What people call luck isn’t always luck, as we’ve discussed, and likewise some of the routines that players go through are really a way to get them focussed. Like Pavlov’s dog you can train yourself to respond to cues in order to trigger a certain state of mind. The general point here, however, is that what we call luck often isn’t really luck. This would be a question to explore in the follow up questions, which I’m suggesting a separate thread for if you’re interested. You’re going to have to give me a little more history on numerology. I’m not aware of it being a wide spread belief similar to the widespread belief in a god or gods. Because would be inefficient. Another society that managed to organize itself without these elaborate rituals that include taking 1 in 7 days off and giving 10% of your income to the church, and giving to the poor, etc., should be more prosperous and get ahead, and the society which used these elaborate and expensive rituals as essentially organisational tools should fall behind and eventually change or die off, but that’s not what we see happening. No, I did not use the word must. I think I touched on this in an earlier post, but the question of if/how the various beliefs differ is a big one. I think it’s an important one, but I also think it’s a follow up question to the one we’re dealing with here, and one that we should start a new thread for if you’re interested in exploring it. You’re missing the mark a bit here. Any experiment you do will have limitations. Any microscope you look through will have a finite amount of resolution. "The earth is flat" is a scientific theory, and they tested it to the best of their abilities at the time. They travelled as far as they could in all directions, and they talked to travellers who had come from far off places, and based on all of that data they concluded that the earth was flat. They happened to be wrong, of course, because essentially the resolution of their microscope wasn’t high enough, but they followed all of the above steps. We’ll be wrong too about some things we think are true today. What you’re saying would only be true if there is no god or gods. If there is a god or gods, however, then many of those practices could relate to something real, and not something imagined/invented. I haven’t read the rest of the thread yet but from my point of view I think this: is a conclusion I think we can agree on for the question we’ve been discussing here. The first line of questioning on this issue I think has to be very basic, because you’ll inevitably be dealing with a number of people who’ve had bad experiences of one sort or another and who have a very emotional response to this issue, and who feel that they have to believe that any belief in god is nonsense, a fairytale, etc. What we needed to do here, then, was to come to a very simple and basic conclusion that serves as a possible takeoff point for some more interesting questions. The people who can’t accept the above conclusion will now essentially be out of the discussion and we will have reduced the noise level substantially and will be able to carry on a more refined and hopefully interesting discussion. And as I mentioned above, I suggest we do it in another thread, if you’re interested.
Yeah, but I think this is where you are tripping up, because the same evidence you're using to suggest there may be god or gods can also be used to show that there isn't. There are people that believe and people that don't. If 'belief' is simply the evidence than it goes both ways(which makes it tenuous at best)...a majority of people believing in something is not evidence for anything except that they feel something they can't explain...racists and bigots feel hatred they can't rationally explain as well...that doesn't make it right does it? You still haven't admitted that you're original statement is completely BS about the 75% belief, you simply backpedal and admit a 'compromise', which every rational person reading this thread can see is completely different than what you first stated. I wish you could prove to me God existed, if there was some proof that God existed I would be in church, mosque, etc and following the word to a T....but we both know you can't...you can only give me 'evidence to suggest' like many other religions try to in many different ways. I always thought it was odd that out of 20+ 'major' religions in the world (not all believe in a 'god') and many different denominations and versions to their particular religion as well...people believe theirs is 'the one'. Does that sound like 'strong evidence' of a god/gods to you? It doesn't to me. It sounds like you're trying to lump everyone that believes in 'something' into the same category as you. Belief numbers aren't everything..if you tried to lump people into those that do/don't believe in Jesus Christ as God or Allah as God, you wouldn't be in the majority given the variety of religions...which would lead to 'strong evidence' that Jesus Christ,etc. isn't God...or at least your religion isn't real...wouldn't it? You'd have to accept that given your logic...or wait...I guess you have to 'think harder about why a majority of people don't think your religion is the right one'...right? That's tenuous.
THough I see the point, this is not an analogy. We can prove that racism is bad for the human race, which is why it is a human rights and ethics issue. We can't prove that religion is bad for the human race. He is not claiming that he can, at this moment, scientifically prove God exists. Also, you would not follow anything to a T, just like you don't follow what you currently believe to a T. Humans make mistakes. Also, out of 20+ religions, though they all believe they are right, they don't necessarily state that their God is right. For example, Muslims believe that they worship the same God as Christians and Jews, but with a different religion. In most cases, the disagreement is over the will and description of God. For example, me and you can both know person X. You think he is funny and I don't. We both have our own evidence for our positions. We disagree with each other. But we are still talking about person X. I think you are missing the key idea here. When a lot of people believe something, that is evidence but not proof. If I find your fingerprints on a glass, that is proof that you touched it. However, if I found a glass in your room, then that is evidence that you drank from it - it isn't proof. You see what I'm saying here?
The lack of rituals wouldn't necessarily be replaced with productive work. Even before the modern era, people spent a lot of time doing nothing (leisure), when they could've done something "useful" instead.
How does the fact that "racism is bad", take away from the point that a lot of people can believe in things that are incorrect, but do it anyway? I think the fact that it is something overtly 'bad' makes my point even stronger...people can overlook many things when they're raised to believe a certain way. The fact that it's good or bad doesn't matter, it happens and has happened many times in the past. If ethics is the issue with my statement you can easily replace it with any other non-ethic driven issue that was wrong in the past...the world is flat, spontaneous generation, etc. Lots of folks believed in those, but they were obviously all wrong. Did that mean there was strong evidence of its existence at the time? You and Grizzled would say yes, but it was far from the truth. It's just an example. Of course he can't, there is no test, or experiment that could be done to prove God's existence...I highly doubt there will ever be such a test. ...uh, okay. Yes, but many of them do. Do they not? There are many fundamentalists groups in all religions. Sure there are also other more flexible, I guess you can call it laid back? More tolerant? religious denominations, and there are also many other religions that do not even follow the big 2. My point was that the majority of the world does not believe in one religion...why do you think that is the case? Yeah Grizzled tried to use a similar analogy, but it does not really apply. A glass is something tangeable, easily describeable, an everyday object. God, not so much. I'm pretty tired of talking about this. Summarize... Belief does not provide evidence for anything except that you believe in something. A majority of belief will probably make you think harder about why people believe...then the argument breaksdown into many, many others.
