I'm always very concerned when Zeitgeist crops up. It's a very dangerous way to prove a point, in my opinion. The so-called "truth movement" behind Zeitgeist use many of the mechanisms available to prove that people will believe what they're told, if they're told authoritatively enough. Zeitgeist is held together with a lot of lies and misrepresentations, interspersed with some loose facts.. but of the masses who watch it, some conspiracy theories will appear to have more weight than they really do.
As a good example, what Zeitgeist says about the story of Dionysus (/Dionysos) is utter rubbish. It's a plain lie. But you have to know the truth to see the lie (but how many people know any more than that Dionysos is from Greek mythology??).. and thus many of the ill-informed will fall for this trick, and the domino effect of perception across all religions (the point being proven). The presentation of Zeitgeist.. the sheer bombardment of faux-fact bullies the senses and masks the lies. After all it's really well put together and the media wouldn't lie, would it? Guess again
I'd suggest having a look at the website that vid came from http://zeitgeistmovie.com/statement.htm (the vid is on the "home" page)
As that linked page says, don't just take their word for it, rather use this information as a springboard for your own research, then come to your own conclusions. I don't want to get into it to heavily right now, but i will say with regards to all the 911 stuff. Some of the clips and info used come from well known conspiratorialists (is that a word ?) and some of them have been known to ermm..lets just say, they've been known to embellish certain facts from time to time.
While it's always possible, it does seem very unlikely. If he did exist he was only one of several messiahs doing the rounds at that time. And it would seem if he did exist he certainly didn't have anywhere near the impact on the population that the New Testament would have us believe.
One of the golden rules when starting a new religious concept is, be ambiguous with your methodology, yet direct and clear cut with your rules and regulations.
And therein lies the greatest problem with all religious belief. How can one ever know if they've chosen the right God if they're never allowed to ask difficult questions of that God. But lets be honest about this, if you where selling yourself as a deity, wouldn't you put that clause into your manifesto too ?
A word to the wise, when investigating this sort of stuff, try separating God from the religion. From my own investigations of religion, i have to say, if there is a God, a real God, then all the worlds major religions do nothing but claim him as their own, then try to define him based on their own particular morals and views on life in general. If, for example you spend a great deal of time studying the bible, you'll discover that it doesn't paint a particularly glowing picture of "The Lord God Almighty", infact if i'm being honest, i'd say if the real God is the God of the Bible, then the Bible is more of a hindrance than a help to him, and by some margin !
Would that be Dionysus, otherwise known as Bacchus the Greek God of Wine ? wow, shows how much attention i was paying to that vid, i didn't even hear his name mentioned !
Anyway The Bacchus was my local when i lived in the city centre of Newcastle about 70yrs ago. Great place, always full of goths and punks ahhh happy days, ohhh to be a teenager again.....
Not been down that part of town for years, wonder if it's still there probably a trendy wine bar now, or an estate agents
Absolutely. Just remember: buying whatever your teacher tells you without thinking about it isn't education. It isn't learning. Learning is asking the questions that occur to you and getting answers - and when the answers don't satisfy your personal standards of evidence, you look elsewhere. Obviously you think about this a lot, which is great. So, next time your RE teacher says something that trips your "ask a question" instinct, go with that instinct. Ask her whatever you need answered and don't accept "because it just does" or "yada yada ... mysterious ways" as an answer.
Also, you could read this letter entitled "Good And Bad Reasons For Believing", which Richard Dawkins wrote to his daughter when she was ten and was obviously starting to ask questions of her own. I know it's written for a kid but I like it
As for the original question: Noone can be absolutely sure if god exists (or not). I'm personally not convinced, but I'm not out to convince people to share my lack of belief. It's up to others to figure out what makes them believe or not believe something. I'm not absolutely sure god doesn't exist (I can't be), but I do live as if that were the case. I don't pray or worship anything. I don't count on any kind of afterlife & I live for what I can do now, in this life. I'm honest and non-violent because I think it's the right thing to do, not because I've been commanded to and not because I've been threatened with hell or bribed with heaven.
