A World without Religion?

[Peter_Plato]

People all over the world started worshipping gods without hearing of your particular god.

Assuming that the only way in which “people” come to experience the numinous is by “hearing” about it from someone else. Apparently, this is you transposing your experience onto ”people all over the world."

People, ancient ones in particular, were quite good at inventing religions- all but one of which you believe to be false. Thus, the fact that people find your god plausible is not proof at all.

I suspect you don’t believe in Thor, Shiva, or Zeus, but can’t definitively prove they don’t exist. As the saying goes, atheism just takes it one good further.

Obviously, you haven’t taken the time to really think through the “one god further” nonsense. If you want to embarrass yourself we can pursue that line of thought, but I suggest you resist the urge.

The notion that “all but one of which you believe to be false” is somewhat misleading. It would be more truthful to state it as “only one of which you believe to be completely true.”
I have not come across any religion I would say is completely “false,” although a few come very close. Every religion has elements of truth and more than a few are quite compelling. (I am quite empathetic to Taoism and a great deal of early Confucianism.) Some are obviously more false than others, but a binary position on this is one that just isn’t necessary despite that atheists get a great deal of smug self-satisfaction from thinking it must be so.

 

[humble_catholic]

[BIBLEDRB][/BIBLEDRB]

People all over the world started worshipping gods without hearing of your particular god. People, ancient ones in particular, were quite good at inventing religions- all but one of which you believe to be false. Thus, the fact that people find your god plausible is not proof at all.

I suspect you don’t believe in Thor, Shiva, or Zeus, but can’t definitively prove they don’t exist. As the saying goes, atheism just takes it one good further.

This is what is called in philosophy as the genetic fallacy . The argument says that because there are many religions it automatically means that there is no true religion . A fallacious argument at best , and it’s the best excuse to get lazy when seeking ultimate truth .

I look at it this way . There are many metaphysical truths many religions share and I respect them all , but in my journeys I personally have the catholic faith to be the fullness of truth . I could have gone aboit on my merry way and say that because ther are a thousand different religions this is an automatic sign that they are all false, but I understood what was at stake when I was exploring and examining other religions .

I have a friend of 11 years who was an atheist for 9 of them . He came from a Hindu background and just recently started to believe in a creator . He is starting to study the Koran, Buddhism , Christianity (even receives bible quotes daily now ).

The difference within him now and how he was before is like night and day . He understands now that human life has ultimate meaning . He was honest with himself before to admit that as an atheist that life had no ultimate meaning . He now is an activist in Calcutta (his home town ) for the poor , gives his extra clothing to the poof .

He never did this as an atheist because he always called himself a practical atheist . To him a human being is basically a piece of meat that happened to come together over millions of years by chemical interaction and blind chance , nothing more , and his practical atheism made him question why he should help any human being instead of getting the. Ost pleasure out if his life , and so he did . He experiences every possible shallow pleasure that life could give him. Now he champions the plight of the poor .

He knows there is a creator out there but doesn’t know yet what religion has him pegged best , but he oarys every morning for God to keep him on his journey and reveal himself to him.

He is someone who would fit under the umbrella of inclusivism (someone who is seekimg God and truth with all his heart ).

This is the opposite of someone who would use the genetic fallacy who has not only stopped seeking but is now actively opposing God . Those kinds if people will get the shock and horror if their loves later on when they are standing in front of the almighty knowing knowing that he does exist .

The genetic fallacy is the most intellectually lazy argument that could be brought up on God .

 

[tonyrey]

This is what is called in philosophy as the genetic fallacy . The argument says that because there are many religions it automatically means that there is no true religion . A fallacious argument at best , and it’s the best excuse to get lazy when seeking ultimate truth .

I look at it this way . There are many metaphysical truths many religions share and I respect them all , but in my journeys I personally have the catholic faith to be the fullness of truth . I could have gone aboit on my merry way and say that because ther are a thousand different religions this is an automatic sign that they are all false, but I understood what was at stake when I was exploring and examining other religions .

I have a friend of 11 years who was an atheist for 9 of them . He came from a Hindu background and just recently started to believe in a creator . He is starting to study the Koran, Buddhism , Christianity (even receives bible quotes daily now ).

The difference within him now and how he was before is like night and day . He understands now that human life has ultimate meaning . He was honest with himself before to admit that as an atheist that life had no ultimate meaning . He now is an activist in Calcutta (his home town ) for the poor , gives his extra clothing to the poof .

