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The Root of all Evil, Channel 4, Monday @ 20.00

MrJoeSoap

20:00 The Root of All Evil?

The God Delusion

Professor Richard Dawkins, Chair of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford and world-renowned evolutionary biologist, is no stranger to controversy. In this contentious two-part series, Dawkins decribes God as the most unpleasant fictional character of all and launches a wholehearted attack on religion as the cause for much of the pain and suffering in the world.

Saw an ad for this yesterday and thought it might be of interest to some of the people on this board. Looks like a decent programme.

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Playboy

Yossie wrote:

Do you believe 1. coffee beans have souls
2. coffee beans do not have souls
3. don't know

What i believe and what is true can be two very different things. I dont understand why you are asking me about coffee beans though. Why not just ask me do I believe in the idea of a soul. Which I don't btw. I don't believe humans or coffee benas have souls. That might be very far from the truth though becuase i have no evidence that tells me conclusively that they dont since we cant measure a soul.

Tar.Aldarion

Yossie wrote:

How about the evidence that we couldn't find him! And we have looked quite widely.

Didn't you know god is all around us?
God doesn't exist? that's the biggest frame up since OJ!
http://download.lardlad.com/sounds/season13/public1.mp3

Zombrex

Playboy wrote:

There is also no evidence that a God does not exist.

There is no evidence God does exist and there is plenty of evidence that humans have a natural tendency to make up the concept like gods as part of human imagination.

Playboy wrote:

It could be argued that the universe itself is evidence enough for the existence of a "God".

Not really, not in any logical manner.

Playboy

Wicknight wrote:

There is no evidence God does exist and there is plenty of evidence that humans have a natural tendency to make up the concept like gods as part of human imagination.

What evidence? I have already asked you for it. Wicknight I am not arguing for or against. What I am saying is that it is a dead end argument that you are not going to be able to resolve using logic.

Wicknight wrote:

Not really, not in any logical manner.

Why not? Why does the universe exist? It is not illogical to assume that thre is a reason for existence. And for some people that reason is God. I must stress that I am not talking about any religiously defined god. I am talking about the philosophical notion of a "God"

Zombrex

Playboy wrote:

What evidence?

Mainly the fact that we have been doing it for thousands of years

The Greek gods, and Roman gods, the Viking gods, the Indian gods, etc etc

There are two possibilities, either a) all these Gods exist or b) The human imagination made them up.

If you accept b, it seems that humans have a natural tendency to invent gods, since nearly all human cultures and societies invented their own unique system of Gods and religion. I can't think of any society or culture that had no concept of a god (possibly the Asia cultures had less of the same concept that us), but I can think of tons that invented unique gods but for a similar purpose, to explain the world around them.

The psychological reasons for this are not that complicated, doing psychologicy I am surprised you have not come across the concept. If you still want me to I can go into why humans attribute the world around them to the acts of imaginary gods..

Playboy wrote:

Why not? Why does the universe exist?

Who said there has to be a reason?

Why is the speed of light 300 million meters a second instead of 600 million or 50 thosand? Is there a intelligent reason it is set to 300 million m/s or is it just the way it is.

Secondly, even if there has to be a reason, which there doesnt, there is still no logical reason to attribute that a god, any more than there is a reason for the ant on the ground to believe we are Gods for burning him to dust with a magnifiying glass.

Playboy wrote:

It is not illogical to assume that thre is a reason for existence.

It is illogical in the sense that there is no logical reason to except for the fact we are uncomfortable with our own ignorance of how the universe works.

Of course this is exactly why gods were invented in the first place, to explain in a form and manner we can understand the unexplainable world around us.

Dades

Uh oh the whole "logic" thing is sucking everything OT again...

:v:

Zombrex

The Atheist wrote:

Uh oh the whole "logic" thing is sucking everything OT again...

:v:

I can see the logic in that ... :v: :cool:

the real ramon

Is there another notion of God other than the standard definition of monotheism, whereby he is a being who created the universe. This question goes out to Playboy who seems to know what they're talking about, I'd be interested to know, as I have some fuzzy ideas meself, which seem to fit best with Pantheism or Taoism, but I'm not fully happy with either label.

Closing Doors

Wicknight wrote:

As I said, that shows more of a lack of initial faith to begin with, than any conscious move towards being an atheist.

So? Weak faith is still faith and still would require a "conversion" to atheism regardless.

Wicknight wrote:

The mistake I think you are making is assuming he (who ever he is) actually believed in God in the first place. From your example it seems more likely that he was only going to Chruch because his parents/teachers etc were making him, and eventualy said "nuts to this, I don't want to go" so he stopped going.

Just like to point out I made him up!

