Real World Philospohy

[General Woundwort]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
There is nothing arbitrary about my "declaration". You seem to have missed this post...

quote:

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Keep in mind that "religion" started with primitive man as a means to explain everything he could not understand (which was pretty much everything around him). The concept of "God" did not come along until 100,000s of years later. Before some people in ancient Babylon began claiming that there was only one God (the Jews), everyone believed in either multiple gods or some other belief in which everything (people, animals, rocks, etc.) was spiritual (with the occasional "other"). Of course, there were probably some minor pockets of monotheism before Judaism came along, but that is the one that got the whole notion of one God going strong (after quite some time, mind you).

This is how religions have evolved over the millennia. It does not take a rigorous study of every single religion to realize this. Also, it is rather difficult to ask anything of a fictional character. It is of course possible that there is some sort of supernatural force (not necessarily likely, but possible). In any case, it is certainly not "God", or the deity of any other religion. The possibility of one religion being right and the other 1000s of them that have existed over the years (and that still exist) being wrong is so absurdly small that it can safely be ignored. Even if you want to go by weight of numbers, Christianity would come out wrong, as some 2.5-3 billion people on this planet are either Buddhists or Hindis, with Christians coming in at a measly 500 or 600 million. So why does "God" not speak to all those people, just a few in the West?

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1) Lots of assertions here, little proof. What is the evidence that primitive man "invented" religion?

2) What is so absurd about one religon being true and all the others false? The Christian doctrine of human depravity (the idea that human nature has become corrupt and therefore hostile to the idea of God) is a rational explanation for the diversity of religions, from a monotheistic POV.

3) Truth is not determined by numbers of claimants, but whether a truth claim corresponds to reality.

4) The West has a decidedly atheistic bent nowadays. If your neighbor went around denying that you exist, would you be really that enthused to talk to him?

[deccan]

Originally posted by Erax:

Simply put, there is no need for conflict between science and religion bercause they address different questions.

Science exists to explain how.

Religion exists to explain why.

Using science to explain why or religion to explain how is apt to fail miserably (and often does).

Ah yes, the famous Gould evasion of the issue, "non-overlapping magisteria" was how he put it I believe.

Yet there are many good objections to this view. For example, if the view of science and physicalism is correct, then humans, including their thoughts, opinions, beliefs, emotions etc. are either physical or supervenient on the physical, and this cannot help but overlap into the whys.

On the other hand, organized religion justifies its "whys" based on its "hows". How many people would be willing to accept the "whys" taught by religion if its "hows" were acknowledged to be wrong?

[Atrocities]

New philosophy of mine. No matter how a topic begins, it will always end in a reglious discussion.

[primitive]

An on-topic remark then

Favourite motto: Just do it !

Unfortunately, too often this turn in to: Why the f.. did I do that.
20 odd years of applying Just-do-it to my life has meant quite a few visits to the doctors office for treatment for bruises and broken bones (used to be into extreme sports) as well as some very unnecessary antibiotic cures and too many hangovers to mention.

[Fyron]

Originally posted by narf poit chez BOOM:
brain hurts. burp.

how do i know i'm not just hearing a crazy voice? well, crazy voices don't make sense.

That is not true. The majority of people with (less severe cases of) schitzophrenia hear perfectly normal sounding voices that make good sense.

[Cyrien]

My nephew has in the past taken medications that caused him to hear voices. ADHD and Bipolar. One of the medicines they first tried had this side affect.

His paternal grandmother thought it was the voice of the devil and decided to take matters into her own hands. He no longer see's her but he did change medications for the ADHD and bipolar and it stopped.

From what he has told me the voices made a great deal of sense and it often involved instructions on what to do. He says he argued with the voices and is quite happy to have them gone.

PS: My mother is a councilor to help deal with a variety of issues and I can inform you that most voices people here are quite sensible and take on some quality of the persons personality taken to an extreme. Babbling or nonsensical voices are quite rare.

[Loser]

A couple of the early symptoms of adult schizophrenia are delusions of incredible insight and personal empowerment. They take a lot of different forms, but all lead to very 'inconsistent' behavior, which is dangerous.

Insight always makes sense, that's what it's about. Even more dangerous is that personal empowerment and impossible insight feel really, really good. People take street drugs and prescription anti-depressants just to get a fraction of this experience.

