The worst thing about religion

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greenblue
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19 Aug 2008, 9:24 pm

corroonb wrote:

If that is true, then you don't hold logically consistent views.

Why do you not believe in God?

Orwell believes in God. He is correct if he is not mistaken (delusion). If he is not delusional, then you are holding a delusional belief and you are insane.

Either you are correct and this belief is false or Orwell is correct and this belief is true. There is no equivocating in this issue.

Well, I said informal anyway, and the term would be subjective anyway, mostly related to disagreement regarding social issues as I stated from my part, so yes, the inconsistent is there and I am at fault at that, if we want to be more propper and accurate.

Ok, in order to be more formal on who deserves to be called delusional and not, technically speaking, you cannot say a person is delusional for believing in God, because his state of existence as well for un-existence cannot be proved, you cannot get any evidence for either way.

A more correct reference to a person to be delusional, in my opinion, would be one who believes in something, that it is well known a fact that it doesn't exist, for example, one person can claim he is Superman and that he can fly, he is so certain that he tries and dies.

Another person might feel like he is being watched and persecuted, that someone is trying to kill him for example, might believe his friends and family are conspiracing against him, you would consider the person to be delusional, if that is untrue, it is based in a fact that can be tested and proved.

Believing in something that cannot be proved, then, technically that would not fall into the definition of Delusional.

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Last edited by greenblue on 19 Aug 2008, 9:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

corroonb
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19 Aug 2008, 9:29 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

corroonb wrote:

Infinity is not an issue. I don't why you think that proves God exists. Space is infinite and time could also be infinite. I am agnostic on this issue. I do not have sufficient information to make an informed decision.

You haven't proven that space is infinite, and time is certainly a different issue than space, as for an eternal universe, we would have to have an infinite sequence of events before this one, that would take an infinite amount of time. An infinite amount of time is impossible to traverse, this is a problem. Not only that but no matter how much time passes, the time in the past remains infinite. The entire concept soon becomes nonsensical. Finally, where is the initial cause? Where did this infinity come from?

You haven't proven that you are correct. I don't need to prove something I did not state.

I do not have enough knowledge to make an informed statement about the Big Bang singularity and about God's existence. This is fact. If I had sufficient information about God's existence, I would conclude that he does in fact exist. I don't have this information, so I don't make this conclusion.

I'll state this simply. I do not believe anything except that other minds exist.

I know a little. I know that I exist.

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19 Aug 2008, 9:32 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

corroonb wrote:

But who is traversing this distance to reach us? If time were like slots that God puts events in, and God had an infinity of slots (let's say they are labeled ...-3,-2,-1,0,1,2,3,...) and he put events in each one, would the universe not make sense somehow, just because we happen to be in the slot labeled 42?

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19 Aug 2008, 9:42 pm

i'm seeing a lot of saying the atheist is arrogant....but isn't it extremely arrogant to not only assume there's a god but also assume your specific god in the litany is correct?

i mean isn't the count somewhere in the hundreds as far as gods go? and then there's sects within different groups who say they're the true whatever.

seems kinda arrogant. especially in the face of no evidence beyond a desire to believe* and some really old books.

*this same desire to believe is abused on a more base level by "psychics" who claim they talk to the dead (aka, cold reading).

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19 Aug 2008, 9:47 pm

corroonb wrote:

You haven't proven that you are correct. I don't need to prove something I did not state.

But you have not proven that my idea of infinity is wrong, and in order to logically hold your position, you need to do so.

Quote:

I do not have enough knowledge to make an informed statement about the Big Bang singularity and about God's existence. This is fact. If I had sufficient information about God's existence, I would conclude that he does in fact exist. I don't have this information, so I don't make this conclusion.

ok.

twoshots wrote:

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

History or the universe or whatever other analogous concept you want to use is traversing this distance. If I am at point 42, points -infinity to 41 must first be traversed, that is an infinite number of points that must be traversed to reach my position, because of that my position could never be reached. My position however, has been reached, therefore there cannot be an infinite series of points in time before then.

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19 Aug 2008, 9:50 pm

skafather84 wrote:

i'm seeing a lot of saying the atheist is arrogant....but isn't it extremely arrogant to not only assume there's a god but also assume your specific god in the litany is correct?

I think it is more towards a specific atheist. I wouldn't say that this position you mention is arrogant, it is arrogant to think that others are delusional or whatever for not holding to that position though.

