Agnostics' view of religious believers

[rheno]

Who's to say that science and religion are not inexplicably intertwined? For in some instances science really can't answer. The Laws of physics and quantum mechanics fall apart at a certain point and faith and hope can actually lead to the answers.

The power of faith has healed people. People have survived when science says that by all means they should not have. I'm not trying to pick a fight I'm merely saying you should view both sides unbiasedly before making any real decision.

I have faith in the fact that I will find the answer im looking for, faith in the word spell checker's ability to correct my spelling, faith in many theories or facts. Having FAITH doesn't make one religious. I have faith in the fact that my point was explained with sufficient clarity for you to understand it.

 

[Phil Ayesho]

Who's to say that science and religion are not inexplicably intertwined? For in some instances science really can't answer. The Laws of physics and quantum mechanics fall apart at a certain point and faith and hope can actually lead to the answers.

The power of faith has healed people. People have survived when science says that by all means they should not have. I'm not trying to pick a fight I'm merely saying you should view both sides unbiasedly before making any real decision.

Sorry, that is addle pated hogwash. Faith does not lead to any answers.
Reason, logic, observation and verification lead to answers
KNOWLEDGE leads to answers.
Faith leads to poppycock, and blowing shit up in the name of your imaginary friend.

There is certainly a limit to knowledge, but that only means that some questions are unanswerable... not that delusional make believe is an adequate replacement for real answers, nor real knowledge.

The entire meaning and point to the term agnostic is to be able to recognize that some questions are unanswerable and some things are unknowable.
Period...
not open to question... not 'possible'... but literally and definitively and for all time unknowable.


Contrary to what your high school dictionary says, being 'open minded' about religion is NOT being an agnostic.
Recognizing that ANYONE claiming Any knowledge of god IS delusional because the concept of god is truly unknowable... that is being an agnostic.

What you, and other fence sitting wannabelievers misusing the term really are is simply religiously unaffiliated.

 

[Calboner]

I'm a PASTAfarian!
Long live the Flying Spaghetti Monster!

But do you show your faith like the owner of this license plate?

The power of faith has healed people. People have survived when science says that by all means they should not have.

Really? Somebody got Science, like some great oracle, to make a prediction of somebody's life expectancy? Or perhaps what you are talking about is a case in which some particular physician made a judgment of someone's expectancy of life that turned out false? Gee, a doctor made a mistake -- who would have thought such a thing possible? That is plainly proof that SCIENCE ITSELF is fallible! Not.

Nor does this sort of anecdote support the conclusion that "the power of faith has healed people." To support that conclusion, you would need to compare two groups of patients, one of which consists of ailing believers and the other of comparably ailing non-believers, and see whether the believers have better outcomes. And, by the way, if you find that there is no difference, and you say after the fact, "Well, that just shows that they didn't really have faith," you will just be making plain what we suspected all along: that your claim about faith is itself a piece of groundless faith; in other words, that you are invoking faith to validate faith.

I'm merely saying you should view both sides unbiasedly before making any real decision.

Being unbiased does not mean giving equal weight to wishful thinking and to evidence. It means dismissing the former and considering only the latter.

 

[TObul]

To your "Yes, but" I say, "OK, however.."

"It may be informed by the findings and methods of science, but it belongs to philosophy."

That is actually what I said, I meant that if you want to tie Science replacing religion for answers to rationalist philosophy replacing religious moral doctrine and community this is how you could describe it.

"This still is not an ethical community in the pertinent sense. What binds people together in this pursuit is the value that they set on critical rationality: the conclusions to which they are led are likely to be widely divergent. I don't mean that this is a fault; I just mean that it is nothing like the kind of community that religion offers."

Well, this may require more "faith" than rationals are comfortable with usually, but the idea is that there is always one final, best answer. There would be vigorous debate in reaching it as many people would have divergent views, but that is good, the more information and points of view taken into account, the better the final answer will be. That's simply the rational way to reach consensus.

"I explained what I mean by an ethical community: it is a group held together by common views of what is important in the conduct of human life."

This is covered in rational philosophy: To put it simply rationals know that things are better if people are nice and, once again, there is a single best code of conduct for citizens therefore this is our set moral code. Best of all, if it becomes outdated and it makes sense to change it, there we go. The incentive to follow it (beyond immediate rule of law) is that there are consequences to not following it in terms of suffering not from a vengeful deity, but the fact that human society is a closed system and greater net happiness is achieved the closer you follow the rules.

 

[deleted213967]

I find myself being more open to the ideas and possibilities put forth by all religions than just calling people stupid and gullible.

