Why is it deemed wrong to "bash religion"?

[kx000]

You don't need to believe to know, you can just know. Besides you do believe, and you do know.

 

[Randwolf]

You don't need to believe to know, you can just know. Besides you do believe, and you do know.

Please give me an example of something that you "know" but do not "believe". Please. Just one?

 

[kx000]

Please give me an example of something that you "know" but do not "believe". Please. Just one?

I do believe so I can't help you.

 

[Randwolf]

I do believe so I can't help you.

So, you were lying when you stated: "You don't need to believe to know, you can just know."

I take it you don't hold that position as factual, instead it is merely another testament of "faith", right? The interior of a true believer's mind is much like a labyrinth, cul de sacs and dead ends abound.

 

[kx000]

So, you were lying when you stated: "You don't need to believe to know, you can just know."

I take it you don't hold that position as factual, instead it is merely another testament of "faith", right? The interior of a true believer's mind is much like a labyrinth, cul de sacs and dead ends abound.

Lets put it this way knowledge can hold something new before faith.

 

[Randwolf]

Lets put it this way knowledge can hold something new before faith.

Let's have you explain that. What can knowledge hold before faith? Give me an example please...

 

[kx000]

Can religion be a bunch of men and women following common morals for peace? Like hope, and community.

 

[kx000]

Let's have you explain that. What can knowledge hold before faith? Give me an example please...

I can know anything like that.

 

[Aqueous Id]

Well said. Brilliant post by the way!
I think one of the biggest concerns that we face is the rise of right wing evangelicals. The minority of extremists who demand that science is not taught in schools, that homosexuality becomes illegal, that contraception and abortion be banned, etc.. They do pose a risk to society as a whole. And unfortunately, this group of people have the clout to affect the politics of the US, and the effect of that is that it ends up affecting the population as a whole. Because, as you noted, if you don't agree with them, then you are the enemy.

Hi Bells. Thanks. I you are always outspoken in matters of social justice. I feel solidarity with you on this. I think it's shaping the world around us and threatens far too many rights, not to mention sheer sanity.

The inability of cultures to throw off the ignorance and superstition of antiquity, and the fear and loathing of presumed enemies, is a matter of unfinished business. There are far too many issues handed down from generation to generation. Now is the time for all good people to drive stakes in the ground and assert the harm of religious indoctrination, and in particular those principles based in strict literal interpretation of myth. Our ideas about the insanity of literalism are not new. Consider the archetypal victim of this dispute, Galileo himself. Here he is attacking from the same high ground you and I are standing on. Look at how old this logic is - he references it to Tertullian, a Christian scholar from the 2nd century:

It is necessary for the Bible, in order to be accommodated to the understanding of every man, to speak many things which appear to differ from the absolute truth so far as the bare meaning of the words is concerned. But Nature, on the other hand, is inexorable and immutable; she never transgresses the laws imposed upon her, or cares a whit whether her abstruse reasons and methods of operation are understandable to men. For that reason it appears that nothing physical which sense*experience sets before our eyes, or which necessary demonstrations prove to us, ought to be called in question (much less condemned) upon the testimony of biblical passages which may have some different meaning beneath their words. For the Bible is not chained in every expression to conditions as strict as those which govern all physical effects; nor is God any less excellently revealed in Nature's actions than in the sacred statements of the Bible. Perhaps this is what Tertullian meant by these words:

"We conclude that God is known first through Nature, and then again, more particularly, by doctrine, by Nature in His works, and by doctrine in His revealed word."

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/galileo-tuscany.asp
​

Pretty neat, huh?

Great post!

Hi quinnsong. Thanks.

What qualifies as "thoughtful"? An atheist who has no ideals in mind and no love at heart? A killer who has no concept of fellowship, humanity and brotherhood? I really hope you do not dismiss my questions as irrational due to taking the perspective of religious indoctrination.

