You know, Ive been thinking...

[Reincarnate]

Re: You know, Ive been thinking...

Ive been thinking... Ive had/seen/heard multiple discussions with multiple people about science versus the belief of a higher being. One of the things I realized was that "some" of those people were a little trigger-happy with derogatory and uncalled for comments towards individuals who do believe in a higher being. But why? Why is throwing insults a viable option towards stating an opinion? When you do that, you are basically spitting in that persons' face and stomping their beliefs to the ground, shitting on that persons' way of life and telling them they are wrong. That being said, a lot of events in history resulted in bloodshed solely because of religion, Im not ignoring that. But ridiculing one's beliefs? That's ignorance in itself. Ignorant because of the result of hate from what would always would have been simply a discussion from two different stand-points. This is coming from someone who is one of those believers. Everyone accepts a certain something, a very certain something, into their hearts in their own way. Every living human being on this planet walks only one path: their own. What we learn while we are alive carves what we become, science and religion are two of those things.

What do you guys think?

How would you feel if I told you that I adamantly believed that the earth was flat? And that I think your kids should learn flat-earth theory in the science classroom? And that I should be free to enter public office and divert funding away from important things to support flat-earth projects and promotions? Or that, for some reason, because the Earth is flat, it means I can mistreat and legally discriminate against certain kinds of people?

You'd think I was utterly insane. We all know the Earth is not flat, so this example is easy to understand.

However, as you extend the analogy further, it gets into areas that are less well-known. Everyone understands the Earth is round, but not everyone understands how evolution works. Not everyone knows how our Earth was formed, or how basic physics work, or that we are all born out of stardust, or what statistics and logic imply in various contexts, etc. It becomes less intuitive, but plenty of people do still understand all of this.

And so imagine how frustrated these people are to watch everyone around them believe in things that are either outright wrong or incredibly improbable, especially when better explanations exist for all of it. Hearing people say "it's just my opinion!" is frustrating because at some point, it's not your opinion if your opinion is, frankly, wrong.

Of course, telling people that they need to learn more / get educated in the underlying subjects is seen as arrogant. So in many ways, it's a lose/lose. You either have to explain a huge collection of complex frameworks to people who have little exposure to that kind of thinking (and have it fall on deaf ears), or be labeled arrogant for telling them that they are not educated enough to understand why their arguments are poor.

So, in using the analogy, it's a lot like dealing with someone who thinks the Earth is flat. There's just no polite way to tell them that their stance is untenable, especially if they're heavily invested in it emotionally. Some people simply don't care. Even if they can understand the counter-arguments on a rational level, sometimes it's just easier to keep on believing in a higher power like they were before. This is especially easy to do since unfalsifiable beliefs are, well, unfalsifiable. But an atheist would say that if your belief is unfalsifiable, why are you believing in it in the first place? There are infinitely many unfalsifiable beliefs to hold -- so why this one?

[Pseudo Enigma]

Re: You know, Ive been thinking...

...my opinion on this topic changes all the time.

Even if it's wrong to carry around a security blanket, some kids are allowed to. God just seems to be humanity's security blanket, and if you try to take that away from them they will fight you tooth and nail. Sure the extremists do really bad things, but other than that, is it really hurting anyone to let them believe in such things? Whatever makes one happy is a good thing IMO.

Sure it's wrong, but it's not like the answer isn't there for them to grab at any time. They can live in a delusion and be happy, or they can accept that there likely isn't a god. It's entirely up to them though, because of free will.

If you can't accept the above, then that's another problem all together.

[Reincarnate]

Re: You know, Ive been thinking...

That delusion is rarely self-contained. It tends to spill over into other facets of life that hinders various types of social/economic/political/technological/scientific progress and can cause lots of damage.

[Pseudo Enigma]

Re: You know, Ive been thinking...

Well it's a security blanket. They're carrying it for a reason. Likely they haven't accepted death and can't cope with it. I'd call that fairly normal. But because of that they cling to a delusion and try to force other people into it. Even their way of thinking changes.

I'd go so far as to call it a mass mental illness.

[Cavernio]

Re: You know, Ive been thinking...

We all live in delusion all the time. Our minds and senses are far from omniscient. Our capacity for knowledge is finite.
People who are religious FEEL religious. That feeling isn't a delusion even if it's based on a lie.

[DossarLX ODI]

Re: You know, Ive been thinking...

Of course, telling people that they need to learn more / get educated in the underlying subjects is seen as arrogant. So in many ways, it's a lose/lose. You either have to explain a huge collection of complex frameworks to people who have little exposure to that kind of thinking (and have it fall on deaf ears), or be labeled arrogant for telling them that they are not educated enough to understand why their arguments are poor.