Good point but that isn't proof of something metaphysical. It is a mental trick that has bearing on physical actions. I haven't been following this thread much recently but I recall addressing this point to you earlier in the thread. You have to consider that the idea of seperation of church and state is a relatively new phenomenom and for most of human history religion and politics were one in the same so the appeal to higher authority granted legitimacy to rule. Pharoah's mandate to rule was because he wasn't just a man but a god. In fact in the right of an emperor to rule in ancient China was even called "the Mandate of Heaven".
I don't think we can prove it definatively but history certainly shows that religion has been responsible for many wars, oppression of people, human sacrifice and other misery. As much as religion has been used to unite people it probably has done just as much to divide them.
Alright but I think you are not open to the argument frankly. 1) Over half the world believes in the Abrahamic religions which ultimately lead to one single God. 2) You are right that belief does not prove anything. However, the sheer number of people who have believed in God over history must absolutely be considered a hint, a clue, evidence, whatever you want to call it... There is absolutely something there in spite of a lack of scientific proof. Scientific proof, in the past, has easily outlasted baseless beliefs in the past and has not been able to do so in this case so far. 3) Tangible or not, I was describing the difference between evidence and proof. There can be evidence of something intangible, even in basketball for example.
Do you have any proof or evidence of this? Obviously, I strongly disagree with you. Far too often, religion is the convenient culprit.
He believes is...as do many others. hence, it's 75% likely to be true and is it's own evidence! ...ZING!!!
As I said I don't think it is definitive whether religion is overall bad or good for humanity but just consider all of the crusades, pogroms, and etc have been carried out in the name of religion. Consider the amount of blood spilt in even your own holy books and by those who act in the name of your religion. Heck take any major religion and there has been blood spilt in the name of that religion.
1) There is a completely insignificant amount of blood spilled in my book and none of the blood spilled is other than in the name of justice. Please back up these claims. 2) You changed or forgot your claim. There is a lot of blood spilled as a result of religion - this is logical and anything which creates strong belief will create strong passion. This can be seen in sports on a smaller scale. Your claim was that "As much as religion has been used to unite people it probably has done just as much to divide them" and I disagree with that. I would like to see if you have any evidence for it. I think the question of religion causing violence is a valid debate. But to say that religion has spilled more blood than otherwise would have been spilled or that religion has divided people more than would have been divided is, at most, not more than a debatable opinion. I offer you an example myself. Arabs did not function as a single unit from the day they were born until Islam came to them, and they ceased functioning as a unit the moment the Prophet PBUH left them.
If most of the world agreed with him, I would certainly consider it as evidence that I am blind to something.
A whole lot of people agree with him. Completely unscientifically and with no basis of proof (because this is what the thread has been about for the later half), I'd say millions upon millions. And given the rationale that seems to have caught on by a few here, to me, that means there is pretty strong evidence it might be true. I mean, millions upon millions of people wouldn't just believe in something randomly, would they? Of course not... ... ... the whole conversation is r****ded, really. collective belief about something says nothing about that something being true.
to be clear...if billions of people believe in something it's probably true, but if millions of people do...well, it's not billions. Do you realize how silly and stupid this sounds?
That "something" in this case is ... what? Since you are a believer, I trust you can explain what it is that atheists/agnostics are blind to.
Seriously? An insignifigant amount of blood. Consider that Mohammed was a military leader who did wage war against the idolaters in Mecca. Now he might've had a good reason to do so but there is no denying there was a religious reason for fighting that war. Moving onto the Bible consider how many battles were fought by the ancient Israelites with religious justification to back those up. [rquoter]Numbers 21:3 (King James Version) 3And the LORD hearkened to the voice of Israel, and delivered up the Canaanites; and they utterly destroyed them and their cities: and he called the name of the place Hormah. [/rquoter] Certainly there is an argument for how justified all that killing was but it is a fact that your own religious texts record a lot of blood spilled in the name of religion both by the proponents and opponents. I didn't change or forget that claim and you seem to be agreeing with it to some extent. As I said before we I don't think it is definitive to say if religion has united more or divided more but if you look at human history there have been many many killings done in the name of religion even up to the present day. As I noted earlier the idea of seperation of church and state is a relatively new concept so up until recently almost every conflict had a religious dimension too it but even leaving out those wars where religion wasn't a primary cause there is still a lot of blood spilled primarily in the name of religion throughout human history. Consider again the record of history. Think about the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Reconquista, pograms against Jews, the blood soaked alters of Meso America, Oliver Cromwell trying to wipe out the Catholics of Ireland, The Counter Reformation and the wars to wipe out Protestantism and so on and so on. The Conquistadors mantra was "God, Gold, and Glory". Pharoah commanded his troops in the name of his own godhood. Heck even in Buddhism one of the great stories from Tibet is the killing of a king who suppressed Buddhism. Keep in mind though that at the sametime the Arabs have also fought among themselves in the name of Islam from the day that Hussein was murdered with that schism still going on to this day.
SOrry, this was poorly worded. I meant to imply a lack of knowledge or comprehension or understanding or information. Did not mean to imply ignorance. My bad.
