World Religions - Atheism Discussion Thread

[wsansewjs]

Also, apply "Ancient Astronaut Theory" along with this, then the shit will hit the fans for the religious folks.

-Josh

[Ocklawaha]

Nomeus.  Beautiful piece.  So well done.  I wish I had written it.  But wait, I notice that god "did" sign it, right at the bottom.  That's amazing.  Finally, proof that god exists.   

Ock, I forgot.  So yes, I will be happy to do two of those water filters.  People need clean water.  If possible, people must have one of "the" most important necessities for life.  But wait, this might be a trick.  How do I know that you are not sending the money to Joel O'steen, or Ed Young?  These fellows are quite persuasive you know. 

Well... okay, I feel somehow that your association with religion and the spiritual avoids the insane end of the spectrum, and that you aren't going to be persuaded by the TV charlatans, the fellows who offer some of us the occasional comedy show.  They are quite funny to watch.  I really miss the shows of Jimmy Swaggart and Jerry Falwell.  They are so hilarious.     

I believe your summation of my religious feelings is pretty correct. I once got dragged (almost literally) to a penticostal 'healing meeting' which to my mind looked like a cross between a snake oil sales stand and Ringling Brothers. There were crutches and wheel chairs flying off the stage and people dying 'in the spirit', I just knew some 80 year old lady was going to catch a crutch upside the head, then she'd need real healing.

For me the worst moment came when it dawned on me that this dude 'blows the spirit on people.' Being the crusty old sailor that I am, I decided I needed healing for a permanent erection. As I started to get out of my seat, 3 of my friends grabbed me and pulled me back. 'What are you doing Bob?' 'I just want to go down there, jump up on the stage and tell him to blow this!' Oh well, it was a great thought while it lasted but in the end WWJD?

I have no problem looking at science or history and feel that any Christian that runs from the same isn't very well positioned in his faith. Even the idea's that Nomeus was tossing out about various miracles being mere quirks of nature explain them however you want, it was pretty darn cool that the volcanic gas that likely killed the first born of Egypt appeared on demand and that the Jewish servants would not have been in the rooms where the gas settled and killed. The Red Sea? Volcano's. If it turns out to be the Reed Sea, no big deal, the Jew's escaped and the Egyptians didn't. Jericho?  Earthquake took it out, conveniently, when Joshua's army marched around it... 'Those 'chosen people?' A minimum of 250 years before Christ it was predicted that the Jewish nation would be defeated, and it's people scattered across the world, but then, oddly, after 1,900 years, they'd retake their homeland and rise again as a center of the worlds attention. Bearing that in mind, we can look at what the Bible says. It is known that the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament into Greek was in existence at least 250 years before the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in AD 70. So there is no possibility that the Old Testament predictions were written down after the events.Imagine 1,900 years from now, a Confederate flag is flying over Richmond... Yeah well...

I know that you know, I'm not collecting money for  Joel O'steen, or Ed Young. I'm umbilically connected to the temperate zone. I've seen war and hunger up close and personal, even had a dinner on a balcony with leaders of M-19 / FARC boys and girls (which after being yanked out of a car by the army, feeling the cold steel of the barrel of a machine gun against my head and angrily searched while pressed hard against a car, probably wasn't the smartest meal I ever ordered). Bottom line, my heart breaks when I see these little children hungry, poor, and cursed to remain that way probably for life. Others might want to donate to this cause, and if you'd like I'll get photos of YOUR FILTER and an invoice AND a photo of the family or families they go to.

Filters are $100 dollars each. They last 10 years +/- You can see the details here: http://www.sawyer.com/sawyersaves//
Send me a PM or write bob@metrojacksonville.com and I'll hook you up with this trip to Panama.

OCKLAWAHA
(Which means MUDDY WATER btw)

[BridgeTroll]

Interesting take on this discussion topic...

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/08/06/god_and_the_ivory_tower?page=0,0

Excerpts...

The era of world struggle between the great secular ideological -isms that began with the French Revolution and lasted through the Cold War (republicanism, anarchism, socialism, fascism, communism, liberalism) is passing on to a religious stage. Across the Middle East and North Africa, religious movements are gaining social and political ground, with election victories by avowedly Islamic parties in Turkey, Palestine, Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco. As Israel's National Security Council chief, Gen. Yaakov Amidror (a religious man himself), told me on the eve of Tunisia's elections last October, "We expect Islamist parties to soon dominate all governments in the region, from Afghanistan to Morocco, except for Israel."

