Religion: If You Don't Believe In It Why Does It Bother You?

Same here--er, in terms of trying to debunk any belief, spoken or unspoken. I'm just responding with regards to the Christian belief, while Jaerik has this crazy belief in logic. Crazy!

BUT I DID Q_Q

Think maybe God might jump off this rock when it either gets close or hits us. Run scenario nov 1st through like nov 11th 2011.

http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=2005%20YU55;orb=1

I'm agnostic, just because I don't understand either side, not enough to make a solid decision and certainly not fully. Usually I lean towards atheist, but I teeter. But Jaerik, with your garage-dragon example, there is no hint or clue about whether or not you have a dragon in your garage. With religion there's things that could be considered clues for it, such as the probability of the world spontaneously just popping into being. (Of course, the probability of some cosmic dude in the sky willing it into being seems just as unrealistic.) I still agree with you on the basic principle, though.

One thing that I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned is the Bible itself. Sure, Anye has been quoting from it for pages, but is the Bible not in pieces? People have found little bits of it at a time over the years? We have no way of knowing if there's more of it. For all we know, the 'New Testament' is actually a Middle Testament and there's a whole set of new books that have not been discovered that tell us all something completely different than what the old and new testaments said.

I have a hard time believing in God, or that if he exists, that he's a kind and loving God. But like I said, I am not all-knowing. I don't know the right answer. I don't think anyone knows the right answer, and so until I know much, much more, I'll continue to be agnostic.

Itll be actually pretty close this coming week thats why i noticed it checking nasa site. .019 au I beleive but on nov 9th 2011 it will be .002 au which is rather close.

Aethism as a term is rediculous. Do we have a term for people that don't believe Elvis is still alive. Or that don't beleive that aliens are here and have weird anal fetishes? Just people using the same logic

Aliens are here, mainly in California, but only the Gay ones have anal fetishes. Oh you mean space aliens;0

I was running and I ran into the metal part of a doorway and I hit my knee. It hurts and has some swelling. When I applied ice to it, it hurt even more and when I used heat, it hurt less. Should I get it checked out or just keep applying heat and stay off it? Also it looks fine compared to my other knee. How do I know if I actually injured it?

Even if dreams can't be explained away scientifically, that doesn't mean they are 100% proved to be a sign of God, either. :/ They could be bloody anything.

Damn dude quit eating that thing on your avatar and you wont run into doors. And quit crying pussy just go to sleep it'll be better in the morning. JK I see what you are saying in a strange way.

These two statements are not logical opposites in informal logic, but are, in fact, logically opposite to each other from the standpoint of symbolic logic, and I believe also from formal logic. Saying there is no dragon is simply:

"¬ I have a dragon in my garage."

Which would imply that atheism is really the opposite of theism.

Of course, from a more holistic view, the dragon in your garage conflicts with the perceived world around me (dragons do not exist), making the statement "I have a dragon in my garage" less plausible (impossible, were we to assume our empirical knowledge is infallible).

Example: "Evolution ⊥ Literal creation myth" in which we, in order to simplify the example, only give evolution a 99% chance of truth (this should be much closer to 100%, but I don't want to write out fifty decimals). In that case, the creation myth could only be true 1% of the time.

The more contradictions a belief system causes with empirically acquired knowledge, and the stronger such empirical knowledge is, the less plausible it seems (and therefore is likely less plausible in reality). A literal view of many religions results in many of these contradictions being formed.

From this we can gather that atheism and many forms of theism are not logically opposed. However, should a theistic religion cause only the same logical contradictions as atheism, symbolic logic would place it as a logical opposite of atheism, as both are equally viable (both are logically viable the same percent of the time).

The agnostic view doesn't necessarily entertain the equal logical likelihood of all options, but it can entertain the idea that with fallibility, all options have a slim "chance" to be true. I am not in a constant torpor, unable to act because I am entertaining all these logical possibilities, but rather I act based upon the one which I believe to be the most logically viable. Agnosticism, in my case at least, is simply a means of acknowledging my own fallibility.

Ninja edit: ¬ is the symbol for negation, and ⊥ is the symbol for contradiction.

Dreams are random firings of memories. Deju vu is just a feeling of having litterally seened something before though can be more like hearing. Guess what alot of similar things happen in our life.

That being said I believe the future is 100% predictable and that currently when it comes to really complex stuff that is out of the current reach of computers the human mind will do alot better at it.