So you can have your pork and eat it too?

 

[deleted213967]

The power of faith has healed people.

Faith in the power of Vicodin has indeed alleviated my pain while on the way to the dentist's office, even before Dr. Rosenthal (is that a Jewish name?) operated on me, let alone prescribed the Rx...

The effectiveness of placebos is abundantly documented too...but to to derive from that premise that a man is also his father and that the man's mother is a virgin still strikes me as a non sequitur.

 

[uberhund]

Take the quote:

"To put it simply rational philosophers know that things are better if people are nice and, once again, there is a single best code of conduct for citizens therefore this is our set moral code. Best of all, if it becomes outdated and it makes sense to change it, there we go. The incentive to follow it (beyond immediate rule of law) is that there are consequences to not following it in terms of suffering not from a vengeful deity, but the fact that human society is a closed system and greater net happiness is achieved the closer you follow the rules."

...which is paraphrased from the above. Actually there is no evidence that greater net happiness is achieved by everyone closely following rules, and great unhappiness has been caused by rules which were unfair to women, black people etc., or by allegedly 'rational' (and certainly non-religious) systems such as Soviet or Chinese communism.

The statement that people are intrisically good and rational is a statement of faith. I happen to agree with it: despite all the bad things that people do I believe that there is a loving core to all of us which can be distorted but still exists is reasonable. But I am aware that when I say this, I am making a statement of faith. Psychological experiments can and have been done to show that people are 'essentially' selfish, or 'essentially' altruistic: there is no real proof either way.

This is, in my opinion, the true use of faith: to priotise our experience. If you're my friend and one day you're crappy to me, I assume you're having a bad day: I have faith that your essential goodness as a person is still there, just not currently on display. This is not 'rational': it may be that your crappy self is your real self and you've been faking being a nice person all these years! I can't prove it, rationally, one way or the other. I have faith that the nice you is the real you because it's nicer for me to do so.

I think it's unfortunate that the word faith has been hijacked to mean 'believing in things which look like they aren't true' like the miracles mentioned above, when in fact, the way that the word is used by ordinary people all the time: 'I have faith that you can do this', 'I'm putting my faith in my crash helmet', 'I will be faithful to my beliefs' makes it clear that they are choosing to believe the best of people or things.

Spiritual experience is a part of what it is to be human: Douglas Hay, in his book 'Something There' did an interesting survey in which he found that around 50% of people had a spiritual experience at some point in their life, including a sense of the divine, a sense of oneness with the universe or the presence of the beloved dead. Of course they may be simply stupid and misguided, but I have not the arrogance to say that. There is a spiritual dimension to our lives as people, and it's important, just like falling in love is, or greiving our losses: it's something humans do.

It's unfortunate that from these experiences, which are strange and mysterious, people have to put together theories which oppress others, but they are equally capable of doing from scientific, as opposed to spiritual, insights. How much harm was done by beliefs in 'improving' humanity by killing off 'underpeople' or 'non-people': a belief of scientific, not religious origin.

If science has made you a better, more rational person, you can show it by demonstrating these qualities in your debate with other people who have had different experiences to you, possibly including spiritual experiences. And if your spiritual experiences are real they should lead you to discussing things with your scientifically-minded brethren in a kind and loving way. By your actions shall we know them and all that. I feel a lot of the forgoing dialogue is by people determined to prove a point and 'win' over the others: not a very scientific or spiritual thing to do!

ps. I came to this site for pictures of big dicks: how come we're having a theological debate?

 

[SomeGuyOverThere]

I have faith in the fact that I will find the answer im looking for, faith in the word spell checker's ability to correct my spelling, faith in many theories or facts. Having FAITH doesn't make one religious. I have faith in the fact that my point was explained with sufficient clarity for you to understand it.

Faith, technically, is holding a belief without or in spite of evidence.

For example, you can have faith that the reason that you don't fly off into space is because you ate scrambled eggs for breakfast. That's a belief that has no evidence (and indeed contrary evidence - I didn't have breakfast yet I haven't flown into space). However, holding the belief that the reason that you don't fly off into space is because the Earth, being a large mass, makes a decent sized dent in spacetime, and since you are in this dent you are stuck to it and are inable to, without a spaceship, project enough force to reach escape velocity and leave the gravity well, is not faith, instead that is a justified belief.

I think religion and faith are inextricably intertwined. In order to beleive in God you require faith, as he has never, to my knowledge, popped down to the local supermarket and introduced himself in person. You may be right however, relation does not imply causality, and while i think you need faith in order to have religion I don't think you need religion in order to have faith.... you just need a lot of wishful thinking.

