What would you do if it were proven...?

[Candide_West]

Evidence (examples) for Monotheism

• The testimonies of the practitioners of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, which include the personal revelation from God of His nature (One, “I am who am:”)
• The human search for the cause of the immaterial

Evidence for Polytheisn

• the witness of it practitioners
• The human search for the cause of the immaterial

Evidence for Atheism

• the existence of evil
• bad actions of those claiming affilation with a religion

Ok, so starting from the bottom, the two items you identified are not evidence for atheism. They may be evidence against religions (ie Christianity) but that is obviously quite different from being evidence for atheism.*

As far as I can see you cannot in fact have evidence for atheism, since that would need to be evidence of absence however, if you simply postulate an undetectable God then there can be no evidence of absence (by definition).

The other two are essentially the same so I’ll respond to them together. The human search for the cause of the immaterial is not evidence for the existence of the immaterial, and it is certainly not evidence for the existence of a God or Gods. People have through the years searched for many things which do not in fact exist.*

Someone searching for X is evidence that they believe that X exists but not in itself evidence that X exists.

The remainder of the evidence you have suggested is essentially individual testimony. For this it would be useful to consider how testimony would be considered by a court. Ie consider the reliability of the witness (both in terms of what they saw or heard, their state, location and any factors which may have affected the accuracy with which they perceive the events etc), their independence (whether they have anything to be gained or any other psychological effects which are likely to have an impact intended or otherwise on their evidence) and the consistency of the witnesses (both with each other and their own testimony as well as with the other evidence which is available).*

Now the problem with individual testimony on religious matters becomes apparent. The witnesses are often unreliable through either emotional or physical distress, or through the state they were in at the time of their events which they are giving testimony of, often lack independence from the subject ie by needing to believe that God exists (as has been strongly demonstrated on this very thread) or being emotionally or psychologically committed to, or (in rarer cases) out to profit from their story, and each religion has witnesses which contradict both each other and those of the other religions (some religions of course have a centralised body and only officially endorse certain testimonies to ensure consistency ie catholicism).

Under such circumstances a court would be reasonable to throw out the testimony of the witnesses in question as unreliable and I can reasonably do the same. Thus I do not consider this to be evidence.

If I changed this approach to evidence I would need to change it for all religions, not just Christianity (to avoid being guilty of making special pleading arguments). Then I’d either have to believe in multiple mutually exclusive Gods or identify another means of selecting which testimonies to believe.*

Presumably you must have such a system? Would be interested in what you use if you’d like to discuss? How do you select which testimonies you believe out of any given set?

This except from the Catholic Catechism discribes some the evidence that is available:…

Ok, this would all seem to fall into the category of individual testimony as above.

By declaring you have not seen evidence for the existance of God. I may have been a bit hasty in my charge, but my presumption is that it would not take much inquiry to determine that you accept the existance of other things with far less evidence than is available for God.

By all means provide an example to discuss. Incidentally you will note that to date we remain at a position of nil evidence either way for the existence of God (or gods).

See excerpt from the Catechism above.

Er, are you agreeing with me or debating the point. You previously stated that questioning what God is comes after deciding if he exists. I disagreed stating my view that in order to meaningfully ask if God exists then you must first define God and I provided an example of why this is so important.*I have found nothing is your quote from the catechism which is relevant to this question.

I believe this description is far more sophisticated that what was available to the Israelites when the were held as slaves in Egypt or were wandering the deserts of Sinai…

Sophisticated? Perhaps. Tautological? Certainly. And therefore irrelevant.Hence we see how defining what you mean by God is key to starting to discuss the subject.

The evidence is both your and my experience. In my view your position, “I can’t simply choose to believe that a god exists.”, is a direct result of your choice not to believe the claims made by christians. Moreover, is seems that this choice was quite a measured one.

Not sure I understand your position. Are you arguing that your and my experience (both of us have stated that we are unable to choose to change our views about the existence of God) is evidence that believing in God is a choice?*

Incidentally I don’t “choose” not to believe the claims made by Christians any more than I “choose” not to believe the claims made by conspiracy theorists and those who claim they are possessed by various gods and angels. Would you say that you “choose” to disbelieve the claims of Hindus? Or those of alien abductionists? Or psychics? Etc? Could you choose to believe them instead?*

 

[MindOverMatter2]

Incidentally I don’t “choose” not to believe the claims made by Christians any more than I “choose” not to believe the claims made by conspiracy theorists and those who claim they are possessed by various gods and angels. Would you say that you “choose” to disbelieve the claims of Hindus? Or those of alien abductionists? Or psychics? Etc? Could you choose to believe them instead?*

In being aware of other beliefs systems, I choose not to believe in them. Why? Well, apart from the fact that some ideas or beliefs are evidently and qualitatively more plausible, reasonable, and make better sense of the world around us than others beliefs and ideologies, it is simply because I know what I am prepared to believe and what I am not. This idea that atheism is simply an absence of belief as opposed to being a reaction to beliefs, is every bit a fallacy. Your an atheist because you don’t want to believe, because you think there is some kind of benefit in being an atheist.