To test this hypothesis, anthropologist Richard Sosis and his colleagues studied 200 communes founded in the United States in the 19th century. If shared religious beliefs really did foster loyalty, they reasoned, then communes formed out of religious conviction should survive longer than those motivated by secular ideologies such as socialism. Their findings were striking: Just 6 percent of the secular communes were still functioning 20 years after their founding, compared with 39 percent of the religious communes.

If these things are worth knowing, why do scientists still shun religion?

Part of the reason is that most scientists are staunchly nonreligious. If you look at the prestigious U.S. National Academy of Sciences or Britain's Royal Society, well over 90 percent of members are non-religious. That may help explain why some of the bestselling books by scientists about religion aren't about the science of religion as much as the reasons that it's no longer necessary to believe. "New Atheists" have aggressively sought to discredit religion as the chief cause of much human misery, militating for its demise. They contend that science has now answered questions about humans' origins and place in the world that only religion sought to answer in the days before evolutionary science, and that humankind no longer needs the broken crutch of faith.

Moreover, the chief complaint against religion -- that it is history's prime instigator of intergroup conflict -- does not withstand scrutiny. Religious issues motivate only a small minority of recorded wars. The Encyclopedia of Wars surveyed 1,763 violent conflicts across history; only 123 (7 percent) were religious. A BBC-sponsored "God and War" audit, which evaluated major conflicts over 3,500 years and rated them on a 0-to-5 scale for religious motivation (Punic Wars = 0, Crusades = 5), found that more than 60 percent had no religious motivation. Less than 7 percent earned a rating greater than 3. There was little religious motivation for the internecine Russian and Chinese conflicts or the world wars responsible for history's most lethal century of international bloodshed.

[ben says]

http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/01/13611231-9000-year-old-charms-found-in-israel?lite

But the earth is only 2,000 years old!!! Right?

[ronchamblin]

http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/01/13611231-9000-year-old-charms-found-in-israel?lite

But the earth is only 2,000 years old!!! Right?

8 thousand according to seriously fundamentalist evangelical literalists.

I thought that most biblical scholars suggest that the earth was created by the big dude in 4,004 B.C.   If so, this would make the earth a little over 6,000 years old; that is, according to the biblical story. 

[ronchamblin]

I recently read an interesting idea that there might be an innate predisposition, or genetic pressure, to be religious, to believe in the existence of a god, to believe the teachings of a religion.  The writer suggested that perhaps from several million years ago to only tens of thousands of years ago there were survival benefits to the tribes or populations which were bound together by a religious belief in some kind of god, and therefore the genetic message was transmitted more often to offspring, resulting in further genetically implanted "religious" genes into the human population.  For example, a people bound by a common religious belief might fight the enemy with greater effort than would a tribe without the belief system, thus more of the former would survive the battles, and would pass along their "religion or god" genes.

The writer suggested that, just as language ability is genetically embedded in the infant by way of brain structures, so too is the religious tendency.  If very early humans were prepared genetically for learning language as a consequence of it being beneficial to survival as a species, I suppose it possible too regarding the belief in a god.

Therefore, individuals who in these modern times believe in a god might be better understood, and forgiven for this tendency to avoid being completely rational, if one accepted the possibility of this genetic pressure.  I’ve always thought that the decision or state of believing in a god or religion by moderns is a result perhaps of a great need to do so, and perhaps also as a consequence of being taught by parents, and persuaded by the preachers and peers. 

The idea that the genetic pressure to believe might be within all humans allows many of us, if we accept the idea, to better understand how so many individuals in our society can actually believe, in spite of all the reasons to not believe.   

Even though all humans might have the genes which prepare or urge us ever so slightly to believe in a god, some of us don’t believe perhaps because we are open to other pressures or understandings which urge us to not believe.  Perhaps it is as if all humans are pressured from both the genetic and environmental conditions to make a final religious decision, which is simply a consequence of balancing the components offering the best argument, or the most pressure.

In a way, I am comforted by the possibility of the genetic influence on the human tendencies to believe in the existence of a god, or to fully engage a religion, as this allows me to be more tolerant of the believers, whom I formerly might have considered to be lacking in some necessary intelligence.  The genetic idea, if it has a basis in fact, helps explain why so many moderns are religious, and in fact do believe in the existence of a god, in spite of all the reasons, according to my perspective, to avoid doing so.     

   

[ronchamblin]

BT.  I missed this, your post 127, wherein you excerpted this article:

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/08/06/god_and_the_ivory_tower?page=0,0

It was a good and interesting read.  I love articles which make me feel as though I've learned something.  This is rare, since I know so much. 

Thank you for the link.

