On disproving religion.

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I am arguing against all the religions of world. It's all based on faith instead of evidence, likely because there is no evidence for religion's extraordinary claims. It's like with alternative medicine. There is no alternative medicine. There is only medicine that works and medicine that does not work. If alternative medicine works, it should be accepted along with x-rays and injections and if not discarded as rubbish. If religion has a theory about there being a powerful supernatural being, they must provide evidence, because that is, in fact, not immune to scientific investigation and is, in fact, a scientific hypothesis whether they want it to be or not. Without evidence, all religions of the world must be considered as equally valid, which sounds great, but when you're giving literally equal creedance to Yahweh, Thor, fairies, Bahamut, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster, nobody seems very happy about it. All religions have is that you cannot disprove them, which does not imply any of them are necessarily true, just that you cannot be absolutely sure they are not.

-Frank

It's funny that so many of the same people who mock 'blind followers' of a given faith blindly follow Richard Dawkins, a fellow who has made a living off presenting the same weak arguments the Internet Atheist Militia™ makes, except instead of sounding like an angsty teenager whose only experience with religion is being forced to go to church by their parents, he comes off as a middle aged pompous ass whose only experience with religion is being forced to go to church by his parents.

Lots of religious folk are kooks. Lots of atheist folk are morons. This argument must account for at least two thirds of all the information on the internet, and there's a reason neither side will ever win.

From what I gather, you accuse religion false because a supernatural being is not proving to you its existence.

First, why should this supernatural being prove to you its existence? I see no need in such actions, for as you atheists like to say "If He is real, He need not be worshiped."

Second, there are different ways of knowing, and not just by observing through a lab experiment. Why do I exist? For nothing or for something? If it's nothing, then you have nothing to worry about. But then again, Why DO you exist? If believing in a Creator is rubbish, then believing in our non-existent existence is equally as rubbish. If you exist for a reason, then what is that reason? I know my reason, but yours is different.

I keep hearing of this Spaghetti Monster, a Pink Unicorn, or what have you. What is stupid about them is that you can tell they were invented. Their stories do not touch anyone. Their beliefs does not inspire works of art, culture, laws, literature. There isn't one person who has been forced to give up everything in order to live up to fulfill the invented stories' duties.

There is a difference between brainwashing and following. Religion is pure because it is meant to purify the Soul. If a religion tells you to kill innocent victims, how is that pure? If it tells you to force people to follow your religion, how is that pure?





Did you hear the Diane Rehm's interview with Chris Hedges? He brought up the same argument.

You cannot be absolutely sure religion is false, but this does not mean it is likely and it certainly does not mean that it is likely enough that we should indoctrinate children into it, teach intelligent design in the schools, or consider faith a virtue. A capacity to believe without evidence is not a virtue, it is a lack of critical thinking and an over-reliance on emotion.

There are different ways of knowing? Sure. There are verifiable provable repeatable ways of knowing and there are ways for which I'll just have to take your word for it. If you cannot prove your truths then, please, do not insist upon any of the rest of us believing in them, whether that be in respecting them or in teaching them in a school. This is not currently how the world is run and it is how it ought to be.

We make our own purposes in life. There are no universal purposes. If there is a purpose you think is universal, then have that be your purpose. If you think that purpose is universal though, you're going to inevitably try and shove it down my throat and I'll have a problem with that, believe me.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster was invented? The Invisible Pink Unicorn was invented? What do you think normal religion came from? The Abrahamic god comes from a guy named Abraham and what he said were his experiences with God. Islam comes from what Mohammad says his experiences with God are. Christianity comes from what Paul of Tarsus claims his experiences with God are. Mormonism comes from what Joseph Smith says his experiences with God are. Pastafarianism comes from what Bobby Henderson says his experiences with the spaghedeity are. Why should his claims have any less validity than these other men? Are they not ancient enough? Judaism is older than Christianity is older than Islam is older than Mormonism is older than pastafarianism. Is there a cutoff date past which we can stop taking people's word for it or can I wake up tomorrow and have had a dream where I'm supposed to be God's spokesman and you'll just go with that? We need some ground rules here or the whole premise is ridiculous!

As to your last statement I will quote Dawkins, and I welcome anyone who will argue against any of this, "The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully."

-Frank

Everyone depends on emotions, to rule out emotions as baseless is to rule out humanity altogether.

The truth of one is not always the truth of another.

You do not see me insisting anything--other than my defense. But in either case, to state that I should not insist on you to respect my beliefs is hypocrisy as that would imply that your beliefs are held sacred and mine not. As hinted above, what is taught in school is not always truth. We see this in history: "Colombus sailed out to prove the world was round", "The friendly meetings of the Pilgrims and Indians."

Isn't it odd that today it is the atheist that is "shoving" his beliefs down believers throat?

The Abrahamic religions are ATTRIBUTED to Abraham. It, and most certainly HIM, did not come from Abraham. For if the great Abraham had created this Being the religion would be proven false. It would be a creation and not Creation.

