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

Mr ProgFreak wrote: @Dean: Islam and Judaism "wholeheartedly" accept the theory of evolution ... when did that happen? "Little is known about general societal views of evolution in Muslim countries. A 2007 study of religious patterns found that only 8% of Egyptians, 11% of Malaysians, 14% of Pakistanis, 16% of Indonesians, and 22% of Turks agree that Darwin's theory is probably or most certainly true, and a 2006 survey reported that about 25% of Turkish adults agreed that human beings evolved from earlier animal species. In contrast, the 2007 study found that only 28% of Kazakhs thought that evolution is false; this fraction is much lower than the roughly 40% of U.S. adults with the same opinion (this could be due to the fact that Kazakhstan is a former republic of the USSR, where atheism was explicitly endorsed and promoted).[17]"

seventhsojourn wrote: Mike, many religious people would consider not teaching their children about religion as negligence. Regarding that petition: ''In order to encourage free thinking, children should not be subjected to any regular religious teaching.''

Ivan: Sorry, I'm laughing too hard at your previous post to respond properly. Not only is religion CLEARLY rotting and in decay but you just admitted how people turn to religion to cope with suffering and oppression they cannot deal with or compute, not for any real spiritual reasons.

Dean wrote: Mr ProgFreak wrote: @Dean: Islam and Judaism "wholeheartedly" accept the theory of evolution ... when did that happen? "Little is known about general societal views of evolution in Muslim countries. A 2007 study of religious patterns found that only 8% of Egyptians, 11% of Malaysians, 14% of Pakistanis, 16% of Indonesians, and 22% of Turks agree that Darwin's theory is probably or most certainly true, and a 2006 survey reported that about 25% of Turkish adults agreed that human beings evolved from earlier animal species. In contrast, the 2007 study found that only 28% of Kazakhs thought that evolution is false; this fraction is much lower than the roughly 40% of U.S. adults with the same opinion (this could be due to the fact that Kazakhstan is a former republic of the USSR, where atheism was explicitly endorsed and promoted).[17]" As our Farisky pointed out, islam supports a version of evolution first proposed by Al-Jahiz 700 years before Darwin and their version looks remarkably similar to the version supported by most christians (ie Darwin + god) - in that light the results of the survey don't say what you think they do, of course they will reject the godless western version for their own.

That doesn't matter to me - IMO someone doesn't really accept the theory of evolution by natural selection as long as they add any "God" component. The essence of the theory is that it works without that assumption. Of course this means that IMO much less people throughout the world reject the theory - even in Germany, which is a fairly secular country, I would say that only a minority accepts the theory in that respect.

If we do as Mike suggests, the theist should have nothing to fear if we allow people to reach adulthood before practising a faith, because they generally believe that people, including themselves, freely choose the faith, childhood inculcation aside, and therefore numbers will maintain.

Textbook wrote: If we do as Mike suggests, the theist should have nothing to fear if we allow people to reach adulthood before practising a faith, because they generally believe that people, including themselves, freely choose the faith, childhood inculcation aside, and therefore numbers will maintain.   Of course, what would actually happen is the  almost total collapse of virtually every faith within three generations. Without the elastic and pliable mind of the young to prey on, religions will be out in the cold, finding little purchase in the mind of a rational adult.   God is a bit like Santa Claus except nobody dresses up like him in a suit and therefore spoils the illusion. But he is a fairytale told by people who have given up on trying to make sense of the world. Like all fairytales, it is very appealing to children. Some people cannot let go of this early "knowledge" that a magical skybeing watches over them. We call them theists. They may as well be worshipping Spiderman. As said before, the parents teach the children that you can "know" things which make no sense whatsoever which leads to further logic problems and the sort of cognitive disorder picture of religion that Maher draws.

Although as an Atheist myself, I do agree with the broad thrust of your post, I do think it a bit harsh on some 'believers' i.e. many people convert to a religious faith in adulthood (but yes, of this number are a significant portion who seek spiritual consolation from a very secular trauma like say bereavement, addiction recovery or near death experience etc)
I also agree that most large denomination religions would shrink rapidly if the 'fresh meat' were allowed to decide for themselves on reaching maturity but what would remain I hope, would be a sincere and committed core of followers free from the hypocrisy of those whose unthinking devotion to the church stretches to dressing up on a Sunday for some 'salvation by donation'.
I don't believe for a second that those who embrace the possibility of transcendental agents have 'given up on making sense of the world' as you state. Faith strikes us as clearly irrational but there are millions of other phenomena in the world that appear this way to me (perhaps I'm just dumb) and many of these things (like the aesthetic beauty everyone on PA takes in prog music) just make life worth living


Edited by ExittheLemming - September 06 2010 at 07:31

Dean wrote: Mr ProgFreak wrote: That doesn't matter to me - IMO someone doesn't really accept the theory of evolution by natural selection as long as they add any "God" component. The essence of the theory is that it works without that assumption. Of course this means that IMO much less people throughout the world reject the theory - even in Germany, which is a fairly secular country, I would say that only a minority accepts the theory in that respect. The all-or-nothing attitude appears very narrowminded to me - I would rather people people accepted the proven science and inserted god for all the bits science hasn't explained than just believe a creation myth. The thing is they do believe the essence of theory, and the theory doesn't doesn't work without making assumptions of somekind. So until science can solve those assumptions why not insert god or fsm or idk instead? By doing this, and by "permitting" theists to accept the theory with their assumptions intact, we can continue fill in the blanks as science discovers them until all the assumptions are explained and we would have removed god from the detail.

And there was me thinking the devil was in the detail

Post fundamentalists baptist cultists doing what they do;
A religion that probably came from one of the most uptight and closed protestant cults ever, even for 17th century standards;
Imply that every religious person is exactly like that.

They see me trollin', they hatin'. . .  . .


Edited by CCVP - September 06 2010 at 10:40

So that you know, Dawkins actually is a christian.

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: CCVP wrote: So that you know, Dawkins actually is a christian.   No, he's a great businessman who wants to sell books, and supporting unpopular campaigns won't help him.   Iván

No Iván, he really is. Well, a "cultural christian", but one nevertheless.

Besides, he actually does not like to have a decent conversation at all. There is this famous video of him saying: If you don't agree, you can f**k off.

Some pretty ration free thinking right there.