maybe getting in bed with the locals was more important) and the missionaries were in Scandinavia not long after to convert those left behind.

The Viking "Paganism" isn't very well documented either with most of the history being written long after the conversion to Christianity.

The story goes that head god Odin for example was hung and resurrected 3 days later, an obvious parallel to the crucifixion.

[Nick M]

Art0ir said:

With the Vikings it helps that they were already polytheistic, so accepting the Christian god wasn't too much of a stretch. After they settled across the British Isles they quickly adopted Christianity (maybe getting in bed with the locals was more important) and the missionaries were in Scandinavia not long after to convert those left behind.

Which take us back to my point above, namely, why did they drop their polytheist views in favour of christianity (I suspect pragmatism rather than revelation...). And if it can happen to those 'gods', then why is the christian god any different in terms of the possibility of being forgotten about.

[Hugo a Gogo]

iwantagta said:

The fact some people on Earth won't ever even hear of Jesus so can not go to heaven, I guess.

if they've NEVER heard of Jesus, they might be OK

if they've EVER heard of him, and not become Christians, they are doomed to eternal torment from their loving God

[Nick M]

Hugo a Gogo said:

iwantagta said:

The fact some people on Earth won't ever even hear of Jesus so can not go to heaven, I guess.

if they've NEVER heard of Jesus, they might be OK

if they've EVER heard of him, and not become Christians, they are doomed to eternal torment from their loving God

That sounds remarkably like the rules to 'The Game'...

[Art0ir]

Nick M said:

then why is the christian god any different in terms of the possibility of being forgotten about.

See your point now

[ChrisGB]

Nick M said:

ChrisGB said:

I don't know how accurate the descriptions of the others are - what does it mean, born of a virgin? a god raped a girl? a god married a girl?
Assuming these things are all accurate and all mean the same they do in Christianity, which is probably not the case for more than a couple of them, then so what?

Let's assume they're complete fabrications and, in fact, no virgins were impregnated by any god, willingly or unwillingly. Or maybe the 'god' was actually a mortal king who held himself up as sone sort of divine being.

Or, to take you back to one of your earlier points about there being no cross-over between the natural and supernatural, hence there was no way to test for the supernatural in a scientific manner, given that we're on pretty sturdy ground as far as what biology tells us about reproduction, perhaps it *is* possible for a god to manifest himself in some physical way in order to plant his seed in an unsuspecting virgin ? So maybe that would open up a line of scientific enquiry, should it ever happen again of course...

ChrisGB said:

Bible is full of precursors, having some attributes of but pointing towards something greater. Why would history beyond Israel be different?
I very much doubt the apostles knew any of those while they grew in understanding that the man they knew was in fact their God.

Or maybe, given that stories were often conveyed by word of mouth, they had heard stories about previous immaculate conceptions and thought that, in order to put Jesus forward as a saviour and son of god they would have to come up with an exciting story about his conception being courtesy of god, rather than simply being the son of a carpenter.

Well yes, if you were seriously trying to imagine what it could have been like in daily life of the time to meet someone who people said was greater than the prophets, a son of Man, a son of God etc., then there might have been stories told, from whatever source. In the end, the encounter with this person would decide what you made of those stories. And that is still the case today. Whatever the similarities, the proof is in the tasting, so to speak.
But regarding similarities, there was no divine seed, no god appearing in a physical way, no divine being having sex with Mary, this is all ruled out in the Gospel stories and their reception in the church - Mary was a perpetual virgin, for example; and immaculate conception - well how would any of these rapes by a god figure be "immaculate" anyway? - refers to Mary's conception in her mother's womb, nothing to do with Jesus's conception.

[ChrisGB]

ChrisGB said:

Fluffnik - I'll dig out the book in the new atheist mould asserting thoughts cannot have content....

Alex Rosenberg, The Atheist's Guide to Reality, reviewed by Anthony Kenny in the TLS. Kenny says of one of Rosenberg's "more extravagant claims":

"His argument goes like this: the mind is identical with the brain, so a thought must be an event in the brain. But no clump of neurons can be about anything. Therefore, no thought is about anything".

Can any atheist refute that? Does it matter that a leading atheist spokesman is saying it?
Can any atheist refute Daniel Dennett's claim, repeated approvingly by Dawkins, that there is no such thing as consciousness?

