Politics & Religion: A Simple Question

[Kekerusey]

I disagree that religion is not based on reason.

From what you say you're a Christian growing up in China (you refer to it as "atheist China", I'd disagree with that but that's another argument) and you're effectively saying that it is reasonable to be religious, to believe in a creator god or gods, yes? I can accept that on one proviso ... you support your claim with evidence. By evidence I mean hard, verifiable (that is to say validatable) evidence ... now some would disagree with me but I don't think that's unreasonable because everything I believe in (or at least care to claim as fact) is supported by evidence of that kind.

Let's start with something simple ... the bible claims the Earth, the Sun, the stars, all life on it (The Earth) etc. was created in 6 days, is that correct? Obviously I'm aware that there are those who will claim the days weren't literal (24 hour) days and if you're one of those I'd like to know how you know that.

Simple enough eh?

Keke

[Tirea Aean]

This thread is popcorn worthy. It Really Is.

Oh and Keke, it's totally cool to call the mods out. Yay Freedom. So yeah, Like Nyx, I'm gonna go grab my popcorn and pull up a chair to this most exciting debate of a thread. I will not make an attempt to stop or dare MOD anything here. I'm curious how this thread will end up if it ever does. It should be a fun ride. I trust that this community is made up of kind respectful people to the point that they do not deliberately verbally assault others(personally) on the grounds of different ideology. But hey. Let the debate continue, by all means, even if off topic. I don't think it has got out of line yet. We shall see if it will.

Meh. I don't want to mandate respect of any views. Just of other people who have them. But sure. If you just attack their beliefs and their claims with fair and due skeptical criticism (which CAN be done without super Fun things like sarcasm and rude words or phrases, but it would be boring that way ), and not them personally, all is fair game. Sure. Whatever.




carry on then.

[Tirea Aean]

Pardon the double post, but I must say that all the videos posted here were wonderful. Instructional as well as useful. And the Natural Selection song was quite clever and humorous.

[Tìtstewan]

Ma Tirea Aean,

You made my day! I have no popcorn, but for this gingerbread.
Since there is this thread, I knew that it will be very interesting.

[Clarke]

I disagree that religion is not based on reason. Yes, perhaps, some religions are not (extremely ancient animism rituals that nobody knows the origins) but most modern mainstream religions are founded by somebody using reason and philosophy. For example, Islam was founded by Mohammad, who definitely had a lot of philosophical thinking (I am not a Muslim). Thus, it should be viable, though perhaps difficult, to reasonably discuss and even debate about religions.

While it is possible to draw reasoned conclusions from the premises a religion supposes, I don't think it's possible to reasonably support those premises.

For instance, the problem above. tl;dr: why is God so bad at communicating? 

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

I disagree that religion is not based on reason. Yes, perhaps, some religions are not (extremely ancient animism rituals that nobody knows the origins) but most modern mainstream religions are founded by somebody using reason and philosophy. For example, Islam was founded by Mohammad, who definitely had a lot of philosophical thinking (I am not a Muslim). Thus, it should be viable, though perhaps difficult, to reasonably discuss and even debate about religions.

While it is possible to draw reasoned conclusions from the premises a religion supposes, I don't think it's possible to reasonably support those premises.

For instance, the problem above. tl;dr: why is God so bad at communicating? 

That is not what I believe. For example, attempts at "cracking the Bible code" are generally extremely subjective and I do not like them.

[Kekerusey]

That is not what I believe. For example, attempts at "cracking the Bible code" are generally extremely subjective and I do not like them.

The so-called bible-codes are rather daft anyway, subject Tolstoy's, "War & Peace" to the same kind of "analysis" and you can get similar "predictions".

More to the point, if (as a Christian) you believe your bible to be true, how do you account for the claims made in "Genesis" (specifically "Genesis 1")?

Keke

[Clarke]

That is not what I believe. For example, attempts at "cracking the Bible code" are generally extremely subjective and I do not like them.