 

[Candide_West]

Could you give evidence for the idea that it’s reasonable to think we turned up by chance? Or evidence that the chance issue is evadeable by evidence of some contingent feature to justify belief in unguided results ending up with us?

Er, not sure where you’re going with this Mystic. No, obviously I don’t think we turned up by chance (I assume you are referring to the human species here). That be an absurd proposition as far as I can see.

I think we evolved, I’ve learned to understand the process and*reviewed a reasonable amount of evidence. I have found it to be extremely well supported. Hence I think it is most likely to be correct.

Afraid I have no idea what you mean by “the chance issue is evadeable”. Could you perhaps explain what this is directed at?

Or evidence to think multitudinous testimonies of experiences of God are reasonable to assess as being false?

Which ones exactly? The testimonies for Zeus? Allah? The Cargo? The Christian God? Brahman? The God of the Grove? John Frum? Jehovah? Elohim? Prince Phillip? The Mormon (version of) God? Quetzalcoatl? Io?.. ?

You must (in order to be Christian) assess the vast majority of religious testimonies to be false. I just do the same with a few more.*

Without resorting to Dogma?

Not a problem, I don’t have any Dogma to resort to

Take care

 

[Mystic_Banana]

Er, not sure where you’re going with this Mystic. No, obviously I don’t think we turned up by chance (I assume you are referring to the human species here). That be an absurd proposition as far as I can see.

I think we evolved, I’ve learned to understand the process and*reviewed a reasonable amount of evidence. I have found it to be extremely well supported. Hence I think it is most likely to be correct.

Afraid I have no idea what you mean by “the chance issue is evadeable”. Could you perhaps explain what this is directed at?

Ah - I assume you are conceptualising things so as to evade the essential requirement that we are here by chance, if we are not created. Care to elaborate your particular evasion of this fairly straightforward :ehh:?

Evolution is an absurdly unlikely thing for us to turn up as a result of “by chance”, for example…

Which ones exactly? The testimonies for Zeus? Allah? The Cargo? The Christian God? Brahman? The God of the Grove? John Frum? Jehovah? Elohim? Prince Phillip? The Mormon (version of) God? Quetzalcoatl? Io?.. ?

You must (in order to be Christian) assess the vast majority of religious testimonies to be false. I just do the same with a few more.*

No, I *must * not, and this is one of the sillier of atheist arguments! It’s like saying if one man talks of the universe being geocentric, another of it being heliocentric, one or the other is not experiencing the universe at all…

…or like saying if one man sees a crocodile when someone else sees a dragon, one was obviously hallucinating, or lying. Piffle!

Not a problem, I don’t have any Dogma to resort to

Take care

Aha - no Dogmas! :ehh:

One of the scariest things I find about many atheists is not that they reason in a rigidly dogmatic fashion, but they don’t realise that they do so

nighty night!

 

[Candide_West]

In being aware of other beliefs systems, I choose not to believe in them. Why? Well, apart from the fact that some ideas or beliefs are evidently and qualitatively more plausible, reasonable, and make better sense of the world around us than others beliefs and ideologies, it is simply because I know what I am prepared to believe and what I am not.*

And how do you decide which beliefs are more plausible etc? How did you decide what you are prepared to believe and what you are not? In order for this to be a choice then you must have had a number of options for how you would decide these things so I’m curious on what basis you selected your standard of plausibility etc.*

This idea that atheism is simply an absence of belief as opposed to being a reaction to beliefs, is every bit a fallacy.*

Odd assertion, atheism IS an absence of belief in any Gods. Granted that if there were no theists then there would be no atheists (in the same way that we don’t have a specific word for those people who don’t believe in fairies). But aside from that I’m not sure what point you are aiming at here.

Your an atheist because you don’t want to believe, because you think there is some kind of benefit in being an atheist.

Not at all, as I have said before I did not choose to be an atheist and I think being an atheist is harder. I could not choose to believe in your God any more than I could choose to believe in fairies.

 

[Candide_West]

Ah - I assume you are conceptualising things so as to evade the essential requirement that we are here by chance, if we are not created. Care to elaborate your particular evasion of this fairly straightforward :ehh:?

No Mystic I’m not (as far as I know at least) evading anything. I didn’t understand one part of your question so asked for clarification, the other part I answered.

Evolution is an absurdly unlikely thing for us to turn up as a result of “by chance”, for example…

Ok, I’m still not clear on where you are going with this. But I’ll summarise the position as I see it so we’ve got a decent starting point. So, the available options for how humans came into existence are as far as I can tell the following.*

1. Evolution - process based on natural selection and variation. This is supported by the vast majority of the scientific community, huge amounts of evidence backing it etc. This is what I think happened.
2. Creation - some super being created our species and all others too. This is mostly believed by theists across the world with a broad array of different creation stories. Many now have adopted some kind of hybrid approach with 1 for some sort of “guided evolution” process (which wouldn’t actually be evolution but more like a massive selective breeding programme).*
3. Chance - a whole load of chemicals whammed together and a human was the result. This is absurdly unlikely and I don’t think anyone anywhere actually believes this but theists often claim that this is what atheists think anyway (presumably as a straw man argument).