He never did this as an atheist because he always called himself a practical atheist . To him a human being is basically a piece of meat that happened to come together over millions of years by chemical interaction and blind chance , nothing more , and his practical atheism made him question why he should help any human being instead of getting the. Ost pleasure out if his life , and so he did . He experiences every possible shallow pleasure that life could give him. Now he champions the plight of the poor .

He knows there is a creator out there but doesn’t know yet what religion has him pegged best , but he oarys every morning for God to keep him on his journey and reveal himself to him.

He is someone who would fit under the umbrella of inclusivism (someone who is seekimg God and truth with all his heart ).

This is the opposite of someone who would use the genetic fallacy who has not only stopped seeking but is now actively opposing God . Those kinds if people will get the shock and horror if their loves later on when they are standing in front of the almighty knowing knowing that he does exist .

The genetic fallacy is the most intellectually lazy argument that could be brought up on God .

An excellent post!

 

[PRmerger]

This is what is called in philosophy as the genetic fallacy . The argument says that because there are many religions it automatically means that there is no true religion

Egg-zactly.

That would be like saying “There is no real money because I reject counterfeit money” or “I am really an anarchist because I reject fascism, socialism, dictatorships”.

 

[AnimalSpirits]

[BIBLEDRB][/BIBLEDRB]

This is what is called in philosophy as the genetic fallacy . The argument says that because there are many religions it automatically means that there is no true religion . A fallacious argument at best , and it’s the best excuse to get lazy when seeking ultimate truth .

Except that isn’t even close to what I was doing. The poster I was responding to asserted that the widespread belief in the Christian god was proof that said god was real. I simply noted that there have been tens thousands of other religions which people sincerely believed in. Thus, it’s quite silly to claim that belief in a religion somehow contributes to its validity- you have no problem looking at the case for the existence of the Aztec or Norse gods and saying “hmmm, no, this doesn’t seem legit” despite the fact that a great many people one believed… Which is perfectly logical. I’m just pointing out that if belief in the gods of Canaan didn’t make them real, so to with your god.

Thus I wasn’t arguing “lots of gods asserted, therefore no real gods”, but rather that you can’t say that people believing in gods is evidence for them.

 

[RGCheek]

Except that isn’t even close to what I was doing. The poster I was responding to asserted that the widespread belief in the Christian god was proof that said god was real. I simply noted that there have been tens thousands of other religions which people sincerely believed in.

In the market place, competition usually sets a clearly better or even best product. If we had a widget market and one type of widget dominated the market with a 60% share, the normal response is to ask, ‘What is so much better about that widget?’

To ask ‘How can there be a best product when there are so many different types of widgets’ is to avoid the obvious implication that with so much competition how can one emerge to be so dominant?

So it is with the belief in a monotheistic Creator. From Hinduism, to the Abrahamic faiths well over 60% of todays global populations has chosen the Creator, about 1000 to one over choosing to believe that there was no Creator at all.

And you think that this implies nothing?

To realize that there are more people that believe the moon landings were fake, that Elvis is still alive, that there really is a Bigfoot wandering the Rockies than that believe that there is no God is completely irrelevant to your analysis of the general question? Doesn’t that make it quite plain what a fringe belief system atheism is?

Can that be anything other than pure hubris to dismiss 5 billion people’s opinion and assert without doubt that ones atheism is 100% right instead?

BTW: Hinduism believes in a tripersonal godhead too that is manifested in the form of its many gods, so though it appears on the surface to be merely polytheistic, it is considered by most of the ones I have spoken with to be monotheistic.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinduism#Concept_of_God

Hinduism is a diverse system of thought with beliefs spanning monotheism, polytheism, panentheism, pantheism, pandeism, monism, and atheism among others;[303][304][web 19][305] and its concept of God is complex and depends upon each individual and the tradition and philosophy followed. It is sometimes referred to as henotheistic (i.e., involving devotion to a single god while accepting the existence of others), but any such term is an overgeneralization…
The same hymn also speaks of “The One”:

Then there was neither death nor immortality
nor was there then the torch of night and day.
The One breathed windlessly and self-sustaining.
There was that One then, and there was no other.[note 68]

At first there was only darkness wrapped in darkness.
All this was only unillumined water.
That One which came to be, enclosed in nothing,
arose at last, born of the power of heat.[note 69][web 21]

In the Rigveda a more monotheistic concept of God emerges: “To what is One God, sages give many names they call it Agni, Yama, Mātariśvan”.

 

[AnimalSpirits]

So it is with the belief in a monotheistic Creator. From Hinduism, to the Abrahamic faiths well over 60% of todays global populations has chosen the Creator, about 1000 to one over choosing to believe that there was no Creator at all.