A point that's troubled me from childhood (one which was raised by my mates and I in the occasional mandatory RE seminar at school): if god exists (and wants everyone to worship him, as most books and priests will tell you) he could do a lot more to end the often deadly confusion about which particular books and sets of priests actually have it right. You'd think he'd tell everyone the same thing if he really cared about humanity and wanted us all to love each other and join together to love him and join him in heaven. If god exists in the way people describe, it's certainly not for a lack of power or ability that he doesn't settle the confusion. Which suggests he's letting everyone argue and fight and die over their differences and has been doing so for thousands of years.
Imagine a parent telling each of his children "I love you the most, now go and tell everyone" and revealing to each child slightly different secrets - and telling each child that they alone will inherit the enormous family fortune. Imagine the sibling rivalry and confusion - even violence - that would cause. Hell, my brothers and I used to fight like animals but we all knew our parents didn't play favourites - if they did, I'm not sure we'd all still be alive. And there's no fortune anyway
It might seem a bit simplistic to paint it that way but, really, if the fate of billions upon billions of immortal souls is at stake, wouldn't the creator & ultimate custodian of those souls feel a little more inclined to step in, settle the various arguments once and for all and threaten to clip a few ears if the trouble continues? What kind of father would be happy to see the majority of his children end up in awful torment forever - or at least, never return home?
People will try to frame the question as "Is there a God?"
That's like, "Is there a boogyman?" or "Is there a Santa Claus?"
That type of question immediately brings a negative response. Who knows if there is a boogieman or Santa Claus? Where is the proof?
But the question of God is not merely an "is there" question. The question of God relates to what you believe about yourself and human beings.
Do you believe human beings are a bunch of particles animated by physics? Do you really believe that's all there is to human beings?
Do you really believe that beings who write poetry and ponder the existence of God came about by accident? That's quite an accident, don't you think?
If there is no God then nothing you do really matters in the end. If you choose to kill 50 million people or help 50 million people it doesn't really matter because in the end everything turns out the same way. In the end the universe either expands until everything is cold and dead or it collapses again and everything is destroyed. Nothing that happened remains. Who is to say you ever existed?
The question for me is: Are we just particles and physics?
And don't be fooled into thinking that smart people are atheists. Einstein wasn't an atheist. Newton, Liebniz, Descartes weren't atheists.
The question of whether or not there is a god is exactly that. It's a rational question and can either be answered or cannot be answered.
If the only way to find the answer is to change the question, then you will not have a rational answer. I am not personally interested in an irrational answer.
[edit] and that link does not lead to a decent argument for the existence of god. If you have managed to convince yourself with it, I'm happy for you, but seriously.. don't expect to gain converts with it.
I believe all that. Fits in with the view of some kind of mass multiverse where every possiblity is played out in different dimensons. We're just in a dimenson where everything fitted together, the big bang happaned, physics and quantam physics worked just right, time worked in the right way, theres infinate others where this didn't happan. Thats just a theory and can never be proven :S.
Of course if every possiblity is played out then god exists in one of them, unless it really is a figment of the human psych (see below).
And here is compelling reason why people make up dieties. I think a quote from red dwarf best sums it up:
LISTER: Just out of interest: Is silicon heaven the same place as human
heaven?
KRYTEN: Human heaven? Goodness me! Humans don't go to heaven! No,
someone made that up to prevent you all from going nuts!
Albert was more of a pantheist - one who believe in the interconnectedness of all living things and the universe in which they live. He was closer to Yoda than the Pope. Funny how people like to claim him (and others) as Christian as if he's some kind of trophy, some proof that religious people can be geniuses too, as if saying "hey, he's one of us, we're not all wackos!". Noone on my side of the fence much cares about someone's personal beliefs, as long as their work has merit. Richard Dawkins himself could be a fervent Catholic for all I care, he still would have done more to further the understanding of genetics and evolutionary biology than anyone I've heard of. Stephen Hawking could be a bloody $cientarian, he'd still be the most ridiculously intelligent mammal on the planet
It does matter. 50 million people would still be dead and that would still be wrong.