If you had a revelation tomorrow, which I doubt you will, I will not hold you as a "messenger" mainly because of your previous life, action, and words. You would be a person inspired--true, but certainly not one credible for me to accept as a follower. How would this Voice change your life? How pure are your intentions? How would it cause you to live your life in accordance with previous works, and the ways of people in general? How would it affect their hearts and minds? Will you abrogate previous laws or reinforce them? Most importantly, How will you describe HIM? Merely proclaiming you have heard is not enough to be accepted, and sarcastic and satirical inventions are not enough to discredit.


Now as for that quote: By all means, if you understand Him criticize Him. I do not know or understand fully His ways, so I cannot attribute anything.

For one thing, see beyond the actions: What purpose was behind the stories? For instance, if you only reflect on the destruction of Sodom while dismissing that it was a cruel city, then the meaning is lost on you. I hear people criticize the Book of Job for this very reason: He could never do such a thing! Such a Creator is EVIL! Yet, the story when understood by its intention, sounds louder than anything on earth. How could He ever allow the Holocaust? Yet, why are there still believers, even amongst the survivors?

On this very reason I insist on not trying to make people understand because it is not my task. If you do not believe, chances are you will not and such a discussion on religion will be vain. It is vain talk and that is something one, or rather I, should not partake. I've no intention in converting you. Do not confuse me for one who does.

I'm not shoving my beliefs down anyone's throat. I am, however, insisting that others do not do this to me. Maybe you're not, in fact, doing this because we are two people voluntarily performing in a message board debate. How about my parents who raised me to be a Christian? How about the local Christian group who lured me in with talk of songs and games and fun and then proceeded to make me watch a video about someone going to hell that gave me nightmares? How about the friends I used to have before I publicly declared myself an atheist? Are my rights as an atheist not being persecuted by all of this somehow? Am I totally on the offensive or are religious people forcing me to defend myself?

Ruling out emotions is useful when trying to determine fact. Emotions are really awful at determining fact. Therefore, I consider them invalid when determining fact. Religion asserts facts about the nature of the universe and boasts supernatural claims, all the while relying on emotion to do this so I reject it because it is not factually proving anything and is relying upon emotion to cloud the issue. The emotionally arrived at opinion on the nature of the universe and supernatural elements within it of one is not always the emotionally arrived at opinion on the nature of the universe of another. There is no implication that either one of them is right. The Earth rotates around the Sun and Heaven and Hell are not literally up and down from us, which are things science has proven that religion had wrong for most of recorded history. Religious truths are therefore lesser than and less valid than scientific truths because the former is positively PROUD of having no proof, calling it faith, whereas the other INSISTS upon proof.

You do not know or understand fully his ways eh? Then why worship him? Seriously. If you do not know or understand fully his ways, that's a really big flaw in your argument. You may be content with mystery, but not knowing a thing is not romantic, it is not spiritual, and it is not impressive in the least. All it is is not knowing a thing. I could claim all this not fully understanding nonsense about the Flying Spaghetti Monster just the same and it would have as much argumentative validity as what you're saying does, which should give you an idea how silly your argument sounds.

As for his actions in the Bible, you want to avoid that, just so you know. You want to claim that God was out of his mind or something in the Old Testament and then he came to his senses in the new, as many moderate Christians do. This will get you out of explaining why exactly he felt the need to pull a cruel practical joke on Abraham involving nearly having attempt to murder his son. To prove his faith? How cruel and sadistic! Downright barbaric! What were you supposed to do to someone found working on the Sabbath in the Old Testament? Why stone them! Disobedient children? Stone them! How compassionate and holy! This "mysterious" old world idea of a God you're so serenely confident in is a psychopathic monster that, were I not an atheist, would quite depress me if he really existed.

-Frank

All I can put down is I myself am not Fundamentally Religious or Fundamentally Athiest as I compare the two in extremes. I don't believe in a either and or. So I probally lean toward a belief which is not from a book but from a thought in question.

As for dissproving, one word that comes into mind is converting. Converting one to a certain religion as to one converting Religion to facts and figures.

Theology or a belief in something is not a question of facts and figures but a question of faith and thought. For me, it is the ultimate mystery that can never be answered in this world.

Would that reason be that everybody's talking but nobody's listening?

^Everybody's talking about it
I don't hear a word they say....

Sorry I just had to post those lyrics in since it reminded me of that song.

I don't believe in things without evidence. The purpose of the FSM (Flying Spaghetti Monster) and invisible unicorn arguments is to show how epistemologically dubious the notion of "God" is. "God" is just as much an figment of the human mind as the FSM is, the only difference is that the notion of "God" developed slowly out of superstitious animism and people actually believe in it, but that doesn't change the fact that "God" is epistemologically the same as the FSM.

I like you.

Thanks, very few people do.

