froghawk on 11/2/2015 at 13:42
Quote Posted by faetal
Froghawk - I never said that religion is universally bad. If I thought that, I likely wouldn't have married a catholic. I do however think that a belief in a higher power and the afterlife are vectors for a lot of harmful instruction, if a trusted authority uses those beliefs to disseminate ideas which could cause non-altruistic behaviour, like e.g. homosexuals are perverts in the eyes of god etc...
Cool, fully agreed!
Yakoob on 12/2/2015 at 05:46
Fateal, since you're inquiring, I'll chime in with some of my religious upgringing experience (cause you can never have too nuch anecdotal evidence!). It's actually pretty similar to yours, sans the obsessive sister.
Bit of Background: Poland is really religious (90%+ are Christian) and it definitely manifests in our everyday beliefs and politics, something I never liked. There's actually radio station ("Radio Maryja") led by a priest that a lot of older folk listen to, and which can sway a lot of older voters. There actually was this say/movement by younger folks a few years back called "steal grammas papers" (so they can't vote).
That aside, my parents aren't really religious. We celebrate all the holidays and do all the rituals (like getting your basket of food blessed on easter), but it's always been more due to tradition than beliefs (again, Polish culture and religious traditions are very often intertwined). So I was never pressured to go into it, even tho I did go to a Christian kindergarden (tho probably because it was the closest/best one in the area, not because it was Christian).
Still, I was semi-religious because of the country and environment; as you pointed it's what you grow up with so it's what you believe in. Then I went through a really religious period, I was easily the most religious in my whole family. Pray every night, go to church sunday, all that stuff. But after 3 months I realized, "you know what? this isn't doing anything for me. I'm not feeling anything." I dropped all the attempts, and been an agnostic ever since.
(as an Epilogue, I have actually tried some Japanese Buddhist chanting a year ago when I was going through a really tough period. It was kind of nice for a bit, but moreso due to its meditative properties rather than any sense of spiritual enlightenment. I do not practice it anymore.)
faetal on 12/2/2015 at 09:04
I'm actually becoming less fond of the term atheism, not least because it is being co-opted by religious types who are trying to brand it as a religion or belief system, but mainly because it isn't logically plausible to believe in a negative. I don't believe there is no god. If asked to put money on it, I would bet that there are no gods or supernatural entities, at least in terms of how religion frames them, but that doesn't mean I *know* that to be the case. It's possible I guess to say that the natural laws of the universe are god, but that's largely a pointless semantic argument and certainly a last ditch bit of desperation for anyone arguing from a religious standpoint, given that most scripture anthrop/zoo-morphises such entities.
I'd say that there are just degrees of agnosticism, all the way from "I think it's likely that there is some sentience behind the universe, but I don't know or think we'll ever know what it is", all the way to my standpoint of "there is no way to know 100% if there is sentience behind the universe, but I'll assume there isn't unless faced with some form of compelling reason to believe differently". The latter is inherently posivitist, which I think is perfectly sensible given that the alternative usually begins with the assumption that [insert religion] is true and looks for (or in most cases, ignores or rationalises) evidence to the contrary. In my opinion, posivitism treats all religions equally while being religious inherently predisposes to one religion above all others, and 99% (or more) of the time, this just so happens to be the dominant religion of the region in which you are born, which is arbitrary.
To sum up, in the absence of compelling evidence to the contrary, I think it is more likely that humans created gods than vice versa. If nothing else, it fulfils Ockham's razor neatly. For humans to create god, all you need is pre-enlightenment imagination and the post-enlightenment ability to believe in something without evidence: check and check (the latter, often called faith, is even considered a virtue by some). For gods to create humans, you need orders of magnitude more leaps of logic.
faetal on 12/2/2015 at 11:52
One more comment I'll make, having just read (
http://www.opposingviews.com/i/religion/reactions-christian-bakery-owners-facing-discrimination-charges) THIS.
Notice how the people refusing to make a cake for a lesbian couple say they are doing so because of their
Christian beliefs (despite presumably not taking the rest of the Bible verbatim as a life code). Some people use their religion to excuse being an asshole. If an atheist is an asshole, then they're an asshole. People like this think they are doing something good and right and proper. The default go-to for many is "yes that's a dick thing to do, but we have to respect their beliefs".
The more truthful answer is "we're big fucking homophobes, but it's OK because we're Christians".
Azaran on 13/2/2015 at 03:46
Quote Posted by faetal
Notice how the people refusing to make a cake for a lesbian couple say they are doing so because of their
Christian beliefs (despite presumably not taking the rest of the Bible verbatim as a life code). Some people use their religion to excuse being an asshole. If an atheist is an asshole, then they're an asshole. People like this think they are doing something good and right and proper. The default go-to for many is "yes that's a dick thing to do, but we have to respect their beliefs". The more truthful answer is "we're big fucking homophobes, but it's OK because we're Christians".