What also matters (a great deal for me as it keep coming up and being presented in the same, ignorant way) is this gross mischaracterisation of nonreligious people, as if we feel we have carte blanche to behave without morals or scruple because we don't have to answer to a heavenly judge after we die. If there is no god then everything we do matters even more - because we have ourselves, our communities, our loved ones, our species to answer to - right here, right now, no chance to repent and have everything forgiven before eternity. No second chances at all. One life is all we know, so for crying out loud live like it! Live like you're banking on eternal paradise and who knows what you'll miss! This ridiculous assertion that atheism leads to lawless, immoral behaviour simply because there's no religious imperative to behave otherwise is flat wrong, utterly bigoted and frankly it pisses me right off that people still malign nonreligious people in this way.
I don't characterise all religious people as fundamentalist halfwits out to misquote, misrepresent, lie to & convert everyone with threats of hell or blow themselves up on a bus to make a point or start a suicide cult - nonreligious people expect nothing less than the same courtesy.
On that topic, what conclusions can be drawn when you hypothetically compare two moral, lawful, well-behaved people: an atheist and a strong believer? Who can rightfully claim to be more moral - to have a more pure source for their goodness? The atheist who derives his morals from within - and from lessons learned as he grew up - or the believer who takes his morals from the bible and only behaves because he's scared of hell? The atheist who helps others and gives to charity simply because he believes it's the right thing to do - or the believer who does so, not from love of his fellow man, but because he thinks he'll be rewarded after death? Bear in mind I'm not characterising all believers like that, just taking an extreme view in order to illustrate the point.
Or, as author Christopher Hitchens has put it more succinctly: "You have to come up with a moral statement made, or a moral action performed by a believer or a person of faith, that could not have been uttered [or performed] by an unbeliever."
Suppose that were true, and your argument was correct (I don't think it is, BTW). If it is a fact that nothing really matters, what's the problem with that? You may not like the fact, even feel disgusted, betrayed, etc. But would your dislike of the fact make it less true?
I think the question is primarily a social question, not a rational one. There are very few communities where an individual can ponder the question freely, without any social pressure. For most people, the question "Is there is a god?" translates to "Who are you with?"
Mankind is a social animal. Babies are born with an absolute loyalty to their parents (even if those parents are abusive). They have to: it's a mechanism that is necessary for survival. Later in life, the loyalty is expanded to tribe, clan or nation. And up to this day, religion has been part of the package. To be in the group, to be deemed a good citizen, you must subscribe to the faith. Openly losing your religion equalled leaving the community, or even betrayal.
Because sticking with your group is such a powerful instinct, it is not effective to treat the existence of a god as a rational question, like Dawkins, Harris, etc. do. If it were purely rational, nonbelievers would win the debate hands down. But most believers won't be swayed by rational arguments, because their instinct tells them otherwise. If the scientific facts don't agree with the faith, humans tend to ignore the facts.
I do agree with Dawkins that our rules and laws favour religions, not only in the US but also in Europe. In a truly "religion-neutral" society, all pressures surrounding faith should be outlawed. Each could choose their own beliefs, provided that they're old enough to have good judgment. Children under 18 should be free from religious education.
Agreed 100% :up: With the following caveat: kids should be taught about religion and gain knowledge of the various religions of the world, just as they get taught about different countries, languages and cultures. Their schools should not be teaching that they should be part of religion (a) or religion (b).
To paraphrase a famous atheist, it's just as inappropriate to label kids Marxist, capitalist or socialist as it is to label them Christian, Muslim or Jewish. A child isn't able to properly formulate an opinion on politics or economics or other complex social issues such as sex (hence the legal voting & sexual consent ages), so why not leave religious beliefs (in some people's eyes a lot more important than mere earthly, physical things) until people are old enough to make an informed decision?