It's not necessarily true that he'd be forced to go to church. It could well be that he just couldn't care less either way.

Wicknight wrote:

But even if that was the case it doesn't really matter. He either ends up an atheist or he doesn't. As I said Atheism is a description of someone. The reason they rejected the concept of a god is largely irrelivent.

I don't care why an atheist became an atheist. He could have a tossed a coin for all I care. The reason I brought it up is because someone said that atheism was something for the intellectual elite and I was merely illustrating that that was a load of balls.

Wicknight wrote:

Well if he holds on to some vague belief in God he isn't an atheist.

In all fairness I did say that he might hold onto the idea of God but more often than not he won't. I know what an atheist is :rolleyes:

CerebralCortex

pH wrote:

This only appears to make sense if your use of the English language has the words something and nothing being synonyms!

I assure you that for most people the words 'nothing' and 'something' are not interchangable, in fact they're ... whats the word I'm looking for .. opposites.

I agree what he said just annoyed me to the point of incoherency.

Playboy

Wicknight wrote:

Mainly the fact that we have been doing it for thousands of years

The Greek gods, and Roman gods, the Viking gods, the Indian gods, etc etc

There are two possibilities, either a) all these Gods exist or b) The human imagination made them up.

If you accept b, it seems that humans have a natural tendency to invent gods, since nearly all human cultures and societies invented their own unique system of Gods and religion. I can't think of any society or culture that had no concept of a god (possibly the Asia cultures had less of the same concept that us), but I can think of tons that invented unique gods but for a similar purpose, to explain the world around them.

The psychological reasons for this are not that complicated, doing psychologicy I am surprised you have not come across the concept. If you still want me to I can go into why humans attribute the world around them to the acts of imaginary gods.

I agree with you that many cultures have invented many concepts of God and Gods through the ages demonstrating that there is a need within the human psychological make up for the phenomena. But my original point was that the whole concept of God starts to run into trouble as soon as people start applying various attributes to what they consider God. However the existence of the universe is a mystery to us and probably will always remain a mystery to us. Theories such as natural selection and the Big Bang don't help when trying to understand the mystery of existence. They merely help us understand the development of our existence. Reductive thought has to end somewhere and for many people God begins where reductionism ends. The infintite, the cause and the reason for our existence would be all problems that would occupy philosophers when discussing a concept of God.

Wicknight wrote:

Who said there has to be a reason?

Why is the speed of light 300 million meters a second instead of 600 million or 50 thosand? Is there a intelligent reason it is set to 300 million m/s or is it just the way it is.

Secondly, even if there has to be a reason, which there doesnt, there is still no logical reason to attribute that a god, any more than there is a reason for the ant on the ground to believe we are Gods for burning him to dust with a magnifiying glass.

I understand where you are coming from but it is just as logical to think there is a reason as to think there is no reason. Its pointless to argue either way. Please don't interpret my use of the word God as a guy sitting up in the clouds, God should be interpreted as the answer to the ultimate questions of existence.

Wicknight wrote:

It is illogical in the sense that there is no logical reason to except for the fact we are uncomfortable with our own ignorance of how the universe works.

Of course this is exactly why gods were invented in the first place, to explain in a form and manner we can understand the unexplainable world around us.

It has for me nothing to do with that. For many people then yes you might be right that religion is a lazy answer to hard questions but there are many people who have a belief in something who have spent their whole lives wrestling with those difficult questions. The problem with regards to religion isnt religion itself but education. People need to be aware of all the options and need to make decisions for the right reasons. Christians should know what it really means to be Christian which many of them don't. All the evil commited in the name of religions are unfortunately usually perversions of those religions. Religion for the most part sets out to help people and its unfortunate that human nature and ignorance usually has the opposite effect.

Playboy

the real ramon wrote:

Is there another notion of God other than the standard definition of monotheism, whereby he is a being who created the universe. This question goes out to Playboy who seems to know what they're talking about, I'd be interested to know, as I have some fuzzy ideas meself, which seem to fit best with Pantheism or Taoism, but I'm not fully happy with either label.

Usually philosophers deal with the monotheistic conception of God so I cant really help you there m8

Dades

Closing Doors wrote:

The reason I brought it up is because someone said that atheism was something for the intellectual elite and I was merely illustrating that that was a load of balls.

You are either misinterpreting, or misreading somebody's post. If you disagree, feel free to quote them in your next post.

Closing Doors wrote:

In all fairness I did say that he might hold onto the idea of God but more often than not he won't. I know what an atheist is :rolleyes:

It is clear that your idea of an atheist differs from that of the atheists with whom you are debating. An atheist is not someone who doesn't to mass. There also aren't someone who have decided that religion is rubbish. Just because the catholic church will claim any lip-service, once-a-year mass-goer as their own doesn't mean anyone who becomes sceptical about God is an atheist.

