Senate Atheism 4.0 - Now Discussing: Religiosity and intelligence

Kevin "I went to a strip club" Rudd was 'hardcore' Christian? That's hilarious.

I am glad to see that she's being up front about her views rather than putting on a facade. I don't see progress in the bit about having an atheist, but I definitely see progress in that she doesn't feel she has to lie about her views on religion.

 

Oh yeah, Kevin is hardcore. The strip club incident was a carefully managed PR exercise to help cultivate the blokey bloke support for a guy who is ridiculously nerdy. Every single press conference was carried out in front of his Church on a Sunday. Even his foul language was carefully managed PR stunt.

I agree with you that real progress is the fact that she is open about her lack of religious faith.

 

Wow, didn't know that part about Rudd. I only got the highlights of all that, though I knew the strip club bit did bounce his popularity up.

 

It's nice that's she's open about her views, but I don't really see it as really a big deal - Gough Whitlam was also atheist, and Bob Hawke was agnostic; neither of which were exactly secret during their terms.

Australia has, at least in recent decades, tended to stick to the notion of 'separation of church and state' quite clearly. And whilst Howard was a Christian I don't recall any real public displays of that fact; arguably Rudd was the most prominent due to his Sunday 'church doorstop' interviews but he tended to get ridiculed for that in the media (particularly these last few months).

 

I dunno, I kind of think it's cool that it's not such a big deal. There'd be riots in the streets if we had a President admit he was anything other than a Christian.

 

And not to mention that atheists are the LEAST trusted group of people in the US to be president.

 

I really wasn't sure I wanted to post this here because I don't like the fixation on Christianity in this thread any more than anyone else does. But, considering we've had a few run ins with the "reliability of scripture" conversation, I think this is a lecture well worth sharing.

It's Bart Ehrman, author of books like "Misquoting Jesus" and "Lost Christianities." He's an historian, not a theologian, and has examined the early history of Christianity, and in particular all of the earliest church documents and scriptural records. This talk is a good primer on the kind of work he does, his knowledgeability, and some concrete examples of problems with the "infallibility of scripture" argument.

Part one of ten.

Interesting aside: Ehrman, himself an "agnostic," seems popular with Muslims (many of the clips of him on YouTube are through Muslim apologetics channels), since they are apparently under the mistaken impression that proving the Bible wrong is the same as proving the Quran right.

 

I don't think that claim about Muslim reason for supporting him can hold true; if most of the Bible isn't true then Quran can't be true. Islam, after all, is declared to be the development of Judaism and Christianity to a new level and accepts them as valid. If there is such support, I would guess it's for disclaiming the divinity of Jesus, who in Islam is a prophet, and not the son of God, and for some theological finesse.

As a personal note, this comes from an atheist.

 

That's a very interesting lecture Dorkman. I have only got to the 4th video thus far but I am thoroughly enjoying it. Ehrman starts off a little nervous but then finds his stride. You just have to shake your head sometimes at the human race. The fact that people actually believe some of these 'end of days' predictions based upon such tenuous and cryptic reasoning is beyond my comprehension.

 

Maybe people find their end more comfortable at the thought of being stepped on by an enormous foot than from one of those 'doom and gloom' scenarios. Maybe they just realize the the human race is going to kill itself, so they choose to believe that our end will be quick and painless by a vengeful god. I would rather go out that way than to have the entire world go up in anarchy and global war over resources.

Maybe people just don't want to believe that, so they believe the end will be something HUGE. If it's not huge, then there's nothing to worry about.

 

I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking.
The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.

 

Ricky Gervais on Atheism

 

Check this out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5hOza8GTqk&feature=PlayList&p=D31D87AAF8FAC969&playnext_from=PL&index=0&playnext=1

This is a very interesting debate between religion and atheism, but guess who makes the most unreasonable assumptions.

 

I think the most surprising thing about that video was how much his experience reminded me of my own. I used to be really religious - I voluntarily went to a lot of Church activities and probably got more religious education than my other siblings combined - and then suddenly the whole implausibility of it all just clicked into place back in eighth grade. From then on I was essentially an agnostic atheist, albeit with a brief foray into atheistic Buddhism.

 

Just want to vent some frustration in the appropriate thread. Just tried to ask some questions in the Christian thread, but the answers they gave were quite unsatisfactory.

When asking whether Jesus ever healed any amputees, Jadda-wocky makes the claim that it probably happened and that the bible just couldn't record EVERY SINGLE DEED that Jesus had done. I thought more proof was required, so I asked who and when.

Clearly this didn't answer my question. It's up to the ones making the accusation that proof must be provided. No proof has been provided, so I rightfully assume that Jesus did not heal any amputees.

