Why Religion Must Remain A Part Of The World...

Smellyman2

Conversely, why do people grieve so much when people die if they are in a "better place" and you will see them again? Why do they grieve so much when death is premature? If Earth is just a small step to immortality than big deal. You would think people would be jealous.

More likely they grieve because deep down they know there is no after-life.

Collin

catefrances wrote:

this one does not perplex me. of course a tree falling in the forest makes a noise. Man is not the only creature with the ability to hear.

What about a tree falling in a forest with no one or nothing around to hear?

catefrances

Collin wrote:

What about a tree falling in a forest with no one or nothing around to hear?

how would you know then?

OutOfBreath

catefrances wrote:

this one does not perplex me. of course a tree falling in the forest makes a noise. Man is not the only creature with the ability to hear.

ah, but do you know that, or does it just make sense based on other information that you have? You know, what you just labelled belief...

(edit) ah sorry, I misread your name for cornnifer. Sorry.

Peace
Dan

Collin

catefrances wrote:

how would you know then?

Isn't that the whole point of the question?

catefrances

Collin wrote:

Isn't that the whole point of the question?

i meant how would you know it fell?

Collin

catefrances wrote:

i meant how would you know it fell?

Oh ok, well what if a deaf person saw it falling?

catefrances

OutOfBreath wrote:

ah, but do you know that, or does it just make sense based on other information that you have? You know, what you just labelled belief...

(edit) ah sorry, I misread your name for cornnifer. Sorry.

Peace
Dan

logic dictates that a falling tree makes a noise even if there is no one around to hear it.
i do not believe a tree makes a noise when it falls based on some sort of unsubstantiated claim. i have heard trees fall before. therefore if i find a tree lying prone, logic says that like all the other trees that have fallen and made a noise doing so, so too would the one i stumbled upon. the existence of God requires no proof, just a faith in the belief that He exists.

OutOfBreath

catefrances wrote:

logic dictates that a falling tree makes a noise even if there is no one around to hear it.
i do not believe a tree makes a noise when it falls based on some sort of unsubstantiated claim. i have heard trees fall before. therefore if i find a tree lying prone, logic says that like all the other trees that have fallen and made a noise doing so, so too would the one i stumbled upon. the existence of God requires no proof, just a faith in the belief that He exists.

Oh, I agree really. But if you wanna go with the wide definition of belief, this is also "belief" since you have no direct proof that the tree lying on the grouns made a noise on the way down. But that wide of a "belief" excludes any kind of knowledge. I think we agree, as my edit said, I though you were cornnifer for a second.

That being said, you really can't know that the tree did make a sound, or that peanuts does fly when you are not looking. (and even if you did observe it, there is the problem of the filtering through senses) But this ends up in there being no knowledge and no truth objectively. Fair enough, but not the way I would go if I was to defend God's existence.

Peace
Dan

catefrances

Collin wrote:

Oh ok, well what if a deaf person saw it falling?

but just because a deaf person can't hear the tree fall doesn't mean it doesn't make a noise.

Collin

catefrances wrote:

but just because a deaf person can't hear the tree fall doesn't mean it doesn't make a noise.

I know. I actually think there would be a noise... but you can't prove it, that's the whole idea.

catefrances

OutOfBreath wrote:

Oh, I agree really. But if you wanna go with the wide definition of belief, this is also "belief" since you have no direct proof that the tree lying on the grouns made a noise on the way down. But that wide of a "belief" excludes any kind of knowledge. I think we agree, as my edit said, I though you were cornnifer for a second.

That being said, you really can't know that the tree did make a sound, or that peanuts does fly when you are not looking. (and even if you did observe it, there is the problem of the filtering through senses) But this ends up in there being no knowledge and no truth objectively. Fair enough, but not the way I would go if I was to defend God's existence.

Peace
Dan

it makes sense to me that the tree made a noise. it would make no sense to me that after watching and hearing countless trees fall and making a noise that the next tree that fell made no noise.


i think i'd better put my hand up and say that i feel religion must remain a part of the world. where we are in our existence dictates that it is needed if we are going to continue to survive in our present societies. even as an atheist i acknowledge that the morals i have and live by are rooted in religion. it is not something i can get away from. it is ingrained into the society in which i live. but by the same token it does not mean i must accomodate religion into my life. or that am i any less of an atheist because of it.