I would definitely see that as an insult rather than an explanation because it doesn't tell that person anything. Saying "get educated" literally does not add any useful information whatsoever. If you asked me a question and I said "get educated", not only am I not giving you information, I'm insulting you.

So, in using the analogy, it's a lot like dealing with someone who thinks the Earth is flat. There's just no polite way to tell them that their stance is untenable, especially if they're heavily invested in it emotionally. Some people simply don't care. Even if they can understand the counter-arguments on a rational level, sometimes it's just easier to keep on believing in a higher power like they were before.

You could say the same thing for people who sell drugs. Most of them don't care if peoples' lives are being ruined from selling said drugs, but some do it because it's much easier (and in their case, more satisfying) than trying to get into a technical profession where professors say to solve everything yourself and basically say "fuck you" from this. Or you could also just say that selling drugs would be better than interviewing at companies and not getting any positions. There are many factors to consider.

If someone rarely ever gets explanations and is just told to "discover for themselves" it makes sense that people will rather just go to other alternatives than reinvent the wheel. People who say they don't believe in evolution never say "discover for yourself". Notice how for other superstitious beliefs, there is never that "discover for yourself" aspect. They just flat out say it's true.

[Reincarnate]

Re: You know, Ive been thinking...

I would definitely see that as an insult rather than an explanation because it doesn't tell that person anything. Saying "get educated" literally does not add any useful information whatsoever. If you asked me a question and I said "get educated", not only am I not giving you information, I'm insulting you.

I don't necessarily mean to use that as an actual response.

What I mean is that it's really hard to debate someone when their level of understanding is so far outside where it needs to be. If you don't understand the basics of, say, math, physics, biology, chemistry, logic, statistics, etc -- that's a shitload of intuition that you simply won't have yet.

So, in some cases, it's just impossible to get someone up to speed on all that intuition, because that's what years of education is for. It's much harder to make someone understand why your argument is convincing if they don't even understand the argument. You'll notice that a lot of creationists fail to understand how evolution operates, hence all the common quotes you hear which are marks of ignorance ("If we came from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?" "Doesn't the second law of thermodynamics disprove evolution?" "Something as complex as an eye can't evolve from nothing because if you remove any one part, the whole thing stops working", etc).

[Spenner]

Re: You know, Ive been thinking...

A lot of faith wielding people allow themselves to be a bit too open minded, the brain starts to leak beyond reason, and likes it. That mentality is very toxic and it's actually sad for me to see someone glancing over the marvels of the empirically observed world. A lot of people seem to be reading life like a fantasy fanfiction, and the delusion is exciting to them, and from there on the snowball keeps rolling.

It's very hard to debate with someone who just doesn't really understand the means of your evidence, and I've been there myself before, and it's hard to wrap your ego around at first and admit that you don't know. I now say it with pride, I like learning :B the thought of maybe being able to help people better understand the world as it seems to really be makes me want to study what's already well known, and see if I can find a new idea. I can't let myself stick with old/retired ideologies, which is why religion is not for me.

[3lijah]

Re: You know, Ive been thinking...

How would you feel if I told you that I adamantly believed that the earth was flat? And that I think your kids should learn flat-earth theory in the science classroom? And that I should be free to enter public office and divert funding away from important things to support flat-earth projects and promotions? Or that, for some reason, because the Earth is flat, it means I can mistreat and legally discriminate against certain kinds of people?

You'd think I was utterly insane. We all know the Earth is not flat, so this example is easy to understand.

However, as you extend the analogy further, it gets into areas that are less well-known. Everyone understands the Earth is round, but not everyone understands how evolution works. Not everyone knows how our Earth was formed, or how basic physics work, or that we are all born out of stardust, or what statistics and logic imply in various contexts, etc. It becomes less intuitive, but plenty of people do still understand all of this.

And so imagine how frustrated these people are to watch everyone around them believe in things that are either outright wrong or incredibly improbable, especially when better explanations exist for all of it. Hearing people say "it's just my opinion!" is frustrating because at some point, it's not your opinion if your opinion is, frankly, wrong.

Of course, telling people that they need to learn more / get educated in the underlying subjects is seen as arrogant. So in many ways, it's a lose/lose. You either have to explain a huge collection of complex frameworks to people who have little exposure to that kind of thinking (and have it fall on deaf ears), or be labeled arrogant for telling them that they are not educated enough to understand why their arguments are poor.

So, in using the analogy, it's a lot like dealing with someone who thinks the Earth is flat. There's just no polite way to tell them that their stance is untenable, especially if they're heavily invested in it emotionally. Some people simply don't care. Even if they can understand the counter-arguments on a rational level, sometimes it's just easier to keep on believing in a higher power like they were before. This is especially easy to do since unfalsifiable beliefs are, well, unfalsifiable. But an atheist would say that if your belief is unfalsifiable, why are you believing in it in the first place? There are infinitely many unfalsifiable beliefs to hold -- so why this one?