Quote:

seems kinda arrogant. especially in the face of no evidence beyond a desire to believe* and some really old books.

*this same desire to believe is abused on a more base level by "psychics" who claim they talk to the dead (aka, cold reading).

I would not say a metaphysical conclusion, save perhaps solipsism or perhaps a few others that I don't want to think about, really must be arrogant. Only the holders can choose to be.

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19 Aug 2008, 10:03 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

I'm not sure how to refute this from a perspective within the universe, but a perspective outside like my God analogy doesn't seem to have that problem. Assume for the sake of argument we have a Euclidean (t,x,y) space (which spacetime isn't). Each time t corresponds to an arrangement of matter in the x y plane. Every two dimensional monkey "perceives" themselves as moving through time, as their cognition is a function of the arrangement of stuff in the plane which is in term a function of time. Now, there is no substantial reason from God's perspective to view the time dimension differently from the space dimensions, so if we can have an infinity of space we can have an infinity of time. "Now" would just be a 2D cross section.

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19 Aug 2008, 10:03 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

skafather84 wrote:

i'm seeing a lot of saying the atheist is arrogant....but isn't it extremely arrogant to not only assume there's a god but also assume your specific god in the litany is correct?

Quote:

I would not say a metaphysical conclusion, save perhaps solipsism or perhaps a few others that I don't want to think about, really must be arrogant. Only the holders can choose to be.

to "know" your god is the right god is pretty arrogant when you look at the scope of everything.

i bypass that and just "know" all the world's gods are simply fictitious. not that i discount any potential for something...just not the various popular religions of the world (and the unpopular ones too....scientology and kabala, i'm looking at you).

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19 Aug 2008, 10:08 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

corroonb wrote:

You haven't proven that you are correct. I don't need to prove something I did not state.

But you have not proven that my idea of infinity is wrong, and in order to logically hold your position, you need to do so.

The argument is correct given your assumptions about time and the origin of the universe.

You are not saying that you have knowledge about the origin of the universe?

I have no position other than a negative one.

I do not have sufficient knowledge to make a judgment about the origin of the universe.

I also assume that you and other theists do not have sufficient knowledge. Therefore I assume that you and other theist are either lying or mistaken.

Is it arrogant to assume others do not possess sufficient knowledge?

I do not conclude that the cosmological argument is sufficient knowledge that god exists. I also do not have to prove that this argument is incorrect. I have insufficient evidence to say whether it is correct or not. I do not have to prove anything to anyone. If I made a statement about the origins of the universe, I would have to demonstrate sufficient knowledge.

In my opinion no one in this thread has demonstrated sufficient knowledge to justify the conclusion that god exists.

This does not make me an atheist. This is an agnostic principal.

In fact I think atheists are as bad as theists in assuming that god doesn't exist. However, I have more sympathy for their arguments than for the arguments of theists because they do not have a positive belief.

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19 Aug 2008, 10:16 pm

skafather84 wrote:

Well, still, this seems to just be an argument that the specificity of knowledge is arrogant, and I don't see why any bit of knowledge, no matter how specific, entails arrogance. I mean, if we were going to argue arrogance, then could it not be argued that the least held opinion on matters of religion is the most arrogant?

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19 Aug 2008, 10:17 pm

twoshots wrote:

Well, I think a perspective within the universe is the one that has to be refuted though, as the claims are made from the internal perspective rather than the external. I do understand that you are trying to make this into a grid, however, the issue is just that it also represents a sequence that must be traversed as well. Interestingly enough though, I think that this perspective allows for an infinite future simply because there is no necessary traversal of an infinite period of time with an infinite future.

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19 Aug 2008, 10:23 pm

corroonb wrote:

The argument is correct given your assumptions about time and the origin of the universe.

You are not saying that you have knowledge about the origin of the universe?

The knowledge about the origin of the universe is justified given the assumptions, which also seem justified based upon the nature of what we assume about.

Quote:

I do not have sufficient knowledge to make a judgment about the origin of the universe.

I also assume that you and other theists do not have sufficient knowledge. Therefore I assume that you and other theist are either lying or mistaken.

Why not? Our argument is correct if the assumptions are correct, and the assumptions are justifiable as well.

Quote:

Is it arrogant to assume others do not possess sufficient knowledge?

Unless you have cause to know that these others do not possess sufficient knowledge.