As G.K. Chesterton said, and I paraphrase, it's not that believers ask you to believe in anything difficult, it's that the unbelievers ask you to not to believe in what everyone knows is the case.

[ChrisGB]

vonuber said:

ChrisGB said:

The charge was that Christianity builds on (which presuambly means steals from) pagan religion. Jesus was born, he had a birthday, it may well not be 25 dec, but as Christianity became an official religion it was fitting that pagan dates were given a Christian character. This is building on the pagan religion only in so far as churches were built on top of pagan temples as Christianity spread. If that is all the charge is then it is completely trivial.

So you admit that as the Bible (the Word of God no less) doesn't bother to tell you exactly the birth/death dates (fairly important for the sun of god you'd think) are, therefore those who allegedly knew and worshipped him decided 'ah fk it, let's just dump them on these dates just to tie it in with these other beliefs'.
Oh come on, Christianity ties into a whole load of birth/death/resurrection cults based around sun worship (especially those from Egypt). Tell you what, use your brain, do some research into other religions/cults of the time and then come back.

For what it's worth, I went to a deeply catholic primary and secondary school and so have a fair idea of what's involved.

Those last 2 lines suggest you know the answers but want me to go and do some homework? Not very sporting.

[TheHeretic]

ChrisGB said:

Alex Rosenberg, The Atheist's Guide to Reality, reviewed by Anthony Kenny in the TLS. Kenny says of one of Rosenberg's "more extravagant claims":

"His argument goes like this: the mind is identical with the brain, so a thought must be an event in the brain. But no clump of neurons can be about anything. Therefore, no thought is about anything".

Can any atheist refute that? Does it matter that a leading atheist spokesman is saying it?
Can any atheist refute Daniel Dennett's claim, repeated approvingly by Dawkins, that there is no such thing as consciousness?

As G.K. Chesterton said, and I paraphrase, it's not that believers ask you to believe in anything difficult, it's that the unbelievers ask you to not to believe in what everyone knows is the case.

Refute what? What does that statement have to do with atheism? It is a philosophical standpoint, NOT an atheistic standpoint. I'm not sure what he means by 'no clump of neurons can be about anything'.

[ChrisGB]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

ChrisGB said:

If I say miracle cure and you say sudden total remission fluke, how do we test for miracle?

That's easy, a cure for something that can't be cured. Eg. people get cancer, and get better, even when they aren't expected to.. People go blind, and regain their sight. People a paralysed, but the nerves regrow and they walk again.

But.....someone who has had their eyes removed, either in an accident or for some medical reason such as eye cancer, never regains their sight. They don't grown new eyes. Someone who has lost their legs will not grow new ones. We're not newts. If some one who has lost their legs prays for new legs to grow and they do, then I'll be impressed.

Ps. Why did god, when creating man in his own image, not give us the power to regrow limbs, like a newt can? We're meant to be something special, if you're religious, so why does the newt get such a useful adaptation and we're denied it?

So what are all these major world ills directly attributable to religion?

Why didn't God give us six heads? Why not thousands of eyes? Why five toes? Who cares? We have turned out like this. Wouldn't it be spectacular if we prayed for a third eye on the back of our head and got it?
I'd suggest that as God has made us through evolution the way we are we can view that as providential, i.e. it's good for us to be like this.

[ChrisGB]

vonuber said:

ChrisGB said:

I don't know how accurate the descriptions of the others are - what does it mean, born of a virgin? a god raped a girl? a god married a girl?
Assuming these things are all accurate and all mean the same they do in Christianity, which is probably not the case for more than a couple of them, then so what?
Bible is full of precursors, having some attributes of but pointing towards something greater. Why would history beyond Israel be different?
I very much doubt the apostles knew any of those while they grew in understanding that the man they knew was in fact their God.

Ask youselves this. Why would God turn up in some backwater of the Roman Empire and not say China or India.

Jesus fulfils the centuries of expectation of a Messiah, expectations specific to the Jews, who happened to live there.
Notice the technical term backwater.
Had he chosen China or india to start the process with Abraham's Chinese or Indian cousins, then no doubt Christianity, with a slightly odder name, would have started in that other place.