If you had to chose between believing you were gifted and super-capable and believing that you were unstable and no longer able to care for yourself, which would you choose? Which would you want to be true?

Personally, I'd wait until the evidence against me was undeniable. I couldn't just give up. We would regard that as strength in many other situations, which just makes it more dangerous.

[Fyron]

Originally posted by General Woundwort:
1) Lots of assertions here, little proof. What is the evidence that primitive man "invented" religion?

Invented, created, concocted, came up with, thought up, dreamed up, use whatever term you want. Good evidence is the fact that noone begins their life with any set religious views; everyone has to be spoon fed them to have them. So, the first people must not have had religious views, and they developed over time. Organized religions developed as a means to control people, just like organized governments. The fact that Judaism developed amidst a polytheistic culture, and later Christianity developed from it, with Islam sort of branching off somewhere afterwars, is good evidence that religions evolve. It is a pretty safe assertation that they all had to evolve from somewhere... and "the word of God" is not a good point, as EVERY non-animistic religion (with some form of deity...) can say that (not God, but whatever deity(ies) they worship).

There is a wealth of study and evidence out there about the evolution of religion, starting from the primitive to the modern. I am sure google will turn up some useful links. I just do not have hte time at present to wade through them all... Just make sure to use the site:.edu tag in your searches (assuming I remembered that correctly... check the advanced search formatting help page) so that you can restrict sites to being on .edu domains, thus eliminating the bulk of garbage sites (garbage for any sort of intellectual purposes...). Of course, there are garbage sites on .edu domains, but at least you start off on better footing with university-owned web space... and they tend to have much better documentation.

2) What is so absurd about one religon being true and all the others false? The Christian doctrine of human depravity (the idea that human nature has become corrupt and therefore hostile to the idea of God) is a rational explanation for the diversity of religions, from a monotheistic POV.

That requires assuming that Christianity is correct... the fact is that pretty much all religions have the exact same claims of divine revelation and all that stuff, and so all have the truth. But how can you pick which one has the real truth? Quite simply, you can not. Any arguments you could come up with to justify your choice apply equally to many other religions as well.

3) Truth is not determined by numbers of claimants, but whether a truth claim corresponds to reality.

Exactly. That sentence or two was not part of my argument, just an absurd answer to any possible absurd claims along the lines of "but everyone around me believes this..." and such. Though, I can see where your apparent confusion on my post came from...

4) The West has a decidedly atheistic bent nowadays. If your neighbor went around denying that you exist, would you be really that enthused to talk to him?

Sure I would! That would be one interesting conversation. The west has a decidedly atheistic bent nowadays because atheism is the next step in religious evolution...

[Loser]

I have heard people make interesting claims about the growth of atheism, it is not as big as you think. Check out these numbers from the CIA World Factbook.

U.S.A.

Religions: Protestant 56%, Roman Catholic 28%, Jewish 2%, other 4%, none 10% (1989)

U.K.

Anglican and Roman Catholic 40 million, Muslim 1.5 million, Presbyterian 800,000, Methodist 760,000, Sikh 500,000, Hindu 500,000, Jewish 350,000

(Total 60,094,648)

Germany

Protestant 34%, Roman Catholic 34%, Muslim 3.7%, unaffiliated or other 28.3%

[Atrocities]

The "WTF am I doing?" question is by all means one of the staple self questions of man kind.

"I just asked my self that about five minutes ago. WTF am I doing here still? I mean WTF am I doing?"

"I have spent an ungodly amount of time in this bar and for what? I don't know perhaps to be a part of something that other people enjoy? Maybe to share in a common place where people of like intrests hang out? I don't really know why I hang around, I simply do. However, if the time comes to move on, I will do so without looking back, because I know that this great social monster will continue to live on long after my interest in this place has gone."

Another one would be: "one should not be where one is not wanted unless it is where you want to be."
"Never take a personal attack personal until you have had a few hours to think about it."
"Once those who you know think lowly of you, there is no point in knowning them at all."
"Follow the money."
"Not all rumors are rumors, not all facts are facts, however a rumors and facts often lead to logical conclusions that are as much a rumor as they are a fact."
"Never shop while your hungry."

And finally

"Treat others as you would have them treat you."

"If there was an simely face expression for 'Read my expression' I would post it here now for amused I am not, but confused I am."

[ November 07, 2003, 13:31: Message edited by: Atrocities ]