"faith" in the the spell checker isn't required - it's a program, therefore it acts fairly predictably and so far picks up on most of your spelling errors, therefore you have a justified belief that the spellchecker works. Similarly your "faith" that we can understand you is based on past experience of projected ideas through language, therefore it's a justified belief.

(though belief from experience is, philosophically, a little dodgey, in the real worl it's fairly reliable)

 

[Calboner]

Psst, Tobul and Uberhund! There's a button at the bottom of each message that says "Quote": use it when you compose a reply, so that we know whom you are quoting, and from what post!

"This still is not an ethical community in the pertinent sense. What binds people together in this pursuit is the value that they set on critical rationality: the conclusions to which they are led are likely to be widely divergent. I don't mean that this is a fault; I just mean that it is nothing like the kind of community that religion offers."

Well, this may require more "faith" than rationals are comfortable with usually, but the idea is that there is always one final, best answer. There would be vigorous debate in reaching it as many people would have divergent views, but that is good, the more information and points of view taken into account, the better the final answer will be. That's simply the rational way to reach consensus.

I don't share that faith, and I don't see why any such faith is necessary for the conduct of ethical inquiry. We progress by discarding faulty hypotheses and explanations, inventing and testing new ones, examining our assumptions, resolving confusions, and so on -- in short, by getting rid of bad ideas and adding to our stock of good ones. There's no need to suppose that the activity has a resting-point, even in principle. In any case, no such state of unanimity as you describe is anywhere within view. A community united only by critical rationality necessarily has to deal with much more extensive disagreement than religious communities do.

ps. I came to this site for pictures of big dicks: how come we're having a theological debate?

I wouldn't call it "theological" but "philosophical." Be that as it may, some of us lose interest in debates about how long Mandingo's cock is after a while and turn to other questions.

 

[LolaBunny]

I'm not an agnostic, but I would still like to give my opinion on this:

Okay. I don't go to church like I did a few years before now, and I don't like being preached to. But, I do feel that people need something in their lives to make living worthwhile, and religion is a good outlet for everyday issues. It gives one a reason to persevere. I do believe that we all are looking for a reason to get out of bed and tackle another day. For one person it could be religion... for another it could be hobbies, friendships, money, etc. You have your own reasons as well.

This is why I don't make fun of very religous people- We are all trying to make it.

 

[Calboner]

Faith, technically, is holding a belief without or in spite of evidence.

For example, you can have faith that the reason that you don't fly off into space is because you ate scrambled eggs for breakfast. That's a belief that has no evidence (and indeed contrary evidence - I didn't have breakfast yet I haven't flown into space).

What do you mean, "technically"? It's not a technical term. Besides that, your definition does not agree with the common use of the word. As several posters in this thread have pointed out, an essential element of the meaning of the word "faith" is "trust," whether you are talking about religious faith or faith in a person or an institution. Having faith in someone or something is not primarily a matter of having a belief about the person or the thing but of trusting him or her or it in some fashion. Keeping faith, or being faithful, means fulfilling someone's trust. Lacking evidence has nothing to do with any of this.

Your supposed example of faith illustrates your own definition, but it is not an example of faith as that word is commonly understood.

Of course, the person who has faith in God has to believe that God exists; but it doesn't follow that his or her faith consists in that belief. To have faith in God is also to trust in God, and to do that simply has nothing to do with evidence or the lack of evidence.

Further, even to take the element of belief by itself, there are plenty of people who have religious beliefs and who also claim that they have evidence that supports those beliefs. They claim, e.g., that miracles recounted in the Bible are evidence of the divinity of Jesus or that the narrative of the Exodus is evidence that the Israelites are God's chosen people, or that the appearance of design in nature is evidence of God's existence. I believe, as I'm sure you do, that they are deluded on all of these points, and that none of these facts constitute rational support for their beliefs. But that is beside the point, which concerns the definition of faith. These people may be deluded about what they have in the way of evidence, but I see no reason to believe that they are deluded about what they mean by "faith." They profess faith, and they claim to have evidence that supports what they believe. On your definition, they are speaking in a self-contradictory fashion. They are not. It is your definition that is at fault.

 

[ungl14]

People are welcome to their own beliefs, I see the value of a structured religion and church for many it can serve as a support group with others who share your beliefs. While I do not share the views of many other religions I don't knock churches or their specific practices so long as they encourage good will to fellow individuals.
To quote Thomas Paine I personally believe “My own mind is my own church.”