No, I must * not, and this is one of the sillier of atheist arguments! It’s like saying if one man talks of the universe being geocentric, another of it being heliocentric, one or the other is not experiencing the universe at all…

…or like saying if one man sees a crocodile when someone else sees a dragon, one was obviously hallucinating, or lying. Piffle!

Not at all, the situation is nothing like that neither am I saying anything like what you have suggested.

A better analogy would be one man saying that this creature is a dragon (you), another saying it’s a crocodile, another a sheep, another a fish, a whale, a mouse, a beetle, an elephant etc. And*me pointing out that in order to believe it’s a dragon you must believe that it’s not a crocodile, sheep, fish … Etc.

Seems logical to me.

Aha - no Dogmas! :ehh:

Exactly, you see I don’t have anyone to issue me dogma’s, so it’s pretty straightforward really.

One of the scariest things I find about many atheists is not that they reason in a rigidly dogmatic fashion, but they don’t realise that they do so

nighty night!

You find atheists scary? Why?

Well you just let me know if you see me being dogmatic and we can discuss that too. I think the only things I do this with (because I see no alternative) are things like “the universe exists”.

 

[Candide_West]

Er, excuse me, Candide.

[SIGN1] I most certainly did not say that. [/SIGN1]*

Er, ok which bit are you saying you didn’t say? Are you saying that you didn’t disagree when I said*

""Ie one person will be certain that X is absolutely right because his God tells him so, another will be convinced that X is absolutely wrong because his God tells him so. Who is right? "

That is the point, it is irresolvable. It is also a common situation and the cause of a great deal of strife. Both sides simply saying “well I know they’re wrong because God told us X is wrong / right” only serves to entrench those divides."

Or are you saying that you didn’t eventually agree with me that these kinds of arguments are inutile?
PRmerger;8006876:

Please see my posts below in which I use the term “inutile.”

Nothing at all is mentioned about “I know I’m right because God said so”.

…ok, but the*“I know I’m right because God said so” type of arguments were the subject of discussion when you said “repeating contradictory POV is inutile” you even refer to this indirectly in that same post with the believe x is true / non- x is true point.*

Incidentally I did reply to your post 681 to confirm my understanding that we had reached agreement. But you never replied.*

I must admit I did then assume the matter was closed since you appeared to have agreed with my original point on both the subjects under discussion.

Do not misrepresent my arguments again, please. *

It speaks volumes about your inability to refute, if you have to change my arguments.

I do not believe I have misrepresented you anywhere, if I have then please tell me where. My intention was simply to summarise our conversation to resolve the misunderstanding between myself and Betterave.*

 

[Candide_West]

Aha - you’re seriously suggesting that because some Christian authorities exist at all in the House of Lords that Christianity has significant influence?

What I am saying is that the presence of a number of unelected representatives of Christianity sitting in the house of lords is an indicator of the continuing level of institutionalised bias in favour of Christianity which exists in Britain. As are the other examples from the media I provided.*

And yes I’d say this is a stronger indication than the opinions expressed by a glorified gameshow host.*

A bunch of retired Bishops, surely, will have minimum cultural impact compared to the widespread promotion of scientistic atheism on the ol’ gogglebox. Dawkins turns up on shows left right and centre, every fictional show from Midsomer Murders to Doctor Who demonises religion, Stephen Fry God-bashes on every episode I’ve ever seen of QI, and as for Brian Cox’s evangelical call to be thankful for the mythical existence-of-life-by-chance, it makes anything cheesy US evangelists can pump out doubtless seem surprisingly honest and intellectually stimulating indeed…

As I’ve said I see rather more of various religious figures on the tv than Richard Dawkins et al. And that’s even outside deliberately Christian programmes such as songs of praise.*

It doesn’t surprise me that religions are quite heavily promoted in the media while atheism and agnosticism etc isn’t. Because religions are large groups of people with defined sets of beliefs, leaders and an organisational structure. This gives them the ability to promote themselves and levy for preferential treatment.

Atheists and agnostics on the other hand are on the whole independent and therefore cannot wield the added clout of an organisation.

It does surprise me though that you don’t realise how much favourable bias religion receives. Another example from British culture (just anecdotal though): my religious friends frequently try to convert me, and happily tell me that my views are wrong or “silly” but they never do anything of the sort to each other. They respect each others religious views, but they don’t mine.*

Consider in schools, children get taught about a whole array of different religions, but not atheism or agnosticism. They are simply not taught that it’s even an option.*

Just look around, nobody dares say anything negative about Islam for fear of “consequences” but nobody worries about insulting atheists.*

As I’ve said atheists and agnostics are in British culture ok to discriminate against. But not any other religious groups.