And that's purest ever hypocrisy !
On one hand you and all other missionary atheists here claim that you believe only in things that can be scientifically proven - on the other hand you say that Dawkins has PROVEN religions wrong ! Sorry - but that's religion, what you are posting there ! You have appointed Dawkins as prophet of your atheist religion you decided to believe in.
I did not read his latest atheist bible completely to the end - it just made me bored, it's not even intelligent, it's just a neverending and loathing repetition of BS heard and read a hundred times. BS because he (and you followers) argue religion from a mindset that firstly has a flawed concept of religion and secondly tries to understand God from a pure human reasoning - which is bound to failure.

Don't get me wrong - I respect if somebody decides to be atheist, I said that in my previous post and I say it again. An argument between an atheist mindset and a religious mindset on who is right or wrong is totally meaningless because the atheist and religious way of thinking are very contrary, incompatible - neither right nor wrong, just different approaches and reasoning.

As for the claim that religious people are forcing religion down other's throats: Well - that unfortunately does happen. Religion should be treated and educated as an invitation, and for christianity that certainly is the basic consensus of what Jesus Christ tought us - an invitiation to us human beings, not a force. But if people still are forcing others into their religion it is not the religion's fault, it's a human fault !
It's a human fault !
It's a human fault !
Three times because you can't say it often enough ! If human beings are going on war, are suicide bombers, terrorists, witch hunters, murderers etc in the name of religion this is not a religious thing, it is a flawed concept of the religion or a purely unreligious quest for power, money, resources. It is not within the nature of religion - it is the nature of human beings, face it !Blaming that all on religion is painting a wrong picture of the human nature (and Dawkins is doing that constantly) !

Back on forcing your own beliefs down others' throats (and back to hypocrisy):
This thread started with a post I quote as follows:

Now - the opener states that religious people are delusional and NEED (not only CAN, no - NEED!) to be cured, soul by soul. The atheist opener claims that religous people are sick and MUST be cured, for the planet's sake. So tell me - who is forcing his believings down whom's throat ?
What I want to say is - again it is human nature ! Forcing down blievings other's throats is a flawed part of human nature, no matter if religious or atheist.
Taking those things to try and "disprove" or blame religion as evil is pointless.

We have to face that there are two different concepts:

Pure scientific/anti-religious:
- I only believe what I can see, measure, explain mathematically. This world is pure chemistry, consciousness and personality are pure chemistry, both end with biological death. Feelings and consciousness are delusions caused by chemistry.

Religious:
- I accept the existence of an all-encompassing entity (or entities), which is on a level that simply cannot be conceptualized, understood, reasoned, proven or disproven within the limits of human mind, that only is comprehensible by faith. It only is comprehensible when you open your mind in a mindset that accepts the un-understandable, allmighty, eternal, all-encompassing and is not limited by your own radius of experience.

Any argument between those two hemispheres must - by definition - fail.


Rossi

Dawkins does not prove religion is wrong, but that it is nonsense. This simply means that the holy books do not hold up to scrutiny or critical thinking. It's true that science cannot disprove anything but just because a thing cannot be disproven does not necessarily mean that thing is likely. The burden of proof remains on the shoulders of the theists because they are the ones making extraordinary claims.

If God cannot not be understood by human reasoning then you've admitted more than you realize. You've admitted there's no reason to worship God. After all, human reasoning is the only reasoning we've got and if it's impossible to make an informed decision or even an educated guess about which religion to pick, then the choice is random and meaningless. Picking on emotional wishful thinking is just as unreliable as a completely random choice, but it makes us feel better, which of course does not make any of it true.

Religious reasoning can lead to all the religions that have ever been. Many of these religions involve the others being wrong. They can't all be right. There needs to be some manner of objectively figuring out which religions are nonsense and which aren't and religious reasoning isn't up to the task. It will just tell you that your religion is right and the others are infidels at worst and misguided sheep who lost their way and need to be converted at best. Religious reasoning has led to witch trails, the crusades, and the Spanish Inquisition. Scientific reasoning has led to modern medicine, humanity going into space, and the mentally ill being treated like patients instead of like demon possessed subhumans. There is a clearly inferior reasoning method in that comparison.

-Frank

You'll accept the Norse gods without even thinking about it, but reject the Christian god with equal and opposite force? this isn't logical. What is it about Norse mythology that maks it so palatable for atheists?

In my experience, atheists tend to just look at Norse mythology as interesting and claim belief in it to make a satirical point. Mainly that Christians and other believers in popular modern religions will suddenly be the ones arguing at them that their gods don't exist and they're being silly and irrational.

Presuming their belief in the Norse gods is sincere, I would say that it would probably be more palatable because it's less pretentious. Odin and Thor don't claim to be good so much as they claim to be ultimate warriors and very powerful. So there's no need to argue how evil could exist in the world. Odin and Thor aren't powerful enough to stop forces like Loki and the fire giants. Fair enough. Try arguing that God isn't powerful enough to stop Satan. Yeah, that's a little messier isn't it?

-Frank