[ChrisGB]

TheHeretic said:

ChrisGB said:

Alex Rosenberg, The Atheist's Guide to Reality, reviewed by Anthony Kenny in the TLS. Kenny says of one of Rosenberg's "more extravagant claims":

"His argument goes like this: the mind is identical with the brain, so a thought must be an event in the brain. But no clump of neurons can be about anything. Therefore, no thought is about anything".

Can any atheist refute that? Does it matter that a leading atheist spokesman is saying it?
Can any atheist refute Daniel Dennett's claim, repeated approvingly by Dawkins, that there is no such thing as consciousness?

As G.K. Chesterton said, and I paraphrase, it's not that believers ask you to believe in anything difficult, it's that the unbelievers ask you to not to believe in what everyone knows is the case.

Refute what? What does that statement have to do with atheism? It is a philosophical standpoint, NOT an atheistic standpoint. I'm not sure what he means by 'no clump of neurons can be about anything'.

It has to do with atheism in that the claims of "nature only" are unstoppable. There is in the end no place for free will, consciousness or content-containing thoughts in the atheist manifesto (see other "fairy" thread for crude creed).

Just reading something by Edward Feser on the inevitable dualism of any mechanistic explanation of mind. And we are all, after Wittgenstein, anti-dualist. Exciting stuff. Dawkins is but doesn't realise it, btw, as he showed in the Dawkins, Williams, Kenny talk in Oxford on youtube. Doesn't it bother anyone that a necessary atheist standpoint is unacceptable philosophically? But I'm jumping the gun here and will go back to the book.

[KB_S1]

"A necessary atheist standpoint".

Really. How do you come to that conclusion?
What part of not believing in gods suddenly means I have to agree with a scientific or perhaps philosophical viewpoint?

[Art0ir]

ChrisGB said:

Alex Rosenberg, The Atheist's Guide to Reality, reviewed by Anthony Kenny in the TLS. Kenny says of one of Rosenberg's "more extravagant claims":

"His argument goes like this: the mind is identical with the brain, so a thought must be an event in the brain. But no clump of neurons can be about anything. Therefore, no thought is about anything".

Can any atheist refute that? Does it matter that a leading atheist spokesman is saying it?
Can any atheist refute Daniel Dennett's claim, repeated approvingly by Dawkins, that there is no such thing as consciousness?

As G.K. Chesterton said, and I paraphrase, it's not that believers ask you to believe in anything difficult, it's that the unbelievers ask you to not to believe in what everyone knows is the case.

Refute what? That the idea of consciousness being a heightened level of brain development and purely physical? I can't imagine why anyone would feel the need to?

[otolith]

Anyone who thinks that consciousness is anything other than an emergent property of biochemistry and anatomy should try a hallucinogen. Strange how frigging with neurotransmitter activity impacts upon the "soul".

[vonuber]

ChrisGB said:

Those last 2 lines suggest you know the answers but want me to go and do some homework? Not very sporting.

Those last two lines suggest I do have an idea of what Christianity is all about, and I have used my own brain to work out what it is, and where it comes from.

[fluffnik]

ChrisGB said:

Alex Rosenberg, The Atheist's Guide to Reality, reviewed by Anthony Kenny in the TLS. Kenny says of one of Rosenberg's "more extravagant claims":

"His argument goes like this: the mind is identical with the brain, so a thought must be an event in the brain. But no clump of neurons can be about anything. Therefore, no thought is about anything".

Wetware has plenty i/o, thoughts are about the data flow.

The mind runs on the meat and may even be a consequence of it but they're congruent rather than identical; thought is the process on top.

It would not surprise me if the issue was Kenny's lack of comprehension rather than Rosenberg suggesting that thought is content free...

If you thought your thought was content free would you publish?

ChrisGB said:

Can any atheist refute that? Does it matter that a leading atheist spokesman is saying it?
Can any atheist refute Daniel Dennett's claim, repeated approvingly by Dawkins, that there is no such thing as consciousness?

I don't agree but in the absence or sufficient research I cannot refute.

Even if there were an atheist orthodoxy I might not be part of it...

ChrisGB said:

As G.K. Chesterton said, and I paraphrase, it's not that believers ask you to believe in anything difficult, it's that the unbelievers ask you to not to believe in what everyone knows is the case.

It's not that us unbelievers ask you to disbelieve in anything for which there is evidence, it's that the believers ask you to believe in what everyone knows to be without foundation...