[BackinJax05]

MY views are right 
                                           
Everyone else here is WRONG, and headed straight to HELL! 

Looks like I'm gonna be all alone in Heaven 

(But thats ok with me, I dont like crowds anyway)

[BridgeTroll]

BT.  I missed this, your post 127, wherein you excerpted this article:

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/08/06/god_and_the_ivory_tower?page=0,0

It was a good and interesting read.  I love articles which make me feel as though I've learned something.  This is rare, since I know so much. 

Thank you for the link.

I try to be helpful...

[ronchamblin]

The following is an interesting Huff Post article, shown complete, by Nigel Barber.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nigel-barber/is-religion-on-the-way-ou_b_1865173.html?utm_hp_ref=science&ir=Science

Title: Is Religion On The Way Out?

About three-quarters of the world's population feels that religion is important. Yet, this large majority is set to dwindle into minority status within a generation. The reason is that affluence kills piety, as I explain in a new book (Why Atheism Will Replace Religion).  (apparently e-book only at this time)

Religion as emotion-focused coping

Conversely, under development promotes religion. The basic human problem solved by religious belief systems may be coping with the stress of uncertainty in our daily lives. Whether it is natural disasters, hunger, warfare, diseases, the loss of the people we love, or any other psychological threat, religion offers a psychological security blanket. Indeed, religious rituals reduce stress and bring down blood pressure analogous to the calming effect of a child's security blanket.

Religion does not make a home earthquake-proof but allows the faithful to feel better about the experience of sitting down in the rubble of their dwelling after the quake hits. In the jargon of psychology, this is emotion-focused coping rather than problem-focused coping.

As countries develop, they devise ever better methods for dealing with practical problems that threaten our existence or wellbeing. Whether it is earthquake-proof housing, piped water, sanitation, pollution control, food safety, inoculation against diseases, the rule of law, or social safety nets, residents of developed countries have much more reason to feel secure in their person, livelihood, health, and freedom.

With practical problems solved, there is less need for the solace provided by religion. Problem-focused coping obviates emotion-focused rituals and beliefs. That is why atheism crops up only in developed countries where most people experience a good standard of living, such as Japan, or Sweden.

As the world economy continues to expand, and as each country becomes more and more integrated in the global economy, the standard of living of the entire planet will eventually catch up with that of contemporary developed countries that produce a secular majority. It follows that the entire world community will become secular.

I estimate that with the levels of economic development characteristic of the past thirty years, the secular majority will arrive by approximately 2038. That is a doubling of contemporary secularism but an increase of only 1 percent on an annual basis.

The rising tide of prosperity

Despite continued misery in various parts of the world, the global economy rides a seemingly unstoppable tide of increasing prosperity.

Half of the world's population already resides in cities so that our future as an urban creature is pretty well settled. We no longer have a few isolated city developments, or a few prosperous countries but a world in which increasing economic activity in one country spurs development in many others. This level of mutual interdependence inhibits war and boils down to unprecedented global stability.

Skeptics may question whether prosperity will continue. Some point to the environmental unsustainability of rapid development with its nasty consequences for specific ecologies, such as rainforests, and for the entire global ecosystem. Yet, the impact of global warming on economic growth is likely to be too modest to prevent rapid economic growth and consequent secularization.

Spirituality may also be a basic feature of the human condition that cannot disappear. Yet, it seems that organized religions are increasingly irrelevant to modern spirituality. People in developed countries are more interested than ever in basic questions about the origin and meaning of human life and in exploring world religions. They are also open to supernatural themes in fiction that rests on magic spells, time travel, vampires, and so on. Yet, they are increasingly disconnected from churches, priests, and dogmas that offer less to affluent societies.

Formal religion no longer has a central place, or function, in Western Europe, for example. Non-attendance at religious services, non-marriage, a declining demand for religious counseling, etc., boil down to religious weakness. Thanks to secure living conditions, organized religion is marginalized there and increasingly irrelevant to the mainstream secular population. Its decline throughout the entire global economy seems inevitable.


If Mr. Barber is right, it looks like me and my atheist friends are going to be less lonely in our atheism during the coming decades.  Actually, sensing the stubborn human tendency to believe in the most improbable things, I cannot feel as confident as Mr. Barber about his suggested rate of decline in religious belief, the belief in the existence of a god or the supernatural.  His basing the decline of religious belief somewhat on an improving living standard of the earth’s population is rather optimistic.  I sense that we might be entering a period of a worsening, or at least a stabilized, standard of living for most people on earth.  I suspect there will be a significant portion of religious believers on earth as long as there is significant poverty, a significant number of oppressed peoples, and in general, a pervasive ignorance of the sciences and world history.