Of course, it's easy enough to answer that question by correlating religion with such things as community, tradition and ethnic identity (and by pointing out the obvious - remove religious teaching from childhood and watch religious numbers plummet as people grow up not requiring any sort of faith). But when it comes down to it, you can still have all those positive social attributes and not be of the same faith as your parents, or be of any faith at all. Understandably though, if your parents are devout and wholeheartedly believe you'll go to hell if you're not "saved" like they are, they'll no doubt want to raise you according to their their faith. In other parts of the world & with some religions, renouncing your parents' faith is as good as placing a death sentence on your own head ...
Why?? Can't they be confident that their kid will choose the faith by itself when it grows up, and thus save its soul? If they're so certain that it's the One True Faith...
John Stuart Mill argued something like this (governmental suppression of social pressures), in On Liberty, but it's a bad idea; it basically proposes violence in defense against persuasion.
Laws in the USA, at least, protect religious freedom - this being specified as a requirement that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof[...]" Like some other such prohibitions against federal laws, the principle has been expanded (14th Amendment) to include other lawmaking bodies, in addition to Congress.
So, in the USA, religion is "favored" by not being suppressed by law (also, it is not to be compelled). Some persons have argued (with considerable success, in some cases) that "freedom of religion" means that there is a legal requirement that no person should be exposed to religious ideas or practices. This is excessive, since it constrains, by force of law, "the free exercise" of religion. Religion is also "favored," in some circumstances, by tax immunity; this is intended to represent an acknowledgment that churches are typically charitable organizations, and this should not suffer interference, by governmental confiscation of funds that are likely to be used for charity (and to have been given with that intent and expectation) - perhaps with a purpose, instead, of substituting governmental "charity." There are other organizations that enjoy similar tax immunity.
There is a great variety of social pressures, to believe and to act, besides those that may pertain to religion, particularly. It is unlikely that this fact of human societies, can be entirely eliminated, and I don't suppose that the expression or practice of religious beliefs, particularly, justifies forcible suppression.
I would add that, in the "Moment of Clarity" thread, I alluded to Godel's proof that axioms are inevitably necessary as a precondition for reasoning. It seems to me that particular religious beliefs may represent such axioms, and attempting to suppress them will not eliminate the need for axioms; it can only favor different axioms, which may be similarly objectionable.
I don't see how it can lead to violence. Anyway, the point I tried to make is that freedom of religion as it is currently shaped is insufficient. Sure, everybody is free to choose and practice his religion, but there are two exceptions. Both are about believers who deny others the freedom that they enjoy themselves.
One is children. Why are parents allowed to force their own beliefs upon their kids, who are unable to make an informed decision? Most folks in the Western world get the shivers from images of Korean kids being taught to worship Kim Il Sung (and from similar stuff from Stalin's USSR). It's brainwashing, right? Well, I get the same idea when thinking about Sunday schools.
The other is people who want to leave their creed. Some communities, like Jehovah's Witnesses and Scientology exert enormous pressure on their members to stay. And some Muslims still think that those who leave the faith should be put to death.
It's these two kinds of pressures that I'd like to see outlawed. They aren't, hence my assertion that religions are favoured. I wasn't thinking of tax exemptions, but of psychological abuse.
You were misrepresenting Gödel's work. You said:
Gödel's main theorem states that no axiomatic system can be both complete and consistent. He did not prove that you need axioms. An axiomatic system must have them, otherwise it will not produce any theorems, and you don't need a genius like Gödel to prove that.
And an axiom does not require faith. It is true because it is an axiom. Mathematicians start from axioms and, together with an inference method, produce other propositions that can be proved to be true in that axiomatic system. If they don't like the axioms or the results that they produce, they are free to choose another set. They are even free to take another inference method. This has produced Non-Euclidean geometry and Intuitionism. But I digress.