Well, it’s a relief I wasn’t contradicting myself regarding popularity - my posts consistently demonstrate my argument that popularity of belief has no reflection on truth, and that atheism will grow because of popular promotion, rather than any true realization of logical truth, which atheism, after all, is further away from seeming likely to reflect than ever

True that popularity has nothing to do with whether something is true (I’ve argued that very point elsewhere, I think on this site, against someone essentially saying “2 billion christians can’t be wrong”).*

I agree that the number of atheists will probably rise slightly this census. But not because of promotion, rather because our society is now much more full of people who think independently rather than thinking what others tell them to.*

Incidentally, you are aware I suppose that throughout history one of the most effective ways to make a religion grow was to prejudice against it. So if you were right about atheism being promoted in the media, then if anything I’d expect the numbers to go down.

As for Secular Humanists representing atheism, even many ardent atheists I know wouldn’t even consider themselves humanists, and indeed have quiet obviously oppositional beliefs to the same - and the ‘nonreligion’ correlation with the same was the same kind of cynical conceptial/statistical distortion as Dawkins “everyone who isn’t an ardent theist is essentially an atheist” claims reflect. And as for those who consider themselves agnostics, I know of none who aren’t bitterly opposed to their statistical “non-religion” being assumed to correlate with humanism and especially atheism, making the sham that all that argument is apparent to all…

Mystic, to be clear I didn’t say we should have secular humanists in the house of lords to represent atheists. In fact I specifically said they shouldn’t be there either.*

My point was simply that our establishment is biased towards religion to the extent that they would rather put unelected lords spiritual in the house from any religion, even those which represent a tiny proportion of the population rather than someone without a religion to represent the much larger proportion of us who do not.

 

[Candide_West]

To the first question, as a theist (or as I like to call it; a realist): Obviously this will never happen since it is impossible, but hypothetically if I were persuaded that God did not exist then I guess I would need medical attention firstly, since I think I would have lost my marbles. That’s what I would do. It would be similar to me recognising the existence, as a being - not a concept, of a square circle - another impossibility.

Thanks for writing,

So assuming your medical professionals all determined with certainty that you were of sound body and mind etc. What would you do then?

Incidentally, as far as I know there is nothing impossible in the hypothetical situation I posed. If you believe otherwise please let me know what it is.

Take care

 

[Mystic_Banana]

What I am saying is that the presence of a number of unelected representatives of Christianity sitting in the house of lords is an indicator of the continuing level of institutionalised bias in favour of Christianity which exists in Britain. As are the other examples from the media I provided.*

And yes I’d say this is a stronger indication than the opinions expressed by a glorified gameshow host.*

Are there no influential atheists in teh House of Lords then?

The glorified gameshow hosts, and, for that matter, other pro-atheist, anti-theist shows mentioned, are often paid for and shown by the official state television channel… if you don’t think that’s significant, you’re mad!

As I’ve said I see rather more of various religious figures on the tv than Richard Dawkins et al. And that’s even outside deliberately Christian programmes such as songs of praise.**

It doesn’t surprise me that religions are quite heavily promoted in the media while atheism and agnosticism etc isn’t. Because religions are large groups of people with defined sets of beliefs, leaders and an organisational structure. This gives them the ability to promote themselves and levy for preferential treatment.

Atheists and agnostics on the other hand are on the whole independent and therefore cannot wield the added clout of an organisation.

Are you an atheist? If you’re agnostic, you’d be the first one I’ve met who would voluntarily group the 2 differing ideologies together. Talking about independence, I also know several agnistics who vociferously resent the desire of atheists to include them in their ‘bag’

It does surprise me though that you don’t realise how much favourable bias religion receives. Another example from British culture (just anecdotal though): my religious friends frequently try to convert me, and happily tell me that my views are wrong or “silly” but they never do anything of the sort to each other. They respect each others religious views, but they don’t mine.*

Consider in schools, children get taught about a whole array of different religions, but not atheism or agnosticism. They are simply not taught that it’s even an option.*

Just look around, nobody dares say anything negative about Islam for fear of “consequences” but nobody worries about insulting atheists.*

Every Catholic Priest in the UK must be sick to death of the paedophile label that they’ve been unfairly demonised with, over and over again. Christianity has had the stuffing kicked out of it for years, primarily by agressive atheists. Everyone fears slagging off Islam directly because they fear violent retaliation. But when was the last time some comedian slagged off atheism as being silly? On national telly? It’s not lack there’s a lack of material there…

As I’ve said atheists and agnostics are in British culture ok to discriminate against. But not any other religious groups.

