The Big Big Thread of Religious Discussion

[42PETUNIAS]

Any mods going to join on this at all?

[RaiRai]

I have no doubt that some might choose to. I however will gladly watch this go to hell and have no part in it other than that. =)

[Lockeownzj00]

You need to have convictions or you are empty.

What are you implying with this statement? I fail to see how an atheist can't have convictions.

ZAK, have you ever had to decided to believe in something that cannot be proved to another person?...I can't tell how I have felt strength to continue on when all of my own had dried up. Finding a belief and having a conviction is something that isn't necessarily rational or explainable.

First of all, if we're truly going to debate this, we need to clearly delinate our language. First you use faith as a belief of some kind, then as some sort of strength imbued upon you, and I'm not quite sure what either means.

But anyway. This is a tenuous argument in favor of religion. The idea that that God can not be "proven" or "disproven" is mythical: for example, there is no such thing as a non-alchemist. Why do we not say this? Because alchemy is not a system of beliefs or ideas that needs to be "proven or disproven," it is inherently flawed and therefore tossed out of the equation. My goal in saying this is to first prime the idea that religion is not exempt from these logical processes. This is also why atheism isn't "just as much of a belief" as religion is. It is the lack of belief. Bald is not a hair color.

What's even more ironic is that religious people use reasoning, explanation, and logic to explain their reasons for believing. So the entire concept that somehow a deductive belief isn't deductive is ridiculous. The concept of faith is pretty much a massive intellectual cop-out and joke.

I wrote this up a while ago. It's long as dick. I'll just paste the first section, wherein I attempt to prove that the universe is infinite and thus 98% of all religious ideology is wrong. Just scratches the surface, kinda. But whatevs.

~~~~
Suppose we were to take a rock. A nice, big one. Let’s make it an orange rock, so it stands out.

Suppose we were to take that rock, and send it off into space, right outside the orbit of the Earth.

Now let’s suppose that we kill every human being—nay, every sentient being in the universe with some device, except you.

Does the rock still exist?

Yes, of course it does. Let’s take it a step further. Let’s kill you, too. You commit suicide from the loneliness.

Does the rock still exist?

This is the easiest way to poke a gaping hole in religion and religious ideas. I have a feeling that most people trying to answer this question might change their answer a few times, but it’s the same principle as “If I die, does Europe still exist?”

As human beings—finite creatures with beginnings and endings—we tend to personify our traits on the world at large. Pragmatically speaking, this is fine: in social contexts, things begin and end (relationships, friendships, jobs); in construction things begin and end (buildings are built and torn down); in art the physical piece is created and exists till destroyed; essentially every facet of our lives follow this pattern.

We come across a problem when we attempt to apply this logic to the universe. ‘The universe exists, and therefore, had to have begun, and must, at some point, end.’

But if we return to our original analogy of beginning and end in social context, we will realise where this leap in logic comes from: for a building doesn’t truly cease to exist, it merely changes states. The physical structure has become a pile of rubble and ash, and socially, the buildings purpose (whatever it may have been—hospital, office, etc.) has vanished. Socially, it is important to delineate the difference between friends and non-friends, but the relationship never truly ceased to exist; even if you were to sever ties with the person, you would be in a state of non-communication, rather than “nothing.”

Pragmatically, it would be pointless to clarify that the building merely changed states every time it came up in conversation.

But when we discuss philosophy we can’t be so banal—we must be very judicious about our word choice. So as a friendship doesn’t truly end, neither does the universe.

Let’s go back to the rock.

You’re alive again, and the shining orange rock is still floating listlessly in space. Now we kill you. The rock still exists, right? And will continue to exist—existence is not precluded by sentience. That is to say, an object doesn’t need to be observed to exist. If the human race (and all other theoretically existing life forms) were wiped out entirely, Earth would still be floating round, nebulae would still be spinning furiously (or however it is nebulae spin), meteorites would still streak through the sky, and so on and so forth. And it would do so indefinitely. Even if by some random event a massive explosion destroyed every galaxy in the universe (a preposterous notion, really), the universe—existence—would have merely changed states.

So if the universe continues indefinitely in one direction, why wouldn’t it in the other? Indefiniteness does not have a “beginning.” Indefiniteness is forever.

The universe exists, has existed, and always will exist.

What is readily observable is that human beings, as finite organisms, view life through a filter. We begin, we end—why shouldn’t everything else? We struggle with our sentience and intelligence as a unique animal which is truly aware of its surroundings. It is understandable: an animate object, no matter how hard it conceivably tries, can never understand what it is to be inanimate. Even when it becomes inanimate, it will not have the sentience to observe this non-existence. This is where the frustration arises.
~~~

no one will read my post if it's too long, so i'll post part 2 about why we should choose to believe on or the other later.

[ZAKtheGeek]

I think I have an argument shorter and better than, "Why wouldn't it?" Basically, just consider conservation of matter and energy. Neither matter nor energy can be created, and they exist now. Since they couldn't have been created, they must also have existed a moment ago (or just beyond the span of this observation, it doesn't really matter). And again, since they can't have been created, they must have also existed before that, and by the same argument, before any point in the past you could choose. So, logically, everything has existed indefinitely into the past.

And by a similar argument, everything will continue to exist forever.

I know it can be fun to bash on narrowminded misconceptions, but when you get to the positive side of the argument, this probably works better.