Funny that mathematical logic should be drawn into the discussion. Gödel also proved that a system that claims to be complete must be inconstent. That should give Bible-bashers some food for thought. Furthermore, the "axioms" of the Christian faith carry enormous problems when logic is applied to them: the problem of evil, omnipotence and omniscience, etc., all crumble under the cool eye of logic. (But inside the human mind, logic is powerless against the forces of instinct and emotion.)
I here define "violence" as "the use of force, to compel another person's compliance with one's own will."
This is what government's job is. Government, by conceptual definition, is that which is the source of Law, and such law is a statement, by government, of its conditional intent to commit violence. Quoting George Washington:
"Government is not Reason; government is not Eloquence. Government is FORCE - which, like Fire, is a dangerous servant, and a fearsome master."
So, governmental suppression of religion is not something that may or may not "lead to violence;" it is violence - just as armed robbery is a violent crime, whether or not the robber actually shoots his victim for failure to hand over the money, and as rape is a violent crime, whether or not the rapist actually stabs his victim with the knife held to her throat, for failure to comply with his will.
I tend to agree - if, by "deny others the freedom," you mean "commit acts of violence."
However...
Somebody has to, I daresay. Children are a peculiar consideration. They begin life, seeming to have their base instincts, but not wisdom or moral judgement; these are things that they have to learn - through force (you may have a difficult time, explaining to a young child, why he shouldn't be beating up his baby sister, sticking his fingers in the electrical outlet, or carelessly running into the street - better just to grab him), and through example.
Any intellectual conclusions that children are likely to come to, are likely to be based upon principles that they have already "absorbed" (as Dawkins described it, in his letter, linked in post #89, here), and regard as axiomatic - which may perhaps be characterized as "having beliefs forced upon them."
Anyway, if parents don't do it, then who would you have do it? Government? Do you expect that a government is likely to have greater concern for the well-being of a child, than the ones who created it and perhaps hold it more dear than their own lives?
There are exceptions, of course.
Well, while I may sympathize with your disapproval of particular beliefs to which particular children are indoctrinated, I am inclined to suggest that one man's "brainwashing" may be another man's "education."
I would certainly agree that violence should be outlawed. Fraud and harrassment may be similarly characterized. I don't know the details of "pressures" by Scientology or Jehovah's Witnesses; so, particular behaviors would have to be evaluated. A government is ethically justified as being an agency of violence, for the purpose of being a common agent for the self-defense its citizens. However, I would certainly reject any proposition that, if a particular belief is arguably less credible, or less useful, than such beliefs as may be held by a majority of the community (e.g. - religion vs. science), then it should be forcibly suppressed as if harmful to "the truth." Political freedom begins with the freedom to have one's own thoughts, however disagreeable they may be, to others; violent behavior is justifiably suppressed by force.
would need to be clearly defined, in order to be properly considered. Literally, it seems to mean "wrongful use of the mind," which is a pretty nebulous idea, absent specification.
Well, I'll describe, another way, then, what I have in mind:
The most basic description of "reasoning" that I have encountered, is supposing truth inasmuch as there being one or more reasons for such a supposition. If one extends this backwards, one would suppose that, for the reasons to be reliably true (and thus a reliable basis for the conclusion), they must also be supported with their own reasons, and on and on. This is to say that, to infer a truth, by reason, there must be a truth to infer it from, and a truth to infer that from.
Eventually, however far back one wishes to extend this, one must suppose that either there is some foundational reason - some truth that constitutes the starting point for the whole sequence of reasoned conclusions - or there is not. If there is not, then all the reasoned conclusions, that constitute supporting reasons for subsequent conclusions, etc., are unfounded, and there is no reliable basis for the ultimate, reasoned conclusion. If there is a starting truth, upon which is based one's system of reasoning, then it is - since being the starting point - not based upon a previous reason, but instead, simply stipulated as being true. Again referring to Descartes, he found that the only intrinsic truth that he recognized, was "I think, therefore I am," which does not seem to be useful for most purposes. Instead, the starting truth is not intrinsically true, it is simply presumed to be true. Such a presumed truth is what I have called an axiom.