Actually a lot of people are quite decent until they convert to an intolerant faith, then they become assholes. There has been a universal trend- with virtually no exceptions - that whenever and wherever Evangelical Christians gain significant numbers, things go very badly for everyone else:
(
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/afro-brazilian-religions-struggle-against-evangelical-hostility/2015/02/05/b6a30c6e-aaf9-11e4-8876-460b1144cbc1_story.html) Brazil
(
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2007/sep/06/african-evangelists-destroy-artifacts/?page=all) Nigeria
(
http://www.stephen-knapp.com/preaching_in_indias_northeast_for_cultural_preservation.htm) Northeast India
(
http://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=89,11172,0,0,1,0#.VN1wohZBqwU) South Korea
(
http://www.hafsite.org/media/pr/hhr09execsummary#Fiji) Fiji
(
http://www.hindujagruti.org/news/20613_nepal-protest-rally-demolition-shiva-temple.html) Nepal
And of course, the (
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2014/05/24/atheists-in-the-bible-belt-a-survival-guide/) US
The zeal of new converts is a motivating factor, which proves the capacity of intolerant faiths to corrupt good people
Gryzemuis on 13/2/2015 at 18:03
Quote Posted by faetal
I'm actually becoming less fond of the term atheism, ...
I do not believe in gnomes.
Does that make me a "agnomist" ?
Nope.
I do not believe in Yetis.
Does that make me a "ayetiist" ?
Nope.
Same thing with gods.
I don't believe there are any gods.
That doesn't make me anything.
I refuse to accept to be categorized by medieval retards who think everyone must believe in something.
Btw, there is a difference between "I do not believe god exists" and "I believe god does not exist".
I don't believe stuff. I know stuff.
That's the core of the issue.
faetal on 16/2/2015 at 10:49
I agree, but I find the term atheist these days tends to attract silly comparisons with Dawkins.
froghawk on 16/2/2015 at 14:44
That's probably because the most vocal atheists tend to be Dawkins/Hitchens followers. The 'skeptic' movement is basically predicated on going around and telling people how they're wrong.
faetal on 16/2/2015 at 15:10
All contrasting viewpoints are predicated on that. If you're referring to people doing that without provocation, I'd wonder just how much more provocation is needed from the religious given the amount of anti-abortion campaigning (including killing abortion doctors and fire-bombing clinics), anti-gay marriage campaigning, threatening, fire-bombing and now murdering of cartoonists and general interference into public affairs (think Creationism in schools, or wanting to "teach the controversy" re evolution) under the guise of being an authority on morality.
Where religion is just people going about their business and keeping their religion private (in terms of dictating how others live their lives, I'm not talking about keeping it secret), there is no problem, but when those who live perfectly good lives without the need for any of that are faced with daily interference into the public discourse by those who deem their religion to the only reasonable interpretation of reality, against all logic, then it's no surprise that some people get vocal. It has to be said though, that for the vast majority, getting vocal doesn't go beyond stuff like this: having a to and fro on a message board. Even the most extreme atheists tend to be annoying / infuriating at the apex of their output, rather than dangerous. There doesn't seem to be a glut of people marching in the streets carrying placards demanding that the religious be beheaded - there are no presidents saying that they don't know that religious people should be considered citizens. There are examples of that happening around 60 years ago, but we're presumably discussing the current social trend of vocal atheism versus current trends in public religious discourse rather than Stalinism versus current religious discourse, which would be stupid and/or open up the flood gates for bringing in historical religious atrocities / oppression, which outweighs the atheist equivalent by some hefty orders of magnitude.
So yeah, I don't know if there is a god or not, but I'm fairly comfortable with there not being one and I've not heard anything which suggests I ought to be thinking in that direction. I like talking about it regardless - my wife and I have quite long discussions about it, though they reach their limit not when any kind of logical impasse is reached, but when she becomes too uncomfortable to continue discussing, as she's quite culturally entrenched, given that she's Lebanese and the tribal nature of religion in a country plagued by religious civil war is fairly ingrained.
Harvester on 16/2/2015 at 17:42
Quote Posted by Azaran
Actually a lot of people are quite decent until they convert to an intolerant faith, then they become assholes.
You know what, I can agree with that, unless you mean to say that all religion is intolerant and that this effect always happens when people become religious. Because I think, and I'm taking Christianity as an example, it can depend on which subsection/church/movement you join, and which ideas you let influence you. When you let yourself be influenced by more tolerant, less fundamentalist beliefs, the opposite can also happen. I know I can safely say I've become a better person since I started taking my faith seriously, and I know first-hand accounts of drug addicts quitting, people becoming faithful to their spouse again, alcoholics quitting, career criminals turning their life around, you name it, after they started believing in God and started acting on those beliefs. As well as all the things I mentioned in a previous post, which you handwaved away with a simple 'yeah, well, some Christian charity organizations are corrupt' as if all Christians give to those organizations and as if some Christian organizations being corrupt makes my whole point and all my examples about how religion can also be a positive influence on people invalid somehow. I'm conceding to you that intolerant, fundamentalist beliefs are often a negative influence, but that is not all of religion.
