Atheism/Existence of God Debates (Part 2)

MaxWig wrote: »

What do you mean by you disagreed with the actual behaviour?

Well I was thinking of something like drug taking which we can say can harm the individual but that the individual is entitled to some "privacy" to take drugs if they wish.

True, but that is just taking what I said and generalising it, like me saying a lot of politicians are corrupt and you saying a lot of people are corrupt.

Yes, which would be a valid point if you were suggesting that politics was the source of corruption.

Well that isn't really true. It requires specific authority, that is accepted as having moral authority. And that is where a god comes in. It is not a coincidence that most religions associate god as being the source of morality.

Not at all, just a white coat will do it. Plenty of studies. Or again, refer to Stamford Prison Experiment.

That is sort of the point. Good people doing bad due to social pressure, primarily religion.

Really? Nazi Germany - primarily religion?

Or are you implying that that generation of Germans were 'bad'. It's a one dimensional view of humanity.

I don't understand these references to good people. Am I right in thinking you think there are good people and bad people in the world? Just want to be clear.

It isn't irrelevant at all.

Your argument is like saying that yes you may commit a robbery if you have a gun to your head, but people commit robberies without guns to their heads so the gun to the head is irrelevant.

No my argument is that people do terrible things all the time.
No gun to the head - more like a permission slip. I don't really care what's written on the permission slip. I just want to figure out why people want to do this stuff.

People may do bad things without religious pressure. But religious pressure is a very significant factor in a lot of bad things.

What is Religious pressure?

God nagging at them?

Or do you mean human pressure. Peer pressure. Community pressure. The status quo etc.

silverharp wrote: »

In that case I'd say no , as there were so many other factors . unless of course someone can come up with a theory that centuries of religious adherence makes people gullible to electing dictators
Anti semitism could well have its roots in christianity but given that the Nazis sent Roma to the gas chambers , I can't see that as a direct effect from religion. One interesting semi religious act was the military and civil service oath to Hitler which made reference to god. So if making a religious oath had the effect of tying the military's hands then another strike for religion.
Nazis and commies both had the idea of "new men" which sounds crazy now , so I would ask was the idea more believable to religious people who believe in notions of being born again?

When war was commenced, swathes of men elected to go to war - quite happily - took up guns and started killing left right and centre.

No religion.

Something else.

Religious adherence does not make people gullible to dictatorship - being human does.

We crave to be part of a whole that is bigger than us, and within it, we happily - gratefully, hand over our freedom in favour of being led.

We literally cannot handle the responsibility of thinking for ourselves. Religion is not a cause of this. It is just one symptom.

The issue is not what god asks or says in a book, or what people do as a result.

It is what people do in order to attain some sense of belonging within the groups they are part of.

And so for me, looking at religion in this way is dangerous, because it suggests that we have found some way of being that immunises us from the potential for raw, vicious, animal hatred. Because I can assure you, we haven't.

MaxWig wrote: »

Yes, which would be a valid point if you were suggesting that politics was the source of corruption.

It wouldn't be a valid point, it is simply an unnecessary generalisation.

Its like saying you should get your tires checked cause if they are bald you could crash only to be told that there are lots of ways of crashing a car.

There are, and one of them is through bald tires.

Moving to the abstract and then discussing other events that can fit the abstract notion doesn't give us any more information about the specific notion we are talking about.

MaxWig wrote: »

Not at all, just a white coat will do it. Plenty of studies. Or again, refer to Stamford Prison Experiment.

That was a specific example where they played a specific role of authority.

If what you say is true the whole world would be the Standford Prison Experiment the whole time. Instead it isn't. You have to carefully pick the situations that produce authority and acceptance.

And, again, one of them is religion.

MaxWig wrote: »

Really? Nazi Germany - primarily religion?

Nope. Leaving aside the similarities between religious propaganda and Nazi propaganda, you are again picking specific examples.

For every Nazi German there were a thousand religious wars.

MaxWig wrote: »

I don't understand these references to good people. Am I right in thinking you think there are good people and bad people in the world? Just want to be clear.

It is using general layman terms to describe the point. The real point is that people often do what they believe is wrong because religion tells them they are right.

MaxWig wrote: »

No my argument is that people do terrible things all the time.

But what argument is that?

The point is that people do specific things because of religion, and your only reply seems to be ah but they also do that for other reasons.

Yes, they do. What does that have to do with the harm of religion?

MaxWig wrote: »

What is Religious pressure?

It is social pressure that fits into the psychological framework of how humans naturally tend towards when viewing the world, such as hyperactive agency detection.

