Surely a lot of Christian religion has been interpreted as allegorical or misinterpretation/overembellishment.

As I understand it, the current bible states that the world was created in seven days, whereas older texts (in the original language) uses a word which can be interpreted as "days" or "ages". The world created in seven days - either factually incorrect or allegorical (or the days aren't comparable to human days), or seven ages (more plausible).

Misinterpretation may well be the cause of a lot of issues. Surely with Google Translate, we should be able to scan ancient texts and translate them into English more accurately these days! (TFIC if you didn't notice).

Well it's not really that they choose to forgo, or even are reluctant. In many cases the religious make specific arguments that attempt to use empirical facts to demonstrate that there is a god. The argument from design being probably the best known, and Intelligent Design - its bastard offspring - the current pain in the bum.


This is something they have to accept, and so do the rest of us. Using empirical evidence to argue about the existence of supernatural objects is about as useful as using a rake to brush your teeth. Let us consider this in analogical form.

Consider the scientist who spends all day quantifying something in the natural world, for the sake of argument he is investigating which hats are best suited to warding off swarms of bees. He tries on a trilby, and counts how many times he gets stung in the face. Then he tries on a beekeepers hat and finds that this number drops. Let us suppose he has carried out this vital research with full scientific rigour, using a carefully calibrated pair of bee swarms, each of equal wrath, and so on.

This is a proper scientific endeavour; the number of bee rumps attached to his face are empirical evidence that beekeeping hats are better than trilbies when warding off angry insects. He could have worked out the same result by other means, such as asking bee keepers for their opinions on headgear. Or he could have used deductive reasoning and assumed that a hat called a beekeeper is better than a trilby by virtue solely of its name. In either case he would have reached a correct conclusion, but it wouldn't have been science. Although it would be possible that some deluded people would have accepted either as science simply because the person who said it was true was a scientist - and for some undiscriminating audiences "scientists say..." is deemed some kind of scientific proof in itself.

In the evening our scientist friend goes home and indulges in his passion for art. He has constructed a machine that will examine a painting and rate it according to technique, colour palette and composition. He carefully calibrates his machine to analyse the Mona Lisa, which we all know is the greatest painting in the world. When his machine is finished and calibrated it will measure the Mona Lisa and show that this painting is 99.999999% perfect art, and then he gives it all the other paintings in the world to analyse, then he publishes the results. It is now reported as scientific fact that the Laughing Cavalier is 87% art, Eight Elvises 63% and Guernica 22%.

Why isn't the second activity every bit as scientific as the first? It uses empirical data to arrive at a conclusion after all. But the problem is that the Mona Lisa is a spurious choice, and this in turn is caused by art not being calculable. In short, there is no room for an empirical answer to the question posed, even though we can if we desire go through the worthless motions of pursuing one.

If you created a Lego universe, and around it you created an impenetrable wall of time and space, you could not be measured by the little Lego men who lived within. You can be measured by your doctor in the here and now no problem, science can describe you in great detail. But the little Lego scientists would have no way ever to reach you, their science can exist only within the confines of their universe. So they should get on with it, and leave the question of whether you exist to be moot.

Anyone seen THIS?

That's the sort of thing that pisses me off about a lot of organised religion.
I know they're the minority in this country, but even so, it just pisses me off.

Well I have now. I like the way they basically say "if you're not cured, it's your fault because you didn't believe enough".

The thing I don't get is that religions have come and gone, so why are people adamant that the ones currently around won't?

All of them have been based on the ideas of man, man is fallible, men can have delusions. Why is so much weight put on the ideas of men hundreds and thousands of years ago rather than the ones of other men and women around today?

That's why, to me, it makes no sense.

Those two sentences argue against each other. In the first you say that religion is silly because it is impermanent, then you say it is silly because it is too permanent.

Religions differ, religions are rewritten over time so they never stay completely the same.

I believe you're trying to find argument in semantics rather than meaning and as such you avoid having to think of an answer to the question.

No, but its pointless to answer a question until you know what the question is. There is a basic premise common to most religions that there is a guiding principle behind the universe, that all of existence is not random, and that the actions of men are noted in some sense by the celestial. That much has never changed, it never will, and it is what you need to argue against if you want to demonstrate both sufficiency and necessity for atheism.

What you are complaining about is detail. When I do that you sneer at my regard for semantics.

It is quite possible that all the religions of the past have been wrong in some sense; that the truth of man's interface with the universe is still unknown, but that there is some raw truth within the general theory. Perhaps some new messiah will come along shortly to explain it all. Or it is possible that all of the religions we know today are horribly wrong, and that a forgotten crocodile god is going to eat each and every one of our souls upon death.

It doesn't really matter much, the only empirical test is to wait until you die and then find out - until then you can choose a belief that fits you and go with it. Atheism is just one of the available beliefs.

It seems obvious to me that faith and religion meet a need.

People want/need to believe.

The reasons for that are potentially manyfold and are certainly up for debate.

One thing that is certain is that argument and reason play little part in that belief. In fact "faith" is often valued above reason.


It can be enlightening to talk with true believers. It is really interesting to learn what the foundation of their faith is. What I have often observed is that once a "faith" has been established it is tenacious no matter what that faith has been placed in.

This point is mute because you are missing an apostrophe, which is a shame because it's probably the most fundamental question

It's moot to discuss this if all you do is make basic language errors.

It is tenacious by definition, Because if it wasn't, it wouldn't be a faith

Just pointing that little quirk out.

LMFAO typical lol ROFL

That is true enough. Actually I have never actually made that basic connection. What a silly cat.



Faith is belief without evidence is it not? If we were somehow able to show that a god existed would that mean and instant end of faith in that god? Indeed would they stop being a god and just be part of the known universe?



So many questions, so little understanding.

CC

My conviction that there is a God (regardless of religion) has been confirmed after spending a good 10 minutes in the company of Beatrix Von Bourbon.