Theism vs. Atheism ... will it ever be settled?

jampa17 wrote: Maybe I find pointless to talk with Mike anymore... leave him have the truth... anything you said to him he always twists words, change statements and deliverated try to pretend to own the truth when almost everybody has pointed out how his possition is wrong time and time again. But it's my fault, I should leave this thread before...   Good luck to Jay (who came back instead), Iván and the others... I won't go back to this thread...   please, PM me if someone settle the issue in the future please...

A Syntax Theist

thellama73 wrote: Mr ProgFreak wrote: You're not searching for the truth - your religion tells you that you already know all you need to know. Science represents the search for truth. That's an absurd statement. Religion and philosophy has always been about searching for truth. So has science, but it's crazy to say that, because some people have not reached the same conclusions as you, that they are not even trying. You honestly believe that St. Augustine wasn't seeking truth? Do you say the same thing about philosophers with whom you disagree?

It depends on how you define truth. I'm only interested in the kind of truth which you can actually verify for yourself. The reason for my rejection of religious claims is not a difference in opinion, but a lack of evidence for those claims. As long as religious people are not interested in backing their religious claims with evidence, my conclusion is that they don't care about whether their claims are actually true.

Well, this has gone on for so many pages and I guess there are many misunderstandings and misrepresentations - not necessarily intentional - going on, so I'll try to sum up some of my opinions - in no particular order.

• I respect and fully agree with the concepts of freedom of religion *and* freedom of speech.
  
• I'm not lumping all followers of a religion together. Of course I know that there are moderate Christians (Muslims, Jews etc). I also acknowledge that even though some religions can be (and in fact often are) the basis for bad actions, neither do all followers of the religion implement them nor do they  necessarily endorse them.
• When I attack religions, I don't see that as an attack or insult to all those who consider themselves followers of these religions. Neither do I wish to imply that people should change their point of view based on my criticism. Of course I am convinced that my criticism is justified - otherwise I wouldn't make it in the first place - but it is ultimately just my opinion, and people should think for themselves.
  
• Atheism is in essence the rejection of religious claims that are not demonstrably true. The claim made by the video which I posted in the first thread was exactly that Theists cannot produce any evidence. Many people have commented in this thread that it is somehow dishonest of me to ask for such evidence when I know that there isn't any. But please consider that a) I added a wink-emoticon right from the get-go and b) there are many Theists out there who actually make such claims and participate in panel debates about the topic.
  
• Some have accused me of applying a double standard - asking for evidence for their claims but providing no evidence that proves them wrong. They are operating on the premise that when there is no evidence at all, any conclusion can be made. The problem is that they are making a very specific claim about the existence of their God, and about his nature, what he wants us to do etc. etc.. The burden of proof is on the one who makes such a claim.
  
• Atheists often compare the various God claims to claims that religious people reject as being obviously ridiculous - such as Santa Claus,  Leprechauns, Bigfoot - or the (in)famous Flying Spaghetti Monster.  Theists usually dismiss this analogy and get offended in the process because of course they think of their God as something much more profound. The problem is that the analogy is valid as far as the actual evidence is concerned.
• Theists often try to present scripture as evidence. That's not valid. The fact that there is a book which (some) Theists assert to be authoritative does not  mean anything to those who don't accept the assertion. Even Theists agree on that when it comes to any other book except their own.

Dean wrote: A nice summation Mike, and while I don't agree with your last two points, I can in principle endorse and agree with the rest.   Comparing the theists various god claims against known fictitious (ridiculous) claims is to some degree specious since they are not comparable - people may have believed in Santa Claus,  Leprechauns, Bigfoot (though not the FSM) , they never worshipped them or created a religion of an ideology and morality around them, so they simply are not comparable. A better comparison (from my perspective) would be all the other gods that have now been declared "false" or mythological, such as Ra, Horus, Osiris, Bastet, Apollo, Zeus, Aries, Minerva, Vesta, Persephone, Bacchus, Freya, Odin, Loki, Eostur, Freyja, Väinämöinen, Pan, Vearalden, Ceres, Demeter, Kali, Matres, Lenus, Sequana, Ranginui, Papatuanuku, Altjira, Gnowee, Bamapana, Na Tuk Kong, Ma Zu,  Kuan Yin, Sedna, Nanook, Azeban, Tabalduk, Bitol, Ixpiyacoc, Quetzalcoatl, Wotan etc. that at some time in human history were considered real.

I agree that extinct religions are much better analogies. Still, the point is that religions have in common with simple myths like Bigfoot that there is no evidence. Religions are - or have been - believed by more people for longer times, and books have been written about them. Since I dismiss all that and don't accept it as evidence, there really is no fundamental difference. Still, I as I said, I agree that extinct religions are better analogies and less likely to cause a knee-jerk reaction "how dare you compare my God to Bigfoot!".

Dean wrote:   Scripture is evidence to theists - we cannot dismiss or ignore that. The book is based upon the religion, not the other way around. When theists refute your claims that various parts of the documentation are simply false by stating that they are not literal or strictly historical but are allegorical and figurative then that is what they believe to be the case, and have done for many thousands of years - Adam in hebrew was a generic name for mankind - he became an anthropomorphic personification from the second chapter onwards as an allegory for all early mankind, which makes Eve, Cain, Abel, Seth, and all their direct offspring. also allegorical, and so to create a lineage of mankind to show a continuous connection between the god and the jewish nation through antiquity - it was effectively claiming god as their own, and theirs only. So, for example, rather than being a literal genealogical tree, it is an allegorical communicative path (replace "begat" with "told") of the passage of the religion through the generations. This doesn't make Genesis 5 false, it makes it something that cannot be falsified because it was never meant to be taken literally.