It is irrational to believe that myths trump the laws of Nature. See Galileo above. Indoctrination is the programming of vulnerable minds with arguments leading to such irrational ideation. Atheism is rejection of both things, even aversion to them. The rest of what you said is an opinion you have, which as far as I can tell is shaped by indoctrination with irrational ideas. It doesn't seem to have anything to do with the world around us. In particular, atheists can't be generalized to any stereotype, since it's a rejection of the stereotype. And I have no idea how to connect murder to this discussion, unless you are mean the lynching blacks, etc., I mentioned earlier.

For another example of a thoughtful person, and to further show how rational people of antiquity have dealt with the topic at hand, I would offer this fragment from about 2500 years ago. This is Critias, the kind of thing some of us encountered in our early education. It should be in every school curriculum:

There was a time when the life of men was unordered, bestial and the slave of force, when there was no reward for the virtuous and no punishment for the wicked. Then, I think, men devised retributory laws, in order that Justice might be dictator and have arrogance as its slave, and if anyone sinned, he was punished. Then, when the laws forbade them to commit open crimes of violence, and they began to do them in secret, a wise and clever man invented fear (of the gods) for mortals, that there might be some means of frightening the wicked, even if they do anything or say or think it in secret. Hence, he introduced the Divine, saying that there is a God flourishing with immortal life, hearing and seeing with his mind, and thinking of everything and caring about these things, and having divine nature, who will hear everything said among mortals, and will be able to see all that is done. And even if you plan anything evil in secret, you will not escape the gods in this; for they have surpassing intelligence. In saying these words, he introduced the pleasantest of teachings, covering up the truth with a false theory; and he said that the gods dwelt there where he could most frighten men by saying it, whence he knew that fears exist for mortals and rewards for the hard life: in the upper periphery, where they saw lightnings and heard the dread rumblings of thunder, and the starry-faced body of heaven, the beautiful embroidery of Time the skilled craftsman, whence come forth the bright mass of the sun, and the wet shower upon the earth. With such fears did he surround mankind, through which he well established the deity with his argument, and in a fitting place, and quenched lawlessness among me ... Thus, I think, for the first time did someone persuade mortals to believe in a race of deities.

http://www.stenudd.com/greekphilosophers/critias.htm
​

Don't you have anything better to do Syne?

I don't believe Aqueous was making "blanket statements" about "groups of people" unless said group of people happens to be composed of evangelical creationist fundamentalists. That group absolutely deserves the tar brush of "what's wrong with religion".

You can't possibly be saying that these groups don't exist, can you? Oh, wait, that's right, you identify with the group, so what you're really saying is "don't slander my group", right?

The sane world tolerates (barely) the boil on our buttocks that fundamental religionists represent. Your camp will only be happy when insanity prevails and rationality is discarded in favor of "faith". Go back to shutting down discord in your own forum so that you and your lackeys may prosper and prevail in that habitat. (you know, the one where intolerance and suppression of free speech is encouraged)

Leave the rest of us alone to actually think.

Hellfire and damnation!

Hey there Randwolf. Of course my actual words were very specific about whom I'm accusing, so there's no basis in fact for him to get his shorts in wad. What he said he was objecting to was

The issue is "what's wrong with religion". And that specifically refers to the modern fundamentalist/evangelical/creationist who is expressing pathological markers on a very large scale, very overtly.

Note the word specifically and who is expressing pathological markers, and the singular is. Anyone with even a left cajuna would recognize their blunder for calling that a generalization and apologize for being a pest.

"Boil on the butt" of sanity is about as good as it gets toward crystallizing the ideas of most of us. Well said.

Kind of ironic that censure by a high-strung mod would serve to illustrate some of the ideas that come to mind in the OP. But I suppose if that's his sacred cow some of this will push his buttons. You're probably right about that. Actually I thought I had him on ignore, but I think that lock busted open when he became a blue guy. Makes sense, they don't want users turning off the mods' bullhorns. Until now I never had an inclination to do that since the vast majority of mods are reasonable people who post cool stuff. Meh. One bad apple doesn't ruin the bunch. Now there's a generalization you can take to the bank!