Collin

catefrances wrote:

i think i'd better put my hand up and say that i feel religion must remain a part of the world. where we are in our existence dictates that it is needed if we are going to continue to survive in our present societies. even as an atheist i acknowledge that the morals i have and live by are rooted in religion. it is not something i can get away from. it is ingrained into the society in which i live. but by the same token it does not mean i must accomodate religion into my life. or that am i any less of an atheist because of it.

Even though the morals most of us have are rooted in religion, I do not think it's necessary for religion to remain a part of the world.

catefrances

Collin wrote:

Even though the morals most of us have are rooted in religion, I do not think it's necessary for religion to remain a part of the world.

what would you have the people do if they had no religion?

cornnifer

hippiemom wrote:

I don't know. I behave as though he does not, because I haven't seen one shred of evidence that he does.

On the contrary, I see all kinds of evidence that he does. Can i prove it? No. i can say, the same as others have, i know in my heart, but, technically it is still a belief, which you say you do not accept. Point is, is it safe to say then, that you do not accept your own stance on God? Because, it is afterall. a belief. It is therefore, according to your own bylaws, unacceptable.

catefrances

cornnifer wrote:

On the contrary, I see all kinds of evidence that he does. Can i prove it? No. i can say, the same as others have, i know in my heart, but, technically it is still a belief, which you say you do not accept. Point is, is it safe to say then, that you do not accept your own stance on God? Because, it is afterall. a belief. It is therefore, according to your own bylaws, unacceptable.

what evidence?

Collin

catefrances wrote:

what would you have the people do if they had no religion?

Sports, chess, charity work... I don't know.

hippiemom

cornnifer wrote:

On the contrary, I see all kinds of evidence that he does. Can i prove it? No. i can say, the same as others have, i know in my heart, but, technically it is still a belief, which you say you do not accept. Point is, is it safe to say then, that you do not accept your own stance on God? Because, it is afterall. a belief. It is therefore, according to your own bylaws, unacceptable.

My stance on god is that I have no way of knowing beyond all doubt if he exists or not. Since I see no evidence that he exists, I'm going to behave as though he does not exist, it's the only sensible thing to do. I'm perfectly willing to admit that I could be wrong, although obviously I don't think I am.

cornnifer

hippiemom wrote:

My stance on god is that I have no way of knowing beyond all doubt if he exists or not. Since I see no evidence that he exists, I'm going to behave as though he does not exist, it's the only sensible thing to do. I'm perfectly willing to admit that I could be wrong, although obviously I don't think I am.

Pardom me if it seems as though i'm hammering this. i'm really just looking for clarification. You said earlier that you did not accept belief. You either know, or do not know. If your stance on God is that you have know way of absolutely knowing whether or not he exists and you behave as though he does not, is that not based on a BELIEF that he does not? So, your basing your reality, thoughts and behavior on a belief, which, according to your own criteria, is completely unacceptable. Doesn't that present somewhat of a conundrum for you?

hippiemom

cornnifer wrote:

Pardom me if it seems as though i'm hammering this. i'm really just looking for clarification. You said earlier that you did not accept belief. You either know, or do not know. If your stance on God is that you have know way of absolutely knowing whether or not he exists and you behave as though he does not, is that not based on a BELIEF that he does not? So, your basing your reality, thoughts and behavior on a belief, which, according to your own criteria, is completely unacceptable. Doesn't that present somewhat of a conundrum for you?

Behaving as though he does not exist is based on the absolute knowledge that I currently have no 100% accurate way to determine whether he exists or not. Since I see no evidence of his existence, it would be silly of me to behave as though he exists. I can't prove with 100% certainty that Santa Claus doesn't exist either, but that doesn't mean I'm going to leave cookies out for him.

I guess now we're just quibbling over the use of the word "belief." I don't see any more evidence for god than I do for unicorns or the Loch Ness monster. There are people who claim to have encountered all three, but I don't find that to be persuasive without anything to back it up.

So sure, if you want to say that I don't "believe" in God in the same way that I don't believe in Santa, that's fine. We could also say that I "believe" that Vermont exists, since I've never actually seen Vermont myself. I think there's overwhelming evidence of Vermont's existance though, so I don't put that in the realm of belief.

I know I'm not articulating any of this very well, so I apologize for that. My brain seems to be operating in super slo-mo today. I may try again after some food and some more coffee