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Originally posted by JPJH Faith my friend...the very idea to believe in something that is not there..for you do not have all the answers and surely even you know that..Faith lets all of us have the ability to grow and learn how to live in this world in a manner that is just..

The only viable belief for someone who does understand that they don't have all the answers is exactly agnosticism. Faith is merely a guessing game, you could have faith in absolutely anything, and no one faith is more justifiable than the other. Faith is merely the refusal to accept one's ignorance.

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Do you blame your father for all your wrong doings...Do you think it is your fathers responsibility to teach you every little thing about life..seriously there wouldn't be enough time in the world and you would probably wind up hating your own father cause he sometimes couldn't give you all the answers..i'm sure sometimes he has said things you didn't want to hear..but he did it for your sake..i would hope that it is you who recognized what your actions were and as a good human being realized there would be consequences and eventually learn from those very mistakes..and if you do point the finger at everyone around you for your mistakes then surely you would be a coward..

Since it is impossible to know what is wrong and right (being that no objective evidence exists to support any position), I certianly cannot know whether what I'm doing is wrong or right. I don't blame anyone for any mistakes I might be making, but I do blame anyone who would judge me based upon those mistakes, considering I had no way of knowing better other than simply guessing correctly, which is hardly a reasonable standard by which to evaluate the contents of a person's character.

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without faith and hope on earth i could clearly see this world coming to an end..so believe what you want..

Believe what you will, but I suspect faith is far more likely to cause the end of the world than its absence. Faith discourages critical thought and leads to poor decision-making. That's why our prisons contain a higher degree of theists than atheists compared to the general population. Also, from a historical perspective, theocratic governments have traditionally been far more volatile and prone to hasty and ill-considered action than those which have separated themselves from issues of faith.

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it's simple and you sound like a smart person..if you don't believe in God then basically you don't believe in your own family..

Don't get me wrong, I can respect people who choose to place faith in things that I see as ludicrous. They might be doing so for any number of reasons, and I would no more pass judgment on them for doing so than I would want them to pass judgment on me for choosing not to. But for me, the issue is really simple: I could sacrifice the freedom I have as an agnostic, and give up doing things I desire to do, and I would gain the peace of mind of knowing that if God does exist, I probably would be in his good graces. But nothing means more to me than freedom. I cannot relinquish it without evidence - strong evidence, that it is necessary.

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Originally posted by Arbiter The only viable belief for someone who does understand that they don't have all the answers is exactly agnosticism. Faith is merely a guessing game, you could have faith in absolutely anything, and no one faith is more justifiable than the other.

true...faith is a confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person or idea..i could care less if you have faith in a boot..but the very fact that you have faith ensures confidence that you will trust and value that boot..now think..you know as well as i do that a person feels much better knowing that they can trust SOMETHING other than themselves..hence having faith makes a person feel good..so why not feel good..

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Faith is merely the refusal to accept one's ignorance.

so what your saying is..and correct me if i'm wrong..a person who has faith refuses to accept he is uneducated(doesn't know everything)..uhh the reason why people have faith is because they admit that they don't know everything..that they are powerelss..Example..People could have enough confidence to BELIEVE that a boot is the TRUTH..which admits they aren't...hence they have faith in the boot..even to have confidence is a great feeling..but it is even better to have confidence in the TRUTH...its sad that some people may believe a boot is the truth..

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Since it is impossible to know what is wrong and right (being that no objective evidence exists to support any position), I certianly cannot know whether what I'm doing is wrong or right. I don't blame anyone for any mistakes I might be making, but I do blame anyone who would judge me based upon those mistakes, considering I had no way of knowing better other than simply guessing correctly, which is hardly a reasonable standard by which to evaluate the contents of a person's character.

do you really even believe that mambo jambo..those feelings deep inside your body or what believers call your soul justifies right and wrong..fact: when you do something nice you feel good..fact: when you do something wrong you feel bad..and please don't tell me we were all programmed to believe our governments and surroundings justify what
is right and wrong..even if that was the case don't you think they would want only the good out of life..i know if you killed someone you wouldn't feel good inside and the government would throw your butt in jail..just because a person comes from a home of violence and poverty doesn't mean when they are older they will be the same..my point is everyone has their own minds and can believe what ever they choose to any extent..the fact that a person has feeling lets them decide what is right and wrong for themselves..just think how cold the world would be without FEELINGS..