 

[TObul]

Psst, Tobul and Uberhund! There's a button at the bottom of each message that says "Quote": use it when you compose a reply, so that we know whom you are quoting, and from what post!

I don't share that faith, and I don't see why any such faith is necessary for the conduct of ethical inquiry. We progress by discarding faulty hypotheses and explanations, inventing and testing new ones, examining our assumptions, resolving confusions, and so on -- in short, by getting rid of bad ideas and adding to our stock of good ones. There's no need to suppose that the activity has a resting-point, even in principle. In any case, no such state of unanimity as you describe is anywhere within view. A community united only by critical rationality necessarily has to deal with much more extensive disagreement than religious communities do.



I wouldn't call it "theological" but "philosophical." Be that as it may, some of us lose interest in debates about how long Mandingo's cock is after a while and turn to other questions.

First of all, sorry, I only wanted partial quotes. If there's a way to do this with the quoter(?), i'm all ears.


Second, the process you describe:

"We progress by discarding faulty hypotheses and explanations, inventing and testing new ones, examining our assumptions, resolving confusions, and so on"

This is what I was talking about. Individual issues may have a resting point, but the work of course goes on for the decision-makers. You said that unanimity is nowhere in sight, but that will always be true of differing philosophies. My argument is that through sufficiently careful, responsible decision making there may be unanimity within the ranks of rationals, and that because of the higher inner discourse during the process final agreed-upon decisions are stronger.

The core principles of Utilitarianism may still be ambiguous the way I've been describing them. My best attempt would be to say it's all about results, a kind of anti-philosophy that is, you could say impossible to be wrong. This is because the moment you show a convincing argument against an existing Utilitarian position, that becomes the new position. The point of all this is that people who are dug in to a camp sometimes get things right, sometimes wrong, and the best way to make decisions is to let go of the ideas of political spectrum and "us" and "them."

A good practical example might be myself, (lol, just bear with me, and PLEASE don't comment on my positions, this is not a political debate, just illustrating a point):

I am anti-gun control. For reasons to do with practicality, I am pro regulation and waiting period, etc., but not restricting access as a matter of fact b/c I don't see evidence of overall crime reduction and there is a legitimate sporting/collector community. However, in other areas I could be considered very liberal with regards to social safety net and Government's role in the free market (even for Canada), but then again there are very specific roles the government should not have a hand in, b/c the profit incentive is in line with the public interest and private industry does it very well, and on and on.

These are all positions I took after exposing myself to as much relevant information as possible and making a decision, not because one party or faction said so or because i'm liberal and that's what liberals think, etc.


P.S., I agree with uberhund, I'm not trying to "win", just explain my point of view. If i've come across as combative I apologize, I like debating and this has been very fun:swordfight:

 

[the_reverend]

If you have faith in God, Allah, Buddah etc. what is your view of agnostics and atheists?

as long as they don't call me gullible or stupid, we tend to get along just fine. :biggrin1:

 

[Calboner]

First of all, sorry, I only wanted partial quotes. If there's a way to do this with the quoter(?), i'm all ears.

Ah, I see. That takes a bit more work. You have to insert the codes for beginning and ending quotations at the desired points in order to produce separate quotations of parts of the same post. To get the attribution to appear, you have to copy and paste the opening and closing codes that appear around the quotation when you use the "quote" function. Or, to get unattributed quotations to appear, you can just use the strings "quote" and "/quote" with square brackets in place of the quotation marks that I have used.

Second, the process you describe:

"We progress by discarding faulty hypotheses and explanations, inventing and testing new ones, examining our assumptions, resolving confusions, and so on"

This is what I was talking about. Individual issues may have a resting point, but the work of course goes on for the decision-makers. You said that unanimity is nowhere in sight, but that will always be true of differing philosophies. My argument is that through sufficiently careful, responsible decision making there may be unanimity within the ranks of rationals, and that because of the higher inner discourse during the process final agreed-upon decisions are stronger.

Hmm. . . . Sounds to me a bit like Plato's imaginary perfect state, or like the episode of The Simpsons in which the members of the Springfield chapter of Mensa -- Lisa, Principal Skinner, Comic Book Guy, Professor Frink, and, I think, Lindsay Nagel -- take over the town. It turns out that they can't run it any better than the band of dunderheads who used to do the job.

