Speak for yourself sir. I don't hate you for what you think, no matter how much I disagree with it. The only time it would (unfortunately) come to hate for me is when 'thinking something' becomes an endpoint rather than a constantly developing thing. Once that endpoint becomes something they act on, I personally can't avoid 'hating' them. Despite this, I wouldn't usually treat them like someone I dislike. In case I haven't worded it correctly, an example of this would be that someone is blatantly racist. Another example would be a rapist. A child molestor. You get the idea. I don't hate you, or anyone else, for having a valid opinion.
FYI you have made a few statements on Islam, all of which were at least somewhat wrong, and all of which were stated as facts. They are all insulting.
All of my statements on Islam are 100% correct. 1) Death in defense of the faith is justified 2) Martyrs will be rewarded in heaven 3) Infidels deserve to die All 100% correct according to fundamentalist Islam. Sorry, no agenda here, just going by the text. I never said all Muslims (or even most) believe, or agree, with that. Please stop putting words into my mouth, thanks.
From this thread, this post in particular - last paragraph. Generic statement, similar to the one I made here.
No it doesn't. There is no plan or agenda or purpose in evolution. Changes just happen, due to genetic mutation mainly. Some changes tend to reproduce better, some not as good and some have no effect. And, the changes are cumlative, relative, interrelated and hugely complex. If humans developed a bigger brain, a neural network with a drive for problem solving; the brain might strive to develop it's own solution to the unsolvable. Humans don't deal well with unanswered questions; to the point that they will make up their own answers, i.e. ghosts, sea monsters, gods, curses, bleeding as a medical treatment, well, the history is endless
Developing reason and curiosity makes sense to me. These things make us problem solvers and allow us to adapt to change. This gives us a competitive advantage, but why would we make up a fantasy to explain something we don't understand? I don't see the advantage in that. That would be a waste of energy and it would divert us away from solving the problem. Religion and all its trappings would be a big waste of time and resources if all it is is a fantasy. I can see that in a limited situation questioning and curiosity could be quenched temporarily by a fantasy, but I would expect that kind of thing to be isolated and that it would die out, because it would be a competitive disadvantage. In other words, if these urges became overdeveloped in some people to the extent that they started making things up to satisfy them, then that that would not be a beneficial mutation and it should die out. I'm not saying that your theory is impossible, I should add. I'm just saying that I don't see how this would benefit us, and because of that I don’t know why a belief in god would become a wide spread and long lasting belief, unless it was based on something real.
He’s just an ugly bigot who is making things up to suit his agenda. Take note of that and bypass him accordingly in the future.
Your desperate attempts to bait me only further illustrate the latent insecurity inherent to your poorly formed and absymally supported positions.
I think there could be advantages to believing in a God or having a shared belief system, independent of whether that God actually exists. Do you feel your religion is a waste of time? You don't think it helps give you direction and makes you a better, more productive person? You don't think it allows communities to have stronger bonds and greater discipline, with the shared understanding that there are deities looking over them and judging their actions? You also have to consider that because human naturally organize into communities, there are other societal forces at play that guide our belief system and resist change. If a community believes in a God, and many of their customs and traditions are oriented around that belief, should we expect that to change when a few amongst them may start questioning that belief?
....so people can feel good about them eventually dying and being happy forever. Ever thought about death? kinda scary. heaven gives people security
Weighing in on the last two pages. I'm going to point out that first off we don't really know for sure whether animals have a capacity for religious thought. Many animals show ritualistic behavior and among animals that show tool making ability they have also been show to think abstractedly so we can't automatically presume that thinking about spiritual concepts is something that humans solely due. In regard to why we have religion I think their are two main reasons. The first is that as social creatures religion provides a framework for social organiation and transmission of cultural values. The idea of separation of church and state is a relatively new one in human history at the sametime many cultural values are enshrined in the religious texts and practices of those cultures. For example Kosher rules may very likely have to do creating guidelines for food safety in Biblical Judea. The second reason I mentioned in a post earlier in the thread. We are rational beings but our rationality can quickly lead us to a point where empiracal doesn't apply. There are basic questions about our existance that can't be answered based upon a purely materialistic view of the existence so as thinking beings it is natural we will go beyond the material to try to understand such things.
Real as in that there actually is a supernatural being looking out for us? As I stated earlier I think our rationality drives us to spiritual belief but I don't think that says that such belief is true. For example almost all societies have superstitious practices to try to improve one's luck. I don't believe though that such practices have actually consistently proven to bring better luck. Under your reasoning though because many people practice superstitions such as carrying a lucky rabbit's foot then there must be something actually to that when I don't think lucky rabbit's feet have ever been proven to really bring good luck.
