beesonthewhatnow
going deaf for a living
Nah, if anything some are even more vocal than me
God and religion
- Thread starter frogwoman
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bluescreen
tofu eating wokerati
You think it's about scoring points?Maybe they just shut up about it when you are around.
I have several friends who used to be believers - it made for some good debate for a long time but they conceded defeat in the end.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
I know some believers. I don't talk about religion with believers. I also don't talk about politics with tories. Pointless.
Reno
The In Kraut
I derive comfort exactly from the lack of easily grasped meaning in the universe, at least where it concerns individual human beings. I sleep better knowing that Quran addled yahoos chuck gays off tall buildings, saw innocent people's heads off and stone rape victims to death knowing that it has neither been willed by an Islamic deity nor is it happening with the consent of a Christian one. I would find the idea of a god who is responsible for all the horrors of the world (to test us, apparently) extremely sinister and scary.
When a good friend died in an accident in the late 80s and his family arranged a Christian service against his will (he was an atheist), the arrogance of the priest and his religion who told us all that we would be ignorant if we were to deny that there was a reason for his death and that it was his time to go, left me seething with rage. It was not his fucking time to go, the world would have been a better place with my friend alive and while I have no proof for a god, the fact that his death was utterly pointless is one thing I knew for certain and I'd rather live with that than some willful god. That funeral turned me from an bumbling agnostic to a rabid atheist because I find it far more comforting to know that his death was random, rather than justifying a horrible, universal injustice with lies you have to take on blind faith.
And a god who just created everything and then left us to our own devices, denies the wonders of how extraordinary and mysterious the universe really is when looked at it through the eyes of science. It's just that science is more complex to wrap your head around than "dude with long white beard did it" and it will always lack all the answers we want. When I look at the stars I still feel overwhelmed by the idea that I'm looking at a giant mystery rather than god's plan and to me the unknowable mystery is its beauty. I get that it is in man's nature to always need answers, but I don't. I feel perfectly at ease with a lack of answers.
When a good friend died in an accident in the late 80s and his family arranged a Christian service against his will (he was an atheist), the arrogance of the priest and his religion who told us all that we would be ignorant if we were to deny that there was a reason for his death and that it was his time to go, left me seething with rage. It was not his fucking time to go, the world would have been a better place with my friend alive and while I have no proof for a god, the fact that his death was utterly pointless is one thing I knew for certain and I'd rather live with that than some willful god. That funeral turned me from an bumbling agnostic to a rabid atheist because I find it far more comforting to know that his death was random, rather than justifying a horrible, universal injustice with lies you have to take on blind faith.
And a god who just created everything and then left us to our own devices, denies the wonders of how extraordinary and mysterious the universe really is when looked at it through the eyes of science. It's just that science is more complex to wrap your head around than "dude with long white beard did it" and it will always lack all the answers we want. When I look at the stars I still feel overwhelmed by the idea that I'm looking at a giant mystery rather than god's plan and to me the unknowable mystery is its beauty. I get that it is in man's nature to always need answers, but I don't. I feel perfectly at ease with a lack of answers.
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8ball
Decolonise colons!
It's about logic, truth and the kind of consistency without which no real personal integrity is possible.
8ball
Decolonise colons!
I'm a lot more gentle with people generally these days, there is often common ground to be found.
With some people, at least.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
I used to have this kind of rage against religion. It's not just nonsense, it's offensive nonsense. I've mellowed a bit now but it is still offensive nonsense really. I totally agree about the sense of wonder that can be felt in a fully atheist way. I'd argue that only an atheist can fully appreciate it in fact, because to have faith is to stop asking questions.
8ball
Decolonise colons!
I think it was Reg Hunter who said that to give 'God's will' as the reason for something is another way of saying "I'm done thinking now".
bluescreen
tofu eating wokerati
Do you think so? I'm an atheist but I know believers who question everything, except perhaps whether there was a First Cause. Their religion is much more a matter of codification and custom, community and metaphor than any superstitious belief of the sort that so often gets set up as a straw man.