There is a reason why in a deeply religious society a person does not just say "Ah but I don't believe God exists, so I'm not going to that thing you said I have to do"

MaxWig wrote: »

Or do you mean human pressure. Peer pressure. Community pressure. The status quo etc.

I mean religious pressure.

RikuoAmero wrote: »

Just to let you, the secondary school I went to is RCC and while we were there, at least one of the teachers was known to be homosexual. I heard after I left that this person later became principal.

Good to hear. Is there a junior school / senior school divide do you think , where the local parish feels it has more if a right to control the staff?

jaffusmax wrote: »

Personal responsibility, common sense and secular laws would generally agree that cutting the foreskin off a baby with a piece of metal held in an old man mouth was wrong and illegal! Only religion seems to make such act accpetable!

Which secular law generally agrees that this is illegal!

MaxWig wrote: »

We'll agree to disagree.
Suggesting that religion is a source of human folly, rather than a receptacle is a flawed premise in my view. Hugely so

That is just a case of turtles all the way down. The source of any human behaviour is other human behaviour. Saying Ah you can't blame religion, if we didn't have religion we would just find something else, is redundant.

The point is that religion is a very powerful and dangerous system of manipulation. It is so because of human behaviour, but then of course it is. That is what makes it so powerful a manipulator, it is in tune with human behaviour.

MaxWig wrote: »

There are plenty of studies. And is the word 'specific' a rebuff?

But you made a general point, that any authority of any fashion can make any person do something bad. That is clearly not true.

It takes a specific form of authority in tune with human psychology. The Standford Experiment had that. So did Nazi German.

If I walk up to someone and say "I'm a police man, shoot that baby" nothing will happen.

MaxWig wrote: »

Authority and acceptance are the basis of every human culture, nation, city, commune etc.

Yes. As is hyperactive agency detection. It is what makes religion so dangerous.

MaxWig wrote: »

Right - I actually don't know what you're point is there (leaving aside the exaggeration).

See "shoot that baby" comment above, its the same point.

MaxWig wrote: »

So the people you describe as religious are acting contrary to their own beliefs? That's an interesting theory, and one I have certainly never come across before. Flies in the face of most theory.

Yes, they are acting contrary to their own beliefs. They are doing something that they ordinarily would not do. You can see this all the time in testimony of people rescued from cults, who cannot explain why they did what they did and have revulsion at how they acted.

A good dramatisation of this is the play "The Crucible", which explores this phenomena.

MaxWig wrote: »

People are prone to evil.
People are prone to Religion.
People are prone to breakfast.
None cause the other.

That is a nonsensical statement. What do you mean by "cause"

Religion is a form of human manipulation that is very successful (and dangerous) because it is highly in tune with the psychological elements that allow for human manipulation.

It is a mental version of tricking the human eye into thinking a 3d movie is taking place in 3d space. It is very hard to over come the effect, even if you know it isn't real. This is part of religions power, even over non-believers who have the same emotional responses to the manipulation as believers do

MaxWig wrote: »

Hyperactive agency detection is the natural tendency of humans to imagine agents in nature working towards a goal or purpose, rather than attempt to model the natural processes in play. The classic example is "Thunder, Thor must be angry"

Religion is in tun with this natural tendency, again in the same way a 3D movie manipulates our visual systems to make us think there is a 3D space in front of us.

MaxWig wrote: »

Right, as apposed to peer pressure. Got it

Peer pressure manipulates different aspects of human psychology.

TheLurker wrote: »

It wouldn't be a valid point, it is simply an unnecessary generalisation.

Its like saying you should get your tires checked cause if they are bald you could crash only to be told that there are lots of ways of crashing a car.

There are, and one of them is through bald tires.

Moving to the abstract and then discussing other events that can fit the abstract notion doesn't give us any more information about the specific notion we are talking about.


That was a specific example where they played a specific role of authority.

If what you say is true the whole world would be the Standford Prison Experiment the whole time. Instead it isn't. You have to carefully pick the situations that produce authority and acceptance.

And, again, one of them is religion.



Nope. Leaving aside the similarities between religious propaganda and Nazi propaganda, you are again picking specific examples.

For every Nazi German there were a thousand religious wars.



It is using general layman terms to describe the point. The real point is that people often do what they believe is wrong because religion tells them they are right.



But what argument is that?

The point is that people do specific things because of religion, and your only reply seems to be ah but they also do that for other reasons.

Yes, they do. What does that have to do with the harm of religion?


It is social pressure that fits into the psychological framework of how humans naturally tend towards when viewing the world, such as hyperactive agency detection.

There is a reason why in a deeply religious society a person does not just say "Ah but I don't believe God exists, so I'm not going to that thing you said I have to do"



I mean religious pressure.