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Believe what you will, but I suspect faith is far more likely to cause the end of the world than its absence. Faith discourages critical thought and leads to poor decision-making. That's why our prisons contain a higher degree of theists than atheists compared to the general population. Also, from a historical perspective, theocratic governments have traditionally been far more volatile and prone to hasty and ill-considered action than those which have separated themselves from issues of faith.

so so silly..a person has the CHOICE to BELIEVE what they want
regardless of their religion..Most people I know are born into a religion they know nothing about..i'll bet you this..all these thiests in jail don't have an incling about their religion..and the ones that do probably realized the FACT that they have hit rock bottom..and came to the finite conclusion from their own WRONG doings that their FAITH was established in prison..

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Don't get me wrong, I can respect people who choose to place faith in things that I see as ludicrous. They might be doing so for any number of reasons, and I would no more pass judgment on them for doing so than I would want them to pass judgment on me for choosing not to. But for me, the issue is really simple: I could sacrifice the freedom I have as an agnostic, and give up doing things I desire to do, and I would gain the peace of mind of knowing that if God does exist, I probably would be in his good graces. But nothing means more to me than freedom. I cannot relinquish it without evidence - strong evidence, that it is necessary.

Many people see God as the truth therefore that is where their faith lies..just because there are millions of followers of God makes topics like these very tempermental..i agree that no one on earth shall judge any other person for what they believe is the truth..for it is the truth that shall judge the people of on earth..even if they believe the truth is a boot..

this topic could go on for eternity but i think we both understand each other a little..everyone has the choice to believe what they want..i for one respect everybody and thank you for your insight and may GOD bless you..hehe

Last edited by JPJH on Oct-10-2002 at 20:24

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Originally posted by dj_nomiz yet... the theory of human evolution has not been proven right, time and time again, the findings of bones thousands of years ago has been found to be NOT linked to humans...

Of course they are linked to humans. They are the closest thing you can get to being human, without actually being homo sapien sapien. If that isn't good enough evidence, I don't know what is. What more do people want.

Of course you can't prove human macroevolution. Its impossible to prove, just like its impossible to prove there is a god, but so far, everything fits. So far, it hasn't been disproven, and if you take higher level science, you realize that everything makes sense because of evolution. From genetics, population dynamics, ecology, labotory medicine, we owe it all to the theory of evolution. It is the foundation of all biological sciences, hence its the first thing taught in biology when you get to university.

Evolution can be seen. Take a simple example: antibiotics are introduced to a population of bacteria, most die, but some possess a gene making them immune to the antibiotic. These guys survive and reproduce, passing on this gene to their offspring. In time, all bacteria without this gene will die, and the entire population will be immune to antibiotics. In other words, the bacteria have evolved to become immune to the antibiotic. This is evolution in action, it is quick because bacteria reproduce so quickly.

Now replace bacteria with humans, and immunity to antibiotics with things like bipedalism, and ability to make tools for survival. We can't observe it like bacteria because of how long we take to reproduce, plus the different selective pressures acting upon us. But of course we're gonna change as a population in millions of years.

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First of all, thanks for that comment davinox

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Michael - an athiest/agnostic does not deny the possibility of the existance of divine beings, just the idea that humans know what these divine beings are like, and hence can have a relationship with them.

I see your point, but agnostics should try and discover what the divine beings are to the best of their ability. Obviously you can't know for certain, but it can never hurt you as a person to believe in a religion like Christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc., or at least follow it, whether you believe or not.

