The worst thing about religion

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thats a good point. So its pretty obvious that people who believe in god are either insane, or gullible, or have been forced to believ it by gullible parents.

I would argue that illness does not objectively exist. In the case of religion however, you have a very mixed bag of attributes because most studies show believers as having better life expectancies if all variables are held constant. That is a concrete, non-abstract benefit. As well, I believe that psychologists think that religion can provide a secure place for believers, which although more abstract, is not less valid.


I don't have a god.


Not necessarily. Many gods can carry a lot of metaphysical and metaethical consequences that one does not have to accept. The bible arguably backs this view, but most say it doesn't. The "false gods" are usually considered by theologians to be idols rather than actual deities with any power. Creational monotheists however, can accept that these other beings are gods, instead of powerless idols, but still hold them subject to God as being his creations.


I don't really care what you think, I only care to prove that you are wrong, or foolish, or stupid in some form or fashion to other people. Frankly, I have long ago accepted that people are way too stupid to be worth trying to persuade. You'd likely sooner break their minds.

Hmm... um.... ok??? You really will have to refer back to some definition of insane in order to make your points. Really though, it seems to me that if most people are religious, like religion, consider it a cultural value, then the atheists must be insane for actually going against common opinion against their own self-interest.

Because you have yet to establish belief in God to be a false belief. Which simply leads us back to the generic debate on the existence or nonexistence of God, which certainly has been rehashed on the Internet often enough that we should just refrain from repeating it, unless you believe you have found a novel argument against theism.

Right, you really are not showing your great psychological talents.

The reason why it is not considered a delusion is because the belief does not have to be born of anything delusional. I mean, it isn't psychotic, it is incredibly common(believing things based upon the authority of others is very common within society), and it isn't unreasonable that some person will accept a religious apologetic as having some truth, or even find a meaningful correlation between something that happened to them, and the existence of some deity.

Besides, such a distinction as made there is meaningless. One who holds insane views must necessarily be insane.

Maybe, but golf is probably the biggest mental test you can face, in terms of any sport or activity. You are not just fighting against the weather, the golf course, and opponents, your fighting against yourself. Every even takes a lot of dedication.

yeah, so your a klutz in physical terms, and i'm a bit of one when it comes to theory.

Tiger Woods isn't just the greatest golfer ever, he's the greatest sportsman ever. If you aren't watching what he's doing now, at the peak of his powers, you are missing out. Its an honour to live in the same generation as him.

As I argued earlier against Ladygirl's similar claim, if we take God's existence as non-falsifiable, then it clearly can't be a delusion because you can't have evidence to disprove it.

Well one can hold insane ideas without necessarily being insane. Many psychotic people believe in God and have "experiences" of God. If they were ignorant of God, would they describe these experiences in such a way?

Belief in God without any evidence (other than other peoples' testimony) is not consistent with a logical approach to reality.

Why does God not "show" himself to us?

He talked to Moses and various other Biblical figures.

And if someone today claimed God "told" them to do this or that, would psychiatry regard such a person as insane?

its not your thread. And you've been worthless. You just started a thread you knew was goona explode, and then ran away.

It pretty much is, given that you are the one throwing around the term without much psychological or philosophical investigation.


Popularity is a good reason to believe something. Experiences can be as a number of people find their experience with a god to be positive. Apologetics can be considered a good reason. Being taught by an authority can be a good reason. It goes on and on, besides, you say "good reason" without really making a very strong epistemological argument. How are we to define good reason.


Ok, prove that you have good reason to believe that you have a mind and body, and THEN prove you have a good reason to believe that reason, and so on and so forth. I have already given you the regress argument, but I don't think you've even addressed it so much as tried to ignore it by asserting foundationalism.


Umm.... right. Mental illness isn't purely a matter of having false belief you know. In fact, a number of disorders aren't based so much upon perception of the world as they are upon responsive traits to it, such as anti-social behavior, paranoia, depression, addiction, and so on and so forth, so mental illness isn't just an epistemic trait as you seem to like to assert.

BWA HA HA HA HA HA!! !! If you think that, then you really have not studied the nature of cognitive biases. Because of cognitive biases nobody has a good epistemology but rather bad epistemologies with false positives, and if you have a bad epistemology that creates false positives, then you must have faith for faith certain includes the acceptance of a positive in spite of insufficient data. Therefore, everybody has faith.

Ok. I don't know what point you are getting at.


Why not? We believe things based upon the testimony of others all of the time. We can't know *everything* personally, so therefore other *have to be* trusted.

1st answer, he chooses not to. Religions tend to account for that.

The last part, no, not necessarily. Psychiatry would regard it as insane if the person were a danger to themselves or others, but there are millions of people who claim that god "told" them to do this or that. I even knew a girl who took this to the extreme and said that for a few weeks she was told what to do by an evil spirit. These things are way way too common in the human population to be regarded as insane.

I like that because I don't agree with your ideas that I am "ignorant" or "stupid". Very amusing ad hominem. I consider you to be insane and I think you have demonstrated that here and elsewhere.

Why believe in god? Is there any reason for this belief?

Any justification for holding these beyond the worthless concept of "faith"?

I don't deny the existence of God. I think the concept is essentially worthless. So worthless that it's barely worth discussing. If God does not interfere, advise, help, then why does he even exist? Does he have any effect on the world? If he exists, are natural disasters his fault?

I can assume that the theists will describe me as "stupid" and "ignorant" because all they have to defend their insanity are insults. It is pathetic and embarrassing for all of us.

It being an common delusion means nothing. Very poor argument. Argument from authority is a fallacy. As is ad hominem; implying that I am not intelligent. It is unreasonable to believe something if you have no experience of it. It is unreasonable and irrational.

What is the criteria for debunking god? I mean it seems the criteria always changes to try and keep the idea alive regardless of what kind of proof or evidence or tests are done.

I mean to make extraordinary claims, you need extraordinary evidence and I've yet to see such evidence. All I ever see is a call to ignorance as evidence/justification. Claims of "You don't know the origins of the world so I'm right", in essence. And I find that entirely unsatisfactory and unacceptable in the course of debate.

I totally agree with you. I think a lot of sane people would too, but trying to debate with these robots is like trying to talk to a brick wall. This debate could go on forever, we'd nether get anywhere, all it does is make them angry, cause they think they're right, and makes us even more angry, cause we know we're right. Its not worth arguing about, we'll just have the last laugh, when they die thinking they're going to heaven, or paradise

I think I would agree with this, golf definitely seems like a "thinking man's sport," has requires the consideration of many different factors, most notable perhaps would be physical dexterity. This is reason why, unlike sports that involve raw more strength, I would be interested in learning how to play.

Have you been playing for long?