How does a farmer know to the minute when it's gunna rain? Because he's seen it 1 million times and picks up on thousands of little factors that he isn't even consciously aware of and uses it to figure it out. Did god tell me? No I just looked around and with experience could figure it out

Personally I believe this can be applied to pretty much everything. I figure stuff out before it's going to happen all the time. Oddly it happens more when I'm really tired. Too tired to think things thru. Hell people used to plan weather they would skip classes based on what I said about the weather rather than what the news said.

Other day I told my wife there was going to be a pretty big easter quake in Southern California. I was close 7.2 or so on the border. In no way am I psycic but just had a feeling and blurt it out. She laughed until she checked yahoo 2 days later and made em go buy a lottery ticket lmao. Of course I lost.

Jesus Christ on a bicycle this thread took off today! =D

Well, got some catching up to do, there's some tasty posts that need responses...Ok, Oliveman, I get where you're coming from, so I'll summarize what you said as I understand it: Labels are bad when we become limited by them.

That's fine and I agree. But calling myself an atheist doesn't mean I subscribe to a set of beliefs or habits unique to atheists and I follow them without straying... it is simply a description of one aspect of my belief system. Furthermore, you're kind of bending the language and using it in a way it doesn't really work. There's nothing to a "belief" that makes them true or not, a belief is something you think is or might be true.

I hate to be rude, but really, I wish you would stop trying to talk like a mountain guru and start talking like an internet forumite. You've got some neat ideas, but it sounds like you're putting on airs. Next...
I was a devout follower of a religion for quite a while, actually, and I don't think it's easy: it's hard to be scholarly about it and I think it must be difficult to be stupid about it in the face of the modern world, so it's tough either way. :) Science needn't be exclusive from religion either, as others have pointed out, and it's not so simple either. Science isn't about fads, it's about adapting your world view to the best information you have at hand. Science, like scepticism, is not an easy or even convenient path. Let's see...
Generally I'm in favor of religion dying a slow death through reason and calm discussion, not belittling and disrespecting people, so take that as you will. As for the Agnostic point of view... again, it's not a middle ground, I'm an agnostic AND an atheist. As I said in my last point, science changes because our information changes. Is it better to change one's mind in the face of new information we didn't used to have or is it better to keep the same beliefs for 50 years when clear facts contradict it?Accepted. :)
Not even CLOSE to enough time. I can explain why if you really want, but I think you realize this and it's not the main point anyhow. But then there's this...That's just a totally false statement.

Even Muslim scholars acknowledge that the modern Qur'an is not the same as the book that Mohammed supposedly received from God. Just as Bible scholars acknowledge changes and errors and copy-editing problems, the Qur'an, especially in its early history, went through a period of compilation before an "official" version was made. Once it was, all "other" versions were to be destroyed. This was mostly done by a man name Abu Bakr about 1500 years ago. While it has remained fairly unchanged for a long time, the assertion that it is "unchanged" is just wrong.But that's what evolution IS: new species come from earlier species. I hate to keep haranguing the point, but yeesh...
The covert in the story is a fool. He adopted an entire belief system for health benefits. That's like going to a guy who is selling his old washing machine and you say, "Wow, that's a great washing machine!... I might as well buy the whole house!"

Anyway, I'll pick up some more tomorrow (I didn't forget about ya, Anye! ^^), but this post is already into "tl;dr" territory again. G'night and Lord Juju bless! :)

Let me first start off with I don't believe in religion.

It bothers me because the affects of religion are everywhere.
Say everyone that believed in religion also believed in white supremacy. Would that bother you? I bet it would.

Do you know what else bothers me? The fact the everyone picks and chooses which parts of the bible to follow and which to totally dismiss. The show 30 days has a Christian in the military reserves that is totally against homosexuality but has no problem killing someone. Either completely follow a religion or don't do it at all.

That's my opinion on this matter.

Narrubia:

All good points, but I wasn't trying to say that the second argument isn't an inverse of the first, but rather that both the listener's expected behavior and the burden of proof does not cleanly invert along with it.

To try a different tactic:

Modern criminal justice systems rely on the logical foundation that claiming you didn't do something (the negative) is always a stronger argument than you did (the positive) unless there is evidence to tip the scales.

We see justice systems that work the opposite as inherently flawed, inseparable from their inevitable embedded agenda. Some might even go far as to call them immoral.

At both a visceral level, and from experience, we understand that burdens of proof do not cleanly invert. And as a society, we have matured to the point we hold to this logical standard even when we might personally very strongly believe the opposite.

Why do we throw it all out the window when it comes to religion?

because we are hard-pressed to face the cessation of our existence, and highly motivated to envision an alternate scenario where such a thing doesn't happen?

seems like a pretty obvious answer

Jaerik:

Okay, I can see more where you're coming from, here. Unfortunately, my knowledge of legal systems is practically non-existent, so I'll just go right to answering your question.

