Validity of Faith and other common arguments (split)

I find myself getting a bit tired with the notion that anyone debating anything to do with religion is a fanatic not willing to give any quarter (though I would admit there are some posters who take this position). This thread is related to how previous racist statements and what seem to be racist doctrines can be condoned by present day LDS members who from what I can see are clearly not racists. What's your view on the topic? Do you think every position is equally right? The notion to me that we shouldn't discuss such things and should just nod politely and say 'how interesting' when someone mentions that their religion teaches black people are black because of a curse put on their ancestor is just bending over backwards to political correctness. I don't have a problem with any of the LDS people here, they are perfectly entitled to their views but at the heart of a discussion board is DISCUSSION and so I'm actually quite glad that those who cannot handle discussion which may involve disagreement steer clear of the religion forum.

 

Boy did you ever prove me wrong about being a recalcitrant, didactic curmudgeon so stuck on the absoloute correctness of his own self riteous position that he was willing to give no quarter to any other train of thought! I stand so very corrected. Now have fun with that!

 

Yeah I see you're point I mean I'm obviously completely against discussion, unwilling to listen to reasoned argument and all these years I've spent studying religion were really a smoke screen since I clearly have no interest in anything but my own views. As far as I'm aware I'm not debating anything to do with the topic with you so I'm not sure how you've proved your point unless your point was I wont agree with you position. In which case congratulations.

To clarify why I'm responding to you is that your post basically equates to saying that anyone who chooses to debate a religious topic who is non-religious must be a fanatic uninterested in discussion which is A) wrong and B) means that all discussion on the religion forum by non-religious people should boil down to 'what do you believe? how interesting'. Which in this case I don't think is a very adequate response.

Anyway, sliver to be honest I don't really mean to single you out it's just that practically every thread with any debate on the religion forum receives 1 or 2 posts such as yours and after a number of years it gets a bit tiring. I've been involved in practically all the long debates on the religion forum so I am very familiar with things going round and round but I would also say that in the few years I've been on here some of the best discussions have been on this forum. Some people such as myself actually enjoy discussion on religion and don't appreciate being labelled as a tekkengod because of it.

 

Ah well, archaeological evidence points to the great flood as being the creation on the Mediterranean sea when North Africa split from europe. Also Technologically speaking Noah would not have been able to manufacture an ocean going ship. I think therefore it is improbable that the mythical Garden of Eden was in North America.

The Bear.

 

One thing that baffles me is how religious people can reject evolution while simultaneously believing Noah's flood and all that.
Either Noah could fit every single species of animal alive today on a boat of a known size (which any sane human would see is impossible) OR he took only selected and limited "types" and they evolved into what we know today in the time after the flood (in which case they need evolution and they need it happening quicker than evolutionary biologists say it does).

I don't see any other way of the Noah story being anything but a myth to scare children.

What I gain from this thread is not the ridiculousness of Mormon belief per se but the sheer mental gymnastics people of faith are willing to do to square what they are told to believe compared to how the world actually is.
It makes me profoundly sad to be honest.
And then the way they happily chip in with the "I've got faith" card usually accompanied with a smiley icon. That phrase does not make me smile. It makes me despair.

Faith...

 

As much as I agree with much of what you said... if you start letting this sort of stuff make you despair... you're in for a life time of despair.

 

Ah I don't think the entire point of 'faith' and 'religion' is rational, logical thought though. I'd guess it serves a far different purpose for for individuals and societies. I know many people that are religious and have faith and yet in all the other areas of their life they are logical, well reasoned people - many who hold down jobs in science/university, police work and other fields where you'd expect people really place a high value on logic and reasoning . Religion is as much about emotion as it is anything else... so it's not entirely difficult to see that where emotions are involved logic and reason can be in short supply. Consider most people and relationships with their girlfriends/boyfriends... rarely are they the sole preserve of logic and rationality. Why should religion or faith based belief systems be any different? Despite many peoples need for things that fit neatly into black and white categories that can be dissected to the smallest degree text book style... a world full of Spock logicians would be just as bad.

I don't really know that there is any great advantage to look down the nose at people who hold religious conviction or faith. As much as their way of thinking can sometimes be confounding I've found many of the people who hold religious beliefs and faith of that sort to be quite good people. So I don't really think despair is all the much of an issue if you had to live around these people. My general experience has been that around people who hold religious conviction - religion doesn't actually come up as a topic of conversation all that much. It's not like people live lives like the general flow of conversations on this forum. Despite what all the whiny atheists on this site would have you believe.

I figure if life was so unbearable where they live because of the constant assault of evangelical types... that they would do the logical thing... and simply move. They certainly aren't using very good logic or rationale themselves if they believe they're going to change anyones religious convictions by being snide on a martial arts internet forum.

 

I think that's too condescending PA there are perfectly sensible religious people and what you see as mental gymnastics they see as a coherent system of beliefs. I'm thinking of people like Kenneth Miller here. I don't agree with any supernatural religious beliefs but I don't think it's right to lump ALL religious people in as 'irrational' just because some religious people take creation stories literally.