And I think agnostics should not stop looking... I don't think its right to simply conclude that you can't know. If that stays your opinion, fine, but at least question what's around you.

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All of the thousands of religions in the history of the earth were created by man, therefore, it is logical to assume that us humans have no friggin clue of the divine beings. Thats what they are 'divine', out of our reach.

Yes and no... Not all religions are man-made. Whether you believe that or not is another story, but at least recognize that some religions "claim" to have come from God. But some religions were made up, like Hinduism. That doesn't necessarily mean that it's a bad, since a lot of what Hindus believe is good.

Buddhism is a lot like what you proposed though. Buddha thought any speculation about the divine was useless... he just thought one should try their best to attain salvation through their own means. Of course after Buddhism went mainstream the meaning became worse... kinda like music

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In the same regard you can't discount the fact that there is a possibility that all of this was constructed by sheer chance. Keep in mind that over 15 billion years a LOT can happen due to sheer randomness. Maybe one of the reasons why everything around us is so perfect, intricate, and beautiful in complexity is because everything that wasn't has died out over the course of billions of years. That through natural selection, everything around us has managed to survive through adaptation and propogation. When you think about it our planet is littered with the fossil mistakes in life. The things that weren't nearly as perfect as what has survived. I do believe in God ... a higher being of some kind ... but I think people tend to attribute many things around us as "God's work" due to ignorance and a lack of understanding. The fact is ... science has explained or will explain the origins of everything around us up until the very beginning of the universe. The only thing that I would possibly concede as God's work is the initial creation of the universe.

Good point... there is a possibility, but I don't see how things can just randomly happen unless moved by some other force. I find it extremely hard to believe how matter can just fly together randomly to create an atom. When you look at the complexity of the quantum mechanical model of the atom, and the fact that there are trillions of identical atoms... I just don't buy the random idea.

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The evolution of plants and animals ridiculous? This is something that has been proven time and time again.

When did I say that was ridiculous?

And please tell me where evolution contradicts any aspect of Catholicism? Since the Catholic Church teaches evolution I find it hard to believe that there is any contradiction going on.

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I think believing that some THING which no one has seen for who knows how long, some all-powerful father figure spirit in love with everybody, being everywhere at once and watching everyone is much more ridiculous......

And who said that this was my idea of God? Of course God loves everyone, but not in the flowery human emotion kind of way.

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The beauty of this world? Sure it might be beautiful to you, only because you don't know any better, and have never known any different. In the scale of the universe, this planet could be the asshole of the galaxy.....

Talk about not understanding... there's more to beauty than looking pretty. The asshole of the galaxy? Maybe, but that's irrelevant. I was talking about things like an atom. We've come a long way but there's still far to go in our understanding. And looking at what we've come up with is actually beautiful, in a different sense of the word than what you're used to.

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Since it is impossible to know what is wrong and right (being that no objective evidence exists to support any position), I certianly cannot know whether what I'm doing is wrong or right. I don't blame anyone for any mistakes I might be making, but I do blame anyone who would judge me based upon those mistakes, considering I had no way of knowing better other than simply guessing correctly, which is hardly a reasonable standard by which to evaluate the contents of a person's character.

But there is Natural Law... you feel guilty when you do something morally bad, don't you? Do you not have a consience? And judging people is of course wrong.

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Believe what you will, but I suspect faith is far more likely to cause the end of the world than its absence. Faith discourages critical thought and leads to poor decision-making. That's why our prisons contain a higher degree of theists than atheists compared to the general population. Also, from a historical perspective, theocratic governments have traditionally been far more volatile and prone to hasty and ill-considered action than those which have separated themselves from issues of faith.

The problem here is the people, not the religion... just because you "believe" doesn't mean you're a good person. A person can be a catholic, get arrested, and then show up as a Catholic on a prison survey. But does this person believe? or understand anything about the faith? Or practice it? Probably not. So I really think that there's more athiests in jail, whether they proclaim themselves as one or not.