You don't believe that God is trying to inform people of the truth through Christianity? Because that's what I was talking about. Regardless of which particular variant of God you believe in, that God is only (at most) 33% effective at getting people to believe what He wants them to. Why so low?

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

That is not what I believe. For example, attempts at "cracking the Bible code" are generally extremely subjective and I do not like them.

You don't believe that God is trying to inform people of the truth through Christianity? Because that's what I was talking about. Regardless of which particular variant of God you believe in, that God is only (at most) 33% effective at getting people to believe what He wants them to. Why so low?

The Bible teaches that God elects who he wishes to save. Having everybody believe is not part of God's plan, according to the Bible.

I do believe that God is trying to inform people. What I was talking about was esoteric, highly subjective ways of reading the Bible. The Bible isn't in a cipher or something - just go ahead and read it provided you have the correct historical context.

I agree that it is impossible to prove any religion or back it up soundly with observation-based statistics. This is simply because religion deals with many things that are not physically measurable by experiment. This doesn't mean that we cannot logically think or discuss about religions. Cosmology is also not directly measurable (one cannot create 1000 universes in a lab and observe what happens) but it is quite a rigorous field. Developed forms of religion are also rigorous - for example, one cannot throw about hunches and feelings and expect them to be good theology.

[Clarke]

The Bible teaches that God elects who he wishes to save. Having everybody believe is not part of God's plan, according to the Bible.

It also teaches that God is just, and those who don't believe in Him have something unpleasant happen to them, compared to those who do.  

I agree that it is impossible to prove any religion or back it up soundly with observation-based statistics.

"Are prayers effective at healing sick people?" would seem to be a pertinent question that can be answered by observation. (The answer turns out to be "Prayer makes it worse." )

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

The Bible teaches that God elects who he wishes to save. Having everybody believe is not part of God's plan, according to the Bible.

It also teaches that God is just, and those who don't believe in Him have something unpleasant happen to them, compared to those who do.  

I agree that it is impossible to prove any religion or back it up soundly with observation-based statistics.

"Are prayers effective at healing sick people?" would seem to be a pertinent question that can be answered by observation. (The answer turns out to be "Prayer makes it worse." )

1. The Bible never taught that having unpleasant things happen to people is unjust. God obviously does not operate under human notions of just and unjust, even those given int he Bible. Maybe this is a really bad analogy, but think of init on a Unix system. The other processes could say init is very unjust, since it can shut off power, can't get killed, and kills processes when memory is out. Also whenever processes die when shutting down it always seems init is to be blamed. Thus init is very unjust from the usual rules of non-root processes. It is quite just, though, in the point of view of the human administrator.

2. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that the act of prayer itself can improve disease. It is simply an expression of faith and communication with God. God determines everything that will happen, whether indirectly through physical laws or directly through His planning, so our prayer is never the direct cause of any action by God. Even whether we pray or not is predetermined ^^ Thus, one can clearly expect no correlation between prayer and the healing of sickness.

[Clarke]

1. The Bible never taught that having unpleasant things happen to people is unjust.

Having unpleasant things happen to people who haven't heard the word of God is implicitly unjust; they have had unpleasant things imposed on them for no controllable reason.

God obviously does not operate under human notions of just and unjust, even those given int he Bible.

That's even worse! He's not only not going to communicate very clearly at all, but going to be vague about the rules even in his book specifically dedicated to communicating with us?  

Maybe this is a really bad analogy, but think of init on a Unix system. The other processes could say init is very unjust, since it can shut off power, can't get killed, and kills processes when memory is out. Also whenever processes die when shutting down it always seems init is to be blamed. Thus init is very unjust from the usual rules of non-root processes. It is quite just, though, in the point of view of the human administrator.

It's a very bad analogy, because user-level processes can, in theory, determine exactly how init works.

2. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that the act of prayer itself can improve disease. It is simply an expression of faith and communication with God. God determines everything that will happen, whether indirectly through physical laws or directly through His planning, so our prayer is never the direct cause of any action by God. Even whether we pray or not is predetermined ^^

So we have no free will, which means the entire concept of redemption and heaven falls apart...