When I see cait and others on here admit their beliefs are based on 'faith' I actually admire their honesty. Many religious people refuse to acknowledge when this is a primary motivation for their beliefs and instead attempt to argue that objective evidence supports their position (see ID).

 

I don't really know that there is any great advantage to look down the nose at people who hold religious conviction or faith.

While I admit there is a certain part of me that looks down my nose at fundamental religious people (sorry I can't help it), for the most part it's more that I just plain don't understand them. I look at people that do or believe certain things and it's like I'm looking at an alien life-form. I feel no connection to them. If anything I connect more to my dogs as at least I understand why they do what they do.

many of the people who hold religious beliefs and faith of that sort to be quite good people

I agree. And do you know that makes me despair all the more!
If good, honest, seemingly intelligent people from some of the most advanced societies on the planet can switch off their rational faculties and believe the Noah flood myth what hope do simple, backward, uneducated or just plain old stupid people have?

They certainly aren't using very good logic or rationale themselves if they believe they're going to change anyones religious convictions by being snide on a martial arts internet forum.

I don't actually believe that to be honest (perhaps I'm not logical enough? ). There may not be an immediate or direct causal relationship but I feel that discussions precisely of this nature DO change things. They provide a background noise of dissent. A noise that I think we can agree is growing louder and louder. So while we may not change things visibly there may be right now a young mormon reading this with doubts about what he's been told. And he may change his views because of it. People change all the time. No one can say what causes it or when it's going to happen but clearly SOMETHING makes them.

I think that's too condescending PA there are perfectly sensible religious people and what you see as mental gymnastics they see as a coherent system of beliefs. I'm thinking of people like Kenneth Miller here. I don't agree with any supernatural religious beliefs but I don't think it's right to lump ALL religious people in as 'irrational' just because some religious people take creation stories literally.

Agreed. And I don't lump all religious people together in thyis way.
As mentioned in this thread I see far more in common with religious people that interpret and modify say their particular creation myth in the light of evolution rather than out right rejecting evolution altogether.

When I see cait and others on here admit their beliefs are based on 'faith' I actually admire their honesty.

Sorry...I see nothing to admire there. It's the ultimate argument stopper. There's clearly a discrepency between what the mormons believe about creation and what science tells us. Using faith to "decide" that discrepency is like a child in a playground argument using the "My Dad says it's true so that's the end of it" ploy. It gets us nowhere. As individuals OR as a species.

 

To that I'd seriously have to ask how much of the world you've been to. Seriously. I'm guessing a very large majority of the worlds people are religious or hold some faith based belief system. I think if you really feel that people who hold some sort of belief system that doesn't equate to yours are aliesn... I'd say you really honestly have bigger issues to deal with than what other people believe.

*runs off to check PASmith's age in his profile. Again... humans are emotional creatures... they are not Vulcans. We are not Spock. Expecting people to run around and live their lives by acting out passages from college level logic classes is just dumb.

Man that is a serious case at grasping at straws. Sorry but that's absurd.
If you seriously believe that... then... wow... just wow.

I'm not even going to comment on your thoughts about what moves man ahead as a species... lol... not even gonna touch it.

 

I think if you really feel that people who hold some sort of belief system that doesn't equate to yours are aliesn... I'd say you really honestly have bigger issues to deal with than what other people believe.

No mate... you've got the wrong end of the stick there. It's not the details of what they believe that makes me feel disconnected from them but how they arrive at those beliefs. How they ammend, change, adapt, re-think and expand those beliefs in light of what other influences.
It's not the belief system (there's probably as many belief systems as there are people in the world) but rather the underlying processes.
At heart I'm willing to change ANY view I hold if presented with good enough evidence to do so. You personally have said many things that have changed or modified what I believe for example. That's the nature of discussion to me. The nature of being an animal endowed with a rational mind.

Again... humans are emotional creatures... they are not Vulcans. We are not Spock. Expecting people to run around and live their lives by acting out passages from college level logic classes is just dumb.

Yeah you've called me dumb before. It probably won't be the last time.
I'm not expecting emotionless robots. However we DO have the capacity to see our emotions for what they are (sometimes ). We're not bound by our emotions. YOU are not bound by your emotions. We're better than that. Well I believe we are anyway.

Man that is a serious case at grasping at straws. Sorry but that's absurd.
If you seriously believe that... then... wow... just wow.

Grasping at straws it most certainly is. Absurd I'm not so sure. At the very least these discussions help ME. Anyone else can take out of them what they want. You obviously take nothing from them. Fine. You are not everyone.
You seem to pride yourself on being a man of the world that's been around a bit and worked it all out. Good for you.
I like talking about this stuff and will continue to do so.

I'm not even going to comment on your thoughts about what moves man ahead as a species... lol... not even gonna touch it.

Good. If however you can point to better ways of moving the species foward on top of reasoned and rationale debate between open minded people I'd like to hear them.