Totally agree about the sense of wonder.
ETA: Mind you, the believers I know probably aren't that representative.
8ball
Decolonise colons!
It's not a straw man, it's what a huge number if people actually somehow manage to believe. Other kinds if belief are possible, but the believers you know don't sound like the kind of people stupid enough to come out with the crap from the OP.
The response to the silly Facebook post was a world away from saying "all religious people are idiots" to my mind.
Edit: I've crossed the threads in my head - D'oh!
. (Still quite sleepy - need caffeine)
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
It's definitely true that many believers don't take belief as seriously as non - believers, and are just not that bothered by logical contradictions.
My patience is tested when people tell me they're 'spiritual' and imply that I'm missing something.
My patience is tested when people tell me they're 'spiritual' and imply that I'm missing something.
8ball
Decolonise colons!
Isn't 'spiritual' just code for "narcissistic gullible target market"?
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Such people generally haven't grappled with things like quantum mechanics. (Or worse, they cite a misunderstanding of QM in their arguments.) In reality, they have little idea how truly weird real scientific ideas are. 
8ball
Decolonise colons!
Such people generally haven't grappled with things like quantum mechanics. (Or worse, they cite a misunderstanding of QM in their arguments.) In reality, they have little idea how truly weird real scientific ideas are.
Such people aren't interested because the weirdness is of no utility unless it makes everything all about them. There is only flat, dull external reality and their own fascinating, wonderful, too-important-to-die selves.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
I don't even want there to be a God. Imagine what the world would be like if we knew for a fact that there was an afterlife. Religious people are bad enough now and that's when they just think there's an afterlife. If we knew there was an afterlife we'd all be religious and we'd all be at war with each other constantly to impose the "correct" belief on each other.
This thought only just occurred to me recently and I'm not sure I've ever seen it expressed from this angle before. Could even be a brand new argument against God
This thought only just occurred to me recently and I'm not sure I've ever seen it expressed from this angle before. Could even be a brand new argument against God
8ball
Decolonise colons!
if we knew there was an afterlife, wouldn't we also know what the "correct" belief was, or at least be able to ask whatever we communicated with to come to this knowledge in the first place?
8ball
Decolonise colons!
It needs fleshing out a bit, I think. Did someone come back from the dead and say "one or possibly none of the religions is correct, but I'm not telling you which"? Did we contact them using some kind of scientific equipment? If so, why didn't we ask them to put a non-fuckwit on the phone?
It's a newly formed embryonic argument but I think I'm on to something. The first new argument against God in 300 years. They'll be building statues of me in 1000 years time.
The trouble is there's no way to describe how we came about this knowledge that would satisfy anyone. If God Himself appeared then atheists would just say it was aliens. So it's best to just say "by whatever means you choose, we know for a fact there's an afterlife but we don't know any more than that"
The trouble is there's no way to describe how we came about this knowledge that would satisfy anyone. If God Himself appeared then atheists would just say it was aliens. So it's best to just say "by whatever means you choose, we know for a fact there's an afterlife but we don't know any more than that"
8ball
Decolonise colons!
It's hard to build a thought experiment without the basic details. Knowledge is always deeply connected with other knowledge. Ok, I'm going to say we know becuae of a rash of people appearing in replicable conditioms to tell us there's an afterlife.
If there is no reference made to religion when they turn up, that gives people no more cause to fight over it than they do now. And as C66 has just presciently pointed out*, wars are rarely really about the particulars of religion.
* - dammit, crossing the threads again
I think my basic point is that things would be worse if we knew there was an afterlife than they are now when just some people just think there's an afterlife. Hence actual religious knowledge would be even worse than religious belief (and religious belief is a bad enough problem on it's own). Hence "God exists" is worse than "God may exist".
Or something. Embryonic
Or something. Embryonic
8ball
Decolonise colons!
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Priestly arrogance has always been my stumbling block to giving credence to organised religion. I hear one making statements of absolute certainty, and I don't think "that person has faith", I think "that person is either sociopathic, or has no critical faculties whatsoever".