I agree that there are advantages to a shared belief system, but why make up a fictitious entity like a god? Many animals live in groups and communities apparently without any belief in a god. There are practical reasons for them to live in groups, as there are for humans, and I don’t see any reason to make up a fantasy about a god to justify it. What would be the point? The whole idea of god, religion and all its trapping, if it isn’t based on something real, would be a big and unnecessary waste of time and resources, and that’s not advantageous. What we’re proposing here is that humans developed a trait that was disadvantageous, namely the heightened need to explain everything, but instead of that trait being naturally selected out we instead developed another disadvantageous trait to compensate, a belief in a fictitious god, and with it religion and all the trappings that go with that. I don’t think this is consistent with how the theory works. We can’t completely discount it, because statistically speaking low probability sequences of events are going to happen from time to time, but it doesn’t seem likely. The most likely scenario, it seems to me, would be that the people with the overdeveloped need to understand would get diverted by the fantasies they create, and that would leave them at a disadvantage and they would eventually be naturally selected out. As for me, no I don’t feel that my faith is a waste of time. I think it’s an expression of who I am, and it stems from what I might call a spiritual awakening experience. For many years I didn’t go to a church at all because I didn’t like any of the churches I knew about. Later I found one with people that I had a lot more in common with. Fundamentally a church is a place where people with similar beliefs come together to talk to each other, learn from each other, and support each other. It’s a bottom up thing rather than a top down thing. With respect to the “deities looking over them and judging their actions part”, that could be a much longer discussion, but in short a Christian is not under the law and not to worry about the law or try to conform to the law, so the judging part I don’t think exists the way you’re suggesting, at least not with respect to the ideal. Why would a community believe in a god, however? Let’s say an individual had an overdeveloped sense of curiosity and will to understand that led him to make up answers to the questions he had, and thereby make up the idea of a god. How would this become a community thing? Let’s say that this person happened to be a community leader and he was able to force this on the community. How long could that last? It would divert the energies and resources of the community and you would think that other communities that didn’t do this would get ahead. Cults may be an example of this. I think they show that what you’re describing does exist, but they never last that long, relatively speaking. You could possibly look to groups like the Masons, which have lasted for some centuries, but I don’t know enough about them to comment on that, and I believe that they believe in the Christian God as well. I guess I’m coming back to the same problem. If it isn’t based on something real, I don’t see how 75% of the world’s population could come to believe in a god or gods and how that trend could last for thousands of years.
I disagree with your assumption that a belief in god, along with the religion and other stuff that comes with it, would be disadvantageous if it were not true. On the contrary, it seems the advantages of religion exist regardless of whether the deities worshiped actually exist. I say this because of the existence and success of mutually exclusive belief systems. Peoples throughout human history and across a wide array of cultures have followed many different belief systems. They can't all be "true" (unless you believe that there is a generic force that conforms to the beliefs of the individual) can they? So if some of them are true and others are not, then doesn't that logically indicate that some can survive and thrive even if they are not true? And if that's the case, then that goes against the idea that they must be disadvantageous.
True, but at the very least they don’t devote the same time and resources to a religion. And if they do that would open up a whole set of other questions. Why would animals develop a need to believe in something that wasn’t real? That question is tough sledding no matter who we’re talking about. Yes, I agree that a framework is advantageous, but why make up a fictitious god? If the framework is advantageous, then it is advantageous. That in itself should be reason enough to do it. Why would we add this extra layer of a fictitious god, and religion, and everything that goes with it? What would be gained by doing that? I agree with you here, but I suggest that this points to another area of understanding, another part of who we are, namely the spiritual part. Let me word this another way. If we’re not merely rational beings, then what is that other part? If this other part exists then it is something real, not a fantasy. And I suggest that we can be learn about what it is by studying how other people experience it and deal with it.
Real as in they exist. At this point we’re dealing with the 75% number, and that includes different religions and many different denominations, so we haven’t addressed the question of who this god or gods are. The question at this point is just whether or not a god or gods exist. Superstitions are an interesting point to consider. Many people have them, but for the most part they’re not a big part of people’s lives, with the possible exception of some Asian cultures. Can you shed any light on the issue of superstition in Asian cultures? I think they tend not to be advantageous, whereas faith and religion, in general and over the long term, do tend to be advantageous. I don’t think I know all that much about superstition in our culture, however.