In practice, such a presumed truth may include that one's sensory impressions are accurate, and that the meaning that one attributes to them, is accurate (how do you know that the set of photons, that has stimulated your visual apparatus, means "a tree," or whatever?). These, it seems to me, are "absorbed" (as Dawkins characterized them, in his letter, referenced in post #89, in this thread) axioms of language and perception.
So, let's suppose that you know that a thing is true, and you are quite confident about that, since you saw it, yourself; this is your system of reasoning (quite simple, in this case; you have supposed truth, and you have a reason for supposing that it is true: the reason being your own observation). This depends upon a presumption that you are capable of seeing, accurately, and capable of interpreting, accurately, what you see; these would be axiomatically true.
More complicated systems of reasoning, are similar; they depend upon some presumed, axiomatic truth(s). As far as my experience goes, this is the case for all mathematics; I have not encountered any math system that is not an "axiomatic system." The axioms may differ in, for example, Euclidean vs. non-Euclidean geometry, or what would constitute a definition of truth, as proved in classical math vs. Intuitionism (as I understood the term; I had to look it up on Wikipedia; I am no expert mathematician). But there must be axioms, including the definitions of terms or other presumptions that inform the consideration.
So, my general point is that we tend to presume that certain things are already true, and we reason new truths, from them. Many things that are already "true," we are likely to presume to be true, because they are part of our "absorbed" culture, including family upbringing and early, formal education.
I doubt that anyone can do better than Descartes, finding an intrinsic truth beyond what he found in his own mind. I doubt that the intellect can conjure its own truths, with no axioms for the intellect to work from.
So, the question becomes: what are the best axioms? I cannot provide an authoritative answer, and I don't expect anyone else to do so, either. I can only suppose that we are likely to do best, by acknowledging that it is the nature of each person to think for himself, and perhaps to communicate his ideas, and we can argue about them, and hopefully get some useful agreement, without anybody's trying to forcibly coerce compliance with his (or their) particular ideas - especially including, by the agency of government.
Strange that you call it suppression of religion. If people have a religion that tells them to force their beliefs upon others, should that be allowed? Does freedom of religion mean that you are even free to violate the freedom of others?
You seem to equate morality with religion. I say that the two can be dealt with separately. Atheist parents can teach their children morals without invoking a deity. So can teachers -- at least, the ones at non-religious schools. And finallly, the law also provides guidelines for people's behaviour, not based on any supreme being.
(What's also nice about the law is that the price for misbehaving is spending time in jail, free from torture, instead of being eternally subjected to excruciating pain.)
Neither I nor anybody in this thread has said such a thing. What does seem reasonable IMHO is to ask that religious people do unto others what has been done unto them: granting freedom to choose one's beliefs. And those "others" includes kids.
(In case you might wonder: I'm an atheist, but I do not force my children to become atheists. For instance, when they ask me what Easter is all about, I tell them "Christians believe such-and-such, but I don't." I won't tell them that the story about Jesus dying for our sins is hogwash, which is basically what I believe. My kids should form their own opinion.)
It's not like Einstein (or Leibniz, Descartes, etc..) are trophies. It's just that atheists often take this very condescending you-believe-in-God-because-you-don't-understand-physics attitude.
I'm no where near a physicist but it was my major in college. I know enough about science to know that it is descriptive and not perscriptive. It describes how nature works not why. Why is the domain of metaphysics and religion.
I believe we are intelligent, intentional, conscious, empathic beings because we come from a source (God) who has those attributes. It's not that science hasn't explained them yet. It's that science CANNOT explain these attributes because these attributes are not the domain of science. There is no experiment to measure intentionality or consciousness. Science cannot answer these questions and so we can freely choose explanations which we feel make the most sense to us.
For me, that is God.
Here is another quote from Einstein...
He believed the world was created intelligently not randomly. And I agree.
ahhh happy days, ohhh to be a teenager again.....
probably a trendy wine bar now, or an estate agents 
