Was religion invented by man?

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PRmerger said:
So when we talk about religion, it’s granted, “If God/gods exist, then…” we discuss the different aspects of religion which are of interest in the thread.
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But goout’s point was that belief in god involves more than just evidence. I don’t care about that kind of “non-evidence-based” belief, as long as the subsequent belief in a religion is actually done purely on the strength of the evidence.
 
JapaneseKappa said:
Notice that the very simplest and most direct way to end the “aliens” objection is to present some historical fact or evidence that decisively proves divine intervention was involved. The fact that no one has done this serves to bolster my point: there is exactly as much evidence for “alien intervention” as there is for “divine intervention.”
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But first you have to prove that aliens exist.

We have already established, for the sake of this discussion, that God exists.

(If you wish to…er…resurrect…that question, I refer you here).

The next question is: is Jesus divine?

Now, this is where your answer to Christianity is: aliens did it.

“I would rather believe that aliens did this, since I am an atheist and require proof before I will believe. Oh, wait. I believe in aliens. Scratch that. I am an atheist and I believe in aliens without any proof because…I’d rather embrace aliens than the divinity of Christ. There’s some reason that I cannot embrace Christianity. It’s an emotional reason. Not an intellectual one”.

Does that sound right?
 
JapaneseKappa said:
But goout’s point was that belief in god involves more than just evidence. I don’t care about that kind of “non-evidence-based” belief, as long as the subsequent belief in a religion is actually done purely on the strength of the evidence.
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Well, that’s rich!

“I believe in aliens without any evidence!”
“I won’t believe in religion unless it’s done on evidence ONLY!”
 
JapaneseKappa said:
PRmerger;14101534:
No. I want data. Empirical data. Pictures of aliens. A conversation someone had with an alien. A text from an alien.

And, of course, all the evidence must be peer-reviewed and reproducible in a lab.
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PRmerger said:
Nope.

That’s not going to cut it.

I want empirical proof. Pictures. Texts from an alien. A mathematical solution to an advanced math problem.
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So you have equivalent evidence for the “God did it” hypothesis, or are you holding the “aliens did it” hypothesis to a different standard?
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I have already given you some, so it is your turn.
JapaneseKappa said:
To sweeten the pot, if you can provide that much evidence for the “God did it” scenario, I will concede my entire argument was wrong, apologize, and convert to Catholicism.

However, I also expect you to honestly admit that if you cannot provide such evidence, you are holding the “god did it” scenario to a much more lax standard of evidence than the “aliens did it” scenario.
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PRmerger said:
Well, that’s rich!

“I believe in aliens without any evidence!”
“I won’t believe in religion unless it’s done on evidence ONLY!”
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So show me your overwhelming evidence. Remember that you get to assume the NT is historically accurate, and that a god exists.
 
JapaneseKappa said:
So show me your overwhelming evidence. Remember that you get to assume the NT is historically accurate, and that a god exists.
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Er…no.

This is your paradigm.

“I will only believe unless there’s evidence!”
“Aliens exist!”

So…where’s your evidence?

Also, can you offer any academic work which has cited proof of aliens by using the NT?

Please offer the links.

Thanks.
 
PRmerger said:
Fair enough.

I have already given you some.

So now it’s your turn. 😉
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You’ve offered evidence for something that wasn’t even up for debate (i.e. the existence of god.) Please try to stay on topic. What is your evidence for the “God did it” hypothesis.
 
PRmerger said:
Fair enough.

I have already given you some.

So now it’s your turn. 😉
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But you have raised our standards to this:
PRmerger said:
No. I want data. Empirical data. Pictures of aliens. A conversation someone had with an alien. A text from an alien.

And, of course, all the evidence must be peer-reviewed and reproducible in a lab.
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None of the “evidence” you provided for the existence of god reaches that standard. I will readily admit I do not have evidence that rises to that standard. I am arguing that the evidence I do have is not worse than the evidence that you have.

Edit
Summary: if you hold us to the “photograph of alien / god” standard, then I admit defeat. However, unless you show me your photograph of god, you will also need to admit defeat, and concede that neither of our accounts has sufficient evidence.
 
goout said:
I have no idea how you want to use the terms natural and supernatural then, as it seems they are shifting all over the place. Not necessarily your shifting, but people are talking right past one another. Natural vs supernatural then, which is a false dichotomy. There is no vs.
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Some people might argue that. But it appears as nonsense to me by the very definitions of the words that we are using. Natural means something that is explainable within the laws of nature. Supernatural is anything that cannot (and will not) be explained within the laws of nature.