And you think that this implies nothing?

I think it implies that the two main religions that gave their followers a mission to go and convert others have a serious edge over the competition, since the others don’t even think there is a competition. And when the practitioners are willing to be absolutely brutal in carrying out this mission (Christianity in the Americas, Islam in, well, the Islamic world) that gives us a world with lots of Christians and Muslims.

So yes, I think the number of adherents to the god of Abraham have nothing to do with his existence. Religion, in my view, has persisted solely due to path dependence (people being brought up in the religion of their parents). But the irreligious have been making serious strides in the west, particularly in recent decades- very excited to see this continue.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I think it implies that the two main religions that gave their followers a mission to go and convert others have a serious edge over the competition, since the others don’t even think there is a competition. And when the practitioners are willing to be absolutely brutal in carrying out this mission (Christianity in the Americas, Islam in, well, the Islamic world) that gives us a world with lots of Christians and Muslims.

So yes, I think the number of adherents to the god of Abraham have nothing to do with his existence. Religion, in my view, has persisted solely due to path dependence (people being brought up in the religion of their parents). But the irreligious have been making serious strides in the west, particularly in recent decades- very excited to see this continue.

Atheism has had its share of missions to forcibly and brutally convert others to non-belief in God or gods. Communism (aka political atheism) has ascended and waned in numerous countries and left a wake of destruction and death in its path. The fact that people would rather die than convert to atheism is telling in itself since atheism didn’t successfully convert so it had to exterminate by genocide and maintain power by intimidation and brutal force.

As to you being “very excited” to see a rise in the numbers of irreligious, I would be very hesitant about voicing jubilation. Recall that “atheism” is not a belief system per se but rather a denial. As such it is completely open-ended in terms of what atheists are capable of. There are no moral tenets in atheism.

It appears to me that you have not thought this through very well. It is possible to eschew the beliefs of others and portray that rebellion as heroic only to certain limits. When it comes to actually hammering out a consistent positive belief system, in particular where ethics are involved, we’ll see how excited by irreligion you will be then.

Atheism has a certain credibility because it lives on the fumes of setting fire to the hypocrisy and failures of religious believers but only gives the appearance from the smokescreens of actually making a compelling case against religion. What atheism doesn’t do is come anywhere near offering a cogent alternative belief system with regards to accounting for the deepest and most profound needs people everywhere have for meaning, significance and worth in their lives. Atheism offers nothing in those respects.

 

[AnimalSpirits]

Atheism has had its share of missions to forcibly and brutally convert others to non-belief in God or gods. Communism (aka political atheism) has ascended and waned in numerous countries and left a wake of destruction and death in its path. The fact that people would rather die than convert to atheism is telling in itself since atheism didn’t successfully convert so it had to exterminate by genocide and maintain power by intimidation and brutal force.

Communism is not, cannot, and should not be equated with atheism, any more than absolutist monarchy is “political theism.” Stalin’s particular brand of communism had a severe anti religious bent, but one can believe in any given god and still accept “from each according to his ability…”, or one can be an atheist and still be a free market loving, American flag waving, gun owner. Liberation theology was once (and may still be) considered a hybrid of Christianity and Marxism.

The fact that people were willing to die for a particular belief only implies that they believe it strongly, not that it’s true. I doubt anyone here looks at the people of Jonestown and thinks “maybe they had the right idea.”

As to you being “very excited” to see a rise in the numbers of irreligious, I would be very hesitant about voicing jubilation. Recall that “atheism” is not a belief system per se but rather a denial. As such it is completely open-ended in terms of what atheists are capable of. There are no moral tenets in atheism.

It appears to me that you have not thought this through very well. It is possible to eschew the beliefs of others and portray that rebellion as heroic only to certain limits. When it comes to actually hammering out a consistent positive belief system, in particular where ethics are involved, we’ll see how excited by irreligion you will be then.

Atheism has a certain credibility because it lives on the fumes of setting fire to the hypocrisy and failures of religious believers but only gives the appearance from the smokescreens of actually making a compelling case against religion. What atheism doesn’t do is come anywhere near offering a cogent alternative belief system with regards to accounting for the deepest and most profound needs people everywhere have for meaning, significance and worth in their lives. Atheism offers nothing in those respects.

It’s hard to say what atheism does or doesn’t do. I agree that atheism itself isn’t a full or even partial value/belief system. It shouldn’t be surprising- if all you know about someone’s beliefs is that they are a theist, you don’t know a whole lot. They could be anything from a child sacrificing Carthaginian to a pacifist Quaker.