 

[TObul]

Thanks for the tip, hope this works:

Hmm. . . . Sounds to me a bit like Plato's imaginary perfect state, or like the episode of The Simpsons in which the members of the Springfield chapter of Mensa -- Lisa, Principal Skinner, Comic Book Guy, Professor Frink, and, I think, Lindsay Nagel -- take over the town. It turns out that they can't run it any better than the band of dunderheads who used to do the job.

LOL, I had not heard of the Plato one but (typically) have seen that episode. The intentions they had and reasons the Mensa members took control were in line with the rational ethos, but you'll see that they did a lot of irrational things, like Metric Time ("it's now 80 past ten!").While they thought doing that was logical in the wider scope of things it was completely unreasonable, standard time works fine.

Finally, their government failed because they all became arrogant and bickering when rationals know it's not how you get there, it's *that* you get there.

I'm not saying rationalism is easy, nothing that matters is. In fact, the whole point is to make things harder, to not fall on a philosophy or belief system to make decisions, but to get to the root of a given situation and have the fewest barriers to impassive analysis and optimal decision making. I'll even say it requires a religious-esque devotion and humility that the greater world is interconnected and more important than you, and the energy to research and ponder, perhaps in lieu of meditation or prayer.

LolaBunny said:

"Okay. I don't go to church like I did a few years before now, and I don't like being preached to. But, I do feel that people need something in their lives to make living worthwhile, and religion is a good outlet for everyday issues. It gives one a reason to persevere. I do believe that we all are looking for a reason to get out of bed and tackle another day. For one person it could be religion... for another it could be hobbies, friendships, money, etc. You have your own reasons as well.

This is why I don't make fun of very religious people- We are all trying to make it."

Firstly, I don't make fun of passive religious people, (I'm not saying anyone said I did, I'm just saying), but I do take issue with activists who support negative policy and fight progress, because they have a hand in making my life more unpleasant, and that's when your views are fair game to me.

Secondly, it could be argued that, as I said, the energy it takes to work out problems, stay impassive and humble, fight for what's best for the earth, and continue the never ending work of improving our world can be just as good a reason for getting up in the morning and just as fulfilling.

I also believe in what you might call "Atheist Karma," that karma works not religiously but because the world is a closed system. The other point is that a rational leader knows he is merely an agent of positive influence (like a priest) and that the only reason you might be in charge is because you're the best person for the job, but the moment you stop having the greater good in mind you stop being that person.

BTW, My next book is due in November. :biggrin1:

 

[Calboner]

LOL, I had not heard of the Plato one but (typically) have seen that episode. The intentions they had and reasons the Mensa members took control were in line with the rational ethos, but you'll see that they did a lot of irrational things, like Metric Time ("it's now 80 past ten!").While they thought doing that was logical in the wider scope of things it was completely unreasonable, standard time works fine.

The bit about "metric time" (really decimal time, as Lisa might have observed; but that would be much less funny) is just a minor detail in the episode, but it's my favorite joke in it.

I hope you will get around to reading Plato's Republic eventually. I didn't cite the title because the political system that Plato promotes is not a republic at all (the translation doesn't correspond in meaning to the Greek title Politeia anyway) but rather a dictatorship.

 

[D_Tina_Ciao]

As a Christian, I believe we're all people

As another Christian, I agree, and try to keep my strong beliefs to myself unless I get into something which can't be explained otherwise and must divulge it. I do not, however like "organized religion" (man-made, in my opinion) Yes, I have strong faith, but that's because I've lived a long time and have seen absolute miracles in my life, inexplicable by my logic.

I accept atheists and agnostics alike without judgment and try to love everyone unconditionally. Having a severely-handicapped daughter has been a blessing, because it's taught me the most important lesson of my entire life - unconditional, selfless love - I know how to love. If I never accomplish another thing as long as I live, that's something. :yup:

 

[D_Kissimmee Coldsore]

I suppose I may feel a little less comfortable around somebody who proclaims their religious beliefs to me, as I see faith as irrational and irrationality as a weakness of character. The same feeling is evoked if somebody tells me they believe the moon landings were faked, etc.

If somebody is racist, sexist, homophobic, or whatever then I have no time for them. If that should be accompanied by a religious "validation" then they are still scum. I also despise being preached to. I would never confront a religious person and tell them "YOU ARE WRONG!" because why should I care? I expect no less from them. Mind your own feckin business.

That about covers it. May you be touched by His noodly appendage.

 

[fournineteenfiftynine]

I'm not sure what to make of this, but I remember some of my earliest attractions to the male body were the practically naked images of Jesus. All of the paintings of Jesus show him with a nice body. Sounds weird I know, but...