I'm not sure what your point is, are you saying that religion like every other human endeavours is capable of evil or that it's uniquely capable of evil?
Because if the former, no one is saying otherwise, if the latter then you need to make a better case. You have provided no evidence to support this assertion.
Maybe all your trying to do is show that religion is no better than any other human construct and so demonstrates the lack of a God. Okay, I'll go all with that with the provision that we say religion lacks the God it claims to describe!

jaffusmax wrote: »

Laws that prohibit child abuse and gentile mutilation, would you consider this act as religiously acceptable or a form of child abuse?

I consider it child abuse, a breach of the human right to bodily integintegrity add superstitious nonsense.
however you asserted it's illegal, I'm not aware of anywhere that has made circumcisioncircumcision illegal. Currently their is a small movement to at least limit the circumstances but so far no real secular opposition at all.
Even fgm is being devised into types with instead of a ban on all fgm, theirs a move to only ban the removal of the clitoris and not the cutting of the labia.

tommy2bad wrote: »

I consider it child abuse, a breach of the human right to bodily integintegrity add superstitious nonsense.
however you asserted it's illegal, I'm not aware of anywhere that has made circumcisioncircumcision illegal. Currently their is a small movement to at least limit the circumstances but so far no real secular opposition at all.
Even fgm is being devised into types with instead of a ban on all fgm, theirs a move to only ban the removal of the clitoris and not the cutting of the labia.

I assert that if religion did not interfere with secular law then it would be illegal! Here is what I said, I did not say that it is illegal:

Personal responsibility, common sense and secular laws would generally agree that cutting the foreskin off a baby with a piece of metal held in an old man mouth was wrong and illegal! Only religion seems to make such act accpetable!

Child abuse is child abuse but becomes something divine when religion gets involved. It would be great if religion could be set aside and secular law left to do what is right for these children!

Here is an article you may find interesting

http://nypost.com/2015/02/24/nyc-repealing-jewish-circumcision-law-requiring-consent/

tommy2bad wrote: »

Well yeah, that's what I'm saying, people are religious. What's your solution? How do we prevent the natural religious instinctinstinct from being corrupted!

Keep it a private and personal religious belief for starters! Its only a problem when private and personal religious beliefs start to effect other people!

tommy2bad wrote: »

I'm not sure what your point is, are you saying that religion like every other human endeavours is capable of evil or that it's uniquely capable of evil?

I'm saying religion is a particularly potent form of human manipulation, it ticks a great deal of the psychological boxes humans have a predisposition to.

Are there other forms of human manipulation? Sure. But that hardly lets religion off the hook, in the same way that pyramid schemes are not free of criticism because lotteries exist.

tommy2bad wrote: »

Because if the former, no one is saying otherwise

When ever religion is criticised the same tired argument is rolled out, these are not unique to religion, if we didn't have religion people would just find another justification for these things etc etc

My point is that this is a silly point to argue.

tommy2bad wrote: »

Maybe all your trying to do is show that religion is no better than any other human construct and so demonstrates the lack of a God. Okay, I'll go all with that with the provision that we say religion lacks the God it claims to describe!

It is not simply that religion is no better than any other human construct.

Religion is worse than a lot of other human constructs.

Or to put it another way, religion is a particularly bad form of human manipulation.

Rolling out examples of other particularly bad form of human manipulation (such as hero worship in the case of the Nazis or North Korea) is not an argument for letting religion off the hook

jaffusmax wrote: »

Keep it a private and personal religious belief for starters! Its only a problem when private and personal religious beliefs start to effect other people!

Christianity has survived every form of tyranny and despotism for 2000 years. You could always try arresting us and having us put in prison I suppose. But state atheism tactics have failed everywhere they have ever been implemented. Knock yourself out trying though.

State atheism is the official promotion of atheism by a government. In contrast, a secular state purports to be officially neutral in matters of religion, supporting neither religion nor irreligion. State atheism may refer to a government's Anti-clericalism , which opposes religious institutional power and influence in all aspects of public and political life, including the involvement of religion in the everyday life of the citizen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_atheism

A truly secular state does not favour atheism over theism, or theism over atheism.

Cen taurus wrote: »

Christianity has survived every form of tyranny and despotism for 2000 years. You could always try arresting us and having us put in prison I suppose. But state atheism tactics have failed everywhere they have ever been implemented.





A truly secular state does not favour atheism over theism, or theism over atheism.

Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. Most inclusively, atheism is the absence of belief that any deities exist.

Atheism is not anti (anything)! You willl find most self professed "atheist" states replaced God with another form of religion the cult of personality! Atheists due not worship Dear Leaders