Atheism in particular is essentially promoted in the UK, including in the state education system. Christianity is slated left right and centre at the drop of a hat by anyone who fancies it, and it is more th ecase that resentment of that negativity is taught to be considered intolerance than that we are taught to be intolerant of absolutely anything else

True that popularity has nothing to do with whether something is true (I’ve argued that very point elsewhere, I think on this site, against someone essentially saying “2 billion christians can’t be wrong”).*

I agree that the number of atheists will probably rise slightly this census. But not because of promotion, rather because our society is now much more full of people who think independently rather than thinking what others tell them to.*

Incidentally, you are aware I suppose that throughout history one of the most effective ways to make a religion grow was to prejudice against it. So if you were right about atheism being promoted in the media, then if anything I’d expect the numbers to go down.

I’ve met no-one more zealous, evangelic, and irrationally dogmatic than the front line of anti-theistic, scientistic, positive atheism. And I’ve known born again Christians…

The interesting thing is, you in some ways embody how this social trend can be manipulated. Atheism is not discriminated against - but in representing itself as being so, it can gain support on the basis of being seen as being so… everything is propaganda. The question is, which propaganda is more honest?

Mystic, to be clear I didn’t say we should have secular humanists in the house of lords to represent atheists. In fact I specifically said they shouldn’t be there either.*

My point was simply that our establishment is biased towards religion to the extent that they would rather put unelected lords spiritual in the house from any religion, even those which represent a tiny proportion of the population rather than someone without a religion to represent the much larger proportion of us who do not.

You know, I think atheism has been sold so effectively, so aggressively over the last few years, you may be at least temporarily right over the issue of majority - but it’s an awful thing, and one driven by intolerance and hate at the end of the day. I fear the results if Humanism gains effective power as an officially recognised political influence, especially
while hand in hand with it’s one time enemy, scientism

 

[Mystic_Banana]

Bit drunk, failed to edit it in time… hope it makes sense!

 

[Candide_West]

While others might fail to see it, i can. Its evident to me that you are either being deceptive, lazy, or you fail to have the capacity to grasp simple logical facts or syllogisms.*

I am not being deceptive. On the contrary I think I’ve been quite direct and forthcoming with you.

I do not believe I am being lazy, I have I believe replied to every post you have written me and replied to each of the points therein (which is more than you could say).

As for logic, perhaps I am wrong and failing to understand. Or perhaps you are wrong. I thought we were discussing this to determine which was correct. Thus backing up your original bald assertion by simply telling me that I’m wrong (another bald assertion) is hardly a well structured argument.*

…none so easy to understand as the fact that a negation of being can only be a negation of being.*

Indeed but the negation of being would be something different to nothing.*

Potentiality by itself without reality is nothing*

No, that would be potentiality, thus not nothing.

…and it is meaningless to speak of it unless you are talking about the power of some being to bring about an effect. It only has meaning in reference to reality and its power.*

But if you are talking about potentiality then you are not talking about nothing.*

An absence of reality is and always is by definition an absence of reality and the power of reality and thus the possibilities and potentialities intrinsic to it.*

True, tautological but true.*

You also fail to grasp certain contextual limitations when using ideas in science and applying them to subjects outside of the epistemological authority of science, failing to understand that they such ideas do not and cannot possibly have the same meaning in an ontological context; as you well know given that we were talking about the difference in the use of the word nothing between science and ontology.*

Indeed but it was you who stated that nothing can cone from nothing as a “certain fact”. All that I have done is point out that this is a bald assertion because all you have to support it (or at least all you’ve given so far to support it) is essentially “but it’s nothing, right, so there’s nothing to do anything…”.*

Which sounds right to common sense but often reality doesn’t work the way common sense tells us it should. Just look at wave-particle duality for example. Someone could just as easily say “but it’s a particle, right, so it can’t be a wave…”. To common sense this sounds right too, but it isn’t.*

You are continuously twisting my words out of context to suit you. This doesn’t encourage me to engage in dialogue with you.

I don’t believe I have twisted your words anywhere. If I have please tell me where.

I am not going to explain it any further since you seem to already know better so Good luck and goodbye.

It’s fair enough if you don’t want to discuss the topic MoM2. Obviously you are free to ignore any of my posts as you please (and you regularly do so when I write back to you) but I have to say that posts such as this one do not encourage me to engage with you either.*

 

[Mystic_Banana]

Bit drunk, failed to edit it in time… hope it makes sense!

Hmm - not as bad as I first thought! Care to engage with my responses? You already shirked arguing my variation on Pascals wager…I know - there *is * no effective response, and you could divert yourself elsewhere

Ignoring straightforward and obvious errors, I’d like to amend “The interesting thing is, you in some ways embody how this social trend can be manipulated” to “you in some ways appear to embody” - shouldn’t be so assumptive!

 

[Candide_West]

Bit drunk, failed to edit it in time… hope it makes sense!

No worries, in truth I’m impressed, after I’ve had a few to many I am not interested and probably not capable hopping online for a spot of light debate.

Are there no influential atheists in teh House of Lords then?