Whoops?  

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

Yes, I do not believe in free will. The Bible does not say we go to heaven because of our actions or because we earned it. The whole thing of redemption and heaven does not fall apart, since it is not what you imagine it is.

Just and unjust are just rules for human behavior that will elicit a response in us which will be beneficial to society. God operates at a much higher level of just and unjust which he has not fully revealed to us.

I never said the Bible was vague. It's written very nicely and serves well as God's communication tool. Not everything is in there simply because God did not wish to reveal everything. What *is* in there is quite clear and needs minimal "decoding".

[Kekerusey]

I agree that it is impossible to prove any religion or back it up soundly with observation-based statistics. This is simply because religion deals with many things that are not physically measurable by experiment. This doesn't mean that we cannot logically think or discuss about religions. Cosmology is also not directly measurable (one cannot create 1000 universes in a lab and observe what happens) but it is quite a rigorous field.

Ah yes ... the things that cannot be empirically measured. Also known as the things that don't actually exist? I'm not Physics expert but I understand that, whist at times highly theoretical/hypothetical, Physic, quantum mechanics and so on can be mathematically & observationally supported and predicts things we don't already know. Obviously on the very forefronts of any science validatable supporting evidence is much harder to find and the multiverse hypothesis exist in that arena.

That isn't now and never has been true of any essential religious claims and if any of them do become provable they will cease to be supernatural and therefore part of our known universe ... IOW "supernatural" actually equates to "does not appear to exist as far as anyone can currently tell".

Developed forms of religion are also rigorous - for example, one cannot throw about hunches and feelings and expect them to be good theology.

"Let's invent a god that  has all the characteristics of a vicious tribal warlord, vengeful, petty, spiteful and jealous ... how's that sound?"
"Cool ... let's do that then! What shall we call it?"
"Well it's something fictional we're trying to sell as truth so how about we call it the "Buy Bull"?"

No such thing as "good theology"  

Still waiting for you answer me on "Genesis"

Keke

[Clarke]

Yes, I do not believe in free will. The Bible does not say we go to heaven because of our actions or because we earned it. The whole thing of redemption and heaven does not fall apart, since it is not what you imagine it is.

Just and unjust are just rules for human behavior that will elicit a response in us which will be beneficial to society. God operates at a much higher level of just and unjust which he has not fully revealed to us.

"Justice" falls apart without free will, because the concepts of both blame and responsibility are nonsensical if people don't have agency.

I never said the Bible was vague. It's written very nicely and serves well as God's communication tool. Not everything is in there simply because God did not wish to reveal everything. What *is* in there is quite clear and needs minimal "decoding".

As an example of vagueness in a somewhat important statement, one of the Ten Commandments is phrased, depending on translation, "Do not murder", or "Do not kill."
Now in the latter case, that's not vague at all - but also gets contradicted by God ordering war many times! 

If it means, "Do not murder" we have a problem - what's "murder"? Modern law systems have the equivalent of books of legislation about what is and isn't different forms of murder... yet an omniscient god, who surely knows all of the difficulties we'll run into with such a vague definition, gives us one sentence and assumes we know what it means under all circumstances.

More generally, there are over 10,000 different branches of Christianity, all of which are using slightly different interpretations of the same Bible. Technical specifications have proportionally less disagreement over their details, and the engineers writing these specifications are significantly less than omniscient. 

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

Murder is quantified in Leviticus and Exodus very clearly in the precise criminal law. The ten commandments are far, far, far from the definitive complete Law of God and are just a huge generalization.

Justice does not fall apart without free will. I find the concept of free will illogical. Everything has a cause. While people may not be unpredictable, that only shows that people cannot eliminate random causes (line noise in the brain, etc) and are in effect either rationally thought out (and thus predictable) or unstoppably forced through random events (which is no freer). The reason justice exists is to punish and limit the bad actions of people, no matter pre-programmed or random. God does not wish to intervene too much into the world, thus justice will trigger a response (arguably unfree) from a certain amount of people that will result in actions beneficial to society.