I’m not happy that irreligion is growing because I think everyone is adopting my specific version of atheism- but rather, I feel safe in assuming that a given atheist is more likely to agree with me on certain issues, and vote with those issues in mind. Intelligent design in schools, abstinence only sex education, opposition to abortion, opposition to gay marriage, opposition to stem cell research (among others) are things that I hope will weaken as religion weakens. I’m not claiming that all believers subscribe to the beliefs I just listed (or any subset), nor that all atheists eschew them-'just that one who doesn’t believe is less likely to hold the above.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Thus I wasn’t arguing “lots of gods asserted, therefore no real gods”, but rather that you can’t say that people believing in gods is evidence for them.

But it certainly is evidence of the desire of lots of people to make sense of their lives.

You don’t see atheists even making that effort. For the atheist there is no sense to be made because there is no creation and no Creator with a plan.

That the Nordic gods and the ancient Roman, Greek and Egyptian pantheons are no longer taken seriously is evidence that they do not deserve to be taken seriously. The Abrahamic religions do deserve to be taken seriously because they have larger and more convincing elements of truth in them. Whereas the god Thor is a joke in modern Sweden, the fastest growing religion in Sweden today is Catholicism, the one that was once abandoned in favor of Martin Luther. So the Abrahamic religions are still alive and growing, however mightily they are opposed by the Antichrist.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Communism is not, cannot, and should not be equated with atheism …

From the two greatest founders of Communist empires in the 20th Century, both atheists:

Stalin
“We guarantee the right of every citizen to combat by argument, propaganda, and agitation all religion. The Communist Party cannot be neutral toward religion. It stands for science, and all religion is opposed to science.”

Mao
“Religion is poison.”

The founders of our Republic knew that irreligious men would someday do to the Constitution what the Roman atheists did to the Roman Senate before the fall of Rome … They therefore enacted in the 1st Amendment that the free practice of religion should be protected by the Constitution. These Founders agreed with Voltaire, no friend to religion, when he said:

“The atheists are for the most part impudent and misguided scholars who reason badly, and who not being able to understand the creation, the origin of evil, and other difficulties, have recourse to the hypothesis of the eternity of things and of inevitability….That was how things went with the Roman Senate which was almost entirely composed of atheists in theory and in practice, that is to say, who believed in neither a Providence nor a future life; this senate was an assembly of philosophers, of sensualists and ambitious men, all very dangerous men, who ruined the republic." (from Voltaire’s essay “On Atheism”).

 

[Charlemagne_III]

So yes, I think the number of adherents to the god of Abraham have nothing to do with his existence. Religion, in my view, has persisted solely due to path dependence (people being brought up in the religion of their parents). But the irreligious have been making serious strides in the west, particularly in recent decades- very excited to see this continue.

It’s difficult for me to understand how one can get excited about the demolishing of all values that contribute to making sense out of an otherwise godless and absurd universe.

 

[AnimalSpirits]

But it certainly is evidence of the desire of lots of people to make sense of their lives.

You don’t see atheists even making that effort. For the atheist there is no sense to be made because their is no creation and no Creator with a plan.

That the Nordic gods and the ancient Roman, Greek and Egyptian pantheons are no longer taken seriously is evidence that they do not deserve to be taken seriously. The Abrahamic religions do deserve to be taken seriously because they have larger and more convincing elements of truth in them. Whereas the god Thor is a joke in modern Sweden, the fastest growing religion in Sweden today is the one that was once abandoned in favor of Martin Luther. So the Abrahamic religions are still alive and growing, however mightily they are opposed by the Antichrist.

So if fewer people were Christian, you yourself might abandon Christianity? Is your faith driven by strength in numbers? I strongly suspect not. I, like you, don’t deem an idea good or bad, based on the number of adherents. Jupiter (the god) was just as fake in 100 AD as he is today.

And as for the fastest growing religious group… well, “no religion” is the fastest growing group in the US. It’s just a mathematical reality that small minority groups can fetus e more than larger groups in relative terms.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

So if fewer people were Christian, you yourself might abandon Christianity?

That’s not really what I said right?

What I certainly meant to say is that the religions with the highest degree of truth are more likely to be alive today than lost to history, as the Nordic, Greek, Roman, and Egyptian theologies are lost because they are not predicated on the type of God that would appeal even to philosophers who have not lost or never gained a reasonable idea of a Creator God.

 

[AnimalSpirits]

From the two greatest founders of Communist empires in the 20th Century, both atheists:

Stalin
“We guarantee the right of every citizen to combat by argument, propaganda, and agitation all religion. The Communist Party cannot be neutral toward religion. It stands for science, and all religion is opposed to science.”