There are very real issues put on the plate of public opinion by religious people (e.g. Tea Party fundamentalists) which was my point in saying The issue is "what's wrong with religion". Everything else in this thread pales in comparison. If all religions were peacefully going about their business of finding God, or the Great White Sylph or whatever, none of these threads would even exist. If anything we'd be passing around their folk art and music and maybe even going through a Renaissance of some kind. Hence the boil you mention.

there is also the possibility that god actually does exist

I think the customary answer is that it's like saying "when pigs fly" or something along those lines. In techno speak we thing of probability, as in stochastic processes. But the problem here is that the invention of gods in antiquity was not a true stochastic process. Sure it had random events leading to whether the chief deity had a tail or spoke like Darth Vader from behind a burning bush - that, plus a thousand other things that shaped their myths. It flooded in Mesopotamia because they sit at the drainage basin for glaciers of Turkey. And of course climate change caused those ice melts, not a magic sky daddy. (Note the dilemma here for fundamentalists arguing that climate change is natural.) Once the Mesopotamians had concocted that the gods were deliberately dogging them, they had to invent explanations for it. At least by inventing the guilt of humans they shared the blame instead of picking scapegoats like, say, the early civilizations of Central America. Case in point: it was all about geography. I think the conventional wisdom among Egyptologists is that religion under the Pharoahs was far less concerned with blame, other than a final judgment and reward for good behavior. I say this because the upper Nile is so far from the African Rift and Ethiopian watersheds that feed it. It would just rise gently and irrigate their crops for them, plus the silt was good. So they tended to think of their gods as relatively benign, rather than constantly insinuating guilt into religious ideation.

My point is that, for the same reason no one seriously entertains the possibility that the Easter Bunny actually exists, "the possibility that god actually exists" has no basis in the actual information at hand -- the myths, legends and fables we know of -- to associate such possibility with anything that remotely resembles careful consideration.

Therefore, if I say "God does not exist" I mean "mythological creatures do not exist". It answers the mail, staying focused on the actual evidence, while avoiding the pure epistemology, which to me is a sidetrack from the core essential discovery of the truth of the matter. In fact I think most folks who say "we don't know if God exists" are really off the mark. I'd rather hear them say "just as we know the Easter Bunny does not exist, we know that God does not exist". More to the point would be "we know the God of western tradition does not exist because we know it's a myth adapted from similar myths that preceded the tradition."

 

[Randwolf]

I can know anything like that.

Such as? Give me an example please...

 

[kx000]

Such as? Give me an example please...

Anything. If knowledge is possible anything can follow.

 

[Randwolf]

Anything. If knowledge is possible anything can follow.

So, it should be really easy for you to give an example. Be specific please...

 

[Magical Realist]

The commonly accepted initial philosophical position is that knowledge is a justified true belief. The justified belief comes first, and only when it can be shown to be true is it considered knowledge.
Gettier came up with some examples that showed how inadequate this initial position was and so the concept has been continually developed.

Guess I should've consulted Wikipedia before forming my belief that knowledge is necessary before forming belief. Do you think knowledge about the belief that knowledge is a kind of belief would've made a difference?

But I'm not sure anyone (other than your good self) has suggested that knowledge comes before belief.

I'm happy to rock the boat. Not that I have. I'm sure these objections have been raised many times before by others.

It is quite simple in that if a belief can not be shown to be true or not, it remains a belief, no matter how justified.

And if a belief CAN be shown to be true, that is a kind of knowledge about the belief that must preexist the belief itself. Otherwise we are left with an endless regression of infinitely nested beliefs about beliefs about beliefs trapped in a sort of solipsist bubble of unknowingness. At some point we must admit that there is a direct knowledge of a state that confirms the truth of our belief.

A future event can not be knowledge unless it is shown to be a necessary event, and even then you could argue over whether the justification for it being necessary is sufficient.