The historical perspective is questionable. Was the early Roman Empire a theocracy? Strictly speaking, no. But pagan worship was a mandatory part of the empire and the people were very immoral. The empire prospered for a while, but eventually it caught up, and if you look at the reasons for the fall you'll see that this "worship" and the immorality played a big role in all of the empire's problems and its final collapse.

In other scenarios, religious extremists that don't really understand the faith are to blame. The general population doesn't have a good understanding, and as a result are mislead. There's a ton of examples, but the only one I can think of right now isn't too appropriate to my exact argument but useful nevertheless. After Christianity was made legal in Rome, it was soon forced down people's throats (not a good thing!). It came to the point where conquering tribes would kill anyone they conquered if they did not convert. The idea was that everyone should believe so they all go to Heaven. That is of course ridiculous. An aspect of the faith was taken and twisted into something it should not have been. The intentions were probably good, but still, in the end, wrong.

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Originally posted by Michael Russo Good point... there is a possibility, but I don't see how things can just randomly happen unless moved by some other force. I find it extremely hard to believe how matter can just fly together randomly to create an atom. When you look at the complexity of the quantum mechanical model of the atom, and the fact that there are trillions of identical atoms... I just don't buy the random idea.

Matter doesn't just fly together. Every single peice of matter has mass, no matter how small it is. So as basic particles come close to one another they stand the chance of catching one another with their gravity. What's the most abundant atom in the universe? It's no mistake that it's hydrogen, the simplest of elements, which is composed of just 2 particles that attract each other. Hydrogen atoms then attract other atoms that build on themselves and become other atoms of heavier elements. You ask why there isn't more diversity if everything was random ... well you can see the randomness of nature with the multitude of different molecules and compounds formed from these atoms. However the basic elements are the same because of physics. Everything is composed of the 124 or whatever elements on periodic table. These elements are produced in stars by nuclear fusion. Stars are essentially composed of hydrogen atoms. So if you think about it ... hydrogen made life, the planet, the universe, etc. not God. Now as to what sparked the initial creation of matter or what created the laws of physics such as mass having gravity nobody knows. It could be God, or it could be science yet to be discovered. Like I said before ... everything we see around us is pretty much science. As to the absolute starting point of everything I see that as God's work.

A lot of people don't realize what kind of effect time has on a lot of things. What's the possiblity of a complex set of intelligent, living organisms arising from the most basic particle? Very very small. But multiply that probability by billions of years and the liklihood of it happening is actually pretty good. Just think back to that popular analogy of the age of the earth as a clock. The beginning of the Earth is at 12:00:01 am and Earth in the present is 11:59:59pm. I think it was that the human era on Earth started at 11:59 and 33 seconds pm. Now the universe itself is much much older than Earth. Think about how much time has passed for complexity to arise out of sheer randomness.

Last edited by occrider on Oct-11-2002 at 04:12

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How come when you talk to God, you are praying, but when God talks to you, you're a schitzophrenic?

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alright this discussion sounds more like my philosophy lecture with determinism and whatnot...my question:

(and i know im late to this discussion) why must one follow an organized structure of *human* founded religion?

one can argue that there is more than, or less than what we see out there - but why would God be something we can even HOPE to comprehend? every religion on earth is faulted by the fact that HUMANS arranged and explained it...you cant honestly believe that if there is a higher being, it subscribes ONLY to what we understand!!




??

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Originally posted by Michael Russo But there is Natural Law... you feel guilty when you do something morally bad, don't you? Do you not have a consience? And judging people is of course wrong.

The feeling of guilt you describe has a twofold source. First there is the species/survivalist aspect: a species is more likely to succeed if its members don't harm the species as a whole. Thus, those species that developed a feeling of 'guilt' when they did something destructive to the larger group would be more succesful, and the trait would naturally propogate itself. The second reason is anthropological: when you grow up being told something is wrong, you internalize it, and not only believe it, but feel it as well.