Mao
“Religion is poison.”

I agree that the governments of China and Russia were explicitly anti religion. That’s also wholly besides the point. There’s no cause for tying a political and economic doctrine to religious belief, or lack thereof.

The founders of our Republic knew that irreligious men would someday do to the Constitution what the Roman atheists did to the Roman Senate before the fall of Rome … They therefore enacted in the 1st Amendment that the free practice of religion should be protected by the Constitution. These Founders agreed with Voltaire, no friend to religion, when he said:

So many problems…

There’s no reason to suspect that there were more or less atheists in the Senate than else where in Rome.

There’s no reason to blame the Senate for ending the republic- the republic was ended by ambitious military men seizing power, often times circumventing the Senate entirely (Caesar, as consul, operated largely by calling on the tribal assemblies.

One suspects that the founders were more worried with one religion imposing itself on all, rather than a blanket ban on religion.

 

[AnimalSpirits]

That’s not really what I said right?

What I certainly meant to say is that the religions with the highest degree of truth are more likely to be alive today than lost to history, as the Nordic, Greek, Roman, and Egyptian theologies are lost because they are not predicated on the type of God that would appeal even to philosophers who have not lost or never gained a reasonable idea of a Creator God.

An assertion I emphatically reject. Certainty there are some psychological and historical reasons why some religions have prospered and others failed- a doctrine of evangelizing being a key component, I think. But to assume that it’s somehow related to the extent to which a given religion is true is a pretty huge leap. Among other things, it presupposes that any religion does a decent job of explaining the observable world.

 

[Peter_Plato]

There’s no cause for tying a political and economic doctrine to religious belief, or lack thereof.

Perhaps, but there is warrant for tying a belief in metaphysical materialism to a determinable absence of any grounding for a consistent and objective morality. Ergo, without any compelling objective reason to act morally, any atheistic political system becomes grounded in sheer power to force others to comply – whether that means manipulation of the majority in democracy or raw military force in totalitarian regimes.

Without a compelling objective ground for developing a legitimate moral system to ground common law, metaphysical materialism reduces to subjectivity which, in turn, reduces to tyranny by the majority or the brute power of an oligarchy.

Witness Bradski’s unwillingness even to define what he means by harm in Post 729. Disposing of the possibility for objectivity where morality is concerned has huge implications for political and economic doctrine. The void will be filled.

If moral agents do not find volitional obligation compelling on rational grounds, nothing short of overwhelming force will compel compliance.

Despite Bradski’s previous claims that atheists can still discuss ethical theory, absent any objective common ground from which to begin those discussions the results will always lead to dead ends – precisely because metaphysical materialism, as the base belief system for atheism, offers nothing upon which compelling ethical beliefs can be hung.

 

[Bradski]

Oh, gosh, no! That’s not what I meant at all.

I simply meant that I would be bound to follow my conscience. Self imposed. And another person would not be bound by that. He could do whatever he wants.

And nobody else would do that? Again I will suggest that if you asked any number of Christians if they would feel free to do anything at all if there was no God, then the answer would be an emphatic ‘No’.

I was not born Catholic, bro. I studied and came to it of my own free choice.

If you studied the major religions and came to choose Christianity out of the other options, then you are the exception to the rule. But if that is the path you took, I commend you for it. Bro.

 

[AnimalSpirits]

Perhaps, but there is warrant for tying a belief in metaphysical materialism to a determinable absence of any grounding for a consistent and objective morality. Ergo, without any compelling objective reason to act morally, any atheistic political system becomes grounded in sheer power to force others to comply – whether that means manipulation of the majority in democracy or raw military force in totalitarian regimes.

The belief in a divine law giver can create problems of its own. It’s all well and good when the divine wants you to be non-violent. Not so much when he wants mountains of human hearts (Mesoamerica), the lives of your children (Phonecia, possibly), or the death of infidels and heretics (pretty much every where, at varying times). As noted earlier, Hitler’s anti-Semitic were at least partially justified by Christianity.

A divinely received morality need not be a good one- I happen to object to several bits of the Christian one, as outlined earlier.

 

[Peter_Plato]

As noted earlier, Hitler’s anti-Semitic were at least partially justified by Christianity.

How so?

Can you supply which Christian beliefs specifically “justified" Hitler’s anti-Semitic activities?

I am NOT speaking here of how Hitler may have twisted the narrative to suit his cause but, rather, foundational Christian tenets or teachings which directly entail anti-Semitism.