If only Jabba-wocky could have provided some proof that his beliefs were supported by real evidence, but instead he sticks to his beliefs and goes on the assumption that it's we atheists that must provide the proof. The problem with his accusation is that I did provide evidence that he can't counter. When addressing something that didn't happen, the only evidence that can exist is a lack of proof. I most certainly can't produce it, as none exists. I would welcome something that points to his conclusion, but he had none to provide.

How would anyone in a crowd know that these 'resurrected' people didn't know Jesus? The only way that an act can happen properly is if the audience believes he just grabbed someone out of a crowd. And how would these apostles have known about an act which happened almost a century later? Historic accuracy becomes tarnished as witnesses' memories become tarnished with age. To assume a little detail like that is just making assumptions.

And if one were to assume these 'magic acts' don't make any sense, then why would anyone have reason to assume the laws of physics and biology can so easily be defied? I see a more rational argument to conclude Jesus and his miracles did not happen as secondhand witnesses proclaimed, as opposed to assuming he did the impossible.

And one's ability to prove that you can heal a person by simply touching them doesn't stand up to scrutiny either. What Christ did was physically impossible, or he could potentially have been able to offer a medical explanation for why people miraculously healed after being touched by him. That's possible, but not verifiable without samples of his flesh and blood.

Unless Jesus could return to Earth again and demonstrate his abilities as proclaimed in the bible... But I don't see that happening. Between believing what's highly improbable and what's more likely to have happened, I generally don't delve into the supernatural unless all other possible explanations have been exhausted. In this ca

 

I figure my response fits better here than in the Christianity thread:

Yeah, it's a really weird set-up, because I find myself defending religions that I would really rather see dissolved. I would love to mock Islam, Scientology, and Mormonism until the cows come home, but I get a very dirty feeling when I'm joined in my mockery by, say, self-righteous Jews or Baptists. It ceases to be a defense of rationalism and instead becomes a tool for religious supremacy of a particular creed.

 

Yeah, isn't religion supposed to be a unifying force or something like that? If it's just another issue that promotes conflict between peoples, then it's obviously better to just get rid of it. Rational thinking is far better because it allows people to go beyond biased perceptions and beliefs.

 

I'm sorry, but that's just wrong. "Rational thinking" doesn't make people agree any more than anything else, because it still includes opinions and differences. Rationality doesn't do jack squat to eliminate opinion.

Remember, logic and reason are a process, not a result. Two people can start from the same data, follow equally logical reasoning, and end up at diametrically opposed results.

As an example, consider the major disagreements that have come along in areas of science like physics. At one point, there were great differences of opinion (and conflict) between scientists over the nature of light (wave or particle). "Rational thinking" didn't prevent that conflict, nor did it make everyone agree on the results.

Similarly, in other areas of life you can see the same thing. Should the government raise or lower taxes? There are rational arguments each way, so how can you decide which is right? You want to eat Mexican, but your girlfriend wants Chinese. Which one is more rational? Two equally possible solutions to a problem come up at work, and you can only try one. How do you decide which one to do?

Rationality is merely the process. You still need to start from somewhere, and at that most basic level you make assumptions that you cannot prove (else you would not be assuming them). That is just as much an exercise in faith and opinion as anything religious.

Kimball Kinnison

 

Kimball, while I agree to an extent, I think that your stance that all axioms are equally valid or of equal amounts of faith is overstating it.

Assuming that, say, all right angles are equal, which is an axiom for geometry, is not at all just as much an exercise in faith as something like did Jesus return from the dead. Particularly as the assumptions within science often carry with them an element of "they've so far been accurate" even though they're on a scale that we can't out and out prove, whereas there's no verification process at all on the other side of the coin.

Example, the presumption that the speed of light is the same in all reference frames, needed for relativity, is not provable. It does, however, lead to accurate predictions, which is the only reason that is allowed to stand. It hasn't been proven, and is immensely difficult to do so, however it has, thus far, been shown to be a valid presumption through objective analysis. I also don't know that at any given instant, the laws of nature will drastically change. I presume that they will stay the same in order to understand them. Again, thus far, that has always worked, and that is being reverified every instant that gravity doesn't suddenly stop working or such. The necessity of that presumption versus the necessity of something like any holy text being accurate is vastly unequal, and I would also highlight that one has undergone far more scrutiny and is far more necessary for any greater analysis. That neither is fully proven does not, then, make them equal.

 

You just invented something that I never claimed. I explicitly stated that religion was a source of conflict. Quote me on when I proclaimed that rational thinking would solve all our problems. I made the comment that rational thinking was an effective way to alleviate the biassed perceptions that religion often generates, but I did not say it would resolve all conflict.

So instead of addressing the point, you just went off on your own tangent in order to attack a straw man that you generated for the purpose of defending something so biased that it's not even amusing. In case you haven't noticed, religion already has people so closed-minded that it doesn't need to be defended.