I guess what I'm really trying to ask is at the end of the day, why does it really matter what we believe in when science and technology will continue to advance in time, and religion will continue to spread?

[Reincarnate]

Re: You know, Ive been thinking...

I guess what I'm really trying to ask is at the end of the day, why does it really matter what we believe in when science and technology will continue to advance in time, and religion will continue to spread?

1. Religion is not likely to survive in the long term. Over time, people are generally getting less religious as education/knowledge/technology expands. Most people largely appeal to God of the Gaps (consciously or not), and these gaps get smaller over time.

2. In short, the general mindset (from a strident atheistic perspective) is that the others are holding society back, especially on a sociopolitical and educational level. If people are being taught that faith is a good reason to accept something as true, then it makes it much harder to develop critical thinking. It means we get a lot of blind bigotry, ignorance, abuse, and opportunity cost. We get a lot of people who are satisfied with "God did it" and they develop no curiosity to actually pursue the real answers and ask the hard questions. We get people who have been taught to distrust science who could have otherwise become brilliant engineers to help carry us forward.

3. A lot of religious people with political power also tend to push religion into the law -- people who are backed up by lots of money and plenty of constituents who share the same religious beliefs. To everyone else, it's hugely offensive, damaging, and unacceptable. What's worse is when initiatives are taken that cause a lot more harm than they're worth simply for the sake of ideology.

So it all matters because we all live in the same society. Atheists would have no beef with religion if people kept it to themselves. But this isn't what we see in practice. On the contrary: many organized religions teach you to spread the word and proselytize/convert others/etc. And in many cases, a refusal to assimilate can have strongly negative consequences.

[Reincarnate]

Re: You know, Ive been thinking...

I disagree with many of those points (and think others miss the mark of what the previous discussion was about) but honestly don't care enough to respond -- these conversations rarely go anywhere useful.

[Funnygurl555]

Re: You know, Ive been thinking...

I think the point that Reincarnate was trying to make is that religion has the potential to slow scientific/socioeconomic progress. He has already demonstrated his stance, and to him that is enough to justify why religion is detrimental to our advancement. If you want a personal anecdote to corroborate this point, I was born religious but am currently agnostic, and I still live with my religious family members. Sometimes we do argue about “controversial” topics, and they often turn to religion to back up their claims, which then makes the entire argument impossible to continue.

Though religion has many positives as well— if you look at many of the popular faiths today, you will realize that the purpose of the religion was to not only explain the unknown but also keep society in check. Religious people are encouraged to perform good deeds because of their faith and are asked to be tolerant of those who do not share the same beliefs. Also, many religions challenge their members to become knowledgeable, so religion has played a role in advancing human kind on a scientific level as well.

Though that does not exactly tie back to 3lijah’s original comment about the derogatory comments directed toward those who do believe in a higher being. Regardless of what one believes in, it is uncalled for to lambaste other’s beliefs. Believing in religion also does not make one more ignorant or unintelligent than one who has no faith. No one knows the circumstances of our existence with absolute certainty, so no one has the right to judge another’s faith.
--
Derp -noms on cookie and leaves-

[Crazyjayde]

Re: You know, Ive been thinking...

I think the point that Reincarnate was trying to make is that religion has the potential to slow scientific/socioeconomic progress. He has already demonstrated his stance, and to him that is enough to justify why religion is detrimental to our advancement.

And I think this is also the basis theory of this thread.
Relevant:



(I do not know about the validity of this graph but it sure makes you think)

[foop101]

Re: You know, Ive been thinking...

Religion will not effect progress if one's beliefs aren't forced onto others. What one thinks on their own time will usually not negatively effect society, however pushing others to adhere to beliefs based on faith instead of reason (sharia law, mandatory study of the bible in schools or the refusal to teach evolution) is what most atheists or humanists are trying to argue against. The problem is most atheists end up just attacking religious people themselves, instead of what is truly wrong with religion, sick people using its power with nonsense reasoning or for personal gain.
I'm atheist myself, if that matters.

[Reincarnate]

Re: You know, Ive been thinking...

"Frederick Douglass told in his Narrative how his condition as a slave became worse when his master underwent a religious conversion that allowed him to justify slavery as the punishment of the children of Ham. Mark Twain described his mother as a genuinely good person, whose soft heart pitied even Satan, but who had no doubt about the legitimacy of slavery, because in years of living in antebellum Missouri she had never heard any sermon opposing slavery, but only countless sermons preaching that slavery was God's will. With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil — that takes religion."

-Stephen Weinberg



If you want a modern day example, just look at same-sex marriage / homosexuality, for starters. This argument that somehow it's not religion that's the problem but rather "evil people who abuse religion" -- I think this could not be more incorrect.