I assume there are, just as i assume there are influential Christians aside from the lords spiritual. However, there aren’t any unelected “Lords Unspiritual” for example who are specifically there to represent those who do not believe in any Gods. But there are unelected Christians there specifically to represent those who believe in one particular God.

The glorified gameshow hosts, and, for that matter, other pro-atheist, anti-theist shows mentioned, are often paid for and shown by the official state television channel… if you don’t think that’s significant, you’re mad!

Let’s be realistic, Stephen Fry presents that show because he is famous for being clever and funny. Not because he’s an atheist.*

Are you really suggesting that our state institutions should try to prevent individual comedians from joking about religion? Or stating individual opinions? Do you think the BBC should prevent individual Christians talking about their belief in God on songs of praise or our friendly arch bishop talking about the virtue of faith when he’s interviewed about some news story?*

Are you an atheist? If you’re agnostic, you’d be the first one I’ve met who would voluntarily group the 2 differing ideologies together. Talking about independence, I also know several agnistics who vociferously resent the desire of atheists to include them in their ‘bag’

Fair enough, I know plenty of atheists who wouldn’t like to be lumped in with agnostics either. But so what? The two groups do have some similarities and I highlighted one of the in the post you replied to. Specifically that neither atheism nor agnosticism is an organisation (as religions are) but rather labels attached to large numbers of individuals. Those individuals don’t have an organisational structure (as religions do) hence can’t wield the power of numbers to gain benefits (as religions can). I don’t think many agnostics or atheists would disagree with this assessment.

Every Catholic Priest in the UK must be sick to death of the paedophile label that they’ve been unfairly demonised with, over and over again. Christianity has had the stuffing kicked out of it for years, primarily by agressive atheists.*

Agree that the whole issues with catholic priests being pedophiles is wrong. I also think it’s rather childish. But the church hasn’t helped itself by keeping closed doors etc. It’s hardly surprising that the media identified this as an easy story in such circumstances. It certainly isn’t the result of some secret atheist conspiracy.

Everyone fears slagging off Islam directly because they fear violent retaliation.*

Exactly and yet those who actually say they fear violent retaliation are called islamophobic. This is an example of exactly what I was talking about with religions getting special treatment.*

Another example that springs to mind is religions which require adherents to carry a blade. They can do this even where nobody else is allowed to carry weapons, it’s ok for them because its for religious reasons. Special treatment.

We are allowed to say that someones political views are wrong, right, silly or whatever else we please. But we are required to “respect” peoples religious views (except atheism/agnosticism because it’s not a religion) so can’t criticise them without fear of being accused of discrimination. Special treatment.

But when was the last time some comedian slagged off atheism as being silly? On national telly? It’s not lack there’s a lack of material there…

On the contrary I think that’s exactly why it doesn’t happen much. It’s difficult to take the Micky out of a large proportion of the population for not being members of other groups. Whereas it’s easy to take the Micky for someone being a member of a particular group. For example you don’t hear comedians making jokes about “people who aren’t members of a political party” very often. But you will hear them joking about members of liberal democrats, labour, conservatives etc. Because those are defined groups with at least roughly defined positions. So are religions. Atheism is not, much like “people who aren’t members of a political party” there is no set of even loosely defined conditions which atheists conform to or sign up to. Thus it is difficult to identify characteristics to take the Micky out of.*

Atheism in particular is essentially promoted in the UK, including in the state education system.*

Really? Where? Children aren’t even taught atheism exists in school. Let alone the reasons why people are atheists. In what way do you consider it to be promoted?

 

[Candide_West]

Christianity is slated left right and centre at the drop of a hat by anyone who fancies it, and it is more th ecase that resentment of that negativity is taught to be considered intolerance than that we are taught to be intolerant of absolutely anything else

As I’ve said, the bias that religion receives is now more evenly distributed amongst religions than purely in favour of christianity as it once was. And yes I agree people feel more relaxed about criticising Christianity than some other religions. But people are if anything even more relaxed about criticising atheists, after all there no need to even “respect” atheists views as they aren’t religious. There are innumerable examples of this even just on this forum.*

I’ve met no-one more zealous, evangelic, and irrationally dogmatic than the front line of anti-theistic, scientistic, positive atheism. And I’ve known born again Christians…

As I’ve said, if you spot me being dogmatic then please let me know.*

The interesting thing is, you in some ways embody how this social trend can be manipulated. Atheism is not discriminated against - but in representing itself as being so, it can gain support on the basis of being seen as being so… everything is propaganda. The question is, which propaganda is more honest?

Interestingly that’s exactly what you do yourself. Christianity in Britain tries to paint itself both as the majority (thus the things the church wants should be considered to be representative of what most people want)but also as an oppressed minority (thus in need of special support and protection).