It's not a club, but the purposes of proper identity it is important to clarify the definition.

Zombrex

Playboy wrote:

It has for me nothing to do with that. For many people then yes you might be right that religion is a lazy answer to hard questions

I never said it was lazy, I said it was uncomfortable. We as a species don't like not knowing, or at least not having ideas about, certain things. And the concept of something coming from random nothingness is uncomfortable. It doesn't fit into the way our brains model the world around us.

But I am having pretty much the same converstaion in two different threads so I will lik to my posts here http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=50732455&postcount=72

Closing Doors

The Atheist wrote:

You are either misinterpreting, or misreading somebody's post. If you disagree, feel free to quote them in your next post.

I quoted them in my original post, I think, but anywho:

Sapien wrote:

...decide it's the way of the future and fight for it, or offer it as an alternative for the intellectual elite, and tip-toe around the thronging masses and their dripping idols.

I genuinely don't think I misinterpreted them. Pretty damn condescending if you ask me.

The Atheist wrote:

It is clear that your idea of an atheist differs from that of the atheists with whom you are debating. An atheist is not someone who doesn't to mass. There also aren't someone who have decided that religion is rubbish.

Why not? Admittedly boredom/disinterest with religion does not necessarily an atheist make, but it can over time. Atheism can be accepted as blindly as several people around here tell me religion is (though these same people will no doubt reject this notion to feel better about themselves).

That's not to say that "conversions" (for want of a better word

) to atheism cannot be/are not acheived through thought & reflection etc.

The Atheist wrote:

It's not a club, but the purposes of proper identity it is important to clarify the definition.

I don't think I called it a club but imo it's as much a doctrine as <insert major religion here>

Dades

Closing Doors wrote:

I genuinely don't think I misinterpreted them. Pretty damn condescending if you ask me.

Ahh but Sapien was talking about Humanism. Humanism is more than just a "disbelief" it's a whole system of thought. (Not saying I agree with the quote either way, BTW, just that it's not relating to atheism).

Closing Doors wrote:

Why not? Admittedly boredom/disinterest with religion does not necessarily an atheist make, but it can over time. Atheism can be accepted as blindly as several people around here tell me religion is (though these same people will no doubt reject this notion to feel better about themselves).

If boredom/disinterest in one religion itself lead to interest in the concept of religion then sure, an atheist may develop.

Closing Doors wrote:

I don't think I called it a club but imo it's as much a doctrine as <insert major religion here>

I didn't mean to imply you did.

Though I have to disagree, doctrines of major religions are huge, complicated and contentious sets of rules.
Atheism can be summed in one (albeit contentious - see other thread) definition.

Closing Doors

The Atheist wrote:

Ahh but Sapien was talking about Humanism. Humanism is more than just a "disbelief" it's a whole system of thought. (Not saying I agree with the quote either way, BTW, just that it's not relating to atheism).

True to an extent, but there were others who joined in later. That just annoyed me enough to post in the first place.

The Atheist wrote:

I didn't mean to imply you did.
Though I have to disagree, doctrines of major religions are huge, complicated and contentious sets of rules.
Atheism can be summed in one (albeit contentious - see other thread) definition.

Hmmm...does the complexity of a doctrine matter? Personally I'm not sure that it does.

Zombrex

Closing Doors wrote:

Hmmm...does the complexity of a doctrine matter? Personally I'm not sure that it does.

Atheism isn't a doctrine, its a description.

The not believing in a god comes first, unlike a religion. And I would point out that not believe in something is not a belief in of itself. It is a rejection of a belief common in society. It can be replaced with anything you like or nothing at all.

As someone said not wanting to collect stamps isn't a hobby. What ever you do when you everyone else is is collecting stamps, defines your hobby is. Likewise what ever you believe instead of god defines your beliefs, not the fact you don't believe in a god.

In a religion you are told "To be a Catholic/Jew/Muslim you must do A,B,C and believe X,Y,Z". You start off not doing A,B,C and when you eventually do do A,B,C and believe X,Y,Z you are following a religious doctrine and are part of the religion.

Atheism works the other way around. When you don't simply don't believe X you are an atheist. From that point on your beliefs are what ever you want them to be, they are not defined by the fact you have rejected a concept of a god

lostexpectation

I was thinking that it would have been more impressive and better program/hypothesis if he strolled down to his local neighbourhood church say prodestant one and explained why that church/religion was the root of all evil.

Funsterdelux

"god/religion is just a tool man created to control man"

thats my quote of the day