Quote:

I do not conclude that the cosmological argument is sufficient knowledge that god exists. I also do not have to prove that this argument is incorrect. I have insufficient evidence to say whether it is correct or not. I do not have to prove anything to anyone. If I made a statement about the origins of the universe, I would have to demonstrate sufficient knowledge.

Well, if you do not conclude that it is sufficient, there is room for another person to claim it is sufficient, which means that you have an incomplete system. If another person has a more complete system, then is it a problem if they also carry additional assumptions? I would think not, particularly if these included some continent assumptions and analyses. Because of that, I do not think you have enough knowledge to declare another person insane.

Quote:

In my opinion no one in this thread has demonstrated sufficient knowledge to justify the conclusion that god exists.

Ok, but I don't think there is a level of knowledge that you would accept as sufficient. I mean, theoretically, could there be a sufficient level of evidence for an individual to have to accept God? What would it be?

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19 Aug 2008, 10:34 pm

Quote:

I think there is a level of knowledge that I would consider sufficient. If someone says they believe in god and can demonstrate to me that god does exist, then I would have no choice.

Your argument does not demonstrate god's existence because I do not accept your assumptions as true or justified.

I do not think infinite causation is illogical or impossible. Your argument assumes that it is. Until such time as I possess sufficient knowledge of this topic, I can make no decisions about the truth or otherwise of the argument.

I am also not in the habit of "trusting or having faith" that the knowledge is others is of sufficient quality that their beliefs are justified. In my opinion (and yours?) the vast majority of people do this and are thus stupid. Unquestioning acceptance that the knowledge possessed by others is always of sufficient quality regardless of its plausibility is also stupid.

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19 Aug 2008, 10:45 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

But I think what's the issue here is that I can formulate a consistent interpretation of the universe which allows for an infinite past simply by changing the way I look at the universe. This suggests to me that the apparent impossibility of an infinite past is just a result of a flawed perspective rather than a property of the universe.

I mean, I'm just having trouble getting this notion of "traversed". There is a finite amount of time separating me from all events in the past even in a universe with no beginning. Therefore, there exists no event which has to "traverse" an infinite amount of time to get to me. I don't see any real contradictions here, it's just weird.

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19 Aug 2008, 10:49 pm

corroonb wrote:

I think there is a level of knowledge that I would consider sufficient. If someone says they believe in god and can demonstrate to me that god does exist, then I would have no choice.

Well, right, but the issue is that there must be a sufficient level of knowledge to do this.

Quote:

Your argument does not demonstrate god's existence because I do not accept your assumptions as true or justified.

Ok, and I would argue that this is a flaw of your mind.

Quote:

I do not think infinite causation is illogical or impossible. Your argument assumes that it is. Until such time as I possess sufficient knowledge of this topic, I can make no decisions about the truth or otherwise of the argument.

Right, however, it very much is illogical/impossible. I mean, your assumption is that an infinite amount of history has past to reach this point, however, an infinite period of time can never pass. This is blatantly a problem.

Quote:

I am also not in the habit of "trusting or having faith" that the knowledge is others is of sufficient quality that their beliefs are justified. In my opinion (and yours?) the vast majority of people do this and are thus stupid. Unquestioning acceptance that the knowledge possessed by others is always of sufficient quality regardless of its plausibility is also stupid.

Ok, but the issue is that the level of knowledge that another person has is also an unknown variable. I am in the habit of assuming that the knowledge of others is sufficient for their personal beliefs, just perhaps not universally justifiable. After all, I think it would be a flawed assumption to assume that a person's faculties were so flawed that they accepted and denied the truth at the same time, which means that their premises must be internally justified to lead to their conclusion. This can be noted from my idea of using the moral argument, I was not arguing that morals existed, but I think it is justifiable for an individual to think that morals existed and base an argument off of that premise.

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19 Aug 2008, 10:56 pm

Quote:

Your argument does not demonstrate god's existence because I do not accept your assumptions as true or justified.

Ok, and I would argue that this is a flaw of your mind.

OK. This is also an ad hominem and demonstrates an absurd degree of self-confidence.

If I am correct in not accepting the cosmological argument, then it is your mind that is flawed.

Do you really have such certainty that your belief in god is correct, that all those who choose not to share this belief are flawed/stupid/insane?

It follows that you consider all agnostics and atheists to be flawed/stupid/insane like me.

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