Personally, my feeling of guilt requires a victim. If I have harmed someone, then yes, I will most certainly feel guilty. But something like drinking, or premarital sex, no, I wouldn't feel guilty, because I wouldn't believe that I would have a reason to.

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The problem here is the people, not the religion... just because you "believe" doesn't mean you're a good person. A person can be a catholic, get arrested, and then show up as a Catholic on a prison survey. But does this person believe? or understand anything about the faith? Or practice it? Probably not. So I really think that there's more athiests in jail, whether they proclaim themselves as one or not.

You could be right. I'm sure that most of the theists in prison don't really practice their religion properly. It's not so much for intelligent people, but when someone is already a poor decision maker, making the distinction between places where it's appropriate to think critically and places where faith is acceptable is more difficult.

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The historical perspective is questionable. Was the early Roman Empire a theocracy? Strictly speaking, no. But pagan worship was a mandatory part of the empire and the people were very immoral. The empire prospered for a while, but eventually it caught up, and if you look at the reasons for the fall you'll see that this "worship" and the immorality played a big role in all of the empire's problems and its final collapse.

A valid example. I was probably overgeneralizing: religion can be beneficial for a government in some cases and detrimental in others. I think a government can be stable without religious influence, however, and adding religion would likely make it more volatile - it could improve its function or be disastrous, and the long term effects would likely fluctuate.

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In other scenarios, religious extremists that don't really understand the faith are to blame. The general population doesn't have a good understanding, and as a result are mislead. There's a ton of examples, but the only one I can think of right now isn't too appropriate to my exact argument but useful nevertheless. After Christianity was made legal in Rome, it was soon forced down people's throats (not a good thing!). It came to the point where conquering tribes would kill anyone they conquered if they did not convert. The idea was that everyone should believe so they all go to Heaven. That is of course ridiculous. An aspect of the faith was taken and twisted into something it should not have been. The intentions were probably good, but still, in the end, wrong.

Very true. Religion in its purest form usually completely harmless. The problem is that it lends itself to being used to manipulate people into doing extreme things, which is not good.

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The only viable belief for someone who does understand that they don't have all the answers is exactly agnosticism. Faith is merely a guessing game, you could have faith in absolutely anything, and no one faith is more justifiable than the other. Faith is merely the refusal to accept one's ignorance.

Personally, I am struggling to come to grips with your interpretation of agnosticism.

A lot of agnostics believe that they are more "enlightened" in a sense, because they refuse to subscribe to any "dogmatic" system of belief - i.e. any theistic system or, conversely, any atheistic system. The logic (correct me as I'm wrong) is that, as we are unable know with any degree of certainty how the universe began, that we can then use that as a launching pad to suggest that knowledge in either sense (the existence or non-existence of God) is impossible. Quite simply put, the agnostic position is one that denies the possibility of knowledge.

So in a sense (a very philosophical sense) I do agree with this notion of "untranscendable subjectivity" - that is to say the impossibility of objective or absolute knowledge. However, the agnostic position (particularly your version of it) seems to be suggesting that atheism requires as much faith as a position of theism which, as I see it, is missing the point somewhat.

Atheism simply constitutes a "disbelief" in the notion of God. Nothing about atheism states with any certainty that "there is definately no God", rather, to be in atheist is merely to say: "given everything I have experienced, I have experienced nothing that would positively indicate the existence of any deity". Thus there is no faith in this position anymore than there is faith in most other negative, ontological/metaphysical statements. Scepticism (or lack of faith) is the opposite of faith. For me to say "that chair does not exist" is to make a negative ontological claim, and marks a position of scepticism rather than a position of faith. You may argue that it requires faith to deny the existence of that chair, but then I'd argue how? Such a negative ontological claim requires the denial of faith in our senses, not faith in anything specific. To deny the existence of that chair - or of that God - requires the exact opposite of faith, namely scepticism.