I don’t believe atheism is widely discriminated against although it is I think the only major group which nobody minds being discriminated against. Consider when president bush (the first one) said that he wouldn’t consider atheists to be citizens or patriots. Virtually nobody raised an eyebrow. Do you think the same would have happened if he’d picked any other group? Say Jews? Or black people?*

I think more to the point is that religions receive “positive discrimination” which atheism simply doesn’t. I wrote this in response to your claim that atheism is promoted. I continue to stand by my position that atheism isn’t promoted in this country and that religions in general receive special benefits which non-religions don’t.*

You know, I think atheism has been sold so effectively, so aggressively over the last few years, you may be at least temporarily right over the issue of majority*

Issue of majority? No, I think Christianity will still come up tops in the census, although I suspect the number of what I would call “active” christians (is those who live by the religion, go to church every week etc) is probably now well below 50%.

• but it’s an awful thing, and one driven by intolerance and hate at the end of the day.*

What is? You think people convert away from Christianity because of intolerance and hate? I guess the divisive nature of religion in general probably doesn’t increase it’s popularity, particularly with the conflict against equality, gay rights etc. But I think to be honest that apathy has more to do with it than anything else. People simply don’t seem to need the church the way they once did.

I fear the results if Humanism gains effective power as an officially recognised political influence, especially*while hand in hand with it’s one time enemy, scientism

Secular government has proven to be reasonably balanced and appropriate in it’s management of countries. Certainly better than theocracies. I suspect and hope that our government will continue to be secular.

 

[Candide_West]

Hmm - not as bad as I first thought! Care to engage with my responses? You already shirked arguing my variation on Pascals wager…I know - there *is * no effective response, and you could divert yourself elsewhere

Apologies for the delay, I’m struggling with technological issues at the moment.*

I shirked your variation of pascals wager? I’m terribly sorry, I’d entirely forgotten about it.Was this on that thread that got shut down a while ago? I’ll dig back and see if I can find it. I did find that conversation interesting. Would you still be interested in continuing if I manage to find it again? Hmmm now you’ve got me thinking, I believe I owed Betterave a reply on that one too… Drat, how rude of me. Sorry.

Incidentally did you have any further thoughts on the other conversation we were having (my last on this was post 906). Learning from PRMerger I’m not going to assume the matter closed unless I’ve heard agreement of such from you.*

Ignoring straightforward and obvious errors, I’d like to amend “The interesting thing is, you in some ways embody how this social trend can be manipulated” to “you in some ways appear to embody” - shouldn’t be so assumptive!

Not a problem. Apologies if I’ve rambled a bit above. You gave me a lot to reply to.*

 

[jochoa]

Hi,

I’m new here on CAF but thought I’d post a question which interests me.

For those who are theists - “What would you do if it were proven to your satisfaction that God does not exist”

For those who are atheists - “What would you do if it were proven to your satisfaction that God does exist”

Thanks for taking the time.

To be clear, I am a theist, and therefore:
It can’t be proven to me because the proof lies in death, zero thoughts, and ceasing to exist. The instance I no longer think, nothing can be proven to me. As far as what would I do: not think about it!

 

[Mystic_Banana]

No worries, in truth I’m impressed, after I’ve had a few to many I am not interested and probably not capable hopping online for a spot of light debate.

I assume there are, just as i assume there are influential Christians aside from the lords spiritual. However, there aren’t any unelected “Lords Unspiritual” for example who are specifically there to represent those who do not believe in any Gods. But there are unelected Christians there specifically to represent those who believe in one particular God.

Well, humanists may get a bid eventually if they try hard enough…

Let’s be realistic, Stephen Fry presents that show because he is famous for being clever and funny. Not because he’s an atheist.*

Are you really suggesting that our state institutions should try to prevent individual comedians from joking about religion? Or stating individual opinions? Do you think the BBC should prevent individual Christians talking about their belief in God on songs of praise or our friendly arch bishop talking about the virtue of faith when he’s interviewed about some news story?*

No, but it’s more than individual comedians, and in some cases we’re talking full-on, regular assault - preaching, in fact. And it’s not just comedy, it’s endemic in everything from Midsomer murders to Doctor Who. If theists spent half the time slagging off their oppostites that atheists do, they’d be branded hatemongerers

Fair enough, I know plenty of atheists who wouldn’t like to be lumped in with agnostics either. But so what? The two groups do have some similarities and I highlighted one of the in the post you replied to. Specifically that neither atheism nor agnosticism is an organisation (as religions are) but rather labels attached to large numbers of individuals. Those individuals don’t have an organisational structure (as religions do) hence can’t wield the power of numbers to gain benefits (as religions can). I don’t think many agnostics or atheists would disagree with this assessment.

Atheism at least is garnering organizations left right and centre! Humanism, Communism and Objectivism are all well established forms of atheism, in case you failed to notice, and all have organizational structure! Scientism is straining at the bit, under the concept of ‘positive atheism’, to get a bigger slice of the cake - so atheism mirrors theism in this, depsite your protestations…

Agree that the whole issues with catholic priests being pedophiles is wrong. I also think it’s rather childish. But the church hasn’t helped itself by keeping closed doors etc. It’s hardly surprising that the media identified this as an easy story in such circumstances. It certainly isn’t the result of some secret atheist conspiracy.