[Kekerusey]

Blah ...

I'm getting the impression you too are scared (too insecure in your own beliefs) to deal with my "Genesis " question. I'm not surprised, few Christians have ever been able to deal with it, they're smart enough to know what my follow-up questions would be ... it's fairly typical theist behaviour, make an assertions ("evilution is just a theory", "Thousands of scientists reject evilution", "everything is created, therefore the universe was, that creator is god", "religion is entirely rational") then refuse to justify it.

Keke

[Clarke]

Murder is quantified in Leviticus and Exodus very clearly in the precise criminal law. The ten commandments are far, far, far from the definitive complete Law of God and are just a huge generalization.

So why don't we have a copy?

The reason justice exists is to punish and limit the bad actions of people, no matter pre-programmed or random. God does not wish to intervene too much into the world, thus justice will trigger a response (arguably unfree) from a certain amount of people that will result in actions beneficial to society.

That's not really justice, though. It's not "righteous" or "deserved" in any respect. It's just mechanistic incentives and reaction to those incentives.

I'm getting the impression you too are scared (too insecure in your own beliefs) to deal with my "Genesis " question.

Genesis is a metaphor, obviously. 

[Kekerusey]

Genesis is a metaphor, obviously.

A meta for what? Don't worry ... that's just my weird sense of humour

What I really want to know is what Uniltìrantokx te Skxawng thinks of Genesis ... is it true (fact), false (fiction) or, as you say, metaphor (fiction but with a message that those "hearing" it are free to interpret in some fashion and, if so, in what way). I could ask this of almost any chapter of the Christian bible ... I simply chose to start with Genesis.

Of course I could, if he preferred offer him a challenge entirely based on his own bible ... maybe he'd prefer that? Personally I think he'll wimp out of that one too .. why do I think that? Because, as any objective observer can tell, faith is just BS dressed up as something it isn't ... it doesn't actually do anything constructive, it doesn't actually tell us anything about the real universe we live in, it can't support in any real way it's claim to the supernatural and any that seem anything like believable can pretty much be dismissed because they're countered by some other whacky belief system. Indeed the only real use religious beliefs have are to act as personal (supposedly "spiritual") comfort blankets ... they just make believers somehow feel superior to others, better about themselves at the expense of others.

Ultimately there is nothing whatsoever that sets Christian beliefs apart from any other except that it's not one of the "dead" ones and it's believed to be true my many others ... of course most of them (probably all) believe something slightly different from everyone else but that's a whole other story.

Keke

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

Blah ...

I'm getting the impression you too are scared (too insecure in your own beliefs) to deal with my "Genesis " question. I'm not surprised, few Christians have ever been able to deal with it, they're smart enough to know what my follow-up questions would be ... it's fairly typical theist behaviour, make an assertions ("evilution is just a theory", "Thousands of scientists reject evilution", "everything is created, therefore the universe was, that creator is god", "religion is entirely rational") then refuse to justify it.

Keke

Sorry that I did not answer your question. I was replying to Clarke. I believe in Genesis as a stylized account of the creation of the world. Obviously I do not believe that God created the world in 6 days, but Genesis 1 represents an overview of the order of creation. It was not intended to be a cosmological textbook and was written for people 3000 years ago.

Thus I believe that the universe as around 13.75 billion years old, that it originated from a singularity, etc. I do not however believe in evolution, due to mostly technical reasons. Evolution as current theories posit seem to only be able to get stuck in local maxima of adaptability to the environment, and evolution outside of local maxima has not been observed in practice. Also, thing like the Cambrian explosion seem harder to explain. God could easily have progressively created things on Earth over a long period of time, which conforms to His refraining from overly interfering with the world. Finally, the origin and development of life is a field where experiment is necessary, while cosmology is governed by strict laws of physics.