I could say that given today is Monday, tomorrow will be Tuesday. I guess that would be an instance of logical necessity.

Only when an event has happened can it be shown to be true, or if it is a matter of logic etc.

If the event can be shown to be true, then that entails the ability to directly know this. True belief presupposes an exposedness to a factual state of affairs such that it CAN be known whether the belief is true or not.

In common parlance, when someone says they know something is going to happen, or that they know their friend, they are actually saying that they have a very good understanding of it such that they are confident in their ability to predict future events.

Understanding something presupposes the acquisition of knowledge about something or someone such that it is possible to form true beliefs about it. IOW, my belief is based on an experiential understanding of a situation or of someone. Once again, knowledge first, then belief.

 

[wellwisher]

Faith is a prerequisite of all future knowledge. Faith is the belief in that which is not yet proven, which is the nature of all future knowledge and all future innovation. For example, nobody has even shown that dark matter or dark energy exists in the lab. All we have is have faith, that the basic inference and math is real and that lab level of proof may someday be possible. This faith is what motivates scientists and holders of the purse to invest in the future. The charisma of faith helps others to feel the conviction for that which is not yet tangible or proven. The holders of the purse may not even understand the science but will depend on the charisma of their faith as the gauge.

Say the various scientists sales pitching dark energy and dark matter, had no charisma of faith. Instead, they presented their sales pitch in a bland objective we don't have lab proof, it would not motivate anyone. They need to show their faith.

All innovation requires faith, since all new ideas and innovation begin as seeds and are not yet real to the faithless sceptic. The sceptic who lacks faith will foot drag, whine and complain, until after its conception, development and demonstration.

Faith, which is a key lesson developed by religion, is where the skill of future vision is developed. Without faith, one would need the newest technology to grow on trees so one can skip that irrational step.

 

[kx000]

So, it should be really easy for you to give an example. Be specific please...

I can know that sky fairies exist. Or my true love.

 

[Randwolf]

I can know that sky fairies exist.

How? Please share, how can we know that sky fairies exist? Evidence please...

Isn't this crux of the matter? You may have faith in sky fairies but you know no such thing.

Or my true love.

You're mixing the definitions of "know" here.

Full Definition of KNOW

transitive verb
1
a (1) : to perceive directly : have direct cognition of (2) : to have understanding of <importance of knowing oneself> (3) : to recognize the nature of : discern
b (1) : to recognize as being the same as something previously known (2) : to be acquainted or familiar with (3) : to have experience of
2
a : to be aware of the truth or factuality of : be convinced or certain of
b : to have a practical understanding of <knows how to write>​

vs.

3. archaic : to have sexual intercourse with​

Even so, please provide proof that you can "know" your love is true in the first and second sense of the definition. You'll end up in a circle, saying inane things like "I just know". Not very scientific or even objective. But again, that is the whole point. You do not "know" these things, you may wish or even have faith in their existence but that's about it. Delusions at best.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/know

 

[kx000]

How can I know? Well if God and sky fairies exist then I can just know.

 

[Randwolf]

You'll end up in a circle, saying inane things like "I just know". Not very scientific or even objective. But again, that is the whole point. You do not "know" these things, you may wish or even have faith in their existence but that's about it. Delusions at best.

How can I know? Well if God and sky fairies exist then I can just know.

Really? Imagine that...
Carry on, I tire of this. Like hitting myself in the head with a hammer, it feels good to stop.

 

[Yazata]

Assuming that life started on Earth spontaneously, it most likely happened about 3.9 billion years ago.

And if life on Earth didn't start here, then where did it come from? Got any suggestions?

It's conceivable that life didn't originate here on Earth. Perhaps not very likely, but conceivable.