These things were taken literally for ages - they were also taken literally at the time when the religions were formed. I think that would Christianity have to start all over again today, it wouldn't have a chance because people would find the concepts ridiculous. It's largely the "inherited" authority and the resulting automatic childhood indoctrination that keeps the big religions alive (in my opinion).

Of course Theists will find excuses for inconsistencies in their scripture - with a little creativity you can make these ancient texts support almost any theory that you want it to (maybe they included the book of revelation just for this reason). I just don't think that this makes their position more credible.

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: Dean wrote: A nice summation Mike, and while I don't agree with your last two points, I can in principle endorse and agree with the rest.   Comparing the theists various god claims against known fictitious (ridiculous) claims is to some degree specious since they are not comparable - people may have believed in Santa Claus,  Leprechauns, Bigfoot (though not the FSM) , they never worshipped them or created a religion of an ideology and morality around them, so they simply are not comparable. A better comparison (from my perspective) would be all the other gods that have now been declared "false" or mythological, such as Ra, Horus, Osiris, Bastet, Apollo, Zeus, Aries, Minerva, Vesta, Persephone, Bacchus, Freya, Odin, Loki, Eostur, Freyja, Väinämöinen, Pan, Vearalden, Ceres, Demeter, Kali, Matres, Lenus, Sequana, Ranginui, Papatuanuku, Altjira, Gnowee, Bamapana, Na Tuk Kong, Ma Zu,  Kuan Yin, Sedna, Nanook, Azeban, Tabalduk, Bitol, Ixpiyacoc, Quetzalcoatl, Wotan etc. that at some time in human history were considered real.   Dean, don't you see why?   The more absurd our beliefs sound, the more Mike believes he has made his point, he talks about a knee jerk reaction, but it's self evident that this is what he wants.   Comparing God with thre Spagetti Monster or the Eastern Bunny is a trick some of the most radical atheists as Dawkins use, with this arguments they create laughs and mockery from some atheists and at the same time rabid and furious replies from fundamentalists that make all of us loak as fanatics.   In the reply to your post, he admits:   Mr ProgFreak wrote: I agree that extinct religions are much better analogies. Still, the point is that religions have in common with simple myths like Bigfoot that there is no evidence. Religions are - or have been - believed by more people for longer times, and books have been written about them. Since I dismiss all that and don't accept it as evidence, there really is no fundamental difference. Still, I as I said, I agree that extinct religions are better analogies and less likely to cause a knee-jerk reaction "how dare you compare my God to Bigfoot!".     Your analogy is much better, but I will continue using the ones I want (even if they are going to cause a reaction), because I dismiss all their beliefs and theory.   It's obvious Dean, he doesn't want a rational debate, he wants his point to be accepted as the universal truth  and the only way is making us look as insane fanatics.   The highlighted and bigger font marked in his reply proves that there's no difference betwen God and Bigfoot because "He doesn't admit our evidence, and for this reason there's no difference", in other words arrogance and egocentrism at it's peak.

Dean wrote: Mr ProgFreak wrote: These things were taken literally for ages - they were also taken literally at the time when the religions were formed. We don't know how long those stories were taken literally or whether they were taken literally when the religions were formed. It is a fair assumption that early translators of the bible did take the stories literally, but there is no evidence that it was always like that considering that modern interpretations are based upon revisiting the hebrew source and re-translating it in context - something the early translators could not do.

I think that it's fair to assume that at least until renaissance and the rise of literacy among the general population people had few viable alternatives - and they had no reason to doubt the literal stories since they didn't conflict with the science of the time.

Dean wrote: Mr ProgFreak wrote: I think that would Christianity have to start all over again today, it wouldn't have a chance because people would find the concepts ridiculous. It's largely the "inherited" authority and the resulting automatic childhood indoctrination that keeps the big religions alive (in my opinion). Modern history of new-age religions and outlandish "alien" religions tend to suggest you couldn't be more wrong

Sure, the human brain hasn't evolved that much and people are still susceptible to false beliefs. But it would be unlikely for example for someone who openly subscribed to outlandish alien religions would be elected to high office. Scientology may be a slightly different case, as I mentioned above, since they somehow manage to conceal their absurd story from outsiders.

Dean wrote: Mr ProgFreak wrote: Of course Theists will find excuses for inconsistencies in their scripture - with a little creativity you can make these ancient texts support almost any theory that you want it to (maybe they included the book of revelation just for this reason). I just don't think that this makes their position more credible. And it doesn't make it any less credible either. One of the clever parts of the bible is not the inconsistencies and vagaries of interpretation, but the built-in redundancy it contains - as I have said before - you can chip away as much as you like it makes no difference.

Sure. To me it's simply not relevant either way - if you can use it to prove anything then the proof means nothing.

^ Well dismissing peoples faith defeats everything in terms of arguments. Because faith is knowing without justification. You cannot rationalize that.For an atheist it is the perfect achilles heel, paradoxically it is the opposite of weakness because for theists it is what it is and very powerful. Not a spiritual ' placebo'

^ your statement above again is insulting, assuming that all theists hide behind their faith without being rational. You are frigging around with syntax all the time like a wriggling wormtongue..

Dean wrote: I don't agree with Mike on this point because it allows for a nice convenient escape route for theists who don't want to answer the basic question, not because it shows bias in what Mike says.

 

Mr ProgFreak wrote: I will not reply to this post since it contains so many misrepresentations of what I actually said that I wouldn't know where to begin - I also doubt that it would accomplish anything. I will say though that I was wrong about Horus - this story about him having been born by a virgin is floating around in the internet and has been picked up by some Atheists. Of course I make mistakes, and I have no problem admitting them.

Edited by Ivan_Melgar_M - August 29 2010 at 17:16