8ball
Decolonise colons!
I think the same, though I tend not to think of it as 'priestly' since it's not priests that I've heard that sort of thing from - priests are usually well-accustomed to doubt and struggle ime.
Often it's a kind of grandstanding among others of faith.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
The way I see it, if you have absolute certainty, you don't have faith. Faith implies that you accept uncertainty - that you trust in your deity, regardless of not having "the whole story". Absolute certainty, on the other hand, implies what I said above, IYSWIM.
8ball
Decolonise colons!
Yeah, agree totally. In my experience it's usually the recently-converted who like to talk about their certainty. I file it under 'attention seeking'.
Edit: It can be compared to someone saying they trust their wife not to cheat on them. That is trust, or faith.
When you *know* your wife is not cheating on you it is the opposite of trust, because you have hired a small coterie of private investigators in order to make this knowledge possible.
spanglechick
High Empress of Dressing Up
Religion makes me angry. Not the idea of god - the reality of which existence strikes me as a matter of ultimate irrelevance - but the sociological manifestation of religion makes me really angry.
Because although the massive majority of any religion's believers are not violent extremists, there's something enormously offensive in the legitimacy afforded to something with no more sensible validity than star-signs and fairy tales.
Indoctrination of children - teaching children to suspend their critical judgments on this one field of understanding and just accept. It's bullshit and abusive.
Rules, social constructs and laws that stem from religion (abortion, sexual double standards...)
State funding / tax exemption for schools, churches etc - less money for healthcare or whatever so millions can be spent protecting the idea of sky pixies.
A fundamental moral bankruptcy : is something ethical or not? Religions encourage ppl to check an arbitrary rule book rather than examine their own innate understanding of right and wrong.
Anyway, it seems the efficient way to shut up angry atheists is to say "Dawkins" to them. Whatever. I am angry. But I don't often bother vocalising it. If someone is a Tory, they tend to accept that ppl will challenge them for that. Might not like it but... But with region there's this whole fucking social construct that challenging them is beyond the pale. I don't see the difference.
Because although the massive majority of any religion's believers are not violent extremists, there's something enormously offensive in the legitimacy afforded to something with no more sensible validity than star-signs and fairy tales.
Indoctrination of children - teaching children to suspend their critical judgments on this one field of understanding and just accept. It's bullshit and abusive.
Rules, social constructs and laws that stem from religion (abortion, sexual double standards...)
State funding / tax exemption for schools, churches etc - less money for healthcare or whatever so millions can be spent protecting the idea of sky pixies.
A fundamental moral bankruptcy : is something ethical or not? Religions encourage ppl to check an arbitrary rule book rather than examine their own innate understanding of right and wrong.
Anyway, it seems the efficient way to shut up angry atheists is to say "Dawkins" to them. Whatever. I am angry. But I don't often bother vocalising it. If someone is a Tory, they tend to accept that ppl will challenge them for that. Might not like it but... But with region there's this whole fucking social construct that challenging them is beyond the pale. I don't see the difference.
Reno
The In Kraut
One thing which is most annoying about religious and spiritual folks is that when they hear you are an atheist or agnostic they make assumptions that you have no strongly held beliefs and that therefore you are an empty vessel they can unload their wisdom on. I have two hippie cousins who reject Christianity but who are into a lot of spiritual gaff and they keep lecturing me about the power of positive thinking and some such at family gatherings. I can believe that it is more beneficial to approach life with a generally positive attitude than a negative one, but that's all I need to know. There is no need to build an entire belief system around that, complete with following various gurus and crap. Every time they get talking about it, they look transformed and they think they have to teach me. While they would reject any conventional organised religion, at that point they and their banalities are no better than that of any fundamentalist. The ignore the fact that I think a bit of rational pessimism can be a good thing and that this is part of my convictions and that at they are disrespecting me. This why I treat anybody who tells me that they are "spiritual" with as much suspicion as anybody who follows an organised religion or a cult.