The point of all this is merely to show that it requires no faith (or no faith in any particular piece of knowledge) to become an atheist, and thus the position of agnosticism - insofar as agnosticism is the rejection of possibility of knowledge with such regards to such things - is not really all that different from atheism. As I say, no atheist claims to "know", or have "faith in" the fact that God doesn't exist, because it takes no knowledge or faith to make a negative ontological claim. In fact, we're all born atheists: it's the default position. From this perspective then, we can see how atheism and agnosticism are really the same thing: both make negative-ontological claims, both deny the existence of a God. In fact there are only two differences between real agnoticism and real atheism.

The first is that atheism simply marks the present disbelief in a deity, without attempting to predict future circumstances that would either bolster or refute this stance. That is, an atheist may still concede the possibility of an existence of God, although he will also say that any evidence that would point towards the existence of a God is still forthcoming. An agnostic however states that there is no way of knowing whether God exists or not. Thomas Huxley - the man who coined the term "agnosticism" - introduced it as a means of suggesting that we know nothing of first cause, and that first cause is, in-itself, entirely unknowable. Therefore, the agnosticism presented by Huxley (as the man who coined it) is one who rejects any possibility of knowing whether or not God exists. It's not a "sitting on the fence" stance as many believe, but rather a rejection of all knowledge, both theistic and scientific, that would allow us to know how the universe began with any certainty. Therefore, as I see it, agnosticism is a more extreme - possibly more dogmatic - form of atheism rather than a more mild form as many may suspect.

Remember, the agnosticism proposed by Huxley didn't just say that we have no knowledge of First Cause, it stated that it is completely unknowable. Your position may well be different from this, Arbiter, but then I would argue that you aren't really an agnostic then, merely an atheist.

There was something else that I wanted to say as well, but I've completely forgotten what it was now. :-/

Anyway, hope that was enlightening for everyone.....

I can see both discourses: scientific and religious (referring to 'established' religions) as inherently flawed to some degree.
For the record personally I believe in "an intelligence" responsible for creation, for reasons that I won't go into here.

PS - Who said the quality of posts around here was declining?

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ok, i tried to discuss the existence of god in a different way.
but it's all come back to science and the creation of the universe.
well , fuck that.
even if we would never know, it's very stupid to believe that this being , if there is one, want us to do all that stuff, and it has feeling like human's(love, phhh, if god love's you, why he doesn't let you live your life how you want?)
i say, if god want us all to be jew's he would say so , or do something,
same goes to christion's and islam.
religion is a base for war's and murder's.
and its not just in the past.
it's true for today too, the islam uses religion to convince people to suicide bombing by telling them they would have 70 vergion's in heaven, and they name will never be forgotten as shaid's who died in the name of god.
if god gave us choice, then i choose to live my life my way.
then he can't tell me nothing when i come to heaven right?
he fucking gave me the choice.
if he told me i dont have a choice, then it was ok.
some of you told me to go too see someone who understand.
understand what?
if there is god?
can he prove it to me?
he can't , jewish rabay's try to explain by taking stuff from the bible, and the zohar book(i dont know what is name in english)
like a sceintific fact today that was writen in the book.
but for all of this there are reasonable explination's.
like some of the facts are astronomic fact's.
what they dont tell us is that the acient babilon and the greek and all the other's, had the talls to find out allmost everything there is.
the jewish just took it from them and wrote it in the bible like god said them.
and another stuff like geometry and jumps and stuff.
and its all found out to be bullshit.
cause you can find anything in those way's. they only took what they want's.
i had enough talking cause its all proven from history and sceince.
take what you want.
believe that god loves you.
i dont care.
but don't tell me im stupid that i dont believe.
if you so sure there is god, why dont try living in a taliban countrey, like iran or something.
this is fun.

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