Actually, as time passes, I find myself better able to tolerate living amongst a great many individuals who believe in gods and the supernatural as long as their beliefs do not excessively perpetuate suffering to others as a consequence of religious extremism, as a consequence of remaining too ignorant of worldly knowledge, and as long as they do not excessively deliver problems to me.  If people wish to live in the world of the supernatural and dependence on faith, prayer, and a god who occupies the imagination, so be it, as it is obviously a necessity and a comfort to many.  Besides, the believers are interesting to watch, especially the televangelists, who are actually the Sunday comedy shows for many of us.             

[ronchamblin]

Just had to show this for my religious Christian friends who suggest the reality of a god, and that the bible is the word of a god.  This is a quote from a 1954 hand written letter by Einstein, which is to be auctioned off starting at $3,000,000 on Ebay soon.

“The Bible, a collection of honorable but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish.”

Of course, just because a great thinker like Einstein makes the above statement about the bible doesn’t mean it’s true beyond a shadow of a doubt, but it does give a little credence to those of us who have the same or similar ideas regarding the nature of the bible.

It’s interesting and encouraging that Einstein, after many decades of thought about religion and the nature of the bible, arrived at the above conclusion.  The persistent belief, by so many millions of people in this “modern” country, in the existence of a god and in the infallibility of the bible, in spite of so much in life and learning which forces most rational individuals to see the absurdities of believing, continues to amaze me. 

Believing in gods and the associeted religions might not be obviously harmful to society or individuals, but the harm exists.  There are damaging consequences in the political realm, and in the long range quality of life experienced by millions of people. 
 
 
     

[If_I_Loved_you]

“[A true atheist is one who is willing to face the full consequences of what it means to say there is no God. Given some of what we treat as religion, this is a significant commitment. The bottom line is that] ... many an atheist is a believer without knowing it. You can sincerely believe there is no God and live as though there is. You can sincerely believe there is a God and live as though there isn't. So it goes ... ... Wishful Thinking.”
Frederick Buechner quotes (American Author, b.1926)

[Adam W]

“[A true atheist is one who is willing to face the full consequences of what it means to say there is no God. Given some of what we treat as religion, this is a significant commitment. The bottom line is that] ... many an atheist is a believer without knowing it. You can sincerely believe there is no God and live as though there is. You can sincerely believe there is a God and live as though there isn't. So it goes ... ... Wishful Thinking.”
Frederick Buechner quotes (American Author, b.1926)

Typical misunderstanding of what it means to be an atheist. An atheist doesn't believe in god. Most atheists wouldn't claim to know 100% whether or not there actually IS a god.

But either way - it's not the same to believe in something that has no evidence whatsoever of its existence and to not believe in something that has no evidence whatsoever of its existence. Only one of those requires a leap of faith.

[If_I_Loved_you]

“[A true atheist is one who is willing to face the full consequences of what it means to say there is no God. Given some of what we treat as religion, this is a significant commitment. The bottom line is that] ... many an atheist is a believer without knowing it. You can sincerely believe there is no God and live as though there is. You can sincerely believe there is a God and live as though there isn't. So it goes ... ... Wishful Thinking.”
Frederick Buechner quotes (American Author, b.1926)

Typical misunderstanding of what it means to be an atheist. An atheist doesn't believe in god. Most atheists wouldn't claim to know 100% whether or not there actually IS a god.

But either way - it's not the same to believe in something that has no evidence whatsoever of its existence and to not believe in something that has no evidence whatsoever of its existence. Only one of those requires a leap of faith.

Adam W I have prayed for your soul and God understands you even if you don't really believe in him. 

[Adam W]

“[A true atheist is one who is willing to face the full consequences of what it means to say there is no God. Given some of what we treat as religion, this is a significant commitment. The bottom line is that] ... many an atheist is a believer without knowing it. You can sincerely believe there is no God and live as though there is. You can sincerely believe there is a God and live as though there isn't. So it goes ... ... Wishful Thinking.”
Frederick Buechner quotes (American Author, b.1926)

Typical misunderstanding of what it means to be an atheist. An atheist doesn't believe in god. Most atheists wouldn't claim to know 100% whether or not there actually IS a god.

But either way - it's not the same to believe in something that has no evidence whatsoever of its existence and to not believe in something that has no evidence whatsoever of its existence. Only one of those requires a leap of faith.

Adam W I have prayed for your soul and God understands you even if you don't really believe in him. 

Thanks Dude!