You just wasted your time typing that long and pointless response.

 

I didn't say that all axioms are equally valid or of equal amounts of faith. I simply said that axioms are just as much an exercise in faith as religious belief is.

By that, I mean that they cannot be proven any more than a religious belief can be. They have to be accepted on faith, and in doing so they become self-reinforcing. The only difference between the two is what the axiom itself is.

To a religious person, religious axioms are as self-reinforcing as your example of natural laws not changing. Logically, there is no difference in the reasoning used. The only difference is the weight that an individual chooses to give to each one. That, ultimately, has to be a personal decision.

I'm sorry, but I was specifically responding to your statement "Rational thinking is far better because it allows people to go beyond biased perceptions and beliefs."

Rational thinking does nothing of the sort. It doesn't make people any more open minded than religion does, because rational thinking is just as dependent upon perceptions and beliefs. It's a process only, and that process is directly applied to a person's perceptions, opinions, and beliefs.

Your very comment assumes that a person holding religious beliefs is not using "rational thinking". Except rational thinking is the process, and you can apply that to any set of axioms, including religious ones. You declare it to not be rational not because of the process that it follows, but because y

 

That... doesn't compute. Religion thrives on the beliefs of closed-minded individuals. In order to uphold certain values is to uphold certain beliefs, otherwise you get very weak values. That is why most dedicated Christians formulate their beliefs in a way that no evidence can ever convince them otherwise. Muslims are much the same way.

That being so, how could one expect for such people to have an open mind about the world around them?

Now a person without values could just as easily do whatever best suites them from one moment to the next, but I wouldn't exactly say he's open-minded. If he's good at exploiting people, then he must be able to understand the mindset of the ones he exploits. That's not closed-minded.

Interesting word, 'axiom.' I suppose that I do intensely object to the way some people can treat God as if his existence is self evidently true when it's not.

I'm not quite sure what you stated. Do you mean 'axiom' by self-evident, or as being accepted as true? Because I see two ways of looking at this. God is accepted by many people, but I do not consider his existence as self-evident. Santa Clause is accepted by many children, but they grow up and reach the age when they come to a logical conclusion that he couldn't exist. Christ is like a version of Santa Clause for adults, from my perspective.

I understand people with different experiences can look at the same facts and come to a different conclusion, but bias comes when you form an opinion that isn't even based on facts. Facts don't change, which is why they are a good anchor to form one's opinions on. Concepts such as axioms... they're terrible because they're not based on any such evidence.

 

I would argue that your labeling religious people as "closed-minded" demonstrates the flawed logic of your argument, because it demonstrates that you are also closed-minded on the topic. By the same logic you are using, would it therefore be appropriate to say that atheism "thrives on the beliefs of closed-minded individuals"?

What you seem to not be accepting here is that there are open- and closed-minded people on both sides of the discussion. Just because someone agrees with you on an issue doesn't mean that they are open-minded, and just because they disagree with you (even if it is violently) doesn't mean that they are closed-minded.

There's a difference between someone who has proved something to themselves, and someone who refuses to look at any contrary evidence. Just because someone rejects evidence that you accept doesn't mean that they are closed-minded.

Personally, I define someone as "open-minded" if they are willing to look at a logical argument within the context of the axioms it is based upon and not trying to force their own axioms on it. A closed-minded person refuses to apply anything except their own axioms.

An axiom is something that cannot be proven through deduction, but is treated or accepted as true. It forms the basis for any logical or rational argument.

No, facts don't change, but axioms can and do. The axioms you accept as true control how you interpret those facts. You reject some of the axioms that religious people accept (and vice versa), but that doesn't mean that someone accepting a different set of axioms is irrational in the positions that

 

Excuse me for interrupting your ongoing debate, but I just had to post this. It's LOLtastic.

 

All this boils down to is 'I know you are, but what am I.'

Even if I am being closed-minded, which I am... it doesn't exactly compliment your side. I can understand why one believing in an all-powerful being could overlook all the flaws that atheism presents. Believing in God means coming to the conclusion that anything is possible. Any flaw in the belief can be explained away by what God is capable of. That's a self-sustaining argument. That is what it means to be closed-minded.

And you have it backwards. The greatest resistance to atheism is closed-mindedness.

And this helps theism... how? I won't deny that there are those for atheism who are just as adamant towards theism as certain people I've encountered, but at least they're not delusional. And such people typically are not supported by either side of the debate.

It's those who believe in self-sustaining arguments that I would identify as such.

Such as the axiom of God? Where do those who make self sustaining arguments land here?

If a person believes in God, then they can overlook any evidence proving to the contrary. If a person doesn't believe in God, no argument hinging on God's existence can work for any kind of debate. It's this particular axiom that negates any value of logic or evidence... the assumption of God's existence is the source of the conflict.