I have no way of knowing that, of course. But every time they push back evidence of life deeper into Earth's early past, it shortens the amount of time between the first appearance of life and the time when the Earth first developed a solid crust capable of sustaining early life. That's the period in which pre-biotic chemical evolution would have had to occur, leading up to the appearance of bacterial-type cells with their genetic codes and biochemistries. Another possible problem is the absence of simpler pre-biotic chemical replicators, self-reproducing molecules of various kinds (such as much simpler naked nucleic acid-type things), in our environment now. Of course it's possible that what we think of as life might have competed its earlier ancestors into extinction, but nevertheless I wonder about it.

Where might life have come from if it didn't originate here? Somewhere. The universe was probably already 10 billion years old when the Earth condensed. There were probably other planets out there with long histories before the solar system was even here.

The bigger problem, as I see it, was how did life get here from there? I don't know. It's conceivable (though perhaps only barely) that something like bacterial spores got off a planet somehow, and are either floating free around much of the universe or else dormant life was protected somehow in cosmic debris of some kind. I don't know. The biggest problem with that is that nucleic acids like DNA tend to break down and fragment over time, and cosmic radiation in space certainly won't help that.

 

[Magical Realist]

You can not know something without believing it, but you can believe something without knowing it to be true.

I know all sorts of things that don't necessarily entail belief. I know the various explanations for the measurement problem in quantum physics for example without having a belief that any one of them are true. I know that I can see my computer screen right now without first having to form a belief that I see it. And I know that I have a belief about something that may or may not be true that is not itself just a belief. The very ability to know you have a belief entails the ability to directly know when you are believing or not.

If you know something then it is necessary that you believe it (philosophically speaking).

And you know this how? Or is it just a belief?

In your example, your belief is that it is raining, your perception provides evidence (not proof) that leads you to conclude that it is raining (i.e. justification) and your perception also provides you with the truth of the belief.
Your analysis of what is happening misses out the belief and justification because there is no actual conscious thought between observation and knowing it is raining.

Unconscious believing? How could you possibly know you have a belief without being conscious of yourself believing it? OTOH, I AM conscious that it is raining based on me seeing that this is the case. True belief that it is raining can't even happen without me first seeing that it is raining. I have direct perception of a factual state of affairs, which is presupposed by the consequential true belief.

But philosophically these are the steps one takes: belief, justification, truth

Actually it's more like, perception or cognition of a factual state, then belief. It afterall IS possible to have knowledge of reality without first forming beliefs about it.

For example, if I see someone sitting at a table in a room, do I know that the room is not empty of people?

You start by seeing THAT someone is sitting at a table in a room. IOW, you have a direct sensory experience of a factual state of affairs. All your consequential beliefs presuppose knowledge of this state. If you then discover that it is a manikin, then you did not in fact see that someone is sitting in the room. It was a mistake of perception, a mistake made possible by further direct perception that there is a manikin sitting in the room instead of a person. So even the mistake, in that we find out about it, presupposes access to the factual state of the room. You cannot form a true belief without knowledge of some factual state.

I have belief: that there is someone in the room.
I have justification: I see someone in the room. If there is someone in the room it can not empty of people.
But do I have knowledge?
If there really is a person in the room, then yes, I do.
But what if that person turned out to be a rather convincing mannequin? Then there is no truth behind my claim, and thus no knowledge.
Further, what if it was a mannequin that I saw, but there was someone else in the room behind the door, such that I couldn't see them?
In this case I have justification for the belief, and the belief is true, but can I really claim to have known when my justification for my belief is so flawed?

Even in this case you presuppose direct epistemic access to the actual state of the room such that your belief can be true and justifiable. IOW, you see that someone was behind a door. We cannot help but posit knowledge of the actual state of the room if we are going to know that our belief about it is true and justified or not.

But philosophically speaking one starts with the belief, not knowledge.

My belief that the sky is now blue is both true and justifiable based on my seeing THAT it is blue. I actually AM seeing the sky as blue. I see the sky and I see that it is blue. If seeing the sky as blue were just another belief on my part, how could I ever know that my belief that it is blue be proven true and justifiable? I couldn't. We'd be stuck in an endless regression of "believing THATS" that would ultimately make every belief undecideable and unjustifiable.