Religious discussion is pretty heavily tied in with philosophy, that, in order to function as it is intended as a field of study, cannot use visceral logic, which can vary between cultures and even individuals. Creating a uniform system of logic, or at least several well-defined systems of logic, allows more consistent analysis of the questions philosophy means to address. Much of this is the case in discussing religion, in which to have a meaningful discussion, we must be able to share ideas using the same system of logic, or at least very similar systems of logic.

But I can see where you're going. The teapot-hiding-behind-Jupiter example makes this distinction between negative and positive clear. I can imagine a teapot scenario that will fit just as well as the atheist belief system, yet I am compelled to believe that there is no teapot anywhere close to Jupiter, even though they are both equally logically viable. On the other hand, I consider it more likely than anything that causes conflicts with my empirical knowledge.

However, since I am fallible, I recognize that I might be wrong, and there might be a teapot orbiting Jupiter. While my visceral logic deems it less likely that there is a teapot, this (currently) unknowable piece of information still has it's small chance of being truth. I will keep living as if there is no teacup (not that it matters at all to me, ohgod pragmatism), but I will keep in the back of my head that it might happen to be there.

So really I understand your point now, but I still don't know what it has to do with finding faults in the concept of agnosticism.

saying that is presuming we have a fundamental comprehension of creation and existence in the first place.. which we hella dont >.>

at this point in our evolution anyway, anyone or anything being the way it is i would argue is just simply nature.

Glanced at a few posts because I'm killing time. I know where I stand on the issue but nothing I put is going to sway anyone anymore than I'm likely to be swayed by anyone else so I won't bother.
That said, inasmuch as this is supposed to be about religion, a lot of people are way off base. They talk about religion but really they're talking about Christianity. Other times they speak of religion but are only actually referring to organized religion. Really it makes people sound ignorant to say religion does this or religion does that when they mean to say that specific a religion does so.
Just try to say what you mean I guess, or even more than that, don't make blanket statements and sweeping generalizations if you want to honestly endeavor to prove your point: it undercuts your objective.

With regards to "Satan" and "Hell":
Isaiah 14:12-15 alludes to the fall of "Lucifer"--"the morning star":Even if this didn't refer directly to Satan himself, it still refers to one who would directly oppose God.

The entirety of the Bible doesn't contradict itself once you realize that it is written in the perspective that God, above all, deserves to be worshiped for who he is, and for what he has done. And as for those whom he has created for the sake of worshiping him but fail to realize it:

In God's perspective--revealed, as is believed, in the Bible--Man deserves separation from God's presence by fulfilling selfish desires outside of what God has ordained. But even while knowing this, God willingly longs to draw Man back to himself--this is what we comprehend through the Bible as love. Love in this perspective is therefore not salvation from physical pain or even death, but rather salvation from spiritual separation from God, though we should deserve it. Deserve it, but not choose it--That's where Christ comes in: He gives us the choice to choose God's presence or not, regardless of how much we actually deserve it. This, again, is love.

What about it?God does what he wants--how much more valuable, then, is the love of a God who does exactly what he pleases, a God who,

Just wanted to say, I'm happy you're all opening up to a very active and semi-productive discussion/debate. So many would remain blissfully ignorant to everything but their own disposition and views on things.

Wow, these threads have turned deep!!

XD No worries, I'm also having trouble keeping up with the entire thing since so many different discussions are going on, so I'm mainly keeping up with the ones directly addressing me.... I'm reading into the other ones, but, GAH, I'm doing this while studying for a test in order to keep my mind active.... I can only respond to one thing at a time.... :(

Totally not like last time when it was just you 'n' me, but I'm definitely not complaining, as long as there's an actual discussion in which people are actually thinking things through.

Anyways, just encouraging the current discussions at hand; keep it up ^^

Oh, and also, thanks to those who have shown respect and appreciation for this thread in particular, and I'm personally glad it's turned into something more than just non-thought-provoking reiterations of the same opinions.

The answer to everything brought up for the entire thread: 42

/endthread lawl

But I just wanted to give my 2 cents and say that religion and one's faith in it should be a very personal and individualistic thing more so than a community/social based thing. Though it may be used as a great tool to empower one's spirit and will, widespread religious groups leave many gaping holes of potential corruption, unjust cruelty, bigoted legislative policies, etc. And thus is commonly used as something made to alienate others who get in the way when really it should be something that exists only in your own heart as one person.

/opinion