[Darth SS]

Religion in general upsets me because you get five groups of people.

1) People who genuinely believe their religion, practice fully, and use it as motivation to help others. They do good in the world, and I applaud them for that.
2) People who are fervent in the appearance of practicing their religion, and assume that they are somehow superior to the rest of us because they're so "devoted."
3) People who show up at their respective masses once a week, go through the motions and say the right things and the right times, all the while thinking "God I'm hungry. I should go and get a clubhouse after this." They then walk out and act as if they've been completely absolved of any kind of responsibility or wrong-doing.
4) People who believe their religion to the point of naivety. They think that their religion can solve absolutely anything, and if you have a problem, you need only convert. They'll try to push their religion on you in a good natured way, and all they think about is their own religion.
5) People who believe their religion to the point of violence. Their religion is better than everything else, and if you disagree then you can (and are) going straight to hell. They fancy themselves fire-and-brimstone preachers of old, but ultimately come off as crazy.


Now, for those of you that are wondering, here's my religious belief(s).

There is a God.
I don't know what he's told man, because man is fallible, and no holy text survives translation six times wholly intact.
However, to me, the fact remains, there is a God.

I don't give a flying fuck about Him.
-If I'm going to help someone, I'm going to help them specifically to help them, not to appease some greater being.
-Furthermore, the problems I have here down on earth are my problems. I've made them. I'm sure as hell going to deal with them. I don't mind help in some fashion, but at the end of the day it's in my hands and my hands only.
-Finally, and this is the big one, if I fault someone, and need forgiveness, I want the person I faulted to forgive me. I don't care if some great deity forgives me for faulting someone else. They are the one that was hurt by me, they are the one with the ability to forgive me.

In the end, I want to do good in the world specifically because the world needs some good done. I don't care if some great being is happy with it, I don't care about appeasing his arbitrary standards. I care about people.

[Mirai Gen]

Un moderated, hmm? INSULT SLINGIN' TIME!

If anything gets Locke posting on this forum again, it's the Big Big Thread Of Religious Discussion. Sup bud!

Anyway.

My big question now that it's 'okay' to talk about this. Are there people who actually did the whole rebellion thing, and when they started and grew up as children of religion, did they 'grow out' of religion when they became adults? I'm honestly curious, because I've seen it happen for so many people and yet I don't have enough religious friends to see this sort of thing happen.

Okay, let's stir the pot of this UnMod thread a little better.

Personal beliefs: I'm entirely too adamant about science having reasonable and perfectly legitimate explanations for how things work and why and what's happened to create where we are now to assume some big spooky father figure 'up there' beyond space actually did it all for me 'cause he could.

That should spice things up a bit.

[Loki, The Fallen]

Hate to start poking holes...

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

So... you see... even your orange rock eventually will cease to exist. All we'll be left with (In theory mind you, as all of this science stuff is theoretical) is this massive expanse of photons. Thats pretty darn close to nothing.

So... in theory, the universe has an end.

And referencing creationism, at least in the Bible, we see that:

1 First God made heaven & earth 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.

Hey, couldn't this be done from a previous heat death or something? (Well, according to the whole Entropy theory thing, the beginning of the universe was a bit different... ah well, I try.)

This was just about 10 minutes of looking up the little I remember from my Indoctrination Center days, who knew it’d come in handy!

So really, I enjoy the show. Please continue.

[Darth SS]

Just touching briefly on Loki's post...

Just because there's nothing in the universe doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It hasn't ended anymore than a child's sippy cup ends because there isn't any milk in it.


Back to Mirai;

I was a good little catholic boy until about four years ago.

I wouldn't say that I grew out of it. I'd say it's more that I discovered the world, and then discovered that I'd essentially been lied to my whole life. You hit a point where you either make your religion fit what you now know, or you realize your religion doesn't fit with what you now know and you abandon it.

I chose option B.

[Mirai Gen]

Originally Posted by Darth SS

Back to Mirai;

I was a good little catholic boy until about four years ago.

I wouldn't say that I grew out of it. I'd say it's more that I discovered the world, and then discovered that I'd essentially been lied to my whole life. You hit a point where you either make your religion fit what you now know, or you realize your religion doesn't fit with what you now know and you abandon it.

I chose option B.

Thanks for answering my question, but somehow I get the distinct feeling you're overglorifying this...I can understand that as you're going along, and you stop and think about it, you go, "Oh, wow, that totally makes no sense." The theoretical homosexual who doesn't even think about straight and gay until the subject is brought up.

But I can't shake the feeling that "Been lied to" is a bit unfair. The religious tell you what the truth is to the best of their abilities, and if you're in a catholic household, that's the truth to them. I also might be a bit sensitive about the issue, because I think that there's a substantial difference between "The truth you know" and "being lied to" are different on drastic degrees.

See this is why I'm very hesitant to carry on very long into religious discussion in general. It almost always ends up with "Truth is in the eye of the beholder" being the best arguement slung around, and that makes a really irritating debate.

[grunthork]

I believe in my religion because of faith alone. Most people ( I believe) do not think of religion the way i do. Faith is NOT based on fact, or logic as we know it. It is not trying to explain the universe. It is simply believing in something, and many times ,you dont know why you believe in it. I can't put my faith into words, but i will just say that it's a belief that i developed by myself, it doesn't explain the world, but it is based on feelings i have. I believe what i believe. No need to make it more complicated than i already have.