The question does arise (as was mentioned earlier) as to when you should actually stop looking for a natural answer and accept something as being supernatural. I have never received an answer to this every time I have asked it.
goout said:
You regard love as an emotion.
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It seems an odd thing to say: that I specifically regard love as an emotion. Is there anyone who doesn’t? Which makes the following question nonsensical:
goout said:
What proofs are there for emotions being the substance of love?
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I can see where you are going with this. That love is somehow ‘special’. That it isn’t just natural. There must be more to it. I mean, animals seem to love each other and we are so much more than animals, surely…

Well, no. Animals we are and emotions are what we feel. Love being one of them. It comes in very handy so evolution has kept it. In fact, it has resulted in it being one of the prime motivators in life.

That said, there are lots of varieties. But they are all entirely natural.
 
This exchange between JK and PR is fascinating to me because it gets right at the heart of a problem many believers and atheists seem to struggle to understand about the nature of religious belief.

It is entirely possible to believe in God and reject particular religions. JK is positing “aliens” as an alternative explanation for the new testament, in competition with the various traditional explanations. From my point of view, either view has similar amounts of evidence to support it, and I reject both of them as good explanations.

Assuming the NT is history, the various forms of Christianity are statements about and interpretations of that history. JK’s alien hypothesis is similarly a statement about and interpretation of the history. Let’s make this more concrete:
  1. object: Jesus walks on water
Christian: Jesus walked on water by divine power.
JK: Jesus walked on water by the power of an invisible alien tractor beam.
  1. object: Jesus turns water into wine
Christian: Jesus did this by divine power.
JK: Jesus did this by telepathically ordering his mothership to re-arrange the molecular structure of the water inside the jugs a-la Star Trek.
  1. object: Jesus rises from the grave
Christian: Jesus did this by divine power
JK: Jesus’ alien brethren re-animated his corpse from space using technology they developed after 50,000 years of medical science.

You see, to an unbiased observer, “divine power” and “aliens” are equally unlikely and outlandish explanations for the events. If one has committed one’s life to the UFO subculture, the alien explanation seems much more reasonable, and if one has committed one’s life to religion, the religious explanation seems much more reasonable.

Personally, I think the NT is hagiography, legend, exaggeration, and outright fabrication (the birth narratives, or the Johannine comma for instance). I don’t appeal to aliens OR God to explain it. The gospels and the various interpretations of them that have arisen in history are the result of superstition, error, gullibility, and possibly hysterical grief-induced hallucination. Unfortunately: superstition, error, gullibility, and grief-induced hallucinations have happened throughout history and explain the foundational myths of all religions quite well. In other words: the explanation of “man-made” is supported by more evidence and reason than the alien or divine hypotheses.

What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. If the “man-made” account can explain the various cults that have arisen throughout human history quite well, it also can explain the appearance of the various Christian traditions.

However, I do not reject the existence of God merely because I believe religions are man-made. That’s a false dichotomy. It’s not as though physicalist atheism OR currently acceptable Catholicism are the only possible worldviews. It is perfectly reasonable to believe in God and also believe that we as a species have formed mistaken beliefs about God.
 
Bradski said:
Some people might argue that. But it appears as nonsense to me by the very definitions of the words that we are using. Natural means something that is explainable within the laws of nature. Supernatural is anything that cannot (and will not) be explained within the laws of nature.

The question does arise (as was mentioned earlier) as to when you should actually stop looking for a natural answer and accept something as being supernatural. I have never received an answer to this every time I have asked it.

It seems an odd thing to say: that I specifically regard love as an emotion. Is there anyone who doesn’t?
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Christianity and other beliefs see love’s basis in a movement of the will toward the good of another.
Emotions are *one piece *of a whole. If emotions are love, then I can love my car. You can see the problem.
I can see where you are going with this. That love is somehow ‘special’. That it isn’t just natural.
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Where I am going with this is to point out the unity between nature and super-nature. The one is not separable from the other. There is a unity.

Since Christianity is not about the what and the why and primarily about the who, there is a depth of knowledge to love that is not limited in the way you are trying to limit with “nature”. Personal relationships begin to reveal this underlying reality that everyone knows is present. We seek it. We plumb it’s depths to ever greater degrees.

In a nutshell, everyone intuitively knows that a relationship which believes it has arrived at it’s full nature is in fact already dead. There is always more, always a super-nature to be sought.
 
Bradski said:
Well, no. Animals we are and emotions are what we feel. Love being one of them. It comes in very handy so evolution has kept it. In fact, it has resulted in it being one of the prime motivators in life.
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Except when it doesn’t come in handy. Like when you want to reproduce the species by copulating with lots of other fertile women, but that pesky “love” emotion stops you from doing so.

There’s no animalistic explanation for this.

But there is the fact that you’re a rational human being with a conscience…
 
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