 

And indeed it may be the early signs of a species separation. The species could spit down the lines of those capable of "faith" thought and those not.
I have to admit I have no capacitiy for the "spiritual" experience. I do find it funny that people think that this creates some sort of Spock creature. "spiritual" and "emotional" are two separate things for us. In fact Spock was a very spiritual person but not emotional.
However, as I continue through life I am encountering more and more people like me whereas when I was young I was the only atheist I at school.

The Bear.

 

By way of an example...

Messrs Dawkins and Dennett (two people I admire immensely) favour designating themselves and other "out" atheists as "Brights".
Man that makes me cringe to my very core.
I'm all for being openly atheist but I'll never call myself a "bright".
And yet I can see that they "think" the same way that I do (not that I'm comparing myself to them intellectually you understand).
They may have arrived at a belief system that I find cringe-worthy but I feel an affinity with how they look at the world and "evolve" (excuse the pun) their views accordingly.

 

Yeah, the atheist movements have a long history of foot shooting this is just another one. Personally, I think that human evolution is trying to keep up with Scientific discovery. It will take time for all the biology to catch up and the only thing that can stop the change is a technological and scientific dark age. As long as we continue down the path of science and reason those that believe in the supernatural will dwindle in time. Nature is rarely kind to those who cannot adapt to new circumstances.

The Bear.

 

technologically speaking aren't we approaching a bit of a wall anyway.. I remember reading something like that. It may of had something to do with Moores Law and whether that was a viable reality or something.

Evolution is interesting in that we hypothesize a meteorite, i like that idea. Like we had our own big bang. So much time passes with nothing changing. Simple organisms for ages, then in such a relatively short period BLAM!

A curve ball thrown by a big pitcher ..

 

No we aren't approaching a wall, Moore law applied to semi-conductor processor speeds. Technoloically we are accelerating. We are in more danger from a singularity than a recession.

You could look it like that with the meteorite, or you could look at it like, a very unlikely series of events caused the creation of complex life on earth. You only think there is an agency behind it because it happened to us.

The Bear.

 

I've read about this so called singularity. Maybe in a perfect world. It's a bit science fictiony for me to swallow I suppose.. But who knows.

What events are those, and if it was a chain what was the main event that set it off after all that period of no change. No doubts there were "events" happening. So what was special, if anything ?

If it is a process of determination then how would they be "unlikely"

agency ?

Depends what you mean by that. I suppose you could call determined events or chaos an agency. Speaking metaphorically I didn't have anything particular in mind by 'big pitcher' such as an external God like agency or being if that's what you mean.

 

This is as silly as the suggestion that the species will split down the axis of rich and poor. I'm hoping it was meant as a joke because if not it displays a very poor grasp of how evolution works.

Also, even hardcore atheists like Dawkins have noted that they do have what would commonly be termed a 'spiritual side' albeit one pruned of supernatural beliefs. Nor are atheists commonly, at least in my experience, devoid of emotions and emotional reactions. I do think atheistic arguments are ultimately more rational but that's neither here nor there when it comes to whether atheists react emotionally in debates which they often do as they are human.

Human evolution is not trying to catch up to scientific discovery how could it be are you suggesting it has a goal or that modern selective pressures promote atheism because I'm pretty sure there is often a negative correlation between atheism and reproductive rate? The speed of our species cultural development is light years ahead of the speed of our biological evolution and as I recall Dawkins himself has pointed out that we are a species able to rebel against our selfish genes and as such are the rare case on the planet of a species not just a slave to 'natural evolution'. Point being that to argue that 'nature' will weed out the believers as our society progresses is giving a hell of alot of unwarranted credit to 'nature'. Our society may develop to a point were atheism is the norm (though I doubt it) but I sincerely doubt natural evolution will ever take us there. Taking such a view seems to me to instill an agency in evolution which it is entirely lacking. Further countering your point is the modern growth in popularity in developed countries of new age mumbo-jumbo.

EDIT: Sorry Wry, I posted this when you were typing your response! In order to avoid sidetracking maybe moving the posts into another thread might help? I know this would be the second split of a thread but it might somewhat solve the off topic problem if we had a thread dedicated to this particular debate as you're right it does crop up very often!

 

Ok, boyos.

This is the new thread. You can debate religion's validity as much as you like here. And this is also the new dumping ground for all your off topic posting nonsense that you get into on this forum.

 

Species evolve due to external pressures. Human are being subjected to the most profound change in circumstances possibly it has ever had. We have a huge shift in lifestyle through industrialisation. Then we have the huge change in society with compulsary education and the information age. However, biologically we are still much the same as people 5000 years ago. Our biology will begin to change due to these pressures.

Religion was a tool used to understand our world before we had better tools. Now we have reason and scientific method, these will gradually replace the old methods until something better comes along and replaces that. People at first refused to believe the earth was round and that the earth revolves round the sun but how many people still refute these things today.

The Bear.