Odd that Priests are relentlessly demonised, then, compared to say the much more regularly abusive social worker, especially considering the horrible extent that the latter has perpertrated the same in the UK recently…

Exactly and yet those who actually say they fear violent retaliation are called islamophobic. This is an example of exactly what I was talking about with religions getting special treatment.*

Another example that springs to mind is religions which require adherents to carry a blade. They can do this even where nobody else is allowed to carry weapons, it’s ok for them because its for religious reasons. Special treatment.

We are allowed to say that someones political views are wrong, right, silly or whatever else we please. But we are required to “respect” peoples religious views (except atheism/agnosticism because it’s not a religion) so can’t criticise them without fear of being accused of discrimination. Special treatment.

I also feel we’re scared out of our wits to express our religiousity in public - except of course, for Muslims, both because of the weird amalgamation of culture/race/religion that political correctness enforces… I have never found atheists so timid in expressing their beliefs in a social environment cowed by the subtly tyrannical shadow of political correctness - odd that

On the contrary I think that’s exactly why it doesn’t happen much. It’s difficult to take the Micky out of a large proportion of the population for not being members of other groups. Whereas it’s easy to take the Micky for someone being a member of a particular group. For example you don’t hear comedians making jokes about “people who aren’t members of a political party” very often. But you will hear them joking about members of liberal democrats, labour, conservatives etc. Because those are defined groups with at least roughly defined positions. So are religions. Atheism is not, much like “people who aren’t members of a political party” there is no set of even loosely defined conditions which atheists conform to or sign up to. Thus it is difficult to identify characteristics to take the Micky out of.*

Nonesense, straight out of Dawkin’s silly bag. In itself, it is the expression of a particular form of ideology, and a specific variety of atheism, to boot, so fails by it’s own standard to justify itself! As mentioned, in the same way as there are different theism, there are different atheisms… yours is just one, whether you recognise it or not…

Really? Where? Children aren’t even taught atheism exists in school. Let alone the reasons why people are atheists. In what way do you consider it to be promoted?

 

[Mystic_Banana]

No Mystic I’m not (as far as I know at least) evading anything. I didn’t understand one part of your question so asked for clarification, the other part I answered.

Ok, I’m still not clear on where you are going with this. But I’ll summarise the position as I see it so we’ve got a decent starting point. So, the available options for how humans came into existence are as far as I can tell the following.*

1. Evolution - process based on natural selection and variation. This is supported by the vast majority of the scientific community, huge amounts of evidence backing it etc. This is what I think happened.
2. Creation - some super being created our species and all others too. This is mostly believed by theists across the world with a broad array of different creation stories. Many now have adopted some kind of hybrid approach with 1 for some sort of “guided evolution” process (which wouldn’t actually be evolution but more like a massive selective breeding programme).*
3. Chance - a whole load of chemicals whammed together and a human was the result. This is absurdly unlikely and I don’t think anyone anywhere actually believes this but theists often claim that this is what atheists think anyway (presumably as a straw man argument).

You’re missing the point, or rather clumsily obscuring it. Natural selection and variation are simply terms fairly dishonestly obscuring the issue that they represent a theory involving a process that is rather absurdly unlikely to arrive at ourselves - at least without conscious guidance -making the idea that it does, more honestly resemble position no.3, once the metaphors are removed

Not at all, the situation is nothing like that neither am I saying anything like what you have suggested.

A better analogy would be one man saying that this creature is a dragon (you), another saying it’s a crocodile, another a sheep, another a fish, a whale, a mouse, a beetle, an elephant etc. And*me pointing out that in order to believe it’s a dragon you must believe that it’s not a crocodile, sheep, fish … Etc.

Nah - that’s just getting silly.

OK, assuming this website (bestiary.ca/index.html) is reasonably representing bestiaries, get this:

“The mouse is born from the soil (humus), hence its name (mus). It is a small animal. A mouse’s liver gets larger at the time of the full moon.”

Is the creature we call a mouse today born from the soil? No, it is not. It is not a mouse then - obviously, this mouse thing is a mythical creature!

Seems logical to me.

Exactly, you see I don’t have anyone to issue me dogma’s, so it’s pretty straightforward really.

You find atheists scary? Why?

Well you just let me know if you see me being dogmatic and we can discuss that too. I think the only things I do this with (because I see no alternative) are things like “the universe exists”.

Many atheists - not all! The scary thing is the denial that these ideas are ideological , but rather the result of a fundamental logic, when they are anything but, that they are the most basic understanding of reality ,when they clearly have never been so. You have dogmas thrown at you all your life! Whenever someone tells you things are like so, they are teaching you to believe, according to some ideological fundament or other. Surely this is obvious to everybody? Well, as I fear, apparently not!

 

[Mystic_Banana]

(I should say, by the way, that I thought you hadn’t replied at all, so missed this… so my diatribe was probably unjustified - sorry! )